TeShuva Struggles, KUZARI, Ignorance, GOYIM, Embarrassment, FEAR Tactic - STUMP THE RABBI (28)

0:18We're back here in Sunny Isles, Florida, doing our weekly shiur, Stump the Rabbi. This is the shiur about questions and answers, any questions that you have that are bothering you, questions that will help you in your Avodat Hashem. Now is the time to ask whatever the question is. we'd happily answer it if HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives us the answers, Be'ezrat Hashem. Today's shiur will be for Refuah Shlemah for Levana Bat Sara, Sara Bat Levana, David Ben Esriah, Doris Bat Jorah, Elisheva Chaya Bat Sara, Yocheved Bat Batya, Batya Bat Sara, Naomi Bat Sara, And all of Am Yisrael, Be'ezrat Hashem, will have Refuah Shlemah, Refuah HaNefesh, Refuah HaGuf. Oh, and also, as I always forget, Refuah Shlemah for Esther Bat Zipporah. Be'ezrat Hashem, she shall have Refuah Shlemah. So, there are actually a few really, really interesting stories, Be'ezrat Hashem. It's worth it to stay till the end to hear them. Some of these stories are so good, it was worth it to come to the world just for them. That's how good they are.

1:40I learned a few with Rav Ephraim, God bless him, today. And some of these stories are really big emunah boosters, trying to give us a little bit of guidance on our Avodat Hashem. And I actually have a few questions from the people who sent them to me ahead of time on the internet, and also some questions that were written and given to me, so B'ezrat Hashem, we will get to all of them. The one thing I can tell you guys is that when you're doing teshuvah, when you're doing teshuvah, teshuvah is not like a job. When you get a job or you go to school for the first time and you're the new guy, you're the new girl, it's a little uncomfortable. But generally, you get used to it. you're new in school for the first time, everybody's been there for a while, you just moved to the city, you're a little uncomfortable, you don't have any friends yet, or you start working for a new company, and you're the new guy or the new woman, and you're uncomfortable. But after a few days or a few weeks, you get used to it. Teshuvah is nothing like that. If you're comfortable, there's a problem.

3:02And the reason why is because teshuvah is something that you do every single day because you have to constantly work on yourself to improve something every day. If you're comfortable, you're no longer doing teshuvah. Hence the problem. Now, one of the things that we'll try to learn through all of these shiurim, as well as today, is that each and every one of us I've had many tests in our life. Each and every one of us will have many tests in our life that are going to make us question the system a little bit. Question Hashem a little bit. Is it real? Is it not real? Should I do it? Should I not do it? Should I go out with this girl? Should I not? Should I go out with this guy? Should I not? Should I get married? You're going to have different tests. Sometimes Hashem, somebody has health problems, or money problems, or marriage problems, all types of problems. And those problems, if you don't have serious emunah that you've worked on every single day, unfortunately, those problems could easily break all of the work that you've done on teshuvah, all of what a person built, they could break it to pieces in five minutes. And I'll give you an example, and then we'll start with the questions b'ezrat Hashem. Rabbi Fahim told me a story he heard from Rabbi Gideon ben Moshe. health problems, or money problems, or marriage problems, all types of problems. And those problems, if you don't have serious emunah that you've worked on every single day, unfortunately, those problems could easily break all of the work that you've done on teshuvah, all of what a person built, they could break it to pieces in five minutes. And I'll give you an example, and then we'll start with the questions b'ezrat Hashem. Rabbi Ephraim told me a story he heard from Rabbi Gideon ben Moshe,

4:26It's a real story of a person who was in the army. He was one of the commanders there. He had a team of people; I think it's called a platoon or something. Excuse the terms—I wasn't in the military, so I don't know all these terms. But the point is, he was a commander. Joshua could probably tell you; he was in a... if a kid, if a kid, a brigade, okay, so he had a team of people under him. One day they call him and say, "Listen, we have a mission, a special mission in Lebanon. Now, Lebanon is not Yerushalayim. Yerushalayim, worst case scenario is a terrorist; we shoot him, he dies. Maybe you end up going to jail because a lot of lefty liberals are running the Israeli government, but nonetheless, you're going to survive. You're going to be okay." Yerushalayim and Lebanon are not the same thing. You go in there, and if you don't know what you're doing, you're not coming out. Shimmy Avraham said they have a special mission in Lebanon. This is a story you want to pay attention to. So he said, "Okay, no problem. What do we do? What's the mission?" They give him the plan. He looks at the plan and...

5:50Something's wrong with this plan. It doesn't make any sense, this plan. You know, this guy has good experience. He's not just like a new soldier who just came in at 18 years old. This is not his first day on the job. He's been here already for a few years. He knows what he's doing. He said, "I don't know what it is, but there's something wrong with this plan. It's not adding up." So he goes back, goes to the commanders, the ones that are above him. He says, "Sir, can you double-check this plan, this mission that we have here? You know, this is life and death. I You check this plan because it says we're supposed to go get this guy, this terrorist. And they know where we are, but the way we're getting to him and how we're going and all this, it doesn't add up that we're going to get to the destination. Are you sure about this plan? They said, let us review. They reviewed it for a little while. They come back to him and said, yeah, it's a perfect plan. Go do it. Now, in the military, it's not like, no, I don't want to do it. There's no such thing. You say, I don't want to do it, they put you in jail. You know, until when? Until you want to do it. That's how long you go to jail. There's no like, "I don't feel like it. I'm tired today. I have a cold." What's this thing in the military? In the military, you say no, you go to jail. That's why it's silly. Sometimes young kids from America say, "Oh, yeah, I'm gonna go to the army in Israel," because they think it's like a fun thing. For what? Go learn Torah, go do something useful with your life. Hashem doesn't need you to be a soldier. Or even worse, they go to the American army. For what?

7:15Go, go live your life. Why are you putting your life on the line? What are you, an adventurer? Go smash your head against the wall 50 times and that's enough adventure. Anyway, a person looks at it and says, "Okay, the commander says yes, we gotta go. It's a go." He tells his platoon, "Guys, we're going." Okay, he says, "We do choppers; they know everything's going on, you know, in the night like the movies, but it's real. It actually happened." of the night. Choppers land, everything's fast, go, go, go, go, go. Everybody's going in, surrounding the building. They go inside, and he has his job. Suddenly, he realizes no one's behind him; his team went in the wrong direction. But he still has to go. Why? He's in front of the door, and there's somebody behind the door right before he's about to smash the door. Giants to our malachim catch him and start beating him senseless. And I don't mean beating him senseless like sometimes kids get into a fistfight in the schoolyard and you get a bloody lip. No, beating him like their mamas are trying to kill the guy, and they're beating him and beating him, and he said it's just something out of this world.

8:41And he's pretty much already praying, "Goodbye to my family. Goodbye to the kids. Goodbye to everything." Why? They're killing him. Eventually, it stops. They put him in a truck and go. They put a mask over his head. They go. He goes to a place. He has no idea where he is. He's tied to a chair. And then he starts hearing a voice, "Who are you? Why are you here?" Nobody. "I don't know what? Who are you? Pa? Why are you here?" "I'm nobody. I'm just a soldier. I was here, pa." And they start hitting him and hitting him and torturing him and putting water on him. You know how they do; they torture the guys to make them talk with all types of vicious things. They do a shimy like him. The guy mamash says, "Okay, I didn't die before; for sure, I'm gonna die now." After they beat him senseless, they let him go. They put him in a jail cell and... Rest a little bit or pass out. Suddenly, they wake him up again the next day with the same exact thing. "Who are you? Why are you here? We know who you are. You have to tell us what you know." "I don't know anything. You're making a mistake." "No, we know your name. You're such-and-such. You came from here." They know his information. So what if he admits who he is? Then they know for sure he knows a few secrets, and...

10:06Which means that if he doesn't tell, for sure they're killing him. If he tells them, "No, I don't know anything," they're probably going to kill him anyway after they torture him to death. But it's better that he doesn't give the secrets. Why? Because then other people are going to die. So they start beating him senseless. The second day, he passes out. The third day, the same thing happens again. Tell us what you know. Tell us who else is here. Tell us this. Tell us that. And they're hitting him and they're drowning him and they're doing all types of things. Hashem yirachem, they make Gehinom look like a real life. They go on with this for several days, Rabotai. After several days, they take him to a new place. They put him in a truck. and he goes to a new place. He said, "Okay, this is my end now. We're moving locations; this is the end." Right when they get to this new place, they throw him in a new jail, and the place smells like death. The place smells so bad, which is, by the way, another form of torture. It's another form of torture; they must break the spirit. They sent him into this jail cell, and it smells so horrible, like this, this fecal manner everywhere.

11:28It's just disgusting, but after he hits the ground he hears a "Hey, hey, what's up?" He hasn't heard it. "It's you! It's you!" You see, it's one of his soldiers. So now he's thinking maybe the rest of the platoon is also caught. "What are you doing here? You got caught?" "Yeah, I..." He goes, what am I going to do? He tells the guy that's there already, the guy who got his whole face mashed up for the last five days. He asks him, you know, what should I do? They're killing me over here. Can I just, what am I going to do? He goes, don't say anything. You do what you got to do. He goes, yeah, but they're going to kill us. If we don't say anything, they're going to kill us, sir. He says, listen, you do what you have to do. Meaning, he couldn't tell them, "Don't say anything, we don't know anything," because if they could hear them, if there are microphones there, and they hear them, they're killing both of them on the spot. But at the same token, he can't tell them, "Go tell them something," because then this guy's going to give secrets. So he tells them, "You do what you got to do." As he says that, all of a sudden the gates open again, and they take the other guy and him.

12:46Take him out of the place now. He wants to make sure that the soldier that he saw there doesn't misunderstand him and think "do what you have to do" actually means go tell them some secrets, go tell them where the other guys are. So he starts screaming, "I don't know anything! I don't know anything! Stop it! Stop! I don't know anything!" So the other guy gets the point that he doesn't know anything, so he says, "Do the same thing." They put him in a room. Time up. And he's waiting to get pretty much shot in the head. Suddenly, he takes off his mask and he sees the entire platoon with the generals back from Israel right in front of him. And they say, "Congratulations, you got the job." what job? The guy's bleeding everywhere. What job? What are you talking about? Are you guys crazy? What is this? Because you got the job, you're officially the head of the army. Are you guys insane? You almost killed me. What are these beatings? What's the matter with you people? Listen, we had to do it. What do you mean you had to do it? What is this? We had to do it because you now have the job of somebody that's going to possess more secrets than almost anybody else in Israel, and

14:05So we had to make sure that under pressure you're not going to give in to the enemy. So we had to do it. The mussar you learn from this story is that sometimes HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants to give you a big gift. He wants to give you something special. But He wants to make sure you don't misuse it. You don't give it to the enemy. You don't treat it like it's nothing. So, He gives you tests. He gives you a beating. He gives you another beating. All of a sudden, you lost your wallet. All of a sudden, someone towed your car. All of a sudden, you have a flat tire. All of a sudden, your wife says, "I don't know if I want to stay with you." All of a sudden, your kids are failing in school. All of a sudden, you go home, you're starving to death after a long day of work. You open the fridge, and it's empty. All of a sudden, the electricity gets shut down, and you don't have the money to pay for it. You've got big tests. You're losing your mind. You don't know what's going on. HaKadosh Baruch Hu is saying...

15:05it's only a test. Why? I want to give you a big present. I want to give you a big present, but I want to make sure that you're qualified for the job. When you're doing teshuva, rabotai yekarim, this is it. This story becomes your life. If you're expecting a coast-clear, you know, gummy bear life, you're going to be like one of these people flying in the air, like everything is going to work fine just because you start keeping Shabbat and you're putting on modest clothes. You started praying and you started learning, and you think you're going to be coast-clear. That's not how life works. Life has problems, but the good news is when you're doing teshuva, those problems have an answer. Those problems are preparation for the big present that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is preparing for you. Maybe that present is coming next month, maybe next year, maybe in two days, maybe in five years. We don't know when the present is coming, but I promise you it's coming, and that's just a small down payment present in this world. Needless to say, if you survive the entire war, the presents that you're going to get in Olam Haba are never going to end. As it says, "Ad she'ne'emor le'Hashem dai, you give us too much already." That's how much you get in Olam Haba. But you also get presents here, but it's only after you pass the tests.

16:30So, this is one of the most important things that you need to know for your life, especially when you do teshuva. If you do teshuva, you're going to have tests, but you're going to have answers as to why you're getting the test. If you're not doing teshuva, they're not just tests, they're punishments until you do teshuva. You got a flat tire? Outright punishment. You lost your wallet? Punishment. You lost money? Punishment. Why? To get you to do teshuva. But if you're doing teshuva, it's a test. Why? Because Hashem wants to give you a big present. You lost $100, you lost $1,000 in your wallet. Don't worry, HaKadosh Baruch Hu has $10,000 ready for you. You just have to pass this test for the next 30 days, and that's where emunah comes in. That's where understanding what I just said is important. So, with that being said, let's answer some questions, because these questions, hopefully, will help us do some teshuva. I'll answer some questions from you guys live, and then if you run out of questions... I'll answer the ones that are written down as well, so I'll just do a mix and match. Who wants to ask a question first? Same price. Yes, give him the mic, please. Are you familiar with the Khazar theory?

17:45Khazar? Yeah. What is that? It's basically for Ashkenazi Ukrainian Jews that they came from... Oh, Kuzari. Kuzari, yeah. Maybe. Kuzari. The King Kuzari that converted himself and everybody converted? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, okay. So what's the question about that? So is it true or not, if you know? The Kuzari, it's actually a very, very good book. Big book. Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi. Wrote it almost a thousand years ago. Fantastic book, recommended for all Jews and converts who are new because this book answers pretty much every question you're going to ask about Judaism. Where was God, you know, before this world? How come this, how come that—all the questions you guys ask, all of them plus more, are in this book. It's an unbelievable book, but it's a heavy read. It's a heavy read. Now, there was a A goy, there was a king of a place called Kuzar or Kuzari, and he had a dream that an angel came to him and said to him, "In Heaven, they appreciate your intentions, but your actions are no good." What does that mean? Every day, because he believed that there is a supreme being and...

19:10He followed the people that were called religious in his country. And the religious people in his country would tell him, "Listen, give some, slaughter some cows for this idol. Slaughter some cows for the sun. Slaughter some cows for this." And for him, his intention was to do it for Hashem. But he was told by the religious people in his country to do it for all types of avodah zarah. Because HaKadosh Baruch Hu saw his heart and understood that he meant well, He sent him an angel that said to him, "Your intentions are good. We like it." But your actions are no good. It's considered avodah zarah. So he understood it and he said, "Okay, so I have to find out what the truth is. What are the three leading religions?" And he said, "Okay, there's Christianity, there's Judaism, and there's Islam." He says, "There's no way it's the Jews. They're just a minority. There's not that many of them. So it cannot be that they're right. If they were right, there would be billions of them. There's only a few million. It can't be them." He says, "Okay, let's go with the, you know, with Christians and..." So I go to the Christian. He brings one of the Popes over there and he starts asking him questions. "Where's this? Where's that?" And he understood; he read the Bible. He understood; he knew Torah. He wasn't completely ignorant. He studied a lot. You see the questions that he asks in his book to Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi. These are questions of a Talmid Chacham. He knew pesukim. He knew verses. He knew everything. He just didn't know, bottom line, the truth. So he starts asking the Christian all these questions and...

20:35He says, "What's this? Where's this? Where's this?" And the Christian gives him all the answers. He goes, "What happened before your Jesus? This Jesus you're asking, okay, there's a book before it, right? Where is that from?" He goes, "It's from the Jews." He says, "So can you give me some explanation on that?" He goes, "No, this is what it says." He goes, "Yeah, but where do you know that from?" He goes, "We know it from the Jews." "Wait, all the information that your whole religion is based on is based on the fact that you got some information from the Jews? So why am I asking you?" You can't be right. So he calls the Muslim. Why? Because Islam is the other big religion; a couple of billion people in the world are worshiping it. Even back then, there were a lot of people, and... And he gets the Muslim guy, gets the Imam, and starts asking him questions about the Quran. Muhammad did not read or write but thought that Haman and Pharaoh were best friends, even though they lived a thousand years apart. There are all types of mistakes in this book. So he starts asking him questions. Okay, but let's get to the source. Where do you guys, the starting point, where is it? The starting point was in Ibrahim. Who? Avraham Avinu. He goes, wait, the Jew? He goes, yeah, that's the one that started Am Yisrael. He goes, wait, so all of your information is based on the Torah again?

21:43He said, "Yeah. That's why I'm asking you. And as well as dreams, these two big religions are both depending on the Jews. Let me talk to the Jew." So he got Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi. Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi was one of the Gedolei HaDor. And he came to him and he started asking him questions. And this whole book is full of questions. And they're going back and forth. And he gives him answers for every single question that he has with a source, with an explanation. He's so enamored by it. He's so amazed by it. He says, "I want to be a Jew, and I'm going to convert my entire country to Judaism." All because he's the king, he forced everybody to convert, whether they wanted to or not. He performed brit milah on everyone, and that's what he did. Everyone converted. Now, the question is, who are they today? There are some theories about who they are today, and some people believe that they are the Guzzini. Georgian Jews. Some people believe that one of the reasons why the most common belief is the Guzzini is because, unlike the others—the Bukharian, the Sephardic, and the Ashkenazi of different types—they are the only ones that don't have kohanim. There's no kohen, which means what I...

23:06Not that they went; every one of us came originally from Avraham Avinu and so on and so forth. Every one of us has some of us that came from Moshe and Aharon, and But here they don't have anybody to say so they must be the Kuzari. Why? Well, they must be the Kuzarians. Because if they don't have Kohanim, that means that they're all converts originally. And a convert can never be a Kohen. That's why the theory is that. And that's the most likely one that's correct. But of course, we don't know for sure. That's one of the jobs that Mashiach Tzidkeinu is going to do when he comes. He's going to tell us who's who. He's gonna tell us who's a kosher Kohen and who's not really a Kohen. Some people think they're Kohanim, but they're not even Kohanim. Some people don't even know they're Kohanim and they're actually Kohanim. He's gonna tell us which tribe we're from. Most people today are Yehudim, but there are some people in the world who are from other tribes, like Dan. He's gonna tell us who all the tribes are. He's gonna uncover some people in the world that no one even knows have Jewish blood and tell us that they're Jews. For example, there's the Pashtun Jews in Afghanistan.

24:12Afghanistan also has a bunch of people who keep a lot of the rules from the Torah, the written Torah. They don't have the Oral Torah. They do shechita, they do the slaughtering, they wear tzitzit, and they keep niddah. No other religion has these rules. So they say that they are from the times of the Beit HaMikdash, but they're so disconnected, being a third-world country, that no one knows for sure. But it's very, very likely that they are one of the tribes, and... If they are one of the tribes for sure, then that means that there are another 20 to 30 million Jews in the world that we don't even know about. There's also a bunch of people that I met in Africa, the Igbo Jews. When I first found out about them, I was very excited. "Why?" you ask. "You have a few thousand people there," he says. "Well, a few thousand?" he says. "If you count all the people that we have, he would talk about almost 200 million." And... There are theories, there's almost another 200 million Jews in Africa that no one even knows they're Jews. The point being, Rabotai, is that that's going to be one of the missions of the Mashiach, to show us who's who, who's what. Sometimes you have Jews that are really not Jews, sometimes you have non-Jews that are really Jews, some are Kohanim, some are not Kohanim, some are originally from Kuzari. These are some of the amazing things that we're going to see from the Mashiach, but that's actually also one of the proofs that no one until now has been the Mashiach.

25:36Not Yoseke, not any rabbi that lived recently. No one has been the Mashiach. Why? Anyone that's the Mashiach, that's one of the first jobs he has to do. He has to tell you: Are you a Jew or not? Are you a Kohen or not? Are you from the tribe of Dan? Are you from the tribe of Yehudah? If you can't tell me, that means you're not the Mashiach. Why? If you're the Mashiach, you know this for sure. That's your first job. You don't know who I am? Finished. You're fired. Next question. Same price. Good question. Good question. The spirit of the Ruach HaKodesh. OK. And that's basically going to increase more and more and give the people who are zokeh harabim certain responsibilities and tasks and prophecies, kind of like this.

26:43So we talked a little bit about Eliyahu HaNavi on Sunday. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai says in the Zohar that Eliyahu HaNavi reveals himself in three ways. One is when a person suddenly gets an urge to do teshuva, to get close to Hashem, to pray better. You see the guy in just an average Mincha, everyday Mincha, everybody else barely even wants to be there. The guy is crying to HaKadosh Baruch Hu because he loves Him so much. Suddenly, he doesn't cry every day. But today, suddenly he starts crying hysterically to HaKadosh Baruch Hu because he feels this sudden closeness to Hashem. That's Gilui Eliyahu. Another way is when a person gets a start, he learns Torah, and he figures out a major chiddush that is above and beyond his intellectual ability. He knows that there's no way that he figured it out himself. There was, much like, some type of divine assistance. So, Zohar HaKadosh says that's also... a type of Gilui Eliyahu. And the third type is that actually Eliyahu HaNavi himself uncovers himself and shows the person that he is Eliyahu HaNavi. And there are many, many stories throughout all of the generations where Eliyahu HaNavi met different types of special people for different reasons. Now, once Eliyahu HaNavi does this, this is happening before Mashiach comes.

28:02The second part is once Eliyahu HaNavi himself comes to advertise that Mashiach is here, that's the end. The part until that, the Eliyahu HaNavi that we have today, if you will, In order to help Am Yisrael do teshuvah, to get each and every single one of us closer to Hashem, He’s suddenly going to give you a chiddush that's going to get you closer to Hashem. He’s suddenly going to give you a desire to wear modest clothes. He’s suddenly going to give you some type of thing that's going to help you get... You know, closer to Hashem, or perhaps he's even going to meet you in an unusual way, like some homeless guy. But really, he's Eliyahu Hanavi, or some rabbi you never saw before and you're never going to see again, and that's him, and so on and so forth. But all of this Eliyahu Hanavi that we have before the Mashiach is to help Am Yisrael do teshuvah. The Rambam writes that Eliyahu Hanavi, mentioned in the prophets, specifically in the prophet Malachi, the last prophet, is the Eliyahu Hanavi who is going to announce that Mashiach is here and... And he's either here on the same day Eliyahu HaNavi is here, or three days later. Either way, that's pretty much when the clock of teshuvah stops. And everybody at that moment, you are what you are. If you've done teshuvah at that moment, Baruch Hashem. That means that you have nothing to worry about. If you haven't done teshuvah, all you have to do is worry. Why? Because you're in serious trouble and there's nothing that's going to help you. Hashem Yirachem. So, it's

29:30critical for people to start doing teshuvah now because, number one, we don't know when Eliyahu HaNavi is going to come and the Mashiach is going to come. And number two, it takes a long time to do real teshuvah. It takes a long time because you need to know what you don't know in order to do teshuvah. Which actually leads me to one of the questions that somebody asked today: What if you did teshuvah, but in reality, you didn't? Meaning, you thought you did teshuvah. You thought that you were a good person. You didn't kill anybody lately, at least you didn't get caught for it. You didn't steal anything, but maybe you did, but you're not really sure. But in reality, you thought you did teshuvah, but really you didn't. So do you still get punished for it? Who wants to volunteer and answer? No? Definitely less of a punishment, because it's unintentional, but it's still there.

30:30So you're saying that if you thought you did teshuvah, you thought that stealing is allowed. But really it's not allowed. Right, so you thought until now, 25 years, let's say, chas v'shalom, your parents are both gangsters. And they taught you that stealing is a mitzvah from the Torah. So until now, you thought it was stealing. You continued your whole life stealing. But the rabbi tells you to keep Shabbat. So you keep Shabbat. But you stole. Why? Because your parents told you it's a mitzvah. So do you get punished for stealing or not? No. Okay, no. Behind you, you agree? No? Yes or no? Maybe? He's a maybe. Okay, no. Who else wants to give me a volunteer answer? No, Shlomo. You have something. It would be on the parents if they taught him that. On the parents? Okay, but what about the guy himself? He still stole. You know what I mean? He had the opportunity to learn, and he didn't. Ah, see, that's talmid chacham. That's talmid chacham. Ashrecha v'ashrei chelkecha. says, meaning you have a responsibility to learn the law. One of the mitzvot in the Torah is for you to learn Torah. You have to learn Torah day and night to know what to do to be a Jew. You cannot use ignorance as an excuse in Shamayim. So much so that anyone who does not

31:54make time to learn Torah every day. The Gemara says he does not get resurrected with the dead, even if he kept Shabbat. Learning Torah, even if you're religious, you keep Shabbat, keep all the mitzvot, but you don't learn Torah every day, you're not being resurrected with the dead. Hashem, that's what the Gemara says. Why? If you don't learn Torah, you're not gonna know what to do, and what's gonna happen? You don't know what to do, you're gonna make mistakes. So the Mishnah says if you made a mistake that led you to make a sin, you didn't learn, so you made a sin. That sin, even though the sin itself was a result of a mistake, you didn't know. In Shamayim, now it counts as if you did it on purpose. Zadon, mezid. Why? Because you didn't study on purpose. Although you didn't commit the sin on purpose, Because your parents taught you wrong or your Rabbi taught you wrong or someone taught you wrong. But as Shlomo HaMelech says, you could have learned. You could have come to the shiur. You had a responsibility. You lived in the world for 20, 30, 40, 70, 80, 90 years. You learned to drive. You learned for your job. You learned for your career. You learned for your client. You learned for all these different things.

33:00How can we learn about your life? How can we learn Torah? So the fact that you didn't learn, that turns all of the accidental sins into mezid, into a purposeful sin. And therefore the person actually does get punished. Does get punished, a very bad punishment. Hence the reason why everybody has to learn Torah a little bit every day. If you can do more than a little bit, do a lot more than a little bit. But the point is, get started with something because if you drive 150 miles an hour on the highway because you don't know how to read. You don't know how to read. So you didn't know that it says there's a sign there. You're not allowed to drive more than 60 miles an hour. And the cop pulls you over. He says, "Hey, sir, are you crazy? You're under arrest." "Why, sir, what did I do?" "You're driving 150 miles an hour." "Oh, well, that's not good." "No, it's 60 miles an hour here." He goes, "I'm sorry, officer, I don't know how to read. Sorry, I don't know how to read." He said, "Okay, tell that to the judge while you're in jail for the next few weeks." Why? Your ignorance of the law does not absolve you from the law. You have a responsibility to know the law. The second you put your hands on the wheel, that means that you say that you know the law. You don't know the law? Don't drive.

34:13The second you came into this world and you learned how to read, how to write, how to think, you have a brain that HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave you. You use that brain for different things. You use that brain to know the statistics of the basketball team. You use that brain to learn how to play a video game. You use that brain to pass a test in school. You use that brain to cheat somebody. You use that brain to make money. You use that brain for all the different things. That means that you can use that brain to learn Torah. Which means that you chose not to learn, and therefore, that's a purposeful sin. So, the key is to know that we're all obligated to learn. Now, the second question is a little easier, which is about the disease, tzara'at. I think it was yesterday or the day before that we mentioned in the shiur that tzara'at is a spiritual and a physical disease with no cure. Now, by saying no cure, to elaborate and to explain, it doesn't mean that there's no cure at all. What I meant is that there's no cure as far as there's no human being that can help it. There's no medicine that can fix it. There's no blessing that someone can give you to fix it. Nothing. The only cure for tzara'at is teshuva. As soon as Hashem sees that that person has done teshuva for the sin, for the crime that caused him to get this punishment of tzara'at,

35:29Hashem removes the disease. Otherwise, the disease stays permanently, and that person cannot be next to anybody else from Am Yisrael. He's outside of the camp. Now, unfortunately, most people do not know that this disease still exists today. It's not as common as it used to be. It doesn't affect people right away, but it actually does exist in the world today. There is a hospital in Eretz Yisrael where they put those people, but in essence, this is almost like a hospice. We're pretty much waiting for them to die because there's no cure. It's a very, very tragic disease, but nonetheless, it does exist. It's just that Hashem has not given it to people for the same reasons that we got it in the past. In the past, if you said Lashon Hara about someone, you got Tzara'at on the spot. If that was still valid today, Hashem would still punish us the same way. Pretty much the whole hospital... Why? Because who doesn't say Lashon Hara accidentally, on purpose, accidentally on purpose? So, we have to watch our mouth because that brings a lot of problems. Next question. Ken. So, like, in your shiur about Chibut HaKever, you said that Chibut HaKever is actually worse for the wicked. Now, like, how about Chibut HaKever for the righteous? Yes.

36:48So, it depends on how righteous the person is. In the same shiur, I think I did mention it. Chibut HaKever, in essence, translates literally to the beatings the person gets inside the grave. The removal of the neshama from the physical body can either be extremely painful, where there are special angels that come and beat the person until the neshama breaks away from the body. There's an angel named Dumah that has a responsibility, along with a couple of other angels, who have responsibilities regarding what they do to the body to remove the neshama from the body. Or the person could be righteous enough where the neshama leaves the body like you take a hair out of milk. That all depends on how thick their klipah is, meaning how many sins they made in their life. If they've done teshuva and they've purified themselves, They stopped wasting seed. They stopped stealing. They stopped violating Shabbat. They fixed themselves. They learned Torah every day. Then the suffering in the grave would be very, very minimal and could even be non-existent. But if they haven't done teshuva, then rachmana litzlan. What happens in a grave is atrocious. Anyone that wants to hear at least a part of the details, let me know, and I'll send you the shiur about it because I don't want to repeat it again.

38:14but the point is, a nightmare is an understatement. It's an understatement. There are specific angels that are responsible for different types of tortures that the body would get as the first down payment for the crime of sinning against their king, against your king, against everybody's king, the King of Kings. Remember, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, even though He's our Father, He's also our King. So everyone knows that if you decided Love deal, Amelia of the lot, if you decide to go to the White House, break into the White House, and punch Donald Trump in the face, your day is not gonna end too well. Your day is not gonna end too well. You're probably not gonna survive, most likely. probably not gonna survive, and if you survive, the rest of your life is not gonna be too nice. Why? Because that story that I told you guys about that soldier will become the day-to-day life. Everyone understands that. You want to be a genius? You go punch any president in the world. You go to Iran, punch the president over there, the sheikh over there, punch him in the face, your day is not gonna end so well. You go to Israel, you go take Bibi Netanyahu and give him a nice kick in the tush, your day is not gonna be too good. Why? You violated their king.

39:26violated their king—the Prime Minister, the Sheikh, whoever—the President of the U.S., whoever. You violated the king. There's a rule that they're allowed to pretty much do whatever they want to you. Needless to say, if you violate the King of Kings' rights and laws, that's what we forget to think about sometimes. We forget to think about the King of Kings being the King of Kings. Now, someone else asked online today a Why did HaKadosh Baruch Hu create all of these goyim? How come there are 8 billion goyim, almost, and there are maybe 15 to 20 million Jews that we know about? There's a bunch of them we don't know about, but needless to say, we're a minority in the world. What's the goyim's job in the world? Why did Hashem create them? How come we say in our Torah that the world was created for us as Jews even though we're not even 1% of 1% of the population? We're not even a rounding error. When you say 8 billion, it's really not 8 billion, a round number. It's more like 7.95 billion. And they round up 50 million, meaning that the 15-20 million that we are is not even a rounding error. So how is it that the whole world with 8 billion people...

40:46for 15 million, but I'll tell you a secret. It's really not for the 15 million. It's not really for the 20 million. You know, it's for the two to three million that keep Shabbat. That's who it's for. The whole world exists for them. Why? Because the others that don't keep Shabbat, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, I'm not good friends with them right now. In fact, Parashat Va'etchanan, Parashat Va'etchanan, the last two verses, says Hashem calls the Mechalel Shabbat, he calls them His hater, His enemy. Which means, the world doesn't exist for the Mechalel Shabbat. It doesn't exist for the guy that's married to a Goya. It doesn't exist for the guy that's doing all types of sins against Hashem. It exists for the guy that's doing Teshuva, that's serving Hashem every day. So how does it make the equation even more difficult? You're saying the whole world, the atmosphere, the oxygen, the blood cells, the white blood cells, the red blood cells, the proteins, the fruits, all the colors, all the beauty, the animals, the cows, all this stuff. It's just for those few million Jews? How does that make any sense? What do you have all this extra for? The answer is, Rabotai, if you understand Torah, the answer will fit into your neshamah like a nice beautiful puzzle.

42:12If you're not doing teshuva, you will repel this teshuva. You will hate this answer. You'll hate it. Why? Because your mind is still a little bit, you know, liberal lefty mentality, you know, like spiritually stupid. No, that's what the liberals are. They're self-hating Jews. People that are self-hating Jews, like this Bernie Sanders guy, he wants to make a point to show all other people in the world that he hates Jews, even though he's a Jew himself. This is a self-hating Jew. Now, if you have a liberal lefty mentality, you're going to hate the answer. If your neshama is still pure, Baruch Hashem, and you're trying to get close to Hashem, you're going to like this answer. The answer is, rabotai yekarim, that HaKadosh Baruch Hu created the world for these unique people that keep Shabbat, keep mitzvot, learn Torah, and have fear of Hashem. The rest of the people that are part of Am Yisrael,

43:13Part of them are supposed to do teshuva because He wants them to join the others. But part of them are actually the Erev Rav. Part of the Jews in the world are the Erev Rav, which are wicked neshamot that were already created at the time of creation, that actually caused the Mabul, that actually caused people to worship the idol at Mount Sinai, and that have been torturing Am Yisrael. torturing Am Yisrael for generations. Now, what's gonna happen with these Erev Rav, these wicked, wicked people that are unfortunately born Jewish and technically are halachically Jewish? If they do teshuva, which some of them will, Baruch Hashem, they join the rest of Klal Yisrael. But the ones that are mamash reshaim, that are not gonna do teshuva, on them, Rabotai HaYekarim, the Zohar HaKadosh in Tikunei HaZohar, page 134a, says... On them, we will fulfill the mitzvah of Limchot et Amalek. We have a mitzvah in the Torah; HaKadosh Baruch Hu promised Moshe Rabbeinu that we are going to fulfill at the time of Mashiach, which is to wipe out Amalek. For all these years, people are thinking, yeah, who is it? The Nazis? Who is it? The Arabs? Who is it? The Christians? Who is Amalek? Amalek, Rabotai, Amalek is unfortunately lefty liberal Jews.

44:38Many of them are them. Those are the people that are going to fight the Mashiach. That's what the Zohar HaKadosh says. You don't argue with me. Go argue with Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. You don't like this answer? Now, what about the other 8 billion non-Jews? The other 8 billion non-Jews, some of them special neshamot that wanted to convert at the time of Mount Sinai. But their nations did not want to convert, so Hashem promised them that they will convert before Mashiach comes. Gemara Masechet Avodah Zarah, page 3b and 4a, talks about how the generation before Mashiach will have many, many converts. If you go to any Beit Din that deals with converts and ask them, "How many converts do you have today versus five or ten years ago?" they're going to tell you, "Shamayim involved—it's night and day difference. Five or ten years ago, we had maybe one convert a month. Today, we have five to ten a day sometimes." A lot of people want to convert from all corners of the world—from India, from Nigeria, from America, from all over the world. People want to convert to Judaism suddenly. So, some part of the goyim are actually neshamos that Hashem promised are going to convert. Some part of the goyim are actually Jews and...

45:49have been punished because of the sins they did in their previous incarnation. They acted like goyim, so Hashem reincarnated them as goyim, and their job to fix themselves is to convert to Judaism. That's number two. Some of the goyim, which is a good large part of them, are supposed to be righteous Noahides and which are good goyim that love Am Yisrael, that love Torah, that love Hashem but are not ready to convert or not able to convert for different reasons. They are supposed to help Am Yisrael do teshuvah. As part of their avodat Hashem, part of their serving of Hashem, they're supposed to help Am Yisrael do teshuvah, donate for kiruv, help other people, go to all types of things as well as themselves serve Hashem and but unfortunately, there's the last part, which is probably the largest part, and that's the large part of the goyim that are Esav and Ishmael, that are haters of Am Yisrael. What does that mean? There's a certain section of the non-Jews that HaKadosh Baruch Hu simply uses

47:03simply uses them as a way to run the world. If Am Yisrael does good, He uses those goyim to build the world for the Jews—build the nice buildings, build the nice bridges, build the kosher stores, build everything, develop new technology, do good things that Am Yisrael benefits from. If Am Yisrael does not do good, then Hashem uses them as the stick and If they're good, He uses them as a staff to lead Am Yisrael to do good things. If they're not good, if Am Yisrael is not good, He uses those goyim to beat up Am Yisrael, like the Nazis, like the Arab terrorists, like in Spain, in England, in Rome, in Greece, in Turkey. Throughout all of the generations, we've had, unfortunately, almost every big civilization try to destroy Am Yisrael. Hashem uses those people to run the world in order to rebuke His people. So you have 8 billion people that have a very, very special role in the world, but it all has to do with Am Yisrael. In fact, to such an extent that if there is a tsunami in Japan, like there was some years ago, this is a sign for Am Yisrael to be worried. Now, even though most of the people that died in the tsunami were Japanese people, non-Jews, they got the tsunami as a warning shot for Am Yisrael.

48:28That's what the Chafetz Chaim said when somebody said they came back from a trip to Africa and he asked them, "So how is it in Africa?" They're still racist over there. They're still beating up all the people, torturing them. He says, "Kvoda Rav, why do you care about what's happening in Africa? I was gonna tell you what's gonna happen in the Jewish community." He goes, "No, no, I need to know what's happening to the goyim there." He says, "Why does the Rav, why does the Chafetz Chaim, Kodesh Kodeshim, care about a bunch of goyim in Africa?" He goes, "No, no, it's a mistake. If they're getting tortured, that's a sign from Shamayim to us." You see there's an earthquake in Bangladesh. That's a sign to you. You see there's an earthquake in Chicago. That's a sign to you. Tornado somewhere? That's a sign to you. Everything's a sign, Tamid say, everything is a sign, Tamid say. Hashem uses all of these goyim for different things. Some of them are good neshamos; they're going to help Am Yisrael, and they're going to serve Hashem and eventually become the talmidim of the righteous Jews. As the Prophet says, when Mashiach comes, every Jew that wears a tzitzit, for each one of the corners of his tzitzit, he's going to have 700 goyim—700 righteous Noachides—work for him and be his talmidim.

49:37Means for every tzitzit that you wear, you have 2,800. There are four corners, 700, 700, 700, 700. You have 2,800 students that are going to do whatever you need—to eat, to breathe, to build your yeshiva, do whatever you want. But under one term. What term? Teach them Torah. That's the payment for wearing tzitzit. This is why some of the tzaddikim, like Rav Kook from Tiberias, God bless him, tzaddik, he wears maybe 20-25 tzitziyot. Some of the other mekubalim, they wear many tzitziyot. You don't need to do that, but if you wear one, it's enough. But the point being is, there is a ma'ala to wearing tzitzit, a very, very big one. It creates a huge protection for a person. But each person in the world, whether Jew or Gentile, has a purpose. has a purpose in the world. Sometimes that purpose will be to do good, and sometimes that purpose will be to do bad based on their free choice. Hashem doesn't choose it for them. He doesn't make somebody bad if he doesn't want to be bad. Hitler could have been a great artist if he wanted, and that would have been good for the world. No, he chose to kill people.

50:52he could have been a good person, but he chose to be bad, so Hashem used him to do bad. If you choose to do bad, Hashem will use you to do bad. If you choose to do good, whether you're Jew or Gentile, Hashem will use you to do good. Someone that comes to become purified, the Gemara says, Hashem gives him a hand. Someone that looks to make sins, do things that are impure, Hashem opens the door and says, "Do whatever you want." Do whatever you want, meaning, You're gonna, in essence, burying yourself. So that's the answer to that next question. So we have here a... Let's see... So this also has to do with teshuvah. It says somewhere, what if someone is in a situation where they're in doubt halachically? Meaning they have a situation, and they're not sure what to do. There's a certain food, and

51:53They want to eat, but they're not sure if it's kosher, or there's a little bit of doubt if they did a blessing or not. Or they want to do a business transaction, and they're not sure. What do you do? The Mishnah in Pirkei Avot says, "Aseh lecha rav" — make yourself a rabbi. You have to have a rabbi aside from you learning Torah. Even if you learn Torah day and night, either way, you still have to have a rabbi. Even a Rav of Adah. The Gadol HaDor had a rabbi. Everybody has a rabbi. You have to have a rabbi. So much so that the Gemara says, someone who does not have a rabbi, Hashem hates him. Hates him. Now, some people don't like to hear this stuff. They say, "No, Hashem loves everybody. Hashem loves everyone." That's just simply not true. The Gemara on page 109b says that anyone that does not have a rabbi, Hashem hates him. Why? Because that means that you're going to rely on yourself. You're an arrogant person. You're going to rely on yourself, which means that you could live your entire life making sins and you don't care about it.

52:57So you have to have a rabbi. Today, Baruch Hashem, it's not so difficult to find a rabbi. Even if you live in a place that doesn't have many rabbis that you like or connect to, you can use the internet. I get hundreds and hundreds of questions every single day from people all over the world. The easiest part of my day is the shiur. People think the shiur is hard. The easiest part of the day is the shiur. My job just starts here. My job just starts here. You guys are all going to go to sleep, I don't know, at some normal hour—12, 1 o'clock in the morning. My day continues until 4 or 5, pretty much until I pass out. until there's no more air to breathe. Why? Because there are questions from all corners of the world, and some of these questions, some of these issues require attention at 4 o'clock in the morning. Also, I try to learn a little bit once in a while if I get lucky. I try to do some other things. Point being, Rabbi, there are questions from all over the world. So you have questions, you could send me your questions, you could send many rabbis your questions on text message, on WhatsApp. But you have to be patient. If you're expecting your rabbi to be Google,

53:58Your expectations are unrealistic. You have to be patient. Sometimes it takes me five minutes to respond. Sometimes it takes me five days. Depends. It doesn't necessarily have to do with your question. It has to do with my schedule. How many other people are in front of you? How important your question is. If you're going to ask me a Midrashic question, like how old was Rachel when she married Yaakov? That question is a nice question. I appreciate that question, but it's not a priority. not a priority. What's a priority? A priority is, you know, I had a kid and it was born with a C-section on Shabbat. Do we do a Brit Milah on Shabbat or not? That's a priority. Why? Because if you get it wrong, you'll be Mechalel Shabbat. If you get it wrong and other questions like that, or something that you want to eat and things like that. So the point being is that you have to have a rabbi. You have a lot of questions you have to ask. You have to ask these questions; don't take risks. For example, somebody asked me a question today. There are better fruits; the kosher store sells fruits. So a certain kosher store in their neighborhood sells fruits, but their fruits look like they just finished each other off.

55:16Their fruits look like they were fasting for a few years. Their fruits look like they're in depression, these fruits in the kosher store. So she went to the local non-kosher market, and she wanted to buy fruits there. And it says they have fruits there. Can I buy fruits there? I said, no problem. You can buy fruits anywhere. She goes, no, no, I want to buy davka, the sliced ones, meaning the ones that were cut into nice little cubes. You know, the watermelon, the cantaloupe, the orange. I want to buy those, but from the non-kosher place. Can I buy it? It doesn't have a kosher stamp on it. Can I buy it? Who wants to answer? No, because the equipment they use is probably the same equipment to cut grapes, which is a problem. They cut grapes? Why is it a problem to cut grapes and cantaloupe? What? No, that's only if you grow them. I like your answer, but it's incorrect as far as... It's only if you grow them together. If you... Equipment problem. It's a good answer. Next question, next answer. No, no, who hasn't? Somebody else has to have the opposite end. So everybody else agrees with them? If you agree with them, then raise your hand. If you don't agree with them, then give me an answer. So everybody thinks it's not allowed? Wow, you guys are my family. You guys are like Chassidim. You guys are really religious. You guys are my family, my family, but you're allowed.

56:40Why you allowed all those suddenly is a hundred percent right that the equipment they use at Publix, Walgreens, and Winn-Dixie—all these places—the equipment is non-kosher and it's a problem. But since it's fruit and the fruit wasn't heated, no juice was added to it. What do you do? You cut the end where they cut the fruit. You cut that part. Like as if you're cutting a peel, the rest of the fruit is 100% kosher. You're allowed to eat it. You're allowed to eat it. So if there is an equipment problem, it's only the part that touched where the fruit was. If you want to be more stringent like Satmar and the rest of you, you can only buy it from the kosher stores. But if you only have one choice, then you can buy the fruit from there. Just it's better to cut the last part. they're going, they're working over there every day, every single day, and they bring in food from home, and they have like a pork sandwich, and they slice it in the middle every day, and they don't even pay attention. They slice their sandwich, and after they slice their sandwich, then they start to cut the food. So usually you're 100% right. That's why we cut that part. So let's say, for example, you have an apple, or you have whatever. Let's say an apple. Let's use an apple.

58:10Usually, the machine that's going to cut the apple is not the same machine that's going to cut the ham. It's usually not the same type of machine. If the guy that's an employee uses the machine that cuts the ham to cut the apple, he's going to get fired because it could ruin the knife. But let's say they do use it. If you slice the outer part of that apple, which is the only part that touched the apple. Since it's cold, the knife is cold, and the apple is cold, nothing was absorbed into the apple. You're slicing the only part that could have touched something non-kosher. Therefore, it's allowed. Again, this is uncooked fruit. This is fresh fruit or fresh vegetables. And it's big pieces, not tiny little pieces. And generally, it's big pieces. So that's allowed as far as that's concerned. Even if there is a possibility, like you're saying, that the guy cut his pork sandwich donkey sandwich, whatever he's cutting, if that knife—that's a cold knife—touches the cold apple or the cold watermelon, you cut that outer piece. Even if you don't know if they cut it with something non-kosher, automatically you cut that outer piece and you're allowed to take that fruit and eat it, one hundred percent, no problem. Especially if the fruit from the kosher place is not good or you don't have any fruit and the only place that has it in your neighborhood is the non-kosher place.

59:28There's a habit for Oneg Shabbat, for the honor of Shabbat. You don't want to not buy something; you just know how to live with the law. Now, the ideal is for you to cut your fruit yourself. That's the ideal because then you aren't dealing with any types of questions, and you don't have to deal with anything. But sometimes that's not possible. Sometimes you have, you know, a million and a half things to do, and you can't cut the things. It's much easier if you have company coming over. There's 20 people coming to your house. If you're going to cut the fruits yourself, you're not going to have time to make food. So, you buy prepared. That's not a problem. It's just knowing how to live with the law. Now, on the other hand, if it's meat or something hot, then you cannot, unless they have a kosher department, buy sliced meat or from a place that does not have a kosher section, meaning that the knife they use for the meat Only for kosher meat, they cannot use the knife for both kosher and non-kosher meat. So you'll see that any supermarket that has kosher food has a special section for their kosher meat, like all types of cold cuts and things like that. It's a special section where they have a Mashgiach (kosher supervisor), and they're not allowed to bring any non-kosher food to that section. Because if they bring non-kosher food to that section, it automatically ruins it; they can't use that knife anymore.

1:00:49You have a serious problem. That's the whole job of the Mashgiach. So generally speaking, if it's meat or even cheese, you have to what's called only buy from kosher places. Meat or cheese, you buy from kosher places. But if you're talking about something like fruit, since it's fresh, you cut the outer layer, and you're fine. Yeah, next question. Nobody? Nobody else has questions other than this talmid chacham over here? You asked one or you asked one? Both of you asked one. Okay, so we can take turns. Next. Go ahead. If you're trying to help somebody do teshuva or go to a shiur and you keep trying but they refuse, I know you get credit for the effort, but how does that system work? So it's a very good question. So if you try to, let's say, help somebody do teshuva, your brother, your cousin, your mother, your father, whoever, You send them a video. They don't want to watch, or they watch and they don't care. You give them a book, they throw it in the garbage. You invite them to a lecture, they curse you out. You know, pretty much, you've tried a bunch of times, you've put your best into it, and they're simply rejecting you in every way. The Torah tells us that if they do not do teshuva, you get their Olam HaBa.

1:02:12You get their Olam HaBa, but why? Because it's called the "inheritance of the Jewish people." All of Am Yisrael have a share in the World to Come, meaning that every Jew comes to this world with a ticket for Olam HaBa. HaKadosh Baruch Hu made him a place in Olam HaBa, that this ticket works for this place. Now, for the ticket to work, you have to meet certain conditions. Just like if, let's say, you want to go to the theater. If you're going to go to the theater with a t-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops, and you're going to give them front row tickets, they're going to tell you, "Thank you, but you cannot come in." What do you mean? I have a front-row ticket for $5,000. Yes, you have the ticket. But if you look at the back of the ticket, it has requirements. You have to have shoes, you have to have pants, you have to look proper. You have to do certain things for this ticket to work. You have the ticket, but the ticket doesn't work unless you meet these conditions and... Needless to say, it's the same thing with Olam Haba. All of Am Yisrael have a share of the world to come. But it says, but it's for who? It's for all the tzaddikim. In order for that ticket to work, you have to be a tzaddik. You have to be righteous. You have to keep Shabbat and so on and so forth. So now, if you try to help your friend and she doesn't want to hear you, she doesn't care what you say. You try to tell her, they don't care. You tried for a month, two months, a year, two years, it doesn't make a difference. If they're not doing teshuva and unfortunately leave this world without doing teshuva, that ticket still has entrance to Olam Haba. Now, since she is not going to get it, unfortunately, who's going to get it? You. You get it. What's the source?

1:03:24Keeps about keep this, keep that, and she doesn't want to hear you. She doesn't care what you say. You try to tell her, they don't care. You tried for a month, two months, a year, two years, it doesn't make a difference. If they're not doing teshuva and unfortunately leave this world without doing teshuva, that ticket still has entrance to Olam Haba. Now, since she is not going to get it, unfortunately, who's going to get it? You. You get it. What's the source? Mishnah Pirkei Avot says Avraham Avinu got the reward of all ten generations from Noach until him. There were ten generations of people that lived from Noach all the way to Avraham Avinu. And Avraham got the reward of all ten generations himself. Why did Avraham Avinu get the reward for all of those people? Because he tried helping everybody do teshuva. And those that did not want to do teshuva, all of their reward went to Avraham Avinu. So the reward has to go to someone. If the person does teshuva, good. They get a reward, and you get a reward. It's even a bigger reward. You get 310 worlds, not just one. But if they don't do teshuva, you still get paid for the effort, which is you get their Olam HaBa. You get their Olam HaBa. Now,

1:04:47This shows us that to do Kiruv, to help Am Yisrael do Teshuva, you can't lose. You can't lose. Next question. When someone did Teshuva, Moshiach comes and Moshiach redeems him. However, he made some mistakes and he still might have done some sins, but overall, Tzadik, does he have to go through suffering after Moshiach comes or redeems him from that? So everybody has to pay for their sins. So it says that even so, the tzaddik can sometimes have to go to Gehinom on the way to Gan Eden. Sometimes they're so righteous that they go to Gehinom without feeling it. Because they're so righteous, they get the privilege of taking out other neshamos with them, the neshamos that they like. he wasn't that much of a—he wasn't a mechallel Shabbat. He was not in the seventh level of Gehinnom; he's like in the first level because he said some bad things about somebody. He's in the first level because he did a few things that are not so good. But this tzaddik is so righteous, he has extra credits.

1:05:52His extra credit, so Hashem allows him, because of his merits, to take out some tzaddikim with him. So, on the way to Gan Eden, he goes to Gehinnom. But he doesn't feel the pain. Some tzaddikim, the tzaddikim overall, have a few errors, like all people do, and they have to pay a fine for that crime to purify the neshamah. Now, if somebody is really Working on himself, and Hashem sees it, of course, since Hashem knows the end, Hashem knows the beginning, Hashem knows everything. He knows when the Messiah is going to come. What ends up happening is that Hashem is going to give him a lot of suffering sometimes in this world in order to clean him up from all of the sins that he made. You know, to clean him up from all the sins that he made so he doesn't have to go to Gehinnom. So that's why sometimes you'll see a lot of people tell you that they're suffering a lot right before Rosh Hashanah. A lot of tragedies happen right before Rosh Hashanah. This is not a coincidence. HaKadosh Baruch Hu sometimes gives people a lot of suffering in order to get them to Rosh Hashanah clean. Or sometimes they suffer a lot before they die. Most people suffer a lot before they die. They lose their memory, they lose their ability to walk,

1:07:02They sometimes lose a lot of money, all types of things. And that actually helps them clean up because Hashem doesn't want them to go to Gehinnom. So if someone is trying to be righteous, Hashem cleans them up from a lot of this stuff during his life. But if somebody does not clean himself up in this world, then of course he has to pay for it, whether it's with Mashiach or not. He still has to pay for it. If you made a crime, there has to be a payment for it. There's a fine for it. But nonetheless, Hashem will try to get you to pay for it in this world. Next question. So we have a situation: if someone is choking and it's a guy, and the only one around to save him is a woman who is not his wife and doesn't even know who he is, is she allowed to save him? If she saves him, he's going to live; if she doesn't save him, he's going to die. Is halacha more important than life? No.

1:08:05Life is where it puts the entire risk of life, pikuach nefesh is what we call it, puts the entire Torah on hold. If someone is sick on Shabbat and his life is at risk, it's a mitzvah—not just that you're allowed—it's a mitzvah for you to take him to the hospital in a car, in a bus, in a taxi, and whatever. It's actually forbidden for you. to not save him. It's forbidden for you to slow down or try to, like, maybe, oh, you know what? Let's walk half the way and then take the car. Or let's wait for the bus instead of the car. No, you have to save him in the fastest way possible. Why? Because you save his life in order for him to live so he can keep more Shabbatot. But if you let him die just so you can save one Shabbat, what about the rest of his life? So it's important to save a person's life. Even if you're learning Torah, the Gemara says if you see somebody drowning, you have to stop learning Torah, and you have to go save this person if there's nobody else. If there's somebody else, let somebody else do it. But that also means when it comes to this, if there's a guy and there's a girl that's choking, or vice versa, there's a guy that's choking and a girl that could save him,

1:09:12100% mitzvah for you to go save him. It's not that it's allowed, only it's a mitzvah because you're saving a life. You're saving a human life, and this, by the way, pertains to both Jews and non-Jews. Even if it's a non-Jew, you're allowed to do it. The only time that you're not allowed to do it is if this person is a known missionary and This person is a known missionary to Christianity, to idolatry of other types, to Buddhism or something like that. You know, this guy is Michael Brown. This guy is Itzhak Shapira. This guy is Natan and his friend from One for Israel. These missionaries, you see them choking, you do nothing. So I say you do nothing; you let them die. Why? They're killing neshamot while they're alive. So it's better they die and don't kill any more people. It's better for them. It's better for us. So if you see a missionary, you don't save him. But if you don't know he's a missionary, you go save him, whether he's a Jew or not, whether he's male or female. You save him. Good question. Next question. Ah, okay. So we have... if Jewish people go up to heaven or hell, where do non-Jewish people go? Very good question. So...

1:10:31The Rambam uses a Gemara in Masechet Sanhedrin. The Gemara in Masechet Sanhedrin says that there are certain people that have Olam HaBa, there are certain people that don't have Olam HaBa, there are righteous people that have Olam HaBa, there are wicked people that don't have Olam HaBa, and there are certain kings of Am Yisrael that have lost their Olam HaBa. There are certain rabbis that lost their Olam HaBa, the Gemara mentions. It says there are also certain people that are prophets who lost their Olam HaBa. Who? Bilam. Bilam HaRasha lost his Olam HaBa. He has no share in the World to Come. But Bilam was a goy. So the Gemara says, and the Rambam elaborates, from here we learn that non-Jews also have Olam HaBa. They also have a Heaven and a Gehinnom. They also have Gan Eden and a Gehinnom. It's not the same Gan Eden and Gehinnom as the Jews, but it is a Gan Eden and Gehinnom. Why is it not the same one?

1:11:33Because the ticket to get into Gan Eden for a Jew has a lot of things on the back. It has a lot of responsibilities, a lot of mitzvot. You have 613 mitzvot, and you have to fulfill every one of them that's possible for you. If you're a Kohen, you have a certain amount of mitzvot. If you're a woman, you have a certain amount of mitzvot. If you're a non-Kohen, you have a certain amount of mitzvot. If you lived at the time of the Beit HaMikdash, you had a certain amount of mitzvot. So you have a lot of mitzvot as a Jew. As a non-Jew, you have much less mitzvot, probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 60. You have the seven Noahide laws and then about 50 or so ethical rules. If you are fulfilling all of those mitzvot as a non-Jew, you're a righteous non-Jew, you're chasidei umot ha'olam. But that's not as much as the righteous Jew, so it cannot be the same reward for less. lesser heaven, a lesser Gan Eden, and a lesser reward, but it's still a zillion times a zillion times a zillion times better than anything that's available in this world. I'll buy that everybody goes to this place, and then no one goes to Gehenom. But the point is that the rules are: if you're righteous, you go to Gan Eden; if you're wicked, you go to Gehenom. That's just the way it is, and you have to agree with it and you have to like it. Why? Because that's the truth. So...

1:12:58Righteous Noahides go to their own heaven. Righteous Jews go to their own heaven. The wicked go to Gehenom in both cases. That's the way it is. And Hashem rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked whether they're Jews or not. Now, there's a question here. It's a very good question. What is the policy for embarrassing someone? Now, an in-depth explanation because it happens so often. Unfortunately, this does happen so often where people embarrass each other. So the Gemara says the story of Yehuda and Tamar is the ultimate example to learn this halakha from the Torah. The story of Yehuda and Tamar is as follows. Yehuda had three sons. One of his sons, he found him a kallah, which was Tamar. And since that son, Er, wasted seed, he did not want to impregnate Tamar because she was a very beautiful woman. He wanted her to stay beautiful, so he did not want to impregnate her. Every time he was intimate with her, he would waste the seed. So the Torah says Hashem killed him.

1:14:18Because Hashem hates people that waste seed, even before we got the Torah—this is a time a few hundred years before we got the Torah—showing us that the mitzvah of not wasting seed is already from the time of Adam HaRishon. So, Er died, the first husband of Tamar. Now there's a mitzvah, already that was also allowed at the time, that was in the Torah at the time, called Yibum, which is that if a person dies... and leaves a wife but no kids. Then, if he has a brother, the brother is allowed to marry that wife and have a child in his name if the woman wants to marry him. But if she wants to marry him, and he doesn't want to marry her, there's a process called Chalitzah. There's an entire Gemara, Masechet Yevamot, that discusses it, but it's also discussed in Masechet Berachot and a few other places. it's a whole process where he actually gets embarrassed in front of the Beit Din, but it's permissible embarrassment. Why? Because he doesn't want to fulfill the mitzvah of carrying the name of his brother. So he's single, and she's single because she's a widow now and there's no kids from the first brother. And he doesn't want to marry her. If she has kids from the first brother, then he's not allowed to marry her. But if she has no kids and the brother died, he should marry her.

1:15:40He doesn't want to, she takes his shoe, and she spits on it in front of people, which is embarrassing. But nonetheless, they say this is what happens to someone who does not want to fulfill the Torah and carry the mitzvah of his brother. So the point is that after Er died, Onan fulfilled this mitzvah and married Tamar. But the Torah says... which we're going to learn in a couple of weeks, three weeks from now, that he also wasted seed. So what did it say? So Hashem killed him too. Because what he did was evil in the eyes of Hashem because he wasted seed. So now after two sons died, Yehudah did not want Tamar to marry the third son. But he didn't want to tell her and embarrass her and make her feel bad. He doesn't think she killed them. So he told her, no, he's too young for you. Let's wait until he gets older, and for now, go to your father's house. We're not going to be able to fulfill this mitzvah now; we'll fulfill it later when he gets older. For now, go back to your father's home. Now, Tamar had a prophecy. And in her prophecy, HaKadosh Baruch Hu told her that the Mashiach is going to come through Yehuda.

1:17:03He chose Yehuda to be the tribe from which Mashiach Tzidkenu is going to come. So, anyone who claims to be Mashiach, you have to ask them, "Are you related to Yehuda or not?" If they are not related to Yehuda, they are not the Mashiach. For example, this one crazy woman sent me an email and a video she made, claiming that she is the Mashiach. She's Mashiach. But also, she's a new type of Mashiach. She's not only Mashiach; she's also the Shekhinah, and she's the Gilgul of Yoshke. All in one. Package deal. Three for one. The stupidity and craziness of people is really hitting new highs. Now, anyway, Tamar HaTzaddika got a prophecy that the Mashiach is going to come from Yehuda. So she knows Hashem is telling her the secret. Why is He telling her the secret? Because she has an opportunity to be part of this, to be the mother of the Mashiach. So she says, okay, well, I'm waiting for the son. But then she saw that the son is growing, the third son is growing, growing, growing,

1:18:03And Yehuda is not bringing it up to him. It's not kavod for the isha to go ask Yehuda, "No, no, come on, give me your son." But she wants to be the mother of Mashiach. So what does she do? For the sake of the mitzvah, she pretends to be a prostitute. And HaKadosh Baruch Hu wanted this to happen, meaning that He actually pushed it. Yehuda's wife died. Yehuda's wife died. And HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave a push to Yehudah to go around town and fall for the trap, meaning that all of a sudden he had a sudden, unusual urge for lust. He was a big tzaddik; he was a king. He isn't some Am Ha'aretz sotah or something like that. He's a big tzaddik, but all of a sudden he has an unusual urge that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is making this happen. The reason why is because when the Satan saw that Yehudah is looking for some prostitute, he said, oh, so nothing good is going to come out of this. Mashiach is definitely not coming out of this. So Satan left, went to bother somebody else. And that's exactly the moment that Tamar decided, I'm going to dress up like a prostitute to be with him. So prostitutes in those days, how did you know if someone was a prostitute? She would cover her face. She would cover her face.

1:19:25Today, the Muslims cover their faces thinking it's a mitzvah. But anyway, she covered her face and he was with her. Now she told him, okay, give me money. He said, I don't have money. She goes, oh, so I can't be with you. You have to give me something that's going to be collateral. So he gave her a signet ring, the equivalent of an undergarment, and a staff. Three things, three things that you're gonna keep that, you know, this belongs to me. You wait over here; I'll go get the money, and I'll pay you. After he finished the act, he sent his friend to go get him some sheep so he could pay her. By the time he came back, she was gone. Yehudah didn't want to ask around, "Hey, anybody, do you see the prostitute? Do you see the prostitute?" It's not going to work. They're going to say, "Oh, you're a king. You're going to be with a prostitute?" Yehudah says, "Let's get out of here." To his friends: "Get out of here before this becomes a big embarrassment." Because he realized what happened to him. He realized it's not what a king is supposed to do. It's not what the son of Yaakov is supposed to do. So he came back. All this time he does not know that the woman was really Tamar. Now, as you would have it, Tamar got pregnant.

1:20:41But in the beginning, she was hiding it. But after a few months, you can't hide it. The belly gets bigger. So the neighbors, you know, a little nashnosot, people that like to talk, They saw Tamar one day with a little, noticeable belly. They ran to Yehudah. Why? She's technically supposed to marry his son. She's part of his family. This is a big embarrassment to his family, the king's family. So they come to him. "You see what your daughter-in-law is doing? She's a zonah. She's pregnant, but she doesn't have a husband. How could this be?" The penalty in those days for such behavior was the death penalty. Yehudah makes a psak. "Bring her here. We'll burn her in fire." They put her in jail and prepared the fire. As they're preparing the fire, they ask her, "Do you have any last requests?" Tamar says, "Yes, I want to talk to the king, Yehudah, just for one minute. My last request is to talk to him for one minute." They say, "No problem." They bring Yehudah, and Tamar says...

1:21:50Are these yours? Or do you know who these belong to? Do you know who these belong to? Now, I'll tell you the truth. If I were Tamar, if I were Tamar, I'd say, Yehudah, these are your babies. These two, you're the father. I want welfare. I want this. I want that. You did it. That's why I'm not Tamar. Why? Because Tamar gave Yehudah a choice. said, "Do you know who these belong to?" Because if she says, "You die if you say yes, these belong to me," that means that everybody's gonna know that you're the one that made me pregnant. It's gonna be a big embarrassment for you. They may end up killing you. You're putting your life on the line, and it's gonna be embarrassing to you. So if you don't want to deal with that, I'd rather jump into a fire and burn alive than embarrass you in public.

1:22:51So from there we learn, rabotai yekarim, it is better to jump into a flaming fire than embarrass another Jew in public. So this is not only a mitzvah from the Torah, but it's a very, very important mitzvah. To embarrass another Jew in public is considered murder. Considered 100% murder. This is why Chazal gave us a hint: when you embarrass somebody, their face gets white but then it gets red. Why? Chazal say if he didn't have cheeks, all the blood from his entire body would pour out of his face because of the embarrassment. Meaning that when someone embarrasses another person, they're really killing him. The only reason why their blood's not coming out is because Hashem gave us cheeks. But if it wasn't for that, it's really murder. Just embarrass somebody. So it's important to know to never ever embarrass somebody. Because if you embarrass somebody, you could simply lose your next life, even if you keep Shabbat. Where do we learn that from? David HaMelech. David HaMelech says, halacha, halacha.

1:24:07Someone who embarrasses his fellow man in public or fellow woman in public has no share in the world to come. Yeah, but what about if they keep Shabbat? Okay, so on Shabbat, they'll turn off the fire in Gehinom. Yeah, but what about if they keep Shabbat? Okay, so on Shabbat, they'll turn off the fire in Gehinnom. What if they give tzedakah? Okay, so they'll give you credit for it in this world. Okay, but I did it and I want to do teshuvah. Oh, you want to do teshuvah? Baruch haba. You have to do teshuvah. You have to do teshuvah for embarrassing people in public. Why? Because it's a very, very serious crime from the Torah. And this is halacha from the Torah, all the way from the original source from Yehudah, the great, great, great, great grandfather of David HaMelech and his great son David HaMelech himself. It's all over the Gemara. It's all over Shulchan Aruch. There's no machloket here. There's no debate. This is a very, very serious mitzvah. Now,

1:25:10Rambam writes that there are times that you are not only allowed to embarrass somebody in public, but it's actually a mitzvah. Where is it a mitzvah? There's a couple of examples. One of the examples is somebody speaking in shul. Somebody speaking in shul while everybody's praying—you first have to warn them to stop talking in shul. If after a Warning them once, twice, three times, and they completely ignore you. It's a mitzvah to embarrass them in public. Mitzvah. Why is it a mitzvah? Because the Shulchan Aruch says, when somebody talks in shul, the entire kehillah, 100, 200, 500 people that are in the kehillah, came there to pray, and all of their prayers are on hold. Why? This shul just became a bar. This shul just became a discotheque. This shul just became the streets. You're talking mundane things in shul while the people are praying to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. So all of their tefillot are on hold, and that's why the Shulchan Aruch says this sin of talking in shul is too great of a sin. It's the only sin in the Torah where the Shulchan Aruch says this sin is too big. Why? Because you're taking

1:26:32the problems of everybody now cannot be answered because of you, because you decide to talk in shul or in a shiur Torah. So it's very, very important to know there are times you have to tell people to be quiet. It's good for them to be quiet, but if it's one of these chutzpahnikim Doesn't want to shut up? Go to the rabbi. Do whatever you can to not get to a point of embarrassing them publicly, but if it continues, it's actually the rabbi and the rest of the kehilla's obligation to embarrass this person and kick him out. Why? He's hurting the whole kehilla. So there are certain conditions where you are allowed to embarrass somebody in public, but you should try not to do it unless you have to. Don't just jump the first time the guy makes a mistake and starts talking right away. You're like jumping down his throat and killing his mother too. Don't be crazy. Don't be fanatic. Give people kavod. Maybe he didn't know, he doesn't realize, he forgot. Give him the benefit of the doubt.

1:27:33Also, don't be one of these people that, you know, is like the loud shishers, where the guy said two words and your shish is like three minutes long. Your shish is worse than his talking. Shh. Don't do that. Let's go to the guy. Not a word. Don't you start talking. If you start talking, you're just as bad as him. You start having a conversation: "Sir, please don't talk," then you're talking. Go to the guy, go to the woman. You know, be a little pantomime, a little bit. Give a hug. Give a hug simply. Don't say a word. You don't have to say a word. Appeal to them in a nice way. Appeal to them in a nice way. Don't start cursing people out, start yelling, screaming, or the loud shushes. Don't do that. That's more annoying than the guy talking. No one heard him talking, but everybody hears you shush. And then another guy says, "Shush, shush, shush, shush, shush." The whole prayer is shush. You think you're in a fountain. You think you're crossing the Red Sea. There's waves. Shush. No shush. You have to use your brain a little bit. Sometimes you go to the Beit Knesset and all you hear is shush, shush, shush. I'm like, let the guy talk then. It's better. Better than your shush. You have to use your brain. But again, if you see that you're in a school or you're in a shul that

1:28:57People are talking freely. The first thing you should do is come to the rabbi and say to the rabbi, "Please, maybe you should say something." If the rabbi doesn't say anything, if he says, "Listen, they're going to talk whether I say something or not," then you take matters into your hands. In a place where there is no leader, you be the leader. If the rabbi doesn't want to be a leader, then you be the leader. But the point being, if you see that the shul you are going to is being used like a bar, It's some type of social club, and there's no chance it's gonna change. Leave the place, go to a different shul. If there's no other shul, pray at home. But I'm serious, if there's no normal shul where people are not talking—it's not just one guy, the whole kehila is talking—like I went to this one shul, the biggest talker in the shul, the biggest one, was the rabbi. He's the one that's talking during the tefillah, during Kaddish, during all things. He talks, socializes, goes from chair to chair. "Oh, how's the wife? How are the kids? How's this? How's that? How's your foot? How's your knee? How's your dog? How's your cat? How's your grandfather that died 20 years ago?" How, how, how—from one guy to another. By the time the tefillah is over, he's still asking, "How? How? How?" Like a sheep. He forgot to pray, the guy. The guy is the biggest yenta in the world. A place like that, run away from. There's no hope for a place like that.

1:30:25But if there's a place, most shuls have a problem. Almost there's no such thing as a shul that doesn't have a problem. But if it's a small problem, try to be a good influence. Maybe tell the guy, "Please do me a favor. Don't talk to me. I'm trying to pray." Maybe perhaps tell the rabbi, "Maybe do something about the talking in shul," or you say, "Could you win over the people talking in shul?" Or you give them a video; try to do things in a nice way. Don't go directly to the extreme on day one because you're not going to help most people that way. But if you go to the extreme after you've tried several times, then everybody's going to say, "You know what, this was coming. He already told him five, ten times, and the guy is completely disregarding everything. It was kind of coming." If you see that the shul is simply hopeless and everybody's talking in the shul, including the rabbi, and no one cares, go to a different shul. If there's no other shul, pray at home. Pray at home. Why? Because your tefillah over there is not getting accepted anyway. Might as well pray by yourself, even though your tefillah is at a much lower level when you pray by yourself versus when you pray with a minyan. If the minyan is that bad, it's better off not to have a minyan.

1:31:36It's good to have a minyan, but it has to be a kosher minyan, not just a bunch of talkers and yentas. You don't want a bunch of grandmothers and grandfathers in your shul talking about what they had for lunch. It becomes like one of these nursing homes. They talk, they eat, they sleep. They talk, they eat, they sleep. They talk, they eat, they sleep. That's it. That's all they do all day. The guy comes to tefillah with a bottle of vodka. "No, no, guys, who wants a shot?" In the middle of Kaddish. If it's one of those places, leave. Leave. Next. Next. Why was the strategy of teaching about Gehenom so effective for Avraham Avinu? So the Zohar HaKadosh, Parashat Lech Lecha, says that

1:32:37Avraham Avinu was considered a tzaddik in the eyes of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, so much so that HaKadosh Baruch Hu started the nation of Israel from him. The chosen people started from Avraham Avinu. Why? Because Avraham Avinu chased the mitzvah of doing kiruv. How? By going from one person to another and letting them know, if you continue worshipping idols, you continue stealing, you continue murdering, you're going to go to Gehenom. They asked him, what's Gehenom? And he started giving them a beautiful shiur, much, much better than the shiur that I had. From him. The chosen people started from Avraham Avinu. Why? Because Avraham Avinu chased the mitzvah of doing kiruv. How? By going from one person to another and letting them know, if you continue worshipping idols, you continue stealing, you continue murdering, you're going to go to Gehenom. They asked him, what's Gehenom? And he started giving them a beautiful shiur, much, much better than the shiur that I had. I have only 30-40 thousand views; he had millions of views on his shiurim, millions. Why? He gave you details that even your fingers started getting scared. What details did he give them about Gehenom? Everybody understood that Gehenom is real. Gehenom is mamash real. He had details upon details. Avraham Avinu had 400 chapters in his sefer on Avodah Zarah. Today, our Gemara says that we have only five. Meaning, he had a much bigger Torah than we do. He had details upon details. So he taught them about Gehenom, and they did Teshuvah. Why did this work so well? Because Avraham Avinu understood the creation. HaKadosh Baruch Hu made Avraham Avinu the smartest human being ever. Something unbelievable. Some say he was smarter than Shlomo HaMelech. His genius was something unimaginable.

1:34:07He already discovered God on his own at three years old. People today are 30, 40, 50 years old and still think they came from a monkey. He knew for sure, for sure, no doubt whatsoever, that HaKadosh Baruch Hu runs the world. And he understood everything about Him at three years old—the genius of geniuses. Now, he knew the creation; he understood the creation, and he understood that HaKadosh Baruch Hu created and... a human being in such a way that their number one motivator for all human beings from the time of creation all the way until the end of the world is fear. Fear is the number one motivating tool that you can use to motivate people to do things. This is common knowledge for anyone who thinks about it. All of us, at some point, if you get your license, you automatically think you're Dale Earnhardt. You think you're a Formula One racer. You want to go drive 150, 200 miles an hour in your little Toyota. You want to drive, you know, as fast as possible. How come you don't drive so fast? Aside from the fact that your car probably can't do it, aside from that, how come you don't drive so fast? A few reasons. Number one, you're scared to get a ticket because the speed limit is 60 miles an hour, 50 miles an hour.

1:35:35You're scared to lose money too. You're scared to get into an accident and die. That's also a reason. Three, you're scared to kill people, and so on and so forth. So, it's not that you don't speed because you don't like speed. You don't speed because you're scared. Why do you go to work? Because you're scared of starving to death. You're scared of being homeless. Why do you get married? Because you're scared of being lonely, you're scared of being childless. Why do you eat certain foods? Let's say you want to be healthy because you're scared of dying. What is that like? There was one guy who went to one of these witches, one of these, you know, tarot card guys, and the tarot guy, using witchcraft, told him, "Listen, no, tell me the future," and... Witch told them, "Oh, you're gonna die from Cola. You're gonna die from Cola." The guy said, "Well, I'm gonna die from Cola?" He went to his house, opened the fridge, and saw Coca-Cola, RC, and anything that looked like Coca-Cola. He threw it in the garbage pail. "I don't want to see a poster of Cola. I don't want to hear the word Cola. Anything that has the letters C-O-L-A," he threw in the garbage. The guy said, "I'm not gonna die from Cola. I..."

1:36:56he lived a healthy life where he only drank water, no Cola. If the Cola made something he didn't make, he didn't buy. He lived such a healthy life, watched everything. Ten years straight, he's watching himself. One day, he feels good about himself. He's celebrating his tenth year anniversary of not drinking and consuming anything from Cola or resembling Cola, and he goes for a jog, crosses the street, and a truck carrying Coca-Cola runs him over, and... It's a joke, but that's our silliness. The point is, rabotai, that sometimes, sometimes we are ridiculous. We're afraid of things that are silly. But nonetheless, it still motivates us. People sometimes, you know, they'll go on a diet because they're scared of dying. They'll eat certain foods because they're scared of being fat. They'll wear certain clothes and take care of themselves and groom themselves because they don't want people to make fun of them. Sometimes a woman will take off her kisui rosh only once in her life, or twice in her life, or five times in her life. Why?

1:38:05When is it? She has the whole year. She has the whole year. In the house, out of the house, all the time. But a few times in her life, she took it off and put a wig on. When? When her kids were going and getting married. kids were getting married, and she was embarrassed in front of all of her friends who were not wearing their head coverings. You know, they all look fancy-schmancy, and she doesn't believe that a kisui rosh is fancy enough. So she was scared. Scared of what? Scared of people making fun of her. At her daughter's wedding, at her son's wedding, she's wearing a wig. She's wearing a kisui rosh. She doesn't look as pretty, so she's scared. It's peer pressure. Sometimes kids do drugs because they're scared of being unpopular. The point being about... Everything that we do from the morning we wake up until we go to sleep, whether you're religious or not, has some type of influence from fear. Anyone that denies that simply has no brain. This is the number one motivator. Now, you're, of course, going to have some heroes right in the comments right now: "No, I don't go to work because I'm scared to be homeless. I go to work because I like it."

1:39:25Yeah, you like it? So go work for free then. You like it so much, work for free. No, why should I work for free? No, you like it so much. It's a hobby. No, come on. Who are you selling this baloney to? You go to work because you're afraid of being homeless. You go to work because you're afraid of not having money. You go to work because you're afraid you're not going to keep up with the Joneses. That's why you go to work. That's why you want to get a better job and get a raise and get a bigger house and expand your kitchen and so on and so forth. We do everything based on fear. Avraham Avinu understood this very well. And he said, listen, I can motivate them by telling them, listen, God loves you, God this, God that. He says, why am I going to waste my time? Maybe they care if God loves them. Maybe they don't care if God loves them. But everyone cares if they're going to go to Gehinnom. Everyone cares. That's also why HaKadosh Baruch Hu himself uses this strategy. At Mount Sinai, the Gemara in Masechet Shabbat says, we all came to Mount Sinai expecting the Torah. HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, accept my Torah now, or this mountain that's floating on top of you—I took Mount Sinai and put it on top of Am Yisrael.

1:40:42If you take the Torah, the mountain will be the chuppah. Like we had a chuppah for Michal and Elchanan. Nice chuppah, right? So this Mount Sinai was the chuppah of Am Yisrael. Accept my Torah under the chuppah. If not, the mountain is going to fall on top of you, and this will be your burial ground. But it will only fall on top of you after the angel that was just created, that second, kills everybody. There's one angel, Hash-Mem-Dalet, who was created at that moment. His responsibility? To kill everybody if they said no. That's why until this day, you're not allowed to look at or be involved with blood on Shavuot. On Shavuot. Why? Because Shavuot is Matan Torah. So we say, wait a minute, what does it have to do with this? It goes, oh, because we almost died. On Shavuot, Matan Torah, we almost died. So it's to remind us that there was almost blood spilled.

1:41:43Yeah, but that happened 3,000 years ago. We said yes. Anyway, why do we still have to have any memory of this angel? This is because that angel wasn't created just for that day. That angel was created for today, for tomorrow, for the next day, for the next day, for the next day. Meaning that angel has the ability to kill anybody in a second if he doesn't accept the Torah. Permanently. That's what I mean. We're very, very serious about letting people know to learn Torah. If you don't learn Torah, your life is at risk. To that extent, HaKadosh Baruch Hu uses this strategy. At Mount Sinai, He scared everybody to death, where they said to Moshe Rabbeinu, "Please, let Him stop talking. You go talk to Him and we'll do whatever He says and then we'll hear what He says. We'll do it. We're agreeing already by default. We're agreeing because we just can't deal with this anymore. It's so scary."

1:42:44HaKadosh Baruch Hu showed Gehenom to Moshe Rabbeinu. Moshe Rabbeinu saw Gehenom and started shaking uncontrollably because he thought he was going to go there. He only stopped shaking when Hashem promised him he was not going there. This means that fear is a critical part of the Torah. Now, how big a part of Torah is it? Let's see. The Gemara, Masechet Shabbat, page 31a, says, Resh Lakish writes, Why did Hashem create the world? What is He going to do? Okay, there's Torah. There's Torah. Now, what if somebody knows the entire Shisha Sidrei Mishnah, knows the entire Oral Torah, Is that good enough? Resh Lakish says no. If he knows the entire Torah by heart, but he has no Yirat Shamayim, it's not worth anything. Where do we get this from? Resh Lakish? The Gemara says, because there's a verse, there's a verse in the Torah that says, "Yirat Hashem hi otzaro." The fear of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, that's His treasure. So what does it mean, that's His treasure?

1:44:10So the Gemara continues on page 31b, and Rav Yehuda says the following: Rav Yehuda says, "The Holy One, blessed is He..." created the world so that human beings will populate it and will stand in awe of Him, will fear Him, as it says in Ecclesiastes chapter 3, verse 14: "And God has acted so that man should stand in fear of Him." Meaning that the reason why, because people always ask, "Why did Hashem create the world? Why did He create people? For you to fear Him, you to serve Him." That's why He created the world. For you to fear. Why? Does Hashem have some ego? Chas v'shalom, ego. But He is the King. You are the servant. You have a job. Yirat Shamayim is not a suggestion. It is the foundation of this world. Now, so much so, Rabotai Yekarim, if we understand what it means that yirat Hashem hi otzaro, that the fear of Hashem, that's His treasure,

1:45:33Avodat Hashem will change. I'm gonna give you a few things. The chavruta of Rav Chaim Kanievsky, shlita, is a tzaddik by the name of Rav Eliyahu Mann, and he said the story one day. He said that Rav Chaim Kanievsky has Kabbalat HaKahal, accepts the public, and one day... There was a family event, so they canceled the Kabbalat HaKahal. The public couldn't come to ask for blessings, advice, guidance, things like that. They canceled it, so Rav Chaim Kanievsky was happy. Why? Because it gave him more time to learn. But he says to his chavruta that he couldn't sleep all night. He couldn't sleep all night, tried sleeping all night, but couldn't sleep all night. He says, "You know why?

1:46:33Punished me that I was tired, but I couldn't sleep all night because I was happy that I didn't have Kabbalat HaKahal. I didn't have to see the public because I could learn more Torah. And I forgot that part of fulfilling the Torah is to do chesed by giving people brachot, by giving them hope, by giving them blessings. That's my chesed. I was happy because I'm selfish; I want to learn Torah. And He says, Hashem punished me. He says, not only are you not going to learn Torah, you're not going to sleep either, and so on. Why? Because it's not just to learn; you have to fulfill too. Rav Kanievsky has such yirat Shamayim that unlike us, when we don't fall asleep, we're blaming the weather, we're blaming the air conditioner, we're blaming our wife, our husband, the dog, the kids, the neighbors, everything in the world we're blaming. What did Rav Kanievsky blame? Himself. For what? For wanting to learn more Torah. Meaning, yeah, what did I want to do after? I wanted to learn Torah, I wanted to make a mitzvah. He said, yeah, but that's not the mitzvah that at that moment Hashem wanted from you. He wanted you to also do chesed, to meet the people. Story number one. Now, when a person has yirat Shamayim, there are certain signs of it, certain things. The Admor M'Gur, the Beit Yisrael, altered...

1:47:55One of the holy people of Am Yisrael used to go on vacation twice a year in a certain club. One of his chasidim arranged it for him. There were some rich people there, and he would go there a couple of times a year. But there weren't many religious people there. So one of the times that he went there, you know, because sometimes dealing with the public takes a big toll on you. Sometimes you have to take, you know, some breaks. Most of the people who do a lot of public work, whether they are Kiruv rabbis or different rabbis or people who deal with the public a lot, usually take a few weeks of vacation a year. Not because they want to go to some beach, but because they want some, you know, to re-energize. Now the Beit Yisrael Migur went to this kefar and he went to the Beit Knesset and he's like looking for somebody that he could give some chizuk.

1:49:18Do some kiruv a little bit to help somebody even though he's away from his buddies. He still has the neshama, the fire. He still wants to do something, even just a little bit. So he's looking for something. Everybody looks like they're in a beit avot, like a nursing home, you know? But he sees a 12-year-old boy. A 12-year-old boy came to shul. So a little 12-year-old boy comes to shul, that's all, it's amazing. A 12-year-old boy walking into shul, and the next day he sees him again. It's so nice to see a little kid in shul. It's like I get happy when I see Yehoshua here. Much happier than you guys. I see Yehoshua here, it's made my shiur, it's worth the shiur. So, Nine-year-old kid comes to shul for Torah already for two years. He's been coming to my shiur for two years already. He's better than most of you people. You should learn from Yehoshua. Tzaddik. Anyway, you see a kid, that's your hope for the future, baruch Hashem. A 12-year-old kid sees him a couple of days in a row. So he says, let me talk to him. He goes and talks to this kid. He says, do you want to learn with me? So the kid is happy. It's the first guy to talk to him in three days. You know, all the other people are into their own business. They're thinking about, you know, let me finish this prayer and go already.

1:50:38And this kid's like, oh, somebody's talking to me. This rabbi's talking to me. He starts learning with him. And they're learning and learning a little bit. After a couple of days of learning together, the Admor says to him, what do you like? What really motivates you? What do you like? I like soccer. You know, soccer? Oh, you know soccer, Maccabi Tel Aviv, Maccabi Yerushalayim, this, that, this one beat this one and Messi and all these different things and he did a scissor kick and he did a flip kick and the goalie went, hey, and all this and the kid's excited about this. And the Admor says to him, I don't think this soccer is good for you. I don't think this soccer is good for you. No, no. Promise me you're not going to go anymore. You're not going to watch it anymore. What? No, my parents allow me to watch it. They even bought me a ticket. I have a game I'm supposed to go to in a few days. I'm going to the game. I have front row tickets. My parents bought them for me. Tzadik, let me tell you something. Your neshama, and he starts giving him chizuk. But his neshama, what happens in this world, what happens in the next world, and you have to purify your neshama, and being around these people is not good for you, and doing this and doing that. He gives him chizuk. And he tells him after, you tzadik, promise me, promise me that you're not going to go.

1:52:00No, but I like soccer. I like to play. He goes, "No, Tzadik, let me explain to you." And he goes again. And this happened, and he got it, and this, and that, and he gives him. "Please, promise me, promise me that you're not going to go." "But Rabbi, I like you, though. Please, let me go. I want to go." And he goes again, three, four times, until the kid says, "Okay, okay, I'm not going to go anymore." And they parted ways. And the kid kept his promise. He went into the Torah, strong, became a talmid yeshiva, went, became an avrech, met a woman from New York and moved from Eretz Yisrael to New York. It's a true story. Moved to New York, became an avrech, got married, married seven years already. He's 27 years old, still no kids. You know, usually a 27-year-old should have an easy time having a kid. Seven years, no kids? So they say, let's go to the doctor, check the wife, check the husband. Sometimes it's the wife, sometimes it's the husband. So they go, wife, everything's perfect. Him, doctor says, I'm sorry. You have no chance in the world to have kids. You were born this way; you didn't do anything wrong. You were born this way; you cannot have kids.

1:53:32And we're sorry, we can't help you. He and his wife, Tzadika, are crying hysterically. You want to have a kid. You want to build a nice Jewish home. You want to have all these little cuties running around, driving you crazy all day. And the doctor just told you, my friend, you can't have a kid. What can you do? You cry until the next year. What is it going to do? Doctor says, no. If you have no emunah, you have no bitachon, you have no God, you continue crying until you run out of tears. That's it. If you have HaKadosh Baruch Hu, you never give up. Even if the sword is on your neck. So after crying hysterically for a while, he says to his wife, honey, let's go to Eretz Yisrael. Maybe I'll get some berachah from some tzaddikim over there. She said, okay, let's go. They go on a plane, they go to Eretz Yisrael, they arrive in Eretz Yisrael, they go to some Kivrei Tzadikim, all the grave sites, they pray to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, not to the Tzadik, but in the merit of the Tzadik. This guy is an avrech, so he says, I'm going to study this Tzadik's sefer, I'm going to do a mitzvah for this Tzadik, in the merit, and he prays to Hashem. And he goes to the place where Eliyahu HaNavi is said to have been, and he goes to the Rambam, and he goes to all types of Tzadikim.

1:54:58But then he sees there's a sign in town for a big tzaddik coming to give brachot to the Admor MiGur. He has no idea who the Admor MiGur is. No idea who he is. He says, let me go get a blessing. He goes, a lot of people. And one after another, you wait in line, you wait in line. And eventually, he gets closer and he sees the tzaddik's face. And it looks familiar to him. Is that him from 15 years ago? Nah. And he gets a little closer as more people leave. It's him. It's the rabbi from 15 years ago when I was 12 years old. He's so excited to see him. And now he realizes this is the tzaddik that's now a big, huge, giant rabbi. Baruch Hashem. He comes, sits down next to the tzaddik, the Admor MiGur. He says, Kvod HaRav.

1:56:00I want a blessing to have a son this year. You know, blessing and success. He goes, no, no, no. I want a promise that I'm going to have a kid this year. The Rabbi looks at him, what? Promise? No, I can't promise you a kid. What do you think I am, God? No, no, no. He goes, no. I want a promise, Kavod HaRav. I want a promise from the Rav that I'm gonna have a kid this year. Well, I can't promise you these things. What's gotten into you, son? I can't, I can't promise you these things. I want a promise. I'm not Eliyahu. I want a promise for a kid. The Rabbi, the Gabbai starts looking at this kid. He's bothering the Rebbe. He wants to kick the guy in the face already. What's the matter with you? Bothering the Rebbe. goes, Rabbi, I want a bechor. He goes, can I give you a guarantee? I can't promise you. He says, then how come 15 years ago I made a promise to you? The Rebbe says, who? You made a promise to me? He says, you remember in the kfar, a 12-year-old boy that came to shul and was learning with you and wanted to go play soccer and loved soccer and wanted to do it. And you know how hard it was for me

1:57:27Rabbi says, "Did you keep that promise?" He says, "It was very hard for me, but I kept the promise. From that day, I told you I'm not going to watch it, I'm not going to go, nothing. Soccer was dead to me. From that day on, I never saw soccer again." He says, "Then you're going to have a kid this year." Ten months later, he has a kid. Shortly after, another kid. Today, his house is full of kids. So what's this business about, "Now you're going to have a kid"? How come he couldn't say, "Now you're going to have a kid," five seconds ago? Now, this person is a friend of Rav Biderman. Rav Biderman was a maggid tzadik. He knows him personally, and he told his story. So how come the admor couldn't say, "Now you're going to have a kid"? before he told them the promise. The reason, Rabotai Yakirim, is that everybody can get a bracha. Anyone—you can get a bracha from an average person. An average person gives you a bracha, take it. But if a person has taken on the challenge, taken on the challenge of increasing their Avodat Hashem,

1:58:50made the sacrifice to accept. You showed that you're afraid of Hashem. The rules are different for you Once you actually showed that you have yirat shamayim, you want to waste seed, but you know it's not allowed and you withstand it. You want to go out with that girl, but you know it's not allowed and you withstand it. You want to go to the bar because it used to be fun, but you know it's not allowed and you withstand it. You want to watch TV because there's a really good movie on and a really good game on, but you know it's not allowed. And you withstand it. You want to eat that burger because it really looks delicious and you're starving. But you know it's not allowed because it's not kosher. You want to do something, but you know Hashem does not want you to do this. And you withstand that test. You are showing that you have some yirat shamayim. When you pass the test, your cheshbon becomes different. You overcome your nature because your natural inclination is to fulfill your desires. Your natural inclination is to do whatever you want.

2:00:03Whether it's to go with someone that you're not allowed to date, or be with somebody you're not allowed to be with, or eat something that you're not allowed to eat, or do all types of things. That's your natural inclination, an animal. But when you overcome your natural inclination, you, in essence, make yourself supernatural. HaKadosh Baruch Hu changes the natural for you. When you show yirat shamayim, Rabotai, you are showing something that's above the standard person. Hashem will change nature for you. That's why He said, now you'll have a kid. Because now you passed this test, you are not in the same class as everybody else. Now you're going to have a kid. You passed the test for 15 years. For 15 years you didn't go watch soccer when it was really hard for you. You deserve whatever you want. Now what's the other proof? The Midrash on Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) chapter 3 verse 2. Chapter 3 verse 2 says, "There is a time to give birth, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot what is planted." This specific verse indicates that there is a predetermined time for birth and a predetermined time for death. The Midrash on that pasuk tells a story that happened a couple thousand years ago.

2:01:30with one of the tzaddikim, Rabbi Shimon ben Chalafta. Anyone who learns Gemara has seen this name many times. So one day, Rabbi Shimon ben Chalafta is returning from a brit milah. And on his way, he sees who? Malach HaMavet himself. Now we see a black cat on the street at night, we are eating tutu. He sees Malach HaMavet himself. He says, hi, what are you doing here? Malach HaMavet starts laughing. He's having a good time. Rabbi Shimon ben Chalafta says, what are you laughing about? What, somebody told you a joke? He says, no, no, nobody told me a joke, no, no. So what are you laughing about? He goes, where did you come from? Come from a brit milah? Rabbi Shimon says, yeah. He goes, you guys had a l'chaim, right? He said, yeah, no. What's with the 20 questions? No. The l'chaim that the father of the son did after he gave you guys l'chaim, he said, what did he say? He said he's going to keep that yayin, he's going to keep that wine until the kid gets married. So Rabbi Shimon says, yeah, and? He says, but the father doesn't know that kid's not going to survive 30 days. What married? What married?

2:03:03So Rabbi Shimon ben Chalafta says to him, "How do you know?" He says, "Why, may I know? I have a book. I have the date, the expiration date, for everybody." Rabbi Shimon ben Chalafta had a huge ma'ala to see Malach HaMavet and be able to talk to him and not die. That already shows you this is a person that's supernatural. This is a person, Kodesh Kodeshim. So he says to Malach HaMavet, "Let me see the book. Let me see. I want to see where I am. Show me in the book where I am." And he says the following. He says, "Not on you and not on anything that comes out from you, like your descendants, do I have any control over. Why? Why?" he says. He says that when HaKadosh Baruch Hu has certain things that He likes, that He desires, when He desires the actions of a certain person,

2:04:23He simply increases his years. So you and your descendants, you're not even in my book. I don't have any control over you. And he says, he says, what are these maasim tovim? What are maasim tovim? What, if you give challah to your next door neighbor every Friday, that's maasim tovim? You donate $18 a week, that's maasim tovim? What are maasim tovim? I need to know because I want to do this. To not be in the book of the Malach HaMavet? Who doesn't want this right now? Hey, how do I get myself out of this book? And not only get yourself out of this book, where HaKadosh Baruch Hu could simply decide to just add years to you for no reason. For this reason, but for no reason. How? He uses a verse from Mishlei, Proverbs, chapter 10, verse 27. Malach HaMavet says, The fear of Hashem will add years, will add days. Meaning,

2:05:24If a person truly develops Yirat Shamayim, Hashem can simply decide, here's another 20 years. Here's another 5 years. Here's another 7 years. Here's another year and a half. He was already supposed to, Hashem Yirachem, die at 25. He's 90 and still going strong. One of the examples, Rabotai, that we saw, was Rav Elyashiv. When he was in his, I think, late teens or early 20s, he had a very weak heart. The doctor told him, "You have two months to live." Next to people, "Two months to live, you have." People said, "Why?" He says, "Because his heart is so weak, the second he gets upset, the heart's going to collapse." I'm giving him two months. He could die in five minutes from now. I'm giving him two months. Why? I figured now that I told you guys this, everyone's going to be careful not to make him upset. But how long is that going to last? So I figured two months. David Yashiv continued going. The doctor died, the nurses died, the friends died, everybody died except David Yashiv. He lived to 104, some say 114 years old. No one really knew his age. At 100, he stopped counting.

2:06:46David Yashiv lived over a hundred years, 104 years, maybe 114 years. Why? When he would pray, when he would serve HaKadosh Baruch Hu, you understood, HaKadosh Baruch Hu is with him. All he cared about was HaKadosh Baruch Hu. The fear of Hashem that he had was unbelievable. One time, some of his talmidim, some of his talmidim, saw an amazing chiddush on a piece of paper, written, handwritten. Something that nobody has seen since Mount Sinai. I said, Kevod HaRav, is this yours? You wrote this? No name on it. You wrote this? The Rav says, what difference does it make who wrote it? If it's wrong, throw it in the garbage. If it's right, who cares to publish it? Who cares if I wrote it or not? he didn't care about kavod. You give him an honor, I give you a big chiddush, no chiddush. What difference does it make? Is it emet or not? Is it serving Hashem or not? The yirat shamayim that the tzaddikim have is something unimaginable. But that also explains why many of them lived many, many years, baruch Hashem. Now, in the beginning we said that

2:08:10The Gemara says in Masechet Shabbat, page 31a, that the fear of Hashem is His treasure. What does it mean to be Hashem's treasure, really? Now, we're going to put everything we said into a small perspective. Rabbi Efraim says, every single one of us has a desire to do something wrong. Your wife is really, really annoying. And you want to tell her a lot of other things. A lot of other things. But you know that the second you do it, the Shechinah leaves your house. Not just your wife, the Shechinah also leaves your house. Why? When there's Shalom Bayit, the Shechinah is there too. You say your nasty comment to your wife, even if she deserves it. Guess what? Shekhinah goes bye-bye. So the second you decide to be quiet, that shows you Yirat Shamayim. You, young guy, healthy, you saw something on a computer, Hashem, on the phone, in an office, in the street, at school, at something.

2:09:34At the store, at the Beit Knesset Bar Minan, you saw something that aroused the hormones you didn't even know you had. And you are ready to explode. You remember what you heard in a shiur that says to someone that wastes seed, Bar Minan, what HaKadosh Baruch Hu thinks of that person, what happens to that person if you waste seed, but you really want it. You save yourself all of the Yetzirah's arguments. If Hashem didn't want me to do it, how come He made it so much fun? If Hashem didn't want me to do it, how come He sent that girl? If Hashem didn't want me to do it, how come I'm so healthy? Some people can't do it. If Hashem didn't do this, you make all the arguments of the Yetzirah. But you only have one argument not to do it. You're afraid of Hashem. Your love of Hashem is not going to help you during that time. During the moment of crisis and fight with the Yetzer Hara, love of Hashem cannot help you. The only thing that helps you at the moment when you have the immorality crimes is Yirat Shamayim. That's the only thing that's going to stop you. Afraid of Hashem. Loving Hashem is not enough when it comes to that.

2:10:46i still love him; I'll just love him tomorrow a little more. I'll make it up tomorrow more. What's going to stop you? You're afraid of Hashem. You're afraid of your husband. Sometimes, he goes to shul and he says, "I'll be back in an hour," and shur, it ended up being good; he ended up staying three hours. Now you planned dinner with him. Planned dinner with him, but you know he didn't go hang out with the guys. He went to the shiur, but he planned dinner with you, and he pulled a no-show. And you already, as a wife, you're ready to eat his head as soon as he comes in the house. Not going. Instead of going to a restaurant, paying $200 for a kosher steak, no, no, you're going to eat his head. Why? You're ready. You got dressed up, the makeup, the this, the that. You're all ready. You got the babysitters, this, that, everything ready. This guy decided to be a Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai tonight. He went to shiur for three hours. So you're ready. Okay, no problem. You don't want to take me to the restaurant? I'm going to eat your head instead. But you know that if you do that, not only is he going to miss his head, but the Shekhinah is going to leave.

2:11:58HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to be upset. HaKadosh Baruch Hu is not going to be happy when you start yelling at him for going to learn Torah. HaKadosh Baruch Hu is not going to be happy if you have an argument. He's not going to be happy. So you, unlike many women, control yourself. Keep your mouth closed. Honey, how is this good? Don't give him the silent treatment and make him feel bad about it. Honey, how is this good? Okay, but it's not a shame. We'll go another time. Oh, no, I'm sorry. I know I'll be sorry. I want you to learn Torah well. That's like, whoa, good for you. Good, you learned. Tell me something you learned. Tell me something you learned. Give me something, give me a story. I'm only going to Olam HaBa because you learn Torah. That's what the Gemara says. Nashim only go to Olam HaBa because they send their kids and their husbands to learn Torah and... So I'm going to go, you're helping me go to the next world. Thank you. Thank you. It's much better than dinner. I can cook something. I can order something. No problem. Tell me something you learned. You turned that fight into a connection between you and your husband. Why? Now, what do all of these have to do with each other? The one that wanted to

2:13:21waste seeds, the one who doesn't want to yell at his wife, the one who doesn't want to yell at her husband, the one who doesn't want to steal, the one who doesn't want to... all these different people. What does it all have to do with it? She got your mind because, as I said, as the Gemara said and I repeated says that that's his treasure. He says the following: "What does it mean? How can you visualize this? That moment that you overcame the desire to sin, stopped everything. He said, 'Everybody stop, I got something to do. What? I got this guy, this tzaddik, this tzaddika...'" He is experiencing something amazing right now. He wants to sin all the sins of the Torah right now, and he's not doing it because he's scared of Me. So I want to go there. I want to be right next to him, and I want to collect that Yirat Shamayim—the two, three, four, five, ten, twenty, thirty minutes of Yirat Shamayim that he has—and put that treasure inside My treasure chest. Because that's all I have.

2:14:29Everything is Mine. But the only thing that's in My treasure chest, which means the only thing that I value, is that three, four, five, ten minutes of Yirat Shamayim where he or she overcame a desire to sin. That is what I want in My treasure chest. And when each one of us, after 120 years, goes up to Shamayim, that is what you're going to have. As a discussion when HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to show you, "Look at My treasure chest and what you contributed." Hopefully, we're not a tiny little grain of sand wrapped in paper just to make it look big. Hopefully, we have a lot of Yirat Shamayim that we've overcome over the years. Because then HaKadosh Baruch Hu will show you, "Look, you contributed a significant amount to My treasure. You have something to talk to Hashem about." For such a person, for such a person, HaKadosh Baruch Hu changes nature. Why? "You contributed to My treasure." Eliya Kesef, Eliya Zahav says, "Everything is Mine, all the money, all the gold, but the only thing that's in My treasure chest, meaning the only thing I value, is Yirat Shamayim." Why? Because, as the same Gemara says in 31b, "The only reason I created the world is to accumulate..."

2:15:57That's his benefit. That's what he wants. That's his treasure. You work on your Yirat Shamayim and anything you can possibly want he'll give you, including more life. As the pasuk says, who doesn't want to live more? If you're a normal human being, you want to live longer. No one wants to die. Everybody wants to live. If you told any billionaire, "Listen, either give me all your billions or I'll kill you." What are they going to do? Give you all the billions. Why? Because all the billions in the world are not even worth one minute of their life. So HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, if you work on your Yirat Shamayim, I'm simply going to remove you from the book of the Yetzer Hara, from the Satan, from the Malach HaMavet. Malach HaMavet has no control over you. has no control. Only one? It's me. I'll remove you from his book. Why? I'm going to give you years. I'm going to give you more time. I'm going to do everything you want. This, Rabotai, is extraordinary. That's why each one of us has to work on it. Each one of us has to teach it to different people because unfortunately today

2:17:19Yirat Shamayim has become almost like a bad word. People think, "Oh no, don't worry, don't serve Him from fear, serve Him from love." This shows people don't even know what they're talking about. It's the biggest mitzvah in the world. It's the biggest segulah in the world. It's the only thing that says you're going to live longer because of it. You're going to get secrets from Hashem because of it. In your tefillah, in your siddur, it says, "Sod Hashem li'reav." So all the secrets of Hashem, He gives to the people that are afraid of Him. Why? Because if you're afraid of Him, you can connect to Him and you could eventually fall in love with Him. If you're not afraid of Him, you don't love Him either. You love yourself, but you're pretending to love Him. This, I think, is one of the most important things that... Each one of us has to go over and over and over again, especially when it comes to the first story that we started this shiur with. Because to get to that big present, to that big treasure, the extra years, the extra money, the extra blessings in this world and the next, it's not going to be easy. You're going to have to go to a serious training camp and...

2:18:31And sometimes it's going to feel like your world is exploding. Sometimes it's going to feel like nothing makes sense. Why are they beating you up? Why do you have a flat tire? Why are you alone? Why is your money gone? Why this? Why that? Don't ask why. Keep going. Keep going. Before HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives you something big, He has to test you. Et Hashem Yo'ehav, Hashem Yochiach. The pasuk says, the ones that HaKadosh Baruch Hu loves, He rebukes them. He tests them. He tests them. This, Rabotai, is the answer to the question of all questions. Why does bad stuff happen in your life? Depends. If you're doing teshuva, you're working on your yirat shamayim, the bad stuff is simply a test. It's a test. It's a cleanup. It's good for you. If you're not doing teshuva, you think that you're already okay, you think everything is perfect, then it's outright a punishment. Why is it a punishment? To wake you up so you can do teshuva. So you can do teshuva. That's simple. This is something we can apply to our life when we're learning, when we're praying, all the time. Because if you pray,

2:19:49understanding that Hashem is next to you and you're supposed to try to help yourself get to a point of fear and awe. You can think about some of the stories we talked about. You can think about this Midrash. You can think about this Gemara. You can think about some of the other experiences. You can think about all of these different things you experienced throughout your life and realize that Hashem is the one monitoring all of this and moving all of this. That could help you connect to Hashem at a much higher level, and you win to no end as a result of it. B'ezrat Hashem, each one of us will get to such a point where we're all going to be removed from the sefer of the Satan and only be under the hand of HaKadosh Baruch Hu and B'ezrat Hashem, influence others to follow as well. B'ezrat Hashem, next year is on Sunday. We'll be back over here, B'ezrat Hashem. But for now, if there are more questions, keep them for next week. So we have some more to say. Baruch Adonai l'olam. Amen v'amen.