Share in a MITZVAH
To Support our KIRUV and Torah Teachings work please DONATE at www.BeEzratHaShem.org If you'd like to invite Rabbi Yaron Reuven to give a lecture at your synagogue, home or office. Rabbi Reuven is based out of Florida but travels to give lectures to different groups. Join one of our interactive "Interesting Torah" Whatsapp groups to get daily updates and short Torah clips that can uplift your day by texting 1.917.468.2324 or +91 93236 69880 Click here https://soundcloud.com/yaronreuven/se... To Listen to our very popular "Daily Chidush" short audio series on SOUNDCLOUD or the Podcast Channel at https://beezrathashem.jewishpodcasts.... Born in Netanya, Israel, Rabbi Yaron Reuven began his American Dream as a little boy, when his family immigrated to the United States. He went from a newspaper boy at the age of 10, to a well-known self-made Wall Street multimillionaire by the age of 23. During his time in Wall Street, he owned his own private brokerage firm, a hedge fund, and an international insurance agency. He was featured on CNBC, Bloomberg and Chinese NDTV due to his success in the financial industry. At age 26 he faced a 7-year battle for his life when a simple surgery went wrong. From that moment his life would never be the same. This moment marked the start of a series of miraculous events and an exciting pursuit of truth, ultimately resulting in Rabbi Reuven renouncing his lofty position and success in Wall Street, after 16 years, to become a full-time KIRUV rabbi. His Teshuva story is sure to catch the heart of every listener. Rabbi Reuven’s shiurim are in English and Hebrew. His classes are focused on spreading the truth and divinity of the Torah through MUSSAR, scientific proofs, and many other methods to reach each individual listener. Rabbi Reuven is the leading educator on the topic of wasting seed in the English language with over 30 hrs of content published online. Rabbi Yaron Reuven is a proud member of the Igud HaRabbonim (The Rabbinical Alliance of America), a national rabbinic organization founded in 1942. Today, our 900+ members are congregational leaders, religious teachers, chaplains, heads of Jewish organizations and communal leaders united in their commitment to traditional Orthodox Judaism. For more information please visit: https://rabbinicalalliance.org/ 00:00:00 Intoduction 00:00:06 Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz Story Intro 00:01:07 Destroying the Cross and Imprisonment 00:01:35 Saving the Zealous Friend with Money 00:02:05 Negotiating with the Church Guard 00:02:33 Paying the Ransom in Full 00:03:03 Congregation's Offer and Rav's Dilemma 00:03:57 Hiding From Wife and the Christian's Gift 00:04:41 Christian's Motivation: Real Jew 00:05:07 Wife's Joy and Rav's Hysterical Crying 00:06:49 Reward in This World and Connection 00:07:42 Loving Hashem unconditionally 00:08:40 Selfishness and Complete Mitzvot
Transcript
0:06To understand the issue of sharing a mitzvah, there's a phenomenal story about Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz. Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz had a friend who was a kanai, a zealous tzaddik. Every day they would study, study together in chavruta, and to their dismay,
1:07But his zealous friend couldn't take it one day. He says, that's it. I have a plan. What are you going to do? I'm going to destroy it. They're going to kill you. Let them kill me. He sacrifices his life for the sanctification of Hashem's name. So he goes and destroys the cross. And as he comes down from destroying the cross, what do they do? They catch him. They catch him and throw him in their jail. They decide, "Okay, we have to kill him." After their fake court hearing, they say, "Okay, we're gonna kill him." So now, Abuyesa and the rest of the kehillah have to find a way to save him. What's the best way to get people to do what you want? Especially if they are avadim (servants) of the money. So they find somebody that works for the church, the guard of the church, and they find out that he likes money. Big surprise. So they tell him, "Listen, how much money is it to free our friend?" "Oh, your friend's expensive." "Okay, okay, how much, how much?" "Listen, if they catch me..." "It's okay, okay, how much, how much?" He tells them a huge amount. "No problem, we'll get it to you." "Listen, you don't have that much time." "We'll get it to you."
2:33And Rabbi Yonatan HaBishitz says, "I don't know if they're gonna get it or they're not gonna get it. It's gonna take some time." He has the amount because his father-in-law gave them a big present when they got married. He's rich and gave a big present to his daughter to make sure that she's okay. Here, he takes everything the father-in-law gave, their entire life savings, from the safe without telling his wife, and goes and gives it to the Christian. He says, "Here, free my friend." The rest of the kehillah comes to the goy and says, "Okay, we got part of the money." He goes, "Ah, don't worry. Don't worry. Your friend, Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz, already paid me the full amount. Your friend is already free." So the kehillah comes to Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz. For the love, we want a piece of the mitzvah. We got half the money. There's wow. Hey, you want me to share? People share the mitzvah? I already did it. I already did it. I performed the mitzvah. I can't sell you a mitzvah. I already did it. So they got all the money, but now the mitzvah, it's already too late. But now the Rav has to deal with the consequences. What are the consequences? He has to tell his wife that they're poor now, and...
3:57Scared to tell his wife. So what does he do? He goes through and he says, okay, I'll be back. He goes to the kollel and hides there for a week. He hides in the kollel for a week. After a week passes, he has to go home. During that week, the Christian comes to his wife, comes to his house, and... He's under pressure. He's like, "Listen here," and he gives her three buckets full of diamonds, gold, and money. He says, "Here, give this to your husband." She asks, "What is this for?" He says, "Listen, they caught me at the church. I've been stealing money from them for years, and they saw there's something fishy with this prisoner. He ran away, and it's under my control, and they want to kill me, so I have to run away. I can't take all this money. So if I survive, I know that your husband is so honest that he's gonna give me the money back. And if he does, if I don't survive, I want him to have it." She goes, "Why do you want him to have it? Why do you like my husband so much?" A Christian says, "It's because your husband is a real Jew, and..." They saw there's something fishy with this prisoner who ran away, and it's under my control, and they want to kill me. So I have to run away. I can't take all this money. So if I survive, I know that your husband is so honest that he's going to give me the money back. And if I don't survive, I want him to have it. She goes, "Why do you want him to have it? Why do you like my husband so much?" A Christian? It's because your husband is a real Jew, and...
5:07He was willing to sacrifice everything he has just to save another Jew. Just to say, everything you guys had, he gave me. He told me he gave everything you have. She doesn't even know yet. She doesn't even know. She's finding out from the goy. He gave me everything you have to save his friend, to save another Jew. So he deserves it. If I survive, I know he's honest enough that he's going to give it back to me. If I don't survive, I want him to have it. This demonstrates the integrity and immense selflessness that one can achieve when prioritizing the life and well-being of another Jew. So he gives her these three buckets full of diamonds, gold, and everything. Rabbi Yonaton Eibeschitz comes home later that day. He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know what happened. He's coming home, contemplating, "I'm going to tell her. No, no, I'm not going to tell her. I'm going to tell her. I'm not going to tell her. What am I going to do?" He comes into the house. His wife is happy, cheering, and singing, "Look what your God did for you. Look what your God did for you." Look what your Lover did for you. Look what your Lover did for you. Who loves me? Who? God. Why? Why are you saying God loves me? Look what He did for you. Look. You gave a little bit of our money, what we had, a little bit that we have. Look how much reward He gave you. Three buckets full of gold. A thousand times more. What do you do now? Honestly, what do you do at this moment? What do you do?
6:33He starts hysterically crying. Abirak and Abishetz, alav ha-shalom, start hysterically crying because he knows the truth. He says, "Oi vey, Oi vey li, Hashem paid me reward in this world. Oi vey li, Hashem paid me reward in this world." That means he doesn't like my mitzvah. He doesn't like my mitzvah, and I know why he doesn't like my mitzvah; because I didn't share the chesed. I didn't share; I took it all to myself. He says, "Oh, you took it all to yourself. I'll give you the reward here then." You want all the mitzvot to yourself? Fine. I'll give you the reward to yourself too. Oy vey, vey, what did I do to my connection with Hashem? Oy vey, vey, look what I'm doing. What am I doing with all this money, all this garbage? What am I going to do with this garbage? My connection with Hashem is hurt.
7:42That's a lover of Hashem. Do you understand? People say, no, no, I love Hashem. I love Hashem. What do you love about Hashem? Do you love the money He gave you? Do you love the wife He gave you? The husband He gave you? The kids He gave you? What do you love about Hashem? Loving Hashem, Rabotai, is like what Iyov said. Iyov says, even if you were to destroy me, I would still serve Him. The Baal Shem Tov, alav ha-shalom, asks, what does this mean? It means that if Hashem says... From now on, every mitzvah you do, you're gonna go to Gehenom for. And every aveirah, you go to Gan Eden. What do you do? I'm just asking you a question. Okay, from now on he says every mitzvah, from now on, every mitzvah you do, you're gonna go to Gehenom. And every sin, now you're gonna go to Gan Eden. Can anyone honestly say they would even fulfill one mitzvah for the rest of their life, or they're all going to commit sins? I'm not going to embarrass you, but I'll be the first one to say it. No more mitzvot. Why? Because we're selfish. We're selfish people. We want to go to Gan Eden. We care less about Ratzon Hashem. Because we don't love Him. We love ourselves.
9:06What does the Baal Shem Tov say? Even if Hashem tells me that for every mitzvah I go to Gehenom, I'm still doing the mitzvah. Because I know that's His will. And even when I go up to Shamayim, the Baal Shem Tov says, I go up to Shamayim. Hey, they tell me, listen, you gotta go to Kaf HaKela. Oh, great, Hashem said it. Fine. He runs to Kaf HaKela. Oh, Hashem says to Gehenom, I'm going to Gehenom. Hey, what do you mean? You're going to suffer. Yeah, but that's what Hashem wants. If that's what Hashem wants, let there be suffering. That's loving Hashem, meaning we're dreaming when we say we love Hashem. What, I love Hashem? You love yourself. Rabbi Yonatan Eibeschutz understood, Rabotai, the Ikarim. He understood what it means to connect to Hashem and what's at risk when we're disconnected. He says, I did a mitzvah, I gave everything I had, but it was an incomplete mitzvah. Why? It was selfish. Selfish. You have to share the mitzvah. Share the mitzvah.
10:08That's why, for us to do mitzvot, it's not just about doing something. It's about doing it completely. The connection with Hashem is all about shlemut (completeness). Meaning, your mitzvot need to be complete and...
