Special Guest Speaker, is G-d a He or she, Near death experience - STUMP THE RABBI (6)

0:12We're very happy to be back, Sunny Isles. Good to see some of you guys. Today is our shiur of "Stump the Rabbi." The key of the shiur is for you guys to ask me some questions and let Hashem give you some answers. The hour for those that are very... Very precise about their time. The hour starts now, not when you got here, because obviously the shiur is the important part. But anyway, also, I don't know if maybe I have to tell you guys, because I know that some guys, for some reason, want to meet me privately and want to ask me certain questions privately. You can stay all night. I'm here until you want to leave. So you don't have to leave after an hour, hour and a half, two hours, five hours. When I go to New York, for example, on my last trip, I finished with my last guy that I was talking to at three o'clock in the morning. The trip before that, at 4:30. So I'm here for you. As many questions as you have, if it's personal and you don't want anybody else to hear about it, you want to wait, just stick around. After the shiur, I'll sit down with you for as long as we have to solve the problem. Whatever the problem is, whatever advice you need,

1:27The best time to meet me is during the shiurim. After the shiurim, that's the best time because this is when I designate my time to meet people, whether I'm here or in New York, California, wherever I am in the world. The best time is to meet me is after the shiurim to deal with any personal issues you guys have, whether they are family issues, financial issues, job issues, or advice on certain things. Whatever it is, this is the best time. Of course, you can always send me questions via WhatsApp. But it's not the same. It's not the same. But again, you should take advantage of it. There are some people from around the world that would pay a lot of money to be exactly where you are right now simply because they understand a little bit of the value of the advice when it's face-to-face. Anyway, a couple of things tonight. First and foremost, again, to remind you, when you're going to ask the questions, please ask questions that actually matter to you. Now, don't ask questions to test me. I'm not a student, at least not yet. The questions should matter to you, meaning if you know the answer, don't ask the question.

2:37Ask the question if you don't know the answer. Because if you already know the answer, how is my answering your question going to change your life? It's not going to change your life. The point is for you to change your life. The point is for you to get closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, closer than you are right now. That's the point. So if you want to waste your time and ask questions you already know the answer to, there's nothing I can do about it. But I know that sometimes people just like to see if I know or I don't know. And it's interesting, but really you should take advantage of your opportunity to ask questions. I have somewhere around 350 to 400 questions per day that people ask me. On WhatsApp, email, text messages, Facebook, and all these different platforms. I try to answer as many of them as I possibly can each day. But one of the things that everybody who's online, watching these shiurim, almost two million minutes per month, They all would love to be right here. Why? Because when they ask a question, they can ask a follow-up question, a follow-up question, meaning it could mean something to them. It could be a significant thing in their life. So if you have a general question, ask away. If you have a personal question that you don't want anyone else to hear about, please...

3:51yourself the service and stick around. Stick around all night. I know that a couple of the guys, after each shiur over the last few weeks, always stick around. And each time we stick around, you know, we talk about things and ask a lot of questions. Sometimes it's even better than the shiur. Sometimes the questions you guys ask after the shiur are better than the actual shiur itself. So you might as well ask, and the reason why it's beneficial also for you is because when you ask it now and... then other people could also hear the answer. And it could be that they have the same question as you, but maybe they're embarrassed to ask. Maybe they forgot about the question, or simply they could benefit. They could benefit from hearing this answer. And that way you're fulfilling a few mitzvot. One mitzvah is learning, but also another mitzvah is doing kiruv. You're involved in helping somebody else learn. So please ask away. Before I start, I want to introduce just a five-minute devar Torah by my dear friend, my dear student, the best of the best that I've seen since I've moved to Florida and probably in most of my life, I think. My dear friend, Bezalel, he's doing aliyah, Baruch Hashem. We've been studying together for about, what is it, four years?

5:10Four years now, Baruch Hashem. We've been studying Torah, Baruch Hashem, on a regular basis each week for four years. In the last four years, I think you could count the number of shiurim that he missed on one hand, if that much b'chalav. I think once or twice, maybe. And he's doing aliyah with his amazing family. Baruch Hashem, he's been a major contributor to our learning and teaching. Chizuk. And because he has a lot of experience, not only with our shiurim, but also with working with people, giving some shiurim and things like that, I figured that before he leaves us, at least physically from here, and he goes to Eretz Yisrael, Eretz HaKodesh, maybe he can give us a little bit of chizuk, give you guys a little bit of chizuk. What does it actually mean to be in a shiur? What do you get out of it? What's the point of all of it? So please, b'chavod, B'tzalel, come give us a little chizuk.

6:18It's been a long ride, but a ride that's not long enough because it's not coming to an end, which means it continues, even though not here, but in the Holy Land, b'Eretz Yisrael. I want to say what I'm going to say in three parts. The first part is, of course, about Hashem. And I'm quoting a pasuk that says, "Who is like You, Almighty One?" Who is like Hashem? There is nobody like Hashem. Eliyahu said this to Bnei Yisrael when he was admonishing them to choose: if Hashem is God, follow Him; and if Baal, the idol of the nations, is god, follow them. And Hashem made a miracle for him, and everybody saw that Hashem is God. And everybody screamed, "Hashem Hu HaElokim! Hashem Hu HaElokim!" The second part is...

7:20with Am Yisrael. The same question: Who is like you, Am Yisrael? There is no nation like Am Yisrael. And this is something we say every Shabbat in the afternoon during Mincha. We say it. No one is like Am Yisrael in the nation. And Hashem says about Am Yisrael in His Torah that when people will look at you, they will see the Torah that you have. Meaning, they will see your laws and they will see your mitzvot, and they will see how you behave among the nations. And they will say, "What nation is great like this, who has a God near to them that they can call upon Him anytime they need?" And also, they will look at your laws. They will say, who has righteous laws like this nation, Israel? So here I answer straight to our face. Nobody is like Am Yisrael. In Tana Devei Eliyahu, there is a pasuk that he expounded on. And he said, he spoke about the dust of Israel. Who has counted the dust of Israel? And one part he says, Bilaam saw, he looked over the camp of Am Yisrael and he saw how

8:30The Jewish men were engaged in limud Torah. They were learning and they were challenging each other. And they were giving chiddushim one after the other. And he saw this, and he saw how much they were into it, and he saw that the Shekhinah came and rested upon them. And he gave another interpretation of this pasuk. This pasuk, he says, who has counted the dust of Am Yisrael? And he says there was a young lady. and her father was engaged in business with a non-Jew. The non-Jew looked at her and said to the father, "Let me marry your daughter." The father agreed. The daughter kept her counsel; she didn't say anything. On the day of the wedding, she threw herself off a building and killed herself. And then Eliyahu HaNavi concluded, "They have counted the dust of Israel." Now, what do we see here? A woman who'd rather kill herself for the sake of keeping the holiness of Am Yisrael, to not defile herself with a non-Jew. Now, we are coming to me now. Why am I speaking about myself last? Because when we talk about Hashem, Hashem is the beginning of everything, the first of all causes, and He's also the last. And when we talk about Am Yisrael, Am Yisrael is the reason Hashem created the world.

10:00And when we talk about ourselves, we are part of Am Yisrael. Therefore, when we talk about Am Yisrael, we include ourselves in it. Now, we talk about ourselves for one reason only: to sanctify the name of Hashem in the world, which everybody understands under the term that we say, Kiddush Hashem. This is why we do it. I was watching the shiurim for quite some time before I met Rabbi Rubin. He didn't know that I existed, but I was watching him. But for some reason, I didn't come to the story of his life yet. All the shiurim gave me a lot of encouragement, and I always said to myself, I wanted to come to the shiurim, but I couldn't. I don't know why. For some reason, I felt I was too busy to do it. until I came to that one video that said, there is no greater act of kindness than to do kiruv, Rabbi Wolven quoted from Sefer. And he explained what it meant for a Jew to be involved in kiruv. And he also explained not only that when you're involved in kiruv, you are doing something for other people, but really you're doing for yourself.

11:25So when I understood the value of that, even though I tried to support here and there in the past, but this video affected me to an extent where I came to the shiur for the first time. And I said to Rabbi Wolbe, you're part of my teshuva. And he says, ma, how? And I said, one of your videos. He said, well, I have many videos. and I said that, you know, I spoke about the power of kiruv. It is part of my teshuva because I must study before that I'm a convert, but that's the beginning of my teshuva. The second part of the teshuva is to understand the importance of learning Torah. Even though I admired the fact that people learn Torah and I had made it so for myself, to come to a more to a much closer understanding of what the Torah can do for someone. I only learned with my rabbi, who encouraged me and supported my learning, not only in our interactions personally and in coming to the shiur, but also in getting me started on learning Gemara. B'Ezrat Hashem, we were able to learn, and we're continuing to learn, and B'Ezrat Hashem, we'll continue to learn until Mashiach comes.

12:53The point of me talking to you tonight is only in the hope of encouraging every one of you to take your teshuva seriously. If someone who has no family that's Jewish, who grew up Christian, found a reason to look for Hashem and to look for Hashem in the right place, because one of the reasons I came to look for Hashem where the Jews are is because only because everybody's talking about the Jews. Oh, these are the people that Hashem did this with, but I didn't hear from the Jews themselves. So I said, let me go look for the Jews and see what they have to say about themselves. And one of the ideas I should put in my head to go do that was to understand that I'm not American. I speak a different language, and I came here and I learned English. I came here as an adult, I learned English, and I understand. There are things in my native language that I cannot translate into English. It doesn't matter how I try to put it. I can come close to an expression that more or less means the same thing, but it's not going to convey the correct idea. And there are things that are not even words at all. There are expressions that, between people from the nation I'm from, Haiti, we can say and understand each other without even saying words. Just a sound.

14:16sometimes just a look. So, from this, I understand that all the translations that we've been reading from the other side before we transitioned into Judaism were lacking. And Baruch Hashem, I was able to see some videos of Rabbi Mizrachi and also some family members of mine that were also involved in fighting the Christian ideologies. And also, to continue my teshuva, Rabbi Reuven, who also speak strongly about Christianity and show proofs that it is false and to continue on with my teshuva beyond that aspect of it. If anybody has any doubt about who Hashem is, you don't have to look anywhere. Just look within you. Why? Because there's also a video from Science and Ancient Wisdom that Rabbi Reuven published. If you look at the strands of the DNA, the sequence of it, the name of Hashem is in there. The numbers. If you look at the gematria for each letter, so the Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei, you will see this is the sequence in the DNA strand in the human body. This is the name of Hashem in you. Hence, this is the fulfillment of a pasuk that says, Hashem created man and took a part of, a piece of Himself, and put it in him. He blew it, the, the,

15:39The breath of Hashem blew His breath into the nostrils of the man. And Chazal explain this is literally a part of Hashem He put in the man, and the man became alive. So, b'ezrat Hashem, we will keep that in mind every time. To remember that we have a purpose in life, and we owe all that we are to the One who created us. And we have to follow His Torah because that's the only hope we have. I hope that just as much as... the Rabbi, Rabbi Reuven, and also Rabbi Mizrahi, and other rabbis who are on Shemittah who try to instill the truth of the Torah in Am Yisrael because of their love for Hashem and for Am Yisrael, that we will listen to them and we will follow their instructions because it says in Psalm 125 that the men of truth will teach fear of Hashem. And this is what I see fulfilled in my rabbi, and also in Rabbi Mizrachi, and a few other rabbis. May the same be true for each one of us here, and those that are watching online, and those that will start coming here at some point. Thank you very much, and may Hashem bless all of us. Baruch Hashem.

17:07I don't know. I think I should have been learning from you for the last four or five years. Baruch Hashem. Baruch Hashem. We just finished another masechet a few days ago. So we're going to continue finishing masechtot. Continue getting closer and closer to the truth. Closer and closer to where we're supposed to be. And that's the point of the shiurim. That's the point of the shiurim. We want to find out things about what's the point of life. Why am I here? Why are you here? Why is everybody here? Why is the world upside down? Why are so many people depressed? All of these different questions have answers, Baruch Hashem. Some of them are in this parasha, some of them are in different parashot. But I promise you that if you look, if you look for HaKadosh Baruch Hu, if you look for the truth, you'll find it. That's what He said in the Torah. Sefer Devarim, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, if you look for me, you'll find me. But only if you look for me with all of your heart and all of your soul. Sometimes you see people going into manic depression and they have a kippah on. And you ask them, how come you're depressed? And they tell you all different types of reasons. You say, yeah, but don't you pray to Hashem? They respond, oh, I pray. It's not helping. What does that mean?

18:24Means that they're not praying hard enough. They're not looking hard enough. Because if they looked hard enough, if you look hard enough into your own life, if you look hard enough into the Torah itself, you will find HaKadosh Baruch Hu. What does it mean to find HaKadosh Baruch Hu? It means that you wake up happy, you're alive happy, you're asleep happy, you're always happy. Why? Because you have the only thing that matters in this world: the purpose, which is a connection to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. So without further ado, please, Bechavod Adon wants to start with the first question. Usually takes you guys a little bit of time to warm up. So I figured I'd give you a second speaker. Maybe you guys will warm up by then. Anybody want to ask a question? Yes? How does one find their purpose? Well, there's a general purpose and there is an individualistic purpose. Now, HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives us the purpose of everybody, every single human being. In this parasha, He says... He says, if you go with My decrees, observe My commandments, and perform them, then I'll provide rains. Meaning that in order for you to get the things you need in this world, get the things that you even desire in this world, you have to just simply follow the laws. If you're a Jew, you have to follow all 620 mitzvot, 613 from the Torah, and 7 from the rabbis. Unlike what some people think. They think 613 from the rabbis.

19:50And then, if you're a non-Jew, you have to follow the seven Noahide laws, which break up into somewhere around 55 to 60 different laws. Similar to how our Ten Commandments break up into 620 laws, the seven laws of Noach break up into about 60 laws. So that's the general purpose. If you fulfill those laws, you will get closer and closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. And that's the job of every single individual person. As a nation, Am Yisrael is supposed to be a nation that brings a light, to be a light to the other nations, meaning that we have to serve Hashem in such a fantastic way that we lead by example. And the other nations are supposed to help Am Yisrael fulfill that as well. So, one of the greatest things that a non-Jew who wants to be righteous can do is support Jews to do teshuva. other Jews help you help me help everybody else get closer to Hashem, and Baruch Hashem, there are some non-Jews that are righteous Noachides that do just that. They send money each month, some more, some less, but on a regular basis. They donate money to kiruv because they know how important it is for Am Yisrael to be close to Hashem. Of course, that's also the job of Am Yisrael as well. But then, when it comes to the individual purpose, the individual purpose of each person is as follows:

21:17The G-d says that the point of all the mitzvot is to purify your neshama and fix your character traits, fix your middot. Because the person, naturally, is born mushchat, corrupt. Naturally, each person is born corrupt. Some more, some less. Some for one thing, some for others. Some people are born stingy. Some people are born with a desire to steal. Some people are born with a desire to have a new wife every day. Because the person, naturally, is born mushchat, corrupt. Naturally, each person is born corrupt. Some more, some less. Some for one thing, some for others. Some people are born stingy. Some people are born with a desire to steal. Some people are born with a desire to have a new wife every day. Some people are born with a desire to have a husband every day. Some people are arrogant, some people are egotistical, and so on and so forth. People in general, every human being, has a corrupt nature—not everything, but they have specific things about them that are corrupt, that are the opposite of good, that are the opposite of what HaKadosh Baruch Hu desires from us and commands from us. We are supposed to use the commandments in order to fix that because that would make us partners in the creation and...

22:21now, how does a person know what's their main purpose in the world? The answer is, the Gaon MiVilna says, which one of these addictions or terrible traits that you have is the most difficult for you to fix. Is it difficult for you to give respect to other people? Is it difficult for you to be generous? Is it difficult for you to take things seriously? Is it difficult for you to be humble? Which one is most difficult for you? Every person within two seconds understands where their flaws are. They may not know all of their flaws, but within a couple of seconds, they already know what their flaws are. Why? Because usually, other people complain about it. Like, why are you being that way? What do you mean, what kind of way? Why are you being cheap? Oh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, if one person said you're being cheap, it's not a big deal. But if everybody you meet says, why are you being cheap? What does that mean? You're cheap. Simple. Oh, your wife says, how come you're being so arrogant? Me, arrogant? If your wife just said you're arrogant, that's already one sign. But if everybody else also says you're arrogant, what does that mean? You're arrogant. And so on and so forth.

23:27Everybody knows that at least the first one off the top of their head. Please pay attention, guys. This is not school. If you don't want to be here, you can go home. It's not school. I'm not in public school. If you don't want to be here, you can go home. You're interrupting me and everybody else. Everybody needs to understand you have a corrupt nature, and your job in the world is to fix it. A shiur like this is here to fix it, not to be a kid's game. I'm not actually being a substitute teacher in school. If I wanted to do that, I’d do it during the day. What do they get? $30,000 a year to do it or something like that and get abused by the kids who throw paper at them all day? That's not what I'm interested in doing. I'm interested in helping people. I'm interested in helping you. I'm interested in helping myself. I'm interested in helping people fulfill their purpose in the world, not being a babysitter. The key is a person needs to know that if they take life seriously, they will succeed. If they make fun of life, if they take life like it's a joke, they will be one big failure. Now you would think, wait a minute, but there are a lot of guys who are arrogant and this and that, and they succeeded. Well, that depends. What do you define as success?

24:39So you're gonna see, well look, there's a guy named Tony Robbins. He's very successful. The guy's probably worth three or four hundred million dollars. Isn't that successful? He leads people when he gives his so-called shiurim. He has 5,000, 10,000 people in front of him, not 50 or 100. So isn't he successful? Well, I don't know if you read the news today, but apparently he's being accused by countless women that he's, unfortunately, a person that touches women who are not his wife. He's on his second marriage on the way to the third. He's being sued by many people, men and women, who say he sexually harassed them. So if you consider such a person successful, then you have a very, very warped definition of success. Because success cannot mean money. There are plenty of people that do not have that kind of money but are much more successful. So, success cannot be money. And then you're going to say, well, listen, what about Donald Trump? Donald Trump, I mean, he's the president, and he has a lot of money, and his daughter is Jewish. Isn't that success? Well, I don't know. If you consider success someone that worships an idol,

25:48That's success? Then maybe you should consider the people from the Aghori tribe I told you about yesterday. You know, they worship idols so much that they eat people every night. Whether you worship the idols that the Aghori tribe worships, those who eat people, or whether you worship Jesus, or whether you worship some other false god, it's the same thing in God's eyes. And what is it called? An abomination. Disgusting. So the point is about it is that if you want to achieve success in life, you have to fix yourself, your actual nature, and then everything else follows, and success in life as far as financially follows, success in marriage follows, success in raising children follows, and you can see many people that actually followed the Torah, they have all of it. Not just success in Torah and knowing and knowledge, but they literally have all of it. They have enough money to live and sometimes even more than enough. They have kids that you can actually be proud of, not kids that are hanging out in the streets doing drugs. You know, they have kids that are married, only one marriage instead of one marriage every year.

26:53They have things to be proud of. They don't have the whole world suing them and accusing them of things that are disgusting. That's success. Success is leaving something behind that's meaningful. And I don't mean leaving a building. Leaving a name. It's better to have a good name than a lot of money. Okay? Expensive oil. Why the expensive oil? After you die, do you really think anyone's going to care that you made that oil, that you got that oil? Do you think that anybody who goes to the GM building, or that goes to the Pfizer building, or any building that has some rich guy's name on it who died 50 years ago, cares about that guy? What do you think? Do they kiss mezuzahs in the building because of that guy? Nobody cares about who built the building. The money that the person leaves, the building that he leaves behind, means zero. But if he did good things in his life, if he left a good name, that will be remembered. If he did bad things, that will also be remembered. So, first and foremost, making sure that your relationship with HaKadosh Baruch Hu is strong. Meaning that He is a permanent fixture in your life. Every day you wake up in the morning,

28:12You say, thank you that He brought you to the Shema. After that, you talk to Him. You pray to Him. You connect to Him because you realize that everything and anything that you're going to have during that day is going to have to come from Him. Whether it's good or it's bad, it's coming from Him. So first and foremost, you want to have a good relationship with Hashem. And in order to have a good relationship with Hashem, the first thing we need to do is learn about Him. We have to learn who He is, what He is, what He wants from us. And that's why we learn Torah every day. So now, if I tell you guys to learn two, three, four, five hours a day, you're going to have maybe a heart attack. Why? It's too much because we're starting with zero in some cases. But that's why I tell people my personal story. For anyone who hasn't heard the personal story, I highly recommend it. It's on the internet. It has tens of thousands of views. People love it and change their lives because of it. And it's not because I'm special, just simply because the story connects to different people in different ways. And I always tell people, when I first started learning, I knew I couldn't learn two hours, five hours, ten hours. I was a businessman. I didn't have time. I had a big yetzer hara. Couldn't have. So my rabbi suggested this. He says, do this.

29:2015 minutes every day, no matter what, or more, but no less than 15 minutes every day. Make a commitment just like you eat every day, just like you drink every day, just like you breathe every day; you can't live without these things. Make 15 minutes of Torah per day one of those things. If you can do more than 15 minutes, good for you, do it. But under no condition do you ever complete an entire day without completing at least 15 minutes. Now, because HaKadosh Baruch Hu loves you guys so much, loves me so much, loves Am Yisrael so much, He made learning Torah a piece of cake today. Why? In the old days, in the old days... years ago, if you wanted to learn Torah, you had to first find the book because they didn't have libraries like we have today. They didn't have apps where you can get 60, 80, 90 thousand books in two seconds. They didn't have that stuff. You wanted to learn, let's say the Rambam, you had to find out who owns this Rambam. Oh, it's the rich guy in Venice, it's the rich guy in this country, and that guy, and you had to go over there and convince him to let you sleep at his house for six months until you finish the book, and then go home and...

30:30That's how you learned Torah in those days. It wasn't a library. He wasn't lending you the book. The books were handwritten back then. He wasn't lending you the book. So, if you wanted to learn Torah, you had to go sit in his house for as long as it took you to finish the book, and then go home. You had to leave your family for however much time it would take you to go learn Torah. Today, Baruch Hashem, you don't need to do that. If you want to get a book, it's only one click of a button. If you don't have any money, you don't even need it anymore. You can get many books for free. Thousands, tens of thousands of books of Torah for free. And better yet, if it's hard for you to read like it was for me in the beginning, it was very hard for me to read. Even though I was a very big reader in the business world, in the secular world, all types of different things, when it came to Torah, I would fall asleep in two seconds. It was hard for me. So, how did I start? Videos. Just like this. Instead of you just attending the lecture, you also watch lectures. watch the lecture. You watch the five-minute, ten-minute, twenty-minute clip, and you actually study the lecture, not just put it in the background like it's music. Listen to the lecture and pay attention to it, and you'll see that that fifteen minutes is a breeze. Before you know it, you've listened to two or three hours of Torah, and you actually got something out of it. So, start with lectures. After you get used to the lectures, then do a combination of lectures and books. You want suggestions of which books to read? I'm more than happy to give them to you.

31:53The key on our app, we also have, we have an app, a Be'ezrat Hashem app. We have a suggestion of books that you can get. Many of these books are very inexpensive and they're very, very interesting. They're for new people, for old people, for people that are frum from birth or people that are just literally discovering God for the first time today. It doesn't make a difference. These books are very applicable to your day-to-day life. So the second thing is you want to make sure that Relationship that you have with Hashem is a real relationship. It's a relationship where you're constantly learning what He wants from you and starting to do it. And then after that, you'll see that the rest of what you want, whether it's money, a job, a wife, a husband, or children, the rest of the stuff that everybody chases in this life, it actually just starts happening on its own. You don't have to chase it like everybody else. When I was in the business world, I A bad month I would make $200,000. On a bad month, when I barely worked, I made $200,000. On a good month, the best month, it was $1.6 million. So in reality, money was never a problem; purpose in life was a problem. Now, a person that makes a lot of money doesn't necessarily have happiness. He just has stuff. You get stuff. But if you have a connection to Hashem, you have a lot more than stuff and...

33:17because you have a purpose for any of the stuff that you have. And when you actually start learning Torah, you can start learning how to use this stuff that you have. You can start learning how to apply this stuff to your life, and you start using the different things, the different blessings that Hashem gave you, in a specific way that's different from the rest of the people. But unlike people Unlike people, I worked, I did my thing, I chased money, I got it, I succeeded, but my whole life wasn't necessarily about money, that's just what I did. But no matter what I did, because I didn't have a connection with Hashem, I was never happy. I was never happy with what I had. It didn't matter what I had. It was a million, five million, ten million, it didn't make a difference, it was never enough, because there was still always something missing. Baruch Hashem, I lost all of that money. The best thing that ever happened to me. I lost every single penny. Till the last cent. Negative balance, actually. Now, why is it such good news? Because now, now, I live a much better life than anybody else that I know. I don't have to worry about money anymore. Why? All I know is I learn Torah, I do what Hashem wants, and money just happens. Money just appears. I need to pay rent; as soon as the rent is due, the money comes.

34:29As soon as a bill comes, the money comes. Whatever it is that's needed in life, I don't have to worry about it anymore. Why? Because I'm simply living a life that I highly recommend for everybody, which is to do what Hashem wants, and you'll see Him do what you want. whether it's business, or it's family, or it's kids, or it's that. And I know it's hard to believe, and it was hard for me to believe in the beginning, but I promise you it's real. So, the main purpose, the main step of success is identifying that your relationship with Hashem is important, establishing that, Working on it, and then little by little, the different blessings that He gives you. Start using those blessings to also connect with them, and you'll see it's not—you don't have to be poor. You don't have to be rich. You just have to be happy. And how can you be happy? By connecting to Hashem. How about the question?

35:33Who is Hashem? Who is Hashem? And you're saying "He," like you should daven to Him. Who else would you daven to? I can't be davening to her, daven to Him. Oh, well. Isn't Hashem something spiritual? Hashem is something spiritual, not something physical. So, Hashem. I wake up every day, like, when I daven to Someone. Hashem identifies Himself as Borei Olam. Borei Olam is a masculine term, even though Hashem does not have a masculine or feminine body part. He has no image, no likeness of an image. But He identifies Himself as Himself, not herself and not itself. He identifies Himself as, as a male if you will now. masculine term, even though Hashem does not have a masculine or feminine body part. He has no image, no likeness of an image. But He identifies Himself as Himself, not herself and not itself. He identifies Himself as a male, if you will, now. when we pray to Hashem, we are praying to the Creator of all creation. We are praying to the King of all kings. We are praying to the one and only hope that we have in the world for anything that we can possibly want. For example,

36:50Each one of us understands that the world around us is not always what it seems. For example, when you use a phone, you may take it for granted, I may take it for granted, but in reality, that phone depends on certain things that you can't see, called radio waves. So you use a phone and you call somebody in Japan, and 30 seconds later, or 2 seconds later, somebody in Japan, thousands and thousands of miles away, answers the phone, and you can even see them now. You realize that this technology exists. It's not a rope from your phone to their phone. It's something that exists in the world that you don't see with your own eyes. So, another thing that you don't see is how the world actually operates, which is through atoms and energy. Now, anyone who has studied a little bit of science knows that atoms have multiple parts. The main two parts are the nucleus, the neutron, the proton, and the electron. Now, these pieces of the... are small little balls, if you will, small little balls. That's how they’re visualized—small little balls that spin around each other, one small ball spinning around a bigger ball. Now, everything and anything in creation—me, you, the camera, the walls, the buildings, all of the physicality in the world—is made up of those atoms and

38:15Everything is made up of those atoms. Now, scientists that have actually looked into the atom discovered that 99% of the atom, which in essence means 99% of creation, is empty space. It is nothing. Zero. It doesn't exist. So how come everything looks solid? I look solid, you look solid, the ceiling looks solid. If we jump up and down, we don't fall through the ground. How come? Because the atoms are spinning so fast that, in essence, it gives you the illusion that everything is indeed solid. It gives you the illusion that everything is indeed one piece. What is it like? Have you ever seen a fan, a ceiling fan? You see a ceiling fan or, for example, the turbine of a plane. When it spins really fast, it looks like there's a single blade, but once it stops, wow, it's five blades, ten blades, a hundred blades, depending on what kind of turbine you have—lots of blades. How come I couldn't see all those blades when it was spinning really fast? Because it was spinning really fast, it would give you the optical illusion that there's a single blade; it was a single solid piece. That's exactly what an atom is; that's exactly what all of creation is.

39:35Even if you look inside the inside of the atom, you'll see that even the inside, which we thought was the 1% of creation, is actually so—and even that itself is almost empty. So, Which means that the entire universe, not just Earth—everything, the planets, the stars, the sun, everything—is 99.999999% empty space. Nothing. So the scientists ask: What happens if it stops spinning for a second? Not for an hour or two hours. What if it just all stops spinning? Or what if, just like these chairs, these chairs' atoms stop spinning for a second? What would happen? Would it blow up? Would it start screaming, "Ow, it hurts"? What would it do? It would simply disappear. Why? Because once it stops spinning for a second, the empty space will be exposed and therefore it would just simply disappear. This means the atoms in your body, the atoms in your face, the atoms in your ceiling, in the floor, on earth, in the universe, if they stop spinning for literally half a second, and...

40:50It would all cease to exist instantly. No explosions. No fire. Nothing. Just cease to exist. So why am I telling you this science class right now? The question that you should have in your mind now is: What keeps those atoms spinning? Because we need them to keep going. There's no battery that they're connected to. Last I checked, none of you guys are connected to an electric cord. What's keeping them spinning? The Creator, HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Borei Olam, Melech Malchei HaMelachim. He has, Baruch Hashem, several names, Yishtabach, Shmo HaGadol. All of those names are not even enough to explain to us how great He is. So when a person understands that he needs HaKadosh Baruch Hu to keep those atoms spinning to that extent, if you're not afraid of Him, if you're not praying to Him, if you're not serving Him, simply either ignorant or crazy. Most of the time in today's world, it's just ignorance that people don't know who the Creator is and they don't know what the Creator does for them because they simply are not paying attention. Once you start paying attention to the details of what Hashem does for you, it becomes very, very easy to pray to Him, very easy to talk to Him, and very easy to understand that He actually cares about everything that you say. Now, how do I know He cares about what you say?

42:17you specifically, you specifically, you specifically, everybody here specifically. How do I know? He wrote it in the Torah. In Sefer Amos, chapter 4, verse 13, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, for behold, He forms mountains, He creates winds, He recounts to you. What were your deeds? What does that mean? So the Midrash says it means what did Yaron Ruven talk about today between him and his wife? So first, it's telling you who's so great. He builds mountains. He makes winds. You know these hurricanes you see that destroy entire cities? That's nothing for Him. The Sun is just one of His small angels. He does all these big things but also He recounts to you. What were your deeds? What does that mean? So the Midrash says it means, what did he talk about? What did Yaron Reuven talk about today between him and his wife?

43:22What did Bezalel talk about right before the shiur to somebody? What did Yaakov over here talk about yesterday at 2 o'clock in the morning? What did you talk about 25 minutes ago? Every single conversation you've ever had in your life and will ever have in your life, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, wow, chiddush, nice, nice, good, I'm going to write this down. He writes down everything you say. To that extent, every single thing you've ever said and every single thing you will ever say, HaKadosh Baruch Hu is writing it down. Now, what's going to happen with this writing that He has of your life? When you show up to Shamayim, there are two Torahs. One is the Torah that we have, and one is your life. And they're going to show you what you spent your life doing. When you thought no one was listening, Hashem says, "Look what you said over here. You cursed Me out. How come you cursed Me? Why? Because you had a flat tire, you cursed Me. That's not nice. Why did you say you don't believe in Me because you didn't have any money? That's not nice. Why did you say that you hate Me because your girlfriend, who is not even Jewish, left you? That's not nice." He's going to repeat to you everything you said, but not just what you said with your mouth, but also what you said in your mind.

44:38Masiko is not just what's out of your mouth, but also what's in your mind because He knows what you're thinking. So, when a person actually understands this, he thinks twice before he even thinks. Chas v'shalom, meaning... Oh, we answered this question last week, but briefly, just for the sake of the new people here. And please, Rabotai, please stop playing with your phones. If you want to play with your phones, you can go home and play with your phones. If you want to listen to Torah, you listen to Torah. Again, like I told you, this is not public school. Now, free will works this way. HaKadosh Baruch Hu knows what you're going to do, but He does not interfere with what you do. He does not interfere with what you do. For example, I could tell you I know the future. You're going to tell me, "Yeah, you're a little crazy, Rabbi. You don't know anything." So I'm going to tell you, "Okay, let's bet. I'm going to write down on a piece of paper everything you're going to do in the next week. But I'm not going to look at it. You're not going to look at it. I'm going to put it in a paper. We're going to put it in an envelope. You put it in your pocket. You don't think I'm cheating. And carry it the whole week, but don't look. And do whatever you want."

45:50You go and do whatever you want. The whole week passes—seven days pass, every day, 24 hours a day. At the end of the week, we meet together. We say, "Okay, let's see what I wrote about your week." Open the envelope, drumroll, we open the letter, and you see every single thing that you did during that week I already wrote down a week before. Which means I knew the future, right? I know what you're gonna do. Now, did my knowledge of the future of what you're gonna do... interfere with what you did? No. Did it influence you to do something? No, that's God. That's a version of free will where He knows what you're going to do. He knows the beginning, He knows the end, and to Him, there's no concept of beginning and end. The beginning and end for Him are exactly the same thing, but He does not interfere with your choice. He always gives you the ability and change your mind in order for you to get closer to Him, and He does not interfere with your choice unless there is a significant reason for Him to do so, which are exceptions to the case. Meaning, when somebody commits a certain sin, there are specific types of sins that a person can commit where HaKadosh Baruch Hu can remove their free choice, meaning they no longer have free choice like everybody else. But generally speaking, Hashem does not interfere with free choice. Yes, I

47:16Very good question. What's the point? It's fantastic. What's the point of this life? What is it? No, really? That's it. That's that's in tachlis. That's what it is. What's the point of this life? Do we get reward here? That if I get it, if I get a nice Lambo, and maybe a Ferrari on the side just for the weekend, is that the purpose of life? So the Mishnah in Avot says, don't serve your master for reward. Don't serve your master. Don't serve HaKadosh Baruch Hu in order to get reward. Serve Him because you have to do it. Why? He's God. He's God; that's why you have to serve Him. If you're serving Him for reward, it's only a matter of time before you're going to decide not to. Because there are many people who serve Hashem, but they're not rich. And they have a lot of problems. And they suffer a lot. But they continue serving Him. And then, on the other hand, there are many people who have all that they desire, all the material things they desire, but they don't do anything for Hashem. In fact, they do the opposite. They go against Hashem.

48:42So, getting a reward in this world is not the purpose at all. Now, Hashem does, you can just walk behind it or in front of it, whatever you want. Getting the reward in this world is not the purpose. A person should not serve Hashem because he's going to get a car or a house or money or his stock's going to go up or his stock's going to go down. That's not the reason. Now, it can happen. He can get a part of his reward to do that. And the Rambam writes, why does a person get any reward in this world? Well, first and foremost, you should understand that anything that he gets in this world is not really the reward. It's not really the reward. It's that Hashem likes what he did, assuming he did something good, and He gives him something for it. So, for example, he does certain mitzvot, and therefore Hashem decided to give him more money, decided to give him a better car, decided to give him a certain wife. Why? I said, listen, you did a mitzvah. For example, you gave tzedakah. You saw an opportunity to help Jews do teshuvah. You said, you know what? Let me give ten dollars for this. Hashem says, wow, you used ten dollars to help Jews do teshuvah. You know what? I'm going to give you a hundred. I'm going to give you a hundred. Why? Because since you like doing My mitzvot, I'm going to help you do it again, so I'll give you more money.

50:05And then he got the money and he did it again. This time, he gave a hundred. Hashem says, "Wow, look at this guy. He gave a hundred this time. I gave him a hundred, he gave a hundred. I'm going to give him a thousand then." And He gives him a thousand. And that's our reward. The real reward is not the thousand; it's that He's helping you do another mitzvah. The real reward, which is infinity, which is the ultimate pleasure, which the Chachamim describe in such a way that if you take all of the pleasures of this world... What are the pleasures of this world? The feelings that people have when they're intimate, when they achieve any type of desire they have, whether it's money or honor, love, food, things of that nature. You take all of the pleasure that everybody has ever had in history, from the beginning of the world, Whether you want to count the beginning of the world like the scientists 13 billion years ago, or you want to do it like Chazal, 5779 years ago, whichever one you want. Beginning of the world. All the people that ever lived from the beginning all the way to today, and you take all of the pleasure, not the bad stuff, just the good stuff they all had, and you put it all in a little box. All of that good is not even a single hour that a righteous Jew, a single person, will feel in Heaven.

51:26That's how much good it is, meaning it's unfathomable for us to even imagine what good we have waiting for us if we do the right thing. But so is the contrary, unfortunately. The opposite is the same as well. The opposite is the same. If we don't do good, then the suffering is also unimaginable. When a person does a mitzvah, he has an opportunity. Well, if you're not afraid, then it simply means you're just not paying attention. It's not something that I'm afraid of. I know it's there. It's just something that I want to do. If you're facing your whole life because you're scared of suffering, which is So I'm gonna answer his question and your question at the same time. And let me finish the answer, and then b'ezrat Hashem you can ask more questions. Now, if God was me, then you could do whatever you want. Why? I'm flesh and blood. Eventually, I'm gonna die. I don't know if I'm gonna be here tomorrow. I don't know if I'm gonna be here next week. I don't know if I'm gonna be here 10 years from now or a thousand more years. I have no idea. Nobody promised me tomorrow. If God was flesh and blood, then you're 100% right. Who am I to tell you what to do?

52:51You can serve me if you want, or not serve me if you don't want. Because at the end of the day, we're both flesh and blood. We both put on our pants one leg at a time. There's no real difference between us physically. Now, if God is the God of the Torah, then you don't have that kind of option. Why? Because God says the following, and I mentioned to all the other bachurim that are here yesterday, I mentioned the same pasuk, because the answer to your question happens to be in this week's parasha. happens to be in this week's parasha. What does He say? Hashem says, if you do not listen to Me and you do not perform all of My commandments, meaning you can't even pick and choose, you have to do all of it. If you consider My decrees loathsome, And you reject My ordinances so as not to perform them, meaning you feel like, "Yeah, whenever I want to pray, I'll pray; whenever I want to learn, I'll learn. Hashem, don't tell me what to do; I'll just do it whenever I feel like it. Don't tell me what to do; I'm here, you're there. Listen to me." You do that, so HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, "No problem, no problem. You can exercise your free choice; you can do whatever you want, but our free choice is not exactly free."

54:17it's not free. There's a price for it. He says, "What's the price? If you don't do this..." Now He tells you what happens. He says, "You'll get certain types of punishment," and He starts going into the details. He says, you do not heed Me, I shall punish you further seven ways for your sins. I'll break the pride of your might. I'll make the heavens like iron and the land like copper, which in essence means you could imagine iron in the heavens means planes, and copper in the ground means tanks—meaning war will come to the land. Your strength will be spent in vain, and Since you, for example, wasted your seed, later in life, when you decide to get married and want to have kids, you can't have kids. And you wonder, "How come I can't have kids? How come I can't have kids?" Well, Hashem says, "You wasted your seed; you sowed your seeds in vain, and..."

55:33You took the seed that I gave you to reproduce, to bring more people into the world. But instead of that, you wasted it; you wasted it on nothing. So what happens with that? Your strength will be spent in vain, meaning that eventually, when you do want to use it to bring kids into the world, it's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. You know how miserable it is to be a parent without a child? People are willing to pay millions of dollars just to have one child. Millions. But then some people decide to just not have kids because they want a dog instead. And then He says, "The land, the tree of the land, will not give fruit." What's "tree of the land"? "Tree of the land" means a person. "Tree" means a person who will not give fruit, meaning your wife is not going to be able to bring fruit, to bring children into the world. And if you behave casually with Me, like I'm one of your friends, and... refuse to heed Me. You’re afraid, you don’t, you don’t want to be scared of Me because you want to have a relationship. You want to look like we’re boys, like we’re going to go to the bar together and have a drink, the HaShem, you know, one of those. You treat Me with casualness, as He says, then I shall lay further blows upon you. I’ll give you more punishment just for treating Me that way, thinking I’m one of your boys, thinking that you actually have an option to treat Me like I’m one of your friends, like you’ll serve Me if you feel like it, and...

56:51you have a choice. If I was a human, you have a choice. But I'm not human. He says then I'll continue to punish you sevenfold like your sins. I will incite the wildlife of the field against you, and I'll leave you bereft of your children—how a person will die. I'll decimate your livestock; your company will get destroyed. I'll diminish you. If, despite this, you still don't do teshuva, I'll chastise you, and you'll chastise me, meaning you'll say, "No, this is really not happening. It's not Hashem; it's just bad luck." And if you behave casually with Me, then I too will behave towards you with casualness. What does it mean to behave towards you with casualness? One time, I had a surgery... I had many surgeries, but one time I had a surgery. I told this story in New York. Some of the people got afraid. I told them, "Don't worry, it's not going to happen to you. Just do teshuva." I had a surgery, and the surgery went wrong. Something went wrong with the surgery. I was in pain non-stop for 62 days, bleeding from my eyes, my ears, and every hole and orifice that I had. In so many words, I was dying, slowly and horrendously.

58:13Because the doctors had no idea why I was in so much pain and what had happened, I had to constantly go back to the hospital. So, during one of my wonderful visits to the hospital, to the intensive care unit, the doctor came in and didn't ask me many questions. Usually, they ask you 500 questions before they touch you because they see you're screaming, you're in pain, and they don't want to cause you more pain. But this time, she looked at me and decided what she wanted to do. Five seconds later, somebody comes in with a big tube and says, "Oh, give him a catheter." Anyone who doesn't know what that means, it just means a big tube inside the smallest hole in your body. Have fun with that one. Now, after you have such fun with that huge tube going inside your body and not coming out, Now for all guys, you understand what I mean. Now after you have a blast with that one, she decided this is not enough. So she brought five big doctors. Five big ones. And she told them, hold him down. Now I don't have any...

59:15Painkillers in me, no anesthesia. No morphine. No nothing. I'm not asleep, I'm alive and well, and in pain already. But she decided I was like cattle. She said, "Okay, turn him around." They turned me around like cattle, and then she decides to open the surgery with her hands and just put her entire hand inside my body like I was a puppet. Now, the screams that I had, you probably heard in Florida. I was in New York. You probably heard it, though you didn't always hear me. That's what it means when HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, I'm going to treat you with casualness. You're going to scream your lungs out, and I'm simply not going to answer you. Why? I scream to you, my son, do teshuva. My son, do teshuva. My daughter, do teshuva. Get closer to me. Pray to me. Do mitzvot. Stop going out with guys if you're not married. Stop going out with girls if you're not married. Stop being a mechalel Shabbat. Stop lying. Stop stealing. I told you, do teshuva. Oh, you're treating me like I'm one of your friends? Okay, when the time comes, and Hashem decides when that time is, I'm going to treat you also that way. You're going to scream, and I'm not going to answer. And many times we've seen it through history,

1:00:27different people that we've seen in our life and different historical lessons of horrible things that make my story seem like a kid's tale. Just look at the history of what happened, as it is said, in the Holocaust, or the Spanish Inquisition, or the Beit HaMikdash, or any other time in our history when Hashem decided that He's going to treat us with casualness and So now, if that's not enough, I'll give you the last part and hopefully that gives you guys enough of an idea that you can't mess around with Hashem—He means business. He says, if you still do not, despite all of this, heed Me, then I will treat you with the fury of casualness. Then it gets to the worst part. What's the worst part? You will eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters will you eat. and I will destroy your lofty buildings and decimate your sun idols, and I will cast your carcasses upon the carcasses of your idols, and My spirit will be disgusted by you. Hashem says, "I become disgusted by you because of all your sins."

1:01:36I'll punish you for it in this world as well as the next if you don't do teshuva. What kind of punishment? Just imagine a nice, beautiful woman. Finally, she waited all these years. She is pregnant for the first time. Wow, wow, mazal tov, mazal tov! Do you know if it's a boy or a girl? I don't know, I don't know. And she waits, and she waits, and she gets a little bigger every month. And she gets a little bigger every month. It's so cute. Our husband is excited, and the grandparents are excited, and everybody's excited. After nine months, this cute, precious little baby comes into the world. You give him a Brit Milah, and everybody says, "Wow, he's so cute! What are you going to name him?" "I'm going to name him such and such." "Wow, that's such a good name! It's after your father; it's after your mother." You start playing with him; you get him little clothes. and you get him little shirts, and it says, "I love Abba," and "I love Ima," and all these wonderful things happen. You get him toys, and you put all types of lights on the wall, and his room is painted fresh, and you love this kid. Your whole life is this kid.

1:02:38And then HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, remember when I told you to do teshuva? Once, twice, three times, four times, five times. I sent you signs. I sent you some rabbi from New York to give you a shiur at 10 o'clock at night. I sent you messages on YouTube. I did all this and you didn't listen? What ends up happening is HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, I'm gonna bring the nation to such a level of starvation where that cute baby will have to become their lunch. Just to survive. Now, anyone that thinks this is an exaggeration, this is exactly what's written in the Torah. Now, everyone says, "Yeah, but this never happened." Wrong. It happened many times. It happened in the Churban Beit HaMikdash, the first one. It happened in the second Beit HaMikdash. And on Tisha B'Av, you're going to read Lamentations, or in Hebrew, it's called Eicha. And you'll see that it says, righteous women ate their own children because of the starvation they had at the Beit HaMikdash. It happened during all of the horrible things that have happened to us over the last couple of thousand years. But worst of all, it happened also during the Holocaust. It happened also 70 years ago. Now, does anybody here still think that you still have an option to serve HaKadosh Baruch Hu if you feel like it?

1:03:57It's still a free option or it costs. I'll take the non-answer as the affirmative that you guys agree with me that we do have a limited choice. Yes. Because if Hashem brought you to the world to punish you, He simply wouldn't bring you to the world. Hashem brought you to the world in order to reward you, but since He is the... Epitome is the wisdom of all wisdoms. He knows that if He simply rewarded us for doing nothing, then life would be pointless. And that's actually what happened before life on earth started. All of the neshamot were in Shamayim, and Hashem just gave them a reward, gave them good. And the neshamot, since they are a piece of Hashem, are good. What defines good? Defines good. Good is something that creates good. You can't say you're a good person if you're selfish. You can't say you're a good person if you steal from people. You can't say you're a good person if you are nasty to other people. You're only a good person if you create good in other people's lives. You cannot say that you're good if the only good that you create is for yourself. That just means you're selfish, not good. Hitler thought he was good.

1:05:21A lot of psychopaths think they're good. But good, by definition, is something that creates good. So those souls, those neshamot, since they came from the ultimate good, from Hashem, they started suffering. Why? Because Hashem constantly gave them good, and they realized they could not return anything to Him. He's everything, so the good that He was giving them, they felt like it was, you know, unwarranted, undeserved. Since they're good, they could not emulate Him; they could not give Him anything and reciprocate. What ended up happening is they asked Hashem, we all asked Hashem, "Hashem, please give us the opportunity to do something for it." And therefore, Hashem created this world and brought us here. Now... A person came to this world in order to earn their ticket to get the ultimate good because the next time you go up to Shamayim and you've earned that reward and you get the ultimate good, now you feel like you've deserved it and therefore you're going to enjoy it for eternity. So now, what makes Hashem good to the extent where you love Him? Every single day, even though He's the Creator, even though He can do whatever He wants and

1:06:36Even though He sees us constantly go against Him, constantly go against the direction that we're supposed to, He gives us another chance. So even though a person can curse God, Hashem is not going to kill him right away. If it was me, I'd kill him right away. That's why I'm not God. If somebody cursed me and I was God, I'd kill him right away. Why? Who are you to curse me? I'm God. But that's the difference between me and Hashem. At least one of the infinite ones. Hashem has the ultimate mercy because He loves us. He constantly gives us more and more opportunities to do good. So because of that, and because He wants to give us good, He gives us opportunities. Eventually, when a person's time runs out and he does not do good or she does not do good, then obviously He has to punish them. And the reason for that is because if He gave everybody good at the end, regardless of what they did, then even the good that He gives becomes meaningless. It becomes unfair. The whole Torah turns into one big lie. Why would a person that kills people, steals from people, is selfish, and is an atheist, go to a good place like Moshe Rabbeinu?

1:07:43When Moshe Rabbeinu did all the opposite, all the good things, it wouldn't be fair. The whole Torah would be pointless, and God would be a liar. So that's why Hashem says there has to be a system of reward and punishment. But because I have mercy, I'm going to give you one chance, another chance, and hundreds and hundreds of chances throughout your life to keep changing your direction and hopefully understand that at the end of it all, serving Hashem is the best good you could possibly do. Not for Him, for yourself. Yes, in the back. No. So, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says the following: "If we do everything that He says, I will place My sanctuary among you, My spirit will not reject you, I will walk among you, and I will be a God unto you, and you will be a people to Me. I am Hashem your God who took you out of Egypt." So, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says that if we do everything that He says, He will place His sanctuary among you, His spirit will not reject you, He will walk among you, and He will be a God unto you, and you will be a people to Him. "I am Hashem your God who took you out of Egypt and..."

1:09:06Now, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, in essence, is trying to tell us there is no other God. There's no other God. But that does not mean that you can't worship something else. I am the God that took you out of Egypt. But since you have free choice to do whatever you want, technically, you can't choose to live or die. You can't choose to be rich or poor. You can't choose to be tall or short. You can't choose to be male or female, even though people think they can today. You can't choose those things. But what you can choose is whether you're going to serve God or not, whether you're going to make God your God or you're going to make something else your god. You can make money your god. You can make your girlfriend your god. You can make your job your god. You can make some idol your god. You can make a lot of other things your god. But Hashem says, I am... God, and you should make Me your God, and I'll make you My people. Why? Because once we're both on the same page, there's harmony, there's greatness, there's good, and the ultimate purpose can be achieved. But if you reject Me as your God, since technically I'm still your God whether you want to or not, because I took you out of Egypt and I made the deal anyway, then you'll have to be punished for it.

1:10:16Then you'll have to be punished for it. So it's not that you could simply renege on the deal and say, "Okay, listen, I understand You're God. I understand You said You're gonna be my God, but I don't want You to be my God." We don't have that kind of option. If we had that kind of option, then He wouldn't be God. He would simply be some being; He would simply be like a human being, like a boss. You could work for Him; you could not work for Him—it's up to you. And that's what people need to understand: Hashem says, "I made the deal with Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov," and that I will not. Even though there could be punishments, even though there could be suffering, I will never destroy the people to the point where they're completely destroyed. But punishment does happen. Why will I not destroy them? Because of the original good that Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov did, and I promised them. I don't think like you; I don't change my mind like you. Once I make a promise, that's the way it's going to be. I'll never change the Torah, I'll never change my mind, and this is the way it's always going to be for eternity. But if you are ruining the deal that I made with Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, you will have to suffer the consequence.

1:11:27you'll have to suffer the consequence. Ideally, a person will see that going against Hashem is not good for them because life goes upside down. Life goes, you know, wrong; everything goes wrong, and they realize that even worse, the afterlife will be really, really bad. If they understand that, they'll start serving Hashem out of love, out of fear, and ultimately out of a desire to get to a much, much better place than this world could ever be. But the only way that they can do that is if they fulfill this pasuk on a daily basis, where they literally make Hashem a part of their life, inside their life. Where I am inside you, I am inside your life every day, not just sometimes. If Hashem is inside your life every day, you make Hashem a permanent piece of your life every day, then you could be successful in life. If it's only once in a while, it becomes problematic. In the back, yes.

1:12:27Yes, rabbinical mitzvah versus a biblical mitzvah. Yes. Well, you have Shabbat mitzvah d'Rabbanan, meaning the decree that was passed on by the sages—the Jewish sages, the rabbis—from a couple of thousand years ago. There's no new mitzvah today. And then the biblical mitzvah is a mitzvah that's literally written in the Torah that Hashem said. Now, if Hashem gave a mitzvah, for example, He gave Shabbat and He said don't write on Shabbat, don't write on Shabbat, and now that I write on Shabbat, if you write on Shabbat, it's the death penalty. It's karet. Issur karet it's called. Now, the rabbis were also given a commandment. He says, you as the rabbis, the sages, you have to put a fence around the fence, meaning you have to get to know your generation and the weakness of your generation and protect them from themselves. So, at some point during the last couple of thousand years and

1:13:48Sages saw that the generations were getting weaker and weaker with their servitude of Hashem, and they added something called muktzeh. They said, "Listen, we know that Hashem said don't write on Shabbat because if you write on Shabbat, it's a death penalty, and..." So we see that our generation is getting weak, and as soon as they touch a pen, they're gonna write. So what are we gonna do? We add a mitzvah called muktzeh, where from now on, you're not even allowed to touch specific things on Shabbat that could lead you to make the biblical sin. So not only are you not allowed to write on Shabbat, but the rabbis made a law of muktzeh where you're not allowed to touch a pen on Shabbat. Why? If you touch the pen, lest you write. If you touch the pen, it's not a death penalty. It's not a death penalty. But the problem is that you're most likely going to end up writing. So there are many mitzvot like that where the rabbis put a fence around the fence simply because they are like a mother. What does it mean like a mother? I'll explain. If, let's say, for example, a mother knows her son and she knows her son has a big desire for food and a new non-kosher McDonald's opens down the street...

1:15:05Non-kosher McDonald's opens down the street, and she knows he likes McDonald's, but they keep kosher now. But she knows that if he sees that McDonald's, there's no way he's gonna pass it up. He has to have a cheeseburger, he has to have bacon, egg, and cheese. He has to have something. That's a shame on him. He has to have it. So his father says, "Listen, listen, don't go eat there. If you eat there, I'm gonna punish you. If you eat, I'm gonna punish you." That's his father. That's what Hashem says to us: "Don't eat." Mom, she knows him. She knows her son. She knows if she says, "Listen, don't eat there," eventually he's gonna eat. So what does she say? "Son, if you even go on that block, I'm gonna kill you. Not 'don't eat there,' if you even go on that block, that block that has the McDonald's, you go on that block, I'm gonna chop your head off." The kid's so afraid of his mom, he doesn't go on the block. Now, why is the mom merciful with these strong words? Because she knows the weakness of her son. She knows that the father can say as much as he wants, "Don't eat there." But if he keeps going there, after three or four times he passes that street, he's going to eat. So the mom says, "Listen, I know my son is weak. I know eventually he's going to pass by, he's going to eat at McDonald's. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to put a fence around the fence. I'm going to tell him, 'Listen, don't even go on that block. Because if you go there, you're finished.'" So that's how she protects her son. That's biblical mitzvot.

1:16:27Basically, I haven't answered what I asked, but I want to know if there's more like them. For example, on Pesach, when you have Kiddush, Kiddush is first of all, the one you have that you make on a chag, which is D'Rabbanan. So when do we have another mitzvah again? Both of them are kind of like joint, and it becomes both a mitzvah. That was my initial question. When you have both of them kind of like, you do the same thing, you do it the right way or the wrong way at the same time? Every day. Like what? There are a lot of mitzvot that you do. For example, the kippah. You wear a kippah. Why do you wear a kippah? Why do you wear a kippah? What sefer Torah says to wear a kippah? You are never going to find a sefer Torah that says to wear a kippah. Why does the Gemara say to wear a kippah? The Gemara in Masechet Shabbat says to wear a kippah. Why do you have to wear a kippah? Because it's a sign of Yirat Shamayim. It's a sign that you're acknowledging that there's a Creator above you. So, wearing a kippah, the rabbis said. The rabbis said to wear a kippah. It's a rabbinical mitzvah. Why? To remind you of the biblical mitzvah of fearing Hashem.

1:17:45So, in essence, many of the mitzvot have something like that, whether it's the kippah or anything else in Judaism. They all have something. But in general, there are plenty of them. I mean, we have a whole shiur about it, but that's at least one example. Chavrutah, right here. Yes. No, behind you. Yes. Are the punishments just as bad if you don't know? Yes and no. Meaning that it depends on why a person didn't know. if a person learned and just didn't get to that material, then it's not as bad, depending on the sin. But nonetheless, general sins, it's not as bad because it's still considered shogeg, accidental sin. But if the person had the opportunity to learn and he chose not to learn, he had the opportunity to go to the shiur Torah, he was invited to the shiur Torah, he knew the shiur Torah existed, he knew the books existed, he knew Shabbat existed, but he chose not to learn about it. Then the Mishnah in Pirkei Avot says, "Shegaga Talmud Ola Zadon."

1:18:51If the sin that you made was a result of you, you know, this accidental sin was a result of your intentional lack of learning, then your unintentional sin becomes an intentional sin, and the punishment for an intentional sin is the worst punishment there is. Yes, He did. He said, "Don't eat from the tree." Well, God had a certain relationship with Adam and Chava that it's impossible for us to fathom, simply because we don't understand what it means to talk to God and He answers us back. So it's hard for us to evaluate this type of relationship. Also, it's impossible for us to understand the wisdom of Adam HaRishon. And I'll explain to you why. When we hear the story of Adam and Chava, we're thinking about a regular human being, just like us, flesh and blood, maybe a little taller, maybe a little handsomer, maybe a better hairdo. But in general, we think it's just another guy. That's a big mistake. Why? First of all, Adam HaRishon was enormous. Enormous. He reached the heavens. Physically. He reached the sky.

1:20:10After he sinned, Hashem shrunk him, but still, in comparison to us, he was enormous. And he's actually buried there. Second of all, all of the neshamot in the world that we have today, all of them, all at once, were inside him. We can barely handle our own neshamah. We have so much trouble with anxiety and pressure with our own one little neshamah. He had all of the neshamot in the world inside him originally. And all of us were in different parts of his body. One could have been in the shoulder, another one in the foot, another one in the hand, another one here, another one there. And that's also why we still to this day pay for his original sin because technically it was us. depends which part we were. Most people in this generation are probably part of the feet, the lowest part of Adam HaRishon, but there are some—no, I'm not, I'm not insulting, it's a reality, it's a reality—but there are some that were higher. And in general, that's also why we pay for that sin. So Adam HaRishon was that...

1:21:17Now, Hashem asked Adam HaRishon to name all the animals. You remember in Parashat Bereishit, Hashem says to Adam HaRishon to name the animals. And you see that Adam HaRishon starts giving the animals names. Unlike English, Spanish, Greek, and all other languages where they simply create things out of thin air, they create words just based on what sounds good. Like the word "comprehend," for example, which means "understand," it doesn't actually mean anything. They just decided to put these letters together and pronounce it a certain way and decided this means this. There's no actual rhyme or reason why this means that. The name for the color blue is "blue," but it doesn't actually mean anything. It doesn't represent anything. It's just four letters they decided to put together, decided they're going to pronounce it a certain way, spell it a certain way, and therefore it will represent a certain color. But there's nothing that matches the creation of the actual item itself to the letters. Hebrew is not that way. Lashon HaKodesh is the holy language. Every single thing in creation, everything in Lashon HaKodesh, is the actual word itself.

1:22:25Not only represents the creation of what it represents, but even the letters themselves. The letters themselves actually represent something. In the Gemara Masechet Shabbat, it goes over the entire Hebrew alphabet, what each letter represents. Why the Gimel? Why the Gimel is before the Dalet? Gimel represents someone that chases to do good, chases to do kindness. How do we know that? Look at the Gimel. It looks like a guy running. He's running. Who is he running after? He's running after the Dalet. Dalet comes after Gimel. What's Dalim? Dalim are poor people. now he's chasing the poor guy, but you see the Dalet is facing that way and he's chasing him. Why? He wants to. He's not waiting for the poor guy to come to him and say, "Please give me money." No, he's chasing the poor guy to give him money because that's what kindness really is. And so on and so forth, each one of the letters has a real reason for why it's drawn a certain way, why it's pronounced a certain way, why the word means that way. And when Adam HaRishon was actually

1:23:37giving the names for each one of the creations. He gave the name, for example, for the horse as "sus." The word "sus" comes from the root of the word for running into war. The horse is the only creature that runs into battle; all other creatures run away from battle. In essence, the word "sus," the word for horse in Hebrew, actually defines the creation itself, defines the actual animal itself, and the same thing goes for all of the other animals. So when you have wisdom like that, who are we to judge Adam HaRishon for his sin, for what he did, and so on and so forth. And that's why the Zohar HaKadosh says that Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai... met with Adam HaRishon when he was in the cave. Adam HaRishon came to him and Adam HaRishon said to Rabbi Shimon, "You are the only one that discovered the real reason why I was punished, meaning the real sin. Anyone that thinks I got punished just because I ate from the Tree of Knowledge simply doesn't know the truth." He says, "Rabbi Shimon, you are the only one that knows the truth of what really happened, but please, please do me a favor. Don't tell anybody."

1:24:57Don't embarrass me. Don't embarrass me and tell everybody my secret. It's embarrassing to me. I'm already suffering in Heaven because of what I did. Don't embarrass me. So what we have to understand is we have to understand where we stand. And we have to, you know, a person needs to know where he stands. So HaKadosh Baruch Hu knew the wisdom that He gave Adam HaRishon and knew that Adam HaRishon did not need the same limitations as us because he was much wiser than we could ever be. But he still had choice. He didn't have the same yetzer hara as us, but he still had choice. And he was judged accordingly. Yes. Because the sefirah for, you're talking about for the Omer? Because there are two opinions on the sefirat haOmer. Some say that it is one mitzvah, and some say it is a new mitzvah every day. There are a couple of opinions on it. But in general, both agree that the ultimate mitzvah is the end.

1:26:16It's the end. It's not the beginning. It's not the middle. It's the end. It's to get to the end. So to say the Shehecheyanu when you just began the mitzvah, and you're not going to complete it for another month and a half, doesn't make any sense. Usually what we do is we say Shehecheyanu when we're about to complete the mitzvah. So you can't say it in the beginning. At the end, you do say Shehecheyanu, at Shavuot. Shavuot is at the end of the Sefirah. The end of the Omer goes to Shavuot. And that's the ultimate purpose of the counting, to count down to get to Shavuot. Why are we counting down to get to Shavuot? Because Shavuot is Matan Torah. The day after the Sefirah is over is Matan Torah. So, the whole purpose of the Sefirah is to count down and constantly remind ourselves that we're getting closer and closer to receiving the Torah all over again, which means we have to prepare ourselves. You have to prepare yourself. Everybody has to prepare themselves in order to receive this Holy Torah all over again. And that's what Chazal says, that the Torah is literally given all over again each year.

1:27:23year, if a person prepares themselves by working on their character traits, by working on themselves, by taking on mitzvot, by taking on more kedushah in their life throughout that sefirah, each time they take on a little bit more, a little bit more, even if they only took on one thing the whole time, the day before it, at least they did something. That gives them a more privilege to get that Torah, more chiddushim that year, more insight, more good things that year. But if a person simply just counts and stays exactly as he started, then there's no point for the sefirah. There's no point for counting. So the shehechiyanu is supposed to be, in essence, a celebration, a celebration that we've achieved. this huge milestone of climbing the spiritual mountain for the last 50 days, and now we're finally here, and we're ready, Hashem, to receive Your Torah. Thank you, Hashem, we got there. That's it. You've achieved; you got to the top of the mountain. That's the key. That's assuming that we prepared ourselves also. Yes. No, I didn't say you won't get punished for it. I said the punishment is not as severe.

1:28:40So there is a concept called tinok shenishba. Tinok shenishba means that in the old days—unfortunately, this still happens to this day, just not as commonly—the goyim, especially the Christians, would steal Jewish babies and... Now, when you steal a Jewish baby, there's no way for that Jewish baby to ever find out that he's Jewish unless his parents find him. Because he's never going to know how he was born. He was a baby. He doesn't remember it. So they would steal Jewish babies and tell them they're Christian. Now, if that boy lived and he's 15, 20, 25, 35 years old, the whole time he thinks he's Christian, the whole time he thinks he's an Arab. Then, at 35 years old, his mom finally finds him, and they discover and confirm, "Oh, you're really my son. You're really Jewish." Now, what happens during those first 35 years, all the sins that he committed—idol worship and all the other things he did—are not counted the same way as they would count towards somebody who knew he was Jewish the whole time. Why? Because it wouldn't be fair.

1:29:40He didn't know he was even Jewish. He didn't know he even had those obligations. Now, he still counts these as sins because there are certain things that you just need logic to know you're not allowed to do. You don't need to be Jewish to know you're not allowed to murder. You don't need to be Jewish to know you're not allowed to hit people or to steal or to negatively affect other people. You don't need the Torah to know that. So, there are many rational laws that you don't even need the books to tell you that you know it's not allowed. So, for those things, he would be punished. But for things that, for example, only Jews are commanded, like Shabbat, the fact that he didn't keep Shabbat for 30 years, he is not punished for it because he didn't even know he was obligated to do it. He didn't even know Shabbat existed. So, for those things, he doesn't need to know. Needless to say, even if a Jew did not even know what it means to be a Jew, he knew that he's a Jew, but until today he did not really know what it means to be a Jew, meaning he saw religious people and... go to shul. He saw religious people go to shul. He saw people with nice hats and suits and beards. Sometimes, he saw people that are religious and understood that there is some concept called Shabbat and there is kashrut. He knew that these things existed. He just never knew the consequences if you violate it.

1:30:59That's still, even that gives him a lesser punishment. A lesser punishment. It doesn't mean that he's absolved from punishment, but it's a lesser punishment. But that's the beauty of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. HaKadosh Baruch Hu will give each human being, Jew or non-Jew, multiple opportunities in their life to find the truth. Which means that by the time a person reaches Shamayim, reaches Shamayim, reaches the judgment of Shamayim, He's gonna be shown his whole life and all of those opportunities where he had the chance to discover the truth, but he rejected it. He was invited to the shul, but he said, "I don't feel like going; I want to go to the club instead." He was given a book, but he just put it in the attic; he didn't want to read it. He was given a CD, but he threw it in the garbage. He'll be shown all of the opportunities that Hashem sent him messengers, and he simply did not care. And for that, he has a very serious problem because then it's too late. But if a person literally did not know he's even Jewish, then whatever he did in the past is not counted to the same extent. But moving forward, the minute he knows he's Jewish, he's obligated to do everything he knows about. Why should I tell him he's Jewish? Why should you tell your kid he's Jewish? What are you going to tell him? He's an agnostic? Why not?

1:32:22Wait, oh, so you're assuming that if a person is not Jewish, he has fewer challenges? No, no, I'm not saying he wouldn't get in trouble for it. Okay, but well, first of all, first of all, that, I mean, if, well, it's, oh, well, that's okay. So that's like committing murder or suicide. You know, murder-suicide is, first, you kill that person, then you kill yourself, and Why? Because, in essence, by you telling your kid he's an ape or he came from apes or from some cell or something like that, in essence, what are you doing? First and foremost, you're killing yourself. Why? Because that means, for sure, you are going to Gehenom and not leaving; you just destroyed the neshama. Second of all, you're murdering him also. Why? It is impossible for a person to attain true happiness without a life of Torah. And the reason why is because happiness is not something tangible. It's not something physical. Happiness is something spiritual. And the only way to attain spirituality is to go after the ultimate spirituality, which is only found in our holy Torah. And the reason why is because happiness is not something tangible. It's not something physical. Happiness is something spiritual. And the only way to attain spirituality is to go after the ultimate spirituality, which is only found in our holy Torah.

1:33:38so for him to attain happiness simply becomes impossible. His whole life, all he has to look forward to is finding a new wife every other day, an 85% divorce rate, drug addicts roaming the streets, prostitution becoming rampant and even for free, and a disastrous world. You pretty much might as well kill the kid because the reality is all he's going to be is depressed and most likely an addict of some kind. Why would any loving parent do that to their kid when the other opportunity is for them to wear a nice little kippah, for them to do some teshuvah, to connect to Hakadosh Baruch Hu each day, and understand that they have a Creator? So they know where to pray to when they have a problem, where to pray to when they need something, where to pray to when they want something, and also where to find answers to all questions you could possibly have? Or Who are you gonna go to? The scientist that changes his degree on his business card every other day, putting more letters after his name? Who are they gonna go to, these people who tell you that you came from monkeys? Where are they gonna get their knowledge from, the marriage counselors that are actually divorced themselves, the psychiatrist that's led by an alcoholic, and...

1:34:51Where are you gonna get your actual real advice in this world if it's not Torah? The marriage counselors are all divorced. The psychiatrists are usually psychotic themselves and taking all types of pills. The people that are trying to give business advice are usually broke. Where are you gonna get real advice that's honest if it's not the Torah? Impossible. It's not zero. If it's a Noachide, that's different than a regular non-Jew. A Noachide is living the life of Torah just as a non-Jew. Yes, he can attain happiness. Not the same level of happiness as a righteous Jew, but he can attain happiness, absolutely, because he is living the life of Torah. But a non-Jew who has no Torah, who has, let's say, the New Testament or Quran or any of these mumbo-jumbo religions, it is impossible for them to attain happiness. And you can ask me yourself. Well, I'm probably double your age or more. I've lived long enough to meet a lot of people, and I have never met a single happy person if he wasn't somebody that was good to the Torah. Ask any old man, ask any old man, "Are you happy?" They'll start laughing in your face.

1:36:06but he can attain happiness, absolutely, because he is living the life of Torah. But a non-Jew who has no Torah, who has, let's say, the New Testament or Quran or any of these mumbo-jumbo religions, it is impossible for them to attain happiness. And you can ask me yourself. Well, I'm probably double your age or more. I've lived long enough to meet a lot of people, and I have never met a single happy person if he wasn't somebody that was good to the Torah. Ask any old man, ask any old man, "Are you happy?" They'll start laughing in your face. so there you go, you have a living example. Somebody just discovered they are a Jew just a few years ago, and there's a consequence for that. Now, even though the chilul Shabbat, the desecration of Shabbat that he did for 30 years or so, is not counted the same way as someone that was born religious, there are other consequences. What are the consequences? You are now rediscovering the world, and there's a lot of collateral damage from this idolatry for 30 years. So there you go, you have a living example. Somebody just discovered they are a Jew a few years ago, and there are consequences for that. Now, even though the chilul Shabbat, the desecration of Shabbat, that he did for 30 years or so is not counted the same way as someone that was born religious, there are other consequences. What are the consequences? You are now rediscovering the world, and there's a lot of collateral damage from this idolatry for 30 years. So, life is a mess. To undo all that damage, to pick up all the pieces and restart life at 30, 35, 45, 50 years old is much, much harder than for somebody that's an infant. Yes. Ah, what do they think when they die? Anybody here ready to get scared? Moment of death.

1:37:35Okay, you asked. No, no, we know. Baruch Hashem, we know. We know what happens in Gehinom. We know what happens in Gan Eden. Our Torah is not limited to this world, Baruch Hashem. Our Torah tells us what happens above and beyond. So the Gemara says, the moment a person dies, he meets three malachim. He meets three angels immediately. First angel, the angel that's going to tell him all of the mitzvot that he did in his life, all the good things that he did in his life. Second angel, the angel representing all of the sins that he made in his life, every single sin that he ever made. This angel is coming to show it to him. The third angel is the angel from this pasuk that I just read to you. that HaKadosh Baruch Hu counts every moment, every conversation. There is an angel that comes to him that tells him every single moment of his existence, what he did. In that moment, when the person realizes that there's no turning back, there's no going back to being alive.

1:38:55there's no possibility of going back to being alive and he knows he's in the World of Truth. All the money that he chased his whole life is meaningless, all the physicality that he chased in his life is meaningless. In fact, many of it actually hurt him because he's now meeting the malachim of it. He's meeting the angel that's carrying all of his sins right now. He sees him and the Gaon Mi'Vilna says the level of regret that this person has is something that's unimaginable to us—to such an extent that if a person in this world had 1/1000 of it, take a thousand, break it up into one thousand pieces, and take one piece out of the thousand, if a person in this world is felt 1,000 of that regret, the level of suffering—emotional, not physical—that he would have would literally turn him crazy to the extent where he would die instantly from the craziness. That's 1,000

1:40:101,000 of that, and Hashem has mercy on us and He doesn't give us that feeling because we can't handle it. But the minute our neshama leaves the body, there's no limitations. We can feel the whole thousand. And that thousand, he says, is worse than Gehinnom itself. That's the first thought you get. If a person is a tzaddik, then his death will be like taking out a hair out of milk. How many people die like that? No, everybody has to see those angels. No, everybody has to see those angels because there's no such thing as a righteous person who never sinned. Everybody sins. Everybody sins, even if you're extremely righteous. The question is how many regrets you're going to have. If you lived your whole life serving HaKadosh Baruch Hu day and night, you'll have much less regret. If you served Hashem only when you felt like it, you'll have a lot more regrets. If you didn't serve Hashem at all, all you'll have is regrets. The point is that the average person is not exactly going to be on the most righteous side, hopefully not on the most wicked side either, but nonetheless, hopefully in the middle.

1:41:34Either way, a person needs to know if he is alive, he still has an opportunity to do full teshuva. And even though death is painful, the eventuality is good. The eventuality is good if you did good. If a person didn't do teshuva, didn't fix themselves, then not only is death painful, but the eventuality is also not good. Terrible. Yes? Someone that had a near-death experience, Well, there's over 30 million people that have had near-death experiences that have documented it. Many in this generation have had it as well, Jews and non-Jews. for the most part, most of the experiences are the same in the sense that they see a light, they see a tunnel. Some of them see a Beit Din, like a panel of judges, that tell them if they're righteous or wicked. Some of them see Gehinnom, some of them see the Gate of Heaven. But nonetheless, as far as the feeling of death, it is not necessarily unanimous.

1:42:51It's not because there is a certain aspect of death like, for example, my dear friend Rabbi Alon Anava. When he tells his story about his near-death experience, he doesn't talk about the feeling of death being painful. He just felt his neshama leave his body, go up to a certain place, and go through a certain amount of turmoil before he got another chance. But when I speak to him privately, he doesn't say this in shiurim. When I speak to him privately, he told me that in reality, all of what he says in shiurim is not even 1% of what really happened. The reason is that if he actually told people what really happens there, it would take him thousands of years. He was there for thousands of years because there's no concept of time, space, or matter there. So, for us to truly understand what happens there, how judgment is, how time works, and things of that nature is virtually impossible since we're still restricted.

1:43:54But as far as the simple aspect of feeling the feeling of death, I don't know anyone personally who explained that part of it, if they felt it from a near-death experience. I just know that the main part that people usually embellish in their story is what happened after they died and what they saw, if they saw anything. What I'm really asking is, if they had a near-death experience, right, then they would see the two mal'achim? Okay, they don't always go to, they don't always necessarily remember everything. They said you have to have a certain merit to remember everything. For example, there's a very famous, it's a very famous near-death experience that happened in Israel. An Israeli guy, not in Israel, happened to an Israeli guy, and he... All types of things. He actually had a bunch of different experiences. Long story short, he went to Brazil, and he went island hopping. As soon as he went in between the islands, a huge tsunami came, and he died from it. He died from it. But in Shamayim, when he went up there...

1:45:16I'm sorry. I'm sorry. He didn't die from the tsunami; he died from the next thing that happened. As soon as the tsunami hit him, he prayed to Hashem, "Please, Hashem, I'll do teshuvah. I know you're there. Please help me with this," and instantly the tsunami went down. It was like all the people that witnessed it said, "Oh, wow, it's a miracle. We've never seen such a thing." And he didn't do teshuvah like he promised to do teshuvah. He didn't do teshuvah. Hashem performed the miracle for him on the spot, and people saw it, like many people saw it. But he didn't do teshuvah. obviously didn't know what he said, but the point is that they saw the miracle, and so Hashem punished him. One day he was at work and he simply felt like he was dying. He knew he was dying; he just had this feeling. I had this focus once in my life. It's not a good feeling. He knew he was dying, and he died. He died in a taxi similar to Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman. Yeah, he knew he was dying. He went into a car, told the driver, "Please take me to the hospital," and he died in the car. He went up to heaven and stood in front of a Beit Din. He started crying, "Please, give me another chance. Give me another chance." They started calling him a rasha, "You wicked, you wicked. You promised the same that you'll do teshuvah. You promised the same when he performed the miracle for you. Ah, no, no, no, please. Give me another chance. Give me a chance." The miracle was that he didn't even know he was a descendant of the Baal Shem Tov and...

1:46:39he was a descendant of one of the founders of Hasidut, and the Baal Shem Tov came to his judgment and fought for him. Because the Baal Shem Tov asked, they gave him another chance, and he did teshuvah. The point being is that... before he came back to this world, they said, okay, we agree with the Baal Shem Tov, the Baal Shem Tov has many merits, and we'll give you more life just for that, but you're not going to remember anything that you saw here. And then he started crying again, saying, no, no, please, give me the opportunity to remember everything I saw here, because if I don't remember it, then I'll become a rasha again. he cried again and they allowed him to remember parts of it, which is the story that he told. He said this on national radio in Israel and then verified it. Long story short, it was a famous story about maybe 25 years ago, something like that, and he remembered certain aspects of it. Not everybody remembers everything they saw. you know, it's different. People remember different things, but in general, the Heavens do not want you to remember everything you saw because there are certain things that happen in that world we're simply not allowed to know here because we wouldn't be able to comprehend it. Like, for example, when Rav Ovadia's wife died, she was a tzadeket. She was called a sefer Torah, but his sons saw that Rav Ovadia and...

1:48:07Shalom, he was crying hysterically now. She wasn't exactly 25 years old. She was older already, so it happens. But they saw him crying hysterically and they said, "Abba, you know, yes, she's our mom and everything else, but we never saw you cry like this." She's going to be in Gan Eden, which is a good place, and Abba says to his kids, who are obviously older people at that point already, "The only reason why you're not crying the same way is because you do not understand what Olam HaDin is in heaven. You do not understand what the depth of judgment is in heaven. You don't understand what they judge you for." So yes, she was righteous overall. And yes, she was a tzaddeket, kodesh kodeshim, and she's definitely going to eventually be in Heaven. But the fact that she's being judged on every single moment of her life, that alone is suffering that it's unbearable for me to even comprehend that she's dealing with that. So there are certain things that Torah says we're not allowed to know about. So even if somebody has knowledge about it, he's not allowed to tell anybody in this world.

1:49:19One of those things is the depth of judgment. He would never be given the opportunity. How so? Well, Hashem runs the world. No, I mean, this happened a few times. There are several stories. There's one famous story. There were two Talmidim of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, Rabbi Yitzchak Blazer, and... they were Kodesh Kodashim in the olam ha-malachim and Rabbi Yisrael Salanter had several talmidim. Rabbi Yitzchak Blazer was one of them who compiled "Ohr Yisrael." These two talmidim were holy people. As they got older and worked on themselves their whole lives, they said, "Listen, let's make a promise to each other. Whoever dies first comes back to the one still alive in a dream and tells the other What's going on up there? And at least give the one that's left an opportunity to fix what the other one messed up once you find out what's going on over there. So that's the promise they made to tzaddikim that their whole life were working on themselves, learning Torah non-stop. That's the deal they made. Eventually, one of them died, and almost a year passed, and

1:50:41Finally, he came to the one that was left in a dream. I believe it was Rav Elazar who was still alive. He said to him, "Why didn't you come to me earlier? Why did it take you a year to come to me? What's going on over there?" He replied, "The reason why I couldn't come to you is because for the last 11 months, I've been going to trial and..." They've been reviewing every single moment of my life for the last 11 months. You know what it means? That literally every second, what did you do here? Oh, you said Baruch. What did you do here? Atah. Okay, that's good. Oh, wait, when you said Atah, were you thinking Atah Hashem? Were you thinking Atah somebody else? What are you doing with Atah? Oh, the next moment, oh, you're saying Hashem, but at the same time you're thinking about whether you bought groceries or not. And then he said, you know, the wrong bracha. And then you did this. Every moment of my life, for 12 months, analyzing every single second. He says, so what goes on over there? He says, that I'm not allowed to tell you. I'm not allowed to tell you what's the omek hadin, meaning the depth of judgment. All I can tell you is that they literally analyze every moment of your life.

1:51:54Every moment of your life, even the simple conversation between a husband and his wife like, "Hey, honey, how are you?" How come you use so many words? Why don't you just say, "How are you?" Why are you wasting words? Don't you realize that every human being has a limited amount of words? You’re gifted a certain amount of words that you’re going to spend in this life. You start talking nonsense, you’re just killing yourself. That's what Moshe So the point being is that we don't understand or even have the capability of understanding the depth of judgment over there. But we do have quite a bit of knowledge that is relevant to us, which tells us more than enough of what we need to know—that we all need to do teshuva. We all need to work on ourselves each and every day, whether you’re frum from birth or you're a new ba'al teshuva or... Your convert or whatever you are, every single human being has to work on themselves and improve themselves as a human being daily. If they do that, the eventuality as well as their life here will be good. If they don't, neither their eventuality nor their life here will be good. Yes, I

1:53:10As far as using your words, meaning the lessons, the things that you're saying, no, I don't believe so. But it could count as bittul Torah, meaning that as far as the speaking, a person needs to know that they shouldn't speak for no reason without thinking about it, because their words actually create things. Every time you say a word, you don't see anything. You don't see anything, but you're actually creating that word. That word goes and starts floating around. So let's say, for example, you got upset and you decided to use not such a good word. Not such a good word. All of us can think of at least one not such a good word. That word is created. That word keeps floating in the air, floats and floats and floats and floats and floats, and one day it lands on some apple. And somebody takes that apple and eats it, and all of a sudden he says the same word. He sinned, and you sinned, and...

1:54:11you caused them to do it. Every single word that you say is actually created. It has an impact on the world, and may not be five seconds from now it could be, uh, five years from now, but nonetheless, every one of your words is a creation, which is the reason why the Sages say, don't waste your words. Don't just say things. If you're saying Torah, create as many words as you want; there's no limitation. If you're saying mundane things, do not waste your words because you're literally killing yourself. Now, when it comes to texting and writing and things of that nature, it's not creating in the same way as speaking is, but you have to also consider, what am I texting and what am I writing? If I'm writing, let's say, I don't know, some story between Mickey Mouse and Pluto, Mickey was upset at Pluto because Pluto had an accident in the house, and then Mickey had to go get the paper towels, but he couldn't find them, so he had to go to the store. If that's what you're writing between you and your loved one, then it's a waste of life. It's a waste of life. But if you're writing some new insights of the Torah, if you're writing something that's intellectually stimulating, or even writing a love letter to your wife, no problem.

1:55:29Your wife is a good thing, fantastic if it has meaning, but if it has something negative, if you're writing a love letter to your goya girlfriend, then you have a serious problem. You understand? So that's that. A person needs to simply evaluate every moment of their life. If you evaluate every moment of your life, it may seem like you'll go crazy, but trust me when I tell you, you'll start becoming clear. It's the opposite. It sounds overwhelming. It sounds like you'll go crazy, but it's the opposite. You'll actually become clearer. You'll see the world very differently than everybody around you. And when everybody else is fighting for solutions, you just see it like, you guys ever see the movie, The Matrix? You start seeing the world that way. Not literally with the numbers, but you start seeing clarity. You start seeing things and it just fits. People ask you questions, you have the answer, even though you never heard the question before. The world simply fits. But that's assuming you're calculating every minute, you're using your time wisely, you're learning Torah, you're fulfilling it, and so on and so forth. And that's one of the most amazing things that I first discovered from my Rav. After nine months of questions, I asked him all these questions, and one day I told him, "How do you know all this stuff?"

1:56:43He said, "I don't." I'm like, "What do you mean? I've asked you thousands of questions. You told me the page number, who wrote it, which book, what year. I mean, how do you know this stuff by heart?" He said, "I didn't know it." So I asked, "How did you answer me with the page number and proof?" He says, "Well, when you asked, Hashem gave me the knowledge. It's called siyata dishmaya, assistance from heaven." I got special assistance from Heaven to help you. Why? Hashem wants you to know. Why? We know today. Why? Because, Baruch Hashem, thousands and thousands of people are benefiting from that knowledge today. Same concept here. You guys ask questions, some questions I've heard before, some questions I've asked myself, but some questions I've never asked, I've never heard, and I never even knew existed. Until you asked them, but Baruch Hashem, so far so good. We have answers. Khalid. I was listening to another Hebrew rabbi. He's pretty famous. He said there's no Hebrew word for coincidence. For coincidence? Yeah. Well, mikreh. Mikreh is casualness. Casualness is similar to coincidence, but nonetheless, it's not the same. Yes. His explanation was because there are no coincidences. Mikrah.

1:58:03Mikreh is a happenstance, also similar to coincidence. But you should know, again, like I said, each word in Hebrew has a real meaning. Whereas each word in English, it simply was decided by some person. Some person decided that Pikachu should mean a little yellow thing that jumps around. There was no rhyme or reason why Pikachu should be Pikachu. From now on, I say, you know what? I decided that Pikachu means sky and sun. No one can say you're wrong. Why? What makes your Pikachu better than mine? My Pikachu will beat up yours. What do you want? Let's have a Pokémon war. You understand? So their whole thing, their whole language, is meaningless. Whereas the holy language, every word must have a meaning, and the letters that are used for it must have a purpose. Why it's this letter, why it's a kuf instead of a kaf, why it's a chet instead of a kaf, or a kaf instead of a chet, why it's a vav in this one, but no vav in that one. It's every...

1:59:08of the Hebrew language is something out of this world. I don't have much knowledge about it, but the little bit that I told you is already beyond fascinating. So the Hebrew language, I mean, is divine. And it's something that is extraordinary. But the explanation of why there isn't the word coincidence, that there isn't really any coincidence, is right. It's true. Everything is from Hashem. But you can explain it in other ways also, meaning that, for example, people like to call things nature. Everything happens; it's, you know, it's nature—Mother Nature or Father Nature, whoever. Right? No. Hashem says there's no such thing as nature. The Ramban says there's no such thing as nature. If you think something is happening from nature, that's kefirah. It's heresy. So when you say nature, know that Hashem says the word for nature is HaTeva. HaTeva, the numerical value of HaTeva and Elohim, is the same number: 86. So, nature and God have the same numerical value. The point being is that there is no nature—it's always God. It's just hidden behind nature, behind His own rules. If you think otherwise, it's heresy.

2:00:32There is nothing but Him. Everything that you say, you are obligated to connect to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. So, for example, my wife once told me, "Oh, Baruch Hashem, these vitamins are helping." And I said, "Oh, Baruch Hashem that Hashem turned this chalk into medicine." And... why, what's to say that this piece of chalk that they said comes from some vitamin should do medicinal things, good things, bad things that are better than some other piece of chalk? Who's to say? And you're going to tell me, "Wait, no, no, but this chalk was Vitamin K, and that chalk was something you found on the street. Of course, the K is going to be much better." No, why? Of course, who said? So that's the thing. That's what a person needs to know. Rabbi Chanina Ben Dosa says to his daughter in the Gemara, he says to her, why don't you go light the candles for Shabbat? She says, no, I don't have any oil anymore. He says, what do you have? She says, I have vinegar. Vinegar turns off fire, not turns on fire. He said, who said?

2:01:39She said, God said. I said, well, God decided that the oil will light fire and God will decide that the vinegar will light fire. Go light it for Shabbat, and it will light. Why? Because he understood that both of them, whether it's the oil or the vinegar or a chair or the sky, it's all supernatural. The more we understand that there is no such thing as natural, the more we're getting closer to what HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants us to get to. And that's what the Ramban says, Ramban, Nachmanides, says in Parashat Bo. He says in Parashat Bo, anyone that thinks there is any such thing as nature, or as a happenstance, or anything that's not a miracle, is a heretic, and has no share in Torah Yisrael. So yes, follow up. So just in continuation of my thought, when someone refuses to say God, or acknowledge God,

2:02:40Yeah, there's a special place in Gehinnom waiting. It's a very special place, nice and warm. God says, "How big is Heaven?" They say Heaven is 60 times the size of Earth. So how big is Gehinnom? It has no size. Why does it have no size? Because a lot more people go there. That's the answer. That's what the Gemara says. It has no size. It continues growing because more people go there. I mean, you can see it logically. The older you get, the more you get to know people, the more you realize that most people are corrupt. So it's not against our logic. We see it. We see most people are corrupt. Most people are not nice. Most people are, unfortunately, terrible. So it makes rational sense. But needless to say, our Torah was already written before we even had rational thought, before we even had a brain. Point being is that when you get closer and closer to the Torah, you start seeing the world clearer, and you start seeing heresy where heresy is, and you're no longer confused. People that are confused when they hear something new from some rabbi that said the opposite of what the Torah said, or some friend that said the opposite of what the Torah says, the only reason they get confused is because they still lack knowledge.

2:04:01And I don't mean knowledge of the Torah; they lack knowledge of God. Meaning, HaKadosh Baruch Hu only once in the entire Torah says "believe in Me." The rest of the time He says "know Me," "know that I am God," not "believe that I am God." Meaning that our objective in life is not just to believe that there is a God like blind faith, but to attain enough knowledge about God and His creation that you know for sure it is impossible. For there to be anything but God, to arrive at a conclusion that's indisputable that there is nothing but Him, "ein od milvado," there is no such thing as forces of nature, Mother Nature, Father Nature, Brother Nature, Pikachu, Pokémon—none of that stuff. There's nothing else but Him, whether it's regards to your parnassah or... Whether it's in regards to finding a wife, having kids, disease, good, bad—everything—a person's objective in their life is to arrive at an indisputable state of mind, where no one can even push, where you know that everything in the world is from Hashem. Everything. The stuff that makes sense to you and the stuff that doesn't make sense to you. The fact that it makes sense to you doesn't mean that it's necessarily right. The fact that it doesn't make sense to you doesn't mean that it's wrong.

2:05:19It just means you're lacking, and it's fine that you're lacking. That just makes you human. If you understood Hashem and everything that He does, guess what? You would be Hashem. You cannot understand everything about Hashem without being Hashem. And that's the thing we have done. We are constantly trying to minimize God to our level, and that's part of the problem. Also, like everything else, everything has the basic principle of reward and punishment. And reward and punishment are based on measure for measure. The Arizal writes in Sha'ar HaGilgulim, there's a whole book that he wrote about it, which he took from the Zohar, Gemara, and several other places. It's called The Gate of Reincarnations. I do not recommend the book to anyone who is not a very serious Talmid Chacham.

2:06:20simply because it could confuse you to the extent where you could become crazy. crazy. I don't mean crazy like you'll go to an insane asylum—you may—but crazy in the sense that it'll confuse you, that you won't really know what to do. And a lot of people make this mistake because it's a very interesting topic. It's a very thought-provoking type of topic. And they delve into this Kabbalistic world very deeply, even though they don't have the right to be in that world. And it causes them more harm than good. But we are allowed to teach certain things that are basic minimum, like just understanding general knowledge. Reincarnation is part of the reward and punishment system, more the punishment than the reward. When a soul completes its mission, it no longer has a reason to be in this world. ...at that point, it goes to Heaven. They judge it and see, "Oh, you've completed your mission. You were righteous; everything is good. You get to Heaven, and once the world ends, you'll be reincarnated, come back to the world, live the last thousand years in this world with Mashiach, and then go to Olam HaBa because you did good. You'll have eternal good. On the other hand, if you didn't do so well but you weren't horrible...

2:07:42Violate Shabbat. You messed up a few times. And say, "Well, listen, part of you did fantastic. You kept Shabbat, kept this, kept that. Part of you did great." That part doesn't have to come back. So they split the soul into pieces. The soul can split like fire into an infinite amount of pieces. So they don't make the good parts always come back; sometimes those good parts stay behind and... unite later on, but sometimes part of the good comes back in order to give the guy some sense of good, some reward, some hope. They can't just return just the bad. The bad has to come back to this world. Assuming that the bad is not the worst thing on earth, then the bad can come back simply as another person. They would look the same to a certain extent, meaning they would have a similar image. All of the incarnations of a person throughout all of history are similar looking, and you could actually see this in different books that have tracked down the pictures of specific people.

2:08:49that were leaders within a generation, and you'll see that they actually have a replica today. For example, Putin from Russia looks like one of the major Roman Caesars. The Facebook kid, what's his name? Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg also looks like somebody famous from five, six hundred years ago. And a lot of famous people have a look-alike in history, but not just a look-alike. Oh, it's not just similar; it's identical, just with a different mustache. Identical. Same person, same lifetime. What do you mean? He's alive here and he's alive there. That's also possible, and I'll explain that in a second. now a person goes to this incarnation, and he has a chance to fix what he didn't fix before. But sometimes that reincarnation is a heavier punishment than usual. For example, let's say he desecrated Judaism, desecrated the Torah, and Hashem wants to punish him to

2:09:56Dutch about to such an extent where he'll undo his idolatry and all the other garbage that he did in his previous life. But the only way that he can do it is by being reborn as a non-Jew, and he actually has to convert to Judaism as part of his mission in life. So that's another possibility. Another possibility will be that a person could be, you know, let's say, for example, a person that murdered somebody. His job in the world will be to live, live, live until he gets murdered. That's the way that he's going to have to repent for his sin—by having what he did to somebody else happen to him. Or somebody that had abortions. He'll be born, he'll be aborted. He'll be aborted, which is not so much fun. So it's really a baby. It's real life. And when they crush their head and chop it off and chop the little pieces, the baby screams, just like a human being does when it's outside of the stomach. He aborted babies, she aborted babies, she'll come back as one of those babies. He did five of them, he'll come back as five of them. Or perhaps if he did specific sins. For example, he had intimate relations with a non-Jew and he did not do teshuva. Again, everything that I say is always subject to teshuva.

2:11:15I should probably say this more often. If a person does teshuva, he can fix all of this stuff. But if he dies without doing teshuva, then he has a problem. Why? If he was intimate with a non-Jew, which is practically almost everybody that's in America, there's a problem. Why? The Gemara says, she'll be tied to him like a dog. What does it mean, tied to him like a dog? The Arizal says, he'll come back as a dog. Years ago, almost 20 years ago, a rabbi, alav ha-shalom, took a trip to California. He arrived at the Beit Knesset, a very fancy Beit Knesset, and somebody came to him and said, "Listen, let's go to the guy, the biggest gevir, the richest guy in the community. His son just died, so they're doing Mincha and Arvit at his house. Let's go to his house." You know, he just lost his son. Let's go to his house. It's okay, no problem. So he goes to the house. He says the house has at least 20 rooms, a huge monstrous mansion. He walks into the house. The guy sees him and says, "Rabbi, I have to tell you a story you have never heard in your life." He says, "Listen, everybody here"—there was a room full of people—"was a witness to the story that happened yesterday, and..."

2:12:36what happened, he says, listen, yesterday we were sitting here, we're still mourning for my son. We didn't mean here. All of a sudden, a huge black pit bull, a huge black dog, comes up to my door. I have no idea who owns it. It knocks on the door like a human being with its paw. Everybody got scared—"Don't let him in, don't let him in!" But I knew that's my son. I don't know, I had this feeling. I knew it's my son. I don't know why. I don't know. I know the guy was not learned. He said, "I knew that's my son. He's knocking on the door." But my wife, everybody was scared, so we didn't answer. Then he disappeared and got into a secret entrance that only family members knew inside the garage. He got into the house and sat right next to me. We were praying. He sat right next to me. I couldn't believe it. So then I thought in my mind, Hashem, if this is my son, can you give me a sign? Can you give me a sign that this is really my son? The dog got up. He never said anything. He said the dog got up as I was thinking it, got up and went up the stairs. Now, Baruch Hashem, he had almost 20 rooms in his house. He followed the dog. The dog went to the son's room, went and jumped on the bed and lay down. Lay down on the bed.

2:14:05With him, he started crying with the dog. They finished and came right downstairs. He went on the couch where his son used to sit in the living room. He put a blanket on him, gave him some water, and gave him some pieces of cheese or something. They went to sleep. When they woke up in the morning, now everybody witnessed this whole story, they woke up in the morning, and the dog was gone. What do you have to say about it, Rabbi? So Rav Yagen, who had many stories like this, Baruch Hashem, met a lot of really interesting people in 40 years or so of kiruv and dealing with the public. He says, "Did your son date a non-Jewish woman?" He said, "Yes." He says, "Then it's your son. Because that's what the Gemara says. That's what the Zohar says." That's what the Gemara says. She will be glued to him like a dog. And our sages explain, what does it mean "glued to him like a dog"? He'll come back like a dog. He'll come back as a dog. It depends on how long it takes him to fix himself. Now, if the family tries to help the kid,

2:15:12He could be much shorter, meaning if the family realizes that their kid made a big mistake and now his life was cut short. The family can do something to help the kid, help that neshama, help that person by getting people to do teshuvah, by getting people to learn Torah. The more they learn for his benefit, the more they pray for his benefit, the more they help this neshama. Yosef Shani in Eretz Yisrael, he talks about a lot of gilgulim, a lot of different people. He said himself, when he was 17 years old, there was a cat in his neighborhood that he knew this was a neshama. It was a neshama of a certain person. Now, Yosef Shani, some of the stories are very, very extreme, and people think maybe he's crazy. He's not crazy at all. He's got this good regimen. He's the grandson of one of the biggest mekubalim in the last 500 years. Saw a cat. He knew exactly who this person was, and he prayed specifically for the cat. His wife was witness to all this, and a few other people witnessed it as well. He prayed for the specific cat. As soon as they finished praying, the cat ran to the street, got hit by a truck, and died. This meant he finished his tikkun. He died, and his neshamah went back upstairs.

2:16:29So there are certain mekubalim that could deal with this stuff. But unfortunately, there are certain people that hate these types of stories because they think this is mumbo-jumbo. The funny thing is, our sages talk about it across the entire Torah. You look at all of the work of the Arizal, he talks about it constantly. Talk about Rabbi Yehuda Fatiyah. We're not talking about a couple of hundred years ago, but rather a hundred years ago. His whole book is full of stories of him talking to different souls. You look at the entire Zohar, you're going to see countless stories like this. You look at the Gemara, countless stories like this. But people have a hard time believing in reincarnation because they look at it only as a negative thing. Actually, it's a positive thing. It's just Hashem giving a person, a neshamah, another opportunity to fix themselves. But because the world is run under His own rules of measure for measure, this measure, it matches that measure. And He said it. The fact that the person didn't comply is their problem. So to finalize everything else regarding reincarnation, to give you a complete part of the shiur that you asked, can one soul be split into two in the same lifetime? Yes. Where do we see it in the Torah? We see it at the time of Moshe Rabbeinu. When Cain and Abel, the two first children in the world, fought, Cain killed Abel. Abel was Kodesh Kodashim and died before he even made a sin.

2:17:57Abel reincarnated. To whom? To Noach. Then Noach reincarnated again, because of certain things he had to fix, and he became Moshe Rabbeinu. So Abel became Moshe Rabbeinu. That's what the sages tell us. Cain, on the other hand, became two people. He became Yitro (Jethro) and he became the Egyptian. The Egyptian that Moshe Rabbeinu killed. Why those two people? Because in order to rectify his sin, He had to do two things. One, he committed murder; he killed Abel. So he had to be murdered. Therefore, he had to come back as the Egyptian that Moshe Rabbeinu killed. Midah k'neged midah, measure for measure. But he also had to come back as Yitro. Why? Why did he murder Abel? Because he was jealous that he had two wives versus one wife. So he killed him over a woman. So he had to come back as somebody that gave Moshe Rabbeinu, who had Abel's original neshama, a woman back. Because he killed him over a woman, therefore he had to come back as giving a woman.

2:19:03So, yes, we saw that actually in a lifetime, one soul can be multiple people. That's at least one example that I know off the top of my head. Yes? Right. So, yeah, the Reshit Chochmah talks about Gan Eden and Gehinnom for non-Jews as well. The non-Jews that are righteous get to heaven. No problem. They have a heaven. It's a fantastic heaven. It's much better than this world could ever be. But it is not the same level of heaven as the righteous Jews. It cannot be because the reward cannot be the same as a righteous Jew since they didn't do as much. They fulfilled, let's say, 50 mitzvot, and the Jew fulfilled hundreds. So you cannot compare the two. Therefore, the reward for the Jew is drastically bigger—worlds apart.

2:20:04But so is the punishment. The punishment is also worlds apart. The punishment for a Jew that's wicked is worse than a non-Jew's. The Reshit Chochmah says that while the Gehenom for Jews is seven levels, the Gehenom for non-Jews is one. It's bad, it's horrible, and there's no exit, but nonetheless, it's one. It's a single level. So the reward and punishment are according to their level. Generally, many Noahides who have the ability to convert are highly recommended to convert because the reward is drastically greater. And if you're already going to be a Noahide, you might as well be a Jew. But if they don't have the ability to convert, whether it's for marriage reasons, where their spouse doesn't want to convert with them, It's because they live in some remote or end-of-the-world place where there's no Jewish community. You can't be a Jew by yourself on some island. You have to be part of a community. Then, you know, just be a righteous Noahide and you'll be perfectly fine. We don't necessarily go door-to-door trying to convert people, but if somebody comes and wants to convert, it is a big mitzvah to help them as much as you can, and we try our best. You can't help everybody. Part of the reason is because you're limited with time.

2:21:21You know, there's just so many people you can deal with, and part of the reason is because some people are crazy, simple. No, seriously. For example, yesterday somebody sent my assistant an email. She wants Rabbi Yaron Reuven to help her convert. No problem. He helps a lot of people convert. Why is there a problem? Because I need Rabbi Reuven to help me convert because I have a problem with the local beit din. Why? They don't like the fact that, you know, I'm really a man. Like, I was born a man, but I couldn't live with myself as a man. I couldn't live with myself as a man. So, I transitioned to being a woman, and now I need him to help me convert as a woman, and I'll be the best woman in the world. We don't deal with crazy people. I don't deal with crazy people. People like that, I can't. I can't help somebody like that. This is the stuff I deal with, Rabotai. What do you guys think? I just walk in the park? You think I just come for lectures? I just walk in the park? You know what kind of crazy people I deal with? If I told you all the stories that I deal with on a daily basis, Rabotai, it's scarier than Gehenom. I'm telling you, the type of people I deal with all day, you wouldn't believe it. I could tell you stories from here to next year. But... Huh?

2:22:37There's two of them. Yes, there's two of them. There's one in this world. Okay, one is actually no, you're right. There's a good question. There's Gehinom in this world and there's Gehinom in the upper world. Gehinom, one is under this world and one Gehinom is above us. Gehinom in this world has three entrances to it. The Gemara says in the ocean, in Yerushalayim, and in the desert. There's a certain spot in the desert where you're gonna hear Korach and his followers still screaming to this day. There's a part of the ocean that is an entrance to Gehinom. Oh, and there's a part of Yerushalayim that's an entrance to Gehinom. Now, that's the Gehinom of this world. There is actually a team of people that were drilling in the Arctic, I think it was, or some place where there's a lot of ice, and they did some serious drilling. When they got really deep, they got really scared. Why? They started hearing screaming.

2:23:38And this recording is probably 25 years old, 30 years old. They put down some type of recorder and it's on the internet. There's maybe like two, three, or four minutes of it. they took down some type of recorder literally to the core of the earth to listen to what's going on, and you literally hear screaming and yelling and the worst thing on earth. It doesn't even matter if you're Jewish or not Jewish, or you're human or you're a dog; you hear this, you're scared, you're scared to death. Now, some people say, no, it's not real, it's not this, it's not that. I don't know why people would do such a thing, quite frankly. But put it this way: I sent this to a few chachamim. I showed it to a few chachamim. They said, no, no, it's 100% real. According to what they know about Torah, Kabbalah, things like that, it was 100% real. That's the thing, that's the spot, that's the this. According to people that actually know, 100% real.

2:24:38Questions like this, yes. What's the question? We give a kiddush. We know about this. So, there is Gan Eden here. There is actually Gan Eden here. Also, there's also heaven on earth, and there is actually a person that went there and tried to get in, but because Hashem does not, you know, He has two special malachim guarding the gate. It's possible. He says there's a spinning sword and... There are two special malachim guarding the gate, but he got there. He knew how to get there. He got to the gate and they wouldn't let him in. So he said to them, "This is maybe like a 500-year-old story. And I always tell people, you don't want to believe these stories, that's your problem. We tell them because we believe them. You don't want to believe them, that's your problem. Makes no difference to me." so, um, he, uh, got to this place, to this gate of Heaven, and he knew that Heaven had certain things, and he said, uh, "Listen, I want to get in." They said, "You know how to get in, but you're still a human being, so you're not allowed to get in." So he said, "All right, can you at least give me some type of, like, I don't know, some sign, something that at least shows I was here?" So they opened up a little compartment, and they handed him two eyes, like human eyes, in a box. "Here, now you saw it. Go away."

2:26:01Whatever that means, rabotai. Whatever that means. All I know is angels are not regular, they're not nice. They're not so nice. That's what Hashem says. Hashem says to Moshe, after the chet ha'egel, "No, listen, you're going to have an angel lead you. I'm not going to lead you anymore. But just make sure. Don't mess with this angel. He'll kill all of you in a second." That's what He says in the Torah after the original sin of the golden calf. Hashem says, "I don't want to lead you anymore. I'm going to have an angel lead you. But just so you know, if you mess with this angel, he's going to kill all of you without mercy. There's no sense of mercy in him. You violate me, he'll kill all of you on the spot." So Moshe says, "We're not leaving here until You lead us." And Hashem obviously loves us, and He ended up leading us, and not the angel, baruch Hashem. He's still leading us to this day. But the point being, Rabotai, is that angels don't have the same emotions, if you will, or affection for Am Yisrael like Hashem does. Nobody does. A lot of this mystical stuff is very fascinating. I like it. I used to hate it, to be honest with you. But that's not because it's not interesting. It's just because my neshama was not ready for it. Your neshama is not always ready for this type of stuff. It was very hard for me to believe some of this stuff until I started seeing stuff. You start seeing stuff, you start feeling stuff, you start learning more about it, and then it just simply becomes reality to you.

2:27:27But before that, it sounds like a fairy tale, sounds like one of the stories from the Goyim. We don't realize that many of the stories of the Goyim are actually from the Torah. Like, for example, does anybody know the story of Arthur? Arthur took out the sword from some stone? Like, anybody actually believe this is a non-Jewish story? Huh? It's a Jewish story. You know who Arthur is? Who wants to guess? Huh? Huh? Moshe Rabbeinu, Chazak U'Baruch. Arthur is Moshe Rabbeinu. He pulled the staff. There was a staff that was created Bein HaShemashot, at creation, on Friday. It had Hashem's name on it, and it had the tribes' names on it. Adam HaRishon had it, and Noach had it. But then eventually, it was stuck in the ground to be given to a certain righteous person. Now it was in Midian. And Yitro saw this beautiful staff that was 674 pounds according to the ten amot, which is 20 feet and 674 pounds, according to Midrash Me'am Loez, and it was made of a blue stone, similar to a ruby stone.

2:28:48something similar to a ruby stone, so it was a huge thing, 20 feet long. It was stuck in the ground, and he saw it in his land, and he said, "Anyone who can take this thing out, I'll give him any one of my daughters." And his daughters were beautiful. All of the gibborim (heroes) from different places around the world tried to come and get it, but nobody was able to get it out of the ground. Then one day... Tzipora, the daughter of Yitro, tells Yitro, her father, "Abba, what happened to that guy that you put in jail ten years ago?" Because we have in the Torah that Moshe came to Midian, and then he met Tzipora, and then he met Yitro. But there's a Midrash that says there's a behind the scenes. When Moshe actually met Yitro, Yitro asked him, "Who are you? Are you an Egyptian?" Because Moshe dressed like an Egyptian. Moshe replied, "No, I actually used to be in Egypt, but I ran away from there." Yitro asked, "Why?" Moshe answered, "Because I killed an Egyptian." Now, even though Yitro was an idolater, he was a man of truth. He said, "Oh, you killed somebody? You get the death penalty." So he put Moshe in jail, closed it, and threw out the keys, intending to let him die.

2:29:57Now Tzipora had mercy on him because he saved her life. So every day she would sneak in and give him food and water. So after 10 years of being in the cell, she tells her father one day, "Abba, why don't we check on this prisoner that you put in jail?" He says, "He probably died 10 years ago. I didn't feed him." She goes, "Let's just check." let's just check. So he goes and he sees that on the ground, he goes into the cell, and he sees the guy still alive. So he knew obviously something happened. He knew there was something from God. So he released him. He said, "Okay, you're gonna work for me." So they started walking on the land. The Midrash says they started walking on the land and they passed by this huge staff that was stuck in the ground that was practically like a tree. And Moshe Rabbeinu was also a big guy. You know, like I told you, he was also 20 feet tall, and He looked at this thing and he just took it out of the ground like it was taking a hair out of milk. Not because of his strength, but because he was the right person to take it out. It was waiting for him for hundreds and hundreds of years. He took it out, not knowing what the story behind it was or anything like that. He just took it out. "That's my staff," and...

2:31:04As soon as he took it out, he told his shver, "How'd you do it?" He said, "I'm just something that was stuck in the ground." The shver said, "Well, listen, I'm a man of truth, and I promise that whoever takes this thing out can have any one of my daughters." So she says, "Oh, I want this one, Tzipora," and that's how... Moshe Rabbeinu took the hand of Tzipora, but that's also how the goyim, yimach shemam, that stole our stories and put their fake names on them, got their story of Arthur and made a cartoon out of it. They should give us copyright. They should give us some royalty for stealing our stories. Tzipora wasn't Jewish, though. Nobody was Jewish until Har Sinai. There was no concept of Judaism. There was no Judaism at that point. Could we just ask, Proper teshuvah involves a couple of things. First of all, a person needs to know that every time he was with that woman, he wasted seed. So, first and foremost, he has to do teshuvah for wasting seed. The Zohar says that every time a person wastes seed, he needs to fast 84 times. Now, since this is not really relevant to most people in our generation, and...

2:32:20People barely fast one day a year, let alone five days a year. They constantly ask you, "Is this a real fast, or is it just a rabbinical fast?" So, what the Arizal says is that if a person cannot fast for whatever reason or doesn't want to fast, they can replace those fasts with money. How? To replace each fast, they have to give tzedakah, the value of a meal, and... How much is a meal? Let's say in America, the value of a single meal is five dollars. So, if a person has to replace 84 fasts, and the meal is ten dollars, then you know if it's ten dollars times 84, that's 840 dollars. In reality, you could probably get a decent meal for five dollars. You have to get steak, a regular meal, something that's going to satiate you. Look at that tuna sandwich or something and... or a bagel with tuna and coffee, you get something for five bucks probably. Unless you live in New York, then just fifty. Fifty. But if you're in the rest of the world, most likely you get something for five. If it's ten, it's ten. The point is, you have to be honest about it. So let's say if it's every time that person wasted seed,

2:33:23He has to give that much. Now, most people have wasted seed much more than once, twice, or even ten times. So, they have to make that tzedakah a permanent part of their life on a regular basis for as often as they can. If they can only afford, let's say, 420 dollars a month, which in essence is one fast, then they simply make that part of their life. Once a month, they give 420 dollars and... they can afford more if they're rich, and they can afford to give forty-two thousand dollars a month. Don't leave this world with those sins still in your account because the money can't help you once you die. Money can't help you once you die, so now Person needs to do whatever they can to repent now. The best thing is that the other aspect of wasting seed is that a person needs to stop, obviously. They need to give tzedakah for it, but most importantly, they need to help other people. They need to help other people stop the sin also. So how do you help other people stop the sin? By getting people to do teshuva for this specific thing. By dealing and giving that tzedakah money to people or organizations that teach specifically about this topic. Now in the Hebrew language, there's at least a half a dozen organizations that teach this regularly. In Hebrew, pretty much it's me.

2:34:47There's Rav Mizrachi once in a while, and then there's Rabbi Alon Anava once in a while, and as always, Hida once in a while. That's pretty much it in English. It's almost non-existent. It's sad, but that's the reality. Most people look at wasting seed as a taboo subject, so they don't want to teach it. But nonetheless, the Shulchan Aruch says that wasting seed is the biggest sin in Judaism. So when you give that money to that, you're actually getting a couple of things. Number one is Helping other people do teshuva (repentance) every time somebody repents for wasting seed or for even being with a non-Jew atones for one of your sins. Every time he would have done it, so it's not just one time. Every time he would have wasted seed, every time he would have been with that woman, each time he would have been with her, that counts to fix your past. Which means that kiruv is the most effective way to do teshuva. It's an effective way of using your money and also learning Torah, learning Torah to a high level, to the point of sweating a little bit, you know?

2:35:56I wish it was that easy. I wish it was that easy. If it was, if it was, then you know, teshuvah would be a piece of cake. Wasting seed and things of that nature, sexual sins, are very, very heavy crimes. If a person does not do teshuvah for them, there are certain sexual crimes that the Torah says... Actually, just last week... There's a couple of them that get eternal Gehinom for it. It's called arurim. Arurim. Arurim, there's three types of karet. One karet is the death of the soul, one karet is the death of the body, and one karet is the death of both. What does it mean? Death of the body means that a person committed a karet sin, and he'll die young. Or, chas v'shalom, his kids will die young. That's one karet. That's karet of the body, but that still means that he still has a share in the world to come. What's karet of the soul? Karet of the soul means that he could still live a long life, he can still live 90 or 100 years, but once he gets to heaven, he gets eternal Gehinom. He goes to a place with no good whatsoever in it, and he doesn't leave; his soul is destroyed.

2:37:17What's karet ariri? Karet ariri is both. He both dies young, or his children die young, and his descendants die young, like pretty much the whole family is wiped out, and he does not have a share in the World to Come. So that's the worst of the worst. The crimes for that are usually sex crimes. Sex crimes. Hashem takes sex crimes very, very seriously, even though we don't. So if a person has these things under his belt, he should do everything and anything that he can to rectify that sin. Don't mess around. Don't be cheap with it. Don't think that there's another way. You look at all the books, all the holy books, they're going to tell you things that are actually even more extreme, more extraordinary, more scary. This is like, you know, this is teshuvah for juniors. And I know it's scary. I know it's terrible, but that's why I tell people the best thing you could possibly do for yourself is constantly do Kiruv, support it directly, support it indirectly, do it yourself. Whatever you can, but make helping other people do teshuvah a permanent part of your day-to-day life. Because each time somebody does teshuvah, even for one mitzvah, it doesn't have to be for everything, even for one mitzvah, it helps you. It helps you in a very big way, in a way that you probably can't even help yourself.

2:38:38Especially when it comes to sins like this, where most people wasted seed so many times that they lost count, they have no idea how many times. Meaning that even if they gave four thousand dollars a month or forty thousand dollars, they still don't know if they fixed it because of how many times throughout their teenage life, their young life, they did it and... i promise you that if you look at all the holy books, you're going to see that the fear that the sages have of dying with even a single karet, one karet, is something that literally makes them start crying. Why do they cry? Because they know, they know what it means. We don't know; that's why we don't cry. That's why all of you guys are calm. Y'all come, we're all here. Well, oh yeah, karet, oh yeah, it's kind of severe, this karet. All right, whatever, you know. Yo, what were we thinking? We were thinking about the consequences. It's karet, it's karet, it's kind of severe. Can I get a discount? Does Hashem have like a 7-Eleven up there? I see I have a discount, maybe I can get like a half a karet? Maybe I can get like a kar? Can I get a kar? Can I get two for one? Is there like a special discount once a year, maybe five karets for one? Something?

2:39:45By the way, there is. There are certain times it is near. But anyway, Rabotai HaYekarim, there are very, very serious teachings about karet. Anyone that knows about karet, the sin of karet. There are 36 times in the Torah that it mentions karet. There are 36 different types of sins for which the Torah prescribes karet. But then the sages have another 12. So it's 48. And then some say that there's even more in the Zohar. The point being is that... Whatever you do, make sure you don't die with those under your belt. Which means that since none of us know when we're going to die, start doing teshuva for them today. don't you offer them today. Do whatever you can. If the only thing you can do is stop sinning, good. That's a start. Stop sinning. If you can stop sinning and influence other people to stop sinning, great. If you can stop sinning, help other people stop sinning, and on top of it, support other people or organizations that help people stop sinning, then do all three. If all you can do is stop sinning, you're just like, "I'm horrible, I'm addicted," but you at least have some money, use the money. Please do something. Why? Because it will help you, and

2:40:52can help you. That's really what it comes down to. Sometimes people need to help other people before they have enough courage and spiritual strength to help themselves. Believe it or not, yes. So, the Rambam writes about it, and the Gemara in Masechet Avodah Zarah writes about it. I believe also Shabbat. A few places in the Torah talk about it. So it says that it was better for Shlomo HaMelech to clean bathrooms for 70 years, meaning being the guy that cleans the bathrooms in those days. You know what the bathrooms of those days were? Bathrooms of those days were a hole in the ground. There was no ventilation. There was no plumbing.

2:42:11Somebody every so often would have to come and take all the feces out of the ground and take it somewhere else. So they say that Shlomo HaMelech, the wisest man of all time—that's what Gemara says, that's funny, but that's what Gemara says—says that Shlomo HaMelech was better off being the guy that cleans the bathrooms than to be Shlomo HaMelech with this pasuk that you're mentioning written about him. Why? Why? Because Shlomo HaMelech made a mistake because of his wisdom. He misused it to a certain extent at his level, and even though Hashem says you're only allowed to marry 18 wives, Shlomo HaMelech wanted to bring the Mashiach. So he said, "How do we bring the Mashiach? We create world peace." Create world peace. So how do we create world peace? "I'll marry all of the nations, convert all of them. There’s no war anymore." If I marry all the queens, then there's no war anymore. And he married a thousand women from a thousand different countries. The problem is that there were a couple of them that he wasn't careful enough with. One of them was the daughter of Pharaoh, Pharaoh at the time. And this daughter of Pharaoh, she was still worshipping idols. So even though she converted, she never truly abandoned her idolatry.

2:43:31She did a full conversion. She did a full conversion, but she still had an idol in her bag. And once in a while, she kissed it. Once in a while, she said, "Oh yeah, idol, help me." Once in a while, she did some of those things. Even though she converted, she had a nice, you know, the whole kisui rosh, long dress, everything. But in Shamayim, they knew this one was no good. So the Gemara says, the minute he married her, Malach Gavriel came, hit the ocean, and created an island. What island was this? It eventually became Rome. It eventually became Italy. Why Italy? They destroyed the Beit HaMikdash that Shlomo HaMelech built. So now, Shlomo HaMelech made this mistake, and he married many women, and a couple of them never abandoned idolatry 100%, even though they were converts. So the Rambam says they were converts, 100% converts. Even Shimshon HaGibor, 100% convert, no problem. But, modern Orthodox a little bit. A little messianic, a little bit. Something's wrong.

2:44:41Hashem didn't like it and He says in Shamayim we counted it as if Shlomo HaMelech worshiped the idol. He never worshiped the idol. But because it was his wife, it's as if he did it. It's as if he did it even though he didn't do it. Chas V'shalom he didn't do it. Because he wasn't careful, the sin goes on him also, like he has, you know. Like, for example, you bought a nice, beautiful car. Everything is great, and your wife drives the car, and somebody scratches the car. Now, even though the next day you can still drive the car, there's still a scratch on it. Still a scratch. Same thing, same concept, but this scratch is eternal. Why did he turn to reading the Tanach? So the Chachamim say, such a scratch? It was better off for him to never be a king, to clean bathrooms for 70 years, than to have such a scratch. To such an extent is the scratch. But needless to say, he never worshipped an idol. He was Kodesh Kodeshim. But he made a mistake. He made a mistake on his level. Yes? Are you allowed to put the tefillin on someone who doesn't keep Shabbat?

2:45:47Yes, yes, as long as he's a Jew, you're allowed to help him put on tefillin, you're allowed to help him do all the mitzvot, because the fact that he is not keeping other mitzvot does not absolve him from the mitzvah of the other ones. So you should encourage him to do other mitzvot. So hopefully those mitzvot will bring him enough spiritual merit that will give him the strength to do other mitzvot. But again, make sure that he's Jewish. And make sure that it's not someone who is openly making fun of the Torah either. There are certain people that are just not religious because they're clueless, which is most people. But there are certain people that are just outright resha'im, like they like to destroy Torah. People like that, the Hilchot Teshuvah, Rambam Hilchot Teshuvah says you're not allowed to be within six feet of them. Forget about Tefillin, forget about anything. You're not allowed to be within six feet. Like a missionary. A missionary, a Christian missionary, you're not allowed to stand within six feet of him. He's dangerous. His neshama is dangerous. Everything about him is dangerous. But if he's just simply ignorant, or he's just simply secular because of whatever reason, no problem. Help him do mitzvot. Get him closer and closer. And that's a fantastic thing to do. That's what we're trying to do every day. But if he's one of these wicked, wicked, evil people...

2:47:02That likes to destroy the Torah, go against rabbis, build websites against the Torah, and things like that. A person like that, the Rambam writes, even if he comes to you and says, "I want to do teshuva," you're not allowed to help him. He can do it on his own, but not with help. Why? You can't trust him. Once he gets other people to sin intentionally, that means you can never trust him again to not do it. If you don't know, then it's okay. If you don't know, then you assume that he's okay. He's just ignorant. So he says, what about loving your brother like you love yourself? Listen to what you're saying. What's your brother? Who's your brother? A Shomer Shabbat. A fellow Jew who is Shomer Shabbat is your brother. Someone who is not Shomer Shabbat is not your brother.

2:48:03He's considered an idol worshiper. Somebody that's a heretic is not your brother. He's a heretic. Someone that's a missionary is not your brother. He's not considered your brother. He's a heretic. If he's simply wrong, living a wrong life because of lack of knowledge, then help him. But if he's a heretic intentionally, not only is he not your brother, he's considered no different than a missionary. which the Rambam writes in Hilchot Teshuvah. If anybody wants, I could show it to you. The Rambam writes that such people you’re not even allowed to help. Not even allowed to help them. And if they die without doing Teshuvah, their Gehenom never ends. They’re one of the 24 people. What if they intentionally bear false witness, for example, is that the same level? No, it's not the same level as Chilul Shabbat, but a false witness just makes him an unethical person. But it's not to the same extent as someone that is anti-Torah. That just means that he's biased, it means that he's unethical, it means that he's motivated by probably money or things of that nature. It means that he has problems, but it doesn't necessarily mean he's evil.

2:49:14You know, evil is when somebody is, you know, goes out of their way to destroy other people's opportunity to get closer to Hashem. Like, for example, what you guys witnessed on Sunday. With the guy with the tzitziot, calls himself a Breslover, that's evil. Now, I'm not saying it because I'm deciding it. That's what my Rav, my Rav told me, next time he comes, you don't have to worry about anything about the din of moser. Now, generally, you're not allowed to call the law force against another Jew. You can lose your olam haba that way unless it's called din of moser. Moser is sending him to the government unless it's a Jew that harms other Jews, like he's a murderer, or he sells drugs, or he's someone that goes against Hashem, tries to destroy shiur Torah. A person like that, it's a mitzvah to call the cops. Why? You're saving other people. You're saving other people, so that person, my Rav says it's a mitzvah to call the cops if he comes. Why? Because this person is a danger to the public. Not only the public in regards to people doing teshuva, but the public as far as other things, physically. Drugs and things of that nature. So, when it comes to Chilul Hashem,

2:50:28very, very serious problem that people act crazy sometimes and they don't realize what they're doing. They don't realize what kind of mess they're getting themselves into, what they're being classified or reclassified as in Heaven, and it makes doing teshuva much more difficult. So, it's highly, highly advised for people to think twice before they do anything, especially when it has to do with going against the Torah. Before you make a comment on the internet about what some rabbi said, double-check, triple-check, and quadruple-check that you're right. Don't say things; don't make comments. Personally, I would recommend people not to make comments at all. Unless it's like "Good for you," I wouldn't recommend even that. I would say no, because what if the guy really is a heretic? So you're actually helping other people listen to this garbage. So in general, I really recommend people don't make any comments at all. If you like a specific rabbi, whether it's me or Mizrachi or anybody else, send them an email. Send them a text. Oh, I like your lecture yesterday. Chazak u'Baruch. That's fine. But making a public comment has consequences. People could see it. If you said, Chazak u'Baruch, good for you. And the guy really is an idol worshiper. And now, for the next 50 years, people are going to see this comment.

2:51:43Oh, wow, Steve said, this must be good. Sure, you can remove it, but maybe you forgot you put it there. Maybe if a guy put it then yes, we don't remember every single thing, every single text message we send to people. So generally, I recommend you not make any comments at all. But if you like to hear yourself talk and see your comments on the internet, make sure that you double-check and triple-check, and make sure that you know what you're doing. Because I see a lot of times religious people make comments that most likely could cause them to lose their olam haba. That's to that extent. To that extent. We have the next shiur on Sunday. We're back here. Anyone that wants to meet with me personally, I'll be here for as long as you guys need. Baruch Adonai le'olam, amen ve'amen.

2:52:50I went crazy once I realized the depth of severity, like I lost my mind. I lost my job. I couldn't get off the couch. Well, it's good, but you need a rest. You need a rest completely. So, the most important thing is to stop the sin. Stop the sin. Anything that you know is a sin, don't do it. That's the most important. The second thing is to try to do everything you possibly can to learn about halachot. So, you don't repeat the sin, whether willingly or unwillingly. Third, is to give as much tzedakah as possible to help other people also stop sinning. Because each time you get another person to keep Shabbat, it's like you keep two Shabbats. So you're making up for all those Shabbats. So now, for example, you gave $100. Out of that $100, let's say, one person kept Shabbat.

2:54:10Now, for the rest of your life, for the rest of your eternity, every time that guy doesn't keep Shabbat, it goes into your account. So now, every Shabbat for you is two people. Then, let's say he marries a wife, and she also keeps Shabbat. Now, every Shabbat for you is three people. Then they have kids. They have, let's say, three kids. So now, every Shabbat for you is those five people and your Shabbat. Every Shabbat is six Shabbatot. And little by little, that's how you fix those issues. What about a brother who's not Jewish? Half-brother that's not Jewish is not a brother. There's no such thing as a half-brother. He's not a brother. It's not your... If his mom is Jewish, he's Jewish. If he's not Jewish, then you have no obligation to make him Jewish or anything. You can tell him about the Torah and what you're doing in your life, no problem, but you have no obligation to get him to... Right, but he looks up to me because I'm older. So, like, he sees me... You can tell him there's no problem for him to see the lectures, and if he wants to convert or he wants to be a righteous Noachide, that's perfectly fine. That would definitely help you and him, but you don't have an obligation. The obligation is you first, and everybody else second. If you happen to help him also, it's definitely going to help you in a huge way, but you don't have an obligation as much as it is to help yourself. That's the true translation.

2:55:34I have a question. So bringing people to, let's say, your shiur, you're saving neshamot. That's fantastic. Also, like paying people, giving people money to come to the shiur, whatever it is, even if they don't care and they're just doing it for the money, even if they start doing mitzvot without caring, eventually they'll like to do it. So even if they start that way, let them start that way. And eventually, they'll start doing it with genuine liking. I started out of just pain. I was tired of my life going wrong. Now, I enjoy doing it. There's a rule in the Torah. I have another question. Do you know what astral projection is? I have a shiur about it. Yeah, there are several different things. Are you allowed to do it? to intentionally get your out-of-body experience? Are you allowed to do it? Yes, it's just dangerous. Because there are different ways of doing different things. For example, there's a certain form of hypnosis called regression. And in regression, there are a few experts in the world that can still do it. They can get you to go back to your previous incarnation.

2:57:00because to say "neshama," so they can bring you back. Let's say they have this documented. It's documented. There's a movie by Rabbi Mizrachi called Life After Death, and you could send me a message and I'll send you the movie. It's a very good movie, and he shows many, many documented stories about people who went through this. This is one of the things that he shows in the movie. They tell a person, they hypnotize them. They say, "Okay, go back 10 years." And now she acts like she's 10 years younger. "Go back 50 years." And then she acts like she's really young, like a baby. "Go back 200 years." And all of a sudden, she starts speaking a different language that she doesn't know in this setting. And they saw that the person could go to a different incarnation. Not many people can do it. But the problem is it's dangerous because if the person is not an expert, they may not be able to bring the person back. So they could go back, be awake, but think they're somebody from 500 years ago. And that's a serious problem. Same concept with all the other stuff, the out-of-body experiences. Because if you are not a real serious expert in that stuff, it becomes very dangerous. There are some mekubalim, like Rav Yosef Shani, who actually does it himself and has helped other people take their neshama out of their body and take them to interesting places. Um...

2:58:24It's called Aliyat Neshama in Hebrew. Aliyat Neshama. And if the person knows what they're doing, I would want to do it also. It's just that it's dangerous. Because it's not like your body getting... Let's say, for example, if somebody takes a knife and he cuts you, it hurts a lot. Probably going to have to get some stitches. But if your neshama gets hurt, like it goes to the wrong door, finished. What happens to your body? Corpse. Becomes a golem. Becomes a plant. It's funny that you mention that. So it's not like, you know, like, oh yeah, this is cool. It's dangerous. My mom actually told me a story about a guy who was able to do that, able to put people back into their past lives, to essentially, like, heal them, like help them through different difficult times. There are some experts who can still do it to this day. But again, there's a lot of... It's not a widely accepted form of treatment or even legal in many places because of the damage that it can and has caused. Even the tzaddikim that know how to do it, they don't do it to people because even for them it's dangerous. A person also has to have enough spiritual merits

2:59:53to go under that and actually survive it. It's not just for anybody. Oh, let me just take you out. Okay, you're in heaven now. Let me know when you want to come back. It doesn't work that way. It's a very, very high level Kabbalah. It's interesting. You said that there are sex crimes that can give you, right? I was assuming probably something like rape. No, you said that there are sex crimes. No, not just rape. It could be like incest or homosexuality. Well, which ones are what kill in the Shema and the soul? Yeah, you said that there's no, I'm not asking which ones, I'm asking. The question I'm asking is, do you think that the reason why I saw a statistic that homosexuals tend to live 20 to 30 years less than the average person? Do you think the reason why is because they're suffering for their sexual sins? It makes sense. But is it every crime? Every single sex crime? Um...

3:00:58Like you asked me before, which ones, which are the ones? Oh, no, there's, yeah, there's different levels of karet, but the ones that are mentioned in Parashat Kedoshim, it says that if a person is intimate with his aunt or his brother's wife, then he gets karet, he becomes an ariri, he gets cut off in this world and gets cut off in the next world. But there are other ones that are karet and not as bad as this, it's not both worlds. uh, but nonetheless, still correct. Can these people still do teshuvah while they're still alive? Yes. So, if your punishment is karet, but you do teshuvah, you can fix it. But you're gonna most—yeah, for something like that, most of the time—most of the time is a, uh, uh—most of the time. What do you mean? Which ones are the sex crimes that are karet? Yeah, being with a goy, being with a nidah. A non-Jew, being with a non-Jew is karet. Being with a woman that's even your own wife, without her going to the mikveh is karet. Being with a woman that's not even your wife, karet, because she's not in the mikveh. Being with your aunt, being with your daughter, wife, sister, mother, karet. Not being with a prostitute.

3:02:15That means you're promiscuous. If she's Jewish, then she's nida. So that's karet. If she's not Jewish, then she's goya. That's also karet. So it just depends which karet you have. So the point is that all of this... But it's worse to do it with a Jew that's not your wife, right? Than with a non-Jew? Worse? I don't know. One's Gehinnom, one's Gehinnom. So I don't know. The point is you have to do teshuva for this one and that one. You can do teshuva for all of it. Like I said, stop... Stop sinning is number one. Number two, learn about the sin to make sure that you never repeat it. Three, get other people to do teshuva. Because most likely, those other people also made that same sin. So now that they did teshuva, they stopped. Every time they would have done it, it goes to your account also. So that's the key. That's the key. Get other people to do teshuva. Whether it's by, you know, giving out CDs or bringing them to a lecture or sharing things on the internet or donating money. Whatever it is that you can do, that's the key. Do Kiruv. Get other people to do teshuva. That's the best cure for teshuva. Get other people to do teshuva because every time they do teshuva, it's as if you have two people doing teshuva for you.

3:03:31And now it's five people, ten people, a thousand people. I mean, I don't know how many thousands of people Bezalel already saved. But Baruch Hashem, I... But Kiruv is giving CDs out and giving... All types of Kiruv. Kiruv is giving CDs out. Kiruv is bringing more people to the lecture. Kiruv is donating money for an organization that does real Kiruv. Kiruv can be, you know, speaking to people to help them. Kiruv can be done in many ways. But the most effective Kiruv as far as like one that most people use is the donation of money. That's usually the most common. People that don't have money, they have time. So donate your time. Use that time to do Kiruv, bringing people to lectures, giving out CDs, flyers, things like that, sharing stuff on the internet, and so on. Don't have time, don't have money, you must have some skill. So a person has a skill. Let's say he has graphic skills, or he has technology skills, or he has, I don't know, whatever type of skill. Find out how you can use your skill to do Kiruv, to help a Kiruv organization in one way or another. And so there are plenty of ways. Anyone who wants to actually do it has plenty of ways to do it. It's just that they have to take it seriously, and they have to do it on a regular basis. If they do it, they'll win. They'll win in a big way. So don't lose hope. The whole point of education is that this is the first part of Teshuvah.

3:04:53Acknowledging the problem. Once you acknowledge the problem, that's already half the battle. Now it's solving it, which is B'ezrat Hashem. You already started. That's it. Just keep going. Keep going. When it comes to Teshuvah, his life gets a lot harder. Is that because he's being cleansed for his sins in the past? Yeah. I mean, it's very possible that his Teshuvah is... It's a sign, not necessarily 100%, that now he's doing Teshuvah, his life becomes harder, but that's because Hashem is cleaning him from his sins. But sometimes people, you know, they make their life difficult themselves. It's not necessarily Hashem punishing them or giving them difficulties. It's just they're doing it themselves because of bad choices they're making. You know, for example, when people have anxiety attacks, that has nothing to do with Hashem causing you to suffer. That's just simply you have no emunah or bitachon, and you have to work on it. So it all depends. It's not so simple. It's not like a one-size-fits-all. Anybody that has a tough life, that's because Hashem is doing it to clean you up. Sometimes you're doing it to yourself. So you have to evaluate what is it that's within your ability.

3:06:15Can you fix this? Can you not fix it? Does it say in the Gemara that Mashiach is suffering? Because I asked this to a rabbi, and he said only Chabad rabbis believe that. No, it's Gemara Masechet Sanhedrin. Gemara Masechet Sanhedrin, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi met the Mashiach. He saw him in a place where there was a bunch of injured people, and he had bandages all over his entire body. And each one of those, all of his injuries, comes from the sins of people. That's where the Christians also got their misguided idea. So yes, he suffers for the sins, which is also going to be very embarrassing for us. When one day we meet him, we're going to know exactly what wound we caused him. Imagine you see the biggest Rabbi in history, and you're the one that caused him this scar on his right cheek. What an embarrassment that will be. What an embarrassment it's going to be. He's like, oh, wow. Yaron caused that scar. What a rasha. You cut the Mashiach. Imagine what kind of embarrassment it's going to be. Why? Whatever you did wrong might cause that to happen to him? Absolutely. It's like physical stuff or spiritual stuff? Both.

3:07:35And every day, the Zohar HaKadosh says, every day Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov come to the Mashiach and tell him, "Please continue suffering. Don't come yet." Why? If you come now, not enough people will do teshuva. Yeah, but I understand. Is Mashiach also suffering when he wasn't even born? Yes, Mashiach is not necessarily just an average Jew. There's a neshama. There's a world beyond this world. Things that are here are over there, but in a different type of dimension, if you will. And the neshama of the Mashiach is partly Moshe and partly David. So that neshama has been around since the beginning, since Creation. It's not like some new thing that will be created in 2019. Right. It's there. It exists. It exists. Let's go home. Ken. That's your vocation. That's your vocation. That's your living. Do what you gotta do. The point is, if you need to use those words to make a living, to communicate with your wife about things that are meaningful, to communicate with your kids to educate them, to learn, to laugh,

3:08:56That's what Hashem gave you the words for. But to socialize about nonsense, about what do you think of the game, what do you think of the tree, stuff like that, that is not advisable simply because you're wasting your words, you're wasting your time, you're wasting your life. Either way, even if it wasn't for those things, it would be a waste of time anyway. But the point being is that it literally is a waste of life when people do it. Like it literally is. So, not advisable. Every moment that we're not doing something. Hashem is watching, we could be reading, we could be studying. Din v'cheshbon it's called. Din v'cheshbon. Din v'cheshbon means there's the judgment of what happened and then there's the analysis of what could have happened. And that's what we're judged for. We're judged for both. We're judged for both. Good to see you again. See you on Sunday. Which one of the Chachamim said that the things that you were talking about were all a pleasure here? That's in the Gemara. That's in the Gemara. I don't remember which one of the sages said it, but that's in the Gemara. That's in the Gemara. It's in several places. Several places. I have to find it for you. I have to find it.

3:10:27Which one of the Chachamim said that the things that you were talking about were all a pleasure here? That's in the Gemara. That's in the Gemara. I don't remember which one of the sages said it, but that's in the Gemara. That's in the Gemara. It's in several places. Several places. I have to find it for you. I have to find it.