MUSSAR Shiur Unlimited Bitachon (Confidence)

0:14We had a couple of really good shiurim this week. I think both were scary because I left the shiur scared. Sunday I think was more scary than yesterday because Sunday was a rational approach. Sunday was a rational approach that you can't deny, regardless of whether you want to believe in the mystical parts or not, whether you understand it, whether you get your head around it or not, it's irrelevant. Sunday was a type of shiur that you can't deny, regardless of who you are—religious, not religious, Jew, non-Jew, it doesn't make a difference. Because you have to always ask yourself a question: what am I showing up to the courthouse with? Whether it's the courthouse over here if somebody gets a speeding ticket, or chas v'shalom... whether you understand it, whether you get your head around it or not, it's irrelevant. Sunday was a type of shiur that you can't deny, regardless of who you are—religious, not religious, Jew, non-Jew, it doesn't make a difference. Because you have to always ask yourself a question: what am I showing up to the courthouse with? Whether it's the courthouse over here if somebody gets a speeding ticket, or chas v'shalom, some type of charge, or a lawsuit of some kind, or even more so, the courthouse in Shamayim. So the shiur, before I forget, is also going to be for a refuah shlema and zechut to Yocheved Esther bat Batya, Levana bat Sara, Sara bat Levana, Doris bat Jorah, David ben Nesria, and Elisha.

1:41And all of Am Yisrael will have. So Sunday's shiur, which was, I think, called Amazing Questions About God, number 6, the shiur that we have in Hollywood, from Hollywood, number 6. And it was a rational approach to Yirat Shamayim. Yesterday, I think we had some funny stuff for a little while until we got scared to death when we talked; somebody asked a question about Gehinnom. And I don't think people really understand the significance of the judgment, the depth of the din, the depth of the judgment in Shamayim. The unfortunate misunderstanding of God caused people potentially their eternity. And this is the reason why we try to constantly remind people that it's not a joke, and it's also not my opinion. But nonetheless, you know, each one of these shiurim gets us a little closer and closer to the truth. Now, most people can't really fathom, can't really think that far ahead.

3:05Even if you tell them, listen, there's Gan Eden, there's Gehenom, there's amazing things, spectacular things on the good side and Chas V'shalom on the bad side. It's too far for them. It's too far for them to connect to it. For most people, and by most I literally mean 99.9% of people, I'm just trying to survive. I'm just trying to survive my day to day. I'm just trying to survive my life. I'm just trying to survive my medical issues. I'm just trying to survive my marriage. I'm just trying to survive my kids. I'm just trying to survive my parents. I'm just trying to survive. Now, this is the mistake that I made for many, many years because I was also just trying to survive. And the "just trying to survive" mentality is a very, very unhappy mentality. Because you're never finished. You never feel like anything is under control. You never feel like you've actually survived. You're always trying. Every day is a new battle. Every day is a new problem. Every day is something. So the "just trying to survive" mentality is a guarantee for depression.

4:31But there are, Baruch Hashem, many answers in the Torah for these things. And we can see in the Parashat HaShavua some of the things that connect to it and some of the other Sippurei Tzaddikim that I think are ultimately going to help us. Now in Parashat Vayechi, we talked very briefly about yesterday. This is the end of Yaakov Avinu's life in this world. It says, Yaakov lived in the land of Egypt 17 years, and the days of Yaakov, the years of his life, were 147 years. So Yaakov now arrived in Egypt at 130, but now they're mentioning that The last 17 years he lived in Egypt with his son Yosef and the rest of his family. But this is the end. This is the end of the journey. And he asks something very interesting that I think is very relevant to us. He asks Yosef a very interesting question.

5:59yet a strange thing. If you think about it, it says, Vayikra le'beno liYosef, he called his son Yosef. In case someone would think, maybe he called his other son. No, he called his son Yosef. Vayomer lo, and he tells him, im na matzati chen be'enecha, if I was favored in your eyes, meaning if you love me. If you love me, put your hand under my brit. Put your hand under my brit. Put your hand under my brit and do kindness and truth with me. What kind of kindness and truth is he asking for? I'm not to give any bummy time. Please do not bury me in Egypt. Now, I'm sure all of you have heard this before. You've read parashat hashavua before on your own, so you've read it already this week because you're due to finish already before Shabbat.

7:25Don't know, maybe you asked the question. Maybe you already have the answer and you can help me out, but I look at this passuk and it seems like Yaakov is overdoing it. I mean, Yaakov is not just anyone; Yaakov is Yaakov. Everyone knows, even the Egyptians. Even Pharaoh in last week's parsha says, "How many years are you in this world?" What do you mean, how many years? It's not nice to ask an old man how old he is, and... Meaning, how many years have you been among us? You're such a giant. We've missed out by not being next to you. Why? Why did he automatically, first thing he asks him is not, "What's your family? What's your background? Are you Ashkenazi or Sephardi? Do you want some chumus? Do you want some jachnun? Where are you from? Do you have any kids?" He doesn't ask him. No. He says, "How old are you?" It's not nice to ask how old you are. Why? Because Pharaoh was a gaslan, a prideful person. It was a little compact Pharaoh. He was tiny. He was a foot and a half tall. But he was a wizard. He had magic and so on. And in order to make sure that everyone bowed to him, he made the entrance to where his throne was very small. Very short. So anyone that would walk in would be on all fours.

8:49Automatically, whether they like him or don't like him, it doesn't make a difference because they are already bowing to him. From the beginning, they are already kissing his feet. Yaakov was Kodesh Kodashim. So when Yosef went to bring him, he brought him to the front entrance. He wasn't going to bring him through the back like others; he had to go to the front entrance. Now, if he goes to the front entrance, Yaakov has to bow to this tamei, to this impure Pharaoh. Hashem made a miracle and literally made the walls spread and go around Yaakov against nature. So immediately Pharaoh realized he's not dealing with just anyone. Who is this giant that changes nature? So from here, we already know that even the Egyptians knew that Yaakov is a big deal. Even more so, Yosef, Yosef HaTzaddik, loved his father dearly. He constantly asked his brothers during that whole journey, that whole test, "Is my father alive? Is your father alive?" Really, he's asking, "Is my father alive?" And by the way, the reason why he kept asking them this question, the sages explained...

10:11a very, very peculiar chiddush. Why do they keep asking about the father? Why don't they ask about something else? And the reason why is because he didn't understand how they can't recognize him. He's Yosef. He's their brother. Okay, he hasn't seen him in 20 years, but even if you don't see somebody for 20 years, you can still, if you lived with somebody for 17 years, you can recognize them. Somebody that goes and... Sees their teacher. Sees their teacher. After 20 years, still recognize the teacher. As a side note, there's a very famous story about, alav hashalom. One day, he saw an older woman come up to him. She said, "Please, bless me."

11:11And they said, "Okay, sure, sure." "No, no, give me more, more. Do you recognize me?" He says, "You look familiar, but tell me, tell me." She goes, "I was your kindergarten teacher. I was your kindergarten teacher." He was so amazed. "Wow," he just saw the Mashiach. He started praying. "Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow." Shortly later, she passed away. And he did not stop praying for her. Every day he would say Kaddish for her. He hadn't seen her in decades. He said Kaddish for her until she came to him. He told this to his students: She came to me in a dream. She told me to stop saying Kaddish. Why? She said, every time I say Kaddish for her, she ascends to a higher level in Gan Eden. Higher level in Gan Eden. Higher level in Gan Eden. She said, I'm with the Tannaim. I don't understand anything. I'm with the Tannaim already. Stop. Stop. I need to go lower. I don't understand what's going on. Too much. Why? He owes gratitude. So again, years and years pass, maybe he does this, maybe he does that, but in general, as soon as you remember, "Oh, my kindergarten teacher," all your memories return. But this is after 50, 60 years. Here we're talking about a stranger.

12:39You said, "What's the tzadik say, brothers? You said, 'What's the tzadik?' It's only 20 years. You said, 'What's the tzadik, you're in front of me?' What do you mean? You don't recognize? Well, how could you not recognize? Why is he asking why they can't recognize? The Chachamim say because Yosef made himself identical to Yaakov. Identical—their faces were exactly the same." So, he kept asking them, "Is my father still alive? Because how is it that you guys don't recognize me? Is it possible that my father has been dead for so long that you forgot what he looks like? Because if you looked at me, you would see my father, which you know. I'm your brother. So, how is it you're not recognizing me?" So what's the answer? What's the answer? The Chachamim say there's a specific halacha that you're not allowed to look at a rasha's face. You're not allowed to look at someone wicked's face. Not allowed. Why? Hurts you. Can hurt you. Not halacha. It's a thing that the Gemara says you're not allowed to do it. So, from here we learn that the brothers, despite the fact that they ate next to him, and they were next to him, and they almost had a little battle with him and everything, the whole time they didn't look at him.

13:58Why? They say he's like Pharaoh. I'm not going to look at his face. That's what they said. The parashah said he's like, you're like Pharaoh. You're like Pharaoh. You're evil like Pharaoh. So they didn't look at his face. So now back to our subject at hand. We have Yaakov Avinu is Kodesh Kodashim, Yosef Kodesh Kodashim. i mean, it doesn't get better than this. What is he doing? Hey, my son, you love me? What do you mean you love me? Even if he's not Yosef HaTzaddik, he loves you. What kind of son doesn't love his father? I mean, today you have to ask that question. It's a little strange today, but in previous generations, let's imagine like we're in the previous generation. You love me? Of course I love you. What do you mean you love me? It says, do me a favor. What do you mean, do me a favor? You're my father. We're not talking about an atheist son and an atheist father, and they both believe that we came from monkeys. We're talking about Kiddush. Do me a favor? What do you mean, do me a favor? But not just any favor. Do me a chesed shel emet. Okay, so you're thinking, you know what? He's asking for something that's probably beyond my ability. He's probably asking for me to build him the pyramids on top of my head.

15:23He's asking me to take all my money and invest it into his tomb or something, and I'm going to pretty much be homeless the next day. He's asking me for something that's beyond my abilities. That's the only thing that explains it. Do me a favor. Don't bury me in Egypt. That's it. Does it make sense? Yaakov Avinu is making this whole big ordeal. Don't bury me in Egypt. That's it. Anyone who thinks... Yaakov Avinu was really so worried about where his flesh is going to be when his neshama is going to be in the next world with Avraham and Yitzchak. He's fooling himself. He doesn't understand a thing about the Avot HaKedoshim. So first and foremost, we see this verse is something very peculiar.

16:25First off, we see that Yaakov is telling Yosef, "Put your hand under my thigh." Where do we see this before? Where do we see this before, Rabotai? We saw this with Avraham Avinu. We saw this with Avraham Avinu when Avraham Avinu spoke to Eliezer, his servant, and he told him, listen, do me a favor. Do me a big chesed. Go find my son a wife. But not just anyone. It can't be one of the Canaanite people. It has to be one of our people, and so on and so forth. But I'm not looking for a shadchan that's going to convince me to have my daughter marry a guy that's blind, stupid, and poor. I'm not looking for that. I'm looking for you to give me what I'm asking for. Today, in today's age, if you're a shadchan, you have to also be like a partial liar too, because they tell you, "Listen, I want a guy, da-da-da-da-da-da, I want a girl, da-da-da-da-da-da." The girl is paraplegic, the guy is barely Jewish. It's a problem. Sometimes you have a guy, "Listen, I want someone that's tall, that's this, that's that," okay, no problem. "Okay, so what did you bring me here?"

17:42The guy is not tall. I asked you for someone tall. Okay, he's not tall, but he's a nice guy. He's a nice guy. Okay, whatever. He's not tall. Fine. But he's rich. Not exactly rich. He's not rich. No, he's not rich. No, but I asked for tall and rich. He's not tall and rich, but he's a nice guy. But he knows Torah. I don't know, you have to ask. See what he says. He doesn't talk much. He doesn't talk much. That's already a good sign. All of a sudden, he's like, oh, you know what? Fine, no problem. Nice guy. Sounds nice. He doesn't say a thing. It automatically sounds nice. He's not tall. He's not so rich. Fine. The day they get married, all of a sudden, he starts hitting the wife. What kind of guy did you give me? The guy's a wife-beater. Would you say to him nothing? I just said hello, and he said, "Okay, now that you're my wife, I have to show you how to be one." So, what kind of guy did you give me? I told you to give me a nice guy. Listen, so I didn't give you a nice guy. I missed out on one thing. Everything else he had. No, so that's that. The problem today is that you have, you have shadchanim who are having a little bit of difficulty. You have shidduch problems. So, Avraham Avinu...

19:05I love Shalom. He tells Eliezer, Eliezer, please do me a chesed and go find my son a wife. A specific wife has to do this, that, that, that. Under no condition do you bring my son over there. She has to come over here, and so on and so forth. And what's the deal? To show you how important it is, we're making, we're shaking hands, if you will, today. But I'm showing you that the way that Avraham Avinu shook hands is by showing a person the most valuable possession that he has beyond his name, beyond his money, beyond everything else — his Brit Milah. Why? Because the whole reason why I'm sending you far away to find my son a wife is because it needs to comply with the rules of God. So already over here we see that Yaakov grandson, same strategy. "Put your hand under my brit and do a test for me." The next thing we see is Yaakov saying, "Do a kindness and truth with me, chesed ve'emet," which is also something that we heard before if you remember when Yaakov was coming back and

20:32to go see his father after being away and running away from Esav, running away from the war with Esav, eventually he came back. And he says, he talks to Hashem. He says, "Hashem, I have been diminished by all of the kindness and by all of the truth that you have done for me." So, Here we see that he uses the same exact words, chesed ve'emet—kindness and truth. The same exact words that he is using here with Yosef. So now, we see that these specific words carry some weight. We have to understand what they mean. So first and foremost, when he was talking about a... that he's been diminished. When he's talking to Hashem, "I've been diminished by all of the myriad things that you've given me. You've given me more than enough. I don't deserve it." Why doesn't he deserve it? Why does he think, "I don't deserve it"? Yaakov teaches us the secret to success: If you rely on Hashem and you realize that everything is from Hashem, then you realize that in reality, everything is a bonus.

21:58Everything you get is a bonus. You don't deserve anything. He doesn't owe you anything because He's the Creator. He's the King, you're the servant. So first and foremost, Yaakov Avinu, Kodesh Kodashim, is telling us, Hashem, everything You give me is already above and beyond. Now You've already promised me that I'll have descendants and I'll have this and I'll have that and I'll have all these wonderful things. But maybe, since You promised me this stuff 20 years ago, since then, maybe I made a mistake. Maybe I made a sin somewhere along the line that maybe I don't deserve it anymore. Maybe I lost the merit. Because the kindness is referring to what Hashem gives us without promising, and the truth is what Hashem gives us based on His promises. You keep Shabbat, Hashem will help you with parnassah. You have shalom bayit, Hashem will help you with your parnassah. You say Hashem ye'atzar, Hashem will help you get refuah shlema. You're modest, Hashem will give you purity in your home. And so on and so forth. A man that tells his wife, "No, I don't want you to cover your hair," the Zohar HaKadosh says, he's mekulal, he's arur. He's cursed in Shamayim. Why? Because he told his wife not to cover her hair. So there's good and bad that comes from Shamayim.

23:29That's the truth. Meaning, Hashem promised that you do good, you get good; you do bad, you get bad. But the kindness, the chesed, is in essence above and beyond. Above and beyond. So here, Yaakov Avinu shows us that even good people, people that are tzadikim, are also scared of being punished. We're not just average people that violate the law and get punished. Maybe I made a sin in the last 20 years that I haven't done teshuvah for. And all the things you promised me that I was supposed to get, maybe I don't deserve anymore. And on top of it, maybe I'll actually get a punishment for it. Rav Moshe Feinstein, a lover of shalom, says from here, from this chesed ve'emet, we actually learn the extent of what Hashem means in Parashat Bechukotai, which is in Leviticus, chapter 26, verse 3 and verse 15, when Hashem says that you must live by the law, meaning that you must keep His mitzvot. If you keep His mitzvot,

24:54He says some amazing things. This is the first verse in Parashat Bechukotai. And then he gives you 14 different verses after that of blessings. If you follow my decrees and observe my commandments and perform them, He gives you a list of different rewards that a person can get. But on the other hand, Rav Moshe Feinstein says, this chesed ve'emet that Yaakov is referring to is also referring to the same verse, number 16, in the same chapter, where it says, "On the other hand, on the other hand,"

25:54you consider My decrees loathsome. You don't like them. It's not for you. It's not modern enough for you, doesn't fit into your schedule. If your being rejects My ordinances, no, I don't have time for Hashem. It's not for me, this feeling stuff. It's not for me, this Shabbat. It's not for me, this special diet. It's not for me, modesty. It's not for me to be different. So it's not to perform all of My commandments, not just some of them. Stop making exceptions. No, no, I keep everything except this. I keep everything except this. If you don't structure your life in a way to allow yourself the ability to keep all of My commandments, so that you will know My commandment, My covenant, meaning that you've pretty much decided I'm going to violate Hashem's law. There are some people out there who are not atheists, they're not anti-God, if you will, but they decide this commandment, it's not for me.

27:16Some people, it's something as simple as the shaving machine. Shaving machine. They use a shaving machine, and they don't like the shaving machine, so they want to use a razor. Why? Because they want a face like a baby, and they want to have it nice and be like a baby. And they like the way it feels, and they like the way it looks. No problem. What's the problem with that? There's no problem to do it. But what's the problem with it? The Torah says it's assur. You're not allowed to destroy the root of the hair on your face. And there's three different spots. And every time you do it, it's as if you've violated the Torah five different times, the equivalent of you being a piggul five different times. Five different times. Some say six. It's six different sins. Either way, you're in trouble. For one shave. We're not talking about... This is a one-time event in your life if you already decide to shave with a razor. Then you know that you've sinned this one time, but that's it. You continue doing it. No, every time you shave, it's a sin. So now, machines came out already almost a hundred years ago. There were machines, some forms of machines, obviously not as advanced as today, but even those machines back then...

28:44Someone that was in yeshiva with Rav Elazar Menachem Man Shach, zt"l, had a machine and Rav Shach, zt"l, looked at him. There were students, young kids. He says, "I don't know what this machine that you have to shave is. I don't know if it's allowed. You should ask the Rav. Just go ask the rabbi if it's allowed." "Why look at my face? I'm comfortable that I don't allow it." So he decides to go to the rabbi. And the rabbi says, "No, the machine that you're using is not kosher. Use the machine that I said is kosher. Everyone else uses a different machine. Use the machine that I said is kosher." And this was one of the gedolei hador. I just don't want to mistake the name, so I'm just not going to say the name. It was one of the gedolei hador that said it to him. And... Maybe you have a home haircut. But anyway, he says, "The machine that you're using is not kosher. This is already seven years ago. The machine you are using is not kosher. Use the machine that I say is kosher, that everybody else uses. Use that." He says, "Kvoda Rav, the machine that you recommended burns my face."

30:11The machine that I have, it doesn't burn my face. It makes me feel better. And the Rav says to him, "Son, listen, you're right. The machine that I recommend burns you here. The machine that you have is going to burn you up there. You just have to decide where you want to be burned." Where do you want to be? You have to decide. Where do you want to be burned? There's burn over here in your face. You're gonna get a little pimples over here. Or you go to Gehinom. Which one do you want? Same price. This is how holy people speak. This is how they spoke for all the generations. The stuff that people think, oh, you're harsh, oh, you're stringent, oh, you're this. I'm a puppy next to these people. This is how they spoke. Because they understood what chesed ve'emet is. So now, parashat Vayechi, Yaakov is saying to Yosef, Yosef, please make a deal with me.

31:34Do chesed ve'emet. What does it mean, chesed ve'emet? Why is he reminding him? Rav Moshe Feinstein says that chesed ve'emet means how stringent a person must be with his exercising of the mitzvot. No leniencies, no kulot, no "I don't feel like doing it." Why? If someone, according to halacha in the Shulchan Aruch... someone shaves with a non-kosher shaver if someone shaves with a non-kosher razor. It's not that he just made five sins. It's not that he made just five sins. According to the Shulchan Aruch, he cannot be counted as part of a minyan. Why? He just made five sins. Plenty of people make more than five sins. Plenty of people make more than five sins. Some people make five sins just waking up. The guy shaves. He made five sins, six sins. Okay. Why can't he be counted for a minyan? Why is his Judaism on suspension like a mechallel Shabbat? It's just a shaver. Why are you being so extreme? No, it's not me. Why? Because shaving with a non-kosher shaver is something you do on a regular basis.

32:52Once you've decided to sin on a regular basis, to go against the rabbis on a regular basis, to go against the Torah on a regular basis, you are no longer considered part of Am Yisrael. You cannot be counted as part of a minyan. Your Judaism is on suspension. Stop sinning, and we love you again. But if you're going to desecrate Abba B'Shamayim, you're going to desecrate my Father in Heaven's name every day, just by your existence, because you can't pick a kosher shaver, because you can't pick a kosher person, I can't count you in a minyan. I can't say, "Hey, Abba, look who I brought. Look who I brought to the house. Oh, the guy that curses me out every day. The guy that has a billboard in the middle of the highway." With my picture on it and with what makes a funny face on it, this is what you brought to the Knesset. This is what you brought for me. That's what people need to understand. Someone that decides to violate the law here and there, it's different. He doesn't know; he doesn't realize the magnitude. It's a different story. But the Gemara in Masechet Shabbat says someone that makes a mistake, makes a mistake and...

34:13turns on the electricity on Shabbat. Obviously, it wasn't electricity in the days of the Gemara. Someone that makes a mistake, makes a mistake on Shabbat, shogeg. He has to bring a korban for that one sin. He made a mistake. He didn't realize it was Shabbat. He forgot it was Shabbat. He thought it was Tuesday. I don't know why—maybe he got drunk. He thought it was Tuesday, miskin. He thought it was still Friday. He thought it was Sunday. He forgot. Miskin, you know, sometimes you wake up. You're so tired. You wake up, you go to the bathroom, you forget it's Shabbat. You turn on the light. What, it didn't happen to you? Everybody's tzaddikim? Everybody never makes mistakes? Everybody knows it's Shabbat all the time? I'm the only one? So, that's the thing. Some guy woke up in the morning. He forgot it's Shabbat, miskin. They say he has to bring a korban chatat. He has to bring a korban to the Beit HaMikdash, chatanu avinu pashanu, bring a $25,000 cow, everything's okay. Why? You made a mistake. If you did it on purpose, it's the death penalty. But if it's a mistake, korban. Now, what if he knew? What if he knew it's Shabbat?

35:28And he just, he knew that there are certain things not allowed on Shabbat. He knew. Shabbat, he knew there are certain things not allowed on Shabbat, but he forgot the halacha. He forgot. He forgot you're not allowed to turn on a light on Shabbat. He forgot that you're supposed to make tea a certain way on Shabbat. He forgot you have to, he forgot. He has to bring a korban for every single sin he made. Meaning, he made six sins. The one guy that forgot Shabbat might have made 25 different sins, a hundred sins, a thousand sins. He forgot Shabbat. The whole day is a sin. He realizes on Tuesday that it's not Saturday, it's Tuesday. So, he has to bring one on Tuesday. He may realize he forgot Shabbat. He has to bring one korban. But the guy that knew it's Shabbat, he just forgot the halacha. He has to bring a korban for every single sin. Why? Why is he being punished for knowing that Shabbat should be the same at least? Should be one korban, one korban. Why does he have to bring so many? This guy already had to mortgage half his house for $25,000 for the cow. Now this guy has to borrow money from his parents. Why? Because he made at least a thousand sins. He has to borrow money for the rest of his life for the korbanot. Why?

36:52The fact that you knew and you still violated the law means you have no Yirat Shamayim. For that, there is an extra punishment. For that, there is an extra punishment. Being a person that knows that you're not allowed to shave a certain way and still doing it. Being a person that knows you have to be modest but you're still not doing it. Being a person that knows what the law is but you're still not doing it, Hashem says, there is an extra punishment for you. that's what he said. The emet, according to Rav Moshe Feinstein, means the extra stringency that a person needs to understand. That Hashem, in His ultimate judgment, the depths of the din in Shamayim, requires a person to understand that Hashem is not joking around. You have come to this world to exert yourself to follow the law. It's hard. Baruch Hashem.

37:53It's difficult, Baruch Hashem. It seems impossible, Baruch Hashem. You're going in the right direction. So now Yaakov Avinu is telling Yosef, Yosef, put your hand under my brit. Do chesed v'emet with me. What's the connection? He says, listen, Yosef, my son, you have all this power. You're a vizier, you've got all this money. When I came, you were already rich. Now, you're a zillionaire. You had a couple hundred million dollars when I saw you; now you're a multi-billionaire because, in the last few years since I've been here—17 years—Egypt became even richer than when we first got here. There's a lot of bracha that came. You were already doing well then; now, you're in an even higher position. But I want you to remember what Avraham, my grandfather, said. And what Yitzchak, my father, said is still true nonetheless. We still hold by the brit. We still hold by the brit. We still follow the brit. Why? Because God said it. The chesed ve'emet, the kindness and the truth, is still coming from the same source. So please, don't bury it. Don't bury this kindness from Hashem. Don't bury this truth from Hashem in Egypt.

39:16Don't bury it in Egypt. We still have to go to Eretz Yisrael someday. Don't become an Egyptian. Don't become an Egyptian just because you have some money. Don't become an American just because you like the lifestyle. Your goal is to make Aliyah at some point. Your goal is to pray for the Mashiach to come, not for him not to come. Your goal is to be a Jew, even when you're surrounded by Egyptians or Greeks or Americans or whatever you want to call them. Don't bury it in Egypt. So already we see he's begging him. Why? Because it's hard. It's hard to be an ish kadosh when you're so successful. It's hard to be an ish kadosh when everyone around you isn't. It's hard. We see that Yaakov... Understands the significance of how difficult it is, this test. That's why he's begging him. That's why he's begging him. But that's also why Hashem gives us so much leeway to do teshuva. Gives us so much leeway to try harder, try harder as long as we don't make it a habit to sin against Him. As long as we don't just say, you know what, from now on I'm just not doing it.

40:40I'll do everything else, just not this. I'll do everything else, just not this. So, to play such a game with Hashem is worse than playing with fire. It's worse than playing with fire. It's just dealing with, it's like a crazy person. If you understand the significance of Hashem, you understand what you're supposed to do in this world, and you're still doing such a thing, you're still saying, you know what, I know it's true, but it's just not for me. The fact that you can't do it is one thing. You know you're wrong and eventually you're trying to get to it. You know that you have to keep Shabbat, but you're not there yet. You know that you have to keep whatever it is, but you're not there yet. That's one thing, but at least you're not saying it's okay. You're not giving yourself a pat on the back, thinking, "I'm doing enough already." You know how many people tell me, "Do you know how much stuff I do? Do you know how many mitzvot I do every day? Do you know how much I study? Do you know how modest I am? Do you know how much tzedakah I give?" Usually, it's a bit of tzedakah. "Do you know how much tzedakah I give? Do you know how much? Do you know how much?" No, I don't know, but it doesn't really make a difference. It doesn't make a difference how much. If you're still in this world, you have a lot more to do. If you didn't have a lot more to do, then there would be no point in you being here.

41:59So that false sense of confidence that people have regarding where they stand, it's a crazy mentality. But part of the reason for this type of mentality is unfortunately sometimes coming from the teachings. A lot of the teachings we talked about earlier, a lot of the teachings that are in the world today, are unfortunately The type of teaching where, whether you're in grade school, kindergarten, high school, yeshiva, public school, religious school, from rabbis, or parents, in general, this politically correct world that we live in, teaches people a common denominator, which is everything is okay. Everything is okay, just be positive and things will be positive. This is a false sense of reality. This is, you're just fooling yourself. You're literally living inside a fire. But you're saying, no, everything's okay. Nothing's okay. You have to fix it. That's why you're in this world, to fix stuff. So there was one time a kofer, really a much a heretic that was in the government of Israel. Plenty more of him now, unfortunately.

43:24The point is that there was one time this guy that was in the government and every time there was a law they were trying to bring to their Knesset for the sake of Torah, to pass a law to help the Avreichim, to pass a law to open a mikveh, to pass a law to open a new Beit Knesset, to pass a bill or whatever... To do different things for Judaism, for the sake of Judaism, this heretic by default will go against it every single time. Mamash, he hated Judaism so much. It was unbearable for years. One day, Rav Ovadia, zt"l, sees him—sees this person—in a Beit Midrash. He sees him studying in a Beit Midrash. The story was told by Rabbi Yosef, his son, who is now the Chief Rabbi of Israel. He sees him with his own eyes, studying with the head Rabbi of the Ponovezh Yeshiva. Not like a

44:45to anybody. He's sitting with a lot of Ponevezher yungeleit, and they're studying. He didn't bother them. Later on, he called her up and says, "Studying with this person? Why don't you tell him to stop going against the Torah?" Learning Torah with you, it's time to stop going against it. We want to put a mikveh in the neighborhood. We want to put a Beit Knesset, Beit Midrash, Yeshiva, Kollelim, and so on and so forth. It's time to stop going against the Torah. Talk to him. The Rabbi says to him, "No, no, we don't talk politics. When we learn, we don't talk politics." But he says to him, "Politics? It's not politics. It's Torah. It's not politics. It's mikveh, yeshivot, kollel, avreichim, Torah. What are you talking about? It's not politics." He says, "No, Kvod HaRav, we don't talk politics." He says, "Let me ask you, how long have you been studying with him, chavruta?" He says to him, "I've been studying with him for 20 years."

46:0420 years I've been studying with him chavruta. I have a budget, says to him immediately. Immediately, reflexively, he says, "You're not allowed to study with him anymore." Why? Because whatever you're teaching him is not the Torah that he needs to learn. He's still a kofer and... He's still a heretic. What you're teaching him is something wrong. It's not appropriate Torah for him. He's using it as an intellectual endeavor, like it's a subject such as history, math, architecture, or science. He's not learning Torah for the sake of Torah, that Hashem said it. You're not teaching him appropriately. You must stop teaching him. because your Torah is not affecting his neshama. If your Torah is not affecting his neshama after an extended period of time, you must stop. Get him a different teacher if you like him. If you like him so much, get him a different teacher that hopefully can help him. Because you're not helping him. And you're not helping yourself. And this is why sometimes the most difficult, the most difficult part of being a teacher is

47:24Sometimes you have to let students go. Sometimes you have to let students go in a different direction because you see that they come to the shiurim, they stay in touch, they ask questions, they daven, but nothing changes. Nothing changes, they're still the same person. Maybe here and there something minor changed in the beginning. They started keeping something in the beginning, but after that, nothing changes, and... Happened to me both. Unfortunately, this happened to me a few times. More than a few times. I've had to rebuild my student base maybe seven times already by now. And just in the Torah world, forgetting the business world. In the business world, it was many more than that, and the reason why is because in the beginning somebody comes, and they want to learn, and they're excited, and they learn... And they take something on because it makes sense to them logically to take whatever you say on. So if it's in the business world, being ambitious, they take it on. Waking up early, they take it on. Looking appropriate, they take it on. But then you tell them, listen, you have to work till 8 o'clock every day. You have to work from 8 o'clock in the morning till 8 o'clock at night. Oh. What do you mean, like every day, every day, or like once a month?

48:54like five days a week or like once a year? Okay, now you've got a problem. Then you tell the guy, listen, not only do you have to work, but you have to really mean it. Don't just come here and hang out with your friends, go out for 15 cigarettes a day. Work. If you're here, work. If you don't want to work, go home. It's not school. You don't have to attend. It's not school. You want to work, work. The stupidest thing that people do in their careers is go to work and waste time. If you don’t work, don’t work there. Go somewhere else. People look for jobs to do nothing. "Oh, it’s a great place to work." Why? If you do nothing all day? Great management, by the way. You know you’re stealing, right? If you work for a company and do nothing all day, you’re stealing from them. So, if you’re looking for jobs just so you can get away with doing nothing all day and... You're just looking to be a thief. Might as well go steal more money. Go to a bank. Same gilgul is going to have to happen anyway. So, I tell people all the time in the business world: listen, if you want to work, work. You have to be ambitious. You have to make calls. You have to do this. You have to do that. If you're already going to do it, do it. Even more so in Torah.

50:23If you're already going to be a Jew, do it. Stop being half a Jew. Stop being like, oh, I'm going to study, but whenever I have time. I'm going to study, but, you know, like once a week at the shiur. I'm going to come to the shiur and I'm going to do that. That's my studying for the week. On Tuesday nights, Wednesday nights, I study. The rest of the week, I'm a cow. The rest of the week, I don't know anything. I don't know right, I don't know left. I forget who God is. You know, I put the tzitzit on, though. So, That's the thing. People have a tough time with that. Sometimes it's not necessarily that. Sometimes you tell them, listen, keep Shabbat. Keep Shabbat. Keep taharat hamishpacha. No problem. It's not even my mitzvah. It's my wife's mitzvah. No problem. Okay. Keep this. Keep kosher. Yes, I have a kosher restaurant right downstairs from my house. Baruch Hashem. Then you start telling them, listen, you know that you have to work on shalom bayit. You are not allowed to torture your wife just because she's unfortunately a victim and... She has no place else to go because you're her husband. She has stuck with you for 25 years already. She's not going to go look for a new boyfriend. She's with you and she is tolerating you, and you're trying to yell at her 24 hours a day because she's not this and she's not that. And all of a sudden, you're a mini Moshe Rabbeinu and she's Korach. What happened? How did you make it 25 years? Unfortunately, there are a lot of reshaim that torture their wives.

51:50Yell at them, scream at them, destroy their confidence, and many of these reshaim do it in the name of the Torah. How do they do it? They decide to wake up after, I don't know, 20, 30, 40, 50 years, and they did teshuva. Oh, Hashem, already good. They did teshuva, that's a good thing. They did teshuva, the wife is supportive. Okay, you want to do teshuva? I'll do teshuva, fine, no problem. What's teshuva? Oh, we're going to start keeping Shabbat. Okay, so we're going to start keeping Shabbat. What's Shabbat? You don't work. You don't work anyway. Okay, so we're not going to work. So what's the difference to us then? We're not going to watch TV anymore. Okay, so we don't watch TV. Big deal. Okay, I'll be supportive. We're not going to watch TV. What else? Do Kiddush. What's Kiddush? You got to make food. You got to do prayer. Oh, it's nice. Family dinner. Baruch Hashem, I'll do it. No problem. So now, the wife doesn't have such a big problem doing it. But then he continues to learn and learn and learn. And he starts hearing things all... You have to not only keep Shabbat based on not using electricity and not driving, but you also have all these intricate details about muktzeh, and you also have all these intricate details of how to make tea, and you also have all these intricate details about how to run the rest of the week, and when to do this and when to do that. There's a lot of different details to the law. There's the day-to-day stuff.

53:18And every single time he sees her messing up, because miskena, she's new, he tears into her as if she is the worst person on earth. Oh, I can't believe it. You did ah, ah, ah. Hey, relax. She's a human just like you're a human. Why, just because you know automatically means everyone else needs to know? The fact that she doesn't know is your fault. You were supposed to teach her. The fact that she doesn't know is your fault. So a lot of people try to be rabbis with their own wives. They come, they take a, you know, they have no crowd, so they pretend there's a crowd, but really it's just their wife, it's a korban miskena, where's she gonna go? It's Shabbat. Where's she gonna go? So they force her to listen to the shtuyot. Worst part about it though, the worst part about it, is that many of the things they say are wrong. So now, They come to shiurim, and they hear the rabbi, they hear me, they hear this, oh, you have to be modest, you have to do this, you have to do that, fine, no problem. They come home, they tell the wife, you have to do this, you have to do that, you have to be modest, you have to cover your hair, you have to keep Shabbat, you have to keep kosher, you have to keep Taharat HaMishpacha, and they love telling her what to do. But then one day, one day, I say, dear husband, you have to be generous.

54:44Rabbi, you're taking it too far now. You're taking it too far now. The wife is walking tznuah. The wife is observing kashrut. This is that she's doing good. What are you saying? I have to be generous now? All of a sudden, I have to buy a gift every week? I have to buy her something? Why? Who said it? Where's the rain in the Torah? Where's the rain in the Torah after buying a gift? Where's the rain? It's actually a mitzvah of Rosh Chodesh, by the way. Just so you know. Rosh Chodesh, your obligation is to buy your wife a present. Something. It doesn't have to be a million dollars. Five dollars, two dollars. Something. Why? It's her day. Rosh Chodesh is her day. You tell a husband he has to be generous every Shabbat, every Friday. If you don't come to the house with flowers, you're a rasha. Why? You don't know how to be a husband. You should have stayed in the cage with the dogs. You tell a husband he has to be generous with his wife. Stop getting her to a point where she has to ask you for money. Why does she have to ask you for money? Was she homeless? What does she have you for?

55:47Now you told Mr. Wonderful that you have to be generous. You told Mr. Wonderful you have to work on your middot. Okay, she's doing whatever, she's not perfect, fine. But now it's time for you to work. All of a sudden, you're Amalek with love, you're Korach, you're this, you're that. All of a sudden, two years they listen to everything you say, and suddenly, "Oh, we don't want to listen to him. I'm gonna listen to another rabbi. I'm gonna start watching this one. I'm gonna start watching that one. I'm watching this." All of a sudden, they have multiple rabbis. So at some point, you have to start realizing it's not necessarily always a war. But you see that you're saying things, but nothing changes. Why? Because you see the same problems, and the problems usually grow. Sometimes the problems get even worse. I have one guy. He's not my student, Baruch Hashem, but unfortunately, I'm trying to help him. Even though he's not my student, I'm trying to help him. Why am I trying to help him? Because his miskena wife is being beaten on a weekly basis. This guy, if he was my student, if he was local, honestly, even if I knew where he lived and it was local, I'd probably beat him up myself. But this guy thinks that his wife is a punching bag. Miskena.

57:07She goes to the rabbi, thinking the rabbi is gonna help. What does the rabbi do? The rabbi tells the husband, "Yeah, your wife is complaining about you." What does he do? He comes home and beats her up again. So people like this, people like this, it's like mamash, it's purely like a part of Gehinnom, like hell on this earth, to live with such a person. So sometimes you have people like that, where you tell them the truth, and they don't want to hear it. And you tell them again, and they don't want to hear it. And you tell them again, and they don't want to hear it. It's not always extreme cases, obviously. Sometimes it can be simply, tell the guy to put on tzitzit, and he doesn't want to hear it. Tell the guy to keep Shabbat. He doesn't want to hear it. Tell the guy to start working on his middot. He doesn't want to hear it. Tell the guy to learn more than once or twice a week. He doesn't want to hear it. He's just not doing it. If he's not doing it once, twice, three times, three months, four months, five months, fine. But if you've already been teaching him for a while and he's not changing, you must retire. You must retire. You must tell him, "Listen, I like you. You're a good guy, but I believe I can't help you."

58:19No, no, you're a nice guy. I'm a nice guy. You're a nice guy. Everybody's a nice guy. That's not gonna get you into Gan Eden. What's gonna get you into Gan Eden is somebody that convinced you to do the things that I'm telling you to do. Because everything I'm telling you to do is in the Torah. Apparently, you don't believe me. So you have to find somebody else you believe. You have to retire. You have to take a step back. Because if your Torah is not affecting people, you can't teach. Unfortunately, that's bad for business. It's bad for business, and that's the reason why most people don't do it. Most rabbis don't do it. There's one heretic rabbi in Boca Raton that has been teaching his kehillah for 15 years. For 15 years he has a kehillah of Israelis. He's been teaching for 15 years, and not one of them, not a single one of them, keeps Shabbat. Not a single one of them. Fifteen years they go to shul every week and...

59:21Fifteen years they go to shul and not a single one keeps Shabbat. How do I know this? I went there and gave a shiur. I didn't know this, obviously. I was invited to give a shiur, and I gave a shiur. Some of the people that come to his class, a few, only showed up. They started looking at me funny when I told them not to drive on Shabbat. "What do you mean not to drive on Shabbat? I love my rabbi. Fifteen years, right? He never said a thing." Talk to the rabbi. No, no, I have a leniency from a rav this and a rav that. What leniency? What leniency? What are you talking about? There's no leniency to drive on Shabbat unless you're dying. Or somebody else is dying. You're trying to save their life. You must retire. But if I retire, they're not going to give me tzedakah anymore. If I retire, they're not going to give me the money that's paying the bills for the school, for the kids, for the house, for the mortgage, for the business, for this, for that. So, there's not that many people that are willing to do what's necessary, to do the chesed ve'emet. There was a big kofel, Zionist, that was one of the founders of modern Israel, if you will, one of the government members. And he made a public statement one time. He said, "We tried...

1:00:50to build a country full of kofrim, full of people that are anti-Torah, full of socialist mentality, Zionistic mentality. But instead, we built a country full of ignorant people. That's all we got. Unfortunately, we have certain parts of Am Yisrael that are so ignorant of the truth that you can't believe we're at this level. She is one of the giants in the kiruv world. He just told a story this past Shabbat, and he says, "You know, on Shabbat, you're not allowed to cry. Even if something is said, even if your husband is one of these Amaleikim that I just talked about, you're not allowed to cry on Shabbat. You have to do whatever you can to avoid crying on Shabbat."

1:01:51But he says, this past Shabbat, I couldn't stop crying. Motzei Shabbat, I finally got to Motzei Shabbat, I almost cried on Shabbat. Motzei Shabbat, I started crying. Couldn't stop crying. Why, Kvod HaRav, why are you crying? Normally a very happy person, you see his pictures on the internet, videos, a very, very happy, Baruch Hashem, very happy person. Kvod HaRav, you crying? He said, I had two guests on Shabbat, two guests, IDF people to commanders, sergeants, whatever it was, I invited him for Shabbat. One of them tells me that he came from a kibbutz. He grew up in a kibbutz, and this kibbutz was so far removed from Judaism that... None of the laws, none of the Torah they ever heard of. The only thing they heard of was that there was such a thing as a special day, Yom Kippur. They didn't know why it was special. They just knew there are no cars on the road. They just knew that people don't usually work. It's a special day. They didn't know why. So what did they decide to do? Okay, let's celebrate. This is the army commander telling the story of how he grew up.

1:03:19He says, so what do we do in this kibbutz with all of these people? He said, it's a special day. Okay, so let's make a barbecue with what? Pig. Let's make a barbecue of a nice, big, juicy pig for the whole kibbutz. This is how we celebrated Yom Kippur. And this is what we did for years. One day, one day, Some rabbi is invited because somebody died, and the rabbi is invited to the kibbutz. No one knows this rabbi, but somebody invited him to come speak at the funeral. And so this rabbi starts talking about some scary stuff. He starts telling us that if we sin against Hashem, we have to pay the bill. He starts telling us there's a life after this life, that this is not it.

1:04:20This is just the stop sign. This is just a bus stop. This is just a short little corridor. It's nothing. There's something extraordinary after this life. And I thought to myself, oh my, this is not it. What am I going to do? I ran to him after the lecture, I'm like, what do I do? Do you know where you are? You know where you're at? You're saying this Torah, this sins, this, this. The only mitzvah we do is we eat pig on Yom Kippur. Hashem yerachem, he thought it was a mitzvah, miskin. And the rabbi says to him, you must open a beit midrash, some place for people to pray and learn. A beit knesset, beit midrash to learn. He goes, in a kibbutz? Antitoa, they're gonna kill me because you have to do whatever you can’t open it. I’ll get you out. With him, get some yeshiva guys to come pray here, so at least you have a minyan. That's what he did. He got some money together from himself, his own money, and he built a little small place to pray, a little room, and...

1:05:37Protests, they hated it, threw stuff at it. They tried to stop it, but he kept going and he kept going. How many people showed up to the first Yom Kippur to pray? Him and two other people. The rest of it was the yeshiva guys. The rest of the week, there's just yeshiva guys and him. The next year, he says to Rav Elbaz and... It was me and four guys on Yom Kippur. Growth, Baruch Hashem. He says, "Kevod HaRav, this past Yom Kippur, after many years of doing this with 70 people, Baruch Hashem, with 70 people." So Rav Elbaz said, says, "I wasn't crying because of the success that, Baruch Hashem, 70 people are going to the Knesset on Yom Kippur. There's a lot more to do than that. I'm crying about the Rabbi. I'm crying about the Rabbi that, had he not come to this kibbutz, nothing would have ever changed. Had he come to this kibbutz, and instead of telling them,"

1:07:04The truth about life after life, about that there's a punishment in Shamayim, But the Torah says, and he would have just told them, "Listen, let me tell you about the mitzvah of how to really feel bad for someone who died. Let me tell you about the mitzvah of Purim. Let me tell you about the mitzvah of Chanukah; in a couple of months, it's coming up. You're going to light some candles. Let me tell you about the mitzvah of Etrogim on Sukkot. If he would have chosen one of those mitzvot that’s not relevant to him, these people that thought that it’s a mitzvah to eat pig on Yom Kippur..." would have never changed. How much is the onus on us to tell the truth? How much is the onus and the responsibility on us to go travel to different places and get Am Yisrael to know? If you're not telling people the truth, don't say anything; it's better off. It's better off you don't say anything. Go retire, go to the Bahamas, go somewhere else. It's better off you don't say anything.

1:08:13And that's the thing that people fail to, mamash, fail to understand. It's a... The chesed ve'emet, the emet part, the truth part, I know it's tough. Trust me, I deal with it every day. I don't know if there are many people that have more people that enjoy hating them as much as people hate me. But the reality is, it's not me. You could prove what I say wrong, fine. You've proven it all wrong. No one's ever done it; you'll be the first. But the reality is that if it's not wrong, then you have to ask yourself a question: Why am I not doing it? Now, one of the reasons why a lot of people are not doing it is because instead of focusing on the beginning of this week's parasha and... where Yaakov Avinu tells Yosef, do me a chesed, do me some emet. Remember that we're still connected to Avraham and Yitzchak. Remember that we're still connected to Hashem. Remember that we're not supposed to stay in Egypt. Instead, everyone is excited about when Yaakov Avinu tells his sons, let me tell you what's going to happen at the end of days.

1:09:42Chapter 49, verse 1. It says, Yaakov Avinu called his sons and he said, "Assemble yourselves, and I will tell you what will befall you at the end of days." And the Chachamim explained that Yaakov Avinu ...was very excited to tell his sons the end of days, when the Mashiach is going to come, what's going to happen, because he knew it. But then you see the very next verse, he starts blessing them. Reuven, you're my firstborn, you're my strength, you're my initial vigor, which the Chachamim say, meaning the first seed that ever left Yaakov Avinu's body went into making Reuven. That's why he says, "You're my strength and my initial vigor." Initial vigor, meaning you're the first seed that came out of my body. At what age? 87 years old. 87 years he kept his brit. Not a single seed ever left his body for 87 years. First child, first time it left, Reuven. We see this. Okay, this is good. Nice chiddush. Very nice. Thank you very much. But it's not the end of days.

1:11:09Then we see the other brothers, Levi, Shimon, Yehudah, Yissachar, Zevulun, Dan, and so on. Where's the end of days? It's one verse. Where's the end of days? Yaakov. Old? What happened? Hashem took it away. Hashem said, I don't want you to tell them about the end of days. I don't want you to tell Am Yisrael when the Mashiach is going to come. I know it gets people. Look, it says, Yaakov called for his sons. Assemble yourselves and I will tell you about what will befall you at the end of days. Gather yourselves and listen. Meaning we're already getting an insight. You want to get a lot of people to show up? Tell them you're going to talk about the end of days. If I say, oh, yeah, we're going to have a lecture, but at the end of the day, a hundred people show up. We'll talk about the end of days. We'll talk about Mashiach. Yaakov says, I'll talk about Mashiach to you guys. No, come. They come. But then he starts blessing them. Why? What kind of blessings are these? He starts seeing with the blessings that he said. He says, you're my initial vigor, but you're impetuous. You don't know how to control yourselves. That's why you're not the firstborn anymore. That's why I gave it to...

1:12:35Yosef tells Reuven, he rebukes him. Instead of giving him the blessing, "You desecrated my name, you sat in my bed," and so on and so forth. Shimon and Levi, you guys can't control your anger. "You went and killed a bunch of people. Accursed is your rage. I love you, but your rage is cursed. You have to control yourselves." And he rebukes each one of them. What kind of blessings are these? Comma table at the end of days, but instead he gives a talk on the head. What happened? What happened here? What happened here, Abutai, is that Hashem Yitbarach is telling us, yes, it's very nice to talk about the mystical parts of the Torah, these angels, and there's this, and there's winds, and there's different ropes that you're connected to. And there's different segulot that you can do to get parnasa, and there's different things you can do to get health, and there's different things you can do. All that is wonderful after you have chesed ve'emet. It's very nice to talk about Mashiach, but Mashiach may happen tomorrow, may happen next week, may happen next year, may happen next century. Who knows?

1:14:01Hashem wants you to live today. How are you going to be a Jew today? Today, how are you going to be a Jew? Today, how are you going to follow the law? Today, how are you going to fix yourself? Why? Because your own personal Mashiach can show up regardless. It's called death, and people just fail to understand what Mashiach really means. Yes, Mashiach is eventually going to come. He's going to bring salvation and so on and so forth. But in reality, before that happens, there's going to be a lot of craziness if we are not ready because we haven't fixed ourselves, because we haven't worked on our middot, we haven't worked on our character traits, we haven't worked on our mitzvot, we haven't learned Torah, we haven't completed big, big steps in getting closer to Hashem and... We should pray for the Mashiach not to come. It's not going to help us. He's not going to help us. There's going to be a line of people that's going to burn. We'll be on it if we're not fixing ourselves. And that's what we're trying to learn here. Yes, it's nice to talk about the mystical things, the segulot and the kabbalot and all these different things. It's all very, very nice. But we need to learn how to survive.

1:15:21And that's what we started off this year with. And we'll talk for just a few moments about it. And you guys can ask some questions if you'd like. But you know, with me, a few moments is at least another half hour. So, the unintended consequence is just that time passes. So, the tough part for people is surviving the day-to-day. Surviving the day-to-day and realizing Hashem cares about everything, including you. He cares about your mitzvot. He cares about your difficulties. He cares about all the different things that you're trying to do, all the different things that you want to do, and so on and so forth. And having confidence in Hashem—that is very different than emunah. Emunah, in so many words, is people throw it out, you know, throw it loosely as faith. In so many words, emunah means that you understand consciously and subconsciously that Hashem runs the world. In so many words. Obviously, there are different parts of emunah, but in so many words, it means that you understand that Hashem runs the world. Bitachon, on the other hand, confidence in Hashem, means that you specifically have confidence that Hashem

1:16:48will run the world appropriately when it's relevant to you. He's going to do something good for you. Regardless of what happens, regardless of whether you understand or not, Hashem always runs the world perfectly and precisely. But nonetheless, believing that Hashem runs the world and having faith that things will work out is great. That's emunah. But bitachon means that you believe that it's going to be relevant specifically to you. Now, Yaakov Avinu All of them were nisyonos (trials) in the world, and all of them beat the horn in the world when it came to his personal relationship with Hashem. This is why he did what he did. He left Be'er Sheva, he left the house of his parents, he went to the yeshiva of Shem and Ever, he went to the house of Lavan. He worked there, but the Chachamim say that some of the years of... that he was supposed to live, because he lived fewer years than his father and his grandfather, were taken away from him. Why were they taken away from him? Because he complained. He complained about how hard it was. He complained to Paro (Pharaoh) that it was hard. He complained in general that it was hard to live his life. If he complained, what about us? I don't know if we do anything other than complain. Sometimes I think that you guys are doing me a favor coming to this room because I get to complain to you. Yes.

1:18:18But the reality is that he's Yaakov and we're not. But nonetheless, if someone has bitachon, someone has confidence in Hashem, they have everything. They have literally everything. In Sefer Tehillim, in Psalms, it actually completes this chidush. The chidush that I first told you is that Yaakov Avinu telling Yosef, "Yosef, my son, do chesed ve'emet by me. Do chesed ve'emet. Please do some kindness with me. Do something that's truthful with me. Stick to the truth, stick to the Torah. Don't bury me, don't bury my Torah in Egypt, because this is already back to the deal that I had with Hashem Yitbarach." Previous power shot: When I left the house of my father, running away from the war with a slave, there is also another place in the Torah where you see this. There are many places, but it's another place that I saw where you see the word chesed. But you also see the word bitachon in the book of Tehillim, Chapter 32, Verse 11.

1:19:45Many are the agonies of the wicked, of the Rasha. But as for one who trusts in Hashem, kindness surrounds him. Literally, it means someone that's wicked will have problems in his life, but someone that has confidence in Hashem and... will be rewarded. There's going to be constant kindness around him. The chesed from Shamayim will follow his bitachon, his confidence. He has confidence in Hashem. As a result of having confidence in Hashem, Hashem will return the reward for it. Hashem will give him kindness. But the Vilna Gaon, alev hashalom, gives an amazing chidush. He says something extraordinary. He says something that if each and every single one of us really took this into account on an active basis, not just you heard it in a shiur and you forgot it five seconds later. Not if you heard it in a shiur and you applied it for one or two days. You literally applied it on a day-to-day basis. If you could apply this, you will always have confidence for the rest of your life. If you don't, you have to find a different pattern that's a little easier.

1:21:10Because this is as easy as it gets. The Gaon miVilna says the following: He says someone that's a rasha, someone that's wicked, someone that goes against Hashem, someone that robs banks, someone that steals, someone that doesn't want to work for his money—wicked. He has confidence that Hashem will help him and... His confidence. Why are you going to help a rasha? It doesn't make a difference why. His confidence that Hashem will help him. Hashem will help him just because of the confidence. Even though he's a rasha. Even though he's a rasha, Hashem will help him. Why? That confidence is so valuable in Shamayim. You trusted that I'm going to help you rob a bank? Okay, I'll help you rob the bank. Wherever a person wants to go, Hashem helps him get to that direction. But nonetheless, if someone wants to be righteous, Hashem will help him get to become righteous. If someone wants to be wicked, Hashem will help him get to be wicked. But this means something more significant for anyone that's trying to be righteous. Thank you. He's trying to be righteous. What does it mean? Each one of us, why don't we have any bitachon?

1:22:27Why does any normal person not have confidence in Hashem? Any normal person. I'm talking about someone that believes in God. Someone that's trying to do teshuvah. Someone that's trying to do... Why don't you have confidence where you can literally walk around like, "My Father owns the world." What am I worried about? What am I worried about? My Father owns the world. Money. Verses in Torah, Hashem says, everything is Mine. The money, the gold, everything is Mine. So that's our Father. What am I worried about money for? Zivug? My Father created my zivug already. Created it. I just don't know who it is, when, how. But I know it's there. What is Hashem doing since creation, since He created the world? The Gemara says, mezaveg zivugim. It's not His job. Am I going to question my Father in heaven about what He does for a living? Ah, but maybe He's not doing so good. I don't have my zivug yet.

1:23:27What does it mean here? Someone that's trying to do the right things, trying to do teshuva on a daily basis. Why don't they have confidence in Hashem? Why do they constantly question Hashem? They can't find a zivug. They don't have enough money. They have problems in this. They have problems in that. Why? Because they have emunah that Hashem runs the world. They just don't think He cares about them. Why? I'm not righteous enough. I'm not Moshe Rabbeinu. I'm not Yaakov Avinu. I'm not Yitzchak Avinu. I'm not Sarah Imenu. I'm not somebody in the Torah that Hashem helped. If you look at the book of Shmuel, and you see the story of King David and Goliath, the story is unbelievable. If you actually saw the story today played out, it's mamash unbelievable. You have this little David whose own father was a tzaddik, but didn't think he was his son. Didn't think he was really his son. Didn't treat him like he was one of his sons. Didn't abuse him, but didn't treat him like he was one of his sons. He was younger than his other brothers. His brothers were at war. They were fighting as part of the army of Shaul HaMelech, the first official king of Am Yisrael.

1:24:53was also a tzaddik, made some mistakes, had ruach shtut come into his mind, nonsense come into his mind, made some mistakes, but nonetheless, the Gemara in Masechet Megillah says, if the roles were reversed, Hashem would have let Shaul beat David. Meaning, if King David was the first king, Hashem would have let Shaul kill him. Anyone that thinks that Shaul was a sinner and anything bad doesn't have an idea of how much of a tzaddik Shaul was. Nonetheless, they had a war with the Philistines. The Philistines said, "Listen, we have all these people, you have all these people, let's stop messing around. You get your best soldier, we'll get our best soldier, instead of killing everybody and... killing everybody. The two guys fight it out; whoever wins, the opposing army that lost becomes slaves. How do you know who's gonna win? They go fight, and the winner has to take the head of the loser and show it to the opposing army. Now, Shaul made a mistake. He agreed. Why? He didn't know they had Goliath. And...

1:26:08You know that Goliath—what do you think? Anyone normal thinks you can have somebody that's a giant the size of a dinosaur as part of an army? The Gemara says his mom was the most promiscuous person that ever lived. They don't even know who his father was because she literally earned her name by the number of men she was with at the time to conceive him. Disgusting human being. So you don't think anything good will come out of it. You don't think anything bad. You don't think nothing. You don't think like this. He says, sure, we have some great soldiers. We have David's brothers, all powerful people. We have other soldiers. If somebody could beat one of these Philistines, no problem. Save time, save money. All of a sudden this giant comes out, Goliath, size of a mountain. No one wants to fight him. It's a waste of time. It's like you coming out, going to the tank. Okay, me and you. The guy inside the tank is like, what? Get out of the way, sir. Get out of the way, I have a war to fight. No, no, me and you, let's go now, one on one. Sir, I'm not leaving the tank. He goes, no, don't leave the tank. Me against you in the tank. Do you even have anything? Yeah, I have a rock. A rock, me and the rock against you in the tank.

1:27:34make sense. No one wants to fight this guy; he's a tank. And the Gemara also says he had a shield; his entire body was a shield. Only then you could see his eyes. His sword was literally the size of, bigger than a person because he's huge, but he has armor, body armor, like you have a mountain that's a tank that's moving. Are you gonna fight this, even if it wasn't for the shield, even if it wasn't for the body armor? You still can't beat the guy. Now, with this, why waste your time? On top of it, we are lucky he tied his sword to his hand in a special knot that you could hit the sword with a mountain, and it won't leave his arm. The only way to get it off is if you cut off his arm. Or you untie it, but you have to know how to untie it. It was a very special tie. Very special knot. So, I mean, you have this thing. No one wants to waste their time. I don't want to die. No one wants to commit suicide. On top of it, no one wants to be known forever as the guy that lost the war for Am Yisrael. Forget about committing suicide. No one wants to be the one, hey, listen, Am Yisrael became slaves, chas v'shalom, to the Philistines because this idiot went to war with Goliath, the mountain.

1:28:58You see that Yishai, in English, I think it's Jesse, Yishai sends his son David. There was a little white. So, and he used to be with the sheep. He says, "Go bring some food to your brothers. They're in a camp over there fighting. Go bring some food for them." Young little David goes and he's in the woods. It's time for prayer, time for prayer, and this Goliath was not just a typical big guy. He was also a hater of God. So every time it was time for Am Yisrael to pray, he would curse God. He would curse God, and he would even say, "Look, even God doesn't want to fight me." I

1:30:01So now David never heard of this giant, never saw this giant. All he hears, he hears somebody cursing God, cursing Hashem. He can't take it. He looks through the woods, he sees this giant person. He runs to the camp, he goes, "Okay, I want to fight him." Everybody starts laughing at this little boy. "What do you mean you want to fight him?" Imagine this tiny, tiny little thing. Young kid, it's not like he has giant body armor, nor is he a big warrior who has gone to war, nothing. Okay, they don't know the story of how he beat a lion and a bear at the same time. They don't know any of that stuff. He just looks like a typical little young kid. "I want to fight him." The warriors, who were able to kill hundreds of men by themselves, are hesitant. But now it's time; somebody has to fight him. Because they made the agreement. So Shaul HaMelech says, okay, somebody has to fight him. We made the agreement already. So you want to fight him? Okay, at least wear some armor. They put Shaul HaMelech's armor on David. Shaul was huge. Shaul was very, very big. And miraculously, his armor, after they put it on David, shrank to fit David. Everyone was amazed. They thought it was like some magical thing.

1:31:20David noticed his eye. Everyone's looking at this shield too much. They're looking at this armor too much, how it happened. He just took it off. "No, no, no. I just want to go with nothing." "What do you mean? You want a sword? You want something?" "No, no. I just have a couple of rocks." "It's a tank. It's a mountain. What do you mean a couple of rocks?" "Thank you very much." He starts going into the field, and he isn't just going to the field; he He goes into the field and he calls him out. "Hey, Goliath, I'm coming for you." "Huh? What? What are you doing? Who are you? Will you bring me lunch? Who are you?" "I'm coming for you. I'm going to kill you. I'm going to cut you up into little pieces." He starts getting... "Who is this little mouse? His sword is bigger than him. The sword, Goliath's sword, is bigger than David's." Not only is he coming at him, he says, "I'm gonna cut you up." He tells him, "I'm gonna chop off your head, and I'm gonna show it to everyone." Goliath gets so angry, starts charging him, and David starts charging him. What are you charging him with? A couple of rocks and a little maklot (you call it a sling)?

1:32:48No tanks, no special powers, nothing. He says to him, "You may come with your sword and your shield and this, but I come b'Shem Hashem (in the name of God). I'm gonna cut you up. I'm gonna destroy you." And he takes it, and one tiny little rock shoots, and it goes like a rock. goes and defies nature and goes through metal right through his brain. Now, how did this happen? The Sefarim HaKedoshim explain that he made a deal. David HaMelech knew the name of Hashem and he called one of the angels. He called the angel that's responsible for metal, every element, and He called the angel that's responsible for metal. And he said, "Angel, I have a war to fight in the name of Hashem. I need your help." "Okay, what should I do?" "Well, the king of Israel, Shaul, said that we have to fight this war. No one's going to fight. I have to fight in the name of Hashem because this person is desecrating Hashem's name. He's cursing and so on and so forth. I have to fight." "Okay, fine. I need you to allow my rock to go through your metal."

1:34:14I need you to allow my rock to go through your metal. "Yeah, but this goes against nature. Why should I change nature for you?" "This is because if you do it and the rock kills him, then I will be able to marry Shaul's daughter. I'll ascend to kingship. I'll be important. Maybe one day I'll go up the ladder. I could change the law, and I promise you that as soon as I'm able to change the law, I will change the Torah law which I..." ...gets people to get brit milah. In those days, they would cut the brit milah with rock. I'm sorry, with a rock, because it's sharper. In those days, they would do brit milah with a rock knife. But if you make a deal with me, I'll make a new law that you have to do brit milah with metal. So you're a part of every single mitzvah for Am Yisrael. Deal. And that's exactly what happened. so when the rock flew, it didn't go through the metal as far as piercing the metal; the metal just opened. Why? Why did all this happen? Why did David have the audacity, the nerve, the chutzpah to charge someone that's a hundred times his size? Because he's going in the name of God. And he understood this verse that we're actually reading over here much better than we do. He understood, listen,

1:35:43We may not be David HaMelech. We may not be even the shoestring of David HaMelech. But you don't have to be. All you have to do is trust in Hashem. All you have to do is have chesed. Chesed ve'emet. Have the actual tools that Hashem gave Yaakov Avinu, who got it from Yitzchak Avinu, who got it from Avraham Avinu. Those tools, have those tools, hold on to them. That will enable you to have this trust in Hashem, this bitachon in Hashem, and if you trust in Hashem, regardless of whether you are chesed yosemvenu, you'll get rewarded for it. Why? Because even a rasha gets it. Even a rasha gets rewarded just for having this bitachon, even if someone's wicked. Someone who's wicked gets a reward. So needless to say, someone who is trying to do teshuva should obviously get a lot more than someone who's not trying to do teshuva. So that's what? You can connect to this parasha. That's what you connect to your day-to-day if you're teaching yourself, if you're teaching your family, if you're teaching students.

1:37:10The parasha is nice. Every parasha is nice. Every parasha is nice. Every parasha is unbelievable. The greatest thing in the world is Torah. You have now finished Sefer Bereishit. Amazing story. Over 2,000 years of history. You have Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, you have Noach, you have Adam HaRishon, you have Shem, you have amazing, amazing things. Even the stories about Esav are interesting. It's all interesting. But the reality is what we learned from Rav Reuven Elbaz, what we learned from Rav Ovadia Yosef, what we learned from Yaakov Avinu, what we learned from Yitzchak Avinu, Avraham Avinu, David HaMelech, what we learned from Hashem Yitbarach is that you have to take the story and try to figure out a way to improve yourself. How to apply it to your life. Why? Because anyone that uses or says that the Torah

1:38:11a history book has given up his right to live. There's no right to live; you're not supposed to read these stories. Oh, blessings to his sons. Wow, so nice, such a good father, such a good grandpa. Maybe he'll give them a nice inheritance. They'll probably be financially set. No, my friend, you have to take something from this Torah and And apply it to your life today. Today, not yesterday. Today, now. And not just apply it to everyone else's life. To your life. Not just to your wife's life. Not just to your kid's life. Not just to your friend's life. To your life. You have to take something from the parasha. You have to take something from the Torah and apply it to your life now. Why? That's chesed ve'emet. That's chesed ve'emet. That is the definition. Why do you have to toil and toil in the Torah? Like Rav Moshe Feinstein said, you have to toil in the Torah to get to a point where you say, ah, I found the chidush that is applicable to me. I found something I can apply. To when? Now. Not down the road, not when I am rich, not when I have this, not when I have that. Now. The past, I can't do anything about it.

1:39:34Not on their life or his life. No, you, today. That's the point of learning Torah. If you're not finding something, it's either because you're not looking or you're not studying. It's the only reason. So, the key is to understand that Torah is an instruction book. It's an instruction book. If you listen to it, even if you're not the greatest, but at least you're trying, You'll have kindness surrounding you. Hashem will bless you. You may not be perfect, but He'll still bless you. Why? Because you're trying. You're trying to be an emet. You're trying to do good. You're trying at least. Seriously trying, not fake trying. He knows what's in your heart. But if you're not, then you just have the first part of the verse. What's the first part of the verse? The wicked have a horrible life. What does it mean about life? It means eternity, not just this world. So chas v'shalom for us to have such a life. Chas v'shalom for us to have such an eternity. It's full of problems. It's full of pain. It's full of agony. Why? Doing what's good is good for us anyway. Meaning it's easy. Meaning it gives you a good life anyway. Why not do it? Why not do it? What's the excuse not to do it?

1:41:02What you've been trying to do until now doesn't work anyway. Show me one person that's not an ish emet in the Torah that's actually happy. One. Not two, one. Show me one. Show me one person that's an ish emet, that's a man of truth, not in Torah, in his own truth, that's actually happy. that can actually admit, "I'm happy" or "I'm not happy." It doesn't exist. The only people that are happy are people that are glued to Hashem. Only people. But not glued to Hashem where they say, "I love you, Hashem, I love you, Hashem," but they keep violating Him. They keep going against Him. Love Hashem by doing His will. Love Hashem by doing what He says in the Torah. Not in any other book, because there is no other book. It's all man-made. So that's what people need to understand. Now, um, Had some questions that I don't think I answered well in regard to the life of an Orthodox Jew. We all know that today, to survive financially, is not easy. Rent, mortgage...

1:42:30electricity, water, phone, gas, groceries, clothes, doctors, insurances—a million different insurances. Bills are high. It's hard. So someone asked, "How can we fulfill the will of Hashem and, let's say, as wives, send our husbands which, in today's world, make a good living if they have a profession. Instead, send them to kollel. Send them to go learn Torah. How are we going to survive? How are we going to eat? How are we going to, you know, how? So first and foremost, you know that being an avrech, being someone that learns Torah, is not necessarily for everyone. It's not for everyone. You have to be at a certain level of bitachon to be an avrech. And also, you have to have a certain amount of desire to be a gadol b'Torah. So it's not necessarily for everyone. Sometimes I have people that are ba'alei teshuva, and they're so excited about the Torah, after a short period of time, three, four, five, six months, and all of a sudden,

1:43:53They want to leave their business, they want to leave their friends, they want to leave everything, and they want to go become avrechim. This is not the right move 99 out of 100 times, and in my opinion, 100 out of 100 times. And the reason why is because to be someone that learns every day, it's not just about opening a book and enjoying yourself. There's a lot of life tests that go around it. So first and foremost, to stay on topic, because we've talked about this before, Life of an avrech is not for everyone. It doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. If you can, it's just not for everyone. I'm not saying by default every single person needs to be an avrech that learns Torah from day to night. But if you are, the way that people do it is that sometimes the wife works and she makes arrangements for someone to watch the kids, family, friend, or perhaps if she has a good enough job. The job pays for babysitting for the kids because you typically don't have five kids in one day. Usually, it's one at a time. So the point is that in the beginning, the babysitting is a little easier. And then, as the kids get older, the older kids can watch the younger kids. Long story short, plenty of people do it even without Torah. Plenty of women have careers with kids, and they have somebody watching them. Now, is that ideal? Not necessarily, unless you have somebody you can rely on. You don't want to just throw your kids to the zoo and say, "Good luck."

1:45:18You have to have somebody reliable, so that makes it a little more difficult. But nonetheless, this is where bitachon comes in. This is where bitachon comes in. First and foremost, if what you're doing is for the sake of Torah, you're sending your husband to go learn Torah, you're sending your kids to go learn Torah, of course Hashem is going to help you. Now, help doesn't mean that you're going to live in a villa that's 3,000 or 4,000 square feet on top of a mountain. You're going to have three cars and a garage. That's not what I mean by help. By help, I mean you'll survive. How? It's Hashem's business. There are plenty of avreichim that survive in different, unusual, miraculous ways that I know. And they've been doing it for years. Like I tell you all the time, all the avreichim that we try to help. They don't make much. They make $500 a month. But it's not like they live in one of these third-world countries where $500 is a lot of money. $500 over there is no different than $500 here. Their rent is $2,000 a month.

1:46:24Their groceries are $1,000 a month. Their bills are also a few thousand dollars a month. We have four, five, six kids. So the $500 a month is, you know, it's going to help you survive for a few days. It's not enough. How do they survive? Some of them have family that use their ma'aser to give them. So some people have family help them. That's one option. Two, some have a situation where the wife works and she makes just enough to help the family survive. But again, just enough, that means that they're surviving. Very few are prospering unless they have rich families. So they're just surviving. They live basics. Another case is it's part-time avreich, learning Torah, part-time work. part-time avreich, learning Torah, part-time work. It's not full-time. Or they do projects, or deals, and things like that. Sometimes there are donors. We try to, Baruch Hashem, send money to Yerushalayim, to avreichim, every single month. It's part of what Be'ezrat Hashem does. We send money every month. Some more, some less, but nonetheless, we do it every month, because that's part of what we do. So, the point is, that having bitachon,

1:47:43having confidence in Hashem is the only way you can survive that life. It's the only way. Because even if you love Torah, even if you believe in Torah, even if everything is wonderful, but you don't have confidence in Hashem, you won't survive. Why? Because you're going to ask yourself all the time, how am I going to survive $2,000 a month in bills with $500? I'm already starting the month negative $1,500. Okay, so let's say you have a few dollars saved up. Eventually that well runs dry. Okay, let's say you have an arrangement with your parents. Okay, but eventually, maybe that's not going to work. How? That's why you have to say, "Hashem, you said everything is Yours? Okay, pay the bills." That's confidence in Hashem. And everyone has a different level of confidence. How do you get confidence in Hashem? There's only one way to get it. It's a combination of learning about Him, learning Torah, and going through difficulties, going through tests, overcoming tests, overcoming obstacles, putting yourself on the line. But for the sake of Hashem, not for the sake of your Mercedes-Benz. Don't say, "Oh, you know, Hashem is going to give me a Mercedes-Benz as my first test instead of a BMW." So I'll give you a story, and maybe you'll understand what confidence in Hashem is. There's a very famous, well-known story, um,

1:49:14a debate that happened in the Yeshiva of Slabodka. Rav Yisroel Salanter was one of the heads of the Mussar movement, Kodesh Kodeshim. He was a person who literally paid attention to every single breath coming out of his body, literally like every step, every single thing. One time he was late and a for tefillah. So somebody after tefillah comes for the lulav. "What happened, like you want to take an opportunity to rebuke her?" Well, oh, Baruch Hashem, thank you for reminding me. No, I just had to fix somebody's roof. Excuse me, you could have daaled. I was fixing somebody's roof at 6 o'clock in the morning because I noticed when I left the house that one of the shingles was flapping and was flapping, making noise, and it was really early, so I figured it was going to wake up the people and their little kids. So, I climbed up and fixed it. They didn't pay me; they didn't ask me. Why? I saw a need, and I did it. That's a baal midot. That's someone who works on himself to perfect himself as a human being. That's a person who learned Torah at the highest possible level.

1:50:39But one day, there was a debate between him and his students, who were also all angels. His students themselves were angels. You can't be a student if you're an elephant. You have to be one yourself. They're debating. What's the debate? What's bitachon? What's confidence in Hashem? Is confidence in Hashem just surviving? Confidence that Hashem will just pay me enough so I'm gonna eat. I'm not gonna die. What's the example? That's what the student said. The student said, "Look, Yaakov Avinu. He said, 'God, give me food to eat and clothing to wear.' Yaakov Avinu. So he's not asking for a giant house. He's not asking for a Bentley. He's not asking for a private plane." He's not asking for anything. He says, "Give me food to eat and give me clothing to wear." That's it. "Be my God." So from Yaakov, they say, "Look, that's a raya, that's a proof that Hashem is going to help me survive." Rabbi Yisroel said, "You're wrong. You are 100% wrong. You're 100% wrong. Your confidence will determine how much Hashem will help you."

1:51:57In last week's parasha, Yosef HaTzaddik made a critical mistake. For a moment, for a moment, he forgot about the deal. What's the deal? Confidence in Hashem. You got arrested. Your brothers sold you. You got a job. You got fired for the wrong reason. You got arrested. You went to jail for 10 years. But all the time, he never complained a moment. Never complained a second. Nothing. Nothing. Ten years. You tell this Egyptian, "Hey, Egyptian, do me a favor. Listen, I helped you out. I translated your dream. It's all about me, all about me." Then he realized he made a mistake. That's why it says that the Egyptian forgot twice. Why? Because Yosef prayed for him to forget. He prayed for him to forget. Oh, I relied on a person. I relied on a person, chas v'shalom, instead of God. He got punished for two more years in jail. So, Rabbi Yisrael Salanter says, your confidence in Hashem is going to determine how much He's going to help you.

1:53:07If you're a rasha, if you're a rasha, the Vilna Gaon says, you trust in Hashem, even if you're wicked. But if you trust in Hashem, it will help even if you're a rasha. Which means, which means, if you are not a rasha, and you trust Hashem a lot, He'll give you a lot. But you really have to trust Him. And this is the debate. No, he's gonna trust you to survive. He's gonna give you to survive. Trust Him to have bitachon, to survive. No, He's gonna give you whatever you want. That's the debate. This happens. Rabbi Yisrael M'Salant says, "Rabotai, you want proof? I'll show you proof. I have bitachon, 100% bitachon in Hashem that He will give me a gold watch." those days, almost 200 years ago, that was like the prized possession for anyone that liked material things. There were no Bentleys and planes, and a prized possession for someone respectable was a golden watch. I say, for the love of Hashem, you don't have a plastic watch.

1:54:28Golden watch, we're gonna get a golden watch. As he says, as the Beis HaLevi says, "I'm gonna... I have confidence. I have a hundred percent bitachon that Hashem is gonna give me a golden watch." About ten soldiers show up at the door. Russian soldiers show up at the door. They said, "Who is the head of the yeshiva here? Who is the biggest talmid chacham here?" Everyone's scared to death. Why? Maybe there's a war. Maybe they're gonna take somebody. Oy, they're gonna lie to them. He's dead. The Beis HaLevi said, "Good." They take some of the soldiers. The soldiers come, they take something, and they go, "Sir, there you go, Rabbi. What is it? A gold watch?" Everyone is in shock. He finished the sentence and the watch appeared. "Where did this come from?" "What's the command?" "It came from Shamayim." "Where did it come from?" "Well, we had a soldier that was a Russian Jew, and before he died, he told me that he wants to give this watch to someone that's Jewish, who learns a lot of what you guys call Torah."

1:55:42And he told me there's a school here, a yeshiva here. So I came here. So I'm just fulfilling the wish of the deceased. He was my, you know, soldier right next to me. He believed, he got. What do you believe? Believe you're going to make it to the bathroom? That's what you're going to get. You believe you're going to get a burger? That's what you're going to get. You believe you're gonna get a fine living. That's what you're gonna get. What do you believe? What do you believe you believe? So all of the shtuyot that people tell you, you know, if you think positive, you'll be positive, if you think good, it'll be good. It's good intentions, and it has some similarities to everything we just said, but it's based on a rotten foundation. What's the rotten foundation? The rotten foundation is they think if you think good, it'll be good. If you think about some immodest girl, the immodest girl is going to show up at your house. If you think about material wealth, the material wealth is going to surround you. You could do a lot of things that are against Hashem. If you think with your own logic, whatever your own logic decides is good, you'll get good. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

1:57:04If you think chesed ve'emet, if you think the righteousness of Hashem, the kindness of Hashem, Hashem runs the world, and He's gonna help me fulfill His will, that you will get. That you will get. As much of it as you want. As much as you want, you're gonna get. But if you think about rotten thoughts, you get nothing. All you're gonna get is diseases. You get headaches. You're not gonna get anything good. So that's the difference. Anyone that wants to learn Torah for a living needs to have bitachon. Anyone that wants to be the wife of someone who learns Torah needs to have bitachon. Now, you can't go from zero to 100 in one day; you grow over time. But I can tell you, from my own personal life, if I didn't see it, I wouldn't believe it. Baruch Hashem, we don't charge. We don't ask. People give, they give; they don't give, they don't give. Whatever it is, Baruch Hashem, we're not missing anything. I'm still, Baruch Hashem, still growing. Kids are good, wife is good, everything is good. How? Hashem pays the bills. It doesn't make any sense. Why? Because I see my life, I see other people's lives who work 900 hours a day. It doesn't make any sense. That's the way Hashem runs the world. That's the way Hashem runs the world. Is it easy? Absolutely not.

1:58:31Absolutely not. It's constant tests. You have to have a test. If you're not tested, you probably have to check your pulse. You're probably not here anymore. If there's no test, if everything is perfect, everything is easy, you're probably not alive anymore. You're probably in Gan Eden. But the reality is that there are tests constantly. That's how you build bitachon. That's how you build bitachon. But I can tell you, Baruch Hashem, it's mamash unbelievable because we live when you have just a little bit of whatever bitachon we do have. When you live with it, you don't look for prices. You don't look for... it doesn't make a difference. Because whatever you need, you have. It's not whatever you want. Whatever you want, you may be one of those people that wants a new plane every week. That's not... that's a psychopath. That's a person that's not connected to Hashem. So... The important thing is to understand that you should be happy with whatever you have and use whatever you have for the sake of Hashem, not for the sake of just new hobbies. And that's it. That's the critical part. So for anyone that's looking to live a life of Torah, whether it's because you want to do kiruv, or you want to learn, or you want to do a combination, or whatever it is that you want to do, it's 100% possible. In America, in Israel, anywhere. So

1:59:53The transition is hard. To go from nothing to something, you can't just do it overnight. If you do a little bit, so in the beginning I would recommend, or at least that's the way I did it, is I first started with working and learning at the same time. First, balance the two. You can't just go from working all the time to learning all the time and thinking that it's going to be okay and you're going to survive. You're not going to survive either. Because it's both a mental battle and a spiritual battle and a yetzer hara battle, and it's a million and a half battles at once. You're taking on too much. So you do a balance. You work, regular job, nine to five, whatever your job is, but you make sure that Torah is a priority in your life and you put a couple of hours in the morning, a couple of hours at night; you already get into your schedule that you're learning every day a good amount of time. Once you've gotten acclimated to that, then you can start, and if you want more still, you want more Torah still, then you can start perhaps going down with the amount of work. work a little less, study a little more. But you're still working. And eventually, you can make the leap of faith where if you believe and you understand and you have the confidence, then you go to full-time learning. That's if you already have family expenses and so on. If you're single, it's a little easier. If you're single, it's a lot easier because really the only responsibility you have is you, and pretty much you probably live with your parents.

2:01:15or if you're cheap enough to survive that, I'm sure you can get the money one way or another, even as an avrech for $1,000 a month. So the point is that you need to talk with your rabbi before you make any of these moves. Just being irrational and jumping into it headfirst without knowing who, what, when, why, thinking you're a mini Moshe Rabbeinu is not going to work out really well. A lot of people make this mistake, and unfortunately, if you don't have the right direction, you know, someone directing in the right direction, you could not only... end up stopping learning, but you can end up becoming completely secular because it's very easy to lose your bitachon if it doesn't work out. So that's why I see a lot of religious guys that are very bitter—very bitter—where they tried becoming an avrech for a little while, and it didn't work out financially. They just had too much pressure and they went back into the business world, and they just became very, very bitter. So sometimes, when I mention things like this in shiurim and... They mention it. They send me hate mail. Instead of being focused on the rest of the shiur, instead of being focused on everything else, they send me hate mail. "Oh, that's not true. You can't live like that. You have to work. You have to do this." I said, you have to work. Other people may be able to study. Who knows? But the point is that you can't just be irrational. That part they're right. But by the same token, thinking that it's not possible is also wrong. So you have to have the right direction.

2:02:43The same applies to everything else. Bitachon applies to everything else. Bitachon applies also to helping your family do teshuva, which you asked me before. You know, what should you do in order to help your family do teshuva? You know, whether it's to help them convert or to help them, you know, become religious Jews. Regardless, it's all the same. Should you pray or should you focus on getting stronger yourself? The pasuk says that your life comes first. Your life comes first. Meaning you have to get stronger first. Before you try to lead others, lead yourself. And the reason why is because more than your words can ever do, your actions will speak louder. More than your words can ever do, your actions will speak louder. And the reason why is because... especially when it's referring to family and friends and people that know you from the past. People that know you from the past have a very hard time allowing you to grow. You're always going to be little baby Tzvika. You're always going to be little baby Moshe. Yeah, but he's 37 years old now. He's not a baby anymore. No, no, but I used to play with him in kindergarten. Yeah, but he's not a baby. He's not in kindergarten anymore. He's 35. He has kids in kindergarten. No, but he used to be like me. Yeah, but he's not like you anymore.

2:04:10He grew up. He's married. He has kids. He has this. They have a hard time letting you grow. Eventually, when you become religious and you really seriously work on yourself and work on your character traits, you can get people to the point where they can't deny it. And the reason why is because the change is not just exterior. A lot of people become religious exterior-wise. They grow a beard. They put a hat on. They put a scarf on their head. They put a skirt on. They look religious. But inside, it's the same exact person. Nothing changed. Still the same bad, awful character traits. Still angry. Still yelling at each other. Still upset at the world. Still upset at God. Same exact thing. They just look religious. People like that, it's better they remain non-religious. Because other people who are not religious look at them and say, "I'm better off the way I am." So, the key is to understand that Being religious means it's the inside, meaning that it's supposed to change your character traits. It's supposed to change your bad character traits. So if you're still not working on and developing yourself, you haven't even started teshuva. So once you really do teshuva, people will notice it without you saying anything.

2:05:30Just by looking at you. Not because of your beard. Not because of the scarf on your head. Not because of your skirt. But just because of your behavior. They're going to see. You don't have to say anything. They're going to see. Look, the guy just cut him off. He didn't do anything. Look, the kids are making noise and he's not flipping out like everyone else would. Look, the guy just spilled a drink on him and he smiled. Look, he's happy. Look, he's not angry like the rest of us. Look, he's completely not interested in all the material conversations we have. Look, they see you. Once they see you regularly being better than them, they're going to want to do it. And also, your words will be more effective at that point anyway. So even if you do say something, we can back it up. He's saying he shouldn't be angry because look at him. He used to be one of the mobsters, and now he's a tzaddik. So your words carry more weight also. So more important than anything else is to work on yourself. Once you work on yourself, everything else will follow. Of course, prayer will always help. In the beginning, middle, or later, it doesn't make a difference. Prayer always helps. But the most important thing is to work on yourself.

2:06:48Because leading by example is the most important thing that a person can do if he wants to change the world around him. And that's one of the things that I said earlier. Some people do teshuva, but they torture their family. They torture the people around them. They yell at the kids. They yell at the wife. They yell at the husband. You're not doing enough. You're not doing this. You're not doing that. People like that, It's the worst. It's the worst to be around them because they only look at everyone else's flaws except their own. And people like that make other people not want to be religious because they literally destroy the Torah. They completely change it into something else, but they'll show you a book and they'll show you a Gemara and they'll show you a Pasuk in the Torah sometimes, but it's wrong. It's wrong. Simply wrong. There are certain things that are right all the time. There are certain things that are right sometimes. There are certain things that are wrong all the time. You have to know. It's not just about teaching something. It's about knowing who and what and when. Common sense is not something that you're going to buy in a book. There's no book that's going to teach you that. You have to learn. That also takes some training, takes some time, takes some experience.

2:08:11Everyone around you is unhappy. Instead of complaining about them, you should look in the mirror and ask yourself, "Am I the reason?" If everyone around you is unhappy, you may very well be the reason they're unhappy. You may very well be the reason it's unhappy. Why? Look at it. What's wrong? Why are they not happy? If you're the husband, you're the wife, and everyone's miserable around you, why? Why is everybody so miserable? Check it out. It can't be that they're wrong and you're right all the time. Even if you did teshuva. Even if you're a rabbi. Even if you're me. Even if you're you. It doesn't make a difference. It can't be you're always right. It can't be. I mean, it's possible that you're wrong. You're still human. You know, so that's the thing. So you've got to check yourself. You've got to check yourself. But that's a Gemara also. It says that unless a person studies a lot of mussar, unless a person is actively fighting the yetzer hara,

2:09:12On this specific issue, he will never see anything wrong with himself. So, I'll finish it off with a funny story. A guy drives down the road and he calls his wife. He goes, "The new town we moved into, it's a bunch of crazy people." She goes, "What, honey, why? Why?" He goes, "Everybody's driving in the wrong direction." He's on the wrong side of the highway. He's on the wrong side of the highway. He's on the wrong side of the highway, but he says, everybody's driving in the wrong direction. Everybody's crazy. Everybody's crazy. Any questions? In the secular world, as you know, being a gentleman means to be a Casanova. So what does it mean for a Jewish man to be a gentleman? Or is there such a concept in Judaism? A gentleman in Judaism? A gentleman in Judaism is a man whose eyes, heart, and mind only belong to his wife. Only belong, again, a gentleman in Judaism is a person.

2:10:36His eyes, his mind, his thoughts, his past, his present, his future only belong to his wife. He does not spend a moment thinking about any other woman, ever. Not for the sake of helping this person, but he looks at the person as a person, not as a woman, as the opposite sex. That's number one. Two, even if he has to have a conversation with a woman, for whatever reason or another, for work reasons, for whatever reason, he can't continue eye contact like normal people do, secular people do, because that eye contact develops a certain type of chemistry. That eye contact develops a chemistry that could lead to attraction. That attraction could lead to problems. Why? You're cheating on your wife right now. for whatever reason or another, for work reasons, for whatever reason, he can't continue eye contact like normal people do, secular people do, because that eye contact develops a certain type of chemistry. That eye contact develops a chemistry that could lead to attraction. That attraction could lead to problems. Why? You're cheating on your wife right now. Yes, I know some guys are going to say, "Wait, relax. I have my partner. I have this, I have that. What, I'm looking at another woman and I'm cheating on my wife?" Yes, you're cheating on your wife. You look at another woman, you're cheating on your wife. Why? Because if you're a normal man with a yetzer hara, you're not looking at a woman and thinking, "Wow, she's such a nice person." You're not. If you're a normal person, unless you're Moshe Rabbeinu, unless you're completely tzadik, which in that case you don't need this lecture, you're not looking at anyone. If you're a normal guy...

2:12:00When you look at another woman, within a matter of seconds, naturally, naturally your brain takes you to Never Never Land. Naturally, you're thinking, maybe she wants to get me. Naturally, you're thinking, maybe she wants to get me. Naturally, you're thinking we're gonna go, we're gonna do, you're already thinking of a honeymoon, of a date, of the hotel, of the dinner, of this. He's thinking of the whole thing happening already. You're imagining her and shimurim in what kind of ways. You're thinking impure thoughts. You're men; there's yetzer hara that makes you no different than an animal. If you maintain simple eye contact, I'm not talking about even what I said last week about you're not supposed to shake their hand and so on. Forget the hands. You want to shake hands? Good luck with you. Good luck. You want to shake hands? Good luck shaking hands. Not one Gadol HaDor in history ever shook a woman's hand. Not one. Not a single one. Regardless of the ones you think are lenient or not lenient. No one does it. You want to do it because there's a leniency somewhere in the books? Enjoy it.

2:13:03Looking is even worse without touching. Looking, just staring, eye-to-eye contact like I'm talking to you the whole lecture. Eye-to-eye contact with a woman—you're finished. Why? Your mind will take you to places, שמרם עליהם. Your wife might as well go find a new husband. You're not a husband anymore. You're thinking about this woman for a few days at least. That's a reality. I'm not telling you as a Rav. I'm telling you as a man. It's a reality. And So, a gentleman depends on who he wants to be. He wants to be Casanova. That's not a religious person. So... It's a good question. Telling another woman, is she your wife? Okay. Okay, so... You know what? It's a very good question because I'm already at the... I think, so I guess you caught me off guard. You caught me off guard. I'm sorry. Rewind. Rewind. Let me rewind. No, no. I'm going to rewind. My apologies. My apologies. My fault. I'm already in Never Never Land, and you guys, Baruch Hashem, are still here. Okay. So let's go back. Okay. Gentlemen. Gentlemen.

2:14:25must have his heart, his mind, his eyes, his thoughts on his wife only. Which means, by definition, that to even get to a point where you're looking at another woman enough times to even recognize she's good looking, to recognize that she looks pretty today, to recognize that she looks better than she did the last time you saw her, already we see we're not going in the right direction. Now, I'm not saying that you have to close your eyes all the time. But what I am saying is that you can't stare to the point where you are recognizing there's a difference. If you know what one of the women here is wearing as far as details of one of their dresses or sweaters or whatever, that's already a problem. You've already spent too much time looking where it doesn't belong. Unless she's your wife. So complimenting a woman about her looks, unless you're on a date and you're looking for a shidduch, But I could tell you that in the religious world, in the frum from birth world, people that are religious from birth, it's actually not allowed. But the vast majority of the world is not religious. The vast majority of the world is Baalei Teshuva. So that is actually strange to them. So actually you had a student who was a Baalat Teshuva, and she went on a date, a few dates,

2:15:52another person that I knew was frum from birth, was religious from birth, and she, as a woman, gave him a compliment. The woman gave the guy a compliment because, to her, the way she was brought up, it's a nice thing to do. And she's right; it's a nice thing to do, but it's wrong. Why? Because if he's religious from birth, that means he's trying to protect himself, protect his lev, protect his mind, and so on, which means that since we're just dating, which means no touching, and there's no certainty whatsoever that there's going to be marriage anytime soon, if at all, ever. Your compliment already is going to lead him to think, "Oh, she wants me, she this, she that." Already, you can get the guy to sin. You can lead the guy to sin with a simple compliment. "Oh wow, I like your hair today. I like your kippah. I like your this." So in the frum world, in the religious world, it's frowned upon. You're not supposed to give compliments, which is very strange personally to me. It's very strange behavior, but nonetheless, it's necessary for the right reason. There's a real reason behind it. But since the vast majority of the world is Baalei Teshuva, and to tell them don't compliment somebody else, it's like telling them don't breathe. So when you compliment someone, the compliment itself

2:17:17has to be appropriate. Meaning you can't say, "Oh wow, I like your butt in these pants." That's not appropriate in any regard, whether you're male or female. "I like your body, I like your this." Nothing, no insinuation whatsoever. And I'm speaking frankly to you because that's the way we need to speak. So if you have to compliment, you know, it has to be very simple and in as few words as possible. Based on what you're really supposed to do, it's not supposed to be done. Unless she's your wife or he's your husband. But if you can't refrain from it because you've lived literally 50 years a completely different life and now you're just starting, fine. You gotta limit it. You gotta minimize it. It says, don't speak too much to a woman, even if she's your wife. So, even more so if she's not your wife. So, as far as complimenting women, obviously you should not do it because you don't want her thoughts to go to strange places, and you don't want your thoughts to go to strange places. And even though women's minds don't work the same way as men's minds, at least not to my knowledge, for the most part, the man usually looks for some type of reaction from the woman. So, if he tells the woman, "Oh, you look good," and the woman, you know,

2:18:35she's a normal person. She likes that someone gave her a compliment. She smiles. She smiled innocently thinking, oh, I got a compliment. You know, Hashem made me look a certain way. Hashem gave me this, you know, dress. Hashem gave me this sweater. Whatever. I don't know. Whatever. She likes the fact that she got complimented. Now that's the way she's thinking. She's not thinking, wow, he's such a nice guy, maybe I'll marry him, maybe we'll go out to dinner, maybe this, maybe that. But him, he saw her reaction automatically as, oh, she wants to be with me. Why? She smiled at what I said. What do you mean what you said? You complimented her. So a guy's mind has a strange yetzer hara in comparison to a woman. A woman looks at a man and she thinks, wow, he looks like a nice guy. That's what a woman thinks. Oh, he looks funny. A woman looks at a man, she thinks about his personality. A man looks at a woman and he cares less about her personality. He cares everything about her body. Everything about her physicality. That's just the reality of life. So, you have to make sure to understand that you're responsible for your thoughts. You're responsible for your thoughts. The Gemara in Masechet Avodah Zarah says a man should

2:19:49Make sure to watch his eyes in the morning so it doesn't lead him to sin at night. What does it mean? Watch his eyes in the morning, meaning during the day, so he doesn't sin at night. Make sure you watch your eyes and don't look into places that are inappropriate, which includes any woman that's not your wife. Why? Because then you'll end up having dreams where you end up wasting seed. And that's still a sin, even though you did it, you know, subconsciously, involuntarily, and so on, it's still technically a sin. It's not the same level of sin as someone that did it intentionally while they were awake, but nonetheless, it's a sin. Why? Because it's still an outcome from your actions. You looked at a place you're not allowed to look. So, you have to be careful with dating, but this is also part of the reason why dating in the Jewish world... It's not dating anywhere near like dating in the secular world. In the secular world, you can live with a husband and wife for five years and still not have a wedding date. Some people live together for five years, ten years in the same house, in the same bed, same everything for ten years and then they break up.

2:21:05wasting their lives, wasting their time, wasting their money, wasting their emotions, and thinking, "Oh, no, I thought he was going to be my husband." What do you mean you lived with him? He was your husband for ten years. You just got divorced. No, he was my boyfriend. No, no, he was your husband. You just called him a boyfriend. So, in the religious world, there is no such thing. In the Torah world, you date however many times you want to date, but there's never any physical contact. You know, you're not allowed to hold hands, not to hug, and Not the kiss. Now, obviously, you know you're not allowed to be intimate, not allowed to do any of these things. Why? Because you're not husband and wife, and to be husband and wife, you have to have a, you know, a spiritual connection, not only a physical connection. Physical attraction is important, but you don't need to try out anything. It's not a bicycle. Let me try this out. What is it, a bicycle? You know, it's not, well, it's a car, let me test drive it, see what happens. It's not, so that's what people need to understand, that you need to talk to each other, see if you have similar likes, see if you have similar ambitions, see if you see yourselves growing due to each other, see if you complement each other, see if you believe that.

2:22:30Union between the two of you would make a better version of you. If you do, what are you waiting for? You don't need a thousand dates for it. You don't need to have sex for that. You don't need that. You don't need to do any of these things. You don't need to go out for five years for this. You don't need to be intimate with anyone to achieve this. You just need to talk to somebody once, twice, five times, ten times, twenty times, whatever it is, but it doesn't require anything physical. Once you get across the line of physical, then it's no longer the same relationship. Then it's based on lust. And lust is not your mind. Lust is something else. It's not a relationship. So if you build it purely on that, it'll break purely on that. that's where you see all these movie stars and celebrities that none of them are missing any good looks. Usually, they're all very good-looking people, but they are married five, ten times. Why? Because the lust goes away. So in a dating world, you have to make sure that you're careful with your mind, with your thoughts, and just generally your day-to-day world. For anyone that's already a wife or a husband, it's even more so. The reason why is because

2:23:49When you sign a ketubah, you made an agreement that your eyes, your ears, your nose, your mouth, your wallet, your future, your past, your everything belongs to another person. It's become part of another person. Which means that if you share anything with another person, you're violating that relationship. Do you understand? So you're… This is also another reason for a woman to want to be modest. Because a woman that truly understands modesty will have a husband that truly understands modesty. So for the two to actually have modesty in their life is the greatest gift in the world. And the reason why is because modesty is not just clothing; it's also behavior. So, a woman that's modest is never going to flirt with anyone that's not her husband. That's not a thought. Forget an action. It's not even a thought. Why? By me spending anything more than the basic minimum to tell the plumber where the bathroom is, I'm cheating on my husband. Why? I'm spending valuable time that I owe to my husband with someone else. What if your husband's not there? Doesn't matter. My mind needs to be on him. My mind needs to be on my husband if all my kids are around.

2:25:16Can't be with some plumber. Oh, what do you do on the weekends? That's it. Just like a person is expected to be monotheistic, to believe in only a single God, he should also believe in a single relationship. It's no different. So when you're... Unfortunately, I see this a lot. I mean, I could tell you a... One of the horrible things that happens in the world is that women have their husbands, they marry them, they have kids with them, and so on, but their hearts belong to someone else. The husband is the husband. The husband provides, the husband, you know, they sleep in the same bed, the husband is the father of the kids, and so on, but their hearts belong to someone else. Why? Because that someone else that they meet on Facebook...

2:26:20Or they meet on Twitter. Or they meet in shul. Or they meet on the bus. Or they meet at work. Or they meet in all these different places. They just talk to them. And that someone listens to them, which the husband is not willing to do. So what happens? They fall in love with this man. Imaginatory imagination of a husband because they think that this guy that always talks to them, this bus driver always talks to them, this colleague at work that always talks to them. Oh, he always talks to them. He understands me. He's my friend. He's my this, he's my that. Why am I wasting my time with this deadbeat husband of mine? All he wants to do is learn Torah all day. He doesn't want to talk to me. So that's why even if you learn Torah, you have to spend some time talking to your wife. But nonetheless, the point is that many, many women, unfortunately, start their lives with their husbands, but for a combination of reasons, most importantly, a lack of real modesty, end up having their hearts go somewhere else.

2:27:41And I can tell you something that the Rabbanim who are against the internet, especially social media like Facebook and so on, if they really knew what goes on in social media, they'd be even more against it. They'd be even more against it. Everyone's against the internet and all that stuff. Because a lot of bad comes out of it. People see pornography and waste their minds, wallets, and lives on it. But the horrible little secret that happens on the internet is that many women develop relationships with fake people, with people that are not there in their day-to-day life. They spend more time talking to them than they do with their own husbands and kids, and develop relationships with them. It's these imaginary relationships that occur because, like I told you, a woman is not necessarily as concerned about the physical aspect of the man as much as the man is. So, if a man is willing to talk to her, he's willing to listen to her, he's willing to address her issues, he's willing to, you know, be her voice of reason. He's willing to give her advice, whether it makes sense or not is irrelevant. He's willing to make her laugh. My heart is his.

2:29:07He's my soulmate, really, not my husband. I married the wrong guy. They could fall in love with someone without ever seeing them in their life. Would I have ever seen them in their life and feel perfectly comfortable talking about this person to their husband? Oh yeah, you know Steve? Who's Steve? No, my friend on Facebook. Oh, automatically the husband’s calm. Oh, it's Facebook. Yeah, it's nothing. It's nothing. He doesn't realize this idiot, she's in love with Steve. He doesn't realize it because she herself doesn't realize it yet. You know, Steve, what he said? Oh, he made me laugh today. Oh, yeah, what did he say, Steve? What did he say, Steve? What did he say? Oh, he said that, you know, bunnies jump really high. Ha, ha, ha. Oh, yeah, that's what he said? I don't have to. The guy's thinking, I don't have anything to worry about, this idiot that talks to my wife. He's just helping me out. He's helping me out. I don't have to waste my time talking to my wife about bunnies. He's helping me out. Little does he know, this foolish husband, and little does this foolish wife, and little does foolish Steve know, this love triangle is a disaster. A disaster. And this happens daily. Eventually, some people take it further, where Steve and, whoever, Wilma, end up meeting.

2:30:35Why? They found love on the internet. They found love on the internet. What could be so wrong? Yeah, but she's married. But he's married. They have kids. They have this. They have that. They're religious. They're this. They're that. So it's a very, very, very dangerous game. I know of a story right now happening. Right now. I'll tell you guys a story happening right now. So you don't think this is just a figment of my imagination. I see this stuff all the time. This is also something that I have to be careful with myself because people ask me a million and a half questions all the time. One of the things I do is I have free access to my phone. Anyone who wants to see my phone can have my phone. My wife, anyone, can see my phone. No problem. I don't hide anything. I don't ever write anything I'm not willing to publicize to the world. People always ask me, "Oh, can I share what you sent me?" I said you should share what I sent you because if I answer something that I don't want somebody to share, it's a problem and Yeah, but I don't care. Share it with them, put it on the internet, make a website. This is what your own Reuven said on Monday to the doctor, Tuesday to the daat. What he said to me doesn't make a difference. Publicize everything I said. Why? If I have a problem, it should be publicized. Why? Because my heart and my eyes, my ears, my nose, my everything belongs to my wife. If I'm cheating, I belong to her. Al kol karet out.

2:31:56100% not joking. 100%. Why the shock? So a person needs to understand. This gets horrible. This right now, right now, mamash serious, serious story. Someone I know, an amazing guy, an amazing tzaddik, kadosh mamash. This is a holy person, friendly... What's so wrong with being friendly? Friendly. So this woman, a married religious woman, was also friendly. And they were friendly on the internet. He's innocent, doesn't know. He's single, a young guy, a good guy. And friendly. And they're talking and they work together. They do kiruv, and they do this and they do that. But on the internet, they never saw each other. They live in different countries, different zip codes, different everything. She's married with kids. He's single, still trying to build his life—different worlds, but they talked a lot. One day, there was a fallout. It's a fallout; something happened. I'll spare you the details of what happened. She lost her mind. So, what does he do?

2:33:16Okay, she lost her mind. She's a little cuckoo. I don't owe anything to her. She's not my wife. She's not my daughter. She's nothing to me. She used to be a friend. Now we're not friends anymore. Cut off. Bye-bye. Move on with your life. Blocked. No more Facebook. Nothing. Now, some time has passed, and the cuckoo-ness has slowed down. Now she wants to be friends again. She tries to reach him. He doesn't want to respond. So what does she do? She starts posting on the internet, "Where are you?" This is a married Jewish woman. "Where are you? I'm trying to talk to you." She tries reaching his friends indirectly in a different country to get to him. "Tell him I'm trying to talk to him. I want to talk to him. We need to talk. Who are you? What is wrong with you? What does your husband think that you're chasing after some strange single guy in a different country? Is something wrong with you?"

2:34:19Yes, a lot is wrong with her. A lot is wrong with her. That's why she lost it in the first place. But that's a foolish husband, foolish wife. So this is why the internet is terrible. This is the reason why the internet is terrible. If you are on the internet, do it only to share Torah. Share, leave. Share, leave. Share, leave. Don't become friends with anybody. Because it's not a place to make friends. If you want friends, go meet somebody in person. Witness it. Your friends get married, you get married, have kids—there'll be plenty of friends for you. That's it. People have developed these social relationships, and they ruin their lives. They ruin their lives. So it's very, very dangerous, very, very dangerous. And I'm telling this to myself. I'm telling this to you. I'm telling this to anyone that's willing to hear. It's very dangerous. I'm telling you. It's not because people go into it always with negative intentions. Sometimes they do, obviously. But many times they come into it with innocent intentions.

2:35:28I met Steve today. Who's Steve? Oh, he's in Milwaukee. Oh, really? What does Steve do? Oh, he's in a nice kehillah. He's the rabbi there. He's the chazzan there. He's a member. He just moved there from Alaska and he likes it there. Maybe we should move to Kentucky. Maybe we should move to Alaska with him. Well, let's keep talking to him. Let's see what happens. She keeps talking to him. And little do you know, they become a little more than friendly now. Why? He's talking to her. And for a woman, that's a relationship. The physical aspect is like a cherry on top. It's not the focus of a relationship for a woman. Anyone who doesn't know that doesn't know women. Of course, there's a physical element. We're all human. But that's not as significant for a woman as it is for a man. It's nowhere near. It's polar opposites. So if you're going to spend a lot of time talking to a woman, just know you're cheating on your wife. So, bottom line, and we'll finish it here. You want to be a kosher person? First and foremost, know that whatever you say to anyone, you'd be willing to publicize to the world.

2:36:44Which means, if it's nonsense, don't say it. If it's inappropriate, don't say it. If your wife was listening, and you wouldn't say it, don't say it. If Hashem was listening, which He is, and you wouldn't say it, don't say it. The second thing is, or the third thing, whatever we're on the list, is make sure you watch your eyes. Watch your eyes. Don't stare at anything. It's just a natural inclination for a man to get his mind to go somewhere it doesn't belong. Next thing is for women: stop developing relationships with strangers. You want a relationship, get married. You have a husband, develop a relationship with him. Have kids. Stop getting into relationships with strange men. It doesn't matter that Steve lives in Alaska or Honolulu or he's in Gehenom. I'm trying to tell you what the Satan looks like; it doesn't make a difference. You have questions for the rabbi, send the question alone. Don't send compliments. I've had this a few times. A woman gives me a compliment. I disconnect. I don't respond anymore. I don't respond as soon as there's a compliment. That's it, it's the end. And I don't mean a compliment like, "Oh, I like your shiur" or "Baruch Hashem, they like the shiur," that's good. I'm talking about something else, something that's personal.

2:38:08Compliment the shiur, compliment the Torah, but if you compliment me personally, that's the end of the relationship. You will never see a response from me again. Why? Because the relationship went to a place I can't be part of. I can't be that guy. Find someone else, find a husband. I belong to someone else. This is the type of mindset you need to have in order to live a kosher life. Why? Because Hashem is watching. And when you go up to Shamayim, you know, your wife is with you. You know that, right? It doesn't matter that she's still here because she outlived you. The Shema is in Shamayim. The Shema is in Shamayim. And you say, oh, look, look, he cheated on you with this one. He cheated on you with this one. And she's going to look at you. What? You cheated on me with her? She was my friend. You cheated on me with her? She was my friend also. She was on Facebook. She was on Twitter. How did you do this to me? The embarrassment you're going to have to deal with before Hashem, it's going to be worse than Gehinnom. Worse than Gehinnom. Watch your eyes, fellas. Watch your keyboards. Enough. I'm serious. Why? You don't want to be married? Don't be married. But don't torture anyone with it. And that, Rabotai, is the end of the shiur tonight. I'm sure you're going to have more questions after I shut off the camera, but I think the cameras are dying anyway. Go. No?

2:39:36I know you kind of brushed it up a little bit, what not to be done. So how do we apply that as a single guy? What advice or? A single man, if you're going on a date with a woman, then yes, you could. First and foremost, you have to understand that you cannot walk behind a woman. So if you're on a date with a woman, walk side by side. Or walk one or two steps in front of her. Can't walk behind her. Whether she's your date or someone you don't know, you shouldn't walk behind a woman. The Gemara says it's a very serious sin. That's one. Two, as far as opening a door for a woman, which is, I'm assuming, what you guys are referring to as far as an aspect of being gentlemanly, you're allowed to open a door for a woman. You're allowed to open a door for a woman, but immediately catch up. Don't stay there and be one of these Don Juans and open a door. It's like...

2:40:38None of that stuff. None of that stuff. Go ahead, yeah. Oh, you're in? Okay, I'm coming. Don't do any of that. No, no, no, no, no games. No, yeah. No, none of that. No movie star stuff. No. Oh, you're here? I held the door for you. You should say thank you. None of that stuff. Open the door. You want to open the door? Open the door. Whatever. But immediately catch up and walk in the same place. And again, it's much more important for you to be a kosher person than to be what's considered gentlemanly. Because gentlemanly today is not really gentlemanly. Gentlemanly is just somebody that's trying to get in bed with a woman that's not his wife. That's really what it is. That's what it comes down to. So ask yourself, why are you doing it? Why are you doing it? Bottom line, why are you doing it? Are you doing it because of A, or are you doing it because of B? So that's the thing you have to ask her. As far as shaking hands with the opposite sex, you shouldn't do it, as I've said multiple times. She reached out first. So what do you do?

2:41:43Again, it takes some getting used to. It gets some getting used to. In the beginning, if you're not comfortable in your own skin, if you're comfortable in your own skin and you're confident in what you're doing, you can say, "I'm sorry, I don't shake hands with a woman because of God, because of my religion." If you say, "I don't shake hands with a woman," and she doesn't know what Judaism is, she may get offended for no reason. You say, "I don't shake hands because it's against my religion, unless it's my wife." Any normal woman would actually appreciate that. Any normal woman would appreciate that you don't shake a woman's hand that's not your wife. Why? She'll be jealous of the fact that a man is not willing to even touch another woman. A husband is looking to touch anything that moves: man, woman, animal, flowers, whatever. You, tzaddik, are not even willing to touch another woman that's reaching out to you already. She's like, I wish my husband was like that. So if you're comfortable in your own skin, you're proud of being a Jew, that's what you should do.

2:42:44On the other hand, if you're not yet at that level, then as I suggested last time, always have something in your hand. Have a lot of stuff in your hand. That way, if somebody tries to shake your hand, you can say, "I have something, I have something." They'll understand and respond, "Oh, okay, okay, yeah, yeah, elbow, elbow. My hands are dirty, I have a cold. I have a cold, my hands are dirty. I don't know, I just touched, you know, Obama, I don't know, whatever. You don't want to get infected." I don't know, so the point is that you can create something to excuse yourself. And that's what you should do. As far as opening doors, as far as speaking in general, you should not speak to a woman who is not your wife casually. You shouldn't have girlfriends casually. Because again, it's only a matter of time before it leads your mind to go to an inappropriate place. It's just a reality. And I know many guys have many girlfriends, and many girls have many boyfriends. I understand. Such is life. It depends on what degree of avoiding sin you want to be in.

2:43:56You want to play—you know, scratch the surface. You want to, you know, like skid into Gan Eden like you barely made it. Good luck. Try it. You want to skid in? Fine. Me, I don't know. Me, I'm scared to death. So I'm hoping I make it, period. You know, if you're so confident that everything else you do is so perfect that you're able to have a platonic relationship, as they call it, with a woman who's not your wife, fine. But in reality, it's against nature. It's against nature for a man to have a platonic relationship. It's against nature. And the reason why is because a man's nature cannot maintain a platonic relationship. It's only a matter of time before that man wants to do something else. It could start as that, but it's only a matter of time before it becomes something else. If not actual, at least psychological. So it's highly recommended, highly recommended not to even start, and obviously it's not allowed. But in general, just having these types of relationships only leads to problems. Only leads to problems.

2:45:05spiritual problems in general. So again, this also is part of teshuva. This is part of adjustment. I was a smoker for 20 years. I smoked cigarettes for 20 years. Never did drugs, but I smoked cigarettes for 20 years. When I was told that I should quit smoking, you know what my response was? You should quit smoking. I don't smoke. Okay, start and stop. Leave me alone. Like, I don't want to quit. I like smoking. I don't want to quit. Immediately when I was told, "You should quit smoking," I said, "You quit. Leave me alone. Go find somebody else." That was my reaction. Why? Because it was completely absurd. Absurd for me to quit smoking because I was so used to it. It became part of me. I enjoyed it. I cared less about being sick. I'm already sick. Tell me about dying? I'm already dying. I feel like it's giving me life. Like, what do you, in my mind, my Yetzer Hara was like, leave me alone. You go fix yourself, leave my smoking alone. But, eventually, as the Torah got stronger, and the Yetzer Hara was overcome in other aspects, I was able to overcome the Yetzer Hara in different aspects of my life, and little by little get closer and closer to Hashem. Eventually, I got to the same door again.

2:46:34Eventually, I got to the same door again, by myself. Meaning it was mentioned, but not directly. And I said, you know, I probably should quit smoking. Now, the question is, how? So, sometimes you're not ready for all of this. Sometimes, there are certain things that I say in shiurim, it's simply far away from you. Fine, I understand, I understand. It doesn't mean that it's right for you to do it. It doesn't mean that every single second that I continued smoking wasn't a sin. It's a sin! And hopefully, I'll do teshuva before I die, so that it's not a sin anymore. But nonetheless, I'm not saying you're allowed to continue sinning. What I'm saying is you may not be able to fix it right this second. But don't cancel out everything and say, "Ah, if I'm not able to keep this, then I might as well do everything else. If I'm not able to get rid of all my girlfriends, then I might as well just not even keep Shabbat." No, one thing has nothing to do with the other. You've got three hours here; ten minutes of it is good. Keep the ten minutes.

2:47:39Okay, two hours and 50 minutes, no good. Not applicable for you. Fine. 10 minutes, good. Take the 10 minutes. Two hours and 50 minutes is good. 10 minutes, not good. Take the two hours and 50 minutes. Eventually, we'll get to the other. That's how you fight the Yetzer Hara. The same thing goes with picking friends, the same thing goes with picking schools, the same thing goes with picking wives and picking husbands, the same thing goes with picking different ambitions, how much to learn, how much to do, where to move, where to donate, and so on and so forth. It's all the same. The same principles apply everywhere. B'ezrat Hashem, this Mussar that we continue learning together helps all of us. Because each and every single one of us has a different Yetzer Hara. Your Yetzer Hara may be unique in one thing. My Yetzer Hara is unique in a different thing. Everyone has a Yetzer Hara in some way or another. But the only way we're going to be able to beat it is if we're realistic. Not realistic in the sense that we're, you know, oh yeah, we have Yetzer Hara, that's good. No, no. I mean realistic that we know we have a problem. We're honest with ourselves.

2:48:48All of us have some type of spiritual sickness. If we didn't, we wouldn't be here. So, the first step is admitting. Admitting we have something we have to work on. Emunah, bitachon, learning, knowledge, all types of character traits that never end. Something. All of us have something. B'ezrat Hashem, the more we do What Hashem wants, the more He'll do what we want. And ultimately give us the feeling where we know for sure, for sure, without a doubt in our mind, that He's there watching. That's good for us in a million ways. One, it's good for us because we know we're not going to sin in front of the King of Kings. So it's good for Yirat Shamayim. But even more so, we know He's watching. And we can't feel it. Oh, it's under control. I don't know what's going on, Abba, but it's under control. The road's crazy. Everybody's going in the wrong direction. They must be all crazy. But if You're there, You're watching, it's okay. Baruch Adonai le'olam. Amen ve'amen.