LEARNING WITH A PURPOSE - MUSSAR Iggeret HaRAMBAN (30)

0:11Good to see some new faces. We missed you on Sunday, but Baruch Hashem we're back here today. It was a pure miracle. There were a lot of things up in the air trying to cancel this shiur and actually tomorrow's shiur as well. But Baruch Hashem, we overcame it. Thanks for watching! Good to see some new faces. We missed you on Sunday, but Baruch Hashem we're back here today. It was a pure miracle. There were a lot of things up in the air trying to cancel this shiur and actually tomorrow's shiur as well. But Baruch Hashem, we overcame it. But the amount of Yetzer Hara that we had today means that today's shiur should be a good one, B'ezrat Hashem. The shiur tonight will be for a Refuah Shlema for Avi Mori, David Ben Esria, Doris Bajora, Levana Bat Sara, Sara Bat Levana, Rav Efraim Ben Shulamit, Rabbanit Sara Bat Anat, Stefan Ben Katerina,

1:23Esther Bat Sipora and Dvora Bat Mercedes. We'll have, Be'ezrat Hashem, a Refuah Shlema, Refuat HaNefesh, Refuat HaGuf. Also for a special, special hatzlacha for Levana Bat Sara. to overcome any obstacles besides Hashem, especially from the wicked people that try to interfere with the work of Hashem that we try to do, Baruch Hashem. So, Baruch Hashem, the Yetzer Hara is working very hard, but I can tell you with full confidence that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is also working very hard. The... Sefer Shmuel, even though we're talking about our Iggeret HaRamban, this is our series, Baruch Hashem. We'll start off with a little bit of light, Baruch Hashem, that I saw today, despite the difficulties. You know, since we came out with something that, Baruch Hashem, no one else has wanted to do. Everyone wanted to do it, but no one actually did it.

2:39We came out publicly against some resha'im in the past, but up until the last few days, or last week, we came out with a video against this Manis Friedman, shem resha'im yirkav. And now... This, Baruch Hashem, this video, I would say, out of all of the videos that we've done, warning Am Yisrael, this one has caught the most fire—good and bad. On the good side, many people that have been watching him, but have even an ounce of emet in them, saw, they couldn't believe their ears; they couldn't believe their eyes that we have footage of this guy, that he himself publicizes, of himself saying things that are 100% anti-Torah. And I can only tell you that what we showed is not even 1% of what's out there. The amount of nonsense that this guy makes, this guy says, really seems to not have any end.

3:52Just today, I heard another lecture or clip of his where he says that he told his friend, the priest, that when the priest asked him, do you believe in Yeshu? He says, I don't know much about Christianity, but I don't want to serve a God that needs me. I want to serve a God that I could do something for Him. Meaning, God needs me. Not that I need God. This minister back in Minnesota, a very nice guy. We met, we were introduced for the first time, and he says, "So, do you believe in Jesus?" He wasn't being aggressive; he was straight-talking and wanted to know what I believe. So I said, I don't know much about Christianity, but I'm not looking for a God who's going to help me. I'm looking for a God that I can do for, not have Him do for me. And that's it. There was nothing he could say. He started to cry. And he says, you know, I never thought of that. Are we here to get from God

5:12what we need, which He made us need. This doesn't make any sense at all. What is life all about? Fulfilling your needs. Did I ask for these needs? No. But you've got to spend your whole life taking care of your needs. And if you don't, you go to Gehinnom? This is mind-boggling. Now, God is the needy one, not us. This has two very important virtues. One is that God becomes lovable, not distant and cold and invulnerable. And number two, what a relief. I'm not the needy one. That is such a burden off of our conscience. What's wrong with you? When are you going to be? How come you don't? Well, you should. You better. No, no, no. I don't have to do anything because I didn't create myself or the world. I'm here because He has a vast eternal need. And if I can do something for Him, my existence is justified. Otherwise, I have no problems.

6:34So that's the future of psychology. And he has, now if you think this is a one-time happenstance, he says that God needs us, nothing creatures, in countless lectures. It's his motto, that God needs us. We are familiar with God because God needs us more than we need Him. and that's why commandments, Ten Commandments, that translation has ruined everything. As soon as you say God has commandments, He's no longer friendly. He's not the one who's needy. Now you got to watch your step because you violated a commandment. That's not Jewish thinking. Jewish thinking is When God spoke to us at Mount Sinai, He wasn't telling us what we must do; He was telling us what He must have. The kind of world He needs and the kind of world He envisioned when He created it. So God revealed Himself. That's why it's called Revelation at Mount Sinai. If we could get this into our thinking, into our educational system,

7:58we need God. If He created us, then who needs whom? How did we become the needy ones when He created us so well? Don't we need to eat, sleep, and drink? That's how He created us. Even though Rambam says what you just said is... Thinking that HaKadosh Baruch Hu needs anything is 100% heresy. Why? He's complete, He's perfect. With or without us, to say He needs anything, to say He's subject to need at all, is kefirah. Your mind will tell you that you are dependent on Him. If He's God, He has the football. If He doesn't want to play, the game is over. So, you're dependent on Him. So, you have to pray to Him, you have to appease Him, you have to fawn on Him, compliment Him, so that He'll be good to you. That's horrible. Unfortunately, Jewish exposure to that kind of thinking over the centuries, you know, we absorb

9:21what the environment gives us. And it became part of Jewish thinking, which is very sad. Here's what Jewish thinking should be: We are not needy and dependent on God. God is the one who is needy, and He is dependent on us. That's faith. But this guy says it on a regular basis, and unfortunately, the ignorant continue to nod and laugh and smirk and get confused. Nonetheless, they do it because he has a long beard. They figure that if he has a long white beard, he must know what he's talking about. And if he's been talking this nonsense for 40 years, it must be true because somebody would have said something. Unfortunately, that's not the case. No one has said anything until recently, Baruch Hashem. and now we're trying to wake a lot of people up. Some of the people that used to watch him, or watch him now, saw it and couldn't believe it. They never saw it from that perspective. This is a hundred percent, especially when we provided sources from the Torah, like you're supposed to. The Mishnah says anytime you say something, you have to provide the source. By doing that, you are doing the same mitzvah that we learned. From who do we learn it from?

10:46She said the things of Mordechai to the king, and that's how the king also said, "Oh, so if she would have said it in her own name and no name, then the whole salvation that we have in Purim would have never happened." But she said what happened in the name of Mordechai. So the king later thought, "Oh, you know what, this Mordechai, I am a gift." And that brought the salvation. So when we say Divrei Torah with a source, where do we get it from? That means that we are doing something that we learned from the Torah, which the Mishnah in Avot says brings the Mashiach closer because we are fulfilling the Torah at the highest level. On the other hand, when a person says Divrei Torah without providing a source, the Mishnah in Avot, chapter 6, says that you are delaying the Mashiach, chas v'shalom. You have millions and millions of Jews, millions of people, billions of people waiting for Mashiach, righteous people waiting for Mashiach. And because you said Divrei Torah without providing a source, you just delay the Mashiach.

11:56Now why is this delaying Mashiach? Why is it considered so bad not to provide a source? The reason why, Rabotai, is because what happens is, when a person gets used to not providing a source, it becomes a very bad habit. And what ends up happening, sometimes he says something that people like. So he gets kavod for it. He gets respect for it. And now... He says, "You know what? Yeah, it was my chiddush. It was my insight. It was my idea." So not only did you forget who actually said the idea, but now even if you remembered, you don't even want to say it. Why? Because you want the kavod for yourself. You want everybody to say "chazak u'baruch" to you. You are the smart one. You are the genius. You are the gadol. Even though the giant who actually figured it out was born 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 700 years ago and toiled and toiled over the Torah for years, for 80, 90 years straight just to get that chiddush, you just stole it for nothing. To get the kavod. So that, rabotai yekarim, the Mishnah says, delays the Mashiach. So why do I mention this to you? Because along with talking about people that are wicked, you have to provide a source of why they're wicked. But in today's age, what I found out is that you not only have to provide people the source of why such things are wrong and such things are right,

13:10why this person said this and this person said that, but you actually have to show it to them because I've said things against certain people and mentioned names a bunch of different times. But never did we see such feedback like we did recently when people actually saw the donkey himself talk. when they saw Menis Friedman when he actually started saying something, people reacted. Thousands and thousands of people watched this clip, and many of them woke up. Unfortunately, there’s always a bad case, unfortunately, in some of the while we're in this world and Some people continue to choose to be blind. And if you look at some of the comments, unfortunately, despite the heretical comments that he makes in his shiurim, they still decide to defend him. They still decide to defend this guy. They say, "No, you just didn't understand him. He's on such a high level. You don't understand. The problem is that religious Jews like you don't understand him." And just, wait, hold on a second. So if I study a little bit, I try, and my rabbi studies a lot more. So for somebody like me to get, my rabbi, okay, forget me. I don't know anything. My rabbi, he knows something. I promise you. Finished the Shas four times before the age of 20.

14:32You do that once in your life, you're already good. Four times before the age of 20, you know a few things. Twice Yerushalmi, twice Bavli. Wrote 40 books, he just turned 30 years old. Over 40 books. So he knows a few things about Torah, not about Kit Kats and X-Men. Now, he knows a few things. I told him exactly word for word translation. What does it say in this clip? He says it's Kofer Gamur. I said, wait a minute, but he said this and this. For the last two years, we've been reviewing videos. This doesn't happen just now. For the last two years, he says, you cannot count him in a minyan. You cannot count this person in a minyan. I said, well, maybe this, maybe that. Arguing back and forth, this is what it is. I spoke to Manis Friedman's son. Maybe a year ago, a little less than that, after the first time I made a public comment against him, his son called me. I had at least a half hour to an hour conversation with his son. I don't remember the exact times, maybe even longer. His son tried to defend him, defend his father in the name of his father. I believed that Manis was in the background, just didn't want to talk to me. But whatever, long story short, I spoke to his son, who's a rabbi.

15:43Claims to be a rabbi. So I said, okay, can you provide me a single source for any of the things that he says in his lectures? And I named a few things. He says, I'm sorry, I don't remember sources. I said, but you're a rabbi. He says, yeah, but I don't remember sources. I said, okay, but can you get back to me with sources? He goes, yeah, I'll get back to you with sources. I said, okay, I don't have to get back to you. I'll give you some sources of why it's wrong. I gave him at least 50 sources. As if I was getting the Torah that day. I remembered everything as if it was like an open book. I gave him source after source, showing this is wrong, that is wrong, as if I knew everything. So I said to him, can you prove all of these sources wrong? Can you prove all of these wrong? All of them are wrong? Who's wrong? He said, I don't know, I'm sure there's something. I said, okay, listen, I told him, listen, let's just cut to the chase. If your father, Manis, is not comfortable talking about life after death and what happens to wicked people, here's a clue. Don't talk about it. Talk about, I don't know, kindness. Talk about chassidus. Talk about stories of the Baal Shem Tov. Talk about, I don't know, talk about something else. Don't talk about Gehinnom. Don't lie. Don't lie.

17:03If you're going to talk about it, say the truth. But if you're not going to talk about it, it's fine. No problem. But why lie? You're making people sin. And then his son tells me something that I will never forget. I will never forget this. And he says to me the following. I wish I had this recorded. I wish I did. In Shamayim, they recorded it for sure. But I wasn't smart enough to record it. I actually didn't know he was calling me anyway. Anyway, he says to me the following: "So what if he lies a little bit? Look at the results." I remember these words like I know my face. "So what if he lies a little bit? Look at the results." After my chin, my face, my whole thing dropped to the floor, I picked it up, I put it back in. I said, "Hold on a second. What did you just say?" What do you mean, so what if he lies a little bit? What results? What are you talking about? The money you guys make? Because the man writes a book every week. You know, it's a comic book, so it's easy to write. What do you mean? Oh, the money you guys are making? $5,000 just to go to a lecture for an hour that he charges? Or $400 for a meeting? Or if you want to get an answer via email, you have to subscribe, $5 a month minimum. That money?

18:18He says, "No, not the money, the other result." I said, "What other results?" I see people that listen to him and become kofrim, atheists. It's funny, but it's not funny. It's funny, but it's not funny. I laugh too, but I cry at the same time. So I told him, "Listen, if you could provide me sources, and you can't provide me sources, tell your father that if he doesn't stop his nonsense, I will eventually go against him publicly. I'll make a whole lecture about him." This was about a year ago. Unfortunately, to my dismay, Manis Friedman got much worse in the last year. Almost every other lecture he mentions ge'enom and he mentions kefirah about it. Things that are the opposite of what Hashem says. Now he starts saying that HaKadosh Baruch Hu needs us. Hashem yirachem. If we live in a world that God needs us, we should all commit suicide. Why? We cannot even take care of ourselves. You're telling me that He needs us? Who's taking care of Him?

19:21What do you mean He needs us? That's what I'm saying. What does he mean He needs us? He says He created us, therefore He needs us. I didn't ask to be created, he says. I didn't ask to be created. So all religion is trying to gain something from God. A blessing... pleasure, reward. Judaism is the exact opposite. What happened at Mount Sinai, when God took us out of Egypt and brought us to Mount Sinai, He didn't tell us how to get to heaven. In fact, heaven isn't even mentioned in the Torah, except at the beginning. In the beginning, God created heaven and earth, and then the rest of the Torah is about earth. Heaven is not mentioned again. So we're not trying to get to heaven. In fact, we don't want to get to heaven because you've got to die to get there. Not a good deal. What we want is to bring God down to earth. That's what happened at Mount Sinai. God came down

20:46to the mountain to tell us what He needs, not what we need. He says that a man and a woman, why are they attracted to each other? Because originally they were born, Hashem created a man and a woman together, which is what the Gemara in Masechet Berachot says. And he says that the man and the woman really separate their bed. So the reason why we're attracted is because it's not good that you're a man alone, and it's not good that you're a woman alone. If you are a woman, you should pay attention to this, ladies. If you are a woman, Manis Friedman is giving you a chiddush. If you are a woman, you need, you need, you don't need a man, no, no. You need, you need to understand something. In reality, if you're a woman, you have a need to be a man. And if you are a man, you have a need to be a woman. That's why you're attracted to each other. You need to be each other. You need to be, Rabbi Goldberg over there, he needs to be his wife, and his wife needs to be him. You need to be the other one. That's what makes you guys attracted to each other. You need to be the other one. Why? Because that's who you really are. You're the woman, she's the man, he's the man, he's the woman, everybody's confused. Except Manis Friedman, he knows.

22:12Why are we attracted to the opposite? By the way, that is a big mystery in nature. It doesn't make sense. Men should be attracted to men and women should be attracted to women. That makes sense. What is this attraction to the opposite? What is that, like kind of a davka? I don't want my own kind. I want davka, what is not mine, the opposite. it's because it's not opposite. It's me. A complete human being is male and female. So a man's attraction to a woman is because he wants to be himself, not because he wants something opposite to himself. A woman is attracted to a man because being a woman is not enough. a human being like the first human being has to be both. Find me a place in the Torah that says this, and I'll give you a thousand dollars cash. I'll go borrow it. How can people be defending such kefirah? The answer is not Hashem.

23:34We'll get a little bit more today, but it's very, very important for us to know that this, unfortunately, has been going on for 40 years with Manis. It has been going on for 40, or 50, or 60, or 100, or a few hundred, or a few thousand years. But Am Yisrael, we've always had people like this. He's not new. He's just a new face for the last 40 years. We've always had people like him that tried to revolutionize the divine Torah that doesn't need to be revolutionized. Now, HaKadosh Baruch Hu feels bad for people because He loves us. And when we talk about Gan Eden and Gehinom, we're talking about people that know that they are Jews, know that there's a Torah, and know that Torah is divine. What if you just found out that you're a Jew now? Well, guess what? Starting now, your judgment becomes very different. Until now, your judgment was very, very different than what it's going to be from now on. Why? Because if you didn't know you were a Jew for the first 80 years of your life, and you just discovered you're a Jew now, the judgment that you're going to have for the first 80 years is obviously not going to be as critical as it's going to be for us here listening to shiur Torah, knowing that we're Jewish.

25:00Now, to show HaKadosh Baruch Hu's mercy, I got a call, two calls, from a fantastic, wonderful woman, 79 years old. I got it today. I wanted to cry. To be honest, I cried a little. Don't tell anybody else. 79 years old, she just discovered she's a Jew. 79 years old, she just discovered she's a Jew. How did she discover she’s a Jew? She heard from her mom years ago, 20 years ago, 25 years ago, that she is Jewish, but they weren't practicing, and her grandmother was also Jewish. But she says if you're not practicing, like the Christians—if you're not a practicing Christian, you're not a Christian; if you're not a practicing Arab, you're not really a Muslim—they call you a lot of things. Then she heard in a shiur by Rabbi Tovia Singer... she heard from her mom years ago, 20 years ago, 25 years ago, that she is Jewish, but they weren't practicing, and her grandmother was also Jewish. But she says if you're not practicing, like the Christians—if you're not a practicing Christian, you're not a Christian; if you're not a practicing Arab, you're not really a Muslim—they call you a lot of things. Then she heard in a shiur by Rabbi Tovia Singer that if your mother and your grandmother are both Jewish, you're a Jew. And he said this as a side note. It wasn't a whole lecture about who is a Jew and who is not. He just mentioned it as a side note. HaKadosh Baruch Hu felt bad for this woman to live 80 years without a purpose. HaKadosh Baruch Hu says in Sefer Shmuel, Sefer Shmuel 2, in chapter 14, verse 14.

26:24No one will be banished from Him. HaKadosh Baruch Hu is not going to let anyone in the world live a life without having a chance to do teshuva. He's not going to have anyone in the world live an entire life without having a chance to see the emet. Everyone gets a chance, which means this answers a huge question that people have. Wait a minute, it's not fair. I only discovered such and such when I was 30, when I was 40, when I was 50, when I was 60. Okay, you discovered it? Or what if I didn't, but did you discover it? Yes, okay, so why are you asking? What if you didn't? It's like asking, what if you didn't have grandparents? Then you wouldn't have you. What's the point? Don't ask philosophical questions like "What if?" Did you find out the truth? Yes? Okay, so now act on the truth. If this wonderful lady in the middle of nowhere, Texas, can find out that she's a Jew at 79, you know what this means, Rabotai? That means that HaKadosh Baruch Hu told her, "You can do full teshuva even at the age of 79." You can do teshuva, complete teshuva at 79 and finally give your life a purpose and go to Gan Eden with Moshe Rabbeinu.

27:41That means, Rabotai, that none of us have an excuse. None of us! If this lady is crying to me on the phone, telling me, "What do I do now? What does Hashem want from me now? What do I do?" I said, "Don't worry, I'll send you some information because, with Hashem's help, we'll be in touch," and so on and so forth. I have no doubt in my mind that she's going to do teshuva, complete teshuva. The question is, are we gonna do teshuva? Are we gonna continue lying to ourselves by using Manis and the likes' excuses of why we don't need to do teshuva because everyone goes to Gan Eden according to Manis Friedman, no matter what. He says that because the exile has been so long for 2,000 years, there's no Jew in the world that deserves punishment. Everybody goes to Gan Eden. where are the heads of Chabad? Tell me, I want to know. Where are the heads of Chabad that are supposed to, at this moment, now that this has become public? Where are they with their hair on such a person?

28:45Where are they? Where are the leaders of his own kehillah? Where are the leaders of this community? Where are the leaders in New York? Where are the leaders in Los Angeles? In all places around the world. Where are all of they? Now, right now, that you've seen and it's been highlighted that this person has been saying things that are against the Torah. What are you going to tell me? That, oh, you just don't understand? Well, rabotai. If I don't understand, that's not such a big deal. I'm not such a smart person. But my rabbi, he's a very smart person. He learns Torah many, many hours. And if he doesn't understand, then I have a question for Mr. Manis. If my rabbi doesn't understand, and several other rabbis that I sent to don't understand, and several other talmidei chachamim that I sent to don't understand, no one understands, that knows any Torah, then how is the average person in the public That's religious or secular but not considered a scholar. How are they going to understand if the scholars don't understand? If the rabbis don't understand, no one understands. How is the average person going to understand? Which means that the only way to understand it is what the Mishnah says.

30:06Chachamim, you have to be careful with your words because your words can lead your students to Gehinom. Why? If you speak in a way that's philosophical and theoretical and all types of other calls, and no one understands your calls, then guess what? The only thing we can do is call it as it is. Look at the basic understanding. The basic understanding is what you're saying is kefirah. So unless you can either explain it in a normal way that a fool like me can understand, unless you can explain it with a source from Chazal, there's no other conclusion other than to call it kefirah. But unfortunately, Rabotai, there are still going to be people that defend them, even after this video comes out. Because some people just want to be lied to. Because it soothes their lifestyle. It soothes their actions that are against Hashem. It makes them feel okay about it. Why? Man has said, "I'm not going to gain them anyway." Now, why am I mentioning this again? We've done enough. Why is this being mentioned again?

31:21...is because unfortunately, rabotai yekarim, this is part of the prophecies that will happen before Mashiach. The Gemara in Masechet Sotah, page 49b, says that before Mashiach comes, there's going to be obnoxious people, chutzpah yisgei, people that make comments on the internet without even understanding alef-bet of Judaism, making fun of the Torah, calling the Torah all types of names without even knowing Torah. People disagree with the Torah without even reading it. Oh, no, somebody sent me a few days ago, "Oh, you know, the Zohar is not true. I just read a 40-page English write-up, and the Zohar is not true." This is coming from a person that I don't even think has finished reading the Chumash. Forget reading the Gemara, forget reading the Zohar. But he decided that he read a 40-page English write-up by some nobody that... you have it also?

32:22Yeah, it's everywhere. The reality is you cannot move in today's world, whether the Ashkenazi world, Hasidic world, or Sephardi world. You can't move without the Zohar. The Zohar is everywhere. It was accepted among the sages of Am Yisrael. To say it's false, to say it's nonsense, like some fools say on the internet publicly, I don't know. I don't know what's happening to people, but it seems like they are delving too much into the Chochmot HaGoyim. They're delving too much into the wisdoms of the Goyim, not of the Jews. Why? Because anyone that calls the Zohar not true, or any of the books of the sages, the Midrashim, the Gemarot, and so on, these are people that have a very, very serious problem with HaKadosh Baruch Hu, but also have a very serious problem with this world. Because that means that they're forcing themselves to stay ignorant. Because if you're saying it's not true, that means you've never read it. You've never learned from it. you never learned from it, you never read it, but yet you decided the conclusion. This happens a lot with Christians. Christians decide they don't want to follow the Torah because the Torah of Am Yisrael has the Oral Torah. And they decided that the Oral Torah is not good. Did you ever read the Oral Torah, Mr. Christian? No, no, but the Pharisees wrote it. Okay, do you know who the Pharisees are? You have some names. Yeah, Rabban Gamliel. Okay, do you know what Rabban Gamliel did?

33:46...know when Alexander Mogdon, Alexander the Great, was conquering the whole world, one day someone told him, or some rasha told him, "Why don't you go to Jerusalem? There's this little city with a bunch of people that are not listening to you. They're called Jews. Why don't you go against them and destroy this little city?" Alexander the Great says, "I might as well do it. Why not?" Then someone came to Rabban Gamliel and said, "Rabbi... Terrorist of the world, Alexander Mogdon, is coming here. What should we do? He says, let's go meet him. Just like that, let's go meet him. If he's coming, such an honorable king is coming, let's go say hello. No prayer, no hiding, let's go meet him. He brought his people, and Alexander the Great brought millions of people with him, an army, millions of people. They meet at the bottom of a hill. Bottom of a hill. Stop. It's like a movie scene. But here on one side, you've got only a few people. I don't know, maybe 100, 200 people, 300 people, let's say, on Rabban Gamliel's side. On Alexander Mogdon's side, you've got millions. You've got like flies. All of a sudden, you see Alexander the Great get off his horse.

35:09Go to the horse of Rabban Gamliel on his knees, on his knees, bow to him like he's the king. Bow to him like he's the king. They said to him, "What happened? Did you convert to Judaism? What happened to you?" He says, "Every night before I go to sleep, I see something in my dreams. Every night I go to sleep, I see something in my dreams. And I see His face, His crown in my dreams. And some type of heavenly voice comes out and tells me that the only reason that I'm winning the wars is because of Him, because of them, because of their Torah. That's why. That's why." After he died, his kingdom was so big, it had to be divided into four kingdoms. No kingdom after that was ever as strong. Do the Christians know this story? I'm afraid not. Unfortunately, many of the Jews don't know the story either.

36:13The reality is, Rabotai, if you learn the Torah, if you learn the stories of our sages, if you learn about HaKadosh Baruch Hu, the truth about Him, you're simply going to fall in love with Him. It's not just being afraid of going to Gehinnom, but also falling in love with something that you never knew even existed. But you have to have merit. You have to have merit in order to inherit Torah. The Gemara says there are three things that can only be acquired with sacrifice: living in Eretz Yisrael, going to the next world, going to Olam Haba, and knowing the Torah. Understanding the Torah requires sacrifice. Sometimes it's a financial sacrifice. You have to donate a lot of money for the sake of Torah for Hashem to say, "Oh, you love the Torah more than you love houses. I'll give you Torah." Sometimes it's sacrificing on your sleep. Instead of sleeping eight hours like some cow, you sleep five. Why? Because you used the other three hours to learn. Because you don't want to go to Olam Haba and say, "Oh, let's make a steak out of him. He's a cow. Slept eight hours his whole life."

37:30You sleep, no problem, but you don't need to sleep your whole life 8 hours. You're 8 years old, sleep 8 hours. You're 18, you're 28, you're 38, you don't need to sleep 8 hours. You can learn Torah at that time. Now, Rabotai, when a person learns Torah, he knows that he has to make major sacrifices. Why? Because the Yetzer Hara appears to him in a million and a half different ways. Suddenly, all of the friends he's never heard of call him. They want to do something. Let's go out tonight. Let's go do something. I'll take you out to dinner. I'll pay. All of a sudden, he gets a new job, and the new job has a much longer schedule that allows him zero time to study. For more money, though. All of a sudden, his wife is not so excited about Torah because she doesn't see the results herself. So she says, "Ah, come on honey, let's go to the mall instead." All of a sudden, he's tired. All of a sudden, he's lonely. All of a sudden, he's bored. All of a sudden, he's got all types of distractions. To watch a movie, he never gets a distraction. To go eat non-kosher food, he never gets a distraction. To eat kosher food, also no distraction.

38:31But to go learn Torah, all the distractions in the world appear: all of a sudden he's sick, all of a sudden he's in pain, all of a sudden he's got financial problems, all of a sudden somebody shows up at seven o'clock at night with a subpoena, telling him to show up to court in two days, and he doesn't even know why. To acquire Torah, rabotai, requires sacrifice. Sacrifice means all of those things I just mentioned; you have to make the sacrifice and overcome all of them. But another sacrifice, that is less known and made less often is to overcome our ego and to simply come to the conclusion that we know nothing, and if the sages said it, it must be true. If Hashem said it, it must be true. Our lack of understanding is our deficiency. Not our contradiction. If we don't understand something that the sages said, or that HaKadosh Baruch Hu said, that means that we don't know anything. We don't know anything to contradict them. Nothing that we think is ever going to be superior to what they think. This means that a person needs to swallow their ego and just let it go to Never Never Land if you want to inherit Torah.

39:55But as long as you think that you're on the same level as the Sages, as long as you think that you're even on the same level as the Rabbis, you're never going to inherit Torah because you're always going to have the Yetzer Hara working really hard on you and telling you that you know better. They're wrong. Everybody's wrong except you. That's why it's very important, Rabotai, that if you're ever going to listen to any shiur Torah, whether it's mine or anybody else's, only listen to people that provide a source for what they say. Because when they provide a source, they're telling you two things: Number one, whatever they said, that's Torah. That's Torah. Why? They said it, they mentioned a source, a page number, a book, you have it. It's in the Gemara, it's in the Zohar, it's in the Midrash, it's in the Chumash, it's in the Tanakh. Okay, this is from HaKadosh Baruch Hu. This is the living Torah. This is Torah. It's not his opinion. Why? If it's Torah, I know it's from HaKadosh Baruch Hu. If it's him, who knows? Maybe today he wants to be a guy, next week he wants to be a girl, maybe he wants to be both, like Manis Friedman says, who knows?

41:04Who knows? Opinions, opinions change. That's the first thing they tell you when they provide a source. The second thing they tell you when they provide a source is that they're humble enough to tell you that their idea is inferior to the ideas that came before them. But unfortunately, sometimes the snake, the nachash, shows up with a source but manipulates it. He provides you a source, he tells you a page number, and he depends on our ignorance. He depends on the public's ignorance that you have no idea what the source means. So he could translate it however he wants. Yeah, Moshe came down from Har Sinai. Yeah, that was in Las Vegas. It doesn't say Las Vegas, but see, there's a Lamed there, and there's a Vav over there; that means Las Vegas. And you don't know your right from your left. You're like, wow, Las Vegas. You win at least. He doesn't know. The guy manipulates the source. He tells you some source, some page number, something like they do in many places. And he says, ah, see, there you go. I provided sources. That's why we have to double-check. You have to double-check. You have to double-check. Is this what the source really means? What's the pshat? Or is this his interpretation?

42:27And that requires a lot of prayers, a lot of mercy from HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Because HaKadosh Baruch Hu doesn't want to lose anybody. But at the same token, if we, if we ourselves continue, continue to force Hashem's hand by having such a big ego that we don't want to agree with the rabbis, we don't want to agree with Chazal, we don't want to agree with Hashem, we want to agree with our own opinion, whatever suits us, whatever fits us, we're never going to survive. Now, recently somebody sent me a she'elah, a very sophisticated she'elah, question. And he says, listen, you have a couple of times that you talk about the issue of a tinok shenishba, a captured baby. And he says, in a few other places that, you know, in the old days, The Christians used to kidnap Jewish babies, and those Jewish babies would grow up as Christians, never knowing that they were Jews. Just like this woman who is 79 years old and never knew that she is a Jew. So they are not judged the same as someone who knows they are a Jew, knows there is a Beit Knesset, and knows that God exists. Whether he believes it or not is irrelevant, but he knows that it's part of the Jewish faith. So some of the sages said, oh...

43:52So if somebody's a captured baby, obviously they don't get judged the same way. So some of the recent sages in the last 100 years said, yeah, the secular people that grew up in a kibbutz or grew up in a Zionist home—it's anti-Torah, communist, and so on—they're also captured babies. They're also... And I mentioned that this is obviously only a couple of major Gedolim said that this is the case, that secular people are all Tinokot Shenishbu, literally only a couple. And most of the major sages, whether it's Rav Wasserman or Rav Ovadia, and many other Gedolim that mentioned it, say, no, absolutely not. The people know that they're Jewish, whether they believe or they grew up in a secular house or not. There's no such thing as them being captured babies. But either way, even if they're captured or they're not captured, it doesn't make a difference. Don't keep them there. You know the guy's a Jew, help him out. Help him get out of being captured. Help him discover his purpose in life. So the guy said, listen, you mentioned this story by Rav Wasserman, and actually I found something that it says, Rav Wasserman said the opposite. Rav Wasserman says that these people are captured babies. And he sent me the source.

45:00I looked at the source. Initially, when I saw his question, I was a little baffled. Why? Because I was pretty sure I knew what Rav Wasserman said. So this would contradict some of the things I said, so I was a little worried. Maybe I made a mistake, I have to make a whole shiur, fixing my mistake. But Yishtabach Shemo, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, never lets me down. He provided me a source. What does it say? The exact opposite. The exact opposite. It says what I said, not what he says. How come he's saying the opposite? He doesn't understand what he's reading. understand what he's reading. That's the problem. He read it in Hebrew, but apparently, he doesn't have a full command of the Hebrew language. Or perhaps the rabbi sent it to him knowing that he doesn't have the command of the Hebrew language. "Oh, go send it to Reuven over there, set up the Reuven." He's wrong. He's wrong, and you just read the source, and it says the exact opposite. So I provided him the information and explained to him exactly what the answer says. But there was something very unique about this question that Rav Wasserman, a"h (alav hashalom), makes an extraordinary argument. He says the following in his answer. He says, we have sources in the Torah that mention such people who are captured babies. There is such a concept. And

46:30we have a situation where even someone who served an idol, thought that he was a Christian, served their idol, he could be forgiven. If he does teshuvah, he abandons Yoshke, he comes to Hashem and says, "Hashem, I'm sorry," brings a sacrifice at the time of the Beit HaMikdash, he's forgiven. Even though he worshiped an idol for 30, 40 years straight, he says, "I'm sorry" to Hashem, Hashem forgives him. No problem. So we see that there's leniency. So, how come you say that when it comes to kefirah, heresy, which is like atheism, or just like Manus Friedman, changing the Torah. How come you say such things are not forgivable? How come you say such a thing is not forgivable? So Rabbi Wasserman says the following. He says this: a person that worships an idol, prays to Yoshke,

47:41For anyone who doesn't know what that means, Jesus, that guy who's in Gehinom right now, prays to him, prays to Buddha, prays to the golden calf. He was taught to do that by somebody—his parents, his grandparents, his teachers, and so on. Which means that in his mind, that's all he knows. And in his mind, it makes sense. You told him that this Yoshke is God. Okay, so that's God. He believes it's God. And you can rationalize that in his mind he's right, even though he's wrong. In his mind, he's not doing it to go against God. He's doing it because he thinks that's the way to serve God. He thinks the cow is going to connect him to God. He thinks the cow may be God because it gives babies every nine months. He's... This was taught to him, and although it's stupid, although it's wrong, you can rationalize it because he was taught that, and he was taught that this is something—you need Yoshke, you need this rabbi, you need this statue—in order to connect to the real God, or that is the real God, whatever it is. You can rationalize it. But an atheist, a kofer, someone that distorts the Torah,

48:56by their non-belief. That you can't rationalize. Why? Because at some point, this atheist had to have thought in his life, even if it's at age 79, where did I come from? Before my parents, before my grandparents. What's the point of this world? Where did this world come from? Who created it? if He created it, does He care about it? Does He show any signs of caring about it? Are there any indications that He cares about it? Did He leave any messages—a text message, a WhatsApp, a Facebook page, a book, something? Oh, the Jew says He left the book. The Christians say He left the same book plus an addition. The Muslims say He left the same book plus an addition. So the point is, at some point, he would have arrived that... has to be something, which means, Rabotai, an atheist cannot be rational. Meaning, after the person asked the question at some point in their life, "Where did I come from?" he had to arrive at the conclusion that it had to be something significant, something bigger than him. Which means that even though he arrived at that conclusion, he didn't want to believe.

50:17He chose to be a heretic. He chose to be a kofer. He chose to change the Torah. He chose to join Menashe's camp. He chose it. Which means that it was by choice. Therefore, it’s not forgivable. Idol worshiper is forgivable. Why? His sins, his crimes, if he does teshuva, it's forgivable. Why? Because his sins are rational, actually. But to say we came from nothing, that's not a rational thing. No human being can do that. No human being could live their entire life never getting to the conclusion that there has to be something bigger than me. No human being. It's not possible. Hashem created you with a neshama, created you with a brain, a heart, moving body parts, and so on. You had to arrive at that conclusion that there has to be a Creator. Which means if you claim yourself to be an atheist or you change the Torah and manipulate it in any way, shape, or form, you did it by choice. You did it through logic. Your own logic. Not the Torah's logic. Which means that that sin is not forgivable. There is no such thing as a tinok she’nishba that's a secular person.

51:26That's what the Muslim says. Why? Because all of those secular people are making the active choice to live in the world as if there is no God, even though inside them they know there is. They know. They say, they say, sometimes they'll go to the holidays. Sometimes they say, yeah, you know, me and God have a separate relationship. And they'll even say, I'm atheist. I don't believe in anything. But in reality, at hospice, when everyone's dying right next to them and they are included, everybody becomes religious. So now, Rav Wasserman says the exact opposite of what this young man thought. How could this be? Not double-checking. Baruch Hashem, he double-checks on it with me. But the key is, Rabotai, what the Ramban is trying to tell us here. The Ramban told us last week to make sure to always study Torah and fulfill its commandments. He continues

52:27If you have the small book, it's on page 94. It's the second half of the statement. He continues, "Why do you study Torah? Why do you study Torah to fulfill its commandments? For what purpose? When you rise from study, you finish studying. You studied in the morning, you studied at night, you went to the shiur, think about what you studied carefully. What did you learn? See what's there that you can actually put into practice. Why is this such a big deal? If we come to HaKadosh Baruch Hu with just a list of YouTube and Facebook videos that we watched our entire life, Of Rabbi this and Rabbi that, and Rabbi this and Rabbi that. And we say, "Hashem, You asked for me to learn Torah, I learned it. Look how many videos I have. A million videos that I watched in my life." Hashem is not going to see that as valuable. You watched a million videos, you attended a million lectures, He's not going to see it as valuable by default. You know what He's going to see as valuable?

53:54What did you get out of it? What did you learn there and apply to your life? if you watched a million videos and you applied one percent of each, then you arrive in Shamayim with many, many malachim (angels) that are going to be your evidence that you made all these mitzvot because of all the shiurim that you learned. But if you arrive to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, the Melech Malchei HaMelachim, continuing with your gemara closed, continuing with your kefirah (heresy) and your nonsense... You didn't follow a single law of the Torah. You didn't follow what Hashem says. You followed what your logic said. You followed what man said. You followed what all types of crazy people said. Then HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to say, "I'm sorry. You watched a million videos. You lived 70, 80 years for no reason. For no reason. There's no point to your life. Why? You learned without applying." If you're going to learn Torah, it's not like learning philosophy or learning other things that you learn sometimes in high school for really no purpose. Many subjects that you learn in school really will serve no purpose whatsoever in your life. Most people are not going to use the skills they learn in gym class.

55:16But yet, every school has a gym class. They'll tell you, "Up and down, up and down, one, two, three, four," and you'll make a little thing. Most people are not going to learn anything from their ceramics class. That little ashtray that you made, you're probably not even going to use it. You're not going to use it in life, you're not going to use it at that time, you're not going to use it later. Most of the stuff you learn in history class, you're probably not going to use. Why? If I ask most people, most Americans, you ask them, who's the president that was before this president? They'll tell you, oh, it's Obama, Osama. Okay. Who was the vice president? They don't know. Who's the mayor of your own city? Doesn't know. How many members of Congress? Don't know. Do you know what a Congress is? No. What do you know? I hate Trump. Okay, so you have. They don't know, they don't know basic. They went to history class, but they don't know basic stuff. Most people don't know. You ask them basic geography. They went to a very famous school, UCLA, top school in America, top college in America, $40,000, $50,000 a year tuition.

56:38They went on campus and asked the students, "How many Jewish people are in the world?" The average answer was over a billion. "How many Jewish countries are in the world?" 20, 30, 40, 50, 60. "How many Arabs are in the world?" 20 million, 10 million. How many Arab countries are in the world? One, two, almost the opposite. Why? You know where they learned their geography? The news. The news, the UN, the CNN. All the hatred. They don't know anything. Now, does everybody need to be a scholar in Jewish people? No, not necessarily, unless you live in the world. You need to know how many of them exist since technically religion started with the Jews. So if you're a Christian or you're a Muslim, you should know how many Jews exist in the world. You should know that your book started with theirs. If you're a civilized human being,

57:51Guess what? Where does that civilization come from? Where do the whole ethics begin? The Torah. Who was the Torah given to? Am Yisrael. So yeah, technically you should know how many of those people are still left in the world. Technically you should. And you learned it probably in some class. Why? Because there's always some Middle East class, wars of the Middle East, peace in the Middle East, or something. But nobody knows anything. So most of the knowledge people learn in their school, they don't actually apply to their life. They don't even remember it. Many times you'll take math classes that you're never gonna use. Why? You have a calculator. You ask the average student, how much is 12 times 12? They'll look at you, what? Don't you dare ask me questions like that, like you cursed them. What's 12 times 12? Hold on a second, I'm gonna take my phone. No, no, in your head. Can you do it in your head? 12 times 12, can you do it in your head? The whole 12? Why do you need to know? They start asking philosophical questions about why you need to know. What's with you and 12 times 12? What is it, some trick? No, I just want to know if you have a brain. Okay, three times two, you know that one? Seven, oh. People don't use their brains; they use calculators.

59:10English? Find me, find me a group, a minyan, a minyan of public school kids and sometimes, unfortunately, yeshiva kids. Sometimes, more often yeshiva kids than public school kids. Find me 10 of them in the same class who know how to spell. Write a letter, 500 words without one spelling mistake. Impossible. Why? Spell check. We have a new language: LOL, BFF, SMH, PPP. You have to know acronyms now. People send me emails and messages all the time, and I ask them, "What are you talking about? What is this SMH and PPP? I don't know. LOL, I know. Why? I've been told, I use that one. The rest of them, I don't know. What is this SNN, BNN, all these different things, I have no idea." And they give you, like, these—you feel like it's codes. So, can you, do you work for the Mossad? Hamas? ISIS? Who do you work for? No, I'm just a high school kid. How come you don't use real words? Ah, it's too much to spell. So most of the knowledge you learn in school is useless. You're not going to apply it. You're not going to apply it in life. You should, but you don't. Most people don't. But when it comes to the Torah, Rabotai, it cannot be the same.

1:00:34If you don't apply your history class in life, you won't go to Gehinnom. If you don't apply the English classes that you learn year after year for 15 years, 20 years, and you don't know how to spell, you won't go to Gehinnom. You won't even get punished for it. If you make a spelling error, you may lose a job. You may get rejected for some big deal that you want because you don't know how to spell something. But you're not going to go to Gehinnom for it. I promise you. Spell check, they use it in Shamayim too, if you want. They'll help you over there with spell check. Why? Because it doesn't mean anything. Your spelling ability is not going to help you. Believe it or not, even your math skills, if you don't know how to multiply 12 times 12, or 148 divided by 6, you have no idea how to calculate that in your head within a few seconds, no worries, you're not going to Gehinnom. But if you do not apply the lessons that you learned in the Torah, if you don't apply those to your life, then you have a very serious problem. Why? Because that's the whole point of the Torah. Torah is not a philosophy class. Although people like to be philosophical because it sells tickets and gets donations,

1:01:59Torah is not interested in being mentally stimulating. It's interested in teaching you how to be a decent human being. How to act, how to be, what to do, what not to do. 800 years ago, the Ramban wrote to his son, he says, okay, so you've committed to learning. You've committed to coming to the shiurim a few times a week. You've committed to watching shiurim, reading books every day. Good, good, you've started. But don't think you're even beginning to complete at that stage. Learning by itself is not enough. Even if you learn all day, all night. When it comes to Torah, it's all about application. How did you apply this lesson that you learned today to your life? That's why Rabbi Efraim, God bless him, he has a very special, I wish I had the strength, the siyata that he has when he does public lectures. Every one doesn't matter if it's a 15-minute lecture or a two-hour lecture. Every one of them, at the end of the lecture, there's a bunch of people that say, "Okay, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna start keeping this. I'm gonna start keeping that." How? How come?

1:02:59the siyata that he has when he does public lectures. Every one, doesn't matter if it's a 15-minute lecture or a two-hour lecture, every one of them, at the end of the lecture, there's a bunch of people that say, "Okay, I'm going to do this. I'm going to start keeping this. I'm going to start keeping that." How? How come? At the end, I do the same thing. I'm repeating his shiurim. It's not exactly that I'm some genius. I'm just repeating what he said in Hebrew. I'm translating. That's all I'm doing. So how come? Because he says, okay, now we learned, who here wants to take something on themselves? For Hashem. One person says, okay, I'll keep Shabbat. Oh, I'll cut my hair. Oh, I'll wear modest clothes. Oh, this, oh, that. People, oh, you asked? I'll do. Where does it come from here? Because the entire Torah is not just supposed to be something that you learn theoretically. Oh, wow, what a chiddush. Thanks, Rabbi. I'm going to say this in my class. Are you going to apply it in your life too? What, you want me to be honest now too? Are you crazy, Rabbi? I used to like you.

1:04:13The key is, Rabotai, applying. Applying the entire Torah. You learned in a shiur, take something, take five minutes, take five hours, take something out of that shiur and start applying it. Because the Ramban says, despite you learning diligently, When you finish learning, ponder what you've actually learned. Think about what you've actually learned. Think about what did we actually just say here for an hour, what did we just read here for two hours, what do we just think about for the last three hours, what did we do today, what was the purpose of the last 24 hours? You are alive, you woke up, you did whatever you did. At the end of it, what was the point? If Hashem takes an accounting, forget about your whole life, let's judge your entire life just on today. What did we actually just say here for an hour? What did we just read here for two hours? What did we just think about for the last three hours? What did we do today? What was the purpose of the last 24 hours? You are alive, you woke up, you did whatever you did. At the end of it, what was the point? If Hashem takes an accounting, forget about your whole life. Let's judge your entire life just on today.

1:05:16Your whole life, forget about your whole life. All the sins you've ever made, forget about them. But at the same time, forget about them. Let's judge you today. If I judge you today, what is the point of your life? How can you describe your life today? What would you get out of it? Was there a purpose to your life today? Did you do something useful today? Did you apply some amazing Torah knowledge in your life today? Did you do any special mitzvah today? Or were you just another corpse that moves until further notice? What was the point of your life? And to be honest with you, I always try to share parts of my life to remind myself, but also to give other people a little bit of guidance that you're not alone with your battles. When I was debating today whether to have the lecture or not, I had a lot of other things to do and a lot of different excuses not to have it. And I figured, okay, I already missed... to remind myself, but also to give other people a little bit of guidance that you're not alone with your battles. When I was debating today whether to have the lecture or not, I had a lot of other things to do and a lot of different excuses not to have it. And I figured, okay, I already missed

1:06:32one shiur. I generally don't like to miss shiurim, but I missed one shiur this week. And I kind of thought, you know what, maybe it's good; even the biggest rabbis in the world—not that I'm a big rabbi or a rabbi, but, you know, even the biggest ones—they take time off, weeks off. So if I take a few days off, it's not the end of the world. But then I was talking to the rabbanit, and I arrived at the conclusion that she didn't disagree. God bless her. And I arrived at the conclusion that if I'm not going to teach Torah, what's the point of my life? What's the point? For what? What am I going to do? Go back to Wall Street? What am I going to do? What am I going to do? Now, okay, listen, it's not your whole life. It's just one day. Take off one day. You're sick. You're this. You have a lot of things. I said, but if it's one day, then it's the same argument. You have to use the same argument for today as you are going to use for the rest of your life. If I was going to be judged today, what's the point of my life? That's what we all have to do.

1:07:50What's the point of your life today? Forget about yesterday. You can't change yesterday. Forget about tomorrow. Who knows and who promised you tomorrow? Today, today, today. Do you have a purpose today? Is there any point to your life today? I arrived at the conclusion that if I'm not going to do a shiur today, there's no point in my life. And I'm afraid that Hashem is going to agree with me. Therefore, you have a shiur today. Now, I'm just a weak person, but the reality is, it is what it is. Now, the sages teach us that if you're going to learn Torah the way it's supposed to be taught, you're going to get to a point where you're going to live Torah. And the Chafetz Chaim once told his students, "You have to live the Torah." So they said, "Rabbi, of course we live the Torah. We pray every day three times, put on tefillin, our wives are modest, our businesses are kosher, we have Sukkah, we have Pesach, Matzot." He says, "No, no, that's not living Torah."

1:09:17You're doing mitzvot, that's good. You're doing mitzvot, you keep kosher, all that stuff is good. But that's not living Torah. So they said, Kvod HaRav, what is living Torah? He says, I'll ask you a question. How do you know that tomorrow the sun will come up and then will eventually come down? There will be day and there will be night. Tomorrow. How do you know? "So one guy says, 'Well, for the last few years, there hasn't been any problems. In fact, for the last thousand years, five, six thousand years almost, there hasn't been any problems with day and night. So why should there be tomorrow?' The second guy wanted to be sophisticated. He says, 'Nah, we have, once something happens three times, we have that it's going to happen.'"

1:10:19So the Chafetz Chaim says, he says, that's nice, but that's not the answer. He says, do you know how I know that tomorrow there's going to be day and tomorrow there's going to be night? Because it says in Parashat Noach, "Day and night will not cease." That's how I know. Not because it happened many times. Not because scientifically you could rationalize that tomorrow the world is not going to end. Not because I hope for it to happen or I believe for it to happen. I know because day and night will never cease. That's how I know. That's it. Finished. Once He said it, once He promised it, He's not going to change His mind. He says day and night are not going to cease. I'm going to take Him at face value.

1:11:19That's living Torah. He says, when you live the Torah, you're not going to look at any other wisdom, at any other knowledge that's separate from the Torah. Why? Because you're going to know that there is no such thing as other knowledge, as outside knowledge. There is no reality. Reality is an illusion. There's Torah. That's what there is. There's Torah. You're going to look for answers to your reality, to your complications, to your sophisticated questions, to all of the different difficulties that you have in your life, not through your mind and your logic and your learning. No, you're going to look for it. Where does it say this in the Torah? I have a question. How can I find this question and answer in the Torah? That's living Torah. If you're going to rationalize different things, you're no different than a weatherman. Most of the time he is wrong, but still has a job. Living Torah is getting to a point where you say,

1:12:48i call out to my Heavenly God, and He completes the job, He finishes everything. Meaning, you're not going to look for any hope from yourself and your own abilities, your own efforts, your own skills, your own mind, your own muscle, your own money. Anything that has to do with anything, you're simply going to call Hashem and say, please Hashem, help me. Yeah, but you have the money in the bank. Yeah, but who says I'm going to have it when I need it? Yeah, but you have the wife. Yeah, but who says that I made the right decision? Yeah, but you have the kids. Yeah, but who said this? Everything you're going to have in your mind, you're constantly going to pray to Hashem to help you. Everything. Hence the reason we called the organization B'ezrat Hashem. Why? Because we know, at least we try to know, that really there's nothing that's up to us. Now, many people ask the question of if HaKadosh Baruch Hu created the whole world for Am Yisrael, if He created the entire world for Am Yisrael, and He loves Am Yisrael...

1:14:16He adores Am Yisrael. He chose Am Yisrael. Imagine, there are 8 billion people in the world, and you are one of the 15 million that He chose. And out of the 15 million, only 2, 3, 4 million actually keep mitzvot. You're the only reason the world exists. The rest of them exist to serve you, whether they like it or not. Even the anti-Semites. The anti-Semites are there to serve you. How are they to serve you? By hating you. That's serving you. How is hating you serving you? To remind you you're a Jew. Sometimes you forget. So the anti-Semite comes to remind you that you're a Jew. It's a very important service. If it wasn't for that, there wouldn't be Am Yisrael. Because we fall in love with the goyim so much, we want to be like them. If Hashem allowed it without having anti-Semitism, guess what? We would be them. So now, if the whole world was created for Am Yisrael, why did our whole beginning start like a nightmare? We read in the last couple of weeks the book of Exodus. The beginning of our nation starts how? A nightmare of all nightmares. How did the beginning of our nation start? In one word: the Holocaust. That's how. Not the Holocaust from 70-80 years ago, no, no, the Holocaust of 3,300 years ago. Why did our whole beginning start like a nightmare? We read in the last couple of weeks the book of Exodus. The beginning of our nation starts how? A nightmare of all nightmares. How did the beginning of our nation start? In one word: the Holocaust. That's how. Not the Holocaust from 70-80 years ago, no, no, the Holocaust of 3,300 years ago.

1:15:44What happened to us in Egypt for 210 years makes the Holocaust of 70 years ago seem like kindergarten. They would bathe in the blood of babies every day and every night—150 babies in the morning, 150 babies at night. If the father didn't meet the quota, they would take his child and use him as a building block. The pyramids are full of Jewish children. When we arrived at Mount Sinai, the angels came to HaKadosh Baruch Hu and said, "Hashem, You have a rule in nature: the Shekhinah, Your Shekhinah, cannot go anywhere with imperfection." The problem is that almost everybody from Am Yisrael here, they all have baalei mum, they're all defective. One's missing an arm, the other guy's blind, the other guy's back is broken, the other guy's missing a foot, the other guy's missing a finger. Why? Because they were slaves for so many years, they were tortured in so many horrible ways. They're all defective, they're all missing a body part, an eye, or something. The Shekhinah cannot join such people. So Hashem says, you're right, I cannot come down anywhere with imperfection.

1:16:58Everybody's perfect. All of a sudden, the arm grows back like a starfish. The guy that's blind can see. The one that's bald has hair. The one that's missing a foot has a foot. Everybody's perfect all of a sudden. That's one of the things that happened at Mount Sinai. Now, HaKadosh Baruch Hu loves this people, started us in a horrible way. Started us in a way, we were slaves for 116 years out of the 210, more than half. Destroyed on a daily basis by pagan people, raped, tortured. What kind of start is that to a people You love? What kind of start is that to a people You chose? Why couldn't You choose them without doing all of that? Do you know who asked this question? Moshe Rabbeinu. Moshe Rabbeinu asked this question. In the Midrash Rabbah, in Shemot Rabbah, Parashah Aleph, Ot Zayin, Ot Lamed, it says the following: Moshe Rabbeinu...

1:18:26asks why is Am Yisrael suffering as slaves? What did they do to deserve this? And Hashem shows him the answer through an event that happens to him. In the beginning of Sefer Shemot, we see a story that we've read a thousand times, but we've treated it passively, just the basic meaning. In the beginning of Sefer Shemot, in chapter 2, verse 11, it says, "And it happened in those days that Moshe grew up and went out to his brethren and observed their burdens. And he saw an Egyptian man striking a Hebrew man of his brethren. He turned this way and that way, and he saw that there was no man, so he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand."

1:19:26He went out the next day, and behold, two Hebrew men were fighting. He said to the wicked one, "Why would you strike your fellow?" And he replied, "Who appointed you as a dignitary, a ruler, a judge over us? Do you propose to murder me as you murdered the Egyptian?" Moshe was frightened, and he thought, "Indeed, the matter is known." Here we hear the famous story of how Moshe Rabbeinu was living in the castle of Pharaoh with no problems at all, but he knew that he was a Jew. Even though he had a much better life than the rest of them, it bothered him that they were suffering. And then one day he's strolling through the places and he sees his brothers and sisters suffering under the Egyptian rule. And suddenly he sees an Egyptian beating up a Jew, so he kills the Egyptian. Then, the following day, he sees the same Jew fighting another Jew. And the Jew who was saved is trying to beat up the other Jew. Moshe says, "Why are you doing this, Rasha? What's the matter with you?"

1:20:50And the guy that he saved the day before says, "What are you going to do? Are you going to kill me like the Egyptian?" And he goes and he rats on him to Paro. It's a famous story, everybody knows. And it says, Moshe was frightened and he says, "Indeed, the matter is known." So the Midrash says, what matter is known? The basic meaning that we all just figured out, we all know now. Yeah, the matter is known that you killed the Egyptian, Moshe. That's the matter that is known. And now Paro is going to go kill you. That's the Pshat. That's the basic meaning. But Torah only begins with the Pshat. And the Midrash Rabbah says, that since Moshe asked the question to Hashem, Hashem wanted to give him an answer. If you're going to ask Hashem, "Why are You doing this to me, Hashem?", sometimes you're going to get an answer. You may not like it, though, but you're going to get an answer. Sometimes right away, and sometimes it will take 60 years.

1:22:18Moshe for decades was looking for an answer. Why is Am Yisrael suffering? And he got an answer. The Midrash says in the beginning Moshe Rabbeinu saved the Jew, and this Jew, his name was Datan. And he saved this Jew from the Egyptian. But then he saw that after this Jew was fighting another Jew, it didn't work out so well. Why? The Yalkut Shimoni and the Midrash Rabbah both combine here. It says, what actually happened here? What's the real story? What's behind the scenes that we don't see here? It says, one day Moshe Rabbeinu is walking around and he sees Datan running away from an Egyptian. He sees Moshe as a dignitary. He says, please, please, help me, help me. This Egyptian wants to kill me.

1:23:48Moshe says, why? He says, yesterday, he took my wife and he raped her in front of me while he put me in a cage. But he knows that I saw it and he wants to kill me now. Moshe had Ruach HaKodesh. He saw that everything Datan was saying was right. This evil Egyptian not only raped the guy's wife, but raped her in front of him. Now he wants to kill him because he feels bad that he has to look at his ugly face every day. And he knows that he saw him doing something dirty, something disgusting. So Moshe saw it and killed the guy, killed the Egyptian. The next day, there's another problem. Why? Datan came home, the one that he saved, Datan came home. He told his wife, listen, I'm sorry what happened to you. But I can't live with you anymore. Why? It's not kavod for a son of Yaakov to be with a woman that was raped. So go back to your father's house. He tried to kick her out. Divorce. She ran to her brother. Who's her brother? Aviram.

1:25:09He told her, "Look, my husband just threw me out." "Why did he throw you out?" "Because I got raped by the Egyptians." She says, "Wait, wait, wait, that's not your fault." She goes, "Exactly." So what did Aviram do? Aviram came to Datan and he said, "I'm going to kill you if you throw my sister out. It's not her fault. She didn't want to get raped. It's not her fault. She didn't want to do that. Why are you kicking her out? It's a double whammy. What, she suffered and you're going to punish her for it?" So they started fighting. So Moshe Rabbeinu says, "Hey, hey, Rasha!" Datan wanted to hit the guy. What are you doing? Hitting your brother? Datan says, wait a minute. Who made you a ruler? Why? Because you helped me out yesterday, you think that all of a sudden you can tell me what to do? You think he can tell me what to do? The second that Moshe Rabbeinu was not on his side. Yesterday, when he saved his life, when he was begging on all fours, "Please, Moshe, please save me," Moshe Rabbeinu saved him. Oh, Moshe, Moshe. He's the best rabbi in the world, Moshe. You guys hear about Moshe? Best. Best speaker, best looking, best everything.

1:26:13But the second Moshe Rabbeinu says, "You're a rasha, you're sinning, you're about to hit a Jew." And according to the Torah, even if you raise your hand in the air without hitting a Jew, you just raise your hand in the air, you're already called a rasha. You're already called wicked just by raising your hand in the air and intending, threatening to hit somebody. Already the Torah calls you a rasha, calls you wicked. The tan says, "Wait a minute, yesterday you helped me, that doesn't mean you can tell me what to do." Who made you my Rabbi? Who made you anybody? You don't even know what you're talking about. You make up your own mind. You this, you that. All of a sudden, he turns the guy into Amalek. And he goes to Paro. He goes to Paro and he says, this guy is Amalek. This guy is the worst. This guy is the worst guy in the world. I hate him. He's this, he's that. He's against you. He's too strong of a speaker. He scares people. He's this, he's that. So Rabotai, Moshe says, Moshe was scared. And he says, Moshe was frightened. He says, now I know why it's happening. Now I'm afraid that not only is it right, but it makes sense why Am Yisrael are slaves for so many years.

1:27:37Because they spoke Lashon Hara by going to speak against Moshe himself. But wait a minute, we didn't get the Torah yet. What rule of Lashon Hara? He goes, no, no, it's not that Lashon Hara is a rule yet. We haven't gotten to Matan Torah. But the Lashon Hara, what is it actually? What is Lashon Hara mamash? Why is Lashon Hara so despised by HaKadosh Baruch Hu? Because Lashon Hara is a way of showing ungratefulness. This Lashon Hara that Eitan went to Pharaoh, saying bad things about Moshe and so on, it's not that the Lashon Hara itself was a sin. We didn't get the Torah yet. But what did it show? It showed simply a violation of the basics of all ethics that we're all obligated to fulfill from the time of creation: gratefulness. He saved you yesterday, and instead of saying thank you, I'm sorry, something, what do you do? You use the fact that He saved you against Him. You use the money that Hashem gave you to sin with it. You use the good that Hashem gave you to go against Him. That is the epitome of ungratefulness.

1:28:57And therefore, Moshe says, now I understand why they're slaves. Because they still have ungratefulness. And until they destroy that, they cannot be free. They don't deserve to be free. And that's why the Midrash says, Moshe was scared. He wasn't scared of Pharaoh. He just killed an Egyptian by looking at him. You think he's scared of Pharaoh? He's scared because now he understands that slavery is not going to end anytime soon. Why? Because you cannot change a horrible character trait overnight. You cannot suddenly become humble overnight. You cannot suddenly become generous overnight. You cannot suddenly become a nice person of any kind overnight. It takes time. It takes effort. That means the slavery is not going to end tomorrow, Moshe says, no matter how much you pray.

1:30:02why they're still ungrateful, they still have bad middot, they have bad character traits. A person like this doesn't deserve to be free. He could pray, but it's like praying to a wall. You have to change first, you have to change first. So I tell a lot of people that come to me with problems, many do, I tell them I don't know what you've heard, but I know that no one's told you to change. How do I know you haven't changed? Your profile picture has half an outfit. The other half is just skin. Your head is not covered. So either you don't agree that you have a head, or you forgot you have one, or you don't know that no one told you you're supposed to cover it if you're a Jew. You're dating outside of marriage. You're misbehaving in business. You're misbehaving in this. You're misbehaving in that. Apparently, no one told you you're supposed to change. So let me be the first one. You want your prayers to work? Change. Change your actions. Become better. See what Hashem says and start doing it. When Moshe saw that there is ungratefulness in the people, he got scared because he knew that it's not going to be overnight for them to change. So then he ran away for 60 years.

1:31:25For 40 of those 60 years, he was a king in the country of Cush. Some say that's Ethiopia, some say it's different parts of Africa. After 40 years, he left and went to Midian. He sat in jail for 10 years at his father-in-law's house because his father-in-law thought that he was a murderer. And he sat in jail for 10 years. After that, he was freed miraculously. He survived with the help of Yitro's daughter, Tzipporah, who brought food to his jail cell every day. And then he married her. But then one day, Hashem appears to Moshe again, or really, for the first time, in a clear way. And He tells Moshe in chapter four of Sefer Shemot to go free his people, go free his brothers and sisters, the ones that he was trying to protect 60 years ago but ended up running away from. Go free them. And Moshe argues with Hashem for a week. Doesn't want to do it. I'm not a leader, I'm not this, I'm not that. How are they going to know that it's real? How are they going to know You told me?

1:32:54and it says that in chapter 4, verse number 3, it says, So Hashem wants to give Moshe signs that he's going to show Am Yisrael so they can believe that he is the leader, he's the chosen leader, he's the Mashiach, and no one else. So Hashem says, okay, no problem, I'll show you, I'll give you some signs. And He says to him, what's that in your hand? And Moshe says, it's a staff. So Hashem says, cast it on the ground. So Moshe followed, said what He said, and he cast it on the ground, threw it on the ground, and it turned into a snake. And Moshe was saw that it was a snake, and fled from it. Now, it's a little bit unusual. Our whole life we heard this story, never really thought much of it. Okay, he had a staff, threw it on the ground, it turned into a snake, Moshe is scared. Then Hashem says, grab the snake that you're scared of, and it turns back into a staff.

1:34:14That's the basic story. It's true. It happened. Like we said, there's much more to the story. Every verse in the Torah has more to it. Every page in the Torah has a prophecy, has something that hasn't happened that will happen in the future. This is one of them. The Arizal, alav ha-shalom, was once asked by his students to tell them the secret of this verse. And the Arizal says to them, it's not in your interest for me to tell you. But if you ask, I'll tell you. Because they told me that whatever I'm asked, I have to say. But I'm telling you, it's not going to be in your interest for me to tell you. is one of them. The Arizal, alav ha-shalom, was once asked by his students to tell them the secret of this verse. And the Arizal says to them, it's not in your interest for me to tell you. But if you ask, I'll tell you. Because they told me that whatever I'm asked, I have to say. But I'm telling you, it's not going to be in your interest for me to tell you.

1:35:18And the students insisted. He told them this chidush, and he died. He knew that once he tells them the secret to this, that's going to be the end of his life. But he was already commanded from Shamayim that anything someone asks, you have to tell them, including this chidush that only you know. So the Klozenberger Rebbe... Arab-Halbalstam, Alav HaShalom, the Admor MiTzanz, all being the same person, taught this chidush to his students. The students of the Arizal taught it generation after generation, for the last few hundred years, and the Klozenberger Rebbe said this chidush to explain this insight of the secret to this verse. And he says the following: we know ...we don't understand the miracles. We don't understand the mystical aspects, but we understand that if our sages said it, it's true. If it's in the Torah, it's true, even if we don't understand it, even if we can't fit it into our little heads. No matter what, if the sages said it, this is it. Now, the sages said in a Gemara...

1:36:45...that if you are in the middle of praying Shema Yisrael or Amidah, and a snake comes into the shul, into the house, it's right next to you, it's on your foot, you don't stop praying. Now let's stop praying. Keep going. Why? You're in front of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, are you crazy? Stop for a snake? That's what it says. How many people are actually going to stand that test? I have no idea. But that's what it says. The Gemara says it. So now, who knows more Torah? Who complies with more Torah? Who's the best in the Torah? You or Moshe Rabbeinu? I'll answer for you: Moshe Rabbeinu. Trick question. Now, it says here that Moshe Rabbeinu was not praying Amidah or Shema Yisrael to Hashem. He was in front of Hashem. He was talking to Hashem. It wasn't like I'm praying to Hashem hoping that He's going to take my prayers. No, no. Hashem is talking to him like I'm talking to you. And suddenly the stick, the staff, miraculously turns into a snake and Moshe runs away from it? Obviously, this is not it. Obviously, this is not the real story. Obviously, there's more to it. And the Klausenberger Rebbe says,

1:38:13We learn here a big secret, a prophecy about the end of days, a prophecy about what's going to happen in the generation before Mashiach. In a generation that's going to be full of confusion, full of heretics, full of ignorance, full of people who have no idea why they're even alive for 70 years. He says, The mateh, the staff, represents leadership. And Moshe was the leader of all leaders. No leader will ever be like Moshe Rabbeinu. No one. Even the Mashiach himself will have only a part of the neshama of Moshe Rabbeinu. He will not be as great as Moshe Rabbeinu. So Moshe had the staff representing his leadership. When he threw the staff and it turned into a snake, that was in essence teaching Moshe a lesson, showing him a vision, showing him a prophecy of what's going to happen over the years. And the Ari zal explains that

1:39:41Although Moshe, the greatest leader, is the one that we started with, Hashem was telling him that there's going to come a day that the leaders are not going to be connected to Torah anymore. They're going to let go of the staff. They're going to let go of the command of the Torah. They're going to let go of the leadership of Hashem. They're going to throw it. And that's going to turn the leaders into snakes. Hashem was telling Moshe that before Mashiach comes, instead of the sages, instead of the Talmidei Chachamim being in control, bringing the salvation, it's going to be snakes that control. It's going to be criminals that control. Now, the Ba'al Toldot Yaakov Yosef elaborates on this idea further. He was one of the Talmidim of the Ba'al Shem Tov. He writes that there are going to be three exiles for Am Yisrael. The first exile is Am Yisrael under the command of the Gentiles.

1:41:05the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Nazis, the Spaniards, the Turks, all of the people that tried to destroy us. Am Yisrael will be under their control. That's the first one. The second type of exile that we have, some of them happening simultaneously, The second type of exile that Am Yisrael has to suffer through is the exile where Talmidei Chachamim, the ones who know Torah, are under the control of the ignorant, the Zionists, the secular people, the lefty liberals. That's the second type of suffering that Am Yisrael will endure throughout the ages. And he says the third one, The third one is the scariest one. The Baal HaTurim says the third exile, the third suffering that Klal Yisrael will have to endure is when the Talmidei Chachamim are under the control of the snake, of the Nachash. Who is the Nachash?

1:42:17The Nachash is people that look like Talmidei Chachamim because they have a long white beard and they're 70-something years old, but in reality, they're fakers. They're Resha'im. He says that's the worst one. That's the scariest one. When Moshe Rabbeinu saw that the leaders at the end, before Mashiach Tzidkeinu actually comes, are going to be a snake that looks like a Talmid Chacham. He looks like a big rabbi. He's been speaking for 50 years. He has all these books. He has all this kavod. He's invited everywhere. And in reality, Moshe Rabbeinu says, this guy is a kofer gamur. He doesn't even believe in G-d at all. This guy is changing the Torah. This guy is against the Torah. This guy is against G-d. And he's the leader. And all of his friends are leaders. Moshe got scared. Moshe ran away. He says, I don't want any part of this. Why bother starting such a people?

1:43:17How are they going to survive, Hashem? How are they going to survive with such leaders? Not Mitzrayim, not Egypt. Egypt, okay, it's hard, it's tough, but Hashem, you're with us. Who's going to be with these poor people in a few thousand years when they have such leaders? They can't even trust the leaders! At least, at the time of Moshe Rabbeinu, Moshe Rabbeinu said, they can trust me. I'm not in this to make any money out of it. I'm not charging for this. Even the donkey didn't have to pay, didn't pay. He says, but if they're going to have to survive all of this, the exile of the Gentiles, the exile of the ignorants, the exile of the Zionists, the exile of all the people that are against the Torah, but on top of it, even the leaders, the leaders are going to be fakers? Hashem Yirachem. Moshe got scared right away. He says, no, Hashem, Hashem, I can't do this. Hashem, I can't do this. That's why the Zohar HaKadosh says that

1:44:20The mitzvah that we have to destroy Amalek, we always thought that this mitzvah is something that killed the Nazis, killed the people that want to kill Am Yisrael, and so on and so forth. The Zohar says there are different types, there are different types of Amalek. There's the Nefilim, the Gibborim, the Anakim, the Rephaim, the Amalekim. These are all different types of people that entice Am Yisrael against Hashem. They're all dangerous. But the Zohar HaKadosh says that the mitzvah that we'll have to fulfill at some point when Mashiach comes to destroy Amalek,

1:45:23It's not going to be so easy. And the reason why is because part of Amalek is going to be Jewish people. It's going to be our brothers and sisters. It's a section of Amalek called Erev Rav. Now, there are several types of Erev Rav, several types of Amaleks. Some of them are people that destroyed the Torah, like we just talked about, heretics. Some of them are going to be people that have the traits of Amalek. As it says in the mitzvah, You have to remember what Amalek did to you in Parashat Ki Teitzei, Sefer Devarim, Deuteronomy 25, verse 17. Rashi says in a place, what does it mean, remember what Amalek did to you? He says, remember that Amalek took advantage, took advantage of the Jewish people.

1:46:41Because right before the mitzvah of destroying Amalek and remembering Amalek, we learn about the laws of equal measures and honest business. Why? Because Amalek was dishonest in business. So someone who is dishonest in business, in essence, gives power to Amalek. If you're in the cash advance business, you're giving power to Amalek. If you're stealing from people, you're giving power to Amalek, Rashi says. Rashi says this. But then he says, how did Amalek come? Amalek happened upon you. Rashi says, what does it mean that he happened to you? He says, Karcha comes from lashon keri. Amalek were homosexuals. These people that are in the gay pride parades, these people that support the gay pride parades, people like Dror Kasuto and Manis Friedman, and what is this other clown's name? Shmuley Boteach. All these people that say, no, there's nothing wrong with homosexuality, or the guy from London, what is his name?

1:47:51Mirvis, Mirvis and his brother, the other guy, all of these people that in the name of the Torah nonetheless, in the name of the Torah, with a kippah, they don't have any shame whatsoever, with a kippah and a beard on, what do they say? No, homosexuality is the greatest thing that's happened in recent history. Or there's nothing wrong with it. Or it's just an aveira, it's not a big deal, it's like anything else. Guess what? Rashi, Rashi 900 years ago says, you're Amalek. That homosexual, the supporter of homosexuality, that's midat Amalek. That's Amalek. That's Amalek. At the time of the Sanhedrin, we kill him on the spot. No second questions. You support the Amalek, you support this thing, you're Amalek. At the time of Mashiach, if you have a homosexual cousin that hasn't done teshuva, guess what? You're going to have a mitzvah to fulfill. It's not going to be kid gloves.

1:48:53Now I'm going to tell you the scariest part. The Zohar HaKadosh also says, Erev Rav is not going to go lightly, quietly. Erev Rav is going to fight the Mashiach. The heretics, the kofrim, the Amalekim, the Erev Rav, They're not going to go quietly. They're going to fight. They're going to fight the Mashiach. Why? Who are you to tell us what to do? And Am Yisrael, the righteous among them, will have the obligation to fight them, to destroy them. Now, I always asked, if you're going to say that the Christians are going to fight the Mashiach, I can understand that. I can understand that. If you're going to say the Muslims are going to fight the Jewish Mashiach, I can understand that also. But why are the Jewish people, why would they ever fight the Mashiach? If you're going to say it's the lefty liberals that hate the Torah, I can understand that also. But then I got a chiddush, it's not mine, but I can't tell you who it is. Why? She told me not to tell you. To save himself.

1:50:21The Christians, you could understand. The Muslims, you could understand. The lefty liberals, you could understand. The Buddhists, the monks, all those people, you could understand. But the Zohar HaKadosh also says it's going to be the snake also. It's going to be the fakers also. They're going to fight the Mashiach. Why? You know why? Because for the last few decades, they told the whole world that their rabbi is the Mashiach. And when the real Mashiach comes, it's not him. It's not him. The Christians said Yeshu is the Mashiach. When the real Mashiach comes, they say it's not him. The Muslim says that their Muhammad and whoever else is the Mashiach. Well, guess what? When the real Jewish Mashiach comes, it's not him. It's not who they thought. All of those people that said somebody is the Mashiach, when they see the real Mashiach, guess what? It's not who they thought. What are they going to do? Oh, Baruch Haba? Yeah, right. They're going to try to kill him. No, but why? Because I have pictures of the Mashiach all over the world, all over posters, all over cars, all over everything.

1:51:37You cannot be the Mashiach. I've been saying my Mashiach in my Knesset every week. I've been saying Mashiach in the Knesset, in the church, Mashiach in the mosque. Everybody thinks that they know who the Mashiach is. When the real Mashiach comes, it's not going to be who they thought. Guess what? They're all going to fight him. And he's going to destroy all of them. And that's the scary part. Because some of those people are good people. At least they look like it. Some of those people have beards. But beards grow for free. Some of those people are rabbis, but not all rabbis are the same. That's what scared Moshe Rabbeinu. That's what scares us. Because now, HaKadosh Baruch Hu is giving every single person a choice. Not to make once the Mashiach comes, because that's too late already. But rather to make before Mashiach comes. Now, today. What are you going to do today, based on what you learned today, to show that it was worth it for you to be alive? To show that it was worth it for Hashem to keep you alive? What happened today? What did you do today? What did you apply today? How is today going to improve your tomorrow? How will you be better tomorrow because of today?

1:53:05Rabbi Asaf Ben Moshe Shlita, he's the Rabbi Gidon Ben Moshe, the Rosh Kollel at Rabbi Ephraim's Kollel. He says the reason why Datan and Aviram went against Moshe, especially Datan, went against Moshe is because they were so ungrateful that they couldn't live with it. He says, some people, they cannot tolerate the fact that you did them a favor. You bailed them out. You helped them out. Because they know they can never pay you back. So Datan couldn't live with himself. This guy just saved my life yesterday. I can never save his life. He's worked for the parah. I'm going to be in debt to this guy for the rest of my life. I can't live with it. So the second he had an opportunity to go against Moshe and get rid of him, that's how he could get rid of his mindset that he owed him anything. Sometimes, Rabotai, our Yetzer Hara comes to us in the form of a mitzvah. Sometimes he comes to us in the form of an aveirah. He comes to us in different ways, different forms, different sizes. Sometimes you're going to learn Torah, you're going to learn the truth of Torah, and it's going to elevate you. But then one day you're going to hear something

1:54:31that doesn't soothe your ego. In fact, it goes against you. Moshe Rabbeinu says that test, that you're fighting your own Amalek, your own personal Amalek. Why? It's your ego. Agreeing and fulfilling what the Torah says, even if it disagrees with your own logic. If you cannot beat your own ego, your own arrogance, your own stinginess, your own every terrible middah—whatever it is—there's no chance for you to be able to withstand the test of Amalek. You can't even beat yourself. Datan v'Aviram failed a miserable test. When Moshe Rabbeinu saved their lives, instead of saying thank you, they couldn't live with the fact that that he owed him a favor, so he tried to kill him. But guess what? Hashem was so merciful, He said, you know what, let me give this Datan and Aviram another chance. He let them cross the ocean after everybody else. He split the ocean for them separately from everybody else. They continued going after Moshe.

1:55:44When the manna came out, they tried planting different manna. They ate less manna just so they could put some manna outside. Say, no, no, see, manna comes down on Shabbat also. Even though Moshe said no. They continued conspiring against Moshe, continued trying to kill him. But their luck and their merits ran out. At the time of Korach, when they joined Korach who tried to kill Moshe also. Because Korach tried to change the Torah. Hashem put him in Gehenom, and anyone that followed him—Dathan, Abiram, and 250 other prominent rabbis who agreed with this change, with this modernization of the Torah—they're also in Gehenom to this day, and they're not coming out anytime soon. They had a chance, another chance, and another chance, but eventually, their chances ran out because they never changed. When we learn Torah, the whole point of our learning is for us to change, to do something that's different than yesterday. If we were addicted to something yesterday, today we have to stop it. We have to overcome our addiction, move forward, suffer a little bit of pain, and let's go to the right road. Let's go to the right path. If we are addicted to a sin, if we're addicted to a desire, if we're addicted to something that's forbidden, we have to overcome it or else there's no point. There's no point of us continuing, even if we're addicted to avodah zarah itself. Once you know that the Torah is true, you have to abandon it. You have to abandon anything associated with it.

1:57:11And let's go on the right road. Let's go on the right path. If we are addicted to a sin, if we're addicted to a desire, if we're addicted to something that's forbidden, we have to overcome it, or else there's no point. There's no point in us continuing, even if we're addicted to avodah zarah itself. Once you know that the Torah is true, you have to abandon it. You have to abandon anything associated with it. Once you know that your business is not kosher, you have to abandon it. You cannot associate with it. Once you know that your life is not kosher, you have to abandon it. You cannot associate with it. You have to change things as soon as possible. Every minute you don't, you're wasting a point. You're wasting time. You're wasting your life. The scary part is, Rabotai, sometimes a person tries to change, but he doesn't try hard enough. So instead of Hashem giving him or her a good leader, He sends them a snake instead. He sends them someone that's going to manipulate them and help them justify their sins. And that's the scariest part. We have to ask ourselves, are we really trying hard enough? When the rebuke comes my way, am I going to accept it, or do I only like it when it's on other people?

1:58:33i only like it when he talks about Shabbat. Why? Because I keep Shabbat. I only like it when he talks about honesty. Why? Because I'm honest. I only like it when he talks about this because I don't have that problem. But that's not the problem. The problem is, are you going to still like the emet when it's against you? When it's against your logic? When you're the one that's mistaken? When you're the one that's called rasha? Because that's your personal battle with Amalek. The Ramban tells us clearly, you have to learn Torah. You have to watch the shiurim. Without watching the shiurim, you get weaker by the day. Without me giving the shiurim, we get weaker by the day. Without reading the sefarim from the sages, we get weaker by the day. You have to learn Torah. But even more critical, we have to think about what we learned and pick something to apply. Pick something to apply. Each one of us has to think about something to apply. Because when we think about something to apply, we give our life a purpose. B'ezrat Hashem, each one of us will take something on today,

1:59:51to give our life a purpose, to give HaKadosh Baruch Hu a purpose for us to continue living His Torah, fulfilling His Torah, helping Klal Yisrael do teshuva, helping ourselves do teshuva, so when the Mashiach comes, we'll fight on His side, and not against Him. Baruch Adonai Le'olam, Amen Ve'Amen.