Shiur Torah #115 The Little Things That Can Save You When MaShiach Arrives

0:01Great to be back in Miami, Baruch Hashem. Had a great trip in New York. A lot of kiruv, a lot of lectures, Baruch Hashem. We did 11 or 12 different lectures in a couple of days. And then next week, Baruch Hashem, we're going to Arizona. I have a Shabbaton in Arizona, another Bukharian congregation over there. And Baruch Hashem, the story keeps getting out there. More and more people... Great to be back in Miami, Baruch Hashem. Had a great trip in New York. A lot of kiruv, a lot of lectures, Baruch Hashem. We did 11 or 12 different lectures in a couple of days. And then next week, Baruch Hashem, we're going to Arizona. I have a Shabbaton in Arizona, another Bukharian congregation over there. And Baruch Hashem, the story keeps getting out there. More and more people

1:17are getting motivated to come back to Hashem. And Baruch Hashem, you know, there's a lot of good news. Also, so I don't forget, refuah shlema to David Ben-Nesria, Doris Bat-Jorah, Levana Bat-Sarah, Sarah Bat-Levana, Michel Cotto, Hadassah Bat-Sarah, Amparo Boulfe, Reuven Yosef Ben-Rivka, Sarah Bat-Sarah, Gladys Nunes, Edil Magorero, Isabel Perez, Josefina Matos, Ana Cideno, Stephanie Meir, Jose Avila, Guillermo Solano, Guillermo Suarez, Bill Deutschman, Herb Finkel, Raquel Sandler, Lourdes Garcia, Lourdes Rensoli, Marcela Matut, and Rabbi Emmanuel Armon. B'ezrat Hashem, you should all have refuah shlema, refuat hanefesh, and refuat haguf. a lot of people are looking for all types of refuah, but the most difficult one, as we've mentioned many times before, is the refuat ha-nefesh. we have people who are looking for some type of hope

2:31whether it's because they have depression, or an addiction, or they have just some type of hardship. Sometimes there are divorces or health issues where the body hurts, but the neshama hurts much more. And I remember from my own sickness, the bigger battle wasn't necessarily just the pain 24 hours a day; the bigger battle was the mental battle, wanting to live. And with so many people suffering, and you hear about it every day, there are more and more emails from people just going through different hardships and looking for hope. Amen. In the end, many, many people end up with the same solution, which is they look for G-d. They look for G-d. When the doctors can't help, when the psychiatrist can't help, when the family and friends can't help—sometimes because they're not there for you, sometimes because they just can't do anything for you.

3:40The only thing that you have left is Avinu She'baShamayim, our Father in Heaven. And this is also one of the prophecies that we have, that will happen at the end of times. In the Gemara Masechet Sotah, page 49, it says that after all these troubles that are going to happen at the end of times, we're going to have the... Daughter-in-law fighting with the father-in-law. The heads of the government are going to fight against the people and do things that are opposite. The people are going to fight against the rabbis who are telling the truth. All types of different prophecies that we have are going to happen at the end of times, giving us a visual of what this picture is going to look like right before the Mashiach comes. It's a very, very ugly picture. It's a very ugly picture because we see that there's one problem after another problem after another problem after another problem. But then, as you see more and more of these problems, as ugly as the picture is, it starts to look familiar. It starts to remind you of things. And it reminds you of the world we live in.

4:51where you have members of congregations kicking out good rabbis and replacing them with fake rabbis. Or in some cases, kicking out a rabbi who is following halacha in order to get a Reform rabbi, sometimes even a woman rabbi. Sometimes you have congregations where for many months, or even years, you had someone that came to give shiurim over there, to get people to do teshuva. All of a sudden, a few rich people joined the board, and these rich people are not usually very religious, and they say, no, no, no, we control the money, that means we control the Beit Knesset. This rabbi that tells you not to drive on Shabbat, I don't want him here anymore. Obviously, they don't say it for that reason. They say, no, no, it's something else, we want something new. They say it in a political way. They don't say, listen, because I drive on Shabbat and he says don't drive on Shabbat, I don't want him here. They don't say that. They say it in a different way. No, no, we need to bring something new, something fresh. And they bring you some guy that's going to tell you jokes. And everybody laughs. They're like, oh wow, this is better. It's not going to make you closer to Hashem, but they think it's better. And that's why they say that you have to kill the snake by the head. When you have a serious problem,

6:14You have to hit it right on the head. If you have a problem with the rabbi, you have to deal with the rabbi right away. If the rabbi is fake, you have to deal with it right away. You can't talk to this one and talk to that one and figure out this and figure out that. You have to go directly to the source. If you have a problem with the Beit Knesset, in reality, in most cases, you can't change the Beit Knesset. Almost every single Beit Knesset that I've been to and I've even heard of has some type of problem, some bigger than others. Baruch Hashem, there are many very good ones. For example, the Beit Knesset that I went to in New York is fantastic. Amazing, amazing Beit Knesset. Bukharian congregations over there are very, very strong. Beit Gavriel has an enormous amount of Torah in it, and also, so I don't forget, I always forget until the middle of the shiur to also thank Torah Anytime for publicizing our shiurim. Anyone that wants to see the shiurim that we have, Baruch Hashem, on TorahAnytime.com, or they can go to my website, BeEzratHashem.org. amount of Torah in it. And also, so I don't forget, I always forget until the middle of the shiur to also thank TorahAnytime for publicizing our shiurim. Anyone that wants to see the shiurim that we have, Baruch Hashem, on TorahAnytime.com, or they can go to my website, BeEzratHashem.org.

7:14But one thing that came out today, Baruch Hashem, is that they put a banner on the front page of TorahAnytime with our personal story shiur to get more and more people familiar with it, as many people are being motivated by it. And, you know, the amount of people that have been motivated by my personal story is really amazing to me because, to me, it's my life. It's not really amazing to me, but to other people, it gives you the ability to see things from a different perspective. So, The reason why I mention all of this about TorahAnytime is because that Bet Gavriel shul is not a normal shul. Not a normal shul. Why is it not a normal shul? For Hashem, it's big. There are many big places. It has a lot of people. For Hashem, there are many places that have a lot of people. But what I saw there that was very, very special is that everyone is involved. Everyone is connected in some way or another, some more, some less, but overall everyone has respect for the Torah when they're reading the Torah. You don't really hear many people talking like you do in a lot of other places. Even if someone's talking, you tell them to be quiet, they're quiet, they don't answer back. And when you have respect for the Torah like that,

8:30It has to come from somewhere. So then you start looking at who the leaders are. You look at the rabbis over there. Rabbis, each one is better than the other. They tell everybody the truth. This is what it is. This is what Hashem said. Deal with it. No, listen, it's not relevant to now. No, no, no. This is what Hashem said. This is what Hashem said, that's it. You guys have to wake up. If you haven't woken up yet, it's time to wake up. So now, you see the congregation is the result of the rabbis. But then you see something even more that I learned about it, is that two major Jewish organizations, both TorahAnytime and Chazaq, both came out of that shul. The members of the shul, Baalei Teshuva, started the actual... actually, Chazaq, they were religious from birth, I believe. But they started this organization, Chazaq, which is a major organization for shiurim, for all types of things, from that shul. Torah Anytime, the two brothers, Baalei Teshuva, Bet Gavriel, they grew up there, they helped build the place, and now they have...

9:38I think it's the number one Torah website out there. If it's not number one, it's close to it at least. So you see that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. You see that when the tree is good, the fruits are going to be good. But if the tree is rotten, you're going to have rotten fruits. So you see that the Beit Knesset has a much, much bigger responsibility than people think. If your congregation is mostly secular people, that's not the fault of the people anymore. It's the fault of the Beit Knesset and the leadership of the Beit Knesset. If your Beit Knesset is Conservative and Reform, that's because the leaders, the people that are pulling the strings, the people that are teaching whatever they're teaching, want it to be that way. There's no such thing as a righteous Beit Knesset with a bunch of resha'im. Why? Because if the rabbi is 100% holy, and he's only teaching holy things 100% with no fear in the world, no fear, he doesn't care, you're going to fire me, hire me, it doesn't make a difference. For him, this is what Hashem said, that's what I'm going to say. And if the kehillah has a little bit of merit, a little bit of merit from Shamayim to see, okay, listen, even if I'm not doing it, it's still the truth.

11:06Okay, I don't want to keep Shabbat, but whatever he's saying is true anyway. So I can't tell him, "Shut up." I can't go against him. This is what it says. I don't feel like doing it. You have a little bit of merit, a little bit of sechel, a little bit of brain. You realize, okay, this is the truth. Maybe one day I'll have the merit to actually do it. So the kehillah gets stronger and stronger, and then you start seeing there's a balance. There are some people who are righteous, some people who are not less righteous, but overall there's a balance. You're never going to have everyone righteous, you're never going to have everyone wicked, or at least I would hope so. But nonetheless, leadership of Batei Knesset is very, very critical. This is why I have a lot of problems with the whole concept of having a board of directors for Batei Knesset, which I've talked about in the past. Having a board of directors for a Beit Knesset is only an invention in current generations. In the past, there was a board made up of one person—the rabbi. The rabbi was the board. The rabbi was the president. The rabbi was the vice president. The rabbi was the secretary. The rabbi was the treasurer. The rabbi was everything. He called the shots. That's why it was much easier for him to tell the truth. He wasn't worried about somebody firing him. You don't want to come? Don't come.

12:27What's the problem? Today, unfortunately, even if the rabbi is fantastic, he's a great speaker, he's only an employee. So if he says something that the rich guys running the board don't like, they fire him the next day. So now you have a dilemma. You have an honest rabbi who wants to say the truth, but he knows that he can't do it. He knows that if he says the truth, they're going to kick him out tomorrow. What is he going to do? So a rabbi like that, I heard this from Rabbi Mizrachi, and I think it's 100% true and it's the only way. He's not allowed to say what they want to hear, meaning he's not allowed to not say the truth. Never. He's never allowed to go down to their level. Like they want him to say, you know, talk about nonsense. that's not going to do anything for anyone, and not talk about Shabbat, not talk about kosher, not talk about Taharat Mishpacha, all the foundations of Judaism, he's not allowed to do that. So what do you do? You can't say the truth. You can't lie either. So what do you do? You say the truth in a little bit of a nicer way, but more importantly, more importantly, you bring somebody else to say the truth from the outside.

13:50You bring Rav Mizrachi, you bring Rav Alon Anava, you bring somebody like me to come there, say the truth, and wake people up. After the shiur, they go to the rabbi and say, "Listen, this guy that you brought here, this rabbi, everything he said is true?" "Yeah, it's true. He gave you the verses, he gave you the sources of everything. It's true." So people can start waking up that way. You're not allowed to fall to their level. And this is the problem a lot today, that a lot of rabbis have this problem where sometimes they, obviously if they learn Torah, they know the truth. There's only one version of the truth. Or they say, it was this way when I came here. Okay, it was this way. You came here to fix it. That was your job. So I'll keep it like that. Okay, I'll keep it like that. Then you become part of it. You know, the reason why a rat doesn't find the garbage smelly. When he's born, he doesn't know what's smelly and what's not smelly. He's born like anything else. He's brand new. But then he goes to the garbage and you don't see him say, "This food again?" He doesn't say that. Why? Because after a while, he gets used to it and he becomes part of the garbage.

15:04He hangs out inside the garbage. He doesn't know it's garbage. To him, it's a first-class meal. So this rabbi that says, "No, it was this way, and I'm not going to disturb anything," what happens? He becomes part of the garbage. He becomes part of the Reform shul. He becomes part of the Conservative shul. He becomes part of the secular shul that no one ever does teshuva. He becomes part of it. He may think that he's a tzaddik because he's comparing himself to a bunch of reshaim. But in Shamayim, he's actually worse than them. The reason why is because he knows what's right and wrong, whereas most of them don't know what's right and wrong. No one who actually drives on Shabbat knows the significance of Shabbat or believes in it. It's one of two things. If you read the Torah, you read the Torah, you understand it with Rashi, you read Gemara, you saw what it says about Shabbat, so you're not allowed to drive on Shabbat, you're not allowed to light fire, you're not allowed to play with your phone. You know what you're allowed to do and not allowed to do. And you still violate Shabbat, it only means one thing. It means you don't believe anything you read. Just like you don't believe a Harry Potter book when you read it, because you know some lady made it up, and she made a billion dollars off of it.

16:22You don't believe the story, though. It's a nice story. It was a nice movie. People got entertained. But you know it's fake. It's a fake story. So this guy that drives on Shabbat after he read the Torah, after he read the Gemara, after he read Shulchan Aruch, and he still violates Shabbat, it just means that he believes that the Torah, chas v'shalom, is the same thing as a Harry Potter book. But if somebody says, no, no, no, I believe in the Torah 100%, and he still drives on Shabbat, that means he didn't read the Torah. He believes. We got something at Mount Sinai. We got something. He believes there was a Moshe Rabbeinu. He celebrates Pesach, like most secular Jews celebrate Pesach, Hanukkah, Purim. They celebrate Yom Kippur. They celebrate some of the basic holidays. But overall, the rest of the year, nothing. They go to the beach. would say, you know, they do all these different things without thinking there's anything wrong with it.

17:23The reason why, because you tell them, listen, you believe in God, of course, Baruch Hashem, they kiss the mezuzah 500 times, they just hear Hashem's name. So why are you going against Him? Why are you becoming His enemy every week when you drive on Shabbat? Enemy? No, I'm not Hashem's enemy. I love Hashem. Hashem says at the end of Parashat Va'etchanan that anyone who is not keeping His mitzvot is considered His enemy. This is in chapter 5. Verse 9, at the end of verse 9, who visits the sin of fathers upon children to the third and fourth generation for My enemies. And in the previous verse, it talks about who His lovers are, which is the opposite of enemies. And He says, My lovers are the ones that fulfill My commandments. So here we have Hashem's definition of what His enemy means. If you tell somebody, listen, you're an enemy of Hashem. It's like, oh, I don't want to be an enemy of Hashem. How do I fix that? So once you give him this knowledge, then he has the possibility of changing. So this so-called rabbi that's leading a kehillah, who knows what Hashem says, and still doesn't tell it to people, not only does he have a serious problem by failing at his position that Hashem made sure that he has, but on top of it,

18:47He ends up taking on all of their sins. He becomes also a Mechalel Shabbat. This is in the Gemara, Masechet Shabbat, page 54a. It says someone who sees another person sinning and doesn't rebuke them, doesn't say anything, takes on the sin himself. So this rabbi has a serious problem. So if he wants to be smart, where he knows, listen, if I tell them the truth myself 100%, like Rabbi Mizrachi or Rabbi Yaron Reuven or Rabbi Alon Anava, they're going to fire me. If they fire me, they're going to probably bring somebody much worse than me. So he wants to be smart. Okay, be smart. Don't say 100%. Say what it says, but you don't have to go give it to them on the head every day. But bring somebody, for heaven's sake. Bring somebody that's going to tell them the truth. If they like it, you have something to work with. If they don't like it, you tell them, listen, okay, we're not going to bring any more. We're going to bring somebody else. But at least they heard it. And anyone that it bothers, especially the people that get mad and angry and they yell and stuff like that, they're going to double-check. Because to them, the guy that gets really, really upset when he hears that you're allowed to charge a Mechalel Shabbat interest when you lend them money. You know, in Judaism...

20:10You're not allowed to lend another Jew money and charge them interest. If you charge someone interest, charge another Jew interest, you have to come back in a gilgul. You have to come back in a reincarnation. It's a very, very big sin. Chazal say they lose a share of the World to Come. They have no Olam HaBa. It's a big, big deal not to charge interest. But if that person, if that Jew is a Mechalel Shabbat, you could charge him interest. Why? Because the Rambam says, and also in the Gemara, and the Shulchan Aruch, and the Torah, the written Torah, all say the same thing. Someone who violates Shabbat is considered 100% goy. Is considered 100% Gentile. But not a good Gentile. Not the nice ones that are converting, or that are Bnei Noach, or that love Hashem. No. It's considered the worst type of Gentile. The one that the Torah calls an idol worshiper. So we tell this in a shiur and someone starts yelling and screaming, especially Israelis who don't like to hear the truth. I had a debate with this guy maybe three or four weeks ago, for maybe two hours. And he got so upset. So upset when I was saying these things. And I told him, whatever, this is what Hashem says, not me. It has nothing to do with me. And

21:36But what ended up happening is, like, you know what? I'm going to check everything you said. After the yelling and the screaming and being upset and this and that, he goes, I'm going to check everything you said. I said, okay, go. I gave you the sources. Go. I don't have my books with me. I don't carry my books with me everywhere I go. So I can't show you Rambam. I can't show you Shulchan Aruch. I can't show you Gemara. I can't show you everything. But I gave you the sources. I gave you the verses. Go check it yourself. As bothered as he was, he says, I'm going to check it. To me, the fact that it bothers him, I did my job already. Because before I got there, it didn't bother him to drive on Shabbat. Before I got there, it didn't bother him to light his iPhone on Shabbat. It didn't bother him to rip paper on Shabbat. It didn't bother him to do anything that he's not allowed to do on Shabbat because he's like, where is it written in the Torah? He didn't know. But now that it bothers him, we have hope. So even though we had to go to war, and we had to fight, and we had to argue, and he felt bad, and it wasn't comfortable, and so on and so forth, just like any important surgery, usually they're very difficult. You have to create pain before the pleasure comes.

22:55People have life-saving surgeries, heart surgeries, brain surgeries, back surgeries, not because they have fun, not because it's pleasant to have surgery, but because they know that they're going to have some pain right now in order to have long-term pleasure. They fix their heart right now and suffer through the heart issue now for a month, for two months, for three months, but after they recover, they can live another 30 years. Same thing with the back. Okay, so you can either live with pain your whole life, or you can have surgery for your back. You're in pain for another six months, or three months, or two months, or whatever it is. But then, that's it. It's over. So it's better to have short-term pain rather than long-term pain. And that's the same thing with anyone that's in a position of teaching, any rabbi or anyone else that's actually in a position of telling people the truth, whether it's their friends, their congregation, their families, their children. You have to tell people the truth, and if you can't do it, you have to bring someone that can. And it became very, very easy, Baruch Hashem, in our generation, to bring someone.

24:03That can do it. Because either you can bring a rabbi, or you can just bring one of these CDs. You give the guy a CD and say, "Here you go, listen to this. It's an interesting story." You give the guy a CD; it costs one dollar, or you can get it for free even. And that's it, you're done. He listens to it, he does teshuva, and all of his merits also go to your account. He doesn't do teshuva, you still win. Why? Because Hashem says, the one person that tried to actually rebuke him and tell him the truth and he didn't do it, he gets his olam haba. Meaning, in Gemara, Masechet Kiddushin, it says every Jew, which is what we say in our prayer on Shabbat, every Jew has a share of the world to come. Every Jew has a share of the world to come. So a lot of people think that this is the full Gemara. It's not. After it says every Jew has a share of the world to come, it says, and these are the following Jews that do not have a share of the world to come. And it gives you a list of sins that someone would commit, like violating Shabbat, lending money with interest, or being with a married woman. Different things. Someone who embarrassed somebody else in public. It's a list of different people, different sins that make somebody lose their olam haba.

25:22So now, if someone knows this, it would be different. But most people only know the first couple of verses, or the first verse, "Every Jew has a share in the World to Come." Fine. Even if you just use that verse, obviously, you need to know that when you get there, you have a ticket, but the ticket has to work. you get there and they tell you, "Listen, you didn't know the rest of the Mishnah? You didn't know it? Okay, well, this is what it said. It's your fault for not knowing it because you were obligated to learn Torah, and you chose not to learn Torah. And when you choose not to learn Torah, whatever sins you made out of accident become on purpose." This is in the Mishnah, Pirkei Avot, Chapter 4. So you can't go up there and say, I didn't know. No, you didn't know because you didn't try to know. You spent 20 years in your career to know how to be the best pilot. You spent 25 years becoming the best doctor. You spent 30 years being the best litigator, the best judge. Okay, why couldn't you spend one hour on Torah? You'd learn this. So someone that doesn't know...

26:33As a result of not learning, their accidental sins turn into intentional sins. So now this person is going to show up and say, okay, this is a problem. So I can't get this Olam HaBa. But who gets it? I have a room. No one's using it. No, no, no. Someone else is using it. Who's using it? It's the guy that gave me the CD. The guy that told you, listen, by the way... Go do teshuva. And you didn't want to do it. He said, no, no, you threw out the CD in your living room, and it stayed there for 30 years. Okay, that guy gets it. Because your rabbi didn't tell you the truth. Your wife didn't tell you the truth. Your husband didn't tell you the truth. Your kids didn't tell you the truth. No one around you told you the truth. Only one guy tried to help you do teshuva in your whole life. Okay, so he gets your olam haba. Which means that anytime you try to help somebody do teshuva, you can't lose. Either you get every single mitzvah, that he's ever gonna do or be responsible for, which is gonna make your olam drastically better, or you get his share of the olam haba. Either way, you win.

27:37But the point is that when someone is in a position of leadership, they are held to a higher standard and much higher responsibility. And this is one of the things that we have to understand: when it comes down to each and every single mitzvah, we don't necessarily know what's the most precious mitzvah or what's the least precious mitzvah. Meaning what the reward is. If this one gets a bigger reward or that one gets a smaller reward because realistically, even the smallest mitzvah we have in the entire Torah, whichever one you want to pick, the smallest one, the reward for that mitzvah is bigger than all of the good that every person that ever lived, combined together, has had since the beginning of the world to the end of the world. The smallest mitzvah is worth more than that. So in this week's parasha, it starts with a verse: This shall be the reward when you hearken to these ordinances and you observe and perform them. Hashem, your God, will safeguard for you the covenant and the kindness that He swore to your forefathers.

29:02So here, Hashem is in one of the very few places in the Torah. Hashem is telling us a little bit about the reward. But as you will see for the next few verses, the reward sounds great, but it doesn't have as much detail as the punishment we learned about in Parashat Bechukotai. Or in the parasha that's coming soon, Parashat Ki Tavo, the punishment had a lot more details. The reward is vague. It says that God will love you, He will bless you, He'll multiply you, He'll bless the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your land. Okay, all of these things are great. But it's not to the same type of detail as we have on the punishment. And the reason why is because we have no idea, no idea what is the real definition of good. The Rambam says, man is inclined to think that everything that's good for him is really bad, and everything that's bad is good.

30:17So, we think that a lot of things that are really bad for us are good, and the opposite about the things that are good. So we think that, okay, so for example, we talked about this in last night's shiur. One of the blessings here is that Hashem says, if you actually follow My mitzvot, you observe them, one of the blessings I promise you is that you'll have many, many children. He'll bless the fruit of your womb. But He doesn't say it once; He says it four times. He'll multiply you. He'll bless the fruit of your womb. Then He says none of your people will be infertile, not the male or the female. So, at the very least, we have four different blessings that specifically talk about... how Hashem is going to multiply us and make each family, instead of having one or two kids and a dog, each family is going to have 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 kids, 50 kids. The people in the desert, each family had at least 60, 70 kids. So, somebody thinks about that today. You tell somebody, "Listen, God bless you, may He give you twins." "No, no, no, relax, I'm still recovering from the last one. I'm recovering from one child, and you want to give me two more?"

31:33Right? People don't think of it as a blessing. You tell somebody, "Listen, I bless you, have at least 10 kids." "No, no, relax. I don't have money to pay for 10 kids' yeshiva. I don't have money to feed 10 kids." So we don't really know what is a blessing. We don't know. We're thinking that Hashem, "Listen, Hashem, you want to bless me, give me a mansion for 5 million dollars with a servant." inside the house and a couple of servants outside of the house and the company that just keeps printing money and fame and fortune, and I want to be on TV and have my own show so I can express my opinion. That's what we think is good. So here, this is Da'as Torah. This is the opinion of Hashem. He's telling you what's good, which also reminds us of how far we are from the thoughts of Hashem. But all of these blessings... whether we understand that there are blessings or not, all of these blessings before, you know, you go into all the details of the blessings, you go back to the first few words. This shall be the reward when you hearken to these ordinances. Meaning, if you listen to me, follow what I said, this is what's going to happen. Now the word Eikev,

33:00is an unusual word to put in this parasha. You know, you would say, if you listened, that's it. But Eikev also, but it says, Vaya'akev Tishme'un. So the word Eikev also means heel. Chazal says it also means heel, which means a few things. There are a few commentaries on it. On one end, it says, since the heel is the back of the leg, Obviously, the back is always going to be behind the front. So, it's showing you a visual of how this works. First, you take steps forward by following what Hashem says. Then the reward is going to happen. So, that's one. The second thing is that Chazal also explain that this is referring to the mitzvot themselves. David HaMelech said to Hashem, "I'm not afraid of the big mitzvot. I'm afraid of the small ones because they are the ones that are easy to neglect."

34:15the world, they're the ones that actually decide your Olam HaBa. The big ones, I know. I know they're big ones. Shabbat, I know it's big. Kosher, I know it's big. Taharat HaMishpacha, I know it's big. Everyone knows. If you do them, you're fine. You keep Shabbat, you're fine. You keep Taharat HaMishpacha, you're fine. You keep Kosher, you're fine. It's not a big deal. But he says, I'm scared of the small ones. Why is he scared of the small ones? Because the small ones are much easier to neglect. It's much easier to neglect doing netilat yadayim in the morning than it is to say a blessing before you eat. But it's much easier to neglect saying a blessing before you eat than to neglect, let's say, eating kosher bichlal. And then it moves on. So each one becomes bigger and bigger, but you see that as you get bigger and bigger,

35:16The one that you thought was big is actually smaller. But more importantly than that, it's easy to ignore them. And when we ignore these mitzvot, we have ourselves a problem. It moves on and it tells us what happens when we start ignoring these mitzvot. This is verse 14. He says that there will be no infertile male or infertile female among you or among your animals, meaning even your animals are going to have natural births, no problem. This means that you're going to have the ability to make a good living.

36:20Hashem will remove from you every illness. You're not going to have any sickness. And all the maladies of Egypt that you knew, He will not put them upon you but will put them upon all of your foes. This is a direct verse from Hashem Himself telling us exactly how to get healthy. People spend fortunes trying to look for a cure. They try to get the best doctors from different countries. They try to get people from Israel to come here or from here to Israel, or from India, or from Germany, or from all these different countries. People get sick, and they do everything and anything that they can to get healthy. Except the one and most important thing that they should do, in most cases, they forget until it's too late, which is to talk to your Father upstairs. Talk to Hashem, Avinu ShebaShamayim. Just like it says at the end of Gemara Masechet Sotah, at the end of times after we see this horrible, horrible picture.

37:27of what's going to happen in the world. The Gemara says there's only going to be one thing that we can all rely on, and that's Avinu ShebaShamayim, our Father in Heaven. And our Father in Heaven is telling us exactly that if you do all of these things, part of the blessing is going to be you're not going to be sick anymore. Now, people have a hard time believing this. Like, what do you mean? You do the mitzvot and that's it? There are plenty of people that do mitzvot and they're sick. Try to explain that. So first and foremost, not everyone is going to be sick because they're not keeping mitzvot. Sometimes they're sick for different reasons. It could be potentially for sins that they're making, or potentially because it's time for them to suffer for some sins they made in their previous life. There's all different types of cheshbonot shamayim, the accounting of Hashem. But nonetheless, someone that's already in sickness, in illness, the most reliable source that we have is the Torah itself. We know that Hashem is giving you sickness,

38:39In order to get you to do some level of teshuva. Even if you are already religious, it could be because at your level, you're not religious enough. At your level, you may be following the mitzvot, you may be keeping Shabbat, you may be keeping kosher, you may be doing all of these things, but you have something missing. So what's it like? If you have, for example, a dress, you want to buy a brand new dress for, let's say, a wedding or some big event. You see this dress, a beautiful dress, they want $5,000 for this dress. It's a fancy dress. I don't know, maybe fancy dresses cost more, but let's say it's $5,000. But then, you see that this dress has a little bit of a darker mark on it, and then you see, look a little closer, it's like, oh, it's a cigarette burn. Somebody burned a hole accidentally in a dress. There's a hole in the dress. Now, how much is the dress worth now? Almost worthless. The lady says, why? The sales lady is telling him, what's the big deal? It's a big dress. It's a beautiful dress. You have one little hole. The whole dress doesn't have a hole. So there's one hole here. What's the big deal? Okay, take $10 off.

40:04it's four thousand nine ninety. He said, no, no, maybe I'll give you the ten dollars, not the four thousand nine ninety. Why? Because the hole changed the entire dress. It's not just a hole in a big dress; it's the dress has a hole. The hole becomes the dress, and that's why. Page 4, it says that someone who recited the Kriyat Shema, said Shema Yisrael every single day his whole life, with Kavanah, you know, with full meaning, he knows what the words are, full Kavanah, full intention on what he's doing, and then one day he didn't do it. So he has... 50 years, 60 years he's been saying Kriyat Shema. One day he got tired, he went to sleep, he didn't do Kriyat Shema. He didn't do it. So you say, okay, so he did it for 50 years, minus one day. Right? No, but the Gemara says, it's like he never did it at all.

41:20Now before we all get depressed and say, okay, listen, I missed at least one in the last few years, let's explain. It doesn't mean he's not going to get the reward for the 50 years of Kriyat Shema. He's going to get the reward. He did Kriyat Shema with kavanah, chazak u'baruch. But now you have a problem. Now, this Kriyat Shema is part of all of the mitzvot. You are fulfilling the mitzvot, the commandments that Hashem told us to do Kriyat Shema twice a day. This is one of the commandments. We have to do this. It's not like an elective. You have to say Kriyat Shema. So by fulfilling this mitzvah, you are fulfilling the Torah. You're putting on a robe of Torah on yourself. 50 years of building this mitzvah, 50 years of this extraordinary thing, and then you show up right before you show up to the meeting with Melech Malchei HaMelachim HaKadosh Baruch Hu, somebody puts a little cigarette in your robe, and you have a hole. You forgot one Kriyat Shema. So okay, Hashem says, "Oh, it's a very, very nice robe, but by the way, you got a hole in it."

42:36So now instead of looking at how beautiful the robe is, everyone's looking at the hole. The hole becomes the robe. It's the whole thing. Everyone's just looking at the hole. Same concept with the big mitzvot and the small mitzvot. That's what David HaMelech was saying, and I heard this from Rav Nissim Yagen, Zekher Tzadik Livracha, and he says that it's not that you don't get the reward, But when you start missing out on these small mitzvot and taking them like they don't really matter, it's not really a big deal. Okay, so the shul is not the most Orthodox place in the world, but it still has a Sefer Torah that's worth $150,000. Okay, but Hashem didn't tell you to go to a shul with a Sefer Torah that's $150,000. He told you to go to a shul that's kosher, that has at least 10 people that are Shomrei Shabbat. Do you have a minyan? If there's no minyan, there's no point in going to shul. There's no sechar for going to shul when it's a bunch of violators of Shabbat. If there's no minyan, just pray at home. It's the same thing. Or go to a different shul. The whole point of going to shul is for you to have a minyan. That's it. There's no other reason. If there's no minyan...

43:57You're better off staying home if you want. Maybe you'll have better kavanah. Nobody's disturbing you. I personally, sometimes I can't go to shul. I'm either going to shul or I'm flying around. I can't always go to a shul. So if I have to go on a flight, sometimes I have to pray by myself. I can tell you from personal experience, not just for myself, but many of my students tell me the same thing, that sometimes I have, actually more times than not, a much better prayer when I pray by myself than when I pray at shul. Much better prayer. I pray by myself. I take my time. I think. I focus. I'm not hearing any chazzan with his voice saying this, saying that. I'm not paying attention to anybody next to me if they finish before me or they're going too slow or too fast. You know, when you have people around you, it's very easy to get distracted. So, when I pray by myself, I'm in my own world. I don't look at the time. I don't know how long it takes. All I know is I do it. I talk to Hashem. And whenever I'm done, I'm done.

45:01And it's amazing. And I have this, Baruch Hashem, it's a great prayer, but sometimes I go to shul, 500 people in shul, I can't do it. You’re supposed to, you know, the whole point is maybe you have more people, more power. No, sometimes it doesn't work for me. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. So you would think that maybe it's better for you to stay at home and pray at home all the time. No. The value of a minyan is very, very valuable in Shamayim. How so? when you pray by yourself, your prayer comes to Shamayim and knocks on Hashem's door. They're only going to open it if you have the merit, meaning they're going to review everything before they let you in to meet Hashem. Say, wait, who's this guy knocking on the door, praying by himself? Let me see. Oh, you're the guy that walks around with a tank top all the time? Not modest? Oh, you're the guy that eats salad in non-kosher places thinking that it's okay? Oh, you're the guy that's not really focusing on the prayer right now? He's thinking about his business? You're the 50-50 guy. No, we're not letting you in. Your prayer? Okay, you get the mitzvah of praying.

46:15But as far as getting the answers that you want, come back next week. Come back next week. Come back later tonight in Arvit. It's a tefillah. It's a tefillah with quality. Right. So now you go by yourself. They're going to check you. But now when you pray with the kosher minyan, it's a different ballgame. Why? Because Hashem is merciful. So what does He do? He takes the best piece of everyone. So this guy, the beginning of the prayer, powerful. But then right after it, he started thinking about the baseball game. The beginning of his prayer, amazing. The next 45 minutes, nothing. Another guy, first five minutes, not good. But the second five minutes, powerful. So Hashem takes his piece and his piece. But then they both are. Then He takes a third guy. Third guy, the next, the third part, the next 15 minutes later.

47:15Powerful, the first beracha, he did the Kaddish, and so on, had meaning. So what does Hashem do? Hashem takes the best of everyone's pieces, puts them together, and everyone's prayers get to Hashem. And everyone gets VIP treatment because now it's considered as if everyone has a perfect prayer. Because He's using the best pieces of everyone. But here is the problem. Here is the problem. This is only the prayers of the people that are not the ones who are stealing in their business, gambling at casinos, going with married women, violating Shabbat, or eating non-kosher. No, this is of the people who are at least trying to be righteous. They're the ones that He counts. Because the guy that's violating Shabbat, the Gemara says specifically, the Torah says specifically, his prayer is considered To'avat Hashem. You know what To'avat means? To'avat means disgusting. It means disgusting to Hashem. His prayer is disgusting to Hashem. Why is it disgusting? He says, wait a minute. Think about this logically.

48:38You just shot 50 people in my army. You're my enemy. You launched an atomic bomb by turning on your car at 8 o'clock in the morning on Shabbat. And then you turned off the car; it's another atomic bomb. And then you pressed the gas pedal 50 times during the 20-minute ride. Each time you pressed the gas pedal, it's another atomic bomb. Then you pressed your iPhone; it's another atomic bomb. So just from Shabbat, from 8 o'clock in the morning to 8 o'clock at night, Hashem is telling you, you launched 50 million atomic bombs at Me. And now you want to pray to Me and actually ask Me to help you? There's no bigger chutzpah than this. That's why it's considered to'avat Hashem. That's why it's considered disgusting to Hashem. Not only are you using what I gave you against Me, but on top of it, you're asking Me to help you with it? You're asking Me to pay for the poison that you're giving Me? Doesn't make any sense. So now when you go to Beit Knesset, you have to look who's around.

49:54You have to look at who's around. If you have Shomrei Mitzvot, you have at least 10 Jews that are keeping Shabbat, that's a minyan. You're in a good place, but if you have a Reform, Conservative, or a secular shul, where everyone is hafif, everyone keeps whatever they feel like, you're not doing any good for yourself. You're putting yourself in jeopardy every single minute that you're there. Gemara Masechet Ta'anit, page 16. It says, sometimes, I thought this was only in our generation, this actually has been happening for at least 2,000 years. Sometimes people pick a cantor, pick a chazzan, because he has a beautiful voice. He has a beautiful voice. That's the point of the chazzan, is to use his voice. He reminds us of the Kohanim in a Beit HaMikdash. In a Beit HaMikdash, when someone would bring a korban, they would make a korban chatat. So they make a sacrifice because of some sin they committed. Accidental sin. They committed a sin, so they bring a korban, they bring a sacrifice. But just bringing a sacrifice wasn't enough.

51:05You have to do teshuva. Because there's something called pigul. Pigul means, if you brought the korban, but in your mind, you didn't really feel sorry. You didn't feel sorry. Like, oh, I cheated on my wife, Hashem, I'm not sorry about it. But at least I'm going to give this Beit HaMikdash, I'm going to give this G-d, some animal, cost me 5,000 dollars, big deal. That's called pigul. Pigul means it's defective. meaning that you can bring him 5,000 korbanot. 5,000 sacrifices are not worth anything. They are not accepted by Hashem. What's accepted? Teshuva. It's accepted for you to do teshuva. So one of the ways, one of the things that we miss, one of the things that really should break every Jew's heart when he actually knows this about the Beit HaMikdash, when we had the Beit HaMikdash, Someone would come with their korban, and sometimes they didn't come with full teshuva, only partial teshuva. Okay, I feel bad, but not like bad, bad. I feel bad. Okay, so let me give him this cow, or five cows. The guy is a rich guy. He gives him five cows. What's the big deal? Each one is $10,000. Okay, you get $50,000. But he doesn't really feel bad. So what happened at the Beit HaMikdash? The Kohanim would start singing.

52:30And the voice was so powerful that it would literally make people do teshuva on the spot. It would break their heart. It would start making them think of their sins. And the people would start crying while they were slaughtering the animal. It would force them to do teshuva even if they didn't want to. That's how powerful their voice was. So a chazan in a Beit Knesset is supposed to be like a minor Kohen. His voice is supposed to remind us of what we really should have. We should have the Beit HaMikdash. It should touch our heart so we do teshuva. So sometimes people pick the guy, pick the chazan, because he has a pretty voice. He has a nice voice. But here's the problem. If he has a very nice voice, but he's a rasha, he's not considered a righteous person. He shaves with a blade. If he shaves with a blade, he's not even allowed to be part of a minyan. Someone who shaves with a razor blade,

53:41Because it's a sin that's a regular sin, meaning it's a habitual sin. He does it every time. If it's a one-time sin, he just shaved with a blade one time, but then he goes back to being normal, you know, with either some kosher scissors or a buzzer that's approved, or he just grows a beard, that's fine. If you made a one-time sin, okay, do teshuva, that's fine. But if he shaves on a regular basis, which most men shave every couple of days if you shave your face... That means that that sin is a regular, habitual sin as a part of his life. And someone that makes a sin on a regular basis is no longer part of Am Yisrael. He's not considered Jewish anymore. He gets thrown out of the land. He's not even part of a minyan. He's the same thing as a Mechalel Shabbat. So now if this Kenta has a pretty baby face... But not because he was born this way, like a lot of people from Spain, a lot of people from Italy, or different parts of the world—they don't grow facial hair.

54:47So the guy's 50 years old, looks like he's 16. He's got a pretty face. Okay, if that's the case, good, no problem. But if he has my genes and he has a beard that's this big after a week, but you see that he has a baby face, okay, you have to find out if it's a razor or it's not. If you see there's still a little hair all the time, then you know it's a buzzer. If it's a baby face, then it cannot be without a razor. You have to verify. You have to verify. So now, if this person is not considered a righteous person, either because he shaves inappropriately, or he doesn't keep Shabbat, or he doesn't keep kosher, or he had a situation in a shul where the chazan that they had, the baal korei, the one that's reading from the Torah, not just the tefillah, not just the tefillah, actually reading from the Torah, was married to a goya. An Orthodox shul. The guy is married to a goya and he's reading from the Torah for the whole kehillah, 150 people. I couldn't believe this. How could this be? So now, what's the problem? Because he's supposed to be a representation, this chazan is supposed to be a representation of the Beit HaMikdash.

56:07and you chose him because of his pretty voice instead of his good deeds. The Gemara in Masechet Ta'anit says, there's nobody in the world—these are the exact words of the Gemara—that Hashem hates more than him, more than this chazan, and he brings a curse on the entire kehillah. Everyone is cursed in the kehillah that's listening to his prayer because they put him there. So someone, innocent, doesn't know what's going on, he comes to the kehillah, he comes to the beit knesset, thinking, oh, listen, I want to get a mitzvah; I want to pray with a minyan. I want to pray with a minyan, what's the problem? He doesn't know, he goes to this minyan that has a chazan that's married to a goyah, or has a chazan that just ate treif five minutes before the shul started, or he has, you know, all these different problems. He doesn't realize, he just came to shul, and he got a curse. Who wants this problem? A woman doesn't qualify as a chazan also because it's not modest. Even though women have pretty, pretty voices, according to the Gemara, the voice of a woman is considered part of her ervah (nakedness).

57:29A woman's voice is attractive to a man. Another woman could appreciate a woman singing and say, "Wow, she has a pretty voice." But a man that just hears a woman singing, if he doesn't know what she looks like, He doesn't know what she looks like. He's never seen her before and there's no image that he's seen. He's just hearing a voice, it's fine. But if he knows what she looks like, he's not allowed to listen to her sing. Why? Because the natural human instinct of a man is to imagine the singing voice naked, to imagine this woman, what she looks like naked. It's a reality and I can tell you it's verified. So a woman's voice is very attractive to a man, and therefore a man is not allowed to listen to a woman sing unless it's his wife. And it's private. So a woman, on one hand, is not allowed to be a chazzan because her voice is considered erva, and it would make the entire kehillah think bad thoughts. It's arayot, it's a sex crime. So instead of going to tefillah to pray to Hashem, the entire kehillah is making the number one sin in the Torah, which is a sex crime.

58:42You know, Yom Kippur, b'ezrat Hashem is coming soon, only about a month away or so, or a little more. And at the end of Yom Kippur prayers, we say a lot of sins. We made this sin, we made that sin, we made this sin, we made that sin. It's a big, big list of sins. If you notice the entire list, what is it? It's sex crimes. It's all sex crimes. Amen. It's all sex crimes. It's all, don't be with your mother, don't be with your sister, don't be with your aunt, don't be with a man, not allowed, all these different sex crimes. The entire prayer, one of the prayers on Yom Kippur, one of the holiest days of the year, the day that we're supposed to repent, we're specifically talking about sex crimes. So imagine a kehillah, like a Reform shul, that has a woman chazzan. They're making the sex crime, they're all asking for forgiveness for, once a year, every day. This is what happens when we start using our own logic instead of using the logic of Hashem. In the Gemara, Masechet Chagigah, it says, Talmidei Chachamim, Kol Gufam Esh.

1:00:03Talmidei Chachamim, you know, wise people who are scholars, Torah scholars, their entire body is fire. What does it mean an entire body is fire? When someone has dedicated their life, their soul, their time, their pain, their suffering, everything that they need to finally get to a point of being considered a Torah scholar. It's not easy to be a Torah scholar. Three things the Torah says that you can only achieve through suffering and self-sacrifice. Eretz Yisrael, Olam HaBa, and having Torah. Becoming a Talmid Chacham. You cannot become a Talmid Chacham without suffering. You cannot live comfortably in Eretz Yisrael without suffering. You cannot get to Olam HaBa without sacrifice and suffering. It has to happen. So now... They say the entire Talmid Chacham is Eish, meaning that once they have become one with the Torah and made all of the necessary sacrifices to become a Talmid Chacham, their thoughts become like Torah thoughts. They only think what the Torah thinks. They don't have opinions.

1:01:22They don't think about, "Listen, but I think that you should do this," or "I think," no, no, no. What does Hashem think? The bigger the Talmid Chacham, the fewer opinions he has. Only, what is Hashem's opinion? What's Hashem's opinion? Rabbi Tovia Singer said, Phenomenal rabbi does a lot of kiruv, especially with the goyim and B'nei Noach, and even Jews as well. One of the things, you know, during the times when we were learning about, you know, doing teshuva, also learning about the falsehood of Christianity, I listened to him a lot. And one thing that always appealed to me, he says, listen, in all the debates that he would have... He says, "Listen, my opinion doesn't count. Your opinion, the other guy's opinion, also doesn't count. The crowd's opinion, all 500 people there, doesn't count. All that counts, and all that we should ask ourselves, is what is God's opinion? What does God say about this? That's a Talmid Chacham."

1:02:38You have a Talmid Chacham? He's not going to tell you, "Listen, I think this, I think that." He's going to tell you, "Oh, you have a question? Let's see what the Torah says. Parashat Eikev, this is what it says. Parashat Va'etchanan, this is what it says. Parashat Ki Tavo, this is what it says. Whatever it is, this is what Hashem thinks. This is why He wrote it." So now, you have yourself a situation where you're trying to fulfill these big mitzvot, which are a little easier to fulfill because you know that they're big. But here he's telling you that there's a big reward in this world, and David HaMelech is also saying it as well in Tehillim. He's scared of the small mitzvot. He's scared of the mitzvot that no one thinks is a big deal. The ones where you go to Beit Knesset and you're not really paying attention to who the chazan is. You go to Beit Knesset, and you're not really sure if there's a kosher minyan or a non-kosher minyan.

1:03:39You're not verifying anything. You go to a restaurant, you don't really pay attention to the kosher stamp. If it's valid, if it's not valid. You're not paying attention. Okay, so you may actually have a problem. You may have a serious problem. To such an extent that David HaMelech says, why is he scared? Why is he scared of these small mitzvot? Because David HaMelech was one of the humblest people that ever lived, called himself, he's less than a worm. He says, I don't even know if I have the merit to go to Olam HaBa. David HaMelech did not know if he's going to have a share of the World to Come. Of course, he became the fourth pillar in the Kisei HaKavod. Hashem, but nonetheless, during this world, in this life that he had, he didn't know. He didn't know where he stood. He's like, "Listen, I'm trying the big mitzvot. I know the big mitzvot, but the small ones, I don't know if I'm doing them good enough. And maybe these small ones are the ones that are going to make me lose my Olam HaBa." This is the difference between us and David HaMelech. We're thinking, "Listen, we keep Shabbat. I'm fine. I'm tzaddik already."

1:04:52I keep going, I went to a kosher restaurant, I paid an extra 50%. Already thinking, I'm learning 20 minutes a day. Okay, great, 20 minutes a day. We learn anything, we're thinking we're already giants. But the real giants, the real talmidei chachamim, they're telling you, listen, you got to pay a little bit more attention to what the Torah says. You gotta pay attention to the small details. And that's how we know that when Hashem is telling us here that He's gonna remove every illness that we have, He's not gonna do it if you just keep Shabbat. He's not gonna do it if you just keep kosher because you have a local kosher store and it's pretty convenient to buy kosher salami because it's right next to the non-kosher. What's the big deal? It's gonna cost you an extra dollar. It's not gonna change your life. You want special siyata di'shmaya? You want special assistance from Hashem? You want Hashem to fulfill His promise over here where He says, "I'm going to cure every illness?" You have pain in your life? Your legs hurt? Your mind hurts? Your neshama hurts? You have serious problems? Hashem says start paying attention to the small details. Not just the big ones. But the small ones. The ones that no one else cares about.

1:06:18One of the smallest mitzvot, as far as people think that it's a small one, but it's actually one of the biggest and most important mitzvot of our generation, if not the most important one, is kiruv. Helping people do teshuva. Most people don't think of it as such a big deal because most people don't really care much about what other people do. That's just a reality. Most of us are selfish. We care about our life, our parnasa, our family. That's it. We care about ourselves. And the problem with that is that we're going against the Torah when we think like that. Because each Jew is responsible for the next one. So, how do I know that a lot of people don't care about kiruv? Look at the donors. The biggest donors in the world are Jewish. There's no question about it. It's always been the case. It always will be the case. The biggest donors in the world have always been Jewish.

1:07:20As a per capita percentage-wise, it's not a doubtful remark. But you see some of these huge donations that come from Jews, have nothing to do with Torah, let alone with kiruv. They'll donate to a hospital, they'll donate to some non-profit organization that's saving dogs or saving lions or saving parrots or some rare breed of butterfly or something. They're not saving Jews. And even the ones that actually are investing in Judaism. You ask a guy, "Listen, you built this Beit Knesset?" "Yeah, I built this Beit Knesset." "How much did it cost you to build this Beit Knesset?" He goes, "Well, to start it up, it cost me half a million. It's a fancy Beit Knesset. But to run it every month costs me $25,000." "Wow, that's beautiful. How many people did teshuvah while you were in this Beit Knesset?" He won't be able to give you an answer.

1:08:34How much money do you spend on actually doing kiruv, actually saving Jewish people? $200 a month. Wait a minute. So the Beit Knesset, you spend half a million dollars plus $25,000 a month on, but to save the people that are going to come there, you spend $200? It's like spending $50 million on a factory and $3 on the ingredients. If you don't have ingredients, the factory is useless. We have a Beit Knesset on every corner, Baruch Hashem, but it's not necessarily such a great thing. Main reason why we have so many Batei Knesset is because people want fame and fortune. They want their name on a Beit Knesset or they got into an argument with the one before and they want to start their own. There's a problem in every Beit Knesset. If we actually start taking all of that money, all the money we invest in Batei Knesset, all the money we invest in Sifrei Torah, which there's plenty already. We don't need any more Sifrei Torah.

1:09:44Every Beit Knesset has plenty. You need a couple. Most Batei Knesset have four, five, six, and they keep getting more. There are some places in Brooklyn and other places in the world that have over 150 Sifrei Torah. They have a basement full of Sifrei Torah. Even if they wanted, even if they wanted, they can't use all of them. You can't use all of them. What are you going to use? Okay, so you open the Sefer Torah three times a week: Monday, Thursday, and Shabbat. So even if you use a different one every single time, which is not really a good logistical plan, but let's say you do, you still can't use all of them. In reality, most Batei Knesset, they use two, three, four at most, over and over and over again. And then once a year, they just open all of them just for the purpose of, you know, making sure that they're all okay and kosher and so on. But in reality, they just sit there and do nothing. And people keep bringing in and bringing in. Each one, $50,000, $60,000, $70,000. The rabbi said, yes, let's have another party.

1:10:51What party? The $50,000, $60,000 you spent on a Sefer Torah that's going to sit in a basement and earn the guy no mitzvot whatsoever could have saved 30,000 Jews. You could have saved 50,000 Jews. You could have saved the indigent. And that's what we're missing in this generation. Why? Because we're not paying attention to the small details. We're only paying attention to the big things. Oh, the Beit Knesset has a big sign with my name on it. That's what I want. What about the sign in Shamayim? And that's what it says here in the beginning of the parasha. He's telling us here, if we start paying attention to the small details, we have ourselves a very, very big change. A very big change. After this, there is a very important life lesson. that a lot of Baalei Teshuva struggle with. Many people, when they start doing Teshuva, experience serious difficulty. And this is not uncommon. It's not uncommon.

1:12:22and they call me and they ask me, I started keeping mitzvot, I started learning Torah, but all of a sudden, I started to lose money. All of a sudden, my family's going against me. I want to learn Torah, they want me to do something else. All of a sudden, my friends are not interested in being friends with me anymore. I have less and less in common with them. So here in chapter 8, it gives you the answer to all of these questions. And then we'll explain. It says, It says in the beginning, the entire commandment that I command you today, you shall observe to perform so that you may live and increase and come and possess the land that Hashem swore to your forefathers. So first and foremost, He's saying to you all of the commandments, not some of them, not the ones that you think are big, not the ones that you think are small, everything.

1:13:44Entire. Entire means everything. And why? So you can live. Live, every time it mentions live in the Torah, it's not referring to just this world, it's mentioning eternity. It's referring to Olam HaBa. Verse 2 continues, You shall remember the entire road on which Hashem your God led you these 40 years in the wilderness. Don't forget what happened in these last 40 years, where you faced significant difficulties. Why? Why do you have to think about this? Most people would tell you, "Oh, don't you remember when you were struggling, when you didn't have any money? Oh, don't you remember when you were sick? Oh, don't you remember when you were going through some type of difficulty in your life?" If you think about it, why would you want to think about your past if you had a difficult past? Why would you want to think about it? What do you think, Fidel? Why would you ask somebody, somebody asks you, oh, do you remember when you had a tough time in the past? Why are they asking you this question? Why? I don't know. Well, the main reason that people ask is because they can relate to that person more than they can relate to you.

1:15:08Most people ask you, "Do you remember the past?" because they are subconsciously telling you that they want you to remember where you came from. People like to reminisce about the times when they were children. You know, people like when you're old friends, you get together and, you know, one guy became a big Wall Street guy, the other guy is, you know, just a standard farmer or, I don't know, works at CVS or something. But then they get together for the first time in 20 years and they start reminiscing about their past, their good times. Oh, remember when we used to go to the park together, we played soccer together, we played this, we played that. You reminisce and you enjoy the time, but in reality... You're talking about the past because that's when you actually had stuff in common. Because in today's world, you have nothing in common. He is a Wall Street tycoon. You work at CVS making $15 an hour, hoping that you can survive the week. You have nothing in common. You're looking for a new wife every Tuesday because you have five divorces. He has had one wife since college already.

1:16:13You're thinking that the best thing in life is to be famous and fortunate. He, on the other hand, is as happy as can be with his very, very simple life because he's connected to Hashem. He's connected to Hashem. The other guy thinks he is God. So they can't connect. The current version of them can't connect. There's nothing in common. But they start talking about the times they used to play soccer and they played like this, and they did this, and they went out, and they did this. Because that's when they had something in common. So it's to remind you of where you came from. But here in the Torah, Moshe Rabbeinu is doing the same thing. He says, "Remember what happened to you for 40 years in the desert." Why 40 years? Because the 40 years of difficulty were not for no reason. It happened for a reason. You suffered for a reason. What's the reason? Hashem led you through these 40 years in the wilderness so as to afflict you, to test you, to know what's in your heart and whether you will observe His commandments or not.

1:17:28Hashem gave you these difficulties during the last 40 years, whether it's the test of food or water, or not having a leader like Moshe Rabbeinu for 40 days and 40 nights, all types of different tests that you went through, to see what's really in your heart. You said that you did teshuvah after you left Mitzrayim. Fifty days later, you received the Torah, and Moshe Rabbeinu comes down. Thousands of people idol-worshipping. Where is the teshuvah you talked about? Forty days ago, everybody was tzaddikim; the angels came from Shamayim and gave each Jew a crown. A crown from Shamayim. Forty days later, Moshe comes six hours later than what you expected him, and people are idol-worshipping. Why did Hashem do this? Why did Hashem let this happen? He gave you that difficulty. He gave you that test. He could have given the Torah to Moshe Rabbeinu in one second. He didn't have to wait 40 days. He could have said, Moshe, you have the Torah. Go spread it among the world. He didn't need 40. You think Hashem really needed 40 days? He brought Moshe Rabbeinu up there

1:18:53for the purpose of seeing what's in the heart of Am Yisrael for 40 days. How long can you stay loyal to Hashem Yitbarach without having My messenger talk to you all the time next to you? How long are you going to obey your parents once they leave? When you're a little kid, your parents say, oh, we're going out tonight. Most kids are excited. Why? Because they can do stuff they want to do. Cause trouble. Parents are going to say, listen, we're going to go out for a couple of hours. We're going to be back. Make sure that you're a good boy. Make sure you're a good girl. You take care of your brothers and sisters. And usually, the firstborn is, of course, yeah, sure, right. And, you know, during the first half hour, they're fine. No, you can't do this. You can't do that. You can't do this. You know, it becomes this cop of the brothers and sisters.

1:19:53But then, after a half hour, okay, you know what, maybe we can't watch TV. Okay, maybe we can't play video games. All of a sudden, the rules start becoming a little bit more flexible. By the time the parents come two hours later, it's Sodom and Gomorrah in childhood. This is exactly what happened with us at Har Sinai. Hashem tested us to see what's in your heart. And the same thing that He's doing to this day to each and every single one of us. The difficulties you're experiencing in your life are not because Hashem is excited to torture you. It's not that Hashem even benefits from torturing you. It's that Hashem needs to know what you're really made of. Do you believe in Him? Or do you just want stuff from Him? Are you following what He says purely because... You want Him to give you the best job and more money and a zivug and all these wonderful blessings? Is that the only reason you're serving Him, because you're using Him for stuff? Or are you actually complying with His Torah because you know you have to? You're complying with it because you fear Him. You're complying with it because you love Him. You're complying with it because you want to connect to Him.

1:21:14And that you would do it just like Iyov said, "Even if You would kill me, I would still serve Him." Testing your heart. He afflicted you and let you hunger, then He fed you the manna. So first, He tells him some of these tests He gave you. First, He made you hungry. In a desert. For what? Not because He wants you to starve. He wants to see what you are going to do. You guys started complaining. He gave you the manna. He didn't give you the manna because you complained. He was planning on giving you the manna regardless. He's planning on giving you the reward regardless of what you're going to do. He didn't bring you to the world just to torture you. He wanted to see how you're going to behave when you didn't get it when you wanted it. But instead, you got it when you needed it. There's want and there's need. A little kid thinks that he needs the candy. He doesn't need it; he wants it. We think we need money. We don't need it; we want it. People think they need a lot more than what they really do. Most of the time, they just want it.

1:22:31So Hashem was planning on giving us food anyway. He took us out of Egypt after miracle, after miracle, after miracle for a full year. Then He split the sea for us. He killed the biggest civilization in the world, the most powerful civilization that ever existed, the Egyptian people—90 million people, according to the Midrash in Me'am Loez. He destroyed them and made their slaves into their masters. So what do you think? He did all of that just to go... Make you all starve in a desert? No, He's just reminding you, listen, you're not getting the bread. I just want to see what you're going to do. Are you going to turn around and go back to the Egyptians? Are you going to start worshipping idols? Are you going to start complaining to Hashem? What are you going to do? Or maybe you're just going to start praying, "Hashem, please feed me, I'm hungry. Hashem, I'm hungry." Simple. Tested your emunah. So then, despite the fact that we failed the test, He gave us manna. And not only did He give us a reward that we didn't deserve, but He also said that we didn't even know what this reward was, how good it was. Even our forefathers, who actually did deserve the manna, they didn't even get it. Meaning that the good that Hashem gives us is even better than what we wish for ourselves. That's how good Hashem is.

1:24:01So how do we fix that gap? When people, I mean, when you compare it with the childhood, the actual times. So we're talking from the spiritual point of view, because if you go to that level, it’s because there’s nothing. to reality right now, so how you fix it in a practical way. So here's the thing, so now when you have, this will answer the other questions also. So when someone starts doing teshuva and they start dealing with difficulties, the family is going against them, the congregation is going against them, money is tight, they have different tests. Hashem is specifically telling you, here's one of the reasons I give you these tests. One reason I afflict you is to test you to see how good your teshuva really is. Is it genuine? Or is it just convenient? Are you keeping Shabbat because your new fiancée is a Shomeret Shabbat and you want to make her happy? Or are you keeping Shabbat because I said so?

1:25:07Are you doing honest business because your business is very easy and you're already doing fine? Or are you doing honest business because I said so? Why are you doing everything that you're doing? That's what Hashem wants to know. So much so that the Rambam says, the righteous among the nations have a share in the world to come. have a share in the world to come. They have a share in the world to come only if they fulfill the seven laws of Noah and all the rational laws because Hashem said so, not just because it's convenient for them. Like if somebody, you know, seven laws of Noah, pretty simple, all logical. Don't murder. Of course, you know you can't murder. Don't steal. Of course, you know you can't steal. Don't worship idols. Don't eat an animal while it's still alive. Things like this. Very, very simple. It's all logical things. Be a merciful person. Have an orderly court so there's obviously not mayhem going on. So anyone that has a little bit of a brain would know that

1:26:25Most people should be able to keep these seven laws. It's not really a big deal, just by being a human being. But the Rambam says that just because you're a human being doesn't mean you're going to have Olam HaBa though. Why? You're only going to have Olam HaBa, and you are only considered righteous amongst the nations, if you keep it because Hashem said so—not because it's convenient for you. Your teshuva is only considered genuine if you're doing it because Hashem said so, not because it's convenient for you to keep Shabbat all of a sudden. taking a break once a week, what's the big deal? It's convenient for you to keep kosher, why? Because you own a kosher restaurant. Do you know, by the way, that I'm finding out more and more, and I hope it's not the case everywhere, but I've seen it everywhere. I'm seeing it in Israel, I saw it in New York, I see it in Florida, I see it in a bunch of different places, and you know it's not... I don't know what's going on here, but do you know how many restaurants Kosher restaurants and kosher supermarkets are owned by non-religious Jews? It's the most ridiculous oxymoron in history. It doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Someone that's not keeping virtually anything is serving the religious people something he doesn't believe in.

1:27:49Obviously, if they have kashrut, that means that they're following the laws, hopefully at least. But the point is that this is a problem. This is a serious problem. So Hashem wants to know, are you eating this kosher food because you own the restaurant? It's a kosher restaurant. Or are you eating kosher food because Hashem said that if you don't eat kosher food, you're not going to be able to learn Torah and fulfill the mitzvot because you'll become spiritually stupid. So, He's going to send you test after test after test to see where you stand. So now, in the beginning of teshuva, a lot of people have these tests, and sometimes they're going to have such a difficult test, either because they're converting, or because they're doing teshuva, which is almost converting already in this generation. Some people are so far from Hashem before they do teshuva that by the time they do teshuva, it's a conversion. It's not that much different. Obviously, they don't have to go in front of a beit din and a mikveh and so on, but the point is that they're learning from scratch. I didn't know almost anything before I did teshuva. My wife and I were both going through the same process. Only difference is she went to the mikveh, I didn't.

1:29:14So, and I laugh about it with my rabbi. I tell him, "When you converted me," he says, "No, no, you were a Jew." I say he converted me because, to me, that's what I feel like. I feel like when I look at my past, like anyone that sees the videos I have on CNBC or on some other channels that I was on TV, when I see that person, when I see past pictures of myself, like the one that's on this CD, I can't relate to this person anymore. I don't know what this person wants. I don't know what he wanted. I don't know anything. I can't connect to him in any way, shape, or form. Yes, I have a similar mindset as far as business. I'm a serious guy. The personality itself hasn't really changed. But the likes and desires that that person had versus what I have today through Torah, it's like two different worlds. So, here's the thing. So now when you start doing teshuva, the world around you is staying the same, and you're changing. So what do you do? Why is this happening? Okay.

1:30:25First and foremost, you have to understand, Hashem comes first. Before anyone. Before your wife, before your husband, before your kids, before your shul, before anything. That's why the first commandment, the Ten Commandments, is "I am your God that took you out of Egypt." The first one, the second one, and the third one are all between us and Hashem. And even the fourth one, which is Shabbat, is also between us and Hashem. And even the fifth one, when He tells us to respect our parents, He reminds us the second time that He mentions it in the Torah: "Respect your mother and your father, I am God." Meaning, yes, respect your mother and your father, but don't forget that I am God. Meaning that if your mom and dad are telling you to go against Me, you cannot. You have to pick Me first. God comes before your mom and dad. That's why it's number five, and Hashem has the first four. So, the first thing that you need to understand is that you have to do it because Hashem said so. And the second thing is, that God comes first. Not necessarily in that order. But the point is you have to know that God comes first. Hashem comes first before anything. Before even your own desires. The next thing is, the fewer desires that you have, the lower your own desires become.

1:31:55and the more you fulfill Hashem's desires, meaning the more you focus on what Hashem wants from you, versus what you want, the more Hashem will actually give you what you want anyway. As far as the family and friends around you, the reality is, and I don't want to sugarcoat it in any way, as you guys know, I don't really know how to sugarcoat things anyway. Mmhmm. Little by little you will become very distant from them to the point where in many cases, not all, but in many cases, you'll completely disconnect from your past. Your friends, your family, your past, you'll completely disconnect from them. The closer you are to Hashem, the further you are from people that are not close to Hashem. Meaning, if your friends... All nice people. Like all my friends. All the guys that used to work for me. All the guys I used to be friends with. All wonderful people. They're not bad people. I had some tiffs with a few people here and there. But in general, there's a lot of good people in my past. Not bad, evil people. Murderers or rapists or bank robbers. I wasn't friends with Bernie Madoff or anything like that. Regular people. I don't call them. They don't call me. When we talk, there's really not much to talk about.

1:33:22Why? Their interest is still the past. They're interested in Wall Street. They're interested in money. They're interested in, I don't know, some baseball game. I don't have that interest. It's not my life. My life is Hashem. After Hashem comes my family, my wife, and my baby. After that come my parents, my brothers, you know, whatever I have time for after that. In reality, all of this is consuming as it is. And on top of that, I have thousands and thousands of people, Baruch Hashem, every day, every week, contacting me to try to help me help them in some way or another, whether it's to convert or do teshuva or shalom bayit or business or health or this. So I have families all over the world of people that have like minds. They know that the medicine that I took is the same medicine they need. It's called Torah. So, the people that are not taking this medicine of Torah, what am I going to talk to them about? I don't care about the baseball game. I don't care about the football game. I don't care about the stock market.

1:34:23And even when people ask me for business advice, a lot of people ask me for business advice. Baruch Hashem, I had a successful business before Hashem took everything away, Baruch Hashem. But you don't lose the knowledge. If I started a business now, it would probably be drastically more successful than I ever was before through experience. You have experience and so on. You get better over time. I have no interest whatsoever in going into the business world, but a lot of people come to me and ask me for business advice. What do you do when a client says this? What do you do when a customer does this? How do I build my business? How do I do this? How do I do that? In general, even though there are ways for me to make money doing it and consulting and things like that, I really don't have an interest. I try not to do it. The only times that I do it are when there is some level of Torah involved. Like if I know that if I help this person solve their problem, there is some type of... Usually, it's problems. No one comes because they're doing so wonderful they want to do better. They come because they have a problem. They lost money. There's somebody suing them. There's a partnership that's going bad. So they come and they ask me for advice. And for me, I know that part of their teshuva would also be to fix this business.

1:35:39it wasn't a kosher business, or maybe they weren't ethical, and it is technically part of their teshuva, then, you know, I'm more inclined to help them. But if the guy is already doing really well, he doesn't need my help. There are plenty of consultants that he can use. And I don't have time. Money, Hashem is going to give me. How? It's His problem. Hashem managed the world. He built the heaven and the earth. I'm sure He has money. So, when it comes to that past world, the closer you are to Hashem, which goes back to our point, the further you are going to be from people that are not close to Hashem. And the harder it is going to be for you to relate to them. You're not going to have anything to talk about. You want to talk about Parashat HaShavua, they want to talk about Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. You want to talk about Moshe Rabbeinu, they want to talk about Obama. You want to talk about Taharat HaMishpacha, they want to talk about, I don't know, some stock market or something. You have nothing in common. So the reality of it is that on one end, it's not going to be easy because your past friends are not going to be really, you're not going to have much in common. But there's a few things. Number one, you're going to find new people.

1:37:00You go to the Knesset, you have kosher people out there. If you get involved in a Jewish community, you're going to find other like-minded people, people who have a similar mindset to you, people who have similar likes to you of today, the current version of you. And you're going to find new friends. If you're the type of person that wants and desires to have friends, you'll find new friends. Seven and a half billion people in the world. Don't worry, there's plenty of people. You're not going to run out of friends. If you want friends, you can find friends. Second thing is, the old people in your life, technically, if they're Jewish—and even if they're not Jewish, not to the same extent—but you do have some responsibility, if you continue to connect with them, to try to get them to join you. So how do you do it? Listen, you already went 150 miles an hour for the last three years. You got to today. Fine. They haven't even started. So you can't think about you today. And they have to do everything you're doing today. You have to get them slowly but surely. Say, listen, by the way, here, CD. It's a great story about a guy we used to work with. Here. What is it? It's great. What is it? It's great. Just listen to it. That's it. Start with a CD.

1:38:24Start with a link. Give him a link. Watch him have a lecture. Oh, wow, it's really interesting. Oh, you liked it, right? Yes, send him another one. And another one, another one. Next thing you know, he's right next to you in a shul. He's actually one of the ten that's actually kosher in the shul. So you have a certain obligation to get them to join you. But only after you've gotten to a point where you have some strength. If you're still shaky, if you're still like a drunk person, one day you're okay, the next day you're not, focus on you. But if you've got some strength, you have at least a basic level of emunah, know that everything is from Hashem, don't worry. You can help other people. But then, once in a while, you're going to have a little bit of a hiccup. Sometimes, you're going to have a hiccup where someone really, really important to you is going to go against you. But not against you in a way where they're trying to, like, go to war with you, but against you in a way where they don't like what you're doing now. They don't like your teshuvah. They don't like that all of a sudden you're modest. To them, you look like a nun. They don't like that you are, you know, keeping Shabbat. To them, you're enclosing yourself.

1:39:47They don't like that you're doing all these things. To them, it's not good. To you, it's the best thing in the world. To them, it's like poison. David HaMelech also gave us an answer for this. In Tehillim, which we actually read in our Tefillah, in Psalm 118: This is a Tehillim, this is a Psalm that the Christians have mistranslated for already 2,000 years. For 2,000 years, they've been mistranslating this Tehillim simply because they don't know Hebrew. Somehow, their warped brains connected this Tehillim to their false god, to their JC Penney guy. But in reality, this is what it means. So, Psalm 118, verses 22 to 24. It says, "The stone the builders despised has become the cornerstone."

1:41:04This emanated from Hashem. It is wondrous in our eyes. This is the day Hashem has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Okay. So what's the background of this story? Before David HaMelech was born, his mother was not able to bring any more kids into the world. He already had brothers that were born before him, but she wasn't able to bring more kids into the world. So, she wanted to make sure that the father had the opportunity to bring more children into the world. So, she told him, "Listen, why don't you have another child with the shifcha, one of the maidservants? She is a righteous woman." If the wife permits, in those days, a man was allowed to marry more than one woman.

1:42:04In today's age, the sages of past generations have already not allowed it, because a man can't even handle one wife, let alone two or three or four. But there are certain parts of the world that still maintain old traditions, like Yemen, where men actually have multiple wives, and it's 100% kosher, obviously, if they're kosher people. In Yemen, they still keep all of the mitzvot and so on. There's also parts of Africa that do it and other places. But in general, in the Western world, in Israel, in America, in the Eastern and Western world, in general, it's not acceptable for a man to have more than one wife. But in the past, you were allowed to. So anyway, David HaMelech's mother said to Yishai, David HaMelech's father, listen, I can't bring any more kids to the world. We tried. It's not working. have another kid with the... But the shifcha was a tzaddekes. She was a tzaddekes. She didn't want it. She said, no, no, no. We pray to Hashem. You're going to have a kid with your own husband. So at night, instead of sleeping with Yishai, she actually switched spots and she put actually... She put his wife there instead. So unknowingly to him, he actually slept with his wife.

1:43:33So now when she actually got pregnant this time, he didn't think it was his kid. He's like, what do you mean? I didn't even sleep with you. I was with someone else. So this kid is not mine. But she told him, no, no, it is yours. She tried to tell him the story. He didn't believe her. Which means that when David HaMelech actually was born, for many, many years, his father thought that he was a mamzer. So the father, who is a very, very righteous person, is one of the four people in history, according to the Gemara, who never sinned. Never. Not one sin. We make a sin every two seconds. He never sinned once. He's a very, very holy person. Gadol HaDor. He's a giant of the generation. He's not a regular person. So because there was a safek, it was like, he wasn't 100% sure if she cheated or not. He stayed with her. But he still didn't believe that David was his son. So there's a little bit of, you know, he didn't pay as much attention to him, didn't think much of him. And the brothers weren't exactly excited about David either. So for years, he was like this abandoned kid in a way, where they would actually send him, the brothers would send him on these dangerous missions.

1:44:55where they would tell him to go with the sheep and the cattle and so on to dangerous places, maybe a lion will eat him and he could just take this embarrassment away from our family. That's just what it was. So they're not killing him, but if a lion happens to kill him, okay, Chazak u'Baruch to them. That's what it was. So one day, the prophet Shmuel comes to Yishai And he says, God has sent me, and He tells me that one of your sons is going to be the next king of Am Yisrael. Now, in those days, it's not like today where they have elections and they raise half a billion dollars to get votes. In those days, you knew who was the king through two things. One, God decided who the king is. And two, he left no question about it. How did he leave no question about it? There had to be something supernatural that had to happen. What was it? It was the oil of the Mashiach. So the prophet came. Mashiach doesn't mean just the Messiah. Mashiach comes from the word to rub. So when someone became a king, or someone became a Kohen Gadol, they would put this oil on him, this anointing oil.

1:46:16So that's where the word Mashiach comes from. People think that every time it mentions Mashiach in the Torah, it's actually referring to the Mashiach. It's not. This is also part of the problems of the Christians that infested our Torah, thinking that every time it mentions Mashiach, it's referring to the Mashiach. It doesn't. Mashiach comes from a completely different word that means to anoint with oil. So anyway, you would do this with the Kohen Gadol; you would do it with a king. So the prophet Shmuel comes, And he tries to, you know, take this bottle, he tries to put it on one of the sons. And the oil is defying gravity. It's staying in the bottle. It's not coming out of the bottle. So, okay, so this is not the king. So he goes to the next son. Tries to pour. The oil is staying in the bottle. It's not coming out. Okay, so this is not the king. And he goes to every one of the sons. No king. And he says to Yishai, "You must have another son. You must have another son." He goes, "No, no, no, no. It's one of them. It's one of these sons. I don't have any other sons." He goes, "No, you must have another son. Why? Hashem doesn't know how many sons you have?" He goes, "Yeah, no, it's this other son. He's with the cattle and the sheep over there. I don't know, but I don't think it's him." He goes, "Bring him, bring him." So they go send for David.

1:47:42And the Midrash says something extraordinary happens. As soon as David comes into the room, the oil jumps out of the bottle from across the room. And David HaMelech kind of floats in the air and they connect. Like a supernatural event, meaning that there's no doubt. There's no doubt this is it. And this is when David HaMelech wrote this Tehillim. because when everyone knew and there was no doubt that David HaMelech is the king, and the Mashiach is going to come from him, everyone got scared. Why did they get scared? Because we mistreated this guy his whole life. We sent him with the bears and the lions, and he got the bad job. So his father, Yishai, says this. He says, "The stone that the builders despised became the cornerstone." Now,

1:48:51In English, Rosh Pina is translated as cornerstone, but it's not really cornerstone. Rosh Pina means headstone. Rosh means head. Pina means corner. So it's referring to, and at the beginning of the sentence it says, so it's the head, corner, stone. Not just the cornerstone. Why is there a difference here? Because when you would build a building, sometimes the building, you know, you need a certain stone that is, you build, you make all the stones the same. They're all square, let's say. But sometimes you don't need a square stone. You need a circular stone. You need the end of it to be round. So you chop off the corner of this stone. Now this corner is a small piece. You don't need to throw it out. It's considered garbage. No one uses this cornerstone. This is what Yishai is saying. All this time, we thought he's the piece we throw out, the piece that we despised. But he ends up being the headstone, meaning on top of the castle. If you go to l'havdil, but you go to, let's say, Washington, D.C., they have this Washington Monument.

1:50:13What stone does everyone in the world know about this building if they know this building exists? They don't know the foundation stone. They don't know the middle stone. They know the top stone. They know the one that's the triangle. That's the one that everyone in the world knows. No one cares about the bottom stone or the middle stone. They care about the top one. That's the symbol. And that's what Yishai is saying. He went from being the part that we thought was garbage. We despised it. The part that you cut off from a stone, you throw it in the garbage. Nothing. He actually became the head one. Not just a foundation. The head. Everything. The most important part. The part that everyone's going to know. This emanated from Hashem. It's wondrous to our eyes. He says this happening, this miracle happened. It couldn't come from anywhere other than Hashem. It's such a complete 180-degree difference from what we thought to what Hashem did. It couldn't happen for anything other than 100% siyata dishmaya. It's not a coincidence. They're admitting 100% this is 100% Hashem, and it's wonderful to see it.

1:51:34But then David HaMelech says, this, David HaMelech is talking now, this is the day Hashem has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it. He's trying to tell them, listen, whatever was the past is the past. Now that we have this new information, now that we see Hashem Yitbarach as a permanent part of our life, forget about cornerstone or cornerstone. You're my dad, I love you. You're my brothers, I love you. You're my children. Everyone, I love everyone. That's how Tzadik David HaMelech was. So how is this connecting to us? When someone does teshuva in the beginning, sometimes he's going to have somebody... That's really, really important to him, go against him. No, come on, what are you learning so much Torah? Go back to the business world, make millions.

1:52:35No, what are you doing so much teshuvah? Look at this girl I want to introduce you to. Even though she's not Jewish, look how pretty she is. Look at this, look at that. Come on, let's go to the casino together. Come on, let's go party together. They were your boy. They were your brother. They were your father. They were your mother. Whoever it was, it's someone that was important in your past life. And now you're going against them, in essence, by doing what you're doing. So, in essence, you're going head to head. But David HaMelech is telling you something very, very important here. Every Baal Teshuva needs to know this. If you continue to go in the way of Hashem, regardless of what Tikkunim, regardless of what test, regardless of anything else, you continue to go in the will of Hashem, the part that everyone despised, this Teshuva that no one wanted you to do, ...this Torah that no one wanted you to learn, eventually all of those people are going to come back to you for a blessing. Eventually, all of those people are going to say, this thing we didn't like that you were doing, this Torah of yours, we need it. Because our life is in shambles.

1:53:53We need your connection to Hashem. Can you please give us a blessing? We need a blessing from you. We need to learn with you. We need to learn what you know. Help us because everything else we know is not working. And that's why David HaMelech, in a different psalm, says that part of the blessing of someone who is truly righteous with Hashem is that even his enemies become his friends. And come and say sorry. Not only do they become his friends, they come and apologize to him. So this is, again, the most important part for everyone going through difficulty with their family, with their friends, with everyone around them. Yes, in the beginning, you're not going to have anything in common. And you're going to lose contact. There's no question about it. Let's not fool ourselves. You're going to Hashem. They're going somewhere else. But eventually, you're going to have enough strength after a year, two years, three years, four years, however long it's going to take you, depending on how much you actually glue yourself to Hashem, and you're going to be able to come back and save some of these people. But better yet, you're not going to have to come back. They're going to come to you. And I can tell you, I know this from experience. It's unbelievable how Hashem fulfills His word in this Torah on a regular basis, and I'm seeing it.

1:55:18So don't worry about what's happening today, the arguments, the this, the that. You continue going the way of Hashem. The rest of it doesn't matter. Hashem's going to fix it for you. And that's how He fulfills the promise that we see in our Mishnah. It says, make His will into your will, and He will make your will into His. Any questions? I don't know if I have a question, but maybe it's gonna go a little bit. It's pertaining to the lives and things. How do you see it when you donate, particularly blood? There are some religions that ban donating blood. And in Judaism, And they say they get it from you. No, you're allowed to save a life. There's actually a company, what is it called? Renewal, I forget the name of the company. It's very, very righteous, very...

1:56:43amazing cause where they specifically connect Jews that want to donate a kidney to Jews that need a kidney. To save a life. You're allowed to save somebody's life. And there is, I read so many articles about them and I've seen them in Zman magazine. When I find it, I'll tell you what it is. It's a phenomenal organization. And for a cause like that, of course, why not? Why wouldn't you want to be a part of it? So you're allowed to donate blood. You're allowed to donate a kidney. As long as you're not putting yourself into such jeopardy that you're not going to live, obviously. You're not allowed to give your life for another Jew's life. His life is not worth more than yours unless he's a major talmid chacham. if he's a major talmid chacham, then you're allowed to sacrifice your life for him. But if he's just a regular person, even if you love him, you're still not allowed to put your life on the line for him.

1:57:52I'm gonna look for it in a second. But why, who's saying that it's not allowed? No, my point is why there are other religions that say they don't donate organs and blood particularly. Because it says in the Torah, I think they misinterpret it. They misinterpret everything in the Torah, unfortunately, because they read the Torah. First of all, the Christians read the Torah literally. They read the words literally. So this creates two sets of problems. Number one, it's a problem that they don't speak Hebrew. So as you can see, when you read it and translate it in Hebrew, they translate the cornerstone. Somehow, they're connecting the cornerstone to mean JC. It's the stupidest thing in the world. It's the dumbest translation in history. People have been falling for it for 2,000 years. So, one thing has nothing to do with the other. One thing has absolutely nothing. If you just heard the story, does anything have to do with JC in the story? Nothing has to do with it. And the Torah, the number one rule in the Torah, is that the pshat, the simple meaning, is always relevant.

1:59:06There's obviously things you can build on top of it. There are hidden secrets in it. But the simple meaning can never be contradicted. So you can't say that it's talking about David HaMelech, and it's talking about a certain stone, and then it's talking about something that the Torah considers 100% idol worship. The two can't mix. So that's one. So when they translate it literally, it's already... When they don't speak Hebrew, it's already a disaster. The second thing is, they don't know the holy language to an extent... like Chazal did. Even if someone speaks Hebrew, they don't have the knowledge and the Ruach HaKodesh that the sages did a thousand years ago, two thousand years ago, three thousand years ago, that gave us the commentary we have today. You know, tell us what this stuff actually means. You can't read the Torah like it's a history book, Chas V'Shalom, or like it's a Harry Potter book. There is more to the words. And if you're reading it without commentary by Rashi, or without commentary by Rambam, and the major commentaries are Onkelos, you might as well read Harry Potter and come up with a new religion. You won't get anything out of it. And anyone that says, no, you don't need, you know, that's the Oral Torah. Renewal. Renewal, it's called. Baruch Hashem, I found it. Yeah, Life Renewal.

2:00:28Great organization. It is life-renewal.org. Are you familiar with it? No, no, no. It's a phenomenal organization. I read some great stories in this magazine. It's the only magazine that I get, and it's a really, really good one. It's called Zman Magazine. Zman. Each month they send you a copy. It's like a book. It has really, really good articles. And each month they feature a story about a recent kidney donor and why he did it. The miracles that happened during the whole process. Really, really interesting stuff. But... What was I saying? So, as far as the...

2:01:29I lost my train of thought. Oh, as far as donating, it's 100% allowed if it's for a righteous cause. No problem with it. When you're reading the Torah, literally, you're going to find anything. You're going to make up things. For example, There is a chapter in the book of Isaiah. I think it's Isaiah 53 or Isaiah 59. There are also some other parts in the Torah that somehow the Christians think are all about Jesus. It's complete nonsense. If you actually read the previous chapters that introduce that chapter, it's a million percent clear it has nothing to do with him. It's the opposite. If you just look at the Torah, obviously the Christians say that the Torah is valid, is real, it's a holy document, which means that the New Testament cannot contradict it. So you don't need to look too far. You look at their holiday of Christmas, right? The holiday of Christmas, it's a pagan holiday, started with the Romans who were idol worshipers. That's how it actually started, this holiday.

2:02:53It was originally an idol-worshiping holiday. But because the Christians wanted to unite with the idol-worshippers, they had to make, you know, a shatnez. They had to make a nice dish together. They said, okay, we'll combine your holiday with our holiday, and this holiday we're going to make this date into this guy's birthday, even though it has nothing to do with it. Okay, you want a tree? We'll throw the tree in there. And I'm saying this is following the Torah. But if you look at no less than half a dozen places, if not more, in the Torah, in the five books of Moses, in the book of Jeremiah, in the book of Isaiah, in several places in the Torah, it mentions specifically that having a tree in your house, it's called the Asherah tree. Hashem specifically told us you must burn it and destroy it. You're not allowed to benefit from it in any way. You're not allowed to have its fruit. You're not allowed to have it. It cannot exist. To bring it into your house is 100% idol worship. So how can you tell me that all 2-3 billion Christians in the world are saying that they're righteous with Hashem when they're specifically going against the Torah that they believe in?

2:04:10So how could this be? Most of them never read it. They say they believe in it, but they never read it. Why? Because their leaders, as we started the lecture about, their leaders are false people. They're not kosher. Why? Because their leaders, what do they teach them? They say, hey, listen, this book, these Five Books of Moses, this Tanakh, it's good, but we're not going to learn the whole thing. We're going to focus on the New Testament. And we're going to focus on a few chapters. We're going to focus on a few chapters out of the book of Isaiah. Not the whole book of Isaiah, because if we focus on the entire book of Isaiah, it will ruin our entire religion. If we focus on the entire book of Ezekiel, it will ruin our entire religion. If we even focus on one out of the five, not even all five, one out of the five books of Moses, any one of them, pick one. actually learn the whole thing. Except, you know, they say that Parashat Bereishit mentions God has three, isn't it three? Okay, but if you actually learn the rest of Parashat Bereishit, the rest of the book of Genesis even, you see that it has nothing, no connection whatsoever. But what do they do? They pick and choose. They pick a little piece here, they pick a little piece there, and 200,000 people that show up to this giant, you know, Christian hall, or church, or whatever it is, they don't actually read the stuff.

2:05:30They just listen to this false leader they have that they call a reverend or a pastor or whatever other names these people have, and they think that he must know because he speaks with charisma and he has all this success. And people are generally naive. And it's a problem because when we go up to Shamayim, we can't use that as an excuse. So now, here's a better question. I read this in the Gemara the other day. It shocked me. I ask myself all the time: Why did Hashem allow this idol worship to come into the world? Because Rambam says that the reason why Hashem allows Christianity and Islam to come into the world is to prepare the world for Mashiach. Meaning that before Judaism, there was only idol worship. There was nothing else, just idol worship. So now Judaism was born, but Jews are few.

2:06:47We were never a big nation. We were never a big people. Even when we were millions and millions in Egypt, we were still relatively few in comparison to the Egyptians. We were never the majority. When we came to Egypt, there were 70 of us. 210 years later, after suffering in Egypt, we had a few million, many millions. In some cases, the Midrash says 300 million. But either way, it was still small in comparison to Egypt and other leaders. So when we got the Torah, the few that actually received it were very few, you know, only 20% received the Torah. But Hashem always had many people; they are also His creations. However, His Ten Commandments specifically say you are not allowed to engage in idol worship. So if you are idol worshiping, intentionally idol worshiping, you have no chance. If someone that's idol worshipping Buddha right now, someone that's intentionally idol worshipping like these leaders of churches, intentionally idol worshipping, or these messianic people, they call themselves Jews but they're really the garbage of the world, that teach people to believe in idol worship of JC. These leaders have no hope. They have no hope because they're intentionally idol worshipping. They know and they still do it.

2:08:09But the Rambam says, why did Hashem bring this, you know, Islam and Christianity? He says, because He's going to prepare them for Mashiach, because once they actually find the truth, as it says in the book of Yeshayahu, They're going to say to the Jews, "Now that we know that you have the truth and our fathers have lied to us, please teach us." And it's going to be ten people from each of the seventy nations grabbing on to each corner of the tzitzit. Meaning that every Jew that wears tzitzit is going to have 700 people at each corner of his tzitzit. 2,800 non-Jews are going to do anything for him. Just to teach them Torah, teach them the truth. They're going to be like your students. This is a prophecy. They read this. So now, if we're wrong, if the Jews are wrong, then why does it say this in the same Torah that you say you believe in? Why does it say, oh, now we know that the Jews are right? Why doesn't it say, now that we know the Jews are wrong? Even more so, the Rambam says, how is it preparing them for Mashiach?

2:09:20Because at least it's getting them away from intentional idol worship. Meaning, they're not putting statues, for the most part; they're not putting statues in their houses and bowing to them. They're idol worshipping the Christians, but it's not intentional. Not everyone believes in idol worship, but many do, most do. because they divide God into three, and they say that God became a human, all types of stupidity. But nonetheless, it's not intentional. If you ask most Christians what they believe in personally, every single Christian I've ever asked does not believe what's written in that book. Every single one. It's always something different. Some of them believe in three gods, but another one believes he's a Mashiach. One believes he's a Mashiach, another one believes he's a Tzadik. Another one believes he's just a nice person. Everyone makes their own mumbo-jumbo of that religion. No Christian actually has the same belief as another one. It's crazy. But the point here is that at least when Mashiach comes, and we know there's only one God, and it's the God of Israel, and there's nothing else...

2:10:27And all of these other religions are completely false, whether it's Islam, Christianity, Catholicism, Buddhism, or the 80,000 other cults and religions in the world. Everything else is false except Judaism. It's not going to be such a big adjustment for them because they believe that they believe in one God. Even though the way that they believe is completely wrong, they believe that they believe in the right way. They believe that it is one God. So it's going to be easier for them to adjust when they say, "Now that we know that you're right, it's not going to be that I'm going from the statue to God. It's that I'm going from what I thought was God, but in an incorrect way, to the real God, whom I always thought I was worshipping, but just worshipping in the wrong way." Every Christian says, you know, that believes in, they believe in the same God, according to them. They just believe in Him in the wrong way. So the Rambam says this is going to happen; it's going to make it an easier adjustment for them when they actually find out the truth. The problem is still with the ones that are intentionally idol-worshipping, the leaders. Just like, unfortunately, the Jewish leaders are.

2:11:49that are wicked, that are steering the Jews away from the truth, that are heading the congregations of Reform and Conservative shuls, that are heading organizations like the Women of the Wall, that are heading all these leftist movements that are anti-Torah. The same thing with the Christian leaders, the ones that are leading people like this guy Michael Brown, or this other rasha that's leading some Messianic movement, all types of people that are actually steering people in the wrong direction. They have no hope. They have zero hope. Why? Unless they do teshuva now while they're alive somehow. But if they don't, there's no repentance for someone like that. Why? Because you destroyed millions and millions of lives. People destroy their lives for this craziness. So that's a serious, serious problem. So now you have yourself a dilemma. Because on one end, you want to save as many people as possible, whether they're Christian or not Christian, or Jews or non-Jews, whatever it is. But at the same token, you have an obligation to save Jews first. So who do you dedicate your time to? Jews are much more difficult to save, but you have an obligation to save them first. Goyim...

2:13:16You have an obligation to be a light to the nations. And they're much easier to save once you show them the truth. So this is where you ask for a lot of siyata di'shmaya. You ask for help from Hashem because there's no way you can do it by yourself. So, for example, this book that I've been trying to work on for months already, this conversion guide, it has every... Everything that the Satan can do, he's doing to make it delayed. Everything. Baruch Hashem, I'm very busy and I'm trying to do a lot of different things, but this book is very, very important. I'm trying to get it out there. It's just not ready yet. And I can't put out something that's not 100% quality. You know, so there's definitely a lot of things. One thing I can tell you for sure is Hashem promised, and actually in last week's parashah, If you look for Me, chapter 4 of the Book of Deuteronomy, if you look for Me with all of your heart and all of your soul, you'll find Me. So anyone that really wants to connect to Hashem, the real Hashem, the only Hashem, the one and only, the One that started, the One that's ending, everything, the One that's everything, they'll find Him. If they're looking for shortcuts, if they're looking for a quick and easy type of solution,

2:14:37You're not going to find anything else. So that's the thing. So that's what people have to truly understand. And when it comes to learning Torah, everyone is obligated to learn to some extent. Even the goyim have to learn Torah to the point of knowing what the seven Noahide laws are. And if every actual goy learn the Five Books of Moses with basic commentary from Rashi, they would know that they're never allowed to have a Christmas tree in their house. They're never allowed to celebrate Christmas. They're never allowed to listen to this false prophet or false messiah or whatever they want to call this guy. It specifically says it. It talks about actually next week's parasha. A dreamer of a dream, someone that makes miracles, which is actually referencing both Mohammed and JC. You know, so this is all over the Torah. And if anyone actually read it, there's no other option but to be

2:15:45one with the Torah. Whether you want to be a righteous Noahide or a Jew, it's up to you if you weren't born a Jew already. But you can't say that something else is right. You can't say that something else is right. So the Rambam would say, the Rambam said, the reason why Hashem allowed it to happen is for the purpose of of allowing them to actually make this adjustment. Oh, and the Gemara that I read the other day really made me think: why did Hashem allow this? Why did Hashem allow idol worship? So the Gemara asks the same question: Why does Hashem allow idol worshipers to continue? Why doesn't He just kill them? The first answer is a very simple answer: if He killed every single person that made a sin, then He would remove free will. If every time somebody lit a cigarette on Shabbat, his head would blow up, no one would ever smoke again. Not only not on Shabbat, but on any day. If anyone ever turned on the car on Shabbat, the car would blow up. No one would ever turn it on, no one would ever drive. So you're not keeping Shabbat because Hashem said so anymore. You're keeping Shabbat because you're scared. And that's not what Hashem is asking you for.

2:17:05Same thing with idol worship. If every time somebody bowed to an idol, Hashem would strike him with lightning and split him into 80 pieces and everyone would see, no one would bow to an idol. It still doesn't justify the punishment that they're going to get. Okay, so you're allowing them to have free will, but the punishment of an idol worshipper is the worst. Why? The Gemara says these idol worshippers were sinners already. They’re already sinners. They’re choosing to sin, and Hashem is even going to help the sinner sin. Why? To make sure that they’re building their own grave. Meaning that he’s such a sinner, Hashem is going to help him sin so He can give him a bigger punishment for that sin. So when everyone talks about, oh, Hashem is merciful, Hashem is merciful, yes, He is 100% merciful in that He gives us the opportunity to do teshuva. But Hashem is not just going to let things go. If someone is a sinner, someone who goes against Hashem, Hashem is going to make sure that that person is putting themselves in a scenario where they're going to earn, instead of earning more merit, instead of earning more mitzvot, instead of earning more good, they're actually earning more punishment without even realizing it.

2:18:27And this is one of the things that people really truly don't understand. And I'll finish it with a story I actually heard from Rabbi Shlomo Levenstein, who heard it from Rav Kalmanovsky. He said... In order for someone to truly be connected to Hashem, they need to have a few pieces. They have to obviously have Torah, they have to pray, they have to do mitzvot. But one of the pieces is to have a rabbi. One of the pieces is to be connected to a rabbi. One of the pieces is to make sure that you have a connection. That's a regular connection with someone that you respect and you can learn from. So he said Rav Kalmanovsky used to have a shiur. And one of the guys that would come to the shiur and be involved in the shiur for many years, all of a sudden stopped coming to the shiur. Stopped coming. One shiur, two shiurim, three shiurim, four shiurim. Okay, after a while, the rabbi got the point. He went to his house. He saw that he's having a party. Having a barbecue.

2:19:44Oh, Kavod HaRav, how are you? Come in, come in, come in. The rabbi doesn't say anything. He comes and sits next to the barbecue. The guy is sitting there waiting for the rabbi to say something. He's embarrassed because he hasn't seen his rabbi in a few months. But what is he going to say? "I don't feel like coming?" And he knows the rabbi came all the way here. He never visited his house before. So obviously, he has something to say. So what do you do? You just sit there and wait. What's he going to say? One minute, two minutes, three minutes, five minutes pass, nothing. He doesn't say anything. It's getting uncomfortable. Then the rabbi grabs one of the metal pieces, grabs one of the hot coals in the fire, and takes it out. He leaves it out. The guy's looking at it. One minute, two minutes, five minutes, ten minutes. After about 20 minutes, the coal has cooled off. The rabbi picks it up and puts it back and leaves. Before he leaves, the student gets it. He says, "Rabbi, thank you for coming and thank you for the Torah lesson. I'll see you tomorrow and next year." What did he teach him there? When you're close to the rabbi, when you're close to the Torah, when you're close to Hashem, that's when you stay warm.

2:21:12But as soon as you start steering off, you start going to movie theaters, you start going to the mall, you start spending too much time in business, you stop going to the shiur, you're going to get cold. Every hot coal can get cold, but the good news is you can always go back into the fire. You can always go back and get hot again. This is why sometimes it's very sad for me. Like, I have other shiurim that I do, and I have guys, Baruch Hashem, that I've helped do teshuva, had the merit to learn with them for the last couple of years. Some guys go to kollel now, another guy learns every day. But some people just, they did teshuva, they started keeping a few mitzvot and everything, and then they stopped coming. A month, two months, six months, a year already. And then, you know, you run into them here and there, and you see the guy, it's as if you did nothing. As if all the work that you did, finally the guy started keeping Shabbat, started keeping this, wearing tzitzit, and all of a sudden he looks completely secular. Hopefully, he keeps something. But why? Why is this happening? Because, again, when you are connected to the Torah, you're hot. But the Torah is something you need even more than physical food.

2:22:24Every day. Every day. And if your rabbi is the way to get it, then that's what you have to do. If you're a learner, if you're a self-learner, that's what you have to do. But you have to have a few pieces. You have to have someone that's going to direct you in the right direction. You have to have the sages that you learn from. You have to have real prayer. Because again, even the greatest rabbis, rabbis that have lived and know more Torah than we could ever imagine, when they... Steer away from the wrong direction. It's very easy. You know, they fell. They fell. So we have to have real leaders. We have to have a real understanding of how every single mitzvah is important—the big ones and the small ones. We have to pay attention to each and every single one of them, including and especially the places where we pray and how we pray. We have to make sure that we are realistic with our teshuva and know that the world that we have today is not going to be the same after we do teshuva. But there's a reward at the end. You turn into the cornerstone. When you turn into the cornerstone, the world is really in your hands. And everyone else that despised it will ask you for blessings. Anything else? Baruch Adonai l'olam. Amen ve'amen.