How To Build A Jewish Home

0:17Good to see some new faces, Baruch Hashem. If all the new faces kept showing up every week, we wouldn't have any room to sit, so you guys should just keep showing up. So, we're starting off a new week, and I was thinking about what to really talk about. But I'll talk about, I guess, something that is a common question. But before that, this shiur will be for a refuah shlemah for David ben Nisria, Doris bat Jorah, Levana bat Sarah, Rabbi Efraim ben Shulamit, Rabbi Nitzara bat Anat, So, I was thinking about what to talk about.

1:44And, you know, we talk about teshuva, Baruch Hashem, as regularly as possible. And really the point of every shiur is to do teshuva. But what happens once a person starts doing teshuva, and they want to build a Jewish home? How do you build a Jewish home? is really the big question. Where do you go? What do you do? You live in the middle of a non-Jewish area. And your next-door neighbor is a Catholic minister or something. And your other next-door neighbor is some voodoo priest. And the other guy is an atheist. And the fourth guy is a Reform Jew. He drives to shul 45 minutes every Shabbat. So what do you do? How do you build a Jewish home? Can you be Jewish by yourself in the middle of nowhere? I mean, you spend so much time and money in your house that you really don't want to leave. You know, you have the nice...

2:58know the window treatment and the backyard is just right. You know exactly the season when the grass grows and when it doesn't grow, and you know the deli is right down the street; the guy knows you by name. The tool shop is over there, and you know your job is over there. You know you only have a solid 15 minutes to your job driving every day. You don't want to leave all this stuff. Can you be a Jew by yourself? This is not only a question that Baalei Teshuva ask, but it's also a very, very common hurdle for converts, people that want to convert to Judaism. And the reason why is because anyone that wants to convert to Judaism must know rule number one: you cannot be a Jew by yourself. Especially in the beginning. If you're going to say, "Yeah, but there were some Jews in the past, you know, big sages that went to the middle of nowhere and started a community." Yes, once you become a big sage, you can do the same thing. But until then, you cannot be a Jew by yourself. You have to be part of a community. "Yeah, but you keep saying that all of these communities have problems." Yes, you have to join the problems. Join the problems and help fix them.

4:24Help fix the problem. Do not think that being by yourself is going to be better than being part of the problem. The problem is that all of the people that shouldn't be part of the community, want to move in. All the people that should be part of the community, don't want to move in. The key is you have to move in. You have to move to a Jewish community. But the key is, how do you do it? Say, oh, it's a lot more money. Okay. Hashem gave you money to live before. He'll give you money to live after. But what about the fact that, okay, but you have a house, you have to sell it, so sell it. What about, you know, buying a new house, you can't afford it, so don't buy. Don't buy. Who says you have to buy to be a Jew? I don't own a house, I don't own a car, I don't own anything. I barely own my iPhone. I had to pay $10 a month for like 500 years already. The iPhone already expired. Apple sent me a notice to stop using the iPhone. I said, I'm still paying for it. What do you mean, stop using it? don't know anything. People think that you have to own stuff in order to be a Jew. You could live on rent. You could live temporarily. The decisions you make today do not necessarily mean it's going to be the same decision next week or next year. You live in this house today, and down the road, when you have more money, you buy a different house. As you've noticed, these big questions that people have are making it seem like it's not a big deal. You like your house—move.

5:50You could buy a house, go buy one. You can't buy a house, don't buy one. These are big decisions that people usually have, and they harp over them, delve into them, think about them, cry about them, argue about them, and sometimes get divorced over them. But the truth is, when it comes to a life of Torah, none of these things hold any water. None of these things should be valued in any way, shape, or form when it comes to working on your eternity. Which means that if you're allowing a house, a neighborhood, a seat in a shul, a certain amount of kavod, respect that you want from a kehillah, if you're allowing these measly little things to get in the way of you serving HaKadosh Baruch Hu like you're supposed to, then you, my friend, have forgotten the purpose of why you are in this world. Now, someone asked me today,

6:52Question now, sadly, this is coming from someone that's supposed to know better, supposed to be a guy that went to yeshiva his whole life, claims to know a few things, writes a few articles. He was surprised I didn't read his article a few times. Anyway, this is someone that, compared to the average, knows a few things. But he asked me a basic aleph-bet question of Judaism. And he says, "Listen, I'm in my 20s, and I haven't gotten married, so if HaKadosh Baruch Hu doesn't want me to waste seed, why doesn't He just give me a kallah?" Meaning, I'm only wasting seed because it's Hashem's fault. Because if He doesn't want me to make this sin, then He would give me a wife. What's the question here? I'm only sinning because of Him, not because of me. If He would give me a kallah, I would be married right now, and I wouldn't sin. Why is this said? Because it means that the entire Torah that this young boy has learned is not from Shamayim.

8:17This Torah is not from Shamayim. Why? The ideology of a Jew must be 100%. If your ideology is 98%, already you're going in the wrong direction. 95%? 90%? Maybe a different religion already. You guys are laughing. The truth is, most of the shuls that you go to, here, New York, and other places, they consider themselves Modern Orthodoxy. Now, if you look at history, and you see today's Modern Orthodox, and you put that on the side, memory bank. Rewind about 70 years. Go look at Conservative Jews. The Conservative movement. You go look at them, 70 years ago, 80 years ago. gonna say, oh, these are Modern Orthodox, right? Oh, we started along, oh, he's a Conservative Jew. What changed 70 years ago, 60 years ago? What changed? The Conservative movement decided back then really, what were the issues with them then? What was the difference between the Orthodox versus the Conservative? They both kept Shabbat. They both kept kosher.

9:43They both had a lulav. They both had a sukkah. They both had matzah. They had the same thing. What was the difference? Tzniut wasn't so much in the Conservative. It wasn't the most important thing for them. Aside from tzniut... Torah learning wasn't so much like, so important. Come learn if you feel like it. You know, if you get a shiur and there's 10 people, you can say Kaddish, Baruch Hashem. That's enough already, Rabbi. You got 10 people in a shiur, Baruch Hashem, I'll be happy about it. Like this one rabbi. I see in a store a few, maybe a few months ago, And he sees me making, "Oh, Gadol HaRav, Gadol HaRav, don't send me Gadol HaRav. How can I help you? Forget the show. What's the problem? How can I help? I hate kavod, all this stuff, especially with the show. And I know it's not real. Ken? No, no, you should come to the kehillah." I said, "Listen, you invited me a few times. I told you, if you can get 100, 200 people, I'll come. I don't have a problem coming. No charge, nothing." He goes, "Rabbi, listen, even if we get five people, it's okay, it's okay."

10:49I have nothing to do with my life. You have five people, for you it's okay. For five people, okay, of course, okay. You live there, you get paid by them. Me, I'm not getting paid. I'm going there to do the k'vod (honor) of the Rabbi. I'm not going to go and trek myself all the way to your kehillah for five people. I get more people by myself. Yeah, but you know, it's not a big deal. What does that mean, really? Why am I reluctant to go to a place that's not that far from my house to just give a shiur to five people? Because that already shows me that if the rabbi of the kehillah cannot get his own people to come to a shiur to offer a guest, needless to say himself, cannot get the people, then the kehillah, it's too weak. It's too weak to resurrect itself. It's too weak. A synagogue that does not have Limud Torah, unfortunately, Rabotai, is not a synagogue. It's a place of prayer. You could pray there. But in the religious world, they call it, instead of a Beit Knesset, they call it a Beit Hamas. Beit Hamas. You know Hamas, like the terrorist organization? Beit Hamas. Why? Not because those Jewish people are Hamas. No. Hamas means...

12:09Stands for, it's three letters. The Chet is the Chumashim. You have Chumashim in those Batei Knesset for sure. Mem is Machzorim for the holidays. They come for the holidays. Machzorim. And Samech for Siddurim. That's what you have in that Beit Knesset. You have the Siddurim, you have the Chumashim for Parashat Shavua because that's the, you know, everybody reads along with the Baal Koreh on Shabbat. You have the Machzorim for everybody who comes on the holidays. But you find Gemarot, you find Limud Torah, Shiur Torah, nothing. That's a Beit Hamas, a place that does not have Limud Torah. It's a Beit Hamas. This is the critical thing. If a rabbi cannot get his own people to come to learn Shiur Torah, there's something wrong. That's the whole point of the synagogue. The whole point of the synagogue is to get people to come learn. Needless to say, for a guest and so on. But unfortunately, sometimes those learners are like this young boy who asked me a question today and said, "Listen, Hashem is at fault for my sins." That means that he either learned this by himself or most likely learned this nonsense that he has in his head by himself.

13:19Or he learned it from somebody else who learned by himself. Like his rabbi learned this by himself. Why? Because none of the mefarshim (commentaries), none of the poskim (decisors), none of the gedolim, none of the big Yidden in history have ever said such kefirah. Never. So how could it be that such a mentality could be born of somebody that went to yeshiva for 20 years? It's no different than what happened in the Conservative movement. Seventy, eighty years ago, they were keeping everything, but they weren't learning anything further. They weren't developing anything further. When you do not learn Torah, rabotai, your desire to do the mitzvot becomes weaker and weaker. Your appreciation for the Torah becomes less and less, and it becomes more of a cultural thing that you're doing. You're doing it because your friends are doing it. You're doing it because you've been doing it for 20 years already. Not because you're commanded to do it, because the King of Kings said to do it. No, you're doing it because you're doing it. It's like getting dressed. If you didn't have to, you wouldn't.

14:30If you could just walk around with your pajamas all day to work, everywhere else you do. And guess what? Many people do that. Many people, especially the people that think of themselves as who they are, in the celebrity world, they walk around in pajamas all day. We just started. You already wear a tallit and finish? We just started. So, the key, Rabotai, is to know that if you're going into a synagogue... You're going to join one. You have to find out. First, you've got to find out. How many shiurim do we have? What do we learn? We learn Chumash, we learn Gemara, we learn Poskim, we learn Halachot. What do we learn here? If there's something like this here, Baruch Hashem, it's good. If there's no learning, what's the difference between this place and any other place? The Conservatives didn't think that much about this. They figured that they could survive without learning.

15:30Eventually, what happened, Rabotai, their rabbis agreed with them. They figured that they could survive because they already got the job as rabbis. They could survive without learning. They could survive without Yirat Shamayim. They could survive without working on themselves. And before you know it, they decided that they wanted to build a Beit Knesset for the betterment of Am Yisrael by increasing the membership count, like it's a gym membership. So how do we increase membership? We have just so many people that live in the neighborhood. Why, tell them, have more kids, that's up to them. Oh, why don't we go and get people from other neighborhoods? Yeah, but the other neighborhoods, they're not just gonna move here. It's expensive here, it's cheap there, they live there. No, no, just tell them to come anyway. Rabbi, they would have to drive on Shabbat. Okay, so let them drive on Shabbat. Why? Because they're driving to Beit Knesset. So 70, 80 years ago, that's what happened. the Conservative officially became Reform. How? They still call themselves Conservative, but they allowed driving on Shabbat. Now you fast forward 70 years,

16:41What do you think, it just ends with one thing? No, 70 years later, the head rabbi of the Conservative movement in Yerushalayim is openly homosexual. They now marry men with men, women with women. They haven't graduated to the level of the tum'a of the Reform, which marry men with dogs. Not yet, that's probably next year. Advanced. But men with men, women with women. all types of upside-down world. Now, you're saying, ah, unbelievable, Chava, this is happening right now. It's happening again. It's happening again. In the Orthodox, how many rabbis do you know that actually speak the emet? In public. How many rabbis do you know that speak sheker? That you have a bunch of them. I know, I know, everybody has one. Why? Because unfortunately, Rabotai, instead of listening to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, instead of listening to His sages, instead of mentioning what it says in the books, many people mention their opinions. So when you have a clown like Manis Friedman come to town here in Florida just a week or two ago and tell the entire kehillah,

18:05tell everybody, and everybody—you saw in a picture, I saw in a picture. Somebody sent me a little short video, I don't know, maybe 30 seconds or a minute long. They knew how much I could handle; my stomach was very weak, so they already knew. They sent me a minute long, and he says this to the people. They're wearing kippot. He's not in a Reform shul, he's not in this, he's not Conservative. He's in an Orthodox shul, everybody's wearing a kippah like you. And he says to them that we would say that God would punish us. It's not our fault that He doesn't want to talk to us for 3,000 years. So we forgot a bunch of His rules. And everybody's like this, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. God forbid." God forbid that God should be punishing us for our sins. Because, you know, when you don't talk to your children for 3,000 years, they forget some of the things you tell them. This is what Mendelssohn said 200 years ago. It's like he read his book. It's like he wrote his book.

19:25To say that HaKadosh Baruch Hu, it's His fault that we're sinning. It's His fault. Why? He doesn't want to talk to us. We're not prophets. Since we're not all prophets, He doesn't want to talk to us. So, since we don't know the entire Torah, we make a bunch of sins. It's His fault, not our fault. So, chas v'shalom, that you would think that the rabbi here with the long beard that looks like Santa Claus, he is going to tell you that God punishes. Chas v'shalom. Oh, the Torah says otherwise, though. The Torah says that there's punishment. No, no, the Torah didn't mean it. The Torah meant for 3,000 years ago. But the Torah said that it's not for 3,000 years ago. Torah says forever, for every generation. Yeah, every generation except the generation I'm living in. So you see now, rabotai, it's not a surprise that a 20-something-year-old has the wrong mentality and says, "Listen, I'm only sinning because God didn't send me a wife. That's why I'm sinning," meaning it's God's fault. Now, if that wasn't enough... He sends me a follow-up. I responded to this. He sends me a follow-up. He says, "I don't understand. God says that you're not allowed to hurt another person. So how is He allowed to hurt us? Isn't that making Him a hypocrite?" Hashem yerachem aleinu with such a mentality of a yeshiva bachur.

20:42I have goyim; goyim have a better mentality than this. On their first day of desiring to be a Jew, they discovered that Christianity is falsehood. They want to be a Jew, but they still don't know anything. They just know this is falsehood, and they want the truth. They don't know very much, but they already have a better mentality. They didn't go to yeshiva for 20 years, but they already have a better mentality. A yeshiva bachur who says such a thing A rabbi says such a thing. How could it be? It all starts with how we value Torah. If Torah is something to do when you have free time, this is a perfect attitude that matches it. It's a perfect attitude to match it. If Torah is something you do whenever you get a chance, yeah, it's like a hobby. You have a chance, you go to the gym. You have a chance, you play tennis. You have a chance, you go out to eat with a few friends. You get a chance, you make yourself fancy coffee. Well, you know, not the regular one that's Nescafe. You make one with the grinder, and you go through the whole process. And you spend 25 minutes just to make the bean. Hey, you got a chance, you got 25 minutes to waste. You make that kind of coffee. You get a chance. You get a chance, you learn the Torah. That kind of Torah, you get a chance, you keep it.

22:12But if Torah, Rabotai HaYekarim, is your life, is your eternity, is the only purpose you're alive, is the only purpose you will continue to live, it comes from Ribono Shel Olam, it comes from the King of Kings as a commandment and not as a suggestion. As a take it or leave it or nothing. Then this mentality is unfounded. This mentality is the worst thing you could possibly have. This is why, Rabotai, the poskim, if you read halacha, you see sometimes, whether it's Gemara, or you read the poskim, you hear how they respond to each other when there's a machloket, or when there's a debate of some kind, they respond to each other with zealousness and harsh language. The

23:13Chachamim did not speak softly. They didn't speak in this cordial, sophisticated way that people speak. This philosophical language that people have, where they hold things back. Always appropriate as far as the language they use, chas v'shalom, never any cuss words or anything like that. But, to tell somebody that, listen, you wrote this halacha, you made a sin. What was the sin? You wasted the ink. You're not allowed to be wasteful. And you wrote this in 5, 10, 20 pages. Your conclusion of what you thought, you made a sin. Not only is your conclusion wrong, but you wasted all the ink. They would write this to each other. Why? You're playing with people's lives. There's no room for error. Somebody could go to Gehinnom because of you.

24:16In Birkat Shmuel, he writes in his Siman Kaf Zayin, he writes that there's a question that's asked: Are you allowed to send your kids to these new types of schools they had 80, 90 years ago, 100 years ago? where the maskilim, the enlighteners, the reformers, started telling people, listen, you cannot continue sending your kids to these yeshivot, they need to learn miktzoa, they need to learn how to work, how to do this, you have to send them to universities. So, Rav Hirsch, alav hashalom, was a big chacham, and he told his kehillah, listen, I'm going to start a new school, It's going to be yeshiva, but it's also going to teach you some other things, some common stuff, secular studies. None of the other Gedolei HaDor did such a thing, but he was a pioneer in his day, and he said, this is what I want to do. So they asked, they asked, is this the right thing?

25:38You cannot just say, listen, Rav Hirsch, he's a gadol, he's not just anybody, he's not Yaron Reuven. He's a big gadol. He's not wrong; he knows what he's talking about. You have to be careful. So he says, there's a whole teshuva, and there are many pages. I'll give you a couple of points. He says, What he did, what this chacham, this tzaddik, he says, the tzaddik did for his kehillah was only because he knew that his own kehillah is so weak that if he doesn't start such a school, that's gonna teach them both the Torah and a little bit of secular studies in order to show them that the secular studies are nonsense, so they come back and want more Torah. They would just abandon everything and go to the Reform. He knew. He knew this for his own kehillah. But, he says, never ever think that this is da'at Torah though. This is not what the Torah wants.

26:48This is not what you're supposed to do. He did it for his kehillah on a specific issue because he's a gadol and they listen to their rabbi. They listen to their rabbi. That's a select issue. It's like, you know, when they say medicine, you know, one out of a million, this happens too. That's the one out of a million. But never ever teach this as if this is l'chatchila. This is what you're supposed to do. Chas v'shalom. This is not what the Torah says, he says. Never think that this is what the Torah says. The Torah says you're not supposed to do that stuff. Why? He says because what they teach, these philosophers, is a lie, and the only way you could ever fall in love with the Torah and claim "I love the Torah" is if you hate the lie. You cannot love the lie and the Torah at the same time. Not possible. You cannot love philosophy, baseball, football, UFC, the stock market, bingo, whatever it is; you cannot love that and the Torah at the same time. It's not possible. Why? Because that's a lie, that's inane.

27:58The two contradict each other. So you may enjoy the Torah, you enjoy the mental stimulation of the Torah, you like to hear stories about Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, Moshe and Aharon, and you like how they did this and they did that, and you enjoy it, but don't say you love it. Why? Because to love it means you need to hate the lie. To love it means you have to fulfill every part of it as if it's your life, as if it's your last breath. As if you cannot live without more Torah. So you enjoy it, but you don't love it. A lot of people say, "I love Torah, I love Torah." Oh, you love Torah, but how come you still watch movies? How come you still go to clubs? How come you still openly sin? Not accidental sin, openly sin, as if it's allowed. That's why, Rabotai, we ourselves have to know where we stand. If we just discovered that we like Torah but we don't love it yet, that's okay, it doesn't make you a bad person. It makes you honest, honest with yourself first. But that also means we have something to aspire to. So even a giant made a mistake.

29:24Giants make mistakes. But the point being, Rabotai, is that his mistake was only a mistake if he would have taught it to everyone. He didn't teach it to everyone. He didn't say everyone should do this. His own kehillah did it. And that's why the Chacham Leibowitz over here says, no, no, no. He did it for his kehillah because he knows his kehillah. If you're thinking that what he's doing is what you're supposed to learn for the rest of... No, that's a mistake. It's not the opinion of the Torah. He didn't try to tell everybody, this is what you're supposed to do, that everybody's going to start transforming their yeshivot into universities. Never for a moment think that that's a thing. You either have Torah or you have sheker. Yeah, but how are you going to make a living? If you learn Torah, you'll find out how you make a living. If you learn Torah, real Torah, you'll find out how you make a living. How you make a living. HaKadosh Baruch Hu makes a living. How do 100,000, 200,000 Avreichim survive on $400 a month? What do you think? They actually survive on $400 a month? More money than $400 a month comes. It's just $400 a month comes from the kollel. So what about the rest of the money? The rest of the money HaKadosh Baruch Hu also brings. Just like He brings the $400, He brings the $4,000 they need also.

30:41Yeah, but did it work? How does it work? I don't know. Ask HaKadosh Baruch Hu. He'll give you an answer. Maybe He'll send you a text message. When you learn Torah Emet, you get to know this stuff. The problem is, sometimes we forget. We live partial Emet, partial Sheker. We're not even sure where we stand. We lie to ourselves, telling ourselves, oh, you're such a tzaddik. You saw great, look, you kept this, you really wanted to sin, but you did it, Chazak U'Baruch. HaKadosh Baruch Hu Himself should give you a pat on the back. Because we still, in our minds, think that you'll have a life without Torah. You'll have something even remotely close to a life. Now, when a person understands their own obligation, their own obligation to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. They're never going to accuse HaKadosh Baruch Hu of anything. They're never going to request anything from HaKadosh Baruch Hu, but rather from themselves. Meaning, you request things from Hashem, but you demand of yourself. Meaning that you know that if

32:02You need something, you pray for it. If HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave it to you, that means that it's good for you. If He didn't give it to you, then it's not good for you. It may be good for you tomorrow, it may be good for you in a week from now, it may be good for you in a year from now, but today it's not good for you. If it was good for you, you would get it. Meaning, you want to get married. You want to find a wife. You think you're ready. So you pray to Hashem, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, give me a wife. HaKadosh Baruch Hu says no. Pashut. He doesn't even tell you about it. He just says no. You didn't know. No wife shows up. You want a shidduch? She called you the wrong name. She thought you were a different guy. You leave the date with your tail between your legs. I'm all alone. I'm scared. Hashem, why are You doing this to me? Guess what? He says you're not ready. You're not ready. Why? Because He didn't give it to you. So, are you going to cry to Him? About what? Did you do anything to be ready? Did you become a better person? If you had the wife, would you be the ideal husband? Do you know how to be a husband? Have you learned how to be a husband? Have you learned how to be a decent human being? How many people do you know become husbands but don't know how?

33:31become husbands, but two minutes later, they don't want to be a husband. Become a father, but they regret the day that the woman gets pregnant. What did you do to deserve this blessing? What did you do? A person needs to understand, HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to give you exactly what you need when you need it. At a time that it's best for you, you want to force His hand, you're, in essence, punishing yourself. You want to make claims against Him. It's not such a good idea. It means that you've forgotten who you are. You forgot that He is the Creator and you are the creation. He is the King of Kings and you are the servant. Whether you like it doesn't really make a difference. Whether you agree that you're a servant, a slave, a nothing, a tipas riqa, a putrid seed that's going to end up becoming food for maggots. Whether you agree with all this stuff or not doesn't make a difference. You'll see it. I promise you. We're all going to be lunch for maggots at one point. All of us.

34:53Now, when a person understands his nothingness and HaKadosh Baruch Hu's everythingness, you get the point of where your role is. You get the point where we have to come to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, like the Klausenberger Rebbe used to come every day when he prayed. His prayer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu was like a homeless person begging for food. was like a baby crying for his mother to feed him every day. But if you think that Hashem owes you something, your whole life is upside down. Your ideology is upside down. Even your learning of Torah is not helping you. And that's why the Gemara in Masechet Shabbat says that the Torah can be sam chayim or sam hamavet. The potion for life, the potion for death. How could the same exact thing be a potion for life and a potion for death? If you say learning Torah is a potion for life, I understand. If you say not learning Torah is a potion for death, I also understand. Secular people, they're like dead people.

36:01They have no idea why they're alive. They're alive to get the next lease for the next car. They're alive to get the next house that doesn't even belong to them for 30 years because of the mortgage. They're alive to get married so they can get divorced in three or four years. They're alive to get a job so they get fired in the next layoffs. What are they alive for? They have no idea. So, if you say someone doesn't learn Torah, secular life, okay, that's like death, that's a potion for death. No, no, but the Torah here says in the Gemara, wait a minute, this Torah that you're learning, it's either sam or sam mavet. The same Torah that you're learning could be a potion for life or a potion for death. How come the same thing? He says, if you're learning the Torah with mesirut nefesh, with sacrifice, to take everything you possibly can on, to do everything you possibly can to fulfill it, you learn it with yirat shamayim, you learn it with an understanding that HaKadosh Baruch Hu commanded you to learn it, commanded you to fulfill it. He didn't ask you to do it.

37:04It's not a request. It's not, "Please keep Shabbat." He said, "Keep Shabbat or I'm going to kill you." That's what He said. Mount Sinai was put on top of Am Yisrael, literally. He says, this is our wedding. If you accept the ring, you accept the Torah; this is like the canopy for chuppah. That's why we have a chuppah now. He put the mountain on top of us. He says, if you don't accept the Torah, I'm just going to drop the mountain on top of you, and this will be your burial ground. Why? If you don't fulfill the Torah, there's no point for you to be alive. Gemara Masechet Shabbat, page 88a. He didn't ask us to keep the Torah. He commanded. There's a difference. So long as we think that learning Torah is a request from Borei Baruch Hu, then we'll do it whenever we feel like it. We'll fulfill it however we feel like it.

38:15We'll say whatever we feel like, even if it contradicts the Torah. Why? Because that's his suggestion. This is my suggestion. As if we're equal. Chas v'shalom. As if me and HaKadosh Baruch Hu are the same thing. He has his opinion. I have my opinion. The ideology of a Jew must be 100% clear that learning Torah is simply for survival. for prosperity and everything in between. So long as we think that learning Torah is a bonus only, but not for survival, then we'll learn it and use it and follow it to our own liking. If you think, oh, if I want to be a tzaddik, then I'll learn Torah. If I want to be a tzaddik, then I'll follow the Torah. So long as you only do it for the reward, you have a problem. That's why Antigonus, in Pirkei Avot, chapter 1, I believe it's the third Mishnah, says, don't learn the Torah

39:28for the reward. Don't serve your master like you're going to get something. Serve him even if you're not going to get something. Why? If you only serve HaKadosh Baruch Hu to get stuff from Him, guess what? Once in a while you're not going to want anything. The Yetzer Hara is going to tell you, "Listen, you already have everything you want. You got the girl, you got the guy, you got the kids, you got the house, you got everything. Who needs HaKadosh Baruch Hu? You got it already." And you're going to put yourself in a situation where you, yourself, have set a trap for yourself. Why? Because you only served Hashem because you wanted something. If I don't want something, I don't pray to Hashem. I don't learn. Learning Torah only for reward is one of the fatal flaws. Fatal flaws of the Jewish people throughout all of the generations. That's why it's in the first chapter of Mishnah Pirkei Avot. It's one of the foundations. The first Mishnah is, meaning the first Mishnah is how we got the Torah. The third one, oh, don't serve the Master just because you're going to get a reward. Serve Him regardless. Meaning, this is a big deal. The ideology of a Jew is a big deal.

40:59Now, if a person has a good foundation, a good ideology, then surely everything that he adds to it will build a beautiful tower for himself that will last for eternity. But if the foundation is rotten, then he can be 70, 75 years old, like this Manis the Menace, and he can tell people, he can tell people, you can do whatever you want, chas v'shalom, that Hashem would punish you. Yeah, but what about the half of the Torah that talks about punishment? You have entire parashot that talk about punishment. You have entire gemarot that talk about punishment. You have entire sefarim that talk about punishment. What about everybody's an idiot except you? Nobody else knows anything except you. You give it the chiddush. All the gedolei Yisrael, the ones that are alive, the ones that passed, none of them said what you said. You're bigger than everybody else that came before you. You canceled out to sit on everyone. And all the people are like, yay, yay. Well, yay. He just told you something, and they gave you the entire Torah. How are you sitting there not throwing your chairs at him? Forget tomatoes. That would be too soft. How are you not taking your chairs and throwing them at the guy?

42:20How is this possible? How is it possible that our synagogues are inviting such people, clapping for them, saying, "Oh, it's a holy person"? What, because he has a beard? The sheep have beards also. Pharaoh found them holy also, the sheep, the goat, whatever it is. Osama bin Laden had a beard also. Does that make him holy? What happened? What happened to emet? How could this be? This could be, Rabotai, because he obviously hasn't learned in God only knows how long, if ever. I don't think he even knows if he finished the Chumash, to be honest with you. You cannot be that foolish and say such things if you actually know Chumash Rashi. Now, what about the crowd that invites him? Same thing.

43:21Same thing, why? If anyone in the crowd knew Chumash Rashi, I'm not talking about Gemarot, Poskim, Shulchan Aruch, Mussar, no, no, just Chumash Rashi. Just know, remember, every year we read Parashat Bechukotai, every year we read Parashat Ha'azinu, every year we read Parashat Bereishit. In Bereishit, HaKadosh Baruch Hu punishes Adam HaRishon right off the bat before the Torah. In the second Parashah, Parashat Noach, He destroys the whole world. Anyone who knows Chumash Rashi, with commentary by Rashi, knows that this is a. We have to throw chairs at him, put him on. How could this be? And guess what? He's not the only one. He's just one of the most popular ones. That's why I keep mentioning him. I'm not gonna mention every clown in the world because that's gonna make them more popular. I mentioned the one that's leading them, and that's it. There are many of them, though. How could this be? How could we keep inviting these people to synagogues? means that we ourselves don't know. The klal Yisrael does not know, does not learn. How come we don't learn? How come you see people go to synagogue every day, put on tefillin, come for Mincha, Arvit, come for Shabbat...

44:47But still, 20 years, doesn't know anything. Still, his daughter is getting married, mixed dancing. You tell him, listen, it's not allowed to have mixed dancing for Jewish people. Really not allowed for non-Jewish people also, but that's a different story. Not allowed. He's like, what are you talking about? Not allowed. Why would it not be allowed to have a mixed party? How are we supposed to have a party if we're not dancing together and making all the sins in the world? It's like it's the first time in his life he's ever heard such a thing. He's like, listen, I'm not Haredi, I just keep Shabbat. He's like, you don't have to be Haredi to do this. This is every Jew. And he argues with you. He's like, yeah, but it's minhag. He goes, nah, that's chumrah. I said, no, it's not chumrah. He goes, nah, the rabbis wrote it. I said, what rabbis? This is halacha. You go to synagogue 20 years, how could you allow yourself to do this?

45:48Or you see sometimes people that look really religious, call themselves chassidim sometimes, and they're in illegal businesses like this cash advance. Which, by the way, as a side note, for all of you that like that topic, I'm preparing a beautiful shiur for you. Already working on it for the last week. Once I'm finished, anyone that stays in the cash advance business, guaranteed Gehinnom. Why? Because after that shiur is finished, you're not going to want to walk next to somebody that's in that business. How could it be that many people consider themselves religious and they're in that business or businesses like it? How could it be? It means they haven't learned or the ideology already to start with was wrong. So when you're picking a shul, the first thing is to understand that that's how you base where you're gonna live.

46:50And how do we know this? How come I shouldn't pick the house first, then the shul? Pick the nicest community, nicest houses, best deals. We learn this from Yaakov Avinu. Yaakov Avinu sends Yehuda to Goshen. He says, go build me a bayit. So the Midrash says, oh yeah, he asked him to build him a house. No, no, the emet is that he went to send him to build a Beit Midrash, a place to learn Torah, to teach Torah. He says, "Yeah, that's what I said." "No, you said bayit." "Because, yeah, that's what a bayit is. A bayit is a house." Where's Yaakov Avinu waiting? Yaakov Avinu sitting on a couch watching TV all day? Yaakov Avinu is all day in the Beit Midrash, learning Torah all day. That's his bayit. Does he care about the house or the tent? What does he care about the tent? Go build him a place where there's going to be Torah. So you determine where you're going to live based on where the Torah is. You base it on the shul. You base it on that community, on that part of the community. That's the most critical part. Is there an eruv? You have to live inside an eruv. Why? Life is simply impossible outside of an eruv. You can't leave the house pretty much. Especially if you've got kids, it becomes very difficult. You have to live inside of an eruv.

48:11Now don't worry, the goyim know that too. The goyim know about eruv. Why? Because the real estate prices drop by 40% right outside of the eruv. You go to the eruv, you see houses, $500,000 or more. Five feet outside of the eruv, you see a house, $300,000. Why? Nobody wants to live there. Why? Because they know if I live there, I can't take my kids outside with a carriage. I can't carry my tallit, I can't do anything. You have to live inside an eruv. You just tell yourself all you want. No, no, what if I don't carry anything? Can I just still live outside of the eruv? Technically, yes, but you'll regret it. You'll make a lot of sins and go to gehinnom. Accidentally on purpose. That's the way it is. Yeah, but I can't afford it. Okay, so pray harder.

49:11You have to know why it's very tough to live outside of the eruv. It's very difficult. Now, a person needs to know this and do everything possible to get it done as soon as possible. Now, after he picks the shul and the community, whether it's nice or not nice—all that stuff is secondary. Obviously, let the wife pick the stuff and... If you're married, let the wife pick the stuff. Guys, do not pick furniture. Do not pick houses. Do not pick window treatments. No one cares about your taste. Let your wife do this stuff. That's her job, not your job. If you spend too much time picking window treatments, when are you a man? Who's gonna do your job? Instead of picking window treatments, go learn or go make money. Guys that spend an enormous amount of time looking for furniture usually end up getting divorced by the time they've picked everything. Why? Because they disagree with everything that the wife wants to pick. Everything she wants to pick is pink or blue or some other color that he doesn't like, and he wants to build himself some, uh, caveman type of house. And guess what? He's never there anyway, works all day. What do you want to pick houses for? Let her pick. Let her pick. She's going to enjoy the house. You go work, do your thing. Your whole life, your whole bayit is your wife and your Torah.

50:43That's your bayit. You should be very focused on where can I put my sefarim? Where can I put my books? That's the only part you should care about. Everything else doesn't make a difference. Big bed, small bed, windows, no window, doesn't make a difference. Where can I put my books? Thank you. Everything else is extra. Let her be happy. Let your wife be happy. And you can pick it. You can ignore my advice. You could take 16 years' worth of marriage and throw it in the garbage and say you know better. And you're gonna pick the furniture, and you're gonna have nice furniture. And you're gonna have a nice room. You're gonna be modern. You're gonna be alone too—modern, alone. Modern, modern, or alone.

51:43That's the new thing. It's very modern to be alone. Guys that have nice apartments, that are very, very nice and chashuvim and very pristine, they usually don't have wives. And they definitely don't have kids. Why? You have kids, all the niceness goes to hell. Why? Because that's what kids do. Now you come home, you got a few kids, don't start complaining to your wife about the toys being on the floor and the drawings on the wall. That's what's supposed to be, that's what the house is for. The house is not a museum. If they draw on the wall, Baruch Hashem, they know what to do with the wall. A Jewish house is not supposed to look like a museum. It's supposed to look like a house with kids, and there's a wife, and there's a husband, and there's a family, and there's life, and there's a mess. I'm not saying make it a mess on purpose; obviously, you keep cleaning, but the more kids you have, the more impossible it is. The point is, rabotai, you have to understand your role in the world as a man is to learn Torah and make a living.

53:03If your wife is the one that's working, you're an avrech, it's a different story. You learn Torah, she makes a living. No problem. You have even less to complain about. But if you're working and learning, that's it. The neatness of the house, the toys being on the floor, the window treatments, and all that other stuff, and what the food tastes like or doesn't taste like, that stuff, that's not your concern. You eat food to survive, not to be one of these people that's on TV tasting, "Yeah, yeah, I taste the sugar on this one." She made you food, say thank you. Rabotai, I'm teaching you this because these are the complaints I get every day. People complain to me about their wife's cooking. People complain to me about their wife making a mess. People complain to me about the kids screaming. And I said, Halavai, I had these complaints. Halavai, this was the real problem.

54:09We know what the real problem is. They're not learning Torah. If you were learning Torah, you wouldn't have time to notice that the toys are on the floor, and the food tastes a certain way, and the windows are not a certain way. If you were learning Torah, you wouldn't have time. You wouldn't care about that stuff. Why do you care about that stuff? Because you have shtuyot in your head. There's a couple of cockroaches running inside your head, and they're betting, is he going to yell today? Is he not going to yell today? There's a competition between the cockroaches. So, now that we've found a house, found a wife, found a synagogue, maybe one day we'll find an air conditioner too. What are we supposed to do? No, you already did it, don't worry. The air conditioner is on break today. already did it, tzaddik, did it. Let's put it at 65. Wanted to freeze us, but who says no? The issue is, you're gonna melt. So what should my mentality be now that I have a house, now that I have a wife? What should my mentality be? I gotta make a living. Fine, you gotta make a living. Who makes your living? So, I don't have that much time to learn. I have a lot of time to learn. All these mentalities and excuses that people make.

55:38What should my mindset be about learning Torah? I got a guy, nice guy, baal teshuva, only a few years baal teshuva, still doesn't know very much. Not because he's only a baal teshuva for a few years. That's not a problem; within a few years, you can know a ton. He doesn't know very much because he doesn't allow anyone to be his rabbi. He wants to be his own rabbi. So he doesn't know very much. So he makes a lot of mistakes. And I ask him some basic things, "Did you do this? Did you do that?" He doesn't know how to do it. He doesn't know because no one's directing him. So one of the principal rules of the Torah is you have to have a rabbi. have to have somebody that influences you, you have to have somebody that guides you. They don't necessarily need to be the same person. You could be influenced by, let's say, me for example, or someone else that's very good, that's going to influence you to do better. But someone to give you direction, to tell you right or wrong, do this, don't do that, could be your local rabbi, could be somebody else.

56:51You have to have a rabbi though. A Jew without a rabbi is simply a Jew that doesn't have a God. Why? Well, how could the two be the same? God is God, rabbi is rabbi. No, no. If you don't know what God said, it's like not having God. How are you going to know what God said if you don't have a rabbi? No, I read myself. Who says you're right about knowing how to read? Who says you're right? No, why? I can read, he can read. No, no, my friend. You can put words together. He knows how to learn. Sometimes you can read the same paragraph three, four, five, six times and still not understand it. Or understand it wrong. One day the rabbi says, yeah, but you missed that one word. That one word changes the context of the entire paragraph. You need to have a rabbi to tell you right, wrong, yes, no. You have to have one. But this rabbi has to love Torah. Now, all of this does not come for free. Why? Because the rabbi has to eat. So you have to be supportive. Why? Torah shouldn't cost any money. No, it shouldn't. And whatever you do for a living shouldn't cost any money either. If we were living in communism,

58:22But since he has to eat and you have to eat, you have to be supportive. You have to be supportive. That money is not just for you to buy window treatments and more Bamba. The money you make is also to help those who are helping you. This is a given. This is why tzedakah and maaser are two separate mitzvot. They're not the same mitzvah. Maaser is 10% of your income. It has to go for the sake of Torah. Tzedakah is other things—giving to poor people, buying an aliyah in a shul, sponsoring certain amounts of things, whatever it is that you want to do. Maaser has to go to publicizing Torah. It has to. Whether it's kiruv, or it's helping somebody learn Torah, or helping your own teacher, whatever it is, you have to. It has to be. Why? You have to remind yourself the only reason why HaKadosh Baruch Hu is giving you a living is because you're fulfilling the Torah. It's because He is HaKadosh Baruch Hu. So long as you don't give maaser, you're not admitting to it. Yeah, but if I gave maaser, then I wouldn't have enough. Oh, that means you haven't learned anything yet. You still think you're making the money. Tzedakah is above and beyond.

59:43This is a very, very important thing for people to know because it's not about the money. It's about your treatment of money, your understanding of money in the world. So long as you think that when you give the rabbi $500, you're helping him, you haven't gotten the point. The Tree of Life is for those that grasp it, but those that are meritorious, those that are happiest, are the ones that invest in it. Not the ones that receive it. When you give the rabbi $500 or $5,000 or $5 or whatever you give, you're getting the help, not the opposite. It's not like when you go to Walmart, you give them $500, and they give you a computer. No. It's the opposite. When you give for the sake of Torah, you're taking. You now have bought yourself a piece of Torah. You are now entitled to a little Torah. So long as you understand that, good, keep giving. If you don't understand it, you need to learn a little more. Now, the Chazon Ish says, the biggest nightmare that a person should have in their mind, something that they should be scared of, worse than Gehinnom,

1:01:04is to die an Am Ha'aretz. To die an ignorant person. That should be the worst nightmare of every person. To simply live a whole life of 70 years, 80 years, 90 years, whatever it is, and you die without really knowing very much. You're not really sure what halachot Shabbat really are. every year you're not really sure how big the sukkah should be. Can you still use those things that fly around, or do you have to use something else? You know, you're not really sure what to do or how to do it. Is your matzah acceptable, or can you just buy it from anyone, or do you have to buy it from a specific place? You're not really sure about a lot of stuff. You don't really know much. You're hoping somebody's going to invite you for every holiday because that way you can pretty much rely on them. Chazon Ish says that should be the biggest nightmare of a person. Because that way, a person has lived 70, 80 years, and he simply has no chance of expecting anything good to happen after. No chance. Why? If he didn't know how to keep the Torah,

1:02:21Under what pretense is HaKadosh Baruch Hu going to let you enter Gan Eden with Moshe Rabbeinu? With Rabbi Akiva? With the Chazon Ish? With the Steipler Gaon? With Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai and Rabbi Meir Baal HaNes? How are you going to enter the same place as them? They knew Torah. They sacrificed for Torah. How are you going to be allowed to enter the same place as them? If you didn't toil for Torah, you didn't learn Torah, you weren't even sure you were following it. Now, for a person to know Torah, it's not just about learning, it's also about praying. Now, when you have kids, one of the most important things for you to do, aside from teaching them and sending them to good schools, is to pray for them. A lot. A lot. To what extent, one day, someone gave the Chafetz Chaim his late mother's Tehillim, Sefer Tehillim. It was blackened and really, really old. And as soon as they gave it to the Chafetz Chaim,

1:03:42He started hysterically crying. He held the sefer. He just started crying, crying uncontrollably. You know, his mother had already passed away many years ago. It wasn't like it had just happened. But they gave him the sefer, and he started crying. An old man crying like that, it's dangerous. They tried to stop him. "Why? Why are you crying so much?" He says, "Look at this sefer. Look at this book of Tehillim. You know why it's black? Because of all the tears that my mother shed, crying over me, praying to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Please, Hashem, please make my son a Talmid Chacham. Please help him learn Torah. Please help him understand the mitzvot." And she would cry and cry every single day. And you know where she learned it from?

1:04:44On her wedding day, her grandmother, which means his great-grandmother, came to her. She said, "Biti, my daughter, you listen to me. B'ezrat Hashem, you're going to have children. And you take this sefer Tehillim, and you cry every day, every chance you get over your kids to learn Torah, to be talmidei chachamim." Not just to fulfill the mitzvot. You cry every chance you get. And my mother took it to heart. She would put on the water to boil, and while the water was waiting to boil, she started learning Tehillim and started crying. After the water boiled, she had to make pasta. She put the pasta in and, just to wait for the pasta, she read more Tehillim and cried some more. Then after that, you make the sauce. You take the sauce another 20 minutes, read Tehillim, cry some more. How much did she cry? As much as she possibly could. So you see, this Sefer Tehillim, it's not just the Sefer Tehillim. This is the Chofetz Chaim. This is the Mishnah Berurah. This is everything. Everything that I became is because of the tears of my mother. That's why I cry. Everything is because my mom cried.

1:06:09I always tell people, as part of my personal story, how much my mother, God bless her, cried. How much my wife cried. At the times that I wanted to kill myself because life didn't have much of a meaning. You never understand the value of those tears until you get something. Until the gates of heaven are opened for you. And you think it's just because Hashem feels bad for you. No, He feels bad for the poor women that are crying for you. He says, "Stop crying. Okay, I'll open the gate for this loser. Let him in. Let's see what happens." How much did they cry? How much did they cry? I could live a thousand lives and I won't ever know how much I owe them. The amount of tears that my mother shed over me just because she wanted me to live. How much did they cry? Chavrutai, If you're already going to have kids, get ready to cry. Or else don't have kids. Because if you're not going to cry for your kids to become Talmidei Chachamim, what are you bringing them for? What, to be a karate kid? There's plenty of them. 85 bucks a month, you can make any ox a karate kid. To make a soccer player, there's already plenty of them.

1:07:35To be a football player, there are a bunch of mooses, 900 feet tall and a thousand pounds each. There are a bunch of those. A businessman? Wall Street is full of them. There are so many of them, they already went to Silicon Valley too. What are you going to do? What are you going to have kids for? For what? There are eight billion of them. What are you going to have a kid for? If you're not gonna cry for your kids to be a talmid chacham, for your daughter to be a tzaddekes, what are you gonna have them for? For what? Go get a puppy instead. We have to cry for our kids. We have to do everything possible for our kids to be talmidei chachamim, or else there's no purpose. Not for them or our marriage. you have to do everything possible to cry constantly. Please, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, soften his heart and make him love the Torah. Please, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, soften our hearts and make us see the emet and never even think about being on the bad side with all these wicked people. We have to cry.

1:08:50Because those tears, one day, HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to say, "Okay, now I'm going to pay for it." He collects them. He collects the tears from this prayer. He collects the tears from that prayer. He doesn't pay right away. Well, you don't even have a kid yet. Or your kid's too small to do anything with. But He takes this prayer. She cried here. She cried there. He cried here. He cried there. And He puts it in His reserves. He puts it in His reserves. He puts it in His reserves. One day He pays. How does this work? Recently, there was a monumental Torah event, where there was a worldwide Siyum HaShas, where over 100,000 people worldwide got together, almost 90,000 or so just in New York alone, got together, where over 20% of them, over 20,000 of them,

1:09:50completed the Shas, completed the entire Gemara by learning one daf per day. A daf of Gemara is really two pages because the Gemara has back and forth. And if you learn one daf per day, you will complete the entire Gemara, as far as learning it basically, you will complete it after about seven and a half years. It's an enormous commitment, It's a huge undertaking. It's not easy by any stretch of the imagination. But nonetheless, many people have done it over the last almost 100 years or so. Now, where did this concept of Daf Yomi start? There was a young boy named Meir. And Meir was learning under a Rav named Rav Shalom Moskowitz. And Meir had a dream as a boy. Meir saw that in his yeshiva, the boys would learn, learn, learn. And they were very serious. And they would have all types of things to deal with. But every so often, they got happy. Every so often. Everybody. Every kid.

1:11:19And you notice, when is that point? When they completed the daf. You finish the daf, you have this sense of achievement. Why? I just completed the daf Gemara. I have a piece of the Torah in me. No one in the world can take it from me. You feel a sense of achievement. I came to the world for a reason. So he saw this joy that every Jew gets by learning a daf Gemara. It's a joy that every Jew should enjoy. Now, the problem is most people don't understand the value of Torah. So, you tell them, learn the Gemara. It's almost 2,700 pages. They're like, "Ah, it's too much. Give me a little cute book with commentary on it. 30 pages max. Give me the point. Tell me yes or no." People are scared by it. So as a little boy, he had an idea. He says, if every Jew learns one daf per day, one daf, not a lot, takes, let's say, an hour if you learn it superficially, not through the omek, through the depth of it, just superficially, it takes about an hour. Just covers the basics of the daf. An hour a day, you do one daf per day, you finish the entire Shas in seven and a half years.

1:12:41Every Jew with such an accomplishment, this is amazing. Once a Jew finishes the Shas, he feels like he has a piece of the Torah. It's going to keep him going. It's much more difficult to give in to the yetzer hara and leave the derech after you have a Shas under your belt. But most people are not even willing to start it because it seems so big. It's like my lectures. My lectures, people say, ah, it's three hours. You have anything shorter? If you want it to be over, don't even watch. If something is interesting, you never want it to end. How come you never say, "Oh, this movie is two hours. Do you have anything shorter?" Why? Because the outside doesn't give you the same thought. A three-hour lecture says that you have something shorter. Why? If it's good, why do you want it to end? Let it be 300 hours. You watch as much as you can whenever you can. So as a little boy, little Meir had this idea. If every Jew would learn a Gemara once a day, for an hour, he learns the daf, and then you do this, differently. Everybody learns it. Rav would teach it, everybody learns it. Then everybody would finish the Gemara at the same time. Here in Germany, in Poland, in America, everybody would finish, and then everybody would celebrate the Siyum HaShas together with a big kavod for the Torah.

1:14:09But he was a little boy, what am I going to tell this idea to? He says, let me tell it to the rabbi's daughter. The rabbi's daughter is 5, 6, 7 years old. Little girl, she'll listen to me. And he tells this to the rabbi's daughter. And the rabbi's daughter says, "You know, my father, Rav Mashkovitz, says you're a very talented boy. But why should you waste this talent on fantasies and fairy tales?" She tells him, "Why should you fail? My father and all of the biggest rabbis in the world didn't have this idea, so why are you going to live this fairy tale, thinking you can make the whole world learn Gemara?" Years passed, and this little Meir became Rav Meir Shapiro of Lublin. He started a Beit Midrash, or before that, actually, he became an avrech. And he never let go of this idea. And one day, he gets to the Chafetz Chaim. The Chafetz Chaim is already in his older and later years. And he says, "I have an idea, and maybe you could help me with it. I've had it since I was a little boy." And he tells him, "I have an idea that every Jew will learn a Daf Yomi. We learn one daf, and after seven and a half years, they'll finish the entire Shas."

1:15:36And the Chafetz Chaim says to him, "It's a great idea, but you have to tell this idea to everyone. So you come, there's a big Torah event that they have invited me to. I'm going to invite you. You come to the event and you tell this to all the rabbis. The biggest rabbis in the world are going to be there. But make sure to come a half hour late. Don't come on time." Just as the king says, the servant does. Rabbi Meir from Lublin says to come a half hour late to this Torah event, I'm coming a half hour late. Big event, big personalities there, big there. Chafetz Chaim, almost 100 years old, speaks. Everyone is excited just to see him. The anticipation was evident on his face.

1:16:41Suddenly, this young boy, this avreich in his 20s, walks in a half hour late. People look immediately, wondering who has the audacity to come a half hour late to such an event. But suddenly they see the Chafetz Chaim, almost 100 years old, get up off of his chair for this young avreich. You know who you get up from the chair for? Who do you get up when you see? Your Rav. A Talmid Chacham comes in, you get up. The Chafetz Chaim, the Sar HaTorah, the king of Torah of his generation, gets up for this young boy. This must be a prodigy. This must be Eliyahu HaNavi. This must be Mashiach himself. Everybody gets up. Everybody wants to hear who this young man is. They all get up, and the Chafetz Chaim nods to him, telling him to come speak. Now, of course, who doesn't want to hear this kid? Who doesn't want to hear what this kid has to say? The Chafetz Chaim got up for him.

1:17:47He gets up on the podium and he tells everyone about his legendary idea called Daf Yomi. Everyone buys into it, everyone loves it, especially given the whole thing that happened. How much of a genius you have to be to set the whole thing up the way the Chafetz Chaim set it up. How much of a genius you have to be to articulate such an idea. And guess what? Over a hundred years later, you got yourself over 100,000 people doing this. What bracha such a person has. Rabbi Meir Shapiro from Lublin became a legend. He died young, but became a legend. Opened a yeshiva, and the people that learned by him became talmidei chachamim. But one boy, one boy started learning. And he came to his rabbi, Rabbi Meir Shapiro, and the rabbi said to him, he looks at the boy and he says, you too will finish the Shas one day. You too will complete the Shas. And the boy said, yes, yes, yes, I'll finish it, I'll do it. The rabbi said, I'll do it, I'll do it.

1:19:10the rabbi, the boy didn't know right or left, but the rabbi says, I can do it, and I can do it. But as HaKadosh Baruch Hu would have it, shortly later, the war broke out, the Holocaust began, and six million of our brothers and sisters were murdered in cold blood. During the war, during the Shoah, When you're seeing dead bodies in every direction, you start to lose yourself. And the little boy is seeing his friends die, and he knows his turn is next. He prays to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. He prays to HaKadosh Baruch Hu in the merit of his Rebbe, in the merit of Rabbi Meir MiLublin. He says, "Rabbi Meir, you promised me. You promised me that I'm going to complete the Shas. You said I was going to complete the Shas. Talk to Hashem for me. Tell Him to keep me alive so I can complete the Shas." Almost everyone he knows died, but he survived. He got out of the war. He got out of the Holocaust. He came to America.

1:20:39And he forgot about the Shas. He forgot about Torah. He learned about America and all of the desires that come with it, all of the addictions that come with it. The addictions of America didn't start just now. It's always been this way. Even at the time of World War II, the tzaddikim were scared of coming to America. The Klausenberger Rebbe writes in his own history, he says to people, we have to be, when we go to America, we have to be secluded. We cannot be part of the Americans. We have to be like an island by ourselves. Why? Because who knows if we could overcome the desires of the Americans. We live there because they're allowing us to live in peace, but that's it. That's what you see to this day. The Hasidim, generally speaking, the really strong ones, the Satmars, the Bobov, all of those, they generally try their best to stay to themselves. They try not to be part of the rest of the nation. They do everything they possibly can to stay by themselves. Why? It's the only protection you have here. You look at the rest of the Jews, the rest of them that become, you know, hafif like everybody else, guess what? They have a lot more intermarriage, a lot more problems.

1:22:07So, this young boy forgot about the promises, forgot about the survival, forgot about the miracle, and forgot about the Shas. Years passed, and the boy tells the story himself. He becomes an old man. And he goes to sleep one night, and he has a dream. about who else other than Rabbi Meir Shapiro from Lublin, coming in his dream and rebuking him, scaring him to death. He says, you, you are only alive because of me. You prayed so I could go to HaKadosh Baruch Hu to keep you alive so you could finish the Shas, because I promised you that you're gonna complete the Shas. So why are you not doing it? If you're not going to do it, there's no point for you to be alive. I owe you. You owe me this. He woke up. He couldn't go back to sleep. And he came to his family the next morning and he tells them the dream. And he says, from now on, we're changing everything. We're taking on everything.

1:23:31We're taking on the entire Torah. We're taking on all of the mitzvot. We're all doing teshuva. We're changing everything. No exceptions. We're moving. We're changing everything. And on his 90th birthday, on his 90th birthday, he shows up at the Siyum HaShas. On his 90th birthday, he shows up at the Siyum HaShas and he stands next to Rabbi Shimon Meylikov from Mexico. And he says, this is my Shas. This whole thing is my Shas. This is my Shas. So Rabbi Shimon Meylikov from Mexico says, I'm also my Shas. He goes, no, this is my Shas. He goes, why is it your Shas? He tells him the whole story. He says, my Rebbe, my Rebbe, Rabbi Meir Lublin, the whole thing happened, Holocaust, this, that, I got off the deck, I got back, he's in my dream, this is my Shas. He says, you're right, it's your Shas. It's your Shas. Why? A few tears, a few prayers, and a moment of truth where a person understood, this is my purpose in the world. It's my purpose in the world. Without learning Torah, Rabotai, we are no different than goyim. Without learning Torah, we're no different than idol worshippers. Chazal say that really, the first goel is the last goel.

1:24:58The first Mashiach, Moshe Rabbeinu, is the last Mashiach. People keep saying, no, no, it's this one. He's the Mashiach. He's the Mashiach. It's Moshe Rabbeinu. Whether it's going to be Moshe Rabbeinu, or it's going to be a part of his neshama, doesn't really make a difference. What's the point? It says Moshe Rabbeinu is the ultimate Torah. He knows the entire Torah more than anybody else in the world. And he's not coming. To save a generation of people who do not want to learn Torah. That's what the Midrash is. It's not coming until we start understanding that Torah is not a suggestion. It's an obligation. It's survival. It's like breathing. So long as we do it purely to enjoy ourselves when we get time, when it's convenient, when it's not mixing up with our schedule, then we're confused about what our purpose is in this world. Now, when a person does know Torah, when a person does understand their purpose in the world,

1:26:13they start seeing that there is a difference between their mentality and everybody else's. They start seeing that their reality is very different from everybody else's. And the Chazon Ish writes in his sefer, Emunah U'Bitachon, that a person who knows Torah, not just knows the Parashat HaShavua, and he reads a little bit, I'm talking about understands, Talmid Chacham, understands Halacha, understands why, yes, right ideology. He said, such a person may look like a man, may walk like a man, may breathe like a man, may eat like a man, but he's not a man. He's an angel among them. A person that has real Torah, rabotai, is an angel among men. But sometimes a person can learn a lot, but have a faulty ideology. that could ruin all of it. Meaning they have all of the prerequisite knowledge, but they don't apply this knowledge everywhere. So just one screw ruins the whole thing. There was a rocket with the first Israeli astronaut that was supposed to go to outer space some years ago.

1:27:36And although I don't believe this Israeli astronaut was religious, he thought it was a good idea to bring a Sefer Torah with him to outer space. So he brought a Sefer Torah with him into the rocket. And everyone in the world was watching, not only because it's exciting—you have a rocket going to outer space, a place we know nothing about, not that we know much about where we live—but nonetheless, you go to outer space, and everyone's watching. Needless to say, all of the Jews are watching, they're excited, and they see this rocket go up in the air really fast, and there's fire everywhere, and everyone's excited. They're counting down the seconds of how much longer it's going to take for this rocket to leave the atmosphere, and how amazing it is that there's a Jew, a Sefer Torah, about to enter. What an achievement for such a small people. And everyone's counting, and then they're counting up the feat of how high it is. Shortly later, it blows up.

1:28:42and kills everyone. Now, unfortunately, unfortunately, Rabotai, they were as disappointed as you are listening to this horrific story. When they analyzed this explosion, they analyzed it to the best of their abilities because they invested billions of dollars to make this dream a reality. And instead of a reality, it turned into a nightmare. So NASA investigated every little thing to see what happened. How could such a thing go wrong? A rocket has over a million parts. A million parts go into it. Just counting one, two, three, four, five, all the way to a million is difficult. Needless to say, putting a million parts together, a million screws, a million pieces, metal, this, plastic, all types of things, a million pieces. They had to analyze every single piece. What went wrong? How could this rocket that we invested billions of dollars into explode, kill everyone, disappoint everyone, and end such amazing lives and such amazing dreams?

1:30:02When they analyzed it, they officially made a public statement that the reason why the rocket exploded was because one screw, one screw wasn't screwed in the whole way. And the pressure from the rocket and the fire and the air and the atmosphere and everything else was too much for that piece to hold on. And as soon as it fell apart, everything else, in a domino effect, destroyed the entire rocket as fast as it was flying. That's how fast the explosion was. One screw out of a million parts. Now, we cannot bring those poor lives back to this world, but we can learn from them. Some mussar for ourselves: if a rocket with a million parts and billions and billions of dollars invested into it, some of the brightest minds in the world invested into it, could simply explode...

1:31:17and become a nightmare because of one tiny little piece going wrong, not screwed the whole way. Needless to say, a Jewish life or a human life. If we learn Torah from the books, But do not apply it like Hakadosh Baruch Hu says. Do not use it like Hakadosh Baruch Hu says. Do not value it and respect it like Hakadosh Baruch Hu expects it. Then that's not one screw. That's the whole ship. When you learn Torah, you have to treat it as if it's this rocket. One screw missing, the whole ship is gone. Everything is worthless. Once you think that Hashem owes you anything, that you are doing Him a favor by learning, that He owes you something because you learned, He owes you something because you did, He owes you something for whatever crazy reason you have in your head, or Manis Friedman told you so, or some other moron told you so, you think Hashem owes you something, you might as well not learn.

1:32:37Why? Your ship's going to blow up anyway. What's the point? The key is, rabotai, to first know. HaKadosh Baruch Hu introduces Himself in last week's parasha several times. Several times. Why does He keep saying His name? You see that Moshe Rabbeinu meets HaKadosh Baruch Hu in an unusual way after he runs away from Egypt. He spends 40 years in Kush as the king, then gets kicked out of there, goes to Midian, and miraculously speaks to Moshe Rabbeinu for the first time out of a burning bush. meets HaKadosh Baruch Hu in an unusual way after he runs away from Egypt. He spends 40 years in Cush as the king, then gets kicked out of there, goes to Midian, and miraculously speaks to Moshe Rabbeinu for the first time out of a burning bush.

1:33:37And He tells Moshe, "I am the God of your father, the God of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. That's Me." Okay, fine, I get it. Moshe is scared to death and hides his face. Then after they have the discussion, he asks Him, "What's Your name?" He says, "Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh." Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh is Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh. Got to answer to him. Okay, fine. Then later on, He says to Moshe, go free Am Yisrael, go speak to Paro, and make sure to tell them that I'm G-d. Okay, You already told me twice, I get it that You're G-d.

1:34:55I'm speaking here for an hour and a half, you guys get the point, that even if you don't know my name, you get the point, I'm some guy. If Hashem was speaking to you, you wouldn't ask who it is. Hashem already tells us, okay, Moshe, tell them I'm Hashem. Moshe, by the way, I'm Hashem. Okay, I get it, you're Hashem. Later on, it says again, I'm Hashem. And again, And again, and again, half a dozen times. And if that's not enough, he starts off this parasha. Moshe complains to Hashem, why did you take me to this job? Am Yisrael is suffering because of me now. Now the punishment on them from Pharaoh is even worse. First verse, he says, God speaks to Moshe, says to him, I'm God. Why do you think I was speaking to Aharon? I know it's you. If I wanted to speak to Aharon, I'd say, Aharon, why did you do this to me? I'm talking to you, Moshe. Why does Hashem respond? The first response he gives Moshe is, by the way, Moshe, I'm God. And if that's not enough,

1:36:18He says it again: "You should know that I am God." And again. And again. And again. And He just keeps mentioning it over and over and over and over again. If He thought we were stupid, He would fix it and just give us a brain. so obviously, stupidity is not the reason why He keeps mentioning that He's God. If we had a bad memory, then He would insert a better memory. So obviously, He's not putting His name in here over and over again because of a memory deficiency. So why does He keep mentioning over and over again to Moshe Rabbeinu, needless to say to us, three thousand years later, that He's God. Because that's rule number one. Know who you're dealing with. Know that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Plain and simple. He's the King of Kings. You aspire to be a servant. Moshe Avdi. Who is the ultimate servant? Moshe Rabbeinu. He was called Moshe, my servant.

1:37:45Moshe, my servant, we aspire to hopefully, hopefully one day be a real servant. Surely we're not more. If a person understands that rule number one, first commandment in the Ten Commandments, first introduction, second introduction, tenth introduction, hundredth introduction of HaKadosh Baruch Hu is I'm God. That's what He says: I'm God, I'm God, I'm God. That's it, God. That's all you need to know. Once you know I'm God, there's no worries, there's no problems, no nothing. Why? Because you know that everything comes from Me. Your problems, your joy, your successes, your failures, your house, your kids, your wife, your husband, your boss, your cat, your employees, your pain in your leg, your stomach pain, your financial problems, the lotto, whatever it is, everything is because I'm God, He says.

1:38:47If a person understood this point fully, then he would start to understand his responsibility in the world. But so long as we think that we live a life that's, in essence, for us to live however we feel like it, with no consequences, with no responsibility, then we really have not even discovered God yet. As long as we think that we have a free choice, then we haven't even discovered that God is God. We have choice, but not free choice. Free choice means you could do whatever you want and nothing happens. Choice means everything you do will have a consequence, a good or a bad. When God is God, we have choice. then we really have not even discovered God yet. As long as we think that we have free choice, then we haven't even discovered that God is God. We have choice, but not free choice. Free choice means you could do whatever you want and nothing happens. Choice means everything you do will have a consequence, good or bad. When God is God, we have choice.

1:39:47We don't have free choice. And that's why, even when you learn Torah, if there's a small little screw missing in your ideology, it could create a truckload of pain. There's an avrech that we know, a tzaddik, a fantastic human being. Halvai, there were a million of him. One of his sons recently came to him and said, "Abba, I'm going to leave yeshiva. I'm going to go work and make some money." And Abba, the avrech that learns Torah day and night, was shocked. This is the worst news you can possibly get.

1:40:48My son wants to leave the yeshiva and go work instead. He doesn't want to be religious anymore; he wants to put his kippah down. First, you put the Gemara down, then the kippah, then Shabbat, then everything. This is what his son wants to do now. So he comes and he cries to Rabbi Efraim. And Rabbi Efraim is not surprised. Why is he not surprised? Because although this Avrech is a tzaddik, a fantastic human being, he does the mitzvot in the best way. His learning is dedicated, aleinu to be so dedicated. But there was one screw missing. What is that screw? He has a lot of financial problems, like most Avrechim. Most Avrechim, people that learn Torah, don't make much money. So they have a lot of financial problems. They're constantly struggling for money, living on debt, borrowed money, gifts, and miracles. They're constantly struggling. I know some Avrechim who literally barely have any food to eat. But that's their test.

1:42:12And we try to help as much as we can, but the reality is, it's not going to fix the test. Okay, so you help this one guy out, there's a thousand more like him, a hundred thousand more like him. Aleinu, we can help every one of them. But when everybody else that's actually working, making a living, thinks that the money is to go buy houses and not to go buy sefarim, how can we do it? But this avrech was one of the good ones. Learning, dedicating, and struggling with financial problems. And he would complain about it, about how he doesn't have money. His son would say, "Listen, Abba, I want to go on a trip." "I'm sorry, son, I don't have the money. I'm only an avrech." And his son would want a bicycle. "I'm sorry, son, I can't give it to you. I'm only an avrech." And his son would want something. "I'm sorry, son, I can't give it to you. I'm only an avrech." And he would constantly blame his poverty on being an avrech. So one day the boy got his own idea. He says, if being an avrech causes all of these financial problems, why should I want to be an avrech? Let me go make some money, and that way I don't have these problems.

1:43:35Meaning despite the fact that he learned Torah day and night, he never noticed the mistake in himself. Yes, you can say the reality is I do not have money. I'm struggling. But the added few words of saying, "I don't have any money because I'm an avrech," that was extra. It's not true. You don't have any money because HaKadosh Baruch Hu doesn't want you to have any money. It has nothing to do with being an avrech. You added that. You think you don't have any money because you're an avrech. And therefore, your son now doesn't want to be an avrech. In fact, he doesn't even want to be Jewish. And none of your daughters want to marry avrechim. When you start saying things like, I'm having these problems since I did teshuva, guess what? You could put your teshuva in the garbage. That's what it's worth, your teshuva. Oh, since I did teshuva, I have all these problems. Take your teshuva and throw it in the dumpster. That's not teshuva, my friend. Your ideology is warped. You think you have problems because of teshuva. You're only alive because of teshuva. Who said you would be alive if you didn't have teshuva, if you didn't have Torah? You would have had problems anyway. What, secular people don't have problems? Show me one.

1:45:01In all of the world, show me one person that doesn't have any problems. The difference between someone who has Torah and someone who doesn't is that the one who has Torah has a reason, an explanation, and a purpose for his or her problems. Whereas the person who does not have Torah is simply a victim of himself. He has no idea why this is happening to him. He has no idea why he has any problems. He has no idea what the purpose of these problems is. Because he doesn't have Torah. He has no explanation. He has no purpose. So that means that if you already adapted into the Torah world, but you still have the mentality of a secular heretic, that you think you have problems because of the Torah, because you did teshuvah, because you converted, because you're now living the way Hashem says, you think that's the reason you have a problem? Then you haven't even begun to be a Jew.

1:46:06The problems, it has nothing to do, has nothing to do with your teshuvah. In fact, you should think that if you didn't have these problems and you were still secular, you'd probably be dead. That's the real truth. I spoke to a talmid chacham today, and he told me this. This is a person that learns probably no less than 15-20 hours a day. How he speaks to me is a miracle. He says to me, I had a real dilemma two weeks ago. My learning was tragic, he tells me. My learning was horrible. I said, everything's going to be good. He goes, no, no, you don't understand. I'm davening for it. I don't understand how Hashem is keeping me alive. My neshamah goes up to Shamayim, and I know it's telling Hashem, Hashem, there's really no point for this guy to come back. He hasn't studied like a normal person in two weeks.

1:47:10You know what not studying like a normal person means? You only study five hours. Only. All of us, to start learning five hours like he learns five hours. But he learns, and he says, "Hashem, I don't really know. There's probably no purpose for me to be in the world. I only learned five hours." The ideology of a person, rabotai, is critical. It's critical. It's critical that we know that a person needs to value Torah like it's his life. One of the greatest chachamim that we've had in recent generations was Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach. Rav Shalom. And someone came to Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach and asked him, "Kevod HaRav, when did you decide exactly that you're going to be a Talmid Chacham? Did something happen, something motivate you?" And he says, "Yes, in fact, there was. When I was a kid, my Abba was a big Talmid Chacham, Rav Leib Auerbach."

1:48:36And he learned Torah day and night. He didn't have time or ability to make a decent living. So there were a lot of financial problems. And at one point, the debt collectors started coming to the house and started taking stuff from the house so they could sell it and make their money back. So first they came, they took the couch. Then they would come in without even an announcement. come in, you open the door, a couple of guys already come in without saying anything, without saying who they are, they show you a piece of paper, take the couch. Next thing you know, they take the table, then take the chairs, then take the closet, then start taking clothes. And little by little, my family and I were emptied out; we had nothing left in the house. They started taking the spoons and the cups. There's no food, there's no chairs, there's no table, there's no bed. And then one day, they come in, they see there's nothing left other than my father's sefarim. Other than my father's books. His Torah books that he learns from. So the guy says, "Okay, you know what, maybe we can take two of these sefarim, sell them, make some money."

1:50:01So they take two of the sefarim, and the moment they put their hands on the sefarim, I saw my mother scream out to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, "No!" And she starts hysterically crying to Hashem, "No, Hashem! No! No!" I'll give him the closets and the tables and the chairs and the beds and the clothes and the spoons and the cups and the food and everything else. Just don't take my husband's sefarim. This is our eternity. This is how he's teaching my kids to have eternity. When I saw that my mom didn't care about the spoons and the cups and the tables and the chairs and the closets and the house and everything else, but she could not deal with them taking even two sefarim, two books, that my father was teaching us from, at that moment I said, I'm going to be a talmid chacham. If that's so valuable to you,

1:51:10It's more valuable than all the tables and the chairs and the houses and everything else. Just these two sefarim are more valuable to you than all of that stuff, then I want to be a talmid chacham that knows all of these sefarim. Because that's an otzar, that's a treasure. That's a treasure. And that's when I decided to become a talmid chacham. You see, rabotai, If we influence ourselves with the right ideology and mentality to view Torah as simply the potion for life, that we survive because of it, we survive due to it. Without it, there's really no point for us to live. We're no different than cows. Quite frankly, the cow has more of a purpose. You can at least get milk from it. And that's why the Gemara Masechet Pesachim says that a person who does not learn Torah should not be allowed to eat meat. Why? Because the cow is more valuable than him. It's fulfilling its purpose. If you're not learning Torah, you're not fulfilling your purpose. When we fix our own ideology to start looking at learning Torah, and fixing our own warped mentality and ideology, we look at it as survival.

1:52:40then not only does that help us, not only does it help us start learning Torah and fulfilling the Torah as if our life depends on it, but suddenly we become the greatest kiruv machine known to man without doing anything. Just by people looking at you, they want to do it. Just by people seeing that the only place they can find you is in a shiur Torah, that makes them want to do it. Just because people see that that's the only thing you talk about. They want to talk to you about business, they want to talk to you about sports, they want to talk to you about girls, they want to talk to you about dogs, they want to talk to you about everything except Torah. And you take no action whatsoever. You don't let a minute pass without Torah. You have no interest whatsoever in these conversations. You have no interest whatsoever in the secular life. You have no interest whatsoever in everything. And they see that time and time again, you're the same. You're the same. You're the same. You're the same. Guess what? They want to be like you. They want to be like you. That doesn't happen overnight. Sometimes it takes with certain people years. Sometimes a few minutes. Depends on who they are.

1:54:01Depends on how many sins they made. The more klipah they have on their soul, the more it takes. But nonetheless, you will see, and I promise you this. This is a promise of the Torah, not me. That by you gluing yourself to HaKadosh Baruch Hu and His Torah, you will see that you attract people simply by existing. But since we are in the end of days, we don't have that kind of time. You have to chase people too. Learning Torah is not enough. You have to get up, you have to do kiruv, you have to help other people, you have to bring them to the shiurim, you have to try harder to help others. You cannot just help yourself. A person is not allowed to simply worry about himself, put himself into a room, and just worry about his own issues. He has to help Klal Yisrael. If you're learning and you know a lot, start teaching. You don't know enough to teach, you're not a good speaker, you don't have the ability, you don't have a crowd, no problem, you can help people in other ways. Bring them to a shiur, share the shiur, sponsor a shiur, donate for a shiur. There are a million and a half different ways that you can do kiruv in order to fulfill the mitzvah of not only learning Torah but teaching Torah. But needless to say, you have to have this attitude in your own house.

1:55:31If your wife sees that the more Torah you learn, the better you become as a human being, she is going to be the biggest supporter of you learning Torah. But if your wife sees that it doesn't matter how much Torah you learn, you're still the same akshan, nothing changes, then guess what? You're going to create a wife that hates Torah. You're going to create a wife that doesn't like Torah. Why? Because she doesn't see the effect. She doesn't see anything good out of it. She just sees that she sees you less for two hours a day. And you become an achzan. Seems like you're just hanging out with your friends. She says, you know what? Why don't you go buy groceries instead? Why don't you do the laundry? Why don't you change some diapers? Go do something useful. So your Torah is obviously not useful because it's not changing you. You're still the same am ha'aretz that I met. You're still the same achzan. Still not modest, still looking everywhere, still cursing, still yelling, still nothing's changed. So what's the point of this Torah? What, so you have fun with your friends? I want to have fun with my friends, I'll tell you. You watch the kids, let me go with my friends to go learn Daf Yomi. That means, Abotai, that if your wife is not a fan of your learning, it's your fault. That means you're not showing her the goods.

1:56:52You're not showing her the results of this Torah. You're not changing enough for her to say, "I like this. Go for four hours next week. You only went for two hours this week, go for four hours next week." Why? Every time I send you for two hours, I get a better you. So go for more. Go for 25 years, 24 years. I'll get a diamond in return. If we're not becoming that diamond, they're going to hate it. And guess what? If they hate it, the kids are going to hate it. The kids are going to want to become baseball players, basketball players, multi-millionaires. That's what they're going to want. Why? They don't see the benefit of this Torah. It all starts with us. Starts with you. If you're seeing that people aspire to become like you, They want what you have. They want to learn with you. They want to learn from you. That's a good indication you're going in the right direction. It doesn't mean you're there yet. It just means it's a good indication. Your wife is happy with you. Another positive indication. That's the best mirror. When do you know you did good? When you start seeing your kids develop into Talmidei Chachamim. They're already older.

1:58:17They're already married and their heads are straight. And they’re already teaching their kids what you taught them. That's when you can say, ah, I did good. I did good. But as long as you don't have any of that, it means we have a lot of work to do. B'ezrat Hashem, this will give us a little bit more of an idea of what kind of work is ahead, but also what our responsibility is. What's the point of living another day in this world without knowing what our responsibility is? It's just a waste of a day. Let's continue learning, continue doing, continue understanding what our responsibility is from HaKadosh Baruch Hu, that He's our King of Kings, He's our Master, He's our everything, He's our purpose. We serve Him and nothing else. Once a person understands that, lives by that, everything becomes easier. So long as we understand that, life turns into something that you want; it's worth living.

1:59:26But if we don't understand it, then life is simply not worth living, because you are confused all the time. This week's parasha, Parashat Vayera, please, each one of you, when you read it, count how many times, and the next time I see you, I want you guys to give me the answer. How many times does Hashem say, "I am Hashem"? Count it. How many times does Hashem say it? Don't just read the places; look for the phrase, "I am Hashem." Read the whole parasha, for heaven's sake. How many times does Hashem say, "I am Hashem"? Look at it. Why does He say it so many times? One reason we learned today. That's rule number one. He's God. There are many, many other reasons. We'll learn that next time. Baruch Adonai l'olam. Amen ve'amen.