Living 2 Lives, PUBLIC AFFECTION, Suffering, USURY, LaShon HaRa & Flattery - STUMP THE RABBI (47)

0:17We're back on our Wednesday night Stump the Rabbi. Hopefully, you guys have some interesting questions. And HaKadosh Baruch Hu surely has the answers. And HaKadosh Baruch Hu will give them to us to tell you. Today's shiur will be a... For Refuah Shelema, for our dear friend Yitro ben Avraham, for Levana bat Sara, David ben Esria, Doris bat Jora, Rav Efraim ben Shulamit, Rabbanit Sara bat Anat, Batya bat Sara, Serach bat Batya, Esther bat Tzipora, Elisheva Chaya bat Sara, And all of Am Yisrael, b'ezrat Hashem, will have refuah shlema, refuat hanefesh, refuat haguf. The parasha that we have has a very interesting situation where, you know, we read it every year, but I only asked this question for the first time this year.

1:43You know, you have a parasha that talks about, technically it's two parashot, that we read, which discusses the whole issue of tzara'at, which is both physical and spiritual disease that HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives a person for falling under the sin of Lashon Hara. And in today's world, a world that's almost ignorant completely to Tzara'at, both because it's not very common and because we are an orphaned nation, an orphaned generation, orphaned from the Emet, orphaned from the Gedolim we used to have. And most people don't understand really what Tzara'at is. ignorant completely to Tzara'at, both because it's not very common and because we are an orphaned nation, an orphaned generation, orphaned from the Emes, orphaned from the Gedolim we used to have. And most people don't really understand what Tzara'at is.

2:56But needless to say, most people don't understand what life without Lashon Hara is either. If you don't speak Lashon Hara today, people look at you like you're abnormal, like what's wrong with you? What else are you going to talk about? What else do you want to talk about? You want to come over? Yeah, yeah, sure, what do you want to do? No, you know, we'll chit-chat. What are you going to chit-chat about? As soon as you get to the friend's house, you're chit-chatting about other people. And this guy has this, and this guy has that. Is the volume on? This guy has this, this guy has that. The constant that we have today has become second nature to people. It's normal. Everyone knows it's wrong, even if they're not religious. I mean, there are even campaigns that secular people have in Eretz Yisrael that say, "Lashon Hara Lo Medaber Elai." Lashon Hara doesn't speak to me, meaning if you want to speak Lashon Hara, don't talk to me about it. I don't want to hear it. You know, interestingly enough, I've actually found that secular people find Lashon Hara more detestable than some of the religious people I've met.

4:19It's very interesting because that's the opposite of what it's supposed to be. But nonetheless, that's what it is. Now, if you look on the internet...

5:32It's like he murdered them. You spoke about another person, you disclosed information about that person that's true, but he didn't want the world to know about. You told the whole world that he's rich. You told the whole world that he's poor. You told the whole world that he just got divorced. You told the whole world that he's sick. You told the whole world stuff he didn't really want to tell the whole world. It's not your business to tell the whole world. It’s lashon hara, and HaKadosh Baruch Hu despises it. But you decided to tell people, "Oh, did you hear about Steve?" "No, no, what happened with Steve?" "Oh, wow, you didn't hear? Oh, let me tell you. I got a juicy one. I can't wait to get rid of it. I got a juicy one for you. Oh, it was worth it to come to my house just for this one. Why? I got a juicy one for you. You know, Steve and Dave and this one and that one, well, they're all..." By the time you finish, Hashem is going to save you. Now, HaKadosh Baruch Hu hates it. And at the time of Moshe Rabbeinu, people that spoke Lashon Hara, our parashah tells us that they would get tzara'at. They would get this physical and spiritual disease, and we say that it's both because

6:52On a physical perspective, the person's body would change. He would have these spots on his body, different parts of his body would turn white, like sheleg, like snow. But if the situation got much worse, he would start losing body parts. Literally, you know, body parts would start falling off. And the guy that had tzara'at, every few days, another finger would fall off. A finger, a foot, this, that. So the other guy, after a few days, says, "I know what you're doing. You're breaking out of here in pieces." Torah jokes, what can you do? So, the guy that has tzara'at, Hashem yishmor.

7:55you look at the Midrashim, what it says, these people, how much they suffer. Immediately, if they're confirmed by the Kohen that they have tzara'at, they are exiled from the camp. Chachamim say this is a measure-for-measure punishment. Just like when you said Lashon Hara, you caused people to become distant from that person because now they know this information about him. Usually, the information you share is negative. Then people are not going to want to be friends with him anymore. They're not going to be married to him anymore. They're not going to do business with him anymore. And because of that, You're going to be distant from everybody else. That's the measure for measure. And when does he come back? After it heals. When does it heal? There are no antibiotics for tzaraat. There's actually a hospital. There's a hospital in Eretz Yisrael. I've never been, but Rabbi Chaim says it's there. There's a hospital in Eretz Yisrael for people that have tzaraat. Now you're not going to hear about this hospital in the news.

9:08Because no one leaves the hospital. You go in; it's like a hospice. You go in there to die. They don't know how to deal with you. But you have to be put into a certain place where no one is allowed to even look at you. How much? It's scary. Why? It's infectious. It's a nightmare. What do you guys think? Corona? Corona is a puppy next to this thing. But... with no antibiotics, with no nothing, how does a person go back into the camp? It says clearly that many people got cleared out of tzara'at, that they got healed. How did they get healed? The spiritual part. The immense amount of pain that the person is enduring is not just the embarrassment but also physical. It requires the person to arrive at the conclusion that we all have to arrive at every single day, which is that we have to do teshuva. No matter where you are in your life today, you must do teshuva. Yeah, but Rabbi, I'm already keeping stuff. Keep more.

10:21If you're alive, you must do teshuva. It's a mitzvah from the Torah to do teshuva for something every day. And surely we all have something to do teshuva for. Even the biggest giant chachamim in the world will tell you they have to do teshuva. When Rav Kanievsky tells people, you got to do teshuva, we got to do teshuva, you think he's not including himself? When Rav Kook from Tveria, Refuah Shlema, we have, b'ezrat Hashem. When he says we have to do teshuva, you think he's not talking about himself first? The bigger the chacham, the more they understand how much teshuva they have to do. Now, a person that has tzaraat has to arrive at that conclusion quickly. Why? Because that's the only way that he's going to get healed. What if he says he did teshuva and he didn't get healed? That means he didn't do teshuva. Why? Because the only one that decides if he did teshuva is the One who knows all the secrets. The One who knows all the hidden. What's the hidden? What's in your heart? What's in your mind? You can look like a tzaddik. You can look like a tzaddik and everything. Dress from here to there. Yes, yes, Rabbi. Yes, Rabbi. Yes, Rabbi. I love rabbanim.

11:47And be an eshet ish. I think I'm making this up. I know people like this. A woman looks like a tzaddeket. Kisui rosh. Zealous for Hashem. "I can't believe people are mechalel Shabbat. I can't believe this. I can't believe that. I can't believe that." Fire! Rabbi, I have a problem. What? I have a boyfriend. What? What do you mean you have a boyfriend? You're married. Four kids. Yeah, that's where you come in, Rabbi. That's the problem. That's the problem. The boyfriend's not the husband. How did it happen? Ah, mistake. This. Okay, you made mistakes. You've got to fix it. You've got to fix this mistake. How? You've got to leave. No, but I love him. Okay, so go get him home then. These things exist. A woman calls me one time, tells me, "Rabbi, we're religious people. Got four kids. All our lives we have been religious. All our lives keeping mitzvot." I said, "Baruch Hashem. Why are you calling me then? Why did you say it's an urgent call?"

13:04She says, "Because I just found out my husband's cheating on me." I said, "Ah, I'm sorry to hear. Is it somebody you know?" We just started. She goes, "No. He has five kids with her. He's been cheating for 17 years. This guy has two families. One family..." Jewish people, religious, one, goya, five goyim kids. I don't know how you figure out the logistics of living those two lives. That's beyond me and will always be beyond me. But this happens. People live more than two lives. A person that speaks lashon hara also lives two lives. Why? Because many times they say hello to your face. They say, how are you? They say, Chazak U'Baruch. But they say Lashon Hara about you. Oh, did you hear what he said? Did you hear where she went? Did you hear what happened? HaKadosh Baruch Hu hates it. And He knows if he did teshuva for it. And the only way that the person gets healed is if he did teshuva. Where the Yodei HaTalumot, the One who knows the hidden, testifies this person has done teshuva. What's the proof? No motzi shem ra.

14:30But that's not really my question. I'm just explaining to you the background. What's the question? The question is this: If you read the parasha, Parashat Tazria, you see that the entire parasha, in the beginning, the first paragraph also talks about the tum'ah of a woman that gives birth. After a woman gives birth, or actually the second her water breaks, she's tme'ah, she's considered nidah. Nothing wrong with her, but she's nidah. And she has to wait until the bleeding stops and she is officially able to go back to the mikveh, which typically takes a couple of weeks, sometimes longer. If she goes to a Jewish doctor, that timeframe is usually around a month to two months. If she goes to a non-Jewish doctor, it could be as much as six, seven, eight, or nine months. What's the difference? The Jew has a secret? Yes, the Jew has a secret. I'm not talking about any Jew. I'm talking about a religious Jew. It could be a Jew that's a Nazi. It could be a Jew that's a Zionist. It could be a Jew that's a Kofer. He's worse than a Goy even. But a Jew that's religious knows that there's this mitzvah called family purity. And a woman is not allowed to be with her husband when she's impure.

15:58When there's blood coming out of there and she hasn't gone to the mikveh, now, when the baby is delivered, that baby leaves, but not everything in there leaves with it. So the doctor has to work a little extra to make sure that as much of the blood from that area is removed during the actual delivery, so there's as little as possible left so she can become pure sooner. If he doesn't and the blood stays there, she could be in niddah for six months. And that could cause a lot of problems. Why? The guy ends up wasting seed. The guy ends up losing his mind. The woman, everybody, she wants affection. She wants a hug. Forget about intimacy. You know, intimacy is not just the act. People think that, you know, the only time the husband and wife know each other is when they're making babies. Intimacy sometimes is holding hands. Intimacy sometimes is sitting next to each other. That's what a real relationship is. People think that it's only about the act. They don't know anything about marriage. The most intimate thing that you can do with your wife is hold her hand. Hence the reason why you're not allowed to do it in public.

17:24Not to hold your wife's hand in public. Not to show your wife affection in public. Why not? Why are you showing intimacy? In public, what are you, an idol worshiper? What are you doing? Yeah, but she's my wife. Yeah, she's your wife, not their wife. So why are you doing something that's going to cause them to have ideas? Me holding my wife's hand in public, me taking a picture, holding my wife, giving her a hug, is going to give people thoughts? Yes, it's going to give people thoughts. Who said? You don't comply with it, then go find a different religion. Yeah, but I saw Rabbi Goldberg do it. Rabbi Goldberg has a villa in Gehinom. Especially since many of the people he's doing it with are not even his wife. It's not even just niddah. It's eshet ish. Guys taking pictures with foreign women. Somebody else's wife. Yeah. No, no. Smile, smile. Smile. I'll see you soon. Yeah. You will.

18:46Eshet ish, you hug another woman, it's not your wife, it's eshet ish. If she's married, eshet ish. It's a problem. Pirchei children, rabbis do it. Yeah, he has a double problem. Your sin and his sin. Who says? Shulchan Aruch. Your affection to your wife? Private. So why is it so important to hold my wife's hand? Privacy, what's going to happen? She's going to see that you care. And you're not using some machine. No. A person needs to understand that, Although you love your wife, you still have physical needs. She has physical needs. And you have to do whatever you possibly can to mitigate the risk. So that's why you have to go to a Jewish doctor. That's an Orthodox Jewish doctor. To deliver babies and not be a hero and say, no, no, but find one. If you have one, find one. If you don't have one, you don't have one. Don't send me 500 questions. Listen, I live in Kentucky in the middle of nowhere. I don't have one. Oh, you don't have one. You don't have one. But if you have one, find it and go there. We travel an hour just to go to a doctor. Even though there's 5,000 doctors next to us, five minutes, we drive an hour. Why? Because it's a good doctor. Good doctor. She's fantastic. Fantastic doctor.

19:47to deliver babies and not be a hero and say, no, no, but find one. If you have one, find one. If you don't have one, you don't have one. Don't send me 500 questions. Listen, I live in Kentucky in the middle of nowhere. I don't have one. Oh, you don't have one. You don't have one. But if you have one, find it and go there. We travel an hour just to go to a doctor. Even though there are 5,000 doctors next to us, five minutes away, we drive an hour. Why? Because it's a good doctor. A good doctor. She's fantastic. Fantastic doctor. Dr. Greenbaum, a very nice woman, very smart, but most importantly, she knows what needs to happen. So, the first part of the parasha talks about the issues of purity and impurity after you deliver babies. The rest of the next two parashot are about tzara'at. That's a lot of information about tzara'at. Technically, when was the last time you saw someone with tzara'at? You wouldn't even know how to identify it unless you had a sign or something. I don't know, maybe people are walking with signs today. They walk around with big signs, Nike, maybe they have tzara'at too, who knows? But the reality is, why do we need to know all this information about tzara'at? And what is this information?

21:08The information is the signs. If he has this, you check it, you come back a few days later. If he still has it, then this, then he has tzara'at. If he doesn't have it, then it's not tzara'at, it's something else. Or it went away. And it's just different signs on different body parts. on the head, on the arm, on this, on that. I mean, HaKadosh Baruch Hu did not put an extra Yud, an extra Yud in the Torah. Why is He spending so much time telling Klal Yisrael about signs of tzara'at that He knew very well at the time He wrote the Torah, 974 generations before He created the world, that degeneration that we have today, it's more or less not necessarily going to be relevant, the practical aspect of it. We don't have kohanim that can purify anyone. We don't have kohanim that can verify. And most importantly, we don't really have many people with tzara'at.

22:17So what do I need to know all these signs for? Because every kid, six years old, seven years old, eight years old, nine years old, reads Parashat HaShavua every year. Guess what? He's going to have to learn this. Why does he have to learn this for? When is he going to use it? Why do I have two entire parashot talking about something that's not technically, it sounds like it's not relevant, chas v'shalom? And we can't say it's not relevant, because if it's in the Torah, it's relevant. The Gemara Masechet Megillah says the Torah has 55 prophets in it. But that's not all the prophets we've had. The amount of prophets that we have, the Gemara says, is no less than double the amount of men that left Mitzrayim, meaning no less than 1.2 million people. Well, prophets spoke to Hashem, and He spoke back. New things about the future. So the Gemara asks a natural, logical question: Well, how come we don't know their names, these 1.2 million people? We only know the names of 55. The answer is...

23:29Because their prophecy, these 1.2 million people, minus 55, their prophecy, their communication with Hashem, was only relevant to their generation. And from there we learn that everything, that the other 55, the ones we have in the Tanach, everything they said is relevant to us today, three thousand plus years later. Every verse, every single verse in the Torah is relevant to you. Every single verse in the Torah is relevant to this generation. Now, if you don't know why and how, obviously, that's the point of learning. We toil and we toil and we toil and we toil until we find out. Why do you think Rav Kanievsky does this also? It's not just because it's every week. He's every week finding new things. It doesn't matter if you're big, small, six years old, or 60 years old. You have to read it. Why? You have to keep reading it over and over again. You read it a thousand times. Why again? Because there's more to find out. You can read it a billion times, and you're still going to have more to find out.

24:51So now that we know that everything that's written in the entire Tanakh is relevant to every generation, it's needless to say that the most critical, the most important part of the Tanakh, the Five Books of Moses, surely everything that's written in there is relevant to every single person and every single generation and every single time and every single day. So then we go back to our question again, our sugya. We have a complication here. Why do I need to know about all of these signs if I'm not a Kohen, I'm not even a Levi, I'm not going to check anyone? Quite frankly, I barely understand what you're talking about. Why do I need to read it? Not only once, I have to read it every year with commentary. That's the question I asked this week. You know when I was asking it? When I was trying to do Teshuva, when the T-Rex was in my office. I was trying to do Teshuva, feeling sorry for myself, I started reading Chumash. And the question came to my head. And with Siyata Dishmaya, the answer to, Chavrutai Yekarim.

26:16If you notice, all of these signs say the Kohen comes, he checks, and sometimes he has to come back a few days later. Why? Why does he have to come back a few days later? Why does it go away? Why does it not go away? It's HaKadosh Baruch Hu showing us His mercy to the gravest sinners. by even giving them an opportunity to do teshuva, but immediately. It's at that point of too late, but I'll still give you an opportunity to do teshuva. It's not like the guy, like everything is going okay, but he's starting to see the market shaky. He's starting to see that the marriage is shaky. She's starting to see that her health is shaky. No, no, no, this is too late. You got your arm, it looks like snow.

27:19You got stuff that's not so good. It's stage four cancer. But it can go away in two days. Why? Who decides? How can it go away in two days? The same way that it can go away if you don't do teshuva. And you end up getting thrown out of the camp. It's going to go away the same way. How? You do teshuva. HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives us time after time a shiur, showing us, okay, you got a sign on your hand. Okay, what? Your hand. What's your hand? Business. What's your business? Yeah, you got something, something's wrong with your business. He's saying you're a little shaky. You're not making as much money. You're losing money. Your partner looks like he's cheating. Okay, what are you doing? What are you doing with your money? You're spending it right. You're investing it right. I'm not talking about investing in houses and stocks. Investing in Torah, investing in mitzvot. You got a $40,000 watch, but only $400 tzedakah. You think that makes sense?

28:31If you think that makes sense, then the coin's coming back in a couple of days. You got a sign on your head. Why do you have a sign on your head? What are you thinking about? Are you thinking about women? Are you thinking about men? Are you thinking about all types of immorality? How come you're not thinking about Torah? I'm gonna give you a couple of days. Couple of days you better do teshuva, but not in a couple of days you better do teshuva. You better do teshuva right now that in a couple of days. It's already gone. HaKadosh Baruch Hu tells us time and time again, example after example, that sometimes He gives us a very strong sign, He gives us a bomb in our face and But He also tells us that even though it looks horrific, He can fix it. When? He can fix it instantly. Yeah, but it doesn't make any sense. How could He do it? Kefira too. Never, ever underestimate the power of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Yeah, but I did what He wanted and He didn't fix it. Apparently, you didn't do what He wanted. Because if you did, He could have fixed it.

30:02Now, sometimes a person does a lot of good things, but still the situation, it's not fixed. The situation that he wants, it's not fixed. The situation that she wants, it's not fixed. HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives him a little difficulty, or a lot of difficulty. Why? There are other reasons. Sometimes HaKadosh Baruch Hu will give you difficulty after you do teshuva. Why? He says, I like that you're doing teshuva. And because I like that you're doing teshuva, and I'm already... building you a nice place in Gan Eden. I don't want to see your precious neshama go to Gehinom. So what am I going to do? I'm going to give you a little suffering right now. Pay the bill already right now. For how long? Don't worry. I'll take care of you. You're going to be okay. Yeah, but I've been suffering for five years already. I've been suffering for fifteen years already. Okay, so another year is not going to hurt. Another two years is not going to hurt. Don't worry. I promise you, once you realize what it was instead of that five years, instead of that fifteen years, instead of that five months, instead of that fifteen, whatever it is, you are going to end up getting Gan Eden. Trust me when I tell you, you're going to say, "Hashem, what a bargain. What a bargain you gave me. What a bargain."

31:16Never, ever underestimate the mercy of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. But even more so, rabotai yikarim, never underestimate the power of your teshuva. Because HaKadosh Baruch Hu says to us countless times how much He loves teshuva, so much so, that the Gemara says in a couple of different places that the level that ba'alei teshuva The level that a real Baal Teshuva gets to. Not someone that just started keeping Shabbat last week, but he still doesn't know that he has to divorce his non-Jewish wife. Not someone that, okay, she bought a couple of nice, modest dresses, but she still goes to clubs with them. No, no, I'm talking about a real Baal Teshuva. Someone that said, enough's enough. Whatever I know, I'm doing. I'm not going to drive on Shabbat. Like I heard the rabbi say, driving on Shabbat is no good. I'm not going to go with immodest people because the rabbi keeps saying Gehinnom when he says immodest. I don't know, something sounds so good. I'm not going to go to a non-kosher restaurant because the rabbi says it's no good. Whatever I know, I'm doing—understand or not understand, it doesn't make a difference. Whatever I know, I'm doing. That's about teshuva. That's about teshuva, rabotai. You have to become a tzadik, Am Yisrael. You have to be committed to becoming a tzadik.

32:42Every day he works on himself. Every day she works on herself. She works on her modesty. She works on her ethics. She works on everything. Every day. Every day he works on himself. He toils to fix everything. I know I'm going to do it. I failed, I'm going to try again. Yeah, but it's hard. Doesn't make a difference. Keep going. That's about teshuva. And the Gemara says... Someone that merits to be a real Baal Teshuva gets to a higher level than someone that's been righteous his entire life. Tzadikim Gemurim. That's how high. Halvai we all merit to be Baalei Teshuva. You don't have to be Mechalel Shabbat to be a Baal Teshuva. I got one Talmid from birth. always been religious, went to yeshivot, grew up religious, everything. If you go to our website, under teshuva stories, you see his personal story. He says, "I finally did teshuva when I started listening to Rabbi Rubin's lectures." What do you mean? You've been religious your whole life. "I finally started doing teshuva. I realized teshuva requires a little bit more than just praying and eating kosher." Now,

34:08A person that merits to do teshuva is such a fantastic thing. In Shamayim, they celebrate; they celebrate this person. They can't wait to see him or her. When a person takes advantage of this opportunity and does teshuva, he could literally change the world in a matter of seconds. Parashat Tazria, Parashat Metzora, tells us that although the situation looks dire—stage four cancer, AIDS, chronic condition—the doctor says, you're simply not going to live. HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, I decide. I decide if you're going to live or not. There are two brothers on record, video from years ago, maybe 15-20 years ago, both of them went to give blood. They wanted to be generous, wanted to do something good, gave blood. The doctors made a mistake; both of them got AIDS/HIV.

35:35Eventually turned to AIDS. Both guys Israelis. Both guys Jewish. Hashem Yishmor, they had seen both guys young and secular. One brother realized, I don't have much time. The other brother realized the same thing. One brother said, since I don't have much time, I'm going to start preparing for the next world. Started doing Teshuvah seriously. Everything he learned, he did. Shabbat, everything. His brother said, I'm going to live it up. I'm only here for a little while longer. I'm going to enjoy myself. The one that was enjoying himself, he's dead. He died shortly after. The one that did Teshuvah, Rabotai, this is on record. I saw this with my own eyes on a video. He's on stage telling a thousand people this. There are articles and newspapers about it.

36:37He says, Rabotai, I did teshuvah, I did teshuvah, I did teshuvah, I did teshuvah, and every so often I have to go to the doctor to check, to check, to check, to check. One day, the doctors are doing the regular check, what's going on, how I'm progressing, how I'm digressing, what's going on. And the doctors all gather in the room, and they're all confused. One is arguing with the other. "Wait, hold on a second. Did you make a mistake?" "No, no, give me the other one." They're starting to argue with each other, and I'm thinking to myself, "Oh no, what's going to happen? What's going to happen? You know, what's going to happen? Maybe they don't want to give me the bad news." So, okay, I'm sorry. We have to do another test. "But we just did." "It's hard. It's not an easy test." "No, we have to do another blood test." This, that. Okay. Do another test. Come back. All the doctors gather again. "Did you do it?" "Yeah, I did it this time. For sure." "I don't understand." Everybody's confused. "Sir, we have no idea what happened, but you don't have AIDS anymore. It's gone."

37:55A disease that does not have a cure. Disappeared. It's gone. His brother, dead. He, alive. Why? There's no limitation to what HaKadosh Baruch Hu can do. He does not have to work with the natural. If anyone truly knew the that I went through in my life and what I looked like some years ago, you'd understand how much different life is today. HaKadosh Baruch Hu has no limitations. He tells us in this parasha, you have different problems because you're making mistakes. I'm going to give you time, give you time, give you time, but eventually, that time runs out. And before it gets too far, I'm going to give you a nice slap to the face. To wake you up. Make your face white. Make your arm fall off. Make you go into pain. Divorce. Lose money. Nightmare. Another nightmare. All types of bad stuff. Those, my dear son, those, my loving daughter,

39:17are slaps and kicks and punches of love from HaKadosh Baruch Hu. I'm giving it to you because I love you, not because I hate you. If I hated you, I'd take you out, put you in Gehenom, put you in Kaf HaKela, let the malachim have fun with you, play soccer with your neshama for a nice 50 years. Like Chaim Nachman Bialik, Shem Resha'im Yirkav. Rabbi Yagen had a seminar. Years ago, he told people that it's very easy to bring a neshamah to the world. He says, if it was allowed in the Torah, I'd bring you a neshamah in front of you. It's very easy. If people don't know how to do it, in two minutes I can bring you a neshamah, he says. He says, I know people that have done it. Even though it's forbidden by the Torah. And he started talking, and then the conversation went on, and he says, someone like Nachman Bialik, that person is suffering a lot. He is in Kaf HaKela. A couple of young guys in the army, soldiers, this was a seminar, they decided to leave.

40:39leave the seminar, go to their room, open up a Ouija board that they had, and bring down the neshamah of Nachman Bialik. Because they knew how to do it. They learned it in the army. Good school over there. They brought down the neshamah of Nachman Bialik. They asked him questions. Nachman Bialik says to them, everything Rav Yagen is saying is true. But tell him, that I just completed my 50-year sentence in Kaf HaKela. They asked him, why did you get 50 years? He says, one year for each time I cheated on my wife. And now I have the merit to go to Gehinnom. They went down, the seminar's long, it's a whole day, it's a whole weekend. They come back, see, these guys are, you know, cool, cool, everything, they were completely secular people. They come out, they interrupt, saying, I'm sorry, we have to interrupt, I'm sorry, you're gonna wanna hear this.

41:54Everything you're saying is true. Everything the rabbi is saying is true. Oh, thank you very much. No, no, no. We want to tell you. Everything he's saying is true. What he said earlier about Chaim Nachman Bialik, he's right. We just spoke to Chaim Nachman Bialik. He says, everything you're saying is true, but he wants to tell you one chiddush. He just completed his 50th year in Kaf HaKela. Now, a person that understands the opportunity that he has to do teshuvah while he's alive, while she's alive, does everything possible to eliminate all of these things, all of these risks of going to bad places, and does everything possible to go to a good place. HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, sometimes you're going to do some bad things, And if I'm going to give you such a big slap, such a big kick, that it's going to hurt, I promise you, my dear son, my dear daughter, that it's only because I love you that I'm kicking you really hard, that I'm punching you really hard. It's only because I love you that I'm doing it.

43:16Because if I didn't love you, I'd send you somewhere else. A place you can't do teshuva anymore. I'm giving you this kick because I promise you, if you take the lesson that you learned today from Parashat Tazria, the lesson that you didn't think you had any connection to, and realize that this kick is me giving you an opportunity to wake up and fix yourself. to wake up and start doing what I said, not what you think. You take an opportunity, you take advantage of it, and you start doing teshuva, that kick is going to be the biggest blessing that ever happened to you. That pain, that suffering, however long and however difficult and however painful it was, you will end up blessing my name for eternity that I gave it to you. But only if you realize why I'm kicking you, why I'm hitting you, and then do the right thing and do teshuva. But if you don't,

44:26then all of that kicking and all of that suffering and all of that pain will be for naught. Because the outcome of your actions and your inactions of doing teshuva will lead to much greater suffering. But only at a place where you can no longer do teshuva. When a person understands that their suffering has such a significant value, where it's truly an opportunity, an opportunity, it's mamash divine providence. It's slightly less than prophecy, if you understand what it means. HaKadosh Baruch Hu is talking to you, but not in words, in actions. He's splitting the ocean for you, but it hurts. If you see that suffering as that, you see it as a blessing. It doesn't mean it doesn't hurt, but it now has a value—a very significant value. Hashem just gave you a ticket, a ticket to the next world. All you have to do is follow the instructions. This, Rabotai,

45:47i think is the most valuable lesson that we can learn today, for me at least, from the parashot, at least for now. There's obviously no end to the amount of lessons we can learn, but HaKadosh Baruch Hu wanted us to learn this. Surely there are many, many other questions that you have. And we'll go with those because there are other things I can say, but I think that for now, let's settle with this. B'chavod, who wants to start with a question? Yes. Does it apply also to goyim as well? Does Lashon Hara apply to goyim? No, I mean, it all depends on the damage. It's not the same thing as it is for Jews, where simply stating something by itself, by default, is a sin. But with goyim, sometimes their words can lead to some type of an outcome.

47:04And that could potentially be a sin. It could lead to literally somebody dying, and they could be considered a murderer because of that. So it all depends. It's not the same details. Surely it's frowned upon. Surely it's unethical. And surely someone who does that is going to be sinning in many other ways, whether as a Noahide or as a Jew. So the... The Torah says that you must stay away from a thing of lies. Stay away from it. It doesn't say don't lie, it says stay away from it. Meaning it's so bad, don't only not lie, but run away from it. Now, sometimes there are certain circumstances where lying... is, in essence, the right thing to do. Because you are, let's say, saving someone, you're not hurting anybody. Let's say if your spouse tells you, "How do I look?" The answer is not usually what you're thinking at times, because maybe they don't look as great as they want you to think. But you can't tell them that. So you tell them what they want to hear, or better than what they want to hear.

48:25Now, is that lying or not? The Torah tells us that even in a situation like that, where lying is actually the right thing to do, don’t lie. Does that mean I tell her the truth that she looks like a whale? No! No one says, "That way to go, stupid." No. What does she say? What are you going to do? You’ve got to be vague. Never directly lie. You have to learn how to be vague, where it's not a lie. So if you know, for example, that your wife is very, very self-conscious about her age—women, for some reason, are self-conscious about their age. Sometimes men are, but that's, I think, only in this generation of feminine men. Now, the thing is, though, that if she's very self-conscious... And she, let's say, I don't know, she's 50 years old, but she doesn't want people to know that she's 50 years old. She wants people to think that she's 40 years old. Now, you can't tell people this. They ask her, "How old is your wife?" Oh, she's 40. Yeah, that's a lie. You can't tell them she's 50 because that's what's going to hurt her.

49:49So, what do you got to do? You got to somehow maneuver the conversation either to completely not answer it and say, do something else. Or you could say something to the tone of, you know, she'll be 50 in November. Meaning as if she's not, even though she is. Meaning you tell them her birthday rather than her actual age. You know, I remember in the business world, one of the guys in the office wanted customers to think that he's older. but because he was still in his, you know, early 20s, and, you know, most of the customers in the investment world are old-timers, you know, because those are the people who usually have money. So, if he told them he's younger than their grandson, they wouldn't necessarily want to jump on board with him to do business with them and give him a million bucks to invest. He's still a kid in their eyes. So, what does he say? Instead of saying, "I'm 21," he says, "I'm going to be 31 in such and such a month." Which is technically true. He will be 31 in such and such a month, but just 10 years from now. Now, of course, this is unethical, and you should not do it. But the point being is that that's what I mean when I say being vague. Being vague where you're not outright lying.

51:05Why? Why is this such a, even though it's the right thing to lie in that particular case, why should you still not lie? Because the sages teach us, if you lie there, surely you will start getting accustomed to lying in other places. This is the same thing of why the halacha is that the chachamim say that you should never go into a business where you're lending money to goyim with interest. Never. Yeah, but some chachamim say it's allowed to charge them interest. It's not allowed to charge Jews interest. But why shouldn't you charge goyim? Shlomo HaMelech had a takana. Shlomo HaMelech had a takana. You're not allowed to lend money to Jews or non-Jews with interest. He said not allowed, not for Jews or non-Jews. Chachamim said, yeah, but technically, you're allowed to charge the non-Jews interest. So why is Shlomo HaMelech, why is he saying don't do it anyway? He says, because if you start lending money to goyim and charge them interest, first and foremost, one of the Chachamim, Rabbeinu Bachya, says that all of your customers are going to be goyim.

52:23Not going to be Jews. Why? Because you still want to go to Gan Eden, right? So you're only going to have goyim. But if all your customers are goyim, you're going to constantly hang out with goyim. You have Chris and Peter and Paul and John—they're all your customers. Before you know it, you become a Christian. Why? Because that's all your customers who you hang out with all the time. They're going to affect you. Rashi al haMakom says even more. He says, it's not just who your friends are. Let's say you're a talmid chacham. still shouldn't do it. You're not going to be affected by Peter and Paul, but you still shouldn't do it. Why not? Because if you start charging the goyim interest, you're going to get used to charging interest and you're going to build a desire to charge interest. Easy money. And little by little, it's going to get to a point where you're going to want to charge Jews interest too. A Jew comes to you and tells you, "Listen, I have good credit, I have good this, I have good that. I want to borrow $10 million." You know on that deal you're going to be making a fortune. Well, you're going to say no. If you already fell in love with interest, you're not going to say no. And Rashi says, that's why Shlomo HaMelech says, "Don't charge interest, not to the Goyim or the Jews." Why? It's a bad thing to do. Bad thing to do. Bad thing to do. You're going to get yourself used to doing bad things.

53:44but it's a lot. Just because it's a lot doesn't mean you should do it. So, it's critical to know that when it comes down to it, even though the goyim do not have the same restriction of laws of the details of who, what, when, and how to say. Anyone that speaks Lashon Hara, whether they be Jew or Gentile, and they do it on a regular basis, surely they're going to be led to doing other crimes and lose their Olam HaBa, one way or the other. And that's why it's not something that anyone should do, whether Jew or Gentile. Next question. Yes. When one is praying from the Siddur and he if he said Elokeinu, then yes, he should say the one with the "A" because in essence, Elokeinu, he's not saying Hashem's name; he's not saying anything at all. But if he mispronounced the Shem Havayah...

55:07The Yud Kei Vav Kei, if he mispronounced that, then he doesn't go back. And in fact, if he goes back and says it again, it could be a sin of saying Hashem's name in vain. Not for the first time, but the second time. The first time counted, even though he said it wrong. Why? We actually learned that beautiful lesson from Rabbi Fajim. Shlomo HaMelech says it, and there's also a commentary on it, that HaKadosh Baruch Hu enjoys those mistakes. He likes those mistakes. Not specifically just with His name, but with other things. Mispronouncing the name, making mistakes early. Why? Because He looks at us as babies. When you're a new baal teshuva, you're only a few years in, five, ten years in even. You're new, you're going to make mistakes. How? You're going to sometimes forget to say the beracha the right way, mispronounce things, and sometimes even pronounce it in such a way where it's the opposite of its meaning. Instead of ohavecha, you're going to say oyevecha. Instead of saying your lovers, you're going to say your enemies.

56:23Hashem. Hashem says, I giggle at those. Why? Because I look at you like a baby. You know, a little baby is cute. It's cute. Why? Because they try to walk at some point. And what happens? They fall on their tushy. And you know how cute that is? You know how cute it is to see a little baby fall on their tushy? It's the greatest thing in the world. All day you want to see it. Why? It's just a cute thing. Now, if he's 20 years old and he's still falling on his tushy, it's not cute. He's drunk. But if he's a year old and he's falling on his tushy, it's the cutest thing in the world. That's how Hakadosh Baruch Hu looks at us. He looks at us brand new because we tried, but we made mistakes. We mispronounced this. HaKadosh Baruch Hu is not counting it as a sin. Not counting it as a sin because you knew. So don't beat yourself up so much about it. Sometimes people are so harsh on themselves. Hashem says, "Why so strict?" Hashem says to them, "Why so strict? You're machmir, you. You're more strict than the Satan himself. Why so strict?" So you have to know there's a law, and there are mistakes sometimes that you make. Don't beat yourself up. You know, move on, move on. Constantly move on. Move forward, move forward. Okay, I made a mistake. I'm sorry. Move forward. Don't be nonchalant about it, like, "Well, I'm not fixing it, and I don't really care." That type of attitude is not good either. But the point is, okay, I made a mistake. I messed up. I made this mistake. I made that mistake. No problem. Move on. Okay. I'm going to be more careful next time. Be more careful next time.

57:52And that's it. That's one of the things that the Chachamim teach, is that when it comes to brachot, a person should break his bracha into three. Instead of swallowing words, and sometimes swallowing the most critical word, which is Hashem's name, you break up every bracha into three. Baruch Atah Hashem. Elokeinu Melech HaOlam. Borei pri ha'adama. adama. Whatever the bracha is. Meaning, break up the bracha into three. Have a momentary pause in between. Why? Because that's going to give you enough time to not only collect your thoughts, but also think about what you've said and what you're about to say, and make much fewer mistakes, and have more kavanah. But when we do things really quickly, it becomes, you know, safek bracha b'chlal. You're not even sure if it's a bracha or you just said something, you read a newspaper. You're not really sure. But, you know, you remember to eat. You remember to drink. So, it's good to break up your bracha into three. Next. Yeah. When you're saying the name of Hashem, it seems like, I mean, I personally find it difficult to have to write

59:15In the beginning, and by in the beginning, I mean for a long time, you have to think about what it means to say Adonai. To say Hashem's name, obviously it's with a "d" instead of a "mem," and... But you're not allowed to just say Hashem's name blankly. It's either you say it in a blessing or you say it in a verse. So that's why we say Elokeinu instead of Avoteinu. We say Adonai instead of Donai. You understand? So now, when you're saying a blessing, you have to think about what am I really doing here? I'm talking to Hashem. Now, who is Hashem? What's Hashem? Adon Olam, Hayah Hoveh Veyihyeh. is the Adon Olam. He's the master of the world. There's no creator of the Creator.

1:00:20He's Ba'al HaKol, He's capable of everything. He's the master of all creation. Meaning, what is it like? It's like, for example, you have, let's say, a robot. Now this robot may be the next big X-Men or something. This robot is big, he's strong, he's sophisticated. He has all types of technology where he could pretty much already have artificial intelligence. And bottom line is, The creator of that robot presses one button, and that robot's worth becomes nothing. It becomes a garbage pail. Why? Because although that robot is strong and smart and all that stuff, the master of that robot has an off button and has control. He is the master of all. So even though you may be great, and he may be great, and that may be great, he presses the button, finished. So he's the master of everything. He was, he is, he will be. He was always here; He has no beginning.

1:01:32He is here at all times, paying attention to every single detail. There is no detail that He misses. Whether that detail is about all of our thoughts or the entire world's thoughts simultaneously at all times, 24 hours a day, seven days a week for eternity. All the feelings you have, all the desires that you have, all the actions that you do, there's nothing that you hide from Him. At all times, He's paying attention, calculating, and writing down everything. That's what Hayah means. And He always did it before, and He will always do it. He's always going to be here. There is no end to Him. There's an end to us, there's no end to Him. So when you say the Name, what you're supposed to think in your mind, you don't say these words out loud, but you think, Adon Olam, Haya, Hoveh, Veyihyeh. Master of the world, was, is, and will be. That's every time you say that, that means that alone. First of all, it makes you have a whole lot more kavana when you're saying His Name, and

1:02:40It increases the amount of time that your prayer will take by probably, it could be as much as 50% or 20%, depending on how long it takes you to do Amidah. But the point is that it's going to increase your time, but also it's going to increase the significance of that prayer. Even if you are in a hurry, it's still going to be a worthwhile prayer because every time you say Hashem's Name, you think about who you're talking to. And it's important to do it. It's important to do that. You'll see sometimes certain Siddurim actually have it in the Amidah part especially, have it next to the word, the Yud Kei Vav Kei. They have it in very, very small print under it or next to it, what I just told you. There is another thing that a person can do, but that's much more advanced, which is to have a certain name of Hashem visualized with a white fire on top of black fire, but that's, B'ezrat Hashem, we'll get to when we get to our more advanced Kabbalah classes. But first, let's master the basics, which all are required to do, what I just told you. Think about what G-d is, which is, Adon Olam, Hayah Hoveh Ve’yeh. with a white fire on top of black fire, but that's, b'Ezrat Hashem, we'll get to when we get to our more advanced Kabbalah classes. But first, let's master the basics, which all are required to do, what I just told you. Think about what G-d is, which is, Adon Olam, Hayah Hoveh Ve'yeh.

1:03:57That's what you have to do. Every time you say Hashem's name, think about that for a moment; it's a second. In the beginning, it takes a little while, but after you become used to it, it takes literally a second or two. But it has more, that second or two has significant meaning. And a lot of significance is added to your prayer. And little by little, you improve it. It's important to do that because, again, if... Someone is married, and every two seconds, they tell each other, "I love you." Which, you know, usually young kids do that to each other. You know, "love you, love you, love you," five billion times a minute. You know what ends up happening? It loses its value. It loses its value. They say, "I love you," but they don't really mean it. It's like "I love you" turns into "hello." When we say Hashem's name blankly, Just say His name without much thought, chas v'shalom, Hashem's name becomes lesser.

1:05:02lesser. So, it behooves us to put more into it. More effort into it, more thought into it by thinking about those words that I mentioned to you. And that improves things drastically. The same thing also goes with a relationship. I'm not saying to say "I love you" less. What I'm saying is think about why you're saying "I love you." to your wife, to your husband. It's important for couples to show affection to each other and to tell each other they care about each other, to tell each other they love each other, especially when things are not necessarily going great. Because sometimes one of the parties or both need to hear it. But it's worthless if you're not thinking about those words, if they just become empty words. So just like your marriage requires the words to have meaning, so does your marriage to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. It requires you to give meaning to those words. Next one. We are people who want visuals, especially sometimes when you see different things like kings and angels with different images. And even when you're taking

1:06:28sometimes you might be thinking, you know, people want to represent, for some reason, God as something—a king, a lion, the wind. I understand; I get it. To have to give God an image is not good. That's why you're not supposed to look at the sky. You know, sometimes people like to go outside and pray outside. And when they say God's name, they want to look at the sky. That's a mistake. You know, it's, if you don't know what's allowed and what's not allowed, looking at the sky and thinking that you're going to see something or something like that, it's not a good idea. You're going to see some tzaddikim looking at the sky, but they're not thinking the same thing you're thinking. It's human nature since the beginning of time to try to humanize God.

1:07:29to give Him an image, to give Him some type of likeness to us. It's human nature. That's part of the reason why idolatry is what it is, whether it be idolatry from Christianity, Catholicism, or all of the other religions. They've constantly humanized God, generation after generation, and it's not going to stop anytime soon until HaKadosh Baruch Hu puts a stop to all of it. Now, For us, though, we're obviously not allowed to do it, even more so than they're not allowed to do it. So what a person needs to do is look at his siddur and look at the words and the name of Hashem. So if you want to look at something or visualize something, visualize the name of Hashem. Not that that's Hashem; Hashem doesn't look like letters. But that's His billboard. Where you know that if you have a billboard that says "Hashem," ah, that's His house. If I want Hashem, that's where I go. You know, you're on a highway, you're going on a road trip cross-country, what do you look forward to? These giant signs they have on the highways. Why? Because that's going to tell you if you're going in the right direction or not. And once it gets to "Welcome to such and such," you're as excited as can be.

1:08:56Why? Because you know that this is where you need to be. This is where you want to be. And in essence, the Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei is that representation, if you will. where you're going to the right destination. You're going to the right place. It's not that that's God. It's not what God looks like. But when Kabbalists, for example, do all of their different prayers and special prayers, sometimes you see all of these short two-letter names everywhere. Or on Friday in your Siddur, do you say "Ana Bekoach"? It has three letters at the end of each verse, which is, by the way, the acronym for those words. It's the first letter of each one of those words. But you're not allowed to say them; you have to think those letters, because those are special names. Those are special names. You think of them, you picture them in your mind. You picture them in your mind.

1:09:57That's what kavanah means. When you have kavanah, you picture this; you have a mental picture of those letters. Same thing with the Shem Hashem. You have the kavanah where you're having a mental picture of those letters. And one of the Kabbalistic concepts, not that I'm going to start teaching you guys Kabbalah or that I even know it, but this little bit could help, is that they visualize these names with added visual elements, where it's a white fire on black fire, where the letters are a white fire, and then there's a black fire behind it, if you will, or vice versa. So it's not just a kavannah of the image of those letters, but it's those letters in a specific color. That also has a significance. The point being is, I can tell you this: I tried doing this in the beginning. I mean, if you're really doing it, your prayer reaches a new high, but it becomes an hour and a half.

1:11:08to do Amidah. So, not necessarily everybody in the world has that kind of luxury of time to pray for a regular Amidah. People want to finish it in less than 10 minutes. You know, you tell them, okay, now your Amidah is going to turn into an hour and a half. It's okay, but when are you going to work? When are you going to eat? When are you going to learn? So, you know, there are easier things to do. And you should definitely start with those anyway, which is what I just said. There are a few other words you could add also. But the point is that these words that I'm mentioning to you, you think them. You don't say them. You only say the words of the prayer. But the words that I'm telling you, think them. You think those words, and you go from there. Next. Yes. Doing business and selling goods, let's say. And before, I always think about how sometimes people will return things and pass them as... So what's the criteria, really, to say,

1:12:20It's used, like you sell something, the person never used it, or they see it, they don't like it, and they return it. Is that item used? No, it's not considered used. No, used is what really means used, meaning the person... Actually used it. Once a person bought something, let's say a woman bought a dress, a $5,000 dress. She wore it to the wedding. Okay, thank you very much. But she knows she's not going to wear that dress anymore. She returns it. She's a thief. The thief. Why? Because everyone knows, number one, you don't wear those dresses every day. The use of that dress is, in essence, a once-in-a-blue-moon type of thing. So once you've worn it already once, it's considered used. Meaning you wore it to an event, you got it dirty, you did something with it. People, for some reason, think as long as the receipt is on it, it's not used. It's nonsense. You wore it to an event, you got your sweat on it, you've used it, and everyone knows that if another customer knew that you wore it to an event, they would not pay full price for it. That's considered used. If you return it expecting a full refund as if it's a new product, you're a thief.

1:13:32On the other hand, if, let's say, for example, you tried something on, which, you know, many people try something on. This is the nature of the business of apparel. You try things on. That does not make it used. You try it on to see if it fits. It doesn't fit. You like the way it looks. It doesn't look. It looks. That's not a problem. But if you've actually used it, you wore it to an event or whatever, yeah, then it's used. So that's one thing. Different things have different... levels of what's used and what's not used, but also stores have their own metrics of what's considered used and what's not considered used. In reality, everyone has that inner conscience that tells them what's right and wrong to do. where you know that if you're, let's say, the owner of the company, or you're one of the employees, and you got a customer returning the product to you. Within a minute, you know if this product is used. If you're an expert in the business, within a minute, you know if it's used. If it has deodorant on it, if something's broken, if something is scratched, if something has a little wear and tear because you already had it for a couple of weeks, you know it's used. So if that means you have to rehash it,

1:14:44you have to start cleaning it and fixing it in order for it to look new, you're selling a used product. You're selling a used product. If you don't have to do anything other than repackage it, then it's brand new. But once you start having to put work into it to make it look new, then you obviously are a ganav. You're a criminal. But if it's just repackaging it, no, repackaging, repackaging, repackaging doesn't make the product new. So, that's the thing. There's an entire industry that was enormous back in the day. I mean, it still exists today. that many thieves made tens of millions of dollars, in some cases even hundreds of millions of dollars, where they would buy refurbished computers televisions and cameras, which are, in essence, electronic products that people buy, and then those products break for some reason or another. Either they break physically or there's a software issue, whatever it is. Since they have a warranty, they return it to the company. The company is more inclined to just give you a brand new product than fix that one.

1:16:03So, they just give the guy a brand-new camera or a brand-new TV, or so on. But then what happens with that product they return? They don't want to just throw it out. That's a complete money loss. So, what do they do? They give it to a special department to refurbish that product, fix it, and make it as if it's new. But they can't sell it as new. It's illegal because it's still parts that were used. So, now they have to sell it as refurbished. Now, the price is significantly lower, but nonetheless, it still has value, instead of being completely lost by throwing it out. So what thieves would do, and unfortunately still do to this day, is they would buy truckloads and container loads of refurbished products, refurbished computers and TVs, and so on, and then have an entire team of people Take out all of the indications that this product is refurbished. Because although it's refurbished, the average person can't tell. It looks brand new. They fixed all the scratches. They fixed everything. It looks brand new. You can't tell. The only thing that's different is the packaging, usually. So they would buy brand new packaging.

1:17:18and put it in a brand new box. And they would take out the stickers that say refurbished and put on a brand new sticker and do all types of things to make this look brand new. So they would invest literally a few dollars and sell this refurbished product as brand new and make a fortune out of it. Because now instead of selling it for, let's say, $300, they can now sell it for $900 by investing five bucks into it. You understand? This is gezel. This is stealing, 100%. Unfortunately, it exists today. It was much, much bigger. There was a huge company called Crazy Eddie, where they were the pioneer in this robbery. And, but as I said, once you get acclimated to making a certain crime, you start becoming numb to crime altogether. And what ended up happening with Crazy Eddie wasn't that they were caught for what I just said, even though many of the followers, many of the followers of Crazy Eddie's strategy, they ended up getting caught for this. Some of them went to jail. Some of them got fined millions of dollars and so on. But Crazy Eddie didn't get caught for this. What did he get caught for?

1:18:32insider trading and accounting fraud. They would cheat; they were cooking the books. I actually met the CFO of the company who was the one actually cooking the books, and it's... The whole thing was a big chaos. This is almost 40 years ago, 30-something years ago. And the guy that was running it went to jail and lost everything. But it wasn't for the crime that I just told you. It was for something completely different. Why? Because he got numb. He got numb to crime. He got greedy. A hundred million wasn't enough, so he wanted a billion. A billion wasn't enough. And he started doing much, much worse. And eventually got himself into much deeper trouble. If he was going to be caught for what I just told you, he would have still had his money and probably wouldn't have done any jail time. But because he went to the next level, you know, the red line kept getting further and further, and eventually, he became just an outright criminal that, you know, cost people a fortune. Next. Yes. Two quick questions. One thing. There are three. What's the implication with someone like a Jew

1:19:52Yes. All right. Right. Right. Right. And then, for some reason, because usually, especially in this era where, you know, things happen online, you don't know people personally, so you don't know, but this is for, you would look at names, that's for non-Jews, whatever that may be. But one of these non-Jews somehow converted to Judaism and becomes a Jew. And you don't know that, or whoever's doing that does not know. So what's the implication now? Okay, okay, so let's say, for example, you lend money to a goy. Is that money to a goy, and that goy converted to Judaism? That's a very interesting question. I mean, it's a little bit of a problem. It's a little bit of a problem. Now, everything that you've charged that goy while he was a goy is allowed.

1:21:12It's allowed as long as it's ethical, as long as it's within industry norms, it's allowed. Now, these cash advance businesses that we've spoken against and exposed over the last year or so, that's completely forbidden because they pretty much murder people. They charge people 40, 50, 500%, crazy, ridiculous numbers. Like one guy thought he was a tzaddik because he was only charging 40%. This is complete highway robbery. This is forbidden completely for goyim or for Jews. But if you're charging industry norms, which is, you know, I don't know, 5%, 10%, even 15%, whatever is allowed legally, you know, for a normal bank to charge, then you're doing that to a goy, that's allowed. It's not recommended, but it's allowed. And Shlomo HaMelech and David HaMelech write in Tehillim and in Mishlei that a person that's in that business will never see bracha. Their money will not be blessed. Hashem will eventually take all that money and give it to someone who helps poor people. But anyway, if you did it, it's not a sin, but it's not a business that Hashem likes. So now...

1:22:23If a person does this ethically, he lends money. There's a need for that business. People need to borrow money for certain things. And he does it and he's an ethical person. He charges normal rates and so on. And the non-Jew that is borrowing from him converts to Judaism, everything that he's charged him thus far is allowed. As far as what he charges him moving forward, I mean, if he doesn't know, then he cannot be held accountable for it. If he does know, he has a little bit of an issue. Because it's just like you are allowed to charge a Jew that violates Shabbat openly interest. If a Jew drives on Shabbat, you are allowed to charge him interest. Why? Because a Jew that drives on Shabbat and desecrates Shabbat on a regular basis, according to Halacha, he's considered 100% an idol worshiper. So the Halacha says that you are allowed to charge such a person interest. Even Rabbi Ovadia Yosef is on record. There's a video I have. I've sent it to several people. He says, a Jew that violates Shabbat, you're allowed to charge him interest.

1:23:40no problem with it, but you shouldn't. Why shouldn't you? Why shouldn't you charge him interest? Because maybe he's going to do teshuva, and if he does, you have a problem. You have a problem. It's not just the problem of you can't charge him interest moving forward. There's a possibility you may have to return the money that you've charged him. Where are you gonna get the money from? Best is just to stay away from it. Don't charge anybody. Don't charge them interest. Don't charge them interest. Why? Because, again, you're putting yourself in a pickle. You're putting yourself in it. So a Jew that is converted, I don't know the exact details of what would actually have to happen, but I'm sure it's in that line where everything you've charged is, you know, thus far is okay, much easier than the situation with a Jew that was just violating Shabbat because you already know he was a Jew from the start. So everything that you charged them as a goy is allowed. There is no teshuva for the goy or anything. But as far as moving forward as a Jew, now that he converted, it could be problematic. But again, it's the responsibility of the convert to tell the person.

1:24:53It's the responsibility of the convert to tell the person that he converted. But it would have to go to a Posek to see what could take place, whether they would have to change the terms of the deal or sell the loan. uh, to a goy. You know, you'd have to refinance the loan and do something else with it. Keeping it with nothing, I don't think it's a good idea. You'd probably have to sell the loan. You'd have to sell the loan to somebody else just to keep your hands clean, which, again, is one of the reasons why it says you just simply shouldn't be in that business. Shouldn't be in that business of lending money to people with interest. Although it seems like this is a very necessary business, the world can go on without it. It doesn't necessarily need to be this way. But people do it. Next. Thinking about the moment now, what's happening in the world right now, that could have happened at any given time. It could be the summer, the winter. For some reason, it's happening now. And by the same token, we have this portion that comes right to me. Yes, yes. Technically, so he has to do... Forget the word. So he has to do... Something has to do with us right now. Yes. Because we have our synagogues. You know, people can't read.

1:26:03That could have happened at any given time. It could be the summer, the winter. For some reason, it's happening now. And by the same token, we have this portion that comes right to me. Yes, yes. Technically, so he has to do... Forget the word. So he has to do... Something has to do with us right now. Yes. Because we have our synagogues. You know, people can’t read. all these things going on. So what is the line between, you know, sometimes you might be talking about someone, not with the intent of, you know, degrading or saying, you may know something, you're just relating to someone, just, you know, just so. Sometimes it may not even affect the person, may not even have a problem with whatever you're saying. Right. What's the line? The details of Lashon Hara are very, very extensive and very wide because Lashon Hara is not just what people think. Really, the overall subject of speech is constantly categorized as Lashon Hara, but it's not just Lashon Hara. Generally speaking, there are a few things you should know.

1:27:20Number one, it's never a good idea to speak about people unless these people are people you're trying to warn somebody about because then you're warning people. So let's say someone is a murderer, spiritual or physical murderer, and you're going to tell people, "Listen, stay away from this person. He's a murderer." That's an obligation that you have to do because you're saving them from risk. But if the person is not such a person, he's just perhaps somebody you don't like. Or maybe he is somebody you like, but he's just a person. Generally speaking, it's better not to talk about people unless what you're talking about is in order to help them. So it's either to help somebody else by warning them about such a person because they are a confirmed risk, a confirmed danger, or it's to help the person you're talking about. For example, if you have somebody who is doing something bad in your life, and you want the rabbi to help him, the rabbi needs to know all these details.

1:28:27You are allowed to tell the rabbi all of those details. Why? Because you are telling the rabbi not in order to insult this person, not to bring shame to this person, but rather to help him. Tell him, "Listen, Rabbi, this guy's cheating on his wife, this guy's cheating on his clients, this guy's doing this, this guy's doing that." You're, in essence, exposing him, but you're exposing him for his own benefit. He's a drug dealer. He's a drug addict. He's this. He's that. So the rabbi now knows this, and you told him this information, but it's in order to help him. In essence, you're giving the rabbi the information that your friend, your brother, your sister, your cousin, your loved one, whoever this person is, he's sick because, you know, the rabbi has the cure. So that is good. Or perhaps your wife tells you about one of your kids. Oh, the kid is doing such and such. Why? It's lashon hara. Yeah, technically it is, but it's allowed. Why? Because she's telling you because it's productive. It's something that's in order to help the person, help the child, help the friend, help the spouse, and so on. So if it's a speech in order to help a person,

1:29:33by warning him of danger or helping a person who is in danger, even if he himself may not realize it, and you're telling somebody who could help him, that's allowed. But to just generally speak about people without any type of benefit to those parties is a problem. The second thing is when it comes to speech in general, If a person is not careful with their speech, their sin of misspeaking is not going to only be... thank you. It's not only going to be just Lashon Hara; it's going to be many, many other things. Now, the third gate of Shaarei Teshuva... has an entire section about forbidden speech and different types of people that are a danger to society, are a danger to themselves, they get punished severely in this world, and many of them actually lose Olam HaBa. Now, when we think of someone that says something that's forbidden,

1:31:00We're thinking of someone that said something bad. You're making fun of somebody. You are insulting someone. That's when we think about this as bad. But what about if I compliment you a whole lot? The average person would say, "Wow, that makes you a really nice person. That's not a sin." Well, news. That could be not only a sin but a sin so grave, a person that is doing it, that's speaking, giving compliments, could lose Olam HaBa. Why? It depends on who you're speaking about. So Rabbeinu Yonah says the following. He says there is a certain section of people that are not only a danger to themselves, but they're a danger to society, and they get a punishment that is very, very severe. Severe to the extent where they can lose Olam HaBa. What is this? The class of flatterers. People that are flatterers. And he says, the subject of flatterers

1:32:23Deep, and there are nine different types, nine categories, nine different types of flatterers. Not all are built the same or are the same. The first category is a flatterer, someone that says, "You're the best, you're amazing," and constantly gives compliments to people. Why should this be bad? This should be, wow, this guy is a fantastic human being. He loves everyone. What a tzaddik he is. He loves everyone. Rabbeinu Yonah says, absolutely not. The class of flatterers who recognizes or sees or knows that his fellow is tainted with sin and embraces deceit or that he sins through lashon hara himself and verbal abuse but still decides to smooth talk him with an evil tongue and says, you have committed no wrong. Not only has the flatterer committed the transgression of withholding the rebuke, the reproof from him, as the Pasuk says, that you must rebuke your fellow man, “hocheiach tocheiach et amitecha”

1:33:38and do not bear a sin because of him, but he also further sinned by saying, you have not sinned. As the pasuk says in Yirmiyahu 23:14, they have strengthened the hand of the evildoers. They've strengthened the hand of the resha'im. The people that are doing bad by telling them, no, what you're doing is not bad. No, no, your business is kosher. You what? You donate 20% right from the cash advance business? You're a tzaddik. You're good. It's allowed. There's no one tzaddik. I wish I had a million tzaddikim like you doing cash advance, robbing the goyim. That rabbi that gave the heter to the guy doing the illegal business. That rabbi that gave the heter to the guy that's driving on Shabbat because he donates a lot of money. That rabbi that told him, no, no, you're a good guy. You're a tzaddik. Well, he knows he drives on Shabbat. He knows he cheats on his wife. He knows he cheats in business. He knows. But he tells him he's a good guy. He tells him he's a righteous person. He's not doing anything wrong. Rabbeinu Yonah says you're worse than him. Not only did you not rebuke, but you actually gave him strength to continue sinning.

1:34:46So now, not only does he not think he's making a mistake, but he actually thinks that what he's doing is a mitzvah. "No, I'm providing a service to the public, Rabbi. They need money. I'm providing it to them. They can't get it anywhere else." Let them not get it anywhere else then. It's better if they don't get it from anywhere else than get it from you, that you're robbing them. Now, such a flatterer... Rabbeinu Yonah continues and says, "This is a serious transgression in the hand of the foolish flatterer, for he is not zealous for the truth." But abets falsehood, declares evil to be good, making light into darkness. He also places a pitfall before the sinner from two vantage points. First, as a result of this, the sinner does not regret his evil because you told him he's doing good. He's not making mistakes. He doesn't regret it.

1:35:54So that's already the first, that's the critical, step number three of teshuva. Without regret, there's no teshuva. You could stop the sin, but if you don't get to the level of regret, it's not complete teshuva. So how is the guy gonna regret what he's doing if you tell him he's doing okay? He's never gonna get to regret, meaning he's never gonna complete teshuva. You're simply taking olam haba from this person and throwing it in the garbage. That's the first crime only. That's just the first crime. And second, he repeats his foolishness the next day since the wicked flatterer has praised him in his heart's desire. This guy will continue sinning. Not only are you telling him he's doing good, so he's okay with everything, all the skeletons that he buried, but he's gonna continue doing it. There's no reason for him to change. You told him he's doing fine. Besides this, he will bear punishment for the harm he caused to the person whom the sinner wronged by justifying the one who sinned against him. All of his victims, all the people he steals money from, he overcharges them, he lies to them, cheats them, all of their suffering will come onto that person who told him everything is okay. That rabbi who told him, "You're a tzaddik," all of that goes on him also.

1:37:15All of this guy's victims, your students' victims, all of that goes on that person also. All of their suffering. Well, he'll get punished for it. He becomes an owner of the business without getting any of the financial benefit. He gets all the sins from the benefits, from the business. All the sins. But I only told him once. Once is more than enough. And Rabbeinu Yonah says, he'll bear the punishment for the harm he caused to the person whom the sinner wronged by justifying the one that sinned against him. And aside from that, he will be punished for his false words. The fact that he lied, that's another sin. As it says in Tehillim, "You will destroy speakers of deceit." All these fake speakers, all of these people that tell people everything's okay, you don't have to change, Hashem owes you, Hashem needs to please you, you know, like all these Hashem we keep talking against, the Freedmans, the Dwecks, all these fakers. David HaMelech says,

1:38:31HaKadosh Baruch Hu makes a promise in the Torah. What? You will destroy speakers of deceit. All of these liars, HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to take them personally. One-on-one, He's going to destroy them. He's not even going to send a malach. He's not going to send a malach. Like Amalek. That's what the Torah tells us. People like this, HaKadosh Baruch Hu will take revenge against these people personally. That's what David HaMelech is telling us here. And Rabbeinu Yonah is quoting him. And also, as his son says in Mishlei, "One who justifies an evildoer and he who condemns a righteous person, both are an abomination of Hashem." Because people who are justifying the resha'im, telling them that everyone is okay, everyone's a tinok she'nishba, and they continue sinning, saying Hashem is going to give everyone Gan Eden, the Rebbe is going to save them, this one's going to save them, all that nonsense. Not only are they removing people's desire to do teshuva, but they're also telling the people that are doing wrong against Hashem.

1:39:41He's justifying it. But what happens with those people? Those people also end up condemning the righteous people that say the truth. Ah, he's too strict. This guy keeps saying, you can't drive on Shabbat. What is he talking about? He's a fanatic. He's extreme. I don't agree with you. What do you mean you don't agree with me? Why, did I write this? That's what happens because not only do they tell people that they're fine, but they also cause them to hate the truth. They cause them to hate the truth. This applies even more so if the sin of his fellow man is public knowledge. For when the flatterer says to him, before others, "You're pure without any sin," he has now desecrated and demeaned both the law and justice. Person now tells people, "You have a big knesset. Everyone knows this guy's driving on Shabbat, but he says he is a tzaddik. Here's a tzaddik; everyone gives the guy kavod in front of everyone. This guy not only made the sins in the beginning, but now he did it in front of everyone. Oh, what he's got waiting for him."

1:40:55What he's got waiting for him. And this is, rabotai, the best-case scenario. It gets worse after this. In the next section, 188, Hashem yishmor ve'yatzil. He says, a person must expose himself to danger rather than bear upon his soul the sin of such transgression. He says, it's better you jump into a fire, jump into a volcano, than do what we just talked about. Go jump over a bridge. Give yourself coronavirus. Then go and be a flatterer. Tell people things that, in reality, you know are lies. You know it's a lie. You know the guy goes against Hashem regularly, on purpose. No, I don't care. You know he's not at the job on Shabbat. No, but I live really far. Okay, so go to the Beit Knesset. No, but there's no Beit Knesset, so move. No, but what do I do until I move? Final or rental? I don't know what to tell you. Don't go. The point is, you can't drive on Shabbat. No, but the rabbi says it's okay. Okay, the rabbi has a very nice villa in Gehinnom. With you together, both of you guys. Thanksgiving every day. Rabbeinu Yonah says it's better that a person expose himself to danger

1:42:26then be such a flatterer. And mamash goes all out over here, telling people how horrible it is to be a flatterer. The second category of flatterer is a person who praises an evildoer in front of others, whether or not he's present, not by justifying the sinner's larceny or denying his accountability. Like, he doesn't say that what he's doing is right. He's not that guy. He's not saying, no, no, he's a tzaddik, his business is needed, he's a good guy. No, no. He says, no, no, this guy's worse. What does he do? What does this guy do? He doesn't even deny that this guy's a thief. He doesn't deny this guy's a thief. He doesn't deny this guy's a Mechalel Shabbat. But what does he say? He says that he's a good person. Yeah, I know he drives on Shabbat, and he's married to a guy, and he steals from people, and he has a few bodies buried in his backyard, but he's such a good guy, though. Rabbeinu Yonah says, this person is even worse than the one we just talked about. Calling this person a good person is a sin. Worse than everything we just talked about. Meaning, next madur in Gehenom.

1:43:45Calling him a good person. What's wrong? There's a lot wrong with it. Why is there a lot wrong with it? It says, the pasuk says in Mishlei 28:4, "Those who forsake the Torah praise the wicked." For had he not forsaken the Torah, he would not have praised one who violates its words and abrogates its mitzvot. If you give praises to resha'im, that means you're a rasha yourself. That means you're a rasha yourself. And that's what the Radak says in the commentary on Parashat Korach. Parashat Korach says people are saying, yeah, but this guy is a rasha, rasha. No, no, the people that supported him. Why do all the people that supported Korach also get punished? Because they're worse than him. Why? They supported him. And anyone that supports a rasha is worse than a rasha himself. Why? Radak says because the one that supports the rasha by saying "Chazak u'Baruch," you're okay, everything's okay, he gives him power because, in essence, this guy wouldn't continue if it wasn't for the support you give him. There's a small chance he wouldn't continue just because he's not getting support. He knows people don't like him. But the fact that you like him, that's enough reason for him to continue. And calling him a good person is a form of support.

1:45:12No, but he's got a Jewish heart. The dog has a Jewish heart too. Jewish heart? What is a Jewish heart? Do teshuva. Do teshuva. That's what a Jewish heart is. A Jewish heart does teshuva. Not continue sinning with your support. How is he going to do teshuva? If you really care about his Jewish heart, you tell him to do teshuva. So, here he says, Even if he only praises the evildoer for the good that he possesses, speaking well of him to others regarding his upright qualities, this too is a sickly evil. It's not even that he says he's a good person. He simply compliments something that he does. Yeah, but he's very good at his job. Not allowed. No form of compliment is allowed to be given to a rasha.

1:46:14Yeah, but you know he built that building. You know he donated to that thing. Not allowed. Not allowed to compliment this person in public. Not allowed. Why? He's a person that violates Hashem's name on a regular basis. What if it's a parent? Who says you have to compliment them in public? Not in public. Compliment the parent to themselves, that's a different story. What's the goal? What's the reason? We're talking about here that he's doing it in public. He's doing it in front of other people. because, in essence, that speech is not for the sake of that person anymore. You're telling other people he's a good person. So now, they're gonna rely on that information and use it for whatever else. They say, oh, he's good at building, oh, I'm gonna use him for building. He's good at looking, I'm gonna use him for looking. He's good at eating, I'm gonna use him for— in essence, you're giving him, you're his testimony, you're his credibility. You're vouching for him that he's good at something. He may be a horrible murderer and all of these other things, but he's good at this. You vouch for him, no good.

1:47:23But as far as complimenting a parent, you're not doing it to strange people. You compliment the parent to their face. What value is there in complimenting a parent to some stranger? What are you gonna do? Say, oh, I want you to be my parent also? I mean, you can say, you know, I have good parents, or just simply not say anything bad. But the point is, is that this one thing has a very clear difference here, is that here, He's saying that even if the person you're talking about is not there, and you're speaking about him to other people, which means that it's the words and how they affect the other people, not that person himself. Not the guy himself. It's how your words will be utilized by these other people. Because now they think he's good. Now they think he's generous. Now they think he's something. So a person has to be very, very careful. Like I said, you have to choose your words very carefully when you are speaking about other people. Now, sometimes you have a situation where it's uncomfortable. Somebody puts you on the spot. They say, "Is he good at what he does?" And the guy is right there. And you know he's terrible. You know he's terrible. He's not good at his job. Not that he's a thief.

1:48:48He's not a thief. He's not like, taking money from people and not doing the job. But, you know, he's not good. Why? You hired him one time, and instead of building you a kitchen, he built you a bathroom. So he's not good. But somebody puts you on the spot and he's right there. What are you going to do? You have to tell the guy and you have to get yourself out of this situation. you have to tell the guy, you have to judge yourself. It all depends on what you need. I'm not exactly the expert, but that's assuming he's not a bad person, he's just not necessarily good at his job. But if he's a bad person, if he's dangerous, you have to warn the girl, tell her outright, no, no, don't use him, he's a thief. If the person is intentionally wicked, you have to warn people. But if it's just not good, it's different. You can tell people, "You have a job, you have this, that." I don't necessarily have the same needs as you; I don't have the same expectations as you, and so on. But again, you don't have to lie about what you got. Listen, I got a bathroom instead of a, if you ask for specifics. But try to get yourself to not be the cause of loss. By the same token, don't lie.

1:50:09But if he's a wicked person, he's a danger to society, you must warn people. You must warn people. And he continues, and he goes on, and it's one of the interesting parts, is that in section 190, he starts off by saying, "Tzaddikim yit'avu et ha'rasha." Tzaddikim despise resha'im. As the Pasuk says in Mishlei, Proverbs 29:27, a man of iniquity, a sinner, is an abomination to the Tzaddikim. Tzaddikim, they hate Resha'im. We're not talking about Resha'im who don't even know they're Resha'im. We're not talking about this guy who grew up in a kibbutz; he doesn't even know what Shabbat is at all. He thought it's like a table. We're talking about people that know, people that go to Beit Knesset, but they drive—20 years already. They have unethical businesses, and they know it's unethical. It's not like somebody's cheating them. They're bad people. Tzaddikim hate such people. One who is not a member of the Tzaddikim, even if he does not despise and curse the wicked, at least he should not bless them.

1:51:38Even if you're not a tzaddik, and you're not at such a high level that you hate the resha'im, you actually have to be at a high level to hate the resha'im. Because you have to, first of all, know who's a rasha. Sometimes you're the rasha, but you hate other people and call them rasha. So first of all, you have to be at a certain level to hate the resha'im. Because you hate them for the sake of Hashem, not for the sake of you. You don't hate them because they're making fun of you. You don't care if people make fun of you. You hate them because they're making fun of Hashem. desecrating Hashem's name has nothing to do with you. If they insult you personally, don't even respond. If they insult you personally, you don't respond at all. You know how many times people have made videos about me? You never heard about it. Why? It's about me. They just call me names for no reason. You're never going to hear their names. Why? I don't really care. But if somebody desecrates Hashem's name, even if he doesn't know I exist, I'm going to make sure he knows now. Why? I'm going to make sure everybody knows that he's a rasha. Why? It's about Hashem. And even if you're not a tzaddik, you try to be a tzaddik. But if you're not even a tzaddik, and you're not even trying to be a tzaddik, you're not even trying to hate the wicked, Rabbeinu Yonah says, at least don't praise the wicked. Don't compliment them. Why? Because if you start complimenting, you become a rasha yourself.

1:52:58And he continues, the third level, I mean this is nine levels, this is a whole series. Point being, Rabotai, is a person needs to be very, very careful with speaking about people in general, good or bad, because it's not just about speaking about lashon hara, it's even things like flattering. You have to put so much thought into the words that come out of your mouth. It explains to us why the tzaddikim don't speak very much if it's not divrei Torah. They just simply don't speak much. If it's not divrei chokhmah, if it's not words of wisdom, they just don't speak. Why? Because they know that they could potentially fail. And that's where the Gemara says that the mundane conversation of the Chachamim, the students need to learn from. Why? Because even their mundane conversation is divrei Torah. Hence, you need to learn from it. The mundane conversation of regular people. So, a person needs to be very, very careful with their speech.

1:54:10And it's important for each one of us to take each one of these things into consideration. Now, the next question is, can Hashem judge a thought as an action? If so, when is the thought an action, and when is it not an action? So, if a person thinks about killing somebody, Hashem does not punish him for thinking it unless he ends up killing him. If he ends up killing him, He punishes him both for thinking it and for doing it. If she thinks something bad about her friend but she doesn't do anything about it, she doesn't get punished for it. But if she does what she's thinking, she gets punished for both. That's when the thought turns into action. But so long as it's simply a thought, you don't get punished for it. Only if it turns into action. The thoughts of immorality are inappropriate; they're not good. But you don't get punished for them unless you take action. Then you get punished both for the thought and for the action.

1:55:31This is why HaKadosh Baruch Hu told us, don't waste time. Because boredom leads to sin. Mundane conversations lead to sin. All of these different things, HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave us many, many mitzvot. Why did He give us so many mitzvot? To constantly keep us busy. Because if we're busy doing mitzvot, we don't have time to make aveirot. And that's what they're gonna ask a person in Shamayim. How did you have time to make aveirot? There are so many mitzvot to do every day. How did you even have time to make aveirot? How did you have time to make sins? If a person is truly busy doing mitzvot, you don't have time to make sins. Surely everybody sins occasionally, but not the purposeful ones, not the ones that are completely careless. I mean, eventually you get to a point where a lot of the things are just not in your, you don't have time for them. You don't have time to make sins. Why? You're busy doing mitzvot. You're constantly looking for chesed. You're constantly looking for opportunities to help people. You're constantly looking for opportunities to learn. You're constantly looking for opportunities to pray. You're constantly looking for opportunities to connect to Hashem, to connect to Hashem, to connect to Hashem, to His people, to His books, to His mitzvot. You're constantly looking for opportunities to do mitzvot. You don't have time to make aveirot. When you go up to Shamayim, we don't understand. We sent you to the world, gave you a body, eyes, and everything else. You didn't use a single one of them to make any mitzvot.

1:56:56I didn't even have time. I didn't have time to make so many aveirot. Why don't you use them for the mitzvot? If you just simply did the mitzvot, you wouldn't make aveirot. You wouldn't make the sins. There are so many mitzvot to do, you shouldn't have time to make sins. That's really what it comes down to. So a person needs to evaluate each one of these things. How do you get to that point? We'll finish off with this long story. It's a story within a story within a story, but it's worth it. If we truly knew, if anyone watches this shiur from last night, if a person truly knew the value of a mitzvah, he would constantly chase it. The problem for us is that we don't know the value of a mitzvah. We understand punishment because we can relate to the difficulties that we've endured in our lives. Each person has endured their own difficulty. But the reward part, it's hard for us to understand. So we understand reward in this world: money, zivug, this, that. But in reality, we don't understand why this mitzvah is bigger than the next one, how this reward is bigger than that one. It's hard for us to comprehend. Now, the people that do know much better than us live a life that shows us how valuable a mitzvah is, even when we sometimes don't think it's a big deal.

1:58:25The Rav MiBrisk, Rav Soloveitchik, alav ha-shalom, one time had an etrog for Sukkot that he had a little doubt whether this etrog was really the best etrog or if it's kosher. There was doubt. Good etrog, but he had a doubt of whether it's really a lemon or an etrog. So, unlike us, that say, ah, it looks like an etrog, it's good. What does he do? He goes and he makes some calls to Morocco. "I want you to bring me an etrog from such and such place, doesn't matter what the price, such and such." Special orders an etrog before Sukkot to come to Eretz Yisrael to make sure that he has the best etrog that's for sure, no doubts. Now, the Rav MiBrisk, Rav Soloveitchik... She was called the Brisker Rav because he was from Brisk. He was machmir on certain things that he was as strict as can possibly be on Pesach. They say that he would eat like black matzah. Why? It’s just a mixture that’s not an ounce of anything. He would literally burn his matzah. The matzah he would eat would be something like you’re not even sure if it’s matzah, just to make sure not to eat chametz.

1:59:53So for him, to fulfill the mitzvah in the best way, the highest way, was extraordinary. And for him to have a doubt on his etrog was unbearable to him. So he specially ordered an etrog from Morocco. But as you would have it, the etrog arrived at customs. And they stopped it there because you're not allowed to transfer fruits and vegetables from country to country unless you have a special license. So they stopped it at customs. He asked Rabbi Shlomo Lorincz, who told this story. All three of them, he was in the story himself, and he was a rabbi, but also part of the government. So don't have me please call them and tell them. I need a big favor. Please, if you can go to customs for me and use your connections to the government and so on to get me my etrog. If there's a fee, there's a cost, no problem. I need an etrog before Sukkot. So he started on a two-week mission, every day calling different people, going to different departments. It's not like today with cell phones and...

2:01:09You have to call, pay phones, this, that, driving to different places, get to customs, no, you gotta go to that head of department, that head of department, that department, that department. Long story short, after already almost wasting a week into it, you're almost at Sukkot, you have a couple of days away from Sukkot. He said, listen, the only one that can help you is the head of this whole department, here in Yerushalayim. Oh, okay, great, where can I meet him? Oh, no, he's on vacation. Where is he on vacation? In Tzfat, six hours. Go, meet him on vacation. And Rav Lorens knows how important it is for the Rav from Brisk to get the etrog. And you don't have everyday opportunities to make the gadol hador happy. He drives to Tzfat, finds this guy on vacation. Okay, I need you to help, I need you to release the etrog. He says, listen, I'm sorry, I can't help you. can't help me, it's already, you know, it's already Sukkot. Sukkot has already started, the first couple of days. Let's at least get in the whole... Why can't you help me? I can't help you because in order to release this, you're going to have to go to the head of the agricultural department for the entire country. He's the only one that can call the shots on this. Okay, where is he? He's in Yerushalayim. The head of the agriculture had a heart attack.

2:02:35He's not there. Where can I get him? He's in the hospital. Goes to the hospital. How are you doing? How are you doing? Everything okay? Okay, I need you to help me. The Rabbi, the biggest Rabbi in the world, he needs this to talk. Help me out, please. Okay, I'm willing to help you out. There are only a couple of days left to the Chag. I want to help you out, but the problem is, I don't have my paperwork here. Where's the paperwork? It's in Tel Aviv. There's no, you know, emailing to me. Okay, I'll drive to Tel Aviv. He drives to Tel Aviv. Rabbi Lawrence drives to Tel Aviv. A couple of hours. The paperwork, back. Okay, put the paperwork in. Sends to the department. It's already the last day. It's the last day of Sukkot. You know, and every so often they'll have me, please call them, okay, so try, try your best. Please try your best. At least let me get it to this mitzvah for the last day of Sukkot. Everything is put in, but it simply never happens. Sukkot is over. Rabbi Lawrence worked, did everything possible. It didn't happen. So, at the end of Sukkot, at night, he comes to Rabbi MiBrisk, comes to his house, and he sees Rabbi MiBrisk laughing and singing, happy as can possibly be. He says, "Kvod Harav, you got the etrog?"

2:03:57He says, "No, of course not. So how could the Rav be so happy? I mean, we worked so hard to get it— all these calls, all this effort, two weeks almost, trying to get this etrog. I thought the Rav would be upset." Rabbi Yisrael says, "When it's not possible, it's not possible." Rav Lorenz says, "What? I mean, with all due respect for the Rav, That's all you have to say? When it's not possible, it's not possible? He says, let me tell you a story. Story number two. He says, when I was in Blisk, a Talmid Chacham came to me and asked me to do him a favor. What's the favor? Speak to his old mother who lives in our hometown in a mamash, a hut, practically a garbage pail, by herself. She's old, and to convince her to move to Bialystok, to stay with her son, a much better place. He'll take care of her with his wife and so on. Why is she alone, so old, and not in exactly such a good situation? He says, it's mamash like pikuach nefesh.

2:05:26Please, if the Rav tells my mom that she has to do the halachically, she'll do it. He says, no problem. I'll talk to her. You're right. I'll talk to your mother. The mother comes to town, and Rav Mibli goes to her and meets her, this old woman. He says, why don't you move to your son's house? Such a good boy you have. His wife loves you. Kids love you. Why stay by yourself? The old woman says to him, Kvod HaRav, I'll do anything you say. Just don't tell me that I have to move, please. Anything else you tell me to do, I'll do. You're a giant. We're Anshei Torah. We keep Torah. Love Torah. But please, please, Kvod HaRav, don't tell me that I have to move, please. So Rav Mibli says, what do you have there that's so... That's keeping you there? I mean, your son's over here. It's clearly better conditions. What do you have over there that you're staying there? What are you staying there for? He says, let me tell you a story. Story number three. He says, my husband and I were always poor. Poor, not like poor today, where you only make 500 bucks a week. People think they're poor.

2:06:50Poor, we're talking about poor. Poor like there is one egg for six people. My husband and I have always been poor. So poor that, for Sukkot, we were not able to afford to buy the Arba Minim. Never. No money to buy an etrog. No money to buy that. But we love the mitzvot so much that HaKadosh Baruch Hu always made a miracle that my husband was always able to borrow it to make the mitzvah during the chag. Just to make the mitzvah. Not to own it. Just to make the mitzvah. One day, my dear husband comes to me. He says, why don't we start saving that maybe one day we will have the Arba Minim in Sukkot? From the two pennies we make, we'll put aside half a penny every so often, and save over a period of time until we can buy it. They were so poor, Rabotai, they saved for 30 years. 30 years they saved, for what? To finally come up with the money to buy the Arba Minim one time. After 30 years, they saved the money,

2:08:08Excited as can be, Rav Shim'on HaTzaddik, he comes to the guy and says, "I want Arba Minim." He gives him 30-year-old money. The guy tells him, "I'm sorry, with this money, you cannot even buy one of them. You can't buy one." He comes back home down. "What? I guess it's not gonna be." The wife, who was a tzaddeket, a kedoshah, says to him, "My dear husband, we're getting old. We must have an opportunity to fulfill this mitzvah." "Yeah, but we don't have it. We saved it for 30 years." She says, "Let's sell the house. Let's sell the house. We don't need this house. Let's sell the house and buy arba minim with the money from this house."

2:09:08And we can live in a little hut. We'll have a little garbage pail, practically. A piece of metal, four pieces of metal, one tiny little room. That's all we need. We'll have a mitzvah. The husband says, "Are you sure you can do it?" "Of course, we have to do this mitzvah." They go, they sell the house. To get the money, he comes back to the guy, he says, "I want you to buy me the best possible etrog, lulav, everything." Now you got a decent amount of money. Wow, that's a lot of money, a house. The guy goes, makes an extra journey, this, that, the other thing, he gets him something out of this world. It's such a good etrog, such a good lulav, everything is so good, the whole city finds out about it. Day before Sukkot, everybody finds out about this etrog, this lulav. "Please, please, can we see it? Now they live in a little hut. Can we see this beautiful etrog that you have? Such a special, unique, one of a kind. Can we see it?" "Yes, of course, of course. Why not?" And they start seeing it. "Wow, wow, wow." And he goes to the next guy. "Wow, wow, I've never seen such a thing. Wow, wow, wow, wow."

2:10:31falls out of the hand right on the top and breaks, meaning that they cannot even do the mitzvah even one time. It's not kosher if it breaks on the first day. After the first day, you could technically still use it for the second day, but if it's not kosher, you can't use it on the first day. What can you do? Cry? I would cry. What did he do as a tzaddik? What did his wife do as a tzaddeket? He says to his wife, when it's not possible, it's not possible. We saved for 30 years. It wasn't possible, it wasn't enough money. So my tzaddeket wife, you sold the house. You sold the house for this mitzvah.

2:11:33we got it. And it broke, which shows us that HaKadosh Baruch Hu already signed in Heaven not to do. That's it. This is what He wants. We did the utmost. We did everything humanly possible to fulfill this mitzvah. But HaKadosh Baruch Hu, for His own amazing reasons, justifiable reasons that we may never know, He decided, no. But we did everything. Baruch Hashem. Now, back to story number two. The old woman says to the Rav from Brisk, "Every single day, every single day, I walk right by that house that was sold for the mitzvah of an etrog. Thirty years of savings, all of the money sold for an etrog, the house, the etrog that was never used. I look at that house every single day, and it gives me life."

2:12:34It gives me life to see this. When are you going to see such a holy house? When are you going to see such a holy house that was sold for the sake of a mitzvah? When are you going to see such a house? And it was my house that was sold. And you want me to leave such a house? You want me to leave such a mitzvah? Rabbi Mibri says, "You're right. When you can't do it, you can't do it," he tells his son. "When you can't do it, you can't do it." Rabbi Yitzchak HaKadosh Baruch Hu says to us, "You can do it. You can do it. Not that you can achieve all of your mitzvot, become the biggest talmid chacham in the world, get the whole world to do teshuva, you will become, no. What you can do, you can try your best." That's what teshuva is. Teshuva is trying your utmost, trying your best to do every single mitzvah. If a person tries his best, he learns from parashat Tazria, he learns from parashat Tazria, he could change tzara'at to complete health. If he tries his best, he could turn around the entire situation in a matter of 24 hours. Even states of cancer, he could turn it around to completely healthy.

2:13:50If you try your utmost. If you don't try your utmost, what are you complaining about? But if you tried your utmost and still didn't succeed, don't be upset. Your reward is going to be 100%. Why? Because you did your job. You tried your best. And if it's not possible, it's not possible. HaKadosh Baruch Hu decided what the outcome is. The outcome is not in your hands. The outcome is in HaKadosh Baruch Hu's hands. What's in your hands is to try your best. The whole goal of every single session that we learn together is to try to motivate myself and hopefully you too to try our best. That's the goal. That's teshuva. Try your best. You know what your best is. And of course, Hashem knows what your best is. And that's what He judges us on. He doesn't judge us on what we can't do. He judges us on what we can do and we don't.

2:14:54And I promise you, you can do a lot more than you think. You can pray a lot better. You can learn a lot better. You can be a lot nicer. You can be a lot more. A lot more you can be. You just have to try your best. Try your best. Every day a little more. Every day a little more. If you're trying your best, you have no reason whatsoever to be worried. You have no reason whatsoever to be anxious. You have no reason whatsoever to have any doubts. Why? Because you're trying your best. And the outcome is in the hands of Hashem. This is the key to teshuva and success in life. You have yourself an opportunity to do your best every single day. Be'ezrat Hashem, we take advantage of it and come back and reconvene next week with some new learning, with some new opportunities to try our best and be'ezrat Hashem, get others to do the same. Baruch Adonai le'olam, amen ve'amen.