Parashat VaYigash: Are SuperHeroes Real?

0:00We have a very interesting parasha, a continuation of the story, but also a few things in the beginning. I want to mention again for Avital bat Yocheved, may Hashem give her a very strong recovery. She's a strong girl, going through a tough time, and b'ezrat Hashem, this too shall end, and we should grow from it. Also, refuah shlemah to the little boy who unfortunately got injured, Yotam. Yotam got injured from these evil terrorists in Israel. He is undergoing surgery, a very, very difficult time. Hashem, it's a... strong girl, going through a tough time, and b'ezrat Hashem, this too shall end, and we should grow from it. Also, refuah shlemah to the little boy who unfortunately got injured, Yotam. Yotam got injured from these evil terrorists in Israel. He is undergoing surgery, very, very difficult time. Hashem, it's a... It's really not an easy time. Not an easy time. Also, refuah shlemah to Hadass, Hila, and Odaya, the daughters of Bat Sarah. Refuah shlemah. May Hashem give them all refuah shlemah. And as you all notice, the list that requires refuah shlemah keeps growing: David ben Nesria, Doris bat Zhora,

1:27May they have refuah shlemah. And then, you know, b'ezrat Hashem, Hashem gives all of Am Yisrael refuah shlemah and nachat. But, you know, and then less suffering. But one of the things that we know from the sages, one of the things that we know from history, one of the things we know from our own lives, is that in order for us to know for sure that the light that we've been waiting for, the salvation we've been waiting for, the yeshuah that we've been waiting for, is that much closer, is only if it's that much darker. If it's darker, that means you're closer to the light. That's the reality. That's history. That's Am Yisrael's history. That's our personal life People, we know it gets darker before the light. Chazal say that Am Yisrael, and the Gemara, it says Am Yisrael is compared to olive oil. Why olive oil? Why not the olive? What, the olive is not good? The olive is also delicious. The olive, by the way,

2:48Someone learns Torah, if he eats too many olives, he can forget. It leads him to forget. But olive oil makes you remember. Olive oil makes you remember. So why is Am Yisrael compared to olive oil? Because olive oil can only be made after you crush it, and crush it, and crush it, and crush it more. And the better you crush it, the better quality the olive oil. It's the same thing with Am Yisrael. The more difficulties that they go through, the better quality of Jews they become. And that's just what we've seen throughout history starting with this parasha, starting with the parasha before this, starting with the story from Avraham Avinu. When Hashem told Avraham Avinu that his descendants are going to be slaves and foreigners in a different country for 400 years, it already started. And now, last week's parasha, we see that Yosef has become the viceroy, the king in so many words, of Egypt, and he has a plan to bring his family there, but so far they don't know that he's their family. The brothers know of the prophecy that Avraham Avinu received from Hashem, because also their grandfather received

4:16Yitzchak also received the prophecy, and also their father Yaakov received the same prophecy. Hashem told all of them that this is what's going to be. Each one of them, you know, we've had this already for several generations, that they're going to go to a foreign land. They didn't know where. He didn't specify that it was going to be Egypt, not to my knowledge. And they're going to go to a foreign land, they're going to be slaves, they're going to suffer. But the suffering is a necessity in order for the good to happen. Now the question is, why is suffering necessary in order for good to happen? Why didn't Hashem just make it good? To appreciate. Okay, give us, show me a week of bad. A week of bad. Lifetime of good. I appreciate it. I remember the week of bad. No, not the week. This we also learn from when Yosef translated or interpreted the dream for Paro. When he told Paro that, you know, first he said you're going to have seven years of surplus. You're going to have so much good. In Parashat Miketz, last week's Parashah.

5:41We made two videos about it last week, one here and one in Miami, two completely different shiurim. So if you haven't watched it, you should watch it. A lot of chiddushim on the other shiur as well if you didn't watch it. But he says you're going to have seven years of great, you're going to make a lot of money, more money than you can count. But then the seven years after that are going to be so bad, you're going to forget the good. You're going to forget that you ever had good. That's how bad it was. And that's human nature. human nature, you give somebody a lifetime of good, they have a week of bad deals, a week of bad luck, a week of something happening, one day, five minutes happens. Already he's angry at God. So, Hashem created the nation of Israel as an am kshei oref, a stubborn nation. So stubborn that we were really unbearable to the rest of mankind. Now, in order for us to receive the Torah, we cannot be an unbearable nation. We have to be a nation that is soft, or at least softer. We have to be a nation that has good middot. We have to be a nation that is more merciful and has good qualities. In order for someone to develop good qualities, they have to work on their character.

7:11In order for someone to develop their character, if they weren't born with proper teaching and raised with proper teaching from their parents, they have to want it. And even if they were raised with proper teaching, in order for them to keep it and develop it, they have to want to keep it and develop it. In order for someone to do that, to develop good middot (character traits), They have to go through a difficult time. Rabbi Yisrael from Salant, he started what's called the Musar movement. Not that he invented Musar. Musar has already been around since the beginning of time for the nation of Israel and the Torah that we got 3,300 years ago. But at his time, which is not too long ago, just around 100 years ago or so, it already, a little more than that, but it already got to a point where ...that Musar was no longer being taught to the Jews. People were so interested in the difficult parts of the Gemara and the Mishnah and the different parts of the Torah, they said, no, Musar, no, that's for amei ha'aretz, that's for regular people. People who don't know anything about Torah, they need the basic stuff. They need to learn how to behave. We've got to learn something more sophisticated...

8:37And it's not that it just happened in the generation of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, because even the Ramchal, in his opening letter to his very famous and probably one of the most important, if not the most important Musar book in history, The Path of the Just, Mesilat Yesharim, he says it in his opening letter, that most people spend their time, and he's talking about people that are learning Torah, he's not talking about amei ha'aretz, he's not talking about people that don't learn anything. In this generation, it was very few people that don't learn anything. Most people are learning Torah. He says, the people that are learning Torah, they don't spend any time on this stuff. It's too simple for them. They think it's too simple for them. They think it doesn't require any thinking, it doesn't require any effort. So they want to do pilpulim, which is like the difficult parts, trying to figure out all these sugyot, all these difficulties and contradictions, and figure out why it's not a contradiction, and figure out why it's this and why it's that, you know, all these mind twisters. Mm-hmm. they don't worry about middot. And the reality is that if they just learned from the Vilna Gaon, if they learned from just the basic Gemara, if they learned just basic Torah, you would know that without having good middot, everything else is worthless. The Gemara says that

10:04A Talmid Chacham, meaning someone who knows a lot of Torah, not just some Torah, knows a lot of Torah, that has bad middot— a dead animal on the street is better than him. Better, better than him. There's a story of Eliyahu HaNavi in the Oral Torah in the Midrash. Eliyahu HaNavi was with one of the sages walking one time. And Eliyahu HaNavi only exposed himself to a few people. I think this is Rabbi Yehoshua, if I'm not mistaken. Because Rabbi Yehoshua also showed him Gehinnom. If you remember from previous teachings, we talked a little bit about Gehinnom. A lot of it comes from that meaning. Anyway, so Eliyahu HaNavi is walking with him. And they pass by a, or it may actually even be during Eliyahu HaNavi's life. I'm not really sure of the timing of the story, but I know the story is nonetheless in a Midrash. They're walking in the street, and they pass by a dead animal, some type of dead carcass. And if you know something that died and has been there for, you know, a day, it starts smelling really, really bad. Two days worse. Three days you want to die.

11:28So this was the third day, pretty much. So when they pass it, the tzaddik, next to Eliyahu HaNavi, is covering his mouth, he's disgusted, he wants to vomit. Eliyahu HaNavi just walks by like nothing, not even covering, nothing, nothing. Maybe he's thinking, maybe he can't smell, I don't know. They keep walking, they get to the Jewish area, they get to the synagogue. They see one of the gevirim, one of the rich people, coming out of the synagogue with his nice clothes, and his hair done. He's a very handsome guy, and his head is held high, and his chest is sticking out, and right away you see Eliyahu HaNavi covering himself like this, like it smells, like it smells so much that he wants to vomit. So that, the tzaddik didn't understand. She says, "Please explain. The fact that you are not bothered by the dead carcass—okay, I don't know, maybe you don't have a sense of smell or something, I don't know, I understand that. But with this rich guy, he actually smells good. He doesn't smell bad. He's, you know, what's the covering? You almost want to vomit. You're saying that it smells bad."

12:57Hashem tells them something very, very interesting. He says, with the dead animal, I found something good in it. What good? I saw its teeth. It's dead, but I saw its teeth. Its teeth were very clean, very white teeth, beautiful teeth. So it's dead, but it still has something good about it. With this guy, he was so prideful, such an arrogant person, nothing good about him. I couldn't find one thing that was good about him. And to me, he smells. And Eliyahu Hanavi is telling us the secret because this is something spiritual. This is not something physical. If we went next to this guy, we would think he smells good. If we went next to the animal, we would want to die. Mm-hmm. Eliyahu Hanavi says that in the real world, when you see reality, everything is different. Now, how do you know if you're seeing the real world or not? Because you can see the real world in this world. You can go to some tzaddikim in the world, people that are really righteous, and they'll react no differently. They see somebody that's...

14:14That's a handsome person that's arrogant. If you're handsome, it's fine. It's not bad to be handsome. It's not bad to be good-looking. It's not bad to be well-groomed. Actually, you have to... You have to groom yourself. You can't look like you're a homeless person. But the ga'ava, the pride, is unbearable. The ga'ava is considered to'avat Hashem, an abomination. one of the things Hashem is disgusted by. So, how do you know you're seeing the real world? Take him to the tzaddik. Huh? Take him to the tzaddik. Okay, but if you don't have the tzaddik next to you, how do you know if you're the tzaddik? You know, if you are not noticing that there's anything wrong around you, that means you're part of the problem.

15:14If you're not noticing that everything smells, that means you smell too. Rabbi Chaim Shmuelevitz died about 30 years ago. Big tzadik, Kodesh Kodashim. He was something very special. He was one of the biggest mashgichim in Israel. He says, one day I leave my house and they're working on the sewers. You know, working on a sewer is not the worst possible smell there can be, because I wanted to vomit. I couldn't handle it. And I see people passing by, and they're covering their faces. They're not even breathing so they don't have to take this smell. But then I was shocked. As I kept walking closer and closer, because I had to pass it... I see the workers, not only are they not covering their faces, they're eating. They're eating their food, they're eating their breakfast. But nothing. That day he gave this story, he gave a shiur. He goes, when you're in the zevel, when you're in the garbage, when you're in the most disgusting thing in the world, you don't know it smells.

16:39You don't know it smells. You're part of it. You're part of the smell. Only when you're outside of it do you notice it. He goes, these people taught me something very, very valuable, he says. Because, you know, tzaddikim, they learn from everything. From everything. Because, on the other hand, we can learn from just some things. So he says, I realized at that moment... that if I don't notice the problems around me, how people are going down farther and farther from Hashem, and they smell of pride, they smell of kefirah, they smell of all the things that are going against the Torah, if you're not noticing it, you're part of the problem. You are part of the garbage also. If you're celebrating with everybody like it's okay, when statistics show we have almost 80% of Am Yisrael who do not even know what Shabbat is. That means you're part of the problem, even if you keep Shabbat. Even if you're one of the people, part of the 20% that keep Shabbat, but you don't notice there's anything wrong with the other 80%, because the other 80% is the majority. So no, it doesn't bother you. You're part of the problem.

18:08And that's what the tzaddikim are always telling us. That in order for us to truly be connected to Hashem, we have to start noticing what's around us. And that's why, going back to the olive and the olive oil, Hashem says, naturally, there's too much yetzer hara in them to notice anything around them. They're too busy fighting the yetzer hara. Yetzer hara of pride, yetzer hara of money, yetzer hara of women, yetzer hara of every problem you have. Yetzer hara of not wanting to go to shiur Torah, yetzer hara of being cheap, yetzer hara of laziness, yetzer hara of tiredness. Even being tired is yetzer hara. Lethargic. Somebody that's tired all the time for no reason. Slept 20 hours yesterday, he's still tired. Yeah, it's yetzer hara. So now, he says... Without yetzer hara, they have. They have this yetzer hara. So the only way for them to really get close to me is crushing the aleph. Crushing the aleph. Softening them. Softening them. Getting them better and getting them perfected to become nice oil. Delicious oil. And my wife, tzadika, gave me a nice chidush about the aleph and the oil. Mamash, something beautiful. So I remember I said...

19:34The olive, you eat too many olives, makes you forget, according to Gemara. According to, I think it's the Kabbalah, olive oil makes you remember. If you eat things with olive oil, it makes you remember. So the solution is, I actually heard this one from Rabbi Mizrahi. He says, if you like olives, just dip the olives in olive oil. So one makes you forget, the other one makes you remember. You're okay, you break even. What's the chidush? Forget to remember. What's the chidush? My wife says, when Am Yisrael forgets about Hashem, they're the olive. They're the olive. They forget about Hashem. When they remember Hashem, they're the olive oil. In order for us to truly make Hashem She says it better than I do. But in order for us to truly make Hashem a living being within our life, we have to constantly put Him in our speech. We have to constantly put Him in our life. When you say something is going to happen, you remember to say Be'ezrat Hashem, you're the olive oil. When

21:03you want to plant something, Be'ezrat Hashem, or when, you know, when something good happens, even if you're just saying, somebody says, how are you? Nothing happened today, you just woke up, Baruch Hashem. Problem happened, Baruch Hashem, everything. If you constantly bring Hashem into your speech, you're already the olive oil. When Hashem is not part of your speech, when He's not part of your day, you're the aleph. And we don't want to be the aleph. We don't want to forget Hashem. So, in last week's parashah, the story continued where the brothers still don't know that Yosef is really the viceroy of Egypt. This is the end of parashat Miketz. And they come there and they listen to their father. They have to go there and be nice, but also give Yosef, this king, this letter from Yaakov, from their father. Because now they're bringing their brother, Binyamin, which Yaakov really didn't want to send. Now this letter, you would think it's a letter that's a nice letter from Yaakov to this king. Listen, you have one of my sons.

22:32Hostage. Shimon is held hostage by this king. I'm sending you all of my other sons, including my youngest son, Binyamin. Plus, we need food from you. So, you would think this would be a nice letter? No. Yaakov wasn't somebody you mess with. Yaakov writes in this letter, he says, listen, I heard very good things. I heard you're smart. heard you are powerful, but I also heard that you accused my children of being spies and you threatened them. And the minute that I heard that, I looked up at the heavens and I almost cried two tears. And if those two tears would have come down, the God of my father and the God of my grandfather Avraham would have crushed you and your entire country. So I'm warning you now. I'm sending you all of my children. Make sure you treat them well and send them back home to me in one piece with no problems. This is a very, very interesting letter.

23:58it shows you emunah shleimah. Yaakov, like, he's named Yisrael, and we follow him every day. Even the country of Israel today follows the, you know, follows the mode of Yaakov, which is to avoid war at all costs. When Yaakov went to Esav, first he sent him presents. Presents, sent them good messages, gave them compliments, seeing your face is like seeing the face of an angel, but also giving you the little hidden message, don't mess with me. I'm telling you, your face reminds me of an angel because my friends are angels. Same thing with this king. He told his children, he told his sons, Yehuda, Reuven, Levi, all the kids that were going there, Bring the best spices we have in Canaan because they don't have them in Egypt. Bring the best we have. Bring all the good things, things they don't have. Money he has, diamonds he has, but give him things he doesn't have. Give him presents, give him compliments, but also, give him this letter. Compliments are nice, but don't forget who you're messing with.

25:26So now the brothers go at the end of last week's parasha. They go there and they're surprised that Yosef is inviting them to his house. Initially, they think that it's a trap. When they see this big young man, who ends up being Menashe, one of Yosef's two sons, this big young man welcomes them and they, you know, Automatically, they tried to return the money that was given back to them by accident. He says, "No, no, no, there was no accident. We received all of your money. The money that you got is a blessing from your God. It has nothing to do with us. Keep it. Please have a seat. You have nothing to worry about." And all of a sudden, this nice, beautiful lunch is being made for them. Yosef sends Menashe to slaughter an animal and he makes sure to take the brothers, the tribes, with him. Why? Because they want to make sure it's a kosher slaughter. He knows they are tzaddikim. They can't just go into a goy's house and eat his food. We can't go into a goy's house and eat their food. Could be the best person in the world. Could be an Iyov, Job.

26:50one of the parts of the Torah, one of the books of the Tanakh, was written about Iyov. But if you go to his house, you can't eat his food. If he cooked the food, even though he's a prophet, a non-Jewish prophet, he cooked the food, there's no hashgacha from a rabbi to make sure he followed all the kosher rules, you can't eat the food. Even if it's salad, you can't eat it. This is already before we got the Torah. So, Yosef knows that his brothers are tzaddikim. He is a tzaddik himself, obviously. But they don't know he's their brother. So he tells Menashe, "Listen, make sure that you bring them to the shechita, the slaughter. Show them that you're slaughtering the animal the way that the Torah says. The Oral Torah, which we had at the time. Oral Torah, right. Oral Torah we already have from the beginning of the world." So they see the slaughter, and they're so impressed with the slaughter, and they're like, how is this person—there's only 70 Jews in the world. Yaakov only has his family, 70 people, that's it. Which comes down to, we know 70, because that's the number that comes down to Egypt. That's Baal Peh. 70, how do the Egyptians, how does this Egyptian know about our laws? It's amazing. What a smart king this king is. They're so impressed with him.

28:18So now when he brings the wine, he said if he already knows the details of how to slaughter an animal, which is a lot of halachot in slaughtering, it's not just one, two, three, cut the neck, that's it. It's a lot of halachot to know. If he already knows that, of course his wine is kosher. What does it mean wine is kosher? If a wine is made, not the wine, not the grape juice you buy from the supermarket... Real wine, real wine is made. If a non-Jew opens the bottle, just opens it, doesn't drink it, you're not allowed to drink it. Why? Because if, let's say, a non-Jew uses wine, kosher wine, what's it called? Yayin mevushal. He opens the wine to use it just to cook or something, you're not allowed to drink it. Why? Because in the old days... wine was one of the things that was used for Avodah Zarah. For their fake gods, they would use wine. So there was always a fear that they would use wine that was used for Avodah Zarah, that was used for idol worship, to give to the Jews. Nonetheless, there are other reasons, but the point is that something that's really, really shocking for anyone that's not keeping Shabbat to learn is that

29:48If a non-Jew opens the wine or touches the wine or touches the wine glass, you're not allowed to drink the wine. If he just touches it, touches the bottle, open bottle, non-Jew opens the bottle or touches the open bottle, you're not allowed to drink it. If a Mechalel Shabbat also touches the open bottle, you're not allowed to drink it. Just touch or move it? Both. Hold the bottle. Not, you know, if you touch it with the finger, no. If he holds it, picks it up, moves it from place to place. Move it. Someone who doesn't keep Shabbat, according to the Shulchan Aruch, according to the Gemara, the Zohar, and the Torah Shebichtav, the written Torah, is not considered Jewish, considered non-Jewish in every single way. If they touch wine, you're not allowed to drink that wine. You're not even allowed to give it to your dog. You have to pour it in the toilet. And it goes to the garbage. Now, yayin nesech, tainted wine. So now this shocks people because, like, what do you mean? I'm Jewish too. Not according to the Torah. Not according to the Torah. These are not my rules. No one asked me for permission or anything like that. You can hear this from countless lectures that real kiruv rabbis do that talk about it.

31:15whether it's Rabbi Mizrahi, or Rabbi Amnon Yitzchak, or Rabbi Zamir Cohen, or many others, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, Zecher Tzadik Livracha, many, many serious rabbis talk about the truth. You'll hear this from them. You'll see this yourself in the Torah. You'll see this if you want to just look it up. So this is shocking for people. People don't like to hear that. People don't like to hear that if you violate Shabbat, you cannot be counted as part of a minyan. They don't like it. But again, It's much easier for them to say that there's some type of mistake, it can't be, it's not relevant anymore, and all of these other things. It's much easier for them to do that than to just keep Shabbat. In reality, keeping Shabbat is much easier. The Yetzer Hara is very, very strong, and we have to find a way to beat it. But if you bless on the wine and you give to the Shabbat guest, you drink from it, obviously it's on your Shabbat table. Give them a different blessing.

32:15Not from the cup. Technically, if you're going to give wine, make sure it's Mevushal. If it's Mevushal, he can drink whatever he wants, he can touch the bottle, he can pour it, he can dance with it, he can do whatever he wants. Mevushal. Non-Mevushal, you know, uncooked wine, you can't give him. That's not really considered real wine. It's considered like, you know, concentrate, or not concentrate, considered like grape juice. Yeah. Mevushal, you give him as much as you want, the grape juice, give him as much as you want, no problem. But lo mevushal, the uncooked wine, which is the real wine, you know, the expensive wines in the world, that, you know, people buy, the people that know wine, they don't drink the stuff, you know, they don't, you know, they drink real wine, you're not allowed to even give it to him. You're not allowed to give it to him. Why are you not allowed to give it to him? Even if he's the last one, let's say everybody drank the wine, And he's the last one. So you know that even if he touches the glass, it doesn't matter because nobody else is going to drink after him. What's the difference? You're causing him to sin. Why? You're giving him wine. By him drinking the wine, he's ruining the wine. He's making a sin. Am I right? You're not allowed to put something... He's ruining the wine, but it's good for him. How is it good for him? He's making a sin.

33:38It's good for him if he keeps Shabbat, it doesn't ruin the wine. No, if he's not Jewish. If he's not Jewish? Yeah. What do you mean if he's not Jewish? No, if he's not Jewish, he's not a nesech, he wants his drink on it. Not allowed to give the wine to a goy? Make sure it's cooked wine, grape juice. Grape juice or cooked wine. There's a lot of cooked wine. You see it on the bottle. Yeah. But the key is to know these things because, again, a lot of these things we won't even think of. This is Divrei Chazal, this is Divrei Torah that our people don't think about, and a lot of people don't like to think about it because it's tough. It's tough to deal with because we have friends, we have family, we have dear ones that are, you know, even kids and brothers and sisters that don't keep any of this stuff. So, there are solutions to all of this stuff. Don't get the expensive wine; get the basic one that's mevushal wine. But we're talking about wine from grapes. It's all wine from grapes. It's either mevushal or non-mevushal wine. But we're talking about wine. If it's not wine, like something else, it's fine.

34:42specifically halacha for wine, not for anything else. Wine has a special significance in Judaism. Grapes, in general, have a divine significance. A grape is very significant. Grapes are the only fruit you're not allowed to mix. They cannot mix with any other fruit. Grapes cannot mix with fruit. That's why Am Yisrael says when you're growing it, when you're planting it, the farmers constantly try to breed new fruits. So they put, you know, one fruit, similar fruits together, and they try to make new fruits. The grape cannot mix with anything, does not mix with anything. And that's why the grape is like Am Yisrael; we cannot mix with anything. So now, the brothers, the Shevatim, are in a situation, they're being honored, they're drinking wine, they get a little drunk.

35:42Actually, it says they get a little drunk, they eat food. They see that Binyamin, their younger brother, is getting special treatment. Everything's great. They say thank you. They leave. And then they get stopped just about 2,000 amot from the house by the soldiers of Yosef. He says, "Oh, hold on. How could you return bad when we did all good for you?" And they said, "What are you talking about?" He says, "How could one of you steal the goblet, the special cup that the king has? How dare you?" They responded, "What are you talking about? We didn't steal anything." soldiers of Yosef. He says, "Oh, hold on. How could you return bad when we did all good for you?" And they said, "What are you talking about?" He says, "How could one of you steal the goblet, the special cup that the king has? How dare you?" They responded, "What are you talking about? We didn't steal anything."

36:44They said, if any... They were so confident they didn't steal anything. They said, whoever stole should die. Would die. Whoever stole. They didn't steal anything. This is a mistake on their part to be overconfident and to say something like that because, again, they saw that this is a mistake that their father made when Lavan chased down and... chased down Yaakov and said, "Why did you steal my gods' statues?" And Yaakov says, "Whoever stole your statues should die." He didn't know that his wife, Rachel, stole the statues. She didn't tell him. She was Lavan's daughter. She wanted her father to stop doing idol worship. She didn't tell her husband about this. And that's actually why Rachel ended up dying prematurely. As soon as she gave birth to Binyamin, she died. She died at a very, very young age. I think she was 36 years old, which is young even today, let alone in those days. 36 or 33. So, they said something, you know, they said, whoever stole your little goblet should die. And we’re, you know, Menashe knew that, obviously, this was the plan all along.

38:10They planted the goblet in their bag. This was part of Yosef's plan. So he corrected them. He said, no, he's not going to die. He's just going to be a slave. He's going to be my slave. He's going to be our slave. And they said, no, all of us are going to be your slaves if somebody stole. No, no, only that person is going to be a slave. So he goes down. He starts checking their bags. They're so excited about... you know, showing this, come on, this is nonsense, they're opening the bags where they jump off the, off the animals, I think they were the horses or the camels they were on, and they jump off of them and they're opening the bags, you know, finally, she died, we didn't do anything. And he goes in order of age, showing that he knows who's who. Reuven is the oldest, and the last one, the youngest, he goes to Binyamin, he gets to Binyamin,

39:11and oh, he gets to Binyamin and he sees that the cup is there. He sees the cup is there. Now we have ourselves a problem. They don't even know what to say for themselves. And the reality is they can't really defend themselves. What are they going to say? Because again, this is not about who who is stronger, who is weaker. It's not about strength. It's about truth. They're men of truth. And when this happened, the...

40:20They say, "Why did Hashem do this to us? Why did Hashem do this to us? Why did Hashem?" Hashem didn't do anything. You did it. This shows us, as it says in the Gemara, that man's nature is to always blame Hashem for his mistakes. In Proverbs, it says, this is Proverbs 19:3. It says, "This is the foolishness of man," meaning his sins, "perverts his ways," meaning it brings him to punishment, but "his heart frets against Hashem," meaning that a person blames Hashem for the misfortune that was brought to him by his own doing. So he robbed the bank, and he gets arrested, and he gets angry at Hashem that he got arrested. This is what's happening with these brothers; this is what's happening with the tribe. They're saying, "You know, why is Hashem bringing this to us?" But obviously, if he really stole, he stole. On the other hand, if this whole ordeal is happening to you, it is because you made a sin 22 years ago by selling your other brother.

41:46So this makes them realize something's happening here. So they go back to Yosef's house, and Yehudah takes the lead, and a lot of fireworks start. Yehudah tells this king, he tells Yosef, listen, there's nothing I can say that makes it right. There's nothing I can say to... defend the situation. So all of us are going to be your slaves. Yosef says, not all of you are going to be my slaves. Only the person that stole. And that's when Yehudah notices something that's going on over here. Why wouldn't he want all of us to be slaves? Something is wrong. Why does he only want him? Why did he make us go all the way back to bring him? He says, no, no, no, no. I'll be your slave. You don't want all of us to be slaves? Fine, I'll be your slave. I'm better than him. I'm stronger than him. I'm more resourceful than him. I'll be your slave. Yosef says, no, you didn't do a crime. He did the crime; he's going to be the slave.

43:14Yosef, really, he's testing the brothers to see what they are willing to do for this young brother. Are they going to just let him go and say, "Oh, he needs this problem? Okay, he made a crime, he stole, whatever. Created a headache, let him go," just like they did to him, to Yosef? Or are they going to fight for him? Maybe they did teshuvah. So, Yehudah says, "No, no, no." you asked us if we have a father. You asked us if we have a brother. I told you we have two other brothers. One of them is gone. One of them is with his father, and our father is still alive. You made us... I told you I couldn't bring this other brother because if I bring the brother, the father is going to die. But you still forced us to bring him. You told us to tell our father... Your servant, they keep referring to Yaakov as this king's servant. Which the Masechet Megillah in the Gemara says, the fact that Yosef allowed the brothers to refer to his father as his servant a couple of times, he got punished for it. His life was shortened by 10 years.

44:34He lived 10 years less than his other brothers. So his life got shorter. This shows how much kavod you have to give to Yaakov, or to a father in general, even when they are not present. That's really how you know if somebody truly respects you and loves you. It's not about what they do when they're next to you. It's about what they do when they're not next to you. Obviously, Yaakov... I mean, Yosef couldn't tell them, "Please don't refer to your father as my servant," and stop them in the middle. This is an argument, first of all, and he has this whole plan. But nonetheless, he got punished for it. With the tzaddikim, Hashem is very, very precise. The higher the level of the tzaddik, the more precise Hashem is with each one of their sins. So you would say, maybe it's not worth it to be a tzaddik. Look, how many sins did Moshe Rabbeinu make in his entire life? A couple of sins in his entire life. Two, three, four, five sins he made. How many sins did he make? We make five a minute. His biggest sin was hitting the rock instead of speaking to the rock. It did not allow for Kiddush Hashem to happen.

45:57So for that, he lost his lifelong dream to go see the Nation of Israel, which is what he worked for and did everything for. But at the same token, as precise as Hashem is with their punishment, He's even more precise with their reward. And their reward is endless. The world, the reward that that tzaddikim receive, not just Avraham, Yitzhak, Yaakov, Moshe, Aharon, David, Shlomo, no, no, not just these people that are a world of difference from us. It's like comparing, you know, us to, I don't know, a mosquito. We can't. There's no comparison. And we're the mosquito next to them, obviously. Not even that. But I'm talking about a tzaddik in our generation. Somebody that goes and believes and does what Hashem says, fights for Hashem. When people are constantly acting like, you know, we've become a Greek nation and they spend their life with sports, spend their life with all the desires of life, go against the Torah, and you go out there and you defend Hashem, you defend the Torah, and you live according to the Torah, you can reach your full potential just like Moshe Rabbeinu reached it.

47:23So, the reward is much, much bigger than the small punishment for the tzaddikim. Because the reward is endless. The punishment is limited. Even though to us it looks like it's too much. It's extreme. Come on. He hit a rock. Losing ten years of his life for just not saying something. But in reality, when you realize... that this life, 10 years, is nothing. Because the real life is eternal. Okay, so his life got cut by 10 years, but that also means that he gets a faster VIP ticket to the real world, to Olam Haba, and he's there eternally. If anything, it's a chesed; it's even better. Because he has a good Olam Haba. That's one of the things that we need to know. Somebody that has a short life, it could be good or bad. It could be good or bad. Obviously, to the people around them, chas v'shalom, somebody dies at 30, 40 years old, 20 years old, it's terrible. It's horrible. You feel bad, you're miserable, you cry. That's for us. Maybe for him it's good. For us, it's terrible, the ones around them. But for that person, it could be good or bad. If they were a tzaddik, then that means that they finished their tikkun, they go to the Olam HaBa, and that's it. They're there eternally, everything is great.

48:50Finished. They don't have to suffer this terrible world anymore. They don't have to worry about bills. They don't have to worry about disease. They don't have to worry about wars. They don't have to worry about this one or that. Nothing. They go to Olam HaBa. That's it. They're finished. If they're a rasha, and rasha doesn't mean that they're killing people for fun. Rasha means they're going against the Torah. If they're a rasha, then unfortunately it's a bad thing for them to die early. So, now... You have Yosef and Yehudah get into an argument. Yehudah tells him, he says, Yehudah says to Yosef, "for you're like Paro. You're just like Paro." Paro contradicts himself; you contradict yourself. Paro promises things; you promise things. Paro doesn't keep his promises; you don't keep your promises. He speaks from one side, and he says something else. You're just like Paro. You push your power; you're arrogant; you're this, you're that. At that moment, Yosef knew

50:10that this is the opportunity to really test him. Why is it the opportunity to really test him? To really test not only if he loves Binyamin or not, but does he deserve to be told the truth? Is he really righteous? Is he really going and doing what his father Yaakov has been teaching him, or is he just pushing his weight around? How? You test, you're testing him to see how he acts when he's angry. When someone is angry, when someone is being put into a difficult situation and he gets frustrated, that's when they become who they really are. Even though technically when you lose control of your emotions, it's really not who you usually are. Most of the time, 90% of the time, if you're a normal person, you're a normal person and you try to be nice to people, you try to be kind, you try to do good things, and then during that 10% when you get angry, you know, you're almost murdering people. You're not really a murderer. But in reality, according to some of the teachings from the Tzaddikim, from the Sages, that 10% is who you really are. Meaning that you can fix it. You can fix it. But at the same token, it's very dangerous. There's a letter...

51:36The Ramban, who ends with an "N," the Nachmanides, wrote to his son. It's called Igeret HaRamban. I highly, highly recommend you get this. It's only $2, this book, and it's mamash. It could change your life. And he starts the letter. Actually, it's mamash amazing. The letter is, you know, three pages, and... then the rest of the book is a teaching, interpreting some of it, you know, with deeper meaning than the plain meaning. But you see the beginning, this is a very famous letter, I'm sure you've heard the first verse. Most people, especially Israelis, know the first verse of this letter, but I highly doubt they know the rest of the letter. Shema b'ni musar avicha. There's even a song, a famous song, Shema b'ni musar avicha. V'al titosh Torat imecha. Titnaheg tamid ledaber kol devarecha b'nachat lekol adam b'chol et, uv'zeh t'natzel min haka'as. Sheim midah ra'ah le'hachti b'nei adam. Heed, my son, the discipline of your father, and do not forsake the guidance of your mother. Accustom yourself to speak gently to all people at all times. This will protect you from anger.

53:02a most serious character flaw which causes one to sin. I'll continue. A rabbi is taught, this is, he's quoting Gemara in Masechet Nedarim, page 22. Whoever flares up in anger is subject to the discipline of Gehenom. As it is written, "Banish anger from your heart and remove evil from your flesh." The evil mentioned here refers to Gehenom, as it is written, "and the wicked are destined for the day of evil." So first off, he's telling you right at the beginning of the letter, this is a letter that he's sending his son after the Ramban had an argument, had a debate with someone about Christianity, and he beat him. But after, in Spain, he beat him next to the king, next to everybody. But after that, because he got all this kavod, he beat their religion. They kicked him out of Spain. So he went to Eretz Yisrael. He's old. He's already 72 or 73 years old at this time. He went to Eretz Yisrael. And they didn't have trains, planes, cars, or anything. So it was a very difficult trip for him. But his son stayed in Spain. So he sends him this letter.

54:28And he says, this is what, if you need, if you want to get to Olam HaBa, do what this letter says. Mamash, it's something amazing, this letter. I just read you the beginning. So the first thing he's telling you is that anger is the worst middah of all. Someone who is an angry person, mamash, that is the worst middah of all. It's the worst characteristic to have out of all of them. Why? Because it causes everything else to fail. Where does anger come from, according to Chazal? Pride. So really, pride is the worst one. Someone who is proud is angry. He's angry all the time. Why is he angry? How does pride lead to anger? Why is he angry? Because he thinks that everybody owes him something. He thinks that everything is supposed to work according to his plan. He thinks he's in control. He thinks he's a mini-god. Someone that's angry, according to the Gemara, according to all Torah, someone that's angry is equivalent to an idol worshiper. Someone that's angry, at the moment that he's angry, is the equivalent as if he's doing idol worship. Really. 100%.

55:54All types of, in this letter it says, also in Chazal. Chazal says, all types of Gehinnom control him when he's angry. All types of evil control him when he's angry. Now, there's not many people in the world that don't get angry. The key is to control it. The key is to control it, contain it. You could be two types of angry. You could be angry where you're one of these guys that breaks half the house, or half of the office, or slaps whoever's next to them, and blames all of their problems on whoever the victim in front of you is. Or you could be a person that got angry, frustrated, but can keep yourself contained. No outbursts, no screaming, no yelling, No cursing and blaming people and making it a whole balagan. Okay, you're angry. Take a one-minute break. Breathe for one minute without talking. The anger will go down. With Hashem, you move on. Two types of anger. It takes a lot of work. A lot of work. I'm saying this more for myself than I'm saying this for you guys. It's a lot of work. Everything that I say in this shiur is mostly to remind myself.

57:18No one should ever think that I'm perfect and I'm portrayed to be perfect or even close to perfect. This is all really to remind myself. Most of what I... A lot of what I teach here is because I need to remind myself and to teach myself. I learn a lot from you guys. So the key here is anger is mamash the worst midah of all because it comes from pride. And someone that's proud, Hashem says I can't be in his life. Me and him cannot be in the same room. Someone that's proud. Someone that's angry... It's not that we can't be in the same room. He has somebody else in the room. He's working, he's idol worshipping. The Ramban here says to his son, before he says anything else, before he says how to get to Olam HaBa, before he says what to do, how to do, before he says anything, he says, just listen, the worst midah, the worst character trait you could possibly have is anger. The worst one. If you have all the bad character traits, this is number one. So work on this one, and the rest of them will follow suit. That's the first thing he's teaching us. The second one is that anyone who knows anything about Torah knows the Ramban is one of the most important sages we've had in history. He lived about close to 800 years ago and did a whole pirush, a whole interpretation and translation of the...

58:41...of the Rishonim, the Gemara, and many, many other things. Very, very important work. Very big Kabbalist. Something amazing. He knew what he was talking about in so many words. And the Ramban is saying something that a lot of rabbis today, or people that call themselves rabbis today, or sects of Judaism that say that they're following the Torah say. He's pretty much saying that all of them are... not only mistaken, but they're k'firin. By what? One word that he mentions, Gehinnom. A lot of Jews that say that they're teaching the Torah claim that there's no such thing as Gehinnom. That all Jews have a share in Olam Haba. All Jews will be, you know, Gehinnom is like a washing machine, it just fixes you for a short period of time, and then you get out of it. It's no big deal, and every Jew goes to Gan Eden. The one that murders, the one that, you know, sleeps with his friend's wife, the one that's Mechalel Shabbat, the one that eats pork every Tuesday, everybody goes to the same places as Moshe Rabbeinu, Rabbi Akiva, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, every righteous Jew. There's no Gehinnom. So,

1:00:02Here, this is one of the most important letters ever written. My letters, they don't make books about them. No? Your letters, I don't think so either. Not yet. Not anybody else's letters. They don't make... Not just a book. They made... The letter's three pages, but the rest of the book is trying to explain to you the details, the deeper meaning of each one of the verses. Mamash, something amazing. So... This is from a letter. It wasn't supposed to be a letter to teach other people. This is a personal letter to his son. It's a beautiful letter. So, he's telling you here, Gehinom is real. Anger is real. You have to work on it. Middot is everything. Working on your character is everything. So, Yosef, going back to this parasha, Yosef is trying to test his brother to see how he acts when he's angry. Is it anger purely because he's a hothead? Or is it anger from passion and love to protect his family? Now, as we talked about last week, this is not your typical family. This family was composed of superheroes. So, as soon as Yehudah understood that Yosef was not intending to release his brother Binyamin, Yehudah made a lion's roar, his famous roar.

1:01:31And the roar was so loud that it literally shook Egypt. The son of Dan, Chushim, also had a roar, had this power of a roar. And he was back in Canaan with Yaakov. As soon as he sensed it, he got to Egypt right there, like in a matter of a second, like Flash. Got there in two seconds, and he joined Yehudah with the Shor. Also, Yehudah, when he got angry, according to the Midrash, the Ohr HaTorah, he would have these hairs on his chest that would spike like nails and go through his clothes. And then parts of his body would turn to copper. You know, like these mamash, these X-Men superhero movies. Parts of his body would turn to copper, and he would rip them off and chew them, like mamash, to relieve his anger. Like mamash, something extraordinary. So now, we have this, the...

1:03:01We have this situation where he is shaking up the place. Then Yosef tells his son Menashe to show some power. So his son Menashe stomps his foot on the ground and it crushes everything below him, making an earthquake. So Yosef is telling Yehudah, "What do you think, you're the only one that has these superpowers?" And Yehudah says, "How could this be? We're the only family in the world that has this. These people must be from our family or something. Something's weird. How could they have these things? Also, if Hashem is giving them these powers, that means that they're righteous. Hashem doesn't give these powers to just anybody." So they start debating, they start arguing. He says, "Release Binyamin. I'll be your slave. I'm better than him. I'm stronger. I'm a better worker. I'm more experienced. Why do you want Binyamin?" He goes, "Listen, he stole. I'm going to keep him. Why do you care anyway? You already got rid of his brother." So he's picking at him. "You already got rid of his brother. You didn't really fight for his brother when he was screaming not to be sold, and he was screaming in the hole you threw him in."

1:04:26Why don't you fight for him? So at this point, Yehuda really, really, so he did such a big roar. It says, the Midrash says something really scary. It says two cities, two cities, Pitom and Raamses, which were not far from where they were, were destroyed instantly. Two cities were destroyed from his anger. Two cities. He yelled, he and Chushim yelled, and two cities got destroyed. Women who were pregnant had miscarriages. Different people who heard the scream, their faces changed. It shook up the whole of Egypt. And now he's saying to Yosef, listen, if I take out my sword, if you don't say you're going to release my brother, if I take out my sword, I'm going to start with you and finish with Pharaoh. Meaning I'm going to kill everybody in Egypt. So Yosef also has powers. Yosef says, who do you think you are? You made a crime, this is what's going to happen. So when Yehudah is trying to take out his sword,

1:05:52He says that he can't take it out. He realizes that Yosef also has powers and his powers are possibly even stronger than his. So, according to the Oral Torah, it says that there was so much action, so much spiritual action, that all the angels came to watch this. All the angels came to watch this mamash. It was mamash something like a really interesting affair. And it's a... So Yehudah is, again, arguing with him. What's, you know, let him go. And this is all in the Oral Torah. The Written Torah doesn't say any of these details, really. Very little, very few. But you get it from different verses. Like, for example, it says that when... When they came and they were debating, it says that Pharaoh heard. You know, he cried in a loud voice. Egypt heard and Pharaoh's household heard. So what did they hear? They heard all this happening. It just doesn't give the details. So then Yehudah says to Naftali, the brother, he says, go check out all of the land of Egypt and come back to me, tell me what they have.

1:07:18So Naftali, in a matter of a few minutes, went through all of Egypt, which is huge, but he was speedy. And he went through all of Egypt, said that there's 12 parts to Egypt. There's 12 parts of Egypt. So Yehudah said, okay, I'm going to destroy three of them. The rest of you, each one of you, take one. We're going to kill everybody here. So the brothers came to him and said, no, no, we can't. This is not Shechem. You know, when we destroyed Shechem, we destroyed this, you know, one group of people. But here, this is a whole civilization. Hashem doesn't want us to destroy civilizations. He didn't give us this power to destroy civilizations. Make peace. At the same time, Yosef, who brought all, you know, a bunch of soldiers, tens of thousands of soldiers, which, you know, none of them could take anybody here, but still, he brought them just for the... He even told them, don't fight because they'll kill you, but just be there for intimidation. Even the soldiers are scared and running away. Some of them are staying back, begging Yosef to please, please give them back the pension. So at that point, he says, you know, that tells him, listen, if I don't, my father is still mourning to this day.

1:08:49about the other son that he lost. If I don't bring this son back, he's dead already. So it's not only that I'm losing this brother, I'm going to lose my father too. For that, I'll destroy everything before I let that happen. And that's when Yosef realized that they're genuine, that they really are caring people. And he also asked him, how come you didn't do any of this? Why don't you save your other brother? And when he mentioned that, Yehuda started hysterically crying from how he made a mistake. He realized that he made a mistake 22 years ago. Until this point, he didn't think he made a mistake. He thought he made the right decision. But he's... 22 years. So, Najib...

1:09:52So he realized that Hashem is only giving this king power because, number one, he's a tzaddik apparently, and we're the wicked. That's the difference between the tzaddikim and regular people. A regular person looks at everybody else's mistakes. He says, no, no, they're all making mistakes, they're all sinning, they're all going against Hashem, and they're all doing it on purpose. A tzaddik looks at himself and says, I'm making mistakes; I have to fix myself first. Again, in this letter from the Ramban, he says one of the most important middot to have is humility, anavah. He says, in order to develop humility, one of the things you need to do is look at everybody else's sins as shogeg and your own sins as mezid. Everybody else's sins are accidental, but your sins are on purpose. So you should worry, you know, you have to fix yourself. Find a way to see that everybody else is not doing it on purpose. It's giving kaf zechut.

1:11:11give people kaf zechut and find a way. Why are they making a sin? Why are they violating Shabbat? Obviously, they're violating Shabbat because they don't know that it's Shabbat. Oh, but then they know it's Shabbat because they came to the Beit Knesset with a car. So they know it's Shabbat. Okay, so they don't know they're driving on Shabbat to the Beit Knesset because they don't know you're not allowed to drive on Shabbat. No, no, but the rabbi said not to drive on Shabbat. No, and the rabbi said not to drive on Shabbat. He wasn't paying attention. He didn't hear it. And you're constantly making excuses for people as to why they're making sins, but it's all accidental. And Chazal teaches us that the reason why Hashem gave us imagination was not so we can make nice drawings. Not so we can make beautiful websites or home theater systems. He gave us an imagination so we could have creative ways to give people kaf zechut. Give people the benefit of the doubt. Things that don't make sense, but somehow it makes sense to give them kaf zechut. Why? To give people kaf zechut, maybe you won't judge them. And if you don't judge them, you'll be more helpful to them.

1:12:25by getting them closer. But if you judge people, if you keep telling them, "Rasha, Rasha, Rasha, Rasha, Rasha, Rasha," and everybody thinks you're just calling people, judging people all the time, they're not going to want to listen to you. They're not going to want to listen to you. And you can't be a pretender. You also can't be fake. You can't say, "No, no, this guy's a tzaddik," when you know the guy's not a tzaddik. you know, not only is he not a tzaddik, he's a kofer. He goes against the Torah. He does things on purpose. He makes fun of rabbis. He does this. He does that. So you can't be fake. But at the same token, you have to have a nice balance. So when you're telling people, listen, you're doing something wrong, you're talking to them in a way where you tell them, listen, I know that you don't know. There's no way that you're making this big mistake of making a sin, whether it's violating Shabbat, or wasting seed, or any other sin that's out there, there's no way you're doing it intentionally. Obviously, you don't know, so let me tell you what I learned about it. This is what happens when you do this, this is what happens when you do this, this is what happens when you do this. Okay. So now, what if you tell him, and he does it again? Still, he said, no, no, you know what? He didn't understand. He didn't understand. You're going to tell him what happens.

1:13:42I didn't explain it right. Let me do it again, and again, and again. You've got to keep going. And that's how you've got to get people to get close. So I always try to tell you and anybody else, when I tell you that there are all these sins and all the judgments of these sins, it's not about me judging anyone. I'm no one to judge anyone. It's about that you need to know the truth. And it's not my place to decide what the truth is for you. The truth is what Hashem says. You'll do what you want with it. You know, I tell you what you're allowed to do, what you're not allowed to do, based on what the Torah says, based on the words of Hashem. What you do is up to you. Obviously, it's better to be on the right side of Hashem than on the wrong side. But, you know, Hashem gave you the common sense to figure that out also. Sometimes I just have to remind you of it. And myself. So now, when Yosef sees that his brother Yehuda is genuine,

1:14:42He can't take it anymore, so he tells all of his soldiers, "Get out, get out, all of you!" It was about to be a war. He's telling all of his soldiers to leave. The whole house is destroyed, pretty much. Between his power and their power, the floor is broken, rocks are broken, boulders are broken. Two cities destroyed. Two cities destroyed. He tells everybody to leave. "Leave me with them alone." On one hand, Chazal says over here that he didn't want to show the truth to the Egyptians. On the other hand, he didn't want to embarrass his brothers. When they find out who he really is, they're going to be embarrassed. Again, at the end of the day, they sold him and intended to kill him. So, it says, "Now Yosef could not restrain himself in the presence of all who stood before him, so he called out, 'Remove everyone from before me.' Thus no one remained with him when Yosef made himself known to his brothers. He cried in a loud voice; Egypt heard, and Pharaoh's household heard." It says that Egypt heard, and Pharaoh's household heard. They heard him crying. Mamash heard him crying. And Yosef was so important,

1:16:09to Egypt, that everybody became worried, as if something had happened. And Yosef said to his brothers, "I am Yosef, is my father still alive?" But his brothers could not answer him because they were left disconcerted beforehand. They were shocked. They were shocked. They could not. In the Midrash, not surprised. The surprise would be you, I don't know, giving your wife a plane for, what's it called, for just a weekly gift. That's a surprise. They died. According to the Midrash, they died. Shocked. They died. They literally died. Hashem had to bring them back to life. All of them died. All of them died from shock. A combination of shock, but most of it embarrassment. So, was this like 22 years of not seeing their brother? Okay, 22 years they haven't seen him. But now they haven't seen him. They sold him. They were going to kill him. They sold him. They thought he was dead. Mm-hmm.

1:17:33And now, not only is he not dead, but he is the king of Egypt. He's the one that's been putting them through this whole test. So they, mamash, died. And Hashem had to bring them back from the dead. So this is actually one of the 13 principles of faith that you're supposed to say every day: that the day is going to come when Hashem is going to bring back the dead. The resurrection of the dead. Someone who does not believe that Hashem is going to bring back the dead, meaning not just all the dead, but the righteous people. People who are righteous will come back to life. A lot of people have a problem believing that. Someone who doesn't believe that has not only a problem, but it says that he won't be brought back, even if he's a good person overall, because he doesn't believe in one of the foundations of Judaism. Now, not believing in bringing back the dead technically doesn't really make much sense. The reason why is because people think that it's so hard for Hashem or something like that, or so hard to bring back the dead for someone that’s, you know, for Hashem that’s unlimited. When you really think about it, it's actually less—not that it's work at all for Hashem—but it's less work technically, less has to be done to bring back the dead than to bring you to life in the first place.

1:19:03Because to bring you to life, you come from nothing. You come from a little drop. Not even a drop. It's a drop of a drop. It's a tiny, tiny microscopic seed. You can't even see it with the naked eye. You need a microscope to see what really becomes you. It's something almost microscopic. Out of the 300 million that come out of the male's body, one succeeds. All of them are meant to be lives. That's why wasting seed is so dangerous. That's why wasting seed is such a terrible sin. Because technically, each one of them has a potential life. That's why it's considered, when someone wastes, it's considered like he murdered 300 million people. So now, you come from a seed, from nothing. And that seed turns into, in a matter of nine months, turns into this whole functioning human being with a brain that, with more wiring in their brain, even a baby's brain has more wiring in it than the entire world combined. All the technology in the entire world combined does not have the same wiring as a little baby. And that brain is still not even fully developed. A fully developed brain is even more. And he's moving or she's moving and makes sounds and hears and sees. with more wiring in their brain, even a baby's brain has more wiring in it than the entire world combined. All the technology in the entire world combined does not have the same wiring as a little baby. And that brain is still not even fully developed. A fully developed brain is even more. And he's moving or she's moving and makes sounds and hears and sees.

1:20:24comes from a little dropper with bringing back the dead. Hashem already has half the job. He already has half the bones. He has all the bones already. The only thing that's missing is the flesh and the neshama, the spirit. That's it. So, bringing back the dead, for anyone that believes in the Torah, obviously, it's purely based on lack of knowledge. It cannot be Someone that's really read Torah, learned the Torah, and really has a hard time believing it. But apparently, it's a tough thing for some people to believe. Either way, the brothers mamash died, and Hashem had to bring them back from the dead. And this is also one of the places where Yosef was trying to be careful, because he knew of the law that someone who embarrasses his fellow in public... loses his share of the World to Come. Someone that embarrasses, that’s why when someone gets embarrassed, it’s like you murdered him. That’s why the face becomes red. So, that's why Yosef told everybody to leave, all these soldiers to leave.

1:21:51don't come. You know, don't stay here. Because he wanted to make sure that his brothers didn't get embarrassed in front of all these strangers. But still, they got embarrassed amongst each other and amongst HaMakom, amongst Hashem, that they made a bad move. Because at that moment, each one of them received the prophecy, including Yosef. And they realized everything that Hashem did why he did it, and that this is all part of Hashem's plan. Even though it was their mistake, it was still part of Hashem's plan. Hashem made that mistake work. Yosef, on the other hand, after they acknowledged that, went and hugged his brother Binyamin, and they cried on each other, And then he starts speaking to his brothers, and they're all crying. Now, when Yosef and Binyamin were crying, it says that both of them received a prophecy of the future. And both of them were crying about that. Number one, this is really when the time that the Jews are going to come, the family's going to come to Egypt.

1:23:17And this is when the problems are going to start, really. Okay, so Yaakov and the whole family are coming to Egypt, but this is really the place that's part of that prophecy that our grandfather, our great-grandfather Avraham received from Hashem—that we're going to be slaves here at some point. But we still have to do it. And also, we have to do it in order to get to the Torah. And we need to get to Torah in order for us to build the Beit HaMikdash. But that Beit HaMikdash is going to be destroyed. So they start crying about the Beit HaMikdash being destroyed. And then they say, okay, we're going to get the second Beit HaMikdash, but that Beit HaMikdash is also going to be destroyed. And then after that, we're going to be in exile for a couple thousand years until the end. So they saw literally all of the suffering of Am Yisrael during this crying session, during this hugging session. Something amazing. So he tells them, "Hurry up and bring my father down here. Don't waste any time." Yosef finds out that these are his brothers, and he's very happy about it. Why is Yosef happy that his brothers have come to Egypt?

1:24:36What does Paul really care about his brothers? Why does he want Yosef to have friends? I think he knows they've been blessed. They've been blessed. They're blessed? They've been blessed. More blessed. Okay. You're on the right direction. He figures that Yosef is so smart and so special, and he calls him the Man of God. And there's nothing like him that made, put Paul, you know, made Paul the most important and richest person in the world. From all his whole plan, his whole prophecy that he had. He says, if the youngest brother, one of the youngest brothers has this, 10 more of him or 11 more of him, wow. He's thinking there's going to be at least another couple of Yosefs in there. So he's really happy. That's why Chazal says, you give someone 100, he wants 200. You give him 200, he wants 400. He's thinking, oh, I need to get even richer. He didn't think about the two cities that were destroyed. No, he doesn't care about the cities that were destroyed. He's thinking, oh, this guy just made me the richest person in the world. Now I'm going to be even richer somehow. So now, Paro says, I'm commanding you, this is the first command that is written about that Yosef.

1:26:00received from Paro since he became king. Because in essence, Paro gave him the keys to the store. He said, you're the boss. Only I can overrule you, but I don't care. You do your job. Do what you gotta do. It's the first time that Paro got involved. He says, I'm commanding you to say this. Take for yourselves from the land of Egypt wagons for your small children and your wives. Transport your father and come. And let your eye not take pity on your belongings. For the best of all the land of Egypt, it is yours. He says, I'm commanding you to make sure, take the best wagons, like the best cars, the equivalent of planes pretty much in those days. Take the best wagons, go, bring them everything. Give them everything that they need to come here as soon as possible. I'm commanding you. Now, why does he have to command them? Okay, so you can tell him, "Listen, we have the regular wagons, and then we have the special ones. Take the special ones." Always excited. Why is he excited? Because, like he said, you know, there's a lot of fortune coming into his palace. Okay, but why is he commanding? Why can't he just tell him? I said that, but why can't he just tell him? Why do you say, "Listen, just a..." No, why? What's it called? Yosef runs the show. Yosef runs also. To be important. Because he knows. Because he has to be important.

1:27:24So you're all in the right direction, but this actually teaches us something very important about Yosef. Yes, Paro wants to be part of it. Yes, Paro is very excited. His greed is very excited. But at the same token, Paro was not a fool, and he was not blind. He knew that Yosef was very, very ultra, ultra righteous. And he wouldn't take advantage of the system for even a penny. He only took what was his. So he knew that even though he had control of the entire country, he didn't push his weight like politicians do today. The guy has a politician's job, he's supposed to serve the public, but in reality, he has the public serve him. He said, "Yeah, no, build me a new house and I'll make sure that this contract comes to your company. Give me a few dollars, a few extra zeros in my bank account." And I'll make sure that the city gets approval for whatever you want. There's a bridge that you want to build there. Yosef, not even one penny would he take. He says, even though I'm entitled to use the best stuff that Egypt has to offer, I'm not. If they need just basic carriages, I'll give them basic carriages. If they need basic horses, I'll give them basic horses. Pharaoh says, I already know you're a very ultra-righteous tzaddik. So I'm commanding you not to be this ultra-righteous on this stuff because I want to give it.

1:28:48You're not breaking the law. I want to make sure that you use the best stuff we have to go bring your family. Don't go bring them in a little Volvo to Egypt. Take the limousine. Take the jet. Take my personal jet. Make sure you bring them the best. That's why he commanded them because he knew that Yosef is so righteous that he wouldn't even think to use anything that didn't belong to him. It's something amazing. So then, Yosef tells his brothers, "Listen, make sure that you don't become agitated, don't argue on the way. Do not become agitated on the way." It's kind of strange advice.

1:29:50You just told them, “Listen, you found your brother you haven't seen in 22 years. Go bring my father. I'm the king of pretty much the world. And by the way, don't get angry on the way.” What's the secret here? Obviously, he's not saying it for no reason. His brothers are not hotheads; they're tzaddikim. So why is he reminding them, “Don't get angry”? No shalom. I don't understand. Why don't you understand? What's the point of not being angry? I'm proud. Huh? Because of the pride. Okay, but... He says specifically, don't become angry on the way, during this road, this trip. Oh, why during the trip? Yeah, why...

1:30:52Because they might not come back. No. So that way they'll be in good behavior when they go see their dad. In a good mood. Rabbi Hanina Segan HaKohanim says No, I'm sorry. Rabbi Chanina ben Teradyon says, There are two people who sit together, or walk together, and decide, well, let's go to the Beit Knesset. Let's go to the store. Let's go get some pizza. Two people walk around, and on their way, they don't speak Divrei Torah,

1:31:57they are considered like two clowns. But not clowns in a funny way, rather clowns in a very, very negative way. It quotes a Tehillim: Hashem does not dwell amongst the clowns. This means you have no Hashem and you don't consider Hashem as... something important enough to talk about, He's not going to be in your life. But two that do speak when they're walking amongst each other, or together, Hashem says, I have an endless amount of angels, the heavens, the earth, several heavens, the world, billions of people, billions, trillions of creations. I'm going to stop everything that I'm doing because I want to go see what my two sons are talking about. I want to be part of the conversation. This is what it says. Two are speaking about Torah. You go to the store, five minutes. You say divrei Torah. Hashem says, oh...

1:33:21I want to be part, I want, I have everything that he's got, everything in the world. I want to go see what my sons are talking about. I want to be part of the conversation. So on one end, he says, you're a קלָאוּן (clown), but not a clown, funny clown. On the other end, he says, I'm enjoying your conversation, I want to be part of your conversation. Huh? Huh? So if you're angry, you don't speak Torah. So when you speak Torah, of course, you're not going to get angry. Because you speak Torah, because you're connecting to Hashem. When you're angry, we said earlier today, Anger is akin to idol worship. So, he says, don't waste your time on the way. Speak nothing. Speak about, oh, listen, it's your fault. You're the one who really wanted to sell him. You're the one who really wanted to sell him. Maybe you should have said this. Maybe you should have said that. Maybe we should have gotten this. What should I bring from the house? Should I bring the TV? Should I bring the horse? Forget about that stuff. Talk Torah.

1:34:48everything is going to be a road. Your road home is going to be good, your road back here is going to be good, everything is going to be good. But if you talk nonsense, you're going to get into a fight, you're going to get into anger, and Gehinnom takes control at that point. So that's what he says. So that's, so now, what happens on the same Pirkei Avot? To finish with this Pirkei Avot, what happens if somebody is by himself... Right. So it says over here, if someone is by himself, they don't need a chavruta to say Divrei Torah, and that's when Hashem is going to come. Even if someone's by himself, wants to, okay, he's by himself, in the Beit Knesset, in the house, whatever it

1:35:48opens the Chumash, opens anything, Gemara, book, anything that is Torah, Hashem wants to be a part of it. He's going to come join this person. But not if you're learning this Torah while the TV is on. You're watching a game and learning Torah. This applies even if you're not learning. Of course, but all the more so for Torah learning. Torah is holy. Science is not holy. Your math homework is not holy. No, I mean you cannot focus on that. Right. You have to treat Torah as if Hashem is here. So that will be disrespectful? Sure. Watching the basketball created by the Greeks that tainted the Beit HaMikdash while at the same time you're inviting Hashem to watch the game. it's better to listen. If it's the only way, I'm not going to say necessarily you should, but if it's the only way for you to learn Torah while the game is on, what can I tell you? But the key is to try to learn Torah by itself. To focus. It's hard. I know it's hard. In the beginning especially. But what he's telling you here is that when you learn Torah by yourself, seriously, Hashem comes over. So if Hashem was coming over, would you watch the game with Hashem? He's not your buddy. If you want to, God bless you. So...

1:37:08When you learn Torah by yourself, seriously, Hashem comes over. So if Hashem was coming over, would you watch the game with Hashem? He's not your buddy. If you want to, God bless you. So... So now, moving on, the brothers now have a problem. They have to go tell their father, who is 130 years old, that his son that he's been crying about for 22 years is alive. One time there were two friends. One was very, very poor, ultra poor. And the other guy was also poor, but not as poor as this guy. And, you know, he tells him, listen, why don't you tell us, the really poor guy? He says, look, listen.

1:38:22Why don't you buy a lotto ticket? You know, you get a few dollars every day. Take one dollar, buy a lotto ticket. It's a lotto ticket. No, people like me don't win. It's not. Because what do you care? Buy a lotto ticket. Long story short, he convinces him to buy a lotto ticket. When you buy a lotto ticket, do you really expect to win? It's a donation, pretty much. So, based on halacha, by the way, you're allowed to buy the minimum. Meaning, you're allowed to buy, if the minimum is one dollar, you're allowed to buy one dollar. You're not allowed to spend $10, $20, $30 on lotto tickets. Halacha is the minimum. Why? Because the minimum of a dollar is not going to change your life, whereas $10, $15, $20 can change either your life or somebody else's. So it's considered, I could say, you're disrespecting the parnassah of what Hashem is giving you, number one. And two, as far as gambling, for anyone who doesn't know, gambling you're not allowed to do, not even against people.

1:39:24people say, no, no, no, I'm not playing against the casino, I'm playing against people, like Texas Hold'em. Now they have to do it because it's considered like you stole their money when you win. And when you lose, it's considered like they stole your money. So anyway, with lotto tickets, he says to him, "Listen, buy one, buy one, buy one." He buys the one ticket. So his friend checks his lotto ticket, and he finds out this guy actually won. He says, "Okay, this guy's been homeless for so many years. If I tell him he just won $10 million, he's going to die. He's going to have a heart attack. He's going to die. So what should I do? I'm so happy for him, but at the same time, he's going to die." So he's thinking, he's thinking, he's thinking. He says, "Okay, you know what? I'm going to tell him to go to a doctor, and the doctor's going to tell him. The doctor can take care of him." He tells the doctor. The doctor says, no problem. So the doctor comes. He knows he's a psychiatrist. He knows how to deal with it. So he gets him to come to him. Yes. Let me ask you a question. What would happen if you, that lottery ticket that you won, what would happen if you, I don't know, won $100? Wow, $100. Wow, $100 would be so much to me. I could buy food for almost a week, for the whole week.

1:40:45Maybe I'll even get myself something nice. $100, a treat. Okay, what would happen if you won $500? $500, come on. People like me don't win $500. Okay, just pretend. What would happen if you won $500? Wow, $500. He's already picturing what he's going to do. I could get myself a place to stay. I could get myself a new shirt so I could get a job. What would you do if you won $5,000? Again, what's his game? He goes, come on, just play along with me. What would happen? $5,000, I get myself an apartment. I give him the whole picture. He's visualizing it. You ever buy a lottery ticket? I know when you buy a lottery ticket, you say, "Oh, it says $100 million." You're already visualizing what you're going to do with the money. Don't tell me you don't do it. I know I do it. You're already visualizing, "Oh, $100 million, okay, I'm going to split it up. I know they're taking half for taxes, fine. Then, I'll buy myself this, I'll buy that." You're already picturing what you're going to do with the money. Everybody does.

1:41:56So he's giving him the picture. Finally, the guy says, "Okay, what are you going to do if you get the $10 million?" The little homeless guy is already frustrated. He's been asking him this question for 10 minutes already. "What are you going to do? What are you going to do?" The guy doesn't even have a dollar. He goes, "Okay, doc, listen, if I get $10 million, I'm giving you half." The doctor got a heart attack and died. Why did he die? Because his heart couldn't take it. He wasn't expecting it. So the brothers had a problem. Yosef was the most favored son of his father. And he's been gone for 22 years, and his father didn't stop crying, didn't stop mourning for 22 years. Throughout these 22 years, if you notice, anytime it's referring to Yaakov, it's referring to Yaakov by the name Yaakov. Whereas before that, his name was changed, Hashem changed his name to Yisrael. When he was called Yisrael... He was referred to, that's when he was having prophecies, when he had Ruach HaKodesh. So, throughout these 22 years, he did not have Ruach HaKodesh. Why didn't he have Ruach HaKodesh? Because he was sad. You cannot have Ruach HaKodesh when you're sad. So, they were saying, a father is already 130 years old, and we're going to tell him his kid's alive, I mean, this guy's alive, he might get a heart attack and die. Where do we live here? So, they did something very clever. Very clever.

1:43:17and they sent the daughter of Asher, her name was Serach, Serach bat Asher. And Serach bat Asher, they told her, "Listen, go start, you know, Saba Yaakov likes to hear your music, and you sing. So go in the background and start singing, 'Yosef is alive' in the background." So she's in the background, you know, Yaakov is learning this Torah, And all of a sudden, he starts hearing, you know, he's sad, he's mourning, but he's learning the Torah, he's trying to focus, and all of a sudden, he starts hearing this tune in the background. Yosef is alive, and he's the king of Egypt. Yosef is alive, and he's the king of Egypt. From this little girl. And he doesn't know what's going on. Why would anybody say something like this? Am I hearing this? Is this my imagination? What's going on here? At that moment, the brothers arrive with the special carriages, very fancy carriages, and they come and they tell Yaakov, "Your son Yosef lives. Yosef is still alive, and he is the ruler of all the land of Egypt."

1:44:40Initially, Yaakov couldn't handle it. He couldn't believe it. He rejected it. He could not believe it. It's not possible. Twenty-two years I've been crying about this. But then it says, however, when they related to him all of the words that Yosef had spoken to them and he saw the wagons that Yosef had sent to transport him, then the spirit of their father Yaakov was revived. And Yisrael said, "How great! My son Yosef lives." I shall go and see him before I die. So what happened here? One second he doesn't believe them. The next second he says they told him everything he said. And he saw the wagons. And now he got his Ruach HaKodesh back. He's called Yisrael again. He believed. He was happy. What did they tell him? So Yaakov, before Yosef was sold, was teaching

1:45:40Yosef, all the special parts of the Torah. All the secrets. And the last shiur they had was about the red cow and the eglah arufah. So, eglah arufah is what happens if a calf has a broken neck. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It glorifies when the neck is... So it says, if, let's say, there's a murder, and if it's an unsolved murder between two cities, between two cities. Okay. And they have to decide who's at fault. We don't know who the murderer is, but the cities, it's somebody's fault. Hashem doesn't have these murders happen for no reason. So the Sanhedrin are sent over there, the leaders of the Sanhedrin are sent over there to check out which

1:47:05city the body is closer to, and whichever city the body is closer to, they have to bring a calf and have to chop off its head as a sacrifice, in essence, for the murder that happened in their land. There's obviously much more to it. It's in Masechet Sotah, but it's a... more to it. It also relates to Parah Adumah. Anyway, so the last lesson that Yaakov taught Yosef was about Parah Adumah. So they told him, "Listen, Yosef told us that you taught him about Parah Adumah. And it's a sign that you don't think we're just making that up. Maybe we heard it 22 years ago." He sent us with special agalot. Agalot, that's the carriages. But agalot is also another name for calves. Egel is a calf. It's a secret within a secret. By the way, the last part, the agalot, I actually heard from Rabbi Mansour in one of his shiurim. Very, very interesting.

1:48:31So, but it's also in the Midrash over here. Rashi says some of it. So the agalot could also be translated as calves. So anyway, it's not just something we heard from 22 years ago and remembered, and we're not making this up; this is not a joke. He even sent us a sign that this is legitimate, that you even see that he sent us these special carriages, these special agalot. So at that moment, Yaakov realized something very, very important. Hashem gave us everything we have and everything we're ever going to have. But He also gave us a very, very special gift that 99% of people, 99.9999% of people do not appreciate. What is this gift? Forgetting. Forgetting. Memory loss.

1:49:33Most people, if you tell them, "Do you remember ta-ta-ta-ta-ta?" and they say, "No, no, I forgot," usually that means a bad thing. They eat a lot of olives. They eat a lot of olives, yeah. I'm going to say, paying attention. So, forgetting is actually chesed from Hashem. It's not only chesed... a gift, like everything else He gives us. It's actually chesed. It's mercy from Hashem. Why is it mercy? Hashem says, listen, if you never forgot anything, if you have the type of memory that you don't forget anything, chas v'shalom, when someone dies in your life that's important to you, you're going to suffer as if they died yesterday your whole life. You're not going to be able to continue. So Hashem made a law in nature that after one year, it's not that you forget that these people died, important to you, but... You forget part of it where you don't feel it the same way. Most people. Unfortunately, there are some people, especially mothers of kids that died early. I have an aunt in Israel. She has several kids, but one of her sons died close to 30 years ago. Mishken died...

1:50:48from sartan, from cancer, till this day, she mourns him every day. Till this day she fixes his room. Till this day she, mamash, cries about losing her son from 30 years ago. She has other kids, but this one was special. But most regular people, when someone dies in the family, after a year, Hashem made a law in nature that after a year you're able to get over it and get on with your life. Not that you forgot the dead, or that you don't care, but Hashem actually gave us this gift of losing our memory so we can move on with our lives. Most people, without forgetting, think it's a bad thing. But in reality, when you think about it, it's mamash something that's a gift from Hashem. So Yaakov realizes something over here. He says... 22 years I'm suffering. 22 years I'm mourning my son Yosef. When Hashem clearly made a law that I'm only supposed to suffer for a year. But I felt like he died yesterday, every day, for 22 years. So it's not possible. It goes against the rules of Hashem. That means that they’re right. He’s not dead. So I've been mourning...

1:52:13And I haven't forgotten about this, about him, because there's nothing to forget, because he's still alive. It's deep. It's deep. He says, I'm mourning for no reason. That's why I'm mourning. That's why I didn't forget it. I didn't forget it because I can't forget it. He's still alive. My neshamah knows that his neshamah is still here. That's why Hashem didn't let me forget it. Because if I would have forgotten, I would have never, this whole thing, wouldn't have sent the kids to the Inyan, wouldn't have, you know, this whole thing, wouldn't have happened. So, his logic helped him get to the next step, and obviously, more importantly, is a connection to Hashem, and using the Torah, and the rules of the Torah, to get to the truth, and he got, he was revived, and he now got his Ruach HaKodesh back, and when he got his Ruach HaKodesh back, It verified, and he saw pretty much everything that happened and why it happened. And now it all makes sense. And now he says, "How great, my son Yosef lives. I shall go and see him before I die." Now it says that before he gets to Egypt, there's a stop.

1:53:42And two things happen. The first thing is, he stops and he does a korban for Hashem. He offers a sacrifice to Hashem to thank Him for giving him his son back, in so many words. But the second thing is that he sends Yehudah ahead of him. Ve'et Yehudah shalach lefanav. al-Yosef lehorot lefanav Goshenah v'ya'avor artzah Goshen. Why send Yehudah first? Okay, we're all going. Seventy people are going. To prepare the place where they're going. The Egyptians and Yosef are already building the city for them. What do they need? They need Yehudah to go build them a house? Egyptians can build a house. He has his powers.

1:54:44So it says he has a secret here. It says, oh, this is beautiful. V'et Yehuda shalach lefanav el Yosef lehorot lefanav. Lehorot means to teach, which implies that Yaakov was sending Yehuda to Egypt to build a Beit Midrash, to build a place to learn Torah. It says when you move, when you go from place to place, your number one concern before you figure out if you like the house, don't like the house, if you like the neighbors, don't like the neighbors, is if there's Torah over there. If there's a place to learn Torah. No place to learn Torah, it's not for you. Mm-hmm. Simple as it gets. The first thing you have to worry about before you worry about anything else, whether you like the economy, you like this, you like that, is if there's Torah over there. If there's Torah over there, you can go. He says, obviously Egypt doesn't have Torah. Torah is not public yet. He says, so I have to send Yehudah. Yehudah knows Torah. He's going to go build us the Beit Midrash. He's going to go build us the Yeshiva over there. Before worrying about our house, before worrying about building our houses, before worrying about anything else.

1:56:01we need to make sure that by the time we get there, it’s already ready, the yeshiva is already ready for us so we can go right into learning. This is already more than almost 4,000 years ago, and people still didn't figure it out. So now, Yaakov is showing us something, l'maaseh, that's what's really important in life. The second thing that also happens is that Yaakov stops in this city because this city had a certain type of cedar tree. A certain type of cedar tree because Yaakov received the nevu'ah according to the Oral Torah. He received the prophecy that even though he is going down to Egypt, this again is going to be the exile. This is where we're leaving Eretz Yisrael, we're leaving Canaan, which is later called Eretz Yisrael, and the prophecy is going to come true. So Hashem says to him, I am the God, God of your father, have no fear of descending to Egypt.

1:57:27For I shall establish you as a great nation there. I shall descend with you to Egypt, and I shall also surely bring you up. And Yosef shall place his hand on your eyes. So why is Hashem saying you shall have no fear? What are you afraid of? Your son is the king. Because he got the prophecy, Yaakov got the prophecy that this is it. This is the time where my whole family is going to go to Egypt. Maybe the whole situation with the Egyptians turning us into slaves starts now. Hmm. So we're just going over there. My son is a king, but only temporarily. As soon as we get there, they're going to throw us all into slavery. So Hashem says, no, no, no. I'm not sending you specifically over there to be slaves. You're going to not only live over there and enjoy the rest of your life, but Yosef is going to outlive you. So you don't have to worry about him dying again during your life. Yosef shall place his hands on your eyes, meaning he's going to close your eyes. The reason why you close a dead person's eyes... ...is because you don't want a dead person to see what goes on around him after he dies, as it can cause harm to everyone around him. This is more mystical, involving spirits and things of that nature. It can create a lot of negativity. That's why you close the eyes of a dead person. That's how it goes with the mind. Huh? No, it doesn't close the mind. It actually opens. When someone dies, the eyes are usually open.

1:58:57Yeah, Israel is open. A lot of things, you know, a lot of things... Yeah. We don't have to go through all that. Hopefully, Mashiach comes and we're righteous enough to be saved by the Mashiach. Mashiach coming by itself, we're not righteous. Mashiach is not good for us to come. If we're tzaddikim and we're keeping mitzvot and we're learning Torah and we're doing what Hashem says, Mashiach comes will be the best day of our life. Mashiach comes, and we're not ready, we're not learning Torah, we're still making sins, we're not keeping Shabbat, we're not keeping this, we're not keeping that, then we have a serious problem. We're going to be in a serious, serious situation that we can't fix. So, a lot of people say, oh, B'ezrat Hashem, the Mashiach will come, and B'ezrat Hashem, we are supposed to pray for the Mashiach to come, but at the same time, we have to realize that the Mashiach it's not like a regular person that's going to, you know, say, "Ah, no, no, he's a nice guy, he's a funny guy. I'll let him pass." We read this in the prayer every day, meaning the Mashiach is going to come to Tzion, to Israel, to pretty much remove all of the wickedness.

2:00:25Within Yaakov, whoever didn't do teshuva, who's Yaakov? Yaakov is Yisrael. To remove all of the wickedness from within Yisrael, whoever did not, whoever out of Yisrael did not do teshuva, full teshuva, not just half teshuva, real teshuva, the first thing that Mashiach is going to do is destroy them. So, again, on one hand, we pray every day for Mashiach to come. We pray every day during Birkat HaMazon. We pray during Shacharit, Mincha, Arvit. We constantly mention Mashiach in every prayer, even if we don't realize it. On the other hand, most of Am Yisrael, you know, Rabbi Mizrachi says, most of Am Yisrael should pray Tehillim every day. The Mashiach doesn't come. for the Mashiach not to come. But if he comes, it's because we're in trouble. So, we do teshuvah. I pray every day for people to do teshuvah and for us to help as many people as possible to do teshuvah before it's too late. Because if you look at the situation around the world, the world is heating up. World War III is getting bigger and bigger. Turkey recently announced that they should get together with the rest of the Muslim nations to attack Jerusalem. This was just announced a couple of days ago. I don't know.

2:01:46what they care about Jerusalem or anything we don't know because their problem is really with the Russians, not with the Israelis. But somehow, everything always goes back to Israel. Vladimir Putin is serious about success in regards to destroying everyone in his path, sending submarines with a couple hundred atomic bombs, telling the world that he has atomic bombs and he's ready to use them. So it's not just for scare. The murders in Israel do not stop. There was just a little baby yesterday. She and her mother got injured from a terrorist attack just before the shiur. They said that the baby lost her leg. It's really heartbreaking. Little baby, beautiful little baby, innocent baby. What did this baby do to these reshaim terrorists? ISIS is constantly giving out more and more news and threats that not only are they going to come, that the war has only begun, but they are already in America. They already made their first terrorist attack just recently. There was an announcement today, I don't know if you guys heard, but all of the schools in Los Angeles, I believe,

2:03:13all the schools in Los Angeles will close down and also in New York. Why? Because of terrorist attack threats. They're talking about over 600,000 kids who could not go to school because of a potential terrorist attack. They could do this every day. On one hand, the secular schools, it's good they don't get this education because most of that education goes against God. But on the other hand, it's not a way to live. So, there is terrorism already in America. There is terrorism that's actually happening in Florida, if you guys are not paying attention to some of the news out there. There was a murder just last year of a kid who murdered a rabbi. They just found him. There was some anti-Semitism. And during the Chanukah holiday, some notes were being left on people's doors and mailboxes—anti-Semitic notes. For anyone that's not paying attention to the details, it's very easy to live nonchalantly in America, not worried about everything, not worried about anything, go to work, make your money, go to dinner, hang out with your girlfriend, hang out with the wife and kids, go bowling, go to the beach, live life, do what you gotta do. In reality though, when you pay attention to the world around us, the situation has not been worse.

2:04:37since World War II. Other than the last time we were in concentration camps, anti-Semitism and problems for the Jews have never been worse in modern history. The world has not been on the verge of pretty much complete collapse since World War II. But this time it's much worse because this time, you know, it's It's a... There are many countries that have atomic bombs. Many different prophecies are coming true. So it's time for us to wake up because the Gemara says that, you know, aside from this, at the end of times, there's going to be a lot of desperation. Actually, there was a Chiddush in Sefer Yirmiyahu. Sefer Yirmiyahu, Jeremiah 16, is a mamash, a clear prophecy that anyone that spent even one year in school would know what this pretty much means and where it's referring to. But this is a prophecy that Yirmiyahu is giving the people, but this is obviously everything that's written in the Torah.

2:05:58is relevant until the end of times. So this prophecy is not only relevant to the time he's talking about, which is the first Beit HaMikdash, but it's talking about the now. It's talking about the end of times now. So it says, Also do not go to the house of merrymaking to sit with them, to eat and drink. For thus said Hashem, Master of Legions, God of Israel, Behold, I am abolishing from this place before your eyes and in your days, the sound of joy and the sound of gladness, and the sound of groom and the sound of bride. And it shall be that when you tell all these things to the people, they will say to you, why has Hashem spoken all this great evil against us? What is our iniquity? What is our transgression that we have transgressed before Hashem, our God? Pretty much what I just said here is that people are living their life without a care in the world. They're making their money. They're living their life. They go to the restaurants. They go to the movies. They go to the beach. They do their thing, and without really paying attention to what's happening in the world, without really caring. When he says, do not go to the house of merrymaking, this means that don't go celebrating Christmas with the Queen. You're not supposed to be celebrating Goyish holidays, number one. Number two,

2:07:25you know, let's say, you have to stay amongst ourselves. Don't get so used to being in the exile. Don't be so careless about where you really stand. But us, we say, why does Hashem care? Why is Hashem so upset about us? So He responds to them. It is because your forefathers have forsaken Me, the word of Hashem, And they followed the gods of others. They worshiped them and they prostrated themselves before them. But Me they forsook. He says, your forefathers, your fathers, grandfathers, the reason why you've been in exile for a couple of thousand years is because you didn't do the right thing. Me, out of all. Me they went against. They went against Me. He said, okay, you want to go against your friends? Fine. You want to go against your boss? Fine. You want to go against even your partners? Fine.

2:08:25But Me they went against. And My Torah they did not observe. And you have acted worse than your forefathers. For each one of you follows the vision of his evil heart in order not to listen to Me. All of you just want to listen to your own opinion. You listen to your own opinion. Whatever excuses you come up with, not to come to shiur Torah, we don't come to shiur Torah. Why? I have a shidduch. What's shidduch? What are you talking about? It's 10 o'clock at night. Who goes to shidduch at 10 o'clock at night? No, it's at this club. It's this. Okay, what about next week? No, next week I can't. Why can't next week? No, next week I'm on vacation. I'm going to Puerto Rico. What about Shabbat? Do you want to keep Shabbat? No, I'm not ready for your Shabbat. I'm not at that level of keeping Shabbat. All these different things that people make excuses for themselves. That's what he says. So I shall hurl you from upon this land into a land that you did not know, you or your forefathers. And there you will serve the gods of others, day and night.

2:09:41So he says, because you're going against Me, I send you to exile. This is the whole thing of going into exile, going to America, going to Africa, going to everywhere except Israel. And this next part really addresses something that a lot of people have difficulty understanding. For I will not grant you leniency. I will not grant you leniency. Don't think that I've given discounts. You sin, you get punished. No discounts. No like, no, I'm such a nice guy. Maybe Hashem likes nice people. Nice is defined by the Torah's rules, not by our rules. So then he says something here that's relevant to everything we're talking about. However, behold, days are coming, the word of Hashem, when it will no longer be said, as Hashem lives, who took out the children of Israel from the land of Egypt. But rather, as Hashem lives, who took out the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands where He has scattered them, and I shall return them to their land, which I gave to their forefathers. It says, but not to worry, a day will come when I will take you, I'll send Mashiach, and I'll take you out of this exile.

2:11:08But the miracles and the situation that's going to happen at the end are going to be so big, it's going to be bigger than Egypt. People are not going to say anymore, "Oh, He's the God of Israel that took them out of Egypt." They're going to say, "He's the God of Israel that took them out of the land of the north and all of the other lands they're located in." Now let me ask you guys a question. You've been in history class. You've seen a map before. ...and the Atlas, and something. What place, what continent, the seven continents in the globe, what continent is called north? North Pole. Pole is not a continent. Tzafon. Tzafon. Eretz Tzafon. Ki im chai...

2:12:08No, no, continent. Okay. So you have, I'll answer it. You have, obviously, you have Asia, you have Europe, you have Antarctica, you have Africa. But it's not called North. Wait for the list. You have Antarctica, you have Africa, you have Asia, North America. Ah, okay. North America. Continent is what continent is. North America. What's in North America? Is North America in Israel or South America? North America has the United States and Canada. Coincidentally, the most Jews found in the world, other than Israel, are in North America. A combination of Canada and the United States. So he says, I'm going to take you from there. This is written a couple thousand years ago, guys. Hashem knew that we're going to be here. And he's not only saying, I'm going to send you, I'm going to take you out of the land, you know, you could say anything is north. Maybe he's referring just to the countries he's referring to. This is the pshat.

2:13:32he's really referring to Bavel, which is Iraq. Iraq is north of Israel. That's the pshat of the times here. But the nevuah for today is the land of the north, Me'eretz Tzafon. Why do I know that it's a, or believe that it's a, it's referring to North America? Because number one, it's the only continent that's referred to as a, um, That's how it's called in Hebrew. It's called the only thing that's referred to as north. But no, not like somebody 300 years ago called it that. It's called now. You go on a map, you look at the names of every continent. It's called North America. But the second thing is that he's not only referring to here. He's saying So it's the land of the north and from all the other lands. So He's going to take you out. There are Jews everywhere. In every corner of the world, there are Jews. But He's specifically referring to North America. So the beauty here is that

2:14:58there's more to this, but I think this is the only part that's relevant to us. Actually, this is the other one. But the beauty here is that Hashem already gave us instructions of what's going to happen at the end of times. Hashem already gave us details of what's going to happen. Hashem already gave us details of what we need to do. The key here is for us to follow the instructions. If we follow the instructions, then yes, we should cheer for the Mashiach to come tomorrow, the end of time to already start, and we should have nothing to worry about. Russia can bomb whoever they want, America can go to war, Israel can do this, do that, whatever they want, we're fine, you're tzaddik, you have no problem. The reality of it is that not many people in the world can really say that. So, we have to do everything we can to work on our character, to work on our middot, to work on our mitzvot, to stop sinning. because if we continue sinning, then this could become a problem. So he gives us a solution here, this next verse. We'll finalize that particular part, and then we'll finish the parashah, and then I'll let you guys get some rest. For those people that don't know the answers, that don't know, Shabbat is really important. They don't know it's the foundation of Judaism.

2:16:21Don't know that the brit that Hashem is referring to is not just a circumcision that you did when you were eight days old that was not really by your choice. Keeping the brit also means protecting the brit, treating that part of your body the same way you treat your finger. Your brit, a man's brit, is supposed to be the same thing as his finger. You should not treat it in any other way. You should not think that way. You should obviously It should be pure. But if it's constantly making sins, you have a serious problem. People don't know that. People don't know that eating kosher does not mean only meat. It also means everything else. Going to Olive Garden, it's not a good thing. Even if you're not eating meat, even if you're eating pizza, even if you're eating bread, even if you're eating salad, it's not kosher. It has problems in it. You have to look at it. We made a list of all these different things, all these different food items. that it is a non-kosher food. It's non-kosher for a reason, not even just because it's meat. People don't know that. People don't know that if you ignore a law in the Torah, there's no chance in the world for you to be righteous. There's no chance in the world for you to be nice, according to Hashem's definition. There's no such thing as a righteous person that's ignorant. Impossible. This is a law in the Torah.

2:17:45So for those people who don't know, and they don't go to synagogue every day, or yeshiva, or kollel, or this or that, what's Hashem going to do? He says in the same prophecy, "Hineni sholeach ledagayim rabim," neum Hashem, "v'digum, v'acharechen eshlach lerabim tzayadim v'tzadum me'al kol har, u'me'al kol giv'ah, u'menikikei hasela'im." Behold, I shall send many fishermen with the word of Hashem and they will fish them out, and afterwards I shall send many trappers and they will trap them from atop every mountain and every hill and from the crevices of the rocks. The pshat here is that this is a form of punishment for people who don't do what Hashem wants. He's going to find them in every single way possible. But the chiddush here is about the fishermen. If you notice, it says, "I will send many fishermen with the word of Hashem. Ne'um Hashem." Dayagim rabim, ne'um Hashem. Ne'um is speech.

2:18:59What's a dayagim? Dayagim, they're fish. What is that? That's the kiruv people. Kiruv rabbis. Real rabbis. Hashem at the end of time is going to send real rabbis. Real people that know Torah but know how to speak the truth. Not just know Torah. A lot of people know Torah. But know how to say it the way Hashem wants you to say it. At the end of time, He's going to send you these special fishermen. And they're going to have the word of God. They're going to find you and they're going to fish. Why fish? Why not He's going to send armies? Because it says people do teshuvah. It's not everybody. Not everybody wants to do it. Maybe people say they want to do teshuvah, but they don't do it. He says maybe one out of ten, one out of five, one out of a hundred, one out of a thousand really wants to do teshuvah. So it's a fisherman. Fishermen don't go fishing for all the fish in the sea. They go picking. One, one, one, one, one. Mm-hmm. So he's going to send fishermen with the word of Hashem. These fishermen are going to know Torah, but they are going to be special people who come from all different walks of life and find the people. But afterwards, he's going to send many trappers. The trappers, I have three different interpretations on it. Two of them mean bad, one of them means good.

2:20:16Bad is obviously whoever doesn't listen is going to get punished by the trappers. Two, trappers mean that the baalei batim, the people that are fake rabbis, trap people, make them believe that they're doing something good, but in reality they're idol worshiping or even worse. The good part is maybe there's something even better than the rabbis that are doing kiruv, where he's going to send something even higher. Nonetheless, Hashem has a solution for anyone who's really looking for it. And He says that at this, inform them at this time, I shall let them know My hand and My strength, and they shall know that My name is Hashem. He says at the end of times, you're going to know. It's not that you're going to believe. You're going to know who Hashem is. know. Know for sure, like I know that you're sitting right next to me. You're sitting next to me. You're sitting next to me. There's a camera and this and that. I know everything. You're going to know Hashem. No doubts. No way. Maybe this is the Mashiach. Maybe Hashem sent him. Maybe this. No more maybe. You're going to know for sure. The test is to make the decision to go towards Hashem before you know. Because by the time you know,

2:21:38No more teshuva. No more conversions. And that's one of the things that we need to truly understand in regards to the whole issue with the Mashiach, is that if we want to really be saved, we have to do what Hashem says. One major part is learning Torah. It's also this Igeret HaRamban says, I think towards the end of the letter, Yeah. Take care to always study Torah diligently, so that you will be able to fulfill its commands. When you rise from study, ponder carefully what you have learned, see what there is in it which you can put into practice. Review your actions every morning and every evening, and in this way, live all your days in repentance. Ramban says, somebody that wants to get close to Hashem, wants to Olam HaBa, has to do teshuvah every single day. You live all your days in repentance, always doing teshuvah, because there's no way that you're 100% perfect. You're doing teshuvah every day for something you didn't do yesterday. Even if you're a tzaddik, let's talk about the Ramban. Ramban, guys, is not Obama. It's not the CEO of Coca-Cola. It's the Ramban. So, again, he's telling you that someone righteous is going to test his actions and check his actions every day and do teshuvah every day, because of course you didn't do something perfect the day before.

2:23:03So how does the Mashiach connect to this parasha? After Yaakov sees the prophecy, sees that obviously Hashem is showing him that this is really going to happen. You're going to go there, but don't worry. You have nothing to worry about. I am going to come with you to Egypt, and I will leave with you from Egypt. Meaning when your son is going to bury you, you don't have to worry about dying in Egypt. You're not going to be buried over there. You're going to be buried in the Me'arat HaMachpelah. Your son is going to bury you. You have nothing to worry about. Your descendants are also going to be there, but they're going to leave. They're not going to live there forever. They're going to receive the Torah eventually, but they need to go through this whole process. And then it says, it lists all the people that went to Egypt with him. And it mentions the names of the sons of Yehudah.

2:24:20So it says, Yehudah's sons, Er, Onan, Shelah, Peretz, and Zerach. But Er and Onan had died in the land of Canaan. If you guys remember, in a couple of parashot ago, we talked about how these were the first two husbands of Tamar. Why did they die? Wasting seed. They died wasting seed. Hashem does not accept wasting seed. So He killed them on the spot. Why doesn't He kill people today that waste seed? Because most of the people in the world waste seed every day. Why doesn't He kill people? Because we don't have punishment right away. No, but they wasted seed over there. Why didn't they have free choice? Because our level today is not their level at that time. So, our connection to Hashem, obviously, is much lower. Where in those days, people knew the miracles of Hashem, where they saw things in plain sight. Seeing miracles was normal to them. Seeing, you know, the powers of the 12 tribes, they moved, they crushed things, you know, different things. You know, when somebody studied Torah, there would be a fire around him, mamash, a literal fire around him. You know, things were... The world was very, very different. So...

2:25:43that Hashem showed Himself in a much clearer way, and because He showed Himself in a much clearer way, He did not allow the same punishment, the same level of sin. So when someone sinned, knowing that Hashem rules the world, with no doubt, He punished them right away. Today there's always an element of doubt because we don't have the same obviousness. Even though technically, what is nature? Nature... are just miracles that we got used to. Nature is a miracle. Everything is a miracle. Rain is a miracle. The fact that, you know, water comes from the ground, turns into gas, goes up to these clouds, which gather up this thing, turn it back into water, and bring it back here, but after it's already purified. And without this water, we can't exist. The best part about it is that when a plane goes through a cloud, it doesn't go through some big puddle. And the best part about it is that when the rain comes down, Hashem makes sure to never let two drops hit each other. Why? Because if two drops hit each other, that means three drops could hit each other. And if three, that means four. And four means five. And that means that it could become a puddle in the air. A puddle in the air falls and kills someone on the spot.

2:27:07But instead, you have a little drop that you barely feel. But this is a miracle that we got used to. And nobody gets excited when rain comes down, saying, "Oh wow, look at this rain, look at this miracle." No. No one says, "Ah, rain again. I got to get an umbrella." They don't think it's a miracle. We got used to it. Same thing with birth. a little seed, a little putrid seed that's nothing, comes from a human being to another human being and creates, nine months later, another human being or two or three or five or eight in one second. That's it. You have eight new people that are going to eventually be the next generation, learn Torah, say things. It's miracles. But we don't think it's a miracle. We think, ah, it's normal. It's nature. It's Mother Nature. So... One thing that we notice here is that Hashem makes sure that we know that in this generation He punished right away. In our generation, because we don't have the obviousness of His miracles, He doesn't punish immediately; He gives us more time. But if you notice, after He mentions the sons of Yehudah, only one son had kids.

2:28:25Yehudah and Tamar had two kids, twin boys, Peretz and Zerach. And Peretz had two sons. Why was it important for Hashem to mention Peretz's two sons? Because Peretz is the son from whom the Mashiach is going to come. The Torah has to have a direct lineage where we have exactly the names of where the Mashiach starts and where it's going to Until King David, and even slightly beyond David—King David, Shlomo, and so on. So all was done. Then, you know, the verse, for anyone that's still watching this and believes in the New Testament and hasn't seen how many mistakes the New Testament has, this parasha has one of the most commonly overlooked mistakes in the New Testament that shows that it's just a phony man-made book. here in this parasha, it says, all the people of Jacob's household who came to Egypt were 70. It specifically says 70. It says it a couple of other times in the Torah. It says specifically 70, not 71, not 72, not 75, not 80. It says 70. All the time it says 70; it even gives you the names, and so on. In the New Testament, the fake man-made book that the Christians wrote, it says 75.

2:29:53Christians wrote. It says 75. They claim that their book is a continuation of our book, which obviously it cannot be, because if it's a continuation, it cannot contradict it. If one book is a continuation of a first book, that means that both books need to agree. The information that's written in the second book has to agree with the first book. So, for example, if the first book says... September 11th happened in New York City on September 11th, 2001. The second book cannot say September 11th, 2001, happened in Chicago. It cannot say it happened on September 11th, 2001, but instead happened in 1901. They cannot say it because it has to agree with the first book. Same concept here. Hashem did not forget that 70 people came down to Egypt. So in the New Testament, it says 75. It's a very, very big mistake that despite the fact that their book has been around for over 2,000 years almost, or 1,700 years their book has been around, and there's over 200,000 versions of it, they still haven't fixed that mistake. This also shows you how pride can stupefy us but also, on the other hand, how Hashem works His magic, where He doesn't allow false religions to blind those who seek the truth. So now they get to finalize things; they get to Egypt. Yosef tells his brothers, "Make sure that when you see..."

2:31:19stupefy us, but also, on the other hand, how Hashem works His magic, where He doesn't allow false religions to blind those who seek the truth. So now they get to finalize things; they get to Egypt. Yosef tells his brothers, "Make sure that when you see and you meet Pharaoh, make sure you tell him that you're shepherds. Why? Why do you make sure you tell him you're shepherds? Because what I want to make sure is that we all live in Goshen, separate from all of the Egyptians, separate from all of the idol worshippers. Stay secluded. Stay alone. We don't want to be part of the Egyptians. We want to be ourselves. But if he sees that you're all powerful, strong people, he's going to want you to join the army. He's going to want you to join the companies, all buildings. He wants you to become part of the Egyptian world. Now, I can be part of it because I'm the king. I can control things. But you guys go into business with him, you start going into the army, you're going to be surrounded just by Egyptians.

2:32:36That causes assimilation. That's a problem. So tell them that you're, I don't know, you're just shepherds. If you're shepherds, the Egyptians hate shepherds because they worship the animals. They worship the animals. They worship. So he calls it, "All of the shepherds are abhorrent to Egyptians. They're disgusting." The shepherds are disgusting to Egyptians. So when you tell Paro that you're shepherds, they're already going to be disgusted with you. You're going to say, okay, go somewhere else. We don't need you here. So then they go to Paro. He asks them, what do you do? And a very smart move by Yosef, of course, where he brings not all of his brothers, he brings five of them, but the smallest ones. He makes sure that he brings the ones that look weak, not the big Not Yehudah. He says, oh, if you... So as soon as Paro finds out that they’re shepherds, he goes, yeah, go give them Goshen. Give them the best. Give them the best. Get them out of here. Get them out of here. Go give them the best. But if you know that there are capable men among them, appoint them as chamberlains over the livestock that belong to me. I want the good ones to work for me. If there's one, if you know of one.

2:33:57If all of them look like this, go, go, send them to work. Go, go, go. And then, he sends, Yosef brings Yaakov. And something amazing happens. There's a very cool Midrash here. Ve'avei Yosef et Yaakov aviv ve'amidehu. he says, "How many days have you lived and how many years have you lived?" This shows that, you know, Chazal says here, that Rabbi Hirsch says that Joseph brought in Yaakov, his father, and presented him to Pharaoh. And Yaakov blessed Pharaoh. The first question Pharaoh asks Yaakov is, "How many days of the years of your life?" He says, "How many days have you lived and how many years have you lived?" This shows that, you know, Chazal say here, that Rabbi Hirsch says that

2:35:14This showed Yaakov that Pharaoh is not a fool. He knows that, yeah, there's "how old are you." There's also "how many years did you really live?" Because most people don't live their full life. You know, you waste a lot of time. So, Yaakov says, "The days and years of my life have been 130 years," meaning every single day of my life has been something happening. But still, even though I've lived 130 years, it's still fewer and worse than the days of the life of my father and my grandfather. And then he gave a blessing to Pharaoh again, and he left. The question here is, why is Pharaoh asking him how old he is? Does Yaakov have an extra long beard? Has Pharaoh never seen an old person before? Why is he asking him, "How old are you?"

2:36:15Well, I guess he saw the powers of his kids. He was wondering. He also saw something about Yaakov that he realized this is not a common person. How? Pharaoh had such ga'avah, he made sure that everybody who came in to see his throne bowed to him right away. So he made sure that his door to where he had his throne was extra small, so whoever came in there had to go on all fours to crawl in to see him. This means that immediately, automatically, they were bowing to Pharaoh. Even if they didn't want to, they were bowing. So anyone that came in to see his throne was bowing to him. Yaakov is not an ordinary person. Hashem is not going to let any Yaakov do something like this. So as soon as Yaakov came close to the door, the wall miraculously opened around him. So Yaakov is walking and the wall is opening around him, allowing him to walk straight in with no problems.

2:37:33So immediately, Par'oh sees, oh, this is not a regular person. This is not a regular person. So he asks him, how old are you? Where is this coming from? How is this happening? And so on. And the last thing of this parasha is after it says that they... Yosef gave all of these gifts and sustained all of the brothers, making sure they had just enough. And it specifically said he gave them just enough for what they needed. He didn't give them more or less. Why? To make sure they stay modest. Even though he had hundreds of millions of dollars. If you remember, if you saw last week's shiur, the gift that Par'oh gave Yosef on his first day of the job was almost a half a billion dollars. But Yosef gave them exactly what they needed based on the kids that they had. Why? Because he said, I want to make sure that you're modest. Don't go crazy. Stay in Goshen. Stay modest. Stay regular. Why? Because if you start being too ambitious, you're going to want to buy land in different places and then eventually assimilate. And this is how this parashah ends. It says, "So Yosef imposed himself..." Oh, no. "Thus Israel settled..."

2:38:57in the land of Egypt, in the region of Goshen. They acquired property in it, and they were fruitful and multiplied greatly. So, on the good note, it says that we multiplied greatly; we became much more than 70 people. But on the other hand, it also says that the greed got the better of us, and we started acquiring property outside of Goshen. And if we acquire property outside of Goshen, then we end up assimilating with the Egyptians, and that's when everything starts going downhill. So, there were more details to some of the things that happened that made Egypt rich, and so on. But nonetheless, we covered a lot of this parasha, Baruch Hashem. And I think with Mashiach talk and everything else, there's a lot of interesting things in this parasha. Unless you guys have any questions, I'll let you get some rest. Baruch Adonai l'olam. Amen.