Shiur Torah #75 From Wall Street to Life Of Torah Shiur w/ Teenagers in Beverly Hills

0:00Again, thank you for having me. As I said, as the rabbi said, my name is Yaron Reuven. I'm a baal teshuva, and the world that I came from is a little bit different than most rabbis, because most rabbis, like Rav Povarsky, have had Judaism in their life for most of their life, and went to yeshiva, and learned for many, many years, and ultimately graduated and decided they wanted to become rabbis. My path was a little bit different. Hashem led me on a different path, where I thought that Hashem brought me to this world to be a multi-millionaire, Wall Street trader, investor, and businessman. So when we first moved to the United States from Israel, when I was 10 years old, you know, I was going to school, I worked really hard to go to school, but already at a young age, I started working, delivering newspapers. Then, in high school, I would sell clothes and candy and pretty much anything that I could possibly get my hands on, any job that I could do, to already wheel and deal, already make some money. My father always told us that you can make money in two ways: you can make it the legal way and the illegal way. The legal way will take you a lot longer to make money, but you will last a long time.

1:19illegal way, you make a lot of money really quick, but you won't last. So, we went the right way; we did the right thing. I worked all different types of jobs. I sold dresses, I sold computers, I built computers, I, you know, delivered newspapers as I told you. I worked in flea markets—all at the same time going to school, getting good grades, playing football, and uh... becoming one with the Americans, becoming one with the goyim. Not really thinking that there's anything different about me than them, even though I knew what Judaism was, and when I was a kid in Israel, we went to religious school. But again, when you're 10 years old, you don't really have your own opinion yet. You don't have your own true, full personality yet. I mean, even you guys are obviously much older than that, but at the same token, you guys are still teenagers, and you'll see that your personality... over the next year, every year is going to drastically develop. And over the next 10 years, it's going to develop to such an extreme that you're going to look back and say, wow, I was so different back then. And it's good. You develop over time. You get experience. But anyway, as a young kid, I focused on getting good grades in school, making money, and Hashem wasn't exactly a part of my equation.

2:43All my friends were, you know, either non-religious Jews or goyim, and I thought everybody was the same. To me, it didn't really make sense to treat anyone any differently or think that I'm any different. And, you know, you joke around about it when people tell you, you know, your parents will tell you, listen, only eat kosher. And you start forgetting why. So you go to McDonald's, and your friends go to McDonald's, and they tell you, "Listen, why don't you eat?" And you say, "No, no, I don't want to eat," because you're still scared of your parents. So you say, "No, I don't want to eat." And one of your friends tells you, "No, no, don't worry, I'll bless it for you." And everybody laughs, and it's all a nice joke and everything. But in reality, you don't really understand the full meaning of everything. And this is one of the mistakes that unfortunately happen very often today: when you don't have schooling, when you don't have proper teaching, it's very, very easy to get off the derech. It's very easy to fall off. It's very easy to get very distant from Hashem. And it's very easy to just fit in with the wrong crowd.

3:49So, long story short, I continued growing up, continued working, and then eventually I got a job on Wall Street. The first couple of years, I was working for other people, making them money, but then I started realizing that there's a way I could do it for myself. Little by little, I started working for a big company, but I started making money. And by the time I was... 21, I had already started developing my own clients. By the time I was 22, I had already become the biggest broker in the office. By the time I was 23, I was already a millionaire. By the time I was 24, I was a multi-millionaire. On a bad month, I would make $200,000, and that was just if I didn't work the whole month. Money just started pouring in. Young, rich, and... with pretty much a license to do whatever I want. And everything was legit. Everything was 100% legal. Everything was good. It was just working really non-stop. The way I figured it out is that most people are working 9 hours a day. They come to the office, or 8 hours a day. They come to the office, press a few buttons on their screen, and call a few clients.

5:11They do their basic job, but they've been doing it; they have experience, they've been doing it for 15, 20, 30 years. At the time, I was only doing it for a couple of years, so I can't know more than them purely by just being there. You know, by, you know, I can't find, by the time I'm there 15 years, they're here 30 years, so obviously I can't catch up. So the only thing I can do is work double what they work every day. So instead of working 8 hours a day, I'll work 16 or 18 hours a day. And little by little, that hard work started paying off. At the time, again, like I said, I had my own unique relationship with Hashem, so I thought it was really my effort. So I started making money and started making a lot of it, and I started getting to a point where all these old friends that I had came and I gave them jobs. And all the kids that went to college and got degrees at Harvard and Yale and all these fancy schools and paid $200,000 or $300,000 for school were all asking me for jobs.

6:12I went on TV, I was on CNBC, I was on Bloomberg, I was on some Chinese network, and young and, you know, mini-famous. At least on Wall Street, I wasn't one of these actors or anything, but, you know, as far as in my own way, in Wall Street type of fame, which was very, very unusual because most people that have that type of fame are either multi-billionaires, not millionaires, or they work for a really, really big company. I had my own place. And that was one of the things that people I hadn't seen since high school couldn't believe when they would see me or hear about me. They'd be like, "Wait a minute, this is him? He has it? Really? Are you sure? Maybe his father gave it to him?" And then they’d find out my father's in the dining business, which has nothing to do with it. I just made it my own way. Long story short, after living that life for a little while and having fun and realizing that... money doesn't really mean that much. It's nice to have because it answers, you know, it helps you fix problems, but it doesn't actually make you happy. Money does not buy you happiness. Now, most people that say money doesn't buy you happiness, or money is the root of all evil, or money is bad, or money is the yetzer hara, and all of that stuff, most people that say that usually never had money. I did. I did.

7:40and I'm telling you that it's really not all it's cracked up to be. As a matter of fact, most of the things that money gives you are problems because most people don't know how to use it. It's good to be ambitious; it's good to have a drive to go make a lot and so on. But unfortunately, sometimes people lose themselves. They start a little business. A couple of young guys start a business. They're 18 years old. They want to start selling pants. They want to start selling some technology. They want to start selling an app. And, you know, both guys don't have much. They're all entrepreneurs. In the beginning, they're best friends. Because HaKadosh Baruch Hu would have it. they strike it rich, they start making some real money, and all of a sudden they're not such good friends. All of a sudden, their interests are not the same. All of a sudden, the things they used to have in common, they no longer have in common. And the friends they choose are different from the friends they used to choose. That's what money does. It's not necessarily that the people started bad,

9:08is that when you have money, then you have this generation's version of avodah zarah. As I'm sure you all have heard, one of the reasons that the Beit HaMikdash was destroyed, the primary reason of the first Beit HaMikdash, was because of avodah zarah. Now it's hard for us to understand today, how could... holy people that go to the Beit HaMikdash, in essence, see Hashem's work every day. You're seeing miracles 24 hours a day, and you know it's Hashem's miracles. You see that there's a pillar of smoke that, even if there's a tornado, the pillar of smoke doesn't move. You're seeing fire from Shamayim come down. You're seeing things that are completely unnatural every day, all day. But yet, you choose to go get a little statue from Chinatown for $25 and pray to it? That doesn't make any sense to us. It's not logical. First of all, we need to know that it's not really the same thing. It's not exactly what I said. The statue was not exactly the same statue that you buy for $25. It was at least $60. The real reason, the thing is, is that Hashem actually gave those statues powers, where the statues were actually able, in some cases, to speak.

10:29In other cases, those statues were actually able to do things, actually make people healthy, or make people get what they want. He actually gave them powers. So the avodah zarah of that generation is very different than what we think of as far as when we see an idol. But the sages and the tzaddikim prayed really hard to Hashem to lower the power of avodah zarah, because without it, there's no way for them to do teshuva, and Hashem answered their prayers. but He replaced it with something else, and our generation is the one that's dealing with it. Ever since we've been dealing with it, and it's called money. If you ever notice, I'm sure all of you have seen a dollar bill in your life. If you ever notice, on a dollar bill, which is the most common currency in the world—all countries in the world use the dollar bill—on the bottom of the dollar bill, it says "In God we trust." Now, America is not exactly the most religious country. Usually, poor countries are religious. Rich countries are not religious. Usually, poor people are religious, not rich people. It just happens that way. People that are rich think they made the money. People that are poor need the money, so they pray to Hashem. Now, it says "In God we trust," but unfortunately, most people think that the God they're talking about on the dollar bill is the bill.

11:55they trusted the money. If you notice, people that have a lot of money, they have a lot of confidence too. They think that they can yell at people and mistreat them and do things that if they didn't have money, they wouldn't do. The day before the guy won the lottery, the day before the guy came out with an app that sold 5 million, the day before the guy invented some cool thing, he was the nicest guy in the world. The day after, he's on TV, he's a multi-millionaire. All of a sudden, he doesn't want to talk to his friends anymore. They're not good enough for him. All of a sudden, his family is annoying and embarrassing to him. All of a sudden, things change. Why? Because the idol worship of this generation, again, is money. So the first thing that my whole story taught me is that I started realizing that even before doing Teshuvah, I started realizing that If you ever want to meet someone, if you ever really want to meet someone and know who they really are, not who they pretend to be, who they really are, you put a lot of money in front of them. Someone that doesn't have any money is usually going to be nice, unless they're just a bitter person. But in general, most people who don't have money are usually going to be nice. Why? Because they need something. If you have money and they need it, they're usually going to be nice to you.

13:13But if you put a lot of money in front of them, if you give them an opportunity to make a lot of money, then you see who they turn out to be. And that's who they really are. Once someone doesn't need you, then they can act freely and show who they really are and tell you what they really feel. And I started seeing it with the people that worked for me. Before they came to me, they didn't have any money, and then... Some time passed and I started making some money, and all of a sudden, they weren't as nice. And all of a sudden, they weren't as sweet. And all of a sudden, they weren't anything near what they used to be. And that wasn't one or two or three people, that was pretty much everyone around me. So I started realizing that, you know what, this money thing is kind of sickening. But I liked making it more than I liked having it. Most of the money that I had during my career, I either invested into my business or I gave it to people. Donated some money, helped family, helped friends. I wasn't one of those guys that bought Ferraris and choppers. Even though I could buy a lot of things, it wasn't my thing. I just liked making it. I liked to race. I was like one of those people that just likes to, you know, race someone just because I want to see if I could win, not necessarily because I care that I'm going to win a gold medal. That was just my personality. It's always been that way.

14:33But the point of the story is that if you have the personality, the know-how, and perhaps even the desire to chase money in your life, the first thing that you should learn from this story is that you should check yourself on a regular basis. What I would do for myself is I would write myself a letter every year. Every year, I write myself a letter of where I am and what I like. And after that year is over, I check what I used to like. How I used to behave. Because the people around you are not always going to be the best thing for you. Some of them are going to lie to you just because they want something from you, especially if you're successful. So you have to be your own best judge. Your only judge, really, other than Hashem. Moving on with the story... As Hashem would have it, Hashem didn't bring me into this world to make money. I thought He did. I thought that He gave me the gift of gab. I was able to speak. I was able to think quickly, figure things out that other people can't figure out. Some people were crazy enough to call me smart. All of a sudden, I'm thinking that, alright, so this is my job. Bill Gates should start getting worried because I'm going to make more money than him one day. That was my mentality.

16:00But Hashem had a different plan. Hashem said, listen, I'm going to send you to train, to build a personality, to develop some skills, but I don't really want you to do that. I want you to do something else. Obviously, He didn't tell me this. He didn't send me a text or anything to let me know. So I was going with my own path and keeping nothing and thinking that, okay, since I'm not eating McDonald's, I'm keeping kosher. Not realizing that when I eat pizza at the non-kosher place, it's not only that it's non-kosher cheese, it's actually eating cheese and meat at the same time. For anyone who doesn't know, in New York there's a lot of pizzerias. I'm sure there's some in California, but I'm not really familiar with the area. But in New York there's a pizzeria in pretty much every single corner. And obviously 99% of them are not kosher. And you go to different pizzerias and everybody's pizza tastes different. I'm keeping kosher, not realizing that when I eat pizza at the non-kosher place, it's not only that it's non-kosher cheese, it's actually eating cheese and meat at the same time. For anyone who doesn't know, in New York, there are a lot of pizzerias. I'm sure there are some in California, but I'm not really familiar with the area. But in New York, there's a pizzeria on pretty much every single corner. And obviously, 99% of them are not kosher. And you go to different pizzerias and everybody's pizza tastes different. They all use the same exact ingredients: cheese, bread, and sauce. The basic three ingredients of all pizzas in the world are those three things. Some people add things, but overall, that's the basic foundation of pizza. But somehow the pizza tastes different. So there's two reasons for that. One, the sauce; the reason why the sauce tastes different is because it depends on what kind of meat is in the sauce.

17:22So, even though we think that we're eating a meatless pizza, that sauce is usually cooked with meat because the fat of an animal gives flavor. The second reason is because cheese has different meat products in it. So if you ever go to the supermarket and you see, look, the kosher aisle has three or four or five different cheeses. Non-kosher, 150. What? Jewish people forgot how to make cheese. Israel has the best chalav in the world. How could it be? It's because the ingredients that the goyim use are not acceptable. They use different things, different parts of animals that come from the stomach of either pigs or other animals to make the cheese because it creates flavor. So when we eat a non-kosher pizza, it's not about just being upset, oh, maybe I didn't eat... non-kosher cheese. You're actually violating the prohibition of mixing milk and meat. You're actually eating milk and meat when you eat non-kosher pizza. Now, obviously, I didn't know this until I became religious. I didn't know that cheese—why would you ever look into it? Why would you ever care about it? When you don't care about Hashem, you just care about your own stomach. You care about satisfying your hunger; you care about getting a pizza at 3 o'clock in the morning after you got out of the club. You don't care about Hashem. You care about eating pizza.

18:49After you care about Hashem, you realize that all that pizza you ate violated a sin that even you, when you weren't religious, weren't willing to violate. As I continued with this business path, Hashem continued trying to show me different signs that He exists. i was a very stubborn person, a very rational person. For me, you can't give me stories. You can't give me mystical stories of how this happened and this guy came back from the dead or this one, you know, I saw an angel. At the time, none of that stuff made sense to me. For me, I'm a mathematical person. I need proof. I need scientific evidence that whatever you're saying is right or whatever you're saying is wrong. So, when I would go to rabbis and ask them questions about science, I assumed that all rabbis were all-knowing. I assumed that all rabbis knew everything. If you're a rabbi, that means you know everything. What I didn't know is that different rabbis study different parts of the Torah. No one knows everything. For example, most of what I study is, you know, things that are relating to science. Scientific proofs of Hashem.

20:04Most rabbis that go through traditional yeshivas never even look at this stuff. Because it's just not part of the regimen that most people look into. Some do. But again, I assumed as a young ignorant person, that if I ask a rabbi a question, he should know all the answers. So when I would ask a rabbi about dinosaurs, and he would give me some ridiculous answer like, no, they didn't exist. So I'd say, okay, so Judaism is nonsense. There are bones in a museum. How could you tell me dinosaurs didn't exist? What are you telling me, the archaeologists made up all those bones? So then I go to another rabbi, and the rabbi tells me, no, no, they do exist, they did exist, and they're actually in the Torah. And I ask him, where is it? And he says, oh, it's Taninim HaGdolim, in Bereishit, in the first page of the Torah, something called Taninim HaGdolim. What's Taninim HaGdolim? It's giant reptiles. What's a dinosaur? Reptile. So it's in the Torah. Just that this second rabbi knew, the first rabbi didn't. But for me, that was a bigger problem than not getting an answer at all. Why? Because that means that either one of them is lying, or neither one of them knows what they're talking about. Because again,

21:30I'm not looking for proofs. I'm not looking to become religious. I'm just looking to prove it's wrong. Because if the religion is right, if the Torah is right, if Hashem is right, I have to do something about it. It obligates me. If Hashem really created the world in six days, that means He also created Shabbat. That means I can't go to the casino on Shabbat. That means that I can't drive the car on Shabbat. That means that I can't eat whatever I want. That means that I can't go out with goyot. That means that a lot of things change. I don't want to prove it right. I want to prove it wrong. So the fact that one of them told me that dinosaurs didn't exist carried more weight with me than the guy that told me, listen, it's taninim ha'gedolim, which is obviously the right answer. There's more to it, but we're going to try to go through a lot of different things. So, I was a very stubborn person. When I would ask people questions, they wouldn't know, or they'd give me answers that didn't make sense to me, and I would continuously justify continuing on my path. So, Hashem decided that, okay, you're not going to go and become religious the traditional way. So,

22:53I'll make you religious the most popular way. In our generation, the most popular way of becoming religious. Does anybody know what it is? People are not religious and all of a sudden become religious. What's the most popular way? Think about it for a second. Not that many people have it. A lot more people are becoming religious than the people that are having out-of-body experiences. So why are most people doing teshuva? Yeah, it's proof. But why do they care? When do people look for Hashem? When there are good times or bad times? That's the most popular way. Problems. People have problems; they become religious. A rich person, like we said before, doesn't look at Shamayim and say thank you. A rich person usually looks in the mirror and says thank you. A poor person cries to Hashem, saying please help me. He can't look in the mirror; he can't even afford the mirror.

23:53Looking for help, so Hashem started sending me problems. The young millionaire starts getting problems all of a sudden. Everything that I used to touch would turn to gold, but now everything that I touch is turning into ashes. All the deals that seemed like they were the best deals in the world start going bad. Problems. I'm still not listening; I'm still not changing. More problems. More money lost. Friends turned to enemies. I'm still not listening. I'm still not looking up. Which reminds me of a story. A famous story. It happened about 20 years ago or so, in Tel Aviv. There was a guy that made about 3 million dollars, which at the time in Israel was considered a lot of money. And he wasn't religious. And why do you want to invest this money? You know, when you have money, you need to make the money go to work. So it works for you and you make more money. Just as the Gemara says, you give someone 100, he wants 200. You give him 200, he wants 400. It never ends. Which means that the desire of the rich is much higher than the desire of the poor, meaning the guy that's poor, the guy that doesn't have that much, middle-class guy, makes $50,000, $60,000 a year, all he really wants is $50,000, $60,000. He has what he has, that's it. The guy that has $10,000,000, for him it's not going to be enough until he gets another $10,000,000. Which means that he feels, technically, it doesn't make sense, but it is a real way, he actually feels poorer than the guy that has $50,000, because he needs more.

25:09is much higher than the desire of the poor, meaning the guy that's poor, the guy that doesn't have that much, middle-class guy, makes $50,000, $60,000 a year, all he really wants is $50,000, $60,000. He has what he has, that's it. The guy that has $10,000,000, for him it's not going to be enough until he gets another $10,000,000. Which means that he feels, technically, it doesn't make sense, but in a real way, he actually feels poorer than the guy that has $50,000, because he needs more. So the guy invests, you know, he's looking for an investment of $3 million, and he goes into this real estate office, and they tell him, "Listen, we're building these two big towers, and if you want, with $3 million, you can buy the 17th floor." He looks at the project and goes, "Nah, not for me. I need something else, more interesting." He calls around, and one day he gets in touch with an old friend of his from school

26:15who lives in Romania, and tells him, "Listen, I have a thing for you. If you have money, I have a thing for you." "What do you have?" "You have a big lot of land in Romania, and it costs just about $3 million, and I promise you the government's going to buy it. I have a feeling the government's going to buy it. They're going to pay you a lot of money for it." "Why wouldn't he sell it? Why? If he has it, why wouldn't he sell it to the government?" "No, he's not. He's just a broker, meaning he's connecting the seller and the buyer." So, the guy agrees, he buys, he invests all of his liquid money into this land, and he's expecting that the government is going to buy the land from him any day now. One month passes, two months pass, three months, four months, five months, a year, a year and a half, nothing happens. Now, he doesn't have a business anymore like he used to have. He sold everything, which means the money is not coming in anymore. But the bills are still just as high.

27:15He starts borrowing money from people, saying, "Listen, I'm eventually going to sell this land and I'm going to pay you back." But more time passes, and he hasn't sold the land, and the broker is not answering the phone anymore. This is a problem. He gets a letter in the mail from the IRS in Israel saying that they have double-checked his taxes and confirmed that he owes $17,000, and... and in Israel, it's different than in America. In America, if you don't pay your taxes, they just send you more letters. And you don't pay your taxes, and they send you more letters. And, you know, eventually, if you continue to ignore them, you can get in trouble. But it takes a while. And even after you get in trouble, you get a lawyer. If you have enough money, you get away with it. The IRS in America is strong, but, you know, if you're smart, you don't mess with them. But nonetheless, they're civil. In Israel, it's very different. In Israel, if you owe money to the government, they come to your house and take your stuff. They come to your house and start taking your television, your carpet, and your furniture. This happens every day. They just come and take your stuff. If you don't pay your water bill, they come and take stuff that's worth as much as the water bill.

28:38It doesn't matter that they evaluate it themselves. So the water bill may be, let's say, $500. They're going to take $5,000 worth of stuff because they say, no, no, maybe you underpaid. It's $500, and they start taking your stuff. Unless you come up with the money, you're not getting your stuff back. Very different from the IRS over there. So this guy, when he got this letter for $17,000, he got pretty scared. So what do you do when you're scared and you need money? You go to borrow money. But none of the people that he knows are going to lend him any more money because he already borrowed from them. He can't pay them back. He wasn't getting rent from the property? No, it was just land. Oh, just land. It was just land that he was going to sell to the government. And eventually, they were going to build on it. And the broker now is not even answering the calls. So... He finds out from someone he knows that there's a company in Tel Aviv that lends something called "hard money." Hard money is like money with high interest. Where is it? It's in the so-called building on the 17th floor. Where is it? It's exactly the place that he was supposed to buy a couple of years ago with the $3 million.

29:55So he goes to the 17th floor and he's looking around and he's like, I should have owned all of this. All of these people should be paying me rent. He goes there. He borrows $25,000. He leaves the office, but he looks around and he's very upset. He says, you know, instead of owning this entire floor and getting rent from all these nice companies, I own this waste of land that's not paying me anything. I lost all my money. You know, at least while I'm here, let me see, let me look around the building. Let's go on the roof. Because the 17th floor is the top floor, one of the highest floors. So he goes on the roof. He's looking, he's wondering what's happening, why all this happened. After he cries for a little bit, he says, okay, let's leave. But he didn't realize that the building was still not complete. So the roof door was only able to be opened from the inside. You couldn't open it from the outside. So now he's stuck on the roof in the middle of the summer in Tel Aviv. Not fun. So he starts screaming and yelling, but nobody can hear him. He's on the roof. So he says, you know what? I have an idea. If I take $100 out of this $25,000 and throw it on the floor, somebody's going to pick it up. They're going to look up.

31:21So he throws $100. Somebody sees the $100, puts it in their pocket, and runs. Nobody looks up. $100 is not enough. Let me get a few more people. He takes $500. He's going to die here. He can't stay on the roof. It's too hot. He takes $500 and throws it. The same thing happens. One guy, two guys, three guys, four guys. That's it. They got the $500. No one looked up. He is still stuck on the roof. At that point, he got so annoyed and so... upset, he took the entire rest of the $25,000 and just threw it in the air. And that's, by the way, anger according to the Gemara, is the equivalent of Avodah Zarah. It's the equivalent of worshipping an idol. One of the reasons is because when we get angry, we completely lose sense of all reality. So, what is he supposed to do? We'll see what the rest of the story is. Since it's a real story, I can tell you what happened. So now he sends the $25,000 into the air, hoping that at least someone is going to look up. The $25,000 lands. The $25,000 gets picked up. Not one person looks up. Everyone leaves. Now he doesn't have the money, and he also doesn't have that much more time because he's going to burn up on this roof. And

32:53A few more hours pass. He's crying himself. He doesn't know what to do. And he looks. He tries to break the door. He can't. It's a metal door. He tries to break the door. Huh? No, this is before cell phones became very popular. When you're on that high of a floor in Tel Aviv, There's enough screaming downstairs. But even if you were downstairs screaming, they wouldn't hear you. So of course, they can't hear you from 20 floors up. So he's sitting over there, doesn't know what to do. And all of a sudden, he looks to the right, and he sees a bucket. A bucket of what's called in Hebrew, chatzatzim. Chatzatzim are these little rocks that you make cement out of. He didn't see it before. Maybe I can use this. He takes one of these small little rocks and throws it down. It hits somebody on the head. The guy immediately looks up and starts yelling at him, but he can't hear him and he can't hear him. But he's like, great, somebody saw me. He's like, I can't lose this guy. I want to make sure this guy definitely calls the cops or does something. So he takes a whole handful of the rocks and throws them at him. The guy obviously immediately hits other people, and immediately they call the cops. The cops come up, and they take him out.

34:20and he tells them the story. He's like, "Listen, this is what happened to me." And they said, "Your story is so strange, there's no way you could have made it up." They let him go. They even give him a ride home. And throughout the whole ride home, he's asking himself this one question: "Why is it that when I threw the money on the floor, nobody looked up? But as soon as I threw the smallest, tiniest little rock, not only did they look up," yelling, screaming. And then he realized, you have an answer? Yeah, I think, can I give an example? I think it's like, God gives you all these blessings, and you don't even realize them. You're not thankful. But then when God does one thing, and you get upset, you get so mad. Exactly. This is exactly what he figured out. He says, when God gave me all this money, I didn't really think about anything about it. I thought He was supposed to give it to me. I didn't even know much about Him. I didn't look up. I thought that I was making the money. But as soon as I had problems, I got mad at God. As soon as bad things came, I looked up. I blamed Him. I have to change it. And he decided at that moment that he's going to do teshuva. Now teshuva takes time, but the decision is one second. about anything about it. I thought He was supposed to give it to me. I didn't even know much about Him. I didn't look up. I thought that I was making the money. But as soon as I had problems, I got mad at G-d. As soon as bad things came, I looked up. I blamed Him. I have to change it. And he decided at that moment that he's going to do teshuva. Now teshuva takes time, but the decision is one second.

35:44It takes time to learn what you need to do, how to do it, who to call, where to go. All these things take time. And even to get to a point where you can even do it, it takes time to build yourself up. To learn, you know, Torah takes time. But it requires work every day. But the decision to go in the right path, the second. At that second, he decided to do Teshuvah, and he decided that he's going to find out about what this thing is called Hashem. And as he says, the story is that when he got home, he had bad news to tell his wife, and he was so upset with himself and how he used to behave. Now, even the money that he borrowed he doesn't have, and the IRS of Israel is going to come any day and take their stuff. They even took the green laser that he had. They took that from him also. I used to be a kid too.

36:50So now, he's sitting in his office in his house, and all of a sudden he gets a fax, so this dates the story, you now realize how old the story is, people don't really use faxes anymore. He gets a fax: "Call me right away, I have good news." Who is it from? It's from this broker that hasn't answered the phone in almost a year. He calls the broker, the broker answers the phone. The guy, you know, immediately doesn't even let the broker talk; he's immediately yelling at him. Why didn't you answer the phone? It's home phones. They're home phones. They didn't have lasers, though. They didn't have lasers. So, he calls him. He yells at him for about a good 20 minutes. The broker says, are you finished? He goes, okay, now I'm finished. He goes, okay, the good news is the government wants to buy your land for $30 million. Wow.

37:52And this person continued with the promise that he made that very day, with complete teshuva, gave a lot of tzedakah, and spent the rest of his life learning Torah. From 3 million to 30 million? When governments want something, it doesn't matter how much money they're going to pay for it, because it's other people's money anyway. Governments don't actually work; they just collect or print. So, The guy realized the truth, he woke up, he got the test. I, on the other hand, didn't have the same type of test. I got the rocks thrown at me, but I just yelled at God, never actually thought I should yell at myself. So my tests continued to become more and more difficult. In 2006, I was perfectly healthy. I just... I had my biggest year where one month, in May of 2006, I made 1.6 million dollars. So, I decided to take a month vacation. And my vacation wasn't in yeshiva. My vacation was to a place where no one on earth should ever go, like Las Vegas. I played the World Series of Poker and did all types of shetiyot, all types of nonsense.

39:17I figured I had money. I just made a lot of money. And for the year, I think I made maybe like $5 million. Why not? Why not? Everything was great. I came back from the vacation. Business was great. In Vegas? On that vacation, I think I broke even. Overall, sometimes I won, sometimes I lost. I used to play high-stakes poker. I was a good player, but the most important part of my poker stories is the fact that it's a giant sin to do it, and it's considered gezel. Gezel means theft. When you win money with poker, it's considered like you stole the money from the other person. Why? Because you didn't earn the money in a legitimate way. But we're not allowed to go for fun sometimes. It's not permitted. Not allowed to go to a casino. Ever. You can't play blackjack at a casino. Not allowed to gamble. In Judaism, according to the Torah, you're not allowed to gamble. But I heard it's not for, if it's your job, if you're doing it for work, you're not allowed, but for fun, you're allowed to go. Opposite. No, it's not allowed to go to a casino. But if there's no money involved, it's just for fun. If it's just for fun, then it's just a game. It's the same thing as Monopoly. But if you're playing with actual money...

40:40It's a giant sin. And going to a casino by itself as a Jew is considered Chilul Hashem. Because the people that are not religious, like I used to be, are looking for excuses not to be religious. So when they see a really religious person with black and white and a beard, like I used to see, unfortunately, playing at the same poker table that I'm playing at, I'm like, yeah, see? All religion is nonsense. I'm blaming the whole religion, not this guy that's making a sin. I'm thinking that this guy, this one little guy, represents the entire Judaism, like he's Moshe Rabbeinu. In reality, he's just making a sin; he's just one guy. Unfortunately, it's a very big sin. It's considered Chilul Hashem. And Chilul Hashem is something you can't fix in this world until you die. It's not something you want to do. Why is gambling not allowed? It depends on how you invest in the stock market. If you're investing in the stock market where you are buying without any research whatsoever, you're just picking any symbol, and you're buying it, and moments later you're selling it, without any rhyme or reason for what you're doing, then yes, you're 100% gambling. But if you're buying the company, you're buying the stock of a company, after you've researched the company, you understand the business, and in essence, what you're doing is that you're investing in their business. You want to own a piece of their business. Obviously, you can't own the entire business of General Motors or Microsoft or Google. You want to own a piece of their future. That's not gambling. That's just like investing in any other business, just that you're buying a small piece.

41:53without any rhyme or reason for what you're doing, then yes, you're 100% gambling. But if you're buying the company, you're buying the stock of a company, after you've researched the company, you understand the business, and in essence, what you're doing is that you're investing in their business. You want to own a piece of their business. Obviously, you can't own the entire business of General Motors or Microsoft or Google. You want to own a piece of their future. That's not gambling. That's just like investing in any other business, just that you're buying a small piece. Gambling is pure statistics. It's pure chance. It's pure luck. Now, when you're betting against the house, you're betting against the casino, then you're disrespecting the Parnassah that Hashem gave you. And in essence, instead of using the money that He gave you as a tool to give tzedakah, you're using it for things that are bad. The second thing is, as far as when you're betting against, so people would say, okay, you know, so I'm not betting against the house. Hashem specifically states, we're not allowed to gamble. But what about when I play against my friends? Not in a casino, but I play in my house, right? I'm not in a casino, so it's not Chilul Hashem. You can't take money from your friends, ever. Even from your enemy, you can't take money.

43:06They're giving you the money with a heavy heart. They don't want to give it to you. Right. You're causing another person sorrow. Which means that even if you're playing a house game and each guy puts 50 bucks on the table, and at the end, the guy that wins the Texas Hold'em tournament gets all of the money, it's considered like you stole the money from each one of them. And just so you know, for stealing, there's a very, very deep punishment. I'm not going to go into all of the details of it, but in essence, what it means is that somebody that stole money... If they don't do teshuva during their lifetime, they have to come back to this world. They have to go into a gilgul. They have to reincarnate. They cannot go into Gehinnom being a thief. No thief is allowed in Gan Eden. So if you were going to bet on a Super Bowl, like I was going to, but I didn't. Good. You didn't get it. It's not a sin. The first time, you're about to make a sin, but you don't. Hashem doesn't count it as a sin. The second time, you're about to make it. And, in essence, you try to do it, but it just doesn't succeed. It is considered a sin. But, the beauty of this world and the beauty of Hashem's mercy is that you can do teshuva. You realize, "Okay, Hashem, I didn't know that this is such a big sin." Pray to Hashem, and Hashem loves you even more for it. Isn't auctioning, like, you know how we auction, like, berachot and stuff? You're selling something. It's not gambling. Gambling is, in essence, you're putting money at risk.

44:34You're putting money at risk without any rhyme or reason other than desire. There's really no rhyme or reason why you're doing it because the statistics are against you. When you're investing in a business, more often than not, you're going to make money because the business does something. When you're investing in a stock, it's the same thing. When you're investing in a product, you're getting something in return. And more often than not, you're going to succeed in this investment. When you're investing in a casino, when you're doing something with a casino, the statistics are so far against you that only a small 3 or 4% of all gamblers in history have ever been successful. Is it true that you're not allowed to invest in a company that works on Shabbat? That sells on Shabbat? It depends. It depends if the company is only owned by Jews and they are specifically operating

45:35on Shabbat, then it can become a problem. But in reality, in the world we live in today, no public company is only owned by Jews. It's owned by a diverse group of people. To limit investments to companies that don't work on Shabbat would pretty much make the entire stock market unavailable to all Jews, which is not feasible. So, for better or for worse... It's allowed to invest in companies that work on Shabbat, but the way that they justify it based on halacha is that the goyim are the ones that are working on Shabbat and not the Jews, even though that may or may not be the case. So you said that we can't blindly invest in stocks, but if we study them, research about that specific stock, we can invest in it. So I understand that you can't blindly go sit at a blackjack table and play. Study the game and count cards. Yeah, exactly. Counting cards because you're cheating. It's not the rules of the game. So that's already an additional sin you added to the list. Counting cards, you're cheating. If the casino knew that you're counting cards, they wouldn't let you play, right? So it's considered cheating. So now you just added another sin. So the way to win is to cheat. Now...

46:58Okay, so that's why I said, any table games, roulette table, all that stuff, you can throw it in the garbage; there's no chance in the world you could ever justify it. The one thing that people thought they could justify is playing against people, playing poker. Because they're not playing against the house. But like I told you, anytime you win with poker, it's considered like you stole the money from the other person. What if it's going on the table? I don't have to steal from goyim. It's even worse. What if they don't know you're Jewish? You're not wearing a kippah, you're just there with a hat or whatever. If they don't know that you're Jewish, okay, you're still stealing from them. So it's not Chilul Hashem, but you're stealing from them. How about a lotto ticket? According to Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, you're allowed to buy one lotto ticket, the minimum amount. One dollar. And how often? A year? No, if there's a lotto, you buy a lotto. It's considered an insignificant amount of money for you or anyone. So it's considered $1. I think they even capped it at $2 because there's one ticket that's $2. But you can't buy any of these cards that are $5 and $10. And now people get these addictions where they buy these cards and spend $100 a day on these crazy cards. You can't do any of that stuff. You can buy a single lotto ticket because it's considered that even if you lost the money, it wouldn't necessarily change anything. But again, you have to be very, very careful with gambling because it's not worth it. To...

48:24The stuff that I used to do, again, I did it based on lack of knowledge. So, making mistakes when you have no idea that you're making mistakes is very easy. But Hashem decided that, okay, it's time to wake him up. And since he's not waking up by losing money, he's not waking up by making all these mistakes in the business. I have to wake him up by giving him the biggest thing. So, on November 18th, 2006, I went to have a simple surgery that was supposed to take a couple of hours and send me home. Not one of those hard surgeries where I'm supposed to be there for months or anything. Simple surgery. The same level of surgery as if, let's say, for example, you went to fix your eyes. I had also done one, I think, in the early 2000s. You go there, they do the laser surgery on your eyes. You know, it's maybe a few minutes and they send you home. A little more than that, but not quite a serious surgery, so I went to have an elective surgery. The doctor told me that before the surgery, I'll be uncomfortable for a few days, but I'll be back to work on Monday. I said, okay, taking off a couple days of work is not...

49:44I went to the surgery, and I woke up out of the surgery screaming my lungs out because something went wrong with the surgery. They cut something; they did something; they did something that cut some type of nerve, and they had no clue that they did it. Nerves can't be fixed. So, my screaming couldn't be fixed. They gave me enough drugs to kill a person. This eventually calmed me down after a couple of hours, and I foolishly thought that it was over. So, as I was supposed to, I went home. I went home not thinking anything of it. I had a sandwich of shawarma, and I told everybody goodnight. I woke up 45 minutes later, screaming even worse than what I did at the hospital. screaming even worse than what I did at the hospital. Only this time, I didn't have all the drugs they have in the hospital. And I didn't stop screaming for 62 days. For 62 days, the most amount of consecutive sleep that I was able to get was 15 minutes. Now, when you can't sleep, your body starts failing. Your body stops functioning.

51:12so you start dying. So I'd start bleeding from my eyes and ears. What did you get surgery for? Something that's completely unrelated to anything that I'm going to tell you after. It was an elective surgery. It was a hemorrhoid surgery. Hemorrhoid surgery is something that 66% of the population have. So how did they mess up on your surgery? Hashem made it happen. I just thought they did. Hashem had to wake me up, is the point of the story. What nerve did they hit? No one knows to this day. Since I had a lot of money, over the next seven years, I spent everything that I could going to over 50 doctors trying to diagnose what happened. Because the problem was no longer what I had before the surgery, the hemorrhoids. The hemorrhoids were not a problem at all. The problem was that the rest of my body stopped functioning, where from the neck all the way to the bottom of my feet would hurt 24 hours a day.

52:14Things that are completely not related to the surgery. So one day, I wake up and my legs have doubled in size, and I can't walk. Another day, my legs start hurting to the point where I can't function. The next day, my arms. The next day, my chest. The next day... And eventually, it just gets to the point where it's 24 hours a day, full-body pain, where the only way that I can function, operate, or even have a conversation is if I have enough painkillers to kill people in my body. And that's what I did. That's what I continued trying to survive for the next seven years. So when people ask you, does Judaism talk about Gan Eden and Gehinnom? The answer is yes. But there are two types of Gehinnom. Gan Eden, we don't really have that many details about it because we can't fathom what good really is. We don't really know what good is because everything we think is good is what the Yetzer Hara told us is good, and in reality, it's bad. We think women and a new girlfriend every day is good. That's bad. We think money is good. As I told you, money leads most of the time to bad. It's necessary, but it leads more to bad than good.

53:37We think that cars are great. In reality, a Toyota Prius and a Ferrari will still get you from one point to the next point, only that the Ferrari will get you there with a bunch of sins because of all the ga'avah you're going to have on the way. What's ga'avah? Ego. Most of the things we think are good are actually bad. So, Gan Eden, we don't really have a concept of what it is. The Torah doesn't talk that much about it. Gehenom it does. Why? Because we do have a concept of what bad is. We know what suffering is, but not like what Gehenom really is. We have a concept of suffering. People have lost people that they love. People have had broken hearts. People have had all types of difficulties and pain. People know, even a kid your age knows what suffering is. Even when you were 10 years old, you knew what suffering is to some extent. Obviously, as you grow up, you really realize more and more. So we have a concept of what suffering is. But there's two types of Gehenom: the one I saw and the one I learned about. The one I learned about in the Gemara and a few other places...

54:48We're not going to talk about today. The one that I lived is the point of the whole story. The one I lived, as bad as it was, living in 24 hours a day in pain and then having all of the money that I made, millions and millions of dollars, disappear into thin air, either through bad investments or people stealing from me. or friends taking it, everything that could go wrong, going wrong. Everything going wrong. Spending every moment that I can trying to figure out why I should even live for tomorrow, and being in depression, and just dealing with these problems, all of that bad was my version of Gehinnom in this world.

55:49Because when you have pain, people don't know it unless they look at you because you can't see pain. Pain is not necessarily indicated by blood. Sometimes you have pain, and there's no blood. So people would look at me, and I look like a young kid, not that much older than most of you guys, and I look perfectly normal. The only difference is that to go from here until, let's say, the corner of this room... which to a normal person will take, I don't know, maybe six or seven seconds. For me, it would take somewhere in the neighborhood of 35 minutes. And the whole way I'm screaming. Just to move. Did you lose your voice? Did I lose my voice? Yeah, like you're screaming, like you said, for like six minutes. Eventually, you learn how to scream internally because you don't want everybody to run away from you. But you're in pain a lot of the time, and it sucks. So, living in pain 24 hours a day is not fun. And you get to the point where you don't want to live anymore. And then you lose the one thing that you thought you had, which was money. And you start losing that too. And then you lose the business. And then the guys you thought were your friends, they turn into enemies.

57:07because people are vultures. In the real world, people are not really your friends, because, like I told you, when you put money in front of someone, they mutate into the golem that they really are. And all of a sudden, they see that you're weak. You were this Mr. Wall Street strong, and now you're weak, and they can just take advantage of it. They're vultures. So they start taking advantage of it, and it continues escalating like a snowball effect, just a really bad one. And all of that... was the best thing that ever happened to me. Now you're asking yourself, how is that possible? This sounds like a nightmare. Even a nightmare sounds better than this. Because the only way that I would ever look up is if all this happened. The only way I would ask how, why, when, who, anything was if all this happened.

58:07If the rocks were thrown at me. If the rocks were thrown at me. So then, as this stuff was happening, I started learning, where are all these rocks coming from? I started going to Shul Et Torah, trying to see if maybe I could get some interest. My life was getting more and more difficult, but... I tried sticking around, and the only reason why was because I felt bad for the people that loved me, like my mom and my wife. And I knew that if I give up, maybe I go to some place else, but they're going to continue suffering. It's not fair. So I continued going, continued trying, and along the way, as you try, Hashem has mercy on you. He gives you little bonuses here and there. And one day... at a point that I got really, really low, at a point that I got very, very depressed. My mom, during that same time, she makes calls to all these different rabbis to look for a blessing. I'll get somebody to bless me, my son is suffering and so on, but during this day, no one's answering the phone. Until after about an hour and a half of dialing, she reaches a place in Israel, some number in Israel, and a woman answers.

59:31and she asks for a certain rabbi, and the woman says, I'm sorry, you dialed the wrong phone number in Hebrew. And my mom just breaks down, just starts crying to this stranger on the phone, because she's been dialing for an hour and a half, you know, helplessly, just trying to get some help, trying to get some prayers, trying to get anything. And as she cries, the woman all of a sudden says, "Dvos," which is my mother's name, My mom obviously goes into shock and says, "How do you know my name?" He goes, "I know your name because you're my aunt, but I have no idea how you got to me because we've never spoken on the phone before, and I don't have your phone number." She goes, "How did I get to you?" He goes, "I don't know how you got to me. You dialed the wrong phone number in the wrong country, but you got not only to somebody that you know, but somebody that can recognize your voice and someone that can actually help. So, if you reached me, there has to be a reason." What's wrong? Why are you crying? So she tells him my story, I'm sick, I'm this, and my son is dying, which, by the way, was one of the things they were saying was happening to me, just in a very torturous way. And she says, well, if you're looking for a blessing, why don't you call my brother? He's a big talmid chacham in Yerushalayim, and he also lives a building away from Rav Ovadia Yosef. He's one of his students.

1:00:58You talk to me? Yeah, of course. You're the aunt from America. Everybody loves you. So she calls Ephraim, Rabbi Ephraim Kogler. And he's in Kollel and eventually calls her back. And she starts telling him, and now when I left Israel, Ephraim was younger than I am, so he was still a baby, so I didn't even know he existed. And so she calls him, and she tells him the story, and the first thing he asks is, does he speak Hebrew? And she says, yes. I said, can I call him? And he says, you can call, but he's probably not going to talk to you. He doesn't talk to anybody. And at that very moment was the first time I called my mother in a few months, as she's on the phone with him. And my mom is obviously already in the middle of the story, and I'm just getting, entering the story. And she's hysterical, crying, saying, "Talk to him, talk to him." And I'm like, "Who? Talk to Ephraim." I'm like, "Who's Ephraim bechlal? Who's Ephraim? Talk to him, please. He can help you." "Who? Who can help me? What do you want? Why are you crying?" "Talk to Ephraim." I said, "Okay, I don't know what you're saying, but whoever you want me to talk to, just tell them to call me. I'll answer the phone." Fine. And Ephraim calls me. And, uh,

1:02:28I tell him one of my issues, I tell him about the pain, and he shows me a source for a question in the Torah. I ask him a question; he not only gives me an answer on the spot, but he gives me the exact verse in the Torah, Gemara, or anywhere else. He tells me the story of Yehuda and Tamar, which until this day is one of my favorite stories. And I ask him questions, and he not only gives me answers, but he gives me answers like a computer on the spot. He provides me with verses from multiple sources, and it's something that I've never seen before. In the business world, some people called me smart, but he was on a different level. He was in a different world. I had never seen anything like it. We talked for an hour and 40 minutes, and all of a sudden the pain didn't hurt as much. I didn't really care that much about the pain. I was so fascinated by this smart guy I met in Jerusalem who happens to be my cousin. So the next week, he called me at the same time, four o'clock on a Thursday. This time, we talked for three hours. Three hours' worth of Torah, three hours' worth of stories, three hours' worth of questions. The next week, we talked for five hours. The following week, we talked for seven hours. And every single Thursday, ever since, for years now, we would talk for an average of anywhere between five to seven hours.

1:03:51And I'd ask every single question that you could ever come up with. Dinosaurs, stars, science information, Torah proofs, emunah issues, everything and anything. Business, everything. And obviously, he’s not only a big talmid chacham, but I also learned later on he had a lot of siyata d'shmaya, where he had a lot of help from Hashem. He told me that the first nine months of our conversations... He would pray a special prayer before our conversation to know the answers to my questions. And I said, why? Why would you pray? You've studied this stuff. He goes, no, the questions you asked, I never even knew they existed. I never knew the questions to even know the answers. This is one of the things that we see about Torah. Torah is not like math, science, or algebra, or any other topic out there that you can study. If you study 10 hours of science, you get 10 hours' worth of knowledge. If you study 10 hours of math, you get 10 hours' worth of knowledge. If you study 10 hours of psychology, you get 10 hours' worth of knowledge. Torah is gifted to you. Meaning, you study 10 hours of Torah, if you study really, really hard, Hashem can decide to give you 15 hours' worth of knowledge. If you study 2 weeks really, really hard, and you consider it Amal BaTorah, Hashem can give you 2 months' worth of knowledge.

1:05:16Most of the Torah that the G'dolei HaDor know, and even anyone, even a simple Avrech that's been studying for several years, and myself obviously included, most of what I know, obviously I tried studying, but in reality, most of what I know is a gift. The reason why we learn the Parashat HaShavua every year, we read the same Parashah over and over and over again, I mean obviously the G'dolei HaDor have read this Parashah thousands of times already, why are they still reading it? What, they forgot the story? No. Because every time they read it, they find something new. Even after 50, 60, 70, or even 90 years, they discover aspects they never knew. Why? Because it wasn't time for that gift. So we see that Torah knowledge is something beyond the natural. And that's one of the things that Rabbi Ephraim taught me. That everything I knew until that point... It was completely wrong. So I started looking into things. I started studying with him as well as on my own, and I needed to make it logical. The miracle was not logical. The miracle that happened with him was not logical. The way I lost millions of dollars was not logical. My world was supposed to be logical. I needed to get something logical. I needed to get some type of proof. One day, my brother brought me this book as a gift...

1:06:38And when he gave it to me, I didn't even realize what it was, and I just stuck it away. But once I started keeping Shabbat, I needed something to do. What do you do on Shabbat? Play basketball? Okay, you can play basketball. I lived on the 35th floor in Manhattan. I couldn't play basketball there. Are you allowed to play basketball on Shabbat? I mean, as far as if it's an outright violation, no, but it's not necessarily considered Oneg Shabbat. Not Oneg Shabbat. All next Shabbat, you're supposed to celebrate Shabbat. Shabbat is meant for studying Torah and not playing with a piece of leather. What if basketball makes you happy and relaxes you? Then you're supposed to relax on Shabbat. Then you really don't know what happiness is. You could say the same. What if you like hanging out with your friends on Shabbat and they play basketball, so you play basketball? Okay. What if you like... What if you like to play basketball? What if your friends like to hang out and play basketball on Shabbat? Okay, you have 24 hours in a day. Do you play for 24 hours? Oh, no. I go to synagogue. Right, so you play for an hour. You play for two hours, let's say, but you still have the rest of the time. As long as the rest of the time you're spending doing Oneg Shabbat, it's not necessarily the worst thing in the world. Is it ideal? No, I can't tell you that, but it's not the worst thing in the world.

1:07:58If you spent the entire Shabbat hanging with your friends and playing basketball, then obviously that has to be fixed. Spend some time... Put it this way. It's fair to say that you could play basketball at least as much as you studied Torah on Shabbat. So if you play for an hour, you have to study for an hour. Is it a good deal? It's fair enough. So I started looking at proofs. I started looking at things. I realized that this book, which, if anyone wants a copy of it, has a ton of scientific information. I'll finalize a few things to get to the point. I realized that the information we have in the Torah is far beyond what I thought it was. For example, in Masechet Berachot, it talks about, on page 32, stars. It gives us the number of stars. Am Yisrael is complaining to Hashem and tells Him, "Listen, You destroyed the Beit HaMikdash, and You're treating us like an ex-wife, in essence. Even someone who has divorced his wife still, many years later, remembers that he had her." And Hashem gives us an interesting answer.

1:09:27Telling us, well, you're saying that I forgot you. But in reality, I created everything for you. I created the entire cosmos, the entire universe, and broke it down into 12 parts, 12 constellations. And each one of those 12 constellations has 30 armies. And each one of those 30 armies has 30 legions. And each one of these 30 legions has 30 raton. And each one of these 30 raton has 30 karaton. And each one of these karaton has 30 gistara. In essence, these are tribes within tribes and how he's breaking down the world. And each one of these has 3.65 million stars. So, it's a mathematical formula. And we see if we do the mathematical formula of 12 times 30 times 30 times 30 times 30 times 30 times 3.65 million. We get an interesting number, which is 10 to the 18th power, or more precisely, 1,064,340 with 12 zeros after it. That's the number of stars in the universe. That information was given to us a couple thousand years ago, well before the telescope ever existed. The telescope only came into being about 400 years ago. But 400 years ago, the telescope we had was not even the equivalent of

1:10:53of the goggles you buy at the toy stores for your kid. It's almost worthless. Fast forward this telescope and you get to 1994. NASA's telescope became much better over the next 400 years, and they connected it to a supercomputer. After the world had been making fun of us for a couple of thousand years about this so-called silly number of 10 to the 18th power, which is a number that even to this day we don't use, NASA discovered something very interesting. They found that the number of stars is estimated to be 10 to the 20th power, which is a number very, very close to ours. If you fast forward another 10 years, a university in Australia had a better telescope, and they came up with a number that's almost exactly like the Torah has, 10 to the 19th power. And we see that each time science...

1:11:54does more research, they get closer and closer to the information we already had for the last few thousand years. This book is full of these proofs. Anyone that's interested in one, I can get you one. I can send it to you. Just give me your contact information. To summarize, to finalize everything, because the story can go on for another few hours, if you see my shiurim online, I have about a couple of hundred hours worth of lectures. The average lecture is about two hours. I'm not usually giving an hour of lectures, but I know everybody, it's late and everybody wants to go home. But we have to connect all of this interesting story, which can continue for a while, but we can connect this interesting story to this week's parashah. One thing that I say in my weekly parashah stories is that one way that you can confirm that the Torah is divine is that if you study the parashah... A couple of hundred hours' worth of lectures. The average lecture is about two hours. I'm not usually giving an hour of lectures, but I know everybody, it's late, and everybody wants to go home. But we have to connect all of this interesting story, which can continue for a while, to this week's parashah. One thing that I say in my weekly parashah stories is that one way you can confirm that the Torah is divine is that if you study the parashah, time that you're supposed to study it, meaning the week that the parashah is given, you're guaranteed to find something that's relevant, not only to the world situation today, but also something that's relevant to your life. Specifically, in the parashah. One thing that was interesting that I got as a chidush today, is that Chazal say, you know, in this week's parashah, we get instructions from Hashem,

1:13:14...of different kelim, different tools that we're going to use for the Beit HaMikdash that we used in the desert, and obviously the Beit HaMikdash later on. The Menorah, the Aron HaKodesh, and so on. Chazal say the Menorah was 2,400 ounces of gold, pure gold, and it was one gold nugget. It wasn't pieces put together. It was one piece. one piece, and Chazal say that the symbolic and esoteric interpretations of the Menorah are endless, meaning what it represented, what it can represent, is an endless amount of meaning that you can learn from the Menorah. You've seen, I'm sure, the Chanukiyah that you have on Hanukkah, or you see the candles that people have in their house for Erev Shabbat. What are you learning from it, really? The Menorah had a few more details that we don't usually pay attention to, that I learned a lot from. Maybe you can. If you notice the picture of the Menorah, the Torah gives a few descriptions. First off, it has a base. The base, again, as we said, the whole thing is one piece of gold. This represents how Am Yisrael, whether they're religious or not religious, whether they love God or they don't, whether they fear God like they should, or they think they actually love Him.

1:14:41Whatever level they are, whether they play with a laser or they sit down and listen to a shiur Torah at 10 o'clock at night, we're all part of the same nation. That's why there's one piece. Whether we like it or not, we're part of the same soul, same original soul. But what about the rest of the pieces? There are four other pieces that are very interesting. First off is the base. Then there's something called the branch, which in Hebrew is bakehneh. Then there's the, that's the, if you look at, I don't know if you guys have a picture of a menorah, the kaneh is like the, you know, how you have the loop. So it's that piece, stiff, like a branch. And then, at the top of the menorah, there's in essence two things. There's one thing called a knob, or kaftor. And then there's the last piece, which holds the oil, which is called perach. or flower. So I thought something interesting about this. The base is like this world. All of us are a product of this world. Someone's religious, not religious, Baal Teshuva, Frum from Birth, Chassidish, Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Yemenite, all byproducts of the world, just like you have all of these

1:16:09all of these branches coming out of this base. The branch that comes out of it, for the most part, is am k'shei oref, a stubborn nation. We're stubborn, we're stiff, just like the branch. The knob, what else has a knob? A door. The knob is the kiruv people. The knob is the rabbis. The knob is the people that actually care to help people do teshuva, help people stay close to Hashem. They're trying to open the door of Torah to people that don't know better. People like me. And the flower is the byproduct. It's the outcome. It's what happens to the branch. A branch is strong, but it's useless. point of the branch is ultimately the flower. Every one of us is a byproduct of this world. Every one of us is going to have our own life, have our own decisions, have our own ambitions. The only thing I can suggest for any one of you guys is that if you ever are in need to get closer to Hashem, He's going to send you someone. He's going to send you a knob. If you listen...

1:17:37We want you to turn into the flower. Baruch Adonai le'olam. Amen ve'amen.