Gentle Speech Of Protection - MUSSAR Iggeret HaRAMBAN (5)

0:12We're glad to be back here in Aventura. Our program has some new faces, some returning faces, and more people overall. The shiur we had on Sunday was packed. I think we ran out of chairs. So we'll continue doing that and might need to build a second floor. So Tonight, we have the issue of the program where every Tuesday we talk about the Iggeret HaRamban, which is a letter, for anyone who hasn't been here or anyone that has forgotten, that the Ramban (Nachmanides) wrote to his son almost 900 years ago. It contains instructions for life. Now, of course, you can read the entire Torah from Aleph to Tav and get the instructions for life. But most people today

1:12especially the ones that are obligated, like the Jewish people, have never really read the Torah from Aleph to Tav. Most Jewish people haven't read the Torah from the beginning till the end. Some people that read it didn't understand it because they were reading it like they were reading a Harry Potter book. You know, they were reading it like the Christians read it, which is without commentary, trying to rationalize things, which is a mistake because the Torah is not a rational document. Torah is divine. Divine... It's beyond your common sense. So, the Iggeret HaRamban is a much shorter version of the Torah. It's instructions on how to have a good life, but not just in Gan Eden, which is a place that a lot of people have a hard time understanding, rather in this world. So you'll see from the letter that the Ramban wrote clear instructions to his son on what to do and how to do it in order to have a good life. But he doesn't talk about, you know, you ask people today, What do I need in order to have a good life? 99% of people are going to tell you, make a lot of money. Make a lot of money, you'll have a good life. The funny thing is, when I was on Wall Street for almost 20 years, my business was with millionaires. All my customers were millionaires. If you weren't a millionaire, you weren't my customer. Why? You can't make money off of poor people. Unless you're the government. So, if you wanted to be a customer, you had to have at least $500,000 liquid.

2:41meaning $500,000 to play with if you want to be a customer. But that's not the ideal customer. That's the smallest customer. So I dealt with people like that, and I dealt with people who had a billion dollars liquid. Meaning that all my customers were multi-millionaires. And I was my own biggest customer. You know what the funny thing is about millionaires? 99.999% of them are miserable. Even more miserable than the guy that doesn't have a million dollars. Why? Because the guy that's broke The guy who doesn't have any money has hope that one day he's going to have a lot of money and then he's going to be happy. He has a lot of problems right now and he figures money's going to solve all his problems. So he has hope that one day he's going to get a lot of money, he's going to win the lotto, and then he's going to be happy. He has hope. The millionaire has all the money and still has a lot of problems. So he has no hope. Why? Because you cannot become happy from money. Happiness is a spiritual feeling. Happiness is something spiritual. It's not something physical. It's not something tangible. You can't buy happiness.

3:43Even if you buy the fanciest car that you've always wanted, after three months, it's the same thing as a Toyota. It doesn't matter what kind of car. It could be a half a million dollar car, a million dollar car. It doesn't make a difference. After a few months, it's the same thing as any other car. You could buy the nicest house that you saw on TV. 25 rooms, even though you could only sleep in one at a time. 25 rooms. The walls talk to you. There's music coming out of the floor. The chandelier goes up and down just in case you want to see it. Whatever you wanted to do, it's done. After a couple of months, it's the same thing as an apartment over here for $1,000 a month. Why? You go, you open the door, you go to the bathroom, you finish in the bathroom, you go to the kitchen, you take maybe a little burekas with some juice, you eat, you finish, you go to sleep. Same thing. 25 rooms, 2 rooms, 1 room, it's all the same thing. In the end, it's the same thing. Now, most people are not going to believe me because most people haven't had money yet. I'm telling you from experience. I had an apartment on the 35th floor in Manhattan. My balcony, my balcony alone, was 400 square feet. Just a balcony. The apartment itself was 2,000 square feet. And the beauty is that it didn't make me one ounce happier. It doesn't change your happiness. So the Ramban gives his son instructions on how to be happy. He's not telling you to go be broke. He's not telling you to be homeless. He's not telling you anything against money.

5:10He's telling you that it shouldn't be your main ambition in life if you want to have a good life. So this series that we started about this letter a couple of months ago, a month and a half ago, is still in its beginning. We're going to go over some of the beginning steps of it. But I highly recommend that you guys pay attention to it because this could be something that, if you pay attention to every word, even if you apply... Even if you apply 10% of what you remember, it could change your life. Or you could waste your time and just fill in another spot on the check. Now, the time as far as for the kids that are here, you know, for the program, Torah Challenge Program, which is most of you, starts when I start talking, which is now. Not if you came in 15 minutes early while it’s still setting up. It doesn’t start. The idea is to be here as long as possible because First and foremost, being here is going to help your life. Not being here is not going to help your life. Also, we have a raffle for the last couple of times. I think the kids like the raffle that we have. Anybody that stays to the end gets a chance to enter the raffle. Today there's another bag with some more electronic stuff. There's a Bluetooth speaker and some books. Some interesting stuff. Whoever stays at the end will have the opportunity to win the raffle. Enjoy the food.

6:35Enjoy the shiurim, but please do me a favor, pay attention, don't waste your time. If you're already going to be here, HaKadosh Baruch Hu means that He sent you here for a reason. He didn't send you here just to fill in for a chair. So, the biggest issue that we have today in the world, especially in Western society, is that over 80% of couples get divorced. That means that all of you youngsters, if you live a life like most people in America, ...and most people in the world, you're better off not getting married. You're better off not getting married. Why? It's a complete waste of money and time if you're going to live a secular life. Why? There's an 80% chance, 82% chance you're going to get divorced. Meaning, you're more likely to fail than to succeed. What's the point? If somebody told you, "Listen, I have 100 cups. 100 cups, you're thirsty, get a rate, water, whatever you want, 100 cups over here. Hey, have a sip. But before you have a sip, there's a 1% chance, not 80% chance, there's a 1% chance there's poison in one of them." How many of you are going to drink? You're going to take a chance? You're going to take a 1% chance to...

7:58Don't worry, anytime somebody comes in, it's only people, not aliens. You don't have to, I don't have to lose you for 15 minutes. It's just people. It's just people. They put pants on one leg at a time, just like you. Their blood looks red, just like everybody else. They have eyes and ears, same thing. Nothing special about them. Just another guy, just another girl. So, anyone with a little bit of seichel knows that if you have even a 1% chance of drinking poison, you're not going to take it. But in the marriage world today, there's an 80% chance that it's poison. Why? It has nothing to do with marriage. Technically, people are supposed to get married. You want to reproduce, you want to build a life together, you want to do things together, you have to have a wife, you have to have a husband. It has nothing to do with the religion. Because whether you're Jewish or not Jewish, you're still supposed to have somebody in your life. Especially as you get older, you don't want to be alone, and so on and so forth. It has nothing to do with money. Because rich people and poor people, they both get divorced. Rich people get divorced more often. But poor people also get divorced. The reason why marriages fail is for the same reason today that we are having a hard time in the religious community actually having marriages happen.

9:26They're calling it, in the religious world, a shidduch crisis. Shidduch crisis, meaning that they're having a hard time matching boys and girls. They're having a hard time matching boys and girls to get married. Which one's gonna talk, you or me? You wanna give a lecture? As long as you pay the $15. You ready? Remember what I told you guys two weeks ago. This is not public school. I'm not a substitute teacher. So, in the religious world, they're having something called a shidduch crisis,

10:30Young boys, young girls, they want to get married, but they can't find anybody. How could it be? There are plenty of young boys. There are plenty of young girls. They both want to get married, but they can't find each other. So you figure, wait, just get a shadchan. Just get somebody to do it. Well, you have plenty of those. You have plenty of people that are trying to make matches, but it's still not working out. Why is it not working out? Why is it not working out? Anybody wants to guess why it's not working out? Who? Who? Very good. In-laws. In-laws. Who else? Different levels of... Different levels of religious observance. Okay. What else? Racism. Racism. That's good. No, racism exists. Ashkenazim have a thing. Sephardim have a thing. Sephardim against Sephardim. Sephardim against everybody. Everybody is against everybody. Yeah, of course. Why do you think the Beit HaMikdash hasn't been built? Because we're tzaddikim? No, it's Barak that's against the world. It's everybody against everybody. There's a pasuk in the Torah about it. There's a pasuk in the Torah. It says, "Me'arsayich u'macharivayich mimech yetze'u."

11:47Your conquerors, your destroyers, will come from within you. Meaning, your biggest enemy is you. Am Yisrael, your biggest enemy is not the Arabs. It's not ISIS. It's not Daesh. It's not the Christian world. It's not. You know who the biggest enemy is? Us. Who are the biggest and most successful Christian missionaries in the world? What religion were they born into? Jews. Who are the biggest enemies of Am Yisrael? Erev Rav. Erev Rav. What's the Erev Rav? Jews. Liberal Jews. Liberal Jews, leftist Jews that run the Israeli government, that run politics in America as well, that are anti-Torah, communist type of mentality people. atheist mentality, those are the biggest enemies of the world, especially of Am Yisrael itself. So, Sinat Chinam, the whole baseless hatred and racism between Ashkenazim and Sephardim, Sephardim and Sephardim, Ashkenazim and Ashkenazim, if you're not from this one, if you're not from Poland, and you're from this one, everybody has something. But that's not the real reason. That's not the real reason we have a shidduch crisis.

13:09No last chance. Appearance? You're good looking. Are you married? Okay, so there you go. You're not married, right? Why are you not married? It's not because of the looks. So what? Seventeen. Seventeen already. It should be your shidduch. Huh? What's wrong with your shidduch? It's not the looks. It's not the looks. It's not the looks. No, it's not the looks. It's not the looks. There are plenty of guys that are older than you who want to get married or your age who want to get married, but they're not getting married. It's not the looks. Baruch Hashem, we have plenty of good-looking people, plenty of unattractive people, plenty of average people. There's a match for everybody. There's a frog for every frog. There's a cow for every cow. There's a supermodel for every supermodel. It's not the looks. It's not the looks. Simulation is a problem too. Okay, so let's get to the bottom of it. The reason why there is an over 80% divorce rate in the world today, and there is a very, very big crisis in the religious Jewish world today that they call a shidduch crisis, where boys and girls are not able to find each other, has to do with a little bit of one of the things that you said.

14:37which is, we have something called a middot crisis. Middot are character traits. People simply do not know how to behave like human beings. We know how to behave like animals. Human beings, not so much. It's very, very easy for a human being to act like an animal because that's part of him. That's the animal instinct that's in all of us. The problem is that if you're an animal all the time, a human being is not going to want to marry you. So today we have a crisis in both the secular and the religious world because people don't know how to behave. In the old days, when my grandparents got married, they got married when they were 12, 13 years old. Now, I know in this age this sounds strange, but it doesn't really sound strange for your grandparents, I promise you. And your great-grandparents that also got married at 12, 13, 15, 16 years old, it wasn't so strange. Today, you think, what, get married at 18? What am I, Bukhari? What am I, Moroccan? What am I, from Saudi Arabia? No, it has nothing to do with that. It has to do with the mentality. It has to do with the mentality. If a person understands what it means to be single and the risk you're taking by being single, you're going to want to get married as soon as possible. Why? Because you young men, you have desires. You young women, you have desires. The problem is that if you fulfill those desires without being married...

16:06The type of punishment that HaKadosh Baruch Hu will give you will make you regret the day you were born. Now, less talking, guys, less talking. Let's just keep it to one, me talking, you guys listening. Now, the problem is that even if you want to get married, you want to be religious, you want to keep Shabbat, you want to do all the mitzvot, you want to do all the good things, you want to find somebody, you're going to have a hard time. Why? Why? Because sometimes you want something, she wants something, but it's not the same thing. Now, in the old days, if the couple had a difference of opinion—she wanted black, he wanted white; she wanted a new living room, he wanted a new bedroom—they simply worked it out. Everyone has a difference of opinion. Every couple has a difference of opinion. In the old days, when you had a difference of opinion, you had an argument, guess what? You want to be married? You fix it. You compromise. You make certain concessions. Oh, you don't agree with me? Why don't you agree with me? Because of this, this, and this. Okay, well, you know what? I don't really care about those three things, so fine. Okay, I'll go with you. I'll do whatever you want. We compromise. We work things out. Even though sometimes bad things happen and there was a big argument and she said something that was awful and he said something that was awful, at the end of the day, if you want the marriage to work, you work things out. Today, we don't believe in working things out.

17:32Today, we believe that it's just supposed to work. We think marriage is like an iPhone. As soon as it doesn't work right away, we throw it out and buy a new one. How about we need a new iPhone? Why? This one doesn't turn on right away. It takes three seconds to turn on. It's already too slow in this generation. The new model takes only one second. As soon as something doesn't work fast enough, we want a new one. As soon as the website doesn't go directly to where you want it to go, you don't even want to go on the website. That's why, in the marketing world, You have three seconds. You know, there's an old saying: you have 15 seconds to give your pitch. You have 15 seconds to get somebody's attention. Today it's three seconds. Three seconds. Why? Because it's the internet. If the website, if the app, if whatever it is that you're marketing doesn't do something within three seconds to capture the attention of the audience, you might as well throw it in the garbage. Why? We have zero attention span. We have zero patience. we have zero interest in waiting for things to work out. Now, if it's an app, or it's a website, or it's a phone, it doesn't really matter at the end of it. It doesn't really make a difference. But when it's marriage, when it's a relationship, when it's work, when it's life in general, and you're not used to realizing that you have to make things work in order for them to work, then you have a serious problem. Because what happens is,

18:56If you're not going to be patient, if you're not going to develop patience in order to make things work, in order to fix things, and you simply expect them to work, your marriage will fail. It's just a matter of time. Your life will be a failure. It's just a matter of time. Your career will fail. It's just a matter of time. Why? Because good things take work. Anything that's of any value took a lot of work. And if you don't have the patience and the dedication... to actually put effort into something, it's better off not to even start. And that's the key to why we have such a high divorce rate right now. People simply think that marriage is supposed to work. And as soon as there's one, two, or three arguments in a row, they say, listen, it's not working out. We're going to part ways. I'll find somebody else. Little do they know that the somebody else is probably much worse. that somebody else she wants is much, much worse than the first one that she already has. That somebody else he wants that looks good from afar, because she has different features, different hair, different body, different eyes, different attitude, different accent, he figures, oh, that's going to make her different. As soon as she shows up to his house as a wife, he realizes, "Hashem, what did I do to myself? What did I do to myself?" But now, his old one, his ex-wife, is an ex now. She has a new husband.

20:22So we see here, Rabotai, that if you want things to work out in your life, first and foremost, you have to have a little bit of patience. But there are times that we lose our patience. And the Ramban tells his son a few things in the beginning of the letter. And he says, So he says, accustom yourself to speak gently to all people at all times. That's what we went over a couple of weeks ago. Last shiur, we had about Yigal Tarabani. But then he continuously says, with this gentle speech, it'll protect you from anger. So out of all the things that the Ramban, one of the wisest people that ever lived in history, one of the most important human beings that was ever created by HaKadosh Baruch Hu, out of all the things that he could have picked to mention to his son, to start off the most important letter of his life, he says, listen, speak gently, because it can save you from something really bad.

21:38Now you think, what's that something really bad? Maybe war, maybe famine, maybe a disease, maybe what? What is it? Anger. Anger. He says, it's going to save you. Speak gently, give patience, it'll save you from the worst thing in the world. What is it? Anger. Now, most of my life, not only was I an angry person, but I actually thought that being angry is very normal. I don't think there's anything wrong with it. When somebody came to my office, when one of my employees came to my office at 8:05 instead of coming in at 8:00, now most companies, they don't really care. Come in at 8:05, come in at 8:10, come in at 8:15, it doesn't make a difference. At my company on Wall Street, if you came in at 8:05, you were told to leave the premises and try again tomorrow. Why? Because that five minutes really annoyed me. The fact that you dare show up five minutes late to my company? Something wrong with you. So, it took you an hour to get to work? Okay, it was going to take you an hour and a half to get back home. Next time, think twice before you show up late. Now, if somebody had an attitude, or they're wasting time, and let's say... You were told to leave the premises and try again tomorrow. Why? Because that five minutes really annoyed me. The fact that you dared show up five minutes late to my company? There's something wrong with you. So, it took you an hour to get to work? Okay, it was going to take you an hour and a half to get back home. Next time, think twice before you show up late. Now, if somebody had an attitude, or they're wasting time, and let's say...

23:06a couple of people decided that instead of working, they wanted to play on a computer, or they wanted to say jokes, they wanted to waste time, then most of the time they wouldn't be able to keep their job. There wasn't a three-strike system. There was one strike. Simply, all you had to do was annoy me. Now, when I would get angry, and people would say, "Wow, relax," that would actually make me angrier. You know, somebody tells you, relax, you're really angry, and you say, relax, relax, buddy, relax. Doesn't that make you angrier? It made me much angrier. Why? Because for me, it was very normal to be angry. I was born that way. And the Gemara even says, the Ben Ish Chai, the Ben Ish Chai, writes 150 years ago. He says every baby, every baby is born angry. The first thing he does is start screaming at everybody. You just don't understand his language. The first thing he does when he comes out into the world is yell at everybody else. "Why did you take me out? I was resting." The natural inclination of a baby is to be angry. The natural inclination of a human being is to be angry. So I was born angry. So I'm like everybody else. So when somebody tells me to relax, I say, "What do you mean relax? I'm like everybody else. What's wrong with being angry?"

24:18What's wrong with being annoyed? What do you mean? I'm only getting annoyed because you annoyed me. I'm not getting annoyed stam. I'm not getting annoyed for no reason. You annoyed me, that's why I'm getting annoyed. You want to listen or you want to talk? If you continue talking, I'm going to tell you to leave. I told you guys, it's not public school, it's not high school, it's not a pub. For me, this is my life. If it's not your life, it's fine. But don't ruin it for everybody else. So, For me, it's very, very important to tell you the truth because I don't know if I'm ever going to see you again. I already know the truth. That's why I do what I do. You're still trying to discover it. So if we're going to discover it together, it's best if you pay attention. Because it's not a matter of being right or being wrong. It's a matter of using your time wisely. Now, when somebody would tell me, that maybe I should calm down, maybe I should do this, maybe I should do that. I never understood why until I started learning Torah. Once you start learning Torah, you start understanding what's Hashem's perspective. What does Hashem think about anger? And how that anger can literally ruin your life. Now, of course, this doesn't mean that you sit there and let people walk on you, step on you, and do whatever they want to you.

25:43No, it doesn't mean that. No one is telling you to just become the floor. But at the same token, to lose your mind, to lose your cool, to start breaking stuff, to just mess around, that could ruin your life. So the Ramban says that if you're going to speak to people, you have to make sure that you speak gently. Now, what does that mean, gently? Obviously, as you can see, I don't speak gently. If you understand gently as someone that's monotone, or someone that speaks to you in some voice like a Santa Claus, that's not me. And it's not a lot of rabbis. If you listen to, for example, the lectures of Rav Nissim Yagen, one of the greatest Mezakeh HaRabim that has lived in the last century, every single lecture, half the lecture he's screaming, the other half the lecture he's making people laugh. So he took you to Gehinnom, but he made you laugh on the way there. The type of screams that he had, even the walls did teshuva. The walls started doing teshuva. They were so scared of his screaming. But he was Ish Kodesh. If you listen to the shiurim of Rav Mizrachi, once in a while he raises his voice, you get the fear of God in you if you understand what he's saying. But he's also Ish Kodesh. If you listen to some of the shiurim by Rav Ovadia, once in a while he raises his voice, you weren't sure if it was Moshe Rabbeinu speaking or it was him.

27:12You start getting scared. You're not really sure what's happening here. If you read the Torah, the last book of the Torah, the entire book of Deuteronomy, Sefer Devarim, the entire book was comprised of five weeks of Moshe Rabbeinu's life. The whole time, the whole book, from the beginning of the book till the end of the book, he's giving Am Yisrael mussar on the head. yelling at them and rebuking them in a way that if you understand the words, you think twice before you want to sin. So speaking gently doesn't necessarily mean speaking in a low voice, speaking in a voice where people can barely hear you, whispering, it doesn't mean that. The wisest man of all time, his name was Shlomo HaMelech. Shlomo HaMelech says, "A soft answer turns away wrath, but a distressing word stirs up anger." So Shlomo HaMelech is trying to explain to us what it means to speak gently. Obviously, if you're speaking gently, you're speaking to someone.

28:39If you're speaking to yourself, then we have a different department for you. You're speaking to somebody. You're speaking to somebody, right? Who are you speaking to? So Shlomo HaMelech says, if you're speaking to somebody and you're going to speak softly to them, you're going to give them a soft answer, that even if they have an inner anger, like a built-up anger from all types of problems they have in their life, they have problems with their marriage, they have problems with their money, They have problems with their job, they have problems with their kids, they have problems with all types of things. So they're not really angry at you, but as soon as you said something, they lost their mind. It's not you. Like sometimes you see somebody driving on the highway, and all of a sudden somebody cuts him off. That happens all the time. Some people, you cut them off, nothing happens. Most of the time it's that way. Once in a while, you see somebody got cut off on the highway, He loses his mind. He starts smashing into cars, cursing people, throwing stuff out of the window, as if the guy murdered his family. Big deal, he cuts you off. What's the big deal? Sometimes you see a guy go to a store, and they make all types of funny videos of this stuff, where they see a person come to a store, and the store doesn't have what they want. They order coffee or something, and the store says, listen, we ran out of coffee.

30:07or we don't have this flavor, or whatever it is, and the person just simply loses their mind. If everyone could just move a few seats so you can let them sit. Move a few seats. There are plenty of seats in the middle. We're good? Ready? You wanna sit? There's a couple of seats here, there's a couple of seats here.

31:12You can sit here. Ten paisa. Sometimes you see something small happen, something small happen. Not a big deal. A person loses their mind. That means that something was already happening to that person before. It's not that the guy cut him off and that's why he lost his mind. It's not that the coffee is not available and that's why he lost his mind and started ruining the whole store. It's not that they didn't have the product or they ruined it and that's the reason why he's causing this mess. It means that the person already had some wrath, some anger, some built-up anger in his life that's been accumulating over a period of time. could have been he's already had a fight with his wife 20 minutes before, and that's a fight after something happened to the kid, and that's a fight that happened because the kid didn't have any money, and over a period of a few days, a lot of things built up. Eventually, you came along, you said one word that wasn't exactly to his liking, and he just lost his temper. So it's not really your fault, but it happened. It happened. So Shlomo HaMelech says, if you speak to people

32:26in a way that's soft. Even if he has some inner tension, some huge amount of anger, a lot of problems in his life, that tone that you're going to use with him, that language that you're going to use with him, will calm him down. What is it like? You ever see two guys trying to speed on the highway, and they're racing, And then sometimes you get to, one guy cuts the other guy off, he gets really, really upset. But then once in a while you see something different. You see the two guys, they're in a corner, and one guy, both of them are like, you know, trying to get their point across, look at me, look at me, look at me type of mentality. Then all of a sudden, one of the guys says, like, tells the guy, "Go, go in front of me." Okay. And all of a sudden the other guy says, "No, no, you go, you go." All of a sudden they fall in love with each other. "Ah, why, let me go? No, no, you go, you go." "No, no, come on." "Oh, come on, you have the nicer car. You go." "No, come on. Me go before you, your majesty. You go." And all of a sudden they want to hug and kiss each other. What happened? Two seconds ago you wanted to kill each other. Who's going to go first? Now, as soon as the one guy said go, all of a sudden we're best friends.

33:49All of a sudden, we're like, no, no, no, I don't even want to go. I'm actually going to stay here all day until you go. Or sometimes you see people, like they race to the door, but then one guy stops, he says, kavod, go. And the guy's, no, no, you go. All of a sudden, we become best friends. What happened? What happened? What changed? The door didn't change. The destination didn't change. What changed? Kavod. You gave him a little bit of kavod. You gave him a little bit of respect. So whatever tension he had inside him, all of a sudden, shh. all the air came out. All the air came out. Same thing when you deal with certain people. Sometimes you deal with somebody, and he has so much tension. He has so much aggravation. He has so much animosity in his life that he's looking to lose his mind. But as soon as you give him one decent word, it doesn't have to be in a low voice per se, but rather it has to be something that's soothing. Soft in a sense of soothing. Something that's going to comfort him. You're going to give him a little bit of respect. You're going to give him something to make him smile. You're going to give him a little bit of attention. You're going to give him a little bit of like, you know what? You win. You can let him win. All of a sudden, all that animosity, all that anger, all the rage that he was about to release, all of a sudden, gone. Dissipates like it's nothing, like it never existed. Many times the same thing works.

35:18In marriage, a guy comes home, he has two options. One option is to do what a lot of stupid people do, which is, "Hey honey, what'd you cook?" Why? You do that, your marriage is most likely to be miserable, if it succeeds at all. Why? Because that pretty much tells your wife that all you care about is food. All you care about is yourself. "Hey honey, what'd you cook?" meaning that he's only saying, "Hey honey," not because he cares about me. It's a formality to get to the food. "Hey honey, I'm hungry. I want to eat." He's not asking me about my day. He's not asking me how I'm doing. He doesn't even take into consideration that I'm raising these kids that are climbing the walls. He's not taking into consideration that I have a woman's body that all the time is in pain. It's moving. It's this. It's that. A woman's body. That's why we say every day, "Thank You for not making me a woman." Why? It's very hard to be a woman. It's very hard to be a woman. That's why you have to kiss your mom's feet. That's why you have to kiss your wife's feet one day. Why? You know how hard it is to be a woman? Don't ask the transvestites. They just think they're women. You ask a woman, a woman that gives, a woman that brings a human being to the world, you know what kind of power you have to bring a human being to the world? If you actually understood the biology...

36:46how the human, the anatomy of the human being, what happens to the woman's body when she's actually carrying the baby. In so many words, to us guys, what does it mean? The entire body breaks. Our entire body breaks. All the organs go in different places. And there's this baby that's like rocking the world over there. Eventually, it comes out, but then everything is missing now. The liver is over here, the lungs are over here. So what do we do? So now it has to unbreak. It has to heal itself. You know how hard this is? You know how painful it is? That's why if you have a woman that tolerates you and, on top of it, wants to bring you kids, you have to kiss her feet. Don't ask her what she cooks. Ask her how you're doing. How are you doing? How are you? How is your day? Forget about the fact that you're hungry. Who cares if you're hungry? You want to be married? You want to be happy? Ask her how she's doing. Ask her how she's doing. And guess what? If you ask her how she's doing and you care how she's doing, not just ask her how she's doing because you heard it in the shiur. Oh yeah, the rabbi said to ask her how you're doing. How you doing? She's going to tell you, here's the sandwich. Go, go, go away. Go with another shiur. Don't be a robot. Ask her how she's doing because you care how she's doing. Why? Because then it doesn't matter what happened. It doesn't matter how she's doing.

38:10It doesn't matter that the kids were climbing the walls the whole day. It doesn't matter that our body hurts. It doesn't matter that our ears hurt. It doesn't matter that everything is difficult. It doesn't matter. Why? My husband cares how I'm doing. My husband cares how I'm doing. That's enough. That's enough to calm the whole day. all that tension she was building, because before you came, she was thinking in her mind, "Oh, I'm going to tell him what he did. I'm going to tell him what she did. I can't believe it. He didn't call me. He didn't write this. I don't know." She already has all the calculations of what she's going to tell you as soon as you get in the door. And you come in, instead of asking what you cooked, you're saying, "Honey, how are you doing?" And you're ready to listen. All of a sudden, she's going to tell you how she's doing. She's going to take the opportunity to tell you. But Tension comes down. Why? You can't. You can't. That already makes life worth it for her. But, if you want to be like most divorced people, you can do what they did before they got divorced. Don't ask how she's doing. Don't care how she's doing. And just ask how you're doing. Tell her about how hard your day was. Like that's going to help you in life. Oh, I can't believe. You're not going to believe what this customer did to me. She doesn't care. Why? Because the kid was much worse than your customer.

39:30The kid that's climbing the walls, the kid that's failing in school, all that other stuff. It's much, much worse than your customer. And she's been waiting all day to talk to you. And now all you care about is telling her about you instead of her. She's going to feel like she's alone in this marriage. And that's not a good feeling. So now... Huh? You want to be happy, or you want to be right? She won't be happy. If you want to be happy in a marriage, you have to let the wife talk. You have to let the wife talk. The Gemara says that HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave ten measures of speaking in the world. Nine of them were given to women, one to men. Women like to talk. But it also says that you cannot talk to the wife too much. Meaning, talk to the point and then go learn Torah. then go do your vocation. I'm assuming we're all going to be learning Torah one day all the time. I'm assuming we're all going to be working and then learning. And then married. We're not going to waste our time watching TV and playing basketball all day. We're not going to be children our whole life. One day we're going to grow up. One day we're going to start learning seriously. One day we're going to take life seriously. So that means that you're going to have to have a schedule. Which means that you're not going to waste time. You have work, you work. After you finish work, you go home.

40:56You go home, you eat with the family, you act like a father for a little while, an hour, hour and a half, you learn a little bit, the next day starts over. That's life. That's life. That's heaven. You don't think it's heaven right now because you haven't lived that life yet. You think that maybe you go on vacation every weekend to some beach. That's heaven. Trust me, that's much closer to Gehinnom. Much closer to Gehinnom. Why? Because all the people that go to Cancun and the Bahamas and all those places, guess what they are? Alone. They're always looking for somebody there. They're all alone. And they're all looking for somebody. And they end up being alone. But they have a lot of pictures on Facebook of fun times. You want pictures on Facebook, or you want pictures in Olam Haba? That's the question. That's what we have to ask ourselves. So now, Rabotai HaKedoshim, if you come home and ask your wife how she's doing, and she talks to you a little bit, she tells you a little bit how she's doing, you talk a little bit, you communicate, you have a marriage, you have a...

41:57that already creates a relationship that's worth having. But sometimes, some of us are so stressed out because of the things that we deal with in life, whether it's school, or it's money, or it's business, or whatever it is, that instead of giving that soft answer, that soothing answer, that "how you're doing," instead of that, we return a distressing word, What's a distressing word? What's a distressing word? A distressing word doesn't necessarily always mean you're insulting somebody. A distressing word can sometimes mean you made a joke of what they said. She said something that's really important to her. He said something that's really important to him. And you said, "Ah, no, what's the big deal?" That's it. Sometimes I would have a shiur... And you'd have a lot of people. One time we had a shiur in my house. And we had a nice group of guys. And one guy claimed to be religious. He was the only one that came there with a kippah. The rest of the people didn't come with a kippah. They had to get a kippah. He was the only one that came with a kippah. And he's the only one that got thrown out. You know why?

43:27Because he came there to make fun. He came there to make jokes. So, everybody else came there to learn. Everybody else came there to talk about Moshe Rabbeinu, talk about HaKadosh Baruch Hu, talk about Torah, talk about something that's going to help life. He came there to make jokes. So every five minutes, he'd come up with a new joke. Oh, you hear about this? You know, the Arab and the Jew, and they're both on a plane. Every five minutes, he'd come up with a new joke. Every five minutes. The Gemara... In Masechet Avodah Zarah, it says that somebody who makes jokes in the middle of a shiur Torah is a very sad case. Why? Just the beginning of their punishment is to get tortured in this world, suffering in this world. Meaning, the real punishment is after this world. But it says, just the beginning is here. Hashem has to torture them in this world. Why? Why? Because if you are going to go to a shiur Torah, you're going to learn. If you don't want to learn, you don't go to a shiur Torah. Now, if you're going to go to a shiur Torah, but you're going to make jokes, then what does that mean? Number one, it means you care less about the Torah. Number two, it means you care about yourself more than everybody else. Number three, you're ruining it for everyone, meaning that no one else is going to be able to learn and get close to Hashem because of you.

44:49So Hashem says that deserves a special, unique punishment. So He says the jokesters, the clowns, the ones that want to make fun, those people have a special treatment from Hashem. And that treatment is not a good one. So even though sometimes you're going to see a person with a kippah or a person that claims to be religious, I told you last week and I tell you every week, religious is not necessarily always a look. Religious is behavior. So, Sometimes you can get somebody that has a little bit of tension in their life, but one small thing you say to them and they lose their mind. So Shlomo HaMelech says here, if the person has a lot of tension in their life, a lot of tension, a lot of problems, but you say something good, everything comes back. Someone that has a little bit of tension, just a little bit, something just small, not a lot. He just has, I don't know, he got a flat tire three weeks ago and he just had to pay the bill now. Not a big deal. But that person that has a little bit of tension in their life, you make fun of them, you do something that's inappropriate for them, it's just a little bit. Make whatever they said into something that's insignificant, they'll blow up on you. So that's what the Rambam is trying to tell us here.

46:18If you speak gently, you'll be saved from this anger. Not only saved from the anger of your own anger, but the anger of other people. How are you treating other people? Now, most people think, when they think of, let's say, the tzaddikim, like the Chafetz Chaim, most people think this is some nice old man that never got mad in his life. was probably born with the peyos already and the hat and the beard already. That's what we visualize. Moshe Rabbeinu was born perfect. We visualize Chafetz Chaim was born perfect. We visualize that tzaddikim, they never got mad in their life. That's what we visualize. That's the mistake. The mistake is to think that they were born this way. The truth is, Rabotai, when they speak about themselves, they tell you exactly who they are. And the Chafetz Chaim says... that it's a very, very big mistake to think that a tzaddik is actually born that way. He says he himself, the Chafetz Chaim, had to fight anger his whole life. Now, no one actually ever saw him angry. But he had to fight it. Every night, one of his students would follow him for a few weeks to see what the Chafetz Chaim was doing.

47:45He says he couldn't believe it. Every night, the Chafetz Chaim, after everybody went to sleep, after everybody else goes about their life, the Chafetz Chaim goes and starts praying to HaKadosh Baruch Hu with tears. Why does he pray to Hashem? Hashem, give me Parnassah Tovah that 99% of people want. Hashem, give me this, Hashem, give me that. Most people would pray to Hashem. Why do they pray to Hashem? 99% of people pray for money. The others pray for a business that's going to make them money. Some people are asking for a wife that has money already, or a husband that has money. Somehow, it's always related to money. What is the Chafetz Chaim praying for? The Chafetz Chaim, in the middle of the night, is crying hysterically to Hashem with tears: "Hashem, please, please help me overcome my anger." And no one saw him angry, but he knows what anger is and what is not anger. He says, "Hashem, please help me. Please help me never get angry."

48:46Why? The difference between us and the tzaddikim is that they understand what anger is and what it can do to a person. First, we see that the Gemara says that anyone, Rosh Hashanah says, anyone that gets angry... If he was wise, his wisdom escapes him. He becomes stupid. All the things that he learned his whole life, he forgets. For that moment, it may come back to him, but he forgets it. Even if it's Torah. Even if he was the best rabbi in the world. Even if he learned the entire Torah by heart. The moment he's angry, he forgets it. If he was a prophet, meaning he was somebody that speaks to Hashem, his prophecy is gone. His prophecy is gone. Where do we learn both of these from? Moshe Rabbeinu. Moshe Rabbeinu had a couple of moments of weakness that the Torah talks about. Twice, we see Moshe Rabbeinu get angry. Rightly so. Am Yisrael was very annoying. If I was Moshe Rabbeinu, I would probably kill all of them. That’s why I’m not Moshe Rabbeinu. The reality is, Moshe Rabbeinu had a bunch of people complain to him all day. All day he's giving them what they want, and they complain anyway. This week's parasha...

50:13What did they complain about? They were getting food from heaven. Not figuratively speaking. Literally. There was food. Any flavor you want. As much as you need to eat. As much as you want to eat. Coming down to you from heaven. Literally. You want it to taste like a steak? It tastes like a steak. You want it to taste like ice cream? It tastes like ice cream. You want it to taste like ice cream and steak? It tastes like ice cream and steak. You change your mind in the middle of the bite, it changes the taste also. That's the manna. The manna was this. The manna would literally taste however you wanted it to taste, when you wanted it to taste that way. That's how magical the manna was. So imagine having something that you don't have to cook anymore. And not only that, you don't have to work. The food arrives at your house. Right near your door. What does Am Yisrael do in this week's parashah? They complain about the manna. It's like, ah, we want some chicken. We want some steak. Yeah, but you have manna. Manna tastes like steak. No, we need something else. Why did you bring us here to Starbucks? Moshe Rabbeinu brought the food from heaven, and they complained to Moshe Rabbeinu! Ah, well, it was better, I remember, we were in Egypt, they gave us some fish over there, some gefilte fish, they gave us some Moroccan fish, it was nice and spicy, you know, in Egypt, old times. Why did you bring us to the desert, to Starbucks, to kill us? Imagine such a people.

51:38You're giving them food that comes right to their house without even working. They're comparing what you're giving to them, the best food in the world, from heaven. It doesn't make you fat. You don't have to go to the bathroom. It all goes into your bloodstream. What are they complaining about? No, no, we want some McDonald's. We want some McDonald's from Egypt, where we were slaves. They compare the two. Who wouldn't get angry? So Moshe Rabbeinu, when he got angry, Rav Moshe said he was right. But HaKadosh Baruch Hu did not like it. And a couple of times that it says in the Torah that Moshe Rabbeinu got upset at Am Yisrael, all of the wisdom that he had, all of the Torah that he had, he forgot it. The prophecy, the communication that he had with Hashem, disconnected. He had to start all over again. Rabotai,

52:40even though none of us are prophets or the sons of prophets or daughters of prophets, our connection with HaKadosh Baruch Hu also gets affected by anger. Now, sometimes it's clear what happens. When you get angry, you say something stupid, you offend somebody, then you regret it five minutes later, but the damage has already been done. That, you don't need to be a genius to realize. But there's also a physical way that you affect yourself. Now, if any of you studied a little bit of science in your life, you may have heard of a Japanese scientist by the name of Dr. Masaru Emoto. Dr. Masaru Emoto is a scientist who wanted to see what kind of effect we have, and what kind of effect our words have on the environment. So he took little petri dishes, little plastic dishes, and filled them up with water. He took one of them, and he said nice things to the water. You're beautiful water, you're nice water, you're really clean, you look delicious, all types of nice things. Then the other one, he cursed it out.

54:08He cursed. He said curses to the thing. "Curse. Angry. I hate you, water. I can't believe you're water. You should be Coca-Cola." Cursing it out. Now, you would think, well, it's water. You look at the water at the end, it's still water. Nothing changed. It's still water. But if you look at things under a microscope, then you see a difference. Now, if you look at the way the water looks after it was frozen, the Did anybody ever see pictures of snowflakes on the internet? Snowflakes, you ever see snowflakes? A few beautiful things about snowflakes, so you should know. Number one, there's no two snowflakes that are the same. It's like fingerprints. Fingerprints, there's no two fingerprints in the world that are the same. Snowflakes, as many, trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions to the infinite power, there's no two snowflakes that are the same. Now, this may not mean so much to you until you see what a snowflake actually looks like. The design of a snowflake is absolutely beautiful. Second little cute secret, scientific secret about snowflakes, they all have Magen David in them. They all have Magen David in them. You just have to look, you'll see Magen David in every single one. Go look on the internet while I'm talking, you'll see Magen David in a snowflake. Now, snowflakes are beautiful, very symmetrical. You see there's a Designer behind it. Icicles, when you take water and you freeze it, it looks like snowflakes.

55:38So, as you see from this book, Dr. Emoto took a picture of the water after he said nice things to it, and it looked like beautiful snowflakes. I'll pass this around, you can see it after. Little beautiful snowflakes. You see this was literally, you know, has little icicles on the side, looks like a diamond over here, all beautiful little things. But then he looked, and under the microscope, the same water that looks clear. It doesn't change color. The same water, frozen, but he cursed at it. And this is what it looks like. It looks black. It looks like a disease. It looks like cancer. This is what cancer looks like, by the way. It looks disgusting. It looks like something you don't want to put into your body.

56:38Now, another scientist, there was a student in Bar-Ilan University, wanted to take this test to the next level. His name was Tomer Rabiyav. And he decided that he wanted to see what happens to other things. So he took three beans. Three beans. And he would water the beans every day. And one bean He would say nice things to it. "You're a beautiful bean. I love you. You look cute. You're a nice little bean today." All nice things. Compliments. Like you're supposed to say to your wife or your husband. The second bean, he'd abuse it. "You're an ugly bean. You should have been an apple. You should have been this. You're the worst bean in the world. I hate you." And the third bean, the third bean, he would read Tehillim to it. He'd read Psalms. Not only say nice things, but he read Pesukim (verses) from Tehillim (Psalms). After a little while, he recorded the pictures of how each one of them progressed. The bean that he spoke nice things to grew and turned into a nice little plant. The bean that he said Tehillim (Psalms) to grew five times the size. It grew drastically bigger.

58:08the bean that he cursed at died. It didn't grow at all. Now, you can all try this at home if you want. It's a simple experiment you can conduct, record, and share on the internet. Why? Why am I teaching you this? You have to think about it this way. If The impact of our words, the impact of curses, the impact of blessings has such an effect on the exterior world. If you say nice things to water, it looks nice, it stays nice. And if you say ugly things, it looks ugly, it becomes ugly. Guess what? If your words affect the exterior that way, what do you think it's doing to the interior when you are made of 99% water? The chachamim tell us that even if HaKadosh Baruch Hu decided on Rosh Hashanah that He wants to give you 70 years of blessings. He decides on Rosh Hashanah,

59:36David, this year is going to be your year, and for the next 70 years, I'm going to give you lots of money, lots of this, lots of good stuff. Chachamim say that one time you curse, you can not only lose that blessing but can turn it into 70 years of curses. Seventy years of curses. One curse. Why? Because of how you've affected the world. And the Kabbalah tells us, That every single time you say something, you don't see the words, but those words go somewhere. That word travels in the world. Eventually, that word goes into something. It goes into a fruit. It goes into a vegetable. It goes into something. Somebody's going to eat that fruit. The minute he eats it, he wants to do what you did. If you did a blessing, he wants to do a blessing. If you made a curse, he's going to curse. Guess what? Both of you get punished. Which means, Rabotai, that our words, whether good or bad, have an impact. They have a very, very big impact. More than we see. Now, psychologically speaking, anger has three parts. There's anger that you think, there's anger that you speak, and there's anger in action.

1:01:06Now, to get to a point of not even getting angry mentally, you simply have to be dead. Why? Because things will make you angry in the world. Things happen. You have to get to such a level, if you're going to get to a level of never getting angry, even mentally, you have to literally get to a level like a dead person. Meaning, it's impossible. But speaking-wise, it's very possible. To not exercise your anger and speak with an angry tone, curse, yell, insult, and make fun; that is a much easier thing to do if you work on it. The easiest thing to do, the easiest thing to overcome. is exercising anger that was supposed to be action. Meaning people that get angry to the extent where they do something. They hit somebody, they break something. Now, in the regular secular world today, you're going to see the exact opposite of what I'm teaching you.

1:02:27You're going to go to big companies. You're going to go to Google and Microsoft and all these big companies. And they're going to tell you, "Yeah, we have a big campus. And part of the campus is to help our employees. And part of the way we help our employees is with psychological help. And part of the way that we help them psychologically is we give them an 'angry room.' What's an angry room? An angry room is where you go into the room and you yell your lungs out." about all the frustration you had all day. And they figured that if you go into this angry room and you yell, as loud as you want, that's going to calm you down. Which is exactly the opposite of what we just said. Why? If you exercise your anger, you get more angry. You get more angry. Not only do you get more angry, you start thinking that it's okay to be angry. You start desiring anger. You start connecting to anger, and you start justifying anger. Same concept if they tell you, listen, why don't you, if you have a lot of anger, go and start, you know, do exercise. You know, become a boxer, start hitting a punching bag.

1:03:42hit a punching bag every day, take out all your anger, go do some MMA, beat the heck out of somebody that didn't do anything to you, and that's going to relieve your anger. It's going to relieve your anger. You're going to have a black eye, he's going to have a black eye, but you're not going to be angry anymore. Guess what? You're going to be a lot more angry. You're going to be a lot more angry as a result of it. The only way to overcome anger is with wisdom. What's wisdom? Wisdom is Torah. Torah tells us that in order for us to overcome anger, we simply have to understand what it means to be angry, what actually happens as a result of anger. First and foremost, we're going to go over more details of this next week, but first and foremost, the Gemara Masechet Shabbat, page 105b, says, if a person, at his moment of anger, takes money and throws it in the air, takes a utensil of some kind, takes a pen, takes a pencil, takes a bat, takes a rock, takes a remote control, a phone, and throws it in the eyes of Hashem, and in your eyes, he has to be considered as if he's 100% an idol worshiper. Now you're going to say, wait a minute, what does idol worshipping have to do with him breaking a phone? I just broke a phone on the way here, that makes me an idol worshiper? See, here's what it says. takes a bat, takes a rock, takes a remote control, a phone, and throws it in the eyes of Hashem, then in your eyes, he has to be considered as if he's 100% an idol worshiper. Now, you're going to say, wait a minute, what does idol worshipping have to do with him breaking a phone? I just broke a phone on the way here, does that make me an idol worshiper? See, here's what it says.

1:05:12The bathroom's open just for everybody. Thank you. I guess we're closed. What can I do at the end? Okay, you have to go to the bathroom, not talk. The bathroom doesn't require talking. Okay. So... Torah says if somebody gets angry and he throws something, they're considered an idol worshiper. Somebody saw one of my videos and he didn't like it. Why? I spoke about how some of these Chabadniks today have lost their minds. There are a lot of Chabadniks who are tzaddikim. But there's a bunch of them that are crazy. Why? They've idolized the Rebbe. They've turned the Rebbe into God.

1:06:13They call him a shia, they call him God, they call him all types of things. They lost their minds. Now, we made a video about this to show how some of them are literally praying to the Rebbe instead of praying to God. So, this guy sent me an email, and he says, "No, you don't understand, the Rebbe was holy." I never said the Rebbe wasn't holy. I talk about the Rebbe all the time in a positive way. I'm saying you guys are crazy. I'm not saying any of the Rebbes are crazy. He's perfect. You guys have a problem. He said, "No, you don't understand. But you also said in a shiur this and that, and you have to understand, the Rebbe was very holy. One time, somebody told him that he was really upset because the Rebbe's wife wasn't wearing a wig. So the Rebbe got upset and broke the pencil and said, 'No, that's not right.'" So I responded, "I'm sorry, your story is fake." in order for me to believe your story, I have to believe that the Rebbe is an idol worshiper. Why? Because the Torah says, if somebody gets angry and breaks something, the Torah says he's an idol worshiper. So, unless you think the Rebbe was an idol worshiper, you cannot believe the story. So take the story and put it in the garbage. Meaning it's very, very important to know what's real and what's not real. A lot of stories people say in people's names, and they add different details, and it ruins the story.

1:07:36Truth is, why is somebody that breaks something considered in the eyes of Hashem as an idol worshiper? Because the Gemara continues and says, if he lets his anger become expressed physically to such an extent, that means he's become one of the employees, one of the servants of the Yetzer Hara. And today the Yetzer Hara tells him to break something. Tomorrow the Yetzer Hara is going to tell him to break something else. The next day he's going to tell him to do something else. And it's only a matter of time before the Yetzer Hara is going to tell him to go worship J.C. Penney. It's only a matter of time before the Yetzer Hara tells him to go worship Buddha. It's only a matter of time before the Yetzer Hara takes him to the worst place on earth, to some church. It's only a matter of time. If he's already following the Yetzer Hara, it's only a matter of time before he gets worse. So, If a person is going to allow the anger to take such control of their life, they can lose themselves in such a big way that they can simply lose the balance of life. Now, the Reshit Chochmah, about 500 years ago, wrote a couple of tools that you can use to start doing anger exercises. First, he says,

1:09:02If you have some anger problems, which everybody has to some extent, and you want to work on it, because it's very valuable to work on it, take a certain amount of money and know, okay, every time I get angry and I express myself with anger—not if I get angry mentally, but I get angry and I curse, I get angry and I break something—that money goes to a tzedakah box. Now, make sure that it's enough money... That hurts. Why? Because then you're going to think twice. After the second, third time you put this money in a tzedakah box, you're going to think twice before you want to get angry, express your anger. Second thing is, he says, if you are around somebody that's angry, don't look at them. Why? The Torah says you're not allowed to look at the face of a rasha. Someone that's expressing their anger is considered a rasha.

1:10:03Now, the Chachamim said that if a person wants to get married, wants to find a wife, they cannot look at the bank account of the person and think this is going to make him a good husband or a good wife. They cannot look at the looks of this person and determine this is a good husband or a good wife. They have to look at the character traits of the person. And the Chida says, that when a young man is looking to find a wife, he should try to find a wife who doesn't get angry easily. Why? If he marries a woman who gets angry very easily, as soon as you say one thing off, one thing not to her liking, she doesn't want to talk to you for three days. As soon as you say one thing that's not exactly her cup of tea, she starts yelling at you like you're, you know, Hamas. He says, don't marry such a person. Why? If he marries such an angry person, then he'll be considered as if he's attached to an idol. He'll be attached, why? Because anger is idolatry. And if she's constantly angry all the time, he'll be attached to idolatry. To such an extent, the Torah looks at anger in such a negative way.

1:11:30Now, how does anger actually affect us in our day-to-day life? What's the risk? Let's say, for example, somebody says, "Listen, the Torah sounds nice, it'll be nice not to have anger, but I was born this way, I am this way." So let's look at how it impacts a person who wants to have kids, who is trying to build a life. All of you have heard your parents tell you some things in your life at some point that you didn't always obey. you didn't always listen to what they said. Part of the reason that we don't listen to our parents is not because we don't care about our parents, not because we don't like our parents, but because sometimes we view our parents as hypocrites. Subconsciously, we view our parents as hypocrites. Why? Everybody knows that to be angry is not a good thing. Everybody knows. So, if...

1:12:30A kid sees his parent express anger in a terrible way—break something, yell, scream, insult the mom, the mom insults the father. The two parents are not smart enough to realize they're never supposed to argue in front of the kids. That happens in many houses. Not on purpose, it just happens because they don't think twice. They didn't read the Iggeret HaRamban. They learned Torah their whole life, and sometimes they did, but they forgot, or they didn't pay attention, whatever the case may be. Life happens. Parents fight in front of the kids. The little kid, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 years old, sees the parents do this. He knows this is wrong. He doesn't have to be a genius. He knows that it's not nice that Abba said this to Ima. It's not nice that Ima said that to Abba. It's definitely not nice that Ima gave Abba a nasty reply. Definitely not nice. And when Abba gave her back one, ooh, that was terrible. All that stuff is not nice. All that stuff is wrong. But they still did it. So what happens? At some point, the Abba and the Ima are going to tell the kid, "Son, do this." And the son says, "Okay." He doesn't do it. Later on, he says, "Listen, son, I told you to do it." "I didn't do it." "Why not? I told you to do it." He goes, "No, I didn't do it." "Yeah, but that's the right thing to do." "I know it's the right thing to do, but I didn't do it." "Why not?"

1:13:55You also didn't do the right thing. You also didn't do the right thing. What are you talking about, doing the right thing? Remember three months ago when... The kid's never going to have a conversation like this. But that's what I'm telling you happens in the kid's mind, subconsciously. The parents don't realize the kids are not listening to them because the parents are not listening to their own advice. They're telling the kids to do the right thing when they themselves are not doing the right thing. so if you're constantly going to express your anger, you have to realize that you're not only going to teach your kids that anger is okay, but you're also going to teach your kids that doing whatever you want is okay. Expressing yourself in whatever way you want is okay. Doing the wrong thing, even though it's wrong, is okay. So, when you ask your kid, "Why didn't you do this and this," The answer subconsciously is really because you're the same. I'm doing what you did. Which means, Rabbi, that if you want to have good kids, you have to be good first. And that's why when a couple came to Rav Ovadia Yosef with a brand new baby, and they told the Rav, "Please give us a blessing that we have a good kid, and he grows up to be a tzaddik."

1:15:19Allah tells them, "You're 20 years late." They say, "No, no, no, the rabbi was just born. He's a brand new baby." They thought maybe the rabbi was able to see or something. He says, "No, no, he was born right now." He says, "Yeah, you're 20 years late." "How are we 20 years late? He was just born." "You have to educate yourself first. You have to be good first. Now that you're starting late, you can still do something about it, but you're late." Most of you are not married. You want to have a good marriage? You want to have good kids? You want to have a good life? It starts with you. If you educate yourself and you take life seriously, you'll have a good life that's worth living. If you take life as is, do whatever you want, and think that there are no consequences for it, I promise you, you'll end up an old man seriously regretting that he didn't take advantage of it. Now, the Chafetz Chaim says that in order to overcome anger, it's not simply something that you can just do by learning an issue. A person needs to understand the value. How bad is it in the eyes of Hashem? Once a person understands that Hashem runs the world to such an extent that He literally draws His fingerprint on every snowflake,

1:16:44To such an extent that He puts His fingerprint on every DNA. To such an extent that He puts His fingerprint on every little piece of creation. Meaning He cares about everything. And everything is designed. Everything is with wisdom. And He tells you that anger is disgusting to Him. A person needs to know, okay, this is something I need to get rid of. This is a cancer I have in my life. How do I get rid of this? What do I need to do? And remember I told you, in order to overcome anger mentally, a person literally needs to be dedicated. To do it speech-wise, never get angry, speaking angrily, he needs to simply work on himself really hard. But the easiest one to stop is the stuff that we do physically—breaking stuff and things of that nature. But there was a tzaddik by the name of Rav Moshe Feinstein, just a previous generation, who, at the age of 24, went to the doctor, and they told him, "We're sorry, you only have two months to live."

1:18:06And the other people there said, "Why two months? How did you doctors decide that he only has two months to live?" He says, "Well, his heart is so weak. His heart is so weak that we give it a maximum of two months before someone is going to make him angry. Someone is going to make him upset. And the minute he gets upset, he'll die. His heart is not strong enough to handle being upset." Just a weak heart. So we figured that now that everybody knows he has a weak heart, probably no one's going to bother him. No one's going to make him upset. Everyone's going to tread carefully like they're walking on eggshells. But the reality is, life is going to happen. So we're estimating that even with everybody's efforts, even if he lives in a little bubble of some kind, some type of balloon, something's going to happen that's going to make him upset. So we figured two months maximum. Maybe less.

1:19:08Well, as you would have it, anyone that knows a little bit about Rav Moshe Feinstein, he not only passed the age of 24, he lived a long life. Eventually, the doctors who diagnosed the problem died. Eventually, the nurses died. Eventually, the friends who were there also died. Everybody died except Rav Moshe Feinstein. He lived well past 100 years old. Some say 110, some say 105, nobody knows. Because in Judaism, it's like you stop counting at 100. Like Rav Kaduri, everybody says he was 100 years old for at least 20 years. At least 20 years he was 100 years old. A Rav says, "I remember that he was 100 years old when I was first, you know, 5 years old; he was 100 years old. He was 100 years old for years." 100 years old for years. No one knows. Somebody says 105, 110. No one really knows. How? So they asked him, at 95 years old, we heard the story. Is it a true story? He said, it's a true story. They told you you're not going to live past 24. He said, no, I'm not going to live past two months. So how? How did you do it? How did you live so many years? He says, everything that happens in the world, people take it in a certain way.

1:20:34take it in a certain way. You say something to somebody, people take it personally. You say something to somebody, people take it emotionally. You say something to somebody, people do a lot of calculations. Me, I only let it get to my button. I never let it pass the button. Meaning, I look, yes, no, allowed, not allowed, the will of Hashem, against Hashem, that's it. People would come to Rav Moshe Feinstein for advice. They just wrote a bunch of posts against you, publicizing a bad name against you, publicly insulting a Talmid Chacham, publicly insulting the biggest rabbi in the world. What should we do for the Rav? Rav Moshe Feinstein, with a calm demeanor, said, tell them it's not allowed. And you know, people will try to rock, you know, rile him up. You know, there's always a guy that wants to stir the pot. No. They wrote, you're allowed, but the opposite. In your name. You wrote, allowed? They wrote, in your name, not allowed. Tell them I said it's allowed. Tell them I said it's not allowed. And so on and so forth. It just never bothered him. Why? Not that it didn't bother him per se that he wasn't human. But he simply understood the value of anger and

1:21:55and even more importantly, the value of overcoming it. For him, it was not only spiritually speaking but also physically. For us, it's the same. It's no different. It's just that when a person thinks about things this way, it's a little easier to know that your life is on the line. For us, we have to constantly be reminded. Now the The common thing that happens when people learn Torah together, you'll see, especially when they learn seriously, you see the Talmidei Chachamim, they raise their voice, they get into it, and sometimes it looks like they're very angry. How do you explain that? Torah says, Torah, that's our life. What does it mean?

1:22:57It means that when you see two people learning Torah seriously together, and you see that one disagrees with the other. He got to this conclusion. His chavruta got to the other conclusion. And they go back and forth. If they really care about the Torah, to them, Torah is their life. Which means that when you disagree with what I'm saying, with my conclusion, what are you really saying? You're trying to destroy my conclusion. You're trying to destroy my Torah. You're trying to destroy my life. So of course you're going to be heated about it. I'm not angry at you per se. I'm angry at this argument. I'm fighting the argument because you're fighting for the emet. You're fighting for the truth. Now, how valuable is the emet in the Torah? In this week's parasha, HaKadosh Baruch Hu tells Am Yisrael that we have to go into the desert. We have to taking our leaders to lead us, and He tells who's the leader of each tribe and so on. Now, it starts with Bnei Yehuda. This is Bnei Yehuda Berishona LeTzivotav, V'al Tzva'am Nachshon Ben Aminadav, V'al Tzva Mateh Ben Issachar, Netanel Ben Tzuar, V'al Tzva Mateh Ben Zevulun, Eliav Ben Chelon. So, He says the three tribes that are going to lead everybody else are

1:24:25Nachshon ben Aminadav of the tribe of Yehuda. Then you have the tribe of Issachar, and then you have the tribe of Zevulun. Why did Hashem pick, out of all the tribes that we have, these three tribes? Yehuda represented emet. Yehuda represented emet. Zevulun represented the Torah, and Issachar represented the backing of the Torah, the finance of Torah. Why was Yehudah representing emet? Because Yehudah himself was tested. When he and Tamar were intimate, he didn't realize that Tamar was Tamar. He thought that she was somebody else. And when he was exposed, he had the opportunity to hide it because it was a shame to him for what happened. But he stood up for the emet and admitted that he did what he did. He admitted that he did what he did, even though it was going to bring him embarrassment, even though it might have brought him a death penalty. Years later, his descendant Nachshon, who led the tribe

1:25:52was also heading Am Yisrael at Yam Suf, the Sea of Reeds. Now, when we left Egypt, we didn't exactly know where we were going. But when we got to the Sea of Reeds, we saw that in front of us was a huge ocean. No one knew how to swim. We had spent the last 210 years being slaves. Behind us were the Egyptians. Millions and millions of Egyptians came to kill us. On the right and left was the desert. And the Midrash says that the desert was full of huge snakes and scorpions. The snakes were similar in size to dinosaurs—huge snakes that would eat humans alive without too much to think about. So we knew we couldn't survive in the desert, we couldn't survive going back to the Egyptians, and we couldn't go forward because there was an ocean. Nachshon did what's called a cheshbon. He did an accounting in his head and he realized, wait a minute,

1:26:58If Hashem took us out of Egypt with all of these miracles, He definitely didn't take us out of Egypt just to go back. So, going back to Egypt doesn't make any sense. He didn't take us out of Egypt for us to be eaten by anacondas. So, going to the right or left doesn't make any sense either. The only thing that could possibly make sense is to go into the ocean. What about the fact that nobody knows how to swim? He says that's the accounting for Hashem. How we're going to actually succeed here. That's Hashem's problem. My problem is to look for the truth. Look for what's emet. Emet, if you notice, the word emet means that emet has to be emet, emet has to be true from beginning to end. A lie can be 99% truth with 1% lie. 1% lie makes it 100% false. The whole thing is a lie. But emet, in order for something to be true, the whole thing has to be true. So the word emet is alef, mem, tav. Alef is the first letter of the alphabet. Tav is the last letter of the alphabet. And mem is the middle letter of the alphabet. Which we see here that even the structure of the words in the Hebrew language itself makes sense. It is created with divine power.

1:28:19intellect behind it. And it's not just words like in English or Chinese or other man-made languages that you just make up words and they decide that something's going to be called telephone just because somebody decided to call it a telephone. So Nachshon ben Aminadav decided that the only thing, the only place that the emet exists is by going forward. Even though there was an ocean, even though it was a required a huge amount of bitachon and emunah in Hashem, he went forward. And for that, it made him a leader to such an extent that the Mashiach comes from him. So he not only led at Yam Suf, but he continued leading in this week's parasha, Beha'alotcha. And a person that stands for the truth in the eyes of Hashem, that's number one. Because if he stands for the truth, if she stands for the truth, sky's the limit. Second one is the tribe of Yissachar. Why? These are the people that dedicate their entire life to just learning. People that call it all day, all night. All day, all night, they're learning. And even though they also stand for the truth, they're not like Yehudah. Why? Yehudah fights for the truth outside. He goes and fights in the name of Hashem. Yissachar learns. He learns, he fights for the truth, but in a different capacity. You would think

1:29:46that, okay, you have the Torah, you have the emet, next you should probably have, you know, I don't know, something else. You should have, what do we have? We have the people that invest into the Torah. Zevulun. The people that invest into the Torah, they're considered number three behind, in front of everybody else, in front of all of the other tribes. Why? Someone that invests into the Torah, works and ends up investing in Torah, it's considered as if his job is learning Torah. someone that goes, works, and builds buildings; someone that goes, works, and sells stocks; someone that goes, works, and makes money one way or another, legally, ethically, and so on. And then he takes that money and makes sure to publicize Torah with it. Of course, he pays his expenses; she pays her expenses. They do what they need to do to live life. But... they're not trying to build some major 401k and buy 15 buildings just to show off that their name is on every avenue. They make sure that they utilize their money primarily to publicize Hashem's name. Such a person, in the eyes of Hashem, it's as if he's learning Torah all day. Why? Because what is he working for? He's working to publicize Torah. If you're working to publicize Torah, if you're working to help people do teshuva, if you're working to help people learn Torah,

1:31:09that means that your work is the same thing as learning Torah. That's where you're third on the list. That's where you're third on the list. Now, regardless of where somebody is on the list—first, second, third, or after—if a person wants to continue staying at that position, at that capacity, at that level of significance in the eyes of Hashem, that means that he has to work on himself. He has to work on his anger, he has to work on his character traits, he has to work on everything and anything that has to do with improving his standing in the world, morally, spiritually, and the only way to do that is by learning Torah on a regular basis. If a person takes Torah seriously, starts learning every day, starts with a little bit, increases over time. starts applying things, increases over time. In the beginning, modesty was difficult for her. After a while, modesty becomes a little easier. Why? Because if every day you get a little bit, another drip of spiritual infusion, spiritual Torah, every day your neshama is going to be fixed. Every day your neshama is going to want more. Every day your neshama is going to want to fulfill what you're doing. Because unless you're a faker...

1:32:34You're going to want to do what you like. And if you listen to the Torah, eventually you're going to fall in love with the Torah, especially if you start applying it. But what could ruin all of it? A person that learns Torah but doesn't work on themselves ethically. Meaning that a person learns Torah but continues to behave the way they want. Such a person, even if they learn Torah all day and all night, you're not allowed to learn from them. Why? Because that's a hypocrite. That someone has learned Torah, but not to fulfill it. Just because he's learning it theoretically. I know some people that have been going to a shiur Torah for 20 years. Shiur Torah for 20 years. And in those 20 years, nothing changed. They go to a shiur Torah for 20 years. 20 years ago they started. They kept Shabbat. They kept Shabbat. They kept kashrut. 20 years later, it's still Shabbat, kashrut. That's it. Nothing changed. 20 years.

1:33:35Nothing changes. Everything else that was missing 20 years ago is still missing today. And this is very common. It's not just young people. They start young, they end up old, but still the same exact person. They start the shiur Torah, something moves them, they do it, but then after that, they go on neutral. You know how you're in a car in neutral, and it just moves a little bit at a time? That's how they are spiritually. For 20 years, they're on neutral because they figured they did something big. They started keeping Shabbat, they started keeping Taharat HaMishpacha, they started keeping Kashrut, they did something that was big for them, and they figured, okay, that's enough. Which means that they did not work on themselves in any other way over the next 20 years. A person like that wasted a lot of time. Why? Because even their learning will not be considered as learning. Simply because they're not applying it. A person that learned without an intention to apply the Torah, there's some very, very strong language against such a person in the world. The Torah speaks very unfavorably against such a person. To such an extent, the Chachamim say, a person that learns Torah without an intention to fulfill it, it was better off he died before he came to the world. Why? That's a person that's just wasting his life. It was better off he died before he came to the world. Why? Because at least he wouldn't have all these extra sins that he lived here for an extra 70, 80 years in this world.

1:35:01Meaning that if you're going to be coming to a shiur Torah, if you're going to be learning Torah, it's not just to learn Torah theoretically, it's not just to learn Torah mentally, it's not just for the sake of enjoying things, it's for the sake of applying it. It's for the sake of taking some of the things you learn and seeing, okay, how can I take this and apply it to my day-to-day life? That's the whole purpose of this letter. Where the Ramban says, if we're going to apply it, each word of this letter, we can get very, very far. If we don't apply this letter, then the level of the depth of negativity that we can get ourselves into is much worse than we can imagine. And I'll finish with one example, then you guys can ask whatever questions you want. The Gemara says in Masechet Gittin, how bad is an angry husband? each word of this letter, we can get very, very far. If we don't apply this letter, then the level of the depth of negativity that we can get ourselves into is much worse than we can imagine. And I'll finish with one example, then you guys can ask whatever questions you want. The Gemara says in Masechet Gittin, how bad is an angry husband viewed in the Torah. Someone's an angry husband. Like, okay, anger is no good. We get it. But the guy gets angry once in a while. How bad is it? Say, idol worshiper. Okay, idol worshiper. But really, can you give me an example? Like, okay, it's not like this. Every time the guy gets angry, throws a remote control against the wall, there's like some cloud that draws up. You're an idol worshiper. It doesn't say that. Show us a real example in real life.

1:36:30Gemara says, someone that has accustomed his household to his anger, where his kids, his wife, his household is scared of him, will end up committing the three worst possible sins in the Torah. What are the three worst possible sins in the Torah? Giluy arayot, shfichut damim, v'avodah zarah. how, I mean the guy got angry, he took his phone and threw it against the wall. What does that have to do with a sex crime? Raping a woman, being with his sister, being with his mother—that’s wasting seed, that’s the sex crime. The Gemara says it’s better off you die and not commit a sex crime. A sex crime is not just illegal sex according to the law; sex crimes are even things that are not illegal, for example, for men... ...to waste seed is considered a sin for men. For women, being intimate without going to the mikveh, without being pure, is also a grave sin. It's actually worse for a man to be with his wife who is impure, who didn't go to the mikveh, than to be with his own mother.

1:37:58Now logically, this doesn't make sense to our human brain. What do you mean? Well, you see, how do we determine this? What's the punishment for this? What's the punishment for this? We see that the punishment for being with a niddah, a woman that did not go to the mikveh, which means if she's single, you never got married, she's a niddah. The punishment for that is much worse than incest, according to the Torah. That's how bad it is. Now in our minds, you're crazy. You're crazy. I'm not crazy. Talk to Hashem. Crazy? Call Hashem crazy. I wouldn't recommend it, though. Because when He calls you back, it doesn't say "crazy" back. It doesn't go back and forth. So, the Torah says someone who has accustomed his home to anger is going to commit the crime of Gilui Arayot. If that's not enough, he's also going to commit the crime of Shefichut Damim. What's Shefichut Damim? Murder. Well, just because somebody's angry, he's going to kill somebody? He says, yes. And worse yet, he's going to be considered an idol worshiper. How an idol worshiper? Not just an idol worshiper because of the anger, but an idol worshiper in the sense that he's going to violate Shabbat. So the Gemara says, how is this all possible? Just by taking something and breaking it. Just by yelling in the house. Just by this, just by that. So the Gemara says, if a man is constantly angry,

1:39:25then his household will be scared of him. And what ends up happening, one day his wife, his little tzaddeiket wife, wants to go to the mikveh. It's time to go to the mikveh. And something happens. You know, the kids sometimes drive you a little crazy. Work drives you a little crazy. Life drives you a little crazy. So what happens? She runs late. And she gets to the mikveh exactly five minutes too late. exactly five minutes after the woman closed it. Five minutes after the woman closed it. Which means she can't go to the mikveh. Now she's so scared of her husband, because she knows if she comes home and tells her husband, "Honey, I didn't go to the mikveh," he can't touch her. Now he hasn't touched her already in a few weeks, and she knows he's going to lose his mind. She's too scared. She comes home without going to the mikveh. She says, "Honey, is everything okay?" Oh, perfect. Perfect. Why? She's too scared to tell him the truth. And guess what? They’re going to be together that night. It's considered Gilui Arayot. He goes up to Shamayim. He says, "Ah, you went with a Nidah, you Rasha. You went with a Nidah." "No, what are you talking about? My wife went to the mikveh." "She didn’t go to the mikveh. She was too scared to tell you the truth. She didn’t go to the mikveh, and you were with her that night." He goes, "Ah, but I didn’t know." He goes, "It doesn’t matter you didn’t know. It’s your fault." Why? Because the only reason she didn’t tell you is because you were angry. So now you have an Issur Karet on your cheshbon.

1:40:53Better yet, the Gemara says, sometimes the woman is so sick of her husband that when she goes somewhere, she's going to the mikveh, she's in a hurry, she doesn't know if he's going to be mad at her because it's running late, running this. She's not going to watch herself. She could fall into a hole. She could get into an accident because she's not paying attention. She can die because of it. And guess what? He's considered the murderer. He's considered the murderer. Now, last but not least, He says he can be considered an idolater in a sense because he violated Shabbat. How can anger cause him to violate Shabbat? He says because if your wife is scared of you and she wakes up in the morning on Shabbat, Friday night, everybody ate, you sang all types of nice songs... Everybody's happy. Everything is great. She wakes up the next morning, you know, early in the morning to put the food on the plata. She sees the plata. She forgot to turn it on. She forgot to turn the plata on. So what happens? All the food's cold. All the food's cold. Now she knows if her husband comes back from shul at 12 o'clock and the food's cold, her head is going to be like a picture on the wall.

1:42:17She's so scared of this vicious husband, what does she do? She turns on the plata on Shabbat. So now what happens? She's violating Shabbat. Now you're eating food as a result of B'chilul Shabbat. In Shamayim, what is it considered? Yom HaChad HaShabbat. Now you think, oh, this is all theoretical. The Gemara says this, the Gemara says that. Show me in real life. And that's what we're going to finish with. Before most of you were even born, almost 30 years ago, There was a horrific case in Eretz Yisrael, almost 40 years ago, actually. There was a horrific case in Eretz Yisrael. A young kid, just turned 18, tried robbing an old lady, grabbed her bag, and ended up getting into some serious trouble. What kind of trouble? He killed her. She didn’t want to give him the bag. He took it by force. She fell, hit her head, and died. So the trial, in Eretz Yisrael, this is not common. It’s not like America where there’s a murder every second. In Eretz Yisrael, stuff like this doesn’t usually happen. Today it’s a little different, but back then it was very, very uncommon. Anyway, in the trial...

1:43:19He killed her. She didn't want to give him the bag. He took it by force. She fell, hit her head, and died. So, the trial in Eretz Yisrael, this is not common. It's not like America where there's a murder every second. In Eretz Yisrael, stuff like this doesn't usually happen. Today it's a little different, but back then it was very, very uncommon. Anyway, in the trial... Everybody's crying. The kid's with handcuffs. The mom comes. She's crying. The father comes. He's crying. But then, they say the name of the victim. They tell the kid, you are guilty of committing murder against such and such. On the spot, the mother, the mother of the kid, screams her lungs out. No! And passes out. Falls on her face. Everybody's in shock. What happened? They throw some water on her face. You okay? You okay? Listen, I'll tell you. They murdered her. What happened? She says, what happened? Tell me the name. Who is it again? They say the name again. She screams again and passes out. Passes out. They wake her up and say, lady, what happened? What's going on? She says,

1:44:46Over 20 years ago, I went to the mikveh on Friday. And when I got to the mikveh, the balanit was leaving. The woman that runs the mikveh was leaving. And I told her, please, please, please. I need to go to the mikveh. She goes, I'm sorry, lady. I got to go home. I have a family too. I have Shabbat. She goes, please, please. My husband's going to kill me. Please help me. Let me be, please. Sorry, lady, I have a family. You have to get here earlier. She goes, but I couldn't. The cooking, the cleaning, all the different million and a half reasons. I couldn't get here on time. Please, you're already here. You didn't leave yet. You didn't like to go. I'll be really quick. Five minutes. She says, from now on, you'll learn to be five minutes early. And she closed the door in her face. Now, the woman was petrified of her husband. Petrified. Why? Her husband, the whole day, is bothering her about this. The whole day he tells her, "Honey, don't forget, mikveh tonight. Honey, don't forget, mikveh tonight. Go there on time. I don't care about this. I don't care about that. Go, go, go." The poor lady was trying to make a nice, beautiful Shabbat for her family, and she ran late. It happens. Five minutes late. She was scared to tell her husband. So when her husband saw her, he said, "Everything okay?" "Perfect. Perfect."

1:46:14And they were intimate that night. And that night, that child came into the world. The child that 20 years later became a murderer. 20 years later, he became a murderer. So the judge asked the mother, "Okay, so the child became a murderer, I get it. It's bad, it's terrible. Why are you screaming?" She said, "Because he just murdered the balanit." That didn't let me in. To the mikveh. The one that didn't want to wait five minutes. That's who he just killed. Twenty years ago. The balanit didn't have patience. Because she had stuff to do. And she cared less about this woman's husband. Rightly or wrongly so, that was the reality. That balanit was a partner in the crime to a certain extent. How do we know? So it worked. You see it in action. Twenty years later, Hashem measure for measure. Hashem measure for measure. The kid you, in essence, brought into the world, and were a partner in bringing into the world as a result of nida, ended up with karet. Karet is the death penalty. Two parents get the death penalty because the balanit didn't want to wait five more minutes.

1:47:44They get the death penalty. The balanit also gets the death penalty. How? The kid that came into the world killed him. Measure for measure. This is extremely important to know because this is how precise Hashem runs the world. The precision of Hashem doesn't work on our timing. Sometimes He waits five seconds. Sometimes He can wait 50 years in order to reward or punish somebody. The key is for us to focus on the small little details that are part of our day-to-day. One of the most important things is working on our middot, on our character traits. Everyone looks in the mirror and they know what's wrong with them. And I don't mean looks. Everyone knows where they're weak. Some of us are stingy. Some of us are arrogant. Some of us are angry gremlins. Some of us are this. Everybody has a weakness. Pick one and start working on it. Almost all of us have a little bit of anger in us. So that's the one we talked about tonight. Next week, B'ezrat Hashem, we'll talk a little bit more about anger and how it affects people's lives, good and bad. And B'ezrat Hashem, we'll look a little bit more. Any questions? Yes? So you said before about the punishment of a person.

1:49:03Who said that? The Torah says that? Where does it say that? Okay, a Rabbi told you this? A Rabbi told you this? Okay, let's see. I'll tell you. Here we go. We have a few things. Anybody here who doesn't keep Shabbat yet? Anybody here who doesn't keep Shabbat? Everybody here keeps Shabbat? Everybody here keeps Shabbat? A few people don't keep Shabbat? Don't be embarrassed. I used to also not keep Shabbat. It doesn't make you an evil person. It's just a mistake. I'll tell you why. So, Hashem says, He says, He says,

1:50:05English translation: Hashem says in Parashat Ki Tisa, this is the Five Books of Moses, the book of Exodus, chapter 31, verses 12 to 15. He says, He says, You shall observe the Shabbat, for it is holy to you. Its desecrators shall have death upon death. Whoever works on the Shabbat, that soul shall be cut off from amongst his people. So clearly, Hashem tells you the punishment for violating Shabbat. But we see plenty of people, all of us, see plenty of Jewish people driving on Shabbat, and they don't die. we see plenty of people lighting cigarettes on Shabbat, but they don't die. So how does this actually work? It's not that there's no punishment. You have to understand, what is the Torah? No, He tells you what the punishment is. Right, no. It is the punishment. We have to understand how Hashem applies the punishment. So, in the days of Har Sinai, a week after we received the Torah,

1:51:34A week after we received the Torah, there was a person by the name of Tzelafchad. Tzelafchad violated Shabbat; he was the first desecrator of Shabbat. Parashat Shelach. He was the first person that ever violated Shabbat. They called him Mekoshesh Etzim, he gathered wood. And you know how to gather on Shabbat? So, Moshe Rabbeinu said to Hashem, what do we do with this person? So, Hashem says, chapter 15, book of Numbers, verse 35, Hashem says to Moshe, the man shall be put to death, the entire assembly shall pelt him with stones, outside the camp. The entire assembly shall... removed him outside the camp, and they pelted him with stones until he died, as Hashem commanded Moshe. In the days of Moshe Rabbeinu, if somebody violated Shabbat, he would get the worst death penalty there is, which is called stoning. Stoning, simply said, is first they throw him off a two-story building, then they roll a boulder over him, and then they throw stones at him. That's a horrible, vicious death, but that's how a person that violated Shabbat was killed.

1:53:03killed at the time of Moshe Rabbeinu, at the time of the Sanhedrin. Now, once the Sanhedrin was no longer available, once the Beit HaMikdash was destroyed, that did not mean that there was no more death penalty. The Chachamim tell us that all of the punishments in the Torah are still exactly as relevant as they were at Mount Sinai, but the punishment is no longer exercised by us. In those days, if the Jewish court saw somebody desecrating Shabbat, somebody worshipping an idol, they were empowered, they were actually obligated to kill that person. But, since we don't have it anymore, the Gemara tells us that now it all becomes a heavenly punishment. Meaning, all punishment, we are not allowed to implement them. Even if we see somebody driving on Shabbat, even if we see somebody worshipping an idol, even if we see somebody murdering, we're not allowed to do anything to them. But, Hashem does it. It all becomes divine. So, how do they explain it? They say, this is how it works. Somebody has violated Shabbat, as I just read to you guys. Hashem says, he has death upon death, and he's cut off from the nation. Which means, these are three different deaths. Death upon death, meaning there are two deaths, and he's cut off from the nation. So, the Chachamim say, what does this mean? How do you die three times? It says, death upon death means the following.

1:54:32One, at the time of Moshe Rabbeinu, they would kill him. But since there's no more Sanhedrin, now Hashem kills him. When? He kills him early. He was supposed to live 120 years, he dies at 60. He dies at 20. He dies at 50. Meaning, every time he violates Shabbat, he loses years that Hashem really wanted to give him to live in this world. This is why you see almost everybody die young. So that's the first death. A person loses their life early. The second punishment of that first death is that Hashem can kill his kids. Until the kid becomes a bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah, the neshamah can sit as an extension of the parent. So sometimes you see parents that have young kids die, it's because of this. So that's the first death. What's death upon death? What's the second death? Death upon death means, the second death means, they have no share of the world to come. Meaning that once this life ends, whenever it ends for everybody—some people like my cousin at 25, some people like my other cousin at 50, some people like Rav Chaim Kanievsky at 110—different people, different lives. But at some point, this life ends, and then eternity begins, meaning forever, the real life. So Hashem says that life has two options: it has heaven and it has Gehinom.

1:55:55Now, there are multiple names for it. When the Torah says he has no share in the world to come, that doesn't mean heaven. It means the other place. For how long? Forever. When it says he has no share in the world to come, it means that he can never, ever go to heaven. Ever. Not once. Someone who dies a sinner of specific sins without repenting for them can become such a person. Everybody sins. But the point is, and our obligation is, to correct those sins by doing teshuva. But someone that lives their life without a care in the world and just sins constantly, without ever doing teshuva, yes, that person has a permanent problem. Now, the third part, and then I'll answer more details of the question. So, okay, so now, the guy, let's say, died early. Like my cousin two days ago. 50 years old. Poor guy. Then, he's not going to heaven. Right? What's the cut-off from the nation? We still have to explain the last part of the verse. Chazal explained that someone who is cut off from the nation means that while he was alive, he was not considered part of the Jewish nation. Why? Because he was not, or she was not, observing Shabbat, and therefore they were not considered as part of the Jewish people. They were Jews by birth,

1:57:21but you cannot consider them Jews according to halacha. Meaning, if you want to have a wedding, a Jewish wedding, you need two witnesses. Someone who violates Shabbat is not allowed to be a witness. Why? Because they're considered in the same class as an idol worshiper. An idol worshiper is not allowed to be a witness. Someone that, for example, you know, you want to invite your friend for a kiddush on Shabbat. If your friend, or even if your father, whoever you know, doesn't keep Shabbat, and they touch the wine bottle, you're not allowed to drink from it. If it's a specific type of wine, meaning a wine that's uncooked. Why? Because if an idol worshiper touches wine that's open and it's uncooked wine, that wine becomes part of idolatry. The point being is that that person who violates Shabbat is considered as not a Jew. He's considered as an idol worshiper until they do teshuva. If they do teshuva, everything becomes perfect. The point being that all of these sins and punishments and so on, it's not in essence because Hashem wants to punish us, it's because Hashem wants us to know that punishment is an option in order for us not to sin. We all run our life based on fear. Regardless of whether we like it or not, our whole life as human beings is controlled by fear. You don't speed on the highway because you're afraid of getting into a car accident, you're afraid of getting a ticket,

1:58:45you're afraid of endangering other people, you don't avoid work or fail to do anything productive with your life because you're afraid of the results that will happen as a result of not being productive. People function in life because they're afraid of the outcome. Same concept here. Hashem told us about the mitzvot and the sins, the reward and the punishment for each and every single mitzvah. Yes. We know the reward and punishment for every single mitzvah. There are pesukim in the Torah that talk about each and every single one of them. There is different Oral Torah that talks about every detail of every one of them. And the amount of details is extraordinary. You could literally fill up a thousand batei knesset like this from floor to ceiling with books, and it still wouldn't be even 1% of the books that are written about reward and punishment. There's a lot of details about reward and punishment. So whoever told you that either never learned Torah or they just

1:59:45Don't know, I don't know. But they're mistaken. There's a lot of information. And it's okay. A lot of people don't know this because not everybody studies it. It doesn't make them bad, it just makes them ignorant. I didn't know this most of my life either. Once I learned it, and I realized, okay, if I continue driving on Shabbat like I did most of my life, my relationship with Hashem is not going to be so good. Why? He's not looking at me like I want Him to look at me. He's looking at me as if I'm an idol worshiper. He's looking at me... If a person does teshuva, there are two types of teshuva. There's teshuva, or really there's teshuva, there's teshuva that a person does only because they're afraid. They're afraid that they're going to get punished. And that's the only reason they do teshuva. That turns all of your past sins into accidents. Meaning you do get punished for it, but it's a miniature punishment in comparison to what it would be if it was on purpose. There's a higher level of teshuva, which is teshuva out of love, meaning you love Hashem, and therefore that's why you did teshuva. That actually takes all of the past sins and turns them into mitzvot. So just imagine how many sins we made in our life, and all of that turns into actually things that give us reward. So all the times we stole money, now we get a reward for it. Imagine how great that is. And then there's the third type of teshuva,

2:01:12which is the most common, which is a mix of both. Part of the reason why we did teshuva is because we're afraid. We're afraid of getting punished in this world. We're afraid of getting punished in the next world. We're afraid of things not happening good in our life. And part of it is because we love Hashem. Because we recognize how good He is to us. much He gives us, how He gave us money, and He gave us kids, and He gave us this, and He gives us constantly. Even though we're not exactly always grateful, at the very least we realize that the minimum we can show Him as far as gratitude is at least doing what He says. So the more you do what Hashem says, the more you realize that really, you owe Him even more. And He's giving you even before you do what you do. So you fall in love with Hashem, and you fall in love with the mitzvot, and that's the best way to be, and that's the most common teshuva, which is a mix of both. It's a mix of fear and love. But there's no such thing as teshuva with only love, simply because in order to love Hashem, you have to fear Him first. You have to know what you're dealing with first. And as soon as you understand that Hashem loves the world, it's very easy to fear Him. I have one more question. Sure, as many as you want. Let's say you did something in the past, and you weren't able to make amends for it, and then you go back and do it again. Very good question. So the...

2:02:31Qabi Salmi Salat asked the same question. So the Rambam, 900 years ago, writes that teshuva is a four-step process. Fixing your sins is a four-step process. First step, stop. Stop the sin. You were stealing, stop stealing. You were driving on Shabbat, stop driving on Shabbat. You are doing something. Well, stop doing it. That's the first step. Everybody understand? Second step. Commit to not going back. Commit to not going back. Everybody understand? Yeah, this makes sense. Commit to not going back. Third step. Regret the sin. Regret that you sinned in the past. That's where we get a little bit confused. Because logically, we think it should be the first step. The reason why I stop is because I regret it. That's logically how we think. And the fourth step is that Hashem signs off that you are Baal Teshuva. You are Baal Teshuva. So Rabbi Yisrael Salanter says, wait a minute, how does this all work? Shouldn't we regret first, then stop, then commit to stopping, and then eventually Hashem signs off?

2:03:53So, Rabbi Yisrael Salanter gives an amazing chiddush. And he says, the Gemara tells us that when a person sins the first time, the first time he lights a cigarette on Shabbat, the first time she violates her purity, the first time a person steals, they know it's not allowed, but they did it anyway. The first time they did it, they see nothing happened, that makes them want to do it again. They want to do it again. The next time, they still know it's not allowed, but they saw nothing happen. He drove on Shabbat, and the car didn't explode. He lit a cigarette on Shabbat, lit a fire on Shabbat, and his head didn't explode. If everybody that lit a cigarette on Shabbat, and their head would explode, nobody would ever smoke. But he saw he smoked on Shabbat, nothing happened. The second time he does it, and nothing happens, the Torah says, in his mind, it now becomes allowed. Why? Why?

2:04:53Nothing happened the first time, fine. But nothing happened the second time, there must be a mistake somewhere. So now it's allowed. So now, that means, Rabbi Yisrael Salanter says, that when we actually first stop sinning, we don't stop sinning because we realize that it's not allowed to drive on Shabbat, and it's a bad thing, and we regret it. No! No! Technically, the whole time we were driving on Shabbat, the whole time we were intimate without marriage, the whole time we were stealing, we did it more than once. Meaning that we arrived at a conclusion that it's all allowed. It's allowed to drive on Shabbat. It's allowed to steal. It's allowed to do all these things because we did it more than once. We got ourselves psychologically set up to a point that we actually believe that everything that we're doing is allowed. No one wakes up in the morning and says, "I'm going to be a bad person." Even Hitler, he actually thought he was a good person. He writes in his book that he is doing a service to the world by getting rid of the cancer that's called Judaism.

2:06:01He thought he was doing a good thing. Obviously, he's a psychopath, but everybody's a psychopath to a certain extent, thinking that whatever they're doing is good. Now, when we first do teshuva, we're not doing teshuva because we believe that what we're doing is wrong. It's that we arrive at a conclusion that we can do better, that we want to do better. Yes, what I did until now is allowed, because I did it more than once. And I never got punished. So therefore, I was allowed. But now, I'm going to stop doing it. I'm going to stop driving on Shabbat. I'm going to stop eating non-kosher. I'm going to stop looking at places I'm not allowed to look at. Not because I'm not allowed, but because I want to be better. I want to be a tzaddik. I want to be a tzaddeket. So we stop sinning. That's the real reason we stop. Now, after we stop sinning, we say, listen, I already stopped driving on Shabbat for a month. I already stopped smoking for a month. I already stopped looking at this and that for a month. I already stopped for a while. So you know what? That's it. I'm not going back. I'm not going back to my old life. So now you've committed to not going back. You've fulfilled step number two. The beauty is that after you're away from the sin for an extended period of time, your perspective starts to change. What is it like? Do you ever see people that work in the sewer? People work in the streets and it really smells? Now sometimes you're going to see those people, they work, and it smells terrible, but they're eating a sandwich. You want to vomit just walking next to them, walking five blocks away, you still smell how filthy and disgusting the sewer is, and they're sitting on top of the sewer, talking to each other, chit-chatting, eating a shawarma.

2:07:28Do you ever see people that work in the sewer? People work in the streets and it really smells. Now, sometimes you're going to see those people; they work, and it smells terrible, but they're eating a sandwich. You want to vomit just walking next to them. Walking five blocks away, you still smell how filthy and disgusting the sewer is, and they're sitting on top of the sewer, talking to each other, chit-chatting, eating a shawarma. Nothing's wrong with that. You see a guy working in a public restroom. It smells like somebody died twice in there. And the guy is whistling. He's happy, cleaning everything. "Hello, señor. Hello." Everybody's happy. How are you even working here? It's so disgusting, filthy. And he's happy. And you from the outside are like, this is disgusting. How do you do this? How? What's the question? How do you do it? He got used to it. You're not used to it. The rat... that's inside the garbage, doesn't view the garbage as garbage. He views it as food. Why? He got used to it. He's a rat. You're not a rat. You understand? So the point is, Abutai, what happens if you take that guy that works in a sewer away from the sewer for an extended period of time,

2:08:47And then you bring him back, all of a sudden he's going to be just like you. "Oh, wow, it smells terrible here. How do you guys work here? How are you guys eating here? Wow, it's disgusting." If you take the guy from the public restroom out for a little while, and then he goes back, "Ooh, what? What did you do here? What happened here?" Why? Once you're away from the sin for an extended period of time, you realize how disgusting it is. Which means... That, yes, you first stopped, but not because you thought it was wrong. You stopped because you wanted to become better, better than the average. You committed to stopping, which got you away from the sin for an extended period of time. And after you've stayed away from the sin for an extended period of time, you realize how disgusting it is. And that leads you to regret the sin that, until that point, you actually thought was allowed. Until that point, you thought it was allowed. Until you stayed away from it for an extended period of time and you realized, wait a minute, that filth, that smell was actually coming from me. It was coming from me. I was the smelly one. But that's only after you stayed away from it for a while. And at that moment, step number four gets achieved, which means Hashem signs off that you are a Baal Teshuva. So at that moment, you're a Baal Teshuva. Now,

2:10:10Why does Hashem say about you? Because you arrive at that conclusion that it's a terrible sin. Now what happens if you go back to that sin again? Six months later, a week later, an hour later. You arrived at a conclusion that it's bad. But then you had a moment of weakness. Something happened. You had a moment of weakness. You went back to the casino. You haven't gone to the casino in three years, but at a moment of weakness, you went in there. I don't know. Your wife got you upset. Your husband got you upset. Everything is upset. Everything is this. You went back to the casino one time. It's considered as if it's the first sin. It doesn't count. It doesn't calculate all the things you did in the past. Why? Because everything you did until this point is wiped out already. Finished you off. Now you did the sin again. It starts as the first one. Baby steps again. Now we start again. Stop. Commit to stopping. Regret, and Hashem wasn't signed off again. That's the beauty, the illogical and irrational beauty of Teshuva. That's how amazing Hashem is. That He literally allows you to start over. Allows you to start over. Doesn't matter what age you are. But that's the beauty. That's what we have to take advantage of. If you take advantage of it, you could literally, doesn't matter what you were in this life, you could literally finish this life

2:11:32as the most righteous person you know. The Rambam writes that every Jew can become as righteous as Moshe Rabbeinu. Every Jew. Every woman can become like Sarah Imeinu. Every woman. Doesn't matter that you are in the year, you know, 2019, 5779. Doesn't make a difference. You can be as righteous as Sarah Imeinu. You can be as righteous as Moshe Rabbeinu. You just have to apply it. What you did until now, can all go away if you simply apply yourself from this moment on. But if you don't, or if you think you have a lot more time than you do, then that's the problem. That's why Hashem does not tell us when we're going to die. Even when David HaMelech asked Him, "When will I die, Hashem?" Hashem said, "You'll die on a Saturday. You'll die on Shabbat." He says, "Yeah, but when?" He says, "I can't tell you." Why? If a person knows when he's going to die or when she's going to die, that removes their free choice.

2:12:35That removes their free choice. That's why when they ask, "What's the secret?" He says, "Do teshuva before you die." Does anybody know when they're going to die? He says, "Exactly. Since you don't know when you're going to die, the Torah obligates you to do teshuva every day. Every day a little bit more. Every day another mitzvah. Every day another perek Tehillim." Every day, a little bit more prayer. Every day, learning a little bit more. Every day you add more, and then you'll see, a year from today, you're a different version of yourself. You can't even recognize the old you. Two years from today, you can't recognize the version that you were a year ago. Three years, every year you drastically improve. Drastically improve. It's unbelievable how you could improve. And I'm telling you, from experience, I've seen many, many people. seeing myself, going through myself, if you apply yourself, life is unbelievable. If you don't apply yourself, life is simply miserable. Most of us know a lot of miserable people. Very few of us know anybody happy. Which means that the traditional system doesn't work. The traditional system that chases money, and chases popularity, and chases attention,

2:13:59and chases materialism, it doesn't work. Why? Because all of these attention seekers, materialistic types of people, they're not happy anyway. So that means that it's not working. And the only people that are happy are people that usually look like me. People that have a little bit of a beard sometimes. They don't have a beard. They have a kippah usually. They learn a lot of Torah. Those are the people that are happy. They also have problems. But they're happy. Next question. Yes? Um... How do you do teshuva, like, other than, like, stopping your sins? Well, that's the first thing. The first thing is to stop sinning. Now, you can't stop sinning everything on day one for two reasons. Number one, it's extremely difficult to stop all of your desires overnight. Number two, you don't even know all the things that are wrong yet, on day one. So, for example, a brand new person that wants to do teshuva, came this year, was motivated, okay, I want to do something about it. Now, They learned today a little bit about anger. They learned today a little bit about Shabbat. But they didn't learn a lot about other things. So they can do teshuva for those few things. So the first thing is to at least find out about the things that you know about. And you don't want, if let's say Shabbat is something you don't keep, that's the first thing you have to do teshuva for. But if you're keeping Shabbat, but you know that your kashrut is like 50-50...

2:15:27You're kosher at home, but not outside. Like many Jewish people, they have "kosher style." You know, they eat kosher at home, but they don't eat kosher outside for some reason. They eat salads, and they think that eating salads in non-kosher places is okay. It's not okay. Why? Because the goyim are not obligated to wash their vegetables like Jews are. This means that when you eat salad at a non-kosher place, you're also eating worms and maggots. Each time you eat a salad that has some type of bug, it's like eating pig six times. Meaning it's actually worse to eat a non-kosher salad than to eat pig itself. to eat a non-kosher salad than to eat pig itself. That's how bad it is. Most people don't know this. I didn't know this. And you make those sins. So now that you know it, if you or somebody else was part of that, okay, that's it. That's an easy one to do. Next thing is, you start learning about different things that you know are your weaknesses, and pick one. Pick two. That, okay, I can do this. Now you want to pick one big thing, and as many small things as you can do.

2:16:28Then after that, make learning a part of your day-to-day life. Fifteen minutes a day, a half hour a day, an hour a day, as much as you can handle. As much as you can, you know, it depends. Different people have different schedules. If you're a mom of five kids, most likely fifteen minutes a day is doable for you. But if you're single and you're twenty, most likely three hours is doable for you because what are you doing all day? There's not that much to do. You're still single, you don't have a husband, and then, you know, So, it depends. Different people, different times. Take advantage of that. Learn as much as you possibly can and try to apply as much as you possibly can. The third thing is, make sure that you have a real rabbi who is going to tell you your weaknesses when you need to know them, and someone who actually knows right from left. Meaning, not someone who is just complimenting you all the time. It's good to get compliments as long as those compliments are connected to some rebuke once in a while. But someone who's just complimenting you regardless of what you do is going to stunt your growth. So you need to hear the truth once in a while, even if that truth is inconvenient. So, learning, applying it, and having somebody who is going to give you a little bit of feedback, that's the most critical foundation.

2:17:50Last part is committing to do this for the rest of your life. Meaning, already get it out of your mind that Teshuvah is ever over. From now until 120, you'll be doing Teshuvah every single day. Not because you made a lot of sins or you didn't make a lot of sins, but because part of a Jewish person's life is to improve themselves a little bit every single day. Even if they're the most righteous person in the world, they still have something to improve. If Moshe Rabbeinu and Sarah Imeinu and Avraham Avinu all had something to improve. That means we for sure have something to improve. So, committing to improving yourself. And Teshuvah is not just mitzvot. It's not just wearing a skirt and saying prayers. It's also working on our character traits. Improving our character traits. Becoming a better human being. That, all of us have a whole list of things we know of that we need to fix. Psalms. have stringency, there's stringency, some are overly zealous, some are angry, some are arrogant. Everybody has their own weaknesses. You know at least one or two of your own weaknesses. Start learning about that topic, but from religious Jews, not from secular studies. Don't learn from people like Tony Robbins. Even though Tony Robbins is admired, unfortunately, by many Jews, Tony Robbins is not exactly the model citizen. If you actually learn what goes on behind the scenes,

2:19:16Like, for example, one of his most popular topics is marriage advice. He's divorced twice. How are you going to take marriage advice from somebody who's divorced twice? It's like asking a homeless guy how to become rich. If you want to get advice on how to get divorced, then you give him a minute. Because he's good at it. He's an expert. Already did it twice. And most likely a third. Now he tells you how to, you know... do certain things. Well, right now he's being accused of at least five counts of sexual molestation. So, I don't know. How ethical could a person like this be? He's popular. He gets five, ten thousand people to show up for every one of his seminars. So, that means he's a good businessman. But as far as ethical, not so much. So, you have to make sure that your source of information complies with what HaShem wants. And that usually means that it has to come from not only somebody that's an Orthodox Jew, but also someone that's an Orthodox Jew that sticks to the script, doesn't put their own opinion too much. And that's really the most important part of learning in general. Always make sure that whatever it is that you're learning is HaShem's opinion, not some person's opinion. We don't care what my opinion is. We don't care what your opinion is. We don't care what anybody's opinion is. We care about what HaShem's opinion is. Once I know it's HaShem's opinion, I know it's not going to change.

2:20:40So it's very important to know what HaShem said. If HaShem said it, there's no debate. That means I just simply have to find a way to do it. If HaShem didn't say it and somebody else said it, then I have to say, okay, what are they basing it on? So that's the key. So it's learning and doing and fulfilling everything; it is a lifelong process. And if a person commits to improving themselves on a day-to-day basis, they're definitely going to succeed in life in many, many ways. Much more than you can imagine. Next, yes. For example, if a religious person invites somebody that doesn't keep Shabbat, like for example, someone that is having a dinner and they're inviting someone who drives. Is the person that's inviting the one who is driving committing an aveira? Because they're driving to your dinner on Shabbat. If you did not know that they're going to drive to your Shabbat dinner, then you're not doing an aveira. But if you now find out that they drove to your Shabbat dinner, you have to offer them to stay at your house.

2:21:41You have to offer them to stay at your house. If they still choose not to stay at your house, then it's not on you. But you're no longer allowed to invite them. Meaning you cannot invite them on a weekly basis knowing that they're going to drive. No. Then you are enabling them to continue sinning. It's considered as if they're violating Shabbat and you're violating Shabbat. Even though you're not driving, you are enabling them. So all of these people that are saying, no, no, we're doing kiruv, We're doing kiruv by inviting all of our friends. Okay, you invite your friend once. Let's say twice. After the second time, he's still driving. The third time, guess what? You're also a sinner. No, no, but he's my friend. Then if he doesn't do it by me, then he's not going to do it at all. Don't do it at all. Then he's going to drive anywhere. Don't drive anywhere. What if the person is not Jewish? Then why is he in Yerushalayim? I mean, let's say for a different time. Not necessarily for the Shabbat meal, but for like in the afternoon or something like that. So Shabbat? So Shabbat meal. You mean what? So somebody comes over to your house in general just to say what's up? How you doing? Yeah, they're allowed to come to your house if they come on their own. But in general, you're not really supposed to have goyim in your house on Shabbat. So it's a time for you to connect to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, first of all. Second of all, even more importantly...

2:23:08is the goy not supposed to do anything that you're not allowed to do specifically for you. Unless he's doing it on his own. If he comes on his own, out of his own will, and just shows up at your house, that's no problem. But if you tell him, "Listen, come to my house on Shabbat at 12 o'clock," then you have a little bit of a problem there. Why? Because technically he drove there for you. And if he drove there for you, that's an issue. So, as far as Shabbat in general... It's important for everybody to learn a little bit of that. Anything else? Yes. Is growth exponential? Or is it always just little by little? No, no. There are leaps and bounds. There are times that you're going to grow in small steps, and then there are times that you're going to catapult drastically in a very short period of time. And I've seen it quite a few times where you see somebody taking a big step, and then almost hitting a wall, and then another big step, and then slow steps, and so on and so forth. Sometimes it's also the opposite, unfortunately. But yeah, no, it's not always small steps, it's not always big steps. Yes? You said that when a man has relations with his wife when she's in niddah, that it's worse than being with your own mother. Isn't the penalty for both of them stoning?

2:24:39The penalty for both, for niddah, is worse. The penalty for niddah is worse. It's different. It's both a death penalty. Both a death penalty. But the afterlife penalty for niddah is much worse. The details are insignificant. It's just much worse. Next? Yes? Have you personally seen any halachot on Besamim or marijuana? Sure. I have a whole shiur about it. I have a whole shiur about marijuana. Medicinal, not recreational. I have a whole shiur about marijuana. And Rabbi Moshe Feinstein writes that anyone who alters their state of mind intentionally is considered a ben sorer u'moreh. Meaning, if it was a time of the Sanhedrin, you would get a death penalty. So wouldn't altering the mind mean also nicotine? No, it's not the same alteration of mind. It makes you addicted to it. Or alcohol. No, it's not the same thing. But it's not quite the same thing. No one can really compare it to women. But again, in general, you're not allowed to drink all the time. You're not allowed to smoke cigarettes all the time. You're not allowed to smoke marijuana all the time. But the three are different. But to answer your question more directly, if somebody wants to use medical marijuana...

2:26:01They don't need to alter their state of mind. They can take CBD. CBD does not alter your state of mind. It gives you all of the medicinal benefits of the plant without altering your state of mind. This means that if you still insist on smoking marijuana, it's no longer for medicinal reasons. It's no longer for medicinal reasons. Also, even before CBD came out, before CBD became popularized, like it has been in recent years, you still were not allowed to use medical marijuana if there was a different choice. Like you're not allowed to use something that alters your state of mind, even for medicinal reasons, if there is another choice that doesn't alter your state of mind. So let's say there's a piece of chalk, some pill, that will give you the same cure. Both work. You have marijuana that gets you high and cures you, or helps you with the pain. And you have some, I don't know, some piece of chemical or something, but that also cures you, or helps you with the pain, but does not alter your state of mind. You are obligated to take the one that doesn't alter your state of mind. And also, vaping, like, isn't vaping sort of damaging your body, which is also not a peril? Vaping marijuana or vaping vapor? Vaping. that gets you high and cures you, or helps you with the pain. And you have some, I don't know, some piece of chemical or something, but that also cures you, or helps you with the pain, but does not alter your state of mind. You are obligated to take the one that doesn't alter your state of mind. And also, vaping, like, isn't vaping sort of damaging your body, which is also not allowed? Vaping marijuana or vaping vapor? Vaping.

2:27:25No, it's not the same thing. It's not the same thing. It doesn't affect your brain cells the same way, at least not to our knowledge. Put it this way: if you don't smoke, you're not allowed to start smoking anything. If you already are addicted to, let's say, cigarettes, then there are leniencies. There are leniencies, halachically speaking, where it's not to the same extent of sin. It's still not good. It's still not preserving your body. It's still a problem. But there are leniencies, meaning that if you're addicted to smoking. I was addicted to smoking cigarettes for 20 years, and part of my teshuvah was to stop smoking. But I didn't stop smoking right away. It took me years to do it because I had all the right excuses of why I was allowed to smoke. The only real reason that I came up with that I'm not allowed to smoke is because I know Hashem doesn't want it. That's the only reason. Halachically, I could have continued smoking for the rest of my life. But, realistically, I knew that that's not what Hashem wants. Hashem does not want me to smoke. And it created a lot of problems. Point being, that's the reason why I stopped. But it wasn't easy.

2:28:35Meaning that if you are already addicted to cigarettes, you can find halachic permissions to continue because there are halachot that discuss it and there are major, major chachamim that did it. But marijuana is a completely different thing. Why? Because marijuana literally puts you in a different state of mind. It doesn't give you a buzz or some type of nicotine fix. Marijuana alters your state of mind, similar to how alcohol does, but with less quantity and less effort. So it's a completely different world. People that compare the two are not comparing apples to apples. But even alcohol, you're not allowed to get drunk just because. You're not allowed to get drunk just because. That's not allowed. Again, as a Jew, you have to put yourself in a state of mind where Hashem is next to you at all times. Meaning that if you understand that Hashem is next to you at all times, how dare you be drunk for no reason? How dare you be high for no reason? Now, most people that are fighting the marijuana issue, halachically, are people that are just getting high because they like getting high. But they're saying it in the name of medicine, because, you know, it actually does have medicinal benefits. So HaKadosh Baruch Hu wanted to remove this nonsense from the world. He said, okay, you want to use marijuana for medical benefits? No problem. I made things in the world, and I have a way to make everything, everything allowed.

2:30:01In a kosher way. So you can use the medicinal benefits of the marijuana plant, of the cannabis plant, how? By just taking the CBD. You take the CBD, it has no effect, at least not to the same extent, as what the full plant does, and that's it. Yes? So I'm curious as to why Hashem made a whole plant if only half of it was really needed. Because you could use the rest of the plant for other things. Why did He make locusts? You can use the plant for a lot of things. You have to also understand the reason why marijuana became illegal is not because of the drug. It's not because of the drug. Until a few decades ago, 50, 60 years ago, cocaine was legal. Cocaine was legal. They used to put it in Coca-Cola bottles. Babies. Coca-Cola became famous. Why? It was called Coca-Cola because it had cocaine in it. That's what it was called. And they used it to pacify babies that were crying because they didn't realize the magnitude of the effect of cocaine from this coca plant. And they didn't realize it was killing people and so on and so forth. And the kids were addicted and so on. Initially, Coca-Cola had cocaine in it. And cocaine continued being legal for many, many years.

2:31:21Morphine was given in regular places, all types of stuff. So marijuana didn't become illegal because of the drug, because many things that are much, much worse continued being legal, even after marijuana became illegal. So why did marijuana become illegal? Because until a little over a century ago, maybe 150 years ago or less, the most common and best product to use to make paper was the marijuana plant. All the books are not made from paper like you have here. If you look at old books, the paper is drastically thicker and better quality than we have today. Why? It's not made from like what we have today. But the paper companies saw that they're making a lot more money by making paper like this. Paper like what we have today. most common and best product to use to make paper was the marijuana plant. All the books were not made from paper like you have here. If you look at old books, the paper is drastically thicker and better quality than we have today. Why? It's not made from what we have today. But the paper companies saw that they could make a lot more money by making paper like this. Paper like what we have today. But they're fighting against this, you know, the existing suppliers. So what did they do? They went, got some politicians together. They got a few shekels in some suitcases and started paying people off to get these people to make marijuana illegal for drug purposes. Not because they cared about the drug, but because they cared about the money from the paper. It's all a business. All a business. It's all a business. This still does not mean that smoking marijuana is allowed.

2:32:49But the point is that not everything is necessarily always what it seems to be. Either way, our Torah tells us that everything has a purpose. Marijuana does not only have a purpose as far as to be smoked. It can be used for medicinal reasons. It can be used to make stuff. It can be used for a lot of different things. Same thing, for example, like when David HaMelech asked Hashem, "Why did You make a spider? Why do we need spiders in the world? It's such an ugly little creature. Why do we need it?" Well, Hashem says, "You asked that question. One day you're going to see that the spider is going to save your life." And one day, David HaMelech was hiding from King Shaul, and he ran into a cave. But Shaul was checking every cave. Eventually, he arrived at the cave that David HaMelech was in, but he confirmed for sure that David HaMelech could not be in this cave. Why? Because Hashem miraculously took a spider that made a whole web that covered the entire entrance of the cave. Now, Shaul did a calculation. He said, this web must have taken at least a week for the spider to make. There's no way it made it in five minutes.

2:33:57Which means that if David HaMelech would have come here, then I would have seen that the web was broken. The web was completely intact; it was a miracle. So that means that there's nobody inside this cave. So when Shaul went into the cave to relieve himself, he didn't think, he didn't realize that David HaMelech was behind him and could have killed him. The same thing with the tzirah. Tzirah is a wasp. David HaMelech asked, why did Hashem create the wasp? Hashem says, you'll see in your life that the wasp is going to save your life. One day, David HaMelech was running away from King Shaul. He ran away from him most of his life. And one night, he saw that Shaul and his camp, and all of his soldiers, had fallen asleep. So, he wanted to show Shaul that he didn't really want to kill him. He didn't want war. So how was he going to do it? He went up all the way to Shaul while everybody was sleeping and cut off a piece of his clothing to show him that he cut off a piece of his clothing, but he didn't kill him. So the next day, when Shaul wakes up, he sees, oh, a piece of clothing is cut off, and David HaMelech is going to show him, listen, I'm the one that did it. I could have killed you. But what happened then is that Shaul had one of his generals who was huge, was enormous, was almost like a giant in comparison to us. A huge, enormous person. And his leg fell on top of David and stopped him in his grip. He couldn't move. He couldn't move. Now, if he moves...

2:35:20He can wake him up, and then he's going to chop him into 50 pieces. If he doesn't move, then he's going to eventually wake up and chop him into 50 pieces. So he started praying to Hashem. Hashem sent a tzira, a wasp, that stung the giant. The tzira stung him in the thigh. He was so big that for him it was like a mosquito. So it just got him enough to move his leg and free David to run away. So the tzira, the wasp, saved his life. Last but not least, David HaMelech says, why did You make crazy people? One day he was walking around at night, and the Philistines caught him, realizing he was the king, and they brought him to their king. But as soon as he arrived at their king, their king said, why are you bringing me a crazy person? So the Torah says, why did he think that David was crazy? Because David got it into his head, that if he sees this king, and this king sees him normal, he's going to confirm he's King David, and he's going to kill him on the spot. But if he acts like a crazy person, maybe he's not going to think he's the king. So that's what he did. He acted like a crazy person. And what ended up happening is that Hashem, that day, made both the king's wife and his daughter go crazy.

2:36:38They both lost their minds that day. So he was dealing with his wife and his daughter going crazy that same day, that when he saw David HaMelech as another person, he's like, ah, this is a crazy person, I need more crazy people. I already have two in my house. So, get him out of here, and that saved his life. The point being is that everything and anything that we have in the world has a complete purpose. Sometimes we know many of the benefits, But I do not believe we know the full benefit of anything in existence. Anything in existence. Simply because we are limited as far as our capacity to understand the creation. You know, we're limited. You know, if you look, for example, at an ant, you don't see any benefit to the ant. Why would I, you know, what's worth the ant? I can tell you two benefits off the top of my head. One, Shlomo HaMelech says, go learn work ethics from the ant. You're never going to see an ant on vacation. Shlomo HaMelech says, "Go look at the ant, you lazy bum, and learn its ways, and you'll become wise." Why? You see the ant, and even though the ant gathers all of the food that it's going to need for the rest of its life during its first day, it still works non-stop every day for its whole life. For the six months that it lives, it works non-stop, 24 hours a day. So the chachamim,

2:38:03They knew 70 languages. They knew the language of the bugs. So they spoke to the ant. They asked the ant, "You know that your cousin died at six months old, right?" "Yes." "You know that your king died at six months old. You know your mom died at six months old. You know everybody died at six months old. That's the lifetime of the ant. So why do you keep working every day? You already got all the food that you're going to need for the rest of your life in the first few hours. We looked at your house. You had 300 kilos of food." Why do you need it? So the ant says, I pray every day that maybe Hashem will give me more life. Maybe Hashem will decide that I'm going to live longer. Everybody else died at six months, but maybe I'm going to live more. So I'm ready for that. So Shlomo HaMelech says, go learn from her. Go learn from the ant. Second reason, biologically speaking, or in general, world-wise, if you didn't have ants, you simply would have filth everywhere. It's part of the cleaning system of the world. Part of the cleaning system of the world. Yes? Put on gnats. Same. Same. They're part of this cleaning system of the world, but they're also part of the way that Hashem punishes people with spreading disease. For example, there was a disease a couple of hundred years ago that killed almost a hundred million people called the Black Plague. Both gnats or mosquitoes? Mosquitoes. Same thing. Gnats don't really bite.

2:39:36They transfer different types of diseases, they transfer different things, but they also are food for other bugs. Sometimes something exists just to be food. But again, like I said, these are all things that are off the top of my head. Why does a rat exist? Why does a mouse exist? Why does a lion exist? Why do a lot of things exist? There are certain things that we can know of just from seeing how the world works, but there are a lot of things that we're never going to know, simply because we see things from our limited human perspective. Like, for example, a lot of people don't realize that their eyes are the best camera system that can ever exist in the world. And the one thing that most guys are a little bit embarrassed about is crying. Most guys don't like to cry. They feel embarrassed about crying. But in reality, if your eye did not generate an unlimited amount of water, an unlimited amount of tears, you simply would go blind. That water that it generates constantly Those tears are what keep your eye clean, regardless of what goes into it, and keep your eye healthy. And if you didn't have them, within a matter of a couple of days, you could literally go blind. So something that we don't like actually ends up being something that helps us in a big way. The point being is that everything has a use. Everything has a use. Next.

2:40:57Say that we have more questions tomorrow, right? Tomorrow we have a shiur? Tomorrow. Tomorrow we have a shiur with questions and answers. Thank you for learning with me. Baruch Adonai le'olam. Amen. Baruch Adonai l'olam. Amen.