Letter From Satan, Dreams, Cartoons & Videogames, Homosexuality - STUMP THE RABBI (8)

0:12We're very happy to be back in Sunny Isles, Florida in Sha'arei Tzion. The shiurim are continuing to fill up. We have some more people, some new faces, some old faces. Glad to see the old faces as much as the new faces. Hope everybody had a nice hug, learned a little bit of Torah, slept a little bit less but tonight is our questions and answers, the Stump Your Rabbi series that Hashem is getting a lot of really good traction online. So you should know that each time you come to this, you not only benefit from learning, you also benefit from doing kiruv because when you ask questions... nice Chag, learned a little bit of Torah, slept a little bit less, but tonight is our questions and answers, the "Stump Your Rabbi" series that Hashem is getting a lot of really good traction online. So you should know that each time you come to this, you not only benefit from learning, you also benefit from doing kiruv, because when you ask questions And Baruch Hashem, HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives us the answers, then that means that not only do you benefit from it and everybody else here, but also the people online. The people online that are watching the shiurim, they also learn something else they never learned before. And Baruch Hashem, you're a partner to that mitzvah.

1:13So, a couple of announcements. First of all, this shiur will be for success—business success, life success—for Benjamin Meir Rosenfeld. And also, we have an additional thing to... Let everybody know tonight that we're starting a new initiative. We have our Baruch Hashem Torah challenge program for the youngsters, men, and women. When you come here, you give us chizuk. So when you learn Torah with us, you give us chizuk, and we appreciate it so much that we pay you $15 just to come learn Torah with us. So I know that most of you guys don't really need the money, but it helps the yetzer hara a little bit. The yetzer hara likes money. So you give him a little bit of money and encourage him to come. Give you some food, give you some money. Come learn Torah. We all do teshuva together. But to just let you guys know that the Torah that we learn together, Baruch Hashem, is something that can help your life in a million different ways. Especially dealing with the endless amount of yetzer hara that you have outside. All of the nonsense that's outside there.

2:34But to encourage some of you guys to stay until the end, some of you leave a little early after only about an hour, hour and a half, whatever it is. So to deal with the second part of the yetzer hara, it's a lot. We dealt with him for the first hour, so let's deal with him for the second hour. We are starting a raffle. Starting a raffle. Every one of you guys, I believe, got a ticket. The girls got a ticket. And anyone that's here till, b'ezrat Hashem, the end, will have a raffle. Our youth director, Michal, will take out one of the tickets. And the winner will get one of these today. It's one of these. Our dear friends at Ghostek, which is a high-end electronics company that donated this, b'ezrat Hashem. This is wireless, Bluetooth, Headphones similar to these are top-of-the-line headphones. I have them, so I know they're extremely good. I think people like the Dre ones or whatever it is—Beats, Beats. Okay, this is better, and not because I said it. I just tried both of them. I use it when we do videos and editing, things like that. You have to have good equipment. So it's wireless, it's Bluetooth, it's the highest end you can get. Or you could also have the smaller ones, same thing, also wireless with the cable.

3:50Cool stuff. It's expensive. But for you, it's free if you win the raffle. There's other shiurim as well. Again, this is why we give you headphones; we don't want you to listen to the garbage music in the world. We give you headphones so you can listen to shiur Torah when you're not here. So, not shiur Torah only when you come here. So you have shiur Torah also when you're not here. So anyone who doesn't know yet, you have my business card. On the back of it, there's a code, and you can download our app. You can download our app, listen to all of our shiurim, and watch all of our shiurim while continuing to use your phone. This makes Torah very accessible, putting everybody in a situation where really there's no excuse not to learn Torah. Sometimes you can learn Torah for several hours. Sometimes you can learn Torah for five to ten minutes either way every day. Just like you eat food, just like you breathe air, you have to learn a little or a lot. Why? Because Torah is the food for the neshama. So we made it very, very easy, Baruch Hashem, for you to learn Torah. Last but not least, thank you very much to all of the people—not you guys because you're still new—but all of the people online.

5:00All of the people that donate to our organization, b'ezrat Hashem, because we did a fantastic campaign to feed some very needy people in Eretz Yisrael. And to our surprise, we reached new numbers. We, baruch Hashem, fed for Shavuot over 300 families and approximately 1,500 kids. Fifteen hundred kids just for Shavuot. So this is a thank you to all of the donors, all of the people that care about Am Yisrael and not just about themselves. At least, you know, you're allowed to work, you're allowed to be rich, you're allowed to make money, but you also have to consider the fact that Hashem didn't give that same gift to everybody else, and you are responsible for them. So We're gonna go over the questions again. I hope you guys have some questions for me, but I have to warn you with a special warning. The Zohar HaKadosh says that when a person lives in this world, girl or guy, it doesn't really make a difference and

6:06Yetzer Hara, his job in the world, Hashem gave him this tafkid. His job is to try to encourage you to stay away from Hashem, to give you the resistance. Like for example, when you lift weights, if you start lifting weights, you want to become a bodybuilder. I used to be one when I was younger, about 20-something years ago. And if you want to become big, you want to be muscular and everything else, you can't lift five pounds all the time. Why? Because if you lift five pounds, after a while you get used to it. The pressure is not enough. So, after a while, the five pounds are not enough. You have to put 20 pounds. After 20 pounds are not enough, you put 50 pounds. After 50 pounds are not enough, you put a hundred, five hundred, two hundred, whatever it is, whatever your body can handle. The more resistance, the stronger you're gonna get as a result of it over time. So, the Yetzer Hara creates that resistance for Am Yisrael and for the world in general. Generally speaking, he sends his different soldiers to go interfere with your life. So, he might put a billboard on the highway of some immodest woman for you to look at on the way to shul. You might think, "Maybe I should go see this immodest woman instead of the shiur." He is always going to put something on your phone, some immodest advertisement, or he will have one of your friends who is completely against the Torah ask you to come to the bar instead of the shiur. He is always going to give you resistance.

7:25But he sends different messengers for that resistance, different messengers. But then the Zohar HaKadosh says something very, very scary. He says that only once, only on a specific opportunity, does the Yetzer HaRa, the Satan, the Malach HaMavet—all three names for the same thing, the same angel— Only one tafkid, only one job, only one mission. He's the only one that handles it. And what is that? That's the mission of going against people that do kiruv. Going against people that are trying to get people to do teshuva. Those people, the Malach HaMavet himself fights. He himself is going to get out of his throne of glory. HaKadosh Baruch Hu has a throne of glory and he made the Yetzer HaRa also a throne. Hashem created, in essence, an opposite to everything. So He gave him a throne and only one specific mission. The Yetzer HaRa himself gets out of the throne and fights against people who help others do teshuva. Why?

8:38Because every time you live in the world without doing teshuva, that means you're creating sins. That means that you're sinning more. Every time you sin, you create more soldiers for the Yetzer HaRa. You create more soldiers for the Satan to give you more and more negative influence to do even more sins, to give other people more reasons to do more sins, and so on and so forth. This means that when you start doing teshuva, when you start keeping Shabbat, when you start putting on tzitzit, when you start eating kosher, and start doing good things that HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, that means not only are you destroying... these workers, these employees of the Satan, but you yourself are becoming an employee of Hashem. So, you're stealing his employees and you're creating employees for Hashem. So, the Yetzer doesn't like it because he has to create the resistance, and that's why the Zohar HaKadosh says that the Yetzer himself gets up the Yetzer Hara is gonna send all types of clever messages to confuse the public, to confuse people into thinking the opposite of the truth. So, Baruch Hashem, this is a fantastic sign. This is a fantastic sign anytime you see that the amount of resistance is unusual. It's a good sign if you're giving a shiur Torah and three people show up and

9:49big deal if you do a shiur Torah and 500 people show up, also a big deal, but if you start seeing that regardless of whether it's three people or 500 people There's a lot of yetzer hara, a lot of interference, a lot of all types of things that are unusual that are happening. This is a fantastic sign. The yetzer hara himself is telling you, "Sir, I don't like what you're doing." Why? You're stealing my employees. So Baruch Hashem, the yetzer hara gave us a letter. And he gave us a letter. He was in a shiur. You guys didn't see him. But he was in a shiur. He took a picture. He took a picture, so I want to read you the love letter that he gave us and b'chavod, Rav Goldenberg will pass out the letter if anyone wants to see it. He writes this, Rabotai Yekarim. He starts with a pasuk to make you think he's a talmid chacham. Makes you think. He says, King Solomon says, "The words of the sages are heard in composed tones." Meaning, if you raise your voice, it already means it's not good. You're not a sage, you're not a chacham. He says he writes a letter as if he's writing it to the parents. He says, "Your boys and girls are sitting listening to Yaron Reuven." By the way, that's me. Talk about masturbation and the evil consequences it will bring them. But there is salvation if they donate money to Yaron Reuven again for the rest of their lives.

11:12The sin will be erased. Meaning if you donate money to me for the rest of your life, that's according to the Satan over here, then your life will be saved. By the way, did I ever ask anybody here for money? Last I checked, I'm giving you money. Last I checked, we're giving you money. So there we go. Then he says, your boys and girls are sitting listening to Yaron Reuven. In case you forgot my name in the first paragraph, he says it again. Describe in detail his hemorrhoid surgery, including the blood coming out of orifices and insertions of surgical equipment in both his lower orifices. So the personal story that I have, that I almost died and fought for my life for seven years, he's saying now, this is a bad thing. Okay, even though tens of thousands of people all over the world think it's a good thing, but he thinks it's a bad thing. And then he says, your boys and girls are sitting listening to Yaron Reuven again, in case you forgot my name for the fourth time. vilify and condemn our fellow Jews to an eternity of Gehinnom for being Chabad, Breslov, Modern Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, anybody that's not him. But for a lifetime of donations, Yaron will save your child's neshama while your child will learn to despise you for not being religious like Yaron. Meaning I'm teaching you to hate your parents.

12:32Please sign the petition below so we can remove him from our community, as was done in Miami Beach, North Miami Beach, Broward, Palm Beach, and parts of New York, where he no longer spews fire and brimstone. Then there are two little mumbo-jumbo signatures. We don't know what it says. One of them says Jay-Z, so I guess JC became Jewish, and the other one, I think, says Beyoncé. I'm not really sure what it says, but the yetzer hara apparently doesn't have a name. doesn't have a name. They don't have the courage to have a name. Baruch Hashem, we have the courage to put everything we say on camera. Why? Anything I said wrong, you could look on camera, you could go in the video, say, you said something against Torah here. Fine, I did something against Torah, I'll make a whole new video fixing it. That's our job. But, when you have emet, you're not scared. But when you have sheker, when you have lies, you're scared to put your name on it. You're scared to put your name on it. See, here's the beauty, Rabotai. This is a letter for you. It's not for me. Why? The Yetzer Hara is not interested in my neshama. He's interested in your neshamot. He wants to encourage you not to come. He wants to encourage your parents and all your friends and all your colleagues and the entire neighborhood and everybody else not to come. Why? Because chas v'shalom you're going to do teshuva, you're going to ruin his whole factory of sins.

13:52Now here's the beauty. The letter starts with a lie and ends with a lie. Why? It says I'm stating things as if they are my opinion. Anything that you ever want to know, usually I mention the sources in the shiurim. You can look it up. You can open the Gemara. You can open the Zohar. You can open the Shulchan Aruch. You can open sefarim of tzadikim. You look at the page. You look at the number. You look at the line. You see, verified. One, two, three. Everything is not my opinion. I'm just saving you the time from reading the books. But they make it seem as if I wrote this, as if I created the Torah. As if the Shulchan Aruch, the core body of laws for Judaism, does not say that wasting seed is the number one sin in the Torah. As if it doesn't say that. As if the Zohar HaKadosh says that this is a sin that there's almost no teshuva for. Almost. As if. As if there's almost. As if it doesn't say that. As if in the Gemara, in the Gemara, Masechet Avoda Zara, Masechet Sanhedrin, Masechet Sotah, Masechet Shabbat, and several other places, I can't remember all of them off the top of my head, Baruch Hashem, as if they don't say the same exact thing. As if they don't say. And they talk about, oh, he's teaching about punishment.

15:06You know what? We need to ask the teacher of all teachers. What did he teach? Who's the teacher of all teachers? Who wants to raise their hand? Who's the teacher of all teachers? No? Moshe Rabbeinu, you deserve a kiss just for that. Well, Moshe Rabbeinu wrote us a love letter. He wrote us the Five Books of Moses, and now we have inside detail of what he said. Gemara, Masechet Shabbat, page 87a. It says, Scripture states that Moshe brought back the words to the people of Hashem. And it's written in the next verse that Moshe related the words of the people to Hashem. meaning he went back and forth in conversation between him and Hashem, and then he told the people. Okay, so the Gemara continues. So Rebbe, Rebbe HaKadosh, Rebbe Yehuda HaNasi, says, what did he say to them? What did he say to Am Yisrael? What is this conversation? What is he saying? Hashem likes you? Hashem, you know, wants to give you presents? What did he say to them? Rebbe HaKadosh says, in the beginning, Moshe Rabbeinu described the punishment for not observing the Torah.

16:18As it is written, Moshe brought back all of the Torah which alludes to the matters of repelling, of mishabshin, a person's mind. Meaning that Moshe Rabbeinu taught Am Yisrael. They use a source in Shemot, chapter 19, verse 8. Here he brought them a tochacha. He said, "Listen, Rabotai, listening to the Torah is not a suggestion." by Hashem, it's an obligation. It's a commandment from the King of Kings. If you listen, if you don't listen, there are two different consequences. We cannot all have the same consequences whether we listen to Hashem or we don't listen to Hashem. If you don't listen to Hashem, that's the first thing he told them. If you don't listen to Hashem, and he gives them a whole list of punishments of what happens to them. Anyone that wants to know the details of a little bit of it, go two weeks back, parashat Bechukotai. Or go a couple of months forward, parashat Ki Tavo. Those are two big parashiyot that talk about punishment. Now, punishment is half the Torah. But nonetheless, these are two specific parashiyot that HaKadosh Baruch Hu designated. I want you to know details. Details, what happens if you don't listen to the Torah.

17:37So Moshe Rabbeinu, before he told them that Hashem loves you and you'll get all the good things—zivug, parnasah tova, and all the blessings—Moshe Rabbeinu said, "No, no, no, rabotai. First and foremost, I need you to understand: Listening to the Torah is not a suggestion. If you don't listen, you will get punished severely. Why? Because now that you know there's a punishment, you're going to pay attention." You gotta pay attention. Why? Because you know there's a consequence for not paying attention. If you know it doesn't matter one way or the other, everyone's gonna fall asleep. Good night, Moshe. Call me when the yeshivishnik is finished, when the barbecue is finished. Who cares? But if I know there's a consequence, I want to know. So then it says, But in the end, Moshe described the giving of reward for observing the Torah as it is written. that Moshe related matters that attract a person's heart, like Aggadah—different stories, different details of what happens in Heaven, all types of wonderful rewards that Hashem gives us for doing good things and

18:50So here we see that Moshe Rabbeinu's approach, the teacher of all teachers, is first to give us a warning shot. Take Hashem seriously. He’s not your friend. Then he’s going to tell you Hashem loves you. He doesn’t want to punish you. Just do what He says. That’s it. Just do what He says. And that’s where the Gemara continues. It says in the beginning Moshe described the giving of the reward for observing the Torah and And in the end, he described the punishment for not observing the Torah. This is the second part. This is the different approach where they said maybe he actually did the opposite. Maybe he talked about the reward and then he actually talked about the punishment. So there's a debate between the Chachamim about which one he started with. Needless to say, everyone knows that reward and punishment is the foundation of Judaism. If you go to a shiur Torah, The rabbi does not talk about reward and punishment. He only talks about reward. You've wasted your time if you have a sefer, a sefer, any sefer, not just the Shas, any sefer of a tzaddik that does not mention even a little bit of both. It's a waste of a sefer. It's not considered a sefer. Why? Because the 13 Principles of Faith, the Rambam's 13 Principles of Faith, the foundation of Judaism, say you must believe in reward and punishment.

20:09Why? Because if you know there's only reward, you're gonna say, "You know what? That sounds good, but I don't feel like it. The reward is delicious, but I don't feel like it. I like this reward here. Gan Eden sounds great, but this girl sounds great too." It's not enough. The reward is not enough. The reward is not enough. No, there's reward and punishment. Say, wait a minute, there's a reward. I'm not really sure if I want it. I don't want it. But I know for sure the punishment I don't want. So, you know what? I'm not gonna do all this sin just because I don't want the punishment. And I'm gonna get a reward for not wanting the punishment. He stopped watching. Oh, how kind is Hashem? How kind is Hashem for not only not giving me the punishment but giving me a reward for doing something that's for my own interest. So that's why HaKadosh Baruch Hu and... The shiurim that we have, Baruch Hashem, are full of sources. Here, online, there are, Baruch Hashem, many, many big rabbis from all over the world that have made public videos. Not just said, "Yaron Reuven, we like you." They took time out of their day, made public videos to support what we do. Whether it's Rav Spivak, the Rosh Yeshiva of Ateret Avraham in Monsey, New York, or it's the head of the Beit Din...

21:26The head of Igud HaRabbanim, an organization that I'm a member of, consisting of nearly a thousand Rabbanim in the United States. The head. Public video, just to say how much he supports what we're doing. Or you look at one of the biggest Rabbanim in America today, one of the Gedolim, who took time out of his day, made a public video saying thank you, how much he likes what we're doing. Or you look at major Rabbanim in Jerusalem. Just yesterday, we had another Gadol in Jerusalem make a public video just to say how much he appreciates the things that we do. Would all of these rabbis say we appreciate what you're doing for me saying I'm not paying them? Even if I had money, I wouldn't pay them. Why would they do it? It's not like we're calling people, "Please, can you make a video for me? Please, can you make a video for me?" For what? Why would anybody else, the other rabbis that talk badly about what we're doing, get public videos? No. So that's what you have to understand. Sometimes the yetzer hara is going to use clever tools. He's going to look to you like a rabbi. It's going to be a nice night, a nice beard, a nice shiur. Don't listen to him as if it's my Torah, as if I created something from nothing.

22:39Why? Because the yetzer hara is very interested in your neshama, not me. He doesn't waste his time with me. Why? All day, I'm into Torah. All day, I'm dealing with people like you. What is he gonna do with me? There's nothing to do with me. He wants you; he wants thousands and thousands of people just like you all over the internet. Why? Because our shiurim right now are literally get two million minutes per month of views. Two million minutes per month! Do the math. How much Torah is being studied around the world from a shiur here? Two million minutes per month! And it's only growing. Six months ago, it was a million four. So literally, in just six months, we increased almost 50%. I believe that by the end of the year, we're probably going to be at five million, maybe more, and... Why? Because we're running out of time. Mashiach is around the corner. Hashem is not interested in waiting for you to waste your whole life, get to my age, get to 40, get to 50, get to 60, and still be sinners. Marry goyot, you know, do all types of things against Hashem. He's not interested in wasting another 30 years of your time.

23:46He wants everybody to do teshuva today. So please, ask questions. Whatever questions you have, if there's a doubt in your mind. You're not sure if it's yes. You're not sure if it's no. You're not sure if it even exists. Please ask. And b'chavod, whoever wants to start. Let's go. Chavod. So, in regards to that letter, right? Why is it that, you know, you have to prove them wrong? At the end of the day, Torah is Torah. If you believe that what you're doing is correct, I don't know. I don't have to invite, so I did the disclosure, and the things that I say are not for me. I, b'ezrat Hashem, go to sleep whenever I go to sleep every day very comfortably. I know who I am, and any time that I have to double-check who I am, I look at my wife. She tells me exactly who I am. And if it's not my wife, all the same. Why? Because it says your wife is your mirror, and... You could fake everybody else out. You can't fake your wife. And if that's not enough, my rabbi tells me right away who I am—good, bad, indifferent. Bottom line, he tells me who I am. Why? That's the point. That's the point. You have a rabbi who tells you who you are. The truth. Not, "Listen, a tzaddik, tzaddik." No, if you're a rasha, he tells you you're a rasha.

25:02You do what you have to do. Your rabbi tells you what you have to do. So I have those people in my life, Baruch Hashem. So I know about Hashem. I can sleep comfortably at night. I know that the amount of things that we do—99% of the stuff—people don't even realize what we do. But it's not for kavod. I don't charge any money. I'm not looking for money. Baruch Hashem, I know that HaKadosh Baruch Hu likes what we're doing. But I say it not for me. I say it for you. Why? Because most of you are still young, still... I'm sorry to tell you, but don't take offense to it. You're still young and you don't have as much equipment to deal with the Yetzer Hara as I do. I'm much older than you are. I've dealt with a lot more things than you, so any time an average person sees somebody that calls himself a rabbi, automatically to them it's like Moshe Rabbeinu. They don't realize that some people call themselves rabbis, but really they're more like Satan himself. Some people call themselves rabbis, but really they're criminals. They don't realize that they think somebody has a berach tabach shemo, this guy is a tzaddik.

26:06You know, sometimes you see these flyers, a righteous person is coming to the city. Nobody knows who he is, though. But everybody decided to put on a flyer. Why? If you say he came to the city, people are gonna come see him. So because people don't know how to decipher the difference between truth and falsehood, I have to make these disclosures because in case you see it, I'd rather you find out from me. I'm dealing with this, that I know about this, then find out when the Yetzer Hara shows up at your house and says, "Hey, you see this guy? He's this, he's that." Why? Because now this gives you an opportunity to ask any question in the world. You want to ask about my bank account? You want to ask about my children? You want to ask about my knowledge? You want to ask about my rabbi? You want to ask about anything and everything that you want. It's all everything. Nothing's off limits. Anything you want. Anything you want. I can even show you my bank account if you want. It doesn't make a difference to me. People think I do this for money. You look at my bank account. All of you guys have more money than me. I'm not joking. I'm not exaggerating. I'll show you my bank account. You guys will start laughing. It's like, wait. Can you pay your rent?

27:14How can you afford this? Hashem pays for everything. Why? We believe HaKadosh Baruch Hu runs the world. But a lot of other people don't necessarily have that level of emunah, and that's my job. My job is to get you there. My job is to provide you with the information. You do whatever you want with it. I'm not judge, I'm not jury, I didn't write the Torah, and HaKadosh Baruch Hu did not ask me for permission before He wrote it. All I am is a provider of information. I'm like the mailman. You cannot be mad at me for providing you the mail that has bills in it. You spent the money. I'm just providing you the mail. But just in case, there's going to be a little confusion, Little confusion where you see a letter and it confuses you. You see somebody writing something on the internet. Wait, this is not the first time. You know how many things have been written about me? You go on the internet, you can have a good time. They made movies about me. They have websites about me. All types of wonderful things. This is not the first thing. The only reason I'm telling you this is because this was a letter written for you. The other stuff that I have on the internet, Baruch Hashem, that's for other people. That's for tens and twenties of thousands of people on the internet. This one was written for you. Why? Because the Satan actually showed up here, took a picture of you and said it's about you boys and girls. You understand? So the Satan wrote you a letter. All I'm doing is accommodating you by reading the letter for you, saving you the time.

28:37So that's the key. The key is to deal with the truth and the problems, and the good and the bad, face to face. Torah does not run away. Torah is never scared. If you have Torah, you have Emet; you fight straight on. You're not hiding. You're not shy. You're not crying. You're not embarrassed. Nothing. Why? You know what you're doing. If you're a liar, guess what? You take this letter. You hide it. You start paying people off. Please don't publish it. I'll do anything. Please, please. This, Baruch Hashem, I'll publicize it. I'll put this on my website as a love letter. I'll put this on my wall. I want to be buried with this. I want to be buried with this. Why? Because now HaKadosh Baruch Hu knows, once B'ezrat Hashem, my body goes into the grave, HaKadosh Baruch Hu knows what? He knows I'm not scared of anybody but Him. Not scared of people who don't like me. Not scared of people who don't donate. I don't care about any of that stuff. All I care about is HaKadosh Baruch Hu and your neshamot. I want you to do teshuva. Why? If you do teshuva, HaKadosh Baruch Hu will be happy. If HaKadosh Baruch Hu is happy, I'm happy.

29:41That's my job in the world. That's why I left Wall Street. That's why I'm never going back. That's why all the different business offers that people give me with countless numbers to go back into the business world are rejected on the spot. Not interested in anything else. All I mention is it's helping people get closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. I provide information. You do what you want with it. Because it's not the same if you listen to it and your life will improve for it. If you don't, there's nothing I can do. I can't force you, can't put a gun to your head. That's it. Next. Yes? Joe is saying if you have emunah, you don't have to worry again. Hashem can provide. Why are there so many stories of great sons of kings who There's a Mishnah in Avot that says, no one says that you should not work. No one says you shouldn't work. In fact, the Torah actually speaks very highly of people that work. And the Rambam actually writes specifically that he frowns upon people. Rabotai from the back, if you came to the shiur, why don't you join us? Join us instead of the phone. Join us.

30:50Sonny, call them. He's on—no, he's not even hearing me with the headphones. Come, come, come, come, come. There's a seat waiting for you over here. Can I miss you? Come, come, come, come, come. The two of you also, come, come. There are three, four, five seats over here waiting for you. Come, come. I don't bite, I promise. It's only a lecture. There's a bike yet. It's only a lecture. Come, come. We're learning together. Don't worry, I won't bite you. Come, this is right here. Seats are free. Same price. Front row, front row seats, same price. So... The Mishnah in Avot says that if there's no toil, you're not going to be able to learn Torah. Why? You have to survive. You have to survive. Now, the Rambam writes specifically that if a person is going to work, he has to learn Torah at least as much as he works. So, let's say if he works eight hours a day, he has to learn Torah eight hours a day. If he works two hours a day, he has to learn Torah at least two hours a day. Obviously, he should learn much more and not waste his time. But the point is, the Rambam says you have to work.

31:54But if you have the emunah of Shevet HaLevi, if you have the emunah of the people who literally believe that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to provide everything, you don't need to work, you only need to study. But you cannot be one of these people who studies, studies all day, but then stops studying to go knock on doors, "Can I have five dollars?" Can I have $10? Can I have 25 cents? You cannot do that. That's Chilul Hashem, the Rambam says. If you're going to study all day and you have emunah that the parnasah is going to arrive all the way to your house, chazak u'baruch, perfect. But if you're going to study until you run out of money, ...and then you're going to become a burden on the public, which you're not allowed to do. That's Chilul Hashem, the Rambam says. Because that doesn't mean you don't have emunah; you just don't want to work. So what does it mean, tachlis, bottom line? You have to work and you have to toil based on how much emunah you have, how much bitachon you have that HaKadosh Baruch Hu will provide for you...

32:54If you believe 100% that Hashem will provide for you, you can study all day and all night. You study all day and all night, and the parnassah and even wealth will arrive at your door, without you needing to work for UPS or some company. But if you don't have that emunah, can you guys move the bottles and let them sit in the front so they don't have to jump over? Just move that, put that between your legs, please. So free up those two seats, please. If you have the emunah in HaKadosh Baruch Hu, 100%, then you don't work. You study Torah. If your emunah is 50%, 50%, then you work 50%, you learn Torah 50%. So it's all based on who and what you are. Most people do not have a hundred percent emunah. Most people do not have a hundred percent emunah or anything close to it. So they need to work, and HaKadosh Baruch Hu likes the fact that they're working. Why? Because if you don't work, then what are you gonna do?

34:05He's gonna sit there and just, you know, count the flies around him. What is he gonna do all day? If he's gonna study Torah, that's good. That's working. But what kind of work is it? So the point is, it's all based on how much emunah you have, whether you believe the parnassah will come. And that's actually relevant to everything, including a zivug. There was one tzaddik in Monsey who studied Torah literally day and night. He went into an attic for five years without leaving. Five years, he didn't leave the attic. Once a day, somebody would come and give him a meal and leave. So one day, after five years, his rabbi told him, "Listen, I like that you're learning, chazak u'baruch, good for you, but you need to go find a zivug, you need to go find a wife. You need to find a wife." This tzaddik said, "Rabbi, I can't leave the books. I love the books. If Hashem wants me to get married, He's going to send my zivug to the house, to the attic. He's going to send it." Rabbi says, if you believe it, it's going to happen. If you believe it's going to happen. But you believe it, not just saying it because you want to put on a show. You believe it, it's going to happen. So he continued studying day and night, day and night, day and night, day and night. One day, somebody knocks on the door. "Hello? Hello?" He opens the attic. He's usually used to one knock a day for the meal, but this is a second knock. For this, it was already a big surprise. He never has visitors.

35:25Yes, he sees a nice young lady. He says, yes. She goes, are you Rabbi so-and-so? No, no, I'm sorry, I'm not. Oh, okay, I'm sorry, do you know where he lives? Yeah, he lives down the street. Oh, okay, okay, thank you. And she starts walking away. He goes, wait, wait, hold on a second, before you leave. Can I talk to you for a second? She's not used to talking to strange men. She's like, yes. You know, she's walking away, a little scared. Who's this guy? I went to the wrong guy. What do you want to talk to me about? It's not a secular world where we're going to go out for a bar. What are we going to do? She says, listen, I've been here. I've been here in this attic, learning Torah nonstop for six years. You're the first woman I've seen in six years. And I just want to ask, maybe HaKadosh Baruch Hu sent you to me. Is there any chance that you're looking for a husband? And she says, that's what I was going to see the rabbi for, to hopefully find me a zivug. To find me a zivug, to find me a husband. I need a husband, and I want a husband to learn Torah. They got married. They got married. Why? HaKadosh Baruch Hu will send it to your door if you believe. If you're a faker, faker, faker.

36:41But this, Rabotai Yekarim, happens—a true story, and there are many stories like it. Next question. Yes. How can Hashem punish somebody who never asked to be created? I'm not talking about a person who killed someone, but a person who didn't keep Shabbat. He's going to go to Shamayim, and they're going to punish him. He's going to... What a fantastic question. You know who asked the same question? Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai asked the same question to the Gemara. What a fantastic question. 2,500 years ago, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai asked the same question. He said, how could it be that a person didn't ask to be created? You didn't ask to be created. You just came into the world and all of a sudden, eight days later, they start cutting body parts. All of a sudden, eight days later, they start cutting you up. Untouched. Untouched. Privacy a little bit. I know they're cutting you up. They're celebrating about it. Ever see such a crazy thing? People cut somebody up and they start celebrating. That's called Brit Milah. So now, after that, everyone celebrates. You grow up, and as you start to understand, around ages one to three, Abba and Ima start telling you about Shabbat, kashrut, and all types of things. And you say, wait a minute, I didn't ask to be signed up as a Jew. If I was born a goy...

38:06i was born a goy then I wouldn't have to do all this. First of all, you should know the goyim are also obligated to keep mitzvot. Not as many as the Jews, but they are obligated to keep mitzvot. They have the seven Noahide laws and all of the laws that have to do with common sense. Meaning, even though the seven laws of Noah do not include honoring your father and your mother, the goyim also have to do it because it's common sense. You don't need the Torah to tell you that you have to honor your father and your mother. But a Jew's going to say, wait a minute, okay, so why can't I just be a goy? Why can't I just put my Judaism on the side and I'll be a goy? No. Because HaKadosh Baruch Hu, out of 8 billion people that exist in the world today, decided that you're going to be a Jew. Why? Because you made a deal with Him 3,300 years ago at Mount Sinai. The Gemara in Masechet Shabbat says, HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave Am Yisrael the Torah and said, if you accept it, good, this is our wedding day. If you don't, this will be your burial ground.

39:08So now Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai says, wait a minute, but I didn't ask to be created. Even the original neshamah says, yes, you didn't ask to be created, but you benefited from being here. Meaning, once you were created, every normal human being wanted to stay here. Yes, you didn't ask to be created in the beginning. You didn't ask, but once you are here, if Hashem told you, "Do you mind if I kill you?" No normal human being would say, no, hey, hey, hey, don't touch. Don't kill me. I don't want to. I want to live. I want to live. Ah, now you want to live? There are conditions for living. There are conditions for living. So now Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai says there's an analogy. There's an analogy. He says, wait a minute. Hold on a second. What if, let's say, a person dies. A person dies. The neshama goes up to the shamayim. I'm elaborating on your question. The neshama goes up to the shamayim and says, hold on a second. Hashem, I didn't sin. It was the body that sinned. The body sinned. The body died. Look, as soon as I left the body, the body is a schnitzel.

40:09The worms are eating. There's nothing there. I didn't sin. I was perfectly clean. The body says, "Hey, Hashem, Hashem, it's not true. The soul is the one that sinned. Why? Look, as soon as it left, I stopped sinning. I stopped sinning. I stopped sinning. I didn't sin. Well, you ever see a dead person sin? You ever see a dead person waste seed? You ever see a dead person Mechalel Shabbat? You ever see a dead person kill somebody? No." So, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai says this. He says, "What is this like?" Once there was a king, and the king had a very, very expensive field full of the best fruits and trees and all types of wonderful things. He was always scared to put normal people to guard it. Why? He said, "It's very precious. I don't want to lose it." So what did he do? He put one guy who was blind and one guy who was paraplegic. Why? He said, "The guy that's blind, he can't see what's there, so he's not gonna steal. The guy that's paraplegic, even though he sees all my wonderful things, he can't run anywhere." So he left them to be his guards. The king left them in charge and then left. A few months later, he comes back. He sees the whole field is ruined, and the two people are just sitting there. "What happened to my field? What happened to your field? How would we know? How would we know what happened to your field? He's blind, and he's a paraplegic. He can't walk." The king says, "No, no, no, no. It's not normal for such a thing to happen. What ended up happening?" The king was smart. He says, "You guys..."

41:38You guys teamed up. You guys teamed up. The blind one couldn't see, but he could walk. The paraplegic couldn't walk, but he could see. So what did he do? The paraplegic went on top of the blind guy and told him where to go. He told the blind guy where to walk, and while he took all the fruits, they both benefited from it. So the king says, now I'm going to punish you. I'll put one on top of the other. I'll punish you together. And that's what Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai says. He says, that's when a person sins. And the soul says, no, I didn't do it. And the body says, no, I didn't do it. Hashem says, no. First thing that happens in the grave, Hashem takes the neshamah, puts it into the body, and judges them together. Doesn't judge them together. Why? When you are alive, you want to live; you benefit from this world, you enjoy this world, and you also have a mind to understand that nothing comes for free. Nothing comes for free in life.

42:40You heard that there is Shabbat? You heard you are a Jew that's obligated to keep Shabbat? You decided not to? Meaning you decided to benefit from the world without paying the bill? Okay, you didn't pay over there. Now you pay over here. Simple. But it's like you're giving someone a drug and then he's addicted to it and he wants it. You can tell him, if you didn't give it to me in the first place, I would not have been addicted to it. No one told you to take it, as far as the drug. No, Hashem put you in this world as a baby. You don't know what you're doing. No, you asked to be here. You don't remember it. But see, before HaKadosh Baruch Hu created the world, He created neshamot. The neshamot were in heaven, and they were just getting the beauty and the glory of Hashem and benefiting from everything. But, Good, the definition of good is something that wants to create good. You cannot say, "I'm a good person," but you're bad to everybody else. You can't say, "I'm a good person," but you're mean to your parents. You can't say, "I'm a good person," but you steal from people. You can't say, "I'm a good person," but all you do is take from people. You can't say. In order to be good, you have to provide good. You have to create good.

43:52So HaKadosh Baruch Hu is the ultimate good. He wanted to create good. He created good neshamot. But those neshamot started suffering. Why? They said, listen, You are good. We are good, but we can't be good. Why? Because all we're doing is receiving. We want to create good. We want to deserve this good. Hashem said, "Okay, you want to deserve this good? I'm going to put some pressure on you. I'm going to put you in a world where you're going to have to overcome major obstacles by fulfilling My Torah. Once you fulfill the Torah and overcome these obstacles, then you can come back to Shamayim, and then you can feel righteous and well-deserving of the good that you're going to get for eternity. Why? Because then you deserve it." So technically, all of us, our neshamot, asked to be created. The fact that you don't remember it is a mercy from Hashem. Why is it a mercy from Hashem? Because if you would have remembered everything that happened to you in Shamayim, you wouldn't have free choice. Which means, as soon as you sin, Hashem would have to punish you immediately. And that means you wouldn't be able to survive one day. Because there's no such thing as a righteous person who doesn't sin. Everybody sins to some extent. Some big, some small.

45:03The point is that a person needs to at least know that when HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives you good, you have to at least say thank you. How do you say thank you? By listening to Him. Yes. Yeah, what do you mean 40-50? What's the... I'm not following the numbers. My father, I'm sorry. Once you get to Heaven, it'll be easier to do. I'm not following the forty-fifty percent, huh? Oh, why didn't you make the battle easier? It's a lot. Oh, well, actually it is very easy. The thing is though, that in order for, for example, in... You see, this phone. This phone, it's a little broken. Don't make fun of me. It's a little broken. But this phone, before I ever saw such a phone like this, I had different phones. And the other phones didn't look like this. They weren't smartphones. They were dumb phones. And before that, they were even dumber. And before that, they barely had numbers. And before that, when I was a kid your age, we had a phone that you had to, like, you know, a landline. You had to, like, turn the whole thing for the number to finally get to the end, to dial one. And then go all the way to the end. And then it dials two. And by the time you finish dialing, you forgot the number.

46:27That's how it was. It was a stupid phone, but that's the kind of phone we had. So now the older people here are laughing with me; young people don't understand what I'm talking about. But anyway, the... The beauty is that when I first got this phone, when the first person ever got a smartphone, they didn't really know what to do with it. Why? No one ever had it before. No one ever had a smartphone. No one knew what a smartphone was. So what did Steve Jobs from Apple and the rest of the people that wanted to sell smartphones do? What did they do? They provided an instruction set. Why? He said, listen, here's an instruction set. If you follow these instructions as they are written, you will utilize this phone to its best capabilities. Or you can avoid the instructions and just wing it. Do whatever you want. And the people that winged it, most of the time, in the beginning, didn't know what to do with it. Why? Because they've never seen this before. So the Gemara Masechet Berachot says, "Barati yetzer hara, barati Torah tavlin." HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, "I created a yetzer hara, that pressure, and I created a potion to kill the pressure. What is it? It's called the Torah. The Torah is the instruction set to overcome all of the obstacles you can possibly have in this world."

47:49Meaning, if you follow the Torah to a T, life is not only easy, life is fantastic. Life is great. Why? Because even when you have a problem, you know exactly who gave you the problem, and He’s giving you the problem for a good reason. Meaning, everybody has problems. All of us have problems. Some have more, some have less. Everybody has problems. Hashem has given me many, many problems in my life so I can have experience and teach you. Now, those problems, those problems, everybody has. He has problems also. He just arrived. I have problems. You have problems. Everybody has problems, right? That's life. Now, if you have Torah, you have solutions. You have solutions. How to deal with this problem? If you don't have Torah... You have nothing. You just commiserate. Tell your friends, "Can you believe what happened to me? Can you believe what happened to me? I can't believe what happened to me. Oh, life is terrible." They start making t-shirts: "Life sucks." They start making, you know, different, you know, bands to make themselves feel good. "If you think good, good things will happen." Guess what? That doesn't change anything. Other than the fact that you spent 10 bucks on the band and you're $10 poorer, life doesn't become good because of the band. Why? Because the band is not instructions.

49:08The band is just a band. It's just a piece of plastic, a piece of rubber. This, Rabotai, is the instructions that HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave us on how to overcome all of your problems. From the beginning to the end of your life. From the beginning of the day all the way to the end of the day. If you follow what it says, life is not only beautiful, enjoyable, but even your problems become pleasant. Pleasant. I'm telling you, pleasant. Pleasant, like you actually see beauty in the problem. I know somebody that dealt with a lot of pain in their life, lots of physical pain. But as soon as they understood who's running the show, every time they had pain, instead of saying "ow," like every other normal human being that doesn't have Torah, you know what they say? Baruch Hashem. I have so much pain right now. I feel like jumping off a bridge, but I know it's coming from Hashem, and therefore I'm thanking Hashem for the pain. Why? Because you know who's giving you the problem, and you know that that problem is worth a fortune. A fortune of benefit in the next world.

50:20That problem that you have right now, that suffering you have right now for five minutes, for five hours, for five days, for five months, or for five years, is saving you from potentially thousands of years of much, much bigger problems over there. So if you know that the five-day problem that you have is going to save you from 500 years of problems over there, what are you going to say to Hashem? Can I have another? Can I have another? Can I have another five? Give me two of them. Why? I don't want to have any problems over there. That's when a person realizes that this life is just a corridor, it's just a hallway to eternity. You live here for 50, 70, 80, 120 years, whatever it is, and then you get to eternity. In comparison to eternity, even 120 years is nothing. So, when you realize, okay, so I'm gonna suffer here for five hours for my eternity to be beautiful, it's worth it. I And that's how Hashem created a Torah that can make life even here enjoyable, even a life that's full of problems. That's why you see many tzadikim—they had problems too, but they found solutions. Yes, well, there are two options and how to find the answers to the problems. Number one, learn Torah.

51:49Number one, learn Torah. If you learn Torah, you're going to find solutions. One of the greatest proofs for me personally that the Torah is from Hashem and not from a human being is the fact that to this day, I've never had anybody disprove this and no one will ever disprove this. If you study, not just read superficially like a Harry Potter book, If you study the weekly parasha, that week's parasha, whatever week you are in your life—this week, this week's parasha; next week, next week's parasha—you will find solutions to the current problems you are having in that parasha. And that's applicable to everybody's life. If you didn't find it, that means you didn't study the parasha. You read it, but you didn't study it. That's one. You study Torah, you're gonna find solutions. Number two, Torah says, Mishnah Pirkei Avot, chapter one, Mishnah number six, says, aseh lecha rav, make yourself a rabbi. Why? Because the rabbi already learned a lot of Torah.

52:50Learned a lot of Torah that already has solutions for problems that may take you a number of years to get to. You need a solution today. You don't even know how to study yet. You don't even know how to say Shema Yisrael yet. You don't know what's muktzeh. You don't know a lot of different things, but you need a solution today. So what do you do? You have a rabbi. Baruch Hashem, today, you send a text message, you make a phone call, you come to a shiur, "Rabbi, I have an issue, I have a this, I have a that," and the rabbi gives you an answer. If he's a rabbi that not only knows Torah but has yirat shamayim, the answer is going to fit like a custom-made suit. If he doesn't have yirat shamayim, then you have to find a rabbi, not just somebody with a beard. Because beards are free, even goats have them. Yes, in the back. You were talking about the afterlife, right? How there's like eight worlds. But how do we know that this world is really reality and that it's not really a dream and that the next worlds are not really like levels in order to get into a real world? So like the movie The Matrix. Like the movie The Matrix.

53:56The movie The Matrix. Yes. Okay, so I saw it. So here's how it works. How about double tight, please pay attention. I'll give you once. Once those two people, just like in the back, two people, two people... Now, these two people had a debate. They had a debate. One said, this is the real world. This is the real world. Look, food comes right to me. Drink comes right to me. I'm comfortable. I don't have to pay any rent. I don't have to pay any mortgage. I don't have any bills. Everything I want is good. I even learned Torah with a malach. A malach comes to me and teaches me Torah all day. The other one says to him, "Hey, habibi, this is not it. This is a preparation, a preparation for the real world." They had a debate. Guess for how long? Nine months. Nine months they had a debate every day. Never slept. Nine months they're debating.

55:04One day, all of a sudden, the wall breaks. The wall breaks, and one of them gets pulled out. The guy that's left is the one that believed this is the world. This is it. The one that left, he believed in the next world. The guy that stayed is Poor guy wasted his whole life thinking there's another world. Seeing now, he's gone now. He's dead now. He's nothing. He wasted his whole life thinking there's something else to the world. See, at least I enjoyed this world. The other guy that left, guess what? He just met me. My neshama. He's ready. My neshama. They're waiting for nine months. He was in a belly for nine months. He showed up. Everybody's crying. They're crying. Everybody's crying. "Stop! I see why you're here." A few minutes later, the other guy comes out and... The other guy is surprised because he thought this is the real world, but then he realizes, "Wait, now I arrived at the real world." So now both of them are in this world and both are one. They're having the same debate. They grow up and have a debate: "This is the real world." The other guy says, "No, no, no, this is a preparation for the next world," and they have a debate for how long? 70 years. It's all reality. It's all reality.

56:13Your current status is reality. When you dream, that's reality. When you're asleep, that's reality. There's no difference in reality. There's no like, this is reality, this is not reality. When you are dreaming, when you are dreaming, your neshama is in a different place. It's not here. It's in a different place. says that when a person dreams, it's 1/60th of death. Why? Because the neshama, a big part of it, leaves the body and goes up to shamayim. Some of the tzaddikim were able to tell and remember what actually happens there. One of the things that we know is that the neshama goes up to shamayim and tells Heaven what it did all day. signs off on all of the mitzvot it did and signs off on all of the aveirot, all of the sins it did. Why the sign-off? Because at the end of the life, 70, 80, 90, or 100 years later, it shows up to the Bet Din.

57:19They're not gonna be surprised. Why? Because the Bet Din is gonna show them their signature. "Hey, habibi, remember on June 20th at 9:30 p.m. you fell asleep. You came over here. We had a conversation with you. You told us all the things you did. Here's your signature." And the neshamah says, "You're right, that's me, that's me, that's my signature. And you remember the next day you came back; that's your signature." And so on and so forth. Meaning that now that the neshamah leaves the body here, it goes over there; reality continues. The fact that you don't remember it here doesn't mean that it wasn't reality. And the same thing is after a person leaves this world. Once a person leaves this world, that becomes their current reality. There is no difference. There's no change in reality; there's just a change in perspective—how you view it and what you remember. Just because you don't remember your dream doesn't mean that the dream didn't happen. Okay, also that you said that our neshamah goes up to shamayim. So, do you consider that that's like the next world that we're supposed to go to?

58:22No, that's a part of the next world. It's not the whole next world. It does want to stay there. It does. Actually, ah, so here we go. Now, every morning a Jew says, first thing in the morning, what does he say? Thank you, Hashem. A Jew wakes up and says, "Thank you, Hashem, for bringing back my neshama because You have emunah in me." Shouldn't it be, "I have emunah in You, therefore You brought my neshama back?" No. Why? When the neshama left, it went up to heaven. The neshama, what did it say? It said, "Hashem, I don't want to go back. Why? This guy doesn't stop sinning. Every girl that walks by, he looks at her. Every time he has an opportunity to do something wrong, he does it. I don't want to go back." Hashem says, "You have to go back." The neshama says, "No, Hashem, please, look, at least, just let me stay here. If I have to pay a bill, I'll pay it now. At least don't let me go back." Hashem says, "No, I have emunah in you."

59:29Him in her that today they'll do better. Today, they'll do teshuvah, and He forces the neshama to go back into the body. And that's why the first thing you say when you wake up, before you say anything else, is "Modeh ani." What do you say? Thank you, Hashem, for having emunah in me, and therefore you forced my neshama to come back into my body. Kavod in the back. I... Bnei Chorin means free people. It means the same thing. What do you want to say? Well, your mom calls you, what's your name? What's your name? Yehudah, okay, Yehudah. Your mom calls you Yehudah. Sometimes your mom calls you sweetie, probably. Sometimes your mom calls you honey. Sometimes she calls you and says, "Hey, you, get over here," and you know it's you. So, HaKadosh Baruch Hu describes us in several different ways based on how it's applicable. Sometimes it's "hey, you."

1:00:38Sometimes it's Tzaddik, like Yosef HaTzaddik. Sometimes it's Rasha, like Esav HaRasha. As he says to the Prophet, Et Esav Saneti, Esav I hate him. Why does Hashem hate Esav? Wasn't he His son also? Yes, he was His son. But Esav didn't want to listen to Hashem even though his father was the biggest rabbi in the world. His grandfather was the biggest rabbi in the world. His brother was the biggest rabbi in the world. He was surrounded by religious people, but he didn't want to listen to the Torah. He knew the truth, but he didn't want to listen to it. Therefore, Hashem says if you know the truth, but you still don't want to listen to it, then Hashem says, "You I hate." Why? Because you know the truth and still don't want to listen to it. So, it all depends on how all of these things are applicable. Hashem sometimes says you're a tzaddik, sometimes a person is a rasha, and sometimes a person is simply called by their name. Like when He says "Avraham, Avraham," He calls Avraham twice. He says his name. Yes? What is a dream? So if you're leaving, please make as little noise as possible because there are still, Baruch Hashem, plenty of people here. So...

1:01:50The Gemara says that if a person does not have a dream for 40 days—not that he doesn't remember his dream, if he does not have a dream—then it's a bad sign because dreams are one of the rewards of this world. It's one of the pleasures of this world. A person could live certain aspects of imagination, connect to HaKadosh Baruch Hu in a certain aspect. There are different things that are beneficial from dreams. The Gemara also calls dreams one-sixtieth of prophecy. One-sixtieth of prophecy. It's not always prophecy, but nonetheless, it could be one-sixtieth of prophecy. However, the Gemara says that most dreams are complete nonsense. that are a figment of your imagination, a culmination of all the things you saw in your life. So you went to the zoo, you saw an elephant. Then you left the zoo, you bought yourself a hot dog. Then after you got the hot dog, you were in a car. So later on that night, you saw a car with an elephant on it while there's a hot dog that's chasing you. Well, that's your imagination playing tricks on you.

1:02:56But sometimes Hashem wants to give you messages in that dream. And there are different signs for what is a real dream and what is a fake dream. It has to be at a specific time during the day. Usually, it's the early morning hour dreams, not the ones at night. It also has to be a repetitive dream. You have to have the same exact dream multiple times. We learned this from Nevuchadnetzar. We learned this from Pharaoh. Several people in the Torah who had a repetitive dream several times, that dream was prophecy. Hashem also wants to give us a certain benefit, a pleasure in this world through dreams. Two, He wants to give us a message, good or bad. And in essence, it's another aspect of reality. Not necessarily could it be a great dream. For example, Ma says that somebody came to Rebbe HaKadosh, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, and said, "Rebbe..." I had a horrible dream. So what was your dream? He says I got to my dream, and all of a sudden these people were chasing me. Then they caught me and they started chopping me up into pieces. So do I have to fast? What do I have to do? Hashem punished me? Rebbe HaKadosh says, what a great dream you had!

1:04:05What a great dream, a fantastic dream! This cut means you're going to get a certain amount of money; this cut means you're going to have a certain type of reward. He gave him an interpretation of the dream that told him this dream is a wonderful dream, and everything the Rebbe said happened. Oh All the wonderful things, meaning that sometimes good can mean bad, and bad can mean good. That's why the Gemara specifically says a dream also depends on who is interpreting the dream, who’s translating it. That’s why anytime you go to somebody and tell them about your dream, if you want somebody to interpret your dream, make sure it’s somebody that loves you. Make sure it's somebody that loves you. Why? Because somebody that loves you and is also someone that's a wise person will interpret it favorably. Even if they know there are certain things that are bad, because there are certain dreams that are dangerous. For example, if you dream or somebody that you know dreams, or somebody you heard about dreamt that their teeth are falling out, that's a horrible dream. That's what we call a dangerous dream. That's a dream you have to fast for. Why? Because it's a sign that somebody is going to die.

1:05:11teeth are falling out. Not always, but it's very possible. You have to fast if you dream that all your teeth fell out. Now, the point is, most dreams are nonsense. But if you're going to go in and try to have somebody interpret your dreams, make sure it's somebody that's not only a talmid chacham but also somebody that cares about you. Why? Because they'll interpret your dream in a favorable way, and that favorable way will influence the actual dream materializing. So, make sure that the person you go to knows what they're doing and also cares about you. Okay? Meaning what? Okay, because then anytime you see a woman and The Gemara in Masechet Sotah says anytime you see a woman, also Niddah, anytime you see a woman in your dream, even if that woman looks identical to your wife, even if she tells you she's your wife, that woman is not your wife. It's actually the Satan's wife. And her name, her name is so dangerous we're not allowed to say it.

1:06:21If you know it, don't say it because you could bring bad things upon yourself. Hashem could bring her to your dreams, and she'll have a very, very, very identical look to somebody you care about, somebody you're attracted to. And the only thing that she wants is your seed. She wants men to waste seed. Why? Because every time seed leaves your body, if it's not for the purpose of reproduction, it's for the purpose of reproducing her soldiers. Reproducing her soldiers, which in essence, is a problem for you because her soldiers will encourage you to sin. So when you have a dream of a woman, the Gemara Masechet Avodah Zarah says don't look at bad things in the morning, or else you will have Ra at night. What does it mean, don't look at bad things in the morning? Don't look at girls and immodest things during the morning. Why? Because then you'll have evil thoughts at night when you fall asleep, and you'll have Ra. What's Ra? Shlomo HaMelech says Ra is wasting seed when you're sleeping. Why? Because you're sinning, even though it's involuntarily. Nonetheless, what ends up happening is that you're creating different demons that are going to influence you to do a lot of really bad things. Yes? So the Rambam...

1:07:42Thank you. So the Rambam writes in Shulchan Aruch, following the Gemara, that a man is never allowed to waste seed. Now, that does not mean that every time he's with his wife, it has to be for reproduction. So, first and foremost, he has to have a rabbi that tells him who, what, when, and how, meaning when he's allowed and when he's not allowed, and... A man is obligated to have one boy and one girl. Until he has one boy and one girl, he's not allowed to simply just have fun, meaning he has to reproduce. But at the same token, he's not allowed to put his wife in danger. So let's say, for example, they got married. It's not about "Oh, we're not ready yet." There's no such thing in Judaism. got married because you're ready. If you're not ready, don't get married. So as soon as you're married, you have to try to reproduce. You're not allowed to use what the goyim call "protection" or condoms and things like that. Now at the beginning, if you're getting married, it's for the purpose of reproducing and bringing an endless amount of children to the world. There's no tale whatsoever that any real rabbi will ever tell you that as soon as you get married, you could just wait a few years until you have fun. Those are things that as soon as you get married, you have to reproduce or at least try. Whether it actually ends up materializing or not, it doesn't mean that just because you're young, it actually works and...

1:08:57Plenty of people spend hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to do stuff that other people do for free. Just because you try doesn't mean it works. You have to make the effort. Hashem decides the results. so you have to try. Once the wife is obviously pregnant, then you can have intimacy as often as you like while she's pregnant because, even though you cannot bring another child while she's pregnant, that's one of the gifts that Hashem gave for you reproducing. You can enjoy those nine months, if you will. After your wife delivers, there's a period of time that could be a couple of months or more, depending on how long it takes your wife to heal, that you're not allowed to touch your wife, even her finger, because she's nidda. She is impure and not allowed until the blood stops and she goes to the mikveh. That's usually about a couple of months. After that, she goes to the mikveh, and you can go back to being intimate. But at that point, you do not need to try to have another child again, and the reason why is because it's usually unhealthy.

1:10:02Most women, but not all women, should not have a child right away, a couple of months after they just gave birth. So, for that, there is an etzah (advice). You go to a rabbi, tell him what's going on, and the rabbi will tell you exactly what to do. There are different things that you can use; there are birth control pills or suppositories. Suppositories that the woman puts in her private area before the man and the woman are intimate, and therefore that gives the seed a less likelihood of succeeding. It doesn't kill it like a condom does; it doesn't kill it like, you know, wasting seed out of the body. You're still doing everything naturally, but it decreases the chance of success. So it's not considered wasting seed, and you're allowed to do it because actually trying to have a child at that time would endanger the life of the wife. And you're not allowed to endanger the life of the wife. Then, a certain amount of time passes—six months, eight months, a year, a year and a half, whatever it is, however long it takes the woman to heal. Of course, you know yourself better than anybody else would know; the wife knows herself. At that moment, the leniency stops, and you have to reproduce again.

1:11:12The man is obligated to have one boy and one girl. A woman is not obligated to have any children. This means that any time a child comes into the world, the man has to thank the woman until the end of her life for it. Why? Because she did him a favor. She is not obligated to have children; only the man is obligated to have children. So, when she decides to put her body through such turmoil and difficulty, she is doing you a huge service. You should be grateful for the rest of your life because of it. again, it doesn't mean that you have to reproduce for the rest of your life. You just need to have a talmid chacham tell you exactly when yes, when no, and that's the point of having a rabbi that has yirat Shamayim, who knows who, what, when, and how, and is going to tell you how to not only have a fantastic life spiritually, but also physically. You're allowed to enjoy yourself. You're allowed to do a lot of wonderful things, but you're not allowed to waste seed. You're not allowed to waste seed. There are ways to have intimacy without wasting seed. And like I told you, there are a couple of ways we just mentioned. But again, make sure that before you do anything, you have a Talmid Chacham that is an expert in this issue who will tell you what to do and how. Yes? Let's say someone's trying to do anything in his life, and he tries and he tries again, and then things keep coming up that prevent him from doing so. Is it, so to speak, like a sign from God that...

1:12:34it depends what it is. It depends what it is. If it's, let's say, for example, trying to attain something spiritually, let's say, for example, somebody's trying to complete the Shas and You know, and he's not only not able to complete the Shas, he's barely able to complete a page. He's barely able to complete a masechta. He's having all types of difficulties. He's sick. He has pain. He has all types of financial issues and so on and so forth. For that, he's obligated. You have to try every day, day and night, day and night, day and night for the rest of your life. But if he's trying to let you, for example, try to attain some type of material, something material, it's not necessarily a sign that if it fails, that means Hashem doesn't want it. It usually means that you either didn't pray enough for it. Or Hashem is saying no. So Moshe Rabbeinu in Parashat Va'etchanan says that Moshe Rabbeinu prayed 515 times until Hashem said, "Rav Lach, stop, no more." Why did Hashem say stop? Because Moshe Rabbeinu had prayed 515 times for Hashem to allow him to go into Eretz Yisrael, and Hashem said stop praying. Why stop praying? Because if you pray one more time, meaning 516 times, I will have to

1:13:52allow you to go into Eretz Yisrael, and I don't want to let you go into Eretz Yisrael. So please stop because if you want to do my will, I know you want to go into Eretz Yisrael, Moshe, but I don't want you to. I don't want you to, so don't pray anymore because if you do, I'm going to have rules for myself. I'm going to have to allow you. So that means that the Baal Shem Tov tells us if you pray and try and pray and try and pray and try, and things don't work out... That either means you didn't pray enough, or the answer is no. Hashem is simply saying no. So, how do you know the difference between if it's that you didn't pray enough or the answer is no? We'll answer the first question: Did you pray enough? Everybody knows that answer inside themselves if they did or not. Everybody knows the answer. Why? Because when you pray enough, that means there are tears coming out of your face. There are tears coming out of every orifice of your body. You're crying hysterically to Hashem. You're begging Hashem. You're doing good things. You're doing everything possible to, in essence, convince Hashem.

1:14:55Convince Hashem to give you what it is that you want. If you really prayed enough and it still didn't work out, then you should know Hashem is saying no. Why no? Because what you want and you think is good for you, Hashem says, I love you so much, I'm going to say no. Why? Because you think it's good for you, but I know it's bad for you. You just don't see the whole picture. You see the wall that's in front of you; I see what's behind the wall, Hashem says. So again, Most people, the things that they try to go after are not always necessarily good for them. So that's why you always have to check. What is it that you want in life? And how does that help your connection with Hashem? How does that help your Avodat Hashem? How does that help anything? Is it just purely a physical pleasure, or is there something beyond it? I... And that's why you always have to double-check. Double-check yourself, double-check the Torah, double-check with your rabbi, double-check everything to see where your desires are in comparison to Hashem's desires. As the Mishnah in Pirkei Avot says, if you make His will into your will, He will make your will into His will. Meaning, the more you do what He wants you to do and make what He wants you to do into what you want to do, He'll turn what you want to do into what He wants to do. Meaning He'll fulfill your prayers. Next question. Yes.

1:16:20So are there any—this is the Stump the Rabbi, right? Are there any rules for the questions I ask? Rules for the questions? As long as it's not curses and things like that, no. Enjoy. All right. So, Stump the Rabbi: If you're walking down the street Friday night, and you see an apple on the floor, do you know whether you can eat the apple? So, you don't know if it fell on Shabbos. But you see an egg on top of the apple. I'll have to eat the apple? Why are you not allowed to eat the apple? Because if it fell on Shabbos, you're not allowed to eat it. How do you know it fell on Shabbos? You don't know that, so that's why you're not allowed to eat it. Who said? I don't know. Why are you allowed to eat both of them? Well, I mean, technically, if you see an apple on the floor, the first question you should be asking is, why would you eat an apple that's on the floor? There is a specific answer to this, so. I mean, I don't see the, this is a, it's not a...

1:17:31It's a question based on perspective, I guess. I mean, first of all, if you're asking, you know, if there's an apple on the floor, you know, are you allowed to eat it? Technically, yes. As long as it's within your eruv, as long as it's within your eruv, there's no reason for you to assume that it's an apple that fell off of a tree or somebody grabbed it off. I mean, you're allowed to eat it. But as far as why you would eat it, that's a different question. Maybe you're poor, maybe you're starving, maybe something else. In regards to if an apple, if an egg is on top of an apple, I mean that means that Hashem is changing the laws of physics. Because there are two round things that don't belong next to each other, it's most likely a trap. So there's probably some type of chemical inside the egg that some Arab put in there or something. So I don't get the end of the questions. But please, b’chavod, tell me where you're going with the question. Usually, the questions have to do with something according to the Torah that is some type of objective to the answer. I'm just not getting what the objective is, where we're trying to go.

1:18:37I don't know what answer I can give you. I cited sources from different parts of the Torah regarding what is allowed and not allowed, but this sounds more like a riddle. If there's an egg on top of an apple, are you allowed to eat the egg and the apple? I mean, Gemara Masechet Beitzah says if the egg was laid on Shabbat or on Yom Tov, you're not allowed to eat it. So how do you know if the egg was laid on Shabbat or not? If the egg is on the apple, then I guess you could assume that it's been there for a little while. I'm just not familiar with the question. I'm sorry. I don't know. I don't know. Yes, I'm back.

1:19:39Which question was that? The one with the name Chorin. Why does he say the name Chorin? Yes. Okay, so he could just say children. He could say a lot of things. He says Chorin. Yes. So what does that mean? Free. So why does he say free? So the Shnei Luchot HaBrit writes that the Am Yisrael was at such a low level. at the time of Egypt, they themselves did not see themselves as ever being free. They themselves did not see themselves as ever being free. They did not see themselves as anything but slaves, which means that when Moshe Rabbeinu came to Am Yisrael and told them, "I'm your Messiah. I'm the one that's gonna take you out of here with the power of God," of course, they simply were dumbfounded. They had no idea. What is he talking about? What do you mean free? Free from what? He said, "Free from slavery." They were at such a low level...

1:20:46confidence in themselves, of perspective of themselves, of a high level of impurity because they were connected to Avodah Zarah, that they did not see themselves as anything other than slaves. So that's why HaKadosh Baruch Hu had to use a strong hand. It says Hashem took Am Yisrael out of Egypt with a strong arm. What is a strong arm? He literally had to change their perspective of themselves. forced them to leave slavery because they themselves didn't see themselves as slaves—not like somebody that's in jail but believes that one day he'll be free. They never saw themselves as anything but being a slave, anything even remotely close to a chosen nation. So when we became a free nation, we, number one, became a free nation and idolatry. A free nation from the perspective that we had of where we were, but most importantly, a free nation from the mistake of a life without Torah—a life without the instruction set of how to live life. So, what's a free person? A free person is a person that's fulfilling the Torah. A person that's not fulfilling the Torah is not only not a free person, but according to the Gemara, is considered dead. And

1:22:05Because that's when we got the Torah at Mount Sinai. The Torah is what makes you free. The Torah is what made you free. What's the distinction? Okay, so here's the thing. Right. Okay. So now, let's say, for example, I say to you, you're rich and You're going to say, no, I'm not. I don't know if you are. Just give me a hypothetical example. You're rich. I said, no, I'm not. He said, no, you won the lotto. Prove it. What do you mean, I won the lotto? I don't even have a ticket. He said, no, no, you won the lotto. You won the lotto. You have $700 zillion that's in the lotto. You have it. And he said, I don't even have the ticket. What are you talking about? No, you have it. You won. You won. You're a winner. You're rich. He said, you have no idea what you're talking about. But if I show up to you with a winning ticket, Then right next to the winning ticket, I have 85 different briefcases full of money. I say, "This is yours. You're rich." What are you going to say to me? "You're right. You're right. I agree. Why? It's mine. It's my ticket. It's my money." Meaning to tell Am Yisrael they're free when they're still slaves and they don't even realize what the Torah is yet and

1:23:21Irrelevant, they cannot comprehend it. But once he shows them the ticket, the winning ticket, the prize, he brings malachim (different angels) from heaven that give each Jew two crowns. They see the heavens open into seven places. Hashem opens the heavens, shows them all the different creations, shows them there's nothing else but God, shows them the angels and all types of wonderful things, even shows them the words, the way words look, and... where they see the sound, not just hear the sound, but see the sound, then they realize that not only HaKadosh Baruch Hu is real, but the Torah is real, and the Torah is something that is beyond our imagination, and that's what made them free. Yes, you have a follow-up. Yes. But it's Moshe Rabbeinu. They have no reason not to believe him. Why? But it's not Moshe Rabbeinu. Hashem did it. Yeah, Hashem did it, right? But you're saying, like, okay, you don't have the lottery ticket, right? So it's saying, like, he has no reason. No, no, but at Mount Sinai, until Mount Sinai, Moshe Rabbeinu was the one that was talking to Am Yisrael. At Mount Sinai, Hashem spoke to Am Yisrael for the first two commandments. So they heard and saw the voice of Hashem, but because they were not holy enough and able to deal with the magnitude and the glory of Hashem's voice, they all died.

1:24:47And Hashem brought them back to life. Hashem then said the second commandment, and they all died again. Hashem brought them back to life once more. Then He told Moshe, "Moshe, you go up there, listen to the rest of what He has to say. Do what He says, and then we'll hear what He says." Meaning, we cannot handle what He says because if we hear His voice again, we're going to die again. But at that point, they did not need any proof that it was God speaking. Because they had already heard God's voice. It was the first and last time. that anyone in history, a large group of people, even more than one person, heard Hashem's voice. No other religion, no other people ever said that Hashem spoke to a group of people. All of the false prophets, whether it's from Islam or from Christianity, all the other fake religions in the world, each one of them starts with a single person. Judaism is the only one that starts with a massive group of people. We're the only one that started with a massive group of people. It's the first and last time that HaKadosh Baruch Hu spoke to a huge group of people. So they, at that point, had no reason to doubt. No reason to doubt that it was Hashem talking because of the things they saw. They saw how He split the ocean into 12 places and 12 tunnels, how He gave the plagues, and also they heard and saw the voice of God.

1:26:04Aside from that, when Moses spoke, when Moshe Rabbeinu spoke, it was really the voice of God coming out of his throat. And how did they know the difference? Moshe was not only a stammerer, but also a stutterer. So for him to talk regularly, By the time he finished one sentence, it would be 15 minutes of aggravation. But when he taught Torah, when he said the words of God, he spoke as clear as day. Why? Because it wasn't him. It was Hashem speaking through his throat. Meaning that at that moment, there was no doubt in their minds that these were the words of God, it's God talking, and so on and so forth. But until Mount Sinai, none of this happened. None of this happened all up until Mount Sinai. It was other people. It was Moshe Rabbeinu. It was Aharon HaKohen. It was the Shevatim, the tribes, and so on and so forth. It was never God speaking to a large group of people. Only at Mount Sinai did Hashem speak to a large group of people for the first and last time in history. Yes?

1:27:18The natural status of a woman is much more connected to HaKadosh Baruch Hu than a man. The natural status, assuming the woman is righteous, assuming the woman is following the words of Hashem and not a woman that's immodest and causing people to sin. woman that's not keeping the mitzvot. She's violating Shabbat, assuming she's an immodest woman versus a righteous man. The natural status of a woman is higher than a man now. A man needs Torah in order to elevate his soul. He needs to learn a lot of Torah and fulfill a lot of mitzvot in order to elevate his soul, to connect to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, to glue himself to Hashem. A woman does not need as much because her natural status is higher. She needs to pray to Hashem, fulfill the mitzvot, but she does not need to learn Torah to the same level because that's how Hashem created them. Hashem created the man in order to learn Torah, fulfill mitzvot that way.

1:28:19Hashem created the woman to monitor the house, fulfill mitzvot, her mitzvot, but it's fewer mitzvot than the man. But she has to make sure that she raises a home that's preserving the mitzvot. So each one has their role in the world. It doesn't necessarily make one better than the other. It simply has different roles. But why did we get saved from Egypt because of the women? Why are we going to be saved now? And Mashiach is going to come because of the women. Because the men did not learn Torah in Egypt. Instead of worshiping idols, the women, although they weren't learning Torah, were not worshiping idols. So they were much more righteous than the men. Because of their merit, and also for procreating and encouraging the men to continue life and reproduction and so on, they had belief in Hashem. Because of their merit, we had the merit to be saved from Egypt. Same concept goes here. In this generation, men obviously need to learn Torah, and women have to fulfill their mitzvot, but the

1:29:25says that it's going to be just like Egypt because of the merit of righteous women. We're going to be saved at the time of Mashiach, but that does not mean that men are not going to be saved, nor does it mean that all women are going to be saved. This is referring to righteous men and righteous women. It just means that women who fulfill their role have an extraordinary position in heaven. men that fulfill their role also have an extraordinary position in heaven, but each one has their own role. If a woman sends her husband to go learn Torah, she gets a ticket to heaven. She gets a ticket to heaven. For what? For his learning of Torah. For his learning. She sends him to go learn Torah. She sends him to the shiur Torah at 10, 11, 12 o'clock at night. She goes to heaven because he went to learn Torah. Even if he forgot everything he learned, she gets 100% of the mitzvot. On the other hand, a man has to learn a lot of Torah. He doesn't get a mitzvah because his wife kept taharat hamishpacha. He doesn't get it. Why? That's our obligation. Meaning that one of the ways that a man gets strength to go learn Torah is if he gets the encouragement of his wife.

1:30:33Encouragement of his wife when he finally gets home. She's waiting for him. Even though it's 1 o'clock in the morning, "Honey, how was it? Would you like some tea?" Okay. "Good night." You know, she encourages him to go the next day. She encourages him to go the next week. That is an eshet chayil. An eshet chayil sends her husband to go learn Torah. That's an eshet chayil, this woman. It's not an eshet chayil who sends her husband to go to movies with her, to go shopping with her. For that, you don't go to heaven. Well, you don't go to heaven. to go to the mall, go to the mall, and go to a movie. You may be making your wife happy, but you're also making Satan happy. He said just because it makes your wife happy doesn't mean you have to do it. It depends; now you have to make Hashem happy too. So you can make Hashem happy and your wife happy at the same time. There are things that are kosher that you can do with your wife that do not require you to violate the Torah. Meaning, you don't have to go to a movie to make your wife happy. You could... Going to a movie? Is there such a thing? What's a kosher movie? Right now, they came out with a cartoon called Arthur. 20th anniversary, or 12th year anniversary, season finale. Season finale, the cartoon for kids. Arthur, the little rat. Little rat, cartoon. What's the season finale, Rabotai? The little rat children are going to the wedding of their teacher. Going to the wedding of their teacher.

1:32:01And what do they find out? Their teacher is a man that's marrying a man. Cartoon. Hysterical. It's just that if it's your kid that's learning that men are supposed to marry each other, it's not so funny anymore. This is the cartoons of today. Cartoons from Disney are not education for your kids—rated G, rated R, rated X, whatever. It's all garbage. There's no such thing as a kosher movie unless it's a Torah movie, then it's kosher. But aside from that, there's no such thing as kosher movies. All of these movies that people watch or encourage their kids to watch, like The Lion King and the girl with the three bears, are... All that stuff. There are many, many hidden messages in there that are literally destroying children. For example, the little girl going to the house of the three bears—people think, "Oh, that's a little girl." First of all, do you want your little daughter to walk around by herself in a forest? That's what you want your five-year-old, your eight-year-old to learn—that you can just walk around by yourself? And then, if that's not enough, go into a stranger's house?

1:33:03Eight-year-old, nine-year-old little girl goes to a stranger's house. And then, if that's not enough, steal their food. That's what you want your eight-year-old girl to do—steal other people's food. And then, if that's not enough, sleep in some stranger's bed. Oh, that's a wonderful thing for an eight-year-old little girl to go to some stranger's house and sleep in his bed. Oh, that's going to work out really well for you. Maybe "The Lion King"—"The Lion King"—you stop to think about "The Lion King," what, because he's cute? He's violating every single commandment his father gave him because he's a cute little lion. So he endangers himself and the rest of his friends' lives. So you want your kid to learn to be like "The Lion King"? He's not going to listen to you. He's going to go with his friends and jump off a bridge because it's fun, because it's cute, and... A lot of these cartoons, if you don't understand the hidden messages, literally destroy children. They destroy children, and people don't seem to think about this because they don't have da'as. But there are many books, even written by secular people, where they see how the TV and the programs of today are literally destroying brains. For example, there's a cartoon for children that is promoting homosexuality.

1:34:11That does not shake you. There's something wrong with you. There's something wrong with you. There's something seriously wrong with you if you don't think it is against normalcy. It's against logic for five-, six-, seven-, eight-, nine-, or ten-year-old kids to learn about homosexuality. If you don't think that's abnormal... There's something wrong with you. There's something seriously wrong with you if you think it's okay for little five-year-old kids, like they are in the UK now, where five-year-old kids are obligated to learn from transvestites about men and men, women and women, and maybe the boy wants to be a girl. Obligated as part of their law right now in the United Kingdom, and it's coming to the US. If you think this is normal, then there's something wrong with you. Point being, is that Hashem gave us the neshamot of the children as a precious, precious gift. As a parent, it's your obligation to protect that gift, to protect that treasure by not allowing them to watch whatever looks like fun just so they could leave you alone.

1:35:22but actually monitor what they watch, what they insert into their brain, what they insert into their neshama, what they insert into their heart. Why? Because eventually that will materialize into something else. Has anybody ever asked, why is America, why is America the only country in the world, the only country in the world right now, that has an average of more than 1.2 shootings in a school or a public building per week? America is the only country in the world that has an average of more than one shooting per week. Parents send their kids to school, and there's a 50% chance there's going to be a shooting. Why does it happen every week, more than once per week? It's the only country in the world. Now, automatically, all the liberals are going to say, "No, it's because of the gun laws, because you're allowed to buy guns from Walmart." Nonsense. You're allowed to buy guns everywhere in all the countries. In Israel, you walk around the streets, there's a bunch of people with guns. In Russia, you walk around the street, there's a bunch of people with guns. And now in the Arab countries, everybody has a gun. You're going to survive.

1:36:34You conceal it there. It's in the open. You go to the train station; you see people with Uzis, see people with major guns, huge guns. But you don't see them shooting anybody. How come you don't see anybody shooting anybody in those countries? How come you don't see any 13-year-old losing their mind and shooting people? How come it's only in America? Because America is also the number one place in the world for video games—video games specifically, the video games of shooting people. So when a kid gets his first video game at six, seven, or eight years old and starts shooting people, starts shooting monsters, then starts shooting animals, then starts shooting people, by the time he's 13 years old, he's probably shot over a million people. And every year, the video game becomes more and more realistic to the point that by the time he's 13 years old, he's "murdered" a million people, and it all looks real. He's become desensitized. Even if he actually shoots a real person just because that real person didn't want to give him his bicycle, he doesn't feel anything. And that's what you see with some of these crazy kids, these poor kids. They actually videotape themselves shooting real people because it's the same to them; it's all a video game. Life became a video game. It's not even the kid's fault. It's the parents' fault.

1:37:55It's the parents' fault that gave this kid anything he wanted and ruined him. Now he has to pay for it, not for the rest of his life. He has to remember that he created a monster. Poor kid. Yes? Mental illnesses are possible, but not very often. You know, the shootings are not done by people that are mentally ill or mentally challenged. It's people that are desensitized. people that have a screw missing, but they're not necessarily people that are deficient in any way. There's just some people that ruined themselves and lost touch with humanity. Yes, on a different level, a higher level naturally—not necessarily much better, just on a different level, higher level, better, differently, and 1.2 million prophets in history, 55 of them are named in the Torah. 48 are males, and seven are women. The reason why is because Hashem wants the word of the Torah and the teaching of the Torah to come mostly from men, not from women, and

1:39:09modesty issues and also for other reasons. A woman has a different obligation in the world. Each sex, each gender, has a different role in the world. She, the woman, is a prophet to our children in the house. The man is supposed to be a prophet to the overall family but also to the public. So, it doesn't make the woman lesser or the man more. It just simply means that each has a different role. There are plenty of times when the woman will get into Heaven because of how righteous her husband is, but vice versa as well. There are plenty of times when the man is going to get to Heaven only because of how righteous his wife is. For example, Chana (Hannah). The only reason why her husband got to Heaven is because of her. She helped him go to the Beit HaMikdash and encouraged him to go, you know, work with the ptilim, meaning make the candles. He wasn't a talmid chacham. He didn't have a good mind. But at least be around holy people, do all these things, go make the candles, honey. Go make the candles because he put out all of his effort to make the candles to serve Hashem with his limitations. He literally got to Olam HaBa. Why? Because of his wife, his righteous wife. So if you have a righteous wife, you have everything. If you don't have a righteous wife, you're very poor.

1:40:25Very, very poor. Yes? I have a question. At the end of Shmuel, Navi describes David's warriors and describes the battle accomplishments that they made. For example, Adino was able to slaughter 800 people in one day. Why would Navi spend space and ink writing accomplishments in battle when he should describe spiritual accomplishments? Because even the physical can be holy. The accomplishments that a person has in this world, if he understands how to connect them to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, even his physical achievements in the world can actually become a powerful way to connect to Hashem spiritually. So, for example, if you go and you take your thousand dollars, Or whatever it is that you have in your bank accounts. I don't know, a million dollars. Some of you guys drive $100,000 cars, so maybe you have a million dollars. So anyway, you have a million dollars. You go put it in the market. A week later, you have a billion dollars. You could say, I'm a genius investor. I'm the best trader in history. I'm this, I'm that. Wow, look at me. Look at my muscles. You could do that. You could do all that. But you'd be wrong.

1:41:53You're not a good trader. You're not really that smart. And the reality is, the only reason you made money is because He decided it. That's the only reason. It has nothing to do with the stock you picked. It has nothing to do with the economy. It has nothing to do with your idea. It has nothing to do with anything that has to do with you, other than Hashem decided on Rosh Hashanah that you will make money. You will make that much money. And because you chose to take that particular action, Hashem decided to give you money through that particular action. That's it. So if you think that everything is due to you, then not only are you missing the point in life, but you've missed an opportunity to sanctify Hashem's name. But if you publicize the sin and say, "May His name be blessed forever. I don't know anything, but HaKadosh Baruch Hu still made me rich. I made all the wrong choices, but HaKadosh Baruch Hu made them right. Look at that. Look how little I am and how big He is." then not only are you missing the point in life, but you've missed an opportunity to sanctify Hashem's name. But if you publicize the sin and say, "May His name be blessed forever. I don't know anything, but HaKadosh Baruch Hu still made me rich. I made all the wrong choices, but HaKadosh Baruch Hu made them right. Look at that. Look how little I am and how big He is."

1:42:58Look at that, how I don't even deserve it. But Hashem gave it to me anyway because He's so kind. Meaning, you sanctify Hashem's name. Same concept with David HaMelech and all the other things. David HaMelech's entire job in the world, his entire mission in the world, was finding opportunities to sanctify Hashem's name. Anytime he had a lesser opportunity, meaning that he felt that he sanctified Hashem's name a little less, he blamed himself. Originally, when David HaMelech would shoot a bow and arrow, he would kill a thousand men with one arrow. You can't even do that with a bullet. But David HaMelech's Kedushah was so extraordinary, one little arrow, one arrow, one arrow. Not a team of arrows, one arrow, no bomb, one arrow, no ammunition, one arrow. A thousand men would die, one arrow. In that pasuk, David HaMelech is crying to Hashem. "Hashem, what sin, what sin, what sin caused my Kedushah to go down that now my arrow only kills 800?"

1:44:07It kills more than one, 800. Better than a bullet, better than an Uzi, better than an army even. But David HaMelech says, obviously I did something wrong. Why? My Kedushah allowed me to kill a thousand with one arrow. Now it's 800. Meaning there's a disconnect, and I know it's my fault. It's not Your fault. You can make one arrow kill a million. You showed me I killed a thousand. If it's 800, that means I did something wrong, Hashem. Please help me, HaKadosh Baruch Hu. He cried day and night, wrote Tehillim, day and night, day and night, day and night. Please, Hashem, help me do teshuvah, so I could sanctify Your name even more by showing people the full blessing. Because the full blessing is a thousand, now I'm getting 800. People are going to say, oh, maybe David HaMelech is becoming off the derech. If it's war, then it's mitzvah. War of mitzvah. War of mitzvah. Wrong war? Wrong war? Well, it depends. If Hashem commanded the war, then it's a war of mitzvah. If it's a... Am Yisrael generally does not attack. Am Yisrael, even when HaKadosh Baruch Hu told Am Yisrael to go conquer the land, He told them to give each nation an opportunity.

1:45:26opportunity to flee. But some of the nations, one nation, ran away. That's why it says there were seven nations, but we only fought six. Why? One ran away; the other six chose to fight. That was a war of mitzvah and... So we gave him an opportunity to run away, gave him an opportunity to go away. They didn't want to, so then it becomes a war of mitzvah because HaKadosh Baruch Hu said this is just like keeping Shabbat. This is just like eating kosher. You have to conquer the land. But don't conquer it all in one day; each war had its time and place. Let them stay until it's time to fight them. Because if you fight all of them, you kill all of them, it could actually create much more damage than good. The animals could overcome the land and so on and so forth. The point being is that if it's a war, that's a war of mitzvah, then it's a mitzvah. But if it's a war because you want to show how big your muscles are, then not necessarily you are. Yes, Chabad in the back. Can somebody give me water, please? Yes.

1:46:35Oh yeah, it does. It does. It's called Ma'aseh Mitzrayim. It says Ma'aseh Mitzrayim, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says to Am Yisrael, do not be like the Egyptians. The Rambam writes in Halakha, What does it mean to be like the Egyptians in Egypt? It was not only homosexual men, but also homosexual women. So, women are not allowed to be with women either. It's also considered a to'eivah sham. It's also considered an abomination and therefore forbidden in the Torah. It's just called something else. Men with men is literal, but with women, it's called the acts of the Egyptians because that's what the Egyptians did. I think that it's similar to when HaKadosh Baruch Hu did the census twice in the Torah. I did it before.

1:47:46Just letting you know, so you don't think I'm drinking with the Avodah Zarah, stealing from Hashem publicly, trying to do teshuvah here, guys. So, when Hashem did the census... Where He counted, Ami said it's not like Hashem needed to count Am Yisrael. Why did He count? Because when you like something, you count it. People like to count their money every five minutes. They go on their phones, check their balance like it changed every five minutes. They call their broker, see the market up, market down. They look at their account. They look at their ETRADE, BTRADE, that trade, every day. They constantly look at their money. Why? Because they like money. People like their money. They look at their accounts constantly. It's a reality. People like their business. They count their customers—who, what, when, and how. People like to produce things. They look at the numbers on Google and so on. Hashem likes Am Yisrael, so He did a census twice—not because He needed a number, but rather because He wanted to count how many of His precious children are in the world. But even more so, to also highlight the best among them.

1:48:54The best among them were the leaders. So you'll see that each one of the censuses has names of specific people. Those people were not named just because they were leaders as far as a position like CEO, president, or general manager, but rather these were the most righteous people of the nation. For example, the Meraglim, the spies that went to Canaan, which became Eretz Yisrael, these were the twelve most righteous people in the world, other than Moshe Rabbeinu and Aharon. These were the most righteous, and unfortunately, they failed miserably. Failed miserably and became wicked and have no share in Olam HaBa. Meaning that you can go from being the most righteous to the most wicked in a second. Second, it's not that difficult. So when HaKadosh Baruch Hu names specific people in the Torah, it's to highlight them because these are specific people that deserve a bracha, deserve some type of major merit. But of course, there are many sodot. The Arizal writes that in places in the Torah where things seem meaningless, like for example, when you see the lineage of Kayin v'Hevel,

1:50:11You know, you know, why do we care about Hevel's lineage if all of his generation died anyway? Why do we care now? He says that's where I learned most of my secrets about Torah—from those places that other people don't even study. Why? Because I think, why do I care about the lineage of Hevel or Kayin when everybody died anyway? Like, why do I need to know the names? What's that gonna do for me? The Arizal says, no, no. Yes, if you're reading the Torah like a storybook, you're never gonna learn anything and... But if you look at every single letter like it's the most priceless diamond in history, then guess what? You can learn something from everything. You can learn something from everything. I remember I saw a talmid chacham; he made a video, and he made a 17-minute video about the first pasuk in the Torah. It has hundreds and hundreds of secrets. To such an extent that the Gaon MiVilna says that you could find every single mitzvah, every single mitzvah in the Torah, in the first word in the Torah: Bereishit. Bereishit, which in English is three words, "in the beginning," in Hebrew it's one word. You could literally find the root of every single one of the mitzvot we have in the Torah, and Rabbi Ephraim, my Rav, says even every halacha.

1:51:25Not just 613 mitzvot, but every halacha—there are hundreds and hundreds of halachot. Rabbi Ephraim says that when he did it, when he was a little younger, he found over a thousand halachot. A thousand halachot from the word Bereishit. So, of all the halachot in Bereishit, I'm not Rabbi Ephraim. Bereishit. Well, first of all, Bereishit means "with wisdom." The Ramban says Bereishit means "with wisdom." What does it mean "with wisdom?" Everything and anything that you do in the world has a purpose. This is the root of having confidence in Hashem. It's also the root of reward and punishment. Without believing in reward and punishment, a person cannot be part of Am Yisrael. Without having bitachon in Hashem, a person can't even cross the street without having anxiety attacks. So already you have in Bereishit, you have two major pillars of Judaism altogether. Not just halachot, but simply foundational beliefs of Judaism and the Torah itself. Also, Bereishit is when you first, you know, you first wake up in the morning to think of HaKadosh Baruch Hu,

1:52:44for creating you, for bringing you back into the world. Also, it's the halacha of doing the morning blessings. At the beginning of your day is when you do the morning blessings, and so on and so forth. So you've got about a handful so far. I'll work on the other 995. Yes, in the back. On the previous topic, the homosexual topic. Yes. Isn't homosexuality like a disease? It's a... Not a disease per se, as far as somebody does not get a cold and one day he wants to be with the same gender. No, no, it's not something you're born with. Let's explain. Each human being has desires. In fact, each creature has desires. Animals live based on their desires. They have instincts and... procreate, to eat, and they function based on that. Men and women, mankind if you will, also have desires, but they don't work off of instinct. They can choose to obey or disobey their desires. So, a man will naturally want to be with the opposite gender. That's how the world...

1:54:06Not just because of reproduction, but simply because opposites attract. So what happens is that men have physical needs, and women have physical needs. Physical needs not just to procreate, but also to relieve themselves of certain hormones, if you will, in appropriate language. Now, men have certain desires that require certain things, and women have desires that require certain things. So far, are you with me? now sometimes what happens is a man is fooled to believe that he needs another man instead of another woman. Why be fooled by his own confusion, where he thinks that just because he is attracted to something masculine and he is feminine himself. Some men are feminine, some men are masculine. Masculine not just because they're built, but because they talk with a muscular tone; they act muscular. Some, you know, with a certain bravado, if you will. And some men are more feminine; they have a lighter voice, they're more gentle. You know, there are certain types of men like this, and

1:55:23The longer you live, the more you'll meet, unfortunately. You'll see some of both—some are righteous and some are wicked. You'll meet many, many people. Some men, instead of being more like the average, normal masculine men, are feminine and... believe that because they're feminine, they need to be with a man. Why? Because men are naturally masculine. So they figure that if I'm feminine, and I'm gonna be with a woman, it's not gonna work. Why? Because a woman is feminine, and I'm feminine, so therefore it's not gonna work. So he thinks he's fooled by his desires to think that he needs to be with men. That's the mistake. I A man who's feminine does not need another man. A man who's feminine just needs to find a masculine woman. That's it. Some women are masculine, and some women are feminine. That's it. But the problem is that sometimes people do all types of sins, make all types of sins by following their physical desires, their sexual desires, to the extent where they numb themselves. Meaning, in the beginning, a person, a young man, wastes seed a lot. Then, after that, what ends up following, he becomes very promiscuous with women. After he's promiscuous with many women—this is the teaching of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, by the way—after he's promiscuous with women...

1:56:52eventually women are no longer enough for him. He wants something else because the excitement that he had the first time he was with a woman is no longer the same excitement after he's been with a hundred women. He needs something else, so he feels maybe he needs to be with two women, maybe he needs to be with three women, maybe he needs to be with more women than he can count. And then eventually he starts thinking maybe he needs to be with a man. What ends up happening is that these people that follow that attraction also get to a point where even men are not enough for them. And that's why in America today there are over 3 million men, 3 million men that admit that they commit bestiality on a regular basis, meaning they're with animals. Why would a man want to be with a disgusting horse or cow? Why? Why would any normal human being ever want that? Because, again, it started with being promiscuous, following your physical desires like an animal. Not satisfying yourself, so you satisfy yourself with something more provocative, more taboo. Not enough, doing more, getting worse, getting worse, getting worse, to the point of committing bestiality. We see this also in the Torah.

1:58:08Nebuchadnezzar and several other of the kings of the goyim had wives that were animals. The Prophet for the goyim, which was Bilaam, was married to his donkey. Nebuchadnezzar was not only homosexual but also committed bestiality on a regular basis, and many, many others, unfortunately, married animals. In the Tanakh, it talks about them being married to animals. Yes, you have questions in the back before you go, or somebody in the back had a question? Same topic or I answered it? Go ahead. Same topic or different topic? Same topic. Is there any way that Hashem will allow homosexuality to be permitted? Well, He wrote in the Torah several times. No, no, they're all interested in the question. Is there any way that Hashem will allow something that He said is not allowed to be permitted? Well, that would mean that HaKadosh Baruch Hu changed His mind. And HaKadosh Baruch Hu writes to the Prophet, "My thoughts are not like your thoughts." I don't change My mind. Once Hashem says something, He doesn't change His mind. So if He says that every Jew has to keep Shabbat, every Jew has to keep Shabbat.

1:59:35If He says every Jew has to eat kosher, every Jew has to eat kosher—3,000 years ago and 3,000 years after. It doesn't make a difference. The same thing with homosexuality being an abomination and forbidden both for Jews and non-Jews. Wasting seed being an abomination and forbidden both for Jews and non-Jews. So there's no way for Hashem to change His mind, and therefore His law does not change, and it can never be allowed. Now, yes, of course, a person can commit this sin but still fulfill other mitzvot. It doesn't mean that it's allowed. It simply means that they'll get punished for this sin, and they'll get rewarded for the mitzvot that they do. But a person needs to know that homosexuality is not a disease. It's not a cold. It's simply a desire, and it's following your desire too far. If you're a human being, and that's normal, you should be able to control your desires. This means that even if you find every single girl ugly as sin, it doesn't mean you have to marry a man.

2:00:40if you find every man as beautiful as a rainbow, it doesn't mean you have to marry a man. It doesn't mean you have to follow your desires. If somebody, for example, likes fire, it doesn't mean he has to light the building on fire. If somebody likes to steal stuff, it doesn't mean he has to steal. If somebody likes to eat, it doesn't mean he has to eat everything in sight. You're a human being that has the ability to control himself and I could tell you a real story. You could find it on my website. This is testimony from a student of mine. He wrote the letter, not me. When he first was introduced to my shiur, he was living in San Francisco, I believe—a place that promotes homosexuality. His whole life he thought that being homosexual is perfectly fine and even admirable. He was 17 years old. started learning our shiur Torah, not only did he realize that homosexuality is against Hashem, against human nature, against human logic, but it's also an abomination. Meaning, it's considered disgusting in the eyes of Hashem. Now, this turns this whole world upside down.

2:01:52He started learning Torah, started learning our shiurim on a regular basis, and took it seriously. Two years later, he writes this letter, and you can see it on my website. It's called Teshuva Stories. You see his letter there. He says that after two years, not only has he stopped homosexuality a long time ago, but he also says that after two years, he doesn't even have the desire. The desire that I thought was part of me, was my disease, I was born this way, all that garbage. He says, I don't even have the desire to perform any homosexuality. He says, I'm perfectly attracted to women, I can't wait to get married, and so on and so forth. Baruch Hashem, he's going to get married very soon. Point being, rabotai, if you take out the garbage from your mind and you insert Torah, it can fix all the problems. If you allow the garbage into your mind, even if you have Torah, it'll be just garbage. It'll be smelly Torah. Meaning, it's not just about inserting Torah into your neshama. It's about taking out the garbage too. You know, sometimes you can clean something and on the exterior, it looks beautiful, it looks white, but it still smells.

2:03:02Because it's been in filth for a long time. So it looks clean, it's white like when you bought it, but it still smells disgusting. So that next part of the cleaning is a little more effort, but if you do it, then it's like brand new—your neshama. We made a lot of messes; we made a lot of sins. If you clean it, it'll be like brand new. It'll be better than when you got it. If you don't, nothing's gonna help you. Desires get worse over time. Behavior gets worse over time and life gets worse over time without Torah. That's why the Gemara in Masechet Pesachim says an ignorant person deteriorates mentally and physically as he ages, whereas a righteous person, a Talmid Chacham, improves. improves mentally and spiritually as he ages. Physically, of course, everybody deteriorates. But mentally, you'll see, for example, the chachamim at 95 years old. They're sharper than any 20-year-old you can find.

2:04:1818 sexual crimes because the man initiates. The man initiates the sexuality, meaning a man forces the animal into it. Forces the animal into it. The animal doesn't want to do it. There's no animal that says, "Hey, cutie, come over here." No cow is ever going to say, "Hey, cute guy, I like your beard. Come over here. Come for a movie. Come, come, I'll give you a drink." You're never going to see a cow wink at you. It's not going to happen. As nice as your beard is, it's never happening. A lion is never going to say, "Hey, I like you. Come, come." Maybe he's going to want to eat you, but he's not going to want to. A woman, on the other hand, doesn't initiate, meaning she submits, meaning that for her, she becomes like an animal. So that's a different story. She doesn't force the animal to do something; she actually encourages the animal to do something that the animal naturally does. So it's a different sin. It is a sin nonetheless, but it's different. Both are an abomination, both are disgusting, and...

2:05:47Both Shem Yerachem, just to remove this filth from my mind right now, I'm going to take some extra Gemara pages. Shem Yerachem. Yes? Huh? Huh? I'm sorry, it's just, I'm just... Yeah, please, please, please do me a favor. Tikkun, yes, Tikkun, my Tikkun right now of dealing with these questions. All the questions in the world, this is what you're guessing. Huh? I'm sorry. It's an avirah instead of water. Yes, if a person is a negative person. Ken. Absolutely. It's a flaw. It's a flaw in a person to be negative. Yes.

2:06:56So our Bitachon series, the first lecture, talks about how Hashem punishes a person by bringing them their own worst fears. If you're afraid of poverty, Hashem will bring you poverty. If you're afraid of being alone, Hashem will make you alone in the world. Why? Because you are afraid of those things because you're disconnected from Hashem. Meaning that when somebody has anxiety, when somebody has negativity, that means that there's a disconnect. between them and Hashem, and therefore that's causing their negativity, it's causing their anxiety. So the way to overcome it is by working on their connection to Hashem, by understanding that you are fully responsible for effort. You are fully responsible to exert your full effort to do your best. The actual outcome has nothing to do with you. Whether you become rich or not, married or not, smart or not—whatever it is, the outcome has nothing to do with you. That's Hashem deciding.

2:08:04The more upset we are, the more we think we are responsible for the outcome. That's why we're upset; we figure we failed rather than Hashem deciding "no" or "not yet." So that's the problem. It all stems from ego. It comes from ego. We feel like we deserve better, as if we're entitled to everything. It comes from ego. So that means this connection is from Hashem. So when a person connects to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, understands that they're responsible for effort, and exerts their full effort regardless of what the project is, regardless of what the issue is, and does everything and anything possible to serve Hashem to its fullest, Does not worry about the outcome, simply worries about what makes Hashem happier with me. What makes Hashem happy with me? How can I serve Hashem better? That person is going to reach the ultimate level of happiness. Whereas a person that's going to try to fulfill their own happiness, such a person will reach the ultimate level of depression and...

2:09:12Why? Because the more you try to make yourself happy, yourself, yourself, yourself, that means you're disconnected from Hashem and you don't even know what happiness is. Which means that you're going to try to fulfill your own happiness by physical pleasures. And everyone that had a little bit of money and physicality and materialism in their life knows that the worst thing for your happiness is most likely money. Beside the rabotai, I think we had enough. Some of you are tired, and I don't want anyone to leave before we give away the raffle. So thank you for learning with me. Our next shiur, B'ezrat Hashem, is going to be on Sunday. Sunday, B'ezrat Hashem. So unless there are some pressing questions. Chazak u'baruch. Chazak u'baruch. No, so your company, that's what you're working for, is paying you to work, not to study. So you have to know that if you study during work time, that's stealing.

2:10:28So, if they're paying you to work and not to study, even though studying is a mitzvah, you can't make a mitzvah by making a sin. So, if they're paying you to study, then you study. If they're paying you to work, then you have to work. Studying is for a time that you're allowed to study. But, as far as sleeping is concerned, in order to sleep less, it's not just a trick to sleep less and be dysfunctional the whole day. You know, like some people just go from sleeping their whole life, eight, nine hours, and then all of a sudden they want to sleep three hours, four hours. It doesn't work that way. Your body has to train to get to that point, not only physically, but also spiritually. Because if you go from eight hours your whole life to all of a sudden you're going to cut it in half, you're not going to function. the rest of the time, the 20 hours that you're going to be awake, you're going to be like half dead; you're going to be a zombie. That's a waste of 20 hours. It's better to sleep seven or even eight hours and have a fully functional 16 than sleeping less but being dysfunctional the whole time. So you have to know where your balance is. In general, if you don't need eight hours, don't drop, you know, drastically to four. That's not going to work. Go to seven; see how you're functioning on seven.

2:11:41then go to six and a half, see how you're functioning on six and a half. Then after that, go to six, see how you function after that. Usually, most people are okay at six; that's plenty for them, and then they're fine. Most people that go down below six become very dysfunctional, and even their studying is dysfunctional, meaning that they study but have no idea what they're talking about. They read, read, read, read, but they don't remember anything. So again, it's not just about being awake, like being a superhero and telling me, "Oh, I only sleep three hours." Yeah, what did you do with the other 21? What did you do with the other 21? What did you do? So that's the thing. It's not just about being awake. It's being alert, being productive, doing something with your life. And again, there's plenty of time in a day that if you're strict with your time, as far as managing it, You could achieve quite a bit more than what you're even achieving now without necessarily sleeping much less. You don't need to sleep much less to achieve a lot more. You just need to be more productive with time. And if anyone who monitors their time carefully sees that they waste an enormous amount of time,

2:12:48Most people can waste an enormous amount of time on nonsense. All of us are guilty of it, every single one of us, and I'm starting with myself. It's just a reality. The more disciplined you are with your time, the more productive you'll be with your time, and you'll see that there's really no need for you to sleep three hours or four hours. You can, but in order to achieve that, in order to achieve less sleep, you have to get not only to a certain level of... physical ability but also spiritual ability. Unless you know you're like a Marine Corps soldier, where you just train your body a certain way, I'm talking about if you're not just, you know, moving your body like an ox but actually using your mind to learn Torah. You need to have a certain spiritual power. You have to have spiritual strength. That takes time. that it takes time to build up. Sometimes Hashem gives you extra help at certain moments of your life where He wants you to study more, so He'll give you the ability to study more. I mean, I remember myself when I first started out, I could, you know, well, forget it actually. Next, your questions are more important.

2:14:05There's time to study, there's time to work, there's time to sleep, there's time for everything. Just be more disciplined with your time. Anything else? Yes? So according to her question, is having an ego a bad thing? Terrible. So is there a way you should... There's a pasuk in the Torah, there's many pesukim in the Torah, I have several shiurim about it. Hashem says anyone that has a high heart, meaning is prideful, is considered disgusting in the eyes of Hashem. Anyone that has pride is considered disgusting in the eyes of Hashem. What's disgusting? You ever see a dead animal on the street? You know, its stomach splattered out of its body. It smells. All the maggots are there and everything. You ever see one of those? It's disgusting, right? That's how a prideful person looks to Hashem. So, what does it mean? It means that humility is not a suggestion. It's an obligation that we have to do everything we can to attain it. How do you attain humility? By understanding that you are responsible for effort. Achievements have nothing to do with you. Anything that you believe you've achieved in your life was simply gifted to you. So, as the Ramban writes, being a prideful person is like wearing the robe of the king and pretending like you're the king.

2:15:31It's a joke. You stole the robe of the king and you're pretending to be the king? Like, who are you fooling? That's a prideful person. A prideful person is like someone who received many different things and is pretending like he's the one that got them, as if Hashem didn't give them to him. So that's the problem. Hashem says, someone like that is considered disgusting in My eyes. So a person's mission in the world is to get rid of that by connecting to Hashem and realizing that literally every single thing you have in your life, good or bad, is the outcome of the decision of Hashem as a result of your actions. Yes? Sorry. How do you determine if something is a punishment or something is a tikkun? Everything is both. It's both. Every single suffering that a person has in their life will have at least a little bit of both. Part of it will be a part of their repentance for some sin they've committed.

2:16:36You know, part of it will be to elevate them, part of it to punish them. So, everything has a little bit. It's not black and white, where this specific suffering is only to elevate them, and this specific suffering is only to punish them. This specific suffering is somewhere in the middle. Everything has a little bit of both. Hashem has different things that sometimes can begin as a punishment, but also as an obstacle for us to overcome that could yield us an enormous reward that we would not be able to get any other way. It's an obligation. The Gemara says it, I believe it's in Yevamot. Not only does a person need to connect things that happen in his life to certain actions, but it's actually an obligation.

2:17:45Meaning that if you have suffering in your life, the only reason you have suffering is because Hashem is talking to you, saying, "My son, we have a problem. You did something, and I'm trying to get your attention. It's time for you to do teshuva." If you get a reward, it doesn't necessarily always mean that you did something good. Because sometimes, the Gemara says, and the Chachamim talk about it extensively, if somebody gets a lot of money in a short period of time, it's not always a blessing. Sometimes it's a punishment. Sometimes it's a punishment to get a lot of money. If somebody wins the lottery, it's a curse. 9 out of 10 times, people become very depressed and end up in much worse shape than they were before they won a lot of money. So sometimes, when a person gets a lot of money, it's not necessarily a blessing. A person needs to look at everything in their life and connect it to their actions. If something bad happens, they should ask, "What am I doing wrong?" in order to, in essence... Hashem to try to get my attention. What do I need to work on if something good happens in my life? I got a lot of money. I got this. Okay, what better can I do with this good? I got money, great. Hashem gave me a lot more money. Okay, why? He's not giving me money so I could buy a fancy car that drives the same, you know, 60 miles an hour in less time. You know, why does He give me this more money? What else good can I do?

2:19:12...with his money. And that's why the Chachamim say, when they see one of the other Chachamim that merited to have a very big mitzvah, for example, one of the Chachamim says they're not jealous of Rabbi Yosef Karo for writing the Shulchan Aruch, which is the main body of laws for Am Yisrael, but they're jealous of what mitzvah did he do to earn the merit to write the Shulchan Aruch... Meaning, other people could have written. The Rama was writing the same thing and so on. Let me say, what did you do to earn that merit to have the right to write the Shulchan Aruch? That's what I'm jealous of. I want that mitzvah. I want that mitzvah. Yes. Yes, yes, suffering that you have in your life can be for things in a previous life, but quite frankly, most of us make so many sins I wouldn't necessarily bet so much on our previous life. We make plenty in this life to earn what we're getting now and probably much worse, but yes, it is very, very possible and likely that part of our suffering is because of things that we did in our previous life. For example, if a

2:20:32people that have different sufferings. If you go to the Arizal's Shaar HaGilgulim, he talks about different people that have different things that happen to them. It's because of specific things that happen. For example, a person that has a family member murdered or something like that, it's usually because they murdered somebody in their previous life and If they have somebody die in different ways, because, you know, it's also middah k'neged middah—measure for measure. Sometimes Hashem pays in this world with reward and punishment; sometimes He pays in the next one. But the point is that, yes, everything has a connection to your neshama from its beginning. Sometimes there's a certain suffering that you're getting that's not even for anything you did in a previous incarnation, but rather because you were part of the original sin of Adam v'Chava. you were part of that original neshamah that sinned against Hashem. Part of your suffering is because of that also.

2:21:38There's no way you can connect to that. You can assume certain things, but usually, those assumptions are based on things that are obvious. Focus on the things that are obvious to you. Meaning, you know if you violate Shabbat or not. You know if you waste seed or not. You know if you... don't eat kosher or not. You know if you waste time instead of learning Torah or not. You know the obvious things. Focus on the obvious things, not on the things that are not so obvious. And quite frankly, for this entire generation, I don't really think many people have so many things that are hidden. Most of us know exactly what sins we're committing and we could write a whole book about them. That's a reality. So the more a person learns about character traits, middot, and things of that nature, the more they realize that they are sinning, they have to improve themselves, and they have a lot to work on, and if they have any suffering, then that's the reason. Yes? What you said before about a person suffering, that it's Hashem saying that there's a problem. Why do we believe that Mashiach is suffering?

2:22:39completely different subject, but I talked about this in a different shul. The Zohar HaKadosh says that Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov come to Mashiach Tzidkenu, the Neshama of Mashiach Tzidkenu, every single day and beg him to continue suffering as a result of our sins. This is actually where the idolatry of Christianity stems their idea from. Every sheker, the Gemara says, Rabbi Meir Baraness says, every sheker has to have some type of truth in it in order for it to last. The Zohar HaKadosh says that Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov come to Mashiach Tzidkenu, the Neshama of Mashiach Tzidkenu, every single day and beg him to continue suffering as a result of our sins. This is actually where the idolatry of Christianity stems their idea from. Every sheker, the Gemara says, Rabbi Meir Baal HaNes says, every sheker has to have some type of truth in it in order for it to last. has to have some truth in it in order for it to last. So, Christianity, believe it or not, has some truth in it. It's just that the majority of it is a lie. What's the truth? The Judaism part. Judaism part so the Mashiach suffers for his neshama, suffers for the sins that you and I are making, you and I have made. And when he comes, the Gemara Masechet Sanhedrin says that Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi saw the Mashiach full of different bandages for different wounds that he had. What are these wounds from? Our sins.

2:23:50Why does he have this? This is his responsibility in the world. This is his position in the world. This is his role in the world. But also it's going to be our embarrassment. Our embarrassment if we actually survive and we do real teshuva and we see Mashiach one day, this will be a great deal of embarrassment for us. Why? You're going to see the most righteous soul that you'll ever see. Mashiach, culmination of the world. then you're going to see him with a little slit on his cheek, a little slit on his arm. You see the most righteous person on earth, the greatest tzaddik, Kodesh Kodashim, the greatest, most amazing—wow! And then he's gonna have a scar. Why? Remember you wasted seed when you were 14 years old? Yeah, that's this. You know what kind of embarrassment you're going to feel with millions of people watching? Why did you do that? Why did you do it to the Mashiach? Why did you do it to the Mashiach? He said, no, I did teshuva. I didn't mean it. Embarrassment. It's a great deal of embarrassment. Anyway, Rabotai, I think it's enough for tonight. Not because I want to go on, but I think it's just simply we answered many questions and I want to leave you guys some more questions for tomorrow. Plus, a few people want to go home, so I want to give out the raffle. Bechavod. Meir, please, if you don't mind, do the raffle. Baruch Adonai le'Olam. Amen ve'Amen.