Loving Am Yisrael, KABBALAH, Bypassing Gehinom, Market & Eternal Investing - STUMP THE RABBI (55)

0:17Thank you very much for the water. Good to see everyone. As you can see, the Beit Knesset here is almost up and done. I would say we probably have maybe one more shiur here left, two possibly. It depends on how much time the last move takes. But, B'ezrat Hashem, we already have quite a few surprises in the works, B'ezrat Hashem. up and done. I would say we probably have maybe one more shiur here left, two possibly. It depends on how much time the last move takes. But, B'ezrat Hashem, we already have quite a few surprises in the works, B'ezrat Hashem. uh, as usual, our Wednesday night is the Sh'eilot U'Teshuvot (questions and answers) to stump the rabbi. You guys ask me some questions, and HaKadosh Baruch Hu will give us the answers. I have a few interesting stories. It all depends on how you guys want to start, whether you want to start with the questions or you want to start with the answers. um...

1:24Today's shiur, B'ezrat Hashem, will be for Refuah Shlema for Levana Bat Sarah, David Ben Esriah, Doris Bat Jorah, Esther Bat Zipporah, Dvorah Bat Mercedes, Orit Bat Ilana, Yitro Ben Avraham, Talia Bat Sarah, Serach Bat Batya, Batya Bat Sarah, and also Hatzlacha Rabah to Shaul Ben Farzaneh and Yitro Ben Avraham, and all of Am Yisrael Bezrat Hashem will have Hatzlacha Rabah, Refuah Shlema, Refuah Tanefesh, and Refuah Taguf. So, Baruch Hashem, we have a nice visitor here from New York. Batya Bat Sarah, and also Hatzlacha Rabah to Shaul Ben Farzaneh and Yitro Ben Avraham, and all of Am Yisrael, B'ezrat Hashem, will have Hatzlacha Rabah, Refuah Shlema, Refuat HaNefesh, and Refuat HaGuf. So, Baruch Hashem, we have a nice visitor here from New York. It's always good to see. The world continues to go crazy, I think, with the combination of the bad things that are happening with all of this destruction of property and so on, but also I think it's going to get a little bit more rowdy.

2:27As the elections in the United States get closer and closer to an end, things will get bad because what's become normal in today's world are things that are against the Torah. The Chazon Ish once said, what they call love, we call karet. You know, people call, "Oh, I love her, I love her," and the Torah says you love her, but it's karet because she's not your wife. and the problem today is that a lot of the things that are forbidden have become the norm. So what happens in politics today, that's become the norm, is that they massacre each other publicly in every way, shape, or form without any regard whatsoever to the fact that these people have families or the fact that these people maybe didn't even do what they're accusing them of doing. Now, without any regard whatsoever to whether it's true or not, it doesn't really make a difference. Don't let the truth get in the way of a good post. And that's really what's happening today, is that the politicians, especially the top ones, the president or the ones that want to be president, massacre each other. And I really don't understand why anybody would want to be a president.

3:45after seeing how much torture the recent presidents get, you know, from the media, and how one day they hate them, the next day they like them, the next day they destroy them, and then they didn't get destroyed, so they try again. And it's just a never-ending situation. I mean, it's not like they make that much money. I mean, the president of the United States makes $400,000 in actual salary. And but then he has all of his expenses paid. Let's say you call it another couple of million dollars a year. Of course, he has a paid gig for life that every time he's ever going to speak moving on is going to be paid a few hundred thousand dollars, which means that he's guaranteed to make a good income. But somebody like Donald Trump, for example, who already has a lot of money. I don't really understand why anybody in their right mind with that type of position would want to be president because it simply means that you're going to be public property for the rest of your life, the topic of conversation for the rest of your life. And I don't really know why anybody would want that attention unless, you know, it's just simply for ga'ava, for pride that, oh, I did it.

4:57That's a very, very sad state of existence because people that have ga'ava, and I think I told you guys this one time in the mussar series we had a few shiurim about it, people that have pride, they're much, much worse than beggars. Much worse than beggars. Because a beggar comes to you, he's begging, "Give me change, give me a dollar, give me a quarter, give me something." You give it to him, he goes away. especially if he made enough money for whatever he needs, whether he wants to get something to eat, a place to stay, or a drink, whatever it is. Bottom line is, he got it, he's gone, he's finished, he's finished begging for the day. It ends at some point. But a ba'al ga'avah, someone that's prideful, his desire is that addiction to pride never ends. Because there's no amount of pride, there's no amount of kavod, if you will, or honor that you can give him or her.

5:57It's so sad that you see some of the most established people in the world beg, beg for attention, do the dumbest things in the world just for attention. They do things that make absolutely no sense whatsoever, just to make a headline, just to go on some TV show. And unfortunately, you also see it in the religious world. where you see some people that are simply begging for attention. So what do they do? They contact the media and say, "Listen, I'll be on your network." "Why would we want Mr. Rabbi Nobody to be on our network?" "Well, you talked about homosexuality, and I think it's okay." "Oh, Rabbi says homosexuality is okay? Okay, yeah, you're welcome to come to CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, etc." And that's how people like, for example, Shmuley Boteach, Hashem yirachem, establish themselves. Everything that's forbidden, they say it's allowed. And in essence, how do they do it? They simply tell the media, "Yeah, you remember that verse in Leviticus that says that homosexuality is an abomination? Yeah, it's not really relevant. You guys just didn't understand it. So let me show you the beauty of the Torah. And by the way, my daughter has a sex store. You should highlight that too. Maybe she'll make some more money."

7:11In Tel Aviv, a rabbi's daughter, that's what she has. And this is how people that are proud live their life. They fiend for media attention; they're willing to do anything for it. And I tell you that if one day you start seeing me on the news networks on a regular basis, stop coming to my shiurim. I'm asking you for a favor—do me this favor. If you start seeing me on a regular basis, one time, two times, if something good happens, something big happens—okay, no problem. But if you start seeing me on the networks on a regular basis, say, "Rabbi, thank you very much for all the good years." You belong to the media now. We're not coming to shiurim. Don't come. Why? There's no way that I'll be able to tell you the emet if I know the media is watching. No way. Why? I'm a human being. I'm a human being. Anyone that cares about what the media thinks of him cannot learn a thing from him. Why? It's all about pride. It's all about what are they going to think? What are they going to say about this? Let me make some type of statement that maybe this one is going to get media attention.

8:32And that's why a lot of these pride fiends, these honor fiends, these people that are addicted like heroin addicts, what do they do? They have a publicist. What's the publicist's job? The publicist's job is to take any type of little crazy thing that the person said and send it to the media. What do you guys think of this? Oh, it's not good enough? Okay, Rabbi, you gotta get better. You gotta get better. Tell them that it's a mitzvah. Tell them it's a mitzvah to be homosexual. Okay, next week. And that's what they do. And that's what they do over and over again. And sometimes it's big media. like the CNNs and the NBCs of the world. Sometimes it's small media, like even Yeshiva World or a local newspaper in a Jewish community. But you constantly see the same rabbi being interviewed for no reason. What did he really establish in his life? What did he do? How many people did he help? Okay, so you have a kollel—big deal. Why? What's the, you know, you have to be in the media all the time. When do you have time to learn? And that's the thing that people have to be careful of because, unfortunately, the public today

9:32thinks that whoever is popular, by default, that means they're good. That means that they're kosher. And that's not correct. That's not correct at all. It's whoever says what Hashem says, that means it's good. Whoever lowers themselves in order to honor Hashem, that's good. But whoever is looking for attention, not so much. Not so much. Now, you may get attention anyway. But if it's only because you're trying to be like one of these jockeys that are constantly saying something to get attention, you're not a person that we can learn from. And that's why the Gemara in Masechet Moed Katan says that if your Rav does not have the middot of a malach, meaning he's not at least trying to be a tzaddik, he's not trying to be righteous, it's assur to learn from him. It's a sin. Sin, meaning like eating pork. If you go learn from one of these clowns that's on the list, it's like eating pig for every single second that you listen to them. "No, no, Rabbi, I don't eat pig." You listen to them, it's the same thing as eating pig, no different. Actually, the pig may be a little bit better. Why? Because the pig will make you stupid for a little while. That's what it says.

10:57that the Torah says don't say that you become impure when you hear things that are against Hashem. Then that makes you spiritually stupid, but for much longer than what the pig is going to do. So, a person has to be very, very careful with who he listens to and why he listens to them. whether it be a local rabbi or an online rabbi or whatever it is. Understand that we have, as a nation, the only mesorah (the only connection to the original source) that exists in the world. Now, the Christians and the Muslims can tell you the same thing, but it's not true. It's simply not true. Why? Because their book is not the book that was published 2,000 years ago and... have over 200,000 versions of the New Testament. Who can tell me that this one is right, especially since there's a new version of Christianity every other week? Now there's a new version called Lapid Judaism and Messianic Judaism. Neither one of them have anything to do with Judaism, but they're both versions of Christianity. Then you have the Seventh-Day Adventists.

12:16The Avengers over there. They think that they keep Shabbat. Then you have the Lutheran. Then you have the Protestant. Then you have all types of different Christianity and Catholicism and so on. So, who's right, who's wrong? How could they all be using the same exact book and arrive at a different conclusion? This guy's praying to Yoshkeh. This guy says he's just a Mashiach. This guy says Mary's his mother. This guy says that Mary's a saint. This guy says Paul is a rasha. The other one says he's a tzaddik. There's no real connection between the original source and what they are. Same thing with the Muslims. You look at the Muslims, you look at their Quran, there are thousands and thousands of versions of the Quran. Thousands of versions of it. And every single one of those versions has mistakes that are simply mistakes that a five-year-old Jew can figure out. One example is the fact that they say that Moshe Rabbeinu, Moshe Rabbeinu is related to Yoshkeh. Because Miriam, his sister, the tzaddeket, was really Mary, Yoshke's mother, even though they lived over a thousand years apart. Or better yet, Pharaoh and Haman were good friends, even though they lived over a thousand years apart, and on top of that, they were from two completely different countries.

13:32you have basic simple things that the Quran has an error, and anyone that knows a little bit of history, anyone that double-checks, knows that obviously this is not connected to the original source. The Quran that you're buying right now or you're getting for free from Mustafa today is not the right Quran that you got 1600 years ago or 1400 years ago. It's not. But the Torah that we have... Raktosha is the same one. Now, the beautiful part is that the more you research the truth of the Torah, the more you'll know what I just said to be true. But even more so, the more you'll be able to fulfill the mitzvah that's in Sefer Devarim, Parashat Va'etchanan, "Veyadata Ki Ani Hashem Elokecha"—that you know that I am Hashem your God. You know, not you believe, you know. And it's a mitzvah obligation for every single Jew to do everything possible to look at all of the Torah proofs, whether they be scientific, rational, or otherwise. Look at them, investigate them, and know them to be true.

14:45Because what's going to happen is at some point, some kofer is going to come to you. He's going to tell you, "Yeah, but you know that rabbi said this, but the other rabbi said that. And you know that this guy said this and this guy said that." He's going to try to confuse you. And that's why the Gemara in Masechet Avodah Zarah says that you have to know enough Torah to deal with the kofer. What does that mean in practical terms? You have to know proofs. Proofs that God is real and that the only message that He gave us is the Torah HaKedosha. No other message. Especially since He says that He's never going to change His Torah, He's never going to change His nation, and so on and so forth. Hashem doesn't change His mind. So it's an obligation for us to know that the Torah is real now. Am Yisrael, Am HaKadosh, unfortunately, for the most part, doesn't know everything I just told you. And that's why we have to do everything possible to help them, because not everybody is in your position, knowing that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is real, or at least is very close to knowing that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is real and His Torah is real. Not everybody knows. In fact, most people don't.

15:55The vast majority of Am Yisrael does not even keep Shabbat, which means that although they may say that they believe in God, most of them, although they may say that they feel Jewish, the reality is they do not know God. Why? Because if you know God, you will not go against Him. Even more so in the Goyish world, the non-Jewish world. The vast majority of them don't know who God is. The vast majority of them are not righteous Noahides. The vast majority of them are idol worshippers. And when we help Am Yisrael do teshuva by understanding who God is, we're also helping the goyim because many goyim watch the shiurim and know that they can apply almost everything that I just told you to their life. Almost all of our shiurim are applicable to all of mankind because it's practically mussar. It's ethics. It's learning how to become a better human being. Not just a righteous Jew, but a righteous human being. And that's why there are many Jews and non-Jews that watch the shiurim and benefit from them and make changes in their lives. But it also means that these people are already searching for the emet. And HaKadosh Baruch Hu made a promise in Sefer Devarim, chapter 4, where He says, if you look for Me, you will find Me, but only if you look for Me with all of your heart and all of your soul. Meaning you have to actively look for HaKadosh Baruch Hu and His emet in order to find it. It's not going to come knocking on your door.

17:23Now, it may come as a postcard to your door, but it's not going to come knocking. What do I mean? About three or four months ago, maybe three months ago, we tried all types of things to help Am Yisrael do teshuva. All types of things. You know, we try to use our knowledge from business in order to Mechalef, to get people to do teshuva. So we try all types of marketing things. We print CDs, we have the USBs, we have YouTube, the app, this, that, all types of things. So a few months ago, we decided to print out these postcards that I told you guys so much about. And the company that was printing the postcards also has a service where they say, listen, if you want, we'll mail those postcards to whatever zip code you want. us the zip code, and we'll mail it to everybody in that zip code and then charge around 50 cents or something like that per card. It's expensive because you have to pay for the stamp and you have to pay for the service and so on, so it's expensive. I said, you know what, let's give this a try, see if we get anything. We invested a couple thousand dollars—I think a little over two thousand dollars. Go for it, two thousand dollars, b'ezrat Hashem, and we'll find somebody. You never know.

18:48About a month and a half ago, a month ago, I got a text message. Someone, somehow, I don't know who they are because they didn't leave a name or anything, slipped this card under my door. And I looked at it and I said, wow, I've been looking for more information about my heritage because she's a Jew. Let's see what this movie is all about. And she said the movie changed my life. I enjoyed every minute of it. And today she told me, "I've been keeping Shabbat for four weeks already." Now, I don't know how many other people did teshuva from that little tiny $2,000 investment. But all I can tell you is that if it cost me $2,000,000 to get one Jew to do teshuva, it's cheap. Cheap. That's what people don't understand. People don't understand how much you have to do just to get a Jew to do teshuva. How much you should be willing to do. So much so that Rabbeinu HaKadosh, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, says in the Gemara that someone who understands the value of what a Jew is and helping them do teshuva would spend his entire life of 70 years chasing a single Jew just to help him do teshuva.

20:07Now, to give us a little bit of an understanding of what Gedolei Yisrael thought about Am Yisrael, despite our sins, our flaws, and so on and so forth, one of the talmidim of Rav Shach, Rav Shalom, noticed that Kevod Harav never ate breakfast between the hours of 8 and 8:30. Never ate it. Before 8 o'clock, he saw him eat. 7 o'clock, 7:30, 7:45, no problem. He eats breakfast. So obviously he gets hungry early sometimes. After 8:30, he sees him eat. All the time. No problem. But never between the hours of 8 and 8:30, never. And a talmid that pays attention to his Rav pays attention to these things. And he found it unusual and he said, what is it for? You know, one time the talmidim, they went into Rav Shach's house, and they were there inside the house, and they saw that the Rav had books from Kabbalah that were very, very old, and he wrote commentary on all of it. Meaning he was a talmid chacham, not just in Halacha and all types of things. He was a giant in Kabbalah, but he didn't teach it. He didn't teach Kabbalah.

21:27but he was a giant in it. And many of Gedolei Yisrael dealt with Kabbalah, but didn't teach it. Why? Because it's not for everybody. The Arizal himself says that you shouldn't even start learning this type of information until you are a baki (expert) in all of the obligations, Shulchan Aruch, Gemara, Chumash, Tanach, all of the very basics, Mussar, and you're completely a baki (expert) in it, and you're at least 40 years old. Most people, in their second year of Teshuva, already want to start learning Zohar. It's the most ridiculous thing in the world. But anyway, Rav Shach, Kodesh Kodeshim, his entire life dedicated to the Torah, had commentary on the Kabbalah. So the student that noticed that the Rav never ate between 8 and 8:30 said, maybe it's a Kabbalistic thing. But how do I ask the Rav if it's a Kabbalistic thing if we already all know that he's never going to teach us Kabbalah? So he thought and he thought, and one day he got the courage to ask the Rav. He says, Kvod HaRav, I noticed...

22:28that the Rav never eats between 8 and 8:30. How come? He saw the Rav, who was almost 100 years old at that time, shocked and started crying. He started crying, crying, crying. "I'm sorry, Kvod HaRav. I didn't mean to. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't know it was such an emotional question." And the Rav looks at him. Rav Shach looks at him. He says, "Don't you know that between 8 and 8:30, over a million Jewish kids are walking to secular schools? The spiritual destruction of Am Yisrael takes place, and all of these kids are walking to schools. How can I eat when over a million kids are going to be destroyed spiritually? How could I eat? It's not that he's not hungry." You can't eat when you know that you have a million kids who are going to be destroyed. Where are they going to learn from? They're going to learn from a monkey that they are a monkey. They're going to learn to be homosexuals from a homosexual. They're going to learn to violate Shabbat because it's just like another day to them. They're going to learn to steal because that's the way to get ahead. What do you learn in secular school? What do you learn? You learn to have a girlfriend before she's your wife.

23:51What do you learn? He says, over a million kids are walking to school between 8 and 8:30. How could I eat? That's a person that understands the value of Am Yisrael. Because when you understand the value of Am Yisrael, you also understand the value of bringing them back to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. And when a person really wants really wants to help Am Yisrael do teshuva, he's simply willing to do anything. Anything possible. All types of sacrifices, whether it be monetary, physical, anything. And it's hard to find people that are willing to do it because everybody has their own line. So that's why I always tell you guys, you have to have merit to do kiruv. So how do you get merit to do kiruv? You have to learn Torah. Without learning Torah, it's impossible for your kiruv to work. Because even if you want to do kiruv, even if you want to help people, you have to have some merit yourself. You have to learn something yourself. You have to be a servant of Hashem yourself. HaKadosh Baruch Hu does not like hypocrites.

25:03wants people to help His people, but He's not willing to just give that merit to just anyone. So that's why we have to constantly learn, whether it's learning mussar or it's learning the parasha or it's learning whatever it is you're learning—you have to constantly, constantly learn. This is one of the key ingredients to being successful when it comes to kiruv. There's a lot more to say, but I'm sure you guys have some questions. So, who wants to start with some questions? Sometimes, in different books, you see quotes from sources like the Zohar or other mystical books. Therefore, how do you know? Okay, so that's a very good question. Now, you see quotes and sometimes even I mention quotes from the Zohar. How come that Zohar is allowed, but the other Zohar is not allowed? Okay, so you should know that there are several different parts to Kabbalah and the Zohar. It's not just all one thing. Much of what you see in books, practically all of it, and all of what I say to you, is the Midrashic part of the Zohar.

26:16That's a Midrash that you're allowed to learn, no problem. The one that we're talking about that you're forbidden to learn is the one that discusses the names of angels and different specific unique acts that a person needs to do in order to sanctify themselves and start changing nature, if you will. It's called Kabbalah Ma'asit. this is also part of it, uh, and also separate from it. There's also Kabbalah that's separate from the Zohar, and that's something that you're only allowed to learn from a rav, from a very, very serious rav. Now, generally speaking, it's not something that you're going to find on YouTube. Anyone that tells you he's teaching Kabbalah on the internet, the default belief is that he's a liar. The liar. There's no such thing as Kabbalah on the internet. Not because I've investigated everyone that calls themselves Kabbalists, but rather because it's, number one, not possible. Not possible. Number two, you cannot teach anybody Kabbalah. Number three, those people that say that obviously don't know Kabbalah, because if they did, they wouldn't be offering to teach it. Because when you deal with that type of Kabbalah, it's not like teaching regular Torah. It's...

27:29be dangerous. Let's put it that way, because what ends up happening is that really mystical stuff involves angels and things of that nature. Angels are not like humans—they don't have the same mercy as we do. So much so that if you say their name, just saying their name without learning anything or doing anything else—just saying their name—could be dangerous. they immediately check who you are. If you're not, meaning if you're not holy enough to say their name, they could hurt you—hurt you seriously. And that's why one time I, uh, spoke to my Rav, and we were talking about all different types of, uh uh, things that I had in my house. I used to have these little, uh, bull statues in my house because I was on Wall Street, and these eagles, and he told me, "Remove this, remove this. You know, not to have this, not to have that." Okay, fine, so I got rid of it. And I thought, listen, I have one thing left in my house that's really cool-looking, uh, and I guess it's holy, but I have no idea what it says.

28:39He says, what is it? I said, oh, it's this picture with a bunch of Hebrew letters that some Rav, somebody gave it to me in the name of some Rav because I donated a bunch of money. So they gave this to me. He says, what does it say? I said, I have no idea. I don't know how to read this stuff. I don't know. He said, can you take a picture of it? I said, yeah. So I took a picture of it and I sent it to him. He only had a few words for me: "Get rid of it." So I throw it in the garbage. He goes, no, chas v'shalom, genizah. So what's genizah? He says, you have to give it to somebody that's going to go bury it, like a funeral. Not to have in your house. I said, why not? What's wrong with it? It's a nice picture. The frame alone was like three, four hundred dollars. I said, I'll come. He says, that's the names of angels. You can't have that in your house. I said, why not? He says, because those angels, they may not like you so much. Get it out. Robby says, "You do? I liked it." The rabbi says, "No good. It's no good." So, everything that I tell you guys, usually I went through it. And the thing is, though, is that sometimes people don't want to hear it. They want to continue doing whatever they want to do. Don't say you weren't warned. Many times people want to have all of these supernatural, spiritual things in their house, in their life, and they want to read all types of things they don't know how to read or they don't know what they're saying.

30:06As a Jew, you have to be an expert in the basics. The basics. And I promise you, the basics are so massive, it's going to take you a minimum of 20 years just to know what they are. When you know the entire Shulchan Aruch by heart, then maybe, maybe you can start doing a little bit of chumrot and stringencies and so on. The reality is most people don't even know how to read the Shulchan Aruch. So you have to focus on the basics. When it comes to the Zohar, for example, there are Midrashim in the Zohar that you're allowed to read regardless of who and what you are in terms of your learning, because it's just a Midrash, just like Midrash Me'am Loez, Midrash Rabbah, and so on and so forth. There are many Midrashim. They give you the background details of different things that happened at different times. That you're perfectly allowed to learn. But once somebody says this is Kabbalah, either they're lying or you're not allowed to learn it. So you have to move in a different direction. Bechavod, next question. If it's not karet sins, then Gehinom will be a maximum of 12 months? Obviously, we have to try not to go there.

31:25The idea is to hopefully not go there, not go to Gehenom at all. But are you asking if it's not karet, is it a maximum of 12 months? Yes and no. It depends on the sin itself. There are some sins for which you don't even go to Gehenom; you go to Kaf HaKela instead, and Kaf HaKela is a lot more adventurous. Then Gehenom. So Gehenom is not the default. Kaf HaKela is a place, your Gemara Masechet Shabbat, the last section, I think maybe 154 in Masechet Shabbat, talks about, we learn it from Avigayil. Avigayil was one of the wives of David HaMelech. Avigayil says to David HaMelech, may your enemies all go to Kaf HaKela. And we learn, the Gemara says, what's this Kaf HaKela? And the Gemara says, Kaf HaKela is a place where there are these Malachei Chabalah, these special angels of destruction, where they slingshot the soul from one end of the universe to the other, while whipping it with all types of fires and other tormenting elements. For how long? It depends on the sin. So, for example, there was a seance done where they brought one of the Zionist leaders in that seance.

32:41and he said that he was in Kaf HaKela for 50 years, one year for every time he cheated on his wife. So, and that's before Gehinnom. That's before Gehinnom now When it comes to 12 months in Gehinnom and things of that nature, again, it depends on the sin. If, let's say, for example, somebody stole, he doesn't go to Gehinnom. He has to come back in a gilgul. He has to pay back whoever he stole the money from. uh, so if he comes back as a human being, that means he has to work for the person he stole from. Or maybe he's going to come back as a horse, like we have a story from the Baal Shem Tov. The Baal Shem Tov, who had ruach hakodesh, knew that one of the horses of one of his talmidim had the soul of his neighbor, his friend, who owed money. He had to come back as a horse and serve his neighbor until he died. just for owing him 500 or something like that. So he knew that this soul had to come back. He couldn’t go to Gan Eden; could it go anywhere? Why? Because he stole money. When you owe money to people and you could pay back, and you don't pay them back, it's considered stealing.

33:56And if you stole outright, you can't go to Gan Eden, even if you kept Shabbat and everything else. It's very, very important for people to know that with blood on your hands, meaning stolen money on your hands, you cannot enter Gan Eden, even if you kept the rest of the Torah. You stole money from people. You have to return the money in order to go to Gan Eden. It's very, very important for you to return it. Now, what happens if the person that you stole it from doesn't exist anymore, or you have no contact with them, or perhaps it's a big company where, if you go to this company and you give them the money, maybe they'll arrest you? Or you have no way of returning the company's money. Let's say it's a big company and you can't go to the cashier and say, "Hey, listen, 20 years ago I stole, you know, $500 worth of Twix from you. Here's the money." You're going to give it to the cashier. The cashier puts it in the pocket. You're not giving it to Walgreens. So what do you do? That kind of money, if either you cannot reach the person after you've tried or it’s an entity that could put you in danger, you have to donate it for something that's going to benefit the public.

35:05Where in the name of those people, so in the name of that organization or the person that you stole from, and just in your mind you do, you don't have to write on a check, this is in the name of Walgreens, this is in the name of Steve, you don't have to do that. Just in your mind, I am donating this money to this public benefit to make up for the money that I stole 10 years ago, 5 years ago, 30 years ago. And that way you give it to the benefit of the public. Now, what benefits the public? It could be a homeless shelter. It could be kiruv. It could be some park that benefits society. All types of things that benefit the public. And you do it that way. that way you clean yourself up. Now, what if you don't have the money? Meaning you stole $5,000, but really you only have $500. Well, start with $500 and then work yourself up, little by little, giving the rest of the money. You don't have to pay it all back in one shot if you don't have it, but if you have it, pay it back as soon as possible because you don't know if you're going to survive. You don't know how long you're going to live. Don't make a payment plan where you don't need one. So for a sin like that, like stealing, a person can't go to Gan Eden, and he can't go to Gehinnom either.

36:14has to get an opportunity to recover it. Now, if a person has had enough chances to recover stolen money and he didn't recover it, and Hashem says no more gilgulim for this person, then there's a special malach or a group of malachim that feed him sand in Gehinnom. in one of the sections. They feed them sand over there. You can see in the shiur I did about Gehinom, it talks about that. Not a fun thing, I promise you. It's not tasty. And it's not even soft sand either. No sauce, nothing. So, bottom line is, you stole something, return it. That's my suggestion. Now, For other types of sins, other types of sins, it all depends on who, what, when, and what you did. But remember though, you didn't commit just one sin. What everybody keeps saying about Gehenom is one year, Gehenom is one year, which is one quote in the Gemara Masechet Rosh Hashanah, and also in a few other places, says Gehenom is 12 months. That's implying you made one sin.

37:24Who here can tell me they made one sin today, just one sin, one thing today? So, obviously, you realize that if you made one sin, let's say that sin got you a month's sentence. Now, by the end of the day, you probably made five sins, so let's say you probably got two months. The next day, you made another few sins, and you got three months. By the end of the week, you already had a year. By the time you got to 30 years old, you probably have 30,000 years. Unless you do teshuva. Unless you do teshuva, you say, I'm sorry, I'm going to do better. Already, from the second you say I'm sorry, you're already cutting your sentence. You start doing mitzvot, you start doing serious, serious teshuva, and you can actually turn all of your past sins into mitzvot. to mitzvot. Imagine how much of an account we have of sins, Hashem yishmor. How many sins we have, turn all that into mitzvot, you're a tzaddik yesod olam. You're like the Baal Shem Tov when you go up to Shamayim. From sins. Now, what if you want to avoid all Gehinnom altogether? There's one ticket that I know of that exists.

38:43My Rav taught me this. Hard for me to accept in the beginning because I didn't really think Am Yisrael was such a big deal at first. I just thought, I love Hashem. So that's why I want to do kiruv. But then the more you get to meet Am Yisrael, the more you fall in love with them. Especially when you deal with them, with their problems and their suffering, and you suffer with them, baruch Hashem. So I started realizing more and more how important kiruv was. And then I realized, wow. What a chesed from Hashem. The only way, the only way to avoid Gehenom altogether is if you make kiruv your business. Meaning, you deal with it daily. That's your main thing. Not that you don't have a regular job. Not that you're a rabbi that speaks. Not that you give out to... But simply, kiruv is a permanent part of your life. If you're, let's say, making a living, automatically, without questions asked, you're giving at least ma'aser or more to kiruv. But effective kiruv, not kiruv that brings the priest to the synagogue.

39:47real kiruv that actually helps people do teshuva. That's what the Zohar HaKadosh says. Anybody that deals with zikui harabim—they cannot even talk to him at the Beit Din of Shamayim. They say, "Go, go, go, go, we can't talk to you, too much of a tzaddik." That's the only thing that I know of that I've ever heard of that simply is no gain, no what's up. Why? Because you've created... so many by the time you arrive at Shamayim that there's a Mishnah in Avot that says, who does not want the Rav, meaning the guy that gave the CDs every single day, the guy that gave the flyers every day, the guy that made movies every day, the guy that spoke to people every day, the guy that did kiruv every day, the guy that gave ma'aser every day, which means that his job, even if he's working for the utility company of Florida but he's donating 500 bucks a month because that's his ma'aser, his job becomes kiruv. That guy, that guy is, that's it. His whole job is kiruv. We can't talk to him. Why? Because he's a Rav. What do you mean he's a Rav? He wasn't a Rav. No, no, he's a Rav. Look at how many Baalei Teshuva he created. We cannot put him in Gehenom and his talmidim in Gan Eden. They'll suffer. They'll suffer that their Rav, the guy that gave them a CD, is in Gehenom. So we cannot, by default, he has to go to Gan Eden. Which is unbelievable chesed from Hashem. Why? Because not only are you doing something good, but you actually get paid for it.

41:10but you actually get paid for it. Which is unbelievable. Because sometimes the chesed that you do, you do with your family, you do with your friends, you do with people that are obviously part of your nation. You're doing something that's kindness. And you're getting paid for it. So that's one thing that I know of. Aside from that, again, remember, all of the different things that happen in the world, as far as people that are trying to tell you to lower the sentence, it's not that we want to increase the sentence. We don't want anyone that's righteous to go to Gehenom. Only the wicked. Not that we want them to, but that's what the Torah says. So you have to understand, every sin has a different sentence. And every sin has its separate sentence, meaning some sins are going to get the person to the first level of Gehenom. Some sins go to the second level of Gehenom. Some sins are one month. Some sins are two months. Some sins are 2,000 years. Some sins are permanent. So it all depends. So a person that just, let's say, for example, goes to the fifth level, let's say, of Gehenom, chas v'shalom, that doesn't mean that once they finish the fifth level, they go to Gan Eden. They now have to go get retried.

42:15retried to see where they're at. They may have to go to the fourth level, the third level, the second level, first level, just to get out of this whole thing. So it's not so pashut to just say, no, no, everybody goes to Gehenom for one year, that's it. That would make Hashem evil. If everyone went, got the same sentence, that would make HaKadosh Baruch Hu evil. And that's what the Ramban writes in Sha'ar HaGmul. you cannot say that everyone has the same sentence. Why? Because it doesn't make any sense that someone who murdered people on a regular basis his entire life is going to get the same sentence as someone who stole for, let's say, two years of his life. it doesn't make sense that they're going to get the same sentence as somebody that raped. It doesn't make sense if they're going to get the same sentence as somebody that violated Shabbat every single day for 50 years. It doesn't make sense for somebody else that was a missionary. It doesn't make sense that all of them are going to get one year. To say that Hashem is going to give everyone the same sentence would turn Hashem into an evil God. So that's why anyone that tells you maximum one year—either it's because they're a liar

43:21or they're ignorant, which sometimes is worse, or a combination of both, or they just want your money and could care less about the truth. They just want to make you feel good, you're a tzaddik, don't worry, no matter what you do, you go in there for a year, just give me some tzedakah and everything's good. That could also be it. Either way, you have to use your mind, you have to use your logic. If I robbed the candy store, worst case scenario, I'm going to spend the night at Central Bookings. Worst case, if let's say the Walgreens supervisor is an anti-Semite, he'll get me arrested, I'll go to prison for a day, jail for a day, and they'll release me the next morning after the judge says it's a petty crime, get out of here. Worst case. But if I run a Ponzi scheme, and I steal 30, 40, 50 million dollars, don't think you're going to Central Booking for a day. You know, if I murdered one person, or two, or five, and I was one of these killers, I'm not going to jail for one day, or a week, or a month. Why? It's a different crime. So if a human being understands that different crimes have different sentences, needless to say, the Borei Baruch Hu knows that different crimes have different sentences. We just have to sometimes...

44:35no, there are many, many liars in the world that are simply trying to pacify you, to make you feel good. Why? Because when you feel good, your pocket automatically becomes bigger, and that's what happens a lot of times. People are looking for a popularity contest, but I'm not looking for popularity; I'm looking to get you guys out of Gehinom. The reality is it's not so difficult, not so difficult. All you have to do, number one, is stop sinning the big sins, the obvious ones. Stop First thing, when it comes to Torah, when it comes to Teshuva, stop the sins. Stopping the sins is not done slowly. Stopping the sins is done immediately. Everything you know is big, not loud. Don't do it. Don't do it. You did it, do teshuva right away. Don't play around. It's not like some people, oh no, I don't want to go too fast. Okay, you don't want to go too fast with learning. You can't go to learn 12 hours a day, no problem. That's fine, that's a mitzvah. But the evil that you're doing, there's no slow motion here. There's no stopping killing people slowly.

45:40There's no one who just rapes one girl a week. There's no such thing. You have to stop right away. Stop violating Shabbat. Stop eating pig. Stop violating the Torah in ways that you know are wrong right away. First thing, stop. Second thing, gather as many mitzvot as you can possibly do. Every mitzvah you can possibly do. Third, help other people do the same. Stop sins, do mitzvot, help people do mitzvot. Help people stop sinning. That's it. You do all what I just said, very, very, three-step instructions, very simple. The entire Torah Kula, you're going to get ended. But if you don't stop sinning, step two and three are not going to help you so much. If you just stop sinning, but you don't do mitzvot, it's only a matter of time before you're going back to the sins, because you have to do something with your time. If you think you're going to sin and do mitzvot together at the same time, do whatever you want, and your kiruv is going to work, it's not going to work. Manis Friedman thinks he's doing kiruv. Dor Casuto thinks he's doing kiruv. All of these kofrim think they're doing kiruv. Everybody thinks they're doing kiruv. What's the result? You see the results. You see the results. One of the talmidim of Dor Casuto just opened up a new scam. Conversions. A conversion program.

47:06This is where they're starting. They're publicizing a kosher conversion program. Where's the beit din? We don't know. How much does it cost? Depends who you are. Where can I live? Anywhere you want. Do I have to live next to a Jewish community? No, no, no. You can just pay us and everything's okay. Fees? Yeah, just send us this month, that month, this month, that month. For what? Videos that we have online for free. All types of unusual things. Who's running the program? A non-Jew. It can't get better than this. It cannot get better than this, guys. Who's running the program? Non-Jews. Conversion program. That's talmidim. I know this for a fact. It's all in my own eyes. So, you have to understand. You know who the Rav is based on his talmidim. If it's talmidim, that speaks highly of the Rav. If it's talmidim, that speaks of the Rav also.

48:09So, first thing first, stop sinning. Second, mitzvot, as many as you possibly can. Every mitzvah you know, you have an opportunity, chase it. Do whatever you can to fulfill the mitzvah: praying every single day, learning every single day, doing chesed, tzedakah, kosher food. By the way, I just found a new mitzvah, yishtabach sh'mo l'ad, a new mitzvah. Today I found a new mitzvah. I learned this new mitzvah. There's a mitzvah in the Torah that if you have a roof, you have to build a fence so nobody falls off the roof, right? A ma'akeh. A ma'akeh is a guardrail, I guess. Something that's going to protect people. Now, most of us don't have these roofs. How do you fulfill this mitzvah today? If you have a pool, you have a pool, right? You have a pool and you have little kids... You have little kids in your house? How many asonot, how many disasters have we heard, Hashem yishmor, of kids falling into the pool and drowning? You don't want to fulfill a mitzvah? Spend some money, put something around that pool. Mitzvah. Mitzvah from the Torah. Why? You are protecting people from danger. Mitzvah from the Torah. Yeah, it's going to cost you, I don't know, a thousand, two thousand, five, I don't know how much this stuff costs. HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, "Levu alai v'ani porea."

49:34Borrow the money if you have to, and I'll pay you back. Why? For my mitzvah, 100% cash. So, what did you build? You built a little fence to protect your own kids. For your own kids, your own benefit. It's your own benefit, but I'm going to pay for it. Why? It's my mitzvah. You fulfilled my mitzvah; you're protecting little kids. All types of things that protect people are a mitzvah. So, it's very, very important to take advantage of these mitzvot. They're easy mitzvot. Sometimes, you know, people ask me, "Can I just say one Shehakol for the whole day?" Yeah, technically, you can. If you're in the house all day, you don't leave the house, you could say one blessing, say Shehakol nih'yeh bidvaro, and have kavanah that it means for all of the food that's Shehakol for the whole day. But why would you want to do that? Why wouldn't you want to do a Beracha every time you eat? Sometimes people say, "Listen, does this need to be a Birkat Hamazon? Can I just do Mezonot on it?" Why would you do less of a beracha? Why would you want to miss out on Birkat Hamazon?

50:41Do every mitzvah you possibly can. Every mitzvah you possibly can. Now, technically, you could say one shehakol if you're in the same location the whole day, you're not leaving the house, and you know you're going to be there all day working on your computer or learning or whatever it is, you could do one shehakol for everything that's shehakol for that day. Or if, let's say, for example, you have in your mind that you're going to eat several fruits, you could do a blessing of borei pri ha'etz for one fruit, but have kavanah that it includes other ha'etz that you're going to eat. can you do that? But if you have an opportunity to do other blessings, let's say you know that you can eat this one now and the other one maybe in an hour, maybe in a half hour, and you don't have the kavanah for both of them, do another blessing. That's another mitzvah. That's why David says that every Jew has to do a hundred blessings a day. If you do 100 blessings a day, for sure you have Hashem in your mind all day. If you have Hashem in your mind all day, you're going to get it. So it's not that hard to get to Gan Eden, but it requires stopping sinning. Without stopping sinning, nothing works. Nothing works. And it's very hard for some people to stop sinning because they're connected to a sin somehow.

51:55Either it's a person that they're with intimately, their wife, a husband that they're not allowed to be with, a girlfriend, a business, a profession, whatever it is, certain people that are tied to the sin. It's like in them. And it's a very, very hard teshuvah for them, but they have to do it for themselves. They want to go to Gan Eden. Sometimes it's very hard. It's a big tikkun. But that's your test. That's your test, and you have to pass it. You pass that test, you go into Gan Eden. Next question. Ken. It sounds almost like a contradiction, what I've said earlier. A contradiction. That a person who sins, the only get-out-of-jail-free card is if he's involved in kilayim firsthand. Ken. So you just said that a person can't do mitzvot or kilayim, the second or third step, without getting rid of the sins. How does that... No, so if everyone is going to sin, I'm going to sin, you're going to sin, everybody is going to sin at some point, and then you do teshuva for that. Everyone sins. Everyone sins.

53:03including the person that does teshuva. Everyone is going to sin, and then you do teshuva. But the key is not to be glued to the sin, meaning not to actively sin knowing that you're making a sin and not caring. If you have a sin that you're connected to and you're glued to, and you're simply not willing to let this one go—let's say a guy has a girlfriend, and he knows not to have a girlfriend... not willing to let it go. Whatever kiruv he's doing right now, there's no way that's going to work. Why? Because for that moment, whenever he has this mindset that he's not willing to let this one go, he is someone that's unfortunately not considered part of Am Yisrael for that particular issue. Why? He's simply canceling a part of the Torah. Now if you sin, you fall and do teshuva. Fall, do teshuva. That's one thing. But if you simply decide my life is going to be a sin on this part and no sins on that part, that's a very serious problem. So it all depends. If a person wants to do serious teshuva,

54:09He has to stop the big sins, and he has to make sure he stops the sins that he knows about. That may take him time, but he has to stop them. Kiruv may help him get the merit to gain the strength to stop sinning. But as far as the Kiruv itself being effective, to get many people to do teshuva, that only happens if he has a lot of merit, like serious merit. There are many people that try to give lectures, distribute CDs, share things, and do different things, but the results are minimal in comparison to other people. It’s not because the other people are better speakers, or they give out more CDs, or they have more money. So, because of that, it all depends on the merit of the person. Where does the merit come from? Number one... cleans himself up or herself up, makes himself holy. So that's the stop sinning part. You have to make yourself kadosh (holy) or kedoshah (holy). That's the stop sinning part. The second thing is mitzvot, mainly learning Torah. The more Torah you learn, the holier you're going to be.

55:17after you do those two things, sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice. Now, all of these different parts may come all at the same time, or they may come at different times, and you're going to be tested in different ways, but But the point being is that it's not that one guy is able to do kiruv because he is a good speaker and one guy can't do kiruv because he's a bad speaker. No. Sometimes you have the worst speaker in the world do the most amount of kiruv. One example, Moshe Rabbeinu. Moshe Rabbeinu, worst speaker in history. He had a stammer and a stutter. In so many words, can't talk. can't talk. Imagine if instead of me speaking to you, it would be like A, B, C. That's Moshe Rabbeinu. That's Moshe Rabbeinu. Unless he was teaching Torah. When he was teaching Torah, there was HaKadosh Baruch Hu speaking from his throat. Worst speaker in the world without Torah. With Torah, HaKadosh Baruch Hu spoke from his throat.

56:29So it's not that one is a good speaker or a bad speaker. What Moshe Rabbeinu had over everybody else, aside from the fact that he had amazing middot, he was the most anav, the most humble person of all, and he was willing to sacrifice his life for Am Yisrael. So aside from learning Torah, fulfilling Torah, perfecting his middot, and so on, he was willing to sacrifice. He did not succeed because of his natural human skill sets. He succeeded because of his ma'asim, his actions. When a person's actions show Hashem that he cares and he wants to be holy, he wants to be a representative of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, he or she can succeed in getting all of Am Yisrael to do teshuva. When he's showing that really he's trying to make himself successful, not so much. One of the examples is somebody came Rav Miponovich had an event. One thing that Rav Miponovich always had was people looking to hear him speak; they always wanted to hear him speak. Rav Miponovich had huge yeshivot and mosdot and helped orphans and the needy and so on. He built a Torah empire and...

57:55...and needed millions and millions of dollars to support this. So, you would have different events and people would donate money. Rav Miponovich, one time, was at one of the events, and a guy that came from Slabodka came to the event to raise money. He didn't know it was Rav Miponovich's event. He came to speak. But as soon as he saw the Gadol HaDor was over there, he said, "Okay, I'm not going to raise any money today, but okay, whatever, I'll give them a Dvar Torah. I'll give them a Dvar Torah and I'll just sit there and listen to the Rav speak." So before he went on, he spoke to Rav Miponovich. "Who are you?" "So, I have a yeshiva, a small yeshiva in Slabodka, trying to raise some money, that's why we're here." "Oh, okay, Baruch Hashem. Chazak u'Baruch, Chazak u'Baruch. How many people, this, that, what do you do?" "Okay, Baruch Hashem." Okay. He went and spoke, gave a little Dvar Torah, and then the Gadol HaDor comes. Rav Miponovich speaks, and he starts telling people The things that break your heart: what happened in the Holocaust, how they tortured Am Yisrael, how they starved, how they were murdered, how they took babies and tortured them—all types of horrible, horrible things. How much it breaks your heart.

59:04And then all the things of what they're doing now, and now they're learning Torah, and you're taking these babies and turning them into Talmidei Chachamim, and so on and so forth. And everybody's already excited because Baruch Hashem, you broke our heart, but you're lifting us. So people are starting to take out their checks. In those days, there was no PayPal. In those days, no Venmo. In those days, people took their checkbooks everywhere. So people started to write checks. Before he finished, Rabbi Polovich said, "I know that all of you came here with a giving heart and you're here to give, but I ask you to please, everything that you were planning to give, give it to him. Don't give it to me." The Rav, the visitor, was in shock. why? The Rav has millions of dollars of expenses. He has yeshivot. He has this. He needs the money. Why? Why is he giving me the money? He goes, no, no. We'll talk later. Everybody, now they see. He's giving it to them. They decide, you know what? Let's give him more. They raised enough money to support his yeshiva for three years. After a few years,

1:00:18The Rav got together with the Rav MiPonevezh again. He saw him again. He says, Kvoda Rav, I really appreciate what you did, but I have to ask you, why? The Rav has all types of buildings he has to build or he has to support. Why would you give it to me? And the Rav MiPonevezh tells him something that we all have to learn from. He says, what am I here for? What am I here to build buildings? Am I here for people to say, I'm a big rabbi? What am I here for? I'm here to make sure there's more Torah in the world. Now, yes, I have mosdot, I have yeshivot, and I have all that stuff, and we need the money, of course. But while I was talking, I realized that if I tell everybody to donate to you, They're by default going to realize that I'm not here just giving them a lecture so they can give me money. I'm here for the sake of the Torah, and they're going to end up donating more money to you than they would donate to me. And what would that mean? That would mean there would be more Torah in the world. So why do I care if they donate to me or they donate to you? They donate more money, there's going to be more Torah in the world. How many rabbis in the world do you have like this?

1:01:38Sometimes you walk in, or I walk into a shul, people sometimes get excited. They say, "Oh, Rabbi, Rabbi, Rabbi." Who's the only one that's not excited? The Rabbi. Why? They think I'm here to take their job. "Oh, what are you doing here?" "I live here." "Oh. You're staying here for a while?" "No, no, I'm just here for tefillah. I'm leaving soon." "Oh, okay, okay, okay. Where do you pray?" "What difference does it make? Let me just pray. Leave me alone." They start getting worried. Why? They think I'm here to take their job. Why do they care about the job so much? They care about donations. Oh, he's here. Donate. One time, I gave a lecture at one place. And I don't talk. I don't ask people for donations. I don't charge for speeches. Nothing. Except you people. I charge you guys $1,500 a head. Pay Shlomo at the end. and Venmo. Venmo sent Venmo. So anyway, I don't charge anything, but somebody invited me to an event, and I spoke. We spoke. There were some people there. Sometimes people come at the end of the speech and give me a few dollars. And, okay, so

1:02:49the event was over, a little disappointing the amount of people that showed up, a little disappointing that, but whatever, we did what we did, Baruch Hashem, we tried. Now, at the end, I saw one guy that I know, and I said, hi Tim, and he said, hi, and then I left. And later on, like a few days later, he contacted me, he says, Rabbi, did you get it? I said, get what? He said, did you get the money that I gave you? I said, you didn't give me anything. He said, what do you mean? I gave it to the rabbi to give to you. I said, you could ask the rabbi, he didn't give me the money. He said, you're kidding me. I said, no, I'm not kidding. I'm not going to call the rabbi and say, hey, by the way, you stole my money. I'm like, if you want, call the rabbi. He goes, no, no, I don't know, it's on, okay, I'll send you, I'll send you. What happened? I went, did a free event, and the rabbi stole the money. Why? When you're money-hungry, when that's your reason for why you're doing this role, then being a rabbi is not your role. You're a businessman who pretends to be a rabbi. You're a businessman. And that's unfortunately what happens a lot. If you are worried about money, you should not be a rabbi. You should not be a rabbi. Yes, of course, you need money.

1:04:14Build, and you need money to support, and everything costs a ton of money, 100%. But if that's the reason why you're doing it, it shouldn't be. Really, why go into this business then? Go open some mall, go build buildings, go do real estate, go be a doctor, go be a lawyer, or go mow lawns. Do whatever, but don't be a rabbi. You're not supposed to be doing it for money. And that's what happens many times; people get impressed and... Impressed when they see all this rabbi build a yeshiva. He's got 300 kids there, Baruch Hashem. One of the Gedolei HaDor saw that his talmidim were impressed by a rabbi that opened a yeshiva. He's got 300 kids, and every time he would come to the yeshiva, he would dance with them. "Wow, such a tzaddik, such a tzaddik. He's dancing with his kids every time, every day he comes to the yeshiva. What a tzaddik he is, right rabbi?" He says, "I don't know, does he dance..." when somebody else opens a yeshiva with 300 kids? Meaning, is he dancing because of the Torah that he's producing and that's in the world now, or is he dancing because he succeeded? Because if he's dancing for the Torah that's being produced, then he should be dancing just as much if somebody else did it.

1:05:34somebody else opens a yeshiva next door with 300 kids, would he dance just as much, or would he say, "I can't believe he beat me! I can't believe he opened a bigger Beit Knesset than me! I can't believe his campaign worked! I can't believe he raised a hundred thousand dollars!" Why do you "can't believe?" Why are you hating? If you're hating, that means you're not a rabbi. That means you're not holy. That means you're a businessman. And that's what happens many times when you focus too much on the money. Problem is, you cannot help people that way. You lose all of the siyata dishmaya. So it's important to know that yes, money is involved. It is, in essence, a business, but it should never be the reason why you do it. You have to make sure that you're doing it for the right reason: to honor Hashem, to publicize Torah, to help people. Everything else is secondary. And it's a very hard test. I can tell you that it's a very, very hard test because most people, that's one of their top desires—money.

1:06:36most people, that's one of their top desires—money. They think that money means safety, money means security, money means success, and so on and so forth. And that's how they measure themselves. This is also the reason why I personally, for myself, one of the things that I do to help myself, is I don't talk to people about money. People call me all the time and say they want to donate. Can I call you? No. Call Naomi, call Batya, call somebody else. Call Ghostbusters. Don't call me. Yeah, but I want to talk about something else. Oh, something else I'll talk to you about. Something else I'll talk to you about. Money? Don't talk to me about it. You want to donate? Donate. Don't you raise money? No. I don't raise money. I press share on the internet. Anyone who wants to donate, donate. That's what I do. Other than that, I don't talk to anybody. I don't convince anybody for money. Why? Because I know I'm a businessman. I was a businessman my whole life. If I call you, I'll convince you to donate your mother. If I'm trying to sell you, you'll donate your parents, your dog, your cat, you'll donate everything. But that means you'll never listen to me again. And that means I can't help you anymore. If I put on my salesman hat, if I put on my salesman hat, yeah, we'll get the money, but we'll lose the siyata diShmaya. We'll lose everything. Then it turns into a business. I don't want to be in a business. If I want to be in a business, go back to Wall Street. Pays better.

1:07:54Instead, so it's a rule for myself that I do for myself to help myself. My own yetzer hara gets a lot. Don't talk to me about money. You want to talk about money? Call one of the people, call the assistants, call the people I deal with. Tell them what you want to donate. They'll take your little credit card. I'll give you the address. That's it. Yeah, I want to donate a lot. Donate a lot, donate a little, donate whatever you want. Don't talk to me about money. I don't want to do it. Why? It's just that I know myself. I starts up. People always try to sell. Listen, Rabbi, I want to do this or do whatever you want. Let's move on. Next conversation. Next. Next. I'll talk about your money for you. I'll help you with your money of what to invest in. One of my students is now opening a new factory and he wants all these different things. He asked me for help and guidance about that. No problem. I'll help you for free. But you want to start talking to me to convince you to donate? Never. Never happened. The day I start asking you guys for specific things and start convincing you guys, hey, listen, do me a favor, we have a campaign, delete. Delete my number, delete everything. Why? No siyata dishmaya. I'm serious. Can't, can't. Cannot do both. Cannot be a businessman and someone that helps people at the same time, spiritually. Can't. Now, Rav Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, the Ponovezher Rav, himself suffered a lot because of this. Because he knew he had to build

1:09:13enormous yeshivot and so on. But that restricted him as far as how much he was able to teach and how much he was able to learn. But he did it as a sacrifice for the sake of Am Yisrael. So it's not necessarily a bad thing to raise money. It's just that it limits your ability to teach, it limits your ability to help people specifically. Why? Because again, people are usually not going to look at you the same once you become the guy that asks them for money constantly. if you have your assistant do it, if you have somebody else do it, no problem. But if you're the one that does it, it becomes problematic. So, and that's what happens a lot. Next question, um... And it connotes idolatry, it connotes murder, and sexual immorality. But later, in Parashat Toledot, it mentions sexual immorality. It's suggesting that Rivkah, he used that same word. So it still uses that effect.

1:10:32Ken, what's the question? Why would that word that contains the three cardinal sins be used for two righteous individuals? Two? Why the three cardinal sins for two what? Righteous individuals. Ah. So... The issue that you have is that the Gemara learns specific things from specific words. Yishmael was guilty at some point before he did teshuva of many, many different sins, including idolatry, and all types of things. But actually, the Gemara says that Yishmael did teshuva eventually. Now, when it comes to Rivka, Rivka herself was a tzaddeket, but she didn't have the same merits as Yitzchak because her parents were idol worshippers. her parents were idol worshippers, so her merit was lesser. So that's one of the things that you learn from her, that's how you connect it. Her brother and her parents were not such good people. So that's one of the things that we learn. That's one of the ways that Chachamim learn that her merit was lesser, if you will, than Yitzchak, whose father was Avraham Avinu. So, how does a person give...

1:11:57how does a person give ma'aser from stocks? Yeah, yeah, how do you give ma'aser? Okay, so from stocks, from investments, not just stocks. So let's say a person has a hundred thousand dollars in cash or ten thousand dollars or whatever the number is, it's all relative, and he wants to invest it and the investment goes up in value. Now, he does not have to give ma'aser on the money until he realizes that gain. Meaning, so long as he did not sell that investment, it's not a real gain. It's an unrealized gain, and therefore he does not have to give ma'aser on it, and he should not give ma'aser on it, because he doesn't really have the profit yet. Even if the $10,000 went to a million, He bought a stock at $1 and it went to whatever it went to, and he made a million dollars. Now, until he sells that stock, it's not really a million dollars.

1:13:03It's paper gains. It only becomes realized gains once he exits the position. The minute he exits the position, he has to calculate his gain, and he has to take Maaser from that gain, whatever the gain is. Let's say he went $10,000, turned into $100,000, so he has $90,000 in gain. He has to take 10% at least of the $90,000, $9,000, and give that as Maaser. After that, he reinvests the money into something else. this becomes a lot more complicated for people that day trade. The reason why is because they do so many transactions, the vast majority of them lose or break even. Some of them gain, but so little that they end up losing. So it becomes much more problematic to give Maaser. For something like that, usually you're not going to be able to do Maaser like I just explained, because you're holding on to a position for what could be seconds or minutes. Usually, people that are happy give Maaser based on the gains on a quarterly basis, on a monthly basis, or on a yearly basis, depending. Generally speaking, the word of advice is to try to give Maaser as often as you gain it. Meaning, as soon as you have a gain, try to give the Maaser. And why is that? Because...

1:14:26Because until you give the Maaser, you don't have a benefit from it. You don't have a mitzvah in your hand. Now, why would you want a mitzvah? A couple came to Rabbi Yehuda Fatiyah, and they told him, we have a boy that is supposed to do a Brit Milah, but the father is very, very sick. And he's not going to be able to attend the Brit Milah. So he thought, maybe we should delay the Brit Milah. And tell B'diyuk Hashem, maybe the father is going to get better in a few days and we can do the Brit Milah. What does the Rav think? Rabbi Yehuda Fatiyah looked at him and said, "Do the Brit Milah right now." "Oh, and we shouldn't wait?" "No, no, right this second. Right now you do it." "Wait, tomorrow we'll do it. We have to get the Mohel." "Right now, right now do it. Right away. Get the Mohel right now. Do whatever you can to get the Mohel right now and do the Brit Milah." So, the couple come to one of the biggest rabbis in the world, the Mekubal, someone that talks to the people of the other world on a regular basis. He says, do Brit Milah right now, you do the Brit Milah right now. So, they call the Mohel, the Mohel comes, everybody's ready to see his little baby get Brit Milah. All of a sudden, they see the father come out of the room dancing, tu-tu-tu, tu-tu-tu, Mizrahi music, like he was never sick in his life.

1:15:53But then after that, okay, we have to go back to the Rav and explain to us what just happened here. A few hours ago, the guy was goseis, almost dying. Now he's dancing? No. So they come to Rabbi Yehuda Fetaya, and he's sitting with the Rav. "Lamdeni, teach us. What happened here? What is it, like a Kabbalah thing?" "No, no, no, not Kabbalah at all." He says, "You see, when someone gets sick, HaKadosh Baruch Hu has to send an angel to heal him." Right? He sent an angel, Refael. He sent Refael to heal the person that's sick. But sometimes the person doesn't have the merit to get Refael to come visit him right away. He has to suffer a little bit. A week, a month, a year, whatever. So how do you get an angel to come? How do you get an angel to come to heal you if you don't have the merit to get the angel to come? He says, you told me you have a Brit Milah.

1:16:54What happens in the Brit Milah? Eliyahu HaNavi comes. The angel Eliyahu HaNavi comes. The prophet Eliyahu HaNavi comes. And they tell Eliyahu HaNavi, listen, Eliyahu, since you're already going down there, we're supposed to go there next week to heal this guy. Why don't you just take care of that also? Heal the guy. You got Eliyahu HaNavi. That's why I told you, do Brit Milah right now. Bring the angel right now. So when you have Maaseh, when you have any mitzvah in front of you, that mitzvah is the most important mitzvah in the world. Meaning, on Monday morning you just got out of the bathroom. What's more important, keeping Shabbat or saying Asher Yatzar right now? If you violate Shabbat... If you don't say Asher Yatzar, it's not Karet. So how come Asher Yatzar is more important? Because Asher Yatzar is right now. Because you just went to the bathroom, you have to say Asher Yatzar. Shabbat is in five days from now. You understand? So right now, the mitzvah you have right now, that's the most important mitzvah in the world.

1:18:04So when you get income, you get a paycheck, the most important mitzvah is to give ma'aser right away. Do not delay. Why not delay? It's an opportunity to do a mitzvah. Yeah, but I can do an even bigger mitzvah later on when I gather $5,000 instead of $50. Why? You have an opportunity to share this mitzvah over 500 times instead of one time. Yeah, but maybe it's going to help more if I give $5,000. Who is it going to help? help you. You could do more mitzvot every time you give; it's another mitzvah. You should do that. You should do mitzvot as often as possible, even though it's sometimes difficult to do it whether it's, you know, you're only making small money. So it's not like every time you get $20, you take ma'aser out of it and you give it to somebody. So the way you already start developing the mitzvah is you already separate the money, meaning you don't necessarily have to give it to the end user or to the organization right away. Let's say you got $20, then $5 there or Five hundred dollars there and so on. You don't want to give every single day. So what do you do? You take the ma'aser out of the money right away. You put it in a box or some special account, and then when you decide to give it, you give it. But the key is to try to separate that money from your money immediately, like it's kilayim. You guys know what kilayim is? Kilayim is we're not allowed to grow two different foods together and root them together to make a new fruit. It's forbidden.

1:19:29Two items, right? So you're not allowed to do two different things. It's forbidden. So you have to look at your money as if the ma'aser money and your money are like kilayim. They're forbidden to be next to each other. Separate the money. Why? Because once you get yourself used to separating the money right away, you already start thinking, it's not my money. It's not my money. This is money. Hashem gave me 100%. I have to take His share, 10% over here, and 90% over there. Finished. And then, whatever you decide to give, you can give it to whoever you want at that point. But you have to be very, very strict when it comes to it. And you have to try to do it as often as you can. Simply because, like I said, it's a mitzvah. And you have to try to do as many mitzvot as possible. So, as far as investments, the long and short of it is when the gains are realized. Gains are realized, especially when it comes to real estate, stocks, things like that, that could change value aggressively in a short period of time. One day the stock is 10.

1:20:34So you have to take that into account and don't give ma'aser ahead of time simply because, again, it could be a major change in a very short period of time. Do it only after you realize the gain. Oh, and last thing, last thing I could tell you, this I know from the business world. is for tax purposes. This has nothing to do with mitzvot; this is just a financial benefit. Some of my clients in the past, when I was in the business of investing people's money, when they would give ma'aser to whatever they wanted to do, they would actually give it in stock form. instead of in money form, meaning let's say they had 10,000 shares of XYZ company that appreciated in value. Instead of selling the stock and then giving ma'aser from that, they would just give a thousand shares to the entity. Why? Because when you sell the stock, you have to realize gains, and you have to pay taxes on it.

1:21:37So, whereas if you donate the actual shares to the organization, then what ends up happening is that the organization, you know, they have to deal with the taxes. And if they're a nonprofit, they don't have to pay taxes on it. So you have a tax gain from that. Now, don't do that if it's like $100. Like, don't bother the rabbi or whoever you want to give it to for some, you know, $100 or $500 to open some brokerage account. If it's a substantial amount of money, it's, you know, tens of thousands of dollars, and it's significant, then it's worth it for them to have a brokerage account. Yeah, but if it's like $50 or something like that, don't do that to them. Just give them the money and, you know, you deal with the taxes. But if it's a substantial amount, they may even want to keep it. Who knows? But either way, that's a way that people take advantage of the U.S. tax code. U.S. tax code by giving away stock or an actual asset rather than giving the money itself. Yes, I'm sorry I'm taking up the time. You know, it's fine. No, it's a question. You're from New York; you get special privileges. You mentioned in the beginning of the shiur that it's worth it if you knew the value of saving one Jew. You would pay up to a million dollars, and that's cheap. Okay, two million. So realistically, to what point...

1:22:55we value the spiritual life of one over a thousand, over a hundred, over ten thousand. Ah, no, you don't value one over anyone, meaning that if, right, so when you have an investment, you have to look at what's going to be the most rewarding. Any investment, whether spiritual or physical, you're not going to invest your hard-earned money... In something, let's say, for example, you have two opportunities. One opportunity is going to make you 5% a year. One opportunity can make you 50% a year. You don't have to be a financial guru to know that it's not worth it to invest in the 5% a year if you have an opportunity that can make you 50% a year. Right? So now, if you have an opportunity to invest $1,000 to save one Jew... Right? And then you have the same thing, a thousand dollars to save potentially a thousand Jews. Where do you go? You go after a thousand Jews. Why? Because it's obviously a bigger gain. So this is why it's critical for you to look at your donations as investments. As investments. You have to go try to save as many people as possible. This is also the reason why I tell people not to debate anyone.

1:24:10Not to go on these message boards on Facebook and all these other message boards and start fighting with people about their beliefs. It's a complete waste of time for a bunch of reasons. Number one, it's a waste of time because no one listens to each other. You could tell them every proof in the world and you spend an hour and a half writing it, they wrote you a comment 30 seconds later. You know why? They didn't read it. They don't care. They don't care what you wrote and that you worked really hard on it. No one reads each other's comments. They're just there to hear themselves talk. Number two, It takes too much time to help this one person. And that time you can use and help five people that are easier customers. So instead of debating one guy, use that same time, give shiur to 10 people, to 100 people, to 1,000 people that are willing to listen and not just fighting everything. There's no time to fight with people anymore. People ask me all the time, "Listen, my brother, he's an atheist. He's really knowledgeable about this. Can you call him?" No.

1:25:11But he's off the derech. Okay, I'm sorry. You can send him my movie. No, no, but he needs personal attention. Okay, pray for him then. Pray for him. Maybe Hashem will send him a malach. It's not going to be me. Why? I can't spend an hour with him when I know I can use an hour to save a hundred people. It's not fair. His blood is not more red than a hundred people. It's not more red than a hundred people. Yeah, he's your brother and you love him and I love him too. But I don't love him more than a hundred people. So I can't spend an hour talking to him and convincing him to leave the goya or to leave his boyfriend or to get over whatever sin he's doing and take that time that really I could use to help a hundred people. So that's the thing. You have to look at your time as also part of the investment. Don't waste your time debating people who are just fighting with you tooth and nail about every little thing. Don't do it. Look for easy customers. There are a lot of them. The vast majority of Am Yisrael are yearning for the emet. They're yearning for truth. They want it. They just need somebody to tell them.

1:26:15Stop debating people and so on, because also you should know, people that do that, most of the time, it's not because they want to help the people. It's because they want to prove that they're right. It's all ego. Oh, see, yeah, I gave him 15 proofs. I told him this and this and this. Okay, did he do teshuvah? No, no, but listen. And then I gave him 10 proofs, and he did this, this, this. Okay, but did he do teshuvah? No, no, but listen. And then after that, I gave him the 30 proofs, and then this, this. Did he do teshuvah? No, no, but listen. And then I gave him 18 proofs, and I wrote him an email, and I sent him a movie, and he what? Did he do teshuvah? No. Okay, see, you're wasting your time. No, but I gave him the proofs. Okay, so maybe your ego is going to go all out, but you're not going. Your ego may go to Gan Eden, but you're not going. Why? Because the whole thing you're doing is for your ego. You're not doing it for others. You're not trying to help people. Use that time to help people, not your ego. Don't have an event for your ego. Don't type 500-page letters on the internet for your ego. Help people. And how do you help people? Look for the largest crowd. Look for where you can help the most amount of people with the least amount of time.

1:27:26That's what you got to do. This is the reason why we continue doing these shiurim, whether there's 20 of you, or 2 of you, or 200 of you. Because I know, Baruch Hashem, HaKadosh Baruch Hu has mercy on me, and He takes these shiurim, He puts them on the internet, and they reach tens of thousands of people, a day later, a week later, a year and a half later, however much later, but that shiur is there; it's not gone. If you're giving shiurim, and you're not recording them, it's like it never happened. Why? Because the most you can do is just help the people in front of you. That's also one of the reasons why I don't do Shabbatons. A bunch of times people ask, "Well, can you do a Shabbaton?" I don't really want to be separated from my family. But the real reason is, I don't really want to help just a couple of hundred people. I want to help more. And I'd rather spend that same time, energy, and resources to have an event outside of Shabbat. Why? Because outside of Shabbat, it goes on the internet. On Shabbat, I can only help people that show up. And the problem is if people don't show up, like one time it happened to me. I only did a couple of Shabbatons in my life. I did a Shabbaton and I went there. They were nice people, wonderful, but there were only maybe a hundred people. Maybe. Maybe a hundred people. The amount of time, the few days that I was there, the amount of resources we spent to make it happen, probably could have helped 10,000 people with that time. So again, when you're doing it on Shabbat, you can't record it. So you limit it to how many people you can help in front of you.

1:28:55So it's okay sometimes, especially if that's the only way you can reach them. But if you have another way to reach more people, then do that. That's the same thing when it comes to your money. Invest your money where it's going to help the most amount of people. Invest your time where it's going to help the most amount of people because that's what you care about. You care about helping people. And that's how you get a lot of merits. And the key is to look at it as an investment. Next question. Part B. Part B. Okay, so the old question is what's more valuable, to invest into a Talmid Chacham or to invest into Kiruv? Now, some chachamim say they're equal. Some chachamim say they're equal. Investing into a talmid chacham, if he's a serious talmid chacham, he learns every day, he's going to get 600,000 mitzvot a day. It's very, very profitable. Kiruv can get you a whole lot more. But some chachamim say that kiruv is much, much higher.

1:30:12I don't know anyone that says the Talmid Chacham is higher. Either it's equal or kiruv is higher. And the reason why is exactly what you just said. If, let's say, for example, I give this Talmid Chacham a thousand dollars to go and learn. Now, I'm betting everything on him. If he goes and learns, and he ends up becoming a serious Talmid Chacham, I'm a partner—a little partner, a small partner at least—in what he's doing. I'm not getting every one of his mitzvot, but I'm getting something. And if he's a real serious Talmid Chacham, that little something can be a big something. What if he's not a Talmid Chacham? What if he decides to go to Eretz Yisrael and smoke cigarettes? What if he decides to go to the clubs? What if he decides that it's not for him? What if he decides to come home because he's homesick? What if it doesn't work out? All of my money went into this one guy, and it didn't work out. And even if it does work out, at the best case scenario, I'm only a partner in part of what he got, not everything. The only way you get everything of what a Talmid Chacham does is if you do Yissachar and Zevulun. Meaning, the real Yissachar and Zevulun is you've got to give him half your money. That's the real Yissachar and Zevulun.

1:31:19Meaning, half the money that you make, you give him. That means if you make a million dollars, you're going to give him half a million dollars. If you make $10,000, you're going to give him $5,000. That's the real Yissachar and Zevulun. The other option that's more common is you give him all of his expenses. Whatever his expenses are. So let's say you make a million dollars, but his expense is not a million dollars. His expense is, let's say, $10,000 a month. So you give him $10,000 a month. That's the most common way. That's the only way you're getting all of his mitzvot and sharing it 50-50. To pay for one of the things that he does, one month, two months, you're only getting a small portion. But that's again, so even if you get... it's a lot of money for the sake of hopefully, if he's a talmid. If you don't know, if he's not verified yet, he hasn't confirmed it yet, he hasn't been tested yet, he hasn't committed yet, it's a very, very risky investment, like a penny stock. On the other hand, if you have a video that reaches a lot of people, that's a serious video that gets people to do teshuva, you're gonna invest a thousand dollars, it's gonna reach a hundred thousand people. You can't even compare the two; it's like comparing apples to some penny stock.

1:32:29Why? Because that's definitely going to reach 100,000 people. That may reach somebody on the other account. Out of the 100,000 people, if it's a good video, surely it's going to help some people do teshuva. And even if you have a small percentage, 2, 3, 4, 5% of people do teshuva, you're talking about thousands of people doing teshuva, and you have every single one of their mitzvot for the rest of their life. And if one of them has a kid, or he himself turns into a Talmid Chacham, you're wealthy, you're like a Rockefeller in Gan Eden. So, surely, in this case, that's why most people say Kiruv is much higher. Now, because supporting the Torah is also very, very critical and very important, part of what we do at B'ezrat Hashem is we do both. Every single month, we send money to Israel, to people that we know for sure are Talmidei Chachamim. Not maybe yes, maybe no. For sure. They're serious people, they wrote books, they're writing books, they're learning non-stop, in the kollel, outside of the kollel, their entire life is Torah, so I know that every single penny is well spent. And obviously the majority of the money goes to Kiruv, to help people do teshuvah and so on and so forth, that's a much bigger need. But you do a little bit of both because you can. But the point being is that if you have an option of only one,

1:33:51you're limited to only doing one, then it's a no-brainer if one is a better product than the other. Now again, if the talmid is Rav Kanievsky and the kiruv is somebody that you made in your house with a three-dollar budget, then give it to Rav Kanievsky. Why? Because you know Rav Kanievsky, you have tested it, you know he's gonna study, he's gonna study with the money. But how many Rav Kanievskys do you have in the world? see what I'm saying, so it all depends. It's not just a dollar-for-dollar comparison; it's not just apple-to-apple. You have to measure it, but generally speaking, it's much easier to get more benefit from kiruv because there's just more of it, there's more to do, and today it's easier to do. It's easier to reach a lot more people with kiruv than ever was before. In the old days, you would just do a lecture, you reach as many people as you mentioned in the lecture, maybe make a little videotape that you're going to print 500 copies of; that's the best you're going to get. Today, Baruch Hashem, you spend a thousand bucks, you can reach a hundred thousand people, like he said. You know, so it may not necessarily be a hundred thousand Jews, but it's going to be a hundred thousand people for sure, and you're going to get some people to do good stuff. So, that's, you know, that's what we have to constantly use our business helmet for kiruv.

1:35:09...it's what we do: the flyers, marketing, the CDs, the videos, the this. You try, you dabble in different things to see what works the best. You know, even like, for example, sharing our stuff on Google, doing all this with the search engine optimization. We have a budget we spend on it to reach a certain amount of people, but we don't spend a big amount of money on any one particular thing until it shows that it's proven that it's actually producing results... Once it produces results, then we up it another $5. If it produces results that warrant it, that's another $5, another $10. That's how you're supposed to do it. Don't just throw a lot of money and hope for the best. It doesn't work that way. It's not, you know, Torah is not like Coca-Cola. You can't sell it to everybody. I wish you could, but you can't. you know, if you send the shiur to a bunch of anti-Semites, I'm not really sure you'll get as good results as if you send it to our people that live in Lakewood, you know, so in the back what a lot of

1:36:29Forex is no different than stocks, no different than real estate, no different than art, no different than any other type of investment. It's just an investment vehicle. The end result is the same. You bought something at price A, you sold it at price B, and there's a profit between the two. whatever that profit is, you give ma'aser from that profit when that profit is realized, not when it's unrealized. Meaning, once you sold it, once you covered the short or once you covered the long, you realize that profit. That's when you pay ma'aser. It doesn't matter what the asset class is; it could be a bond, it could be a stock, it could be art, it could be bitcoin. it could be a dog, a cat, a car—whatever. Bottom line is, if you sold something for a profit, pay ma'aser. This was only relevant in the past when it was legal. Today, now let's tell people—but just in case, no. Next, yes, let's say you were to put a hundred thousand, right, on the forest, okay?

1:37:39no, no. You lost money. You only give ma'aser off of gain. Off of gain. So if you got an income from your job, that's a gain. Your job gave you a $5,000 paycheck, that's a gain. You bought a stock for $10,000, you sold it for $20,000, you got a $10,000 gain. But if you bought stock for $10,000 and you sold it for $5,000, you lost $5,000. There's no ma'aser. You lost money. So there's no ma'aser there. Ma'aser is only from a gain, not from a loss. If you end up giving money from that $60,000, meaning from the example that you gave, you bought it at $100,000, you sold it at $60,000, which means you lost $40,000. If you give money from that, that's not ma'aser. That’s tzedakah. Tzedakah you can give anytime. But there's no ma'aser mitzvah. There's no ma'aser mitzvah. That's the second question. No, go ahead.

1:38:48It's a very good question. How could a person enjoy Olam Haba when he has family members in Gehinnom? Well, first off, for question number three, you have to do everything possible to make sure they don't go to Gehinnom. you're alive while you're alive. If you do everything possible to bring them to teshuva, give them a CD, share a link, send them a book over and over again from time to time. You know, you stop for a little while, you start again. You want to do everything possible throughout your whole life to try to get them to do teshuva. Sometimes it's once or twice a week. Sometimes it's once or twice a year. But the bottom line is you try it on a regular basis to help people do teshuva. If you left this world trying everything possible to help the people close to you do teshuva, then there's nothing for you to be upset about because you tried. Plus, you should never make your family the only people that you help do teshuva. In fact, you should try to help strangers

1:40:10do teshuva a lot more than you help your own family. And the reason why is because you want to show Hashem that you are helping them, not because they're your brother or sister, but because they're Hashem's kids. Now if it's all about Hashem's kids, then why do you... It doesn't matter if they're your brother or sister. Now, what ends up happening is that When a person helps HaKadosh Baruch Hu's kids do teshuva, HaKadosh Baruch Hu helps that person. You care about Hashem's kids, measure for measure, Hashem is going to help the people you care about. Now, if you do everything possible to help people do teshuva, generally speaking, including your family, you and everybody else. If you do everything possible and they still end up in Gehenom, yes, part of you is not going to be happy about it, but not for long. Not for long, and the reason why: if you spent your whole life trying to help people do teshuva, you're going to have such a good time in Gan Eden, you're not going to have time to think about Gehenom.

1:41:11You're not going to have time to think about your family. You're not going to have time to think about any of these other people that are in bad places. Because in Olam Ha'emet, in the world of truth, there are no feelings of this world. Once you realize the magnitude of sin, when you go up to Shamayim, you're going to say Chazak U'Baruch for putting them in Gehenom. Chazak U'Baruch for putting him in Gehenom, because you're going to know the magnitude of sin. Also, you're going to enjoy the mitzvot. People think that Gan Eden is going to be the father, the mother, and the family, and the whole lineage of kids all camping or something in Gan Eden. Gan Eden is not camping. You know, you're not going to see your brother and sister and camp with them, have barbecues, and invite them for Shabbat in Gan Eden. That's not exactly how it works. Gan Eden is very, very different from the fun and the joy of this world. It's joy that's unexplainable, if you will.

1:42:13But the point being is that if you expended all resources in this world to help Klal Yisrael do teshuva, surely you're putting your family and your loved ones in a better position to be helped by a better messenger. Because many times people are not going to listen to you, not because of what you say, but because you're saying it. Your mother is not going to listen to you, not because of what you say, but because you're saying it. You're her baby. Yeah, but I'm 30 years old. You're still her baby. She still remembers that she used to change you in diapers. It's hard to take rebuke from somebody you saw fill up their diaper three, four times a day. It's hard to take rebuke from them. So what happens is, don't rebuke your parents. Don't fight with anyone in your family. Get somebody else to do it. Get somebody else to do it. Take one of the CDs, give it to them. Take a lecture, a link, share it with them. It's a much better way, a more effective way to do kiruv. And also a way for you to eliminate problems where you get angry at people because they don't want to listen to you. And that's a sin in itself. It could even be chillul Hashem.

1:43:27So it's better to get other people to help your family do teshuva and you focus your efforts on other people doing teshuva. Strangers. That way HaKadosh Baruch Hu can reward you for both. Next. Almost done. Okay. Does the prohibition of eating the first fruits from the tree apply also? Does it apply to the exile? Because there's a prohibition of eating the first fruits. Ah, no, no. It's only in Israel. Only in Israel. The first fruits of a tree for the first three years is only in Eretz Yisrael. In the exile, you're allowed to eat whatever grows in the exile. There's no obligation to wait. There's no obligation to wait. Good question. Next. Yes, Yehoshua. Oh, I've been waiting for you. I thought you were on strike today. There's a story with Rav Zusha. Okay. Keeping the finest food for the woman. Okay. Can a similar strategy be applied for other righteous acts? You know, if you want to do something like a way to kind of apply something similar to

1:44:45So Rabbi Zusha was a unique person, a tzaddik yesod olam, a giant chacham. And we learn the ma'asim of the tzaddikim not necessarily because we're going to do the same things as them, but rather, number one, to appreciate the tzaddikim, to see how great they were and how much greater they are than us. Number two is to try to emulate them on a smaller scale and not to overstep our boundaries. There is knowledge that, for example, Rabbi Kuli, Rabbi Yaakov Culi, the Baal Me'am Lo'ez, used to fast from Shabbat to Shabbat while he was writing the Me'am Lo'ez. Now, you fast, by the second day you go into the hospital. So, don't try to be a Rabbi Kuli. You fast on Tisha B'Av. You fast on Yom Kippur. You fast when you are obligated to fast. Don't fast more than that. Why? Focus on doing other things. Learn more Torah, do more mitzvot, and so on. So, we have to also know where we stand. So, how do you do something even greater than Rabbi Zusha without being Rabbi Zusha? How can you do it? There are different levels of tzedakah.

1:45:58The lowest level of tzedakah is when the giver knows who the receiver is, and the receiver knows who the giver is. Both know who they are. You know who I am, and I know who you are. That's the lowest level of tzedakah. The highest level of tzedakah is when the giver doesn't know who he's giving to, and the receiver doesn't know where he got it from. Everyone's anonymous. So, If you have somebody that you trust, you tell him, "Listen, Rabbi, or dear friend, or whoever, here's $500, give it to some tzaddik that you know. Don't tell me who. Don't tell me who. Give it to one of your avreichim in Eretz Yisrael. Don't tell me who, though." That's the highest level of tzedakah. Why? You're giving it to somebody to do it for you. Abish has to get there somehow. You have to trust this person you're giving it to. He's giving it to the other person. The other person, "Oh, who gave it to me? Oh, he wants to stay anonymous." That's the highest level of tzedakah. The receiver doesn't know, and the giver doesn't know. There are some times that you have that the receiver doesn't know, but the giver knows.

1:47:19So there's a famous story of a Yosele, a tzaddik, a kamtzan. Very famous story that there was one guy, a rich guy named Yosele. And Yosele was very rich and was known as the cheapest person on earth. Anytime somebody would come to him and ask for tzedakah, they would regret the day they were born. Not only wouldn't he give them any money, but he would embarrass them on the way out. "Go, go, get out of here, you little beggar or nothing! Go, go, go!" So, he was known among everybody, and everyone hated him. A kamtzan, cheap, stingy. He had so much money, and he wouldn't even give five dollars. One day, Yosele dies. Nobody showed up to his funeral. Why? Because he didn't help anybody. He had a Rockefeller bank account, but he wouldn't give five dollars to some poor person. Nobody showed up to his funeral except his immediate family—his wife and kids. Then, a week later, 500 people show up to the rabbi...

1:48:39Five hundred poor people showed up to them, crying hysterically. "What happened? Where did you guys come from?" "We... I... we live here. I live here. I live here. I'm the one that works at the butcher's place. I'm the one that works at the winery. I'm the one at this. I'm the one at that." "Okay, what happened?" He goes, "We need money." "Because what? All of a sudden?" He goes, "No, not all of a sudden. We always needed money." "So how did you all manage, all 500 families? How did you guys all manage?" "Don't know. This is every week." Every week, we went to the butcher and he gave us the money. Where did he get the money from? We don’t know. We don’t know. With the work, the money was there. Every week. For how long? 30 years. 30 years we’ve been getting the money, same thing, all the time. Here’s the money, here’s the money, here’s the money. Where does the money come from? We don’t know. So the Rabbi goes... He says, "Who gave you the money?" "No, no, no, Rabbi, I can't do it. I can't tell you." "What do you mean you can't tell me? I'm the Rabbi. I'm the Rabbi of the city." "No, no, no, I'm not going to tell you. Rabbi, I promise I'm not going to tell you." "I command you to say it right now. You have a problem with 500 people that are homeless. I need to know what's going on." He says, "Listen, Rabbi, I made a promise 30 years ago to Yosele HaKamtsan."

1:49:57every week, he would send me money. He would say, "Give this envelope to this guy that works at the winery. Give this envelope to this guy that works at the butcher. Give this envelope to this one. This guy came to my house this week. I kicked him out, but give him the money. He needs money, but I didn't want to give it to him. Give him all the money." He says, how did all of you, how did all of you survive all these years? He's the one that financed everybody. The Rabbi started crying hysterically. How did we disrespect him? How did we not show up to his funeral? How did we all hate him? He started crying himself to sleep. That night, Yosele showed up to him in his dream. He said, please don't cry. Don't cry. You have to know, I did it on purpose because I wanted, I heard from a shiur that this is the highest level of tzedakah. I didn't have anybody that I could give it to. So, one person knew, but I knew who the people I wanted to give it to. They would come to my house, they needed money, but I didn't want to give it to them.

1:51:06So, I would give it to him and he would give it to different people. But to make sure that I have the full mitzvah and I'm not getting any honor from it, I was a machmir. What did I do? I made sure that they embarrassed me on top of it. They would get mad at me. So they would never, ever think, in the last place on earth, they would think it's me. But don't be sad, Rabbi. Don't be sad. Right now, you know who’s my best friend? Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. I'm sitting here with them. The rabbi woke up the next day. He told his kehillah about this dream. He says, "That's what they wrote on his grave. 'It's a cheap, stingy...' And that's how you know the story. So that's it. Next story. Next question or we're done? Next story. No? No?" Ah, okay, so when something is inscribed on a scroll or a piece of paper, it's considered mamash, it's considered real.

1:52:28you write "Hashem, Hashem," "Hashem, Hashem" on a piece of paper, and you don't want it anymore, you have to take that piece of paper, or that book, and put it in the Genizah. You have to bury it. You can't just throw it in the garbage because Hashem's name is on it. Unless it was written by a Christian. If it was written by a Christian, the Rambam says it's a mitzvah to burn it. But if it was written by a Jew, a righteous Jew, wrote "Hashem, Hashem" on some piece of paper, or in a book, and you don't want it anymore. It went bad, it got destroyed, whatever it is, you have to bury it. When it's on a digital image, whether it's a digital picture or a digital app or something like that, it's not considered mamash. All it is considered is lights that are hitting your screen. It's little electrodes that are hitting your screen that are changing different colors. It's not really considered Hashem's name. So it's not, it's not, there's no problem in deleting Shem Hashem if it's on a computer screen or an app or anything like that because it's not considered real. But chashmal is not, it's not, it's not a real image. It's not, it's a, it's like, for example,

1:53:36Let's say if, let's say, you are here right now. I say bracha, right? I say bracha. Now you are going to say amen, right? But the people that are watching on the internet are not allowed to say amen. They cannot say amen unless they know that my voice arrives to them within a fraction of two seconds. Two seconds. If there's a delay of more than two seconds, they're not allowed to say amen, because what they're hearing is not my voice anymore, but rather more like an echo of my voice or an image of my voice. So if you hear, let's say, a video of a rabbi doing any type of blessing on some video on YouTube or something like that, you don't say amen. Because it's not a beracha. You're not hearing their voice. You're hearing a digital replication of their voice. It's not considered real. So the same concept applies when it comes to the things on your screen. Right now you see that there are numbers on my screen. But if I press this, those numbers are gone. I didn't erase those numbers. It's that the light...

1:54:36The electric thing changed, changed colors. So it was never really there to begin with. It's not considered real. When you write it on something, you can do whatever you want. That writing is not going anywhere. You could lift it up, lift it high, put a light on it. Without a light on it, bottom line is that image is staying there because that image became part of that paper. That's considered real. That's what you have to bury. But anytime it's electrodes on a screen, digital screen, it's not considered something that is holy or to the extent where you're not allowed to erase it. So if you write, let's say, Shem Hashem on your screen, but you made a mistake, you're allowed to erase it with no problem. Not that they're recent. Generally speaking, you shouldn't write Hashem's name for no reason, unless you're writing a digital thing, a scroll, a siddur, or something like that. You shouldn't use Hashem's name. And even if you're writing some of these things, many times there are chachamim that refrain from doing it anyway, and just put a hei, or a dalet, or a yud, and not the full name. You'll see many siddurim do not have Shem Hashem in all blessings.

1:55:47sometimes you see posters, like Yesharim posters or different blessing posters, that don't have the Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei; they have a Yud or something else that represents Hashem's name. Because again, you don't necessarily want to just throw Hashem's name around like a tennis ball. You know, you want to make sure that wherever you're putting Hashem's name, it's a place that's holy, and it's not going to be desecrated and disrespected. So, a lot of times people put Hashem's name on their profile picture or on some Facebook poster—mistake. Mistake. Don't use the name that way. If you want to write the word "Hashem," you can write the word "Hashem" anywhere you want because the word "Hashem" means "the Name." It's not the actual Name, but rather it means "the Name." That's why you can say "Hashem" a million and a half times. It just means "the Name." Why "the Name"? Because the actual Name itself is so holy we're not even allowed to say it. Even when you say the name that you think is the name, which is Adonai, I'm not saying the Dalet, it's usually with the Dalet, it's not really the name. It's not really the name. The Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei doesn't actually sound as Adonai.

1:57:02That doesn't say Adonai. It sounds completely different. We don't say that name. Never. Never say that name. So much so, that when somebody uses that name disrespectfully, or even says it, even says it, the Gemara says, no Olam Haba. One of the Tzaddikim, the Gemara in Masechet Ta'anit, says, used to delve into this name, used to study this name, and he almost lost his Olam Haba. You have to get a lot of suffering in this world because he used the name to study it. Not to write it on a Facebook post. To study it. Even that. Even that you have to be careful with. Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa revived the dead. So people are stupid. They write the name or the sound of the name with the Yud and the Yud and all that stuff. Stupid people. You write it, okay? No, no, no, no. Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye. It's like a tourist attraction. You see, let's go on a cruise, a cruise to nowhere. The Name of Hashem, if it's on actual paper, has to be treated as holy.

1:58:18Means that if you studied from it, you have to make sure to treat it carefully. But also, there are some who actually say that even if it's a Dvar Torah, even if it's a Dvar Torah that doesn't have Hashem's name on it, a written Dvar Torah, and you studied it, it should also go to geniza. Even if it doesn't have Hashem's name on it. Let's say somebody wrote up a Torah article. You go to, let's say, Rav Yitzchak Yosef, Rav Ovadia's son, who has a website of Halacha Yomit. Every day they send you another halacha. It's a good website. And those papers that you get, if you're reading it on screen, you finish it on the screen, you can delete it, no problem. But if you printed it, you should put it in a geniza after you finish with it. Magazines depend on the magazine. In Eretz Yisrael, it's a normal thing to see in Yerushalayim and other religious neighborhoods a special garbage pail that's not a garbage pail, that's only for geniza, where people put all of those magazines and books every week.

1:59:30That's because there's a lot of Torah over there, a lot of magazines over there, a lot of newsletters out there. So every week, people take all of those things and put them in something that looks like a garbage pail, but it's not a real garbage pail. It's a pail specifically for Torah material. And there's an organization of volunteers where they go and they pick it up and they bury all of this stuff as a chesed for the community. I don't believe they have that, at least in America, but maybe they have it in Monsey, maybe they have it in Lakewood, but here I don't know of any of it. I don't want to name any magazines, but there are weekly issues that get out on newspapers, and I see a lot of them end up in the trash. First of all, they get thrown out on the lots. it depends. It depends what's in it. If it's you shouldn't throw it in the trash, it's if you read it. If you didn't read it, no one ever read it, then it's there. Then there's a, uh, it doesn't have any kedusha. Again, like I said, if, let's say, there's a magazine on a table you never read, some will say it has no holiness in it until somebody reads it.

2:00:34But if somebody read it, learned it, then after that, he has to put it in a genizah. If people are throwing it out, they're throwing it out. They should put a little note on the magazine to put it in a genizah instead. But yeah, it's not a very commonly known halacha outside of the really, really frum communities. ...that are careful with these things. When I first saw this, these are garbage pail—I couldn't believe it. What is this? That's why they put it here. So, why are all these books here? What's going to be done with these books? And he's not going to throw out books or magazines every week... It's not real, yes. That's a different story. It's not real in the sense that it's not considered Hashem's name, and therefore you're allowed to delete it. But if it's an immodest woman or anything like that, that is very much real. You're actually seeing the image itself. You're seeing, obviously, something that's happening that causes thoughts that are happening in your mind. We're talking about not real in the sense that it's obviously not a real name of Hashem, just like it's a real immodest woman. But we're talking about real in the sense of how to apply erasing it or not erasing it.

2:01:57You're allowed to erase the stuff that's on a digital image on a computer, but you're not allowed to erase the stuff that's on a piece of paper. The real or not real is only in the sense of when applying it to whether you're allowed to erase it or not. When it's a real or even not real immodesty, it's not allowed to be watched at any time, meaning a real person or even a cartoon is not allowed to be watched. Immodesty doesn't have any leniencies, but that's a given. But it's not real or not real as far as if it's not real, like if you're not watching anything real. Not real as far as whether you're allowed to erase the name is a different application of the same word. Anything else? We'll finish for the night. You guys ran out? You know the rest of the Torah? No, give me one more question. You're in New York, so go ahead. Do you have one? What's the point of a kid before Bar Mitzvah doing what the Torah says?

2:03:14So, a kid doing mitzvot, kids have to start doing mitzvot as soon as possible, not because they're getting the reward for it, but rather because it's training. If you only start a kid keeping Shabbat at 13 years old, guess what? He's also going to be mechalel Shabbat at 13 years old. Unless you already made Shabbat part of his life since he was an infant, since he was a kid that simply understood who Abba and Ima were, he already understood that he's not allowed to play with certain toys at 3-4 years old. He's not allowed to turn on lights at 3-4 years old. By the time he gets to 13, he's already going to be used to it. He's not going to know a reality without Shabbat. So that's keeping the kid pure. It's not a matter of him getting a reward for it, but rather it's a matter of you training him for the time when it's really going to be effective. In the sports world, they say that you play the way you practice.

2:04:14Meaning, if you practice with all your heart, when it comes to game time, you're going to do really, really well. Why? Because you cared enough about practice that when game time comes, you're going to be ready. But if you practice like somebody who's half asleep, you're not going to be ready for the game. So in essence, if your kids are already trained when they're 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 years old, 12 years old, to what it's going to happen when it's really applicable, they're already going to do very well. It's already going to be instilled in them. Rav used to say that it was a minhag in his family to already start teaching kids about punishment and even about Gehenom when they were 6 years old. If you teach the kid about Gehenom to his extent now, you have to talk about malachim ripping people apart. Just the basics of the punishment—fire. If you teach him about Gehenom at six years old, you're not going to have to teach him about Gehenom when he's 60. But if you don't teach him about Gehenom at six years old, most likely you'll have to teach him when he's 60. That's why you have a lot of kids that go off the derech.

2:05:20Many kids go off the derech because they don't really know why they're keeping the mitzvot. Either because all they know is they do it because they have to, but they don't know why they have to. Or they know just about the bad parts and not about the good parts. Usually, it's because there's something missing. So, it's a complete Torah education that starts when the kids are very little and continues. It's not just about teaching them that if you do this, you're going to Gan Eden. When they're little kids, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai says, you have to bribe them to learn with you, to read and to learn Torah, and to do things with stuff in this world. Give them candy, give them honey, bribe them with money. With money. Tom, listen here, if you listen to me read the parasha for two minutes, I'll give you candy. Okay, I'll listen to parasha. I was a Varsha. Okay, I'll be sure. Right now, he's not listening to parasha because he cares about Moshe Rabbeinu. He listens because he wants the candy. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai says it's the best way to teach Torah. Okay, it's the only way to teach Torah. Why? If he starts learning this way, eventually the Torah is going to turn into the candy and...

2:06:30The Torah is going to turn into candy. But every time, listen, come here because I said so. Guess what? He's going to hate you and whatever you teach. Come here or I'm going to punish you forever. He's going to hate you and whoever you're teaching about. If you bribe him, say, "Listen, want a present? Want a present?" "Yeah, I want a present." "Okay, come learn Torah with me in bed." "Okay, I'll learn Torah in bed." Why do you think? My house, the holiday every day. Constant presents. Why? They learn Torah. They learn Torah, get presents. You learn Torah with Michal today? Okay, here's a present. You learn Torah today with Ima? Here's a present. You learn Torah with Yael? Here's a present. Why? Learn Torah, get presents. Why? I want to have tzaddikim in my house. So if that's going to cost me every single penny that I have and don't have, that's what we're going to produce. Why? Because that's what Rabbi Shimon said. Am I bigger than Rabbi Shimon? I'm going to tell you guys, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. He wrote the Zohar. What did I write? I barely write. I left it. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai said a stam. You want people to do teshuva? You want people to do things? You have to bribe them sometimes.

2:07:31That's why even a minhag, Rashi writes, minhag in his day when they would teach kids aleph bet, they would have it written, the aleph bet engraved on a piece of wood, and then they would fill it with honey. And every time the kid would say the letter the right way, they would let him lick the honey. Why? Because if every time he thinks of aleph, he thinks of honey, then the aleph is his Torah. He doesn't know Moshe Rabbeinu yet. He knows aleph. Aleph is his Torah. For little kids learning aleph bet, aleph bet is Torah for them. That's 100% Torah, like you're learning Gemara. So when a kid learns, tinokot shel beit rabban learn aleph bet, HaKadosh Baruch Hu is dancing in Shamayim. So when you give the kid a little bit of sugar, a little bit of honey or candy, whatever, every time he has an aleph, guess what? He's going to think of something sweet when he's 30 years old, every time he says a Dvar Torah. And sometimes you see tzaddikim, when they say a Dvar Torah, they go like this. Why? Because they want to taste something sweet. They actually taste something sweet in their mouth. Some tzaddikim actually taste something sweet in their mouth when they learn Torah.

2:08:42Okay, enough stories for you today. B’ezrat Hashem, I'm going to see you guys next week. There is a chance that there's not going to be a shiur on Sunday, but there's good news. If there's no shiur on Sunday, it's going to be a little bit of good news. Why? Because that means we'll be moving finally, B’ezrat Hashem. if we’re moving, that means I’m going to tell you the next time I see you a nice announcement about the new community that we’re going to build with everything in it. So it’s, uh, if we close the deal, B’ezrat Hashem, uh, hopefully in the next few hours. That means that we'll be able to move next week. And that means that that's going to be the next destination that I'm going to tell all of you to finally, when people ask me, should I move to this? Yes. Finally, I'm going to say yes. A million people have been asking me over the years, should I move to Florida? No. But you live there. Exactly. Don't move. But now it's finally going to be a place for you guys to move to, and the reason why is because, finally, we're going to actually have our own place, b'ezrat Hashem. We're going to do a lot of things. I'm going to give you more details, b'ezrat Hashem, once it's closer to reality. But nonetheless, it's all in the plans, it's all in the works. I'm already telling people to move to Florida, but only to move to where we're going to be, not just some random place. Because we're going to, b'ezrat Hashem, have a beit knesset, a place where we're going to build a yeshiva, a school, and all types of wonderful things.

2:10:06Tried to build the next Lakewood, but even bigger, even better. Once and for all, we need to do everything we can to invest in American Judaism, simply because there are six million people here. I could easily go on a plane tomorrow and go to Eretz Yisrael. But that means that I'm giving up on every single local person in America. It's not fair. So, instead of worrying about my own toches, I have to worry about your toches. So that means we have to build something. And unfortunately, what we've been trying to do over the last six years is try to help people do teshuvah, and then they go to Beit Knesset. The problem is, many times, they do teshuvah by us and the Beit Knesset ruins them. So we figured that it's time for us to bring some people and to build something special. And we're going to need a lot of siyata dishmaya. A lot of siyata dishmaya, a lot of help from HaKadosh Baruch Hu to make it happen. And Baruch Hashem, it's already happening. So the next step is going to be, hopefully in the next few days, we'll be moving. And that will be the destination.

2:11:08Yetziat Mitzrayim at some point also. But until then, I will see you soon. Baruch Adonai le'olam. Amen ve'amen.