Exodus Emunah Special From New York

0:17Amazing to be back in New York, and we did an amazing lecture here back on Tisha B'Av that has woken up a lot of souls. Anyone that follows us on YouTube or Facebook, or all these other different tools that Hashem is giving us, to publicize this Torah. to publicize this Torah. I saw that we've been coming out with new short films that highlight different parts of lectures in a movie format. We put these, you know, my voice, sometimes my picture once in a while, but, you know, different illustrations to give you a little bit of a visual of what the Torah looks like. And, Baruch Hashem, one of the things we used was our number one clip, our number one clip so far was from the shul. So, Baruch Hashem, it's a lot of siyata dishmaya. We know we have Rav Mizrachi here every week, so of course you can have siyata dishmaya. Anyone that loves the truth is going to have siyata dishmaya. So, b'ezrat Hashem, today, we tried to figure out a few different things to talk about. We had a great shiur in Florida last night about emunah, and also continuing the series of Pirkei Avot.

1:46that we started a few months ago, but tried to connect it with emunah. And the one thing that we want to talk about again is to really dig a little deeper. A little deeper at the number one missing piece today that we have, aside from yirat shamayim. There's one other piece that's missing, and that's emunah. Now, yirat shamayim, we were talking outside, and... In today's generation, it has become almost like a curse word in Judaism. When you tell somebody that you're supposed to fear Hashem, it’s not seen as an honor. Like, "Oh wow, you fear Hashem, great for you." Yes, it's great, but in reality, it's one of the 613 mitzvot. meaning it's an obligation. It's an obligation to fear Hashem. But in today's generation, we're so far removed from Mount Sinai, from what happened 3,300 years ago, that we think that fearing Hashem is something bad. But in reality, Shlomo HaMelech, the wisest man of all time, already told us that the beginning of wisdom

3:15"How do you know you finally have some wisdom? Everyone thinks they're smart. Ever noticed that? Everyone thinks they're smart, especially the fool in the room. The fool in the room thinks he's smarter than everyone else. That's what makes him the fool. The smart guy is usually quiet. The smart guy is usually quiet. But how do you know you actually have wisdom? Shlomo HaMelech says," When you start fearing Hashem, then you have wisdom. Once you start, the beginning of wisdom is fear of Hashem, yirat shamayim. In today's world, yirat shamayim has become somewhat of a strange belief. Some people even call it shita, a strategy. Oh yeah, you teach yirat shamayim, that type of shita. Yeah, we don't learn that here. What do you learn then? If you look at every single book, not just one, not two, not three, every single book, including Breslov books, including Rabbi Nachman, including the Baal Shem Tov, including the Lubavitcher Rebbe, including them too, including the Gemara,

4:39Zohar, Five Books of Moses. Everybody knows the Five Books of Moses. You've heard of those, right? The Five Books of Moses we got on Mount Sinai. Including those too. There's not one place, one book, that was ever written by anyone holy that didn't mention the significance of Yirat Shamayim. Not one. So how are we so far removed to such an extent that people think that when you teach Yirat Shamayim, like I try to do, like Rabbi Mizrachi has been doing for over 20 years, that it's a new shita. Unfortunately, it's because we started creating our own way. We started using our own wisdom to interpret the Torah. In this generation, everyone's become Rashi. Everyone became Rashi. Every little guy that started learning some Torah, goes to yeshiva for a few years, goes to Yeshiva University, goes to Semicha, goes to this, writes a book, he became Rashi. Gives you peirushim. He doesn't think about, oh, did Rashi agree with this? Did Rambam agree with this? Did Abarbanel agree with this? He doesn't think about them. He has his own thought. It makes sense to him. Chiddush. Chiddush. I have a new insight. Who are you?

6:08You have a new insight. Did you check your insight with the Rabbanim? Did you check with Gedolei HaDor? Did you check it with the basic pshat? You have a chiddush? How come he has the audacity to give a chiddush that contradicts Rashi, that contradicts Rambam, that contradicts the basic principles of Torah? Because no Yirat Shamayim. Simply, no Yirat Shamayim. Now, each one of us prays Baruch Hashem in the morning, and we remember that during Pesach we're supposed to bring ourselves spiritually to a state of mind where we feel like we've just exited Egypt. We've just gone through 210 years of being in Egypt, of which 86 years was hard labor, slavery, no parnassah, no accomplishments, nothing but terror. And then Hashem came and brought the salvation, miracle after miracle for a year straight, all the way to the point where He took us out of Egypt as kings.

7:36The servant became the master. At the end of the 10 plagues, we came to the Egyptians and we took all of their money. We left there very rich. Chazal say that the poorest amongst the Jews had 70 camels that were carrying his belongings. The poorest. The richest was Korach. Korach had 70 camels to carry the keys to all the safes that were carrying his stuff. No person was ever as rich as Korach in history. But he fell too. He had his own pirush on the Torah also. He also decided that, you know what, Moshe Rabbeinu, I don't agree with him here. I think he's wrong. You know how people say today, "Rambam? No, I don't think he's right on this one. I think Rambam is wrong." You know how many times I hear this, that people tell me that they think Rambam is wrong? Or Rashi is wrong? Or anyone from a few hundred years ago is wrong? Now, to give you a little bit of an understanding, I think I mentioned this in the last shiur, but just a small understanding, a small taste of...

9:03Anyone that knows a little bit about the Rambam would know that people who study the Rambam don't only study what he says, but they also study how he said it. Meaning, they study it similar to how people study the Torah. They analyze the letters, why he spelled a word this way here, but in a different place, he spelled the same word differently. The Rambam's wisdom was to that extent. Someone once came to the Rabbanim in Israel and he said, "Listen, I have a, what is it called, a Nobel Prize. I'm smart and I don't think the Rambam is a big deal. What's the big deal about the Rambam? Okay, so he has a statue in Washington; they honor him, they say he's an important guy, but I don't see why. I read his books; they look interesting. What's the big deal?" He said, well, it's not just what he said, it's how he said it. And really, the true way to show that you have wisdom is by minimizing your words, saying the most amount of information with the least amount of words. Einstein once said, "If you can't explain it simply for a four-year-old to understand, then you don't know it well enough." So now...

10:23The Rambam, each time he wrote a halakha, didn't just write a halakha that he could have written books and books and books upon. He wrote it in the least amount of words. And if you see, all the books that were written about the Rambam are many, many more books than he wrote himself. But they're all just expanding on what he wrote. So the Nobel Prize winner said, "Okay, let me see what he wrote." He said, "You know what, pick any halakha that you want and write it in fewer words than the Rambam. Pick any one that you want." And the guy just picked one. He studied it and decided to write it, and he wrote it in about 30 different words to explain this halakha. They looked at it and said, "No, you have to go down a little bit." So he minimized it and went down to 27 words. He said, "Oh, little lower. And again, he worked on it for months. Months and months of work, and eventually, he got down to about 20 words or 21 words if I'm not mistaken. He said he was 100% sure that he beat the Rambam here. Eventually, they opened the book, and they see the Rambam: seven words.

11:39But not only seven words; in those seven words, you understand the halacha much better than you understand the 21 words. In reality, one time I was studying with this avrech, and we came to the conclusion that in today's generation, there are three stages you really want to count: there's us, there's the Rambam, and there's a monkey. No one should take this offense; I'm included in this list. Now, we, in our generation, are closer to the intelligence of the monkey than we are to the Rambam. That's how far we are. And this is not because the Rambam studied really hard, because we also study really hard. But the intellectual power that they had 900 years ago is something that's not human to us. It requires siyata dishmaya. It requires a level of siyata dishmaya that's beyond our knowledge, beyond our capacity. So when someone says, "Oh, I don't agree with the Rambam," there's nothing more foolish than that. But why would somebody even dare say it? Because they have no concept of what the Rambam really is, and they have no concept of what yirat shamayim is. Unfortunately, even really smart people made the same mistake.

13:04People like Korach that we mentioned before also made the same mistake. Korach was in a generation of Dor De'ah, much higher than the Rambam, where the least of that generation was a higher-level prophet than Ezekiel. Even the cleaning lady who had just come out of slavery had a higher level of prophecy than the prophet Ezekiel. We can't really comprehend what that means. can't get our head around it. What does that mean? Korach was one of them. And Korach was actually one of the Gedolei HaDor. And unfortunately, he went against the rabbis. He went against the number one rebuker of all time, the number one mokhiach. In the Gemara Masechet Megillah, it says that Hashem cried when Moshe Rabbeinu died. Chazal ask, why would Hashem cry? He's the one that took him. The Gemara answers, He cried because He says, who else is going to rebuke My people and tell them the truth like My son Moshe Rabbeinu? Meaning no one is able to rebuke Am Yisrael at the same level, tell them the same level of truth, regardless of whether it's politically correct or not politically correct, whether they like it, don't like it, doesn't make a difference.

14:31There's truth, there's falsehood. There's no gray area. That's the Torah. Korach wanted to create a gray area. He wanted Hashem to change the rules. And to this day, he's screaming from somewhere in the middle of the desert that he was wrong. Now that's Yirat Shamayim in five minutes. having a little bit of an understanding that you need to have this fear because the real God, the God of Am Yisrael, He's not kidding. He's not your friend. He's not your buddy. You can't text Him. He's not on WhatsApp. He doesn't have a Facebook page or any Twitter followers. And He's not going to forgive sins just because you're a nice person. And this is one of the things we talked about yesterday, which I think is important to mention again today in case someone missed the shiur. Once in a while, you have to miss the shiur. So, for some reason, someone convinced the world that we can negotiate with God. If you really think about it, when you try to negotiate with your wife to change the living room, you're not going to win.

15:57You're not going to win. Try to negotiate with the kids, little kids, your own kids, they're your kids, not a stranger's kids, your kids. Do something else, stop making noise. Please, Abba is trying to study, Abba is trying to watch Shlita, Abba is trying to sleep, Abba is trying to breathe, Abba is trying to eat, something. Usually, you're not going to win. You try to negotiate with your boss to give you a raise, Usually, you're not going to win. You try to negotiate with the IRS, just thinking the IRS may have given all of you Yirat Shamayim now. Just getting the letter from the IRS already scares all Jews. What are they going to say? What are they going to do? What do they want from me? But this is everyone, not just Jews. We're all scared of the IRS. Why? If they sent something to us, maybe they already know. What do they know though? I don't even know what they know. And you start thinking and imagining what's happening. Why are they sending me a letter? In reality, after you finally open the letter, after a half hour of sweating, it's like, thank you, sir, for sending your tax return on time. But in reality, why are you so scared of the IRS? Because you know that if you tried negotiating with them, you're wasting your time. You're not going to win.

17:20You're not going to win a negotiation with the IRS. Meaning that, for the most part, you're going to lose all arguments in life. You're going to win once in a while, but in reality, you're going to lose most of your arguments. So what makes you think you're going to win the argument with God? What makes you think that you can go up there and say, you know what, God, I know you said keep Shabbat, But it was really hard for me. But I know you understand, right? We're a weak generation. Didn't somebody say we're a weak generation, so doesn't that mean that we can drive on Shabbat? Especially if I drive to Mekneset? No. You can't win that argument, my friend. Hashem, she was such a nice girl. I know she wasn't Jewish, but come on, Hashem, you brought her into my life. It's kind of your fault. If you didn't want me to be with a Goyah, you should have brought me a Jew. You're not going to win that argument either.

18:20Hashem, he was such a nice guy. I know he wasn't Jewish, but you know, he was a tzaddik in his heart. You're not going to win that argument. Hashem, everyone was wearing a mini skirt. You really want me to wear such long skirts? Well, I'm going to be so strange. Everyone's going to make fun of me. You're not going to win that argument. There's not one argument that you can win. Here, What makes you think you can win the argument up there? There, you have only one thing to do: pay din v'cheshbon. It's time to pay the bill. It's time to say, this is what I did, this is what I came with. I have my safe full of mitzvot, and I have a safe full of aveirot.

19:24This is what I have. Once they show you what's inside the safe, Chazal say, you're going to ask for the punishment. It's not that Hashem wants to punish you, it's that the soul is going to be so embarrassed of what it did, it's going to ask to be punished. Fix me, Hashem. You've given me so many opportunities to do good, You've given me a wife, You've given me a husband, You've given me children, You've given me work, You've given me food, You've given me eyes, You've given me a nose, You've given me a mouth, You've given me air to breathe, You've given me a car when no one else has a car on my block, You've given me a job when no one else was able to find work, You've given me bread that was kosher and there are places in the world where people can't even eat. You've given me every single tool that I could possibly have. Not only to fulfill Your will, but to fulfill it in the easiest way it's ever been able to do. There's never been a time in history that it's easier to be Jewish than today. Your grandparents died just to fulfill the Torah. Hashem, if any one of them was in the Holocaust,

20:45Many of them stood in line by waking up an hour early after only sleeping for maybe an hour or two. They waited in line just because only one guy had tefillin. They waited in line so they could put on tefillin. They were all anusim from all of it. They didn't have to do it. But just for one mitzvah. One mitzvah, they put their lives on the line. if anyone read the book, To Remain a Jew, by Rabbi Zilber, each page of his life story should make you do teshuva. When they sent him to jail, in the freezing cold of Russia, he sacrificed his life, for what? To make candles for Chanukah. Chanukah, a rabbinical holiday. He sacrificed his life. Not once.

21:46The whole holiday. Every day. Every second. And he sacrificed his life for every single mitzvah. Every day. This is not that far. This is not 500 years ago. I talked to you about Rabbi Akiva. They did what they did to him. I'm not talking about that. You can't relate to that. I tell you about Moshe Rabbeinu, Yetziat Mitzrayim. You can't relate to that. I can't either. I can't relate to 3,000 years ago. 3,000 years ago the Mercedes-Benz of that day was a donkey. I can't relate to that. Can you? You can't relate to it. You can't relate to 3,000 years ago. Yes, you're going to tell all your children and yourself the story of Yetziat Mitzrayim in a few days. But you can't relate to it. You can't relate to some guy with a beard speaking from a mountain. "Hey, I just spoke to God." You can't relate to it. So if I tell you stories of the Rambam...

22:46900 years ago, you still can't relate to it. We were, but we can't remember. That's the problem. The only thing that we can relate to is something that we can see, visualize, touch. And since, Baruch Hashem, we still have people that are Holocaust survivors, we still have people that have memories of their ancestors that can tell us what they saw. memories of their ancestors that can tell us what they saw. What Am Yisrael experienced in Morocco and how they tortured us there at times. For the most part, there were good parts, there were good times. But there are also very famous stories of how we had to go through persecution there, or in different places around Europe, or different places all around the world. For each and every single mitzvah, Am Yisrael had to do mesirat nefesh, even during times of peace.

23:47Even during times of peace, there was such poverty that multiple people had to share tefillin. Now, if you don't have money for tefillin, there are at least five guys on the same block that will donate it. It's not going to be the mehudar that's $3,000, but you'll have tefillin. And your problem will be resolved at the end of the day. Back then, to have a holiday for two days, everyone was excited. Today, you tell somebody, "Oh, Yom Tov is two days." "Oh, again, two days?" Like it changed every year. It's never been easier to be a Jew, but we complain more than ever. One of the reasons is because we don't understand what it means to be a Jew.

24:48When we got to the Sea of Reeds, Yam Suf, after seeing the ten miracles over a period of a year, one miracle after another, Hashem playing with nature like never before and never after, we got to Yam Suf and we were dumbfounded. We didn't know what to do. In front of us, there's an ocean that seems like it's never going to end. Behind us, there's a desert, and in the far distance, there are hundreds of millions or 900 million Egyptians on horses chasing us because they want to kill us. Midrash Me'am Loez says there were originally 900 million Egyptians and 300 million Jews. After Makat HaChoshech, the plague of darkness, anyone who did not want to leave Egypt, a.k.a. anyone who didn't want to do teshuva, stayed in Egypt. But not alive.

26:12Hashem buried them during the plague of darkness. And according to the most lenient opinion, 80% of Am Yisrael did not make it out of Egypt. That's the lenient opinion. That's the best-case scenario. Meaning only 20% survived. Much worse than the Holocaust. The worst part of it is that many believe it was much worse than that. They actually say that 99.9% didn't make it. What does it tell you if you see that they have all these open miracles in front of their eyes and they still can't do it? That's the problem. Miracles don't make people do teshuva. They see Hashem in front of them. They see Hashem's work. Just like we see Hashem's work. But we give it a different excuse. we think it's always going to happen. We think it's always going to continue. We think that we deserve it. Shlomo HaMelech says in Mishlei (Proverbs) chapter 19, verse 3, translation: the foolishness of man, meaning his sins,

27:36will pervert his way, meaning his own foolishness is going to bring him to sin. And those sins are going to lead him to punishment. But despite the fact that it's his own fault, what does it say? Who is he going to be mad at? He's going to be mad at Hashem. He made the sins that Hashem said don't make. He's going to get punishment for those sins. Because Hashem said, if you make the sin, you're going to get a punishment. So after Hashem punishes him, just like He told him He's going to punish him, what does he say? Why did you do this to me, Hashem? But we learn this already from the book of Genesis. When the brothers of Yosef HaTzadik saw them, the Gemara in Masechet Ta'anit says that when they first left when they still didn't know that Yosef HaTzadik became the number one behind Pharaoh. He was running the country; he was in essence the king or the viceroy of Egypt. He tried to fool them, so he sent them home with a trap. One of the bags had money in it. So as soon as they saw that the money was there,

29:01They said in chapter 42, verse 28, they essentially got a heart attack and said, "What did Hashem do to us now?" Not once did they think, "We really deserve this, we sold our brother 20 years ago, Hashem is finally punishing us." You know, when our brother was screaming in the hole because it was full of scorpions and snakes, we didn't say anything; we acted like we didn't see. Now Hashem is sending us a punishment, oh, why is He doing this to us? So this has been going on for 5,000 years. You're not new, I'm not new, this has been happening. When we got to the Sea of Reeds, we had all the reasons in the world to believe in Hashem. But what does this say? Finally, after we got to the Sea of Reeds, everyone was in shock; they didn't know what to do. Until Nachshon ben Aminadav, from the tribe of Judah, decided to say, "Hey, if Hashem brought us all the way here, He didn't do it just to kill us. Apparently, we ran out of zechuyot, we ran out of merit."

30:25So, He wants us to show Him we believe, not just say. A lot of people say, "I believe in God," but they still drive on Shabbat. "I believe in God," but they still cheat in their business. "I believe in God," but they're still going out with the Goyim. "I believe in God," but they still can't say one full sentence without lying. What God do you believe in? The God of the Torah doesn't like any of those things. He specifically says, "I'll punish you for it." So, what do you believe in? Do you really believe in Him? Do you ever question your own belief? It's good to question your own belief. So now, when we question our own belief, we bring ourselves back to the Sea of Reeds.

31:25Nachshon ben Aminadav said, "Hashem wants us to show Him we believe," and he jumps into the water. And as soon as the water reaches his nose, that's when Hashem splits the water. He says, "Oh, you passed the test. You saved the entire nation. One guy. If he didn't do it, Hashem would let the Egyptians have their way." Meaning that we were not only going to be punished for not having enough Yirat Shamayim, but we're going to be punished for not having Emunah. Hashem splits the ocean. As the story goes, we had an amazing path with fruits, trees, and all types of wonderful things on our path. We enjoyed the journey. We passed through the ocean. The Egyptians tried to follow, and Hashem killed all of them, with the exception of Pharaoh. How do we know that Pharaoh lived? One of the ways, it's okay. If it works, doesn't work, it's okay. Satan has to have his way somewhere. So let him have that camera. Hopefully, this one works. Just so you know, anything that you do that's any good in the world, Satan has to get a little bit.

32:50You actually have something like that every day. All the men, you do tefillin, right? Do you ever wonder what those couple of little extra strings are? It always looks like the guy didn't finish the job. It does, right? I wanted to cut them one time, but I'm like, I don't really know what I'm doing. Maybe it's going to ruin it. So I just left it alone. But one day I found out, oh, no, no. That's specifically there intentionally. Those three strings that look not so nice, look like it's an unfinished job. That's for the Sitra Achra. That's for the Satan. Focus on the ugliness. Leave the beauty to me. Leave the Kedusha to me. Leave me alone when I do tefillin. So anytime you do anything that's holy, Satan has to get something. Yom Kippur, we had two korbanot. They bring one sheep, To Hashem, one sheep to Azazel. But have you ever wondered about the journey of these two sheep? What are they thinking? Well, this is their journey according to the Gemara. The journey of the sheep that goes to Hashem: They take it, they slaughter it in a kosher way, make the korban, take out the pieces, and that's it, we're finished.

34:14He goes to Hashem, Chazak U'Baruch. A relatively simple process. But the one that goes to Azazel, they give him a crown. If they need to build a bridge for him to cross, they build a bridge. They take him all the way up the mountain and celebrate and dance. This is the one that goes to Azazel. This one is going to the Satan. They're celebrating and building a bridge for him. to bring him all the way to the top of the mountain. And once they get to the top of the mountain, they throw him off the mountain. Telling the Satan to occupy himself with all the celebrations, all the kavod, all the gaavah, You got a bridge. You got a crown. You got a mountain. You got all this stuff. Celebrate that. Just leave us alone. Take all the sins with you. Take all the sins, please. We'll give you all you want. Just take the sins. So now Am Yisrael has gone to a situation where they've crossed the ocean. The Egyptians died with the exception of one.

35:37And we have a reminder that there is one that's left every day in our prayer. It says, "And then it says, 'There is a reminder in our prayer.'" And the reason why is because the first one, the second one we said. This is a Midrash. Now, After we crossed the ocean, we have another part of our prayer that reminds us of this event. The event is that Am Yisrael sees the hand of God, finally, and they believe in Him and in Moshe, His servant. But it doesn't go straight from seeing the hand of God to belief; there's something in the middle. Once we saw the hand of God, once we saw that Hashem is responsible for everything and anything that moves in this world, that He had to be the one that destroyed the Egyptians, because it didn't make sense for Him to split the sea for us, make trees of fruits and vegetables come out of the ground for us, make the ground flat for us, and the exact opposite for them.

37:01Not one Jew died, and all the Egyptians died. This can't be nature. This can't be luck. This can't be a coincidence. All the other things, maybe you can explain them in a somewhat strange, warped, natural way, especially in today's world. They tried to explain why the sea split because there were winds. They tried to explain why the sea was red and looked like blood because it was some type of amoeba or some type of other sea creature that created blood. All types of theories that they have. Bacteria. They try to explain the frogs, maybe it's an exaggeration. They try to explain the hail, maybe it's the same thing they had a few years ago. Just to exaggerate, it caused fire instead of actually having fire inside it. They try to rationalize everything. So Am Yisrael also tried rationalizing everything. But here we got to a point, we ran out of rationale. We ran out of excuses. The sea had to be Mesuras Nefesh.

38:11had to be. So he's saying, "We saw the hand of Hashem, and they feared Him and believed in Him and in Moshe, His servant." So first, once we realize that Hashem is in control, immediately we must fear. But only then can Emunah begin. Only after we have a foundation of Yirat Shamayim. Now, the question is, what is the benefit of getting to that goal? In today's world, many lecturers love to talk about Emunah. Emunah is a very, very popular subject. If you want to get a lot of hits on YouTube, write Emunah in the name. Write Emunah in any name, any title of any shiur, and you're going to get more hits than you usually get. People love stories about emunah, sipurei tzadikim, emunah this, emunah that. But really, what is emunah? Is it just believing in Hashem? That He's in charge? No, even a monkey knows how to do that. If Hashem wanted you to be a monkey, you'd be a monkey. You don't need superior intelligence to believe that there has to be a Creator.

39:37Even the atheist has a belief—a belief in nothing. He believes that eventually, he dies and becomes sand. Fine. We agree with him, just that there's a soul that has to pay for the bill that the sand created. It's almost the same. But now, emunah is a little more than just believing in Hashem. It's believing that Hashem is running the world and getting to a point where you have confidence, where you have bitachon in Him, being not only in charge of the world at large, but of your life specifically. And eventually arriving at a point where you realize He's going to take care of you.

40:39Now, how do you know if Hashem is happy with you? Shlomo HaMelech gave us a hint. Many of us have had difficulties in our lives. Sometimes our friends became enemies. Sometimes our employees became our competition. Everyone has enemies. Some more, some less. The more successful you are, the more enemies you're going to have. Sometimes, unfortunately, a man's enemy is at home. Or a woman's enemy is at home. They have no Shalom Bayit. So Shlomo HaMelech is telling you, if you want a hint of how happy Hashem is with you, he says, "Birtzot Hashem darchei ish, gam oyvaihu yashlim ito."

41:41If Hashem favors a man's ways, even his enemies will make peace with him. Now, what does this have to do with Emunah? If you really, truly believe that Hashem is running the show, then you know that every single thing that happens in the world is coming from Him, including the slap on your face, including the cold. including the flat tire, including the rays, including the boss that yelled at you and the boss that complimented you, the good, the bad, the indifferent, the stuff you understand, the stuff you don't understand. Now, since none of us are Moshe Rabbeinu, and Hashem is not going to talk to us plainly like He talked to him, He has to talk to us in different language, in the world around us, showing us things that are happening around us,

42:41to explain to us whether He's happy or not. If your life is surrounded by problems, for the most part, it's not good news. Not always, but for the most part, Hashem is telling you something. It also depends on the problem. If you lost money, for example, you should praise Hashem to no end. You should thank Hashem non-stop. The more money you lost, the more you should thank Hashem. Why? Because in the days of the Beit HaMikdash, anytime somebody made an unintentional sin, shogeg, by accident, they turned on the light in the bathroom because it was a reflex. You know, you leave the bathroom and your hand goes up, and you, oh, it's Shabbat! Like if it happened 3,000 years ago, 2,000 years ago, it was an accident. You had to pay with a korban. But what did the cow do? What did the $10,000 cow do? Poor guy, all she does is just eat grass, hang out with her friends, she's relatively quiet. Why do you have to kill her? Hashem is telling you,

44:06That accidental sin, I know it was an accident, but it was still a sin. Yes, it was an accident, but it was still a sin. Meaning that the fact that you made a sin means that there's a little bit of missing Yirat Shamayim in your heart. It's missing something, like if you had enough Yirat Shamayim, you would think a little more, and therefore, I'm not punishing you, I'm punishing the cow. But just a reminder that really it should be you that's the korban, not the cow. That's what the korban actually really means. They kill the cow instead of us. And we don't have cows. Because you all live in New York, I live in Florida, there's no cows around. Even if you had a cow, you're not allowed to do a korban. There's no Beit HaMikdash. So Hashem says, listen, we're still making a bunch of shegag sins.

45:08Sometimes we were making intentional sins. Hashem says, I don't want to kill My children. I love My children. But if every single time they made a sin, I have to give them a punishment, I'm not going to have a nation by the end of the week. So I have to do something. So the Gemara calls money "bloods." There are a few names for money in the Gemara. One of them is zuz. which means to move because money moves from hand to hand. Another one is damim, bloods. And the reason why is because blood is obviously our life and we spend our life chasing money. So Hashem says, okay, so technically you made a sin, that was a value of a certain amount of life. You spent five years of life on it, you deserve one year of life for this sin, one year of life for that sin, and so on and so forth, and Hashem takes five years' worth of work away. We think we got punished; in reality, if we had a little bit of emunah, we just got rewarded. We got rewarded with another 20 years of life because Hashem took the punishment in a different way. In reality, we should have

46:27ended at that point and paid for the punishment somewhere else. Now, that "somewhere else" is not a place any of us want to go to. In Masechet Ta'anit, page 10, it says the land of Egypt, where we were all slaves, all of our neshamot were slaves over there, is 400 parsa by 400 parsa. That's the size. But that area is only one-sixtieth of the size of Cush, which I think is most of Africa. And Cush is one-sixtieth of the size of the entire world. And this world is one-sixtieth the size of Gan Eden. So we know Gan Eden is pretty big. One problem. Gan Eden is only one-sixtieth the size of Gehenom. And some say it's not really one-sixtieth the size, because Gehenom keeps getting bigger. We're not going to talk about the details of Gehenom, but I think you get the hint. The point is, is that for anyone who thinks they could win the argument with Hashem Yitbarach,

47:55This Gemara by itself explains that many are trying this strategy, and it's not working out. That's the reason why Gehinnom keeps getting more customers. So they have to expand. So now, how do we get to a point of understanding what Hashem wants from us? How do we get to that point of fulfilling that need? Chazal told us that the purpose of the world is to fulfill the Torah. To such an extent that chapter 33 of the book of Jeremiah says, if not for my covenant, meaning the Torah, being learned day and night, the rules of the world will cease to exist. Meaning gravity will cease to exist, oxygen will no longer exist, be usable, all of the atoms would stop spinning, the laws of the world that we take for granted will stop. So when I told you guys that being a Jew is special, this is what it means.

48:57be usable, all of the atoms would stop spinning, the laws of the world that we take for granted will stop. So when I told you guys that being a Jew is special, this is what it means. According to a recent number that I saw, a recent statistic, which of course is an estimate, but nonetheless still a rough estimate, they said there's approximately 7.47 billion people in the world. So we'll just call it 7.5 billion. Out of the 7.5 billion, they say there's only about 13.2 million Jews. Some say there's 13 million Jews, but this statistic says there's 13.2 million Jews. Out of the 13 million Jews, only about 2 million, let's give them 3 million, are Shomrei Shabbat. The reason why I say Shomrei Shabbat and not lay tefillin, have brit milah, eat kosher, have mezuzah in their house, or any other mitzvah, pick one.

50:13I say Shabbat. Why? Chazal say, Shabbat is the foundation of Judaism. There's no teshuva without Shabbat. In the second chapter, the second book of Ahavat Chaim, it says that all of Chazal agreed on one point regarding Shabbat, and there's no such thing as having any type of teshuva without observing Shabbat like the Halacha has said. Why? Because Shabbat is the foundation of Judaism. It literally turns you from being an idol worshiper to being a Jew. A Jew that was born Jewish, has an Israeli passport, speaks Hebrew, drives on Shabbat, smokes a cigarette on Shabbat, plays with his iPhone on Shabbat, goes on the Internet for five minutes on Shabbat, puts toast in a toaster on Shabbat, plays with the microwave on Shabbat, watches TV on Shabbat—any of those things that we think, "What's the big deal? Hashem really cares about the TV? Hashem really cares about the toaster? He doesn't have enough problems; He has seven and a half billion people. He cares about my toaster?" Yes, He cares about your toaster.

51:36He cares about your toaster. He cares about you writing with the pen. He cares about your iPhone. He cares about everything. That's why He wrote it. If He didn't care, He wouldn't have written it. He didn't write that many books. He wrote one book: the Torah. In that book, He says He cares. So now you have a situation where Hashem says He cares, and you decide to go against it anyway. Well, then Hashem says, "Okay, you, my friend, are an idol worshiper." Meaning that you went from being the chosen people to being the worst of all people. What does it mean? Someone that drives on Shabbat is worse than a murderer according to Hashem's definition. So even though that's really not politically correct, it's not nice to hear, no one likes to do it, no one likes to say it. I myself don't like to say it. But facts are facts. The guy that you saw in the video that I made from ISIS, he's a murderer. May Hashem punish him right now. But if he's only a murderer, and not an idol worshiper, then Mechalel Shabbat is considered worse than him.

53:02That's a problem. Who needs this problem? Just keep Shabbat. It's easier. So now, out of all those people, we have only three million that keep the Shabbat, keep the foundation of Judaism. Only three million say, Hashem created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. Three million agree. Some don't even want to, but they do it because they're scared. Good enough. You get a pass. It doesn't matter why you do it, just do it. Sleep the whole day if you have to. Just keep Shabbat. Stop sinning. Eventually, you're going to have to actually go to shul and eat and do kiddush. But in the beginning, sleep. Enjoy. Just stop sinning. Join Judaism. Join God. Join Team Hashem. It's better you sleep all day, every Shabbat, your entire life, than light one lighter on Shabbat once in your life. If anyone knew the level of punishment we get from Hashem for one Chilul Shabbat, you'd be scared to move. I have a book; somebody put it together. It's not a published book,

54:28It's 86 different pages of different sources from different places in the Torah, talking about the punishments that people get for Chilul Shabbat. 86 pages, but it's not 86 pages of paragraphs. It's just verses. Long story short, it's really, really bad. If anyone saw Rav Mizrachi's Gehenom shiur, which is not published online, it's only on DVD, the worst part? Mechalel Shabbat. It's the worst sin in Judaism, and people just don't want to understand. The good news is, Hashem gave us the zechut to make a Shabbat shiur, but in a movie format, and it's coming out in the coming weeks. It's a 15-minute movie, talking about Shabbat, similar to what Rav Mizrachi did a few years ago. just a different perspective, or perhaps a few different things that weren't mentioned there, different pictures. But hopefully, this is the last wake-up call anyone that's not keeping Shabbat needs. So now, that you're one of these three million, Baruch Hashem. If you didn't keep Shabbat before, now you're going to keep it.

55:54Let me explain to you how special you are. When Hashem said, He meant that if there's not somebody out there learning My Torah, fulfilling My Torah, out of the chosen people, out of the ones that are My firstborn, not the idol worshiper, not the ISIS murderer, Not the guy that drives on Shabbat, because his prayers are reaching a door that won't open. As Shlomo HaMelech says, if someone runs away from the learnings of Torah, meaning he doesn't feel like listening to the rabbis, he doesn't feel like listening to Torah, even his prayers are considered disgusting to Hashem.

56:54It's not a good place to be. So he's talking about those three million. Those three million, they learned Torah. In essence, Hashem is saying that the world continues to spin for you. Only for you. So let's see. Out of the three million, we did a little bit of math. I like math, breaking things down. The reality of it is, all three million are not all learning Torah at the same time. all three million are probably not only learning Torah. Some are women, some are men, some are learning all day, some are learning once a day, an hour. And also, there are different time zones. So let's say at any given moment, there's 300,000. It's probably about 10%. Out of the 300,000,

57:59You're one of them. Which means that you're one of the few people that Hashem decided that He's going to keep the other seven and a half billion alive for. You're responsible for tens of millions of people just for coming to this shiur. Right now, tens of millions of people are getting oxygen because you're learning Torah. That's what it means to be chosen. If you really delve deeper into the numbers, it's actually even more. It's not 300,000; it's more like 40 or 50 thousand at any given moment who even have a chance to learn Torah. And out of the 40 or 50,000, it's probably maybe half that are actually learning Torah. The rest are smoking cigarettes or half asleep or drinking coffee or just in the bathroom or doing different things—living. Meaning that you are responsible for something like hundreds of millions of people just for learning Torah, whether you are a man, woman, or child.

59:23That's what it means to be chosen. It feels good, but it's also a responsibility. So when Hashem says you should have emunah in Me, it's kind of silly not to have this emunah because you're the only reason He keeps it going. If you're one of the few that's keeping Shabbat, you're the only reason He's keeping it going. this is why you get so upset if you don't have emunah. Now after Yetziat Mitzrayim, we went and we were in the desert for 40 years. And Hashem in Parashat Shelach reminds us of the tests. We tested Him. And He says in chapter 14, Verse 22. "All these men who have seen My glory and My signs that I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness and have tested Me these ten times and have not heeded My voice." Meaning that no less than ten times up to this point did Am Yisrael test Hashem. What are these tests? We'll go through them quickly. First one.

1:00:52We got to the sea. We just went through that. Why did Hashem have all these plagues if He's just going to drown all of you? Not having emunah at that point is really silly. Hashem got upset when the Malach of the Egyptians, whose name is Mitzrayim, came to Hashem and said, "Hashem, why would you split the sea for these Israelites and not for my Egyptians?" Okay, my Egyptians are not exactly tzaddikim; they worship idols, but the Israelites were also worshipping idols last week. They're both idol worshippers. So they became tzaddikim in a week? Hashem said, you're right. I'm not going to split the sea for them. So when Moshe Rabbeinu went to Hashem, he asked, "Hashem, what do we do?" Hashem said, "What are you screaming to Me for? Move forward."

1:01:56Move forward? Move where? What do you mean forward? Into the ocean? We're going to drown. What do you mean move forward? Chazal explain to us that Hashem said, "Move forward and show Me you believe." Because you ran out of merit. The Egyptian angel just came with an argument against you and he won. You have no merit. You ran out. The only merit you had is the fact that you had enough emunah to leave Egypt. You left Egypt, good. I gave you the ability to leave Egypt. Now you got here. We didn't give you the Shabbat mitzvah yet. Only the Levite tribe were even learning Torah. There's no reason for Me to save you. You have to earn a merit, do something. You can't tell me, "I'm religious in my heart." It's not the time, Moshe. Do something. Show me you believe. And that's when Nachshon ben Aminadav went into the ocean and showed Hashem he believes. And everyone followed. But that was one of the tests.

1:03:24Where Hashem got upset because we didn't show Him our emunah. The next test is when we got to the bitter waters and we thought that Hashem was just going to give us a bunch of water we can't drink. When you really think about it, it's kind of foolish. Again, why would He bring you a bunch of water you really can't drink? Did He torture you up to this point? Did He just create you to torture you? If that was the case, He just created G-d and that's it. Why create the world? All He wants you to do is pray. Hashem, the water doesn't taste good. Hashem, my boss didn't pay me this week. I have no money for the Chagim. Hashem, I need tefillin. No money. Hashem, I need a zivug. Send me one. Hashem, I'm sick, help me out. You said, "I'm your Hashem, I'm your healer." Okay, Hashem, you're my healer, heal me. But do you really believe He's the healer, is the question. Are you just saying, "heal me," and then if He doesn't heal you five minutes later, you go to the doctor? You believe He's giving you the money,

1:04:47Or if He doesn't give you the money, five minutes later you start working on Shabbat. "Oh Hashem, you didn't send me the money on Friday, so I'm working on Shabbat." Show me you believe means standing up to the test. The third test was when they ran out of food. They got to a point where they thought, "Oh, all the food we brought from Egypt, the watermelons, and all the delicious matzah, we've run out." They got nervous. Almost like we get nervous when we run out of matzah. I don't think anybody gets nervous when we run out of matzah. But they all got nervous. Hashem really brought you to the desert to starve you? Why did Hashem give them manna every day? Why didn’t He just give it to them once a year? Give them a pill. Kalas, it's finished. Leave me alone. And Chazal asked this question. Why didn’t He just give them one pill? That’s it, finished. Because Hashem wanted to remind us

1:06:12that He still exists. And one of the inclinations that He put within us is to connect parnasah to Hashem. We're constantly connecting parnasah, even to this day, to Hashem. Our parnasah, we always attribute to Hashem. If it's good, we did it. If it's bad, it's His fault. So, Hashem said, they're only going to pray to Me when there's no parnasah. If there's parnasah, they go to the casino. If there's parnasah, they're busy at the car lot, buying the second, third, fourth, and fifth car. If there's parnasah, they're spending all the extra money extending the house like they need more floors. They're not spending extra time to build a kollel. They're not spending extra time to help Am Yisrael come back to Hashem and help the other 80%. Spending a lot of time to beautify life here. So, the only time they really pray to Me, as a group, is when there's no parnasah. So what am I going to do? I'm going to make them pray to Me every day. By giving them just enough for today. Live day to day. You don't know if you're going to get it tomorrow. Why? Because your food's not coming from the woods. It's not coming from your hishtadlut. It's not coming from your own efforts. It's coming from heaven.

1:07:37Do you know if Heaven is going to give you again tomorrow? No. So every day you're going to get the food, you're going to eat the food, and you're not going to know what's going to happen tomorrow. That way, you're going to pray again tomorrow. If I only give it to you once a year, you're only going to pray to Me once a year. So I miss the connection with My son and My daughter. Why would I want to destroy My connection? I'd rather them go through a hard time and still stay connected to Me than have an easy time and be disconnected. The fourth test, again with parnassah, we didn't really believe that Hashem was serious. When it came to the manna bread, we thought, listen, maybe we could beat the system. Maybe, even though Hashem said, eat whatever I gave you, I'm going to give you more. We didn't really believe it, so we put some money in the 401k. He said that your parnassah is decided

1:08:40On Rosh Hashanah until Rosh Hashanah, regardless of how many hours you work, regardless of what job you have, whether you're a diamond dealer, a stockbroker, a garbage collector, you destroy houses, you build houses, it doesn't make any difference. There are millionaires in every job and there are employees that barely make minimum wage in every job. There are plenty of people that are smart and broke, and there are plenty of fools that are multi-millionaires. Who decides who gets what? Hashem. Hashem decides. If He decides to give this fool millions of dollars, He's going to give this fool millions of dollars. There was one time a gabbai, They wanted to expand and develop the building, to make it more modern. They said to him, "Listen, we're going to have to start taking records of all the donations, make it computerized. We want you to sign." He goes, "I'm sorry, I'm illiterate. I'm from the old country. We didn't learn how to read and write." They said, "What do you know? You can't be a gabbai anymore." He goes, "Okay, so I have to quit after 22 years of being a gabbai. I can't be a gabbai. What can I do? I can't read and write overnight."

1:09:59So what is he going to do, the poor guy? He went and he started going to the market, trying to figure out what he is going to do for a living. So he bought some tools and tried reselling them. He saw he made a small profit. Bought a hammer, bought a screwdriver, bought a few nails, sold them for a profit, took the money, reinvested it, bought some more tools, and made some more profit. And little by little, things started rolling. And the guy starts making a good living within a matter of a couple of years. He builds a company, and a short while later, he's a multi-millionaire. One day he decides that he wants to do a very big deal with China. A Chinese representative comes to him and says, "Please sign here so we can deliver the 10 million dollars worth of goods you just ordered." He said, "I'm sorry, I'm illiterate. I don't know how to sign." He said, "What do you mean you don't know how to sign?" He responded, "I don't know how to sign. Until now, I just put my fingerprint. That's how I sign." The representative said, "No, no, we need you to write your name." He replied, "I'm sorry, I don't know how to write my name." The representative asked, "How could you make all these millions of dollars without even knowing how to read? Imagine how much more you would make if you knew how to read." He answered, "No, you fool. If I knew how to read, I'd still be a gabbai."

1:11:29When Hashem decides you're gonna have parnasa, you're gonna have parnasa. You don't have to work overtime. You don't have to work seven days a week. The Gemara says, Hashem decides how much you're gonna make on Rosh Hashanah. But it also adds a little teaser in there. It says, whatever you spend on Shabbat, whatever you spend on Chagim, Whatever you spend on mitzvot and tzedakah is not included as part of your parnasa. Meaning, if Hashem decided you're going to make $100,000 this year, and you decide you want to give $50,000, you have serious emunah. You have emunah on steroids. Hashem says, The $50,000 is not part of the $100,000. I'm going to have to pay you back the $50,000. You're still going to take home $100,000. How? That's His business. That's what Hashem is all about. I'm not Hashem. I don't know how He does it. I just know He does it. I see it every month. Anyone that knows my personal story...

1:12:51We had plenty of money in the past. On bad months, we'd make $200,000, which is more than what we make in a few years now. But the reality of it is that despite the millions and millions and millions of dollars that went through my hands and bank accounts and stock accounts and all these other accounts, I live much more comfortably today than at any other time before. I had an apartment that was 3-4 million dollars. I had a car. I had this. I had all those wonderful things that everybody wants. But not one ounce of peace of mind, even before I got sick, even before the health battles. Somehow, it didn't matter how much money went into the bank account—200,000, 600,000, a million—it didn't make a difference. Somehow, within 30 days, it was all gone. somehow, my employees and I are living the same lifestyle, month to month. I didn't have toys, I didn't have Ferraris, I didn't waste my money, I didn't buy drugs, I wasn't a drug dealer, I wasn't a drug user. I didn't have crazy parties. I have no idea. When there's bracha in the money,

1:14:16Hashem can make a thousand dollars more valuable than a million. When there's extra bracha, He'll give you the million. The point is, when Hashem wants to show you He's Hashem, He'll do it in His own way, not your way. So when we question Him in regards to this manna bread, and we left some over, In reality, what do we say? We said that, yes, we believe Hashem gives the parnassah, but up to a point. We believe, but we still looked at the price of this matzah versus the other matzah. Oh, this one's $7, the other one's $8.50, now I'm going to go with the $7. Yeah, but you know your wife likes the $8.50. You're really going to save the $1.50? You really think it's going to change your life? Your emunah, my friend, is zero. Your emunah is worth $1.50. That's your emunah. There's a million-dollar emunah we just talked about. Your emunah is a dollar fifty. That's your emunah. Your afikoman should also be nice. Every one of your mitzvot should be mehudar. Why? Because you're not paying for it anyway.

1:15:29What do you care how much it costs? I have some people ask, "No, look, Kvod HaRav, do you get tefillin?" I said, "Yeah, you get tefillin. There's some that are a few hundred dollars, just to get you by and survive. And there's some that are high-end; you can get tefillin for a thousand, fifteen hundred, two thousand. The price goes higher and higher." "Oh, no, no, no, I'm going to go with the four hundred." I'm like, "Wait, aren't you a stockbroker? Aren't you a real estate developer? Aren't you a real estate broker?" Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you? I mean, the average real estate broker that I know who's still in business after five years makes $10,000, $15,000 a month. Oh no, I do much more than that, Rav. And you're buying a $400 pair of tefillin for a bar mitzvah boy? You're 33 years old. What are you getting by with $400 tefillin? Buy real tefillin, for God's sake. You're not paying for it anyway. That's what the Gemara says. That level of emunah will help you enjoy the holiday. Because if you're constantly thinking about every dollar you're spending on the holiday, it's torture from beginning to end. First, you have no idea how you're going to pay for it. You're struggling the whole time you're paying for it.

1:16:48So you forget to enjoy it. And then, after the holiday, you actually have to pay for it. And since Hashem said, "Oh, you had 10% emunah in Me, so I'm only going to help you 10%. I'm going to help you as much as you believe in Me. You believe 10%, I'm going to help you 10%. You believe 100%, I'll pay 100%." I learned this from Rabbi Ephraim. Now, when he told me this initially, I didn't really believe him, to be honest with you. This sounded a little crazy to me. I'm like, it's nice. He's a tzaddik. Let's be real. When did I know for sure? When I went to Israel and I saw him live. We stayed with him for a couple of weeks, so we had a couple of Shabbatot. Now, I went to the supermarket with him, and I've never seen anything like it. He took a cart and he just started taking and putting things in the cart. But he wouldn't take, like, one and look at the price and then put it in the cart. It's like, ah, it's not so good. Anything he touched, he would just take and put more in the cart. Oh yeah, my wife and the kids like this. He makes $500 a month. He's an avrech. The shopping was almost 2,000 shekels. It was a month's salary for one Shabbat.

1:18:16We don't eat that much. This is every week. I looked at him, I'm like, how are you paying for all this? He goes, I'm not paying for it. I said, what do you mean you're not paying for it? He goes, oh, he's paying for it. It's his business. I just buy. That's emunah. That's a million-dollar emunah. Yeah. Yeah, question? No, you have a debit card. Debit card, credit card, I don't know, at some point it has to be paid. Their credit card is different than ours. They have to pay the full balance. Like an American Express, they have to pay the full balance within a month. So... Sorry, a minute ago you said that from Rosh Hashanah to Rosh Hashanah, you have your parnassah, right? And whatever you spend on... Tzedakah, Shabbat, Chagim, Hashem pays. That all comes from Hashem. And then you said that depending on your Emunah is what Hashem pays. Right. Can you clarify? Yes. So you asked a similar question to what the Baal Shem Tov asked. So Chazak U'Baruch. The Baal Shem Tov said that in the Mishnah it says that we get Parnassah and it's decided Rosh Hashanah to Rosh Hashanah. Hashem decides once. But then the Gemara says

1:19:42digs deeper inside and says, no, no, you get judged every day. So the question is, why would I be judged every day if I already got judged on Rosh Hashanah? So for many years, the Baal Shem Tov was looking for an answer. And one day he saw one of the local merchants who was selling water, carrying water, and he asked him, how are you? And he said... tough, tough life being in this business. It's hot outside, the water is heavy, and I've been doing this for 20 years. I'm getting old, and you know, the usual complaints that people have about their jobs. He complained. The next day, he saw the same water carrier, the same water, just as heavy, just as hot, nothing changed. He asked him, "How are you?" and all of a sudden, "Baruch Hashem..." So amazing, I have a job, my wife is such a good wife, all of a sudden everything is roses, everything is peaches. Same water, same heat, same job, nothing changed. He even confirmed, did you win the lotto? No, he didn't win the lotto. So what happened? So the Ba'al Shem Tov says, thank you for answering a question I had for many years. He goes, me? I answered a Torah question? Barely know how to read.

1:21:06You answer the question. I always ask, why does Hashem judge us every day if He already judged us on Rosh Hashanah? Why would He judge us every day? He says, on Rosh Hashanah, He decides how much to give you. He's going to give you a hundred thousand, He's going to give you fifty thousand, He's going to give you fifty million. Whatever He's going to give you, He's going to decide on Rosh Hashanah. But every day, He decides how to give it to you. whether He's going to give it to you through your job or through a car accident. Someone can get fired, but in Shamayim, they wrote that he's going to make a million dollars. He gets fired the next day. How is he going to make the million dollars? The guy apparently made some type of sin that he deserves a big punishment for, but not karet. So, Hashem says, we're going to give him a million dollars. He deserves some money, but he also deserves punishment. We'll combine the two. He's going to have a settlement with the insurance company for a million bucks. The point is that you still got the million dollars, but not necessarily in the way you thought. So, how do we get this parnassah?

1:22:22How do we get the good one? That every night you go to sleep, your neshama leaves your body. Chazal says that it's one-sixth of death. It's partial death because only a part of your neshama stays here; the rest of it goes up there and signs off on all the mitzvot and all the aveirot you did for the day. Say, "Oh Hashem, today I gave tzedakah. Today I was honest. Today I prayed. Today I laid tefillin. Today I did k'riyat Shema twice. Today I gave a compliment to my wife. Today I taught my kids Torah." All the mitzvot. Next to it, say, "Okay, today I made this sin and that sin. Today I looked at this girl and that girl and this girl and that girl." By the time you finish the girl, already half the day has passed. So now you have to sign your name next to every one of these sins. So when din ve'cheshbon comes after 120, you can't go to anybody with complaints. Why? Because you have all your signatures. So how do we know this happens? How do we know? Not because Chazal wrote it. How do we know it happens? Did you ever wake up on Tisha B'Av? Did you ever wake up on the wrong side of the bed?

1:23:44How about this big question? Who didn't wake up on the wrong side of the bed? You woke up on the wrong side of the bed, right? Why did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed? Because your neshama went up there and reported all the sins you made the previous day. And it said, Oh! You made all these sins. Okay, well, it's time to pay. So tomorrow, your parnasah is going to come very hard. You're going to have a tough day tomorrow. On the way to work, you're going to have a flat tire. And then someone's going to call you and annoy you. And then someone else is going to call you and annoy you. And by the time you finish with the third phone call, you're going to have a fourth phone call with the lawyer who forgot to charge you $5,000, and he charged your card without asking you. He's going to give you all these problems. Just by 9:30, you thought you went through Kriyat Yam Suf. Your neshama already knows this ahead of time. So it's upset. Today's gonna be a tough day. But that's the test. You have a choice now. You're gonna have a tough time today because of yesterday. Your choice is whether to make tomorrow the same or better.

1:24:55If you say, "Okay, I know this is from Shamayim. I know, obviously, this is what I need to pass. So I'm going to do mitzvot today. I'm going to do good today. So tomorrow, I wake up on the good side." And that's how tomorrow you wake up on the good side. Go to a shiur Torah, you learn a little bit, you do what Hashem said. So now, the next test, and we're almost done. We have when Am Yisrael left the camp. Hashem told them, "Don't leave any manna. Don't worry about how much money you spend on holidays. Especially on Shabbat, you're going to get a double dosage." But some of Am Yisrael didn't want to listen. Not only did they leave some, but they actually went looking for more manna on Shabbat. They worked on Shabbat. And anyone that wants a segulah, I know people love segulot. There are two segulot that I can give you. One segulah for parnassah is to read Parashat HaMan every day. Every day, read the parashah in the Torah that talks about the whole story of what happened when Hashem gave us the manna bread. For everyone who wants it, I'll give you the exact verses after the shiur. But the point is, it takes, I don't know, maybe five, ten minutes. You read it. But at the end of this Parashat HaMan...

1:26:23Hashem says to Moshe, "How long is it going to be before you stop sinning and start believing in Me? Why are you going to work on Shabbat? Why? I didn't give you enough parnassah in six days? That's what you're telling Me? I can't give you enough parnassah in six days?" So, we worked on Shabbat, and Hashem took it personally. The second segulah I can give you is to do what Hashem says. When you do what Hashem says, Hashem calls you Am Segulah. You become the segulah. You become the miracle. The seventh test is when the water ran out. They ran out of water at Refidim, and they thought, oh, Hashem ran out of miracles apparently. It's like people today feel like Hashem...

1:27:24...spent all of His money on creation. He built planet Earth, all the other planets, and the stars. This must have cost a lot of money. Why do I say they think He spent a lot of money? Because people have emunah in Hashem, they keep Shabbat, they keep kosher, they keep some mitzvot, but the one limitation they have is when it comes to money... It's like tefillin, kedusha, tahara, everything. When it comes to money, they don't even know who Hashem is anymore. How do we know? You go to beit knesset sometimes. You notice that on Shabbat, there's a lot of business meetings. There's a lot of business meetings in the shul. Oh yeah, you see that property that I bought? Yeah, it's a great piece of property. Yeah, we're going to work on it on Tuesday. We're going to develop it, demolish the walls, and then we're going to make it into three bedrooms. People start talking about all the things they do for what? For business. All they're doing is talking about business. They're talking about the property they bought, the property they want to buy, the car they bought, the car they want to buy, the stock they bought, the stock they sold short. What is this? This is all business.

1:28:49You tell them, don’t work on Shabbat. They're like, "No, I didn’t go to the office." You don’t have to go to the office to work today. I can run a billion-dollar company from my phone. You don’t need to go anywhere anymore. Real work doesn’t actually require manual labor anymore. That’s for other people. As long as you have money, you make other people do it. Work is talk. That’s work today. It’s unfortunate, but it’s reality. Your main job is talking. So when you talk business on Shabbat, you're working on Shabbat. Inside the Beit Knesset. As Hashem is watching you. There's no bigger chutzpah than that. And then you complain about parnassah. You're lucky it's still alive. Stop working on Shabbat. That was the other test. Next test.

1:29:52when they worshipped the Golden Calf. A lot of people have asked this question: How could it be? They saw the miracles, they saw the water split, they saw all these wonderful, amazing things, and then they take a statue from Chinatown and start praying to it. It makes zero sense. First and foremost, I said the last time I was here at Tisha B'Av, the statues of those days were different statues than the statues you buy in Chinatown for $15. According to Chazal and Me'am Loez, and many other Midrashim, Hashem apparently decided to make the statues, the Avodah Zarah, the test of that generation. Just like sexuality and money are a big test of this generation, the test of that generation was Avodah Zarah. But the Avodah Zarah they had was different. We know this from the Gemara. When Rava had a dream, and Menashe, one of the wicked kings, appeared in his dream and asked him, "How dare you tell your students that I'm your friend? I'm not your friend. I don't know you. You're not even on my level." And Rava says, "What do you mean I'm not on your level? You're an idol worshiper."

1:31:12if you're such a high level, why were you an idol worshiper? And he says to him, if you lived in my generation, you would take your gleema, your robe, and wrap it around your knees and start running after the idols. Because Hashem gave them power to actually fulfill people's wishes. People got healed. people were able to actually see miracles from these idols. Why? That was the test. But it was such a big test that all of the Gedolei HaDor went to Hashem and cried to Him and said, we can't pass this test. You promised not to give us a test we can't pass; we can't pass it. Remove this test. And Hashem removed it. But He replaced it with something else. Today it's called money. If you notice a little... Hint. A little hint that the two are connected. Take out a dollar bill. Look at the dollar bill. It says, "In God we trust." The problem is, most people think that God is the dollar. That's why they chase it more than they chase God. That was the next test. After that, they rebelled against Hashem with the mitzvot.

1:32:40They complained that the manna wasn't good; we complained that the parnasah that Hashem gave us was not enough. Hashem, my neighbor got two stories in his house; I only have one story. Hashem, my neighbor has two cars; I have only one car. Hashem, look, he got a brand new car; I still have the 2012 Mitsubishi. Chas v'shalom that you have a five-year-old car in this generation. We're so spoiled in this generation that if you have a couple-year-old car, it's considered like, wow, he's going down. He's going down. Poor guy. It's a tikkun. It's a tikkun. His car is already three and a half years old. You don't have a brand new bathroom. It's like, wow, they're poor. We're so spoiled. But actually, if you think about it, the Pirkei Avot says that where does the shefa go to? Where does all the parnasa go to? Someone who has ayin tova. Someone who has a good eye. What does it mean having a good eye? Well, it has 20-20 vision. A good eye means that when you see your friend succeed,

1:34:07you're as happy for him as you would be for yourself. You see a friend having a brand new car? Ashrecha. Now you have another one. You see a friend having a new son? Baruch Hashem. Now you have many more. Don't be like those people where the friends are having kids and you're not having kids. Or they're having cars, they're having houses, they're having this and you're saying, ah, shh. Probably Hashem is giving him all the reward in this world before He kills him. Don't be one of those Ein Geh. Don't be one of those that counts other people's money. You ever see those people that count other people's money? Oh, you hear what Derek Jeter made? He made $54 million last year. What about this guy? He made $12 million. What about 50 Cent? He's broke. What about that guy? He made this. Is he paying your bills? Is he paying your bills? What do you care how much money he has? Oh, let me see your check. Let me see your check. Why do you want to see my check? I'll compete. What are you competing? Who's competing with you? I have bills to pay.

1:35:20I have rent, I have kids, children, what do you want from my life? Who's competing with you? I just wake up, I go to work, leave me alone. Let me see your check. What happens when he sees your check? He doesn't go to and say, oh, you know what? Wow, you make 20% more than me. Good for you. He doesn't say that. What does he do? He goes to the boss. Why does he make 20% more than me? With the complaint. I work more than him. I'm here longer than him. I have a better... You don't come to the boss and say, listen, you know, I think that I should make more money. Simply. Why? Because I work hard. Not because I make more than him or less than him. I think I should make money because I deserve more money. Why? Because, look, I produce this, I do this. Not because he does anything. His failure or success is irrelevant. It's irrelevant. It's irrelevant. You have to earn your pay for you. Don't come to the boss with an ayin hara and say, "Oh, look how much he makes, look how much he makes." Why? Because eventually, the boss is going to be smart and say, "Wait a minute, if he's worrying about what he makes, and he's worrying about what he makes, eventually he's going to start worrying about what I make. Once he starts counting my money, who wants an employee like that? I have 35 of them."

1:36:49Eventually, all the money was gone. So you know the hint of what happens: it's not good. So now every time you count other people's money, what does it do? Number one, it makes you miserable. It's like all the people that watch Facebook and they watch other people's profiles and eat their heart out. Why? Because people, what do they have on Facebook and social media? They have pictures of their vacation, of the car they just bought, of the show they made. It's an illusion. It's not their real life. Yeah, they show they just went on a honeymoon. But it doesn't show that they argued the whole time. It shows the guy had a car, but it doesn't show that he almost had a heart attack as soon as he got the first bill. It shows they got a new house, but it doesn't show that it has termites. It doesn't show. It shows the kids are really cute with the costumes, but it doesn't show they didn't go to sleep until 5 o'clock in the morning. It doesn't show. It shows an illusion. So you watch everybody's pictures on Facebook, and you become miserable. You count other people's money, and you become miserable. Why? Because it's never going to be enough. As soon as you find out he makes more money than you, you're miserable. As soon as he makes just the same as you, you go to the next guy. Yeah, I don't want to compete with him anymore. I'm already the same. I want to go to the next guy. You're going to find somebody else. Why? To torture yourself.

1:38:15It's never gonna be enough. The Gemara says, you give somebody a hundred, he wants two hundred. You give him two hundred, he wants four hundred. And not one man has ever died with even half of what he wanted. So counting other people's money is bad for your neshamah. The second thing is also bad for your parnassah. Because when you cause ayin hara, your ayin hara is a boomerang. It comes back to you. You curse somebody, it comes back to you. You cause bad to somebody, it comes back to you. The Goyim call it karma. We call it ayin hara. Midah k'neged midah. Midah k'neged midah. Sh'koyach. So, measure for measure is the way of the world. This is one of the major principles of Judaism. You count other people's money. Hashem says, oh, you're so interested in their money? Fine, I'll just take all of yours. So you have only one responsibility, counting their money. You're not happy with what I gave you? Fine, I'll take it. This is a serious, serious problem.

1:39:37Last but not least of the tests is when we believed the spies, the Meraglim. We didn't have enough emunah in Hashem when He told us that the Land of Israel was a land of milk and honey. We wanted to send spies. We wanted to send Meraglim. Double-check Hashem, just in case He's bluffing. We sent them. They saw giants. They misinterpreted what the giants were all about. Hashem was killing the giants so they wouldn't kill the Jews. The Meraglim took it the wrong way. They thought that the ground was killing the giants and not Hashem. They came back with a bad report. Everyone panics and cries. Hashem says, oh, you cried today. I'm going to give you a reason to cry forever.

1:40:39And also just because you cry today, not one of you is going to enter this land of milk and honey. And the entire generation died over the next 40 years. In today's world, we call all of that Lashon Hara. There are three victims of Lashon Hara: the one who says it, the one who listens, and the victim himself that you're talking about. You want a phenomenal way to destroy a Parnassah? Talk Lashon Hara all day. There are a few ways that are better than any Segulah in the world of how to make Parnassah or destroy it. Destroying Parnassah, Lashon Hara is one of the best ways. and the victim himself that you're talking about. You want a phenomenal way to destroy a parnassah? Talk lashon hara all day. There are few ways that are better than any segulah in the world for how to make parnassah or destroy it. Destroying parnassah, lashon hara is one of the best ways. Another way to destroy parnassah is not having shalom bayit. Yell at your wife, mistreat your wife, disrespect your wife. Great way to destroy your parnassah. Or even better, don't say anything when your wife walks around not modest. The Zohar says that a man

1:42:01A man that tells his wife, "Don't put kisui rosh. Don't put a mitpachat. Don't cover your hair," gets cursed from shamayim. Special curse from shamayim. Go, make other people sin by looking at you. What's the curse? Your parnassah? We're going to cut that too. So how do you make parnassah then? Do the opposite of what I just said. modesty, cover your hair, Shalom Bayit, no Lashon Hara. The best way not to do Lashon Hara is to make sure your mouth is saying something else. Learn Torah. The most important thing is to understand. Hashem didn't bring you to the world to be a cow. He didn't bring you to the world to just believe He exists, because the cow knows He exists. Hashem brought you to the world to pass these tests. Each one of these tests is relevant to today. And each one of these tests is an emunah test. But emunah is not something that you get simply by learning from some books. Emunah is not something that you could just go buy in a store. Put 50 cents in the machine, and you got emunah.

1:43:28Emunah is not something you're going to get just because you're signed up to some WhatsApp group. Emunah requires two major pieces: one, instructions on how to do it, and two, experience. Experience means you have to go through tests. You have to go. Hashem is going to give you tests, and you have to go through them and pass them. But if you keep having the same test, that means you haven't passed it yet. So when Hashem is going to give you these different emunah tests, He's not punishing you, really. He's doing you a favor. He's trying to tell you, "Son, you don't believe in Me, really. I have to get you there. Because Mashiach is coming." Once he comes, you have to have the zechut. Or else I can't split the sea for you. Because elu ovdim avoda zara and elu ovdim avoda zara were not exactly the biggest tzaddikim in the world. So at least have some emunah. Show the emunah. That's the only thing that saved us at Yam Suf. So when you arrive at your Pesach seder, of course you have to say the story.

1:44:55Of course, you have to live the story. But after the story is finished, start thinking about how do I start living the story in real life? How do I put myself in a position where, if I was at the Sea of Reeds, Hashem would say, "Oh, him? I'll split the ocean for him. Let him pass." Have the merit. Have the merit. The merit is showing Hashem you believe. Any questions? Yeah. No. There are stages of what happens. I mean, first, before Mashiach comes, there are multiple prophecies of how that's going to happen. In so many words, the... good version of the Mashiach, we ran out of time. So there has to be some balagan, which I talked about in different shiurim, that happens before the Mashiach comes. There has to be some balagan, a war,

1:46:09But long story short, if we fast forward through that, the Mashiach comes, the Rambam says that there are multiple choices of what could happen, and no one's going to know until it actually happens. To give you some of the choices, some believe that we're going to live a thousand years until the end of the 7000. We'll live a thousand years in this world without having the need for parnassah, without having the need for food, we're not going to be hungry, we're not going to be thirsty, we're not going to be greedy, we're not going to have yetzer hara. Everything is going to be wonderful. It's going to be Gan Eden on earth. Some say that women are going to give birth every day without going through labor. And some say that there will be no more births. The reason why they say there's a birth every day is because that was actually one of the punishments we got for the original sin. The woman had to suffer through nine months of labor. So, we fixed that sin, the Mashiach came, we fixed that sin, so labor shouldn't be painful anymore. But the other side says, wait a minute, if every neshama only comes to earth to fix itself, the Mashiach came, there's no more time to fix. What are these neshamos going to do? What are these babies going to do?

1:47:22So, that's another end. The other part is, after we finish this thousand years, then we go to Olam HaBa. Now, the good news is that anyone that makes it to the time of Mashiach obviously has z'chut, obviously has major merit. At some point, some say it's 40 years after the Mashiach comes, there's going to be the resurrection of the dead. You're going to see Moshe Rabbeinu from afar, you're going to see Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. Um, I'm not expecting to go shake hands with Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. I think that they'll probably burn me from afar just from their Kedushah. I don't think we're going to be able to become, you know, WhatsApp friends with any of them. But I think we're going to actually see them in real life. But it's going to be a time full of miracles. Miracles are going to become the norm. Now, The big thing that people need to understand is that there's a few things that are going to eliminate someone's opportunity to enter. One of them is Shabbat. Someone that's a Mechalel Shabbat has a 0% chance of making it. Another thing is, someone that has Ayin Ra, someone that's a jealous person, cannot wake up with the resurrection of the dead.

1:48:44So all of us that have this bad midah of being jealous of millionaires, being jealous of people that are better looking than us, being jealous of anybody on earth, except the talmid chacham, because of his knowledge, and you want to have his knowledge or her knowledge? You're not allowed to be jealous of anybody. Why? Because jealousy is a form of kefirah. It's a form of heresy. In essence, what we're saying is that Hashem made a mistake. He gave her, but not me. He gave him, but not me. And I deserve it. So, in essence, what we're saying when we're jealous is that Hashem made a mistake. If Hashem is Hashem, He doesn't make mistakes. So, jealousy is a form of heresy. Go ahead. Yeah. You said that people that don't do teshuvah, they won't be able, There's no more teshuvah after Mashiach comes. Well, they'll go through Mashiach—just the burning part, though. Alright, so let's say this: Let's say you had a million dollars, okay? Let's say you had a million dollars. And I came to your house.

1:49:57And I opened up your safe because you can't just put a million dollars on a table. You have to have a safe, right? So I went to your safe, and I started taking the money out and giving it to people. Does that make me a good person? It makes me a thief, right? What makes them any different? It's not their money. It's God's money, right? Okay. So there's another question, another parable. Now, if somebody is good, in order to define good, they have to create good, right? Now, there was once a king, and the king had only one daughter. Only one daughter. He had everything in the world. He had money, he had power, he had success, he had everything and anything you could possibly imagine. But the only heir to his everything was his daughter. His daughter had to get married one day.

1:50:58So now, he said, listen, we'll find you a wonderful prince, we'll find you a wonderful husband, but I only ask for one thing: I'll give him anything, I'll give him money, I'll give him kavod, I'll give him anything he wants. Just make sure you leave me a small little room in your house, wherever you decide to live. She said, no problem. Abba, you pay for it, why wouldn't we get you a room? And that's what they did. They got married, and they decided, "We're going to move to a different country." So the Abba shows up a week later. He says, "Hi, how are you? Oh, this is the five-million-dollar house that I bought you. Great. Where's my room?" "Oh, I'm sorry, Abba. We don't have any room; it's all occupied with our friends. It's all occupied with our toys. It's all occupied with everything else we have that you bought." Now, does that make them good? Or does that make them nasty? I'll take the no answer as the answer. That's, in essence, what someone who is violating Hashem's will is.

1:52:08Maybe not intentionally, like the story, but in essence, when Hashem tells you, everything and anything you have, I gave you. I gave you eyes, I gave you hair, I gave you money, I gave you a wife, I gave you a husband, I gave you the kids. The air that's in your lungs, I gave that to you. The proteins that are folding in a precise way. In your body, right this second, the trillions and trillions of proteins that must fold in a precise way, or else each one that doesn't fold in a precise way, turns into a disease. whether it’s being a paraplegic or cancer or different, every one, one protein, you have trillions. It has to fold in an exact way. One scientist tried to figure out what are the chances that one of these proteins folds exactly the same way. He said, let's try to figure it out. We used some math. So he connected it to a computer. And the computer said, if you turn me on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, not Shomer Shabbat, I would have to be functional for 10 to the 127th power years just to figure out the chances of each one of these proteins folding the right way.

1:53:31So now, Hashem is responsible for that protein. He's responsible for you being not sick. He's responsible for you being rich. He's responsible for you being happy. He's responsible for everything. And we take all of those tools and say, oh, by the way, Hashem, I don't believe in You. Thanks, though. What do you mean? But you just took all My stuff. Why'd you take all My stuff if you don't believe in Me? That's the point. Why are you coming to my house and taking my million dollars if you don't even want to say hello to me? He gave it to you because He's good. And good creates good. But the good that He created was to such an extent that we felt ashamed. When He originally created the neshamot, the neshamot said, listen Hashem, All You gave us is everything, and we can't give You anything back. This makes us feel bad. So, for example, if you came to my house, oh, he's a millionaire, so we'll give it to him, we get to his house. We already made you a millionaire, so you're going to be a millionaire for the rest of this year. Hopefully, you really are. So, we're going to go to his house now. He has the million dollars. We're going to go to his house. And now he's going to say to you, you don't have to do anything. You wake up in the morning, we're going to have breakfast ready for you.

1:54:55As soon as you finish breakfast, we're going to have somebody put slippers on you. As soon as you finish with the slippers, you can have whatever else you want. You have this available to you, computers, snacks, whatever you want. And then you have lunch, and then you have dinner, and they're gonna constantly serve you. And if you're a normal human being, after a while you're gonna start feeling a little weird. In the movies, we don't feel weird. You know, in movies it looks cool. In reality, you start feeling weird. It's called hakarat hatov, it means like, I need to do something for this. What did I do to deserve it? I'm not a king. I'm not a prophet. I'm not anybody special. I'm just me. Why do I deserve this special treatment of doing nothing? Let me, Elisha, you know what? Let me take out the garbage. I'm not going to start not putting the slippers on because I like it. I'm not going to start cooking, but I'll take out the garbage. Why? Because you feel bad. You feel bad that you're getting all of this and you have nothing to return.

1:55:57You're getting presents every day, and you have nothing to return. Even if your favorite meal is steak, if I give you steak for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, after a week you can't even hear the word steak. You start becoming repulsed by it. The same thing happens if you constantly get good and you can't return anything. So the same thing happened to the souls originally. We constantly got good and we said, Hashem, we have to give something back. Now, obviously, we can't really give You anything back because You're perfect. So what can we do? The only thing that we can do is earn it. At least we know that when we have it, we've earned it. We passed the test. We worked for it. And that's when He sent us to this world. So, but at the same token, if you automatically are going to earn it by default, and it's not a test, that just makes you a robot. If everyone only had a good will and no evil inclination, there's no point of creation. You're the same thing as the soul. So, in order to make it balanced, He has to give you an evil inclination and a good inclination. What is it like? One of the students of Rav Shach missed the shiur one time,

1:57:20And he told them, "What happened? Why did you miss the shiur?" He goes, "Oh no, Kvod HaRav, you know, I come to the shiur for five years already. I had to miss the shiur." "I understand, I know you come to the shiur for five years. That's why I ask you. Why did you miss the shiur?" "Kvod HaRav, you know. Maccabi Tel Aviv was playing, you know. I had to watch it. Maccabi Tel Aviv, it's my favorite team." He says, "What's Maccabi Tel Aviv?" He goes, "Oh, it's a soccer team." He goes, "What's soccer?" He goes, "Kvadrak, you really don't know what soccer is? Avshak was Kodesh Kodashim, what do you know? Soccer." He goes, "What's soccer?" He goes, "You know, two teams and they take a ball and they kick the ball." "Okay, and you just watch them kick the ball?" He goes, "No, no, no. The point is to kick the ball into the net." He goes, "Okay, so what happens when you kick the ball into the net?" Then you celebrate, you're winning. He goes, "Okay, so why don't they just be nice and let each other kick the ball into the net?" He goes, "No, the point is each team is trying to stop the other one from kicking it into the net." He goes, "Why? Why are they so mean?" He goes, "No, that's the point of the game. If they're not trying to stop each other, then there's no point." He goes, "Ah, your ears should listen to your foolish mouth."

1:58:42If there's no resistance, there's no point. If you didn't have Maccabi Tel Aviv to stop you from coming to this shiur, you coming to this shiur is not worth anything. If you wanted to come to this shiur and you had no distractions, you get no mitzvah. Whatever mitzvah you get is a little, tiny one. A little junior mitzvah. But if you have Maccabi Tel Aviv, you have your girlfriend, you have your this one, you have your million distractions that are causing you not to want to come to this shiur, and you still come, that's a mitzvah, my friend. That's resistance. So that's the point. We came to the world to overcome that resistance. If there's no resistance, there's no point. Now, Obviously, all of these people that are Mechalel Shabbat and are not following what Hashem says, they have a serious problem. And most people don't believe that Hashem is serious. So Pesach is actually an amazing holiday to remind us. I don't know if you were here in the beginning, but Chazal say that when we left Egypt, the very next parasha starts with the word Vayhi.

1:59:55Vayhi, Chazal say, is a sign that Am Yisrael was sad. There's bad news. So why would Am Yisrael be sad after leaving slavery? Why would you be sad? You should be happy; you just left slavery. Chazal say, because it says, only a fifth, only a fifth of the nation left Egypt. 20%. Where are the other 80%? Did they go to the Bahamas? Did they go to Cancun? What happened to them? Hashem removed them from the world. Why did He remove 80%? They didn't want to do teshuva. They want to stay in Egypt. They want to stay in America. They want to stay in the exile. They want to stay in the office on Shabbat. They didn't want to do teshuva. They said, listen, okay, we finished slavery. Now we're finally making some money. Now we're finally doing well. Leave us alone. The other ones are going to go pray for us. I'm going to give some tzedaka for the avrech. He's going to pray for me. And I'm going to work on Shabbat. My friend.

2:01:04Your Avrech is not going to help you. You can give him a zillion dollars in tzedakah. You can be the Bill Gates of tzedakah. It won't help you. Why? Because once you're Mechalel Shabbat, the Rambam, Hilchot Shabbat, chapter 30, says, you're considered an idol worshiper in every shape, way, or form. To such an extent that it's not allowed to include you in any religious ceremony. Meaning, If there's a Pesach Seder, Pesach Seder, we're going to have a Seder. You're going to have Chiloni'im at the house. Make sure that the wine that you bring is Mevushal. It's not an uncooked wine. Because if it's uncooked wine and the Mechalel Shabbat touches it, you're not allowed to drink it. Same way, why are you not allowed to drink it? Mevushal, efshal lo mevushal. If it's not mevushal and he touches it, you're not allowed to drink it. Why? Because the idol worshippers in the old days, one of the ways they would worship their idols was by pouring wine. Taking wine, shaking it, pouring it on their idols. So he says, since the Mechalel Shabbat is the same thing as the idol worshipper. He touches the wine, maybe he's really idol worshipping. Not allowed to touch the wine. It's to that extent. Hashem is not joking about Shabbat.

2:02:17Mechalel Shabbat says Kaddish, you're not allowed to say Amen. Not allowed. It's not that it's not nice. You're not allowed to say Amen to a Kaddish of a Mechalel Shabbat. Not allowed. It's actually a machloket, meaning it's a debate amongst the sages, if you're even allowed to say Kaddish for him after he dies. It's a debate if you're allowed to even say Kaddish for him. Why? Because it won't help him. So maybe it's a waste of the blessing. So, Hashem is very serious. I'm telling you all this stuff that's hard to hear to give you the point: I used to be Mechalel Shabbat. So I know this from my own experience. Hashem is not kidding. He's not joking. He's not joking in any way. So it's important for us to understand that instead of creating excuses for all of our nice friends—why they're nice people, they give tzedakah, why not, why is Hashem so mean, why is He not nice, why this, why... Instead of asking all of these foolish questions, what we should do, the only question we should ask ourselves is, how do I get this guy to the shiur?

2:03:33How do I bring him to meet Rav Mizrachi every Monday? How do I get him to meet Yaron every day? How do I get to tell him what Shabbat is? How do I get him to keep Shabbat? Because it's much easier to get the guy to keep Shabbat than to convince Hashem to change the Torah. He's not changing the Torah. So I know it's hard. I know it's terrible. Every one of us has a relative, friend, or family member who is a Mechalel Shabbat. Somebody dear to us. Trust me, I have family that's still Mechalel Shabbat. And I'm trying. But the truth is the truth. So? Yes. No, you're here not to... Happiness has nothing to do with it. We're here to fulfill His will.

2:04:42It's not possible. It's not possible to be happy without doing the will of Hashem. No. In essence, what you're doing, if you're not willing to do the will of Hashem, you have to agree with Him. You have to agree that He exists. Hashem is telling you, His will is to say, "I exist," right? Okay, so by not keeping Shabbat, the halacha is, the Chazal explain, that by somebody not keeping Shabbat, you're in essence saying that Hashem did not create the world. You're in essence saying Hashem does not exist. So that's the problem. By not keeping Shabbat, you're not borderline, you're 100% atheist. So that's a serious, serious offense. So now, when someone says, yes, yes, but maybe I could be happy without the Torah. This is also a flawed argument. And the reason why is because most people don't really know what happiness is. The reason why is because most people try to attain happiness by attaining...

2:05:50material. They're either trying to attain physical pleasure, or they're trying to attain money, or women, or men, or fame, or fortune, all of these things. Now, excuse me, none of these things can make you happy. They can make you temporarily satisfied, but not happy. Those are two different things. Satisfied, yeah, you could have intimacy with a woman you're not allowed to be with and be momentarily happy. But tomorrow you're gonna have to pay the bill. The point being here is that to be happy is something that lasts without effort. Happiness is something that lasts without you doing anything. Therefore, it's something spiritual. It's not something physical. So to say that if I get money, I'm going to be happy. If I get fame and fortune, I get happiness. It's not real. Why? Because these things won't last. The effect of money won't last. When you make your first million, it's exciting. I don't know, for a few months, a year, whatever. Your second million, it's a little less exciting. Your tenth million, it's almost not exciting. After a while, it just becomes a game. Therefore, it's something spiritual. It's not something physical. So to say that if I get money, I'm going to be happy, if I get fame and fortune, I get happiness, it's not real. Why? Because these things won't last. The effect of money won't last. When you make your first million, it's exciting, I don't know, for a few months, a year, whatever. Your second million, it's a little less exciting. Your tenth million, it's almost not exciting. After a while, it just becomes a game.

2:07:02Just like if you've ever seen a guy that changes his car every year, eventually he's going to start changing his car every few months and still be miserable. He'll still look at the neighbor and say, "Oh, he got the blue one? Same car. He has black, he has blue, but he's jealous of the blue." Why? Because material cannot make you happy. It's impossible. I had plenty of material. So I'm not one of these people that tells you, "Listen, money is the root of all evil and I never had any money." I had plenty of it. It can't make you happy. It's impossible because happiness is a spiritual feeling, and everything else is material. So you can't attain something spiritual with material. Now, you can be momentarily satisfied, but that momentary satisfaction will go away. And the problem is that when that momentary satisfaction goes away, you have a similar effect to someone who has had a lot of cocaine. What happens when someone has a lot of cocaine? They crash eventually. So when someone has a lot of money, eventually, even if the money stays, but he doesn't have something spiritually uplifting, he goes into depression. That's why you see a bunch of them kill themselves, even if they have a lot of money. Or they lose the money, and now they think that they just lost their life. Wait a minute, but if you had real happiness, what does that have to do with the money?

2:08:31If you had real happiness, why are you so upset? If you had real happiness, why are you depressed today? Why were you happy yesterday? Happiness is not something that goes up and down. Happiness is a state of mind. So, just like you're breathing right now, happiness has the same type of permanence. So, when someone has these things, as long as it's temporary, it's not happiness. Happiness is having God in your life. It's the only way to get it. Sorry, this is a Shabbat question. This is going back to the original Mashiach question. I don't remember the chapter and verse, but I think Jeremiah says that the Mashiach is going to bring a korban chatat. Yeah. And you said that, well, some sages say that the yetzer hara is going to be wiped. I mean, why is that? So, chet means what? Mistake? Or, you know, something, I mean, that's, you know, it's a transgression, something, I guess. Yeah, I mean, we definitely, there's no such thing as a righteous person who didn't sin. So, Hashem has to forgive a certain level of sins for us. We have to repent for a certain level of sins. Even the Mashiach has sinned. Even at the time of the Mashiach, everyone at some point is going to have to feel the pain of death.

2:09:44Everyone's going to have to die at some point. But we have the resurrection of the dead, so we get back to life. The big thing about Mashiach is that once Mashiach comes, or once the ultimate culmination of Mashiach happens, then there's not going to be any more yetzer hara. You're not going to have these desires. You're not going to have a desire to be mechallel Shabbat. You're not going to have a desire to be jealous. You're not going to have a desire to do any of these things. The idea of Mashiach is extraordinary. It's a big, big motivator for people to do teshuva. And it's also a big motivator for people to believe in Hashem altogether. I think that the biggest problem with the Mashiach argument is that most people don't realize that they're not ready for Mashiach. To be honest with you, I don't know if Mashiach comes today, I don't know if I'll be saved. I'm not a rasha, I'm not a mechallel Shabbat or anything, but... Listen, I don't know, there's a lot to do. I haven't done everything yet. So I think that everyone, instead of worrying about Mashiach that may come next week, next month, next year, 10 years from now, whenever it is, should literally look at it as if Mashiach is coming right now. What am I doing right now, right this second, that if Mashiach showed up right now, that's the picture they're going to have of me on the news?

2:11:07Mashiach showed up, you know, because everyone knows where they were when, let's say, the Twin Towers happened. What were you doing on September 11, 2001 at, I don't know, 8:30 in the morning or 8 o'clock in the morning? Everyone knows what they did. Oh, I was on the bus. sleeping. I was at the deli eating a bagel. I was doing this. Everyone remembers where they were on September 11, 2001. What a disaster that happened! Okay, the culmination of the world is about to happen, and what do we do? It says we're going to be caught doing the thing that we do the worst. Meaning, someone that's a thief, at the time of Mashiach, he's going to be stealing. Someone who is a womanizer, at the time of Mashiach, he'll be caught with a woman. Someone who looks at immodest women, at the time of Mashiach, he'll be looking at women, and Hashem is going to catch him. He's going to know it. A woman who is not modest, will be not modest at the time of Mashiach. This is also one of the things that women need to understand when it comes to Mashiach and modesty, is that...

2:12:16You know, Baruch Hashem, women, they come to Beit Knesset most of the time, they dress modestly. They leave Beit Knesset, sometimes they dress immodestly. They, you know, clothes are not necessary outside. The reality of it is that they have to remember that Hashem is here, He's also outside. He's not only in the Beit Knesset. He's here, He's there, He's everywhere. To such an extent that the Chazal tell us that even in your own house, even in your own house you have to be modest. To the point where your own walls, your own four walls shouldn't see you naked. There's no reason. So the point is, is that you have to think about it this way. If the Mashiach was coming right now, do I really want to be wearing this tank top and miniskirt? To meet the Mashiach? Do I really want to wear these tights right now? Tights for the gym? I'm going to wear them? Mashiach is coming? That's what you want to wear? That's what you want to wear? Mashiach is here. That's what you want to wear? You don't want to wear it, right? So be a tzaddeket. Put a kisui rosh. Put a long skirt that covers the knees after you sit down.

2:13:18Not a woman. A man also needs to be modest, even in the bathroom. Now again, if you are alone, you're going to, I don't know, take a shower, obviously you have to remove your clothes, but to just walk around in your underwear in the middle of the house, it's not modest behavior. Now, it's not necessarily a biblical sin where someone's going to get known for it, but it's not exactly the greatest character trait to have, especially if you have kids, you have a wife, one day you want to have a wife, one day you want to have kids, you get used to these habits. So, you know, right now you're young and what's it called, and handsome and everything is great, but one day you're gonna be fat and old like the rest of us, and your kids are gonna see you, "Hey Abba, why are you walking around with your briefs?" It's not exactly a wondrous thing. The rest of us all get old. But you already got used to it. So you don't want your kids to be used to, "Oh, he's walking around in his underwear." Why? Because right now you're, "Abba, I just brought my rabbi from yeshiva, why are you in your underwear?"

2:14:29You understand? But you got used to it. You understand? So don't get yourself used to bad habits. Next. Yeah. So I have two questions. In Eim HaBanim Semeicha, Rabbi Teichtal says all Jews will be redeemed. So does that mean when you say Jews who don't keep Shabbos will lose their share of the World to Come, does that mean when the Geulah comes, they'll correct that? No, no. Gemara Masechet Avodah Zarah, Gemara Masechet Avodah Zarah, page 3a and 4, says that at the end of times, there's going to be a lot of converts. A lot of converts. There's going to be a lot of goyim that are going to do mesirut nefesh, they're going to sacrifice their life in order to do what they're not obligated to do. But we are. Example of it, today. The only reason I'm in New York is because I brought three students to the Beit Din to convert. So we had three holy Jews added to Am Yisrael today. And they're not obligated. They don't have to keep mitzvot. You are. Now they have to keep mitzvot.

2:15:45So now, we're seeing this prophecy of converts happen every day. Every day. I'm not joking, I'm not exaggerating. Anyone who wants to test it, I'll show you my emails. Every single day, I get at least one or two new converts. Every single day, somebody else wants to convert. This one, one second. This girlfriend, that boyfriend, this friend, that friend, this one saw Judaism 20 years ago, finally they decided. This one has been seeing Judaism for five years, finally they decided. Everybody wants to... Convert. Why now? Why not 20 years ago? Why not 30 years ago? What changed? That's the prophecies being fulfilled that Mashiach is near. Now, the other thing is that it says that all of this is going to happen before the Mashiach comes. So the Gemara asks, why before the Mashiach comes? The reason why is because once the Mashiach comes, there's no more teshuva and there's no more conversion. Why? Because once the Mashiach comes, there's no more free choice. You already know who the winning team is. You can't say, oh no, no, I love them, I love them. What do you mean? The whole time you were cheering against them. The whole time you were going against that team, you can't say, I love them now. They already won. They have the trophy in their hand. Mashiach showed up. You can't say, no, no, I love Hashem. What do you mean I love Hashem? You just, all 35 years you've been saying He doesn't exist. 35 years you've been saying, all the things you went against the rabbis, against the Torah, against Hashem. 50 years you're against it, all of a sudden you want to be on the winning team? Sorry, my friend.

2:17:10I'm sorry, it's too late. It's too late. What is it like? The Gemara says, it's like the time of Shlomo HaMelech and David HaMelech. Why? Because at the times of Shlomo HaMelech and David HaMelech, Am Yisrael really ruled the world. So they didn't accept converts. With the exception of the converts that Shlomo HaMelech had, the thousand wives, that he married all of them in order to marry, after he got all of them, no more conversion. Why? Because he ruled the world. There's no bechirah, of course you want to convert. We're the winning team. The real gedulah in conversion is when we're not the winning team. That's why the third halacha in Shulchan Aruch says that the real halacha of conversion is when somebody comes to the Beit Din and he says, I want to convert. The Beit Din says, oh, I'm sorry, listen, maybe you haven't heard, they beat us up, they kill us, they torture us, the Holocaust, the pogroms, all day, all night. Yeah, yeah, that one. Okay, but listen. Right now, you drive on Shabbat, enjoy. You eat treif, enjoy. Once you convert, after Shabbat, Moshe Rabbeinu has to kill you. Like he killed Tzelofchad.

2:18:25Tzelofchad was the first Mechalel Shabbat in history. One week after we got the Torah. Not 3,000 years. One week. Maybe he didn't have enough time to read the Torah. One week after we got the Torah, he was a Mechalel Shabbat, Moshe killed him. Why? Hashem said, kill him in front of everyone. With the worst possible death penalty. But we only had the Torah for a week. If anyone was supposed to get a little bit of leeway, he's the guy. We haven't read the Torah 3,000 years later yet. Most of us haven't read the entire Five Books of Moses with commentary and actual full understanding of what Hashem said. He only had it for a week. Maybe he didn't read the whole thing. Hashem says it doesn't make a difference. Whether you had the Torah for a week or 3,000 years, it doesn't make a difference. Once you realize Shabbat exists and you are a Jew, you have to keep it. So if God didn't keep it, Hashem killed him. So now, when it comes down to the converts, they say, you're allowed to, before and now you drive on Shabbat, it's okay. If you convert, death penalty. If you eat pig right now, no big deal. After you convert, you have a serious problem.

2:19:48The halakha says, if the convert, if the goy at that moment, says, "Yeah, yeah, that's the nation. The one that went through the Holocaust, yeah, yeah, that's the one. The one that has to eat kosher all the time, that's the one. The one that has to keep Shabbat, that's the one I want to join." The actual halakha says they convert them on the spot, like that moment. No test, no... conversion process, no four years, no learning the language, nothing. They convert them that moment. If it's a woman, she converts and becomes a Jew that moment. They take her to the mikveh, she goes in, and when she comes out, she is a Jew. That moment, no school, no teaching, no nothing. If it's a man, they do a brit milah, and after it heals, They take him to the mikveh, which is usually 30 days after, and he completes his conversion. Some say he completes the conversion that same day that he does brit milah. And it also says, meaning, they also don't even teach him the big mitzvot right away. Why? So he doesn't get overwhelmed. Today, they teach him all the big mitzvot, and they still don't want to convert him.

2:21:02we're the opposite. The point here is that once Hashem said, "Listen, the convert, he doesn't even have to do it." To do it has become even more difficult today. And he still does it, he still converts, and you, the Jew, that I gave all the parnassah, all the kedushah, all the mitzvot, all the obligations, and all the shefa that comes from it, You decide to say, phooey, I don't want. You decide, I don't want to do it. You have a serious problem. So there's no more teshuva once the Mashiach comes. And that's a serious problem. So that's why the number one obligation of every Jew today, whether they're from birth, Baal teshuva, or even if they're secular themselves, is to try to get as many people as possible to do teshuva. Start with teshuva. What did he mean when he said all Jews will be redeemed? And why are there so You have to be considered Jewish. A Jew that doesn't keep Shabbat is not considered Jewish. So that's the other answer. It's a little bit less politically correct answer, but that's the real answer. It's an epidemic in the English-speaking world of why people don't say the truth. One of the main reasons is called money.

2:22:29Okay, it's called money. So you see, the thing is, I come here for free. Anyone who wants to donate, but if you don't want to donate, enjoy this shiur. It makes no difference to me. It's your shul, not mine. I came here for the Torah. So now, a rabbi that depends on people giving him money, and he doesn't have any emunah... He has a serious problem. Why? Because if he believes that the money he gets is coming from the people and not from Hashem, then he should have listened to this shiur, number one. And two, he actually has a serious problem because he can't tell those people the truth. Because if the money comes from their hand, then he can't really tell them, hey, by the way, you know that I can't even accept your money if you're Mechalel Shabbat. You understand? So, that's the thing. The problem is that a lot of people don't have a high level of emunah. Second reason is people are politically correct. They don't like telling the truth. They think that it's a, you know, maybe it should be a little softer. Maybe they can't handle it. All of these things that, in my opinion, are foolishness and borderline kefirah. And the key is that we have to fight it. This is part of the fight. I'll answer your question in a second. Don't worry. This is part of the milchama. This is part of the battle.

2:23:48of kedusha neged tumah. You know, one of the prophecies that's going to happen at the end of time is that some people are going to fight the Mashiach. So Chazal asks, who's going to fight the Mashiach? Mashiach is going to have all the power. He's going to be able to smell your sins and kill you with his words. Who would dare fight him? Do you know who's going to fight him? The Erev Rav. Do you know who's the Erev Rav? Fake rabbis. Got your question? Yeah. It's actually very sad. As far as a Jew cannot undo his Judaism, once he's born Jewish or once somebody converts to Judaism, that's it. It's not like a tattoo that you can remove with a laser. Once someone is Jewish, it's a neshamah. You get a neshamah that cannot be taken out by anyone other than Hashem. You could become a kofer, you could become a heretic, you could become an atheist, you could become a sinner and a wicked person. That's your free choice. But to be something else, you can't. You can even be an idol worshiper, but you can't be someone else. You're always going to have that neshamah that Hashem put in you, because part of that neshamah is Hashem Himself.

2:25:14You can't remove that yourself, yeah? If he's on a path of doing teshuva? Well, if somebody started doing teshuva... they started keeping mitzvot, they're on the path, they're on, you know, they're getting there, then Baruch Hashem, then Hashem is going to have mercy on that person because they're showing that they're serious. But their teshuva cannot be considered complete until they keep Shabbat. So even if they found a loophole to keep 612 mitzvot out of 613, which is not possible, Sorry, whoever you're talking about. You could be talking about me in the past. It doesn't make a difference. The point is that even if someone found a loophole to keep 612 out of 613 mitzvot, it's still not considered a complete teshuva. So what is it like? It's like, for example, if we said, you know what? We have a deal. We're going to make $10 million on this deal. But there's one condition to the deal. We have to send Mr. Jones an email on Monday at 8 a.m., right?

2:26:26Simple enough. We have the email. We printed it out. We typed it out. We thought it out. It's done. All we have to do is press send. We press send. We get one of those annoying error messages: undeliverable. Press send again: undeliverable. Again, again, again, again, again. We're running out of time. We're running out of time. Eventually, 8 a.m. passes. We can't figure it out. We called. No one answered. Nothing. It didn't work. Finally, at 8:01, Mr. Jones calls us. "What happened? We had a $10 million deal on the line. Why didn't you do what you had to do? You just had to press send." "But I did press send." "Where did you press send to?" "I pressed send to MrJones@gmail.com." He goes, "No, you fool. It's Mr.Jones@gmail.com. You missed the dot." Ah, come on. One little point. One little point, and the email doesn't go through. You understand?

2:27:27Without Shabbat, nothing else goes through. It's a little dot. It's not that big. It's a small dot. It's a vacation. It's a vacation once a week. Why do we want to take a vacation once a week? Because the Yetzer Hara inside says, "Oh, come on. Who needs a vacation? Take a vacation next week. Take two days. Take two Shabbatot next week." The Yetzer Hara is going to convince you like he tried to convince me. When I first started keeping Shabbat, I was still in the business world. And when my Rav Efraim told me about Shabbat, I told him, "No, come on, Rav Efraim, Shabbat? You know what I do on Shabbat? Shabbat is my fun day. I work all week like a dog. I start the day at 6 o'clock in the morning and finish at 12 o'clock at night. I have no life. I have no time. I have nothing. Shabbat, that's the time I go to the casino. That's the time sometimes I have my business meetings. That's the time I sleep once in a while. That's my vacation." It's okay, now it's not. I'm like, what do you mean? Business meetings. I don't have time to meet. Out of the 18-hour days that I work, I don't have time to meet anybody from Monday through Friday. And I started listening to my own excuses. He didn't even say anything. And I started realizing how full of it I am. It's not that hard.

2:28:40I said, okay, okay. I convinced myself. He didn't even say anything. He just let me talk. And I talked myself to death. And eventually, even the Yetzer Hara was saying to me, wow, I'm full of it. The Yetzer Hara was telling me I was full of it. So I said, okay, I'm going to keep Shabbat. And see what happens. I can't commit to every Shabbat. I'm going to keep this Shabbat. This Shabbat I'm going to keep. Yeah, that's what I said, I'm going to keep this Shabbat, I'm going to keep. Don't tell me anything about next week's Shabbat. Don't tell me lifetime. Don't tell me Shabbat this week, I'm going to keep. And the first week, because Hashem knew I was weak. As weak as it gets. So Hashem made that Shabbat heavenly. It was the greatest Shabbat in the history of mankind. The best Shabbat in the world. And we read from the book that Rabbi Zamir Cohen wrote, Torah and the Coming Revolution, or it's called Science Comes of Age, and some other articles. My wife made amazing food, and it was just amazing. Amazing. We didn't leave the house. We were living on the 35th floor. So to leave the house, I had to walk down, you know, 35 stories. It's not happening. So we stayed in the house the whole time. Greatest day ever. I said, okay, you know what? It was that good, I have to give it another shot. So I kept the next Shabbat.

2:29:54By the third or fourth time, I'm like, okay, I'm hooked. And then when Shabbat became a little difficult at times—you had tests, you had this, you had that—you had enough goodness in you that it kept you through it. To keep it? In my opinion, the way to convince somebody to realize that they have to keep Shabbat is first making them acknowledge they have a problem. Until someone realizes that...