Shiur Torah #23 PeSach Miracles, Relationships and Emunah

0:00Hashem, Hashem, Na'aseh ve'Natsliach, Shiluach Haken. We are in Chol HaMoed Pesach. And we went over, actually this week's parasha is Parashat Shemini, but we went over that last week. So this week I thought that it would be a good idea to go over a few different topics depending on how much time we have and how long I go on in each topic, because sometimes I could carry on for an hour on just one thing. But... There are a few things that we could talk about. So, the first thing I thought that was actually very good for Pesach, even though the seders are done, is that people spend so much time preparing for Pesach that they forget about Pesach. They forget about why we have Pesach. So, you hear a lot of times, you hear people saying, "Oh, you know, after the seder is over, everyone seems like when you talk to them, they're like, 'Baruch Hashem, it was great!' But they feel like, you know, it's like they just went through war." And it's not supposed to be that way. You know, that's the problem. A lot of times, people create minhagim, different cultural things, that are not really based on Torah. They're just based on, you know, people creating things out of their mind. And sometimes they're very nice, but sometimes they're terrible. Like, for example, one of the things that I think we've talked about in the past, either during the videos or privately, but as far as cleaning, people clean their houses, which is very important for Pesach.

1:27But the reality, as far as cleaning for Pesach, is that it should not take more than one day. Which means that if you're climbing ladders and jumping over the tubs and trying to clean the kitchen in such a way that you're using a toothbrush, you're doing a lot of these things that are really unnecessary, and you're just beating yourself up. So by the time you arrive at the holiday, you're so tired and worn out, there is no holiday. That's true. So that's the thing. The same thing also with the actual Seder itself. And the reason why I'm even mentioning this is because this actually happens in many families every week during Shabbat. You have somebody preparing the food. What ends up happening is that they prepare a lot of food. They start already on Wednesday or Thursday and everything looks pretty. But they do so much... before they're already tired, then after they finish, they spend the next two hours cleaning up and preparing for the next day. And you know, because they use their nicest dishes in the world and everything is beautiful, the problem is that even though everything is supposed to be a celebration, there is the right way to celebrate and there's the wrong way to celebrate.

2:49Shabbat is not necessarily about celebrating, you know, us having nice stuff. Shabbat is celebrating the fact that you're Jewish, the fact that you believe in Hashem, the fact that you, you know, agree, believe, and live a life knowing that Hashem created the world in six days and stopped creating on the seventh. That's what celebrating is. Celebrating is on the shulchan of Shabbat, on a table of Shabbat, you're not supposed to talk about your business over the last six days. You're not supposed to talk about your friends going to baseball games. You're not supposed to talk about the new car that you want, or the watch that you want, or any of those things. What you're supposed to talk about is Divrei Torah. Now, if you don't know something, someone at the table should know something. And if no one knows anything, then what you should do is prepare 15 minutes before Shabbat, make it a thing, make it a family thing, make it a family event. Let's say if there's 10 people in the family, from now on, we're going to all say three minutes of Divrei Torah. If you have 10 people, that's a half hour. Okay, so you learn for 15 minutes. Out of the 15 minutes that you've learned, you listen to a video,

4:02you read something online, anything; there's plenty of information on the internet about Shabbat and about the Parashat HaShavua, or anything related to Torah, anything that's relating to Shabbat or Torah itself—that's what Shabbat is about. And when you spend the time doing that, then you're really celebrating Shabbat. And then the material part of this world loses its significance. So now you realize that, listen, it's so much fun. I'm having so much fun spending time with my family and my friends and everyone that I care about that I don't really care about showing off that I have nice plates. I don't really care about showing off that I have nice cups or I have this or I have that. I want to spend more time with them. So instead of spending two hours in the kitchen washing the dishes after everybody's finished eating and you can't join them, You use plastic. It could be nice plastic. It could be ugly plastic. No one really cares, by the way. Just in case anyone ever wondered if anyone cares about plates or anything. No one ever says, "Oh, you know what? I remember I went to so-and-so's house. She had the nicest plates." No one in the world, in the history of the world, has ever said that. It just doesn't exist. No one ever cares. I know women care about this stuff and men don't. So it looks like I don't have objective advice here. But I'm telling you from experience that I see that it's...

5:21there's less reward than anyone can imagine for spending all of that time there. Because if you spend that time with the family, talking about Torah, talking about why you're even here celebrating this day, then you'll have a lot more fun. And then times like Pesach, where you have 20 people in a house, you know, because guests come from everywhere. And if you're using all of these plates and cups and everything else, unless you have a live-in cleaning lady, it's going to take care of all this stuff for the next five hours. which I don't think everybody could afford. The reality of it is that at least one or two people are going to be missing, and it just doesn't pay. It just doesn't pay. So I think that it's really important to remember what we're doing, to remember why we're even here. Pesach is all about celebrating that Hashem took us out of Egypt. He made many, many miracles for us, which we're going to go over in a minute or so. the same thing that we celebrate on Pesach is what we're technically supposed to be reminded of every single day. When we say Kriyat Shema every day, you say it twice a day. You say it in the morning and you say it at night. And Kriyat Shema, the reason why it's critical for us to say it every day is because in Kriyat Shema,

6:32The verses talk about getting out of Egypt. It talks about the Exodus. Why is the Exodus so critical for us to remember? Because technically, if you think about it, if Hashem really just wanted to take us out of Egypt, if that was as simple as it gets, if He just wanted to say, listen, I want my Jews to go learn Torah, and that's that. I don't care about the Egyptians, I don't care about the world, I don't care about anything else. If He just wanted that, obviously since we believe He's the Creator of everything, He could have just killed all of them. or changed all of their minds in one second, and we left. That's it. It wouldn't have taken more than 10 minutes. Why did He create all of these miracles? Because He wanted us to be reminded of all of the amazing things that He did for us, and so He reminded us of it. Next time we think, Hey, you know what? Maybe I'm going to drive on Shabbat. Oh, you know what? Maybe I'm going to steal. Or maybe I'm going to do this. Or any type of the sins that the Yetzer Hara tries to encourage us to do. You know what? Hashem did so much for me. Why should I? How can I repay Him that way? And that's one of the reasons. The other reason is that we have something to talk about. Why do we need to talk about this? Because a nation that has a history has a future.

7:50But a nation that doesn't relate to its past, doesn't relate to its history, is in essence a dying breed. It's a matter of time before they end and a new breed, a new people will start. And that's pretty much what happens. So the key for us is to remember all of these details of what Hashem did for us, all of the amazing miracles that He did for us, the ones that we know about and the ones that we don't know about. Because that's going to give us the courage, the knowledge, and also the love of all the things that He also gave us that sometimes we don't really care too much about. Because obviously, if He did so much good for us, He didn't do all of this good for us just to punish us now. He did all this good for us for us to obviously have even more good. So the next question would be, why is life so hard? Now, you're never going to meet anybody in the world and say, oh, life is easy. Maybe someone's going to wear a hat that says life is good, but in reality, everyone has a tough life. Everyone has their own story. Everyone has a situation where they happen now, it happened a few years ago, it happened, you know, things happen. The key is that in order for us to connect with Hashem, we have to be holy. In order for us to be holy...

9:06We have to sacrifice. In order for us to sacrifice, we have to suffer. Why do we have to go through all of these steps? Because Hashem is completely pure, meaning He only has good, nothing bad about Him. But He created us with a yetzer hara. He created us with an evil inclination. In order for us to eliminate that evil inclination, we have to fight. We have to stop wanting the material of this world. We have to stop wanting all the desires that we have. In order to do that, we have to go through a battle which initially seems like suffering. Once you go through the battle, as you progress, the things that you used to think were significant lose their meaning. Little by little, you start seeing that the real good that's available in this world is what you're getting closer and closer to. And the real good has nothing to do with material and has nothing to do with many of the things that we depend on. So suffering is not necessarily something that Hashem didn't put us in this world purely to suffer. This is not a punishment. Suffering, in essence, is to clean us up in a way where we're peeling off all of the bad that's already in us.

10:24The way that you could, I guess, compare this to is anyone that wants to succeed in life. Let's say there are three main things that people want to succeed in. They want to be healthy. Someone wants to be healthy. They want to work out. Working out is not fun. I don't care even if it's a bodybuilder. Generally, it’s not a fun thing to do. Okay, so you're lifting 5 pounds. After a few months, you're lifting 10 pounds. After a few months, you're lifting 20 pounds. After a few months, you're lifting 50 pounds and so on and so forth. Why do you keep lifting more? Why do you keep putting more and more suffering on yourself? Because the old limit of 5 pounds is no longer affecting you. You're already past that. So you're adding more and more burdens on yourself because you know that you've reached another level and you want to reach a higher level. The same thing with work: Someone who wants to succeed in life started off as a janitor, but he knows that, you know what, I don't want to be a janitor making X amount a year. I want to make millions. So he's going to study hard, and he's going to do what he needs to do to get a better job. Then he's going to get the next job, but the next job is still not where he wants to be. So he's going to study hard, try hard, work more, and dedicate more years, little by little sacrificing more of his life to reach this higher position. And little by little, over the next 25 or 30 years, he's going to reach where he wants.

11:39Why did he go through all that suffering to get to this point? Because, again, to reach success, we have to go through some form of suffering. It's not because we are sadistic and we want to hurt ourselves. It's because that's just the nature of the world. The last thing is in regards to relationships. Relationships are one of the most critical problems we have in this generation. People do not realize... that in order for a relationship to be good, there are a few things that are necessary. All of the wonderful things that happen in the beginning of a relationship are great, but unless you work on it, it stops working naturally. In the beginning, everyone's excited, everyone is happy, everything is great, and then people get married and they forget to open the door for the woman, and she forgets to cook, or he forgets to clean, or people just stop caring. Like, all right, we're already together, so I don't really need to look at that. It's beautiful for you. I don't need to shower for you. I don't need to work. You know, people stop thinking like they did when they first started. In order for a relationship to truly work, you have to work at it. and she forgets to cook, or he forgets to clean, or people just stop caring. Like, all right, we're already together, so I don't really need to look good for you. I don't need to shower for you. I don't need to work at it. You know, people stop thinking like they did when they first started. In order for a relationship to truly work, you have to work at it.

12:52And it's not suffering in the sense that you're really suffering from it, where you're crying every night when you're going to sleep, crying yourself to sleep or something like that. If that's the case, it's a bad relationship. If you want it to succeed, then you have to remember that every day you have to be the best version of yourself that you can under the circumstances that you have. You can't be the best that you can be every day because every day you have different circumstances. Some days are good days, some days are bad days. But based on the circumstances that you have, you have to be able to handle them and handle them in such a good way, such an appropriate way. If you involve your partner in all of these decisions, if you get into a situation where you are really thinking about the outcome of every action before you take it, then you're already thinking about, all right, you know what? This relationship is important enough for me that I don't need to yell right now. I don't need to break the plate right now. I don't need to go out with my friends right now. You start thinking about, okay, wait. If I go out with my friends right now, it's going to be a lot of fun for the next three hours. But then when I get home, my wife is not going to talk to me for the next three days. Is it worth it? Is it not worth it? When I was dating her, I didn't go out with any of my friends. Why am I going out with my friends now that we're married? There's something wrong there.

14:16So, the key is for us to remember the really, really special times in the beginning and try to live every day with that in mind, to try to make it like that for the next 25, 35 years. That's the key. If the relationship is continuing to improve every day, then you're doing something right. If the relationship is deteriorating or staying the same, that means you have work to do. And every relationship requires work. Everyone needs to dedicate and sacrifice—sacrifice is really the better word than suffer for this specific thing. So now, the miracles that Hashem gave us or did for us in Mitzrayim were really something extraordinary because what people don't realize is that, as the story goes, we were in Egypt and Pharaoh didn't want to let us go. Moses came to him several times; he and Aaron came to him several times, showed him different signs, you know, told him that Hashem wants His people released. Pharaoh initially said, "Who is this Hashem that I should listen to Him? I don't know Him." And then the plagues started. And each time a plague happened, the Egyptians suffered, but the Jews did not suffer from any of them. And each time,

15:40It kept saying that Pharaoh's heart hardened, and he decided not to release Am Yisrael at the last minute. As the story continues, we get to the tenth plague where Hashem kills the firstborn. The reason why each one of these plagues occurred has a rationale; we went over that a few weeks ago. But the last one, to remind you, is that the reason why He killed the firstborn is because the Torah says it in several places throughout the entire Tanach. that Yisrael will forever be considered Hashem's firstborn. So, because Pharaoh did not want to release Hashem's firstborn, Hashem killed his firstborn. Everything that Hashem does is measure for measure. So now, after we went through the ten plagues, we went towards the Sea of Reeds, and then we went into the ocean, Hashem split the ocean, and we went all the way to Mount Sinai over the next few weeks. Now, this basic part of the story is great; we know it. But there are several things that happen along the way that are details we don't know so much about, that I think are very interesting because, especially now that it's Pesach. It's not only good to know these things because it's Pesach specifically, but also the next time we do Shema Yisrael...

17:07and we read that Hashem took us out of Egypt, we read that Hashem, you know, really pretty much created the world for us. It gives us a little bit more of a desire to pray because you start thinking, "Wow, He did so much for me, why wouldn't I do just a little 10-minute prayer for Him, 20-minute prayer for Him?" And if we think that way, then we'll have much more success with Emunah, we'll have much more success with you know, doing the mitzvot, because, again, no one wants to be a selfish person. No one wakes up in the morning and says, "Listen, I'm going to take advantage of everyone around me. Regardless of whether they're nice to me or not, I'm going to take everything I can from them like a leech, and that's it." No one wants to be that guy, you know, or that woman. Everyone, you know, even if you have somebody that, you know, invites you to their house and gives you everything, and says, "Listen, you don't have to do anything." just wake up whenever you want to wake up, eat whenever you want to eat, don't do anything. Alright, so the first day you're on vacation. Second day you're on vacation. Third day you're on vacation. Fourth day you feel bad a little bit. You know what, let me take out the garbage. Let me clean a dish or something. I wake up in the morning, there's food for me, people are following me all day, just serving me. I mean, I have to do something. So, no one wants to be that person where they're just taking all the time. And it also applies to relationships as well, where

18:32A relationship is supposed to be something where both people are living in order to give as much of themselves as they can to the other person without expecting anything back. And you know that it's a good thing when the other person is also thinking the same thing. But if it's one person giving and the other one taking, it's just a matter of time before it blows up. So the key is to be a giver. And not think about when is he going to return or when is she going to return what I want or what I gave. The key is to bring the best out of each other. And usually, a person is most happy when he's giving. If you look at, for example, people that have succeeded in life and financially, they spent their entire life making money. And not think about when he is going to return or when she is going to return what I want or what I gave. The key is to bring the best out of each other. And usually, a person is most happy when he is giving. If you look at, for example, people that have succeeded in life and financially, they spent their entire lives making money. And then one day they wake up and they have reached all of these billions, and all of a sudden you start seeing that they decide to give everything away to charity. This has been running rampant over the last several years after Bill Gates started this program where he went after all of these billionaires and said that he's giving everything he has and he's trying to convince everyone else to also give everything that they have, or at least most of their wealth. And you start seeing that one person after another has started signing up.

19:46and they're literally giving every dollar that they have. Once they die, they're giving it to some charity or something, you know, a good cause. The question is, I mean, obviously there are certain financial benefits to it, there are certain reputational benefits out of it, but let's consider all the good parts of it. Why do people give in the first place? The good part of us that wants to give is because we get more joy out of giving than than we do out of taking. When you take, there's a limited amount of joy, which is short-lived. Okay, so let's say, for example, please give me $100. You get the $100. After a few moments, the happiness that you get from getting this $100 or whatever it is that you got is over. You have it, you consider it yours, and no one celebrates what they have every five minutes; they have it already. But when you give somebody something, You're always going to start, you know, from time to time, if you're thinking about it too often, then there's something wrong. But in general, if you give somebody something, then you're thinking about, are they enjoying it? Do they like it? It's constantly in your mind whether you did good. I can't wait to do it again. If it made them happy, you want to do it even more. So we generally get more joy out of giving than we do out of taking. So the key with relationships, again, is that if you live your life in a way where you're a giver...

21:17you have to find someone that's also a giver. If you find someone that's the opposite, and you know how they say opposites attract, this is one of those places where you cannot use that rule. Because opposites attract, in this particular case, where you're a giver and they're a taker, it leads only to trouble. It's not a good thing. And unfortunately, a lot of relationships are like that. So I think the important part is to know not only... who you're looking for, but who you are yourself. It's very important to know what you are, if you're a giver, if you're a taker. And try to find someone that's going to bring the best out of you, and obviously make sure that you're bringing the best out of that person. So, going into the miracles. So, the first one is this book, Me'am Loez. It's a wonderful series of books. I keep telling you guys during the parashah. has a list of 50 miracles that we'll try to go through relatively quickly to see if, you know, some of these things. So, the first one is the Clouds of Glory that Hashem sent to protect Am Yisrael. There were seven clouds that were surrounding Am Yisrael on four sides. And in essence, what these clouds were, when they would travel, they had these clouds not just when they left Egypt, but they had them throughout the entire time that they were in the desert. These clouds were

22:38Not just to protect them from any type of animals or snakes or things like that. But something that was very cool is that they never had to change their clothes. The clouds would wash their clothes. They were constantly clean. And I thought that, you know, having something like that in our generation would be very successful if someone can invent it. So, I think that... I think the clouds, if one of you guys can come up with that invention, maybe pray a little extra hard tomorrow or something. No, but seriously, it's having these clouds surround. Again, keep in mind that there were millions and millions of Jews throughout the desert. And it wasn't just like 30 people. There were millions of people covered with all these giant clouds everywhere. and no one was ever lacking anything. Despite the complaints that humans generally have, the key is that Hashem paved the way for us and gave us a situation where He already knew we were going to be in a desert for some time. And if He told us ahead of time that we were going to be there for that long, obviously we wouldn't have had the success that we had at the end.

23:55by reaching Israel. But along the way, He tried to pave the way and make it as easy as possible for us. Next, Hashem gave Pharaoh and his advisors the idea of pursuing Am Yisrael after they went through the ten plagues. Why is this so special? Why is this considered a miracle? Because if you think about it, for nearly a year, Hashem has been punishing Egypt day after day pretty much. Each plague took approximately about a week, and then it was about three or four weeks' worth of recovery from this disaster that they had. And some of these punishments they couldn't recover from in three or four weeks. For example, when they killed all of their animals, you can't just breed all of those animals in a week. You have to buy them. It takes time. Or when they ate all of their... all of their fruits and all of their food. You can't just grow all those fruits and food in a matter of three weeks. There are certain things that took some time, and there are certain things that just didn't recover. But the point is that all of the plagues took nearly a year, and Egyptians are suffering constantly. So after someone sees all of this suffering, and none of this suffering is coming from a natural way, it's coming from a supernatural thing, and you have hell with lava inside it falling and killing people. That's not a natural thing, so you realize obviously there's an intelligent design behind all this. You want to call it God, you want to call it Hashem, you want to call it whatever you want to call it. There's something there; someone's doing this. So now, after you get all of the suffering and you see that the only reason why you're getting the suffering is because you won't let these people go.

25:14hell with lava inside it falling and killing people. That's not a natural thing, so you realize obviously there's an intelligent design behind all this. You want to call it God, you want to call it Hashem, you want to call it whatever you want to call it. There's something there; someone's doing this. So now, after you get all of the suffering and you see that the only reason why you're getting the suffering is because you won't let these people go. You decide, you know what, I'm going to let them go. You let them go. A few days pass, and you decide that you made a mistake. Now, usually when people decide that they made a mistake... Yeah. Usually when somebody makes a mistake, they're upset about it for some time. Welcome, welcome. They're upset about this mistake they made for some time, but then they move on with their life. It's not one of those things where people try to fix everything on the spot. They try to make sure that they don't do it again. But they move on. But Pharaoh, we're talking about the 50 miracles that happened during the Exodus.

26:14...for some time. Welcome, welcome. They're upset about this mistake they made for some time, but then they move on with their life. It's not one of those things where people try to fix everything on the spot. They try to make sure that they don't do it again. But they move on. But Pharaoh, we're talking about the 50 miracles that happened during the Exodus. And there are a bunch of miracles. We know about a bunch of miracles we don't know about. So only up to like the second one, I think. So when Pharaoh let Israel go, he realized he made a mistake according to his thinking. And he decided to pursue them. He decided to chase them. And if you think about all the suffering that Pharaoh went through, because all of the plagues went after him first. Even though he was the firstborn, he didn't die, but his own firstborn did. All of the other plagues specifically afflicted his house first. So he went through all of this suffering, all of these punishments, but then for some reason, he got the idea that, you know what, I'm going to chase these Jews and I'm going to bring them back here.

27:32The fact that he even thought that that's possible by itself is a miracle. He wasn't a stupid guy; he was actually a wizard, a very smart guy, but evil. So, the fact that he actually thought it made sense to go chase the very same people that caused all the suffering on him, that by itself is not logical. Even more so, After he saw that the Sea of Reeds split, he treated it as normal. I mean, think about it. No one thinks that the sea is supposed to split. No one sees that on a regular basis. So he saw all of Am Yisrael go through the sea, and he thought, okay, this is normal, so I'm going to go through the sea. He didn't fear, he didn't think of anything, he didn't think that there's anything abnormal about this. So, again, the fact that he had completely disconnected from reality... is considered one of the miracles that happened because it's such unusual behavior. The next thing is that on the seventh night of Passover, the clouds changed position, standing behind the Israelites. The cloud was half dark and half glowing, leaving the Egyptians in darkness and the Israelites in light. So pretty much what happened is that after we went to the Sea of Reeds. People call it the Red Sea. It's not really the Red Sea. It's the Sea of Reeds. So in case you guys are wondering why I say that, that's the reason. In Hebrew, it's Yam Suf. So after they got there, they didn't go through it right away. They stayed there for a few days. One of the reasons they stayed there for a few days is because Yosef from the previous generations, who was the viceroy, the number two person in Egypt, made Egypt so wealthy that

28:51the Sea of Reeds. People call it the Red Sea. It's not really the Red Sea; it's the Sea of Reeds. So in case you are wondering why I say that, that's the reason. In Hebrew, it's Yam Suf. So after they got there, they didn't go through it right away. They stayed there for a few days. One of the reasons they stayed there for a few days is because Yosef from the previous generations, who was the viceroy, the number two person in Egypt, made Egypt so wealthy that that he had to hide the treasure in several different places, and one of those places was exactly where Hashem split the sea. So they were there for a few days, they found the treasure, and they took it and loaded it with them. It was one of the ways that Hashem rewarded them. So now, they're there for a few days. Then they see that the Egyptians have caught up to them, and Hashem puts the pillar of fire on one side and the cloud on the other side, But then He switches the positions where He pretty much makes the side of the Egyptians completely dark, similar to the darkness plague that He gave them just a month or so before. And the side of the Jews is complete light. So again, one of the things that should have woken up the Egyptians, if they were paying attention, was that the supernatural was not ending. But apparently, the Egyptians weren't really looking to pay attention; they were just looking for revenge.

30:17Next, the miracle is that the Egyptians fired many arrows and missiles at the Israelites. So they tried firing all these; just like today they have missiles, in those days they had arrows. Not quite the same technology. But they tried firing, and they had a huge, massive army. According to some statistics in the Midrash, People think that the Egyptian army was maybe like a few thousand people or something like that because in the Torah it says that they had 600 chariots that came, 600 leaders, specific leaders came with the special chariots with the rest of the army. Now, what people don't realize is that those were the 600 leaders, each one had their own army. It wasn't just 600 people and maybe a bunch of their friends. Based on some statistics, there were probably close to 900 million people. So just imagine almost the size of India chasing Am Yisrael. Okay, so it's not 20 or 20,000. It's a massive, massive army that to us, in our logic, doesn't even seem real that that many people...

31:35would go to war at one time, but that's, according to one of the Midrashim, it was a massive, massive army. Even the smallest numbers are still in the tens of millions. So now, imagine all of them are shooting arrows. Even if they have the worst aim on earth, someone's going to hit. Now, one of the things that the clouds did, that Hashem gave to Am Yisrael, is that they blocked, in essence, they absorbed all of these arrows. So, nothing hit the Israelites. Nothing hit the Jews. So that was another one of the miracles. Once the Jews entered the sea, the water reached their nostrils, and Hashem immediately split the sea. So, this is actually something that there's a lot to learn from. This specific thing is that when we first got to the sea... some, you know, the Jews started complaining. Like, what did you bring us here? We're just, you know, we were better off just staying in Egypt. You know, they didn't think that Hashem was going to split the sea. So some people wanted to go fight the Egyptians. Some people, you know, just pretty much wanted to go back to being slaves. And some people were just, you know, completely unsure of what's happening, but they said, let's trust Hashem. Whatever Hashem does.

33:03So Hashem, you know, Moshe started praying to Hashem. Hashem said, what are you praying now? This is not a time to pray. Go in, take your hand and split the ocean. Obviously, He's going to give him the power. So there was a person by the name of Nachshon that heard this and knew that this is what's happening. And when Moshe said, let's move forward, go into the ocean, the ocean still hadn't split. The ocean was still there. Nachshon was the first one. So Nachshon went into the ocean while the water was still there, and he continued moving forward until the water reached his nose. And as soon as it reached his nose, which pretty much was the point where he wasn't able to breathe anymore, it shows you how much emunah he had, how much belief he had in Hashem. He knew that Hashem is not going to... He didn't do all of those miracles just to bring them into the ocean to kill them. It doesn't make any sense. It's the same thing that people have to reflect about their own lives. Hashem...

34:05creates so many different things every single second that we exist and does so much for us every single second that we exist, not for us to just live a life of misery, but to live a life with an objective, to live a life with things that we need to do and good things, to live a good life. So, when people think about their life in a positive way and they realize what good we have in this world, then they're able to succeed in life. and they do things just like Nachshon did. They go into the ocean, they trust Hashem, and they move forward. But when people look at all the bad things, and they think, "Oh, this happened to me, and that happened to me, and this one did this, and this one did that," and they look at it and they feel sorry for themselves, what ends up happening is that they end up being like some of the people that didn't go into the ocean, and just, you know, complained to Moshe and said, "You know what, let's just go back to being slaves." So Nachshon taught us a very, very valuable lesson. If you trust Hashem, He will never let you down. As soon as he got to that point where he wasn't able to breathe, that's the second that Hashem split the ocean. Chazal also teach us something with this about relationships. Nachshon went into the ocean, and he was a big guy, so it took a while for the water to reach his nose. If he were a shorter guy, the water would have reached his nose sooner. Right?

35:32So he says that anytime someone wants to succeed, it's not always beneficial to be so proud. In essence, what they're trying to say is that once Hashem created the world, everything was created already in six days. After that, it says that Hashem spends the rest of His time putting couples together, the right couples together. That's what He does. So now, Sounds strange. Why is it that difficult for Hashem? Actually, the Midrash says, the Gemara says that it's as difficult to put the right couple together as it is to split the Red Sea, or the Sea of Reeds. So they say that this is when they use Nachshon as the example, that if someone wants the relationship to work, it's better if they lower their nose a little bit and are not so proud. The next miracle is that on the seventh day of Passover, all of the waters in the world split. So this is again another one of the things that happened with the ocean, is that when the Sea of Reeds split, Hashem wanted to make sure that these miracles are not only viewed by the Jews, or just the Egyptians, because the Egyptians are about to die at any minute.

36:52He wanted everyone to know this. He wanted the entire world to know this. This is not just some fairy tale or stories. He promised Moshe that by the time we go through this whole journey, everyone will believe in Hashem and everyone will believe in Moshe, His servant. There's not going to be any doubt. He didn't mean just everyone of the Jews. He meant everyone. Everyone in the entire world. And that's why until this day, even though there are other religions... that seem like they're a lot bigger than Judaism, like Christianity, Catholicism, or Islam. You know, those are three major religions. They have a lot more people than the Jews. No one ever says that the Torah is wrong. They may not want to use it, they may not want to follow it, but they can never say that it's wrong. They can never say that the events that happened in the Torah didn't happen, especially the events during the Exodus. People that don't believe in G-d and are completely anti-religion, that's a different story. It's a small minority. But I'm talking about people that are generally religious, who have to agree with the Torah. Number one, that's because Hashem said that this is the way it's going to be. Number two, all of those other religions depend on ours. Because even though, let's say, they have the New Testament

38:16The New Testament, obviously it's called "New" because there's something before it. What's before it? They call it the Old Testament. What's the Old Testament? Our Torah. Islam has the Quran, but the Quran, they say, is the last book. What are the books before that? The Torah. Same thing. So all of them have the foundation, which is our Torah. Despite the fact that they're completely living a life that's against the Torah, that's irrelevant. It makes sense in their head. It's not logical. But the point here is that Hashem said that I'm going to go through all of this, not just to have a nice story for a family of ten to say. but for the entire world to see until the end of times. So these miracles are going to be publicized in such a way that everyone will know. So when the sea split, the water in the entire world split. So if someone had a cup of water, the water inside the cup split also. If someone had, let's say, a pool or a little lake, the water in the lake split. If another river, all of the oceans in the world split at that time. So everyone knew that there was something strange happening.

39:18So that's one of the things that was another one of the miracles. The next thing is that most people, especially people that have watched the movie The Ten Commandments, which I think was probably 50 years ago. It's one of the most popular movies in history. It's a good movie. It's not as good once you know more details, but it's a good movie. In the movie... which is generally the foundation of most people's knowledge. These days, people derive most of their knowledge from TV. I mean, it's not necessarily a bad thing that it's the way it is, but it's good for us to develop that knowledge, especially since there's a lot of incorrect information. So anyway, in the movie, they depict the sea splitting in half. So everyone in the world, most people that don't learn Torah, think that the Sea of Reeds split into two. And that's what I thought most of my life, and that's generally what most people think. Even Jews that learn Torah, sometimes if they don't know this one particular fact, they don't know this. But in reality, the sea did not split into two, and it did not split in a way where we went from one end to the other. The way it split is it split into twelve. And because there were twelve tribes, the twelve tribes of Israel, so it split into twelve, so each one of them felt like they had enough room for their entire people, for their entire

40:41families and so on. It was millions of people. Again, this is not just 60 people or something like that. And not only that, we didn't go from one end to the other. We actually went from one side; let's say if we started on the right side, we went in a half-circle and came back to the same side. So a lot of scientists in the modern age try to prove either the Torah right or the And by finding things, by, you know, finding things against it and so on, they've never found anything against it. But the point is that they, since for many years they didn't find anything in the Red Sea, they said, oh, since we didn't find anything, that means that it's all hocus-pocus. It's not a real story. It's nonsense. So, first of all, if they read some of this stuff, they realize that they're looking in the wrong place. It's not the Red Sea; it's the Sea of Reeds. That's number one. Second thing is that you cannot look on the other side because we didn't get to the other side. We got to the same side. So imagine a half-circle. This is actually how the Rambam drew this to give people a visual of what it looks like. This is what it looks like. So we started here and went to the other side. And each one, it's like a tunnel, pretty much, was created for each one of the tribes. Twelve tribes. So now you have...

42:04a little bit more of an idea of what happened here. And the scientist that spent their entire career—imagine a scientist spending 25 years looking in the wrong place and being one of those people who's anti-Torah, doesn't like Torah. Every time he doesn't find something, he writes another book about how the whole Torah is fake. And then there's news released about less than a year ago: we found thousands upon thousands of bodies, chariots, and weapons at the bottom of the ocean. It's going to take us years to go through all of it. So imagine what he does when that announcement happens. The good news is that it actually happened last year. So, all those scientists that spent 20 years trying to prove the Torah wrong, they have a little bit of a problem, a career crisis right now. The next thing is, the sea was like a tent, covering the Israelites on all sides. By raising his staff, he pierced over the heads of his aristocrats; this is in Chavakuk, actually.

43:05So this is one of the ways that, in essence, Hashem wanted to... The Jews were almost, in essence, like damaged goods when they left Egypt. Because they were just, you know, they were slaves, they were tortured, they were beaten up every day. Even though they weren't slaves for the last six months... They still were slaves for many years. They lost a lot of their family. Nearly 80% of the Jews died before we left Egypt. The Jews that decided not to follow Hashem. They felt like doing whatever they wanted. They didn't want to follow Hashem. They said, listen, okay, you know what? We're not slaves already for six months. So why do we need to move? Let us just stay in Egypt. We have our house here. We have our city. We have our friends. We have our family. We have our horses. Just leave us alone. Hashem said, well, that means that you're not going to achieve your purpose in this world. Your purpose in this world is to get to Torah. If you want to stay in Egypt, then you're not going to serve your purpose. If you're not going to serve your purpose, I don't need you. It's as simple as it gets. Jews of that generation had different choices than the Jews of this generation.

44:18In that generation, there was an immediate punishment. In this generation, Hashem is showing us His mercy, not by giving us easy lives like people think. People think that Hashem is merciful because they think, "Oh no, He's merciful, He doesn't punish." No, no. He does punish. The mercy is the fact that He has so much patience and tolerance for our nonsense. People that don't want to do everything, and people that, there are many Jews that are actually the biggest enemies of the Torah sometimes. People that are just completely anti-Torah, and they're Jewish. So, the key is that Hashem's mercy is being shown to us by even having patience and tolerance for even people like that. So now, those Jews in that time who saw all the miracles, saw Hashem pretty much go above nature and recreate nature just for us, and still didn't want to listen to Him, said, "No, we're going to stay here." Hashem said, "Okay, you're not going to stay there." You're going to die. And He killed all of them. He killed 80% of the Jews. So now only 20% of the Jews left Egypt. And this is again many, many, many, many millions. So now the Jews that left were damaged goods. They were tough. They were miserable. They were sad. They lost their families, their friends. They were beat up. So Hashem wanted to make sure that He brings them up in a... They've gone through enough suffering...

45:46And He wanted to make sure that each day they were improving. And He wanted to make their way and their path to the Torah, to Har Sinai, as pleasant as possible. Even though there were going to be bumps in the road, He wanted to make it as pleasant as possible. So even in the splitting of the Yam Suf, He split the ocean in a way that it was soothing to them. had trees come out of the ground and provide fruit for the children to pick and eat. He made the entire ocean seem like a tunnel where it was really, really pleasant for them to look at and just feel safe. He did many different things to make it extra beautiful, just to ensure that they felt secure. And again, this might seem like, "Oh, okay, what's the big deal?" Imagine a parent that has a brand new baby. It's the first baby. They're going to give everything that's in their heart to that baby. They're going to do everything they can. Why? Because they care about the baby. It's the first baby. It's special. It's this. I don't know if it's a family of ten. I'm not so sure if the tenth baby is that exciting anymore, but at least the first one is very excited. But now, the first baby...

47:09They have to give everything to it. And they do everything they can to make sure that baby feels great. It feels confident. It feels safe. And everything is phenomenal. Hashem treats all of us like we're the first baby. So even after all of the miracles and everything that He did, He still took care of the last detail just to make sure that we feel secure, that we feel that we're the only ones, and in essence, that's one of the things that happened here. The next set of miracles is that initially, the seabed is obviously not dry, so it's wet, and when you go into it, your feet, it's like quicksand almost. Even if you go into the deeper part of the ocean, you're going to find some hard parts. For the most part, it's very hard to walk. So, Hashem made, one of the other miracles that He made is that He made the seabed as dry as marble. the seabed is obviously not dry, so it's wet, and when you go into it, your feet sink almost like quicksand. Even if you go into the deeper part of the ocean, you're going to find some hard parts. For the most part, it's very hard to walk. So, Hashem made one of the other miracles that He made: He made the seabed as dry as marble.

48:29So He gave them the comfort that they're not really walking into a seabed. They're not really thinking about the possibilities that everything's going to collapse on their heads and that it's anything unusual. He wanted them to make sure that their carriages are going fine, they're walking fine. Another thing that He did is that He actually flattened the surface in a way that all of it was like one straight road. So, for example, when you look at some of these maps, and you look at the bottom of the ocean, you see that there's hills and valleys. It's not a straight line. It doesn't just go straight like a square. Okay, so you have, you know, it starts here, and then it goes down, and it goes down again, and it goes up. It's like almost a mountain, but just full of water. So what Hashem did is that He actually made a flat surface where some of the water that was required to make the flat surface actually stayed as that surface. It became, in essence, dry ice. So it wasn't necessarily that they walked on the bottom of the ocean. They just walked on a flat surface, where some of what they were walking on was actually sand, and some of it was actually water, but it was, in essence, a flat, dry surface. Another really cool detail about the splitting of the ocean...

49:53Another thing is that the Jews, obviously, Egypt is not exactly the coolest place on earth. It's very hot, and water is not exactly an overwhelming commodity over there. So now, once the Jews left Egypt, they had some stuff with them, they had some matzot with them, and they had some things with them, but water is not something that lasts forever. I mean, you have to drink it and you run out, especially when you have millions of people. So once we got to the ocean, the ocean is, you know, it's salt water. You can't drink salt water. So Hashem actually made the water, anytime that they actually wanted to drink the water... it would actually make it almost like it was a fountain coming out of the water for them to drink, and it was actually fresh water. So that not only allowed them to resupply themselves with what they had already spent over the last several days, but in addition to that, it also again gave them an additional realization that Hashem is watching over them. Now, a lot of these miracles that you see are cool, they're mystical, and interesting,

51:22but what's really the purpose behind all of these things? Okay, so we have these miracles. It's cool. It's a wonder. If somebody ever made a movie with real details, it would be the best movie in history. When we live our life today, we're constantly having stress over things that we don't have. And one of the things that we talk about every week, and I think everybody talks about probably on a daily basis, is the issue of parnassah. The issue of, you know, making a living. Making a living is very difficult. Even if someone has a job, he has difficult customers, or he has an unstable boss, or he has, you know, different issues. There are constantly problems with parnassah. But if someone lives a life where He remembers what happened in Egypt. He remembers the details of these 50 miracles that we're going over. He remembers the care that Hashem gave each and every one of the Jews. This is many, many, many millions. If He's able to take care of many millions, He can take care of us. We're just one. And He thinks about all the details that Hashem created just for those people.

52:41He didn't create it just for them; He created it for us. Why? Because He needed them in order for us to exist. If they were the full purpose, then the world would have ended right there. Which means that we are, in essence, part of the purpose if we're still alive. So if He did all of these things, all of these amazing things, creating apple trees in the middle of the ocean, making an ocean turn into flat ground, making saltwater turn into fresh water. All of these little details. He's giving us parnassah in a different way, an unusual way, but it's working. So if He worried so much back then, technically He should be worried just as much about us, if not more, because right now we're pretty much in the last generation before the Mashiach comes. Based on everything that Hashem wrote in His Torah, we are at that time. making salt water turn into, you know, fresh water. All of these little details. He's giving us parnassah in a different way, an unusual way, but it's working. So if He worried so much back then, technically He should be worried just as much about us, if not more, because right now we're pretty much in the last generation before the Mashiach comes. Based on everything that Hashem wrote in His Torah, we are at that time. We're that generation that's going to see the Mashiach, b'ezrat Hashem. So, the Mashiach, the event of the Mashiach, Hashem specifically said in several verses in the Torah, it's going to have the same miracles that we saw in Egypt. So it's not going to be less than what it was. If anything, it'll be bigger. So, the key is that if He did all of this, all of these amazing miracles, to provide them parnassah, in the middle of the desert,

54:04to take them out of all this craziness that was happening to them, all this suffering that was happening to them, just to make sure that they feel comfortable and secure that He's taking care of them, then we have really nothing to worry about. If there is something that's happening that is a difficulty in our life, it's not a difficulty because Hashem is trying to punish us, it's a difficulty because Hashem is trying to raise us, to get us to a higher level, a higher level of purity. And that's why Rabbi Akiva said in Masechet Berachot, at the end of it, I think it's page 60, "Everything that the Merciful One does," he calls Hashem the Merciful One, "is always for the good." So now, how could, let's say for example, someone losing their job be good? How could somebody losing their job be good? Someone that lost their job, will start looking at things that he didn't look at before. And there are many, many stories. One particular one that I know personally, there was one guy that had a job that he was very, very serious about. His whole life was this job. He worked morning to night, doing everything he could to keep this job. A smart guy, had plenty of choices, but never really entertained anything just because his job was just consuming. One day, this big company decided to have layoffs.

55:27And he was one of the first people in line to get fired. Not because they didn't like him, they were just, you know, they were losing money, and that's what happens. Big companies lay people off. So now, the first few days, he felt like this is the worst thing in the world. He felt like Hashem is punishing him. Why is Hashem doing this to me? I keep Shabbat, I'm doing this, I'm doing that, everything, I'm trying. If anything, Hashem should give me more. So the initial reaction to something like this would be, "This is the worst day of my life. Or is this Judaism worth it? What's happening here?" You know, the natural feeling that sometimes we get when the yetzer hara takes over is that we feel sorry for ourselves. So he went through just enough suffering for Hashem to say, "That's as much suffering as he deserves. And then I'm going to show him the real purpose." And what ends up happening is that he actually gets a phone call from an old friend that he hasn't talked to in many years, and the old friend says that he's in town, wants to get together. They get together, and the old friend happens to be running a division of another big company. That other big company is looking for somebody in exactly his position. Does he know somebody? And obviously, he's looking at himself. This is the greatest day on earth, and the long story short is that he gets a job that pays much, much more than the last one. But had he

56:51still been working at the other place, he wouldn't have been able to take the meeting. So what looked like a punishment actually was a reward. The key is for us to realize that everything that Hashem does is for the good. One of the stories they say about Rabbi Akiva is that... I may have told you guys this in the past, but when he first said this, he would try to teach this to his students. And his students said, how could everything be for the good? So one day, he goes to a different town to go teach Torah with some of his students. And he has with him a candle so he can learn Torah at night. He has a rooster to wake him up in the morning so he could do Kriyat Shema early in the morning. said this, he would try to teach this to his students. And his students said, how could everything be for the good? So one day, he goes to a different town to go teach Torah with some of his students. And he has with him a candle, so he can learn Torah at night. He has a rooster to wake him up in the morning so he could do Kriyat Shema early in the morning. In those days, they didn't have clocks, so he has a rooster and a donkey. The rooster wakes him up, and the donkey allows him to travel from town to town. They arrive in a town and go to a hotel, but the hotel says, "No, we don't have room for you or your students." They go to another hotel and another hotel, but no one wants to accept them. They have no place to sleep.

58:18So Rabbi Akiva decides to sleep on the grass outside of the town. He says, okay, we're going to stay here. What are we going to do? We can't find any place. They don't want to accept us. They don't have room, supposedly. Fine. So he tells his students, everything that the Merciful One does is for the good. A little while passes and a cat walks comes and approaches his rooster and eats the rooster. So now he, naturally, what would be a person's reaction? Hashem, what's going on? I need to pray on time. Now I'm not going to be able to wake up on time. How could you do this to me? What does Rabbi Akiva say? Everything that the Merciful One does is always for the good. How could this be for the good? He says it's for the good. A little while passes. And a big wind comes and blows out his candle. That wasn't like today where there's a box of matches. Candle is lit; candle is out. No more candle. How could that be good? He's saying, "I'm trying to learn Torah. It's at night. I can't. There's no light. There's no traffic lights. There's no street lights. There's nothing here. It's my candle. Now I don't have a candle, and I can't learn Torah. I'm trying to learn Torah here. How is Hashem doing this to me?" No, that's not what Rabbi Akiva said. "Everything that the Merciful One does..."

59:47Always for the good. How could this be for the good? We'll see. A short while later, a lion comes. Lions like meat. Big pieces of meat. So what do they find? They find this donkey. The donkey becomes dinner. Here goes the donkey. Instead of saying, "How could I...?" He was naturally supposed to say... I'm trying to travel from city to city to teach Torah. Now I can't travel. I don't have my donkey. But instead, he says, "Everything that the Merciful One does is always for the good." The next morning, they wake up and walk towards the city that they tried to get to, and they see there are only a few people left walking in the streets, but they are injured and bloody. They ask them, "What happened?" They said, "Last night, a bunch of, you know, a group of soldiers from another army came and invaded our city and killed everyone. And we're the only ones left to tell the story." So Rabbi Akiva looks at his students and he says, "If my rooster was still around, they would hear her and they would find us too. If my donkey was still around, they would definitely hear him and they'd find us too. And if my candle was still lit..." a bunch of soldiers from another army came and invaded our city and killed everyone. And we're the only ones left to tell the story. So Rabbi Akiva looks at his students and says, "If my rooster was still around, they would hear her and they would find us too. If my donkey was still around, they would definitely hear him and they'd find us too. And if my candle was still lit,

1:01:10they'd probably find us first. And like I said, everything that the Merciful One does is always for the good. So again, in essence, he had the ability to not only see things like that before they happened, but he also got, Hashem obviously gave him the ability to see the aftereffect relatively quickly. Sometimes for us, it doesn't work as quickly, it doesn't work the next morning. Sometimes it can take four or five years for us to realize that something that we thought was bad is actually good. So the key is to have emunah in Hashem and realize that He didn't put us into this world to torture us. Yes, suffering is part of life. Suffering is a necessary part of life. We're not necessarily supposed to enjoy suffering. We're just supposed to realize that suffering is a part of life and Hashem is giving us those tests in order to elevate us, in order for us to achieve our purpose in this life. if everything was easy, life would be purposeless. There would be no point. If every time you wanted something, it just came down from Shamayim and you got it, then who's God? You or Him? You understand? So, there has to be some form of suffering in order for us to continuously progress in life. The next thing is, actually we said the...

1:02:35So now, the next miracle that happened to the Egyptians was... I'll go over a few of these because we're almost done, actually. The ground that was hard like marble for the Jews turned into boiling hot mud for the Egyptians, which not only slowed them down but also destroyed their carriages that they had. And actually, as a... one of the things that gave the Jews the official belief in Hashem is a verse in the Torah that says right after they crossed the sea, they still had fear because they saw that the Egyptians were coming. And then Hashem killed all of the Egyptians by having the sea drop on them. Even people who were still on the shore were chased by the water and brought back in. Um...

1:03:38The point is that what ended up happening is that the Jews finally felt free. If you think about it, technically they were already free for a few days. But in their mind, they were never free. Why? Because they thought, listen, they let us go, but they could always come back for us. If we go to another city, they could always say, listen, we let these slaves go, but we want them back. So they thought that we're going to have to live in fear for the rest of our lives. Once they saw all of them die, then they said, ah, baruch Hashem, now we know we're officially free. So that was, again, by itself, one of the most critical things that happened. And that's why right after they died, there's a verse in the Torah that says, "And Am Yisrael feared Hashem, and they believed in Him and His servant Moshe." We went over this, I think, last week or the week before. Baruch Hashem, now we know we're officially free. So that was, again, by itself, one of the most critical things that happened. And that's why right after they died, there's a verse in the Torah that says, "And Am Yisrael feared Hashem, and they believed in Him and in His servant Moshe." We went over this, I think, last week or the week before. And it's a very interesting verse that people need to understand when they try to get closer to God, get closer to Judaism, and try to understand the true purpose of life. A lot of people try to make up their own rules sometimes, especially people who have been Jewish their whole lives and really want to live a life that's convenient.

1:04:58And therefore, because of that, they try to say, "This I can keep, this I don't have to keep, this I do, this I don't do," and they make a little bit of a salad out of Judaism. That's not the type of Torah that Hashem gave us. Hashem gave us one Torah, and there's only one set of rules. There's not two sets of rules. There were no Ashkenazim and Sephardim back then. There were no Yemenites and, I don't know, Moroccans back then. Everyone was one, that's it. The stuff that we have today, the machloket that we have today between different cultures... You know, we'll obviously have the solutions once the Mashiach comes. But in essence, even though there are many cultures within Am Yisrael today, there's still one set of rules. There's still one halacha, basic halacha, that everyone has to follow. Shabbat is Shabbat for everyone. Kosher is kosher for everyone. There are basic things in Judaism that are a foundation for everyone. There are cultural things and minhagim that some cultures do while others don't. But in essence, the basic core rules are the same. Now, some people try to say that, no, those rules don't apply anymore. And they create a salad out of Judaism. This particular verse that we just talked about is the most important verse for all of those people. Why is it most important? Because people that make their own rules, they're pretty much acting as if they're God. Because imagine you have a company...

1:06:21And I come into your company, and I don't work for your company, I just come into your company, I tell you, listen, everything you're doing is wrong, give me, give me, give me the phone, I'll call all your clients, you can go home, you're fired. You look at me and you tell me, this guy is crazy. You know, made a couple of teshuva, he lost his mind, what happened here? So, there's a problem here. It's your company, it's your business, it's your hard work, you did it, you run the show. Leave the deal between you and Hashem, obviously. But the point is that Hashem created the world. He created rules. He said these are the rules. That's it. There are no exceptions. So people who are trying to make their own rules are, in essence, acting as if they're Hashem. They're saying, "No, the rules that Hashem wrote, no, they're not relevant. They're not relevant to today. They're not modern like today. Shabbat." Yeah, back then it was easy to keep Shabbat because they didn't have cars. Today there's cars, so I'm sure Hashem understands. And they try to rationalize all this stuff in their head. Which means that these people are lacking one major thing. That one major thing is Yirat Shamayim. What's Yirat Shamayim? Yirat Shamayim is fear of Hashem. Fear of Hashem is the most important thing that a Jew has to have, or a human being has to have, in order for them to even be

1:07:49connected to Hashem, to even believe in Hashem, you need to fear Hashem first. Now when you tell that to some people, they say, no, no, no, I want Hashem to be my friend. I want Hashem to have a relationship with me, and I can talk to Him, and I can do this, and I can do that, and treat Him like a buddy. He's not your buddy. Yes, you can talk to Him whenever you want. It's wonderful. He's always there. But He's never your buddy. He's not a teddy bear. He's not your dog. He's not one of these friends that you have in high school. He's the Creator of the Universe. So you have to realize that there's a certain level of respect that's required here. So in this particular verse, it says that Am Yisrael feared Hashem, and then they believed in Him and His servant Moshe. What are they teaching us in this verse? They're telling us that first, in order to believe in Hashem, we first need to know what we're dealing with here. Once they saw all of the miracles that were happening—the ten plagues, the splitting of the sea, the destruction of the Egyptians, becoming a free nation, having choice—all these amazing things that they saw, they realized what they're really dealing with. They're dealing with the Creator of the world.

1:09:11you realize you're dealing with the Creator of the world, immediately you get scared, because you realize how insignificant you are in comparison to everything. So that's why it says, first they feared Him. Not that they feared Him like He's a boogeyman, like when we were little kids, scared of somebody hiding under our bed. We feared because we realized how amazing He is and how little we are. So they feared Him first because they realized what they were dealing with. And then they believed in Him. What does it mean, "and then they believed in Him"? Then they realized that everything that He promised us, everything that He told Moshe that He was going to do for us, I know it's true. I know it's going to happen. Now I have Emunah. Because now I know who I'm dealing with. How do I have real emunah? How do I, how do I really believe that Hashem is really going to give me parnassah? I don't work right now. I don't work, I don't do, I study Torah all day, and Hashem is just going to give me parnassah? How is that going to happen? Or somebody else that works every day, and he's saying, listen, how do I know that I'm going to have, at the end of the month, I'm going to have enough money to pay for the yeshiva for the kids, I'm going to have enough money to pay for the mortgage, I'm going to have enough money for this, for that, all of these bills, all of these problems, how do I know, how do I know, how do I know?

1:10:34First, you need to know who Hashem is and realize how significant He is. Once you realize how significant He is, it's much easier to believe in Him. It's much easier to have emunah. Because you realize that all of the desires that we have, the things that we truly need, they're tiny, tiny little things for Him. And that's why when I actually told a couple of you guys this story, but I'll say the story again because I think it's a great story. It's in the Gemara. There was one guy that came to one of the sages and said, listen, I want to see God. I want to see God. You know, I think that if I'm going to believe in God, that I'm going to do what God says, like you Jews are doing, I want to see Him. So the sage said to him, okay, no problem. No problem. The guy was surprised Listen, see the sun? Yeah, I see the sun. Stare at the sun all day until tomorrow. I'm going to come back tomorrow. And when I come back tomorrow, if you're still looking at the sun, I promise you, you'll see God. Deal? Deal. Not two minutes pass by. He's tearing up. You know, you can't look at the sun for more than a minute.

1:11:59calls the Jew back, "Please, please, come back, come back. This is, I can't do this." He goes, "Why can't you look at the sun? What's the problem?" He goes, "I can't look at the sun. I can't look at the sun until tomorrow. I can't look at it for two minutes." He goes, "Oh, you can't look at the sun for two minutes. If you can't look at the sun, that's one of Hashem's smallest angels. If you can't look at His small angel, how do you expect to look at Him? And that's some of the things that we have to realize when we're having these emunah issues. Is this going to work out for me? Is this, you know,..." Whatever problem someone has in life, whether it's parnassah, or it's money, or it's health, or it's a relationship, or it's the kids, or anything else, if we truly know who we're dealing with that's running the world, and we fear Him like we're supposed to, because that's a sign that we know what we're dealing with. If you don't fear Hashem, that means you don't believe in Him. There's no way that you can believe in Him and not fear Him.

1:13:00Because again, imagine a tiny little bug and a human being. The bug is always going to be scared of the human being because he's so much bigger. Even though the bug is sometimes going to try to bite the human being, he's not trying to bite the human being because he thinks he's going to win. He's trying to buy himself more time so he can run away. So the key here is that if we realize what we're dealing with here, we immediately fear. Once we fear... it's much easier to believe that He's going to help us. Because we realize how little we really need in comparison to how much He can do. So whether it's parnassah, whether it's you being a millionaire, or whether it's you being, you know, famous or not famous, or scholar or not scholar, whatever it is that you want, if it's good for you, have emunah, pray, and it's only a matter of time before it happens. Again, if it's good for you. Sometimes a lot of the things that we want are not necessarily good for us. I'll finish it up with a couple of really good stories because I think we pretty much went through all the miracles, or at least most of them. I stopped counting, but I think we went through all. Let me see. I told you about the treasure. Yeah, give him some bananas. Wake him up. Wake him up.

1:14:29Actually, bananas are a good strategy. I had two today. I know. It's got somebody awake here. You guys should... Oh, this is actually an interesting one. I didn't go over this one. Well, briefly, even though it says that Hashem killed everyone, He actually left — everyone knows, I believe, that He left Pharaoh alive. that Hashem killed everyone, He actually left—everyone knows, I believe—that He left Pharaoh alive. And some people mistake that to be because Hashem wanted him to see it. Hashem didn't care enough about Pharaoh for him to see anything. He wasn't... He's just a human being. But Pharaoh... has his own continuous story, but one of the reasons why, the biggest reason why Hashem let him live was because at some point Hashem took away his free choice. After the initial plagues, he had his own choice and he didn't want to listen to Hashem or Moshe. But later on, Hashem kept saying that He's hardening his heart, meaning that even though rationally it made all the sense in the world for Pharaoh to

1:15:54to free the Jews, Hashem forced him not to free the Jews. And the reason why is because Hashem wanted all ten plagues to be shown to the entire world. So as soon as He took away his free choice, that’s pretty much when it was decreed that Pharaoh would live, even though he was a Rasha. But the good news is that Pharaoh also is used in different parts of the Torah as he actually left, he didn't come back to Egypt, and he went to a place called Nineveh. Nineveh is another city, and he actually became one of the leaders there. And that's actually a city that they talk about later in the Tanakh, where it's one of the stories in the Torah that teaches us about Teshuvah, where a prophet, I believe it was Yonah, came there and

1:16:55and told them that they have 40 days before Hashem is going to destroy them if they don't do teshuvah. So Pharaoh, who had experience already with Hashem, took it very, very seriously. And the entire city did teshuvah. People ripped their clothes, wore sackcloth, put ashes on their heads, and really did teshuvah, praying all day and all night. And... pretty much saved themselves. So this is actually one of those, a lot more details, obviously. There's a story, but the point I'm trying to say is that he continued living, and it actually says that his, I believe it was grandkids, converted to Judaism. So the Pharaoh story, as far as why he was left alive, was one of the miracles of its own. as part of these miracles that even, you know, that Hashem shows us that you can learn something even from a rasha. You know, even a rasha can do teshuva. You know, sometimes people say, "Oh, it's too late for me. I've been a mechallel Shabbat my whole life," or "I've been stealing my whole life," or "I've been doing this my whole life," and so on and so forth. People always give themselves the excuse that it's too late, and it really is never too late. It's a, it's...

1:18:21someone that's even on their deathbed can do some form of teshuva. It's never ever too late. Which leads us to the next part, which is this week's parasha. We already went over it last week, but there are a couple of good stories in this book I just started reading recently. It's called Ahavat HaChaim. It's "Love of Life." It's a very good book. It has different midrashim about each of the parashot. And so this week, actually, there are a couple of really good stories that are worth going over. Details and so on. So one of the things that this week's parasha says is, it starts with, "This was the eighth day." So Chazal explain to us that there are many reasons why The parashah starts that way, but one of them is that, obviously, you know, we have seven days. Seven days a week. We don't have eight days a week; we have seven days a week. So there's never a time in the Torah that there's a word that's misplaced. There's always a reason for every single word. So one of the reasons that Chazal explain why it says specifically the eighth day is because it's reminding us that we really have seven days a week.

1:19:46But the eighth day is talking about the next life, the next world. It's reminding us that Moshe called to Aharon as if Hashem is calling us to remind us, listen, you're going to live this life. But remember, whatever you do, there's a next life. The real life is there. Don't be sorry for what you do here. Don't waste your time here. You have an objective in this world, and the objective that you have in this world will determine what you're going to have in the next world. You're either going to have good or you're going to have bad. It's all going to be based on your own actions. That's one of the few things that the Midrash explains to us, is that it's, again, it's actually specific, someone that spends their time learning Torah and doing what the Torah and Mitzvot that Hashem gave us is assuring himself that on the eighth day, meaning the next world, they're going to have good, they're going to be secure. But someone who's just wasting their time on the material world and just worrying about this world and everything that's not relevant to Torah is going to be sorry.

1:21:12This is just one of the verses where there's a lot of details about it, but again, this is one of the verses that we learn that from. So, no one wants to be the guy that sees his past and says, "Ah, it's too late." So that's one of the things. Let's see. Also, the... Another thing to talk to us about: we usually read this parasha during Pesach, Chol HaMoed. It says that the... Okay, so this one is talking about what you're really supposed to be doing during Chol HaMoed. A lot of people spend time on Chol HaMoed going on vacations and sometimes working. First of all, for anyone who doesn't know, you are not allowed to work on Chol HaMoed unless you are in a situation where you will lose money. not make money. There's a difference between not making money and losing money. But someone that just decides to go to work because they don't want to lose money, they don't want to lose the potential of making money, it's not allowed to work. And there are some really, really terrible things that it says about someone who works during Chol HaMoed. And it's not worth it, put it that way. So the key is to try to do whatever you can

1:22:38to limit your work. I know not everybody can just change their life overnight. We're not perfect angels here, and no one is expecting us to just stop our life and everything. But again, this is not the last Chol HaMoed, b'ezrat Hashem. There are going to be many other Chol HaMoed, not just Pesach, but for all the holidays. Chol HaMoed is not a time for us to work. Chol HaMoed is specifically called Chol HaMoed because it's still Chag. It's still Moed. It still has holiday in it. And holidays are supposed to be a time when you're with family and you're learning. This is a time. So it says over here that as far as this specific parashah, it says Shemini because, again, it reminds us that during this Chol HaMoed is when people are supposed to spend most of their time studying Torah, actually. Especially people that have careers where during most of the year they can't study, this is what they're supposed to be doing during Chol HaMoed. Because they can't study so much at all during the year because they're working from, you know, You work your whole day. You work from 9 to 9, 9 to 8, whatever. People have long schedules, so they don't have time to study 5 or 6 hours a day. Maybe if they study an hour or a half-hour a day, it's a miracle. So during Chol HaMoed is the one time you're supposed to be studying Torah because Hashem says, "I gave you that time. This is the time you and I are supposed to get together."

1:23:53So that's, again, I'm not necessarily here to scare you guys or anything like that, but it's important to know what's allowed and what's not allowed, because sometimes what happens is that we make mistakes and we don't know that we're doing it. The other part, there's two other parts, there's a really interesting story. One of the parts in this week's parashah talks about the forbidden animals. You know, there's just different forbidden animals that we have, we're not allowed to eat. The animals that we're allowed to eat have to have certain signs. So we talked about this a little bit last week. So the animals we're allowed to eat have to have split hooves and also have to be able to chew their cud. There are certain animals that are mentioned in this parashah, for example, the pig, the hare, the rabbit, and the camel, that have only one of the two signs that they're supposed to have. Meaning that Hashem created these two signs, and there are only a few animals that have these two signs, but most of the other animals, 99% of the other animals, do not have any of the signs. They don't have one or two. But there's a handful of animals that He's mentioning in this parashah.

1:25:16that have just one sign, which means that someone who doesn't know better could be fooled into believing that they're kosher. One of those animals is the pig. So, people don't realize that in regard to kosher, kosher is not necessarily just about health, because there are plenty of fat Jews who look extremely unhealthy, and they eat kosher all the time. Kosher is not necessarily about it being just healthy. Kosher is also about being spiritually healthy. If you have too much food, it doesn't matter how spiritually healthy the food you're eating is; you're going to be fat. If you are not eating anything, then you will be sick. So again, we have common sense that Hashem gave us, and people need to know that. A lot of people think that kosher is purely about health. It's not about health; it's about spiritual health. So Hashem specifically tells us that if someone in this parasha, someone that's going to eat the forbidden animals, the ones that are not allowed, not just the ones mentioned by name, but also ones that don't have these signs, they are going to make themselves spiritually impure. Meaning that when they try to learn Torah, or try to pray to Hashem, and try to connect to the purest thing ever,

1:26:38they will have a difficulty, if not nearly an impossibility. Because what happens is that when someone, let's say, goes to Subway. Subway, you know, it's a very popular fast food place in America. They go, they eat tuna. They're thinking to themselves, "Listen, I'm eating tuna. Tuna is a kosher fish. It has the signs, it has fins and scales. It's a kosher fish. What's the big deal? And I'm eating bread, not eating meat. What's the big deal?" Right? That's the natural thought that most people have. Unfortunately, what people don't realize is that the ingredients that are used in everything are very, very different than what our logic would tell us. For example, in order to make bread, I actually have a list that we made probably about a month or two ago. I gave it to Nissan and everybody else. I can give it to you guys if you want to see it. It's a list of different, very popular ingredients that are in nearly 100% of the food that's not kosher. Not 90 or 60, but nearly one of these ingredients is in 100% of the food that's not kosher. If it's kosher, obviously you can't have any of these ingredients. And the reason why food is not kosher is usually because one of these ingredients is in it. So, for example, bread. No one would ever think that there's anything wrong with bread, right? If I eat a steak sandwich, we know what's wrong with it, obviously, if it's not kosher. It's obvious. If I drank, I don't know...

1:28:06A juice, it's kind of difficult to figure out why that's not kosher. Okay, so we'll figure out, let's see the two things that are hard to figure out. Why is juice not kosher and why is bread not kosher? So one of the ways that they make bread soft is by using hair. Hair, human hair and animal hair. Okay, and it doesn't fit our logic of why and how. God's green earth, they would ever use hair for bread. How did the two come about? But there are many, many companies that buy hair that, you know, people go to barbershops and they have successful places and they throw the stuff out. They don't actually throw it in the garbage. They sell these baskets of hair to companies, and they use it and obviously do whatever they need to do with it and make an ingredient that companies use for bread and a lot of cakes. So this is Not a very tasty thing. So someone that goes to Subway thinking it's not a big deal, or any place, even a deli that is giving them bread with tuna, or bread with cheese, or even just a piece of bread, but he's not sure it's kosher, he can bet that there's a very, very likely chance that it's not kosher for a reason. And that reason is because hair is a very popular ingredient.

1:29:28The second thing is with juice. Sometimes you'll see drinks, like you'll see, you know, different fruit drinks. And you say, what could possibly be wrong with water and sugar? Because that's what we think is in fruit drinks. Or sometimes you'll see different candies that are not kosher. And it's not the gelatin that everyone knows. There's a different ingredient. That ingredient is beetles. Beetles are used as a food coloring and also a taste ingredient. they crush beetles and actually, if you guys know the company Sunkist, Sunkist, the orange juice—Sunny Delight, I'm sorry, Sunny Delight, the orange juice company. Okay, until about five or six years ago, the orange juice was not kosher. So people didn't understand; how could orange juice not be kosher? It's orange juice. Then when they look at the ingredient, they don't call it beetles, obviously, on the ingredient list. I think they call it E120 or some type of code. I think it's E120. And they realize that E120, or whatever the code name is for beetles, is beetles. And that's what Sunny Delight used. And that's why it wasn't kosher. Okay, so if it's not kosher, there is a reason for it. So Hashem tells us in this parasha, be very, very careful with non-kosher.

1:30:50because it will make you spiritually impure, and you'll have a very difficult time connecting to my Torah, during your prayers or your studies. And this Avodat Chayim has a very good story, a true story, about someone who was very makpid, very careful about kosher. In those days, they didn't have airlines; they traveled by camels or horses. So he said, "Listen, I have to go to a different city, and I can't use Nissan's truck for it. I have to take my camels, and I have to hire a couple of Arabs. No Lexus. No Lexus. I have to use a couple of Arabs to show me the way of the desert because I need to survive." Going to a different city, he takes all of his money with him, and he goes. So he has to, the Arabs tell him that, "Listen, you're going to have to...

1:31:51dressed like us because we're going to get to certain places where, if they know that you're a Jew, they're going to kill you. So he dressed like an Arab. You know, in those days, the dress of the Jews and the Arabs wasn't as different as it is today. So anyway, he dressed like an Arab, he looked like everybody else, and they started traveling. They got to this one city, one town, and he knew, he heard of this town. This is a town that has a lot of problems in it as far as people ...have these stories where there's a lot of ghosts in this town. And for some reason, people always have stories of losing their wealth there. But he knew that they can't continue going in the desert; they have to stop, and this is the place they stopped. So he's worried, but as soon as he sees the owner of the place, he's immediately relieved because the guy is walking up to them with, you know what, you guys know what halva is?

1:32:51Okay, so he's put a giant dish of halva, brand new halva, white, looks delicious. Yummy. I want some now also. So he's walking up to them, come, come, come. You know, it's very welcoming, please, please come in. All of his workers are with him. Great, he's a nice guy. Okay, it's good news. So, the guy cuts a piece of halva for everybody. Now, the Jew, as I told you guys, he's very careful about kashrut. He looks at the halva, and he really wants it, but he's like, you know what, I don't know who this guy is. I don't know, maybe he used this, maybe he used that. You know what, I'm going to pretend like I ate it, but I'm not going to eat it. I'm going to put it in the ground because he doesn't want them to know why he's not eating it, because he can't tell them that he's Jewish. So... Okay. Okay. A little bit of time passes. Everybody's about to go to bed. And he sees these two cops. As soon as everybody starts lying down, he sees these two soldiers, cops, also walk in, very, very tired. And the guy offers them the halva also. They're like, no, no, no, we just want to go to sleep. We're leaving very early. And they reject the halva. They go to sleep.

1:34:18Moments later, he starts seeing that everybody's asleep, really deep sleep. He tries to tap one of them and sees they're not moving. When he tells the story, he says, there was such a deep sleep that if I started cutting their bodies, they wouldn't feel it. Almost like, you know, when you go to the hospital and get anesthesia. And he couldn't fall asleep. Something bothered him. He just didn't know what was going on. And all of a sudden, in the middle of the night, he sees the... owner of the company walking around with a shotgun, or a big gun, and walking next to each person and looking through his stuff and taking out his money. And he sees that nobody feels what he's doing because they're all in deep sleep. Now he has a dilemma in his head. He says, listen, if I say something, he has a gun, he's going to shoot me, that's it. If I don't say something, then I have to pretend like I'm sleeping and then I'm going to lose all my money. What are we going to do? Then he overhears the two cops that came later. They also didn't eat the chalvah. And they're having the same discussion. Saying, listen, if we don't do anything, he's going to take our money also. So what we think, what we can do is pretend to be sleeping. As soon as he goes to you, I'm going to jump on him. I'll take his gun. And then you jump on him and we'll catch him and we'll get out of here.

1:35:47So as soon as the guy comes, their plan works. The problem is that this guy is really big, and they can't take him down, so the Jew helps them. Long story short, they take the guy down. Now, the next morning comes, everybody wakes up, and they notice that all of their money is missing. "Where's my money? Where's my money?" "Don't worry, don't worry, we caught the thief. It's actually the owner of this hotel." don't worry, we have your money, we just don't know what he took from each one of you, so if you tell me what you had, we'll give you the money. So, unlike cops of today, these cops are honest. So now, they had this owner tied up and said, listen, what did you do? How did you get everybody to fall asleep so deeply? He's like, you know the halva that I give you guys? I knew it, yeah. I have bones of dead people that I burned. And I crushed those bones and I put them inside the halva. And it's like an anesthetic; it makes you go to sleep. So remember, the Jew, why didn't he eat it? Because he didn't know if it was kosher. And Hashem says that someone that lives with that type of emunah and lives his life with a

1:37:12dedication to keep Hashem's mitzvot, he's guaranteed to see an open miracle. And this is having zealousness. This is having almost like an addiction to keep the mitzvot that Hashem has. Chazal say that he's bound to see an open miracle. And this guy obviously saw it. This is one of the very, very cool stories. Lastly, Obviously, the holiday is done, but in regards, it still has a lot to do with kosher. One of the things that people don't know about Purim, which we passed already, is that one of the reasons we got the decree of nearly being destroyed is because we violated the kosher rules. How so? In the beginning of the Megillat Esther, it says that Achashverosh had a big party and he invited all the Jews. The Jews were religious. Everybody was religious back then. It wasn't like today where some yes, most no. So the Jews said, no, listen, we can't come because we only eat kosher. He said, I'm the king. I'll get you whatever you want. I'll make a kosher department.

1:38:40So he made them a kosher department. But Mordechai, who was part of the Sanhedrin, and one of the leaders of Am Yisrael, screamed at the top of his lungs, "Don't go, don't go! I know there's something wrong here. This doesn't make sense. Don't go." He knew that Haman is a rasha. He knew that Haman was going to do something to create a problem. The Jews didn't listen and went to the party. And what happened is the food itself was kosher. But what they didn't know is that the wine was being poured by Haman himself. And even when a non-Jew touches the wine, it becomes non-kosher, which is pretty much like eating any other non-kosher meat. So everyone that went to the party was, in essence, eating or drinking non-kosher. And that made Hashem so angry that at that moment there was a decree to nearly destroy the entire nation. So, kosher is something that sometimes we take for granted, thinking it's not a big deal or not something that people really consider. They want to go to the diner. They want to go with their friends. They want to go on vacation. Oh, how bad could it be if I eat a cream cheese sandwich? Or how bad could it be? Even if she's unsure about kosher. How bad could it be if I...

1:40:07eat a tuna sandwich. No, I'm not talking about the openly non-kosher things. You know, people that are eating lobster and cheeseburgers, obviously they need another shiur. People that are doing things that they don't think is a big deal, like eating pizza in non-kosher places that don't think it's really that much of a big deal, it is a really big deal. Number one, it makes Hashem extremely angry. But number two, if we're all here to try to get closer to Hashem, and try to fulfill our purpose in this world, and have our prayers answered, regardless of which prayer it is, whether it's a prayer for parnasa, or health, or anything else in the world, we need to have the best resume. We need to show up with a good resume. We need to show up to Hashem as prepared. You're not going to show up to the best job in the world with an empty resume, or a resume with a bunch of pictures on it. You're going to come up with good things. So,

1:41:07when we're showing up with a résumé full of all of the non-kosher foods that we eat on a regular basis without a care in the world, it obviously doesn't look good. It makes it much more difficult for Hashem to justify giving us what we want. Because again, keep in mind, Hashem is a just God. He's not here to just give and give and give without a reason, because then there would be a problem, there would be an imbalance in the world. all of the people that are doing all the right things will complain, saying, listen, we're doing all the right things, but they're not doing all the right things, and they're getting the same thing. It doesn't make any sense. If you're a just God, there has to be a balance here. So people have to realize that any time someone is praying or requesting something, there are angels that go up to Shamayim and pretty much ask for the prayer to be answered. But at the same time, there are also... ...angels that the person himself created through his sins that are also going up to Shamayim, and they're the ones that are saying, no, don't answer it. He created me when he ate pig. He created me when he cheated. He created me when he stole. All of these other angels are trying to fight against it. So let's give Hashem as many reasons to give us what we want by doing what He wants and doing less of what He doesn't want.

1:42:34And there's a verse in the Torah, it's a very good one, it's one of my favorites, meaning: make His will, make Hashem's will, your will, and He will make your will into His will. If you do what He wants you to do, and you make it part of your daily life, then He will do what you want Him to do. it will become His own desire. What you want will become His own desire. This is a very logical thing, a very logical way of living life because, again, if we remember who we're dealing with and His capabilities and everything that He does for us on a regular basis, then it's much easier to keep all these mitzvot because, again, there's a reward for everything that we get and there's a punishment also. It's important to know both. It's important to know that there's a balance for both. There is a reward, and there is a punishment. If we live that type of life, It's much easier to live a kosher life. If we live a life that's delusional, thinking there's only reward and no punishment, we're bound to fail. If we live a life where we think there's only punishment, then we're bound to get depressed. So if we know that there's a balance, there's reward and punishment, it's much easier to live a balanced life. And b'ezrat Hashem, we will continue to progress and get closer to Hashem and, hopefully, eat a lot of kosher food. Any questions before we go?

1:44:04And no halva. No halva from strange people. Baruch Hashem. B'ezrat Hashem. Enjoy the rest of the Chag. If anything comes up, please let me know. B'ezrat Hashem, I'll see you guys next week. Chazak, chazak, ve'nitchazek. Thank you.