Shiur Torah #50 Why is a Shabbat Violator Compared to an Idol Worshiper, AUR Torah (New York)

0:00Okay, Hashem, Hashem, Naseh v'Natzliach. Shiur Torah, B'ezrat Hashem, we will have an interesting shiur. If you have questions, please ask. That gives me more things to talk about. I want to talk about what you're interested in, not what I'm interested in. Because if what you're interested in is going to get you closer to Hashem, what I'm interested in may not. So, in Parashat Nitzavim, which we read a couple of weeks ago, Hashem says to Moshe Rabbeinu, ki ha-Mitzvah hazot asher anokhi metzavecha hayom lo nifleitah mimcha v'lo rechokah. He says, for this commandment that I command you, which in essence he's talking about the entire Torah, it's not hidden from you. And it's not distant. Meaning it's not so hard to be a Jew. It's not so hard to do mitzvot. So why are so many people having such a hard time? Why is it that 80%... to Moshe Rabbeinu, ki ha-Mitzvah hazot asher anokhi metzavecha hayom lo nifleitah mimcha v'lo rechokah. He says, for this commandment that I command you, which in essence he's talking about the entire Torah, it's not hidden from you. And it's not distant. Meaning it's not so hard to be a Jew. It's not so hard to do mitzvot. So why are so many people having such a hard time? Why is it that 80% Of Am Yisrael, some say maybe a little less, to give some pshat, maybe 75%. Whatever the number is, it’s a majority. They don't keep Shabbat. They don't keep Shabbat. Why do I mention Shabbat? How come I'm not mentioning kosher? How come I'm not mentioning something like tefillin or something like putting on a kippah or growing a beard or any of those other things? Which, by the way, a beard is not an obligation in Judaism.

1:24there's something called chesed, which means that it brings goodness to a person, but it's not an obligation out of the 613 mitzvot. Why is it that Shabbat is the critical point of what makes a Jew a Jew? Hashem gave us the Ten Commandments, and He said, the first three commandments, He said that it's between us and Him. don't have, He's the only God, don't have any other gods, and don't have any idols. But then the fourth commandment is Shabbat. Observe the Shabbat. The fifth commandment is to respect your parents. The sixth commandment is don't murder, and so on. Which shows, if you look at the order, it shows that it's an order of importance. Meaning that if you think there's more than one God, then obviously Shabbat is not relevant to you. If you think there's more than one God, who cares if you respect your parents or not? You're already somebody that doesn't think clearly. So Hashem says the number one is to make sure you know there's only one God. That's a beginning point. Having an idol...

2:39Also a big violation. So someone that has an idol, they go to Chinatown, they buy it for $5, they put it in their house because they think that Buddha, the fat Buddha statue, is nice looking. Unfortunately, a lot of Israelis, for some reason, are very attracted to Buddha. Not allowed. It's so bad that if a friend or someone you know has a Buddha statue in their house, you're not allowed to go into their house. What if it's like a painting? Painting a painting of a god, like a fake god? No, painting a painting of China, no. But if it's a painting of Buddha, it is considered a false god. When you have something like that, then it's clearly something that makes Hashem upset. Therefore, you're not even allowed to walk in as a Jew, as a kosher Jew. You're not even allowed to walk into the house. So Jonathan and I were talking earlier today. We had a really interesting conversation, which gave me this idea, baruch Hashem, to talk about it now. Why does Hashem care? Why does Hashem care if you have a Buddha statue you bought for $5 in Chinatown? Why does He care? He's Hashem. He's everything. Okay, so I bought a Buddha statue for $100, $1,000, or $5. People think it's nice. Some fat guy, half-naked, sitting in the middle of their living room, they think it's nice. Everybody has their taste.

4:03Why does Hashem care that you have a statue? Why does Hashem care so much that people engage in idol worship? They're foolish. They engage in idol worship. They take a statue, they make it. You know, Avraham Avinu's father, before he did teshuva, was making statues. Exactly. Why? Why is he cursed so much? Why is he cursed so much? Yeah, it's a good question, right? He’s everything already. What do you care? It’s a fake god. Very upset. He almost wanted to destroy the whole nation. He said to Moshe Rabbeinu: Let me keep you and destroy everyone else. I'll start a new nation, a better nation. A better nation than this one, and I'll start it with you. But Moshe Rabbeinu, the Tzaddik, says, no, if you're going to destroy them, erase me from Your book. Erase me first. Erase me first so I don't have to go to Shamayim and be embarrassed in front of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov.

5:06And they're going to say, "Oh, that's the leader they had. That's the leader they had where they all failed and they all died because of him, because he didn't lead them the right way." So, we have a question. Hashem says, if you have an idol in a house, someone has a Buddha statue in a house, you're not allowed to go into that house. Why does Hashem care if someone has an idol? Like she was saying before, why did Hashem get so mad about the Egel? Well, they built, you know, they saw the miracles, they saw Hashem's words and sounds in the sky, they saw the miracles in Mitzrayim, He destroyed the biggest nation in the world, much, much bigger than America is today. They saw big miracles. But then they made a statue, or the Erev Rav made the statue, There were a lot of miracles involved in it, but long story short, the point is, why does Hashem care about an idol? Why? Anyone have any answers? Hashem, the Torah TaSh'a, the secret part of the Torah, explains Hashem as He is technically everything. Now, the literal part of the Torah says that when Hashem created Adam HaRishon,

6:33He took a piece of Himself, Hashem took a piece of Himself, and put it into Adam HaRishon, meaning that Hashem was part of Adam HaRishon. Now, we also know that from Adam HaRishon, the souls of the entire world come from him. Everyone. You, me, Arafat, everyone. The good and the bad. Everyone comes from the first soul. Everyone. Everyone comes from Adam HaRishon. There was no Adam Hashemi. There was Adam HaRishon. That's it. Everyone comes from Adam HaRishon. So Hashem took a piece of Himself and put it inside you. Put it inside you. Hashem wanted to make sure that you know that He created you. Now, how do we prove this scientifically? Everyone always wants to know, if you're in the painting business, who made the painting? If I made the painting, they're going to pay $5 for it. Maybe. Probably $2. Just because the paper, they could probably use it again. But if Picasso made it, ooh. There's a story about Picasso. One time a woman sees Picasso in a coffee shop. And she says, "Oh, Picasso. I admire you so much. You're so amazing. Please, draw something for me." So he takes the pen. Two minutes, he draws a little drawing, and he's handing it to her. She says, "Oh, yeah, great. Wait, hold on a second. $10,000." He says, "What $10,000? It took you two minutes." He says, "No, it took me 60 years. 60 years to build a name, to be Picasso. So now Picasso makes a painting. If he makes a painting, what does he do? He writes his name."

7:53I admire you so much. You're so amazing. Please, draw something for me. So he takes the pen. In two minutes, he draws a little drawing and hands it to her. She says, "Oh, yeah, great. Wait, hold on a second. $10,000?" He says, "What $10,000? It took you two minutes." He says, "No, it took me 60 years. 60 years to build a name, to be Picasso." So now Picasso makes a painting. If he makes a painting, what does he do? He writes his name. writes his name, he signs his name on the bottom of the painting. Right? So Hashem also wrote His name. The question is, do we know how to find it? Baruch Hashem, as the generations have advanced in age from Chazal to us, we've gone down in one way. But also, Hashem has supplemented it in another way. Meaning that the less brain and connection we have with God, the easier He's making it for us to find Him. In 1983, there was a scientist, whose name escapes me right now, who moved from Venezuela to Israel to do research on DNA.

9:18DNA. And he's looking at DNA. DNA is pretty much the genetic makeup of everything. Everything has DNA. Every living species has DNA. Whether it's a plant or it's a living being like a human being, a shark, a cat, or a dog. Everyone has DNA of some kind. So he's looking at DNA, and in 1986, he makes a very big discovery. He realizes that the DNA foundation of everything is the same, meaning that whether it’s a cat, a dog, a shark, a bat, a monkey, or a human being, they all have the same basic structure. It's those two squiggly lines that you probably saw on the internet at some point—two squiggly lines intertwining to form a double helix. The difference between them, whether it's a monkey or a human being, is the amount of chromosomes and acids that are within that DNA. So he asked this computer programmer, and he wanted to find out, what if I take those two lines, which are the foundation, like a building has a foundation and four corners? So he says, what if I take those corners and I break them apart? Can it stand by itself?

10:46And after research, the computer program responded, saying, no, the subject will collapse. Meaning it cannot live, it cannot survive. Without those two lines being together, it cannot survive. So that means that keeping them together is very important. So the next question is naturally, what's keeping them together? So in the DNA, there's something called ACTG, which are acids. So He said, what's keeping them together? And the computer program responds after analysis, and it says, every so often, meaning every several acids, every several ACTGs, there is a bridge made of sulfur, which is gafrit, that connects the DNA. That's what's connecting the DNA. So, Okay, so we have this bridge. The bridge is very important. Not like the Verrazano Bridge, where if you don't want to pay $16 for the Verrazano Bridge, you go to the other one, you pay $14 and save $2. This one is the only way in. So now the next big question is, how often, is every so often, is there a sequence? Is there some type of way that you could put some math into this and see that there's a

12:15some intelligent design behind this bridge because, obviously, this bridge is really important. So what if, you know, we know the bridge has to exist. We want to know, is this bridge random? Is it one day it's over here, the next day it's over there, or is there some type of sequence to this? Some type of intelligent design? And the computer program responds, yes, there is a sequence. It's every tenth acid, and then after that, it's every fifth, And then after that, it's every sixth. And then after that, it's every fifth. Ten, five, six, five, ten, five, six, five, forever. Ten, five, six, five, ten, five, six, five. If you haven't caught on yet, in the Hebrew language, every letter has a numerical value. Ten is Yud. Five is Hei. Six is Vav. And five again is Hei. Yud, Hei, Vav, and Hei. That's God's name. Only in the Hebrew language. Not in English, not in Spanish, not in Chinese, not in Arabic, nothing else. The Hebrew language, the language that He created the world with. Hashem wrote His name inside your DNA. Just like an artist wants to make sure that you know that he painted this painting, Hashem did the same thing. It's in your DNA. So when somebody says, "Where is G-d? Where is G-d?"

13:46Just look in the mirror. Everything. Everything. Every being. We're going to get back to that. Good, good questions. Keep asking the questions. So God said, I wrote my name inside your DNA, habibi. If you're asking where is God, I wrote it in there. When people say, "Where was God during the Holocaust?" He did it. What do you mean, where is God? He was right there. Where was God during Mitzrayim, which was much worse than the Holocaust? He was right there. Where was God during all the worst things that happened? The things that happened in Spain, and the things that happened in all the other countries around the world, and the constant death, and the constant bad? He was there. He's the one that did it. Why did He do it? Because we didn't follow. So now we go back to the same question. Why is God so upset if we buy an idol from Chinatown for five dollars, a Buddha statue, and we put it in the middle of our house or in our office? Why does God care so much? Because God is showing you that He's everything—meaning everything, not just everything you have, whether it's your parnassah, whether it's your wife or your husband...

15:12whether it's your kids, whether you're able to breathe, whether the DNA is going to work the right way or not, whether the bridge is going to break, chas v'shalom, creating a lot of problems, the subject will explode. He's telling you He's everything. He's the moon, He's the Creator of the moon, He's the Creator of the sun, the galaxies, everything and anything. The secret part of the Torah says that He's literally everything, including all of you. Meaning that we are just something that's a part of His own creation of Himself. There is no individuality. We're eventually at the end of times, after Olam HaBa, you have the Mashiach, then you have some time that's still staying in this earth, then you have Olam HaBa, and then after all the tikkunim, of all the souls that didn't finish their tikkun in this world, They go up, and they get fixed through a lot of tough times, to say the least. And then eventually, all of the souls go back to the source. They go back to God. That piece that He gave Adam goes back. That's the ultimate good. So He's everything. So now, the statue, on the other hand

16:37is nothing. It's not even Hashem's creation. It's Hashem's creation's creation. Hashem created man, and man created the statue. Hashem does everything; the statue does nothing. It doesn't speak, doesn't hear, doesn't talk, doesn't eat, doesn't smell—nothing. And it's the lowest form of creation. because it's his creation's creation. So you've replaced everything with nothing. It couldn't be a bigger chutzpah. But why is he upset if it's nothing? Because it's a chutzpah. So I'll explain it to you like this. Let's say someone was about to get married. And the groom has a few dollars and he wants to really show off to this bride in front of everyone, so he buys a big, big present. The bride opens the present and she sees there's another wrapping, and another one, and another one, and another one. She sees they put a lot of work into this. It's a really nice present. Wow, there must be something really special inside, right? So, another wrapper, another wrapper... groom has a few dollars and he wants to really show off to this bride in front of everyone, so he buys a big, big present. The bride opens the present and she sees there's another wrapping, and another one, and another one, and another one. She sees they put a lot of work into this. It's a really nice present. Wow, there must be something really special inside, right? So, another wrapper, another wrapper...

18:00And at the end, she finally opens the box after 20 minutes of unwrapping. She put a lot of work into this. It's pretty. And everyone's saying, "Oh, wow, what's it going to be?" Everybody's really excited about this present. And eventually, she sees the most amazing diamond that ever existed. It's a million carats, or whatever you want to call it. Something everyone would love. Something that everyone will always want. It's the most beautiful diamond in the world, and the bride looks at it. She picks it up, and she throws it in his face. Should she get married? Should he still be with her? No. Why? Because chutzpah. Same thing, more than chutzpah, and that's just for a diamond. So Hashem gave you the heavens... Gave you the earth. Gave you yourself. Gave you your kids. Gave you a husband. Gave you everything you have. And we say, "No, I don't want this everything. I don't want this diamond. I want something I made. I made for $5. I bought it from Chinatown. I like it better." It's the biggest chutzpah it could be.

19:13So now, Baruch Hashem, nobody here has a Buddha statue, I hope, in their house, or hopefully nobody in their house that's watching this on YouTube. But why do I mention idol worship? Unfortunately, a lot of people have it for some reason. They think it's nice. I don't know why a fat person made of gold is nice, but the Yetzer Hara has a lot of interesting and convincing ways. So now, why do I mention idol worship? Because every time you see in the Torah... every time you see idol worship, what's right next to it? Shabbat. Hashem, every time He's saying that He's going to punish the idol worshipers, right next to it He's saying He's punishing the people who violate Shabbat. Every time. He's saying that anyone who engages in idol worship is the same, same thing, as someone who violates Shabbat. Same thing. Someone who... drives their car on Shabbat, or smokes a cigarette, or turns on the light on purpose, or violates Shabbat on purpose. It's the same thing as the guy that's bowing to the statue every day and praying to it like it's Buddha. Same thing. In Hashem's eyes, it's the same thing. Why is it the same thing? Because if we go back to some of the things we learned in last week's shiur, we said that Hashem, in Parashat Bereishit,

20:40He created the heavens and the earth. He created the stars. He gave you the exact number of stars. He gave you the sun that, if it's one degree closer to us, would burn the earth. If it's one degree further from us, we would all freeze to death. He created a solar system so perfect that the earth is the only thing that's out of line with the rest of the planets. He created a world where every day you can see a miracle. It's called rain. rain. Nobody thinks rain is a miracle. No one thinks, rain, okay, rain, natural rain, rain falls. What's the big deal of rain? Do you know that rain, when it falls, no one thinks it's a miracle because they're used to it? But if they actually think about it, raindrops, and no two drops ever touch. So all the way from the sky, tens of thousands of feet above us, there's a cloud that's holding all this water. And the water drops, And it's all by drops, little drops, individual drops. But no two drops ever touch each other. Ever. Until they get to the floor, they never touch each other. They never combine. Why is it such a big deal? Even if it's windy. Hashem can handle the wind too. What's the big deal? What's the big deal if two water drops touch? What's the big deal?

22:09And it creates lightning? No, no, no. Lightning is something completely different. Just the water. Just the water. Just the water drops from the cloud, and until it reaches the ground, or it reaches our head if it falls on our head, it does not meet another drop, ever. What is the big deal of that? That is... This is all in the books. You can read it, you can see the same thing. So here's the thing. What's the big deal of this? The big deal is that if two drops connect, then that means that three drops can connect. And if three drops connect, that means four drops can connect. And if four drops can connect, you can create a puddle. And imagine if you're sitting there, taking your coffee, you're about to go to work, and a giant puddle of water drops from 30,000 feet on your head. Chas v'shalom, you're dead on the spot. Hell, hail also kills. Yeah, hail kills. Why are they so big? Of course, they're meant to. If they're used for that, they're meant to. As a matter of fact, you remind me of a good story. One of the most important things we talked about on Shabbat is it talks about

23:31Yirat Shamayim. The most important thing that someone has to have is Yirat Shamayim—fear of God. More important than belief in God. How do we know? After Am Yisrael crossed the Sea of Reeds, Yam Suf, the Torah says, "and Am Yisrael feared Hashem, and they believed in Him, and in His servant Moshe." So first, it says they feared, and then they believed. Why? Because in order for us to believe in Him, we have to understand to some extent what He is. And if we understand what He is, then of course we're going to be scared. He's everything, right? So now, in the Torah, one of the things that the Torah teaches us is the holy language of Hebrew. During the Ten Plagues... Moshe came to Paro and he told him, Hashem is going to bring hail. Barad. He's going to bring hail. And whoever stays inside is going to be saved. He's not going to die. But whoever goes outside will die. Whether it's an animal or a person, they're going to die. So after that it says the verse, "And those...

24:59Those that feared God stayed inside. Those that didn't put their heart, meaning didn't pay attention, died. So here we learn what is the opposite of Yirat Shamayim. The Torah tells you everything has an opposite. Black, white. Tall, short. Fat, skinny. Rasha, tzaddik. Yirat Shamayim. If I ask you what's the opposite of Yirat Shamayim, what's the opposite of fear of Hashem, you would naturally say lack of fear of Hashem. No fear of Hashem. But no, the Torah says no. Ele she samu, ele she yare'u et Hashem. Those that feared Hashem stayed inside. those that didn't pay attention, meaning didn't pay attention to the details, went outside. Meaning that the opposite of yirat Shamayim, the opposite of fear of Hashem, is someone that's not paying attention to the details. There's no way that you would not fear Hashem if you actually knew the details.

26:07If you actually paid attention to the rain, to the sun, to the miracles inside you, to the miracles that you see in the mirror, to everything that it takes to operate just your body, if you think about your own body, just your brain, your brain has miniature wiring, you know, veins, tiny, tiny, tiny little veins in your brain. If you take those veins and separate them, it's pretty much one big ball of veins. That's what your brain is. If you unravel it and take all of these veins, you can go from Earth to the Moon several times over. I think it's three or four times over. Meaning there are more veins in one brain of the simplest person in the world than all of the AT&Ts and Verizon Wireless and all the computers and Microsofts in the world. Just one brain. Doesn't take a smart guy. Just a regular brain. It has more wiring in it than all the computers in the world. So, Hashem says, if you don't fear Me, that means you don't know this stuff. That means you're not paying attention. That means that you're still thinking that this idol is going to do something for you. That means that maybe because you bought this red string from some baba in the middle of town that sold it to you for $25 and told you it's a big Kabbalistic strength, you believe in him. You don't believe in Me. You're looking for shortcuts. You're not looking for the main thing. You're not looking for the source. If you don't fear Me, that means you don't know this stuff. That means you're not paying attention. That means that you're still thinking that this idol is going to do something for you. That means that maybe because you bought this red string from some baba in the middle of town that sold it to you for $25 and told you it's a big Kabbalistic strength, you believe in him. You don't believe in Me. You're looking for shortcuts. You're not looking for the main thing. You're not looking for the source.

27:37There's a lot of nonsense in the world. By the way, has anyone ever heard of these red strings? There's no Torah value to it whatsoever. It has zero connection. All it has is a big market value for the guy that sells it to you. That's it. It has zero Torah value. It could be anywhere. It could be on top of the wall, on the side of the wall. It means nothing. There's marking. Just because somebody has a beard doesn't mean they're a rabbi. Osama Bin Laden also had a beard. Yes, yes. It's called Chilul Hashem. What can we do? There are many believers. Right, but here's the thing. Who has the bigger problem? The guy that sells it or the guy that buys it? No, the guy that buys it. The guy that buys it has a bigger problem. Okay, he's lying. You're right.

28:41The guy that sells it is a liar, is a thief. 100%. He's going to have his cheshbon in shamayim. But maybe he's keeping Shabbat. Maybe he's doing tefillin. Maybe he's doing other mitzvot, but he makes this one aveirah. The guy that's buying it, usually he's not keeping anything. The guy that's buying it is looking for a shortcut. He says, "No, Shabbat is too much for me. Yom Kippur is too much for me. Kosher, sometimes. When I'm in the house, yes. When I'm outside, no. If it's pizza, no. If it's hamburger, maybe." The guy that's buying it is usually looking for a shortcut. He's looking for a way out. He has the bigger problem because he's looking for a shortcut. It's the same thing with the guy that buys the statue. Because Hashem is telling us that you replaced Me, the source of everything, with nothing. with absolutely nothing. And that's one of the biggest problems we have. Now, when Hashem is telling you that Shabbat is the equivalent of idol worship, there are several verses that talk about it, but most people who don't know this, unfortunately, don't keep Shabbat. One of the things in Parashat Ki Tisa is that Hashem is telling us that someone who violates Shabbat

30:04He's telling you outright what His opinion is. So it's not a rabbi that told us this. It's not a possible understanding that could be wrong. It's not anything like that. There are two really good examples. There are many of them. It's mentioned in the Torah more than anything else, Shabbat. But there are two really, really critical examples that we need to know. Because again, sometimes even if you're keeping Shabbat, You need something to strengthen you. Sometimes even if you're keeping Shabbat, you don't really feel like it. It's like, I really want to watch TV right now. I wish I wasn't keeping Shabbat. Or, you know what, the air conditioner is too high. I wish I could lower it. You don't do it, but you're thinking about it. So knowing the significance of Shabbat is even important for everyone that's keeping Shabbat. Obviously, if you're not keeping Shabbat, then it's good for you to know what Hashem's opinion is.

31:05Hashem says, someone who doesn't keep Shabbat is subject to death upon death and cut off from the nation. So let's explain what that means. Now, if someone dies, they can't die twice, right? Die once, that's it. So why is it death upon death? One death is in this life. The second death is in the next life, the eternal life, it means they're not considered Jewish—cut off from the nation. What nation do we have? Am Yisrael, the Jewish nation. Someone who is cut off has already died. So you see, that means death again, or he died twice: died here, died there. There's no more death. So he's saying that you have, unfortunately, millions of Jews that technically, according to the Torah, are not considered Jewish. Now, of course, they could all do teshuva. They could all keep Shabbat, and if someone keeps Shabbat from this point on for the rest of their life, and they do it because they love it, they do it because they believe in it, Hashem can turn all of the Shabbatot that they missed out on into mitzvot.

32:30And on top of that, you're still going to show up to Shamayim and say, okay, listen, you lived in this world 50 years, 60 years, 30 years, whatever it is, you didn't keep Shabbat. There were a few Shabbatot you missed, but I know the rest of your life you kept. But how did you make up for it? How did you make up for all those Shabbatot? Technically, you still missed some Shabbatot. How do you make up for it? You make other people keep Shabbat. Help other people that don't know what Shabbat is; help them keep Shabbat. Because now, every Shabbat that the other person keeps comes to your account also. So now, instead of keeping one Shabbat, you kept two Shabbatot. And if that person is married, then it's three Shabbatot. And if they have kids, and they have three kids, so it's five Shabbatot plus yours, six Shabbatot. If you help one family, it's like every Shabbat is seven Shabbatot for you. So you're making up for 50 years of not keeping Shabbat. But the most important thing is to know the consequence of not keeping Shabbat. As far as death in this world, you see, you're going to ask the first question that should come to your mind is, okay, somebody I know didn't keep Shabbat. He didn't die. He survived. So maybe there's a mistake in the Torah. No. So Hashem said, during the generation of Moshe Rabbeinu, when there were open miracles, people saw the words of God in the Shamayim.

33:51People heard Hashem's voice. People saw miracles every day. There was food from heaven coming down every day. Imagine every day you wake up and you have whatever you want to eat. You don't have to worry about working. Imagine you never have to do laundry. Every woman is probably excited about not doing laundry. I like laundry, actually. You like laundry? Okay. I like spending the money. I do the dishes and laundry. Oh, laundry. Okay, so you're one in a million. So, not having to do laundry for 40 years. For 40 years we're in the desert, we don't have to do laundry. For 40 years we're in the desert, we don't have to go to the bathroom because the manna is completely absorbed by our bloodstream. Completely absorbed. So you have miracles every day. But technically, we still just got the Torah. Right now, we’re 3,300 years or more than 3,300 years after we got the Torah. So we shouldn’t have an excuse. We have had a long, long time. We should have gotten used to the Torah. But anybody who violated the Torah, let’s say a week after...

35:04We got the Torah. Hashem, if Hashem is, you know, if Hashem is going to, let's say, close one of His eyes and say, you know what? I didn't see that. Don't worry about it. You violated Shabbat, it's no big deal. If Hashem thought that Shabbat is not a big deal, that's the time you should do it, right? Somebody that's already been studying Torah for 3,000 years says, listen, you have 3,000 years. You have sages upon sages, upon rabbis, upon tzaddikim, and so many books. You have hundreds of thousands of books. that have been written about Judaism. So by now, at some point, you read the newspaper, you can read one of my books. It says, keep Shabbat. Right? So we say, us, we don't have an excuse. But the guy that violated a week later, we just got the Torah. If somebody violated a week later, Hashem should say, no big deal. It was actually a story in the Torah about a person by the name of Tzlofchad. Tzlofchad was actually a tzaddik. He wasn't a rasha. He wasn't someone that was going against Hashem. But Tzlofchad took actions upon himself and he violated Shabbat. This is a week after we got the Torah. We kept one Shabbat. The second Shabbat, Tzlofchad violated Shabbat. So now Moshe Rabbeinu, this is the first violation of Shabbat. Moshe Rabbeinu comes to Hashem and he says, he puts him in jail. He says, Hashem, what do I do with him?

36:32And if Hashem didn't think that Shabbat is a big deal, this is the time He should say, "Okay, you know what? They just got the Torah. They didn't learn yet. Let them go. He's a nice guy. He's a tzaddik. He gave tzedakah. He goes to the Beit Knesset. He wears tefillin. He does everything else. No big deal. This is the time He should do it." That's not what it says. Hashem responds to Moshe Rabbeinu and He says, "Kill him in front of the entire nation." not only kill him, but kill him in front of everyone. Tzaddik. Not a rasha. Not someone that cursed Hashem or someone that went and became friends with the Egyptians. This is someone that's righteous. And we just got the Torah. We didn't even have enough time to learn the whole thing yet. We didn't even have enough time to get to know the Torah and He gave him the worst kind of death. There are four kinds of death, four types of punishments. And the last one, he got sekila, he got stoned. Even if he did it for Shem Shamayim. And everything that he did was actually to sanctify Hashem's name. What will happen? To show the rest of the nation that Hashem is serious. That Hashem is serious about Shabbat. So now let me ask you a question. We just got the Torah. We didn't even learn all of it yet.

38:00But Tzelofchad violated the Shabbat. He turned on the television on Shabbat. He switched a few stations on Shabbat. And Hashem said, kill him in front of the entire nation. So if He didn't let him go, and he was a tzaddik in everything else. Everything else, he's perfect. Here, he violated Shabbat. Hashem didn't give up on that. Do you think He's going to give up on somebody today? after he's had the Torah for 3,000 years, he can't say, I don't know. You watch YouTube? Okay, you can watch junk, but you can also watch Torah. You know how to read? You can read Torah. You can't have an excuse, I don't know. In today's world, there are very, very few people that can be considered tinok shenishba, meaning people that are completely unfamiliar with Judaism whatsoever. Because in today's age, there's internet, there's people who are much more open about our Judaism. It's not like, Back in the day, we were afraid to even wear a kippah. You know, maybe there are some places in the world, like France right now, where people are scared to wear a kippah, but in general, people know what Judaism is. So no one can say, you know, even the Goyim know what Shabbat is. There's even a sect of Christianity, actually, right now, that started to keep Shabbat the way they understand it. It's wrong, but anyway, even Christians are starting to get to a point where they're saying, you know what, we're wrong, Shabbat is not Sunday, it's Saturday.

39:20So even the goyim know that Shabbat exists. And that's also one of the other proofs, by the way. One of the best proofs that the Torah couldn't have come from a human being, one of the best proofs that it couldn't be written by Moshe Rabbeinu, it couldn't be written by Rabbi Akiva, it couldn't be written by me or you or any human being. is that the only reason why there are seven days in one week is because of the Torah. There's no other reason whatsoever. There's no scientific reason. There's no other document that says that there should be seven days in a week. There's only one document that says there should be seven days in a week, and that's the Torah. It was written a little over 3,300 years ago, and until this day, it's the only thing that everyone agrees on. Everything else everybody disagrees on. But seven days? 24 hours? Everyone agrees. So, the beauty of the Torah is that there are many things we see that we all agree with. There are many things that we see that are true. There is a lot of wisdom in the Torah that shows it had to come from a source far, far beyond us. When Hashem is telling you that violating the Shabbat is not a forgivable sin if you don't do teshuva, He's not joking.

40:45He's not joking. Watching TV on Shabbat, driving your car on Shabbat, playing with any electronic device or any form of fire, it's not a joke. Someone says, you know what, maybe electricity is not the same. They didn't have electricity back then, so today it's different. Electricity is not fire. So Rabbi Mizrachi actually said something very funny but very true one time. He says, okay, let's test it. Let's test if electricity is fire. You hold the light bulb, And if you hold it for five minutes and you don't catch on fire, then it's not electricity. Obviously, you will catch on fire. It's fire. Electricity is fire. It's 100% fire. It's a different form of fire, but it's fire. To make fire? Who said it? Why does it have to be so hard? Now it's switching, that's it. Okay, but if you know how to make fire, you can make it in five seconds, ten seconds. It's nothing, I mean, not like before. Three thousand years ago? Five seconds, you can make fire. That's not the reason. I know, but I'm saying, people think that three thousand...

41:57Right, right. But here's the thing. As far as fire, first to answer the first question that is in your question, is that people think that Moshe Rabbeinu and Am Yisrael from 3,000 years ago were like cavemen. They were not like cavemen. Some technology they had is even better than what we have today. Certain things that they had are even more advanced than what we have today. They had certain medicine. So for example, Chazal say that one of the sages had a problem with his eyes. Had a problem with his eyes, and the eyes are very important to learn Torah. So, one of the other rabbis who was familiar with medicine came to him and said, "Okay, I can heal you. Take this cream and put it on your eyes." He replied, "No, no, no, I'm not going to put anything on my eyes." The rabbi then said, "Okay, take this cream and put it on the back of your head, over here." Again, he refused, saying, "No, no, no, no." The rabbi then said, "Okay, take something, put it on that, and put that on the back of your head. Sleep on it." He agreed and slept on it. The next day, he had perfect vision.

42:58We don't have that cream today. We don't have that cream today. Today, if you want to cut something, you need to use certain technology to cut it. You need big machinery, giant machinery. If you know the Western Wall, Kotel HaMa'aravi, every one of those giant stones was not cut by machines. It was cut by a little bug that emitted radiation. A tiny little bug. There was radiation emitted from it, and it cut every one of those stones. What's more amazing is that if you look at the size of each one of these stones, even with today's technology, we couldn't pick them up. They're so big. Not the ones on top that you see, but the ones on the bottom floor. The ones on the bottom floor, even with today's technology, they don't know how they made them. They don't know how they put it together. So Moshe Rabbeinu and Am Yisrael weren't cavemen, like people say in science class and all of that. So that's one. The second thing, that's even more important, is that fire is not prohibited because it's hard to make. There are 39 melachot. There are 39 things you're not allowed to do on Shabbat because those are the 39 things they used to build the Beit HaMikdash.

44:20So Hashem says, this is something that you do during the week, but on Shabbat, I want you to rest. Why does Hashem even care about us resting? Why does Hashem take it so offensively when we violate Shabbat? Why is it the same as idol worship? We said with idol worship, you're replacing everything with nothing, right? So why is Shabbat such a big deal? Because technically, Hashem created Shabbat only for us. It has nothing to do with Him. What does it mean? Hashem technically created the world in one second. He didn't take six days. It didn't take Him six days to make the moon. He didn't have to go call the city to get a title and get the construction company to come and make the moon and get another construction company to come, but they didn't show up, and then He got another one and they made the sun. No, He didn't need all of this. If Hashem is the same Hashem in the Torah, He's Hashem all the time, which means He's unlimited. He's unlimited. He can do whatever He wants, which means that He created everything in one second.

45:22But over the next six days, He put it in the right place. Why did He do it in six days? Why didn't He just do it in one day? Or one second? Okay, so I made the sun, I made the moon, I made stars, I made the planets, grass, tens of thousands of different animals. Why did He take six days? Because He says, if I give Am Yisrael, which is the purpose of creation, one day a week, then every day is going to be the same thing. But if I give them six days a week, every day is going to be different. But if I give them seven days a week, where on the six days, they could work just like I, figuratively speaking, worked, but on the seventh day, I rested—not rested like He went to sleep. Hashem doesn't go to sleep. Hashem doesn't rest. He doesn't need to exercise or wake up in the morning. So Hashem says, I want to give my children, I want to give them a feeling to be like Me. I want to give them a feeling to be like the King. I want to make them a part of creation. So how can they, they can't feel like a god, they can't create anything. So what do I give them? I give them a feeling like I had on Shabbat. What's the feeling? Of not doing it, of stopping these things that I did, this creation that I did during those six days, I stopped creating, so they're going to stop creating.

46:48which in essence means that a Jew is supposed to feel like a king on Shabbat. And that's why Hashem made Shabbat. But why does Hashem take it so offensively? Why is He so angry when we violate it? Because He's saying to you, I technically created the world in one second or less than a second. In no time. Hashem doesn't have time. The past, the present, the future is all the same to Him. I created the world in an instant. Whatever an instant is, He created it in an instant. Right? But I minimized Myself. I minimized Myself to stretch it out for you. For you to feel like Me. For you to feel like you are part of creation. For you to feel like God felt on the seventh day. And instead of saying, "Thank you, Hashem, Baruch Hashem for the Shabbat, I can't wait for the Shabbat, let me do great things for the Shabbat, I'm preparing for the Shabbat," what are you saying? Like that woman, "Ichsa, I don't want this diamond." I minimize myself, but you're not willing to minimize yourself? To stop your life? Hashem Yitbarach minimized and said, "Oh, for this Jew,"

48:05i minimize myself. But he's not willing to minimize himself for Shabbat and stop his job, or stop his television, or stop anything else that he's doing. And that is very, very offensive. You have a question? What about people, let's say a person that's not raised in a Jewish religious family, no Shabbat, no holidays, and let's say a person's going to die, he's going to be punished because he didn't keep Shabbat? 100%. Why? Because he didn't keep Shabbat. What do you mean? He lives on an island by himself? There are some people that are considered tinokot shenishbu, which are people that don't even know what Judaism is, and were not allowed to practice it, were not allowed to learn about it, and never ever learned about Judaism. Their form of punishment is very, very different than someone who did know, but just didn't care, or did know, and just didn't investigate further. There are very, very few of them in the world today. Unfortunately, some people think everyone that's not religious is a tinok shenishba, which is not true.

49:12There are very, very few of them. Why? Because today we have the internet, we have television, we see people, we know what Judaism is. If you know that you're Jewish, that's already enough to know that there's something called Shabbat, there's something called kosher. So there are very few people who don't know. I actually have a friend whose parents, they're probably in their 90s now, lived in Ukraine their whole life, and they honestly don't know what Judaism is. For 90 years, they didn't know what Judaism is. They knew they were Jewish, but they just came to the United States; they knew nothing. And one day she tells me, "It's very interesting—what happens after you die?" She asked me, "What happens after you die?" She's 90 years old; she's going to die soon. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure it out. So, little by little, they're learning some things. Now, obviously, she can't become Rabbi Akiva's wife, Rachel, overnight, but she got to a point where Hashem is going to show her, put her in a situation where she has the ability to learn what Judaism is, what Shabbat is, and what everything else is. But either way, most people have an opportunity to learn what Judaism is.

50:16So, why does everybody violate Shabbat, or so many people violate Shabbat? There's only two reasons. One, they don't believe. There is something called Torah, but they don't believe it's true. Even if they read parts of it, they don't believe it's true. Or two, they don't know. They don't know the significance of Shabbat. They think Shabbat is a nice day. Some people that wear black and white and look a little weird and have beards sometimes, they keep it, but it's not for me. It's not for me. So they don't know. They don't know that Shabbat is the same thing as idol worship. Violating Shabbat is the worst sin in Judaism. Meaning, to explain it even further, it's against our logic. So you have to hear me right: violating Shabbat is worse than murder. So if there's a guy working for the mafia, and every week he kills somebody. Every week he gets $25,000 to kill somebody. But he keeps Shabbat. He's in a better condition than the guy that violates Shabbat every week and doesn't kill anyone. Why? Because we have it from the Ten Commandments. The fourth commandment, right after idol worship, is Shabbat. Number six is murder. It's all in order of importance. Even though they're all important, there's a significance.

51:37So Hashem takes it very, very personally when someone is violating Shabbat. Because when you're murdering somebody, Hashem is saying, okay, you don't respect Me, but you also don't respect anybody else. That's why you're killing people. But with Shabbat, you're specifically not respecting Me, but you're still scared if the cop has his lights on, if he sees you speeding, you're scared of him. But Me, you're not scared of. That's a disrespect. It's chutzpah. Right, so at least with the guy that murders or the guy that steals, he doesn't care about anybody. He doesn't respect anyone. So Hashem says, okay, you don't respect Me, you don't respect them, okay, said that, what are you going to do? But the guy that purely violates Shabbat, but he's nice to everyone, he doesn't steal, he doesn't murder... He's scared of what people think of him. He's scared to make sure that he wears a brand new suit every time he goes to a wedding. He's scared to make sure that, you know, he pays his bills on time. He's scared to make sure that, you know what, the cop doesn't see him speeding. He's scared of what people think of him. So Hashem says, wait a minute. All these other creations that I have, all these little people that Hashem created, you're scared of them but you're not scared of Me? How is this not a chutzpah?

52:51So that's the thing. So that's why Hashem takes it very personally when someone is violating Shabbat. And unfortunately, not many rabbis. Rabbi Ze'ev, Baruch Hashem, is Ish Emet and he says everything truthfully, and he says exactly what the Torah says. That's why this kehillah is very, very fortunate. They don't even realize how fortunate they are to have Rabbi Ze'ev. And I'm not saying this because I compliment rabbis on a regular basis. I have 50 videos up online, on YouTube, and you can see there's maybe, maybe once, I've complimented another rabbi, which is Rabbi Mizrachi, or my cousin in Israel, Rabbi Ephraim Kachlon. Generally, I don't compliment rabbis. Why? Because you don't meet that many of them that are Ish Emet, that are really honest people. With Rabbi Ze'ev, he's not only an Ish Emet, the wisdom that he has, everything I'm teaching you right now, you think it's new? He learned it 40 years ago already. 40 years ago, everything that I'm telling you right now, he already knew 40 years ago. There's nothing I can teach you that he didn't already learn and can teach you five times over. The problem is no one wants to pay attention sometimes. So, with somebody like Rabbi Ze'ev, it's like having a diamond but thinking it's a rock. Not knowing it's a diamond. Because a guy is a poor little guy who found a rock.

54:02Okay, let me put it on the shelf. He doesn't realize it's a diamond. But he has it in his house. And every day he's praying to Hashem, "Please give me parnassah, please give me parnassah." The next day, "Hashem, please give me parnassah, give me parnassah. Hashem, please give me parnassah. I can't pay my bills, my kids can't pay for yeshivah, Hashem, I can't pay for kosher food. Please give me parnassah." He has a hundred-million-dollar diamond sitting right next to his siddur. That's Rabbi Ze'ev. You have a diamond in here. You just have to recognize it. That's the big thing. We have to recognize. Sometimes, when you have something special, you have to make sure that people know about it. It's our job to not only tell other people to become religious, tell other people to keep Shabbat, tell other people to keep the basics, to connect to Hashem. But sometimes we can't do it ourselves. Sometimes, you know, Baruch Hashem, I was given the gift from Hashem, I can talk, and I can deliver what I learned. You learn, you'll do the same thing. But sometimes, some people don't have the ability to speak. So the best thing for them to do is to introduce them to the rabbi who knows how to speak and who tells the truth. Support the people that are teaching others. Because if you can't do it, if you don't have the ability to speak, and you tell somebody, "Listen, you don't keep Shabbat, mot yumat," they're going to say, "Who are you bichlal? Go away with your mot yumat." You don't know how to speak to them. "Who are you bichlal?"

55:30So you have to know how to deliver the whole concept of why to keep these mitzvot. And again, the most important thing for us to have is some form of yirat shamayim. Now, yirat shamayim is something that's important and Hashem is telling us, like I said before, He's telling us that Am Yisrael had to fear Him first before they believed in Him. So why do we need to have yirat shamayim so much? Why do we need to fear Hashem so much? Because in our world today and all throughout generations, most people spend way too much time and energy worrying about what other people think. Most women in our generation who are not tzniut, that are not tzniut, that are not covering their hair, that are walking around half-naked. Hashem, all the people that are violating the Torah, people know that you're not supposed to walk around half-naked, but they do it anyway. Why? Because there's no fear. Because Hashem is not operating the same way that He used to. Back in the days of Tzelofchad,

56:37Back in the days of Moshe Rabbeinu, because they saw all the miracles, they also saw punishment, an immediate punishment. Someone violated Shabbat, they got punished right away. But right now we don't see miracles that we know for sure. There are plenty of miracles; we have to pay attention though. But we're not seeing Hashem's words in the sky. We're not seeing horns, and we're not seeing angels all over the place. We're not seeing, you know, the ocean split into two. We're not seeing all of these things. So the miracles that Hashem is performing are in hiding. It's in secrecy. It's called Teva. People call it nature. The interesting thing about HaTeva, which is nature in Hebrew, is that it has the same numerical value as Elohim—86. Nature and God have the same numerical value. HaTeva. HaTeva. HaTeva and Elohim have the same numerical value. So Hashem says, "I'm going to hide Myself in nature. You're going to call it nature, but it's really Me." So people that don't have fear, it's because Hashem doesn't punish us right away. Now, why doesn't Hashem punish us right away? Because if He punished us right away, like He did in the generation of Tzelofchad and...

58:05Moshe Rabbeinu, he would take away our choice, our free choice. If he, if let's say for example, someone smoked a cigarette on Shabbat, and immediately their head blew up, so the second guy Second guy will see him and say, "Whoa. Oh my God, right? Okay, wait a minute. Okay, maybe it's just a mikreh, maybe it's just coincidence." So another guy smokes a cigarette and his head blows up. After that, no one's ever smoking again. Not on Shabbat, not on any day, right? But that took away our choice. That took away our free choice. That means that we're not keeping Shabbat because Hashem said so. We're keeping Shabbat only because we're afraid. That's not the best way to keep Shabbat. There's something called Oneg Shabbat, enjoying Shabbat. How are you going to enjoy it if you're scared? You're so scared, no one's going to want to move. People say, wait, what happened? Shabbat's here, don't move. You're not going to move, right? So Hashem said, because my miracles are not openly in front of you,

59:23then the punishment is not going to be openly in front of you. I'm going to give you more time. I'm going to show you different things. I'm going to be more patient with you. Because He also knows that our generation is getting lower and lower. So now what happens? What does it mean, mot yumat, with Shabbat? The first death means that someone who is violating Shabbat is shortening their life. If Hashem already decided how many years each one of us is going to live in the world, before we came to this world. So someone that was supposed to live, let's say, 120 years, if he violates Shabbat, every time he's lowering the time. Maybe it's now 119, maybe it's 100, maybe it's 70, maybe it's 30. He's lowering his own life. Every time he violates Shabbat, he's taking away years from his life. So that's why when we have so many friends and family that are not keeping it, That's part of the reason if we really love them, we have to tell them this. And if we don't know how to tell them, we have to give them something, maybe a CD of a rabbi that says it, maybe bring them to a lecture on a Sunday night instead of the NFL, to come watch a lecture that talks about it. Whatever it is, we have to tell them because we love them. If we love somebody, we want them to stay alive; we don't want them to die, right? So Hashem's not kidding. We have to tell them. We have to get them to keep Shabbat.

1:00:47Because that's the basic foundation of what makes you Jewish. Now, as far as removing these miracles, Hashem is giving us an opportunity to do teshuva. The beauty of teshuva is that it can make everything better. It can make your life turn into something amazing. But Hashem also knows that the future. And Hashem also knows that each person has a full potential. Now, to get to your full potential, and let's say at work, if you're going to be an investment banker, or an architect, or an artist, or something else, over time you're going to get better at what you do. So if you start today, let's say, as an architect, you're at level 1. After 20 years, you're at level 10. You're really good. So to get to your full potential, it took you 20 years. Hashem wants every Jew to get to his full potential. But Hashem also knows, in a natural way, it's going to take him 20 years, or 15 years, or 10 years, or 50 years, to get to his full potential. So He doesn't want you to waste time. Because He knows, right now,

1:02:09you're 25 years old or 35 years old, and it's going to take you 10 years to get to your full potential. But He only gave you 50 years in this world. Already decided, before you came to this world, it has nothing to do with your sins. Fifty years you have in this world. I give you fifty years to get to your goal. But you're now thirty-five years old, and you have ten years to get to your full potential. Now, I didn't bring you into this world to play video games. I didn't bring you into this world to make money. I didn't bring you into this world to have a new girlfriend every day. I didn't bring you into this world to do nothing. I brought you into this world to get to your full potential. So now, when I know that you need 10 years to get to your full potential, I need to make sure you have 10 years. So when it gets closer and closer to age 40, because you only have 50 years, Hashem is giving you a wake-up call. He says, "Excuse me, you're running out of time. You need 10 years. You need 10 years." If you start wasting time—one year, two years, three years—you get to the point where you're 40 years old, and now you can't get to your full potential anymore.

1:03:19Why would He give you 10 more years? You're not doing what He says. You have to give Him a reason. Right, but that's the thing. We have to give Hashem a reason. So yes, He can change, but it's based on our action. Now, if we continue violating, this is one thing that we need to know. It's also important to know. It's a little hard to hear, but it's the truth. Sometimes Hashem sees that someone whom He gave 50 years is going in a direction that where it's impossible for him to do teshuva. He's doing so many bad things that by the time he gets to return, he gets to the point of maybe even recognizing that there is a God, he's gonna run out of time already, because He only gave him 50 years. That person He could take out of the world early. Even though He gave him 50 years, He could take him early. Why? Because He wants to bring him back, so he starts all over again. The problem with that is that... There's a Gilgul, yeah. But the problem with that is that we shouldn't rely on that. It's a form of punishment. It's like saying, you know, okay, so I'm not going to do what I want to do, so instead of going to work every day, I'm going to go to a concentration camp for a few months, and then I'm going to come back. No, it's not a good idea. Plus, also, we don't exactly have an abundance of time left for the world. But...

1:04:47As far as that person that has the 50 years, what happens to him? How does Hashem give him wake-up calls? Hashem is going to talk to you at your level. We are not Moshe Rabbeinu. Anyone that thought they were Moshe Rabbeinu before this lecture, I'm reminding you, you're not Moshe Rabbeinu. Moshe Rabbeinu was the only one that spoke to Hashem face to face. Even though he didn't see anything, he spoke to Him like you and I are speaking right now. He spoke, you spoke back, and so on. Everyone else, every other prophet that we had, had to be in some type of sleep or some type of meditation. They weren't awake. Moshe Rabbeinu was the only one who was awake when he spoke to Hashem. So, we're not Moshe Rabbeinu. So how does Hashem speak to us? Difficulties. Difficulties. Anytime we have a difficulty, that's Hashem talking to us. Someone loses money, Hashem is talking to you. Someone has a problem at home, shalom bayit, Hashem is talking to you. Someone has any problem, someone even goes into their pocket, and instead of picking up 25 cents, they take 10 cents, Hashem is talking to you. Every form of difficulty is Hashem telling you that you're doing something wrong. You have to fix yourself.

1:06:04He's not punishing you for no reason. Even though people like to say, "Oh, kaparat avonot, kaparat avonot," meaning, you know, a sacrifice for my sins. It's not. Hashem didn't bring you into this world as a sacrifice for your sins. Sacrifice for your sins is in a different place, much, much worse than this place. Here, you came here to fix everything, to do good. You didn't come here to make sins. It's not exactly something that most people understand. They think, "Oh yeah, so I'm suffering in this world, so I'll have Gan Eden." It's not exactly like that. You have to do mitzvot to get to Gan Eden. So, when Hashem is telling you, "Listen, I took some money from you. It's really My money. But you feel like it's your money. That's why I took it from you. You feel it's your money. It's really My money. So I took it from you." When you realize that it's My money, maybe I'll give it back. I took some money from you because you think that you're the one that controls the income. So you work on Shabbat. Shabbat is My Shabbat. The money is My money also. You are Mine also. So I'm going to take some stuff to remind you that you are Mine. Someone has a sickness; I'm reminding you.

1:07:20There's a good story that became famous about 15 years ago in Tel Aviv. There was a guy who became very successful in Israel 15, maybe 20 years ago. He made $3 million, which in Israel is a lot of money. He had $3 million of investable money. So he decided that he was going to invest it. So he goes, there were two big towers in Tel Aviv that were being built. And he went to see the building. He went to the 17th floor. And they told him, "Listen, you can buy the entire 17th floor for $3 million." And he looks, he looks, he goes, "Eh, it's not for me. It's nice, but it's not for me." All kevin said, though. So he goes home, he gets a phone call from somebody he went to school with a long time ago. This guy lives in Romania. He says to him, "Listen, I got the right investment for you." He says, "What?" "This lot of land in Romania, it's $3 million exactly. If you buy it, I'm telling you, the government's going to buy it from you for a lot of money. They're going to develop it, all these promises." He says, "You know what? Land in Romania, Tel Aviv, let me go to Romania." He gives $3 million; he buys $3 million worth of land that he's never seen in Romania. Sadik.

1:08:41Every couple of weeks, he calls the broker, the guy that sold it to him, but he stopped answering the phone. One month, two months, three months, four months, a year, he's not answering the phone. Now, all of a sudden, he's thinking that he would have sold this land already, but he didn't sell the land. So he realized, okay, this guy scammed me. The $3 million is gone. I don't have any other money coming in now. I have a lot of problems. So one day, after a little over a year, he gets a letter from the Israeli IRS, Mas Hachnasa. It's a little bit different than America, where over there, if you owe money, they come to your house, they take stuff. It's not like America, where they send you a bill for five years before they send you to a collection agency. So he said, if you don't come up with $17,000 or $25,000 for not doing your accounting the right way... We're going to come to your house, we're going to empty out everything. So now, for the last few months, he hasn't made any money. He's been borrowing from people because everybody thought he had money. But now, after a few months, they know he doesn't have money. He's not paying back. So where is he going to borrow this money? He finds out from somebody there's a place in Tel Aviv that just opened up where he can borrow money from. Where is it? On the 17th floor of the building that he was supposed to buy.

1:10:09The floor. So he goes over there. It's a hard money lender. Well, hard money means hard interest. Sharks, 30% interest. What is he going to do? He has no choice: either give up his stuff in his house or 30% interest. So he goes there. They gave him $25,000, and he's miserable. He leaves the office, and he's like, "I was supposed to own this. They were supposed to be my tenants." Now I have to pay them 30%. B'chah. He said, you know what, at least I'm in this building. Let me see what the rest of this building is. He opens the door, he says, oh, this goes to the roof. It was the top floor. So he goes to the roof, and he looks, and he cries a little bit for himself, and he says, I can't believe it. He tries to leave the roof, but he didn't realize it was an unfinished building. So there's only a lock on the inside. He can't get out. Oh, let's look at this. I know this, and I read this. So what happened is that he goes and he sits on the roof. He can't, you know, right now in Israel it's very, very hot. It's not, it's 100 and something degrees. He's on the roof, he's burning up, he thinks he's going to die. He says, okay, you know what, if I throw a $100 bill, somebody's going to pick it up.

1:11:32Somebody's going to pick it up. And, you know, they're going to look up. So he throws a $100 bill. The guy finds it on the floor, runs away, doesn't look up. He says, okay, you know, $100 is not enough. I need to get a few people to pick it up. He takes $500. He throws $500. $500 lands. Five people grab it, run away. Before anybody else notices that he took the money, they're not looking up. They're not looking up. They just pick it up and run away. He gets so mad. takes the entire $25,000 and he throws it into the air. Everything lands, and a bunch of people gather up like mice with cheese. They all take the money, no one looks up, and everyone runs away. Now he has no money, and he's still stuck on the same roof, dying. So he starts crying, and he's like, "I'm going to die on this roof. No one..." What am I going to do? What am I going to do? He's sitting down, crying, crying, crying. He looks to his right and he sees there's a bucket of small rocks. There's a bucket over there. He didn't see it before. So he's like, you know what? Maybe if I throw rocks. He takes one of the rocks and he throws it. It hits somebody in the head. The guy looks at him and starts yelling at him. He can't hear him. He's yelling at him. He's on top. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So he goes, you know what? He takes a handful of rocks and he throws that at him again just to make sure. It hits a few people, so obviously they're going to call the cops.

1:12:56The cops come, they open the roof, and he tells them the story. And they said, "Your story is so strange, there's no way you would have made it up." Fine, they take him home. So he gets home, and he can't believe what just happened. He lost the $25,000, but even more than that, he's like, "I don't understand. I threw $25,000 in the middle of the street, and no one looked up." Didn't anybody ever think where it's coming from? Why, it just appears in the middle of the street, $25,000. No one thought, oh, maybe somebody's throwing it. But as soon as I threw a small rock, everybody calls the cops. And that's when he realized it's the same thing for me. When I was making money, I didn't ask where it was coming from. I thought I was making it. But as soon as the guy stopped picking up the phone, and I started having some problems, and Masach Nasa coming to my house potentially in a few days, that's when I looked at Shamayim and said, "Hashem, why are You doing this to me? Why are You throwing rocks at me?" He said, "From now on, I have to find out what this Judaism stuff is. I heard about it. I have to find out." And he says, the day he did this, the day he said this, he got a fax from the guy from Romania. He got a fax from the guy from Romania, and he told him, "Call me, call me as soon as possible." He calls the guy,

1:14:13After cursing him for 20 minutes, the guy from Romania for not picking up the phone for over a year, the guy says to him, "Are you finished?" He goes, "Yes." He goes, "Okay, well the government is buying your land for like 30 million dollars." Not everyone has siyata dishmaya like this where they get instant results, but I guess he had a certain zechut. The point is that as soon as he recognized the source, the source gave him more. And that's some of the things that people don't understand. Some people say, "Listen, I don't have to worry about more parnassah. I'm already making money. I'm making 50,000 a month. I'm making 20,000 a month. I'm making 100,000 a month. Okay, and I don't keep any mitzvot." They don't realize that if they actually kept mitzvot, maybe they would make a million dollars a month. Maybe they would make a billion dollars. People don't know their full potential. And that's the problem. If we do what Hashem says... He will do what we want. Make His will into your will, and He will make your will into His will. And that's the key of what we want to learn here. Shabbat is the core of what makes you Jewish. Someone who doesn't understand how bad it is to violate Shabbat should just think about how bad it is to be an idol worshiper. It's the same thing in the Torah.

1:15:35As far as proofs, that's last week's shiur; we worked on a lot of them. The last thing I'm going to leave you with, the last thing I'm going to leave you with, is something to truly think about. This is something that people at home, because Baruch Hashem, everybody is modest here, but something to really think about. Hashem told us, through Chazal, that you can learn something from everything. Every one of His creations, you can learn one of His mitzvot. So I have here a picture, if anyone wants to come pick it up and pass it around, of some fruits. What can we possibly learn from a fruit? What can we learn from a fruit, right? It's tasty most of the time. What can we learn from a fruit, right? Now, if you want to see the most beautiful part of a fruit, you have to cut it in half, and you see the entire fruit, right? The outside of the fruit is the peel. Then you have the body of the fruit, right?

1:17:01and then you have the shell, and then you have the seeds. If you want to see all of it, you cut it in half and you see how beautiful it is, how beautiful the creation is, how perfect it is. But this is where we learn about what Hashem is expecting from a person, both a man and a woman. When you cut it in half, you see all parts of the human being. The peel is the clothing. The body of the fruit is the body, flesh. The shell that's protecting the seeds is the bones. And the seeds are the neshama. Now, what happens if you take an apple and you take a bite into it but then you leave it on the table? It turns black, right? Or brown. What is the apple trying to teach us?

1:18:03Apple's trying to teach us, Hashem brought me into this world to be, to have my clothes on. As soon as you took a bite into me, you showed my body to the rest of the world. I'm looking at Hashem, I'm very shy. I'm not supposed to show my body to the rest of the world. So it turns brown because it's shy. It turns brown because it's not supposed to show its skin to the rest of the world. Same thing with a human being. A human being is not supposed to make their skin public property. We're not supposed to go on a beach with our bikinis and with our bathing suits and walk around like the Goyim walk around. We're not supposed to be like the Greeks. The main thing we have to learn from this is that when we get to Shamayim, Hashem is going to ask us, "Are you better than a fruit? I made a fruit and I made you. Are you better than a fruit?" And you're going to say, "Yeah, of course, I have a brain." And Hashem says, "Okay, then how come the fruit was smart enough to be embarrassed when you took off its clothing, but you weren't?" And that's one of the things we have to learn, not only to teach ourselves, but to teach our children and our friends. Hashem hates zima. Hashem hates promiscuity, show-off, and that type of behavior. So we have three critical lessons for today. Baruch Hashem, hopefully we take something on ourselves and teach some people.

1:19:29But B'ezrat Hashem, unless you guys have any questions, B'ezrat Hashem, we will learn maybe one more time during Yom Kippur. But if you have any questions, I think this is probably the most important lesson that we can learn and take on right before Yom Kippur, Yom HaDin. Go, have time. Shalom. But to keep Shabbat is really very hard. Because I... What do you do on Shabbat? Sometimes it looks to me like the light. What's wrong with the light now? 3,000, 4,000 years is different. Okay. What happened? I drive a car to come to the shul. You're lighting a fire. So what? Hashem specifically says don't light a fire. That's what the Torah says, right?

1:20:40You have to be a very nice guy. You have to be... You have to help the people. Okay, so here's the thing. Okay, so let me answer your question. It's a very good question. I have an answer. I have an answer. Okay. So here's the thing. You're saying... I think something has to change. So here's the thing. As far as Shabbat... No, leave it alone. I'm still recording. Leave it alone. I'm still recording. It's a mesorah. It's a mesorah. As far as Shabbat, Hashem specifically says there are certain rules for Shabbat. There are 39 things we're not allowed to do, and you can do everything else. There are thousands of things you can do on Shabbat, but there are 39 things you're not allowed to do. So Hashem is saying, you're not doing them, not because of any other reason other than the fact that He told you so.

1:22:06That's it. That's the real reason. To keep any mitzvah is because He said so. So who are we to say to Hashem, "Who are You to tell us?" He's Hashem. He says don't light a fire; we don't light a fire. He's Hashem. If He wants, in a second, we don't have life. If He wants, in a second, we don't have parnassah. If He wants, in a second, a lot of things can change. So if He created everything for us, thank you. If He created everything for us, for us to do something for Him that's minuscule, like not turning on the car, not turning on the light, it's something small in comparison. That's why He takes it so personally when we don't do it. Because He's doing a billion things for us every second, every second that our body works. We need all of the cells to work. All the cells inside our body. I have to talk to him to change to God. So here's the second thing. The second thing that's even more, about the second thing you said about the nice person. Nice person. How do we know... But how do we know how... Like this. I think it's very, very number one, I think. But if you drive a car, I think there's nothing wrong with this.

1:23:15I think the time is they have to change something here. Okay, but here's the thing. The Torah has to stay the same because it's divine. It's not from a person, it's from God. So if it's from God, that means that when He gave it, it was perfect. No, we have the answers. We have the answers. Yes. You hear about this? Yeah, there's ways. Kosher Switch it's called. Kosher Switch. Kosher Switch. It's called Kosher Switch. Not because you're turning it on and off. It turns off by itself. Here's the thing. The most important thing is that we have to know is that we don't know what's nice, meaning... How do we know what's a good person? Hitler also thought he was a good person. Okay, Hashem wrote it in the book. Okay, so... Okay, so...

1:24:29So you do it from your heart. So you do it from your heart, not for something. For Switzerland, or the city. It doesn't make sense. I make everything for Hashem. Hashem watches me. And I believe in Him. And I love Him. But the problem, this is my sister, she can't talk to me about anything. Yes, and sometimes it's hard because it's your sister. It comes from the hardest place. It's like me telling my sister that it's harder than telling her. Crazy, crazy. You have to keep Shabbat, you have to keep Shabbat. This is the source of the Torah. You have to keep Shabbat. Rosh Hashanah, you know Rosh Hashanah, what is that? You have to go to the synagogue. This is better. Let's explain something to you. My sister, my sister, my sister, my sister, my sister.

1:25:39We didn't come here to have fun. We didn't come to the world to make manakot every day. We came to serve the world. Not to serve, but we have work. We came to the world. A man goes to work to have fun? No, to work. We came to this world to work. All these hardships are hardships because you think it's going to be hard. But in time, if you really appreciate the Shabbat and celebrate the Shabbat, it will be fun. I learned with you. I learned with you. But it's Shabbat. Until next time. Until next time. Until next time. The opposite. Because when you learn, you have it. I know I have it. Why are you afraid of it? It's hard for me today. But it's Yetzer Hara. She started asking about the Shabbat. It's Yetzer Hara. Exactly. It's Yetzer Hara. Why? I like to go out, I like to... But you can do it on Sunday. It's a pleasure to come here, to dress up, you see people. I would also do it on Sunday. What about, for example, not wearing undergarments? Why? Because you are attracting people. Even when I was in school, I would dress up as a girl in undergarments, and then I would wear undergarments. Good evening, friends. Thank you very much.