How Can Smoking Marijuana Lead A Jew To Idolatry? (5 Minutes)

0:13We're going to continue it. It's the continuation of the journey in the life of a Jew. As we saw, there's a lot to talk about when you're reviewing yourself on Rosh Hashanah or before Rosh Hashanah. You're supposed to evaluate where you have been until now. Where have you been in the last year? Where have you been in the last 30 years? The key is to make sure that it's not too late before you ask yourself those questions. So, B'ezrat Hashem, we'll start with part two today. Today's shiur will be for Refuah Shlema for Sarah Leah bat Sarah, Levana bat Sarah, and... As we saw, there's a lot to talk about when you're reviewing yourself on Rosh Hashanah or before Rosh Hashanah. You're supposed to evaluate where you have been until now. Where have you been in the last year? Where have you been in the last 30 years? The key is to make sure that it's not too late before you ask yourself those questions. So, B'ezrat Hashem, we'll start with part two today. Today's shiur will be for Refuah Shlema for Sarah Leah bat Sarah, Levana bat Sarah, and Doris bat Jorah, David ben Nesria, Rav Ephraim ben Shulamit, and all of Am Yisrael, B'ezrat Hashem, will have Refuah Shlema, Refuah HaNefesh, Refuah HaGuf. So the Mishnah started to tell us the interesting study regimen,

1:42the typical Jew is supposed to have according to the chachamim. And if it was a bunch of idiots that said this is what you should do, then obviously none of us would even be talking about it today because who listens to these people? I remember when I was a kid in New York, there used to be this group of kids, every night till the middle of the night, they'd hang out on the corner of a street called Marymount. Marymount and Travis Avenue. Every night they'd hang out drinking beers, smoking cigarettes, and other stuff. Every single night, never a break. That was the hangout. They wouldn't actually go anywhere. Anytime they actually went anywhere, it would be worse. Why? Because over there, they'd start fighting people and beating them up. And I don't think I've ever met people as vicious as these people that were actually among normal society, outside of the army.

2:42But when these people would talk, even the dogs would say, "What are you talking about?" Why? Because it's complete nonsense. What are you going to talk about? Every single day, when you're 15, 16 years old, you had virtually no education whatsoever. Whatever education was supposed to be given to you in public school was a complete waste of time anyway because you weren't paying attention. You made fun of the teachers instead of listening to them. You only passed the class simply because the teachers didn't want to see you again the next year. What can you possibly talk about? I remember talking to one of those kids on the bus and asking them a simple question. I asked them, "How come you're always high? You would always be high on marijuana. So, how come you're always high, like all the time? It's seven o'clock in the morning, we're on the way to school. Why are you high at 7 a.m.?" I don't know if anybody ever has an excuse to do such stupid things. Even as a kid, you'd realize, okay, this is not something you do at 7 o'clock in the morning. You do it at 8 o'clock at night, 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock. I don't know. Go party. What are you doing at 15, 16, 17-year-old kids smoking marijuana at 6 a.m., 7 a.m.? You have nothing else to do in your life? Is your life that bad? And this kid, I think his name was Chido. Chido, Chiro, Chida, something.

4:08Answered me and answered. I would never forget in my life. It's been over 20-something years, almost 30. It's been a long time, and I'll never forget this answer. He says, "You know, I don't know what it's like to be normal because I'm more high than I'm not, so to me, to not be high feels weird." This is the education that your children get in public school at 15 and 16 years old, and this was considered a decent school. So, when the Chachamim of the Torah are giving us a map of what we're supposed to do, even though some of these things seem very hard. Quite frankly, you compare it to some of the education we got as kids, it seems virtually impossible. You teach a five-year-old to learn Chumash, you teach a 10-year-old Mishnayot, we don't know Mishnayot, we're 30. The brain of a child is very, very different from a grownup. And one of the greatest letters I've ever read in my life, it was worth being born just to read this letter I read today.

5:29Happens that Hashem gives me special news when I'm about to see you guys. So, b'ezrat Hashem, we'll go over some more of the map of what Hashem is Baki with and get an understanding of what this map looks like because regardless of whether You're considering it for your kids, or if you're already old enough where your kids are all grown up, this is still for you. In your infancy stages of teshuvah, in your early stages of conversion, this is not just for children. This is for grownups too. And we'll go over some of that as well. Of course, the Torah talks about this, specifically mentioning it for kids, And, you know, from 0 to 5, 5 to 10, 10 to 15, 15 to 20, and then obviously grown-ups, 20 to 30, and so on and so forth. But when it comes to learning the Chumash and learning the Mishnah, what the 5 and the 10-year-old are supposed to be doing, it's also referring to grown-ups that only realized what the Torah was once they got later on in their life. It's not that if you are 30 years old, you're already going to start with Gemara.

6:55The reality is that if you have not become acclimated with the Chumash and have read it at least twice with commentary, you shouldn't touch Gemara. If you have not gone over the Five Books of Moses, you don't know what you're doing. You don't know where to go. You don't know right or left. So, regardless of the fact that you're obligated to read the Chumash every week anyway, that's Halakha Shulchan Aruch. It says you have to read the parasha three times: twice you have to read the basic meaning and then once with commentary. At the very least, you know, if someone is just really starting out and that is like a world of Torah for them, it's just too much for them, the very least that they can get away with and still know what's going on for the time being is learning the weekly parasha with commentary once.

7:56Without learning the entire Chumash, the five books of Moses, with commentary, at least a couple of times, you won't know right, you won't know left, you won't even know who Hashem is. All it will be is just simply your imagination. You know, people that say, "Oh, I love Hashem, I love Hashem, I love Hashem," but they've never read the Chumash. They don't read the Chumash on a regular basis. They love somebody else, and they call him Hashem. Also, Hashem simply is not an actual name. Hashem literally means "the Name." So they love a different name, that's all it means. Because God, the God of Israel, is not the god that you're gonna meet just walking around doing nothing. So... When a person is doing Teshuvah, and he's first starting out, he has to understand that he has to treat himself. There's no embarrassment here. He has to treat himself like a brand new kid getting into the Torah life. Just like Rabbi Akiva was learning Aleph Bet, he has to learn Aleph Bet. But in today's world, it's more important because most people don't have a wife that's willing to send them to Yeshiva to learn 24 hours a day. So,

9:10We are not allowed to spend an extraordinary amount of time learning the aleph bet. And the reason why is because until we know Torah, the aleph bet is meaningless to us anyway. A lot of people have this fixation on learning the aleph bet. because they think that if you know Hebrew, then you know Torah. This is as far from the truth as can possibly be. There are plenty of people that know Hebrew and don't know any Torah. And there are plenty of people that know a lot of Torah but don't know Hebrew. The two are completely different subjects. There was a person by the name of Ben Yehuda who actually modernized Hebrew, the biblical language, and distorted it. But if you ask most Israelis, they're going to tell you he's the utmost expert in the Hebrew language. The reality is that unless this Ben Yehuda kept Shabbat and kept mitzvot and kept everything, all the Hebrew that he knew is only going to get him to Gehinnom. Learning Hebrew doesn't get anybody to Gan Eden. Learning Hebrew helps you develop

10:29that you already have. But if you don't have Torah, it's not a tool that's going to be useful for you. So, when you first start out, whether you're about to become a ba'al teshuva or you're a convert, until you've become very, very comfortable with basic level Chumash, meaning you've read it at least a couple of times with commentary. Basic level Halacha, meaning you know what to do every single day during the entire year, which includes all of the holidays. Basic level Shabbat, you know exactly all the 39 melachot, you know what's going on, right, left, everything. You're not violating Shabbat with the obvious. know basic level Judaism in so many words, and you've already studied Gemara and finished several of the tractates—maybe 25 to 40 percent of the Gemara—studying the Hebrew language as your main focus is simply a waste of time. It won't be relevant to you anyway; you won't be able to use it anyway.

11:33So you should know also that Biblical Hebrew and the Torah, and modern Hebrew are two different languages. They're the same letters, but they're two different languages. Similar to Italian versus Spanish. They both use the same alphabet, but they're completely different languages. Even though some of the words, especially numbers and things of that nature, are similar, it's not the same. Same thing with Hebrew, but to such an extent that sometimes the actual words mean the opposite. Some of the Zionists hated the Torah so much that they made sure to create new words out of thin air purely to mean the opposite of what it actually means in the Torah, because they wanted people to sin and therefore become weaker spiritually and ultimately leave the religion. It's not a conspiracy. This is just part of their whole purpose; it was for them to do that. Now, a person that spent a lot of time learning Hebrew but doesn't spend enough time learning Torah is not making any mitzvah. It doesn't count as any mitzvah at all. There's no mitzvah in it whatsoever. In fact, it could actually be bitul Torah. It could be a sin. Why? Because you're obligated to learn Torah; you're not obligated to learn Hebrew. You should learn Hebrew at some point.

12:56it should not be your main focus now. When it comes to choosing which Hebrew to learn, if you ask me, I'd say you should learn Biblical Hebrew. The reason why is because that's the one that can get you to Gan Eden. Modern Hebrew, not so much. It's useful if you live in Israel, but you can get by with Biblical Hebrew as well. What's the difference though? With Biblical Hebrew, you can actually know every time that you read from the Torah, you read the pasuk, you're actually going to know what you're saying, how you're saying it, and you can build on top of pre-existing knowledge. Again, I emphasize, pre-existing knowledge. If you have pre-existing Torah knowledge, that knowledge of Hebrew is useful. If you don't have Torah knowledge, you haven't gone through the parashot at least a couple of times with commentary, you haven't gone through the Shulchan Aruch, you haven't gone through the Gemara, you really don't know. All you really learn is maybe a hundred shiurim that you've learned. You learning Hebrew, you're simply wasting your time.

13:59You can do it if you want, but you're wasting your time. And the reason why is because you're not going; you have, let's say, an hour a day to study. You're spending half of it or the entire hour a day learning Hebrew instead of learning Torah. You're not using your time wisely. Now, also, when you learn Hebrew as far as the biblical language, it's much easier because there are fewer words. There are fewer words. There are less than 300 different words in the Torah. In the entire Torah. so, if you learn not 300 different words, I'm sorry, about 250 unique words, once you learn these 250 unique words, pretty much you're going to be able to get by throughout the entire Torah. So, in so many words, it's not impossible, but it's not something that should be a priority in your life. Most people that use it as a priority in their life end up lagging in other places because, again, there's only so much time that a person has and... And there's just so much mental capacity they have in the beginning anyway. If you have an hour a day, five hours a day, ten hours a day, you should spend more of that time becoming the best possible Jew that you can. Now, when it comes to the Sifrei Chachamim, some of the books that we have today are unbelievable. Because some of the books that we have today, we learned from, are from 2,000 years ago, 500 years ago,

15:263,000 years ago. Imagine someone wrote a book 2,500 years ago, and you're reading it today. Beautiful black and white. Your white paper, you have the nice black beautiful print on it. But if you look at some of the books that the Chachamim have, they don't look like that. I mean, they actually have the old book, the 500-year-old book or... Why don't you just get a brand new one? Because sometimes many of these books have gone out of print or have been lost. One of the big projects that Be'ezrat Hashem has done over the last some time now is sponsor Talmidei Chachamim to write books. One of the things that we try to do is to bring out some of these books, either brand new books or books that are coming out that haven't been published in a while. So for example, Rabbi Ephraim, God bless him, just published a book earlier this year. And then his father, Rav Chaim, also published a book earlier, just a few months ago. And then, if you haven't noticed in the Alon HaKodesh from last week, there was another book that was put together by Rav Shlomo Bar Kokhva. He's one of the Avreichim in the kollel that Rav Chaim is in as well. Tzaddik Tamim, Mamash Kodesh Kodeshim, this person.

16:48And he didn't write his own book. What he did is he actually made a very big ma'aseh, a very big zechut, a very big merit, where he actually, there's a book that was written about 250 years ago, but has already been out of print for over 100 years. And for the most part, has been lost among the world. Only a few chachamim in the world had a copy of it. Most of them have been lost, burned through the pogroms, inquisitions, and so on and so forth. All the disasters that Am Yisrael has had, unfortunately, we've lost much of our Torah. So, once in a while, there's a chacham that finds a copy and puts it together. But again, remember, the writing of the old days was handwritten. Or even if it was print, there were really different handwritings, different fonts, different everything. They would minimize. You see sometimes the old sefarim, you see that there's more on one page of an old sefer than there is sometimes in an entire chapter of a new book.

17:52So some of the writing is mamash tiny. You need a magnifying glass sometimes to read it. So he actually reprinted part three of a very important halacha book called Pri Eretz. And Pri Eretz is a sheilot u'tshuvot out of the Shulchan Aruch. That was actually written by Rabbi Yisrael Meir Mizrachi. Now, who is Rabbi Yisrael Meir Mizrachi? Rabbi Yisrael Meir Mizrachi was one of two brothers that were called Nerot HaMizrach, the candles of the East. And why? Why were both he and his brother called this? These two were mamash holy of holies to such an extent that there's a rabbi that all of you have heard me talk about multiple times in lectures by the name of the Chida. The Chida, any Sephardic Jew and most religious Jews know who he is. The Chida was a student of Rabbi Yisrael Meir Mizrachi. So, this gives us a little bit of an understanding of who we're dealing with. Now, his book,

19:12was called Pri Ha'aretz, or one part of it, and he just published part three, part three of the book. He actually started, instead of starting with Aleph and Bet, he started with Gimel right away, because Gimel, the third part, was easier to put together than the first two, but Be'ezrat Hashem we will continue there. But this book is specifically for Talmidei Chachamim. This is not for the average person. Even for a person that's really smart, it's not for them unless they are a serious, serious Talmid Chacham. It's a very, very complicated book. Hashem, the first couple of hundred copies already have been printed, and b'ezrat Hashem we're going to get some delivered here to the U.S. to give to some of the talmidim and rabbanim in the U.S. for free once we get them, b'ezrat Hashem. But the point is, at any time something like this comes out to the world, it's like having a new baby. It's like bringing a new light to the world. Even though it's Torah that existed in the world, sometimes the Torah that exists in the world hasn't been talked about, discussed, and virtually has been forgotten, and... such a long time that you want to bring it back to light. You see how the same old Torah is still relevant to the so-called new world that we live in today. So, one of the things that was actually written by the guest rabbi in the Alon HaKodesh last week was a very fascinating Midrash. At the time of Shmuel HaNavi, his mom was

20:40I'm not cried about having a kid for many years. She never had a kid and every day she would cry hysterically at the Beit HaMikdash. Now, one time the Kohen Gadol saw her, and the Kohen saw her moving like this, crying hysterically, and he thought she's drunk because she's moving like this and And he asked the Urim and Tumim, he asked the Urim and Tumim, what is going on with this woman? And the Urim and Tumim lit four letters: Shin, Chaf, Resh, Hey. Shin, Ra, Chaf, Resh, Hey. They spell Shikora. Shikora means drunk. So he yelled at her, he says, why are you drunk in the Beit HaMikdash? And she told him, drunk? I'm not drunk. You misunderstood the Urim ve'Tumim.

21:51She told them, she's a neviah, she's not an isha peshutah. She says, you misunderstood. You, Kohen Gadol, you misjudged me. You misunderstood your own Urim ve'Tumim. You didn't give me kaf zechut. It's not saying sheikora. It's saying kesharah. What's kesharah? Kosher. Kosher woman. Why was she, you know, nodding back and forth? She was praying to Hashem, "Please give me a son. Please give me a son." And from her we actually learn, Gemara Masechet Berachot, that tells this whole story I just told you. It's from her we learn how to pray. When you see people that are standing, Amidah, and they're moving back and forth, we actually learn it from Chana. Now she was crying hysterically to Hashem Yitbarach to have a son. Now, that entire generation. Every day there was a bat kol coming from Shamayim, a heavenly voice coming from Shamayim, saying that there's going to be a prophet coming to the world by the name of Shmuel. And this prophet is going to be like Moshe and Aharon. So every woman would cry to Hashem and pray to have a son, and every woman named their son Shmuel.

23:09Eventually, Chana had a son, and she called him Shmuel, and he became Shmuel HaNavi. So the Chachamim ask: But what about all the other Shmuels? What about all the other women? So, was it just a wasted effort? All of them cried, all of them prayed, they wanted a son, they got a son, they called him Shmuel because they wanted a Navi, they wanted someone holy. So, did they just lose out? And that's what the chiddush that Bar Kokhba brings. Bar Kokhba brings and he says the chiddush is that not a single woman lost out. Why? Every single boy that was named Shmuel was a Navi. What do we learn from here? We learn from here, Rabotai, that Hashem pays cash. All we have to do is try. If we invest into our kids, into their education, into their discipline, into their Torah, their life into their future, you are guaranteed to get paid cash by Hashem. If you don't, you're also going to get paid, but just a different monetary system. Different monetary system. Now, the difficulty that a lot of people have is sometimes when we say that such-and-such is a rasha, such-and-such is no good, you're not allowed to listen to him and...

24:36Now, to learn from him and so on and so forth. And people ask me these questions: How come you say it and other people don't say it? Isn't it Lashon Hara? Isn't it Motzi Shem Ra? And we've talked about it many times, what's allowed and what's not allowed. But you should all know there's actually a pasuk in the Torah. There's a pasuk in the Torah that actually makes it a mitzvah to talk against Resha'im. And it's actually in the book of Yeshayahu, chapter 48, verse 22. It's actually a poster we made some time ago, maybe a year ago. We made a poster out of it. It's a pasuk. It says, "There is no peace," said God, "to the wicked." Meaning that even when the wicked want to do teshuvah, if they're wicked to such an extent that they did it on purpose, Hashem says, "I don't want your teshuvah. I have no interest. I have no interest in your teshuvah." Not everybody has the merit to do teshuvah. So, to talk against resha'im, Again, it all depends on what kind of rasha. There are some rasha'im who are accidental; they didn't really know. They didn't know that Hashem was really makpid (very strict) with His laws because all they knew until now is that the biggest mitzvah in Judaism is to give tzedakah. All they knew until now is that the biggest thing is to wear a beard on their face. They didn't realize that the beard without the mitzvot is meaningless.

26:04He's confused, so he drove on Shabbat, or he cheated in his business, or he cheated on his wife, or he cheated in other things. The reality is he cheated in this world, and he thought that it's not so bad because "I have a beard, I go to the Knesset, I go to Selichot, I do this, I do that." Sometimes a person is just ignorant. That kind of rasha, we pray for them to do teshuva. But sometimes there's a rasha that does it on purpose. Like this Yitzhak Shapira, he calls himself a rabbi, but in reality, he's a Christian missionary. Or these two clowns from a company called One for Israel, both of them. They have an unlimited budget. They just spent, I don't know how many millions of dollars, to spread books of the New Testament and other heresy all over Israel just in the last few weeks, to the point where people are complaining. They already got multiple copies. Israelis are complaining, Jewish people are complaining. We already got multiple copies. What do we do with this? People are confused, people are weak.

27:20A guy believes in Hashem his whole life. One day, one time, somebody says, "Yeah, but you know, maybe you should believe in something else." And he thinks, "You know what, maybe I should believe in something else." They have zero, like no spine whatsoever. They've been connected to Hashem through thick and thin all the time. One time, somebody shows them something they don't understand, and they think, "Oh, maybe I should become Muslim. Maybe I should call him Chinese. Maybe I should become Christian. Maybe I should become atheist." What? They just throw away Hashem just like that? You don't double-check. You don't double-check anything. Unfortunately, the Satan has an unlimited budget, and he gives it to these resha'im, from ones in Israel, to people like Yitzhak Shapira, to this other clown named Brown, Charlie Brown, what's his name? Marco Brown, Marco, Marco? Michael Brown, Michael Brown, yimach shemo v'zichro. ...or is not a Jew himself. A Jewish neshama, according to Avraham Avinu, has the potential to either reach the heavens or the dust. When Hashem Yitbarach told Avraham Avinu that your descendants are going to be like the stars or like the dust below your feet. If He was referring to number, both are countless. Unfortunately, some of the most successful Christian missionaries in the world are Jews by birth. They are Jews by birth. Some of the most successful missionaries in the world are Jews by birth, unfortunately. And the reason why is what I told you guys the other day: the Jewish neshama is very special. Whoever doesn't want to believe it simply doesn't know what it means to be a Jew and...

28:45or is not a Jew himself. A Jewish neshama, according to Avraham Avinu, has the potential to either reach the heavens or the dust. When Hashem Yitbarach told Avraham Avinu that your descendants are going to be like the stars or like the dust below your feet, if He was referring to number, both are countless. The stars are an infinite amount and the dust under you is an infinite amount. So what did he mean? Why is Hashem comparing Am Yisrael to both? The reason why is because He wasn't referring to number. In fact, the Torah later on in the book of Devarim specifically tells us that there are not that many Jews in the world. He didn't pick us because there are many of us. What Hashem was trying to teach us through Avraham Avinu... When a Jew complies with the Torah, he has the potential to reach the heavens; he can be greater than any other creation in the world. But when he doesn't want to fulfill the will of Hashem, he's worse than the Nazis. Again, people get really disturbed by this. When a Jew follows the Torah, he could be greater than any person that ever lived on earth. Pick one, he's greater than him.

30:02When he doesn't comply with the Torah, he can be worse than Hitler himself, Haman, and Pharaoh all put together. It's either supercharged to the good or the bad. There's one tzaddeket who sent me an email, and she told me she made a really big sin. Initially, I gave her the benefit of the doubt. I thought that it wasn't really such a big sin, so I didn't even ask. Later on, she explained what the sin was in a different email and a different message, and she's right. There was a huge sin. Why do I call her tzaddeket then? I don't just throw the name tzaddik for no reason. I'm not one of these reshaim that just calls everybody tzaddik just to get tzedakah money. Why am I calling this woman tzaddeket? Because she told me what happened after she realized the significance of the sin from watching this shiur last night and the night before. And she said she cried hysterically. She cried herself to sleep, realizing how horrible our situation is. Realizing that the ruach that’s in our house, the strange being that’s in our house, is coming from that sin. And she finally knows what to do. But she's so scared, asking, "Is Hashem going to accept my teshuva?"

31:21The answer is yes. The answer is if you cry your eyes out to Hashem and you really mean it, that you're sorry, then Hashem will accept your teshuva, no questions asked. But that means it has to be a serious teshuva. That means not only are you not allowed to sin ever again to such a horrible sin, but more importantly, you have to make sure that you put a fence around the fence. For a woman, modesty is the fence around the fence. Typically, a modest woman is not going to commit such sins, even though this is sometimes a lie. She may be modest on the exterior, but not modest on the interior, like this rasha from Australia who was a principal in a religious girls' school. After she was caught, she claimed that she was insane.

32:23So they took her to an insane asylum. They took her to a mental hospital. But not everybody bought the story. How does somebody insane sexually harass 74 little girls? And if you look at her from the exterior, she had the kisui rosh according to the Rambam. You know what according to the Rambam is? Kisui rosh according to the Rambam, if anybody wants to know, is two kisui rosh. It's the regular kisui rosh of the mitpachat, and then they put a hat on top of it. Just chas v'shalom, make sure nothing shows. Not even the shape of anything. That's how she looked like. But she molested 74 little baby girls. Because of the stupidity of our people in that area of the world, they tried to hide the crime. Because this was going on for a while, you don't do this over a week. This is something that's been going on for a long time, public. This is something that's been going on for a long time and...

33:35but they tried to hide it and hide it and hide it, and eventually, Baruch Hashem, it got exposed. As the Mishnah says, someone who desecrates Hashem's name in secret, the punishment is for Hashem to expose them to the public. We read this about six months ago or so, and Baruch Hashem that this happened. She was exposed, but then she claimed to be crazy, and she went to Israel, and But then a few smart people wanted to investigate this. May Hashem give her a very slow and painful death for touching little precious girls of Am Yisrael. And there's no mercy for such people. You're not allowed to have mercy for such people. It's actually a pasuk. As in Tehillim, as in Mishlei, as in the Gemara. It's all over the Torah. You're not allowed to have mercy for such people. Not allowed to have mercy for such people. The Mesilat Yesharim uses the Midrash Tanchuma, Parashat Metzora.

34:54Myself is sharing them how it says someone that is merciful on people that are vicious. Eventually, they'll be vicious on people that are merciful. We are not allowed to be merciful on the shameless and not allowed. We're not even allowed to be merciful on ignorant people if they're ignorant by choice and As the Gemara in Masechet Berachot, page 33a says, and also the Mesilat Yesharim repeats it as well: someone without da'at, someone who doesn't have anything in his head, we should not be merciful to him. He chose not to have anything in his head. He chose the only information in his head is he knows how to build an engine for a car. He knows how to fix the oil. He knows how to go on a bus. He knows how to fix a tire. How come he doesn't know how to say Kriyat Shema? How come? He chose. He chose not to. Now, it's not saying to go beat him up. No one's saying to go beat him up or yell at him or make fun of him.

35:57But don't say, no, but chaval, miskain, he doesn't know. So, maybe he's going to get Gan Eden anyway. No, there's no Gan Eden. I'm sorry. There's no free lunch. There's no free lunch. He chose; he has to pay the bill. Just like if you choose a bad husband, a bad wife, a bad job, or a bad anything, you have to pay the bill. So Baruch Hashem, someone sent someone to this crazy hospital as a private investigator, but as an undercover investigator, pretended to be crazy also, and befriended this evil monster of a woman. And Baruch Hashem, it was uncovered that she's been lying to everybody all along, and now, Baruch Hashem, it's only last week that the story came out, and they're trying to extradite her. Israel agrees, and they're trying to comply with all the laws to extradite her to send her to the rotten jail in Australia for the rest of her life, where she suffers at least in this world for a little while before Hashem takes her and makes her suffer eternally. Someone that takes advantage of little kids is not just evil; it's not just a bad thing to do. The root, the core, the source of that person is evil. There's no teshuva for such things, and...

37:17Such a person is mamash ashmed, it's a shed dalet. Cannot be a human being. To hide their crimes, these teachers and principals, male or female, and sex offenders and pedophiles, to hide their crime, not only is enabling the vicious person, the evil Haman, the evil Izevel, to continue their crimes, but it's actually making the people that are hiding it partners in the crime 100,000%. And that is why the Gemara in Masechet Rosh Hashanah, page 16, says that all of us on Rosh Hashanah are like Bnei Maron. How? We are getting checked one after another, one after another, as I told you guys on Sunday. Why one after another? Because the guy in the back gets the punishment and the judgment of all the people in front of him. Why? He's connected to it somehow. He's connected to it somehow.

38:22He didn't rape the girl. He didn't rape the boy, but he didn't say anything when he saw it. Oh, you didn't say anything? Why? You wanted to be friends with them? You wanted to back your boy up? Okay, Hashem will make sure you back your boy up also. You too will have the same villa in Gehinnom. they're not allowed to assist terrorists. These spiritual terrorists are giving the Torah a bad name, but they're also ruining these precious souls forever. There's no way that a child will ever grow up normal when he goes through such a traumatizing experience. Now already having, you know, people growing up in broken homes and growing up and one of the parents is in jail or growing up with one of the parents being secular, and so that's already difficult enough. That's very difficult for some people to ever overcome. But once the kid is touched and violated by someone that they trusted because this is supposed to be an authority figure with a kippah or a mitpachat, and you hit it, you're worse than them.

39:37Communities must scream out. Scream out against these people once and for all. Save the kids because the kids are growing up and, like, "Yeah, I hate God." Why do you hate God? What did God do to you? "Oh, He let my teacher rape me." What do you mean? Who are you talking about? What, and you find out these kids, these skinny poor kids, and... How come you didn't tell anyone? I did tell someone. Who'd you tell? I told my parents. Oh, so how come they didn't do anything? They're afraid of the local rabbi. Rabbi? What rabbi is this? Hiding terrorists? Go to the cops. For such things, you have to go to the cops if the community doesn't do anything. Now, yes, you should go to the rabbis, the local rabbis, right away to try to do something about it without killing the person, giving them a death penalty, but punish them according to the Torah. But for such things, there's really little that we can do that's not going to get somebody else arrested forever. You're practically forced to go to the cops. And if they're hiding it, this is not a community you want to grow up in.

40:56So what do we learn from all this, rabotai? There's really one main thing that we've learned many times. First of all, there's no mitzvah of saying shalom to reshaim. There's no mitzvah of saying shalom to people that are wicked. There's no mitzvah of making peace with them. That's number one. You're not a tzaddik if you call your friend a tzaddik. And he's really a rasha. In fact, the Gemara says you're a rasha for doing it. You're not allowed to call him a tzaddik. Lo tachanef. Lo tachanef is to kiss up. You're not allowed to kiss up to reshaim. It's a sin. That's number one. Number two, which is even more meaningful and more relevant to our shiur, is that today, people are so sick, mentally and emotionally, in their minds, it's so full of tum'ah, So full of garbage that they've learned and consumed from movies, from internet videos, from their friends, from all the things they learned throughout their entire life, that at this stage, Rabotai, you cannot trust anyone.

42:08With or without a beard? With or without a mitpachat? Modest, immodest. It's all irrelevant. You can't even trust your own family when it comes to your little kids. Always, always double-check everything. Always make sure you teach your kids to speak up. If you have one of these kids that's very shy, you have to make sure to have a lot of patience with him or her to make sure that if something looks weird or something is odd, you get the information out of them in a very nice, polite, patient way. Why? Because that kid is so ashamed of what just happened sometimes, Hashem yerachem, he can live with it and only tell you when he's 20 years old and completely messed up out of his mind. It's too late already at that point. So you have to be ultra, ultra careful with your kid and you have to communicate with them. You have to ask them. And in general, you should also follow halacha. You're not allowed to leave your kids with just anybody. You're not allowed to leave your kids with just strangers. Even school. The parent-teacher, don't wait for the every six months parent-teacher meeting. Show up at the school. Unannounced. See what's going on. See what they're teaching. See where your kid is.

43:26Show up. Just see what's going on. Why? Who knows? I'm not saying everybody's a criminal. I'm saying you can't trust anyone. That's what I'm saying. Why? Because I don't want to find out too late. I don't want to find out too late. And stories like this about little kids, they break my heart. I cry when I hear them. It's like, how do you touch a little kid? How do you do anything to a little kid? It's just, it's unbelievable to me. And then when it comes from the religious world, it kills me. kills me. But this is story after story after story, and unfortunately, these stories are something that communities hide for years. The Christian community, the Catholic community, the Jewish community, the secular community—everybody hides it. Why? We're ashamed of what? You should be ashamed of yourself for hiding it. It's time to speak up. The kid is relying on us to protect them. The least we need to do is to do that job. Now the Mishnah tells us that under normal conditions, a five-year-old begins to read scripture—the Five Books of Moses. A ten-year-old begins to read Mishnah, meaning that at this point, at ten years old, he's reading both the Mishnah and the Five Books of Moses. He never ever stops reading the Five Books of Moses. He never stops reading too much. He's adding the Mishnah to it, and now it's a Chumash secondary.

44:48Ben you are you dub and tema says a five-year-old begins to read scripture—the Five Books of Moses. A ten-year-old begins to read Mishnah, meaning that at this point, at ten years old, he's reading both the Mishnah and the Five Books of Moses. He never ever stops reading the Five Books of Moses. He never stops reading too much. He's adding the Mishnah to it and now it's a Chumash secondary. Even though we don't hold by the exact pattern of what the Chachamim said here in this Mishnah to this day, the yeshivot today have a slightly different way of teaching. The point is it's still very much relevant. The point is it's very much what's expected and very much what we should shoot for at the very least. And then we get to 13 years old. Thirteen years old is when a young boy takes on the mitzvot.

45:52According to Halacha, the boy is considered a man, for better or for worse. He is commanded to fulfill all the mitzvot. Now, at 15 years old, the Mishnah says that at 15 years old, one begins to study Gemara. So the first question is, what is Gemara? The simple meaning is that the first part of the Oral Torah that came out was the Mishnah. There were actually some Midrashim that came out even before the Mishnah. The Gemara in Masechet Megillah says that Yonatan Ben Uziel wrote some Midrashim, wrote some commentary the Nevi'im on the prophets, and a bat kol, a heavenly voice, came out of the shamayim and said, "Who uncovered the secrets of heaven to men of flesh and blood?" And Yonatan Ben Uziel, when he would study Torah, there would be a pillar of fire that reached the heavens, similar to a korban.

47:19Hashem says, "It was Me, and it wasn't for My honor, and it wasn't for My father's honor. It was only for you, Hashem, and I want to continue uncovering the rest of the secrets in the writings—Tehillim, Mishlei, and so on." After that, there was an earthquake that shook all of Eretz Yisrael.

48:52The 400 parsa, much bigger than Eretz Yisrael, was a huge earthquake. The Heavenly Voice said, "No, you've already done enough." So the Chachamim ask, "How come Hashem didn't want to put more commentary on the rest of the Tanach?" The Chachamim answered the Gemara and said that it was because Yonatan Ben Uziel had the secrets of when exactly Mashiach would come, and that is in the Writings. If he would have written that commentary, we would have known exactly when Mashiach is going to come, and Hashem did not want the people to know when Mashiach is going to come, even when Yaakov Avinu... tried to tell his children before he died, "Let me tell you what's gonna happen at the end of days." The pasuk says Hashem took away his nevuah. He took away his prophecy. He wasn't able to tell them when Mashiach was gonna come because Hashem does not want us to know when Mashiach is gonna come exactly. This way, if we know, our yetzer hara is gonna tell us, "Oh, if Mashiach is gonna come in three years, okay, do teshuva in two years from now."

50:07And this is also why we don't live like the generation of Noach. Before Noach, if you notice, the age of each one of the people that lived at the time of Noach was 600, 800, 900, 1,000, 1,200. The youngest one died at 368. Youngster. Youngster died at 300. So the Torah says, why, how come? How come Hashem doesn't allow us? Hashem says that the Torah ends, Everybody has to live till a maximum of 120. And in reality, a full life is considered 70 years. David HaMelech says a full life is considered 70 years. Why? It says because in those days they knew they were all going to live 600, 700, 800, 900 years. They said, listen, I'm still young. My dad, he died at 1,200. I'm only 900. So I'll do teshuva at 1,100, not 11 years old. Didn't Methuselah live the longest life? He lived to 969. No, it was more than 1,200. More than 1,200 is the oldest age. So there's actually somebody that lived even longer than that.

51:14But there's Og Melech HaBashan, who lived almost 2,000 years. Wow. But the age started going much lower because I think the flood caused deterioration of age as well. Okay, that's what I just said. It's not the flood itself; it's Hashem deciding that He's not going to let people live that long. So now, even though Yonatan ben Uziel was the first one to write the Oral Torah, the Oral Torah... You know, it is written in the name of Yehudah HaNasi, Rebbe HaKadosh, that the Mishnah was compiled by Rebbe HaKadosh, who was called "Kadosh" because he never even looked at his brit. He never looked at anything below his belt. That's why he is called "Kadosh" Rebbe HaKadosh. Anyone called "Kadosh" is special; why "Kadosh"? He never looked to get touched. He never looked at his brit.

52:15Which, by the way, is one of the ways that anyone who wants to guard their brit can do so. It's one of the secrets of how you can actually overcome that desire. If you're already addicted to it, or if someone you know is addicted to it, the number one thing they need to start learning to do, aside from watching their eyes in the street, is not to look at their own brit. It's much easier not to look at it than not to touch it because people are used to doing things in their private areas and so on. It's very hard to get used to that second part when you're already grown up, but to not look at it is not impossible. It's not impossible, and it's highly, highly recommended. As strange as this sounds to all of you men, this is a big secret that I know is tried, and it works. So now, Rabbeinu HaKadosh never looked at his brit. He didn't have the problem that we have in this generation, Baruch Hashem. That's why he's called Rabbeinu HaKadosh. And Rabbeinu HaKadosh... He put together the Mishnah because he knew that if he didn't put together the Mishnah, there wasn't going to be anything left. People were going to forget. People were going to lose it. But then, as the generations continued,

53:27A few generations later, they weren't able to understand the Mishnah because he minimized the words, like we minimize the words in the Torah. He didn't write all of the meanings of what he actually says; he just wrote ten words, and you're supposed to get enough information for eternity from those ten words. So... They already started seeing themselves deteriorate. They said, okay, Rav Ashi, we have to write something to explain how he got to this. What does this Mishnah actually mean? And from there was born the Gemara. The Gemara explains what the Mishnah, in essence, is saying. how they arrived, why, who, what, when, where, plus there's obviously other stories on top of it. Some of the Gemarot have more stories than others of the historical lessons, historical accounts of the actual people. And within the Gemara, the Chachamim explain, I believe it was the Chafetz Chaim that actually said it, but I may not be certain, so don't quote me on the name. He says that Sipurei Tzadikim is like Maaseh Merkava.

54:34stories of the tzaddikim in the Gemara or even in our generations now, you read some of the biographies of the tzaddikim that just passed. He says it's like the tales of the mystical and the supernatural. Why is it supernatural? It's because once you see the significance Of the tzaddikim, even the ones that just died five years ago, the ones from a hundred years ago, two hundred years ago, or even fifteen hundred years ago, it doesn't make a difference. You see some of their stories, you see their glory, how amazing people they were, how smart they were, how beautiful they were, how extraordinary they were. If they were that amazing, just imagine how amazing their Father in Heaven is. It's very important for a person to add Sipurei Tzaddikim to his Oneg Shabbat. On Shabbat, it's critical to learn Torah. But if you're married, learning Gemara with your wife is not exactly fun. Number one, most wives are not really into it. Most women are not really into it, unless they're already into it. Most are not.

55:50It's very difficult to learn Gemara when you have 15 kids screaming all over the place. The kids, their friends, and their friends' friends. But to learn Sipurei Tzaddikim, to read a bio of one of the Tzaddikim, of Rav Wasserman, the Chafetz Chaim, Baal Shem Tov, Rav Ovadia Yosef, and so on and so forth, the list, Baruch Hashem, Am Yisrael has endless Tzaddikim. You read these stories, things that happened a year ago, five years ago, ten years ago, a hundred years ago, whenever it was. It helps you enjoy your Shabbat. It helps you enjoy your Shabbat. It helps you enjoy your marriage too. Why? Because your wife gets on the same page as you. She's like, "Oh, that's why he learns Gemara at six o'clock in the morning. He wants to be like this tzaddik. I want him to be like this tzaddik." She starts rooting for you. "Go, you be a tzaddik. Yes, what do you need?" Ma? White hand is mine. So the Sippur Tzadikim, the bios of the Tzadikim, is something that you should definitely add to your reading list. If you want recommendations, I'm more than happy to provide them. But if you just learn how these Tzadikim lived, it's unbelievable.

57:17So part of the Gemara is the secrets of what happened. What does this Mishnah mean? How did they arrive at this law? What are the two sides? They argue back and forth. Before I got a brain from Hashem, I thought that the Gemara is just a bunch of rabbis arguing. Now it's only half right. Why? Yes, they are arguing the whole time. But I thought it's bad arguing. I thought it's arguing like I argue. like you argue. Like everybody else argues. Oh, I hate you. You hate me. Everybody hates each other. I didn't realize the Gemara, they're arguing for the sake of Hashem. They're arguing because they love each other. They're arguing because they're trying to get to the truth. I thought it was just a bunch of people that disagree with each other. Just because. He's from Tripoli. He's from Morocco. He's Litvish. He's Chassidic. He's Chabad. He's Breslov. Everybody hates each other. No, it's shtuyot. People think that I'm foolish like I used to be. When they argue in the Gemara, they're arguing for the emet, the only thing that counts in this world. You don't have the emet, you have nothing. Imagine, you live 70, 80 years, and you realize two seconds before you die, your whole life was a lie. What a nightmare. A person goes up to Shamayim and says, I'm sorry, sorry, 80 years, I'm sorry. What sorry? What do you think the sorry is going to do here?

58:47should've said sorry 30 years ago. Sorry, Alik. So the Gemara is supposed to tell us how they got to it. So what's the Talmud? The Talmud, the original name, came from the fact that when the Chachamim combined both of them. They took the Gemara, they took the Mishnah, and they put them together. Meaning, they give you the Mishnah, it's written on top, and then they tell the Gemara, this is what we're referring to, back and forth. You don't have to look at two different books. number one, it would save money. Number two, it would make it easier for people to learn. But today, for better or for worse, because of our ignorance, most people, when they say Talmud or they say Gemara, they're referring to the same thing. Somebody says, "This is in the Talmud," "This is in the Gemara," they're referring to the same thing. Unless you're a ben Torah and you know the difference, most people don't know the difference. Most people think Gemara and Talmud mean the same thing. So, At 15 years old, the boy is supposed to start learning Gemara. The Tiferet Yisrael says that by that age, a boy has studied Scripture. He studied Torah already for 10 years, from 5 to 15. He already studied the Chumash for 10 years, and he studied the Mishnah for 5 years.

1:00:18So at this point, he should be familiar enough with the basics, with the fundamental basics of the Torah, to make the transition to start going into the commentaries and the reasoning behind why it says what it says. Anyone have a Hyundai? Anyone have a Hyundai? Does anyone have a Hyundai? It's easier to build a car. See, Rabbi Mizrachi has much more zechuyot than I do. Him, yes, only comes as a fly. Me, he comes as cops. You see the difference? You see the difference of 25 years versus 5 years? 25 years you do kiruv, Hashem sends you a little fly to annoy you once in a while. I went over there to New York two years ago, the fly was there. The fly was there. You see the lecture I was doing with Rabbi Mizrachi together? The fly is there. I told him the fly is right here. He stopped coming, by the way. He did teshuvah, the fly, the tikkun. I think I was the last shiur, maybe. See, Rabbi Mizrachi has much more zechuyot than I do. Him, yes, only comes as a fly. Me, he comes as cops. You see the difference? You see the difference of 25 years versus 5 years? 25 years you do kiruv, Hashem sends you a little fly to annoy you once in a while. I went over there to New York two years ago, the fly was there. The fly was there. You see the lecture I was doing with Rabbi Mizrachi together? The fly is there. I told him the fly is right here. He stopped coming, by the way. He did teshuvah, the fly, the tikkun. I think I was the last shiur, maybe.

1:01:37But after me, he says, I give up, I give up. That kind of suffering finished. But me, I get cops. People go knock on doors. See what happens. So the Tiferet Yisrael says, when you're learning Gemara, you need to know what you're doing. You need to know what you're doing. You can't just pick up the Gemara. No, no, I'm going to read this. It sounds good. This sounds good. Now, the problem... with learning Gemara is that if you don't know what you're doing, you can get into more trouble than you started with. And if you're a child, and you're going through the yeshiva system, and you have a good yeshiva, you have a good teacher, you're in good hands. You have nothing to worry about. They're going to teach you who, what, when, how, how to read, what to read, teach you the language, why it says what it says, and so on and so forth. why it says what it says, and so on and so forth. You're gonna learn the basics. But if you, like the majority of our mesorah today, didn't exactly go to yeshiva. You went to PS 69 like me, you went to IS 72. You wanted to be an NFL star even though you were five-foot nothing. You thought in your dreams that you could be an NFL player, and you only woke up when you were 30 years old and

1:03:07And all of a sudden, I want to read Gemara. You can't start with Gemara. Why? You don't know what you're doing. If you open a Gemara, you'll become secular in a week. Why? It's so high above you. The level of Gemara is so high above you from the beginning. If you start it, you're going to become secular. You're not going to become religious. Why? It's discouraging. It's like, for example, overall, One thing that, for whatever reason or another, my parents taught me was to always do math in my head. God bless him. My father, who lived many, many years, always taught us to do math in our heads. So ever since I was a little boy, I always did math in my head. Rarely did I ever use calculators. Big numbers, small numbers, I always used my head. Even if it took me a while, I trained myself to do math in my head. I remember one time I took this medicine, and I had a side effect.

1:04:08...and I started hallucinating. Throughout my nightmare seven years of fun that Hashem put me on that roller coaster, it was a lot of fun. So one of the medicines gave me a side effect, and I started hallucinating. Now, once the hallucinations started coming down, after 25 hours of fun, I didn't know if I was normal or not. So what did I do? I started forcing my wife to throw big numbers at me and tell me to do multiplication. 357 times 12. 352 times 352. And I'd constantly torture her with this. "Come, ask me more questions. Ask me more questions." She's like, "Why?" I don't know, maybe I became stupid. Maybe I don't know. Maybe I'm still hallucinating. Because I was used to doing calculations in my head. And now all of a sudden I started seeing things and all types of stuff. I'm not used to that. I never did drugs in my life. I'm telling you some personal funny things. This is my life. Hashem put it in my head. I'm telling you. Apparently, He wanted me to make fun of myself. Maybe the cops will go away. So anyway, ever since I was a little kid, I always did calculations in my head. And I remember in high school, people found it interesting. How do you know? This was normal for me.

1:05:29It's important for a person to do things in their head to train their brain to be sharper and sharper. So when I actually arrived at the Gemara the first time, I thought I knew what was going on. And then I started learning Gemara and I realized I didn't know anything. It was very, very discouraging. Because I thought I was smart. I thought I was sharp. I thought I knew everything. And I realized that in this subject, I knew nothing. And I wanted to give up. So I'm telling you this from my own experience. If you start things that are above and beyond you too early, or you have a bad teacher, or you study the wrong way, it could have a negative impact on you to such an extent that it can cause you to literally want to leave everything—not because you don't like it, but because you're ashamed of yourself that you're so far behind. You're so far behind, you just heard some 15-year-old kid finish Shas, and you don't even know how to get to the first page of Gemara Masechet Berachot. And the 15-year-old finished Shas, the 16-year-old finished all of Shas. You're looking at Shas, it's as big as your house. This is where I have to get to. No, let me go back to work. I'll just finance the kids. I'll just pay for him. I'll just pay for the Torah.

1:06:50So you have to be very, very careful when it comes to learning. First off, this Mishnah is for everyone. In this generation, it's practically everyone. Unless you've gone through the yeshiva system, and not only you went through the yeshiva system, you went through the yeshiva system and you excelled. A lot of people went through the yeshiva system and they still don't know anything. Plenty of kids that are 25, 30 years old, they went to yeshiva, and they don't know much. Why? Because school for them was a chore. They didn't exactly like it. So they coasted and just passed the test. They didn't actually connect to Hashem or anything. They finally started doing Shabbat at 30 years old. So if you excelled, you liked it, and so on, it's a different story. But if you didn't, you have to go to basic one, two, three, four, five. That could be Rabbi Akiva at 40 years old. first you have to become very comfortable with commentary. Know what's going on. Who's against who? When it says "I," who's "I?" When it says "he," who's "he?" Who's it talking about? Who's talking? Is it Moshe? Is it Hashem? Is it Aharon? Who is talking? Somebody has to be talking, and the character changes.

1:08:09What's the meaning who, what, when, and don't try to become Rashi overnight? Read Rashi, don't become Rashi, right? Rashi did the job for you 900 years ago. The students of the Arizal came to the Arizal with a giant book. They said, "For the love, this is all the Kabbalistic secrets of the first parsha, within the first parsha, the first page." and First page of the Tanakh, here are the secrets, Kabbalistic secrets. The Arizal said to them, people are not going to read this. People are not going to read this. Nobody's going to read this giant thing off one page. If you finish the whole Torah, the book is going to be the size of a building. You have to minimize it. You know how difficult it is to minimize it? Because no one's going to read it. So it's just going to sit on the shelf for a thousand years. No one's going to read it. So they went, they started working, minimizing it. To minimize something, It's not lowering from it; it's increasing the intellect. It's much more difficult to write wisdom in fewer words than in more words. That's why today most secular books are 700 pages that could be told in one page. But no one's going to pay $20 for one page. So they give you 700 pages of nonsense just to convey the point that could be made in one page. The whole story is one page; the whole information is one page. But they give it to you in 700 pages because that's the only way you're going to pay $20 for it.

1:09:37Plus, they don't really know what they're talking about until they get to page 700 themselves. But anyway, the students of the Ari HaKadosh minimized it and minimized it and minimized it. Half a book, quarter of a book, third of a book. Eventually, they minimized it to literally just a couple of paragraphs. The Ari HaKadosh looked at it. Ah, Baruch Hashem. You finally have arrived at Rashi. With all the Kabbalistic secrets you have of the Ari HaKadosh. finally arrived at what Rashi did 500 years before us. So people think Rashi is some guy. Just read his bio. Read his bio. See who he was. Anyway, you start with the Chumash. You start getting an understanding. Then you go to the Mishnayot. Get some understanding. Then you start going to Gemara. But when you go to the Gemara, it has to be a combination. You cannot just read the Gemara by itself. You have to read the commentary also. To read Rashi's commentary. There's no Gemara without Rashi. Even for a Talmid Chacham. One time there was a guy that called himself a Mekubal. He came to Boca Raton where I used to live. I was invited to some rich guy's house. And this guy, this Mekubal, looked very weird to me. The way he acted, the way he dressed was very strange. I don't like people like that because I think most of them are fake. I'm a very skeptical person.

1:11:06But I didn't say anything. I sat there quietly. And he had an assistant that looked like, I don't know, he just came out of one of these movies, machine guns and commando something. The guy was 300 pounds, half muscle, half something else. This is, ooh, walking around with people like this. It's kind of weird, I don't know, the whole scene was weird to me. I just sat there quietly. Everybody keeps saying "Kvoda Rav, Kvoda Rav," kissing his hand. The night before, everybody came up to him to ask for brachot, and he pretended like he was giving them secrets. I didn't come. My wife and I were there. I didn't come. One of the guys from the beit knesset, really friendly guy, but a little bit pushy, Pushed me, you know, pulled me to him. "No, no, no, get a blessing here." But I don't want a blessing, please, I don't want a blessing, no blessing. He pulled me. He was right next to me. He looks at me. So it's kind of uncomfortable to say I don't want a blessing from the guy. So he looks at me and goes, "No, your wife is not gonna have any problems having kids. You should be fine." My wife was eight months pregnant.

1:12:29Evaluate Adam to salve the covalent value. The noise off the board, the stupidity of men will cause him to sin against Hashem, and then he gets upset at him for punishing him. People look for shortcuts, the Kabbalists. Anyway, why tell you the story? Because this Mekubal... Sitting over there, he tells his helper, this Gargamel guy, a huge commando guy, "Go, go, get me the Gemara. Go get me the Zohar, the Gemara, something." It's like, "Okay, which one?" "Make sure it's the one with no commentary. No Rashi, the one with no Rashi, no commentary at all." I don't even think something like that exists, by the way. But he had to make sure to tell the guy, "Make sure it has no Rashi, no commentary at all. I don't need the commentary." First of all, if you don't need the commentary, why are you announcing it to the whole world, Mr. Mekubal? But I don't know, it sounded weird to me, and I was still relatively, like, kind of new. I asked my rabbi about this. I'm like, what does it mean when somebody says, no commentary, no commentary? He says it only means he doesn't know how to read. That's what it means. He doesn't know anything. Nobody says no commentary. Even the Gadol HaDor doesn't say no commentary.

1:13:47If you don't want to read the commentary, what do you care if it's there on the page? Don't read it. Just to show off. A lot of these people are show-offs, and unfortunately, a lot of these crooks travel from town to town looking for suckers because people don't want to do teshuva; they want to take a shortcut. So they find a guy that dresses in white or blue or green or some other weird uniform from Star Trek and... They ask him for a blessing. They ask him for some miracle. They ask him for some water. They're asking him for money. They have money. He has nothing to say to them, and now they think it’s a good match. They go home thinking they have a segulah. They don’t realize they brought shedim to the house. Instead of the good, they brought shedim. Many times they bring demons. People say to me, "Oh, how come, how come, how come I see these strange things?" Who was in your house last week? So when a person is a real tzaddik, like this woman that I'm telling you about, who made a big sin, he's going to cry about the sin, he's going to do teshuva, and he's going to stop doing it. That's the making of a tzaddik. That's the making of a tzadeket. But how do you put a fence around the fence?

1:15:11You put a fence around the fence by making sure that you are never close to that sin again. You make sure that now you're modest, that you don't put yourself in uncomfortable circumstances, and that you have the right teachers. now you have the right friends, you start cutting out all of the unnecessary parts. The same applies in studying. When you're studying Torah, you have to decide who's the right teacher, who's the wrong teacher. What's emet, what's sheker. A lot of people fall off because they think that by having a little bit of sheker in their life, it's not so bad. So they continue to hang out with their old friends. They continue to hang out with their old buddies. They continue to listen to a rabbi that they know for sure is not kosher, but they like to hear his stories. Yeah, he motivates me. Yeah, he also hugs women that are not his wife in public. He's not a kosher person. You don't have to learn Torah from him. It says it in the Torah. It says it in the Gemara, Moed Katan. Gemara Moed Katan says, page 17a, if your rabbi is like an angel of God,

1:16:24ask Torah from him. If not, then don't. If your rabbi is hugging women in public that are not his wife or even if it is his wife and it's in public, you're not allowed to learn Torah from him. If it's not his wife, it's gilui arayot. It's considered a sex crime. It's considered immorality to such an extent that all of these people who hug their female cousins and work buddies, "Oh, I love you. Yeah, you're my best friend," good luck with that. When it's the rabbi, it's also a chillul Hashem. Like when you see pictures of Goldberg the Rasha from Boca, you see him a lot of times giving a nice hug to women from the kehillah. or women from AIPAC. Sometimes they're Christians. Sometimes they're Jewish. Sometimes, who knows. See publicly. He's not ashamed about it. There's no shame. You see a lot of rabbis like this today. These are not rabbis. These are "ra-bbis." Emphasize the "ra." So, you have to be careful of who you learn from.

1:17:50If it is his wife, sometimes you're going to see a rabbi very affectionate to his wife. It's not gilui arayot, but it's still not allowed according to the Shulchan Aruch. The Shulchan Aruch says you're not allowed to show chibah. Chibah means affection to your wife in public. Not even to the extent that you're not even allowed to hold her hand in public. Yes, I know you love your wife as much as I love mine. But the reality is you're not allowed to do it; you leave your affection for home. And the reality is that most people who show affection in public usually have no affection at home. It's just a show-off, just a show-off. Now, once you're at home, by the way, I could teach you something interesting. It's actually healthy for the children to see their mom and dad affectionate, obviously within limits, hugging and a peck on the cheek, things like that. Not the other people. I'm talking about minimal affection. Affection, literally, not... I have to explain these things because who knows who's listening these days.

1:19:05It's not you, it's somebody else. I don't know, people say, oh yeah, this rabbi said you're allowed to put in my name. New headline. So, it's actually healthy for kids to see their parents hugging, kissing, minimally, obviously, holding hands. It's actually healthy for them. Why? A few things. Number one, it shows them what Shalom Bayit looks like. Number two, it shows them that the parents love each other. So sometimes the daughter is more connected to the father, and sometimes the son is more connected to the mother. Sometimes there's even a little bit of a separation with the opposite. But if the little boy sees that the mom is his favorite—Mommy, Mommy, all day Mommy, Mommy—but if he sees that Mommy loves Abba, oh, maybe he's not so bad after all.

1:20:06He starts loving Abba. Why? If Mommy loves Abba, I love Abba. If the little girl sees that Ima and Abba are happy, oh, I like Ima also. I like Ima also. Even though Ima yells at me all the time and Abba gives me candy, but Abba likes Ima, so I like Ima also. It's psychologically healthy for the kids. Public, on the other hand, it's 100% sin. Strangers, it's 100% sin, and it's Shulchan Aruch. So, these are small little intricate details. Am Yisrael has so many different beautiful rules that people think, "Oh, it's so difficult. It's so difficult." It's not so difficult. Look, the Baal Shem Tov HaKadosh said, "What's more difficult, going to Gan Eden or going to Gehinom?" Let's volunteer some answers. Get you guys involved. What's more difficult? Going to Gan Eden or going to Gehinom? Let's see. There are two options: Gan Eden or Gehinom. Which one do you want? You want Gan Eden. Which one's more difficult to get to? Gan Eden. Next choice. Gan Eden. Which one's more difficult to go to? Gan Eden or Gehinom? Which one's more difficult? I think Gehinom is more difficult.

1:21:32Gehenom is more difficult. Okay, so we got both answers, okay? So you, but also, because of that, says what's more difficult to get to? Gehenom is more difficult to get to. Why is it more difficult? Why is Gehenom more difficult to get to? I talk about Gehenom almost every shiur lately. But now I'm gonna give you something good. Now I give you something you could sleep with. You're not gonna have to lose sleep tonight. Why? Why is Gehenom more difficult to get to? The Shach says... You think it's more difficult to go to Gan Eden? He says, no. He goes, look at the road to Gehenom. The road to Gehenom is full of lies, cheating, fighting, nightmares, arguing with everybody. All day you're yelling at people. All day you're embarrassing people. All day you're stealing. It's tough to steal. It's tough to cheat. You're going to get caught or be in jail, out of jail. The road to Gehenom is a miserable life. Who wants such a life? God Ending on the other hand. What are you gonna do? Gonna be honest with people, love people, gotta appreciate them. Don't have any ego. Connect to Hashem all day. How much easier it is. People...

1:22:59At 15 years old, we learn Gemara, but sometimes people learn Gemara and they get more confused. So it's important to know you have to pick the right teacher. You're not allowed to learn from reshaim. You're not allowed to learn from people that are wicked themselves. I'm not saying that you're going to find Moshe Rabbeinu in every kehillah, but the guy cannot be Haman. has to at least try to be a little mini-Moshe, a little decent human being. But if you know that he doesn't believe a single word that he's saying, he doesn't live a single word that he's saying, you can't learn from such a person. If he's going to start talking to you about halachot of beit knesset, but he's the biggest talker in beit knesset, you're wasting your time. You're wasting your time learning from him. It's actually a sin to learn from such a person. So First and foremost, you have to pick the right teacher. Second of all, always use a Gemara that has as much commentary as possible. Today, Baruch Hashem, Hashem had mercy on us, and He gave us ArtScroll. ArtScroll, in my opinion, is a prerequisite to learning Gemara for 99% of people today, including people that go to yeshiva.

1:24:16The reason why is because most people, if they're not beki'im in how to learn Gemara, they don't, if they're not already sharp and know what they're doing and know how to learn, haven't actually learned for a long time. They will, more times than not, arrive at the wrong pshat. The pshat is the basic level meaning of what it says. Now, if you learned Gemara without knowing what it's actually saying and The problem is that you will arrive at the wrong pshat, which means that everything you'll build on top of that pshat is always going to be wrong. And if it's right, it's only accidentally right. It's right for the wrong reasons. So it's like, for example, if you have the first level of a cake, let's say you want to have one of these five-foot cakes for a wedding. But if the first level of the cake, the first layer of the cake has mold in it, doesn't matter that the rest of the cake is the most natural, beautiful fruit and vegetables, and whatever else you want to add to this fancy-schmancy cake of yours. It doesn't make a difference; the foundation is rotten. It has mold in it. So our school allows you to arrive at the correct pshat more times than not, unless you just don't know how to read either, and

1:25:34That's a different issue. But the point is, at least you're going to arrive at the correct basic meaning more times than not, and then you can build whatever you want on top of it as far as chiddushim and so on. Now, most people want to study; they want to fast-forward things, they want to speed things up. They want to finish the whole Shas, and they want to sleep at the same time. If you want to finish the Shas, you have to give up sleep. If you want to be a talmid chacham, you have to give up your physical desires of the world. You can't. I want to finish the Shas, and I want to sleep. I want to finish the Shas, and I want to have everything wonderful. The two don't go together. I believe it's page 62b. It says someone that wants Torah has to get used to mesirat nefesh. What's mesirat nefesh? Mesirat nefesh is self-sacrifice. And we'll reach it in Pirkei Avot, chapter 6, probably about two months from now. Two or three months from now, we will reach what are the 48 different things that are required to earn Torah. But here we see that even if you have the right teacher and you have the right student, they both need siyata dishmaya to find each other. They both need special assistance from Heaven to find each other.

1:27:01Sometimes you have great teachers and terrible students, or great students and terrible teachers. For this, my friends, we have to pray—a lot. Pray a lot for good teachers. Pray a lot that your kids will be good students. The same Gemara that talks about what is the Talmid, what is this Talmud, is Gemara Bava Metzia, page 33a. The same page has a lot of really interesting things. So first, actually, it says, who is your rabbi? This is a Gemara that we've actually gone over in the past, but we'll go over it slightly.

1:28:06So there's an argument in the Mishnah by three chachamim: Rabbi Meir Baal HaNes, Rabbi Yehuda, and Rabbi Yossi. And it says, who's the rabbi? How do you determine who your rabbi is? So Rabbi Meir says, the person who taught him wisdom. So Rashi says over here, what's wisdom? Wisdom is Gemara. Wisdom is Gemara. And the Gemara says, the one that taught him the Gemara, the Talmud, and not the one that taught him the Chumash or the Mishnah. Why? Because the one that taught him Gemara is teaching him the highest level of Torah. The highest level of Torah requires the most amount of work, the most amount of sophistication, and so on and so forth. Rabbi Yehuda says, no, you're wrong, Rabbi Meir. Rabbi Yehuda says, no, that's not his rabbi.

1:29:06So who's the rabbi then? Who's the rabbi? Rabbi Yehuda says, no, it's the one that taught him the most amount of information. Let's say he has all of the information that he has; let's call it ten out of the ten. Let's say he had three rabbis that taught him this total amount of ten. Who taught him the most out of the ten? One rabbi, you know, taught him five, and Another one taught him three, and the last one taught him two. So who is the rabbi? The one that taught him five, because he taught him the most, the majority of his knowledge. Now, Baruch She'amar says, no, you're both wrong. And I have a source. Now, Baruch She'amar says, you're both wrong, and I have a source. Who is this rabbi? Anyone that teaches him even a single mishnah. What's my source? David HaMelech. David HaMelech called Doeg HaAdomi and Achitofel his enemies "Kvod HaRav." Why? They taught him one thing. Enemies. Doesn't make a difference. Enemy, no enemy, shme enemy, doesn't make a difference. He taught me something in Torah. Kvod HaRav. From here we learn that "rabbi" means teacher.

1:30:33Anyone that teaches Torah is a rabbi. Now, of course, there are some rabbis that have semicha, that have a smicha. Some rabbis don't have a semicha. Some rabbis have a semicha because they need it. Some rabbis have a semicha because somebody told them to get it. If you can have a semicha because you need it to do chuppah and kiddushin, or you need to check the bedikah cloth of the woman that doesn't know if the ketem, if the mark is a makes up to mail or not or you need to do Brit Milah or you need to be a shochet a slaughterer or you need to be a dayan and so on and so forth. You need a semicha for all these things, but if you're gonna be a rabbi that's gonna give shiurim, you don't necessarily need to have it. Some people that are teachers have semicha, some people don't have it. But when people ask you if you have semicha, you have semicha, most of the time anyone that asks you if you have semicha, they don't know what semicha actually means. There is no semicha specifically meant for teaching. In fact, the whole semicha concept is something that was lost in the world for a couple of thousand years. It only started in recent generations. It's not like something that has been around since forever. It stopped for a long time because of what happened when the Goyim made a decree that anyone who gives semicha gets the death penalty, and so on and so forth.

1:31:59Am Yisrael stopped doing it for almost 2,000 years, or 1,500 years, and only started recently. Why? To make the profession of being a rabbi more organized, so not every joker calls themselves a rabbi, and people respect the rabbi. Part of it works, and part of it goes against actual logic. But if someone is a real rabbi, if someone is a real teacher, what does it actually mean? This is actually part of the same Gemara, same page, and... that most people don't want to teach. And the reason why is because it conflicts with the mind of the goyim, it conflicts with the mind of a secular person, which is not too different from the goyim, and it conflicts with logic, like human logic that's absent of Torah. And it says the following, it's Mishnah. a person finds his lost item and his father's lost item, meaning he lost something but he found it. He saw that both his father and he had lost a wallet; each one of them lost a wallet. And he finds them both. The Mishnah says tending to his own lost item takes precedence over his father's item.

1:33:23Finding his own lost item is more important than finding his father's. Even though there's kibbud av va'em, you're supposed to honor your parents, according to the Gemara, he has to protect himself first. But what about if there's a lost item, and one of the lost items is his father's, and one of the lost items is his rabbi's? more so, what if there are two prisoners, one is his father and one is his rabbi? Who does he free? Why, you can say there is a 50-50 chance. Oh, you said. You already know the shiur then. You're not allowed. You're excluded from the shiur. His father brought him into this world. Oh, so you know the shiur also. All of you watched it. Okay, very good. All of you want to know this Gemara. So what it actually says is that he has to save his father, his rabbi first. Why? Because his father brought him to this world, but his rabbi brought him to the next world. But what about if his father is a Talmid Chacham?

1:34:34If his father is a Talmid Chacham, then he saves his father. So what do we learn from this? What is the deeper detail that maybe we thought, maybe we have to cover it again? What's the point here? What do we learn here, really? We learn here, really, that if the father is not a Talmid Chacham, he's not worth the same value, the same price as what Hashem meant when He says, honor your father and your mother. Because when Hashem wrote the Ten Commandments, and He said, honor your father and your mother, He assumed your father and your mother are going to be Bnei Torah, Bat Torah, Kodesh Kodashim, not secular people that go to the beach on Shabbat. That's the problem that a lot of people don't like to face. Why? Because many people have a wonderful father and a wonderful mother that are not exactly tzaddikim. So what do you do? What you do, Rabotai, is you make them watch this shiur. You make them watch other shiurim so they become tzaddikim, at least start keeping mitzvot, at least start keeping something. You're not doing them a service by just saying, "I love you," and not helping them do teshuva. The reality is that a person who learns Torah starts getting benefits in this world. It's not just the next world.

1:36:02But if the father is not keeping Torah and mitzvot, he has a serious, serious problem. And the reason why is because much of the advice that he's going to give his son or his daughter is going to be against the Torah. I have one situation where a father told his daughter that she should wear less clothes. And the poor little daughter asked me, do I have to honor my father and become immodest because he says that I should wear less clothes? Because I don't look like I come from his family. He says I'm disrespecting him by wearing long dresses. Poor little 16, 17-year-old angel. She says my father told me to wear less clothes. Now, my brothers started yelling at her, "Why are you making Abba so upset?" Sick people in their minds. I told her it's a sin to listen to your father. Not allowed to listen to your father. Yeah, he's not considered av and he's not considered em. When he tells you to go against the Torah, he's considered neither. He's considered a rasha. So he's considered. You don't have to listen to reshaim. Now, as hard as it is for us to admit, the reality is this is the reality. This is what the Torah says. Now,

1:37:33All of these things are part of our holy Torah. As Hashem says to the prophet Jeremiah, He says, "They left Me and My Torah; they didn't observe." We went over this a couple of weeks ago, and I told you that Hashem says that when a person Against us Torah. He makes two sins: one is he abandoned Hashem, and two, he doesn't follow the Torah. But Hashem mentioned it to the prophet Jeremiah twice. He says they left Me and they left My Torah. Why is Hashem mentioning both of them? It's obvious if they're not following You, obviously they're not following the Torah. If they're not following the Torah, obviously they're not following You. He says... Although they leave Me and keep My Torah, the reality is it's not possible. But if it was possible, let them at least keep Torah, because at least the Torah is going to bring them back to Me. Why? Because the Torah is going to give them a good life. If they follow the Torah, at least they can have a good life, and they have to say there's no way I'm going to have such a good life and not say thank you. Now, what kind of thank you does somebody say when they live the life of Torah? Now, for anyone that has any kids and

1:38:53or remembers themselves as a child, what did you do when you were eight years old? Other than pick your nose. What did you think about? What goes through an eight-year-old's mind? Be'emet. What goes through an eight-year-old's mind? I just wanted to play sports. You wanted to play sports. Okay, no. Being honest, it's very good. No, no, no. More. More. he's the only one who wanted to play sports. The rest of you guys wanted to be Tzaddikim? There's no embarrassment here. You're eight years old. You wanted to be like your father. Okay, no. Okay. Here's the letter. You guys can pass it around. Anyone knows how to read Hebrew. Well, let me tell you what an eight-year-old girl by the name of Michal. May she live many, many years and teach B'not Yisrael everything she knows today. She's eight years old. Her uncle, who's nine years old, had a birthday. So she went into a store with a shekel. One shekel, it's like 30 cents in America. And she brought a card that said Mazal Tov. But to give a card that says Mazal Tov, you have to write something. Now Abba and Ima are busy. So she went into the room, unassisted. No one helped her. No one told her what to write. The parents only found out after the fact. And this is what she wrote.

1:40:21And she bought a card that said Mazal Tov. But to give a card that says Mazal Tov, you have to write something. Now Abba and Ima are busy. So she went into the room, unassisted. No one helped her. No one told her what to write. The parents only found out after the fact. And this is what she wrote. I'm going to read it in English to translate to you guys for the sake of time. And it's word for word. To Yosef, the boy's name: Mazal Tov and happy birthday. I hope that all of the blessings will come upon your head and may you merit to bring the Mashiach, and in your merit, may the Beit HaMikdash be built, and may you find and marry a good kallah. That's a tzaddeket. May you become a great rabbi who will teach and learn with the masses, with the public at large. Amen and mazal tov. This is an eight-year-old girl. What does an eight-year-old public school kid think? I want to be LeBron James. I want to be a Transformer. I want to be a Power Ranger.

1:41:49I want to be a rock. I want to be a raccoon. What does an eight-year-old kid going to public school say and think? Does he think? Let's just analyze this, Rabotai. Let's analyze this letter. This is not just something simple for an eight-year-old to say such things. Think about what's being said here. First and foremost, acknowledge the fact that she doesn't say, "Love, Michal." She says, "Mazal tov." Already showing that the teaching of the parents about modesty began when she was already a little girl. Why? Because today every little kid says, "I love you" to every stranger. "I love you. I love you. I love you." You need to teach your kids: You can't say "I love you" to everyone. It's not cute to say "I love you" to boys. It's not cute to say "I love you" to strangers. There's nothing cute about it. Why? Because if you say it at 6, 7, 8, and 9 years old, you're going to also say it at 18, 19, and 20 years old. The second thing is, look at what is in the mind of an 8-year-old religious Jewish girl. What's the priority in her life? She's wishing him well. She says, Mazal Tov, happy birthday.

1:43:11I hope that all of the blessings will come upon your head. Meaning, she knows where? From the Torah. She knows there are many blessings in the Torah, all of them for you. What kid thinks like this? That goes to public school? What kid thinks like this? That doesn't have Torah emet in their house? I hope you bring Mashiach. What kid cares about Mashiach? People think the Transformers are Mashiach. People think that the Power Rangers and the superheroes are Mashiach. Abba, can you take me to see Spider-Man 19? He hasn't aged a day. The guy's been around for a hundred years. He's still a kid, 18 years old, delivering newspapers and climbing walls at the same time. Can you teach me to be Spider-Man? What kid cares about Mashiach? But she says, "May you have the merit to bring Mashiach." Meaning she understands already at eight years old what a merit is, and what a merit is to bring Mashiach. When did we, as grown-ups, think, "May we have the merit to bring Mashiach?"

1:44:25May, in your merit, the Beit HaMikdash be built. Meaning she realized these are two different events. This is not some illusionary kid imagining things. It's not a fairy tale. May the Beit HaMikdash be built in your merit. And then she says something extraordinary that a grown-up doesn't even think about. May you find and marry a good kallah who is a tzaddeket. Say a beautiful one shouldn't see a sexy one. She doesn't say long blonde hair and blue eyes that look like she just came out of Sweden. She doesn't say anything like that. She doesn't describe a single physical trait. What does she say? A good and righteous one. Why? Because already at eight years old, she understands that that's all that matters and That's all that matters. All of these people that are looking for shidduchim, they're looking for Melech HaYofi and Malkat HaYofi, the king and queen of beauty, and they're not married still at 45 years old, it's your fault. It's not their fault. You're 40 years old, you wanted a few shidduchim, you're still not married, it's your fault. It's not anybody else's fault. Don't blame God. God sent it to you, you said no thank you. Why? You watched too much garbage on the internet and you wanted your wife to look like the girl on the internet.

1:45:52That's the problem. You wanted the girl to look like the one on the internet and in the movies. Because you wanted to go to the movies. You wanted to see the girl in the movies. You wanted to see Wonder Woman. And then you wanted to marry Wonder Woman. And then when Wonder Woman didn't even look at you, you said, okay, let me marry Wonder Woman too. But you can't find her. Because Wonder Woman is not a religious Jew. So you're alone at 45 years old. But the eight-year-old knows that all you need is a good kallah. That's tzedakah. Why? Because in Torah we learn that ahavah, love, is something you develop over time. Love is not something that exists at the time of marriage. There's something that looks like love at the time of marriage, but it's not love. Love is only something you develop and build over time. Beginning, the vast majority of the feelings that you have is lust. Even if you want to call it love as much as until you're blue in the face. And then she says, okay, what kind of man do I want him to be? A big man, an architect of some kind, an engineer, maybe Donald Trump, a president, maybe a football player. What is she saying? May you become a big rabbi and...

1:47:21But not just a big rabbi, because maybe she wants a big rabbi because a rabbi is big fame. No, no, no. May you be a big rabbi that will learn Torah and teach Torah to the rabim. What does it mean to the rabim, to the public? Go do kiruv. May you teach the public at large. Why? Because in her house, her parents teach her the number one mitzvah in our generation, and in every generation before or after us: Go do kiruv. That's what the eight-year-old wants. That's what the eight-year-old is teaching us today. And that's why Rabotai, Chachamenu Zichronam Livracha teach us that the Mashiach is only going to come because of the merit of the children, not the merit of the adults. Because the kid, when the kid makes a prayer, And she says that everything was made from You, You know from You. She actually has kavanah when she says it. When she says, "I wish that the Mashiach will come because of You," she really means it. When she says, "I want you to become a kiruv rabbi," she says, "I really wish you became a kiruv rabbi."

1:48:42Even when we say "thank you" to Hashem, we don't always 100% mean it, because we're too busy thinking about the next request. There's a lot to learn from this little girl. The little girl is Rabbi Efraim's daughter. And this shiur that we did together today, we posted this letter with both sides of it. As the thumbnail for the actual shiur in Hebrew. But for anyone that wants a copy of this letter, to me, this is as good as a Sefer Torah. Why? This is to teach you the purity of a kid. Until we ruin them. Meaning the kid naturally thinks like this. This is what the kid thinks like. There's no sinat chinam in kids. Kids don't care if you're black or white or green or yellow or you're from Litvish or you're this way. No kid in the world thinks like that. No kid has any sinat chinam. No kid in the world thinks evil. No kid in the world wants to do evil. What does the kid want to do? The kid wants to do what Abba does. The kid wants to do what Ima does. If they see Ima and Abba acting like criminals, they want to be criminals. If they see Ima and Abba

1:50:03acting like tzaddikim, they want to be tzaddikim. Simple. If you see, the Gemara says, if you see a kid cursing, if you see a child cursing, you should know, it's either his mother or his father cursing. The kid doesn't curse by himself. Even if he heard other people do it. They only allow themselves to do it also after they heard Abba and Ima do it. Even if it's only one time. When someone calls the house and the kid answers the phone and Abba says, "I'm not home. Tell them I'm not home." All the Abba did is teach the kid that it's okay to lie. One time a person wanted to act like a hero in Beit Knesset, and when he saw his son talking in Beit Knesset, instead of telling him to be quiet, he just gave him a nice chapchah to the face.

1:51:04nice slap to the face. The kid was quiet for sure after that, but the rabbi wasn't. I believe it was the Chafetz Chaim who came up to him and said, "All you did is teach your son that it's okay to hate people. You didn't teach him not to talk in Beit Knesset. All you taught him is that it's okay to be violent. There's a time and a place to discipline your kids and there's a way to discipline. But to hurt your kid in public because of something like speaking out in the Beit Knesset, obviously it's not the right way. Obviously, you're teaching your kid the wrong thing. But how many rabbis will actually have the zealousness of the Chafetz Chaim, the zealousness of the Chatam Sofer, the zealousness of the he came from the previous generation to go tell somebody, "Don't hit your kid." One time, a poor woman from Brooklyn contacted me. She said her husband uses her like a punching bag. Every time he's upset, he decides to take out all of his anger on her, and he literally punches her like a punching bag.

1:52:31I said, divorce him. Not that we're advocates of divorce, but divorce the guy. A person like that is a criminal. Not that you count them in Minyan, you have to put them in cherem. She said, I can't, I have eight kids with him. I said, okay, you have eight kids with him, so at least why don't you go to the rabbi? She says, I did. I said, so what happened? The rabbi told him that I came to him, so he hit me even more. Why would he hit you more after the rabbi told him? Did the rabbi rebuke him? He says no, the rabbi told him, "Your wife is saying lashon hara about you." Do you understand what kind of evil exists in the world? You can't just assume, "Oh, rabbi, rabbi, shma-rabbi, shma-rabbi." You can't assume anything, rabotai. You can't assume anything, anything.

1:53:33The Gemara Masechet Sukkah, page 56b, says that a child curses. You see a child curses? It's because his parents are cursing. So here we see that already at the time that we learned Gemara, we can't be the same selves that we started. You can't be the same person that started. You have to already have the ability to think, the ability to delve into things, to Start figuring things out. Once you get to ben shemona esrei, 18 years old, the Mishnah says an 18-year-old goes to a marriage canopy, goes to the chuppah. Why? Rabbi Akiva Eiger says that a person, a man, should get married at the beginning of his 18th year. Meaning that all of these 20, 25, 30, and 40-year-old guys that are out there still looking for "the one" are obviously making a serious mistake. The problem with getting married too late is that, first and foremost, you allow yourself to make more sins, either by yourself or with other people. Either way, you're committing murder in the millions every single day by wasting seed.

1:54:56You're making your teshuvah more and more difficult to make. Sometimes, a person, by the time he's 30 years old, has committed the sins of a 500-year-old. He finally gets married to "the one and only," only to divorce her a year later because she found out that he's already used baggage. He's already been around, and nothing's ever good enough for him anymore. Guys think that they're doing themselves a service, but the reality is that if you look at our parents, you look at our grandparents, they didn't get married at 40. They didn't get married at 30. They got married at 18. They got married even sometimes much earlier. I know my grandparents, I think they got married also like 17, 18, even earlier possibly. I know some grandparents in the Middle East got married at 13 years old. As soon as the guy's a man, he got married. Why wait?

1:55:59All of these kids are like, "No, no, I want to get married, but I have to have more money." You don't need money to get married. All you need is a rabbi and a couple of witnesses. That's all you need. The money is because you want to be a show-off. That's all it is. The money is only because you want to show off; you want to spend $50,000 or more to feed other people for one night who are going to complain about everything anyway. The food's not good, the music's not good, the rabbi's not good, the groom is not good, the wife is not good, something's not good. No one's ever happy about anybody's wedding. And then most people that go to the wedding, they don't go to fulfill the mitzvah of making the kallah or the chatan happy. There's a mitzvah to make them happy. Why do they go to the wedding? People go to the wedding for three different reasons. One, they're bored. They want to go out. I haven't gone out in months. I want to go out, honey. I want to go out. Oh, you know what, honey? I'll take you out. Where are you taking me? I will go to a wedding. Or, you know, I'm really hungry. Ah, you know what, honey, let's go for a meal. I'll take you out for a meal. They want to go, they're hungry. They want to go eat. That's why they want to go out. What mitzvah is this? Not a mitzvah. There's no mitzvah of going to a wedding because you want to eat. There's no mitzvah of going to a wedding because you want to go out. It's not a mitzvah. The mitzvah is to make the kallah and the chatan happy. How many people actually succeed in this?

1:57:28But the kallah and the chatan, they're both suckers. Why? Because they feed all these strangers. They feed all these people, these strangers that are stealing flowers and silverware. Everybody comes there with empty pockets, but somehow everybody's pockets are ballooned, and everybody has a dozen roses when they leave. Who told you to take the roses and Who told you to take the roses? Who told you to take the silverware or the plates? The only thing they didn't take is the table, but because it's too heavy. It's too heavy. They didn't take it. It was better off they didn't come. They just made sins. They were criminals before, and now they're thieves too. So you want to make money. You want to get married when you have a lot of money because you want to show off. You want to show off with the wedding that no one's going to appreciate anyway. And some of these fools borrow money they don't even have a way to pay back, just to have a fancy-schmancy wedding and a divorce a year later or two years later. Do yourself a favor. Have as simple a wedding as you possibly can. Respectable. You can have a cake. You can have a rabbi. You can have a little music. You don't have to have a whole band.

1:58:54Have a CD player. Have some speakers. Trust me, it's the same thing. Have Kedusha. Most importantly, have a Mechitza. Men and women don't dance together. Why? Because then Hashem doesn't come to that kind of wedding. A wedding where there's men and women dancing together, Hashem doesn't come to that wedding. The Sefer Chassidim says, not only does Hashem not come to a wedding that has mixed dancing, Shedim come to the wedding. Each couple leaves with Shedim, or they take Shedim with them. Because Shedim have to go somewhere. They came to the wedding, the sins were created, Gilui Arayot; people mix dancing, it's considered Gilui Arayot. So there are Shedim being created. Where are they going to go after? Are they going to go to the movies? No, they have to go somewhere. Where do they go? They go with them to the house. All of a sudden, the husband and the wife get into a fight. "Oh, honey, how come you're mad at me? Oh, honey, how come you don't like me? Oh, honey, how come you want a divorce? Oh, honey, how come this and how come that?" Oh, there's a shed (demon). There's a shed over here. You just don't see him. He's influencing her, he's influencing him. All of a sudden, they went to a wedding just to get divorced. And who's at fault? The chatan and kallah.

2:00:14Instead of getting a gift, the Gemara says, a gift of all gifts, that on the day of the chuppah, Hashem forgives all of their sins. Instead of forgiving all of their sins and they start like little babies, regardless of what they did before, now they have millions and millions of sins that every single person actually made in there. Every single couple that danced together, every single couple that saw, every single guy that saw the dancing and so on, every one of those sins also goes to the chatan and kallah. Good luck in your marriage. Good luck. That's a good way to start. Nice left foot. Real big one. People have no idea what kind of torture they put themselves in. You didn't do it to me. You didn't do it to you. You did it. You did it. You're supposed to get married. How come? When I say not welcome 18, he says because after 18, it becomes more difficult. It becomes more difficult because the person starts making sins. A person starts going in a different direction in his life. In today's world, you tell somebody that's 18 years old to get married, like, "What, are you crazy? I just graduated high school." The point is, Rabotai...

2:01:41Get married as early as you can. Already a few couples, they were very young, listen to me on this, they were both, a few of them, were young, in their early 20s, one, I think, was maybe 19, another one was 21, another one was 22, 23. A few different couples, Baruch Hashem, we had the merit to give them the right advice, they listened to it, and Baruch Hashem, today, every single one of them is happy with kids. Not just kids. Kids, anybody can have kids. But happy with kids. One actually just sent me a picture two days ago; they had their first daughter. So, being single is never something you should do by choice. You should never ever delay marriage. If you have an opportunity, you found somebody that's good, you found somebody that you're attracted to, you found somebody that you're connected to,

2:02:42Don't delay it even by a day. As soon as possible. Don't be one of these people that say, "Oh yeah, we're going to be engaged for the next two years until she finishes school, until he finishes school, then we'll get married." The reality is that once a person allows such a big door of Yetzer Hara in, most likely they'll never get married. And even if they do, it's going to become very, very difficult. Another reason is that the Gemara says why a person should get married at 18 is because you shouldn't get married before 18. Why not before 18? Because before 18 he's supposed to acquire as much Torah as possible, not because he can't handle it—he can handle it before 18. There's no problem. Once he's married, he's not able to learn as much, showing you exactly where the priorities are. From Israel, yes, you're obligated to get married, but you're obligated to know what it means to be married. You know, marriage, as Rav Yisroel Salanter used to say, is a beautiful thing. It's too bad it was given to children.

2:04:00Everyone knows to go to the rabbi to get married. Everyone knows to go to the court to get married. But how many people know how to be married? How many people know how to give compliments to their wife? How to be generous with the compliments, how to be supportive even though it doesn't make sense? How to be supportive of the husband even though he just got fired? How to tell him he's a winner even though you know he's a loser and... Even when you know he's a loser, he just lost the job, he lost the money, he lost this, he lost that, he made every mistake known to man, but you still call him a winner. How many people know how to do this? Most women are the first ones to tell him, "What are you going to do now? Now we don't have any money, you loser. Look what I married. Look what luck I have, I married you." She tells the kids about their marriage like she's telling them about her own funeral. "Yeah, I married your father in 1969. Yeah, what can I do? What can I do?" Like it's a sacrifice. Why? They don't know how to be married. A marriage is supposed to be the happiest thing in your life. If you're not happy, there's something wrong. I'm not saying it's supposed to be easy. Easy, it's definitely not.

2:05:26but happy it's supposed to be. You're only going to know how to be married if you have Torah in your life. Because if you have Torah in your life, that means you're going to follow what Torah says. Torah says you have to fix your middot. The number one reason why divorces happen is what? No, name it. What, did you watch the show already? You said it also? I didn't hear that one. Ego. Ego. It's not money. It's not for intimacy. It's not for all the things that people naturally think. It's because of ego. He said something she didn't like, and he doesn't want to say "I'm sorry." Why? His ego is too big to say "I'm sorry." She said something he didn't like, and she doesn't want to say "I'm sorry." Why? He should say "I'm sorry" first. Why? He's the man. He should do this. He should do that.

2:06:26constant, constant, constant problems based on ego. Once you're a ben Torah, you know that in order to acquire Torah, you have to lose your ego. As long as you have your ego, you can never be a ben Torah. The Gemara says that a person that has a big ego, his Torah is not from Shamayim; it's from something else. It's not from heaven. It's a different Torah. It's the Bible. Not the Torah. Here's something else. Not Torah at Hashem. Ben Esrim, Ben Esrim lirdof. A 20-year-old must pursue. A 20-year-old begins to pursue. One of the commentaries says, yeah, pursue what? Pursue money. He's married now, already two years. He studied another couple of years with his wife, but now he's going to make a living. He's going to have kids. That's one commentary. But Rashi says no. Rashi says no, it's not money. Rashi says something very, very scary that most Jews don't know. You guys know because you've heard me say it before, but I'll remind you. Rashi says that at 20 years old, he begins the pursuit.

2:07:54begins the pursuit. What pursuit? They start pursuing him from heaven to start punishing him for all of the sins that he made before 20 years old. Because the Torah says we don't punish in this world until 20 years old. So, a lot of people just understood this Gemara and said, "Oh, so I can do whatever I want, free willy, anything I want, until 20 years old." No, no, no, my friend. It doesn't mean you can do whatever you want until 20 years old. It just means you don't get punished in this world until 20 years old. But as far as the sins, specifically immorality, meaning wasting seed and the likes, you get punished for even if you were 8 years old. The Zohar HaKadosh says wasting seed is the only sin in the Torah, regardless of age. A person gets punished for it, and the punishment starts at 20 years old. Where is it derived from? The Book of Numbers, chapter 14, verse 29.

2:09:02When the spies came back and said Lashon Hara about the land of Israel, Hashem Yitbarach only punished those that were over 20 years old. So from there, we know that punishment only starts at 20 years old. But then someone is going to tell you at some point, "Yeah, yeah, all this punishment is punishment. All this stuff, yeah, but it says in the Gemara, Masechet Rosh Hashanah, that Gehinom is only 12 months." You know it was only 12 months, so okay, so I'll have some fun for seven years and I'll get a little fire for 12 months—a little too much fire, but seven years of enjoyment. It's kind of worth it, no? First of all, you should read what the Ramban said at the beginning of Sefer Iyov. He said that Seventy years of the life of Iyov, which was full of suffering, seven years of it is not even the equivalent of a single hour in Gehinnom. If you read the Sefer Iyov, within the first page you're in teshuvah, and on the second page you're in the middle of a nevuah. So you shouldn't really say, "Oh yeah, what a big deal, one year of punishment." You shouldn't say such foolish things.

2:10:26But now I'm going to give you an atomic bomb. An atomic bomb that I don't think has ever been said in the English language until today. And the reason why is because, in the English language, people run away from this truth. They run away from it so much, even though it's their own rabbis that said it. Because we don't like to listen to our rabbis. So in the Zohar, Parashat Pekudei, page 263, when it talks about the punishment for the Reshaim, being 12 months. The Ramak in Or HaYakar says we learned in Masechet Eduyot that Gehenom is 12 months. But what does it mean Gehenom is 12 months? Gehenom is 12 months is only the name of the place and not the time. It's a place called 12 months.

2:11:26But not it is 12 months. Not that the judgment is 12 months. The resha'im go to a place called "12 months." It's like saying they go to Gehenom. They go to Gan Eden. They go to Tahiti. They go to New York. It's a name of a place, not the length of a sentence that the Ramak says. Only fools think that resha'im get punished for only 12 months. Because why? Because then everyone would be resha'im. that, Rabotai, all of these so-called Hasidim that want to tell you, "No, no, no, it's only 12 months, 12 months, 12 months," they haven't listened to their own rabbis. They haven't listened to their own rabbis. The last thing, we'll finish here, Moshe Alshich. It says that at 20 years old, the word "pursue," lirdof, means that he has to pursue the Torah and mitzvot. Meaning, that even though he's obligated to fulfill the Torah and mitzvot already from the age of 13, he doesn't really know what it means. He's just doing it because somebody told him what to do.

2:12:55Somebody told him to learn, so he learned. Somebody told him to daven, so he davened. Somebody told him to say Birkat Hamazon, so he did Birkat Hamazon. He doesn't actually have usually such huge kavanah unless he's got a really good teacher and he himself has a very pure neshama. But at 20 years old, no more excuses. Now every prayer has to have kavanah. Now every time you have to know what you're doing. Why? Now each time you don't do it, you have a problem. So even though you got away with not having the biggest kavanah in the world for a while, the reality is that at this point you have all the tools necessary. You have the Chumash, you have the Mishnah, you have the Gemara. You're now fully equipped to pursue your godly path. You're now considered mature spiritually. And you have to start developing it, and you have to start pursuing the mitzvot like you pursue treasure. And when a person pursues the mitzvot like they pursue treasure, life becomes amazing. Life becomes amazing. And the reason why is because the person now is going to teach himself and also his wife and his kids and everyone around him Ratzon HaShem. And once a person learns Ratzon HaShem, once he learns the will of HaShem, his kids are going to learn it. And then one day, because of HaShem, at eight years old, they're going to say to him, Abba,

2:14:22I just wrote this card to our uncle. I want to give it to him. I want him to bring the Mashiach. I want him to find a kallah. I want him to build a better Mikdash. Not I want him to be a Power Ranger. Not I want him to have a brand new Lego set. Not I hope he gets cereal for breakfast next week from Cap'n Crunch. But I want him to bring Mashiach. I want him to be happy. And so on and so forth. Benefits of a family of Torah in this world are a type of heaven; the reward is just a bonus. That's why Antigonos Ish Socho told us at the beginning of the Mishnah: Serve Hashem as if there's no reward. Why? When you do it that way, when you serve Hashem as if there's no reward, you already start getting your reward here in this world. You have righteous daughters and righteous sons. You don't have to worry about drug problems. You don't have to worry about prostitution, immodesty, all the garbage of this world. You don't have to worry about it. What about the families that had kids that were addicted to drugs, addicted to this, addicted to that? Of course, there's an exception to every case. But it's not the norm. It's not the norm for someone that is seriously frum.

2:15:44teaches Yirat Shamayim to be addicted to anything. Why? He's too scared to be addicted to anything but Hashem. Usually, you'll see the drug addictions, the immodesty, and the off the derech type of mentality in a place where something went wrong with the education. Something went wrong with the parenting. Something went wrong somewhere. Why would a kid at 15 years old choose to go against his parents? Choose to go against God. Why? What benefit do they have? They don't even know what they want yet. At 15 years old, you don't know anything. You think you know everything, but in reality, you don't know anything. What showed him, where did he get this desire from? To want to wear jeans, to want to wear mini skirts, to want to be promiscuous. Why? Where did he get this idea? Usually, he got the idea from Abba and Ima or the teacher. The neighborhood or the cousin or somebody that came to the house on a regular basis? Something went wrong. A kid naturally is good. A kid naturally is pure. A kid naturally can be Meshichai. David HaMelech says, "Don't hurt." Hashem told me, "Don't hurt Meshichai or Nevi'ai. Don't hurt My messiahs or My prophets."

2:17:11So the Torah says, wait a minute. Don't hurt the Mashiach and the prophets. What are you talking about? The Mashiach is a prophet. No, the Gemara says. The Gemara says that actually when Hashem is talking about Meshichai, He's talking about the babies. He's talking about the little kids that are learning Torah simply because somebody told them to. That's it. Not because they know what it means and who and what and when. They don't know anything. Abba said learn Mishnah, they learn Mishnah. Abba says learn this, they learn this. Ima says learn this, they learn this. You teach your kids that way, you're going to have beautiful kids that are going to actually thank you for eternity. Thank you for eternity. But if not, Hashem y'rachem. Any questions?

2:18:13There is a trend among couples getting married in America. I don't know what happens in other places, but you can hear about people having a first dance. What does that mean? First dance, the bride and groom dance together in front of the public. I wish... The question is, what do I think, or better yet, what does the Torah think about this American custom of a first dance at a wedding when the bride and groom dance in public? What I think is irrelevant, because my thoughts are meaningless. What the Torah thinks is that it's better off that both the bride and groom died. before they started dancing. Same thing, that it's better off that the parents died instead of sending their kids to public school. Same thing. The Torah is very, very critical of going against Hashem in public with such things. So when you send your kid to public school, it's like sending him to the goyim, it's like sending him to the Christian missionary and saying, "Go, have your fun with them. Hey, Mr. Pope, go, here's my eight-year-old, good luck."

2:19:42to dance in public in front of other people, not only are they disobeying the Shulchan Aruch that says you're not allowed to show chibah to your wife in public, but they're actually doing an intimate action. Dancing is considered intimacy. Every single guy that's at that wedding is going to imagine them having relations. And now they actually are becoming, on their first day of marriage, violators of Giluy Arayot. Violators of Giluy Arayot and Machti HaRabim. They caused everybody to sin. Every one of these guys is going to sin because of the woman. Hashem, what's going to happen to her? Hashem, what's going to happen to her? They don't understand what's going to happen to her. She doesn't understand what kind of punishment she's going to get in Shamayim. She's going to regret the day she was born. But I wish that what you said is the worst thing. I wish. Unfortunately, there is such a low level of Yirat Shamayim in certain so-called Orthodox communities in the world today.

2:20:53that some of the things that you hear don't make sense. You have to hear. It's like one of those things like, say that again? You know that, you know, you see something and it's kind of weird, so you have that double look. You know, sometimes you hear something, it doesn't make any sense. Wait, wait. Can you say that again? Wait, are you sure? Did you make that up? Are you sure? I'm going to tell you something, Abutai, to just explain to you how far we are from the truth. It breaks my heart to tell you, but this has to be said. Just like I told you, there's a teacher or a former teacher who desecrated Hashem's name in public and destroyed the lives of 74 little girls. That's not just a one-time thing. It didn't come out of nowhere. If you look at the picture of this evil woman, she looks more religious than any Rebbetzin in the world. So how does something so disgusting happen? How does something so evil happen? How does it come from somebody that looks like that? That's because people have turned Judaism into a cult.

2:22:06They've turned Judaism into something that's based on exterior and not interior. On the exterior, we could look like Rabbi Akiva and Rachel and Sarah Imeinu and everyone in some places, but still be Haman inside, still be Korach, still be Izevel, still be Resha'im inside, still be a faker. And that's why in France today, it's still a very well-known common acceptable behavior for Orthodox women. I'm not talking about women who are considered frum by anybody else's standards. They walk around with kisui rosh. They walk around with a mitpachat or a sheitel. They walk around covered head to toe. We're not talking about people who are posul. We're not talking about people who worship avodah zarah. We're not even mentioning klal Yisrael. That's on their head. I'm not talking about that. I

2:23:06I'm talking about people who walk around Haredim. Haredim in the streets. Haredim in the schools. Haredim and modest at home. But they wear bikinis to the beach. Mixed with men. They go to the beach with the goyim. The Rebbetzin! The Rebbetzins! The Rebbetzins go to the beach wearing bikinis. With the kisui rosh on though, with the wig. One woman moved to Israel from France. And she wanted to go to the beach in Israel. She came now beneath the whole tzibbur. But then she wanted to become part of the community. No clothes. But the kisui rosh on. She had the wig on. A secular person saw it. "Disgusting. What? What? Me? What? What? What did I do? What? Disgusting. What are you doing? You're religious. You're this." She goes, "What? It's the beach. It's the beach. What's wrong? What?"

2:24:36He says, “What do you mean what's wrong? What do you mean what's wrong? You're religious. We're secular. We're here. It's the way we live. Why are you here?” She goes, “Why? This is what we do in France.” She honestly did not know what was wrong. Why? Because the outside looks good. Inside, rotten tomatoes, rotten potatoes. You know how smelly a rotten potato is? Unfortunately, rabotai, sometimes in the Orthodox world, we need to do more teshuva than the secular world. Don't think that just because somebody is Orthodox, Shmortodox, it means nothing. What's inside? What's inside? Is it gold? Or is it copper? Or just a coating of gold? Yes? It's different. It's different. It's not dancing. It's the man dancing.

2:25:57trying to show as if the woman, the kallah, became a part of the family, but the woman doesn't dance. It's just the man who dances. And that's an acceptable minhag in the chassidut world. The man is dancing. It's still, according to most outside of the Chassidut world, it is still not considered modest, still not considered something that's acceptable, because a woman should never be the center of attention. But their Rebbeim believe that it's okay, and it's, again, like you said, it's not the same thing. It's not the woman dancing, it's not the woman touching anyone, it's a very, very different minhag. I would never do it, or ever recommend it, but they have something to rely on, They have some big rabbis that say it's allowed where the head rabbi or the father, or so on, grabs the string, and it's a really long one, and so on. But again, a woman is not allowed to even be a witness in Judaism. Part of the reason is because we don't want her to be the center of attention. It's for the purpose of protecting her honor. Foolish women think that the Torah is sexist.

2:27:16That's because they don't realize that the Torah is trying to protect the honor of the woman because the woman is considered a princess. Any woman that wants to be like a guy doesn't realize that a princess doesn't want to be like a guy. A princess wants to be a princess. The daughter of Hashem wants to remain a daughter. She doesn't want to be the son. Anyone that wants to be the son has some problems in their head. Why would you not want to be the princess? It's the best job in the world. And that's the problem. Today we are trying to exchange roles. The women want to be men. The men want to be women. The kids want to be adults. The adults want to be kids. Nobody knows anything. Everything is upside down. That's why we have to stick to the Torah as close as possible because we're upside down. I'm telling you, when I hear these stories about literally religious people doing what they're doing, non-religious people doing what they're doing... It's awful. It breaks your heart. But then you read a beautiful letter like this from an eight-year-old. You say, you know what? That's why the Mashiach is going to come, because of the eight-year-olds. That's why he's going to come, because of the two-year-olds. Why? Because the rest of us, Hashem, hopefully we make it. Hopefully, we make it out of this neighborhood alive. Hopefully, we make it out of this world alive. Why? Because we're killing ourselves. It's not even Hashem sending us to Gehenom; it's we're building our own Gehenom with our stupidity.

2:28:41The guy wonders, why is his wife cheating on him? Oh, maybe because you let her go to the beach, and she ended up meeting the lifeguard, and she liked him. One woman in Israel, she was with the kisui rosh, with the kisui rosh, she's wearing a bikini, talking to the lifeguard. But the wind came and moved the kisui rosh, so she fixed it. Oh, I'm telling you, somebody said this story. It's not a joke. She’s fixing it so no one sees the hair. She has a kisui rosh, so you don’t see the hair. But the fact that she's completely naked, wearing a bra and panties, no, that's okay. Because it's called the bikini. Because it's the beach. Because that's what we do in France. Stupidity. It's like no one thinks anymore. Instead of a brain, everybody has a little mouse or a little gerbil on a wheel, and it keeps going until it gets tired. No one goes to sleep. No one thinks for a second. Why would you ever think you're allowed to go to a mixed beach? You're not even allowed to walk to a mixed beach, even with clothes on!

2:29:48Think who says things like this, but you know why they think this, because their rabbis are there with them. The rabbinate is there with them because she wants to be cool. She wants to be liked. She wants also a new house. So now, but it all starts from the top. The fish smells from the top. Rotten fish starts smelling from the top, from the head, and we have, unfortunately, a lot of bad leaders and a lot of good leaders. We have to choose wisely. Yes? There is a funny story I think I've heard from you in a few other places about a couple that was expecting a child, and then they went to a rabbi, a very big rabbi, to learn how to raise them. And he told them they were too late. And on the same subject, there's a French author who says that the education of a child begins 20 years before they are born. It used to be a certain age to acquire all this wisdom before you even get a child. Now, the sages have said that by about 18 years old, someone should get married. And in our generation, there are

2:31:0920 years old, barely, you know, that's... 35-year-old, don't know anything. 35-year-old still playing video games. So, is it really... No, that's why I said in the beginning. That's why I said in the beginning. In today's world, we don't hold to all of this verbatim, meaning word for word. We try to keep as close to it as possible, but not word for word. And part of the reason is because, like you said, If a person lived in a secular world most of his life, this Mishnah is not relevant to him as far as the ages. It's only relevant to him as far as the path. The path is: learn Chumash, learn Mishnah, learn Gemara, get yourself married, build wisdom, and so on and so forth. That's the path. The ages are not relevant to him. It's just the path itself. If the person lived a serious Torah life, then they can keep by this. They can. I know that Rav Ovadia Yosef was in shock when he heard that certain yeshivot weren't going by this. He was very, very against it. He said you should go exactly like it says. So if you're living a life full of Torah and your kids grow up in your house from the day they're born, and you're already religious, you're already serious, you should try to keep to this as much as possible. Even if the school doesn't, you should teach them. Obviously, easier said than done, but that's the point. You have to invest time and effort into your kids and

2:32:33But as far as getting married, a male today is very different than the male of yesterday. Put it this way. When I was a kid, five years old, I would already be able to go to the store. My mom would send me to the store, to the deli, to go do grocery shopping. I was five years old. Go, get milk, get cookies, get eggs, get this, get that. Me, you know, carrying these bags that were bigger than me, but I walked a mile and a half, two miles. Maybe more, I don't know. It seemed like it was the whole world. And carrying these really heavy bags and coming home with the little bags. Now, to send our kids to the playground at five years old by themselves, you may get arrested, go to jail. So, abandoning your kids, the world is different. Why? There's also a lot more sick people today. You can't even, you can't trust anyone. Same thing also with adults. Kids today, if you don't teach them Torah, Torah, Torah, what are they going to learn? Something else. Video games, sports, shtuyot, girls, boys. A girl's 16 years old, she wants a boyfriend. The guy is 16 years old, he also wants a girlfriend. Everybody wants a boyfriend or girlfriend. The reality is, Rabotai, if you don't teach them Torah, what do you have left? You have garbage left.

2:34:03Sixteen-year-old wrote a suicide note 25 years ago. I love you. They read it the day after he died. It was in the paper in Israel. He says, what happened? The kid wrote a letter to his parents, who were very, very successful. The father worked non-stop, the mother worked non-stop, and the kid had everything he wanted. A house the size of a castle. Anything and everything he wanted. Rich kid. Killed himself. Why? He told his parents, "What's the point of life? So I have money? You already have it. I don't need to work. Get work? I don't need to work. There's a lot of money. What's the point? To eat? So I can go to the bathroom? Go to the bathroom so I can eat? What's the point? There's no point to life. I can't live anymore." He killed himself. When you don't have God, you don't have a purpose. When you don't have Torah, you don't have life. You don't have happiness. You don't have anything. It's very easy to kill yourself. Only people that kill themselves are people that don't have God. You're never going to see a huge tzaddik kill himself for no reason. Never. In the history of mankind. Never. A martyr maybe for Am Yisrael. Sure. It's not killing himself. That's sacrificing himself.

2:35:28Jumping off a bridge because he's sick, jumping off a bridge because his wife left him, jumping off a bridge because of the kids—this, you don't hear that. It doesn't happen. Why? He has Hashem; he has everything. So a person that lives with Torah has to do everything possible to stay as close to it as possible. So when he's a man, he has to get married. As soon as possible—there's no age. As soon as you find a woman that's willing to tolerate you, get married. 18, 19, 20, 25, 90—a man is not allowed to be by himself. Why? No, no, no—no good. No good, Hashem says, already in Sefer Bereishit, no good. Man, even if your wife, shelo na'aseh, you already lived a life, seventy years old already. Your wife passed before you. You have to get married again. Why? Not good for you to be by yourself. Not good to be by yourself. You need a companion. So a guy needs to find somebody that's willing to tolerate him, willing to help him, willing to be with him,

2:36:49and get married. No, the whole dating until, you know, for 900 years, you're ruining each other. Any couple that acts like they're married before they're married, with regards to intimacy, with regards to living, and so on, Rabbi Avigdor Miller says, don't even talk to them. I said, why? Shouldn't we help them do teshuva? He says, if they live together already before they're married, don't even talk to them, don't associate with them, don't be friends with them, nothing. And the talmidim say, why kevod harav? Aren't we obligated to do kiruv? He says, kiruv you're obligated to do. But kiruv is with people. People that live together without being married are animals. Why? He says because they're not even willing to comply with the civil law. Forget the Torah. Put the Torah aside for a second. You have to get married, bring kids, this, that. No, no. Put that aside just to be a civilized human being, a civilized person amongst society. It's unacceptable for people to live together without being married. If you're already living without being married, you're not people. You're animals.

2:38:11Unfortunately, today, sometimes you find this in the Orthodox world. Why? Because no one says anything. No one says anything. Yeah, but they really like each other and are eventually going to get married after he finishes school, after she finishes school. Every single second he touches her, it's a sin. She's niddah. Every single second, it's Issur Karet. By the time he finishes school, he has 60,000 Issur Karet. He's lucky if he makes it out alive that first year of marriage. That's why the Chachamim made a celebration at the age of 60. What's Issur Karet? Issur Karet, Rabotai, is when a person, Hashem decides, if He decides to punish him in this world, that means he's not going to live 60 years. Or his kids are not going to live 60 years, bar minan. So when you see a person already past the age of 60, that means that Hashem decided not to punish him for his karet sins in this world. He should celebrate. But if you see somebody dying at 25, 35, 45, that's because of issur karet. It's not a coincidence. It's not a mikreh. It's issur karet. He made a karet sin. A lot of these kids

2:39:36They date, they touch, they this, they that. They think it's fine. The parents think it's fine. They invite the girl for dinner for Shabbos. They invite the guy for dinner for Shabbos so he can sleep over. And everybody's boyfriend and girlfriend. And everyone pretends like they're not really intimate. And everyone pretends like it's all okay. And then everyone's surprised that they can't have kids. They get surprised that one of them dies. They get surprised that somebody gets cancer. People get surprised. But it's all in the Torah. It's all in the Torah. This is not Chas V'Shalom wishing people bad. This is protecting you from evil. The evil that's inside us. People that go against things that we're saying are just simply going against the Torah. Oh, so negative. Oh, so pessimistic. Why are you wishing bad? Who's wishing bad? I'm trying to warn you. There's a train coming straight at your face. No one else is telling you something, so I have to do it. If somebody else did it, I wouldn't be here. So that's the thing, you have to understand that the gift of Torah...

2:40:47Benefit in this world and Gan Eden is a plus, is a bonus, because in the world we live in today, it's very, very difficult – a very, very difficult world. It's very difficult to have decent kids that respect you past their teenage years, past even 10 years old. It's very difficult to have a marriage last past, no, 10 years, and... It's very difficult. Why? Everything is going against you. Torah is the only thing that's going to save us. So for all of these women that have made the sin of being intimate with men before they're married, for all the men that were intimate before they're married, for all the people that sinned against Hashem, any sin you did, right now, today, today is the time to start doing teshuva by starting to put a fence around the fence. First of all, if you're a woman, don't let anyone touch you other than your husband. Nothing. No shaking hands, no hugs, no nothing. Nothing. Yeah, but it's weird. It's better to be weird than to violate halacha. Two, don't give them a reason to stare at you by wearing immodest clothes. Immodesty doesn't only mean clothes that show your skin.

2:42:12Sometimes there are certain women who wear clothes that cover everything, but they are very, very tight. There is a so-called rabbanit that lives next to our house, maybe about a mile or two miles away from us. She's a so-called rabbanit. I had the kappara (atonement) of seeing her twice in my life. Both times, I suffered for at least a week. Why? She decided to cover herself. She covers. She covers everything. Covered. But she wears slinky clothes. Meaning it's like a second layer of skin, just a different color. So instead of her looking like a human being, she looks like a snake. She sounds like one too. But the point is, Rabotai, is that modesty doesn't only come just because you cover your skin. Modesty is also that the clothes are loose-fitting, it covers, and most importantly, your behavior. Your behavior. You're not flirtatious. You're not trying to hint. There's no winking. There's no eyeing. There's no over-laughing. There's no screaming. There's no yelling. Calm. Reserved.

2:43:26collected. Like this little eight-year-old. This is an eight-year-old. And don't waste your time having guy friends. You're not allowed to have platonic relationships. It's never allowed. People make a big deal, oh, I'm now Shomer Negiah. What do you want, a cookie? Somebody says, "Oh, I'm not driving on Shabbat anymore." Good for you. You don't want Hashem to kill you. Good for you. What do you want me to do exactly? You know, it's good for you. What do you want? You're supposed to do it. Yes, I say chazak u'baruch to every Baal Teshuvah and I love every Baal Teshuvah and it makes me excited. But don't make it seem like you did something special for God. You're supposed to do it. Supposed to be modest. You're supposed to. Why? Because you get a benefit. You could have a daughter that says, "I should be baruch. It's going to build the Beit HaMikdash, Mashiach is going to come." That's what you get. But if you walk around with slinky clothes, you walk around with no kisui rosh, you go to the beach, you go to the public school, you do all the other things. What are you getting out of it anyway? That's why the Alshich HaKadosh says it's much more difficult to go to Gehinom. Why? Because the road to Gehinom is full of mistakes. Aren't you going to notice along the way?

2:44:44Enough's enough. The first daughter doesn't want to listen to you anymore. Shouldn't you already do teshuva already? The second kid doesn't want to listen to you. Don't you realize you need to do teshuva? Your wife doesn't want to listen to you. Don't you think you should do teshuva? A person realizes if he's going in the right direction, the world listens to him. Why? The Gemara says it. The Gemara says, people listen to him. Someone doesn't have Yirat Shamayim, no one listens to him. So b'ezrat Hashem, this shiur will give us a little bit of chizuk, a little bit of chizuk to get us through the day, through the week, inspired through the year, to have kids like this, that are kodesh kodashim, to teach them, to teach ourselves. It's not easy. But it's much, much easier than the opposite side. It's much easier than dealing with the consequences of the other side. Much easier. So, this gives us a lot of success. We continue to publicize a lot more Torah to Am Yisrael. Get Am Yisrael to do teshuva. Get Am Yisrael to realize there's no free ticket. There's no free ticket, but there is a lot of hope. There's a lot of expectation from Hashem. He loves us, but He wants to discipline us. He wants us to win. And the only way for us to win is by listening to Him.

2:46:11It's the only way. On Sunday, just so you know, just as an FYI, Sunday, b'ezrat Hashem, we'll have a shiur in Hollywood. I believe it's going to be in Hollywood. But then Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, no shiurim. I'm going to be away in New York, but you'll be able to watch things online. On Monday, there are two shiurim back-to-back. So, you want to watch Facebook Live? You'll be able to watch Facebook Live, or you can watch on the app or the website the next day, or YouTube the next day. Tuesday is also another event, but it's going to be a very short speech. I'm not sure if we'll be able to record it or if it's going to be live or not, but b'ezrat Hashem, we'll try our best. But other than that, baruch Hashem, at this point somewhere close to... five or six hundred shiurim online that I have of my own and then another, uh, 700 plus shiurim of Rabbi So, never ever run out of Torah. There's an enormous amount of Torah. Most of the shiurim we try really hard to make sure it's new, it's brand new. Even though sometimes we repeat the same stories, it's not common.

2:47:29And there's a lot of Torah, a lot of Torah for you guys to learn also during the holidays. The holidays this year, a lot of them fall on Monday and Tuesday, so a lot of our Tuesday shiurim, our main shiur, are going to skip a couple of weeks. I'm gonna try to see if we can reschedule it to Sunday, Monday, or Thursday. We also have some other shiurim planned in the community on Thursdays and Mondays, so of course, there's going to be a lot more updates to come. But either way, there's a big order of CDs coming very soon, B'ezrat Hashem, another 50,000 CDs of the next brand new CDs, B'ezrat Hashem. We just actually published Rabbi Ephraim's CD number two. That's the good news. The bad news is that 80% of it is already taken. 80% of it is already gone. So there's only a couple thousand left. ...um, which actually also got next. Now that I think about it, almost all of it is gone, and we have to print more. The app is going to have an update in the next week. We came out with a new film today about mikvah. This is for both men and women to understand, and we made sure that it has English subtitles. It's a very, very good film with a lot of chizuk. Actually, after I saw it, I wanted to go to the mikvah...

2:48:55And last but not least, there's another couple of films coming out in English. We're waiting for some copyright issues to go through, but there are a couple that are already ready. So a lot of really good things.