Rabbi Yaron Reuven 10th Chag HaSmicha Igud HaRabbonim Speech & YOREH YOREH Smicha Acceptance

1:48Thank you very much for having me. Oh, Hashem, it's a great pleasure to meet everybody all over again and be part of an amazing organization. We read in Tefillah every day, as Abaye says, that we are in a generation because the Beit HaMikdash was destroyed due to the absence of Anshei Emunah. Chazal asks, what do you mean, Anshei Emunah? What, people didn't believe in Hashem? How could it be? They saw a miracle every day. Imagine, you wake up, you see a miracle. You go to sleep, you see a miracle. In the afternoon, you see a miracle. There are miracles all day, all night. There's an eish, there's a fire coming from Shamayim in the shape of a lion to eat the korban. It's not enough to have emunah. So what does it mean, Anshei Emunah Avadu? The Gemara in Masechet Shabbat... 55-56 talks about it a few times and says that in the generation of the Beit HaMikdash, originally Hashem wanted to punish the wicked and reward the righteous. But for the first and last time in history, He had to change a decree and punish everyone. The reason was that there were no men of truth.

3:18Not emunah in the sense of believing in Hashem, but emunah in the sense of standing for Hashem. Standing for HaKadosh Baruch Hu at a time when it's not so popular. As the rabbi mentioned earlier, it's not so popular. You're not going to win every popularity contest by telling the truth to people. The question we all have to ask ourselves, all of the musmachim, all of the people that are in the world of Torah, is... B'emet, whether you have a semicha or you don't have a semicha, what changes? It's a big deal. But what's the big deal? Rabbi Mendy said, if you put it on your wall, do me a favor, give it back. If you're going to put it on the wall, give it back. I had nine security licenses. I was on Wall Street for 16 years. I was very accomplished at one point. In the business world, each license was a test, no less than 300 questions. I had nine of them. You can make, instead of the wallpaper, you can just make the licenses. At a time of need, not a single license was worth a quarter. Why? Hashem runs the world. Hashem runs the world. It's one thing we have to remind ourselves every single day. The one thing that changes between someone that has a semicha and someone that does not have a semicha is responsibility. If you don't have a semicha, you just know a little bit of Torah, you're a regular yid, you learn a little bit here and there, you're trying to get to Gan Eden, hopefully. Be'ezrat Hashem, we succeed. But if you're a musmach, that means that somebody gave you a responsibility, a responsibility for your brother much more than the typical Jew.

4:48Bear responsibility. If you don't have semicha, you just know a little bit of Torah, you're a regular yid, you learn a little bit here and there, you're trying to get to Gan Eden, hopefully. Be'ezrat Hashem, we succeed. But if you're a musmach, that means that somebody gave you a responsibility, a responsibility for your brother much more than the typical Jew. much more than anyone else out there has the responsibility for. Because now, you're the ish emet. If you spread the truth, you'll breed emet. If you spread falsehood, you'll breed falsehood. Chas v'shalom. In this week's parasha, there's a midrash, a very famous midrash, that I only learned this week, the chokhmah inside the midrash. It says the famous story that Noach, Ish Tzadik Tamim Bedorotav, Noach, Ish Tzadik, Kodesh Kodeshim, saved the world, took care of the animals, took care of this, took care of... Okay, fine. He's feeding the animals for a year. So you would think, at the very least, the animals would have a little bit of Hakarat HaTov. Animals would say, thank you, Noach, I'm alive because of you. But what do we hear? We hear the lion didn't get his dinner on time. And what did he do? Tach!

6:14Gave Noach a nice pach. Gave Noach a nice pach. Noach suffered the whole year. Why? Because the lion didn't get his food on time. The question is, Chachamim ask, why did the lion hit Noach? I mean, at the end of it all, technically, he's dependent on him. I mean, if it's not for Noach, the lion would die. If it's not for Noach, the lion would stay outside. How dare you hit Noach? Why didn't Hashem just kill the lion? So Rabbi Fahyim and I learned this sugya this week. There are a few reasons we came up with. The first one, the obvious, is that the lion is a kafui tovah. Simple. The lion is an animal. An animal does not know how to say thank you. An animal can also be a Kafui Tova, can be ungrateful. Very simple. Second reason, also logical. The animal is not a typical animal. He's a lion. He's not just your average animal. He's a lion, meaning he's the king of the animals. There's not many like him. There's only one king of the animals. Originally, it was supposed to be the serpent, the snake.

7:42But after he spoke Lashon Hara, Baruch Hashem, Hashem took away his job and gave it to the lion. So, the second reason is that the lion, being a king, deserves special treatment. He's not like your typical animal. He says, "I deserve my food on time. Why? I'm not the snake. I'm not a bird. I'm not a deer. I'm the lion. The lion deserves special treatment." The third reason is is that at the end of it all, the lion's a lion. He's not your friend. This is the Mashal. The Nimshal, Rabotai Yekarim, is that a Rav needs to know if he's going to do Zikui HaRabim, if he's going to talk to the public, whether in a Kehillah or in speeches like we tried to do for the last five years. He has to tell people things that sometimes they like to hear, And sometimes they may not like to hear it. But he's not allowed to refrain from saying it because people don't like it. He's only allowed to say it because it's emet (truth). He has to be a lion. Now, sometimes you're going to spend an enormous amount of time helping people as a rabbi. An enormous amount of time. They're going to call you at 2 o'clock in the morning. You're going to pick up. They're going to ask you for help, and you're going to help.

9:07They're going to ask you for all types of things that they don't even have the courage to ask anybody else. But you're going to do it. Why? Because you don't want to be one of those people. You want to be Ish Emet. Ish Emet is Emet all the time, even when it's not comfortable. And sometimes you should know that those very same people you're going to help, you know for sure they're not going to be grateful in the end. You know for sure they're not going to be grateful. But you still got to do it. You still got to do it even if you know for sure they're not even going to say thank you. Why? That's your job. That's what you signed up for. The second thing is, Rav Kalmanovich says that the lion is not just a regular animal, he's a special animal. He's the king of the jungle. He's the king of all animals.

10:08The king deserves special treatment. An ish emet is a special, is a special ish. In a generation of Mashiach, in a generation where the Gemara in Masechet Sotah, page 49b, says that the emet will be hated. People will hate emet. Chutzpah tisgeh, there is going to be an enormous amount of chutzpah. Meaning, you see somebody that's a chutzpah, you see somebody that's rude, [it's as if] he's bringing the Mashiach. This guy's a chutzpah, oh yeah, he's bringing the Mashiach closer. Why? There's going to be a lot of chutzpah. People, women want to be rabbis, men want to be women. Hashem, what do people want to do today? You have to ask people their gender today, because sometimes they don't know themselves. They say, I'm in the middle. When you're an ish emet in this generation, you're a special lion. Why? Because there are not many like you. There aren't many good rabbanim in the world. There's only a few. There aren't many organizations that are willing to stand for the truth. There are many organizations, baruch Hashem. There's a lot of Torah in the world, baruch Hashem. But there aren't many people willing to stand for the truth, even if it costs them a great deal. There are not many.

11:31Rav Kalmanovich says, if you're one of these people, you need special treatment. Where are you going to get the special treatment? Hashem Yitbarach. The prophet Jeremiah says to the people of Israel, if you bring a righteous person who used to be a loiterer, used to be a glutton, You bring them back to Me, you'll be like My mouth. What does it mean you'll be like My mouth? Rashi says, Hashem told Am Yisrael, "I created the world. I created the heaven and the earth and everything in between. I say something, it happens. You will be the same." Why? You bring people back to Me. You bring My children back. If you just want to collect money, I suggest you go to Wall Street. But if you want to bring Jews to Hashem and get special treatment—such as having your children marry tzaddikot and tzaddikim, or ensuring parnassah (livelihood) is always on time—you’re never going to lack anything. Many people make a lot of money, but very few people have bracha (blessing). You want that bracha? You need kabbalat ol (accepting the yoke of heaven). Last but not least, rabotai, the last part of this, in the sugya we thought...

13:01hashem is the king. A person can be a servant of a king for 70 years, perfect, never messing up, always serving dinner on time, always doing whatever he needs to do, but one time, just one time, instead of giving the king what he wanted, he had a bad day. His wife yelled at him, the kids failed at school, something happened on the way to work. He had a flat tire. He's really in a bad mood. So he decided when the king told him, "Listen, can you bring my dinner? Can you bring my lunch? Can you bring my something?" Instead of bringing him his something, he just decided to spill it in his face. The king says to him, "But your highness, I've served you for 70 years perfectly. For one thing I did wrong, just one thing..." Something happened on the way to work. He had a flat tire. He's really in a bad mood. So when the king told him, "Listen, can you bring my dinner? Can you bring my lunch? Can you bring me something?" Instead of bringing him his something, he just decided to spill it in his face. The king says to him, "But your highness, I've served you for 70 years perfectly. For one thing, I did one thing wrong, one thing." That you're going to judge me on one thing, and you forget the 70 years? The king's response is, yes, for one thing. Why? I'm the king. I'm the king. I'm Yisrael. Baruch Hashem, I survived many wars, many pogroms, many inquisitions, and many Holocausts. Looking at the Midrashim...

14:28You see that the Holocaust was horrible, but what happened at the Beit HaMikdash was even worse. All of it happened when we got away from Hashem, we got away from the truth. We had millions and millions of Jews fight for what truth? What did millions of Jews sacrifice their lives for? What we say every day a couple of times a day. Now if you think about it, the goyim, they don't really have much of a problem with the whole statement. Shema Yisrael, they don't care if you say it's your God, it's their God, they don't really care about that. Hashem Elokeinu, they have no care in the world. You say it's your God, their God, makes no difference to them. What do they really have a problem with? Rabbi Ephraim has a phenomenal chidush. He says they only have a problem with the Echad. That's it. And not only with the whole Echad, with the Dalet in the Echad. Why? Because they say, "Shema Yisrael, Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echad," no problem. They have a problem with the Echad. They want to make it Acher. If you say, "Oh, He's God," no problem. We just want other gods too. We want J.C. Penney. We want Muhammad. We want Buddha. We want all this ga'on nefesh in the world. We want all that to be God also. We want money. We want gold. All of those people, all those things are going to be gods too.

15:49And Am Yisrael has been mesirat nefesh, Am Yisrael has been sacrificing their lives, willing to die for that echad, for that dalet. But in reality, Rabotai, everyone knows that there's a very, very small difference between the letter resh and the letter dalet. Meaning it's not even the whole echad that they have a problem with. It's the little tchupchik, that little difference between the dalet and the resh. Meaning one point, one point makes all the difference. One point. If you're going to serve the King, you always have to remind yourself, and I'm talking to myself now, everything depends on one point. Whatever you're going to do, be a mesirat nefesh, sacrifice. Why? That's the point. That's the difference between a Yid and everybody else. We continue to bring Am Yisrael back to Hashem as Hashem wants. We have an enormous amount of beautiful Torah in the world. Our organization, which started only a couple of years ago, has been doing everything possible to publicize Torah. We have a couple of thousand shiurim already online.

17:18With millions of views, Baruch Hashem, myself, Rabbi Frey, and many of the Rabbis, I have one of our recent newsletters that we published. We started publishing a few months ago. For anyone that wants, I brought some extras here. It shows all the different Rabbis that work with us. Any of the Rabbis that want to be a guest writer in one of the newsletters we call Alon Kodesh, please, we'd love to have you. Of course, we'd love to have the Rabbis contribute. If they want to contribute, if they have the time, we also help publicize a few books, which I wanted to give as a gift to the Rabbanim. Rabbi Spivak, we have three different books that, Baruch Hashem, we've helped publish. Rabbi Fein here has a couple of books about halacha, different chidushei Torah, but also one of the most recent ones is, of course, everyone knows, regardless of whether you're Sephardi or Ashkenazi, everyone knows the Chida. but very few people know the work of his rabbis. So Rabbi Yisrael Meir Mizrachi is one of his rabbis, but his work is less known because much of it has unfortunately been out of print for a couple of hundred years. However, one of the avreichim that we work with in Yerushalayim has, Baruch Hashem, succeeded in reprinting one of his works in a very easy-to-read format. It's obviously very high-level Torah.

18:44So we have these books over here as a present for the rabbis. Anyone that wants, please let me know. It's all free. It's all for Am Yisra'el. It's all for you to publicize to Am Yisra'el. And the key is, Rabotai HaYekarim, that we have to be the Anshei Emet. We have to be the Anshei Emet because there's nobody else left. There's nobody else left. Be'ezrat Hashem, anyone that wants to be in touch with us, we'd love to come to your community, speak. We speak for free. The key is to get Am Yisra'el to wake up. Sometimes we can do it by ourselves. Sometimes we need help from other rabbis. The key is if we stick together, then we can get Am Yisrael to succeed. Because it's all about unity. Thank you very much for having me. Thank you. Excuse me, sir. Of course, yes, yes. Yes, please. Ashrei, Ashrei. My back, my back. Ashrei will be free.

20:13Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. What can I tell you? I can tell you about this person, Yaron Revein. I first saw him on television, on the internet. It might not be the best medium to evaluate someone deeply, but that's where I first encountered him. He has, and anything that would describe Yaron Ruvane is that he's been there and done that. Nobody, no matter what, in business or anywhere, can say that you don't know, you don't understand. And that makes him an incredibly compelling speaker. All right? And I could say more and more, but it is my great pleasure to bestow...

21:43This is a speaker, Rabbi Yaron Brev, and David Raviv. If you could all make room so we can see him, we'll set you apart. One, two, three. This man and his paparazzo, which is coming up next.

25:06Thank you.