TeShuva Stories, ADOPTION, Dirty Language, Danger Of Carelessness - STUMP THE RABBI (26)

0:15We are back in Sunny Isles in Shaarei Tzion, Sunny Isles, Florida, Shaarei Tzion. Our Wednesday shiur, "Stump the Rabbi," is a shiur for questions and answers. We'll have some Torah, some useful learning for people here and for people at home to learn from. Hopefully, you guys have some questions. Baruch Hashem. and the way of holiness. Even if you guys don't have questions, we'll ask the questions and we'll see what Hashem has to say about it, giving us the answers. The shiur today will be for Ilui Nishmat Yehoshua, Ilui Nishmat Eliyahu ben Frecha, and Refuah Shlema for Esther Bat Zipporah, also for Refuah Shlema for Sarah Bat Levana, Ovadia Ben Levana, Yosef Ben Levana, for Rav Ephraim Ben Shulamit, Rebbetzin Sarah Bat Anat, David Ben Esria, Doris Bat Jorah, Elisheva Chaya Bat Sarah, Devorah Bat Mercedes, and Yochevet,

1:40Bat Batya, Batya, Bat Sara, and all of Am Yisrael, Be'ezrat Hashem, will have Refuah Shlema, Refuah HaNefesh, and Refuah HaGuf. Baruch Hashem, the last couple of Shiurim have really gotten some great feedback. I think that the addiction to more has gotten some of the best feedback we've ever had, so anyone that hasn't watched it yet should watch it. I should watch it, but I can tell you guys what I do. One time, someone told me a story, or he said the story in a shiur. And he asked me, "What did you think of the story?" I said, "Oh, no, I know the story already." He goes, "Oh, you already knew it?" I said, "Yeah, you already told it to me a year and a half ago, and this is the same story." He goes, "Really? I thought I just learned it now." I said, "No, no, no, you knew it already. You told me a year and a half ago." He says, "Just like you know all the Gemara by heart, I know this story by heart." Why? Because when it's a quality shiur, you want to watch it a few times. If you have a quality shiur...

2:59There's no problem with listening to it multiple times. I know that myself, if I have shiurim on the average, I listen to them at least twice. Many of the shiurim that I listened to in the past from Rav Mizrachi, I listened to multiple times. Rav Yagen, I listened to many of his shiurim multiple times. Many shiurim, if they're quality shiurim, could learn from them many, many things that you're not going to learn on the first take. That's why sometimes it's silly that, you know, you get messages from people like, "Oh, do you have any new shiurim? I haven't watched anything in a while." I mean, we have new shiurim every week, but there are certain channels, for example, where we stopped posting shiurim. But we have, you know, 100 shiurim on that channel. So they ask, "Oh, I haven't seen a new shiur on this channel in a long time." I said, "Okay, so go to a different channel." He goes, "No, I can't go to the other one. I can't go to YouTube. I'll only go to this." I said, "Okay, so just watch the other shiurim again." "Oh, there's nothing new?" Well, you know all 100 shiurim by heart? I don't know all 100 shiurim by heart, and I'm the one that gave them. Meaning that when something is a good shiur...

4:18It's a good idea sometimes to listen to it multiple times. But Baruch Hashem, we're providing new shiurim every week. So there are many, many new things that we can all learn each week. There are the clips, and there are the shiurim themselves. But that's also why I always recommend for people to take down notes. When you watch a shiur and something stands out, in your head, a good story or something in the Gemara, whatever it is, write it down because that's also going to help your memory. Because when you listen to a shiur, if it's just the audio, then you're just using one sense. If you're watching a shiur, then you're using two senses. But if you're watching, you're hearing and you're also writing, now you're adding another sense. The more senses you use, the more it improves your memory. And I know personally that, you know, I've given this advice at least 50 times to people in shiurim to write down notes, but still many, many people don't follow it. And it's a mistake because I see a lot of times people sending me questions during the week. Usually, it's the same week that I say, oh yeah, what you asked, I mentioned in the shiur on Sunday. What you asked, I mentioned in the shiur yesterday.

5:42He goes, "Oh, I watched it. I don't remember." Okay, so watch it again. Watch it again. Watch it five times. Watch it until you remember it. That's the point. This is not a movie. It's a limud. Limud Torah is something that you have to go over and over and over and over again in order to understand what's really happening. But anyway, as a side note, before you guys start with some of your questions, if you remember last week... Told you guys a story. I read you a letter, or maybe it was Sunday. I read you a letter that one of our students from South America sent us about how when she and her husband took upon themselves to protect the brit, they never in their wildest dreams thought that this would have any effect on their kid. They have two kids and And their older kid, a nine-year-old, was a troubled child, had a lot of issues, had to take all types of drugs in order to calm him down, was very aggressive, cursed his parents. Very, very difficult. And Hashem knows, there are many, many cases like this today. It seems like every other day,

7:07A parent tells me that, oh yeah, the teacher or the rabbi or the principal or somebody is recommending that my kid take these ADHD drugs. Every kid all of a sudden is mentally retarded. There's nothing wrong with kids. It's just they're being kids most of the time. Most of the time they're just active because they're being kids. But unfortunately, many times the teachers or the parents or both are lazy or don't have the patience to deal with it. But sometimes the kids are troubled. Sometimes the kids do have an issue. But the Chachamim say that it's not always what you think. It's not always something that's unsolvable. Like the doctors sometimes tell a person, "Listen, I'm sorry to tell you, you only have a month to live." Ten years later, the doctor dies, but the guy is still alive. Why? Because doctors are doctors. It's all, you know, theoretical. It's all guessing. It's not verifiable science at all times.

8:09A lot of times, they just, you know, they don't really know what they're talking about. Sometimes they do. But many times they give you estimates and all types of things that they say that are completely ridiculous. Many of the Chachamim would take offense when doctors would give people a specific amount of time to live. Like when they had a very bad condition, they’d say, "Oh, I'm sorry, sir. I'm sorry, ma'am. You only have a week to live. You only have a month to live." And these poor people would come to the tzaddikim and say, "Oh, the doctor says I only have a month to live. What should I do?" Some of these tzaddikim would say, "Who does this doctor think he is? God? Only HaKadosh Baruch Hu decides how long you're going to live. Davka, you're going to live now." And the people would live. So, the point is, this family wanted to get close to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. So, the wife, God bless her, she's mamash tzaddeket. She tries very, very hard to not only learn Torah herself, fulfill the mitzvot, cover her hair, do all the things that you need, but also she's trying to get her husband and her family on board. But it's very difficult to do it all by yourself, especially when you have a difficult kid, and there's fighting, and there's arguing between the parents because of the kid. So anyway, she heard one day the shiur that we made about Shmirat HaBrit, about wasting seed.

9:30It's terrible how it creates problems and so on and so forth, and she realized that this is a problem. She has her own house and a husband. She told him, "Listen, let's make a deal: you watch your brit and learn Torah, and I'll be with you as much as you want. Meaning, you don't have to waste seed, you don't have to watch all this filth on the computer. You want to be together, no problem." Husband is happiest it could be. Took it on. She's the boss of him a lot. Never in their wildest dreams did they think this was going to affect their kids. But she said the day that they actually made this big decision was Shabbat, a Friday night. When they came home on Shabbat afternoon, all of a sudden the kid starts acting normal. All of a sudden, he says nice things. All of a sudden, he's very polite. All of a sudden, he's very patient. Mamash Yad Hashem. So this we publicized in our newsletter. God bless her. She published a weekly newsletter we have. We published this letter that she wrote us, telling us the details of all this story. Now why am I telling you the story again? Because there was a development earlier today that you really don't want to miss. If you're a parent especially, you don't want to miss this. She sends me a picture of two drawings of a

10:55and under it, it says, "I love you, Abba," with heart signs. It's red, and it's a cute little drawing of a child. She writes that this has never happened before. The child never said such things, never said, "I love you, Abba," never drew hearts, "I love you, parents." Nothing. Imagine as a parent, nine years you have a child in your house, and they never say, "I love you." I'm not sure if that's worse or Gehinnom's worse. I'm not really sure. Because you're investing all of your time, all of your energy, all of your everything to help this kid, and you never hear "I love you"? It's a nightmare. Instead, you're hearing the kid curse you. It's not even the kid that wants to do it. There's something wrong. But as soon as HaKadosh Baruch Hu sees that His people are following His mitzvot with mesirut nefesh, with sacrifice, because it's hard for them to protect their brit. It's hard for them to keep Shabbat. It's hard for them to learn Torah every day. It's hard for them in the beginning because they don't have the sweetness of Torah. They don't have the sweetness of mitzvot yet. So it's hard for them to do it. It's hard for them to quit smoking marijuana. It's hard for them to leave the Goya girlfriend. It's hard for them to start dressing modestly. Why? Because they're used to getting attention from all their friends. You know, anytime they walk around immodestly in the street, everybody says, "Wow, you look great." You look just like Adam HaRishon.

12:21So all of a sudden, she's not getting all of those. She thinks she's not going to get any compliments. She thinks she's not going to be pretty because now she suddenly has clothes on, so it's hard for her to be modest. So HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, "It's hard for you. That's what makes it special for Me. The one that's hard for you—protecting the Brit, Shabbat, Taharat HaMishpacha—all of these mitzvot, it's hard for you. That's why I want it, because that shows Me you love Me. And if you do it..." You open Me an opening the size of the eye of a needle, I will open for you the doors of a hall. You tell Am Yisrael, you open Me a small little opening, a little bit of mesirut nefesh, a little bit of sacrifice. You do something that's hard for you. I will open the world for you. All the miracles you can possibly imagine, I'll give you on a silver platter. These young parents Struggling with a kid for nine years, didn't know right from left. At one point, the father told me, "I was thinking of giving him up for adoption." The father, who had been there, told me, "Listen, I can't take it. I was thinking when I would go home, I would hope he's not there. That's how hard it was, and I don't blame him." But now he has a kid that says, "I love you, Abba," and...

13:39The kid's normal. Why? HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, you stop wasting seed and it's hard for you, I'll open the whole world for you. This, Rabotai Yakirim, especially parents, you should always know, everything is possible. Everything is possible. You just have to convince Hashem. There was another woman that Hashem, some years ago, something happened. One of the kids, a little baby, got hurt. No one really knows how. The kid was only a month old. They took him to the hospital. After checking a few times, the hospital says, "Yeah, he has a fractured leg." Now, in this godforsaken country over here, the government is not exactly pro-Jews all the time. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Sometimes they act like Nazis. How so? I'll give you an example: the kid is injured. It's a little baby. He didn't play soccer. He's a baby. He doesn't run yet, but he has a fractured leg. So they start asking the parents questions. "How did it happen? How'd it happen?" The parents say, "We don't know. We don't know. The baby's in the crib now. We have no idea what happened. We just know the kid couldn't stop crying, and then the leg started swelling."

15:07We took him to the doctor. That's all that happened. Now you're telling us it broke somehow. We have no idea. As they're having the conversation, the police arrive. Arrest the parents. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you. Hashem yerachem, Hashem yerachem, Hashem yerachem. Long story short, they take the kid. They take the kid. Now it's not enough. They take the other kid too. They take both kids of these parents. The other kid wasn't injured. Didn't even have a bruise on him. Nothing. They ask the questions. Kid's normal. No, no, no. There's something wrong here. It's not normal that a one-month-old kid broke his leg. You must be abusing this kid. They took both of our kids. She's been fighting to get her kids back for almost seven years. All types of other complications happened. Point being, I spoke to her a month ago, two months ago, a month ago probably. And we talked about different things. Baruch Hashem, they keep some Torah and mitzvot, some things they need to get a lot stronger on. And at one point I said, okay, so B'ezrat Hashem, the goal is that we're going to do everything possible to convince Hashem to bring your kids back this year.

16:37She says, "What?" She says, "What do you mean?" I said, "That's the point. We're going to do everything possible. If you do everything I tell you, all the mitzvot I tell you, all the limud, all the things your husband needs to do, all the things you have to do, you do everything you have to do, B'ezrat Hashem, HaKadosh Baruch Hu will give you kids this year." So she asked me, she goes, "You really think that's possible?" I said, "A million percent. In fact, Hashem can give you the kids tomorrow if He wants. It's not hard for Hashem." It's hard for us to understand how Hashem can do it. Why? Because we don't believe in Him. We don't believe in Hashem. We believe in, like, a mini Hashem. We live with, like, a baby Hashem. That's what we believe in. We don't believe that HaKadosh Baruch Hu could do everything. Why? Because as soon as it comes to a difficulty that connects to our heart and our emotions take over, all of a sudden, we start limiting Hashem. That's why it's very, very important to learn Torah and get chizuk and learn mussar and understand who HaKadosh Baruch Hu is. Last night at the end of the shiur, which was almost a three-hour shiur...

17:47I think there's a very strong part that explains to people what Hashem Melech, Hashem Malach, Hashem Yimloch really means. If an average Jew understood simply what it actually means that God ruled, God rules now, God will rule in the future, just understanding that instead of just singing it, instead of just saying it in prayer, instead of just saying it as a nice thing to say, actually understanding what it actually means, would literally change your life altogether. Hashem can do everything. The only thing is we have to convince Him with our actions to do it for us. ...with our actions to do it for us. Now, this week's parashat, Parashat Noach, we learned that HaKadosh Baruch Hu simply had it with this world. He was simply sick of this world, simply disgusted with the people of this world because of all of the sins that they committed. They stole from each other...

18:47They committed adultery, they wasted seed, bestiality, homosexuality, and the Zohar HaKadosh says that HaKadosh Baruch Hu, although stealing was one of the most disgusting things in the eyes of Hashem, He signed the seal of destroying the world when they made marrying men with men legal. When they wrote Ketubot When they wrote Ketubot on marrying men and men, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says this world has lost its right to exist. If anybody's been sleeping under a rock, it's also legal in America. It's also legal in Israel now. It's also legal all over the world now in the last couple of years. Same exact thing as what happened in Parashat Noach, it's happening right now. Just without the Mabul yet. So HaKadosh Baruch Hu HaKadosh Baruch Hu has a limitation to His patience in the sense that He expects us to do certain things. If you do them, you open an opening the size of the eye of a needle for Him, you follow what He says, especially when it's hard for you, He will give you the whole world, if you want, on a silver platter. Anything that you think is impossible, He'll show you how easy it is for Him. On the other hand, if we don't do what He says, not only will it bring trouble to our life, but unfortunately, it'll make life a nightmare. All of the things that we want will simply start disappearing. So there are certain things that we've discussed in the past of things that a person can do...

20:10if we don't do what He says, not only will it bring trouble to our life, but unfortunately, it'll make life a nightmare. All of the things that we want will simply start disappearing. So there are certain things that we've discussed in the past of things that a person can do. There are certain things that We'll talk about B'ezrat Hashem today as well, another limud that we could add to our regimen. But before we go too long, I want you guys, in case you have some serious questions that are going to actually change your life—meaning something that's bothering you, something that's going to help you, something that you even think is going to help other people just to know it. I want you guys to ask some questions. This is the night for you. And after the questions, we'll go over some other things. So in the back, I believe they have some questions. You have a question too, or you're still preparing it? Is it a question that you're just... Go ahead. Mashiach's coming is guaranteed. Mashiach's coming is guaranteed. It's one of the... Before 6,000 years. No. What's the question?

21:19Is it possible that... Does it depend on something? Does it depend on us? Mashiach coming? Yeah. So what is the... Okay, you can already pass the microphone to the back. I'll answer your question. Because it's all the way to the back. So what are the conditions for Mashiach to come? So... There is a Gemara in Masechet Sanhedrin that says that says that Mashiach is not going to come until there is a generation of fully righteous or fully wicked. The Chachamim say it's not possible that the entire generation is going to be righteous or vice versa, that the entire generation is going to be wicked. There's always going to be a little bit of both. So then the Chachamim explain, it's not saying that everybody has to be righteous or everybody has to be wicked, but rather It's gonna get to a point where Hashem is gonna put every single person to the test, that they have to pick a side. Either you're gonna be a hundred percent with Hashem, a hundred percent emunah, a hundred percent bitachon, a hundred percent mesirat nefesh. You're going with Hashem even though it's hard for you, even though you fail sometimes, even though, even though, even though you're doing your best—the best that Hakadosh Baruch Hu created you to do.

22:43You completely give up everything. You start eating pork. You start driving on Shabbat. You walk around immodestly without a care in the world. You start doing all types of things that are against Hashem, even if you know it's not right. You do it anyway. Why? You don't care. Meaning, that's what's going to happen eventually. And it's actually happening right now. You see that a lot of people that are getting off the derech, they're not getting off the derech like, they're just not keeping Shabbat. They're just like, you know, not eating kosher. When a guy goes off the derech, a woman goes off the derech, they become much like Amalek. They start making websites against Hashem, websites against the Torah. They start going out with all types of non-Jews, all types of things. They almost become like Amalek, worse than the Nazis and... It's like they take revenge against Judaism, like this Rasha Merusha, Yuval Dayan, who says he was a rabbi for 16 years and went off the derech in the last year. He's now on secular television making fun of the Torah every day. Every day, that's what he does. He has a long ponytail, looks like a horse, and he makes fun of the Torah every day. The guy was supposedly a rabbi, bupkis. So now, what happened?

23:58He had to make a choice. He made the wrong one. He went completely off. And that's happening little by little. Everybody has to make that choice. The other thing is, the Gemara also talks about other conditions that will happen. And Ben David Ba is usually the way it starts, anytime it talks about Mashiach in the Gemara. The Mashiach will not come until such and such will happen. For example, the Gemara in Masechet Sotah, page 49b, says it's going to be a generation of chutzpanim, people that have no manners, people that go against the Torah, make fun of rabbis, and hate the truth. You give them mussar, and they say, nah, it's not relevant anymore. You show them a source in the Torah, they bring it to their Barbie-doll rabbi, the Reform rabbi that calls himself Orthodox, and say, "Rabbi, is it true that you're not allowed to waste seed?" The rabbi says, "No, no, it's not for this generation." So they go back to you and say, yeah, my rabbi, he's talmid chacham. He read three books in high school. He says that's not relevant to that wasting seed. Even though it says in the Torah it's not allowed. Even though it says in the Gemara it's not allowed. Even though it says in Shulchan Aruch it's not allowed. Even though there's a million and a half different books talking that it's not allowed. Now my rabbi that read three books in high school, he says it's okay.

25:15People like this, the Zohar HaKadosh says, the vast majority of the rabbis in the last generation before Mashiach will be reshaim, will be Erev Rav. Also, the Gemara in Masechet Sanhedrin says... ... and ben David ba—that Mashiach will not come until everyone's broke. Everyone's gonna lose all their money. Currency will lose its value. So everybody that's saving up for a rainy day, everyone is saving up for that 401(k), for the retirement, for the third, fourth, fifth, and seventeenth house—all that stuff. Just so you know, before Mashiach comes, you're gonna lose everything, and you're gonna regret the day you were born. Why? Because you could have used that money to help Am Yisrael, do tzedakah, and... That's also gonna happen. I can tell you I have already given a shiur about how all of that could happen in five minutes. People think now, "What if the real estate market crashes? Then the stock market will go up. If the stock market crashes, then the real estate market will go up. If both of them crash, then currencies will go up. If currency crashes, then gold will go up," and so on. Everybody has a common-sense way of how they're not gonna lose all their money, like as if they're smarter than God, right?

26:26God needs to do in order for all money to lose value is one thing: turn off electricity. That's it. Electricity is off. All of your bank accounts are wiped out. That cash you have in your pockets is worth zero. Doesn't matter if it's a dollar, a ruble, or a shekel. It all goes down. OK, so just as a public service announcement, there's a new rule in this town that you're not allowed to park past 11 o'clock. So in order to be able to do it, just put one of these in your dashboard so they don't tow your car. So anyone that has a car, just come pick one up and at some point put it in your car. When you are doing mitzvot, you really shouldn't worry, but anyone that wants to do it can go do it. Anyway, Rabotai, there are certain things that will happen before Mashiach comes and the Gemara gives us those conditions. So... So, in order to be able to do it, just put one of these in your dashboard so they don't tow your car. So anyone that has a car, just come pick one up and at some point put it in your car. When you are doing mitzvot, you really shouldn't worry, but anyone that wants to do it can go do it. Anyway, Rabotai, there are certain things that will happen before Mashiach comes and the Gemara gives us those conditions. So...

27:54Now, the key is to know that there is also a certain amount of time that will take place, a certain amount of things that will happen before Mashiach comes. There's the war of Gog u'Magog, there's all types of financial issues that have to happen, and so on and so forth. The point being is that not necessarily what's going to happen at the time of Mashiach, after Mashiach comes, but rather how do we prepare ourselves for it. What's going to happen after Mashiach comes really is not relevant. The Rambam writes that you should not spend too much time learning about what's going to happen when Mashiach comes. Why? It will not help your servitude of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. All you should do is learn how to serve Hashem. Why? Because if you learn how to serve Hashem, whether Mashiach comes tomorrow or he comes in 10 years is irrelevant. Why? You'll be prepared either way. So that means if he comes, you'll be one of the few that he'll save. And that's really the most important part to learn about Mashiach. So with that being said, there are a few shiurim where we've discussed Mashiach. You can learn more information about it. Let's move on to the next question from the back. Adoption. Now, when a couple can have children and they would like to adopt a boy and a girl, that's one part of my question. Do they fulfill the mitzvah of having a boy and a girl? Like kids.

29:21When a couple cannot have kids or they don't want kids? They cannot have kids, and they adopt two kids. Okay, so we have a rule in the Torah that if someone is trying to fulfill a mitzvah but he can't, not because he doesn't want to and not even because he's not trying hard enough, rather there are circumstances that are beyond his or her control that make the mitzvah impossible but he wants to make that mitzvah. rather, there are circumstances that are beyond his or her control that make the mitzvah impossible, but he wants to perform that mitzvah Listen to this, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, because of his desire, shows his desire to do it, not just by saying it in his mind. He does whatever he can in order to try to do whatever he can. Eizeh hishtadlut, HaKadosh Baruch Hu pays him and rewards him as if he fulfilled the mitzvah in a perfect way. Meaning, even if you try to do a mitzvah, sometimes you don't fulfill the mitzvah so well. Sometimes your mitzvah is like missing an arm or a leg.

30:34You know, you say Birkat Hamazon, but you forgot which paragraph you're on. You know, you give tzedakah, but you give the guy like three dollars, even though you have four thousand in your pocket. It's like, well, you thought you did the mitzvah, but it's almost like you're doing someone a favor. When you really want to do the mitzvah, but there's a circumstance beyond your control and... That doesn't allow you to make that mitzvah, meaning, in essence, HaKadosh Baruch Hu decided that you are not going to make this mitzvah. You're not losing out on anything. In fact, you're winning. What are you winning? HaKadosh Baruch Hu pays you a full reward as if you fulfilled that mitzvah. That means that the couple that cannot have children, if they tried their best to do everything possible to have kids... They pray to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. They did kiruv. They, you know, did the things that are, you know, they went to big tzaddikim. They, you know, did all types of things for health reasons. They went to doctors. All types of things that show your hishtadlut, show HaKadosh Baruch Hu you really want to do it. And HaKadosh Baruch Hu simply did not fulfill their request. And they're trying, they're not giving up. They're trying, they're trying. Even if the woman doesn't have a uterus, doesn't have ovaries, she should still try. Why? HaKadosh Baruch Hu is the one that decides.

31:45We are obligated for effort, not outcome. Outcome is HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Sarah Imenu and all of the Imahot, all of them, Sarah, Leah, Rachel, Rivka, all of them physically were not able to have kids. Physically were not able to have, none of them. They didn't have a uterus. They were missing the body part. They were missing a body part, meaning it's not like, oh yeah, it's not catching. No, no, there's no body part. It's like saying, "Catch," and the guy doesn't have hands. There's no body part. They all had kids. How do we know? We're here. We're their kids. Why? HaKadosh Baruch Hu decided that they're going to have kids. Why did He make them this way? Because He wanted their tefillot. That's what Chazal says. Chazal says He made them. He made the Imahot, the Matriarchs, that way to show them it's an impossible situation. Why? He wanted their tefillot. He wanted them to pray to show Him how much they want to fulfill this mitzvah. So that means, number one, if somebody tries their best to fulfill the mitzvah, HaKadosh Baruch Hu rewards them for it already. Now, if they are adopting kids, that's an additional mitzvah. It's an additional mitzvah. It's not the same mitzvah. It's an additional mitzvah.

33:13Number one, it shows that they want to have kids. Number two, it's an additional mitzvah. What's this mitzvah? You're saving two neshamot. You're doing chesed for those two neshamot. You're saving a boy, you're saving a girl. It's a huge chesed that can help you get into Olam Haba. Why? Because the Gemara says there are two things that are going to help people get to Gan Eden and be saved at the time of Mashiach. One is Torah, the other is gemilut chasadim. Chesed, adoption is a very, very big chesed. Now, one last additional point: you can ask a follow-up. If you're adopting kids, if you're a Jew, you're obligated, obligated to adopt Jews. You're not allowed to go adopt goyim if you can adopt a Jew. This is very important to know because sometimes people go to the adoption agency, and whatever they can get, they think they're looking for a puppy. Whatever is the one they can get. Oh, he's blonde, blue-eyed. Okay, I'm going to get him. Yeah, but you don't look anything like him. Why do you want him? Oh, no, he's going to be good-looking. It's going to be easy. Yeah, is he Jewish? No, no, but we'll make him Jewish. We'll take him to the rabbi, you know. Go find a Jew. You know how many Jews are looking for parents?

34:22Go find a Jew. Yeah, but it's harder. There's more paperwork. You got to go there. So what? Go save a neshamah. If this kid doesn't go to you, this Jew doesn't go to you, he may be going to a non-Jew. And then the kid, Hashem, what's going to happen to him? So if you have the ability, go and adopt a Jew. You don't have the ability. It's nowhere to be found. There's some miracle where there's no Jewish kids to be had. It's a different story, but do everything you can if you're already at that point. Do everything you can to adopt a Jew. Follow-up question, b'chavod. I answered the follow-up question. So HaKadosh Baruch Hu already gave me the answer before we even know what the question is. See, that's how amazing Hashem is. Open this little needle, open the whole world. So adoption, by the way, is a lifelong chesed. the parents do, but I can tell you also that sometimes, sometimes it’s a lot more difficult than the parents ever imagined. And the reason why is because most adoptions take place when the kid doesn't really have much of an opinion. He's little, he's a baby, he's two or three, four, five years old. He doesn't have his own mind yet. He's cute, he's got a personality.

35:44But he doesn't have, like, you know, anything of his own. But once that kid grows up and he's 16 and 18 and 19, he's becoming his own person. She's becoming her own person. And all of a sudden, that cute little four or five-year-old you adopted sometimes turns into a troll. Sometimes turns into a little Amalek that says, ''Ah, you're not my Ima or Abba anyway.'' Don't tell me what to do. You're not really my parents. A person like that, by saying that, first of all, you're causing two things. Number one, you're breaking your parents' heart because your biological parents are gone for whatever reason or another. Your real parents are these people that adopted you and have been taking care of you for the last 15 years. Biologically, it doesn't really mean very much. Who's the one that toiled to raise you all these years? So aside from breaking their heart, just so you know, if you know somebody... your parents' heart because your biological parents are gone for whatever reason or another. Your real parents are these people that adopted you and have been taking care of you for the last 15 years. Biologically, it doesn't really mean very much. Who's the one that toiled to raise you all these years? So aside from breaking their heart, just so you know, if you know somebody

36:47that's ungrateful to their parents that adopted them, you should know that by being ungrateful, you are guaranteeing that your life will be cursed. Signed, God. You want a source? I'll give you a source. In fact, it's open. Mishtabach Shemo La'ad. Hashem knew you were going to ask this question, apparently. HaKadosh Baruch Hu tells us in the book of Proverbs, Chapter 17, verse 13: If one repays good with evil, evil will not depart from his house. Your parents, these people that are not your biological parents, they adopted you, they saved your life. Why? If it wasn't for them raising you, paying for your food, paying for your education, giving you all the things that you wanted, staying up at night when you were sick, taking you here, doing this, doing that, doing everything for you.

37:55Didn't have to do it. They don't even know you, but now they took you on as if you were really their son, you're really their daughter. Instead of saying thank you, you return, "Ah, you're not my parents. I don't have to do what you want." Who are you returning evil to? Someone that did you good. Evil will never leave your house because you returned evil for something good. Who says I hate you? Why? You're the opposite of me. Who gives good, good, good, good, good, good to you? When you get good, you return bad? Such a person, I could not know who it is. There are many, many sources in the Torah that say Hashem could also hate certain people. One of those people is ungrateful people. And it's a pasuk to prove it: midah keneged midah. He doesn't say, "Listen, if you return evil, it's not good." No, no, he says, if you return evil to somebody who did you a favor, and you return something bad, somebody lent you money, and you use that money to go against them.

38:55Somebody adopted you. You are ungrateful. Somebody did you good, chesed, and you return bad. You're guaranteeing you're an enemy of Hashem now. Until when? Until you do teshuva. Unfortunately, I have a situation like this. I have a person that says she watched some of my shiurim. I don't really know how much she watched because it doesn't seem like she learned very much. But she says she resents her adopted parents. The parents that adopted her. The parents that adopted her when she was a baby, an infant, she was one, two years old, she resents them. Why? They didn't ask her if she wanted them to adopt her. They didn't consider her feelings. I'm dead serious. I have a person like this. She calls herself a frum Jew. She calls herself a religious Jew. She says, I'm not talking to these adopted people. They're not my parents. I'm looking for my real mom.

39:55I'm still hurt because my real mom left me, and I've been looking for her for 40 years. So these people who are not really my parents raised me for 20 years. I actually resent them for adopting me. Why? They didn't ask me for my opinion when I was two years old. I tried reasoning with this woman, but as you can obviously understand, this is not a normal person. This is not a normal person. I tried providing sources. I tried rationalizing. She actually turned me into an enemy now. She doesn't stop sending me emails. First, she insults me—the first 75% of every email she insults me and tells me how terrible I am for not understanding how hurt she is for not being asked her opinion when she was two years old and not understanding that a two-year-old also has feelings and... A two-year-old has feelings, she says. A two-year-old has an opinion. I told her, according to Torah, it's not possible. Why? The Ben Ish Chai says, you're almost a monkey until six years old.

41:00There's not much of a difference between a human being and a monkey until six years old. Not looks, not value, but your daat, your brain. Even though you could be a smart kid, even though you're a cute kid, even though you're priceless, you don't have your own opinion yet. You don't have your real mind of who you're going to be for the rest of your life yet. You're a baby. All you care about is, you know, somebody changing your diaper, eating, running around, and you don't want to go to sleep ever. That's it. That's all you care about. And even after six years old, not all kids develop at that age. Sometimes even longer. Sometimes they're already 30, still kids. But the point is, to say that a two-year-old has feelings, that's not a normal thing. But unfortunately, you know what? This is the new age mentality. There's a woman that goes on television on a regular basis. Not that I watch it, but people send me these clips of crazy people all the time. There's one psychotic woman. She says she wants to make it a law in America obligating parents to ask the permission of the babies whether they're allowed to change their diapers because they're violating the baby's rights and...

42:18Moron is on television on a regular basis. I saw one of the interviews, and the newscaster started laughing. He said, "Are you serious? The baby's gonna tell you if he wants you to change him or not? You're gonna ask the baby for permission to change his diaper?" This idiot is on television. This is who's educating the people today. You can't make this stuff up. So that means that's her teacher. This woman that's emailing me, that's probably our teacher. That's probably our role model. That's our hero. Ask your little baby for permission: "Can I open your diaper and clean your poop? Can I please do it? I really want to. You know, my whole life, I've always desired to change diapers." Like, the level of stupidity that people have has reached new levels. And that's also in the Torah. The stupidity of man will steer him away from God, and then he gets mad at God for punishing him for it. That's what the pasuk means. Rabotai, you have to return good.

43:37Someone does good for you. You have to return good. Even if they don't do good for you, you still have to return good. Why? That's your obligation in the world. The Gaon of Vilna says to the Be'er HaGolah, he says, the purpose of a Jew in the world, the purpose of a person in the world, is to do good for other people. That's his purpose. Doing good for other people automatically improves everything else. Why? Because you have to improve your middot in order to do good for other people. Automatically, if you're worrying about fulfilling this mitzvah of doing good for people, it means you have to make yourself generous, even though naturally you're as stingy as can be. You have to make yourself more calm, even though naturally you're an angry gremlin. You have to make yourself more humble, even though naturally you think you are the world. Michael Jackson is saying, "We are the world." You thought he's thinking about you. "We are the world." He's talking about me. The reality is, this pedophile got a lot of money for his stupidity, but there's some common sense in some of the things he says. Why do some people actually believe this stuff? They think they're the world. Now, it's important for everyone to know you're obligated to do good for people. That's actually part of the things I want to talk about tonight, but let's see if you guys have any other questions.

45:00Someone can transfer the mic so the camera can hear. I can hear you, but the camera needs to hear you too. Is there a type of Rasha, okay, is there a type of wicked person that you don't have to do good for? So, in your siddur, do you pray Amidah three times a day? B'ezrat Hashem. We're supposed to pray Amidah three times a day: in the morning, in the afternoon, and at night. Now, Baruch Hashem, the Chachamim understood that it's difficult for people to sometimes come back to the Beit Knesset three times a day because of schedule, because of family, because of this. So what many, many Kehillot do is they have the Mincha a few minutes before the shkiyah so you could do Mincha, and right as you finish Mincha, there's only a few minutes left that you could just, you know, have a quick shiur and then you do Arvit. Why? That way you don't have to come back to the shul three times. You go to shul twice a day, you pray twice a day, you do everything all at once. So now...

46:14During that time, you have to say Amidah. Each tefillah has an Amidah. Rosh Chodesh was today and yesterday; you had four Amidot. Why? Because you had to add Musaf. You have to add Musaf and Hallel. In every Amidah that you're going to pray, you're going to see there's a mitzvah. People that are missionaries, people that are heretics—openly heretics, not from ignorance, but rather from intention... Pray that they will not have tikvah. What does not have tikvah mean? You're praying for them to die as soon as possible. That's what you pray for three times a day. You pray for people that go against Hashem on a regular basis, actively and knowingly. You're praying for them to die as soon as possible, not because you're mean. But rather because you're a Jew and you're good. How does praying for people to die make you good? A lot of people are disturbed by this when I tell this to people. Like, "Ah, that's not nice. What kind of Jew are you? You pray for people to die?" No, you don't understand. This is actually chesed that you pray for people to die. Why? Because if they die today, if they're missionaries today and they die today, at least they'll be judged on the sins they do until today. But if they die in three weeks from now, that's three weeks more of sins.

47:37Maybe today they've made enough sins. Well, they still maybe have a share in the world to come. But if they last another three weeks, they may make one sin. If they make one Jew violate Shabbat, they're finished. So in essence, the quicker they die, the better. So if a person actively gets Jews away from God, not only are you not obligated to do anything good for him, you're not allowed to do anything good for him. The Rambam writes in Hilchot Teshuva, if a missionary comes to you and asks you, "Can you please help me do teshuva?" You're not allowed to help them. Why? You can't trust them. Once he's a missionary, once he's a person that gets people away from Hashem, you don't know if he's real or not, and you're putting yourself in danger. The Gemara Masechet Avodah Zarah says two of the chachamim had to go to a place, but they reached a fork in the road. In one direction, there was a building full of zonot, full of prostitutes. The other direction, there was a building, a church. So one of the chachamim says, okay, let's go in the direction of the church, that way we're not enticed by the prostitutes.

48:52Watch your eyes. The chacham says no. Halacha is you have to go by the prostitutes. Don't go next to the avodah zarah. Why? Because with the prostitutes you could close your eyes. You could run away. You can make it fast. You could overcome your desires, pass it. But avodah zarah, even if you pass next to it, it infects you. Even if your friend He's not teaching you about his avodah zarah, but he's your friend. You hang out with him, and just by being friends with this guy, you are automatically going to be affected. Automatically going to be affected. One last example I'll give you: a woman told me that some of her classmates are having questions about Judaism. I said, "Do they go to a Jewish school?" She said, "Yeah, yeah, they did. It's a Beis Yaakov." Schools there, I said, "How do they have questions about Judaism? I don't know where they're getting these questions, but they keep telling me they have questions about God. Is this, is that, does it make any sense if they go to Beis Yaakov? You’re teaching them Avodah Zarah, teaching them apikorsus, teaching them noach, teaching them sheva mitzvot b'nei Noach. How could they have questions about Hakadosh Baruch Hu? Little by little, we start delving. We eventually start asking the kids, 'Let me ask you, give me some questions.' Start asking questions. 'Where did you get this question from?' 'It was from my teacher.'"

50:10So what do you mean you're a teacher? You go to Beis Yaakov. He goes, yeah, my teacher told me. He goes, what teacher? Oh, this Christine. Who's Christine? She goes, oh, she's my history teacher. Oh, your history teacher is Christine? Your history teacher is a Christian? Your history teacher is a Catholic? She goes, yeah. So instead of teaching you history, she's teaching you Christianity. Yeah, sometimes she says, "Oh, you know, you Jews are different than us. We believe in Jesus; you believe in this." And what happens? All of this went into the kids. Now the kids have questions about Judaism. Why? Because the school made a mistake and hired a Christian to teach the kids. I went and spoke to a couple of people in the academic world just a week ago or so, and... And I asked them, how come many of these yeshivot that I go to and I meet kids, many of them, almost all of them, have Christian teachers for secular studies? What, there's no Jewish people that know math? There's no Jewish people? No science? There's no Jewish people? Of course, you have to teach a little bit of secular knowledge for the person to understand how to live in the world. You need to teach him the language. You need to teach him math. You need to teach him a little history so he knows he didn't come from a monkey. You need some stuff. Okay, fine. But what does a Christian or a Catholic missionary have to teach him this stuff? You can't find a Jew that knows how to bet? And in English, too? You can't find a Jew that knows math? The biggest geniuses in the world in math are Jews!

51:38What happened? All right. Is the epidemic everywhere now? Why? Because everyone is assuming that if we pay this person to teach history, he's gonna teach history. He's not gonna teach about JC Penney. He's not gonna teach about Yoshke. It's only a matter of time. Another group of kids in New York kept giving me atheistic questions. I said, don't you go to yeshiva? He said, yeah. I said, how come all of you, 15 kids, all of you are asking me heretical questions of grown-ups? Because it came from my teacher. I said, what do you mean your teacher? What kind of teacher do you have? He says, yeah, my teacher for science, he's an atheist. I said, what do you mean your teacher is an atheist? How is an atheist teaching in a yeshiva? He goes, he teaches science. I called the principal and said, do you understand you have 15 kids from your school that are almost becoming atheists because of you? He goes, wait, why? I believe in God. I said, yeah, but you are hiring somebody that's an atheist. He goes, oh no, I told him not to tell them anything. He promised me he's not going to express his beliefs.

52:40I said, well, apparently, he's expressing his beliefs, and for the last five months, I've been struggling with these kids. I just never knew why until now. Baruch Hashem, he fired him. He fired him, but he still gave him two weeks. Still gave him two weeks to ruin the kids. Something like that, you throw them right in the garbage pail. Don't even say goodbye. So the point is, Rabotai, is unfortunately sometimes we make common sense mistakes. But the Torah tells us that there are certain people you have to stay away from. If they're haters of the Torah, if they're missionaries, not only do you not need to pray for them, you don't need to help them in any way, but in fact, they are the people that you actually mention, even if you didn't know until now, you're mentioning for them to get destroyed. Why? Because they are a danger to themselves and a danger to society. But if a person simply is not religious, they're secular, but it's because of ignorance, not because they hate God. They're just ignorant. They don't realize that a Mechalel Shabbat has no Olam HaBa. They don't realize that if they continue wasting seed, they have no Olam HaBa. They don't realize that stealing is not only illegal in the country, it's also illegal in the eyes of Hashem. They don't realize, so they do all this stuff.

54:01Person like that, you're obligated to help this person. You're obligated to pray for this person. Gemara Masechet Berachot says don't pray for those people to die; pray for them to do teshuva. So there's two types of people: if they're ignorant, pray to help them, and you yourself help them. If they hate God, they hate the Torah, they hate Judaism, they try to get people away from Hashem, you pray for them to die. In both cases, it's chesed. In both cases, it's true kindness and you understand the depth of what's actually happening here because the guy that's doing wicked things—it's better that he dies. Why? Because at least his punishment would be less. Next question in the back? You have something? Pass the mic to whoever's in the back.

55:06Same price, question, same price. You hear me? I don't have to see you, I just need to hear you. No, but is that thing working or not? What you say into the mic goes into the camera, but I still need to hear it. All right, all right. My question is, I know in Pirkei Avot, it does say that most of the Jewish people have to have two really strong things, which are respect and speaking with very clean words. Okay. Especially when they're rabbis and when they put a kippah on their head. Okay. And also when, you know, they represent Hashem. They have to choose the best word. Just for example, if I want to say, "this thing is beautiful," there are many ways to say beautiful. And let's say I want to say something else, always choose the better word.

56:10that's what I'm saying, because it's very important to speak in clean words. Anytime that we want to say something, of my question for you, how can we try to reach a level? Because, let's say, I grew up on the street and I worked in a lot of different places. And when I came to America... I just went to the street and did business on the street. I saw and recognized the language they spoke, and I said, "Wow, this is a good language. They actually speak my language." But after a while, I started to become... And every time I used the F word and other types of words, the rabbis and the people in the area would tell me, "Ami, listen, in the shul, you cannot even speak this word." Let's say...

57:17For example, I wanted to say to someone that is, you know, not normal, I will choose the most, you know, the most gentle way to say it and not to hurt him. Things like this, you know what I'm saying? To always choose... How do you do all of this? How do you do that? This is my question. How do you clean your language? This is my question. How can we clean the language? You must be careful with your words so your students do not end up in Gehinnom. Now this, we actually had a whole three-hour shiur about this Mishnah, maybe even longer. There are a few different commentaries on it. On one hand, it actually means that you have to be careful with the words that you choose and not be like some of the chachamim that didn't explain themselves. properly. And there are two, and the students ended up becoming heretics before because of, like, Antigonus Ish Socho. He said a few things, and a couple of his students didn't understand them properly, and they ended up becoming heretics—the Sadducees and Boethusians. They both became heretics because he said...

58:33You should serve Hashem without expecting a reward. They thought that there's no reward from each mitzvah, so they said, "Okay, might as well not serve Hashem and serve something else," and so on and so forth. So the Mishnah says you have to be careful. You have to explain yourself very detailed. Don't assume that people understand you. Don't use language that's above and beyond the crowd, and be very, very clear and... There was a guy named Dror Kasuto that caused a lot of problems for Am Yisrael because he actively makes mistakes, but he knows he makes mistakes, but he doesn't care. But when I first discovered that he makes mistakes, he said something in one of his shiurim, and I contacted him. I told him, "You pretty much told people... If the wife doesn't want to go to the mikveh, the husband is still allowed to be with her. This is issur niddah, it's karet. Because no, I didn't mean that, I meant something else. I said, okay, you have to correct yourself because what you're saying and what people understood, because I heard it myself, there's no way what you're telling me that you said. You have to correct yourself. You have to make a whole new shiur correcting yourself. What did he do? He made it worse.

59:47Instead of correcting himself, he made it worse. So that's a person that doesn't care. And unfortunately, there are many people like that, and the reason why they don't care is because they have ga'avah, they have pride, and they always think that they're right, even if they're wrong. So it's very, very important to be clear with what you say, and don't assume that people understand you. You have to pretty much teach everybody as if they don't know anything, from beginning to end. The more clear you are, the better your students will be. On the other hand, there is also a special mitzvah to have clean language. If you notice in the Torah, it speaks in a certain language that's very different from ours. For example, in the entire holy language, there is no word for the male or female member, for the private parts of a male and the private parts of a female. There is no word for it in the Hebrew language. The words that you guys may know in your head, that's modern Hebrew. That's not Torah. Ben-Yehuda made that up, you know, a hundred years ago. That's not Torah. In Torah, there's no word for the male member. You say, no, Gemara says ervah. Ervah means nakedness. It doesn't mean male member. We use it to refer to the male member, but it's not that.

1:01:04...use it also to refer to the female member. It's not that, though. Why? Because the Torah doesn't use dirty language and, in essence, wants us to learn from that. So, when you want to do that, there are a couple of things you need to do. Number one, you need to learn a lot of Torah. A lot. How much is a lot? A lot every day, as much as possible. If you have two hours a day to learn, learn two hours without talking to anybody unless it's Torah. Two hours straight. No phone, no computer, no TV, no nothing. Two hours with HaKadosh Baruch Hu. You have four hours, learn four hours. You have eight hours, learn eight hours. You have to learn a lot every day, no matter what. Just like you eat every day, you have to learn Torah every day. And the reason why is because the Torah, if you learn serious Mussar, serious Torah, not just Halachot, but actually how to fix your character traits, it softens you. And if it softens you and purifies you, Become disgusted by foul language. You become disgusted by the inappropriate language of the streets. Even though I used to say the f-word every two seconds on Wall Street—that's the way you talk on Wall Street. In the Torah world, if I say the f-word, I may go to Gehinnom for a long, long time. Why? That's the way it is.

1:02:22So the point is, as you learn more Torah, it softens your character. The second thing is, you're also going to learn halachot about these specific things, like using foul language. The Gemara says, someone who uses foul language, even if it was decreed for him to have 70 years of blessings, Hashem gets so upset when someone curses, He could turn all 70 years of blessings into 70 years of curses. Hashem Yerachem. Why did he say the F word one time? That's how bad it is in the eyes of Hashem. Why? Hashem says it's the opposite of Me. So the more a person learns Torah, it softens him, plus he understands there's rules. Third, learn the language. Not just the holy language, but learn the actual language of where you live. If you live in America, learn English. Don't be a person that lives in America but still speaks Spanish for 17 years and doesn't know a word of English. Or you speak Hebrew, you've been here in America for 20 years, and you still don't know how to count to 10 in English.

1:03:30You have to learn the language. Take a course, get a book, do something to learn the language. You'll know how to get around, and most importantly, you'll know how to use clean words. Know that, yes, you can say "intimacy." You can say the s-word, which is not a provocative word, but it's not as clean as saying "intimacy." Some people say, "Oh, kosher sex. Oh, there's no problem, right?" People say it's not a big deal. Yeah, it's not a big deal, but technically, if you can say "intimacy," it's much cleaner, it's much more appropriate, and people will still understand what you mean. Meaning, if you learn the language, you'll learn which word to use, which word not to use. If you live in Spain, learn Spanish. If you live in, I don't know, in Zimbabwe, learn the language they speak in Zimbabwe. Wherever you live, learn the language so you know the right vocabulary of how to speak cleanly. Because HaKadosh Baruch Hu is expecting it from you. A lot of people, especially Israelis, come to America, and the first words they learn are curses.

1:04:33In New York, you know, different things like kvodo says the f-word every two seconds. In New York, saying the s-word every one second is so common that some of these people go back to Israel and they say it. "Oh, this is bull this and this is bull that," thinking it's not a big deal. Why? It's bull. No, in America, that's a curse. That's a curse, what you're saying. It's not—it's foul language. So the point is that you need to learn the language in order to use appropriate language. Sometimes I've made mistakes myself. There are certain things that are appropriate language in one place, but in a different place, it's not appropriate language. For example, one of my students said that, you know, he comes from the South. So, in the place that he grew up, one of the words that I used one time, where he comes from, it's inappropriate. According to where I come from, and according to many of the dialects in America and English in general, it's actually an inappropriate word. I'm not going to use it just because of his kavod, but for the rest of the people, I can say the word—it's not a problem. But the point being, rabotai, is that you shouldn't use a language you don't need to. Use words appropriately, use your words carefully. And step number five, and the last one if I counted correctly, is...

1:05:53Choose your words carefully and don't be abrupt. Let people finish talking before you speak. Listen to the idea and think for at least a couple of seconds before you say what you want to say. People like to hear themselves talk so much that they don't even let other people talk. They just want to say something. Sometimes people make a comment on the videos that we make without even watching the video. They just decided that this video is going to say such and such because of the title or because of the picture that we chose. They decide they already know the entire video. It's such ridiculousness, but it happens every day to all of us. We don't listen to the other person, we don't let the other person speak, and we don't even let ourselves think. So we say things abruptly to the extent where our emotions take control of things. And we lose our minds. We say things out of emotion instead of out of common sense. When you're emotional, you're much more likely to curse. When you're emotional, you're much more likely to yell. When you're emotional, you're much more likely to do things that are inappropriate. So it's very important to take it easy. If you think about what you're going to say for a couple of seconds, the world's not going to end. No, no, but I need to let him... Okay, two seconds is not going to... Three seconds, even one minute. It's okay.

1:07:14It's going to be okay. The world is going to be okay if you wait a few seconds and think about your thoughts before you say them. Many times people ask me questions. Sometimes I answer relatively quickly. Sometimes I take a while to answer, even if I know the answer. Why? Because I have to think about it to see if this answer is appropriate for that person. Because it's not always black and white. It's not always allowed, not allowed. Sometimes it's allowed for one person, not allowed for another person. You have to think, who's this person? What do I know about them? What do I remember about them? And so on and so forth. You have to take your time. You have to be very patient. But if you're going to constantly talk back and forth and think that you're in some type of debate and that the first one to speak wins, you're going to make a lot of mistakes to the point where you're literally just destroying yourself. It's better you don't talk at all. That's why HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave you two ears and one mouth. Listen double the amount of time that you speak. Next question. How about if you could bring the mic to the front, please? And by the way, learning English is very, very simple in comparison to learning Hebrew. It's worlds apart. So learning English, I mean, you take a little bit of time, five minutes a day. After a year or two, you'll be speaking English perfectly well. You may have an accent, but an accent doesn't make it incorrect.

1:08:39You just need to speak appropriate English or whatever other language that you have. Yes? How big is the Livyatan? The Sefer Bereishit has almost an endless amount of Midrashim. because some of the most vague things, some of the most extraordinary, mystical things that we can learn come from Bereishit, come from the creation of the world. And many of them say that when HaKadosh Baruch Hu created the world, there were certain creatures that were created then that don't exist today. For example, taninim ha'gedolim means huge reptiles. Huge reptiles mean dinosaurs. That was one of the first things that really interested me in the Torah because I realized that there are dinosaurs. It's just not the same thing as the scientists say. Scientists think that they're billions of years old and they looked certain ways. The Torah describes them relatively differently, but nonetheless, they did exist. But unlike what scientists say, where they existed at a time before man, dinosaurs actually existed at the same time as men. There were dinosaurs in the world and people in the world at the same time, and

1:09:52The beautiful part is that there are many, many scientists who have come to this realization, and the reason why is because they found different archaeological findings where they saw that in Zimbabwe and in other places in South America, there are actually drawings in caves of people and dinosaurs. How do the people have a picture of the dinosaur here, meaning that they knew what they looked like? How did they know what they looked like? Scientists thought that they discovered them 300 years ago when they dug in the ground. They saw a really big bone and then, little by little, discovered the whole world of dinosaurs. But in reality, the dinosaurs were in the world at the same time as people. Now, of course, there are many heretics that will want to tear my head off for saying what I'm saying, but good luck to you in doing that. There's more proof to what I'm saying than anything that other people say now. As far as one of the huge creations was the animal called the Leviathan. Now, HaKadosh Baruch Hu decided that initially, even though there were two creations, a male and a female, He killed one of them. And the reason why is because He did not want them to procreate. Because He knew that if they procreated, they would create huge creatures that would destroy the world. So He created, He had only one. And it actually says in Tehillim, also mentions it in the Sefer Iyov.

1:11:16Leviathan is Hashem's pet. Hashem plays with it, whatever that means. Hashem plays with the Leviathan. And the Leviathan is going to be the feast that we are going to eat at the time of Mashiach. Those that survive, those that do teshuva, are going to eat the Leviathan. So there are many midrashim. Now, as far as the size of the Leviathan, there are several midrashim that discuss it. One of them that I remember reading is ...says that there is an opinion that the Leviathan is 974 miles long, meaning the Leviathan is bigger than most countries. It's enormous. So now you're going to say, "Wait a minute, if it's so big, how come we can't see it?" On the contrary, it's so big it looks like a piece of land moving... Better yet, you should also know that over 71% of the globe is water. We don't even know everything about the land. The 29% that we live on, we don't know everything about it either. We don't know even anything about half of it. We haven't even explored half of the land. Needless to say, we haven't explored the entire 71% part of the water. Meaning that it could be in plain sight. We just haven't been zocheh (merited) to see it. When you see it, you're not going to be so happy. I can promise you that.

1:12:39The Leviathan is a very interesting creature. He's not going to be friendly to you though, unless you're a tzaddik. But the point is, rabotai, that it's very, very big and HaKadosh Baruch Hu is reserving it for the time of Mashiach. There are some midrashim that say it's smaller or bigger, but the point being is that we're only going to find out later on, but it's enormous nonetheless. Some even say it's not really an actual physical being, but rather it's an angel. Some say there is an opinion that it is an angel. It's not actually a physical being. The point being is that there are certain midrashim and certain things in the creation that we're simply not going to have the answer to until Mashiach arrives. The only thing we have answers to are things that actually matter to our day-to-day life. Yes, next question. You said yesterday that one of the worst things to do is to get angry, right? Yes. So the first thing to understand is that to say, "I have a certain deficiency and I can't help it," is at least the dust of kefirah, if not kefirah mamash. It's dust of kefirah meaning...

1:14:05it's saying that HaKadosh Baruch Hu created you just to sin. What is this like? Baruch Hashem, everybody here has parents, and I'm assuming everybody here knows that their parents love them. Now, every normal parent, that's a human being, not a divine being, human being never going to give a task, give an obligation to their child if they know for sure that the child cannot do it. Meaning there's no parent in the world that will tell their five-year-old kid to lift an 18-wheeler truck over his head. Why? Because that would mean that the parent hates the kid because he's setting up the kid to fail. He knows that the kid cannot lift an 18-wheeler truck over his head, and So why even bother telling him to do it? So that means that if the parent knows that the kid can't do something, he's not going to obligate the kid to do it. He's not going to say, "Either lift the 18-wheeler truck or the airplane over your head, or I'm going to punish you." He's not going to do that. Why? Because he knows that there's no way that the kid can achieve this. Needless to say, if the parent, which is the creation, knows not to treat his child

1:15:26this way, the Creator, the real Abba in Shamayim, is also not going to do this to His son or His daughter. He's never going to tell you to do something that you really can't do. If He says in the Torah, you're not allowed to be angry, that means that you have the possibility, the ability to not be angry. That doesn't mean that it'll be easy for you. Because you could have a predisposition for anger. You could be an angry person. I myself am an angry person. Moshe Rabbeinu was an angry person. I could be the dust under Moshe Rabbeinu, maybe. But the point being that Moshe Rabbeinu, as we learned last week, was born with the worst middot in the world. All of the bad middot that exist, Moshe Rabbeinu had them. The reason why he became Moshe Rabbeinu, as the Ohr HaChaim HaKadosh says, is because he fixed his middot. He overcame his middot because of his yirat shamayim. That's what the Ohr HaChaim HaKadosh says. So now, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says don't be angry, don't be stingy, don't be arrogant, don't be this, don't be that, be this, be that, okay? So that means that you can do it even though it's hard for you. So, if He says that you can do it, that means you can. Does it mean it's easy? No. But that's why there's a reward for it.

1:16:42So how do you do it? You have to learn about it. You have to learn that it's not good to be angry. You have to learn how to overcome your anger. You have to learn how to control your anger. And that takes some time. There are many, many sefarim in the Torah that discuss these issues of how to work on each and every single middah. Unfortunately, most of them are in Hebrew, but nonetheless, there are literally millions of sefarim discussing different aspects of the Torah. You could start reading today and read 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for a million years, and you still would not finish the sefarim that are in this world today. That's how many sefarim there are available from Klal Yisrael. The point being, there are surely sefarim that will teach you how to overcome your anger. One of the most critical things to learn is Musar. because Musar is overall character development that will teach you how to soften your character and how to control yourself, and how to not be an animal that acts on impulse. Animals act on impulse. Human beings are supposed to act based on what they think, based on what their brain says they're supposed to do, not based on their impulse and what they feel like doing. So when a person learns Musar,

1:17:59a person develops their character, softens themselves, realizes he has to be more kind, realizes he has to be more gentle, realizes he has to be more patient, he's going to learn different tools of how to do it. A few simple tools that you can do right away so that tomorrow, already tomorrow, you're less angry. Already tomorrow. Some things will take you a long time, but already tomorrow you can be less angry. Number one, before you say anything, if you're naturally an angry person, before you respond to anyone, Everyone, if somebody said something to you that makes your blood boil, like instead of answering him, you'd rather take his head and put it on a pedestal, maybe make it a camera or something, before you answer him, say, "Let me get back to you in a minute." Wait one minute. One minute. Look at your watch. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, sixty seconds, and...

1:19:01Guess what? In 60 seconds, you're already at least 50% less angry. Why? You waited. It gave you enough time to digest the information. Realize it may not necessarily be as bad as it sounded. Realize that maybe you shouldn't respond that way. Realize that there are people watching. Realize that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is watching. Realize that it's wrong to do this. You're realizing a lot of things in a minute. Automatically, you do this, you're much less angry. Much less angry, at least 50% less angry. Two, don't be so sensitive. Don't take things so seriously. Somebody called you a name, so what? Remember, in the end, they're going to become lunch for the worms and the maggots. Why do you care about their opinion so much? People get offended by people's comments all the time. Oh, you said this about me, so what if he said this about you? So what? He's gonna be lunch. He's gonna be, you know, a McDonald's sandwich one day for the maggots. What do you care about his opinion if he calls you names? If he's a good person, he's a tzaddik, and he said something to you that's awful, that means there's something wrong with you, not him. But if he's an awful person, and he's calling you names, she's calling you names, why do you care about their opinion? Third, and last one, you should know that the mekubalim say in the Reshit Chochmah and several other places that...

1:20:28that someone who takes an insult and does not respond becomes partners with Hashem. Just like in the Sefer Iyov, HaKadosh Baruch Hu talks to Iyov, and Iyov says, This world has complaints and so on and so forth. But then the Sefer Iyov says, what is the world standing on? Nothing. There's nothing that's holding the globe, keeping it spinning at 1,600 miles per hour approximately. Wherefore, if it would stop spinning, we would be in a lot of trouble. If it spun the other way, we would be in even more trouble. If it went one degree closer to the sun, we would burn to death. If it goes one degree further from the sun, we would freeze to death. Meaning, what is this globe, this sphere that's spinning in the same place at 1,647 miles per hour? What's doing it? Nothing other than the Kadosh Baruch Hu. There's no pole that's holding it. You're going to try to spin a basketball on your finger. You may be able to do it, but guess what? You're going to have to keep moving it on your own. If you stop after a while, the basketball is going to fall. And either way, you're going to have to hold it with your finger at least. Something's going to have to hold it. The globe that's much, much bigger than the basketball, nothing's holding it other than the Kadosh Baruch Hu. And you can't say it's gravity. There's no gravity. So now...

1:21:54Hashem says the world stands on nothing, meaning, "I'm holding the world, but who helps Me? If you will, who helps Me hold the world? Someone that acts like Me. Who acts like Me? Someone that's insulted and doesn't respond right away, doesn't respond at all." Why? People insult Hashem 24 hours a day, seven days a week, since the beginning of creation and unfortunately, probably until the end. There are people that have entire websites against Hashem. There are people that have entire lifestyles that are against Hashem. There are people that literally say they believe in God, but they have Buddha statues in their living room. There are people that go against Hashem actively. Hashem doesn't respond to them right away. He gives them freedom of choice. He lets them do whatever they want to do. Eventually, they're going to have to pay the bill. But He gives them the opportunity to make the right or the wrong decision. He says, if you act like me, you don't respond to your wife after she insults you. You don't respond to your husband right after he gives you a reason to respond to him because he's insulting. You don't respond. You're like me. You'll be my partner. You're holding up that second that the world is spinning because of you. So that's the third thing that you should know: When you're angry and you don't respond, you actually have a very, very precious merit. We should all say thank you to you because the world stood because of you.

1:23:22There are many, many segulot, and many stories of people who had miracles performed in their lives because they received a blessing from someone who contains their anger. Someone who is insulted publicly and doesn't respond. If you ever see it, you go to him or her and ask, "Please, give me a bracha." Why? Because you are a partner with Hashem. Please give me a bracha. It's a very famous story. Rav Kanievsky told the guy... The only way you can have kids is if you get a blessing from somebody who doesn't respond after being insulted. This guy says, "I'm going to find somebody." Rav Kanievsky says, "If you want, I'm going to send it to you." One day, he went to a wedding, and one of the people there got insulted, like, something disgusting. The guy was cursing him, insulting him, and he wasn't responding, wasn't responding. Everybody thought he was going to lose his mind, probably kill the other guy. Not responding, not responding, he's going on and on and on and on and on. After the guy finished his steam, a few minutes of insulting this guy, he stopped, waiting for the guy to respond. As he was about to respond, this guy that hasn't had a kid in his life, he's been waiting for a kid for 15 years, never had a kid, jumped in front of him on his knees and begged, "Please, please, don't respond, don't respond, please, please don't respond." He goes, "Who are you? What do you want from me? I don't even know you." He goes, "No, please, I beg you, I beg you, don't respond to him. Don't respond to him, I'll do anything."

1:24:43Okay, fine. I won't respond. I won't respond. What do you want from me? He goes, okay, now give me a blessing. What? Me give you a blessing? He goes, please give me a blessing. I'm going to have a kid. I said, okay, b'ezrat Hashem, you're going to have a kid. He had a kid that year. He had a kid that year. He goes, why did you say that? He goes, Rav Kanievsky told me that's a segula. You find somebody that's publicly insulted and doesn't respond, go ask them for a bracha. Why? They're partners with Hashem. That's what the Sifrei HaKedoshim say. Next question. The mic, whoever has the mic, please forward it to the front. Does someone have the mic? Somebody give me water, please. Hashem chose us because we are... Why did He choose us? It seems like we're the most difficult.

1:25:47So what's the point? Most people think that Am Yisrael is like all the other nations, but in reality, Am Yisrael, whether you were born a Jew or you converted to Judaism, you're not considered like other people. You're, in essence, considered a different species and ...every way possible, meaning just like you have a lion, he's in the same family as the tiger to some extent, right? And the snake is in the same family as, let's say, one of these, uh, whatever these big lizards you have here in, uh, in Florida—these, uh, little dragons that you have here. They're the same family, right? So, a Jew and a non-Jew... They're not the same species. It's not the same family. It's different things. They look the same. They act, as you know, sometimes the same, but they're not the same species. This was created at Mount Sinai. Now, when HaKadosh Baruch Hu instilled the neshamot into Bnei Yisrael, when they accepted the Torah, they got it for a certain reason.

1:27:10They got it not because of their righteousness, as it says in Sefer Devarim and many other places. They didn't become the chosen people because they were large or smart or funny. They got it because of their forefathers, Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. That's why they got it. Hashem chose us because of the righteousness of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. Because we are connected to them, we have the right to serve Hashem at the highest possible level. But that also obligates us. If you are an average person and you feel like walking around with shorts and a tank top, no problem. Most people are not going to say anything to you. If you're an average woman and you want to work for the sanitation department, cleaning out the garbages, no problem. You'll probably make a good living, maybe $70,000, $80,000, or $90,000 a year. No one's going to say anything to you. If you're an average person and you want to walk dogs for a living, picking up their poop so the neighbors don't complain, no problem. You can make a good living doing it. I remember when I used to have a dog in New York, I used to have to pay my dog walker $150 a week.

1:28:36Good walk you are. You walk 10 dogs at a time. You're making thousands of dollars. A guy opened a whole company out of it. No problem. You want to pick up dog poop for a living? No problem. No one's going to say anything to you. But if you are the son of the king or the daughter of the king, you do not have the right to pick up poop for a living. You do not have the right to clean garbage for a living. You do not have the right to walk around with a t-shirt or tank top and shorts. Why? You're the son of the king. The king says you represent me. You represent me. You have to look like me. You have to act like me. Why? Because you're representing the palace. You have to walk around like a rich person. You have to walk around like a prince. You have to walk around like a princess. You have to act a certain way. You have to be a certain way. If you're the king's son, you don't have the ability. You're not allowed to go work for any sanitation department. You could buy the sanitation department if you want, but you can't work in a sanitation department. I'm talking about a physical king. Now, Am Yisrael, the fact that we are the descendants of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, which the Gemara in Masechet Yoma says they actually fulfilled all of the mitzvot even before Matan Torah. They already had access to the entire Oral Torah, and they fulfilled all of the mitzvot of the Torah before Matan Torah. Still, they did not keep Shabbat 100%; they kept it 99% because they knew that the Torah says that unless

1:30:05You are a hundred percent. You know you're part of the nation that accepted the Torah at Mount Sinai. You're a hundred percent Jew. You're not allowed to keep Shabbat. So Avraham Avinu would violate Shabbat by creating a cow every Shabbat, the Zohar says. The point being is because Avraham Avinu, Yitzchak Avinu, and Yaakov Avinu were so extraordinary, and you are their descendants. You are, in essence, a different species than the rest of mankind. Even if you converted last week or yesterday, or you're going to convert tomorrow or in 10 years from now, whenever you do, the second that Jewish neshama enters your body, you no longer have the same freedom to do whatever you please as the rest of mankind. Why? You're of a different species. You're of a different family. You're now part of the chosen people. now have a certain obligation because our nature is to always want the things that we can't get naturally. Our evil inclination will always want us to do the opposite of what we're supposed to do because our abilities are superior to others. This is not racism versus the rest of mankind.

1:31:23This is reality. There's nothing racist about it. You look at even people that have done research on discoveries and achievements by Jewish people versus the rest of the people in the world. There's no comparison between Science would virtually not exist without Jewish people. Mathematics would virtually not exist and develop without Jewish people. The Nobel Prize winners that exist in the world—actually, people that have won the Nobel Prize per capita—no nation has won more Nobel Prizes than the Jewish people. Per capita, number-wise, obviously we have America, but the point is, per capita, no one is like the Jewish people. Discoveries in the world—no one discovered more than the Jewish people. Contributions to the world. No one contributed to the world more than the Jewish people. It's just a reality. Why? We have a bigger obligation. So Hashem uses us for certain things. We are not only obligated to serve Him but also to help the rest of mankind get closer to Him, to have a better world.

1:32:24So it's not just about fulfilling Torah and mitzvot and going to a kollel, it's also about building a world that helps society. You're not allowed to steal from Jews, but you're even more not allowed to steal from non-Jews. You have to be good to Jews; you have to be good to non-Jews as well. So the point is that that superiority, if you will, doesn't make you better. It gives you a bigger responsibility. And now that you are given more tools, you have to use them accordingly. If you don't, your punishment is much more severe and If a person is given by his boss, "Listen, we have a petty cash box. Make sure that no one overuses it. Anyone that wants to buy lunch, you'll give them whatever money they want to buy lunch. You have a petty cash box. I'm going to put $1,000 in it, but make sure that it's filled all the time and so on and so forth. Anytime somebody wants to buy lunch, they don't have something on their way, listen, can you do me a favor? Give me $10 from the box," and you're managing the petty cash box.

1:33:31If you make a mistake and one guy says, "Listen, I want to go to lunch with the guys, give me the whole $1,000," and you give the $1,000, the boss is not going to be happy with you. But most likely, he's probably not going to fire you. If you're a decent person everywhere else, most likely he's not going to fire you. You didn't bankrupt the company. You made a mistake. It's terrible. You're a fool. But in essence, it's not the end of the world. You made a mistake. Okay, fine. If the rest of what you do is okay, most likely you're going to get another chance. Most likely. Why? Because your mistake was still contained. On the other hand, if the same boss gives you a $5 billion trading account, and he says, "Listen, only buy bonds with this account." are from treasuries from the US government, that the maximum risk we're going to take is 1%, and so on and so forth. Don't buy anything else, just this. And you decide to go start buying Pokémon cards, and you go buy some dresses for your wife, and you go start buying day trading stocks and penny stocks and Bitcoins, and chairs for different people, and you go start buying cars from people, and you go through a billion and a half dollars in a week, and...

1:34:42Now, that boss not only is going to fire you, you're going to jail for a really, really long time. Why? You were given a bigger responsibility. Hence, the damage for violating that responsibility is much greater. So, when people get offended that you say that Jews are superior in many cases, first of all, it's not generally everywhere. There are many, many non-Jews There are fantastic human beings, many non-Jews who are amazing, many non-Jews who are geniuses. But, you know, nonetheless, that doesn't change the facts; that doesn't change the generality. But it also doesn't change the point. The point is Jews have been given a certain gift but also a certain responsibility because of that gift. And And that's what a Jew needs to think about. It's not that, oh, I have this, this, this, and this, and that, and therefore I can do whatever I want. No, no, it's the opposite. The fact that you're the king's son or king's daughter means that you now have to care more about society than the average person. You can't just ignore the fact that there is hunger in your street. You have to care about people. Next question.

1:36:08understand what you mean by a "species," can you elaborate? Because some people think you mean that they're totally different, like in the physical sense, a different race. Okay, maybe race, I don't know. But it's like a sensitive word. People who are indoctrinated in public schools, and so "species" means a certain thing. When you say "species"... as if it's not a human being? People, those types of people, usually don't watch many of my shiurim. Usually, they watch one, get angry, and then stop. In essence, when we talk about Klal Yisrael versus the rest of the world, we're talking about the one thing that will exist forever, which is your neshama, the one thing that has existed in the past and the one thing that's going to exist in the future. Your body is just a vessel.

1:37:17that's gonna become lunch one day for worms and maggots. We put no value whatsoever on this body. In fact, the more righteous a person is, the more he abuses his body because of how much he's toiling and working to serve Hashem. Many of the tzaddikim apologize to their body before they pass away when they're older. Why? Because of how much damage they put their body through serving HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Staying up really late, sleeping very little, not fulfilling every desire that the body has, and so on and so forth. The point being is that when you compare the neshama of a Jew versus the neshama of a non-Jew, we're talking about worlds apart. So, the Jewish people are the only people that don't have a look. As I said in the shiur on Hoshanah Rabbah, many people think that Jewish people have a look. This only means that you're uneducated. Because Jewish people do not have a look. There are two proofs. One proof: the Sefarim HaKedoshim, one specific one is the Zohar HaKadosh, says that the look of a Jew is influenced by the air that he breathes, the atmosphere he breathes. Meaning that wherever the Jew lives, over time that Jew will start looking like the people of that place.

1:38:42Second proof that is easy to prove today is because of technology. Pretty much every point of land that has a civilization has a cameraman, because anyone that has a phone is now officially a cameraman. And because of this, we've had the merit to meet many Jews from around the globe, and we see that what it says in the Torah is actually a hundred percent fact, not theory. I have students in Nigeria that are 100% Black, who look like the Black people of Nigeria. But these people are 100% Jews, just like you and me. I have people in India, kehillot of three to four thousand people; they look like the Indian people, the Hindu people that live in India. They don't look like you and me, and guess what? They're 100% Jews, just like you and me. They put on tefillin, they have a Beit Knesset... They eat kosher and so on and so forth. Some are more religious, some are less religious. But nonetheless, the look, the physicality of the people, if you saw them in the street without a kippah, you would think this person is for sure Hindu. He's from India. It's not like you would think, oh no, he looks Jewish. There is no Jewish look.

1:39:56You go to Manipur, another part of India. You see that there is a different type of looking. They look slightly more Asian. I have a bunch of students over there. We sent them a few thousand CDs; they learn our Torah over there. They look like them. I have people in Australia; they look like them. I have people in Israel; they look like them. People in Europe look like them. People in America look like them. People think that because they saw Woody Allen and Seinfeld on TV, that's the Jewish look. No, that just means you watch TV and you watch your American TV. That's all that means. That doesn't mean that Jews look like that. You go to Israel, you're gonna see every type of Jew. You go to different parts of America, you see every type of Jew. You go to different parts of Europe, you see every type of Jew. There is no Jewish look. This is the reason why it's actually ridiculous when Jewish people complain about people making fun of their looks or them not fitting in because they look a certain way. Like I mentioned Oshana Abba, this one guy that calls himself Manis the Menace, and a few other people that are Jewish—that their 15 minutes of fame is complaining about prejudice and racism within the Jewish world because they're black or they're green or they're yellow or whatever they are. They're burgundy or they're Sephardic or they're Ashkenazi or whatever they are and

1:41:17Somebody's making fun of them. Guess what? They're not making fun of you because you're black. They're not making fun of you because you look Asian. They're not making fun of you because you look like me, like you just came from Hamas. They're not making fun of you like you look like a piece of white paper that came from Europe. No, they're not making fun of you because of that. You know why they're making fun of you? Because God said so, and... That's why they're making fun of you. God said so. I want you to go make fun of him. Why? I want to see what he does. I want to see if he still loves Me after people make fun of him. I want to see how he reacts after people make fun of him because he looks like he's from Yemen, but in reality he's from Tripoli. He looks like he's from Tripoli, but in reality he's Russian. They're making fun of you because I said so. If you're gonna take this and use it as your 15 minutes of fame, you're gonna complain about it on the internet all day. You're gonna talk to people about it. You're gonna want special privileges because you're darker-skinned or lighter-skinned or whatever skin you are. You, my friend, are a fool, an ignorant fool. You not only think that Jews have a look, which means you have absolutely no knowledge whatsoever of Torah, but on top of it, you have no belief in HaKadosh Baruch Hu running the world.

1:42:40Last but not least, you're letting the yetzer hara win by allowing it to occupy so much time in your mind, so much of your energy, so much of your life by being consumed with this. If they don't like you and make fun of you for whatever reason, go somewhere else. Who says you have to be there? Go somewhere else. Go find new friends. The Rambam says if you're surrounded by the reshaim, go to the desert and... Make your best friend as the scorpion and the snake. Not literally go to the desert, but in essence, make your life a desert, only allowing limited people to enter your life. Limited people that you allow into it. You don't have to be friends with everybody. Everybody thinks that you go to a community and everyone's supposed to love you. The Mashiach would come already if that happened. Sinat chinam has been going on for a couple of thousand years. Unfortunately, it hasn't been solved. It hasn't even been touched. The liberalism of the world, where "no, we accept everyone," is complete bogus. No one accepts everyone. Most people do not accept everyone. The only people that accept everyone are tzaddikim. Why? They don't see color. They don't see size. They don't see any of that stuff. They see neshama. Who are you inside?

1:44:08And this brings me to a few points that I want to mention. One of the problems that we have today is that we're so consumed with our own desires, with our own wants, with how people view us, with what people think of us, that we forget that we are part of a people, that we forget that we're servants of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Whether you like it or not, you're a servant of Hashem. You could simply be a good one or a bad one. Some servants serve Hashem like they're supposed to, so they're considered tzaddikim or tzaddikot. They're good servants. Some don't serve Hashem like He wants; they do whatever they want. So Hashem says, okay, they're bad ones. They're gonna get punished for it eventually, but either way, you're a servant of Hashem whether you like it or not. The question is, how much are you gonna get paid at the end? gonna get paid a few slaps, a few punches, a little bit of fire, or you're paid an infinity of good. That all depends on how good of a servant you are. But nonetheless, you live in His world; He doesn't live in your world. You're part of His nation; He's not part of your nation.

1:45:16you're so consumed with what people think of you, what color your skin is, and how much money you make, whether you have a big house, whether you're Sephardi or Ashkenazi, or you daven this way or that way, whether you know Hebrew or don't know Hebrew. All of that is bogus. The only thing you need to know is how to serve Hashem by following His Torah. That's the only thing you need to know. By focusing on everything else, you're ruining your own life. what happens is you get to a point where you're so self-absorbed and consumed with your own craziness that you call a life that you forget that other people live in the world. What's the outcome of it? We live in a generation of careless people. People could literally live next door to each other, never even saying hello. People could literally live on the same block for 15 years but never know each other's names. I had a guy call me a few months ago. He says, "Listen, I need your help. I need to learn what to do. My mom died. I"

1:46:31said, "Okay, finally, what happened?" Because now we found her dead. But what do you mean you found her dead? Because, well, I went to the apartment to visit her and I found that she was already dead. So, what, she died that day? He goes, "No, no. She was probably dead for a few weeks." Hashem yirachem. The only reason they discovered it is because of the stench that comes from the body after it dies and The neighbors started smelling something and said, "Yo, listen, there's something wrong with this house." They came and discovered a dead person on the floor. This is happening almost weekly. Sometimes we're so consumed with ourselves that we forget. Humankind in general is so consumed with ourselves that your next-door neighbor could die, and no one would ever say, "You know what? I haven't seen Steve leave his house in a week." No one knows, no one cares because everyone cares about no one. They didn't give me my seat in the shul because I'm black. Oh no, they didn't give me a parking spot because I'm not rich enough. Oh no, they didn't give me an aliyah because I'm Ashkenazi. I'm Sephardi. We're so consumed with ourselves. We're so egotistical. We see everything about ourselves. We can literally have a next-door neighbor die, and we don't even notice it. A kid doesn't show up to school for three weeks, and no one asks the question.

1:47:56No one says, "Wow, where's David? I haven't seen David in a month. Maybe somebody should check it out." No one does that anymore. You could literally pass by each other without saying hello. Why? Who cares about him? A guy shows up to your community—nothing. No, listen, this is not nothing. Unfortunately, sometimes secular people are much more friendly than religious people and... You go to some religious communities. Oh, what? You're not Chabad? Forget it. Go, go. Oh, what? You're not Breslov? Oh, you're not this Chassidus? Oh, you're not that one? Oh, you don't believe in this rabbi? You don't believe in that? You're not exactly the same as them? It's like, oh, okay. So you're like, am I a goy? No, I'm a Jew. What are you talking about? Oh, so, yeah, yeah. You could say that. Bless your heart. Bless your heart. You could say that. In so many ways, you're saying you're an idiot. You think you're, you're not like me, can't be. Why? Because you're not wearing a hat this way. You're not wearing a hat that way. Your beard is not this way. Your beard is not that way. Your jacket is not this way. It's all nonsense. We're all so consumed with ourselves that we don't see the world around us. Now, the problem is, Rabotai Yekarim, that the Gemara in Masechet Nedarim says that anyone who doesn't visit the sick is considered as if he spilled blood. He's considered as if he's a murderer.

1:49:23You know somebody is sick—your friend, family. You know he's sick. Not sick like he has a cold and he's coming back tomorrow. Sick. Something happened. You don't visit him, and you have the ability to visit him. There's a very big rebuke against you in Shamayim. Why? Because to be a Jew, you have a responsibility to bring good to the world. The world means your spouse, the world means your children, the world means your friend, your colleague, your employee, the storyteller, everyone. You're supposed to bring good to the world, supposed to care about other people, not be so selfish and consumed with your own desires all day. I'm not going. Why? You're not going where I want. Yeah, but you said you wanted to eat, right? Yeah, we're going to a restaurant. Okay. Yeah, but you're not going to the restaurant I want. Yeah, but there's 18 people; 17 chose that restaurant. Why can't you just go? If it's not the restaurant I want, I'm not going. You know how many times that happens? A whole group of people wants to go one place, one guy doesn't want to go, and the whole thing breaks up. Why? He ruins the whole thing. There's an argument. "I don't feel hungry anymore. I'll see you in my house."

1:50:44Who wants to deal with this? Why? Because he's so consumed with himself. She's so consumed with herself that if you don't choose her choice, it's not good enough. It's not good. The problem is that sometimes it can get really bad to the point where you could completely ignore reality. It starts becoming admirable when you see someone helping somebody poor and How many of us have seen these videos that have garnered tens of millions of likes and views simply because some average guy decided to give a few dollars or decided to give a meal to some homeless guy? And the news makes a whole thing of it: "Wow, what a tzaddik, he fed the homeless!" Wow, what an amazing person, he gave the poor guy a hundred dollars. Wow, what an amazing person, he let the ducks cross the road. Wow, he's so special. We're going to put him on TV. Why? Because he invited someone to be sheltered so he's not rained on? They make such a big deal out of what? Simple kindness that's expected from you anyway.

1:52:09you're supposed to do that stuff. You see a homeless guy, you have the ability to help him, help him! There's no special credit for it. The problem is, rabotai yekarim, that we've become such a careless people, a careless nation, a careless civilization as a whole, a careless species, that simple gratitude or generosity or kindness has become like an anomaly, has become something like, wow. Wow, you helped a poor person by giving them a job? You're special. We're going to have you on every single news station for the next three weeks so the whole world finds out how great you are. Now, as a side note, it's important to know that when someone does something good,

1:53:10We actually do need to publicize them, even if they don't want to. The Rashba, who lived about 750 years ago, Rabbi Shlomo ben Aderet, says that you're actually obligated to publicize someone who does a big chesed and people don't know. If someone does a significant good deed for the people and it goes unnoticed, you need to make it known. Why? He says, for two reasons. One, this person, once he sees that everyone is recognizing him, he says, "Wow, good job that you did. You saved that boy. Wow, you saved that girl. Wow, you did this." All that credit is going to give him what? Motivation to do it again. Motivation to do it again. So that's good. The second reason is that it will teach others to follow in his footsteps. So, publicizing kindness is a good thing. That's not a problem. Publicizing those kind people that gave the homeless guy money is good. The problem is that there aren't a zillion of those stories. That's the problem. The problem is that it is a story because it's so rare. There are some people that literally have made a fortune of money, built empires based on what? Making videos of how careless people are.

1:54:38They make sure they have somebody put on a costume as if they're dying in the middle of the street. You know, the acting, the clothes, and so on, and they look like they're dying in the middle of New York, just to see how many people help them. The despicable behavior of people makes you mamash want to vomit. You almost wish that you were a lion that could eat these people instead of a human being, and... Like, you see these people, they see the guy, tell them, please, I'm dying, I'm dying. He's acting, but they don't know he's acting. Well, they walk over him. Not like they don't see it. They see the guy, they hear him. They literally walk over him. Like, ugh. No care in the world, the guy's dying. Why? His color of skin, his nationality, his financial stature, whatever excuse people have to make themselves feel good for being sinners and disgusting. Why? Because we're careless about everybody else except ourselves. Being selfish is not a mitzvah. It's the opposite. Now, on the other hand,

1:55:55If a person wants to do teshuva, it's simple and difficult at the same time. It's simple because the task is simple. Start caring about everyone except yourself only. Don't make yourself the center of attention all the time. Care about other people. Other people live in the world. You have a mom and dad, care about them, take care of them. You have a wife, you have a husband, take care of them. You have children, take care of them. You have colleagues, you have work, you have partners, you have people that live in your world. Help people. You see there are opportunities to help, but don't wait for people to come to you begging. Oh, he didn't ask, so I didn't help. Why does he have to ask? Why, you didn't notice that his kids were walking around with ripped clothes? You have to ask him, are you struggling with money? You see the guy hasn't worked. He hasn't left his house in three months. He can't get a job. Obviously, at this point, he's probably struggling for money. Ask him, listen, you need help? Here, take a thousand bucks. Give it back to me when you have it. Why do you have to wait for people to beg you? You have a few extra dollars. Why don't you take those few extra dollars instead of buying another watch or fancying your car or the 13th couch?

1:57:09Instead of that, take that money and go help people do teshuva. Help them return to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Help people that are struggling financially. Help people that don't have food to eat. What are you saving for a rainy day? Who says you're going to live to see rain? People care less about everybody else. Everyone cares about themselves. If you want to do teshuva for it, first and foremost, every day, spend a few minutes doing something for other people. Every day. Not once a week. Oh, yeah, once a week I bake challah for people. Okay, chazak u'baruch. Once a week you're doing good for other people. What about the other six days? I'm not saying you have to bake challah seven days a week. I'm not saying you have to give rides to people like you're a free Uber seven days a week. But every day you could do something for somebody. Sometimes it's simply giving them a smile. Sometimes it's calling them and asking them, "How are you doing?" Sometimes it's sending a text message and inviting them to a shiur. Just simply be kind to people and stop thinking about yourself so much.

1:58:17And if you do that, guess what? Aside from that helping you as far as a mitzvah, aside from that being a good thing to do and publicizing HaKadosh Baruch Hu's name, it also is something that could save people's lives. Now I'm going to tell you a few stories. It was worth it to come to the world, not just to the shiur. It was worth it to come to the world just to listen to these stories. Every one of these stories is real. We're gonna finish with this, but these stories, each one's gonna take a few minutes. But I promise you, it was worth it to come to the world to listen to these stories. Story number one: one of our dear friends, one of the avreichim in Yerushalayim, Rav Halimi, told the story to Rav Ephraim about a tzaddik by the name of Rav Yosef Paduch. Rav Yosef Paduch was an ish kadosh, an ish tzadik, a few decades ago. And he... had a custom. He lived in Tel Aviv before Tel Aviv became the To'eivat Hashem that it became today. He had a custom. What was his custom? His custom was never to learn Torah by himself. He learned Torah, but never by himself. Always study with somebody.

1:59:38Usually, he would have students around him studying with him, but sometimes they would be busy or doing something else. He would literally go into the street and just point at somebody else. "Come with me, come learn for ten minutes." Just complete strangers. "Hey, come with me. I know this tzaddik in Eretz Yisrael, in Netanya." That's what he does. Young guys, 20, 28, 29 years old, actually looking for a shidduch. A big tzaddik. That's what he does. When I go to Eretz Yisrael, he sets up shiurim for me. How does he set up shiurim? He says, you come, the whole place. I set up the place, I'll get you 150 people. I said, how are you getting 150 people? I'll get them off the streets. When I went to Eretz Yisrael, I literally saw him with my eyes. He started grabbing people and saying, come, come. There's a big tzaddik here. Come, come, shiurim. Literally within 20 minutes, 150 people. He talks to them in such a way, you want to listen to him. He said, come, tzaddik, come, come, come. It's good for you. It's good for you. Come, it's good for you. I got a job. I got this. Nah, calm. Torah. A few minutes. Next thing you know, the guy's there all night. Because it really was good for them. He's got guilt. Amazing person. Whoever is lucky to be his wife, person, mamash neshamah Torah. Anyways, a side note, Rabbi Yosef Polack had this minhag. Never study alone. He would go on the street sometimes, take people. One day,

2:00:56Apolo looking, looking for students again. That's the study. He wants to learn, but he can't learn alone. So he goes into the streets, goes outside, nothing. It's as if the ground swallowed the world; nobody's there. So he went into his building, started knocking on doors. Next door neighbor, somebody to learn with. "I need to learn. I need somebody to learn with." He starts knocking on doors. Nobody's answering. One door, two, three, four, five, ten, fifteen. Twenty doors. No one's home. Everybody left. Like it's Yom Kippur and everyone's celebrating Yom Kippur or something. He's the only one left. Nothing. He goes to the building next door. One floor after another. He starts knocking on doors. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. Eventually, he gets to, I think it was the fourth floor. He knocks on the door. Waits there a few seconds, as he's about to walk away, the door opens abruptly. A big guy with a lot of hair looks at him and goes, "Who sent you?" He says, "Hashem sent me because He loves you, and He says He wants you to learn Torah with me for 10 minutes." This big guy has the shock of his life.

2:02:22Grabs him and says, "Come in. Come to the house." Okay. Goes in, he goes, "Follow me." Goes in, follows this big guy. A little weird. Goes into a room. He sees in the room, what? From the ceiling hangs a rope. He says, "Just a few moments ago, my neck was inside that rope." I was planning to commit suicide. And he starts telling him, the Rav Palach, he tells him about his life. He grew up as an orphan. Troubled life, all types of problems. Lost money, lost jobs, lost this, lost that. Didn't have any friends. No one liked him; people made fun of him. And he simply says, "Okay, that's it. I've had enough. I'm gonna kill myself. Who needs to live in this world?" But before I did it, I set up everything, and I said to myself, "Okay, you know what? Let me pray to this God and see if He answers." He says, "Hashem..."

2:03:30If you're there, if you even exist, and you remember that you created me, you remember that I exist, then show me that you love me once and for all. He says, at that moment, I thought I heard something. I opened the door; there was nothing. So I got so angry, I said, that's it, I'm going. I set up the chair, I put the rope around my neck, and I was right about to kick the chair. then, but then I heard real knocks. I said, what, am I crazy? Like, there's real knocks! I took off the rope, I opened the door, and then you're there telling me Hashem sent you because He loves me. So, where are we learning? He took him to his house. They learned, not for 10 minutes. They learned for an hour and a half that night. He helped them do teshuva. The guy got married. Built a Bayit Yehudi. Kids. Torah. Kedusha. Why? He cared a little bit. He cared a little bit about Am Yisrael to go learn Torah with them. Not to learn by himself and only be by himself. Go learn with other people too. Story number one. Story number two.

2:05:00Young guy works in a restaurant, notices that his boss, every night, has a lot of extra food left. He throws out all the food. The guy, young guy, 20, 21 years old, feels bad about it. He says, "Listen, all this extra food, why are you throwing it out? Give it to me." He says, "Sure, take it, I don't care. Take it, take whatever you want, take all the food." So the guy takes out all the food, all the leftovers, everything that's left from the restaurant. Then he goes to the store, buys from his own pocket the forks and knives, plates, some drinks, and he goes to the area where all the homeless people are. And he starts serving one after another the food. Here you go. Here you go. Here you go. I know this is it. Here you go. You know, homeless people don't have anything to eat. He starts feeding them. Five-star restaurant. He starts feeding them food. "Hey, wow. Thank you. Thanks, man. Thanks. Thanks. Wow. Thanks. Thanks." Everybody's happy. He's got this food. Then he gets to this Arab. He goes, "Here you go."

2:06:20Food, it's free. Get out of here. No, I don't want your food. He says, why not? Because you're a Yehudi. You're a Jew. I don't take stuff from Jews. You know, anti-Shemi, like anti-Semitic. Zealous. Stay hungry. Just not take stuff from Jews. But the guy says, you're mistaken. I'm not Jewish. I'm a Christian. I'm not a Jew. I'm a Christian. The Arab tells him, it's not possible. You're a Jew. He goes, no, I'm a Christian. He goes, "You're a Jew. Would you tell me what I am?" He says, "Only Jews are that merciful, that they care enough about a bunch of people to feed them. Jews are the only ones, and I don't take anything from Jews." This bothered this kid. You know, he's one of those clever kids that knows that nothing happens for nothing. So he goes home and calls his mom. He goes, "Mom, can I see you?" Yeah, sure, come over. Okay, so he comes over to his mom. She starts, you know, cooking him something. He says, "I got to ask you something." She says, "What?" He says, "Am I Jewish?" She responds, "Why do you ask?" He says, "I want to know, am I Jewish or not?"

2:07:36What do you care? What difference does it make? You know, you're 20 years old. Go get yourself a girl. Do what you want. What do you care? What do you have these questions for? Why are you always asking questions? He goes, I just want to know, am I Jewish or not? And he starts pushing her, pushing the buttons, pushing the buttons. She goes, okay, fine, you're Jewish. Because we're all Jewish. We just don't care. We think Jews, non-Jews, Christians, we're all the same. We're just people. That... struck something in his kid's mind. He says, if I'm a Jew, and this Arab won't take my food because he says Jews are merciful, why are they so merciful? Why do they care? Why do I have this inner instinct that this Arab says is unique? Why are only Jews this way? I mean, there are other people that are also merciful, but how come the Arab says that we are like that? I want to know what Jews are. He started learning Torah, started learning about Am Yisrael, and became a righteous Jew. became a righteous Jew, married a Bat Yisrael, and built a house of Torah and mitzvot. Why? Because he realized that being a Jew, aside from it being a lot of work, is also a big responsibility. But if you fulfill that work and responsibility, you, my friend, are a priceless diamond. So, the Christian that was really a Jew. Third story. Last one. I thought I had four. Third one.

2:09:03There was a famous maggid, a famous speaker, who also played music and made people happy, a Chabadnik, by the name of Rav Shlomo Carlebach. Although some of the ways that he communicated with people were a big machloket, some things were inappropriate – at least viewed that way – some were, some weren't; that's not really the issue here. The issue here is that he was a very, very special person. He helped a lot of people. He tried to do good. Many people from Chabad tried to do good. It's very admirable that some people spend years standing in the streets, putting tefillin on a bunch of strangers, really without wanting anything in return. Unfortunately, some people do it because they do want something in return. Those people are different. I'm talking about the real tzaddikim that actually just go around helping people put on tefillin. Help people learn some Torah. Help people come to shiurim and learn the emet. Special people. Some are from Chabad, some are from Breslov, and some are regular Orthodox Jews. I have a couple of friends that are in New York, Bukharian guys. In their stores, they have an extra pair of tefillin. Why? Anybody comes to their store and says, "Oh, did you put on tefillin today?" They have a tefillin center. They put on tefillin. Nice thing to do. Why care about other people?

2:10:24So Shlomo Carlebach cared about other people. He tried to make them happy, teaching them some stories of the tzaddikim with some music. And he had a custom that some people that he would meet at his shows, he would take their phone numbers and write them down on a piece of paper. He would put it in one of his books. And if one day he's learning that book and the piece of paper with the phone number on it, falls out and he gets to that piece of paper, he calls that person and just says hello. Because he felt that was like Hashgacha Pratis, that was like his own divine message that, you know, it's nice to call, it's good to call this person now. Why? Hashem decided that's why you're running into this piece of paper out of the thousands and thousands that he accumulated over the years. So one day, Rav Shlomo Carlebach opens one of his sefarim, he sees there's a little piece of paper that fell on the floor. He picks it up, opens it, and sees there's a Jewish guy's phone number. He picks up the phone and dials the number. I know some of you guys don't know what toot is. That's a dial tone from my generation. Today, there are no dial tones. Back then, it was toot. Toot. Toot. It takes a little while. After a little while, no one picked up.

2:11:48And there was no voicemail back then. Okay, nobody picked up. Nobody picked up. He said, let's try again. You know, this also means that the dial tone used to dial it this way, not just the buttons. Dial it this way. One used to hold it to go all the way to the other side, then let it go and it swings right back. And then this one, it makes a cool sound. You guys are young. So anyway, he calls again. Nothing. But he has a minhag. He has a custom. He likes his own custom. It's mamash from Hashem. When I run into this piece of paper, it's from Hashem that I need to call this person. That's what Shlomo Carlebach said. I have to call this person. I have to reach him. So he says, you know what, let's try a third time. And he calls a third time.

2:12:48And this time, somebody answers. "Hello? My dear friend, how are you? How are you doing? This is Rav Shlomo Carlebach. I want to say, how are you doing? How's everything? Remember we met six months ago in the shul?" Suddenly, the other side starts hysterically crying. He starts crying and crying and crying. it gets to one of those causes where you know you cry so much that you lose breath. You don't know what to do. "What happened, my brother? What happened? What's wrong?" He says, "You wouldn't believe it. Right now, I have to tell you because you called."

2:13:48And he starts telling him about his life and how his whole life has collapsed. He lost all of his money. His entire family went against him. People are making fun of him publicly. He is having a hellish life. On top of that, he was sick and he suffered. And just one tragedy after another, after another, after another. And he says, that's it. I've had it. I can't do this anymore, Hashem. I'm going to kill myself. i cannot live in this world. And I prepared that today was going to be the day. I brought the rope. I brought the chair. I set it up. I put it on my head. But then I said, Hashem, if you care about me, give me some type of sign. Give me something that shows you at least care about me, that you want me to live. And I said, nothing's going to happen. And I put the rope on my head. And the phone rang. That was unusual because no one calls me. So I said, maybe Hashem is calling me. But then it stopped ringing. I said, ah, it's foolish. I put the rope back on, and then the phone rang again. I said, okay, I'm going to get it. So I took off the rope, and then it stopped ringing. This is sick. Something's wrong.

2:15:18That's it. He puts the rope on and I'm about to kick the chair, and the phone rings again. I take off the rope, and I abruptly come up. I have to ask, "Hello, who is this?" He says, "Hi, it's Shlomo Carlebach. How are you, my brother? Do you remember me?" And now I know that Hashem, not only He's watching... Not only did He create me, not only did He listen to me, but He loves me so much that He literally maneuvered the entire world just for you to call me. So I don't end my life for a stupid reason. So please, Rav Carlebach, can you please meet me and help me become happy? And they met, and Baruch Hashem, he helped him do teshuva. Why did this happen? Because he cared. Why does good in the world happen? Because people care. If you care, then good things will follow. If you don't care, then bad things will follow. The problem with Rabotai is that it's so easy to care today that everyone thinks somebody else will do it.

2:16:35Ah, it's so easy to just what? There are 50 cars at the traffic light. Somebody else will give this guy a dollar. Ah, somebody else will give him a ride. Ah, somebody else will hire him. Ah, somebody else is going to do this. Somebody else is going to do that. No one wants to do anything themselves because they figure somebody else is going to do it. Why? Because they're selfish. This is also one of the reasons the Mashiach has not come, and we're happy about it. Strangely enough, we're happy. And the reason why? If the Mashiach came right now, we're doomed. Because almost 90% of Am Yisrael do not even keep Shabbat. And the reason why? There's not enough people that care. There's not enough people that care. There's plenty of people that know the truth. There's plenty of people that know Torah. Plenty of people that know enough to know that HaKadosh Baruch Hu created the world. But unfortunately, Rabotai... Not enough people care. Care enough to donate for it. Care enough to teach the truth. Care enough to do the will of Hashem. Not enough people care enough. And Rabbi Yonatan Eibeschutz, alav haShalom, said in the sefer Drashot Yaarot Devash, in Chelek Aleph, Drush Yud, page 269.

2:17:57He says that the biggest sinat chinam, the biggest baseless hatred that exists in the world today, is when one Jew sees another making a sin and says nothing. One Jew sees another driving on Shabbat, and he says nothing to him even though he's his friend. He's driving to shul on Shabbat thinking he's doing a mitzvah, driving to shul on Shabbat. He comes out of his car with a tallit bag and his kippah on. Because he thinks he goes to shul at five o'clock in the morning. He thinks he's a tzaddik. You saw him. You didn't say anything. Rabbi Yonatan Eibeschutz says, that's sinat chinam. Why is it Sinat Chinam? Why is it baseless hatred? I said hi to him. I love him. If he invites me for dinner, I invite him for dinner. We like each other. He goes, no, no, no. That's Sinat Chinam. You hate him. Why? Because you know that he's sinning against Hashem. That means that you understand that he's going to get punished for it one day. He's going to get hit by the divine train of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. And that train is going to hurt. It's going to hurt for a really, really long time. It's probably going to be forever if it's Chilul Shabbat.

2:19:04You know that he's going to get hit by the train of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, and you don't care enough about him to tell him something? You hate him. You hate him. You could feed him shish kebab and steaks and invite him to your bar mitzvah and everything else, but if you don't tell him the truth about Torah, you hate him. That means that most of us hate Am Yisrael. not love Am Yisrael, all of these fools that say, "I love everybody, I love everybody." You only love everybody if you tell them the truth of the Torah. That's the only way you love everybody. Now, even if you don't have the capability of speaking or you don't have the knowledge, you can provide the truth to people in multiple ways today. HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave us countless ways to do that. You don't have to do it directly with your own mouth. You can do it indirectly by simply giving them a CD. By simply taking a link of this shiur and sending it to him or any other shiur that we made, you can show him or her what it means to believe in Hashem. Or better yet, if you don't want to give him the CD because you're too busy making money or doing whatever it is that you're doing and you don't know how to speak.

2:20:20You don't have the ability to give CDs. You're not comfortable doing all that stuff. No problem. You have some money because you work so much. You have some money. Donate it for Kiruv. Why? Because you're going to give us that money. We're going to use it to do your job. You're not doing us a favor by donating money. You're doing yourself a favor because you're obligated to care about Am Yisrael anyway. When it says all of Am Yisrael are responsible for each other, that's what it means. You cannot continue seeing other Jews being Mechalel Shabbat, being Mechalel Shem Shamayim, being people that are going against Hashem on a regular basis and not doing anything about it. So do something about it. You have a few dollars. You work. You're a teacher. You're a doctor. You're a lawyer. You're a construction worker. You make some money. Good. Take 10% of that money that you make. Keep the other 90%. Take 10%. Give it to B'ezrat Hashem. Give it to a Kiruv organization that actually helps people do teshuvah. And guess what? We're going to take that money. We're going to print CDs. We're going to print USBs. We're going to make books. We're going to make videos, movies, events, etc.

2:21:31And so on and so forth. For what? To do your job. To do your job. To show Am Yisrael that you love them. That's the point. If you care only about yourself, you're never going to want to give money. And if you give, it's going to be almost like you're doing God a favor. You make $100,000 a year, but you donate $18. The guy makes $100,000, biggest donation of the year, $18 at a time. Once a month. He thinks he's doing chesed for anybody. Reality, Rabotai Yikarim, we have a very big obligation to help Am Yisrael. There are countless ways that you can do it. You can do it with money. You can do it with time. You can do it with skill. You can do it with your mouth. You can do it by inviting people to events. You can do it with social skills. There are countless ways to help Am Yisrael discover the truth. And all it requires is one thing. Caring about other people. That's it. It doesn't require money. There are plenty of people that literally do not have any money to finish the month that help us do kiruv every month more than everybody else. Plenty of people don't have money to barely finish the month, but they help us do kiruv every month.

2:22:51They share videos on the internet. They distribute CDs. They invite people to lectures. They do all types of things to share the knowledge with the world. To share the knowledge with Am Yisrael. To share the knowledge with the entire world. Why? Because they care. Some people care but don't have the time or the ability to share it and do all these things. What do they do? They send money. They go on the internet. They go on bezrat Hashem.org. They do a monthly deposit. Okay, I know that every single month I can donate $150. Why do I need to rethink it every month? Just do it automatically. You do it one time, it comes out like a phone bill. automatically deducted. You already know, okay, every month I'm doing this. Every month $150. Every month $1,000. Every month $50,000. Whatever it is, depending on what you make, depending on what you have. But the point is, do something. Stop being so selfish. Because you being selfless is not only going to save your life, your Olam HaBa, but also could literally save a life in this world. By showing somebody the truth, you could literally give them a purpose to live. You can give them a reason not to kill themselves. There are countless people that are killing themselves. Countless people killing themselves for no reason. They just don't know anything about life.

2:24:13Give them that reason. Give them a CD. Give them something. Do something. That's what it means to care. Care doesn't mean you invite people for lunch. Maybe they already have food. Give them food for the soul. Give them the emet. That's what it means to care, Rabotai. This, I think, is perhaps one of the most important lessons that we can learn as a people, as a nation, as a species, as whatever you want. If you want to be good, you have to do good for others. This helps us reconsider some of our own actions, try to improve ourselves, try to do better than what we're already doing, and stop thinking that we're doing enough. Stop thinking that we are enough. Stop thinking that it's only about us. Well, I have work to do. Everyone can do something. Listen, if you're really good at making money, keep doing that. No problem. Go make money. Make a billion dollars. But at least use part of that money to help other people. Don't just help yourself. No problem being good at money. I had one student tell me, "Listen, I want to quit my job. I want to quit my job and start learning." I said, "You're not allowed."

2:25:28Why? You're good at making money. Make money and learn while making money. He goes, "Yeah, but I could learn a lot more." I said, "Yeah, you could learn a lot more. But in reality, you don't know if you're actually going to learn a lot more. Go manage your job. Do you make your money? And learn a couple of hours a day. That's good." You can learn more in two hours a day, three hours a day. No problem, do that too. If it gets to a point where you need to learn more because you like it so much, okay, you can start working less. But don't just quit your job and think you're going to become Rabbi Akiva tomorrow. Why? Because Am Yisrael also needs people like you that make money. especially now that you know the truth, especially now that you want to do the good things. So go, continue making money, make a lot, and donate part of it for kiruv. The rest of it, do whatever it is that you need to do to publicize Hashem's name, and obviously live your life. But nonetheless, don't just think that this learning is for everyone, working is for everyone. Everybody's got a role in life. Everybody's got a role in life. Money is also important, we need to do it, but unfortunately, rabotai...

2:26:33The only people that usually want to donate are broke. Or almost broke. It's like on the verge of being broke. The biggest donors are usually on the verge of bankruptcy. But they still manage to scrounge up $100 a month to donate. The guys that are making tens of thousands of dollars a month, $18. Why? The ones that make more money like money more than they like Hashem. Unfortunately. Unfortunately. So that's why, Rabotai, each one of us has to do a little Cheshbon HaNefesh. What else can I do this year? We just started a new year. What else can I do to be a better version of myself? What more good can I do for the world and stop being so selfish? All of us are selfish—myself first. We all need to become selfless. Start doing more. All of us are also good too. We're not all bad. There's good, there's bad. Now we have to do more good. Add more to the good side. And the key is to start caring about Am Yisrael, learning the truth. B'ezrat Hashem, this gives us the chizuk that we need. If you heard it, that means you need it. And if you spoke it, you probably need it more than everybody else. Baruch Adonai l'olam. Amen ve'amen.