Shiur Torah#59 Warning Shots From Heaven, The Power of Modest Women (Miami)

0:00Thank you very much for inviting me. You know, you can talk freely, just ask any questions you have. If there's any specific issue or question that you want to ask or anything, you can interrupt me and talk. It's not just a lecture where I just talk. It's for you. If you have something interesting that you want me to talk about, by all means, let me know. The whole goal is for all of us to learn together, not necessarily just for me to talk. If you're not interested in it, then just find something else you're interested in. But Baruch Hashem, the Torah is very, very interesting. First of all, I'd like to thank Fidel Pablos for inviting me here to Miami. It's really an honor to be here because, again, you want to spread Torah everywhere. The problem with Torah today is that the Torah itself has not changed. Since the day we got it at Har Sinai, a little over 3,300 years ago, nothing's changed. People, on the other hand... The desires haven't changed because we've always had desires. But we've become a little bit more sophisticated than we need to be. Where in the old days, even if you just look at our grandparents 100 years ago, 150 years ago, 200 years ago, if a rabbi came to somebody and told him, "Listen, this is what God said," he said, "Okay, God said it, I'm going to do it."

1:23God said you need to be modest. I'm going to be modest. God said you need to eat kosher. I'm going to eat kosher. No one asked any questions. No one had the audacity to ask a question like, "Well, what if maybe God is wrong? Or maybe there isn't a God? Or maybe this or maybe that?" Nobody would even dare to do that. Very few people were not religious in the old days. In today's age, people think they're smarter than God. In today's age, people think that they're smarter than what they really are. And they start thinking that, you know, listen, maybe this book is not real. Maybe this book has mistakes. Maybe this book is not as advanced as my iPad. Maybe this, you know, Moshe didn't have an iPad. I have an iPad, so I'm better than Moshe. You know, Moshe didn't have a car. We have cars today, so maybe the Torah is not applicable. Maybe it's okay to drive on Shabbat because back then they didn't have cars, so that's the reason why they didn't drive on Shabbat. But Moshe didn't have a car. I have a car, but Hashem probably understands. And they start making up new rules. But it's not in the Torah. It's not in the Torah. Now the one thing I say to people usually when they are trying to, in essence, not say that the Torah is not real, but try to argue that maybe it changed. Maybe it changed. Okay, it's real. We got it at Har Sinai.

2:46Even the Goyim, even the Christians and the Catholics and the Arabs, they all agreed that we got the Torah. Am Yisrael got the Torah on Mount Sinai. Everyone agrees. No one says Am Yisrael didn't get the Torah. Because their religions are based on ours. We got it first. And then, about 1,500 years later, Christianity started. And then about 2,000 years later, Islam started. But their religion says that our book is the first book. And their book is the second book. Obviously, we don't agree. But okay, fine. At least they say that our book is legitimate. The only people that say our book is not legitimate are usually Jews. That's the problem. Usually, it's the Jews that say that our book is not good. And that's the thing. It's absurd, but it's true. Our biggest enemies are ourselves. So today, when you're saying, you see some people, listen, okay, maybe we got the Torah, maybe it's real, but maybe it's not applicable anymore. Maybe it's not relevant to today. Maybe back then, because they didn't have cars, no one drove on Shabbat. But today we have cars, so God understands. And the reality of it is, that as absurd as it sounds, many people make a legitimate lifestyle thinking that way.

4:06operating their life with that in mind, thinking that, you know, God understands me. I'm not going to keep all of the rules, but God understands that it's too difficult for me. It's too difficult for me to eat kosher all the time. I have to have McDonald's once a week. It's too difficult for me to be with one woman. I have to have a different woman every other day. It's too difficult for me to be modest, so I have to show my whole body to the world. too difficult for me to be a nice person. I have to yell at least at one person every day. So God understands me. So when you think about all that, then what you're saying, if someone really thinks that way, they're saying on one hand that God is real, and the sages are real, Moshe is real, everything is real, but they are an exception. People today are an exception. So in essence what we're saying is that Yaakov Avinu and everyone else they're all fools. They all follow the law. They all follow everything that God said. They're in Gan Eden. They're in a great position. But we don't have to follow, and we're going to be in the same place? How could that be?

5:20If God would say, if we don't do anything, if we don't follow the laws God dictated at Mount Sinai, if we don't follow them, if we make up our own laws, and we go up there and say, "God, you understand me, right? It's okay for me not to keep Shabbat, not to eat kosher, not to do all these things. You understand me?" If God says yes, that cancels the entire Torah. Because it makes the Torah not real. Because God says that this Torah is eternal, it's forever. It cannot change. God also said that He doesn't change. He doesn't think like man. He doesn't have a mind like us. He doesn't think like us. He doesn't look like us. He doesn't have an image. Whatever He says, it's not an opinion. It's not maybe He's going to change His mind, like we change our mind every five minutes. One day we want this dress, another day we want another dress. One day we like our car, the next day we like our neighbor's car. Have you ever noticed that you always like your neighbor's car better than yours? It's the same car, but his car is a different color, yet you always like his better? That's human beings. We always like somebody else's stuff. The grass is always greener on the other side. So, people are constantly trying to humanize God. They're trying to make Him like us. They want to make everyone believe that God thinks like us. Maybe He changed His mind. Maybe He was wrong. Maybe He made a mistake. Hashem Shalom.

6:43Now, if God is able to make a mistake, if God is able to change His mind, if God thinks like us, then the reality of it is that He's not God. He's just another person. God didn't say that He was another person. He specifically said in the Torah that He's not a person. This is actually one of the best arguments against Christianity that says, you know, maybe God came in a human form. and it was a person, and then he died, and then he came back, and then something else happened. People are constantly trying to humanize God. They feel that if God is human, they can connect to Him more. The reality of it is that if God was human, it's impossible to connect to Him. Because... Most people don't like other people. We like a few people. We have a few friends. Everyone has a couple of friends. We have a few good ones. And that's it. Everybody else is somebody else. I know him. I buy from him. But that's it. He's not coming to my house for dinner every night. I don't want him in my house every day. Some people don't even want their family to come over every day because you want your own privacy. You want your own life. That's it. I don't want everybody on my head all day. Right?

8:02So most people don't really like everyone. They like a few people. So if God was a person, what's to say they were going to like Him? So what ended up happening, the next thing that people did, said, no, no, I love God because He gives me a bunch of stuff. He gives me a car, He gives me a house, He gives me kids, He gives me this, He gives me that. So they turned God into Santa Claus. That's it. Another human. If He gives me stuff, then I like Him. So what happens if He doesn't give it to you? Well, then you don't like Him. And if you don't like Him, you don't have to follow what He says. So that's the problem. When you humanize God, it's not God anymore. The Rambam said that if I, he was saying about himself, if I was able to understand God, if I was able to understand Him, really understand Him like I understand another person, I would be Him. To expect us to understand everything He did and why He did it is impossible. He's above us. He's divine. And that's one of the main things we have to understand. When we're reading all of these parashot in the Torah, some of the things that are happening here are very easy to understand. Some of the things are beyond us. Some of the things we don't understand. Why did God let this righteous person, whether it's Avraham or Yaakov,

9:22or Yitzchak, or Moshe, or any of that. All of the sages, if you notice, they all have one thing in common. They all suffered. Our natural human inclination is to think that if we're righteous, if we do what Hashem says, that means that we should live a wonderful life with no problems. Right? If I do everything that Hashem says, why should I have any problems? But that's a human god. A human god, if it's Santa Claus... If you're a good boy, you get presents, right? You get presents if you're a good boy. If you're a bad boy, you don't get presents. That's a human god. The real God, I told you, you come in here, you come into this world. This world is like a corridor. It's like a hallway. It's a small little section of a really, really big palace. A small little section of a really, really big palace. This life we live... 60, 70, 100 years, 120 years, b'ezrat Hashem. But that's it. Real life is eternal. So here, you come here to do the work. Here, you come here to do the mitzvot, to earn yourself a spot in the real world. Not that this is the real world. This world is work. This world is not meant to be easy. This world is not meant to be fun. And you can have fun if, b'ezrat Hashem, all of us have some times that we have fun. We're not all supposed to be tortured all day.

10:45But at the same time, no one is supposed to live with a mindset where if I do what Hashem said, then my life is supposed to be perfect. Because we see from the most perfect people in creation, their life wasn't perfect. Can we say that we're the same as Moshe Rabbeinu? Can we say that we're the same as Yaakov Avinu or even his little finger? We can't. And they had a difficult life. So in this week's parasha... It starts with a big test, the next big test, that Yaakov had after leaving Lavan. And Lavan was a big rasha. He was not only an evil person, but he also had powers. He was a wizard. And from him, as we talked about in yesterday's shiur, and also last week, is that he had such powers that everyone was scared of him, including Esav. Even Esav the Rasha, Yaakov's brother, who was the biggest gangster over there, even he was scared of Lavan. Nobody messed with Lavan. The sages say that either Lavan himself was a gilgul and eventually became Bilaam. Bilaam was the prophet who tried to destroy Am Yisrael later on with Moshe Rabbeinu, and obviously failed but got close to it. Or, Bilaam was his grandson. Now, to go into...

12:11And to Bilaam, when you think about the story of Bilaam and how he succeeded in almost destroying Am Yisrael, it wasn't from his curse. Bilaam had an ability that even Moshe Rabbeinu didn't have. Bilaam, according to Masechet Berachot, knew exactly when Hashem was mad. There's what they call a rega. A rega is like a moment. There's no defining time for it. A moment, like however long it takes you to say "moment," is how long a moment is. So let's say it's a second. There's a second in the day when Hashem is not necessarily angry like you and I are angry, but is upset at, obviously, Am Yisrael and the world for not doing what He really wrote for them to do, not following the instructions. There's only one moment a day, and anyone who knows that moment can ask Hashem to do whatever he wants, and usually, it's not a good thing. So Bilaam knew that moment. He was the only one in the world that ever knew it. And he wanted to use that time to ask Hashem to destroy His own nation, to destroy the Jews. When the time came, and Bil'am and Balak, whom we'll learn about both of them in a few months, tried to do this, it didn't work. Hashem, instead of allowing the curse that Bil'am had intended for Am Yisrael, turned it into a blessing.

13:39But how come 24,000 Jews died anyway? They didn't die because of the curse. They died because of Bil'am's advice to Balak. He said, listen, the Jewish God, He doesn't like promiscuity. He doesn't like when women and men get together without marriage, without worrying if they're Jewish or not Jewish. He doesn't like that stuff. He doesn't like people who act like prostitutes. He doesn't like people who want a new girlfriend every day. If you send your girls to them, get the Jews to commit sins, He'll destroy them for you. You don't have to bring any wars. You don't have to bring any spears. Nothing. And we see something very special from this story of how much Hashem doesn't like immodesty. As soon as the women arrived, to the Jews, and the Jews started sinning with them. Hashem didn't ask any questions. He didn't send a warning signal. He just started destroying. In a matter of seconds, 24,000 Jews died. And it only stopped when Pinchas

14:54In Parashat Pinchas, we're going to learn this. Pinchas took a spear and took Zimri, the leader of the Shimon tribe, while he was with Cozbi, the Midianite woman, while they were together, and killed them both on the spot. And that's when the plague stopped. In a matter of seconds, if he wouldn't have done it, a few more seconds, all of Am Yisrael would have died, and none of us would be here today. Now, why do I mention this story? because most people today, especially those living in Florida, have forgotten what clothing is. They leave it at home. They have clothes at home, but they come outside naked. And it's a problem. Hashem doesn't like it. No, it's true, it's true. Really, you know, you walk around Miami Beach, they think that they're always on the beach, even when they're at work. But they think they're on the beach. New York is no different. Even in the cold weather, there are people walking around half-naked. So, it's not the weather. Everywhere around the world, it's not just in America, it's in Israel, it's everywhere. People today feel like the more skin they show, the more beautiful they are. The reality of it is that if you look at history, if you look at the women that are highly regarded, even if they're movie stars, even if they're celebrities, even if they're the president's wife, usually it's the most modest women.

16:12It's not the ones that showed their body. The ones that showed their body, they were remembered for a week, a month, a year, two years. That's it. They forgot. Okay. We got bored of her already. But the one who's modest, everyone remembers. Oh, you remember so-and-so. Wow, she was so modest. Everybody talks about that. And that's the beauty because women today don't understand that. And men are even further from that. Men are asking their wives to be this way. Men are asking their wives to be modest. You have husbands asking their wives, "Listen, why are you wearing so much clothes? Take it off. Wear a tank top." The key here is that Hashem, if you think about the beginning of this book, you think about Noach. Everybody thinks about Noach. Hashem destroyed the world, to start all over, with Noach and his three sons, and their wives, and his wife, that's it. Everyone else was destroyed. But, before Hashem destroyed the world, He gave them a warning. He told Noach, "Listen, build the ark. It's going to take you 120 years."

17:17So for 120 years, people are going to see you working in the middle of town. They're going to ask questions. If they ask questions, tell them, "Listen, Hashem is going to destroy the world." So in essence, they're getting warnings for 120 years. For 120 years, every day they're getting a reminder: Hashem is going to destroy the world. Why? Because you're sinning, you're stealing, you're doing this, you're doing that. They didn't listen. Hashem destroyed the world. Tower of Babel, they wanted to go against God, they wanted to fight God, they wanted to build a tower. Hashem, obviously, instead of destroying them, He just changed their language, and it ended up being destroyed itself. You look at Sodom and Gomorrah, everyone knows what Sodom and Gomorrah is, right? Sodom and Gomorrah, when Hashem told Avraham, "I'm going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah," He didn't tell him because, listen, I'm going to destroy it and that's it. He told him because He wanted Avraham to pray for them, to maybe, maybe they could do teshuva. Avraham said, maybe if there's 50 righteous people there, maybe if there's 45, maybe if there's 40, maybe if there's 10. Hashem said, even if there's 10, I wouldn't destroy it. But in essence, He's giving them more time. He's giving them more time. Because, you know, Avraham is praying for them. He's trying to help them do teshuva.

18:40The only time in all the destructions we've had, even in the Beit HaMikdash, the first Beit HaMikdash, we made a lot of really big sins, including Avodah Zarah. Avodah Zarah is one of the worst things you can do. Which, by the way, just so anybody doesn't know, Avodah Zarah, every time Avodah Zarah, every time idol worship is mentioned in the Torah, and the punishment for it, it's mentioned right next to Shabbat. right next to the violation of Shabbat is idol worship. Why? Because Hashem considers it the same thing. Someone that violates Shabbat is the same thing as someone that's worshipping an idol. Same thing. People don't know that. They think, what's the big deal of Shabbat? What's the big deal? Wow, I'm just driving to shul. I'm just driving, just going to the movies. Why does Hashem care so much? It's a big deal. It's the fourth commandment. So now... Beit HaMikdash was sinning for many, many years. Hashem was sending us warnings. He was sending us the prophets. Do teshuva, do teshuva, do teshuva. No one wanted to listen. Eventually, He destroyed it. Seventy years later, we built another Beit HaMikdash. It lasted 420 years. But out of the 420 years, we weren't righteous for most of it. If you know, also, the second Beit HaMikdash, we had a Kohen.

20:04every year that had to go to the Kodesh HaKodashim and pray during Yom Kippur. And during those few minutes, pray for teshuva, for all of Am Yisrael. But if the Kohen was not righteous himself, even if he thought about something bad, or something not 100% holy, he would die on the spot. So the Kohen had to be really, really righteous, something out of this world. During the first Beit HaMikdash, there weren't many Kohanim. Why? Because they lasted a very long time. During the second Beit HaMikdash, we had over 300 of them. Which means that every year the Kohanim would die almost. The second Beit HaMikdash was around for 420 years. We had over 300 Kohanim. Why? Because every year the Kohen would die. Sometimes more than one would die in the same year. Why would they die? Because realistically, they weren't really righteous people. They were buying the Kehunah, the priesthood. It was rich people. So they figured, listen, if I'm rich, I'm righteous. Everyone thinks that when they're rich, they're smarter, they're better looking. If they're rich, they think everything changes. So same thing back then. They figured, listen, I have money. I want the best position. I want to be the top. I want to be the president. I want to be the Kohen Gadol. So I'm going to buy the position.

21:25They didn't think about, listen, I'm going to have to go to this Kodesh HaKodashim, and if I'm thinking about something bad, I'm going to die. They didn't think about that. They were just thinking about Kavod. They were thinking about pride. They wanted to get everyone to respect them, not realizing that most likely you're not going to survive. Now, I can understand logically. I can understand the first guy, the second guy, the fifth guy. I can understand everyone thinks that they're better than everybody else. I can understand. Okay, fine. I don't understand, after 5 people, after 100 people died, after 200 people died, how could you still do it? Why, you didn't notice that 200 people are dying every year? I don't understand. And that shows you that sometimes when someone has pride, and they want everyone to respect them, and they have so much arrogance because they think they're special, the logic goes in the garbage. They don't think clearly. They'd rather be honored for one minute and die than not be honored and live forever. Doesn't make any sense. One time Napoleon, somebody asked, told Napoleon, Napoleon was about to go to war with the Russians, and he went to a rabbi, and he asked the rabbi, he respected the rabbis, and he asked the rabbi, listen, what do you think about this war with the Russians? The rabbi told him the truth, he says, listen, you're going to lose. and die than not be honored and live forever. Doesn't make any sense. One time, Napoleon was about to go to war with the Russians, and he went to a rabbi. He respected the rabbis and asked the rabbi, "Listen, what do you think about this war with the Russians?" The rabbi told him the truth. He said, "Listen, you're going to lose."

22:54It was the Baal Shem Tov. He came to the Baal Shem Tov and asked him, "What do you think?" And he said, "You're going to lose. The Russians are going to kill you. You shouldn't go to this war. You shouldn't go to this war." "No, is there any other way?" "No, no, you're 100% going to lose." He asked, "You're going to go to the war?" He replied, "Yeah, I'm still going to go to the war." How does that make sense? I'm telling you, you're going to lose 100%. Why would you go to the war? He responded, "Because when I'm not fighting a war, I'm not Napoleon." So he'd rather go fight another war, knowing that he's going to die, just so he can get the kavod, the pride, that he went to another war. That's the thing: when someone has pride, all logic goes in the garbage. And this is something that we all have to check in ourselves. Every day we look in the mirror, we have to ask ourselves: Am I righteous with God? Am I really doing what He asked me to do? Am I really deserving of all the things I ask from Him every day? Every day we pray. Either we pray during the Beit Knesset or we pray personally. Sometimes somebody is just praying personally at home. They're talking to God, which is very good to do, by the way. It's very, very important to talk to God every day. Talk to Him like you talk to anyone. Just talk to Hashem. It's one of the best things you can do for yourself. So, sometimes you have...

24:13people that are talking to God, and they ask Him for stuff. Hashem, give me health. Hashem, give me this. Give me this. Give me this. Give me all these things. You want all these things. Okay, listen. It's not that Hashem gives you everything your heart desires. But once in a while, at least once in a while, you should ask yourself, if I was God, would I give it to me? Ask yourself, because I'm asking, this person is asking for all this stuff. Hashem said, listen, I also asked for a bunch of stuff. I told you to do all of these commandments. Everything that you can do, you have to do it, even if you don't like it, even if you don't understand it. Whatever is relevant to our generation, because there are some things that are not relevant to our generation, because we don't have a Beit HaMikdash. So, some of the mitzvot out of the 613 that Hashem gave us, we can't do because we don't have a Beit HaMikdash. But there are many that we can. About a third of the 613 we are obligated to do. So many of them we can't do, even if we wanted to. Some of them only apply to Kohanim. Some of them only apply to women. Some of them only apply to men. So, you can't do everything. No one can do everything. But the ones that you have to do, you have to do. So, Hashem says, okay, so now you ask yourself, if I was G-d...

25:32And I told this person, "Listen, you have 50 mitzvot. You have 50 mitzvot that you have to do. You have to do this, A, B, C, D, you have to do all these mitzvot. And this person is doing 10 of them. And those 10 happen to be the easy ones. You know, he washes his hands in the morning. He does keriat shema in the morning. He eats kosher. He happens to live next to a kosher deli, but that's a different story." Okay, he's doing the easy ones. But the big ones he's not doing. He's only doing 10. I gave him 50, he's doing 10. But he's asking me to be rich. He's asking me for Gan Eden. He's asking me for his kids to be successful. He's asking me for his kids to have zivugim and have family and have kids. He's asking me for... from here, he's asking for Gan Eden. In this world and the next world. If you were God, would you give it to you? Would you give it to this person? Doesn't make sense, right? But God still gives it to us. That's the amazing thing about God. He still gives it to us.

26:36Now, if we're asking for something, and G-d is not giving it to us, there's only one of two reasons. If you're praying every day for something, somebody has a problem, or whatever it is, Hashem, there's a lot of problems in the world, whether it's, you know, the disasters that are happening to the Jews all over the world, or it's health problems, or financial problems, or kids' problems, all the things that are happening, there's no shortage of problems in the world. So we're all praying every day, and sometimes we pray, but nothing happens. We don't get the results. We ask for this, it didn't happen. We ask for a job, we can't get a job. We ask to find a zivug, we can't find a zivug. We ask for, you know, different things, it didn't happen. It's only one of two reasons. Reason number one, you didn't pray long enough. Meaning, you didn't get there yet. You have to pray more. Hashem wants more prayers. This is one of the main reasons why Hashem gave the sages and the matriarchs and patriarchs had so many problems. He wanted to hear their prayers. Everyone knows that Yaakov was a tzaddik. Everyone knows that Yaakov was as good as it can be. So why is Hashem constantly giving him these tests? He knows he's going to pass them. Hashem knows the future. He knows he's going to pass this test. So what's the point of giving him a test He knows he's going to pass? He wants to hear his prayers. When Yaakov is now about to meet Esav,

28:01Yaakov gets very scared, because he hears that Esav is taking 400 leaders, and each one of these 400 leaders has 400 soldiers, which means Esav is coming with 160,000 soldiers against Yaakov and his little family. Yaakov is scared. He starts praying to Hashem. He says, Hashem, You already gave me so much. I came to Lavan with just a stick. I had nothing. no money, no nothing. Now I have two camps. I have money, I have, you know, my wives, I have 11 kids, one of them is on the way now, number 12 is on the way, Binyamin is on the way, because Rachel was pregnant. Oh Hashem, I have Your Torah, I'm healthy, everything is good. You already gave me too much, but now I'm hearing that Esav is coming to kill me. You promised me that the nation of Israel is going to come from me. So I don't know. I don't deserve all this already that You gave me. So to ask You to save me is already too much. But please save me anyway. Now Hashem knew and He already told Yaakov, and He already told his father Yitzchak, and He already told his grandfather Avraham that everyone, all of Am Yisrael, would come from Yaakov. So why is Yaakov so worried?

29:27He knows everyone's going to come. He can't die. He's not allowed to die. Everything depends on him. So why is he so worried? This teaches us something about the sages. This teaches us something about the Patriarchs, the Matriarchs, all of the most important people in history. The ones that were closest to Hashem were never, ever confident. ...about their own actions. Even though they were righteous, even though they did all the mitzvot and they kept the Torah even before they got the Torah. Even before Mount Sinai, Yaakov, Avraham, and Yitzchak all kept the Torah. They already kept the Torah. They weren't obligated, but they already did it. Even then, they weren't sure. They said, maybe, you know what, Esav has been doing a mitzvah that I couldn't do. He was respecting... My mom and my dad. He's been respecting Abba and Ima for the last 34 years. That's the fifth commandment. I couldn't respect my mom and dad because I wasn't there for 34 years. 14 years that Yaakov was at Yeshiva. He went before Lavan. He went to the Yeshiva of Shem and Ever. And then he went to Lavan. He worked there for 20 years. So for 34 years, he hasn't been at home.

30:43So for 34 years, my parents, there's no Facebook, there's no telephone, there's no email, there's nothing. Can't call, can't send a letter. So for 34 years, I can't talk to my parents. If I can't talk to my parents, how can I show them respect? Maybe they died, maybe not, I don't know. They don't know what happened to me even. So I can't honor my parents. He's been honoring his parents. So he has one mitzvah that I don't have. Plus, he lives in Cana'an, which is later called Eretz Yisrael. Hashem said that He's going to bless this land. That's the chosen land. So Esav has been living in this land. I haven't been living in this land. So he has two mitzvot now that I couldn't do. He's not thinking like us. Oh, I do this and I do that and I do this and I do that. He's thinking, I'm missing two mitzvot. He has two mitzvot. He's not thinking Esav is a rasha and he's murdering people. No. He's not judging him. He doesn't know. He's like, listen, his business is his business. All I know is that he has two mitzvot. I don't know about his crimes. I don't care about his crimes. It's not my business. I don't know about my own mitzvot, because I'm supposed to do them anyway. What, am I supposed to get a bonus for doing the mitzvot? Hashem said to do them, I have to do them. So he's not thinking about everything I did, and he's not thinking about everything the other guy is doing wrong, which is exactly what we do. We see somebody else is rich, we think, why is Hashem giving him all this money? He steals, he's this, you're thinking about everything wrong that he's doing.

32:10Everyone else is a sinner except us, we think. All the time. You think about it all the time. Everyone else is sinning, but our sins are not sins. It's accidental. I did it by accident. He sinned on purpose. That's what we think. Human beings, that's the way we think. Everyone else is a sinner. So Yaakov is different. Yaakov is saying, no, no. Esav, he has two mitzvot that I couldn't do. So with those two mitzvot, maybe he beats everything that I did. So he's really, really worried. And he prays to God. When it comes back to all of the sages, each time we spoke to God, each time we got news from God, any time there was a decree from Shamayim, God would give us a warning shot. He would tell us, repent, whether it was the flood, or it was Sodom and Gomorrah, or it was the first Beit HaMikdash, the second Beit HaMikdash, all throughout history, we've constantly gotten warning shots. The only thing that changed between today and a couple of thousand years ago is that today we don't have prophets, so Hashem gives us warning shots that are obvious if you're paying attention. But He's not talking to us in public like He did back then. Today, He's telling you, listen, the Arabs have already had almost two billion people in the world.

33:37For a long time. It's not like they just were born two billion today. They've already had two billion for a long time. Which really means that if they really want to destroy the nation of Israel, they don't need weapons. They don't need machine guns. They don't need tanks. They don't need anything. They don't need planes. They can just all walk to Israel. That's it. All of them come together. They all get on a little boat, a car, or something. Or they walk on their camels. They come to Israel. That's it. Israel's gone. With no weapons. Not even one shot fired. What are the little 10 million people, 12 million people we have in Israel going to do against 2 billion people? Now, Hashem has obviously been giving us a lot of mercy for a long time. They didn’t do it. But now, all of a sudden, they have this new policy: anyone that can take a knife, go use it against a Jew. They could have already done this a long time ago, even without the knife. So why are they doing it now? Hashem is talking to us. If you're paying attention, Hashem is talking to us. He says, listen, you've got to wake up. I didn't bring you to this world to play on your computer. I didn't bring you to this world to focus on making money. I didn't bring you to this world to do everything that we do. I brought you to this world for Torah. To bring the Torah to life.

34:59When most of Am Yisrael is not keeping mitzvot, most of Am Yisrael is not keeping Shabbat, they don't even know what Shabbat is, most of them. They think it's just another day. It's called Shabbat. They think they can do Kiddush and then go to the movies. Do Kiddush, then go to the pub. Do Kiddush, and then go make every sin possible. So Hashem is sending us signs. The only time the only time He did not send the signs, the only time He did not give us a warning shot, the only time He didn't say, you have to do teshuva, is with the story between Bilaam, who gave the advice to Balak, and when they sent the women to make the Jews commit sins. That's the only time. As soon as they started committing the sins, Hashem didn't talk to Moshe, He didn't talk to anybody. As soon as they started committing the sins, He started killing them. No warning shots. So when people today, when Jews today are telling you, "Listen, why does Hashem care if I wear a tube top or a tank top or a mini skirt or a long skirt? Why does Hashem care so much? It's my body. It's my body. What? He created me. He knows what He created. What? I have to be shy from God? He knows what He created. What is it? What's the big deal?" We have to remember this story.

36:26Hashem hates zenut. Zenut is, in essence, immodesty. It's promiscuity. When women walk around without being modest, it's not just about them. It's not just about their sin that they're going against Hashem. It's about how they're making other people sin. Because guys don't think like women. Women, in order for them to love somebody, in order for them to be intimate with somebody naturally in a normal way, have to care about the person. They want him to be a nice person, to be funny, to be this, to be that. They want to care about the person. Guys, not so much. Guys just want life to be convenient. If she cooks, if she cleans, if she understands my lifestyle... i could deal with it. i could live this life. she could be a good wife. guys are not as a... they don't put as much thought into a relationship as women do. women are much smarter than men in many things, by the way. much smarter. so the problem is that guys are looking at, you know, especially people in the street. when i talk about guys in the kollel, or yeshiva, or not in, I'm talking about people regularly in the street. they see a woman that's not modest...

37:51They're already thinking about everything that they're not supposed to be thinking. They don't even know the woman. They're already thinking about this and that and the vacation they're going to take and then she's going to be this way and then she's going to be that. They already have this whole movie in their head. Now, the guy could be married with four kids, but he's thinking about somebody else. But it's not only his fault. It's her fault because she dresses in a way that's appealing to everyone. So when she grabs the attention of the guy, what ends up happening is, he goes home, but he's thinking about another woman. So she makes him sin. But she's not walking on the street with one guy. It's thousands, millions. So when a woman is not modest, the problem is that it's not just the sin that she's making by not being modest. The sin is that she's making everyone else sin. She can walk on one block from 75th Street to 76th Street, 1,500 men passed by her; 1,500 men sinned. But it's not one sin they made. They're committing that sin over and over, and every time they think about her, it's another sin. Millions of sins in a walk that took maybe 30 seconds. This is something we need to understand because, again, when Hashem gave us so many warning shots, even for Avodah Zarah, even when we worshipped idols, He gave us a warning shot. When we worshipped idols, He told us, stop. Do teshuva.

39:22When we did everything we did, even when we were at Mount Sinai, He wanted to destroy us, but He didn't destroy us. Why? He said, okay, they worshipped an idol, they did what they did. Some people say it was only the Erev Rav. Some people say it was everyone. Either way, the point is that at a time when realistically we deserved as bad as it could be, we didn't get it. Why? Because Hashem loves Yisrael and He gave us another shot. The only time He didn't give us another shot is with immodesty. And this is something that we have to really, really try to teach everyone around us. Because when people say, no, I love Hashem, I understand Hashem, I love Hashem, He loves me. And you're asking for all of these things. Just like Yaakov is asking for Hashem. Hashem, please save me. So we have to remind ourselves. Okay, Yaakov, he made all the mitzvot. All of his wives were kosher. All of his kids were tzaddikim. He was a tzaddik. He did everything. Even after Lavan was cheating him for 20 years. 20 years. We talked about it in last week's parasha. 20 years. He's cheating him.

40:33One day Yaakov comes to his wives and he says, "Listen, we have to leave your father's house because he's been cheating me." He's telling this to his daughters. What, his daughters didn't know that he's been cheating them for 20 years? That's the beauty about Yaakov. 20 years he's been cheated, he didn't complain once. He didn't say Lashon Hara even one time. Which means that for 20 years, Lavan's daughters, who are Yaakov's wives, didn't know. Maybe he's cheating. Maybe he's not cheating. We don't know. Yaakov never says anything. He goes to work. He does his work. He comes home. Never says lashon hara. 20 years doesn't say lashon hara. Can we last one day without lashon hara? We talk on the phone with somebody and already start lashon hara. It's already become part of us, unfortunately. 20 years didn't say lashon hara about somebody that he's right about. The guy's cheating him. He should say lashon hara non-stop. Not saying anything. So Yaakov is doing all of these mitzvot. He's doing everything. And he's asking Hashem, please save me. Please just save me. He didn't say, Hashem, give me money. Hashem, give me more kids. Give me this. Give me nothing. Just save me. Save my life. We, not Yaakov Avinu, but we're asking for everything else. So, that's the thing you have to understand. One of the most valuable lessons from all of these parashiyot is not to just learn the story and enjoy it.

42:01is to learn the lessons from the story. Because Hashem wrote this Torah in order for us to learn how to behave, in order for us to learn how to connect to Him. He's saying, look, Yaakov, I loved Yaakov. I loved Avraham. I loved all of them. But look what they did for Me. They showed Me love also. They didn't just say every day, kiss them and say, "I love you." They did more by their actions. If our actions... show Hashem love, our words don't need to say anything. We're already doing it. But if our words are just saying it, but our actions are the opposite, it's worthless. If anything, it makes Hashem upset. So when we're asking Hashem for things every day, we have to ask ourselves, am I really doing as much as I can to deserve everything that I'm asking for?

43:02Now, after Yaakov gets through this test and meets Esav, there's a halacha, just like there's a halacha for tefillin, and there's a halacha for Shabbat, there's a halacha for prayers, and everything else. There's a halacha that Esav hates Yaakov. No matter what, there's an inner hate. and Esav for Yaakov. But they're not just talking about Esav, they're talking about Edom. They're talking about all of his descendants who hate Yaakov, hate Israel. So even if someone has a relationship with a non-Jew, they always have to take that into mind. That doesn't necessarily mean that all non-Jews are wicked. It doesn't necessarily mean that all non-Jews are not good. It just means that we always have to think for ourselves that when push comes to shove, we have to try to stay as close to our own people as we can. Because during the times of World War II, the Jews were very popular in Germany. Before World War II, they were very popular, they were very rich. The Jews were just like in America today. There are a lot of Jews who are very rich in America, they live comfortable lives, they have big houses, big this, big that, and they're all over the media and everything is great.

44:22And the goyim, you know, for the most part, even though there's 40% anti-Semitism in America, for the most part, people don't feel it. People don't feel anti-Semitism in America as much. Unless you watch the news. And you see that every time a Palestinian kills 15 people, the news only says, "Palestinian died." The 15 people he killed, they don't mention. But for the most part, Jews don't feel anti-Semitism, baruch Hashem, in America. They feel anti-Semitism in Europe, in the rest of the world, but in America, for the most part, baruch Hashem, no. At the same time, a Jew has to understand, during World War II, we were in the same exact position, if not even better than America. If not even better than America. But then one day, It all changed. And all those next-door neighbors that brought us cookies for the holidays and said shalom, all of a sudden, they were the same people that were pushing us into the trains to go into the concentration camps. So again, Esav hates Yaakov. Like I said, it doesn't mean that all goyim are not good. It just means that a Jew needs to live next to Jews, needs to be next to Jews. We are stronger together.

45:44By ourselves, we can't survive. So now, when Esav sees Yaakov, he runs towards him, and Yaakov runs towards Esav. And they hug. And it says they kiss. They give each other a big kiss. They haven't seen each other for a long time. And then they start crying. But the Midrash says that it really wasn't a kiss. The word Vayishakehu which means "kiss" has on the Torah scroll—you'll see it on Shabbat—you'll see it on the Torah scroll, it has stars around it, it has different dots, which is unusual. So the Midrash, the sages explained that he didn't really kiss him; he actually tried to bite him on his neck and kill him. Esav was really trying to say, listen, I've been waiting for this moment to kill my brother for so many years. I'm going to not only murder him, I'm going to murder him in the worst possible way, the most violent way. But Hashem made a miracle, and He turned Yaakov's neck into marble, as strong as marble. So after he bit him, he broke his teeth, and both of them were crying. Esav was crying because he broke his teeth, and Yaakov was crying. There's still hatred here also. But

47:08At that moment, Esav realized that he's not dealing with the same Yaakov that was there 34 years ago. He's not dealing with this little talmid, you know, goes to yeshiva with the little hat, just trying to make it through the day. He's dealing with something kadosh. He's dealing with something holy. He can't just push him around like he did. And the 160,000 people that he brought with him also realized that. So this Yaakov is not the person that Esav was really making him out to be. They all left. Hashem made a miracle. They all left. And that's why after Esav says, "Listen, why don't you come with me and with my people?" Yaakov says, "No, no, no. I'm going to go my own way, my own pace. I don't want to go too fast. Maybe my sheep..." And my cattle will die if I go too fast. And also my kids are young. They're fragile. Let us go at our own pace and I'll meet up with you. And then when it says that Esav accepted this answer and he left, it didn't say that he left with the 400 men. Initially, it mentioned the 400 men.

48:24The 400 leaders that had 400 people each. But when he left, it didn't mention the 400. The Midrash says that the 400 already left before this. They saw how holy Yaakov was. They said, we don't want to mess with this guy. This is not a regular person. The guy has fire around him. He's walking around with a holy fire around him. That's not you and me. But one thing also that we learned, we went over it a little bit yesterday, If anybody wants to watch this shiur, it's online now. It's something that happens a lot today that we can learn from Yaakov, that there's a time and a place for everything. The first thing that Yaakov does before he sees his brother is he sends angels with gifts for Esav. And he says, tell Esav exactly these words. Tell Esav, your brother, your servant Yaakov, your servant. He calls himself Esav's servant. I'm here, and I have all these presents for you. And then when he sees Esav, he begs Esav to please take these presents. And he acts really, really nice to him. And he's constantly giving him compliments. He says, seeing your face is like seeing a divine face, like seeing an angel.

49:43seeing an angel. Yitzchak wasn't exactly the best-looking guy in the world. He's not portrayed in the Torah as a good-looking person. So why is Yaakov saying, seeing your face is like seeing an angel? What is this flattery? Masechet Sotah in the Gemara, this is part of the Oral Torah, says some really bad things about anyone that gives compliments to someone that's not worth it. Meaning, if someone is an enemy of Hashem, where he's not an enemy in the sense that he has to be a murderer all the time. Sometimes he's an enemy of Hashem by just going against the Torah, and not putting in the time that he needs to learn Torah, and not putting in the time that he needs to keep the mitzvot. But he happens to be rich, so he doesn't keep Shabbat, he doesn't keep kosher, he's married to a non-Jew. He's doing everything wrong, according to the Torah. But when he arrives at the Beit Knesset, because he has a few million dollars in the bank, they give him aliyah, they give him kavod, everybody's excited when he's there. All of a sudden, it's like the president came. The Gemara says some really bad things about that. To give kavod to someone that's considered wicked, according to the Torah, has some very dire punishments.

51:13It says, there are four classes of people, of sinners, that do not receive the Divine Presence. Meaning, people that even if they pray, Hashem doesn't listen to their prayer. People that Hashem doesn't want any part of their life. Four types of sinners: kat leitzanim, people that make fun of everything. People want to be, you know, I want to joke, you know, sometimes you go to a shiur Torah, And the rabbi is serious; he's trying to give a shiur Torah, he's trying to show you what Hashem said. And everybody's serious, everybody's learning, and all of a sudden, this one guy wants attention, and he makes a joke about nothing, and he gets everybody off the topic, and no one wants to learn anymore. Everyone wants to joke now. That person's in a lot of trouble. So, you know, there's a time and a place for everything. You're allowed to be a funny person, you're allowed to say jokes, but there's a time and a place for everything. Second one, the kat chaneifin. class of flatterers. What's flatterers? People that give compliments to the wicked. Just like we were talking about, a guy that's a wicked person comes to the Beit Knesset because he has some money, maybe he could donate a million dollars to the shul, or a hundred thousand, or a thousand, whatever he could donate. All of a sudden, they give him all the kavod in the world. He says that person and those people around him, Hashem wants nothing to do with them. So they're thinking that this guy is coming to help them.

52:40They're thinking, this guy is coming, he's going to donate all of his money to us, to this Beit Knesset, to build the Yeshiva. Wow, it's so great, it's so amazing. They don't realize that his coming here and them giving him kavod is hurting them more than they can even imagine. But this is normal in our world. People that have money in our world get so much kavod. It's always been this way, it's not just today. The other two are the Kat Shakranim, a class of liars, people that are naturally liars. like to lie, and they lie their whole life as a lie. They say they're this, but they're really not. Some people pretend like they know the whole Torah, but they really barely even know how to say a beracha. They call them ba'alei batim. Sometimes you see these advertisements in Jewish communities where they say a tzaddik ba le'ir. A tzaddik is coming to the city. And it's someone you've never heard of. And he dresses differently. He has a hood sometimes, or, you know, they're usually older. And people are saying, "Oh, this person is holy and he can give you these special things. You know, he can heal you and he can do this and he can do that. But if you want to be healed, or if you want help with ABC, you have to give him $10,000, $5,000." You know, he has to charge money for it. Anyone that charges you money to do something for you is fake. There's no such thing. They're fake.

54:05No such thing as help costs money. In the business world, yes, you obviously have to pay money. In the Jewish world, help does not cost money. Anyone that comes to a city and says, "Listen, in order for me to help you be healthy, in order for me to pray for you, to do whatever it is that you need help with, you have to pay me a certain amount of money," that person is as wicked as can be. The last thing is, people that say it like it's part of their day. You know, sometimes there are people that like to talk on the phone to their friends a lot, not because they need anything, just because they want to tell everybody else what everybody else is doing. How everybody else is, is not good. So now, you have a situation here where Hashem is in multiple places. We mentioned a lot more yesterday, but this just gives you an idea where... Hashem doesn't like it. He doesn't like when you give compliments to people that don't deserve it. That's to say it nicely. Now you have Yaakov, he's saying a lot of nice things. He's saying a lot of nice things about Esav. But Yaakov was a tzadik. This is where you have to pay attention to the words. Yaakov is saying to Esav, listen, listen,

55:32Seeing your face is like seeing the face of an angel. So what does that mean? That means that Yaakov has seen angels. So the Gemara explains it, same masechet. He says, listen, Yaakov is telling him his face looks like an angel, not because he really likes him. He's telling him, listen, don't mess with me. I deal with angels all the time. It's just like somebody, they give a story, let's say somebody is invited to go to a person's house, but he finds out that his host is planning to kill him. So what is he going to do? So he says to the host, he goes, oh, you know, the food is so good here, it's just like the food I had at the king's house. So automatically, the guy that's thinking about killing him goes, wait a minute, I'm going to kill this guy, the king is going to go after me. He knows the king, he's friends with the king, he eats with the king. That's exactly what Yaakov is doing over here. He's saying, listen, your face looks like an angel. Not because he looks like an angel, but because he's saying, listen to me, I deal with angels all the time. I'm not a regular guy like you. So he's giving him a little bit of a warning. At the same time, he's giving him a compliment. Another reason that Chazal say that he's giving him a compliment is to make shalom, to make peace, and avoid war.

56:59It's the way of Yisrael. It's the way of Am Yisrael. And sometimes it's necessary. So you're allowed to say something nice if it's for the sake of peace. But again, peace, not money. Not because you want a donation. So there's a very big difference, and there's a thin line between them. So far, does anybody have any questions? So now, the next thing that we hear about is the abduction of Dina. Dina was one of the daughters of Yaakov through his wife Leah. And Dina was a tzaddeket. Dina was a very, very righteous girl. But she made a mistake. One day, she walked around and She did not do something that was Jewish-like, or a behavior befitting a righteous person. She walked around town just to see other girls and hang out with them, to see what was going on. Hashem says that's not what a righteous girl does. A righteous girl is at home, taking care of the family, learning Torah. We don't go around Manhattan, you know.

58:10Looking for skirts and bikinis. A righteous girl has times and a place to do something, but not by herself. You want to go shopping? Okay, bring your husband with you. Or if you don't have a husband, you bring your brother. A nice Jewish girl doesn't walk around by herself. It's not a modest thing to do. Because if you walk around by yourself, it looks like maybe you're not married. Now, the beauty of Judaism is that in order for us to know if a Jewish woman is married or not, there's a basic sign. Because everyone is required to be modest. But there's one obvious sign of a married Jewish woman. What is it? She covers her hair. She covers her hair. If she's married, she covers her hair. That way, we know, okay, even if she walks around by herself, we know, okay, she's married, okay, that's not a girl that I'm going to mess with. She's married to somebody else. Even the goyim respect married women, even in this day. It is very, very important for a woman to cover her hair. Now, this is actually one of the controversies in Judaism for the last generation, for the last probably 100 or so years, especially this generation, with the issue of wigs. A lot of righteous people

59:25people that listen to Torah and follow the mitzvot are making a decision to wear a wig instead of covering their hair with either a hat or scarf of some kind, as everyone has done for nearly 5,000 years or 3,300 years. The problem with today's wigs is that even though there is a source in the Torah that talks about a wig, the wig that they were talking about in those days is a wig that you knew was a wig. It looked like straw. Even someone who was blind could tell that it's a wig. It looked like, you know, the broom you sweep the floor with. It looked like that on someone's head. So you knew it was a wig. The woman chose to cover her hair either because she didn't have money for a scarf or a hat, or that's what was available. Unfortunately, another way that we changed and made Judaism into something that we call more modern is that we put these wigs, but the wigs today are nicer than hair. So you have a woman that's supposed to make herself more modest, but instead of putting something that makes herself show the world that she's married, she walks around with a wig that has all these curls, always looks perfect, and the best part about it is that guys can't tell the difference.

1:00:52I see it, I can't tell the difference. Maybe another woman can tell. My wife tells me all the time, oh no, she's wearing a wig. How do I know? What do you mean? She's wearing a sheitel. I don't know. She goes to the salon every day maybe, but it's a sheitel. No, my wife's like, no, no, it's a wig. Like, how could it be a wig? It looks real. And this is one of the things that creates a lot of problems. There's actually a story that Rabbi Mizrachi told me that somebody came up to him one time at a wedding, and a young guy And he says, "Rabbi, I'm looking for a shidduch and there's this nice woman over there. If you could introduce me, maybe talk to her parents. I can't walk up to her myself. You know, it's not regular, he's not in a club." The Rabbi happened to know this woman. He goes, "No, no, she's married." The guy's like, "Oh, she's married because of a religious wedding. It wasn't a secular wedding." Oh, I couldn't tell. The wig is a, it's a wig. I thought it was hair. So that's the thing. It's a problem. It creates a lot of problems. It creates a lot of problems. Because, you know, when the guy is asking, listen, the rabbi, please set me up with that, he's already thinking in his mind how the wedding is going to look.

1:02:07He's thinking about the wedding, what the kids are going to look like. He's already thinking about her waking up in the morning and making breakfast. He already has the whole movie in his head. It's not like he's an innocent, nice little guy. He's thinking he has a whole movie. So this poor woman who's trying to do a mitzvah, she's trying to cover her hair, but she's causing this other guy to sin, albeit unintentionally. Not intentionally. Not intentionally. There's a story in the Gemara, Masechet Avoda Zara, that talks about Rabbi Chanina ben Teradyon. Rabbi Chanina ben Teradyon had two daughters. One of them was Bruriah, the wife of Rabbi Meir. I don't recall the name of the other daughter, but she also received a severe punishment. Even Rabbi Chanina ben Teradyon and his wife received a punishment, but that's a long story. We'll just focus on the three women. The three women received severe punishments, each for their own actions and each with their own story. The wife of Rabbi Chanina, Rabbi Chanina ben Teradyon, was one of the greatest sages of all time. He was Kodesh Kodashim (Holy of Holies). He was able to bring back the dead. I can barely even notice if I'm alive, and this tzaddik (righteous person) was bringing back the dead.

1:03:30Somebody, somebody, it's holy. But he made a mistake. At his level, he made a mistake. He said the name of Hashem inappropriately. Where, you know, you see sometimes, not sometimes, all over the Torah, you see the Yud, Hey, Vav, and Hey. But we don't pronounce that name the way it really reads. We pronounce it Adonai. You're not supposed to say it for no reason. He pronounced it. he pronounced it the way it really reads. And you're not allowed to do that. Even though he was a completely righteous person. So Hashem punished him at his level, and he had a very difficult death. The Romans tied him up and bound him with a Sefer Torah. His wife, saw him when he was giving a shiur Torah. Back in those days, you didn't need to make phone calls and Facebook meetings and all of these things. Back then, someone who knows Torah goes in the middle of the street and starts talking Torah. All of a sudden, 500 people show up and listen to his Torah. People loved Torah in those days. You didn't have to organize anything. You go, you know Torah, you go into the middle of the neighborhood, you start saying divrei Torah, and everybody comes. His wife would see that he's teaching Torah.

1:04:51He's making this mistake. She knew it was a mistake, but she didn't say anything. So Hashem punished her also. This teaches us from her, from Rabbi Chanina ben Teradion's wife, you're not allowed to watch somebody else sin and not say something. If you're connected to them, if you don't know them, if it's just a stranger, it's different. But if it's somebody you know, if it's your father, it's your mother, you have to be careful because it's your parents; you have to respect them, you have to do it in a certain respectable way. If it's your children, if it's your husband, it's a different way. If it's your friend, also a different way. But you have to do something. You can't just watch your brothers and sisters who are Jewish go against Hashem and say nothing. No, no. He'll figure it out on his own. That's what a lot of people say. Yeah, but the guy is a nice guy. He's a wonderful guy. He comes to Beit Knesset once a year on Yom Kippur. He donates some money. He thinks that he's okay. He doesn't realize that it's worthless. If he doesn't keep Shabbat, if he doesn't keep the basic foundation of Judaism, he's cut off from the nation. He has a very, very bad place prepared for him. Why? Tell him to keep Shabbat. Maybe he doesn't know. No, no, he knows. He doesn't know. There's only two types of people that don't keep Shabbat. One is because they don't know. Two is because they don't believe. Either they don't believe that the Torah is real. There are questions. They haven't investigated long enough to really know that the Torah is real.

1:06:17or two, they don't really know how significant it really is. They believe the Torah is real. We got it on Mount Sinai from the limited knowledge they have. But they don't know how critical Hashem is of someone that violates His laws. Because if someone really knew, there's no way that they would go against Hashem. If you know and believe, there's no way you would go against Hashem. Which means that everything that we do that's a sin, we don't do it intentionally against Hashem. Do it because we don't know the difference. So that's why Hashem says you have to learn Torah every day. Something. Every day you have to learn Torah, especially men. Mainly men. Women are supposed to know the basics. But today it's easy to learn Torah. You put on a YouTube video, you have a tape, CDs. I brought you guys some CDs for Rabbi Mizrachi's lectures and also this amazing book by Rabbi Zamir Cohen. It's in English. A lot of the shiurim that I do when I talk about science, a lot of the material comes from this book. So each one of you has a free copy and also some CDs. That will be your homework for today. So, now Rabbi Chanina, okay, at his level he was a complete tzaddik, made the sin of saying Hashem's name inappropriately, and Hashem punished him. Fine. This is to show us that even the righteous, Hashem is critical with them.

1:07:39So no one should think that we have a free lunch here, that it's okay for us to sin just because we're not. His wife watched him sin. She didn't say anything, which is not allowed. She got punished. The daughter, whose name I don't remember, was a very modest and very righteous person. One day she's walking around. The Romans see her walking, and they like the way she walks. So they compliment the way she walks. She hears them complimenting the way she walks. She gets excited. She walks even nicer. That's it. She's still modest. She's still covering herself. That's it. She didn't take off her clothes. She didn't walk around with a bikini. Nothing. She heard somebody complimenting her, so she got excited about it. So she walked a little nicer. Hashem says, oh, you get excited about these men, these goyim actually complimenting how you walk. This is how a righteous woman behaves? He makes a decree. Hashem makes the goyim issue a decree to send her to the prostitution house. Become a prostitute. That was her punishment.

1:08:51This is for walking, not for the immodestly dressed people we see today. Imagine what this is. This is for walking. Hashem is very critical. He's not our friend; He's not our friend from college. It's for walking. But the good news is, she knew she made a mistake. Unlike us, who say, "Why is Hashem doing this to me? Why, why, why? We're so good." She knew she made a mistake. She said, "Hashem, You're right. I deserve this punishment." Because of that, her other sister, the third woman in the story, Bruriah, her husband was Rabbi Meir Baal Hanes. A lot of people know Rabbi Meir Baal Hanes, who always pray for his zechuyot to help us, but people need to understand, you have to pray to Hashem, not to Rabbi Meir. So from this story, Rabbi Meir became known as Rabbi Meir Baal Hanes. Bruriah goes to Rabbi Meir, we're almost done. Bruriah goes to Rabbi Meir and she says, How could you be studying Torah while my sister is in a prostitution house right now? Go get her. So Rabbi Meir says, okay. He takes a bag of money, of dinarim, and he goes to the place. And he prays to Hashem. He says, Eloka d'Rabbi Meir, the God of Rabbi Meir, make me a miracle that

1:10:16only if somebody didn't touch her. If she was already with a man, don't make a miracle for me. It's already too late. If she's already defiled, it's already too late. But if she's still pure, then make a miracle for me. So he goes to the place, he sees this big guard. Now Rabbi Meir is not dressed like a rabbi now, he's dressed up like a customer. You can't tell him, "Listen, I'm here for this woman." So you tell him, "Listen, I'm interested in your woman. What do you have?" And he shows him the woman. He says, "Okay, I want that one." And he picks the sister. She doesn't know it's him. She doesn't know it's Rabbi Meir. She can't recognize him. She says, "Okay, listen, I'm ready." And he says, "No, no, I'm sorry. It's my time of the month. I can't be with you. I can't take customers." Rabbi Meir says, "Ah." Smart woman my wife has. Smart sister my wife has. This is probably what she tells all the customers. This means that she wasn't touched. Okay, I'm going to save her. So he goes back to the guard and he says, “Listen, I like that woman. I want to take her. I'll buy her.” He gives him a bag of money. And the guard says, “Listen, great for the money, but what am I going to do with this money? Once my boss finds out that I sold one of his girls, he's going to kill me.” He goes, “No, no. I have a way for you to get out of it.”

1:11:44When your boss comes or anything happens, you say, "Pray a lot to the Ribbono Shel Olam, the God of Rabbi Meir. Answer me, get that command." "Oh, it's a magic show," he says, "along with your nonsense. I understand what your story is, okay fine, but—" "No, no, try it, try it because—" "Leave me alone. Listen, you have a big dog over there, a vicious dog. Release that dog." Release that dog on me. He goes, "Listen, if I release that dog, that dog even tries to bite us. If I release that dog, he's going to kill you in two seconds." "Fine, release the dog." "Okay." He releases the dog. Rabbi Meir says, and the dog becomes a little puppy and stops and starts becoming Rabbi Meir's friend. The guards couldn't believe it. His dog is like a lion. He wants to eat everything in sight. All of a sudden he's a friend of Rabbi Meir just because he said a few words. He believes him. He says, okay, fine. Take the girl. Give me the money. Goodbye. So Rabbi Meir saves his sister, and Beruriah obviously benefits from it by having her sister saved. Aside from learning more about modesty, how is this connected to the parashah?

1:13:02After Dinah was raped by this rasha Shechem, Shechem wanted to, after he already did what he did with her, he wanted to marry her all of a sudden. So he comes to Yaakov with his father. He says, listen, we have your daughter, we've been keeping her for the last few days, but now I want to marry her. So give me your daughter. It says that Yaakov didn't answer him until the brothers came back. One of the reasons is that once the brothers came back, Yaakov was figuring out if it was too late to save Dinah or not. So,

1:14:05She's already been defiled. Is it too late to save her? Is it worth it to save her or not? If she wasn't, if this guy would have come to me before he touched her, I wouldn't even talk to him. I would kill him on the spot, and I would go myself. Yaakov would go by himself, kill everybody by himself, just to save her. Just to save her. But since now the brothers came and they verified that he really did touch her, okay, so now it's too late to kill everybody. It's too late to fight for it. It already happened. Let's try to negotiate. Let's try to make peace. This shows you the significance of how a woman is appreciated in Judaism. Many people don't understand. They think that in Judaism, women are less than men. It's the exact opposite. Women are higher than men in Judaism. We were saved from Egypt because of the women, not because of the men. The Mashiach is going to come because of the women, not because of the men. When a mother cries for her children, the door is always open. Father? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. When Am Yisrael...

1:15:30was beaten up by Nebuchadnezzar, who destroyed the Beit HaMikdash. It connects to the parasha because right here is when Rachel dies. And Yaakov decides to bury Rachel on the road, not to bring her to the Me'arat HaMachpela, not to bring her to the cave of Machpela, because Yaakov already saw in prophecy that the day will come And Nebuchadnezzar is going to kill the Jews, but he's going to bring a bunch of them to become slaves. And the Jews are going to lose all hope. They need a mother to cry for them. A father is not enough. A father is already over there. He's one of the slaves. We need a mother to cry for us. So when they pass the grave of Rachel, she's going to cry for them. And that's when they're going to have hope. That's when they're going to have the salvation. Because a woman is something special in Judaism. If the woman starts realizing it herself, she's going to want to be modest. She's going to want to be connected to Hashem. Because she knows she's significant. If the man knows it, he's going to have a good marriage. He's going to have a good relationship. He's going to have a good life. In America, they say, "Happy wife, happy life." There's something to it, though. It's

1:16:52But if neither one of them knows it, what hope do we have? If neither one of them knows it, if the man doesn't know that the wife is special, that women are special in general, how is he going to treat them? Even if they're his employees. Even if it's the waitress at the restaurant. Even if it's his daughter. It's another body. and the woman, she's not going to think she's anything special, so she thinks that she needs to show herself. She needs to get attention. Because I'm not special. All we need to do in order to find out how special we are, is learn from the Torah. The Torah makes sure that you know that you're special. Make sure that you know that you're something significant. This is why they say the full truth in the Torah. The story about rape is not exactly a... A complimenting story. It's not exactly a story you publicize to the world. If someone, chas v'shalom, had a rape in their family, they wouldn't tell them, "Hey, buddy, how are you? Oh, by the way, this thing happened." You don't tell that to people. You keep it in the family. It's a disaster. Here, Hashem is writing it in the Torah. Number one, because it's real. Number two, because there's a lot to learn from it. And Yaakov was looking for peace.

1:18:19But his sons said, it's too late for peace. They violated our sister. We cannot accept them violating our sister and violating our nation. So we're going to pretend we want peace. Tell them, "Listen, our sister can't marry you because you're not circumcised. Our daughters can't marry your people because you're not circumcised. Hashem said we have to be circumcised. If Hashem said we have to be circumcised, we have to do it." So it will be despicable for us to be with somebody that's not circumcised because you're not following what Hashem said. Someone not following what Hashem said is crazy because they knew. So Shechem says to his father Chamor, Chamor, by the way, means donkey. It's an interesting name for somebody. He said, okay, you know what, we're so excited, we'll circumcise, fine. Shechem was excited because he was just thinking about The physical, he was thinking about the woman. He was thinking, okay, I can be with her forever, I can have more women, I can do this, I can do that, fine. It's worth it to get circumcised for that. Chamor was thinking about Yaakov's money. He's thinking, Yaakov has so much money, if I get circumcised and all my people get circumcised, his money is going to become my money. So they have everybody circumcised. On the third day, Levi and Shimon...

1:19:49find out that everybody's circumcised. They come, they see everybody's injured, they can't fight, they're not strong, they kill everyone. Kill everyone. So to finalize it, this is the last Midrash we're going to learn. Once they come back, once they come back, Yaakov finds out what they did, and he gets very upset at them. Could you do this? You're going to cause a war. This is a big problem. So they respond to him and they say, "Should he treat our sister like a harlot? What, she could just walk around and anybody could sleep with her? That's okay? That's it? That we should just let that happen?" And Yaakov doesn't answer.

1:20:51About 300 years ago, there was a decree against the Jews by one of the nations, may the Jews suffer a lot. So the holy Jews tried to find out, why is Hashem giving us this difficult decree? Why is this happening to us? So there's something, there's a thing to do, if you know how to do it, if you're around really holy people, is that you open the Torah anywhere, and the first verse that you see gives you a message. They said, okay, we're going to open the book. And the first verse is going to give us the message of why Am Yisrael has such a difficult decree. Why are the Goyim torturing us so much? Why? Okay, we know Esav hates Yaakov. We learned that already. But right now, what's happening? There's a Mashiach coming. Did we do something wrong? What's happening? So they open, and the first verse they see is this verse. gives you a message that's specific to you. They said, okay, we're going to open the book. And the first verse is going to give us the message of why Am Yisrael has such a difficult decree. Why are the goyim torturing us so much? Why? Okay, we know Esav hates Yaakov. We learned that already. But right now, what's happening? Is Mashiach coming? Did we do something wrong? What's happening? So they open, and the first verse they see is this verse. Should he treat our sister like a harlot? Before they opened the book, there was a debate about what the reason could be. One side said, we think it's because the women today are not modest like they used to be. Imagine this is 300 years ago. Everybody was modest in comparison to us. We're like monkeys next to them. But they're saying, no, the women are not modest like they used to be. We're not modest enough.

1:22:20The other side said, no, people are talking too much in the Beit Knesset. Talk about nonsense in the Beit Knesset. They go to shul, instead of praying, they talk about nonsense. In the Torah, you're not allowed to do that. So two sides. When they open this, they see this verse, and obviously this verse has to do with modesty. So the one side says, ah, see, I told you, it's all because of the women. But then, one of the righteous Jews there says, wait, let's see the Midrash. Let's see the interpretation here of what's behind the scenes on this. And they see the Midrash of Rabbi Yonatan ben Uziel, who was the biggest student of Hillel. Something we can't even understand. All of the people today, you combine all of the Torah together, it's not even like a half of Rabbi Yonatan. All of them together. Something... They said that when he would study, the birds that would fly over him would burn in the air. That's how much kedusha he had. Rabbi Yonatan ben Uziel says, Shimon and Levi said to Yaakov, when Yaakov said he was upset to them, they responded, they're like, Abba,

1:23:39We don't want the people in the Beit Knesset to talk about our sister and how we just let her walk around in the street and somebody took advantage of her. We don't want people in the Beit Knesset to talk about that. Not people in the street to talk about that. We don't want the people in the Beit Knesset to talk about that. So when they read the Midrash, the people 300 years ago realized it's not just because of the women. It's also because of the men. We're all a unit. Am Yisrael is a unit. When Am Yisrael realizes how special it is, Am Yisrael will really reach its full potential. As long as Am Yisrael thinks that they're like everybody else, only problems we're going to have. Because Hashem said we're chosen. Hashem said that you're special. Hashem said that you have to act like a king. When you act like one of the local thieves, when you act like one of the local homeless people, when you act like one of the local people that's regular, but really in reality you're a king, you create a problem. Because people are going to treat you like a local person. They're not going to treat you like a king. And that's the thing. If women knew how special they are in the Torah, they'd act like women. If men knew how important it is to be a Jew, they'd be excited to learn Torah. They'd be excited to be in Judaism. All we need to do is learn. That's it.

1:24:40create a problem. Because people are going to treat you like a local person. They're not going to treat you like a king. And that's the thing. If women knew how special they are in the Torah, they'd act like women. If men knew how important it is to be a Jew, they'd be excited to learn Torah. They'd be excited to be in Judaism. All we need to do is learn. That's it. It's not rocket science that you have to go to school for a hundred years just to maybe get a job one day. Torah is easy. You learn a little bit every day. A little more, a little more, a little more, a little more. And eventually, when Hashem sees your effort, He gives you the rest as a gift. He gives you knowledge beyond your effort. But it's all based on your effort. You have to try. You have to take the first step. Hashem has proven to us, time after time, that He's real. All we have to do is pay attention to the details. Whether you want to look at the details of Am Yisrael, the history of the nation of Israel, or you want to look at scientific details, this book has a lot of interesting things. We'll go over some of them maybe next week, or the next time we have a shiur. There are a lot of things that, if you pay attention to any of the details, we don't notice because they happen every day. Just last week's parashah,

1:26:04We learned about the situation with Lavan and Yaakov, and we saw how during the negotiations between Yaakov and Lavan, Lavan changed the deal. Lavan changed the deal a hundred times. A hundred times he changed the deal. The cheater changed the deal a hundred times. But in order to finally get what he rightly deserved, Yaakov showed us a secret. He showed us that If you breed an animal in a certain way, you will have much bigger success than if you just let things happen normally. He taught us in that parashah that he knew about; he actually got the insight from an angel, which he talks about in the parashah, and he taught us that he actually knows about genetics. These genetic theories are actually in this book. I think it's page 174, if I'm not mistaken. It's in this book. But a lot of this stuff that people discovered just in the last 50 years, people think that they should give the credit to these people. They're all smart because we have computers and we have this. But a lot of this stuff is already written in the Torah.

1:27:29All we need to do is just pay attention to the details. Yeah, it's page 174. This is regarding last week's parashah, page 174. It shows you how there were two theories in regards to genetics, Mendel's Law of Inheritance and the Law of Heterosis. But both of those laws, which will take a little more time, but you could read it, it's only a couple of pages, both of those laws were really something of a discovery just in this last hundred years. But the beauty of it is that if you read these couple of pages, you'll find out that all of it, all of what he thinks he discovered, the scientist, was written in last week's parashah. All of the genetics, all of the wisdom, all of everything that people think they found out, they didn't discover anything. Even the theory of relativity that a lot of people gave to Einstein as credit for. Einstein became... known as the smartest Jew. In reality, everything that Einstein wrote was already written by the Rambam 800 years ago. But nobody gives the Rambam any credit for it. So you see that in every parashah, there is a lot of things to learn. You could learn the same parashah every day for a thousand years and still learn more stuff. Same one.

1:28:51As we continue to have shiurim, I'll get to know you more, and we'll try to connect some of these things even to our own personal stories. But unless you guys have any questions, again, thank you for having me. And we'll have more shiurim. Very interesting.