Shiur Torah #93 Shavuot, Intermarriage and The Untold Story of How I Met Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi

0:50Thank you for coming for the Rav, but now, hopefully, you will enjoy me. B'schut HaRav, B'schut HaRav, and also B'schut HaRav, and you'll find out today why. Today, I want to cover a couple of small topics, and hopefully, you'll entertain me and actually listen. First, I'll say something small to add to what Koda Rav said, and what you mentioned about Shavuot, just to contribute a little bit, an individual thought that I believe can enhance the beauty of the Torah for you. The second thing is, some of you have watched my shiurim online, and many have been drawn to my personal story. I chose to leave millions of dollars on Wall Street, all for the sake of Torah. I was on Wall Street. I had a lot of money. I was on CNBC, CNN, Bloomberg—one of those types of people. My business card was gold, which is kind of interesting. And I left all of it for Torah and to do exactly what Rabbi Kordovero has been doing for 22 years. I joined the army. I want to tell you why.

2:11But the "why" that I've told already many times is not the "why" I'm going to tell you today. The "why" I'm going to tell you today is the story no one knows about Rabbi Mizrachi. It's my personal story of Rabbi Mizrachi. So, as far as adding, and then obviously, the Mussar Yisrael and what we can learn from it and why it affects you, why you should even listen to it. So, first and foremost, in regards to Shavuot, one of the main things that I got from it... because in reality, according to the Gemara in Masechet Avodah Zarah, it is the most important day in history. Why? Because Chazal tell us that since Hashem came to all of the nations and offered them the Torah and they rejected it, all of the Malachim were very scared. Because they knew that if Am Yisrael rejects the Torah, Hashem will bring back... The world, the Tov of old, will destroy the world. Why? Because the Torah is the purpose of this world. That's why Hashem created it 974 generations before He created the world. In essence, the Jewish people became Jewish because of the Torah. They weren't Jewish before it. Obviously, as you've learned from Rabbi Mizrachi many times, before the Torah, we were Yisraelim, and before that, we were Hebrews.

3:40But if someone else came to Har Sinai and accepted the Torah and we didn't, they would be the Jews. So, in essence, the most important day in history is Shavuot. Now, why do we go over the Torah or at least try? Because Hashem is trying to give us a little bit of a taste of the beauty of the Torah, but in reality, we can't finish it. We can't finish the Torah, and that's why in Pirkei Avot you'll see that it's not your obligation to finish it. Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus once said to Rabbi Akiva, "You haven't come to visit me in a long time. I have so much Torah to teach you." Rabbi Akiva asked, "How much Torah do you have?" Rabbi Eliezer replied, "If all of the water was ink, all of the trees were pens, and all of the land was paper, it wouldn't be enough." to write down the Torah that I know. And that is not even close to the real Torah. What's the real Torah? Well, I'll give you an understanding of what we have. Now, we got the Torah at Mount Sinai, but as Chazal said, we got a little bit of a lower version after our sin, but we still got the Torah. The Torah was later given from generation to generation,

5:05to 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva. Unfortunately, all died. Then we started all over again with five of Rabbi Akiva's students, and Rabbi Akiva himself, all the way to today. But now, if you connect the holidays, if you go back to Pesach, it's a very important holiday. It's the Exodus. We left Egypt. We turned around history in a way that's never been done before and never will be done again. The slave turned into the master, and we go from simcha to simcha. Shavuot marks the culmination of this joyous transition. But in the middle, we encounter a problem. We have 33 days of mourning encompassed in the Omer period, during which 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva died. What is the connection between these events? So during one of my shiurim, I do a short chiddush on what's happened. It's in different places that people like. It's usually 15 minutes. And I try to connect the three things. Why did Hashem take us from simcha to simcha, but in the middle there's a disaster? First off, He wanted to tell us that the purpose of us leaving Mitzrayim is to get the Torah. Whoever didn't want to get the Torah died, as we know, at least 80% of the Bnei Yisrael died in Mitzrayim.

6:29The Torah is later on. But in the middle, He wanted to explain to us what we actually have. Because if we don't know what we have, we usually don't appreciate it. So the Torah that we got, according to Masechet Megillah, says that we had 55 Nevi'im, 48 males and 7 females, in our Tanakh. But, in history, we had over 1.2 million prophets. So we're missing a few. Their Torah was holy too. What happened to them? Hashem told us that their Torah was only relevant to their nevuah, their prophecy actually, better said. Their prophecy was only relevant to their generation. Which means that the 55 remaining prophets, whatever came out of their mouths, every single letter that's written in the Torah is relevant to every single generation until the end of time. So no one could ever say, like the Reform and Conservative movements and any other person in between who is misguided, could ever say, hey, no, this is not relevant to today. Today you're allowed to drive on Shabbat because Moshe didn't have a car.

7:39You're allowed to drive on Shabbat? He didn't have a car, that's why he didn't drive? You can't say that. Why? Because if Hashem said that their Torah, their Nevuah, their prophecy is relevant for all time, that's it. But now, we only have their prophecy. We only have their part of the Torah, out of the 1.2 million. So already, we know we're missing a bunch. And out of those 55... We went from 24,000 students, but out of those 24,000 students, we don't have all of their Torah. We only have the Torah of Rabbi Akiva and his five students. So what would happen if Hashem said, you know what, it was about 700 of the greatest sages in history dying per day? We don't just mourn because we have nothing else to do. We mourn because we're missing their Torah. If you go on, for example, HebrewBooks.org, they have over 75,000 Hebrew books, holy books, for free. And you want to download, read, and so on. And there are hundreds of thousands of different Sifrei Kodesh that you can learn from. The Torah is endless. But all of what we have today is just from six people.

9:04Which means that if Hashem would have skipped one day and said, you know what, today I'm not going to kill the 700, we would have a Torah of 706. Imagine how much holiness this world would have. The beauty of it is that Hashem obviously knew that even for what we have from the six, He has to practically beg us to read. But at least now you know that when you get to Shavuot, Hashem is trying to give you a message. I only took you out of Egypt for this Torah. It's the only reason. If you didn't want the Torah, I would have left you there, and you would have died in the plague of darkness, Makkat Choshech. You're going to get the Torah. But if I would have given it to you without you knowing how much it's worth, you would get there and say, "Nah, I like Harry Potter better." And you move along. But now that we know how much beauty we have from the little we have, we yearn for so much that we're missing. Now, one of the main things about my personal story—I’ll go through it in five minutes because there's not enough time—and then I'll go into the more interesting part about Rabbi Meisels.

10:32I've been telling myself that I'm going to share this story for years already. I came to the United States when I was 10 years old with my parents. I knew three letters out of the alphabet, A, B, and C, because that was in a cereal. In Israel, I received some Jewish education. We learned some basic Torah, but my development in Hebrew language, Torah, or anything related to Judaism ended at the age of 10. As soon as we landed in America, we officially became goyim. We didn't convert, thank God, but we left everything. We just looked at everyone else and all the other kids in the public school. They seemed so much cooler and so much more popular, I wanted to become just like them. This is why the Rabbi has been telling everyone for years that you cannot afford to send your kid to public school. It's not about just the teaching, which is already problematic. It's not just that. It's the surrounding environment. Whether you teach him about the halachot of Shabbat every day after school or not is irrelevant. Once he's surrounded by that, he's not going to be able to hold on to it. He's not going to be able to differentiate and hold onto his values. seemed so much cooler, and so much more popular, I wanted to become just like them. This is why the Rabbi has been telling everyone for years that you cannot afford to send your kid to public school. It's not just about the teaching, which is a tza'ar already. It's not just that. It's the surroundings. Whether you teach him about the halachot of Shabbat every day after school or not is irrelevant. Once he's surrounded by that, he's not going to be able to hold on to it. He's not going to be able to.

11:50So I went to public school. I was considered a talmid chacham in public school. I took advanced placement classes and got college credit during junior high school and during high school. I had honor roll. It was a nice experience in school. In fifth grade, I didn't know any English. In sixth grade, they sent me to special ed next to the kids that are disabled because I didn't speak the language. My eighth grade, I'm taking college courses. So it was pretty cool. But then we went to college. Went to college for one year. Went to Binghamton University. Had a 3.9 GPA, which is nearly perfect. And then I dropped out. Why? It's a waste of time. The point of education is to teach you how to think. You don't need history. You don't need English if you just live in the world surrounded by people, most of the stuff they teach you in school is really a waste of time unless you have a point, unless you're going to be a doctor or an architect or you have some type of profession that you're going to be. If you're just going to get a communications degree, then you're just torturing your parents, charging them $50,000 a year for absolutely no reason. And this is what's happening generation after generation now, but just the bill keeps getting higher where kids say, no, no, I'm going to college, Abba, I'm going to college. Where do you want to go? I'm going to Harvard. English, if you just live in a world surrounded by people, most of the stuff they teach you in school is really a waste of time unless you have a point, unless you're going to be a doctor or an architect or have some type of profession that you're planning to pursue. If you're just going to get a communications degree, then you're just torturing your parents, charging them $50,000 a year for absolutely no reason. And this is what's happening generation after generation now, but the bill just keeps getting higher, with kids saying, "No, no, I'm going to college, Abba, I'm going to college." "Where do you want to go?" "I'm going to Harvard."

13:11Abba gets a heart attack on the spot. My retirement account is gone. Abba, I just graduated from Harvard. Oh, what did you graduate with? I have a communications degree. What are you going to do with it? Oh, nothing. I'm actually going to go back to delivering newspapers like I did in high school. So, I knew how to think. I had already started working when I was a young kid. I had three jobs in high school, and I knew how to sell and speak. I left school and started working. Initially, I did a few different things, but eventually, I got into the brokerage business. In the brokerage business, I paid my dues for the first three years, meaning I made a lot of other people a lot of money, except myself. But after September 11th, Baruch Hashem, I got a break. My boss mistreated me, so I was able to finally become my own boss in a large company. Twelve months later, approximately from October of 2001 to November of 2002, so I guess 13 months later, I made $117,000 in one month and became the number one person in the office.

14:27Another nine months later, I became the number three producing broker in the country for a company with 5,000 brokers. I made my first million dollars. A year later, actually a few months later, I opened my own company. Then a bad month became $200,000 a month, sometimes $150,000 if I didn't work. Eventually, I got to the point where I started getting some fame. I was on CNBC, CNN, Bloomberg, and all types of newspapers. It was very, very popular. And all of a sudden, I had a bunch of friends. I never had friends, but now I had friends. I had one friend for 25 years. It's not the same; he'll do to you that one day. But other than that, I never had friends. But now I had friends. I had all this money, and all of them came with partners. So I gave all these friends jobs. They weren't really good, but I still hired them. Any miskin in the world came to me, and I gave them a job. Some of these friends were religious.

15:28At least, I thought they were. My door was always open to people who wanted tzedakah, those in need of help. I was so busy making money that as soon as someone would start talking, explaining their problem, sometimes becoming very emotional, I'd simply ask, "How much does it cost?" They would tell me the amount, I'd write them a check, they'd leave, and I'd return to making money. That was my world. I wasn't a bad person; I was just busy. I donated a lot of money. And I was told by some rabbi... that as long as I give tzedakah, everything is fine. Now, I'm not going to name any names, chas v'shalom, but I want to explain to everyone why the truth, the hard truth, is the only way. It's not some people, yes, some people, no, it's the only way. As the Rav says many, many times, if Hashem didn't want us to know it, He wouldn't write it in the Torah. The Torah is available to all the nations, not just to us.

16:28Every week, at least two religious people, some rabbis, some just religious, would come and ask for tzedakah and also give us a d'var Torah. The door was always open. Sometimes it was three, sometimes it was four times a week, but nonetheless, at least two. I had my office for about 15 years. Let's just make the math very simple. Throughout all of this time, I'm keeping basically no mitzvot, except giving tzedakah, but I don't even think that was really the highest. I just had so much; it wasn't relevant to what I had. I'm married to a non-Jew. I don't steal, but in general, that's not exactly the only aveirah that I'm doing. I'm not keeping Shabbat or kosher, except only in the house. I think that pizza, as long as it doesn't have any meat, is okay. Little do I know that the same cheese that I'm eating at the non-kosher place has pig in it. It's actually one of the basic ingredients that you have in all non-kosher cheese. But anyway, no one's telling me anything. But every week they get tzedakah. But let's just do the math.

17:46Ten years, once a week. That means that any one of those religious people who came to my office had at least one opportunity every week to tell me something. Keep Shabbat. Maybe your wife should convert. Something. So, if you do the math, it's 52 times a year, 520 times over ten years. It's obviously much more than that. But if this politically correct strategy that people use was ever going to work, if it didn't work after 520 times, when's it supposed to work? When? I'm the failed experiment. I'm the one that showed that it doesn't work. You have to tell people the truth. So Hashem showed me the truth. When the rabbi lied to me, Hashem showed me the truth. The only difference is it's a little more difficult. I'm not Moses, so He didn't speak to me through a burning bush. He spoke to me through hardship. In November of 2006, I had elective surgery that went wrong. I went in healthy; I came out sick. But not sick like I have a headache—sick like I'm dying. I'm dying.

19:12Screaming in pain, non-stop pain. The doctors didn't know what went wrong. My entire nervous system was shocked. No one knew what was happening. For the next 62 days, the most amount of consecutive sleep that I was able to have was 15 minutes. And I started bleeding from my eyes and every other place that has a hole. So I was dying. But then I guess Hashem had some mercy on me, baruch Hashem. He said, all right, let's give him a shot. So I started coming back to life. I stopped screaming 24 hours a day. I was only 12. I took at least 20 painkillers a day, which is less than the 50 I had just a week before. It was hidden. I went back to work and returned to making $3,000 an hour. I didn't do teshuva. Nine months later, there was a complication. I felt a pain in my leg.

20:12And I had to go to the emergency room, and I had the first of many, many surgeries. I had an internal infection that, if I had waited another hour, would have exploded, entered my bloodstream, and I would have died. I spent two weeks in the intensive care unit next to those who were dying. Morphine was in my bloodstream at all times just to survive. Not fun. Okay, Hashem had more mercy on me, and I did... leave the hospital, but three months later I had another surgery. Another intensive care unit, more "fun." Living in pain 24 hours a day. But now it's not just the pain in the area where I had the surgery—an irrelevant detail—it's pain everywhere. From my neck all the way to the bottom of my feet, to the point where I wasn't able to walk anymore, I had to use a cane. So imagine this multi-millionaire guy, 27 years old, with about 20 million dollars in the bank, hobbling with a cane, and it takes him about 40 minutes to go from here to the door. How much is the money worth? Zero. That's the context we often fail to understand when we prioritize wealth over health or spiritual well-being. But now it's not just pain in the area where I had the surgery, which is irrelevant; it's pain everywhere. From my neck all the way to the bottom of my feet, to the point where I wasn't able to walk anymore, I had to use a cane. So imagine this multimillionaire guy, a 27-year-old, has about 20 million dollars in the bank, but he's with a cane and it takes him about 40 minutes to go from here to the door. How much is the money worth? Zero.

21:15So now I start losing money. I still didn't do teshuva. All the friends that I had all of a sudden became enemies. They started stealing. I didn't really like them anymore, so they started cheating. They went to my competition with my clients. I'm like a wounded animal; I can't defend myself. Little by little, things get worse and worse. I still don't get it. I went to over 50 different doctors, spent hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars trying everything and anything you can possibly try. When you have money, you can do anything you want. Or at least you think you can. It's worthless. It gets to the point where I actually become... Oh, the flyer from the Yeshivah came. He came, Baruch Hashem, because last Wednesday he didn't show up in Queens. Ah, so he came here. Maybe he saw the flyer. He sent me an email asking what happened to the flyer. I said maybe he finished his tikkun. I guess he liked it, Baruch Hashem. Baruch Hashem. I said to him that he moved here to move. He saw the flyer; it was nice. My wife made us a nice flyer. So...

22:31Now, I get to a point where I go to over 50 doctors and eventually become a science experiment. I actually become part of a study, and they start injecting things into me every single day, which makes me feel like I'm dying. They injected ozone, which you don't really want to do. Steroids, the same thing that athletes take. It cost a lot of money, by the way. ...and, uh, everything and anything you try, nothing works. So once I heard that Hashem said He's the healer, I stopped paying attention and I said, "Okay, these religious people are coming anyway; let me see if one of them wants to teach me something." No one was really interested, so I went to a class, and they were strictly business... So I went to a shiur and started learning. Later on, it was just once a week, but still not doing teshuva. But the situation started getting worse and worse. I started losing millions and millions of dollars just as fast as it came. I started leaving. And then one day I have a miracle where my mom dials a wrong phone number in a different country, and it ends up being the only person that could help me.

24:00One day, she calls. She saw me a few days before that, and I was looking worse and worse. She started, you know, a Sephardic mom always has a book of rabbanim, so she started calling every single number she had. But for two hours, no one answered the phone. Eventually, some lady in Israel answered the phone. She asked for a certain Rav, and the lady said, I'm sorry, it's the wrong phone number. There's no such Rav. My mom breaks down to this strange lady. She starts crying hysterically. And the lady says, "Doris?" which is my mother's name. So not only does this lady know her, but she recognizes her voice. My mom, shocked, asks, "Who are you? How do you know my name?" She replies, "I'm your niece." My mom is taken aback and asks, "What's going on? How did I reach you? I don't even have your phone number. I've never talked to you before in my life on the phone." Last time I talked to you was maybe 10 years ago. But I saw you in person; you were a little kid. She says, I don't know. But if Hashem sent you to me, then obviously there has to be a reason. Why are you crying? My son is sick; he's dying; he's this; he's that. I need some Rav to bless him. She says, well listen, why don't you call my brother, Rav Ephraim? He's connected to Rav Ovadia. Yeah, he lives two doors down. He's a Talmid Chacham. Call him.

25:24So she calls Rabbi Efraim Fein. He calls her back because he's on another line. At the same time that Rabbi Fein is talking to her, I never knew that Rabbi Fein existed. I never knew he existed. He was only a couple of years old when I left Israel. We never talked. But anyway, my mom cries to him and tells him my sob story. And Rabbi Fein says, does he speak Hebrew? She says, yeah, he speaks a little bit of Hebrew. She says, "Okay, can I call him?" He replies, "No, he won't talk to you. He barely talks to us." At that very same moment, which I found out later, I decided to call my mom on the other line. She answers the phone, hysterically crying. I ask her, "What's wrong, Ima? What's wrong?" She responds, "Talk to him." "Who?" I ask. "Talk to him, to him." "Who?" "Efraim." "Who's Efraim? Why are you crying about this Efraim? What did he do?" "Just talk to him. He can help you." "Okay, anyone can call me. Just stop crying." So, Efraim calls me. And he tells me the story of Yehuda and Tamar. Little do I know that he also knows that I'm married to a non-Jew. I like the story. It's the first time I ever heard the story. I was already in my late 20s, not a very big compliment to my Torah knowledge at that point. And I like the story, so I started asking him questions to see if he answers. I ask him business questions, and he answers.

26:50I ask him a Torah question, and he answers. But he doesn't just answer like, you'll ask me a question, and I'll answer you. Sometimes, I'll give you an answer with no source. He gives me a page number, a book, an exact year it was written—something amazing. I thought I was smart, but this guy is something out of this world. So, we talk for an hour and 40 minutes. You're going to miss your story. He knows the story, I'm just kidding. We talk for an hour and 40 minutes. It was a very nice conversation, and a week later he calls me at the same time, Thursday at 4 o'clock. We have a three-hour conversation. I ask him questions. He gives me answers, with a source, and he makes me feel good. Every time I ask a question, he says, "Oh, what a great question. You know, so-and-so asked the same question 852 years ago." So I feel like, oh, yes, of course. Of course, he has the same question as me. So... He tells me the answer. He tells me the source. And I just start coming up with new questions. I never even knew I had all these questions. For the next nine months, every Thursday at four o'clock, we had an average call between five to seven hours, only questions and answers. Later on, he tells me that he used to pray before the call to know the answers.

28:10And I said, what do you mean to know the answers? You even know the page number and the guy and this and that. He goes, I didn't even know the questions. I never asked the questions you asked. I never cared about the stuff you did. But when you asked them, they were pretty good questions, and Hashem gave me the answers. Siyata Dishmaya is what we call it, the special Siyata Dishmaya you get when you do Kiruv. So now, how does Rabbi Yaron Reuven get into it? So now, little by little, I start learning Torah with him. Everything I learn, I teach my wife, who for some strange reason always wanted me to be a religious Jew, even though she was not. And she would tell me to stay home for the holidays, and I'd tell her why. When people would ask me, "Don't you want your wife to convert, have Jewish children?" I said, "I'm not doing it. Why should I tell her how to do it? I'm not a hypocrite. I can't tell her to do something I'm not going to do." It's not fair. You can't just make somebody Jewish. Either they want to be Jewish or they don't. You can't just make someone stop believing something. I used to make fun of Christianity in general. I used to call it "the remix."

29:21You know, they took our Torah, mixed it up a little bit, and made something new. It has mistakes on every single page, as every one of you has seen in the debate. There's a nice kiddush Hashem that's eternal. I think that's what they're going to show Rabbi Mizrachi when he gets to his olam haba, or at least the first part of his olam haba, he's going to show him the debate. See, this is a good one. This got you the first few ones. So now, you can't just make somebody stop believing. But now, little by little, I'm learning Torah, and I'm realizing that I start to smell something funny. I start to smell the garbage that I'm in. See, the problem is, when you're part of the garbage, you don't smell anything. You can't smell anything. You're part of it. You start leaving with some Torah, you become a little bit... half of a percent, or a percent, or a percent kadosh, because you learn seven hours a week, you start smelling something funny. So, I start realizing there's something wrong with my picture. Maybe it is a problem. So, I start learning more and more Torah, and I said, you know what? I guess my wife has to convert, but how do I get that? How do I get her to convert? So I tell her, do you want to convert? She says, no, I don't think you can.

30:48I said, no, I've heard somebody say you can convert. She says, no, no, I don't think you can leave, then it's a problem, it's this, it's that. Neither one of us knew anything. She knew Proverbs by heart, but she didn't know that conversion even existed. No one ever knew you could leave avodah zarah (idol worship). We didn't even know it was considered avodah zarah. So now, I start learning about Christianity. Because I realized that you can't make someone stop believing in something. You can't just say, "Listen, you've believed X, Y, Z for 30 years? Okay, stop. And replace it with this." It's not like ice cream—you can't just exchange it after you've taken a bite because the guy is really nice. You can't do that. First, you have to prove that it's wrong. And then you have to give them something good. The problem is that in between, there's nothing. There's an emptiness. And that's why most converts, when they actually get to that point, when they get to the point of nothing, before they know that the Torah is true and 100% divine, there's a point of emptiness that's a disaster. Some of them really want to kill themselves during that time because they thought they had something. And then you have to give them something good. The problem is that in between, there's nothing. There's an emptiness. And that's why most converts, when they actually get to that point, when they reach the point of nothing, before they know that the Torah is true, 100% divine, there is a point of emptiness that's a disaster. Some of them really want to kill themselves during that time because you thought you had something.

32:02And now you just realized your entire life was fake. Everything you believed your entire life is nothing. It's just a mistake. It's almost like a Baal Teshuva, but not to the same extent. And now there's something else, but you're still not 100% sure. So now you don't really have anything. There's no purpose. It's a very, very difficult stage, which is the reason why Hashem has special treatment for them, and why they're mentioned in the Torah more than anything else, and why even in the Amidah we mention them before we mention ourselves. A convert that chooses Hashem is considered higher than a natural-born Jew, but a righteous convert, not just any convert because they had a nice boyfriend from a Syrian family with a lot of money. So now, I start learning about Christianity, and I become obsessive. The first rabbi I went to was Rabbi Tovia Singer. He was very good, speaks extremely fast, which was my style. I was a Wall Street guy. I trained over 130 different salesmen. I had all these people. That was my style. Fast, 150 miles an hour, telling me all these verses. It was amazing.

33:13I showed it to my wife. After about 10 seconds, she said, "Okay, thank you very much, not interested, he talks too fast." So then I had Rabbi Ephraim give me some proofs that he could find, because whatever I'm doing is not working. He writes a whole letter with proofs and proofs and proofs, and I read it to my wife. She's hysterical, crying, and she says, "No, thank you." I like the Torah, but it doesn't mean that I have to be Jewish. I can still keep the Torah. I continue to find different things. One day, after watching one video after another, I get a recommended video on YouTube. They have a part of this mitzvah, maybe. The debate. I said, oh, this looks interesting. So I pressed on a debate. I watched the debate. It's amazing. But there's one problem. Until now, I just thought that Christianity was second best. Like I didn't know what I know now. Now I've become obsessed with it for months and months and months and months. And I'm learning all these things, all these verses, and everything else. But the debate made me realize that it's outright fake. It's not second best. It's outright avodah zarah. It's nothing. So now the most important person in my life is engaged in avodah zarah without even knowing it.

34:32Like I didn't know what I know now. Now I've become obsessed with it for months and months. And I'm learning all these things, all these verses, and everything else. But the debate made me realize that it's outright fake. It's not second best; it's outright avodah zarah. It's nothing. So now, the most important person in my life is involved in idol worship without even knowing it. Now it's not having her convert, so it makes my situation a little better with Hashem. Now I have to save her. Now it's different. So, I saw the first part of the debate, and I said, listen, you got to watch this thing. This is really good because all this time we've been learning some Torah. She loves Torah. But again, you can't remove a belief. So I saw the first part of the debate. She struggled through the first one. After the first part, you know, it's a three-part series. After the first one, she said, nah, I don't like that priest; he's a fool, and the rabbi is arrogant. Just to let you know, by now, she's probably watched

35:57I would say at least 85 to 90% of all of Rabbi Mizrachi's lectures. She's a big tzadeket. He's the only rabbi she watches. But initially, the Satan made her hate him. Hate, which is what the Satan does. Because this was the cure. So now... I argue with her and argue with her. We've been together for many years at this point. I think we were together for maybe eight or nine years. Never had one fight. All of a sudden, since this conversion stuff came up, we have fights every single day. And now I'm arguing with her for about a week and a half just to watch part two. She watches part two. Unfortunately, similar conclusion. But there are a few good questions that you really can't have answers for. Why does it say 75 instead of 70 people came down to Egypt? Why is the Me'arat HaMachpelah in the wrong location? Why, why, why? There are no answers. So now, we're starting to remove the tamei. Because the first thing you have to do when you do kiruv, the first thing you have to do when you help somebody learn the truth, is convince them and show them that they're wrong. It's irrelevant if you're right. If you're right and they feel they're right, you're still not going to win. First, you have to completely prove them wrong. You have to make them at least question themselves that maybe I'm wrong. Because as long as he thinks he's right, there's no reason for him to change. Okay, your Torah is good for you. Thank you very much. It's not for me.

37:13is to convince them and show them that they're wrong. It's irrelevant if you're right. If you're right and they feel they're right, you're still not going to win. First, you have to completely prove them wrong. You have to make them at least question themselves, maybe I'm wrong. Because as long as he thinks he's right, there's no reason for him to change. Okay, your Torah is good for you. Thank you very much. It's not for me. Because I think that what my lifestyle is, of driving to Beit Knesset, because my rabbi doesn't say anything, of giving a bar mitzvah to my dog because I saw it on YouTube, eating McDonald's whenever I want, I think it's fine. This is the problem. So you have to show them that they're wrong, that there's something wrong here. Hashem said something else. He said, you have to take the mitzvot, you have to take the Torah everywhere. not just do them. You have to take them everywhere. When you're on vacation, you still have to be religious. When you go to Eretz Yisrael, you still have to be religious. When you move somewhere else, you have to be religious. You have to take the Torah with you everywhere—it's not optional; it's not a hobby. So now that I realize that getting to part 3 is not going to happen—and by the way, until this day, you should never watch part 3—but now we have some questions.

38:40So I start researching more and more, getting more questions, gathering more inquiries. And she's at a point where she says, "Listen, I just need some type of sign from Hashem in the Torah. I believe the Torah is 100% true. Never questioned it in my life. But I need something from the Torah that tells me this is the right thing." Now, Hashem told us in Sefer Devarim, Deuteronomy chapter 4, If you look for Me with all of your heart and all of your soul, you'll find Me. But not just if you look for Me. Even after you've committed all of the sins in the world, to the point where you worship the god of wood, the man-made god of wood, and the man-made god of stone, which by the way, as we know from the Rav, is Christianity and Islam. Even after you commit all of those sins,

39:42In chapter 4, verse 29, from there you will seek Hashem, your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul. This means that if you want to find Hashem, you have to actually look, not like when you look for a cat behind the garbage and if you don't find him, you say, okay, I'll buy a new one. You need to truly dedicate your life to finding Hashem. And that's what we started doing. So, 24 hours a day, we're looking for Hashem. 24 hours a day, I'm learning Torah. I'm trying to sleep maybe 2-3 hours a day. I'm becoming very, very obsessive and a little bit crazy. She's waking up, you know, she goes to sleep and wakes up at a normal hour. And I'm like this, "Honey, look, I have more proofs." "What? What do you want?" "I have more proofs. Look, look, there's this, there's this." So then one day, Hashem, obviously, after enough tears, a lot of tears, a lot of prayers, a lot of arguments, Hashem finally sends His salvation. YouTube recommends another video. It's called Torah and Science. So now, the Torah and Science...

41:01Just the story about what happened with Torah and science. We watch, I tell, listen, Torah and science, we actually have been reading Rabbi Zamir Cohen's book, you know, every so often we read a few pages, you know, we like science, we like Torah, it's nice, seems interesting. Okay, all right, fine, put it on already. Same arrogant guy, okay, fine. We watch part one, there's three parts again. Part one, both of us at the end of it, amazed. We didn't know all this stuff existed. Really, this is what it says, we're looking at verses, we're showing something out of this world. It's the most amazing thing that you could ever imagine, the best experience ever. Wow, we have to watch part two; it's two o'clock in the morning. Click on part two, doesn't work. Look for it somewhere else, click on part two, doesn't work. Satan's working overtime. Now, I have a little bit of a scratch, just so you know. I'm the kind of person who reads the preface of a book, especially if it mentions the projects of the Mesorah Heritage Foundation and the names of all the people who contributed, all the way to the end of the book. I read everything. I'm the guy they wrote it for. I think there's at least one guy who says, "Maybe somebody else reads it," but I think I'm the only guy.

42:31But anyway, I have to do things in order. A little bit of a hitch. So now part two doesn't work. We can't watch part three. But I've seen her. She's really interested. I'm like, you know what? Part one was so good. All right, you know what? Let's just watch part three. We watch part three. Now we know for sure the Torah is divine. There's no question at all. Hashem is real. The Torah is the document. but we still have, we're missing something. Now, she knows that there's a problem with Christianity, but she still didn't get the sign. She still didn't get to 100%. But she did get to emptiness. She got to nothing. So she prayed that night that Hashem would either show her the sign, show her proof, give her something, or take her life. Because she doesn't want me to go to Gehinnom. Because she knows that if she stays with me, I'm going to Gehinnom, and she can't deal with the fact that she has to leave me. So that's what she prays for. Now her prayers, they actually get to Shamayim, hopefully mine get to the ceiling. The next morning, Hashem answers her. She wakes up, Tisha B'Av, horrible mood, and I finally found at 6 o'clock in the morning,

44:00Lecture number two works. She's all angry. Honey, I got number two. I got number two. Fine, fine, fine. We watched number one and two and one and three. He wasn't so bad. This time, fine. I watched number two. Number two, if anyone remembers, is when Rav Mizrachi talks about the Torah codes. It not only talks about the Torah codes, it talks about the very same chapter that I just read to you. Chapter 4 in Devarim (Deuteronomy), right before, if you seek Hashem, you'll find Him. Before that, Hashem in verse 27 says, Hashem will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where Hashem will lead you. There you will serve gods, the handiwork of man, of wood and stone, which do not see and do not hear and do not eat and do not smell. Here, Rav Mizrachi showed, in the Hebrew obviously, which I'll read in a second, that this is the only place where you can actually see, not only who the false god of wood is, which you don't need to be a genius to figure out, but also who the false god of stone is. According to Christianity, they don't read this part, apparently, because no one knows this.

45:27But in the Torah codes, you could actually find both of their names inside this verse. If you skip 49 letters, you start from the letter "Hei." You skip 49 letters and you get to "Chaf." You skip another 49 letters, I believe, if I remember correctly, 49 letters, and you get to the letter "Mem." That's "Mecca." Same word, "Efitz," which is the first word. Hashem will scatter. Meaning, you start with the letter "Yud." Skip 49 letters. The Hei is the first letter. You skip 49 letters. You get to the Chaf. You skip 49 letters, I believe, if I remember correctly, 49 letters. And you get to the Mem. That's Mecca. Same word, Hafetz, which is the first word. Hashem will scatter, meaning. You start with the Yud. Skip 49 letters. You get to Shema, which is Shin. You skip 49 letters. You get to Yishma'el, which is the same ending word that you found Mitzrayim in, the Mem. You find Vav. You find JC. He always wanted a place in the Torah. He got himself a place right next to avodah zarah.

46:49For me, it was pretty cool. I mean, I've seen some Torah codes before. But for her, it was everything. If there was a bite next to her, she would convert on the spot. But not like a convert, like, listen, I'm not so sure. Maybe this, maybe that. Day one, everything. Kisui Rosh, Tzniut, learning, everything. became the biggest tzedakah that I personally know. Le-da'ati, the Rav has been telling all of you for years: spend some time doing kiruv. I left everything that I could possibly think of, dream of, and everything that I was good at to make the biggest investment in my life, which is all my time, doing kiruv. I wasn't a fool. I knew how to invest. I can go back to Wall Street and make money. But that's not what Hashem sent me for training. He sent me to Wall Street for 16 years to train me, to teach me to speak, and to eventually create more Jews. We have a lot of businessmen in the world. We don't have enough Jews. Now that CD that someone gave, that person that sponsored this shiur,

48:17The person that taped it, the person that's handing it out, changed my life. And for the last few years, Baruch Hashem, we've been doing kiruv and trying to help people do teshuva. And Baruch Hashem, and b'ezrat Hashem, tomorrow, one of my students is going to the beit din for conversion. So, Every one of us needs to know one thing. If you do kiruv, and I'll finish it off with this, you can all take it into account. In Sefer Yirmiyahu (Jeremiah), the Navi tells us in chapter 15, verse 19, Hashem is telling us a little bit about kiruv. Most of us have a hard time either doing teshuva in the beginning. It's hard for us to build emunah. It's hard for us to change our surroundings. It's hard for us to connect 100%. It takes time. It takes effort. You have to sweat. You have to look for Hashem with all of your heart and all of your soul. He really meant it when He wrote it. So Hashem says, there is a little bit of help that I can give you if you do something small.

49:39Therefore, thus said Hashem, if you repent, I'll bring you back and let you stand before me. Meaning your teshuva is always accepted. Even if someone is a makhtia rabim, meaning someone who causes others to sin, even though he doesn't have the same siyata dishmaya, as we learned from Pirkei Avot, he can still do teshuva. Teshuva is open for everyone. Even if he gets to the point of doing idol worship, he could still do teshuva. Obviously, he has to suffer and go through a tikkun, but nonetheless, teshuva is available, and Hashem says, once you finish your teshuva, you complete your teshuva, you'll stand right next to me. I'll accept you like all of my fellow Jews, my entire nation. But, if you help bring forth an honorable person, meaning a righteous person, from a glutton, then you will be like my mouth.

50:59If you do teshuva, you'll stand next to me eventually. Complete your teshuva. It's a big deal. But if you help someone else do teshuva, what does "you'll be like my mouth" mean? The Midrash has many, many things about it, and so does the Gemara and several other books. But I'll read only a couple of things to give you a little bit of understanding. The Midrash on Tehillim 116 uses this verse. It says, Hashem says to the tzaddikim, "I am the Creator, the ones that do kiruv. I am the Creator of the worlds and bring back the dead. You're the same." your prayers, just like Rabbi Mizrachi has been telling us for many, many years, that the people in the Gemara that are named by name, they were able to revive the dead. it's not that they had power, but their prayers got a VIP treatment. which means that if you spend time every day out of your busy schedule to help one of God's children, whether it's by giving him a CD.

52:22helping a kiruv rabbi, one who has changed my life and I'm sure many of yours as well. Supporting kiruv by putting links if you're already on the internet—enough with the sports—and instead, maybe put some links for the shiurei Torah. Spend some time every day, not just once a week or once in a while, but every day doing something for kiruv. Arrange shiurim, get people to come, something. Hashem says, You have a special deal. If your prayers haven't been answered, you have the secret. Spend some time doing kiruv. The Zohar says that if people knew the value of helping somebody do teshuva, they would run around the streets like crazy people looking for chilonim, looking for people who are not religious. In one of the drashot that Rabbi Ovadia, zecher tzadik livracha, gave, he mentioned that someone who is a tzadik, born into the right family, goes to school, and becomes a very righteous person, a big tzadik, reaches the next world, which is right next to the malachei Hashem.

53:45Gets right next to them. Nice place. But someone that's a star, meaning a star, Rabbi Ovadia is using Sefer Daniel as a source in several other places. A star is someone that spends time doing kiruv. He gets to a level higher than Malachei HaSharet. He's the only one; there's only room for him. Only kiruv people are there. It's a big deal. When I was on Wall Street, the only thing I did was invest. That's all I knew. And I'm sure all of you know a little bit of Torah. I'm sure all of you know a few people who are not religious. And there's a very big disparity between the religious and non-religious worlds. People who are religious often think that those who are not religious just don't want to follow the path. They don't realize that most of them simply don't know. The only thing I can tell you is that if you have some Torah knowledge, if you have some discs, if you have some money, if you have some time, if you have anything, if you care about Hashem, you need to dedicate five minutes a day to doing Kiruv. Just five minutes. Five minutes. We’re not asking for an hour. We're not asking anyone to become the next big Darshan, unless you can. But five minutes a day for Kiruv is essential.

55:16Because we have to save 15 million people. Rabbi Mizrachi can't do it by himself. I came to help, and I can't do even a quarter of what he did. So, we need some more assistance. We need to build an army. If everyone spends five minutes a day sending discs, distributing discs, sharing links, sending text messages, organizing WhatsApp groups, gathering shiurim, or doing something proactive, we can make a difference. Every one of your prayers will be answered, and hopefully, we will be able to share a lot with Rabbi Mizrachi.