Never Settle, Be The #1 Tzadik EVER (MUST WATCH! )

0:02If you're serving Hashem, serve Him like Avraham Avinu, where you're not just serving Him for a reward of some kind. You're serving Him without any reward. That's the highest level. Where even, like Iyov (Job) said, even if He were to kill you, he'd still serve Him. Why? Because that's the highest level. That's the ideal level. What is this like?

1:03The other son doesn't really like his father that much, so he doesn't run anywhere. So the father says, listen, it's upsetting that I don't see him. I ask him for coffee, he doesn't do it. He says, okay, you know what? Okay, takes out his wallet, he goes, okay, if you go get me coffee, I'll pay you five dollars. Oh, for five dollars? Sure. He runs to the place, gets him coffee. Thank you, I love you, Abba. He doesn't really love Abba. He loves the five dollars. Abba wants paper, Abba wants this, Abba wants that, every time it's for a payment. So, now when the father is going to do his review one day, he's going to think about, you know, who do I really want to give my inheritance to? The one that milked me for money every single time I asked him for something? Every coffee cost me five bucks. Every ride cost me twenty. Everything had a payment. Or the one that did it just because I asked him to. Just because he loved me. Who am I going to give my inheritance to? Well, the one I paid all this reward to. Okay, I love him. He's great. He's fine. He's my son. At least he did it. He's not a terrible son who didn’t do it even after I paid him. But the one that did it just because...

2:31Obviously, I want to give him more. So, Antigonus is telling you, if you're already going to do it, do it at the highest possible level. Shoot to be like Avraham Avinu. Shoot to be like Moshe Rabbeinu. Shoot to be like Noach. Noach, ish tzadik v'tamim. Complete with Hashem. The greatest of his generation. Go for the best. Just like you go to work, you don't go to work because, oh, I want to make a basic living and be half homeless my whole life. No. You go to work to be a multi-millionaire. The next idea is going to be Microsoft. The next idea is going to be Google. That's what you think. Everybody thinks that. Everybody thinks their next idea is the greatest thing since sliced bread. That's why they go to work. Napoleon used to say, I want all my soldiers to want to be commanders. Any soldier who doesn't want to be a commander, I don't want him to be my soldier. Because if he doesn't want to be a commander, then he's definitely not going to be a good soldier either. You have an opportunity to be the greatest of the great.

3:45So Antigonus is telling you, I learned from my Rav, Shimon HaTzadik, the greatest of his generation, the one that was around prophets at all times, the one who made Alexander the Great bow to him. Alexander the Great, the man who conquered the whole world, bowed to him on all fours. I learned from him something amazing. He's telling you, if you're going to serve Hashem, go for the whole pie. And serve Him out of complete love, not just because you're going to receive a reward. Do it simply because it's the right thing to do. It is proper to work on your Middot. It is proper to refrain from becoming angry. Strive to recognize that there is truly never a reason to be angry. Ever. The only reason you're angry is because you have ga'ava, you have pride. You think that the world needs to run according to your tune, and if it doesn't run according to your tune, you're angry. That's why the Gemara calls that avodah zarah. You've made yourself avodah zarah. You think that the world should run according to your tune, and if you think the world needs to run according to your tune, you're a mini-god. You have a problem.

5:05There's no share of the World to Come for someone who acts with arrogance as if they are a mini-god. So, someone who is aware of this might say, "Okay, it's dangerous to have anger. I have to work on myself. I have to work on not being angry. Why am I angry?" Why do I get upset every time the baby cries? Why do I get upset every time my wife wakes me up in the middle of the night with a question? Why do I get upset because this or that happened? All these different things that happen in your life, everybody has their, you know, little things, pet peeves that annoy them. Why does it annoy you? Why does it make you so angry? I mean, it's mind-boggling sometimes how big things don't matter, but small things make you want to destroy the world like Hashem did in the time of Noach. I tell you personally, without Torah, if I were God, I would destroy the world every day. Every day, I would get upset at these small things, and I would literally want to just destroy the world.

6:11This guy came late. Sir, you just made a million dollars today. I don't care, but one of my employees came in six minutes late. Why do you care that he came in six minutes late? My whole world changed because the guy came in six minutes late. You made money, you did this, it doesn't make a difference. But that's the thing: when you have no real purpose in life, you make small, foolish things your purpose. So, someone who wants to serve Hashem and reach the highest level must know there's a track on how to get there. You have to work on these middot; you have to work on your character traits, which is the reason we're doing this whole series to begin with. But it's already stated from the beginning: listen, the Torah is not of the mindset that you're unable to do something. The Torah will never tell you that you cannot be the most righteous person of your generation. The Torah will never tell you that you're not able to be a Talmid Chacham. The Torah will never tell you that you cannot do anything that will get you the greatest Olam HaBa ever.

7:22Torah is the opposite. He's starting the Mishnah, the first three Mishnayot. It's not like somewhere in the middle, maybe it's less important, chas v'shalom, but you get my point here. Opening the Mishnah with this lesson, it's telling you, listen, if you're going to already serve G-d, be like Avraham Avinu already. Be like Noach, be like Moshe. Go for everything. Why are you settling for just one little diamond? Okay, so you do tefillin really well. Chazak u'baruch. Do the prayer too, not just the tefillin. Why just the prayer? Act accordingly. Be a walking Sefer Torah. Learn some Torah also. Why just learn Torah? Fulfill it too. Do what it says in the Torah. Why just fulfill the Torah when you're in private? Do it in public. Show people why you are proud to be a Jew. It's a great thing to be a Jew. Why are you proud to be a Jew? Why do you want to die to be a Jew? Go for the whole thing. Don't settle for half of modesty. Like sometimes I have women that ask, "Oh, is this modest?" Like they send you a picture of some clothes or they give you a question, "Is this shirt modest? Is this thing modest?" If you're asking if it's modest, obviously you realize there's some problem there.

8:54If you're asking, obviously it's not clearly modest. Right or no? Yeah, I want to do it. But you want someone to sign off that it's okay. You want me to sign off so I can go to Gehinnom instead. I don't want to go to Gehinnom for you. You're not going to go to Gehinnom for me. No one wants to go to Gehinnom for anybody else. So why do you want me to sign for it? You know if it's modest or not. Same thing with people. Listen, is this a kosher deal? They sign a deal with somebody. It's clearly not kosher, not legally and not ethically. Is this kosher? You're asking me because you know it's not. It's not that I'm telling people not to ask me questions. Ask me as many questions as you want; that's how you learn. But most of the time, you know the answer. Your conscience knows the answer. Why? Because your neshama studied the same Torah that I studied. Inside your mother's womb, it also studied the Torah. We know the same Torah. You know what's right and wrong. Everyone knows what's right and wrong. So the first thing you got to ask yourself is, am I really, am I being, am I full of it? If you're already going to do it, do it 100%. Everyone knows what's right and wrong. So the first thing you have to ask yourself is, am I really being honest with myself, or am I deceiving myself? If you're already going to undertake something, commit to it with your whole heart and do it 100%.