MOSHE Rabbeinu vs Steve Jobs - MUSSAR Iggeret HaRAMBAN (8)

0:12Thank you for coming. I don't think I'm live. I'm not seeing it here. I'm just seeing the poster, by the way. Yeah. Okay. Wow. Sounds like an interesting guy. So, Baruch Hashem, we're back here in Aventura. We have our Tuesday shiur, our Iggeret HaRamban. Tonight we'll, B'ezrat Hashem, continue with the letter. Today's shiur will be for a refuah shlema for David Ben Esriah, Doris Bat Jorah, Levana Bat Sara, Sarah Bat Levana, Rav Ephraim Ben Shulamit, Rabbanit Sarah Bat Anat. And all of Am Yisrael, Be'ezrat Hashem, will have refuah shlema, refuat hanefesh, refuat haguf. So, the Iggeret HaRamban continues. We, Baruch Hashem, have already gone through the first several verses, the first several sentences of this shiur, and you can see the depth of the letter is relatively intense. Each word you can study for weeks, each sentence you can study for years. Now,

1:33The Chachamim have always delved into every word of the other Chachamim just to make sure that they understood every single intention. So, for example, there is a very famous minhag in Chassidut to celebrate, to have a few drinks. The Chabadniks call it a Farbrengen. Other Chassidim call it different names. But the point is that it's a... Very interesting minhag because it says in the Gemara that if somebody wants to enjoy their Yom Tov, they have to have a little bit of wine and meat. That's the way that a person enjoys, their body enjoys something. Now, some people, like me, don't really like wine, don't like liquor. Through all of the surgeries, I had something happen to my body. At some point, I became somewhat allergic to a lot of it. So for me, to get drunk would be torture. But for other people, they enjoy it. The question is, where does all of this stem from? Now, the Gemara says you're supposed to enjoy yourself, but not get to a point where you lose your mind. Now, the Admor of Kotzk had a minhag, which was very unusual and completely unfit for our current generation...

2:57But in his generation, he had a minhag where he and the chassidim would have a drink before prayer. Now, I just verified that most people, at least normal people, drink after prayer. You know, they pray to Hashem, they have a dinner, they have a lunch, whatever, they have a few drinks. But the Admor of Kotzk, they had a minhag to drink before praying. Now we all know the sons of Aharon HaKohen, Nadav and Avihu, They had a drink before they went into the Kodesh HaKodashim, and Chazal says that was one of the reasons why Hashem killed them. So how could it be that someone as holy as the Admor of Kotzk would have such a minhag? So the story goes that one time there was a new chassid, a new chassid of Kotzk, who said, "Can I be a chazzan?" So everybody has their usual drink, and this guy also has a drink. He starts praying, and all of a sudden, you see that the drink is still there. He's a little tipsy. He starts Amidah, and he finishes, but he's not all there. After everybody finishes the prayer, at the end, the Admor of Kotzk says to him...

4:26Don't come back. No, no, I'm sorry. Listen, I drank a little too much. He goes, no, no, it's not about drinking. Everybody drank. But you, you're not a Chassid of Kotzk. You're not my Chassid. He goes, Rebbe, I learned your Torah. I come to the shiurim. I do this, I do that. He says, listen, you're not fit for our Chassidut. You're not fit. He says, why? Why am I not fit? How could you? Why? Did I make a mistake? He goes, no, no, people make mistakes all the time. You see, to be part of our Chassidut, you have to have Yirat Shamayim. You have to have fear of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. The Gemara says that if somebody has real Yirat Shamayim, even if they had a drink, as soon as they start praying, all of the drunkenness runs away from them because of the fear of G-d that they have at the moment they're about to meet HaKadosh Baruch Hu. So I saw that the alcohol didn't leave your system. That means you don't belong in Chassidut Kotzk. You can go somewhere else. Over here, you don't have enough Yirat Shamayim for us. Meaning, Rabotai Yekarim, that Yirat Shamayim is something very significant. Even if you're going to celebrate, even if you're going to enjoy yourself, there's always a time and a place for everything. But the Ramban, after he

5:51told us a little bit about how we should fear HaKadosh Baruch Hu and stay away from anger, stay away from arrogance. He tells us a little bit about how you have to act towards every single person. You have to speak benachat, have to be gentle with other people, meaning, as we explained, gentle in consideration to their neshamot, who they are, what they are, communicate to them on their level. make sure that you save yourself from all types of anger. Make sure that you run away from anger at all costs, because once you have anger, all types of Gehinnom will control your life, both in this world and, chas ve'shalom, also in the next world. But then after he finishes all of this, he says that after you've distanced yourself, you've run away, you've saved yourself from this anger, you will then have humility, anavah. enter your heart. So last week we touched on it a little bit and then he continues. We're going to continue as well. And the Ramban says, now this humility

7:07is the most sterling quality. It's the finest of all the admirable traits. Meaning, if you have a list of, let's say, a hundred different character traits that a human being can have—stinginess, generosity, arrogance, humility, and so on and so forth—you have the good and the bad and the ugly. He says the best one, the worst one is anger. Run away from it. Why? Because all of the garbage in the world, all the bad character traits, all of the sins, all the bad things in this world will start with anger. And anger itself comes from the root of arrogance. So that one, run away from. That one you have to be extreme about. Fanatic about not getting angry. But then you go to the other end. He says the best one, the best possible trait you could ever have is to be humble. Now, this sounds nice in a book. We read it in a lot of books. Everybody has heard about Moshe Rabbeinu. And everybody knows. You don't even have to know anything about Torah. What is Moshe Rabbeinu known by? No? Who's going to volunteer? He's humble. He's the most humble man that ever lived. HaKadosh Baruch Hu himself signed off. Moshe Rabbeinu, anav mikol adam. He is the most humble human being that ever existed, that ever will exist.

8:31But in today's world, humility is frowned upon in so many ways. Humility, if you're a humble person, people think that you're a pushover. They could just step all over you. Because if you look at the world around us, it's the opposite of humility. You start from the top. Who is the most famous American right now? Donald Trump. Okay, one guy's awake. Donald Trump is awake. Donald Trump is the most famous right now. He's on the news, he's on Twitter, he's on everything. Every day there's a new announcement. But the reality is that one of the most critical traits that made Donald Trump famous is what? His arrogance. Nobody cares. A lot of people have money. There are plenty of people that are much richer than him. There are just very few people that are more arrogant than him. He's by far one of the most arrogant human beings that exist today. He constantly toots his own horn and tells everybody about all the good things that he's done and all the good things he's going to do. Whether he did them or he's going to do them is irrelevant. He likes to talk. He likes to give himself a pat on the back. Sometimes, he even likes to embarrass other people just in order to make himself look better.

9:53Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like Donald Trump learned some Torah, so you can't blame him because without Torah, you have absolutely no reason whatsoever to be humble. Without Torah, you have no idea that humility is even an admirable thing to do. You look at other people, famous businessmen in the world. All of you either own or have owned an iPhone at some point. The founder of the company, Apple, Steve Jobs... Now, years ago, I was on the advisory board for a guy that made a movie called Jobs, a movie about Steve Jobs. And it was a group of us CEOs, and they asked us, "What do you think of this? What do you think of the budget? What do you think of Ashton Kutcher being the star?" and so on and so forth. It was an interesting meeting. And the guy that... was the producer, spoke a lot about Steve Jobs, how special he was, how innovative he was, how inspiring he was, how much of a genius he was, and so on and so forth. But then he would say, you know, he was a genius. No one could doubt that. He had a lot of innovative ideas, had a lot of brilliant things to do, and so on. But he was by far one of the most arrogant, obnoxious human beings that you could ever meet.

11:21People would come out of meetings with him crying, tears hysterical, crying because of the insults they would get from him if they didn't meet their deadline or didn't meet the criteria or if what they did wasn't up to his standards. He would insult people, break people, fire people, all types of things—horrible, horrible things. But if I asked you, who do you want to be? remember that after 120 you go to life. Who do you aspire to be now? Moshe Rabbeinu? Be honest, don't lie. It's on camera. Moshe Rabbeinu or Steve Jobs? No, how many of you want to be Moshe Rabbeinu? One, two, three. I don't know if you guys are honest. How many of you want to be Steve Jobs?

12:23Both. Why both? The truth is, I went to a yeshiva one time. I did this a few times. I did this experiment a few times. Maybe next time you guys should be teaching because it seems like the yeshiva students have a different opinion than you guys. A couple of times I tried this in yeshivot in Canada, in Florida, in New York. I ask this question often. Usually it's not Steve Jobs. Usually it's LeBron James. Oh, LeBron James changes? LeBron James? So I ask them, how many people want to be like Moshe Rabbeinu? Usually, at best, one kid raises his hand. And I mean yeshiva I'm talking about. One kid raises his hand. Learns Torah all day, but doesn't want to be like Moshe Rabbeinu. How many people want to be like LeBron James? Everybody raises their hand. Two hands. One guy is a comedian. Can I have a foot too also? Everything. Everyone wants to be LeBron James. Why? Because everybody thinks, oh, it's the money, and it's this, and then the fame, and the fortune, and so on and so forth. What we're going to try to answer tonight is in reality,

13:30Okay, so even if you include the money, if you read the Midrashim, you also know that Moshe Rabbeinu was also very rich. So wealth is not going to separate the two characters, whether it's Steve Jobs Well, it's LeBron James who calls himself the GOAT, GOAT, greatest of all time. And they had a whole big debate about it, if he or Michael Jordan is better. Some craziness. I don't know why somebody would say they're the greatest. If they're the greatest, other people should say it. But maybe he needs to learn this, you also. Maybe b'ezrat Hashem, LeBron James is going to learn this, you also. Why? Because you have to ask yourself, what does it pay to be? Money, Moshe Rabbeinu also had. Money comes from HaKadosh Baruch Hu. HaKadosh Baruch Hu decides, you're going to become a billionaire in five minutes from now. Without a lottery ticket, He'll make you a billionaire in five minutes from now. It's not hard for Him. He created the whole world. HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, mine is the money, mine is the gold. So if you want something, convince Me, give Me a reason to give you the money. So it's money, it's not the difference. Moshe Rabbeinu had plenty of money.

14:38So you can't say, no, if you have money, then maybe it's going to make you arrogant because Moshe Rabbeinu had a lot of money and he wasn't arrogant. He was quite the opposite. On the other hand, there are many people that I know, and I'm sure you know, that don't have two nickels to scratch together, but they're as arrogant as can be. They're as arrogant as if Steve Jobs works for them and LeBron James is cleaning their bathrooms. They don't have anything to show for it. Looks, they look like they just came out of some atomic bomb explosion. Money, you're not really sure if you should give them some change as soon as you see them. It's like, "You need a dollar, buddy? You sure you're okay?" You're not sure. They don't have any money. They don't have any looks. Brain-wise, one plus one. You figure that out yet? I mean, you're 35 now. One plus one, you're good? Or you need a calculator? They don't have a brain. So you ask yourself, why are you arrogant? For what? They don't have an explanation of why, but they're extremely arrogant. There's one tipesh that goes on Facebook all the time. Baruch Hashem, until I blocked all his profiles. He would make videos of his foolishness.

15:45you know, publicize all of his stupidity on the internet, things that happened with his ex-wife, things that happened, you know, all types of silly, silly things. And one time, you know, somebody came to me and said, listen, this guy's, you know, he's a creation of Hashem, he's a religious guy, you know, with a kippah, a beard, everything, and he's doing all these silly things on the internet. So I tried reaching out to him privately. I'm like, listen, I know you have some problems. Your wife, your this, your that, all these different things. I understand you're hot-headed a little bit. You're upset a little bit. I get it. But there's no need for the whole world to see it. There's no need for the whole world to see it. You're upset? Okay, fine. Keep it to yourself. A few close friends if you need somebody. What do you get out of publicizing all your trash to the world? What do you get out of it? It's Chilul Hashem, it's desecration of Hashem. Why is it desecration of Hashem? Desecration of Hashem means that you're making the Torah and HaKadosh Baruch Hu look less than what they are. So if you are a Jew, doesn't matter if you're religious or not religious, you are a Jew and you are doing something inappropriate in public, you are desecrating the name of Judaism in public and by default the name of God in public.

16:57You don't need to be a religious Jew. It's not like just the religious Jews that go to the casino. They're the only wicked ones. No, no. Even if you're a regular average Jew and your non-Jewish friends at work know that you drive on Shabbat and eat pork on Yom Kippur, guess what? That's Chilul Hashem. That's desecration of Hashem, and that's a very serious problem. So I told this guy, I'm like, listen, why don't you just keep this stuff private? If you need any help, if you need any guidance, if you need any advice, no problem here. No problem. The guy gives it to me on the head. Well, I felt like I just killed his mother. What a common curse! He made a whole video about me. After he made a video about me, next he started saying, "Who do you think you are?" Well, he had all types of wonderful compliments, but b'ezrat Hashem, it's good for me. All over, people give me compliments like that, so now I... person like this was telling me, "Oh, I studied in the yeshiva here, under Rabbi so-and-so, and I know this Rabbi here." And all they do, you know, name drop. You guys ever heard of that term, "name droppers"? You know, people that tell you that they know all these people, but you know, it always happens that those people don't know them, though. They know those people, but those people don't know them either. They name drop. He starts telling all these rabbis' names and yeshivot and this and that and...

18:13In reality, 99.9% of what he said was complete stupidity. Didn't make any sense. No significance whatsoever. No halachic connection whatsoever. But his arrogance was so big, he couldn't see himself even. So sometimes you ask yourself, how could people that have nothing, nothing to show for it, be arrogant? which shows that it's not just good-looking people, rich people, or smart people who are arrogant. If you're arrogant, it's a character trait; it's a flawed character trait that is irrelevant to the facts. It's completely disconnected from the facts. You don't need to be rich to be arrogant. The guy who's rich and arrogant was arrogant before he was rich, just for something else. The guy that was, you know, all of a sudden invented something big and he saw, "Wow, look, I did this," he was arrogant for something else before he invented it. It's a character trait. And today, unfortunately, we are in a society

19:17where people think that in order to succeed, you need to show your stuff, you need to show off, you need to be arrogant, you need to be one of these show-offs. And that's why, for example, people walk around with these giant watches. What, do you have a problem with your eyes? Why do you need such a big watch? You don't even know how to tell the time; you use your phone anyway. Why do you need such a big watch? 9 out of 10 times it's fake too. You know, so why do you need this big fake watch? For what? Or they have these cars. I remember when I was young—I don't think it exists anymore—when I was young, this is probably before many of you guys were even born, they had these rims called spinners. where a guy would have a rim, a chrome rim, and then another rim on top of it spinning. So every time he would stop, the rim would continue spinning on his car. The funniest thing in the world is that the rims themselves, they cost a bunch, like $10,000, something like that. The guy's car was 500 bucks, but the rims were 10,000. Why? Everybody's looking at it. They had a whole song about it and all types of nonsense. People want attention. Look at me. Look at me. They'll rent a car. They'll go out of town because everybody at home knows they're homeless. They go out of town, they come to Florida, and they rent a car for their life savings. They take $2,000, $3,000, they rent a Ferrari, and they drive on Lincoln Drive 5,000 times. They have nothing to do. 5,000 times until they run out of gas. Then they have to call the tow truck because they don't have money for the gas either. So they go, "Just look at me, look at me. I'm driving a Lambo. I'm driving a Ferrari. I'm driving this. I'm driving that." People need to be looked at. People need to show off.

20:31They go out of town, they come to Florida, and they rent a car for their life savings. They take $2,000, $3,000, they rent a Ferrari, and they drive on Lincoln Drive 5,000 times. They have nothing to do—5,000 times until they run out of gas. Then they have to call the tow truck because they don't have money for the gas either. So they go, "Just look at me, look at me. I'm driving a Lambo, I'm driving a Ferrari, I'm driving this, I'm driving that." People need to be looked at. People need to show off. They wear all these flashy clothes, do all these flashy things, publicize their nonsense on the internet. We are in a society that's the opposite of what the Torah says is good. Now, if we're going to talk about Gan Eden and Gehenom, then we don't need to go over it again. Why? How do you realize? If Hashem says that Moshe Rabbeinu is the best of the best, the prophet of all prophets, and he's the most humble, and you see that all of the tzaddikim, We're all humble, each on their own level. And you realize that HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants you to be humble. So if you're humble, Gan Eden is an option. If you're not humble, then obviously Gan Eden is not an option. But the question is, in this world, in this world, what does it pay to be, really? Moshe Rabbeinu or Steve Jobs? Or LeBron James, for those who don't know Steve Jobs.

21:58What does it pay to be? Both are rich. Both are good-looking. Both have wives and kids. The question is, what does it pay to be? The guy that shows off his muscles, he goes to the gym, 95 minutes in the gym, 90 minutes out of the 95, he's flexing his muscles in front of the mirror just to make sure in case somebody's looking. He's flexing. He didn't lift a single weight, but he's flexing. He's flexing because he worked out last year. That guy... To be Moshe Rabbeinu that even if he wants to work out, he works out at home. Nobody sees. Even if he's built and he's jacked and he's got his fit and everything else, you can't tell because he wears big clothes. He wants to be fit. He doesn't want to show off. What does it pay to be in this world? Can I get a no? We'll do a show about that next time. We did last week also. I want to know about this world. Let's see now. Moshe Rabbeinu obviously had the... ultimate level of humility, and Chazal says that having humility is like having a superconductor connection to HaKadosh Baruch Hu.

23:05Because Hashem is the humblest of all, He allows people to do all types of things that are against Him, even though He's the King of Kings. People curse Him. People say, "I don't believe in Him." People go against Him. And He sits there, quiet and patient, and gives us another day to do teshuva, another week to do teshuva, another year to do teshuva. Even though this year, instead of doing teshuva, they made a website against Him. Even though this year, instead of doing mitzvot, they actually helped the goyim go against the Jews, and so on and so forth. People do a lot of things against Hashem, but Hashem sits quietly and patiently and lets people have another chance, and another chance, and another chance. If I were God, the world would be destroyed every day. Why? Because I don't have Hashem's patience. I don't have Hashem's patience. Somebody says something against me, atheism—immediately all of them are killed. idol worshipers right after the atheists. All of the people that are like 50-50, I give them one shot. I make one announcement: By the way, you keep Shabbat, you live. You don't keep Shabbat, you make a single sin, you're dead. That's it. That's why I'm not God, by the way. God asked me, "You want to be God?" I said, "No, listen, I'm going to kill the whole world." So He said, "Okay, fine, I'll remain God. I'll remain God." So now...

24:20Chazal say that if you have humility, you have a superconductor-like connection to Hashem. You can have all types of connections, but if you have a superconductor connection to Hashem, it's the best of the best. When you pray, that prayer gets answered. When you cry, those tears get answered. When you need something, you get it. Why? You are acting like Hashem. You're emulating Hashem. He's humble, you're humble. But what if we don't care about the connection to Hashem to the same extent we're supposed to? And we don't really care about Olam HaBa, Gan Eden, Gehenom as much as we're supposed to. What about this world? So the Chachamim say, let's see. Let's see, what does a humble person do versus an arrogant person?

25:20Now, the Shevet Mussar in chapter 17 gives several different behavior patterns that will identify and describe what a humble person really is. Because most people think that if you're humble, you're just some loser that people kick all the time. That doesn't mean that. Humble just means that you know where you stand. You know that you have capabilities. If you're good-looking, you know you're good-looking. If you're smart, you know you're smart. If you are rich, you know you're rich. You're not denying the truth. But you know that all of what you have that's of any value is only because of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. And you use all of those things to connect to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. If you're rich, that means that you know that you have a bigger responsibility to publicize Torah. A regular person has to give ma'aser. Ten percent of their money they have to donate to show Hashem, listen, You gave me a hundred percent, I'm gonna donate ten percent of my income to publicize Torah. Someone that wants to be extra righteous, the Gemara in Masechet Kiddushin says, should give chomesh, should give twenty percent. But someone that's rich, someone that makes millions and millions of dollars, there's no limit.

26:41In fact, you should give as much as necessary, even above 20%. Someone who is not rich is not allowed to give more than 20%. But someone who is rich, someone who has $100 million, someone who has that kind of money, he has to give more. Why? You don't need $100 million to live. How many houses can you live in at once? How many cars can you drive at once? How many planes can you have? Okay, you can buy your stuff, but as long as there are poor people, as long as there's more need for Torah, more need for teshuva in the world, you have to use that money, that gift that HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave you, to publicize Torah. You have to use that gift to help and contribute to society. Even if that's above and beyond the standard for everyone else, even the righteous. So he knows if he's rich, the humility will allow him to realize, okay, I'm rich, but I'm only rich because of Hashem. I'm going to use this gift in order to sanctify Hashem's name. But if he's arrogant, he'll say, wait a minute, I'm the one that works for the money. If they want money, let them go to work. I'll give them a job. They can clean my car.

27:44I'll pay them 15 bucks an hour. They can clean my car. I'll pay them 10 bucks. They can say hello to me. I'll give them a $5 tip. They can open the door. I'll give them a dollar. Well, if they want to work, let them go make money. That's what the arrogant person says. He thinks he made the money and anyone else that wants to have a share in it has to earn it. So now the Shevet HaMusar says, let's see. Let's see the difference, the major characteristic differences between someone that has humility versus another. First and foremost, someone that has humility speaks gently. We again arrive at this speaking gently character trait or activity that a person does. Why? So the Shevet HaMusar says that a humble man speaks gently even to people that depend on him, meaning family members, employees, poor people, and he treats all men and women with equal respect and honesty. Now, when you say "speaking gently," what do you guys think of? Give me an example of somebody that you know who speaks gently.

28:58Now, most people, if they're going to say he speaks gently, usually they're not going to put me in that definition. Why? I have a little bit of a loud voice. I sometimes seem aggressive. So they're not going to describe it. But they're going to describe maybe one of the old tzaddikim that speaks really low. Says, "Yes, how are you?" You know, has a nice voice. Ah, he speaks gently. Now, although that's true... that tzaddik speaks gently, the first description is wrong. Why? Because people assume that speaking gently means that you have a low voice, a monotone voice, a voice that's always smiley and soft, and no matter what happens, everything is okay. No, it doesn't mean that. If you look at some of the recent tzaddikim that have left us, for example, you look at Rav Shvadron,

29:59But one of the gedolim from the previous generation had powerful speeches that until this day, people who have heard them are shaken by them. He helped a lot of people in both the religious and non-religious world. One of the most powerful speakers that ever lived, and even though I don't know everybody that ever lived, I can tell you for sure everyone would agree with me if they heard his speech one time. One time you hear his speech, you do teshuva. You don't even know what you're doing teshuva for, but you have to do teshuva. The Ben Ish Chai. The Ben Ish Chai, when he spoke, he would have, a few times a year, a lecture where over 10,000 people would show up. And he didn't have to pay them 15 bucks. 10,000 people showed up. Now, after he died, his son, Rabbi Yaakov, took over, and 10,000 people showed up. And he's speaking. Everybody says, "We can't hear you, Rabbi. We can't hear you." And he tries louder. "Rabbi, what are you saying?" And he's yelling at the top of his lungs. He's starting to lose his voice. People from the back say, "We can't hear anything." He says to people, "I'm sorry. You're thinking I'm like my father. When my father spoke,

31:26It's like HaKadosh Baruch Hu's voice came out of his throat. HaKadosh Baruch Hu's voice came out of his throat meaning that the Ben Ish Chai spoke loudly. So what are you going to say—that the Ben Ish Chai, Rav Shwadron, Rav Nissan, again, were not gentle souls, were not lovers of Am Yisrael? All they did was love Am Yisrael all their lives. They learned and they did whatever they could to help Am Yisrael. Which means that when the Chachamim are referring to someone that speaks gently, it has nothing to do with the tone of voice. It has to do with how you speak to people as far as your appreciation and your consideration to their neshama, gentle referencing their neshama. If a person has just dealt with some type of trauma, you're going to speak to him in a level, in a way, that handles a person that speaks with trauma. You know that he just lost somebody very significant, so you're going to talk to him or her in a way that's heart to heart. I know it's very hard. I don't know how you feel because I'm not experiencing the same thing, but I'm here for you. Any questions you have, any issues you have, you need a hug, you need a shul, you need a place to stay, you want to go out for whatever you need, I'm here for you.

32:49Now, that tone of voice doesn't really make a difference. Why? Because the person that listens to those few words says, "Oh, this person cares. This person cares about what I need at the time I need it." On the other hand, if you see, like some of my students at times, they didn't have the greatest upbringing. So, I have a guy in New York, I think he's in New York, maybe Jersey. And the guy is serious, serious, former gangster. Now, if I talk to him, and I say, "Hey, how are you? What's going on? Is everything tzaddik?" You know, he says to me, "Rabbi, what's wrong with you? You okay? What's wrong with you?" But if he has a problem, and I talk to him like I'm talking to you, guess what? Things happen. Why? Because that's what his neshama connects to. meaning you have to talk to people on their level. You have to communicate with them in a certain way. If it's a woman, you speak to her in a certain way. You know that she's typically more emotional. If it's a man, you speak to him in a different way. Sometimes they're more closed. They have a more difficult time opening up. If it's a child, you speak to him in a certain way. You know that for the child, everything is still new. You speak to them in that way, and so on and so forth. Meaning gentle is referring to

34:15Gentle in referencing to their soul, you're considering how their soul is going to accept what you're going to say. You're taking them into consideration and not necessarily yourself. So now, if somebody is humble, before he starts talking, before she starts talking to anybody, that's going to be the first consideration. It's not what am I going to say to him when he gets home? It's how am I going to say it? It's not, "What am I going to say to her as soon as she arrives?" It's, "How am I going to say what I need to say to her to arrive at a conclusion that we're both on the same page?" Not what to say, but how to say it. An arrogant person is simply not thinking any of this. All the arrogant person is thinking is what they need to do, what they need to say, what their destination is, and how do I get there? Hey, I need this done. Go. He's not thinking this guy is limping, he has a bad leg, he has a bad arm. No, he cares less. He needs something done. He just tells him, go do what you gotta do. That's it. I just need it done. Now, it's very simple.

35:33be arrogant because it simply requires you to care about nobody but yourself. But if you want to have a chance of being humble, you have to start thinking about how they are going to take what I'm going to say to them. It's important; that's why I want to tell them what I want to tell them. But how are they going to take it? How can I give them the information that's difficult in a way that they'll accept it without getting the wrong message, without misunderstanding me, without being offended for the wrong reason. Now, this has a lot to do with how we communicate with the most important people in our life. Sometimes you want to tell your parents something that's not really comfortable. For example, your parents want you to go somewhere with them. They want you to go, I don't know, to a movie. Once you go to a movie, now you're doing teshuva, and you heard the Rabbi say, "You go to a movie?" Put your question mark next to Halacha. Why? You're going to see things in that movie. Most likely, there's going to be some things that you're not allowed to see. Because if there's nothing that's not allowed to see, what's the point of the movie? Now, if it's not allowed to see, even the commercials, even the commercials are already almost nudity. So, the movie for...

36:53Now your parents want you to go to a movie. Why? They want to go see a movie. Their whole life they watch movies. You watch movies, but now you start to do teshuva. Now you start to put tefillin on. Now you say, now you put a kippah on, a little tzaddik. Now you have tzniut, you change your clothes. You actually started putting on clothes instead of walking around half naked. You know, now you want to be a little tzaddeket, a little tzaddik. But your parents want you to go back to your past from two, three, four, five, six months ago. Now, if we tell them this, "Hey, Ima, Abba, listen, I'm doing teshuva. I can't go." Guess what? It's not going to hold for a while. It's not going to work out for a while. Why? First and foremost, they're going to say, "Wait a minute. You realize that we used to change your diapers, right? You realize you're a nothing. You realize you live under our roof. You realize that I'll decide if you go to a movie or not." As long as you live under my roof, no one can force you to go to the movie or do whatever you don't want to do. Because you said, "I don't want to"? Because you acted as if you're better than them? "I'm doing teshuva, you're not. So that's why I'm not going." Now, on the other hand, if you take their perspective and say, "Listen, my Abba and Ima, they've been watching movies, these poor souls, they don't realize there's something wrong with them. They didn't come to the shiur, they didn't even get the $15."

38:10They didn't come to the shiur, and they don't know it's not good to go to a movie. They don't know yet. Now, if I tell them I'm not going because I'm doing teshuvah, they're going to say, well, you're a fanatic. What, are you going to start throwing rocks at me on Shabbat? What's the matter with you? So what am I going to do? I have to give them the message in a way that they're not going to be offended or take it the wrong way. So, now, it depends on what kind of parents you have. If you have a parent that's relatively flexible, that's not going to take offense to you not going, say, you know what, I don't feel like it. Don't give them the reason. Don't give them the reason. It's not your place, not the time. No, I don't feel like going. If you need a little bit of an excuse, say, "I don't feel like going, I just don't feel good. I don't feel good." It's true, you don't feel good. Why? Because as soon as you think about the stuff you're going to see in that movie, and what you’re all about is going to happen, immediately you shouldn’t feel good. Why? It's not good. "I don't feel good, I can't go to the movie." But if you think they need an explanation, if you have that kind of a relationship with your parents where they require an explanation, and they say, "Oh, why? Why don't you come? It's a good movie, it's the new X-Men."

39:18It's the new Spider-Man. It's the new Genome Part 2. Why don't you want to come with us, son? Why don't you want to come with us, my dear daughter? Why not? This one, you go, you pay $20 for the movie, guaranteed seventh level. Guaranteed. Why don't you want to come with us? So you're going to say to them, honestly, Ima, honestly, Abba, I'm trying to get closer to Hashem. It makes me feel good. It makes me feel good to be closer to Hashem. And every time I see those things, like immodesty, it affects me. Every time I'm reminded of the stuff I used to do, it hurts what I'm trying to do. And I feel, right now, I know you're not keeping Shabbat, you're not keeping, you're not doing anything. I'm not telling you what to do. I'm just saying what I'm doing right now. I go to the shul, I learn Torah, I eat, I drink, but I connect to HaKadosh Baruch Hu as the main thing. It makes me feel good, Ima. It makes me feel good, Abba. It makes me feel good. You don't have to do anything. I'm not telling you what to do. I'm not a judge, I'm not a jury. I'm just telling you what makes me feel good. And any time I'm brought back to the other things, to see the rest, it just negates all this hard work that I'm doing. So,

40:29I just don't feel like it's good for me. I'm not going to have fun. I don't care if it makes a difference to you, but I'm not going to have fun. It's not fun for me anymore. Because I'm working so hard to protect my eyes and to protect my mind, I don't want to go to the movie. Guess what? Not only are your parents saying, you know what, son? Chazak u'Baruch. Do what you gotta do. It makes you happy. It's your home. Stay home. You know what? Order pizza from the kosher place. I'll pay for it. Do whatever you want. And then guess what? Your parents are going to that movie. They're going to watch the movie, but the whole time they're thinking, you know what? I'm proud of my son. I'm proud of my daughter. They're standing up for something they believe in. Whether they agree or not with your new life is irrelevant. But everybody can appreciate somebody that stands for something. So if you communicate to them this information that way, and you have normal parents that love you, then you'll see that that communication, that consideration, that gentle talk is going to help you dramatically. It'll actually influence a lot more people to do what you're doing than you can imagine. Next, the Chachamim say that a person, when it comes to accepting praise, everybody likes compliments.

41:52Chachamim say that a person, when it comes to accepting praise, everybody likes compliments. Who here, raise your hand, who here doesn't like compliments? Who here doesn't like it when somebody tells you, "Great job"? Who here doesn't like it? Everybody likes it. Most people like it. The Chachamim say, that's the problem. The Shevet Mussar says, if you like compliments, It's not good for your neshama. Why? Now, when a person is trying to attain humility, anytime that people compliment them, they have to do an immediate evaluation. What am I getting complimented for? If somebody says, oh wow, you look good. Is that really something that I did? Did I create myself? Or did Hashem mold me into the way I am? So why am I proud of myself for looking good? Did I do it? No. So what should I say? Baruch Hashem. I'm not saying, no, no, don't compliment me. Start hating people that compliment you. But recognize, wait a minute, if I look good, if I have certain things that I didn't make myself, then instead of saying, oh yeah, thank you, say Baruch Hashem. Why? Thank God.

43:19Thank God. I look good. Thank God. I feel good. Thank God. I have such-and-such. Recognize where you got it from. But anytime people give you respect, give you honor, give you praise for things that you really don't deserve, something you didn't really do, something that you don't even really have, this should make you feel uncomfortable. This, your neshama naturally should reject it. Why? Because you know it's a lie. They give you a compliment for doing a job you didn't even do. Somebody else did it, but you don't know who. You know, sometimes it says, oh wow, great job everybody, great job. You guys, we met the deadline. You know that you had nothing to do with the deadline. You didn't do anything. Great job, you got a hundred on the test. You know you passed the test by luck. The fact that you got a hundred is a miracle of its own. To be proud of that, for what? You didn't do anything. So accepting praise has conditions, but in general, if a person wants to attain the level of humility, then that praise should immediately make the person think. If the praise is undeserved, then the person should immediately tell the people, no, no, no, I didn't do it.

44:45Somebody else did it. You should say the truth. Don't accept the praise that you don't deserve. Somebody comes in and says, "Wow, you have a nice setup here. Good job." And you didn't do anything; you just arrived also. No, no, it wasn't me. Somebody else did it. Why? Don't take things that are not yours. Even if nobody else cares about the respect or the honor or the praise, it doesn't matter. It's not for you to take. It's not for you to take. It's not for you to accept things that you don't deserve. For example, in this generation, they have a systematic way to make the new kids into losers. Why? They give them participation trophies. You guys ever heard of this stuff? You know, these kids, they put them into a little league of some sport, and it doesn't matter. Look, in the old days, when I was a kid, if you were in a sport, you were in a competition. In order to get a trophy, you had to get one of three places: first, second, or third. If you didn't get first, second, or third, you might as well be last because you got nothing. Today, if you participate, you get a trophy. So, everyone—first place, last place—everybody goes home with a trophy. Why? We don't want to offend the little kids. What, offend them? You're creating losers. If I know that whether I get last place or first place, I'm going to get a trophy, why should I try? I'm going to get a trophy anyway. If all I'm doing is for the trophy to put it on some library that I'm not, you know, just to collect dust, if I'm doing all of it for some trophy...

46:14Why should I try? Why should I run faster? Why should I do more? Why? If I'm going to get a trophy anyway, why? It's bigger? Who cares? So imagine having a house, you're 30, 40 years old, and your kids see your, wow, Abba, Ima, look at all these trophies. Wow, you participated in the contest to collect tomatoes. You participated in a football camp. You participated in a contest of reading. Wow, you participated in a lot of stuff. Which one did you win? You want all of them? No, I participated. Imagine the level of embarrassment that you can have in front of your kids. You participated. I participated. You want a cookie? You participated. It's like people that used to work for me, it's like, you know, I would rebuke them for doing something bad. It's like, yeah, but I came in on time today. What do you want, a cookie for coming in on time? I pay you to come on time. What do you think, I pay you to come late? You don't get rewarded for doing what you're supposed to do. One time somebody came to the Steipler Gaon, and he says to him, "Amazing! I saw how much you learn and how you, everything was going on. People were talking, people were arguing in the Beit Midrash, and you are unbelievable. You just focus on your Gemara." The Steipler looks at him...

47:43He has five heads. Are you going to compliment me for praying too? That's what I'm supposed to do. This is what you're supposed to do. What are you giving me a compliment for? Every time something moves, I'm going to be distracted? You're supposed to not be distracted. You're supposed to be in your Torah when you're learning, when you're doing whatever it is you're doing, 100% focused. If not, why are you doing it? supposed to show up on time. You don't get rewarded for being on time. You don't get rewarded for just doing what you're supposed to do in life. Or like some husbands or wives say, "Yeah, but I cooked for you last week," or "I bought you a present last year." Yes, and you're supposed to buy a present. You're supposed to cook. These are things you're supposed to do. Don't look for praise for the things you're supposed to do. I'm not saying accept the fact that people are underappreciative or be underappreciative yourself, but don't go looking for it.

48:47When a person looks for praise constantly, they're going to be a very, very miserable person because, unfortunately, the world is never going to give you enough praise. No one is ever going to recognize you for all the good things that you do. And even if they recognize you, they won't recognize you enough, at least not enough to your liking. The things that you do get recognized for are things you don't want to be recognized for. It's like sometimes people tell me, "Listen, I watched your shiur, it was three hours and 12 minutes. In the second hour and 12 minutes, you said the word 'A' instead of 'N.' Did you notice that?" I said, "I don't know, in three hours, I say somewhere in the neighborhood of 35,000 words." It's possible that I said "A" instead of "N." It's possible that I made a mistake. I'm human, after all. But my question to you is, out of three hours, is that all you remember? That I made a mistake in one word? What about the other three hours? What about the other 35,000 words? Oh, I don't know, yeah, yeah, I guess, yeah. That's what people notice. People notice

50:04black dot on a huge white board instead of noticing that the whole board is white. When a person is looking for praise, he's looking for people to constantly recognize all of the good that they're doing. Unfortunately, it's never going to be enough, but also they're going to become so desperate when they're looking for praise that they'll even start accepting it when they don't deserve it. When a person achieves something meaningful about the sale, he decides, "You know what? I'm going to do the opposite of what all my friends are doing, and I'm going to become modest. I'm going to start wearing dresses. I'm going to start wearing dresses that are loose and not these little pencil dresses that make you look like a pencil. I'm going to actually start looking like a Bat Yisrael. I'm going to cover my arms. I'm going to cover my elbows. I'm going to cover my legs. Not like these fake religious people who wear the skirt right at the knee line. As soon as they sit, it's as if they have no skirt." I'm going to become modest. I'm going to start wearing dresses. I'm going to start wearing dresses that are loose and not these little pencil dresses that make you look like a pencil. I'm going to actually start looking like a Bat Yisrael. I'm going to cover my arms. I'm going to cover my elbows. I'm going to cover my legs. Not like these fake religious people who wear the skirt right at the knee line. As soon as they sit, it's as if they have no skirt.

51:14No, I'm going to cover my body like a Bat Yisrael. I'm going to cover my body like a queen, like Hashem's daughter. King of kings, He has daughters. I'm one of them. I'm going to treat myself like this. All my friends are walking around as if they're going to the shower. You know, people walk around today as if they're always ready to go shower. If they go shower, they don't have to change much. Nothing. In my generation, we called it underwear. Underwear. Today, they call it clothes. That's how people walk around with underwear on, but they call it clothes. And they pay top dollar for it. Top dollars. Oh, brand new shirt, $390. The shirt covers an elbow, that's it. The rest of the body is nothing. Elbow pad, they should call it, not a shirt. Elbow pad. $390 from Fendi, from whatever, Versace. We have a new style. We're going to cover your right shoulder. That's it. The rest of the shirt, you don't need it. So Bat Yisrael takes on the mitzvah of modesty. She starts putting clothes on. She knows going into it, this is the opposite of what everybody else that she knows is doing.

52:33She can't go walking around to all of her friends. Listen, I'm a tzaddeikes now. Don't look at me the same way anymore. You have to look at me with respect. Look down when you talk to me. No, she can't walk around like that. She has to say, listen, I'm doing what I'm supposed to. And even though it's a very, very big thing, especially in a generation like this, especially in a generation where unfortunately sometimes the rebbetzin, the rabbanit is more immodest than some of the kehillah. Sometimes you have rebbetzins that are less modest than people. Yeah, this is an upside-down generation before Mashiach comes. That's the way it's supposed to be, upside-down. Now, if you're going to take on real modesty, yes, no one says you shouldn't be proud of it. But know that this is your responsibility, and also take into account that your responsibility is even more than this. Yes, you worked on your outer appearance. Now you look modest. Now you have to work on your inner appearance. Now you have to become modest inside. Now you have to work on your character traits. Same thing with guys. I always tell guys that are new to doing teshuva, rule number one, don't grow a beard. Don't grow a beard. Why? Because people in the world today look at

53:53beards in a very unusual way. If it's the style, it's the style. That's the rest of the world. I'm talking about religious people. Anytime you see a religious guy with a beard, the non-religious people say, "Hey Rabbi," and they think everybody with a beard is a Rabbi. "A Rabbi, yeah, what's this and that?" They think that if you have a beard, you're a Rabbi. Why? Because Rabbis have beards. What if you just started keeping Shabbat last week? Now the beard grows by itself for free. I But if you just started learning, if you just started doing, and you just started keeping two, three, four, or five weeks ago, or two, three, four, or five months ago, you don't have to run and have the outer appearance not necessarily represent the inner appearance. I'm not saying it's not good, but you have to know it comes with a responsibility. You can't continue going to the movies, going to casinos, and doing all the things that secular people do with a kippah and tzitzit. The point of the kippah, tzitzit, and the beard, and the outer appearance is to influence your inner appearance.

55:04So if a person is going to take that into consideration, it's like, okay, you know what? I'm going to wear a kippah. Why? Because I want to remind myself constantly that I am under Hashem. I have to remind myself constantly that before I do something, I have to say thank you to Hashem. I have to remind myself constantly that Hashem is here, and so on and so forth. Kippah is symbolic of having fear of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Even more so when a person starts growing a beard. They have to know that to the outer world, it's as if you've become fully, fully religious. And this is great. But if you yourself want to live like a 50-50 life, it's better you don't grow a beard. Why? Because if you grow a beard, what ends up happening is that really it's for style. Really, it's not for religiosity. It's not for chassidut. It's not for anything. It's for style. You just like the look. And what ends up happening is that a month later, six months later, a year and a half later, two years later, You're tired of this style. If you didn't work on your inner appearance and it stayed the same, then guess what? Three, four, five years later, you decide, oh, I'm going to shave my beard. That can be considered chilul Hashem. Why? Because to the outer world, they're going to say, wait a minute, what happened? You don't keep Shabbat anymore? You're not religious anymore? No, no, I'm religious. I just don't have a beard. Ah, no, something changed. Something changed. You're not the same anymore. I don't recognize you anymore. People are going to act differently towards you. Why? Because you had a certain look.

56:34so always remember, it is very, very important to be modest in Judaism, and that's the law. Modesty is the law. The beard, the peyos, the other stuff, the extras—it's not the law. It's not the law. It's good if you're prepared for it, if you're prepared to commit to this permanently, but if it's just for looks, don't do it. Don't do it now. If you decide to do all of this, then remember that even if everybody says, every time they see you, "Hey, Tzadik, how are you?" and everybody starts calling you a Tzadik, you started keeping Shabbat three months ago, but ironically, you're Moshe Rabbeinu because you're the only one in the community that keeps Shabbat. Now, when they say "Tzadik," don't tell them, "No, no, I'm not a Tzadik," because that just sounds weird. Say to yourself, "Halevai." What's "Halevai"? I wish. I wish. Why? Because that's what you're aspiring to become. You're aspiring to become a tzaddik. Now, have any of you ever seen some guys that go to shul, they pray, and when they pray, it's almost like they're dancing? You know, they're moving like this, almost like they're about to do a few flips. You see those guys dancing in the shuls? People think that if you're really religious, that's how you look.

58:00moving, yeah, yeah, and a guy like this and he starts talking as if he's talking to Hashem, all of a sudden pantomiming. That's not, that doesn't make you religious. That's a show. In fact, most likely you're not even praying. Why? We have to learn from the tzaddikim themselves. What did the tzaddikim themselves do? One of the admorim... One of the Admorim, one time, had Rabbi Yisrael Salanter visit him. Now all the Chassidim, they follow the Admor, they follow their Rebbe everywhere. Doesn't matter what he does. He eats a certain way, they eat a certain way. He breathes a certain way, they breathe a certain way. He goes somewhere, they follow him. Like, really, the Rebbe to the Chassidim is everything, right? Obviously, they're devoted to Hashem. But pointing to his real Chassidim, they value their Rebbeim. So they saw that the No, the Rebbe accepted the guest, Rabbi Yisrael Salanter. They didn't know who he was. They didn't know Rabbi Yisrael Salanter is one of the Gedolei HaDor, one of the biggest rabbis. They didn't know who he was. So if he accepted him, wow, let's watch. So they're watching, they're watching, they're watching, and they see that for the first time ever, when the guest left, Rabbi Yisrael Salanter left, the Rebbe followed him.

59:18Wow, the rabbi's following. He must be a big rabbi, this rabbi. So they followed him. And they saw the little boy, they're going to the shul. So everybody was so excited. Wow, if the rabbi followed this rabbi, maybe he's the rabbi. Maybe he's this. Maybe he's this. So they're all following, following. And they see, oh, he got to the shul. So they're excited to see the Beis HaMussar pray. They're trying, they're thinking we're gonna see this guy probably doing flips. We're probably gonna see this guy talk to Hashem. It's gonna be a bat kol coming from Shamayim, some type of heavenly voice. Something's gonna happen. Prayer starts and all of the Chasidim are terribly disappointed. Why? He doesn't move. The whole time He's praying to Hashem, doesn't move right, doesn't move left, doesn't even go like this, which is almost natural to most Jews. Nothing. Doesn't move like a stick. And everybody's disappointed, except the Rebbe. The Rebbe is watching, the Admor is watching, and is fascinated.

1:00:27He's disappointed. He's not doing any flips. He's not yelling. He's not going like this. He's not doing anything. Like, well, why is the rabbi so impressed? They asked the rabbi, "Rabbi, who is this guy?" "That's the Gadol HaDor. That's the biggest rabbi in the world." "What's his name?" "That's Rabbi Yisrael Salanter." He says, "Yeah, but he doesn't pray like us." He says, "Yeah, you were looking at the body, how it moves. I was looking at the face. His face, if you see the concentration he has," When he's praying, you'd admire it. Why? Because he was so in trepidation, in such fear of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, the vein on his forehead started showing. He was sweating profusely because of how afraid he was of Who he was next to. Meaning that when he prayed, Hashem was next to him. And he realized it. As we move, do you really feel like Hashem is next to you? Would you breakdance like this when Hashem was next to you?

1:01:29So you see, Rabotai, a person that's doing things for a show is not going to be humble. A person that's humble is going to do things for the right reason. Next is how a person treats their parents. Now all of you are young, Baruch Hashem, your parents are probably your biggest fans. They probably give you compliments left and right. good job for this, good job for that. At least most kids, they get praises from their parents to no end. Now, it's good that your parents are your biggest fans. It's good that they like what you're doing, the way you're going, whatever it is that you're aspiring to be. They believe that you're going to be a superstar, they believe that you're going to be the best of the best, and so on and so forth, even though sometimes it's not really realistic.

1:02:30But always remember, whatever they're proud of, whatever they're giving you a compliment for, it's good. But don't get ahead of yourself. Don't buy into it. Thank you. I love you, Ima. I love you, Abba. I appreciate it. I know you care about me. But in your head, you realize, I have to do even more. I have to aspire to do more. I have to be more. and not do it because my father and mother-in-law are going to say "good job," but rather because I need to do it, I have to do it. Now once you actually do something in life and succeed, if you have genuine humility, that success is actually going to increase your humility. Why? Because as you increase your success, you're supposed to also increase your devotion to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, since you realize that everything came from Him. You went into the business world. If you came into the business world with Hashem in mind, and every time you tried something, you said, Be'ezrat Hashem, I'll succeed. Be'ezrat Hashem, this will succeed. Be'ezrat Hashem, with God's help we'll do this, with God's help we'll do this, and it all ends up materializing and succeeding,

1:03:55As you increase your success, your devotion to Hashem should also increase. Because you realize that it really was Be'ezrat Hashem. And not because of your idea, not because of your talent, not because of your skill set, but rather because Hashem decided to listen to your prayers and wants to see what you're going to do with it. wants to see how you're going to be now that you have the success that you've wanted, the success you've aspired to have. Now, what are you going to do? Now, people like Moshe Rabbeinu saw themselves, he saw himself as literally that none of his success was due to him. Everything was due to Hashem. Whereas people like Steve Jobs did not even believe in G-d. Steve Jobs was an atheist. So no matter how many billions he made, he was convinced he was the one that made it. Now, there's a pasuk in the Torah that says, HaKadosh Baruch Hu punishes measure for measure. And He says, if you have pride, I'm going to embarrass you with what you're proud of. So when somebody like Steve Jobs, who was so fond of himself,

1:05:18and his achievements and all of the financial goals that he achieved, eventually he woke up one day to realize that all of them became worthless because no matter how much money he had, he couldn't buy himself a new liver. And when push came to shove, the billions and billions of dollars that he had couldn't even buy him one more minute in the world. that it's all Mine anyway. And that's what ended up happening to people like him. Same thing with Stephen Hawking. Same thing with many other people like this. Their end is very, very terrible. Very embarrassing. And really many people that know them that it's all mine anyway. And that's what ended up happening to people like him. Same thing with Stephen Hawking. Same thing with many other people like this. Their end is very, very terrible. Very embarrassing. And really, many people that know them

1:06:32personally don't say very nice things about them. Yes, the viewers, the users, the customers can see money, you know, nice things. You can write a nice bio. Oh, he had the iPhone and iPad and I this and I that, it's all fantastic. But the people around them don't have much to say, nothing good at least. You read any of the books about him, you watch any of the movies about him, doesn't have a very good description, doesn't have a very good rapport with people and and that's part of the reason for that is the way that they respond to success. Now, the next thing is making amends. If a person is trying to attain humility, if she's trying to get to a level of closeness with HaKadosh Baruch Hu, then they're going to start making amends, meaning that if you have, or when a person has, any type of argument with another person, A humble person is going to do everything in their power to make peace. Now, what if it's not your fault? What if she did something to you and really you're right? What if he did something to you and really you're right? He's wrong. What do you do then? If you have humility, you say, "I'm sorry" anyway.

1:07:57You're sorry when you're wrong. You're sorry when you're right. Why? Because you know that at the end of it, at the end of it all, what does Hashem really want? He wants us to have peace. He wants us to have unity. He wants us to get to a higher, better level together. Not alone. So yes, she's wrong for doing X, Y, Z. He's wrong for doing this and that. But at the end of it all, does it really matter? No. Does it really matter? Is this what you're going to be proud of 20 years from now, that you won the argument and they finally came down to you on all fours and begged you for forgiveness? I always tell guys, you could be happy, or you could be right. Now, if you're happy, that means that you're going to say "I'm sorry" to your wife constantly. Whether you're right or wrong, you're going to say "I'm sorry" by default. you're right, most likely you'll be divorced. Why? Yeah, you won every argument, but eventually, she said, "Yes, you're right, you're right, but I'm looking for somebody that's wrong. You're right about everything that you say, but it doesn't really make a difference." Why? Because I don't like it. If you want to have a successful marriage, a successful relationship...

1:09:21Sorry has to become as familiar to you as your own name. Stop looking to be right about everything. Look for peace. Look for some type of relationship where you could just move forward, move beyond the winning. I won the argument, I was right, she was wrong—move beyond that. It doesn't really matter. Ninety-nine point nine percent of all arguments are completely meaningless anyway. And the reality is, if that other person cares about you as much as you care about them, they also don't care about whether you're right or wrong. But they have ego, and they don't want to admit that they're wrong. So you say you're wrong, even though you're not. And you know what's going to happen? You say, you know what? I'm sorry. I'm sorry for doing such and such. Immediately they melt. You say, I'm sorry to people. If they're normal, they melt. No, no, you know what? I'm sorry. All of a sudden they're apologetic. All of a sudden they say, no, no, I'm wrong, I'm wrong. Yeah, but for two weeks you didn't want to talk to me because you said I was wrong. No, no, it's not really because of that. No, you know. All of a sudden you're best friends. All of a sudden it's like nothing happened. So why waste the two weeks of fighting? Why waste the whole two weeks of not talking to each other?

1:10:35If you want to have a successful marriage, guys, if you want to have a successful marriage, women, you have to make sure that "sorry" becomes very normal to you. Sorry for everything. Don't ever go to sleep with anger. Don't ever go to sleep with a fight. If you want to have a successful marriage, never ever go to sleep until you've resolved the argument. If that means you have to say "I'm sorry" a thousand times until four o'clock in the morning, get going. Why? If you let it go on to the next day, it becomes worse, much worse. Now she starts to look at you as if you don't care. Now she starts to look at you as if you're this and as if you're that, and she starts having all these different thoughts. Same thing vice versa. Whether you're right or wrong is irrelevant 99% of the time. The question is, do you want to move past this point, or do you want to continue being bogged down? We call it evil in a fight. So when a person wants to attain humility, they're going to constantly chase peace, like Aharon HaKohen. Aharon HaKohen chased peace to such an extent that...

1:11:54that as soon as he heard the two people argued, he'd go there. He'd go to one guy and say, "Oh, listen, you fought with Reuven? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, he just told me he feels terrible about it. He feels horrible about what happened." "Oh, he spoke to Reuven? He feels terrible? He feels horrible about what happened? He didn't look like he felt horrible." The guy's confused. "Really? He felt horrible? It was just two hours ago." "No, no. He feels horrible." He starts telling him that Reuven told him he feels terrible. "Wow." You know what? I kind of feel bad too. All of a sudden, Shimon also feels bad. So he goes, now I want a quorum, runs to Reuven. "Reuven, you heard about Shimon? He's crying all day because of this. He feels terrible about what happened." "Really? He didn't look like he felt terrible." He starts making up this whole thing. "He feels terrible. He feels terrible." Eventually, they both feel terrible about what they did to the other guy. They get together. They hug. They kiss. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. They realize, wait a minute. You didn't feel? Eh, who cares? They realize the whole thing was a setup. But at that point, we already hug, we already kiss, we already make peace. Who cares? Who cares about the fight? Who cares about who is right? Peace is much more valuable. A person that wants to attain humility has to chase peace constantly with everybody that they possibly can. Now, there are certain people that you're not allowed to make peace with. As the pasuk in the Torah says, "Ein shalom Hashem amar la'resha'im."

1:13:21There's no peace with wicked people. Now, according to the Torah, someone who does not follow mitzvot is considered wicked. The question is: under what circumstance is he not following the mitzvot? In last week's parashat Korach, you see that Moshe Rabbeinu gets into a heated debate with Korach and all of his followers immediately. Moshe Rabbeinu, after having this huge argument, with Korach trying to kill him and take his position, says, "Okay, tomorrow we're going to bring a sacrifice to Hashem. Whoever Hashem accepts their sacrifice, everyone will know that Hashem chose this person." And whoever Hashem rejects their sacrifice, Hashem is going to open the ground and the ground is going to swallow them. Meaning, it's not going to be up for a debate. No one's going to doubt. Oh, maybe He accepted this one, or He didn't accept that one. Maybe he did something wrong. Maybe he didn't do it the right way. No, no, no. It's going to be obvious in front of everyone.

1:14:32Now Moshe Rabbeinu is the only person that ever spoke to Hashem face-to-face. Meaning, not that Hashem has a face, because Hashem has no image or likeness of an image, but rather that Moshe spoke to Hashem similar to how you and I are speaking. No preparation, no, he didn't have to go. All of the other prophets would have to either go to sleep, or meditate, or go into some type of trance, like an epilepsy. They weren't awake. They were all under some type of loss of control. Whereas Moshe would just simply walk around, talk to Hashem, like you and I are talking. That's what's called face-to-face. So now Moshe then has this level of communication with HaKadosh Baruch Hu. You would think that Moshe would have confidence that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is on his side. Because after all, he knows that HaKadosh Baruch Hu picked him. They had a whole debate for a week. Moshe Rabbeinu didn't want it. But Hashem said, no, no, you do it, you do it, you do it. Long story short, at this point you would think that Moshe Rabbeinu would have confidence that Hashem is on his side, not on Korach's side. But what does Moshe say? This distressed Moshe greatly, and he said to Hashem, don't turn to their gift offerings.

1:15:52I have not taken even a single donkey of theirs, nor have I wronged even one of them. Meaning, Moshe Rabbeinu starts crying to Hashem, "Hashem, please don't accept their korban, don't accept their sacrifice. They're lying about me. I didn't even do any of this for money. Even my ride, my donkey, that was my own donkey; I didn't even take money from them to buy a donkey to travel from Midian all the way to Egypt." They didn't buy me a donkey. They didn't buy me a car. They didn't pay me anything. I did all of this for them. Now they're saying all this, please don't believe them. Don't accept their prayers. This sounds a little bit unusual. Why is Moshe so insecure? I mean, after all, you're speaking to Hashem face to face. Hashem knows that they didn't pay you for the donkey. Hashem knows that you didn't lie. Why is Moshe Rabbeinu so insecure? And if that's not enough of a difficulty, later on, just a few verses later, he tells all of Am Yisrael, "Turn away now from near the tents of all these wicked people. Don't touch anything of theirs." So on one hand, he tells Hashem, "Please Hashem, don't accept their sacrifice."

1:17:12But on the other hand, he tells everybody else, "Hey, everybody, stay away from these wicked people. Don't make peace with them." See, this contradicts. On one hand, we have a question: Why is Moshe Rabbeinu so insecure? On the other hand, we have another question: If he's insecure, why is he insecure against wicked people? Anybody want to volunteer an answer? You have an idea? Something? Something? You read the parsha. Why is Moshe insecure against Korach? Korach was a tzaddik too. You're in the right direction. Moshe Rabbeinu was so humble that even though he knew that Korach was making a mistake, a very horrible mistake, He didn't look at only the mistakes that Korach made. He also looked at his righteousness. He looked at the good things that he did. And he said, I don't know if he did enough things that are good that will give him enough merit where Hashem will also answer his prayers. Not that Hashem is going to kill Moshe. Rather, there's still going to be a doubt. Maybe Hashem will accept both of the korbanot and then people will be in doubt.

1:18:34It's like, Hashem, look, don't accept anything from him, because I know he did good things, but please, Hashem, don't leave us confused. But that also explains later on why he tells everyone clearly. After he knows how Hashem is viewing everything, and Hashem confirms with him, don't worry, they're wicked, I'm going to punish them severely, Moshe Rabbeinu tells everybody, stay away from these resha'im. Don't have any mercy on them. Don't rebuke them. Don't talk to them. Don't do anything with them. Why? When a person is a rasha, that means that he's been given all of the chances and the opportunities to know the truth. And he still chooses otherwise. You told him once, twice, three times, five times, don't drive on Shabbat. And he still drives on Shabbat. You tell him once, twice, three times, four times, five times, don't marry a non-Jew. Don't go out with a non-Jew. He still goes out with a non-Jew. You tell her four, five, six times, don't walk around like you're going into a shower. Put some clothes on. She still walks around half-naked. But she says, "No, but I'm watching your shiur, Rabbi."

1:19:46I'm watching every shiur. Yeah, you're watching every shiur, but it's not affecting this mind. If you're still walking around sleeveless, if you're still walking around with a miniskirt, you can watch every shiur five times. You'll get punished for it, though. Why? You heard the truth so many times and you still choose to be immodest? I understand it's hard. I understand you can't change everything one, two, three in one shot. but at the very least, it should affect you in some way, some way, something, show some type of connection to the truth. What is this like? Sometimes I have all types of wonderful people from all over the world contact me and send me different questions and so on. And today, with technology the way it is, everybody's profile has a picture. Whether you send an email to me, or you send a WhatsApp to me, or Facebook, there's always a profile picture. Now, even though the phone is small, you can still see the profile picture.

1:20:50Many times, somebody will ask me a really serious question. I don't know. Such and such died. What should I do? I just lost all my money. What should I do? My husband wants to leave me. What should I do? All serious questions. And instead of answering their questions, you know what I respond to them? Please change your picture. Why? I can't communicate with you. Until you change your picture, I can't communicate with you. why? Because I'm going to have to look at your picture every single time. I don't want to. I don't want to look at you half-naked every time. I don't want to look at it. So, if you want to talk to me, change your picture. At least have some type of courtesy for somebody that's trying. Same concept with people that sometimes they watch the shiurim; they ask questions, but then you see, "Oh, I love this great shiur," and then they put pictures of themselves on Facebook, mamash half-naked. And I say to myself, you watch three shiurim a week, and I talk about stuff that's hard to hear sometimes, and you still do it. Now, okay, you don't want to change your wardrobe overnight. I get it. You like the way you look. You like yourself a lot. I get it. But why are you publicizing it on the internet too?

1:22:05Fine, you're not ready to change your clothes. Okay, fine. That's not fine. I'm saying it's fine as far as, okay, you don't want to change your clothes. But why are you causing other people to sin even more so? Why are you putting videos of yourself on the beach? Why are you putting pictures of yourself immodestly on the internet for 5,000 other people to see? You're not ready to be modest. That's fine. But why are you punishing other people? Especially if you say you're watching shiurim Torah two, three, four times a week. It doesn't make any sense. That's a rasha. In the eyes of Hashem, that's a rasha. A rasha is not someone who didn't even know he was Jewish for 50 years. One day he found out he was Jewish and he realized he's driving on Shabbat. That's not a rasha. That's a tinok she'nishba. That's somebody that was captured by the goyim, didn't even know, right or left. Someone that was born into a secular house didn't realize that you're not allowed to eat on Yom Kippur, or even if he realized, he didn't realize the consequence of eating on Yom Kippur. Or he didn't realize the consequence of driving on Shabbat. He didn't realize the consequence of going out with Goyot. He didn't realize the consequence. Now you told him, and it's hard for him to adjust. It's hard. It's hard. He's ready. He's in a relationship. He has a job. It's hard for him to adjust.

1:23:24Okay, it's hard to adjust, but you're going to aspire to do it. You're going to try to do it. Fine. You're not a rasha. You're unfortunately sinning. You're sinning, but we can still work with you. We can still work with you. Why? Because you know what you need to do, and there's a chance we're going to try to get you there. But a person that knows the truth, hears the truth, and has no intention whatsoever to change—that person... rasha as rasha can get, wicked as wicked can be. Why? He knows the truth and still ignores it. He knows Hashem said XYZ, yet he still chooses to act as if Hashem said nothing. A person like that you can't help. I knew a guy like this. He claims that he went to yeshivot in Morocco and he knew... like a lot of the old-timers, he knew a good part of the Written Torah by heart. In the old days, they used to teach five- and six-year-olds to read the Torah. So a lot of them, as they grew up, they literally knew the entire Chumash by heart. But every Shabbat, he'd drive his Mercedes to a friend's house, a common friend's house, every Shabbat. And I told my friend one time, "Why do you keep inviting him?" He said, "I don't invite him, he just comes."

1:24:48No, you can't invite him. Yes, the guy is driving on Shabbat. He goes. Yeah, but what is he going to do? He's going to be by himself. It's better that he's by himself. Anyway, one time it happens. He invites me also. So we go there, and I know this guy drives on Shabbat. And I know this guy also knows the Torah by heart. But I also know that he's not going to get the message the nice way. Everybody else told him in a nice way. It didn't work. He's driving on Shabbat. He's 60 years old, 65 years old. He's still driving full speed. So that's how the dinner turned into a nice, nice lecture. And I started telling them all the wonderful things that I've told you and things I haven't told you yet. It's not the same. We'll save him for better for later about what happens to a person when he drives on Shabbat in the eyes of Hashem, what happens to him after this life, and... Suddenly, at the Shabbat dinner table, everybody's quiet, like somebody died. It's just me and him, and the guy is having the shock of his life. Oh, he didn't know what to do.

1:25:56My friend told me he didn't go home. He stayed at his house. The guy kept the rest of Shabbat. Amazing. Sixty years, sixty-five years in the world, the guy never kept Shabbat once. You have a conversation with him, you talk to him on his level, he keeps Shabbat. Now you think, ah, I should pat myself on the back, right? I wish. He kept Shabbat one week, two weeks, three weeks. Then he decided to go to a different shul. He went to a different shul with some rasha that calls himself Chabad. It's not real. It's like the fake Chabad. Real Chabad, kodesh. Fake Chabad, I hate them. I hate them like Erev Rav. Same thing. He goes to a guy in Boca Raton, calls himself Chabad. And the guy, the rabbi, tells him, "Oh, I haven't seen you in a while. How are you doing?" He goes, "Yeah, I can't come here really unless I sleep at this guy's house." He goes, "Well, why not? You've been coming here for years already." He goes, "No, listen."

1:26:58I'm keeping Shabbat now. The rabbi tells me, "What do you mean? I don't drive on Shabbat. No, what are you, crazy? We need you for minyan. We need you for minyan. What are you talking about? Come, come. Hashem loves you as you are." 65 years it took to get this guy to keep Shabbat, 60 seconds to undo everything I did. The guy went back to being a Mechalel Shabbat because of a guy that calls himself a rabbi. That guy, that guy that calls himself a rabbi in the name of Chabad, there is no end to the Gehinnom that he's going to get. No end. The world will end and his Gehinnom will not end. Every single time this guy will drive on Shabbat, all of the sins go to both of them, not just to the guy that invited him on Shabbat. And you don't know how many other people this guy did it to. Same thing. That's a rasha. That's an evil person. Even when he sees people trying to progress in the right direction, he doesn't care about it. His arrogance, his selfishness is too focused. He says, "Wait a minute, if he's not going to come, then he's not going to donate. If he's not going to donate, how am I going to expand the kitchen? How am I going to expand the building? How am I going to buy him this? How am I going to do that? No, no, no, no. Listen, don't worry about it. Hashem loves you."

1:28:25He creates some fake thing, and the guy—all the guy needed was a little bit of a push—and he falls over because he's weak. Sixty years, he's used to violating Shabbat. He got strong for a short period of time, but not strong enough. Not strong enough. That's a rasha. People like that who say, "Shalom," not Hashem. I'm a rasha who says to people like that, "I don't want peace with them." I I have no interest in peace with them. I'll let them live this life until I have my own private time with them. So now we look for peace. As part of trying to attain humility, we look for peace. But you cannot make peace with everybody. If a person is truly wicked, you're not allowed to make peace with them. Now, if you know somebody that's making a very big sin, for example, if Someone who is homosexual. Homosexuality is not allowed in the Torah. We've spoken about this before. Now, if the person is homosexual but he's private about it, you know it, and he knows it, but he's not going to these gay parades.

1:29:34That person, you need to do what we try to do all the time, which is help him. Make him realize this is not a defect. This is not some type of chemical imbalance. This is not a disease. This is simply a desire that you can overcome, just like anybody else who is a human being can overcome their desire. Some people have a desire for food, so they eat too much. Some people have a desire for attention, so they do stupid things. People have desires. you have a desire, unfortunately, for something that's inappropriate. You can overcome it by simply saying no. If you've said no one time in your life, that simply proves you're a human being, and you can overcome it again and again and again until eventually, you don't want it anymore. You help that person But if this person is one of these disgusting people that goes to the gay parades and publicizes their homosexuality in public and has the flag and has the car and goes on the internet and writes articles and is public about it, that's a rasha. That's a rasha you have to run away from. Why? Because this person is almost, until Hashem breaks him to pieces, you simply can't do anything for him.

1:30:53Somebody like that, you can't help. Hashem has to do something. So yes, we look for peace, but we can't make peace with everybody. Now, the last couple of things, where it says to avoid taking revenge. A person that's trying to attain humility is never going to try to take revenge. Now I know there's a famous statement that revenge is sweet or something like that. Somebody did you wrong, Revenge is best served cold. Why cold? Maybe hot on a barbecue. Revenge hot, revenge cold, all these different things where people like to take revenge. Revenge is a sign of arrogance. It's the opposite of humility. Why? Because, in essence, what you're trying to do is prove to the world that everything has to go according to your own logic, according to your own mentality, according to your own rules. And as soon as someone violates those rules, you're going to take revenge and make sure that nobody else ever does the same thing. Now, every Wednesday,

1:32:00We read a certain Tehillim in Tefillah in Shacharit that starts with the words "El Nekamot Hashem, El Nekamot Hofia." God is the God of vengeance. The God of vengeance has arrived, meaning that revenge only belongs to Hashem. And yes, Hashem does take revenge. For all of these "care-bear" rabbis that tell you that Hashem does not take revenge and He only loves, you read every Wednesday something that contradicts it. I believe both Ashkenazim and Sefaradim read this. Every Wednesday, you read a Tehillim that contradicts it. Why? It says it. God is the God of revenge, and the God of vengeance arrived, meaning that there's gonna come a time where Hashem will take vengeance against all of the reshaim, all of the people that knew the truth and still chose otherwise. They knew they're not allowed to drive on Shabbat, they knew they're not allowed to marry goyim, they knew they're not allowed to steal, they knew they're not allowed to do all types of bad things, and they still chose to do it. There's gonna come a time where Hashem will take His revenge against those people.

1:33:14meaning that revenge only belongs to Him. Why? Because the only rules in the world that matter are His rules, not ours, not yours. If you're trying to attain humility, you're going to take this into account and you're going to realize if Hashem allowed this guy to do this to me, and what he did is wrong, then Hashem will do well. Hashem will take care of it. Hashem, I don't know when. But Hashem will take care of it. If he did something wrong to you, if she did something really wrong to you, you're only taking revenge. Why? If it's really wrong, Hashem will take care of it. There's nothing for you to do. Yeah, but it's hard. Yeah, it's only because you have an ego, and you want the world to run according to your tune. That's why we're learning this. We're learning this to remove all of that ego. Revenge is not for you to take. People that have an ego love to take revenge. This is part of the reason why Steve Jobs, by the way, almost went bankrupt a few times because of his lust for revenge. Whether it was his competition with Bill Gates or his competition with some of the other guys that ran the company, and so on and so forth, many successful people literally shoot themselves in the foot because of their lust for revenge, and...

1:34:35Many people end up getting divorced, ruining their whole lives just because of their desire for revenge, because they want the world to dance to their tune. This is the opposite of what we're trying to attain. Now, how do you get to a point of doing all of this? The last trait that the Baalei Mussar say is acceptance. A humble person can accept all of the suffering that he or she gets without breaking. Because of his intense love for his Creator, he has the ability to absorb the harshest of life's blows. Now, I don't know. I know a lot of people: business world, religious world, family, friends, and so on, I don't know a single person that I've ever met in my life that has an easy life. I'm not even talking about the people that I know, even people that I read about. If you read bios, the biography of somebody, usually people that are important, or at least people think are important, somebody wrote a life story about them after they died.

1:35:50whether it's a businessman, a politician, or obviously the stories of the big sages of Am Yisrael. You have many, many books written about the rabbis. This you can learn a lot from because they actually teach you all of the different intricate details of this person's life, even their weaknesses sometimes. But the point is that when you read all of these biographies, you'll always find something in common. Everybody has a hard life. Everyone. There's not a single human being that's ever lived that had an easy life. If he had money, then he had marriage problems. If he didn't have marriage problems, then he had money problems. If he had money and he had marriage, then he didn't have kids. If he had kids, money, and marriage, he still had health problems. If he had no health problems, it's always something. It's always something. Everybody has major crises in their life that they have to overcome. That's life. Don't look for an easy life. One time, somebody proposed a trip for us to take for a big lecture. It's very hard for me to fly. My body is very weak, and flying makes it even worse. So I told my rabbi, "Listen, I hate it. I don't want to do it. It's just so difficult to go all the way over there. I'm not even sure how many people are going to come," and so on and so forth.

1:37:20My rabbi told me this. He said, listen, "Easy, the word 'easy' should be deleted from your vocabulary. Forget about an easy life. It doesn't exist. Everything, especially what you're doing that's going to fight the Satan to get people to do teshuvah, everything's going to be hard. Go into it already expecting it to be hard. If it's easy, there's something wrong. Expect it to be hard." Now reevaluate the equation. Now that you know that this is hard or something else is going to be hard, you still don't want to do it. Everything is hard. Everybody's life is hard. The question is, how do we accept it? Do we accept it with a smile? We realize, you know what, it's hard, but it's from Hashem. And if it's from Hashem, that means there's value to this difficulty. Hashem wants me to experience this difficulty for some type of benefit. Benefit in this world, benefit in the next world. Do we accept it with a smile? We realize, you know what, it's hard, but it's from Hashem. And if it's from Hashem, that means there's value to this difficulty. Hashem wants me to experience this difficulty for some type of benefit—benefit in this world, benefit in the next world.

1:38:20Person that's trying to attain humility is going to accept all of the difficulty in their life, the ones they understand and the ones they don't understand, with complete acceptance because they know that all of it comes from Hashem, and if it comes from your Father in Heaven, it must be good. A person that is arrogant, that thinks that the world is supposed to dance to their tune, is going to constantly act like a victim and Oh, I can't believe he did this to me. Oh, I can't believe she did this to me. Oh, did you hear what happened to me? Oh, this is unbelievable. Constantly a victim. A victim. Hashem is abusing me. Hashem is doing this to me. I'm not really sure what's going on. I'm angry at Hashem. I'm upset at Hashem. Maybe I'm going to demand that Hashem fix this. Like people think that Hashem works for them. Somebody sent me a message saying, "Listen, you know, I understand what you're saying about all these things. But you know, we can demand for Hashem to send us Mashiach." I wrote, this is actually a public comment on YouTube, and I said we can beg Hashem, we can cry to Hashem, we can plead with Hashem. That we can do. We can even ask Him to do whatever it is that we want to do.

1:39:42But demand Hashem, demand HaKadosh Baruch Hu, demand the King of Kings to do anything, that we cannot do. Why? He's the King. The only person that you're allowed to demand anything from is a slave, a servant. That you could demand. Why? They're your slave. You bought them, you own them. You don't own Hashem. He owns you. You're confused. You're confused. You've changed positions. You think you're God and He's your slave. It's the opposite. You cannot demand anything from Hashem. You can ask. You can cry. You can plead. You can beg. That you can do. Why? You're His son. You're His daughter. Please, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, help me. I can't help myself. Who else is going to help me? Please. That you can do. That you should do. But demand Hashem follow your instructions? What world do you live in? People are confused today. People are confused. Why? This all comes from arrogance. This all is deeply rooted in arrogance. People believe that the world should be dancing to their tune, should be going according to their instructions. And the best part about it is that they put big rabbis' names on some of this stuff. Like this guy mistakenly said, oh yeah, that's what the Lubavitcher Rebbe said. I said, no, no, my friend. The Lubavitcher Rebbe did not say you can demand anything from Hashem. You misunderstood him.

1:41:08You misunderstood him. He probably told you to beg Hashem, to plead with Hashem. And if he ever said demand, he didn't literally mean demand, as in "Hashem, do what I said." No. He's saying, show Hashem that we really want Mashiach and salvation and good things to come. Please, Hashem, please review our case again. Demand for Hashem to please give you another chance. There, yeah. There you're showing Hashem how much you want His name to be sanctified, that you plead. You're pleading with Hashem as if you're demanding, but not demanding Hashem to dance to your tune. This is a confusion. That's what happens sometimes when we, instead of reading the book, read, you know, like an excerpt of the book. Instead of listening to the Rabbi, we listen to what somebody else said in the Rabbi's name. You have to understand who God is, who you are. He's God, we're nothing. Doesn't matter if you're tall, short, black, white, fat, skinny, doesn't make a difference, you're nothing. If you think you're something, that already makes you problematic. Now,

1:42:23If you're going to try to attain this level of humility, you're going to accept this as fact, you're going to accept this reality, and know that all the difficulties that you have in your life are literally for your own benefit, for your own good. This requires a person to have a certain level of bitachon, a certain level of confidence in Hashem, that He knows what He's doing, that no matter what's happening in your life, whether it makes sense to you or not, whether the bank account adds up or not, whether the shidduch showed up or not, whether the car is working or not, whether the computer program is on or not, whether your life is working or not is irrelevant. Know that whatever is happening, Hashem signed off on it. Hashem willed it to happen. If Hashem wanted you to succeed, that's what He did. If Hashem wanted you to fail, that's what He did. Meaning, accept it as Hashem's will. That doesn't mean accept failure and don't try again. It just simply means, okay, this current status of success or failure, that's the will of Hashem now. Now, maybe He didn't give me the success because I didn't pray enough. So I'll pray more.

1:43:37Maybe He didn't give me the success because I didn't have enough merits. So I'll attain more merits. I'll do my mitzvot. Maybe He didn't give it to me because it's bad for me, but I don't know it. Maybe He made her run away from me because, in reality, she was going to cheat on me. And I didn't know it. I didn't know it. So, Hashem is saving me the embarrassment, the agony, the pain by making it look like she left me because of me. But in reality, it's not because of me. It's because Hashem is saving me. Have enough bitachon in Hashem. Have enough confidence in Hashem that He knows what He's doing. And whatever He's doing is for your benefit. Don't play the victim. Don't demand anything from Hashem other than, please, please review my case again. Give me a chance again. Help me. That you can do. Now once a person humbles themselves, David HaMelech says, that's how you're gonna bring the salvation to your life. All of the good things that you want in your life, you can attain simply by acquiring humility. As he says in Psalm 25:9, "He leads the humble with justice and will teach the humble His way." He'll give you the secret of how to attain what you want to attain. And if you follow the instructions, you do all the things that you're supposed to,

1:44:48You can attain simply by acquiring humility. As he says in Psalm 25:9, "He leads the humble with justice and will teach the humble His way." He'll give you the secret of how to attain what you want to attain. And if you follow the instructions, you do all the things that you're supposed to, He says, in Psalm 149:4, that Hashem shows favor to His nation and He will glorify the humble at the time of salvation, at the time of Yeshua. When He brings the Mashiach, who is He going to bring to the Mashiach first? Who is He going to say, "Look Mashiach, look what I have, look what I'm proud of, look what my jewels are." He's going to bring the people that are humble. Humble enough to say they were wrong, and now they did teshuva. Humble enough to say they were wrong, and now they're fixing themselves. Humble enough to know where they stand. When a person is trying to literally glue themselves to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, they're going to try to emulate Him. So what does humility look like?

1:46:12There were two over the last couple of hundred years who have many, many stories together: Rabbi Akiva Eiger and Rabbi Yaakov of Lisa. These were two giant rabbis who were also very good friends but lived in different places. And anytime they would get together, it would be like a historic event. huge, enormous event. Now, people said that when they would see Rabbi Akiva Eiger, they could actually understand what it means to be humble like Moshe Rabbeinu. He was so humble, like, just people would say, that's probably what Moshe Rabbeinu was like because they can't picture anything more. My rabbi told me once, he's like, "Listen, people always say, people that are foolish, always say, 'I don't agree with the Rambam,' or 'I don't agree with Rabbi Yosef Karo from the Shulchan Aruch. I don't think he's right here,' or 'I don't think the Rambam is right here,' or 'I don't think Rabbi Akiva knows what he's talking about.' They say things, in the name of big rabbis, that they disagree with them as if they know what they're dealing with."

1:47:16They don't realize that the smartest human being that lives today, even in Torah, is closer to a monkey than they are to the Rambam. Closer to a monkey than they are to the Rambam. They don't realize this. And this is not an insult. This is just reality. This is a reality. Includes me also. Now, people say things like, "No, I disagree with the Rambam. I disagree with Rabbi Akiva," as if they know what they're dealing with. So my Rav said to me, he goes, listen, people don't understand what it means to be the Rambam or anything like that. So they say stupid things. He says, once you start learning a little bit and you realize what a Talmid Chacham really is, you don't even compare yourself to the Rambam, period. You don't even compare yourself to Rabbi Akiva. You look at the current G'dolei HaDor, just now, people that are alive, or people that just died a few years ago, and you say, I'm so far from them, it's a waste. So my Rav told me, the same Rav, Rabbi Ephraim, I told you that knows 3,000 books by heart. He says to me, listen, whether it's the Rambam or Rav Ovadia, both of them are far away from me.

1:48:27Might as well be the same thing. Moshe Rabbeinu, same thing. Already looking at how far I am from Rav Ovadia, I can't imagine something more than that. And I know that Rav Ovadia was not even on the level of the Rambam. And the Rambam wasn't even enough to be a student of Moshe Rabbeinu. But that's so far beyond even our imagination that it's a waste of time to compare. But when people would see, Rabbi Akiva Eiger did say, this must be the humility of Moshe Rabbeinu. And this is just mamash, our grandparents, a little more than our grandparents. Now Rabbi Akiva Eiger and Rabbi Yaakov Milisa would get together, it would be a very, very big event. People would celebrate it. People would, mamash, unbelievable things. But because of his humility, both of their humility, it was always like a story to tell. So one time, They put both of them on a huge caravan, like a horse-drawn caravan, and thousands and thousands of chassidim showed up, tzaddikim showed up, to give honor to the Torah, these two living sifrei Torah. So instead of having the horses carry them, they released the horses, and they carried them. They carried them, they pushed it, they pulled the caravan—all in honor of the Torah.

1:49:57Now, Rabbi Akiva Eiger was at one end, and Rabbi Yaakov Meilisa was at the other end. There were other people. Rabbi Akiva Eiger was saying, "I want a merit. I want a mitzvah in Shamayim to give honor to the Torah." I'm going to go carry the Gadol HaDor. I'm going to carry Rabbi Yaakov MeLisa. So he sneaks out of the caravan and joins the people. This old man is joining the people carrying because he's carrying the Gadol HaDor. At the same time, Rabbi Yaakov MeLisa is saying, I want a mitzvah. I want to carry the Gadol HaDor, Rabbi Akiva Eiger. This must be all in his merit. He's the biggest rabbi in the world. So he sneaks out without anybody seeing and he joins. And he's carrying. At the end, they finally arrive at the destination. They open the door. It's an empty cart. It's like, where's the rabbi? And then they look around. They see, oh, they're carrying nothing. The rabbis are carrying with them. They're so humble, they couldn't even imagine being the ones that they're carrying. No, they must be carrying him. They must be carrying it because of all the Torah that he has. That's humility. That even if you've attained greatness, you realize that the greatness does not even belong to you. And the greatness of somebody else does belong to them. Now, on another occasion, the two got together and they wanted to give Rabbi Akiva Eiger an aliyah to the Torah. As soon as they said Rabbi Akiva Eiger to have an aliyah, he passed out.

1:51:28Woke him up. You came with the Rav. Yeah, yes, yes. Okay, come, come to the Torah. Are you ready? Oh, he realized he has to go to the Torah. He passed out again. Now this became dangerous. So Rabbi Yaakov MeLisa said to them, "Hey, listen, don't touch him. Let me talk to him." He whispered something in his ear. Ha! Rabbi Akiva Eiger woke up and got the aliyah to the Torah. Everything went well. So after the prayer was over, They came to him and said to him, "For the love, what did you whisper in his ear that he just woke up and everything was good?" He says, "You don't understand. Rabbi Akiva Eiger is so humble that his neshama could not handle the thought that there's a possibility that this community, that this kehillah is giving him more honor than me. Because he views me so highly." ...and his neshama couldn't handle it, so he passed out. So I whispered in his ear, "No, no, no, don't be silly. It's not because they think you're better than me. No, it's because you came from far away. Because you're far away, they feel bad for you, so they give you an aliyah first before me." That he could handle, and he got the aliyah. That's humility. That's what real humility looks like. But now you would say, "Okay, yeah, but this humility, so what, you can just walk over people that are humble?" No.

1:52:53Somebody tried to go against Moshe Rabbeinu. Moshe Rabbeinu fought and killed and won. Somebody also went against Rabbi Akiva Eiger and Rabbi Yaakov Mimisa at the same time. At one of their get-togethers, tens of thousands of people were there giving them honor, but two reshaim, who call themselves religious, also showed up. And they started making fun of the whole thing. It's like, what are all these people doing? You guys have nothing to do? What, you're giving these two old men kavod? For what? Let them go get some work. Who cares about what they know, what they don't know? They're just like us. What, they know some Torah? We know some Torah also. What's the big deal with these two old men? They started making fun of it. So Rabbi Yaakov Mimran says, he sees that people are getting affected by this. Rabbi Yaakov Bili says to the rabbi, "You have to do something." He goes, "What? What happened?" He goes, "They're making fun of the Torah. They're making fun of us, and it's affecting the people." "Oh, okay. Don't worry." He comes out and just looks with his holy eyes at these two men. Just looks at them. Doesn't say a word. And there are thousands of witnesses to this story. He looks at them. One dies on the spot.

1:54:09The other one starts going crazy, runs to the bridge, jumps off of the bridge, and kills himself. Now, it's not that Rabbi Akiva Eiger wanted him to die. It's not that Rabbi Akiva Eiger had some type of respect to show or something like that, as we see from all the other things that are told about him. But when he realized, if you're giving me kavod for what I attained, then I don't deserve this kavod, I'm nothing. But if you're desecrating the Torah that I've learned, that means you're desecrating Hashem. Everything that you think I have really is from Hashem. If you're desecrating it, if you're making fun of it, that means you're going against Hashem. And that, I have to defend. That's what Torah has to defend. That's why it's very, very important to know that if you're going to go into any debates, you're going to go into any arguments, it all depends on who is the audience. If the audience, if the other side is just somebody that's like most people, just purely ignorant, doesn't know right or left, but thinks they do, that's not a rasha. It's just an ignorant person, sometimes acting like a rasha, but with enough

1:55:36you know enough knowledge, you'll get him to come back, you'll get her to come back to the right direction. But if the person has such a big ego that it doesn't matter whether they're right or wrong, they're still going to defend their case and they're still going to go against Hashem. That's a person you don't have a debate with at all. That's a person you run away from. Why? There's no peace with people like this. So even the humblest of the humble won't deal with such a person. This is what we learned from Moshe Rabbeinu, we learned from the Ramban, we also learned from Moshe. Moshe HaNavi, that the Gemara in Masechet Pesachim says was the greater Navi than Isaiah. Moshe HaNavi said to Hashem, why don't you just abandon this nation and start a new one? And the story goes where Hashem rebuked him in a very, very serious way. putting him through a whole scenario. First, He told him, "Okay, why don't you go marry a promiscuous woman? Why don't you go marry a zonah?" Now, most of us think that zonah means prostitute. Anyone who knows Hebrew thinks zonah means prostitute. But it means two things. It means prostitute, but it also means a promiscuous woman.

1:56:59So Hashem says to the Prophet Hoshea, go marry a zonah and have her bring kids to the world. And the Gemara Masechet Pesachim has a whole dialogue between Hashem and Hoshea. He says, oh, name this son this, name this son this, name this daughter this. After they have these three kids, He tells Hoshea, leave her now, abandon her. And Hoshea says to Hashem, listen Hashem, I can't leave, I have kids with her. Hashem says to him, "What? You have kids with this promiscuous woman, who you don't even know if they are your kids, but you're not willing to leave her? Me, that I know it's my kids, you want me to leave them?" Meaning that HaKadosh Baruch Hu, even if somebody is wicked, but is wicked out of ignorance, He still wants them to do teshuva. He still wants them to do teshuva. Somebody drives on Shabbat because he doesn't know the magnitude of driving on Shabbat, Hashem wants him to do teshuva. Hashem wants her to do teshuva, even though she doesn't know how to dress modestly; He wants her to do teshuva because she doesn't know the magnitude of being immodest. But if somebody knows they are not allowed to do X, Y, Z, and they still do it, Hashem says, "There is no peace for the resha'im like this. Why? They know and still go against Me. People like this, I can't help them."

1:58:15I can't help them. That's, I have to take revenge against them. B'ezrat Hashem, the humility that we learned, the humility we tried to attain little by little, is going to help us do teshuva, get better at our avodat Hashem, get closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, and b'ezrat Hashem, get us to do real teshuva, b'ezrat Hashem. Any questions? Yes? So, what if someone would get to a point of weakness, and they would say, even though they know that it's wrong, even though they know... Dependent on what kind of weakness? Now, it depends on what kind of weakness they have. It depends on how often and what it is. Now, every person has weaknesses. Every person has weaknesses. Now, the weaknesses that a person has should tell him a little bit about how much Yirat Shamayim he has, how much fear of Hashem he has. So, if he has a weakness... Let's say something like violating Shabbat. He has a weakness. He wants to go play on the internet on Shabbat. He wants to drive on Shabbat. That person has zero Yirat Shamayim. Zero. Why? Because if he knows that Hashem says that anyone that violates Shabbat knowingly is considered as if he's an idol worshiper, and he still has this weakness to go drive on Shabbat, that means he's not afraid of Hashem at all. Why? Because you don't get any physical pleasure.

1:59:44You don't get any physical pleasure. It's not like you're addicted to the internet. It's not like you're addicted to electricity or fire. There's no physical pleasure. So that means that it's simply a complete lack of Yirat Shamayim and knowledge of what Shabbat really is. on the other hand, if he has a physical, you know, addiction, whether that addiction is to intimacy and that in Kedusha issues, or it's a, you know, it's a, you know, weakness, let's say for example to, I don't know, eating or taking drugs, that's different. It doesn't mean it's allowed under any condition; it means it's different. Why? Because now you're fighting multiple battles. if it's, let's say, for example, for the issues of Kedusha, meaning a person is addicted to all types of intimacy, whether it's by himself or herself or with other people, and they're addicted to promiscuity and things of that nature, then that person is fighting two battles. Number one, they're fighting a physical addiction, which the Rambam writes is the most difficult physical addiction to overcome. Once you're addicted to it, it's not impossible, but nonetheless, it is very difficult. And

2:00:58Bar Kappara talks about it. And if you look at Tannaim in the Gemara, Tannaim, people that were able to revive the dead. Anyone that's named in the Gemara by name, that means they were at the level they were able to revive the dead. What are they, when anytime they gave themselves compliments, like they're proud of something? 9 out of 10 times, what were they proud of? Proud that they never touched a brit. They're proud of themselves that they never even looked at it. They never touched a brit. That's their aspiration in life. Because they understood how bad it is. But unfortunately, sometimes you have even stories in the Gemara that big Tannaim ended up, you know, having a dream where it came out. Now, this didn't make them reshaim. This didn't make them wicked people. simply, there's an element of physicality there. There are a lot of things that are involved. Now, if a person has a weakness where he doesn't watch his eyes, and as a result, when he goes to sleep, he ends up wasting seed, that's one level of weakness. Well, yes, he has to work on his eyes. But if he has a weakness that's much, much worse, meaning that he actually does it himself and

2:02:11that his yirat shamayim is in trouble. Why? Because he, obviously, this is something that he's active on. It doesn't mean that he has nothing. It just means that his physical addiction is immense. And his yirat shamayim is little. He has to change the equation a little bit. On the other hand, what's most important is what he does after he fails. What she does after she fails. I had one time a woman that told me that she's addicted to men. As strange as that sounds, it's true. There are women that are addicted to having new boyfriends. And she told me she's addicted. She has to have a new boyfriend constantly. And unfortunately, this exists in the world. A bat Yisrael that unfortunately acts like Hashem Yerachem. What he does after he fails. What she does after she fails. I had one time a woman that told me that she's addicted to men. As strange as that sounds, it's true. There are women that are addicted to having new boyfriends. And she told me she's addicted. She has to have a new boyfriend constantly. And unfortunately, this exists in the world. A bat Yisrael that unfortunately acts like Hashem yirachem. The question is, I told her, okay, so after we've explained this is not allowed, after we've explained this is terrible, after you realize yourself it's not good, but you failed anyway. What did you do after? After you failed. Now, of course, everybody has the same exact feeling afterwards, they feel terrible. Okay, that's a natural feeling. After that, after...

2:03:24Did you feel bad about it again after that original horrible feeling? After that, did you do anything to fix it? Did you do anything to put a gate and stop yourself from encountering this issue again? Okay, so did you calculate what led you to this? Oh, you saw a movie, and the movie led to a thought, and the thought led to an action. Okay, so did you commit to no longer watching movies? Or did you say, oh, next time I won't look? If you were the latter, and you said, oh, next time I won't look, then that means that not only you had no Yirat Shamayim before the sin, you had no Yirat Shamayim after the sin. Nothing changed. And in 99.999% of cases, you're going to sin again, and next time it's going to get worse. But if you felt bad enough to do something, to take a precaution, or say, okay, you know what? Let me think. What happened that got me to this level that I got to? Oh, I watched a movie. Yeah, I shouldn't have watched that movie. Okay, you know what? DVD in the garbage.

2:04:26Maybe these are in the garbage. This in the garbage. What? You put a fence around yourself. You have to know yourself. If you don't put a fence around yourself, you're simply going to fail time and time and time again. It'll never end. You have to put a fence around yourself. I have some people that... I have a guy, actually, from Toronto. He helps a lot of people with putting all types of things to limit their phones, as far as what they can see on their phones. Now, although this is a nice thought, and, you know, to put some type of device, you're not allowed to go to certain sites, and you're not allowed to see some type of filter, yeah. Some type of filter, you're not able to go to certain sites, you're not able to see certain movies, and so on and so forth. That's all good, and it's good to have. It's a nice fence. But I can tell you the truth: if you don't have Yirat Shamayim, if you don't learn Mussar every day, if you don't learn about Yirat Shamayim on a regular basis, it's only a matter of time before you break that phone, or you break that filter, or you break both of them, and you're going to go to where the Satan wants you to get to. Without Yirat Shamayim, that filter is just simply like a clock. You know, sometimes when you're a cook, you're a chef, you put a timer on, and then after 30 minutes, you go... That's what the filter is.

2:05:45That's what the filter is. The filter is just a timer. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. And the Yetzer Hara is not going to let us just sit there, sit there, sit there, sit there, do nothing for half an hour. At the end of the half-hour, he's coming with all of his friends. That's what the filter is going to do. The filter is going to buy you some time, but it's not going to do any more than that. What's going to stop you when the Yetzer Hara arrives with all of his friends is Yirat Shamayim. You learn Mussar, you learn the consequences, and you realize it's simply not worth it. So you need to put fences as part of the teshuva. So now, okay, so I'm going to put a filter. And if a filter is not enough, I'm committing to learning more. I'm going to learn now 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 40 minutes more every day. And now, for sure, I'm going to pretty much do whatever I can. And you start doing this as a result of the failure, then that failure can actually help build you.

2:06:48then that failure is not exactly such a bad thing. It's a necessary thing. In order for you to succeed in life, you have to fail. But if you don't do anything, and you just act as if it didn't happen, then it's only a matter of time before it happens again. So that's really the best answer: it's not necessarily what if you fail. You're gonna fail. I'm gonna fail. Everybody's gonna fail at something, at some point. Everybody fails. The question between somebody that has the question between somebody that is trying to do teshuva and someone that's not trying to do teshuva is what are you going to do after you fail? How are you going to react? What will you do then? Saying I'm sorry, that's not going to cut it. You can say I'm sorry 5,000 times, eventually, you become numb. If every time somebody says, hey, how are you? and gives a nice slap in the face. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Okay. First time she says, "Okay, I'm sorry." Okay, fine. So next time she says, "Hey, honey, how are you? Hey, what are you doing?" Oh, no, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." Guess what? After the third time, she says, "Do me a favor. Don't say 'I'm sorry,' but don't hit me either. Your sorry is meaningless." So if 'sorry' is all we think is enough, it's not enough. We have to do something. Do something. But as far as failure, expect failure and...

2:08:10Chachamim say, if anyone who does not learn Hilchot Shabbat, for sure is violating Shabbat. Not maybe he's gonna violate Shabbat. If you don't learn Hilchot Shabbat, you're for sure violating Shabbat without knowing it. For sure. No questions asked. The question is, now that you found out that you're violating Shabbat, what are you gonna do about it? If you care less, nothing. If you care more, Then you'll do something. You'll get a book. You'll do this. I'm going to bring you guys books about Hilchot Shabbat next week. Maybe tomorrow, actually. I have some. Maybe tomorrow I'll bring you guys some Hilchot Shabbat books for anybody who wants to learn Hilchot Shabbat. Yes? If you sleep the entire Shabbat, that means that you didn't violate the Shabbat, but you still failed at Oneg Shabbat. You failed at Oneg Shabbat, which is to sanctify the Shabbat, to celebrate the Shabbat. The primary way of doing that, aside from Kiddush and a feast, is to learn Torah. If your entire Shabbat was full of food and sleep, then you and the cow are not that different. But the cow doesn't go to heaven for what she did.

2:09:32You're not going to go to Gehinnom for sleeping on Shabbat, but as far as Gan Eden, it's going to be like Gan Eden for homeless people. It's going to be like a discount Gan Eden. Why? Because you missed the whole point. And anyone, by the way, that sleeps that much, for sure is going to waste time. For sure, a thousand percent. Which means, yeah, you did one mitzvah, but you made another aveirah. Sleeping, by the way, is one of the ways that you lose control of your body. And unless you have serious yirat shamayim and control of your body and you watch yourself, you're going to see it as a result of sleep. So don't be like one of these college kids that sleep half the day or more, thinking that that's your way to becoming a tzaddik. It's a good way to start if it's that difficult for you to keep Shabbat because you sleep the whole time. But don't think that this is a good strategy long term. Short term, just to get you to stop violating Shabbat, I guess it's a good idea, but long term, it's not a good idea. Because you'll end up doing other things, and you'll also end up hating Shabbat. It'll just become a boring day. Nobody remembers the day they slept.

2:10:37People remember the parts of their life where they were awake. Nobody remembers, "Oh yeah, you remember the fifth of Tammuz? I slept 18 hours that day. What a great day." Nobody remembers that. "Oh, you remember Pesach vacation three years ago? I slept the whole time. I was in a coma." Nobody remembers that. People remember the stuff they were awake for. So that means that in order to connect to Shabbat, you have to be awake. You have to be awake for Shabbat, celebrate Shabbat, and learn Torah on Shabbat. Oh, you remember that Shabbat three years ago when I got that chidush from Rav Wasserman? Yeah, that was a good Shabbat. That you're going to remember. Why? Because you were awake. Sleeping, yeah, you could sleep, but you're not going to get very far that way. I did it for about a year. It didn't work out that way. No, 17. Next? Anything? Oh, yes. said that it's not allowed to ride a bike on Shabbat because what ends up happening is that bikes have chains. They had chains 2,000 years ago; they have chains today.

2:11:56And what ends up happening is that if you ride a bike at some point or another, whether it's this week or next week or next month or next year, at some point, that chain is going to fall off. And naturally, since you've gotten so acclimated and comfortable with your bike, you're going to want to put that chain back on. And as soon as you put that chain back on, you're completely full-fledged Mechalel Shabbat. So the fence around the fence is: don't ride a bicycle. Now, unfortunately, you're going to see a lot of people in these so-called modern Orthodox communities riding their bicycles to the Beit Knesset because they can't allow their lovely soft feet to walk a mile. So they ride a bicycle, and sometimes they put their babies in the back as if the baby is an addition to the synagogue. Now, by the way, you shouldn't bring young kids to synagogues. It's not helping anybody, including the kid. If he's two or three years old, it's not helping him. He's just going to cry the whole time and torture everybody else. Unless the kid can sit there and be quiet for two or three hours, he's not allowed in the synagogue, according to the Torah. But anyway...

2:12:58moving back to the bicycle is that you're going to see so-called people with a kippah and even a tzitzit riding bicycles to the synagogue. Because they're going to say, "Listen, I know the takanah of the Chachamim. I know what the Chachamim say, that you're not allowed to fix the chain. And I'm already prepared for that. I'm already prepared for that. What? I am not going to fix the chain. If the chain breaks, I'm simply going to abandon my bike. Or better yet, I have special technology on my bike where the chain can't come off." Chain can't come off. That just simply means those people and Yirat Shamayim are in two different worlds. Why? If the Chachamim said something, the reason that they gave us is only one of the reasons. It's not the only reason. It's one of the reasons. And if they said no, that means that Da'as Torah, is known, that the opinion of the Torah is known, the opinion of Hashem is known. This does not belong on Shabbat. Why? Because it's also considered something that belongs to divrei chol. It also belongs to the mundane. A bike, a normal person that's religious, does not associate a bike with something holy.

2:14:11Normal person associates a bike with motor with things of the mundane, of the regular week. So when you are taking the mundane into the holiness, you're making less and less of a difference between the mundane and the holy, less and less of a difference between Thursday and Shabbat. When there's less of a difference between on the way to Beit Knesset, there's going to be less of a difference in the Beit Knesset. There's going to be less of a difference in your house, which eventually will lead a person to doing other things. This is also the reason why The book of Isaiah says that he rebuked the people for speaking business on Shabbat. Even though they were not literally conducting business, they weren't selling or buying anything or exchanging money, it's still considered a desecration of Shabbat to speak business. Why? Because when you speak, it's going to lead to action. At some point or another, something is going to happen. So you want to be very careful with how you treat Shabbat because Hashem says this is My biggest treasure. This is My biggest treasure. So if we treat Shabbat like something that's unimportant and we want to bring all of the stuff from the regular week to our Shabbat, then that means that in essence what we really want from Hashem is to make Shabbat like Tuesday.

2:15:36We don't want Shabbat as He gave it to us. We don't want His present. We want it like a custom, custom present. It's like somebody gave you, you know, imagine you guys are all going to get married and let's say you're going to save up a lot of money. You're going to buy your loved one a nice fancy-schmancy ring. And you spent a lot of money on it, a lot of effort on it. Or you built her a nice beautiful house. And you spent a lot of money on it and a lot of effort on it. And she comes into the house... He says, "Yeah, it's nice, nice. I can live with this. I just have to change the kitchen. We have to put an island over there, change the oven, change the fridge. The chandelier is disgusting, so we got to get rid of this. The window treatment, I mean, if we were homeless, yeah, you could put that there. But I guess since we can afford this house, we can afford real window treatment. Two bedrooms is not enough. We have to break the wall." And she starts remodeling this whole house that you built with your own hands. Guess what? You don't want her or the house. Why? You're not appreciating what I gave you. Hashem gave us the biggest matanah in the world. He gave us Shabbat. If we treat Shabbat like it's a Tuesday and we want it to be like a Tuesday, we want to go on rollerblades and skateboards and bicycles and shoot hoops and play soccer, then in reality all we're asking Hashem is for a day off, but hoping that it's a Tuesday.

2:17:00Meaning that if Hashem said, listen, if you want you can watch TV, we'd watch TV. Listen, if you want you can drive a car, we'd drive a car. Why? Because we don't want Shabbat. That means we don't want His present. If we don't want His present, then that's not a good way for us to develop a relationship with Hashem. It's not a good way to accept the present. That's a lot of ungratefulness. Yes? Are you allowed to take a cold shower on Shabbat? Are you sick? Are you dying? Then no. Not to take a cold shower. There is a leniency under extreme circumstances to take a cold shower, but it's extreme circumstances if a person is sick and things like that. But just stam lechatchila, no. Why not? Because you're not allowed to do a few things. One, the halacha says that if you're going to wash yourself, you're going to become wet, you're going to put a towel on. That towel can soak the water. The second reason is that if you're going to take a shower, you're going to rub yourself. You're going to rip hair.

2:18:00That's another reason. Third is that simply the Chachamim decided not to have bathing allowed on Shabbat at all because, at the time of the Gemara, they had a place, I believe it's in the Kinneret, where there was natural hot water. Natural hot water. So natural hot water you're allowed to go to. They said, okay, yeah, we're going to funnel that natural hot water into this mikveh area, this bathing area. So it's just a nicer environment, cleaner. So it was allowed for a while, but then they saw that the people who worked there messed up the whole piping, and the natural hot water didn't arrive naturally hot. So what they ended up doing was heating the water on Shabbat because they had customers coming. At that point, the Chachamim said, you now have to avoid both hot water and cold water. So there's multiple reasons. If you go into the Halachot Shabbat, it gives you at least a half a dozen or more different reasons of why the Torah says, and the Chachamim say, it is not allowed to wash oneself. But there are extraordinary cases. There are extraordinary cases, but l'chatchila, as far as, like, you know, as a standard, absolutely not. Next. I know sometimes you see that the...

2:19:21The people that show up to the Knesset look like they, you know, their hair is made and they have gel on and they look like they just took a shower, they look like they just came out of a movie scene. You can simply feel bad for them because it's almost 100% that they violated Shabbat. Go to mikveh, yeah, but if they have gel on their hair, that means that they used muktzeh. And as far as mikveh, again, it all depends on whether you use that mikveh during the week. If the only time you go to mikveh is on Shabbat, it's not exactly advisable. The point is that you should always calculate why you're doing what you're doing. I mean, how bad? It's not like we're such germophobes that we have to take 18 showers a day. If you're sick, that's a different story. But in general, it's not the end of the world not to take a shower, you know, in 24 hours. Usually, the reason why people like to take showers on Shabbat is because they want to justify playing basketball or some type of sport. And they realize that after they play that sport, they're sweating profusely. And they don't want to show up to Beit Knesset that way. So they want to take a shower. So they look for different leniencies.

2:20:36If you're going to look for leniencies, you can find them. You'll find somebody that tells you that you can do everything you want, even eating pig. You can even find people that tell you that it's allowed to eat pig if you want. But the question is, what are we trying to attain? Are we trying to attain a closeness to Hashem? Do we want to be like Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, who, mamash, has a vein come out of his head when he prays because that's how close he is to Hashem? Or do we want to be like the average, modern type of Jew that's just like hafif—you know, it's like, yeah, I'm here today, gone tomorrow, everything is good? If we're so certain of ourselves and all of the good traits that we're doing, that we could just slack on the biggest mitzvah called Shabbat, Then yeah, but I don't know. I mean, I think that we need to get our mitzvot anywhere we possibly can, and we need to try to do the best we can with the basics. Because, quite frankly, most people do not know how to keep Shabbat, including religious people. Most religious people do not know how to keep Shabbat, and it's not just the shower. The shower is the obvious thing. A lot of the things that people do on Shabbat are forbidden, and they just simply don't know it. Some are forbidden for rabbinical reasons, some are forbidden for biblical reasons. So, if a person is going to go into it not looking for stringencies, just doing what he has to do,

2:21:57Basics. Not a single stringency at all. Chazal said this, I'm doing this. Chazal said this, I'm doing that. Hashem said this, I'm doing this. Hashem said that, that's what I'm doing. Nothing more, nothing less. Then he's going to have a very easy time connecting to the Shabbat and to the highest level. But if a person goes into it trying to see what she can get away with, what he can get away with, then in reality, what kind of Shabbat is it? It's like a secular Shabbat. And that's what you see a lot of times with people who don't like Shabbat or who can't wait for it to be over. Or anytime you say, "Oh, listen, this Yom Tov is three days," instead of saying, "Wow, Baruch Hashem," it's like, "Oh man, three days?" Wow, it's long this year. Like if you're not looking forward to Yom Tov being three days or four days or four years straight, there's something missing. There's a missing ingredient. So usually, that happens as a result of us looking for leniencies, which means that we're not truly valuing the present that Hashem gave us for why He gave it to us.

2:23:03And that happens to all of us. Even if you like it today, you may not like it next week, and then you go back to liking it. It's back and forth. But the point is that we should at least not look for the get-out-of-jail-free cards and just simply do what we have to; that makes it much simpler, much better, much purer, and much holier. Yes? Yes? Well, then he should know the laws of the Techum. How far is the Techum? He's not allowed to walk that far because he may leave the Techum. So if he doesn't even know where the Techum is, he probably shouldn't even leave his house. He should stay in his house the whole Shabbat until he knows all about the Hilchot Shabbat. But in reality, if you're walking really, really far, meaning you're walking several miles, most likely you're getting out of the Eruv, you're getting out of the Techum, and you're Mechalei Shabbat 100%. So... Depends where the Eruv is. The Eruv could be a block away. Depends where the Eruv is. You have to know where the Eruv is. Why? Because if you have a key, and you're inside the Eruv, no problem. But across the street, the Eruv ended. You pass that street, and you're carrying on Shabbat, you're considered Mechalel Shabbat, which incurs the death penalty. So if you have never even looked at the Eruv in your community, and you have no idea where it is, that means you have to learn how to observe Shabbat properly.

2:24:25Now again, it's not really that difficult to keep Shabbat. It's difficult to keep Shabbat when we're trying to make it like a secular day. That's when it's difficult to keep Shabbat. When you try to keep Shabbat like it's supposed to be, it's the easiest thing in the world. It's actually the most fun in the world. Why? What do you have? You have beautiful meals, one after another, until you explode. You have company usually. You know, friends, family, children. Then you have the tzaddikim, all the sefarim you have, all the sefarim that you buy on the Internet that are collecting dust the whole week, you can finally read them. Who's better than you? If that doesn't sound like fun to you, there's a problem. There's a problem. Meaning, if you are looking forward to Shabbat so you can play basketball, or you can hang out with the guys until 3 o'clock in the morning, then you're not looking for Shabbat. You're looking for a day off. It's like people that, for example, fast because they think that makes them righteous. No, that's just a diet. Fasting does not make you righteous; it just means you had a diet. You stopped eating for a day. What makes you righteous is fixing your inner horrible middot. That's what makes you a tzaddik.

2:25:41If fasting helps you study better, become more pure in that aspect, and get closer to Hashem when you pray, then fasting is useful for you. But if you think that just fasting by itself and sleeping all day is going to make you more righteous, then you have the wrong religion. Same concept with everything else. What are you trying to do? Where are you walking three miles? Are you walking to your Rebbe's house? And because he has the best shiur in town, and you're going to his house, and you want to learn with him because he brings you angels from heaven, and you can't handle not being with him on Shabbat, and he happens to be three miles from your house, but it's still within the area that you're allowed to walk, okay, you go. But if you're going to a schoolyard, or you're going to a park or something, and you're going to shoot hoops, then... Your Shabbat is not really Shabbat. It's just a day off. And it's going to be very hard for you to keep Shabbat really, because you haven't kept it really yet. So again, Shabbat is not a day off. Shabbat is a day to do specific things. It's to be with the family, it's to enjoy the kedusha of the Shabbat, be close to Hashem, learn Torah, rest a little bit. It's not to play basketball. It's not to go on your skateboard.

2:26:56It's not to go and hang out with your friends till 3 o'clock in the morning, just telling jokes to each other. That's not what Shabbat is. You can technically do some parts of some of the things I mentioned, but if that's what you look forward to for Shabbat, to play on your basketball team, first and foremost you should know that if you're above Bar Mitzvah, you're not allowed to play basketball. Your basketball is muktzeh. For an adult, it's muktzeh. So, if little Joshua over here decides he wants to play a little basketball, he's allowed. Why? He's nine years old. He's a cute little tzaddik, nine years old. But I bet you he doesn't play basketball on Shabbat. Because he's a tzaddik. Now, for a 13-year-old, which is the rest of you guys, more than 13 years old, you're not allowed to play basketball on Shabbat. Why? Because the basketball is muktzeh. So, a lot of the guys, and sometimes you see the rabbis, play basketball on Shabbat. Go look at Hilchot Shabbat, Ashkenazi, Sephardi, whatever you want. Look at Hilchot Shabbat. Are you allowed to play with a ball? Yes, children. Which children? Which children? Below Bar Mitzvah. Children are allowed to play with a ball. A father is only allowed to play with a ball if he's playing with his child. If the father left the child at home, he's playing with his friends.

2:28:08So again, it's not strictness. It's simply what are you allowed to do? And what are you supposed to do? What is Shabbat to you? Is Shabbat really a present or is it a day off? If it's a day off, then why don't you use Sunday as a day off and Shabbat as the present? you know, you have seven days in a week. You can choose another day to play basketball. And that's the thing. The more we modernize things and secularize them, it becomes simply a day that is insignificant. And that's why, by the way, highest rate, the highest rate of people that are falling off and completely leaving the derech altogether are people that are growing up in Modern Orthodox families. That's the highest rate of people leaving the religion altogether. I had a young man contact me. He said, listen, I grew up in a yeshiva, all that stuff, Modern Orthodox. He said, I'm the only one in my graduating class that's still keeping Shabbat. All of them grew up Modern Orthodox.

2:29:15big group of kids, now they're in their mid-twenties or late-twenties, he says, I'm the only one left that keeps Shabbat. Everybody else does not keep Shabbat. And he says, I'm not the only one. Nobody keeps Shabbat anymore. Why? We grew up playing basketball and football on Shabbat and doing everything except what we're supposed to do. The only Torah people learn is, you know, the few minutes they'll listen to the rabbi in between the cholent. If there's no cholent, they're not staying for the shiur. So we forgot what Shabbat is. The more you make Shabbat into a mundane, regular day off, then eventually you're not going to keep it. And if you're going to keep it to some extent, your children will definitely not keep it. And that's already happening now. Conservative, by the way, used to be like Modern Orthodox. Seventy years ago, Today, Conservative is like Reform. There's not much of a difference between the two. They both accept homosexuality. They both drive on Shabbat. They both are pretty much different religions. But 70 years ago, the Conservative were in some cases more religious than Modern Orthodox today. They didn't drive on Shabbat. What happened? They said you're allowed to drive on Shabbat about 70, 60 years ago.

2:30:32Once they said you're allowed to drive on Shabbat in the Knesset, all hell broke loose. Today, the head rabbi of the Conservative movement is openly homosexual. I'm serious. He's in Jerusalem. I'm not making this up. You can find this on the internet. The head rabbi of the Conservative movement is openly homosexual. He has a mustache. No hair though. It seems like this is far away from this. It's not. Once you open the door for the yetzer hara, that's all he needs. A small little opening. A small little opening. Once you tell your kid that Shabbat is a good time for us to play basketball, guess what? That's all the kid wants. Basketball. Football. Rollerblades. He doesn't want Shabbat. He wants a day off. So, if you are going to do it, he's going to do it. Shabbat is not a day for those things. Shabbat is a day for you to connect to Hashem. You can play with your kids. You can have fun with your family. That's not a problem. But if your whole Shabbat is just that or mainly that, you're missing out. You're missing out on what Shabbat really is. Anything else? Same price.

2:31:50Okay. Be'ezrat Hashem, tomorrow night we have a lot of questions, a lot of answers. Be'ezrat Hashem. Baruch Adonai Le'olam. Amen ve'amen.