InterMarriage, KING SOLOMON, AfterLIFE, Suffering Servant, HONORING PARENTS - STUMP THE RABBI (42)

0:17We're back on our Wednesday night in Sunny Isles, Florida, for our "Stump the Rabbi" questions and answers. Hopefully, you guys thought of some questions that the rest of the world could benefit from since, Baruch Hashem, people have increased their questions lately, but only when the camera's off. You know, so when you ask a question, it's in front of the camera, other people can hear the answer, other people can benefit. Plus, we have a couple of tzaddikim volunteers that are cutting all the questions into clips. You know, because some people, when they see a two- or three-hour shiur, they get scared. increase their questions lately, but only when the camera's off. You know, so when you ask a question, it's in front of the camera, other people can hear the answer, other people can benefit. Plus, we have a couple of tzaddikim volunteers that are cutting all the questions into clips. You know, because some people, when they see a two- or three-hour shiur, they get scared. You know, they think it's the coronavirus. So they run away. But if you send them like a 10-15 minute clip, they say, ah, it's the cure for corona. Okay, so let's do it.

1:24Anyway, today's shiur will be for my dear wife Levana Bat Sarah, Rav Efraim Ben Shulamit, Rav Nitzan Bat Anat, David Ben Esria, Doris Bat Zora, Esther Bat Zipora, Dvorah Bat Mercedes, Eli Sheva, Chaya Bat Sarah, And also a special thank you to all of our partners that invest into Olam HaBa while no one's looking other than HaKadosh Baruch Hu. You know, all of these donations, people that donate every day, where they go out there, work really hard to make a living, but then still realize that the reason why HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives you 100% of your parnasa is so you can use at least 10% of it for the sake of this Torah.

2:33And there's nothing greater than a person showing HaKadosh Baruch Hu love by caring about His children and investing his money into Kiruv. Because the reality is that if more people from Am Yisrael do not do teshuva, we are in a losing battle right now because of the intermarriage that we're in right now. The intermarriage rates right now are at historical highs. I believe we have passed, unfortunately, we've surpassed what we were doing at the time of Germany, right before World War II. And unfortunately, in this generation, you can say, the pasuk that's written in Parashat Noach, אין בית שאין בו מת. that there's no household that doesn't have a dead body. Meaning, there's no household that doesn't have a problem with intermarriage. And sometimes it's one of the immediate family members, one of the brothers, one of the sisters has a non-Jewish boyfriend or non-Jewish girlfriend, or a wife or husband that's not Jewish. Or sometimes it's a cousin, sometimes it's a best friend, a partner.

3:50Every day, there are more and more people contacting us, asking for help with intermarriage situations. The problem is that people do not understand that the issues of intermarriage are more than just physical issues. It's more than just the physical issues. If you were ever in an intermarriage situation you would know that there is an unusual attachment to this non-Jew. An unusual attachment from the non-Jew to you, as a Jew. An unusual attachment from you to the non-Jew. Now, of course, in the secular world, or in, unfortunately, some Modern Orthodox world, having a boyfriend and girlfriend before marriage is very normal. Even though HaKadosh Baruch Hu says it's not allowed, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says,

5:03Deuteronomy chapter 23, verse 18, says, "There shall not be a promiscuous woman," and "There shall not be a promiscuous man." What does promiscuous mean? Promiscuous means that you're going to have intimacy without marriage. That's promiscuous. Well, how many times? One time is already too much. One time being promiscuous before marriage is already too much for a Jew. A non-Jew can be promiscuous before marriage, and the reason why is because there's no din of chuppah v'kiddushin for non-Jews. According to the Torah, if a Noahide, a non-Jew, is with a woman that's also not Jewish, they're considered married. They don't need to go to civil court. They should for legal reasons, but nonetheless, they're considered married. If they want to get divorced the next day, they don't have to go to court. They can just not see each other anymore.

6:08Now, they shouldn't be, you know, marrying a new wife every five minutes, or a new husband every five minutes, because promiscuity is not an admirable trait in the eyes of HaKadosh Baruch Hu for anyone. But needless to say, they don't have chuppah and kiddushin. They don't have a marriage ceremony. Jews, on the other hand, we have a marriage ceremony. It's called chuppah and kiddushin, which means that the woman and the man are not allowed to touch each other before marriage. And what marriage is, is they go to a rabbi who is musmach in this issue, who knows the laws of chuppah and kiddushin. He's beki in the issue, meaning he's an expert in it. He knows what questions to ask. He knows what issues to raise before getting to the chuppah. He has to make sure that both parties are allowed to get married. One time I had a student, back in Boca Raton, and he told me that he's getting married. And I said, okay, who's the rabbi? And he said, Rabbi Pikachu. I said, yeah, but Rabbi Pikachu is not such a good rabbi. He's the same rabbi that told you that you're allowed to drive on Shabbat for the last five years.

7:31you only found out you're not allowed when you met me, so that's not such a good rabbi. He's good at being Pikachu, not a rabbi. "No, but you know, I feel bad. I want to make sure that I don't hurt him because he's still a nice guy." I said, "Nice guy, no nice guy. You have to have a kosher rabbi be your chuppah rabbi." "Ah, you know, maybe you're a little extreme, maybe a little fanatic." I said, "Okay, do what you want. It's not a problem." Did you talk to him already? He goes, no, no, we had the whole conversation. He's ready. He says, we get married. Everything is good. I said, okay, did you, uh, did you tell him about your, uh, your past marriage? He said, no, he never asked. He said, he never asked you if you were married before. He says, no. So he doesn't know that you don't have a get. He said, no. I said, exactly. He's good at being pikeach. You're not allowed to get married until you get a get. And he's not allowed to be a rabbi. He's allowed to be pikeach.

8:43There is no issue of embarrassing, no embarrassing here. You have to make sure that you pick the right people. When the Chachamim say that a person that's gonna do Chupah VeKidushin has to be Baki in these issues, meaning he has to be an expert, meaning he studied all the laws, he knows what questions to ask. He knows whether you're allowed to get married or not. There are many people that get married, and they're not allowed to get married. Or worse yet, they get to the chupah ve'kidushin, and they bring their, I don't know, their brothers, or their father, or their best friend, to be the guys that are the witnesses of the chupah ve'kidushin, because they want to give them kavod. The problem is, if those people are mechalelei Shabbat, they don't keep Torah and mitzvot, that marriage is not valid. Because they're not allowed to be witnesses. If you're a Mechalel Shabbat, the Gemara, the Zohar, and needless to say, the Rambam writes in Hilchot Shabbat, chapter 30, halacha number 15, last halacha in Hilchot Shabbat for the Rambam, he says that a Mechalel Shabbat is dino k’goy. He is considered 100% a goy. He's considered an idol worshiper. Meaning, an idol worshiper cannot be a witness in a Jewish ceremony.

10:00So, although you want to give them kavod for being your best friend or your brother or your father, you also want to be Jewish and you want to be married. If you want to be Jewish and you want to be married, you have to follow the laws of Judaism and marriage. Now, If a person wants to get married, they have to make sure that they follow all the laws. Once you get to the chuppah, you do whatever you need to do with the chuppah, you finish that. L'chaim, l'chaim. After that, your wife is allowed to you as long as she's pure, as long as she went to the mikveh. She went to the mikveh, she's pure, she waited the appropriate amount of days, you know, to wait for the bleeding to stop, or at least four days, and then seven days on top of it. Long story short, you know all the laws of family purity, your wife is an expert in it, you, the husband, you also know it, because you both need to know it. Baruch Hashem, as long as she's pure, you're allowed to be with her. If she did not go to the mikveh, then she's still forbidden to you.

11:08Now, for all of you single guys and girls, I'm going to give you a little secret. The secret is, if you're not married to a Jewish woman, if she's not married, she's not allowed to go to the mikveh. She's not allowed to go to the mikveh. What does that mean, she's not allowed to go to the mikveh? What do you care about the mikveh? Just throw her in a pool, no? What's the difference between the mikveh? When a woman does not go to the mikveh, that makes her niddah. And niddah, rabotai yikarim, the Gemara says, there's no impurity worse than niddah, stronger than niddah. It doesn't make her a bad person, it doesn't make her an evil person, chas v'shalom, it doesn't make her anything. It just makes her not allowed to you. Forbidden to you, forbidden from being intimate. That's what it does. But the impurity, the koach, the strength of the impurity of a woman that's niddah, is extremely powerful. So much so that in past generations, it's no longer halacha l'ma'aseh today, but in past generations, there were some chachamim that would say that if a woman who was niddah came to the beit knesset, and she sat on a chair, no one else was allowed to sit on that chair. Why? The niddah may affect them. Now, this is not halacha l'ma'aseh today, but nonetheless, some hold to it. Point being, rabotai yikarim,

12:36is people that are trying to be holy and close to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, were very, very conscious of the fact that if your wife is niddah, you're not allowed to even touch her finger. Needless to say, to be with her. So if you're only allowed to be with your own wife when she's pure, and if you touch her when she's not pure, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says it's din karet. What's din karet, rabotai yikarim, is the person loses Olam HaBa. What does losing Olam HaBa mean? You go to Sha'ar HaGmul from the Ramban, you go to the Gemara in Masechet Rosh Hashanah page 16b or 17a, you go to Reishit Chochmah, Masechet Gehinom, you go to all of these different places that discuss what "no share of the World to Come" means. No share of the World to Come means Gehinom. How long? Permanent.

13:36It's not worth it, is the point. It's not worth it. Even if you don't know what happens in Gehinom, already the word Gehinom is scary. It's not worth it. So you have to wait, if you're married, you have to wait for your wife to go to the mikveh. Now if you're not married, then guess what? She's not allowed to go to the mikveh. No mikveh would accept her. It's not allowed. Which means that all of these single girls, as wonderful as they are, as smart as they are, as beautiful as they are, or some of them as ugly as they are, whatever they are, they're all niddah. They're all forbidden to you. You have a girlfriend that you're intimate with before Jewish marriage. You, my friend, are playing with the Satan. Every single time you guys are together, you're simply ruining your life. And then you come complaining to the Rabbi or to your psychiatrist or to your parents or to somebody else, "Oh, why is my life so bad? I'm so lonely." How are you lonely? You have 15 friends next to you. "I don't know, I'm so lonely, I feel sad." How come? You have a boyfriend and a girlfriend. How come you're so sad? "Oh, I don't know." But you just got a dog. "Yeah, I don't know." But you just got a new job with a million-dollar raise. "Yeah, I don't know, I want to be suicidal." How come?

14:54Because your neshama, your neshama is suffering. Every time you do something against HaKadosh Baruch Hu, your neshama starts suffering. It starts suffering. What is it like? Imagine yourself right now, are you saying thank you to Hashem for the air that you're breathing? Probably not, right? Me neither. But the truth is, you know when we would say thank you? If suddenly, Chas V'Shalom, The air stopped. No oxygen. No oxygen. Within a second, all of us realize it. Within 10 seconds, we're already starting to think about what's going to happen to me and Olam HaBa. After 25, 30, 40 seconds, depending on your shape, how long you can hold your breath, you can start seeing bodies. People start passing out. Now, right before you pass out, Hashem turns back the air on. Thank you. Wow. Thank you, HaKadosh Baruch Hu. It's the best air in the world. That's when you're going to appreciate air. That is what's happening to your neshama every single time you make a sin that's chayav karet.

16:14your neshama stops breathing, and it starts dying, and dying more, and dying more, and every day you kill it more, and more, and more, and more, and more. Finally, you do a mitzvah and say, I'm sorry, Hashem. The neshama says, "Thank you, he gave me another chance. He gave me another chance, this fool. He gave me another chance. He said, 'I'm sorry' at least. Hopefully, he doesn't do it again tomorrow. Hopefully, she doesn't do it tomorrow." But sometimes a person knows the truth, knows they're not allowed to be with anyone before marriage. They see that there's an unusual attachment to this person. Even more so when it's intermarriage issues, meaning when it's a Jew and a non-Jew. Why is that? How come if you are a promiscuous person and you have a new husband or wife every other day, every week you go to the clubs, you find a new one? Like you have more husbands than you have clothes. You have more wives than you have sneakers. You switch them. But then one day you fall in love, right? You pretend like it's love. You pretend.

17:30As if you know what love is. You only find out what love is after at least 15, 20 years of marriage. But let's say you pretend like you actually have love. Let's say. Let's say. Let's say you actually say "I love you" and you actually mean it. Let's say. Pretend. Let's make pretend like we're little kids. Now, you say "I love you." She says "I love you." "I love you." "I love you." "I love you." Right? But then something wrong happens. You break up. All day "I love you, love you, love you" goes away. You finally knew what "I love you" means. Two, three days later, I have a friend, an old friend. I don't speak to him very often now, but he's a non-Jewish guy. He used to say, "I love you, I love you" to his wife all the time. He also said, "I love you, I love you" to the alcohol all the time. He's an alcoholic. Anyway, this guy made a fortune on Wall Street. He's actually one of the decent brokers who knows what he's doing, dealing with a lot of rich people. He made a lot of money. His wife was even more successful than him. Made a ton of money. Anyway, they said, "I love you" all the time. "I love you, I love you" in public and private all the time. "I love you, I love you." You look cute, right? Cute. About a year ago, on Facebook, he decided to post, "I don't love you." Why? She just divorced me. She left. But he said, thank God. I'm free. He was celebrating that he's free. As if the "I love you" was really make pretend.

18:56You know, it's fake, "I love you," because he feels like he was in jail for the last, I don't know, 10 years, whatever, all along this one. Okay? No "I love you" anymore. And he said, specifically, he wanted the whole world to know, and HaKadosh Baruch Hu wanted me to know, because I don't really ever look at anybody's posts, but apparently, he wanted me to know, that he's never getting married again. No more "I love you's." That's it. Enough's enough. As HaKadosh Baruch Hu would have it. Mamash, I've never seen, I didn't even know we were friends on Facebook. just the other day, just the other day, eight months past, I don't know, six months past, whatever it's been, he says, "I have a new 'I love you,'" and he already bought her a ring, and they already got married. They got married already, that's it. Such a person like this knows what "I love you" is? You're making fun of the whole love; you're making fun of what love really means if you think that that's what happens. So, how come he has such an easy time... Discontinuing the "I love you" for 10 years, many people have such an easy time canceling out the "I love you." But once in a while, when it's the worst person in the world for you, when you're a Jew and she's not a Jew, when you're a Jew and he's not a Jew, he's Mustafa, he's Hitler, he's Jesus—he's one of these people—not allowed for a minute.

20:23You cannot allow yourself to leave him. You cannot allow yourself to leave her. She left you. She cheated on you. She lied to you. You have videos of her cheating on you. You have pictures of him cheating on you. All the worst things in the world. But you can't help yourself. You have to stay with him. He's the worst person on earth. But I love him. I'll come. Now, obviously, it has nothing to do with love. Anyone who thinks that should go back, rewind, start again, get here again. Hopefully, you're not stupid. It has nothing to do with love. What does it have to do with, son? Because when somebody is with a non-Jew, it says they're tied to them like a dog. The son gave us the answer. Spoiled the whole thing. What's the answer? The Gemara says, when a Jew is with a non-Jew, she is tied to him like a dog. What does it mean she's tied to him like a dog?

21:25Why, Hashem is making fun of non-Jews? He created them too! Chas v'shalom, Hashem is not making fun of non-Jews. When a Jew is with a non-Jew, either a girl, a Jewish girl with a non-Jewish boy, or vice versa, those neshamos are forbidden to each other. But they stick. They stick in a bad way. They stick in such a bad way, it's like one of those things where if you use the right screw and you put it into the right nut, it goes smoothly. You put it in, you take it out, no problem, right? But what if you put the wrong screw into that same nut? You could put it in, but what happens? You can't get it out. Why? It's the wrong one. You've ruined both of them now. That's what happens with intermarriage. The tumah that's created, the impurity that's created as a result of intermarriage, is so extraordinary that it's very hard to undo it.

22:36Therefore, it's very hard for them to break up because they have an unnatural attraction to each other, even though it doesn't make any sense. He doesn't even like her anymore. She doesn't even like him anymore. They actually hate each other, but they can't leave each other, and they don't know why. That's the reason why Hakadosh Baruch Hu says when you do it, you're in essence gluing those neshamos in an inappropriate way, which is very difficult to undo. You need a lot of kedusha. a lot of kedusha to fix it. Because kedusha is the only thing that can beat tumah. So when a young man or a woman is promiscuous, in essence what they're doing is they're playing with lava. Because they're putting themselves in a situation that they could potentially fall into the wrong place and put themselves and the other person in jeopardy. Because intermarriage is forbidden both with Jews and non-Jews. Jews are not allowed to marry non-Jews for obvious reasons. HaKadosh Baruch Hu says they're not allowed to marry non-Jews. We're only allowed to marry each other. But non-Jews are also not allowed to marry Jews. Under what law? Under the law of murder. There are seven Noahide laws. And one of those laws is that non-Jews are forbidden from murdering.

24:01And marrying a Jew is murdering the Jew. It's the equivalent of murdering his neshama. Because each and every single time they're intimate together, it's din karet. It's considered 100% like you just murdered that Jew. Now, go ahead and fix that. Very difficult to fix. So, now, how could such a person fix it? There are a couple of ways of fixing it. HaKadosh Baruch Hu says that teshuva is several steps. The Rambam elaborates on it. He says, first and foremost, you have to stop. You have to stop being intimate. You have to stop being together. You have to stop. Stop the sin. Whatever the sin is. If you're a pogem brit, stop being a pogem brit. Which, by the way, intermarriage is also pogem brit. Because you're not allowed to be together. And therefore, every time you're together, even if you're trying to get pregnant, it's still wasting seed because you're not allowed to have a baby. And if a Jewish guy has a baby with a non-Jewish girl, guess what? That kid is not considered his kid. It's not considered his kid.

25:14according to the Torah, it is not considered his kid. If that kid converts one day, 20 years later, little cute little girl, they used to change her diapers, she grows up, 20 years later she converts, she wants to be a Jew. And the Jew wants to marry her, he's allowed to marry her. Why? She's not his kid. Now, we don't do that because it looks bad for the goyim, But the point is, according to the Torah, it's halacha. She's not his kid. The kids from the non-Jews are not considered his kids. Now, I know this is going to rub some people the wrong way, but that's halacha, that's Torah. You don't like it, go complain to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, have a one-on-one with Him and see what happens. Let me know. Let me know how it turned out. Write me a text. He said this, I said that, I said, God, you're wrong, and then it ended.

26:16Postcard, Masechet Gehinnom. So the point is, Rabotai Yekarim, when a Jew has a kid with a non-Jew, you have a serious problem. Now if a Jewish woman is with a non-Jew, Shem Yishmor, the kid is still considered Jewish. But nonetheless, there's still a problem here. Why? Because the husband is not Jewish. So now, Hakadosh Baruch Hu says if you're sinning, you're violating Shabbat, you're wasting seed, you're eating non-kosher, you're stealing in your business, you're angry every two minutes, you curse a lot. All of these different sins. First step, stop. First step of teshuva, stop. Second step, make a fence. Meaning, learn a lot about this mitzvah. Learn about all the different things that you're not allowed to do. Learn about all the trigger points of yourself that lead you to do it. Spending certain time with certain people, going to certain places, and so on. Third step: I'm sorry. I'm sorry for sinning. I'm sorry for going against You. And the fourth step: Get to a point where after you've done all this teshuva, which also includes getting other people to do teshuva for the same thing, so you can undo your own crimes.

27:38The last step is to get to a point where HaKadosh Baruch Hu gets stamped; you are a really serious Baal Teshuva. Chachamim say, how does Hashem get to a point where He knows for sure this guy is a real serious Baal Teshuva? How does He know? He knows when He sends you the test again. And this time you pass. He sends you the same girl that's not allowed to you. The same circumstance, you're still attracted, you're still in love, and all the crazy feelings, but you know HaKadosh Baruch Hu said no. So you say, thank you, but no thank you. Why? I'm not allowed to be with you. I'm Jewish, you're not Jewish. I'm sorry. You passed that test, now you did teshuva. Now you did teshuva. But if you fail again, restart. Again, hopefully, you survive this one. That's what happens. So, the first step of doing teshuva for intermarriage. Intermarriage doesn't actually mean you always have to legally be married. Intermarriage means you're simply intimate with the opposite gender that's not Jewish and you're Jewish. The way that a person can do teshuva is, first off, break up. Break up, start learning about the topic, run away from them.

29:04say, "I'm sorry, this cannot be anymore. It's not you, it's me. Really, it's not even me. Blame Him. Why? Because He said that if I continue being with you, He's going to kill me and you. So, I like you, and that's why I don't want to kill you. That's why I have to leave you. Learn about it. You start getting other people to also know the same information, sending them the shiur so they can learn about it." You say, "I'm sorry" to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. You start doing serious teshuva, keeping mitzvot, donating money for the sake of kiruv to help other people get out of the same trap that you were in. But always, always be prepared for that test to come back to you again. She's going to come back to you again. He's going to come back to you again. You're going to have an unnatural desire to be with this person again. Why? That's the test. That's going to be the final step. HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, here you go. I want to see if you really mean it. You donated $10,000 already. Good for you. You said "I'm sorry" 10,000 times already. Good for you. You stopped already for 10 months. Good for you. Now I want to see if you mean it. Why? It's easy to be religious in a closet. You know, sometimes people like to be religious but in a closet. No one knows. No one knows. He has no problem wearing tzitzit but only at home.

30:29I have a couple of people like this. I tell them, "How come you don't wear tzitzit?" "No, I wear tzitzit, Rabbi. Come on, don't lie about me." I said, "I'm looking at you right now, you don't wear tzitzit. What, am I blind?" He goes, "No, I don't wear tzitzit outside, but I wear tzitzit inside. I wear tzitzit inside the house." Ah, so no one sees that you're Jewish; that's why you wear tzitzit inside. You're embarrassed of your Judaism. Or better yet, the woman is modest all year round, except when there's an event. She's modest all year round, but if there's an event, a wedding, or a bar mitzvah, oh no, that's when she goes out like she's going to a club. Or she puts on, instead of the kisui, a wig. Or she's not modest when she goes to work. She's modest at home; at home, she puts on a sack. At work, though, half a sack. Half a sack. Why? She's really not comfortable with her own Judaism. He's not comfortable with his own Judaism. Kadosh Baruch Hu says, I don't like stuff like that. It's faker. It means you're embarrassed of Me. You're embarrassed of Me. It's not nice. It's not nice to be embarrassed of your Father. Kadosh Baruch Hu wants us to be proud of our Judaism. Where do we learn that from? Purim. The first time in the entire Tanakh that the word Yehudi is mentioned is in Megillat Esther. Yehudi is not mentioned in the Five Books of Moses.

31:58You're not going to see the word 'Jew' in the Five Books of Moses. Where are you going to see it? You're going to see it in Megillat Esther. It's part of the Tanakh. Where is it mentioned the first time? Mordechai HaYehudi. Mordechai the Jew. Why Mordechai the Jew? The Ben Ish Chai says, everyone knew that Mordechai was the Jew. How do they know? He had such long peyos, so big, you can see he's a Jew from a mile away. Why? He was proud to be a Jew. So you want to make sure they're nice, big, fluffy, you can see them from far away. Gemara Masechet Megillah says, who is a Jew? It says, Mordechai is a Jew. And Batya Bat Pharaoh is a Jew. It says, why are they Jews? How come you're saying somebody else? It says because Mordechai and Batya, they fought against Avodah Zarah. They made fun of Avodah Zarah. You make fun of Avodah Zarah, you're a Jew. Why? You're fighting against the opposite of God. HaKadosh Baruch Hu hates things that are the opposite of Him.

33:12Idol worship is the opposite of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Why? Hashem is everything. An idol is absolutely nothing. It's the creation’s creation. Meaning, Hashem didn't create the idol. Who created it? His creation created the idol. People created the idol. So it's the lowest form of creation. It's the exact opposite of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Same thing, Hashem hates liars. Why? His signature is emet. He hates liars. That's why it says, it's the only mitzvah in the Torah where it says, stay away from this. Don't only not do it, stay away from it. Stay away from lies. Hashem hates lies so much, stay away from lies. Stay away from lies, stay away from liars, stay away from lying. Stay away from it. If your business, or this industry, is full of lies, run away. Find a new business. Yeah, you might think, "I'm going to make money." Don't worry. Your friend is a liar? Stay away from him. Find a new one. Well, you might think, "I'm going to be lonely." It's okay. It's better to be lonely than to be next to a liar. Because if he's lying for you, he will lie about you.

34:31So, HaKadosh Baruch Hu hates things that are the opposite of Him. So when you fight against those things, like Mordechai fought against idolatry, Batya bat Paroh fought against idolatry, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says that's a Jew. That's a Jew. So a Jew has to be proud that he's a Jew. Not hide his Judaism. When a person is proud to be a Jew, he's not going to have a problem to tell non-Jewish girlfriend or boyfriend or her boyfriend that they're not allowed to be together. Why? Because she's a Jew and he's not, he's a Jew and she's not. Not allowed. It's nothing personal. It's not that you're a bad person. HaKadosh Baruch Hu says it's not allowed. So, a person needs to know that aside from stopping Aside from learning about it and encouraging other people not to fall into intermarriage, aside from making donations to ensure that you do whatever tikkun you need to do, you have to prepare yourself to go public with this. Meaning, HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to send you that test. He's going to send you that test, and he's going to put you in a situation that you were in, and it's very, very difficult to overcome it.

35:53He's going to send you that beautiful goya, he's going to send you that beautiful goy, waiting for you. And they don't even know why. Why? He wants to allow you to do full teshuva. Now if you're embarrassed, or you're weak, you're going to fail. If you're strong, you prepare yourself, you succeed. So the first way of doing teshuva for intermarriage is what I just said. What's the second way? Second way, Rabotai HaKedoshim, believe it or not, is finding out if this person is interested in becoming a Jew. If they are, if they're not a religious Christian, if they're not a religious Muslim, or an atheist, they believe in God and they want to take on the mitzvot, you should help them convert. You should help them convert, you should help them. Find the truth, give them the CDs, give them the information, and let them go through the process of conversion. Because if they become a Jew, guess what? You're passing the test on day one. The day they become a Jew, you get married right away. What happens? What happens on that day? Now you stopped being with a non-Jew, right? You already stopped even before they converted, because obviously, you realize you don't have to be with them.

37:21top of it throughout the way you learned all the material, right? You're encouraging other people not to repeat the same mistake. But what about the test of getting the same person, the same person an opportunity to be there and not failing? That's what you have. You married them, but now it's allowed. Now it's a mitzvah to be together. Same person, but this time it's a mitzvah. So, but again, it's only if they obviously want to be a Jew, not if they want to just get married and make your mommy happy. So it's very important for people to know that when it comes to promiscuity, it's a trap of the Satan to make you fall into a place where it's going to lead you astray, lead you away from Hashem, lead you to a place where it's going to be very, very difficult to do any of the things I just said. And that's because of the tumah, the impurity that intermarriage creates. As long as you're intimate with each other, there's no chance in the world that you guys are going to do teshuva. leads you astray, leads you away from Hashem, leads you to a place where it's going to be very, very difficult to do any of the things I just said. And that's because of the tumah, the impurity that intermarriage creates. As long as you're intimate with each other, there's no chance in the world that you guys are going to do teshuva.

38:29No chance. Why? It's going to be very difficult for you guys. HaKadosh Baruch Hu is not going to allow a person to convert and become one of His chosen people while he's murdering his own kid. While he's murdering his own daughter. There's no chance in the world. If you're going to continue acting like husband and wife and you think that Hashem is going to allow you to convert, you're dreaming. Dreaming. So that means that even if they want to convert, you still have to stop everything. You still have to act like everything is over. Better yet, there's no way that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to allow this non-Jew to become one of His chosen people so long as he's outright violating the law. You could get a fake conversion, but when it gets to Shamayim, They'll tell you it's fake, but they don't tell you with words. They'll tell you with a sentence. A long, long sentence. So that's why, Rabotai HaYekarim, it's very important that people know. Intimacy before marriage is only trouble. I know it's very difficult for guys and, unfortunately, for girls. You know, in the times of Rashi,

39:54He wrote that 900 years ago, they asked him a specific halacha about how to know if a girl is a virgin or not before marriage. He said, "No, and from where we are, we have no doubts that even the goyim, all of the goyim, are virgins. Needless to say, the B'nei Yisrael." He says, "We have no issues with that stuff 900 years ago." It was a given. If you weren't a virgin before marriage, you were considered a zonah. You were considered a prostitute. Today it's not the same. Why? Because people are much more free with their body and their intimacy and so on. Because they have no idea that this is one of the tools that HaKadosh Baruch Hu uses to determine whether you are holy or not holy. If you are promiscuous and you are pretty much with whoever whoever is the one that, you know, makes you smile, the last thing you are is holy. Because holiness starts with the issues of intimacy. That's the distinguishing factor between Am Yisrael and the rest of the nations. If you look at the map of the Neshamah, different parts of the Neshamah have different names. And the Yesod,

41:19Yesod is the foundation. The yesod is where the sex organs are. And it's also called the kedushah, holiness. Why? Because that's what holiness is. That's what makes Am Yisrael holy. The brit milah, how we treat the brit, and so on and so forth. Same thing with a woman. If a woman is not holy, doesn't treat herself holy, she can wear kisui rosh, she can wear a dress, she doesn't wear... If she is... Donating our body to science on a weekly basis—holiness is the last thing she is. So, it's very, very important for a woman to appreciate herself and understand: if you're going to be a Bat Yisrael, you are a princess. A princess is not allowed to give herself to the public. She is only allowed to be with another prince. Same thing for a Jew. You are not allowed to... go and have different wives before you get married. It's very important for a person to know these things. These are basics that you're probably not going to learn anywhere else. And that's why I talk about them. Because people are very free with each other. So much so, sometimes they allow different people to kiss each other's wives, as like a formality. Hello, hello, goodbye, goodbye. They hug each other. They take pictures with each other. And then people are surprised that the divorce rate is over 80%.

42:47You know, people get divorced not because they don't like each other. They were married for 20 years. They don't get divorced because they don't like each other. They like each other. They just like somebody else too. You know who usually that somebody else is? The best friend. The best friend. That's usually that somebody else. That's what happens. People need to understand. When you get married, that means that she is yours and yours only. Yours to touch, yours to look at. Yours. Vice versa, same thing. That's why a guy is not even allowed to touch a female that's not his wife, even if he's married. Not allowed to hug your own sister even. You're an older man, she's an older woman, not allowed to hug her. Rambam says only stupid people do that. Needless to say, somebody else's wife, it's eshet ish. A woman is married to somebody else, you give her a hug? You have a very serious problem with HaKadosh Baruch Hu. It's almost considered as if you were intimate with her, which is din karet. So, HaKadosh Baruch Hu takes the issues of kedusha very, very seriously. These are not my laws. If it was my laws, I promise you, I'd probably be easier than Hashem.

44:04probably easy. I don't think I would care as much because I'm a lowly human. He wants us to be extremely holy because He knows that that's the only way that we can get to Gan Eden. Once we start playing with the rules and becoming more loose, becoming more lenient, Little by little, we start sinning. Little by little, we start having all types of doubts. Little by little, our learning goes into the garbage. Little by little, we start pretty much falling off. And a person can be as high as Moshe Rabbeinu, but if he allows himself to fall, he can fall and become worse than Korach. Don't think for a moment that when you read Parashat Korach, that Korach was always a rasha. That's wrong. Korach was a tzaddik. How do I know he was a tzaddik? He was a navi. He spoke to Hashem. He spoke to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. He was a navi. He was a prophet. And he saw in prophecy that his descendant is going to be Shmuel HaNavi. The Gemara says Shmuel is like Moshe and Aharon together. That's why Korach said, how could I lose to Moshe if

45:27My grandson is going to be Shmuel. It means I have to win this battle, he thought. He rationalized it. He didn't realize that his sons are not going to be on his team before the battle is over. They're going to all do teshuva, go to Moshe's side. He figured that since his sons are together with him, and since his sons have to live, and he has to live in order for Shmuel to come out from him, so surely he's going to win the battle against Moshe Rabbeinu. He saw this in prophecy. He didn't dream this. He saw this in prophecy. He was a tzaddik. But a tzaddik with ga'ava. A tzaddik with pride. A tzaddik with pride. Not a tzaddik. Not anymore. Not anymore. And all of it was the fault of his wife. His wife was the one that led him to this mistake. Point being, when a person... when a person makes a mistake, if he allows his mistake to continue, all of the Kedusha, all of the mitzvot, all of the good things that he's built himself over a period of time, could literally fall into the garbage. And on this, the Ramban writes, the Ramban writes in Sha'ar HaGmul, something very interesting, where

46:52He says that the meaning of the verse in Ecclesiastes chapter 7, verse 14, which says "God has made this corresponding to this," is that He created the righteous and He created the wicked. He created Gan Eden and He created Gehenom. Each person has two portions: one in Gan Eden and one in Gehenom. If the righteous man is meritorious, he takes his own portion of reward, meaning he goes to his Olam HaBa, and the portion of his friend to Gan Eden. The Ramban writes, it means that He created the righteous and He created the wicked. He created Gan Eden and He created Gehenom. Each person has two portions: one in Gan Eden and one in Gehenom. If the righteous man is meritorious, he takes his own portion of reward, meaning he goes to his Olam HaBa, and the portion of his friend to Gan Eden. Wicked man, on the other hand, was guilty. However, he takes his portion of punishment for what he did and the portion of his friend to Gehenom. So Chazal says, what does it mean? Why, if he's righteous, does he get two Gan Edens? And if he's wicked, he gets two Gehenoms? He gets punished for himself and for his friend. How come? Says, if he's righteous, he did teshuva. He stopped sinning. What did he also do? He did kiruv.

48:10He helped somebody else do teshuva. What if that guy didn't want to do it? He told his friend, "Listen, I heard Rabbi Reuven say, 'No Shabbat, no Olam Haba.'" His friend says, "How about this? You and this Rabbi, you guys go fly a kite. I'm going to go back and do whatever I want. No Shabbat for me." Ramban says, No problem. You did kiruv. You tried telling him. He didn't want to listen. Guess what? His Olam HaBa goes to you. Because you're righteous. You did teshuva. His Olam HaBa goes to you. And the gain you were supposed to get goes to him. Another reason why it's worth doing kiruv. Why? You win either way. You win either way. If he does teshuva, you get 310 more worlds. If he doesn't, you still get his. Why? Because now, even though it says "Kol Yisrael yesh lahem chelek le'Olam HaBa," meaning they all have a place in Olam HaBa designated for them, if they do not fulfill the rules, if they don't follow the rules, if they don't keep Shabbat, if they don't keep taharat ha'mishpacha, if they don't keep all of the major laws, they keep making sins of karet...

49:32And don't do teshuva. What happens to this Olam HaBa? They can't go to them. The ticket won't work. So where does it go? It goes to any person that helped them, at least tried to help them do teshuva. It goes to their friend. That's who is your friend—someone that rebukes you. So with that being said, Rabotai, you got a little bit of a lesson of... Kedusha, in the issues of promiscuity, hopefully this gave you guys some food for thought for some questions. B'chavod, who wants to start with the first question? If you could pass the mic to him, please. Yes. Is this on? It's on so the camera can hear it, but it's not going to make you louder for them. Can I ask two questions? So the first one is, Batya bat Paro is considered a Yehudiyah. What did she do exactly with idols? And the other question is, what was with Shlomo HaMelech marrying all these non-Jewish women who were doing avodah zarah and all that? What's the story with that? He must have had some good intention. Absolutely, absolutely. So the Gemara says that Batya bat Paro...

50:55She wasn't called Batya originally. Who called her Batya? HaKadosh Baruch Hu called her Batya. He gave her the name. She had, I don't know, some Egyptian name. She was Pharaoh's daughter. She wasn't born Batya. She was born, you know, with an Egyptian name or something. But, she saw that her father was a faker. Pharaoh was a faker. If somebody could close the door, it would be great. She saw that her father was a liar, and he pretended to be God. How did he pretend to be God? The Gemara says that he told everybody that, unlike everybody else, he doesn't have to go to the bathroom. And he made a rule that there are no bathrooms in his entire castle. So you go to all of these places where the kings would be in Egypt, there's no bathrooms inside. No toilets. So if there's no toilet, he doesn't go to the bathroom. So how did he do this? He also made a law: you're not allowed to go outside between such-and-such hours at night.

52:07And that's where he would go, to the river, to the Nile River, and he would relieve himself there. He would hold himself all day, but when nobody else was allowed out, he would go there. And that's why, you see in the verses, every time that HaKadosh Baruch Hu told Moshe Rabbeinu to go to Paro, Paro would be surprised. You look at the Midrashim, Paro is surprised. Paro is at the river. Why is he at the river? HaKadosh Baruch Hu sent Moshe Rabbeinu to Paro right when he was going to the bathroom. Why? To show him we know you're a cheater, you're a liar, we know you're filth. So he would be embarrassed on top of the fact that he's exposed. Anytime you catch a liar, they feel horrible about themselves. That's why they become defensive. So Batya knew years before that, Batya knew that her father was a liar. She knew he goes to the bathroom. She knew that everybody else is scared of him, and she fought against him. She fought against him. She fought against Avodah Zarah. She said to him, "I'd rather be one of the slaves than be your daughter." Because he didn't have any sons, she was supposed to be the next Pharaoh.

53:15I'd rather be one of the slaves. She took on Moshe Rabbeinu, building a house and so on. So she fought against Avodah Zarah. When Am Yisrael left Egypt, she left with them. And she is one of, the Gemara says, she is one of ten people in history that went to Gan Eden alive. Alive. With her clothes on. She never died. Now, how did she get the name Batya? The day that she officially went against her father, she said, "Hashem, I want to be one of Your slaves. I want to be like one of these slaves that my father is killing. I want to be, I'd rather be one of these slaves than his daughter. I want to be with You, Hashem." Hashem gave her the nevuah, the understanding, "Go to the mikveh. Where do you go? Go to the river. Go to the river, that's your conversion." She goes to the river, she bathes, she purifies herself. What happens? It's a little baby in a basket. Moshe Rabbeinu, here's your present. Here's your conversion present. Here's your son, Moshe Rabbeinu. You fought for Me in a house of idolatry. You fought for the emet. I'm going to give you the king of emet in this world, Moshe Rabbeinu.

54:35you raise him. Raise him inside the house of lies to let the emet win. So Batya bat Paro fought against idolatry. Now, Shlomo HaMelech, as far as him marrying a thousand women, first off, you should know all of them converted to Judaism before marriage. The Rambam elaborates on this issue. It says that every one of these women converted to Judaism before marriage. He never married a non-Jew. So let us not be mistaken about that. But then you're going to say, wait a minute, but some of these women, like Pharaoh's daughter that he married, she was an idol worshiper. And someone else also was an idol worshiper. There were a couple of women that brought their idols. They converted to Judaism, but they never fully abandoned their idolatry, meaning they brought their idols and they fell back into it. And why is Shlomo HaMelech rebuked by Hashem? For a couple of reasons. Number one, that he did not rebuke them. He didn't rebuke them enough when he saw that they went back. After they converted, they put on kisui rosh, they kept Shabbat, they kept mitzvot, they kept kashrut, they kept everything. But eventually, they fell off. They started going to the idols again, and he didn't rebuke them. So that's one reason HaKadosh Baruch Hu rebukes him. The second reason is because Shlomo HaMelech...

55:55was gifted knowledge like no other person other than Moshe Rabbeinu. He was the smartest man of all time, again, aside from Moshe Rabbeinu. And he rationalized in his genius mind that HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants the Mashiach to bring world peace, meaning no more war. How do you bring more peace? Shlomo HaMelech never went to war. He had peace. He had peace, he had wealth, he had wisdom, he had everything. He said, yeah, but how do I deal with the rest of the world? Everyone was scared of Shlomo HaMelech. Everyone wanted peace with Shlomo HaMelech. He said, how do I make peace with everybody? I'll marry all of the nations. I'll marry all of the nations and little by little convert the entire world, making everybody Jewish. Sounds like a nice plan, but that's not the will of Hashem. Hashem does not want the whole world Jewish. There's a role for the Jew and there's a role for the non-Jew. That's not the will of Hashem. Don't rationalize Hashem's plan to your plan. So what did he do? He had a plan to go marry one of the princesses from every one of the nations.

57:08But we know it's not the will of Hashem. How do we know it's not the will of Hashem? Because HaKadosh Baruch Hu says in the Torah that a king is not allowed to marry more than 18 wives. So the minute you marry more than 18 wives, already you're doing something that's your logic, not Hashem's logic. So Hashem rebuked him on that. So as far as Shlomo HaMelech, he definitely married only Jews. He was a very righteous person. But because he married so many women, he fell for the trap of his own logic. And he nearly lost Olam Haba. The Gemara Masechet Sanhedrin says that the Tana'im came to the Beit Din and they started evaluating the Din of Shlomo HaMelech and what he did. They wanted to issue a Psak Halacha in this world, which whatever is Psak Halacha in a Beit Din of Mata, of this world, they judge in heaven. They wanted to judge that Shlomo HaMelech lost his Olam Haba. That's what they want to say. They want to judge. Why? He went. Even though he kept Shabbat, kept Torah, kept it, kept, kept. Still, there's one law that he went against. He didn't do the will of Hashem when it came down to marrying a thousand wives and having a thousand horses, sending people to Egypt, and so on. There are two little sins that he made. Little. In his...

58:27In our level, it's not even a sin. Who are we? But for him, it was like two things. They said, ah, you had too many horses. Hashem said, no, I have horses. Why? Because if you have too many horses, you're going to go to Egypt. Shlomo HaMelech says, I'm never going to go to Egypt. I'm not going to go to Egypt. What happened? He had a lot of horses, but then he wanted more horses. So what happened? They went to get the best horses. Where are the best horses? In Egypt. So he fell for that one. And he also fell for the thousand wives. So the Chachamim say, we think based on the laws of the Torah, Shlomo HaMelech has no Olam Haba. And they nearly made the Pesach, once they hit the table, it's finished. Everybody agrees, finished. Meaning, Shlomo HaMelech right now is sitting in Gan Eden, hanging out with Moshe Rabbeinu. If they make this Pesach, Duma comes into Gan Eden, then takes them out, Shlomo, Gehinnom. Now, of course, everybody in Shamayim, they see what's going on in this world. Shlomo cannot come and defend himself. Who comes? David HaMelech. The Neshama of David HaMelech comes to the Beit Din. The Gemara says this. The Neshama of David HaMelech comes to the Sanhedrin. And he starts begging them on all fours, please,

59:49Don't send my son to Gehinnom. Don't do this Pesach. Said David, "Thank you, but Lord, we don't make laws based on somebody that came from Gan Eden." He says, "Yeah, but you're incorrect on this one." David, David, please, thank you. We understand Mashiach comes from you, but thank you. We have our own conclusions. They nearly made the Pesach. HaKadosh Baruch Hu obviously did not want this to happen, so He sent a bear made of fire into the Beit Din. Everybody got scared and ran away. Everybody ran away. Shlomo HaMelech stays in Gan Eden. But they nearly made it. Why? These two minor errors. Two minor errors. After that, they understood that their Pesach was incorrect. It's not from Heaven. It's not what Hashem wanted. And they let it be. But the point is that Shlomo HaMelech nearly lost his Olam HaBa. So that's why the Gemara, I believe it's in Masechet Shabbat, last section, says that if you look at the end of the life of Shlomo HaMelech, it says that Hashem was not happy with some of his actions.

1:01:06The Gemara says it was better that Shlomo HaMelech was never HaMelech and instead was the guy that was cleaning the bathrooms for 70 years, and not have this verse written about him. You know what's cleaning the bathrooms? Not today. What does the guy cleaning the bathroom do? I mean, the place is filthy, but what is the guy really doing? All the guy does is flush the toilet, finish, and clean the bathroom. That's what you do. You flush the toilet, put some sponges, and finish cleaning the bathroom. That's why the guy's whistling all day. In those days, cleaning the bathroom, what did cleaning the bathroom mean? Cleaning the bathroom means you have to go inside the ground and take the filth. Everybody's filth that's accumulated over the last day, week, month, however often you cleaned it, take it out of the ground with your hands. and go carry it with you a few miles down the road, meaning you're not getting rid of it. You have to carry this filth with you for a few miles. Chachamim say in the Gemara, it was better that Shlomo HaMelech would do this all day, all night, for 70 years, and not have this verse written about him that Hashem was displeased with him. Even though Shlomo HaMelech was a tzaddik, Kodesh Kodashim, Mashiach comes from him. Doesn't come from me, comes from him, Mashiach.

1:02:31But still, there was one thing, there was a little gum, there was a little scratch. He says that scratch is in the Tanakh. That scratch is in the Tanakh. That means that a kid learning Tanakh is going to learn this verse. So that's why, Rabotai HaYekarim, Shlomo HaMelech was Kodesh Kodashim, but at the same token, made a mistake. That also shows the authenticity of our Torah, where our Torah does not hide the mistakes of the greatest people in history. Even though in comparison to us it's not even a mistake, but still it highlights, in fact, the mistake of the greatest people in the world. Why? To show us that HaKadosh Baruch Hu Judges fairly. Judges equally everywhere. Doesn't matter if you're righteous or not righteous, if you're big or small, male or female. He's the Dayan HaEmet. He's the judge of Emes. Regardless of who and what you are. Doesn't matter how many Emes, what you did. If you did something wrong, he'll tell you you did something wrong. If you did something right, he'll tell you you did something right. Next question. How would Moshe...

1:03:51As it says in the Tanakh, Shlomo HaMelech was the wisest, smartest person in all history, besides Moshe Rabbeinu. If he was so wise and smart, how did he, as you said, he knew, it says in the Torah, you can only have 18 wives. And through his rationality, he wanted to convert everybody into Judaism, every woman into Judaism, the whole nations into Judaism. Yet, how did he... No, he learned from his mistakes. After he did it, he admitted that it was a mistake. Later on in his life, he said that he made a mistake. but while he was doing it, he didn't see it as a mistake because he saw it as a mitzvah. It's a mitzvah to bring peace. It's a mitzvah to help people convert to Judaism. It's a mitzvah to add more mitzvot to the world. It's a mitzvah. And he thought that, the way he rationalized it, at least to my understanding, is that if you're just marrying 18 Jewish women normally,

1:04:54That's allowed. If you're marrying 20, 25, 50, 100 Jewish women, then that's not allowed. Why? Because you already have 18. What's the point? But he rationalized that, no, I'm only marrying these extras because I want to make them Jewish, because I want to make more Jewish people, because I want to bring world peace, because I want to bring the Mashiach. Why do I want to bring the Mashiach? To sanctify Hashem's name to the highest level it's ever been. Meaning it's not for him and his desire to be with a thousand women. It's only for the sake of HaKadosh Baruch Hu he rationalized it. So it must be a mitzvah. But you have to understand that even a mitzvah, you have to do it the way HaKadosh Baruch Hu said it. And that was the mistake of Shlomo HaMelech. So even though he was wise, he was still human. He was still human. As far as his wisdom is concerned, to give you a small example, his wisdom, so we don't think that he's like us in any way, shape, or form. Because the mistakes make him seem like he's us. Because we figure that now that we know the story in hindsight, I wouldn't even make this mistake. I wouldn't even make this mistake. Maybe I'm Shlomo HaMelech, maybe I'm the gilgul. So let me explain to you what Shlomo HaMelech is. Shlomo HaMelech: there's a Midrash that talks about his throne.

1:06:13throne. He built his throne. His throne had more sophisticated technology than anything we have in the world today. People think because they have iPhones and iPads and iSomething that we have sophisticated technology. If you read the Midrash that talks about the throne, which, by the way, try taking This throne had technology that's unbelievable. First and foremost, he was the only one that was allowed to sit in it. Why? You had to have codes. There was a lion on one side and there was a golden lion and a golden eagle. Now, as soon as he came, there's no electricity in those days. There are no batteries. There's no, you know, Siri, right? But he goes over there on the first step, before he takes the first step, he says a verse in the Torah. As soon as he says the verse in the Torah, the eagle's wing comes. A golden eagle, not, you know, microprocessors. The golden eagle lifts its leg up and goes to the next step. He continues saying a verse for every step until he eventually gets to the throne.

1:07:39sits down. As soon as he sits on the throne, there was a golden dove—not that they painted a real dove in gold, like it was gold. The golden dove flew, carrying his crown, and put it on his head. Now, what happens if you don't know the code, you don't know the verses? Well, that happened on that day after Shlomo died. Paghaw tried taking the throne. He wanted to go on the throne, and he didn't know the verse. So he just said, "Muhammad Ali," he said. So instead of the eagle lifting him, the lion took his arm, hit him in the back, and broke his back. He was a paraplegic for the rest of his life. No one was able to sit on this throne. And this is from gold. Furthermore, Shlomo HaMelech was the only one who knew where to find the seven different types of gold in the world. The Gemara says there are seven different types of gold in the world.

1:08:45Different shades and colors, but most importantly, they have different abilities. One of those types of gold that he had was a gold that produces gold. Meaning, you take a bar of gold, you put it in a drawer, you come back the next day, there's two bars. You leave it in the drawer, and the next day there's four bars. It gives birth to another bar, another bar, and it continues expanding. Everybody's asking, where's this gold? Well, you know, Rabbi Reuven. I know, I know. I'm just not telling you. That's where my millions come from. Anyway, he had this gold. He knew where to find it. And that's how he built an entire city of gold. The entire Beit HaMikdash was full of gold. When the Beit HaMikdash was destroyed, all the goyim took the gold from the Beit HaMikdash. But when they brought all this gold from the Beit HaMikdash to the market, there was so much surplus, extra gold in the world, that the price of gold collapsed all over the world. That's how much gold Shlomo HaMelech had. Because his gold continued producing gold, but nobody knows where this gold is anymore. Except me.

1:09:54But the point is, Rabotai, that he had the understanding of where to get this, which part of the world. He also knew where to get the shamir worm, a special type of worm that had radiation come out of it so he could build the Beit HaMikdash without using metal. He would cut the stones. If you go to the Kotel HaMa'aravi, the Western Wall, you see these stones are massive. They're huge stones, but they weren't cut by metal. Because you weren't allowed to build the Beit HaMikdash with metal. Because metal is a sign of war. So how do you cut these huge, giant stones? There's a special worm, it's called a shamir worm, that radiation came out of it, and it would cut the stones. Only Shlomo HaMelech knew where to find this. He knew that Ashmedai, the king of the demons, knew it. He knew how to trap him, and he got him to bring it to him, and so on and so forth. So there are many, many things that Shlomo HaMelech was the only one in the world who knew. His wisdom is, I mean, I don't know how to explain it. I heard one huge Talmid Chacham one time say, it's, in essence, the closest we, as humans, can get to God. That's how his wisdom is—not like high IQ, like 200 or 300. There's no IQ. No IQ. Like Einstein, you know, people think Einstein or Newton.

1:11:17Isaac Newton. They think that these people were really smart. Next to Shlomo HaMelech, they were unintelligent. That's the comparison. That's the comparison. And so that's something that you read. You read the Midrashim about Shlomo HaMelech. You see the things that he said, the things that he knew were something unbelievable. But nonetheless, he still was human and made a human error that HaKadosh Baruch Hu judged him for. Next question. I was reading on a website that the Mashiach is going to be even wiser than Shlomo HaMelech. Is that true and from where do we learn that? There are different prophets that talk about the Mashiach and different Midrashim that talk about the Mashiach, and they say that the Mashiach is going to have half of his neshama come from Moshe Rabbeinu and half of his neshama come from David HaMelech. He's going to have attributes that are surpassing any man before him, with the exception of Moshe Rabbeinu. Because Moshe Rabbeinu is Ish HaElokim, he's the prophet of all prophets, he's the best of the best. No one will ever be like Moshe Rabbeinu, even the Mashiach, but he will have certain things that nobody else had. One of them is intellect; he will be the smartest man that ever lived, even more than Shlomo HaMelech.

1:12:38Because in essence, HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to use him as, in essence, His representative, if you will, in this world. So, this person is going to have the spirit of God in him, where Hashem is going to you know, dictate to him what to say, what to do. He's going to have superhuman powers. He's going to be able to know all of your sins without even, you know, without even looking at you. He's going to smell your sins, smell your yirat shamayim. He's going to be able to judge without a beit din. So there's going to be different special powers that weren't given to any man before him. So that's where it comes from. Next question. Yes, Sutton. i forgot the question. Yehoshua has a question; you guys answer it. Moshe has a question: I heard about the Mashiach. I heard that he's going to have to surpass every challenge in the world, that he's a person just like everybody else, and he doesn't know he's the Mashiach.

1:13:55So what's the question? The question is, how can a person go through every experience that everybody else had? The Gemara says that Yehoshua ben Levi asked Eliyahu HaNavi, where's the Mashiach? Eliyahu HaNavi said to him, he's at the gate of Rome. When? No, go see him. He's next to all the sick people there. So, Yehoshua ben Levi goes over there, and he sees that there's a special person there, and he's the Mashiach. Special neshama, I don't know what he looked like exactly, but maybe he looked like you guys. But the point is, as he was the Mashiach, what did he look like? So he says, it's written over there, that he was full of bandages next to a bunch of other people that were injured. But while everybody else was taking off one of their bandages in order to replace it because of all the blood and so on, they would take one of their bandages off

1:15:10Clean the area and then put a new one on, and then take another bandage off, clean it, and put it on. You know, that's what happens when you're injured from war and so on. But the Mashiach would take off all of his bandages and then put all of his bandages back on, meaning cleaning. So, Shmuel says, "How come you're doing it that way when the normal way is the other way?" He says, "Because I don't want... I want to make sure..." that if who tells me to come right now, then I'm not going to be late for a second. I'm not going to be there for a second, so I'm ready right away. So I make sure that I have the bandages on all the same time and so on. So where are all these injuries coming from? He says, the injuries are coming from, you know, the different sins that people make, affect the Mashiach. affect the Mashiach. This is, by the way, one of the places where the goyim got their demented idea of their Yoshke dying for our sins. The big difference is that while our Mashiach is affected by our sins, so much so that when anyone is going to see Mashiach, immediately they're going to see what kind of injury they caused the Mashiach.

1:16:27And it's going to cause them embarrassment. Because imagine, you have the king, and he has a scratch on his face, and it came from your sin from 25 years ago. But the point is that that's a sin you made, but you did teshuvah. The Christians, on the other hand, what are they saying? They're saying that Yoshke died not for the sins that people made back then, but sins they're going to make in the future too. Meaning, you're allowed to continue sinning. it's the opposite of Judaism. Judaism says you sinned, but you did teshuvah. But if you're going to continue sinning, and in essence use that argument to continue sinning, it's the opposite of Judaism. The point is that every single day, the Zohar HaKadosh says, Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov come to the Mashiach. This is obviously all talking about a neshama, it's not talking about a physical body. Because as you said, the person that's Mashiach, that's in physical form, does not know he's the Mashiach until Hashem tells him he's the Mashiach, which at that point, he will tell us.

1:17:28So this is all, in essence, the neshamah. The neshamah of the Mashiach has been around since the beginning of time. So now Hashem has this neshamah out there, and every day Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov come to the neshamah of Mashiach and beg him to continue waiting, to continue letting Am Yisrael do teshuvah. every single day, which is spiritually painful for him, whatever that means. So this is more of the deeper talks, the deeper Kabbalah stuff. It talks about Mashiach. As I have told you many, many times, it's all interesting when it comes to Mashiach, but it's usually not going to help anybody do teshuvah. So let's try to move to a different subject that's going to help people do teshuvah, make us better human beings, and make us closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Whether Mashiach has a mustache or a beard is not going to help anybody here. Whether Mashiach is going to come tomorrow or in two days from now or in 20 years from now, it's not going to help anybody here. Either way, we all have to do teshuvah today. Today is when we have to do teshuvah. So let's try to talk about something else. It's not that we don't know, it's just simply that I want to be more productive with our shiurim to help us get closer to Hashem, not to become experts in the topic of Mashiach.

1:18:50Chabad, next question. Well, I actually wanted to ask one more Mashiach question. Somebody has a non-Mashiach question? Somebody has a non-Mashiach question? No, go ahead. Chabad, please. Should I give it to him? You're not understanding the indication. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, so I was reading that there's time for enjoyment in Gan Eden, but there's also time for regret. Yes. If we run out of questions, I'll answer your Mashiach questions also. But I don't want to not ask the other questions because we took up the time for Mashiach questions. I'm not disrespecting you or your questions. It's just that I want to focus on something that's going to help. Now, Gan Eden and Gehenom are very, very deep and important subjects in Judaism. So much so that if you read the Sha'ar HaGmul, the Ramban, The Ramban HaKadosh writes an extensive piece on it at the beginning of Sha'ar HaGmul, and he says that what the sages said, all the scary stuff, is very much literal.

1:19:57There is a real fire in Gehinnom. And there are multiple types of fire. And there are multiple types of angels that have, you know, the job of destroying and killing neshamot and so on and so forth. But at the same token, everything also is real when it comes to Gan Eden. Gan Eden, the reward. Now, Gan Eden, he writes, is the opposite of Gehinnom. It's the opposite of Gehinnom. and we have multiple places that talk about Gan Eden, where we have in the Mishnah in Avot, the disciples of Bil'am HaRasha go to Ge'enom, but the disciples of Avraham Avinu inherit Gan Eden. In our Tefillah, we mention also another Mishnah in Avot, which says the bold-faced, meaning the arrogant, are destined for Ge'enom, but the shame-faced, the humble, are destined for Gan Eden.

1:20:58Whoever causes multiple people to become righteous, meaning whoever does kiruv, helps people become ba'alei teshuva, shall have no sin brought about through him, so he should not go to Ge'enom while his disciples go to Gan Eden. Meaning, if you help other people do teshuva, Hashem will help you go to Gan Eden and not make mistakes because He does not want your students to be in Gan Eden and, chas v'shalom, you in Ge'enom. And so on and so forth. And lastly, he says, he quotes the Midrash, that the sages said that whoever observes the Torah, Gan Eden lies before him, and whoever doesn't observe the Torah, Ge'enom lies before him. So there is no secular person that is going to Gan Eden. You have to observe the Torah. You cannot be a Mechalel Shabbat in Gan Eden. It's not possible. It's not possible. It's not such a thing. Even if you're a nice guy. Even if you suffered a lot. Like this recent video by Manis Friedman. He came out saying that everyone that suffered in Europe in the Holocaust are all tzaddikim. All tzaddikim. You know why? Because they suffered. What source in the Torah says that because you suffered, you're a tzaddik?

1:22:22What if you suffer and you murdered a lot of people? What if, let's say, for example, Hitler, you know, after he killed six million Jews and millions and millions of other non-Jews, he got cancer? And you know, cancer is very painful. Have you ever seen cancer? It's gehinnom in this world. So what, does that make him a tzaddik? Makes him a tzaddik, what, because he suffered? Where does this come from? It's complete nonsense. Suffering does not make you a tzaddik. Does not make you a tzaddik. It softens the neshama and it could potentially open up your neshama to the Eibishter, but does not make you a tzaddik by default. So, The Ramban writes, if you observe the Torah, Gan Eden lies before you. Meaning you're going to go to Gan Eden for observing the Torah, you're going to Gan Eden. If you don't observe the Torah, you're going to Gehinom. So how come Gan Eden also has a certain amount of, let's say, suffering, if you will? Like Chazal said, the people understand that when these neshamot go to Gan Eden, they get to see different parts of Gan Eden.

1:23:22Just their own, and they see what the potential is if they would have done one more mitzvah. One more mitzvah, and one of the stories I remember I heard from Rav Yisrael Meir Lau, shlita. He says Rav Yisrael Meir Lau, zt"l, he was a kodesh kodeshim, and I believe he died before his wife. And one day, his wife... has a dream and a malach says, "You want to see Gan Eden? You want to see your husband in Gan Eden?" She says, "Yes." So they bring her to Gan Eden, and they bring her to all these beautiful places with trees and flowers and mountains, beautiful, something out of this world. She goes, "Where is he?" They say, "Oh, keep going, keep going." They keep going, more beautiful things, more and more. "Where is he? Where is he?" More and more, and they keep going and going and going. "This is all part of him. This is all part of his Gan Eden." Or your husband's going to end it. But where is he? Oh, he's all the way at the end. This guy goes, see him? She goes, no, no. This is as far as you can go. This is as far as you can go. She said, why? I was his wife. I helped him learn Torah. But you didn't work on yourself also. You're supposed to help him go and do mitzvot, learn Torah, do everything else. You're also supposed to work on yourself. So she woke up, started hysterically crying.

1:24:43And did teshuvah. And she got to his level. Why? In Shamayim, they know that she has the potential to be righteous and be next to her husband forever. But she didn't work hard enough. So they wanted to give her a message. We want you to be with your husband. We want you to be with your husband. We don't want you to miss out. Why? Because if you miss out, you go to Gan Eden, a different one. You're not going to see him. Why? Because he's higher. So you have to work on yourself. Can't just, you know, be on neutral because your husband is a tzaddik. Can't be on neutral because your wife is a tzaddeikes. Like sometimes guys tell me, listen, why don't you come to the shiur? No, Rabbi, listen, I work, I do this. You know, I give tzedakah. I say, okay, tzedakah, thank you very much, tzedakah. But you have to learn Torah also. Rabbi, listen, my wife is such a tzaddeikes, I think it's okay, everything's okay. Or my grandfather is a big rabbi. My grandfather used to wear... Okay, your grandfather and your wife, they're both going to go to Gan Eden. What about you, though? What do you think? Are you going to go to Gan Eden just by default? Are you going to hold on to their foot? What do you think? No, you can't get to Gan Eden. So, when you're finally in Gan Eden, you also see certain things that you could have done. Different potentials. Different things that you could have gotten for it. That extra mitzvah of putting on tzitzit...

1:25:57Your Gan Eden could have been worlds apart. Worlds apart. You start seeing the value of mitzvot. I gave you guys an illustration a few weeks back: if you take all the good that you have had in your life and you put it in a box, and then you take all the good, not the bad, in the life of a person... all the people that are in the world, let's say they live 100 years on average, right? Out of the 100 years, there's maybe, I don't know, maybe five, ten years of good, 20 years of good at most, really five years, but let's say it's 20 years of good out of 100 years. Okay, you eliminate the 80 years of bad. You just take the good. You take the good of every single person that ever lived, and you put it all in the same box. All that good that ever existed for any human being is not even enough to be a down payment for the good that you will get for any mitzvah in the Torah. You put on tzitzit, every second is a mitzvah. All the good that everybody ever had in the world is not enough to be one second of putting on tzitzit. So that means, Rabotai, that if somebody says, okay, so you know what?

1:27:11Since it's so much, who needs so much? Right? Since it's so much, so what do I do? I'll put on tzitzit at home. I'll put on tzitzit for like half a day. I'll put kisui rosh on at home. I'll put on, you know, I'm going to read like one verse every day. So what's good, might as well, right? What happens? A person gets, let's say, they go up to Shamayim, and they give them this Gan Eden, and it's like, it's much greater than this world, obviously. But when they see what they would have gotten had they worn the Tzitzit all the time, when they see what they would have gotten had they worn the Kisui Rosh all the time, if they learned more Torah, if they did more mitzvot, they feel bad about it. Why? They see what the potential gain is for nothing. nothing. So that's why a person doesn't want to do that. He wants to leave this world where he or she has tried their best. They tried their best, failed a little bit, succeeded a lot. The point being, you tried your best. That's how you want to leave this world.

1:28:16...want to leave this world pretty much where the wheels are falling off because you tried so hard. So, to get to Gan Eden then requires a lot of effort, a lot of effort. There are other Midrashim and other things that are said about the whole Gan Eden and Gehinnom issues, but you get one of the points. At least one of the points is what I just said. Next question. All right, if you end up in different levels, hold on, hold that microphone, microphone... If you end up in different levels, is there some kind of connection or state of awareness? Let's say you and your wife come in at different levels, are you still aware and connected to each other somehow? Or is it completely different? If the wife and the husband are connected properly in this world, They have kedusha at home. They have Torah at home. They're together. They'll be together permanently. That's the way it's supposed to be. But if not, if they go to different levels, where he is much more righteous than her, or she's much more righteous than him, then they will have a separation forever. Because you cannot do teshuva in Shamayim. But there is an awareness of each other.

1:29:29So there is, I believe it's in the Zohar or in a Midrash, a place where Chachamim discuss certain things that happen in Gan Eden. For example, every day or every so often, Avraham goes to visit his wife, Sarah Imeinu. This is because there's a Gan Eden for males and a Gan Eden for females. It's not together. There's a separation also over there. But he goes to his wife at certain times. She goes to him at certain times. Even Batya bat Paro. Batya bat Paro is the only one that's allowed to go to visit the Gan Eden of Moshe Rabbeinu. She goes to visit him every day. So, there are interesting things going on over there. For us in this world, we don't really understand. What does it mean to visit? Why would they visit? Why don't they just hang out? The things that they do in Gan Eden are really lost to us because we don't understand the concept of good, really. But nonetheless, yes, if a person is in Gan Eden, they're very, very much aware of what's going on over there. And they're also aware of things that are going on here.

1:30:47they're still connected to certain people that are here. That's how we know, for example, there are quite a few stories of different people that were in danger, and they got sometimes a near-death experience, and they were given another chance because their grandfather, who was a major tzaddik, was aware of this issue and came to help them. Or there's, for example, a very famous story in the book of the Chazon Ish. The Chazon Ish has a sefer that talks about different things that happened in his time. And there was a newlywed couple The wife came from a religious family, and the guy was religious, but the wife’s father was a businessman. The father told the husband, "Listen, you can continue learning after marriage for another five years, and I'll pay for it. But after five years, you have to start working a little bit." So they agreed.

1:32:02Good shidduch, good family, everything is good. So he was learning for five years. Every day, all day he's learning. And after five years, the father came to him and said, listen, okay, chazak u'baruch, you learned for the last five years. But what about work? He said, listen, I want to learn Torah. You know, there's plenty of work. I want to learn Torah and we'll figure it out. He goes, listen, why don't you do this? Why don't you at least do some, come, you know, an hour a day. Do some accounting for us. Do the numbers for the business. An hour a day. I don't have to pay for you and your wife, my daughter, for the rest of your life. You work for an hour a day. And the wife says to the husband, yeah, why not? You know, he's right. Why? He's going to pay for us forever. Work for an hour a day and learn the rest of the day. So that's what he did. He started working. And the wife continued encouraging him to work more. No, come on, two hours a day. No, three hours a day. Four hours, why? Because every time you work, you make more money. And little by little, there was more money, a nicer house, nicer stuff, a nicer chandelier, nicer chairs, a nicer table, nicer, nicer, nicer. Before you know it, he stopped learning altogether. Stopped completely learning. On the day that he stopped learning altogether, a dybbuk came into his wife.

1:33:29A dybbuk is a neshama of somebody that's being judged in kaf ha'kela, a person that's not in Gan Eden or in Gehinnom. They're roaming outer space. And sometimes they're permitted to go into other people. Now, when there are two neshamot in one body, it's mayhem. If you read the book by Rabbi Yehuda Fatiyah, for example, which was translated into English, he talks about all the dybbuks that he dealt with in his life, helping different people who had a dybbuk in them and removing it, which requires the holy names and so on. But the point is that this wife had a dybbuk enter her. She starts saying all types of crazy stuff. A different voice comes out of her. It doesn't sound like her voice. All types of strange things. She started acting crazy, doing crazy things. So the rabbis came, and they tied down the woman so she wouldn't continue going crazy. They started talking to the woman. They started talking to the dybbuk, saying, "Who are you?"

1:34:47And the dybbuk answered, I was an orphan, that didn't know what to do, didn't know Torah, didn't know mitzvot. So, are you okay? Didn't know Torah, didn't know mitzvot, so I didn't do anything good in life, and I was a very promiscuous woman. But when I went up to Shamayim, they said, listen, we can't put you in Gehinnom, because you didn't know anything. But we can't put you in Gan Eden because you didn't do anything good either. So we'll leave you in Kaf HaKela in the outer space until you pay the bill for all these bad things that you did because you still had a brain that you should have discovered and figured out what's the purpose of life. You never did. So you have to go to Kaf HaKela. So then they asked the dybbuk, okay, so who gave you permission to go into this woman? She goes, it's not they gave you permission. is that the grandparents, the grandparents of the husband, and her grandparents, her grandfather, who were both big tzaddikim, her grandfather and his grandfather, were big tzaddikim. They came from Gan Eden, they came to me because they saw me roaming around town, and said, "Listen, you, do us a favor, go into our granddaughter over here, go into my daughter-in-law, go into her."

1:36:09Why? Because she stopped her husband from learning Torah. So G-d tortures her as much as possible, until she says, "I'm sorry," and she makes a swear that she's going to send her husband to go learn Torah full time. This is written in the book of the Chazon Ish. It's something that happened. Of course, everybody said, "Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Everybody's sorry." Once you realize what's happening, everybody's sorry. "I'm sorry." The grandfather Tzaddik came and got involved in this issue. He took the Avrech, and you ruined him, turned him into a businessman. They came to him and said, "Oh, I'm sorry. He's gonna go full-time, 25 hours a day, not 24. We're gonna invent a new hour for him. Go back to kollel, go back to learn all day and all night, no problem." And then the Dibbuk left. They were allowed to take out the Dibbuk. Now, why is this such a big deal? Why is it such a big deal? Why would a grandfather that's a Tzaddik, a grandfather that's an Ish Kodesh, get involved with his grandson or great-great-great-grandson 20 generations later? Why would he get involved? Because they are also aware of the capability of the Neshama that's here.

1:37:27Meaning, what is expected of the neshama in this world, which means your neshama has certain capabilities and certain expectations from Hashem. You may not be aware of them. You may not even think you're able to do it. Because if you would tell a guy that just started keeping Shabbat six months ago, "You're going to be the next biggest rabbi in the world. You're going to know the entire Shas by heart. You're going to complete it every two months," You're going to give shiurim five times a week. You're going to have a kollel with a thousand avreichim. The guy's going to say, what are you talking about? I don't even know how to keep Shabbat. I just started keeping it a few months ago. I'm on book number one out of 30. What are you talking about? You're going to think, what are you talking about? It's not me. No way. Because you're thinking based on your current knowledge. Based on your current ability. But in shamayim, they understand the real potential of your neshama. Which means that this woman, when she sent her husband to business, in Shamayim, they saw what she was doing. She was simply murdering his neshama. And if, let's say, for example, that neshama had the ability to be the next Rabbi Akiva Eiger, who was a Gadol HaDor a couple of hundred years ago, the next Rav Ovadia...

1:38:53next, the next, the next, the next, the next, next one of these things that's the ability that this nation had. It had all the tools to be the next big one, and you sent him to go work. You sent him to be the next big businessman. You go up to Shamayim, the wife goes up to Shamayim She thinks she's a tzaddeket. Why? Because she kept Shabbat. And she kept Taharat Mishpacha. And her husband donated a million dollars every year to kollel. Right? And Shamayim is saying, you are a murderer of Rabbi Akiva Eiger. You, you lady, murdered Rabbi Ovadia. You murdered the Gaon of Vilna. What are you talking about? I don't even know the Gaon of Vilna. No, no, no. Your husband was supposed to be the next Gaon of Vilna. But every time you went to the kollel, you called him every five minutes. "No, no, you're coming home? I want to go eat dinner. No, you're coming? I want to go out. No, you're coming?" No, no, no, you bothered him. You didn't let him learn. Eventually, he lost the ability to learn. He stopped learning. You murdered him. So sometimes a person has the merits of his forefathers, where they get involved before it's too late. And we know that many, many times. So that's also how we know.

1:40:10One of the ways we know, and the Gemara also discusses it, that the neshamot of Shamayim are aware of things that are happening in this world, but we see it in real life. We see it in books, we see it in things that have happened, things that we've seen, things that are still happening today, where there are certain neshamot that are very much aware of the certain people that are connected to them still in this world. And they also have a different type of knowledge, like us, where they're aware simultaneously of what's happening there and what's happening here at the same time, whereas we do not have that ability. A neshamah has the ability to know information simultaneously in multiple places. It's not limited. One of the ways that we saw it as examples in real life is when you hear near-death experiences. Somebody died, let's say, in a car accident of some kind, and came back to life. When they come back to life, they tell people, listen, I did this, I did that. And they tell them all types of stories. And a lot of times people say, okay, you know, you're still a little woozy from the fall. The person says, no, no, you don't understand. I'm telling you the truth. I know what's happening.

1:41:27What's happening? He says, the doctor such-and-such was the one that was doing the surgery on me. And they never saw the doctor. But they know the name. How do they know the name? He says, and the doctor has a mustache. How? You were sleeping. You were in a coma. How did you know about the mustache? You died. On top of that, there are sneakers somebody forgot on the roof of the building. Now, even if you somehow finagled somebody to tell you who the doctor is, how do you know there are sneakers on the top of the roof? And there's an accident on I-95 three miles from here. do you know about the accident? It just happened two minutes ago. The neshamot go to different places and they're able to see different things. They don't have a limitation; they know this simultaneously. There's a very, very interesting movie that he made. It's called "Life After Death." And it shows different things about different examples, different clips of different people that died and came back to life and their stories. It's a couple of hours, highly recommended. But there are also many, many other experts in this field who see that the ability of the neshama, the ability of the soul, is nothing like the limitations of the body.

1:42:47So it's not just written in our books from 2,000 years ago, it's also people that deal with it know that there's something that we would consider superhuman, that they have as a standard. Last question. Last question. It could be your Mashiach question if nobody else has questions. This rabbi told me that the Mashiach is not even going to receive prophecy until the third Beit HaMikdash is rebuilt. In that case, how is he going to know what to do before that? Mashiach is not going to receive prophecy until the third Beit HaMikdash is going to be built? Yeah. What does he mean he's not going to get prophecy? So what is he going to do? Just hang out? Go to work? I don't understand. I don't know. That's what I'm asking. I don't know what context... this rabbi was telling you this, whether he was telling you about what's going to happen in the future or not, I'd say I would have to hear it from him or perhaps see what book he quoted to read the context that he's referring to. It's like there is a famous Gemara where Reish Lakish says there is no Gehinom, there's no Gehinom in the future.

1:44:11no Gehinom in the future. But then there's another Gemara, that Reish Lakish, same Reish Lakish, gives you details, Masechet Pesachim, gives you details of the fire of Gehinom. Wait a minute. You just said on one hand, there's no Gehinom in the future. And another one, you told us the details of Gehinom. So is there Gehinom or no Gehinom? Right? It's confusing. So the Ramban writes in a detailed analysis of what he is referring to. Surely Reish Lakish knows and believes that there is a Gehinom. But when he said the statement that there's no Gehinnom in the future, he didn't say that there's no Gehinnom in the world. He was referring to the future when the Mashiach comes in this world for certain types of people, certain types of time. It was a specific type of statement catered to a specific type of time. not Gehinnom in general, but unless you read the entire statement and you read the commentaries by the Chachamim, you might think that there is a contradiction here. Why? Because on one hand, he says there's no Gehinnom in the future, while at the end he's telling you the details of Gehinnom. But then you have to understand, he's not saying there's no Gehinnom in the world; he's saying in the future. What's the future? When you mention the future, you're mentioning the times of Mashiach.

1:45:30You're mentioning the times of Mashiach. You're not mentioning eternity. You're not mentioning the next world and so on and so forth. So it's very, very important when we read the statements of the Chachamim that we not only analyze what was written before it and what's written after it, but we also analyze how it's written, what words are being used, and what the Chachamim commented on this specific thing. Because without it, we're simply Christians. That's how Christians make their mistake of idol worshiping. What do they do? They read the Chumash and the Tanakh without Jewish commentary. They read it with their own logic. Whatever they read and understand literally is what they think happened. and that's a problem. Why? Because you're never going to understand anything in the Torah that way. You're always going to get to a mistake. Always. Without exception. But that's what they do. They read things without commentary. And that's why, for example, every Christian that's a religious Christian, that's a missionary, is always going to mention to you,

1:46:33Isaiah 53. Why? Because in Isaiah 53, it says the words "suffering servant." So their pastors and priests told them that the suffering servant surely means Yoshke. Even though Yoshke was not born for many, many years and so on and so forth. But what's the problem with this? The problem is that we do not reach a conclusion based solely on what the sentence itself says literally. We arrive at a conclusion by analyzing the context surrounding that sentence. What happened before? What happened after? What's the full body of the text? You're never going to just read the headline in a newspaper and assume that you understand everything that happened in an event described in a three-page article. The headline is, in essence, giving you some type of tease to read the rest of the article. It's not telling you what really happened. It's not really telling you what's happened. Or else everything would just be, you know, headlines. So needless to say, the Torah is not telling you the entire Torah in one verse. But when you read it that way, you become a Christian. You become a fool. Why? Because, in essence, you're saying, oh, it says "suffering servant." It appeals to me that this suffering servant would be the Yoshke guy because I'm looking for him in the Torah and I can't find him. So let's just say this is him.

1:47:49Let's say that because I can't find him anywhere else. So I can't find him in a shoebox, I can't find him in Gan Eden, I can't find him among the Tzadikim, I can't find him in a Beit Knesset. I haven't looked in Gehinom yet. But before that, where can I find him? Ah, suffering servant. But actually, if you look at the Christian writings, the Christian sages, the Christian sages say that that Yoske is in Gehinom. He went to Gehinom. But somehow, somebody pulled him out. How does God go to Gehinom? I don't know. But anyway, Point is, Rabotai, if you're a Jew, you don't read this way. How do you read? You read not only Isaiah 53, you read Isaiah 52, 51, 50, 49, 48, 47, 46, 45, all the way to one. And also, 54, 55, 56, all the way to the end, 66, I think. So you read all of Isaiah. And if you read all of Isaiah, you have no doubt in your mind that the suffering servant is Am Yisrael. Why? Because it says. It says the suffering servant. Literally, it says it. The suffering servant is Am Yisrael.

1:49:04But if you're only going to read that one verse, and you're going to listen to the teachings of your pastor and priest that are biased, then you're going to simply be mistaken. So, when we... Learn Torah. We cannot learn the entire Torah from one verse. We cannot teach it from one verse. We have to simply understand the whole body around it. That's also part of the reason why Chachamim have to try to be very, very detailed with their answers and give you a lot more information than you asked for. Because you have to truly understand an answer. You have to know everything that comes with it, what it entails, and what it affects. To just tell you yes or no, I can do that also, but that wouldn't help you in life. To give you a whole body around it, that's going to give you a solid answer you can work with and build upon. That's generally what Chachamim would do when they would be asked questions, and they would write their answers in Sefarim. They would give you a whole body of answers, not just yes or no. Any fool can tell you yes or no, but that's not going to help you.

1:50:08So, the point being is that I don't understand the question of, you know, Mashiach not having prophecy. Like, if that's a question, Mashiach not having prophecy until the Beit HaMikdash, I don't understand in what context he's asking, he's saying that, or what context you're asking that. Generally speaking, we do know that the only certainty that we have about the Mashiach is that, number one, he will come, and two, we will know exactly What's going to happen at the time of Mashiach? Only when he comes. Only when he comes. That's what the Rambam says. We're only going to know. Everything that is said about Mashiach, as far as what will be once he comes, are possibilities. All the different types of possibilities. There are possibilities like this. There are possibilities like that. There are possibilities like this and that. Not all of them necessarily need to happen. And we're not even limited to those things happening. The point is that we will only know, the Rambam says, once the Mashiach comes, and therefore that's part of the reason why we should not delve too much into the study of Mashiach and what will happen. Because what ends up happening is that when people focus too much on Mashiach, number one, it means that they're wasting their Torah time that's supposed to help them in this world,

1:51:30on learning about something that is not going to help them at all. Learning about Mashiach is not going to make you a more humble person. Learning about Mashiach is not going to make you a more generous person. Learning about Mashiach is not going to help you become more anything that's positive. It's just more knowledge. It's not going to help you all of a sudden study more Torah because you're spending your Torah time learning about Mashiach. So it's not going to help you become a better husband, a better wife, a better Jew. It's not going to help you in any way, shape, or form. So you're wasting that Torah time on learning about something that's not going to help you. And two, people become obsessive over it. Obsessive to the point where they simply turn it into some type of idolatry. Hence, look what's happening with Christianity, what's been happening with Christianity. All of their attention went to one specific human being. And in essence, they're considered idol worshippers now because all their focus has become about this one person, to the extent where they conjure up the nonsense that this human being really is part of God. So it didn't start that way.

1:52:45didn't start that way. When Yeshu was walking around, you know, the people, no one thought he was God. No one thought he was God when he was walking around and, you know, making all types of sins. No one thought he was God. But after people idolized him, that's what happened. You ask the average Christian I'll tell you that he's God. Even though many Christians say, "No, no, I don't believe he's God. I believe he's this." You're never going to have two Christians with the same faith. They all believe something else. No one even believes in the New Testament as it's written. Everybody's got their own version of it, which shows that their own neshamah is rejecting it. Their own soul is rejecting it because it's complete nonsense. You don't believe the book. So what do you believe? You believe something that's in your head. So it's complete nonsense. But the point being is... When people put everything into one person, it's not good. That's also what's happening with Jews. When Jews put all of the attention on one rabbi, that's what the Gaon of Vilna said. The Gaon of Vilna was very scared of Chassidut because they were giving too much power to the rabbi. And he says, this is idolatry. Even though not everybody agreed with the Gaon of Vilna at the time, today we see that he was very much right.

1:54:01It was very much right to a certain extent, where you see today, many people that consider themselves Chabad Hasidim, not obviously all of them, and Baruch Hashem, there are also many good ones that are not crazy, but many Chabadniks, or people that call themselves Chabadniks, have turned the Lubavitcher Rebbe, alav ha-shalom, into a god. They outright say he's God. Meaning it's no different than Christianity. But they keep Shabbat. And they keep Kashrut. And they have Yeshivot. But they believe that the Rebbe is God. And the same thing happens with other things, other people, where they turn these people into God. This is part of the reason why HaKadosh Baruch Hu did not let us know where Moshe Rabbeinu is buried. because he was the closest person to HaKadosh Baruch Hu and He did not want anyone to tarnish that by going to the grave and starting to pray at the grave as if they're praying to Moshe, like people do at the Lubavitcher Rebbe's grave or other tzaddikim's graves. People are praying to the tzaddikim. This is idolatry.

1:55:11So it's never good for anyone, Jew or non-Jew, to focus too much on a specific tzaddik or a specific person. You should have emunat chachamim, you should learn what they said, but all of that is, in essence, in order to connect to the one and only God of Israel. You must have emunat chachamim, but not because the chacham is God, but rather because he has information about God that you need. He has dedicated his life to learning about God, and you can benefit from it. Not that he has any power per se. He's, in essence, someone that dedicated a lot more time and effort to learn about HaKadosh Baruch Hu and the Torah. and you can benefit from that. You can benefit from that work. Next question. Rabbi, both in parashat Yitro and parashat Bechukotai, there's a commentary that Hashem visits the sins of the children of third and fourth generations.

1:56:21So, the first question is, what does Hashem mean by this? And also, what are some of the deeper sins that He would have to get involved in this way? Additionally, if, let's say, a Jewish father, or whoever, a Jew, has an intermarriage with a non-Jew, and then the children are not theirs, basically, would that still be included in that? And then we'll finish next year. Good question. The question is, what does it mean when Hashem says that He'll visit the sins... of the father and the kids, three, four generations. Doesn't it say in other places that the son is not going to suffer for the sins of the father? So is there a contradiction here? That's section A. So what does it mean? It means that if the father is a sinner, let's say, for example, the father is a gambler.

1:57:45The father is a thief. The father is an atheist. Now, the father is obviously a sinner, right? Now, the son has his own brain. Although the son is influenced by the father to a certain extent, he lives in the father's house. He gets influenced by the father. At some point, the kid starts using his own brain to make his own decisions. He doesn't only live under his father's roof for the rest of his life. At some point, he starts making his own decisions that suit his own needs and fit his own agenda, even if they contradict what the father taught him and even if they contradict what the father says is good. So, the Torah says that if the son uses his own brain, when eventually he grows up and decides that he's going to continue the sins of his father, Meaning, he saw his father as a gambler. He saw his father as a thief. He saw his father commit all types of sins with women who are not his wife. And the son continues these sins, meaning he learns to be promiscuous from his father. He learns to be a rasha (wicked person) from his father. Then the son gets punished, not only for his own sin, but also for his father's sin too.

1:59:04...is a double whammy. Why? Hashem showed you your father's sins not for you to learn to do them, but to learn not to do them. Because you see that it's not good. No one looks at a sinner and says, "Wow, he has a great life." When you really understand the life of a sinner, you see that this guy, in the end, is not going to win. This girl, in the end, is not going to win... He's not sending you to see the sinner and say, ah, you know, go learn, be a murderer from him. You know it's not good. You see it. You have a brain. You have your own brain. You know it's not good. But you decide to do it because you have desires. You get punished double. Because Hashem gave you an opportunity not to learn from him to do it, but to learn not to do it. Because you're seeing the downside of drugs, the downside of promiscuity, the downside of gambling, and so on and so forth. Oh, you saw it and you still chose to ignore it. You get a double whammy. On the other hand, if a person does not repeat the sins of the father, then he does not get punished for the sins of the father. Why? The father made his own sins, and he gets his own punishment. You didn't follow what your father did. You did good things. No one's going to hold it against you that your father's Pharaoh. No one's going to hold it against you that your father's Esav. Why? In Shamayim, they say, look, this tzaddik.

2:00:22No one's going to say, this tzaddik, but his father is a rasha. No, no, no. No one's going to hold it against you. You're tzaddik, tzaddik tihyeh. That's it. It's good. No one's holding it against you where your parent is, who your father is. None of that matters. So that's what it means over there. Now, if a Jewish guy has kids with a non-Jewish woman, I believe this is the second part of your question. If a Jewish guy has... kids with a non-Jewish woman. As I said before, those kids are not considered his kids. But he has a different problem. What's his problem? His problem is that his sin continues to grow every day they're alive. Why? They're his product. He, in essence, was part of the manufacturing process. So how could he do teshuva for it? How could he do teshuva for it? He's not allowed to kill them. How could he do teshuva for it? If the kids convert, that helps their father's teshuva. Why? Because they're no longer a sin. They're no longer a bad product. They're now perfect.

2:01:36Perfect. This is also part of the reason why sometimes you're going to see, many times, not just sometimes—I’ve seen it myself—where the products of intermarriage, a Jewish guy that had non-Jewish kids, even though the Jewish father has nothing to do with Judaism, many times I've seen this dozens of times, the kids suddenly get the urge to convert to Judaism. suddenly get the urge to learn Torah, suddenly get the urge to be tzaddikim gemurim, tzadkaniot. So a few women like this, quite a few guys like this, where even though their parents were completely against the Torah, they hated it, but the kids love it. Why? HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives those neshamot an opportunity. An opportunity to do teshuva. He doesn't put them in a situation where they can't do teshuva. So even the neshamot that they bring to the world have a certain way to be rectified. But it's not all guaranteed. It's not like they all convert. Nonetheless, it does happen. It happens quite frequently. But

2:02:38It's a problem. It's a problem for the father because he literally needs the kids in order for his teshuva to be complete. He needs the kids to convert. And if the father is smart, he'll help them. If he stays wicked, he'll get in their way. But the point is that this is like the test of teshuva. Like I mentioned to you guys, I have a guy who was with a non-Jewish girl, and the ultimate step is if she converts to Judaism, because in essence, he's with the same girl, but this time it's allowed. in this case, it's the same kid, but this time he's a Jew, you know, a Jewish girl, Jewish guy, whatever it is. So, the point is that when people convert, they also help their parents because it could be potentially their parents' merit that they are this way. And sometimes, even if the parents are not Jewish... Those kids bring merit to their parents because their mitzvot are worth a very, very significant amount that could help their non-Jewish parents. They help their non-Jewish parents because, in essence, they still owe them gratitude. Gratitude for bringing them into the world. A kid that converts to Judaism

2:04:00guy that converts to Judaism or girl that converts to Judaism and her parents are not Jewish, or biological parents are not Jewish, she has no mitzvah. Why? Because they're not her parents. But she still has to respect her parents anyway. Why? As a show of gratitude. So, it's not a mitzvah of kibbud av va'em because they're not really your parents. But you still have to honor your parents and do kibbud av va'em. Why? Because they brought you into the world. They supported you. They helped you in all types of ways and so on and so forth. You're still obligated to do it. But the point is that it's not the same mitzvah. It's a different mitzvah. It's a different mitzvah. And that's, again, all under the assumption that these parents, these biological parents, are not anti-Torah and are not trying to get in the way of your conversion or your Jewish life. and such. Anything else? Oh, he didn't ask any questions. Chavot, give him the mic. We're almost done. I already said last question three questions ago, but Ari was staying quiet the whole day. He was on strike for two hours. He was doing Ta'anit Dibur.

2:05:15What are the rules of inviting guests relating to Avraham and Sarah? By rules, let me clarify. If you want to invite a guest to your home, what are the limitations if that guest can be invited to the home? Let's say there's someone living in the house who objects... to this invitation... one of the rules regarding that and... In these days, tough times, sometimes there are children living in the home where they're not children anymore. Can they dictate to the parent who can and cannot visit the home for Shabbat, for example? One of the rules of guests is there are limitations to inviting guests. And are our kids allowed to tell their parents

2:06:22what to do with their house. You should make the next question a little longer. It wasn't long enough. Okay, limitation of guests. Obviously, a person needs to choose wisely who they bring to their house. As far as if this person is coming to your house because he has no place else to go, he has no place else to eat, and you want to help him, as long as it does not disturb anybody else in the house. Meaning, if you're married, and your wife says you're not allowed to bring these people to the house, you must listen to her. Why? Because your marriage is superior to the mitzvah of guests. But if your wife is on board and she says, okay, bring the guests, no problem. Then, okay, you can bring these guests. The question is, what's the point of bringing the guests? Are you just going to feed them? Or are you going to actually try to help this person get closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, like Avraham Avinu tried? Why? Because your marriage is superior to the mitzvah of guests. But if your wife is on board and she says, okay, bring the guests, no problem. Then, okay, you can bring these guests. The question is, what's the point of bringing the guests? Are you just going to feed them? Or are you going to actually try to help this person get closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, like Avraham Avinu tried? So when Avraham Avinu would feed people, at the end of the dinner he would tell them, "Listen, you have two choices. You could either bless Hashem, thank Hashem for the food that He gave, or you could pay me for the food. Which one do you want?" And also, in order to enter the house of Avraham Avinu, they would be tested to see if they were idolaters. If they were considered to be idolaters, they weren't allowed in, and he would try to convert them to Judaism.

2:07:48The way he would do it is by seeing if they would clean their feet before they came to the house because the idol worshippers in those days were a certain type of Arab idol worshippers who would worship the sand on their feet. All idol worship is strange, not just this one. Point being is that, that's why he washed the feet of the angels that came to him, to see if they would allow him. If they didn't allow him, he would know they were idol worshippers. Point being, Abaye is that his goal of inviting guests wasn't to feed them. His goal of inviting guests is to do kiruv, to help people get closer to Hashem. So if you have the ability to bring people closer to Hashem because of the Torah learning that you're doing, and now you're able to portray to people, and you want to bring people closer to Hashem by inviting them to your house for Shabbat and so on, so long as your spouse agrees, perfect! Now what if you have a roommate, have a roommate. Now, if this guest is going to be at a place where the roommate is, meaning if your house is equally shared between both of you, you are both allowed everywhere in the house. That means that the roommate has to agree that you're going to invite this guest. You can't just invite whoever you want to this house. Why? Because he owns this part. You can't just have somebody roaming around in his part of the house, so you have to have him agree, just like you would have to have your wife or your husband agree.

2:09:14But if, let's say, the house is split up into two, where you have your room, he has his room, and that's it. You want to bring this guest into your room. No problem, it doesn't violate the other guy. But the point being is that it's never good to invite people when someone that's living with you is going to be bothered by it. Second thing is, in regards to, what was it, limitations? What was the second part B of question one? You even forgot. No, that was part C. That was part B. Okay, so as far as inviting guests in general, again, you should have a purpose. A purpose for why you're inviting guests. As far as children telling their parents what to do with their house, children are generally not allowed to tell the parents to do anything. Not when they're young and not when they're old. Why? It's called kibud av va'em, honoring your parents. In fact, if you look at the halachot of kibud av va'em, even if your parent makes a mistake, you are forbidden from telling them outright that they made a mistake. You have to tell them indirectly. Your father says, "I think that Shabbat ends at 6:30," and you know it ends at 7:00 or at 7:30.

2:10:41So you can't tell, "No, Abba, you're wrong. You don't know what you're talking about." No, you can't do that. You can't do that. What are you going to do? "Abba, I don't know. I think it says it in this paper. What time? Can you check over there? What does it say over there? What does it say over there? I think it says a different time. I think." Don't be so sure of yourself that you know better than your Abba or your Ima. Why? You're nothing. You would be nothing still if they didn't bring you into the world. And if you talk to your father or your mother like they're your friend, what they're going to do to you in Shamayim, how they're going to judge you, how they're going to judge you. Why? It's a big deal. It's a very hard mitzvah, though. Why? Because we get comfortable with our parents. We get very comfortable with our parents. We get very friendly with our parents. But the point is, Rabotai, you have to honor your parents in a big way. You're not allowed to sit in their chair. If you know there's a chair in the house, it's your father's chair, you're not allowed to sit in it. Never allowed to yell at them. Never allowed to curse them. Never allowed to hit them. Now, a person needs to know that if you're going to treat your father or your mom like a friend, it's only a matter of time before you're going to do one of these things. Why? Because you curse your friends. You yell at your friends. You do all types of things to your friends. And they're going to do all types of things to you, eventually. Shamayim, Dumah, and his friends. They do. So a person needs to know, first and foremost,

2:12:08Talk to your parents. This is different from everybody else. This is different from everybody else. You have to honor them even if you don't agree with them. Even if they're wrong. Even if a lot of things. Why? It's one of the Ten Commandments. It's one of the Ten Commandments. So a person needs to know that if the parent is making a mistake by inviting someone to their house that's not necessarily a good person. You can't tell them, "No, Ima, you're not allowed to invite this guy. You're not allowed to invite this girl. No, they're bad for you." You can't do that. First of all, it's their house. Who are you to tell them anything, even if they weren't your parents? Second of all, you're not allowed to do such things. You have to, again, do things indirectly. Indirectly. You say, "You know, is that the person that just robbed three banks?" I just read the article. Is this him? Is that the person that...

2:13:12hurt such and such down the street. You have to do it indirectly, softly, not as if you're almost reminding them of something that you may or may not know, but you kind of remember, but it may not be him. You have to tread carefully. Very, very difficult, because you have to be alert, like a... You have to be very, very alert to all the things that you say. The point being is that... If a child is telling his parents what to do and how to do it, they're already mistaken. Now, this is usually the product of a secular life. This is usually the product of a secular life where the parent gave the kid pretty much everything that the kid wants their whole life. Even the freedom to talk to the parent any way that they want. So the kid doesn't see anything wrong with talking to their parent any way they want because they allowed them to do it to a certain extent. So they yelled at the parent a bunch of times, and the parent didn't do anything. They cursed the parent a few times, and the parent didn't do enough. They told the parent what to do a bunch of times, and the parent reacted as if it's okay. So the kid doesn't know it's wrong, and the parent doesn't know it's wrong. Neither one knows it's wrong. So you can't just go tell the kid right now, "Listen, you're the worst person in the world." What do you mean the worst person in the world? You taught me to do this.

2:14:33You told me that I should talk to you freely and like you're my friend. A lot of parents are stupid. They think that their kids are their friends. No, no, she's my friend, not my daughter. She's my friend, he's my friend, not my son. Not my friend. They're your kid. They're not friends. Not supposed to be friends. Once they become friends, they become little Hitlers. That's what happens. That's what happens. Why is the skin, why is the skin of a human being... become tamei after he dies. In reality, he's not tamei. While you're alive, it's not tamei. Your skin's not tamei. It's not impure. How come the second that a person dies, it becomes tamei? How come? The Gemara says, after a parent dies, The kids forget about all the good that the parent did. They only think about how much money you leave us. How much money did you leave us? Who gets the house? Who gets the car? Who gets the jewelry? Who gets the business? Who gets this? And they start fighting. They start fighting amongst each other. I'm going to get the house. I'm going to get the business. They start fighting so much. Then they say, you know what? Okay, you take the car. You take the house. Fine. I'm taking Abba's skin. I'm going to put it on my wall.

2:15:53I'll make it a carpet to show how much I love Abba. Show how much I love Ima. I'll put on skin as a nice jacket. I want to wear it. But HaKadosh Baruch Hu says that if it wasn't for the skin becoming tamei, the kids would use it as carpets. Bad education continues to get worse. And the maasim of the parents, unfortunately, have fruits. So a kid that talks to their parents in a certain way, it's a result of certain things that the parents did. It doesn't mean it's right, but it's much more difficult to fix. It's impossible to fix without Torah. Impossible to fix. You tell an average kid, "Listen, you shouldn't talk to your father that way. You should never call your father or your mother by their first name." Sometimes you see these kids. "Hey, David, come here." Who's David? You're looking for him. Oh, that's your dad? You call him by his first name? It's forbidden. Or it's like they ask him for the car. "No, give me the car. Give me the car." Like they owe you something. This is wrong. This is the person who's going to get Gehinnom for this. You're going to get punished for it. Why? Because it's forbidden. But whose fault is it really?

2:17:09Parents. Parents gave them the freedom to do whatever they want, talk to them however they want, and get a secular education. And in essence, the kid thinks that he came from a monkey. So that's the education that the father gave him, that he came from a monkey. So that's one of the Chachamim, Rav Kamenetsky. Rav Kamenetsky was once on a... plane with his son, the current one of the Gedolei HaDor in America, Rav Shmuel Kamenetsky. That was his son, still a young kid at the time. They were sitting next to a well-known professor. The professor had his kid next to him, and the whole flight, every few minutes, the kid would say, "Dad, thirsty, so the professor would get up and go to the stewardess, "Please, can I have water for my kid?" "Dad, I'm hungry," so the dad, a professor—you know, a million-dollar professor over here from Harvard University—gets up, goes to the stewardess, "Do you have something for my kid to eat? Long flight." "Okay, Dad, I'm cold." So he gets up and asks the stewardess, "Do you have maybe a blanket for my kid?"

2:18:28It's not comfortable. Then he, the professor, gets up. "Do you have any pillows for my kid?" It was uncomfortable. Every few minutes, for the whole ten-hour flight, he's serving his kid. But the whole time, he's not even bothered by his kid and serving his kid. He's used to it already. He does it all day, all night. What is he bothered by the whole time? He's watching the rabbi, Rav Chaim Kanievsky, and the opposite is happening there. Every so often, the kids of Rav Shmuel Kamenetsky, when he was little, say, "Abba..." You thirsty? You want something to drink? No, no, son, no. Keep learning. Abba, you hungry? You want me to get you something to eat? Ima made some sandwiches, kosher. You want something to eat? Hungry, maybe? No, no, no, son. It's okay. Keep learning. Abba, here's a pillow. Maybe you're tired. Do you want something? Abba, maybe it's cold in the plane. Here, a blanket. The whole time, his kid is giving him. So at the end of the flight, the little professor from Harvard University Comes to the rabbi, doesn't know it's the Gadol HaDor, Rav Kamenetsky. Thinks it's just another Jew. He says, I don't understand. I'm a famous professor. I'm a very learned person. And yet I don't understand how you, just, I don't know, a regular person, have done such a better job at educating your kid. He goes, wait, what?

2:19:50says the whole time my kid is asking, "You know, Dad, give me this, give me this, give me this," whereas you have trained your kid, educated your kid, and the whole time he's telling you, "How about you want this? How about you want that? How about you want one?" The whole time he's serving you. How did you do it? He says, "You see, Mr. Professor, Mr. Professor, Doctor, Doctor Professor..." you teach your kid, you taught your kid that you came from a monkey, right? Because, yeah, of course, evolution, Darwin, yeah, of course. Where do you think we came from? Because, oh, okay, so you taught him you came from a monkey, right? So what is your kid thinking? Your kid thought that the more you develop, the further you are from the monkey. The more developed you are from the monkey, which means you, as his father, are closer to a monkey than he is. Therefore, you should serve him. you're closer to being a monkey. So therefore, you should serve him. He's more superior than you.

2:20:51me and my nation, my people, Am Yisrael, we taught our kids that we come from He who created the complete human being. Every generation is lesser and lesser and lesser than the generation before it. You're never gonna have a bigger rabbi today than there was a hundred years ago. You're never gonna have a rabbi a hundred years ago be bigger than the rabbis of 500 years ago. Never gonna be. there's a steady decline of the generations. So you see, doctor, my son understands that I am closer to the complete human being, to Adam HaRishon. I am closer to Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, our forefathers. I am closer than to Moshe Rabbeinu, the prophet of all prophets who spoke to Hashem face to face. i'm closer to them. Therefore, my son knows that he's inferior to me and therefore he serves me. If you want to teach your kid that he came from a monkey, of course, you must serve him. Why? You are closer to being a monkey.

2:22:03than he is. But if you teach your kid that he came from God, then surely your kid will serve you because he knows that you are superior to him. Be'ezrat Hashem, this will teach us just enough. Just enough to know that not only did we not come from monkeys, but we should treat our kids in such a way that they also know they didn't come from monkeys by teaching them a life full of Torah, mitzvot, and gemilut chasadim. Baruch Adonai le'olam. Amen ve'amen. come from monkeys, but we should treat our kids in such a way that they also know they didn't come from monkeys by teaching them a life full of Torah, mitzvot, and gemilut chasadim. Baruch Adonai le'olam. Amen ve'amen.