HaShem RUNS THE WORLD (Rabbi Reuven Montreal Tour)

0:32Before we give the microphone to the Rabbi, I'd like to say thank you to everyone who has come and to the people who helped organize all of the Rabbi's stay. It seems like a little work, but it's a lot of work. It's many hours, a lot of text messages, WhatsApps, emails, and whatnot. I'd like to thank everyone who has come. And we'd like to say welcome to the Rabbi because it's an honor for us to receive him here at the Beit HaMidrash. May his words leave his heart and enter yours, and you should use them for your Avodat Hashem. You should help yourself to grow and to connect to Hashem because that's the reason why the Rabbi does anything. I spent, Baruch Hashem, now a day and a half with the Rabbi, we spoke a lot, and you see that he's more than sincere in what he wants to give over to the public and to Am Yisrael. His only goal is to help you get closer to Hashem, whether it's one person, two, three, whatever the number is, the point is to get closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. And if he was zoche to do it for one person in Montreal, which I know he did for plenty,

1:40And he made me discover how many people follow him, Baruch Hashem, online and on other social networks. I'm sure he reaches hundreds of people. We should give him a bracha v'hatzlacha. We should use his words to serve HaKadosh Baruch Hu. It's wonderful to be here, Baruch Hashem. The hosting has been exceptional. Baruch Hashem, you're When you work for Hashem, you really can't ask for anything because you have to accept things as they are. Because one of the rules is that Hashem runs the world. Hashem runs the world. Meaning that whether you view something as good or you view something as bad, you have to acknowledge, especially if you're a Jew, that Hashem is doing it. So one of the most difficult questions that people have in the world is, When they're not exactly close to Hashem, even if they have a very long beard and a big hat, sometimes they ask this question. It's a very difficult question, unless you're really, really glued to Hashem, which is: if Hashem is so kind and so wonderful and so loving and so on and so forth, all the wonderful compliments we can give to Hashem can never even scratch the surface of how amazing He is and how much He loves us. But truth be told, there are bad things that happen in the world.

3:07Things like the Holocaust, and people who don't spend enough time to find the truth, use this as an excuse. As an excuse either not to serve Him or not to listen to Him, or just decide that they can pick and choose what they want to listen to and what not to, because since Hashem gives good and bad, they think they can do good and bad. And people rationalize their own ideas. So, before we go into some of the things I want to discuss tonight, The simple answer is, when people ask you, where was God during the Holocaust? The answer is very, very simple. You look at the Torah, and the Torah will tell you. He did it. It's not where He was. It's where He wasn't. He did it. Why? He has reasons for it. And some of the reasons are mentioned in the Torah. Now, even though a person has a very difficult time seeing how this could be a good thing, because there's a law in our Torah, that everything that Hashem does, the Gemara Masechet Berachot, the Tractate of Berachot, which is part of our whole Torah,

4:14has Rabbi Akiva, one of the most important rabbis that ever lived, say that everything that Hashem does, it's always the best. Not that it's good, it's the best. Meaning if there was an infinite amount of options available to Hashem, the only choices that He picks are the best ones. Which means that even the things that all of us agree are a disaster, are still the best. It's the best of all options available to us. With that being said, Let's try to find out how this could possibly be. I'll start by sharing a bit about my personal story for those who don't know who I am, but I'll try to cover some things I didn’t cover last night so I don't bore those who were here then. I was born in Israel. We left Israel approximately 30 years ago when I was 10 years old. We moved to the United States and lived in New York for most of my life. I went to school like most people. The only difference is that instead of going to a Jewish school, I went to a public school. Because we were naive. As Israelis coming to the United States, we figured that since we kept a few mitzvot in Israel, that we'd be able to keep them in America. What's the difference? We didn't know that if you hang out with goyim, you become one of them. And the reason why, especially as a child, is that you don't really have the same understanding as an adult. You think that whoever is next to you, whoever is befriending you, whoever is paying attention to you, must be a good person. I want to be like him.

5:42So when you hang out with a bunch of goyim, you want to become like them. So little by little, whatever mitzvot we had, we lost them. But the reality is that we started adopting other behaviors too—watching sports, going to clubs, and so on and so forth, like what people who are far from Hashem do. That's what we did. The number one priority in life became having enjoyment in this world, physical enjoyment in this world, playing sports, making money. girls, and so on and so forth. So when I went to school, my number one goal was that eventually I'm going to have as much of that physicality, of that materialism as possible. So after going to college for a year and having very good grades, I decided that it was a complete waste of my time because I wasn't interested in being in school forever. I wanted to make money already. So I decided to go and work for a Wall Street firm and learn about how to invest and how to invest other people's money. For the first couple of years, I was working for the firm and doing everything that no one else wanted to do, making that money, and pretty much everybody else was making money except me. And that's the dues that you have to pay as a kid. You have to build yourself up, not like this generation today that wants to become the CEO on day one. After I built my company, one day I used to interview a lot of people. One time there was a young guy who came to my office wanting a job, and he decided that since I looked comfortable, he should look comfortable too, so he put his feet on my desk.

7:09Since I looked comfortable, he should look comfortable too, so he put his feet on my desk. So before I kicked him out, I asked him, "What do you want to do?" He says, "I want your job." That's what he said. He says, "I want your job." I said, "Okay, first you have to earn it. Start by getting your feet off my desk." But the reality is that people think in this generation of entitlements that they can become CEO overnight. No one wants to pay dues. No one wants to build themselves up. They want to get... the inheritance on day one. They don't want to get customers; they want to get the money. Because they watch so many shows on TV and they read so many stories of success that they forgot that the success didn't start at success. The success is a compilation of many failures that eventually lead to the person succeeding. So for the first few years, I did as much as I could to build myself up. Eventually, there was enough help from Hashem to make miracles happen that even a 21-year-old kid was able to start making money. And by the time I turned 22, I actually started making good money. The kind of money that most people wish to make in a year, I was making in a month. In November of 2002, I made $117,000. It was my first big break because a lot of customers made a lot of money with me over the last year.

8:32And we made a profit, and I would make a commission out of it. But then after that, after you make a bunch of people money in a bad market, what do they do? They start publicizing you. You don't have to advertise for yourself. So I started getting a lot of other customers, and my business started booming. Little by little, the amount of money that was coming in on a monthly basis was breaking all records of the company. By the time I was 23, I had already made a million dollars. By the time I was 24, I had my own company. And by the time I was 26, it got to a point where in a bad month, I would make $200,000 to $300,000. In a good month, it would be over a million. Meaning that money was no longer a problem in my life. The only problem was, how do I give it to everyone that I want to give it to? Because that's what I did with most of the money I had. I either invested it or I gave it to people. Each week, since word got around that this guy doesn't actually like the money that he makes, a lot of people would come to my office to take it and help me out. So two to three times a week, I would have religious people, most of them being rabbis, come to my office and ask for money. Most of the time, they not only got what they wanted, but they got it even quicker than they thought. And the reason why is because I valued my time, and I still try to today. And I want to make sure that everything I do is profitable. Everything that I do is not a waste of time. So anytime somebody, for example, asks me to come give a shiur,

10:00I don't ask them how much you want to pay because I don't charge. What do I ask them? How many people can you get? Because that's the only thing that matters. It's a different type of profit. In the old days, I would calculate and do the accounting based on how much money I could make on something because each hour was valued at $3,000 an hour. So when someone would come and ask me for something, I would say, well, how much does your problem cost? He would start telling me the story, and you know, people have their problems and so on and so forth. I would tell him, listen, before you tell me the story, it's probably going to take an hour. How much does the problem cost? And the guy would tell me, oh, it's a thousand dollars. I said, you know what, I'll just give you a thousand dollars. You don't have to tell me the story. Why? Because if I give it to him in five minutes, I can work the rest of the hour and make the difference. That was the accounting that was in my head. It's not exactly the nicest thing to do because sometimes the right thing to do is just to listen to people's problems, but that was my calculation without Torah. They got what they wanted, I got what I wanted, and that's how we parted as friends. The problem is that when you know a little bit of Torah, you're not allowed to keep it to yourself. Our Oral Torah has a Gemara called Masechet Avodah Zarah. And the Masechet Avodah Zarah says that a person that learns Torah

11:11...for the sake of himself and not for the purpose of sharing it, is the same thing as a person who does not have a God. Meaning, even though you're doing the same thing as Rabbi Akiva, Rabbi Meir Baal Haness, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, the greatest tzaddikim in the world, but you're learning Torah just for yourself. You're not planning on sharing it with your wife, with your kids, with your colleagues, with your friends, no one. You just want it for yourself. The Gemara says, you are the same thing as the guy from Chinatown that's praying to a statue. I'm learning Torah. Isn't that what the whole purpose of life is for a Jew? He says, no. All of Am Yisrael are responsible for each other. Now, the ultimate instruction set is the Torah. Once you've learned the Torah, you have to fulfill it. How do you fulfill it? By sharing with your brother, by sharing with your wife, by sharing with your kids, by sharing with strangers. This means you're not allowed to keep the truth to yourself. Because that would mean that you've learned the Torah, but you didn't learn anything at the same time. One of the purposes of learning the Torah is to learn about God. And you're supposed to emulate God's behavior.

12:20The number one thing that you learn about God is that He only gives and He never receives anything. If you say, no, He receives our prayers. The prayers are not for God; they’re for us. He receives our learning. The learning is not for Him; it’s for us. He receives nothing from us. He’s perfect with or without us. Meaning that all He does all day is give us stuff. Give us a shidduch, give us a wife, give us kids, give us parnasah, give us refuah shlemah, give us, give us, give us, give us, with no end. Which means that at the very minimum, the responsibility of a Jew is to be generous. Because that shows you know who your God is. You're trying to emulate at least one of the middot, the character traits that Hashem has, which is to be generous. Especially when it comes to His Torah. So, one of the biggest disappointments of my life is when I had people that would come to my office and they had this Torah. They had some of it. Some had more, some had less. But nonetheless, they chose not to share it. Now, they did tell us some stories, they did tell some of the people some nice things here and there, and they called us all tzaddikim, even though nobody kept Shabbat, even though nobody kept anything really, but they called us tzaddikim because we gave them some money. The reality is, they had the truth, and we didn't. And that was very disappointing. The reason why is because if you know that there's a train coming to hit me, and you don't tell me to move, you're not a very nice person, to say the least. Rabbi Yonatan Eibeschutz, a couple of hundred years ago, said that everyone keeps worrying about Sinat Chinam. Every Jew has heard the term Sinat Chinam, baseless hatred. He said the biggest Sinat Chinam is when one Jew sees another Jew sinning, and he doesn't say anything. That's Sinat Chinam. Why? You see the train coming, and you don't even have the courage to tell him, "You know, you should get out of the way."

13:50don't tell me to move, you're not a very nice person, to say the least. Rabbi Yonatan Eibeschutz, a couple of hundred years ago, said that everyone keeps worrying about Sinat Chinam. Every Jew has heard the term Sinat Chinam, baseless hatred. He said the biggest Sinat Chinam is when one Jew sees another Jew sinning, and he doesn't say anything. That's Sinat Chinam. Why? You see the train coming, and you don't even have the courage to tell him, "You know, you should get out of the way." You should get out of the way. What's the biggest train? Hashem. When you know the person is going against Hashem, and you don't say anything, he's in danger. His life is in danger. He's going against Hashem. Most people don't even know they're in danger. So when I saw these rabbis that would come to me, they took my tzedakah, they said thank you. I felt like I was a half a tzadik. Hashem did not agree. So He would send me different tests.

14:50Eventually, in 2006, towards the end of it, I decided to have surgery. There was an elective surgery that went wrong, that changed my body and got to a point where, from that day on, I was in pain 24 hours a day from my neck all the way to the bottom of my feet. Every single body part hurt. My legs doubled in size, not because I ate so much. And it happened overnight. So you're seeing a 26, 27, 28, 29-year-old guy walking around like he's Moshe Rabbeinu, but still from Moshe Rabbeinu's days, 3,000 years old. With the cane, to walk from here to the door would take me approximately 45 minutes, and every step would be an "ow" or "ouch" or a really loud scream. Just to go and survive through the day, I would have to take anywhere from 20 to 100 painkillers. Just enough to kill a few people. But that was to survive the day. My body started failing. I got to a point where almost on a monthly basis I would have different surgeries. But every surgery had nothing to do with the first one or the one before it. And until this day, 12, almost 13 years later, no one has ever been able to diagnose what went wrong.

16:13Now, how am I here standing before you, Baruch Hashem, without pain? That's the rest of the story. Now, once all of this happened, life lost its meaning. Because the money that I thought was important, all of a sudden became worthless. Because I went to over 50 doctors and all the doctors gave me the same answer: We have no idea what's wrong with you. So I went to a different doctor, and he would give me the same answer. It got to such a point that some really, really clever and smart doctors were embarrassed to talk to me. So they wouldn't even want to see me anymore. I said, "Listen, we can't see you." I'm like, "Yeah, but you're a doctor. You're supposed to see me." "No, no, you make me feel bad about myself." They couldn't see me. Why? Because doctors, you know, they feel like they've learned in school for a million years and they figure they should be able to solve all of human nature's problems. Somebody comes with a problem they're supposed to be an expert in, and they have nothing to do. They're dumbfounded. Different scientists try to work on it, different doctors, different experts, natural medicine, supernatural medicine, everything and anything. Nothing worked.

17:25Everything continued to deteriorate. From time to time, there would be a break of, let's say, three, four, five months of decent, somewhat peaceful life, but still pain, but not to the extremes. But overall, when you're not able to work, the company that you built, that at one point was worth almost $50 million, little by little, becomes worthless. When the market crashes at the same time, it's not little by little; it's a lot. And literally within one year, it lost more than 75% of its value. The next year, another 50% of the value that was left. Slowly but surely, it became worthless. So now the one thing that you thought you had, you now don't have it. But this, Rabotai HaKedoshim, was the best thing that ever happened to me. Most people ask me, Why do I say such a thing? And what I'm trying to do tonight is, B'ezrat Hashem, to explain to you why this is the best thing that could ever happen. Hashem says that everything that He does is the greatest, is the best. But there are certain things in the Torah that are very hard to explain. How could they possibly be any good? So, for example, in Parashat HaShavua, we have a ma'aseh, we have something that happened. It's hard to explain. How could this be any good? It says, it says,

18:52וַיַּרְא אֹתָהּ שְׁכֶם בֶּן חֲמוֹר הַחִוִּי נְשִׂיא הָאָרֶץ, וַיִּקַּח אֹתָהּ, וַיִּשְׁכַּב אֹתָהּ, וַיְעַנֶּה. Now Dinah, the daughter of Leah, whom she had borne to Yaakov, went out to look over the daughters of the land. Translation in English meaning, Dinah, the daughter of the biggest, most important person on planet Earth, Yaakov Avinu, wanted to go see what the goyim were doing. Not the guys. She wasn't going to a nightclub. She just wanted to see. There were a few girls that were not Jewish girls. She wanted to see what they were doing. What do they do for fun? What do they not do for fun? Maybe I could meet a few of them. That's it. Nothing. Very simple. She wasn't getting a boyfriend. She wasn't going to a bar. She simply wanted to see what the non-Jewish girls were doing. Simple. This simple act has a response. The very next verse says, Shechem, the son of Chamor, the Hivite, the prince of the region, saw her, and he took her, and he lay with her, and he violated her.

19:59Literally, meaning, he took Dina, holy of holies, there was a prophet, there was Kodesh Hakodashim, the daughter of the biggest rabbi in the world, the daughter of our forefather that we mention in our prayers many times throughout the entire day, he took her and he did the worst possible thing you could ever do to any woman. How does this make any sense? How could this be good? This is in the Torah. Every yeshiva boy learns this at least once a year. Every kollel learns this at least once a year. Every person who learns Parashat HaShavua learns this once a year. Meaning, this is not something that happened once. Dina's neshama left at some point, but she's in Shamayim. She lives eternally. She's in Gan Eden. She has to hear the entire world repeat this every single year eternally. Imagine the embarrassment. Imagine a person has a daughter. And this person is not just like a regular person. He's a very famous person. He's the biggest rabbi in the world. He's the biggest president in the world. He's the most important person in the world. And one day, some criminal decides to take advantage of his daughter. That's already the worst punishment a father can ever get. If that's not enough, he sees it on the cover of every single newspaper in the world the next day.

21:21If that's not enough, he sees it again the next day, and again the next day, and again the next day, and the next day, and there's nowhere he can go. Every newspaper, every internet ad, every website, and every place in the world, oh, you're Yaakov, yeah, yeah, the one whose daughter is Dina, the one that thing happened to. Oh, this is how they identify him. If it wasn't enough punishment that happened to his daughter, this is already something you could consider suicide already. But Hashem says this is good. How could this be good? Dina, although something bad happened due to a bad decision that she made, out of that came a daughter. Her name was Osnat. But she couldn't deal with the fact that this cute little baby came from some chamor, from some criminal. Literally, his name was Chamor. His father's name was Chamor, meaning donkey.

22:25So now, she couldn't deal with it. She was embarrassed. It was reminding her of what happened. There was no abortion in those days. Like today, Hashem, how many times do people just decide to kill babies thinking it's nothing. She had the baby, but she couldn't look at the baby. Even though it's cute, still it came from something she doesn't want to be reminded of every day. She looks at the baby, she sees this guy is a criminal and so on. she got into a depression. So Yaakov Avinu said, listen, we can't continue this; we're going to take this daughter and give her to somebody that I know. We'll give her to somebody that I know, but we're going to give her a little medallion that's going to tell her when she grows up that she is part of our family so that she doesn't lose who she really is. So he made a kameya, a medallion, where he wrote, "You are part of the daughters of Yaakov Avinu." And he sent her off. The next few lines in the parashah introduce us to Yosef HaTzadik. Every Jew knows the name Yosef HaTzadik, and he also knows the story of what happened to Yosef, of how his brothers were jealous of him, and eventually they sold him. Originally they were planning on killing him, but because Reuven was telling them, no, don't kill him, he's still our brother, sell him, let him go somewhere else, he'll never come back. And they ended up selling him.

23:51And they sold him into slavery, and eventually he arrived at the house of a person named Potiphar. And you see it in the Torah. It says he was sold to a stranger, a very important businessman named Potiphar. Yosef helped Potiphar become very, very wealthy. He was already wealthy, but he became even more wealthy. Why? Because Yosef was very smart, very clever, and he gave him different strategies to make even more money. The only problem that Potiphar had was that his wife liked Yosef. She liked him so much that she wanted to be with him even though she was already married. And she decided to try. But Yosef was a tzaddik, and he said, no. And she said, listen, if you're not going to be with me, I'm going to send you to jail. He said, you can send me to jail. She said, I'm going to kill you. You can kill me. It doesn't make a difference. I'm not going to do it. You're married. You can't do it. And what ended up happening is that she created a story that ended up sending him to jail for the next 12 years. Now, the jail in those days was not like the jail of today. Today, it's like the Taj Mahal. You go to jail, it's like, oh, you know, it's kind of a nice vacation, free. In those days, jail was different; they made a hole in the ground, and they threw you in it with the tzo'ah, with the garbage, with the filth, with everything. Just to survive the day was a miracle. He was there for 12 years. Such a humble, beautiful person surrounded by criminals and garbage and filth. Just imagine 12 years of this.

25:20after 12 years, Hashem miraculously takes him out of it, because He gives Pharaoh a dream that no one can translate, but everyone hears that Yosef HaTzadik can translate this dream. So it says that they immediately take him from being a cellmate with all the criminals of the world, and he becomes one of the servants of Paro in one second. Then he translates the dream, and now he is not only a servant, he becomes the viceroy, meaning he becomes the second king of Egypt. You were a cellmate, you were a criminal 20 minutes ago, now you're the richest person in the world after Paro. Pharaoh says to such an extent that, in reality, you have control of everything. You have control of anything you want. You have my signature. Sign it any way you want. But just formally speaking, I'm still the king. But I'm not doing anything. I'm going on a permanent retirement. You run the show. And he gave him an enormous amount of money. I did the calculation one time based on the money of that day to today. He gave him somewhere in the neighborhood of like 300 billion dollars. Like an absurd amount of money.

26:27He never had to work again. Now, at that point, that he has all this freedom, all this money, all this power, what does a person want to do? He wants to settle down. He wants to find a wife. Boy, he's going to marry Fatima. He's going to marry Mustafa's daughter. Who's he going to marry? He has to find a Jew. He's still a tzadik after all. So he was such a beautiful person that any time that he would walk and go through the through the halls, through the aisles, through the streets, the women would throw different things at him to say, "Listen, pick me, pick me, pick me." He would never look at who the woman was. But one day, a woman threw a medallion at him. And he saw the back of the medallion. It said, Osnat, the daughter of Yaakov. Meaning, this is the only woman available in the world I can marry. Who does this medallion belonged to. He sent his servants to find the woman. They found her, and they brought her. He says, "Where have you been? What are you doing here?" She responds, "Oh, I'm with my stepfather. His name is Potiphar." Who's Potiphar? The former boss of Yosef HaTzadik. This means that Hashem shows us a little bit

27:49A little bit of how He runs the world. How something bad can turn into something amazing. Now, why did this whole thing happen? Originally, before this pasuk, we actually have a meeting between Yaakov and Esav. And Yaakov says to Hashem, "Save me from my brother, save me from Esav." Meaning Yaakov is scared of Esav, not physically. He says, listen, save me from my brother, save me from Esav, even though it's the same person. He says, why? When he's Esav, I know him. I know he's trying to kill me physically. I'm not really scared of it. So that's second. Save me from my brother. Why? Save me from him and his kids and his mentality so it doesn't influence my kids to go off the derech. It doesn't influence my kids to want to be like his kids, watching TV on Shabbat, going to the beach instead of going to the yeshiva, and doing all the things that they do. Save me from my brother. And also save me from Esav.

28:49So one of the things that Yaakov took a step in, an initiative, he says, I'm going to meet my brother. And my brother is going to see my family. And he's going to see my beautiful daughter. And he's going to want to marry her. I don't want him to even think that he has a small chance to marry my daughter. So Yaakov took his only daughter, Dinah, and he hid her. So when he saw Esav and his whole family, he said, "Who are these people?" "Oh, it's my kids, my boys." He never saw Dinah. Hashem said to Yaakov, the Midrash says, "You decided to hide Dinah from your brother, who is mahul, who has brit milah. Technically, you guys have the same father. Technically, you have the same stepfather. Even though he's a rasha, he's a criminal, he's a murderer, he's everything, still, he's part of the same lineage. You decide to take it upon yourself to to not even give him the opportunity to meet your daughter because you're scared? I'm going to give you a punishment. And someone that's not circumcised is going to become the husband. So you ask yourself another question now: Why would Hashem punish Yaakov for doing something that all of us would also do? Who would want our daughters to marry some criminal? It's not that Hashem wanted him to show him Dinah so she could marry him. It's that

30:14Hashem knew that even though Esav was a rasha, with the right woman, he could do teshuva. Many women, many bnot Yisrael, come to me and they tell me, "Listen, I want to do teshuva, I want to keep Shabbat, I want to keep Taharat HaMishpacha, I want to keep kosher, I want to do all these things, but my husband's not ready." Do you know what the answer is? The answer is you have to learn how to be a woman. And then you can actually deal with your husband. Why? Because a woman, if she really wants to, she can get a husband to do whatever she wants. Even if it means climbing a mountain. If you wanted a new kitchen, and he didn't want to buy it for you, you'd cry until next year, and then he'd buy you two kitchens, just to quiet you. So how come when it comes to Shabbat, Taharat HaMishpacha, Kosher, Torah, and Mitzvot, you don't cry? You want your husband to do something good, to do teshuva? Start crying. Until he does it. Be a woman. Be a woman and use the powers that Hashem gave you to get your husband and your family to do teshuva. Why? Because you have the power to get your husband to become a big tzaddik. That's why the Gemara says, why do the women go to Gan Eden? She doesn't learn Torah. She learns basics just to be a decent Jew. She doesn't go to yeshiva, kollel, nothing. So why does she go to Gan Eden? It's because she sends her husband to the kollel. She sends her husband to go learn Torah.

31:42Which means that a woman that sends her husband to go learn Torah, she's not getting Gan Eden for her Torah. She's getting Gan Eden for his Torah. Why? Because it's difficult for a woman to tell her husband, "Go away, go away all the time, to go learn somewhere else." She wants to be with him, but the reality is she has to send him somewhere else. She has to send him to go learn Torah. Because that's what's going to save the family. If she has to cry, cry. It's much easier for a woman to cry for a reason. Because every Jew has a spark in his neshama that if you light it the right way, if the right woman lights it, he can become a Moshe Rabbeinu. He can become Avraham Avinu, no problem. He just has to have the right woman. Yaakov made a mistake. He said, Esav is a criminal. I don't want him to marry my daughter. Hashem says you made a mistake. She could have actually helped Esav do teshuva. Even though he was a criminal, he still came from the same lineage. His grandfather was still Avraham Avinu. His father was still Yitzchak Avinu. You're still his brother. Yes, he was a criminal until now because he was surrounded by criminals. But he had one last chance, which was your daughter. You took it away from him. For that, you get punished. Now, this punishment had to have something good come out of it.

33:00Yes, the punishment started with what happened to Dinah. But something good had to happen eventually. And that is, that his son, who did keep mitzvot, who did keep Torah, he passed the test. A similar test, but not the same test as what his father had. He had a beautiful woman, one of the foremost beautiful women in the history of mankind, propose to him. She said to him, "Listen, be my husband, be my anything, just do something." He says, "No, I'm not interested." Hashem says, in reality, Hashem already told Avraham Avinu, you're supposed to go to Mitzrayim, your descendants are going to be slaves, a lot of bad things are going to happen. In reality, it was supposed to be that Yaakov and all of his sons were supposed to all come to Mitzrayim as slaves. But because Yosef HaTzadik passed the test, they all came on their horses and their carriages, and they ended up literally becoming the leaders. The leaders of Mitzrayim. Why? Because Hashem pays reward to those who stick to Him. Now, what we learn from this very long, complicated, but yet invigorating story is that Hashem runs the world. This was one of the most important discoveries that I ever had. Even though I thought I believed it most of my life, in reality, until you see it, you're not going to believe it.

34:28So during my journey of trying to recover, I saw that my business was turning to nothing. I saw that my world was turning to nothing. And I started asking questions: Why? Who? What? When? And so on. Eventually, one day my mom started calling different rabbis to try to ask for a beracha because she saw that literally it was common knowledge that our son was dying. She started calling a bunch of rabbis in Israel, in America, anywhere. Apparently, every mom has a black book with a bunch of rabbis in it. I asked my wife, "Where's your black book?" She says, "That's not for you to know." But apparently, every Jewish mom has this book, with a bunch of rabbis' phone numbers in it. She started calling some phone numbers. Eventually, she got to some phone numbers in Israel. She dialed the phone number. She asked for a certain rabbi, and the woman in Hebrew said, "I'm sorry, you called the wrong number. There's no such rabbi here." So after you call people for an hour and a half, with some type of hope that maybe somebody's going to give your son some miraculous blessing to save his life, and finally you get somebody, after an hour and a half of calling, no one answers. All of a sudden, everyone's on vacation. An hour and a half later, somebody answers, and she says, "I'm sorry, wrong phone number." It's kind of depressing.

35:49My mom starts crying. But Hashem runs the world. So the woman on the other side of the phone identifies her voice, even though they've never spoken on the phone before. She says, "Doris," which is my mom's name. My mom is in shock. "Who is this person? How do you know my name?" She says, "You're my aunt. I'm your niece. I'm your brother's daughter." How did I get to you? I don't even have your phone number. We've never spoken on the phone. I dialed the wrong phone number in the wrong country, and I got to you. She says, "Yes, but why are you crying about it? Because if you got to me, there has to be a reason." She says, "My son is dying." She says, "We all know." She says, "I'm looking for a blessing. I'm looking for something." She says, "Okay, why don't you call my brother? Call Rav Efraim." goes, "Oh, he's going to talk to me?" He goes, "Yeah, of course. He's a Talmid Chacham. He's very close to Rav Ovadia. He literally lived next door to him at the time. Maybe he connected to Rav Ovadia. Maybe he can help you himself. Who knows? Just call him." So she got very excited. It gave her some sense of hope. She called Rav Efraim. He was on a call, so he had to call her back. He called her back, and she starts crying to him.

37:17And Rabbi Efraim got to the point. Now Rabbi Efraim and I never knew each other. In fact, I never even knew he existed. When I left Israel, he was still a baby. He's much younger than I am. So after she starts crying, he asks her one question. That's the only important question there: Does he speak Hebrew? She says, yes. Can I talk to him directly then? She says, yeah, you can talk to him, but maybe he's not going to talk back because he doesn't want to talk to anybody anymore. And at that very moment, Hashem performed another miracle. I decided to call my mom. Now this may seem like a very normal thing, but when you haven't talked to your mom in months, because you were avoiding everyone, and you just decide to call your mom, it's unusual. I decided to call my mom. On the other side of the phone, she's hysterical, crying, talking to Rabbi Fein. And I'm baffled, why is my mom crying? She tells me, "Talk to him, talk to him," and I have no idea what she's talking about. I said, who is this person and why is he making you cry? She says, talk to him, it's Rabbi Fein. Please, he can help you. I said, if you stop crying, I'll talk to anybody. So Rabbi Fein calls me, and we start talking. And he says, did you ever hear the story of Yehuda and Tamar? He says, who's Yehuda and who's Tamar, and what do they have to do with my life? I said, oh, it's a story in the Torah. And he starts telling me this wonderful story of Yehuda and Tamar.

38:44It's a very unusual story of how Yehuda married his first son to this woman Tamar, she was a Tzadeket, but his son, he didn't know, was a Rasha. So Hashem killed him. So then there's a mitzvah in the Torah that if a man marries a woman but then he dies without having kids with her, there's a mitzvah of Yibum where she marries his brother. She marries his brother to have a child for his own honor, to continue his name. So that's what they did. She married his brother, but he was also a rasha. And Hashem killed him also. So then Yehuda sees that two of his sons married this wonderful girl, but they both died. I mean, one, okay, two, what's happening here? Maybe she's killing his kids. So when she asked him, can I marry your third son? He wasn't exactly so excited. I understand it. He says, well, listen, he's still too young for you. Let's wait a few years. Why don't you go back to your father's home? And when he grows up, I'll send him to you, and you'll marry him. And that's what she did. She went back home, and she saw the time passed, and he grew up. Yehuda is not sending him to her; he's sending him to marry somebody else.

40:04She says, no, no, no. I had a prophecy. I had a dream. I saw the future. Hashem says that the Mashiach is coming from the tribe of Yehudah. I want a piece of it. I want to be a partner in bringing Mashiach to the world. One way or another, I'm marrying somebody in this family. So what did she do? Okay, Yehudah doesn't want to let her marry his son. His wife died. She said, oh, that's my opportunity. Now, if I go to Yehudah and tell him I want to marry him, he's not going to want to marry me. So what does she do? She pretends to be a prostitute. Now in that day, they did something very unique. How did you know if someone was a prostitute in that day? Because everyone was modest. No one walked around with miniskirts like today. Today, the prostitute and the non-prostitute, they all walk around with miniskirts, so you don't really know who's free and who's charging. In those days, they were all modest. So how did you know who's the prostitute? How did you know? The prostitute covered her face. Do you ever hear of somebody else covering their face? Yeah, they're called Muslims. So they think they're doing a mitzvah by covering their face. They don't realize the Torah says they're prostitutes. So she pretended to be a prostitute.

41:20Hashem made it so that Yehuda had a big yetzer hara; he saw her and didn't know what to do with himself. His wife had just died, and Hashem pushed Yehuda, meaning He manipulated Yehuda's yetzer hara to push him to do something that he would never ordinarily do. Yehuda was a tzaddik. So then he was with her, and she said, "Listen, you don't have any money, you have to give me some collateral." He says, okay, okay, fine, fine, I'll give you some collateral. What did he give her? He gave her his signet, and in those days they had a tabat, some type of ring. He gave her his staff, and he gave her something that's the equivalent of his cloak. Meaning, if you say this is not yours, this is not yours, the third one is definitely yours. Why? Because if you don't come back with my money, I'm going to tell everybody, look what he did. I'll publicize it all over the internet. So he said, "Okay, no worries. Just hold this. I'm going to bring it back. I'm going to send my friend over. He's going to bring you some sheep. He's going to bring you some cattle. He's going to bring you whatever you want. Just don't publicize this." What just happened here? His friend comes back with a bunch of money. She's gone. Now he, at this point, does not know who this prostitute is. He doesn't realize it's his daughter-in-law. But one day, one of the people in his tribe sees that his daughter-in-law is pregnant, but she has no husband.

42:39And they come to Yehudah and they say, "Listen, he was the equivalent of a king. Your Highness, your daughter-in-law became a shemei achem. She's doing stuff that bat Yisrael doesn't do. She's pregnant, but there's no husband." He says, "Oh, there's only one din for her. What do they do? Burn her." That is actually the din. Not allowed. A woman is not allowed to be with a man without being married. In fact, in Judaism today, It's to such an extent that if a man is with a woman without marriage, that means he's with a niddah. Because you cannot go to the mikveh without being married. And anyone, even if they're husband and wife, but they're together without going to the mikveh, it's a death penalty from the Torah. To such an extent. Taharat Mishpacha is the foundation of Judaism. To such an extent that if a woman tells her husband, listen, I'll marry you, but I don't want to keep Shabbat anymore. I don't want to, I'll be married to you, but I don't want to keep Shabbat anymore. He goes to the beit din, he goes to the rabbi, he says, "Rabbi, my wife doesn't want to keep Shabbat anymore, so can you give me a get?" The rabbi says, "No. Work on her, work on her, and convince her eventually to do teshuva." The next day he comes back to the rabbi, he says, "Rabbi, listen, my wife, she's not cooking and cleaning for me anymore. She's not doing anything for me. She makes fun of me all the time. Can I have a get?" "No get. Convince her to become nicer. You're doing something wrong." And he comes back every day with a new excuse.

44:06But then one day he says, "My wife is not willing to go to the mikveh. Not willing to go to the mikveh. On the spot. Any rabbi in the world worth his salt gives him a get on the spot. Why? Without taharat mishpacha, there's no marriage. There's no Judaism. Because even him touching her finger is not allowed. Without her going to the mikveh. Just a finger. Holding hands. Eating from the same plate. Not allowed without mikveh. If she's not willing to go to the mikveh, we can't be married." You can't even be roommates. So now, the Torah already taught us this at the time of Yehuda 4,000 years ago. And Yehuda heard that his daughter-in-law was with somebody. He said, no, you have to kill her. They put her in prison. They said, listen, do you have any last wishes? She says, yes, one.

45:59last wishes. "Please let me talk to you." They went to Yehuda and said, "She wants to talk to you." Yehuda said, "Okay, I'll give her a last wish, I'll talk to her." He asked, "What do you want?" Tamar said to him, "I know that you already made a decree to burn me. I just wanted to ask you something. Do you know who these belong to?" And she showed him the three things that he gave her when she was wearing a mask. She didn't say, "Hey, you're the one that did it. It's your fault." No, no, no. She just said, "Do you simply know who these belong to?" Meaning, she gave him a choice. Why? Because she knew that it's better to burn and die than to embarrass another Jew in public. Even though he's technically at fault, still, it's better to die than to embarrass another Jew. People embarrass each other all the time. They don't realize that they're losing their olam haba for embarrassing each other. They think it's a joke. And Torah says a person that embarrasses his friend, malbin p'nei chaveiro b'rabim, ein lo chelek le'olam haba. Loses olam haba for embarrassing his friend. Meaning that if any one of us did it, start doing teshuva for that alone. I'm sorry. That's how you start. I'm sorry I did it. I didn't mean to. Yeah, no, it's okay, it's okay. No, no, it's not okay. I'm sorry.

47:16The biggest step that you can do with teshuva is say I'm sorry. The biggest step in humanity is to say I'm sorry. If you don't know how to say I'm sorry, you're not human. So Talmud taught us some serious principles in life. We're not allowed to embarrass each other. And Yehuda taught us another principle. If you want to be a Yehudi, and be named after Yehuda, you have to be a model. You have to actually admit when you made a mistake. So even though I caused him public embarrassment, he told everybody, she's right. I did it. I'm the father of the babies. And even though I caused him public embarrassment, that's the reason why until this day, 4,000 years later, we're called Yehudi, after Yehuda. Even though he wasn't the firstborn. Technically, the firstborn was Reuven. So we should all be called Reuvenim, like your own Reuven. But I didn't win. It would be good for me. Reuven, you guys are all my children, but apparently I didn't win on it. But the reality is, Rabotai, that we learned something very, very interesting here. Why did Hashem make this whole thing happen, this whole theatrics? Rabbi Fein told me the story. I asked him, what's this whole story? Like, why would Hashem include this kind of strange story in the Torah? He says, because the Mashiach...

48:36has to come in one way or another. And when he comes, he's going to slaughter the Yetzer Hara, the Satan, the Malach HaMavet. No one's going to die anymore. No one's going to make sins anymore. Everything is going to be good at that time. Which means that the Malach HaMavet is trying to do everything and anything possible to stop the Mashiach from coming. So Hashem has to bring the Mashiach in clever ways when the Malach HaMavet is not looking. So every story that's connected to Mashiach is usually unusual. Starting with Yehudah. Mashiach saw that Yehudah was going with some prostitute. He said, there's no way Mashiach is coming from here. He left. He left. So Hashem made it so that Mashiach actually came from that action. The same thing goes if you fast forward over a thousand years with David HaMelech and Batsheva. Technically, a lot of people thought it was a sin for them to be together. Mashiach comes from there. Meaning that Hashem runs the world in a way that we simply can't comprehend. And little by little, I started discovering that Hashem is running the world from this conversation with Rabbi Ephraim, and I wanted to find out more. So after an hour and 40-minute conversation, we agreed that we were going to have another conversation next week. So the next week, we had another conversation, more questions, more answers for three hours. The following week, Thursday at 4 o'clock, we spoke for five hours.

49:59The next week, Thursday at 4 o'clock, we spoke for six hours. Then seven hours. And every week, it became 4 o'clock; my business shut off every Thursday. Why? My wife became my bouncer. And she said, no one's allowed to talk to him. Why? He's talking to the other Ephraim. I said, yeah, but we have business to do. He's getting answers he's been looking for his whole life. So every Thursday, I forgot about my pain. I forgot about my suffering. I forgot about the world. and I started looking for some answers. Simple things like, are there really dinosaurs? Or complicated things like, what's the purpose of life? One of the questions that I asked was, do I really have free choice? Similar to your question. Do I have free choice, or is everything really predetermined? Because technically, you're telling me that Hashem already knows the future, He knows the past, He knows the present; everything is the same for Him. So, if He knows, the past, present, and future, then why is He punishing me for anything? If He knows I'm going to sin, why would He punish me for sinning? If He knows I'm going to do a mitzvah, why is He giving me a reward? So first and foremost, we need to explain what choice actually means. First and foremost, we don't have real free choice like we think. We have something called choice, not free choice. It's choice, but it has a price.

51:28Free choice means that, let's say, for example, you go to your business, you go to your company, and you work. You work a certain amount of hours, and at the end of the day, the boss pays you. But if you decide not to go to work, the boss doesn't pay you. That's free choice, meaning there are no consequences for our actions. That's free choice. You go, you get paid. You don't go, you don't get paid. What we actually have is something called choice. Expensive choice, not free. If we go to work and we keep Shabbat, we keep Taharat HaMishpacha, we keep kosher, we learn Torah, we get rewarded. If we don't do it, we get punished. It's the equivalent of if you go to work, and the boss sends bouncers to your house to beat you up. That's what we actually have. We don't have free choice. There's reward and there's punishment. Meaning that this is one of the 13 principles of faith in Judaism that the Rambam teaches us: if a Jew does not believe in reward and punishment, you cannot count them among your brothers. He is considered a kofer. He's considered a heretic. Because you have to believe in the principle of reward and punishment.

52:40Because if everyone was going to get rewarded, if everyone is going to Gan Eden like some people think, like I used to think, then what's the point of being a tzaddik? What's the point of keeping Shabbat? What's the point of keeping mitzvot? If we're all going to Gan Eden anyway, throw the Torah in the garbage and just do whatever you want. But the reality is it's quite the opposite. If we do good, we get rewarded. If we do bad, we get punished. Sometimes we get small rewards in this world. But the reality is the bigger reward is in Olam HaBa, the next world. Now, once I discovered this, I wanted to find out more. And I said, okay, fine, since there's reward and there's punishment, okay, I understand that. But Hashem still knows what I'm going to do. Why would He punish me if He knew I was going to do it? He says, because even though Hashem knows what you're going to do, the fact that He has knowledge does not change your decision. Meaning, if, let's say, for example, I wrote you a little piece of note, and I told you, put this in this envelope, put the envelope in your pocket, carry it the whole week. Don't open it though, don't cheat. At the end of the week, you come back, we meet, and we open the envelope together. And this is what you do. A week later, you come back, and we open the envelope together.

54:04And you see that I wrote down on this piece of paper every single thing you did the whole week, before you did it. Now, the fact that I know what you're going to do and I wrote it down, did that change your mind in any way? Did that affect your decision in any way? No. You did it anyway. You didn't even know that I wrote it. That's Hashem, in so many words. Hashem knows what we're going to do, but He doesn't change our choice. He doesn't work based on that knowledge. Now, the Gemara in Masechet Chagigah says that Hashem took the Torah as a blueprint and He created the world from it. Meaning that the Torah existed before the world. So the Chachamim ask, wait a minute, if the Torah existed before the world, does that mean that He already wrote about Moshe Rabbeinu before Moshe Rabbeinu came? Does that mean that He knew about Avraham Avinu before Avraham Avinu came into being? Does that mean that He knew that Am Yisrael was going to worship a golden calf and make such a big sin that until this day we have to suffer for it, before they did it? No. He knew that it was a possibility. He didn't know that it was going to be the choice that we made. How do we know that? The Ramban, who is one of our Chachamim from almost 900 years ago, explains this question in a very wonderful but sophisticated way. The Torah was written in a formula like a code. Does anyone know what binary code is?

55:30Binary code is the zeros and ones you see in anything that's relevant to technology. Zeros and ones, zero ones, zero ones, zeros and ones, and so on. But those zeros and ones are an actual language that means something. That's how you get the CD to give you some type of music or talk or shiur Torah, whatever it is. That's how the CD knows what to say and what to do, based on this code. The Torah was written in a very similar way, where all 304,805 letters that we have in the Torah, they're all combined together with no spaces. It was all as if it was one word, one really, really long word. Now, as He created the world, He created the Torah with it. But as things happened, for example, when Adam HaRishon ate from the Tree of Knowledge, the forbidden fruit, Hashem separated those letters When Avraham Avinu was born, Hashem separated the letters that already existed. He's not changing the letters; He's just separating the letters in order to create words that are telling you the story. Why? Because the Torah has all of the information that could ever exist in the world, with every single thing that ever existed or ever will exist, including this conversation that we have here today. If you know how to look for it, you can find this talk right now that we're having, with my name and your names in it, in the Torah. You just need to know how to look for it. Everything that ever happened is actually inside the Torah. We just need to know how to find it. The Ramban says, I'll give you a small example.

56:48that could ever exist in the world, with every single thing that ever existed or ever will exist, including this conversation that we have here today. If you know how to look for it, you can find this talk right now that we're having, with my name and your names in it, in the Torah. You just need to know how to look for it. Everything that ever happened is actually inside the Torah. We just need to know how to find it. The Ramban says, I'll give you a small example. In the beginning, we have the first two words of the Torah: Bereshit bara. Bereishit bara means "In the beginning, Hashem created." But once you combine the words into one word, and you separate them in a different way, instead of "bereishit bara," "In the beginning Hashem created," you say "barosh yitbara." "Barosh yitbara" is the same exact letters, just the separation. The space between them is different. Now you have something different. What does it mean? Free choice. In the beginning of Hashem's creation, Hashem created free choice. Free choice for you and me. Meaning that every decision that you can make is there. He doesn't dictate which decision you're going to make. You can go right, you can go left. He knows both options. He also knows the outcome of both options. But it's still up to you to decide which option you're going to pick. Am Yisrael had both options. They could have waited another six hours.

58:09and Moshe Rabbeinu would have arrived with the Sefer Torah, with the Ten Commandments, with everything, and he would have officially been allowed to go to Eretz Yisrael, become the Mashiach, and we would have had salvation for eternity. They decided not to wait six hours because they thought he died, and they made a golden calf. They thought that they needed this golden calf to be a middleman between them and Hashem since Moshe Rabbeinu, the former middleman, died. And for that, they all got punished, and we're suffering for it until this day. Both choices were available. They made the wrong choice. We sometimes make the wrong choice. I made the wrong choice for many years of my life. But the reality is that when you're making the wrong choice, you don't think it's the wrong choice because that would mean you're insane. The whole time you're living a lie, you think it's the truth. In fact, you yell at people and tell them, this is the truth, do what I'm doing. Even though you have no evidence to confirm that you're living the truth, aside from your confidence that you're right. Everyone thinks they're right, including Hitler yimach shemo. Every day Hitler woke up saying, oh, I'm doing justice for the world. He wrote in his book, Mein Kampf, that he is a servant of Hashem.

59:29That's what he wrote. He wrote in his book. You can see it. He claimed he's a servant of Hashem. His mission is to punish the Jews for going against Hashem. He believed he was right. Every person believes he's right. The difference between a person that's really right and someone who thinks he's right is evidence. It's confirmation. And the only confirmation you can get is the confirmation from the Creator who put you in the world. Hashem gave you a Torah; that's the only confirmation that's available. Everything else is shtuyot, everything else is nonsense, everything else is opinions. This is God's opinion. Once I started realizing that God gave us an opinion, I had to find out what else it says. Because His opinion matters to me. Because now that I know He created me, now that I know He's doing all the stuff that's not so much fun in my life, okay, I want to find out, can I undo it? So at one point, Rabbi Ephraim told me, You know, there's a mitzvah called Shabbat. I said, yeah, I heard about Shabbat. Everybody heard about Shabbat. Even the Goyim know about Shabbat. He says, yes, but on Shabbat, it's not just a day in the week. Regardless of whether you're Jewish or not Jewish, everybody holds by seven days a week. Which is actually one of the proofs that the Torah is the beginning of everything. No one has eight days. No one has nine and a half days. Everyone has seven days. Why? Because the beginning of everything was the Torah. And the Torah dictated seven days.

1:00:57He says during these seven days, you're allowed to do everything you want during the first six days. Work, make money, do business in the stock market, build houses, light a fire—whatever you want to do that's permitted, that's kosher, you're allowed to do. But on the seventh day, on Shabbat, you're not allowed to do many of those things. You're not allowed to drive a car. You're not allowed to light a fire. You're not allowed to cook food. You can eat, but it has to be cooked the day before. you can go wherever you want, but you have to get there the day before. And so on and so forth. There are rules for this Shabbat. I said, okay, yeah, but I'm not really ready for it. I'm not really ready for it. You haven't answered a lot of my questions, but usually on Saturday, on this Shabbat, I usually go to the casino for fun. I usually go and have business meetings to make some money. I usually do other stuff. I watch movies. I have fun. I do other things. It's my day off. He says, yes, I understand it's your day off, but That's only if you have an option of whether you want to keep it or not. I said, what do you mean? He says, you see this Hashem that we both decided and agreed that He's real? I said, yes. You see this same Hashem that gives reward and punishment? I said, yes. He said, if you violate Shabbat, the punishment is not just you get a slap in the face. The punishment is that the Torah considers you an idol worshiper. Meaning, you're not even considered a bad Jew.

1:02:21You consider it a bad going. The worst of its kind. To such an extent that Heaven is no longer part of the same equation as you. Heaven is no longer available for Mechalel Shabbat. Even if you gave a billion dollars a day in tzedakah. No Heaven. No Olam HaBa. And this is not Yaron Reuven telling you. This is the Rambam. Kaddosh, this is Al-Akhala Maaseh in every single book that talks about Shabbat. This is not just Yaron who has been creating this rule. In fact, I was the biggest advocate to try to prove I'm wrong. I failed miserably because no one ever said otherwise. Hashem Himself says it in 12 places in the Torah: a Mechalel Shabbat is considered someone that's cut off from the nation, meaning his Judaism is on suspension until he starts keeping Shabbat. Until then, he's considered an idol worshiper. Now, what does it mean to be an idol worshiper in the eyes of Hashem? Let's say somebody wants to get married. To get married under the chuppah in Kiddushin, you have to have two witnesses. Now, usually, people want to have two witnesses that they know and like. They want to bring their father, their brother, their cousin, or their best friend. If that cousin, best friend, father, or uncle—whoever it is—violates Shabbat on a regular basis, meaning not by mistake, but openly drives on Shabbat,

1:03:44Even if he drives to Beit Knesset on Shabbat, if he was one of the witnesses in that chuppah, that couple's marriage is not valid. Why? Because he's not allowed to be a witness. He's considered an idol worshiper. He's not considered a Jew. His Judaism is not in suspension. If, for example, you have expensive wine that's not cooked, and you want to host somebody in your house, you want to give him a lechayim. And he says, you know what? You're providing the wine, I'm going to pour it. He takes the wine that's not cooked and he wants to pour the wine. You not only are not allowed to drink this wine, but you have to take the entire bottle and throw it in the garbage. Why? Because the goyim, thousands of years ago, part of their idolatry was taking wine and giving it to their idols. So any time a goy touches wine that's uncooked, we think maybe they're doing it for their idols, so we're not allowed to even use it, benefit from it, in any way, shape or form. You're not even allowed to give it to your dog, in case your dog wants to be drunk a little bit. Still not allowed to do it. Why? Because it came from this person, that in Hashem's eyes, His Father in Heaven, He's not my friend, this goy. He's doing something against me. But not something small, something big.

1:05:04So now, everything changed for me. Why? Until that moment, I thought that keeping Shabbat was like an option. It's optional. If I want to be Moshe Rabbeinu, I'll keep Shabbat. If I just want to be a simple person, I don't have to keep Shabbat, but I'm still okay. He still loves me. I found out that's not the case. I found out if I keep Shabbat, good. If I don't keep Shabbat, not so good. Not so good at all. Unfortunately, today, part of the reason why I do what I do is because approximately 80% of Am Yisrael today, all over the world, still does not know what I just told you. And that's why they still don't keep Shabbat. That's one of the saddest realities that we have in today's world. Most Jews simply do not know the consequences of not keeping Shabbat. Maybe they know that you're supposed to keep it, like I did. Maybe they know that it's good to keep it, like I did. But they still don't. And the only reason why they don't is not because they want to be enemies of Hashem. Who wants to be the enemy of Hashem? The only reason they don't want to do it is because they don't realize the price. Like I didn't realize the price. And it's our responsibility to share with them. Because once you know the price, it's no longer worth it to perform the crime.

1:06:28If, let's say, you were in a hurry to go somewhere and you said, "Listen, I'm risking hurrying, speeding on this highway may cost me 60 bucks, may cost me $100, may cost me $200 on certain highways. Okay, that's a price I'm willing to risk to get to where I want to be on time." But if there was a new sign posted that said, "The next person that speeds even one mile extra, one mile per hour faster, one kilometer per hour faster than the speed limit gets the death penalty," then what would happen? Not only will people never speed, they wouldn't even drive anymore. They'll start walking. They'll go back to a horse and carriage. Why? The price is too expensive. It's too expensive now to even risk it. By accident, maybe you'll forget. Maybe you're not going to pay attention. Something's going to happen. I'm walking. Once you realize that the price of not keeping Shabbat is so expensive that it puts your status as a Jew on suspension, it's no longer the same price that you thought about before this Yom Kippur. It's no longer the same price that you thought about the minute before, the last time you violated Shabbat. This changed everything for me. I said, okay, now all those excuses are a waste of time. I have to start keeping Shabbat.

1:07:40even though it's hard, even though it's a life change, even though I have all the excuses in the world not to keep Shabbat, it doesn't make a difference. Why? The price is different. So I started keeping Shabbat. The first Shabbat that we had, we didn't want it to end. It was the greatest day in history. It was unbelievable. My wife and I were enjoying it so much, we kept Shabbat for an extra two hours. We just didn't want it to end. It was so different from our regular life. No phone, no TV, no nonsense, no one bothering you. Greatest thing in the world. We continued learning. As time passed, he started telling us other mitzvot. And then one day, he calls me and says, listen, I read a chiddush. It really is a chiddush, which means a new insight. In reality, there was nothing new about it. It was just new for me. He was pretending like he was learning with me to make me feel good about myself. He says, I learned, you ever hear of Rabbi Meir Baal HaNes? I said, yeah, of course. He said, you ever hear of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai? I said, of course. He says, well, they're both mentioned in the Zohar HaKadosh. You ever hear of the Zohar HaKadosh? I said, of course. He says, you know what's written in it? I said, no, I heard about it though. He says, well, in the Zohar HaKadosh it says, ooh, why? It says, a Jew that's married to a Goya, he has serious problems. I said, what do you mean? He says, not only has serious problems, Hashem punishes him in this world.

1:09:01Not in Allah. He starts punishment in this world. What does he do? He takes all of his money. I said, no. He said, he takes all of his health. I said, no. He says, he takes his life too in the end. I said, you serious? He said, yeah. I said, I don't think Rabbi Meir knows what he's talking about. I said, I don't know. I don't think he knows what he's talking about. I think Rabbi Meir was talking about other people, not me. Why? Because I'm married to a non-Jew. And there's no way that this non-Jew is not the right one for me. Why? She's the best person on earth. And there's no way that this wonderful person who's been with me through the surgeries, the pain, the suffering, the agony, the building, the destroying, the everything, and is still there, is the wrong person? There's no way. He suggested it. And he started telling me more and more things, and as hard as it was to take, deep down inside, I knew it was true. The problem is that when you love somebody, you can't just tell them, "Listen, I don't love you anymore." The other thing is, you have to decide for yourself, "Wait a minute, I believe in the Torah, and everything that I'm learning, I'm also teaching her, and she believes in the Torah, so okay, so what can

1:10:20One, if she wants to convert to be a Jew, the door is open; we'll walk in love, we'll open hands to such an extent. The Torah mentions Hashem's love for converts 36 times in the Torah, more than anything else in the Torah. To such an extent that even though you're supposed to love a Jew like you love yourself, you're supposed to love a righteous convert even more, even more than a natural born Jew. To such an extent, you have to love him, the Rambam says, like you love Hashem. To that extent, if they're righteous, not if they're fakers. So I said, if she wants to convert for the right reasons, she wants to learn Torah, she wants to do mitzvot, everything else, walk around with open arms. I said, okay, what if not? She said, well, then you have to leave her. I said, okay, I'll try to choose one. So I told her, honey, do you want to convert? She goes, sure. No problem. What does it entail? I said, well, let's see. So we go back to Rabbi Frei. What does it entail? He says, well, the first thing it entails is she has to unbelieve all the things she believes in. Meaning everything that she knew for the first 40 years of her life, 30 years of her life, 10 years of her life, everything she ever knew, she has to say everything is fake. Now, I'll tell you a secret. You can't just do that.

1:11:37Why? You can't just say, by the way, I believed that my name is Jeroen for 40 years, and all of a sudden say, you know what, I don't believe that anymore. It doesn't work that way. I believed that God is such and such, and all of a sudden say, no, I don't believe it anymore. You can't just stop believing something. It has to be replaced with something else. And you can't just replace it with something fake. If you think something is real, you can't stop believing it's real unless you find out that it's a lie. So the problem was that she was brought up in the Christian world, and she believed in the same God we did, but she thought, and she was led to believe, like most Christians, that you need a middleman. You need somebody to help you reach God. Some Christians believe that the guy, "Yeshu" we call him, or Jesus, was actually God himself. The reality is, we in Judaism call him "Yeshu, may his name be blotted out." Because he created, even though he was a Jew, a natural-born Jew, he was a wicked person who caused many, many other Jews and non-Jews to go to idolatry, turning him into God. And unfortunately today, over two and a half billion people believe that. Now, she didn't believe he was God, but she believed that he was something special. That's still a problem. That's still a very serious problem.

1:13:06so I went on a mission. My mission was to find out if it's real or not. If Christianity is real, I'm becoming a Christian. But that's what I was planning on doing. If it's not real, I'm getting her out of it. Why? She got me out of my damage, my problems, my everything. I have to save her, either join her or save her. So I started studying Christianity. Okay. along with Torah, but I started studying Christianity with an intent to find the truth. What's the truth? Either it's true or it's fake. Either Torah is true or it's fake. It can't be both are true because they contradict each other. One of them has to be fake. Somebody has to be wrong. After learning from a few videos from Rabbi Tovia Singer, Rabbi Mizrachi, Rabbi Daniel Assor, and several others that talked about the subject, I not only realized that Christianity is not real, but it's the biggest lie in the history of mankind. Not only is it not real, but it's the biggest idolatry in the history of mankind. Meaning, it's the ultimate avodah zarah. So now that I realize this, I realize that my mission is no longer the same thing. It's no longer to join Christianity or to be more religious Jew. My new mission now is to save

1:14:31the woman that I love, from worshipping an idol that she thinks is actually something special. So I started sharing every single bit of information with her. In the beginning, it was very difficult because she was not exactly very welcoming to this new information. She was already used to the information she had. But nonetheless, I was relentless. When she would wake up at 6 o'clock in the morning, I was like Einstein with my hair everywhere because I was up all night looking for the truth and proof that it's fake. It was no longer whether it's second best, third best, or maybe it's okay. No. I found out it's fake. Meaning it's a completely fake man-made religion. There are mistakes in the New Testament that they call their Torah that a five-year-old who knows a little bit of Torah actually knows it's a mistake. Mistakes that are easy to identify. For example, they're saying that they're the continuation of the Torah, which means that their book is supposed to actually agree with ours. Which means that the two can't contradict each other. So they tell a story that Yaakov Avinu goes down to Egypt. We're going to learn in this week's parasha. He goes down to Egypt. In our Torah, it says Yaakov Avinu goes down to Egypt with 70 nefashot, 70 people.

1:15:45In their New Testament, until this day, it's 75. All of a sudden, God forgot accounting. All of a sudden, He doesn't know, He forgot an extra five people. One of the other things that they have, Me'arat HaMachpela. Me'arat HaMachpela, you can find out where it is, because it still exists, you can go there. They have the wrong address. In their book, it's in the wrong city. and other things like this. So I started bringing this to her, and she started realizing that not only is this a problem, but it's fake. But then we had a new problem. She couldn't understand why Judaism would allow conversion. If I'm not born Jewish, why would Hashem still want me? Because if He wanted me to be Jewish, He would just make me Jewish. So then we had to find out, is it Judaism? Does it accept actual converts? And we saw that not only does Judaism accept converts, but Hashem loves converts. To such an extent that He mentions them 36 times in the Torah, to such an extent that He gives them special protection, to such an extent that some of the most important people in the history of Am Yisrael were converts. For example, Yitro. Parashat Yitro, what is Parashat Yitro about? It's not about Yitro. Yitro, Jethro in English,

1:17:07Parashat Yitro doesn't talk about Yitro. What does it talk about? The Ten Commandments. The parasha that's named after one of the most righteous converts in history has nothing to do with him. It just happens to be that he went and he left his idolatry. He went to Moshe Rabbeinu at Har Sinai. He says, I want to be like you. Why? Because I heard that your God is real and everything else is fake. That's it. That was enough for me. I heard. I didn't see. I heard. That's enough. He heard Torah is real. He heard what Hashem did for Am Yisrael. He wanted to join. And he lost everything for it. He lost all of his money, all of his everything. He lost everything, but he went. Hashem says, not only do I welcome him with open arms, but I'm going to name the parasha that we get Matan Torah after him. Such reward. One of the most righteous women that ever lived was a woman named Ruth. We read about her a few times a year during Shavuot and other times. We have to learn the story of Ruth. Ruth not only was a righteous convert, but she was the grandmother of David HaMelech. From David HaMelech, the Mashiach is coming. Meaning the Mashiach is coming from a convert, from a righteous convert.

1:18:20The biggest Rabbi in history other than Moshe Rabbeinu was Rabbi Akiva. He had 24,000 students, and the lowest among them, not the highest one, the lowest among them, was able to revive the dead. Somebody died, he just prays for them, and they come back to life. That was the lowest. The highest one was a person that when he would learn Torah, his name was Yonatan ben Uziel, when he would learn Torah... There would be a fire, a spiritual fire that would be created, that would reach the heavens, that if a bird flew over it, it would be burned, like a korban, like a sacrifice. Just learning from a book, like us. Not like us, meaning such a level of kedushah, that they might as well be a different species. Rabbi Akiva was their rabbi. He came from converts. But even more than that, His rabbi's rabbi, which means they were even bigger than him, were Shemaya and Avtalyon. Shemaya and Avtalyon were both converts. And many other righteous people throughout Am Yisrael have been righteous converts. When we found out about all of these wonderful people, we realized, wow, this is not only a good thing, this is good news, let's do something. Okay, let's learn. How do we convert? You have to learn Torah. You have to take on mitzvot. You have to take on everything.

1:19:46When we found out that this is true, my wife says, "I want everything." I said, "Yeah, but you know, everything is a lot." She said, "Everything." I said, "You know, you have to be modest." "No problem, everything." I said, "You know, you have to cover your hair with a mitpachat and everything." "Everything." I said, "You know, you have to eat this and this." She goes, "Everything." I said, "I'm not ready." She goes, "I am." I said, "But I'm not so sure." She goes, "I am. It's either fake or it's real. If it's real, I'm going all the way." Meaning, she forced me to do even more teshuva. So now we have to call the Beit Din. We call the Beit Din. We meet a few times, Baruch Hashem, everything works out perfectly. And the Beit Din tells us, "Listen, since you're together, you cannot live together, especially now and definitely not after she converts. So the minute she converts, either you get married or you live in different places."

1:20:46I said, why waste time? We're getting married the same day. We'll marry at the same time. I said, no problem. We'll have the chuppah at the Beit Din. Meaning, she dips into the mikveh. We finish. She's a Jew. Okay, now we do chuppah and kiddushin. Now, so far, so good, right? Here's the problem. Every single time there's something big supposed to happen that's holy, the yetzer hara has to interfere. Why? Yes, to ruin it. He has to give you a test. Why? To see if you really want it. As the pasuk in the Torah says, Hashem says, He sends tests to the people He loves. Why? He wants to know if you love Him back. If Hashem gave you only good, good, good, all the time, to love Him is very simple. But if He gave you a test, a flat tire, you lost some money, got sick a little bit, and so on and so forth, but you still keep Shabbat, oh, that means you really love Him. That means you're really connected to Him. So even though my business was collapsing, I still had something left. My health wasn't exactly so good, but I was getting somewhat better. We got a phone call, okay, Beit Din, wedding, same day, on such and such date. I said, great. Two days before the Beit Din meeting, I get another infection. Now these infections, they're not like small infections that you can say, you know what, I'll just deal with it. It doesn't work that way.

1:22:10It continues to grow until you either die or have surgery, whichever happens first. So I said, I'm not having surgery because I haven't had surgery. We have to delay this conversion, this wedding, this thing. I'm not doing it. So we're just going to go to the conversion. I'm going to suck it up for two days with the pain and agony and let this thing grow like cancer. But as soon as we leave the Beit Din, we're going to the hospital. By the time that we got to the Beit Din, the infection was the size of almost a melon. Meaning, I couldn't walk, I couldn't think, I couldn't do anything, but I was as happy as can be. Hashem said, you passed the test. How do I know? He didn't talk to me. But as soon as she dipped into the mikvah, my pain stopped. Instantly. I didn't actually realize it stopped. I just realized something good happened just now. But as soon as she came out, she goes, okay, so we're going to the hospital? I said,

1:23:11No, we have to get married. She goes, no, no, but you're sick. You have an infection. No, I'm not in pain. I'm not in pain. Let's have the wedding and then later on we'll figure it out. So he went to change clothes and said, okay, I'm going to go to the bathroom to change clothes and I undressed. Because this has to be a necessary part of the story. After I undressed, I discovered something. Hashem also performed a surgery while she was going to the mikveh because my whole body was full of blood. The only difference is it didn't hurt this time. Now, some people have a hard time believing it. I couldn't care less. I saw it. I was a witness. I was there. The point is, Rabotai, that sometimes Hashem wants to give you a big test to such an extent that He forces you to either believe in the supernatural or abandon everything altogether. This was part of the test. I had an infection and was supposed to go to the hospital. just to delay the big day. We chose not to, and Baruch Hashem, Hashem did something much better. We got married, and we realized, okay, we have to change everything. We did everything good. Let's continue. Let's continue learning. Let's continue doing. So we started becoming very active in kiruv. We started sending packages to different people around the world with books, with CDs of Rabbi Mizrachi and other rabbis that we liked, mostly Rabbi Mizrachi at the time, to share the knowledge.

1:24:37Because I realize there are many, many people just like me who have no clue that not only are you not supposed to be violating Shabbat, but violating it is a very, very big problem. Not only are you not allowed to be intermarried, but being intermarried is a very, very big problem. Not only are you not allowed to have a non-kosher business, but having one is a very, very big problem. Meaning, there are consequences for our actions. Now, although my business was kosher, it didn't make a difference. Everything else about my life wasn't kosher. So we had to undo a lot of things. And we figured, you know what, we'll do kiruv, we'll make a little bit of money from the business, and we'll survive. After a little while of learning, my rabbi told me, "Okay, it's time to take the next step." I said, "What step? I finished." He said, "No, no, you just started." I said, "What do you mean?" He says, "You have to share the knowledge. Hashem gave you a gift." I said, "What gift? He gave me a wife, He gave me, Baruch Hashem, health now, I'm feeling better." He goes, "No, no, He gave you a different gift." I said, "What gift?" He says, "He gave you the ability to speak." People like to hear you talk. I said, okay, yeah, I use it for business. I make a bunch of money from it. He goes, no, no, it's not for business. He didn't give it to you for business. He just sent you to business to train. He sent you to business to go training, learn how to talk. Why? To go tell people how to do teshuva. I said, really? You're serious? How much money am I going to make? He says, nothing. I said, what? It's a great job. I used to make $3,000 an hour and now you're telling me I work for free? He says, perfect. Perfect.

1:26:02I said, you're not really a very good businessman. He goes, what do you mean? We're saving for Olam Haba. I said, what about Olam Hazeh? He says, Hashem runs the world. So I started giving shiurim to him. But I told him initially, I don't really know much. He says, you don't have to teach what you don't know. You just have to teach what you know. Whatever you know, teach it. You know Parashat HaShavua? Teach Parashat HaShavua. Why? Because most people don't know Parashat HaShavua. You know Asher Yatzar? Teach Asher Yatzar. You know this story? Teach this story. And so on and so forth. And little by little, I started sharing my story and little by little, I realized that most people know less than I do. But I got bored of my own knowledge, so I started learning more and more. It forced me to learn more. And it started working. People started doing teshuva. Regular people, regular average Jews were listening to the shiur Torah on the internet. I could never believe that somebody would listen to me. I was a goy a few weeks ago, now you're listening to me? I couldn't believe it. Then rabbis started calling me, like, wow, you helped me do teshuva. I said, what do you mean, you're a rabbi? He goes, yeah, but I need to do teshuva for something that you said. And it was unbelievable to me that what I said affected different people from all levels. Rabbis, talmidim, all types of people. Even goyim started converting because of it. It was unbelievable. Now, as you become more and more popular, there's more demand for you. The problem is that when you do business, you can't stop doing business. You have to continue making parnassah. You can't just say, listen, I'm going to stop working for a few weeks, then I'm going to come back.

1:27:30So I had to work for part of my day and I had to learn for the rest of it. Hashem didn't like that agreement. So whatever I had left, I had a few hundred thousand dollars left that I was managing, which was my own money, and a few million dollars of other people's money. One day at 9:30 in the morning, I'm not doing great, but I still have a few hundred thousand dollars left. That's something to start your life with—your new life with. I have a couple of dollars from clients. That's also good. We're making a few thousand dollars a month off of it. Something goes wrong. We made a very, very bad investment. The balance of the account goes from whatever it was at 9:30. At 9:36, it's zero. Literally everything and anything that ever had some type of resemblance to my previous life is gone. The balance of millions and millions of dollars has vanished, disappeared. Meaning even if I did it on purpose, I wouldn't be able to fail to such an extent.

1:28:33this too was the greatest thing that ever happened. And the reason why is because part of what people like to learn about today is emunah. Emunah is a very, very common topic. Now, to teach about emunah is very easy. I could tell you stories, and you'll laugh, and you'll enjoy, and you'll get some good out of it, but in reality, it won't do anything for you. Why? Because it's just a story. It's just a story you'll enjoy today; you'll forget about it tomorrow. You'll enjoy it this week, but as soon as you get a test in your life, you won't really remember what we learned about today. How do you really learn emunah? Through life tests, through suffering, through overcoming obstacles. That's the only way to learn real emunah. Every other emunah that you're going to learn from the books is theoretical. It's theoretical emunah. To learn real emunah, you have to learn from the books and then apply it to real life. Now I taught people the stories about emunah from all the stories that Am Yisrael has. But Hashem says, it's time to practice. How do you practice? I'm going to take away everything. And not only are you going to teach emunah, you're going to be forced to live it.

1:29:42So, at 9:36 the balance was zero. At 9:37 I realized I have a shiur in a few hours. At 9:38 I shut off the computer. I said a pasuk that I remembered from Sefer Iyov: "Hashem natan, Hashem lakach, y’hi shem Hashem mevorach." God gave, God took, may His name be blessed. Meaning everything comes from Him anyway. Hashem runs the world. He decided to take whatever I had. Really, it's His anyway. I borrowed it for a little while. Thank you very much. Take it back. More importantly, I have a shiur coming up in a few hours. I have to go get ready. The computer was off. It was never turned on again. And I started doing kiruv full time. How have I been surviving for the last four and a half years? It's a miracle every single month. Somehow, someway, somebody shows up with something. Now to make sure that I stand the test... And I do what I'm supposed to. My rabbi said that not only are you supposed to do kiruv, but you're supposed to make sure that you eliminate any yetzer hara that you have. My biggest yetzer hara is success for money. Because that's how I measure the score. You know, it's not that you like money. It's not that I even need so much. Especially when you change your life. I'm not buying any planes or anything. You just want to have food and make sure that your kids can eat. But the reality is that when you're in the business world, you're used to success.

1:31:04You continue making more, not because you need more, but it's a way to keep score. It's like, oh, I'm doing good because I made more money this month. I'm doing not so good because I made less money this month. That's usually how businessmen do. They keep score based on their success. So I know my own test, and my rabbi also knows my own test. He says, listen, there's a big yetzer hara in the world. There's a big... Problem in the world. There's a big avodah zarah in the world. I said, what kind of problem? There's a big problem. What kind of problem is it? He says, Hashem gave a nevuah, gave a prophecy of what's going to happen right before Mashiach comes. I said, what is it? He says, that Am Yisrael is going to go worship the god of money, the god of gold. I said, you mean money? He said, exactly. He says, so anytime that money becomes involved, people's perspective changes. So if you tell people I'm going to charge for a lecture, all of a sudden they're going to say, "Listen, we're going to pay, we're not going to pay, but whatever he says has to change. If I'm going to pay for it, then I'm going to dictate what he's going to say, because now he's my employee. If I'm not going to pay for it, then obviously whatever he says has to have something of significance, because what does he get out of it? If he's not getting money out of it, then what is he getting out of it?" So, we decided to do...

1:32:21what we've been doing for the last four and a half years, which is, for every lecture, wherever we go, we don't charge. Why? Because that ensures that everyone at the shiur comes out with a single conclusion. There is no reason, there is no benefit for me to tell you anything that I just said for the last however much time it's been, other than you getting closer to Hashem. I'm not doing it for your money. If you want to donate, you're more than welcome. If you don't want to donate, keep your money in your pocket and enjoy it. It makes no difference to me. Hashem runs the world. The most important thing for me is that you take something that you learned in the last couple of hours and apply it to your life. Why? Because that means I did my job. That means that the whole trip from the heat of Florida to the freezing cold of Montreal was worth it. Why? Because one Jew is going to do Teshuvah. Ten Jews are going to do Teshuvah. A hundred Jews are going to do Teshuvah. And you can't say, no, no, but he gets something out of it. He doesn't get anything out of it. Even if somebody ends up donating a million dollars in five minutes, it makes no difference. Why? Because at this point, everything I said had no price. This shows people that the message has no bias. And that's what we've been doing for the last four and a half years, but it also forces us to actually believe what we say.

1:33:39Because it's the only way to measure the score now, since it's not money, it's success. What's success? Jews doing Teshuvah. And Baruch Hashem, over the last several years, there have been many, many hundreds or even thousands of Jews that have contacted us, that have done Teshuvah. Some of them thought they were religious and then became really religious. Some of them weren't religious at all and became religious. Some of them were goyim and became Jews. All walks of life, from all corners of the world. I had somebody send me a message just a couple of days ago from Saudi Arabia. I had another guy from Kuwait. I had several people from Australia. I mean, it's 17 hours, well, from Florida to Australia. If it's a straight flight, it's 17 hours. 17-hour flight somehow, I didn't make the trip, but somebody found me. How? Hashem runs the world. The most important thing for a person to know is that Hashem runs the world. And the reason why is because once you realize that Hashem runs the world, and He's real, that means that every single step that you're going to take in your life, you have to ask yourself, what is Hashem telling me from here? Does Hashem agree with this step or disagree?

1:34:57Does Hashem want me to drive on Shabbat, or does He not want me to drive on Shabbat? Is this pain that I have on my side also from Hashem? Oh, it is. Why does Hashem give me a pain on my side? Am I so righteous? Well, maybe not. This means that every single person has to now evaluate and re-evaluate himself and everything that's happening in his life. When he gets good, he starts thinking, oh... I must have done something. I must have done something to get this good. The good that you get in life is not always because you did good. Sometimes you get money as a punishment. Believe it or not. There are certain people that get money, and a lot of it, as a form of punishment. Because Hashem says that they've made so many sins that He simply decided to punish them with... removing their ability to choose normally. A normal person sees something wrong in his life and says, you know what, there's something wrong, Hashem is upset at me, okay, I have to do teshuva. But when a person sees that he has money, a wife, kids, notoriety, fame, fortune, everything he wants physically, but still he's miserable, he doesn't think it's a message from Hashem. He thinks he's miserable because of a chemical imbalance,

1:36:11Maybe it's because he's had some trauma in his life. He doesn't connect it to Hashem. And the reason why is because Hashem gave him so much that he just doesn't think that Hashem is really punishing him. He thinks it's something else. It's a pasuk at the end of Parashat Va'etchanan. that Hashem pays His haters, meaning the ones that violate His mitzvot, violate His Torah, to their face. Whatever mitzvot they did, He gives them everything, all of their reward to such an extent that they literally don't even think about doing teshuva. So this also answers the question for anyone that has it, of how come there are some people that drive on Shabbat and Hashem gives them a Ferrari to drive. The answer is this. The answer is that sometimes a person makes so many sins, Hashem gives them more. Why? Don't even think about doing teshuva because I don't want you to. This, the Rambam says, is the worst punishment a person can get because it's almost, almost removing the free choice of a person. Not a hundred percent, they can still do teshuva, but it's almost removing their choice because for them to get from their lie to truth is a very, very, very far walk. It's a very, very, very big variance between the two.

1:37:26So, with all of that being said, we realize that even the things that happen in your life that are bad end up being good in some way or another. The reality is that I could have stayed on Wall Street. I could have continued making money. I could have become maybe the richest person in the world in money. But then, that would mean that thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people that now have the ability to go to Gan Eden wouldn't have gone to Gan Eden. The reality is that all the money in the world is not worth the life of a single Jew. You take all the money that exists in the world, however many trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars, The average Jew, that's six years old, seven years old, eight years old, doesn't make a difference. That Jew, even if that Jew knows that he only has one hour to live, they told him, listen, you've already lived your life, you have this, you have an hour to live. That hour of that Jew is worth more than all of the money in the world from today to the beginning of the world. The one hour of that Jew. Why? Because maybe he'll say amen one time.

1:38:30Maybe I'll say, somebody's going to say a bracha, and he's going to say amen. What does amen mean? Amen is an acronym for El Melech Ne'eman. God is the King and is reliable. Reliable for what? To deliver reward and punishment. To deliver what He said in the Torah. Somebody that says amen is signing off that Hashem is reliable. He said it, it's true. For that, for one Jew to say amen, it's worth it for Hashem to create the whole world for him. Which means that if I would have stayed on Wall Street, then you would have seen me in newspapers and CNBC and many different media outlets out there. You would say, "Oh, wow, nice, there's another rich Jew in the world. Yay! That's it. Meaningless life." He's just, even if I was religious, even if I kept Shabbat, even if I did everything, even if I became really, really smart in Torah, still, "Oh, it's a Jew, keeps Shabbat, he has a kippah, nice beard." Yay! 80% of Am Yisrael still has problems. Still has a very big problem with Hashem. Why? Because they don't keep Shabbat. Because they don't keep kosher. Because they don't keep anything. They keep whatever they like. So losing all of that money is a small price to pay to get one Jewish neshama.

1:39:50Baruch Hashem with our organization, b'ezrat Hashem. Anyone that wants to watch our shiurim, go to beezrathashem.org, or you go to YouTube, type my name, or you take the CDs that we provide for free. You watch, you listen to the shiurim. Every single day we get more emails, more text messages, more some form of communication of somebody telling me, thank you, my life has changed. Thank you, I did teshuvah. Thank you, I did this. Thank you, I did that. It's unbelievable how this person that used to pretty much want to be a goy is now affecting people to do teshuvah. That's worth all the money in the world. Why? Because Hashem runs the world. Once we realize that all of the bad that you've ever had in your life in order to train you, in order to prepare you for the good that's coming up in your life, then you realize it was all worth it. If you realize that, yes, there were bad things that happened to all of us at some point, but Hashem wants to give us good in the end. But He can't give us the good without us being ready for it, without us realizing that the good and the bad came from Him. The good and the bad came from Him, and both of them have a reason. Once we realize that, all of it becomes good.

1:41:00The bad and the good. And for that, it was worth it to come here all the way to Montreal and freeze with you. Any questions? Any questions? Ask away. Did I answer your question? You did? Very good. So Hashem chooses to reveal Himself only to the individual in this given world, as opposed to many moons ago? Exactly. What's the deal with that? 3,300 years ago, Hashem decided for the first and last time to reveal Himself to the masses because He wanted this to be evidence once and for all. But after that, He decided not to do it because He's the King of Kings and He's not working for us like we want Him to. People say, "Well, if Hashem is real, why doesn't He just show Himself to us now, and we'll all believe in Him?" We saw that that doesn't actually work. And what’s the evidence? Right after He revealed Himself to us, we sent Moshe Rabbeinu to collect the Torah. Forty days later, he came back, and what were we doing? We were worshipping a different god. Meaning that even after He revealed Himself to the masses, we still failed. Miracles do not make people do teshuva.

1:42:06What makes people do teshuva is realizing, number one, that there's a price for going against Hashem. Number two, there's a reward for following Him. Understanding there's reward and punishment is what makes people do teshuva and getting closer to Hashem. Him revealing Himself to the masses or even to the individual—I know many people that have had dreams or some type of understanding or some type of near-death experiences, but still... they still didn't do Shabbat. Why? Because that one single event is just enough to shock you back, but not to keep you there. So maybe you'll keep one Shabbat, but as soon as your friend says, "Listen, there's a really good trip coming up this next Shabbat, we're going to have a barbecue, all the guys are coming, and we're going to the game, and we're doing this," and it's a big Yetzer Hara, because that's your favorite thing to do, all of a sudden, you know what, Hashem, this Shabbat, put it on hold, I'll come back next Shabbat. I know last week you were real, and I still believe you were real, but let's just put this thing on hold for a little while. I'm not ready yet. Why? Because you think that you can do it. You think it's an elective. You think you can do it or not do it. Understanding reward and punishment is one of the principles of our faith. Because if we don't understand reward and punishment, all of Judaism goes to the garbage, chas v'shalom. Because we have to know that there's a price. Same thing in anything else in life.

1:43:31If you work hard, if you have employees or you are an employee, you need to operate based on reward and punishment. Why? Because if there's no reward and punishment, then everything is fair game—the guy that's stealing from the company and the guy that's promoting the company. There has to be a reward and punishment system in anything to run society. Now, how come we say some things that are scary? Because fear is the number one motivator in life. That's how human nature works. The main reason why the billionaires continue to work even though they have enough money to burn is because they're always afraid to go broke, even though they have billions. You read the bios about the billionaires, doesn't matter which one they are, their number one fear is to lose. And not just lose a little bit, lose everything. They still believe that it's possible to lose everything, and it is. There was a guy named Eike Batista from Brazil. one day he reached $37 billion net worth, meaning that even if he spent $10 million a month for the rest of his life, he still would never run out of money. He actually said publicly that he reached already $37 billion at this stage. He believed that in his lifetime he would become the richest man in the world, and even within the next 10 years. He didn't know that 15 months later,

1:44:51He was broke 15 months later. This is public news. You can see it on the internet if you have internet. Most people do. The reality is that this billionaire, who thought he was going to become the richest man in the world, believed that having $37 billion was enough. He was sure he was going to become a hundred billionaire. He was sure he was going to become a trillionaire. He went broke. Completely broke. To such an extent, he lost his cars. He lost his cars. Even the average Joe who loses his job still keeps his car. As long as he continued making the 300 bucks a month payment. This guy lost his cars even. Why? Hashem runs the world, and Hashem hates arrogance. So Hashem is going to show us different signs, different ways. And the reality is that sometimes He's going to give you a special message that's through an extreme event. Sometimes He's going to give you a message that you simply have to pay attention to because it's not such a big event, but He still is paying attention. But one time... Rabbi Yisrael Misalant got an offer. He lived in Salant and he had a huge kehillah that followed him almost 200 years ago. And he got an offer from France. They said, listen, we have a bunch of Rabbanim, a bunch of big rabbis that came to France, but we need a manhig, we need a leader. We need a leader to help us out because you have a good name. We want you to be our leader. We want you to be the one that tells all the kehillot in France to follow us.

1:46:15Yes, but I have a kehillah here already in Salant. I mean, they're all following me. He's like, yeah, but Kvod HaRav, there are hundreds of thousands of Jews in France. If nobody helps them, chas v'shalom, they could be goyim in the next year or two. Rabbi Yisrael thought about it. He says, you know what? Fine. He went. He told his kehillah. They all cried, but they knew that it's for zikui harabim. It's for helping Am Yisrael do teshuvah. He left. He went to France. And he promoted these Rabbanim over the next few years, and each one of them took a very big position, was welcomed by the kehillot, and helped people do teshuvah. After a few years of doing it, he said, "Okay, I'm going to put one of you as the new leader, and I'm going back home to Salant." They said, "Listen, we love you, we appreciate it, thank you very much." And they saw him off, going back home. saw him off, going back home. When he went back home, he saw everybody come, and they were welcoming him, "The big rabbi, we can't believe you're back, it's so great, it's so wonderful." Not like today, they throw tomatoes at the rabbi. In those days, they actually liked rabbis. So they saw him, "It's so wonderful to see you back," and he saw all of his old students, except one. One student, who used to be a really big donor,

1:47:33And anything that had to do with Torah was not even there welcoming him. He says, what happened to such and such? What happened to him? What happened to Steve? He says, oh, Steve is off the derech. What do you mean he's off the derech? He was a big ba'al habayit. He gave all the money to yeshivot, to kollelim, to everything. He goes, yeah, but something happened. We don't know what to do with him. He's completely off. Doesn't keep anything. He says, take me to his house now. They all took him to Steve's house. I'm just making up this name because I don't know the guy's name. And he said, "Oh, Kevod HaRav, how are you? What brings you here?" He goes, "Well, I came back and I heard about you and I wanted to ask you what happened." "Oh, Kevod HaRav, why don't you have a seat? I'll tell you." And they sit down. He's like, "Listen, Kevod HaRav, I love Hashem and everything is great and I believe in Hashem, but to tell you the truth..." After he left, something happened. He said, "What happened?" He says, "I was zealous. I was excited about Hashem. And I loved everything. And I had emunah. And I believed that the reward and punishment is real. But then I went to this restaurant. And this rasha, this wicked person, didn't want to eat from the restaurant. What did he do? He brought a bunny, a rabbit, to the restaurant."

1:48:56And he actually cut the rabbit on the table and started eating it. And this is assur, this is not kosher. Everyone knows that you can't eat rabbits. It can never be kosher. There's no shechita for rabbits. You can never eat a rabbit. You can't even sell it. You can't even sell non-kosher food. It's not that you're not even allowed to eat non-kosher food. You're not allowed to cook it. You're not allowed to eat it, and you're not allowed to sell it. Which means that part of teshuva, if somebody ever owned a non-kosher restaurant, would be to close down the restaurant until he turns it back into kosher. Why? Because every single time you do one of those things, by cooking, eating, or selling, you are going against Hashem. To such an extent that if a Jew comes to your restaurant, he says, listen, I want to eat. You know what? Because you're a Jew, I'll give it to you for free. I'll give it to you for free because you're a Jew. You now become a partner in his crime. You become a partner in his crime. Why? Because he now sinned against Hashem. You provided it, even if it's for free. You're not even making money out of it. You're still losing out on it. It's very, very important that our rules are very clear. There's no two opinions on certain things.

1:50:10But most things that you want to do in your life are allowed. Most things that you want to do in your life are allowed. But there's a kosher way to do everything. You're allowed to sell food, just kosher food. You're allowed to make money, but it has to be kosher money. You're allowed to be with a woman or a man, but it has to be, first of all, the opposite sex, which is, unfortunately, confusing for some people today. And second of all, it has to be after chuppah and kiddushin. Everything is allowed. There's just a kosher way to do everything. So this student, this Steve, the biggest Rabbi in the world at the time, he says, "Listen, this person brought a rabbit to the restaurant. He's not eating the restaurant food. He's eating the rabbit. No one says a thing." I said, "This is a desecration of Hashem's name. Hashem is going to kill him now. Why? Why?" The rabbis are not doing anything. The kehillah is not doing anything. No one is doing anything because he is very rich. And everyone is scared of him. So Hashem is going to get involved. Hashem is going to perform a miracle. He is going to give him a heart attack right now. And I waited. And waited. And waited. No heart attack. No stroke. No nothing. All he did was enjoy his bunny. And look at everybody else with a sarcastic smile. And no one said a thing.

1:51:31And I said, there's something wrong. If Hashem is not going to do something about this, maybe there's no Hashem. Maybe there's no Hashem. I don't know. Maybe Hashem left. Like He created the world, like the Greeks said, Hashem created the world, but then He went on vacation to Cancun. He went. He's not there. He doesn't care. He doesn't care because look, this guy, Rabbi Simcha Wasserman was a big chacham. Now if you start yelling at the person, "Gevalt, how could you do this to Hashem? Nothing's going to work." She said, "Oh, okay. That's what happened." She said, "That's the whole story. And ever since then, I stopped keeping mitzvot. Certain things happen because you think you're doing it, but in reality, it's always because Hashem's doing it." So at the very same time that he finished his story, the guy's daughter came to her father, and she said, "Look, Abba, I got a grade in my piano lessons, and I got an A." I got an A, Abba. Oh, Abba. Steve said, wow, look, my daughter, she got an A. So Abba's Ma'am says, prove to me that you're worthy of an A. I want to see you play the piano. The little girl, 10 years old, what do you mean? But I got an A. Look, it says it. No, no, but I want you to prove it to me. Maybe you just wrote the A on the paper.

1:52:50Maybe you just wrote it, who's to say that the teacher wrote the A? Do you have any proof? He's not here, the teacher. I want you to prove to me that you are an A student in piano lessons. The girl was so shocked, she got embarrassed, she started crying, and went to her room. Now Steve says, "I don't know what happened in France over there, but why are you doing this to my daughter? She said she got an A, why don't you believe her?" He says, "Your ears should listen to your foolish mouth." You're saying that her evidence is her word and the fact that she has a piece of paper that says an A, and that we should trust it. Hashem says, "I have an entire Sefer Torah, full of miracles, full of prophecies, full of everything and anything you can ever want. But you need evidence, you need proof whenever you feel like it?" You need Hashem to change the world just for you? To make miracles because you desire for Hashem to make miracles? Who's God? You or Hashem? Meaning that even though we would all like for Hashem to come and talk to all of us publicly, remember, He's the King, not us. We serve Him, not the opposite. He doesn't owe us anything. And the reality is, He gave us enough evidence to know for sure that He exists.

1:54:15Earlier today, I went to a school with young kids, and I showed them a picture. A picture of something called a flagellar motor. In this picture, I asked all of the kids, Does this look like something that a person made or just came from nothing? Everyone raised their hand. This had to be made by a person. Why? It's a motor. It has an engine. It has a wheel. It has multiple parts. There's no way that this thing just came from nothing. So, will the truth be told? No person ever made it. No person ever made it. A person cannot make it. Why? It's too perfect. God made it. And every single one of you has millions and millions and millions of them inside your body. Because that's the only way that your cells in your body can travel from point A to point B. Through this motor mechanism. Even though it's tiny, it's a fraction of a millimeter of a millimeter. It's a very, very tiny thing. I showed you the picture. The picture of this flagellum motor was 50 million times the real size.

1:55:26But we have an infinite amount of them in our body because we depend on them to move all of our cells from the right place to a different place, from the wrong place to the right place. And if one of those motors breaks down, just one of them, not all of them, just one of them, breaks down, decides to go on vacation, decides that it's too cold in Montreal, decides it's too hot in Florida, decides that, you know what, it's already old enough, it's been operating for 80 years, it wants to retire, it's old and tired. If just one stops working, a person stops living. you have an infinite amount of them inside your body. And if one piece of that motor, not the whole motor, one piece stops working, a person stops living. A person stops seeing. A person stops functioning. This means that Hashem has enough evidence inside your body, inside your life, inside the Torah, to show you clearly. There's nothing else other than Him. All you gotta do is look in the right place. Next question, same price.

1:56:35I actually just had a question about the clarification you made about selling non-kosher food. In the previous shiur, I think it was yesterday, you were talking about when you have kosher restaurants, a lot of the treif is sold as halal, right? Is there a specific halacha I wanted to know? It's not the kosher restaurants, it's the kosher butcher. Because the Jews have a law that in order for any animal to be kosher, it has to go through shechita. A certain halachot make the shechita kosher. It's not just because you cut it with a knife; it has to be cut in a specific way, and the animal has to be healthy. If, after you cut the animal and open it up, you see there was a hole in its lung or some type of disease, even though you cut it in a kosher way, it's still not kosher, and so on and so forth. There are many halachot and laws. Now, if you find out that after you cut it the right way, it's still not kosher, it's considered treif. You can throw it in the garbage, or you can sell it to the Arabs. The reason why the Arabs are the primary customer for it is because their false religion also has a law of slaughtering the animals. To them, it doesn't make a difference. There's no laws of how to slaughter the animal. They just chop their heads off. So, for them, in essence, our non-kosher is still kosher for them. They don't do what the Christians do, which is shoot the animals in the head or electrocute them. They just chop their heads off.

1:58:01So it's a very, very vicious thing, unfortunately, but the point is that that's why many times you'll see that very close to every kosher butcher, that's a real butcher, not just one that's getting things imported, but a real butcher that actually does shechita, usually very close you'll see a beit halal that sells meat also because everything that's a problem for the kosher guy is a perfect product for the non-kosher, for the Arabs. Next question, yes. Do they get a "get out of jail free" card because they suffered, is what you're asking? Meaning they suffered, they were tortured, and traumatized, and it's difficult for them to realize whether God is real or not when He causes all these problems and so on. The Torah has rules: if you fulfill mitzvot, you're a tzaddik; if you commit aveirot, you're a rasha. The difficulties in your life...

1:59:24are coming from the same being, the same Creator, that determined whether you're a tzaddik or a rasha. Meaning that if someone went to the Holocaust, it's not that they went to the Holocaust because they had bad luck. They went to the Holocaust because Hashem sent them there. Meaning that Hashem gave them the test. And Hashem is the very same One that also decided that they will be one of the few that lived. Six million died, but they lived. Meaning that Hashem knew that the six million who died couldn't withstand the test. But the ones who lived could. Meaning they could still do teshuva. They could still be frum. But they still decided not to. Why? Because they decide that they have an excuse. Why? Because they said, listen, I suffered too much, therefore Hashem doesn't exist. And the problem is that even though we cannot judge anyone that we're not in his shoes, we cannot just give people a free ride and create new rules for them. As much as many rabbis would like to say that all of the people that died from the Shoah, they're all holy, the reality is not so. It's not. Why? Because some people, before the Holocaust, were married to goyim. You can't say the guy that was married to Mustafa

2:00:41and married to all of the goyim, they're still holy because they were killed in the Shoah. In fact, there are certain Jews that pretended to be Nazis, and they killed other Jews. They actually served in the Nazi army and killed Jews until they were caught, and then they would kill themselves. You can't say that guy is holy. So the point is that when a person goes against Hashem, but then he dies in a very, very... horrendous way, just because he died that way does not mean that we're allowed to change the Torah. The Torah says clearly, you fulfill mitzvot, you are a tzaddik. You don't fulfill mitzvot, you are a rasha. Now, that does not necessarily mean that they get the same judgment as someone that had an easier life. Meaning, someone that has an easier life but still decides to be a rasha gets a much worse punishment. Because he doesn't have the benefit of suffering that lowers the ultimate punishment. But it doesn't mean that somebody that died in the Holocaust automatically goes to Gan Eden with Moshe Rabbeinu. It doesn't work that way. So sometimes Hashem gives a person a test and the person fails the test. And many times, depending on the test, Hashem will give a person another chance. What's another chance? There's something called reincarnation. Reincarnation, or gilgul in Hebrew, means that a person is given another opportunity in his life.

2:02:00He takes that person's neshama, puts it into a new body, and that new body becomes a new person that tries it again. Every single one of us was at Har Sinai. Every single one of us was at Har Sinai. Every single Jew was at Har Sinai. Meaning that we, I'm included in this, so don't take offense, we are the biggest losers in history. Why? We have failed many, many times. We've been here many, many times. It's not just one time. You don't just get one chance. You get several chances. Which means there's been 3,300 years since Har Sinai. Most of us have been here a few times, to say the least. But we kept failing at something. It's not always the same thing. Sometimes it's one thing, sometimes it's another thing, and so on and so forth. And Hashem gives certain people another chance, another opportunity. It's not necessarily a reward; it's a punishment. Because in reality, when a neshama knows that it's coming back to this world, it cries. It doesn't want to come back to this world. But needless to say, it's better than staying in Gehinnom forever. It's better than being punished for eternity. Or it's better than being destroyed. So we get another chance. And Hashem wants to reward us. He wants to give us good. He's rooting for us. He's cheering for us. He only created us to give us good. But He cannot give us good for no reason.

2:03:15Because that would defeat the purpose of life. There would be no purpose to life. If everybody gets good, regardless of whether they follow Him or not, then what's the point of the world? So it doesn't matter how long you live in this present world, as long as you do teshuva to go to Gan Eden. It doesn't make a difference. As long as you do teshuva, by the time the person dies, they've done teshuva, they go to Gan Eden. It doesn't make a difference what they've done throughout their life. Our proof is a person by the name of Menashe. Menashe was one of the kings of Am Yisrael who was originally one of the most wicked people that ever lived. Every sin that's humanly possible, he committed. Every sin. You name it, he did it. He raped his own family. He worshipped idols. He killed his grandfather, who was a prophet. Everything you could possibly imagine, he did. But eventually, Hashem wanted to punish him and he took him to a place of goyim who were cannibals. They captured him and they started cooking him in a huge pot. At that point, he started screaming to his idols. He screamed to one idol, but it didn't work. He screamed to another idol, and it didn't work. This idol, that idol – none of the idols worked. Eventually, he ran out of names. So he started screaming Hashem's name. He said, "Hashem, if You're real, You'll save me right now. I promise You I'll do teshuva." And because of the merit...

2:04:38...of his grandfather, who was a big tzaddik, of his father, who was a big tzaddik, and also of the Kiddush Hashem that would result from his teshuva because it’s proof for us that anyone can do teshuva. Hashem miraculously helped him and saved him, making the pot that he was being cooked in literally fly like a UFO all the way back to Yerushalayim. And he did teshuva. But doing teshuva wasn't simple for him. It took him many, many years because some of the sins he had committed weren't just about stopping... Meaning he lets you, for example, if he left an idol in a certain town and people started worshiping that idol and replicating that idol. So as long as that idol was in the world, there was no way for him to do teshuva because more people were sinning again. As long as, let's say for example, a person has a non-kosher business. He has one of these clubs. It's not a kosher business. He says, listen, I'm not working in there anymore. I'm not working in a club. Anyway, I just get the paycheck every month. They send me a nice check. The reality is they can't do it. Why? Every single time somebody goes to one of these nightclubs, they're making a sin in the nightclub. You're the one that's facilitating the nightclub. You're making a profit out of it. You are enabling a person to make a sin. Now you're going to tell me, wait, but if they don't go to my nightclub, they'll go to somebody else's nightclub. That's not your problem.

2:05:54That's not the accounting that you do. You cannot be the vessel for somebody else's sin. You cannot give non-kosher food to a person and say, no, no, I didn't tell him to eat it. I just sold it to him. He wanted it. I went one time and gave a shiur to a bunch of young kids that were like halfway religious. They all wore kippot and they had tzitzit, but they weren't really sure what they were and how they were. At the end of the shiur, the one that looked the most religious... says to me, he says, "Wait a minute, so based on what you're saying, the only kosher way to make money, according to the Torah, is legit?" I thought it was an unusual question. I said, "Yes, obviously, it has to be legitimate. It can't be illegal." He says, "Yeah, but what if I have customers that they're demanding a product and the product happens to be not legal? So I don't..." beat around the bush much as you've noticed already. I said, so are you talking about drugs? He goes, let's just say we're talking about drugs. I said, well, you know, drugs kill people. He says, well, it's not my fault what they do with it. They wanted the product. I said, oh, so you're just like Hitler. It's not your fault that they went into their gas chambers. You just built it. You didn't know that they were going to go in there. But we cannot make such a cheshbon. Every Jew has a brain.

2:07:19That brain gives you the responsibility to use that brain. What's going to happen as a result of your actions? Who is wise? Someone that sees what is the result of their actions, what is born out of their actions. If I have non-kosher behavior, that will facilitate non-kosher other things. And so on and so forth. You cannot just say, no, no, I'm just providing a product. It's not my fault that they decide to go take my product and kill themselves with it. This is not a human being. Even a normal human being knows it's not true. If I have a non-kosher business, that will facilitate non-kosher transactions. If I have non-kosher behavior, that will facilitate other non-kosher things. And so on and so forth. You cannot just say, "No, no, I'm just providing a product. It's not my fault that they decide to go take my product and kill themselves with it." This is not a human being. Even a normal human being knows it's not true. We have to be human beings. As Jews, even better than the regular human beings. Why? Because we have the instructions from Hashem. And Hashem gave us a precise instruction set of how to be the perfect human being. And I promise you, you'll never ever lose out by doing what Hashem said. There was one person who heard a shiur similar to this almost 30 years ago. And he heard from the rabbi that if you steal, you can't go to Gan Eden.

2:08:27He's like, "Listen, I agree with you, it's true, but I have a problem. I've been stealing from my customers for 15 years." He says, "Well, what kind of business do you have?" He says, "I have a toilet paper business." He says, "Okay, so how are you stealing?" He says, "Well, the industry standard is that every roll is 100 feet. But when was the last time somebody checked if their toilet paper was 100 feet or not? So in reality, I said, you know what, I'm selling 100 feet, but I'll give them 95." and I noticed that nobody noticed. So I said, well, let's take it a little lower. So I lowered it to 90. And they still didn't notice. So then I lowered it to 70. And a few people complained, but not so much. I said, you know what, let me increase it to 85. And I've been doing this for 10 years. Every one of my customers has been paying for 100 feet, but gets 85. And the problem is, if I go and tell them what you said,

2:09:28That, listen, I'm sorry guys, I've been stealing from you for 10 years. What are they going to do? They're all going to sue me. My business is going to be shut down and I'll never be able to pay back anyway. If I don't do anything, then I'm going to gain on. So how do I do this? So a rabbi that knows the laws of the Torah and knows people, he's also a chacham. Hashem gives him wisdom. He says, listen, Can you still make money on this toilet paper if instead of giving them 85, you give them 100? He says, yeah, of course. There's plenty of money to make. He says, what about if you give them 115? Not 100, but 115. Is there still enough profit margin? He says, yeah, there's plenty of profit margin. I can make money with 115. He goes, that's exactly what you do. Let them pay for 100, but this time they get 115. They get an extra 15. So they don't even know that they're getting paid back. Quietly, he says, "Genius." And that's what he did. For the next six months, he's selling 115 as 100. Hashem saw him steal for 10 years, but He only waited six months to see if he would stand the test. One day, he arrives to

2:10:43his office, he does his thing, and all of a sudden his secretary says, "Boss, boss, there's something going on." "What's going on?" "The news, the news is out here." He goes outside. "Live, we're live from New York. We are here after doing research. This is a real story. We did research on the toilet paper business." We've actually analyzed all the toilet paper companies. Everyone's industry standard is that every roll is 100 feet. We've tested all of the products. The average company is not selling 100. Some of them, at the lowest, are selling 60. Then they're selling 70. Then some of them are selling 90. But most of them are selling 80 or 85. We only found one company that sells more than 100. Not just 100, but more than 100. And we are here now to interview the owner of the company. Sir, what do you have to say for yourself that you're giving your customers so much extra? And the poor guy is not going to tell him, "Listen, I spoke to a rabbi." He says, "Well, you know, I love my customers."

2:11:56Immediately, his business boomed. He made a ton of money and succeeded. Why? Because Hashem promises. If you do teshuva, eventually you're going to win. Sometimes it's right away. Sometimes it'll take a little bit of time. But either way, ultimately you're always going to win by going with Hashem. Always. Especially if the test is big. Especially if it's big. I can tell you one thing from my own personal life. When I was making millions and millions of dollars, my number one worry in life was money. Why? There was never enough of it. There were always more things we needed to do. Bigger investments, bigger risks, bigger deals, bigger offices, and more employees. There were constant worries about money. Even though we had plenty of it, there was never enough. Every month, whatever we collected, by the time the next month arrived, we ran out of money. We always needed more. Why? Because there was no blessing to the money. There are plenty of people that make a lot of money. There are very few that have a blessing. Today, Baruch Hashem, I don't have any worries. Everything we need, we have. I have no idea how, what, where. All I know is Hashem runs the world. So when you have these tests and you pass them, Hashem rewards you in a very big way. I had one guy that worked for AT&T, and one of the obligations that he had in his job was to work on Shabbat. I told him, you're not allowed to work on Shabbat. He said, yeah, but they're going to fire me. I said, Hashem runs the world.

2:13:15He says, "Yeah, but Hashem runs the world. But then they're going to fire me. What am I going to do after He runs the world and I'm not working?" And I said, "Well, Hashem runs the world, and you have to trust Him. There's no way you're going to lose." So he told his boss, "Well, listen, I'm not coming on Saturday anymore." He says, "Well, you don't come on Monday either." He says, "Yeah, but I have a religious obligation." He goes, "It's not the contract that you signed with AT&T. It said that you're going to work on Saturday. Your religion cannot become part of the equation. It's a contract." You want to leave, leave. He says, "I'm not coming." Those who don't come, he didn't come. And on Monday, he decided to show up for work and no one said anything. He continued working. The next Saturday, he got his paycheck. He didn't come again. He got a few messages on the phone: "Where are you? Where are you? Where are you?" But when he showed up on Monday, no one asked him any questions. And this continued for the next eight months, giving him just enough time to start his own business. Why? Hashem runs the world. They had rules. But those rules apply to people who don't follow Hashem. Once you follow Hashem, Hashem changes the rules. Any other questions? Yes?

2:14:28In Canada, we used to have restaurants that were advertisements, misleading advertisements, like kosher-style. In the United States, it still exists. I think Jews running these types of restaurants is completely wrong. They're leading people down the wrong track. People don't know what kosher is. The problem is that it's the job of the leaders of the community to speak up. And unfortunately, today there are many politically correct leaders that are trying to please the crowd because they're afraid that if they start telling people the truth like I just told you over the last couple of hours, people are not going to donate, people are not going to come back to the Beit Knesset, people are not going to do a lot of things. But these are not thoughts that you're supposed to have. These thoughts are for Hashem to run the world. We are simply obligated to fulfill the Torah as the Torah says. What consequences happen has nothing to do with us. politically correct leaders that are trying to please the crowd because they're afraid that if they start telling people the truth like I just told you over the last couple of hours, people are not going to donate, people are not going to come back to the Beit Knesset, people are not going to do a lot of things. But these are not thoughts that you're supposed to have. These thoughts are for Hashem to run the world. We are simply obligated to fulfill the Torah as the Torah says. What consequences happen has nothing to do with us.

2:15:42It has nothing to do with this. Hashem decides what the consequences are going to be. If Hashem wants the person to succeed, he'll succeed. If He wants him to fail, he'll fail. There are plenty of people who thought losing their job after the 2008 economic crash, which affected the whole world, was the worst thing in the world. I knew one guy who had a $2 million-a-year job. He lost his job. He thought it was the worst thing in the world. Well, When he was working, he had no life. After he lost his job, he got his life back. Little by little, he decided, let me do something with this life. He started a new company. Now he makes a lot more money than he ever did before. But had he stayed with the company, he would have stayed there making the money. But no one knew what he's making now. The point is that there are plenty of doors that Hashem has to close in order to get you to the right direction. You're complaining, Hashem, why is this door closing? He's telling you because you keep making the wrong choice. I'm trying to get you to the right one. And eventually, we get there. So the point is that the leaders who are not speaking up are making a mistake, and the people who are not speaking up are making a mistake, because kol Yisrael arevim zeh lazeh. We're all obligated to tell each other the truth. Whether you like it or not, whether you're going to lose out because of it or not, you're still obligated to do it.

2:17:00If I meet a client and they're not Jewish and they say, "Can you meet me at restaurant X?" am I allowed to walk in to sign a contract in a non-kosher restaurant as a Jew? Allowed to walk into a non-kosher restaurant to sign a contract? Yes. Can you sign it outside of the restaurant? Or maybe... I could do whatever, but I just don't want to... Can you sign it outside of the restaurant? Outside of the... Can you get them to come to your office? I'm just asking. The point is, can you do... Can you go to a McDonald's to go to the bathroom? Yes. Should you? Ideally, no, if you have a better option. Why? Because people see things... ...and it's something called. People see things, and they're not always gonna give you the benefit of the doubt to say that you did the right thing, that you went to McDonald's to go to the bathroom, and say, "Oh, she's pretending to be a tzaddeket; she probably ate a cheeseburger just now." Why? Because that's what people, people are always looking for other people to fall. So that's the thing. So you never want to give people the reason for why they're going to think what they think. So if you always have another option, always do that. If you don't have an option, then there are leniencies you can rely on. Is a place like Starbucks considered... It's not kosher. There's no reason for a Jew to be there unless you know for sure there's some kosher stamp that something's changed. In reality, unfortunately, in Boca Raton there's a very big rabbi who says that you're allowed to drink

2:18:24the coffee at Starbucks, even though it comes from the machines. He's very, very wrong. It's not allowed because their tools are not kosher. Their food is mixed with the kosher. The only thing that you're allowed to get from Starbucks is the packaged goods that have a kosher symbol on them. Why? Because that has hashgacha from point A to point B. The stuff that they make behind the counter, you have no permission from the Torah to actually do it, if you want to be a tzaddik. if you want to be a "maybe-maybe," good luck. Anyone that wants to go, you can go. I won't take offense to it, but if you want to ask questions, I'll answer. You're allowed to collect commission. There's no problem collecting commission as long as the product that you're providing and the service that you're providing is kosher. Meaning, you're providing a service, you're selling a house, or you're renting a house, and so on. The person agrees to pay your commission. I'm selling them all.

2:19:34You're selling a mall? Okay. Oh, yeah, but you're not selling what's inside the mall. You're selling the mall itself, per se. What the new owners decide to do with their stores is their business. You're selling a facility. What a person decides to do with it is their business. You're selling a cow. Whether the guy does a shechita that's kosher or he ends up shooting it in the head is not your business. You sold him a product; it's his choice of what to do with it. The things that you're not allowed to do are things that are clearly wrong. Meaning, there's a law in the Torah that says you can't say that you're going to cut off the chicken's head and still expect it to live. There's no such thing. Meaning you can't sell heroin and say, no, no, no, I'm just trying to help him out. There's no such thing. There are certain things that are obviously wrong. Obviously, those things you're not allowed to do. But if you're selling a certain service or a certain product, that the product itself, by itself, can be used, that should be used in a kosher way, you have no problem doing it. But always ask your rabbi to double-check whatever move you make. That's why it's a rule in the Torah; you must have your rabbi to always...

2:20:41Before you make a move, just to double-check, maybe you're looking at it with biased eyes. There's another situation where people want to have, let's say, a non-kosher restaurant, but in order to own it in a kosher way, they don't have to be the owners. Basically, the ownership goes to... The ownership goes to, on a piece of paper... a contract. On a contract, the goy owns it, but in reality, the money goes to the Jew. So that contract, that's what you're saying? The contract says that Mustafa owns it, but the money goes to Yaakov. It depends. If you have now a contract, and you also have money that the contract says. Let's say, for example, the contract says that you own 5% of the company. So that means that you're making, as a Jew, you're making 5% money from non-kosher food. There's no permission from the Torah. You cannot make even one penny from non-kosher food. You cannot make any money from non-kosher food. It's not allowed. There's three issurim. And the Torah says that you're not allowed to eat milk and meat three times. Why? Because even though it's the same exact pasuk mentioned three different times, there are three different issurim.

2:22:04you're not allowed to cook it, you're not allowed to eat it, and you're not allowed to sell it. So, it doesn't matter what the contract says. The contract stays here. Your neshama goes up there. When you go up there, they say, "Yeah, but I have a contract." The contract is over there. There's no proof. Meaning, in reality, these excuses that people make up for themselves to try to cheat Hashem, for that, they get even more punishment. It's called, you're treating me like casualness. You're treating me with disrespect. So, There are ways to make certain things that are not 100% kosher, kosher. For example, we were actually talking about this earlier today. There are certain businesses that have to be open on Shabbat. You don't even have an option of not opening it because it's, let's say, an online store. You can't shut off every online store. Like, for example, you have an Amazon store or eBay store. You can't shut it off. I had a guy that came to me and he said, "I have a dentistry." He's a dentist. And I did teshuvah. The problem is that our policies were open seven days a week. So what do I do? If I stop doing it, it's a serious problem. If I don't do it, what do I do? So the halacha is that you have to give ownership of that store to a goy. That he owns that business that operates on Shabbat. Now,

2:23:23he makes money, you get nothing out of it. So, there is a kosher way to do it, but again, you're not benefiting from the business being open on Shabbat. But if you say, "No, he owns it, but I'm still getting the money," then the whole contract is just toilet paper. It means nothing. The bottom line is, where does the money go? It doesn't make a difference what the contract says. A lot of people, really religious people, at least they think they are, got into the business of lending money in the last 10 years—short-term lending and high-interest lending. A lot of it is founded by really, really chassidish and black and whites, more than me. The problem is that that business does not differentiate between lending to Jews or lending to goyim. It doesn't do that much calculation. They lend to everybody. But they know that halacha is if you lend a Jew money and you charge him interest, no Gan Eden. No Olam Haba. You're not allowed to lend a Jew money and charge him interest. You're allowed to lend the money, but you're not allowed to charge him interest. So they did something called a heter iska. A heter iska gives the person permission to do business with another Jew by giving him money. And they're saying, listen, a heter iska says that we can lend him the money and charge him interest. But that's false.

2:24:40What does a heter iska say? A heter iska is supposed to say that you give another Jew money. Part of it is an interest-free loan. So, let's say you want to give him $100,000. He needs $100,000. So $50,000 is interest-free. Whether the money that he uses ends up working out and he builds the next Microsoft or not is irrelevant. He still has to return the $50,000. But that is free. He doesn't have to pay you any interest. It doesn't make a difference if he makes money or he loses money. He has to give you back the $50,000. The other $50,000 is considered an investment, meaning an ownership in the business, where if it works out, he has to return you the $50,000 plus a portion of the profits. But if he loses everything, he does not have to return the $50,000. That's a real shtar iska. What a lot of people have been doing is saying, "No, no, I'm going to give him the $100,000, and I'm just saying, with or without success, he has to give me $130,000 back because I have a piece of paper that says it." This is complete nonsense. They have an agreement, but that agreement, like I said, is like used toilet paper. So agreements are nice, but Torah is nicer.

2:25:50It has to agree with the Torah. So yes, every business you can do in a kosher way. Every business you can do in a kosher way. That's why you have to go to a talmid chacham, someone that knows the laws, can tell you, allowed, not allowed. Allowed, not allowed. And also make sure that whatever talmid chacham you go to, is not an investor in your business, has no bias, has no reward, nothing out of it. Why? Because if a person has a bias already, Rav Wasserman and Rav Shalom already said 80 years ago, Once he has a bias, meaning once he has a stake in the business, his actual explanation, his mind, his whole being, is going to sometimes have a little bit too much of a test. What if you earn revenue by working for someone like that, who has that kind of business? You earn money from somebody else who lends money? You work for him, you earn it for him. Depends on what the employee does. If you're a secretary, answering the phone, or doing the accounting, it's not the ideal job in the world, but it's fine. It's better to work for a more kosher company, but nonetheless, it's not a issur.

2:27:09As long as you're not the one facilitating it. But again, someone who's trying to be righteous with Hashem usually tries to stay away from lies and things of lies. Lies—don't only not say them, stay away from them. So, when you know that something is not allowed, even though you can find a way to benefit from something that's not allowed, it's better just not to. It's better not to. It's just, I don't want to. Because eventually, something's going to happen, and you don't want to be there when it happens. Yes? Most multi-level marketing is a Ponzi scheme in general, just business-wise. The only people that benefit from it are the original people. All the other people that follow it help them make more money, but they themselves only have a dream and a bunch of money that they wasted. In general, if it's a kosher product, and it's a product that's legitimate and so on, you're allowed to be in it. There's no problem in it. In reality, most businesses would love to be multi-level marketing. Why? Because you're getting one salesman to not only be a salesman, but also to bring you other salesmen. So most businesses would like to be multi-level marketing in regards to that overall system. The problem with many of the multi-level marketing companies is that the founders and the people running them are criminals.

2:28:34So they're not just getting salesmen. They're selling you a package of goods that are not really goods. They're terrible. They're selling you a lemon, even though you're buying an orange. So that's the problem. You have to verify that the product they're selling is legitimate. If the product is legitimate, it's fine. No problem. Yes? So what do you suggest for people that are watching? and what I really want to do, what would you suggest as first steps for someone that just... A couple of first steps, I would say, is to take this seriously and realize, okay, I have to do something about it. I can't just not do anything. At the same time, we all have to be realistic with ourselves, and we cannot do everything overnight either. You can't do everything overnight either, because it'll break you. It'll break you. If Rabbi Freifeld told me on day one, You have to leave. This woman, on day one, I'm leaving you. Thank you, but no thank you. It's too much for me. Even though technically we're all supposed to do teshuva, tomorrow we're all supposed to be perfect human beings. Hashem knows His creation and He knows that in the beginning we're like little babies that just discovered the world and we want to see what's in the electric closet over there. Because it's interesting.

2:29:47So, the reality is, first and foremost, understand that everything I told you is verifiable; it has evidence. If you have questions, you could ask me a million and a half questions. After this, you'll send me WhatsApp messages, emails, and whatever you want. People ask questions all day, but it's not Hashem. I'll do my best to provide you sources for everything I said. So take everything seriously and not with a grain of salt. Take it with sugar. It's delicious. The second thing is, decide to do something about it. Do something. pick something. The first thing I would suggest is to start doing the easy stuff. There are certain easy mitzvot. One of the easiest mitzvot that we have available to us today is eating kosher food. In the old days, it was very hard to eat kosher food because if you wanted to eat meat, you had to go to a special person that's out of town to travel far. Today, every corner in the Jewish community has kosher food. Eat kosher food. The second thing is Understand that the only way to know the truth is by learning it. You're not going to know; it's not going to come to you through some type of dream. You have to learn. So commit to learning just like you committed to eating. You commit to eating, meaning no day passes without you eating. Why? Because you want to survive. So just like you know that you have to eat to survive, know that you have to learn to survive. How often do you have to learn? Every day.

2:31:07But now, if I tell you to learn five hours a day, you're going to tell me, "Thank you very much," click. Why? It's too much for me. So do what I did. Learn 15 minutes a day. Start with 15 minutes. Why? Everyone has 15 minutes. I know you're busy, and you have a company, and you have kids, and you have a husband, and you have a wife, and you have a lot of different things. But everybody has 15 minutes. Everybody has 15 minutes. Commit to 15 minutes a day, no questions asked. Every day, 15 minutes. You want to watch one of my videos for 15 minutes? Watch my video. You want to listen to the CD? Listen to the CD. You want to ask Rabbi Ifrah which book to read? I'll give you the book to read. Whatever you need, come to the shiur. Something. 15 minutes every day, no questions asked. 15 minutes. That's the second thing. The third thing is, decide what's the next big step you want to take. My suggestion is Shabbat. Why? That is a necessary big step that you're showing Hashem, I mean business. I'm serious, I know you're real, and I'm going to do my best to do it. What? You can say kosher is good, and tzedakah is good, and this is good, and that is good, but the reality is, every person has to take big steps and small steps. If we only take small steps, we're never going to reach the destination. If we take only big steps, we're going to break one time. So we have to take a combination of the two.

2:32:26Kosher, small step but a good one. Learning, it's a good step but it's not such a big thing. I mean, at the end of the day, it's pretty enjoyable to learn Torah. I don't know about you, but I had a good time the last couple of hours. But you have to have a big step. What's the big step? Changing your life for Shabbat. So keep Shabbat, not driving to synagogue. Not driving anywhere, unless it's to the hospital because you have to save somebody's life. Well, here's the thing. Do we have the Ten Commandments? The Ten Commandments They come in the order of magnitude. First one is, know that there is a God. Know that Hashem took us out of Egypt. Second thing is, don't use His name in vain. Third thing is, don't worship an idol. Fourth thing is, keep Shabbat. Fifth thing is, honor your parents. Sixth thing is, don't murder. Which means that someone who violates Shabbat is considered worse than a murderer. Worse than a murderer. Someone who violates Shabbat is considered worse than Hitler. Worse. In the eyes of Hashem.

2:33:39I agree with you that it doesn't seem worse, but in the eyes of Hashem, it is worse. So that means that in the entire Ten Commandments, not a single time does it say you have to go to synagogue. But it does say don't drive on Shabbat. Yes, it does say don't drive on Shabbat, but it doesn't say go to synagogue. This means that if the only way you can get to synagogue is by driving, don't go to synagogue ever again. Because that's what the Ten Commandments say. That's what the Torah says. So, yes, it would be nice for you to go to synagogue. But it's much, much more important for you to keep Shabbat, even if it means you'll never go to synagogue ever again. Because that's what you're obligated to do. Going to the synagogue is good, but it's not the same level. It's not the same level. Many of the tzaddikim pray by themselves because of certain circumstances. It doesn't mean that it's ideal, especially if you're a new Baal Teshuva, you should be part of a kehillah. But if the only way, you live so far away from a synagogue, or you just can't walk and so on and so forth, you simply cannot get to synagogue on Shabbat without driving, you're not allowed to go to synagogue. Because if you go with your car or with any other motor vehicle, unfortunately you're not fulfilling any mitzvah. Because we have a rule in the Torah: you cannot fulfill a mitzvah by committing a sin first. You can't make a mitzvah by way of sin. So it's important for a person to know that, yes, Hashem would like for you to pray with other people, but not more than He would like for you to keep Shabbat. Yes? Yes?

2:35:01In the morning, somebody wants to pray but not put on Tefillin. They don't have the Tefillin. You want to pray in your car driving to work. You don't have the time to do the Tefillin for whatever reason. You forgot the Tefillin. No, I'm just saying sometimes. It's you. You don't have to say it's you, I know. It's the same. It has the same value. Tefillin or no Tefillin. Well, hey, it's like somebody saying, listen, I... No, I tell you. So there's a person that came to me one time and said, "I want to invest $100 million." Because we used to manage a lot of money. And he said, "I want to invest $100 million." I said, "Okay, no problem." So I gave him, I said, "Here's the password, here's the code. Just do the password. Use the money to the best of your ability." A month later, he comes back to me and goes, "I'm the best." I said, "Why?" He said, "Look, the $100 million you gave me, I turned it into a billion dollars." I said, "Great. Only problem is, it's not real money." It's $100 million of fake money. It's fake money. It's just a fictional account. I just met you. I'm not going to give you $100 million. But I want to see if you know what you're doing. The reality is that, yes, prayer is good. But prayer without tefillin is like a fake prayer. It's like fictional money. Why? Because you're obligated to lay tefillin. Tefillin is part of the covenant. It's called brit. A brit is like a brit milah, brit of the tefillin, and brit of Shabbat. There are three different things that Hashem calls a brit.

2:36:27So these are certain things that Hashem says you have to do. These are the deal makers or deal breakers. So yes, praying to Hashem and acknowledging His existence is good, but if it's either praying with tefillin or not tefillin, I mean, there's a huge variance. The beauty is that Hashem knows that sometimes we have a big yetzer hara and we're weak, so He may give us an easy thing to do. you put on tefillin, you say Shema Yisrael, all the way until Tzitzit, which the total amount of time to put on tefillin and say the bracha of the Shema Yisrael takes maybe six minutes. Take them off, go to work. You don't have to do the whole thing. For now, let's get used to it with that. Okay, so do that. No, no. If a person, there's a Hasidic custom that has become very, very popular over the last few years, which is to talk to Hashem privately. Some people want to talk to Him on their balcony. Some people want to go to the woods. Some people want to go to a cave. And they want to talk to Hashem.

2:37:45The reality is that you can talk to Hashem anywhere you want, but if you're talking to Hashem but still violating what He says, then the whole talk that you had is a waste of time. Why? There's a pasuk in the Torah that says, "And with their lips, they paid Me lip service." Their words, they said, "Oh Hashem, I love You, I love You, I love You," but their hearts were far away from Me. Why? Because if you're not doing what Hashem said, it's all meaningless. So yes, it's good to talk to Hashem in your own language, but it does not replace the obligation. You still have to put on tefillin, and keep Shabbat, and protect your brit, and keep kosher. So the hitbodedut is an addition to make you even closer than the minimum obligation. My personal suggestion is everybody should talk to Hashem, but never ever for a second think that it's better than any of the minimum requirements that you're obligated to do regardless. So if it's either learning Torah for 20 minutes, or hitbodedut for 20 minutes, always pick learning Torah. It's not even 50-50. or anything that's extra, always comes as extra, above and beyond the minimum requirement. You can never replace learning Torah with it, or tefillah with it. All of these things are extra. It's like cherries on top. So if you went to go buy ice cream, and the guy just gave you a cherry instead, you'd say, thank you very much, but I paid for ice cream.

2:39:02So if somebody does hiddur, I'm just going to say, yeah, but I paid for you to pray to Me, to do tefillin, to learn Torah. Your hiddur is nice, but where's what I paid for? Where's the product? So that's the thing. People make this mistake, thinking that this is better. It's not. First, you have to do what you're obligated to do. You want to do extra? Ashrecha, praiseworthy. But don't ever think that the extra is better than what you're supposed to do. Next? Yes? You mentioned just before, like people have, with the example of McDonald's, like when you go to the bathroom, sometimes it's marit ayin. It could be. And people, they have this tendency to always judge unfavorably, like impulsively, I would say. You know, like why is that? Would you elaborate on that? Yes, I mean, there's jealousy, there is a... It can. I mean technically you are supposed to. There's something called Kaf Zechut. You are supposed to judge people favorably. Be touched. Your business cards, all the information. Be touched. Thank you. But it's not the natural. Yes, you are supposed to give people the benefit of the doubt. But the natural inclination is not to do it. Yeah, because we have a Yetzer Hara.

2:40:24It's part of our Yetzer Hara. Just like you have a Yetzer Hara to make sins, you have a Yetzer Hara to judge people unfavorably. There are certain people that you're obligated to judge them favorably. But there are certain people that you're obligated to judge them unfavorably. If he's a known Rasha, you can never give him the benefit of the doubt. Like if Hitler comes back, or somebody that does something that's, you know this guy, he has a pork store. And all of a sudden he's starting to give ice cream to all the little Chabadniks at the store. He says, no, no, that ice cream has pork in it. You can't give him the benefit of the doubt. Why? He's a known rasha. He's a known rasha. So you have to, it's not just a blank statement that everyone is a tzaddik. It's not just a blank statement that everyone is a rasha. That's why it's always important to know, to go to the Rabbi, he's like, well, certain things don't make sense to me. Explain. So we have answers. You have a question? Ideally, you're supposed to invite them initially and encourage them as much as possible to stay at your house. Tell them, "Come to my house, stay," and make them very comfortable, also comfortable.

2:41:45And try to encourage them to stay in your house. But if you know they're not going to stay, if they haven't started yet, encourage them to stay in your house the first time. If they don't stay in your house the first time, the second time you tell them, "Listen, you come to my house for Shabbat, you know, come to stay." If already by the second time they say, "Listen, I'm going to come to your house, but I'm never going to stay," then you're no longer allowed to invite them. Initially, you're supposed to invite them in order to be mekarev them and give them a tool to tell them, "Listen, stay by me. I'll give you a room, your own bathroom, your own Kit Kat bars—whatever you want, I'm going to give you. It's like a five-star hotel. Whatever you want, I'm going to give you. Make it so enticing for this person that they would think, 'Why would I say no?' They must have a lot of hatred for Hashem not to stay in your house. Make it like a beautiful facility for them to want to stay there." But if you see that it doesn't matter what you do, they literally make a statement: "I'm never ever staying there. I'm going to continue driving. I'm not ready. I'm not going to be ready. I'm not going to do it." Say, "I'm also not ready for you to do it at my house. Violate Shabbat." And that's it. That's why I have family members I tell, "Don't come to my house. I love you. We're blood, but please don't come to my house on Shabbat." Why? Because I know you're not going to listen to me. I can't be an enabler where I pretend like it's not happening.

2:43:05It cannot be. So you try a couple of times. Always double-check with a talmid chacham, with a rabbi that maybe knows you and knows the person because maybe he knows, maybe what's, maybe they're telling you they're not doing it for the wrong reason. You think it's one thing; it's something else. Always have some type of chacham involved in some way. But make sure that you do not ever give anyone the impression that they can continue to come to your house forever, no matter if they drive or don't drive. And it's okay with you because that's not allowed. It doesn't make a difference. It could be the Mashiach. It makes no difference. You try a couple of times at most. If you see that nothing is changing and they're not planning on changing, they simply think that Shabbat is a minhag. They don't think it's halacha. They think it's just something that only tzaddikim do. And you explain to them and show them a shiur that I did, and you show them different proofs. And they say, "Listen, I'm never going to do it. If you want me to come, you have to accept that I'm going to drive." You have to tell them, "If you want to come, you have to accept not to drive. Don't want to keep it? You cannot come." Why? Because I'm not going to be helping you spit in my Father's face.

2:44:24Remember, Hashem is your Father. You cannot invite people and tell them, "No, no, come eat food with me," while you're spitting in my Father's face. What kind of son are you? What kind of daughter are you? Are you spitting in your Father's face and you're okay with it? Now, if he doesn't realize that he's spitting in His face the first time, that's why I say, invite him the first time. The second time, he's still not so sure. Okay, invite him the second time. But after the first and second time, you showed him proof that every time he violates Shabbat, he's screaming to Hashem, "I don't believe in You." How could you continue inviting this person? So again, we have to, it's very difficult with family, with friends, but you'll realize that the deeper your teshuva will be, the closer you get to Hashem, but sometimes you'll get further from certain people in your life. This is part of doing teshuva. That's why Yaakov Avinu says, "Hatzileni na miyad achi miyad Esav." Save me from my brother. Save me from Esav. Because it's not just a Christian Esav. It's also sometimes my brother. My brother that's a Jew. But he doesn't want to be a Jew. He wants to be Esav. Save me from him too. Yes? On the same... same subject. On the same subject. What if you have family that they are not Shomer Yichud, not Shomer Shabbat, but you want to spend a holiday or Shabbat with them. Are you allowed to? If you know that they are not Shomer Yichud.

2:45:45Maybe they'll go and buy all the food from the kosher caterers. Most Chachamim are going to tell you to try at least once with this new bit of information. Meaning, most likely, most Jews in the world, they may know that they're not allowed to drive on Shabbat. They may know they're not allowed to eat Treif and so on. But nobody knows the cost. Nobody knows the significance of not doing it. So now you're going to send them this shiur that's going to go on YouTube in a few days. And now they're going to find the cost. They're going to find out the cost of going against Hashem. If they still decide that they're not going to keep Chag, they're not going to keep Shabbat, they're not going to keep anything, then you're doing them a favor by not inviting them. There was one person that was arrested and thrown into jail. And they came to one of the Chachamim in Jerusalem, and they told Kavod HaRav, it's a big mitzvah to take a Jew out of jail. He says, well, before you take him out of jail and you raise money, does this Jew keep Taharat HaMishpacha? Meaning, does his wife go to the mikveh? He says, no. No, he doesn't keep. He says, go ask his wife and ask him if he's going to allow her to go to the mikveh. They went and asked, and he says, no, no, I'm not interested. He said, keep him in jail.

2:47:06Keep him in jail. Why? It's better he's in jail because at least he's not making more sins. If the family member is not keeping anything, you're not even allowed to eat at their house. Because if they're not keeping Shabbat, you cannot rely on their kosher food. You cannot rely on their kashrut. In Eretz Yisrael, you'll see that everybody sells kosher food, but not everybody has a kosher stamp. Kosher food is very accessible in Israel. It's almost difficult to get non-kosher food. Kosher meat is very easy to get there. Every second person has kosher food, but not everybody has a kosher stamp. Why? If the owner is not a shomer Shabbat, he cannot be a kosher store. So, Same thing here. If a person does not keep Shabbat, you cannot rely on their kosher food. Because even though the chicken they bought is kosher, and the steak they bought is kosher, whatever they did when they cooked it, something could have happened. Maybe they mixed some milk into it, maybe they added some non-kosher into it. You don't know. You cannot rely on them. You have to watch them like you watch a goy. And when you are sure that they do it in the right way, but unfortunately, they are not Shomer Shabbat. And you are sure that everything is done...

2:48:30You're sure you watched it only if they're your parents. Only if they're your parents. Yeah, only if it's your parents. The Rabbi says, if it's your parents, and you know for sure that they have kosher products, you monitor them also. and it's going to create a big problem, you know, an issue with the family, a big balagan to not eat at their place. If you watched it, you saw it, there is a leniency that you can eat with them. Ideally, you shouldn't rely on this leniency for a very long time. What you should rely on is trying to encourage them to become Shomrei Shabbat. But technically, if you have a situation like that, or you've done it, there is a leniency that you can continue. Also, I want to ask you, please, when somebody is making a prayer, For Shabbat or whatever, some people say don't say Baruch Hu U'Varuch Shemo. Is it? There are places in the Torah where you're supposed to say Baruch Hu U'Varuch Shemo. There are places in the Torah where you're not allowed to say Baruch Hu U'Varuch Shemo because it interrupts the prayer. So, when you're doing it for Shabbat, you're not supposed to do it. On Friday, you're not supposed to say Baruch Hu U'Varuch Shemo. You're not supposed to say it because it interrupts the prayer.

2:49:41I know it's a minhag. It's a minhag for many Sephardim to say Baruch Hu U'Varuch Shemo. But you're supposed to only say Baruch Hu U'Varuch Shemo at places that Chazal said. You do it there. You can't just add Baruch Hu U'Varuch Shemo whenever you feel like it. Meaning that even giving Hashem honor It's only at specific places that we're allowed to do it. Yes? Is it only when you are involved in the mitzvah? Like it's not to include you in the mitzvah? Repeat that again. If it's included in the mitzvah, you don't say, Baruch Hu U'Varuch Shemo. You don't say, Baruch Hu U'Varuch Shemo. But if it's not to include you and you're going to do it at home, you can say, Baruch Hu U'Varuch Shemo. Baruch Hu U'Varuch Shemo by yourself? You pray for yourself? No, no. You're in synagogue. Uh-huh. So there's no interruption? You can be included in it? No, there are certain blessings that you're supposed to say, but there are certain blessings you're not allowed to. Meaning, it's not necessarily if it's by yourself or with people or in the synagogue or at home. It has nothing to do with it. What it has to do with is what blessing you are doing. Specifically for Kiddush of Shabbat, there's a wrong minhag.

2:50:45among many Sephardic Jews, they decided to add Baruch Hu U'varuch Shemo to the Kiddush, which is a specific place where you're not supposed to do it. There are certain things that you are supposed to do. You just have to double-check and look at the Siddur. If the Siddur says Baruch Hu U'varuch Shemo, do it. If it doesn't, don't do anybody any favors. Yes, there are many minhagim that, unfortunately, are mistakes. But sometimes we say that we wish that Shabbat was a minhag because then everybody would keep it. Anything else? I had a question about the person in the process of gerut, when he's praying, for example. There are certain aspects, certain parts of the siddur that, you know, when you're saying it, it's like it's not true to you. Like, that's one thing, but even, let's say, when you're in, for example, when you say the thing, I mean, and there are many other parts too. I mean, these are just a few things. So, I answered the question in a group yesterday. No, but my main question was, let's say,

2:51:57No, no. The only specific place there's a machloket, there's a debate in, is the Birkot HaShachar, Shelo Asani Goy. Even if you said it, it's not an issue, it's not an aveirah. There's just a common opinion that says you shouldn't say it because it's not technically true. Technically, the original person was born a goy before they converted. But if you say it, it's not an issue. It's just that you're not relying on this other opinion. Either way, when a person is in the process of conversion, they are allowed and should fulfill the entire Torah 99% until they convert, and then at that point, it's 100%. But as far as all of the prayers, they do everything. The only one that has a specific issue is that one blessing. The rest of it you do as if there are no issues with it because there are no issues with it. What about if, let's say, somebody didn't finish the conversion on Shabbat, but he's practicing because he's going to... Okay, you have to keep Shabbat 99%. But what if he needs to turn on the light? He can still... That should be the 1%. That's the 1%. You have to violate Shabbat one time.

2:53:08Doesn't matter why you should violate the Shabbat, but it has to be something small. It can't be, "I'm going to go drive to the mall and take a break for three hours." It has to be something small. So you want to turn on the light, turn on the light one time. That's it. That's the one percent. That's the one time. But not turn on the light, turn on the TV, turn on the phone, turn on the car, turn on the cigarettes, turn on everything. And then, "Oh yeah, Shabbat Shalom." So a person has to be real and not just create new things. No, no, I'm still this and I'm still this. Because again, also you have to realize, to join Am Yisrael, that means a lot of sacrifice. Am Yisrael is a sacrifice for 3,300 years just to remain Am Yisrael. Somebody that wants to become part of Am Yisrael has to know it requires sacrifice. No sacrifice, no Am Yisrael. So a person has to be real with themselves. You can't make excuses for yourself all the time. Once in a while, there are certain things that you're allowed, but always double check with a chacham to make sure that it's allowed and it's not just you making excuses for yourself. Anything else? Yes? You said your wife is a convert, right? Yes, Baruch Hashem. Okay. Did she have to deal with any situations in regards to her family because she was leaving Christianity? We're still dealing with it, Baruch Hashem. We're still dealing with the problems with the family. They're still torturing us, Baruch Hashem. It's wonderful.

2:54:24Oh, slammed it on a daily basis. In fact, I can show you a text message I got three hours ago, right before the shiur of a man, torturing her a little bit. And she shows me, Baruch Hashem, evidence that the tikkun continues. So yes, yes, the family is wonderful. They're helping us do teshuva. And it's not easy with anybody. I had to, as part of my teshuva, I had to make sacrifices, not just in business, in life. I have certain friends that I can't really be friends with anymore. Why? Because they're kofrim. And it's not, I tried helping them, but they want to be kofrim. I have one guy I know for almost 30 years, but he hates Hashem. I said, okay, I can't be friends with you. I can't be friends with somebody that's an enemy of my Father in Heaven. It's impossible. So there are a lot of difficult decisions that a person needs to make in order to serve Hashem like he's supposed to. But when you fall in love with Hashem, it becomes easier. So yeah, it's annoying that this one is yelling at you, and this one is making fun of you, and this one is firing you, and this one is hiring you, and all the problems that happen in your life. It's difficult. But when you realize Hashem runs the world, that means you know that Hashem is doing it. It's not your mom, or your dad, or your friend, or your boss, or your customer. It's Hashem using them as tools to test you to see, do you really love Me, or are you just pretending?

2:55:46This is the most important principle that a person needs to know today. We all want to learn Emunah. Emunah is, Hashem runs the world under all circumstances. The good, the bad, everything in between, and everything we don't understand. Hashem runs the world. Once a person knows that and lives that way, everything becomes easy. Everything becomes easy, because even the stuff that hurts you, say, Baruch Hashem. Why? Hashem knows this is going to help me somehow. This is going to help me somehow. So even sometimes you think, oh, wait a minute. How is me having a headache for three hours going to help me? Because Hashem says, listen, it's either three hours of headache or you made a sin five years ago that you forgot about. Technically, in Shamayim, they said three years Gehinnom. So I don't want to send you to Gehinnom because you do teshuvah now. So I'm going to give you a three-hour headache instead. Which one do you prefer? The Gehinnom? So I'll give you Gehinnom. But I think a three-hour headache is much better. It's cheaper. You understand? So that's the way you have to look at things. Everything has a benefit because it comes from Him. But b'met, not just the stuff where you clearly see the benefit. Even the stuff that's dark and horrible also comes from Him. Yes? As a person that's becoming more religious, are we allowed to have friends of ours that are not religious as Jews or non-Jewish friends? In general, you shouldn't have many non-Jewish friends simply because the more non-Jewish friends you have,

2:57:07the more you see that there's no difference between you. And the more you see there's no difference between you, the easier you start rationalizing that you can be just like them, they can be just like you, and it becomes a problem. Our Torah tells us that even having a seudah (meal) with non-Jews is forbidden. Why? Because you'll see that, oh, he's a nice guy, she's a nice girl, they're good. You know what? I could see my daughter marrying him. I could see my kid marrying her. Because you start seeing them as human beings... and not as different from you. So even having certain dinners and things like that shouldn't be done unless you have to, meaning it's for business or something like that. And even then, you should refrain from doing it. The second thing is with non-religious Jews, Always have in mind, at some point during that relationship, you have to tell this person something. Now, since most of your old friends are not going to listen to you anyway, and most of your relatives are not going to listen to you anyway, because they're going to remember that you used to be just like them, do them a favor. Don't tell them. Let me tell them. Give them my CD. Why? They'll listen to me before they'll listen to you. Because they know me only as me. They know you as the old you.

2:58:22So my information will be more valid than yours, even though it's the same exact information. My information will be more valid in their eyes. So that's why it's better to give them the truth, but indirectly. However, not doing anything is a problem. You have to do something about it. As far as friends with non-Jews, there's really no benefit from it. Again, unless it's for business, then it's not really friendship; it's business. but it's like me sometimes when I work often in companies with non-Jews, and I have the opposite reaction, meaning I feel so much the hefresh (difference) that we have between us when I'm among them. I feel, I would say, even more Jewish because I feel the difference. Tell them, "Are you having dinner with them?" No, that's why. Go, no, no. Again, if the lunch is for business purposes, then there is certainly an obligation. But if you don't have to, why do it? What's the purpose? I would say it reveals even more my Jewish identity because I see the difference very clearly.

2:59:38I see the difference of what the Shema would say. I understand. But here's the thing: nobody should ever test their Yetzer Hara on purpose. Right. It's your work. So there's a difference. It's not the same thing. I'm talking about if they don't work with you and you simply decide that you want to make your best friend a non-Jew. This is a test that there's really no reason to take. Why give yourself a test that's unnecessary? But if it's work, it's work. And it's permissible. It's work. It's not just that you're friendly with people. That's fine. There's no problem with it. There's plenty of non-Jews that are much nicer than some Jews. There's nothing wrong with them being non-Jews. Hashem created them that way. That's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But if you have a choice to spend your effort and resources on helping another Jew or helping a non-Jew, then of course you're spending it on a Jew. That's just human logic. Even they themselves would say, "Should I help a Jew or should I help a non-Jew?" They'll help themselves. They'll help their cousin that's from China. They're not going to help a Jew. They're going to help their own. That's it. All of us. It's not racism. It's just reality. The Chinese help the Chinese. The Arabs help the Arabs. And so on and so forth. That's it. How about playing sports? What about playing sports? Are you allowed to play sports? If you're doing it for exercise purposes and it does not require immodesty, then it depends on what it is. But again, it does not mean that you have an open ticket to play sports as much as you want, because some people play sports, but they forget to learn Torah. So that's a problem. Meaning, first and foremost, we have to fulfill our obligations.

3:01:01to learn Torah, to fulfill mitzvot, and so on. Secondly, we have to make sure that everything we are doing is allowed. So yes, it's allowed to exercise, but it's not allowed to exercise in a mixed gym. Meaning if there are women and men in the gym, you're not allowed to exercise there. Even though exercise is allowed, the gym is not allowed. So you're allowed to play basketball, but you're not allowed to play basketball with girls. You're not allowed to play basketball in a place where there's a lot of immodesty. And again, you're not allowed to play basketball at specific times. You shouldn't spend your Shabbat playing basketball. Even though you can find a leniency to play basketball on Shabbat, that's not something that you're supposed to do on Shabbat. You're supposed to learn Torah, go to Beit Knesset. you know, get closer to Hashem. Basketball is not for Shabbat. So, everything in general that you probably want to do if you're a normal person and we're normal people, everything you want to do is allowed. But there is a kosher way to make it allowed. If basketball becomes your life, then it's not allowed at all. Zero. If basketball is more important to you than Torah, you're never allowed to play basketball. You're allowed to play with monkeys if you want, as long as you learn Torah. It doesn't make a difference who you play with. It's like goyim, Jews, it doesn't make a difference. Play. Play with yourself, play with a robot, play with snails, play Tetris. It doesn't make a difference. Just find a kosher way to play.

3:02:19A kosher way to play, meaning you still learn Torah, you still fulfill mitzvot, it's a kosher place, kosher facility, and so on and so forth. Whoever's on your team and against you makes no difference. I just would recommend not playing against NBA players; they're really good. Good question. If my hairdresser is a man, or the person who does my... Not allowed. Not allowed. Another man is never allowed to touch you unless he's your husband. Nothing. Nothing. Zero. Zero. Easy question. Another man is never allowed to touch you. Ever. Unless he's your husband. And if your husband does nails, you should find a different job. But no, no. A man is not allowed to touch you. Not allowed to touch you. There's a very, very, very big issue. And I'm sorry to interrupt your question, but I need to make it as abrupt and as obvious as possible. You're never, ever allowed to go to a man that's a hairdresser. Even if he's gay. Even if he thinks he's a girl. Even if he changed his organs. Even if he started changing his clothes. It doesn't make a difference. Hashem made him a man. He'll be a man forever. You're not allowed to touch him unless he's your husband. Not nails, not hair, not anything. Unless he's a doctor and you cannot find a female doctor.

3:03:35Meaning, even the doctor is supposed to find a female, but if there's no female available, or there's no female that's of equivalent skill available, then you go to a man. But aside from that, for hair, for nails, for all that other stuff, there's luxury. No permission for many. I don't even know if the people that are halfway religious know that. No permission. Because again, you have to understand, you are a Bat Yisrael. Bat Yisrael is a big deal. That means, your Father is G-d. It doesn't get better than that. It doesn't get better. There's no like, oh yeah, my Father is God, but my father is some sort of... There's nothing else. No one can challenge that. Your Father is God. That means officially you're not allowed to behave like everyone else. You are officially the best of the best. So that means you have to treat yourself as, I can't walk around with the other people. I have to be... I'm Bat Yisrael. So I cannot let Esav be my boyfriend. I cannot let Esav do my hair. I cannot. It's not. It's just not allowed. Why? You're Bat Yisrael. Hashem is God. There's nothing else. So a person knows that. It's easy. Hashem says, okay, I'll send you a better hairstylist that's a woman. But also know that b'ezrat Hashem, you're going to get married very soon. So the hair...

3:04:49Anything else? It was wonderful to be here. I just have one more question to extrapolate on this. I've noticed many times Jewish businesses, especially in the kosher restaurant business, they have a tendency to hire... a lot of goyim rather than Jews in the ministry. I've seen it creates a lot of problems. And number one is especially chas v'shalom, which is, I mean, I was working in one place, and my only regret was I didn't quit it. As long as there's a mashgiach and he sees that they turn on the fire, there are legal ways to do it. If they don't do it in a legal way, you can do that. For example, somebody was a homosexual working there. You know, they're... talking about stuff which is what they do. It depends. Again, in some cases, it's anti-Semites that they're hiring. The desire to have illegal, illicit relations is not good.

3:05:51but the real sin is actually doing it. The real sin is doing it. If you see somebody that has the desire for same-sex type of behavior and so on, you're supposed to help them. You're supposed to try to encourage them to stop. Baruch Hashem, I have one student. People say this is impossible because you're born that way and all this shtuyot that the goyim say. I have one student that wrote evidence, wrote a letter, almost a two-page letter. He put it on my website. He not only was homosexual, he believed it was the perfectly normal thing perfectly allowed, perfectly fine. He started learning the Torah. Baruch Hashem, not only did teshuvah, but he's no longer homosexual. He's no longer homosexual. Why? He says, now already two years of learning mussar with me, Baruch Hashem, he says, I don't even have the desire. I don't have the desire. It's not that he's just containing himself deep, deep down inside, but he's really suffering. No, no. He says, I don't have the desire. Don't have the desire. Why? Once you get closer and closer and closer and closer to Hashem, Hashem removes certain parts of your tikkun. He removes certain parts of your tzarah. So I'm not saying go try to do this at home because not everybody can do this and not everybody should do this. But nonetheless, everybody has the ability to do teshuvah. So don't close doors automatically on everyone just because they're not tzaddikim like you. Don't open the doors to everybody just because they're what we used to be. You have to always calculate things and make sure that

3:07:15You know what you're doing, but my personal recommendation is it's much easier to give them a CD or invite them to a lecture or send them a link than communicating yourself. The reason why is because most people are not going to be willing to listen to direct advice, instructions, or commands, or whatever you want to call it, but they will be willing to listen to it from somebody else. Why? Because when you talk to them directly, they feel threatened. They feel like, "Why are you coming in? What's going on? What do you want from me? Get off me. Do something else." It's a CD. "What does it say?" "I don't know. It's just really important. It's really important. It's really good. It's really interesting." "What's in it?" "I don't know. I heard it. I can't even describe it. Just try it." Okay, they try it. Next thing you know, they become bigger than you. On that subject, if we have a family member that you've tried and you've said exactly what you said and they are just completely tuned out, don't want to know... How much does it cost to send a CD? How much does it cost to send a link? And the CD is in the house. The link is in a WhatsApp. Keep sending. One day they're going to wake up. Eventually, they'll do it. Eventually. Eventually, somebody. Could be a year from now. Could be a month from now. You never know. Keep sending. Amen.

3:08:37Even if their family member is Moshe Rabbeinu, it doesn't make a difference. Keep sending. My grandfather is Avraham Avinu. Does it make a difference? No, it doesn't make a difference. Point is, Rabotai, you keep sending. Keep sending, keep sending, keep sending. Never give up. Baruch Adonai le'olam. Amen.