TeShuva Test, Stealing Minds, Dangerous Dreams, Immodesty, Wasting Seed - STUMP THE RABBI (10)

0:12It's wonderful to see you guys. You guys give me chizuk. You give me some hope for the future. If Hashem knew all of this, then I understand why He created the world. Why? Because He knows. He knows that His kids are going to come learn Torah on a Wednesday night. So, b'ezrat Hashem, tonight we're going to have a shiur. You guys are going to ask, b'ezrat Hashem, some questions. B'ezrat Hashem, HaKadosh Baruch Hu will give me some answers to give you. This shiur Torah will be for a refuah shlema for Yochevet bat Batya, also for Sarah bat Levana, Levana bat Sarah, Ovadia ben Levana, David ben Nesria, Doris bat Zhora, and all of Am Yisrael, b'ezrat Hashem, will have refuah shlema, refuat hanefesh, refuat haguf. So

1:15We've done already in the last few weeks, b'ezrat Hashem, you guys have been asking some good questions. Please continue. One thing I want to, I guess, advise, maybe, is that I understand that it's a challenge, and I understand that everybody wants to win 50 bucks, and I don't have a problem with that. But if we're already here, we're already going to learn, I just recommend a couple of things. Number one... However long you're going to be here. You're going to be here for an hour. You're going to be here for five hours. Whatever you're going to be here. Make sure you're here. You're with me. Not with your friends only. Not with your phone. Not with the rest of the world. Because we're here. We don't see each other all day. So try to put the phones on vacation for the next couple of hours. Put them on off. Vibrate doesn't usually work. Why? Because vibrate usually wakes you up anyway. The second thing is also the little chit-chatting between each other. Understand that everybody wants to talk. You haven't seen each other for, I don't know, five minutes, and you want to talk about something. But you have to have a little bit of courtesy for the rest of the people that don't want to hear you. They want to hear me. They want to hear Hashem speak through the words that I'm saying to you. So when you talk, it's interfering with other people because they can't hear me. They can hear you, and they didn't come for you. If they wanted to come for you, they would come to your house. So unless you want to pay them $15 to come to your house tomorrow...

2:43Please try not to talk. If you can't help yourself, just get up, go outside, finish your conversation, and come back inside. You're welcome back. Because again, I know a couple of people already told me it's interfering, it's disturbing, and it's hard to pay attention. I can't stop listening to this person's conversation and so on and so forth. So have a little bit of decency for each other. Not me, for each other. Of course, for the Torah as well, but for each other. Last but not least, in regard to the questions, as much as I love your questions and I enjoy every one of them, and it gives me a lot of chizuk, I really want you guys to ask questions that you understand. Meaning, I know that sometimes you're going to look on Google and you say, what's the hardest question I could ask the rabbi to win 50 bucks? Maybe Google is going to give you a suggestion. But the problem is that sometimes you can ask a question and you don't even understand the question. You don't understand the question, so what's the point? Ask a question you care about, not that Google cares about. A question that bothers you. If you don't mind, take that box and put it over here so somebody can sit there. Also, with the other things, so I can see some more pure neshamot sitting in front of me. I don't know, for some reason, everybody's scared of me. Nobody wants to sit in front of me. I promise I don't bite, at least not right away.

4:02So, ask a question you understand. Ask a question you care about. Don't ask me, "Does the Torah say how big the moon is exactly to the meter and centimeter?" Even if I give you the answer, which, by the way, the Torah does, what difference does it make to you how big the moon is? What do you care? Are you going to sleep better at night because the moon is one meter closer to what your estimate was? What do you care how big the moon is? Ask a question, like a mamash question, a question that's going to change your life. A question that's always been bothering you. A question that, you know what, maybe it doesn't bother you, but you still want to know the answer because it matters to you. Ask those types of questions because those types of questions are genuine questions. The genuine questions, they're questions that have to do with your day-to-day. And again, you want to continue asking questions that don't matter to you, I personally think you're wasting your time, but if you want to continue doing it, you're more than welcome to do so, we don't have any barriers. But again, make sure it's a real question and not some type of riddle that I have to, you know, start taking pen and paper to try to figure out. Have some questions, b'ezrat Hashem, and also realize that there are other people here. So when you ask,

5:14a question that's meaningless to you and to everybody else, you lose out in both ways. One, you ask the question, you got your opportunity, but in reality, you didn't gain anything from it. Second way you lose is no one else gains anything out of it because they didn't learn anything from it either. But if you ask a general question like, for example, why does Hashem care about modesty? Why does He care about what we wear? Why does He care? Does He have a clothing store? Is He trying to make some extra money? Why does He care? That's a general question that affects every single person in the room—the boys and the girls, young and old. That's a general question that affects everybody. Now, why do you benefit from such a question and... You benefit from that question because, number one, you're going to know once and for all for yourself: Why does Hashem really care about what I wear? Why can't I just wear anything I want? Why can't I just walk around naked? What's the difference between me and a dolphin? The second reason is that because of your question, other people are going to learn, and you now merit an additional mitzvah. What mitzvah is that? Every single word that comes out of my mouth that's about Torah and answers that question is a mitzvah for each person that's listening to it. That mitzvah also goes to your account. So you got a million and a half mitzvot because just count, let's say, for example, I spoke for five minutes. Five minutes I spoke. Let's say that's a thousand words.

6:34Thousand words times it by a hundred plus people here. Baruch Hashem. It's a lot of mitzvot. It's a lot of mitzvot. You just, what did you do? Nothing. You asked the question. Who doesn't want to go home with an extra few thousand mitzvot for the same price? So, b'chavod, please, who wants to ask the first question? How do you know if your teshuva is proper and sufficient? It's a good question. HaKadosh Baruch Hu says to us in Sefer Devarim that the mitzvah of teshuva, the mitzvah of teshuva, meaning that this mitzvah of teshuva, of changing our ways, stopping the sins, and doing the right thing, He says it in the Torah, meaning this is not a suggestion. This is a mitzvah from the Torah, just like eating kosher is, just like keeping Shabbat, just like all of the other mitzvot in the Torah. And HaKadosh Baruch Hu says to us that you have to do teshuva. Now, the Gemara says, when should I do teshuva? They ask Rabbi Eliezer HaGadol, when should I do teshuva? Rabbi Eliezer HaGadol says, do teshuva before you die.

7:42Don't you know before you die? So the talmidim of Rabbi Eliezer HaGadol said, "Okay, but how are we going to know when we're going to die?" He says, "Exactly. Since you don't know when you're going to die, do teshuva every day." I have a cousin that died two weeks ago, a week ago. He was 51. No one thought he was going to die a year ago. No one thought he was going to die a day before he died, but he died. Hashem have mercy on him. I also have another cousin that died a year and a half ago. He was 23. No one thought he was going to die, especially his parents that have a hundred million dollars. They didn't think he was going to die. one thought he was gonna die, but he died, meaning that no one is guaranteed tomorrow and no one is guaranteed to live for 120 years like we would like. Anybody here ever hear of a guy named Warren Buffett? You guys heard of Warren Buffett? You know, Warren Buffett is like a thousand years old, but he says he's 90. Warren Buffett still goes to work every day, still trying to make billions and billions of dollars more. The investments that he makes are usually 10-year or 20-year investments, meaning if he makes an investment tomorrow when the market opens, he's not making an investment to sell it next week. He's making an investment tomorrow to sell it maybe 20 years from now. He’s assuming, even though he's 90, that he's going to live another 20 years. He's assuming, but who knows if he's going to live until next week?

9:00So Torah tells us, you're not guaranteed tomorrow, you're not guaranteed 20 years from now, you're guaranteed right this second. Next second after, you're not guaranteed. Meaning, if you're alive this second, you're obligated to do teshuva this second. If a person takes that into account in every moment of their life, they're contemplating in one way or another, how can I do better? How can I do? Whatever it is that I'm doing, how can I do it better? So let's say, for example, eating. Eating. Eating seems like a simple thing to do. But sometimes you eat and you forget to say thank you to Hashem. Forget? You ate; you didn't forget to eat. Eating, nobody ever forgets. But to say thank you to Hashem, we forget. We forgot to say thank you before we ate, so we didn't say the blessing. We forgot to say thank you after we ate. We forgot to say Birkat Hamazon. Or somebody says, listen, is there a short version of Birkat Hamazon? Three hours to eat, they have. Three minutes to say Birkat Hamazon, they don't have.

10:00We're not so good at the blessing part. So, if a person thinks, "How could I get better at eating?" One way is to start saying thank you every single time you eat, before you take a bite and after you finish eating. Another way is to make sure that when you say thank you to Hashem, whether it's before you eat or after you finish. You're thanking Hashem and not saying things because you've repeated them so many times in your head that you know them by heart. So while you're doing it, you're playing with your phone. Meaning, talk to Hashem and not your phone. Have some kavanah, have some intention when you're praying. Next thing is also if somebody is still not eating kosher. He's eating still neveilot v'tereifot. He's eating non-kosher meat. He goes to McDonald's. He goes to non-kosher restaurants. She goes to non-kosher restaurants. You should know that the Baal HaTanya, the chassid that started Chabad, writes in chapter 45 of the Tanya that a person who eats non-kosher food, if they do not do teshuva and they die before they do teshuva, then their ge'enom is going to be the cold ge'enom. Not for all of their sins, just for that sin alone. There are two types of ge'enom.

11:20There's the cold one, and there's the hot one, if you will. He says for eating non-kosher food, it's the cold one. Meaning, when somebody thinks about such a thing, who wants to go to Gehinnom? I want to go to Gan Eden. I want to go to heaven. I don't want to go to Gehinnom. Who wants to go to such a place? So, you should listen to the Chassid from Chabad. The Baal HaTanya says, eat kosher food. So if you're going to do teshuvah every single day, and you're going to contemplate, how can I do better at every single thing that I'm doing? I just prayed, next time can I do it better? Can I pray better next time? You just learned. You just learned a nice hour, two hours, three hours. Can I do better learning? You know, I learned today for two hours, but in reality, it was two minutes. Sometimes somebody opens the book, they're with their friends, yalla guys, let's learn. The book is in front of them, but Hashem is not. Why? Hashem left because they're chit-chatting about baseball, about basketball. The sefer Torah is in front of them. It's open, but they're not talking Torah. They're talking nonsense.

12:21So how can you make that better? Simple. Next time the book is open, only talk about the book. Talk about what it says in the Torah. Don't talk about what he did last night, what she did last night, where you're going for the weekend, what your family vacation is, what you ate for lunch, or what you want for lunch. Who cares about that stuff? The Torah is open in front of you. Even the learning that people do sometimes is a waste of time because they do not take teshuva into account. If you take teshuva into every single step of your life, you are for sure going to be a fantastic ba'al teshuva. Something that HaKadosh Baruch Hu in Shamayim is dancing over. He's like, look at my son, look at my daughter, how everything she does, she thinks about Me. But not just to say thank you. She thinks about Me, how could I do even better? How could I do an even better job for Hashem? How could I do an even better job? If anybody can be so kind, take one chair and give it to the nice lady over there. That'd be so kind. Thank you. So the point is, Rabotai, that if you simply pay attention, just pay attention to your life, pay attention to what you're doing in life, you will find that every single thing that you do

13:43be done better. Even working, you know how many people steal at work? You know how many people steal at work without even knowing that they're stealing? I'm not talking about the people that are taking cash out of the registers, obviously you don't need to be a genius to know that. I'm talking about people steal. Why? They go to work, the guy's paying them to work, right? Anybody here ever go to work but the guy says you don't have to work? Nobody, right? Anybody here is gonna start a business and tell people, "Listen, I'll pay you not to work." No, right? So sometimes people go to work and they expect to get money. What happens? They're supposed to work nine-to-five, but they figure, you know what, the boss is not paying attention, the manager just went on lunch, the colleague over here doesn't really care what I do. So what do they do? They start playing with their phone, start going on Facebook. It's not going on Facebook. Oh, wow. Look what he ate for lunch. Maybe I'll have that too. Oh, look, look what she did this weekend. Maybe I'm going to do that also. They start playing on Facebook for an hour and a half. Then after they finish, they get bored of Facebook, they go on Twitter. They start, oh, Donald Trump just said he's going to buy my rent. Wow, Donnie. Good job, Donnie. Hey, he's going to go for somebody else. He's playing with Twitter. After he's bored with Twitter for 15-20 minutes, he's like, what else could I do? You know what?

15:02That guy at the Beit Knesset told me that if I could do something, if I could actually make the call for him, he's gonna pay me 20 bucks. You know what? I'm gonna make that call for him. It's only five, 10 minutes. My boss is on lunch. So he makes the call for his friend to do such and such for his friend at the shul. Oh, and he calls his friend. Hey, listen, I did it for you. You're gonna give me 20 bucks today. Yeah, yeah. What'd you do? You just used your boss's time that he's paying you to go work for somebody else. That's 100% stealing. 100% stealing. You have to understand, if you work for somebody for a certain amount of time, you work for them. Now, sometimes certain companies don't necessarily care about every detail that you do. So, for example, they're going to tell you, "Listen, as long as you do your job, I don't really care how you do it. As long as you do your job." So, if you want to do your job while you're listening to headphones, listen to headphones. I don't really care. So, if you want to listen to your headphones to shiur Torah, no problem. He doesn't care. He doesn't care that you listen to shiur Torah as long as you get your job done. But if as a result of you listening to even a shiur Torah, that's a mitzvah,

16:08you end up not working, then guess what? That shiur Torah is not a mitzvah anymore. That's stealing. Meaning, if you're working, first priority is the job. First priority is the job. If the boss allows you to do other things while you do it, no problem. But if the boss is not paying you to do the other things, and it's disturbing the job, then guess what? It's stealing. It's called gezel. So if somebody pays attention to how they work, Simply how they work. Ninety percent of people would change their job. Why? Because the conditions that they have now versus the conditions that the guys paying them for are two different things, two different things. That's why, Rabotai, we have to pay attention to our actions. And if you pay attention to your actions, for sure you're going to be a fantastic human being, a fantastic Neshama with eternity of Gan Eden, of Heaven. And that's what we all want, kavod. Geneivat da'at is, in literal terms, it means you deceived somebody else's mind. So obviously you can't go into someone's mind and steal it. There are several different opinions, several different ways that you could explain it. For example, something that is very common in business today is false advertising.

17:36When I was a kid, 17 years old, 16 years old, centuries ago, they had a lot of Jewish people who got into the electronics business. The way that people made money in the electronics business was that they would advertise one thing. Let's say, for example, a computer. and they advertised the computer, that in reality, in every other store, this computer with these specs is worth $2,000, $3,000. But they'd advertise it for $400. They'd advertise it for $400. Now, obviously, people come and want to buy this $3,000 machine for $400. The company's going to go out of business in a week. Why? Because they're going to lose $2,600 on every machine. If 1,000 people buy it, that's millions of dollars. So what, obviously, they're not gonna someday sell the $3,000 machine for $400. They're not gonna do it. So what are they gonna do? The trick was something called bait and switch, which is that they bait people by a fake product by telling them this $3,000 machine is $400. On Sunday morning, when everybody got their papers and...

18:51They got their papers. They all show up to the store at the same time. So you see the store literally with lines around the block a few times. Hundreds and hundreds of people wanting to buy this machine because some of them are saying, even if I don't need it, even if I don't need this machine, I'll buy ten of them. I'll buy ten of them and just resell them for $3,000. Sell them for $1,000. I can make a ton of money. Thousands of people would line up, one after another, saying, "Yeah, I want to buy this computer." So the guy says, "Oh, what kind of computer?" And then he goes into all types of tricks to switch them into something else. The bait is to get them into the store, and then once they got to the store, the job of the salesman is to switch them to a much more expensive product. Sometimes that's better; sometimes it's actually inferior. Sometimes it's not as good but still for more money. So that's one way that Geneivat Da'at works, that you are in essence false advertising. There are other ways that you can do it, but that's probably the most practical way that you can steal somebody else's mind because he was under the perception that you promised something that you can deliver. And in reality, you weren't able to deliver. There are also other aspects of Geneivat Da'at, but that's one practical business term that I think applies even till today.

20:09Because in today's world, for whatever reason or another, it's become very common for people to accept cheating and stealing as if it's normal. A lot of people in business today think that the only way to get ahead in the business world is if you kill everybody in sight. If you cheat everyone, you steal from everyone, and pretty much as long as you don't get caught, it's okay. As long as you don't get caught, it's okay. But that's a problem. Why is it a problem? Because Shlomo HaMelech tells us... there's an eye that's watching, there's an ear that's listening, and every single thing that you do is being written down. By whom? By HaKadosh Baruch Hu. And when the time comes and that neshama goes up to Shamayim, Hashem is going to show a person a movie of every single thing they did in their life. And that's going to be one of the most torturous things that they can experience. We're talking before Gehenom. Why? Because what happens is a person is shown everything they did. All the people they lied to. All the people they cheated. And then the person is shown this. He's embarrassed enough that Hashem caught him. But that's not enough. Hashem brings those other neshamot.

21:20The people he cheated. The people she lied to. He brings their neshamot to watch. And then all those neshamot say, "Why did you lie to me? Why did you do this to me? Why did you do this? Why, why, why, why?" Imagine the embarrassment. Chazal tells us the embarrassment during that time is so bad that the neshama itself asks Hashem, "Please put me in Gehenom." put me in the fire. The fire is better than this horrible embarrassment. That's how horrible the embarrassment is on judgment day. Next question. Yes. What's the point of dreams? Why do we dream? Ah, that's a good question. You guys remind me of when I was a kid. Baruch Atah Adonai. Marama Sechet Berachot says a dream can be, not always, but can be 1/60th of prophecy. What's prophecy? There are several aspects of prophecy, but one aspect of prophecy is that it's talking to God. Meaning it's knowing a little bit of a secret that God is trying to tell you about something that's happening or could happen in the future, so

22:47Dreams can be a way that Hashem will communicate with you to tell you about something that could potentially happen in the future, either to warn you about it or to make you happy about it. So, the Shulchan Aruch says... There's a certain dream. Most dreams are complete nonsense. Most dreams are just a figment of your imagination. You went to the zoo, you saw an elephant, then later on you had a hot dog for lunch, and then later on you read a book. So you went to sleep and you dreamt that the book is eating a hot dog but it has an elephant head on it. That's just a figment of your imagination. There's nothing there. Most dreams are complete nonsense. But sometimes dreams do mean something. And the Gemara says that they have to follow a certain pattern. If you have a recurring dream, you have the same exact dream multiple times. If you're having a recurring dream, that's a dream to pay attention to.

23:56Then that's a dream to pay attention to. That's a dream to pay attention to. If you had a one-time dream, more times than not, it's complete nonsense. But if you have a recurring dream, you had something that you dreamt. Let's say, for example, you dreamt of a car accident. Nothing. It doesn't mean anything. It just means maybe you have anxiety about your driving skills. But now, if you had that same dream two or three times, that's something to pay attention to. You have to go to a talmid chacham and ask that talmid chacham that you know, and you know that that talmid chacham cares about you, to tell you, what does this dream mean? A talmid chacham is somebody that learns Torah all the time. Not just somebody that learns Torah once in a blue moon. Somebody that knows Torah. Also, it has to be somebody that cares about you because the Gemara says that if that person cares about you, he will give you a positive interpretation of that dream, which also has an effect on the dream itself. But if you have a certain type of dream, the Shulchan Aruch says that’s called a dangerous dream. There's a type of dream that's called dangerous. What's a dangerous dream? If you dream that you lost all your teeth...

25:04Sometimes people have this dream. I already know a couple of people who had this dream. One of my students actually heard me say this in a different lecture, maybe it was with you guys, maybe with somebody else, and I said this. The Shulchan Aruch says if you had a dream that you lost all your teeth, the Shulchan Aruch says you have to fast. You have to fast the next day. Really serious fast. No eating, no drinking. Why? It's a very bad sign from Heaven that somebody could potentially die, including Chas V'Shalom, the person himself. It's a sign that that person needs to do some serious teshuva, some serious act of kedusha in order to undo this dream. One of my students saw me saying this, heard me say this in a different shiur, and says, I can't believe it. I had a dream a year ago, my teeth fell, but I didn't think much of it. I didn't think much of it. He says a week later one of his family members died. Rabotai, dreams have a meaning sometimes. Last but not least about dreams is that dreams are one of the ways that HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives you joy in this world. Because dreams, when they're good, they're enjoyable. How do you dream that you fly? It's cool to fly.

26:23you feel like it's real. It's a dream, in the dream it's real, so it's cool to fly, it's cool to do all types of things. So, dreams are a way for HaKadosh Baruch Hu to give you some type of joy. So much so, that if you do not dream for an extended period of time—I believe it's 40 days— then you should take some action to do teshuva. Why? Because that means that there's a kitrug, there's a case against you in Shamayim where Hashem is lowering your joy. Last but not least, I'm sorry I forgot, dreams are also a way for the Satan's wife to make men lose their Olam HaBa. How so? The Satan's wife is so powerful, she's more powerful than him, that we're not allowed to say her name. If you know it, keep it to yourself, please. If you don't know it, it's better you don't know it. Because if you say her name, you're inviting her over. Now, the problem is that when she comes into your dream, she doesn't look like Satan's wife. She looks like somebody you like. She looks like somebody you want to like. And she wants to do everything rotten in your mind in order to get you to waste seed.

27:36Now, when a guy wastes seed in his dream, even though it's not an intentional sin like he did it when he was awake, nonetheless, it is still considered a sin. Where do we learn it from? Gemara Masechet Avodah Zarah says a man should be careful of the things that he sees in the morning. ...so evil does not come to him at night. What's evil? Evil is the Satan's wife trying to entice him to waste seed while he's sleeping. We call it in street language a "wet dream." He wastes seed, and when he's wasting seed, he is creating millions and millions of demons that are going to torture him as much as they possibly can. Not a good idea, which means that a person needs to follow a certain regimen when he's sleeping, to sleep on his left side. If he sees a woman in his dream, to make sure, if he can, and he's trained himself to wake himself up, even if the woman in his dream is his wife. It's still not his wife; it's always the Satan's wife. Point being, Rabotai, that dreams have a lot of meaning. A lot of meaning. We actually can speak for hours about dreams, but this gives you a little bit of a synopsis of what they are. Chabibi, next question.

28:53Yes? Before Shlomo HaMelech, was there a prayer similar to Kriyat Shema? Kriyat Shema is from the Torah. What about the part where it's like, Oh no, that's Shema Al HaMitah. That's Shema Al HaMitah. The Kriyat Shema itself is our verses from the Torah itself. originally from Yaakov Avinu. Yaakov Avinu, Shema Yisrael. Yaakov Avinu, Shema Yisrael. Then later on in the Torah, it's mentioned again as the commandment for us to say Shema Yisrael every day. Men are obligated to say Shema Yisrael no less than twice per day: once in the morning during Shacharit, and once at night during Arvit. They should also say Shema Yisrael before they go to sleep. That's called Shema Al Hamita. Women are obligated to say Shema Yisrael at least once per day at no particular time. They don't have to do it in the morning. They don't have to do it at night. They just have to do it at some point, just like they have to pray Amidah once per day as well. But they should also say Shema Al Hamita. What's Shema Al Hamita? Shema Al Hamita is saying Shema Yisrael and reading a nusach, a certain regimen of prayer.

30:16that compiles some things from Shlomo HaMelech, some things from David HaMelech, and so on, compiles these prayers along with the Shema Yisrael. Why do you say it? Because, as we said, you're going to fall asleep. When you fall asleep, you lose control of a lot of things. And the Gemara says that when a person falls asleep, it's a partial death. It's 1/60th of death. During that time, the neshama gets to see things it cannot see in this world. If it wants protection from some of those things that are not good, you should say the Shema Yisrael before you go to sleep. Why? Because if you say the Shema Yisrael before you go to sleep, and not just say it like a robot, but say it with real kavanah (intention), then you're going to get yourself protection during your dreams even during your dreams even, so that Satan's wife doesn't show up in your dream, that no one shows up in your dream, and even if you have night terrors or nightmares, Shema Yisrael protects you from those things.

31:23so Shema Yisrael is definitely an obligation for all Jews, but as far as Shema Al HaMitah, that's the third. In the level of, let's say, significance, there's the obligation for men, like I said, morning and night. Women, once a day, regardless of when it is. But then there's the Shema Al HaMitah, which is to say Shema Yisrael before you go to sleep. If you're extraordinarily tired, like sometimes happens to me, You're so tired that you know you're not going to be able to read the entire Shema Yisrael. The Shema Yisrael itself is relatively short, but the full Shema is kind of long. If it's one of those times when you know there's just no way you're going to stay awake through this prayer, at the very least, do the Shema Yisrael minimum. Don't make this the standard. You should do more because the more you do, the more protection you have. Shlomo HaMelech... Because he was afraid of what would happen to him during his dream, he literally had guards surrounding his bed, like it says in the song. He had guards surrounding his bed. That's how dangerous dreams can be for some people who are very, very holy. So much so that his father, David HaMelech, never slept more than 15 minutes.

32:34never slept more than 15 minutes consecutively. It's not necessarily because he didn't want to sleep; it's because he was so scared of what would happen if he slept for an extended period of time, Chazal says. Many tzaddikim also sleep for very, very short periods of time, not just because they want to be productive during the day, but also because they don't want to lose control of themselves, their bodies, for an extended period of time and be subject to what could potentially happen. Don't worry. This is not going to be a problem for you. We're not Shlomo HaMelech. But nonetheless, we do need to do Shema Yisrael before we go to sleep. Next question. Would you be able to list all the sons of Yaakov? All of the sons of Yaakov? This is like one of those questions that I said not to ask, isn't it? How is it going to help you? You can read it from Sefer Bereishit. You can read it from Sefer Bereishit. It's not a productive question. Let's ask another question. No, come on. Even if I give it to you, what does it do for you? Does it show you have a high IQ or a good memory? What does it do for you? All I can tell you is that Shimon and Levi, Shimon and Levi, I'll give you a different question. I'll give you two for one. Shimon and Levi were Kodesh Kodashim. But one time...

33:50One time, Shimon and Levi heard something bad. What did they hear? They heard that their sister Dina, their sister Dina, went outside just to see what the other girls were doing. Not our sisters, not our cousins. What the Goyot were doing. She went to the mall. She went to the mall. She wanted to see what they were doing. What are they shopping for? So some guy named Chamor, which also means donkey, decided he likes her, but he doesn't care if she likes him back, and he raped her. This is one of the saddest stories in the history of mankind. Why is it so sad? Why is it so sad? Not because she gave birth. Think about it. This is in a parashah. This is in the Torah. It's not like a Midrash that some people know, some people don't know. No, no. This is in the Torah. We read this every year. At least once. That means that every kid, six, seven, eight years old,

35:06the rest of eternity is going to know this parashah at least once a year. That means that every adult that goes to the kehillah, that learns Torah a little bit, is going to read this parashah at least once a year. That means that in Olam forever they read this at least once a year. That means that everybody in the world forever is always going to know what happened. So imagine this: imagine the biggest rabbi in the world, the biggest rabbi, the most famous person in the world His daughter got raped. That's already bad enough, right? I mean, just the girls are thinking about this. They want to vomit right now. You guys don't understand what it means because you're normal. Baruch Hashem, the girls, they're like, what? Somebody touched me. I don't want anyone to touch me. I want to kill the guy. I want to kill the guy in the story also. But the reality is, Rabotai Yekarim, it happened. It happened. Now, after it happened, HaKadosh Baruch Hu decided to put it in the Torah. He decided to put it in the Torah, which means that for the rest of eternity, It has to be publicized that she got raped. What does that mean? Imagine the biggest, most famous rabbi in the world, his daughter gets raped. That's already a tremendous disgrace. Then it's in a newspaper. How much embarrassment is it giving him? How much embarrassment is it giving Dina? How embarrassed is she that it's in a newspaper? Not only did she get raped, but it's also in a newspaper. Imagine it's not just in a newspaper, it's on the internet too.

36:28Well, not only is it on TV, but there's a whole special on CNN. Imagine CNN does a special on Yaakov Avinu's daughter, Dina. Hashem, you know you want to cry. Guess what? That's not enough. They do an annual special about this. Now, what happened with Dina? You listen to this, you want to cry, you want to die for her. What, die for this for eternity? Special program for six-year-olds, special program for eight-year-olds, special program for ten-year-olds, special program for fifteen-year-olds. What do we learn out today? Learn how Dina got raped. Shame on your hand, horrible, right? Now, on one end, for her, it's good news. What's the good news? Anyone that learns the story, especially the ladies and... ...will protect herself and never allow any human being to touch her unless he's her husband. And even then, with permission only. Any girl that learns the details of that story will protect herself from ever allowing any person to touch her, except for her husband, because of how disgusting and despicable it is.

37:47So for Dina, Dina is benefiting from that story. Even though it's embarrassing, she's helping countless people do teshuva for eternity because of what happened to her. I want that it's good. I want that it's good. But on another end, Rabotai Yekarim, we have to find out why did it happen to Dina? What did she do that was so bad? Did she worship an idol? Did she rob a bank? Did she murder some people? No. What did she do? She went to see what the non-Jewish girls were doing. She went to them all. And Hashem punished her severely. Why? To tell us four thousand years later, a Bat Yisrael does not belong among the people that are not part of Yisrael. You are not supposed to even desire what they're doing. Why? You are the daughter of God. Not the daughter of Joe Schmo. You're the daughter of God. That means you are a princess. You do not belong with everyone else, whether you like it or not. So, to go and even be interested in what the other people are doing means that you have some type of screw missing in your ideology.

39:09Unfortunately, today many of us have missing screws because we do not see ourselves as the sons and daughters of God. We think that we're just Joe and Steve and Yaakov and David. We're just me. No, no, no, my friend. You're the daughter of God, the King of Kings, Melech Malchei HaMelachim, HaKadosh Baruch Hu. There's nothing better than that. There's nothing better than you in the world. HaKadosh Baruch Hu created the world just for you. Not for all of you, for you individually. For you individually. Every Jew has to wake up in the morning and say HaKadosh Baruch Hu created the whole world for me. It's not a matter of arrogance. It's a matter of responsibility. If HaKadosh Baruch Hu created the whole world just for me, that means He cares about me. That means I have to do something. have to do something about it. That means that I cannot act like everybody else; I cannot wear a mini skirt because all my girlfriends are wearing mini skirts. I have to dress like the king's daughter. I cannot wear a tank top because I'm hot, just because everybody else that's hot thinks that a tank top is going to help them. By the way, tank tops don't make you less hot. You're still hot, with or without the tank top.

40:27Reality is, Rabotai, a bat Yisrael that respects herself treats herself that way. Not saying, "No, no, give me respect." Saying "give me respect" means nothing. Saying "give me respect" just means that you know how to speak; it doesn't mean that you know what it actually means. Respect is something that you earn simply by how you behave, without words. How you behave, how you carry yourself. What kind of words do you choose? What kind of clothes do you choose? You're never gonna see the Queen of England wearing a bikini, never. You're never gonna see the Queen of England. She's not even Jewish. You're never gonna see the Queen of England walking around with a tank top, never. You're never gonna see her walking around with a v-neck, never. It's never gonna happen. Why? Because she views herself as a queen. She views herself as a queen. You know, what's the funny thing? All of you really are queens. She just pretends to be.

41:32...all of you really are queens. Are we treating ourselves as such? Now, here's the thing: why is Dinah's story in the Torah? Not only to remind us of who and what we are, but even more importantly, to know that everything you do is written in a book. It's written in a sefer. Not this one, the one that's for eternity, beyond this one, the one that you don't see. Which means that whatever you do in your life, that boyfriend that you liked before you got married, that girlfriend that you liked before you got married, that miniskirt that's on a discount and you figure, maybe I'll only wear it once, and that dress that's a little too tight and you know you're not allowed to wear it because you're a Jew, and so on and so forth, that's written in a book. That's written in a book, rabotai. Before you stole that money, it was written in a book. After you stole the money, it's written in a book. And it's going to be repeated to you and to everybody else for eternity. eternity. Who wants such embarrassment to be repeated for eternity? That's why HaKadosh Baruch Hu put this story in the Torah. Why? To remind you that even if you did it until now—you dressed inappropriately, you ate inappropriately, you acted inappropriately—you should know there is Teshuvah. You can stop.

42:54now stop with the nonsense. Now, fix yourself. Get a new wardrobe, develop new behavioral habits, and so on and so forth. Start learning Torah and let's move forward. Why? Because if your Teshuvah is real, it could literally delete all of your sins from the past and make everything as pure and as beautiful as you want it to be for eternity. Now, what would you prefer? Them talking about all of your mitzvot for eternity? All of the nasty, ugly stuff that's supposed to be censored—who wants their sins to be repeated for eternity? Raise your hand. Who wants their mitzvot to be repeated and publicized? Raise your hand. You're all normal; you all picked the right choice. That's why we got to do more mitzvot and less aveirot. Less sins. I promise you it's not that hard. It's only hard for the first 70 years. After that, it's easy. It's only hard for the first seven years. After that, it's easy. Piece of cake. No, but really, really isn't that difficult. Either way you wear clothes. Just put the sleeves on. Either way you wear clothes, guys. Just make sure they're not so tight that your heart's coming out of your pants.

44:14In this generation, for some reason, they decided to make a new style of skinny jeans to torture yourself. A guy is wearing jeans, but the heart falls on the floor because of how tight they are. I have no idea. How do you wear this stuff? Be'emet, seriously, I have to ask you guys. How do you wear this? How is it comfortable? Be'emet. We're men. You have to act like men. You have to act like sons of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Dress like men. Not like these Shema Yisrael people. We have to act like men. We have to dress like them too. B'not Yisrael, please, I beg you. I beg you. Please consider, consider taking on a mitzvah of modesty. If you don't have money to buy clothes, I'll go beg, borrow, and steal to buy you clothes. I'm serious. I'm not joking. If you don't have money to borrow a new wardrobe, I'll go beg in the streets and buy you clothes if that's what it's gonna take. That's how important it is for you to be modest. I don't want it to be repeated for eternity that you walked around with a miniskirt. I feel embarrassed because you're my sister, you understand? So if you don't have the money to go buy new clothes, I'll go borrow and get you clothes. The truth is, most people have money, but if you don't, I'll go get it. Just change, it's worth it. Why? Because for eternity, for eternity, you're not gonna want the tank top to be shown on a movie screen for billions of people to watch and

45:42Next question. See, it was a fantastic question after all. Yes, yes. Same price. Yes. No. It's a good question. Question: if somebody had a dream, and it was a bad dream, and the next day they died, is it a dibbuk? Okay, so if somebody had a dream... Yes, he said if somebody had a dream that was a bad dream, and the next day that person died, is that considered a dibbuk? So you're combining two different things. And I'll explain what everything means. I'll explain, don't worry. So first and foremost, a dibbuk, a dibbuk, It's a Kabbalistic term. It's also in the Gemara. Chazal talked about it. It's not as common today as it was, say, 50, 100, 200 years ago, and even more so before that. Rabbi Yehuda Fatiyah, alav ha-shalom, one of the Chachamim, has a whole book written about his conversations with dibbukim. What are dibbukim? Dibbukim are wicked neshamot.

47:08that already left this world, that enter into a human being that's still living here. So imagine a person is living, everything's okay, next thing you know, he loses his mind and he starts talking like a woman. Not because he wants to. A different voice comes out of his throat. So now he's talking in one voice, and two seconds later he's speaking in a different language, different voice, saying different things, and so on and so forth. When things like this happen, could be, not always, but that could be something called a dybbuk because that spirit, that neshamah, came into the person, infiltrated that person, and took control. Now, in previous generations, when it was more common, they were also coming and that were able to take those neshamot out. And the reason why you want to take them out is because those neshamot hurt the person that's there. They take control over the body and so on. They made fake movies about it, like The Exorcist and things like that. But nonetheless, this is definitely a real thing in Torah, in Judaism, in the world in general. It's relevant both to Jews and non-Jews. Some chachamim even say that many of the people that are in the crazy house,

48:29people that have lost their mind. They're not people that have lost their mind, but literally are people that have two neshamot in one body. So that's what a dybbuk is. In previous generations, we had people that were experts in it, that were able to take those neshamot out. It's not easy, and it's not a one-two-three process, and it could even kill the person to take that neshamah out. It's not like taking out a hair out of milk. It could even kill the person, so it has to be an expert and so on. But it's not common anymore. Baruch Hashem, it's not common. And part of the reason is because we don't have many, if anybody at all in the world, that could actually even deal with these things. So that doesn't have to do with a person dying, meaning from a dream. If a person dies from a dream, Simply means that, you know, he had a bad dream. He died. Hashem gave him a sign. Apparently, he did not get the message, and Hashem decided that his time is up. So usually, things don't work that way. It's usually not that fast. HaKadosh Baruch Hu, if He's giving you a sign in your dream, it's usually a message for you to do something about it and...

49:38He's not going to give you a sign like a dead end. Boom. That's not a sign. There's no point in giving you a sign. Everything that HaKadosh Baruch Hu does has to have a purpose. So if He's giving you some kind of sign, it's usually in order to give you the idea to do something about this sign. But to just give you a bad dream and then kill you, that's more like a movie. It's not real. It's not like Hashem. Hashem is merciful. Hashem is merciful, and He gives us non-stop signs that we could do something about if we simply pay attention to Him. How about the next question? I can't hear what you said. If dreams are so important, why do we forget them? Not the question? Okay, so like I said, most dreams, and by most I I mean, an overwhelming majority, like 99.9% of dreams, are simply nonsense. The Gemara Masechet Berachot says that they are simply a culmination of all the things that you see in your life. So you went to the zoo and you had a dream about a guy with an elephant head. That does not mean that you're going to meet some guy with an elephant head. That just means that your imagination

50:54developed from something you saw in real life with something else that you saw in your real life that could have been that week, that month, that year, or even 20 years ago. So, most dreams are that. Most dreams are simply nonsense. Some dreams are meaningful, but they are very rare. They are very rare. The primary thing for dreams is for joy, meaning to have a good dream, to have a dream that's relatively enjoyable. That's a way for Hashem to give you some joy in this world, but it's not usually to give you a prophecy. It's only rarely that way. Next question, yes. So where does it say in the Torah that men have to put on a kippah? And if I'm not religious, should I put a kippah on? Two questions. One, his mom wanted him to learn that fear of Hashem is not something that's a suggestion; it's not advice, it's an obligation. And she wanted him to have a constant reminder that he needs to fear Hashem.

52:12She said you cover your head in order to remind yourself constantly that there's something above you. That's one of the many sources that we see in the Oral Torah, that a person needs to constantly be reminded that they are under Hashem in order to fear Him. And from there, many of the Chachamim use this as the primary source for where we learn to cover our head. It's not a biblical mitzvah, like Shabbat or kashrut; rather, it's a rabbinical mitzvah, but nonetheless, it has many sources in the Torah that tell us that this has significant importance. Now, this leads us to the next question: if I'm not religious, does that mean that I should wear it or shouldn't wear it? Well, it all depends. How many people here want to go to Gehinnom? Raise your hand. How many people here want to go to heaven forever? Raise your hand. Baruch Hashem, you guys are still normal. So, in order to go to heaven and be walking with HaKadosh Baruch Hu, one of the obligations is to follow what He says.

53:17To follow what He says. Meaning, it's not a matter of being religious or not religious. That's just simply the way you could describe certain things. If you want to go to heaven, there's only one ticket. That means you have to follow what Hashem says. You can call it religious. You can call it Pikachu. You can call it math and science. You can call it whatever you want. We call it being observant of what Hashem says. If you're observant, With what Hashem says, you will go to heaven forever. If you're not, you have a very serious permanent problem—a very serious permanent problem. So if a person is not ready yet to follow everything because he or she still thinks they have an option, like some people think: "Oh, maybe I'm not ready to keep all of Shabbat. I'll keep half of Shabbat." I'll keep half of Shabbat. I won't drive on Shabbat. I only smoke a cigarette on Shabbat. I won't smoke a whole pack on Shabbat. I only smoke two cigarettes on Shabbat. Now, even though as leaders, as people who know a little bit of Torah, we are always trying to encourage people to commit fewer sins, that by itself is not going to get you to Heaven. Don't be fooled. Whether you smoke a hundred cigarettes on Shabbat

54:41one cigarette, it's still fire on Shabbat. Whether you drive your car three miles or three thousand miles on Shabbat, it's still driving on Shabbat. It's still fire on Shabbat, just one is more than the other. What is it like if somebody told you, "I want some advice. I want to slow down on my career." What do you do? You can ask him, "I work for the mob." Oh, what do you do for the mob? You do accounting? You cook the books? No, no, I don't do accounting. What do you do? I cook people. I cook people. What do you mean you cook people? Oh, what? I have a job. Every month I have a metric to reach. What's the metric? I have to kill 10 people a month. 25,000 a person, 10 people. It's a good living, no? But I want to slow down because I feel bad. I feel bad. I want to comply with Hashem's rules. So what are you gonna stop? No, I can't stop. I mean, it's 10 people a month. It's a lot of money. So what am I going to do? I'm only going to kill one person a month. I'm only going to kill one person a month. Is that person still a murderer, or is he a nice guy because he's killing nine fewer people? Everybody agrees he's still a murderer. Why? Because he's still killing somebody, right? Whether he kills one or ten, he's still killing. And the Torah says in the Ten Commandments, "Don't kill anybody," right? "Don't murder."

56:07Torah also says in the same Ten Commandments before "Do not murder," it says "Don't desecrate Shabbat." It says "Don't use your computer on Shabbat." It says "Don't smoke cigarettes on Shabbat." Which means that even if you smoke only one cigarette on Shabbat or only drive down the block on Shabbat, it's still driving. So yes, it's less and hopefully, it eventually gets to zero. But don't think that simply making fewer sins is going to make the sins you commit okay. It's never okay. We have to train ourselves and work on ourselves to stop. Stop being murderers of ourselves, of our own neshama. Which means that if a person is not ready to have the highest level of yirat Hashem, At least he should do something to get himself there. If somebody wants to get himself into better shape, they're going to work out. And they know they can't work out for a week and become a bodybuilder. It's going to take time. So what are they going to do? They're going to start small. They're going to start with five-pound weights.

57:09and hopefully later on 10 pounds, and hopefully later on 25 pounds, and maybe down the road 100 pounds, and so on and so forth. So, a guy that doesn't have a lot of yirat Shamayim and is not ready to keep all of the mitzvot, he knows what's true; he's just not ready to accept all of it because he has a lot of desires. You know what? If you can wear a kippah, wear it. Why? Because that at least reminds you of where you need to go. Where you need to go. Whether you make a sin with a kippah or without a kippah, it doesn't make a difference. Don't let anybody fool you. No, no, if I make a sin with a kippah on, it's much worse. Complete nonsense. If ten Jews see you sin, Gemara Masechet Avodah Zarah says it's considered a Chilul Hashem. With or without a kippah. In fact, even if ten Jews don't see you, but they know you drive on Shabbat, it's still considered a public sin. It's still considered Chilul Hashem. Last but not least, if you yourself have decided, "I'm gonna sin," not that you're publicizing to the rest of the world, you decide this mitzvah, this Shabbat, it's not for me. It's also Chilul Hashem, with or without the kippah.

58:24so at least with the kippah, it's like a reminder. You know, like sometimes you use Post-its, you put them on the fridge, you put them on a desk to remind yourself of stuff. A kippah is to remind yourself of stuff, to remind yourself that God runs the world. Same thing for ladies: if you're married, you have kisui rosh. Aside from it being a mitzvah to cover your head for modesty, it's also a reminder for you that Hashem runs the world. Same thing with a wardrobe: you have a wardrobe, and you see your wardrobe looks different than everybody else's. Why? Because it covers your whole body. He didn't buy only half the dress. He bought the whole dress. Same price, by the way. But that's a reminder. What's a reminder? It's a reminder that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is watching you. Even though you can't do the whole Torah overnight. You're not Sarah Imeinu overnight, but the clothes remind you that Hashem is watching you. And if Hashem is watching you, how can you walk around half-naked? If Hashem is watching you, how can you continue stealing? If Hashem is watching you, how can you continue cursing and yelling and being unethical? How? How can you do it? At least not on a regular basis. Once in a while we fall. Everybody falls. But we can't make it our day-to-day behavior. Next question. Yes, red shirt. So now, if...

59:46Somebody wants to succeed in life. They know that, in order to succeed, you have to overcome obstacles. Not to succeed, you have to overcome obstacles. If, let's say, as soon as you were born, as soon as everybody was born, a billion dollars was deposited into their bank... Imagine a world where, as soon as you were born, a billion dollars was deposited into your bank. And as soon as he was born, a billion dollars into his bank. As soon as he was born, a billion dollars into his bank. So far, it sounds good. You could spend that billion dollars. But if a billion dollars was deposited into everybody's bank, how much is the billion dollars worth now? Zero. It means nothing. It's worthless. Why? Because there's no struggle to get it. It's just given to you. Kaddosh Baruch Hu wanted us to earn something in order for us to understand its value. In order for what we get to have value, it has to be difficult. There has to be pressure. Somebody came to Rav Shwadron one time and told him, "I can't go to the Shiur Torah this week." And Rav Shwadron said to him, "How come you can't come to the shiur?" He says, "I have a kadduregel."

1:01:07It's a match of kadduregel. He goes, what's kadduregel? He goes, you know, soccer. He goes, no, what's soccer? He goes, you know, there's a team, two teams, and they shoot the ball to win. He goes, how do they win? He goes, 11 on one side. There's 11 on the other side. And then there's a ball. ... and they shoot the ball to put it in a goal. He's like, "You don't know, Rabbi?" He goes, "No, I never heard of soccer, never heard of kadduregel. I know Torah. You want to ask, I know Torah." He goes, "Okay, so what's the whole point of the game? It's for them to kick the ball and put it in a net?" He says, "Yeah." He goes, "So why don't they be nice to each other? Let him play a little bit, put it into the net, and after he finishes, give it to the other guy. Be nice about it. Give it to the other guy, he puts it in his net. What's the problem?" He goes, "No, Rabbi, it has to be the point." If he's the point, there has to be a goalie. He goes, for what? Tell him to get out of the way. He's not being nice. Let him shoot. He goes, no, Rabbi. If there's no goalie, if there's no 11 people trying to stop the ball from the opposite team, there's no point to the game. There's no point to the game. And the Rav Shwadron says to him, your ears should listen to your foolish mouth. He says, when does HaKadosh Baruch Hu want you to go to the Shiur Torah? When there's pressure against it.

1:02:18When it's easy for you to go, there's no point. There's no point. If it's easy for you to do everything, there's no point. There's no value to it. When there's a goalie, when there's a Malach HaMavet, when there's a Satan that's trying to encourage you to go against Hashem, and you decide to overcome it, That means something that's worth something. That's a game, and that's what the game we call life is about. Hashem gave us obstacles in this life in order for us to overcome them. Because once we overcome them, then they have a value. That value is for eternity; it's an eternity of good that we get as a result of overcoming this big obstacle and He didn't give us any obstacles and He simply built a perfect world. Then we would just be robots. Hashem doesn't have any desire for robots. It has no purpose. Robots have no purpose. You press a robot; you don't press the robot, he just does what you want. What purpose does it serve? It has no purpose. If that robot stopped being a robot and was given free choice to listen to Hashem or to refuse to listen to Hashem...

1:03:34...and he decides to listen to Hashem, then that robot is a very, very valuable robot. And we call that a Jew. Next question, in the back. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, yeah, you, you. Yes. It's a fantastic question. God gave us the body that we have. Why is it bad to show it? As a cowboy now, has anybody here ever seen a diamond? A real diamond? Have you guys seen diamonds before? Have you ever seen a million-dollar diamond? God gave us the body that we have. Why is it bad to show it? As a cowboy now, has anybody here ever seen a diamond? A real diamond? Have you guys seen diamonds before? Have you ever seen a million-dollar diamond? Not a diamond that's like, you know, $100 or $5,000. I'm talking about a million-dollar diamond. Anybody here ever see a million-dollar diamond? Anybody ever see a $5 million diamond? Anybody here ever see a $100 million diamond on the internet? Not in your life. On the internet. You ever saw the Hope Diamond? It's a blue heart diamond. It's a 500-600-year-old diamond they found. Certain diamonds in the world, they're worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Now,

1:04:57If somebody gave it to you, especially the ladies in the back, somebody gave you this diamond. It's a gift. Your Abba said, "My daughter, happy birthday." What? It's a $100 million diamond. Now let me ask you a question. Honestly, are you going to walk around with that diamond and throw it in the air like this? I want them to answer. Are you going to throw the diamond in the air? Are you going to show them, "Hey, look at my diamond"? Look at my diamond. You're not going to do it, right? Why not? Why are you not going to show the diamond? I want an answer. I want an answer. I want an answer. I want an answer. I deserve an answer. How come you're not going to show a $100 million diamond in the air and show everybody, "Look at my diamond"? How come? How come? You have an answer over there. You have an answer. How come you're not going to show the diamond? Why are you not going to show the diamond to everybody?

1:05:57Because it's worth so much. Right. If you show it to everybody, they're going to steal it from you. And that's not good, right? And you don't want somebody to steal something so valuable from you. You don't want somebody to steal something so valuable from you. So what do you do? You protect it. You hide it. You value it. You put it in a safe. you make sure that only the right set of eyes that you choose are allowed to look at this diamond. Why? Because it's your diamond. Because your Abba gave you the diamond. Now, if you had a garbage pail full of trash that smells really bad, what do you do with it twice a week? You throw it in the garbage. Now, if somebody came to your trash on Tuesday morning, and it was out, and it smelled really disgusting. They decided they wanted to look at your trash. They decided they wanted to play with your trash can. Are you going to do anything about it? Why are you calling the cops? What do you care? What did he do to you?

1:07:12Playing with your trash or what? He's not making a mess. No, no, he's not making a mess. He's not throwing the trash out. He just wants to see your trash. He wants to see the baby diapers that are full of poop. He wants to see food that you already threw out. He wants to see all the disgusting stuff that you don't want to see anymore. You threw it out. You threw it out because you don't want it. If you want it, why are you throwing it out? Right? So it's garbage. Somebody wants to look at your garbage. You care? Why? Why? It's your garbage, but you threw it out. Okay, we've gone down, Rabotai. We have two less normal people. No, seriously, in reality, no one cares about their garbage. Why? It's garbage. It's garbage. Now, a garbage can, everybody's allowed to touch. Everybody's allowed to touch a garbage can; everybody's allowed to look at a garbage can. Why? Because it's garbage. But a priceless 100 million dollar diamond—only the right set of eyes are allowed to look at it. Now let me ask you a question: If you are the daughter of the King of Kings, are you worth garbage or are you worth a hundred million dollars?

1:08:32You're a hundred-million-dollar diamond. I bet you're worth a lot more to Hashem. I bet you're worth a lot more than a hundred million dollars. I bet you're worth a lot more than a hundred billion dollars. And something that's worth a hundred billion dollars, and something that's worth a hundred trillion dollars, is not something for everybody to see. That's why, Rabotai, even though HaKadosh Baruch Hu created the body, it's not for the whole world to see. Next question. Yes. Yes, yes, yes, absolutely. So, men, men that we see, yes, yes. Men that have dreams and, due to their dreams, they end up wasting seed, or perhaps they waste seed while they're awake. Hashem yirachem. Unfortunately, it is an epidemic in the world today, both for Jews and non-Jews, religious and non-religious. It's gotten to a point where this generation does not even think it's a problem, neither physically nor spiritually. But the Torah says otherwise, and so do the doctors, people that actually know what they're talking about. Now, when somebody wastes seed in the...

1:09:57whether they do it on purpose or they do it through a dream, which is in essence not necessarily purposeful, but nonetheless still a problem, they're creating demons. So first and foremost, what do you do about it? What do you do about it? What do you do about these demons you've already created? So there are a few things that you can do. First and foremost, make sure that you start watching your eyes during the day. Why? Because anytime you look at immodest things during your life, during your day, it will eventually lead to dreams full of immodesty. If you look at websites that are full of impurity, you will eventually dream about those things. That night, the next night, the next week, eventually it's going to come. You watch television, you watch movies full of immodest girls, full of girls that are pretty much half-naked or naked completely, you will dream about them. It's just a fact of life. If you watch your eyes, meaning you protect your eyes and don't look at anything that moves, it will help you with your dreams. The second thing is, if you say Kriyat Shema al HaMitah with real kavanah, you're also helping yourself. Most importantly, you have to learn about the topic of wasting seed. You have to understand how much of a sin it is.

1:11:18By learning about the topic, you're going to eventually do teshuva. You're going to stop sinning, and you're going to start praying for Hashem, obviously to forgive you for all the mistakes that you've made, but most importantly, you're going to share that information with anybody that you know. Whether you know they are doing the sin or not is irrelevant. You're going to share it because almost every guy has this problem. Almost every girl has this problem, one directly or indirectly. The point being is that if a person wants to undo the damage that they've done, they have to do teshuva, they have to spread the knowledge, they have to learn about it, they have to pray about it, and they also have to learn Torah specifically for the sake of destroying these demons. If you do all of that, you'll not only destroy all of this negativity that you created, but you could even turn all the negativity into something positive. You could literally turn all the demons into angels, all of the sins into mitzvot. So, we have a whole playlist on our YouTube page and also on our website called "Gama Brit" or "wasting seed." It's highly recommended for both boys and girls because both boys and girls have an issue with this, either directly by making the sin themselves or indirectly by leading other people to sin. A girl that walks around immodestly, she gives guys the thought—thoughts of immodesty. When he ends up wasting seed, she is a partner in the crime.

1:12:45She's a partner in the crime, meaning he created a hundred million demons and a hundred million also went to her account. So, to walk around immodestly has a lot of risk because eventually somebody's going to look at you, think about you, dream about you, and Hashem knows what happens as a result of that. You can fix all of that by learning about the topic and then, according to the learning, you change your behavior and... your behavior, and b'ezrat Hashem, you could turn all of the problems, all of the mistakes you've made, into good things. Next question. Yes, okay, it's a good question. If everything is written in the Torah, let's say somebody is sick. Why would anybody pray if it's already written in the Torah if this person's gonna die or not? Right? What's the question? So the Gemara Masechet Rosh Hashanah says there's a few things that could change a decree. There's a few things that can change a decree. There's a bad decree that came into the world. And there's a few things that can change it. One of the things is teshuva, meaning changing your behavior.

1:14:13Another thing is changing your name. And a third thing is tza'aka. What's tza'aka? Tza'aka is screaming. What do you mean screaming? Screaming to Hashem, begging Him for mercy. Praying. Praying. Why? If a person changes their name, in essence, they could potentially, if they do it the right way, with a real talmid chacham, someone who knows what they're doing, they could potentially change the decree. because, in essence, when you have another name, you get another added piece to your neshama. This should not be done under normal circumstances, and many say it is dangerous to do it and not use it. For example, it's common in the Western world to give people a middle name, but it's also common for people not to use the middle name. So most people call themselves by their first name, and the middle name is just something that's on their passport or their driver's license. But in reality, nobody knows what it is. In Judaism, if you have a middle name, you have to use it. Meaning, if your name is Yisrael Meir Reuven, you have to use Yisrael Meir Reuven. You can't just say Yisrael. Why? Because your name is Yisrael Meir. Your first and middle name are not separate; there's no such thing as a middle name. That's your name.

1:15:35You have to use the full name. Don't shorten your name. Why? Shortening a person's name can shorten their life. Also, it's not a good idea that if your name is, let's say, Benjamin, don't tell people your name is Ben. Don't shorten your name. Shortening your name can shorten your life. If you have a name in the Torah, you have to use it. Which means that before you're going to add a name, don't add a name if you don't plan on using it on a regular basis. Second thing is if you do teshuva. If you do teshuva, could change the decree. Why? Because the decree that happened in Shamayim that such and such is going to be sick was given to a certain person, a person that had a hundred pounds worth of sins, let's say, right? But if that person did Changed his mistakes, stopped violating Shabbat, stopped wasting seed, stopped this. What ends up happening? He's no longer the same person. The decree was given to a person that's full of sins. Once he did teshuva, he's undoing those sins. He's even turning some of those sins into mitzvot.

1:16:42Which means that yes, the decree was given to this person who was full of sins, but he's no longer the same person. He's a person who has already done teshuva. That's what David HaMelech said to Hashem in Tehillim. He says, Hashem, they're lying about me. Who's lying about you, David HaMelech? He says, the angels. Why are they lying about you? They're lying about me because they say I sinned. No, they're talking about somebody I used to be. I used to sin. Now, I did teshuva. So they're still talking about it as if I didn't do teshuva, but I did teshuva, Hashem. Meaning, rabotai, that if a person does teshuva, he can change the decree. Not because Hashem changed His mind, but because we changed our actions. And we are no longer the person that deserves that decree. Same concept of the tzedakah, the prayer. The prayer is that when a person or a group of people pray for rachamim from Hashem, they pray for mercy from Hashem, they're increasing that sick person's merits. When that person was getting sick or had some type of negative decree, they had, let's say, 100 pounds of merits.

1:17:44...also a hundred pounds of decree, that's a negative decree, so that decree and those merits matched. Once people started praying for that person, once people started learning Torah for that person, once people started doing good things for the sake of that person, they increased the merit side of that person. Now it's no longer a hundred pounds; now it became 200 pounds, 300 pounds, and Hashem says, "Oh, 300 pounds doesn't deserve this hundred pounds." 100-pound type of guy, yeah, deserved it, but the 300-pound didn't deserve it, meaning that there was a change that took place. But sometimes, sometimes as a last thing for this specific question, we do things a little too late. Most of the time, we do things almost too late, and sometimes we do them too late, meaning after the decree has already been passed and it's too late to undo it. And person already died. But sometimes we're really close to that. So the Gemara says one time Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus was walking in the street with his students. Since he was part of the Sanhedrin, one of the biggest Tanaim that ever lived, he knew 70 languages, including the language of animals. He saw a very dangerous snake pass them and...

1:19:10He said, "Hey, where are you going? There's a snake. I see a snake, I run away, by the way." He sees a snake. "Hey, where are you going?" He says, "I'm going to do my job." He goes, "What's your job?" "I'm going to kill that Jew down the street at such and such address." He says, no, no, you're not allowed to kill that Jew. He says, why? I have a job, Hashem already sent me. I have the memo, I got the email. I have the email, I'm here. He says, no, no, you got the email, you got the message from Hashem to go do it, but since you got it, I already met with that Jew earlier today, and he did teshuva. He already decided he's going to stop violating Shabbat, he's going to stop doing what he's doing. So he already started doing teshuva. He didn't complete teshuva, but he started doing teshuva, which means he doesn't deserve the decree that you already got the email. Go somewhere else. somewhere else. Someone kadosh (holy) says go somewhere else, you go somewhere else. The snake turns around, goes somewhere else. Moments later, they heard he killed somebody else. He got somebody else. So they tell me, Din (the students of Rabbi Eliezer) says, "Rebbe, how come he went to kill somebody else? Didn't you tell him to go away?" "No, no, I didn't tell him to go away. I told him to go somewhere else." "Why didn't you tell him to go away, Rebbe?" "Because no, I can't tell him to go away. I..."

1:20:22It's not my business. Hashem sent him. Hashem sent him. I just told him to go somewhere else because he doesn't have the right to be here anymore. But he still has a right to be here because Hashem sent him. So now, since he doesn't have a right to be here, the decree was already passed. The bullet was already shot. All I told him was to change directions. Once the bullet is shot, there's no undoing it. You can't put it back in the gun. You can change directions. With divine assistance. That's what happened. A ba'al yeder that says the decree already came to the world, just go to where it does belong now. Somebody else belonged there, which was somebody that was a murderer, and he ended up killing him. Point being, rabotai, is that sometimes the decree already comes to the world, but we can still save the ones we love as a result of prayer, as a result of teshuva, as a result of doing good things. But most importantly, we shouldn't wait too long. Because sometimes we don't have the merit of Rabbi Eliyahu or Enoch in us, but we know that this is the last chance. But nonetheless, HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives us a lot of opportunities to do teshuva, especially today. Especially today. Next question. Yes? I have a question about Chabad.

1:21:47Oh, absolutely. No, it's a fantastic thing to do. Absolutely, you should show your life. No, absolutely, it's a fantastic thing to do. You should not use the English name; you should use your Hebrew name. The reason why is because the Torah says that the only mitzvot since Am Yisrael... was in Egypt for 210 years. Unfortunately, they adopted a lot of the things—the worst things—that the Egyptians did, including idolatry. But the few things that gave them the merits for Hashem to save them were that they didn't change their clothes—they still looked like Jews—they didn't change their names, and they didn't change their language. So, which means that when we use English names instead of our Hebrew names, we are, in essence, lowering our merits that actually saved us, that brought us to Mashiach, Moshe Rabbeinu. You know, we should not use our English name; you should use your Hebrew name all the time. Your English name does not count at all in Shamayim.

1:22:59Especially if you only have an English name, then that's your name, but if you have a Hebrew name, that's the name you should use because that's the name that in Shamayim, that's what they write down. You come to Shamayim and you say, yeah, I'm Samantha. Sorry, we don't know Samantha. No, I'm Samantha. I was Samantha for 75 years. Samantha, what do you mean? All my friends know me as Samantha. I'm sorry, ma'am, we don't know Samantha. Oh, I'm Sarah. Oh, Sarah we know. Sarah we know. Sarah's over here? Yeah, Sarah Tzadika. Sarah is Tzadika. Samantha we don't know. Samantha is, oh, maybe somebody else. Sarah we know. We know the same thing with somebody who goes. Oh, I've got the same. I'm a woman who actually had a near-death experience. She died and came back to life. She went up to Shamayim. They told her, "Listen, it's your time." She said, "No, what do you mean, my time? I have four kids." Because who are your kids? She goes, "I got Benji." She goes, "You don't have a son named Benji." "What do you mean? I have Dudu." She goes, "You don't have a son named Dudu." "What do you mean? I have Asi." "You don't have Asi. You don't have a kid named Asi. I have Shlomi." "You don't have Shlomi. You don't have any kids." She goes, "What do you mean? I had four kids that came out of my body." "You don't, you do not have no Asi, no Dudu, no nothing." She goes, "No, what do you mean? I have David." "David you have. Yeah, David you have. Dudu you don't have. David you have."

1:24:14David, you have. Asi, you don't have. Asaf, you have. Asaf, you have. That, you have. That, you have. Benji, you don't have. Benjamin, you have. Benjamin, you have. That, you have. Meaning those little nicknames we give ourselves, they don't recognize them in Shamayim. They don't recognize them in Shamayim. That means, Rabotai HaKedoshim, get used to your real name. Get used to your real name because that's how they know you in Shamayim. That's how they know you in Shamayim. You shouldn't use an English name or an Arab name or some other name. you have a Hebrew name. Use it, be proud of it, because that's what they know you by in Shamayim, and that's what they're going to know you by forever in Shamayim. Next question? Yes, yes. So the Gemara B'Masechet Rosh Hashanah, page 17a, says it depends on what level of Ge'enom a person is in. If there are seven levels of Ge'enom, the Reshit Chochmah, which I actually have with me for anyone that wants to look at it, so they don't think I'm making this stuff up, the Reshit Chochmah gives detailed explanations of what happens in every one of the Madregot, every one of the chambers in Ge'enom. It also tells what kind of sins

1:25:25you do in order to get into a certain chamber. For example, right over here, the Ma'adar Revi'i Nikra Tit HaYaven, the fourth chamber of Ge'enom, and just Baruch Hashem, it happens to be open. The fourth chamber of Ge'enom is called Tit HaYaven. And there, they put people that have arrogance, people that are arrogant, people that make fun of poor people, people that shame poor people, people that waste seed unintentionally and also people that go with Goyot, guys that go with Goyot. Their place is the fourth level of Gehenom. And there are other things. The fifth level, for example, is called Sheol. The fifth level is called Sheol and There they put people who are moserim. If you go call the cops on a Jew or call the IRS on a Jew, you have a serious problem. You are a moser. If you tell people to donate money to a church, you are a moser. An apikores is a heretic. A kofer is also a different type of heretic—someone who is even a kofer be'ikar, who doesn't believe in the resurrection of the dead. They also go to the fifth level.

1:26:46so on and so forth. The Gemara says the first six levels have a certain amount of time frame. Different sins, different sentences. Sin A has one year, Sin B has two years, Sin C has ten years, and so on and so forth. So the Gemara says certain people go and have to pay only for one year, only for two years, only for a thousand years, and so on and so forth. But when the Mashiach comes, they'll be taken out, they'll join the rest of Am Yisrael and the Tzaddikim, and they'll have an eternity of good. But there's a seventh level. The seventh level of Ge'enom, anyone that enters does not leave. they go in there and they never leave. The Gemara says, even after Mashiach comes, even after Techiyat HaMetim, even after the end of this world, it's an eternity of Ge'enom until the Neshama is officially destroyed, which could be millions and millions of years. And the sins that a person does in order to get to the seventh level of Ge'enom, Rabotai Yekarim, are so easy to make, you wouldn't believe it.

1:28:03You wouldn't believe it. How people are mamash putting themselves in eternity of Gehenom with a simple sin. One of those sins is Chilul Shabbat. Someone that violates Shabbat on purpose and does not do Teshuva, dies without doing Teshuva for Chilul Shabbat, meaning they live their life as a Mechalel Shabbat or Mechalelot Shabbat. They go into the seventh level of Gehenom and do not end. Mashiach, no Mashiach, resurrection of the dead—all that stuff does not apply to them. The second type of sin, it says over here, is someone who goes into the seventh level. It's called that someone who goes into it does not come out. It says that there are different parts of it. One part is boiling feces, another part is boiling seed, and another involves different types of fire. One person who is a mechalel Shabbat that goes in there dies as a mechalel Shabbat. They don't have to worry about it, but if they don't do teshuva, they have a very, very serious permanent problem.

1:29:23Second is someone that's wasting seed, like a trailer, meaning they waste seed on purpose. Unfortunately, many guys today, young and old, are addicted to it. They do it sometimes daily, sometimes multiple times daily, sometimes a few times a week. If you die without doing teshuva for wasting seed, my friend, it doesn't matter if you kept Shabbat, Gehinnom starts and doesn't end for you. It's not a joke. When you learn about Gehinnom, you will understand. When I learned about it, I started crying. It's not a place you want anyone in, including yourself or anyone you love. Wasting seed is a serious crime against Hashem. Next, it says, someone that causes other people to sin. A woman that walks around immodestly, she causes guys to sin. They end up wasting seed because of her. What do you think? She goes away free while he's in jail forever? No, my friends. A woman that walks around immodestly and causes other men to sin is considered responsible. This could be our sisters. This could be our daughters. This could be people that we know. This could be our mothers who cause men to sin. That means there's no free lunch.

1:30:39It's no free lunch, meaning that a woman needs to take on modesty. Why? You don't want to go with such a crime in shamayim. I know it seems hard to be modest in this world because everybody else is immodest. I know it seems like it's hot, and therefore if you're going to put on more layers or at least longer clothes, it's going to be unbearable. But I promise you it's not that hard. I promise you it's not hotter when you wear longer sleeves. In fact, many times it's hotter when you wear shorter sleeves. Same thing with guys that don't take advantage of the mitzvah of tzitzit because they think it's too hot. You're wasting a big opportunity to make a mitzvah every second. You're going to need that mitzvah. You're going to need that mitzvah to protect you. So, a guy could have the excuse, "Oh, no, I'm not wearing tzitzit because it's too hot." When you wear tzitzit, you're actually less hot, and the reason why is because you have layers and... When you have layers, you'll actually have less heat. You'll have more wind coming into your body. I promise you it's not hotter with tzitzit. It's the opposite. It's just your Yetzer Hara telling you. So the point being, Rabotai, is that if a person goes to the first six levels of Gehenom, for whatever sins they've committed,

1:31:49There is a punishment. It's a very serious punishment, which you could learn from my shiur about Gehenom. I didn't even go into all the details, but I went into enough details to scare the lights out of everybody, including myself. But it ends at some point. It could be a month, it could be five thousand years, it could be five million years, but at some point it ends. Remember, time over there is not like time over here. So even if Mashiach comes, it doesn't mean that the person, let's say Mashiach comes next year. It doesn't mean that a person that goes to Gehenom tomorrow is only gonna be in Gehenom for one year. It doesn't mean that. There's no time over there. Meaning that Mashiach could come next year, but that person went to Gehenom for 50,000 years. Why? Because there's no time there. So yeah, here it's a year; over there it can be 50,000 years. One of the places we learn in the Torah, one of the places we learn that time is different over there, is this week's parasha. This week's parashah, parashat Shelach. He says, you said something against the land and spoke lashon hara about the land after going there for 40 days. For every one of your days, I'm going to count a year.

1:33:04Punishment: 40-year punishment for a 40-day trip. One second of actual sin resulted in a 40-year punishment. No one from that generation ended up seeing the land in their lifetime. We already see that HaKadosh Baruch Hu's time span, HaKadosh Baruch Hu's clock, is very different than ours. One second of sin could result in centuries of punishment. The point being, we have to do teshuvah and... Little by little, you'll do more. Little by little, you'll get better. And you'll see that this is the best thing you've ever done for yourself, not just in the next world, but also in this one. In this one. So if a person goes to the first six, it ends at some point, but that's not necessarily good news. It just means it ends at some point. But if they go into the seventh place because of Machti'ei HaRabim, or Motzi Zera LeVatalah, or Chilul Shabbat, these three major crimes. There's a few others, by the way, as well. But those three are the most common. They have a permanent problem because they'll enter Gehenom, and they will not leave. And it's not going to be fun. Yes? You said before that we're not meant to be robots, that Hashem didn't create us to be robots. But don't we believe that when Mashiach comes, we're going to lose our free will? No. No, we don't believe that we're going to lose our free will.

1:34:27We believe that we will not have a yetzer hara, meaning that we will choose good because we want good. We will not have the same desires that we have now; we won't have desires to go against Hashem. We'll have a desire to constantly sanctify His name. The coming of Mashiach is the culmination of the world; that's the goal. It's not going to be that Hashem is turning us into robots. It means that it's time for us to get paid. Reward for all the hard work that we've toiled for several thousand years. Yes, I have a short clip about that. Sleep paralysis is a very real thing. I have a decent amount of understanding of it, I could put it that way. It's not good news; it's not fun. It's a very serious sign from HaKadosh Baruch Hu. that you have to change your actions immediately. What's sleep paralysis? In so many words, sleep paralysis is that you are seeing things that may or may not exist in reality for other people. It seems like you're dreaming, but you may not be dreaming. You may be dreaming, but nonetheless, you cannot move.

1:35:50So, for example, you can see something that other people don't see. Most of the time, it's because you're dreaming, but you can't move. The point is that these things are very, very scary because you become disabled. The only thing that you can move is your eyes, and the only thing you can see is very scary things. This is a form of punishment, but also more than punishment. It's a warning and... It's a warning that you are doing something that HaKadosh Baruch Hu despises. Sometimes those things are, it's common, mostly it's common for people that are either idolaters or people that are promiscuous. People that waste seed, people that are promiscuous with men, things like that. It happens to them. It's very common among those two things because those two sins create the most amount of tumah, the most amount of impurity. And that type of impurity is detestable to Hashem. It's considered disgusting. So there are different types of sleep paralysis. Different people experience it differently. I can tell you that everyone agrees it's the scariest thing on earth.

1:36:57Sometimes you feel like you're actually dying, but you're not. Sometimes you feel like your soul is coming out of your body, but it's not coming out in a nice way. You're not flying. It's not a fun thing. But in so many words, it's a very serious warning that you have to do something serious, or else Hashem is going to make it worse. The bigger the sign, the more obvious the sign, the heavier the warning is. Put it that way. That's mercy from Hashem that you actually woke up before it got worse than what you're saying. Yeah, sleep paralysis is very, very serious. That's mercy from Hashem that you actually woke up before it got worse than what you're saying. Yeah, sleep paralysis is very, very serious.

1:38:23situation, um, it's scary. It's very, very scary. Anybody that has had a few of them knows that when I talk about Gehinnom, I'm understating it. I'm understating it. That's how bad sleep paralysis can be. It's literally, it's not a dream per se; it's a reality. It's a reality that you will remember. Dreams sometimes can be bad, but you forget them within moments after you wake up. Sleep paralysis, you're not going to forget for the rest of your life. You could be a thousand years old. You're still not gonna forget it. That's how bad sleep paralysis is. So if somebody has it, that means HaKadosh Baruch Hu is raising the ante, but different people experience it in different ways. The point is that, Baruch Hashem, hopefully you've changed some things since then. You continue to change those things, you continue to get closer to Hashem, and you'll never have to worry about that stuff. Yes, I have a friend that has a condition where We see a lot of people who are really religious, but we see they must show restraint with other women. Maybe, maybe not by themselves. A lot of people think that it's enough not to touch girls and...

1:39:45There's nothing to do with girls. Yeah, of course, you're not to touch girls unless you're married, but for some reason or another, over the last hundred years, the Rabbanim have decided to remove the teachings of Kedusha, which we call in Torah the issues of a person with himself, a person with someone else of the opposite gender, and how to protect the Kedusha, how to protect your Brit. They've removed this from teachings today and... I have countless yeshiva bachurim as students from all over the world that come to me for help because I'm pretty much the only one that talks about this specific issue in the English language on a regular basis. There are a few rabbis that are talmidei chachamim who have spoken about it in English, but it's not common. When I did the lecture on it—the first lecture I ever did on it was about five years ago—it became one of the most popular lectures on the internet in general and... this topic, it's by far the most popular. But when I did that lecture, it was almost a four-hour lecture. At that moment, the total amount of time that you could find on the internet in English about the topic was five and a half hours, of which four hours was me. The next year, I did another lecture about it.

1:41:06I think another two, three hours. Still, that meant that now you had seven and a half, eight hours of lectures, of which seven of it is me. Six and a half of it is me. And this continued until about the last year. A couple of my friends that I know did lectures about it, so there's a little bit more information now. We've also increased it as well. So now you can find a decent amount of information about it, but still very few. You have less than a handful of speakers in the entire world of English speakers that talk about this topic. A few of them that talk about it or decide to talk about it, not my friends, just people that did it, actually made it worse because they made it seem like it's nothing. Few people made it much worse. It's better they don't talk about it. But nonetheless, they don't teach this topic in schools anymore. So the only way you could learn this, unless you know my lectures in English, is from sefarim. The problem is that all of the sefarim that talk about it are in Hebrew. So if you don't know Hebrew, you have a serious problem.

1:42:08You have a very serious problem. So, Baruch Hashem, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, zichar otano, gave us the merit to do these lectures, and we have probably now over 10-15 hours about the topics. You have everything and anything that you need about the topic available to you. We even have a book about it on our website, about 200 pages full of sources on how dangerous the sin is, both for men and for women. And the point is that when a person learns about this, even if they don't touch women, even if she doesn't touch men, and so on and so forth, they realize there's still a criminal aspect in this offense. Why? Because they do it alone. They do it by themselves, and that's actually more common than promiscuity with the opposite sex. It's more common for men to be by themselves, wasting seed, than for them to find a new wife every week. Unfortunately, some guys are so addicted to it ...that it becomes almost impossible for them to stop. I know one guy who is literally almost killing himself physically. I'm not talking about spiritually. Spiritually, I know one particular guy who is almost killing himself physically. You see him, he looks like a sick person. He looks like he has AIDS. He doesn't, though.

1:43:18But he's killing himself because this particular sin has both physical and spiritual consequences. A lot of guys are addicted to it, and that causes them a lot of problems in life. The Torah that they learn, many times they don't understand it, or they don't remember it, or they simply can't even apply it. Sometimes they have a lot of weird thoughts in their mind, horrible dreams, and... Night terrors and many different consequences occur. Nine out of ten times when people have bad things happening in their life—if they're losing money, if they have shalom bayit problems, if they have physical problems—nine out of ten times in this generation, it's because of this specific sin. The reason why is because, as the Zohar HaKadosh says, this is the one sin that is going to be the tikkun of the generation, meaning this is the one thing that the generation will have to overcome before Mashiach comes. And... If Mashiach came right now, we'll be worse than what we were in Mitzrayim. Because even the religious among us that keep Shabbat, keep Taharat HaMishpacha, keep kosher, pray, even learn Torah every day, unfortunately, many of them are even victims to this issue. Because until now, many of them didn't even know it's a crime. A lot of them didn't know, they know it's bad, they just didn't know how bad it is. People know that murder is bad, but they didn't know necessarily they'll get a death penalty for it.

1:44:47So, when you learn about this specific sin, you'll understand why the Shulchan Aruch, the main body of laws in the Torah, says that wasting seed is the number one sin in the Torah. It's the worst sin in the Torah, the worst possible thing, because of all the consequences that it has—not just punishment, but also what it affects in this world. Yes? Yes. Yes. I'm in. No, if a person does complete Teshuvah for wasting seed, they can get to a very high level of Kedushah. They can become a serious Talmid Chacham. They can solve a lot of issues that they have in life and potentially even get a major, major salvation. I can tell you a few things. I know a few people that listen to me on this issue. One guy was looking for a Shidduch for years. Looking for a Shidduch for years. I think it was maybe eight years, nine years. Good-looking, handsome guy. Couldn't find. Every girl, something happened. They like him, then they don't like him. They like him, they don't like him. The wedding's on, the wedding's off. Eight years he's going, trying. One day, happens to be that, you know, he comes to my shiur, we find out. I talk about wasting seed, and he's like, "You're talking about me?" I said, "I know what's happening in your house." "How do I know? I'm just telling you what the Torah says." He goes, "No, no. I'm saying, you're talking about me. I'm..."

1:46:10I'm the guy. I do it. I say, okay stop. Yeah, but it's hard. I know it's hard. Rambam says it's the hardest thing to overcome. It's the most difficult thing in the entire Torah to overcome if you have an addiction to it. But it's possible. And if you overcome it, the reward is endless. Baruch Hashem, he listened. He stopped. Within four months, he got married. Another guy, uh couldn't have a kid, you know, married guys are also addicted to this stuff. Don't think just because you're married, you're uh, you're uh, you're okay. I have guys that are married that are addicted also. One guy was married, couldn't have a kid. Couldn't have a kid for a few years. They spent a lot of money on doctors, all types of pills, all types of hormones. Ba'alei Shem came to me. They had an issue. I told them this is the issue. Don't tell your wife, but you have a very serious problem. So on and so forth. Baruch Hashem, within a year, they had a kid. The point being, rabotai, is that it's not a joke. I'm not a prophet. I'm not the son of a prophet. But I know what Torah says here. In this specific issue, if you overcome it, the reward you're going to get is something so out of the ordinary, so extraordinary, that the only regret you're going to have is that you didn't do it sooner.

1:47:31But it takes time, it takes a lot of effort, and it takes a lifetime commitment. Don't ever think, okay, I'm not going to do it every day like I used to, but I'll do it a couple of times a month. Yeah, come on, it'll relieve the stress. Once a month, Hashem is okay. I used to do it every day. Once a month is okay. No, my friend. There's no such thing as once a month. Dvash matzata, echol dayeka, pen tizba'ena ve'haketa oto. Shlomo HaMelech says, if you found honey, don't eat too much or else you'll end up throwing up. Chazal say, well, do we need diet lessons from Shlomo HaMelech? They explain, no, no, Shlomo HaMelech is teaching us about the issues of kedusha. He says, even if you found a beautiful wife, don't be with her too often. There's a certain time of the month to be together, and even then... You have to make sure that there's a time and place for everything. Don't be like the animals that do things in the streets, showing everybody their business. A time and a place for everything, even if she's your wife. Why? If you don't watch even something that's allowed, eventually it will become disgusting to you. Even that beautiful wife of yours will become disgusting to you. And that's what Rabbi Yochanan says in the Gemara. He says that a small member in a person's body, in a body, a small body part in a person's body,

1:48:51that if you feed it, it'll never be satiated. It'll always be hungry. If you don't feed it, if you starve it, it'll always be full. So Chazal say, what is it talking about? It's talking about the male member. It's talking about promiscuity. It's talking about wasting seed. If a person wastes seed, even if it's once a month, it's only a matter of time before it's twice. It's only a matter of time before it's five times. It's only a matter of time before it's every day. But if he starves it, And it's zero? Guess what? After a while, he has zero desire to do it unless it's allowed. Meaning he's with his wife. With his wife, he's still normal, he's still excited, everything is good. But if he does it every day, it's a very serious problem. Because there will never be enough. Yes, it's a problem, but not as big. It's a problem, but not as big. Let's say, for example, if a woman is dressed modestly in terms of the way she looks, but she hugs and kisses other men who are not her husband, she still has a very serious problem. She still has a very serious problem, but it's not as significant. And the reason why is because it's limited.

1:50:04To the people that are immediately around her, meaning it's less of a sin. It's still a problem, but it's less of a sin. Whereas a woman who is not modest as far as clothing, even if the guy's a hundred yards away, could still see her. And once a neshama sees something, it gets recorded permanently in there. That means he's going to think about her at some inappropriate time, even when he is with his wife. So she has a very serious problem at that point. But if she acts immodestly occasionally by accident, it's a different story. I No. If she is modest, she did what she's supposed to. And this psychopath desires her, that's his problem. That's his problem. That's not her problem. Because she's not responsible for his craziness. Because she wasn't a partner to the crime. She covered her hair, covered her body, acted modestly. Everything is good. The fact that he's that way, it's not her problem. But if she's not modest, then she's obviously a victim of the crime. She's obviously a partner to the crime. You know what the funny thing is, though? I'll tell you a secret, women. I'll tell you a secret, not just about men, but about Torah and about HaKadosh Baruch Hu's mercy. I'm not only telling you this as a rabbi, I'm telling you this as a man. Men don't have illicit thoughts about modest women. They want to marry them. They don't want to do ugly things to them.

1:51:32So a man, generally speaking, has to be very, very sick in order to have illicit thoughts about a classy woman, a woman that's modest. He has to be sick, meaning a person that actually desires such a woman probably desires the chair also, desires the horse, desires the cat, desires everything. He desires anything, so it has nothing to do with her anyway. If she's modest, good men, like men that actually have kedusha in their head, they don't think like that. they simply don't. That doesn't mean they don't ever think like that. That means they protect themselves and they don't allow themselves to get that far. But the point is, if a woman is modest, she has nothing to worry about. Nothing to worry about because HaKadosh Baruch Hu is not going to allow such things to happen as part of the reward. Part of the reward for what you're doing. Yes? Immodest speech can also lead to certain things, but it's lesser of a crime. It's lesser. It's still a crime, but lesser of a crime. So, it's like this. The Torah says, don't murder, right? It says, don't murder. It says in the Ten Commandments, don't murder. The Chachamim say that Moshe Rabbeinu, when he saw the Jew raise his hand to hit the other Jew, he said, "Rasha!" Yeah, but he didn't hit him yet. He didn't kill him, like Moshe Rabbeinu killed the Egyptian the day before. But he called the one that had his hand in the air, "Rasha" already. Why?

1:52:58That hit could lead to murder. You didn't murder him yet, but the fact that it can lead to murder, you are already called a Rasha in the Torah. Meaning, it is a crime that's defined in the Torah as a Rasha, as a wicked person, but it's still not a murderer. So yes, being immodest is the actual murder. Murder of many neshamot, and every neshamah that looks at her, she's murdering that neshamah. But if she simply says things that are immodest, it's not murder per se, but it's still rasha. It's still a problem. So yes, yes, it's definitely something to work on. And b'ezrat Hashem, if a woman is modest, eventually the exterior appearance, if it's real and if it's for the right reason, and it's not just some style, You know, like some women, they changed their look for style purposes. Like, there is this one woman that I'm not gonna mention her name, but she made a big mitzvah, a huge mitzvah, five or six years ago. She started a website to teach women how to cover their hair in a nice way. Don't cover the hair with a wig, but in a nice way. We liked this mitzvah so much that we promoted her website and

1:54:13We don't know her. We don't know her. We bought some stuff from the website here and there, but we don't know her. She might tell me now or anything like that. But we liked what she was doing so much. We promoted it to people. Anyone who wanted to go buy kisuy rosh, I would send them to this website. Anyone that wanted to learn, I would send them to these videos because she was doing a great mitzvah. A fantastic mitzvah. Unfortunately, at some point along the road, she became successful. She started making a lot of money from this, and she forgot about the mitzvah. It became styled. Meaning she wasn't covering her hair or telling people to cover their hair because of the mitzvah that HaKadosh Baruch Hu said. So, it's just nice looking, she liked it. So one day she saw that one of her posts we made on the internet, one of my talmidot, she took her wig after she heard the truth about wigs. She took her wig and she burned it. So, a lot of people made a comment about this, and this woman... Decided that this business decided to say, "Listen, we're not against wigs. We just like covering hair with the mitzvah because of the look." What did she just do in that act? All of the mitzvot she just did for the last five years—millions and millions of mitzvot—just went to the garbage. She's lost everything in one second. Why? It went from being a mitzvah to being styled. If a woman is modest and

1:55:38For the mitzvah reasons, the reward is endless. If she's modest because she likes the way the clothes look, that's a problem. Hopefully, she gets to the mitzvah. If it's both, she likes the way it looks, and she's doing it for the mitzvah, no problem. It's perfect. That's perfect. That's normal. But if she's only doing it because of the style, then you have a little bit of a problem. Why? Because the style won't stay the same forever. You gotta change your style at one point. You gotta change your opinion at one point. Just like this woman did five years into it. She forgot what the mitzvah was, and she made a stupid comment that cost her a lot. She doesn't even realize how much she lost. Yes, yes. So, the first thing it says in the Torah is to stop sinning, and then it says to start doing good things. So, the first and most important step of teshuvah is to stop the big sins and... The big ones. Stop violating Shabbat. Stop eating non-kosher. Stop wasting seed. Stop, if you have a girlfriend, break up with her or get married—whichever one happens first. If you have a boyfriend, either get married or break up with him—whichever happens first. There's no such thing as boyfriend-girlfriend in Judaism. There's no such thing. I know somebody that Hashem, nice, fantastic human being...

1:57:00said that, you know, his girlfriend is great. He wants to marry her one day. He wants to build a family one day, but, you know, they've been girlfriend and boyfriend for a few years. You know, two, three years already. So, obviously, after two, three years, even if you started off not touching, after two, three years, how much can you overcome? How many tests can you overcome? So, they touched, and one touch led to another touch, and the next thing you know, he tells me, "What do I do, Rabbi?" I said, "What?" He said, "We just had an abortion and..." So, well, now you have to do teshuva. What's teshuva? Well, one thing you have to do is you have to say sorry to Hashem that you just committed a very serious sin. You have to either break up with her or you have to get married tomorrow, whichever one happens first. That's the teshuva there. Why? Because now that means that you are already too dangerous for yourself. So, the first thing is we have to understand that we have to stop the big sins and... There's no, "I'm stopping half of it," like, "I'm only going to drive half of Shabbat," or "I'm only going to murder once a month," or "I'm only going to kill once a week." There's no such thing. You have to stop the big sins as soon as you possibly can. If you fail, it's not okay. Try again, though. It's not okay, but try again.

1:58:11Try again and try again until you overcome it. Stop the big sins. After you focus on stopping the big sins, whatever you know of, stop it. But that's no good—then start focusing on doing as many mitzvot as you possibly can. Any opportunity you have to do a mitzvah, do it. Learning Torah is the best mitzvah in the world. Learn as much as you possibly can. Do every mitzvah that you possibly can and... and take advantage of the millions of opportunities you have to do good things, and you'll see that those mitzvot will make you stronger in overcoming those sins that you're committing. Because again, you're not going to be able to stop everything in one shot, since you still have desires. But at least the desire to stop will show Hashem that you're serious, and He'll give you a lot of help, especially since you're all very young. He'll give you a lot of help to overcome things you didn't think you're gonna be able to overcome. A person usually has the most amount of sexual desires when he's very young, guys in this, you know, 18, 19, 20, 25. That's usually the time where they're most, they're the most desired. Women are a little older. But the beautiful thing is a lot of my talmidim from all over the world come to me at this age, and they listen to the shiurim, and guess what?

1:59:31they stop. They actually have, even though their desire is much greater than some of our talmidim that are in their 30s and 40s. The 18-year-old's desires are much greater than the 35, 40, 50-year-old guy that's married. But the funny thing is, the guy that's 18, the guy that's 15, is much more successful, much more often, in stopping wasting seed than the guys that are 40. Why? Because the younger you are, the more Hashem will help you do teshuva. You just have to show Hashem that you want to do it by trying. You do it, and Hashem will help you, giving you 100% siyata dishmaya. Same thing with women. Yes. Knows his thing as a boyfriend. Knows his thing as a boyfriend. He's a husband or he's a stranger. Because the point we have to understand is that we are not allowed to trust ourselves. We're not allowed to trust our own yetzer hara. Until now, the boyfriend and the girlfriend didn't even touch each other's fingers. They're in a platonic relationship, they call it. Or platonic. I have a lecture I call "Platonic? Atomic, Not Platonic." Why? Because even though today he didn't touch the finger, and tomorrow he didn't touch the finger, and next week he doesn't touch the finger, one day the yetzer hara is not doing anything right now. But one day the yetzer hara is going to come.

2:00:59Something is gonna make her really emotional. Somebody died, somebody was born. She got a job, she got fired from a job. Something happened in his life, something happened in her life, and they're really emotional and they need affection. And that platonic relationship can change just like that. Why? She needs a hug today, and the platonic relationship is not enough. So the hug. So now once you have... Change that boundary. Now a hug is automatically okay. What under extreme conditions? What happens with the yetzer hara? You let him win once, the petach cut out of it—you open a little bit of the door, and he's inside your house already. Now, a hug one time is okay. Next thing, it's two hugs. Next thing, it's a hug and a little smooch on the cheek. No, she's my girlfriend, but no, no, we're waiting. We're waiting, waiting to get married. We get married, waiting to get married, and I... Guess what? It doesn't usually work. Why? Because we're human beings. We're human beings and we are vulnerable, and the yetzer hara works really, really hard. So if you love him and he loves you, then get married. Get married. There's no reason for a person not to get married now. If a person is going to say, wait a minute, why should I get married? I'm only 17 years old. 17 years old. If you're not going to get married, then what's the point of the relationship?

2:02:27Like, why would you let anyone so close into your life? So close into your heart if they're not going to be there permanently? Like, you're going to tell, especially women, they like to talk. Torah says Hashem gave ten degrees of speaking in the world; ninety percent He gave to women. Women like to talk, so a woman likes to spill her heart. The boyfriend, the platonic relationship—he likes to listen, that's why she likes him. So, he likes to listen, and she talks. He likes to listen, and she talks. And she tells him, since he likes to listen, she tells him all of the most personal things about her. All the most personal things: what she likes, what was really bad, what was really embarrassing, what was this, what was that. Why would you tell him if he's not going to be there permanently? If he's just temporary, do you really want to tell your deepest secrets to somebody that's only temporarily in your life? If he's temporarily in your life, then that means the information is not temporary, though. He's not temporary; he's only temporarily going to protect that information. He's only temporarily going to protect that privacy you have because he's only temporarily committed to you.

2:03:34until he doesn't get what he wants. So that's why, Rabotai, in Judaism there's no such thing as boyfriend-girlfriend. If you want to be together because you want to build a family, because you want to build a future, you don't need money, you don't need a job, you don't need a certain age, you just need to understand what HaKadosh Baruch Hu expects of you. If you are of the age, you are mature to make your own decisions, There's absolutely no reason for you to not get married, whether you're 18 or you're 20, in college, not in college, financially set, not financially set, all that stuff is shtuyot. Hashem decides what parnasa you're going to have, how you're going to pay for everything, how you're going to do everything. All of those worries are a figment of our imagination that comes from the yetzer hara, and I'll give you a proof for it from one of my students. I had a student who came to me, young, young, young, maybe 25 years old, 24 years old, and said, "Listen, I love her. She's fantastic, but I'm not ready to get married. I'm only 25. I don't have five dollars in my pocket. She's even younger than me. She doesn't have knowledge, doesn't have five dollars. She has debt. She has fifty thousand, sixty thousand dollars in college debt. We don't even know how we're gonna, you know, right now we live with our parents. If we get married, we can't live with our parents. How are we gonna afford a house?"

2:05:01And then on top of that, we're going to have kids right now. I'm still a kid. I'm still 25. She's still 20. How are we going to have a kid? We're still kids. How are we going to do this? How are we going to do that? One question: Do you want to do what Hashem said or no? Obviously, every normal being will say, yes, I want to do what Hashem said. Do you trust Hashem? Do you trust Hashem? Do you trust that Hashem runs the world? Or do you think that Hashem is here to torture you? No, Hashem is here. He loves me. If you trust Hashem, and you want to do what He says, get married. Baruch Hashem, they listened, and Baruch Hashem, they have a fantastic family. Everything worked out—the money issues worked out, the job issues worked out, the kid issues worked out, life worked out. And all of those friends that told them, "you're too young" and "you're too this and too that," guess what? They're eating their hearts out, still single and miserable, five, six years later. Why? Because they still think that you're too young, too young, and too young. I have a bunch of friends—former friends—that were too young to get married. Now they're almost 50. They're still too young to get married though. You know why they're too young to get married? Because nobody from the cemetery wants to marry them. So they have to get there first until they find a wife. All the people in the cemetery are old. Anybody their age doesn't want to get married anymore. Why are they 50 already? They spent half their life already being single. Next question. Yes. Yes.

2:06:29We're not here to explain civil law; we are only here to explain Torah law. Civil law is against the Torah in many cases. Torah law is the only law that doesn't change. Civil law is by man; Torah law is by God. We don't question the level of stupidity because we know that if stupidity was a stock, the price would be infinite. So, the stupidity of man is something that never ceases to amaze his people because it continues to grow. But God's law, HaKadosh Baruch Hu's law, is divine, it's perfect, and it never ceases to amaze us how perfect it really is. It's just our problem that we doubt it. Next question. Yes. Layers inside the earth, yes. Sure, they're not the word, I mean the, uh, archaeologists, uh, you know, have, uh, I've seen that there are layers in the earth. How they translate it is a different story, though. I mean, if you're talking about how they're timing the age of the earth, that's what you're referring to based on the layers of the earth.

2:07:56That's actually in the Torah. That's not from National Geographic. In the Torah, we have Shlomo HaMelech, who knew deep secrets of the world, knew the language of every creature, and was able to speak to all beings. He was the king of the world, not just king of people. King of the world means that he was the king of the demons, he was the king of the birds, he was the king of everything. He showed his people different things that no one knew existed. He said that there are different creatures in the world that, if we saw them today, they would look to us like aliens because they don't look like us. But they exist in this world, here where we are, and… So he commanded the king of the demons named Ashmedai to do certain things for him. One of the things that he asked him to do, or commanded him to do, is to go bring him certain beings that lived in a different part of the world that's under the ground. So he showed them, he brought them to this world, and after he finished, he goes, put him back. He goes, no, that's something I can't do. I can only bring him here, I can't bring him back. So one of the people that he brought, one of the things that he brought, was someone that had two heads.

2:09:10two heads, but in this world, if you're born with two heads, that's usually because of some deformity. No, this is not a deformity. This is how they are. Then he brought a little person. He brought different creatures. The point being is that the Torah says that there are different types of creatures that exist in the world. Different types of animals, different types of things that exist in the Torah that they made movies about and we think are fairy tales, but in reality, they're real. So, for example, there is an animal that cannot—you know, it's an animal that kills everything it sees, but it's something that you can kill by cutting its umbilical cord, because the umbilical cord is tied to the ground. Wherever it goes, the ground goes with it. But it's a destructive animal. kill anything in sight, a very vicious animal. There's another, you know, creature that the Rambam even talks about. There's another creature called a Re'em. A Re'em is something that's a combination of a, um,

2:10:19of a deer and a bull, but just in dinosaur size. That also existed in the world. Meaning the Torah has many, many different creatures that are under the world, that are here, that we haven't seen, that are very much real; we just don't necessarily know about them. They are still discovering new species now. Like right now, just recently, they discovered a new species that the Torah talks about, or at least it's similar to it, which is something similar to the Shamir worm. Point being is that there's a lot of things we don't know about the world. The Torah does talk about all of that stuff. One of the other interesting secrets that the Torah has about what's under the ground and what's above us is water. Water. Why? Because the Torah says in Sefer Bereishit, chapter 2, I think verse 4, that HaKadosh Baruch Hu split the water, split the heavens, and He split the water from under the heavens and above the heavens. And Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer says that yes, the water that's above the heavens is much, much greater than the water under the heavens. So for many years, people made fun of the Torah. It's like, what are you talking about?

2:11:32Under the heavens, meaning water under the sky. We know water under the sky — the ocean — 72% of the world is an ocean, is one big sea. But in outer space, there's no ocean. There's no ocean. You don't see an ocean on Mars. You don't see an ocean on the moon. You don't see an ocean on any other planet. We think there may or may not be, but we don't see it for sure and So they said, "Oh, so there's a mistake in the Torah, because why? The Torah says not only is there water in outer space, but there's actually even more water in outer space than here." So the people thought that we made a mistake. Until the scientists finally caught up to what the Torah says, and two scientists by the name of Professor Louis Frank and Dr. John Sigwarth, With an advanced telescope, they discovered a few major bodies of water we never knew existed. One of them is something that we call a falling star. Sometimes you see a star falling. It's not really falling. It's not a star. It's a comet. What's a comet? A comet is an enormous

2:12:52giant ice ball. The only reason why it looks like it's falling is because it's passing in direct line with the sun and it's melting at high speed. Therefore, it's creating a track. We never knew that these things were actually ice because each one of them literally is like a huge—you can fill up half an ocean. So we saw, wow, there's a lot of them. And then they discovered, these two professors, that the entire outer surface of the universe is where all of these comets break off of. Why? Because the entire outer surface of the universe is all ice. Meaning that the water above the heavens is much, much greater than the water under the heavens. But even more so, recently, just in the last decade, Scientists discovered huge bodies of water underground in this world, so much so that they say there's much more water underground than there is in the ocean. It's just stored differently inside rocks and so on and so forth, but it's much, much greater. Meaning, the ocean that's underground is greater than the ocean above the ground. You can see this stuff on the internet if you'd like; very, very interesting stuff. The point being is that in every aspect

2:14:13in every aspect that you want. If you want to consider the heavens the ground, then it's still right. The ocean and this—you want to consider it the other way and so on and so forth, meaning that Torah is right in every direction you go. It's just that sometimes, most of the time, science is behind the Torah by many, many decades, in some cases a few centuries, yes. Meaning if a baby is born without a Brit Milah already, it doesn't have a halachic status. So, well, no, it's if a baby, for example, the hospital made a mistake or the parents made a mistake and they let the hospital do the Brit Milah as soon as the baby was born, or a few days later, whatever it was, usually it's a few days later. and they let the hospital do the Brit Milah as soon as the baby was born, or a few days later, whatever it was, usually it’s a few days later, Then they would still have to do hatafat dam. They would still have to confirm the brit milah was done right. You also have to know that the goyim do the brit milah, the circumcision, differently than Jews. So most times when they do the brit milah, the goyim, they have an incomplete brit milah. So if that baby grows up and becomes an adult, he has to have a second brit milah. He has to cut another piece that wasn't cut before, which is a nightmare, by the way.

2:15:37But the point is that if they did the brit milah correctly, then the child does not have to do brit milah again. Obviously, you can't cut the same piece twice, but he would still have to do something called hatafat dam, which is the prick to generate a little bit of blood. It's obviously not recommended to do it that way. It's recommended to have a... an expert, a mohel, that knows the halacha, that's going to do brit milah, but anyway, if they're doing hatafat dam, I don't believe that it needs to be done on the eighth day; it can be done simply whenever they want. Because it's no longer the same mitzvah, the mitzvah was already fulfilled, if you will. But yeah, they still can do a celebration; it just doesn't have the same significance, and it's not the same day. Thank you. Next question. Nitz. How does the name of a person and the date the person was conceived affect the neshama? The Mekubalim say that one of the things that affect the neshama of a person is the first letter of their name. The first letter of their name. What name

2:16:58did their name start with? Because if you look at the Gemara Masechet Shabbat, you'll see that each letter in the Hebrew alphabet is not just an art piece. It's not just A, B, C. Each letter stands for something. So, for example, the letter Gimel, the third letter of the Hebrew alphabet, symbolizes Gomel, Gomel Chassadim, someone who performs acts of kindness. So, people whose names start with the letter Gimel tend to be more kind. And so on and so forth. Every letter has a certain significance. As far as the date that they were conceived, as far as the specific day, that has to do with mazalot, has to do with the impact that can be affected on them. That all depends on the person. It depends on the time frame. There is a teaching, even in the Torah, that has to do with the stars, all the different signs. But the Torah also says, Hashem says to the prophets, if a person is a righteous Jew who learns Torah and does mitzvot, they're not subject to the luck and fortunes of the stars. That's only something that the goyim are subject to. A Jew is above luck. The main thing that will affect a Jewish neshama is how they were conceived, not when they were conceived.

2:17:59that have to do with the stars, all the different signs. But the Torah also says, Hashem says to the prophets, if a person is a righteous Jew who learns Torah and does mitzvot, they're not subject to the luck and fortunes of the stars. That's only something that the goyim are subject to. A Jew is above luck. The main thing that will affect a Jewish neshamah is how they were conceived, not when they were conceived. meaning whether they were conceived in Kedusha or Tumah. If the person was conceived in Tumah, meaning the woman was Niddah, she didn't go to the Mikveh, that Neshamah is going to have a very big obstacle. It doesn't mean that it's a bad Neshamah per se, but it's going to have a very big obstacle. If that Neshamah was conceived in Kedusha, that Neshamah is going to have different types of obstacles, but much, much less. It's much more likely to be a holy person. Also, there are different levels of neshamos. The point is that these things do matter, but not after the fact.

2:19:09Don't delve too much into how you were conceived and when you were conceived, and all of that stuff, because it doesn't really change your test anyway. It doesn't change your obligation anyway. Even if, chas v'shalom, chas v'shalom, you were conceived in the worst possible way—rape, let's say, rape and incest at the same time—your obligation in the world is the same. Your obligation to the world is the same. You still have to do the will of Hashem. You're alive; Hashem put the neshama in your body. You're a Jew; you still have to fulfill the will of Hashem. Even if you're a non-Jew, you still have to fulfill the will of Hashem. Why? You're alive. That's it. So how you were conceived, and when you were conceived, and all of these different things that the Gemara in Masechet Chagigah, page 14 or 13 says, that the things that are above our control, that are of the mystical, let it be mystical. Let it be the business of Hashem. It's not in our hands. It's not in our hands, all that stuff. It's after the fact. What are you going to do after the fact? This is what happened. Hashem allowed it to happen. That's it. Now you have. This is the deck of cards that you were given. Do the best you can with it. But you can never use it as an excuse. No, I was born into a non-religious family. I was born into a religious family. That stuff doesn't matter. Why? Because there's plenty of examples in the Torah of people that come from really good families that become Esav.

2:20:32Meaning, Esav. Esav came from a good family. But he was still Esav. Hashem hates him. And there are plenty of fantastic people who came from the worst places on earth. Yitro. Yitro came from idol worshippers. He himself was an idol worshipper and then became one of the most important Jews in history. The point is that it doesn't matter who and what happened before you. That's out of your control. What's in your control is you today. You today, that's in your control. Do the best you can today. Next question. Yes. Why are you allowed to count people? Excuse me? Why are you allowed to count people in Judaism? In two places in the Torah, HaKadosh Baruch Hu has a census, meaning that Hashem counts people. And He says He's the only one that's allowed to count people. Even though He knows how many people He has, He counts His people because He wants to show us that He loves us. He wants to show us that He loves us. We don't have the same affection for each other like Hashem has for us. We can't.

2:21:33Sometimes we count people and we don't think the same way. Like I said, Hashem says when you count people, it can create a plague. It creates a plague. Why? Because of the difference. I know you could have counted one, two, three, four, five. Oh, oh, yeah, that's Steve, the rich guy. You just gave mine a lot. You just gave me to count them. Nothing in it, not thinking much, but then you thought that Steve, the rich guy. Oh, you just—your counting led to problems. Oh, three, six, seven, eight. Oh, that's Joe with nine kids. Oh, one of his kids died because of you now. So, don't count. So what do we do when we need to know the number? We count the chairs that people are sitting in. We count the kippot that people are wearing. We count things that everybody possesses, but not the people themselves. Why? Because only Hashem is allowed to count people. But there was a big tzaddik named David HaMelech who made this mistake. made this mistake. He would count his soldiers, and every day more of his soldiers died. Every day. And he didn't know that this was happening until it was almost too late. Almost too late. He made the mistake of counting his soldiers and almost lost his entire army. The point being is that Hashem does not want us to count people, because He's the only one that's allowed to do it. Because when we do it, we bring Ayin Hara.

2:22:49we bring Ayin Hara because we do not view each other anywhere nearly as favorably as the way Hashem views us. Next question. Good. We're spent. You guys were on fire today. You should give yourself a round of applause. You guys had fantastic questions today. I really, really appreciate you learning with me. Baruch Adonai le'olam. Amen ve'amen. I have a question. He has no question. He said no question. What? No, my father told me today, tonight, that...