STUMP THE RABBI (118) Jewish Evangelists, OLAM HABA, Cremation, FORGOT BLESSING, Physical Tikkunim

0:15we're back here on our Wednesday night "Stump the Rabbi," where after a few divrei Torah, b'ezrat Hashem, you guys will ask some questions and we'll give some answers. Tonight's shiur will be for a refuah shlema for Rabbanit Levana bat Sarah, Rav Ephraim ben Shulamit, Rabbanit Sarah bat Anat, Avi Mori David ben Esria, Avi Mori Doris bat Zhora, Orit bat Ilana, and also for a hatzlacha rabah of Amir ben Shaheen, Marsha bat Julie, Ayla bat Marsha, Samuel ben Marsha, Cephas ben Marsha, Louis ben Marsha, Shaul ben Farzaneh. and the Boca Raton community be protected from all avodah zarah, and all of the righteous Jews and Noahides, and those that are willing to do whatever it takes to do the will of Hashem

1:36Instead of trying to cancel the event, what Ephraim Goldberg announced was that he's proud to launch a Yeshiva of South Florida. So it seems like he is for Torah. While at the same time, inviting the "dream team" of Christianity to the Boca Raton synagogue. So you're going to say, yeah, but maybe they're not going to missionize. We have just embarked on a Christian-Jewish institute of theological understanding on the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. We had 200 pastors and rabbis—Orthodox, Conservative, and Ultra-Orthodox rabbis—together studying the Ruach. in the Old Testament, spiritually ignorant people were not created just recently; they've always existed. Like Ephraim Goldberg, who does not know the basic halacha of how to run and manage a Jewish community. He cannot even manage a very simple halacha that says you're not allowed to bring heretics and missionaries to the community, yet he brings them and highlights them on a regular basis. uh, so of course, for anybody that has been following some of the things that have been going on, the...

2:46The groups, the Facebook, the WhatsApp, the YouTube channel have been more active than ever over these past several days, where we've tried to do whatever we can to spread the word, to share the warning of this tragedy that's about to take place. in Boca Raton Synagogue, where Ephraim Goldberg is going to bring a Christian evangelist missionary to a synagogue in order to tell people about their love of Israel. uh from their perspective, which means, you know, how they want to convert all Jews, and even more so, unfortunately, to make contact with the community. Now, of course, Ephraim rejects all of this, and instead of canceling the event and doing what the Torah says, he distorts the facts.

3:56...and similar to the serpent, that was the first baal and tried to make himself into the righteous one...

5:21...of the wicked. This is exactly what Ephraim has been doing. First and foremost, in order to minimize the way things look, he started cushioning the event by adding more speakers to the flyer. But, you know, first, people would ask, "How is he getting all of these... you know, well-known, famous people to just show up to this event in such a short period of time. Of course, he didn't tell that to people until today. Only if you read between the lines do you actually understand that the vast majority of the people on the flyer are actually not coming to the event. they're not going to attend the event. They're actually just going to send videos of something that was pre-recorded as a message, just telling the community, you know, we love you, we thank you for doing what you're doing, all types of other mumbo-jumbo that simply makes you look good. But in reality, the main speaker is still Ephraim and his, you know, missionary buddy.

6:35um, Mario Bremnik, uh, those are, uh, and of course the ambassador, I assume he's showing up, but, uh, the other parties are not showing up. Uh, perhaps Ben Shapiro is going to show up because he lives in the community; he recently moved there. Uh, but some of the other people are not showing up. The rabbi is not showing up, uh, uh, the... The governor is not showing up. A lot of the other people are not showing up. It's just going to be video messages, but that doesn't really make a difference because, you know, for Ephraim, the flyer looks good. The flyer looks good. And if you don't read between the lines, you'll miss the whole message. One of the main messages is that Ephraim can't cancel the event. he can't cancel the event. That's the dilemma here that Ephraim faces. He can't cancel the event without being Moshe Rabbeinu and doing complete teshuva. And the reason why is because,

7:37you look at the bottom of the flyer, you'll see that the main sponsor of the event is the missionary himself. LCJ is the organization of Mario Bremnick. He's the one that's paying for all of this and that's why I'm not surprised that one of the community members told me that Ephraim is getting a hundred thousand dollars. uh, you know, I, uh, for this event, I'm not really surprised, and don't worry, uh, when it comes to it, it doesn't apply to people that are apikorsim like Ephraim Goldberg. It only applies to people that are part of amitecha. If you look at, uh, chapter eight, number five, or klal number five, it talks about how the sin'ah is only applicable to people that are within the, uh, the community. uh, of amitecha said. Now, anyway, the point is that Ephraim can't cancel the event because you can't just remove Bramnick and simply have the rest of the event because Bramnick is the one that's paying for all of this.

8:38and so that's obviously a dilemma that Ephraim has to deal with, but what he does very well, Ephraim, is that he manipulates the words and makes himself look like the victim. The same exact strategy that they used five years ago, which is to tell the public that he is the victim and they're doing right, and we need... we need, apparently, according to Ephraim, the Christian support. Apparently, God doesn't have money. The God that Ephraim believes in doesn't have any money because he thinks that we need the Christian money. So even though the Torah tells otherwise, Ephraim says, no, this kelal has changed. So unfortunately, this is an emunah issue. This is a ga'ava issue. And this is a hashkafa issue. This is really just one thing after another that has happened. But anyone that asks Ephraim about Bramnick, people from his own community, people from other communities that have asked him about Bramnick, he manipulates the truth or outright lies that Bramnick is not a missionary. And unfortunately,

9:54many rabbis that, you know, have looked into this parasha, when you're not an expert in dealing with missionaries, when you're not an expert in capturing... these evil monsters that come with a smile, then what ends up happening is that you run into the same mistake that a lot of people do, which is thinking, "No, why? They like Israel. They happen to be of a different faith that we don't believe in, but what tells you that they're missionaries? They just love Israel." is the problem that I faced with several rabbis that I talked to where simply these people say, "No, I don't think he's going to bring a missionary. He's a smart guy; why would he bring a missionary?" And then you have some people say, "Oh, you know, he has a rabbi." The problem is that when he called his rabbi, Rabbi Schechter, he lied to his rabbi. I found out, I confirmed this. Ephraim called his rabbi, Schechter called him, whichever one happened.

10:58and uh told them that he's bringing some guy that loves Israel and he's gonna have an event with a lot of other speakers. He didn't, you know, Rabbi Schechter didn't actually look into who Bramnick is, but rather relied on Ephraim Goldberg's description. He relied on his description, and therefore, you know, what is he going to believe? He's going to believe whatever Ephraim tells him. He doesn't have the time to go look on the internet and see Rabbi Yaron Reuven's videos. and see what he says. He doesn't even know that any of this stuff exists. He has somebody that calls himself his talmid call him and tell him, "Listen, I have a guest coming to our show. What do you think?" "Anything, it's good, sounds good." In fact, if you really uh, want to know what I think he actually said? I think he actually said, "Hey Rabbi, listen, we have some guests coming. When I talk about Israel, one of the guests is a nice Jewish guy that, uh, he's not religious, you know, he's not according to our standards, but he supports Israel, and he has an organization that connects us with Latinos, and they love Israel. What do you think? Should I bring him?"

12:11Yeah, sure, why not? Well, guess what? That would be almost a perfect description of Mario Bramnick, because Mario Bramnick, by birth, according to halacha, is halachically Jewish. Now, of course, he's an apikores, he's an idol worshiper, he's a false prophet, he's a million and a half other things also. But if you just simply, conveniently misappropriate those facts and just exclude them, mysteriously forget to include them "accidentally on purpose" from that conversation with Rabbi Schechter, then of course Rabbi Schechter is going to say, "Okay, yeah, bring him." Why? Because if you ever met or you ever read any of the works of Rabbi Schechter ever ever wrote about this particular topic, you'll know that no way in the world will he ever allow such an event like this. You don't need to be a genius to know that he wrote an article nine years ago specifically saying that you're forbidden from associating with such people, needless to say putting them on stage. but of course Ephraim likes to cushion the event by putting more speakers, trying to minimize the attention on the missionary, putting some other sponsors, including himself, on the bottom of the flyer, trying to make it seem as if the money is coming from elsewhere other than from the Christian missionaries.

13:28trying to tell the whole community that, yes, we're all victims because somebody gave out flyers in the community illegally. I wonder if he makes a whole newsletter about the pizza delivery service that also puts flyers in the mailboxes and doors illegally. I wonder if he sends a community email about that. Somebody put flyers in the community illegally. We're all victims, he tells them. And of course, the people that are simply puppies or sheep or without a brain follow this. They follow this, unfortunately. But Baruch Hashem, Am Yisrael are very smart, and they're not all fools. They're not all falling for this trash. But, needless to say, even if one person falls for this, it's already too much. Now, have to ask ourselves, what is he thinking? What is he thinking? If you're gonna say, "Yeah, maybe he just simply really believes that Mario Bramnick is not a missionary, even though he is a pastor," well, you know what? This is one of the things we published just today.

14:36you know this is not something that really required any research. This is simply if you go to New Wine Ministries, the church of Mario Bramnick, that he himself advertises, publicizes, and is literally two minutes from my house. This particular church announces what its beliefs are, what its mission is without sugarcoating, without being like a serpent like Ephraim, where he manipulates the words and makes himself... turn from the perpetrator into the, uh, into the victim. No, he simply tells you outright. What does he say? On New Wine Ministries' website, you'll see it says they believe that their Jesus is a deity. They believe that he is a god, which is perfectly appropriate for this week's parasha, Parashat Bo, of how HaKadosh Baruch Hu says it's a mitzvah from the Torah to destroy and mock idolatry. It's a mitzvah from the Torah to mock idolatry. Why? We see. HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, "It'alalti b'Mitzrayim." He mocked Mitzrayim. He didn't just destroy Mitzrayim, which was full of avodah zarah, full of idolatry. "It'alalti b'Mitzrayim." He made fun of them. He embarrassed them. He turned their glory into filth.

15:52He turned their, each one of the makot, anyone that reads the Midrashim or watches some of our previous shiurim about each parasha, sees that every single makah was midah k'neged midah, measure for measure. He first hit their idols, turning the Nile River into blood. Why? Because the Nile was actually one of their idols. After Yaakov Avinu blessed Pharaoh, One of the things that happened is that each time Pharaoh came to the river, the river, in essence, bowed to him or rose for him, I should say. So the river would do something physical. So people thought initially that Pharaoh was a god, but then the Pharaoh who forgot Moshe had apparently a similar effect. They thought that perhaps the Nile became a god. Either way, HaKadosh Baruch Hu turned this god of theirs... into smelly blood. That was the first makkah. You also have one of the plagues that killed the animals. What were specifically the animals that the Egyptians believed in as a god? Also, the makkah that in makkot, Bnei Yisrael...

17:04...uh, slaughter the, uh, the sheep. Why? Because that was, again, one of the, uh, gods of the, uh, Egyptians. The point being that Hashem despises idolatry in every way, shape, or form. So much so that you're not allowed to benefit from idolatry in any way. You're not allowed to sell idols. You're not allowed to, uh, benefit from them in any way, shape, or form. The only mitzvah that you can do with idolatry, aside from destroying it, is to make fun of it... that's it. There's nothing else you can do with idolatry as a mitzvah. Everything else is forbidden. But of course, Ephraim wants to bring people that believe in an idol. Okay, they believe a person became a deity. Okay, they are idol worshipers according to all opinions. this is not my opinion, this is the Rambam. This is Modern Orthodoxy. This is, uh, everybody believes Christianity is 100% idol worship. As we learned from Rav Schechter, Rav Soloveitchik specifically said...

18:05Christianity is idolatry. Of course, there are going to be people that mistranslate what he says, like they mistranslate a lot of things, but nonetheless, we see here that the universal opinion is that Christianity is idolatry. Mario Bram Nick, the Jew who is a meshumad (a Jew that left Judaism and adopted Christianity), now thinks he's a prophet, which makes him also a navi sheker. outright says he believes that Yoshke is a deity. Aside from that, he says that he believes in a trinity This is also, if the first one wasn't enough, the second one is, turning God into three is a form of idolatry. The Rambam paskens l'halacha, that in Hilchot Teshuvah, anyone that thinks that God is more than one is considered not only an idol worshiper, but is considered a min. A min is a person that has no share in the World to Come, a person you're not allowed to associate with in any way, shape, or form.

19:09Needless to say, now to highlight them and allow them to speak in your place of worship, in your synagogue. But Ephraim Goldberg apparently doesn't read the website of his best friend. Anyway, aside from that, what else does this prove? Look at the salvation on this website. It talks about how Mario Bramnick says that he believes that each person must personally accept what God has made possible by repenting of their sins and receiving Jesus as their personal Savior. Allah says you can't see the, uh, the C-word. so you can't. You have to receive Jesus as your personal Savior. You have to. This is not just for the non-Jews; he believes that the Jews have to accept Jesus. Why? Because it's in his book, the New Testament. it specifically talks about how everybody has to accept Jesus as the savior, and if that's not enough, he also clarifies what about the resurrection, meaning the end of times. So Mario Bramnick teaches us, enlightens us with the same idolatry that's around the world, which is that those who put their faith in Jesus are saved.

20:22will be resurrected to eternal life, and those who do not put their faith in Jesus will ultimately be lost and eternally separated from God. In so many words, Mario Bramnick is on a mission to save the community of Boca Raton according to him. Why? Because according to his beliefs that he has on his website, not a secret, not somewhere that I found in some archives. This is on his website, in the most prominent section. he believes that all of you Jews, your problem is not whether you're going to make a trip for a few weeks to go to Eretz Yisrael and go see. He believes that if he doesn't save you, okay, making you believe in Yoshke, you are doomed forever. You'll not have an Olam HaBa. This is exactly what he says here, okay? I'm not making this up, but...

21:25Ephraim doesn't agree, okay? So, let's see, what else does Mario educate us about? Mission is to evangelize. What does evangelism mean? I deal with missionaries and ex-missionaries on a daily basis, okay? Anyone that has a brain in their head that actually knows the English language or simply knows how to look at a dictionary—what does evangelism mean? It means missionizing. By definition, evangelizing means to missionize, meaning that you are trying to make people adopt your beliefs. That's what it means. the mission of the New Wine Ministries is to evangelize the good news of Jesus, meaning the whole purpose of why Mario Bramnick left his law career and why he left his so-called intercessor role, you know, being a prophet that he is, into being a pastor, is to deliver the good news—to missionize.

22:26but not alone. Why? Because part of his mission is also training believers, meaning existing victims of idolatry, training believers into disciples of Jesus. What is a disciple of Jesus? Ask any Christian or former Christian: what does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus? Can I just be, you know, just a guy that goes to church once a week and be considered a disciple? No, not really. To be a disciple, you have to be a missionary. Hence the reason why he wants to have... a church in every single place. Further educating. Educating who? Educating the Jewish people. Educating the Jewish people about what? Educated about math, science, maybe about his law career that he, uh, that he left? What is he going to educate them about? He wants to educate them about Jesus. That's what he says is number four. Then, if that's not enough to establish a bridge... a bridge between who? A bridge why? He wants to buy another Verrazano Bridge, Golden Gate Bridge, Brooklyn Bridge? What kind of bridge? A bridge between his community in Latin America, the Hispanic community, and the Nation of Israel. What do you care about the Nation of Israel? Why don't you go to the Nation of China?

23:40They have over a billion people. Why don't you make a, you know, a bridge between you and the Muslims? Go ahead, Michael Mario Bramnick, go make a bridge between you and Mustafa Muhammad Ahmed, all of those people. Why the Jewish people? Why the Jewish people? Why do you have to make a bridge between you and Ephraim? Why? Go make a bridge somewhere else. No, no, no. Mario Bramnick says he wants to make a bridge between himself and the nation of Israel. Why? To fulfill God's prophecies concerning Israel. Encouraging advancement of Aliyah. Return of the Jewish people. What do you mean? return? What are you talking about? We don't return anywhere. We're good, we're good, we're Jewish. What do we have to return to? What prophecy are you talking about? You know what he's talking about. Ask any Christian. Ask any Christian. How about this: ask Mario Bramnick. Go ask Mario Bramnick. Please define for me, what does this mean? Guess what?

24:53any normal person with a brain that still moves will tell you this means to be a missionary. Every one of these mission statements means to be a missionary. But Ephraim Goldberg doesn't want it to mean a missionary. Why? Because if it means a missionary, that means that he's wrong. That means that he's publicly wrong. That means that he's been publicly wrong for many, many years. because he and Bram Nick have been BFFs for a very long time. Instead of making the Jew that's a meshumad (apostate) who became a Christian go back and do teshuva (repentance), what does he do? He actually applauds him and highlights him to his community as a Christian. That's how good Ephraim Goldberg is a rabbi. Instead of returning the Jew that left Judaism and went to Christianity, he actually highlights this Christian and allows him to missionize the rest of his community. And you're telling me that this guy is ra'ui, he's fit to be a rabbi, he's fit to do conversions? Perhaps converting Jews to Christianity is what Ephraim Goldberg is good at.

25:58but not converting Christians into Jews. He's the one that's helping the Christians convert the Jews into Christians. Just today, I got an email from somebody that I don't know who they are, but they decided to send me an email and tell me that uh, no longer follow Judaism; they follow Jesus. They have a, uh, they have a Jewish name—a very, very, uh, Israeli name—and this person lives in Israel and apparently, uh, is seeking out, crying for help. That's the only reason why people send emails like this. But he tells me that he adopted the beliefs of Jesus. Anyone that looked at the disastrous report by Pew... they updated recently. About a year ago, they updated their Jewish report about the status of American Judaism. You'll see that literally over a million and a half Jews are now currently considering themselves as Christians. Okay, currently, right now, over a million and a half Jews...

27:08consider themselves Christians. A half a million Jews, a half a million Jews have converted to Christianity in the last 20 or 25 years. Okay, now this part is going to shock you, but not really if you're aware of what's going on. The most powerful, the most lethal, the most dangerous Christian missionaries on planet Earth are halachically Jewish. Yes. The most lethal, aggressive Christian missionaries, all evangelicals, are halachically Jewish, born to Jewish mothers, sometimes Jewish mother and father, and they're the most aggressive missionaries. In fact,

28:12they have a meeting among that specific group, the most aggressive. There are many types of missionaries: Catholic missionaries, Christian missionaries, all types of different sects of missionaries. But the ones that specifically target Jews as their number one target—not just anybody—they specifically target Jews, like Bramnick. They have a get-together, a major event. And the last event they had, led by this rasha merusha named Sid Roth, who’s the most dangerous of them all. Amazing. Jerusalem, Israel, 550 Jewish people that have never heard the gospel, and of the 550 Jewish people, 525 approximately stood up publicly and made a public profession. We're then going to get them involved in the Alpha courses and get them discipled. I tell you, this has not happened in the history of modern-day Israel.

29:24guess what? On the panel of the most dangerous missionaries on planet Earth, among the main speakers, who do we also find? Mario Bramnick. So how is it that you're going to get anyone with a brain in their head to believe that Mario Bramnick is not an evangelical Christian missionary when He is on a panel as a major speaker at the most aggressive Jewish evangelizing event on Earth. same time with the most aggressive ones out there, the biggest experts out there in destroying Jews, and at the same time, he has a website where, on the website, he tells you, one, two, three, these are my missions to missionize the Jews. Furthermore, he talks to you about not just the mission but also what is their vision. There's the vision, there's the mission, and most importantly, there are the actual beliefs.

30:34you see what he has cooking, and then you just simply hear the tape. You hear what he actually says, and yet you're going to tell your community that he's not going to missionize. I'm not sure if it gets any stupider than this, but of course, for whatever reason or another, not many people want to fight this war and, uh, instead of fighting this war, some people fight against the fight. I even got a few people that would tell me that no, they think I'm out of my mind. Why am I out of my mind? He's not a missionary. I said, "Did you watch the videos?" "Yeah, but I didn't see what you see." So you don't have to see anything, you have to hear it. Hear it. Hear it with your ears. Two ears. didn't see it. Or another guy is actually blaming me. This is literally in the last hour. He sent me a message blaming me for the missionary event. Why? He said, "You made Ephraim Goldberg angry, so Ephraim Goldberg is bringing a missionary because of you." I mean...

31:52I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. Not really sure what to do with a message like this. But unfortunately, the spiritual stupidity that's out there is hitting new highs on a regular basis. How does this have anything to do with our weekly parasha? Let's see. Parashat Bo. Parashat Bo starts with HaKadosh Baruch Hu telling us that it's important to make fun of Avodah Zarah. The Gemara in Masechet Megillah says that it was the first time in the Tanach that the word Yehudi, the word Jew, appears, as in Megillat Esther. The Ben Ish Chai says the reason why Mordechai was called a Yehudi is that in those times, people would say, "Oh, here's the Yehudi, here's the Jew." Why? Because he had very long peyot that you could see from far away. But the Gemara says, why is he called a Yehudi? He's called a Yehudi because...

32:58He believed in God. Yeah, but so did Batya. So what does that mean? No, no, no. Part of their belief in God was making fun of idolatry. Making fun of idolatry makes you a Jew. That's what makes a Jew a Jew. Now you would say, wait a minute, but it's not going to get us in trouble. We're going to get to that. We're going to get to that, Rabbi. We're going to get to that trouble that everybody is so afraid of. who took us through a whole journey of destroying avodah zarah in Egypt, destroying the most petrifying nation, the Egyptians. Then He sends us, He sends us our Goel, our Mashiach, Moshe Rabbeinu. Moshe Rabbeinu brings the seven plagues with him on top of the heads of the Egyptians. In this week's parsha, we have the last three makot. In one of the encounters, Moshe Rabbeinu comes and warns Pharaoh again. Pharaoh gets really upset with him, kicks him out, and tells him

34:23Pharaoh says to him, "Go from me! Beware! Do not see my face anymore, for on the day you see my face, you shall die." said, meaning he responds to him, "You've spoken correctly. I shall never see your face again." Here you have an argument breaking out between Pharaoh and, lehavdil, Moshe Rabbeinu, where Pharaoh gets so angry that he threatens to kill Moshe. Now, if a big bully threatens the average person, typically the average person just walks away. if a powerful person threatens a person that does not have as much power, that person typically backs down. If a big country with a big army threatens a smaller country with a smaller army, typically this gets the point across, and yeah, you finish; you don't have to have a war. You simply send a threat. But here we see something unusual: we see the most powerful king in the world

35:43threatened Moshe, who does not have an army, doesn't even have any soldiers, and he tells him, "If you come here again, I'm going to kill you." Now, instead of backing down and just simply walking away without saying anything, what does Moshe say? "You're right, you're never going to see my face again," meaning, "You're going to die before you see my face." not going to see my face. You think I'm scared of you? You think I'm scared of you? But he has an army; he could just go like this and all of them can jump on you. Moshe was only scared of one thing, and this is extremely important for each and every one of us to know why. Because each and every one of us at times has to be a small Moshe Rabbeinu. We have to be a small Moshe Rabbeinu. Sometimes in our house, sometimes in our community, sometimes in a discussion even inside the Beit Midrash. The Lubavitcher Rebbe writes commentary in Parashat Bo, where he says, this was printed in the write-up.

37:09Chabad just this year, and they call Menachem right up to the weekly write-up on the parasha, where they quote the Lubavitcher Rebbe, zt"l, and what he wrote about each parasha. And he says Bo means "come," as in the verse "come to Pharaoh." But why is the parasha, where the Jews crushed Egypt and... and leave it known as "come to Pharaoh," a statement which expresses the might of Pharaoh and Egypt. This teaches us a lesson. Some people think to solve the problems in their religious and spiritual lives, they just need to do more good and more good and more good. But the truth is, however, that in addition to doing more good, a person also has to eradicate the bad. not just bad in general, but bad that must be crushed at its root so that it does not grow back. Therefore, God told Moshe Rabbeinu to come to Pharaoh in his palace, where he resides in all his glory. Moshe was told to seek out the evil of Egypt at its root and then to crush it and humiliate it to the extreme. Only then would the Exodus occur.

38:37his daily life. This means that a person should try to identify the primary desire, the primary ta'avah, which burns in his heart—the root of his personal evil—and launch an attack on that desire with full force. When he succeeds in this mission, he will then find that his other personal struggles follow effortlessly in its wake. This is based on a sicha by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Shabbat, Parashat Bo, 5711. So here the Lubavitcher Rebbe says that one of the things we learn from this parasha is that we have to destroy evil. Evil, not just general evil, not just do general good, but specifically destroy the deepest evil. Some people's deepest evil is a desire for immorality, wasting seed, adultery, pedophilia, all types of filthy, disgusting things. some people's root of their evil is a desire for money. They spend all of their time chasing money and doing everything for money. You have a hundred, they want two hundred. You have two hundred, they want four hundred. There is no end to it, no end to their chase for money. Unfortunately, some people...

39:48have a deep desire for kavod, for honor, to be recognized, to be known. So when I say each person has to be like Moshe, I don't mean be a leader to the free people and think that you're better than everybody else, but quite the opposite quite the opposite. The humility that Moshe Rabbeinu had is what you have to emulate, but that does not mean become a loser. That does not mean become quiet. Rather, the opposite: stand up for the Torah, fight for the Torah, and know exactly which fight to pick. You see here, when a person is seeking honor, seeking money, seeking all types of wrong desires, they will stop at nothing. They will stop at nothing, and they'll even bring idolatry to a synagogue, justified as if it's a mitzvah. Now, of course, when a person wants to do the will of Hashem, you cannot look for the understanding of what the will of Hashem is based on your own understanding. You have to look at what does Hashem say. Hashem says that you are not allowed to benefit from idolatry. Hashem says that you're not even allowed to be within six feet of an idol worshiper such as Mario Bramnick.

40:53the understanding of what the will of Hashem is based on your own understanding. You have to look at what does Hashem say. Hashem says that you are not allowed to benefit from idolatry. Hashem says that you're not even allowed to be within six feet of an idol worshiper such as Mario Bramnick. Hashem says that you are not allowed to sit there quietly while Jews are being persecuted spiritually by leaders such as Ephraim Goldberg. You cannot just say, "Listen, I'll do nothing about it," or just sit there quietly. If you do not fight when you have the ability to fight, you have a problem, a very, very serious problem, and every single person that is listening to this now needs to understand that there is something that they can do. Some people can share this shiur and that's all they can do. They live far away, they have limited means and limited knowledge and skills. So all they can do is share this video. No problem, you do that. Other people can invest, invest their time, their effort, their skills.

42:08to spread the message. Other people can connect to different big rabbis or small rabbis that they know and try to encourage them to put up a fight, say something, and not just sit there quietly. People of the community itself need to boycott the event publicly, not just quietly, not just in a way where nobody knows aside from you. People that live in a community must do something to get this Ephraim Goldberg off of his throne. Why? Because he is clearly on a path to seek kavod, seeking honor as if he can unite with the nations. Even HaKadosh Baruch Hu has no desire for us to unite with the nations. We're not saying go to war with the nations, but to unite with them is 100% forbidden. now, what about people that are worried that something bad will happen? Maybe this will cause antisemitism. Maybe this will cause some type of hatred. First and foremost, you should know, all of these organizations that supposedly fight antisemitism,

43:13Primarily being organizations like this Mario Bramnick, typically are missionary organizations or organizations that are not following the ways of the Torah. How do I know? Because anyone that learns Torah knows that antisemitism is not something that you can fight with protests or with donations. anti-Semitism is something that is created by HaKadosh Baruch Hu Himself. One of the places that we learn about anti-Semitism is this week's parasha, where it says that He made Pharaoh stubborn. In the first verse of the parasha, it says, "For I have made his heart and the heart of his servants stubborn," meaning that it is HaKadosh Baruch Hu who makes the goyim hate Jews. have made his heart and the heart of his servants stubborn, meaning that it is HaKadosh Baruch Hu who makes the goyim hate Jews. It's not that the goyim hate us because we're religious or not religious. He decides when to turn on this weapon.

44:20Sometimes yes, sometimes no. The very same goy that was your best friend next-door neighbor could very well be the same one that sends you to the gas chambers. How do I know this is what happened in history? You look at the people that went into the gas chambers. Many times those people literally died before they even hit the gas chamber, Hashem Yishmor, from a broken heart, seeing that their non-Jewish wife was the one that told on them to the Nazis, or their best friend from school, or their next-door neighbor was the one that reported on them. People they were friends with, people they were in love with, people that they had families with, were the very same ones who killed them and reported on them. This is not the first time that this happened. But for whatever reason or another, this Ephraim Goldberg didn't learn anything about the Holocaust. Even though he supposedly has a Holocaust memorial outside of his synagogue, apparently he doesn't know anything about the Holocaust when it comes to what actually transpired. What actually transpired in the Holocaust is HaKadosh Baruch Hu showing us His wrath. We wanted to be like goyim. HaKadosh Baruch Hu shows us what happens when we want to be like goyim.

45:35we want to be like goyim. This makes the goyim hate us. The more we want to be like them, the more Hashem makes them hate us. Now again, we're not looking for fights with the goyim, but to go and unite with them is absolutely forbidden. Absolutely forbidden. And that's unfortunately what's happening now. For those of you that are clever and brave enough to move forward... what do you do in situations like this if they continue to spread in different communities, or if you're living currently in Boca Raton? You want to fight; you have family members that disagree, and they want to go to the event. They want to support the event, they want to donate to the event. What do you have to do? You have to protest, you have to fight, you have to show the truth. And what about being concerned about, "Oh, maybe you'll be ostracized, maybe you'll lose, maybe this, maybe that"? To know whether you're doing the right thing or not, you have to look nowhere else but the actual halacha, what the Torah says. What does the Torah say? Rambam, Hilchot Melachim, chapter 7, halacha number 15, says the following. There is a verse in the Torah, in the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 20, verse 8, which says, "Is there a man who is afraid or faint-hearted?" A person, is there a person that's afraid?

47:02Why? To whom does this phrase refer? The phrase should be interpreted simply as applying to a person whose heart is not brave enough to stand in the throes of battle. Once a soldier enters the throes of battle, he should rely on the Hope of Israel, and their savior in times of need. He should realize that he is fighting for the sake of the oneness of God's name, and therefore he should place his soul in his hand and not show fright or fear. He should not worry about his wife or children. On the contrary, he should wipe their memory from his heart, removing all thoughts from his mind except the war. Anyone who begins to feel anxious and worried in the midst of battle to the point where he frightens himself violates a negative commandment, as it is written in the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 20, verse 3: "Do not be faint-hearted, do not be afraid, do not panic, and do not break ranks before them." Furthermore, says the Rambam, he is responsible for the blood of the entire Jewish nation and

48:10If he is not valiant, if he does not wage war with all of his heart and soul, he is considered as if he himself shed the blood of the entire people. And therefore it states, "Let him go home, lest he demoralize the hearts of his brethren like he does his own." similarly, the prophetic tradition explicitly states, "Cursed be he who does God's work deceitfully, cursed be he who withholds a sword from blood." So here we see that initially, this is referring to battle, going to war, physical war. Similarly, Moshe Rabbeinu went to war with Paro, and Paro tried threatening him. What did Moshe Rabbeinu do? He threatened him right back. Why? Not allowed to be afraid of anybody but HaKadosh Baruch Hu. So how is this relevant to you? You're not going to fight with anybody. How is this relevant to me? Not fighting anybody. Continues the Rambam. But in contrast, anyone who fights with his entire heart, without fear, with the intention to sanctify God's name alone, can be assured that he will find no harm, nor will bad overtake him.

49:36You'll be granted a proper family in Israel and gather merit for yourself and your children forever. You will also merit eternal life in the world to come. As it says in the Book of Shmuel Aleph, chapter 25, verses 28 and 29, "God will certainly make my Lord a faithful house, for my Lord fights the wars of God, and evil will not be found within you." My Lord’s soul will be bound in the bond of life with God. So here we see, Rabotai, that when it comes to a physical war, a person is not allowed to be scared. Not allowed to be scared. But the Rambam elaborates further that this is not just referring to a physical war, but rather also a spiritual war. Meaning that whether you are fighting with weapons of war,

50:42guns and helicopters and tanks for the sake of honoring Hashem, or you're fighting with your mouth, with a video, with your finger, with your pocketbook, whatever it is that you're trying to do to sanctify HaKadosh Baruch Hu's name, you have to go fight without being afraid of any downside. Why? Because you're going to fight for the sake of Hashem, not for your own honor. so this in itself has a promise from the Torah and thereby the Rambam himself promises. In itself, it brings the blessing that the fight you fight for the sake of Hashem already brings the blessing on your life, already assures you that everything is going to work out, everything's going to be okay. He doesn't tell you, listen, every single fight you're going to win in two days, it's not going to be any problems, no. Sometimes there will be ups and downs, and sometimes there will be collateral damage of all kinds, but overall, when you look at the totality of everything, you'll have not only blessings in this world but also a share in the world to come. So, it's important for a person to know that if you are fighting for the right reason, for the sake of sanctifying Hashem's name, there's nothing to worry about.

52:01Now, of course, not everybody has the strength to go and argue with different people. And that's why I say not everybody can fight the same way. Each person has to fight in some way. But not necessarily everybody in the same way. Some people can fight with the words that come out of their mouth. They know a little bit of Torah. They know how to defend the Torah, fight for the sake of the Torah. That's what they should do. Some people have the ability to fight with simply public support of the truth, whether it be money, skill, time, or whatever it is. some people don't have the ability to speak, don't have any resources, but they do have a button and they have a finger to press the button. And that's how they need to fight. But you need to know who knows what tools He gave you. Who knows what tools He gave you? And if you misuse those tools, you have a very serious problem. Why? Because we, as a people, have

53:12a tradition that even though we received the Torah at Mount Sinai, the Torah was still of critical importance and was applicable to the world even before Matan Torah. Now, it says that when Am Yisrael, which we're going to learn next week, got to Yam Suf, the angel of the ocean Had a problem. What's the problem? He says that Am Yisrael has abandoned the ways of God to such an extent that they adopted the Egyptian beliefs because they wanted to become like the Egyptians. They wanted unity events. They became idolaters, not all of them, because there was the Levi tribe. They were full of tzaddikim who learned Torah and were not even slaves because they learned Torah. Torah protected them. But nonetheless, there were three types, three levels. There were the righteous who learned Torah, then there were the ones in the middle, and then there were the completely wicked.

54:28Now, when they got to Yam Suf, the angel said, they're idol worshippers. Why should I split the ocean for idol worshippers and drown different idol worshippers? They're the same. They're idol worshippers and they're idol worshippers. So the question that we thought of, b'siyata d'shmaya, is that, wait a minute, if they're idol worshippers to such an extent that they brought their idols to Yam Suf, And the Midrash even says that some of them, the real wicked ones, the Erev Rav that we learn about in this week's parasha, even brought their idols to Mount Sinai. It says in this week's parasha that the Erev Rav were the wicked ones who were fake converts. These bad ones also came and brought their idols with them to Mount Sinai. when they said that we will do and then we will listen, in reality, what they were referring to was, uh, we will do and we will listen to the idols, not to Hashem. So if that's the case, we thought, wait a minute, if they're that bad, if they're that horrible, why didn't the righteous Levi tribe rebuke them? Why didn't they rebuke them?

55:55him. You're not allowed to worship an idol. We know from Avraham Avinu that Avraham Avinu was different from Noach because Noach didn't rebuke, and Noach had to be reincarnated, says the Arizal in Sha'ar HaGilgulim. He had to be reincarnated as Moshe Rabbeinu to fix. to fix, to do a tikkun, for not rebuking. That's why Moshe Rabbeinu says to Hashem, "I wasn't a good speaker today and I wasn't a good speaker yesterday." "Yesterday" meaning in the previous incarnation when he was Noach. So Noach made a mistake by not rebuking. Avraham, on the other hand, was considered more righteous than Noach. because he rebuked, says the Zohar HaKadosh in parashat. What did Avraham Avinu teach the people that came to his house to eat? What did he teach them? He taught them about Hashem, told them about Hashem. But what did he teach them about Hashem? He told them about Gehinnom. That's what he taught them first. You know, Hashem took back His millions and no Torah and science.

57:06Hey, want to believe in God? Good. Oh, you don't want to believe in God? Good. Okay, let me teach you. Then you'll believe in God and you'll know. It's all good. That's what Avraham taught them. He rebuked them, made sure they abandoned idolatry and abandoned their evil. Just like the Lubavitcher Rebbe says, you have to abandon the evil. You can't just do good. You do a lot of good, but it's on top of a filthy foundation. All you have is a smelly, filthy foundation. That's all you have. You don't have any good. Good has to be built on top of good. So now, Avraham Avinu rebuked the people to remove them from idolatry. And it worked. Fast forward to Moshe Rabbeinu. Moshe Rabbeinu takes Am Yisrael out of Egypt. But there are seven weeks until they get to Mount Sinai. What are they doing for those seven weeks? The Gemara says Moshe Rabbeinu taught Am Yisrael Torah. But what Torah did he teach them if they didn't get the Torah? No, he taught them the Torah of Avraham Avinu. Or what Torah of Avraham Avinu did he teach them? He taught them the shiur about Gehenom. Seven weeks learning about Gehenom. Why? Because when you know the consequences of your actions, it makes it easier to abandon those evil actions.

58:25And needless to say, abandoning the evil by default makes you righteous. Because you can do a lot of good and still be a wicked person. But if you abandon evil by default, it makes you righteous. So Moshe Rabbeinu rebuked the people. Avraham Avinu rebuked the people. Our leaders rebuked the people. A person needs to know that they have to understand that at some point or another, they also have to rebuke themselves to make sure that they are honest with themselves and not just lying to themselves thinking that they're already doing enough. They have to do whatever they possibly can to get closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu and to bring whoever they can with them. You have a community, you have a family, whoever it is. But what about if you don't say anything? also have to rebuke themselves to make sure that they are honest with themselves and not just lying to themselves, thinking that they're already doing enough. They have to do whatever they possibly can to get closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu and to bring whoever they can with them. You have a community, you have a family, whoever it is. But what about if you don't say anything? What if you know about this missionary event and you do nothing? Well, that depends. That depends on where you stand in life. If you're just some person that lives, I don't know, in Honolulu and you have no connection whatsoever to this place, there's not much that you can do. You don't have any skills, you don't have any money, you don't have any time, you don't have anything. There's not much you can do. Fine, that's what Hashem put you in.

59:50Hard to believe that's the case because Hashem is not going to bring it to you if you have nothing to do about it. But nonetheless, let's just play this hypothetical game. You have nothing to do. You have no ability to do. You have nothing to worry about. On the other hand, if you do live there, or better yet, you're in a position of influence. You're a rabbi. You're a speaker. You're a dayan. You're a very big rav. You know about this event. and countless other places across the Torah say the mitzvah that you must rebuke your brother and not come to the way of sin is applicable in all generations. It's one of our 13 Principles of Faith that our entire Torah that we received on Mount Sinai is still applicable today, meaning the mitzvah of rebuke is applicable today. Therefore, whoever is in a position to rebuke or protest, which are two separate mitzvot, but chooses not to...

1:01:04you have a rabbinical position, you have an influential position, and you choose to stay quiet. Better yet, you choose to support such a heretical event, such a dangerous event, where a powerful, lethal, evangelical missionary is coming to speak, even for five seconds, to a group of Jewish people, and you say nothing? You should know. Torah promises you that all of their sins that will come as a result of that event will be upon your head. All of them will be upon your head. This is not a curse. It's a reality. Simply a reality. Anyone who chooses not to fight the wars of God when they have the ability, Torah says that person gets a special punishment. Curse from heaven. Arur. Why? HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, I don't need you to fight My wars. But you have to anyway. You have to anyway as a part of serving HaKadosh Baruch Hu. I gave you a stage, and you chose to use it for your own benefit.

1:02:25You decided to be a speaker for Torah. Good for you. So how come you don't defend My Torah when it's being desecrated by a certain Dayan? Oh, you're worried about your popularity? You're worried about the likes on your page? Ah, so that means that all of your Torah lectures are for your benefit. They're not for HaKadosh Baruch Hu's benefit. I gave you a rabbinical position to be considered one of the most important rabbis in a generation. And you know about this event. You chose to stay quiet. You have a very serious problem. The good news is, rabotai ha'kareem, that the big rabbis of the generation are mainly protected. Protected by HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Not because they're protected they can do whatever they want. They're protected in the sense that many times the reason why they don't address the problems that are out there is not because they choose not to, but rather because they don't know they even exist.

1:03:35because each one of these big rabbis has at least one Gehazi, one rasha that works for them as a helper who decides that he knows better than the Gadol HaDor and he simply chooses not to tell him the message that you gave him 50 times. Because the big rabbi is learning Torah, he's sitting on a Beit Din, he's doing a lot of important things. He doesn't answer the phone; he has a helper. But that helper thinks he knows better than the rabbi. He filters the messages. In essence, he becomes the Gadol HaDor in his own mind. He decides what to give the Gadol HaDor and what not, which messages to convey and which messages to withhold. Unfortunately, Rabotai, many times we've encountered this, and it's a nightmare to deal with. You think that you're calling a big Rabbi in order to get some help, only to find yourself dealing with an am ha'aretz, a person who doesn't know anything, and ends up deciding for the gadol what to do. The big Rabbi, you find out later on, never even knew about the problem.

1:04:55This is what's happening right now as well. And guess what? Just like Gehazi got cursed by Elisha the Prophet to lose his next life because of what he did, every one of these Gabbaim, every one of these helpers that gets in the way of bringing the message to help Am Yisrael will lose their next life. every single person that gets in the way of helping Am Yisrael will lose their Olam HaBa. This is not a threat; it's a hundred percent Torah. Now, of course, the little, you know, sensitive... Ephraims are going to say, "Oh, look at this aggressive style. He's saying death penalty." Habibi, did you learn the Torah ever in your life? You read a weekly parasha; it says death penalty in every parasha. Well, they're making this stuff up. But you, in your liberal mind, are going to make it seem as if this is a new Torah. That's why our Torah in this week's parasha says,

1:06:13tells us there is no new Torah, there is no your version versus my version. There's emet and there is sheker. There's the truth and then there are the lies. Only that which we learn about in this week's parasha, chapter 12, verse number 48. says only those mixed multitudes have a different Torah because the rest of us have our Torah. In chapter 12, verse number 48, it says what? It says only one Torah, only one Torah, not two Torahs. which means if your Torah does not have the death penalty in it, it's not the Torah of God. If your Torah does not have harsh punishment for sinners, it's not God's Torah. If your Torah does not have a mitzvah of making fun of idolatry, it's not God's Torah. If your Torah allows you to host idol worshippers in a synagogue or even in your house,

1:07:35not God's Torah. If your Torah allows you to cut out mitzvot liberally and allows 200 or more cars to drive into your shul and park, and have two people actually manage the parking lot every Shabbat and never say a word to them, it's not God's Torah. Our holy Torah is very, very simple. Why? It's clear. It's clear what it says. Of course, you can learn it forever, and there's no end to its depth. But the basic version of the Torah that each and every one of us is obligated to follow, is as clear as day. Therefore, anyone that learns a little bit is not confused. They're not confused about the difference between right and wrong. Unless they have allowed some filth to enter their mind. They've allowed some form of desire to enter their mind and they figured that they'll do enough good to compensate for the bad.

1:09:01says the Lubavitcher Rebbe, "Don't think that this is going to work. Why? In order to be good, you have to eliminate evil." It's not just about doing more good. It's not just about reading more books. It's not just about writing more books. It's not just about giving more speeches. No, no, no. In order to be righteous, in order to be good in the eyes of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, you have to eliminate evil. Therefore, if you do not see an idol worshiper being hosted as a speaker, as anything, in a synagogue, bad. That means that there is some form of bad that is blocking your spiritual vision because there is no other way to look at it. You call any Dayan, any Dayan that has yirat Shamayim. I highly recommend calling Israel. Call any Dayan, ask them. Don't even give names. Ask them: this is the person that...

1:10:13this is the place. Am I allowed to invite him to speak in this place? This is what he believes; this is his mission according to his words. I'm not adding anything. You simply read this list. You read this list that Bramnick has on his website. Okay, Bramnick has on his website. You read it to whatever dayan you want. Hopefully it's a normal dayan that has yirat Shamayim, not uh Goldberg. you call him, say this is what he believes. Can I have him come speak in my shul about any topic? It doesn't matter if it's about Israel or not. Any topic. He's gonna come to my shul to teach us about Pikachu and how Pikachu really is not Pikachu; that's just his gang name. His real name is George. where he's going to come teach you, can he do that in my synagogue? Don't find me a single dayan that says it's allowed. Why? Because clear halacha says it's forbidden. Now, it's not just not good, it's forbidden. And anyone that thinks otherwise has some type of spiritual filth blocking their spiritual vision. That's all it is.

1:11:38The pornography that Ephraim Goldberg likes to watch, perhaps maybe it's clouding his vision. The pride that he's seeking is clouding his vision. The money he's chasing is clouding his vision. Now perhaps you're saying, wait, hey, you're making stuff up now. How is he saying he's chasing pornography? Maybe money, okay. Maybe honor, okay. But pornography, where'd you get that from? Go look at his Facebook page. Go look at his Facebook page. Go look under likes. One of the people that reports to me and tells me what's out there on the internet, because Baruch Hashem, I don't spend any time on this garbage. He tells me, yeah, this is what's there. I said, "Hashem, don't ever tell me stuff like this again." But this is what's there. This guy subscribes to pornography channels. And he calls himself a dayan. Rabotai yekarim. have to understand you are in spiritual danger as long as you don't know the truth, and you're in even more danger if you see the truth and you can't identify it. This is why Chazal say we have a single Torah, not two versions of the Torah, not three versions of the Torah. There is no Torah and Torah of Ephraim Goldberg. There is no such thing. There's one Torah. One of us has to be wrong.

1:13:04I brought proofs of what the Torah says based on the Rambam, based on everything you can possibly imagine. They are scratching their heads and trying to figure out how such a thing is happening. Unfortunately, it's because there's enough support of the evil for the evil to do its thing. Perhaps this too will give Am Yisrael another tool to fight the evil that's within us, even if it's coming from someone we call our brothers. foundational beliefs of the Christian church is to missionize and convert the Jews to Christianity. Now, if that's not bad enough, this Chosen People Ministries is also the very same one that's behind many of the missionaries that are hiding inside Jewish organizations that are simply there as spies. They don't even talk about Yoshke, but what they're really there for...

1:14:15to report to the church who is weak. Just like the wars of guns and tanks, the spiritual war also has spies. Ephraim Goldberg wants to host a Christian missionary. Wouldn't it be a new thing if all of the addresses of the Boca Raton Synagogue are in the Chosen People Ministries database? And it wouldn't be surprising if every single one of those people gets an envelope delivered to their houses with missionary information within just a few days of the event. That being said, I'll have a drink, and then you guys can ask some questions.

1:15:19Okay, let's see. First question I see is from Jack. "Rabbi, why do we need to think about if the core reason of why Hashem created this world was for the redemption, even though the prophets hardly spoke about heaven or hell? Also, David said, 'Please, Hashem, don't take me...'" I know this, what you're saying here, and I mean, you have a lot more questions after that, but I want to try to get to a lot of people. As far as what you're saying, it sounds like a little bit of a distorted version of some of the garbage that Manis Friedman says, about how this world is the main world. That's not true. The Torah specifically says in many places how HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to reward us forever, and He's going to let us live for thousands of generations. Obviously, how are you going to live for thousands of generations if you're living in this world, in the material world? So all of that is referring to an eternity, an eternity that's not of this world.

1:16:26not of this world. It's not this body, it's not this planet, it's eternity, and that's all I'm about now. Of course, there are stages to everything. Just like there are stages to birth, there are stages to life, there are stages to death, and then thereby there are stages for eternity. So everything has stages. For example, the world's stages in general is that you have the 6,000 years of this world, and then you have the days of Mashiach. Before the days of Mashiach, there is an era of Mashiach where certain things will happen that we're seeing in the world today, such as Torah being hated, prices skyrocketing, mockery of sages and chachamim, and all types of different signs that we have. Then there's going to be a war among the two major nations, Yishmael and Esav. Eventually, they both turn on Israel, meaning that the whole world goes against the Jewish people.

1:17:40then the Mashiach comes and fights everybody without weapons, without tanks, without politicians, without bribing, and without the so-called Christian help either, because they're going to be the enemy; they're not going to be the friend. So, whoever tells you otherwise simply doesn't know anything. So, there's going to be a war; it's called the war of Gog u'Magog. After the war of Gog u'Magog, the righteous Jews and the righteous Noahides that survive are going to have to, first off, go through the stages of recovery where you have the burial of the dead. That will take, I believe, seven years. Then, 40 years later, you'll have the resurrection of the dead, which is the resurrection of all of the righteous people that lived throughout all of the years beforehand. you know all of Noah and so on, you have all the righteous people. Then you'll have the last thousand years of this world

1:18:44Last thousand years of this world, you'll have the righteous Jews and the righteous Noahides living in this world. Then, after this world reaches its end, which is the end of the 6000th year, so it's the year 7000, then this world is over and you go to a spiritual world. a spiritual world that is somewhere that no one is in now. Even the righteous are not there now. People who are waiting for that world are in heaven now. They're in Gan Eden, but they're not in Olam HaBa. Olam HaBa is a completely different place. And then there's even another world after that. So the point is that there are stages for everything. The stages of this life, of this world, are just part of the stages, but they're definitely under no condition the, uh, the main place, uh, they're simply the place where we're all supposed to toil in order to earn a place for eternity. And one of the simple ways that you can logically get your head around it is that even if somebody lives in this world, let's say throughout from the beginning to the end, let's say

1:19:55they, you know, they lived, they sinned, they have to be reincarnated after serving some sentence in Gehinom or Kaf HaKela. In some cases, Hashem merits them to come back to this world in order to try again. They try again, and then they sin again, and then they have to come back again, and so on and so forth. Let's say in total they lived, I don't know, two thousand years. Okay, so between all of the incarnations and everything else, they lived two thousand years. right out of six thousand years, okay, so they lived, let's say, a third of all the years that this world exists. Even if you say six thousand years, it doesn't make a difference, really. So, let's say two thousand years they have lived. Okay, so now two thousand years, compared to your life, compared to my life, seems like, wow, it's a long life. You know, you're in this world for 40, 50, 60, 70 years. 2,000 years—can't even get your head around how big it is. Now, what percentage is 2,000 from a million? Not much, right? Not much. Okay, it's not even 1%.

1:20:57It's a quarter of 1%. It's a tiny, tiny percentage. Now, what is 2,000 out of 10 million? Even less. What is 2,000 out of 100 million? Even less. What is 2,000 out of infinity? Nonexistent. Nonexistent. It's as if nothing happened. So even if somebody lives those 2,000 years and then on top of it lives the entire 1,000 years of the last 1,000 years of this world, that's still only 3,000 years. And 3,000 years out of eternity is pretty much virtually non-existent. Now, of course, it is existent in the sense that this time is going to determine whether somebody is going to have an eternity of good or an eternity of bad. Both are available, but nonetheless, that time is inconsequential in comparison to eternity. Now, as far as saying that the prophets did not talk about Gehinnom or heaven, it's also not true. If you look at the commentary in the book of Daniel, in the book of Yeshayahu, Yirmiyahu, every single one of them, every single book in the Torah talked about afterlife, talked about life after death, talked about heaven, talked about Gehinnom. The last verse in the book of Yeshayahu is one of the main sources

1:22:25for an eternal Gehinnom, there's a place that is an eternal Gehinnom, and that's actually discussed discussed in the book of Yeshayahu that is very, very scary, very, very scary part. You also have in the book of Daniel, which also talks about Gehinnom as well. Now again, people sometimes don't know the topic and say, "Look, it doesn't say Gehinnom here, therefore, there is no Gehinnom." No. uh, if anyone learns, they'll see that Gehinnom has multiple names, it has seven names, and when a person learns that there are seven names for the same thing, they realize they can't just look for one thing. But we see there's the... both Gan Eden and Gehinom are mentioned in the Torah, literally, not just figuratively speaking. You just need to know what you're looking for. You need to know what you're looking for. One of the places that we know about Gehinom is in Parashat Korach, where Hashem opens up the ground and they go to Gehinom. They go to Sheol. Sheol is one of the seven names of Gehinom. In the book of Daniel, chapter 12, verse 2, it talks about losing eternity and going to Gehinom.

1:23:43Again, another place that the Torah talks about an eternity of bad. So, these things are mentioned; you just need to know what to look for. There are literally thousands upon thousands of books and sources that have been written about the topic of Gehinom. You know, more or less, almost all of it is in Hebrew and in Aramaic, some in Arabic. almost zero in comparison is in English. There is some, but not much. But either way, there's a lot of work out there about the topic. For anyone that wants to learn about Gehinom and write-ups and stuff like that in English, a couple of places I could recommend to you that are in English, there are the writings of the Ramban that are published in English. And in there, it's called the Gates of Reward, which talks about Heaven and Hell.

1:24:46uh, in Hebrew, it's called so in chapter seven it, uh, talks about, uh, or section seven talks about Gehinom, eternal Gehinom, Kaf HaKela. I've mentioned this source plenty of times in shiurim. You could also go to Rabbi Yehuda; there's in Hebrew or in English. It's a part of what was published. in English, so you could read that. There are plenty of places that have some teachings. Nonetheless, all of them are quoting sources. They are not just telling you about something they saw in a dream. They are quoting sources; they're quoting the Tanach, they're quoting the prophets, they're quoting the Moshe Rabbeinu, they're quoting Avraham Avinu, they're quoting all types of people that are very familiar to us. It's just that you need to know what you're looking for. Okay, next one is, okay, see here, Reuven is asking, my Jewish grandmother, my father's mother, is in her 90s and wants to be cremated. I spoke to my father about it to try to convince him not to...

1:26:05but did not accomplish anything. What more am I required to do to try to prevent it when the time comes? uh try to do whatever you can to help your father do teshuva uh and if he does teshuva then uh by default he'll know to do the right thing uh but it really should be focused on him learning more about the truth learning more about Torah than uh talking about this specific uh subject uh you know because to him he just wants to do whatever his mom says now As far as the grandmother that's in her 90s, if she's still competent, then you can try to convince her to be buried instead of being cremated. You should try to convince her by saying it's better, Hashem likes it more, simple things like a child rather than being cremated. and perhaps you convince her to write it in her will that she wants to be buried rather than cremated. Unfortunately, one thing I found out recently is that a recent statistic came out saying that almost 50% of the Jews that live in America and die in America are cremated and not buried, which is obviously against halacha. It's a very, very serious crime, and it's a very serious punishment that the person gets for doing that. The neshama suffers tremendously from cremation, tremendously, and there's no way to undo it.

1:27:27are cremated and not buried, which is obviously against Halacha. It's a very, very serious crime. It's a very serious punishment that the person gets for doing that. The neshama suffers tremendously from cremation, tremendously, and there's no way to undo it So unfortunately, almost 50% of the Jewish people in America are being cremated. And somebody that I know, who is investigating the issue, is telling me that it could be much more, meaning that even people who request otherwise are actually being mistreated. uh, so in certain places, it's a very, very difficult issue. One thing I could tell you is that if a person lived their life as a righteous person As a righteous person, generally speaking, good things will happen to them during their death as well. That Hashem brings merit to those that have merit in their hands. So, being buried appropriately is a merit. It's a mitzvah.

1:28:39So, a person that lived a wicked life, that desecrated Shabbat, that cared less about Torah, of course they're not going to merit to fulfill this mitzvah before they leave this world. In fact, they can make a sin instead. So really, the biggest thing to do is to try to get people to learn more Torah, do more mitzvot, and, in essence, change as much as they're capable of changing at this stage of their life at 90 years old. it's, uh, much more, you know, it's almost impossible, uh, to change, uh, uh, the biggest things, but, uh, also there are fewer opportunities to sin at that age too. So you try to encourage them as much as possible. Uh, Charlie is asking, how do you do teshuva or make up for forgetting to do Birkat Hamazon? Good question. So, the teshuva for anything is as follows: First and foremost is to do whatever you can to stop making that problem, making that crime. Now, as far as stopping, this is not really relevant, so the second step is to put a fence. What does it mean to put a fence? Putting a fence means doing whatever it takes in order to protect yourself from making that same crime.

1:29:54So if, let's say, for example, somebody sins with immorality, every time he walks by a certain neighborhood, then the fence would be not to walk by that neighborhood under any condition. But if a person commits the crime of drinking to the point of... So, getting drunk like a psychopath, every time he drives by a certain place, then the fence would be to simply never drive by that place and never go to a bar, period. So, everything has a fence. Part of that fence is to not do certain things or to do certain things. So, for example, if a person is forgetting to do Birkat Hamazon after he eats, then he has to make it a thing where he has, every time he wants to eat, he also brings the Siddur or the Birchon that has Birkat Hamazon with him. with him to the meal, not only bring the bread and the rest of the food, but also bring the Siddur with him and put it next to him in some way, either on the table or next to it, so it reminds him to do Birkat Hamazon. Do all types of things to remind himself. The second thing I would suggest for him is to

1:31:06Learn about the significance of Birkat Hamazon. Learn about the significance of Birkat Hamazon. It's how important it is, how it's actually the most important blessing we have in the entire Torah, because it is the only blessing that is literally written in the Torah to do. "You ate, and you were satiated, and you blessed Hashem, your God." This is a biblical commandment. meaning this mitzvah is even more important than your daily prayers. So, a person who learns this and many other things about Birkat Hamazon is going to have more of a reason that’s going to drive him. Another thing I would suggest is that each person should try to become an expert in one mitzvah. become an expert in one mitzvah. Pick a mitzvah that you like and learn everything you possibly can about that mitzvah. Buy books about that mitzvah and become an expert in that mitzvah. It's a great idea to become an expert in

1:32:10So get yourself a book just about Birkat Hamazon that has write-ups about it. There are a few books I can recommend for you that discuss it. There are halachot of Birkat Hamazon, what you need to say, how, who, what, when—all of these different aspects, not just blessings in general, but specifically Birkat Hamazon. uh, there is a book called Mesillat Yesharim written by the Ramchal that has a lot of really good insights about Birkat Hamazon. It's a small brown book that you can get online, and it has a lot of really good stuff in it. So that is something you could take on as, in essence, the tikkun to the forgetting of the Birkat Hamazon because now that I'm taking on learning more about it... I'm going to, you know, have more of a connection to it. If I have more of a connection to it, I'm not going to forget it. It's in essence, the more you invest in something, the more you like it. The more you like it, the less likely you are to forget it. You know, that's in essence the big thing. You know, if, let's say, for example,

1:33:13you know, you have a, perhaps a terrible example but nonetheless an example. If you're at a train stop and somebody passes by you, if you don't love this person, they could be a former classmate or a co-worker or something, but if you don't love this person, it's not going to jump at you. You could literally just walk past them and not even realize that they just walked past you. on the other hand, if your wife or your husband walked even into the same room, somehow your eyes are going to connect to them. Somehow your eyes are going to find them. Why? Because you love this person. You love this person, so your eyes are somehow going to find this person in the room or even look for that person. You know, so that's, in essence, the thing you want to do with mitzvot. You want to learn as much about it as possible so you connect to that mitzvah, and therefore, you're putting yourself in a situation where you're looking forward to that mitzvah. uh looking forward to it. Another thing I would say is to make the Birkat HaMazon more fun. A lot of times, people read the Birkat HaMazon quietly to themselves and as fast as possible. This is a terrible idea, but nonetheless, it's the norm. There is a Gemara, I believe it's in Masechet Berachot, that says that Rebbe used to read the Birkat HaMazon out loud for everybody that was with him.

1:34:35For everybody that was with him, he would read it out loud. Now, what do you think? He read it out loud just screaming? No, he sang it. He sang the Birkat HaMazon like we sing on Yom Kippur and the Yamim Nora'im. He sang the Birkat HaMazon. And that's what a person should do with the Birkat HaMazon, even if he's by himself. Sing the Birkat HaMazon. Have a tune to the Birkat HaMazon. And try to make it as beautiful as you possibly can. Again, different people, different ways. These are just different ideas. Choose whichever one you want. You can choose all of them. You can choose one of them. Nonetheless, make it yours. Make it your own. And when you make it your own, you're less likely to make that mistake again. And that, in itself, will be a tikkun. Next question, about the sage who was very efficient with his time despite the fact that he slept a lot because he was physically weak. What was it that he did that was so efficient? because it's obvious that other sages also did not waste time, yet this sage learned a lot of Torah. As far as this particular minute-by-minute schedule, I don't know, but I could tell you that the efficiency is done differently for different people. I know that some of the chachamim

1:36:01would use their time in such ways where they would learn Torah even while doing things that are relatively mundane. Like, for example, there was a Siyum HaShas that was very excited about it even though he completed the Shas who knows how many hundreds of times. He was very excited because this is a Shas that he learned, I believe, when he was in elevators or something like that—something ludicrous like this, something that literally takes short periods of time. I may be wrong about the name; it may be different, but indeed there was really a chacham who actually would learn Shas. uh when he was in an elevator. And of course, how long are you in an elevator? I don't know, 30 seconds, a minute, two minutes. every day when he was there, he would repeat the shiur, and eventually, after however many years, he finished the Shas. So the point being is that when somebody manages their time in such a fashion where they utilize every moment, then of course this could be a great addition to their life. Most of us don't use our time that efficiently.

1:37:19uh, but you can't really say that every chacham used their time the same way. Each one had different strategies. Each chacham had different strategies of how to, you know, make more out of less. Make more out of less, but also you have different chachamim had different siyata and different difficulties. Some of the chachamim wrote their books while they were fleeing for their lives. literally, they write in their books how they're right now in the process of running away to save their lives. Their, you know, family just got murdered, but they had to stop in order to write this teshuva in the sefer, and that's where they wrote it. Or you had some chachamim write books inside the Holocaust, in the ghettos, and in the death camps. would, uh, they would write their books in there. So, the people who are really, really, uh, uh, you know, great, they found ways to write their Torah despite the difficulty, despite the torture, despite the conditions.

1:38:26despite the conditions. But there were certain opinions that say that because they had so many hardships, even though they reached a high level according to other people's standards, they achieved less than what they wanted to because of how many difficulties they had. Nonetheless, each one used different strategies to manage their time more efficiently than others. it's not like a universal way that everybody did. Everybody had their own different ideas. Jeremy's asking, "I work for a kosher market, and since I started, I tried my best to put a stop to the wasting of food." Someone else arranged for the leftovers from last week to be sent over to an organization that feeds Jews for Shabbat, but it was sent to another organization by accident. I was supposed to make sure it went to the right place. Do I have to pay the organization for the value of the food? If I do, what should be the value? No, you don't have to pay. It wasn't yours to give.

1:39:37You didn't own it. Plus, even the owner doesn't owe anybody because it's not like they bought it. They didn't take ownership of it. He's simply gifting it to them. It's like a donation. He simply donates to a certain place, but this time the donation, Hashem made it go somewhere else. Nobody has to pay for anything. All right, Tilly's asking, can a man listen to female singers on Israeli radio since it's not live? How about if it's a husband and wife team singing Tehillim songs together? The Gemara in Masechet Sotah says, the voice of a woman is akin to nakedness. If he knows what the woman looks like, even if he doesn't see her, if he knows what she looks like, it's 100% forbidden. But also, even if he doesn't know what she looks like, he should not listen to women singing at all. But certainly, if he knows what she looks like, he's forbidden 100%, even if she's a rabbanit. There's no permission for a man to listen to a woman sing. A woman, on the other hand, can listen to another woman. But for a man to listen to a woman singing, no. It will bring no good into the world. It will only bring bad things.

1:41:05Even if they're religious, if they are religious, if they're religious, like really dati, they're not singing in public. Not as a couple, not as individuals. Now, a woman can sing as a woman, but only to women, not on a general, everybody-type of radio thing. know, in this world, it's like everybody wants to be everything and, uh, you know, be allowed everything. But that's not... that's not what... twice. Michael's asking, "Sure, during Hanukkah, you mentioned that the Greeks forced the Jews to carve a message on the horns the children used to drink milk. Made me wonder if an animal horn is meat, since it's part of the animal, or is it parve?" It's not food. An animal horn is not food. So it wouldn't be anything. Nobody eats it. Ariel is asking, but I mean, as far as if, let's say, somebody wanted to make it into a dish of some kind, then it would be parve, not meat. Meat is meat.

1:42:22um, I was asking, uh, it says in the Zohar that sometimes the yetzer hara for wasting seed is so strong that it's not overcomable. How can this be? Is this true? Uh, so as far as the yetzer hara for a person, it all depends on what the person allows for themselves, meaning if a person feeds the desire, then the desire can become something that controls him so much so that it becomes almost like autopilot, where the yetzer hara doesn't have to entice him anymore to make the sin because he already made his body and his neshama addicted to the sin. uh, so which makes it more difficult to do, but it's not impossible—it's just more difficult. This is the reason why the Sages say that, uh, uh, it's one of the reasons why the Sages say that Hashem does not, uh, help a person do teshuva for, uh, for wasting seed, for immorality. It—it doesn't mean that you can't do teshuva for it; it just means that Hashem doesn't help a person do it. He has to break his own desires. There's no, uh...

1:43:31uh, you know there's no help from Hashem for you to break your own desires. You have to overcome that desire, that addiction, or anybody has to break that addiction. But as far as some words of advice on how to break that addiction, since we are in a time of teshuva, and even though I've said it in other shiurim, I'll give you guys a few things to use. for the sake of overcoming this addiction, first and foremost, you cannot overcome this addiction so long as you see it as a good thing. So, you have to stop seeing it as a good thing. So, how do you stop seeing it as a good thing? Get yourself educated about it. We have over a hundred videos about this topic that you can listen to on a regular basis, at least a few minutes a day if you're in the beginning stages of doing teshuva, and at least, you know, I don't know, half an hour a week or more if you've already done teshuva and you're clean already for six months or more, then a half hour to an hour a week

1:44:34But you need to continuously learn about this topic because the Gemara says, meaning nobody is above the issues of morality. There are great sages, greater than anything we could ever achieve, that almost fell for the issues of morality. Rabbi Akiva almost fell. Rabbi Meir Baal Hanes almost fell. Rav Ashi almost fell. uh, we're talking about some of the greatest people that ever lived who almost fell for the issues of immorality. So, this is a very, very big thing. This is the way Hashem created the world. He said He created the human body. In fact, it says that in the time of the Beit Hamikdash and Am Yisrael was serving idols. Why would they serve idols if they had the Shechinah, you know, come and miracles happen in open daylight? Why would they serve idols? It says everybody knows they didn't really serve the idols for the idol's sake because they weren't looking for idol worship.

1:45:36So why were they serving the idols? They were serving the idols because they wanted the rabbis to give up on them and not come bothering them anymore. So once the rabbis would stop coming because they saw them as idol worshipers, then they could go and do what they really wanted to do, which was to go commit immoral acts, go with the non-Jewish women, with the prostitutes and all the other filth in the world. This means that they committed idolatry for the sake of their real desire, which was immorality. So, a person can become mentally addicted to the sin before he ever commits a physical sin. so you need to first and foremost establish an understanding that it is bad. It's bad for you, it's bad for everybody. There is nothing good in it, nothing, zero good in it unless it's kosher intimacy, meaning you are with your wife or you are with your husband at the time that you are pure. That's perfectly fine. But if it's anything other than that, there's nothing good about it.

1:46:41Nothing good will come out of it. Even the pleasure will end up turning into pain. So, there is nothing good about it. It's important to watch those shiurim in order to arrive at that conclusion. The second thing is you have to do things in order to make yourself uncomfortable in your own body. So what do you do? The Gemara specifically talks about looking in the mirror. Women are allowed to look in a mirror in order to beautify themselves in certain ways, as long as there's no obsession. And it's not in an immoral, immodest way. Men, on the other hand, have to limit the amount of time that they spend in front of the mirror. Not my opinion—you have to limit the amount of time you spend in front of the mirror. ...when a man really doesn't need to spend much time in the mirror at all, and, you know, whatever you need to groom yourself or clean yourself, it's perfectly fine. But generally speaking, more than a minute, two tops, there's really no reason for you to be in front of the mirror. If there's something on your face you need to clean or fix, whatever it is, yes, that usually takes a very short period of time.

1:47:52These guys that spend a lot of time in front of the mirror, they start flexing, they start looking at themselves in different ways, you know, playing with their hair for a half hour. This is not good. Why? The more time you spend looking at yourself, the more comfortable you become with yourself, with your body, with your nakedness, and the more you become comfortable with your body and your nakedness, the more you'll become comfortable with sinning with yourself. uh, and it's much easier to sin with yourself than with other people, so this is something that a person should avoid. One should not spend much time in front of the mirror at all; the less time, the better. Women, on the other hand, you need to spend whatever time you need in order to beautify yourself because this is, again, part of your image. This is part of your life. It's an important part, both for yourself as well as for your husband. That's just the way the world works. Men, on the other hand, no one's telling you to look at Garbage Pail Kids or anything, but there's no reason for you to spend a half hour or an hour in front of the mirror. each day; it's just not necessary. And if you are, there's something wrong with you. Second thing, a third thing is do not look at yourself naked, period. Even as a woman or a man, do not look at yourself naked. Furthermore, as men or women, don't look at your genitalia at all, period, ever—not ever—not when you're in the shower, not when you are in the bathroom. There's simply no reason for you to look down.

1:49:15not going to help if you look down and don't worry. If you don't look, it doesn't go away; it's not like it just disappears if you don't look at it and give it enough time. It's there. Don't worry—if something happens, you'll know about it; you won't have to look at it. The less you look at it, the more uncomfortable you become, and there's a reason why the Gemara says that Rebbe Kadosh never looked at his brit. Why would the Gemara even mention such a thing, such a teaching? It sounds odd. Well, it's not odd. The way that he kept himself so holy is that he never even looked over there. Why? Because if you don't even look over there, surely you're not going to touch over there and sin over there. So the less you look, the better. This is also the reason why Shulchan Aruch says that a man is absolutely forbidden to cut or shave his pubic hair or his armpit hair, not even with scissors. absolutely forbidden to cut or shave his pubic hair or his armpit hair, not even with scissors

1:50:15Forbidden 100%. There's no permission whatsoever to touch that hair at all. Not here, not there. He's allowed to trim if he wants, and if he has, I guess, a lot of time for different parts of the body, whether it's the back or the chest or something like that, if that's what's customary over there. But the pubic area and the armpit area are not allowed under any condition. Not allowed under any condition unless it's creating major Shalom Bayit problems, which is very, very rare. Quite frankly, it's usually people that are sick spiritually that say it's going to create Shalom Bayit problems. It's usually the guy that wants it, not the woman. The woman cares less. As long as you don't, again, smell like a garbage pail, she cares less whether you have or you don't have hair. in those areas, the point being is that a person that spends a lot of time looking at themselves is going to analyze different things and they're not going to like certain things. There's a reason why intimacy, for the Jewish people, is done in darkness. You're not supposed to have intimacy with your spouse during the day when it's light.

1:51:32why? Because if you spend a lot of time looking at yourself or somebody else, you will find things that will look odd to you and you could even become disgusted by yourself or by your spouse. Hence, the reason why the Sages said, "Don't look." Don't look. How do you not look? intimacy and darkness at night don't necessarily need to be pitch dark where you can't even see your own hand in front of your eyes, but the point is it shouldn't be daylight. It shouldn't be so light. Why is this important? For issues of morality, not just for issues of modesty, but also morality itself. So, a person that is going to look at themselves less, the less you look at yourself, the less you're going to sin. Now, once a person is at a point where they got heat, they got heated already, they got something triggered them, whether it's something that someone said or something that they saw or something like that, then they need to act. Now, the Gemara says that first you should say to remind yourself that there is a God. But if that doesn't work, then you should go and occupy your mind with some divrei Torah. Go learn some Gemara, something difficult. Or perhaps you could put on and listen to my Tikun HaBrit movie. It's going to scare you to death and you're not going to want to touch yourself or anybody else ever again, at least for a while.

1:52:54if that's not enough, then think about the day you're going to die. Just keep watching, and you'll get to that, and you'll see what happens when a person dies. Now, sometimes that doesn't work. Sometimes that doesn't work in certain circumstances. Saying, um, and, um think about the day you're going to die. It's not going to work. Why? Because you can't get your mind off the heat. You can't really think about what Eretz Yisrael truly means. You can't even focus on what you're reading, and you can't even think about death because you're so warm and agitated that you simply want to fulfill this desire. So, what do you do then? Rabotai, you do one of these things that requires physical Physical strain. First, you can do either sit-ups or push-ups, which can be done pretty much anywhere. Hence the reason why I'm suggesting sit-ups or push-ups. Wherever you are, as much as possible. Simply until you lose your breath. Not like sets, like when you go to the gym, or you're an exerciser, and you do sets of 10, and then you take a break, and then you set another 10. No, no. Do it until you pretty much are done. You exert all of your energy. Sit-ups, push-ups, whatever you can as much as possible. If that's not possible, for whatever reason, go out running. Don't wait to change clothes, because Chas V'Shalom, you change clothes, you're one step away, you're one step closer to making the sin. So just pick yourself up however you are. Not like sets, like when you go to the gym, or you're an exerciser, and you do sets of 10, and then you take a break, and then you set another 10. No, no. Do it until you pretty much are done. You exert all of your energy. Sit-ups, push-ups, whatever you can as much as possible. If that's not possible, for whatever reason, go out running. Don't wait to change clothes, because Chas V'Shalom, you change clothes, you're one step away, you're one step closer to making the sin. So just pick yourself up however you are,

1:54:24obviously put shoes on, and just go start running. Unless you have a treadmill, just go start running on a treadmill. But just go run, exert some energy. If that's not possible, or for whatever reason that doesn't work for you, go into a cold shower. Absolutely cold, freezing cold shower. Just turn on the cold water and jump in right away. in a cold shower, a normal body typically loses arousal when these things happen. If this doesn't work, you know you have a unique body, or you're simply that sick. Eventually, you'll get healthy soon; we will pray for you. If the shower doesn't work, sit-ups, push-ups, or running doesn't work, saintly methods don't work, and nothing works, the last thing to do... not first. The last thing to do is inflict a little bit of pain on a sensitive part of your body. Typically, it's the bottom of the wrist, the back of the thigh, or the inner thigh. Pinch yourself. It doesn't need to get to the point of blood, but it should be hard enough where you feel pain.

1:55:31that point, if you're a normal person, then the arousal should go down. The arousal should be over, both for men and for women. Normal people typically do not like pain. If you're one of those people that likes pain, then, you know, you simply, you have to, you know, I don't know, God help you. That's a very, very sad situation. There are certain people that get aroused by that. They have parents, so for them, it's really going to be more psychological. It's not going to be the strategy that I just mentioned. But nonetheless, for most people, the vast majority of the public, the things that I just said, one of them, if not all of them, will work. uh, and again, if you try one thing and it doesn't work, try something else. If that doesn't work, try something else. Eventually, it will work. The issues of morality are not a battle that you win overnight. It's a battle that you keep fighting, and once in a while, you lose a part of it, but you try again. You pick yourself up again, as long as it never becomes okay for you to sin.

1:56:36you'll eventually succeed, and you'll eventually stop the sin, and you will eventually become a shomer brit and a modest and pure person, whether male or female. And this problem is everywhere. Don't think for a second that this is a secular people problem or a Jewish people problem or a non-Jewish people problem or a man problem. It's everybody's problem. Issues of morality apply to everyone, especially in our generation. The Zohar HaKadosh says that this is the tikkun of the generation: the issues of morality. So, it applies to everybody. Next, a husband got a letter from an Orthodox rabbi stating that it's against the Torah to take the COVID-19 vaccine since the vaccine is not a cure and there are potential serious side effects. Uh, my husband's job is saying that if he does not take the vaccine, he cannot return to work. My husband is afraid of the side effects of this vaccine. Can he submit this letter to his job to get a religious exemption, or is it, God forbid, against Hashem? No, I mean, I don't think it's necessary to submit this letter. I think the letter is nonsense.

1:57:58I think the letter is complete nonsense. I don't think that the Torah prohibits him from taking the vaccine. I don't think the Torah promotes the vaccine, but I don't think it forbids the vaccine. And quite frankly, I don't think the vaccine is going to work one way or the other. because this is a spiritual decree on the world, not a physical decree on the world. But nonetheless, if he doesn't want to take the vaccine and he wants to use that letter, he can because he's not going to be the only one using it. There are many other non-Jews who are using this excuse. But you should know that it's complete nonsense. He should himself know it's complete nonsense and really not worry about it one way or the other. Take the vaccine. Don't take the vaccine. Don't worry about it. Jesus is saying, Allah knows that in your heart you honestly love Hashem. Hashem is an accepted name. All who believe shall love Allah in the name. Okay, what exactly do you want?

1:59:05You do good rap. Okay, Bogus. I was asking, it's an honor to be able to fight for the honor of Bogus. Okay. He's allowed to collect items such as stamps, coins, bottle caps, and things of that sort. Yes, you're allowed to collect those things as long as it doesn't take too much of your time to the point where you can't study Torah. It's fine to collect something; different people have different interests. I remember one time I asked my Rav maybe 10 years ago or so... uh, about uh, things like that for either not necessarily collecting, uh, things but similar, similar things about for kids and so on. And he says, listen, everybody needs a little bit of nonsense in their life. Everybody needs a little bit of nonsense in their life. Obviously, the bigger you know, need virtually none, no nonsense. or rarely need any nonsense in their life, but everybody needs some level of nonsense. The problem is that many people have turned the nonsense into their life. So everybody needs a little bit of nonsense, whether it's to collect a stamp, or to collect a card, or to collect shoes. Everybody needs some type of thing to get their mind off of the world. As long as the person doesn't become overly addicted to it, and it becomes a...

2:00:31burdened spiritually and financially. There's no problem. Uh, okay, we'll take maybe one more question. I'm kind of tired. Uh, Mordechai is asking: "Rabbi, we know that when we had the Sanhedrin, they had the ability to issue physical punishments like lashes." for eating non-kosher and even the death penalty for heresy and other serious sins. Nowadays, all punishments are through Heaven since we are in the exile. However, we see Pinchas executing before they were in the land. The question is, if someone wants to opt into a physical punishment like lashes for eating non-kosher, would this be allowed if the Beit Din agreed to it? Yes, because honestly, sometimes with your videos, especially on wasting seed, a physical punishment would make doing Qigong much easier, assuming it works. So I just gave a breakdown of what to do physically. It doesn't necessarily need to be lashes. I think it just needs to be something at the moment. Like I said, usually pinching is enough.

2:01:52Depends on a person's body. I mean, if a person has thick skin, like an elephant or something, then pinching is not going to be enough. But don't get to a point of harming yourself where it becomes noticeable to others. It's not healthy, you know, it's not healthy in any way, and it could cause problems more than it could help. But as far as, you know, whipping yourself or doing things that hurt... you don't need a sanhedrin for that you don't even need a beit din for that. There are certain people that do tikkunim. If you live in Israel, there are, um, in the area of the Bukharim, a lot of Kabbalists and tzaddikim over there that do tikkun. Part of it is for issues of morality, and it requires somebody to pray certain kavanot. certain amount of money depending on how many times you sinned, but also you have to do other tikkunim. For example, you have to roll in snow, which is, you know, extremely painful. Pretty much, you roll in snow one time, you're never going to want to sin again. Roll in snow and do different things like that.

2:03:11i don't really ever teach this type of stuff because it's not applicable to 99.9999999% of people on the planet that I know because this is really only for people that have already done everything else, where they're like perfect in every other area. They're perfect in Torah and mitzvot and learning and everything else, and then you want to go and do a tikkun. ...of rolling in snow and doing some other things. Yeah, I don't generally teach this stuff to people because it's not necessary. Usually, these types of things, if you do them too early in your teshuvah, it can cause more harm than good. I've heard stories of people who simply did not listen to me when I told them not to do it, or they didn't ask. uh, and they went all over and did it, and they tried doing it, and then their perspective of Judaism became pain because they never really truly understood enough to know why you would do such a thing, why you would roll in snow, why you would have this type of pain.

2:04:22and they went over and did it thinking that they're righteous, but in reality, it didn't make them righteous and actually made them, uh, worse off. Or going to a mikveh that's freezing, uh, yeah, King David did that, the Arizal did it, the Baba Sali did it, but we're not them. and uh and and we're barely surviving the day and a person should simply know themselves and know that they, uh, you know, they're not going to become righteous by inflicting pain on themselves. There's no, uh, there's nothing that they're going to get out of it other than a distorted version of, uh, what they think they are. They're going to think that they're righteous because of it, but they're not. So generally speaking, it's not applicable for most people. If you are a person that is able to dedicate an immense amount of time to learning Torah and you're already at a point where you've completed Shas a few times, you're already at a point where you've completed a few times, and you're already at a point where you've worked on fixing the most horrible middot that you have, and you've done a lot of these big things, and now you're looking to go for midat chassidut—you're above and beyond, and so on.

2:05:33Then you can talk to your rav and discuss whether it's right for you to do such things as whipping or dipping in freezing cold water or rolling in snow or other types of things that are very painful. But I know some real tzaddikim, and they don't do it. They don't do it. It's just not necessary. Instead, go spend that time that you're going to go roll in snow, spend an extra two, three, four, five hours learning some more Gemara. It'll be much more productive. good to do tikkunim if you're at that level, but generally speaking for most people, it's not applicable. It's just not applicable. The main tikkun for most people is to learn more Torah, and if they have the ability, also give tzedakah. That's it. The physical stuff is, uh, it's not for people that are new to this whole issue altogether. It's only for people that already know it for a long time, already clean, perfect, pure, kodesh. for a while, meaning 10 years plus, then maybe you could talk about it. Maybe. Maybe. And even then, maybe. Avraham has made the event much bigger. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We talked about that already.

2:06:45Okay, guys, I'm glad that we learned together. I appreciate your time. I appreciate you learning with me. I appreciate your support. I appreciate you guys doing whatever you can to apply this stuff to your life and to your communities. Please, please, everybody do me a very big favor. Do a mitzvah a favor: pray for the community of Boca Raton. to wake up from their spiritual slumber, and most importantly, more important than even this missionary event, is to uproot the evil from within the community, especially if the evil is coming from the leaders. Uproot them, so at least the Jewish people can be the Jewish people, and not anything that they're not. Baruch Adonai le'olam, amen ve-amen.

2:11:22...to wake up from their spiritual slumber, and most importantly, more important than even this missionary event, is to uproot the evil from within the community, especially if the evil is coming from the leaders. Uproot them, so at least the Jewish people can be the Jewish people, and not anything that they're not. Baruch Adonai le'olam, amen ve-amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. ...to wake up from their spiritual slumber. Most importantly, more important than even this missionary event, is to uproot the evil from within the community, especially if the evil is coming from the leaders. Uproot them, so at least the Jewish people can be the Jewish people, and not anything that they're not. Baruch Adonai le'olam, amen ve'amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.