Searching For The Truth of Torah with Gorsky Kavkazi Jews Of New York

0:14Thank you for having me. We just had an amazing shiur in Staten Island in Old Torah. To be honest with you, I was very surprised at the feedback. The feedback that people had, Baruch Hashem, Baruch Hashem, was amazing. Almost every single person in the shul took on himself a mitzvah. Almost every single person in the shul, mamash, took on himself something to change, to do something. Some to keep Shabbat, some to lay tefillin. And seeing Hashem's work, mamash, in front of your eyes, is something that you do daily when you do kiruv. When you tell Am Yisrael the truth, and you wake them up. Now, what's the difference between real kiruv and fake kiruv? You'll find out tonight, b'ezrat Hashem. so by the grace of Hashem, this shiur will also be for a refuah shlema for Levana bat Sara, Sara bat Levana, Rachel bat Shulamit, Sara bat Anat, Michal bat Titi, Rav Efraim ben Shulamit, and also for David ben Rina.

1:39Amen. Amen. Lital bat Ester Lital? Lital Lital bat Ester Maya, who also, with the help of G-d, will have a proper and kosher match, good fortune, good life, long and happy, full of Torah, mitzvot, middot, chassadim. Roman? Roman? Roman ben Olga, who, with the help of G-d, will have a proper and kosher match, and with the help of G-d...

2:41All of you will find not only a perfect match, but if you already have a match, you will find that your match is the best one you can possibly have. Oh, and also now... There's no shame. The goal of the shiur is to show you one thing, just one thing. There are going to be many, many points we're going to go over. I don't know what I'm going to say. The good news is it's not up to me; it's up to us, and whatever Hashem wants to tell me to say to you, it's called siyata dishmaya, I'll say. But there's one point that I know for sure... The point is that I want every single one of you to leave here knowing that Torat Moshe is emet. The Torah that we have is 100% true. Why is that the main goal? Why shouldn't I say maybe all of you stop keeping Shabbat?

4:04Maybe all of you, whoever's not keeping Shabbat, should start keeping Shabbat. Maybe all of you should start protecting your brit. Maybe everyone should start learning Torah. Why am I saying to know the Torah is real? Why? Because if it's real, only a crazy person wouldn't follow it. If I told you, listen, on one hand I have a real diamond. It's worth a hundred million dollars. other hand I have the exact same looking diamond. It's worth 100 bucks, called cubic zirconium. Looks exactly the same, but one's worth a hundred million, one's worth a hundred dollars. Which one do you want? Do you think about it twice? They look exactly the same though, but do you think about it twice which one you're gonna pick? You're in jewelry, which one do you pick? Hundred million dollars. Why don't you pick the other one? It's exactly the same. It's not worth a hundred million dollars. Why? Because this one is real. Only a crazy person picks the one that's a hundred bucks. Only a crazy person. So the point, Rabotai, is that once you know the Torah of Moshe Rabbeinu is a hundred percent true, you realize that to not follow it means you're crazy. Who wants to walk around the world and say, I'm crazy, I'm crazy?

5:29Who wants to be crazy? Even the crazy guy doesn't want to be crazy. Baruch Hashem, he doesn't know he's crazy though. That's why he's crazy. But nonetheless, no one wants to be crazy. Why? Because, you know, if this is true, I want to do it. If this mamash came from Hashem, I want to do it. If there's a safek, meaning if there's a doubt, maybe He didn't say it, maybe He did say it, maybe, maybe, maybe, then I have excuses. Hashem said, "Listen, you should keep Shabbat," but He didn't tell us how. Then I could tell you, "Listen, the way I'm keeping Shabbat is by going to the casino. I relax." That's what I used to say before I did teshuvah. I said, "Listen, I'm not keeping Shabbat, but I'm not working. I know you're not supposed to work on Shabbat, so I'm relaxing. How do I relax? I go play poker." I go to the casino. That was in my own warped, demented mind. That made sense. Why? Because the Yetzer Hara took over and told me that's okay. How does the Yetzer Hara work? I'll tell you how the Yetzer Hara works. Yetzer Hara is something each one of us is born with already. The minute you're born, the Yetzer Hara is inside you. Yetzer Hatov only comes at your Bar Mitzvah, meaning that by the time the Yetzer Hatov shows up, the Yetzer Hara is already old. He already has a lot of experience.

6:55The only way you can beat the Yetzer Hara is with Torah. The only way. Some of it for the Torah. For the Yetzer Hara. It's Torah, Gemara, Masechet Berachot. Anytime I mention Gemara or a source, that means it's one of these books. There are many of them. This specific book, there are 73 different types. So if I say Gemara, Masechet something, something, I mention to you one line out of a book. So imagine what the rest of the book says. The point being is, is that the Yetzer Hara... He doesn't joke around. He doesn't go for a little bit. He goes for the whole kupa. He goes for the whole cash machine. He goes for the whole safe. He goes for your family. He goes for your friends. He goes for everything. But he doesn't start that way. If someone is born into a religious family, they're lucky enough to be born into a religious family, he's not going to go to them and tell them, "Listen, why don't you start violating Shabbat?" Why? Because to that guy that's keeping mitzvot, and his father keeps mitzvot, and his mother keeps mitzvot, and everybody keeps Shabbat, it's not in his world. What is he going to do to him? Say, listen, okay, you keep Shabbat. Okay, you learn Torah. Okay, you're watching your brit. Good job. But this bubble gum, this bubble gum, it doesn't have a kosher symbol on it.

8:16it has more wiring in it where if you took out all the wires, the whole brain is one big wire. If you took out all the wiring of the whole brain, you could stretch it out from here all the way to the moon and back. That's how much wiring your brain has. Doesn't matter if you're smart or not. Doesn't matter if you know Torah or not. Your brain has wires, you go all the way to the moon. Hashem has to make sure that those wires work perfectly. Why? If one little blood clot has more wiring in it where, if you took out all the wires, the whole brain is one big wire. If you took out all the wiring of the whole brain, you could stretch it out from here all the way to the moon and back. That's how much wiring your brain has. Doesn't matter if you're smart or not. Doesn't matter if you know Torah or not. Your brain has wires; you go all the way to the moon. Hashem has to make sure that those wires work perfectly. Why? If one little blood clot One tiny, little blood clot decides, you know what, today I'm going to go to sleep. Today I'm not going to work. I'm going to stop over here. I'm going to take a rest in the middle of the brain. The brain stops working. Hashem, the person can die in a matter of seconds. One blood clot, one, not 500,000, one. And the whole wiring, one. That same God that created the world makes sure that that blood clot does not happen.

9:45make sure that that cell does not rest. So now, if He cares enough about this little blood clot, then obviously He cares about the bubble gum too. And the problem with the bubble gum when it's not kosher is that it uses a chemical called gelatin. And gelatin, if you want to do some research yourself, you can look it up. Gelatin is made from the bones of animals. Usually, the most common animal that it's made they make gelatin from pigs. So that bubble gum that's so tasty and delicious—you think that you're keeping kosher because you go to shul and you keep mitzvot and you go to the beit knesset and you learn Torah. And you just say, listen, the Yetzer Hara says, it's just bubble gum, it's not a big deal. It's bubble gum. No, bubble gum means you're actually eating chazir; you're eating pork! That's the bubble gum. Yetzer Hara doesn't come to you with something big. He comes to you with a little nail. What is it like? One time there was a very rich guy. And the rich guy, he liked one thing all of us want. What does he like? He liked money. He had 10 million, he wanted 20 million. When he got 20 million, he wanted 40 million. So one day, a little annoying guy shows up at his door. He goes, excuse me, sir. Opens the door, he goes, what do you want?

11:06Did my chauffeur show you the sign, no strangers allowed? He said, no, no, no, listen, I told him that I want to buy some real estate. Okay, so go buy some real estate. What do you want from my life? No, no, I want to buy this house. The house is not for sale. No, no, I don't want to buy the whole house. I don't have money for the whole house. I just want to buy enough space for my nail. I have a nail. It's a very important nail to me. I want to buy the space. You have a big house. Baruch Hashem, $10 million house. There are more rooms than you can count. They lost a few people in the rooms. It's so big, that the lost and found department in the house is enormous. I just want a nail in the wall. Pick any place you want. It's not for sale. Listen, I'll pay you $10,000 just to give me a nail, just to put the nail in the wall. The guy likes money so much, he's like, this fool wants to give me $10,000 for a nail? The house is so big, I'm never going to notice this nail. Okay, give me $10,000. Go, go. Pick a nail any way you want. Put the nail. So the guy goes into the house. He looks, he looks, he looks, goes to the house, okay? I'm gonna put it over here. He puts the nail in the house, and he walks away. Thank you very much. The guy who's so rich thinks, "Easy money. Look what kind of blessing Hashem sent me." He thinks this is mishugas. The next day at midnight, "Hello, what do you want?"

12:35I want to put my hat on the nail. My hat, I finished using it today. I want to put my hat on the nail. You couldn't come earlier? No, I couldn't come earlier. I'm using the hat. How can I come earlier if I'm using the hat? No, I don't need the hat. I want to put it on my nail. Listen, you don't come at this time. Listen, it's my nail. I can't get to the nail without you opening the door. Okay, okay, no. Put the hat on the nail. The next day, two o'clock in the morning. What do you want? My coat. I don't need my coat. I finished with my coat. I want to put my coat on the nail. He bought himself a headache. He bought himself not a headache, a nightmare. Because the next day at 3 o'clock in the morning, it got worse. Now he wants the hat back. And then the next day he wants the coat. And he wants to put it back. And the guy says no more. We're going to Beit Din. We're going to Beit Din. I don't want to let you in at 2 o'clock in the morning. We're going to Beit Din. Bet Din says, "Listen, sir, you sold the nail to the guy for ten thousand dollars fair and square. That's it. It says now you have to open the door; it doesn't matter when. That's the deal." After a month of dealing with this, the rich guy says, "You know what? Take the whole house. I can't deal with this anymore." That's the answer.

14:03Yetzer Hara comes to you, and he says, "I want just a little nail, just a small sin. Just go with one girl one time that you're not allowed to go with. Just violate Shabbat one time, not every Shabbat, one Shabbat, one tiny one. Just play with your phone for five minutes. See who won the game, just one time. No mess. He's playing, or whoever's playing, just one time, check who won the game, the score. It's important to you." One time you do this, one time you do that, one time you have this, one time you have that. One sin. But then he comes back. Because you gave him a space. And he wants it again. And again. And again. And again. And eventually, a person gets so used to sinning, he says, you know what? Have the whole house. And that, Rabotai, is how a person who used to be religious falls. such a deep hole that he doesn't know how to get out of it. Because then he gets to a point where, to get out of it, he has to do something that most of us are not willing to do. He has to admit he's wrong. Rav Saadiah Gaon said that when a person gets sick, it's a mitzvah in the Torah to go visit him. It's a mitzvah. Rabbi Akiva

15:27Allah said that if you don't go visit someone that's sick, you know someone that's sick, and you don't go visit him, it's like you murdered him. Why? Maybe he needed some chizuk from you. Maybe he needed someone to love him, someone to show that he cares. And because you didn't show up, he ended up dying because of it. He lost hope, so it's like you murdered him. So it's a very big mitzvah to go visit someone that's sick. It's not just a nice thing to do. We're not Americans. It's a mitzvah. There's a very big difference between mitzvah and a nice thing to do. A nice thing to do means it's elective. You could do it, you don't do it. You want to be nice? Do it. You don't want to be nice? Don't do it. A mitzvah means you have to do it. It's an obligation. So now a person gets sick and his friend, whom he has known for 25 years, forgot to go visit him. A week passes, two weeks pass, a month passes, no one, he didn't come, he forgot, and he finally remembers. Oh, my friend is sick. I didn't go visit him. What am I going to do? If I go right now, he's already sick for a month. He's in the hospital. But if I go now, he's going to ask me, where have you been for the last month? Friends for 25 years. What kind of friend are you? Who wants to hear that? So maybe he's going to get healthy. He doesn't go. Another month passes, Hashem, the guy is still in the hospital.

16:57I didn't go last month. I didn't go the second month. He's still not out, but now it's even worse. Now I didn't go visit him for two months. He's definitely going to be upset at me. Who wants to be upset? I'm feeling my own headaches. Another month passes. Now I'm going to go visit him. I haven't visited him in three months. He probably hates me by now. Probably going to curse me out if I go. But then I have to fulfill the mitzvah. I have to do this. This is battles in his head. Rav Saadia Gaon says the person gets to such a deep hole. His pride is so big that he doesn't want to admit that he's wrong. Instead of going to visit his friend who is sick, he starts praying that he dies. He says, "Hashem, I want him to die. Why? If he dies, I don't have to deal with the consequences. I'll have to deal with the embarrassment. I didn't visit my friend for 25 years. I would rather my friend die than deal with the embarrassment." When someone falls off the derech, Rabotai, they make a small sin that turns into a big sin. They start with chewing gum, and they become a Mechalel Shabbat. They start looking at pornographic movies on the internet, and the next thing you know they're married to a Goya. Or they're married to a Goy. They start going to wine, they have one drink with the guy, and the next thing you know they work for the bar.

18:25They give a guy a ride, and the next thing you know, they see the guy stealing and say, "Oh, you know, it's not a good thing." The next thing you know, they become part of the job. One small sin leads to another. It says one mitzvah leads to another mitzvah. One sin leads to another sin. What's the reward for a mitzvah? Another mitzvah. What's the reward for a sin? Another sin. Another sin, that's the reward. You made a sin, we're going to give you an opportunity to make another sin. This is why I never understood, why is it that when somebody made a sin at the time of the Beit HaMikdash, you have to bring a korban. What does the cow have to do with it? What did she do, miskena? She didn't kill anybody. You violated Shabbat by accident. You did this, you made the sin. Why is it the cow's fault? Why are you bringing it? Why? Hashem's going to eat the cow? He doesn't need to eat the cow. He's eating cows now. He's eating doves. What does He need the cow for? What does He need a dove for? What's the korban for? So, there's two things we learn here, Abotai. Number one, we learn when they actually slaughter the cow or slaughter the chicken or whatever bird it is, that's a kosher bird, you have to see it.

19:47Why? It's a reminder that in reality, for the sin that you made, even if the sin is not—obviously, if it's on purpose, there's no korban; they'd kill you. But if the sin is an accident, you turn on the light by accident on Shabbat. If you did it on purpose, it's the death penalty. There's no teshuva. In the days of the Beit HaMikdash. Today, Baruch Hashem, there's teshuva. But in the days of the Beit HaMikdash, if you turned on the car on purpose... Penalty if you did it by accident. What's an accident? You forgot it’s Shabbat? You forgot that you can't, like, you know, turn on the car on Shabbat. They said you have to bring a korban. So why do I have to see it? Why not just see them slaughtering the cow? Because Hashem is trying to tell you, in reality, it's supposed to be you that's slaughtered. That's the reality, even though it’s an accident. Shabbat is so important to me, even for the accident, it's a death penalty, really. What's the second thing we learn? The second thing we learn is why do we have to bring a korban, but we have to bring the korban right away. Because bringing a korban to the Beit HaMikdash was a mitzvah. He said that since the reward for a sin is another sin, before you make another sin, make a mitzvah to break the chain.

21:15Bring the korban to break the chain of sins before the next sin occurs. Why? Because if you bring the korban, that's a mitzvah. If you do this mitzvah, it's going to be a mitzvah that's a reward for you. That's why you have to perform a mitzvah as soon as possible. So whenever someone fails at something, whether they violated Shabbat, wasted seed, went with a girl they're not allowed to go with, ate non-kosher, or whatever sin people make, Fortunately, there's no end to the sins people make. All of us, whatever sin you make, don't listen to the Satan that pretends he only wants a nail. Go make a mitzvah as soon as possible. Okay, you made a sin. Okay, you feel bad about it. But to go make another sin is not going to help you. Go make a mitzvah. Why? It's going to break the chain. It's going to break the chain. Now, I'm sure that you guys have some questions that maybe you had your whole life. I'm sure you guys have some questions that maybe you've had your whole life.

22:20Maybe these questions you had your whole life. I know that when I first started learning Torah, I thought I had a few questions. Next thing I knew, I had nine months' worth of questions. Imagine how many questions that is. How many questions can you think about in five minutes? It's a lot of questions in five minutes. Imagine nine months' worth of questions. It's a lot of questions. I didn't know I had that many questions. I thought I had five, six, ten minutes' worth of questions. An hour's worth of questions. A day's worth, nine months' worth, that's a lot of questions. Which probably means that I've asked the questions that you have. So why don't you ask me some questions, and I'll try to give you some answers. Go ahead. Okay, I'll answer all the questions at the same time. Go ahead, next question. I'll also say what the questions are, too. Meaning he did teshuva afterward, and then she didn't do teshuva?

23:52Gotcha. Okay, next. Who else? Does everybody know everything else? Okay. I have this one kid that I'm trying to encourage to keep Shabbat. Not force him, but inspire him to keep Shabbat on his own. So every time I invite him, he just goes and does other things. When you invite him into your house, does he go and break Shabbat in your house? At home, but not in front of you. So you're asking, should you continue inviting him if he continues to break Shabbat? Can you bring him here now?

24:53Can you bring him now? Can you bring him to the shiur now? Invite him again. Okay, next question. I'll answer all the questions at the same time. So, go ahead. Meaning? Meaning? What do you mean? Explain. Meaning to do teshuva? Oh, if somebody doesn't do teshuva, is it possible for them to go to Gan Eden, meaning? Okay. okay, Bitcoin, I actually have two videos about Bitcoin, two short videos about Bitcoin. Yeah, I have two short videos about Bitcoin. In so many words, at the end of the show, everyone's going to lose every penny they have. At the end, today, everybody thinks they're going to become billionaires through it, but at the end of the show, they're all going to lose. When that's going to happen, I don't know. I'm not a prophet.

26:18what where does it say that okay so when it comes to when it comes to investing not necessarily sometimes sometimes you have investing and sometimes you have gambling those are two different things. Gambling is when you have no idea what you're doing and you're pretty much just putting money into something hoping that it works. Meaning there's no real reason why. You don't know anything. You don't really understand anything. What you're putting your money into doesn't stand for anything. But you're going to buy it with hopes that somebody else in the future is going to pay you more money for it. That's gambling. And the reason why is because, in order for it to be classified as investing, you have to understand what you're doing. So if I told you, listen, you have $100,000. You have two options. You could put $100,000 on black in the roulette in Las Vegas. Or you could put $100,000 into some business that you want to invest in. You can understand in two seconds that Las Vegas is gambling and the business is investing. It's also gambling because you never know. It's not the same. There's no guarantee it's going to work. It's not the same level of risk.

27:45but it's also not gambling. And the reason why is because if you invest in a business, regardless of whether the business ends up working out or not, you're still going to have something left, usually. You're going to have some inventory left, you're going to have some different tools that you used left. There's still going to be something left. Whereas if you put $100,000 into nothing, into some poker tournament or something, Then that's gambling, and nothing is left at the end. So, yes, there's risk in both cases, but one is bigger than the other. Now, when it comes to Bitcoin, people... swear by it. They believe in it, like it's a new religion, pretty much. That this is going to be the new gold. This is going to be the new dollar bill. This is going to be the new thing. Why do they say this? They don't say it because they really understand it. They don't say it because they really believe in it. They say it because it already went up, and they assume it's just going to continue. But every bubble did the same thing. Every bubble went up.

28:51before it blew up. And as a matter of fact, on the way down, every time we had a crash in the market, all of history, the same things that went down, ultimately 90%, they doubled on the way down five times. On the way down, they doubled five times. Meaning, the thing went from 100% 220, then it doubled from 20 to 40, so everybody's like, "Wow, look at it, it's doubled! I mean, it's going to go back to 100 next." You know, it just dropped again another 90%. It's down to four. Four doubles again. Look, it's eight. It's doubled. It's probably going to go back to 100. No, no. Then it's down again to one. Everything doubles a bunch of times on the way down. But that's what makes people lose a lot of money and lose everything in the end. Why? Because they buy on the way down thinking it's going to eventually go up because it was there before. People are buying into Bitcoin, into all these bubbles because it went up, not because they actually believe it's worth anything. Anyone that knows anything about investing and understands asset classes,

29:52understands the monetary system, understands investing in general, knows that eventually this will be worth absolutely zero. When? Only God knows—it could be tomorrow, it could be ten years from now. It may go to a million before it goes to zero. But don't pretend that if you're putting money into it, it's investing. It's not investing. This is not just my words, you could look at the biggest investors in the world, whether it's Jamie Dimon from Citibank It's Warren Buffett or any of the major investors in the world. Any of them. All of them say, "Listen, even if we're going to put money into it, it's a gamble." So that's that. Now, why do I mention that? Why am I giving you a little shiur about investing? Because the Torah itself also talks about investing. The Torah itself also teaches us about investing. There are a couple of things I can tell you about investing. People ask me about investing all the time. Let's see what the Torah says about investing. Shlomo HaMelech says that if you're going to invest, you have to make sure that you're going to split your assets into at least three different things. At least three different things. Why? If one doesn't work out, and all your money is in that one, you're finished. You're finished. Two, if one doesn't work out, and that's all you have,

31:17And it's not that it failed, but it's just not doing anything. You can't do anything else. You limit it until it works out. So to invest everything into just one thing is not a good idea. On the other hand, you have to invest in different asset classes. So for example, if you invest in stocks, in real estate, in your business, and also in cash, having some cash. Why is having some cash considered an investment? It doesn't do anything. Having $100,000 in a bank today is not really going to change value in a year from now if you have it in cash. Why is that still considered an investment? Why? We learn this from Yosef HaTzadik. Yosef HaTzadik, Rabbi. Not from me on Wall Street, 16 years. Yosef HaTzadik. How do we learn from Yosef HaTzadik? Yosef HaTzadik got the position from Pharaoh to be the viceroy. Egypt, meaning he was like the treasurer, was responsible for all the money. At the time when he became viceroy, Egypt was doing okay. They had a few dollars. They weren't number one in the world. They were like, okay, they were fine. And

32:32But Yosef said, listen, we're going to have, through prophecy, seven years of good. Seven years of good business and then seven years of bad. If I take advantage, he told Pharaoh, take advantage of the seven years of good and save all the money. Don't invest anything. All the money, save it, save it, save it, save it, save it. Because we're going to use that cash one day. Pharaoh says, you have the idea, you execute it. And that's what he did. All the money they made, he saved, saved, saved, saved. All the food, meaning, saved, saved, saved, saved. Then, after seven years, they saved a bunch. And then times became bad. When times became bad, in the beginning, nothing really changed. People didn't make as much money. But after a little while, they ran out of money. They needed food. They ran out of food. They said, who has food? Yosef HaTzaddik. Okay, Yosef, listen, you have food. Why should we die? You have food. Listen, you have cattle. Give me your cattle. Give me your cattle, I'll give you food. Give me your real estate, I'll give you food. Give me this, I'll give you food. Eventually, what ended up happening is the fact that he had so much reserves left, doing nothing for seven years. He was able to capitalize on everyone else's losses.

33:48the way that the big investors in the world, whether it be Carl Icahn or Warren Buffett or any of the big investors you guys may or may not know, the way all of them made money is not through bull markets, not when everything went up. They made money by buying when everything collapsed to nothing. They bought everything at that moment because they had a lot of cash, and when it went up and all the suckers bought after it went up, they said, "Okay, now I'm selling." That's how you make money. We learn this from the Torah. This is not Wall Street. This is Torah. Of course, I used it a few times in my career, but it wasn't because I knew Torah. It was simply because that's what you learn from people that have experience. No, now the market's a bubble. The market already tripled in value in the last few years. It already went up twice over. No, it hasn't gone down. It's still up much higher than it used to be. So now, the next question we have, unless you guys have more questions, I'll still answer all the questions. Do you have more questions? Should we buy or sell? Buy or sell? I'm saying you should sell. But listen, you're going to do what you want. Now, there was a person that about 80 years ago said the following sentence: "Bli Shabbat, ein Eretz Yisrael, ve'ein Tarbut Yisrael. HaShabbat, hiya Tarbut."

35:15It says, without Shabbat, there's no modern Israel, there's no country of Israel, there's no civilized Israel. There's no connection, the unity of Israel. Because Shabbat, that's Israel. You would think this was being told by some big rabbi. You would think this is being told by Gadol HaDor, some big Chasid. This is actually, Rabotai, being told by one of the biggest heretics in history. When we say his name in Olam HaTorah, we say "Shem Reshaim Yirkav." His name is Nachman Bialik, Shem Reshaim Yirkav. Why do we say it? Because Bialik went to the yeshiva in Volozhin and learned a lot of Torah. one day he decided to let the yetzer hara in. He started smoking cigarettes, and soon he became addicted to cigarettes, and he couldn't take it, so he started smoking on Shabbat. But initially, he had some shame. After a while, he lost the shame too. So when the Rabbi caught him smoking on Shabbat with a couple of other students, he asked one of the students, "Why are you smoking on Shabbat?" He said, "Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot it's Shabbat."

36:38He asked the second student, "Why are you smoking on Shabbat?" The student replied, "Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot you're not allowed to smoke on Shabbat." He asked Bialik, "Why are you smoking on Shabbat?" Bialik replied, "Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot to close the door." Meaning, he wasn't a liar. He wasn't a liar. But he was a kofer. He was a heretic. Why? He had desires. He felt like doing it. wanted to do it. He knew that he's not allowed, but he still wanted to do it. But initially, he started with a small sin that became bigger and bigger and bigger, and eventually, he became one of the worst Jews in history. But still, when someone told him in new modern Israel, which they were expecting to start (which didn't start for another 15 years, in 1948)... We're not going to have a religious state. We're going to have a European state. We're going to have a state where we're going to be just like the rest of the Europeans. We're not going to allow Shabbat. We're not going to allow all these things. He said, listen, the real Jews, they're never going to let it happen. Why? Shabbat is everything for them. Shabbat is everything. There's no other thing that is as significant as Shabbat in the entire Torah. That's why in the Torah it mentions it 12 different times. 12 different times.

38:02Meaning that a Jew who violates Shabbat, it says that he experiences death upon death and is cut off from the nation. So let's just run down what this actually means. Now, you can only die once in this life. So, what is death upon death? How do you die twice? The Torah says one death is in this world. Either in the old days of the Beit HaMikdash and Moshe Rabbeinu, they would actually literally kill the guy on the spot with the worst possible death penalty. Today, there's no death penalty for Mechalel Shabbat. But what there is, is that there's Din Karet, meaning the heavenly death penalty. Hashem decides, okay, I originally gave you 90 years to live in this world. 90 years. You are now Mechalel Shabbat. You don't want to do Teshuva. So, you just cut yourself 10 years. Now you're going to live only 80 years.

39:04continued 70 years, continued 60 years, continued you died like my cousin did last year on the second day of Rosh Hashanah at 23 years old. Do you think he thought he was going to die at 23? Do you think his father, who has a hundred million dollars in the bank, thought he was going to die at 23? Do you think the hundred million dollars is worth anything now that his son is dead at 23? When the Torah says karet, it's karet. It's not a joke. So first is death, the first death. Second thing it says, upon death. What's the second death? The second death, Rabotai, means no Olam HaBa. But when you say to people that don't know Torah, no Olam HaBa, it just seems like, okay, so you die, nothing happens. No Olam HaBa. Okay, so you finish this world, you enjoy whatever you have in this world, and then that's it, you finish. There's nothing else. It sounds like there's nothing else. No, no Olam HaBa doesn't mean nothing. No Olam HaBa, if you really want to know the details of what no Olam HaBa means, watch the shiur I made two weeks ago about Gehinom. That's what no Olam HaBa means. Now, there are seven parts to Gehinom. Each part gets worse than the other. No Olam HaBa means...

40:20one of those places becomes the person's new home permanently. Not temporarily, permanently. You want to know details, you want to have a few nightmares to get some yirat Shamayim, watch the shiur. But nonetheless, it's a necessary shiur for people to learn. Now what does it mean, now we have death upon death. What's the third thing? The third thing is, being cut off from the nation. Okay, but you just died twice, what are you being cut off from? according to the Gemara, according to the Zohar, according to the Five Books of Moses, the commentary on it from Rashi, from Rambam, and so on, being cut off from the nation literally means that person is not considered Jewish based on halakha. That person cannot be used as a witness in a Jewish ceremony. That person cannot be used as someone that you rely on for minyan. Meaning, if you have ten people, you want to go pray minyan, you want to say Kaddish, but if one of those people is Shabbat, you can't count them. If there's one guy that's sleeping but he keeps Shabbat and the other guy is Shabbat but he's awake, you don't count them. You count the one that's sleeping. It's better he's sleeping but keeps Shabbat than someone who violates Shabbat. want to go pray minyan, you want to say Kaddish, but if one of those people is a Shabbat violator, you can't count them. If there's one guy that's sleeping but he keeps Shabbat, and the other guy is a Shabbat violator but he's awake, you don't count them. You count the one that's sleeping. It's better he's sleeping but keeps Shabbat than someone who violates Shabbat.

41:38Why? Because the one who's violating Shabbat in the eyes of Hashem is considered as if he's denying the Creator, meaning he's considered as if he's telling God, "Hey, by the way, God, I don't believe in You. I don't believe You created the world." Why? The Gemara in Masechet Sanhedrin and also Masechet Shabbat, both places mention it. In order for a person to understand the significance of Shabbat, they must understand what it means to keep Shabbat. If, let's say, for example, I showed you a cup and it was full of diamonds. And I showed it to you, I was like, "Do you guys believe that I have diamonds here?" And you say, "Yeah, I see it. I see the diamonds. It's in the cup." But if I tell you, "Listen, I have a hundred like these at home. A hundred cups full of diamonds at home," you have reason to believe me. Why? I showed you some evidence. But if I don't have any evidence, there's no witnesses, and I tell you, "Listen, by the way, at home I have a hundred million dollars worth of diamonds." you don't believe in me, you don't believe that I have it. It's not such a big deal. Who am I? If you believe, that means you take me as an honest person. Fine, no big deal. It's not the same with God. When it's God, it's a big deal if you believe Him; it's a big deal if you don't believe Him. He says, "I created the world in six days, and I stopped creating on the seventh."

43:05...give you a different day to give you something called Shabbat. I didn't stop for Me; I don't need rest. Why do I need sleep? I stopped to give you the same feeling I had. Now, since you're human, you can't feel like God, but you can stop just like I stopped. When you stop, you'll have a similar feeling of the kedusha, of the bracha. You'll have a similar feeling. I did this whole Shabbat just for you... Just for you, I did it. Now you take this priceless diamond that I gave you, and you throw it in my face and tell me, I don't like it. I don't like it. That's chutzpah, rabotai. It's very rude. That's not a nice thing to do. Hashem says, by doing that, you're saying, you don't really believe that I created the world in six days. You don't really believe that I gave you a present. You think that my present is something bad for you. I'm taking it personally. For that, Rabotai, that person is not considered a Jew anymore. He's considered an idol worshiper. Why? Because the idol worshiper is doing the same exact thing. The idol worshiper said, "Listen, God, I don't believe in You. I believe in this little statue I bought from Chinatown for $15." Same thing. In the eyes of Hashem, it's the same thing.

44:27How do we know? Every single time in the Torah, the Five Books of Moses, every time it talks about a Mechalel Shabbat, someone who violates Shabbat, the very next verse talks about an idol worshiper. Next verse. Why? Because to Hashem, an idol worshiper and a Mechalel Shabbat are the same thing. Now to you, if I tell you, do you pray to any statues? You're going to tell me, are you crazy? It's crazy. I pray to statues? I don't pray to statues. If I tell you Mechalel Shabbat, some people say, maybe yes, maybe no, I don't know. Do I have to say? The point is, it's like, okay, yeah, I say, wait, listen. The idol worshiper and the Mechalel Shabbat are the same thing. The same thing goes with homosexuality. In today's world of politically correct mentality, people think that not only is it okay to be a homosexual, even though it says in the Torah it's not allowed, but you should celebrate it. You're honest. You should celebrate your gay pride. They have parades for these people.

45:28In the days of the Torah, those parades would end in five minutes. And the reason why, they'd kill all of them in five minutes. That's in the days of the Torah. Unfortunately, we don't have such a Beit HaMikdash. But we do have a responsibility to bring them back to do teshuva. How do we get them back to do teshuva? By telling them the truth. According to the Torah, Not only are you not allowed to do it, but in the eyes of Hashem, maybe it's not disgusting to you to be with male and male and female and female. Maybe it's not disgusting to you. Maybe you have a desire. That's why you do it. Okay, fine. But according to Hashem and according to all normal people, it's disgusting for a man to be with an animal. Every normal human being knows it's disgusting for a man or a woman to be with an animal. If you don't think it's disgusting, there's something wrong with you. Unfortunately, 3 million people in the world, 3 million people in the world are with animals on a regular basis today. This is not something that's far. This is reality. 3 million people admit openly, admit openly they're with animals. These are the ones that admit. Who knows how many don't admit?

46:46But everyone here said, it's disgusting. Everyone knows it's disgusting. In the eyes of Hashem, it's the same thing as homosexuality. Mechaleil Shabbat is an idol worshiper. Bestiality, no, it's not quite the same. Why is it not quite the same? Because someone that makes a sex crime, meaning is homosexual or goes with a woman that's not his wife and she's niddah, because obviously if she's not his wife, she cannot go to the mikveh. If she's somebody else's wife, you have a bigger problem even. The point being is that someone that makes a sex crime, unless it's going with someone that's somebody else's wife, if it's just wasting seed accidentally or if it's homosexuality The punishment for it, if they didn't do teshuvah in this world, is temporary. Meaning, it's a long time. It's a big punishment, but it ends at some point. But if someone goes with someone else's wife, or someone wastes seed on purpose, he likes to watch these disgusting movies, he likes to watch the magazines, he thinks it's not such a big deal to waste seed like 99% of males in the world today. His doctor told him he should do it to relieve his anger and his stress. He thinks it's healthy and...

48:02he does it on a regular basis. Well, that person, you should know, in the shiur about Gehinnom, we have a special section about him. It's called the seventh level. The seventh level of Gehinnom, Chazal say, it starts, but it doesn't end. Why doesn't it end? Mashiach comes, the world ends, but that place never ends. Why? That's a person that denied the Creator on a regular basis and... regular basis, not like sometimes by accident, not like sometimes I had just one desire and that's it. That's a person that is doing it on a regular basis. That's a person who needs to do a lot of teshuva because of the shame. It's possible; everyone could do it. Plenty of people have done teshuva for wasting seed. Plenty of people have had several years about it. We had one in New York, maybe two years ago. A lot of people have done teshuva because of it. It's very hard. The Rambam says it's the most difficult sin to overcome. It's the biggest addiction. But you can overcome it. Why? If you couldn't overcome it, Hashem wouldn't give it to you. But it is difficult. No question about it. But that's why the prize for it is bigger. You guys want to be rich? Materially? You guys want to find zivugim? You want to find a wife?

49:21You want to find a good one. Not like one of these prostitutes. I'm talking about a real tzaddeket. I'm not talking about one of these people you see on TV or on the billboards. I'm talking about a tzaddeket. She's going to give you yeladim k'doshim, holy kids. Not someone who's been with half the neighborhood. I'm talking about a tzaddeket. You want someone tzaddeket? You want to have material wealth? You want to be happy? Every time you have the desire to do it, Don't do it. And say, Hashem, I'm not doing it because I don't want to. I'm not doing it because You said not to. In return, give me a zivug so I don't have to anymore. Return, give me if you already have a wife. Give me parnasah tovah. Give me parnasah tovah so I don't have stress from the wife and everything, so then we can be together without any stress. Because a wife is not like a man. She's not an animal like us. Sometimes what happens is the man wants to be together all the time. The wife, she has to be emotionally in a state of mind.

50:22She has to be happy. An unhappy wife doesn't want to be with her husband. Doesn't matter what he looks like. Doesn't matter. If she's not happy, she doesn't want to look at him. Sometimes, what's the biggest problem in most marriages? Money. Money is a very, very common problem. So you say, Hashem, give me parnasah tovah. Not because I want to buy 50 million houses. Because that's going to calm my wife down. She's not going to worry about how we're going to pay for yeshiva. She's not going to worry about how we're going to pay for groceries. And then we're going to be able to be together. So the next time you have a desire, try this. Guarantee it works. You try it on a regular basis. Not one time. One time you're not going to get a wife. One time is a good job. One time you're going to get a pat on the back. You do it on a regular basis. go a month, two months, three months, six months, a year. Keep going however long it takes. I promise you, I promise you, I promise you today, you see it on camera, I promise you today you're going to find a zivug hagun. Every single one of these people that's on this list, if he does this, you'll have a zivug hagun. If you don't do it, you're going to find one of these types of women.

51:23Why? The Gemara in Masechet Sotah, page 2a-b, talks about how a person gets a wife, or a woman gets a husband, based on their ma'asim, based on their actions. If he's a tzaddik, he gets a woman that's modest. If he's a rasha, he gets a woman that's a prostitute. A modest woman. Why? What does one thing have to do with the other? Why can't it be a tzaddik and tzaddeket, righteous and righteous? Wicked and wicked. Why is a righteous with modest and wicked with immodest? What does one thing have to do with the other? So Rashi, alav hashalom, explains, if he's righteous, he’ll get a modest woman. Why a modest woman? Because if she’s modest, she’s much more likely to be righteous. If he's wicked, he's only going to get an immodest woman that wants to walk around and show the rest of the neighborhood what she looks like naked. Why such a person? Why?

52:23...because if she's not modest, it's impossible for her to be righteous, meaning if she's not modest, she's guaranteed, guaranteed, not righteous. And the same woman... That's not modest. It's not just not modest because of clothes. Of course, clothes are extremely important. But it's also behavior. So, a woman that likes to flirt with guys, a woman that likes to have 500 boyfriends—not that she's intimate with them, but she's friends with 500 guys—that's not modest. A Bat Yisrael is not friends with 500 guys. On top of it, a Bat Yisrael does not curse. A Ben Yisrael doesn't curse either. If our mouth is like a truck driver, you should know that same mouth is going to curse your mother one day too. The same wife, the same woman that likes to use curse words because she thinks it's okay, one day she's going to curse your mother. Why are you going to make her upset? You're going to get into an argument. And that's what happens, Rabotai. Modesty is not just clothing.

53:26It's important. It's critical. It's the biggest thing, but it's also behavior. Same thing for the guy. The guy that walks around like he's one of these runway models, with clothes that are tighter than his skin. His skin is already suffering. Why does he have to walk around like this? He can't wear normal jeans, he can't wear normal pants. He wears pants so tight, I can't breathe. He's praying, "Why is it so tight?" Why does everybody need to know that you have an extra chubby on the side? Why? Why does everybody need to know that you have love handles? Why? Why? Why do you have to wear such tight clothing? Tzniut for guys too, Rabotai. Tzniut for everyone. You have to look like a presentable human being. Don't look at the ofna (fashion statements) of the goyim. Number one, it's not modest to look like them. Number two, you're not allowed to wear the clothes of the goyim. You're not allowed to look like them. I'm not saying that you have to wear black and white. I'm not saying you have to wear a hat. I'm not saying you have to grow a beard. You have to look respectable. Even if respectable is just a sweatshirt and normal pants.

54:37You have to look respectable. You don't have to wear a suit all the time, just look respectable. No one who is really serious is going to look at you and this kid with the tight pants, where I can pretty much see what his skin color is through the pants. That's not respectable. No one's going to look like that. You don't look like a Jew. If Mashiach showed up right now, would you wear that? If Mashiach showed up right now, rabotai, and said, "I'm here, Mashiach," are you comfortable with what you're wearing? Mashiach said, "I can smell your Yirat Shamayim. Are you comfortable with what you're wearing?" That's why I tell the women all the time. All these women that like to wear wigs that are longer than their skirts, a wig from here that goes all the way and sweeps the floors, they think it's modest. They say, "If Mashiach shows up, are you comfortable with that long wig?" No one in the world ever says yes. Why? Everybody knows it's wrong. You replace hair with hair? You don't have to be a genius to realize it's not allowed. But we have desires. So, when a person is told this severity of the truth, when they violate Shabbat, if they still violate Shabbat, that means they just don't believe you. Why? Because now they know. Like I told you, there's two reasons why people commit sins. One, they don't know. They're ignorant. They don't know the reality. They don't know the punishment.

56:04Two, they don't believe. If you told them, "Listen, if you violate Shabbat, you die without doing teshuva, you're finished. It's eternal Gehenom, it's eternal punishment. You want more details? Watch the shiur, it's called Gehenom, by Yaron Reuven. Go watch it—three and a half hours of detailed explanations about what happens to people. It's not a joke; it's scary. I tell you personally, I'm not such an emotional guy." When I was studying for this shiur, I've learned about this subject several times; it's not the first time. I've learned it many years ago, and it helped me do teshuva. But I'm telling you honestly, I don't know if I've said this on camera, but I'll say it now. Maybe it's worth it. When I was studying for this shiur, I was crying. Studying for this shiur, I was crying. Why? Because I know it's all real. I know it's all real. And it's worse than the worst you could ever imagine. Whatever you could imagine that's bad, it's worse than that. It's not a washing machine like some of these fake rabbis tell you guys. There's no washing machine. There's no washing machine in Gehenom. It's punishment. You don't want to go there. It's easy not to go there. Just do mitzvot. Be a Jew. Keep Shabbat. Taharat HaMishpacha. Keep your brit. Do some basic things. You don't have to become Rabbi Akiva. Just do some basic things. Be an honest person. Be a decent human being.

57:31Do what Hashem says. Okay, He says eat kosher, eat kosher. Why do you have to eat non-kosher? What? There's plenty of delicious kosher food. There's plenty. He says, go with a Jewish woman. Go with a Jewish woman. Okay, it's hard to find, but if you tell Hashem, listen Hashem, I want to do what you say because you said it. Give me a good woman. He says, okay, you have a condition. Watch your brit. If you watch your brit, I'm going to give you a good woman. You don't watch your brit, why am I going to give you a good woman? Why? You're not a good guy. Why should I give some tzadika to some rasha? Why? Why should I torture her? Why should I punish her? You want a good woman? I'm going to give you a good woman. Watch your brit. And so on and so forth, Rabotai. When you tell people this severity of truth, the honest truth, if they still violate, that just simply means they don't believe. For them, we have a different shiur. It's called proofs, Torah proofs. We prove that the Torah is real through different things, scientific ways, rational ways, and so on and so forth. We have many of them, Baruch Hashem, online. So for the guy that violated Shabbat, you have to tell him the truth, what it means. But you have to tell him through a third party, meaning not through you. There's a mitzvah to tell people the truth. It's called, hocheach tocheach et amitecha.

58:56It's one of the 613 mitzvot. You must rebuke your brother. But there's also a mitzvah not to rebuke. It's a mitzvah to tell someone. It's a mitzvah not to tell someone. How do we know which one is which? It's a mitzvah to tell somebody the truth when you see him sinning. You have to tell him. But if you know for sure they're not going to listen, you have to find a different way to do it. You can't absolve yourself from sin and not do it. You have to find a different way. You have to be smart. You have to be creative. Hashem gave you a brain to be creative. Okay, I told him 500 times to keep Shabbat. He's not listening. He's not listening. So you know, 501 times, it's not going to change. Okay, you know what? Rabbi Yaron's CD, here, there you go. What's on it, doesn't matter. Just listen to it. What do you have to lose? You don't like it, throw it in the garbage. He'll listen to it. You give him one of Rabbi Yaron's CDs, he'll do teshuva. He listens to it, he'll do teshuva. There's no question asked. You cannot listen to the shiur and stay a rasha. It's impossible. It's impossible. The only way to stay a rasha is if you don't believe it. But if you keep listening, you'll end up believing it. Why? Because there are many proofs in there. There are many proofs in there also. Aside from the tochacha, the rebuke, there are many proofs. Scientific proofs.

1:00:13So you have to sometimes fulfill the mitzvah of telling, you have sometimes to fulfill the mitzvah of having someone else tell. Bring him to the shiur. Instead of telling the guy, listen, there's a shiur five minutes before the shiur, tell the guy about the shiur a month in advance. Okay, but it's in a month from now. Okay, okay, I just want to make sure you're going to come. If you keep telling him every single day for a month, come, come, come, come, come. Five minutes before the shiur he doesn't want to come, but he's gonna feel like, "Listen, I've been telling him I'm gonna come for 30 days already. I'm not gonna come now? He's like, then I'm gonna have to hear it for six months if he told me to come for 30 days. If I don't come, he'll tell me about it for six months. I didn't come, so might as well go." He'll go out of guilt; get him to come. Now, when a person does teshuva, the Rambam follows what the Gemara says. And he says that such a person is considered higher than a person that's always been righteous, higher than a person that was born religious, into a religious family, his father's a rabbi, his mother's a rabbanit, his brothers are talmidei chachamim, he has always been religious. Someone like you, average, me, basic Joe, nothing—just starting to do teshuva, starting to learn Torah, starting to keep Shabbat, starting to fulfill mitzvot.

1:01:34In the eyes of Hashem in Gan Eden, he's at a completely higher level, a bigger level than someone who's been righteous their whole life. Why? Because the person who's been righteous their whole life, it became like their custom. Just like the custom in certain places in Africa, in the Amazon over there, is to walk around with underwear. They feel comfortable about it. They're not like ashamed. If you go over there with your suit, and you tell them, listen, why are you wearing underwear? They'll tell you, listen, why are you wearing a suit? You're not normal, they're not normal. You're not normal to them, they're not normal to you. If you go to India and you see that these people, every time they see a cow cross the road, everybody bows. The cow crosses the road, everybody starts bowing to the cow. Then they wait for the cow to go pee. Why? They collect it in bottles and drink it. You think I'm joking? They sell it in their supermarkets. Check, I have pictures on my phone. They sell urine of cows in their supermarkets. Every Indian household has this in their house. I'm dead serious. I'll show you pictures. I have people that, my main guy, main manager of Team Hashem, Team B'ezrat Hashem, is in India. He showed me pictures in their house. In every house, they have this in the supermarket. They have this in the house. Some of them drink it. Some of them put it on the floor to clean the house once a month.

1:02:55Right, the cow to them is holy. The cow to them is a god. So they're proud of it. They're not ashamed of it. You guys obviously are smart. You realize this is foolishness. For them, this is not foolishness. They're proud of it. So we tell these people in India that shave their heads in order for their god to tell them, listen, they're selling your hair and they're putting wigs on Jewish people's heads with your hair. That's avodah zarah. They sell their hair. He says, okay. They don't care if you sell the hair. I gave it to my god. Who's your god? It's some guy that this and that and some god that they created in their head. It's idol worship. They don't want money for the hair. They want idol worship. They're proud of it. They're not ashamed of idol worship. That's a custom. It's a custom for them. It became part of their life. Le'havdil, significant difference, Am Yisrael HaKadosh, Unless they work on themselves on a regular basis by learning Mussar and Yirat Shamayim, even if they were born into a very religious family, they could easily become like a robot. A robot that keeps Shabbat. A robot that lays tefillin. A robot that keeps basic level mitzvot. And unfortunately, in that situation, that robot is not as great as he can be. So if a Baal Teshuva

1:04:13Guy started doing teshuvah at 20 years old, 25 years old, 15 years old, whenever he started doing teshuvah. And he didn't become the biggest chacham in the world. But at least he's keeping mitzvot. He's keeping the basics. He says, Hashem said, I'm doing. Hashem said, no, I'm not doing. Hashem said, yes, I'm doing. Whatever Hashem said, I'm doing. Whatever I know, I'm doing. And I'm going to keep learning to do more. In the eyes of Hashem, that person is much greater. Why? Because he's not doing it from a custom. He's doing it because Hashem said so. He's not like the guy from the Amazon in the jungle in Africa. He has a yetzer hara. He knows what the other side of the street looks like. He knows the yetzer hara. He knows what he can do. He knows what the other option is. But he's saying, no, I'm doing what Hashem said. Even though it's hard for me not to eat this and not to do this and not to say this and not to say that. i'm doing it because Hashem said so. In the eyes of Hashem, that person is a superhero. That person gets all the bracha. If a person doesn't do teshuva, the question was, can such a person get Gan Eden anyway? Can a person that dies as a Mechalel Shabbat get Gan Eden? Can a person that does not do teshuva get Gan Eden? Can a person that goes against Hashem his whole life, can he get Gan Eden?

1:05:35And the answer is no. It's impossible. And the reason why is because Hashem has a signature. It's called Emet. Emet means truth. Now every time you say Amen, say a blessing. You're each going to say Amen several times. Now every time you say Amen, do you know what Amen means really? Amen is Rasha Tevot El Melech Ne'eman. God, the King, reliable. Meaning whatever He says is Emet. It's going to come true. There's no other way. No one else can ever change it. If He said it, it's going to happen. Hashem said you do mitzvot, you get reward. Hashem said you do bad, you get punishment. How long is the punishment? We have a Masechet Gehinom that details the details. Meaning that if you finish the world without doing the mitzvot that you needed to do, and you made the sins that you weren't allowed to do, there's no way for Him to change it. Why? He's El Melech Ne'eman. He would have to change the truth. He would have to become a liar. He would have to become a liar in order for you to go to Gan Eden. That's not going to happen, Rabotai. It's just not going to happen. He's not going to change the truth just for you.

1:06:55Because then he has to face all the tzaddikim that ever lived and say, "Hey Hashem, how come you made us keep Shabbat and not him? How come you made us keep Torah and not him? How come you made us do this and not him? What? He's better than all of us? He's better than Moshe Rabbeinu? He's better than Rabbi Akiva? He's better than Rabbi Meir Baal Hanes? He's better than all these people? No. If he is, why? Why is he better? And no one's going to be better than those people." there is no way to do teshuva, there is no way to get Gan Eden without teshuva. And last but not least, when a person makes a mitzvah and an aveirah, they have to understand that the koach hatumah—this is Kabbalah a little bit; we're not going to go too extensively into it—but nonetheless, you should know the yetzer hara gets his power from both the sins and the mitzvot. sins and the mitzvot. Why? The mitzvot are like the fuel for the world. The mitzvot are like the fuel for the world. They create soldiers for Hashem, more creations to do His work. Now, every time a person makes a sin, different levels of sins obviously create different levels of soldiers for the Satan. But sometimes

1:08:20A person can make something that seems like a small sin, but it's huge. For example, somebody learns Torah, they come to shiur Torah, and they think it's a shiur Torah, it's good. They sit two hours, they learn Torah for two hours. The shiur is good, everybody's getting chizuk, a little bit, everybody's doing "Chatanu Avinu Pashanu," "I gotta do Teshuva tomorrow," "I gotta keep Shabbat," "I keep talking about how I gotta do this, I gotta do that," everybody's doing something and... But then, in the middle, he starts distracting people. He starts saying jokes. He starts doing different things that are distracting everyone. And all of a sudden, instead of paying attention to the shiur Torah, they start paying attention to him. Now his entire mitzvah became food for the Satan. It became one big sin. Why? It was better off he didn't come to the shiur because at least everybody would pay attention. So yes, the Satan does benefit uniquely from all the mitzvot if you mess them up, if you mess up the mitzvah. If someone learns for two hours and says, you know what? I regret learning for two hours. I was probably better off going to a game. You just ruined your entire mitzvah. And just moments before a person dies, rabotai, you need to remember this. This is something you're going to have to remember. I can't remind you all the time. It's something you're going to have to remember. After 120, all of us are going to go to Olam Ha-Emet.

1:09:47...of us are going to go somewhere, hopefully to Gan Eden. But there's one trick that the Satan wants to use: he begs you to say you regret doing the mitzvot. He wants you to regret doing them. He'll try to say, "Just give me your mitzvot. Come on, I'll give you good things for them. I'll give you this, I'll give you that." He tries to negotiate with you moments before you die. Moments... Meaning that a person has a test even in the moments before he dies. That even if he was a tzaddik his entire life, if he doesn't remember what I'm saying right now, he could forget it and ruin his entire life. And when it comes down to modesty, as your last question, you can ask more. Modesty in this generation is a very, very difficult mitzvah. That's why the reward is so big. But an immodest woman cannot get Gan Eden. Even if she's very nice. Even if she gives a million dollars a day in tzedakah. Even if all of her sons are tzaddikim. Even if her husband is the Gadol Hador. Even all the things. If she herself is not modest, she cannot get Gan Eden. And the reason why is because according to our sages,

1:11:08More than a majority, meaning more than 60% or more than 51% of the obligation of a woman is modesty. More than 50% of the reward for a woman is for her modesty. What does this mean? You all went to school at some point in your life. In school in America, usually, and I remember when I used to go to school many years ago, 65 was passing. If you got 65 on a test, you passed the test. If you got 64, it's only one point different, you failed. So it didn't matter whether you got 64 or 52 or 12, you failed. 65 you passed. Is it still the same? Still the same? 70 and something. So 65 you passed, 70 in some cases. The point being is this. The point being, rabotai, is when a woman fulfills all the mitzvot, she learns whatever she needs to learn. She keeps whatever she keeps, she wants to keep. But modesty, she doesn't want to keep. So even if she gets a perfect grade in everything else, and the passing grade is 65, she can't pass. Why? Because the mitzvah of modesty...

1:12:35is 40% of the test. Meaning that even if she's perfect with everything else, she got 60. She still can't pass the test. 10% modest? That's 90% immodest. The point is, Rabotai, if you look at the Torah, the reason why it's very important for a person to understand that the Torah is emet, because there's no two versions of the truth. It's either 100% true or 100% a lie. So you're going to say to me, what if it's 99% truth? 99% truth is 100% a lie. 99% truth is 100% a lie in anything in life. 99% truth is 100% a lie. How so? Someone tells you, "Listen, I want to marry you. My name is Steve," and the guy's name is Steve. "My profession, I'm a jeweler," and his profession is a jeweler. "I have black hair," and he has black hair.

1:13:52I like golfing, likes golfing. I learn Torah here and there. And all these different character traits, and you verify everything is good. So far you had a hundred facts, 99% of them are true. He says he has money, you check he has money in the bank. He says he has black hair, he has black hair. He says he goes to shul, you see he goes to shul. He says he's a diamond guy, you find he's a diamond guy. He says his parents are this and this. You find out his parents are this and this. 99 different things in a row he's right. This woman is so excited to get married to this guy Steve. She's like, this is amazing. Right before, right before she's standing under the chuppah, the parents say, "Hey listen, Sarah, come over here, I need to talk to you." "What?" "I have to tell you something about Steve." What? We have to tell you something you may not know. What do you mean, I know 99 things? There's one thing you don't know. What could be such a big deal about Steve? Steve is not really Steve. Steve is really Veronica. Steve is really a woman that's acting like a man. 99% truth is 100% a lie.

1:15:18One little thing ruined the whole thing. If you have a bottle of water—oh, you guys are very generous, you got me a big bottle of water. I told you, listen, this bottle of water came from the mountains, amazing, it's the greatest water in the world, but just one percent of the water is poison. Who wants to drink? 1% only, 99% it's pure. 99% it's pure though. No one wants to drink. Why? 1% is poison. Everyone knows that 1% is poison, ruins the whole thing. Same thing with lies. That's why the Torah says, the only mitzvah in the entire Torah that says to stay away from something. Everything else it says, don't do it. There's one mitzvah in the entire Torah that says, stay away from it. Not only don't do it, run away from it. What is it? Midvar sheker tirchak. From a thing of lies, run away. It's so bad; it's poison. Lies are poison. Lying people, people that have compulsive lies, run away from them. You can't trust them with anything. You cannot be around liars. Why? Once they lie about something small, eventually they lie about something big. So, I answered all of your questions. Let's see if you have any more. Go.

1:16:38Shabbat is so significant. Actually, you know what? Ask more questions. Go, more questions. I want to drink some water. There's no poison in it, huh? Okay, okay. Next. Go ahead. I don't know if this is, like, if this is where it goes off the topic, but anyway. There are no topics. You can ask. You mentioned about the weight being another thing that you don't know. So there are other things that go to weight. Right. But like I was explaining to one of my friends, my friend basically said that 20 years ago, it's not 100% the case, but X, Y, Z. Or it's good, but I'm like, but if 60 years ago it was OK, we're not talking about 60 years ago, we're talking about now. Where is your proof, like if somebody's saying that it was just weed business?

1:18:05It's not true, you know. Okay. Next. You guys must have some questions out there. You guys have a lot to talk about. Chavot. Ask. Ask questions. Ask. This is the opportunity. I'll go as long as you want to go. You want to go till the morning? I have a flight at 1 o'clock in the afternoon. I'll go till 1 o'clock in the afternoon. Whatever you want. You finish? We'll go finish. I'll go get some sleep. Whatever you want. Go, go. He hasn't asked any questions. I want to hear your questions. Okay. Okay. Would I be friends with? What does that mean, a jinx?

1:19:23Oh, with somebody that has bad luck? Bad luck person. Bad luck person. Okay. Next. How can you protect yourself from someone who has an ayin hara (evil eye)? I know, I know, I know, it's good. Okay. Yeah, come on. Let's answer the question. You have them almost in question. Yeah, let's go. I know I said how, but we'll do, I know that we'll do, I know I love the gym. We'll learn some things, okay? The Gemara says that Rav Yehuda says that 99% of people... die from ayin hara. Only one percent of people die from a natural death. If we thought about it ourselves, we’d think it's the opposite—99% die natural, and one percent die from ayin hara. The Gemara says no. Why do people have ayin hara?

1:20:32People naturally, if they're not Anashim Kedoshim, if they don't make themselves Kedoshim, if they don't make themselves holy, their natural tendency is to be jealous of other people. So maybe today you're not jealous of your friend, but that's probably because he doesn't have anything you want. It's not because you're not a jealous person. So, let's say for example, you want to get a certain wife, and you don't have her, and he got her. You could easily become jealous for the first time in your life if you want a certain business and you don't have it, and he got it for the first time—his dad gave it to him, or he got it in some other way. Even though you've never been jealous of him for 20 years, you've been friends and never been jealous. All of a sudden, now you become jealous. Now, sometimes that jealousy turns into envy, and it gets to a point where, not on purpose, sometimes it's on purpose...

1:21:33but sometimes it's not on purpose, but it makes you suffer a little bit to see him benefit with the new wife, the new husband, with the business, with the car. That suffering is creating a kitrug in shamayim. You say, why is he suffering? Let's check. Why is he suffering? They check, oh, he's suffering because Steve got a new car. Does Steve deserve a new car? Let's see Steve's cheshbon. Let's see Steve's accounting. You know what? He's right. Steve doesn't deserve a car. Let's ruin his car. Steve made a sin yesterday. He wasted seed. Let's take off his tires. Let's break his window. You bring ayin hara to the person through your jealousy, so much so that 99% of people die from it. It's a horrible thing. The only way you can protect yourself from it is by making yourself a holy person. Learning, doing. There's a difference in the Gemara where you say, I am one of the descendants of Yosef HaTzaddik who is above and beyond Ayin Hara. And you do a certain thing with your hands. And this is something that can help you with Ayin Hara. But in reality, you don't know when Ayin Hara is coming.

1:23:00In reality, even that can sometimes not be enough. Why? Because sometimes Ayin Hara comes from the last place you ever thought. What's the last place you ever thought? I'll give you two. One of them is yourself, exactly. Sometimes you say, look at me, my suit's $2,000, my car is $500,000, my house is this, I'm doing so good, all of a sudden you think you're doing good, you just give yourself Ayin Hara. That good fortune that you're blessing yourself with, you just reminded them. Yeah, he does have all those things. Why? Why does he have all those things? He just did this, he just did that. You bring it upon yourself... Exactly. Obviously, they know, but when you mention it, it sounds different. So, obviously, you know a lot of the things that I said, but when you hear it again, it's more meaningful.

1:24:00I'll give you an example. I had a chiddush today worth a million dollars. Today, I was praying Mincha, and I always ask myself, you know, Rosh Chodesh, today is Rosh Chodesh. Today, Rosh Chodesh, you start doing Birkat HaLevanah, you bless the moon, the new moon. The blessing of the new moon, I never got it. To be honest with you, I never got it. Why? There are certain parts of the blessing you have to repeat the same thing seven times, or three times. What, Hashem doesn't know after the first time? You can't tell me you guys didn't ask the same question. I'm the only guy in the world that asked: why do you have to say the same thing seven times? I said it once; He knows. If it's a new blessing, okay, fine, I'll do a new blessing. But it's the same thing seven times. Maybe He says, you know, a certain part, a certain word, seven times you have to do. Seven times. Why seven times? Why three times? Why do I have to make certain verses three times? One time's enough. So I learned, today I was praying,

1:25:01was something I was focusing on in the prayer. Towards the end of the prayer, I was focusing on something. I was focusing so much, I just decided to repeat the same thing over and over again. Over and over again. I said it again, again, again. Even though it was only said once. But I just repeated it over and over again. I had the chiddush. I said, that's why. First time I said it, I got used to it. Second time I said it, I said, ooh. Third time I said it, I said, wow. By the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh time, I said, wow, this really means something. Hashem tells you to repeat the Rosh Chodesh prayer to certain verses because the first time you're just used to it. You remember it by heart. The second time, maybe. By the third time, you should know this is something special. So every single one of these blessings is significant. But sometimes you repeat them in order to make sure you know that you feel that it's significant, not just know. The good things and bad things that we do

1:26:04It's known in Shamayim. It's known in Shamayim. But your neshama leaves your body every single day and goes up to Shamayim when you go to sleep, and it signs off on everything you did. It says, yeah, he stole, he did this, he did this, he looked at the girls, he did this, he did this. Yo, he did a mitzvah, he gives tzedakah to somebody. Or he did a sin, and they say, okay, so we have a counting, he made five mitzvot, five hundred aveirot. Okay? Sign off, soul. The soul has to sign off. What do you think? They don't know what you did! Or you think they don't know? Of course they know. What's going to happen is after 120, you show up to Shamayim at the Beit Din of Shamayim, they're going to say, listen, you made all these sins. He says, prove it. It's a court of law. You need evidence. Oh, you signed. You signed right here. You made 500 aveirot versus 5 mitzvot. You signed here 500 aveirot. Every day you signed off. I'll buy a 50-50. There's others that say we do 50-50. The point is to do as many mitzvot as possible to not even give yourself enough time to make aveirot. Everyone sins to some extent. Everyone sins—even tzaddikim. There's a pasuk where it says that there's no such thing as a righteous person who doesn't sin. You make sins. The goal is to make bigger mitzvot than sins. We're going to make the sins, but make sure they're small sins. The mitzvot—make sure they're big mitzvot.

1:27:22That's the key. That's where you want us. That's the safe zone. So listen, you're going to do some mitzvot, you're going to do some aveirot, but make sure that the aveirot are small. Small aveirot. I can't tell you small aveirot, because you're going to start saying, "Okay, I'm going to start doing this all the time." So I'm going to tell you something. Some people think that shaving with a razor, shaving with a razor, is a small aveirah. A small aveirah. Why? Just shaving. Big deal. Just shaving. But the Torah says somebody that shaves with a razor, it's like he ate the blood of a pig five times. Can I ask you a question? Okay, okay. Back in the day, there were no machines. Oh, uh-huh. So back in the day, they always had the ability to shave. But in general, shaving did not necessarily become a part of society until the last couple of hundred years. Most people had beards because a beard was a sign of honor, a beard was a sign of chokhmah, a beard was a sign of somebody. You were somebody. So shaving wasn't necessarily a part of most people's cultures, even though some places in the world, just some people don't grow beards. They have baby faces. You go to certain parts of Europe, they don't grow beards. They don't have hair.

1:28:37The Ramchal, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, didn't have a beard. Why? He didn't have any facial hair. That was his genes. Most people who are Sephardic and come from the Western world, from different parts of the Middle East, have extra. We have extra. But some people in different parts of the world don't have anything. Fine. Fine. But the point is, as far as for those that want to shave, there's always been ways to do it. If you didn't want a long beard, you could always cut it with scissors. In all ages, they've had scissors. It's just different technology, obviously. But nonetheless, when a person shaves with a razor and not a kosher machine, the Chachamim say it's like he made five different sins. It's like he ate pig five times. But there's somebody who says, "Okay, so I did it one time. What's the big deal? What's the big deal of shaving?" If someone shaves with a razor on a regular basis, not just one time, every time he shaves, you're not allowed to have him as a chazan. You're not allowed to count him as part of a minyan. He's considered the same thing as someone who is a mechalel Shabbat. Why? Why? Why is it such a big deal? Why? This is Shulchan Aruch, it's not my rule, don't get mad at me. Why is it such a bad rule? Why is it such a horrible, horrible thing?

1:29:55Razor, big deal. Hashem cares about the razor. It has nothing to do with cutting yourself. Even if you don't cut yourself, you have a perfect shave. Why? The answer is, and I'll answer your question. The answer is, it's sins. Making certain sins like stealing. It's a one-time thing. You went, you robbed the bank. You got whatever you got. Finished. You're gonna go, probably get a job or something. Start a business. If someone made an accident, they drove on Shabbat, but then the next day they did Teshuvah. Okay, they made a sin. It's a one-time thing. Shaving is not a one-time thing. For an average man, you have to shave at least once every two days. At least once every two days. Some of us from the Middle East, every other day at least. Some people, it's every five minutes. Who knows? The point is that shaving is part of your life. If you want to have a groomed beard, or you want to have a baby face, it's part of your life. You have to do it every couple of days. Which means that someone who shaves with a razor decides, "I'm going to sin against the Chachamim, against the Torah on a regular basis." He decides from now on, "I'm a sinner." He decides to be an active sinner.

1:31:14It's not like a, sometimes I sinned by accident, I wasted a seed by accident, you know, I was in a dream, or I was with this girl, or it was this, and it was an accident, I'm not going to do it again. No, no, no. Someone that shaves with a razor on a regular basis, on a regular basis, knowing that it's not allowed, obviously, if he doesn't know it's not allowed, it's a different story. Knowing that it's not allowed and still does it, you can't count him for a minyan. Why? He decided, I'm going against the Torah on a regular basis. This is the same case with a woman who is not modest. A woman who knows that in Torah, you have to be modest, both as a man and as a woman, and decides, "I'm going to keep the entire Torah, except modesty. I'll keep Shabbat, give Tzedakah, keep this, keep that. I'm just not going to be modest." You cannot count her as part of Am Yisrael. She cannot have Gan Eden. Why? She decides, "I'm going to sin on a regular basis." Meaning, she's making the conditions for God, instead of following the conditions of God. this cannot be; you cannot act like God. So, when it comes to Shabbat, Shabbat is going to help you recover and atone for all of your sins, not some of your sins—all of them, to such an extent that the...

1:32:30And also, you guys probably have Yalkut Yosef over here. If you look at the first part, there are three books of Yalkut Yosef, in English and Hebrew. In the beginning of the first book, the first five, six, seven pages... It says all different segulot of Shabbat. It says Shabbat is so big, even if you chas v'shalom were an idol worshiper at some point. You went to a church and prayed to JC Penny. You went to Buddha. You went to India. Like a lot of Israeli soldiers go to India and they don't know the difference. Idols know idols. They just start, they think it's a good thing to go to India. It says Shabbat, if you keep Shabbat, it'll even fix that sin. It'll even fix your avodah zarah. That's how big Shabbat is. So Shabbat is definitely a helper for Teshuva. Now, you had a question. Is it relevant? Should I continue with the answers? I answered. Usually, I answer the questions if you just let me talk. But it's good. You keep asking questions. I want to answer what you guys want to know. Electric razors. You should go to kosherrazors.com. I'm sorry, koshershavers.com. koshershavers.com.

1:33:42And it'll show you the halacha regarding kosher shavers and tell you exactly which one to buy that's kosher or how to make the one that you already have kosher. On the back of the thing, is it kosher or not kosher? Right, you have to use a kosher shaver. Also, there are certain spots on your face where you are allowed to use a razor. There are certain spots you're not allowed to use. It's over here, over here, over here, over here. But your mustache, for example, you're allowed to shave with a razor. Here, to groom it, you're allowed. Here, to groom it, you're allowed. But again, you have to be careful with these things so you don't cut yourself and create different problems for your life. In general, you could do everything you want to do as far as your grooming without a razor. You could do it with the shaver that they use for haircuts. with one of those buzzers, even to groom your beard, if you want to groom your beard to make it look straight, and so on, it's fine, no problem, but you can do it without, you don't need a razor for that. You don't need a razor, you can do it with something else. I grow my beard also; I don't use a razor. It's just not worth it. It's not worth the headache, it's, you have a yetzer hara, or this, or that, it's just not worth it. Now, can your tzedakah, can your tzedakah, do something for your teshuva?

1:35:07he's part of the sin, he's a machti rabim. Not only are both of us sinners, but the barber is a worse sinner than the guy that's getting it because he's helping him sin. And someone that helps another person sin is considered worse than the sinner. No, no, no. I'm not saying that you're a barber. I'm just saying whoever helps another person sin is worse than the sinner. Change career or change the way you do things. Say, I don't use razors anymore. I use different things. I'll use creams. Yes, he can use something else. Listen, I have met a lot of different people over the years. Some decent people, some bad people. At some point, I met a guy That is, I don't know whether it was during the time I knew him or after or before, whatever it was, he had a different profession. He was a sniper. Now, since his job with the Marines was finished, he said, "You know, I can use this skill, but no one else is going to pay me as well as the mafia." So his skill was to kill people. Is he allowed to do it?

1:36:30Not allowed to do it. Even though it's a skill, he's not allowed to do it against God. Kill guys? Oh, to shave non-Jews? He's allowed to shave non-Jews because non-Jews are not obligated by it, but if it's a Jew, he's not allowed. That's the problem. That's the problem. He has to make sure. Right. In reality, being a barber is not the greatest job in the world. It's not the greatest job. It's a very difficult job. I know a lot of Jews, especially in certain sects within Judaism, that's the job it is, but that's a very difficult job. Now, you had a question? You want me to continue? Oh, ken, tzedakah. Okay, so tzedakah... Can it help certain sins? The answer is yes, but only certain types of tzedakah. Now, a lot of people ask me, how can I fix certain sins that I made in the past? Okay, I did teshuvah. I did teshuvah, Baruch Hashem. I started keeping Shabbat. Okay, I did teshuvah, Baruch Hashem. I'm not wasting seed anymore. But the reality is that you still did it for 20 years. So in Shamayim, somebody shows up and they say, "Listen, good job."

1:37:50You kept Shabbat for 70 years, but for 5 years you didn't keep. For 10 years you didn't keep. So you have a deficit in your account. You have to pay for that. What do you mean? I kept Shabbat. You kept Shabbat for most of your life. You did teshuvah. At 20 years old, you did teshuvah. You lived 90 years. For a few years, you didn't keep Shabbat. You have to pay for that. What do you mean? Why do I have to... There's a deficit. There's a missing part of the bank account. The Shabbat bank account is missing. So how can I fix it? I can't go back in the future. I can't go back in the past. How can I fix it? The same thing goes with somebody who wasted seed. Somebody wasted seed. He went with girls he's not allowed to go with. He did things he's not allowed to do. He goes up to Shamayim and says, "Listen, Chazak u'Baruch, at 20 years old you stopped making the sins. Chazak u'Baruch, but..." The time you understood what it means, set at 13 years old or whatever it is, until the age of 20. Shema, how many times did you do it? Shema

1:38:57Some of these kids, they don't go a day without doing it once or twice. They don't know it’s a sin even, because the yeshivot don't even teach this. Yeshivot don't even teach this. So they show up to Shamayim and they say, listen, you have seven years missing. Seven years you made a sin. Seven years, every single day you killed a hundred million neshamot. You know how many neshamot that is? Each time somebody ejaculates, it's 100 million to 300 million seeds. Meaning, 100 million to 300 million neshamot were created by that. Irrelevant that there were a hundred to three hundred million potentials. What Hashem picked is His problem. What actually existed is a different story. That's a big problem. Why? After a week, it's a civilization. After a month, it's the whole world. After seven years, Hashem had several planets. What am I gonna do for seven years? Here's the answer, Rabotai. I'm gonna give you an answer that's worth a million dollars.

1:39:59have a deficit in Shabbat, you have a deficit in wasting seed. There are a few years you were making a sin before you did teshuvah. Now you have multiple options with your tzedakah money. Everybody has to give tzedakah. Everybody has to give ma'aser. Everybody has to be generous and so on and so forth, so it's the guy you're giving anyway unless you're one of these people that's so cheap that you don't want to go to the bathroom so you don't have to buy another sandwich. But if you're a normal person, and you give money to people that need it and so on, you have a choice of what to give the tzedakah money for. You give tzedakah money to, I don't know, buy your friends some donuts at the shiur Torah. Okay, so they're going to buy some donuts, it's good, good for you. No one's going to help you in Gan Eden because you bought them a donut. But, but, if you use your tzedakah money to help other people stop sinning, to help other people do teshuva for that specific sin. Meaning, you arrange 50 of your friends to show up to a shiur Torah about wasting seed. The whole shiur is about wasting seed. You get 50 of your friends to come. One of them, not all 50, one does teshuva. One of them stops. Every single time he would have wasted seed, it goes into your account and makes up for it.

1:41:24Every single time he doesn't do it, it's as if you didn't do it. So now, instead of having a deficit of seven years of sinning, you go up to Shamayim and you have a surplus. You have extra years of extra mitzvot. Why? Because he didn't stop sinning for only seven years. He didn't stop sinning for seven years. And his kids are not sinning. And his kids' kids are not sinning. All because you brought up the shiur Torah. Same thing with Shabbat. You go up to Shamayim and you say, listen, you kept Shabbat for seven years. Good for you. But you have five years missing. You get a guy to come to the shiur Torah. At the end of the shiur Torah he says, listen, Hashem is not kidding about Shabbat. It's not a joke to Hashem. It's a covenant. It's a deal. I'm going to start keeping Shabbat. You brought 500 people to a shiur. Only one guy listened. One guy is going to keep Shabbat. Every single time he keeps Shabbat, it goes to his account and to your account. So now you kept Shabbat for 70 years, and he kept Shabbat for 70 years. He has 70 years of Shabbat. You have 140 years of Shabbat. Why? Because you have his Shabbat and your Shabbat.

1:42:29That's how you use your tzedakah money to help your teshuva. That's how you use your charity money to do teshuva. Now, when it comes down to the wigs... Yes, go ahead. So, there are different levels of mitzvot. For example... There's something called gemilut chassadim, and the Gemara Masechet Sanhedrin says that two things are going to save us at the time of the Mashiach. One is Torah, and the other is gemilut chassadim. So, Torah means you have to follow what the Torah says. The Torah says keep Shabbat, you keep Shabbat. The Torah says don't waste seed, you don't waste seed. The Torah says don't gamble, you don't gamble. The Torah says be honest, you have to be honest. And so on and so forth. Whatever the Torah says, you have to do. Like it or not is irrelevant. You have to do it. Now, now,

1:43:29Gemilut chassadim, people are confused. Why? Because they think that all gemilut chassadim, which means kindness, overabundance of kindness, is the same. So if I take, let's say, for example, I bring a challah bread to somebody who doesn't have challah, it's considered gemilut chassadim, it's kindness, it's above and beyond what I'm obligated to do. So it's nice, it's a good mitzvah. It is a good mitzvah, you should do it. But it's not as rewarding as a different level of kindness. Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz, alav hashalom, said that the sinat chinam, the baseless hatred that we had that caused the whole Beit HaMikdash to be destroyed 2,000 years ago, still exists today. Why does it exist today? Most people think, oh, it's because the Sephardi doesn't like the Ashkenazi, the Ashkenazi doesn't like the Sephardi, This one doesn't like that one. No, that's not what we're talking about. Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz says that the biggest sinat chinam in the world is when one Jew sees another Jew sinning and doesn't say anything. Why? Because he has an opportunity to make the biggest gemilut chassadim in the world. The biggest mitzvah in the world. How? Tell him, listen, brother, sister,

1:44:51Listen, Shabbat, you're not allowed to drive on Shabbat. This, you're not allowed to do this. You tell them the truth. Come to Shiur Torah, I'll show you what to do. I'll tell you what to do. Bring the guy to do teshuva. Why? That's ahavat chinam. That's the biggest level of gemilut chasadim. Why? Because now, okay, you give one guy... Challah bread. Chazak u'Baruch, you're going to get a mitzvah that the guy has challah bread, and he made a mitzvah from the challah bread, but it ends at that point. You donated a Sefer Torah. Okay, a Sefer Torah. Let's say it's the only Sefer Torah in the Beit Knesset. You spent $100,000 on a Sefer Torah. Okay, so they're going to use the Sefer Torah three times a week. On Monday, on Thursday, and on Shabbat, on average, you have three times a week you have a mitzvah for the Sefer Torah. Fine, chazak u'baruch, it's a good mitzvah, but it's only three mitzvot a week. have a guy that did Teshuvah, started keeping Shabbat, married a kosher woman, a woman married a kosher guy, every second of their life is a mitzvah. They're always doing mitzvot. Every one of those mitzvot goes to your account. Now what would you invest in? Challah bread that saves his body for, I don't know, five minutes? Or something that's going to save his neshamah forever. Giving bread is good, but it's a five minute... Yeah.

1:46:07you could ask it and you could ask, hold on, go ahead. Okay, so I'm going to answer that question. I'm going to connect it to the wigs also. Now, there's three questions here. If someone says that 50 years ago, 100 years ago, wigs were allowed, why are they not allowed now? First and foremost, you should know, wigs were never allowed. They were never allowed. Even in the days of the Gemara, almost 2,000 years ago, they were always forbidden. And whoever wanted to wear a wig didn't wear it for beauty. The main issur, the main sin of wearing a wig is because it improves the looks of a woman. It improves the looks of a woman. And an old woman wearing young hair does not... look good. Why? Because she's not supposed to get the attention of Steve and Carlos from the supermarket. That's an obvious thing. But anyone that wanted to wear a wig because they were missing hair, either they had really thin hair, or they had bald spots, or they had sickness of some kind, they were allowed to wear a wig as long as the wig was covered with a mitpachat or a hat. So why would you wear a hat or mitpachat on top of a wig? Why even bother?

1:47:33The reason, Rabotai, is if you ever had the experience of seeing someone that had, Hashem yirachem, the machala, having cancer, They cover their hair. They go bald. They cover their hair anyway. Why do they cover their hair? Because it's uncomfortable to show people your bald head. It's not something that most people are comfortable with. But many of these women wear wigs. Why do they wear wigs even under this mitpachat? Because if she's just wearing a mitpachat without her hair, you can tell she's still bald. Even though it's covered, you can tell she's bald. But if she's wearing a wig under the mitpachat, under the scarf, there's that cushion which makes it look like she's not really bald. So, in the old days, it was allowed to wear the wig only if it was covered by a hat. The wigs of today, or what people wear today, of just wearing the wig and nothing else, that's been a machloket for over 400 years. It's been a debate about it, but no one ever agreed to say that the wigs of today are allowed. No one in history, even the Lubavitcher Rebbe, who says that wigs are allowed, never said that the wigs of today are allowed. Why?

1:48:40Because the wigs of today that are made from real hair, which is most of the wigs in the market, all come from India. Most of them come from India. And in India, this is done as a form of idol worship. People shave their heads in order to give their hair to idols. And there's a whole tractate in the Gemara called Masechet Avoda Zara. The entire Gemara talks about how you're not allowed to benefit from idol worship in any shape, way, or form. You cannot benefit from it. Meaning, if, let's say, for example, you have a beautiful tree. Beautiful tree. I mean, this tree is worth a million dollars. Some of these trees, I used to have a client. He was in the tree business. I mean, some of these trees, he told me, are worth a fortune. You have a tree that's worth a million dollars. Some guy decides to start worshipping your tree. He worships your tree. You find out after he's been worshipping it for a little while. He worshipped the tree. What do you have to do? You have to burn the tree. You have to destroy the tree. Why? You cannot benefit from idol worship. Yeah, but you're going to lose money. It doesn't make a difference. When do we see this happen in the Torah? Yehoshua bin Nun. When Yehoshua bin Nun, who took command after...

1:49:55Can you get him to stop? Oh yeah, I'm giving you a very, very, very simplistic example. It's not really that because he's actually worshipping at something that's not his. The point is that if it was his and then you wanted to buy it and you found out that he worshipped it before you bought it, the point is you have to destroy it. But this happened in the Torah when Yehoshua bin Nun came to Eretz Yisrael. It was called Canaan at the time. And Hashem said the first mitzvah you have to fulfill is you have to burn all of the Asherah trees. What did the trees do? How did they sin? He says, no, the trees themselves didn't sin. It's the people that lived here before you. They used to worship the trees. Okay, so they're crazy. They worship trees. Fine. Let us at least cut the trees down and make paper out of it. Or let us make tables out of it. Or let us build houses out of it. Let us use it for something good. Hashem says, no, you're not allowed to benefit from avodah zarah. The only thing you can do with them is you must destroy them. So once a wig comes from a source of avodah zarah, you're not allowed to benefit from it in any way, shape, or form. So even though somebody could say, yes, but 50 years ago, the few handful of poskim that said it's allowed to wear a wig weren't referring to the wigs of today. They were referring to wigs that were not coming from avodah zarah. They were referring to wigs that were coming from simple people who were selling it one by one.

1:51:19It was not like today, that it's a huge $10 billion industry. It was a few people here and there. So no one in the history of Am Yisrael has ever said that avodah zarah is allowed. No one. There's no rules like that. Now, if a woman says to you, listen, I want to marry you, you're a wonderful guy, but there's one condition, you have to permit for me to wear a wig. You have to cancel the shidduch. You have to cancel the shidduch. Why? Why do you have to cancel the shidduch? Why do you have to cancel the shidduch? Because in order for you to say, yes, you can wear a wig, you're saying two things. One, 127 poskim, meaning the biggest rabbis in all of Am Yisrael's history. All the way from today of Rav Ovadia, aleha ha-shalom, to Rav Elyashiv, aleha ha-shalom from a few years before, All the way to Yonatan Ben Uziel, the times of the Gemara. Where they said that his Torah was so holy that one time in Gemara Masechet Megillah, he started putting commentary on the Torah. A bat kol came from Shamayim. It said, who gave the secrets of Shamayim to man? Yonatan Ben Uziel answered. He says, I did. But it wasn't for my honor or for my father's honor, but for Your honor, Hashem.

1:52:49And you know what's in my heart. And I want to continue giving commentary on the rest of the Tanach. The Bat Kol from Shamayim says, "Enough. What you put, enough. You're not allowed." This is what we're talking about. We're not talking about a local Chabad rabbi. We're talking about someone who had Ruach HaKodesh. We're talking about someone who spoke to the Bat Kol. Not somebody who's simple. He said it's not allowed. so to go and say, "I'm going to allow my wife to wear a wig," you're in essence saying that this guy that spoke to Hashem, pretty much, is wrong. I'm going to go against him too. That is craziness. Second thing, when you tell your wife that, "Listen, I know it's not allowed based on all the evidence that we have," We cannot prove that the wig is coming from a kosher place. It's impossible to prove it. Why? Because every wig is not from a single head. It's not like one woman shaves her head, and it goes onto another woman's head. It's not like that. Every wig is made up of hair from three heads. Three women had to shave their heads for it. So even if two women...

1:53:58shaved it for whatever reason, I don't know why they shaved it. They sold the hair. And one woman from Avodah Zarah, not even one woman, one hair, one hair out of 100,000 hairs came from Avodah Zarah. You don't know which one it is. The whole thing has to be burned. So now, to say that that's okay, you're in essence telling your wife, "By the way, honey, if you bring a statue to the house, it's also okay. Because you like your Buddha statue, bring it. If you bring your missionary Christian friend to the house also, that's also okay." Meaning, you're telling your wife it's okay to go against God on a regular basis because you don't like the mitzvah. Now, what do you say about the kosher certification of wigs? Now, when you have meat... if you go to the butcher tomorrow, you'll see that there's different Hashgachot. There's this place, there's that, there's different Hashgachot for the meat. There's different Hashgachot for different foods of kosher. Many, many different companies. See, every week there's a new company that's a new mashgiach. Unlike that market of food, in the wig world, there's only one mashgiach. There's only one company that says, we kosher wigs.

1:55:16Unfortunately, that company is pesulah. Why is it pesulah? Because the guy that runs it, his name is... Pesulah means it's not valid. It's not valid, it's not reliable. Why is it not reliable? Because the guy that runs it, his name is Gross. Rabbi Gross. His behavior is also gross. Why? When Rabbi Elyashiv, alav hashalom, came out with information 14 years ago, and said that all of the wigs that come from real hair are not reliable, you cannot use them; they're coming from avodah zarah. Rabbi Gross is quoted saying, even if they come from avodah zarah, it still doesn't matter, like he doesn't agree that you can't use it, even though the entire Torah goes against what he says. So now, he's the same guy that has the kosher organization. What is this like? It's like a guy that eats treif, eats pigs, eats bunnies, eats all the things that are not kosher, but you use them as your mashgiach for your meat. He doesn't believe in kosher. You can't have him as the mashgiach. He's not reliable. So even if there was such a way to kosher the wigs, it can't be from him. There really is no way. Because he doesn't believe in kosher. He doesn't believe in koshering the wigs. It's purely business. It's 100% business, and that's been proven time and time again.

1:56:44So, when it comes down to a wig, when it comes down to that issue, it's a very, very big deal, even though there are many, many religious Jews that are making this mistake. That's the problem. That's the Avodah Zarah of this generation. Now, the overall mitzvah of Kisui Rosh, we learn from Parashat Naso, which in that section is Parashat Sotah. Parashat Sotah talks about a wayward woman, meaning a woman who, that suspected of cheating on her husband. Now, this woman was very friendly with some men who were not her husband. Her husband told her, "Listen, I don't want you to be friends with these guys." And she didn't listen. Instead of listening to what he said, she went into a closed room with some guy who was not her husband. There were witnesses who saw her enter the closed room. They don't know what she did. They don't know what she did in the closed room, but they know she was in a closed room, meaning she was suspected of cheating on her husband. They would take her to the Bet HaMikdash, to the Temple of Am Yisrael, and they would tell her, "Listen, did you cheat on your husband?" She says, "No." They would continue, "Listen, did you cheat on your husband?" and try to intimidate her into telling the truth. "Did you cheat? Did you cheat? Did you cheat?" And in the beginning, it's just talking to her in an aggressive way.

1:58:11And the reason why is because if she admits she cheated, then all they do is they divorce her from her husband. She's not allowed to be with her husband. She's not allowed to be with the man she cheated on her husband with. And she goes away. But if she doesn't admit and they catch her lying, she dies. So they don't want to kill her. Just admit and that's it. Go away. They'll divorce. That's it. Whatever. She caused herself enough problems. But they keep trying to get the answer out of her because they don't want to kill her. And she keeps denying it. They try to intimidate her by making her walk around the entire Beit HaMikdash so she gets tired. Maybe she gets tired, both physically and emotionally, and she'll start saying the truth. If that doesn't work, they do other things to try to get her to admit. Eventually, they say the last step is they take off her kisui rosh. They take off the mitpachat that was covering her hair. Why? Because that's the biggest and most embarrassing thing you can do to a married woman. Show her hair to the rest of the world. Why? Because the Gemara says, the hair of a woman is considered the same thing as her nakedness. Someone who understands, understands what I mean by nakedness. A woman's hair is her beauty. A woman's hair is no different than her, for those who don't understand, her private parts.

1:59:37It's only allowed to a husband. That's her beauty. So now, they say, showing her hair is like showing her nakedness. So now, after that, she still doesn't admit. They give her the water, the holy water of the Beit HaMikdash. If she really cheated, she dies on the spot from the water. If she didn't, she gets a blessing. But now, Rabotai, Rav Shach, Aleha HaShalom, said something extraordinary. But this entire thing that I just described to you, this entire ma'aseh of what happened. She went to a closed room. She was suspected of cheating. They tried to get her to admit. She was intimidated. At the end, they took off her covering and showed her hair. And then she drank the water. The whole thing. Now, in the Torah, there are several women that they talk about. There are many women in the Torah; they talk about them a little bit.

2:00:48All of these women, when they talk about them, the Midrashim, the Torah itself, it always talks about how modest they were. How modest they were, how they covered themselves, how Yocheved, because she was so modest and had Yirat Shamayim, she not only got blessing, she got the blessing of having Aharon HaKohen as a son. All of Am Yisrael has to be purified with Aharon HaKohen. All the Kohanim give blessings from Aharon HaKohen. Moshe Rabbeinu, prophet of all prophets. He's even bigger than the Mashiach. On top of it, Miriam. Miriam was a prophet, and the Mashiach comes from her, from the seed of Miriam. Gemara Masechet Sotah, page 11. Such an amazing family. Why? Because she was modest. She had Yirat Shamayim. So the women of the Torah, amazing things were talked about them. And each one, it talks about how modest they were. So Rav Shach, alav haShalom, said, there is only one woman. There is only one woman where it talks about how She wasn't modest. There's only one woman about whom it talks about her hair—the Sotah, the woman suspected of cheating. Why does everybody want to look like and represent the woman suspected of cheating? Why don't you try to be like Sarah Imeinu? Why don't you try to emulate Yocheved? Why don't you try to emulate Rivka? Why are you trying to emulate the Sotah? Why do you want to be like the Sotah?

2:02:15That's the serious question that every woman needs to ask herself when she's wearing a wig. Because when she's wearing a wig, she looks like the wayward woman. She looks like the Sotah. She's showing her hair. You're not supposed to show your hair. Why do you want to look like her? What if a woman is a hairstylist and she does hair for religious girls? The wigs for religious girls, you mean? Wigs, yeah. I do wigs for religious girls. I wash them. It's a problem. And the problem is... But I shouldn't do it anyway. No, you should not do it anymore. The reason why is because you become a partner to the sin. If it's her hair and you want to fix her hair, in essence, that's allowed. The fact that she's not covering her hair is her own problem. She's not fulfilling a mitzvah. She's making a sin by actually having her hair that way. But at least she's not putting something that's 100% forbidden. And you're not a partner to it. Because in essence, even if she did cover her hair, she'd still want to do her hair once in a while. So the fact that she's not covering her hair is not really your business. But someone that's wearing a wig, you know for sure she's going to show the wig.

2:03:30She's not for sure that she's showing the wig. So that's a serious problem for women that are in that business. I understand it's a business. I understand people make money out of it. And we don't want Am Yisrael to lose money. But the reality is that if you believe that God is the God of Israel, is the only God of the world, and there's no other God, then you also believe that Hashem is the one that provides you parnassah. And if you do... Something for Hashem where you give up on something that's not allowed in order to do something that's allowed. Hashem will not only give you a blessing for that, but He’ll give you a blessing for other things that you want to do. The same thing applies to people who refrain from wasting seed, for modesty, for Shabbat, or other things. When you're doing something purely because God said so, you're not going to do this business purely because God said so—not because you're not good at it all of a sudden, not because you don't feel like it, but because God said it's not allowed. That, my friends, is the highest level of mitzvah. And that is something that can help people do extraordinary things. Next, three important questions have to do the same thing, right?

2:04:49And she doesn't want to change. Okay. Okay. And she wants to wear a wig that they say there's hashgachah, she's not worried. And she says maybe someday she'll be open to changing it, but now she's not on that level. Maybe she said, it's better for the guy to marry. Who's to say he's going to ever find another girl? And she doesn't even want to cover her hair at all. Is it better that she wear the wig or not wear the wig? So there's a very big chacham... very big Chacham that is a rabbi, but even before he was a rabbi, he was an engineer. I forget his name, but anyone that wants to double-check with me after I get home, I could show you. I could send you his video, and he has a machine that he built that can show you your aura. Your aura is like a representation of the state of your soul.

2:06:16your level of holiness, your level of sins, and so on and so forth. It's like a rainbow around you. Someone who is a pure person has a certain color of aura. Someone who is an impure person has a different color. For example, if someone is very pure, usually the color of their aura is going to be purplish. If they're really holy, white. The normal standard color is usually around yellow. but someone that has a lot of sins with no teshuvah has different shades of black and really, really dark colors. This is scientific; it's not Torah yet. Torah is something that everyone understands as a reality of life. It's not something that's a conspiracy of some kind. So this engineer, when he did teshuvah, he decided that, you know what, let me... see people's aura and see how mitzvot affect the aura. So he said when somebody took a picture of them with this special lens, with the special machine, their aura was yellow standard; they were fine. Then I told him, "Go do that. Go wash your hands with a bracha before you eat bread," or whatever it was.

2:07:33Didn't you light the diamond already and improve the status of the aura? When they performed the mitzvah, it improved, and the shade got better. It looked purplish or whatever it was. They told the guy, "Listen, once you do this mitzvah, don't do anything again." We're back to standard yellow. He put on tefillin, and the guy put on tefillin. Wow, it became purplish, beautiful, looks like a tzaddik. Yeah, actually, I don't know the halacha. put on a tallit, simple tallit, he became white. Like a perfect angel. Amazing. You can see this all on video. I wanted to see, okay, maybe there's something in the physicality of things, the nature of it, of what it is. Maybe if I put on tefillin that's pasul, that's not allowed, not a forbidden tefillin, because the scroll inside it is either missing or it's not a kosher scroll. So, let me put a non-kosher tefillin on his head. Let's see if that changes. Maybe he still has the same pure picture. He put a non-kosher tefillin on a person, and all of a sudden he sees that not only did the person not improve from yellow to, let's say, purple, but actually deteriorated from yellow to a much, much lower level, like this person is a huge sinner.

2:08:52The status of his soul dropped drastically. The tefillin themselves were the same except the scroll inside was different. Obviously, we see this has nothing to do with this world. This is supernatural. He said, "I want to see what happens with wigs and kisui rosh." He put a kisui rosh scarf on a woman. For a woman, it's like she's putting on kosher tefillin. A woman that covers her head with a hat or with a mitpachat versus not, it's like a guy that puts on kosher tefillin. A woman that puts on a wig, he said it's like putting on tefillin pesulim. A non-kosher tefillin, she's worse off than when she was not wearing anything at all. This is scientific. You have a problem, go to him. So now, to say to a woman, listen, It's okay for you to wear it now. Maybe, lady, you due to be married if you haven't gotten married yet. Why get yourself into a sick bed? Why get yourself into a sick bed? You have to understand that the only one that determines whether you get married or not is God, not you and not your parents. To say, "Listen, I want to do kibbud av va'em. I want to get married and..."

2:10:12but if your marriage is going to be to a person that's going to sin against Hashem on a regular basis because she doesn't want to keep Shabbat, but you want to make your parents happy, it doesn't make a difference. You can't make a mitzvah by aveirah. If she doesn't want to keep mitzvot, she doesn't want to keep taharat hamishpacha, you're not allowed to marry her. Now, when it comes to wigs, when it comes to this avodah zarah issue, The problem is that it's always connected to Chabad in many ways. Because Chabad holds by what the Rebbe said even though they themselves misunderstand what the Rebbe said. Now I'm going to give you a proof that's going to blow your brains away. To prove that the Rebbe didn't say what they claim he said. To prove that Chabad themselves of today is not following what the Rebbe said. You don't have to look at the books. You want to look at the books? Go look at the books. Enjoy. You'll find exactly what I'm saying anyway. But you can prove it from the Rebbe himself. How? Who's the number one fan of the Rebbe? Number one fan of all time. Okay. Anyone married here? No one? Everybody single? Baruch Hashem, all of you will get married. Okay, you're married. Okay. Normally in a healthy marriage, who's the number one fan of the husband? The wife. The wife.

2:11:31Normally, the number one fan of a person is also their mother. In your mother's eyes, you're an angel, even if you're a murderer; you're still an angel. The point is, your mom loves you unconditionally. Your mom is definitely not going to go against you davka. Your wife is definitely not going to go against you davka. So I asked... If the number one fan of the Rebbe is his mother, who is Tzadikah Kedosha. If the number one fan is his wife, who is also Tzadikah Kedosha. Let's see what they did. Rabotai, in last week's shiur, you can watch it right now live online. I brought pictures, every single available picture available on these two women. What did they wear? They wear wigs? No, Rabotai. They wore Kisui Rosh. They wore hats or mitpachat. Mitpachat, meaning a scarf, a headscarf of some kind. Meaning they did not wear wigs. So how can we say that the Rabbi said, "Oh no, wear a wig, wear a wig"? No, he didn't say it. That's not what he preferred. He even wrote, you have letters from the Rabbi, I have letters. Letters from the Rabbi that say he preferred. He preferred.

2:12:51The kisui rosh over the mitpachat, over the wigs. He didn't say outright, I never saw, that he said outright that wigs are forbidden. I haven't seen that yet. But when it came to the preference, he says when a woman covers her hair with a hat or a scarf, she has extra blessing. So the point is, to say that you're gonna find a woman from Chabad and she's gonna follow Chabad, that's already going against shalom bayit. The reason why is because the woman has to take on the minhagim of the husband, not the husband of the wife. If a woman is Ashkenazi and the husband is Sephardic, the woman, as soon as they get married, is now Sephardic. She's not allowed to continue her Ashkenazi customs. She can't not eat rice on Pesach because she's Ashkenazi. She's now what her husband is. Why? Because once a husband and a wife are together, they become one. Not two separate teams. There's no two separate rooms. There's no two separate bank accounts. There's no two separate vacations. That's only in a secular, goyish world. In Am Yisrael, we're together. We're together. We become one. We become a unit.

2:14:10We're not like the rest of the world, where the husband goes on vacation with his friends, the wife goes on vacation with her friends, and five years later they have a kid, but neither one knows whose baby it is. Mashiach. They're Mashiach maybe. So the key to understand is that we cannot start making sins and hope that one day we're going to do teshuva. Don't go into a sick bed. Let me answer the second question. If the person only found out that wigs are not allowed after the fact, they're already married, they have kids. Obviously, we don't say go get a divorce. Just like, for example, if a person did teshuva after they got married, they have kids, and his wife doesn't want to do teshuva. We don't say go and divorce your wife. There's a very famous story of one of the biggest mezakeh rabim in the world, which means he's a rabbi that helped many, many others do teshuva. Before he became a rabbi that helped people do teshuva, he was the number one movie star producer in Israel. His name is Uri Zohar, sheyichye, still one of the biggest rabbis in the world as far as kiruv and so on.

2:15:28He was very, very famous as far as making movies. They invited him to Hollywood, which for an Israeli to be invited to Hollywood is like being invited to be a king in a different country. He rejected it. Why did he reject it? He started doing teshuva. He realized that everything he was living was a lie. He started doing teshuva, serious, serious teshuva. But he was married already with kids. And his wife, who was a scholar in university, did not want to do teshuva. She was not interested. She was actually anti-Torah. She hated it. She refused to go to the mikveh. Now, if a wife does not go to the mikveh, you're forbidden to be with her. Not only are you forbidden to be with her, but you're also forbidden to even hold her hand. A woman who does not go to the mikveh, to her husband, she is considered 100% forbidden. You're not allowed to touch her hand. Forget about being with her intimately and so on. If she doesn't go to the mikveh, you cannot be together in any way, shape, or form. You can't eat from the same plate. You can't drink from the same cup. To everyone else, she's normal. To her husband, she's forbidden. Why? At a certain time of the month, you're allowed to be together. At a certain time of the month, you're not allowed to be together. Why? Because Hashem wants to teach us that everything good has to be within reason. It has to be with moderation. D'vash matzata, echol dayeka.

2:16:52Shlomo HaMelech says, if you found honey, eat with moderation. Why? If you don't, you'll end up throwing up. Anything that's really, really good, if you have too much of it, eventually you're going to not want it. That's why these celebrities have a new wife every month. So even to be intimate with your wife, you're allowed. But there's a certain time and a place. Certain time and a place, it's within reason. Half the month, yes. Half the month, no. Approximately. So now, Uri Zohar's wife did not want to go to the mikveh. So now he cannot be with her. Not only for half the month, the whole month. He can never be with her. This continued on for a while. What's a while? Five years. Five years he can't be with his own wife. No one but herself. She said, listen, you don't want to be with me as I am. I'm not going to be with you. He came to his rabbi and he says, "Listen, my wife does not want to do teshuva. She doesn't want to go to the mikveh. I can't even be with my wife." This is actually one of the conditions where the Beit Din, when you tell them your wife does not want to go to the mikveh, says you are allowed to get divorced. If you tell the Beit Din, "Listen, my wife doesn't want to keep Shabbat," they don't give you a get. He says, "If that's the only problem, wait for her to do teshuva." Tell her, "My wife doesn't want to keep kosher."

2:18:18Wait for her to do teshuva. My wife doesn't want to do this, doesn't want to do that. Wait for her to do teshuva. But if you tell the Beit Din, "My wife is not willing to go to the mikveh," they say, "Okay, now you can get divorced." Why? That's the entire marriage. Without being intimate at some point or another, there's no marriage. There's no marriage. You have to be. It's just the reality. We have to exercise our love, not just talk about it. This is a part of our physicality. Just a reality of life. It's not a busha to talk about. It's a real Torah. Talks about it in the Torah. Not just procreation. You're actually also supposed to enjoy it too. There's a way to enjoy it though in a kosher way. There's a kosher way to enjoy intimacy. It's a time and a place. But nonetheless, she has to be pure and the man obviously needs to know when and how and who and what. can't do it in broad daylight. You can't do it in front of mirrors. You have to do it in a certain modest way. We're not animals. And we're also not these people that make movies. We're kosher people, Baruch Hashem. Am Yisrael does things in a kosher way, with modesty. But nonetheless, it doesn't mean you can't enjoy it. So now, the wife of Uri Zohar did not want to go to the mikveh. Uri Zohar cannot be with his wife. He goes to his rabbi, he says, "Rabbi, this is one of the conditions."

2:19:43This is one of the conditions to get a get. I mean, I don't want to divorce my wife. I love her. I have kids, this, that, the other thing. But what am I going to do? He says, listen, you're right. But let's just try one thing. One last thing. And then if she doesn't do teshuva, they're divorced. Okay, what do we do? He says, take the Rambam book. Take one of the books of the Rambam. Pick whatever you want. Take it. Read it on the kitchen table. Once in a while. Whenever you feel like it, read it. And always leave it. Don't ever put it back on the shelf. just leave it on the table. For what? Let's just do what I say. Just do it. The Chachamim know what they're talking about. Just leave the book on the table. Okay. That's what he does once, twice, three times a month, two months. One day he comes back home and his wife says, okay, I'm going to go to the mikveh. What did you say? Yeah, yeah, I'm going to go to the mikveh. You want me to go? Where is it? Tell me where it is. What do I need to do? How did this happen? How could this be? He doesn't ask any questions. A woman wants to go to the mikveh? I've been waiting five years. I'm going to ask questions. Why? Who cares why? Go to the mikveh. Baruch Hashem. Little by little, he starts seeing she's doing teshuva. He doesn't know who, what, when. One day he asks a question. He goes, listen, I have to ask you.

2:21:12why he says, "Listen, every day I saw you open this book and close this book, open this book and close this book, and open this book and close the book, and then put it back on the kitchen table. I always wondered, what is he reading so much? What's so interesting about this book? I'm a scholar in a university. I'm smart. What’s he so happy about with this book? So one day, you weren't there. The book was on the kitchen table. I opened the book, and she's a scholar; she's not a fool. She says, 'I read a whole page of what the Rambam says.'" And I understood absolutely nothing. But I knew that what he's saying is very important. And I knew that he's far, far smarter than I can ever be. And I need to know what he says. If there are such people representing your Torah that you pray to and learn from and so on, if there are such smart people representing it,

2:22:13I need to know why. And I continued reading, and little by little, I realized, ah, this is a big deal. This is true. He says today she's a much bigger tzaddeket than he is. Why? Sometimes people need to know the truth in different ways. So, if a person has a wife and he discovers that She's doing something that's wrong, or he starts doing teshuva after they got married. They have kids already. We don't say just go get a divorce and start something new. All of a sudden abandon a woman with kids and so on. No, we don't say that. There are certain things that you have to work through. There are certain things that you can't work through. The point being is that the ideal situation is to always try to help them do teshuva, even if it's going to take some time, as long as there's progress. As long as there's some progress. As long as she's not anti-Torah. Where she's one of these people that she's going to smoke a cigarette in your face on Shabbat, dafka to go against you. If it's such a person, then your problem is not the cigarette. The problem is that you had shalom bayit problems before the teshuva. Because every normal person, every normal woman, every normal man, even if they don't want to do teshuva, they're not going to be anti. Why? Why?

2:23:32Because they love you. And if it's important to you, even if they don't like it, they're still going to do it. Or at the very least, not go against it. Not because they agree with it, but because they love you. So if they're going against it, that means they don't care about you. So why are you married to them anyway? You understand? So you have to understand that Hashem is the One that puts couples together. If all of you are looking for a zivug, b'ezrat Hashem you're going to get married, b'ezrat Hashem you're going to have kids that are kedoshim, b'ezrat Hashem you're going to have a zivug hagun. Whether you're looking for a husband, b'ezrat Hashem that's a tzaddik, or you're looking for a wife that's a tzaddeiket, you have to understand, all of these blessings are only coming from Hashem. Only coming from Hashem. Now I'm going to tell you a story to finish it off, because it's getting late and the battery is dying also. I'm going to tell you, no, we can continue if you really want to. So now I'll tell you something, I'll tell you something about what it means to be Ish Emes. The same Rav Elyashiv that I talked about, who discovered that the wigs of today are coming from idol worship, one time some of his students found a bunch of papers where there was a very serious answer about halacha, about one of the laws in the Torah—a very serious explanation.

2:24:56Explaining it was something beautiful. It's like something out of this world to write the answer of why something is allowed or why something is not allowed. It's not simply yes or no. When they write an answer, when the chachamim write an answer. They give you all the different corners of why it's allowed and why it wouldn't be allowed, and so on and so forth. So a real answer can be books. Not just yes or no. It can be a few pages, it can be a few paragraphs. It could literally be books. So one of the talmidim saw that there's a beautiful answer in, but there's no name on it. In the Beit Midrash of Rav Elyashiv. So they brought it to the Rav. Is this yours? Meaning, whoever wrote this beautiful answer is not only a chacham; he put a lot of effort into it. He had to name 500 sources. You know what 500 sources are? It's not just 500 books. It's thousands of books because you have to know all the things not to do. So now, whoever put time and effort into it, at the very least, they would probably want somebody to know. "Hey, I wrote this book. Signed, so and so."

2:26:10They found it, but there's no name. They say, "Kevod HaRav, is this yours?" And he says something legendary that shows what Yirat Shamayim really is, what fear of Hashem really is, what being an Ish Emet, a man of truth, really means. He says, "Listen, if it's good, if you read it and it's good and it's true, publicize it. It doesn't need my name. Who cares?" If it's not true, it's garbage anyway. Who cares who wrote it? Meaning, even if I'm the one, the biggest rabbi in the world, Rabbi Elyashiv, even if I'm the one that wrote something that's not true, who cares? You can't listen to me anyway. It's not true. Even if I'm the biggest rabbi in the world, if I tell you to do something against God, you cannot listen to me. Why? Because He's God, not me. Just because somebody said it doesn't mean you have to do it. You have to find out what God said. What did God say? What's His opinion? If His opinion agrees, then you can do it. If it doesn't, you can't do it. It doesn't make a difference who the rabbi is. It doesn't make a difference if it's the Lubavitcher or this one or that one. It doesn't make a difference. If it's wrong, it's wrong. If it's wrong, it's wrong. You can't do it. We do mitzvot because God said so, not because we feel like it.

2:27:33And now, last but not least, when it comes to the kippah, when it comes to the last part of kisui rosh, of covering your head, for a woman, it's a sign of modesty, but it's also a sign of yirat shamayim, meaning that she understands that God is watching. It's like she's putting a roof over her head, even when there's no roof, there's a mitpachat that's covering her hair. Meaning she always knows there's something above her. Hashem is above her. Same thing goes for a man. A man wears a kippah, not because the Torah says to wear a kippah. The rabbi said to wear a kippah. Why? To remind yourself that God is above you. There's a roof above you. God is above you. And really, the real halacha, the real chachamim, for example, the Rambam, the Ben Ish Chai, and all of those Chachmei Sefarad, their kippah used to be, even Ashkenaz, their kippah used to cover the entire head. They said, listen, if you want to really represent Yirat Shamayim, have a big kippah. like today where the kippah is like the size of a quarter. A real kippah, that's the real kippah! If you have a kippah, at least you know you're going to be okay. Hopefully, it's bigger than a quarter, as the bigger it is, the better. The point being is that it's important not necessarily because you're obligated to wear it because of the Torah. You're obligated to wear it because you're telling people, "I believe in the Torah and I follow it."

2:28:56Exactly. I'm a Jew. And you're proud of being a Jew. You're not embarrassed to be a Jew, like some people are embarrassed to be a Jew. They wear a kippah to the beit knesset and they take it off after. They wear a kippah on the holidays, but as soon as the holiday is over, they take it off. I have a question: If somebody gets into jail and you put a kippah on in jail, is it okay? Yes, you have freedom of religion in this country. Your freedom of religion in America to wear or not to wear a kippah in jail. No, maybe the crime that he committed is not necessarily against the Torah. For example, there's something called insider trading. Insider trading means that you bought something based on information that the company provided you before they provided the public, and you made money off of it. According to the Torah, this is 100% allowed and it's allowed. Why? If, let's say, for example, I want to sell you a business, or I want to sell a business, and before I put it into the market, somebody told you, "Hey, listen, your owner's trying to sell a business. If you go right now, you'll get it at a discount."

2:30:00What's wrong with that? What's wrong with that? I don't have to deal with the headaches. For me, I don't have to deal with the headaches. You benefited. You saved a few dollars because of it. What's the problem? But according to the foolish U.S. government, it's forbidden. How forbidden? If you benefit from something called insider trading, you can go to jail for 25 to 30 years. Worse than a murderer. So if that guy went to jail because he did insider trading, okay, it's not good. We're not applauding him for doing it and going against the government. But we can't say he's a rasha. We can't say he's a wicked person. So even if he wears a kippah, there's no problem with it. And even if he committed murder, which is forbidden by the law of the land and the Torah, he's still a Jew. He said, I'm sorry. He's still a Jew. So for him to wear a kippah in jail is not a problem at all. He should wear a kippah. He should wear a kippah because people, especially criminals, especially people from the underworld, respect men of religion. They respect men of religion. The people that they hate usually are molesters and rapists. Those people usually get tortured in jail.

2:31:09Go ahead. Can I ask you a question with regards to Shlomo Rabash? He went to jail for something. For tax evasion, yeah. Well, I mean, that's... No, he got a... It was like a kangaroo court. It started with tax evasion and then it went into employment issues. Okay, no, what's the question itself? You have a righteous person that was basically like... The whole case was like garbage. Okay, no. He didn't get released. He got... Right, so the whole thing with Trump. What's the question? Right, what's the question? What's the question? We don't have to go over the whole case because it doesn't make a difference. What's the question itself? It says in the Torah that you're supposed to pay your taxes, technically speaking, but if it shows up that the judge and the prosecutor, you know, then technically the case is going to be ruined. Right.

2:32:09But since we're living in... So you're asking about respecting the law of the land? Yes, no, and so on. That's what you're asking in so many words? What I'm saying is if there's collusion between the prosecutor and the judge, which there was in this case. So here's the thing. This is the reason why Jews in general, if, let's say, two Jews have a problem, for example, I was at the Beit Din yesterday because two of my students, Baruch Hashem, converted to Judaism. And to convert to Judaism, you have to go to the Beit Din. They both decided to become Jews. They were born goyim. And after learning Torah and learning about the truth of the Torah, they not only wanted to be Jews, they wanted to be holy Jews. They followed the whole Torah, Baruch Hashem. And yesterday they did the last step of becoming Jews. You're asked questions in front of the Beit Din, which is three judges, three rabbis. After that, if the man has already done a brit milah, then they usually do something called hatafat dam, which is to generate some small amount of blood from that area of the body. Then after that, they go into the mikveh,

2:33:20They do a blessing, Baruch Hashem, they are Jews, they get mamash haNeshama from Shamayim, and they become Jews, and according to the Rambam in Mishneh Torah, it says that that person has a neshama of a baby. Meaning he's considered zero years old that day. That's his new birthday. Even if he's 50, he's zero years old. And the sefarim hakedoshim say that the Satan was given significant power. He was given prisoners. Prisoners. He was given prisoners. Who are these prisoners? Big neshamot, special neshamot, neshamot that could change the world. And he has them as prisoners. Who are they? The converts, the righteous converts. Meaning every time that a serious, righteous convert converts to Judaism, he was actually a prisoner of the Satan himself his whole life. Could have been for 5,000 years. Could be for 5,000 years the prisoner of the Satan. Gilgul after Gilgul after Gilgul after Gilgul. Why? How do we know this? The most significant people of Am Yisrael, many of them have come from converts. Yitro, Ruth, from whom the Mashiach comes.

2:34:30Rabbi Akiva, Rabbi Meir Baal HaNes, Shemaiah, Avtalyon, and so on and so forth. Many, many righteous converts. Many righteous converts were the leaders of Am Yisrael, including Onkelos. All the pirush you have in your Torah is from Onkelos, and so on and so forth. So this person decided to be a Jew. Now, I was an Av Beit Din, Baruch Hashem, it was a very, very successful day. After that, I saw there was a case where somebody came to the Beit Din for a different reason. There was a business case; one guy did business with another guy, and the contractor didn't do what he was supposed to do. The other guy sued him, and so on and so forth. They came to the Beit Din, they came to these rabbis. "Hey, listen. He did this, he did this. Show me the evidence. Show me the evidence," and they ruled in favor of the defendant, actually, in this case. Now... A Jew that has a problem with another Jew, when it comes to money issues or other issues, is obligated to do everything they possibly can to go to a Beit Din. You're not allowed to go to a regular court to sue another Jew. Why? Because the regular court of the land is not going to follow the Torah.

2:35:48So you're only allowed to go to a regular court if you have no choice, meaning if you invite them to the Beit Din and they don't go. Because the Beit Din is not the law of the land, they don't technically have to listen. Or you went to a Beit Din and you won, and he still doesn't want to pay. He doesn't want to listen to the Rabbis. Then you have to go to a regular court. You have no choice. But if you have a choice, you have to go to a Beit Din. So, this is something that people need to understand. When it comes to the Beit Din, this is not just nothing; this is a very significant part of our Torah. We need to make sure that each and every single one of our issues, whether they be business issues, family issues, or any other issue, is addressed properly. family issues, this issue and that issue, it always says, make yourself a rabbi. Sometimes the rabbi is the local rabbi that gets you to come to tefillah. Sometimes your rabbi is the rabbi that's going to give you chizuk, give you a lecture, you wake up a little bit, you start doing teshuva, and get yourself in a much better position than you are today. Sometimes your rabbi is the Beit Din, because you need it, because somebody cheated you.

2:37:02Somebody was dishonest. So you go to him and say, listen, he was dishonest. The rabbi says, okay, fine, sue him in Din Torah. In Din Torah. We use the Torah as our guidebook. As our guidebook. What you do, what you do, what you do, what you do. That's it. But the reality is that in today's world, the regular court system, the secular court system, rules the land. So when you have the... you're obligated to follow the regular rules regardless; you're not allowed to openly go against it. Meaning, if the government says that you have to pay taxes, you have to pay taxes. You're not allowed to just go against the government just because you feel like it. If the government says you have to drive 65 miles an hour, you have to drive 65 miles an hour. It says in the Torah. Why? Because that's the law of the land. not allowed to go against the law of the land in the name of Torah because Torah says you have to respect the law of the land, unless the law of the land goes against the Torah. Meaning, if the law of the land, wherever you live, if you don't like it, go somewhere else. But there's an exception. What's the exception? If the law of the land, for example, if America...

2:38:21decides that you have to be an idol worshiper to live here. If you want to live, you have to be an idol worshiper. That law goes against the Torah. You're not allowed to follow it. Even though it's the law of the land, you're not allowed to follow it. If there's a new rule in America that prostitution is legal, you're not allowed to follow this law even though it's their law. It goes against the Torah and... It goes against the Torah. Even though gambling is legal in certain parts of America, it's legal. You're still not allowed to gamble. Why? It's against the Torah. So just because the law of the land is the law of the land doesn't mean you automatically follow it. Just because it's not doesn't mean you automatically don't follow it. The point is that that's why you need to learn Torah. You need to know what to do, what not to do, what to do, what not to do. And always double-check with your rabbi. This week is a real problem. In my opinion, whose opinion? No, my opinion is irrelevant. If I'm telling you my opinion, I'm going to tell you what Hashem says. Meaning my opinion, meaning we want to know what I say. You want to know what other rabbis say. Other rabbis say what they believe. They believe that the wigs are kosher, therefore they're going to tell you why you even tell them to take off the wig.

2:39:41But when it comes down to idol worship, and I'm telling you that I did for a profession, my living, for almost 20 years, I was an expert researcher on Wall Street. I researched industries, markets, companies, and so on and so forth, businesses. That's what I did for a living. So I know a little bit about research. And I did research on the wigs. And based on everything that I looked at, It's impossible for there to be such a thing as a kosher wig. Impossible. It's impossible for there to be a kosher wig. Impossible. Why? Because there's no way for you to track the source. There's no way for you to track the source. And since the majority of the source comes from idol worship, no wig is reliable. So, if you're asking me based on Da'at Torah, based on the information that we have and believe in our hands, that since it's impossible to have a A kosher wig, a wig that—if there was going to be such a thing as a kosher wig—then it would be a wig that obviously is not connected to idolatry. It's impossible to know that for sure. For me to tell you that it's okay for someone to wear something that's possibly idol worship is crazy, which means it's better off for her not to wear anything.

2:41:08Because most rabbis believe that wigs are okay anyway, you have to ask the people that say wigs are not allowed. You have to look at the books of the Ben Ish Chai. You have to look at the books of the Baba Sali. You have to look at the books of the people that say it's not allowed, which is most of the Poskim, not some local rabbi. Look at the books. Look at the actual books, not local rabbis, not even me. Go look at the books. Look at what the books actually say about it, what they say about wigs. Forget about speaking to rabbis. Look at the books, the books. Not the people that have Yetzer Hara. I'm talking about the books, what they wrote in books. What they say in books, not allowed. Not allowed, even with or without the Avodah Zarah. It's not allowed. Wigs are not allowed. In any way, shape, or form, it's not allowed. Nonsense, his mother and his wife. I know what they say. I know, I know this; I've been dealing with this for a few years. This is not the first time. I heard this: his mother and his wife both wore kisui rosh—a hat or a scarf. If he really believed that the wig is that much better, why don't they wear wigs?

2:42:27Why didn't they wear wigs? If it was that much better, wouldn't his wife wear a wig? Wouldn't his mother wear a wig if it was so much better? Huh? But it's her husband. You're not going to go against your husband. She lived in America most of her life. She didn't live in Russia. His grandmother lived in America. Lived in America most of her life. She didn't live in Russia most of her life. Either way, the point is, you're not going to do something dafka against your son when your son is so important. Regardless of that, again, if you're Sephardic, there's no such thing as holding by Chabad regardless. If you are looking for the truth, there's no way that you could follow any of these issues when it comes to wigs. But either way, either way, either way, when it comes down to the Torah itself, you have to double-check everything. If, chas v'shalom, somebody got a pain on their side, and a doctor said, "Listen, I see something in your blood."

2:43:28Maybe you have something. Immediately you're going to go double-check with 50 people. Immediately you're going to go double-check with this doctor, that doctor, that doctor, that doctor. You're not going to take his word for it. You're going to double-check with 500 different opinions if you can. Why? You don't like the answer. Why? It's your body. So how come with your body you're going to check with 500 people to double-check, to double-check, but with your neshamah, no, he said it, therefore it's okay. One opinion. takes care of her, makes her laugh, provides her what she needs, is nice to her, is kind to her. She's not going to want to wear a wig. And the reason why is because the only reason any woman in the world, any woman, no exceptions, the only reason any woman in the world wears any of these pretty wigs to make them look like they just came off the runway show is not because of her husband. It has nothing to do with her husband. The only reason any woman in the world wears a wig is because she wants everyone else to look at her. Which, by default, by default, by default,

2:44:34Means it's a sin. Why? She wants other people's attention. It's not a modest thing. She can say what she wants to say until next year. That just means she's a liar too. That's all it means—that she's a liar too. To say that she's wearing the wig because of her husband means she's simply a liar. Because she's not with her husband all day. She's not with her husband all day. Okay, so let's say, when you're with me, wear the wig. When you're not with me, wear the mitpachat. No, no, no, I'm going to wear the wig the whole time. Why are you wearing the wig the whole time if you're not with me all day? Okay, so that's also... Husband wants to look good, he has to do teshuvah. Okay, so... No one says she has to look like an ugly person. Why does everybody think that mitpachat is ugly? yeah, and then they put away, yeah, that's part of their custom. First of all, so it's the same thing that if you look at videos of

2:45:52from the Discovery Channel of, let's say, people of the Amazon or different places in the world that live in the jungle somewhere. These people have different customs. They put these earrings that make holes in their ears and make them flappy, or they put these necklaces that make their necks extra long, and their husbands love it. Why? Because it's acceptable to them. The same thing with the customs of the Jews. Some parts of the Jewish nation have certain customs. It's beauty in the eye of the beholder. Now... When it comes down to a woman, let me show you exactly why every single woman in the world that wants to look good, wants to look good, is not doing it for her husband. And I don't mean she needs to look ugly. I don't mean that. But I mean she wants to make sure that she looks like the goyim. She has her hair out, whether it's a wig or non-wig is irrelevant. She wants to have immodest clothing on. So on and so forth. It could be one of those things; it could be all of them. It's all the same thing. How do we know this for sure? If the woman was instead, let's say, for example, she went on one of these kosher cruises, and the kosher cruise stopped at an island. They visited an island, and they left her there.

2:47:19Meaning there's nothing there other than monkeys, giraffes, maybe some elephants. There's nothing. Her next-door neighbor is a monkey. The other one is a gorilla, and so on. And all she has is a suitcase. Her suitcase has the mini dresses and the tank tops and this and that. Or it has the sweatpants and the sweatshirt. What is she wearing every day? Is she wearing the sweatshirt and the sweatpants that cover her entire body and are not really attractive? Or is she wearing the mini skirts and the high heels? Why? She wants to look good. Ah, that's the point. If there's no one there, then I don't care if I look good. The question is, why do you need anyone else other than your husband to think you look good? If you want other people to know that you look good, that means you're committing the sin of immodesty. You want other men to look at you. You're a prostitute. You're not a wife.

2:48:19As if for herself, we just proved that it's not. We just proved it for her not. She's not a wife. She has five husbands. Carlos, Steve, and Wilbur from the supermarket are also her husbands. Why does she want other men to look at her? different people, different things. It could take anywhere from six months to 600 years. It depends on how serious the people are. Some people, these specific people, uh, the ones that my students mentioned, these specific ones, do or just in general. It all depends on how serious that person is, how smart that person is, and how ready they are to commit. Converting to Judaism requires two things: number one, to understand the basics of what it means to be a Jew—you have to learn Torah, fulfill the mitzvot, keep Shabbat, be modest, and so on—a basic level of mitzvot, and...

2:49:27you have to do them. You have to be able to do that, meaning you cannot do them if you live on an island by yourself like this woman who was left with the cruise. You have to be a Jew in a Jewish community. This means that most of them have to move to a Jewish community. Most of us need to buy kosher food and tefillin and modest clothes and so on and so forth. So you have to be able to know and do these things before getting to the conversion. Before getting to the final step of the conversion, they have to be able to keep 99% of Shabbat and Right, but if you learn halachot Shabbat, if you learn the laws of Shabbat, then you know how to keep Shabbat. If you don't learn halachot of Shabbat, then you're definitely violating Shabbat. So that's why it's very important to learn halachot of Shabbat. No, not necessarily. If you're committed and you pray to Hashem to help you learn, if you're committed, you learn every day a little bit and... Every day a little bit. You learn halachot Shabbat every day. You take the Yalkut Yosef. You learn every day a couple of halachot. Within a couple of years, you're going to know everything you need to know about Shabbat. Everything you need to know. It's not a lifetime. Don't cut yourself short. You guys are smart. You guys can do a lot more than you can imagine, especially since if you really, really want it, Hashem can open up your brain and make sure you know everything you need to know. Just got to try. Conversion? Conversion?

2:50:54If the original conversion is legitimate, meaning they converted for the right reasons, then they're considered 100% a Jew. They're actually considered higher than you and me. Then they're being punished as a Jew who is a kofer. So they were better off staying as a goy. They were better off. I mean, either way, they're punished, but as a Jew, they're punished much worse. What if? If you're a non-Jew, then you're obligated to learn and know the seven laws of Noach. But if you're a Jew, that's not your option. Huh? No, you get a reward, you get Olam Haba, but it's not the same level. It's not the same level. It's like, for example, it's like comparing the seven laws of Noach and someone gets Gan Eden. It's like they get, let's say, this world. And a Jew that keeps the mitzvot gets the entire universe times a million. So, yes, it's good. You have the whole world. You're rich. But then the other one, there's no comparison. So that's the difference. It's good, but it's not the same. Yeah.

2:52:15I know a guy who grew up Jewish and everything. But then, once he found out that he can't have a kid—he's like 50 years old. When he was younger, he was trying to have a kid. He got married a few times and he couldn't have any kids. So after that, he started hating Judaism. He started promoting that there is no God and all that. He's scared. Right? Huh? Right? No? He's scared. Poor guy. He is. Became a heretic openly, no? Go ahead. Is there mercy in Shamayim for such a person? Are you asking if there's mercy in Shamayim for somebody like that, or are you asking if... Yeah, he's still alive, so he's still being given time to do teshuva for all the sins that he's making. But if he doesn't do teshuva, then there is no mercy. Such a person will go and be punished. Yeah, he's considered a min because he's somebody that is trying to get other people to go against Hashem, which makes him worse than an idol worshiper. Such a person, you're not allowed to be within six feet of him. You're not even allowed to stand next to him. A min is somebody that we are actually obligated every single day to pray for them to die.

2:53:44Your Tefillah 18. Your Tefillah 18. Your Tefillah 18. Every day you do Amidah. Open your Siddur, Amidah. Every day, every day, you have Amidah. You do it three times a day. There's a section of your Tefillah where you're actually asking Hashem to destroy the minim. The people that are getting Jews away from Him. You're asking Hashem to destroy them. What's destroy? Kill them. Why? Because they're destroying neshamot. They're destroying your brothers and sisters. Even if he, this min, is a Jew. He's killing other people. It's better he die than them. It's better he die than ten of them. Not on meaning you're not allowed to be my family on meaning not allowed to be my family, but Rambam Hilchot Teshuva says that there are certain people that even if they come to you asking you, "I want to do teshuva," you're not allowed to help them. If he's a real min, it's rare to find a real min. There are a lot of people that are just heretics; they just want to sin. Very few people are really minim. Who's a real min? Missionaries. Missionaries that come from churches and...

2:54:58They want people to leave Judaism and so on. Or such people that are such atheists, they have a real strategy of how to get people away from Judaism. Such people get the worst punishment there is. Why? These people are really destroying the soul. They're destroying the soul. You're not even allowed to help them. You're not allowed to stand six feet next to them. You're not allowed to invite them into your house. You're not allowed to talk to them. Nothing. They come to you, you have to run away. Gemara, Masechet Avodah Zarah. So this is serious, serious. It's not a small deal. It's a big deal. A very big deal. To be a min, you have to be psychotic. But unfortunately, it happens. Now, why do such bad things happen to someone who used to be a good person? That's what happens in Shamayim. Hashem decides to give you a test. He doesn't owe you anything. The fact that you're alive is already a miracle. The fact that you're alive is already a miracle. Why? I'm sure everybody here, including myself, has made at least one sin. The Torah says death penalty. But you're still alive. You're still alive. So the fact that you're alive is a miracle. He doesn't owe you anything. He's God, not you. You can't tell Hashem, "Listen, give me money." What, does He owe you money? You lent the money, and He didn't pay you back? "Hey Hashem, give me a wife." What, He owes you a wife? "Hey Hashem, give me a husband." What, does He owe you a husband? He doesn't owe you anything. He's God. He's the King.

2:56:18He's the King. You can't tell Him anything. All you have to say is, "Thank you, Hashem." Yeah, but I have this. "Thank you, Hashem." Whatever you have, you have to say thank you. Gemara in Masechet Berachot, at the end of it, says a person must say thank you to Hashem, both for the good and for the bad. for good and for bad. Why? Because Hashem, in the end, really loves you, and even what you think is bad is good for you. One example is my own personal story for whoever doesn't know it. When I was going through the suffering of seven years of health crises and fighting for my life, losing money, losing friends, and losing this and losing that, when I was in the fire, I didn't really think it was that good. Baruch Hashem, today I know it's the best thing that ever happened to me. Now, Shani over here in the second row, he witnessed it. So it's not like some story that no one knows. There are witnesses. He's right there; ask him what happened. He saw me. He's one of the guys that helped me deal with some of my pain. He tried to help me in every way he could. Some people were decent, trying to help. Other people ran away. The point is, it's all true. It's not some made-up story. When I was in it, ask him how many times I asked people to kill me. Kill me. My mom's killed me. I didn't want to deal with it. It was pain. Pain you guys can't even imagine.

2:57:28What's the biggest pain you had? You broke a finger? What's the biggest pain you had? You had a little stomach ache? Talk about pain where if you take a dagger, you cut up somebody over and over again, and it's as if it's connected to electricity. That's what I had for seven years. That's pain. I know what pain means. I know what suffering is. I'm telling you, what I had, best thing that ever happened to me. Why? If it didn't happen, I would have never done teshuva. If it didn't happen, I would have never had a chance of going to Gan Eden. If it didn't happen, I would have never ever had a chance of knowing how great Hashem really is. So yes, I went through some suffering. That was my test. Baruch Hashem that it happened. Baruch Hashem that it happened. Your friend Misken, he was given a test, he failed. You have to try again. You're still alive. You're still alive, that means there's still more work to do. You can still do teshuva. The fact that you're still alive is still a miracle. Use it for something. Don't take it for granted. Next question. I think it was an amazing time with you guys. I enjoyed it, Baruch Hashem. I hope that I answered all of your questions. We will arrange more shiurim together. Get this place packed, Baruch Hashem. And make Hashem's name bigger and bigger, Baruch Hashem. Baruch Adonai le'olam. Amen ve'amen.