MaShiach Will Show Us Two Mountains LIFE CHANGING

0:14...you're alive, you will have tests. Now, what's the secret? How do you pass these tests? Tests are so difficult. Just thinking about the tests that I endured in my past makes me want to cry. Some of the things I experienced in my life, and I'm sure some of the things you guys are experiencing now or have experienced in your life, just thinking about them makes you want to cry... This is actually a Midrash that says he came one day, but they say that at the times of the Mashiach, Hashem is going to show a huge mountain and then a small mountain, a small little hill, and both are gonna cry. Both are gonna cry. It said he came and looked at the big mountain. Look at this mountain. What's this mountain made up of? It's made up of all of the tests they had in their life. Look, in the beginning, it was "I lost my keys." And then after that, it was "I lost my car." And then after that, "I lost some money." And then after that, the tests get bigger and bigger and bigger, and I stayed true to Hashem. Look how much—I mean, look at this huge mountain. Look how much I accomplished. It was so hard. But now I'm here.

1:27They're gonna cry from reliving all the difficulty, but yet the cry is of happiness that it's behind them. The shame, on the other hand, they have a small little mountain, a small little hill you can just walk over. Why is it a small little hill? Hashem says, "Look, I give you a small little test, and you aren't even willing to pass that." You would have just passed this one small test. You'd also have learned a lot. They also cry; what do they cry about? Look how close I was to having an aliyah, but now I don't. So I think sometimes about the past and all the pain and all the suffering, and it's hard. It's hard. But rabotai, as long as you are still alive, you're going to have bigger tests. The tests today are preparing you for the tests tomorrow. Now, what can give you hope from this dire news that you just got now? It sounds like a horrible, horrible thing. It's not. It's actually good news. Why is it good news? Why should it be the best news you found out in your entire life? You learn from Avraham Avinu, rabotai. When Hashem told him, "Listen, kill your son," Hashem, he understood from Hashem, "Kill your son." He went and tried killing his son. Hashem said, "I'm gonna reward you." To his son, he said, "I'm gonna go reward my son." No problem. Whatever He said, I do. Whatever He said, I do. No questions asked. He kept going, kept going, kept going, kept going, kept going. How do you have such emunah? How do you get to such emunah?

2:53Avraham Avinu, Rabotai, when Hashem told him, "Listen, kill your son," he understood from Hashem to kill his son. He went and tried killing his son. Hashem said, "I'm going to reward you through your son." He said, "I'm going to reward my son, no problem. Whatever He said, I do. Whatever He said, I do. No questions asked." He kept going, kept going, kept going, kept going, kept going. How do you have such emunah? How do you get to such emunah? How? How do you get to a point where Hashem says this, you do this, and you don't ask any questions even though it contradicts itself? The hiddush, rabotai, is that when you understand that it came from God, there's no test. No test. Why? It's from God. What is it like? All of you who went to school know there are two types of tests. There's a test... Guaranteed to pass, because it's an open book. There's a test that only if you studied you're going to pass, a closed book test. When a teacher tells you, "Listen, you have a test. You have an unlimited amount of time to pass this test. You have a hundred questions to answer, all of the questions, and the answers are in this book. And you can use the book to take the test for as much time as you'd like." Begin.

4:22Is that really a test? Or just a mental exercise? Why? Because he just gave you the answers. All you got to do is just look for them. Okay, it's page 13. Okay, page 17. Okay, page 18. All you're doing is just copying and pasting. All it is is a mental exercise. Why? It's an open-book test. It's a closed-book test if it's a closed-book test. Only if you've studied, only if you've prepared for a year, five years, ten years, or twenty years, depending on the test. Only if you've prepared are you going to pass. But even if you've prepared, sometimes you didn't prepare enough. That's the difference of whether you have emunah or not. If you have emunah, it's an open-book test regardless of the test. If you don't have emunah, it's a closed-book test. You may not pass. You may not pass. If you have emunah, meaning you know this is from God, no one else, this is from God. It's unusual. It doesn't make sense. It contradicts everything that I know. It goes against everything that I know. It hurts. It’s this. It’s that. All the different things. All the different excuses. All the different issues.

5:38Bottom line: Is it from God or not? If it's from God, it's an open-book test. If you understand logically, then it's from God. It's an open-book test. Why? He's not going to give me a test I can't pass. There's no point. He's not going to give me a test that I cannot pass. There's no point. It's like a mother telling her son, "Listen, honey, I know you're only three years old, but can you do me a favor? Can you pick up the semi-trailer over your head?" She's just not going to ask the three-year-old to do it. Why? She knows you can't do it. There's no point in asking. Only a psychopath would do such a thing. By thinking that Hashem gave you a test you cannot pass, you're thinking that Hashem is crazy. He gave it to you; that means you can pass it. The only difference is how you treat the test: open book or closed book. If you've trained your emunah, if you've trained yourself to have emunah at a time of need, it's an open book test. If not, you may not pass it because it's closed book. You have to study a lot; you had to study a lot.

7:01I'll finalize this with just a couple of things. There are many people that say they have Emunah, but at the moment that Emunah is tested, at the moment the bank account does not have exactly what you thought it should, at the moment you don't get the raise you thought you deserve, and... the moment the woman of your dreams is now the woman of your nightmares. At the moment life hits you in the face, not quite the way you'd like it. Many people go off and they blame God for it. On them it is written, "B'fihem uv'sfatam kibduhu, v'libam rachak mimeni." honored me with their lips and they gave me lip service. They said things they believe they have Emunah. Yeah, I love you, Hashem. Talk about love of Hashem. Talk about love of Hashem. We have Emunah in Hashem. Really, inside their heart, far, far away from me. People talk a big game. We have Emunah in Hashem. We love Hashem. But there is a Gvul. There's a line.

8:30Question is, where's your line? Everyone here believes in God. Even the atheist believes in God to a certain extent; he just doesn't want to. Everyone believes that there has to be a Creator. Someone that's done Teshuvah, someone that calls themselves religious, obviously claims to believe in God more than the average, and... Question is, how much do you believe in God? How much? Where's your line? Now, when you're sitting here enjoying the shiur Torah, hopefully it's very easy to believe in God. You're hearing words of Hashem spoken right now. Smacked with different, of course, easy you're here. What about you? You have an appointment at 8:30 in the morning with a million-dollar contract, and you got a flat tire. There's no chance in the world you're gonna make the appointment. Do you still believe in God? What about if the mortgage check just bounced? The mortgage check for the house that the kids rely on just bounced. Do you still believe in God? I...

9:49Your best friend just stabbed you in the back. You still believe him? You got fired from your job. You worked there for 20 years. You still believe in God? Your number one investment just turned to zero. You have become poor. You went from rich to poor in an instant. You still believe? Your husband... Just yesterday, you loved Him and were with Him for 20 years; all of a sudden, He became a lot of it. The guy tried to kill you for no reason. Are you blaming God? Do you still believe in God? All these different nightmare tests that each one of us has to endure in our life. You just took your first rabbinical test and you failed, you feel like a loser. Do you believe in God? People get divorced and they blame God for it. People lose money, they blame God for it. People get sick, and they blame God for it. People go through hardship, and all of a sudden, that emunah and that love for Hashem that they claimed they had for so many years disappears as fast as you can even imagine. It all becomes like smoke and mirrors and

11:12It's like it never existed. That's what the pasuk is saying. You said you believed. You honored me with your lips. But your heart was far from me. So the question is, Rabotai, where does the love and emunah in Hashem end with you? That's what you have to work on. Just like you have speedometers for your cars to know how far and how fast you're going. You don't want to go too fast. You don't want to go too slow. You have an emunah meter. You have an emunah meter. You have a test. It's testing your emunah. Money, relationships, this, that, different things. You have constant tests. Those tests are to build you, to prepare you for the next one. Now, to finalize it all, is this. When you understand when David HaMelech said, "Your stick and your shaft, those are the ones that..." Those tests are to build you, to prepare you for the next one. Now, to finalize it all, is this. When you understand when David HaMelech said, "Your stick and Your staff, those are the ones that..."

12:37Give me my salvation, my comfort. David HaMelech, I said this in a previous shiur, that David HaMelech is telling us that sometimes Hashem treats us like we ran away. So He has to hit us. He has to hit us to get us back, like little sheep who don't know where to go. He has to hit us to get us back in. But sometimes we're not running away. We just need direction. So He tells us He's with the staff. Go here, go here, go here, go here. If you know that both the stick and the staff are coming from Hashem, it gives you comfort. But the answer of how to get there is answered by this week's parasha. In this week's parasha, we go over something that we've gone over at least half a dozen times in the last several years. But it's never enough. We actually learn this every single day in tefillah and Shacharit. When Am Yisrael got to the Sea of Reeds, behind them the Egyptians wanted to kill them. Pharaoh was so happy that they closed themselves in. There was no way for them to go. Behind them were the Egyptians. To the right and left was an empty desert full of snakes and scorpions. They wouldn't survive. In front of them was an ocean that didn't end.

14:04said they're doomed. They've actually gone headfirst into a dead-end street. Am Yisrael cries to Hashem, doesn't know what to do. Hashem says to Moshe Rabbeinu, why are you screaming to Me? Tell them to move forward. Nachshon ben Aminadav goes into the sea, Hashem splits the ocean. the story goes of how miraculously Hashem split the ocean and made miracle after miracle. If you learn the specific Midrashim of how many miracles actually happened inside the ocean while they were passing it, you'd wish you were there. Fruits were growing from the ground, and the ground flattened out. Water became fresh water. Amazing, amazing. after the enemy came in, he destroyed the enemy and let the Jews live, and so on and so forth. Amazing things. But then it says, this is giving us exactly the secret of what Avraham Avinu was trying to tell us all along, just literally

15:32It says, and Am Yisrael saw the great hand of Hashem and how He inflicted it upon Egypt. And the people feared Hashem and had emunah in Hashem and in Moshe His servant. Despite the miracles that they've seen for a year, seeing Egypt turned from master to slave, seeing the plagues come in an unnatural way, not like this other guy said. ...seeing the frogs come and the blood come and the ice and lava and all these different unnatural things happen in front of their eyes. When they got to the Sea of Reeds, they still lacked some emunah. They still lacked some emunah. That's why the sea didn't split. They lacked the merit. Hashem says, do something to prove it. Do something to prove you believe in me. Not just say words. Words, I have everyone say words. Everyone says, "I believe." Everyone says, "I believe in God." Until the moment the truth comes and they don't believe in anything. Everyone says, "I believe." Now, do you believe during the trials and tribulations? When they got to the ocean, not everyone believed. Nachshon ben Aminadav took a test, passed it for everyone. They lack the merit. Hashem says, do something to prove it. Do something to prove you believe in Me. Not just say words. Words, I have everyone say words. Everyone says, "I believe." Everyone says, "I believe in God." Until the moment the truth comes, and they don't believe in anything. Everyone says, "I believe." Now, do you believe during the trials and tribulations? When they got to the ocean, not everyone believed. Nachshon ben Aminadav took a test and passed it for everyone.

16:50everyone passed. But now they finally, after a year of tests, a year of trials and tribulations, a year of miracles, now it says we saw the hand of Hashem. Finally, they saw this is Hashem. This must be Hashem. There is no other god. There's nothing else. And immediately it says, and they feared Him. Meaning once we realize it's from Hashem, The first reaction that a normal person has, a living person has, is fear. Why? You realize everything depends on Him. If your parnassah, your zivug, your children, everything depends on Him, if everything depends on Him, of course you're going to fear Him. And then it says, they feared Hashem, and then they had emunah in Him. Meaning, Rabotai, to finalize everything we just learned: You want to be like Avraham Avinu? You want to be like Moshe Rabbeinu? You want to be like Am Yisrael at its peak? This is the map. First and foremost, realize what Avraham Avinu realized his whole life: Everything is from G-d.

18:12The trials, the tribulations, the big tests, the small tests, the leaf falling from the tree, the shoe being missing, the key being missing, the job you got, the job you got fired from, the friends you have, the friends you don't have, the good, the bad, and the ugly—everything is from Hashem. Once you realize everything is from Hashem, you should be scared. You should be scared. Once you have an understanding that you need to be scared of Hashem, you have Yirat Shamayim, you have a foundation of Yirat Shamayim, then we work on Emunah. Why? Because if you have Yirat Shamayim, that Yirat Shamayim is going to get you to have the Emunah at the time of need. At the time of need, at that big test that you're finally going to have one day, Mashiach is going to come. It's going to be very hard, Rabotai. Don't think Mashiach is going to show up and everybody is going to be okay. It's gonna be very hard. But if you have a foundation based on Yirat Shamayim, you'll have the emunah to see Mashiach. You'll have the emunah to survive Mashiach. But without Yirat Shamayim as a foundation, you're never gonna have the emunah. And if you don't have the emunah, you're still gonna have to explain the first step. How is everything from God?

19:36How's everything from God if you have no emunah? The two can't connect. Everything cannot be from God if you have no emunah. You're going to start using your own rational sense to try to break things down. Oh no, yeah, they split the ocean, but it was a tsunami. Yeah, the money came in, but that's just coincidentally because he got paid that day. Oh yeah, I met her on that day, but that's only because she was looking at the same time. And it's coincidence for this, and coincidence for that, and everything is a coincidence. It's never God. That is a poisonous Torah. You want a healthy Torah? You want a Torah that's gonna actually mean something at the moment of need? It must have that connecting point. That's Yirat Shamayim. You connect everything to Hashem from the beginning, You're going to have Yirat Shamayim to depend on. That Yirat Shamayim is going to get you to have the Emunah you're going to need anyway. The Emunah you're going to need anyway whether you like it or not. Why? Because the test is still going to be given. The only difference is, are you going to treat it like an open book test or a closed book test? If you have Emunah, it's an open book test. Okay, it's hard. But you know you're going to pass. Why? He gave it to you. That means you can pass. You know it's under control.

20:57If it's a closed book test, hopefully you studied hard enough.