GAMBLING, Generational Torah, Kosher Minyan, EXTREME SPORTS - STUMP THE RABBI (17)

0:15Good to be back with Shaare Tzion in Sunny Isles, Florida. There are some more questions today, hopefully. I thought I'd have some more answers. As somebody wrote, I believe it was yesterday, this is a shiur where you can ask good questions and get honest answers. So, Baruch Hashem, she will be for a Refuah Shlemah for Avi Mori, David Ben Esriah, Doris Bat Jorah, Levana Bat Sara, Sara Bat Levana, Rabbi Efraim Ben Shulamit, Rabbinit Sara Bat Anat, Elisheva Chaya Bat Sara, Yochevet Bat Batya. So, Baruch Hashem. She will be for a Refuah Shlemah for Avi Mori, David ben Esriah, Doris bat Jorah, Levana bat Sara, Sara bat Levana, Rabbi Efraim ben Shulamit, Rabbanit Sara bat Anat, Elisheva Chaya bat Sara, Yochevet bat Batya, And all of Am Yisrael, b'ezrat Hashem, will have refuah shlemah, refuat hanefesh, refuat haguf. So, hopefully you guys have some questions. I know that last night I asked if anybody had questions. There were only one or two questions. But then after the shiur, we stayed for another hour and a half answering questions. The second shiur, I think, was more interesting than the first one. The only problem is the second shiur wasn't on camera because it was after the shiur, after everybody left. A few people stayed.

1:44and asked a few interesting questions. So, I'll start off with something that I think is very important to know, and then you guys hopefully have some questions today. Do a few people here have questions today, or are you still thinking? Okay, I'll give you guys some time to warm up. So, one of the most difficult things about doing kiruv, doing zikkui harabim, getting Am Yisrael to wake up when it comes to, you know, giving lectures and writing books and just giving people guidance is that, unfortunately, even though we only have one Torah, sometimes you're going to ask, two different rabbis, or three different rabbis, or four different rabbis, and you may end up getting four different opinions. And for an unlearned person, somebody that's just starting out, or perhaps even someone that's already been religious their whole life, but never really spent time to learn the amount of Torah that they're supposed to learn, this can create what's called a safek. This can create what's called a doubt.

3:12doubt in their mind because they're asking a genuine, honest question, but they're getting a couple of answers, and perhaps sometimes the answers conflict. Now, I always tell people that anytime you hear anything from someone else, from a different rabbi, or a book, or anything else Make sure that there's a source. Meaning, if a rabbi, like we did yesterday for example before the shiur started, it was a very, very interesting hilula shem and kiddush Hashem at the same time. I've never seen anything like it. I always tell you guys, if you ever hear anything different, anything that's the opposite of what we teach here, always ask whoever is telling you whatever they're telling you to provide you a source.

4:14Simple request. It's actually an obligation in the Torah. The Mishnah in Pirkei Avot, chapter 6, says anytime you say anything, any d'var Torah, you must provide a source. So much so that when you provide a source, you're bringing the Mashiach closer. When you don't provide a source, you're actually delaying the Mashiach. That's how important it is to actually bring a source in the Torah. So, it's very important. And you see, Talmud, Gemara, Shulchan Aruch, Poskim, all Divrei Chachamim, Divrei Chazal, Mussar, all of the books of Am Yisrael, constantly you're going to see in every page, one, two, fifty, a hundred, two hundred sources, depending on the book. But there's always a source. Why? Because we want to know where you got what you got from, so we can track this all the way back to Moshe Rabbeinu. That way we know that this is not your opinion; it's actually HaKadosh Baruch Hu's opinion. If it's your opinion, your opinion may change next week. If it's HaKadosh Baruch Hu's opinion, that's never going to change, no matter what. Yesterday, one of the guys that came to this shiur arrived a few minutes early, and he asked me, "Rabbi, is there any way that there is a leniency to gamble?"

5:37he's heard me say it in many shiurim that it's 100% forbidden to gamble. There's no "this is that one opinion, this is that opinion." It's just, there's one opinion: not to gamble. And I can give you 11 different reasons, 12 different reasons off the top of my head if you'd like. For example, one reason is that anyone who gambles cannot be used as a witness because they're not a trustworthy person, because the Gemara in Masechet Moed Katan says, a person that gambles is infatuated with money, and if he's infatuated with money, we can never use him as a witness, because somebody may be able to buy him off. So, you cannot be a witness. Similar to how a Mechalel Shabbat is treated. If somebody is Mechalel Shabbat, they cannot be used as a witness. So if you want to have a Jewish ceremony, for example, you want to have a wedding, you have to get two witnesses for that wedding. If one of the witnesses is a Mechalel Shabbat, that wedding, that chuppah, is not valid. Those two people are not married.

6:38That's how significant it is when the Torah says you're not a valid witness. So when somebody gambles, it's the same thing. Another thing Chazal says is that when somebody gambles, even though there are rules to the game, and both of you agree to the rules, you agree that if he has X and you have Y, he wins. But if it's the opposite, you win. You agree that if you have aces and he has kings, you win. But if he has aces and you have kings, he wins. You agree that if you have four of a kind and he has three of a kind, you win. You agree to these rules. And if all the money that goes into the pot stays in the pot, and so on and so forth, you agree. The reality is that if you win, you're going to take his money. And the Torah says, you are a thief. Wait a minute, how am I a thief? How could I be? We agreed to the rules. He said yes, I said yes to the rules. Why would I be a thief? I won, fair and square. The Torah says, you're a thief because even though he agreed to the rules, he only agreed to the rules because he believed he was going to win. No one agrees to those rules assuming they're going to lose.

7:51Everybody goes into the casino thinking they're going to win. No one goes into the casino saying, "I can't wait to lose all my money." No one says that, not in their mind. Not even if they're drunk. No one says such a thing. Everybody goes into the casino and says, "Tonight, I'm gonna take down this house." That's everybody's mindset. How do I know? I used to go to the casino. And my big sins that I did in the past, before I did teshuva, I didn't know that this is stealing. So I went to the casino. And especially when I saw religious people there, I thought, oh, this is a mitzvah even. But Rabotai Yekarim, going to a casino and winning is 100% stealing. Why? Because the other party only agreed to the rules because he assumed he's going to win. Which means that once he lost, once he lost, He doesn't really want to give you the money. So the fact that you're taking it from him because there are rules to the game is insignificant to him. He still doesn't want to give it to you. It doesn't make him any more inclined to give you the money because there are rules. He's giving it to you against his will. And what is it called when you take something from somebody against their will? Who wants to volunteer?

9:11Stealing. You don't even have to be a big Talmid Chacham. Not that you're not. You're a Talmid Chacham. But you all know when you take something against somebody's will, a five-year-old knows that's stealing. Third reason, Gemara says that If it was allowed to steal, the entire world would turn into Sodom and Gomorrah. And the reason why is because places of gambling are called a place of clowns, a place of jokesters, not holy people. Fourth reason: Casinos are swamped with znut, with immodesty, with prostitution, with drugs, with all the filth in the world. Even though some of the people playing in a casino may be worth a billion dollars, they're just as much a degenerate as the guy that has five dollars. They're all degenerates. and going to a place where there's all this disgusting stuff, this immodesty, this prostitution, these drugs, and all of that other stuff, even if you're not involved in it, you're not allowed to go. You're not allowed to associate yourself with such things. And there are many, many other reasons. We won't elaborate further. I guess you get the point. The point is that there is no second opinion.

10:25So, the guy that came to the shiur, the student that came to the shiur, says, "Well, I don't understand. There's a rabbi that's telling me—I had a whole debate with him—he says that it's allowed because I heard it from you that it's not allowed. And you gave the sources and the gemarot and so on and so forth. But he's saying it's allowed." I said, "Well, I don't know. He has to learn again. I don't know what to tell you. I'm not responsible for what other people say. All I can tell you is, ask him to provide you a source." Says it's allowed. I'm showing you it's not allowed. I provided you eleven, twelve sources that it's not allowed. He says it's allowed—tell him to give you one source. Not twelve, one or outside, one source that says it's allowed. One. If he has one, I'll give you three, but I'll show. Give me one. You know, I said one because there is no one. There is no one. There's no one source. No one's gonna say it's allowed to gamble. you know what was the best part? This gambler, who calls himself a rabbi, was asked this question. I didn't know he was asking him the question while we were talking. He was texting him, "Please provide me a source that you're allowed to gamble to that extent." I don't know the exact words, but he asked him for a source. So this so-called rabbi sends him a voice note, and he plays it, thinking he's providing him a source.

11:51And this rabbi starts cursing up a storm. F-ing this and F-ing that. The guy was so embarrassed. We're in a shul. It was right before some of you guys came. He was cursing, such a filthy man. The guy was so embarrassed, he stopped it. I said, who's that, a truck driver? He goes, no, that's the rabbi. I said, if that's the rabbi, you're not allowed to learn tic-tac-toe from him. Forget Torah. Why? Because the Gemara says, and I'll give you a source for that, Gemara Moed Katan says, if your rabbi has behavior like an angel, learn Torah from him. Meaning angel, what angel? Angel meaning he serves Hashem, he's there to serve Hashem, no matter the pain, no matter the suffering, no matter the agony, no matter the difficulty. He's there to serve Hashem, he's there to tell you the truth, he's there to do the truth. If he's like an angel, you go learn Torah from him. If he's not like an angel, not only shouldn't you learn Torah from him, the Gemara says you're not allowed to learn Torah from him. a sin like eating pork. Why? His Torah is like Doeg HaEdomi. Doeg HaEdomi was the head of the Sanhedrin, but he had horrible middot. He was a jealous, evil person, and he ended up losing his Olam HaBa, and he's in Gehenom until this day and will never leave, even though he knew a lot of Torah. Why? Because if the Torah that you're learning does not affect your character traits...

13:15Then you're not learning Torah; you're learning philosophy. You're learning something else. You've desecrated Hashem's name instead of honoring it. So this so-called rabbi cursed up a storm. And I said, well, did he at least provide a source? No source. Why? Because there's no source. But this, even though this was a Chilul Hashem on his end, it was actually a Kiddush Hashem too. Why? It proved, it proved the Torah, Torah that we're teaching, Torah that we're telling you. Anytime somebody tells you anything that's contrary to what we're teaching you, simply say, no problem. I believe you, but can I have some proof? I believe what you're saying, but I want to prove it to my rabbi. I want to prove him wrong. Can you give me a source for what you're saying? Can you show me this in a sefer? You want to show me this in a sefer? now they're going to tell you something that happened after this that you didn't see. It's very interesting. Someone said, "I asked the rabbi." So another rabbi, another—oh, actually, I forgot to say this part of the story. I forgot to say a part of the story that was the best part, actually. I said, "You know why this rabbi is telling you it's allowed to gamble and he's so angry?"

14:23And he's cursing up a storm like a truck driver. A rabbi talks like that? Truck drivers talk like that. Gangsters talk like that. Street thugs talk like that. Football players talk like that. Rabbis don't talk like that. It's a sin. Curse. Cursing. someone that curses, even if it was decreed in Heaven for him to get 70 years of blessings, he immediately loses it and he can get up to 70 years of curses. That's how horrible it is to curse. Why? Because this mouth is supposed to be a mouth used for Torah, not for cursing. So anyway, I told you, you know why he's cursing? Why he's so angry? And he said, why? I said, because he's a gambler. He's a rabbi who gambles. And the guy looked at me like I was a prophet. He's like, how'd you know? I said, because only a rasha defends something that's a rasha. Only a rasha. Only someone that's a gambler defends gambling. So anyway, after this, someone else came and said, "Listen, you said something at some point. I asked this so-called rabbi, and he said no. Listen, yeah, I know he says what he says, but it's not like that anymore."

15:38rabbi, and he said, "No, listen, yeah, I know he says what he says, but it's not like that anymore." "What do you mean it's not like that anymore?" He says, well, listen, you know, the generation that we have today has changed. We're a weak generation, a generation where people walk around half-naked, a generation of people who don't know much Torah, a generation without Moshe Rabbeinu. We're a weak generation, so if it says in the Torah that a Mechallel Shabbat cannot be counted in a minyan, even though it says that, it's not really relevant anymore. If it says in the Torah in the Shulchan Aruch that wasting seed is the biggest sin... not relevant anymore because it's a weak generation. Pretty much, what are you doing if you're saying that wasting seed is the biggest sin? Still, now that pretty much means almost every single Jewish male is a sinner in the eyes of Hashem. That if he doesn't do teshuva, he's losing Olam HaBa. That's what it means. So, what are you gonna say? Everybody's gonna lose? Who's gonna go to heaven? You only? Who's gonna go to heaven? I'm adding a few words, but in so many words, theatrics aside, that's what he said.

16:49So this rabbi said that the laws are real, but they're not relevant to this generation anymore. Now, I'm going to give you a source to show you it is relevant. In fact, I'm going to give you two. One from this week's parasha. As I always tell you, the answers are always in this week's parasha. Whatever week it is, it's always in this week's parasha. and two, it's in your siddur. It doesn't matter what siddur you have: Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Chabad—any siddur. All siddurim have it. This week's parasha, chapter three, the book of Deuteronomy, Sefer Devarim. Chapter four, I'm sorry, verse number one. It says, HaKadosh Baruch Hu

18:12is telling Moshe Rabbeinu, "Go tell Am Yisrael the following: Now, O Israel, listen to the decrees and to the ordinances that I teach you to perform, meaning to do the mitzvot, not just to think about them or do them in your heart." So that you may live. Anytime it says "so you may live," it's talking about eternity, not just this world. And you will come and possess the land that Hashem, the God of your forefathers, gives you. You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor shall you subtract from it, to observe the commandments of Hashem, your God, that I command you. Here we see HaKadosh Baruch Hu mentions many, many times in the Torah, this is incidentally. happens to be in this week's parashah, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says the Torah, in so many words, does not change. You're not allowed to add to it. You're not allowed to subtract from it. It doesn't matter what generation. It doesn't matter if your generation is full of giants or it's full of midgets. It doesn't matter if your generation is full of black people or white people. It doesn't matter if it's full of Ashkenazim, Sephardim, Litvish, or Chassidim, or who your rabbi is or who your husband is. It doesn't make a difference.

19:26Don't add to it. Don't subtract from it. It stays the same. If you add to it, it's no different than eating pork. It's no different than driving on Shabbat. It's no different than driving on Yom Kippur. It's a sin from the Torah, but it's a critical sin. It's called kefira. And kefira is something, Rabotai Yekarim, that removes the person from Judaism until they do teshuva. Now, if that's not enough, I told you, I'll give you two sources. Here's the second one. Every siddur has it. Usually the minhag is that you'll have this at the end of Shacharit. It's called the 13 Principles of Faith. The Rambam's 13 Principles of Faith. The Rambam, which is pretty much all halacha, regardless of where you're from, whether you're Yemenite, or Ashkenazi, or Sephardi, or Chabad, or whoever you are, you hold by the Rambam. Some hold 100% by the Rambam, like the Yemenites, for example. Some hold 95% by the Rambam, and the rest by Shulchan Aruch. Shulchan Aruch is predominantly based on the Rambam. Either way, everyone knows, you hear the Rambam, you start shaking. Why? That's the law.

20:40So the Rambam says there's 13 principles of faith, meaning if you believe these 13 things, you are in good status. If you violate them, you have a very, very serious problem. What kind of problem? Meaning you're considered a heretic. First, it says you have to believe in perfect faith. I believe with perfect faith that the Holy One, blessed is He, exists and watches us. You have to believe that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is always watching. He's always here. He's not just in the shul. He's also in your house. He's also in the shower. He's also in the store. He's also in your business. He's also everywhere. There's only one God. There's no two gods. There's no God in the Rebbe. There's no God in Jesus. There's no God in some other janitor. There's just God. There's just God. That's it. There's no one else that rules. No one helps Him. No one assists Him. He doesn't need anything. He's unique. He's an individual. That's it. There's nothing else.

21:52He has no body or the likeness of a body. Meaning, the second you personify Hashem into a physical form, you have a very, very serious problem, regardless of whether you're a Jew or not. And He precedes all the ancients, meaning there was nothing before Him. And there's nothing after Him. There's not going to be anything before Him. There's no concept of anything that exists outside of Hashem. Not before, not after. And there's no worship to any other besides Him. No matter how much you like your Rebbe, no matter how much you like your father, no matter how much you like Moshe Rabbeinu, you're never allowed to pray to anyone but HaKadosh Baruch Hu. The second you pray to a tzadik, regardless of who this tzadik is, It's considered 100% avodah zarah. Worship of a foreigner. Even if that foreigner is a big tzadik. And don't think that you could pretend like you're praying to somebody, to Hashem, but you're really praying to him. Why? Because HaKadosh Baruch Hu knows what's in your mind.

23:07He knows what you're thinking. Instead of thinking Torah, you're thinking about the girl. She's kind of cute. Maybe I'll take her on a date. He knows the way you're thinking when you're praying. You know what, I'm praying, but I'm really praying for this baseball team to win. I'm praying for the stock to go up tomorrow. I'm praying for this to go down. I'm praying for this. I'm praying for that. Hashem knows what's in your mind. And then he says, everything that's written in the Torah by Moshe Rabbeinu is emet. Everything he says is consistent; there's nothing contradictory, nothing opposite, nothing has changed. He is the prophet of all prophets. You can never say that anybody is like Moshe Rabbeinu or greater than him. It's not possible. Why? One of the rules is that Moshe Rabbeinu is Ish HaElokim. This is what HaKadosh Baruch Hu called him, "You are the man of G-d." No one's going to be like you. No one ever talked to Hashem like you. I don't care how righteous the person is. He's never going to be like Moshe Rabbeinu. Anyone that says otherwise, that's kefirah.

24:08...and that the Torah was given from Heaven. It's not something that Moshe Rabbeinu wrote. It's not something that I wrote. It's not something that Muhammad wrote. It's not something that any human being or angel could write. It's only from Hashem. But then the most relevant part is the following: the proof. The proof that it will never change... and that the Torah will never change at any time, God forbid. Meaning, everything else, that was never said, God forbid. says to think, even to think, that there's a possibility that the Torah will change, that the laws of the Torah will change, that driving on Shabbat is not allowed for 3,300 years until now, until Joey arrived because he likes his car, especially since he bought it for Shabbat; he likes to drive to shul

25:12Anyone that says that the rules have changed because of a weak generation, rabotai yekarim, this is 100% a kofer. He's no different than a Christian. He's no different than an idol worshiper. He's not allowed to be counted in a minyan. In fact, in the days of Chazal, they'd kill him. That's how bad it is to say that the Torah changed. And then it continues, a few others, we'll just finish. That the Holy One, blessed be He, punishes the wicked and grants reward to the righteous. Isn't it interesting that reward and punishment is part of the 13 principles of faith, but yet people frown at the fact that we talk about punishment constantly? That's what the Torah is supposed to be: reward and punishment, not just reward. Why? Because if you think it's reward, reward, reward, what's going to happen? You're going to turn God into a slave instead of a God. Because you're going to think He owes you something. And that's what's happening to a lot of people. They say, "Listen, I did this, this, this, and this. I kept Shabbat. I kept this. I kept that. But my life is still hard. My wife left me. My husband left me. I lost all my money. I got fired. I got sick. I got this. I got that." People have all types of complaints for Hashem.

26:33The response: Wait a minute, hold on a second. What do you think, Hashem owes you something? What do you think, He works for you? Yes, you pray to Him, and He'll answer your prayers when you deserve them and when it's time. But don't think that just because you're doing mitzvot, He owes you something. Hashem doesn't owe you anything. There's reward and there's punishment. If you make sins, Hashem will punish you. If you do good things, Hashem will reward you. When? In the end. In the end, it doesn't necessarily mean this life. It can mean partially in this life, but most importantly, it is in the end, meaning in the afterlife, eternally. The Mashiach will eventually arrive, and there is going to be the resurrection of the dead. These are the 13 principles of faith that every single Jew, no matter what your background is, whether your grandparents are from Europe or they're from the Middle East or they're from planet Mars, for all I care. If you're a Jew, you have to believe these 13 principles of faith. Someone that violates these 13 principles of faith, especially if they call themselves a rabbi, you can no longer call them a rabbi. It is a sin to learn from them.

27:49It's a sin to listen to anything from them. Why? They have to do teshuva first. They have to become a Jew again. Unfortunately, rabotai yekarim, this violation of the 13 principles of faith happens on a daily basis by a bunch of clowns that call themselves rabbis and confuse the public in order to get their money. They tell people what people like to hear, which is that you're good, you're perfect as you are, Hashem needs you, and all types of nonsense. That's complete heresy. Hashem doesn't need you. He loves you, but He doesn't need you. Hashem doesn't need your mitzvot. He wants them, but He doesn't need them. If you treat God like He's God, you'll serve Him like God. If you treat Him like a servant and you'll serve Him like He's your servant. And then eventually, I'll have to pay you a nice hefty fine for it. you'll serve Him like He's your servant. And then eventually, you'll have to pay a nice hefty fine for it.

28:49So it's very important to know the difference between right and wrong. It's very important to know the difference between truth and lies. And I say this regularly because I see that some people watch the shiurim, they attend the shiurim sometimes. Some people attend two or three times a week. Some people watch on the internet two or three times a week. Sometimes even more, they watch other shiurim we have. yet sometimes nothing changes. It's rare; most people watch, and they change their life. But once in a while, you see that the guy is learning, she's learning for a week, two weeks, a month, two months, six months, eight months—still the same be'ma. Still the same thing that they came with; nothing changed. Still comes in with a mini-skirt, still hangs out with the goyim. Still, what happened? How come? What? You didn't hear what we said? You don't believe it's true? No, it's true. So how come you're not doing it? Oh, I don't know. My other rabbi said you're a machmir. You're too stringent. My other rabbi. So you find out that you do a lot of work to get people to wake up and see what the truth is. And then there's some clown that ruins it, that puts a doubt in people's minds. So like I said, Rabotai, don't let anyone fool you.

30:07Don't let anyone fool you. Don't lose your olam haba because some clown is trying to fool you, either because he wants your money, or he wants your respect, or he wants your friendship, or he wants whatever he wants, or she wants. If something changed in the Torah, it would be stated somewhere. But you have this week's parasha, you have the 13 Principles of Faith, and you have no less than 500 sources that will confirm everything that I just said. Now to finalize, before you ask any questions, all of you guys went to school. Some of you guys and girls are gonna go back to school. When did you start school? When do you start school in the morning, on the average? Eight o'clock, 8:30. Eight, 8:30, 7:30, nine, somewhere around that time, right? Guess what? I was born, I'm a little older than you, a little bit, a little older than you. When I was a kid, I used to go to school; it started at the same time. And somebody that's older than me, 70 years old, 50 years old, whatever it is, guess what? School started at the same time.

31:20In their age, 50 years ago, school also started at 8, 9 o'clock, 7:30, around that time. In the history of man, school has never started at 1:30 in the afternoon. Which means that no matter what the generation is, it always started in the morning, early in the morning—7:30, 8, 8:30, 9, 9:30—around that time. It's not starting at noon. It's not starting at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. It's starting early in the morning. So... Now, if it were to change, it would change a long lineage of history of what schools do in every corner of the world, not just America. If some teacher decided, "Oh, you know what? I'm going to start school from now on at 2:30." No, from now on, 9 p.m. Night school, yeah, there you go. But for morning? 9 p.m. but for morning! Say buddy, if you're gonna do that, you have to get everybody to accept it. You have to make a big announcement. You have to send out the posters, send emails, do this, do that. You gotta convince people to show up. You can't just decide it's nine o'clock at night or 2:30 in the afternoon. What about if one of the students decided it? She shows up at 2:30 in the afternoon. Hey, teach. What's up, buddy? Hey, what buddy? What are you doing? What are you doing at 2:30? What happened to you at 8 o'clock in the morning? No, I decided that it's not for me, this 8 o'clock in the morning.

32:44It's not for me, I'm tired. What do you mean it's not for you? Ah, it's not for me. Eight o'clock is too early for me. I was sleeping. I played video games last night. I'm tired. So I figured, you know what? I'm gonna start school at two o'clock. What do you think the teacher's gonna think about this student? You think he's just gonna let it go and say, you know what, kid? I like you. You're a funny guy, but I'll let you start school at two o'clock. Everybody else can start at eight. You start at two. You think this kid's gonna pass school or he's gonna get thrown out the window? Which one's gonna come first? Why? You can't change the rules. If you're gonna change the rules, something has to happen before it, something significant. You can't just decide, you know what? This is a generation of people who cannot wake up at eight o'clock in the morning, so we have to wake up at two. We have to wake up at two and start at 2:30. If you're going to do that, you're going to say, "Listen, we're sorry, ladies and gentlemen, your children are demented. They cannot wake up at 8. We have to start school from now on at 2:30 in the afternoon." They're going to have to make an announcement. They have to make an announcement. You have to start making an announcement for your kids. He's one of the teachers. He knows. You have to make an announcement tomorrow: "Kids, I'm sorry. You're a generation of degenerates. You cannot show up to school at 8 o'clock anymore. You have to start at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. 4 o'clock you show up, we're going to start lunch at 4:30." All right.

34:11five o'clock you're back home already. What's the point? Meaning, if you're going to go and stray away from the norm, even in a secular world, there has to be some type of major announcement, major system change, major agreement. It has to be systematic. It has to be extraordinary. Why? Because this has been the norm, and we're talking about rules that were made by mankind. So if mankind has enough brainpower to realize that if there's going to be a change in the norm, there has to be some major announcement. Why doesn't anybody think, wait a minute, if the generation went down so much to the extent that the Torah changed, changed to suit them, to fit the appropriate generation, Then why wouldn't Hashem have another announcement? Another Mount Sinai? Maybe He decides to do it in Florida. Maybe He's going to do it in New York. We got to go, guys. We got to go. We can't miss out. Mount Sinai, maybe in New York. Climb the Empire State Building. Hashem, hey, Yaron, what's up? Something has to happen. Guess why it didn't happen? If it didn't happen, the Torah didn't change. Which means, everything that's written in the Torah, whether it's hard for you or easy for you,

35:32It's the same thing. Same thing as the time of Moshe Rabbeinu is today. You had to be a modest woman 3,300 years ago; you must be a modest woman today. If you are wearing short skirts or jeans or anything immodest, anything provocative, you are sinning from the Torah. What kind of sin? A sin that causes other people to sin too, which means you have a very, very serious bill to pay when you go up to heaven. This is not your own event. This is what the Torah says. You have a problem, you call Hashem, and ask Him, "Hashem, listen, I don't like Your rules." Okay, He's going to invite you to Shamayim. He says, "You know what, let's have a one-on-one talk. I'm not going to return you, though. We'll have a one-on-one talk. I'll give you a good explanation why this rule is this. Maybe for 3,000 years, maybe for 3 million years, but He's not going to return you." Why? One-on-one with Hashem, how are you going to leave? The point is, Rabotai, the rules are the rules. It's hard for you to wear modest clothes? Complain to Hashem. It's not gonna change anyway though. It's hard for you to watch your brit? Complain to Hashem. It's not gonna change. Nothing that I or any rabbi or any clown or any goat or anything can change the Torah. That's the point of the Torah. It's important we know this. Why? Because once we know this is a rule that will simply never change,

36:55Now I know you're talking business. Okay, now I have to figure out how to do this. Once I know there's no leeway here, there's no gray area, there's no "maybe I could skip this one." Once I know this is it, and it's never gonna change, and the only way I get to heaven is by following it, that's it, there's no more argument. I'm either gonna follow or not gonna follow. But bottom line, at least I know what the truth is. At least I know what the truth is. This is important, Rabotai, for all of you to know. all of us to know. So much so that it's a minhag of all of Am Yisrael to go over everything I just told you in the last 20-30 minutes. Every day, right after you finish praying. It's called the 13 Principles of Faith. Every siddur has it. Sometimes it's after Shacharit, sometimes it's at the end of the siddur, different parts. But every siddur of all of Am Yisrael, doesn't matter where you came from, where your grandparents came from, doesn't make a difference. Every siddur has the 13 Principles of Faith. Why? It's critical that you know and believe these rules. This is Judaism.

38:02This is Judaism, which means if anyone tells you anything that contradicts those rules, you now have to start running away. Start running away as far as you can, as fast as you can. Why? They're a danger to your soul. Now, with that being said, please, bechavod, who wants to answer some questions? Yes, bechavod. Actually, that's a microphone. So you were saying how a Mechalel Shabbat doesn't count in a Minyan. Do we have an obligation to investigate if he is a Mechalel Shabbat? Do we just trust him if we ask him? How does that work? That's a very good question. Do we have an obligation to find out who is a Mechalel Shabbat or not? If you are going to a Minyan, you're going to pray in a Beit Knesset, and there are a lot of people—15, 25, 35, or 45—you only need 10 for a Minyan. Minyan means 10. you have more than 15, 20, or 30 people, you don't have any issues. You don't need to investigate unless you know people are all driving to shul. You could assume that there is at least a minyan there of kosher Jews. You don't have to worry about anything. If you don't have a reason to question anybody, then there's nothing for you to worry about. But if you have a Beit Knesset that's very small, where every day they're struggling to get 10...

39:27You know, like the Beit Knesset, they could always get like six, and then he's got to call a couple of guys. Guys, we need a minyan. So two more show up. It's like, all right, let's figure out what we can do. They start looking for people in the street. Oh, you're Jewish? Okay, come for minyan. No, I already prayed. No, just come stand with us. Just stand with us for a half hour. We got to pray. And you try to get to 10. If you're at one of those places, then yes. then yes, you have to make sure that those 10 people are all Shomrei Shabbat. Why? Because if one of them, one, not all of them, just one, is a Mechalel Shabbat, the minyan is null and void. Now you may say, okay, it's not my problem. Why is it my problem that the minyan is null and void? I kept Shabbat. Because if it's Monday or Thursday, or Shabbat, or Yom Tov, or Rosh Chodesh, we take out the Torah. We take out the Torah. You're not allowed to take out the Torah if there's less than 10 people. If there's less than 10 kosher Jews, you're not allowed to take out the Torah. If somebody says, "The Torah is out, you read it from the Torah," and only nine people are keeping Shabbat and the 10th one is not, you're not allowed to say amen. It's a berachah levatalah. You understand? So now, if you have such a small Beit Knesset, first I would recommend you go to a different Beit Knesset.

40:37try to find one that has at least a minyan that has 15, 20, 30 people, so you don't have to worry about this stuff. But if you happen to be in such a situation, then you have to have some type of verification. If this is your regular place, if you're just praying on the road, you're praying on the road, you're somewhere, you go to a place, they got 10... don't have anything unless you know somebody is outright, you know, Shabbat and you don't have any reason to question them, you don't have any reason to doubt them. But if this is your shul, you go there every day, this is your place, you go there every day, and it's 10 people only, then yes, you have to verify that there are 10 people that are keeping Shabbat, or else you have a problem. But also, Rabotai, it's not necessarily just a problem with just the kosher minyan. Sometimes you're not allowed to go because of the way the Beit Knesset is built. For example, there's a Beit Knesset by my house, very big Beit Knesset, and I went there twice. And the first time I had a little bit of a question. So by the second time I went, I said, no, this is, I have to ask. So I double-checked with my rabbi, he says, no, you don't have to go there. Why? He says, because the mechitzah, the mechitzah between the men and the women is almost like nothing.

41:51Meaning, it's like see-through. So you can pretty much see all the women. And all the women over there are immodest. So pretty much you're praying, but you're praying next to a bunch of women. You can't even think about prayer. You're thinking about who's this one, who's that one. It says, prayers like that, you're not allowed to pray. It doesn't matter how big it is, how much money they have, all that stuff. So the place itself has to be a kosher place. The rabbi has to be somewhat kosher. It can't be somebody that's a gambler. It can't be somebody that eats treif, somebody that's a thief. It has to be kosher people. If you don't know, you're just there, and everybody looks religious, you're perfectly fine. But if you see a bunch of guys with tattoos on their face, you probably should pick another shul. another shul if there's only 10. But either way, it all depends on how much time you spend in this place. If it's a one-time thing, you have a lot more leniency. But if you're there on a regular basis, then you definitely need to know who you're dealing with. I know that when I was in Boca Raton, for the first, I don't know, six months or a year that I was there, I was going to the Sephardi minyan.

43:01And it's a mitzvah to talk about this because this unfortunately happens in other places, plus it's important for people to know what's going on over there. I've said this before. Anyway, one day, every week I see that on Shabbat, the same guy reads from the Torah. Same guy. He's not a rabbi, but he reads from the Torah. Same guy. And he happens to also be a Kohen. He's a Kohen, so he does Birkat Kohanim. And he reads from the Torah. He knows how to read from the Torah. I didn't think much of it. When he was outside of the shul, he never really looked religious to me, as far as the way he presented himself. Look, he never wore a kippah. So I started questioning a few things, like this is a little weird. If you're gonna read from the Torah, you definitely need to be religious. So when I saw him a couple of times outside of the shul with no kippah even, I started questioning a few things. So I started investigating. What I found out, not only is this kohen not religious, he's married to a goya, he's married to a non-Jew. And the rabbis know, so it's not like the rabbis didn't know. So I go to the Rabbi pretending like I don't know that he knows. I said, "By the way, you know that, uh, this ba'al koreh you have every week, every week you have..."

44:26You know he's not only not allowed to be a ba'al koreh, to read from the Torah, because he's married to a goya, but he's not even allowed to be a kohen, because he's married to a goya. He's not allowed to do birkat kohanim. If he does birkat kohanim, you have to leave the shul. It's like a Christian doing birkat kohanim. Because a kohen is not only not allowed to marry a non-Jew, he's not even allowed to marry a convert. Even if she converts, he's not allowed to be with her. So there's no way to kosher this. Yeah, we know, he tells me, but you know we've been trying to figure out how to tell him and maybe make a change. I said, what do you mean make a change? The whole kehillah is coming to shul, and the Gemara says, I think it's—I'm not gonna quote the Gemara, but it's definitely there. I know it's 16a or 16b. Anyway, the Gemara says... somebody like this, you go there to pray, he's the baal korei, the entire kehillah gets curses from heaven instead of everybody getting blessings. The entire kehillah gets cursed because of a chazan like this, because of a chazan like this.

45:44Tychus curses, you know these people coming to pray, poor people. They're not coming to get curses. Yeah, you know. Yeah, and I'm talking to the Rabbi here. Yeah, we don't want to embarrass him. Embarrass him? The guy is a rasha. What do you mean embarrass him? Tell him, look, you don't have to necessarily do it in public. Just tell the guy, listen, we're sorry, but until you fix your life and become a kosher Jew, you cannot be baal korei anymore. And... What's embarrassing about that? Yeah, because everybody knows he's been reading from the Torah for the kehillah already for a few years. I said, anyway, rabotai, I had to get a posek from Yerushalayim to write a four-page report showing all of the violations that the kehillah is making because of this clown, just to convince them to get the guy off. Four months, four months of debate. Back and forth. Eventually, the whole answer was published in one of the sefarim by Rabbi Feinstein. Four months this debate, going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, until obviously they can't, what are they going to do? Eventually, they let him go. But I hear, I don't know for sure, but I hear that he's back. They kicked him off for a little while, but apparently, after a little while, they brought him back because they wanted to go back to being resha'im. Yes? What if it's a, let's say, it's a bar mitzvah boy, and he's having a bar mitzvah, he doesn't come from a religious family, chas v'shalom. Yes.

47:16no, not necessarily. This is a ba'al korei that's reading on behalf of the kehillah. It's not a matter of him not being just a kosher person as far as he doesn't know. He doesn't come from a religious family; he just turned 13. It's a different story at that moment. He could have, it's just that it's his first day of being obligated to the mitzvot. He could be a ba'al at that point. but here in this case, this is a person that knows what the sin is, knows what he's doing. He's not 13; he's 50. He's 50 years old, and he's reading on behalf of the entire community. It's not this little kid celebrating his bar mitzvah, who studied for a year just to memorize his parasha in hopes that maybe he's going to continue. It's not that. This is some guy that's already been doing this for 50 years and he's still a rasha. He's a poshea. He's considered a poshea Yisrael. This is a very serious problem. So, if it's a kid that's not religious, reads from the Torah, you can say amen to his blessing, it's his first day, technically he's just obligated to mitzvot as of today. You can't count him as a rasha because technically he's pure right now. He hasn't made any sins.

48:35But somebody that's 50 and has been doing the same thing for all these years, there's no leniency, no leniency whatsoever. Plus, that 13-year-old is not really reading for everybody. He's usually reading for himself. But either way, the kids that are less religious usually don't read the entire parasha. Usually, they read just one small little paragraph, two sentences, three sentences, and then the real Baal Koreh reads the rest. The ones that know the entire thing typically are at the very least Shomer Shabbat. either way, yes, it is important to go to a kosher shul. I know it's hard, trust me, I have plenty of problems with shuls. There are some decent ones that exist in the world; it's hard to find them. They're more like diamonds, but the point is that you have to double-check. You have to double-check. The problem is not even the people; the problem is not even this kohen. The rabbis are the problem. If the rabbis were real rabbis, the kohen would never get to that point because they would never enable him to and never allow him to get to that point. The fact that he's been able to do it for so long means that they've been giving him the check mark for years. So at this point, he himself doesn't see anything wrong with what he's doing. If it was wrong, one of these rabbis, they have a staff of nine rabbis there. Nine rabbis, one shul. One of them should tell him the truth, for heaven's sake.

50:01So nobody said a single thing, so why should the guy think there's anything wrong with it? So, it is very, very important to know that there is halacha, there are rules, you can't just do whatever you want in the world of Torah. But you have to verify things for yourself. You can't necessarily trust anybody that calls themselves a rabbi anymore because sometimes these rabbis are not really so much rabbi. They're more of a "bye-bye" than a rabbi. Yes, in the back, if you could transfer the mic, please. I know this will sound crazy, but I have a follow-up to this question. Is it against the Torah to go skydiving? I know you're putting your life in danger. I just want to hear your answer. Amen. Amen, Rabbi. So you asked the question that you know the answer to. The question is, is it allowed?

51:04to go skydiving, and you said yourself, I know you're endangering your life, but I want to hear your answer, which means that you know the answer. You're not allowed to endanger your life, especially when there's no purpose for it other than simply getting a rush. If you are a parachuter in an army, then you're doing it for the sake of protecting the people, fighting for the country, and so on and so forth. But to simply jump out of a plane or a mountain and endanger your life and increase your statistics of death is forbidden because now, at this point, you've put yourself in a position where you are depending on a miracle. You're depending on a miracle, and you're not allowed to depend on miracles. The second thing is, the Gemara says, I believe it's in Masechet Avodah Zarah. Avodah Zarah says that the Malach HaMavet one time came to one of the Tzaddikim, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi. And he says, "You want me to show you what I do?" He says, "Sure." So, the Malach HaMavet tells one of his soldiers, "Go, do me a favor, go bring Miriam the hairdresser, bring me her neshama." So, the employee of the Satan goes and brings a neshama of a Miriam, but it wasn't Miriam the hairdresser, it was Miriam the baker.

52:34satan says to him, "Ah no, I didn't ask for Miriam the baker. I said Miriam the hairdresser. Okay, she's here anyway, fine, we'll take her too." So Yehoshua said, "Hey, satan, what are you doing? How dare you? Who gave you permission?" To take her neshama. You said you're going to take the hairdresser. So apparently you had permission from Shamayim to take the hairdresser's neshama. What are you taking this poor baker's neshama for? You just killed her, that's it. You didn't get permission. He goes, no, no, don't worry, I got permission. He goes, how? He says, listen, this Miriam... the baker, she wasn't careful with the way she bakes. Every time she would take out the bread and the cakes from the oven—in those days, the ovens were like entire rooms—she would enter her entire body into the room and endanger her body, endanger her life. Once you endanger your life, I have all rights over you. I have all rights to take you. Once you endanger your life, you don't care about your own life, I have a right to take you.

53:40So you should believe, he says, wait a minute. So what about all these extra years if she didn't endanger her life? She didn't endanger her life, she just lived a regular life. She didn't endanger her life. She watched her life like she's supposed to, which is a mitzvah from the Torah. You must protect your nefesh. You must protect your body. What if she protected it? That means she would have lived another X amount of years—20, 30, 40, 50 years. He says, yeah, you go. So where do all those extra years go? You just killed her. She's 25, 30 years old. She was allotted 70 years in the world, meaning that this 40 years is... More than she was supposed to live. What happens to those 40 years? Malach HaMavet says to him, "Don't worry, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi. Those 40 years, we give to a tzaddik." We give them to a tzaddik. He goes, "Yeah, but this tzaddik, he benefits. He was supposed to only live 40 years. Now he's going to live 80 years. But what about this Miriam? She was supposed to live another 40 years—40 years of mitzvot. She's now missing out on reward too." He says, "Ah, that's why we give them to a tzaddik." give it to a tzaddik. Why? Because now, since we gave him her years, every one of his mitzvot counts towards her as well. So yes, she lost life because she wasn't careful, but she doesn't lose any reward. But still, who wants to die early? The point is, Rabotai, you're not allowed to endanger your life. How do you like that follow-up? So, follow-up...

55:00Shouldn't smoking cigarettes also be banned? It gives you a rush, but it kills you. I feel like it's worse than skydiving because you're going to get something wrong with you. You're going to get cancer. You're going to have your teeth fall out. I feel like it should be banned. Why aren't cigarettes as severe as skydiving? Why aren't cigarettes as bad as skydiving? Well, first of all, cigarettes are forbidden for anyone who doesn't smoke. You have a mitzvah in the Torah that says you must protect your body, you must protect your soul. And when you smoke a cigarette, or you jump out of planes, or you put your life in danger in any way, you are violating the Torah. So if someone is a non-smoker, it's forbidden under all conditions for them to begin. But even if they continue smoking because they're addicted, it's still definitely not a mitzvah. But there are some leniencies for people who are addicted to it, in the sense that it's not considered the same level of sin as someone who is starting out from scratch, knowing that it is not allowed.

56:05Needless to say, it's not a mitzvah. Needless to say, it's not ratzon Hashem. It's not the will of Hashem, which is the reason why after over 20 years of smoking, I stopped smoking, even though I didn't want to stop smoking. I liked smoking. But once I found out this is not the will of Hashem, I had to stop. The point is that it is forbidden. It is not allowed. But why is it not completely banned and completely forbidden like skydiving, which is the third question? The reason why is because even though smoking is bad for you, It's not an immediate effect. You're gonna smoke a cigarette, it is extremely unlikely to the point of impossibility that the person is gonna get cancer after one cigarette. But it is very likely that the parachute will not work after one time, or a hundred times, or twenty times. It doesn't matter how many times you jump out of a plane or from some mountain. The likelihood of the parachute not working or the wind being too strong, and in essence your life being in danger, is just as great no matter how many times you jump out of a plane. Whereas the cigarette has a gradual effect and...

57:11So it's not as bad. It's terrible. It's awful. It's also disgusting to everybody that's around you. You smell terrible when you smoke cigarettes. I never knew how smelly I was until I stopped smoking. But the point is that it's not the same level of sin. Why? Because one is an immediate risk. One is a gradual risk. Next question. It's still not good. Because I've asked a rabbi before about skydiving, and he said... since the chances of actually dying, like, I'm not saying wingsuit, just like regular skydiving, since the chances of dying from, like, a chute failure are actually so small, it's not even considered a risk. Like, it is a risk, but it's just not big enough to be, like, wouldn't swimming then be, like, against the Torah? Because, like, swimming in the beach, because you could get stuck in a rip current and then, like... No, but again, it's the... First of all, I don't know where that Rabbi got that. The statistics of failure for skydivers are very small. I mean, that's not exactly accurate. But put it this way: if skydiving was the only problem that Am Yisrael had, I wouldn't even mention anything about it. I'd tell all you guys, you know what, guys, let's go skydiving.

58:35Why? I'm never going to skydive. I'm scared of heights. But I'll tell you, let's go skydiving. If that was the only problem, let's go skydiving. Why? We'll take a risk. But the reality is, this is the smallest problem we have. Why am I mentioning all this elaborate stuff? Because you have to know that there's a rule. there's a value to life and you're not allowed to endanger it for nonsense, just to get a rush. You're not allowed to endanger it for no reason. Why? Because the biggest rush that you're supposed to have in your life is when you're learning Torah. You're not supposed to get a rush from something external, such as jumping off mountains, doing wheelies on bicycles and bikes, and so on. It's good. You can have a good time. You can go climb a mountain. You can go rafting. You can do all that stuff, have fun. But don't do something that's outright dangerous and literally depends on a miracle. Value your life a little bit more than that. Value it as if you have three, four, five, or six kids waiting for you at home.

59:36because technically you have a lot more, even though none of you have kids here—at least the young ones. None of you have, hopefully, you don't have kids. None of you have kids that you know about yet. But anyway, the point is you don't have any kids, right? But you have to worry as if you have 50 kids at home. Why? Because one day you're going to get married, b'ezrat Hashem. You're planning to get married, or you're going to be single for the rest of your life? You're single? Okay, so everybody except him. You're gonna get married one day? Okay, one day you're gonna get married. There's another time you're gonna get married. There's another time you're gonna have more than just a dog. You're gonna have kids, right? Two, three, four, five, 17 kids. You're gonna have something, right? Now, those kids are gonna have kids. Those kids you have, they can also have kids. They're gonna want the same thing as you. If I've had three, four, five kids, Then the kids are going to want 3, 4, 5 kids. So guess what? Those 3 kids, they're going to turn into 9 kids. Those 9 kids, 27 kids. Those 27 kids, 290 kids, and so on and so forth. Guess what? You have 500 kids. You go up to Shamayim, all the mitzvot of all those 500 kids, all the aveirot, depending on how you led them, depending on how you influenced them, they'll count for you. So you have to think about, wait a minute, am I willing to risk the mitzvot of 500 people that are going to follow me?

1:00:48Would I do it if I knew I have 500 little kids waiting for me at home? No. Okay, so why should you do it now? That's in essence the mindset of somebody that is trying to stick to what HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants from you. Yes. Yes, if you could give him the mic, please, so the camera can hear him. Indoor skydiving, yes. It's going to, I mean, unless you could fly off the roof, no, yeah, it's not a problem. It's just, there's the air, and you're just pretty much flying in the air. Yeah, it doesn't seem to be a, I mean, I don't know the statistics of the danger and the likelihood. Definitely doesn't seem anywhere near as dangerous as jumping out of a plane or off a mountain. But again, also keep in mind. It's not just the plane or the mountain that's the danger. Somebody asked me right before the shiur started, "Should I start training for martial arts?" He never did before, and he asked me, "Should I start training martial arts? Should I start? I don't know, karate, judo, Taekwondo, whatever it is, capoeira. I'll do something, want to be Bruce Lee. Can I do it?" Can you? Yes. Should you? No. Why?

1:02:03you gonna go beat up anybody? No. You trying to look for fights? No. So what are you doing for exercise? So you want to exercise? Do some push-ups, do some sit-ups. Finish. Self-defense? Self-defense against who? God forbid, some guy loves you. If somebody, if somebody's meant to beat you up, if you have emunah that means Hashem sent him to beat you up, your self-defense is not going to help you. If someone, listen, you have to understand, the minute a gun was invented, the strongest man in the world became useless. The minute a gun was invented, the strongest men in the world became useless. When I was a kid, we used to fistfight. You looked at me wrong, I punch you in the face. I looked at you wrong, you want to punch me. That's the way it worked when we were kids. But that's how it went. You got into a fight, you beat him up, he beat you up, the next day, maybe you're friends. Today, you look at the guy wrong, he's stabbing you. You look at him twice wrong, he's shooting you in the face. Today, murder is everywhere. People murder for nothing. Your self-defense class is completely useless. Not only because it's ratzon Hashem, Hashem runs the world, but even if you think you're strong, you could lift a mountain on top of your head. Guess what? A little gun, little...

1:03:139 millimeter right in the forehead, finish—all that martial arts you did is in the garbage. You look at the guy wrong with all your muscles, it's in the garbage. So why do I say you shouldn't go and train in martial arts? Because when you spend so much time fighting a dummy, fighting another dummy, fighting another dummy, kicking the bag, imagining the bag is some Arab, imagining the bag is Osama Bin Laden, it's Trump, it's somebody. Eventually, you want it to be somebody. Eventually, you're sick and tired of hitting the bag. You want to hit somebody, so the next guy who looks at you funny, you're like, "Ah, you want to fight somebody." Why? Because you've been hitting a bag for six years. So you want to hit somebody, so you become, generally, more violent, more aggressive. You want to use this, and it's not good for you. Needless to say, it's also unhealthy for you mentally to spend so much of your energy on just the aggression part of your body. You're not an animal. What are you, trying to be an elephant so you want to lift 800 pounds? Just get an elephant; it's much cheaper.

1:04:22Why do you want to lift the car? Get a tractor. You can lift the car for cheaper. What are you trying to do, really? Why? You're trying to give yourself... It's no problem doing exercise. The Rambam even said you should exercise. But there's exercise and there's just something that becomes an obsession. And that's what happens with martial arts or gym nuts, people that simply go and just go crazy in the gym. I used to be one of them. Trust me, I know a lot about it. I'm not giving you my opinion because I just decided this is not good. I was one of those people. If you see my pictures from when I was a little kid, I looked like a gorilla. I used to play football. I was a big guy. I wasn't always overweight. I was different when I was younger. The point is, it's an obsession. you get consumed by it; you can't wait to squat another 100 pounds, another 200 pounds, and pretty much your whole life becomes this. Now, if you had no purpose in the world, you and the cow had the same purpose, I'd say, you know what, it's a great idea. Stay out of trouble, go to the gym, go beat up some dummies, go beat up some duffel bags, no problem.

1:05:29but you have a much higher purpose in life. You have a Torah Kedosha. You have to purify your neshama. You have to soften your character, not make it more aggressive. Am Yisrael is a soft people. We are humble people. We're people that are not violent. In the history of Am Yisrael, we have never started a war without Hashem saying you have to. Never, never ever. All the wars that even modern-day Israel, even though it's not exactly a religious country, modern-day Israel, no one, they never start a war. We never go and attack anybody. We only defend ourselves. Because the natural inclination of a Jew is to defend themselves, not to go fight. Your martial law is not gonna help you defend anything. The only thing that's gonna help you defend yourself, your neshama, your world in this world, and your world in the Olam HaBa, is this book. That's the only thing that's gonna help you defend anything. That's it. That's the only thing that's going to help you. You want to win fights? You learn Torah. Yes? Would you be allowed to own a gun? Would you be allowed to own a gun? Allowed? Yes. Should you? I don't think so.

1:06:39Yes, you're allowed. There's no problem with owning a gun. Should you own a gun? My personal opinion is no. Why? Because if you don't have a Torah mindset, you're going to want to use it. you're going to want to go to the gun range next to my house, and you're going to want to shoot the gun. And you're going to want to carry the gun. And then you're going to have a little bit of a dilemma. But even if you put all that aside, guess what? The minute you hear a sound, Sound in the house, a normal person says, "Oh, maybe a cup fell. All right, I'm going back to sleep." You, "I have a gun. Hey, honey, honey, relax. Hey, honey, nobody's here. Nobody's here. Nobody's here. Don't move, don't move. Oh, okay, nobody's here." Why? You're dying to use it. You're dying to use your body. You spent so much money on this thing. You went to the gun range. You hit the bullseye 18 times in a row. It becomes an obsession.

1:07:46It becomes an obsession. Gun accidents only happen in houses that have guns. Again, the accidents with guns, the shootings that happen in schools, what do they all have in common? It's a house that owns a gun. It's not somebody that bought a gun on the street. You're never gonna hear that some gangster accidentally shot up a school. accidentally even shot himself. You're never gonna hear that they do whatever they're doing intentionally. There's no accidents, but you can hear the accidents in the legal one. Why? Because he doesn't know how to use it, but he's dying to use it, and he's obsessed with it. Same thing with the kids that go crazy and start shooting up schools and They go, they’re dying to use it. They saw it. Their dad owns it. They want to play with it. They want to see it. When their parents are not there, maybe their dad went on vacation. They go into the safe. They open the gun. Oh, you want to go to the gun range? You want to go to the backyard? They start shooting something. Next thing you know, they shoot a person.

1:08:50So, can you? Yes. You are allowed to own a gun. Should you? No. So, again, you can take that as, if you want my advice, obviously no. But, again, you're allowed. Yes. Transfer the mic. Oh, you have a mic. I want to go back to the topic about not damaging your body or hurting yourself. I have a question about driving. And I know you want to go from point A to point B. But even if you're the best driver in the world, there could always be that one person to mess it up and put your life in danger. I want to hear your answer on this. You're asking me why we're allowed to drive if there's danger? Yeah. No, we're not saying that you're not allowed to be in danger. You're always in danger. Right now, you're sitting here, there's a danger. If you go outside, there's a danger. You go to the bathroom, there's a danger. There's a danger simply to exist in the world. But there's also a likelihood. How likely is this danger? How common is this danger? What are you doing to mitigate the danger? What are you doing to increase the danger? This is what we're talking about. If you're doing something that simply has a much higher likelihood of ending up in a dangerous way, in a bad way,

1:10:11Okay, and you're not doing anything to mitigate it. You're simply going into the danger. You're going into the war without a gun. That's just simply foolish, but if you're just living and to get from point A to point B, whether you use a donkey or a horse, or you walk, or you drive a car, or you use a plane, these are all common forms of transportation. Yes, there's a danger to them, but it's, number one, less likely. Two, you're going with the norm. There's a norm. There's an accepted norm and an accepted way of communication, an accepted way of transportation, an accepted way of doing things. So you're just following the norm. You're not doing something that's outside of the norm. Skydiving has never been and will never be the norm because it's an extracurricular activity. It's something people do for a rush. It's not something that people do to get to work. No one gets to work skydiving unless you're a skydiver, right? Okay, people, you know, transport in different ways. So that's the thing. It's not something that you're, it's an addition to life. It's not something that's part of a normal life. Yeah, back. Is somebody, oh, next to you. Oh, next to you, right there. Yeah, he is.

1:11:30Okay. Hello? Yes. If we could go back to the 13 principles, we said that one of them is that the Torah will never change. Yes. But isn't there an idea, like a concept of Hora'at Sha'ah, like a specific rule that's enacted for a temporary amount of time, and it's not something, it's like a change, isn't it? No, it's not a change. It's that there's a special circumstance where, for example, Hashem will send a prophet to tell the nation to do something just for today. Just for today because there's a special circumstance. So there's a permission from the Torah to change it on that one day. That one day, that one circumstance, one time. Not permanently. Even if Moshe Rabbeinu comes and he says, you know what, guys, from now on there's no more Shabbat. Even though he's the prophet of all prophets, we're forbidden from listening to him for such a thing. Because that would be a permanent change. Hora'at sha'ah is a one-time change because of a special exception.

1:12:31And that exception is a rule in the Torah as well. That halacha is in the Torah. It says, yes, there is a one-time exception that you can get from the prophet, and that's acceptable. But if there's a prophet, even if it's the biggest prophet, but he gives you a permanent change, that you're not allowed to do, and actually you have to kill the prophet because he becomes a navi sheker. Because what Hashem said, the Torah will never change permanently. There will be one-time changes that have happened throughout history, but no permanent changes. Good question. Next. In the back, you had a skydiver over there. Give me another question. Give me another question. Go ahead. I just searched on Google right now, and I read that skydiving, you have a 0.00007% chance of dying. You're more likely to get hit by lightning while skydiving than actually dying. You can always find a heter. I mean, you're saying that skydiving is an extracurricular activity to give you a rush. You could say the same thing about sports. It's an obsession. And we spoke about sports last week. Yeah, I was there, but... So, were you listening? If there's no risk of dying, though, what's the problem with it? I mean, like, it's a very, very low risk of dying. Okay, so... You're not putting... You are putting your life in danger, but you're not going to die. I mean, you're more likely... That's it.

1:13:59I mean, out of three million people that went skydiving, only like a handful of them died. So, more people die smoking cigarettes. In the long term, if you smoke cigarettes, you're gonna get cancer or something, but one time, like with skydiving, I don't see a problem with it. Here's the thing. Can you find leniencies to go skydiving? I'm sure you can. you can find a heter to go skydiving. Is that going to be a universal opinion? No. Is that going to be the majority opinion? No. Is that going to be a suggestion even from the ones that are giving you a leniency that you're allowed? No. No normal person will ever tell you this is a recommended thing to do. And trust me when I tell you, right now you're young, you're probably in your teens still, right? 16, 17, 18, 19, something around that age. I'm not trying to disrespect your age, I just don't know what it is, I'm guessing. You're a teenager at this point probably, right?

1:15:01about you know you have to be embarrassed, yes or no? Yes, okay. Now, when you get to my age and you have a few kids and one of your kids says, "Abba, I want to go skydiving," you're going to go with that, right? And that right is going to match his face so quickly he's going to forget how to spell skydiving. Why? Well, your parents have to come to the issue. Your parents have to come to the issue. Why? Because no normal parent will want their kid to take a risk. No parent will do it unless they're ignorant of the risk. Unless they're ignorant of the risk, again. Can you find a leniency? Yes. Should you simply risk your life for no reason? No. Why do people do it anyway? The Rambam writes in Hilchot Deot... that wasting seed is the biggest addiction that exists in the world. But it only exists in the minds of people that are empty of Torah. But I could tell you, wait a minute, Rambam, I know you're the Rambam from 900 years ago, but I have, Baruch Hashem, almost 30 hours of material about wasting seed on the internet.

1:16:19And many people contact me from all over the world because they have this addiction, and they watch this shiur, and they realize this is a critical problem. If you want Olam HaBa, you cannot waste seed. If you don't want Olam HaBa, continue doing it as much as you want. But if you want to go to Gan Eden, stop. If you want to go to Gehinnom, continue. That's simply what the Torah says. But the Rambam says, wait a minute, the only people that are addicted are people that are empty of Torah. Wait a minute, I have many people that are not empty of Torah. actually learn. I actually have one guy; he's about to finish Shas, but he's addicted to wasting seed. How could this be? He's about to finish Shas. If you're like an average person, it takes you seven years to finish it. If you're better than average, half that time. If you're much better than average, it could be a month. It depends on how big you are in Torah. Point is, it takes a while. It's the most difficult part of the Torah. You finish Shas; you're already considered almost a Talmid Chacham. So how could it be that somebody, I have rabbis contact me and tell me, "I'm addicted to wasting seed"? I have a guy almost finished Shas, says, "I'm addicted to wasting seed." What happened? So how come the Rambam says you're empty, your mind is empty? How could it be? Rabotai, just because you learn a few books doesn't mean that you apply them to your life. When the Rambam says they're empty, their minds are empty, he's not saying they're stupid. He's not saying they're ignorant.

1:17:44He's saying their minds are empty, meaning that they're not learning Torah deeply enough to the point of application, to the point where it's constantly on their mind. What they learned, how to apply it, how can I use it, what can I... hash out of this and give a chiddush. Is there a chiddush to me? Did I understand it appropriately? Did I understand it inappropriately? Is there a different commentary, a different opinion? If you're learning Torah seriously, your mind is constantly, constantly working. But if you're just reading books for pleasure, then you're still an empty mind, even if you're learning the Shas. Which means, rabotai, that when somebody is looking for that rush, it's only because the mind is not occupied with enough Torah. It's not occupied with enough Torah. Because if you learn Torah seriously, I promise you, it's the greatest rush in the world. It's the greatest thing you could ever have. It's much more pleasing than jumping out of planes or riding bicycles or motorcycles or anything else. You can do those things, but don't make your life about that.

1:18:55Some people just want to take a vacation. You want to go on a boat. You want to go rafting. You want to go, I don't know, swim. Whatever it is you want to do. There's no problem doing that stuff. But don't make it your life. Don't become obsessed with those things. And definitely don't take abnormal risks. The bigger the risk, the more of a lacking in Torah and mashma'ut (significance) you have. That's usually what happens. One of the things I could mention last about the skydiving issue is the fact that skydiving doesn't have a lesser likelihood of, or higher likelihood of, who's gonna die, who's not gonna die. Why? Because the ones that die could be rookies, but could also be the best ones. I remember seeing a documentary recently, a short documentary, where the best skydiver in the world died. ...best one. He was, uh, with a little Superman suit or something like that, and he was jumping from mountain to mountain. He was the best. He had all types of moves and all types of, uh, sponsorships. He was the best, and the best, and the best, and he died. So if the best in it died, that means it's a little riskier than just 0.0003 out of, uh, three million. That's what you have to think about. Yes...

1:20:17Is it allowed? Yes. Is paintball allowed? Yes. Especially since you have protection and you're not trying to hurt anybody. Yeah, there's no problem with it. Usually, you wear some gear to protect yourself. Yeah, I mean, you're allowed to have fun. You're allowed to enjoy yourself. You're allowed to play basketball. You're allowed to play soccer. You're pretty much allowed to do almost everything. But there's a time and a place for it. understand, and also don't make it your life. That's pretty much what it is. Exercise is allowed, sports are allowed, but don't make it your life. Don't make it an obsession. Make it something that's part of the things you do for fun, but it's not something that is your life. Like when somebody asks you, "What do you do? Who are you? How do you describe yourself?" That sport or that activity should not be part of that description. It should simply be part somewhere in the list as a hobby, something I like to do, but it shouldn't describe who you are. And that's the problem with sports and things of that nature in Western society, and also in the East as well, that people have made sports into such an obsession that they watch it, they listen to it, they play it, they think about it, and they forget that they're even supposed to learn Torah. Yes?

1:21:46Anybody have the microphone? I have somebody behind you. Yes. Thank you, Joshua and Tzaddik. If what you're saying is true, how come you've said in the past that for a guy like the Chafetz Chaim, playing basketball would be a waste of time, or going to a water park would be a waste of time? It's a waste of time for everybody, but it's allowed. Again, like I said, there's allowed and there's not allowed, and then there's recommended and there's not recommended. Is someone like the Chafetz Chaim allowed to exercise? Yes. Should he spend three hours a day in a gym? No, it would be considered Bitul Torah. Because he's the Chafetz Chaim. If somebody has dedicated their life to Torah, they have a higher standard than someone that hasn't. If, for example, you study Torah two hours a day, and you want to exercise for two hours a day, that's not really a problem. But if somebody that studies 15 hours a day wants to, instead of studying 15 hours a day and exercising an hour, switch it and exercise for 15 hours and study for an hour, that's a sin from the Torah. So you understand? It all depends on who is doing what.

1:23:01But when somebody is like the Chafetz Chaim, when somebody is a big talmid chacham, somebody is dedicated to Torah, their standard is higher. But also, those people don't become the Chafetz Chaim by going to the gym, or skydiving, or rafting, or doing any of that stuff. You become the Chafetz Chaim by simply sacrificing your body, by sitting constantly or standing constantly in front of the Torah and learning day and night. That's what you do in order to become somebody big. You want to be big in Torah, you want to have significance in this world and the next, you have to sacrifice your body by learning Torah. You want to sacrifice your life for sports, for pleasure, I promise you that you'll regret it. Not because you're going to get injured or even worse, but because you're going to realize one day that it was all for naught. It was all for nothing. Nobody leaves this world saying, "Wow, I wish I played more basketball." Wow, I wish I would have kicked that ball twice instead of once. Wow, I wish I would have jumped out of the plane one more time. Nobody leaves this world with that in mind. Nobody. But I promise you, every single human being, Jew or not, leaves this world thinking, I wish I would have done more good things.

1:24:23I wish I would have done more mitzvot. I wish I would have done something more significant. Why? Because that will be something I can take with me. Even if you're the best basketball player in the world, best skydiver in the world, best whatever, arm wrestler in the world. At some point, you're gonna be a has-been. At some point, no one's gonna care, including yourself. Why? Because you simply wasted 20, 30 years playing with a leather ball and throwing it into some hoop or kicking it into some net or throwing it to some other monster, hoping that he's gonna catch it or drop it or kick it or do something with it. And it's of zero value when it comes to life. It's of zero value when it comes to your intellectual life. It's of zero value when it comes to your emotional life. It's of zero value when it comes to your spiritual life. It's of literally zero value. In fact, it's of such insignificant value that no one ever misses the games they played in the past. No one ever says, "You know what? I wish I was in that game again."

1:25:34No one enjoys the game they already played. You don't get a second joy out of it. You played. You had fun throwing the ball. You had fun kicking the ball in the net, and you actually got a goal. You had fun. But that fun ended at that moment. That's it. You will never ever have fun from that moment again. You will never benefit from that moment again. It ends at that moment. That insignificant fun ends. Which means... that at some point you're gonna say, "Wow, what did I do with my life?" So you lived 80 years. A quarter of it you slept. More, almost 33% of it you slept. So already out of 80 years, 25 years you slept. The first 15, 20 years you almost forgot. Part of it you were sick, part of it you were working. In reality, how much life did you really live? How much life did you really live? Out of 80 years, you slept for 25 years. So that left you 55. The first 10 years you don't even remember. So that left you 45. Then you work eight, nine hours a day. That takes another 25 years out of your life.

1:26:58So what time did you actually have in your life? So you had, let's see, what, 10 years, 20 years to do whatever it is. You had to go to the bathroom too. You had to eat also. So then you deduct that. What do you have left? 10 years, 15 years, eight years. What do you have left? So that 10 years that you have, you want to go and say, wow, I spent the best years of my life jumping out of planes. What are you gonna say with that time that you spent? What benefit did you get out of it? Okay, so you got the one moment benefit, the one minute you kicked the ball, the one minute you threw the ball, fine. But is it of any value again? No, you had fun for one second, out of an hour of playing, out of a week of training, one minute of fun, that's it. On the other hand, you learn something. You learn Torah, you learn a verse in the Torah. You could benefit from understanding that verse countless times for eternity.

1:28:01Not just this life. You understand one verse of the Torah. You read the commentary about it from all the mefarshim. You understand what this verse means. You're going to keep re-understanding this verse in different ways, in different ways to apply it. You could reuse this little bit of knowledge of one verse in the Torah. We're not even talking about the entire body of Torah, the entire Shas, the entire Chumash, the entire Shulchan Aruch, sifrei tzaddikim mussar. One verse! you take that one verse, you remember it, you start learning what the gedolim say about it. you learn how to apply it, you can use this verse to build an empire. Whether in your family, or in your business, or just generally, you could do a lot of things with it. Plus, every second you use it, you get rewarded from Heaven for it. This means that the amount of benefit that you will get from that one little bit of knowledge of Torah, you can re-benefit from it endless amounts of times.

1:29:07The soccer ball, jumping out of a plane the last 30, 40 seconds, a minute and a half, that's it, finished. That's it, that's the only fun you're ever gonna have. What person that knows what I just said and actually thinks about it will still choose to jump out of a plane or even waste a minute more than necessary not learning Torah? So why do so many people not learn Torah? Because they never think about this stuff. They ask a question, but they leave before I give the answer. They ask a question, but they leave before I give the answer. Ask the question, listen to the rest of the answer. I know the answer takes a while, but that's because it's a serious question. What should I do with my life? Should I kick balls? Should I jump out of planes? Should I go, I don't know, shopping in malls for fun? What should I do with my life? Why should I stand in front of a sefer all day? Why? Why should I even stand in front of a sefer for an hour a day? Why? How does that compare in comparison to the ball and the plane and everything else? You see it.

1:30:08You think about it, wait a minute. Okay, even if I'm the best, I play for a whole hour. Out of that hour, what's the best time? After they declare you won. That moment where they say you won, here's the trophy, here's the participation award, whatever it is, here you go. That moment of fun, that's it. How long is that gonna last? A minute, two minutes, five minutes, let's even say an hour. Let's say you enjoyed every minute of the hour you played. But that's it, it ends. never going to re-enjoy that minute again. It ends. You can reminisce about it all you want; it's still not the same thing. You're enjoying something else now. But this insight that you have, this true wisdom that you have from the Torah, the benefits that you can get from it are simply endless. Simply endless. And I promise you that when push comes to shove The only regret you're going to have is that you didn't learn more verses from the Torah. More masechtot from the Torah. More se'ifim in the Torah. More perakim in the Torah. More different parts of the Torah. That's going to be your regret. You're not going to regret that you didn't throw a ball. You're not going to regret that you didn't do a wheelie in the middle of the street. You're not going to regret that you didn't have a bicycle. You're not going to regret any of that stuff.

1:31:28That's what the Yetzer Hara wants you to think—that you're going to regret not jumping and not flying and not doing all that stuff. Because that's his job: to put a hurdle in front of you. But if you ever spend the time and invest into your own neshama to think about what you're doing and why you're doing what you're doing, you'll always arrive at the same conclusion we just did. Always. 100% of the time. If you allow yourself to get there. But if you don't allow yourself to get there, you're going to continue being a child for 80 years. I know guys that are in their 40s and 50s. They still act like children. Only now they're not cute. You know, when you're a kid, no matter what Yehoshua does, he's always going to be cute right now. Why? He's nine years old. He's a tzaddik. He's learning Torah. He took more notes than the rest of you clowns. Look, he's actually learning in the shul and he's cute at the same time. Nine years old, and he has more notes than the rest of you clowns. Old people don't take notes. I tell you to take notes every week. Nobody takes notes. But Yehoshua listens. So he's not only a talmid chacham and a tzaddik, he's also cute. But guess what? You guys are not cute. Why? You're old. You're old. You're not cute anymore. So if Yehoshua does something else, if he didn't write notes, if he did something else, it'd still be cute because he's nine. And he's cute. You guys do something, I'm going to yell at you. Why? Because you're not nine. You're 30. You're 40. You're 50. Get a job. Do something. Go learn. Do something useful with your life. You bum.

1:32:49you're old. I know guys, they're older than me even. They're still going to Cancun for vacation. They still go hang out with girls in clubs. They have a kid with a couple of different wives. They don't even know who's who and what's what. And guess what? They're the most miserable people on the planet, looking to constantly find significance and importance and something to do, constantly looking for a new game, a new toy. Oh, I'm gonna save all my money for six months, for what? To go to the casino, to go on vacation in the middle of some ocean somewhere, to go buy this car that I'm only gonna drive an hour a day. to buy this piece of jewelry that I'll only wear for events once or twice in my life. They have a $50,000 watch that sits in a safe all year. He has a million-dollar house that he's in only for an hour a day. Why? Because the other time he's there, he's sleeping. The rest of the time, he's working nonstop. But he spent his life savings to build that, to get a house for a million dollars, $2 million.

1:34:03They're constantly looking for things of significance, of value, to fill up that void, that empty spot. But guess what? It'll never be filled. Because as long as you're trying to fill that neshama with material, you will not only be empty, you'll get emptier. Because you'll realize over time that all of it was hevel, all of it was completely useless. And now there are consequences. So one guy that's been acting like a child for already 50 years, he actually has a kid. And his kid has now become a teenager. And she told him, "Dad, don't call me anymore." "Why? Why can't I call you anymore? You're my daughter." "What? I'm embarrassed of you." The kid is embarrassed of the father. You know why the kid's embarrassed of the father? Because the kid lives in a religious house, has purpose to her life, but the father still acts like a clown. He still goes to clubs. He's 50 years old, for heaven's sake. He still goes to clubs with 18, 19, 20-year-olds. He still goes to pool clubs in Vegas.

1:35:25The kid says, Dad, listen, I'm embarrassed of you. You have to grow up. You have to grow up. You have a new girlfriend every week. It's embarrassing. It's embarrassing. And guess what? He wants to kill himself now. Why? Because he realizes his whole life is purposeless. By who? Who taught him this? He didn't want to learn from Hashem. He didn't want to learn from the rabbis. Who did he learn from? He learned from his own kid. He learned from a 15-year-old kid. 14-year-old kid. realizes life is completely meaningless. So that's it. That's the thing that people, if anyone thought about the purpose of their life and what's going to happen in the end, you will always arrive at the same conclusion that we just discussed. Always. You're never going to arrive at a different conclusion. It's just that the problem is that people don't think about it. They think about things for the moment. They want to get the rush for the moment. They want to get excited for the moment. And eventually, they realize that it really was a waste of time. Next, there are two different kinds of fear. There's Yirat Shamayim, and then there's sometimes the fear that the Satan tries to take advantage of. How can one identify when it's a good fear and when it's a bad fear?

1:36:46There are levels of Yirat Shamayim, not different types of Yirat Shamayim. There are levels of Yirat Shamayim. The lowest level of Yirat Shamayim, the lowest level of fear, is fear of punishment. The highest level of fear is fear of the majesty of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, the significance where you're afraid of ruining the relationship. You're afraid of tarnishing the relationship you have with HaKadosh Baruch Hu. That's the highest level of fear. then there's fear of being punished. Now, as far as being afraid, there is a good fear and a bad fear. The key is to understand that you're supposed to utilize fear to connect to Hashem and to constantly improve on your understanding of what you're afraid of in order to connect to Hashem even deeper and increase that fear. Now, part of it is to know how to deal with the pressure that's put on you, which, for example, is the Satan. Satan is going to constantly put pressure on you to go away from Hashem; that's his job. His job is to constantly challenge you, so you have to constantly look for him in every corner. You're not necessarily, per se, scared of the Satan; you're scared of how you're going to react to his trap.

1:38:09Now, it says in the Gemara in several places that Satan had a few friends. Who were these friends? The tzaddikim. He was friends with them. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi was friends with him. He was friends with Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi. Yeah, but Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi was a righteous person. Shouldn't he be like enemies? No. Satan likes tzaddikim. He loves tzaddikim. He hates sinners. hates sinners. So how come he was, but he's the one that caused him to sin? No, he didn't cause you to sin. He did his job. Hashem sent him to put pressure on you to see whether you love Hashem or not, whether you connect to Hashem or not. He's doing his job. He's not getting punished for doing his job. He's doing a job. He's putting a trap for you. If you pay attention, you'll skip the trap. You'll go around it. You'll jump over it. You're not going to fall into it. If you're not paying attention, you fall into the trap. Oh, you fall into the trap, you're mine now. Why? Because that's my job, the Satan says. That's my job. But if you're a tzaddik, ah, then you're just like me, the Satan says. Why? I'm a servant of Hashem, you're a servant of Hashem. We're just the same. So we're peers now. We're peers. So the Satan loves tzaddikim, hates resha'im. Why? Because they keep falling for the trap, and they keep...

1:39:25Disrespecting his boss. Who's his boss? HaKadosh Baruch Hu. So now, Rabotai HaYekarim, it's not the Satan that's necessarily the enemy. It's you falling for it. In essence, we are our own worst enemy. The Satan is just there to do his job. I remember earlier part of my teshuva, I used to curse the Satan on a regular basis. I used to pray for him to die. I used to pray for him to do this, all types of things. And then eventually, I learned a little bit of Torah and I realized that I'm an idiot. Why? Not only is he simply doing his job, but by actually speaking against him specifically, you're enticing him to do even worse to you. What do you think you're going to win by cursing him? So, it's not a good idea. The point is to learn Torah. Therefore, you'll be able to identify where the trap is. Because by learning Torah, you'll find, and by retrospecting and introspecting and looking at things, seeing what's in the Torah, and then looking at yourself. Seeing what's in the Torah, then looking at yourself. Seeing what's in the Torah, then looking at yourself. You see, oh, I got this. Oh, I'm missing this one. I got this one. I'm missing five. I'm missing ten. I'm missing twelve. Okay, I gotta fix something. I'm missing some stuff. I'm gonna start fixing it.

1:40:43So by now, doing this introspection and applying the Torah that you're learning, you're going to learn how to overcome the trap. You're going to learn how to overcome the trap. And the Satan is not going to be such a big problem for you. In fact, he's going to help you get to a higher level of servitude of Hashem. The Satan is there to help you get to a higher level of servitude of Hashem. He is the pressure. If it wasn't for the Satan, you'd simply have no purpose in life. He's the one that puts pressure on you. He puts the trap there. If there's no trap, there's no hurdle, then of course you're going to pass. Why should you get rewarded for it then? But we're not supposed to cheer for him either. We're not supposed to say, "Oh, Satan, come for me." Why? Because he'll eat you alive. Again, he has a job. So, the point is, everybody's got a job. If we focus on our job... We'll do perfectly fine. We'll learn Torah. We'll see where the trap is. Once in a while, we'll fall, but then we'll get up. We'll use that fall to get even higher. We'll understand that each time we overcome the Satan, we're getting a bigger reward. The bigger the Satan, the bigger the reward. The bigger the pressure, the bigger the reward. The bigger the obstacle, the bigger the reward. The bigger the eventual thing that you're going to get that's good for you.

1:42:02And you're not going to get a participation award. You're going to get a winner's award. Why? Because you won the battle of life. But if we don't learn Torah, or if we learn Torah but don't apply it, then what's going to end up happening is that we're going to see that we literally fell for every single trap that the Satan gave us, and none of the excuses that we have will matter even a single inch in Shamayim. will punish us for every single mistake we made because we did not apply ourselves. He gave us an instruction set, and we didn't apply it. He gave us the open book on how to pass the test, and you chose not to follow it. The obstacle was part of the reason; that's the point of the test. That's the test. So, if you apply yourself, you do your best, you win. You don't do your best, you lose. Simple. Pass the mic. So then, if you kill the Satan completely, you have no purpose in life? Like your life has no purpose? In the Messianic era, when the Satan is destroyed completely, what's going to be the purpose of life? Because then we can serve Hashem in a different way. Once the Satan...

1:43:25His job will be destroyed. He will no longer have the role of putting obstacles in front of us because that will no longer be part of the reason for the world. We're no longer going to need to fulfill mitzvot by overcoming our desires. At the time of Moshiach, the Satan will be relieved from his role. And we will also have a different role. We're going to be able to learn Torah that we cannot learn now. It's not available to us. We're going to be able to have a certain closeness to HaKadosh Baruch Hu that we cannot have at this point. Also, our role will change. Not that our purpose changes, but how we fulfill our purpose. Our purpose always remains the same, which is to serve Hashem. That's our purpose. As long as a soul exists, its purpose is to serve Hashem. And the key is to understand that you need to find a way to serve Hashem under all circumstances. Meaning, if Hashem gave you money, you have to serve Hashem with your money.

1:44:38By using that money to publicize Torah. If Hashem gave you sickness, then you have to find a way to serve Hashem through your sickness by overcoming that pain and still studying Torah and using that as an influence to encourage other people. Listen, I studied even though I was sick. What's your excuse? What's your excuse? Taking that sickness with happiness. Why? Because you know that somehow it's good for you. Using that sickness to your advantage as a way to serve Hashem. If Hashem gave you a wife, use that to your advantage. Serve Hashem with your wife. Bring tzaddikim to the world. Bring tzaddikot to the world. Don't just have it for looks. You have a husband? Serve Hashem with your husband. How? By encouraging your husband to learn Torah. Because that way, there's more mitzvot. He's going to teach you. He's going to learn himself. The kids are going to know Torah. You don't have a husband? Serve Hashem that way also. Why? By saying, "Hashem, no matter what you give me, I'm going to serve you no matter what. If I'm single, I'm going to serve you to the best that I can. If I'm married, I'll serve you to the best that I can. Whatever tools you give me, I'll serve you to the best that I can." The problem is, Rabotai, that we...

1:45:50fall for our own trap sometimes. The yetzer hara doesn't even have to do anything; sometimes the yetzer hara simply is just sitting there watching us fail ourselves. Why? Because we don't want our role; we want somebody else's role. What is that like? Somebody one time was a very rich guy who used to give money to different parts of Torah. Kohl's and so on and so forth. But one day he decided that's it. I've worked enough. I've made the money. I'm gonna go learn now. That's it. He decided from now on I'm gonna be a Talmid Chacham, and all day, all night, I'm gonna learn. And he started going to shul, and he's learning, and he's learning, and he's learning, and he's learning, and he's learning. He stopped working. He stopped working. You can't get stuck anymore. So he stopped learning, and he's learning, and he's learning, and A bit of time passes, and the community starts to feel it. David wasn't getting any money anymore from this guy. Of course, Hashem sends it in different ways, but it was supposed to come in a certain way. It's not coming from a certain way, but this guy feels he's a tzaddik. He's a tzaddik. Why? I'm learning to honor. A short period of time passes. It comes to Yom Kippur. Everybody prays. Everybody's crying. Now there's the break of the day. Comes the break of the day.

1:47:16usually like an hour or two break during the day before you go to Ne'ilah and you finish the prayer for Yom Kippur. So during that break, everybody—some people study, some people rest. This guy, he's learning, he's learning and he's praying in a shul. He's proud of himself. Why? Two months ago he was a businessman. Now, he's coming, he's only learning. Comes the Chafetz Chaim... looks at him and says, "Why are you wasting your time? You're not going to go to Gan Eden anyway." "What? Rabbi, no, I'm learning Torah. We're not learning Christianity. I'm learning Torah. I'm trying to be..." "You? You're a thief." "No, Rabbi, I'm learning. I'm trying to do... Everything's good." "No, no, you're a thief, you." "Why am I a thief?" he says. "Listen," You've already spent the last 40 or 50 years being a businessman. You learned a little Torah along the way, you did mitzvot during that time, but most critically, you are also the gevir, you are also the guy that financed the Torah and the mitzvot of the community. The kollel was depending on you, a few avreichim were depending on you. You are the guy!

1:48:41You were the guy, everybody knew. Oh, there's a new thing, the guy needs money for the chag, they go to you. A guy needs money to get married, they go to you. Now, you all of a sudden decided, no, no, no, I don't want to be the funder anymore. I want to be, that's not your role in life, my friend. Hashem gave you money, Hashem gave you a business, that's your role in life. Use that role to serve Hashem. No one says don't study. But you're not allowed to suddenly just stop. Abandon 20-30 families that depend on you because you suddenly want to be "Tommy"? Come on. But if you continue, no problem. I just want you to know that Hashem does count you as a thief. You're not a tzaddik. Why? Because you're not serving Hashem with the tools He gave you. He gave you tools; you serve with those tools. That's the problem sometimes. Sometimes we think that we're too clever. We want to do something else. We want to get out of our own...

1:49:41No one says don't study. No one says don't work. No one is saying these things. But you have to know your role. You have a role in life. You have a gift. HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave you a gift. Probably more than one. Probably more than two. Probably more than five. Each one of us has certain gifts. Each one of us has certain talents. Each one of us has certain things. Whatever you have, use that to serve HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Don't use his skills; use your skills. Don't use his money; use your money. Don't try to be something that you're not. You got something; you got a certain position; do that, but serve Hashem through that too. use that to serve HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Don't use his skills; use your skills. Don't use his money; use your money. Don't try to be something that you're not. You got something; you got a certain position; do that, but serve Hashem through that too. Don't try to be, unless what you're doing is not allowed. Obviously, if you're doing something that's not allowed, that's not what Hashem wants. I'm talking about if you're doing something that's allowed. If you're doing something that's allowed, serve Hashem that way. But the point is, Rabotai, that many times people fail not because they weren't given the tools, not because they weren't even given the knowledge. It's that they misuse the gifts that HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives them.

1:50:53They misuse the gifts that HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives them. HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave them a voice, and instead of being a chazan who encourages the kehillah to pray in a beautiful and meaningful way, what do they do? They want to be a singer for some rock and roll band. They want to be a rapper. They want to bust some rhymes. So they get bling bling on their hand and act like 50 Cent. They want to do that. Hashem gave you a voice, not to be a goy, not to be an idol worshiper. Hashem gave you a voice to honor Him with that voice. He gives a woman looks, gives her beauty. What does she do? She wants to show it to every average Joe. Instead of honoring her husband, letting him know, "You're the only one that's allowed to look at my beauty." That's it. The best everybody else can get is just my face. That's it. No one else is allowed to see anything else. Instead of using that beauty as a gift that HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave her to give her husband, what does she do? She gives it to every Shmo in the streets. Everybody can see it. Every Shmo can see it. Every Jose can see it. Every Joe can see it. She's misusing that gift.

1:52:11A guy was given the gift of gab, the ability to speak. He speaks shtuyot, he lies, he cheats, he manipulates people. He makes sales of fake products. So, you have to use your gift appropriately. You have to use your gift appropriately. But again, it's very, very important to know, number one, who you are. but also have somebody confirm it with you. That's why the Mishnah in Avot says, already in the sixth Mishnah, in the first Perek, "Aseh lecha Rav." Why? That Rav is going to direct you, and that Rav is going to let you know whether you're going in the right path or the wrong path, whether you're being honest with yourself or you're simply living an illusion. I have at least one Mashiach per week now. One Mashiach per week sends me a text message. I don't go along with the show. I let people know that they're delusional. I let people know that they're mentally sick. Or I just completely ignore them. I don't play along just to see what they say. Maybe it's true. That's complete nonsense. But people are so delirious sometimes that they literally think of themselves as Mashiach.

1:53:33They don't know Aleph Bet, but they think they're Mashiach. They've never even, they don't know what the Shas is. I've said Shas five times in this lecture. They still have no idea what I'm saying. They have no idea what the Shas is, but they think they're Mashiach. Sfat HaKodesh, Sfat HaKodesh, they already get into a stump in Bereishit. The first word, they're not really sure. What does it mean? Why is that? Why is that? They're not sure what to do. They don't know anything but think they're Mashiach. Why? They don't like their role in life, whatever that role is. They want to be the leader. They want everybody else to follow them. They want everybody else to just do whatever they say. This is a delusional person. It's like a person that's a drunk. And we have to not be drunks. We have to be honest with ourselves. We have our Torah, we have our laws, we have our obligations. Each person needs to follow what the Torah says. Use your gifts, use your talents. Don't try to do something else. I also have this issue where every other day somebody tells me, "I want to be a speaker too."

1:54:50i want to be a speaker also. i watch a few of your shiurim. i watch Rabbi this. i watch Rabbi that. i want to be a speaker too. why you announcing it to me, i don't know. but people tell me, i want to be a speaker also. okay, be a speaker. you need permission from me? go be a speaker. i want to be a speaker. i want to be a speaker. okay, be a speaker then. yeah, i want to do kiruv. okay, go do kiruv. what am i, the kiruv organization of the world? there's no license? go do it. do it. go. Go do it. Oh, no, but it's hard. Oh, really? Thanks for letting me know. Oh, how do I get people to come? Can you send people to me? How do I get funding? How do I get this? How do I get that? Do I work for you now? I want to be a speaker. I want to be this. Can you organize an event for me? People are delirious. People are simply delirious. One person told me a few weeks ago, if I was a speaker, I'd do a much better job than you. I said, "Perfect, go be a speaker today. Go. Go for it." "No, I don't know if I want to do it though." People are simply delirious. Simply delirious. They always want what somebody else is doing because they're not happy with themselves. This is a mind that's empty of Torah. Use the tools you have. Use the Torah.

1:56:13And fulfill your purpose that way. Next question. Almost done. If everybody has a different purpose in life, and it's not everybody's purpose to be a talmid chacham, how did all the talmidei chachamim know that that was their purpose before they became talmidei chachamim? Everybody can become a talmid chacham. The question is, are you willing to make the sacrifices to do it? You know yourself. Now, everybody can be. doesn't mean that everybody will be, doesn't mean that everybody should be aspiring to become so. You know yourself. You know how much you can study. You know how much you're willing to sacrifice. You know yourself. You simply know. Everybody knows themselves. Everybody knows where they are a winner and where they are a loser. Everybody knows. Everybody knows that. It's a reality that you could hide from everybody else except yourself. So, if a person is not even debating whether they're going to be a Talmid Chacham or not, they simply are aspiring to do it, and they're doing—not willing to do—they're doing everything possible to acquire as much Torah as possible.

1:57:41In order to know Torah, whether they end up becoming a real Talmid Chacham or not is not necessarily an aspiration for them. They just want to know as much Torah as possible. Why? Because they want to serve HaKadosh Baruch Hu. So, they wake up in the morning with excitement to learn Torah. Not excitement to go make money, not excitement to go sell baseball cards or play with baseball cards or play basketball or play in a band or write articles for some newspaper. No, they're aspiring to learn Torah constantly. At every moment that they have, their ideal of fun is to learn more Torah. Their idea of a good time is to learn more Torah. Their idea of a vacation is to learn Torah. Talmidei Chachamim, when they go on vacation, you know what they do? They learn Torah. That's what they do on vacation. So yeah, they take the family to some place. I don't know, they go to some country, to the mountains, to the hills, whatever. So the family, the family can have fun, the kids can have fun, there's toys, there's friends, there's whatever, all types of kosher fun to do. And they can have peace of mind. To do what? To open a nice Gemara and learn for the next eight hours straight.

1:58:50without the headaches of the boss, without the headaches of the mortgage, without the headaches of the friends, without the headaches of anything, to simply have peace and quiet to learn more Torah. Which means if you want to be a talmid chacham, you have to chase Torah like you would chase gold treasure. That will give you a chance. Not for sure. A chance of being a talmid chacham. When you are simply chasing Torah at every moment, no one has to convince you, no one has to sell you anything. You want it. And you’re doing everything for it. You are literally willing to sacrifice your life in order to learn another minute of Torah. That will give you a chance of possibly being a talmid chacham. Possibly. But as far as a person that just likes to study, but he also likes big houses, nice convertible sports cars, a good $30,000-$40,000 watch on his left hand, maybe a nice diamond bracelet on his right, nice Fendi glasses for $600-$700,

2:00:17Only wears ties that are brand name. Must be fit, so he goes to the gym for at least an hour and a half a day. His body is nice and slim like a Greek statue. Shoes cannot be older than two and a half months, but if there's a scratch on them, they already go in the garbage. And if he doesn't have that stuff, he's aspiring to get that stuff. Anytime he's free, he looks at the magazine of what's the next new fashion, what's the next sport, who's the richest guy in the world, who's making the biggest deals. When he's on his extra time, on his fun time, he's checking the stock market, he's checking finances, he's checking fashion, he's checking everything, but he's not checking Torah. He likes to learn Torah, he likes to come to a shiur, he likes the mental stimulation. That guy will never ever be a Talmid Chacham. He may actually keep some mitzvot, but he'll never be a Talmid Chacham. Even if his IQ is a thousand, he'll never be a Talmid Chacham. Because a Talmid Chacham is not just someone that knows Torah. It's someone that's applying it and someone that's chasing it constantly. There are plenty of people that know some Torah. But to be qualified as a Talmid Chacham, as Da'at Torah, is a life of Mesirat Nefesh.

2:01:33And it's simply toiling and toiling and toiling in Torah for the sake of Torah. Not for the sake of being a Talmid Chacham. Becoming a Talmid Chacham is simply an outcome, an outcome that you get as a present from HaKadosh Baruch Hu for all your toil. It's not a guarantee, and it's definitely not something that just any average Joe can do. Joshua. What is going to be the Satan's new role? He's gonna be a different angel. He's gonna be an angel that has a different way of serving HaKadosh Baruch Hu. As far as what exactly his role is gonna be at that point, I don't know. I don't believe it's written anywhere because the Rambam writes Everything that we know in the Torah tells us about different things that will happen before Mashiach. The fact that there is going to be a war called Gog and Magog, where a certain world leader will fight...

2:02:47and there will be a world war. There's initially going to be a war between Yishmael and Edom, which is the vast majority of the world. They're going to fight each other, then they're going to stop fighting, and then both, Hashem yerachem, they're going to attack Am Yisrael. We know that there's going to be a certain climactic point of this war of Gog and Magog, where two-thirds of the world will die, and the last third will be tested, and only part of them will survive. righteous among them will survive. We know that it's not going to be an easy time, but ultimately it will bring salvation to the righteous. You know, the Mashiach will come, will defeat Gog, will defeat all of the enemies of Israel, and then the righteous among the nations will all, in essence, serve. They'll still exist in the world, but they'll all serve. Israel, they're all gonna be under the leadership of the Mashiach. The Mashiach is not gonna be just the leader of Israel; He's gonna be the king of the world. So that part we know. But also, in the first chapter after the Mashiach and after Gog and Magog are finished, there's going to be a period of time. I believe it's seven years.

2:04:10I believe it's seven years that is going to be undoing the disaster that happened to the world. I believe it's seven years of burying the bodies. This, believe it or not, is actually a reward that Hashem is giving to Edom. Because Edom was one of the sons of Noach, there was Shem, then there was Cham, and there was Yefet. Now, after the Mabul, after Hashem destroyed the world, the only people that were left in the world were Noach, his three sons, and their wives, and then there was Og, Og Melech HaBashan. The giant and the reason why Hashem saved Og is to show people that giants existed, meaning that if He destroyed an entire nation of giants, you could understand that God is bigger than the giants. Og repopulated the world, and there were new giants after that. The point is that those are the people who survived after the destruction.

2:05:33Noah came out of the ark and got drunk after planting some grapes, making wine, and he got drunk. Ham had a son named Canaan, and Canaan raped Noah. he got cursed. But after this happened, when Shem and Yefet found this out, Shem immediately reacted and took a blanket to cover his father. He covered his father. Yefet came a few moments later to help him. He came, he helped, but he came a little bit later, a few moments later.

2:06:35Because of that, HaKadosh Baruch Hu at that moment said to Shem, because you covered Noach, you covered your father, you are going to be a father of a nation that's going to have a mitzvah to cover themselves every day with a tallit. That's why we wear a tallit. Yefet, you're going to be the father of a very powerful nation called Edom. Because you delayed the mitzvah, you also need to give your reward. What's the reward? In 4,000 years from now, when it's going to be the war of Gog uMagog, when your nation is going to go against the nation of Shem, and Shem destroys all your people, I'm going to obligate Shem to bury your bodies, just because you covered your father's body. Your reward, you delayed the mitzvah a little bit, no problem, I'll pay you. Just in 4,000 years from now. 4,000 years from now. So we see that a momentary delay in the servitude of HaKadosh Baruch Hu can carry enormous value, enormous weight. These are some of the things we know about what's going to happen before Mashiach. There's obviously plenty more. There's Rabbi Yeshua Zitron who

2:08:01Rabbi Yeshua Zitron made a whole series, I believe it's maybe a few, five, ten lectures about Mashiach, maybe even more. But generally speaking, the overwhelming majority of the information that we have is about what's going to happen before Mashiach. The Rambam writes, what about after Mashiach? We don't know. We have possibilities, but we don't know for sure. And we're only going to know after Mashiach comes. That's what we know. The reason why I give you this whole long answer is I don't want to leave you empty-handed with nothing. We don't know, and that's it. I give you a bunch of things before Mashiach. After Mashiach, we're only going to find out after the fact. Whether we're going to eat still or not. Whether we're going to reproduce or not. These are questions where there are a couple of opinions. Some people say that we're going to reproduce. Some people say there's no purpose in reproducing; the world reached its climactic point. Some people say we're going to eat. Some people say we're not going to eat. And so on and so forth. There are a lot of different things that are a machloket. And we're only going to know after Mashiach comes. Yes. So I have two questions. The first one is, what's going to be with Canaan? Canaan? Yeah. Canaan is a cursed nation. Canaan is a cursed nation. And he became the slave of the slave. He became the slave of Am Yisrael.

2:09:25When Am Yisrael became slaves in Egypt, eventually Canaan became their slaves. So he's cursed forever. So who's Canaan nowadays? Probably you can find him in different parts of the world, but for certain, we don't know. So where is Gog right now? We don't know for sure who Gog is. We're only going to know once he declares himself as Gog. There are some indications of who’s a possibility, but no one knows for sure. But for certain, it’s going to be a very powerful world leader. There is an opinion that it's someone completely unexpected, but the point is that some people even say it may be an entire nation that's unknown, that no one's ever heard of. But the general opinion is that it will be one of the world powers. It could be America, it could be Russia, it could be, you know, others. But the point is we don't know. We're not going to know until it's time.

2:10:31Once it's Gog, it's already, once Gog is declared and Gog is declared, there's not going to be really many more questions at that point. So, just to clarify, Gog was a giant. No, no, no, Og. These are two different people. Oh, okay. Og was the king of Bashan. He was a giant, was also an enemy of Moshe Rabbeinu. Moshe Rabbeinu killed him. Gog, G-O-G. Og is O-G. He died. He was a king. He died. He got killed. Gog didn't exist yet. Gog exists in the world, but we don't know who he is. But he's only going to be declared as that person once it's, that's it. It's the end. It's not a reincarnation of Og or anything like that. Someone told me that the Mashiach is not going to be married until he's revealed in the world. Is that true? Or do you know? Mashiach is not going to be married. I can't think of a single source that would confirm that.

2:11:45The Mashiach is going to be somebody that's a ben Torah. The Mashiach is going to be somebody that is fulfilling the Torah. One of the ways to fulfill the Torah is to be married, to have children, to sanctify HaKadosh Baruch Hu's name with every opportunity you can. It's hard for me to believe that the Mashiach would be married or not, but it's of no consequential value regardless of whether he is or he isn't. What do we care if he's married or not? We care if, once he's here, hopefully, we're righteous enough for him to save us. That's the only thing that matters. What he looks like, whether he's tall, short, jinji, black hair, None of that stuff is really going to matter. All that's going to matter is did we do enough teshuva that at this point the Mashiach is going to choose us as one of the people he'll save. Was Shlomo HaMelech a jinji? David HaMelech was. David HaMelech was a jinji. I don't know. Doesn't mean that the Mashiach will be just...

2:13:08My point was just simply an example. That's not the stuff really. It's not a nafka mina. Not tall, short, Sephardi, Ashkenazi. None of that stuff is really going to matter. One thing I can tell you for sure is that from all of the sources that I've looked at and different things that I've learned, the Mashiach is definitely going to be a baal teshuva. not necessarily that he was a big sinner and then he did teshuva necessarily. He could be, but he's going to be one of these tzaddikim that's doing teshuva every single day, improving himself every single day. He's going to be one of these very, very pure neshamot that's repurified, refixed, retouched every single day. It's not going to be just your average Joe that perhaps learned a few masechtot. And now he wants to, you know, now he wants to lead the people. Anything else? Thank you for asking all the questions. Baruch Hashem. The next shiur is going to be this Sunday. We'll be back here, Baruch Hashem, for our Bitachon series.

2:14:30There's a few other things that we'll mention over there that we didn't mention today. But Baruch Hashem, we had a lot to offer today. We'll continue learning in a few days. Baruch Adonai Le'olam. Amen ve'Amen.