Shiur Torah #100 ParaShat Shlach, If Your Logic is Not Torah Logic, Then It's Always Wrong !

0:03B'Shem Hashem Na'aseh V'Natzliach. Shiur Torah B'ezrat Hashem. May there be a Refuah Shlemah to David ben Nisriah, Doris bat Jorah, Levana bat Sara, and all of Am Yisrael. As I mentioned, most people today are worrying about their physical health but are ignoring their spiritual health. They are spending all of their time going to the gym, eating certain types of foods to make sure that they fit into the new pair of pants they want or the new dress, and they look good for the next wedding that's coming up, and unfortunately ignoring the reality of things, which is that Hashem says, Hashem is telling us every day that He's the healer of all flesh and the... eating certain types of foods to make sure that they fit into the new pair of pants they want or the new dress, and they look good for the next wedding that's coming up, and unfortunately ignoring the reality of things, which is that Hashem says, Hashem is telling us every day that He's the healer of all flesh and the Miracle worker. Meaning that if you actually want to have health, you only have one way. One way. There's no two ways. One way. Hashem. You can work out, like this guy that I know, worked out every day of his life, from the day he was a teenager into his thirties. Hashem, at 38 years old, dropped dead while running. Perfect health.

1:35Spiritually, nothing. Many people have been watching these shiurim. Baruch Hashem, we're now on Torah Anytime. There are almost 90,000 people who have access to the shiurim on Torah Anytime. Many other places on the internet. There's so much siyata dishmaya, so much mercy from Hashem for us and for Am Yisrael that He's speeding up the process. like you wouldn't believe. Just a couple of years ago, we just started publicizing our shiurim, because before that we were just doing private shiurim, five, ten minutes in Seudah Shlishit. Then we started recording shiurim. The next thing you know, a couple of years later, a Facebook group has over 5,000 people that are following us in one place, another 3,000 in another place. YouTube, another, you know, maybe 1,000 or so. WhatsApp has 10 groups already. Hundreds and hundreds of people from all over the world are asking me to make more shiurim. In the old days, they'd tell you, listen, come on, you're too harsh, you're too this, you're too that. Maybe say some more jokes. Now Am Yisrael and even part of the goyim, part of the righteous nations, the righteous people, are saying we need more Torah.

2:58Please make more daily chidush, the short shiur you make, 10, 15 minutes, make as often as possible, make it daily. The two-hour shiur, it was only two hours? Why can't you make it longer? People are, mamash, they want Torah. The CDs, Baruch Hashem, they're going out like it's mamash, you're giving people gold, which it really is, it's spiritual gold. I spoke to a very big rabbi in Yerushalayim, he says, you have to tell your people this. I had second thoughts before I said it, but I said, you know what, this is for the good of Am Yisrael, so it doesn't matter. So no one thinks it has anything to do with me or any ga'ava. A Rav from Jerusalem says, anyone that sponsors a thousand of these CDs has to look at it in a way that That those thousand CDs are going to save at least a thousand people from a place much worse than Auschwitz, much worse than any concentration camp in this world could ever be. The CDs are mamash making people do teshuva. It's unbelievable. A guy I gave to, a guy that is helping me out with a non-profit organization, came over the other day.

4:16And I gave him, like, listen, this is one of my new CDs. You could have the CD. He's like, sure, I'll listen to it. He comes back a few days later. He goes, listen, the CD's amazing. And he's already frum. The CD's amazing, but I had to give it to somebody because they were listening to it. And they said, give it to me. Go get more. Go get your own. They pretty much took the CD. He's like, do you have any more? I give him more CDs. So much. Unbelievable. And to think that just a couple of years ago, nothing. Nothing. Hashem is fast-forwarding things, and it has nothing to do with me. It has to do with Am Yisrael. It has everything to do with Am Yisrael. Am Yisrael has to wake up. Chasidei umot ha'olam, which is the nations, the righteous people amongst the nations, have to wake up and realize there's only a single truth. There's no such thing as two truths. There's only a single truth. The Torah only has one opinion. So then someone says, what do you mean? But the Torah says, Chazal say, there are 70 faces to the Torah. So how could there be a single truth? The 70 faces don't contradict each other. It's not that one face says, keep Shabbat, and the other one says, no, be mechalel Shabbat. It's no such thing. Meaning that you could understand 70 different things from the same exact verse, same exact word, same exact letter. 70 different lessons. It doesn't mean that there are 70 contradictory lessons. One tells you to eat chazir, and the other one says, no, it's treif. No such thing.

5:46But in today's world, when we spend so much time worrying about our physical body and not enough time on our spiritual, Hashem has to wake us up. And since we've already ignored our spiritual so much, when our spirit dies, when our soul mamash is on a lifeline, it's virtually dead because we haven't learned Torah in 30 years, what's the only way that Hashem has? our body. The only thing He has left is our body. So, Hashem, how many people are calling every day, begging for answers? How did you get healed? How is it that you went through seven years of hell, over 50 different doctors, countless medicines, countless surgeries, everything you can possibly imagine, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of expenses? No diagnosis. Forget no cure. Not even a diagnosis. Till this day they don't know what happened. But today, you see, Baruch Hashem, perfectly healthy. People watch this show of the personal story and they say, how could it be? What'd you do? Did you go to some Kabbalist and they gave you a special blessing? I don't even know a Kabbalist.

7:11What, did you go to the mikveh 50,000 times? No. I go to the mikveh once in a while whenever I have time and it's the opportunity to do it. We do it. But it had nothing to do with it. I did one thing. One thing. Not more. What? Ratzon Hashem. The will of Hashem. Hashem gave me a love letter. It's called the Torah. Same love letter He gave each one of you. Same love letter He gave all of mankind. He said, this is a love letter. These are instructions on how to live life, how to be successful spiritually, physically, in business, marriage, children, intellect—anything you want. Read it, follow it, and repeat. Rinse and repeat. Like when you go to the dentist: rinse and repeat. Same thing with Torah. Every week you have a parasha. Read it, study it, next week you have another parasha; next year, the same parasha again, but you're going to learn something new. So people are calling, and when you give them the truth, you'd be surprised. So I have a guy, which has a lot to do with this parasha. The cost of not telling the truth is very dear. Last week's parasha...

8:32the end of the parasha, we finished with one of the biggest events in history. One that we repeat every day at the end of Shacharit, which is the sin that Miriam made of saying lashon hara. Who out of all people did she say lashon hara about? Moshe Rabbeinu. The greatest prophet that ever lived, perhaps the greatest person that ever lived, the only person that ever spoke to Hashem face to face, the humblest man that ever lived despite having reason to be more arrogant than anyone that ever lived. He was strong physically, he was a genius, he was rich, he was a king. What else do you need? At 120 years old, he still looked like when he was in his 20s. We today, at 20 years old, because of all the crack that people do, and all the drugs they do, and all the clubs they go to, at 20, they look like they're 120. Moshe Rabbeinu still had the same eyes at 120, according to the Torah, that he had when he was 20 years old. Nothing changed. All the reasons in the world to be arrogant. But, the Torah says, no one more humble than Moshe ever lived. Meaning,

9:58that the guy that's homeless in the middle of New York has nothing to be arrogant about. He has no money, no wife, no kids, nothing. His best friend is the rat that walks around from subway to subway. Moshe Rabbeinu is more humble than him. Imagine that. So Miriam says Lashon Hara about him? Is she crazy? Miriam is also a prophet. Miriam is also one of the most important women that ever lived. So she didn't say Lashon Hara like we say Lashon Hara every time we call our friends. Hey, how you doing? Yeah, did you see what she was wearing? I can't believe it. What does her husband think? Oh, did you see their brand new car? Where do they have the money to pay for this car? I thought her husband was only a mailman. That's Lashon Hara, by the way. The telephone, best tool for Lashon Hara. Satan, I think, himself invented it. What do you do on a telephone if you die? It's not Lashon Hara. So the Lashon Hara of Miriam, it's not the same Lashon Hara. Miriam saw that Moshe left his wife. And Tzipporah, Moshe's wife, Tzadikah that she is, saved Moshe's life by giving a brit to one of the children.

11:26When Moshe was going to Mitzrayim, before he took Am Yisrael out of Mitzrayim, he had a son right before he left. And it was very dangerous to have a Brit Milah in the middle of the desert. So he said, okay, once I get there, I'll do the Brit Milah. Yes, Hashem said eight days, but it's dangerous. Hashem sent a Malach. It specifically says in the Torah that he was coming to kill him. What saved him? Tzipora. Tzipora saved his life. Righteous woman. So now Tzipora says to Miriam, yes, Moshe and I cannot be together anymore. So Miriam didn't understand this. She says to Aharon, what is this? Why is Moshe doing this? He's a prophet. We're prophets. She's doing it for Shamayim. She's thinking maybe her brother is machmir. Maybe he's being too stringent. You don't have to be too stringent. Shalom Bayit is very important for Hashem. You can't just ruin Shalom Bayit for no reason. She's doing it for Shem Shamayim.

12:48If Moshe is making a mistake, the Torah commands us, "You must rebuke your nation." You see somebody making a mistake, you have to rebuke him. You have to tell him what's going on. She says, maybe my brother is making a mistake. Even though he's the leader, he could be making a mistake. So, she tells Aharon, and then, because Moshe was so humble, Hashem knew he wouldn't even defend himself. So who came to defend Moshe? Hashem. Hashem Himself came to defend Moshe. He told them, come out. Everyone come. You, Miriam, Aharon, Moshe, all of you come. And since Moshe was already pure because he wasn't with his wife, he was already there. They had to purify themselves. And He's telling them, Yes, you're a prophet, and Aharon is a prophet, and Moshe is a prophet. But you and Moshe are not the same type of prophet.

14:16Here now my words. If there shall be prophets among you, in a vision shall I, Hashem, make myself known to him. In a dream shall I speak to him. She is telling you about any type of prophet you are ever going to have. The only way they're going to talk to me is through a dream, an epilepsy. They're not going to be alert. They're not going to be standing up on two feet. Any prophet, including Aharon and Miriam. Not so is my servant Moshe. In my entire house, he is the trusted one. Only Moshe will be 100% alert, standing on both feet, walking around, and he can talk to me whenever he wants. Mouth to mouth do I speak to him in a clear vision and not in riddles. This means that sometimes when we get prophecies from the prophets, whether it's Yirmiyahu, Zecharyah, Yechezkel, or any of the prophets, sometimes the prophecies are not exactly very clear. It could be this or it could be that. It's a little bit metushtash, you say in Hebrew. Fuzzy.

15:38Hashem says there's no riddles with Moshe. Whatever I tell him is 100% clear. It's like you all see a little blurry, whereas he sees it like a magnifying glass. He sees it as clear as can be. At the image of Hashem does he gaze. So now that you know that Moshe is not like you, why did you not fear to speak against my servant Moshe? Now you realize Moshe is not a regular person. He's not a regular prophet even. How did you not fear speaking against him? Why? Because he's my servant. What does it mean Avdi? Avdi. A servant, a slave, has no free choice, has no choice at all, has no opinion. Why? The opinion of the servant is the opinion of the master. And Moshe got to a level where Hashem says, he's my servant, meaning he completely eliminated his own opinion. Moshe chose this. Moshe eliminated his own opinion. When Hashem would ask something, he would say, "Whatever You want, Hashem. I have no opinion; I have nothing to say. Do You think that Caleb is the right person? Yeah. Do You think Bezalel is a good one to build the Aron Kodesh? Whatever You think, Hashem. Who am I to discount anything?"

17:08No opinion. Not like us today where every Jew has three opinions. No opinion. Whatever is Hashem's opinion, that's what I want. Hashem says it's the highest level. And because of that, Miriam got the disease of Tzaraat and the entire nation of Israel prayed for her. No cure. No cure. Tzaraat is a spiritual and physical disease. When you had it, aside from it being extraordinarily painful, you were also blacklisted. You got thrown out of the camp. And if anyone who came from far away was coming close to you, you had to scream, "Tzaraat, Tzaraat, I have Tzaraat. Stay away." Why? Because one of the ten reasons that someone would get tzaraat is lashon hara, saying lashon hara. So just like when you say lashon hara, why are you saying lashon hara? You're saying lashon hara to make people distance themselves, to make people distance from somebody.

18:33So just like you wanted to cause people to stay away from somebody else, you have to make sure other people are distanced from you. You can also have a seat over there if you want, if that's easier. Or there, wherever you are. So if somebody comes close to you in the desert, you have to scream, "I have tzaraat, I have tzaraat." Is it contagious? It's a problem. It's a serious problem, tzaraat. So now... What is it? What is tzaraat? You can ask me during the shiur. It's okay. It's not a public speech. I'm not Obama. You can ask questions during the shiur. It's not a prepared speech. Right. First, it's on the walls. It's similar to leprosy, but it's not exactly leprosy. It changes the skin color. It's similar to a leopard. But there are also infections all over the body. There's pain everywhere. There are actually some people that have tzara'at today. There's a hospital in Jerusalem specifically for those people because there's no cure. And they will call it leprosy?

19:56No, I don't know what they call it in Israel, but it's tzara'at in Hebrew. But there's no cure. There was actually no cure back then either. The only cure was teshuva. Unfortunately, today, we don't have the same level of holiness like we had back then. But the point being is that when you're publicizing to the world, "I have tzara'at," you're also publicizing to the world that you said lashon hara. It's part of your teshuva. So now, Miriam, the holy Miriam, one of the seven prophetesses that are mentioned in the Torah—she's not a regular person. The only reason we had water for 40 years is because of Miriam. She gets thrown out of the camp with tzara'at nonetheless. Not only does she get thrown out in public embarrassment, but she has tzara'at. The entire nation is screaming and yelling and praying for Miriam. No cure. No cure, nothing happens. She still has tzara'at. Vayomer Aharon el Moshe, Be'i Adoni, al na tashet aleinu chatat asher no'alnu, va'asher chatanu, al na tehi k'met.

21:12I beg you, my lord, do not cast a sin upon us, for we have been foolish and we have sinned. Let her not be like a corpse. like one who leaves his mother's womb with half his flesh having been consumed. It's your sister. It's not a regular person. We know we sinned. We're sorry. The whole nation is praying. It's not working. It's not working. Moshe, we need your help. Moses cried out to Hashem saying, "Please, God, heal her now." Five words. Five words. She healed instantly. She healed instantly. Chazal say, the significance of Moshe was bigger than all of Am Yisrael.

22:32Proof? Right here. All of Am Yisrael is praying? Nothing. Five words he says. Five words. She gets healed. So we're getting a little bit of an understanding of who Moshe Rabbeinu was. The reality of it is that even if you read the Torah a million times, not a thousand, not five thousand, a million times, you read all of the Torah, everything that's available in this world, a million times, you're still not going to know who Moshe Rabbeinu is. That's how humble he was. He's so humble that we can't even find out how significant he was even by learning Torah. That's how humble he was. He did so much that it's not even listed here. That's how much he did. That's how big Moshe Rabbeinu was. We think Hashem talks to anybody face to face. He had over a million prophets throughout history. According to Masechet Megillah, at least 1.2 million prophets. In reality, much more. But at least 1.2 million prophets throughout history. We only have 55 mentioned in the Torah—48 men and 7 women.

23:43So the Gemara asks, okay, if we have at least 1.2 million prophets, why do we only have the Torah of 55? We're missing a few. Hashem responds. He says, the Torah of the 1.2 million was only, their prophecy was only relevant to their generation. So what does it mean? What’s the real lesson here? That the Torah that we have from the 55 is relevant to eternity. He only included every letter, every sentence, every dot, every nekudah, everything only if it's relevant to eternity. If it's not relevant to eternity, it cannot be in the Torah. It cannot be. So when someone says, "No, maybe Shabbat's not relevant to this generation because we have cars and Moshe Rabbeinu didn't have a car." Okay. Read Masechet Megillah. You'll find out something different. You'll also find out how big Gehenom is, in Masechet Megillah. Masechet Megillah talks about how big Gehenom is. We're going to go over that in a few minutes. Very exciting. So now, we know who Moshe Rabbeinu is a little bit.

25:11Lashon Hara comes in many forms. And in this week's parasha, it's connected to the story of Miriam, because Am Yisrael sinned again. Parashat Shelach starts with Vayedaber Adonai El Moshe Le'emor, Shelach Lecha Anashim Veyaturu Et Eretz K'na'an Asher Ani Noten Livnei Yisrael, Ish Echad Ish Echad L'matei Avotav Tishlachu, Kol Nasi Bahem. Hashem spoke to Moshe, saying: "Send forth men if you please, and let them spy out the land of K'na'an, which I give to the children of Israel." One man, each from his father's tribe shall you send, everyone a leader among them. There are many, many lessons from just these couple of verses that will give us a whole picture. First and foremost, Hashem is speaking to Moshe. He says, send forth your men if you please. What does it mean, if you please? He's telling you, listen, I already told you that the land that I'm giving you is the land of milk and honey. It's a good land. It's the best land.

26:32It's the best part of all of Earth. It's the best part of all the planets. This little land that everybody's fighting over today, it's the best part of the entire world. I'm giving it to you. It's the best land. You don't trust Me. Me, not Moshe. Am Yisrael, they don't trust Me. They're scared. They want to scout it. Because they're... a couple of hours away from it. We just left Mount Sinai. We're a couple of hours away from the border. In a couple of hours, we could be in Eretz Yisrael. Start building the Beit HaMikdash. No, no, no, no, no. We don't want to go yet. We want to see what's there first. He's been promising this land for a couple of thousand years, and you want to go check it out first? Okay. He says, if you please. You want to go check it out? Go check it out. You don't want to have emunah in Me? You don't want to take My word for it? Just remember there's a cost for it. There's a cost for not having emunah. Emunah, unlike what some people believe, is not an option. It's not a choice. Have emunah. Good for you. No emunah.

27:54Okay, you lose out. It's a price for paying for not having emunah. Hashem is telling you here, you want to not have emunah? Send them out. But don't just send out anybody. You have millions and millions of people in Bnei Yisrael. Millions of people. The lowest estimate is somewhere in the neighborhood of maybe 12-15 million. Some people say there was much more. We did the numbers one time. My chavruta, Rabbi Ephraim, and I. Basically, we came up with that before they left Mitzrayim, there should have been over a billion people. Before they left Mitzrayim. Which means by the time they left Mitzrayim, it was at least 100 million. 100, maybe 200 million. It's a lot of people. But let's say there's only 15 million. All 15 million were prophets. It says everyone that went to Mount Sinai heard Hashem's voice. Chazal say they all saw prophecy. The cleaning lady that went to Mount Sinai, the cleaning lady, the one that was just a slave, wasn't doing anything. The lowest level.

29:12Standing in the street, collecting a few dollars, maybe she'd get her kids to go to yeshiva. That one, she had bigger prophecy than the prophet Yechezkel. Everyone's a prophet. Hashem says, no, no, no, don't send anyone. Send the best ones from them. The 12 best ones. If there's 15 million, send 12 that are the best ones. Gedolei HaDor. The biggest sages in the entire generation. So there's no confusion. Vayishlach otam Moshe mimidbar Paran al pi Hashem, kulam anashim, rashei bnei Yisrael hema. Moses sent them forth from the wilderness of Paran at Hashem's command. They were all distinguished men, heads of the children of Israel were they. And these were the names, and it goes through the names of each one of the leaders of the 12 tribes. Two specific ones.

30:33Tarenda being the tzaddikim out of all of them. Because at this point, everyone's a tzaddik. These are the 12 greatest sages. This is from Am Yisrael at that point. But one of them is Yehoshua bin Nun. Joshua. Another one is Kalev ben Yefuneh. from a tribe of Judah, no, I'm sorry, tribe of Judah, yeah, tribe of Judah. So, Hashem is telling us you picked them, fine. Now, Moshe already had, Chazal says, Moshe already had a prophecy that this is not really going to go too well. We question Hashem, not having emunah in Hashem. It's not a good idea. Not a good idea. So he says, Yehoshua, from now on, his name originally was Hoshea. And

31:58Moses added a yud, added a letter to his name, and called him Yehoshua. Joshua. Yud is one of the letters in Hashem's name. He gave him a special blessing. Why? To protect him from being influenced by everyone else. Because you know something's not going to go so right. But now, Moshe is telling them, listen, since we're already going, I'm going to give you a mission of what to do. Check out this land. It says in chapter 13, verse 20, U'mah ha'aretz hash'menah hi im razah, hayesh ba'eitz im ayin, v'hitchazaktem u'lakachtem mipri ha'aretz. V'hayamim yemei bikurei ha'anavim.

32:58Are there trees in it or not? You shall strengthen yourselves and take from the fruit of the land. The days were the season of the first ripe grapes. So the pshat, meaning the simple meaning, is that he's telling them, listen, check out the land, see if it's fertile. And if this is the season for the grapes, bring some samples of what they have. That's the pshat. But the sod is something different. Later on, after we make the sin, when Am Yisrael says, listen, they have giants in this land, even the normal-sized people are still huge. And there's also the children of the Nephilim. Nephilim were half-angel, half-man. They were huge, reached the sky. They say they're over there, their children are over there, huge people. And even the small people are still huge, we were like grasshoppers in their eyes.

34:03When Caleb is trying to defend the land, he says, no, no, don't worry. They don't have any protection from Shamayim anymore. What does he say? In chapter 14, verse 9, it says, So the three words mean their protection has departed from them. Meaning that these people lived in this land, the Canaanites, the Amorites, all of these nations lived in this land. They had special protection; they had a special deal. Anyone that's alive in this world has to be alive because Hashem wills him to be alive. You cannot be alive if Hashem doesn't want you to live. There's no such thing. You cannot be healthy without Hashem wanting you to be healthy. You cannot be rich if Hashem doesn't want you to be rich. Everything has to be the will of Hashem. Including, including, someone like Adolf Hitler. Hashem wanted him to live. Which, by the way, reminds me of something very, very scary that I watched this week, or two weeks ago. Very, very,

35:29Anis Darshan, one of the better ones that we have in Israel today, in the world today, Rav Porat, came out with a video going over Mein Kampf, Hitler's book, what he wrote. Most people didn't read this book, even though in those days they sold over 70 million copies. Most people today don't really know what it says in there. Especially Israelis, especially Jews. Who's gonna read Hitler's book, yimach shmo? He writes in his book. What he writes in his book is very scary. He writes in his book multiple times, many, many times, why he hated Jews. And it's not what I thought. It's not what most people thought. That's the scary part. He thought, yeah, I'm listening. He doesn't like people with a conscience. They're merciful. They don't look a certain way. That's what we heard our whole life. That's the education that I got. That's the education most people got. That's not what he writes in his book. That's not what he writes in his book. Hitler, he says, I hate them because they're communists. What does it mean, communist?

36:55They're anti-God. And it's my job to eliminate them before they eliminate us, like they did in Russia. Because they're going against God. Meaning he didn't like, he didn't hate, he didn't like exactly the Chassidim, the ones with the peyos, the religious ones that are in Beit Knesset, he didn't care for them. But he's now writing this book for them. The actual war is not against the religious. He's going against the Jews because of the secular. Because they're pretenders. They change their names, they change their looks. They make us think that they're Germans, but they're not. They're going against God, and it's my job to eliminate them. He said what it says in the Torah. This is what he wrote in his book. Who read his book? What Jew read his book? All of us always thought, oh, he was just a racist guy. He was a racist guy, obviously. I'm not agreeing with what he did in any strange way. But he didn't say anything contrary to what HaShem said.

38:27And even also, this rabbi also quoted the work of Wagner, who was an anti-Semite even before Hitler. Same thing. Same language. What does he say? "I don't care for the religious people. I don't like them. But the secular ones, the ones that act like they're Germans, if we don't kill them, they're going to destroy us." says this. Who knew this stuff? What school teaches this? What history? I took Zionism classes in college. I learned this subject very, very thoroughly. I read big books. Not one book ever mentioned this, except the actual source, which is Hitler himself, who wrote it. You have to find out who's going to read German, who's going to read his book. Some chacham actually read it, and he's giving us information directly from the horse's mouth.

39:30So now, back to this, back to this parasha, after getting the shock of our life here, of the truth behind the scenes that we never knew. You know what the Chofetz Chaim said before, when they started doing the restrictions on the Jews going to, just say to Cheder, when the Jews were putting their kids in secular schools, the Chofetz Chaim said, He said, when they did the Nuremberg Laws, he said, they basically kept the Jews apart. That was part of, sort of... What are the Nuremberg Laws? The Nuremberg Laws say that a Jew is not allowed to marry a non-Jew. Exactly what the Torah says. no, no, it's racist. What's racist? It's the Torah. The Torah said it. Hashem said it. He doesn't want a Jew to marry a non-Jew. That's what the Nuremberg Law is. Everybody says, no, Nuremberg. What Nuremberg? I'm telling you, this is what the law is. What's wrong with it? If you ask two people, I read this thing. If you ask anyone, a Jew, a non-Jew, anyone, do you think that a Muslim and a Christian should get married?

40:50Statistically speaking, over 90% of the people that were asked this question always answer no. A Jew and a non-Jew, the statistics change. Why? Why? If you ask a Muslim and a Christian, or a Muslim and a Buddhist, or a Buddhist and a Christian, the answer is always no. It's always no. There's always some idiot in the back saying, go ahead, go for it. But in reality, it's always no. But when you say a Jew shouldn't marry a Christian, or a Christian shouldn't marry a Jew, oh, he's such a racist. Can't believe it. God is not like that. God understands. No, He doesn't. He wrote in His Torah a million times. He doesn't understand. He said no. He said no all the way back to Avraham Avinu. But if you say that in today's politically correct world, you're a racist. It has nothing to do with being better than you or not better than you. It has to do with obeying what God said. And this is what we keep forgetting. Everything has to do with what God said. It has nothing to do with our opinion. Your opinion is your yetzer hara. The more you use your opinion, the farther you are from Hashem. Your opinion, if it's not from the Torah,

42:18is wrong. Anyone can guess how often it's wrong if it's not in the Torah? 100% of the time. Meaning you can never be right if it's not in the Torah. Ever. In the long run, impossible. In the short run, it may look like you made the right purchase or the right deal or the right choice. In the long run, if it's against the Torah, it can never be right. So now, the Meraglim report that there are giants here, and then Caleb says to them, "Don't worry, they don't have any protection." What's this protection? They used to have a tzaddik in Canaan. They used to have a tzaddik; his name was Iyov. His name was Iyov. There's a whole book about him in the Tanach. He died, so they don't have his zechut. In order for the whole land to survive, he had to be alive.

43:19He just died. Interestingly, in the verse we just read, "Is there a tree there?" is actually one of the hints that Moshe Rabbeinu is finding out. He is actually asking the Meraglim, asking the spies, to go find out if Iyov is still alive. Why? Hayesh ba'etz, is there a tree there? Tree in Chazal's language is synonymous with tzaddik. Etz Chaim means the tree of life. What's the tree of life? The tzaddik that learns Torah. We see this every day in Shacharit. So Moshe says, Check out if Iyov is still alive. And if he's alive, get a chizuk from him. If he's alive, go learn something from him.

44:32meaning, take from the fruit of the nation. Go, if he's still alive, go learn from him and bring it back to us. Bring some of these teachings. That's what Moshe is telling us here. Not just bring fruits. See if Iyov is alive. Iyov is somebody important. There's a whole book in the Torah about him. But these meraglim these spies unfortunately were not thinking about Torah. They were not thinking about anything to do with Torah. From the beginning, they were already thinking about how they were going to see certain things. They already had a predisposition of what they were going to see, and they looked for what they were going to see. Just for example, you tell somebody, listen

45:35You should invest in this business. And the guy asks you, okay, what kind of business is it? And you tell him, I don't know, it's a software company. And this guy already has experience with software companies and he hates them. He lost some money in some software company. So you tell him, oh, you want to look at it? He says, yes, yes, I'll look at it, but I don't think I'm interested. How do you know if you're not interested? You haven't looked at it yet. So you show him the information and he's only finding the things he doesn't like. Same thing with zivug. Same thing sometimes you try to make a shidduch. Try to make a shidduch. It's much more important than investing in a company. I'll give you an example of a company because everybody can understand investing in a company. Everybody likes money. But shidduch is the crisis we have. We don't have a crisis of money today. We have a crisis of shidduchim. You tell somebody, listen, I think you should take a look at this girl. Or you should take a look at this boy, right? Oh, what family does he come from? Oh, he's Moroccan. He's from Tripoli. He's from Ashkenaz. He's from whatever. Oh, yeah, that's not like us. No, we're Yemenites. We're Ashkenazi and he's Sephardi. We're Sephardi. He's Ashkenazi. We're Moroccan. They're from Tripoli. We're this. We're black. They're white. It's not going to work. How do you know it's not going to work? Go meet the person.

47:01you know it's not going to work. Okay, let me see, let me see their resume, because today, Hashem, the frum world has resumes. I'm not kidding. The frum world, if they want a shidduch, you have to send a resume. Not just like a picture or something, you know? Okay, listen, obviously, in today's world, with such a low level, if there's no attraction, there's no attraction, there's no chance. People are not like, you know, just the previous generation. They meet someone, they find out five words from them, they get married. Today, they have to know how much money you make, what kind of car you drive, who's your father, who's your brother, who's your uncle, what Beit Knesset you go to, are you on this side of the Minyan or that side of the Minyan, do you go to Netz? Oh, you don't go to Netz? No, you're not good enough for me. What do you mean? I go, it's 8 o'clock in the morning. I study till 4 o'clock in the morning every day. No, but you don't go to Netz. It's not acceptable for me. You either go to the dawn or nothing. What? What do you mean? Thank God that the guy is even religious, bechlal, in this generation. That's the problem. That's the problem. So what happens? You tell them, listen, okay, take a look at this resume. What do they find? They find everything that's wrong. Oh, he's a centimeter shorter than her.

48:19Okay, it's a centimeter. No one can ever see it. You can't see it. No, but she's shorter. It's not good. Okay, fine. Oh, his feet. Wow, that's his shoe size? Because some of these resumes may include a shoe size. Wow, he has very big feet. Oh, is that a birthmark? What do you care? Are you dating him or is the girl going to... That's the problem. Why? Because of our predisposition, we're only finding mistakes. We're only finding things we don't like. That's the Meraglim. The Meraglim were going to Canaan; they were going to Eretz Yisrael to find something wrong. Why? Because they already started on the left foot. No emunah. If you really believed in Hashem and had emunah in Hashem, what are you checking the land for, bechlal? He said it's a good land. That means it's a good land. What, he's going to lie to you? What benefit is it to him to lie to you? How does he win? He brought you all the way here, made all the miracles that ever happened happen for you, just to torture you? But they already started with the left foot. They already started with no emunah. Ten out of the twelve. They go there,

49:43And they see giants. They really actually see giants. Vayelchu vayavo'u el Moshe v'el Aharon kol adat Bnei Yisrael After they see what they see over there, they come back and they want to make a scene. You know how some people sometimes like to make a scene? Like they want to make sure everyone hears their phone call?

50:46You know, you're at some, I don't know, some restaurant, and a guy, you know, everybody's eating, trying to have a conversation. How are you? What do you think of this week's parasha? Or, how are you? What do you think of my car? I don't know, different people have different conversations. But then you have this guy, and he says, hello? Yeah, yeah, I want to buy a million shares. No, no, a million shares. What, $20 a share? Yeah, $20 million? Yeah, yeah, I'll send you the money. Who cares about your $20 million? Who cares about anything? Most likely, it's just AT&T calling him, saying he didn't pay the bill on time. That's the reality. But what does he want? To show off. He wants to show off. Hello? Yeah. No, no, I don't agree. Who wants to hear your conversation? Be quiet. Go into a room. He wants to make a show. He wants to make a show. That's what the Meraglim wanted to do. didn't just see things they didn't like, but when they came back, they wanted to make sure everyone knew. Unlike if you see something bad, if you're going on reconnaissance or a special mission in the army, you don't go and publicize, "Hey everyone, listen, the terrorists have that many bombs." No, you go to the leader and say, "Listen...

52:08They have 12 bombs here, 10 bombs here, 12 snipers here. You tell the guy, that's it. It's simple. You don't publicize to the world. They want to publicize to everyone: Moshe, Aharon, Miriam, all of the leaders, all of the people, all of the children, all of the wives—everyone come, we have something to say. This is already mistake number one. You cannot give the public news that they cannot handle. Why? Because most people use their emotions instead of their brains. If it was according to the Torah, you would shut down CNN tomorrow, yes. Because CNN and most media, 99.999% of media in general, is comprised of only lashon hara. That's all they do. Especially since most of them are anti-Semites. Two terrorists killed 50 people. Israeli police killed two "innocent Palestinians." What? Innocent Palestinians? They just killed 50 people.

53:30This is what the headlines are. Yeah, exactly. They don't mention that. They don't mention that. Maybe in small print. Yeah, exactly. So now the Meraglim make another mistake. They make this public announcement of disaster. They say, yeah, yeah, the land you sent us to, yes, it flows with milk and honey and this is its fruit. Show them the grape they brought. The grape was so big, eight people had to hold it. Eight people had to hold the grapes. Huge. Another person had to hold a pomegranate. These things are huge. So, yeah, it's definitely the land of milk and honey; it has fruits, it has all that stuff. But, the big but. The big but. But the people that dwell in the land are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very great, and we also saw the offspring of the giants. The definition of Anak is giant.

54:59So anyone that doesn't believe that giants lived, it's in the Torah. This is not the only place. There are many other places in the Torah that talk about giants. Amalek dwells in the area of the south, the Hittite, the Jebusite, tells about all the nations that live over there. And then, as if this wasn't enough, When Caleb, oh haba, oh haba, honorary guest, as if this wasn't enough, as if scaring everyone half to death was not enough for them, when everyone heard this and got scared, Caleb tried to silence everyone and said, "No, listen..."

56:01If Hashem wants us to conquer this land, we'll conquer it. It doesn't matter if there are giants or not. It doesn't matter if they're fortified. It doesn't matter if they have weapons. It doesn't matter if they have 2 billion people that hate us. It doesn't matter if they have more atomic bombs. It doesn't matter if they have smart people, stupid people. It doesn't matter. If Hashem wants you to, when are you going to win? What is it called? Ah, what's another name for all of this? Emunah. If you have emunah, you have no problems. If you don't have emunah, you're practically dead. Where do we learn this from? The word emet. Emet. Hashem says in order for you to live and go in the right direction, you have to go by My signature. Hashem's signature, just like you sign your name, Hashem's signature is emet. Truth. Why emet? Emet is also, if it's called rashei teivot, which means that every one of the three letters of the word emet turns into another word. So, emet, we know that the only, what's emet? Emet stands for Hashem. You have to go in the direction of Hashem.

57:19You're not going in the direction of some idol. You're going in the direction of money. You're going in the direction of women. You're going in the direction of sports. You're going in the direction of some nonsense. You're not going the truthful way. So first off, we know Emet stands for Hashem. But what does Hashem say? He says you have three things in order to show you have Emet. Aleph, emunah. you have to have emunah that I'm serious, that I'm real, that I take care of everything. That when I say I'm the healer of all flesh, I mean it. When I say I open my arms and feed anyone that needs sustenance, That means you don't have to work on Shabbat. I'll feed you on six days of work if you want, or no work at all, if you have the emunah. So that's Aleph. How do we get there? We have two things we need: mitzvot. Hashem gave us instructions of things to do in order to build our emunah.

58:33When we pray, we have two choices. We can either be robots and think about the game instead of the fact that Hashem is standing right next to us while we're praying, and we can't wait until we finish Amidah. We can't wait until Birkat Hamazon is over because the game is coming on. We can't wait until the Rabbi finishes going over Amidah because I have an appointment. Mr. Jones is coming to the office. Mr. Jones may give me a million dollars. This Amidah is not giving me a million dollars. Last time I checked, the Rabbi doesn't give million-dollar checks at the end of Amidah. So, we could be robots. What are robots? Robots just read it, breeze through it, but they believe nothing. They understand nothing, they believe nothing, they do nothing. They just read words and make sounds. Most people who do Amidah, unfortunately, have no idea what they're saying. Why? Because once you actually learn some of the things that it says, it's actually kind of scary. A lot of people say, no, you know, the Torah is supposed to be fun, and a lot of love, and Hashem loves, and there's no such thing as bad things, everything is good. Okay, but if you actually read Amidah, or you read Kriyat Shema, or you read Tehillim, a lot of it is really scary. For example, some people teach today that there's no such thing as Gehinom.

59:59There's no such thing as hell and there's no such thing as eternal suffering. There's no such thing. Little do they know that all of those things are actually in the Amidah, and we pray for it. In the Amidah, you have a section where it says, "Laminim u'lemalshinim al tehi tikvah." For the heretics and for the informers, let there not be hope, and all the evildoers in an instant should perish. Where do they get this from? They get this from the Gemara, Masechet Rosh Hashanah, page 17. The Gemara, Masechet Rosh Hashanah, discusses different kinds of sins in the world. But when someone is considered a heretic, he's called a min, minim. When someone is mamash going against the Torah, he doesn't even necessarily need to be an idol worshiper. He just tells the guy, "Listen, what, you want to go to the movies?" The guy says, "No, I have to go to yeshiva."

1:01:21No, no. A new movie came out. It's, I don't know, Freddy Krueger number 18. He says, no, I have to go learn some Torah. He convinces him to go to the movies. He has himself a problem. Then there's something called a mesit. A mesit is someone that tries to Not necessarily just discourage someone from doing a mitzvah, but take them down a notch. So when does this happen? A woman starts covering her hair, like a tzaddeket, and all of a sudden one of the friends comes to her and goes, what are you, Sarah Imeinu? What are you, Sarah Imeinu? All of a sudden you're covering your hair, all of a sudden you're a tzaddeket? The woman's doing teshuvah, leave her alone, what do you want from her? But the fact that the woman who covered her hair now feels bad, even if she feels bad about herself for half of a percent, is the opposite of what should happen. Usually, when women hear something like this, they take off the kisui rosh and say, "That's it, I can't do this anymore."

1:02:35They lose steam right away in the beginning. It's very hard for a woman. It's a big tikkun for her in the beginning. Until she knows the significance of kisui rosh and she connects to it, it's very difficult. So this woman that thinks it's not a big deal, no, I'm her sister. I know her. I'm her sister. I'm her friend for 30 years. I know her. It's not her to cover her hair. So you know that when you did that, you became part of this problem. And the Gemara, it says, what are we saying here? Those people, number one, are not allowed to have mercy on them. What's the mercy about? The Gehinnom they have never ends. The Gemara says Mashiach will come, and Hashem will close the doors of Gehinnom except theirs. Their Gehinnom never ends. Unless they do teshuva. Everything is subject to teshuva.

1:03:36But this is something that I'm sure every one of us did at some point or another. Ah, come on, you're going to go to this shiur? What is this rabbi going to say? He just helps ba'alei teshuva. We already did teshuva. We don't need to learn it. He just helps people do teshuva. Nah, we're already higher level. We're learning Masechet Berachot. By the way, kiruv lessons, teshuva lessons, are for everyone, including gedolei hador. They listen to it also. Anyone that really wants to be righteous with Hashem, they listen to this stuff. Why? It helps you develop yirat shamayim. But someone says, no, listen, he helps people convert. He helps people just do teshuva. We already keep Shabbat. It's enough. We already learned his Shabbat shiur already. He became a mesit. Saying something stupid like that, discouraging somebody from coming to a shiur? Oh, the class is too long. Oh yeah, you know what? It is too long. The guy doesn't come because of you. Shem yirachem on you. Now, a lot of people like the story of the Chatam Sofer. Chatam Sofer. Chatam Sofer has wonderful stories. He lived an extraordinary life. A lot of wonderful stories in the life of the Chatam Sofer, right? But there are some stories not usually publicized in shiurim. It's a little harsher. But they're real stories.

1:05:06One day, there was about half a dozen, about five or six guys, that came to the town of Pressburg. And their job, their life mission, was to be mesitim—to go to the yeshiva boys and tell them, "Ah, come on, all day you're in yeshiva. Come, hang out with us, smoke a cigarette with us, have a drink with us." Arsim. Little gangsters, that's what they wanted to do. And they started influencing people. Then all of a sudden, the Rav sees this, he calls the Chatam Sofer. The Chatam Sofer says, "This is

1:06:06In the Book of Deuteronomy, chapter 4, verse 3, it says, from this verse, we learn that anyone who went after idol worship, why did they go after idol worship? Baal Peor was an idol. Why? It was because people encouraged them to do it. Same thing with the Meraglim, the spies of this week's parasha. Why did Am Yisrael sin against Hashem? Why did Am Yisrael all of a sudden lose all emunah? Because of the Meraglim. Because of the spies. It says people like that, Hashem destroys them. What does it mean Hashem destroys them? Hashem makes sure to destroy them early in this world, right away.

1:07:07to make sure that the tzaddikim don't hear this. So the Chasam Sofer says, I'm going to make sure to have kavanah when I get to lamalshinim in Amidah. I'm going to have kavanah when I pray. Talk about these people. All of a sudden, these people start dying. One guy committed suicide. Another guy drowned. Another guy had some strange accident. He lost his head, literally. Everyone died, except one guy. When the Chasam Sofer was alive, not too long ago, a few generations ago. Except one. One guy realized all of his friends were dying. He left town and went to Vilna. Then he sent the Chasam Sofer a letter, saying, "I'm sorry. I need the Rav to give me a blessing." So, Chasam Sofer did an investigation and realized that this guy is full of it. He's a liar. He didn't do teshuva. He's not sorry. So he wrote him a letter back. He wrote him a letter back, saying, "Yes, I give you a blessing every day. When I say in my Amidah, that Hashem will never give you the opportunity to do teshuva and you die immediately. Every day when I pray three times a day, I pray for you."

1:08:37And he kept doing it until the guy died. What was the purpose of these guards? Were they sent by Hashem? No, these six people, obviously. Anything that happens in the world... No, these six people were regular six kofrim, six heretics. But the point, yeah, Hashem will use different tools to test Am Yisrael, of course. But nothing happens in this world without Hashem signing off on it. But at the same token, we have to make sure that we can pass the test. Am Yisrael saw all the miracles in the world, but when it came to emunah, it didn't exist. It didn't exist. These 12 spies went; 10 of them came back with bad news. Two of them, Yehoshua and Kalev, were trying to defend the land while the other 10 were saying, "No, there are giants over there, we can't defend ourselves," which, in essence, means that what they're really saying is that these giants are even stronger than Hashem. Why? Why?

1:09:58Because the power of words is very, very strong. You have the opportunity to do two things. You can either do good with your words, or you can do bad with your words. I can either say things to you that are going to influence your life in a positive way, or I can tell you things that are going to influence your life in a negative way. That's the power of words. Your words are, in essence, when you speak, especially things that are relating to Torah, you're speaking Hashem's language. It has the power to change people's lives, negatively or positively. And I'll give you an example. A couple of days ago, on Motzei Shabbat, I received an email from a young guy, maybe in his 40s. He has serious problems. Lost his money. Lost his job. Lost his health. surgeries, constant pain, disaster. He says, "I went to yeshiva as a young guy, and then my friend died when I was young. I lost all of my emunah, all of my bitachon in Hashem, all of my confidence in Hashem. I left the derech. I fell off all the way to the point where I was eating bacon for breakfast."

1:11:28This is not exactly a unique story, by the way. Many, unfortunately, are eating bacon for breakfast, having left the derech. The situation's a disaster. I'm reading this email, and I'm reliving my story. He says, "I'm at a point, I don't know what I'm going to do, but I came on, somehow I decided to click on Torah Anytime." I actually went to Torah Anytime and I clicked on your shiur. And I knew it was Hashem talking to me because you went through something that I'm going through. And I knew you were the only one that could save me. So, if you could please return my message. Now, usually... When I get messages, baruch Hashem, there's hundreds and hundreds of messages regularly, every day. There's more. There's text messages, phone calls, emails, Facebook comments. It doesn't end, baruch Hashem. Usually,

1:12:33Like anyone that has a lot of messages, you try to go to the short ones first. When someone sends you a megillah, you put that to last. Because who has time to read a message that's three pages? During the time you read three pages, you could already help 15 people. So if you ever want to send a rabbi a question, usually the best thing to do is send two lines, short and to the point. But once in a while, I read the long messages, and this one caught my attention right away, and I read this thing. And I said, okay, this one needs some personal attention. This is not one of those messages where you just write, "Hey, don't worry, everything's going to be fine." This one needs personal attention. This is a serious problem. You feel it. So I set up a time when I call this guy. And I call him. I think it was Sunday, Sunday, Monday. Yeah, Sunday. Sunday night we talk. Talk for a while. I explain to him the situation. I explain to him that right now I show him some verses. I show him some proofs. We talk about Shabbat. We talk about Tefillin. We talk about kosher. We talk about disease. We talk about heaven. We talk about hell. Mamash, private shiur. But I'm putting everything on the table right on the spot. I'm telling him that what's happening to you

1:14:00It's the best thing that could have ever happened to you. Everything that's happened to you is the best possible thing. Hashem is giving you a chance. What we don't understand is that you have to have zechut to do teshuva. Not everyone is going to do teshuva. The sages say, from the Nevi'im, that just like Mitzrayim had many miracles... When the Mashiach comes, we're also going to have miracles. Just like Mitzrayim had the plague of darkness, the Yimei HaMashiach are also going to have the plague of darkness. Only one difference: in Mitzrayim, the darkness was three days. During those three days, Chazal say that at least 80% of Am Yisrael died. Eighty percent of the Jews, or Israelites as they were called at the time, died. Why did they die? Hashem says, do teshuvah, you're going to get my Torah. No, no, we don't really want to leave. I have my shop over here, I have my cousin Billy, Steven's over here, Aunt Mary's over there. I'm comfortable, it's my neighborhood. I have my beit knesset that I sometimes go to.

1:15:23I don't want to go to the desert. What am I going to do in the desert? You go to the desert, Moshe. Who wants to go to the desert? Hashem says, oh, you don't want to go to the desert? You don't want to get my Torah? Okay, I don't need you. He kills 80% of Am Yisrael. Actually, there's a Midrash, as I've said at several lectures. There's a Midrash in Me'am Loez. It says it's not one chamushim. That's the word that they get it from, chamushim. The literal meaning is one out of five. 1 out of 5. Meaning that 1 out of 5 came out of Egypt, which means 20% left Egypt, 80% died in the plague of darkness. Because Hashem didn't want the Egyptians to see that He's killing both Egyptians and Israelites. But there's a Midrash that says, no, no, chamushim doesn't mean 1 out of 5. It means 1 out of 500,000. meaning only two people survived out of every million. Two people. Tzvika and Simcha, they survived. The rest of the Joeys and the Miriams and everyone else, 999,998, no go. Why? No teshuvah.

1:16:46Whether it's 80% or it's 99.8% is irrelevant. Either way, we see Hashem is not kidding. Three days. Three days of darkness. Yemei HaMashiach, the Prophet says, no, it's not going to be three days. It's going to be 15 days. 15 days of darkness. Why? Because it applies to the entire world. And Yemei HaMashiach, Yemei HaMashiach. the entire world is going to have to do teshuva before it happens. Whoever doesn't do teshuva before Mashiach comes will not have another chance to do teshuva. Whoever doesn't have the zechut to do teshuva before Mashiach comes will be in a different place. In the Gemara Masechet Megillah

1:17:48The Gemara talks about Gan Eden. We have no concept of good. We don't know what's good. Most people, Rambam says, everything we think is good is really bad. What do we think is good? We think women are good, many women, many horses, much money, much pride, much fame. According to the Torah, all of that is bad. It's bad for you. All of those are tests that you can't pass. Having a lot of money is a bigger test than not having money at all. That's why when the Chazon Ish, his wife, bought a lotto ticket, he started crying. He said, I don't want any part of this lotto ticket. If you win, everything is yours. Don't give me the responsibility. She says, why? Why don't you want responsibility? He goes, you know what kind of responsibility it is to have money? If I have money, that means I have to make sure that everyone that I know or have access to is in a good financial situation. Because I cannot have a situation where I have more than enough and one of my brothers or sisters in Am Yisrael that I have access to doesn't have money for Shabbat, doesn't have money to pay for yeshiva. Who wants these tzarot, he says? Who wants this problem? Who wants to have this money? Who doesn't pray for money today? Everybody prays to be rich because we're different than the Chazon Ish.

1:19:20So now, since we don't really know what's good, we know things that Chazal try to give us a visual. He says Gan Eden is very big, and he gives us the exact measurements. He gives us exact measurements in the Gemara Masechet Megillah. Exact measurements of how big Gan Eden is. They learn Torah there. It's beautiful. Things that we can understand. Very basic though. No like... overly mystical information. Because we really can't understand what real good is. Real good is spiritual. We don't really know what spiritual is. Unless we've made ourselves into something spiritual, which we can only do through Torah. But then the Gemara says, this Gan Eden, it has a size. It's like this box. box, tzaddikim, they go to this box. We have exact measurements of how big Gan Eden is. Exact measurements. But then the Gemara says, Gehinom doesn't have an end. It doesn't have a size. It's endless. It's not just big. It's big.

1:20:44It keeps growing. This gives us an understanding of why the days of Mashiach have 15 days and not three days. Unfortunately, most people don't have the z'chut, and the ones that have the z'chut don't always necessarily take the opportunity. So this guy, I tell him this story. I tell him some information. What's Gan Eden? What's Shabbat? So he tells me, he's like, listen, I went to this Beit Knesset for years. Lived in a different state. I went to this Beit Knesset. Orthodox. No Reform or Conservative to give bar mitzvahs to pets. Give a, you know, a little Chihuahua feeling of $2,000. We're not there. Orthodox shul. But on Shabbat, the rabbi was telling everyone where to park. They're not even hiding that they're driving on Shabbat. They're not even hiding. The rabbi is telling them, no, no, park here. Welcome, welcome. What Baruch Haba? What Baruch Haba? What Baruch Haba? What Baruch Haba?

1:22:08So he's telling me, he goes, you're telling me that all of those people are in trouble? I said, in trouble? I wish that was the case. That would be a compliment. But your rabbi, that rabbi over there, the one that calls himself a rabbi, we pray about him every day. He goes, yeah? I said, yeah. He's the guy. He could keep Shabbat from here till the next generation. Doesn't make a difference. Someone like that becomes a machti ha'rabim. He doesn't tell people the truth. Tells people where to park on Shabbat. You have no idea. So he starts accepting things. I tell him, listen, teshuva has to be genuine. You can't say, listen, I've been eating pig for the last 30 years. And all of a sudden, I want Hashem to heal me, make a miracle beyond nature. I want Hashem to give me parnassah because, despite the fact that I don't have a job, I want pretty much everything good. Which is the opposite of what I have right now, but maybe I'm going to lay tefillin three times a week and do Netilat Yadayim. It's not going to happen. You have to show Hashem you're serious. Tarom Shabbat.

1:23:25You have to keep. Right now. Right away. Sleep all day if you have to. Just don't break it. B'ezrat Hashem, we'll get to Oneg Shabbat. We'll get to the point where you're learning on Shabbat, you're studying on Shabbat, you're enjoying Shabbat, you're eating, you're drinking, you're... You realize what Shabbat is and it's really a piece of Gan Eden. Once you realize what Shabbat is. But until you know what Shabbat is, sleep. At least you won't violate it. Tefillin? That's the covenant. three covenants in Israel which really weren't your option. It wasn't up to you unless you're a convert. But the reality of it is that natural-born Jews didn't wake up at eight days and say, "Yeah, I'mma cut it off, yeah, go, go." You didn't do that. It wasn't up to you. So, what's the Brit really? The Brit is keeping your Brit. Maintaining your Brit. Not wasting your seed. Not going with a new girl every other day. Not stimulating yourself. Chazal is very, very harsh on people that don't keep the Brit. Why? Because Hashem is even worse. We did a three-hour shiur, Baruch Hashem, in New York about Pekam HaBrit.

1:24:46There are a few English books behind you, small little booklets about Pegam HaBrit. All of you should take one. But all of you who haven't watched the three-hour shiur we did in New York about Pegam HaBrit, you should watch it. And if you've watched it already, watch it again. It's mamash sources from the Torah, from Shlomo HaMelech, from Torah Shebichtav, Torah Shebe'al Peh, the most extensive English-speaking shiur about Pegam HaBrit there is right now. This is no compliment to me whatsoever. It's actually a shame that I'm the only one who did it when there are thousands of rabbis out there who are much more knowledgeable than I could ever be. But it's not a politically correct subject, so people are scared. That's why Hashem recruits people who are not politically correct, like me. Chazal says, wasting seed? You can watch the shiur to realize what kind of Gehenom someone's creating for themselves in this world and the next world for wasting seed. But Chazal in the Gemara says, someone who just causes themselves to have an erection intentionally for no reason, already he's putting himself in a situation where Hashem is not going to listen to his prayers for 40 days. That's how bad it is.

1:26:08Becoming a Brit is a big deal. That's all. We have to keep our Brit. So we have Shabbat, Brit, what's tough? Tefillin. Tefillin is one of the three things that Hashem calls a covenant, a Brit, in the Torah. Those three things are what Hashem calls a covenant in the Torah. You want to have the covenant? Covenant is a deal. You want Hashem to do His part of the deal, you have to do your part of the deal. So you have to lay Tefillin. Six days a week, you don't have to lay tefillin on Shabbat or on holidays. Six days a week you have to lay tefillin. Kosher, inside and out of the house. Why? Because in order for you to learn Torah, you can't learn Torah and be eating treif every day. Why? Because everything that you eat, whether it's a steak, an apple, a Jolly Rancher, chocolate, everything turns to blood. And Hashem says that everything that's blood is part of your nefesh. That's part of your soul. If your soul is impure, how are you going to bring in something pure into it? If you're eating impure, your blood's impure. Chazal says, when Hashem talks about kosher, He says,

1:27:28When you eat non-kosher, you become impure. But Chazal says, yeah, but the word "impure" in that parasha is missing an aleph, which means that it can be pronounced, meaning you become stupid. Not stupid that you can't build buildings and make real estate contracts. Stupid spiritually. You ate a non-kosher chocolate; you think it's not a big deal. You ate non-kosher pizza; you think it's not a big deal. You ate a non-kosher burger, non-kosher chicken. You didn't wash your vegetables. Each time you didn't wash your vegetables, you eat one bug. One bug. It's like eating pig six times. No, but I ate at a deli. I only ate tuna with some lettuce. What's wrong with tuna and lettuce? Well, number one, forget about the meat, forget about the fish, whether it's kosher fish or non-kosher fish, forget about that. Just the vegetables. Do you think they wash their vegetables with salt and cleaning products to make sure they don't have bugs? Ma pitom. It's not in there. It's not what they get paid for.

1:28:42It's mass-manufactured. So you're eating the salad, mmm, ta'im, ta'im. 80 bugs just went into your system. You just collected about 30 million sins. Good luck to you. Good luck again when you arrive. They're going to show you the bill. Who wants this problem? So I told him, you have to eat kosher. Baruch Hashem, very receptive. And then he tells me something, which is the only reason I'm telling you this story. At the end of the call, he says, "Listen, I have to tell you something. Before this call, I sent you the message. This is my last shot, but I was already preparing to commit suicide. I was already starting to plan how I'm going to kill myself. It was my plan this morning. Now that you told me everything that you told me, I have to change my life."

1:29:46But you also told me, you also told me that there's a reason behind all of this. There's a purpose for all of this. It's happening for a reason. Someone's doing it. And it's written in the Torah. Now I know there's a solution too. And because there's a solution, I can't wait to wake up tomorrow. Telling people the truth is the only way. It's not a good way. It's the only way. And that's why I keep saying time and time again, it's not fair for people who have knowledge not to share that knowledge. It's not fair. A guy learned Torah for 20 years, 30 years, and he's telling people where to park on Shabbat? He didn't read Masechet Shabbat. He didn't read Yalkut Yosef. He didn't read the Torah. He didn't read anything. Well, he just collected a beard and a hat, and he's collecting money. He didn't learn anything. Any single book, any book ever talking about Shabbat mentions much worse things than I've ever said in my shiurim. Any book. It's not fair. So now after...

1:31:10we had this disaster happen where, because of lack of emunah, 10 out of the 12 meraglim, 10 out of the 12 spies, this is the biggest mistake of our generation, make a giant mistake and speak negatively about the land. But it wasn't really that big of a deal. It's not like Hashem is taking it personally; they spoke about a piece of land. It's not that. What's the big deal? The big deal is that their few words of telling people where to park destroyed the entire nation. Why? Because the entire nation lost their emunah in Moshe. The entire nation lost their emunah in Hashem. Why? They said, let's go back to Egypt. Let's find ourselves a new leader that will take us back to Egypt. Chazal says, what is this leader? Part of Chazal says they want to make themselves another idol. We just committed the sin of idol worship not too long ago. We almost got killed. Thousands and thousands of people died because of it. They want to go back to committing that sin again.

1:32:27Another Chazal says, no, no, they want to make Datan and Aviram, two reshaim, the two most wicked people in Am Yisrael, I think, ever. They want to make them leaders. But what does this mean? If you're making them leaders, if you're making an idol leader, who are you going against? Hashem and Moshe Avdo. And Moshe, we talked about in the beginning of the shiur, who's Moshe? The entire nation prayed for Miriam to heal, didn't work. Last week's parasha. The whole nation prayed for tzarah to go away, it didn't work. Moshe says five words, she gets healed. They want to go against that guy. They want to go against the most important man that ever lived. That's how far the few bad words the leaders said took them. It wasn't the land; it was the destruction of emunah. They became mesitim, which is a form of machti ha'rabim. And for machti ha'rabim, you're not allowed to have mercy on them. This is the reason that Hashem punished them immediately. The rest of the nation had to die in the desert.

1:33:57None of the people that lost their emunah would ever see Eretz Yisrael. They would all die in the desert over the next 40 years. Only their children would survive to see Eretz Yisrael. They would not see Eretz Yisrael, but they'd live. No one died before the age of 60. So if someone was 20, they'd live another 40 years. If someone was 25, they lived 35 years. If someone was 59, they lived one year. So much so that actually every year on people's birthdays, on Rosh Hashanah, people would actually sleep in a grave. Because, just in case, thousands of people were going to die. They didn't want to make it harder for their brothers and sisters to bury them and dig holes. So everyone would sleep in graves. Forty years of suffering. For what? For not having Emunah. For listening to Lashon Hara. For ten people who were supposed to be the leaders, the sages, the smart ones, prophets, going against Hashem, there's no end. Only two would actually see Eretz Yisrael, and only the children.

1:35:26So here we learn that having Emunah is not something that you should have, that's nice to have. Having Emunah is everything. Why? Because, as we stated before, we said that In order to have Emunah, in order to go in the direction of Hashem, you have to have three pieces out of Emet. Alef for Emunah, Mem for Mitzvot is our pattern of how to get to having Emunah. We have to do things. And Tav for Torah. We have to learn Torah. The only way we're going to learn about the Mitzvot is through the Torah. that's the word emet. Emet is the signature of Hashem. In essence, what you're doing by fulfilling those three things, you're fulfilling the will of Hashem. Now, what if you're missing a piece? Torah, no, of course. You're going to learn some Torah. Even a six-year-old boy, eight-year-old boy that goes to a Jewish school, you learn some Torah. Okay, so we're going to learn some Torah. Mitzvot, okay, everyone does some type of mitzvot, even if it's accidental. Even though

1:36:5175 to 80 percent of Israel does not keep Shabbat today. 80% of them statistically have a Bar Mitzvah. So, there it is—a disaster. So we have a situation where people know what a mitzvah is; they had a Bar Mitzvah. So we have Torah, we have mitzvot. So let's say you're missing the emunah. You live like a robot. You go to Beit Knesset, you pray like a robot. During your business, you think that everything is in your power—your skill, your knowledge. You work 20 hours a day just to make sure that you collect every single dollar because you have zero belief that Hashem is going to give it to you if you work less. You operate your life with fake emunah or no emunah at all. Like one of my students tells me, he goes, "I know it's real, I believe it's real, but it's hard for me to have emunah when it comes to money." He tells me, alright. For a lot of people, it's hard for them to have emunah when it comes to money. Zivug, they have emunah. Children, don't worry, Hashem will take care of my children.

1:38:12Hashem will take care of my wife. Hashem will take care of my health. They smoke 80 cigarettes a day, they don’t worry about it. Why? Because Hashem is going to take care of something. Everything else, they have emunah except money. What happens when you don’t have emunah? Then you only have two things. You have mitzvot and Torah. Now we just said it was emet. Aleph, mem, tav. Now without the aleph, without emunah, what do you have left? Met. Met, death. Without having emunah, Hashem is telling you, without having that critical piece, you're already dead. Not that He'll kill you. You're already dead as you live. You're suffering 24 hours a day. Everything is suffering. Your job is suffering. Your clients are suffering. Your marriage is suffering. Your kids are suffering. Everything is suffering. You're always suffering because there's no emunah that there's a hand from Shamayim that's directing everything. And without that hand from Shamayim, you're worse than the dead person because at least the dead person is going somewhere. Without emunah, you're going nowhere. This is what we have here.

1:39:33When these 12 meraglim, these 12 spies, caused the rest of Am Yisrael to lose their emunah, Hashem made sure to punish them with death. All of Am Yisrael did not leave the desert. They stayed there for 40 years. Only their children entered the land. But the ones that actually reported the evil, in chapter 14, verse 37, it says: "The people who spread the evil report about the land died in a plague before Hashem." They died instantly. Hashem killed them all. He gave them a plague and killed all of them. Why? No mercy. No mercy for those that are machti ha'rabim.

1:40:33These are some of the few things that we have to really look into ourselves because sometimes we could easily qualify for one of these "machti ha'rabim." The definition of "machti ha'rabim" is telling somebody, "Don't go to shul; the guy is boring. Don't go to shul; the guy's too harsh. Don't wear tzitzit; you look like my grandmother." Don't keep Shabbat. That's the day we go to the beach. Go to the casino. It's a lot of fun. Go to the beach. You could wash your eyes over there. According to the Torah, going to a mixed beach, going to a mixed wedding—meaning where there's women and men dancing together—you're better off dying than going to a mixed wedding. where there's women and men dancing together. This is not chumra. I don't talk about chumrot. I don't even know what chumra is. I don't even know astringency. I'm talking about basic law. Basic halacha. It's arayot. It's a sex crime. Now,

1:41:59Knowing that in order for us to really fulfill some of these mitzvot, stop going to the beach, stop going to, if you find out it's a mixed wedding, you don't go. Or even if you're going to a wedding and it's a frum wedding, you continue wearing your kisui rosh and not the wig, which unfortunately is what happens today. A woman wears a kisui rosh, a scarf or a hat, the whole week, except when she goes to the wedding, she has to put the wig on. Why? No, I don't want to look different than everybody else. You're supposed to. You're a Jew. No, I don't have the confidence. Maybe confidence you have or don't have, but emunah you definitely don't have. Because Hashem is at the wedding also. There are some women that are excluded from kisui rosh. There are. Obviously, you know, if they're not married, they don't have to wear kisui rosh. And as Rabbi Nissim Yagen said, if they are married, they're excluded from kisui rosh if they don't have a head. If they don't have a head, they don't have to cover their hair. But if they have a head, they have to cover it.

1:43:23so, up to you. If you have a head, you have to cover it. If you don't have a head, it's okay. We'll let you pass. Hashem doesn’t mind. One of the main things that cause us to sin is our environment. If we're surrounded by losers, we're going to become a loser. The Rambam says, as a halacha, it's not even just a Midrash or a teaching, it's a halacha. Hilchot De'ot, perek vav, halacha alef. Derech ha'adam limashech acharei re'av v'chaverav. The nature of man is to be influenced by his friends and his acquaintances. Meaning, Regardless of what you do, you're going to be influenced by your surroundings. It's a halacha. A halacha means we got it from Moshe at Mount Sinai. It does not change. It does not change, ever. Halacha does not change. We can build on it, but we can't stop it. So we have the halachot of Shabbat.

1:44:42obviously didn't have electricity back then. So we build on the halachot of fire from there to know how to deal with electricity today. So you can build on it, but you can't just say that all of a sudden we're allowed to light fire. So halacha never changes. And Rambam says, this is a halacha. You're going to be where your surroundings are. If you're surrounded by women who are not modest, you'll become not modest in a matter of time. If you're surrounded by wicked people, you're going to be wicked. If you're surrounded by righteous people, you could be influenced in a positive way also. So much so that the Rambam says that it's also a halacha that if you can't find a good surrounding, can't find a good Jewish neighborhood, move to the desert. You're not allowed to live anywhere bad, ever. Move to the desert. Be by yourself with the scorpions and the snakes. Halacha. You're never allowed to live in a bad neighborhood. So, knowing that this is a critical, critical test, we'll finish off with one major point that we said a chidush on yesterday. Short chidush. Since we talked about Iyov and Yisro, Chazal says that

1:46:02The suffering that Am Yisrael endured during this time completely broke their hearts. To such an extent, people were losing their minds, and even though the next day they all said they wanted to do teshuva. "No, no, we're going to go to Eretz Yisrael. We're going to go, we're going to go." Moshe says, "No, no, it's too late. Hashem is not accepting your teshuva. You have to have zechut to do teshuva. You don't have zechut right now. You can't just do teshuva whenever you want." Hashem has to accept your teshuva. And right now, He knows your teshuva is not real. He's not accepting it. Don't go fight. Don't go to the land because it's not going to work. Hashem is not with you, He says. They still go. And what happens? Many of them get killed. People suffered. They couldn't handle it. They realized they failed the test. They realized they failed the test.

1:47:05In the book of Job, chapter 7, verse 17 and 18, it says, "What is man that you exalt him, that you turn your attention to him, that you inspect him every morning and observe him every moment?" So Iyov is asking here, he's asking Hashem, what is man that you're even going to pay attention to him? And not only do you pay attention to him, but you actually are inspecting his actions every morning, meaning every day, every new day. And then you observe what he does every moment. You inspect him every morning, but you observe what he does every moment. Kind of sounds like it's repeating itself, but it's not. It's two different words. One is every day, one is every moment. So here is the secret to life. The same Iyov that Moshe Rabbeinu was investigating, to see if he's alive,

1:48:33The same Iyov that he said that if he's alive, make sure to learn from him. Get a chizuk from him. Why get a chizuk from him? If you just learn the first page, the first page of the book of Iyov, you learn what suffering really is. In the same day, in a matter of moments, he went from being the Bill Gates of his generation, multi-billionaire, powerful, prophet, righteous, famous, ten children, anything you want, and more. In a matter of moments, he lost everything. One guy comes in and says, "Listen, all of your cattle just died." As the guy's finishing telling him that the cattle died, another guy says, "Your farms got burned up." As he's finishing the sentence, all ten of your kids died. They had dinner, the house collapsed on them. Everything happening instantly. What does Iyov say? Hashem gave. He gave. What is His? It's not mine. Hashem took, meaning He took what's His. The children are His, the money is His, the farm is His, the cattle are His, everything is His. He gave.

1:49:59Meaning, He lent it to me. He took it back. May His name be blessed. Show me one person like that. Forget about the children. Just a hundred dollars they lost. Not all their money. A hundred dollars they lost. Without Torah, it's impossible to be like that. Somebody loses a hundred dollars on the way to work, and they're already cursing the whole day. I can't believe it. Why does Hashem do this to me? Why am I being punished? I don't know. Maybe because you stole the money. Maybe because you're lucky you're even alive because you drove on Shabbat. Maybe because you yelled at your wife on the way to work. And parnassah has a lot to do with your wife and your shalom bayit. Countless reasons. If it's happening, there's a reason. But Iyov lost everything. Blessed Hashem. The test continues. It gets worse. Now his health deteriorates to such a level, to such a level that there are worms coming out of his body. He has infections all over his body, abscesses and infections inside them, to such a point that there are literally worms coming out of his body. What does he do? He blesses Hashem.

1:51:29Book of Job is an amazing book. We really learn a lot of Mussar. It's one of the few things you're allowed to learn on Tisha B'Av. Which, by the way, this is when this whole disaster happened with the spies. On Tisha B'Av, the nation cried for no reason. About the Lashon HaRa, what these people said about the land, Hashem said, you cried for no reason, I'll give you a reason to cry forever. All major disasters in Jewish history happened on Tisha B'Av. Beit HaMikdash, the first one, destroyed on Tisha B'Av. The second one, destroyed on Tisha B'Av. The pogroms, the Holocaust, major events during these disasters that have happened in our history, Tisha B'Av. You want to see proof of Tisha B'Av? Go to the ocean and just look. Obviously, don't go inside. Just look at the ocean in Israel on Tisha B'Av. Look at the ocean. Every year, on Tisha B'Av, you cannot even walk into the ocean. It's really dangerous. There are all types of dangerous things happening in it. People drowning and so on. On Tisha B'Av, people don't even go. Even the seculars don't go. Proof. Tisha B'Av. Iyov continues to bless Hashem. Chazal say, okay, he suffered for

1:52:47a year. But then it was over. Hashem blessed him, gave him money, and he had new children. He was blessed with more prophecy and was blessed to have a book in the Torah, which is eternal. Olam HaBa. He was a righteous gentile. He wasn't Jewish; he was a righteous Noahide. mentioning the Torah, mentioning the Gemara, we learn Mussar from him, we're allowed to learn this Torah even on Tisha B'Av, God bless. But that year, no one would make it even for a minute. Chazal says, suffering what Job suffered for 70 years. Seventy, not one, seventy years. You're better off suffering like that for seventy years than one hour in Gehenom. People don't understand. So this very same Job is giving us a message. So if we know he got this much reward, he got that much of a big deal, he's telling us the secret to life over here. And this is what we're going to finish with. He says, Hashem, who is this man that You pay attention to, whether it's me, whether it's Moshe, whether it's Tzvika, whether it's Yaakov, who are we? You're going to pay attention to us. And not only do You pay attention to us, You look at us every morning,

1:54:16you inspect us every moment. He's telling you something here. He says, we are tested every day. Hashem is going to give us new tests. The flat tire you got? Test. The argument your wife started? Test. The husband that gambled the family's money away? Test. The kids failing in school? Test. Customers are yelling at you and putting bad reviews on the internet. Test. Every day is a new test. Every day. The Chazal say, it's better to have 90 years of these tests every morning just to have enough knowledge and experience and strength to pass the test of every moment. What's the test of every moment? That's the test of your life. But the test of your life is literally a moment. What's the moment? It's the moment you can't take anymore. The moment you had an argument with your spouse for four hours and you know that if you say this one thing, this one thing you can say about it, it's over. One thing, but you're holding yourself. No, no, no, I'm not going to say it.

1:55:37And she's arguing and he's arguing and arguing and arguing. I'm going to say it, I'm going to say it. No, no, no, I'm not going to say it. I'm not going to say it. And you hold it for half an hour, for an hour, for two hours. You're holding your tongue. Two and a half hours. When you're married, sometimes arguments last for a while. Four hours you're holding it. Four hours, one minute, you say it. All hell breaks loose. Now, was it worth it for you to hold it for four hours? Or did it become a waste of time? It became a waste of time. That's what Iyov is telling you. All of those tests that you're getting every day, you see, you pass the test of the moment. When that test that you can't take anymore, when you get it, pass it, your life is worthwhile. Because if you don't pass it, you wasted your life. So every time you get a test,

1:56:39You should thank Hashem. Thank you, Hashem, for sending me to practice. Thank you, Hashem, for giving me an opportunity to have a shot to pass this test. Because without passing it, you can't go past Go. You can't collect $200. And that's the main thing that we have to learn from Iyov. And why Moshe Rabbeinu said, if he's alive, make sure you get a chizuk from him. Because he knows the secret. He knows how to get to emunah. Because without emunah, you're already dead. Any questions? Baruch Adonai le'olam. Amen ve'amen. Zahava Maimon bat Tzipporah

1:57:45get closer to Hashem. And like I told you guys, these CDs are a gold mine. Give them out, spread them out; people are doing teshuva because of it. And just like this, take the small books over there and learn them. When you tell people the truth, they can change their lives. If you lie to them and tell them nonsense, telling them everything's okay... You're causing them more damage than Hitler caused Am Yisrael, because at least he was just destroying bodies. But destroying a neshama, it's a big responsibility. We don't want to do it. So, we all do teshuva, we all get closer to Hashem. And we have another shiur tomorrow in Miami. And then... There's a private shiur on Thursday in Hebrew. And then next week, also we're going to do Tuesday here again. I'll be here also. And then next Wednesday, we have a shiur in Aventura. What is it called? Highland Lakes? The place we were last time? Beit David. Yeah, Beit David. The Lighthouse Project. So we're going to have that. Last time was a very decent-sized shiur. I think this time it's going to be double the amount of people.

1:59:09And Baruch Hashem, a lot of people are doing Teshuvah, connecting. They see it on the internet. They hear the discs. They learn the words of Hashem. They learn the truth. They're changing their lives and they're happy for it. Each one of us is responsible for everyone that's around us. Five minutes a day of Kiruv. Five minutes a day of Kiruv. And that's all Hashem will... want from you, and b'ezrat Hashem, it will help people do Teshuvah.