Talking Torah & Business In MONTREAL

0:26Thank you for having me back again. So, last year we learned, and since then we completed our... movie, uh, and, uh, this office here in Montreal is actually part of the movie. One of the clips that's in the movie is from what we did here last year. Anyone that hasn't seen the movie, take one of these flyers. It has the, uh... movie, uh, and, uh, this office here in Montreal is actually part of the movie. One of the clips that's in the movie is from what we did here last year. Anyone that hasn't seen the movie, take one of these flyers. It has the, uh... QRC code on the back goes directly to the movie. Baruch Hashem, it's a very good one. It's inspiring. So, not only did we learn Torah here, but now you guys are also part of the Zikui HaRabim. A lot of zikui for this office, Baruch Hashem. Now, business has, you know, business in Judaism has no end. The Chachamim say, anyone that wants to be a Chacham, learn the Gemara. Those are the Gemarot that specify business.

1:30how to think about business, how to deal with business. But also, there are a lot of questions that you guys may have. So I actually would rather start with your questions. I have, Baruch Hashem, a lot of material, but I'd like to ask you guys to ask some questions. Because I know that there are certain things that, if you're in the business world, there's always difficulties that people deal with. To start off with, just to spice up your thoughts... You should know that the difficulties with business and how to treat money were also in Parashat HaShavua last week. Yitro was a person who tried out all of the Avodah Zarah in the world. Why? He was looking for the Emet. He was looking for the Emet. But then Parashat Yitro, the parasha that we get in the Torah, it says, Yitro heard the real truth, heard what Hashem did for Am Yisrael in Egypt and everything. He left all the avodah zarah, left all the money in the world that he had, left everything, went to Mount Sinai with nothing except his daughter and the grandkids, that's it. Now, Hashem was so impressed by Yitro,

2:42that he called it. He called the parasha. But even more so, he put an idea—sorry, usually I yell at people for having their phone, and I have to yell at myself. He put an idea in Yitro's mind that, in reality, when you think about it, it wasn't really such a big deal that, wow, what a chiddush. Like, how come Moshe Rabbeinu didn't have this idea? Logic. What was the idea? He saw Moshe Rabbeinu judging the people, and he saw a line from here till the end of the equator. The line was never going to end. He told Moshe, what are you doing here? This is how you're judging them? You're going to hurt them? You're going to hurt yourself? That's not the way you judge. You have to have a system. And in that sense, he invented the judicial system we have all over the world: Supreme Court, lower courts, and so on and so forth. But he told Moshe Rabbeinu something very interesting that's relevant to us. He says, if you're going to have judges, you cannot have judges based on who finished college. You cannot have judges based on who has the highest grades. You cannot have judges based on who's popular and who knows who. You have to have judges based on their character. Why? Because that's the only way you're going to know if this judge is a good judge.

4:03What character traits are required to be a good judge? He says they have to be people who are accomplished. These people should not be doing it for the money. They're not doing it because they want to make a few hundred thousand dollars a year. They're doing it because they already have money, but they're doing it because they want to bring good to the world. Also, some say that also means they have to be knowledgeable in Torah. They have to know the rules, not just decide based on their emotions. Oh, this guy, oh, you know, he's rich, and the poor guy stole money from him. But in reality, the poor guy, he doesn't have any money. The rich guy can afford to lose. Okay, let's give it to the poor guy. That's a rasha. That's a bad judge. Why? You cannot judge like that. Because he could lose, therefore you should lose. Whatever is emet is emet. So first off, he says they have to be anshei chayil. How do you know if they're going to practice what they actually know? They have to be yerei Elokim. They have to fear Hashem. Always have Hashem in their mind. If you have Hashem in your mind, you simply are going to be a kosher person. Why? If you are afraid that Hashem is watching everything that you're doing,

5:20you're not going to do a lot of things that you want to do naturally. You're not going to steal because you know Hashem is watching. And if He's watching, He's writing it down, and one day you're going to have to pay the bill. You know that if Hashem is watching, you're not going to do a lot of things. So you have to have yirat shamayim. Yirat shamayim you acquire by learning mussar. You have to learn that there is a judge, there is a judgment. There's a judgment, there's a judge. Why? Because a person needs to know, just like with the law of the land, You're not going to speed on the highway, not because you suddenly, you know, don't feel like getting there. Because you're afraid of the risk. Afraid of the risk of getting a ticket, afraid of the risk of hurting yourself, hurting other people, and so on. Same thing with business. You're not going to break the law openly because you're afraid of getting in trouble. Same thing with Hashem. A person needs to, you know, think about Hashem because Hashem is the law. So, yirat shamayim is required in order to be a judge. He also says they have to be an ish emet. What's an ish emet? An ish emet is someone that stands for the truth even when it's inconvenient for him. Meaning, somebody comes to you and says, "Listen, I have the invoice over here and it says on it that you paid. But between you and me, remember, you didn't pay." And you know you didn't pay. But in reality, there's a record that you paid. And you can get away with not paying.

6:48if you're an ish emet, you're going to pay anyway. Why? Because even though you can get away with not paying, you know the emet is not, this is not it. You have to pay. So, when a person's an ish emet, he's looking for the truth, he's going to fulfill that truth even when it's not in his, in essence, interest. Then he says something that is almost impossible to find today. Even in his day, the time of Moshe Rabbeinu, People that hate money. Today it's the exact opposite. But don't feel so bad. We also know that it was the same thing 3,300 years ago. Why? Because it says, Moshe Rabbeinu heard all of the ideas that Yitro gave him—how to build this court and how to pick the judges. And he chose men of accomplishment. Wait a minute. Okay, accomplishment was one of the things. And Yirei Elokim was one of the things. What about Sonei Betza, all the other qualities? He says we couldn't find anybody like that. We only found people that were successful. That's it. People that hate money, we couldn't find. We couldn't find. Meaning that hating money is not something that you're born with. It's something you have to acquire. What does it mean, hate money? Hate money means you have to look at money simply as a tool.

8:13As a tool. Just like you look at a hammer as a tool, money is a tool. Don't worship money. Don't do crazy things for money. Don't break the law of the land and don't break the law of Hashem for the sake of money. Because in the end, it's not worth it. When a person thinks of money as simply a tool, he doesn't become an idol worshiper of money. He makes money. It's okay to be successful. There's nothing wrong with being successful. Many tzaddikim in history have been successful. Moshe Rabbeinu was a multi-millionaire. Rabbi Akiva was a multi-millionaire. Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi was a multimillionaire. Rabban Gamliel was a multimillionaire. Many Jews were very, very rich throughout history. There's nothing wrong with being rich. There's something wrong with being not kosher. So, the main thing that I want to go over a little bit more today is how do we make sure that maybe we can't overnight all get to a point where we are getting rid of all of our addictions to money, but at the very least, how do we make sure that we stay kosher? Because we're in business. We do business. Some sell, some buy, some do both. You're dealing with people. You know, there's one very big mistake that people make. They think that, for example, yes, if you do business with a Jew, you have to do it in a very kosher way. But if it's a Goy, you can cheat the Goy. There's no bigger mistake than that. There's no bigger mistake in the entire Torah. Not that I know the entire Torah, but I can tell you from what I know, there's no bigger mistake than that. And the reason why, the Chachamim say,

9:40in many places, the Pele Yoetz, the Shulchan Aruch, the Rambam, and many other sources, mention that when a person cheats a Goy versus cheating another Jew, it's very different. Why? If you cheat a Jew, the Jew says, "Ah, you're a cheater." That's it, you're a cheater. It's only against you. But if you cheat a Goy, let's say, for example, you lend them money and you charge them, I don't know, like these cash advance businesses we have in America, They charge people 80% interest. They pretty much murder people in the streets with their craziness. This, rabotai, brings a chilul Hashem. He doesn't look, "Oh, you are a bad person." He says, "Jewish people are bad people." And you desecrate Hashem's name, Hashem yerachem. So when you mistreat a goy, you steal from a goy, you overcharge him, you manipulate him, you do something, it's actually worse. It's actually worse than cheating a Jew. So much so... read something very scary. If you guys remember, we have Purim coming up. Now, one of the things with Purim is we fulfill the mitzvah of Limchot et Amalek, to destroy Amalek. Now the parasha talks about the little verse that we read about Limchot Amalek. Rashi says over there, if you notice, right before Hashem mentions Amalek,

11:02He mentions the laws of how to do business with people and someone that cheats on the measures of the weights. Let's say you have a weight, and you weigh things. For example, how they sell in the market. You want to sell 100 pounds, and you can cheat by having something in the system where it looks like you're selling 100 pounds, but in reality, it's 90. So you're cheating the guy for 10. So Hashem says somebody like that, he loses Olam HaBa. Now, Rashi says, how come this business rule is right before Amalek? What does one thing have to do with the other? He says, learn two things from this. Number one, learn that that's what Amalek did. Amalek was cheating people in business. And when we cheat the goyim, Rashi says, we're giving power to Amalek. giving power to Amalek. Why? You gave Hitler an excuse to murder Jews. Not that he needed an excuse, but now he has one. That's what Hitler wrote in his Mein Kampf. He hated Jews because they were cheating in business. Anytime that the goyim look for something, they always look in business first. That's where it affects their house. When we do non-kosher business, in essence, we're giving strength to Amalek.

12:14So it's very, very important for people to know what's right, what's wrong, what to do, and what not to do in everyday life. Because this is the first question they ask a person when they get up to Shamayim Ad Me'ah Ve'esrim, "Did you conduct your business with Emunah?" Meaning, did you conduct your business with Hashem in your mind? Not Emunah that you're going to make money or not make money. Emunah meaning, was Hashem on your mind when you were doing business? Were you honest with people? Did you have integrity? Were you ethical? No. When you were able to take advantage of people, did you do it or did you not do it? When somebody, for example, took from you, did you sue him right away, or did you try to solve the situation without going to all the lawsuits and the craziness? If it was between one Jew and another Jew, did you go to the Beit Din or did you go to the civil court? Things like that, when you're busy with business... It's hard to think about unless you learn every day. Unless you learn a little bit every day. So, hopefully, this gives us a little bit of thought. Who has some questions for me? Unless you guys know everything and then you give me a shield. So, here's a question. Okay. So you said, I don't like to cheat people. Let's say you cheated the person back. Would that make it wrong? Even if they cheated you? It's a very good question. It's a very good question. I have the answer for you. Because you know you have that...

13:37Midah k'neged midah. Okay. That's the... We should be paying so many taxes so we can try to get out of our taxes. You saw that one coming. So now. So now. In Quebec, we pay a lot of taxes. Taxes, I know. Taxes. You know, actually, there is a halachah in regards to taxes. If somebody is a Talmid Chacham, he doesn't have to pay taxes. How many times do I have to pay taxes? I find my solution. I find my solution. Learn Torah every day. How many times do I have to pay any taxes? Now, the Shulchan Aruch, Shulchan Aruch, Siman 228, Halacha number 6, it says that we're forbidden to deceive a Gentile, deceive a Goy. Even with geneivat da'at. What's geneivat da'at? Geneivat da'at is, let's say, for example, this guy decides that he wants to eat kosher food. He wants to eat kosher food. And he comes to your store and says, I want to eat kosher food. And you have kosher food. But you have some stuff that's not kosher in the back that you're going to sell to the Arabs. Now, this guy, in reality, it's not a mitzvah for him to eat kosher food. And he doesn't know the difference if it's kosher or not kosher. So you go to the back

15:03And you want to sell him the non-kosher because it's cheaper. It says you're not allowed. Not allowed. Why? Because even though he's not obligated to eat kosher food, he thinks he's buying kosher food. You're not allowed to cheat him. Now, what happens if he cheated you first? Let's say, for example, when you went to his store, he cheated you, and you want to do like Chacham Ovadia says, you want to punish him. Go back. So, Rabbeinu Zalman says, even if a goy, needless to say a Jew, hurts you, you're still forbidden from hurting him back. If you hurt him back, it's considered stealing. Now, even if he hurts you in his business, and he comes back to you and you have an opportunity to hurt him back, you're still not allowed.

16:07You're not allowed to hurt him, except when it comes to money. Explanation. Explanation. Explanation. I know it's confusing, that's why I said it at the end. If, let's say, for example, he hurts you, he beats you up, you're not allowed to go back and beat him up. Finished. Go to the courts, go to the law, and then finish with that. What if he stole money from you? And there's no other way that you can get this money back from this goy. No other way. He stole from you. The law is in favor of the goy. And in reality, there's no other way for you to hurt him back. There is an opinion that says if you have an opportunity to take the money back, you can. But again, you have to make sure that you're right first. The problem is sometimes we think someone hurt us when in reality he didn't hurt us. So, generally speaking, a person should avoid taking the law into his own hands. We are not the judge, we are not the jury, and it's not our position in the world to give people measure for measure. Measure for measure is for Hashem to do. Because sometimes what a person has to think about is things that are beyond him. So, let's say, for example, he hurt you. He stole $5,000 from you. Okay?

17:27Now, you have an opportunity to steal $5,000 from him back. What is the problem? The problem is there are people that are watching you. They don't know that he stole from you. They don't know that he stole from you. And they see you steal $5,000 from him. And guess what? Even though you gained your $5,000 back, which is permissible to get your money back, you have a very serious problem on your hands. You now have desecrated Hashem's name because the people that watch you say, "Look at these Jews, they're thieves." Look, they're taking advantage of these goyim. The poor goyim. Ah, that's why Hashem punishes the Jews. That's why this and that's why that. So what is a person to do? A person goes up to Hashem and says, "Hashem, you're the Judge. If I deserve for the $5,000 to be stolen from me, I have no complaints to You. I deserve it. But if I don't, Hashem, please give it back." Give it back in another way. Why? I know You're responsible. If I deserve to lose the $5,000, then You're using him as a tool for something I did. But if I don't deserve to lose the $5,000, I know that on Rosh Hashanah, You already decided how much money I'm going to make. Gemara, Masechet Rosh Hashanah, Masechet Beitzah, both on page 16.

18:43says that a person is already decided on Rosh Hashanah, which means it doesn't matter how much you work, it doesn't matter what kind of profession you have, it doesn't matter how many hours, how many employees, none of that stuff actually matters. Hashem decides already how much money you're going to make, already on Rosh Hashanah, which means if that money was taken away from you, but you deserve to get more money that year, you're going to get the money. It may not come from him. It may come from somewhere else. So why bother fighting? That's the point. Don't bother fighting. Don't bother. The key is to keep working. Keep doing what you need to do. And if you deserve to get a living, you'll get it. Why would Hashem allow somebody to take advantage of you in the first place? So Torah says, Hashem says that if I love you, I'm going to test you. Now, where is the most personal way that you can test a person, usually men especially? In their money, in their pocket. How do you test if somebody could be your friend? How do you test them?

20:05His looks don't matter to you. His father and mother don't really matter to you. So the Gemara says you test him. How does he behave after he has had a drink? How does he eat with his pocket? Kiso. Is he generous? Is he stingy? If he's generous, Baruch Hashem, good. If he's a stingy guy, who wants to be friends with a stingy guy? Every time you go to dinner, he says, "Listen, I only had half a Coke, so I'm going to pay this. I only had two bites of the sandwich." Before you know it, the guy gets out of a $100 dinner with $25. Who wants to be friends with such a person? How does he treat money? Is he stingy? Is he honest? And also, how does he behave after somebody calls him? Does he get angry and start breaking stuff, or is he contained? He gets angry like most people, but he's a normal person. He's upset, but he's contained. So, HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to test you in your pocket. He's going to test you constantly in your pocket. He wants to see, listen, when you were making money, you were praying Mincha, you were praying Arvit, you were praying Shacharit, you were going to Daf Yomi, you were going to Rabbi Gad Ifaz's shiur, you were learning all the time when you were making money. Hashem says, are you only learning because the parnasah is coming smoothly, or are you learning because you love Me? I want to test our love, Hashem says. I want to test our love. So let's see, all of a sudden you show up to work, chas v'shalom,

21:24Sir, they give you a pink slip. In America, they call it a pink slip. They fire you. What do you mean fired? I've been working here for 20 years. How am I fired? Listen, we're having layoffs. Coronavirus. We're having layoffs. We cannot... What do you mean? What does that have to do with coronavirus? I'm a plumber. Listen, that's the only excuse we can come up with. You're fired. You come home all embarrassed. You have nothing to do. Honey, I'm fired. Your wife gets into a panic. How are we going to pay the bills, the school, the tuition, the this, the that? What is all of this? What, Hashem wants to torture you? No, He wants to test you. He wants to test you. Are you still going to go to daven? Are you still going to go to Rabbi Yifat for a shiur? Are you still going to learn Torah? All of a sudden, you're going to be a batlan at home, poor me, poor me, all day crying for yourself. Meaning, did you learn Torah because everything was comfortable? You fulfilled the mitzvah because everything was comfortable? Or because you really want to connect to Hashem? If you really want to connect to Hashem, then it doesn't matter what's going on in your world. It doesn't matter if He stole or He didn't steal. You're still going to... stay connected to Hashem. And that's, in essence, why Hashem sends us different tests—to see where we stand. How do we see this in our own life? If you build something, for example, if you're building a car. Now, when you build a car, you don't just put the pieces in and send it to market. What do they do? They do crash tests.

22:43So first, they put on the door, right? They put the frame on and they put on the door. Now, they don't just put on the door and say, okay, this works. What do they do? They smash the door about a thousand times to see how much pressure it can take. How many times can I close this door before it breaks? Because that's how I know how strong it is. They shake the door. They shake it. They shake it. Oh, it's not shaking. Okay, it's good. It's a good door. Next level. Then they check the tires. They kick the tires. They punch the tires. They put screws in the way of the tire to see if the tire is going to pop. A lot of pressure on the tire. Oh, okay, this is a good tire. Next. Then they put the windshield and the glass and they start, "Hey guys, throw a bunch of balls at the windshield." Wait, it's going to break. Exactly. I want to see how many times you can throw a ball at the windshield before it breaks. That's how I know how strong it is. They keep testing it, they keep shaking it. Why? Because we need to know what's the quality, what's the grade of this car before we send it to the market. Is it A class, or is it like C where you may not even make it a week? Is it a cardboard car, or is it a real car? That's what HaKadosh Baruch Hu does with your neshama. Every so often, He sends you a test. He kicks the tires a few times.

23:52He checks the door. He throws a few balls in your face instead of the glass to see, are you going to break? How many times can I throw the ball in your face? How many times can I send you stuff before you break? Oh, you didn't break? Baruch Hashem, next level. What does it mean next level? You pass the test, you get a little reward. You pass the test, I'm going to give you a little bit more money. I'm going to give you another opportunity. You pass the test, you didn't get into a depression after you got fired? Okay, now I'm going to give you a better job. There was one guy on Wall Street that I know. When the crash of 2007-2008 happened, this guy was making a bunch of money. They fired him. Now imagine, you have a job, you're making $100,000 a month. Now all you have is a little box with your pen and paper in it. He thought this was the worst thing in the world. What am I going to do? His skills weren't really transferable to other professions. He's a traitor. He can't really use this for other things. What do I do? He says, listen, the only thing I can do, I can just figure on the internet, maybe I can figure something out. Next thing you know, he started some type of app, made a fortune out of it. Made a fortune out of it. Why? HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, I closed this. You passed the test, now I'm going to open a bigger gate. Once you pass the test, I'm going to open a bigger opportunity for you. The key is to pass the test and not lose yourself. But you have another question. Follow-up. You have something again?

25:16So there is a Pele Yoetz There are certain types of people that see other people's mistakes and, like you said, they fulfill the mitzvah of Kiddush Hashem and say, "Listen, you made a mistake, here's your money back. You gave me, instead of a $1 bill, a $100 bill." And I, as a Jew, cannot, I'm not going to accept it. This is Yom Ha'Av. That's Kiddush Hashem. It's the biggest mitzvah you can do. But there are certain people who say, oh, I made a mistake. Oh, Baruch Hashem. Baruch Hashem, I made a mistake. I'm going to become rich off of other people's mistakes. So the Pele Yoetz says, sadly, the intentional forgetfulness of a person that ends up becoming Gezel, as if it's allowed to take advantage of people, is, in essence...

26:41people are doing this where they get to a point where, mentally speaking, they constantly look for people to make mistakes in order for them to benefit, to build their empire off of other people's mistakes. And little by little, they have turned what’s mistakes into permissible. Meaning, oh, it's allowed that this is all a mistake, that mistake, everybody makes mistakes, that's how Hashem is going to give me parnasah. That's a mistake. We don't want to make money off of other people's mistakes. Now, if, let's say, a guy makes a mistake, am I allowed to take advantage of it? I don't know. What's the actual halacha? If he makes a mistake on his own, he gave you the wrong change, you're supposed to tell him there's a mistake here. You're supposed to tell him there's a mistake here. If he says, no, no, this is for you, then you can take it. It's not really a mistake. It's not really a mistake. There are some opinions that say if he makes a mistake by himself completely, and you did not get involved or confuse him in any way, you can even take advantage of that. Where's the line? The line is, for example, if let's say he's counting money. He's supposed to give you money. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Whatever it is. $1,000 he has to give you back.

28:02And you know the guy just counted $1,100, $1,200. What are you supposed to say? You're supposed to say, listen, I'm relying on your count. Meaning he counted the money, he goes, here's your $1,000. Now you know for sure there's $1,200 there. You know there's $1,200 there. You're going to say, listen, I'm relying on your count. I'm relying, I'm not going to count it, I'm going to rely on your count. Whatever you counted, I'm going to take it. If he says yes, meaning you gave him the opportunity to check, double-check himself, then you can take it. But like I said, who wants to make money off of other people's mistakes? Is that a bracha or is that not? Now, here's an example. There was a Holocaust survivor at the time when in Eretz Yisrael they were giving money to all the Holocaust survivors because of what the Nazis did to us. Now, to appease people, to help them a little bit, they gave us the money as if that's going to make anything okay. But anyway, people get crazy when it comes to money. So there's one tzaddik that they said to him, listen, you are one of the candidates that's going to get some money, but all you have to do is we have to have one of our psychiatrists analyze you. Analyze you to see how much damage you have mentally. So you're going to have a test, a phone call on such and such date to analyze you. Now once he found out, okay he has his date. But anyway, people get crazy when it comes to money. So there's one tzaddik that they said to him, listen, you are one of the candidates that's going to get some money, but all you have to do is we have to have one of our psychiatrists analyze you. Analyze you to see how much damage you have mentally. So you're going to have a test, a phone call on such and such date to analyze you. Now, once he found out, okay, he has his date,

29:30he told one of his sons, "Oh yeah, they called me and said some type of a test. I don't want to deal with this stuff." All of a sudden, the cash register in the kid's mind went, "Abba, listen." You can't think only about yourself. Forget about it. You have to think about us, our inheritance. You have to leave us something. Abba, you didn't make much money. Tell them you're damaged. Tell them you're demented. Tell them you're crazy. Tell them you don't eat anymore. Tell them you can't walk. Tell them this. He goes, but it's not true. I can eat, I can walk, I can learn. No, no, no, Abba. No, this is not a time to be a tzadik, Abba. There's not a time. You tell them that you can't eat and you can't sleep at night and you have all these nightmares. He goes, but I don't. I'm okay. I'm fine. He goes, no, no, Abba. So I'm not doing it. I'm not lying. So the kid wasn't taking that for an answer. So what did he do? He told his brother. Next thing you know, his brother called him. Abba, listen. Listen. Steve told me that you have to tell them you're damaged and you're suffering. And all day, all day, the brothers, then the grandkids called. And the other grandkids called. Everybody, one after another, called him. "No, you have to lie, you have to lie, you have to lie, you have to lie, you have to lie, you have to lie." He kept telling everybody, "No, I'm not lying. I'm not lying. If HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants to give me parnassah, He's going to give me parnassah. I don't have to lie for it."

30:46But they didn't stop hounding him. Day after day, day after day. Then he gets a call. He's so frustrated. He starts screaming without even saying hello, "Stop it! I told you to leave me alone. I told you I'm not going to lie anymore. I'm not going to lie. This is—stop it!" he yells. And then the doctor says, "Okay, no problem," and hangs up the phone. He gets a letter in the mail. Since we see, obviously, you're traumatized, you're going to get full benefits. He didn't want to lie. HaKadosh Baruch Hu also didn't want him to lie. But HaKadosh Baruch Hu also wanted to give him the good benefits. All the full benefits. And He gave him the full benefits. Now, if he lied, do you think he would have gotten the same outcome? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Why? Even if he would have gotten the money, it wouldn't be the same outcome. Why? Because that outcome would be a lie. Meaning that would be gezel. If he would have lied, he could potentially get the money and fool the people. But in Shamayim they write on his name: "gezel, ganav," which means "thief." What does it mean, a thief? A thief.

32:03Torah tells us that no person can enter Gan Eden with blood on his hands, with stolen money on his hands. Which means that that person goes up to Shamayim, even if he kept Shabbat, even if he kept all of the mitzvot of the Torah, but he has a hundred dollars stolen in his name. They say, I'm sorry, we cannot let a thief enter Gan Eden. You have to come back as a Gilgul. You have to reincarnate. Go give the money back to the person that you stole it from. Finish a whole life without making any aveirot, then you come back to Yom Kippur. There's a famous story of the Baal Shem Tov. The Baal Shem Tov came to one of the students that was in the business of horses, had many horses. The Baal Shem Tov said, that horse over there, can I buy it from you? The student wanted to do what the Rebbe wanted, but that was his favorite horse. So immediately, he said, "Rebbe, any other horse you want, I'll give it to you. Any horse you want, just not that one." He goes, "No, no, but that's the one I want."

33:06I don't want all the horses. I want that one. He goes, "But please," the guy starts crying. "No, no, no. Listen, this is the best horse. You don't understand what kind of horse it is. This is the only horse I've ever seen in 20, 30 years of dealing with horses. I've never seen a horse that you don't have to tell him how to work. He does the work by himself. This horse wakes up in the morning and asks me for work. All the other horses, I have to convince them, I have to hit them, I have to feed them, entice them to work. This one works by itself. He doesn't want to stop working. This is the best horse in the world." He goes, that's the horse I want. He goes, listen, you're my rabbi. Do you want it? Do you want it? It's yours. He goes, you sure? Sure. You promise it's mine? Mine. He goes, okay, I'll buy the horse. He gives him the horse. And then, now that it's my horse, the Baal Shem Tov says, I have to ask you a question, a different question. He says, by any chance, did anyone you know die recently? He said, "Rabbi, how do you know? Just answer the question. I'm asking the questions. Did anyone you know die recently?" He goes, "Yeah, my dear friend from down the road, he died recently." He says, "That friend was a good friend of yours?" "Yeah, he was a very good friend. 30 years we're friends. That friend, did he owe you any money?"

34:21Rebbe must have ruach hakodesh. How do you know he owed me money? He owed me $100, nothing. Small amount of money, $500. It wasn't like big money, but it's okay. He goes, wait, wait. So the money that he owed you, do you forgive him for it? He goes, of course I forgive him. When he died, my skin, I feel bad for his wife. He goes, no, no, but do you really forgive him? He goes, yeah, 100% Rebbe. He goes, so say his name, "I forgive him." Three times. He says the guy's name, "I forgive you." The horse dies. The guy gets a shock of his life. He just saw his favorite horse that he just haltered. A rabbi, he feels bad. The horse just died. But at the same time, he said, he goes, "What happened, Rebbe?" He goes, "The neshamah of your friend was inside this horse." Why? Your friend owed you $500. He went up to Shamayim. He fulfilled the entire Torah, except he owed you $500. The Beit Din of Shamayim says, "We're sorry, you cannot enter Gan Eden owing your friend $500." So what do I do? "Go work for him. You're going to be a horse until you make him enough money to pay back the $500." But now that you forgave him, he finishes his Tikkun. Now he goes to Gan Eden. Meaning, Rabotai Yekarim, gezel (stealing) in the eyes of Hashem is a crime.

35:35that's much, much more significant than what the government even thinks. A person could literally go back to a whole life just to fix $500. Needless to say, if a guy's entire business is stealing. So it's very important that we don't look to take advantage of people. We don't look to beat the system. Don't get confused thinking that cheating is necessary for you to succeed. You know, people sometimes say, no, no. I'm just ambitious. I have to get ahead. How am I going to get ahead if I don't play with the gray area? Gray area being much black, but in reality called gray. There's nothing gray about stealing. It's stealing. There's nothing gray about cheating. It's cheating. A person knows what's honest and what's not honest. If you believe in Hashem, you know that you can do business 100% kosher and still be very successful. If you believe in Hashem, you know that you can do everything right and still be a failure. I know guys in the business world, when I was working in it, they were doing the same exact thing. Same exact thing for much longer. The first company I worked for was a company called Raymond James. When I came in there, the two guys that owned the place, they were in the business already for almost 20 years each, 18, 19 years each. Within about two years, I was making more money than both of them combined.

37:01Now, was I that much better than them? No one is that much better than anybody. No one is that much, there's no difference. You're never going to be 500 times better than any other person. There's never that much difference in talent. Like even if you are going to compete against, let's say, in basketball, against Michael Jordan. You throw the ball, he throws the ball. He's never going to be 500 times better than you. He may be twice as good as you, five times better than you, even ten times better, but it's never going to be 500 times. It's never going to be where you're throwing the ball and it pretty much just stays in your hand, while for him it goes in the basket every time. It's not going to be that much of a difference. So where's the difference? The difference is that HaKadosh Baruch Hu decides he's going to succeed, you're not going to succeed. You're going to succeed, he's not going to succeed. Why did I succeed so much more than those other guys? Hashem decided I was going to succeed at that time. When everything went to garbage and HaKadosh Baruch Hu took every single penny while everybody else was making money. How come Hashem decided that? Because Hashem decided that. He decided that all the gold that I had would turn to ashes and all the ashes that everybody else had would turn to gold. He decides. Which means that when we believe in HaKadosh Baruch Hu 100%, we don't see stealing, cheating, and going around the system as even an option. Why? Because we know that the bracha comes from Hashem. Now

38:26It's hard sometimes because sometimes you have opportunities that you're not sure about. You're not sure if this is good, this is not good, this is legit, this is not legit. So that's when you ask the rabbi. You ask the rabbi, "Listen, this is the situation." You ask a serious talmid chacham that's not biased, that's not looking for money from you. You ask him, "Listen, rabbi, I have this situation. The guy sent me a container worth of goods. And You know, this container had some extra stuff. Am I allowed to take the extra stuff or no? Or the container got lost. The insurance company paid me. But now they found the container. Do I have to give back the insurance company the money? All types of she'elot like that, you have to go to a talmid chacham. You have to go to a rabbi that knows the halacha, and he'll tell you yes or no. Why? Because you don't want to go up to Shamayim with stealing in your account. It's not worth all the money in the world. If somebody gave you a hundred billion dollars right now, but he says, listen, I just stole it from the government, and it's yours. I stole it from the government, I give it to you right now. But you should know, I stole it. You can't take it. You shouldn't take it. The question is, will you take it? If you understand that everything comes from Hashem, you'll understand that if Hashem wants you to have a hundred billion dollars, you will get it in a kosher way.

39:51If He doesn't want you to have it, no matter what you got, He's going to take it away. And that's what I saw in my life. I saw in other people's lives. People thought that they got ahead, they made a bunch of money, but they didn't have a bracha. They didn't have a blessing. So what ended up happening, they thought they had the money, but then all of a sudden, all the money was going to bills. It was going to the IRS. It was going to medical bills. It was going to all types of debt they forgot about. It was going to fines. All types of things they didn't want to use the money for. So yeah, on their statement, it looked like they were making a million, two million, three million, you know, big money. But in actual reality, they were barely able to pay the rent. How do you know if you're one of those? Do you make a lot of money, but you don't see much blessing in your life? You don't see that you're enjoying the money. It's constantly going to bad things. You have constant issues. You're just not happy with your life. You're making a lot, but it feels like you're... So you have to... You know yourself better than anybody else. You know whether you are a slave to money or you're not a slave to money. Whether you're cheating or you're not cheating.

41:08It's very, very important to analyze ourselves. Do what's called Cheshbon HaNefesh, self-accounting. Because when you see yourself, you're not going to lie to yourself. You know whether you're lying. You know whether you're cheating. You know it. Analyze yourself. See what you're doing. What you're doing right, what you're doing wrong. And little by little, start doing Teshuvah for it. If you're not doing anything wrong, you're Baruch Hashem, the Tzadik of the Eidah. But in reality, the Gemara says, everyone, Everyone may not be saying Lashon Hara. Everyone may not be violating Shabbat. Everyone may not be doing a lot of things, but everyone potentially is stealing even if they don't know it. Why? Because they're just not paying attention. It's not always intentional stealing. It's not always intentional. It's just that you didn't pay attention. You didn't pay attention. The key is to pay attention. You have to pay attention because it's these minor things that a person thinks, you know, how come Hashem didn't send me parnasah? Because you didn't pay attention to one detail. you ended up losing the blessing that Hashem wanted to give you. And now the whole blessing is in Heaven on hold until you fix this. So when we pay attention to these details, you get a lot of blessing in your life. Next question. I won't tell anybody else.

42:29You're working in a field and there's money in it, but at the same time, you're seeing an incredible amount of corruption. You've seen this, and there's a big yetzer hara. A lot of people have done crazy things. And I've seen this happen. Industry full of corruption. Industry full of corruption. And now, you know, if you leave this industry, then you might have to spend a few more years doing something else. Okay. Still, you're going to have to fight the yetzer hara a lot. Ken? It's a question of time versus, like, what do you do? Do you keep in the field? So there is a, as we said before, there are guys that I know in a business, when I was in the stock business, investments, at the same time that I was making millions of dollars, they were barely able to pay rent. On the other hand, I know a guy that made maybe $100, $200 million selling dog food. Dog food, he made 100, 200 million dollars. I know another guy who was selling screws. Screws and screwdrivers, also made 10, 20 million dollars. And then you have the guys that have the same basta, same little hole in the wall, selling screws for 30 years, barely making 500 bucks in profit a month. Meaning, if HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants to give you parnassah, it has nothing to do with the profession. Doesn't matter if you're selling Q-tips to hotel chains, or you're selling stocks, or bonds, or anything else.

43:48It doesn't make a difference what the profession is. If Hashem wants to give you parnassah, He will give you parnassah. There are people who make maybe $100 or $200 every time they clean a house, and there are guys who have an entire business of people working for them cleaning houses. What's the difference between the two? Hashem decided that one is going to make $100, and the other is going to make $100 million. This means that the industry itself is not as important as far as the income, but rather if you're able to do this business in a kosher way. And if you can yourself stay a kosher person, meaning, in the investment world, it's money. It's the business of money. Now, because money flies high and low and there's a lot of stuff, that means there's a lot of guys that get rich quick. And when young guys get rich quick, they make a lot of mistakes. You know, cocaine, prostitutes, all the horrible Sodom and Gomorrah type of things, they do it. So, So, somebody says, listen, since there's so many disgusting things in the investment world, all this garbage, all this filth, maybe you shouldn't go into the investment world. That's wrong. Why? Just because you go into the investment world doesn't mean you have to steal, do cocaine, and engage in all of this filth. It's a necessary business. People invest money. Just do it in a kosher way. But if the only way to do this business is corrupt, then obviously you cannot enter it.

45:12if this business itself is a kosher business, and you yourself can do it in a kosher way, and be surrounded by people that are not corrupt, you could do your thing, no problem. But if the business is pretty much, it's the mob. There's no way to be a kosher mobster. You cannot be Peter Pan. Peter Pan is a mobster. You cannot be Peter Pan. You cannot steal from the rich and give it to the poor. It doesn't work that way. You know, you have to be or Robin Hood, or whatever they are. Robin Hood, Robin Hood. So I'm a little off on my cartoons. So the point is that you cannot be a kosher thief. If there's a way to do a certain business in a kosher way, and you could have a relatively kosher environment, no problem. It's a necessary business. You're providing some type of service, no problem. But if the business itself is corrupt, the people are corrupt, and you're just trying to invent a way to make this kosher, then try something else. As far as how much you're going to make parnassah, don't look at it that way. It may look like you're going to make a lot more money in the beginning in this versus something else, but remember, the beginning is an illusion. The beginning of everything is an illusion. Everybody goes into business because they think they're going to succeed. Does it mean they're going to succeed? No.

46:35A guy can come into a business, think he's going to succeed, and he ends up becoming a big failure. He goes into the business, one, two, three, one, two, three, does a few deals. Next thing you know, the government shows up in his office. "Yeah, we're sorry, but everything you've been doing is illegal." How does he know? I'll give you an example. In the investment world, there are all types of ways that people try to take advantage of the system. So one of the ways that they did it in the insurance business is by doing life settlements. Which means that you buy, let's say you sell life insurance. Now, the beauty of life insurance is that you know everyone's going to die at some point. So, they have to get paid. But the insurance company also knows this. So, how come they continue selling people a life insurance policy for $200 a month or $5,000 a month, depending on the age, depending on the policy? But how come they keep selling this stuff if they know that for sure they're going to have to pay people? Why would I sell you a policy that's going to give your family a million dollars for 200 bucks a month? What am I, crazy? Even if you paid that premium for 50 years, I'm never going to make my money back. Even if you pay 200 bucks a month for 50 years, I'm still not making a million dollars. So why would I sell you a million dollars for 200 dollars a month? How come? They rely on a couple of things. Number one, they rely on the fact that the vast majority of people will stop paying.

47:56At some point, they'll pay for a year, two years, three years, four years, five years, ten years. But at some point, they'll either forget to pay or they encounter a financial hurdle of some kind and they stop paying. And in essence, everything that they paid so far is 100% profit. So they rely on people's errors. 90% of term life insurance policies never get paid because people stop paying them. And the company just takes all the money that you paid; they don't have to return it to you. It's their money, that's their profit. They rely on people's mistakes. Not exactly the ideal situation, but nonetheless, it is the foundation of that business. But there is another way. There's another thing that the insurance company relies on: people being criminals, meaning people lying on their applications. people cheating in some way or another, and the insurance company has one building for the people that sell the policy and one building full of lawyers to look for ways not to pay people. To see where you made a mistake. Oh, did you write the right age? Oh, it wasn't the right age. You lied by a year. Oh, if you had given the right age, you would have been in a completely different policy, completely different price, void. Yeah, he died, but he's not getting paid. His family's not getting paid. They're going to look for mistakes. So what happened is...

49:11a couple of guys that tried to make money, easy money, decided that they're going to do something. Where? They're going to get older people to buy insurance policies. Now, if you're old, the older you are, the more likely you are to die sooner. So I'm going to get a 70-year-old, a 65-year-old, to buy a policy, which, statistically speaking, doesn't have that much time left. Five years, ten years, fifteen years, you know, in the insurance business, they don't say, die quickly because we want the money. So what did they do? The guy said, listen, Mr. Jones, can you buy this policy? It's 65 years old. He goes, I don't have the money. At this age, to buy a policy is too expensive. He goes, no, no, Mr. Jones, you don't have to pay for anything. Well, how can I do this? You buy the policy. You sign the application. But we're going to get an investor. We're going to get an investor to pay for the policy. And all you're going to do, I'm going to give you a little bit of money up front. But in essence, the policy is owned by somebody else. You're getting free money just for signing an application. Ah, why not? Sounds like good business, right? He doesn't care. All I have to do is sign somewhere. The guy is paying the premium. What do I care? He gets the money. But I get a little bit of money right now. Free money. Just for putting my name on something. Sounds like a fantastic deal. The insurance companies...

50:33noticed that this was happening, and then they started rejecting one death benefit after another. Why? They said there's a rule. Whoever buys the policy has to have a vested interest for the person to continue living. He has to want the person to live. Because if somebody else is paying for the policy, that means he wants this person to die, right? And this could lead to corruption, this could lead to murder, this could lead to a lot of things. He's not following the rules of the policy. He is violating it. Even though the guy died, we're not paying it. So, the point is, Rabotai, is that people are always looking for ways. to cheat, to manipulate, to do that. And there's always going to be ways to do that. There's always going to be ways. So now, a guy that I know went into this business, thought he was doing great. One day after another, he's getting old people to sign up. He tried pitching me this. He goes, why don't you sell this to all your customers? I said, I'm sorry, this is stealing. What's stealing? They're making money, free money. I said, no, no, no. There's something wrong with this. It doesn't make any sense that this is allowed. It doesn't make, you know, go get a 90-year-old guy to buy insurance.

51:41What insurance company is he going to allow? And on top of it, he doesn't care. He said, no, I'm not interested in this type of business. Long story short, he thinks he's doing good for two, three years. One day, the feds show up, and his entire business is shut down. Overnight. Overnight. No second chances, no nothing. Everything goes to zero in one second. That's after he already has commitments; he has to pay rent, he has employees, he has everything. So all the money that he thought he was getting right away was an optical illusion. And there are many people like that that I know. And that's the thing. So you cannot look at things just based on the surface. Oh, this one is a lot of money, this one not so much, but maybe down the road. Look at things as, what can I do? Where's my skill set? Can it be done in a kosher way? Is it a kosher environment? Is it a needed business? And that's it. Parnassah is going to come. There's plenty of people that make a fortune in a lot of different things today. The question is whether it's kosher or it's not kosher. You know, As far as if you could do whatever this idea you have in your head in a kosher way, how about go do it? The fact that there are going to be thieves doesn't make it not a kosher business. Every industry has thieves. You show me an industry, I'll tell you how they're stealing. Every industry has thieves. Every industry. There's no exception whatsoever. There's a Mishnah that says, we were going over it I think last night or this morning.

53:04That they asked Rabban Yochanan, how do we know if certain tools are pure or impure? He says, generally speaking, we know that impurity, that tum'ah, if it's a metal, if it gets tum'ah, then it becomes tameh. But if it's a piece of wood, it doesn't get tum'ah. But there are exceptions. What are the exceptions? If the piece of wood is hollow, then it can accept tum'ah. Why do we care if it is hollow? Was it discrimination against hollow sticks? Why do we care about them? He says, listen, if it's hollow, this is a way for the thieves to steal. How so? He says, in the older days, a guy would come to the person that's selling stuff and say, listen, I'm going to sell stuff for you. You give me whatever you want me to sell. I'm going to go to the market, sell this stuff, and I'll come back to you with the money. Give me my commission. No problem. So the guy would put, you know, he had a stick, a wooden stick. He put one basket on the right side, one basket on the left side. He goes to the market, comes back with the money. He gives the guy his pay. He says, but then, what would the thieves do? The thieves would take a stick that was hollow.

54:22So the guy would go to the market, sell all the goods, come back, but there was not enough money. He says, where's the money? I gave you $1,000 worth of goods. You only gave me $500. He goes, listen, I don't have any pockets. I don't have any pockets. You can check me. I have no pockets. You saw where I went. You saw where I came back. I don't have anything. He says, where will you hide the money? Inside the pocket of the hollow stick. Inside the pocket of the hollow stick. He says, this is a way—hollow sticks are ways for thieves to steal. The same thing with certain people who are begging for change. They would hide the money that they collected inside their stick, inside their cane. So it's a way for them to steal. They'll pretend like they don't have any money, but in reality they have a lot of money. So then the Mishnah comes, the Chachamim come to Rabban Yochanan and say, wait a minute, hold on a second. You're teaching people how to steal here. You're teaching us that this is hollow, this is not hollow, this is tamei, this is tahor. But in reality, you're teaching people how to steal. What if thieves read this Mishnah? So he says, woe to me if I say it, woe to me if I don't say it. Woe to me if I say it and the thieves learn our Torah and they learn how to steal. Woe to me if I don't say it and the thieves think that they're smarter than the Torah.

55:35So what's the halacha? We say it. Why do we say it anyway? Why do we teach it anyway? Because if the thief, if the rasha wants to steal, let him steal. What? Hashem's going to deal with it. We still need to know how to deal with such people. We need to show that Torah has all wisdoms. So, in essence, what do we learn here aside from that? We learn that it doesn't matter what you do, there's always going to be a thief that finds a way to manipulate the system. you go to a gas station today, there's a 50% chance that you're going to get gas, and you're also going to get defrauded too. Why? Because thieves figured out how to put a little plastic piece inside where you put your credit card, so while you're giving the credit card, they're also reading your credit card, and it becomes part of their credit card now. The thief's credit card. Your credit card became his credit card. You got gas; he got your credit card. He says, "Thank you. You're going to pay my bills this month." That's what the thief did. He worked really hard to figure out how to make this little plastic piece look exactly the same as the piece that's necessary in the gas station. To you, it looks normal. And unless you shake the thing, you're not going to know. Because it looks exactly the same. You're putting in your credit card, meaning there's the gas station attendant; he's there to make an honest living.

57:00And then there's the thief that found a way to take advantage of this guy's honest living and make money out of it. So, don't think that there is always kosher, this is always not kosher. Every business will have something that's not kosher about it. And every business will have something that you can do kosher. So that's the way you got to look at it. As far as money, Hashem will give you money. Anything else? Do we have any more time? I think we're almost done. Okay. What else? I have a question when it comes to... You're not stealing money from the employer when you're paid a fixed hourly rate. Sometimes what happens, it's not that you're intentionally doing it, but you're not as efficient in your work. It's just that you are not—are you held accountable for, let's say, not being at the top of your performance? Or are you just intentionally being lazy in the workplace? When you're giving the time, you're not cheating by saying, okay, I did this hard. It happens a lot with freelance businesses, right? You charge a client, and you say, I worked on it for this amount of time. But maybe it's not exactly that, or maybe it was, but it was very leisurely done, sort of a thing. So you have to be, there's a Gemara that says that, I believe it’s not Choni HaMa'agel, but I think it was his grandson. A couple of people came to him, asking him for a bracha, because there was a drought. It was in...

58:24And they came to him while he was working, and he wouldn't even say hello to them. He wouldn't say hello to them until he finished working. They asked, "Rabbi, how come you didn't say hello to us?" He replied, "My boss is not paying me to say hello to you. He's paying me to work." What do we learn? We learn that the more a person wants to be close and glued to Hashem, the more honest he's going to be with his business. Which means, if a person is paying you to work, you're supposed to work. Not text message your wife. Not go on a phone call for a half hour. Not pretend that you're going to the bathroom, but in reality you're looking at YouTube videos. Not go on 500 cigarette breaks. He's not paying you for cigarette breaks. If the boss doesn't mind, because it's that kind of job, he says, "Listen, as long as you get your job done, I don't really care how many phone calls you have. I don't care how many cigarettes you smoke. I don't care how many times you call your wife. Just get your job done at a specific time. I don't care." If you have that kind of boss, no problem. But if you know that your boss would be upset if he saw that you're smoking 800 times a day,

59:25Watching nine YouTube videos and all that stuff, and you know that he's not going to be happy with you, then in essence, what's happening? You're stealing. You're stealing. So, a person needs to know where he is working, what kind of boss he has, but also empathize, meaning look at things from the boss's point of view. If you had you as an employee, would you be happy with you? If you had you as an employee, would you be happy with you? If you would, fine. But if you know that you wouldn't be happy that you're going on so many breaks and so many this and so many that, then obviously you have to fix yourself. That's what Cheshbon HaNefesh is all about. We have to analyze ourselves not only from our own perspective, but from somebody else's perspective. Same thing goes if you're a boss. If you're a boss, you know, bosses always have this excuse: "Listen, I'll pay you on Monday." Yeah, but I need the money today. It's Friday. Friday is the payday. "Yeah, but the check didn't clear yet, so I'll pay you on Monday." You have a very, very serious din in Shamayim if you delay payment. Why? The employee doesn't care that you have your own banking situation. His life depends on the fact that he gets paid on time.

1:00:39It's not his problem that you have bills. It's not his problem that you didn't pay your rent yet. It's not his problem that your partner stole money. He doesn't care. He came to work; he has to get paid. So if you're a boss and you pay people salaries, you have to do everything possible to make sure to think about this stuff in advance and pay people on time. Never ever go to the point where you're delaying money for people. Your problems are not their problems. A lot of bosses, for some reason, think that just because they have problems, that becomes the employees' problems. No. If the employee wanted your problems, guess what? He would be you. He would be the owner. The reason why these employees are not owners is because they don't want your problems. It's not just because of skills. Not everybody wants to be an owner. Being a business owner only looks good. It's much more difficult than it looks. When you choose to be an employee, even if you have the talent to be a boss, it's because you want the convenience to know, and the comfort to know, that you're going to get paid a certain amount of money every two weeks, or every week, or every month, whatever it is. So when you delay an employee, or a vendor, or a customer's money, you are in essence stealing every single second that you're not giving them that money. It's an aveirah. Who wants to go up to Shamayim with these types of sins that you can fix in two seconds?

1:01:59So you have to make sure. You know that every two weeks you have to pay paychecks. You have to make sure to do everything possible to get that money there beforehand. Not to delay. Why? Because think about it this way. You're thinking, what's the big deal, Rabbi? Why is Hashem really looking to punish me all the time? No. No, not at all. Hashem is not looking to punish you. But let me give you an illustration. Let's say you're a boss. Okay, we have a boss. And the boss says, listen, I'm going to pay this guy on Monday, not on Friday, because of whatever excuse he has. So he doesn't think it's a big deal. You know, I'm on vacation. I'll just pay when I get back to the office on Monday. He doesn't think it's a big deal. The guy comes home, says to his wife, "Honey, listen, we didn't get paid today. We'll get paid on Monday." Now his wife is not so happy about it. Why? Because she already had certain plans for that money. She had plans for that money.

1:03:00She had to get something for the house, something for the kids, something for... She had plans for that money. She knew that you were coming home with the money. She already made plans for the money. She was going to spend it. Now there's no money. She doesn't care about Monday, Monday. She cares that the money was supposed to come today. You didn't come with the money. Now, is she going to blame your boss? No, she's going to blame you. Meaning the guy that didn't come with the money. So she starts yelling at the husband, saying, "Ah, you're good for nothing. What a terrible husband you are. I can't believe I married you. I should have married the rich guy." I should have done this. I should have done that. She starts yelling at the guy. And the kid is watching. The kid, the little son, is watching this. Watching the mom insult the father. He says, ah, see? What a loser my father is. His wife is yelling at him. What a loser he is. Now what happens? The kid starts losing respect for his father. Why? Because his mom is yelling at him. So the next time the father says to the kid, listen, son, can you do this, this, and this? He goes, no, no. Go ask your friends to do it. What? Who are you? If Ima yells at you, if Mami yells at you, also. The little kid loses respect for the father. The father, when he sees his little 10-year-old kid not giving him any respect, his wife not giving him any respect, and the boss not giving him any respect, he becomes an alcoholic. He becomes a drug user. He becomes depressed. Why? His life sucks. Seriously. Speaking plainly, his life is terrible.

1:04:21Clive is terrible. The boss doesn't respect him. The customers don't care about him. His wife insults him. And even his kid, his pride and joy, doesn't give him any respect. He gets into a depression. He starts drinking, little by little ruining his life. One day his wife says, "Divorce. I didn't want to marry an alcoholic. I didn't want to marry a drug addict. I'm not interested in marrying you. Goodbye." This guy goes downhill even further. Now the kid, the kid sees, "Oh, the parents broke up. Wow." That's because my father is a loser. That's because of my mom. That's because of this. But where did it start from? Oh, it started because of the job. The kid decides to lose his mind one day and just goes to his father's office, shoots up the place. Now, if you don't think this stuff is possible, it almost happens once a week in America. In America, there's at least one shooting every week. They go to schools, they go to post offices, they go to different places. These people are crazy. Why are they crazy? Something happened along the way. Something happened along the way. Now, guess what? That kid murdered a bunch of people, however long down the road—two, three, four, five, six years down the road. Who's at fault? Who's at fault? The boss. He started the domino effect.

1:05:32goes up to Shamayim, Tzadik Ba'alim, Rasha Merusha murderer. What do you mean Rasha? I didn't murder anybody. He goes, look at your life. Look what you did. You delayed the payment. It led to this, this, this, this, this, this. The domino effect ruined this guy's life. Why? You delayed the payment because you didn't feel like paying the guy. You didn't feel like paying him. You wanted to delay it for two days. Why? You wanted to make an extra interest over the weekend. It's very important for us to understand. Everything that we do will lead to something, good or bad. So when we are going to be in business, know your decision is not just the decision. This is a phone, I'm going to buy a phone, and the transaction ends with the phone. It doesn't end that way. This is a cup, I'm going to buy the cup, and the transaction ends with the cup. It doesn't end that way in reality. The reality is, you bought the cup, you're going to drink, right? You got the cup. But the reality is, somebody's going to make a living off of this. They're going to use that money to do other things. They're going to pay their bills.

1:06:36They're going to pay for tuition. They're going to do a lot of things. But on top of that, someone's going to use this cup. And he's going to drink from this cup. A lot of stuff is going to happen for this cup itself. And for the phone. And for the microphone. And for all of this food. Everything that you do leads to something, came from something, and you become part of that transaction. So if you become the first one to start a bad trend, you have a responsibility for what follows. If you're dishonest in business and you start by not paying people on time or cheating people, overcharging people and things of that nature, you start a bad trend domino effect. Everything that follows will have your signature on it. So even if you keep Shabbat and you learn and you do whatever, you have this on your report. Now, if this is your nature in general, meaning your entire business, not one transaction, but every day this is it. Every day we cheat. Every day we lie. Every day we do this. If that's your whole life, you have 0% chance of going to Olam HaBa. It's a good one. Zero. It doesn't matter if you learn and you keep Shabbat. If you are a cheater in business, there's a 0% chance of surviving the situation up there. Why? Because there's so many bad things that followed.

1:07:58And there's just going to be blood everywhere you go. So it's easier to avoid. It's easier to avoid by simply thinking of things not only from your perspective, but thinking of it from everybody else's perspective—the customer's perspective, the boss's perspective, the employee's perspective, and most importantly, from HaKadosh Baruch Hu's perspective. If Hashem is watching right now, which He is, would He be happy? and proud of me from this transaction? I'm allowed to make money. I'm allowed to make a living. I'm allowed to even succeed. But would Hashem be happy with the way I'm succeeding? Would Hashem be happy with the way I'm conducting myself? Or no? If Hashem is happy, I can assure you, everyone else in the equation will also be happy. But if Hashem is not happy, there's no chance in the world that everyone in the equation will be happy. Some may be happy because they may be benefiting from your stealing or this. But in reality, there's no way that everyone will be happy. Because if you're stealing, then someone is losing. So the first thing is, the easiest way is to find out, will Hashem be happy with my transaction? Whether it's buying, selling, or whatever it is. You think about Hashem. If you don't know the answer, would Hashem be happy or not? You have a Rabbi.

1:09:15You call them, Rabbi, listen, this is the transaction. I have a transaction from China. China wants to sell me certain goods. They promised to have the goods delivered on March 1st. But now they have a coronavirus outbreak, and they said, listen, we're not going to have the goods until March 15th or whatever other month. And I told them that the only way I could continue with this deal is if they delivered the goods on March 1st. Do I have to pay them, or do I not have to pay them? Because the reality is it's not such an easy question. Depends on what the contract is. If the contract guarantees a certain date and specific conditions, then you have to pay. If not, then no, you don't have to pay. The point is, you have to have a rabbi. You have to have a rabbi who analyzes the deal. But it can't just be any rabbi. It can't just be anyone off the street who happens to have a rabbi hat and thinks he knows everything. He has to be someone who knows the laws of business. You go to him and say, "Listen, Rabbi, I need to know, is my business kosher?" Because if your business is kosher, I guarantee, guarantee you'll have beracha. Can't guarantee you'll have a lot of money. I guarantee you'll have beracha. And if you have beracha, it's more valuable than having a lot of money. Because beracha means you're going to have everything you need. But if you don't have a kosher business, you'll never have beracha. And even if you have a lot of money, it's worthless. Imagine you have a lot of money, but you can't use it for anything good. It's like someone who owns a food company, but he has diabetes. He can't eat anything.

1:10:42He looks at everything delicious, delicious, delicious, but he can't eat anything. He's got diabetes. That's like a nightmare. He looks at all the best chefs in the world who work for him. They make all this delicious food, but he can't eat it because he's got a sickness. That's hell. That's what having a successful business without beracha is. It's that you have all the money, but you can't use it for anything good. So importantly, is to make sure that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is happy with us. If He's happy with us, we verify with the rabbi that this is kosher. That's it. If Hashem is happy, everybody else is going to be happy. B'ezrat Hashem, we will continue doing what HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants, will continue having a business that HaKadosh Baruch Hu can bless, and that way we're not going to be missing anything. And B'ezrat Hashem, you're also going to have not only the things that you need, but also, B'ezrat Hashem, some things that you want. Anything less? When you work by hours for customers, like more renovation, for example,

1:11:48and you get anything during the work, which is personal. I was trying at the end of the day, I said, okay, I was here for eight hours, but really I spent so much time on the phone. You try your best to keep cheshbon, but it's not easy because, first of all, you might forget. Second of all, sometimes you come home, you come to work, and you're not sure 100%. Meaning that other days, you might be able to do that job in six hours. But this day, you were a little bit tired, so you did it in seven hours. How are you going to keep cheshbon of all that? It's my business. You're right. You're right, 100%. In all types of businesses, it all depends on, first, it depends on the boss. How lenient, how... gamish, how do you say gamish? Flexible. How flexible is the owner? I never... How flexible is the owner? Are they, you know, are they so pedantic and precise that they're literally counting every minute or not? Second of all, you yourself know your performance. You yourself know your performance. So you’ve got to try to do the best you can to avoid as much personal stuff during working hours simply because it just creates complications. Because now, at the end of the day, you have to calculate, you know,

1:13:10how much time you spend on the phone, how much time you do this. So you have to have a designated time for breaks. You have an hour a day; this is my break, this is when I take care of all my business. If something is urgent, something is urgent, you have to take care of it regardless. But if it's not urgent, if it's just saying hello, if it's just checking your bank account, that's something you could have a designated time where you're not getting paid for that time. Or if he's paying you for that hour, let's say he pays you for your lunch, that's no problem. But at least have clarity on when you're able to do certain things. So, for example, you could say, listen, I'm going to work with the guy, I'm going to work, like, for example, sometimes I have contractors at my house or different places, and I pay them for their lunch. Why? Because, you know, they need to eat. So even though I'm not exactly benefiting directly from them eating food and stuffing their faces, I'm benefiting that they're, in essence, going to get energy to continue finishing the job. So you can tell the guy, "Listen, I'm going to work, let's say, eight hours a day, but a half hour or an hour, whatever is agreeable among you guys, half hour to an hour is going to be lunch. And lunch is part of the pay."

1:14:14Why? Because I need to survive in order to do the job. So, it doesn't matter what you do during your lunch. You eat, you don't eat, you call your bank account, you call your wife—he's paying you for that lunch, that's fine. As long as you have that arrangement already ahead of time with the guy, so he knows that even during your lunch, you're going to do it. That way, you won't feel like you have to do those things during the time when you're actually working. You know that you have a designated time that you're still getting paid, but this is a time when you're allowed to do this stuff. When you don't do it, when you're not so precise with these things, it can create complications. And the reason why is because you're not going to forget. And sometimes there's a really long phone call. Or sometimes your head is not in the job and you make a mistake. Or sometimes you broke something because you're thinking about something else. And that creates complications. So you've got to try the best that you can to be honest with yourself if you were the customer. You've got to do the best you can. I mean, you're never going to be perfect, but when you... Pray to Hashem. You also pray for Him to help you be as honest as you possibly can be, to be an ish emet, to do the best you can. You pray for Hashem to help you, and He'll help you. This is something to pray for because

1:15:26You want to be clean. You want to go up to Shamayim with clean hands. Nothing—I didn't steal from anybody, I didn't do anything dishonest. I did my best, and I did my best. Not just I tried, but I really did my best. I took extra effort. If I took extra time, I wrote it down, I told him, you know, and you don't have to necessarily tell the boss that you owe him 15 minutes, but you make it up the next day. And you try to do your best. You try to do your best. Take a little log. Oh, this day I took an extra 15, 20 minutes, half hour, whatever. Okay, so I owe the boss half an hour. So the next day or the next week, or whenever you have an opportunity, you work for him an extra half hour without charging him. So you try to do that, but again, you have to be very careful because you have to be honest with yourself. Okay. We have another shiur coming up with a group of Rabbanim now. So I'll see you guys later tonight. We have a shiur at Rabbi Yifrah's at 8 o'clock. I have no idea what it's going to be about. If you guys have any specific topics you want, Let me know, let Rav Yifrah know, and Be'ezrat Hashem we will learn more tonight. Baruch Adonai Le'olam, Amen ve'Amen.