Stay Away From Danger!!

0:38of death is forbidden because now at this point you've put yourself in a position where you are depending on a miracle. You're depending on a miracle and you're not allowed to depend on miracles. The second thing is the Gemara says, I believe it's in Masechet Avodah Zarah, says that the Malach HaMavet one time came to one of the Tzaddikim, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi. And he says, you want me to show you what I do? He says, sure. So, Malach HaMavet tells the guy, tells one of his soldiers, go, do me a favor, go bring Miriam, the hairdresser, bring me her neshama. So, the employee of the Satan goes and brings a neshama of a Miriam, but it wasn't Miriam the hairdresser, it was Miriam the baker. Satan says to him, "Ah no, I didn't ask for Miriam the baker, I said Miriam the hairdresser. Okay, she's here anyway. Fine, we'll take her too." So you show up and say, "Oh hey, Satan, what are you doing? How dare you! Who gave you permission?"

1:39Satan says to him, "Ah no, I didn't ask for Miriam the baker. I said Miriam the hairdresser. Okay, she's here anyway, fine, we'll take her too." So you show up and say, "Oh hey, Satan, what are you doing? How dare you? Who gave you permission?" To take her neshama. You said you're going to take the hairdresser. So apparently you had permission from Shamayim to take the hairdresser's neshama. What are you taking this poor baker's neshama for? You just killed her, that's it. You didn't get permission. He goes, no, no, don't worry, I got permission. He goes, how? He says, listen, this Miryam... The baker wasn't careful with the way she bakes. Every time she would take out the bread and the cakes from the oven—in those days, the ovens were like entire rooms—she would enter her entire body into the room and endanger her body, endanger her life. Once you endanger your life, I have all rights over you. I have the right to take you. Once you endanger your life and you don't care about your own life, I have a right to take you.

2:45You should believe, he says, wait a minute, so what about all these extra years? If she didn't endanger her life, she didn't endanger her life. What if she just lived a regular life? She didn't neglect her life; she watched her life as she's supposed to, which is, "You must protect your nefesh (soul), you must protect your body." What if she protected it? That means she would have lived another X amount of years—20, 30, 40, 50 years. He says, yeah, he goes, so where do all those extra years go? You just took them from us. She's 25, 30 years old; she was allotted 70 years in the world, meaning that this 40 years... More than she was supposed to live. What happens to those 40 years? Don't worry, Rebbe Yehoshua ben Levi. Those 40 years, we give them to a tzaddik. We give them to a tzaddik. He goes, yeah, but this tzaddik benefits. He was supposed to only live 40 years, and now he's going to live 80 years. But what about this Miriam? She was supposed to live another 40 years — 40 years of mitzvot. She's now missing out on reward, too. He says, ah, that's why we give it to a tzaddik. give it to the tzaddik. Why? Because now, since we gave him her years, every one of his mitzvot counts towards her as well. So yes, she lost life because she wasn't careful, but she doesn't lose any reward. But still, who wants to die early? The point is, you're not allowed to endanger your life. How do you like that? Follow up.

4:04Shouldn't smoking cigarettes also be banned? It gives you a rush, but it kills you. I feel like it's worse than skydiving because you're going to get something wrong with you. You're going to get cancer. You're going to have your teeth fall out. I feel like it should be banned. Why aren't cigarettes as severe as skydiving? Why aren't cigarettes as bad as skydiving? Well, first of all, cigarettes are forbidden for anyone who doesn't smoke. You have a mitzvah in the Torah that says, you must protect your body and you must protect your soul. When you smoke a cigarette, jump out of planes, or put your life in danger in any way, you are violating the Torah. Therefore, if someone is a non-smoker, it's forbidden under all conditions for them to begin. Continuing to smoke, even due to addiction, is still definitely not a mitzvah. But there are some leniencies for people who are addicted to it, in a sense that it's not considered the same level of sin as someone who is starting out from scratch knowing that he is not allowed.

5:10needless to say, it's not a mitzvah. Needless to say, it's not ratzon Hashem. It's not the will of Hashem, which is the reason why after over 20 years of smoking, I stopped smoking. Even though I didn't want to stop smoking, I liked smoking. But once I found out this is not the will of Hashem, I had to stop. The point is that it is forbidden. It is not allowed. But why is it not completely banned and completely forbidden like skydiving, which is the third question? The reason why is because even though smoking is bad for you, It's not an immediate effect. You're going to smoke a cigarette, and it is extremely unlikely to the point of impossibility that the person is going to get cancer after one cigarette. But it is very likely that the parachute will not work after one time or a hundred times or twenty times. It doesn't matter how many times you jump out of a plane or some mountain—the likelihood of the parachute not working or the wind being too strong, and, in essence, your life being in danger is just as great no matter how many times you jump out of a plane. Whereas a cigarette has a gradual effect over time.

6:16So it's not as bad. It's terrible, it's awful, it's also disgusting. To everybody that's around you, you smell terrible when you smoke cigarettes. I never knew how smelly I was until I stopped smoking. But the point is that it's not the same level of sin. Why? Because one is an immediate risk, and one is a gradual risk. Next question. It's still not good. Because I've asked a rabbi before about skydiving and he said, ...since the chances of actually dying, like I'm not just saying wingsuit, just like regular skydiving, since the chances of dying from like a chute failure are actually so small, it's not even considered a risk. Like, it is a risk, but it's just not big enough to be... Like, wouldn't swimming then be against the Torah? Because swimming at the beach, because you could get stuck in a rip current and then like... No, but again, it's the... First of all, I don't know where that Rabbi got that. The statistics are very small. A failure of skydivers. I mean, that's not exactly accurate. But put it this way: if skydiving was the only problem that Am Yisrael had, I wouldn't even mention anything about it. I'd tell all you guys, you know what, let's go skydiving.

7:40Why? I'm never going to skydive. I'm scared of heights. But I'll tell you, let's go skydiving. If that was the only problem, let's go skydiving. We'll take a risk. But the reality is, this is the smallest problem we have. Why am I mentioning all this elaborate stuff? Because you have to know that there's a rule. There's a value to life, and you're not allowed to endanger it for nonsense, just to get a rush. You're not allowed to endanger it for no reason. Why? Because the biggest rush that you're supposed to have in your life is when you're learning Torah. You're not supposed to get a rush from something external, such as jumping off of mountains, doing wheelies on bicycles and bikes and so on. It's good. You can have a good time. You can go climb a mountain. There is a value to life, and you're not allowed to endanger it for nonsense, just to get a rush. You're not allowed to endanger it for no reason. Why? Because the greatest thrill you're supposed to have in your life is when you're learning Torah. You shouldn't seek that rush from external sources, such as jumping off mountains, doing wheelies on bicycles and motorcycles, and so forth. It's good to have a good time, and you can go climb a mountain. You can go, uh, rafting, you can do all that stuff, have fun, but don't do something that's outright dangerous and literally depends on a miracle. Value your life a little bit more than that. Value it as if you have three, four, five, six kids waiting for you at home because, technically, you have a lot more, even though none of you have kids here. At least the young ones—hopefully, you don't have kids.

8:50Not if you have kids that you know about yet. But anyway, the point is, you don't have any kids, right? But you have to worry as if you have 50 kids at home. Why? Because one day you're going to get married, b'ezrat Hashem. Right? Are you planning to get married, or are you going to be single for the rest of your life? You're single? Okay, so everybody except him. You're gonna get married one day? Okay, one day you're gonna get married. There's another time you're gonna get married. There's another time you're gonna have more than just a dog. You're gonna have kids, right? Two, three, four, five, seventeen kids. You're gonna have something, right? Now those kids are gonna have kids. Those kids you have, they can also have kids. They're gonna want the same thing as you. If I've had three, four, five kids... Then the kids are going to want 3, 4, 5 kids. So guess what? Those 3 kids, they're going to turn into 9 kids. Those 9 kids, 27 kids. Those 27 kids, 243 kids, and so on and so forth. Guess what? You have 500 kids. You go up to Shamayim, all the mitzvot of all those 500 kids, all the aveirot, depending on how you led them, depending on how you influenced them, they'll count for you. So you have to think about it: wait a minute, am I willing to risk the mitzvot of 500 people that are going to follow me?

9:52Would I do it if I knew I had 500 little kids waiting for me at home? No. Okay, so why should you do it now? That's essentially the mindset of someone who is trying to adhere to what HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants from you. Yes. Yes, if you could give...