Hanukkah’s Lifetime MUSSAR

0:14We are in the last night of Chanukah. It's been another amazing holiday, Baruch Hashem. Light the candles if you took an opportunity to learn about Chanukah before the chag, after the chag, some of the shiurim we had. We see that this holiday is very different than most children are taught today. Most children, whether they're secular or religious, Jews or non-Jews, are taught that Hanukkah is almost like a custom, a nice thing to do, a fun holiday. which it is all of those things, but it's also some of the biggest Chachamim that ever lived, some of the biggest sages that ever lived, actually called it the holiest of all holidays. And the reason why is because Hanukkah is when we fought for Judaism more so than any other holiday in history. You know, on Pesach, we commemorate

1:31pretty much the beginning of Am Yisrael as a nation with the Exodus. With Shavuot, we celebrate when we officially united and received the Torah and became a nation. On Sukkot, we celebrate all of this. We celebrate being a nation, we celebrate getting the Torah, we also Commemorate what used to happen during the times of the Beit HaMikdash? Where Am Yisrael would bring 70 korbanot, 70 sacrifices, each representing one of the nations for their merit. Where the sages say that it brought so much good to the other nations that had they known how much good Am Yisrael does for them? how good these sacrifices that they’re bringing during Sukkot are for them, for these other nations that may hate us, that may be anti-Semitic, that may hate Judaism, that may hate the Torah, may hate everything about us. If those very same Nazis knew how good we are to them, they would have actually, instead of sending their armies to attack us, sent their armies to save us, by sending their armies to protect us and...

2:46So, Sukkot, we also celebrate that during Rosh Hashanah. It's our Judgment Day, Judgment Day, Judgment Day where every Jew has to repent, has to, in essence, have a final opportunity to repent for the sins that he made throughout the year. But in essence, it is the day that Hashem decides what He's going to do with him, do the accounting, the cheshbon, of what he's done throughout the year. Asked why is it that Hashem does this? Why does Hashem make us pay a bill, if you will, once a year and then give us an opportunity to appeal it ten days later? If there was a bad judgment, chas v'shalom, on Rosh Hashanah, ten days later we have an opportunity to appeal it on Yom Kippur, and then even the final judgment is not until Hoshana Rabbah. So...

3:48Why, why, why even bother is because Hashem doesn't want to have a shop in Shamayim showing us the bill, all the things that we've charged to the cart throughout our 70, 80, 90 years, and show us, "Listen, look, this is what you charged. You bought a steak, you bought a car, you bought a house, you bought a dish, you bought a dish." You know, all the sins we've made. show us on a video that we did it. So we're not going to be able to deny it. We're not going to be able to say, "Oh, no. No, I didn't do it." We're going to say, "Okay, yeah, you're right, right? I did all of that. You're right. I did all of those things. You're right. But now I can't pay for it. I don't have the money. I don't have the mitzvot. I don't have the merit. I don't know how to pay for it now. Why didn't you come to me earlier? Now when you have Rosh Hashanah... have an opportunity to pay for it each year, a possibility to do teshuva each year, to start all over fresh and clean each year if you do it right. But as you can see from all of these holidays, then we have Purim. Purim was a miracle when Israel made a few mistakes; Hashem rebuked them to such an extent where they were literally on the border of annihilation and

5:12They did teshuva, they fasted, and Hashem changed nature. Instead of them getting killed and flesh and blood being spilled, they were saved and they actually were able to hurt the enemy. But again, even that holiday, Purim... We're not necessarily fighting for Judaism. We're fighting for our lives, this world, our lives. All of the other holidays are not necessarily fighting for Judaism. We're fighting for each of our personal lives. We're commemorating that we started, we're commemorating the Torah, we're commemorating a lot of different things, but we're not fighting for anything. Chanukah, the Chachamim say, Chanukah is the one time we actually fought for Judaism, and we won. part of Judaism, the religious part. The religious part of Judaism was under threat. The Greeks didn't want to kill us physically like the Romans did, like the Babylonians did, like the Turks, like the Spaniards, like the Nazis. Even back in this week's Parsha, the Egyptians, even at the time that Yosef HaTzaddik was king.

6:33viceroy, they still hated Jews. They still hated the Israelites. They wouldn't eat, it says in last week's Parsha, they wouldn't eat next to his brothers because they despised them. They considered the Israelites an abomination and So even then they hated us. And then, oh, you fast forward a few hundred years, you fast forward, he starts this whole Holocaust, starts killing a bunch of Jews. But again, he wasn't interested in killing Judaism. He was interested in just killing Jews or making them slaves. The Greeks were not interested in killing Jews. The Greeks were interested in killing Judaism. And that's what we fought for. Now, although in the Rav Hutner's Pachad Yitzchak, which I've mentioned several times in the last couple of weeks, says although Chanukah is described in the Gemara as a Yom Tov, it's not really a Yom Tov like other Yomim Tovim. Meaning, when you have Yom Kippur, it's considered a Yom Tov.

7:48One of the main things that we know is we are not allowed to work on Yom Tov. Yom Tov is the same thing as Shabbat with the minor exception, cooking. We're able to cook. But Chanukah is considered a Yom Tov in the Gemara, but it's not really a Yom Tov. You're allowed to work. So why? Why is it? What's the significance of Chanukah? Chanukah is a very spiritual holiday. We're celebrating that The Torah won. Excuse me. Why are we celebrating it as a Yom Tov? It's a significant holiday. It's not like a minhag. It's not a custom where some Jews celebrate, some Jews don't. Where you don't have to do it and if you don't feel like it, you know, we have a handful of mandatory fasts throughout the year. Mandatory where everyone has to fast, and there are a couple of fasts you don't have to do. You should, well, you don't have to. There's more leniency in them. There are some holidays that are Yom Tov, and there's something more like customary. Well, holidays like it's not really a holiday. It's like a custom that we have as part of our tradition. It's a good thing to do. You don't have to do anything, though. This is not one of those; this is Yom Tov, and...

9:16This is my 100% hug. But as an exception, you don't have to work; you could work or not work. We do whatever we want. So what's the Yom Tov about it? Rav Hutner, alav hashalom, says the Yom Tov aspect of Hanukkah is the fact that we celebrate the victory of intellect—spiritual intellect. This may not seem like a big deal to you at this point. You may think, what do you mean? What's so special about intellect? Okay, so Jews are smart. Good job. Hello, everyone knows you're smart. You don't have to brag about it. Just look at the Nobel Prize winners. Statistically speaking, per capita, more Jews have won than any other nation, including America per capita, and... if you look at some of the people that have made major discoveries, if you look at some of the people that are running major corporations, major scientists, major this, major that, you see there's a lot of really, really smart Jewish people. But that's not what we're celebrating. We're actually celebrating divine intellect. We're celebrating the ones that are talmidei chachamim. We're celebrating the Torah. We're celebrating the fact that...

10:45Common sense of the Torah survived because if it wasn't for the common sense of the Torah, there would really be no reason for Hashem to continue this world. Now, in regards to talmidei chachamim and in regards to Am Yisrael as a whole, most people would think that we would have a much better, happier nation, holier nation during good times like the times of the Beit HaMikdash. When we had the Beit HaMikdash, you would think we had more sages during that time, more chachamim during that time. Naturally, it makes more sense; nobody's trying to kill you. You're the leader. You're the king of the world. You've got everything: you have money, you have power, everything is good. Yeah, but during that time, you see miracles day and night. You don't have to go to shul to look for proofs. You know, proofs? Go to the Beit HaMikdash, and you start seeing things flying in the air. I mean, it's not... it's not the miracles every day; your everyday life is miraculous. There's no proofs needed. But the chachamim say...

12:05The verse by the prophet Isaiah, chapter 54, verse 1, says that the deserted wife will have more children than the married wife. Meaning that the ruined Israel, the destroyed Israel, the ones that got beat up after the Beit HaMikdash, the exiled Israel, is going to have much more children than... the married wife, then Israel that's restored and happy during the times of the Beit HaMikdash. What are these children? The Chachamim explained, the Sages explained, that the children of those who were born during the tragic times were far greater in stature, as far as Torah is concerned, than the ones that were born during a peaceful time. And in Gemara Masechet Megillah, page 11a, it says, in so many words, there were many more tzaddikim (righteous people of stature) that emerged during the times of the exile than during the times when everything was wonderful. Why? We learn that this is our nature. This is one of the things that Hashem told Moshe Rabbeinu: "Warn the people not to forget Me."

13:23They get rich, they say, I did it. They do well, they forget God. This is repeated by Shlomo HaMelech. Shlomo HaMelech says to Am Yisrael, don't forget God. You have money, you're going to forget God. Be successful, notoriety, fame, fortune, and so on, you're going to forget God. And that's why there's a mitzvah, a mitzvah out of the 613 mitzvot. It's really a busha. It's really an embarrassment for me to say that Hashem actually has to remind us of this, but this is our yetzer hara. Of course, it is actually a mitzvah in our 613 mitzvot not to forget God. As a matter of fact, there's an obligation to It's an obligation that you're supposed to do it every day in the morning. All the guys that go to pray in the morning, Shacharit, and women should do it every day at some point, to do something called the Ten Remembrances. Ten things that you're supposed to remember. Ten things. Ten. Ten. There are Ten Remembrances. There are six things. The six things you're talking about are something else. It's similar, but it's not the same.

14:45Right, there are six things, but these are the Ten Remembrances. Two different things. They're similar, though. But the Ten Remembrances are as such: Yitziyat Mitzrayim. You must remember Egypt. Why? Remember where you came from. Remember you used to be a slave. You were nothing. They were beating you up. They were killing babies. They were taking their blood, making a bath out of it. Remember all that stuff? Hashem destroyed the biggest civilization in the world. The ones that you thought were your friends initially. Because Yosef HaTzaddik passed away. He said Yosef HaTzaddik was the leader. He made them rich. They loved him. They worshipped him. They made him into a god. Remember? That's the America of their day. You made them rich and then what? They made you into a slave. Remember Egypt. You remember that stuff? They may just leave. Okay. Remember, don't trust any Adam. Don't trust any man. No one. Why? Tomorrow may not be here. That's why in a couple of weeks, we're gonna see in Parashat Shemot it says, "And now a Pharaoh was born who didn't remember Yosef." What do you mean, didn't remember? He forgot? Remind them. There's 500 million people in Egypt and

15:53500 million people, one of them remembers. Why? You just died last week. Hey, you remember Yosef? The pictures are all over the wall. Everybody, every house has a picture of Yosef HaTzadik. Why? He made us rich. We were nothing. He made us rich. Yosef HaTzadik. Remember him. What do you mean you woke up and didn't remember him? It says you don't remember him on purpose. Why? Get him out of my face. Why? I don't like him anymore. Why? He's dead. I don't have to pay him any honor. I don't have to pay him any honor. He's some Jew. He did nothing. It's not really him. It was our money that made the money. It was always them that made the money. We just gave him a job. We gave him an opportunity. Look, he took advantage. He took all of our money. He took all of our jobs. He took all of our careers. He turned the whole story upside down. So, the America of their day, Egypt, Hashem says, you must remember it. Why? You like them today, everything is fine. They said, "Oh, the capital of Israel is Yerushalayim." Baruch Hashem. Thank you. Thank you for giving us permission to have Yerushalayim as the capital. Baruch Hashem for you. Everyone's sending letters. Wow, look at this. Amazing. Thank you very much for telling us what we knew for already 3,000 years. Thank you.

17:10So much kavod, so many articles written, so many things. What is this, a joke? This mitzvah, verse number one says, remember Mitzrayim, not just the slavery part. What happened before? Two, Shabbat. Shabbat, you got the mitzvah of Shabbat before you even got to Mount Sinai. Why? That's the deal breaker. You keep Shabbat, chazak u'baruch. You have a share in the World to Come. You don't, Nothing you can do is gonna save you. You can keep 612 out of the 613 mitzvot, somehow, someway, you're a Kohen, you're a woman, you're a man, you're everything. You found a way, you found a loophole to keep all of the mitzvot except Shabbat, halach l'cha. Doesn't make a difference. Goes to the garbage. Why? You get paid in this world, you have no Olam HaBa. Remember Shabbat. It's a big deal. That's number two. Manna. Remember the manna. What's "remember the manna"? I don't have any manna. Do you have any manna in the house? I'm telling you, I study Torah. I try all night, all day. I sleep. I wake. I try all the time. No manna is coming down. No manna is coming. Why do you say "remember the manna"? I don't remember the manna. Why do you say "remember the manna"? Remember that Hashem is the one that pays the bills. Your parnassah is from Shamayim the same way that the manna came from Shamayim. The same way that the manna came from Shamayim 3,300 years ago.

18:35Your parnassah comes from Shamayim. So whether you work until 11 o'clock at night or 11 o'clock in the afternoon, or you work six days, or seven days, or nine days, or two days, or one day, your parnassah, regardless, is coming from Shamayim. If you don't believe it, you are a kofer in the Torah. If you think you're making your money, you're a kofer, a kofer gamur. You have a problem. You have a serious problem. It's not an emunah issue. It's a problem with your foundational beliefs in Judaism. Why? Because parnasah is from shamayim. You think the parnasah comes from your koach, from your efforts. You have a problem. That's two. That's three. Four. Amalek. Maaseh Amalek. What's Amalek? Amalek was created to destroy you. Amalek and the word safek, which means doubt, have the same numerical value in Gematria. which means doubt, have the same numerical value in Gematria. Now, Amalek is alive and well in body, like the Nazis, but also in words. Sometimes you can have a shiur Torah,

19:48you're learning, you're there an hour, two hours, if you're at my shiur, three hours. Everything is good, everything is fantastic, amazing. You just saw a live shiur, you did teshuva, everything is great. You leave the shiur, and within five seconds of leaving the shiur, you see a comment on the internet from one of these, uh, keyboard warriors or somebody who didn't come to the shiur. You went to what, your own shiur? Oh, that guy again? Really, I heard—do you know what I heard? I heard that the study—start making up things. I heard that he does not make up things. All of a sudden, what happens? Oh, wait a minute. If what he says is true, then maybe everything else is not true. Maybe this—he just put one poisonous seed in your mind, and... One point, he didn't have to give a whole shiur for three hours to go against the three hours. One second. Hey, thanks for listening. Bye. That's it. He didn't say anything. Oh, you went to him. Oh, okay. Oh, that guy? He didn't say anything. He said, eh. That's why the Chafetz Chaim, the Chafetz Chaim says this is assur from the Torah to ever say anything, anything other than a compliment.

21:04about someone that teaches Torah. Even if all you have is negative things, even if he came, taught Torah, and nothing came out of his mouth, all shtuyot, all nonsense. It wasn't against the Torah, but nothing entertaining, nothing really of intellect, nothing really of chidushim, nothing. Mamash, he came there, he said to you guys, Hashem took us out of Egypt for five hours in a row. That's it. That's all he said. Hashem took us out of Egypt. You are not allowed, Chafetz Chaim says, to go and say to somebody else, "By the way, boring shiur. Five hours, he says, Hashem took us out of Egypt." What's issur in the Torah? What does it mean issur in the Torah? What does it mean it's not allowed in the Torah? Rambam says, why? You destroyed neshamot. Someone that maybe got chizuk out of that shiur or maybe will get chizuk from it last week or next week. Now you just ruined all of it. Why would you put a little poison? It doesn't have to be a lot of poison to be Amalek. You can have, you know, look, those huge barrels they have, like they put water in different cities and so on—giant barrels. Tiny, not even 1%—1% of 1% of poison.

22:18In that water, the whole water is gone. Everything, anyone who drinks it dies. That's it. That's Amalek. That's Amalek. You don't have to say much. You ruin everything. Next one, Ma'amad Har Sinai. Ma'amad Har Sinai is the fifth one. He says, remember Ma'amad Har Sinai. Why do I need to remember Ma'amad Har Sinai? Why do I have to remember Mount Sinai? Because you were there. You may not remember it, but you were right next to me. You were pushing me. I remember. You were there. What does it mean you were there? Your neshama was there. So what? My neshama was there. That means when you get up to Shamayim, you can't say, "I didn't know." What do you mean you didn't know? You think Hashem, the Creator of all creation, the King of kings, Hashem that loves you, is going to put you into a world and you don't know anything? Nothing? You're like a golem? Nothing? You're a little, little Play-Doh? Just a piece of Play-Doh? You don't know anything? You never had an opportunity to ask yourself: What's the truth? What's fake? Why did I come to this world? Nothing? You're just a golem? Nothing? He said, you were at Mount Sinai. You were at Mount Sinai, of course you knew. You may not remember the day you were at Mount Sinai because it was 3,000 years ago. It was a long time ago. But your neshama remembers. At some point during your life, you're going to constantly be reminded. There are going to be doubts.

23:41Am I doing right? Am I doing wrong? Should I marry this woman? Should I marry this guy? Should I do this? Should I do that? Should I steal? You're always asking yourself. Why do you think you're asking yourself? No one taught you in grade school about marriage. No one taught you in grade school whether to waste seed or not. But if you go to a Jewish crowd, it doesn't matter if they're soldiers in the army, it doesn't matter if it's in the kibbutz, it doesn't matter if it's in America, it doesn't matter if it's in Guam, it doesn't matter if it's in Africa, you tell people, "Ladies and gentlemen, what do you know about wasting seed?" Everyone knows it's assur. They don't know why it's assur. You go to non-Jews and say, "Ladies and gentlemen, what do you know about wasting seed?" Everyone knows it's assur. They don't know why; they never read anything about it. As a matter of fact, this is the first time in their life they actually heard the term, but they automatically know what it means. No one in their right mind thinks that wasting seed is taking a bunch of seeds—four sesame seeds—and throwing them on the ground.

24:46No one thinks that. No one thinks it's taking little pistachios and throwing them in the air or something. No one thinks that. No one thinks it's watermelon seeds. No one thinks like that. Everyone knows exactly what I mean when I say, what do you think of wasting seed? Why? You were at Mount Sinai. You were at Mount Sinai. You cannot deny it. Next. that our holy fathers, despite having miracles after miracles after miracles after miracles after miracles, day and night. There was not a day that passed without a miracle. But I'm not talking about a miracle like we see miracles. Miracle you didn't have a flat tire. Miracle you got on time to the appointment even though you were an hour behind. Miracle that your wife still likes you. Miracle that your husband wanted to marry you. Miracle that the kids are still home. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about miracles, and you're seeing crazy things. Miracles, despite all of that, Am Yisrael still went against HaShem and still had the golden calf. What is it? What is this reminder? The reminder is: miracles for all of those people who say, "Why doesn't HaShem just show Himself? Why doesn't HaShem just show Himself to all of us and eliminate all doubt? Why doesn't HaShem show us? Just write something, write 'God,' everyone knows where it came from, or just say something to scare us to death."

26:15I'm God. That's it, finished. Everyone's gonna believe in God. There's not gonna be an atheist in the world. HaShem says, not possible. Why? Look, the ones that saw miracles non-stop, still at some point, the miracles did not help them do teshuvah. Why? Because the Yetzer Hara continues to work. Unless the Yetzer Hatov works, the Yetzer Hara wins. Unless you continue learning Torah, continue getting glued to HaShem, continue working on yourself, on your middot, your character traits, and everything else is... It's all going to fall apart. All the miracles you had are going to become a distant memory. How many of you have books, notebooks, that you wrote down all the miracles that happened in your life? I don't want to embarrass you and ask you to raise your hands. How many of you have a memory, just a memory, of all the miracles that you ever had in your life? I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand. How many remember how many miracles you had today? Not yesterday, not last week, not your whole life, just today. Even that you have to think about. Why? Miracles don't help people do teshuva. Miracles just open the door, come in, son, come in, daughter, come, come. What keeps you in? Torah. So stop asking the silly question of why doesn't Hashem appear. Next. There are always going to be some leaders out there that are going to go against the nation. But only we can beat ourselves.

27:46Bil'am HaRasha was a prophet that had one power that even Moshe Rabbeinu didn't have. He knew the moment, the Rega, that Hashem would punish the world. The moment, the Rega. Some of the Chachamim say this is one out of 15,000th of a second. That's the Rega. Whatever it is, the Gemara in a couple of places, in Berachot, in Megillah, You know, that gave him power that if he utilized that moment, that Rega, he could ask Hashem to do whatever he wanted. He tried cursing us during that moment. Hashem said no. Balak had cash. He said, "Bil'am, you curse them, you destroy them, I'll pay you anything you want. Billion? No problem. Where do you want me to make the check? Payable to cash? No problem. Diamonds? Do whatever you want. I have cash. Donald Trump was like an employee for him. Balak had a lot of money. He said, "I'll pay whatever you want. Just destroy these people." what really destroyed us, what really destroyed, what nearly destroyed the entire nation? You go to Parashat Balak at the end. After all of the trials that Balak and Bilam tried cursing us several times, three times, nothing worked. What nearly destroyed us? Immodesty. Immodesty. Bilam told him, "Listen, the curse is not working. Why? The God of Israel, He runs the show. It doesn't matter what I do. He wants to curse, He curses. He's not like a genie."

29:15He wants the curse. He doesn't want the curse. What do you think? He's like us, changing His mind? He said He's blessing them. He's blessing them. But I do know something about Him. What do I know? Their God hates immodesty. You send your immodest girls to them. They go with them. He'll destroy them without you asking. Why? It's disgusting to Him. An immodest act is disgusting to Hashem. Because it eliminates the separation between man and animal. What's the difference between man and animal? You can't tell me it's the fact that you're able to speak. Maybe the cow can speak; you just don't understand. You can't tell me it's because I can pray; maybe the cow is praying and you don't know. As a matter of fact, the Gemara says they do pray every day and... What do you think? The frogs in this world are not praying to Hashem? Every day they quack, quack, quack. They quack to Hashem. Come on. It says several stories about how they're praying to Hashem. What are you saying, they're not praying? What are you saying? Because what? You have a mortgage? They don't need a mortgage. They can live anywhere they want. They live better than you. They have no stress. You have stress all the time. What do you say? Because you get married? They get married to as many animals as they want. Every day there's a new wife, every day a new husband. What separates you? What makes you better?

30:36What makes you better than an animal, than one of these animals? We're gonna make kosher steaks out of what? What makes you different? Why are we putting you there, chopping you up into little kosher steaks? Why? What's the difference? The difference is your free choice. They work off of instinct. They work off of instinct. You have free choice. What's the free choice of? You don't have free choice of whether you're tall or short. You don't have free choice of whether you live or die. You don't have free choice of whether you're born black, white, yellow, green, or any other color in between. What's your free choice? Your free choice is whether you're going to fear God or not. Your free choice is whether you're going to obey what God said or not. So now, God said, there are a few things that I am disgusted by. One of them is immodesty, promiscuity. Whether it's with the same sex, opposite sex, irrelevant. The point is, it's disgusting in the eyes of Hashem. Anything connected to it, anything around it, to such an extent that even the rasha prophet, the wicked prophet Bil'am, had the opportunity to curse us, it didn't work. What worked? He sent a bunch of prostitutes to us.

31:54Am Yisrael sinned with them and Hashem started killing us by the second. 24,000 died in a matter of seconds. Not weeks, not months, not days, not even hours—seconds. Seconds! The Chachamim say it was to such an extent that had Pinchas not done what he did, within a few more seconds all of Am Yisrael would have died. There would be no us, no conversion, no teshuva, no nothing. Zero. No Moshe Rabbeinu, nothing. Not like the Chet Ha'Egel where we sinned with the golden calf and He came to Moshe Rabbeinu. "Moshe, listen, let me just destroy them and I'll start a new nation from you." No, He didn't say this. He didn't even warn us. That's how much He hates immodesty. That's how much He hates promiscuity. That's how much He hates intermarriage. That's how much. You ask how much? That's how much. You have to remember this every day. It's number seven. Number eight.

32:56Maaseh Miriam HaNeviyah. Miriam, Miriam, Miriam. Miriam was a prophet. Miriam was a prophet, the sister of Moshe Rabbeinu. Not like the foolish Arabs in the Quran who write that Miriam was the mother of JC Penny and lived a thousand years before the guy. Miriam was a prophet, Kodesh Kodashim. As a matter of fact, there's a story in the Gemara about Miriam. Make you understand how important it is to listen to rebuke, regardless of where it comes from. Miriam was six years old—five years old actually at the time—five years old. Miriam, she sees her father, "I'm wrong. I'm wrong. Don't do it." Kodesh kodeshim, how kodesh, how holy is he? The Gemara says only four people lived and died without ever sinning. What does it mean never sinning? Never sinning like big things, never chilul Shabbat, never ate non-kosher, no, no, no, never sinning, period. Ever, nothing. On the way here, I think some of us sinned. Just on the way here. One second. Yeah, four people. Yes, he was allowed. He was allowed.

34:15This is before Matan Torah, and that's why after Matan Torah, one of the best proofs of the Torah is that Moshe Rabbeinu's parents, Amram and Yocheved, had to get divorced. They had to get divorced. That's one of the best proofs that the Torah is authentic. Why? If Moshe Rabbeinu wrote it out of his own free will, out of his own mind, why in his right mind would he go up to the mountain, come down from the mountain, and say, "Hey, Abba, Ima, hey, by the way, I love you guys, we have to get divorced." at the very least, you say, "Abba, Ima, since I'm the one that wrote the Torah, your grandfather doesn't have to do anything. Don't worry about it." I mean, the first thing to do is to say, "Abba, Ima, you have to get divorced." Not the issue of marrying your aunt; that only came after Matan Torah. We also learn this from Yaakov Avinu, who married two sisters. And Yaakov Avinu married two sisters. He was allowed at the time to marry two sisters because at the time we didn't have Matan Torah. Even though they kept the laws, they kept them as Noahides and they kept them as far as what their limitations were. They didn't keep them like Am Yisrael kept them after Matan Torah. It didn't become official until now.

35:27Amram comes to Am Yisrael and he tells them, "Listen, this Paro, Rasha, he's killing us. Every boy that's born, he's killing us. Every boy, misken, what did the boy do? He's just born. He didn't even do anything. He didn't even curse him out. He didn't even have a chance to do anything yet, and already he's killing him. So why are we going to bother having kids? Carry the baby for nine months, misken. And then, you know what the Chachamim say, that one of the miracles that made Am Yisrael greater than Egypt, that made the Egyptians decide to only kill the boys, but not the girls. If they want to destroy us, kill the girls too. He says, no, no, no. We want to keep the girls. Why keep the girls? Because every birth was six kids. So he said, look, the Jewish women, the Israelite women, great, let's keep the women for ourselves. We can grow. Every time we're with them, six Egyptians, six Muhammads, six Mustafas. We're going to become two billion within a couple of generations. China or Mustafas today. So now what happens? They start killing us, but they kill the boys only.

36:41Samram says, "What are we going to have this for? For what? We're going to carry the babies just to kill them? For what? Divorce is your habit." Miriam, Miriam HaKadoshah, five years old, little, piccolo, tiny, says, "Abba, Abba, you're worse than Paro." "What? Excuse me? You're worse than Paro, Abba." My daughter's only two and a half, Baruch Hashem. At five years old, she tells me I'm worse than Paro. I'm not giving her another chance. Let's say, well, let me see why I'm almost kadosh kadosh. I'm going to give her a chance. Why am I worse than Paro? Paro was a rasha. Paro's decree was to kill only the boys. Your decree to divorce the wives and not have any more kids is killing both the boys and the girls. Why? Because you're going to divorce them, huh? You're not going to have any more kids. Now everyone's going to follow you. Everyone's going to divorce their wives, so no kids at all. No boys and no girls.

37:41Your decree is worse than Paro's. Your decree is worse than Paro's. Why is it worse than Paro's? Paro is ha'rasha. Paro is wicked. Meaning that maybe what he says happens, maybe it doesn't because he's a rasha. Hashem doesn't have to fulfill his will. You're a tzaddik. If you say, Hashem does. Why? You're a tzaddik. Gemara says it. Masechet Shabbat, Masechet Moed, a few places. So now, imagine, Gadol Hador, giant of giants, never sinned in his life, looks like a five-year-old just rebuked him. And she's right. Between you and me. You listen? I don't listen. I pretend like it didn't happen. I'm telling you, personally, I pretend like it doesn't happen. Five years old. Next week, I'll find something else. I'll find a new excuse. I'll pretend like it was my idea. Five years old, I'm going to tell the whole world, they say, I made a mistake. My five-year-old just rebuked me. That's what he did. That's what he did. Why? That's ish emet. That's an ish emet. That's why he's gadol hador. So Miriam had the intuition, had the nevuah, had the prophecy that this had to happen at five years old. And because of her, and because of how Amram responded, Moshe Rabbeinu was born.

38:58He married, she was a shadchanit, she got 10,000 dollars. Shadchanit, 10,000 dollars. Abba, Ima, nice to meet each other, get married. All over again. Moshe Rabbeinu is born a year later. She's six years old, she has little Moshe Rabbeinu, little does everyone know. This little Moshe Rabbeinu is gonna become big Moshe Rabbeinu, the prophet of all prophets. Why? Listen to Rav Kook, five years old. So this very same Miriam, She sees everything. She leaves with us from Egypt. She's in the desert with us. There's a whole river of fresh water following Am Yisrael for 40 years due to her merit. She dies, the river dies. It says, Ma'aseh Miriam. What's Ma'aseh Miriam? What do we have to remember about Miriam? It says the one time she sinned. What did she sin? She just saved Am Yisrael. Yes, she sinned once. What did she do? You remember? It says that she said something not so appropriate about Moshe Rabbeinu, her brother.

40:06She said, "Moshe," she was talking to Aharon. She's talking to one of the guys, you know, she's talking to her brother. One of the others, she's not talking to the rest of the people. She's not making an announcement. She's talking to Aharon, someone who understands, another leader. "Our brother Moshe, he left his wife Tzipora. Why? Why does he think he's better? Maybe he's a little gafdan, maybe he thinks of himself now because Hashem speaks to him. Why, we're prophets also. Well, he's a prophet; we're prophets also." Her level, that was considered lashon hara, and her speech was considered distasteful against the gadol hador. Hashem came out from the heavens, and a bat kol came out and said, "No, he's not a prophet like you. You’re a prophet, yes, but not like Moshe Rabbeinu." And He punished her with tzaraat. Tzaraat is both a spiritual and a physical disease. The only cure is from Hashem.

41:07Doesn't matter what medicine you have and when you have it, one of the cures is to do teshuva. The main thing you have to do is teshuva. How do you do teshuva? Bring embarrassment to yourself. You have to, first of all, they throw you out of the camp because you can infect other people. They throw you out of the camp so everyone knows you spoke about somebody else in a negative way to make others distance themselves from him or from her. So the actual punishment is... Everyone distances themselves from you. So first of all, everyone knows you are a person who speaks badly about other people. Everyone knows you have a tongue that doesn't stop. Get out. That's the first thing. The second thing is that when you're outside of the camp, no one is allowed to be next to you. And if someone doesn't know, you have it, don't have it, they come, you know, they're on their horse, they're on their camel, they're on their donkey, they're coming down. And you're over there in your little camp, outside of the camp, you're in your little hut over there, and someone comes down the street. You have to come out and start screaming, no, tzaraat, tzaraat, meaning, I have tzaraat. You have to tell people, I have tzaraat. You have to tell people, hey, I have, it's like someone saying, I have AIDS, AIDS, AIDS. Who wants to do that?

42:28You have to bring embarrassment to yourself. Shana de Gemara Masechet Shabbat, page 66, says, but that's only one tzaraat. If you say tzaraat once, we understand you're bringing embarrassment to yourself. Why are you saying tzaraat twice? Say it twice. Say tzaraat, tzaraat. If it's for embarrassment, say it once. Why is he saying it twice? He says the second time, To make them feel bad for you. Why do you make other people feel bad for you? They pray for you. They pray for you. They have more merits than you because of the shame you have. A flash lima second time makes other people feel bad for you. Why do they pray for you? They pray for you. That's where we get one of the sources where you guys always see. Oh, you know, so-and-so babbling on something happened, pray for them, Tehillim, this, that's the source. say, "Oh, why do we pray for people? Why do you pray for people? Technically, if something happened in someone's house or some place, you're not allowed to announce it to the world. If somebody just ruined their car, they're a bad driver, you don't start telling, 'Hey, by the way, Joe over there is a terrible driver.'"

43:48But if you say, Bar Minan, Hashem, Joe got into an accident, pray for him. Why? You make other people feel bad for him. You pray for him. So, Miriam got tzaraat. As holy as she was, she got tzaraat. Why? She said one thing. One thing, a little doubt. She had a little safek about Moshe Rabbeinu. So if Miriam can get tzaraat, that's a horrible, horrible disease that Moshe Rabbeinu was the only one who was able to cure. He prayed one time, five words, finished. But the whole nation prayed for it, and nothing happened. Moshe Rabbeinu said five words, finished, cured. Why? It doesn't matter how holy you are. Garbage comes out of your mouth, you have a sore mouth, there will be an outcome. really bad one. Next one. Which is the reason why we say this whole list for? Omits what was the heart of it: Adonai Elohecha, He who gives you the power to acquire wealth. To remember Hashem, your God. This is a mitzvah in the Torah out of the 613 mitzvot, and

45:13From the Torah, seven from Lebanon, six hundred and twenty total, one of those mitzvot from the Torah says to remember God. Why remember God? Because He's the one who gives you the power to acquire wealth. He's the one that gives you the power to do anything. If you think about it logically, it's not logical to not remember God. It's illogical not to remember God. Where would you think it came from? Did you come from nothing? You have to come from somewhere. Did the money just appear? Did you just come up with the idea on your own? Who created your brain? Who gave you eyes? Who gave you ears? Who gave you everything? It's illogical to forget God. But nonetheless, we do it all the time. Nonetheless, we do it all the time. The reason why is because we turn ourselves, chas v'shalom, into our own gods. We give ourselves the credit: "I'm the one who thought of this new invention. I'm the one who picked this investment. I'm the one who decided to work at this time, at this place," and so on. Constantly giving ourselves the credit. Hashem says...

46:41Remember, my friends, what is it like? A king only has one daughter. And he says to the daughter, "I'll give you anything you want. Your husband that you're going to marry one day, I'll give him anything he wants." Okay. One day she grows up. She gets married. And this guy comes in. He says, "Listen, I'll give you guys whatever you want." "Oh, really?" "Sure. We want a house." "No problem. Where do you want the house? How big do you want the house?" Want the house in this place at this time, a ten-million-dollar house? No problem. I want a car on Monday, a different car on Tuesday, a different car on Wednesday, a chopper, a plane, food, and servants. Anything you want, I'll give you. Okay, what's the condition? Is there a price for this or not? It's free. Nothing's free in life. He says, there's only one small thing that I want, the king says, only one small thing. Wherever you go, you have this vacation house, you have the other house, you have the car on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. You have all these different things that I'm giving you. I'm paying for it. Just make sure to give me a little bit of room. Just one tiny little room. It doesn't have to be a big room. You have a house of 20,000 square feet. Give me a room no bigger than a small bathroom. Something small, tiny, but just give it to me. Don't give it to anyone else, just a room for me.

48:02Sounds logical. Come on. You're not going to give it to him. He just paid for the house. You should take the whole house. You should have the little room. What happens? One day the king shows up. Hello. Hello. I need a place to sleep. I need a place to pray. I need a place to eat. I need a place to rest. Oh, I'm sorry. We're busy. Come back next week. Unfortunately, that's us when we forget about God. He gave us everything. He gave us zivug. He gave us parnasah. He gave us kids. He gave us everything we have. We forget to give Him a little room every day. That's why there's a mitzvah in the Torah. Hashem says, "I know I created you. I created you that way because you had to work on this mitzvah in order to fulfill it. You have to constantly, proactively remember Me." That's why you have to say it at the end of your tefillah. It's not part of your tefillah. It's at the end. Why? It's an extra effort. It's not part of your tefillah. It's the end. Because the tefillah, which we'll talk about now,

49:03It's the part you can easily become used to and become robotic. The last mitzvah that you're obligated to remember, it says remember Yerushalayim. Remember that the days of the Mashiach are going to come, and Yerushalayim is going to be rebuilt, and Am Yisrael will be great again. But right before that... Tells you to remember God. Why? The only chance you'll be able to survive to see the last one, the only chance you'll have to see this, is if you remember God. It seems very logical for us to remember God. But our tefillah and our behavior in a few other places and... We say Hashkiveinu both on Shabbat as well as during the week. Hashkiveinu prayer: "Hashkiveinu Avinu l'shalom v'ha'amideinu Malkeinu l'chayim tovim u'l'shalom." "Lay us down to sleep, our Father, in peace, and raise us up, our King, for good life and peace."

50:29Shelter and so on and so forth. We're asking for all these wonderful things, and then one of the things that we ask for is to break and remove the Satan from before us and from behind us. Meaning, Am Yisrael is asking Hashem to do something we can't do. You created this Satan, this Malach HaMavet, and... Yetzer Hara, the Gemara says, is all three in the same one. And he has a role. The first role is to convince us to do something against You. After he convinces us to drive on Shabbat, even to the Beit Knesset, after he convinces us to eat non-kosher, even though it looks good, after he convinces us to marry a non-Jew, even though they're very nice people, after he convinces us to do something against You... But he doesn't convince us just by telling us to go against God. No one actively goes against God if they still have their sanity. What does the Satan do? He does something that the Greeks did during Chanukah. What was so different about the Greeks than any other nation? The Greeks did something extraordinary when they came to us.

51:51just like the Satan comes to us and acts like a friend, he doesn't come to you as an enemy and say, "Nazi Germany, kill everyone inside." No, he says, "Hey, come to my house. We have Kiddush. Yeah, Kiddush, no problem. Kiddush? What's the Kiddush about? Oh, Kiddush wine? No problem, I have wine. It's kosher wine. We'll make it kosher. I'll bless it for you. I'll bless it for you." Remember in public school when I was a little kid, my non-Jewish friend told me, "What, you went kosher? I'll bless it for you. Don't worry. I'll bless your burger. I'll bless it for you." It was a joke. I didn't know what it meant, but it's funny. Little did I know that that's like the Greeks 2,000 years ago saying, "I'll bless it for you. Whatever you want." They come to you as your friends, not as your enemy. That's why Yaakov Avinu said to Hashem, "Hatzileini na miyad achi, miyad Eisav." Hashem, save me from my brother, save me from Esav. But he only had one brother. He only had Esav as his brother. What do you mean, save me from my brother? Save me from Esav. Why are you repeating yourself? When he's Esav, it's obvious he's trying to kill me, physically. When he's achi, when he's my brother, I can't tell the difference. He looks like a Chabadnik. He looks like a normal Jew. He looks like a regular Chassid. He looks like a tzaddik.

53:12Don't know if he's right or wrong. I don't know if he's trying to kill me. I don't know that he really is a Messianic Christian or something like that, like all of these organizations that are donating to Israel because "we love Israel." All these Christian organizations donate hundreds of millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars, and Israel receives hundreds of millions. I mean, from America. It's not like in America, a small little nonprofit organization has to raise a million. In Israel, if someone donates a few hundred million dollars, it's a big deal. It's a significant percentage of the GDP. So when you have Christian organizations donating hundreds of millions of dollars to the country and Moreover, they help you move there. They help Jews move to Israel. Sounds too good to be true. This is what they call "Chasidei Umot HaOlam" (the righteous among the nations). You would think it's organizations like "One for Israel," "One for this," and "One for that." Christians and Jews, all types of things. Some of them even have Orthodox rabbis on the board of directors. You have Orthodox rabbis and...

54:31Orthodox rabbis are proud of this. They tell, they write papers, and they write articles. "Yeah, I've been part of this organization since its founding 20 years ago, and we facilitated tens of millions of dollars to go to this kibbutz and that kibbutz and this one and that one." What, all of a sudden, Antiochus likes us? What happened? How could this be? You don't need to believe me—you can just check for yourself. You can see that the ultimate mission of every single one of these Christian organizations, without a single exception, is to missionize. They can say whatever they want, but if they're Christians, their job is to missionize. If they're Christians, their job is to make Jews Christians. That's their job. Why? Their Bible says so, and You cannot be a Christian without missionizing. You'd be a heretic in Christianity if you're not a missionary. You cannot be a Christian without missionizing. They could tell you, no, no, we love you. We're not missionizing. The Pope loves you. Gehenom loves you. Amalek, everyone loves you. Even Hitler, I'll convince him to tell you. Yeah, they'll tell you they love you. That's the Satan. That's Esav. Esav is going to tell you, I'm your brother. And unfortunately, my brothers and sisters,

56:01most upsetting thing about the missionary world that I deal with is that I found out a very disturbing fact that the Jewish world apparently is just not acknowledging, not realizing, not understanding, not accepting, not believing, or maybe just is ignorant of to complete just foolishness. The largest, most successful missionary organizations The largest and most successful organizations that take Jews from Am Yisrael to Christianity, to the New Testament, to the goyim, are Jews. The leaders, the preachers, the speakers, the funders, the ones that you see on TV, the ones that you see on YouTube, the ones that you see that speak and cheer, neither the Torah and...

57:04Jews, not Jews like maybe, no, no, Jews 100%, Mom and Abba both Jews. But they discovered Jesus, they discovered JC Penney, they discovered Macy's, they discovered all these things. Now, they want to ruin Am Yisrael. So you have these organizations that have literally an infinite amount of money, an infinite amount of money and... There's no check they can't fill. They only need to get bigger checks to fit the big numbers and they want to pay whatever you want. You want a house? We'll give you a house. Just, just say you don't believe in the Torah and believe in this thing. Just leave Judaism. Live. Live, enjoy. We'll give you money. We'll make you enjoy this life. Go to clubs, go to pubs, go to runway shows, go to this, go to that. Be a TV producer, TV manager, whatever. We will give you whatever you want and... Just don't be a religious Jew. That's it. This is why you see these two Jews that unfortunately are Christian missionaries, but they call themselves Jews. Jews for Jesus, Jews for this, Jews for that. I think it's One for Israel or One for Gehenom, whatever it is. These two Israeli guys.

58:22Holy, they have interviews. They have people they interview, "this guy found Jesus, this guy found JC Penny, this guy's the Messiah," all these different garbage things that they say. Now, they don't bring you some, you know, some guy from China, who says, "Oh, hi, how are you? Yeah, I was in China, I didn't know anything, I thought Buddha was God, now Jesus is." They don't bring you that guy. They don't bring you Mustafa. The Palestinian people from Saudi Arabia say, "Oh yeah, I thought Muhammad was this, Muhammad was that." No, no, no. They don't bring you that guy. Who do they bring you? Every single day, you go to their websites if you want to ruin your eyes and your mind for at least a week. Interview after interview after interview of Jews—Jews who left the Torah. Why? Because of Christianity, Esav, Amalek. That's the purpose of life. That's the purpose of life. Ruin Am Yisrael. Ruin Am Yisrael. That's it. That's the only reason they exist. So the fight against the Greeks only started 2,000 years ago. And anyone who thinks that it's finished

59:48Living an illusion. We're in worse shape today than we were 2,000 years ago because 2,000 years ago it was easy to identify who was the original Yevani, who was the original Greek. Even though the Jews started wearing clothes like the Yevanim, started wearing clothes, started acting, even started idol worshipping, and Like the Greek, it was still identifiable that, hey, yeah, that's Yitzchak. Hey, Yitzchak calls himself now, whatever, Theodore. But it's Yitzchak, we know Yitzchak. It was easy to identify who's Yitzchak. It was easy to identify who's Yaakov. It was easy to identify who's Moshe, it was easy. It just began. You don't know who's Esav and you don't know who's Yaakov. You don't know who's Jewish and you don't know who's not. You don't know who's on your team. You don't know who's against you. Why? Because we're all worried about ourselves. We're worried about all the things that we're dealing with. We're so busy with our lives. We're so busy competing with the Joneses that we forgot God. And that's why it's an obligation for us to say it every single day at the end of the tefillah of Shacharit. And if you don't

1:01:03The time or the ability or the memory to remember to do it after Shacharit. Just do it at any time. The ten remembrances could be done at any time during the day, and it helps you fulfill several mitzvot. One of the most important ones is number nine, which is to remember God. I know it seems ridiculous, but if it was as ridiculous as it sounds, it wouldn't be a mitzvah. And that's why in Hashkiveinu Avinu, when we're asking Hashem to help us, to give us comfort, we're also asking Him to fight the Satan for us—the one behind us and the one in front of us. The one behind us is the Greek that we thought we beat, and the one in front of us that we can't tell the difference of whether he's our brother, our rabbi, our friend, or we don't know who he is. Why? Because we haven't been looking and

1:02:04haven't been looking; we've been looking elsewhere. We're looking at everything else, but that's one of the things that this Chanukah at the very least should remind us of. The fight just started, and we're losing people daily. We're not losing like, "Oh yeah, the guy just went to church, he liked it, and you know, maybe next week he'll come back to synagogue." Losing the fight. All the kiruv, Baruch Hashem, we're doing every single day. Every single day I get letters, emails, and text messages from people who, Baruch Hashem, did teshuva. It's unbelievable how many people are doing teshuva. But I still know we're losing. As much as I would love to pat myself on the back, I know we're losing the fight. I had a woman send me a message

1:03:04I think it was yesterday. And she says, Baruch Hashem, she lives in Washington, Washington State. She was a religious Jew in Chabad. And it's a known thing for them to wear wigs. And she says that after I saw what you said, and you know, with the proofs and so on, I decided to take off the wig. ...and do teshuva because I realized this is a serious problem. I knew for sure that I could not confirm the source of my wig, which means that it comes from avodah zarah, from India, from idol worship over there. Now, this was a very difficult thing for me, but I knew that there was just too much evidence that I couldn't deny. There was one other hurdle: my husband. He didn't like it, but after I showed him the videos... He did teshuva. He said it's a good idea. But there was another hurdle: the community. Were you going against the Rebbe? The Lubavitcher Rebbe? How are you going to go? He said it's allowed. But then I showed them the evidence. I showed the women of the community the evidence. And now they're starting to do teshuva. You have a community in the middle of nowhere, somewhere in Chabad, the place most difficult for people like me to reach.

1:04:28Don't you know why? Because the evidence is indisputable for anyone looking for it. There was a new thing that came out just in the last week. A woman said that she's been having dreams about the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Now, obviously we don't make halacha based on dreams, but nonetheless, it is very interesting. She says the Lubavitcher Rebbe, for some reason or another, is connected to her in some way or some shape or form, and he keeps coming back to her in a dream more than once. He says they keep embarrassing me in Shamayim. Spread the message to tell him I never allowed wigs. Whoever says it is a liar. Why would a woman make this up? She wore a wig herself. Why would she just decide, "Oh, I'm gonna make something up, just come out of the blue and make things up?" One time, the king came to reveal it to Rav Yitzchak Zev Soloveitchik, zt"l, and...

1:05:29He says, listen, I want you to have another debate with the priests or the heads of the priests of Christianity. Once you have another debate, they enjoy having debates. Now, Rabbeinu Yonah was a giant chacham, kodesh kodeshim. The problem is, he tried running away from debates. Why? Having debates with the Christians is a waste of time. Either way, you lose. Why? If you lose the debate, Jews may fall off. It's terrible. If you win, which is very easy to win because the proofs are in front of you, you have the Torah. Anyone who knows a little Torah wins the debate. The problem is they kill you, and they kill Am Yisrael. Why? They don't want to lose. That's why the Ramban, when he had the famous debate almost 900 years ago... He refused to have the debate in the beginning until the king made it a law that no one's allowed to touch him. But even after that, even after the famous debate that he destroyed Christianity, it's a very famous debate documented in the book and so on and so forth. They made a movie about it also. The book is better. He documented all of this; destroyed Christianity went to pieces. Anyone that debates today—Christianity versus Judaism—just uses the sources of the Ramban. You win. There's no way they can fight it. It's impossible.

1:06:49Questions they can never answer. A thousand years more, they still can't answer it. So you look at this, you made a law, but the king said to him, "Listen, for the love, I respect you. I respect you. I agree with you, everything. I promised you, I'm not known. I'm not gonna touch you. I'm keeping my promise. The problem is, even though I'm king, I still can't tell you what everyone else is gonna do because right now you just destroyed their lives." You stole from them everything they believe is a lie, and you proved it in front of thousands. What are they going to do? They say, "Oh no, no, I'm going to do it back." Yeah, do you mind? So Rabbi Yonatan Eibeshutz was faced with a dilemma, but he was forced to do it, and the king told him, "Listen, I only have one question in this debate. How could it be that the Jews are right? How could it be the Jews are right?" Pure numbers logic beats you. You look at the number of Jews, a few million; you look at the number of Christians, hundreds and hundreds of millions today. It's almost two billion, two and a half billion, whatever it is. It was a little less back then, a couple of hundred years ago, but nonetheless a huge number. We're not even an estimate, a rounding error in comparison to them.

1:08:13When you estimate the number of people in the world, let's say, for example, it's almost 8 billion. Now, almost 8 billion doesn't literally mean 8 billion. It could potentially be 7.96 billion, which means that 40 million is a rounding error. We don't even have the rounding error as Am Yisrael. We don't even have that. We don't even have a rounding error. We're not even a rounding error. So he's telling them, "Look what you have. That's just pure numbers. He's telling me all 2 billion people are stupid. All 2 billion people don't know what they're talking about. You're right. Just a few million of you. Because even out of the 20 million, only 3 million obey the law. So you 3 million are smart. You're going to get it, and everybody else is going to get it. No, that's it. Only you're smart. Only you're good. Come on. Usually, it's the opposite. The majority wins." No problem, it's a good question. Before I answer the question, I want you in the corner, you and this Pope, to come outside. Let's see if maybe you get an answer from Shamayim. We get an answer from Shamayim. Holy man, holy people, king of...

1:09:30No one's thinking, I'm not good enough to get an answer from Shamayim. The little rabbi with the tzitzit hanging out, he says he can get answers from Shamayim. What, the Pope is not going to get an answer from Shamayim? What, the king is not going to get an answer from Shamayim? Of course, yeah, yeah, we get answers from Shamayim all the time. Sure, let's go. Now, right now. So they go outside. Rabbi Yonatan Eibeshitz looks at the sky. Wow! Look at that! Wow! You see it, you see it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You see the gates of Shamayim opening. You see it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's there. Wow. Wow. Look, Malachei HaSharet. Malachei HaSharet. Your Highness, Malachei HaSharet. He starts crying. He says, Malachei HaSharet. He's coming to see. He's going to give us the answer. He's going to give us the answer. He starts dancing. Look. Wow. The Merkava, Hashem's chariot. It's coming. The Pope was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. Wow. And they start dancing.

1:10:37And everyone starts dancing. Everyone's dancing. Everyone's like, wow, wow, wow, wow. And he starts describing them. And look at the lightning. And look at this. And look at that. And everyone says, yeah, of course, of course. You see it, Your Highness? I see it. The Pope, you see it? I see it. Of course. I'm not going to see it. Everyone sees it. And then Rabbi Yonatan Eibeschutz says to them, Mr. Pope, tell me the truth. Do you see anything? Truth, tachlis, emet, between you and me. Do you see anything at all? 45 minutes. Not like five seconds like I did for you guys. He's dancing for a 45-minute show. 45-minute show he's dancing for them. After 45 minutes, whoa! Do you see anything, be'emet? Do you see anything? I just said, wow. Do you see anything or not? He says, be'emet? Really? No, I don't see anything. He said, "Your Highness, do you see anything? Seriously, between us." "No, I don't see anything." "It was me too. Me too, I don't see anything. But did you see, did you notice how just five minutes ago, both of you saw it, but you really didn't? That's Christianity."

1:12:07That's the lie. You're telling me two billion people believe something? Two billion people say they saw Jesus, they saw this Jesus, all this garbage? Just because somebody said it. And they feel bad being left out. I prepared something very special for you guys. There was an auction recently. selling some paintings, and I want to get your opinion on this because I'm thinking of getting a replica and putting it in my house. I can't afford 50 million dollars, obviously, but I want your opinion on this because it has something to do with the shield. Now, he is a famous painter, and his painting was sold recently for $46 million. $46 million for a painting. Now, I know a little bit about art. In high school, I took advanced placement classes, meaning college courses, for art, art history. My final exam was about...

1:13:30I had to write in hieroglyphics. Egyptian writing. I had to write in hieroglyphics. I mean, seriously. I don't remember it, but I did it 20-something years ago. So I know a little bit about art. Hieroglyphics was a form of art and a lot of other expressionists. But anyway, taste. Taste is different; people's taste. You never know. So there are some famous expensive paintings, and I want you to tell me your opinion of these and which one you think is the most valuable. Okay? Fair enough? Same price for all of you. Okay, so the first one is this one. This one? Anyone? Like it? Raise your hand if you like it. If you think it's worth $40 million. $45? $30? $25? $20? Nothing? Okay, I don't know if you guys know anything about art. Fine. Alright, next one. This one. Anyone? Anyone?

1:14:31$30 million? $20 million? $50? No? I don't know. I'm second-guessing myself showing you guys this art. Oh, this is the same copy. Fine. Okay, this one. $20? $25? It's $46 million at an auction, I'm telling you. Anyone? No? Not yet? Ah, you guys should have taken the shiur. Anyone on the internet? Help me out here. Anyone? Nothing yet? No buyers? Oh, this is the same one. Copy. This one? Anyone? $46 million? $50 million? $20 million? $5 million? $5 bucks? Anything? Nothing? Zero? OK. Oh, almost forgot. Elul?

1:15:53So, $40, $50, $60, $70, nothing? Zero? Nothing? OK. So now here's the good news. You guys have decent taste. And the reason why is because you have common sense. None of these are indicating anything, because these are all the drawings of my daughter that's two years old. The sad part is that the ones that are in this pile that you also saw and didn't like, like this one, the problem is... indicating anything because these are all the drawings of my daughter who is two years old. The sad part is that the ones in this pile that you also saw and didn't like, like this one, the problem is

1:16:54It was sold at Sotheby's for $46 million. Now, personally, I like this one the best. So we're trying to raise $250,000 for b'ezrat Hashem. Anyone who wants this, I can give you the original copy. This is just a copy. Sarah is willing to sell you the original. But this was sold for $46 million. $46 million that people actually worked for. Someone had to work for the $46 million. Maybe not the guy that spent it, but someone spent $46 million on this monstrosity. And someone is going to probably spend much more money on this. This is a chalkboard, and the same artist, who just died a few years ago, just drew circles on a chalkboard and... This is what this is, and this is just on a scantron sheet. It's also worth tens of millions of dollars. My daughter's two-and-a-half-year-old drawing is 50 million times better than this, but this is worth 50-60 million dollars. Why? Because people are stupid. Because people saw a bunch of other people say, "Yeah, it's worth 50 million. It's worth 70 million. It's worth 100 million. It's worth this. It's worth that." So therefore, some idiot says, "Oh, yeah, you're right. It's 70 million dollars. I have the check here. We'll make it payable to..."

1:18:26That's the foolishness of today. That's the foolishness of the Greeks. That's the poison. But that only happens when you forget God. Because if you remember God, if you remember Him, this can't happen. You don't distinguish between the two. You can call it art, you can call it drawings, you can call it whatever you want. But everyone knows Value that's being put on it. It's pure nonsense. It's only because somebody said it's worth something, and that's it. It's not because it's worth anything. So, every day we have to deal with this battle, every single day. We have to fight this Greek. Because sometimes the Greek is inside us. Sometimes the Greek is outside. Sometimes the Greek is our friend. Sometimes he's our neighbor, sometimes he's our spouse. The Greek is the one that wants us to cut loose, cut short, take shortcuts, and believe something just because we should, not necessarily because it makes sense. This is the reason why in today's world we

1:19:52Some of the most difficult people for me to deal with personally, as far as helping them do teshuva, are people that are already religious. If you give me someone that doesn't believe in anything, a complete golem, nothing, party — Baruch Hashem, it's easy. You just fill them with information, fill them with the truth, and you have yourself someone that's extraordinarily righteous, willing to die for Hashem a day later. No problem. Give me somebody that's mistaken. You think Christianity or anywhere else? No problem. You show them the truth, they want to die for Hashem a day later. No problem. But sometimes, you take a religious person, and you tell them, "Listen, you need to do teshuva," and they look at you like you have three heads. What do you mean I have to do teshuva? I already wear a kippah. So what if it's small? So what if it's not like yours? Doesn't make me less religious. You're right. It doesn't make you less religious. A kippah doesn't make you more or less religious. In fact, it's a rabbinical mitzvah. Rav Ovadia said that if you don't wear one, technically it's not a sin. But everyone wears it. Why? It's a sign of yirat shamayim. It's a sign that not only do you remember God,

1:21:22But you're afraid of him, and usually the size indicates how much. The Rambam was very afraid—his kippah covered his entire head. One of the heads of Chassidut, just in the last 50-60 years, prayed to Hashem that he wanted to have the Yirat Shamayim of the Rambam when... He is performing his job as a doctor for the goyim, not when he's performing his job as a doctor for the Jews, because he kills a Jew. Of course, he probably has a lot of yirat shamayim, a lot of fear, because he's killing another neshamah, a future, a destiny. Fine. When he's a doctor for the goyim, for the Egyptians. So he said, I want to have the yirat shamayim he has at that moment. I pray to Hashem for this Yirat Shamayim just for one day. And he tells the students two days later, when they ask him, "Kvoda Rav, why didn't you come to the Beit Midrash? All the years you're known to be a matmid, you never miss, sick or not sick. There's no such thing as missing Beit Midrash." And he says to them, "My dear students, Hashem answered my prayer."

1:22:48He gave me the Yirat Shamayim that the Rambam had when he was a doctor for the goyim just for one day. But that level of Yirat Shamayim was so petrifying that I was too scared to leave the bed. I was too scared to leave the bed. So your kippah indicates that it could be any color, but it indicates it. Of course, there are certain leniencies for men that are not allowed for women, but nonetheless, also indicate your Yirat Shamayim. If you truly believe that God is here and He's watching, you address a certain way. If you don't, or you just think He only appears sometimes, it doesn't necessarily make you... of a believer ultimately in the Creator or not, but nonetheless, it does distinguish between Yirat Shamayim and not. But there are certain things that people like to create. So, for example, there's this young guy that heard this shiur I did on Sunday in Hollywood, and he got offended. Now,

1:24:12don't necessarily react every time somebody gets offended by what I say, but nonetheless, I tried talking to him. He said he was offended because he understood that I was saying that anyone who wears a colorful kippa is not religious. And technically, if a man shakes a woman's hand, it should be fine, and and if they hug, you know, it's fine because you don't want to humiliate her. So if a woman wants to hug you or kiss you, and that's the norm, then you should be allowed to because it's less of a sin to hug or kiss than it is to embarrass someone. Because the Torah says if you embarrass someone, we learn from Yehuda and Tamar in last week's parashah, Tamar decided that it's better for her to jump into the fire than to embarrass Yehuda. It's better to die than to embarrass someone. Why? Because when you embarrass someone, the Gemara says, it's like you killed them. So if a woman is expecting you to hug her and kiss her because that's the custom, then you should be able to. Makes sense? Only in a warped brain. It only makes sense in a warped brain.

1:25:36Because one of the major issurim in the Torah, which is not a forgivable sin so easily, that has the level of yehareg ve'al ya'avor (die and not sin) is arayot (a sex crime). Meaning, if a woman who is not your wife comes to you and wants to be intimate with you, or someone forces you to be with her... she's not Jewish or she is your wife, but she's niddah. It's better that you die and not sin to that extent. It's the same thing as idol worship. It's the same thing as murder. But it doesn't end there. It doesn't end there. It doesn't end there at all. That's just the literal simple part. The Chachamim also include other sex crimes in there to such an extent that that the giants of giants say that it's better for one to die than to go to a public school where there are girls and boys. It's better for one to die than to go to a mixed beach. Not to go and be with them, just to attend. One of the Chachamim in the Gemara said,

1:27:05time I had a test. This is a man that never sinned, never looked at an inappropriate woman. He was already old, and one day he was given a test. What test? Satan came to him and pretended to be the most beautiful woman in the world, and the reason why because he thought that he was at a level where he wouldn't have any more tests. He's not going to have any more tests, not in regards to sex crimes, because he's old. So he said, "Don't trust yourself until you die." That's what the chachamim say. He said, "Don't trust yourself until you get old." He changed it a little bit. The tzaddik changed it. Satan comes as the most beautiful woman in the world and You have a problem. Why? Because you nearly fail. Another chacham was actually a gilgul of someone that lived, that married Michal, I forget his name, that married Michal after, that was the daughter of Shaul, daughter of Shaul, but after she married David HaMelech first. And Shaul said, no, David HaMelech

1:28:31...and his name starts with a P. I just forget it all the time. And Shaul says, "Listen, David is a rodef. He's trying to kill me. He's going against the kingdom. His marriage with my daughter is not valid. Go marry my daughter!" This guy was a tzadik, and he knew it doesn't matter what Shaul is saying, even though he's the king. It's not right. But Michal is beautiful... beautiful. So he puts a sword in the middle of the bed. He says, "If I touch you, I'll die by the sword." And he stays married to her for some time without touching her. Sefer HaGilgulim says that he reincarnated many years later in the days of the Gemara as one of the Chachamim that was given a test by the Satan and Pretended to be the most beautiful in the world, and he asked one of his students to bring him the ship wood and the things that you make on the barbecue. He poked out his own eyes. He burned his own eyes to such an extent. The Satan fell over. The Satan fell. Why did he fall? This is not a normal person who just poked his own eyes out.

1:29:52Hashem was so impressed with him that He sent the Malach Raphael to go heal him. And Raphael comes to him and says, Kvoda Rav, I'm here to heal you. You passed the test. He says, thank you, but no thank you. Because I don't know if I'll pass the test next time. I don't know if I'll pass it next time. So Raphael goes back to Hashem. He says, Hashem, Kvoda Rav doesn't want me to heal him. What kind of person is this? What's going on with him? He says, tell him I promise him. I'm signing him on My name. I'm not going to test him anymore. He comes back down and tells him, "Hashem says He's not going to test you anymore." He says, "Okay, now you can heal me. Now you can heal me." What do we learn from all this? What do we learn from Tamar? What do we learn from the tzaddikim? The "ya'avor v'al ye'hareg" is not just to commit the crime physically. The "ya'avor v'al ye'hareg" is also to see. When someone says yes, there's a leniency to shake the opposite sex's hand, it is a leniency to shake her hand. Yes, you're right. There is a leniency to shake the opposite sex's hand if you have to for business or something like that, for peace. But you're never ever going to see any of the tzaddikim ever use that leniency. You're never going to see Rav Ovadia...

1:31:18any of the pictures in any of the stories in any of his days of his life ever shaking the hand of the opposite sex? You're never gonna see the Lubavitcher Rebbe ever shaking anyone's hands. Never. While, yes, there is a leniency, that doesn't mean we use it. And we'll finalize with this: One day Decided that he's getting so many tikkunim, so many kaparot, so many difficulties, tests, and tribulations in his life. He says, "You know what? People are starting to look at me, and I see my son is trying to kill me. Avshalom is trying to kill him." Sick, this, that, all these different things are happening in his life because, you know what, it's starting to look bad. For everyone else, they think, "Oh look, this guy, did you buy it? This guy's tzaddik, this guy's kadosh, and everything else, and look at all the difficulties he has." It's becoming a chillul Hashem. It's becoming a desecration of Hashem's name. You know what? I'm going to go idol worship. Not really idol worship, but am I going to a church? I'm gonna go into a church and leave so people will see, "Oh look, see, David HaMelech really is an undercover sinner. That's why Hashem is punishing him."

1:32:29So at least there's not going to be a desecration of Hashem's name. So they're going to think it's my fault, not Hashem's fault. So his rabbi sees him and he goes, "David, where are you going?" He goes, "I'm going to tell them the whole story." He goes, "No, no. You don't have to do all that. You don't have to do all that. I can tell you why you're getting all the kaparat avonot. I can tell you why your son is trying to kill you. I can tell you why there's a sickness. I can tell you why there's losses. I can tell you all the reasons for all your problems." What's the reason? It says that the sages, to be a Talmid Chacham, is more significant than to be a prophet. It's more significant to be a Talmid Chacham, who knows Torah, than to be a prophet. So the Talmid Chacham tells David HaMelech, "I can tell you the reason for all your problems. Why your son's trying to kill you, why there's sickness, why there's losses, why there's headaches, why there's stress. I can tell you why." He says, "You married a woman that you shouldn't have married." "What do you mean I married a woman? All the women I married were fine, were allowed according to the Torah." He goes, "Yes."

1:33:44So are you allowed to marry one of them you captured after a battle, right? Yes, it's allowed in the Torah. It says if there's a woman among the captives after the battle, you can convert her, and after she goes through a process, you can marry her, no problem. So, I followed the Torah. The Rabbi says, "Yes, you followed the Torah, but..." Just because it's allowed doesn't mean you should do it. Because the very next verse after it says that you're allowed to marry a woman that's in the opposite army at the end of the battle, it says that a ben sorer u'moreh (a wayward and rebellious son) will come out from this. Why is it, if it's allowed, why is a bad son going to come from it? Why is a bad daughter going to come from it? Why, if it's allowed? Because there are certain mitzvot in the Torah that the only reason Hashem allowed them is just to quiet the Satan, to quiet the Yetzer Hara, to quiet the Greek, to quiet the Amalek, to quiet Esav. Not because you're really allowed to do it. But if He didn't allow it, you would do it anyway, and then it would be a sin.

1:35:05He said at the end of a battle, all the soldiers have so much adrenaline. If we tell them, "Listen, you can't go with this woman. She's not Jewish. She's not suitable for you. She's not this, she's not that," there's so much adrenaline. They just killed people. They just fought; they went through war. You tell them not to do something, it will kill you. So, you tell them, "Yes, you're allowed, just wait 30 days. You're allowed to be with her, just wait 30 days." If you tell the guy to wait 30 days and he knows, "Okay, you know what? I'm going to have it..." Already he's calm. Already his yetzer hara is calm. At the end of 30 days, he already had enough time to let his yetzer hara calm down. Maybe he's not gonna do it. And even if he does, it's at least after some thought. But he still shouldn't do it. Why? Did Hashem allow it? Because He knew that if He just told you don't do it, with no exit, you’d do it anyway. Says David, as holy as you are, you follow the Torah literally here. Followed the Torah, and you said it, you did it. Just because the law allows it, you shouldn't do it. Just because you're allowed to shake the hand of the opposite sex doesn't mean you should do it. Just because you're allowed, as a guy, to wear a tank top doesn't mean you should do it. Just because you're allowed to study whenever you want doesn't mean you should do it; you should study all the time. Just because there are certain things you're allowed to do doesn't mean you should do it. That's where your mind comes in.

1:36:33The Greek is constantly telling us that, hey, I'm your friend. I'm your brother. This is allowed. According to halacha, it's allowed. According to halacha, it's allowed to do this, allowed to do this. They're constantly looking for leniencies. This is allowed, this is allowed, this is allowed. But that's why it's also sometimes the most difficult to help those people do teshuva. Because they're already religious, but they're religious in the wrong direction. Hanukkah is here to remind us that the most important thing you can take from this holiday—the most important thing you can take not just from this holiday, not just for the eight days, not just for this year, but for the rest of your life—is that you have to fight the Greek. The Greek could be outside, the Greek could be inside, and illusion that he's selling you, telling you that this painting is 46 million dollars, is the same thing that's making you forget God. No different. All of you were convinced that all of them were very expensive paintings. You just didn't see the value. You just thought you had, you know, whatever—you don't know anything about art. None of you actually thought for a second that this is my daughter's painting. If I told you it's 46 million dollars, taking my word for it.

1:38:05They told you two and a half billion people are Christians because they believe in JC Penny. You're gonna think you can take their word for it? No, you have to double-check. Double-check everything. Double-check everything. Because just because someone says it's okay doesn't mean it's okay.