Shavuot (With Guest Speaker Rabbi Yaron Reuven - Amazing Personal Story)

0:00Good evening, everyone. We are a few days before Shavuot, a time of preparation during which we elevate ourselves daily, step by step, from Pesach to Shavuot. A few days before the acceptance of the Torah, from Pesach to Shavuot is a time of preparation during which we elevate ourselves daily, step by step. all the way to the day that we receive the Torah. You may ask, 3,300 years later, what difference does it make? Back then, we felt the holiness of accepting the Torah, but today we already have the Torah. What's the occasion of Shavuot, besides having a Yom Tov? What else? The answer is that every holiday

1:01has the same spiritual light in heaven, just like the time it happened in history. Pesach, the exodus from Egypt, the night that we celebrate the Seder, it's the same light, the same special light that we had back then. And Shavuot, the day that we accepted the Torah, has the same light as the day that we accepted the Torah. So since today, we are a few days before Shavuot, I'm gonna at least start speaking about the night of Shavuot, what's special about that night. And then if we have time, we'll speak about other things. As you all know, when Hashem came to Moshe Rabbeinu, It was a process. First, he told him you have to go to Pharaoh and convince him to send them out of Mitzrayim. And Moshe was refusing. It took one week back and forth between Moshe and Hashem until he finally agreed to go. And then when he went there, it took many times. He kept going again and again. And Hashem started to strike Egypt with the plagues.

2:14And we know basically how the chronological order of the events was. At one point, we arrived at Makkat Bechorot. That was the night that we came out of Mitzrayim, and Hashem killed all the firstborns in Mitzrayim, and we came out of Mitzrayim. Now, once we came out of Mitzrayim and the Egyptians chased us, they drowned. after that, it took seven weeks exactly until we received the Torah. But three days before we got the Torah, there were special days. Hashem said to Moshe, I want you to prepare the nation, to prepare them for the special, for the special day that is going to happen. Three days, everybody has to be holy, has to be pure, that's the correct word, to purify themselves. How do you purify yourself today?

3:17You know we have the Torah, we have the mitzvot, but now we are talking about before the Torah was given. How do you purify yourself? So Hashem said to Moshe that the way to purify ourselves is not to have relations with our wives. For three days before, not to have personal contact, any intimate relationship we shouldn't have. And the question that we have to ask right away is why? Hashem said to wash all the clothes, which means to purify them. And obviously, there was a way to purify yourself. So why do we need three days before not to have contact with our wives? He could have said, a few hours before I'm going to give you the Torah, I want everyone to go to the mikveh. You have some kind of lake there, something, that's obviously, you know, where you're washing your clothes and getting water. Purify yourself over there. Why do you need not to be with your wife for three days before?

4:25and the answer is, three days after a person was intimate with his wife still, the effect of the relationship that they had is still affecting the body of the woman. The connection that they have is up to three days; the sperm can still make the woman impure even though it was over. Even if she washed herself, whatever happened three days later can still keep her impure. Therefore, Hashem says three days before and three days after. The seed is losing its value; it does not deserve to be called seed anymore. What we call, it's already losing its ability and therefore it doesn't have the status anymore of what it was. And after that, from then on, it's no problem. By the way, I saw a research

5:26that they show that five days after, the sperm can still conceive a woman, can still make her pregnant. Five days after. It doesn't contradict what the Torah says. The Torah didn't say that it cannot. Just that the Torah says that three days it still makes a woman tameh. But after three days, it doesn't make her any more tameh. this is the story of the three days. It's called that Hashem actually puts a limit, and He told us that these three days we have to purify ourselves to be able to accept the Torah. However, let's read a little bit about how it was explained in the Torah, and then we will explain why we have to stay up all night on Shavuot and learn Torah. What's the significance of that? So... Vayishma, the way the Torah, it's in Parashat Yitro. Vayishma Yitro, in Parashat Yitro, there is a part in Parashat Yitro that describes exactly how we accepted the Torah. Let's focus on some of the words, because although we read it many times, we don't always pay attention. Hashem comes to Moshe and says, this is the way He says—if you're going to listen to Me...

6:52and you keep My covenant, you're going to be a special nation to Me. The word "mesugal" means "able to." He has special abilities that others may not have. So you're going to be a special nation to Me from all the nations because I am the Master of the land. Meaning everyone is under My supervision, but from you, I expect something totally different than the gentiles. You are special, you have abilities, you are the children of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. You're going to be mesugal with special abilities, but that's conditional, make no mistake here. All your abilities, it's only if you're going to listen to Me, keep My covenant, then you're going to be a special nation. Meaning, if you're not listening to Me, and you don't follow My covenant, Not only are you not special, you are worse than the Goyim. Why? Because from the Goyim, I have very little expectation. They just have to keep seven laws and they are considered righteous. And when they die, they go to the heaven for the Goyim. It's very, very easy to be a Goy, to be a righteous Goy. Six of the seven laws they keep anyway.

8:16one of the laws is very hard: that you should not steal anything, not even a quarter, not even a dollar. That's very difficult for everyone, not only for the Goyim. To go your entire life without stealing almost anything is very, very difficult. Even a person that is very careful sometimes accidentally may have gezel in his hand. He borrowed a book and forgot to return it, all kinds of things like that. He used someone's pen without permission, or he took someone's pen and accidentally kept it, and then he found it at home and realized, "Wow, where would I find this person?" All kinds of things like this may happen to a person. It's very, very interesting. So the goyim, if they keep the seven Noachide laws, they go to Olam HaBa (the World to Come) and that's it. And the Jews, they may do a lot more than the goyim and still not make it to Olam HaBa. And still, God forbid, may not have a share in the World to Come. Why? Depends on what violations they're breaking. If they violate some of the rules, they may have some serious problems. So Hashem continues. You're going to be a kingdom of Kohanim. What do you mean a kingdom of Kohanim? Kohanim means, the meaning of the word Kohanim is a servant of a holy service.

9:41A servant of Hashem. In English, the right word for that, maybe it's a priest. Not a Christian priest, but a priest in general. But this is what it means. You're going to be a kingdom of servants, of holy servants. V'goi kadosh. And you're going to be a holy nation. Remember, this is all conditional. You're only going to be holy if you keep this condition: following My covenant and keeping My mitzvot. Then you're going to be a special nation, goy kadosh. In Israel, the word goy, you have all the liberals and all the anti-religion people that when they hear that somebody called a Gentile a goy, they get angry. They look at that, chas v'shalom, like it's a bad word. But this is only pure ignorance. The word goy, it's not a bad word. It means a nation. It means a nation. Here is an example right here that Hashem called the Jewish nation goyim.

10:47But different kinds of goyim. Goy kadosh, holy nation. It could be just a nation. It could be a holy nation. That's it. It doesn't mean that a nation is something bad. It means somebody from another nation. The word goy today in modern Hebrew means a non-Jew. It doesn't mean a bad word. We say in the speeches many, many times: the righteous Goyim, Goy Tzadik. We say it all the time. If "Goy" is a bad word, how can it be "Tzadik"? It's just that they like to take something against the speaker or against the religion, so they present it wrong. In the Torah, it says you're going to be a Goy Kadosh, a holy nation. and write that Moshe brings this request from Hashem to the Jewish nation and they all answer together. What do you need to write in the Torah? Meaning together, all we care about is that they all answer that they're going to do what Hashem wants. Why does it have to write to us? It means everyone together spoke.

11:58the answer is, when you have a crowd, sometimes people begin to scream. It could be, let's say, from a thousand people, twenty people begin to scream. And all the other nine hundred and eighty people, when they see twenty people start to shout, they follow them. They are called in Hebrew, "nigrarim." You have "goer" and you have "nigrar." "Goer" means you tow someone. You've pulled him after you. And he is the nigrar. He is pulled, meaning he doesn't have his own opinion. the wind is shifting him left and shifting him right; he cannot choose direction. So, when he sees his older brother going in some direction, he will immediately run after him. Or, when he sees a person running after a scene, he will immediately run after him. Meaning, he doesn't have his own opinion; he's always moved by other people. Most of the people in the world are like this. In Hebrew, there is an expression...

13:03we say about these people, "they don't have a spine," meaning when you have a spine, it balances the body; it makes the body stand straight. You are in control. If you don't have a spine, you become like a piece of rubber; you don't have your own stability. That's just an expression, meaning this person is very easy to hypnotize. As soon as you begin to talk to him, you're going to decide where he's going. This is the same way in the election in America. They brainwash the people. Everyone that speaks last is winning the polls. he's gonna speak tonight and give a beautiful speech. Tomorrow morning, Donald Trump is leading. The next day, the other one will come, and he is now leading. Why? Because the majority of people, not only Americans but the majority of people in the world, are always influenced by the last thing they heard. Just as easy as it is to influence them, it's easy to switch their mind 180 degrees in a minute.

14:11This is it, I see it all the time. Many times I spoke to people, wow, unbelievable, okay, that's it, I'm going to start keeping mitzvot. Two hours later, I just spoke to my brother, and this, oh, he became a goy again. How is it so easy after you saw the proofs right away to go back? It shows you that these people cannot really come up with their own thinking. and they don't have stability. That's why the Torah wants you to know over here, it's not that 20% scream one thing and all the others follow them because there was like a trend, "Okay, if that's what they think, let's follow them." No, no, no! Yachdav, in one second, everybody answered together, "Of course we're going to do." everyone, with no exception, meaning everyone agreed to accept and to keep the covenant. Then Moshe came and said to Hashem their answer, and then Hashem said to Moshe, "I'm coming to you in a cloud."

15:15I want the nation to listen to our conversation. Why? Why is it important that Moshe and Hashem will have to talk in front of the entire nation? Why? The answer is... because many, many times after Judaism started, a fake gentile came and started a fake religion: Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Krishna— all kinds of cults and religions that were made by one individual. What's the difference between them and the Torah? They never had any conversation with God in public. Nobody ever witnessed that God gave them a mission, that He even spoke to them. The only way that people follow them is based on their story. Mary came and she claimed she had a dream. Muhammad came and he claimed that Angel Gabriel gave him the Quran, but nobody ever witnessed that. Buddha came and he claimed he saw the light; he had an enlightenment, but nobody ever witnessed it. So why does the story begin with 50 percent doubt? Because no one ever witnessed it. It's a matter of belief, faith. You want to believe, believe. You don't want to believe, it's up to you. It will never be able to be proven.

16:35Nobody can prove such a thing. It's a story. Nobody ever witnessed it. But you and I, Hashem says to Moshe, I'm giving you the only religion that I have. I don't have two religions. There's not two truths. There's only one. The one divine truth that I'm giving to you today, I'm not going to give it to you in a burning bush when you and I were alone with no witnesses. No. I could have given it to you right here with a burning bush and sent you to Egypt with the Torah. No, I'm not interested. I designed a beautiful show. I want everybody to hear that I'm speaking to you. I want everyone to see that I'm giving you the Torah in a public event that each one of them will witness that I gave you the Torah. Otherwise, it will never ever be the truth. why it will always have a question mark, I won't be able to judge the people. How will I be able to judge the people? If they die one day and they come and stand in front of me, and I'm gonna say to them, "Why did you not keep my laws?" They will answer to me, "Because I wasn't sure about your laws. I had a 50% doubt. You want me to dedicate my whole life to the story and then, in the end, it was all baloney?"

17:54what would I do to the person? I would have to justify it. You're right, you're not a fool. Somebody told you a story, and right away you run and believe it. So here he was in front of the entire nation And that's when Hashem said, "Sanctify them, tell them not to go to a woman for three days, let them wash their clothes and be ready on the third day. Tell the nation no one is allowed to go on the mountain." Once they came down from the mountain, no one was allowed to climb on the mountain; no one was allowed to touch the mountain with his hand. Even to touch the sand on the mountain or the rocks, if a person would just reach his arm onto the mountain, he would be killed instantly. This is the warning. No one is allowed. Moshe went down and he came to the nation, and he prepared them. They all washed their clothes and separated from their wives. They went into the mikveh. Everything was ready to go. And then what happened? On the third day, early in the morning, noises began.

19:14Like thunder, big thunder started to become louder and louder. Thunder and heavy clouds on the mountain. And a siren began. A siren. Today we call it a siren; back then they called it kol shofar, a voice of a shofar. But not like when we blow the shofar on Rosh Hashanah, right away full force. No. It started quietly. After a few minutes, a little bit louder, and louder, and louder. Try to close your eyes and imagine the event right now. early in the morning, after anticipating this special day, the most important moment in the history of this world is about to begin. The first and last time in history that the Creator of the world agreed to come and speak in public. It never happened before. It only happened to a few individuals: to Adam, to Noah, to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob. Very, very few people. That's it.

20:21can count on one or maximum two hands how many people who had the opportunity to speak to God until that moment, and now all of a sudden millions are going to witness it. So the shofar, the voice, is becoming louder and louder. All the people started to shake from fear. What do we see over here? Today, it's illegal to scare the Jews. If the speaker says something that makes them nervous, it's over. The next lecture, half of the people don't show up if he's lucky. Sometimes three-quarters, right? So... When Hashem does something, He knows how He created us. And one of the ways to make us pay attention is to put fear in our hearts. It's not bad. There's nothing wrong with that. Don't follow the people who say fear is not good. “I want it with love and pleasantness. I want it with jokes.” Enough with this nonsense.

21:32The way the Torah is described on every page, Hashem is interested that we fear Him. It says clearly. It's not my interpretation. It's simple reading. What does the Torah say? You have to fear God. You have to love Him. You have to fear Him. and you should fear Me. I'm not your friend. Now I'm giving you the Torah. Why am I not giving you the Torah with flowers and music, violins, and some dancers, you know, everyone in circles, and then the Torah will come down? Why not? Why does it have to be noise? Bombs, thunders, you know the thunders, sometimes you hear the thunders, it's breaking the windows. It's very scary. Why did Hashem make such strong thunders? What? A wake-up call. Wake up, my sons. Boom, an explosion. Right away a person makes a blessing.

22:42It reminds him of Hashem. Imagine if Hashem would get angry at me. Look at this thunder. Right away the fear makes a person do teshuva. Right? There's nothing wrong with that. Only today they describe it like it's something derogatory. I always say, it's a great honor to be scared of Hashem. To be scared of people, no, it's not, no kavod, no nothing. But to be scared of God, it's a great honor. The more you're scared of Him, the more intelligent you are, the more smart you are, the more wise you are, the more clever you are. You name it. It's not a sign of stupidity or foolishness. It's a sign of greatness. If a person is not afraid of God, who is he afraid of? That means he's not normal. If he's not normal, what do you expect from him? So the Torah describes how the Torah was given: sirens, shofar, very scary. The shofar gives a person goosebumps. Even today on Rosh Hashanah, you feel goosebumps all over your body when they blow the shofar. And then the floor is shaking, the ground, and the clouds, and fire all over the mountain, and explosions everywhere.

24:03why all this? So that nobody will ever, ever dare to forget that moment. This moment, I promise you, those people never forgot it until the day they died. And then Moshe brought them to the mountain. He warned them not to go on the mountain. Hashem came down on the mountain with fire. The Gemara says, how can you be... The Torah says you have to stick to God. How can you stick to God? God is a fire that consumes everything. How can you stick to fire? The answer is, don't stick literally to God. Stick to the good rabbis. By sticking to them and to the Torah they teach you, it's like you're stuck with Hashem together. This is what it means. Right? So it says... Everyone is standing, and the voice of the shofar became even louder. Hashem is calling Moshe to the mountain. What happened right now?

25:21Hashem gave the Ten Commandments to the Jewish nation. But how? He wanted to read all the Ten Commandments aloud. The problem is that after He finished the second commandment, all the Jewish people started to shake. They got so scared. So they said to Hashem, to Moshe, please, please. Speak to Hashem, you yourself, go bring the Torah. We cannot handle it. It's too scary. We cannot. And then Moshe said to them, don't worry, Hashem is not here to hurt you. He's only here to test you. This is what they said, "You talk to us. Don't make Hashem talk to us." If God will continue to talk to us, we're about to die from fear. Their soul came out. Their soul came out of their body from fear. And Moshe answered, don't be scared. Hashem came to test you.

26:31Hashem wants His fear to be always on your face, that you should not commit any sin. From here, from what I'm reading to you in the Torah, what is the most productive way to prevent people from committing sins? What is it? No, I want to hear. Fear. That's it. What, are you arguing with what God says? You know better than Him? Today everyone became a specialist. Fear won't work. Fear is the only thing that works. We combine it together with love; it's a wonderful combination. Yes, fear only, it's not going to work, of course. Love only, it's also not going to work. Love and fear... It's a beautiful combination. Meir, this chair was waiting for you already for two weeks. Yeah, that's the chair you like, no? You see nobody is sitting there after you sat there. Directly from Eretz HaKodesh. Baruch Hashem. Now, why do we have to stay up? From the story here, we don't see anything wrong, no? No?

27:38Not everything is written in the Torah. We also have the Oral Torah. When we go to the Oral Torah, we find something shocking. Shocking. Just before we received the Torah in the morning, the Jews went to sleep. Moshe, Yitzchak, Avraham, they're snoring. In a few hours, they're supposed to get the Torah. How can you go to sleep? How can you believe such a thing? You know in a few hours you're going to get the Torah from God, and God is going to speak to you. Moshe is preparing you: don't touch your wife, clean yourself, wash your clothes, make sure there's nothing on your clothes, and now you're going to sleep? How can it be? The adrenaline should have kept them awake for a week. Unbelievable. They went to sleep. because they went to sleep 3,300 years ago, we are not going to sleep. Do you understand? The night of Shavuot is to rectify what they did wrong. They went to sleep in such a crucial moment. Every night on Shavuot, the day that I gave you the Torah, you'll be up all night. Now, how are you going to stay up all night? This is how it goes...

28:58This year, it's attached to Shabbat. Remember that in Israel, you have only one day of Yom Tov. In America, or in the rest of the Diaspora, you have two days of Yom Tov. which makes it much, much longer now. Now you have Shabbat and two more days. It's actually three days in a row like Shabbat, although there are some differences between Shabbat and Yom Tov. On Yom Tov, there are a few more things that are more lenient than on Shabbat. But with three days of Shabbaton, three days. Motzei Shabbat, this Saturday night, When we do the Havdalah, when do we do the Havdalah? Inside the Kiddush. When we actually do Kiddush for the Yom Tov, inside the Havdalah, inside the Kiddush, we have a part, if it's falling on Motzei Shabbat, this is what you have to read. Not only that, not only that,

30:04We make the seudah of Yom Tov after the Kiddush. What do we eat? We eat meat. It's a mitzvah on Yom Tov to eat meat. You eat bread, you eat meat. No problem. Then we rush to the synagogue or to the yeshiva. The faster you get there, the better it is. Why? We have a long Tikkun to read. Soon I'm going to show you how they... organize the special Tikkun of Shavuot, and we're going to understand why we rush to the synagogue. It's better to be there before eleven. If you get there, you have all the way until five in the morning. Around five in the morning, they already start to pray, ten to five, something like that. So you have about six hours maximum to learn. It's not enough if you see how much there is to read and to learn. It may not be enough. It can only be enough if a person takes advantage of the entire night without talking, going out for coffee or cigarettes for 10 minutes, then coming back in, and then again going out for 10 minutes. Then, the thermos coffee didn't come out good, so he goes back home to prepare a new Turkish coffee. Then, he comes back and learns for half an hour, puts his head down, and then his son gives him a massage, saying, "Abba, wake up."

31:24The whole six hours and 15 minutes he learned. You fool. All night you're not going to sleep for 15 minutes? Learn 15 minutes at home and go to sleep. Don't do us a favor. If you do it, do it right. We have a guy from L.A., more or less my age. So he said to me, my soul needs to come to the yeshiva over there in Monsey. I must take a month break from this area here in L.A. So he's been running after me already for 10 days. When? Where can I order the ticket? When? When? When? So when I realized that he is really serious, because a lot of people, they talk, they get excited. I say, you ready to come? Yeah, if you tell me tomorrow morning, I come. I order the ticket tomorrow. So I said, "Okay, order the ticket. But I want to tell you one thing. Come only on one condition: that when you get here, you don't waste a minute. You come to the yeshiva, you sit all day, you learn, you don't go in and out—phone calls, emails, cigarettes, coffee, in and out, going to the store, going to the shop, going here, going to the barber. If you come for that, stay in L.A."

32:42If you come here for a month, I want this month to be every minute you hear its Torah. You ready for it? No talking, no baloney, no jokes, no "Hi, how are you? Nice to meet you. What's your name? My name? Forget about this." You come for Torah? Yes or no? If I wouldn't be embarrassed, I would play as he left me a recording. I'm more ready than ever. That's called reverse psychology. Reverse psychology. If you come to a person and say, "Come, come, I'm begging you, come, you should come, you should come," he may come, but he will feel like he's doing you a favor. If you come and say to him, "Don't come, don't, don't do us a favor, stay there. If you come, it's only on one condition. Otherwise, don't come." No, of course, I want to come. You understand? That's how people are. Let's see now. In one week, we'll be smarter. Next Tuesday, remind me to ask how he did in his first week.

33:51why I'm saying it is that when a teenager comes to yeshiva, besides some nonsense that he has on his cell phone, he doesn't have that much on his mind. He doesn't have businesses, meetings, or people to worry about, so he can focus on Torah after a day or two and sit and learn. But when a person at this age has businesses, meetings, and people to worry about, and he puts everything on hold for a month, it's a very hard test. Because you know what's going to happen. As soon as he lands, before he even enters the yeshiva, an emergency thing in L.A. Hey, you know why? The Satan is never going to let a person sit and learn Torah. So, after we see that the nation of Israel almost died from fear, and they begged Moshe Rabbeinu, "Please, you talk to Hashem, we cannot take it, we're going to die," Moshe answered, "Don't worry, it's all a test. Hashem put fear on you to help you, not just to scare you because He's sitting there and laughing and enjoying. No! To help you not to commit a sin." So when somebody scares you, and it prevents you from using drugs, he's a very good person. If somebody scared you because of that, you're not eating cholesterol, and you're not getting a heart attack, it's a very good doctor. If your wife tells you, "If you're not gonna go to shul, if you're not gonna learn every day, I don't want to be married to you. Just give me a get and set me free,"

35:00and it prevents you from using drugs, he's a very good person. If somebody scared you because of that, you're not eating cholesterol, and you're not getting a heart attack, it's a very good doctor. If your wife tells you, "If you're not gonna go to shul, if you're not gonna learn every day, I don't want to be married to you. Just give me a get and set me free," and that's waking you up, you don't have a choice. At seven o'clock in the morning, you're in shul instead of sleeping until midday, right? So the fear that your wife put on you, that's what saved your life. So why are you complaining? That's a very positive thing. Now, since we have to stay up all night... They organized the Tikkun that we're going to learn a little bit of each. So it starts with Chumash. That's the basis of the Torah. That's the written Torah. We start the story of Bereishit, Bara Elokim, and then we go to Noach, and all the Parashot, little by little from each one until we come to the end of the Chumash. Not the entire Chumash, obviously. That would take you a week, right? So, a little bit from each Parashah.

36:13Until we finish the Chumash, what comes after? Right after the Chumash is finished, we go into Nevi'im. Tanakh: Torah, Nevi'im, Ketuvim. We go right into Nevi'im. What's the first book after? Yehoshua. So, Vayehi acharei mot Moshe, Eved Hashem. Moshe is the servant of Hashem; he passed away. Vayomer Hashem el Yehoshua. Moshe avdi met, my servant Moshe passed. Now get up and cross this Jordan River, you and this nation, into the land that I'm giving to the nation of Israel. Every place your feet will step there, I'm giving it to you as I promised to Moshe. Every step you're going to take, you walk, that's yours. Imagine somebody comes to you and says today, "Listen, I have good news for you. Today is your lucky day. You have one day to walk in Manhattan. Every place in Manhattan you walk, it's yours." What would happen? You'd run the marathon. "Moshe, enough." "No, no, I want more." "Well, half of Manhattan is yours already." "Wait, wait."

37:29After he finished, everything is going north. Moshe, it's Harlem. I also want Harlem. Why? Every step, it's a billion dollars. Every step, it's a billion dollars. It's Manhattan, you know, every building. So Hashem said, everywhere you're going to walk, automatically it's yours. So what do the Arabs want from us? I don't get it. Don't they read the same Torah? They also know that's the book of God, no? Don't understand, where is the truth? If you read it in the Torah and you say it's the book of God, and you read that God said to the Jews, "Every step you're going to step, it's already yours," then everything that comes after, you stole it from us. Finished. But, we move on. After Yehoshua, we're going to Shofetim. Okay, after the death of Yehoshua, who will rise to us and so on. Okay, that's Shofetim. After that, Shmuel. After that, Melachim. After that, Yeshayahu. Yirmiyahu. Yechezkel. After Yechezkel, Chavakuk.

38:40Malachi finished the Nevi'im. Now we're going into the Ketuvim. But there are more prophets, but they come later in the Ketuvim. Ketuvim starts with the main thing of the night. What is it? Megillat Ruth. The scroll of Ruth. The Ashkenazim have a nice minhag. They read, not that the standard, but the standard by the Ashkenazim never collapsed. That's for sure. Only here, every two seconds, the standard refused to stand. The Ashkenazim have a very good minhag. They read every holiday a different Megillah. They have an actual original Megillah, and they read it with a bracha. They take it out, they make a bracha, and they read it. So they do it in the morning. The Sephardim don't read it from the Megillah; therefore, they don't say a bracha. It's inside the tikkun of the night. One way or another, it's a very good mitzvah to learn the story of Megillat Ruth because it connects to Shavuot. This is how the foundation of Mashiach comes from here. This famous story...

39:47In the time of the Judges, there was hunger in the land. There's nothing to eat. It's not like today. If your country is bankrupt, like Argentina or Greece or Finland, all these countries that collapsed, the people still had what to eat. Why? They called the United Nations. Hey, amigo... send us a little bit, you know, one million bags of flour, some water, some orange juice, no problem. The Red Cross is on the way. Back then, if there's nothing to eat, people are dying. Where are you going to get water? No rain, nothing to grow, no grains, nothing. So either way, it's a big problem. So people are starving, so they're moving. Once there's nothing to eat, people migrate to another place where they can find food, and the food obviously is much more expensive. So what happened, there is a hunger in the land, and a person from Beit Lechem is going to the fields of Moav, out of Eretz Yisrael, to the Goyim. He and his wife and his two sons moved from Tel Aviv to New York.

40:58Business, Rabbi. In Israel, I cannot do any business. Let me move to America. Maybe over there I'll become rich. What's the name of the person? Elimelech. The name of his wife is Naomi. And the two sons, Machlon and Kilyon. Those are their names. From Beit Lechem. They came to Moab, to the field of Moav, and Elimelech died. Why did he die? Why did you leave the Holy Land? He was Gadol HaDor. He was a very big Chacham. If somebody like you leaves Israel, what example are you going to set for the rest of the people? Hashem was angry at him and took him away. Naomi stayed a widow with her two sons. What did they do? What happens to a Jewish family that leaves Israel and moves to San Francisco? Best case scenario, the two boys will marry Goyot. Or Goyim, depends. You know? So...

42:03So right away, one took Christine, the other one took Christina. So now they got married to two Goyot, Moaviot. What’s their name, their real name? One Orpah and the second one Ruth. Two Goyot. They sit there for 10 years in San Francisco, in Moav. And then Hashem got upset with them. No teshuvah, no nothing, he lives with a goya, he doesn't care. "I'm not interested in people like you." Right away, He took both of them—Machlon and Kilyon, both of them died. She lost her husband; she lost her two sons. She's a widow now, that's it. She stayed alone. Who stayed with her? The two goyot. That's it. She heard that the hunger had finished, so now she's going back. We're going to get some food there. She went back, and the two goyot are following her. On the way back to the land of Yehudah, which is Eretz Yisrael.

43:13Naomi said to them, "Go back to your mother's house. You're done with me. What do you need me for? Your husband is dead. Go start yourself a new life. Hashem will have mercy on you. You were nice and kind to me. Hashem will be kind to you. Go find yourself rest. Find yourself a new husband." So they started to hug her and to kiss her, and they said, "No." We're going with you back to your country. Naomi said, "No, my daughters. Why? Go back. I don't have other sons to give you. I have nothing to offer you. That's it. Go. I'm old already. I cannot have more kids. Even if I get married, I doubt that I can have kids. Go." They cried and cried and cried. In the end, to make a long story short, Orpah went. And Ruth didn't give up. Ruth stuck with her. She said, "Your God is my God, your country is my country, I'm with you. I'm 100% with you, no matter how difficult it's going to be. The place where you die, I'm going to die there. The place where you're going to be buried, I'm going to be buried there."

44:33Only death will separate between me and you. That's what she answered. That's what she told her. Orpah, a few kisses, a few hugs. We'll be in touch on Facebook. Install Messenger. We'll be in touch. Don't forget to install Skype. I'll send you some love messages from time to time. Take care. Adios. Orpah went, I don't want to tell you what happened to her that night. She went to a club in Manhattan. She became pregnant. Who was born? Goliat. Goliath. Look at the difference between heaven and earth. One decision. Changing the entire history. Goliath came from her. Ruth, she stuck with her. She went, converted, married the head of the Sanhedrin, the chief rabbi of the world, Boaz. And Mashiach came from her. And the standard collapsed.

45:35I wonder if it's only me or if this happens to other speakers as well. We will find out later. So, imagine if Ruth had gone with Orpah. How different the story of Mashiach would be. One of the weirdest stories of the entire Tanakh, perhaps the weirdest of all, is the story of Mashiach. How Mashiach came to the world. The first weird thing is, it comes from an ex-Goya. Hashem couldn't find a Jew from birth. He had to bring Ruth. No, Baruch Hashem. That's one thing. Second thing, that's not even the strange thing here. The strange thing is, after a few generations, we get all the way to the time of Yehuda and Tamar. And Yehuda is going and sees a woman; she pretends she's a prostitute on the street. And the Ramban said he had something not so clean in his mind, but she had a 100% holy thing in her mind. And from something like this, Mashiach would come. She had twins. Look at the genealogy—all the way to David HaMelech. Mashiach came to the world from such a strange thing.

46:56Why is it? Why did Hashem bring Mashiach to the world in the weirdest way? Why? Why? The answer is, there is something that is called the Satan Mekatreg. The Satan is like a prosecutor, like in court. When you go to court, you have this annoying prosecutor; every second he's trying to make the situation worse, bringing to the judge all kinds of things, giving him ideas. He wants to bury you all the way. He's not settling for half. Oh, wait, Johanna, I forgot, and you know, and this date, it was over there, and this. Okay, leave him alone, you already have 20 years in prison. No, no, no. Hey, hop! That's how they are. Same thing with Satan. He doesn't settle on something. He wants all the way. All the way. So what happened? The Satan is always mekatreg. If a neshama like this can come to the world, the savior of the nation of Israel, the Satan is scared. Why is he scared? Because the day Mashiach comes, what happens to the Satan? Hashem will shecht him.

48:06So it's very natural to know that the biggest enemy of the Satan is Mashiach. So what will he do? He puts all his efforts into hurting Mashiach. So what did Hashem do? Tricked him. He brings Mashiach because the angels, they cannot read the mind. They listen to what we say and based on that, they react, the Satan. But he doesn't read the mind. So therefore, now he doesn't know where Mashiach will be born. He doesn't know. Pharaoh also knew the Savior of the Jewish nation was about to be born. But he didn't know which one, so he threw all the babies into the water. But they kept checking. Oh! The savior is already in; that's why they put Moshe in the water, to confuse Pharaoh. Oh, the savior is already in the water. Okay, stop killing the babies. We got rid of him. This is the trick. Same thing over here, Hashem tricked the Satan. The Satan will never dream that Hashem agreed that Mashiach would come from such a forbidden relationship between Yehudah and Tamar. He will never dream that from there Mashiach will come.

49:15And then by the time it came, it was too late for him to do anything about it. So now, after we read Megillat Ruth, the whole story, there's a lot of secrets in it, obviously. Then we move on. Right after Megillat Ruth, we go directly to Tehillim, Psalms. We read some Tehillim, not all Tehillim, just a part, a very small part from Tehillim. Then we move to Iyov. Iyov is in the Tanach. Iyov was a Gentile prophet, not a Jew. "Ish haya be'eretz Utz, Iyov shmo." a righteous person fearing God is away from everything bad, completely innocent, and honest. If you want to know if a person is righteous

50:27The main way to check if a person is righteous is if he's honest. Remember, honest with money, honest with his speaking, honest with his money. If he's deceiving, he's stealing, he takes things that are not his, he robs people, he doesn't give them what he owes them, he's not clean with money, then you know this person is not Yerei Shamayim. If you know this person is strictly, strictly strict, when it comes to money, if his hands are clean, then there is a chance that he is a big tzaddik. But without that, he is not a tzaddik. Rather, you have to see how he prays. is not because if he steals from people. This is one of the sins that you cannot fix with death penalty. You can fix murder with the death penalty. You can fix even being with a married woman. Everything else you can fix by doing teshuva.

51:39Stealing you cannot fix by doing teshuva. You must come back in reincarnation and pay back the money. You cannot go to Heaven. Only a person whose hands are clean from stealing can go there. That's why there are very, very few over there. Most people don't go directly to Heaven. So the Torah testifies on Iyov, ish tam veyashar, straight, doesn't lie. You know how difficult it is not to lie? Try one day, one day. Hashem, today test me. Here, from sunset to sunset. 24, 25 hours. I will not say one lie. I will not hint at a lie. I will not mislead a person. I will not deceive anyone. I will be 100% straight in everything. Try one day, and you will see how difficult it is.

52:43Twenty-five hours. Conversation. People: where were you? We're waiting for you. Why did you come late? One day, with the wife, with the children, with your partner, with your customers. One day, without saying one lie. I know it sounds to you like it's a joke. Call me tomorrow night and tell me how it was. No white lies. White lies are black, sometimes even more than black lies. You know? It's very difficult because sometimes a person doesn't even realize he's lying. You understand? Sometimes you can hide the truth. You don't lie; you just don't generate the truth. You come to a job interview. You are 30 years old now. You can come and say, by the way, I want to be 100% honest with you. When I was 16, I robbed a candy store. I was in the mood for an ice cream. But since then you became a rabbi. But as soon as they hear that you robbed a candy store, okay, we'll get back to you. Thank you for the information. Next time you find a job, your beard will not be white. You know? So, not everything you want to say needs to be said. But if they ask you, you can't lie. Big test. Big nisayon. Very big nisayon.

54:09Next one, Mishlei. Now we're going to King Solomon, Mishlei. Next one, Kohelet. Again, King Solomon. Next one, Shir HaShirim, Song of Songs, Shlomo HaMelech. Then Megillat Eicha, Yirmiyahu. Then Daniel, the Book of Daniel. Then Esther, Megillat Esther. Then Ezra, Ezra. Then Divrei HaYamim. And then we finish the Tanach. Right after we finish the Tanach, what do we do after that? Mishnayot. Some people skip the Mishnayot since we do Gemara. It's on the Mishnayot. You know, some Mishnayot, a little bit from each Masechet, from each Seder. Some people, like I say, because the night is long and the time is very short, skip the Mishnayot. Then we go to the... Gemarot. We do the Gemarot. Seder Moed, Seder Nezikin. You know, the Masechtot, Bava Metzia, Bava Batra. After we finish different parts from the Gemarot, then what comes after that? Taryag Mitzvot. 613 commandments. I made a series. What happened? The Russian came?

55:38Huh? Yeah, it became hot, no? One, 613 laws, 613 laws, 613 commandments. I made a whole series about it. If you want, I have some here, in Hebrew and in English, explaining all the 613 laws. I doubt that you're going to have enough time between now and Shavuot to go over it. If not for this year, at least you know for the next year. I promise you one thing. Take any secular Jew in the world—Israel, America, Europe. Ask him, can you name to me how many mitzvot you know? How many do you think from the 613 he will be able to name? How many? Ten. Give them a little bit more credit. Maybe twenty mitzvot. 20 he will be able to know. Now you're going to go to people that are Ba'alei Teshuva for 10 years. The beard is sweeping the floor when he walks. She's like the Rebbetzin of the neighborhood. She already teaches Torah on the WhatsApp groups. The Rebbetzin of WhatsApp. Tell her, Ms. Rebbetzin, please tell us how many mitzvot you can name from the Taryag mitzvot. How many?

57:03Or the boy or the girl. He's even going to learn every day. How many mitzvot will he be able to name? How many? Can anybody here stand up and say that they can name more than 50 mitzvot by heart? Do you understand now? Do I have to continue? Or you got the point? Right. Most of them do not apply today because we don't have the Beit HaMikdash. Lots of different sacrifices, all the laws, all kinds of mesorot that are only in Eretz Yisrael. Fine. There's a lot of mitzvot. One mitzvah at Yovel, once every 50 years. Shemitah, once every 7 years. Regardless, a person must know taryag mitzvot. You don't have to know millions of millions of details that connect to all of them. But the basics you have to know. A person has to know the basics. So I give you an example of what I'm talking about. First mitzvah in the Torah: "Pru u'Rvu". You have to get married and have children. What does it mean, children? At least a boy and a girl. What does it mean, a boy and a girl? A boy that can give birth.

58:21that he did not participate in a gay parade in Tel Aviv yesterday. Not somebody like that and not a girl like that. A boy that is normal and a girl that is normal. Today we can still call it normal, but the way the world is going down, one day we will be the not normal. But that's the way it is, what can we do? So, a boy that can give birth and a girl that can give birth. If later on when they get married you find out that they are unable to give birth, you didn't fulfill the mitzvah. You will only know that you actually fulfilled this mitzvah when your boy and the girl give birth. If you have 10 boys, you did not fulfill the mitzvah. If you have 10 girls, you did not fulfill the mitzvah. One boy and one girl who are able to give birth, you have fulfilled the mitzvah. If chas v'shalom, one of them dies... The mitzvah went away from you. So it only depends on reality, not on the actual moment. It depends if you have a boy and a girl that continue your genealogy. That's called the mitzvah of p'ru u'rvu. Women are not obligated. A woman is a partner of the man in everything. Without the woman, the man is not worth a lot.

59:37That's the Gemara. I didn't write that, so men, please don't be offended. But a man is not worth that much without a woman, besides the fact that she saves him from the sins. and from all kinds of other problems, besides the fact that she cleans for him, cooks for him, raises his children, gives him financial support sometimes, and psychological support, and somebody to open up his heart to, and someone to trust. There are a lot of wonderful things about it. Besides all of that, there is one more thing. The Gemara says that the blessing in life doesn't come to a person that doesn't have a wife. Now I know, in this generation, we have an epidemic. What's the epidemic? A growing number of single boys and girls, more and more, are not getting married. There are different reasons why people don't get married. One reason is that they just couldn't find the right one. They're very picky. Everybody wants Rachel, the wife of Rabbi Akiva.

1:00:46less than that, don't talk. Oh, you know what? Rabbi Akiva not good enough for me. He's a Baal Teshuva. No, no, no. He's BT. BT. What? He's divorced with kids? And BT? And poor? And cleaning horses? You want to set me up with him? Don't worry. He's going to kindergarten to learn Aleph Bet tomorrow. Ha, ha, ha. Minimum Rabbi Akiva. Less than that, don't talk. Oh, you know what? Rabbi Akiva not good enough for me. He's a Baal Teshuva. No, no, no. He's BT. BT. What? He's divorced with kids? And BT? And poor? And cleaning horses? You want to set me up with him? Don't worry. He's going to kindergarten to learn Aleph Bet tomorrow. Ha, ha, ha. Imagine a Shadchan would offer you Rabbi Akiva. Imagine a Shadchan would offer you a shidduch with Rabbi Akiva. Before he would start his career, his business would be over right away. "Hey Moshe, you just put out flyers yesterday and you put out a nice ad. Why did you already shut your office?"

1:01:47I offered somebody a divorced man with kids, cleaning horses, doesn't know Aleph Bet, never went to yeshiva, that today he started to go to kindergarten. So, I lost my reputation. Right away. I always say Rabbi Akiva would not be accepted to any yeshiva in the world. No yeshiva would accept him. If Rabbi Akiva were here today, divorced, in his 40s, you know, doesn't know Aleph Bet, which yeshiva would he go to? Come, Shalom, Shalom Kevod HaRav, Yeshiva of Flatbush, Yeshiva of Monsey, Yeshiva of Lakewood, it doesn't matter. he would come to the Rosh Yeshiva, "Hello, nice to meet you, yes, can I help you? What, did you bring the pizza? The lunch?" "No, no, I came to get accepted to the yeshiva." "This is a pre-1A here, what do you mean, you came to get accepted?" "Yeah, I want to learn Aleph Bet. I want to start becoming religious, you know, so I want to learn Aleph Bet." What would he say to him? "It's not shayach here. Little kids, they'll make fun. Hire a tutor."

1:02:54Hire a tutor, no? He wouldn't make it. The world was different 2,000 years ago. So here is an example. A woman, she doesn't have an obligation to have kids. Of course, every woman wants kids. But let's say a woman didn't get married, and she sat and learned Torah all her life. She reads, she reads Tehillim, she does chesed. She didn't get married, she doesn't have kids. Did she violate the rules of Hashem? Technically, no, but realistically, yes. Not directly, but indirectly. Why? Because the reason Hashem put women in the world is that they are connected. You have a purpose. I put you in this world to help the men. You are avoiding a part of your purpose. Yes, you enjoy, you don't want the headache, fine. But that's not your purpose. Your purpose is in this world. Imagine if all the women said, since I don't have to have kids, let me go and read Tehillim all day. I don't want to go on Shidduchim. What would happen in the world? One generation will be over.

1:04:02So this is one example of Pru Urvu. Then Mitzvat Brit Milah. Then not to eat Gid HaNasheh; when you slaughter the animal, there's a ligament in the back. Then Mitzvat Kiddush HaChodesh, every month to announce Rosh Chodesh. Then to slaughter the Korban Pesach on the 14th of Nisan. Then to eat the Korban Pesach on the 15th day of Pesach at night. And then to clean all the Chametz. To eat Matzah. To sanctify every firstborn. To tell the story of the Exodus from Egypt on Leil HaSeder. To redeem the firstborn of the donkeys. If you do not redeem it, you have to put it to death. Not to eat the Pesach cooked. or raw. You have to barbecue it only. Not to leave from the sacrifice of Pesach until the morning. Everybody must finish it. What’s left has to be burned. You don’t leave it for tomorrow. Right away, Hashem educates us to count on Him, to have confidence in Hashem. If you have a big lamb, you have maybe a hundred pounds of meat.

1:05:10And you have only 20 or 30 people in your group. You have to register. You make a group. Not everyone is so popular. If everyone knows this person is angry like a wolf, nobody wants to be his guest on the night of Pesach. So how many people does he have? "Moshe, would you come?" "No, no, I already go to my mother-in-law." "Yitzhak, would you come?" "No, I go to my cousin." "Moshe, would you come?" "No, no, I go to the grandmother of my cousin." Everyone finds him an excuse. So, in the end, he has nobody, even his own children don't want to come. I remember one time a story. One man and his son went to Rav Shteinman at 1 a.m. 1 a.m. at night. So they knock on the door at 1 a.m. A person was in his 90s back then. Today, Bli Ayin Hara, he is 103. So they knock on the door. The wife opened the door. "Can I help you?" And they said, "We have to meet the Rav." "Is it really pikuach nefesh?" They say, "Yes."

1:06:19So she went to the Rav. He was sitting and learning. You know, he doesn't even have chairs. He has a bed. He sits on a bed, and that's how he learns. The bed that he sleeps on, with a table. You have to see his house. If you ever want to be a real servant of Hashem, you have to go for one minute to see the house of Rav Steinman, better than a thousand lectures. the head of the Jewish world, and you have to see how he lived. Even though hundreds of millions of dollars went through his hands in the last 50 years. Big money from huge people, he could have done whatever he wanted with that. Could have built himself a beautiful house and gotten a very juicy salary and a driver and the rest of the nonsense. He doesn't keep a penny for himself. A few times he said that he didn't have $100 to give. This is it. The simplest possible way. So it's very interesting. He doesn't even have reading glasses. At 103, he can read perfectly, better than us, without reading glasses. Why? Because his eyes never looked at something that is forbidden in his whole life. They always stayed holy. 103 years of holiness. So they knock on his door. Okay, they let him in.

1:07:39They walk in, they sit with him, 10, 20 minutes, and then they came out. His wife asked him, "What happened? Did something happen to them?" He said, "The guy is an askan, meaning politician. He wants to run to get elected." So the wife said, "What's so urgent about it?" He said for him it's very urgent. He cannot sleep. He's very nervous. He has to make a decision. So she said, "And what did you tell him?" I told him not to run. So she said, "So why did he go out with such a smile? He should have gone out..." upset? No, he had a dream; he wanted to be the new Donald Trump. He told him, "No, no, forget about it. Don't go, don't run." Why did he come out so happy? So he said to him, she asked him, "What did you tell him that he came out so happy?" He said, "I told him that no one will vote for him."

1:08:53So she says, "So why was he still happy if you told him such a thing?" He said, "Because I told him, no one would vote for you besides your son." And he was sure that even his son wouldn't vote for him. So he was happy, "Oh, at least my son would vote for me." Today, you don't know if your son will vote for you. The way the generation is, Hashem Yirachem. ...in a generation where boys call 911 on their fathers to get them arrested, everything is possible. One guy asked in his will, when he dies, to be buried with a coat and five dollars in a pocket. So everybody was very curious why he wrote such a strange will... So they came to him and they said, "Tell me, why do you want to be buried with a coat and five dollars in a pocket?" He said, "One day there will be the resurrection of the dead. And when I get up, I want to be able to have a coat

1:09:57And I want, I have five dollars so that I'll be able to buy myself a hot coffee. Because maybe it will be in the winter. And knowing my children, I cannot count on them to have a coat and to have a cup of coffee. So the rabbi told him, you don't have to worry about it. you can be buried without it. If you have such kids, you won't resurrect. That means you messed up. You won't resurrect. That's a joke, of course. So obviously there are 613 laws. And it's not the time now. So we skip that. What comes right after that? the beautiful Midrash of the night. It's Midrash Rabbah on Parashat Yitro. This is what I want to talk about. Today I prepared for you a nice surprise. After we finish this Midrash in 10-15 minutes, I will ask a very dear speaker who came specially from Florida to give us a few words of Torah. He also brought some of his CDs that just came out.

1:11:09And he is, Baruch Hashem, on the way up. We need precious and straight speakers who speak the truth. in today's generation, we are having fewer and fewer speakers like this. So when you finally find somebody that always says the truth with honesty, without getting scared, giving his life to save souls, then you know the future, b'ezrat Hashem, will be extremely bright. Soon, we're going to have Rabbi Aaron Reuven giving us some words of encouragement. But before, just allow me to speak for a few minutes about this Midrash, so at least when we read it at night, you know what we're speaking about. The soul of Moshe Rabbeinu went up to the mountain, and the soul went up right to Shamayim. The body is on the mountain, and the soul went up to Shamayim. This is what it says. What does it mean you went up to the heaven? You were in contact with the angels up there in heaven. Nobody ever reached that level of going all the way up to where Moshe Rabbeinu went. How long were the commandments that Hashem gave to Moshe Rabbeinu?

1:12:36Six tefachim, the orech. How much is a tefach? This. This is a tefach. What is it? Four, five inches? This is a tefach. This is two tefachim. Three, four, so six. Something like that, but a very heavy stone and very expensive. Six tefachim. Two tefachim between one hand to another. When a person comes to a country The eyes of the people over there rivet on him. Who is this stranger? What is he doing here? Why did he come to our country? Moshe came up; it's not his territory over there. He comes to accept the Torah. The angels all got nervous. What does a person that was born to a woman, to a human being, have to do here? This is what it means, "You came to take a gift." Every angel eventually was forced to give him a gift.

1:13:38The angels, Malachei HaSharet, when you say Malachei HaSharet, Shareit means servants, service. They are the customer service of Hashem. They do the job. Hashem sends them on missions, sometimes positive, sometimes negative. The Malachei HaSharet wanted to hurt Moshe Rabbeinu. Hashem made the face of Moshe Rabbeinu like the face of Avraham Avinu. Why? They give a lot of respect to Avraham Avinu. And Hashem says to them, "You're not embarrassed? This is the person you went down to eat by. He fed you. You pretended you were Arabs, right? After you ate in his house, you want to hurt him? What is Hashem doing? He's tricking them? Huh?" What is it, a comedy show? Hashem was allowed to do such a thing? To fool the angels and make the face of Moshe Rabbeinu like Avraham and tell them this is the guy who ate by him? It's deceiving them. Ve'achaltem betoch betov. Amar HaKadosh Baruch Hu l'Moshe, lo nitanah lecha Torah ela b'schut Avraham.

1:14:50why am I doing this? Why do I make your face like Avraham? I want you to know that today you're getting the Torah thanks to Avraham. If it wouldn't be for Avraham, you wouldn't be here. The only reason I took you out of Egypt is thanks to that. swearing that I swore to Avraham Avinu. I swore to him that I would make the covenant with his children, and today I'm keeping my word. The only reason I made this promise is to give my Torah. And the only way I give the Torah is to someone who deserves to receive the Torah. The only ones who deserved to receive the Torah were Avraham, Yitzchak, and especially Yaakov. That all his children were tzaddikim. And from them, I made them the Nation of Israel, and today I'm giving you the Torah. But you should know that without Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov's merit, you wouldn't be standing here receiving the Torah today. And Avraham, the most giant among giants.

1:15:53And Hashem called Moshe to the mountain. What is the mountain? It's like the shoulders of the fathers. Moshe went up to Hashem in the clouds and he came down from the clouds. And this is what he said: Ko tomar leBeit Yaakov. Ko tomar leBeit Yaakov. Beit Yaakov is the women. That's why the yeshivot of the girls are called Beit Yaakov. Why? Because there is a rule in the Torah: the house of the person, it's his wife. You want to know if there's blessing in the house? Look at the wife. Hashem Yirachem, materialistic, totally not modest, all day makeup and lashon hara, walking in the malls. Go see the house, you won't be surprised. Righteous, modest, classy, hardworking, praying, devotion, attachment to Hashem, not materialistic. Go and check the house. The men contribute very little to the house. Anyway, it's not there. It's either at work or in yeshiva.

1:17:02Who builds the house? The wife, Bais Yaakov. That's why Hashem started with them. The message first to the women. That's the men. Tell every one of them what they're capable of hearing. Tell the women that the main thing I expect from them is to lead their children to learn Torah. That's the main thing that I want from a Jewish woman. Pushing her children to learn, but in a clever way. Not by force. Force they always rebel against. Giving prizes, giving them love, talking to them, telling them stories, buying them the right books. With Adam, I first commanded Adam and then Chava. And then Chava went and spoiled and destroyed my entire world. Now, I'm starting with the women. Not with the men. First with the women now. If they will support the Torah, then there will be blessing. If not, nothing will help. The men by themselves will not be able to do it. You know, when Moshe Rabbeinu saw the Egyptian drown in Parashat Beshalach,

1:18:22So Moshe started to sing to Hashem. And then after that, his sister Miriam, she took the women. Separate party, not mixed. Separate. Men over there, women all the way over there. Right? The women also dancing and jumping and singing. No man was around. And they didn't film it and put it on Facebook or on YouTube. You understand? So Miriam made a party for the women. Why not make a Persian wedding? Everyone together. Rabbi, we're family. Here you see, Moshe and Miriam, more family than this. And the women, I promise you, they were much more modest than today. They all carried a tent around themselves. So even if they come to a mixed wedding, anyway, you don't see anything, right? Imagine if you go to a wedding somewhere in the Middle East. All the women, you only see the eyes. So, big deal, they move like this. There's nothing to see anyway. And it's still not allowed. It's still not allowed. Imagine, Hashem yerachem, with the way people dress today.

1:19:39So Miriam, when she made her song, she only took one verse from Moshe. Everything else is different. One verse, the same one. Which one? Hashem drowned the horse and the one that was riding on the horse. Why did she use that one? Because why does the horse have to die? Because he is the support of the soldier. The Egyptians that ran after the Jews, without the horse, couldn't hurt the Jews. So the horse became the base, the foundation. Without him, there's nothing you can do. Why does Hashem treat the foundation exactly like the soldier? There should have been a separation. The soldier is separate, and the horse is separate. No. When you support someone, everything he does, for good and for bad, you get 100%. If he does good, the good goes to you as well. If he does bad, the bad goes to you as well. So, when Miriam saw that, she realized, "Ah, we women are very lucky. We will support the men to learn Torah, and we get the reward. Very good, fair deal." That's why she took it and put it inside her song, inside the Torah.

1:21:00And after all this, obviously, I cannot go over the entire Midrash. The conclusion of this Midrash is that Hashem said to Moshe, "Hold onto My chair and give them an answer." And Moshe said to the angels, "What are you jealous of? Do you have parents that you have to respect? Do you have a yetzer hara that you have to fight against? Do you steal? Do you kill?" What do you need Torah for? Torah is for people who have bad traits; that's what they need. It's going to fix them. Why do you need the Torah that you're so uptight about it and you try to keep it here in Shamayim? And what happened in the end? Moshe brought down the Torah, and this is what we call Chag Shavuot. The custom on Shavuot is to have at least one dairy meal. There are a few ways to do it. One is, since we stay up all night, we pray Vatikin, Netz, sunrise. We start, like I said, about 10 to 5. We finish approximately 7-something. So when we get home, we do Kiddush and we make a dairy meal. And then we go to sleep.

1:22:15And then after that, around noon, we make another meal, but this time meat. Meat, wine, that's one way to do it. Some people, the way they do it, they wait, they make one meal. They do dairy, they fold the tablecloth, they rinse their mouth, and they serve in the same meal, now meat. They eat meat, and then they do Birkat Hamazon. So, in one meal, dairy first, rinsing the mouth, changing the tablecloth, and then going into the meat. Either way you want to do it, it's fine. One dairy meal, at least, is in memory of the fact that after Moshe brought down the Torah, they realized that all the meat they had prepared was not kosher because they didn't slaughter it correctly. So, they had to throw out all the meat, and there was no time to slaughter more animals, salt the meat, remove the blood, clean the skin, and cut the meat—it would have taken the whole day. So, they quickly made dairy food, and that's why we have been eating dairy food for 3,300 years.

1:23:23Any questions before I step down and we have our guest who will give us a few words of encouragement? Any questions? Yes. Yes. Let's say, for example, two boys and two girls. One of the boys and one of the girls conceive, and the other two don't. Two girls conceive? One is enough, I say. At least a minimum of one. All the others are extra. Yes. Yes. ...you need to have a boy and a girl in order for the mitzvah to count. Later if you have grandchildren, the Gemara says... So it counts that you have genealogy, but you must have one boy and one girl that are able to give birth. Ah, we celebrate not necessarily the Luchos; we're celebrating the Torah, the Torah. Right, right.

1:24:34So the second Luchos, after Moshe came down on the 17th of Tammuz, right? He saw the golden calf scene, so he broke the Ten Commandments. Then the second commandments were only 80 days later. After Hashem told him, he brought them down on Yom Kippur. And the second commandments were not as great as the first ones because the tablets were made by Moshe, not by Hashem. So, meaning is a little bit less than the first one. So the question is, why are we celebrating Shavuot now and not on Yom Kippur, or at least one day after Yom Kippur? Good question. No, what's the answer? I have an answer. Yes. I mean, you tell me. Yeah, yeah. Listen to the words. Louder. The Jews, when they went out of Mitzrayim, they weren't on the level to know the service of our Torah. The only one on the level of pshat. They were on a low level. What happened then is they sinned, and Hashem had to change it to a pshat, a lower level. Therefore, they were celebrating what was the first move, which should have been, which is tzoy, when I'm on the level. So, therefore, this had to be changed. So you're right, when Hashem said, when Moshe Rabbeinu said, shim'u na ha'morim, and listened to rebellious ones, morim, listen to the words he says, morim means

1:25:57HaPashtan and Maru Harad, the youngin, that you are Pashtan, that don't learn Eid, don't learn Eid, so you are a pirate. You could have had, but it should have been yours, which is Eid. Therefore, we celebrate the first one. That's why there's a sauce, particularly that night. White sticker, only until now. You don't touch a Jewish Rabbi. Because that is all certain. Right. And we can add to that, with permission from Rabbi Chaim Vital, that the reason we celebrate Shavuot is because that's the first time we heard the voice of Hashem. It's never happened ever again. That's enough already. It's a holiday. But Hashem came and spoke to us the first two commandments. And then, when He was supposed to read the rest of the commandments, we couldn't hear it. But Hashem planned to read all the Ten Commandments to us. In a public event, if this doesn't deserve to be a holiday, what else does? I want to welcome Rav Yaron Reuven. Be'ezrat Hashem, you're going to hear a lot from him in the future. Please come, give us some words of encouragement before Matan Torah. Thank you very much. We'll see you next Tuesday, Be'ezrat Hashem. Thank you.

1:27:22Thank you for coming for the Rav, but now you can enjoy me, hopefully. B'zchut HaRav, B'zchut HaRav, and also B'zchut HaRav, and you'll find out today why. Today, I want to cover a couple of small things, and hopefully you'll entertain me and actually listen. First, I'll say something small to add to what the Rav said about Shavuot. Just to add a little bit, a thought that I had, which I believe can beautify the Torah for you a little more. The second thing is, some of you have seen my shiurim online, and many have been attracted to my personal story. I decided to leave millions of dollars on Wall Street, all for Torah. I was on Wall Street, I had a lot of money, I was on CNBC, CNN, Bloomberg, one of those types of people. My business card was gold, which is kind of interesting. And I left all of it for Torah and to do exactly what HaRav Kordovero has been doing for 22 years. I joined the army. I want to tell you why.

1:28:43But the "why" that I've told already many times is not the "why" I'm going to tell you today. The "why" I'm going to tell you today is the story no one knows about Rabbi Mizrachi. It's my personal story of Rabbi Mizrachi. So as far as adding, and then obviously, the Mussar Yisrael and what we can learn from it and why it affects you, why you should even listen to it. So, first and foremost, in regards to Shavuot, one of the main things that I got from it is that in reality, according to the Gemara in Masechet Avodah Zarah, it is the most important day in history. Why? Because Chazal tells us that since Hashem came to all of the nations and offered them the Torah and they rejected it, all of the Malachim were very scared. Because they knew that if Am Yisrael rejects the Torah, Hashem will bring back the world to Tohu VaVohu. We'll destroy the world. Why? Because the Torah is the purpose of this world. That's why Hashem created it 974 generations before He created the world. In essence, the Jewish people became Jewish because of the Torah. They weren't Jewish before it. Obviously, as you've learned from Rabbi Mizrachi many, many times, before the Torah, we were Yisraelim. Before that, we were Ivrim.

1:30:13But if someone else came to Mount Sinai, chas v'shalom, and accepted the Torah and we didn't, they would be the Jews. So in essence, the most important day in history is Shavuot. Now, why do we go over the Torah or at least try? Because Hashem is trying to give us a little bit of a taste of the beauty of the Torah, but in reality, we can't finish it. We can't finish the Torah and that's why in Pirkei Avot you'll see that it's not your obligation to finish the Torah. Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus said to Rabbi Akiva once, "You haven't come to visit me in a long time. I have so much Torah to teach you." He says, "How much Torah do you have?" He says, "If all of the water was ink and all of the trees were pens and all of the land was paper, it wouldn't be enough." to write down the Torah that I know. And that is not even close to the real Torah. What's the real Torah? Well, I'll give you an understanding of what we have. Now, we got the Torah at Mount Sinai, but as Chazal said, we got a little bit of a lower version after our sin, but we still got the Torah. The Torah later was given from generation to generation,

1:31:37to 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva. Unfortunately, they all died. Then we started all over again with five of Rabbi Akiva's students and Rabbi Akiva himself, all the way to today. But now, if you connect the holidays, if you go back to Pesach, it's a very important holiday. It's the Exodus. We left Egypt. We turned around history in a way that's never been done before and never will be done again. The slave turned into the master. And we go from simcha to simcha. Shavuot. But in the middle, we have a problem. In the middle, we have 33 days of disaster. The 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva died during this time. So what's the connection? So, during one of, I do a short chiddush on what's happened. It's on different places that people like. It's usually 15 minutes. And I try to connect the three things. Why did Hashem take us from simcha to simcha, but in the middle there's a disaster? First off, He wanted to tell us that the purpose of us leaving Mitzrayim is to get the Torah. Whoever didn't want to get the Torah died. As we know, at least 80% of the Yisraelim died in Egypt.

1:33:01Torah is later on. But in the middle, He wanted to explain to us what we actually have. Because if we don't know what we have, we usually don't appreciate it. So the Torah that we got, according to Masechet Megillah, says that we had 55 prophets, 48 males, and 7 females in our Tanakh. But, in history, we had over 1.2 million prophets. So we're missing a few. Their Torah was holy too. What happened to them? Hashem told us that their Torah was only relevant to their Nevuah, their prophecy actually, better said. Their prophecy was only relevant to their generation. Which means that the 55 remaining prophets, whatever came out of their mouth, every single letter that's written in the Torah, is relevant to every single generation until the end of time. So no one could ever say, like the Reform and the Conservatives and any other wicked person in between, "Hey, no, this is not relevant to today. Today you're allowed to drive because Moshe didn't have a car."

1:34:11You're allowed to drive on Shabbat. He didn't have a car, that's why he didn't drive. You can't say that. Why? Because if Hashem said, their Torah, their Nevuah, their prophecy is relevant for all time, that's it. But now, we only have their prophecy. We only have their part of the Torah, out of the 1.2 million. So already we know, we're missing a bunch. And out of those 55... We got down to 24,000 students, but out of the 24,000 students, we don't have all of their Torah. We only have the Torah of six: Rabbi Akiva and his five students. So what would happen if Hashem said, you know what, it was about 700 of the greatest sages in history dying per day? We don't just mourn because we have nothing else to do. We mourn because we're missing their Torah. If you go on, for example, HebrewBooks.org, they have over 75,000 Hebrew books, holy books, for free. And you want to download, read, and so on. And there's hundreds of thousands of different Sifrei Kodesh that you can learn from. The Torah is endless. But all of what we have today is just from six people.

1:35:36Which means that if Hashem would have skipped one day and said, you know what, today I'm not going to kill the 700, we would have a Torah of 706. Imagine how much holiness this world would have. The beauty of it is that Hashem obviously knew that even what we have from the six, He has to practically beg us to read. But at least now you know that when you get to Shavuot, Hashem is trying to give you a message. I only took you out of Egypt for this Torah. It's the only reason. If you didn't want the Torah, I would have left you there, and you would have died in the plague of darkness, the Makat Choshech. You're going to get the Torah. But if I had given it to you without you knowing how much it's worth, you'd say, nah, I like Harry Potter better. you move along, but now that we know how much beauty we have from the little we have, we yearn for so much that we're missing. Now, one of the main things about my personal story, I'll go through it in five minutes because there's not enough time, and then I'll go into the more interesting part about Rabbi Mizrahi.

1:37:04I've been telling myself that I'm going to say this story for years already. I came to the United States when I was 10 years old with my parents. I knew three letters out of the alphabet, A, B, C, because that was in a cereal. In Israel, I got some Jewish education; we learned some basic Torah, but my development in Hebrew language, Torah, or anything related to Judaism ended at the age of 10. As soon as we landed in America, we officially became goyim. We didn't convert, thank God, but we left everything. We just looked at everyone else, and all the other kids in the public school seemed so much cooler and so much more popular, I wanted to become just like them. This is why the Rav has been telling everyone for years that you cannot afford to send your kid to public school. It's not about just the teaching, which is "ze'ev ha-ra" already. It's not just that. It's the surrounding. Whether you teach him about the halachot of Shabbat every day after school or not is irrelevant. Once he's surrounded by that, he's not going to be able to hold on to it. He's not going to be able to.

1:38:22So I went to public school. I was considered a talmid chacham in public school. I took advanced placement classes and got college credit during junior high school and during high school. I had honor roll. Nice experience in school. In fifth grade, I didn't know any English. In sixth grade, they sent me to special ed next to the kids that are disabled because I didn't speak the language. By eighth grade, I'm taking college courses. So it was pretty cool. But then we went to college. Went to college for one year. Went to Binghamton University. I had a 3.9 GPA, which is nearly perfect. And then I dropped out. Why? It's a waste of time. The point of education is to teach you how to think. You don't need history. You don't need... English, if you just live in the world surrounded by people, most of the stuff they teach you in school is really a waste of time unless you have a point, unless you're going to be a doctor or an architect or you have some type of profession that you're going to be. If you're just going to get a communications degree, then you're just torturing your parents, charging them $50,000 a year for absolutely no reason. And this is what's happening generation after generation now, but just the bill keeps getting higher where kids say, "No, no, I'm going to college, Abba, I'm going to college." "Where do you want to go?" "I'm going to Harvard."

1:39:43Abba gets a heart attack on the spot. My retirement account is gone. Abba, I just graduated from Harvard. Oh, what did you graduate with? I have a communications degree. What are you going to do with it? Oh, nothing. I'm actually going to go back to delivering newspapers like I did in high school. So, I knew how to think, I already started working when I was a young kid, I had three jobs in high school, and I knew how to sell, I knew how to speak. So I left school, I started working, initially I started doing a few different things, and then eventually I got into the brokerage business. In the brokerage business, I paid my dues for the first three years, meaning I made a lot of other people a lot of money except myself. But after September 11th, baruch Hashem, I got a break. My boss screwed me, so I was able to finally be my own boss in a big company. Twelve months later, approximately from October of 2001 to November of 2002, so I guess 13 months later, I made $117,000 in one month and became the number one guy in the office.

1:40:59Another nine months later, I became the number three producing broker in the country for a company with 5,000 brokers. I made my first million dollars. A year later, actually a few months later, I opened my own company. And then a bad month became $200,000 a month, sometimes $150,000 if I didn't work. And I eventually got to the point where I started getting some fame. I was on CNBC, I was on CNN, I was on Bloomberg, all types of newspapers. It was very, very popular. And all of a sudden, I had a bunch of friends. I never had friends, but now I had friends. I had one friend for 25 years. It's not the same; he'll do to you that one day. But other than that, I never had friends. But now I had friends. I had all this money, and all of them came with partners. So I gave all these friends jobs. They weren't really good, but I still hired them. Any misken in the world came to me, I gave them a job. Some of these friends were religious.

1:42:00At least I thought they were. And my door was always open to people that wanted tzedakah, needed help. I was so busy making money that I usually would just ask the guy as soon as he started talking and he told me about the problem. Sometimes they were very emotional, and I just asked him, "How much does it cost?" They would tell me how much it costs, and I would just give them the check. They would go away, and I would go back to making money. And that was my world. I wasn't a bad guy, just, I was busy. I donated a lot of money. And I was told by some rabbi... that as long as I give tzedakah, everything is fine. Now, I'm not going to name any names, Chas V'Shalom, but I want to explain to everyone why the truth, the hard truth, is the only way. It's not some people, yes, some people, no, it's the only way. As the Rav says many, many times, if Hashem didn't want us to know it, He wouldn't write it in the Torah. The Torah is available to all the nations, not just to us.

1:43:00Every week, at least two religious people, some rabbis, some just religious, would come and ask for tzedakah and also give us a d'var Torah. The door was always open, sometimes it was three, sometimes it was four times a week, but nonetheless, at least two. I had my office for about 15 years, but let's just make the math very simple. Throughout all of this time, I'm keeping basically no mitzvot, except giving tzedakah, but I don't even think that was really the highest. I just had so much. It wasn't relevant to what I had. I'm married to a non-Jew. I don't steal, but in general, that's not exactly the only aveirah that I'm doing. I'm not keeping Shabbat, and I'm keeping kosher only in the house. I think that pizza, as long as it doesn't have any meat, is okay. Little do I know that the same cheese that I'm eating at the non-kosher place has pig in it. It's actually one of the basic ingredients that you have in all non-kosher cheese. But anyway, no one's telling me anything. But every week they get tzedakah. But let's just do the math.

1:44:1810 years, once a week. That means that any one of those religious people that came to my office had at least one shot every week to tell me something. Keep Shabbat. Maybe your wife should convert. Something. So if you do the math, it's 52 times a year, 520 times over 10 years. It's obviously much more than that. But if this politically correct strategy that people use was ever going to work, if it didn't work after 520 times, when is it supposed to work? When? I'm the failed experiment. I'm the one that showed that it doesn't work. You have to tell people the truth. So Hashem showed me the truth. When rabbis lied to me, Hashem showed me the truth. Only difference is it's a little more difficult. I'm not Moshe, so He didn't speak to me through a burning bush. He spoke to me through hardship. In November of 2006, I had an elective surgery that went wrong. I went in healthy; I came out sick. But not sick like I have a headache. Sick like I'm dying.

1:45:44Screaming in pain non-stop, the doctors didn't know what went wrong. My entire nervous system was shocked. No one knew what was happening. For the next 62 days, the most amount of consecutive sleep that I was able to have was 15 minutes. And I started bleeding from my eyes and every other place that has a hole. So I was dying. But then, I guess Hashem had some mercy on me. Baruch Hashem, He said, "Alright, let's give him a shot." So I started coming back to life. I stopped screaming 24 hours a day. I was only 12. I took at least 20 painkillers a day, which was less than the 50 I had just a week before. It went hidden. I went back to work, went back to making $3,000 an hour. I didn't do teshuva. Nine months later, there's a complication. I feel a pain in my leg.

1:46:44and I have to go to the emergency room, where I undergo the first of many surgeries. I have an internal infection that, if I had waited another hour, would have exploded, gotten into my bloodstream, and I would have died. I am in the intensive care unit next to the dying people for the next two weeks, with morphine in my bloodstream at all times just to survive. Not fun. Okay, Hashem had more mercy on me and I did leave the hospital, but three months later I have another surgery. Another intensive care unit, more "fun." Living in pain 24 hours a day. But now it's not pain just in the area where I had the surgery, which is irrelevant; it's pain everywhere. From my neck all the way to the bottom of my feet, to the point where I wasn't able to walk anymore, I had to use a cane. So imagine this multi-millionaire guy, 27 years old, with about 20 million dollars in the bank, but he uses a cane and it takes him about 40 minutes to go from here to the door. How much is the money worth? Zero.

1:47:47So now I start losing money. I still didn't do teshuva. All the friends that I had all of a sudden became enemies. So they start stealing. I didn't really like them anymore. So they started stealing. They started cheating. I started going to my competition with my clients. I'm a wounded animal. I can't defend myself. Little by little, things get worse and worse. I still don't get it. I went to over 50 different doctors, spent hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars trying everything and anything you can possibly try. When you have money, you can do anything you want. Or at least you think you can. It's worthless. It gets to the point where I actually become... Oh, the flyer from Yeshua came. He came. Baruch Hashem. Baruch Hashem. Because last Wednesday he didn't show up in Queens. Ah, so he came here. Maybe he saw the flyer. He sent me an email. What happened to the flyer? I said, maybe he finished his tikkun. I guess he liked it. Baruch Hashem. Baruch Hashem. I said to myself, wow, he moved here to move me. He saw the flyer. The flyer was nice. My wife made us a nice flyer. So...

1:49:03Now, I get to a point where I go to over 50 doctors and eventually get to a point where I become a science experiment. I actually become part of a study. And they start injecting stuff into me every single day, which makes me feel like dying. They injected ozone, which you don't really want to do. Steroids, same thing that the athletes take. Costs a lot of money, by the way. And everything and anything you can try. Nothing works. So, once I heard that Hashem said, He's the healer, I stopped paying attention. And I said, okay, these religious people are coming anyway. Let me see if one of them wants to teach me something. No one was really interested. So, I went to a... it was strictly business. So I went to a class and started learning. Later on, it was just once a week, but still not doing teshuva. But the situation started getting worse and worse. I started losing millions and millions of dollars just as fast as it came. I started leaving. And then one day I have a miracle where my mom dials a wrong phone number in a different country, and it ends up being the only person that could help me.

1:50:32One day she calls. She saw me a few days before that. I was looking worse and worse, and she started, you know, a Sephardic mom always has a book of rabbis, so she starts calling every single number she has. But for two hours, no one answers the phone. Eventually, some lady in Israel answers the phone. She asks for a certain Rav, and she says, I'm sorry, it's the wrong phone number. There's no such Rav. My mom breaks down to this strange lady. She starts crying hysterically. And the lady says, Doris? Which is my mother's name. So not only does this lady know her, but she can recognize her voice. My mom is shocked and says, who are you? How do you know my name? She goes, I'm your niece. What? Niece? How did I reach you? I don't even have your phone number. I've never talked to you before in my life on the phone. Last time I talked to you was maybe 10 years ago, but I saw you in person. You were a little kid. She says, I don't know. But if Hashem sent you to me, then obviously there has to be a reason. Why are you crying? My son is sick, he's dying, he's this, he's that. I need some Rav to bless him. She says, well listen, why don't you call my brother, Rav Efraim. He's connected to Rav Ovadia, yeah, he lives two doors down. He's Talmid Chacham. Call him.

1:51:56So she calls Rabbi Efraim. He calls her back because he's in a kollel. At the same time that Rabbi Efraim is talking to her, I never knew that Rabbi Efraim exists. I never knew he existed. He was only a couple of years old when I left Israel. We never talked. But anyway, my mom cries to him and tells him my sob story. And Rabbi Efraim says, does he speak Hebrew? She says, yeah, he speaks a little bit of Hebrew. She says, "Okay, can I call him?" He goes, "No, he won't talk to you. He barely talks to us." At that very same moment, which I find out later, I decided to call my mom on the other line. She answers the phone hysterically, crying. I ask her, "What's wrong, Ima, what's wrong?" She says, "Talk to him. Ooh, talk to him, to him. Ooh, Efraim, who's Efraim? Why are you crying about this Efraim? What did he do?" She responds, "Just talk to him, he can help you." I say, "Okay, anyone can call me, just stop crying." So Rabbi Efraim calls me. And he tells me the story of Yehudah and Tamar. Little do I know that he also knows that I'm married to a non-Jew. I like the story. It's the first time I ever heard the story. I was already in my late 20s—not a very big compliment to my Torah knowledge at that point. And I like the story. So I started asking him questions to see if he answers. I ask him business questions, and he answers.

1:53:22I ask him Torah questions, and he answers. But he doesn't just answer like, you'll ask me a question, and I'll answer you, but I'll sometimes give you an answer with no source. He gives me a page number, a sefer, an exact year it was written, something amazing. I thought I was smart, but this guy is something out of this world. So we talk for an hour and 40 minutes. You're gonna miss your story. He knows the story, I'm just kidding. We talk for an hour and 40 minutes. It was a very nice conversation, and a week later, he calls me at the same time, Thursday at 4 o'clock. We have a three-hour conversation. I ask him questions, and he gives me answers with a source, and he makes me feel good. Every time I ask a question, he goes, "Oh, what a great question. Yes, so-and-so asked the same question 852 years ago." So I feel like, "Oh, yes. Of course. Of course, he has the same question as me." So He tells me the answer, he tells me the source, and I just start coming up with new questions. I never even knew I had all these questions. For the next nine months, every Thursday at four o'clock, we had an average call lasting between five to seven hours. Only questions and answers. Later on, he tells me that he used to pray before the call to know the answers.

1:54:42And I said, what do you mean to know the answers? You even know the page number and the guy and this and that. He goes, I didn't even know the questions. I never asked the questions you asked. I never cared about the stuff you did. But when you asked them, they were pretty good questions and Hashem gave me the answers. Siyata Dishmaya is what we call it. The special Siyata Dishmaya you get when you do kiruv. So now, how does Rabbi Mizrachi get into it? So now, little by little, I start learning Torah with him. Everything I learn, I teach my wife, who, for some strange reason, always wanted me to be a religious Jew, even though she was not. And she would tell me to stay home for the holidays, and I'd tell her why. And when people would ask me, don't you want your wife to convert, have Jewish children? I said, I'm not doing it. Why should I tell her how to do it? I'm not a hypocrite. I can't tell her to do something I'm not going to do. It's not fair. You can't just make somebody Jewish. It's either they want to be Jewish or not. You can't just make someone stop believing something. I used to make fun of Christianity in general. I used to call it the remix.

1:55:53You know, they took our Torah, they mixed it up a little bit, they made something new. It has mistakes on every single page, as every one of you has seen in the debate. There's a nice Kiddush Hashem that's eternal. I think that's what they're going to show Rabbi Mizrachi when he gets to his Olam HaBa, or at least the first part of his Olam HaBa; he's going to show him the debate. See, this is a good one. This got you the first few ones. So now, you can't just make somebody stop believing. But now, little by little, I'm learning Torah, and I'm realizing that I start to smell something funny. I start to smell the garbage that I'm in. See, the problem is, when you're part of the garbage, you don't smell anything. You can't smell anything. You're part of it. You start leaving with some Torah, you become a little bit... half of a percent or a percent of a percent Kadosh, because you learn seven hours a week, you start to smell something funny. So I start realizing there's something wrong with my picture. Maybe it is a problem. So I start learning more and more Torah, and I said, you know what? I guess my wife has to convert, but how do I get that? How do I get her to convert? So I tell her, you want to convert? She says, no, I don't think you can.

1:57:20I said, "No, I've heard somebody say you can convert." She goes, "No, no, I don't think you can leave. Then it's a problem, it's this, it's that." Neither one of us knew anything. She knew Proverbs by heart, but she didn't know that conversion even existed. No one ever knew you could leave idol worship. We didn't even know it was idol worship. So now, I start learning about Christianity. Because I realized that you can't make someone stop believing something. You can't just say, "Listen, you believed X, Y, Z for 30 years? Okay, stop. And replace it with this." It's not ice cream. You can't just exchange it after you took a bite because the guy's really nice. You can't. So first, you have to prove that it's wrong. And then you have to give them something good. The problem is that in between, there's nothing. There's an emptiness. And that's why most converts, when they actually get to that point, when they get to the point of nothing, before they know the Torah is true, 100% divine, there's a point of emptiness that's a disaster. Some of them really want to kill themselves during that time because you thought you had something.

1:58:34And now you just realized your entire life was fake. Everything you believed your entire life is nothing. It's just a mistake. It's almost like a Baal Teshuva, but not to the same extent. And now there's something else, but you're still not 100% sure. So now you don't really have anything. There's no purpose. It's a very, very difficult stage, which is the reason why Hashem has special treatment for them, and why they're mentioned in the Torah more than anything else, and why even in the Amidah we mention them before we mention us. A convert that chooses Hashem is considered higher than a natural-born Jew, but a righteous convert, not just any convert because they had a nice boyfriend from a Syrian family with a lot of money. So now, I start learning about Christianity, and I become obsessive. The first rabbi I went to was Rabbi Tovia Singer. He was very good, speaks extremely fast, which was my style. I was a Wall Street guy. I trained over 130 different salesmen. I had all these people. That was my style. Fast, 150 miles an hour, telling me all these verses. It was amazing.

1:59:45I showed it to my wife. After about 10 seconds, she said, "Okay, thank you very much. I'm not interested. He talks too fast." So then I had Rabbi Efraim give me some proofs that he could find because whatever I'm doing is not working. He writes a whole letter with proofs and proofs and proofs and proofs, and I read it to my wife. She's hysterically crying, and she says, "No, thank you." I like the Torah, but it doesn't mean that I have to be Jewish. I can still keep the Torah. I continue to find different things. One day, after watching one video after another, I get a recommended video on YouTube. They have a part of this mitzvah, maybe. The debate. I said, "Oh, this looks interesting." So, I clicked on the debate and watched it. It's amazing. But there's one problem. Until now, I just thought that Christianity was second best.

2:01:04Like I didn't know what I know now. Now I've become obsessed with it for months and months and months. And I'm learning all these things, all these verses, and everything else. But the debate made me realize that it's outright fake. It's not second best. It's outright idol worship. It's nothing. So now the most important person in my life is idol worshipping without even knowing it. Now, it's not having her convert, so it makes my situation a little better with Hashem. Now I have to save her. Now it's different. So, I saw the first part of the debate and I said, "Listen, you have to watch this. This is really good because all this time we've been learning some Torah. She loves Torah. But again, you can't remove a belief." So, I saw the first part of the debate and She struggles through the first one. After the first one, you know, it's three parts. After the first one, she says, nah, I don't like that priest, he's a moron, and the rabbi is arrogant. Just to let you know, by now, she's probably watched

2:02:29I would say at least 85 to 90% of all of Rabbi Mizrachi's lectures. She's a big tzaddeket. He's the only rabbi she watches. But initially, the Satan hated him. Hated, which is what the Satan does. Because this was the cure. So now... I argue with her and argue with her. We've been together for many years at this point. I think we were together for maybe eight or nine years. Never had one fight. All of a sudden, since this conversion stuff came up, we have fights every single day. And now I'm arguing with her for about a week and a half just to watch part two. She watches part two. Unfortunately, similar conclusion. But there are a few good questions in there that you really can't have answers for. Why does it say 75 instead of 70 people came down to Egypt? Why is the Me'arat HaMachpelah in the wrong location? Why, why, why? There are no answers. So now, we're starting to remove the Tum'ah. Because the first thing you have to do when you do Kiruv, the first thing you have to do when you help somebody learn the truth,

2:03:45is to convince them and show them that they're wrong. It's irrelevant if you're right. If you're right and they feel they're right, you're still not going to win. First, you have to completely prove them wrong. You have to make them at least question themselves—maybe I'm wrong. Because as long as he thinks he's right, there's no reason for him to change. "Okay, your Torah is good for you. Thank you very much. It's not for me." Because I think that what my lifestyle is, of driving to the Knesset, because my Rabbi doesn't say anything, of giving a bar mitzvah to my dog because I saw it on YouTube, eating McDonald's whenever I want, I think it's fine. This is the problem. So you have to show them that they're wrong. There's something wrong here. God said something else. He said, you have to take the mitzvot, you have to take the Torah everywhere. Not tasu, not just do them. You have to take them everywhere. When you're on vacation, you still have to be religious. When you go to Eretz Yisrael, you still have to be religious. When you move somewhere else, you have to be religious. You have to take the Torah with you everywhere. It's not optional. It's not a hobby. So now that I realize that getting to part three is not going to happen, and by the way, until this day, you should never watch part three. But now we have some questions.

2:05:12So I start researching more and more, getting more questions, getting more questions. And she's at a point where she says, listen, I just need some type of sign from Hashem in the Torah. I believe the Torah is 100% true. Never questioned it in my life. But I need something from the Torah that tells me this is the right thing. Now Hashem told us in Sefer Devarim, Deuteronomy chapter 4, If you look for Me with all of your heart and all of your soul, you'll find Me. But not just if you look for Me. Even after you've made all of the sins in the world, to the point where you worship the god of wood, the man-made god of wood, and the man-made god of stone, which, by the way, as we know from the Rav, is Christianity and Islam. Even after you make all of those sins,

2:06:14In chapter 4, verse 29: From there you will seek Hashem, your God, and you will find Him, if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul. This means that if you want to find Hashem, you have to actually look. Not like when you look for the cat behind the garbage, and when you don't find him, you say, "Okay, I'll buy a new one." You have to actually dedicate your life to finding Hashem. And that's what we started doing. So 24 hours a day we're looking for Hashem. 24 hours a day I'm learning Torah. I'm trying to sleep maybe 2-3 hours a day. I'm becoming very, very obsessive and a little bit crazy. She's waking, you know, she goes to sleep, wakes up at a normal hour. And I'm like, "Honey, look, I have more proofs." "What? What do you want?" "I have more proofs. Look, look, there's this, there's this." So then one day Hashem, obviously, after enough tears, a lot of tears, a lot of prayers, a lot of arguments, Hashem finally sends His salvation. YouTube recommends another video. It's called Torah and Science. So now, the Torah and Science...

2:07:33...by itself should be a lecture. Just the story about what happened with Torah and science. We watch, well I tell, listen, Torah and science, we actually have been reading Rabbi Zamir Cohen's book, you know, every so often we read a few pages, you know, we like science, we like Torah, it's nice, seems interesting. Okay, all right, fine, put it on already. Same arrogant guy, okay, fine, I'll read. Watch part one, there are three parts again. Part one, both of us, at the end of it, were amazed. We didn't know all this stuff existed. Really, this is what it says; we're looking at verses, we're seeing something out of this world. It's the most amazing thing that you could ever imagine, the best experience ever. Wow, we have to watch part two, it's two o'clock in the morning. Click on part two, it doesn't work. Look for it somewhere else, click on part two, it doesn't work. Satan's working overtime. Now, I have a little bit of a scratch, just so you know. I'm the kind of person that reads the preface of a book, and it says the project of Mesorah Heritage Foundation and the names of all the people that contributed all the way to the end of the book. I read everything. I'm the guy they wrote it for. I think there's at least one guy who says, maybe somebody else reads it, but I think I'm the only guy.

2:09:03But anyway, I have to do things in order. A little bit of a scratch. So now part two doesn't work. We can't watch part three. But I'm seeing her. She's really interested. I'm like, you know what? Part one was so good. Alright, you know what? Let's just watch part three. Watch part three. Now we know for sure the Torah is divine. There's no question at all. Hashem is real. The Torah is the document. But we still have we're missing something. Now she knows that there's a problem with Christianity, but she still didn't get the sign. She still didn't get to 100%. But she did get to emptiness. She got to nothing. So she prayed that night that Hashem either show her the sign, show her proof, give her something, or kill her. Because she doesn't want me to go to Gehinom. Because she knows that if she stays with me, I'm going to Gehinom, and she can't deal with the fact that she has to leave me. So that's what she prays for. Now her prayers, they actually get to Shamayim, hopefully mine get to the ceiling. The next morning, Hashem answers her. She wakes up, Tisha B'Av, horrible mood, and I finally found at 6 o'clock in the morning,

2:10:32Lecture number two works. She's all angry. Honey, I got number two. I got number two. Fine, fine, fine. We watched number one and two and one and three. He wasn't so bad this time. Fine. I watched number two. Number two, if anyone remembers, is when Rav Mizrachi talks about the Torah codes. But not only talks about the Torah codes, it talks about the very same chapter that I just read to you. Chapter 4 in Devarim, right before, if you seek for Hashem, you'll find Him. Before that, Hashem in verse 27 says, "Hashem will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where Hashem will lead you. There you will serve gods, the handiwork of man, of wood and stone, which do not see and do not hear and do not eat and do not smell." Here, Rav Mizrahi showed in the Hebrew, which I'll read in a second, that this is the only place where you can actually see, not only that it's obvious who the false god of wood is—you don't need to be a genius to figure that one out—but also who the false god of stone is, which, according to Christianity, they apparently don't read this part because no one knows this.

2:11:59But in the Torah codes, you could actually find both of their names inside this verse. If you skip 49 letters, you go, you start from the Heh. You skip 49 letters. You get to the Kaf. You skip 49 letters, I believe, if I remember correctly, 49 letters. And you get to the Mem. That's Mecca. Same word, Efitz, which is the first word. Hashem will scatter meaning. You start with the Yud. Skip 49 letters. The Hei is the first letter. You skip 49 letters. You get to the Chaf. You skip 49 letters, I believe, if I remember correctly, 49 letters. And you get to the Mem. That's Mecca. Same word, Yafitz, which is the first word. Hashem will scatter. Meaning, you start with the Yud. Skip 49 letters. You get to Shama, which is Shin. You skip 49 letters. You get to Yishma'on, which is the same ending word that you found Mecca in, the Mem. You find Vav. You find J.C. He always wanted a place in the Torah. He goes, he got himself a place right next to idol worship.

2:13:21For me, it was pretty cool. I mean, I've seen some Torah codes before. But for her, it was everything. If there was a Beit Din next to her, she would convert on the spot. But not like a convert, like, listen, I'm not so sure. Maybe this, maybe that. Day one, everything. Kisui Rosh, Tzniut, learning, everything. became the biggest tzedakah that I personally know. Rav Dovid has been telling all of you for years, spend some time doing kiruv. I left everything that I could possibly think of, dream of, and everything that I was good at to make the biggest investment in my life, which is all of my time, doing kiruv. I wasn't a fool. I knew how to invest. I can go back to Wall Street and make money. But that's not what Hashem sent me for training. He sent me to Wall Street for 16 years to train, to teach me to speak, and to eventually create more Jews. We have a lot of businessmen in the world. We don't have enough Jews. Now that CD that someone gave, that person that sponsored this shiur,

2:14:49The person that taped it, the person that's handing it out, changed my life. And for the last few years, Baruch Hashem, we've been doing Kiruv and trying to help people do Teshuva. And Baruch Hashem, and Be'ezrat Hashem, tomorrow one of my students is going to the Beit Din for conversion. So, Every one of us needs to know one thing. If you do kiruv, and I'll finish it off with this, you can all take it into account. In Sefer Yirmiyahu, Jeremiah tells us in verse 15:19, Hashem is telling us a little bit about kiruv. Most of us have a hard time either doing teshuva in the beginning. It's hard for us to build emunah. It's hard for us to change our surroundings. It's hard for us to connect 100%. It takes time. It takes effort. You have to sweat. You have to look for Hashem with all of your heart and all of your soul. He really meant it when He wrote it. So Hashem says, there is a little bit of help that I can give you if you do something small.

2:16:11Therefore, thus said Hashem: If you repent, I'll bring you back and let you stand before Me. Meaning your teshuva is always accepted. Even if someone is a machti et harabim, someone who makes other people sin, even though he doesn’t have the same siyata dishmaya as we learned from Pirkei Avot, he can still do teshuva. Teshuva is open for everyone. Even if he gets to a point of doing idol worship, he could still do teshuva. Obviously, he has to suffer and go through a tikkun, but nonetheless, teshuva is available and Hashem says, once you finish your teshuva, you complete your teshuva, you'll stand right next to me. I'll accept you like all of my Jews, my entire nation. But, if you bring forth an honorable person, meaning a righteous person, from a glutton, then you will be like my mouth.

2:17:31If you do teshuva, you'll stand next to me eventually. Complete your teshuva. It's a big deal. But if you help someone else do teshuva, what does "you'll be like my mouth" mean? The Midrash has many, many things about it, and so does the Gemara, and so do several other books. But I'll read only a couple of things to give you a little bit of understanding. The Midrash on Tehillim 1:16 uses this verse. It says, Hashem says to the tzaddikim, "I am the Creator, the ones that do kiruv. I am the Creator of the worlds and bring back the dead. You are the same." Your prayers, just like Rabbi Mizrachi has been telling us for many, many years, that the people in the Gemara that are named by name, they were able to revive the dead. It's not that they had power, but their prayers got a VIP treatment. Which means that if you spend time every day out of your busy schedule to help one of His children, whether it's by giving him a CD,

2:18:54helping with Kiruv, Rabbi, that's changed my life, and I'm sure many of yours, or all of yours. Supporting Kiruv, putting links, if you're already on the internet, enough with the sports, maybe put some links for the Shiur Torah. You spend some time every day, not just once a week, once in a while, but every day doing something for Kiruv. Arrange Shiurim, get people to come, something. Hashem says, you have a special deal. Your prayers that haven't been answered, You have the secret. Spend some time doing Kiruv. The Zohar says, if people knew the value of helping somebody do Teshuva, they'd run around in the streets like crazy people looking for Chilonim, looking for people that are not religious. In one of the drashot that Rabbi Ovadia, zatzal, said, he said,

2:19:55someone that's a tzaddik, that's born into the right family, goes to school, becomes a very righteous person—a big tzaddik. He gets to Gan Eden, which is right next to the malachim, the angels of Hashem. He gets right next to them. Nice place. But someone that's a star, meaning a star, Rabbi Ovadia is using Sefer Daniel as a source in several other places. A star is someone who spends time doing kiruv. He reaches a level higher than Malachei HaSharet. He's the only one; there's only room for him. Only kiruv people are there. It's a big deal. When I was on Wall Street, the only thing I did was invest. That's all I knew. And I'm sure all of you know a little bit of Torah. I'm sure all of you know a few people that are not religious. And there's a very big disparity between the religious and non-religious world. People that are religious think that the non-religious just don't want to do it. They don't realize that most of them just don't know.

2:21:24So the only thing I can tell you is that if you have some Torah knowledge, if you have some discs, if you have some money, if you have some time, if you have anything, if you care about Hashem, you have to spend five minutes a day doing kiruv. Five minutes. Five minutes. You're not asking for an hour. You're not asking for anyone to become the next big darshan unless you can. But five minutes a day do kiruv. Because we have to save 15 million people. Rav Mizrachi can't do it by himself. I came to help, and I can't do even a quarter of what he did. So, we need some more. We need to build an army. If everyone spends five minutes a day sending discs, giving discs, sharing links, sending text messages, creating WhatsApp groups, gathering shiurim, doing something—every one of your prayers will be answered. And hopefully, we can be sharing a lot about it with Rabbi Mizrachi.