Sticking To The Basics In Judaism - STUMP THE RABBI (67)

0:17We are back here in Aventura, having a Wednesday Stump the Rabbi shiur. where you guys, Baruch Hashem, ask good questions, Kadosh Baruch Hu gives us answers, and we all learn together, Baruch Hashem. The shiur tonight, b'ezrat Hashem, will be for a refuah shlema for Yaakov ben Yaffa. Kadosh Baruch Hu will give a refuah shlema, refuat hanefesh, refuat haguf, hatzlacha, in the surgery tomorrow. Also for Esther bat Zipporah, Dvora bat Mercedes, David ben Esriah, Doris bat Zhora, Rav Ephraim ben Shulamit, Rabbanit Sarah bat Anat, Rabbanit Levana bat Sarah, Yitro ben Avraham, Talia bat Sarah, Michal bat Yael, Serach bat Batya, Batya bat Sarah, Orit bat Ilana, Stefan ben Katerina, Yonatan ben Sherry Haley, and Hatzlacha Rabba to Marsha bat Julie,

1:42and her daughter Ayla bat Marsha, Shaul ben Farzaneh, Yitro ben Avraham, Oshri ben Doris, Gabi ben Doris, Elad ben Doris, and David ben Nesria. And all of Am Yisrael, b'ezrat Hashem, will have refuah shlema, refuat hanefesh, refuat haguf. Especially all of those wonderful neshamot that continue to help us do what we're doing. And I can never really thank people enough for caring enough to do what they're doing. Whether you're donating $5 or $5,000 or whatever you're donating, it is very, very much appreciated, especially if it's something that's difficult for you to do. If somebody has a million dollars and they donate a hundred bucks, you still say thank you. But in Shamayim, they don't consider it very much. And the reason why is because it's below your means. When you bought a house, you bought a house that's above your means. When you started a business, your ambitions and goals were above what you would normally think. So your tzedakah should also be the same thing.

2:46Sometimes people have a very difficult time giving tzedakah because they work so hard for the money, they start feeling like they're making it. So when someone goes and donates money where it's a substantial amount of money, it's 10% of what they make, whether it's out of the sale of a house or their salary, whatever it is, and they go out of their way, To donate money, it's a very significant thing because you have to look at it, if you remember we had a shiur a couple of years ago about gratitude. You have to look at it from the perspective, not just your own perspective, thank you very much, or the giver, thank you very much, but rather what actually transpired, what happened over there. Now, if you remember, a couple of years ago when we were still doing shiurim in Hollywood over there, at my friend Asaf's house, we had a question and answer series over there, and I asked you guys, if somebody gives you a pen, what do you say? If you're a normal person, you say thank you. Now, what are you saying thank you for? Thank you for the pen. Why? Because you needed a pen. And what did we learn after that?

4:01If that's all you're saying thank you for, you're an ungrateful person. Why? Because the pen is the least of what he gave you. The least of what he gave you. Why? Because you have to look at it from a deeper perspective. You have something important to write, important enough that you're going to go out of your way and ask somebody for a pen. Now let's just say, you know, we're in a Torah lecture over here, so let's say you want to write a chiddush. You just had a thought. A thought, you read the parashat haShavua, parashat Bereshit, you thought some interesting things, and you want to write it down. Why? Because you can't rely on your memory. You forget this chiddush, it's gone forever. So you want to write it down because the rabbi said 500,000 times to write it down, even though nobody showed up with a notebook anyway. Still, the rabbi said, so we pretend like we're going to listen. So anyway, you have a pen. You showed up with a notebook with no pen. Anyway, somebody said, "Listen, I have a pen. You want a pen? Here's a pen." Now, that pen is not just a pen. That pen is a validation that you existed that day. That pen is...

5:04something that's going to help you for the rest of your life, even though you're only going to use it for a few moments. Why? Because you're going to write a chiddush, you're going to write a new insight, you're going to write a new idea, and that idea now becomes eternal. That idea becomes part of your book that you're going to take up to Shamayim. That idea now becomes part of your life, whether you're going to implement it in a business, or you're going to implement it in your life, or personal life, whatever it is, that idea now goes into eternity. If it wasn't for the guy that gave you the pen, guess what? That idea is wandering in, like, la-la land. It's either going to go on the top of the shelf, or it's going to fall into the sink and into the sewer, and you're going to forget about it forever. So really, when you think about it, and this is just scratching the surface, if it wasn't for him giving you the pen... that whole idea would be gone. And whatever fruits were going to come out of that idea, whether that was going to be an additional world or two in your Olam HaBa,

6:12Or there was going to be a new book you're going to write. Or there's going to be a new business you're going to build. Or there's going to be millions of dollars you're going to make. Or there's going to be a new wife or husband you're going to meet. Or there's going to be different teachings or shiur that's going to get you an infinite amount of mitzvot. A million and a half different things are going to come out of this idea. If it wasn't for the pen. all of those go into the garbage. So when you only thank him for the pen, you're ungrateful because you're only thinking of things on the surface, and that's a problem that we all have. So when someone goes out of their way and gives, you have to look at it in a way—well, hold on a second—this person, the money didn't fall into his pocket by itself. This person woke up early in the morning. He woke up at five or six o'clock in the morning like a... champion that he is to go pray, make sure that he prays before he goes to work. Then he went to work, got to work at 7 or 8 o'clock in the morning, broke his head the whole day dealing with customers, bosses, complaints, the government, the compliance officer, and all types of people that he really would rather not deal with but he has to if he wants to get the money and...

7:26And he worked, and sometimes he hurt himself, and sometimes he got annoyed, and sometimes he got offended, and sometimes she did this, and sometimes she did that. But the bottom line is they showed up to work, and they did a bunch of different things they want to do and a bunch of different things they don't want to do. And more times than not, it's what you don't want to do, but you still do because you have to do it because you got to get the money. Why do you have to get the money? So you could actually eat, and you could live, and you could have food for your kid, and you could have a house and a roof, and so on and so forth. But that's not really the only reason. Why? Because now, after he did all of those things... He also remembered that aside from my house, and aside from the car, and aside from my kids, and aside from all those different things, I also got to take a few dollars and give it for the sake of Torah. Give it for the sake of publicizing the Torah. If a person toiled so hard, you think about it, the guy worked 8, 10, 15 hours a day the whole week, just to get a little check at the end of the week, or a big check, whatever it may be, and he actually, after working all of those hours, 40, 50, 60 hours during the week,

8:27still decided to give me ten percent. That means he just gave me five hours of his life for what? So I can do a mitzvah for him. That's an important person. That's the person you gotta say thank you to. Why? Because that person toiled for it. If the person got it as a gift, his grandfather just gave him an inheritance of a million dollars, and he gave a hundred thousand dollars, yeah, you should also say thank you. It's not the same level of thank you. because he didn't toil for it. But perhaps it could even be a higher level of thank you or lower, depending on his yetzer hara. If he has a huge yetzer hara for money, he's simply addicted to money. That means that for him to give a hundred thousand dollar donation was extremely hard for him because he's addicted to money. The more money you have, the more money you want. So if he still gave money and you know it's hard for him, that's a person to say thank you to twice. Why? Because this guy is dealing with yetzer hara from left and right before he gave and after he gave. But if the person is just a splurger, he just gives, gives, doesn't really care who, what, when, and how, it's hard to give him that much credit. The Baal Shem Tov, alav hashalom, one time, on Yom Kippur, they are waiting for the Rav to start the tefillah. But the Rav didn't start. They're waiting, and they're waiting, and they're waiting. Nothing.

10:01Yom Kippur is not like you could just pick whenever you feel like it. You had a certain prayer to do at a certain amount of time waiting for the rabbi. But he's waiting. You can't tell, "Hey Rabbi, you maybe forgot Yom Kippur." You can't say that. You just have to sit there and wait. Eventually, the rabbi says, "Does anybody know this rich goy named such and such?" One of the guys says, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that guy. That guy is crazy. Crazy." Tell me about him. Tell me about him. All of a sudden, the Baal Shem Tov cares about some goy, rich goy, nasty person that he was, that you find out after what he did. What do you care about him? All of a sudden, Yom Kippur. He says, oh, the guy has a ton of money. He's very, very nasty. He insults everyone. Okay, what else can you tell me about him? Well, he's married three times already. He has this amount of kids. Okay, what else can you tell me about him? He says, well, he gives a lot of money to different things. Oh, where does he spend his money? He says, Rabbi, you want to know the truth? The most money that he spends is on his dog.

11:26The Baal Shem Tov says, "Ah, Baruch Hashem," prays, looks at Hashem, prays for two seconds, "Okay, now we can start. Start Kol Nidrei, everything else." The whole prayer, Yom Kippur, Keilah Shlema, the whole kehilah is waiting for the Baal Shem Tov HaKadosh to start prayer, and all of a sudden he cares about some goy, rich, nasty person, and he's only going to start now that he knows this information. So, of course, the talmidim, after the prayer was over, they asked, "Kvodo HaRav, teach us, please. Why did we wait so long? And then finally, the Rav asked us about some goy that lives around here. What? Why does the Rav care about this person?" The Baal Shem Tov HaKadosh says, "I saw, meaning b’Ruach HaKodesh, I saw that no matter what we're going to do, there was already a decree in Shamayim." Bad things are going to happen. I already saw that HaKadosh Baruch Hu was not happy with us at all, and it was a bad omen. You could pray until you were blue in the face. You could fast for three days, not just one, and nothing was going to change. Why? Because HaKadosh Baruch Hu was angry about something specific, and no one was doing anything about it because no one even thought there was anything wrong with it.

12:51Everyone now is worried. What could be so bad? I mean, everybody keeps Shabbat. Everybody is eating kosher. What could be so bad that Yom Kippur is not going to help us? He says to them, everyone knows Moshele. You know, the poor guy that comes into town once a week collecting tzedakah. He came trying to raise some money to Survive. Yeah? Sure, we all know. He says, well, last week, Moshele came, and he was really, really down. He was looking to raise some money, not only to eat this time, but he was looking to get some money to have a little bit more than he's eating for the chag. But everyone was so busy getting ready for their own holiday, getting ready for their own life, everyone ignored him. So Moisheleh doesn't have any work. He went around town. No one's paying attention to him. He started breaking down. He started crying hysterically in the middle of the road. He started crying and crying and crying. HaKadosh Baruch Hu was getting angrier and angrier with every tear. Eventually, this Moisheleh passed by who? This rich guy. He passed by him.

14:12And the rich man was having a good day. He made a lot of money that day. And he was hearing somebody whining in the background. He goes, "Who is this? Who is this guy? What are you crying about?" He started yelling emotionally, "What are you crying about, you annoying Jew? What are you crying about?" "Nothing, nothing. Sorry, sir. Sorry, sir." "No, no, no. What are you crying about? It's so important to you. What? What are you crying about? Somebody died?" "No, no. Sorry, sir." "Tell me what you're crying about, or I'll kill you." "I'm crying because I don't have any money." "How much do you need?" What do you need? You're crying so much about 100 rubles. I could survive for the holiday. The guy was so annoyed that he was ruining his day, his sunshine. He took out a thousand. He goes, "Here's a thousand. Get out of my face. Stop crying." Moshe was so happy. He's got a thousand rubles. He gave him every blessing under the sun. "Oh, may Hashem bless you and do this and that." All of a sudden, the frown turned into a smile. He went home happy, and he had a lot more money than he's had in many years. And HaKadosh Baruch Hu was as angry as can be. His own brothers didn't help him, but the anti-Semites did.

15:30So now, I see in Shamayim, the Baal Shem Tov says, I see in Shamayim, there's a kitrug, there's a case against us. And we can pray until we're blue in the face, and it's not going to help. Why? Because Moshe, he's not thanking Hashem for us right now. So I'm thinking to myself, what can I say to Hashem? I said to Hashem, listen, they missed it, they were busy, they were this, nothing. So then I asked you, tell me about this guy a little bit. Tovi, he spends a lot of money on his dog. I said to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, you always leave us a little opening. You always leave us a little opening in the back to get away with murder sometimes. HaKadosh Baruch Hu, you're so merciful. Thank you very much for sending this guy who knows about this guy's dog because the reality is, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, you cannot give this guy any credit. He spends $30,000 a month on his dog. So for him to give a thousand dollars to your son, what's the big deal? He gave his dog more money. When I said that, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, you're right. Okay, he doesn't give Me credit. Now you can stop writing.

16:39You see, Rabotai Yekarim, sometimes we're so busy with our own lives that we forget the world around us. So, when somebody remembers the world around them, needless to say, somebody cares enough about their brothers and sisters eating, their brothers and sisters going to Gan Eden, it's a very big deal. Now, the biggest issue that we have, aside from the ignorance of the world today, is the fact that there is a misunderstanding of a lot of different things in the Torah, due to this ignorance, but also these mis-teachings, and also a misunderstanding of where we stand in comparison to our forefathers, in comparison to our grandparents even. The Gemara in Masechet Chagigah, on page 27a, but also in Masechet Brachot, in Masechet Eruvin, it mentions the same thing a few times. is the fact that there is a misunderstanding of a lot of different things in the Torah, due to this ignorance, but also these mis-teachings, and also a misunderstanding of where we stand in comparison to our forefathers, in comparison to our grandparents even. The Gemara in Masechet Chagigah, on page 27a, but also in Masechet Berachot, in Masechet Eruvin, it mentions the same thing a few times. where it says, Talmidei Chachamim, Torah scholars, even the fire of Gehinnom does not rule over them.

18:03Why? Because the Gemara says, they themselves, because they have so much Torah in them, Torah is fire, it's a spiritual fire, that spiritual fire of the Torah is more significant than the fire of Gehinnom. So they can walk around, Gehinnom isn't going to happen to them. But then, there is something that, this is very easy to understand. But then there's the part that people are confused about. It's mentioned in those three Gemarot that I mentioned to you: Chagigah, Berachot, and Eruvin. The ultimate Baal Teshuva says a Gemara that if you only read this Gemara, you become a heretic. The fire of Gehenom does not rule even over the sinners of Israel. Needless to say, the golden altar, which is a different subject altogether. Meaning that sinners of Israel go to Gehenom, Gehenom can't touch them. Why?

19:28He says, he says, the sinners of Israel who are as full of mitzvot as the pomegranate is full of seeds, just like it's written in Shir HaShirim, chapter 4, verse number 3, like a section of a pomegranate are your temples regarding which we expound from there don't read the word "רקתך" (your temples) but rather "ריקתך" (your empty ones among you), meaning the sinners. So those sinners that Shlomo HaMelech is referring to in the Song of Songs, those sinners, they still have enough mitzvot like the rimon, like the pomegranate. Therefore, those mitzvot protect them from the fire of Gehenom. Now, if you just read this Gemara, where you say, okay, this guy is a sinner, but he has so many mitzvot, he can just walk around Gehenom. Nothing's going to happen to him.

20:49Shiur number 84 goes down the garbage. All the reward and punishment lectures go in the garbage. Everything goes in the garbage. Why? So wait a minute. In several different places, it says, the people that are sinners, they have a lot of mitzvot, so that protects them from Gehenom. So this is a sugya that person could easily misunderstand and simply get themselves to a situation where they become a heretic and promote heresy. By pretty much telling people, listen, no matter what you do, it says, even if you're a poshea, even if you're a sinner, Gehenom can't touch you. So the rabbi says, you're going to go to Gehenom? Okay, Gehenom can't touch you anyway. So that's why you cannot read Gemara And just translate it yourself. First and foremost, when you read Gemara, or really any major sugya, any major subject in the Torah, we don't learn from one source. Because the Torah is not like a fiction or non-fiction book where you can simply just see the information in one place and assume this is it. This is all it is.

22:14Our Torah, needless to say, especially our Oral Torah, our Gemara, or as they call it, Talmud, is like your nervous system. Your nervous system. Where, although you may have a nerve that you think is completely insignificant, completely insignificant, in your body. In your body. In your body. You're thinking, okay, so if I hurt this nerve, worst thing that could ever happen, maybe I'll be constipated. Worst thing that could happen, maybe, I don't know, I'll hurt somewhere or something. a nerve, what's the big deal? You have a little nerve in your brain, you think, oh, the brain is probably really important, so I can't hurt those nerves. So that's an important nerve, because if one nerve goes bad in the brain, maybe the whole brain goes. So that's easy to understand, but it's very hard to understand that you could have a nerve in your behind that is perhaps almost as important as the one in your brain. Why?

23:24Depends on what you call life. Now, of course, we all know if someone has something go wrong in their brain, they die. Simple. Sometimes they live, but they live like a vegetable. But sometimes... If a person knows a little bit about the body, they know that the nerves in your body are all connected in one way or another. Some play a bigger role than others. Some are connected to more than others. But needless to say, everything is connected. Everything affects something else aside from it directly. And there are different parts of your body, for example, like I just mentioned, your behind, where there is actually a nerve near your tailbone, where it would be a tail, like as if you were a monkey. over there, there is a nerve that if you hurt it, your entire body, every single part of your body, will hurt. Every single part of your body will be in agony, and the worst part is there's no cure. You can't fix it; you can't rebuild and regenerate nerves. How do I know? I live with it.

24:34Now, how did this happen? Who, what, when, how? B'ezrat Hashem, we will find out one day. But the beautiful part is, the last thing on your mind that you ever thought was that, okay, so if I hurt my foot, then, you know, my arm is going to hurt? No. What's the connection? But the key is to know that everything is connected. You have to be careful about everything. Needless to say about your neshama. our Torah when we learn it, our Torah when we learn it, we cannot learn it from a single source. We have to learn the entire nervous system. Every little thing that's affected by this Gemara, everything that this exact sage said about this topic and other connected topics, and then you take all the pieces together, and now you have a beginning. Then you look at the opinions of everyone that has talked about what he said in different places. You take this, you take that, you take them all. You put it back in that same box. Now you have...

25:40a bigger opinion. Then you take on the later sages, what they said about those sages. You take this one, take that one, take this one, put it in the back, and you continue building. Little by little, you start unfolding the layers of the onion and discover what the truth really is. And at each and every level, you discover how far you were. You first read that sentence that said whatever it is that said, and for example, today, everyone is a sinner. They have so many mitzvot they can walk around and not be hurt. Now this very same Reish Lakish, in a different Gemara, talks about Gehenom, talks about Gehenom being a horrific place, the fire there being 60 times what it is, you know, here, but that's even on the lowest level of Gehenom, and he talks about how there are certain poshim, and different levels of poshim in the Gemara Masechet Rosh Hashanah, and other places.

26:43Little by little, we start saying, "Wait a minute over here. You said a person that goes to Gehenom for not putting on tefillin. He doesn't want to put on tefillin? Yeah, that's called a chait b'guf. That's a sin in the body. So you figure, okay, if this guy stole money, he's a bad guy, but if he didn't put on tefillin, he's still a good guy, he just didn't put on tefillin in his life. He didn't want to do it. The Gemara says if he stole money, he owes double." If he gets caught, he owes double. If he doesn't get caught and he wants to give it back himself, he has to give back the same amount. But if he doesn't put on tefillin in his life, the Gemara in Masechet Rosh Hashanah says he goes to Gehenom and he doesn't end. He doesn't end. Meaning he's not a bad guy. He's doomed. Now you're going to say, wait a minute, isn't that too harsh? Okay, go argue with HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Ask Him, what did You think about your opinion? Ask Him, what did You think about your opinion? Let me know what He said to you. Let me know what He said to you in your next reincarnation, if you can remember. After all the fires, it's kind of hard to remember what He said. People just assume, no, no, this doesn't make sense to me, therefore, who cares about your opinion? Who says this feeling is a big deal? It's much worse to violate this than to steal. Does it make sense to you? No, who cares if it makes sense? That's Torah.

28:06to try to make sense of everything, you're never going to be religious. You're never going to be a true believer. You're never going to have peace of mind. Why? Because a lot depends on further study. Meaning that unless you have a certain amount of emunah, and by default, without knowing who, what, when, and how, you're never going to be convinced to continue your further study to find the real truth. going to just simply assume, "Since I don't agree with it now, surely I'm not going to agree with it later. If I don't agree with the Sage now, surely I'm not going to agree with the other Sages later," which means that you're not going to learn. You're never going to find the truth. You're going to die in Amal, a baal aveirah and a sinner. You might think, "No, no, but I'm going to get it though because the Baal Shem Tov said no." No, you misunderstood. You misunderstood. The same Sage talks about Gehinnom for something that we would think is a minor sin. So if putting on tefillin is not a minor sin, then who are these sinners that he's talking about that could still go to Gehinnom and be okay? They have a lot of mitzvot. So, since we mentioned a story about the Baal Shem Tov, we'll go with another story. The Baal Shem Tov, alav hashalom, he had a

29:27unique ways of teaching his students different things. And one day he told the students, you need to learn how to eat l'shem shamayim. You need to learn how to eat for the sake of heaven. We've all learned the concept of needing to learn Torah l'shem shamayim, meaning not to become a rabbi, not to become a famous speaker, not to tell people you know more than them, but rather for the sake of heaven, just because it's a mitzvah. So, to learn Torah l'shem shamayim, that we understand. But to eat l'shem shamayim? What, I do two brachot instead of one? I'm already doing brachot, it's not enough? No, no, no, you have to eat l'shem shamayim. How can we learn from this? He goes, go to the village Find out a person, Moisheleh. Go to his house, ask him to host you for a few days, and you'll learn. So the talmidim go into the village, and they ask, "Anybody know who Moisheleh is?" Someone says, "What do you want with Moisheleh? Why would you even want to, what do you have with Moisheleh?" "No, you need to meet him. The rabbi said this." He goes, "He lives in that house, and you know."

30:44Go, suit yourself. So, they went to the house, they knock on the door, and they see a big guy. You know, one of those people who looks like he ate a couple of people. One of those people. He answers the door and says, "Hello, how can I help you?" "Oh, listen, we're just here in town and we're wondering if you maybe could host us, you know, if we could stay by you." He says, "Yeah, have a seat. I'm just about to eat, so you can join me." "Okay." So, They sit down and they see a feast. A feast on the table. Enough for 50 people. But he is by himself. And he has a feast. He says, yeah, you can have some if you want. So he gives each one a normal-sized plate. And he has an entire turkey. And he has steak. And he has cholent. And he has spaghetti. And he's got this. He's got all types of things. And they're looking like, who else is coming here? When is he going to eat all this? This is for like a week. And they start seeing Moshe, and they start eating.

31:54And it's revolting. First of all, it's never nice to see people eat. But aside from that, to see somebody eat a lot, ugh. Now, unless you love the person, then it's cute. But other than that, anyway, they start seeing this giant eat. And he's eating and eating. And they've already finished. They finished normal food. And he's eating, and eating, and eating, and more. And then he finally finishes the big plate. And they figure, okay, he finished. He must be full already for a week. He moves the plate. like a shelf system, and he continues eating and eating and consuming more. You're like, how does his stomach fit all of this? He's a big guy, but it just seems like he just doubled his weight. Finally, after two hours, he's finished eating lunch. Two hours!

32:58But not two hours because there's a nice conversation going, a few chiddushim here and there. Nothing. Eating for two hours straight. After two hours, they want to vomit already, but what are you going to do? They have to be there. They're still trying to figure out. Maybe the Baal Shem Tov sent us to the wrong address. What can we learn from this beheima, this animal? Okay, listen, we got to pray. You guys pray? Yeah, yeah, we pray, pray. And they're thinking to themselves, pray, pray that we get out of here as soon as possible. Okay, we pray. Okay, we go pray. They go pray. As soon as the prayer is finished. Okay, y'all, guys, finish prayer. We got dinner. What? What do you mean? Gotta eat dinner. My wife made dinner. They're thinking, we just, what? They get to the house. A couple of hours have passed. It's food. Bigger than the last serving. And for two more hours, he's eating. Two more hours, he's eating. Now, they look around the house, there's no books. So this guy's not a Talmid Chacham, like this guy is eating like, you know, Rabbi Elazar ben Rabbi Shimon, the sage from the Gemara, was also enormous, enormous, and he would eat an enormous amount. And somebody complained to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, said, "Your son is eating so much." He goes, "No, no, watch me. I'm the one that gives him the food. But look what he does after he eats." After they saw him eat as much as he did,

34:26He learned Torah for 30 hours straight, standing. 30 hours straight. No breaks, no cigarette breaks, no this break, no that break, 30 hours straight. Rabbi Shimon knew that his son was kadosh. He needed all the strength in the world to learn Torah the way he did. Anyway, so this guy, prayed, eating. They figured, you know what, he must be a tzaddik nistar, like a hidden tzaddik. All the books are probably behind the walls. So we're going to pretend we're going to go to sleep. We're going to pretend we're going to go to sleep. I'm going to wake up in the middle of the night to see where he takes out the books, and probably he's learning Kabbalah. He's learning, I don't know, he's learning the new Chidushim about the Zohar or he's learning something in the Gemara that no one ever saw. This guy must be something special. The Baal Shem Tov doesn't make mistakes. He just sent us over here to watch this guy eat. It doesn't make any sense. They pretend to go to sleep. They peek at night.

35:28The guy is snoring like he hasn't slept in his life, not waking up in the middle of the night, nothing. Finally, in the morning, the "animal" wakes up, and they're thinking to themselves, "Something's wrong here." It's like, "Okay guys, we gotta pray, we gotta pray." "Oh, oh, you pray? Okay, let's pray. Okay, we gotta do it quick though, I got breakfast." "What, you're still hungry from yesterday?" they're thinking to themselves. Yeah, yeah, come on, come on. Let's go, guys. Yeah, let's go. Start putting on the tefillin. Everybody put on the tefillin. Quickly, quickly. You know, like, nah, nah. Well, Sephardi, our prayer. No, no, no. Your house, we do an hour prayer. Over here, we do quick. 25 minutes, half hour, we're finished. Pray quick. I got breakfast. I'm hungry. Finish praying. Got a feast like he never ate in his life. Two hours he's eating. Every meal is two hours. Just to afford the food, you have to have a lot of money. But needless to say, a big stomach. But this guy's eating, and they don't understand. After watching this for three days, every day, three huge meals, no Torah whatsoever, keeps the basics of mitzvot, like, you know, I'll say Birkat HaMazon, and I'll put on tefillin, but nothing more than average. Nothing. Can't even call him a talmid, needless to say, talmid chacham.

36:54After three days, they couldn't take it anymore and they told me, "Listen, what is this? Why do you eat so much? Because the Baal Shem Tov sent us here. He told us that you're a holy person. All we're seeing is you eat. What makes you so holy?" So the big Moshe says to them, "I don't know why he thinks I'm holy." But I can tell you why I eat so much. Years ago, my father was a very righteous man. He did different business. We would go from door to door, selling little things to different people. Whatever he had, he would sell. If he had sacks to sell, he would sell sacks. If he had toys to sell, he would sell toys. Different things he would sell just to make a living. Very honest person, very righteous person. One day he knocked on the door, and a group of Christians opened the door and said, "Who are you?" They see a Jew in front of them and say, "Did you ever hear about Yeshu? Did you ever hear about this Isaiah 53, Daniel 9, all this nonsense that they do? The same thing for hundreds of years, the trick hasn't changed."

37:55One day he knocked on the door, and a group of Christians opened the door and said, "Who are you?" They see a Jew in front of them and say, "Did you ever hear about Yeshu? Did you ever hear about this Isaiah 53, Daniel 9, all this nonsense that they do? The same thing, for hundreds of years, the trick hasn't changed." And he says to them, "Yeah, yeah, I know about all that nonsense that you teach. I'm not interested." "No, but don't you know about Yoshke?" He said, "Yeah, I know." He tells them, "May his name be blotted out." Because that's what he knows. The Rabbi says, "You mentioned Yoshke's name; you have to insult it. The Gemara says, it's a mitzvah from the Torah to make fun of idol worship." So he's fulfilling a mitzvah, telling them to their face, "This Yoshke they have, yours." Now they got angry. Like, what? They grabbed him, and they said, "Listen, if you don’t now convert to Christianity, we’re going to burn you alive. In front of your family, we’re going to burn you." He says, "I’m never converting." They tied him up. They tied him up, and they burned him alive. Burned him alive. And the kid, he says, "I saw the whole thing."

39:19said to myself, "My Abba, my Abba died al kiddush Hashem. My Abba died al kiddush Hashem, but he was such a little guy. It took five minutes for him to die. Five minutes ago, the whole body was consumed. You know what I'm gonna do?" I'm going to eat so much, so when these resha'im, these missionaries, come to me one day, I'm going to be so big and so fat, it's going to take hours to burn my body so I can fulfill the mitzvah even longer. And he says to them, every day, I eat as much as I can, and I also pray for them to come to me and tell me to die al kiddush Hashem. Talmidim of the Baal Shem Tov say, now we know why you're Kadosh. Now we know why you're Kadosh. In the past generations, Rabotai Yekarim, our grandparents, even if they weren't Talmidei Chachamim, many of them were still Kedoshim. Why? Because

40:35Maybe they didn't have all of the Torah knowledge that perhaps some of the scholars did, but many of them had fantastic character traits. A huge amount of emunah in Hashem, despite the difficulties that they would deal with, regardless of whether they were in Russia or in the Middle East somewhere. And even more than anything else, a dedication to Hashem, an unrelenting dedication to Hashem, in their own small way, where they kept certain things, where they knew certain things, and they stuck to them no matter what. I know my own grandfather, Saba Ghibli, he wasn't a big Talmid Chacham, but he knew basic things. unrelenting dedication to Hashem, in their own small way, where they kept certain things, where they knew certain things, and they stuck to them no matter what. I know my own grandfather, Saba Ghibli, he wasn't a big talmid chacham, but he knew basic things. that most Jews today don't know. He knew that you have to sleep on your left side when you go to sleep as a man. You start the night sleeping on the left, and after it becomes uncomfortable, you switch to the right, but he knew that. He knew that in business, there is no such thing as being dishonest. He knew that stealing or taking anything that doesn't belong to you is out of the question.

41:48He knew that the life of another person is precious, even if that life is no more. Meaning, even if it's just body parts. And he would take different people that died from explosions from the war that was in Tripoli and different places. He would take the body parts, he would gather them together, and he would bury them. My mom, G-d bless her, She, as a little girl, would ask my grandfather, "Saba, aren't you scared? You take all these bodies all the time and bury them." He would bury them for free. It's not like what he did for a living. He would take body parts, clean up all the mess. Every day he would come home full of blood. She said, "Saba, aren't you scared of being in a cemetery in the middle of the night?" Because he would tell them stories about all the different things that he would see. You know, things not of this world. He says to them, "No, I see all of them in my hand. Anytime I look at my hand, I see all the people that I buried in my hand." He says to her, "Abba, aren't you scared?" He says, "Binti, my daughter, you don't need to be scared of people that are not here. You need to be scared of the people that are here because they could hurt you." So my dear grandfather, God bless him, and may this be for his Ilui Nishmat.

43:05He wasn't a big Talmid Chacham, but he knew the basics. And his mitzvot were enormous. One of the richest men in Tripoli came up to him one time when there was not enough money to buy an egg and told him, "Listen, I heard that you're doing all of this. You're burying the bodies of all the people that are dying and so on. And people were dying by the dozens. I'm willing to give you any amount of money for this mitzvah." Now, this was a time where it's life and death. He says to him, "Are you out of your mind? I'm going to sell my mitzvah?" He said, "No, I'll give you a hundred thousand dollars, you'll be a rich man. You're insulting me? You want me to sell a mitzvah?" So the people from the previous generation, Rabotai, when they were called sinners, it's that type of a sin where you didn't learn enough. You weren't a big talmid chacham. You weren't making time to learn Torah day and night like you were supposed to. Minor things. Not like the sinners of today, Hashem yishmor v'yatzil. And that's exactly what the Ba'alei Tosafot say about this Gemara. Because you cannot pass a single page of the Gemara without looking at the Tosafot, without looking at Rashi, without looking at the commentaries. You look at this Gemara, you think you can translate it yourself. You become a heretic Reform and Conservative at the same time.

44:27And that's what the Baalei Tosafot say. And they bring many sources saying that these types of sinners that receive punishment In Gehinom, but there are certain ones that get punishment in Gehinom forever and horrible and so on. It says, but here this Gemara is not referring to those people, like Mechalelei Shabbat, wasting seed, those people that go and give. No, this is talking about these sinners that are being referred to as minor sinners. Meaning, for all intents and purposes, they're pretty much tzaddikim. Just didn't reach their full potential. So yeah, every one of us has a little bit they have. So these people, why, how do we know it's them and not somebody else? He says, what kind of Mechalel Shabbat, what kind of idol worshiper, what kind of murderer has mitzvot like the rimon? It doesn't exist.

45:28Doesn't exist. Why? He's too busy following an idol. He's too busy stealing. He's too busy working for the Sitra Achra, for the Satan himself, to do mitzvot. The sinners that we're talking about here in the Gemara are minor sinners. And you could also look at the Sfat Emet, who talks about this again, concurs with this, and all of the Chachamim that discuss this particular topic. But the reality is, Rabotai, is that we need to know the type of grandparents that we all have are very, very different than the people that we have in the world today. Just today, somebody told me, new Baal Teshuva, Baruch Hashem, never even knew what Judaism was. Knew that he was Jewish, but never knew anything about Judaism. Never read the Tanach, never read the Chumash, never prayed in his life. Nothing. Nothing. Hashem, over the last six or eight months or so, is serious to a hundred percent. So, this Yid is going to yeshiva soon, to take a few months off work to go learn for a few months. Serious guy. He goes to prayer. I wish I would pray like him. He cries every time he prays. Every day prays Birkat Hamazon; you can't wait to finish. He does because he's crying hysterically. Why?

46:49says, "Wow, Hashem gave me food. Can you believe Hashem gave me food? Even though I didn't even pay attention to Him for 30 years, and He gave me food anyway." And he starts thinking about it, like, unbelievable. The neshama, once it was sparked up, that's it. Everything is easy. So now, he didn't know anything about anything. But once HaKadosh Baruch Hu sparked his neshama, turned the engine on a little bit, and he's flying, flying. But he tells me, "You know, ever since I got religious, I started to learn a little bit more about my family, and today I found out that my grandfather was a well-known chazan (cantor)." Everybody from his generation back—everybody was religious: a rabbi, a chazan (cantor). Everybody was religious, talmidei chachamim. I mean, everybody, he says, pretty much from his father or grandfather to one generation apart, everything became a mess. But before that, he says, everyone's religious. And I never knew that for almost 40 years. Never knew that, never asked them.

48:09Now, all of a sudden, you realize where the zechuyot come from. Where the merit comes from. Where that spark was originally lit from. The small, small sinners. The small sinners. The sinners with the mitzvot like the rimon. Shlomo Carlebach has some of the best stories in the world. And he had real-life stories. He says that His grandfather from four generations before him, four generations before him, was in the German army. This was many years before the Holocaust. And there was a Jew who was observing Torah and mitzvot, but again, not a Talmid Chacham, not someone that knew everything about Torah, but kept the basics, kept Shabbat, put on Tefillin and so on. And he was a young guy and he had to go to the German army. And of course, the goyim always know who's a Jew. Doesn't matter, you could be 1% Jewish, they know. You could be completely... was a Jew who was observing Torah and mitzvot, but again, not a Talmid Chacham, not someone that knew everything about Torah, but kept the basics, kept Shabbat, put on Tefillin, and so on. And he was a young guy, and he had to go to the German army. And of course, the goyim always know who's a Jew. Doesn't matter, you could be 1% Jewish, they know. You could be completely

49:21Obnoxious about Judaism, meaning you could be anti-Semitic yourself as a Jew, and they still know that you're a Jew and still consider you a Jew. So one day, the Germans in his platoon decided to make a big deal about the fact that he was Jewish. They said, "Listen, are you sure you're with us?" "Why don't you eat this? What's that? Hey, dude, it's good, it's good. Good for you." "Oh, what, you guys are eating? Yeah, no, I can't eat it." "Why not?" "Pig, I can't eat pig. I don't eat pig." "So you're not with us, then." "Listen, I'm fighting with you. I got a gun, just like you. I got a knife, just like you. I'm fighting the enemy. We're on the border of Poland. People are dying every day. What do you want from my life? Let me just... I'm not going to eat the food." "No. You're going to eat the food. I'm going to make you eat the food."

50:22He says to them, "I'm not gonna eat the food." And they start beating him senseless. They give him such a beating that, at some point, they throw him off the hill. He rolls down the mountain, he rolls down the hill, and they pretty much leave him for dead. They assume he definitely died from this fall, needless to say from the beating they gave him. He falls right into, right past the border. He's now officially in Poland. They leave. Miraculously, he gets up, looks around, realizes where he is, and says, "I'm never going back to where I was." He walks into Poland with 15 coins on him. Nothing else.

51:23Walks around, sees in the market, what could I do? How could I make, I need to make a living. I need to start a life. Can't go back, I'll listen. If I tell anybody I'm German, I'm gonna die. So he says, okay, you know what? Can I buy this sack from you? How much is a sack? He says, 15 coins. Okay, I'll take it. He buys a sack. As he's walking down the street, somebody says, hey, hey, I need that sack. How much you wanna sell that sack? I'll give you 30 coins for it. Okay, I'll take it. Doubles his money within five seconds. He goes to the store again but to buy something. "What do you have for 30?" he says. "I have, uh, this." "Okay, I'll take it." He buys it. As he's walking down the road, someone says, "Hey, you, what do you have? I'll pay you 60 for it." "Sure, okay." Within two months, he became a multi-millionaire. Everything he buys, he doubles the money within moments. Unbelievable. Shortly after he settled down as a millionaire, blessed by HaKadosh Baruch Hu for his mitzvah of not eating pig, my grandfather didn't know. He didn't know a lot about why he didn't know. He didn't have to die for not eating pig; he could have actually eaten the pig. Actually, if those people were trying to kill him, he was allowed to eat the pig, but he didn't know. He knew that he has to keep Shabbat, he knew he's not to eat pig, he knew a little bit, and he was willing to die for it.

52:44He's willing to die for you. That's the most important part. And HaKadosh Baruch Hu blessed him. And within a few months, he became a multi-millionaire in a brand new country with no enemies. Sometime later, he sends a letter to the Ketav Sofer. The Ketav Sofer is Rabbi Avraham Shmuel Binyamin Sofer, the son of the Chatam Sofer. He tells the Ketav Sofer, Kavod Rav, Please tell me how many avreichim you have that will go for bein hazmanim. I'm going to give each one of them a house for bein hazmanim, five-star. I don't have Torah, but I want to make sure that I invest my money in Torah. So tell me how many, who, what, when, how—I'm going to invest as much as I can to make sure each one of them is living a lavish lifestyle, having everything they need. Because at least I can use this money for Torah, since I don't have Torah. That's, Rabotai. our grandparents, who were considered sinners but with mitzvot, like meaning they didn't know a lot but whatever they knew, they kept it, and they were willing to die for it. Today, there's not really that much of that, so you cannot say the same thing about today's generation of people driving to the synagogue on Shabbat. The guy knows you're not allowed to drive on Shabbat, but he still drives on Shabbat.

54:11The guy knows, you know, how to do this illegal business, but he still does it, and so on and so forth. You can't say the same thing about today's generation. This is not to bring a prosecution against the current generation, but rather to understand that you cannot leave people the way they are and let them assume, or actually tell them, misinform them, that everything is going to be okay without them changing. You got to do them the favor and tell them, listen, whatever you're doing may be working for certain people if they're not Jewish. For you, it's not going to work out in the end. Why? Because there's a lot of mitzvot in the Torah and you don't know them. And you need to know them. Here's a USB, here's a CD, learn some Torah, b'ezrat Hashem you'll wake up. And you tell these people and you'll be surprised how they react in a positive way. Because no one cares enough about them to tell them the truth many times, especially if they're successful when it comes to money. When you tell people the truth, you'll be surprised how they react in a positive way. They'll end up doing Teshuva. But if you just simply say, no, no, no, everybody's okay because they're all captured babies, or they're all, you know, they have their sinners, but they're not going to be affected by Gehenom, but just simply your own mistranslation of our Torah in order to just relieve yourself of your real responsibility. And that's unfortunately what's happening a lot. With that being said, b'Chavod, who wants to start with some questions?

55:13they'll end up doing Teshuva. But if you just simply say, no, no, no, everybody's okay because they're all captured babies, or they're all, you know, they have their sinners, but they're not going to be affected by Gehenom, but just simply your own mistranslation of our Torah in order to just relieve yourself of your real responsibility. And that's unfortunately what's happening a lot. With that being said, b'chavod, who wants to start with some questions? Ken in the back. Hold on, give him the mic. We haven't used the mic in a long time. Shalom. What are the... What's the explanation for the interchangeable words Takhtav and Bimkomo? What do you mean? So in the Akedah, Avraham put the animal under Isaac, takhtav. And in other places in the Torah, it is bimkomo, in place of. But they both seem to mean "in place of." So what's the difference? I think you and I covered this before. The roots of the language of the Hebrew Sfat HaKodesh...

56:35our Torah teaching of its own and the meaning of words, you have to be not only an expert in Torah itself but also in the language itself and how certain things are written. Because the Torah is not written like, for example, a novel or some type of rule book, but rather each and every single letter carries significance. carries a specific meaning in addition to the base of the word. Meaning, you could have the same exact word, same exact word, but if it's placed at the beginning of the sentence with an extra Vav, meaning it adds an "and", versus the word, the same exact word, is three words down the road. It's the same sentence somewhere else, with completely different meanings and completely different connotations, meaning that each and every one requires a specific study. Unfortunately, I'm not an expert in the language. If you want someone who's an expert in the language, you go to Rav Mazuz. Rav Mazuz is one of the biggest rabbis in the world and also the utmost expert.

57:47in the language. He knows the roots of every single word in the Hebrew language and others as well, and he can tell you enough new insights about each word to write a book. But Regarding words, I told you don't ask those types of questions because for that you have to be an expert not only in Torah, but you have to be an expert in the language itself. Something that only a few people in the world are. Only a few people in the world can give you an answer to that off the cuff. Okay. Is there a connection between Aron and Aaron? Aron means closet. Aaron is a name. But it's Aaron with an A. Meaning what? Meaning maybe he was the keeper of the Aron, and when he failed... Aaron is called Aaron, he's not called Aron. His name didn't change. Yeah, but Aron was the name given to the Ark. It could have been a different name. It could have been Etz, it could have been Closet, something else. Oh, so now you're going into a completely new insight. So that's my question basically. You have to find if there's a sage out there

58:55that discussed if there's anything connected between the name Aharon and the word Aron being the ark, but that's again, that you have to go into commentaries of commentaries of commentaries, Rishonim, Acharonim, and all different things. This is not something that's a... Question? If these are the types of questions you have, don't ask, because it's just simply wasting time. If you're asking the roots of a word, I'm telling you already, even if I know the answer, I won't give it to you, because I don't want to encourage you to continue asking those same types of questions, because it doesn't help anybody else, other than yourself and your own curiosity. The shiur is for the... But maybe it explains, like... It doesn't explain anything other than what you wanted to explain. Maybe it explains something in the parsha; it explains the narrative. Yes, you could read the commentaries in the Chumash. Okay, this is what you can do. So, okay, you have several midrashim. Okay, you have the midrash that comes from the Gemara. Okay, you have a midrash that comes from Midrash Rabbah, the Sifrei, the Chizkuni, Midrash Rabbah, Midrash... oh, countless midrashim.

1:00:08If you go over all of those midrashim, I promise you, you'll find a lot more than what you're looking for. But to just read basic parashah with one or two lines of commentaries and then start asking questions, and start translating according to your own knowledge and your own ability, you're destined to hit a wall. The reason why is because you haven't even scratched the surface yet. commentary. Right, so you have to read more. If you haven't read the commentary yet, I'm saying there are other things. There is other commentary beyond that. I'm wondering if you know something regarding that. There are a million things you can know, but again, the specific roots of words are not something that, I don't know, maybe there are many more people that know a lot more than me. It's just not something that I can tell you off the top of my head about the roots of words in a specific place in the Torah that's in your head that I don't even know where it is. Right. So it's Deuteronomy 9:20. Hashem became very angry with Aharon to destroy him. What's the point of the question? Where do we go with this? Which arc are we going to find at the end of this treasure? Where are we going? What are we finding? I have another question then. No, no, one question. We're limiting the questions. Each question is 15 minutes. We're not going to get to the end.

1:01:32So, "hazanta" is to hear, "zonim achare" is to stray. Is it the same root word? And then the word zonah is also, is it similar in a way to something? Is it like a woman who strays? Zonim and zonah come from the same word. Like they stray against, they stray. Zonah is a woman that strays against, yes. Okay, so that's the connection. Do you want me to go back to? I just want to know because one is very negative. The azanta is very positive but straying to the mitzvot, so I just wanted to understand the words because, I mean, when you're reading, you have to understand the words; otherwise, you don't know what you're, you know, reading. There is a time and a place to understand the word. It's not a, uh, there are specific, look at that, there are specific books. I'm sure there are specific websites too that can give you the root of every single word in the Tanach.

1:02:44And you can go and have a good time with it. I don't think it's going to help you get to where you want to be, but it's definitely stimulating mentally. However, it's not going to help you get to where you want to be. At this stage, my recommendation for all of you and anyone that's still watching shiurim online is to learn. Number one, basics of Chumash. Basics of Chumash. Meaning, what does it say basically according to Rashi? If you have a little bit of extra time, also maybe look at one of the other commentaries, maybe the Ramban, or you could look at the Midrash Rabbah or something else, but at least one commentary being Rashi. Of course, if you can do Onkelos as well, that would be fantastic, it's even better. Needless to say, one commentary is basic. Not everything he ever wrote about it, just the basic meaning of what the verse means. That's Chumash. Secondly, a few every day—two, three, four every day—so you know how to be a Jew. Four laws a day, two laws a day, one law, anything, at least two laws a day, so you know what you're doing, how to be a Jew. Because you can know everything and anything about the Tanakh and still be a heretic because you don't know how to keep Shabbat.

1:03:52So you have to learn the basics of laws every day. A couple of laws every day are going to help you. That's number one. That's number two. Number three, Mussar. You have to learn how to become a decent human being. If you don't know how to be a decent human being, even if you know the entire Shulchan Aruch by heart and the entire Tanakh by heart, you're still going to Gehinnom. Why? Because you have to use all of the things you learn in order to become a decent human being. The only way you can become a decent human being is by softening your character, which comes through Mussar. It's character development. This is my shiurim, and I'm sure there are many other places that we've discussed in the past where you can learn Mussar. That's the third thing. Now, this is the basics. Once you're a little bit more advanced, if you're a guy, start learning. Learn a little bit. Why? That teaches you how to think like a Jew. You may not understand a single word that you're reading in your Gemara for a while. But guess what? Your brain is still going to be rewired and little by little become more advanced. And you'll start learning what questions to ask, what questions you should know, what questions you should want to know, and so on and so forth. You need to learn how to think. How to think. Because you don't have that naturally. People don't have that naturally, how to think. So I'm going to teach you how to think.

1:05:14now you have mussar, you have halakha, you have Chumash, you have Gemara. Once you have those basics covered, then you know, you get a little bit more advanced, and I can recommend other things for you at different times, different books, and so on. But until you have all of those basics covered... The deeper meaning of certain things, whether it be learning the roots of words, or, let's say, learning the Zohar, not just the Midrashim of the Zohar, but some of the deeper rooted stuff, the Kabbalistic teachings of the Zohar, or other types of things that are above and beyond the average. If you don't know the basics and you do all of that, you're simply wasting your time for a couple of reasons. Number one, if... a person doesn't know anything about the basics, but he's an expert in mystical teachings. Is he going to go to heaven? No. Why? Because if he doesn't know the basics, he doesn't know how to keep Torah. He doesn't know how to keep Shabbat. He doesn't know how to eat kosher. He doesn't know what Yirat Shamayim is. He doesn't know anything. So surely, it's not going to help him. Two, you're not really going to understand those upper-level teachings anyway without having the basics. Without knowing basic arithmetic, learning calculus in mathematics is a complete waste of time.

1:06:39you can say no, no, but I can pronounce the word cosine, and I can pronounce the word tangent, and I can draw those little squiggly lines. Yeah, but you have no idea what they mean, and you don't even know how to apply them to real life. You have to learn basic arithmetic. Do you know what a diameter is? What is that, a special word, a code word in Kabbalah? No, it's in mathematics. You have to learn what a diameter is, and you have to know what pi is, and all these different things. Once you know the basics, then little by little, one, two, three, you go up a grade, you go up a grade, and you go up to calculus if you want. But to go just straight up and become a rocket engineer, Needless to say, the same thing goes with Torah. I'm telling you that I personally know, I personally know maybe two people who are experts in lashon hakodesh. They talk about lashon hakodesh; now, a lot of people know lashon hakodesh. Experts in lashon hakodesh—it is a unique teaching of its own. It's perhaps the most difficult because of how intricate the nuances are. But those people are even much higher experts in the rest of the foundation of the Torah. are experts in Lashon HaKodesh. They talk about Lashon HaKodesh. Now, a lot of people know Lashon HaKodesh, but experts in Lashon HaKodesh—it is a unique teaching of its own. It's perhaps the most difficult because of how intricate the nuances are. But those people are even much higher experts in the rest of the foundation of the Torah.

1:07:58Why? Because you need to know the rest of the foundation of the Torah in order to know what to look for and where to look for. So although it is very interesting to find intricate things about words, and sometimes I'll use it in lectures, and sometimes he'll have fantastic questions that he brings that I actually learn from the question itself about certain words, I still do not recommend, and my own rabbi told me, I don't recommend you spend too much time analyzing the words because you don't have the luxury of as much time as you want. You're not a little yeshiva bachur that goes to school at eight o'clock in the morning and studies until eight o'clock at night and can pretty much do whatever you want. You don't have that luxury. You probably have, on average, an hour, two hours, three hours, four hours max to learn a day. Max. And that's already cutting it. It's a lot. You don't have that much time. And you're not starting at 10 years old, 8 years old, or 6 years old. You're starting at 30, 40, or 50 years old. You've got to get as much of the basics into your system as soon as possible.

1:09:04Once you have that, you'll have to learn a lot of other things faster. But again, a lot of times people make a mistake by jumping the gun and going into advanced shiurim, advanced lectures, advanced books, advanced teachings of all kinds, and you see the person loving it, fantasizing about it, ten years into it, still completely clueless about everything. I know a few people that are simply addicted. Addicted to mysticism. Addicted to anything mystical. Basic knowledge, you know, they get that error message—404 error—the website doesn't work. That's what you get. You ask them, "Listen, you realize that you have milk on the table and there's also meat too." That's not a good thing. Oh, no? Oh, okay. What about that new Kabbalistic teaching? What do you mean Kabbalistic? Just mean milk is on the table right now. And you're worrying about Kabbalistic teachings? A lot of people are like that. Unfortunately, some people, I know a few people that are addicted to it. It's a sad reality because they want to delve into things that are beyond them. And the truth be told is that they don't even understand what they're doing.

1:10:30does that what they're doing but they want to go on a skip there's not much you can do. So much you can do. You could tell people certain things, don't do this, do this, do that. People listen to themselves at the end. So again, I'd advise you, everybody that is here and who is listening, focus on the basics. The basics are enormous. You know, people say, "No, no, maybe the basics are not enough for us." How do you say the basics are not enough? You know, it will take you twenty years. twenty years of learning every single day in hopes that maybe you know a little bit about the basics. That's how big the basics are. All of the things that you're looking for you'll find in the basics also because the basics are not like the word "basics." It's enormous. It's a huge amount of information, a lot of beautiful things, mystical things, supernatural things, mentally stimulating things, a lot of things again to... Just jump the gun and go to different places. You're going to end up in a lot of dead-end streets. You're going to waste a lot of time. You're going to regret it. I'm not just referring to you. I'm talking to anybody that does what I'm talking about, which is to focus on things that are beyond where they're at. I kind of felt like I had to come with a question, at least. But actually, there's so much information out there that when I have a question, I just put it on the side because there's so much more to learn.

1:11:54It's like the question is irrelevant. There's just so much information that the question is just a small part. It's not even—like for every question, there's a million pieces of information. So just, you know, go to the information. Put the question on the side. Try to be a sponge. The ideal student is a sponge. That's what the ideal student is. You know, as a beginning, consume as much information, that's obviously kosher information, as you can. By reading as many kosher books as you can. That's the ideal. You could ask questions. We welcome questions. We love questions. Truth be told, in the beginning, you don't really know what to ask and what not to ask, or how the answer would even affect you. That's why I always tell you guys, what's the nafka minah? Meaning, what's the point of your question? not, I'm not trying to insult you. I'm not trying to tell you that you're wasting your time or my time. What I'm trying to tell you is that the way that you're supposed to ask a question is that it has to have a purpose. Meaning, if I'm going to ask you a question, that means that your answer, whatever it may be, will affect my life.

1:13:16I'm not just digging for information because it's mentally stimulating. I'm not just digging for information because I just want to know what Moshe's mother's name was. If I don't have any reason to want to know her name, to need to know her name, I'm not going to ask that question because I'm just taking up brain space unnecessarily. I'm taking up time in the world unnecessarily, which means you need to ask questions that will affect your life. So the way you got to look at questions is this: Okay, I have 500 questions in my head. 490 of them will not affect my life. They're interesting. They're mentally stimulating, perhaps. But they won't affect my life. And the sages teach us time and time again, such as the Gra (Gaon of Vilna) and others, that if your learning does not affect your life and improve your character traits, it's not Torah. It's not good.

1:14:20So if 490 out of 500 questions that I have in my head will not affect my life, guess what? I'm not going to ask them until I get all of the answers to the first 10. I'm not saying I'm never going to ask them, period. At one point, I may want to go into the pool and just go and mentally stimulate. But only after I answer my priority list, the 10 that will affect my life. Once I have the 10 that affect my life answered and I somehow miraculously don't have any more questions, then I'll go into the 490. But until I have those 10, why? Because those 10 can save my life; those 10 can save my eternity. The other 490 are just fun, just fun. So you gotta ask that. Now, the beautiful thing with Torah is that if you're going to get those 10 questions answered... going to grow branches into 100 new questions that you need to know also. The more you know the things you need to know, the more questions you'll have about other things you need to know. If all of your questions have to do with things that you don't necessarily need to know, that means you don't know enough, and you don't know valuable information for you.

1:15:45So you got to try to position yourself in a way that you're in the best position to learn the most important information, to do the best possible thing you can do to be the best version of yourself. Now, sometimes there are certain people that will ask questions simply to challenge. Simply to challenge. One of the examples is this week's parashat. Who asked the question? that just to challenge the system. This week's Parashat Bereishit. Who asked the question to challenge the system? The Nachash. It says the Nachash, the Nachash was arum. What does it mean the Nachash was arum? Clever, he had a plan. He had a plan to do something. So the Nachash was arum from all the beasts of the field, which the Lord God made. And he said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden'?"

1:16:45So in Sefer Bereishit, in chapter 3, it says that the Nachash was arum beyond any beast of the field that Hashem made. And he said to the woman, he said to Chava, "Did perhaps God say you shall not eat of any tree of the garden?" No. Does the Nachash know what God said? He does. So why is he asking the question? That's the question I have for you guys today. Why is he asking the question if he already knows the answer? No, you get the first chance at it. To avoid telling her what to do, but putting her in a question that makes her... to manipulate her answer. To manipulate her. So he's asking a question he knows the answer to because he wants to manipulate her. What does that teach us? What does that teach you?

1:17:51Aside from that. Don't be like the snake. Don't be like the snake. Don't ask a question if you already know the answer. Because if you do, that means you have a bad agenda. But you also know that people are flawed, which makes you evil. Because you're taking advantage of them. Hence the reason why he got cursed permanently. Because what he did was evil. It wasn't just bad. It wasn't just wrong. It was evil. Because he knew she would likely mess up with the answer. And she did. What did she do? When he told her this, what he told her, the woman responds to the serpent, to the snake, "Of the fruit of any tree of the garden we may eat," the fruit of the tree which is in the center of the garden, He said you shall neither eat nor touch it lest you die. For all intents and purposes, what she answered was correct, except it was a hundred percent wrong. It was ninety percent, ninety-nine percent correct, and a hundred percent wrong. Why? Because he asked her

1:19:07A question that he already knew. Didn't God tell you not to eat from the tree in the garden? Did He really tell you that, not to eat from the tree in the garden? As if he didn't know. And she says to him, no, He said don't eat from this specific tree, but don't touch it. Meaning, she added a little bit of her own opinion. She assumed, if He said don't eat, He probably meant also don't touch it too. That was one extra rule that was not from the Torah, that was not from Hashem. That was her own mistake, because she had her own opinion when it wasn't welcomed. And that gave his evil an opening to do whatever he wanted, and convince her that this is all a conspiracy, you should eat, you'll see, everything's going to be okay, and unfortunately, she fell, and long story short, here we are today. So you see, Rabotai HaKedoshim, that sometimes there are certain people who look to sin. They look to manipulate. They look to cheat. They look to lie. They look to do evil. And their place is in Gehinnom, even if they mean well according to themselves. Why? Evil is not welcome by Hashem.

1:20:26So sometimes there are certain people that ask questions without a purpose. Sometimes the purpose is evil even if it looks like a righteous thing. Why? Because they know the answer, but they don't like it. They want a different answer. And they know that they can get that different answer by manipulating the system a little bit. asking the question a certain way then maybe you're not going to catch on and you're going to mess up. So, I can't listen? The Rabbi told me I'm allowed. Hey, you told me I'm allowed. Yeah, he didn't tell you you're allowed to kill people. No, no, I told him, "Can I go to the bar?" He said I can go. Yeah, but he didn't know there were going to be bar fights and murders and things like that. He didn't say you're allowed for that. Hey, I said I'm going to the bar. You should have known. I should have known? Should have known, yeah. Okay, buddy. He's okay, buddy. Some people are looking to sin. Some people are looking to sin, and they're looking to use the Torah for that. And the Ramban, Nachmanides, calls it "naval bireshut haTorah"—despicable in the name of the Torah. People that use the Torah in order to manipulate the Torah and everyone around it, and arrive at what they desire to do without the Torah.

1:21:47And unfortunately, today there are many, many people who do this on a regular basis, some publicly, some privately. This is why the most critical teaching that a person can learn today is what Hashem said from the beginning: "The beginning of wisdom is the fear of Hashem." Meaning, All of the things I told you to learn, Chumash, Halacha, Mussar, all of those things, Guess what? The ultimate goal of all of them is for you to acquire yirat Shamayim. Not just learn that Gehenom exists, and there's a first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and seventh chamber, and each one has chambers within it, and each one has a Beit Din within it, and each one has a certain section that you have to go through, and after you finish, you have to go to the other chamber, because it's not only chamber number 40 you have to go to. also have to go to number three, habibi. And after you finish number three, you're going to number two. It doesn't just go, "Oh, you only go to four, and then you finish, and you go to Gan Eden." Habibi, you're in your dreams. Maybe you go to four, and three, and two, and maybe after that you go and get reincarnated again. Or maybe you're gonna go to Kaf HaKela, and maybe they'll put you in Gehinnom for a little bit just to torture you and put you back again. No, so it's not such a simple way for you to just focus on, "Oh, there's a punishment." No, what it is, is that you have to acquire enough fear of the Almighty.

1:23:15You don't want to mess with Him. That's the point of learning Chumash, of learning Halacha, of learning Mussar. God, whatever You say, I do. Why? I don't want to mess with You. You're God. Not my buddy. Not somebody that I could just mess... No, no. You're God. You say it, I do it. Like it or don't like it doesn't matter anymore. Why? Because in a split second, You can make one tiny little cell in my brain simply turn off or turn on. And I will have enough pain in my body to literally wish I wasn't getting home right now. And no cure. And no one to even understand that I have pain because you can't see pain. You see, Rabotai, the whole point of teaching about Yirat Shamayim is not to scare you like a scary movie. Because if you want to do it, we just make a scary movie. Which is going to happen anyway. But aside from that, it is to simply teach you just enough that you don't want to mess with Hashem.

1:24:40You just do what he says. Don't be stupid. Don't look for a way out. Don't say, "This is only rabbinical, so I..." Somebody came to the Chatam Sofer and said, "Rabbi, listen, this halacha over here, the rabbi said to do this, but I just learned about it, and it's only rabbinical." Chatam Sofer got up off his chair, the old man got up off his chair, and started yelling at him, "Do you know what rabbinical means, you fool? Do you know what rabbinical means? Do you know what it means?" He just kept saying over and over, "Do you know what it means? What does it mean?" says to him, "The Torah tells us a sin in the Torah has different punishments. You still have to pay double if you get caught. If you don't get caught, you handle it on yourself. You have to pay what you stole. If you ate non-kosher, you get malkot. If you do this, if you do that, different sins have different punishments. But a rabbinical sin, all of them are a death penalty. All of them are a death penalty."

1:25:46Not by the Beit Din, by Shamayim. Some by the Beit Din also, but by Shamayim for sure. All of them are a death penalty. Do you know what rabbinical means? Rabbinical is HaKadosh Baruch Hu's soldiers. When you disrespect the soldiers, it's worse than disrespecting the king. Why? Because the king is also your father. But if you disrespect the soldiers, you're disrespecting the whole system. HaKadosh Baruch Hu is more critical about the disrespect of His children, His soldiers, His rabbis, than He is of Himself. And you're just throwing, "Oh, it's just rabbinical." Do you even know what that means? He says to him, and if you look at enough Gemara, and enough Mussar, and enough Torah, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, we'll acquire Yirat Shamayim. But that's why Shlomo HaMelech and his father said countless times, the beginning of wisdom is fear of Hashem. Because it doesn't matter how many books you read, how many books you own, how many sentences you understand, how many you don't understand, how many questions you ask, how many questions you want to ask, none of that stuff matters. Until you have Yirat Shamayim.

1:27:11If you don't have Yirat Shamayim, the Gemara in Masechet Shabbat, page 31a, says, your Torah is worthless. Why? Because Yirat Shamayim is the preservative of your Torah. Teaching from Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, where he gives an analogy of somebody that has a job. He works for a guy. He says, "Put the food in the top of the shed," and he puts the food. He comes back, and the boss says, "Did you put home teen on it?" which is preservative, and he says, "No." The boss says, "Then it was better off you didn't put anything on them," meaning it was better off you just left it over here outside. It would have preserved better than you just putting it over there with no preservative. So the ma says this home team, this preservative, that's Yirat Shamayim. job. He works for a guy. He says, "Put the food in the top of the shed," and he puts the food. He comes back, and the boss says, "Did you put chumtin on it?" which is preservative. And he says, "No." The boss says, "Then it was better off you didn't put anything on them," meaning it was better off you just left it over here outside. It would have preserved better than you just putting it over there with no preservative. So the Gemara says this chumtin, this preservative, that's Yirat Shamayim. Because even if you know the entire Mishnah by heart, the Gemara says, the entire Mishnah, all six parts you know by heart. If you don't have Yirat Shamayim, you won't preserve it, you won't maintain it, you won't keep it, you will still go to Gehenom. With the knowledge of the entire Mishnah, the entire Oral Torah. Why? Without Yirat Shamayim you don't know how to apply it.

1:28:23That's why, Rabotai, it's very, very important to ask questions with a nafka minah, with a point, with a reason. How can you apply it to your life? But also, remember, HaKadosh Baruch Hu doesn't owe you anything. He doesn't need you. He would like for you to do teshuvah. He would like for you to do good. But if you continue to mess with Him, if you continue to be like the snake, your end will be like the snake. A permanent punishment like no other. No other animal was ever punished like the snake. So it's important for people to know this is the foundation of Judaism. If a person is not afraid of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, it doesn't matter what knowledge he has. And that's why you see all of these heretics that continue to come out of the woodwork every day. What do you think? They don't know Torah? They know Torah. They know a lot of information. Lots and lots of information. But they continue building a deeper Gehenom every day. Deeper Gehenom, more misteachings, more heresy, more nonsense. Why? Because the foundation is ruined and after a little while, it gets to a point where it's out of control. It's hard to come back home. Yeah, let's pass it to the next subject. Give the question to someone else in front of you. What's the point of a rabbinical fence if transgressing it will cast someone to Gehenom as well?

1:29:47what's the point of a rabbinical fence? So there are several things as far as having a rabbinical fence ...is to protect people from a daylight offense. Now, if you've sinned a biblical sin, the sin is extraordinary because the biblical sin, the punishment may not seem so harsh at times. But needless to say, sinning against Hashem is horrible. So, the sages instilled a fence around the fence, different rabbinical... Mitzvot in order to protect us either from the times or from the biblical sins. Now, to do teshuva for a rabbinical mitzvah is much easier than to do teshuva for a biblical mitzvah, so that's one reason. The second thing is that any time there is room for error, meaning there's room for leniency...

1:30:57When it comes to a rabbinical mitzvah, we're more lenient. When it comes to a biblical mitzvah, we're more stringent. So, for example, if there is a doubt, there's a doubt of what's what. If the mitzvah that we have something to do with, that's at hand, is a biblical mitzvah, we lean to the stringent side. If it's a rabbinical mitzvah, we lean towards the lenient side. Not because rabbinical is not important, but because those same rabbinical rules that were instilled in place allowed us to be more lenient when it comes to a doubt in that. For example, if, let's say, you have food in front of you and you're not sure if it's kosher or not, you are not allowed to eat it unless you are in a life-threatening situation. Otherwise, you are not allowed to eat it. Why? Because eating non-kosher food is a sin from the Torah. On the other hand, if you're about to eat kosher food, glatt kosher, everything is good, but you forgot if you made a blessing or not, you don't make another blessing.

1:32:04Now, Gemara HaMasechet says, if you enjoy anything in the world without making a blessing, it's like you stole from Hashem. So you would think that if you forgot whether you made a blessing or not, you should make a blessing, even if it's a double. Wrong. If you forgot whether you made a blessing or not, you don't make another blessing. Why? Because if you were to make a second blessing, that would actually end up being a biblical sin of saying Hashem's name in vain—a sin that you didn't even think about when you were too busy eating the food. Point being is that each one of the mitzvot, the rabbinical mitzvot and the biblical mitzvot, is part of the same ecosystem, the same nervous system that we were talking about before. They're all connected in one way or another in our servitude of Hashem. It's not because Hashem is looking to punish us, needless to say, it's not because the sages are looking to punish us, but rather trying to give us the best opportunity to live a good life in this world and eternally. Now, when a person is too addicted to their own desire or even the illusion of their desire, to live a good life in this world and eternally. Now, when a person is too addicted to their own desire or even the illusion of their desire,

1:33:17It's hard for them to accept the mitzvot at face value. Why? Because their ego is telling them, "I know better than this old man from the 1800s. I can do better than what he thinks. He's trying to protect me from something. I don't need any protection. I'm good." That's just your ego talking. It's not a reality. The reality is you're nothing. You're an idiot. Well, at least in comparison to this big sage from 200 years ago. Needless to say, from 2000 years ago, you're closer to a monkey than you are to him. But your ego tells you you're smarter than him. So, because of that, Hashem knew what He's creating, and He said, no, not listening to the Sages is not advice. The Sages, what they said, is not advice. It's a rule. It's a rule that HaKadosh Baruch Hu allowed them to instill in place in order to protect us from ourselves.

1:34:26Because if He did not give them the power to make these rules enforceable, guess what? We wouldn't keep any Torah. Nothing. Forget about the rabbinical. We wouldn't even keep the biblical mitzvot. Because if everything has to make sense to us, then that means, and we don't have to listen to the sages, then that means that everybody can become their own commentator. Everybody can become their own posek. Everybody can say, listen, what? What are you saying? Shabbat, you have to keep it for what? 24, 25 hours, 26 hours? Okay, listen, that's in your family. It's good for you guys. In my family, we do 2.4. We do 2.4. We believe, from our tradition, that there was a point. There was a point between the 24 and 25. There was a point. So we do 2.6. We do 2.5. Not 24, 25. 2.5. There's a point. Probably in your tradition, it's much older and erased the point. Us, we know what's going on. The point's still over there. There's a dot. And everybody's going to be their own commentator. And this, Rabotai HaYekarim, is some of the things that...

1:35:37Our forefathers worked very, very hard to preserve, but unfortunately, time is one of the tools that Satan uses to hurt us. I'll give you an example. One of the most extraordinary sections of Judaism in the Sephardic world is the Syrian Jews. They have a very, very long tradition, and they, Baruch Hashem, have a large number of Talmidei Chachamim in their history, and so on. And their major achievement in history was in Aleppo, Syria. And which some say even tracks back all the way to the times of Avraham Avinu, where Aleppo really connects to the word chalav, which is milk, because Avraham Avinu, when he would...

1:36:38He was a shepherd. He would go down a certain hill, I believe, and this would be where the milk was, and so on and so forth. So, the whole word Aleppo and all that has a deep meaning, which I'm sure you would love if you search into it—deep meaning all the way tracking back to Avraham Avinu. Now, these righteous Syrian people, Syrian Jewish people... they kept their community very, very close. And they had four entrances to the community, four gates. But for them, Torah was everything. Although they were successful, they made money, and so on and so forth, they had a very successful history. Many of them were very rich, not just now, but throughout history. They went through their tough times, but nonetheless, they were a relatively wealthy part of Judaism. Throughout history, Hashem blessed them. Now, But they had a blessing with the Torah because they kept everybody close, even to this day. They are all very close communities to a certain extent. You know, it's a very close community. They marry each other and so on more than others. Now,

1:37:51Although I've spoken against certain things in regards to conversion, and they do that, they completely disagree, and that's also because, well, Avadiyah disagreed, but it's irrelevant here. Their tradition is unchallenged. It's, Baruch Hashem, very healthy and good, and it's our history. Now, one of the things they did, if you look at some of the history, if you look at some of the things, is that they had these four gates. If you wanted to enter, you wanted to exit Aleppo, you had to go to one of these gates. But to remind you where you're going, to remind you where you're coming from, each one of the gates had an extraordinary thing that would instill Yirat Shamayim into you in a second. Now, I only remember two out of the four sides. So don't ask, what's the other two? One gate. One gate had a nail. A nail, a fingernail.

1:38:52Anyone that saw that fingernail immediately became scared, and if he even thought about violating Shabbat, he never thought about it again. The fingernail. You know why? Because it was one of the fingernails of the Nephilim. The giants. The giants from the times of Noah, times of Parashat Bereshit. The giants, the Nephilim, they had one of those nails at the gate. You go there, oh, nail. Whew. A thousand times the size of a regular person's. The nail. So a person feels strong, just lifted some weights, made a million bucks, now I'm going to do whatever I want. Oh, wow. That's just a nail? And Hashem destroyed all of them? Oh, okay, I'm keeping Shabbat, I'm going to go to the shul. There's no minyan. Okay, okay, we'll go to minyan. This is just the nail of a bunch of people that were destroyed just like that. It was like that. That was one. Now the gate had a little jar. In that jar was sand. But it wasn't any type of sand. Sand and rocks.

1:40:11What kind of sand and rocks? From the river Shabbat Yavan. What river is this? This is a river that's mentioned in the Gemara and Midrashim. This is a special river that spits out rocks, meaning it's a river of sand. It's unique. What's unique about it? It's violent throughout the whole week—goes up, goes down. No, it's not a relaxed river. Aside from the fact that it's a river of sand, which is in itself amazing, what's even more amazing is that this river keeps Shabbat. On Shabbat, it doesn't move. Anyone that needed proof... ...about Shabbat being from Hashem. Anyone that needed to know what time Shabbat starts today, this week, and then again next week, because the time changes with the sun, right? You need to know when Shabbat came in. You go to the gate in Aleppo, you look at the jar, you see in the jar...

1:41:24People that see things like that don't have a problem keeping mitzvot. Why? You see, HaKadosh Baruch Hu is His creation. So, this is why they were able to keep their tradition for so long and, Baruch Hashem, continue to. Now, the whole goal of what they would teach Rabbis would teach their fellow Jews in the Syrian community to fear Hashem. Why? Because once you have that, we can build on that. We can build halacha if you have yirat Shamayim. Why? Because if you have yirat Shamayim and I tell you halacha, you're going to keep it. But if you don't have yirat Shamayim and I teach you halacha, you're going to find a way around it. gonna find out, "Yeah, he said this, but is there another opinion that disagrees with you?" What do you mean, is there another opinion? There's another opinion for everything in the Torah, but I told you it's allowed, I told you it's not allowed. What are you asking for another opinion for? "I don't know, maybe I want to look at another opinion." Oh, so you don't want to listen? Okay, so go find yourself another Rabbi then. "No, no, I'm just saying, I'm just saying." No, no.

1:42:45not, I'm just saying, you have to understand. Page 14a says someone that's looking for the stringencies only, he wants to be ultra-Hareidi, the Hareidi of Hareidim. Only stringencies. Everything is not allowed. Not allowed to look at anything, even your own wife. Not allowed to look at the wall. Close your eyes. Walk like this all the time. okay, guess what's next? You are not allowed to eat unless it's sand because that has to be kosher. Not allowed to, uh, do anything—not to enjoy, not to make money. You have to be poor in the streets. Everything is not allowed. Why? Because maybe Beit Shammai said it's not allowed. Everything is not allowed. He's looking for the stringencies of Beit Shammai, and Beit Hillel says this shoteh—this guy's a crazy person, crazy person. Someone that's looking for leniencies. Only leniencies. What did Beit Shammai say? Beit Shammai said not allowed. What about Beit Shammai said not allowed? I'm a Hillelian. I'm the Hillel of Hillels.

1:44:04...love called himself "he loved because of me." I'm going with the next week when they said he said "not allowed." Oh, what am I? I said so I said about, oh, I that's why I loved. I that's why I always, you know, deep inside, I always loved Shammai. I always loved Shammai. I was really a Shammaian. I was all the time, all the time. That's why I said no, because I was thinking about Shammai. because he, I know he's going to say allowed this week, but last week you said he lived. I didn't mean that. I was just saying for you. I was trying to make you feel better. The week after that, he lived next week. That person says, "Why? You can't just pick and choose a rabbi. You can't look for, uh, pick rabbis like a shopping cart in a supermarket. You have a Rav, finished." "Yeah, but there's another opinion, that other people, for other people, not for you." Not for you. You go by Rav Ovadia, that's it. Finished. There's nobody else to look for. Unless it's something Rav Ovadia didn't cover. If it's something Rav Ovadia didn't cover, then you look for a Pesach. If it's something Rav Ovadia says, you're allowed to go to a different Pesach. Then you can go. But if Rav Ovadia paskened on this, and he said no, or he said yes, and you do otherwise, you are a sinner in Shamayim.

1:45:27Yeah, but this other rabbi is also really big, and he said it's okay. Yes, but you don't hold like him. That's why, by the way, there's no leniencies for Sephardi Jews to wear wigs. Why? Because Rav Ovadia says no. Shulchan Aruch says no. That's it. Yeah, but the Ashkenazi poskim, they're also big. Yes, they're wonderful, they're big, they're amazing, but they're not for you. Yeah, but there's another Sephardi posek that says it's okay. Yeah, but he's not really your posek. You hold by Rabbeinu 99% of the time. You can't just choose to hold this one or that one. You can't pick and choose rabbis like this. It doesn't work like that. And you know who made this mistake and continues to make this mistake every day and destroy the communities? Modern Orthodox. Modern Orthodox rabbis, God bless them, to do teshuva themselves so their kehillot can do teshuva. One of the things that many of them do, I don't know if all of them do, but many of them do, is they give a lecture in the "why you" strategy, which is how the speaker shows up, the rabbi shows up, but before he shows up, somebody comes and gives every attendant a source sheet.

1:46:47A nice folder of all the material he's going to speak about and all of the opinions he's going to mention. And he's going to tell you, this posek said yes, but later on this other posek said no. And this other one said maybe. And this other one said yes. And this other one said no. Yes, no. At the end of the lecture, everyone's confused because he doesn't tell them what's the bottom line. he just tells you, "We have a lot of opinions," and guess what happens? Modern Orthodoxy is born. You know what's Modern Orthodoxy? "I speak whatever I want." Why? He told me there's two opinions, there's 500 opinions to everything, so I'm just going to pick one of them. The Gemara specifically forbids this. Now, serious Talmidei Chachamim within Modern Orthodoxy are usually not really modern very much, but nonetheless, serious modern people know what's allowed, what's not allowed, and how to choose what to choose. But the general public doesn't know how to choose. If you tell them I could choose A or B, they're always going to pick whatever they want.

1:47:49That's why there are still people that drive to shul on Shabbat and don't think there's anything wrong with it. Why? Surely if somebody hears there are two opinions—one says it's allowed to drive, and one says it's not allowed to drive—they figure that, like everything else the rabbi tells us has 87 opinions, at least this one probably has a yes and a no. My first student that ever came and started learning Torah with me, I told him within the first year that he is not allowed to drive on Shabbat. He looked at me funny. He said, "What do you mean I'm not allowed to drive on Shabbat? I've been driving to shul on Shabbat for 20 years." I said, "I don't know, do you go to a Reform synagogue?" He goes, "No, I go to the same shul as you." I said, "I'm sorry, Reb Yisroel, you're not allowed to drive on Shabbat." He goes, "But to the Knesset, I'm allowed, right?" I said, "Only to the hospital if you're dying or somebody else is dying. So unless you're dying every week on Shabbat, you're not allowed to drive on Shabbat." He was dumbfounded. Why? No one ever told him. No one ever told him. So when you give people too many choices, they end up choosing the wrong thing or nothing.

1:48:49Nothing. And this is a tragedy, because they're doing the work to show you that our Torah and our sages are literally endless and extraordinary, but this is not to be taught to the general public in such an irresponsible way. you just leave it up to them to decide. Why? The cooler bet—if they're always going to look for leniencies, they're wicked. And if the rabbi is looking for leniencies, not just rather that was the rasha, and that's the problem today. The problem is that people don't know how to learn, what to learn, when to learn, when yes, when no. This is why... the Syrian community, the Ashkenazi community, the Hasidic community, everybody is community. The foundation always has been Yirat Shamayim. Why? If you have Yirat Shamayim, you're going to know how to use the rest of the information. You're going to know how to use Halacha, you're going to know how to use the Gemara, you're going to know how to use everything else. But without Yirat Shamayim, without fear of the Almighty, you'll distort everything.

1:50:06you'll distort everything, you'll do whatever you want, and you'll end up becoming a naval, a despicable person in the name of the Torah. Next question. Who has? Well, we only have, like, three questions already. Just a follow-up to his question. Oh, it's still good. a follow-up to his question. We learned that the rabbinical laws are pretty much like a fence for, you know, not violating the biblical laws. Now, if that's the case, why you know, the pain or whatever the consequence for them for violating these laws are even more than the biblical laws, since it's a fence. Our people would think that, you know, because it's death, but for the other ones, not necessarily.

1:51:19The power that HaKadosh Baruch Hu instilled into the sages had to be extraordinary so you don't end up putting yourself in a situation where you have an unrecoverable situation. What is that like? There are some places on the highway, for example, where you see a traffic sign. It says the speed limit is 65 or 70. They say violators, $500. Violators of this speed limit are fined $500. But there are certain parts in traffic where they say violators of whatever traffic law, up to five years in prison and however much money. And why? Why the difference? Why isn't it the same everywhere? Why isn't it the same everywhere? Apparently, violating the rule of this place, where only $500 is the maximum damage, and that place where jail time is the maximum damage, the powers that be understand the magnitude, because they thought about what could happen.

1:52:31apparently, it's much worse, so they need to scare you much more. Here, in this traffic place, the maximum damage is five hundred dollars. You could potentially lose your license because, in reality, you could get into a car accident and maybe kill a person. Yourself, neither one is good, right? So we're trying to scare you enough not to do it. But here, it's up to two years in prison or five years in prison, and perhaps a much higher fine. Why? Because here, you may not realize it because we did a really good job, but right under it, there are pipes that lead to the oil lines that go to the gas lines. If there's an accident here, there's going to be an explosion where the entire city is shut down. and there are going to be endless amounts of millions in damages and casualties as a result of your irresponsibility. So the damage is much greater. It may not be apparent at first glance why this road is much more dangerous than that road because they both are roads, they both have two, three, or four lanes. It doesn't seem like much, but no...

1:53:39the people that are behind the scenes that know exactly what's the potential damage here versus what's the potential damage there. I tell you, here it's horrible. So when it comes to the Torah itself, it is trying to simply tell us that violating the biblical mitzvot is damage beyond your comprehension. I don't want you to get to that damage because you're going to evaluate the mitzvot or the sins based on your limited understanding. So you're thinking, "Oh, if I eat non-kosher, it's not the death penalty. It's not the death penalty. You're gonna get whipped a little bit, you know, you're gonna have a couple of scars, but it's not the end of the world." So you're gonna think, "Oh, what's the big deal in non-kosher? Let me have a bacon, egg, and cheese. It looks delicious in the commercial with the McDonald's. Why not? What's the big deal? It's only a couple of makkot. It's worth it." it's worth a couple of makkot for a nice cheeseburger, right? With some nice bacon in there, and getting home too. But now, I don't see Gehinnom inside the burger; it's only makkot. Who says to you, "You fool! You're thinking that because it's only makkot, it's only the whip and not karet, then it's not such a big deal."

1:54:58So HaKadosh Baruch Hu instilled rabbinical laws that you're not even allowed to walk into these places. You're not allowed to even touch some of the things that they have in there. You're not allowed to deal with it in any way. Why? Because if you've already gotten to the point of eating non-kosher, for sure you didn't think about the damage, the real damage. You're thinking the real damage is you're gonna get whipped. You're not realizing that the second you eat non-kosher, you automatically, in an instant, become spiritually stupid. of eating non-kosher, for sure you didn't think about the damage, the real damage. You're thinking the real damage is you're gonna get whipped. You're not realizing that the second you eat non-kosher, you automatically, in an instant, become spiritually foolish. Which means, when the rabbi speaks, you're not going to understand. You're not going to understand, Mr. Pumpkin. Because your brain is stupid. Not that you can't do arithmetic. Not that you can't build buildings. But spiritually, nothing. Nada. You can't understand. You can't comprehend. Or perhaps worse yet, you can't accept it.

1:56:01you know it's true, but it's not for me. What do you mean it's not for you? Why, you're unique? Eight billion people and just you? You're your own species among Am Yisrael? Hard for you to accept. Why? You ate non-kosher. You ate non-kosher, that turns you into not kosher. You now have a shell, a klipah on you, which the Torah itself says, meaning, the food that's impure, the non-kosher food, makes you spiritually stupid. So you only thought that the damage is just a whip, but that's because you're already stupid, spiritually speaking. But the reality is, what's going to happen is you're going to eat the burger, and you're going to enjoy it, and you're going to like it. And guess what? When the rabbi says, "Oh, by the way, now let's go to that place that's not kosher," you're going to think now he's talking about somebody else.

1:57:11No, he said McDonald's. I went to a different McDonald's. He's probably talking about the McDonald's on McDonald Avenue. I went to the McDonald's on 7th Street. People over there are tzaddikim. What do you mean? They're not even Jewish. That's how big they are. They're tzaddikim, these people. You're going to have every excuse under the sun. To justify your crime. And guess what? That crime will lead to more crimes. Because now, all of a sudden, you don’t like the shiur anymore. You don’t want to go to the shiur anymore. You're going to start doing other things with your time. All of a sudden, wasting seed becomes l'chatchila. All of a sudden, having a girlfriend before marriage. All of a sudden, you're watching sports instead of shiurei Torah. All of a sudden, everything is in the garbage pail. All of a sudden, that one rabbinical fence, rabbinical, the whole big deal. rabbinical fence that you broke led to a thousand biblical sins. So HaKadosh Baruch Hu said to the sages, "Please, you love My kids? Give them rules. You love My kids? Give them rules." Why? Protect them because they don't understand what it means to make a biblical sin, because they're calculating things based on, "Oh, this is a whip, but this is the death penalty. Oh, surely it's not so bad."

1:58:28But that's why the Mishnah in Avot says, don't calculate sins like that. Don't calculate mitzvot like that. Because you don't understand the magnitude of things. You don't understand how the whole nervous system works. You're thinking that if it's in the brain, it must be critical. But if it's in the tuchus, not such a big deal. I promise you, big deal. Big deal. There are a lot of things that are a big deal. But when you don't know what you don't know, you're a danger to society and to yourself. Unless you simply say, I don't know what I don't know, but I do know that he knows. I do know that she knows. I do know these people, they know. Why? They've been religious their whole life. They're tzaddikim, they're this, they're that. They would learn books, they have sources, this, that. They know that these people, where he doesn't know, doesn't know, doesn't know, doesn't know. They know, they invested their whole life. to make sure they know. So if they say yes, I do, yes. They say no, I don't know. Even if I don't understand, but I know I don't know. Therefore, I know they know. That's it, finished. If they know, they say yes, I do it. If you have an ego, it won't allow you to do that. As simple as everything I just said sounds, it won't allow you to do it. Why? Your ego will get in the way. Your ego will say, no, no, he probably doesn't know. He's old. He's an old-timer. He doesn't have an iPhone.

1:59:54He was in a horse and carriage. He was poor. He was this. You have all types of foolish reasons for why you think you know better. But that's it. That's why Hashem says, "The pride of man is what's going to lead to his downfall." Next question. Anybody else have any questions? No? I mean, a person dying early is definitely a part of their payment for the sin, but also it eliminates their ability to do teshuva. It eliminates their ability to gain further reward and do mitzvot. So it's not an ideal. I could tell you that the Shaarei Teshuva in the fourth gate and the categories of atonement talks in section 11 says if a person violates

2:01:14a din karet, meaning a capital punishment administered by Heaven or by the Beit Din, and he does teshuva, since there is no forgiveness for such a sin without suffering. The teshuva just suspends the punishment, while the suffering is what purges the sin. He should focus on doing mitzvot that shield a person from suffering, such as the mitzvah of giving tzedakah. For his deed can rescue one even from death. As the pasuk says, charity delivers one from death. And a person who has no money for performing charity should at least speak affirmatively for the poor person and be a mouthpiece on his behalf in requesting others to help him. Meaning he should try to help other people who don't have money get money. So, encouraging other people to donate is even greater than donating yourself.

2:02:22As the sages said in Gemara Bava Batra, one who persuades others to give charity is greater than the one who actually performs the mitzvah. And he gives other suggestions of what a person can do if he has a sin that he made or she made that's a din karet either by the sages or by heaven or by the Torah itself. He says this type of sin Not something you could just get rid of just because you stop making it. Like if you violate Shabbat, and you stop violating Shabbat, that doesn't necessarily fix everything right away. It says that technically the din karet, you have to suffer for it in order to eliminate that sin. And he says that, but in order to not get yourself to suffering, occupy yourself with mitzvot that either eliminate suffering or delay it at least. So your suffering will come in different ways. Point being is, if a person read Sha'arei Teshuvah and understood the intricate details that go into judgment of every law, within the first chapter, you already started doing Teshuvah. By the time you got to the end, you cried at every page.

2:03:43cry at every page. Why? Because you realize he's talking to you! He's not talking about the guy behind you; he's talking to you. You, you, you. You think you're righteous? Yet you— "But I'm a Rabbi!" Yeah, exactly, you. "But I'm a student!" You. "But I'm a mother!" Yeah, you. It's to anybody. He's talking to you. And the depth of judgment is extraordinary. So, a person simply needs to understand you have to do the best you possibly can. to do what Hashem says. To do what the Sages said. And not mess around. Not look for ways to sin. Don't fool around. It's just not worth it. It's going to bring a lot of problems to your life beyond what you can imagine. And again, why learn the hard way? Why learn the hard way? So, as far as a person that gets the death penalty by violating a rabbinical mitzvah, yeah, there is a benefit to it in the sense that it's part of his teshuva, But there's a very big downside because had he just done teshuva without dying, he could have done a lot more mitzvot and gone to Gan Eden. So it's not an ideal situation. Plus, if a person has other sins that he made,

2:04:59then, which likely he does, he won't have any time to do teshuva for them. And that's also one of the misunderstandings that people have when they are very narrow-focused or perhaps have a "what's in front of me is what I believe" type of mentality. Meaning that when we talk about Gehenna and we talk about punishment and there's the seventh level and the fifth level and all of these different things, people simply assume, "Oh, so if I violate Shabbat, I see, I'm going to, you know, the seventh level and I'm not coming out and that's it, everything is done. But if I did such and such sin, I'm going to the fourth level and then I'm done." No, it doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way. Like, that is, it's not even—what I just said is not even a simplification of the system. It's just not it. A person literally has to understand that that seventh level of Gehenom description, or the fourth level description, that whatever we said in that shiur, or any other shiur that we discussed, that's just for one sin.

2:06:14That's if you sinned once with that girl. That's if you sinned once with that hamburger. That's if you just sinned once with that one thing. That's just one thing. It's not like your whole life, and they're just gonna stick you in the fourth level, and that's it, you're finished. No. It's not like they pick the best hit list and say, "Oh yeah, that sin is the worst one, okay, we're going to stick him in there, and that's it." No, it doesn't work that way. A person has to understand they'll have to pay for every sin, even if that means that some sins will have to go to the seventh level, and some sins will have to go to the first level, and some sins the third, and some sins the fourth, and some sins Kaf HaKela, and some sins reincarnation, and so on and so forth. like everything has to be paid for one way or the other. This is why the tzaddikim were happy when they had difficulties in this world because they knew this is paying for something they did. Perhaps they forgot what it is; they don't even know what it is. Rather than paying in a place that's very painful, now I'm not telling you that you should start praying for Hashem to bring you suffering. That's not recommended at all; it's also not normal.

2:07:28but the reality is that you have to understand that this is not—I don't have an agenda to scare you; I don't have any benefit whatsoever in scaring you. This is simply the teachings of the sages. I'm not making this up. This is not something that I like, or you know, people think, "Oh, you know, he always likes to talk about scary stuff." No, it's just the Torah is scary. Life is scary. If you're not scared, you probably need to go to a mental institution or something. Life is scary. People are dying like flies every day. I don't know if you realize, but Corona was not the first cause of death in history. Corona is nothing. A million people die; it's like nothing. Sixty million people die every year. They go to sleep; they don't wake up. They go to work; they hit a truck instead. They wake up healthy; they die really sick, and so on and so forth. Life is scary. So you better make the best you possibly can out of it because it doesn't end here. It's just a transition. You go, you live your life, you take off your clothes, and you go to eternal life. Whatever your life is here—20, 50, 100 years, whatever it is—that's just like a suit. After you finish this life, whatever you did here, you take off the suit, you go to the next world, and guess what? That one is permanent.

2:08:55That one's permanent. You better make sure that the permanent one is pretty good. But guess what? You can't do anything about that permanent one once you're there. All you do here counts over there. Once you're there, you can't do anything. You can't do anything about here because here doesn't exist anymore, and you can't do anything about over there. So a person that doesn't get scared of that, that they're going to go one day to a permanent place... I don't know what to tell you. I mean, it's just—there's no agenda here, there's no benefit; it's just a reality of things. And some people that understand the significance of the judgment literally get to a point where they're not just scared for themselves—they're scared for their family, they're scared for friends, and they share this information because they want to wake people up. But some people don't want to be woken up. Some people think that they're already awake. Some people think that they're already good. And they get themselves in trouble and then they cry to Hashem. And the pasuk says, "The stupidity of man will cause him to sin, and then he gets mad at Hashem for punishing him."

2:10:10So you have to understand that all of the different teachings that we have, we discuss in regards to Gehinom, in regards to punishment and so on, it's to arrive at one conclusion. You have to do what Hashem said, whether you like it or not. Don't mess with them. Don't play around with them. Just simply do it. Stop being stupid. Stop being stubborn. Stop thinking you have a better idea. Stop thinking you have a better system. You're not smarter than the Rambam. You're not smarter than Reish Lakish. You're not smarter than any sage that ever lived, even if that sage is just five years ago. you're just you and I'm just me, and we simply have to listen like little kids because that's what we are. The smarter you think you are, the more problems you're going to get yourself into. You're not going to get yourself out, and the reality is that it's going to be very, very painful. Why do that to yourself? Just get yourself collected and do what you need to do, and you'll see that your life will end up being better for it anyway. Your life will be better for it anyway. A religious life that's connected to God is a much better life than any life you can possibly imagine, of any celebrity or any person that fulfills any one of their desires. Anyone you can name in the world. Our life is a million times better. Now, it may not look like it to you because you perhaps never felt the true connection to Hashem, but I promise you it is.

2:11:36And you can't really teach this stuff. You can just simply believe it until you get it yourself. But the Gaon, Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, says that even if there was no reward whatsoever, but we could simply do everything Hashem says just to avoid punishment, that's enough of a reason. to listen to everything He says to avoid punishment. That's how bad punishment is. So when we describe some of the details of Gehinnom, it's nothing. It's nothing. It's literally nothing. The sentence is much more severe, and everything that we said is usually just focusing on one sin. None of us have one sin. None of us have one sin. everybody has more than one. You had a thought against God more than once. You ate something that you weren't so sure if it's kosher. You said something that wasn't so kosher. You did something that wasn't so kosher. Okay, within a half a second we just discovered you have all of us. So, that first, second, third, fourth, fifth chamber, all these different things, just one sin.

2:13:01That's why you have to do everything possible to do complete teshuva. Why? Because if you do complete teshuva, it could literally turn your sins into mitzvot. Into mitzvot. You avoid Gehinom altogether. Gemara Masechet Yoma, page 86, says the person that does teshuva me'ahava gets to a point where he's turning all of his sins into mitzvot. Obviously, this is not an easy teshuva, but it has to start somewhere. You have to start somewhere. Don't play around. And if a person is serious about Torah, serious about praying, serious about learning, serious about everything, you'll be fine. You'll be fine. You'll be the best in your class in yeshiva, but if you continue being a smart mouth, if you continue being one of these people that thinks you know everything... like some of these people that have YouTube channels and some of these people that think that they can make new rules and go against the Sages and so on. You'll have a surprise coming to you. Unfortunately, today there are so many heretics it's hard to find the righteous leaders. But they exist. They exist somewhere. Hopefully. Last question for the night. And we'll call it a night. Anybody? Somebody?

2:14:36Okay, as earlier we were talking about ungratefulness, with people in this era living a fast-paced life, someone does something for you, or you do something for someone, you say thank you, you appreciate it, or you appreciate what the person does, so how do we relax ourselves to really think about what the person does for you and to give the right level of gratefulness to how to treat the person. How do you slow yourself down to know how to be grateful? I mean, the more a person learns Torah, the more his mind opens, the more her mind opens to understand the significance of everything that's in the world. You know, when you're ignorant of Torah, your neshama is restricted. It's like, for example, if you're limiting, let's say, for example, if somebody's chas v'shalom, their pipes for breathing are small, they're going to work a lot harder to try to maintain life.

2:15:44They're going to work a lot harder to try to maintain life. So when someone restricts their neshama by not giving it Torah, not giving it mitzvot, it's not going to allow any time to be used or any resources or energy to delve into the depth of the mitzvot, of the good things in life, because it's just going to try to survive, pretty much, just to get whatever it can. So the more Torah a person learns, the more their neshama opens, the more their, in essence, their mind opens to understand the depth of certain things, the more their neshama softens also. That's one. Second thing is, there is a teaching by one of the recent Chachamim, I think it was Rav Shmuel Levitz, who said that when you make a blessing, you should break it up into three. So instead of swallowing the words and many times forgetting if you blessed or not, like saying Baruch Atah Hashem Elokeinu Melech Ha'olam Shehakol Nih'yeh Bidvaro, Mezonot, and so on, break it up into three. Baruch Atah Hashem Elokeinu Melech Ha'olam

2:16:59Whatever it is, break it up like I just did. This wasn’t just an example to tell you what the blessing was. You should actually break it up into three. Why? Because that gives you, number one, enough time to think about the words that you’re saying. Number two, think about what you’re actually going to benefit from. Why are you even blessing Hashem? Think about the things that you’re getting on a day-to-day basis. Enjoy the moment. just think about "I'm hungry, so I want to eat and make sure this goes into my stomach as soon as possible." You have to contain yourself. Number three, a person that does not know how to control their desires is not a person; it's an animal. So we have to learn how to control our desires by slowing ourselves down. One of the most important teachings that you have to tell kids once they're at a stage of being able to teach them is how to wait.

2:18:00how to wait for certain things. Why? Because if they don't have patience, they're simply going to be animals. If you give them everything they want, whenever they want, all the time, they're just simply going to be animals. You can't teach this really to a six-month-old or a one-year-old right away. It takes a little time. But the point is that you have to teach them how to wait. Why? Because, again, they need to learn patience. They need to learn that not everything is on demand. This generation, unfortunately, wasn't taught that. It's like everybody skipped a generation. Everybody wants everything on demand. So you have to un-teach yourself that. and just slow down. When you get something, when your wife brings you food, when your husband brings you a present, just wait. Don't immediately jump to eat everything or wear everything. Just relax and observe it. If it's clothes or something, a present, don't just put it on right away. Reserve it for Shabbat. Reserve it for a special time to use it. If it's food, look at how many different ingredients she used to cook or he used to cook this. Think about...

2:19:14You know, how many amazing things had to happen for this dish to happen. How hard she worked. How many other people that you don't even know worked. And just try to enjoy the creation for a moment. I'm not saying delve into it for 40 minutes until the food's cold. But don't be like such a beast. Like, chill out a little bit. Take it easy a little bit. Relax. And control yourself. It's very important to control yourself. also, it's important to have a little bit of quiet time where you think about your day, think about the things that you've gone through during the day or the week, and in essence, count your blessings. I know this kind of sounds like it's from the church, but it really is something that a person needs to count—how many amazing things happen to him or her during that day. And, you know, thank Hashem for it again, thank your wife for it again. Sometimes, if you really do this right, you'll realize that you love the people in your life a lot more than you do.

2:20:29Because many times, when people get used to their wife or used to their husband, they just take things for granted. Oh, he takes you to work every day, and he picks you up, and she picks you up, she takes you to the dentist. People do different things, and they're just used to things, used to things, used to things. So they forget that this is like you're working together. And what ends up happening is that you don't appreciate each other, and people start growing apart as a result of not feeling appreciated. and the relationship suffers. Now, if you start thinking about some of the things that your wife does for you or your husband does for you, just that day, you don't have to think about everything they ever did for you in their whole life. Just particularly that day, you'll realize, wow, that must have been hard for her because she was under pressure or she didn't feel good, or he was under pressure or he didn't feel well, whatever it is. Start thinking, and guess what you should do then? Go and say, by the way, thanks. Oh, you said thanks. No, no, but really, thanks. Really, thank you. I thought, you know, just be a little bit more appreciative of seeing things. But how could you be more appreciative? You have to think about them. How could you think about them? Stop thinking about yourself all day. When all you think about is fulfilling your own desires all day, you are literally one level removed from an animal.

2:21:48Like, that's what happens with most people. All day, they think about fulfilling their desires. I'm hungry. I'm aroused. I'm this. I'm that. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, and become "I'm." They just want to eat. Desires. I'm, I'm, I'm. All day. Enough. Like, you stop thinking about yourself so much. Like, you have to, like, think about the world around you. And the person that thinks about themselves all the time is simply going to be an animal, an appreciative animal. So you have to think about all the things that people do for you. And like I said, you don't have to think about the food long enough until it becomes cold. You don't have to think about every single thing that your wife ever did for you from the time she was born. You don't have to think about every single nice word that your kids ever told you. You don't have to think about every single chiddush that your rabbi ever said. No, you don't think about every single thing. But just, what happened today? happened this week. Think about that stuff, think about some of those things, especially when things are tough. You know, when you're mad at somebody, and you want to not be mad at them, think about all the good things they did for you. You should think about the good things they did for you. All of a sudden, you forgot why you're mad.

2:23:03One minute she was the most annoying person on planet Earth. You couldn't wait to run away. But then you calculated how many million things she did for you to help you in your life. You’re like, I can’t believe how amazing she is. Why is she even with me? And then you realize, wait a minute, I was mad at her? You end up apologizing. Why? Because you realize that this person is amazing. Same thing vice versa. You're mad at your kids. You're upset at your kids. Your kids are annoying. Your kids are driving you crazy. Your kids are spoiled, and so on and so forth. But then you realize, wow, every time they fall asleep and I look at them, I think, oh, man, I should have done this. I could have done this. I could have done a million and a half different things that you want to do, you could have done, but they're already asleep. Well, guess what? You could do it this time while they're awake by thinking about how cute they are when they're sleeping. ...you know, but that's the thing. It's like you have to think. You have to think, and it's hard to think because there are so many moving parts. You have your phone, you have your computer, you have some other noise over here, and some other noise over there, and there's always noise everywhere. So, you have to have some time for yourself. It's not easy to get, but nonetheless, you have to have some time to think about your day. If you can't do it every day, at least do it every few days or every week.

2:24:21You have to do it. You have to do it. Because if you don't do it, you're going to ultimately become very, very bitter and miserable in life. You know, many people in the Chassidic world like to do it, where they didn't invent it. I mean, this is already mentioned in the Gemara already 2,000 years ago. But nonetheless, it's become much more popular in recent days among even the average folk that just sit there and talk to God for, you know, an hour in their own language. And this is a very good idea. Very good idea. I don't know how many people have necessarily such a lenient schedule where they can just give themselves an hour whenever they want. But nonetheless, everybody has some type of time that you can talk to God in your own language. Aside from the prayer. This doesn't replace Shacharit, Mincha, and Arvit. Aside from your study time. Aside from everything else. It's just the time that you just talk to Hashem. Thank Him more than you ask Him for stuff. You are allowed to ask; it's okay to ask but also thank. The same applies with your wife, with your husband, with your kids. Find a way to express gratitude to the people that are around you because one of the people that qualify as a person that Hashem hates is an ungrateful person, and...

2:25:39Like, there are a few people that the Gemara says Hashem hates. One of those people is an ungrateful person. So if a person is ungrateful to his friend, surely he'll be ungrateful to Hashem. That's what the Gemara says. So needless to say, if he's ungrateful to Hashem, he'll be ungrateful to his friend. So a person needs to spend some time to think about all of the gifts that the world around them gave him, whether it be a divine miracle that he had 15 years ago, or a gift of food today, or a wonderful spouse, or a child, or whatever. There are so many things that you get every day that if you don't know how to say thank you a million times a day, there's something wrong with you. There's something clearly wrong with you. You're clearly an ungrateful person. If you complain all day and don't know how to say thank you, you have a very, very critical condition of ungratefulness. very critical condition. It's like if all day you can find things that are wrong, but nothing—like you're just not happy about certain things. You don't know how to say thank you a million times a day, like literally a million times a day. If you think about it, you'll have a million reasons to say thank you every day. If you don't know how to say thank you, you don't know what you should be thankful for. You have a very critical condition. You should seek help. We should pray for you.

2:27:00he's worse than everybody else. This guy's got cancer; this guy's got this; he's gonna get that. But this guy, he's worse than them all. What, ungrateful? Oy, my skin! Everybody starts crying on the street, starts ripping their clothes, putting on sackcloth. If you really know what it is, if you really understood how many things you have to be grateful for every single day, like if you understood what you have, you'd have, literally, you'd be embarrassed. Embarrassed to complain. Embarrassed to complain. But it takes time. It takes time. It takes a little bit of waking up. Definitely a disease. Spiritual disease for sure. Anything else? Yes. You're not your mind? Like what's... For a beginner, what's the easy, surefire way that you can get your foot in the door? Have you got your mind? From that, any layman can start that. How do you get it without your mind in one second? Start, not one second. One second. One second. One second. You want your heart to shine in one second? But without you being a talmid chacham. Like a tzaddik that's walking in the grass.

2:28:19Live your life with one question in mind all the time: according to the Torah. Allowed? Not allowed. That's it. Operate your life that way. Meaning, you only go to XYZ place if it's allowed. If it's not allowed, it's not a question of whether I should or should not go. You only do business with Mr. Jones if it's allowed to do, not if it's profitable to do. There's a lot of allowed, not allowed. The point being is that a person must learn halacha, must learn mussar, must learn chumash, must learn all of these different things in order to not only know what's allowed, what's not allowed, but also how to start having a Jewish mind where you're able to figure it out simply by the basic foundation that you're learning.

2:29:22I know you guys think I know a lot, but you have to also understand that a lot of what you ask, sometimes I understand the answer while I'm giving it to you. But this is hard to explain in itself, but the point being is that once you understand the basics of what's allowed and what's not allowed, you can build a lot on top of it. But if you don't understand what's allowed and what's not allowed, then... everything is like, doesn't make any sense. There's no rhyme or reason for anything. So if you operate your life in such a way where you only move, any move, if it's allowed, and as long as it's not allowed, it's not even a question of whether you do it or not. It's not a consideration. If that's the way you operate your life, that's the beginning of your Yirat Shamayim. That's the beginning of your Yirat Shamayim. So do what you know first, and then the first thing...

2:30:22Question you're always going to have. But you have to ask questions about things that are relevant to now. Not relevant, someday in the future I may have 17 kids, and if my wife asks me, "What do you think? Should we have another one?" Like if you're not even married yet and you don't have any kids, don't ask that question. Because it's not relevant. Like ask a question that's relevant today. Like if I, okay, hey listen, I want to go to this deli to buy coffee, but it's not a kosher deli. But I don't know, maybe the coffee is. Can I go? Can I not go? That's a question that's relevant to today. Why? Because you're outside the deli, you want coffee, and he happens to have coffee over there. Can I go? Can I not go? Allowed? Not allowed? Not allowed, by the way. But the point being is, you can buy the coffee that's in his refrigerator that has a kosher sign on it, that's not a problem. But the coffee that he's making that's fresh coffee, if it's not a kosher place, is not allowed. Why is it not allowed? Because there are certain ingredients that can be in there that can be problematic and so on and so forth. Now, can you find a rabbi that is lenient and says that even that's allowed? Sure you can. But do you really want to play with leniency your whole life?

2:31:32Like, you have to understand, there are certain battles you should fight. And in certain battles, don't bother. Like, you're really going to battle over coffee? Like, you want to go up to Shamayim and they're going to ask you a question like, "Hey, Steve, why'd you drink that coffee?" Like, you actually want to have that question in Shamayim? Like, I don't know, I don't know. I want to go up to Shamayim and they don't ask me anything. I just wanted to say, pass, pass, like a cow, pass, pass. That's it. Don't ask me a question. Don't talk to me. Just talk. Can I go to Gan Eden? Yes? Okay. No, I didn't do anything. I didn't do anything. I wasn't anything. Forget it. Just let me go there. Can I just go there? I won't talk to anybody. You actually want to go up to Shamayim, and they ask you in Shamayim, "Hey, that coffee, why did you drink it?" You want to have, oh, well, because the rabbi over here said in shiur that maybe you could rely on... You want to have the debate in Shamayim? Are you out of your mind? The less time at the Beit Din, the better.

2:32:43No question. Why would you fight that battle? Oh, it's leniency. There are certain things you've got to fight. There are certain things that you want to go for the leniency. There are certain things that you need to do certain things. But not for that. Not for stupid coffee. You understand? So choose your battles right. Same thing with marriage. Same thing with chinuch (education) of kids. There are certain things you have to put your foot down. And there are certain things that are just not worth it. It's just not worth it. And I try to teach this to people all the time, but I don't know, it's almost like there's a certain blockage or something with certain people that just keep making the same mistake over and over and over again. It's like, like I told you five times, stop telling her she's a bad cook. It's not going to make her a better one. Like, shush, if you don't like her cooking, eat before you get home and just pretend like you're eating her food. What can I tell you? I don't know. Just, I don't know, stop telling her she's a bad cook. She keeps crying every day, every week. Stop it! She's going to divorce you in the end because of food. Are you something wrong with you? But that's it. Certain people, they just have to, like, hey...

2:34:01It's like something's wrong with them. They have to make a point. Fight every battle. Don't fight every battle. Certain battles are not worth it. Certain battles are not worth it. So, same thing with Torah. Certain battles are not worth it. Certain leniencies are not worth it. Sometimes you need a leniency. That's when you go to the rabbi, the Talmid Chacham, who knows what he's doing, and he'll tell you if you're allowed or not allowed. Certain things you have to have. You know, I've had times when people called me and said, "Listen, can I not fast during such and such fast?" And I told them, "Yes, 100%." Or they tell me, "Listen, can I fast?" And I would tell them, "You're not allowed to fast." I would force them to be lenient. I would force certain people to be lenient in certain things. "No, you're not allowed to fast." "No, but I really want to, Rabbi, I can do it." "No, you're not allowed. Not allowed to fast." Sometimes you have to be lenient for some people because some people are more stringent on themselves than they need to be. So, you have to know when it is time to be lenient and when it is time not to be lenient. But you have to pick your battles. You can't just, like, constantly press on one button over and over again and think it's going to be good.

2:35:08It's not that there's a time to be lenient and a time to be stringent; there's a time when you have to take care of yourself. You're probably trying to figure out why I would tell somebody not to fast. No, it's actually spelled the same way. Spelled the same way. It's the C, yes. Spelled the same way. It is fear. Also, maybe because the words are the same, maybe it's like seeing what it is. Am I supposed to walk around scared, like scared? Constantly paranoid? Constantly scared to death. Constantly paranoid. Constantly. Not paranoid. Constantly acknowledging that the Creator is right next to you and He's watching you about to sin. You're about to say, to some girl. And HaKadosh Baruch Hu is right there. Are you going to whistle? You're really going to whistle? I'm right here. You're going to whistle? You're supposed to be scared to death. Scared to death. You whistle at one of my daughters, like she's a dog, and He has a sword in His hand. And it's at your neck. You think about that stuff. You say, "Oh no, I forgot to whistle. I forgot how to see, too. Forgot how to see." A person understands a bit.

2:36:26Chachamim say that a person should think of the Malach HaMavet on top of his neck with a sword at all times. And if he says, "No, I don't feel it," oh, that's because you've already cut off your head. It's because you're spiritually dead. So, a person, yes, a person should be scared at all times of the Creator. But again, also know that the Creator knows that you have certain desires, you have certain weaknesses, and He rewards you for overcoming them. He rewards you for overcoming them. You're not just doing it for no reason. But again, you have to take... who, seriously, you can't play games with them. You can't go and just decide to, uh, make your own rule book and "I'll deal with it later" type of mentality. It won't work out so well for you, not in this world, not in the next. And that's really the goal for all of these—all of these—it's just to simply have that basic sense of gratitude to Hashem, fear of Hashem, shame, shame of sinning, and a desire to be good. That's really the ultimate goal, the desire to be good. You know, if we desire to be good, we'll succeed. If we desire not to be good, we're already succeeding, unfortunately. Be'ezrat Hashem, we'll all succeed in doing good, wanting to be good, and sanctifying HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Bring more Kedusha to the world. Baruch Adonai Le'olam. Amen ve'amen.

2:37:48Baruch Hashem, we've completed another year at Be'ezrat Hashem. Rabbi Ephraim and I are very proud to announce some major milestones that we've achieved, Be'ezrat Hashem, and with your help, our dear partners. Over 60 million minutes of our Torah has been watched over the last year. That's a million hours of Torah to help people do teshuva and get closer to Hashem. Over 300,000 CDs have been distributed around the world for free. We've also given over a thousand lectures between the two of us, as well as with Rav Chaim being added to the roster. Over 60,000 regular viewers are watching our Torah right now across the board. Over 200,000 answers regarding halacha, family, shalom bayit, and different topics are being given to people on a regular basis. Over 10,000 people have been helped, whether through food or different financial issues. 1,000 families of Torah scholars are being helped by Igud B'Ezrat Hashem.

2:38:48We've published and distributed over 5,000 halachic books, kuntresim, newsletters, and mussar books around the world. We are also currently helping over 130 families complete their conversion to Orthodox Judaism. Our TV channel continues to grow, our YouTube channel, our Facebook pages, our WhatsApp pages—everything continues to grow, Baruch Hashem. Thanks to Hashem, and thanks to our dear partners. Be'ezrat Hashem, much more next year. B'Shem Hashem, we are very excited to offer you the new Be'ezrat Hashem app 3.0. It's a newer, faster app, full of Torah, lots of Kedusha, by the shiurim that we do, myself, Rabbi Ephraim, Rabbi Chaim. where you'll also have newer features, such as being able to use the app while using other applications on your phone. You'll be able to share the lectures directly from the app. You'll be able to donate online and support our kiruv and our Torah work that we're doing. And the most exciting feature is that you'll be able to actually ask questions directly on the app and get answers from the rabbis directly from the app. This is something unprecedented, and Baruch Hashem, we will be able to offer it. Thank you again for all of your support. Check it out. Make sure you have the Kosher Torah that will re-energize your neshama each and every single day. Kol tuv, b'hatzlacha.