Secular Jewish Woman Finds HaShem In A Lost Wallet

1:35Speaker, MIA. Now you and I are thinking, wow, these people are probably Erev Rav. Hashem doesn't even want them to do teshuva. The Rambam says someone that is a min, someone that makes other people sin, is a Christian missionary, or is a kofer, even if he's a Jew, tells other people to be mechalel Shabbat, tells people to come to parties on Shabbat, do all these types of things that are against Hashem; he's considered a min. He does it intentionally, he does it knowingly; he's considered 100% a min. The Rambam says you are not even allowed to help him do teshuva. Even if you want to help me not to help him, so you think you know, maybe this is Divine Providence. No, no, the story would go like this: The organizers of this big lecture, this big event, see there are a few of them in the front rows, a few young guys who are learning Torah. None of them are speakers. They're just attending; they learn Torah. So, no...

2:42One of you who knows who's the oldest? Who knows something? Everybody's shy. Nobody ever spoke publicly before; everybody like buries themselves inside the chair. Listen, speaking publicly—it's not something you could just do. It requires so much siyata d'Shmaya. Not everybody's like the many, many chachamim who don't have the ability to speak. Just what they say in one sentence is more than I would know in the next hundred years. But they don't have the ability to speak. Hashem didn't give it to them. Moshe Rabbeinu wasn't a good speaker. But Hashem intentionally did it that way. Why? So no one can ever say, "No, no, he fooled them because he was such a good speaker." He didn't fool them to follow the Torah like Obama fooled the American people to vote for him, not once but twice. Why? No one can say one accomplishment the guy did in his entire life other than fooling the American people for eight years. What can they say? He's a good speaker. That's it. No one can ever say he achieved anything in his life. But he's a good speaker, which he is. So Hashem specifically made Moshe Rabbeinu a bad speaker. Stutter, stammer, mamash, horrible speaker. That's who's going to teach us Torah. So no one can ever say, no, he fooled us. He was, had a quick tongue. No, no, no.

4:07Now in this giant lecture, they're looking for somebody to speak for one day. Okay, you know, you're the oldest. Let's go. What are you learning? Oh, okay, no, I want my second. Oh, but I come about me. Yeah, well, that's wrong. So I'm learning the... Allahhot okay, no, teach us about that. No, I don't want to speak, young guy mesukan. What does he know? He learned a little bit of Torah, but he's not a public speaker. He came to the shiur to also be one of the crowd, to also be one of the learners, one of the people that enjoy the shiur. He didn't come to speak. I No, no, but you're the only one in this entire room that actually knows something. Everybody else relies on him. It's 500,000 people relying on him. They don't know anything. They know here and there a few things that their parents taught them, but they don't know much. You actually know Torah. You've been religious your whole life. Now tell him whatever you learn. He scans the room, poor guy didn't realize what he got himself into. So he goes on the stage and...

5:10And he starts speaking. What are you going to speak about? He says, I'm going to speak about the daf that I'm learning. It discusses what happens when you find something that was lost. In the Jewish world, when you find something that's lost, you can't just pocket it like an animal. You have to find out if it belongs to somebody. If it belongs to a Jew, you must return it unless it's going to cost you more to return it than it's worth. So, for example, if you find a dollar... wallet and let's say there's an ID of the person in there. You know that this belongs to Amos who lives in Australia, but you're in Israel, and there's one dollar in the wallet. You don't have to return it. Why? Because it's going to cost you more to travel to Australia. It would cost you $2,000 for the plane ticket to return a dollar, and you are not obligated to do that. If, let's say, he lives down the street, and you find a couple of hundred bucks in the wall, give a hundred bucks, fifty bucks, whatever it is, you have to return it. But long story short, there's a calculation of what you have to return and what you don't have to return, who to return it to, and who not to return it to. If it belongs to a non-Jew (goy), you technically don't have to return it. But if you do, you could fulfill one of the biggest mitzvot in the Torah, which is Kiddush Hashem.

6:35Some people are saying this, and I found 500 bucks. I have confirmation it belongs to a guy. I'm pocketing it. It's nes min Shamayim (a miracle from Heaven), which it could be. But the reward you're going to get when you return the 500 bucks to the guy is in Shamayim. When you sanctify Hashem's name and the guy knows, "Oh, you returned it to me?" "Why did you return 500 bucks?" "I return it to you because that's what our Torah says. Hashem told us to return it." You just fulfilled Kiddush Hashem. You are a super tzaddik. There's one tzaddik, I believe in New Jersey, who bought a used desk from a non-Jewish woman, and when he got the desk to put it into the house, he had to take it apart. When he took it apart, he saw that inside the desk there was a bag. So he took the bag, opened it, and saw that there was almost ninety thousand dollars in cash inside. Opened the bag and he saw that there's almost ninety thousand dollars in cash in the bag inside the desk. Ninety thousand! Oh, this isn't just a typical situation. The Rabbi, not some rich guy with millions in the bank or anything, is a young guy, relatively newly married. Now he had a choice. Based on halacha, he could keep the money and enjoy it since he bought it from a guy and...

8:03Pretty much as is, lost it. She considered it lost. She didn't even think about whether it was in there or not. It's a lot to keep it. Based on being a tzaddik, based on loving Hashem, he decided the right choice. What do you say? I'm gonna go return it to her. And late at night he called; by the time he got home from where this woman was living, it was late at night. But he called her. The woman nearly had a heart attack. Oh, I forgot about it. I lost this. This is part of my inheritance that I got, but I lost it many years ago. I lost it. I forgot why I put it. She forgot where she put almost a hundred thousand dollars in cash. Forgetfulness happens, as people forget things. Sometimes you forget stuff that's very valuable. We think it is. Why did she forget it? So this Jew... Would have the test of what's more important to him: a few bucks or Kiddush Hashem. So, this Jew went to this woman's house and gave her the money. She gave him some type of compensation, which she decided on her own.

9:18I don't know how much it was, but it doesn't make a difference; the compensation he got from Shamayim is endless. The woman was so enthused about the story. She decided to publicize it. She called the news for him. He went on talk shows, and people were just amazed. How is this guy a multi-millionaire? Maybe this guy has a foundation with a hundred zillion dollars. He has nothing to do with it, but he just bought a desk for a couple hundred bucks. How much money could he possibly have? She became a very big kiruv agent. So you have an opportunity to do kiruv if you find something to return it to the goy. Now, back to our story. This woman is watching this young avreich who doesn't know that much, not being a public speaker. She says, "This is Judaism? I'm going to India." Came all the way over here. There are a thousand people. What is he teaching us about? If somebody lost a wallet, that's what Judaism is about? Oh, that's what Hashem cares about—cares about what you're going to do with the wallet? So, she decided to learn from the guru in India. She went to India, and over the next several months, she became best friends with this guru. Oh.

10:40Shema him, and she starts to learn from this guru with the rest of his students And they all follow him every single step that he does. He moves this way, and they move that way. He moves that way, and they explain it. "Oh, what was this? What was he thinking when he did that?" Oh, it's the spirits, it's this, it's that. They see him drinking urine, and they want to drink urine, Hashem. All types of stupidity and foolishness that have no end. There's no end to stupidity. Even Einstein, who wasn't a religious guy, said there's only one thing that has no limit. What is it? Stupidity. There's an infinite amount of stupidity, infinite. So she's watching and she's becoming a guru. She's becoming one of his top students. One day, this guru is in the street, and he sees a man right in front of him with all the students. It's as if he has an entourage. Everybody's walking with the guru, and they see the man in front of him drop a wallet.

11:46The floor, the guru picks it up right away, opens it up, sees there's a bunch of bills in there, and pockets the money, throwing out the wallet. The guru takes the money, puts it in his pocket, and throws out the wallet. Now, the girl sees this and she goes, "Hey, your guru, don't you think maybe you should return it to him?" He responds, "It's good karma." She adds, "No, no, it's good karma for me to have this extra money in my pocket," and... That's what good karma is. It's good karma for me to be rich. Avodah Zarah, the idol, sent me the money. Yeah, but you know it belongs to him, who sent you the money, if you just found money by itself in some box, those floating in the air. Okay, sent you the money, but you saw the guy that lost the money is two meters away from you. Maybe it's his entire month's salary, or even his entire year's salary. Maybe it's a loan. Maybe he needs the money to save his son's life. You never know what this money is for. He's going to pocket it. Hey, don't ask any questions. That's when this young Jewish woman realized "kol chochmato lo shaveh klum."

13:09All of his wisdom is worthless. Why? His actions are no good. His actions are no good. Like in the Kuzari, he had a dream. An angel came to him and said, "Hashem appreciates your intentions. You're trying to get close to Him. You're trying to find the truth of who God is." He doesn't appreciate or accept your actions because you're doing it for avodah zarah (idolatry). So, your intentions are good, but your actions are not good. So, this Jewish woman realized this is all shtuyot (nonsense). It's all garbage. It's all fake - karma, dharma, Burma, all nonsense. The guy is in it for money. The guy is a beheima (an animal). I... To think that all the righteous people live back at home in Israel because even to find out what you do with a wallet that you find, we have halachah for that. We have rules on what you do when you find a wallet. She needed to find out more, so she went on the next plane to Israel and went back to the seminary and...

14:32And she continued delving more and more into the Torah and, Baruch Hashem, did full teshuvah, and told the story to the world. When a nation has a holy Torah, a divine book that even has rules about what to do with the lost and found department, it shows that you're not just an average person; you're part of something bigger than yourself.