Prayer Crisis - MUSSAR Iggeret HaRAMBAN (36)

0:17We are back in our Tuesday shiur. We have our... to continue, get closer and closer to the completion. We will talk a little bit about some current events, what's going on in the world, what seems to be happening. Some things that some of you will want to know if you're in business and even more so if you own a house. ... to continue, getting closer and closer to completion. We will talk a little bit about some current events, what's going on in the world, and what seems to be happening. Some things that some of you will want to know if you're in business, and even more so if you own a house. But more than anything else, what can we do? What can we do? You know, to talk about the crisis, we're not going to spend the whole day on that. Talking about what we can do is the goal. But of course, we're going to always...

1:20see what our sages, our dear sages, our dear holy sages have to say, and not necessarily just our opinion. Today's shiur will be for a Refuah Shlema for Rabbanit Levana bat Sara, Rav Ephraim ben Shulamit, Rabbanit Sara bat Anat, David ben Esria, Yitro ben Avraham, Yonatan ben Yael, Serach bat Batya, Batya bat Sara, Dvora bat Mercedes, Esther bat Tzipora, and all of Am Yisrael, Be'ezrat Hashem, will have a Refuah Shlema, Refuat HaNefesh, and Refuat HaGuf. Now, the situation in the world clearly, it is not improving; it actually seems to be getting worse. Aside from a miracle, it's going to get much worse from here. That's the bad news. The good news is that Hashem still runs the world.

2:42even when we don't think He does, even when we don't see how He does, which means that all of this will be for the good. Ultimately, we will see good out of this. But to give you a little bit of a situation of what's happening, I'm sure people are wasting their life and their opportunity to do teshuva, with instead of doing teshuva, listening to shiurei Torah, With a 14-day quarantine that people have had, and in some cases even a month, they should have already finished our entire Pirkei Avot series. 180 lectures, 3 hours a day, 3 hours a lecture, you could have already finished the whole Pirkei Avot, the whole Masechet Avot, and have actually achieved something. But instead, people are spending a lot of time watching the news and destroying themselves. Why? You notice now, more than ever, in the beginning, everybody was into the news; it's very hard to talk to people. Now it's already going on for a while.

3:52and you're seeing the results. You're starting to see the results. Those that are learning Torah and doing so consistently haven't changed; if anything, they've actually improved. They feel better, they look better, they act better—everything is better. It doesn't matter that outside it's a tragedy, and you feel bad, and you pray for people, and you cry sometimes. But overall, their own neshamah (soul) Never better. Why? They've used this situation as an opportunity to get closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. On the other hand, those that are spending their time watching the news and not working on themselves, you see how they have deteriorated dramatically to the extent where, if they were religious, they're borderline chilonim right now. if they were just new ba'alei teshuva, they're for sure struggling, and if they were borderline, now they're atheists. Why? Because they don't know what's going on. But, on the other hand, HaKadosh Baruch Hu also has these special neshamot in the world

5:00These special, pure neshamot in the world that did not know who their Maker is until now. And instead of going down, they've actually gone up. They were mechal'lei Shabbat, now they're shomrei Shabbat. They were immodest, now they're modest. They were not learning Torah, now they're learning Torah day and night. The good news is, that there's a lot more people doing teshuva now. that I know of than any other time that I've ever followed it. It's busier now for what we're doing than any other time ever. more people are getting closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, more people are doing teshuva, more people are asking the question of what's the point of life, and more people are taking advantage of the opportunity. It's sad that most of those people are going from being secular to now being religious, and we're not seeing that same strength in the religious world becoming more religious and closer to Hashem. We're not seeing as much.

6:05But the point is, Rabotai, that there are many, Baruch Hashem, people who are getting closer and closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. How do you tell the difference? Who's who? What are you doing with this time? If you're spending the time asking the questions and looking for the answers of why you're in this world, why all of this is happening, and so on and so forth, you're getting closer to Hashem. your prayer becomes better, your learning becomes better, your overall mentality becomes better. I just got an email a few hours ago. A woman tells me she's a very successful businesswoman, and she says in the last few weeks, her life has changed. Once she was introduced to our lecture, she says her whole mentality that she had for 30, 40, 50 years has changed in the last few weeks. why she realized what's her purpose in life she says in the last few weeks. She started keeping everything she knows about Shabbat. She keeps it now because she always respected God, but now she's working on not just fearing God. Now she's working on keeping Shabbat 100%—no working, no this, no that. So, this is a special person, and there are many others that I get berachot from every day.

7:17more than ever, more than ever, people are getting closer to Hashem. But that's because they are not wasting their time on the news. Maybe here and there, once a day for five seconds, I don't know, five minutes let's say, to check, I don't know, for whatever reason you want to check. How many people died? Okay, so you check how many people died. You want to check if there are any new rules in your community? Fine, you check how many rules in your community. Every community has a new rule, but five minutes, not more. But when you spend a lot more than that... Each minute starts eating at your neshama. So the people that are spending their time watching the news, talking about the news, are unfortunately getting more and more depressed, more and more bored, more and more desperate, and they're getting worse. The people that are doing otherwise are getting closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Now, the reality is that we're not saying to remain ignorant of the world, but rather to acknowledge that this is what Hashem wants. Right now, what you're seeing in the world is exactly what HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants. If it wasn't, it wouldn't be happening. This is what HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants. He wants us to be in a position where we realize who is our Maker.

8:42That the donkey needs to know who his master is. Until now, we thought that maybe our boss is the master, our customer is the master, our money is the master, our spouse is the master, our retirement plan is the master, our pet is the master. You could see some people walking around with their pets. You would think the dog is the master. Everything is the master. No, no, no. HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, no, I am. And that's what people, little by little, are starting to realize, but not enough. Why do I keep mentioning this "not enough"? Because if I think that it's not enough, that's not a good thing. Of course, HaKadosh Baruch Hu's mercy is endless, but I assume that HaKadosh Baruch Hu did not bring this decree this plague just to give us a quickie, just to give us a quick fear—oh, got you, okay, we're back to normal Monday morning. I don't think so. I don't think HaKadosh Baruch Hu did all of this just for a quickie. I think HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants something from us, and I don't think—I know—He wants something from us. He's always wanted something from us, but right now, He's pressing, and

10:03The Gemara tells us in several places that it's our obligation to look at the world around us and start doing some cheshbon, doing some accounting of what we need to do, what we need to fix. Because so long as HaKadosh Baruch Hu is unhappy with us, the situation is not going to improve. So let me tell you a few things that are very likely to happen. Hopefully not, hopefully I'm wrong. but it is very likely to happen outside of a miracle. Right now, people see that the nearly 1 million people who have been diagnosed with coronavirus around the world is the worst thing. Tens of thousands of people have died that we know of. I think the last count was something in the neighborhood of 35,000 to 45,000, which in the grand scheme of things is not very much, but

11:03The fear is that these numbers are nowhere close to the reality. The reality, according to some reliable sources from different researchers, media, and so on, who apparently say that they are experts in this field, is that whatever reported numbers there are in the world, multiply them by at least 11. So, if let's say there's 1 million diagnosed with this, there's really at least 11 million. The truth is that even the 11 million, everyone knows it's a lie. And the reason why is because there are several places that are simply not reporting the numbers. You know, everyone thinks that China is okay. know because their numbers haven't really improved, haven't, uh, deteriorated, meaning more people are not being diagnosed to the same extent as in the past. Definitely nowhere near the amount that the United States is increasing over the last couple of weeks. But truth be told, there are many reports that the Chinese numbers are absolutely false, even though

12:21They are saying that they only had 3,000 or so deaths and 80,000 or so that got diagnosed with it. And now it's not getting worse. The truth is, there are reports that contradict it. Serious reports. One of those reports is that there are There was an earnings report coming out from their telecom companies that said that 21 million cell phone numbers have been disconnected in China over the last month, which is an unreal type of statistic because the Chinese use their phones much more than most people around the world. They use it for everything, even more so than Americans. So 21 million people disconnected their phones. How are you going to buy groceries? That's how they buy groceries. How are you going to do business? That's how they do business with their phones. Everything is with their phones. So, 21 million people cut their line. Now they say, okay, maybe we can account for about 15 million. 15 million that because of poverty, they lost money, lost their jobs, and so on. They said, we still can't account for 6 million, which means that it's very possible that 6 million people have died.

13:37Not 3,000. Now, if six million people died in America, you'd notice. You'd start seeing bodies and making offenses with them. But six million in a billion and a half people, it's not that much, percentage-wise. It's a lot of people, but it's not that much in comparison. Especially since it's a communist country that hides everything. Now, why am I even mentioning this? Because I listened to a couple of phone calls, that they had done when they called the morgues. They called the morgues in China and pretended to be government officials trying to help, just to find out some statistics. There's a news outlet that I did an interview with years ago when I was in business called NDTV. It's a Chinese news organization that is anti-China. meaning they report the truth about what's really going on in China because it's a communist country and they don't really allow the truth to leave. Anyway, the same organization, which is really like an activist, did some phone calls, some investigation, and they called the morgues, the places and the crematories where they cremate the bodies, they burn the bodies. The guy is crying to them that he can't take it anymore because the amount of work that they're having just in his one location is five to six times the normal.

15:03says dozens of bodies, dozens of bodies are coming in every day, and he says that's just his location. Another location is much more, meaning that it doesn't make sense that he's burning dozens of bodies in his little location in Wuhan still right now, and China is reporting only five new dead people. doesn't make sense, doesn't add up. The point is that it seems like this virus is much greater than people think. Even more so, as I told you guys the other day in India, We have people in India that are actually there, seeing the disaster that's there that perhaps you're not seeing in the news. India is reporting that they have maybe a thousand or so sick. In reality, it's probably over a million people who are sick there, if not more. And they're having all types of shutdowns and disasters. They're not allowing anyone to leave the house now. They're not allowing people to do anything, even buy groceries. They're forcing people to bail out the government by paying, let's say, cleaning ladies. If you have a cleaning lady, you have to pay her three months in advance. Now, without her working, she's not going to work, but you have to pay her three months in advance. Why? Because she can't work.

16:14Why doesn't the government pay him? Oh no, it's the people's responsibility. So you're seeing that the whole system is failing. My prediction, for whatever penny it's worth, is that the prime minister or whatever he's called in India is going to get assassinated just like his father did very soon because the country is already revolting and losing its mind. Now, if you have a country of a billion and a half people in China, going through such turmoil. Another country next door, India, with another 1.3, 1.4 billion people, is also going through some turmoil. You're talking about a major disaster. And that's not to count what's going on in the United States, where places like Los Angeles are no longer testing people. They're no longer testing people. They simply see it as a waste of time, and they don't have the resources to do it. Really, the numbers that you're seeing on TV or on the internet are simply the people that have been tested, but it's nowhere near the number of people who are actually sick. So, the situation is horrific—horrific.

17:24but if you look at the financial world, it seems like things have calmed down, so that confuses people. The market stopped going down; in fact, it went up a little bit, so people are confused. Oh, what's happening? Okay, so I'm going to tell you what's happening. What's happening now is giving us a mini break to breathe and see what you're going to do. realize I slapped you a nice big slap, took away about 25 to 30 percent of your wealth, killed a few people you probably know. What are you going to do about it? Are you going to stop and say no? Are you going to continue using this quarantine as an opportunity to, uh, to say an opportunity to waste seed, as an opportunity to go against Hashem? Or are you going to do the opposite and start doing teshuva? Hashem is testing us; He's testing the waters. seeing every day more and more people, more good people, are dying. More bad people are dying too. Everybody's dying, it seems like. So, He's testing to see what you're gonna do. He's not giving us the same hit that He gave us a week and a half, two weeks ago. He wants to see what we're gonna do now. If we don't wake up in the next 24, 48, 72 hours, a week...

18:48very likely to start seeing the next leg. The next leg, if it doesn't hit right away, some smart people are gonna notice it's coming, and you're gonna start seeing the tsunami. You know, tsunamis are very tricky because before the tsunami comes, all the fishermen are very happy. And the reason why is because before the tsunami comes, the water from the coast recedes. It goes back into the ocean. So all of the fish, you don't have to fish for them anymore. You can just grab them from the floor. You just go to the beach, grab a bunch of fish. $15,000 worth of fish in five minutes. You don't have to fish, nothing. Just pick them up. Why? Because there's no water. So it looks like, wow, what a blessing. What a blessing. And then you see by the time you've collected all the fish, there's a hundred-foot wave coming at you and you don't have enough time to get away. It's too late. That's how a tsunami works. That’s what's happening right now.

19:48It looks like maybe things have calmed down. Okay, there's a few people here, there's a few people there. But as long as I'm okay here in Florida, as long as I'm okay in California, as long as I'm okay here in New York, as long as I'm okay in Texas, as long as I'm okay in Gehinnom, wherever I am, as long as I'm okay, it's okay. Look, everything's okay, right? Not okay. It's what's coming. Now, because of my experience on Wall Street for 20 years, there's not a single person on earth that could beat this issue with me. This is not Torah. This is just the reality of what's happening. Right now, we have a tsunami much worse than Corona. I told you in the beginning, I'm not really so scared of Corona, or scared of Corona at all, simply because I know HaKadosh Baruch Hu doesn't necessarily want to destroy the world. He just wants us to do teshuva. But the amount of pain we will endure to do teshuva depends on us. Corona is a way for HaKadosh Baruch Hu to scare a bunch of people. Also, take a few people that either have the merit to go up to Shamayim and straight to Gan Eden, or have finished and wasted their life, and they're going straight to Gehinom. Whatever the case is, that's His cheshbonot, not my business. But regardless of how many people get sick, I don't believe that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to just simply kill everyone. This is not Gog u'Magog.

21:15two-thirds of the world dying, all that stuff, that's not happening from Corona. But the amount of pain that will happen depends on our actions. The following is much worse than Corona. In the beginning, I told you that what will happen from the sickness is up to Hashem, but nonetheless, I don't believe it's going to destroy the world. What is destroying it is the financial crisis that is about to happen. People think that the financial crisis already happened because the market went down 30%. That's bubkes in comparison to what's coming. And the reason is the following. Right now, people haven't worked in a few weeks, in some cases, a month. That means people are not generating income. Now, most people live above their means. Most people, if they make five or $10,000 a month, they're spending 50 to 100% more than that, and they live on credit. They live on credit, why? Because they assume they're going to continuously make more, and sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't. But in general, they live on credit, everywhere around the world. The credit in the world today

22:23the amount of debt in the world today is higher than it has ever been in history by a factor of over a thousand. You're talking about hundreds of trillions of dollars. We're not talking about a $2 trillion bailout actually helping anything. The $2 trillion bailout they just gave is not even scratching the surface of what's happening right now. Now, this is not really a problem as long as people continue to make money. But when people don't work and the corporate world, not just corporate America, shuts down, you have yourself a problem. Because since people are living above their means anyway and they don't have much saved, most people have a couple of months saved at best—a couple of months' worth of life saved. So right now, no one's really like the middle, upper-class people. They're fine. Okay, they lost a little money, but they're not starving or anything. The people that are struggling are those who were pretty much already struggling beforehand.

23:23But that's where it's coming now. These guys that are closer to middle class, now we're getting to them. Why? Because now, since you haven't worked in a month, and you're probably not gonna work for another month, now you're starting to get to a point where you realize, wait a minute, how am I gonna eat? I can't spend. Okay, so I got another month, let's say two, left in the bank to eat. right, I'm not talking about people who have money appearing in their bank accounts with or without effort. I'm talking about regular people, the average person among the eight billion in the world. Regular people are thinking, "Wait, how am I gonna get this money to eat a month from now if I'm not gonna work? The company's not gonna pay. In fact, some of them are already declaring bankruptcy. What am I gonna do?" So what does the guy do? He says, "Okay, listen, um..." Guys, I can't pay the employees. The boss tells the guys, "I can't pay the employees." Why? He's not making any money. He gave them, let's say, a couple of weeks. Leave them. I didn't expect this to continue for three months. Now, who else does he also tell? Now, this is what's happening. The guy that's not making money at the lowest level, he says, "I'm not going to spend my last few thousand dollars paying rent. I'm not paying rent. Why? I need to eat."

24:46Let the guy let my landlord kick me out in three, four, five, six months, depending on the state, depending on the city. I'm not paying rent for the next few months. Why? I gotta preserve whatever I have. So now the tenants are not wanting to pay rent. One proof of it is that it's not only on a small scale. It's not just regular people. We're talking about big people. Subway, the restaurant chain, the sandwich chain, just announced recently that none of their stores are going to pay rent. This is a multi-billion dollar company. They don't want to pay rent. Why? No customers. If they're not going to pay rent, do you think that Mr. Jones, that little guy who barely makes ends meet with his blue-collar job, is going to pay rent? chance now when the tenant doesn't pay rent, what does the landlord do? The landlord says, "Listen, I'm not going to pay the mortgage. I'm not paying the mortgage. I can't pay the money; I don't have the money, and I'm not going to use my last little bit, my reserves, to let the bank bail me out. Let the government bail me out, or let me go into foreclosure. I can't pay it."

25:53So they call their bank and they say, "Sorry, Mr. Bank, I'm not paying." "What do you mean you're not paying?" "I'm not getting rent. The tenant can't come to work, I'm not getting rent." So now you have a domino effect. Now you have the next step, the bank. The bank can say what they're saying now, which, by the way, as a side note for anyone that owns a house, call your mortgage company, tell them you want a forbearance. A three-month forbearance, they'll give it to you within two minutes. Why? Because they realize that if they don't give you a forbearance, you're not going to pay the mortgage anyway if you're not working. So you get a forbearance; it'll take you literally no application at this point. They realize it's a national crisis. They assume, okay, the government will bail us out, or something's going to happen, everything's okay. But the reality is, how long can they last doing this? How long can they last not getting the rent, not getting the mortgage? Why is this a problem? Because the bank that gets the mortgage lends out more money every day based on the assumption that it has a certain amount of money in reserves.

27:04Now, it has to be a multiple of that. Meaning, let's say if they have $100,000 that they're lending, $100,000 in the bank, they're allowed to, let's say, lend 10 million. Now, they could lend a lot more, which is not a problem as long as money keeps coming in. As long as there's $100,000 coming in on a regular basis, no problem. But once people stop paying, one, two, three, four, five, six, 10, 20, 30 million people stop paying, guess what? The bank gets shut down by the government. Why? You don't have the reserves in order to maintain the current loans that you have, needless to say, to issue new loans. Now you have a banking crisis. Now you can say, yeah, but the government's gonna bail them out. They have to bail out everyone. You're talking about not $2 trillion. You're talking about $2 trillion a month in order for this system to hold still. And for such a thing to happen would simply destroy the currency and everything on the way. Now, even more so than all of this, for anyone who thinks that they could do a better calculation, you also have to factor the following: the landlord that's not getting rent.

28:26he is not a landlord just because he wants to get rent to pay the mortgage; he's a landlord because he wants to get rent which is enough to pay the mortgage plus a profit. So that means that he's not only losing the money to pay for the mortgage, he's also losing the money to buy a bunch of other stuff to do everything else he's doing. So with such a situation, a financial system in place that depends on income, that depends on debt, it simply could all collapse and make what 2007, 2008 was look like child's play. I told people a couple of months ago, the market could go down 50% in a day. I was wrong, it took a week. In this case, with this situation, if they continue the extreme, extreme measures that they're implementing with the economy, excluding people at home—you're not allowed to work; you're not allowed to do this. Now that it's going to get much worse, the good news is, Rabotai, that HaKadosh Baruch Hu runs the world, and HaKadosh Baruch Hu is the one that's going to allow or not allow certain things to happen. But we cannot be fooled into thinking that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to stop it just because it's going to hurt us.

29:46have to understand that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is still looking for something from us. Now you can help yourself—get yourself some more reserves. Like I said, you can call your mortgage company and ask for a forbearance or a deferral payment, where they would take the next three months of mortgage payments and just put it at the end of your mortgage. So you could save yourself I'm sure quite a few thousand dollars if your mortgage is a couple of thousand dollars a month you just saved yourself six thousand dollars. So that could help a little bit for most people, and most likely they're going to make it a law in the country for all mortgage companies to do this. It's not going to be just an act of kindness but rather an act of survival. But like I said, at the same token, the current weapons that they're using in order to fight their own poison, which is these uh uh uh uh rules that they're implementing into the economy, it's just not possible. So what is the answer? The answer is we have to pray. That's the answer. Pray and do. That's the answer. There's nothing else. Nothing else is going to help because systematically every government is making every single mistake known to man.

30:59everything that they could do wrong, they're doing wrong. But they make it look like they're doing right. They knew about coronavirus a year and a half ago; they didn't tell the world. In America, they knew about coronavirus four months ago, three and a half months ago, and didn't prepare for it. Like everything they could do wrong, they're doing wrong. But it's not their fault. HaKadosh Baruch Hu is simply putting the world in this situation in order for everybody to realize He is God. So, what do we have left? We have a situation where HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to request each one of us to start thinking about what's important in life. You can do whatever you can in order to, you know, make your hishtadlut, whether it's save a certain amount of money from the mortgage, and don't be an overspender on certain things. You should give tzedakah, because tzedakah is a spiritual investment. It's not just a material investment. You can do a lot of things like that, but the point being, Rabbi, without teshuvah, without tefillah, none of this is going to work.

32:06And for anyone that's not thinking teshuvah right now, you're not thinking right. You're not thinking right. Because HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to make it worse and worse until we wake up. Now, personally, I'm not worried. Reason why? I know what the solution is. I'm not saying I'm fulfilling every single thing, but I know what the solution is. I know what the medicine is. I know where the medicine is, which cabinet it's in. All I got to do is go and reach it. All I got to do is just go, reach it, take the prescribed medicine. Finished. So at least I know that's the diagnosis, that's the situation. I'm telling you things that are horrible if you don't have any emunah. If you don't know what the medicine is, if you're not using this medicine, your life's going to get really, really bad. And it's not, I'm not worried, there's not going to be people worried about food shortages. There's not going to be a food shortage. Food's going to go to nothing. Nothing. The price of things is going to go to nothing if this continues. Now, HaKadosh Baruch Hu could simply stop it. He could just simply say, okay, enough's enough, destroyed half the economy, a bunch of people woke up, another million, two million, three million, five million people did teshuva, Baruch Hashem, okay, I'll give you guys a break till the next one. He could just stop it. All of what I just said could simply be deleted.

33:23Because HaKadosh Baruch Hu runs the world. But that's assuming we're doing the right thing. If we don't, it's going to continue, and it's going to get really, really bad. And it's not necessarily bad to the extent where people think that the supermarkets will be empty and you're not going to have food. No, the food's going to be plenty. Food will be plenty. This is not a starvation plague. This is you need to know who your Owner plague is. That's what you need to know. You need to know who your Owner is. And the Ramban, this is what he's talking about. 800 years ago, the Ramban told us what the solution is this week. Each week for the last few weeks, the Ramban is giving us another key. Now, in Parashat Vayikra, last week, HaKadosh Baruch Hu tells Moshe Rabbeinu to bring these korbanot, to bring the sacrifices. He says, "Where Hashem says to Moshe Rabbeinu, 'When a man among you brings an offering from the animals.' Now, the Baalei HaMussar say, what do you mean? When a man brings an animal? What, is it going to be an animal bringing a man? Of course, we know. Why is this extra word? That when a man brings an animal as a sacrifice. We obviously know. You're talking to men. The Torah is for men. It's not for monkeys."

34:54It's not for donkeys. It's for men. It's for Am Yisrael. It's for the world, for people. So why are you mentioning that when a man, meaning a human being, brings a sacrifice that's an animal? Obviously, we know that you can't make human sacrifices. You already told us, Avraham Avinu. What are these extra words? So the Baalei HaMussar say, you have to know. You want to bring a korban? You want to bring a sacrifice? Which in today's world, the sacrifices are our prayers. Every time you pray to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, it's like you're praying, it's like you're bringing a sacrifice. Even more so, when a woman goes to mikveh, for taharat hamishpacha, she has to follow the same rules as the Kohanim did in the Beit HaMikdash. The Gemara in Masechet Yoma, page 58a, says that if the Kohen is doing a sacrifice, doing a sacrifice, but accidentally, his foot is on top of his friend's foot. There are a couple of Kohanim there doing the Avodat Hashem in the Beit HaMikdash, and one of them has his foot on top of his friend's foot, and his friend is nice, he doesn't want to say, "Nah, it's my foot." Doesn't bother him. This is a korban, invalid.

36:18Rejected. Why? Because the Kohen's foot is supposed to be connected to the ground of the Beit HaMikdash, of the Mishkan over there. And his friend's foot that he's stepping on, even if it's a nice gesture, it's a Chatzitza. It's a separation between the Kohen and the Beit HaMikdash. A woman that keeps family purity, if she's going to go to the mikveh and be a bat Yisrael, what is the process? A balanit over there by the mikveh says to her, "Oh, let me see, is there any hair, is there any paint on your nails?" What does she care about? What does she care about? How long does she care about a hairdo? What does she care? She says, "No, no." Nothing can separate you from the water. Why? Because the water is spiritual. It's not something you see with your eyes. It's something spiritual happening in this mikveh. Where you are becoming holy. You are destroying the tumah. So anyone that tells you all of these hocus pocus rules that people are creating now with every WhatsApp message. And now because of this coronavirus, you don't have to go to the mikveh as a woman. Complete nonsense. If you're a bat Yisrael and you touch your husband.

37:37Touch him. I'm not talking about being with him intimately only. I'm talking about touching his hand. Touch his hand. Without going to the mikveh—karet yikaret. Both of you get karet. Both of you lose olam haba. You have a girlfriend. You touch your girlfriend—karet. Finished. All your mitzvot go to the garbage. Why HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, when My Kohanim, My Kohanim, My Kohanim went to the Beit HaMikdash, they wanted to bring Me sacrifices of Yisrael. I gave them rules—rules that you, as humans, may not understand. If they stepped on something and they were not on the ground, the whole sacrifice, the whole ceremony, the big giant cow, the big giant bull—wasted, garbage, $25,000-$30,000 in the garbage. Why? Because he stepped on his foot instead of being on the ground. He says, a bat Yisrael that goes to the mikveh is no different than the Kohen, the Kohen Gadol, at the Beit HaMikdash. Why? Not after chatzitzah, not after separation. So when you're going to the mikveh, bat Yisrael, you go to the mikveh, don't look at it as, "Oh yeah, I'm going to the mikveh, maybe I should go to my pool instead." No, no. You have to look at it as serving HaKadosh Baruch Hu at the highest possible level. Now,

38:55Parashat Vayikra says that HaKadosh Baruch Hu tells us that when you're bringing this korban, this big deal, big korban, all types of reasons for the korban, if you sinned, if you want to sanctify Hashem's name, if you want to thank Him, all types of reasons why we bring korbanot, sacrifices. He tells us, remember, the korban is from a man, and he's bringing an animal. The Baalei HaMussar say it's not because Hashem is trying to explain to us that it's men bringing animals. We know that. He created us pretty smart. We can figure that one out by ourselves. Why does He say it? He says, if you want to be... someone that his korban, that your korban gets accepted, that your sacrifice, that your prayer gets accepted, first of all, be a ben adam. Be a decent human being. And don't be an animal. First and foremost, act like a human being. Then I'll accept your korban. Then I'll accept your prayer. Because if you don't, Hashem looks at you like an animal.

40:09you still have a filthy mouth, if you are still stingy, if you're still arrogant, if you're still a hateful person, if you're still sinning, if you're still going against Hashem in all types of ways, who says I should listen to your prayer? You acted like an animal, you're acting like an animal. I can't. So here we see HaKadosh Baruch Hu is very, very specific about who is going to accept a sacrifice from, a prayer from, and who's not. Now, the Ramban elaborated on this point 800 years ago in his Iggeret HaRamban. Aside from telling us about how we have to fix our character traits, stay away from anger, never be arrogant, look at everyone as better than us, think about Gan Eden, think about Gehinom, and so on and so forth, he now goes on with the next tool. The next tool that we have to use in order to get to this place. He says,

41:11When you ponder your words before you utter them, as we discussed in the last couple of weeks, you prepare yourself to speak with intention and clarity. But now, he says, now that you've pondered your words, now that you've thought about all of these different things that the Ramban told us to think about, now that you have reviewed all of your transgressions, now... you're ready to go talk to Hashem. What is talking to Hashem? Praying. And he says, ותפילתך תהיה זכה, ברה, נקייה, מכוונת ומקובלת לפני המקום ברוך הוא, שנאמר תכין ליבם תקשיב אוזנך. So the Ramban says, now your prayer, tefillatecha, will be pure and clear and sincere and pleasing to God, blessed is He. As it is written in Psalm 10:17, "You prepare their heart, You are attentive to their prayers." Meaning that when we prepare our heart, Hashem listens to our prayers. So,

42:24First, we have to understand that the language of the Chachamim is very different than the way we speak. First and foremost, they speak Hebrew. Most Jews today do not speak Hebrew; some do, but many don't. But even the ones that speak Hebrew, many of them do not speak the language of the Sages because the Sages spoke the language of the Torah. The language of the Torah is very, very different than the language of Ben Yehuda's modern Hebrew. Now, the Ramban here says that your tefillah, your prayer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, has to be zakah. It has to be three different types of things. What is this zakah? What is this nekiyah? What does that mean? What does it mean to have a pure prayer?

43:25What does it mean to have a clear prayer? What does it mean to have a sincere prayer? What does it mean? I mean, yeah, you could define it with an English dictionary, but it's still not going to get you anywhere. You still have no idea. Okay, pure. What? Am I going to take my, you know, my prayer, put some Clorox on it, make sure there's no coronavirus on it? What does it mean, pure? What about clear? What? So if I mumble a little bit, it's no good? If I stutter a little bit, it's no good now. Most people, when they pray, you can't understand what they're saying. So does that mean their prayer doesn't count? Not true. So what does it mean? It has to be clear. Where's the clarity part? What, I have to see through it? What does this "clear" mean? More so, sincere. Well, isn't it always sincere if I'm already praying? I'm here already praying. Isn't that sincere enough? So we have to understand that the Ramban has very clear instructions on how we need to pray. Now, the Malbim in Sefer Yair Or, in Ma'arechet Zayin, Ot Bet, discusses this. He says it is a section that talks about Tzfat HaKodesh. As I said, it's not the same language as the Ben Yehuda modern Hebrew. He gives a detailed analysis of these words. He says that zakah comes from the word zach. Zach we have in the Torah, Shemen Zayit Zach.

44:50Ma'arechet Zayin, Ot Bet. He says it is a section that talks about Tzefat HaKodesh. As I said, it's not the same language as the Ben Yehuda modern Hebrew. He gives a detailed analysis of these words. He says that zakah comes from the word zach. Zach we have in the Torah, Shemen Zayit Zach. Pure oil. Oil with nothing there. No other parts in it. It's completely pure. You can see through it and so on. He says that your prayer needs to be this way. What does that mean? Pure? Pure, the Malbim explains, is pure of foreign acts. Without any solid, without any waste. without any waste in your acts. Meaning that before you start praying to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, first and foremost, review your actions for the day. Are you serving Hashem or are you going against Him? Did you steal today or did you give charity? Did you lie today or did you tell people the truth? Were you good or were you bad? Start evaluating your actions.

46:16That's what the Zohar means. That if we're going to go and pray to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, we have to understand that we cannot come to HaKadosh Baruch Hu as criminals. We just finished killing a few people with our mouth. We just destroyed a few people with our business. We just murdered a few people with our text messages or our comments on the internet. And we're going to go pray to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. You can't do that. Why? HaKadosh Baruch Hu will take that prayer and put it right in a deleted file. Now, a person has to take the first step before he prays. And he has to review his actions. Uvara means, this comes from Psalm 99, that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is expecting us to make sure that when we're actually praying, we are bar lev, we are pure of heart, meaning that our prayer is emotional and full of feeling.

47:34this is a very critical thing. We're going to go into the details of each one of these in a moment. Third, when it comes to naki, what does it mean to have a prayer that's naki? A prayer that's, according to the English translation, sincere. Naki means clean of foreign thoughts. meaning that not only have we cleaned up our actions, but we also are emotional about the prayer. We're connecting to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Aside from that, even our mind is working the right way. We're not thinking about anything else. We're not thinking about the stock market, we're not thinking about coronavirus, we're not thinking about the mortgage crisis. We're only thinking about Hashem. Now, the most popular prayer book in the world is the book of Psalms. David HaMelech compiled 150 Psalms, some of which he wrote, some Moshe Rabbeinu, some Adam HaRishon, and a few others, a few other Tzaddikim. But David HaMelech, it’s called after him because David HaMelech was the

49:00was that Tzaddik was the forefather who compiled all 150 Psalms into a single book as simply an instruction manual for connecting to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Now, the reason why the Book of Psalms is more popular than, let's say, your siddur, which is what we pray from every day, is for two reasons. Number one, your siddur is full of Psalms. Your prayer, your shacharit, mincha, arvit, yom tov, musaf, everything that you have, your entire siddur, your machzor, your haggadah, everything is full of Psalms. Many of the prayers that we have in the siddurim, in the prayer books, are Psalms. These are from Tehillim. Secondly, Psalms are not only read by Jews. Interestingly enough, many, many non-Jews read Psalms, read Tehillim. On a regular basis, I remember there was a story by Rabbi Yagen. He says one time he went on an airplane, a flight to Israel from America, and he says they put him in a perfect seat. He was in the middle of two people: on the right side was an Israeli guy, secular, and on the left side, a priest.

50:27So who's gonna do, who's gonna talk to, who's gonna deal with? He says the whole time the secular guy is watching Mickey Mouse. All he's doing is watching Mickey Mouse—a grown man watching Mickey Mouse the whole time. Twelve hours on the plane watching Mickey Mouse! Not reading, not learning, nothing. It's just brain deteriorating by the second, IQ going fast to zero, watching Mickey Mouse for twelve hours. But he says, I was embarrassed to see that the priest next to me... was reading Tehillim. You're reading the whole time. As soon as they got in the city, he started to open the book of Tehillim and started reading. So after a while, again, he said to them, "You read Tehillim, you read Psalms." The priest tells him, "What else? Like what else do you want me to do? You're a Rabbi," he says. "Aren't you?" He says, "Yeah." He goes, "So what else should I be reading?" He goes, "No, no, it's perfect, it's nice. I'm just surprised because, yeah, that's what I read." And then the priest tells him, he says, "You're lucky." He says, "Why?" He says, "Because you're a Jew." He says, "I'm a very famous"—he didn't say his name, but I'm pretty sure I know who it is—"I'm a very famous and successful priest. I have a big church. But I know that you Jews, you have the truth. My religion," he says, "it's all a lie. The whole thing is a lie."

51:53He says, if you want, you can come with me to my country, which I believe was London or somewhere in England, and you could talk to my entire church. Whatever you want, tell them the truth. So the Rabbi again says to him, let me finish with Am Yisrael first, and then I'll come to you. He says they had a debate, and he said whether he's supposed to tell him maybe he should convert, maybe not, maybe this, maybe that. The point is, Rabotai, is that Psalms are read by people all over the world. It's sad that Jews don't use that get-out-of-jail-free card as often as we should. Men and women. You have to read some Tehillim every day outside of your Siddur. And the reason why is because David HaMelech, was not only Melech Yisrael, but he was also king when it comes to prayer, when it came to connecting to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Every one of his Tehillim, if you understand what he's saying, you start crying. You start crying. Now David HaMelech,

52:58writes that there's three types of prayers in his Tehillim. He says he starts off the Tehillim in a few different ways when he talks about prayer. He says a prayer for David, which is the prayer of the king. The king's prayer is a high-level prayer; the king has a special relationship with Hashem. But then he says there's also tefillah Tefillah of Moshe Rabbeinu, this is all for the Bnei Torah, all the people that are glued to the Torah. Moshe Rabbeinu, the merits of Moshe Rabbeinu, not just the merit of the king, but the merit of Moshe Rabbeinu. There's nobody better than Moshe Rabbeinu. Moshe Rabbeinu spoke to Hashem. But then he says the highest level of prayer is Tefillah Le'ani. Tefillah of the destitute. Tefillah of the poor. Why is the tefillah of the poor, the destitute, higher than the tefillah of not only David, not only the king, but also Moshe? Moshe Rabbeinu, the poor guy, his prayer is higher than everybody else's. Why? So Chachamim explained to us, see, the king, yeah, he's praying for certain things.

54:17Moshe is praying for certain things. Some things that they're scared may happen, whether it's coronavirus getting worse, financial crisis getting worse, all types of things. But the ani, the destitute, He's already at the worst. He already knows what it feels like to not eat for three or four days. He already knows what it feels like to bounce a few checks. He already knows what it feels like to be embarrassed, not have a house, and get kicked out by a marshal. You ever have that? You guys ever been fortunate enough to experience such a nice experience? Marshal shows up to the house? Okay, sir, get out. You're out? Okay. House is locked. They put a bunch of bands around the house? Okay. Everything that's inside now belongs to the government. not yours anymore unless you file a lawsuit, this, that, the other thing. You're not getting the stuff back. You have to get your stuff out a minute before the marshal shows up. That's how they have it in America; they shut up your house. So the destitute, the one who is in dire straits, knows what it feels like to not have a house, to not have food, to have little kids and not know how to feed them. He knows how it feels.

55:27When he prays to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, he's praying with real tears of what's happening right now, not what could happen in the future. Hence the reason why HaKadosh Baruch Hu answers his prayers. Because he's praying not with the tears of maybe, should be, could be. He's praying with the tears of what's already happening to the poor guy now. He's praying with tears. He's praying because he's already going through hell right now, like some of these poor people who are suffering from all types of diseases, whether it be coronavirus or other things that are even worse. So we see here, Rabotai, that the prayer of the destitute is the highest level of prayer because he knows all of the struggles. What does this have to do with us? This, Rabotai, is a very important secret to know from David HaMelech. Because what he's trying to tell us is that you're probably not going to be the king. In fact, you're not going to be Moshe either. Now, you may or may not be poor, but you don't have to be in order to pray like them. Meaning,

56:50You're not going to be David anyway. You're not going to be Moshe. You may or may not be poor, but you don't have to be. Why? Because you can pray like them. Now that you know that a prayer full of kavanah, full of heart, full of tears to HaKadosh Baruch Hu is the highest level of prayer. It's higher than anybody else. You can do it whether you're poor or not. If you put your effort into it, you think about what's going on, you can do it in two seconds. The question is, how do we get there? The way we get there is by following what the Ramban says. It has to be zakhar, it has to be barur, and it has to be naki. So now, the Chafetz Chaim, alav hashalom, in his sefer, Zachor LeMiriam, he says, a person asks themselves, they do some evaluating.

57:51What will be with me after I have filled my mouth with mundane things? And now I must use this same mouth to speak to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. He's talking, he's saying, listen, a guy that's actually reflecting on his day, he's about to go pray. He's praying Mincha, let's say. It's the middle of the day. In the morning, you don't have enough time to make a lot of sins. You just woke up. But by the afternoon, you already had half your day. Or more of it, that you probably messed up a few times. So the Chafetz Chaim says, a person asks themselves, before they start praying, wait, hold on a second. Okay, the guy cut me off, I cursed him and his mother. My employee failed at a deadline, we lost money, I cursed him, his father, his mother, and his kids. This one, that one, he's thinking about all the different things that he did bad. It's horrible, right? But the Chafetz Chaim says, no, no, we're not talking about that guy yet.

58:53we're talking about a guy that simply wasted his time all day. He didn't curse anybody, he didn't make up any rumors; no, no, we're talking about a guy that simply spoke about nothing. He spoke about the news: how many people died today from corona, another five thousand That's what he talked about all day. How many died? Oh, no, you have five or six, four, five. Oh, maybe China. All day he's talking about things that are nothing. He doesn't need to talk about these things for his living, for his job, for anything. He's just talking about nothing. He's just, you know, talking nothing. He says that person, if he does some evaluating before he goes to pray, his neshama is going to tell him, "All day I talked about nothing." And now I have to use this same mouth to go talk to Hashem. To go talk to the King of Kings. What will be with me? How is He going to accept my prayer?

59:56Rabbi Ephraim says, if that's the case, the Chafetz Chaim tells us, that's the case of someone who knows his reality for just talking about mundane things. Needless to say, someone who's saying Lashon Hara all day, someone that's making rumors all day, someone that's cursing all day, yelling all day, Hashem Yerachem, what's this person's din if he shows up to go talk to the King of Kings? So the Chafetz Chaim continues and he says, I'll give you a suggestion to save your life. Chafetz Chaim is giving you a suggestion. Save your life. He says, first, before going to pray, think of thoughts of teshuva. Before you go pray, before you pray any of your prayers, start thinking thoughts of teshuva. And think, what did you do all day? ...and regret all the bad acts, and accept upon yourself not to repeat them. So he says, it doesn't matter who you are, it doesn't matter if you're a rabbi, it doesn't matter if you're a student, it doesn't matter if you're newly religious, it doesn't matter if you're not even religious, it doesn't make a difference. You want to go pray, you want Hashem to listen to you, you want to talk to the King? First, start off with thoughts of teshuva. Evaluate your day, what did you do all day? What kind of mistakes did you make?

1:01:26say, "Okay, enough's enough. At least, okay, right now let's say it's five o'clock. I messed up the first half. I woke up at six, seven, eight, nine, ten o'clock. It's now five o'clock. I just wasted the last eight hours talking about nothing. Okay, now I gotta go talk to Hashem. I'm gonna convince Hashem to listen to my talking because all day He's been listening to my talking and He keeps telling me to shut up." enough about Trump and not about the economy and not about CNBC, enough! But I won't shut up, I keep talking, talking. Now I gotta talk to Hashem. Why? Because I need Hashem to fix all the mistakes that I made. So I'm gonna get Him to listen to me. How could I get Him to listen to me? Regret it, review it, and commit to stop. meaning okay, it's five o'clock. You messed up the first half of the day. Commit that from now on, at least for the rest of the day, you're not going to continue talking about mundane nonsense. You're not going to continue making rumors. You're not going to continue cursing and talking up a storm, with your mouth being like a sewer. You're not going to continue that way.

1:02:40messed up the first half of the day. Fine, okay, whatever happened, happened. Let's start again. Half of the day—start from here, start new. For most people, I mean guys, three, four, five hours before they go to sleep, so it's not even half a day, it's even less. Okay, that's fine too. Regret it, stop, and commit to stopping it. And then, he says, you'll be ready. To bring your prayer in front of the King of Kings. He says, what is this like? A person, he gives an analogy, the Chofetz Chaim gives an analogy. He says, a person, a rich person, goes into town, and he finds the most expensive, most elaborate, five-star hotel in the country. And he comes and he stays in this hotel. And as you know, or you may not know, these hotels, they don't spare a penny. They try to make sure that their guests, who are paying a fortune for each room, even the little tiny hole-in-the-wall rooms costing $5,000 a night, have an exceptional experience.

1:03:49So they make sure that everything, that the lighting fixtures are a certain type and the couches are a certain designer, and the paint has a certain color to it from a certain painter, and so on and so forth. And the dishes are made by the best chefs, and so on and so forth. Why? Because they want to make sure that when people leave, after they've paid a small fortune for the room for a few days, they leave with a good taste in their mouth. They leave telling other people that they should also go to this five-star hotel. So, a rich guy goes to a five-star hotel and sits there, sleeps there, eats there, and enjoys his time. After a few days of being at this hotel, the owner of the hotel comes to the rich person and asks him, "Sir, how are you enjoying our hotel? Is it as good as you heard?"

1:04:50And the rich guy says, well, you know, everything is great. The lighting fixtures are beautiful. The paintings are beautiful. The smell is great. The bed is very comfortable. The room is very spacious. The people are very nice. The food is delicious. Ah, so the owner is very happy. But I only have one complaint. What's the complaint? He says, "For some reason, every time I finish eating the food, which is delicious by the way," he says, "but after I finish eating, for whatever reason, there's a disgusting smell coming out of my mouth. And I can't put my finger on it because the food looks good, and it tastes good, but I'm not really sure. For some reason, something's wrong." So the owner gets worried. If this word comes out, we're doomed. From five-star, we're going to no star. He starts investigating the issue, and what do they find? They found out that the guys in the kitchen don't wash the utensils, don't wash the tools that they use to cook the food every day.

1:06:07And much of the food has little pieces of rotten stuff that's been accumulating. All types of coronaviruses inside it. The Chafetz Chaim says, this is an analogy of a person who uses their mouth to go speak to the King. But this tool, this tool that he has, that's supposed to bring a beautiful dish, this tool that's allowed, is being given permission to talk to the King of Kings. Unfortunately, it's filthy. It's full of lashon hara, it's full of making rumors, it's full of cursing, it's full of lying, it's full of all types of things. How do you expect the King of Kings To want to be at your hotel. How do you expect the King of Kings to listen to your prayer? A person must ensure, the Chafetz Chaim says, that the tools that he is using to speak to Hashem do not have any Tum'ah at all and must be pure.

1:07:21because when he speaks impure words or even engages in wasteful conversations, he is creating Tum'ah that is on top of his lips. As it is written in the book of Isaiah, the prophet Isaiah tells us something petrifying. The prophet Isaiah, in chapter 6 verse 5, says, "Woe to me, for I am doomed, for I am a man of impure lips, and I dwell among people with impure lips." For my eyes have seen the King, Hashem, Master of Legions. In Hebrew, it continues, he says, the prophet Isaiah says, "Woe unto me if I have impure lips, and I still expect to speak to HaKadosh Baruch Hu."

1:08:39The Chafetz Chaim says to us, if you're going to speak wasteful conversations about the news, about the stock market, about a bunch of sports that have nothing to do with your vocation, have nothing to do with you making a living, you're just wasting time. Waiting for the coronavirus quarantine to be over. You're just buying yourself more time. You're smoking a cigarette, wasting your life away. You're lying, you're cheating, you're cursing. You're creating Tum'a. You're creating so much Tum'a that there's a pasuk in the Tanakh about it. The prophet himself says, woe unto me if I have impure lips. How can I continue speaking to God? And he's a prophet. Needless to say, us. So, the Chafetz Chaim continues, and he says, and then you're going to come with this Tum'a that you have.

1:09:39With these filthy lips and pray to Hashem while the Tum'a is hovering above you? How can you say, Rabbi Ephraim says, how can you say Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh? How can you allow yourself to say such things? Holy, holy, holy. Sanctifying Hashem's name when there's Tum'a on top of you. From all the filth that came out of your mouth all day. Rather, a person must cleanse his mouth. And he uses the word hagalah. Hagalah is more than just cleansing. You know, some people think cleansing, maybe you wash it a little bit. But hagalah, you're boiling it. Not literally, but make sure to remove. Remove all of the filth. How do you remove all the filth from your mouth? You have to burn it. What can you burn it with? Words of Torah. Words of Torah are fire. cleans his mouth thoroughly to have a pure mouth. And the way to do it is by thoughts of teshuva. And to take on himself to not speak forbidden things in the future. And therefore his prayer or her prayer will be heard because it says in the Zohar HaKadosh,

1:11:01In Parashat Metzora, a person who says Lashon Hara, his prayer does not reach heaven and doesn't get answered because the Tum'ah covers him. But once he does Teshuva, once she stops saying Lashon Hara about her neighbor, once she stops saying Lashon Hara about her mother-in-law, once she stops saying Rechilut about the rabbi, once they stop talking about nothing all day, they actually do Teshuva, then the spirit of Tum'ah leaves and immediately their prayer is lifted to heaven and is able to be answered. Here we see, Rabotai, that a person who wants their prayer to be heard by HaKadosh Baruch Hu Must have a clean mouth. And the only way to have a clean mouth is to do teshuva. But how often do you have to do teshuva? Every day. Every day. Now, if a person says, "Listen, I did teshuva already. I keep Shabbat. I watch one or two shiurim a week. I read a book here and there."

1:12:24I pray, I'm fine. And doesn't realize that no matter where you are in your life, whether you've been shomer Torah u'mitzvot for 50 years, or 5 years, or whatever in between, you have to do teshuva every day. Any person that doesn't think that is living an illusion. But what kind of an illusion? An illusion to think that you are excluded from the mitzvah of teshuva because you are good enough. You are a rabbi, you are learned, you are a religious woman for a long time, and therefore teshuva is not applicable to you, it's for everybody else. Mistake. Mistake. Teshuva is an act that you have to fulfill every single day, especially if you want your prayers to be answered. Now, if a person is going to say, listen, I'm just going to continue doing what I'm doing. And I think Hashem is happy with me. I'm going to continue praying. I'm going to continue learning whenever I get a chance. I'm going to continue doing whatever I'm doing. I'm coasting. I'm good now. and doesn't continue to elevate themselves by fixing their character traits every day, by doing teshuva for something that they've done wrong, and just lives in an illusion that they're good enough.

1:13:43That means that you are not following the instructions the way the instructions are given. And that's not really going to work so well. What is it like? Rabbi Galinsky gave an analogy. He said there was one time a meeting between the king of Russia and the king of Morocco, and both were trying to impress each other. So both brought their best chef with them. And the king of Morocco brought his best chef with all the spicy, delicious food. And the king of Russia brought his chef with all the different types of fish and meats and so on. Now, the Moroccan king really, really liked the kishke that the Russian chef made. He liked it so much...

1:14:43that he asked the king, "Who made this delicious dish?" And the king says, "My chef, he's the best chef I know." "No, no, no, please, please, Your Highness, please. We're friends, right? You're a king, I'm a king. Please have your chef come out here and tell my chef exactly what he did so I can have this at my house in Morocco." As a sign of good gesture, and also being proud of his country and his chef, the Russian was happy to do this. And he brought his chef out, he goes, "Tell him everything." So... The Russian chef, proud as can be, tells the Moroccan chef, "So, you gotta put this, and you gotta put that. You gotta take the stomach—it depends how big you want it to be. If you want it to be big, then use the stomach of a cow. If you don't want it to be big, use a chicken; it's fine. Trim the stuff, and then you put some potatoes and some of this and some of that, some of this and some sauces, and this and that, and you have yourself a kishke." So, the Moroccan king was happy as can be. He feels like he just got a treasure. As soon as they got back home, his first command to the chef was, "Go make me a kishke." The chef goes,

1:15:52Mix works for four and a half hours. Four and a half hours he's working on this dish. After four hours, the king is excited to come into the kitchen. He's not even waiting at his table. He's going to the kitchen to see what's going on with this kishke. As soon as he gets there, he says, "Open, open the dish." They open the dish, and the filthy smell that came out of this dish almost made both of them pass out. The king took his sword out and put it to the neck of the chef. He goes, "You're trying to kill me?" He goes, "Your highness, I swear to you on anything. I followed the recipe exactly as the Russian chef said. I didn't miss a beat. Everything that was on the list I wrote down, I did it. I don't know why it smells so horrible." Maybe the Russian king is making fun of Your Highness? He told his chef to give us a spoof?

1:16:57going to war with him, that's it. I'm going to destroy Russia. You send him a messenger that if he doesn't have an explanation of what happened here, we're going to war. They sent a messenger to Russia. The Russian king says, "No, no worries, my friend. Why war?" He brings his chef in, puts a sword to his neck, and says, "Tell me what you said to them. What'd you—why—what happened to the kishke?" He says, "Your Highness, everything I give you, I told the guy." Both kings get upset; they throw both of the chefs in jail. They are there for 14 days, isolated from the world, not knowing what's going on. The chefs cooked, they cooked. Both kings are upset at the chefs. But after a while, the Russian chef says, says, "You followed everything?" He says, "Yeah, I followed everything. Everything. He told me, 'You put the potatoes?' I put the potatoes. 'You put all of the pepper?' I put the pepper. 'You put the sugar?' I put the sugar. 'You put the salt?' I put the salt. 'You put this?' I put everything. And that's what you got?" He goes, "That's what I got." He's thinking, thinking. "Hold on a second. When you got the stomach, before you put everything, did you clean it first?" "Yes."

1:18:23The Moroccan chef looks at him like he has three heads. He goes, "No. Why would I? That wasn't on the list." He says, "You idiot. You tipesh. Ben tipesh. You fool. Son of a fool. Of course, you had to clean it. That was a given. Of course, you had to clean it. There's a bunch of manure in it. There's a bunch of filth in the stomach." Obviously, if you put all the good stuff, all of the salt and the peppers and this and that on top of filth, it's in the stomach. Of course, it's going to be smelly and toxic. You have to clean it first. They found the solution and now they have a good kishke. Rav Galinski tells us, Rabotai, you can have the best system in the world But if you don't follow the instructions, it's simply not going to work. It's not going to work. HaKadosh Baruch Hu tells us, we have a mitzvah from the Torah, not from the rabbis. From the Torah to do teshuva every day.

1:19:35You think you're good enough? You think your prayer is good enough? You think your Torah learning is good enough? You think your marriage is good enough? You think your parenting is good enough? You think your tzedakah is good enough? You think your character traits are good enough? Mistake. As long as you're in this world, you have something to work on. How often? Every day. Before you go pray to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, before you say HaKadosh Baruch Hu's name, you have to reflect, "What did I do today? And how could I make the rest of the day better?" Because if we skip this step, then the kishkes turn into waste. It turns into filth. It turns into toxic food. The prayer turns into something toxic. When a person does teshuva before he prays, That automatically makes the words that are coming out of his mouth have much more emotion. The teshuva part is the first step of prayer. It's the zechut. It's the part where we are purifying our prayer because we're purifying our actions. We're not saying we were perfect all day or all week. We're saying we know we did wrong. We're sorry. We're going to do better for the rest of the day.

1:20:59That's all HaKadosh Baruch Hu is asking us. Once you've worked on that, and you've spent some time doing that, automatically you're more emotional when it comes to prayer. Now, when you're more emotional when it comes to prayer, rabotai, you are curing one of the biggest problems we all have. The Mishnah in Pirkei Avot, chapter 2, Mishnah number 18, has a warning from Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai says: Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai says, be meticulous in reading the Shema Yisrael in your prayer. We have to read this twice a day. And when you pray, do not make your prayer a set routine. Don't make your prayer robotic. Don't go into prayer, you finish Birkat Hamazon somehow.

1:22:13you're in there because you know it by heart because you pray so much already, three times a day for X amount of years, and you pray, you know it by heart and finish. Yes, as soon as you start, you're already calculating how long it is going to take you to get out of there. Why? Because you have an appointment. Instead of thinking about the appointment you have with the King of Kings, with the One who has the cure, we're thinking about what we have after work. why? Because the prayer is turning into tefillat keva (routine, robotic). This gives us a specific warning not to do this. Rather, a person has to make sure that he does all types of things to bring more emotion to his prayer. Rashi, 900 years ago, writes that a person has to, in his prayer, in his daily prayer, in every prayer, beg for God's mercy. "Yeah, but I didn't do anything wrong. I just woke up." You did something wrong! When? Yesterday, the day before, the week before, a year before, a life before. There is plenty for you to ask for forgiveness and mercy. A person should ask for God's mercy as if he were a beggar.

1:23:35at the door, who senses that this is the only place where his needs can be met. And he must concentrate on the meaning of the words he says. He must have kavanah. Now, a person must understand that a prayer without emotion, without the right kavanah in there, is like a body without a soul. And when a person prays to HaKadosh Baruch Hu with serious kavanah, with serious emotion, he's automatically going to get closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu and get us to the next point. Now the next point is, Rabotai, that we not only have to make sure that we concentrate on HaKadosh Baruch Hu, but we have to do different things that help us do it. One of the things that I always tell people is to study the Siddur. Learn what you're saying. Actually understand what you're saying. Because the sages from the 120 sages who put together the Siddur weren't just regular rabbis.

1:24:55Some of them were prophets. Some of them were prophets. This is almost 2,000 years ago, Rabotai. This is at the time of the Beit HaMikdash. There was still prophecy. These are people who spoke to God, and God spoke to them. These are people who knew what God wanted from them, for sure, without guessing. These are people who knew what God likes to hear from us. They used specific words at specific times for specific reasons because they knew that the sounds from those words, the words that are said at these times, open different gates of heaven. And when a prayer of a person has full kavanah, has the right ingredients in it, Rabotai, it's not only something that affects him or her. But in the parasha it says that this prayer, that you, little you, in your house right now because you're in quarantine and you can't pray with the minyan, you're praying by yourself, little you could open the gates of heaven for the entire world with your prayer if it has the right ingredients in it.

1:26:22You can open the prayer, the gates of heaven, by yourself. Nobody else. To solve coronavirus, to solve the financial crisis, to solve anything you want. If it has the right kavanah. That's how powerful prayer is. Now, the key is to know that in order for us to do this, we must have the right kavanah. The right kavanah means that we have to know that our prayer has to be clear of all thoughts—stock market, sicknesses, disease, fears, whatever it is. We have to clear ourselves and everything that we're thinking about; we have to connect it to Hashem somehow. Even if you're thinking about money, connect it to Hashem. You're thinking about marriage, connect it to Hashem. How is whatever you're thinking connected to Hashem? If you connect whatever is in your mind to Hashem, it's allowed. It's part of the prayer. But if it's not connected to Hashem, it's not allowed. It's a foreign thought. When you have the right kavanah in prayer, and you succeed, your neshamah feels it. You feel it right after you finish praying. You feel like you got something.

1:27:42that's what Rabbi Levy says. When a person prays with serious kavanah, he feels a certain pleasure unlike anything else. Right away, right after he finishes, he feels something that’s like, "Wow, what just happened?" Like, "Wow." I did really well. I don't know what I did, but I just did something good. It just feels good. Like a sense of achievement. A sense of accomplishment of something. A sense of connection. A sense of worth. All types of good senses. Finally. But then the next day, he thinks it's going to come to him naturally now. So he goes back to the old way and... nothing. The next day she says, while she's chasing the kids down the hall with no feeling, "I'll show you." It's all while she's not even sure if she's eating or drinking, or if she's going back to the bathroom. Nothing. Why? If you want it to give you that feeling...

1:28:46You want it to give you that achievement, that sense of achievement, that real achievement where you're literally opening the gates of heaven; it must have kavanah. This is not easy to do all the time, but it is an obligation. Meaning that just because it's not easy doesn't mean it's not an obligation. Now, how does a person get themselves to do such a thing? He has to understand that it has to have a certain value in your head. The prayer, if you knew that this prayer could literally answer all of your problems, could literally change the world, then you would use it as that tool. Now, I'll give you a couple of stories, and we'll finish tonight. Many people have heard of two tzaddikim; they were talmidim of the Maggid of Mezeritch. Last week I told you a story about Rabbi Zusha. Today I'm going to tell you a story about his brother. His brother was Rabbi Elimelech, Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk. Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk was an enormous talmid chacham.

1:30:07and was also a miracle worker. One time, a couple came to him with their sick daughter, who had stopped growing at three years old. Even though she was 16 years old, she still looked like she was three. They went to his house, and he wasn't there. So, they just entered and waited inside. The girl couldn't stand on her own; she didn't have any muscles or anything. So, they put her on top of the bed. Shortly after, a rude person shows up. He talks to the baby who looks three years old but is really 16. "What are you doing on my bed? Get off my bed!" For the first time in their life, they see this girl move. She gets up, gets off the bed, and sits on the floor. They start crying, "Please, we know you. You are special. Please help us." "What's the matter? Why are you crying?" "That's our daughter." "Yes, well, what's wrong with her?" "She's 16. She's 16 years old. She's not three." "Okay, so what's wrong with her?" "She's little." "Oh, you want her to grow?" "Yes." "Okay, you can stop crying. How much do you want her to grow?" "We want her to grow." He goes, "Stand up!" He yells at the kid, "Stand up!" They see the kid standing for the first time in her life. She's standing.

1:31:27He says, "How big do you want her to grow?" And he puts his hand, his holy hand that was burned to a crisp. One time in his life, he did it on purpose. He burned his hand because he heard that his hand hit someone. I think it was his mother. So he intentionally burned his hand. He had a glove on his hand. It was completely burned. This hand was as holy as can be. He put his hand on top of this little kid and he tells the parents, "How big do you want her to be?" And he starts raising his hand, and the kid starts growing in front of their eyes. Now, people have heard these stories. I only recently heard the story of how he died. And it's an amazing story. Harav Shani told it. He's a Talmid Chacham in Eretz Yisrael, and he's the grandson of the Baal HaAvat Chaim, which is a very famous sefer. Vami Sled, written about a little over 100 years ago, has a lot of mystical stories and miracles, dibbukim, scary stuff. Every story, small little heart attack. Point is, the...

1:32:42the story goes that he was the talmid of the Maggid of Mezritch, and the Maggid of Mezritch was the talmid of the Baal Shem Tov. So, Rabbi Elimelech was very close to the Baal Shem Tov. Now, the Baal Shem Tov He himself was the chazzan at his synagogue. And Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk also was the chazzan in his synagogue. Why? Because they knew certain prayers that were very, very unique, that opened specific gates in heaven. So one time, there was a ben Torah called Rabbi Avraham, and he came to the Baal Shem Tov. And he says, "Kvoda Rav, I am struggling financially. If the Rav can give me a blessing. He says, so the Baal Shem Tov was already very old. He says to him, why don't you come to my synagogue on Friday and listen to my prayer? He said, okay. So he came to the Baal Shem Tov, listened to him. After he heard him pray, the Baal Shem Tov told him, can you do that? That prayer I just did, can you do it?

1:33:59He said, sure. He says, no, do it. And he sees him, a mamash miracle. He prayed that particular prayer with exactly the same tune. The Baal Shem Tov tells him, listen, I'm going to die soon. So you can be the chazan in the shul, make some parnassah, I'll pay you. And then eventually, after I leave this world, people will know you are my chazan. And you can make parnassah that way in other places. So that's what happened. This Rabbi Avraham became the new chazan at the Bet Knesset of the Baal Shem Tov. And people enjoyed the prayer, and the tune and the voice that he had were unbelievable. After the Baal Shem Tov died, Rabbi Avraham started traveling from place to place to make a living. And he had his helper because you needed two people to do this unique tune. He had his helper with him, and they would go from town to town to pray for them, and they would pay them. After doing it for 27 years, making a living, doing well, and so on, eventually he gets to the Bet Knesset of someone who didn't like to invite outsiders to be the chazan because he was the chazan.

1:35:22But when he heard that Rabbi Avraham was a talmid of the Baal Shem Tov, prayed at the Baal Shem Tov's kever, and knew a specific, unique tune that opened the gates of heaven which the Baal Shem Tov taught him, he said, "Listen, you can be the chazan for us on Friday." He agreed. He starts praying. And shortly after, he starts praying. Everybody is enjoying it. But Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk starts feeling the prayer elevating his neshama out of his body. He understood this tune. He connected to the tune. He understood what this music is. And his neshama enjoyed it so much, he started dying. so much so that he had to get up and push the chazan, the ba'al tefilah, push him away to stop him from praying. He took over, finished the prayer, and then he said, "Listen, Rabbi Avraham, I'm sorry if I embarrassed you by pushing you, but it was simply a pikuach nefesh. I felt my neshama leave my body because of what you were doing. It was such a high-level prayer."

1:36:47My neshama was leaving me, and I had to stop it. But to show you that I'm not disrespecting you, please, pray again with us tomorrow, and I invite you to my home to eat with us, all three seudot. And he honored them and celebrated with them, and they prayed together, and so on. So, at Motza'ei Shabbat, Rabbi Elimelech, Sees Rabbi Avraham, he says, "Everything okay?" He says, "Baruch Hashem, I'm glad that we prayed together, but there's only one issue." He says, "What?" He says, "I have to please ask you for a favor." He goes, "What's the favor?" He says, "I need you to give this will to my family, because I'm going to leave this world tomorrow." I'm going to die tomorrow. He said, "How do you know you're going to die?" He said, "Because the Baal Shem Tov told me that when he gave me this gift of this prayer, he told me that one day everyone's going to enjoy your prayer, but someone is going to push you off the bimah. And then you'll know that the next day you're going to die."

1:37:58Today that happened, so I know that this Shabbat is my last Shabbat. Tomorrow, I'm going back to my Maker. I'm going back to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. So if the Rav could please give this to my rabbi and to my family. Rabbi Elimelech did it, and the next day, as you would have it, the man died. Now, before they buried him, Rabbi Elimelech told them, "Bring me the body," and... Uncovered the body and Rabbi Elimelech says, "Sing for me one more time." And he sang for him one more time on the way to being buried. Now, all of these stories are mystical and beyond our wildest dreams. If you believe it, you believe it. If you don't believe it, you don't believe it. But here's the best part: After this happened, Rabbi Elimelech comes to his kehillah the next day and tells his kehillah... I'm sorry, I'm going to be leaving this world. When are you leaving this world? In a few hours. So-and-so is going to take over, this, that. The other thing, I'm leaving. They just had to bury Rabbi Avraham, the visitor. Now they're burying their Rabbi. As you would have it, he went to sleep, that's it, finished. Left the world. A few days later, who's left? The helper.

1:39:26The helper comes to the gabbai of the beit knesset. He says, "Here, take this note. Give this to my family because of what happened to you now." He says, "Last night I had a dream. My partner came to me in a dream, and I said, 'Hey, how is it over there?' He goes, 'Listen, I gotta give you some news.' 'What was the news?' 'You gotta come up here.' He goes, 'Why?' 'Rabbi Elimelech just came here and he wants us to sing. I can't sing by myself. You gotta come here. So tomorrow I'm going to Olam HaBa.'" And that's what happened. The guy died. All of them died within the same week. These are the stories of our grandparents. These are the stories that Am Yisrael lives on. Live, believe, don't believe. Some people say, oh, this is too mystical. It's too crazy. How do they know? How do they not know? This is our heritage. This is our history. This is Am Yisrael. What's to say that this is a big miracle when you look at miracles in the Torah of HaKadosh Baruch Hu destroying the world and then rebuilding it in an instant?

1:40:32What's to say a big miracle, small miracle, HaKadosh Baruch Hu takes a tipas serucha, a putrid seed that you would just not even want to look at and turns that putrid seed into a human being with perfect eyes, ears, nose, mouth, legs, feet, all types of things, a brain that's more sophisticated than all the technology in the world. the key part of the story is to understand that aside from all of the beautiful miracles within it, there is a very valuable lesson. The valuable lesson is that if a person truly knows how to use this tool called the mouth, that Hashem gave him, that Hashem gave her, you could literally elevate your neshama to different worlds. Needless to say, elevate the world to a different place. HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave us a gift.

1:41:33What's that gift? Crazy people are forcing everybody to pray by themselves, to be secluded from the whole world, not knowing what to do. Even though this, even though that, none of this stuff makes any sense. You have to be alone, but just with your family. You have to be alone, but you're allowed to go to the park. You have to be alone, but if you work here, it's okay. You have to be alone, but if you do this, none of this stuff makes any sense. Bottom line, what does Hashem want? Hashem wants us right now to think about how we pray. Think about how you pray before you pray. Think about how you learn before you learn. Think about what you're going to do before you do it. Why? You are not using your full potential. Now, HaKadosh Baruch Hu is nearly destroying the entire world to get our attention, to get us to do this. It behooves us to do it and not force Him to make it worse. So we're crying like the destitute. We can act like the destitute without being the destitute. We can act like the ani without being the ani. Don't force Hashem to turn us into aniyim. The fact is, Rabotai, that the Ramban tells us...

1:42:56You have an opportunity to pray to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. All you have to do, first and foremost, is do teshuva. We're not even asking for teshuva for your entire life. Teshuva for the day. Start with the day, Ribbono Shel Olam. Start with teshuva for the day. After that, after you've done teshuva, you've done teshuva for the day, you're actually thinking about what you've done, what you didn't do, what you plan to do. Once you've actually done this next step, rabotai, you have to start becoming emotional with your prayer. Cry a little bit. When you cry, the Arizal says, you take your tears, you wipe them on your forehead, and you're erasing sins you've made. Tears are very, very valuable in Shamayim if you use them the right way. If you cry about not having a nice car, or not having a nice fridge, or not having a nice kitchen, that's not really worth very much. But if you cry for the sake of Am Yisrael, you cry because you don't know enough Torah, you cry because you don't know enough—anything—that's worth something. That's worth something especially if you cry about spirituality. Have emotion in your prayer, that's step number two. Last but not least...

1:44:16Make sure that your prayer is clean and clear of all thoughts, and your only thought in your head is Hashem. One of the ways that you can do it when it comes to the Amidah, every time you get to the blessing part, is to focus deeply on the words. where it says when you say Hashem's name, when you say Hashem's name, you don't say it but think. You have to describe in essence what Hashem is, His significance, His significance. and you have to say, "I don't call Him the Master of all; He was, He is, and He will be." When you do this, it slows down your prayer a little bit, but now you are not just saying Hashem without real meaning. Your Hashem is not just another word in your siddur. Hashem is not just another word in your mind like anything else here.

1:45:35When you say Hashem's name, you're giving it the right respect, where you're simply recognizing that you say, "Blessed are You, Hashem," but you're thinking this. The rest of it, you're not saying; you're just thinking it. You are the Master of all; You were, You are, and You will be. Resurrecting the dead, you know, the Blessed, the Holy God, and so on and so forth—all the rest. When you say Hashem's name, do it with full kavanah. That, Rabotai, will change your prayer tremendously. There are other things that you can do, but first, this is the basic minimum—basic minimum of what we're supposed to do when we say Hashem's name. When you do it, most likely your prayer will be slower than your community. Your prayer will be slower than your kehillah in many places. You know what the good news is? All your kehillot are closed. So you can do this by yourself and get some training. Get some training. Improve your prayer. Improve your connection to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Listen to the instructions by Hashem Yitbarach. And I promise you that the only thing that we will have to worry about is how much more teshuva.

1:46:53how much more we need to do because we finally realize we haven't done enough. This gives us the strength to overcome all obstacles. Tomorrow night, we'll have the questions and answers in Sunny Isles, and then we have one other shiur before Pesach. A little bit of a break, but hopefully, you guys got some chizuk like I did.