Real Friend, MaShiach Addiction, Learning HEBREW, Pointless QUESTIONS!! - STUMP THE RABBI (45)

0:17We are back on our Wednesday night shiur in Sunny Isles, Florida, doing our Stamter Rabbi. There's not many of you, Baruch Hashem, because of what's going on in the world, but I'm hoping that you guys are going to make up for it with your questions. The shiur tonight, will be for Levana bat Sara, Rabbi Efraim ben Shulamit, Rabbi Nitzara bat Anat, David ben Esriah, Doris bat Jorah, Dvora bat Mercedes, Stefan ben Katarina, Lior Tovia ben Chaya, Simcha bat Sara, Katherine bat Eisel, and good luck

1:20to all of the supporters, all of the people that are donating to our organization, especially those that have really stepped up in the last 48 hours to care about Am Yisrael and donate also for the Kimcha de Pischa, that fundraising that we're doing to help Am Yisrael and Eretz Yisrael, you know, the... The beautiful thing is, is that when you teach Mussar to help Am Yisrael get closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu by fixing different flaws that all of us have, then, uh, it's very easy to get, uh, you know, for people to get confused and think that your main priority is to help people do teshuva by, uh, teaching them Torah. Now, although it is extremely important to help people do teshuva—it's the number one most important thing in the world—the

2:39King of Mussar, in the last couple of hundred years, Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, says, "Worry about your neshama, and for your brother, worry about his body." Why? Shouldn't you worry about his neshama? He says, "Of course you should worry about his neshama, but worry about his body first." Why? Because if he doesn't have food to eat, How is he going to be able to think about the Torah that you're teaching him? If he doesn't have food to feed his kids, you okay? Need to fix something before I start? No? Good? If he doesn't have food to eat, how is he going to be able to feed his kids? and be able to have the yishuv hada'at, the concentration that's necessary in order to learn Torah. Someone asked me yesterday, you know, about concentration. He says, yeah, listen, after I do this, this, and that at night, that's when I learn Torah. It's good, right?

3:55And I said, it's good as long as you're 100% alert. He goes, no, I'm not 100% alert. Like during the day, I'm tired. I said, no, then it's not good. Why? To learn Torah, you need 150% concentration. Because why do you need so much concentration? Number one, to understand what you're reading. Number two, to remember it. Number three, because you're in front of the King of Kings. When you learn Torah, the Shechinah comes down and learns chavruta with you. You learn Torah, HaKadosh Baruch Hu comes. He comes, He's right there. When you're half asleep, you have to put as much effort as possible. Now, if you're learning and you got tired through the learning, no problem. HaKadosh Baruch Hu knows that. But the point is that we all have to understand that when we're learning Torah, we have to look and act a certain way. You can't learn Torah in shorts and a tank top, smoking a cigarette, and eating some Bamba. It doesn't really work like that. You can, but it's not kavod for the Torah.

4:57They say that Rav Elyashiv learned Torah day and night his whole life. To the extent that the things that he did for the sake of Torah are not really understandable to humans. At some point, he had a broken vertebra or some type of major damage in his back And when he went to the doctor, they took him to the doctor. He's almost 100 years old. The doctor says, "I don't know how he's not dying from pain. From the pain, the doctor says, from the pain of what he has, he should die." The helper says, "What do you mean? What are you talking about? He's learning Torah more than ever right now." He says, "I don't understand how he's not screaming right now. I don't understand."

5:57He says, "What screaming? He's learning Torah more than ever. He's learning... For the sake of Torah, it's a... He elevated his body to be something different. So, when a person understands that he's in front of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, even his pain, he's embarrassed to have. One time," as it was his nature, his schedule, he would wake up at 2:30 in the morning, sleep for three hours a day, wake up at 2:30 in the morning and start learning. Now, when he got older, it was hard for him to move, so he had a helper and... He told the helper, "Can you do me a favor? Can you help me? As soon as he got to the shtender, 'Can you do me a favor and help me button the top button over here for me, please? The top button for my shirt. Can you button it for me, please?' He can't. It's hard for him to move." So the gabbai says, "Sure, kvod haRav, a button, whatever you want to button. But kvod haRav, I just want to know. It's three o'clock in the morning. There's nobody else in the kollel."

7:18What's the last button for? Rav Elyashiv looked at him. He's looking at Rav Elyashiv like, what's this all for? Like, why? Rav Elyashiv is looking at him like he has three heads. What do you mean? I'm about to go talk to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. I'm about to learn Torah. You want me to look like some am ha'aretz? Some ignoramus? Show up with an unprepared... That's when a person understands who he's learning Torah from. So, the more we learn Torah, the more we understand. But at the same token, Rabotai Yekarim, if your brother is not going to have food in his belly, his kids are not going to have food to eat, his wife does not have the ability to take care of her kids, a person like that is going to have difficulty, unless he's on a very, very high level. It's very hard for a person to have concentration and delve into the Torah, needless to say, fix his middot; one of the most difficult things in the world is to fix your middot. This is the reason why many people run away from mussar. Because it's much harder to fix your middot than it is to learn traditional Torah.

8:42know whether it's halacha, like the laws, or it's the weekly parasha, or it's the Tanach, or even the Gemara, it's much more difficult to fix your middot. Why? Because all of the other things are mentally stimulating, and you can enjoy them. It's something that makes you smarter; it's something that makes you understand more things, and so on and so forth. But Musar requires you to change. You, as a human being. It's much more difficult. That's why Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, who was a Gaon Olam, a giant Talmid Chacham, says it's easier for him to complete the entire Shas Bavli, the entire Shas, the entire Gemara, than to fix one midah, to fix one character trait. And this is coming from the king of Musar, a couple hundred years ago. So, A lot of people run away from Musar, and they have all types of nice excuses. "No, no, Musar is not for me." Oh, Gan Eden is not for you either, though. Why? The Gaon MiVilna, his Talmid asked him, "If fixing your character traits is so important, how come there's not a mitzvah out of the 613?"

10:04Fix this, fix that, fix this. The Gaon MiVilna responds to him, looks at him like he has three heads. He says, "What do you mean? The entire purpose of all 613 mitzvot is so you fix yourself. Each one is a different way to fix yourself." To pray to HaKadosh Baruch Hu is to be grateful, to learn gratitude. To give tzedakah is to learn generosity. To bring a korban is in order to understand your flaws. To fix yourself, to be a ben adam and not be a behemah. To be a human being, a quality human being, and not be an animal. And so on and so forth. Each one of the mitzvot has Mussar teachings in it. That's the point of the mitzvot. And the Gaon MiVilna said, a person that leaves this world without fixing his character traits, what were you created for then? Meaning you lived a purposeless life. There was no point to your life. What do you mean by you kept Shabbos? You kept Shabbos. There are a lot of people in Gehenom that keep Shabbat. Turn off the fire on Shabbat.

11:19If you're still an angry, stingy, arrogant, nasty person, you didn't fulfill your mission. But people make excuses. No, Mussar is not for me. It's not for you. Okay, Gan Eden is not for you either. Why? Because the Geonim, the Geonim, the giants of our nation, wrote it explicitly numerous times. You have to fix your character traits. You have to. You have to. You have to fix these things. You have certain flaws, I have certain flaws, Baruch Hashem, we all have flaws. You have to pick one and start working on it. That's the point. So, Rabbi Yisrael Salanter says it's very, very important to fix yourself. Very important. But first, concentrate on fixing yourself. But when it comes to your friend, comes to your buddy, comes to your brother, comes to your chavruta, before you give him any mussar, Ask them, "You guys okay for Shabbat? You guys have money for Pesach? Everything okay? Electricity still on?" Why? If the electricity is off, if there's no food in the fridge, if they have no idea how they're going to have a seder, how do you expect this guy to learn Torah? How do you expect him to learn your mussar? How do you expect him to have a mind? How? How do you expect him?

12:46Hence the reason why you worry about his body first. If he's taken care of, then he has no excuses. If he has food in the fridge, if the electricity is still on, if the kids are all full, everything's okay. Now he has no excuses. Let's learn. Let's learn. Now, in the generation of the Rav Miponevezh, one of the Horrendous things that happened during that time is that the Russians, the goyim Russians, they hated Torah. Communists. They hated Torah. They'd kill people just for learning Torah. If you taught Torah, they would send you to Siberia, kill you slowly. You went to Siberia, 99.9% chance you're not coming out. Hashem yishmor. So the Rav MiPonovezh suffering under the punishments of the Russians, one of the people, who was a wealthy person, knew that the Rav from Ponevezh was there at the camp with him. And he says to the Rav, "You know, honestly, I'm very upset with you."

14:08They're in a concentration camp. What? Upset with you? Whatever you want. Rav from Ponevezh is upset. Why? Because he's upset with him. Because why? What did I do? What did I do, B'ni? What did I do, my son? What did I do? He says, I don't understand, Kvod Harav. How come, how come you didn't come to me and collect tzedakah? He goes, no, I came and you gave, Baruch Hashem. Every time I came to you, for the yeshiva or anything, you gave, Baruch Hashem. He said, yeah, but Rabbi, Rabbi, you came, you came, and then you, uh, whatever, I gave you a thousand dollars, I gave you a thousand rubles, two thousand, I gave you each time. Why didn't you come like the Russians? Why didn't you come like the Russians? They came, they put a gun to my head, and they took everything: the buildings, the apartments, the houses, the paintings, everything. They took everything. At least if you would have come with a gun, said, "Hey listen, give me the money," at least I would have some zechuyot, I would have some merits in shamayim now. At least I would have some merits in shamayim. Now they took the money, I have nothing anyway. What do I have, a couple thousand dollars I give you? What do I have?

15:21why? Because people are saving. They're saving for retirement, they're saving for a 401k plan, they're saving for a second house for vacation, they're saving for this and they're saving for that. They have a building here and they have an apartment there, and a remodeling section here and a remodeling section there, and a second watch and a third watch and 18 pairs of shoes. And they stop, and they have, and they have. Okay, no problem, it's okay to have. But when it comes to Torah and the rabbi comes and says, listen, we're trying to raise some money for some poor people that are tzaddikim. We're not talking about resha'im. Tzaddikim don't have food to eat for Pesach. Okay, rabbi, $180 is good. Yeah, it's good, but it's better than zero. It's better than zero, but you should know, the $180, that's the investment for Olam HaBa. The $280,000, $380,000, $480,000 you spent on that second, third, fourth apartment that you have, that's only olam hazeh. That's only this world. So you have half a million dollars invested in a house over here, and you have $180 for a house over there. If that makes sense to you, b'chavod, continue, no problem. You go, you do that.

16:38But anyone that thinks a little bit and says, wait a minute, this house, no matter what, coronavirus, no coronavirus. At some point, everyone's going to die. We all live until 120 and every day is full of mitzvot. But in reality, at some point, we're all going to die. If we go and we leave, a retirement plan, a 401k plan, a real estate plan, a collection of watches, a million, two million, three million dollars in this world, and when we get to the next world, we've got three thousand dollars. There's not going to be anyone more miserable than us. Why? All the money that we left, we left it there. All the investments we have in Olam HaBa are just a few dollars that we gave. That's why I tell people, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, He says to the Prophet Iyov, who did a favor for me and I'll pay him right now.

17:57Meaning there's no such thing as us doing something for HaKadosh Baruch Hu if He didn't do something for us first. But HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, if you did something for Me before I did for you, I'll pay you right now. I'll pay you right now. What is that like? You start doing things for HaKadosh Baruch Hu because you know it's necessary, not necessarily because you're at the level to do it. You're not at the level to give maaser. You make your $5,000, $10,000 a month, your $3,000 a month, whatever you make, but you're not really at the level to give maaser and have all the emunah in the world to do it. You should still do it. Why? HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, even if you're not on the level to give the 10%, you should still do it. Why? You do it, I'll pay you back right away. I'll pay you back right away. How? I'm still getting the same salary. Don't worry. HaKadosh Baruch Hu has plenty of ways. and a person needs to try to do that when there's a time of need. Generally speaking, on a day-to-day basis, a person should give on a regular basis. But then there are some times that are exceptions. There are some times where there's a major need, and this happens to be one of them. Right now, the world economy is almost shut down. It's getting worse by the day because there are more and more industries, more and more companies suffering on a regular basis. And as I said,

19:23that many of the people that were already struggling before this are now in even worse shape because many of them depend on times like this. There are organizations that give money before the holidays to help the poor, but many of those organizations were not able to collect money from people. Because people are scared that they don't know how long it's going to be before they go back to work. They're used to making a certain amount of money. That money is not coming in, and so on and so forth. They're losing money potentially. The point is that the donations have gone down tremendously around the world. And now, all of the people that were doing okay are not doing so great. All of the people that were doing terrible are doing even worse. So we're in a situation where we have many, many people literally not having money for the chag, for the seder. So, b'ezrat Hashem, our organization, baruch Hashem, we know a lot of these good people, directly or indirectly. And we took the initiative to start a campaign to try to help as many people as possible. And it seems like the more people we give to, the more people we get to know that are even in a worse or same situation than the one we just gave.

20:46the guy we just gave, you give him some money. Okay, here's your 500, here's your 600, here's your 800, here's your thousand, here's your 300, whatever they need to have the seder. Sometimes we buy them the actual food itself, sometimes we just give them the money, depending on the situation. We give each one enough based on the family. So you're not gonna give the same to a family of two or three as you're gonna give to a family of 12 or 13. It doesn't make any sense. See, we give usually based on how many members are in the family. The more members in the family, the more we give so everybody has some food to eat. So it's not like one little chicken divided among 13 people. Everybody gets meat, everybody gets chicken, everybody gets fish, everybody gets all this stuff, or they get the money, whatever they prefer. The point being is that if... You're helping these people; now these people have friends. And since they're tzaddikim, they say thank you, but they also say, please, can you help my friend too? Well, who's your friend? Oh, my friend's an orphan. Lost his parents, lost this, lost that, his wife is sick. He has five, six kids. Two of them are sick. Four of them are this, four of them are that. Shem Yirachem.

21:57Sure, okay, fine, no problem. Okay, where is he? Oh, he's down the street. Okay, you go down the street. Okay, let's help the friend. Tzaddik, good, everything is good. The guy is like, "Listen, thank you very much. Can you help my friend?" Wow, who's your friend? My friend. Worst story in the world. His wife got murdered by one of these Arab terrorists. The guy is raising five, six kids by himself. Okay, where's your friend? He's down here. Okay, you go to your friend. Okay, you pick up the friend. The guy said, can you help my friend? Who's your friend? My friend's over here. What happened to your friend? Oh, go meet my friend. Okay, you go to my friend. He goes to the friend. Oh, no, what happened? How are you? Everything's okay? Oh, not so much. Where's your husband? Oh, he's not in good shape. Well, what happened? Well, my two little girls, they're walking, you know, two little girls under 12 years old. They're walking back to school. A pedophile caught both of them. raped both of them. After this happened, one of the girls was put into a mental institution. She actually just got out of the mental institution today. The father couldn't handle it; he went into a mental institution and now he's out also. So he's not working because he's not all there. Now he’s still struggling with what happened to his two little kids.

23:18The two little kids, one of them is, you know, okay. The other one is getting there. What are you going to tell them? No, no, listen, we don't have the money. We'll get to you next year. What are you going to do? You help. And then you get one after another. We're not talking about people that don't want to work. We're not talking about people that, you know, just got unlucky in life and they have a bad job. We're talking about people that are kashe yom. You know what kashe yom is? A difficult day, but it's not really a day. Every day is difficult. And these people, Baruch Hashem, are unbelievable people. Many of them are avreichim. Avreichim in kollel. Learned 30, 40, 50 years straight. They struggle all year round, but now it's even more so. And Baruch Hashem, there are many of these stories. Each one of them breaks your heart and tears it to more pieces. You think it can't get worse, and it just gets worse. So Baruch Hashem, we have a bunch of tzaddikim that are bringing the money or the food to them and so on in Netanya, in Yerushalayim, in Bnei Brak, in several different areas in Eretz Yisrael. But since we're getting more and more of these stories, we're thinking, okay, so what are we going to do? We ran out of it. We already sent almost 100,000 shekels, more than 100,000 shekels as of yesterday. We ran out of it already. There's still more.

24:44So even though we only raised about 30,000, we sent 48,000, and pretty much we fronted another 18,000. We didn't raise the 18,000; we sent it anyway. Why? Are we going to try to pretend like we're tzaddikim? How are we going to do what tzaddikim do? Who says? Who did me a favor? And I'll pay him. So we're giving money that we don't have yet. We're already giving the money. Why? Because we know it's His kids. It's His kids. Not my kids. Not your kids. It's His kids. He's going to send them food anyway. Don't make a mistake about it and think that they're not going to get fed. They're going to get fed. The question is, are you going to be the vessel that He uses to feed His kids? Don't think for a second that they're not going to eat because you didn't send the money. No, no, they're going to eat.

25:48David says, "I've been young, I've been old, and I've never seen a righteous person be left and his kids be hungry. They're not going to eat. They have a test. They have their own test. The question is, now that this situation, this horrific situation, this troubling situation, this heartbreaking situation was presented to you, what are you going to do about it?" What are you going to do about it? Are you going to do something about it? Are you going to say, "No, listen, I only have, you know, 5,000, 10,000 in the bank. It's not that much. You know, once Corona lasts longer." Okay, Corona lasts longer. You have 5,000, 10,000 in the bank. You don't want to use it. No problem. But the next time you have a difficulty and one of your things doesn't work out so well, don't ask Hashem for too much. Why? Because Hashem says, "Listen, you only have 5,000, 10,000 mitzvot. I don't want to waste all of them on just helping you right now." You only got 5,000, 10,000 mitzvot. You don't want to waste them in this world. Let me leave something for Olam Haba. So sometimes you got to do it. So right now, today we sent another $18,000.

27:02and we're hoping that Am Yisrael steps up even more. We're really trying to get to a hundred thousand as soon as possible. The reason why is because I actually think it's a very simple, very attainable goal to reach. If every single person that watches the shiurim on a regular basis steps up, we can reach 500,000. 500,000. Every single person can give a hundred bucks, 200 bucks, 500 bucks. Some people can give more—give a thousand, two thousand, three thousand. If every single person simply did what they can, or even half of what they can, we'd reach half a million dollars. That's how many people watch the shiurim with us. But if everybody says, "No, no, he's gonna do it. He's gonna do it. She's gonna do it. Everybody's gonna point at each other. Who's gonna do it?" Guess what? You know what's gonna happen? No one's gonna do it. No one's going to do it. So we have to remember, yes, we have the number one mission of our organization, Be'ezrat Hashem, which is to help Am Yisrael and all of the righteous Noahides get closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, by teaching them Mussar, by teaching them Torah, by teaching them the mitzvot, and understanding the difference between emet and sheker.

28:12Understanding the difference between truth and lies. That's the number one mission of Be'ezrat Hashem. But when HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives you an opportunity to rid yourself of many sins because you're helping somebody that's destitute, that's having a major difficulty, then you take advantage of it. Why? It's another opportunity to do a mitzvah. There was one heretic. The Gemara says there was a heretic, Turnus Rufus. Would come to Rabbi Akiva all the time, ask him all types of complicated questions. Why? To try to negate the Torah. So, he comes to Rabbi Akiva and he says, "You're saying that HaKadosh Baruch Hu loves you." Rabbi Akiva says, "It's not me saying it. It's written in the Torah a million times." In the Torah, HaKadosh Baruch Hu loves Am Yisrael. "I love Yaakov, I hate Esav." Yaakov is a representation of Am Yisrael and many, many other places. So this rasha tells Rabbi Akiva, "It says if Hashem loves you, if Hashem loves Am Yisrael so much, how come He makes poor people? How come He makes poor people?"

29:39If He loves everybody, if He loves the rabbi, if He loves the avrech, how come you have so many tzaddikim? We're not talking about reshaim. If you see a rasha, homeless, you can rationalize it in two seconds without knowing much Torah. Why? He's a rasha, he's going against Hashem. Hashem took all his money, no problem. That makes sense. It's not always the case, though. Because you see a lot of reshaim have a lot of money. It's the opposite. And on the opposite end, you see a lot of tzaddikim don't have any money. don't stop and say, "Ah, you see, there's a problem. If He loves the tzaddikim so much, why does He make so many poor people?" Rabbi Akiva gives an answer that only Rabbi Akiva himself can say, because he was rich and he was poor. And he understands both sides. It's not just that he's learning and he's telling you something that he read somewhere. He's telling you from the perspective of someone who's been there and understands the reality. He says Hashem specifically and intentionally makes righteous people poor many times. Not all the time, but many times. Why? To save the rest of us from Gehinnom. Why? Why?

30:55Even if we're trying to do good and to keep Shabbat and to keep Taharat HaMishpacha and to keep Kashrut and to learn and to this and to that, it's good, right? But we still mess up once in a while. You still curse here and there. You still take something that doesn't belong to you here and there. You still are egotistical here and there. You still do things that are wrong. So Rabbi Akiva says to us, HaKadosh Baruch Hu doesn't want to send you to Gehenom. So what does He do? He gives you an opportunity to give tzedakah to help a tzaddik. Why? Because now that you helped this tzaddik, you helped him eat, he's going to be able to learn Torah. He's going to be able to do mitzvot. Those mitzvot, that Torah, go to your merit. You are now erasing your sins. You are now putting yourself in a better circumstance. Why? Because you gave some tzedakah. And that, Rabotai, is the reason also why we have to understand that although the primary goal is to help Am Yisrael do teshuva,

32:00Part of doing teshuva is also helping Am Yisrael generally. When you see people struggling, you have to do whatever you can to help them. Now, it's also part of doing teshuva to do chesed. As the Gemara in Masechet Sanhedrin says, All of the things that are going to happen before Mashiach, Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus talks about it. And Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus says, there are going to be a lot of horrible things happening before Mashiach comes. A lot of horrible things. There's going to be a big war. Two-thirds of the world are going to die instantly. The last third is going to be, maybe, some of them yes, some of them no. poverty, famine, and darkness of 15 days. Horrible things are going to happen before Mashiach. For all of those people that say "Mashiach now," I'm telling you, you don't know much about what's going to happen before Mashiach. If Mashiach is really coming, don't expect things to get better from here; they're going to get worse first because that's what the prophets say, and that's what it is in the Torah.

33:10It doesn’t just go from horrible sins to, all of a sudden, Mashiach is going to save everyone. It doesn’t work that way. First, you're going to have to put everyone in a circumstance where you have your last chance to do teshuva by putting you in a horrible situation where you realize that your money, your fame, your fortune, your possessions—all that stuff you wasted your whole life attaining—is not worth anything. The only thing you have is HaKadosh Baruch Hu. The only thing you have is the mitzvot that you did. And if you do right, you do teshuva, b'ezrat Hashem, you'll be okay. If you don't do teshuva, Hashem yishmor. You lose your last opportunity. But since teshuva takes a long time, a person needs to make sure they do it every day. Because also, none of us are guaranteed tomorrow either. So we have to do teshuva every day. So the people are saying, oh yeah, I can't wait for Mashiach to come. You really need to learn a little bit more about what's going to happen before Mashiach before you say that. Because it's not going to be pretty. It's going to get much worse. Markets are not going to go up in the time of Mashiach. The economy is not going to be doing well in the time of Mashiach. The whole world is not going to be doing well in the time of Mashiach. And Rabbi Eliezer Ben-Hyrcanus, the rabbi of Rabbi Akiva, was petrified of it. All of the tzaddikim were petrified of it. He says, "I want Mashiach to come because that means...

34:35that Hashem's name is finally going to be one, and everyone's going to know it, but I don't want to be alive at that time. That's how scared he was. And this is coming from someone that was Kodesh Kodashim, was a living Sefer Torah. Rabbi Akiva and all of the other tzaddikim called Rabbi Eliezer Ben-Hyrcanus a living Sefer Torah. When they saw that he was dying, they started crying hysterically. Rabbi Akiva asked him, "Why are you crying?" He says, "Because we see a living Sefer Torah suffer. We're not going to cry?" They asked him, "How come you're not crying?" He says, "Because so many things were going good for my Rabbi, for Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, that I thought maybe he did something wrong that no one knows, and HaKadosh Baruch Hu is paying him all the reward in this world. So I was scared." Maybe he's paying them all the reward in this world and he's not going to have Olam Haba. But now that I see that my Rabbi is suffering before he leaves this world, I'm happy. Why? Because I know for sure my Rabbi is a Tzadik, Kodesh Kodashim, and he's going to be in Gan Eden. The point being, Rabotai Yekarim, is that Rabbi Akiva was the Talmid of Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus. And Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus was petrified of seeing Mashiach. Petrified.

36:05So the students are shaking. The students are shaking. If the Rabbi is scared of seeing Mashiach, what about the students? The students are shaking. They say, Rabbi, what are we going to do? What can we do to help ourselves before Mashiach comes? What can we do to help our situation before Mashiach comes? To be saved from all this pain and agony. Corona and whatever else the world has. What are we going to do? Rabbi Elizabeth O'Connor says Torah and Gemilut Chassadim. You have a Torah, learn it and do everything you learn. Everything you know, you do it. Whether you understand it or you don't understand it doesn't make a difference. Rabbi says, do you do it? Don't be like one of these people, listen, until I understand it, I'm not going to do it. Because you don't do that with medicine. You don't, listen, doc, I'm sick. I got coronavirus. because the doctor gives you a cure, here you go, here's the cure for corona. No, doc, listen, can you explain to me how this medicine works? Listen, kid, I don't have time to explain to you. Listen, doc, I'm not taking the medicine until I understand how it works. Okay, so die then, die then. Why? To understand how the medicine works, you have to go to med school, you have to learn biology, you have to learn chemistry, you have to learn all types of things. I don't have time to teach you, kid. You want to die, die. You want to take the medicine, take the medicine.

37:29Don't be one of these people who waste time trying to understand the Torah in order to fulfill it. You know you gotta keep Shabbat, keep Shabbat. You know you need to be modest, be modest. The Rabbi says you do. And then learn. Learn about it. But do it first. Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus says you better fulfill the Torah. And number two, gemilut chasadim. You have to do chesed. You have to do kindness. You have to help each other get closer to Hashem. You have to help Am Yisrael get closer to Hashem. You have to help Am Yisrael do teshuva. That's the highest level of kindness. But there's also lower levels of kindness. What's a lower level of kindness? Keep each other alive. You have a friend who doesn't have a job, you have an opportunity, give him a job. Give your friend a job; it's much better than giving him tzedakah. Much better than giving him tzedakah. Even more, if you have a friend who has some money, and you have money, lend him the money interest-free. Let him pay you whenever he can, six months, a year, whenever he can pay you. And if you know he doesn't have it, don't ask for it. If you see somebody that can't work,

38:44And wouldn't take a loan, give him tzedakah. Why? It's chesed. It's chesed. And if you want to do a high level of chesed, give tzedakah without even telling the person who you are. And the highest level of tzedakah is to give it to the rabbi to give it to somebody that you don't know who they are and they don't know who you are. Both sides don't know who each other are, so there's no embarrassment and there's no arrogance. How are you going to be arrogant if you don't know who got the money? And how is he going to be embarrassed if he doesn't know where he got the money? It's the highest level of tzedakah. The point being, rabotai yekarim, that's also a very high level of mitzvah. The point is, Rabbi Eliezer ben Hurkanus says you want to get saved. You want to be put in a bubble. Before Mashiach comes, the whole world can explode with whatever viruses Hashem has to offer. The whole world can explode with whatever difficulties Hashem has to offer. You want to be in a bubble protected from all of it? Make sure that your number one priority is Torah and Gemilut Chassadim. You're allowed to work, you're allowed to get married, you're allowed to have kids, you're allowed to enjoy certain things in this world, but as long as they're not higher than these two priorities.

40:06You have to make all of those other things a way that you're fulfilling that priority of Torah and Gemilut Chassadim. You get married in order to fulfill the mitzvah of having Shalom Bayit, having children. having Kiddush in the house and so on. You buy a house in order to have guests, teach Torah there, have shiurim (Torah classes) there, and so on and so forth. Meaning you have to serve HaKadosh Baruch Hu in such a way that you serve Him out of love. What is serving Hashem out of love? Serving Hashem out of love is not leaving this world. But rather connecting all of the things into this world in your avodat Hashem. Your job must be connected to Hashem. How? Number one, it has to be a kosher job. It has to be a kosher job. If your customers are strip clubs and bars, that's not a kosher job. I'm sorry. You cannot have filthy customers, make a living from them, and think your job is kosher.

41:13If your job is lending money with high interest and taking advantage of people, that's not a kosher job. It's not a kosher job. If your job is against the Torah, like being a criminal lawyer, it's against the Torah. Aside from the fact that you're in a civil court on a regular basis, which is already problematic to begin with, when you're a criminal lawyer, you're pretty much a bigger sinner than the criminal. Why? You have to defend the criminal whether he's guilty or not. Whether he's guilty or not, as long as he can pay you, you're defending him. That's against the Torah. You're defending a murderer. Why? Because he can pay you. O.J. Simpson paid you two, three million dollars, you get him out of jail even though he killed two people. Why? He paid you. That's against the Torah. You're letting a murderer loose. You can't be a criminal lawyer as a Jew. You want to be a lawyer? No problem. Be a business lawyer. Why? It's the closest thing to being okay. But even then, you have to be very careful. You have to ask your rabbi everything. You have to learn all the laws regarding business. Why? Don't do a deal if it's not a kosher deal. It doesn't matter how much you get paid.

42:34Don't be one of these fools that sells the Olam Haba for a few hundred thousand dollars. So, a person that wants to be a kosher person has to have a kosher job. That's first of all. So now that you have a kosher job, you also have to use that money for kosher reasons. You have to give money. You have to give a portion of that money for the sake of Am Yisrael, for the sake of Torah, for the sake of people doing Teshuvah. That has to be a priority. You can't look at the money as if it is your money. You have to look at all of the money as if it is Hashem's money. It's not my money. Hashem is going to allow me to keep it, and perhaps even make more of it, if I do the right thing. If not, He's just going to take it back. He's just going to take it back. And people don't believe that Hashem can take it back. Until He does. Until He does. So, you have to make sure you connect your business to the Torah. You want to get married? You have to make sure that the person you're going to get married to is a kosher Jew. If it's a woman, she has to be a woman that is going to be modest. She has to cover her hair; she has to cover her body. She has to be a Bat Yisrael. Not just someone that's good for the eyes but bad for the neshamah.

43:55she's very interested in everyone complimenting her looks on a regular basis. She's not going to be a good wife. Why? She's married to everybody, not just you. She's married to whoever's going to give her attention. Eventually, when you don't want to give her attention, she'll find somebody else that wants to give her attention. Same thing with guys. You're going to marry a guy. If this guy doesn't know how to watch his eyes and all day he's watching pornography or soft pornography like movies. All day he's watching them. He's not going to be a good husband. Why? He's going to constantly compare you to the women that he sees on television. You're never going to be enough. You're never going to be a good wife. Never going to be enough. Why? You're never going to look like the girl on TV. Never. No, but I'm good looking. Yeah, but you're going to get older. You're not going to be good looking forever. You're going to change. You're not going to be 20 forever. One day you're going to be 60. And he's not going to want you. He's going to want to marry 20 again, especially if he's got money. So you have to marry a person that has this in his mind and wants to marry a Bat Yisrael, a Ben Yisrael. Wants to build a house of Torah. There's no question about sending the kids to a Talmud Torah. There's no question about it, of course. If there's no good yeshiva, there's no school. There's no such thing as sending the kids to public school. No chance in the world. It's yehareg ve'al ya'avor. I'd rather die than send my kids to public school.

45:23That's what you have to take. So now, your marriage, your shidduch, has to have all of this in mind. Now, if you did teshuvah after you already got married, after you already have a few kids that are already in public school, no problem. Start changing immediately. Start changing immediately. First thing, take the kids out of public school. Yeah, but I don't even know if they got accepted in the yeshiva yet. I don't even know if I can afford the yeshiva yet. No problem. Don't worry about affording it and don't worry about if they got accepted. Just get them out of the place that they're in first. Stop the damage. Why? Every day they tell these kids that they came from monkeys. One less day is better. Every day they tell these kids all types of things that are against the Torah. Get them out of there. get the kids out of public school no matter what, and we'll give you the money and whatever you need to do if you show some mesirat nefesh, some self-sacrifice, to do the will of Hashem and get your kids out of these public schools. The second thing is you have to change your wardrobe. Yeah, but I can't afford a new wardrobe. Okay, so take the two skirts that you have, cut them, combine them, and now you have a long skirt.

46:40Point is, Rabotai, that you need to show Hashem you want it. Show Hashem you want to make some sacrifices because this is what's going to save us from all of the upcoming horrors that will happen before Mashiach. Whether Mashiach is coming next week, or he's coming next year, or he's coming in 10 years from now, we have to get ready every day. Now, truth be told, as I told you guys a few times, anyone that loves Am Yisrael, truly loves Am Yisrael, and at the same time knows the details of what is going to happen before Mashiach comes, doesn't want Mashiach to come right now. You know why? Because we're not ready. If Mashiach came right now, we're in very serious trouble. We're in very serious trouble. Why? You have a big part, even though there's a lot of serious chizuk in the world right now, Lots of people, over a hundred people, accepted major mitzvot just in the last couple of days. Just in the last couple of days, for Rabbi Reuven, over 100 people accepted Shabbat, tefillin, all types of major things. Every single day we're getting new ba'alei teshuva. Another guy just started keeping Shabbat for the first time. Two guys sent messages saying, "We kept this Shabbat for the first time."

48:05Another woman is more modest. Another guy is this. Another guy is that. Another guy quit his illegal job. Every day there are more people doing teshuvah. More than ever. But it's still not enough. Why? We still have a large amount of people that are not keeping it. If Mashiach came tomorrow, That's it. How could you, as a Jew that loves other Jews, be happy in Gan Eden? Let's say you go to Gan Eden, you're going to be in Gan Eden, and you have 80% of your brothers and sisters in Gehinnom. How are you going to be happy about that? So the point is, Rabbotai, we have to do everything possible, not only to save ourselves, but to save Am Yisrael. We have to save Am Yisrael, there are so many of them. There are also righteous Noahides. Righteous Noahides that want to get closer to Hashem. they're not there yet. They have to pick up their game; they have to give more; they have to do more. Everybody's got to do more. Got to do more for ourselves; we have to do more for each other. Those are the two things that are going to save us. And that's why that rich guy told

49:14I'm upset with you. I'm upset with you because even though you came by my office, you came by my company, and you collected tzedakah for your yeshiva, I wish you would have come to me like the Russians came. They put a gun to my head and just took everything from me. Why? Because at least I would still have something now. I would still have something. I would have some mitzvot. Anyway, I lost the money. We'll finalize and let you guys ask some questions with a story that happened about 500 years ago. There was a very famous tzaddik, a very famous tzaddik by the name of Don Yitzchak Abarbanel. Abarbanel was not only a huge giant chacham, but was also the treasurer, the treasurer for the king of Spain. And he was very smart. and, uh, both in Torah and this world. And, of course, when you are a successful Jew, that comes with haters. That comes with haters, like success comes with haters. So, the more successful you are, the more haters you have.

50:29People sometimes send me snapshots of comments that people make. "Oh, this guy said this about you. This guy said that about you." I said, "Baruch Hashem, Baruch Hashem, Baruch Hashem." "Why, you're not upset?" "No, Baruch Hashem they're saying these things." Why? It shows that we're doing something right. If nobody's saying something bad, that means that Satan doesn't care about me. I'm not doing anything to take away employees from him. But if people are saying, "Oh, he's the worst," and they curse me out, they make videos about me. In the beginning, I used to get upset. Six, seven years ago, I used to get upset. "Oh, he said this, he said this." Until my rabbi explained to me, he goes, "No, I wish they would start making webpages about us. Entire webpages, that's a good sign. That's a good sign. They make entire webpages about us, make videos about us. It's a very good sign. Why? Because Satan only interferes with people..." that are stealing his employees. So the point is, Rabotai, people every day get offended because this one said this, this one said that. The reality is, you have to understand, if you're doing something good, you're going to have haters, especially if you're doing something holy. Moshe Rabbeinu, Moshe Rabbeinu, was there ever a holier person than Moshe Rabbeinu? Moshe Rabbeinu had haters. Korach, there's a whole parashah about it.

51:51Korach, Datan, and Aviram, these people wanted to kill him. Am Yisrael at some point, part of Am Yisrael called him a womanizer, a thief. Moshe Rabbeinu, so if they call Moshe Rabbeinu names, but they're not going to call you names, you're bigger than Moshe Rabbeinu? The point is, you have to understand, why are they calling you names? Is it true what they're saying? If it's not true and you're doing something good, Baruch Hashem. So the Abarbanel, was very successful both in Torah and this world. He was rich and, of course, the haters couldn't take it. So they would constantly try to whisper in the king's ear bad stuff about the Abarbanel. The king didn't care, didn't care, didn't care for a while, but eventually, you keep hearing these resha'im, eventually it weighs on you; you want to check something. So one of these days They came to the king and said, "Listen, your highness, there's something wrong. This Abarbanel, he has too much money. How is he so successful? I know you pay him and he's the treasurer, but there's a good chance that he's stealing from you. He's stealing from you."

53:03No, the king says, no way. He goes, yeah, you know what? Let's see. Ask him how much money he has. Let's see if he denies it. We already did a calculation. He has about 10,000 gold coins. 10,000 dinarei zahav. He's a very rich person. There's no less than that. Let's see what he says if you ask him. The king says, no problem. So he asks for the Abarbanel to come visit him. He says, I, Kvoda Rav, treat him with respect. He goes, listen, Kvoda Rav, I was wondering, not that I care so much, but I was wondering, how much money do you have? How much money do you have? And the Abarbanel says, hold on, Your Highness, let me take 500 dinars. 500. The king was so upset. He said, "What? No, no, I said, how much money do you have?" He said, "No, I just calculated. I have 500 dinars, 500 gold coins." And the king already knows that just the house of the Abarbanel is worth 500. He says, "He is lying to me. Throw him in the prison." The guards take the treasurer, take the Abarbanel, and throw him in the prison.

54:23For a week straight, they leave him, barely feed him, barely anything, and the whole time the king is just going over and over in his head, because he was on good terms with the Abarbanel, he liked him a lot. He was not only a good treasurer, helped the country, helped Spain become very successful, but on top of it was a good person, tzaddik. So the king couldn't make sense of it, why would he lie? For a week straight, the king is thinking, thinking, and he can't come up with a solution. He comes to the prison after a week and talks to the Abarbanel. He says to him, "Rabbi, listen, before I kill you, I want to ask you something. You're a smart guy. Now, you've always treated me fairly. You always treated me with kavod, with honor. But I just don't understand. Why did you lie to me?" Why did you say you only have 500 dinarim? Your house alone is worth more than that. The Abarbanel gives him the Jewish answer. The Jewish answer is different than the answer of the non-Jews. That was the mistake the king made. The Abarbanel tells him, no, no, your highness, I never lied to you. Not before and not after.

55:48You asked me, how much money do I have, right? The king says, yes. I told you, let me think. I thought about it and I said, 500. The king gets even more upset. You're lying again. He goes, no, no, no. You're not understanding. You see... I was calculating how much money I have. So what is really mine? What is really mine? The house is not mine. The business is not mine. The horses are not mine. The jewelry is not mine. All this stuff is not mine. You know how I know it's not mine? In two seconds, you got upset at me, took everything away from me, and threw me in jail. So what's really mine? So, I calculate what's really mine. Ah, the 500 gold coins that I've given in tzedakah for kiruv, to help poor people—that's mine. Why? Because you can't take that away from me. That's already in my account, and, lehavdil, I already gave that away. That 500 gold coins that I gave away—that's mine. That's the only thing that's mine. Everything else, yeah, that's not mine.

56:57The proof, you took it in two seconds. In two seconds, you took it. In two seconds, the Kadosh Baruch Hu allowed you to take it. Then the Goy King understood what's the mind of a Jew. Freed him from jail, took him back to his position, Yishtabach Shemo, until the Spanish Inquisition. But the point is, that's what's yours. That is what's yours, Rabotai. What is yours is what you give. It's not the houses. It's not the buildings. It's not the business. It's not the jewelry. It's not the stock portfolio. None of that. That's not yours. Somebody asks you, what do you have? The answer is, how much did you give? How much did you give? And of course, it has to be giving for a good cause, not something that sounds like a good cause. That's legitimate. You know, you can verify this is good. You did your research. You know who these people are. You know what, when, and how. A lot of people give a lot of money and are very generous, but unfortunately, a lot of the money goes to garbage. It goes for toilet paper, goes for building stuff that isn't necessary in the world. So if you're going to give tzedakah, you have to make sure that you're giving it for the right reason. How do you know you're giving for the right reason?

58:17You have that feeling. You have the merits. You have the Kedusha in your life. You're starting to see fruits come out of this tree. It's not just blind giving without really knowing what's going on. You see that you're benefiting already in this world as a result of it. Not monetarily only, but your life is improving. But most people don't pay attention to that, and they end up giving millions and millions of dollars to organizations that love the fact that you give the money but will forget about you faster than they forget about a bad meeting. The minute you don't have the money, they forget you even exist. How do I know? I was one of them. I was one of those people. They used to come to my office three times a week. Three times a week, every time collecting money. The second the money dried up, they stopped coming. I wonder why there's a coincidence. Once in a while, they call to see if I have money again. But generally speaking, those organizations are not going to care. How do you know? You know if those organizations are legit if they care about your neshama as much as they care about your pocket. If they only care about your pocket...

59:35It's a bad sign. It's a bad sign. They have to care about your neshama also. They have to help you do teshuva. They have to help you with your life. Providing shiurim, doing shiurim, sending you material, whatever it is, to help your neshama. It's not just your body. just your body. You have to also help your neshama. So, with that being said, hopefully, people take enough mussar from that to know that it's not just the neshama that we have to worry about, but it's also the body that we worry about. And really, the only thing we have is what we give. Now, hopefully, I gave you enough time to think about some questions. Hopefully, you guys have some questions. Who wants to start? Ari? Can you go into the deeper meaning of the word Baruch? I forgot. Yesterday you explained it shortly. But the actual, because the English, as much as they try the best translation as they can, it always says, blessed are you. But you can't bless Hashem because He's the blessed. So, I mean, if it says blessed are you,

1:00:49So who blessed Him? There's something in the translation that just doesn't click for me. So, the root word of "baruch," what is it? And also the word for sin and the word for reward. Also, is there a dictionary? Why don't you just write me a book, finish it, send me the book, I'll read the book, and then I'll do a series for 10 years. That's where I'm getting at. Not happening. I'm going to give you one small answer, and we're going to move forward. This is not a Hebrew class. This is a class for us to get closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu with simple things that are going to help our neshamot. Not a Hebrew class. I'm going to give you a very short answer for only one part. Is there a dictionary? Is there a dictionary for Hebrew? Yeah, it's called the internet. You type in a word and it gives you the explanation for it. It says "blessed," yes. If you want to learn Lashon HaKodesh, you're going to have to spend the next 50-60 years learning dikduk, learning the language, learning the root of the language, but that comes from the Torah. You cannot learn the language without learning Torah.

1:01:53Yeah, of course, there are dictionaries, but you're not going to know who, what, when, and how. The point you're not understanding is that you're just not getting it. It's like it's not going into your head. Five times I've given you the same answer, yesterday and today, and you're still not getting it. You want a different answer? I can't give you a different answer. There's only one answer. There's only one answer. I can't give you a different answer. The answer is, to learn the roots of the Hebrew language, it's called Lashon HaKodesh, the holy language. The roots of the Hebrew language are more extensive than this world. Meaning, it's easier to learn all of the algebra, calculus, physics, and statistics classes in every university in the world than to learn the real roots of the Hebrew language. Many, even people who are big Talmidei Chachamim, don't necessarily know some of the things that you're asking because you want the roots. It's a specific subject. It's not something you could just give a simple answer for. I can give you a taste, but to know who, what, when, and how, it's just not going to happen in a shiur.

1:02:59Like I said, Hebrew doesn't work like other languages where you have a simple translation. A means A, B means B, Aleph means Aleph, Bet equals Bet. It doesn't work that way. First of all, most words in the Hebrew language can be translated to modern English, but that doesn't mean that's the only way you apply those words. There are multiple ways to apply each word. Second of all, some of the words in Hebrew are simply untranslatable. You cannot translate them perfectly, meaning... ...can be translated to modern English, but that doesn't mean that's the only way you apply those words. There are multiple ways to apply each word. Second of all, some of the words in Hebrew are simply untranslatable. You cannot translate them perfectly, meaning... The Rambam was the Gadol Hador, and when he wrote his Yad HaChazakah, when he wrote the 14 books of the Rambam, he wrote it in Hebrew. Now, a convert who was originally born a Muslim but became a Jew wrote him a letter. He said, Rabbi, can you please write your Yad HaChazakah, the Rambam, can you write it in Arabic?

1:04:14Can you please write it in Arabic? The Rambam said, sure. I would say, "Go fly a kite." But Rambam is Rambam, and I am me. What do you mean? You translate all these books. No, no. Type it. Go to Google, press one button, it translates, and you print and send. We're talking about handwriting the whole thing in a different language and so on. The point is, the Rambam says, "No problem, make a mitzvah." Not only to publicize this Torah in a different language but also as another example of loving the convert. The Rambam was Kodesh Kodeshim. But in the letter response that he wrote to the convert, he said to him clearly, he said, "Listen, I'm going to write it in Arabic, but you should know it's not going to have all of the beauty that you will learn from the Hebrew because the Lashon HaKodesh, the holy language, has its own limud, has its own lessons within it." Meaning there are certain words that I used here... Even if I translate them, you'll get the basic meaning, but you will not get the deeper meaning. So people that truly learn the Rambam don't just learn what he said, but why he used those words to say what he said. It's a very big difference. It's not just what he said, but why he chose those words to say what he said. This is how you study the Torah, actually.

1:05:42So that's also why they say, from Moshe Rabbeinu until Moshe the Rambam, there was no such thing as Moshe; this is the giant of giants. So the point is, Rabotai, that the Hebrew language has roots that are beyond the scope of a shiur or even a series of shiurim, and there's a lot to it. One of the other things I can give you as an example is that sometimes you can learn an entire halacha from a letter, one letter inside a word. One letter. This word is written with that letter. Let's say there's a vav at the beginning. There's a vav at the beginning of that word. You can learn an entire halacha that you can write books about just because that letter is there. Now if you don't know this Torah part, it's going to look to you like end. Vav means end. Ve, u, it means end. It means it's an addition. But to a Talmid Chacham that knows the specifics of the Hebrew language, he sees that Vav, he knows this opens a whole new world if he wanted to. Now Rav Mazuz, one of the Gedolei HaDor today, he's known as the utmost expert in the Hebrew language.

1:07:05and he gives a lot of chiddushim from the Hebrew language. There are several different rabbis that teach Torah through the Hebrew language. To just give you an understanding of how much the Hebrew language has, when HaKadosh Baruch Hu showed Moshe Rabbeinu the future, He showed him Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Akiva lived almost 2,000 years later, 1,500 years later. And Moshe Rabbeinu was sitting there in the class Rabbi Akiva was teaching people, halachot, different laws from the Torah, but from where? From the crowns that are drawn on top of the letters. Not the letters themselves, but the crowns, meaning the way you see those pictures over there that have Hashem's name on it and all types of blessings, or in your siddur or in a Sefer Torah. The Ashuri script, the Hebrew language that's written in Sifrei Torah, is different than how it's written in regular Hebrew books. It's written in a certain script. Many of those letters you see have crowns on them. They have little tiny lines coming out of them.

1:08:17Rabbi Akiva was teaching laws from the Torah from those little stripes that you think are just for hieroglyphics or something. You think it's just for beauty. You and I look at it, oh wow, it's a really beautiful script, wow, I wonder what it means. No, you can learn halachot, you can learn laws from that. Now, the point is, to go into all of that before we know how to be simple Jews is a mistake. It's like learning how to be an astronaut before you learn algebra. It's like learning how to be a CEO before you learn how to go to the bathroom. This is a subject; it's indeed a very interesting one. But it's not the foundation of what you're supposed to do in life. What you're supposed to do in life is know the laws that you're obligated to fulfill.

1:09:21And two, fix yourself according to those laws. That's what you're supposed to do. Now, of course, from time to time, you're going to gain new insights from specific words that the rabbi is going to say. He's going to tell you why we chose this word versus that word. But don't go too deep into that. That's a mitzvah from the Satan. There's a certain mitzvah that the Satan wants you to do. What is that mitzvah? He wants you to go waste time, doing things you shouldn't be doing. Even though that other action is also a mitzvah, it's not the mitzvah you're supposed to do. Many times people tell me, "Listen, I want to start a study session with a bunch of guys." I said, yeah, it's a good idea. How much do you study by yourself? No, no, I don't study by myself at all. I'm going to study with my friends. No, no, you have to study by yourself. And study with the guys, not just one of them. Or another guy says, "Listen, I want to focus on giving a shiur. I want to focus on giving a shiur. I want to start giving shiurim." It's good to give shiurim. But what about all of the flaws and things that we've discussed that you haven't achieved yet? "Oh yeah, I'll get to that." No, no, no. Before you do the shiur, you have to fix those things. Fix those things. What? First, take care of your responsibility.

1:10:41Then take care of things that are not your responsibility, that are just good to do. First, you have to learn Chumash, Halacha, Mussar, and eventually get to Gemara. Then you go into other things. Many times, people get enticed to learn Torah from those who claim to teach Kabbalah or the Zohar. This is a mistake. Why? Even the people that are giants in Zohar... They say, the Arizal, the Arizal himself, Kodesh Kodeshim, he says, unless you are b'ki, meaning an expert in Halacha, not just Halacha of Shabbat, all of Halacha, you're an expert in all Halacha, you're an expert in Chumash, you're an expert in Tanakh, you're an expert in Gemara, expert means you didn't just read it once, expert means you read it a bunch of times. all of those books, hundreds and hundreds of books. You're an expert in Tanach, you're an expert in Mussar. You fixed your middot, you've perfected your character, you're a master, and you've been doing this for many, many years. Most likely, you've reached that point after you've studied for 40 years. Then you can start learning Kabbalah, and even then, maybe. And you have to have permission from your rabbi.

1:11:58Now, of course, some people do this even before 40 years old. And they attain this before 40 years old. But the average person maybe is going to reach it after he's studied Torah for 40 years. But most people, they don't even know Tanach. They don't know. They don't know anything. No, no, I'm going to go study some mystical stuff. You know, Rabbi, I go into the Nistar. Rabbi, I go into the hidden, you know? I go into the hidden. Yeah, your Gan Eden is hidden also. It's so hidden, it looks like Gehinnom the whole time. Why? You're going into a place that you don't belong in. You don't belong there. No, Rabbi, why? You're trying to stop me? Rabbi, go do what you want. I don't care. It doesn't make a difference in my life. You're wasting your life. going to learn this for 20 years, understand nothing, and still stay the same behema that you started, same cow that you started. Now, Rabbi, I've already been watching your shiurim for two, three years already. I already know everything you got to say. Oh yeah, you do?

1:13:03from the Beit Din, from the Beit Din from Jerusalem, from all types of places, call me and say, "Listen, yes, you are giving us a new life." I said, "Wait, what do you mean new life? You're coming, you wrote 20 books." They respond, "No, no, but your shiur is something else." It's amazing to me that people are coming to watch my shiurim, but apparently, Hashem wants this to reach other people. got people that are rabbis in Beit Din. They watch this and they say, "Listen, I'm learning something from it." I told my rabbi, I said, "This is muzar, strange, that people that are rabbis, people that are watching my shiurim." My rabbi says, "It's not muzar, it's not strange, it's mussar. People that want the truth, they're going to look for it, they find you, they're going to keep, they're going to stay there. The point is, go where you belong, go where you belong, focus on that." So, to finalize everything... The word Baruch. The word Baruch means blessed are you, Hashem, in simple translation. But it comes from not that you are blessing Hashem as if you are superior to Him, but rather you are acknowledging that Hashem created the world because the word Baruch comes from the word Beriah.

1:14:20creation. Hashem, You created the world. You created my ability to eat; therefore, I have food. Blessed are You, Hashem, You created this food that I'm eating right now. You are the Creator. Thank You, Hashem. In essence, what you're trying to say to Hashem is, number one, I'm acknowledging that You are the One that created me. you created this thing that I'm benefiting from, and last but not least, I'm thanking You for it. That's what "Baruch" in essence, in short, means. We're not going to go into any other words because each explanation is going to take a century and a half, and for the most part, it's not going to help most people. I think I gave enough of an explanation about the language part. If you want to learn more of it, you have to learn a lot more Torah. You have to learn a lot more Torah. You have to become a baki in a lot of things before you become a baki in language. That's why I tell all ba'alei teshuvah and all converts: don't spend time learning Hebrew before you learn all the things you're supposed to learn first.

1:15:23if you have a lot of time on your hands, and every day you're spending 10, 12, 13 hours a day learning, then you could spend an hour out of that 12 hours learning Hebrew too. But if your entire study time every day is an hour or two hours, you have no right to spend any time learning Hebrew. Why? There are too many laws you don't know. There are too many laws that you don't know, which can prevent you from getting to Gan Eden if you don't know them and don't fulfill them. Whereas knowing Hebrew is not going to get you to Gan Eden. There are plenty of people who are in Gehinom who know Hebrew really well. They know Hebrew fantastically; they say "ow" in Hebrew, they say "oh" in Hebrew. Point is, learn what you're supposed to in order to get to Gan Eden. Then you can learn some of the other stuff. It's a fantastic, never-ending subject, but again, we have to focus on what we're supposed to do. We have to keep our eyes on the goal. We're trying to get to Gan Eden, rabotai. We're not trying to look smart. We're not trying to look smart. We're trying to get to Gan Eden. The goal should be, how do I get to Gan Eden? And if I can, I want to get there alive.

1:16:31In fact, I learned a little bit about that today. How do you get to Gan Eden alive? Maybe we'll do a shiur about it next week. But there's a way to get to Gan Eden alive if you want, without dying. I can show up in Libya yesterday. Point is, that's where I want to go. I don't want to be an expert in anything. I just want to go to Gan Eden. I want to be an expert in serving Hashem. That's what I want to be an expert in. Expert in serving Hashem. If that means that I'm also going to become an expert in Hebrew along the way, great. But if that means I'm not going to know anything about Hebrew, no problem. As long as I'm an expert about Hashem. That's what I want to be. I want to be an expert about Hashem. I got one guy who was in the process of conversion. I told him, don't waste your time learning Hebrew. Spend your time learning halacha. Well, he didn't listen. He became an expert in Hebrew. And guess what? He ended up not converting, and he's still a goy, and he'll stay a goy for a long time. But he knows Hebrew, though. He knows Hebrew. Knows Hebrew. Next. Yes, Moshe. There's a date. No, not tomorrow. It's not tomorrow.

1:17:45say after Pesach there's a date you'll get in the big message to tell you exactly the date. The only date that's constant in America is December 4th for changing the thing, but you'll see it. You'll see the big tests in the CDO. I remember the date off the top of my head. Okay, another question in regards to moving to Israel, seeing the situation that there is with the coronavirus. Okay, do you think that Moving to Israel is going to be a possibility? When? Tomorrow? Next week? A year from now? When? Moving to Israel. Is it going to be possible to move to Israel eventually? Obviously, it's going to be possible at some point. Because right now they're under martial law. Right now. You said eventually. You didn't ask me about right now. If you ask me about right now, no. It's not possible to move to Israel right now. Unless you go there with a little banana boat. You've got a couple of guys hiding you under the tomatoes and the potatoes. In a banana boat. And you go to the coast. Past all of the guns and the...

1:18:50You can't move anywhere right now. You can't move from New York to Florida right now. Right now you can barely come to a shiur Torah. We're lucky. You were able to have a shiur Torah in Florida. You can't have a shiur Torah in New York right now. You can't have a shiur Torah in many places around the world. Right now we have a special blessing from HaKadosh Baruch Hu that the entire state is allowed to leave their house, and we're able to have a shiur Torah. Right now you can't move anywhere. You're lucky you're able to come here. As far as the future, yeah, the situation is going to change in the future. And people are going to be able to move. People are going to be able to go to stores. People are going to be able to do a lot of different things. But as far as whether moving to Israel or not, that cannot be a blanket statement. You can't say everyone should move to Israel. You can't say everyone shouldn't move to Israel. It's a case-by-case basis. If your serving of Hashem will be better in Israel. If your parnassah will be as good or better in Israel, and if your marriage will be as good or better in Israel, then you should move. But if any one of those three things will suffer, and you're not able to handle that,

1:19:55You can't move. Meaning, if you're going to become less religious in Israel, your rabbi is not in Israel, your chavruta is not in Israel, your wife doesn't want to be in Israel, your husband doesn't want to be in Israel, which means that your marriage will suffer, or you don't have a job in Israel, and you don't know how you're going to make money, and therefore you're not going to be able to afford to send the kids to school. If you have problems like that, you are not allowed to move to Israel. But if you have everything all set and all planned, go to Israel. Go to Israel. But people think that somehow when you go to Israel, it's like Gan Eden and everything works out. Learn Torah. Torah says three things come only with sacrifice, meaning only with suffering. One, Torah. You're not going to become a Talmid Chacham unless you suffer. Suffer with less sleep. Suffer with less food. Suffer with less time. Suffer with a lot of different things. In order to learn to be a real serious Talmid Chacham, suffering becomes part of your life. I don't mean suffering like you're going to fast twice a week. Hashem doesn't really care about your fasting unless it's going to help you serve Him. Suffering in the mundane things of the world, the materialism of the world. So Torah, only through suffering. Two, Gan Eden. You want to get to Gan Eden? Major sacrifices. You can't go to every party.

1:21:17You can't go with every person. You can't befriend every person. You can't stay connected to every person in your life, even if that person is a relative of yours. Even if it's your parents. Even if it's your brother or sister. If they're against the Torah, your connection to them is not going to be able to stay the same. Why? The closer you are to Hashem, the further you are from wicked people. If the people that you have in your life are wicked, you can't stay connected to them so much. You have to separate. And so on and so forth. Getting to Gan Eden is not easy. You can't work for every company if you want to go to Gan Eden. You can't marry anyone you want if you want to go to Gan Eden. You can't learn whatever you want if you want to go to Gan Eden. You can't have any rabbi as your rabbi if you want to go to Gan Eden. You can't listen to every speaker if you want to go to Gan Eden. You can't give to every organization if you want to go to Gan Eden. Everything has its price. Going to Gan Eden is a major sacrifice. Third, Eretz Yisrael. You want to live in Eretz Yisrael? Get ready to make sacrifices. Get ready. I have a few students, more than a few students, who made Aliyah in the last few years. Baruch Hashem, every single one of them is suffering. They love Israel. They love Israel. They don't regret it. But no one expected it to be as difficult as it was. And it took them some time to adjust.

1:22:39just fine, they'll continue being fine, but people think somehow that if you go, it's like everyone's religious there, everything is perfect. You know, the doves bring you the chickens' eggs to your house, the sheep milk the cow and bring that to your house also, and the bank sends the money to your account without you working. People have this delusion in their head that if you go, you become a holy tzaddik just by being there. It doesn't work that way. You should also know, making a sin in Eretz Yisrael is much worse than making a sin anywhere else in the world. Why? Because it's Eretz HaKodesh, the Holy Land. It's like going against the king when you're in somebody else's yard is bad enough. Going against him inside his own kitchen? What is he going to do to you? So you have to understand, it's not so pashut, move here, move there. We're not pilgrims. We're not pilgrims. You have to use your mind to understand everything in life requires guidance from the Torah. If you're going to use Torah as guidance, that means you're going to ask a rabbi, you're going to ask a Talmid Chacham, "What should I do? This, that, the other thing." You make all of the right calculations and you decide accordingly. But people that just act based on their emotional excitement and things like that always fail. Always fail and end up in a disastrous plane crash spiritually.

1:23:49Guidance with Torah. If you're going to use Torah as guidance, that means you're going to ask a rabbi, you're going to ask a Talmid Chacham, "What should I do? This, that, the other thing." You make all of the right calculations and you decide accordingly. But people that just act based on their emotional excitement and things like that always fail. Always fail and end up in a disastrous plane crash spiritually. Because they went there expecting something, it ended up not being, and they end up being crushed spiritually. And it's not good. So, again, we are not tourists. We're not pilgrims. We're not 15 years old either. We have to make every single move in our life calculated. If it was that easy and that simple and that beneficial, trust me when I tell you, you wouldn't have a single Jew living anywhere else in the world. It's not a fit for everyone. It's not necessarily wrong for everyone either. But the point is that you have to analyze certain factors before you go to make an Aliyah. And those factors have to be analyzed not just by you, but also by your rabbi. Next question, Sonny. So, remember last Tuesday I asked you about the scenario where the angel is trying to defend the Torah given to us on Har Sinai? Okay.

1:25:15So one of the responses that the angels gave was they quoted David HaMelech in Tehillim. So how is that not a situation that's predetermined when at the same time there's Midrash that says that David HaMelech had the same character traits as Esav? How did they know that he was going to choose so how come the, uh, the question is when Moshe Rabbeinu was at Har Sinai, his body stayed here and his neshama went up for 40 days and 40 nights. He didn't eat, he didn't sleep, he didn't drink, and he got the Torah. But the angels were defending the case for Moshe Rabbeinu to get the Torah. Initially, they didn't want Moshe Rabbeinu to get the Torah, because they wanted to keep it. But then when Hashem said, no, but this is for them to fulfill mitzvot, look, he's a tzaddik, and Moshe Rabbeinu defended, he said, look, we have a mitzvah in the Torah to eat kosher. You guys eat kosher? You don't eat. You're angels. We have a mitzvah of honoring our parents. You have no parents.

1:26:28So obviously the Torah was written for men. So when the Yetzer Hara came and said, "Where is this Torah?" there was an issue. The point being is, one of the defending cases that the Malachim used is a verse in Tehillim, a verse which was written by David HaMelech hundreds of years later. So how could it be that the angels are using Tehillim that are going to be written by David HaMelech in the future? How could it be? Doesn't that mean, what Sonny is asking, this is still the question, what Sonny is asking, doesn't that mean that what David HaMelech wrote about was already pretty much something that happened in his time, but it didn't happen at the time of the angels? So how do the angels know about it? Doesn't that mean that it already was predetermined? So it's important to know, it's a fantastic question, and the answer is, it's important to know that although David HaMelech compiled the 150 Tehillim, he didn't write all of them. He only wrote some of them.

1:27:43He only wrote some of those Tehillim. Also, Shlomo HaMelech wrote some Tehillim, Adam HaRishon wrote Tehillim, Moshe Rabbeinu wrote Tehillim. And David HaMelech took the songs of all of these righteous people and he put them into this one book we now call Tehillim. so special, unique prayers or songs/prayers that different tzaddikim throughout history, from Adam all the way to David, that David compiled all of it and put, in essence, his name on it. So, Tehillim was written, I think, by seven or eight different people. David HaMelech being one of them, but there are other characters in there also, other tzaddikim in there also. So that's already one answer to know how did that specific Tehillim exist. It could have already been written by Adam HaRishon, Avraham, or Moshe Rabbeinu. That's one simple pshat answer. The second thing is, also we need to know, is that although the story of the Torah, the story part,

1:28:57was not predetermined, meaning Hashem didn't predetermine for Am Yisrael to worship a golden calf or have one made. Hashem didn't predetermine for Am Yisrael to go with the Goyot of Midian and Moav. He didn't predetermine that. They chose those sins. Hashem didn't predetermine for Korach to go and get into a fight with Moshe Rabbeinu. He didn't predetermine that. Korach decided that. Korach decided that. So the story part of the Torah, which is the Chumash, and then later on even the Nevi'im, was something that... Hashem did not predetermine that. Although that is called a Written Torah, the Five Books of Moses are called the Written Torah, Hashem did not give the entire Written Torah to Moshe Rabbeinu at the time of Mount Sinai. All He gave him at the time of Mount Sinai is the Torah written from Bereshit, from creation, all the way to Parashat Yitro, which is still in the Book of Shemot. This means that more than half

1:30:15of the Torah was not given to Moshe Rabbeinu at Mount Sinai at that initial meeting. Because if He would have given him the entire Five Books of Moses at Mount Sinai, that means He would have told him the future. you would have told them that Am Yisrael was going to sin with the Golden Calf, and they were going to sin with Korach, and they were going to sin with the Midianites, and they're going to have a battle with Bilaam, and he's going to tell them the future. That's going to interfere with free choice. So Hashem did not tell Moshe Rabbeinu the entire Five Books of Moses. What he did is he gave him the Torah, the written Torah, until Parashat Yitro, and over the next 40 years that we were in the desert, Every so often, he would tell Moshe Rabbeinu to add a few more verses or a few more things that happened that he would add to it. There's a machloket about who wrote the last two verses of the Chumash, whether it was Moshe Rabbeinu or Yehoshua Bin Nun. The reason why is because the last two verses talk about Moshe Rabbeinu's death. He died. So, is Moshe Rabbeinu writing about himself dying and then died? Or did he die, and then Yehoshua Bin Nun completed the Torah? There's a debate about that.

1:31:28But the point is that the Torah, the written Torah, was not completely given to Moshe Rabbeinu on Mount Sinai, but rather over the next 40 years. Now, what about the Oral Torah? The Oral Torah has our foundation; the foundation of the Oral Torah is the Mishnah, and from there comes the Gemara. And in the Gemara, you'll see that there are debates between the chachamim. Abaye, Rava, Beit Shammai, Beit Hillel, Rabbi Yehuda, Rabbi Shimon, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa, Rabbi Chanina ben Teradyon, and so on and so forth, all these giant chachamim. So what, did Hashem give all of the debates of the chachamim from 1500 years later, before they were born? He already told them what Abaye is going to say and what Rava is going to say. Did He do that? No. He didn't do that either. But wait a minute, it says that Hashem gave Moshe Rabbeinu the entire Torah. How could He not give him the arguments between Abaye and Rava, Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel, and still be the entire Torah? So what we have to understand is that what HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave Moshe Rabbeinu is the entire klalim of the Torah.

1:32:41all of the rules of the Torah, everything and anything that's related to the Torah, much more significant than what we have today. So, all of the tools, the blueprint of the entire thing, what He gave Moshe was the Torah. What we have is the essence of Torah, so He gave him all of the rules. but to the, uh, clarification of how to use all those rules. But to actually use and apply all those rules, He didn't give him all of that because that's going to happen later with the times, and people are going to have to argue and apply it to the current times. So, the rules of driving a car... Let's say on Shabbat or turning on light on Shabbat, although the rules exist since the beginning of time, it wasn't written in Halacha until it became applicable to the time. So that left a part of the Torah for us to toil over because Hashem wanted us to become partners in the Torah. So He gave Moshe Rabbeinu all of the rules of the Torah.

1:33:51Moshe Rabbeinu taught this to Yehoshua bin Nun, who gave this to the Zekeinim, Zekeinim to the Nevi'im, Nevi'im to the Anshei Knesset HaGedolah, and so on and so forth, all of the sages throughout all of time. And each generation toiled and toiled over the Torah to identify how to apply this rule, this general rule, to the current situation. How to use this tool that we got from Moshe Rabbeinu. in order to apply this Torah. So, for example, the analogy is, Moshe Rabbeinu gave them the hammer, and they learned where can we use this hammer? Do we use this hammer to build buildings? Or do we use this hammer to hit each other with? Technically, you can hit each other with it, but that would be against the Torah. But if you build a building, that could be a mitzvah. Or it could be a sin too. Why? It depends on what kind of building you have. If the building is a Beit Midrash, then it's a mitzvah if they use the hammer. But if the building is a church,

1:34:53The point is that Moshe Rabbeinu gave the tool. So there's a part of the Torah that Moshe Rabbeinu did not give to the people of Israel, or HaKadosh Baruch Hu did not give to the people of Israel because He wanted them to toil over it. And that's why every one of us is obligated to learn Torah, because there are certain parts of the Torah that will not come to the world unless you discover them. You, you, you being you that's watching right now. Every Jew has a part of the Torah that only they can bring to the world. Which means that when we go up to Hashem, Hashem is going to tell us, "Okay, go ahead. Tell me what you know. You have 180 days to speak. Chavod." If you don't know anything, you're going to stand blank over there. It's not going to be a good look. More so, HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to ask you, "Okay," you have a tree. Each tree had a fruit that was yours, that I designated for you. Out of a thousand new insights that you were supposed to bring to the world, you brought one and a half. So that means that a part of the Torah is missing from the world because you didn't study enough. You didn't study enough.

1:36:13So that's also a problem. The point being is that there are certain aspects of the Torah that HaKadosh Baruch Hu left for us to toil over in order for us to become partners in the Torah. Partners in the Torah. This is also the reason why whether you are new to the Torah or you've been reading the Torah every single day for the last 90 plus years like Rav Chaim Kanievsky, you're still obligated to read the Chumash every week—two simple readings and one commentary every single week. Why? Because when you read the Chumash every week you're opening different gates of heaven and releasing certain angels, in essence, to help you arrive at some of these chiddushim. There's a lot of Kabbalistic, mystical things that happen when you read Torah, when you learn it and you apply yourself. But that's because it's not just a good thing to do, but rather an obligation.

1:37:15In order for us to show that the partnership that Hashem originally made with us, when we said na'aseh v'nishma, it wasn't just that we're going to do mitzvot, keep Shabbat. We also meant we're going to actually bring these chiddushim to the world. We're going to bring these new insights to the world. We're going to continue developing the Torah and bring holiness. But obviously, it always has to be in accordance with the rules that we have as the foundation. The rules that we got on Har Sinai. Next question. I speak for myself usually too. How can a person block out all the distractions and learn Torah? This is a very, very serious problem for everybody.

1:38:20because we live in a generation that is very click-happy and very convenience-driven And we are addicted to a lot of things. We're addicted to immediate gratification. We constantly look at our phones to see if someone texts us because we get some type of gratification that someone sends us a message. We send people messages. We constantly check the news, constantly check our Facebook profiles, constantly check our emails. There have been studies written about this phenomenon, detailing how often a person checks their phone. And unfortunately, it's a tragedy. It's part of the reason why a lot of the chachamim say that a person should not have a phone, a smartphone, unless he needs it for work. And even that has to be limited. And part of the reason is because it's very hard to be focused if you have one of these smartphones. Now, so how do you eliminate all the distractions? The only thing that I know of that works for sure, that works for sure, is if you simply shut off everything.

1:39:31If you want to learn Torah, you shut off the phone. Not put it on vibrate. Shut it off. Shut it off, put it in a drawer somewhere, a closet somewhere, throw it out of the window for all I care. Put it somewhere. No screen, no computer, no nothing. Put yourself in a room and just put a condition: I'm going to study from this time to that time, no matter what. The world can explode from this time to that time for all I care. I'm going to study Torah. One guy that listened to this advice a few hundred years ago from his rabbi, obviously. The rabbi said, you have to pretend like you're dead. So the guy came to his wife and said, honey, from now on, from 12 to 2, I'm dead. Don't care about what's going on in the world, at the business, and everything else from 12 to 2 o'clock. No talking. No writing. No eating. No drinking. No nothing. This was before smartphones, before emails, before everything. Why? Because you know that's the only way he's going to succeed in learning Torah. You have to shut the whole world out. You have to know...

1:40:47when you have kids and other people in your life, it's not always easy to do that. It's much easier to do it when you're single or newly married before kids. What that means is that it's more difficult because even if you shut off the phone, even if you shut off the screens, you still have kids running into your office or your room, making noise. So what do you do about that? We can't throw them out. What do you do? Either go to the Beit Midrash Or learn how to cope with it. Learn how to zone out. in different places, you know, you go into it, it sounds like there's a boxing match going on. People are arguing, going back and forth. It's loud; you can't hear yourself talk sometimes.

1:41:55In different places, you know, you go into it, it sounds like there's a boxing match going on. People are arguing, going back and forth. It's loud; you can't hear yourself talk sometimes. Really, really loud. So if you can't zone out everybody else there and focus on your thing, you're not going to succeed in life. You're not going to succeed in Torah. So whether you're married or not, at some point you're going to have noise. So you have to learn how to zone out everything else. You have to learn how to zone out. This was a very important thing to develop on Wall Street. Because we worked in a boardroom and you weren't the only employee. Usually, if you work with a lot of people, a big Wall Street firm, the bigger it is, the more employees there are. People are on the phone, people are making calls, people are getting calls, and people are doing business. Some people are getting excited, some people are hiding under their desk talking to somebody, and some people are yelling at the top of their lungs. If you get bothered by every little peep, you're not going to succeed in life.

1:42:56You're not going to succeed. You have to somehow get yourself to zone out. If you can't zone out, you're not going to succeed in life. ...everything has to be perfect conditions. The sun has to be, you know, beautiful and yellow; the clouds have to be gone with maybe one for looks. You know, the weather has to be just perfect, and the coffee has to be just the right temperature. If it's not, you have this little heating thing that keeps the cup warm. You've got, you know, the sweatpants or the sweatshirt or the pants that are just the right fit, the stomach doesn't hurt, and the kids are all sleeping, and... and the wife is all happy, and everything has to be perfect for you, guess what? You will never succeed. Why? Because those conditions rarely ever occur. Rarely ever occur. There are pictures you can find on the internet where Rav Ovadia is studying with a baby on his lap. Babies on his lap. His own kids, they had kids. He didn't grow up by himself and get married and, you know, he had kids. Some of his kids are among the Gedolei HaDor today. Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef is the Chief Rabbi of Eretz Yisrael. What, you think he just became Chief Rabbi because his father is Rabbi Ovadia? Sure, some people are going to say that, but it's not true. He is one of the Gedolim himself. He's also a serious Talmid Chacham. The point is that you have pictures where Rabbi Ovadia is studying with one of his kids on his lap. Why? Because that was the circumstance.

1:44:16So what, you think his kid was always quiet? No, he was a kid like everybody else, making noise, you know, screaming, you know, little surprises in their diaper every so often. That's reality. So you have to learn how to zone out. And that's the thing. So sure, you want an ideal situation where there is some quiet time, and that's the ideal situation. But if that's your condition to succeed, you simply are setting yourself up for failure because it's not a realistic condition. The world is not a library. The world is not a library, especially when it comes to Torah. The Yetzer Hara is not going to disturb you if you're sitting in a library reading a Stephen King book. He'll let you sit there for 20 hours straight without falling asleep. But the Yetzer Hara will do everything and anything possible to distract you if you're trying to learn some Gemara. everything and anything possible to distract you if you're learning some good stuff. That's going to help your neshama. Why? Because that's his job. His job is to be the resistance. So expect noise, expect distractions, expect all types of things and set yourself up for it. But don't make distractions for yourself by keeping your phone on or your screen on. I can tell you myself, I try to learn a little bit. The only times I ever really succeed is if everything is off.

1:45:38You know, you try to learn here and there. Let me get another five minutes here, five minutes there. An hour here, an hour there. You try. And you do it. You succeed once in a while. But generally, the best studying is when everything is off. Everything is off. And it's for a long time. For a long time. You know, so... You have to work on it. Next. Ari, how many mitzvot are related to farming? How many mitzvot? Mitzvot related to farming, or if not farming, then... How many mitzvot are related to farming? 6,437. Okay, so... The question that you asked deserves that type of an answer. In the Shema and the Amidah... There's a lot of farming in there. If not farming, then related to it. We have a term in the Gemara called "Nafka Mina." Nafka Mina, where sometimes there is an issue that one of the Chachamim brings up. And he asks a question.

1:46:59And whatever the question is, the other says, "What's Nafka Mina?" What does that mean? What's the point of your question? Where are you trying to go with this question? What's going to happen as a result of this answer? Why? If you're a chacham and you value Torah, you don't just ask questions for the sake of questions. What's the point of the question? What am I going to do with the answer? If now I have this answer, is that going to improve my life or no? If I have that answer, is that going to help me serve Hashem or no? If it's just for the sake of knowledge, go find yourself a new horse. Go find yourself somebody else. Why? You want to delve for information? Go to Google. Why? We're not here to waste time. We're here to serve HaKadosh Baruch Hu. So every time you ask a question, ask yourself first, what's the nafka mina? What's the point of my question? What am I going to do with the answer if the answer exists and it's, let's say, what I want it to be?

1:48:02what am I going to do with the answer? What am I going to do if it's not the answer I want it to be? What am I going to do with this answer? Why do I need to know this for? What if it's just for mental stimulation? Go smash your head against the wall a few times; you'll be stimulated enough. Why? Don't waste people's time, is what the Chachamim say. Don't waste people's time asking questions for no reason. You know, when people ask me stupid questions every single day, it's not because the question itself is stupid—the question itself is smart—but it has no application whatsoever to their life. No application whatsoever. That is not something that is a mitzvah. That's a mitzvah from the Satan. The Satan wants you to go toil in things that have nothing to do with anything. Why? Because if you're busy doing things that have nothing to do with anything, then surely you're not busy with things that you're supposed to be doing. So you have to ask yourself a question: number one, before you ask a question, what's the nafkamina? number two, did I search for this answer myself already and I couldn't find an answer, or am I just looking for a handout like I'm homeless? Why? Why do I need to know that? Because if I really want this answer and this answer really has a real nafkamina, has a real purpose in life and I really need it, how come I didn't ask for it before? How come I didn't look for it before? If I didn't look for it, do I really want it?

1:49:29If I really wanted, I would have looked for it already. And if I really want, I'm going to look for it now. The point is, don't just ask for handouts. People ask me questions many times that if you simply just go on Google, open your siddur, open any book. Honestly, some of these questions are so basic. If you just open any page in the Chumash, one of the commentaries is going to mention it to you. But they're so spiritually lazy, they just want to send a text message and expect an answer. That is a person that's guaranteed to fail in their avodat Hashem. Guaranteed to fail. Why? You want handouts. Rule number one of questions: What's the nafka mina? What's the point? Why do I want to know this? Two, do I really want to know it? After you told yourself some excuse that you really want to know it, how do you prove that you really want to know it? How come I didn't look for this before? come in and look for this question before. Ah, I didn't know the question existed. That's a good reason: I didn't know the question existed. Only I found out something now. Now I know something else. Now I have the question. That's a legitimate excuse. But if you already knew that this existed, then you had this question on your mind. Like some people tell me, I've always had this question. What do you mean? How have you always had this question? Years I've had this question. You had a question in your head for years? How do you allow such a thing? How do you go to sleep at night?

1:50:54How do you go to sleep at night with questions in your head? I don't understand that. How do you not look for the answer in your way? And then they finally ask you the question? It's like Bereishit. It's like, what's the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet? You've always had this question? you allowed to do this in this? You always had this question for years. How come you didn't look for it? Did you really have all these questions or are you just spiritually lazy and want to just start a conversation? The point is, if we are to become our own full potential, we have to become more critical of ourselves. ...more critical of ourselves to say, "Wait a minute, no problem, I can ask questions; the rabbi's willing to answer. But am I really asking a question, or am I just wasting time? Why do I know this for? It's very important." I get hundreds of questions every single day. To be honest with you, 90% of them are a complete waste of time. Why? Because I know that people either don't care about the answer or they're not going to listen to me anyway.

1:52:05just asking the question just to see if I agree with them. I agree with their wrong answer, and as soon as I disagree with them because I have the right answer, oh yeah, Rabbi, okay, let me look for another rabbi. They're looking for Rabbi Noah. You know, Rabbi Noah is whatever is—no, whatever is comfortable also means comfortable. No, next question. Does it have a nafka mina? No, if it doesn't have a nafka mina, don't ask. It does. For who? For the farmer or for you? Actually, it elaborates why I asked. No, okay, go ahead. Let's try this again. So, is it better to learn Torah in a natural setting where you have more nature around you or in a city where you have a lot of sin around you? Where would Would it be better to connect to Hashem? Where would it be better? To go study Torah in the middle of a forest? No, no. Or in a Beit Midrash? No, I didn't say forest. What does it mean? A city or nature? What does that mean, nature? Baal Shem Tov? In the tefillah. Forget about tefillah. What's your question? I don't want to know what's the question. On a farm. To go learn on a farm? You want to go learn on a farm? You can't learn on a farm. It smells terrible.

1:53:24Farms don't smell like they do in the movies where there's no smell. There's manure everywhere. There's all types of things like that. Pomegranate farm. Why would I want to learn Torah in a city with a lot of distractions? It's not better to be... That's the question. Is there a choice? It's not a real question. Where is it better to learn Torah? The answer is wherever Hashem puts you. That's the answer. If Hashem puts you on top of a mountain, and you have a little shack on top of Mount Everest, and that's where Hashem puts you, that's where you learn Torah. If Hashem puts you in a hospital bed, that's where you learn Torah. If Hashem puts you on a farm, you learn Torah over there. A person is obligated to learn Torah even on his deathbed. That's where you have to learn Torah. That's what the answer is. The answer is, legitimately, you have to learn Torah wherever you are, no matter where you are. Where is it better? That's not a real question because no one has such luxury. No one has such luxury to learn wherever they want. You're being a poor father.

1:54:27People don't have such luxury. People that may want to, let's say, learn on top of a building may not have the luxury to learn on top of a building. They may have the luxury to learn on a farm or vice versa. The point is, you cannot think of the environment; you have to think of yourself and the book. That's it, as long as it doesn't smell bad. You have to learn wherever you are. That's where you have to learn. Doesn't matter where it is. Whether it's a farm, or it's a city, or it's whatever. Some of the biggest rabbis in the world. Rabbi Moshe Feinstein learned his Torah in New York City. Okay? The Chachamim of the Gemara learned Torah in Bavel, in Iraq. Surrounded by goyim. So Moshe Rabbeinu learned his Torah in Mitzrayim. The Rambam in Mitzrayim. Let's say, what do you think, Mitzrayim was Gan Eden? Point is, there's Chachamim in every corner of the world. In France, in Greece, in Bavel (Babylon, which is Iraq), Morocco. There's Chachamim in all corners of the world. Why? They don't care where they study. They care about what they're studying. They have a book, that's it. That's where I am. I am where the book is.

1:55:48The environment is irrelevant because as soon as you really start studying, you're inside the book. Your mind is inside the book. If there's a story there about Moshe Rabbeinu and Am Yisrael being in a desert, you are now in a desert. Even if you're in New York City on the 85th floor, you're now in a desert with Moshe Rabbeinu. That's where you're supposed to be. Your mind is supposed to go into the Torah. It doesn't matter where you are. Rav Galinsky says, unlike the Goyim, we go anywhere we want without doing much. Where did we learn this from? We learned this from David HaMelech. Some people travel on their journey in their cars and on their horses. But we travel based on Hashem. Wherever we say Hashem's name, our mind goes there. How do we know this for sure? That everybody, even to this day, knows how to do this. As soon as you say Hashem's name in the Amidah, your mind already goes to your bills, to the stock market, to your wife, to the groceries, to all your problems. You're not in the tefillah. As soon as you say Hashem's name, your mind is already everywhere except the tefillah.

1:57:06Focus on what you're doing, not on what's around you. We're not hippies. We're not Pilgrims. We are Jews who are supposed to learn Torah wherever we have to. If it's on a farm, good for you. If it's in Tennessee, if it's in Texas, if it's in Florida, if it's in New York, if it's in Bnei Brak, if it's in Yerushalayim, if it's in Gan Eden, if it's in Gehinnom, if it's Kaf HaKela—wherever you have a sefer in front of you, learn. That's it. Everything else is shtuyot; everything else is a distraction. don't pay attention to anything else. It doesn't make a difference. Like I said, as long as the place is fit to learn Torah, learn. Learn. I saw a guy when I went to New York on the way to one of my shiurim in the morning. I'll give you an example: at a school, I saw a few people. I've seen this a few times. People are serious learners. They were learning with the sefer, the sefer, while they're driving. Unlike people that are texting and driving, they were learning while driving.

1:58:06But really learning. Learning to have a sefer on the steering wheel and driving. Learning. They didn't drive like crazy people. Why? Because when a person really values their time and their Torah, they're going to find a way to study everywhere. It doesn't matter if it's on the road, off the road, on the subway, off the subway, in a house, in a zoo, in a jail, or wherever. You are in the Torah. That's the most important thing. The best place is wherever you have a sefer. Your book, study. That's the best place. Next question. We're almost done. One, two questions, and we're finished. So, as you said before, it's better to learn Torah before you learn Hebrew. So, in my experience personally, I don't know very much Hebrew. To speak Hebrew or to read it, I can read it, I can understand it. How can I study Gemara? How do you study Gemara if you don't know Hebrew? In fact, even if you do know Hebrew if your first language is not Hebrew.

1:59:21And you have not perfected the Hebrew language. And by "perfected the Hebrew language," it doesn't mean you know how to speak Hebrew and have a conversation. Perfecting the Hebrew language means you know the holy language. Meaning, you know the Hebrew version that's in the Torah, which is very, very different from modern-day Hebrew. Some of the words have the opposite meaning. Like the Hebrew that you speak to people, some of the words that they made, that Ben Yehuda made, are the exact opposite of what the real meaning is in the Torah. So, just because you know how to speak Hebrew, doesn't mean you know real Hebrew. Real Hebrew of the Torah is very different. That's number one. Second, even if you know Hebrew, but you're not a high-level expert in Hebrew, you should study the Gemara in your first language. If your first language is French, buy an ArtScroll with a French translation of the Gemara. If your first language is Russian, buy a Russian version of the Gemara. If your first language is English, buy an English translation of the Gemara. Why? Because when it comes to the Gemara, when it comes to Halachot, the most important thing is to learn what it says, not to learn the language.

2:00:32not to learn the language. I've met many people that study a lot of Gemara but know nothing. Why? Because they know how to read, they know how to make the sounds, but they have no idea what it means. Or sometimes they just don't understand it well enough, so they get to the wrong conclusion. to get to the wrong conclusion. Many people know how to make the sounds of the Hebrew language, but very few know what those sounds actually mean. The important part of Torah is to learn what it means because you're not going to be able to apply it to your life without learning what it means. So that means if you're going to learn Gemara, Study in your first language, especially if you are someone who is starting to learn Torah later in life. You haven't gone to yeshiva your whole life. And to be honest with you, in this generation, I would even say that most yeshiva kids should learn with their first language rather than learning in Hebrew. Because I see a lot of kids who are in the yeshiva system. In the yeshiva system, 15, 16, 17 years old, they learn Gemara, they finish a tractate, Berachot, or whatever it is, but they still have basic level Baal Teshuvah questions. Why? They read it, but they have no idea what they're saying.

2:01:45they have a word here, a word there. And it's a complete waste of time. The key is to learn what it says. Learn what the Gemara is saying. Learn what the Shulchan Aruch is saying. So you have to learn it in your first language. And you have to do that. Hashem made it easy for you. You have organizations that have toiled and worked very, very hard to give you these translations and make it available to you. If you're an English speaker today, there's practically nothing missing. all key parts of the Torah have been translated to the extent where you can learn whatever you really need to learn to know at the very least more than the basics, much more than the basics. So, when people complain about, "Oh yeah, I want to learn this book, but it's not translated, it's not translated yet," you know what that means? Don't learn that book. If that book hasn't been translated yet, that means that it's only for people that know the language. Learn the books that are in your language. Don't be such an egotistical person, thinking that you're only going to do it when it fits your agenda.

2:02:58Learn Gemara in your first language. You'll get a lot more out of it. You'll enjoy it a lot more. You'll achieve a lot more. If you don't, you end up being an akshan, a stubborn person like a lot of people are. You end up just wasting your time. I had several students that, Baruch Hashem, study Gemara and do really well. And some students that, you know, don't listen to me for a while. And then they come back crying, "Oh, I just wasted a year, two years learning. I finished this and I don't understand anything." I said, "Yeah, because you're focused on this, right? Yeah, how'd you know? No, I told you not to. You didn't listen to me. You did it anyway, and you wasted two years of your life. You're not much of an improved version of the animal you were two years ago. Instead of becoming a holy person in a couple of years, you stayed the same. Nothing changed. Nothing changed. Your wife's still complaining about you. Your husband's still, everything, nothing's changed. Why? Because you did everything the opposite of what I said. Not because I said it, but because that's the way the Chachamim teach. That's the way it is." not my guidance. This is just what I know works. My rabbi told me this is what I do. So the point is, Rabotai, that there is a rule in the Torah that HaKadosh Baruch Hu hates pride. The pride of a man will lead to his downfall, but even more so, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says...

2:04:23He's disgusted by people who are arrogant. One of the ways that people exercise their arrogance is when they don't want to listen to the rabbi's advice. They think they know better. "No, Rabbi, I know Hebrew." Okay, you know Hebrew. So what does this mean? "Let me get back to you. I don't understand." You don't know what it means. It's not your first language. When you dream, what language are you dreaming in? "Oh, I dream in both languages." Okay, buddy. Okay. You pretend you know Hebrew. Fine, go pretend whatever you want. I don't care. It doesn't make a difference to me. You're wasting your time, you're wasting your time. If you speak English, your first language is English. And quite frankly, even if you speak Hebrew and you were born in Israel, your first language is still not Hebrew. Why? Because your first language is modern Hebrew, which is not lashon hakodesh anyway. You should still read ArtScroll, the Hebrew version of ArtScroll, Hebrew to Hebrew. Fake Hebrew to real Hebrew. There is, there is, there is an article for Hebrew. Why? Because this is where we are. You have to face reality. Don't pretend you know more than you do. I can, I don't, I promise you, the last thing I'd like to do is toot my own horn. But I can tell you one thing that I've seen as a success in my life, as far as the Torah part.

2:05:51In the secular world, I was considered a very, very smart person. Nobody in my life ever called me stupid. Business, not because of money. I was relatively successful in that aspect of it. Read a lot of books, very well-learned, have lots of degrees and tests and accolades and all types of things. But with all of those licenses and accolades and a master's degree and all of this stuff, when I came into the Torah world, I realized on day one, I'm pre-baby. Yeah, but I know Hebrew, because I was born in Israel and I lived there for 10 years. I'm pre-baby. Yeah, but I know Moshe Rabbeinu. I'm pre-baby. I know nothing. That's how I came to the world. That's how I came. It doesn't matter what age and how much pride I had and how much, you know, all the things that I had. On day one, I realized in this world, I'm zero, less than zero. I'm going to ask every question. I'm going to pretty much assume I know nothing. Why? Because in reality, most of the stuff I know is nothing. And I want to learn everything. I'm going to treat myself like an Aleph-Bet.

2:07:04And I told people in the past on camera, some of the books that I read in the beginning were children's books. Children's books. Why? Because I wanted to learn like a kid. Because that's how I'm going to get the information. That's how I'm going to get to know what Hashem wants from me. And little by little, you progress. Little by little, you progress. Little by little, you progress. But people that already want to start on day one, they want to be like the rabbi. They just started keeping Shabbat three weeks ago. "I want to be a rabbi, rabbi." First, learn hilchot Shabbat. First, learn how to be a Jew. Then worry about being a rabbi. But everybody wants to expedite, expedite, expedite. They think that doing this is like text messaging. Relax. Calm that arrogance down. You're starting out. You should consider yourself in special ed. Special ed, you know what special ed is? Special ed is not even regular school. It's for special people that are less than normal. That's how you have to treat yourself. Not to demean yourself and look at yourself negatively, but rather to cover all the bases. Don't think you know more than you do because I promise you, you usually know less than you think you do. And even more so, even if you know it, what's the problem with covering it anyway? Again,

2:08:32People have so much pride that they think that, no, no, I should already know it. I should already do it. Forget "should" and "would" and "could." Just learn from the beginning. Everything in first language. Everything in the way it's supposed to be done. Aleph bet. Doesn't matter what age you are. Doesn't matter who you know. Doesn't matter who your father is. None of that stuff matters. All that matters is, how do I get to know what Hashem wants from me? How do I get to know that? How do I get to the point of life? How do I get a clear answer? Not maybe. Aleph bet, beginning. Bereishit bara Elokim et ha-shamayim v'et ha-aretz. Oh, Bereishit. Why does it say Bereishit? Why does it say beginning? Okay, let's look at commentary. Oh, Rashi says Bereishit. That's how you learn. That's how you learn. You learn at the beginning. That's how you learn. People want to expedite everything, expedite everything. They don't know anything and they're already jumping to everything. It's a mistake. I knew that what, I'm telling you, I wasn't a dumb person. All types of degrees, all types of accolades. I came into the Torah world; I wanted to know what Hashem wants for me. So I want to go first, not first grade, kindergarten.

2:09:56kindergarten. I want to know what to do, to ask every question. They know, try again, make mistakes—a million and a half mistakes, every mistake known to man. Okay, let's try again, fail again, try again, fail again, try again, learn again, go over again. Oh, oh, oh, do, do, do, non-stop. That's how you get to know what Hashem wants from you. Without any aspiration to be a rabbi, without any aspiration to be a speaker, without any aspiration to be anything other than someone that knows what Hashem wants from me. If your aspiration is to be a rabbi or a speaker, you will likely be nothing. Why? You're going into it with the wrong mindset. go into it with the wrong mindset. If your aspiration is to be the biggest tzaddik, you're making a mistake. First, be a decent human being, then worry about being a tzaddik. Why? Because when you worry about being a tzaddik, you're going to do things that tzaddikim do, and you don't even know how to be a human being yet. People say, "Oh no, I just, uh, six months ago started keeping Shabbat, and they're fasting twice a week."

2:11:13Why are you fasting twice a week? No, my rabbi told me that all the Mekubalim, you know, they fast a few times a week. Yeah, the Mekubalim are fasting. The Mekubalim are fasting. What are you fasting for? You think it's going to make you more righteous? You think that Hashem cares about your fasting? Go use that energy to learn a couple of daf Gemara, a little more Chumash, more Rashi, more Tosafot—more things that are going to fix your life. All this pretend stuff, or they start wearing these odd clothes or different uniforms. You have people coming sometimes to shul, and the guy comes to shul looking like mamash a dayan, not even a rabbi at that. Dayan comes to you with the shtreimel, with the hat, with the beard, pop, pop, pop, pop. You're like, "Watch the book, Shema." You start, "I'm thinking about getting up for the Rav, for the love." At the end of the shiur, a rabbi asks, "What's muktze?"

2:12:16What's muktzeh, Rabbi? Wait, hold on a second. You are not a Dayan? You didn't make the laws of muktzeh for the town, for the city? You didn't write 25 books? So how come you look like that? How come you look like that? Why are you pretending? Why are you pretending? I'm not saying you need to look like a goy. Some gangster with tattoos on your face. I'm not saying that. But let's stop pretending that we're something that we're not. You gotta be real with yourself. You gotta be real with yourself. You gotta know, I know nothing. And even after you learn for 50 years, you still pretty much know nothing. And the reality is, the more you learn, the more you realize the Torah is bigger than you. And the Torah is, whatever you have, is nothing in comparison to what's available. So please, Rabotai, I'm telling you this because I've gone through this, and I've seen a lot of people fail, and I've seen, Baruch Hashem, a lot of people succeed. The only ones that succeeded are people that were honest with themselves. You're going to do things that are above your pay grade, you're going to deal with things that are above your pay grade. With these things, you're not going to succeed.

2:13:35You're going to skip all the basics because you're such and such. You're this age. You're that age. You come from this family or that family. You're going to waste your life. You have to learn basics and then grow from there. You know, it's just a reality. If I have, I'm telling you, if I have serious Talmidei Chachamim from all over the world still watching these shiurim that you are attending and people are watching right now. They're also watching. And these are serious people. We're not talking about people that are Ba'alei Teshuva. Brand new, six months, a year and a half, two years out of the box. We're talking about people that are serious people that learn a lot of Torah. And they're watching the same shiurim as you, that means that there's Baruch Hashem siyata dishmaya here. So that means that there is a reality check that each one has to give to themselves. Do not do things that are above your pay grade. And if you want to do something that's technically not what

2:14:36The rabbi said, talk to the rabbi first. Rabbi, should I do this, this, and this? No, he's going to tell me no. So if he's going to tell you no, how come you're doing it anyway? No, because I... Oh, okay, so you don't want to listen to the chachamim then. You're a bigger chacham than the rabbi. Okay, for sure you're going to fail. For sure you're going to fail. 100%. One of the gedolei hador in Eretz Yisrael said not too long ago, a few years ago, he said, I don't have a rabbi, don't listen to rabbis, it's better off they don't do teshuva. doesn't want to listen to a rabbi. Better, obviously, why? He's just going to make the Torah look worse. There are a lot of those, a lot of those, a lot of those. A lot of people become their own rabbi. Somebody motivates him to start keeping mitzvot, and a year and a half later, two years later, "No, no, this rabbi, he's too weak for me, he's not good enough for me. Yes, I sense he has a little bit of Amalek in him." He likes this world too much, this rabbi. He likes this world too much. I'm already above that. You're above that. You're in a half out of the toilet. You're already above that. You're above this world. People are fakers. You have to be real. You have to be real. You have to see, where am I? Where am I? I'm telling you, I talked to serious tzaddikim. They don't even know if they're going to be saved if Mashiach shows up tomorrow. Tzaddikim. They don't even know how to sin.

2:16:03Don't understand people that just garbage that people do here every day. They don't even know it exists. They're in a kollel and all day it's on the king to Hashem. They're scared to talk about Mashiach, they can't talk about Judgment Day, they can't talk about Yom Kippur. Some of them start crying, tzaddikim scared about Mashiach. But you have people here, they just started keeping Shabbat five, ten years ago. Yeah, Mashiach now. What Mashiach now? What Mashiach now? What Mashiach now? Sure that Mashiach is going to save them. David HaMelech, David HaMelech was scared. David HaMelech was scared of Judgment Day. David HaMelech, scared. Moshe Rabbeinu was scared of Judgment Day. But we're so sure of ourselves. What does that mean? The more sure of yourself, the less you actually know. The more you know, the less sure of yourself you are. Why? Because you know how many things you're really missing.

2:17:08How many things you're really missing? It doesn't mean that you have to be depressed about it. It just means that it has to motivate you to become better and be more realistic with yourself. Learn Torah for the sake of learning, not for the sake of showing off. Don't learn something just to show people you know stuff. Learn things that are going to help your life. And I promise you, if you do that and you're very strict with it, you will succeed very, very much. With that, I think we'll finish off the day. I think the questions were good. And even the ones that weren't good, we made something good out of them. It's urgent? Okay, it's kind of urgent. Give me another question. Why am I still in America? Let's go, bring me out. No, Rabbi Yeshayahu and Mashiach is here. No, what's the question? Mashiach is here. Listen, if he's here, then

2:18:30he's here, if he's not here, he's not here. I don't know what to tell you. I mean, that's not generally the right mindset. Generally, the people that say that are not usually saying it to the right crowd and maybe saying it to motivate them. I don't know. I can tell you a few things as far as Mashiach. Whether Mashiach is here or he's not here, either way we gotta behave every single day As servants of Hashem, getting ready to meet Him, why? Because whether Mashiach is here or not doesn't really make a difference. None of us are promised tomorrow. We could all die tomorrow, with or without a virus, with or without Mashiach, with or without anything else. And the minute a person dies, there's no more teshuva. So instead of focusing so much on Mashiach—whether he's here or not—the reality is that a person should prepare themselves every single day. Every single day, serve Hashem. That's number one. Number two, as far as people who say that Mashiach is here and they met him, and he went to Tveriyah and now he's coming back, all types of things like that.

2:19:46I don't like those things. My rabbi doesn't like those things. None of the serious tzaddikim that I know like those things. They think it's just all a hocus-pocus show that's maybe trying to motivate some people to do teshuva. I think it's a system set to fail. by telling people that Moshiach is coming, that he's here, and that he's going to arrive in two weeks and everything's going to be okay. I think that's simply setting up a system to fail because if all of these promises do not get delivered, that could demotivate people much more than it motivated them to begin with. And that's part of the reason why we're not allowed to put a time on it. If the Moshiach is really here, then there's not really much that we can do anyway, aside from our day-to-day job we're supposed to do anyway. If he's not here, then all of those people that are saying that he's here are Nevi'ei Sheker. They're false prophets. Don't listen to them. The point is, I never heard, never heard my rabbi say such things. I never heard any of the Gedolei HaDor.

2:20:53say such things. I mean, there have been some people that have made mistakes, like Rabbi Akiva and other people with other false prophets, but I don't believe that Rabbi Akiva or any of the other tzaddikim that have made their mistakes changed their life to that extent. They were still serving Hashem normally every day anyway. So, listen. If Mashiach is here, we're in serious trouble. That's the bottom line. So, the people that think that Mashiach is here and it's a good thing, they're living a dream. They're living a fantasy. Why? Because if he's here, that means there has to be war. A very big one. There have to be a lot of bad things. There have to be lots of people dying. Some of them are Jews. Why? They don't keep Shabbat. They don't keep this. They don't keep that. So, it's not exactly... So that's the thing. Most people that say stuff like that,

2:22:09stay away from it. Uh, and also, you should know that even sometimes you'll see that there are sometimes righteous people that say things that make it sound like it, or even if it is it, there's still people that can make mistakes. Rabbi Akiva made a mistake. Nobody in today's generation is even the shoelace of Rabbi Akiva. Doesn't matter how big they are. Nobody's like Rabbi Akiva. He got to the 50th level of Kedusha, higher than any human being that ever lived. And he made a mistake. So, before the end of time, there are going to be people that make mistakes about Mashiach. There are going to be false prophets. That's a prophecy in the Torah, in the Chumash. Hakadosh Baruch Hu said it. He's going to bring different false prophets to see if we love Him. He's going to send us false prophets. He's going to send us false teachers. He's going to send us different tests. Yeshu was just a small test from 2,000 years ago. There's much bigger things coming before Mashiach comes. People that think it's all going to be hokey pokey and Mashiach is coming and we're all going to sing and dance. All going to go on a nice little banana boat to Israel. Dreaming. Dreaming.

2:23:32Dreaming. I'm telling you. It's just not a reality. People are living a fantasy. The most important thing for a Jew to do is teshuva. Every day. Every day fix something. Every day learn something. Every day another page. Every day another daf. Another line. Sometimes I'm so tired. I'm so tired at night. I can't. I can't do it. I ask my Rav, what do I do? I can't. I can't learn the daf. Can't learn the daf. Can't learn another. He goes, learn one line. One sentence. That's what he tells me. Learn one line. I don't have the energy to go now, break my head, and learn some more. I can't learn anything right now. He says, learn one line. Can you learn one line? Yeah, I could try. Okay, learn one line. At least you got something. Don't go so far. Learn, you know, Mashiach. Learn one line of Gemara. Learn one line of the Chumash. Can you do that? You're tired? Three o'clock in the morning? Can you learn one line? Okay, that's good. It's much better than worrying about Mashiach this, Mashiach that. Much more. Much more important. Why? That line is going to bring new angels to the world. New Kedusha to the world. New power to your neshama.

2:24:47...much more valuable than all this junk that people waste their time on. Every second video is about, you know, some type of new prophecy: 5780 minus 20 times 30 plus 5 divided by 6 equals Mashiach ben David, times Pesach, and eats matzah on a big table with small little chairs. Enough. Enough. Enough with the gematriot and all this stuff. Let's go. Fix ourselves. Fix ourselves. Fix ourselves. You finished the Shas? You did? Okay, do it again. You didn't? You think you're going to be saved by Mashiach? You're confident about Mashiach? You spent 20 years on Wall Street. You don't even know the Shas yet? Oh, come on, people are kidding themselves. Kidding themselves. Focus on your job every day. Stop with all the junk. Wasting time. These are mitzvot from the Satan. People love to watch these videos with different rabbis or bearded people or sometimes even goyim.

2:25:56have all these calculations, and Mashiach is going to come before Shavuot, and before Pesach, and during this, and during that, and when this, and on a Thursday, sometimes on Monday, and on Tuesdays Hashem says twelve twice, and every week it's something else. Enough, enough, enough! Stop wasting your life reading. You're gonna go to Olam HaBa with all these numbers. It's not gonna help. It's not gonna help. Fix yourself. Fix yourself. Fix—I'm telling this to myself. Fix yourself. That's going to help you. Learn a lot of Gemara. Learn a lot of Chumash. Say, "Ani Ma'amin," a thousand times. That's it, all day. You don't know anything else? It's better to say, 5,000 times. Then, all these gematriot and analyses of when Mashiach is going to come, and who is Gog, and when Gog is coming, and where is Magog, how come it’s the north, maybe it’s the south, but maybe it’s Russia, maybe it’s Venezuela, maybe it’s Iran. Enough!

2:27:03Right now, that verse is worth more than all the Mashiach teachings. Why? Every single letter is a mitzvah. know a little bit about it to get yourself motivated to do it today rather than tomorrow, okay? No problem, it's exciting, it's far-reaching, it's cool, it's super. Okay, fine. Once you know the basics, move on, move on, move on. Enough with the calculations, enough. You're not going to see Rav Chaim Kanievsky do Gematriot of when Mashiach is coming. You're never going to find in Yabia Omer, Rav Ovadia Yosef doing calculations of Mashiach during Pesach or Mashiach during Shavuot. You're never going to see that. You're never going to see that. How come they don't do it and you're doing it? You're bigger than them?

2:28:13We have to emulate the Chachamim, the Chachamim we have to emulate, not the ignorant. Focus on what you're supposed to do. Enough with the calculations, enough with the extra mitzvot, enough with the extra stuff. Do the basics. I promise you, you'll end up in a very good place. You'll end up in a very good place in this world and the next. Be'ezrat Hashem, this gives us a motivation to do what we're supposed to, bring more Kedushah to the world, bring more Nachat to Borei Yitbarach, so He can bring us blessings, He can take away this Gezeirah, this decree that's in the world, that unfortunately is hurting many, but Be'ezrat Hashem will get all of us closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Baruch Adonai Le'olam. Amen ve'amen.