The Battle to Enter HEAVEN: Nataniel Khafizov Interviews Rabbi Yaron Reuven on KayfLife

0:26This is our third try and tonight's guest is Rabbi Yaron Reuven, the founder of BeEzrat Hashem Inc. and the rabbi of it, obviously. And we are waiting for everyone to come back from our previous lives. Guys, I'm so sorry about our connection and what's going on, but BeEzrat Hashem we'll get through it. The Satan's forces are strong, huh? Okay. So let's wait for Rabbi Reuven. Okay. The connection is much better now. So sorry about that, Rabbi. I see the Satan's forces are strong tonight. Yeah. We try something new. The Yetzer Hara is a shock. Yeah. One way. So anyway, I'm going to try to keep the story short just because there's a whole movie about it. uh, like it's called "Hashem Took Back His Millions." I, uh, was on Wall Street for a long time, had a very successful career, dealt with a lot of millionaires and billionaires, athletes, celebrities, all types of people that have money. Um, I myself had plenty of money. Uh, my best day in my career was, uh, 1.6 million dollars in one day. And, uh, insane, you know. It's

1:50The money part, all the people that live for money and chase after money, I had it, and it's not all that. Sorry to break it. I know that everybody thinks that their story is going to be different, but I always told my employees that money is never going to make you happy. The only thing it's going to do is help you arrive at your problems with a limo. That's all it does. Money is no different than a hammer. But anyway, people still chase after money and live for it, unfortunately, because they're constantly looking for meaning and they hope that money will be that tool. It's not, but we'll learn more from that story. Anyway, after having a successful career in 2006, I had a surgery that went bad. From that moment on, I started fighting for my life. I was in pain 24 hours a day. I had many, many surgeries. And no doctor, of the 50 doctors that we went to, was able to... explain it or even diagnose it. But then eventually I started learning Torah with my cousin, who's a very serious Talmid Chacham. His name is Rabbi Ephraim Kachlon. And I started doing teshuva. And as I started doing teshuva, I started realizing that my problem is much worse than my health problem. How old were you by that time when you started making teshuva?

3:13I was already in my 30s. 30, maybe 31, 32. This is when you already, you are well, you came out of your sickness? No, no, I'm very, very sick at that point. I'm very sick, having surgeries. I wanted to commit suicide. All the worst things you can imagine, just add a little bit more to that, I was there. No, this was in the worst parts of it, actually. The way it is, is that HaKadosh Baruch Hu promises that He'll never give you a test that you can't handle. And when you get to that limit, HaKadosh Baruch Hu gets involved. And I got to that limit. I got to the point where I started to lose my will to live. The desire to live is the strongest desire that a person has. Even if a person tells you, "Oh, I want to die, I want to die," in reality, it's nonsense. want to die, really you just kill yourself. If you're just saying it, it's just you're looking for attention, right? The will to live is very, very strong. Yeah, but once you start losing your will to live, you start losing your mind a little bit, you start losing your senses. And that's what I was getting to. I was able to do business, I was able to do different things as far as my logic, but my desire to live was deteriorating by the day because of all the pain I was dealing with 24 hours a day.

4:41but the two things that kept me going were my dear wife and my mom. Then eventually, I started learning Torah and I began realizing that there's much more to life than just the battle I was dealing with. I always knew that God is very much real, but I came to understand that He actually has a list of commandments. If you don't comply with them, He brings really, really bad consequences to you. And I qualified into getting that really, really bad stuff. I wasn't a murderer. I wasn't a rapist. I wasn't a thief. I wasn't anything that the law would say would make me bad as far as the civil law. But in accordance with God, I was horrible. I didn't keep Shabbat. I was married to a non-Jew. My kashrut wasn't exactly 100%. And so on and so forth. I was living a typical, unfortunately, Jewish life. A nice guy, but not so much to Hashem. And Hashem gave me, Baruch Hashem, my own test. And I ran out of time. I ran out of time for playing around in this world. Everybody's got their own clock. Hashem has His clock for everyone. I ran out of time. And Baruch Hashem, before the time was completely out, I did Teshuvah. Teshuvah.

6:03started changing my life because I realized that this is the best thing for me. And that was a journey of its own. So what was it, Rabbi, what was it for you that made you switch? Was it a certain question that your cousin answered or somebody else? What was it that made you realize this is it? God exists and Judaism is the truth. What was it? The first call that I ever had with my cousin, I started asking him questions. And not only did he give me answers, but he gave me answers with an actual source, and he would tell me, "Oh, this same question was asked by such and such sage 852 years ago in this book on this page, and here’s the line." He would give me the exact place where it was, and I was amazed. And not only did he have an answer from the Torah, but he had a source. You know, my whole life I was a very inquisitive person. I like to ask questions. I like to get answers. You know, a lot of people like questions, but not necessarily go after the answers. My whole life I was a student. So I like information. I like to learn. And not only did he give me answers, but he gave me answers with an actual source, and he would tell me, "Oh, this same question was asked by such and such sage 852 years ago in this book on this page, and here’s the line." He would give me the exact place where it was, and I was amazed.

7:08And I would ask another question, and it was completely general questions—dinosaurs, business, marriage, anything you could possibly imagine. And everything I would ask, he would give me a place and where it was and what the answer was. After that first call, which was for an hour and 45 minutes, I ran to my wife and told her, "He has the answers." "What do you mean? What answers?" she asked. I said, "He has the answers to everything." She replied, "That's the guy. That's the guy you've been looking for your whole life." I said, "Yes, exactly." Because that's what I was looking for my whole life. I was looking for somebody that has answers to these big questions. So the next week, he called me. We spoke for three hours, same exact thing. Questions, answers, questions, answers. The next week, it was seven hours. And then after that, every week, Thursday at 4 o'clock, seven hours of questions and answers, sources. I started filling up notebooks and notebooks full of information. And that was really what got to me, that I realized there is an answer to everything. every question that you could possibly have that's relevant to your life. And not only that, that answer is only in the Torah. You're not going to find it anywhere else. And if you find it anywhere else, they just stole it from the Torah because it's in the Torah, the first book.

8:19But aside from that, you're not the first one to ask this question. There are many, many people who are much greater than you who have asked these questions. I don't think that you're a big deal for asking this question. A lot of people think their questions are unique only because they don't realize that someone much greater than them 900 years ago, 1,000 years ago, 2,000 years ago, asked the same question. So when I found out that the Torah that we have is literally the book of all books, the source of all knowledge... That's it. That was enough for me to know that I need to know everything. Everything that's in it. You were not looking for an excuse. No, I was never looking for excuses. I was never a person that rejected the truth. I just never had the truth. I had my own version of the truth. I understood God existed. I understood that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. It was Moshe. I understood basic things, but I never heard about the punishments. I never heard about the obligation and what it means if you violate Shabbat. The Torah says a Jew who doesn't keep Shabbat is considered an idol worshiper. I never heard such a thing in my life. And the problem is that I had anywhere from two to three rabbis or religious people come to my office and collect money every single week throughout my entire career. So, two or three people every week.

9:41sometimes more, would come to my office, and I would give them money every time, sometimes thousands of dollars, and never once, and they knew that I'm married to a non-Jew, they knew I'm not keeping Shabbat, they knew everything. It's not like I was hiding it. I actually never knew why they were keeping anything, but I actually asked a couple of times, twice I asked them to teach me, and both of them quit after the first lecture. After the first year that we had one-on-one, They didn't want to do it anymore. They just wanted to come to collect money. They were afraid that you weren't going to give them if they told you the truth. I don't think so. No? To this day, they live a lie. One of them, I actually approached him after I became religious and actually already became a rabbi. I told him, "How come you never told me about Shabbat? How come you never told me about this? How come you never told me about this stuff?" And he said to me, "That's because the only mitzvah that a Jew needs to do in this generation is give tzedakah." And I told him, "You realize that what you just said violates the entire Torah. You're a kofer, you're a heretic against the Torah." And he said, "The worst mistake you ever made was doing this teshuva. You used to be a nice guy." That's what he told me. And he's a rabbi, and he has 500 to 1,000 people every single week hosted for Shabbat.

11:07Every single week, not a single person keeps Shabbat. They all drive; it's in the city. And he's a businessman who pretends to be a rabbi, who pretends to be religious. Unfortunately, there are many people like that. Hence, one of the reasons, one of the driving motivations that I have to leave everything. I left Wall Street. I left all business. I don't conduct any business whatsoever. I just run the organization that's nonprofit. And I pretty much left everything to do with business just to do this and to teach people the truth. Because I know that at least in the English-speaking world, It's almost non-existent, with the exception of Rabbi Mizrachi, Rabbi Zitron, Rabbi Anava, just a handful of people that are tzaddikim doing it for a while. There's simply nobody telling the people the truth. Everyone has some type of agenda or a bias or some type of apprehension to tell people the truth. So the vast majority of people in the world today, especially in the English-speaking world today, are walking blindly...

12:12not knowing that they are destined for disaster, not only in the next world but in this world, because not a single one of them is happy. And this, unfortunately, is both in the religious world and non-religious world. It's not just affecting the non-religious people; it's affecting the religious people just as much. I know just as many religious people who have never heard about Gehinom, have never heard about punishment in their life, and they went to yeshiva. And it's unbelievable how ignorant we are as a generation, and it's the fault of the leaders because this already is several generations in. There's a very famous book on our website, bezrat Hashem.org, that you can download for free, called The Ethics of Mashiach, that was written by one of the biggest sages we had in the last hundred years, Rav Elchanan Wasserman, who was the talmid of the Chafetz Chaim. And he wrote... What's going to happen before Mashiach? And he was talking about his day. And it's like you're reading the news of today. He says all the rabbis are lying. All the rabbis are just focused on money. Same exact thing that you have right now. And it's not just rabbis. It's speakers. It's politicians. It's all these different things where unless we take charge of ourselves to go find the truth, no one's going to do it for you.

13:35And that's really my message to people, that you have to understand that, yeah, although you can blame the rabbi as much as you want, it's your fault just as much because you have a brain, and you use that brain to make money. You use that brain to develop skills. You use that brain for a lot of different things. You also have to use that brain to, you know, understand what the purpose of life is. And if you don't, you'll be just as much at fault as these false leaders. So, of course, we're trying to educate people as best we can to get them to understand that the Torah is not just for heaven, it's also for earth. It's also how to become a better human being, how to be more ethical, and so on. And it's amazing how many people from around the world are watching our lectures already for the last several years to the extent where they change their life. Some of them convert to Judaism. Some of them become really religious. Some of them get married. All types of things. Right now, according to our numbers, we have almost 5 million minutes every single month of people watching our Torah, which is unreal. 5 million to 60 million minutes a year of Torah being learned just from us. are watching our lectures already for the last several years to the extent where they change their lives. Some of them convert to Judaism. Some of them become really religious. Some of them get married. All types of things. Right now, according to our numbers, we have almost 5 million minutes every single month of people watching our Torah, which is unreal. 5 million to 60 million minutes a year of Torah being learned just from us.

14:48And if you compare it to bigger channels, let's say some of the big organizations that have 800 rabbis, 800 speakers, 900 speakers, their entire channel gets 7 million per year. So us by ourselves, me and Rabbi Ephraim, two people, you got almost 14%. And you know, Rabbi, you know what that shows really? People are thirsty for truth. People are searching. And that's why these channels like yours, Rabbi Mizrahi, Rabbi Alon Anava, especially Rabbi Alon Anava right now with his last three videos about the corona and stuff, are blowing up because people are actually searching for truth. But you see, I will agree with you, the majority... would not even share or would not even invite them to lecture their people. That's, that's, I see the biggest problem that's going on. And I'm, I'll tell you, to be honest, I'm involved with a lot of these kiruv organizations, these synagogues, whatever you want and people. And I just see what type of, like all, all these people have an agenda and,

15:59and a lot of them are afraid that speakers like that would scare off the audience. So what is your message to them? And I don't even know what else to say. It's just that they think people will get scared by them telling the exact truth. Well, here's the thing. We have to, when we teach Torah and when we learn Torah, We have to understand that our opinion is meaningless. Our opinion is meaningless. The only opinion that matters is God's opinion. So we have to ask God's opinion. What does God say about this? Now, if you look at this week's parasha, because obviously the parasha always coincides with our reality. You look at this week's parasha. We ask, God, what is Your opinion? How should we teach? Because this week's parasha, like any other parasha, Torah portion in the Torah, is learned by 6-year-olds, 7-year-olds, 8-year-olds—all ages are obligated to learn each weekly portion. So that means that you have to learn this every year for the rest of your life. God, in this week's parasha, parashat Bechukotai, says that in chapter 26—this happens to be the chapter that I opened here—chapter 26, verse 18, parashat Bechukotai...

17:24If, despite this, you do not heed Me, then I shall punish you further, sevenfold for your sins. I will break your pride and your might; I will make your heaven like iron, and so on and so forth. In so many words, God is telling us that if we don't pay attention and we don't take Him seriously, He starts telling us that He's going to punish us with the worst things you can possibly imagine. He gets to the extent where He says that the hunger will be so bad that the parents will eat their children. Literally, it says this in the pasuk. Commentary: It's not a secret; it's actually literal in the parasha, and it's mentioned in the Torah several times. Unfortunately, it happened throughout history several times that we were punished so harshly by God that we actually got to such a starving situation that that's what happened. It happened in the First Temple, the Second Temple, and even in the Holocaust, by the way. Now, so the question is: To any rabbi in the world today that has a congregation, to any speaker in the world that has a congregation, are you more righteous than God? Are you smarter than God? Because God is teaching harsh Torah. Half the Torah talks about punishment. Half the Torah talks about punishment. The first parasha, we start off, Adam HaRishon gets punished. We move on, Kayin gets punished. We move on, the whole generation of Noach gets destroyed.

18:49We move on, Sodom and Gomorrah. We move on, the Tower of Babel. Well, it's every single parashah and it's a lot. There's punishment. It's just what it is. Punishment is a part of life. It is a reward and it's a punishment. It's actually part of our 13 principles of faith. So by removing punishment, by removing the consequences, we are starting a new religion. And actually... As you would have it, someone sent me a video yesterday about a Jewish guy who has become a famous scientist, but he was highlighted in the news not because he's a famous scientist, but rather because he is now a Christian famous scientist who was born a Jew. He calls himself a Messianic Jew. And he has an interview online where he tells why he converted to Christianity. Why is he doing this? Why would he abandon Judaism? And he literally says, "When I looked at Christianity and they showed me," he calls it the gospel, "he says, 'For the first time in my life, they taught me about sin. Because I never learned about sin, never learned about punishment in Jewish school. Never learned it in my life.'"

20:03I learned this in Christianity, and they told me the only way out is if you go and idolize Yoshke, their J.C. Penny. Obviously, that's wrong, but the point is that you have now clear evidence that if you don't teach the Torah as God did, the author of the Torah, people are converting to different religions as a result of it. It's because what it is, the Torah without punishment is a different religion. Torah without punishment is a different religion. It's not the same religion. So all of these organizations, all of these speakers, all of these people that are doing that, that are not teaching people the consequence and the fact that there's a danger if you do things against Hashem, are simply saying that they're not only smarter than the Chafetz Chaim, who talked about punishment constantly, They're smarter than Rabbi Akiva, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai. We just celebrated Lag BaOmer. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai has an entire portion of the Zohar that talks about the details of Gehenom. Horrible, horrible, horrific things that I don't recommend that you learn about every day, but you need to know it at least once in your life. I have a whole shiur about it for three and a half hours. It's scary as can be. I can tell you personally that when I studied for that shiur, I was crying while I was studying. Wow.

21:26So imagine you're reading a book and you're crying hysterically like a little baby because that's how scary it is. So now, I'm not saying go study that every single day. People know it exists. But to go to the extent of simply telling people there is no hell, there is no punishment, everyone goes to heaven, every Jew goes to heaven just because his mommy is a Jew and she had a baby, that is a new religion. And it's even worse than Christianity because at least in Christianity, you could find the flaws in two seconds. But with the fake Judaism, it's hard to find that it's fake unless you're searching for the truth. So that's why part of what we do also is fight against the people that actively and knowingly lie to the public, like people like Manis Friedman and Dov Kasuto and other people that are actively and knowingly lying to people about the Torah in order to appeal to the audience so they can get more donations and look like they're more friendly, look as if their Torah is a nicer version, as if our Torah is a bad version.

22:31And the reality is, anyone that reads this week's parashah, just basic, literal. Forget about commentary. Just literal. If you're not scared, you should check your pulse. And that's how the Torah is. Now, it's not to say that you always have to be scared, but you have to know it exists. You have to know that consequence exists, because if there's no consequence, why should I keep everything? Yeah, right. What purpose do I have? If God came to us right now in the middle of this interview and He said to us, "Listen, guys, I like you guys so much. From now on, you can do whatever you want. You're still going to heaven." The reality is, both of us would not keep anything three or four days later. Why? If there's no consequence, what am I going to do? What's the point, right? If from now on, every highway tells you that you can drive any speed you want, you can do anything you want, you can ram into people just because they annoyed you, guess what? The world turns into mayhem.

23:31They tell you that you can take whatever you want from any store, steal. No consequence. The world turns into tohu vavohu, into destruction. Consequence is a necessary part of human life, and we learn this from the Torah. To remove that from our teachings is simply starting a new religion. And unfortunately, because most of us are ignorant growing up, we go to secular schools, We have secular programs and TV and internet and so on. We don't know what we don't know. So, therefore, you live through your life 30 years without knowing that you're in danger because you're actually doing things that are against God, but you never heard it. And the only people that you were expecting to hear it from are not telling you. So, unless every person takes charge... and start searching for the truth, they're not going to find it. And I will double down on that. I feel like some of these rabbis, some of them are nice, but some of these rabbis, they're wasting people's time by teaching. They could be teaching about if God is real, if He exists, giving proofs.

24:50then giving proofs that Judaism is the truth. There's so... Why are you teaching about things that are not necessarily making a person Baal Teshuva right now? You're wasting his time. Because they're not interested in making them Baal Teshuva. That's the truth. That's how I became religious. They're not interested in making people Baal Teshuva. They're interested in people staying what they are because so long as they live a lie... They lead people to think that the only thing they need to do is, like the church, give money. So the guy is, in essence, buying heaven. As long as every time this bearded guy comes, I give him 20, I give him 200, I give him 500, that's going to get me to heaven. I can do whatever I want. Great. Why not? And that's the mentality. It's complete business. And that's the thing. That's why they are nice. It's a fraud. It's a fraud. If Hitler started giving sandwiches in the park and said it's kosher sandwiches, you know, you could say, wow, he's being really nice, which is true. Yeah, that's a nice act. But once you find out that he murdered millions and millions of people, you're like, oh, it's a trap. And that's the thing. All con men are nice. All con men are nice. Con men don't look like con men. That's the point. And that's what's happening to this generation. We're being conned.

26:12And it's dangerous because it's our fault too. Because if we don't go out there and search for the truth, God is going to force the truth on us by giving us difficulties, which is what happened to me. Unless I went through the hell that I went through, fighting for my life, surgery after surgery, losing every penny, millions and millions of dollars. I mean, I had enough money for several generations. It was more of a miracle losing it than making it. And everything that happened, if all of that didn't happen, I would still be living a life that's completely the opposite of what the truth is and probably die that way just like many other people. And God is merciful, and therefore He gave me a really, really big punch to my face several times to wake me up. So, yeah, it looked like He hated me. It looked like He was punishing me, but in reality, He was trying to save me. How big was Rabbi Mizrachi's contribution to your life? And how did that play a role in making you a Baal Teshuva happen? Well, I already started doing Teshuva before I knew Rabbi Mizrachi existed.

27:29But along the way, once we realized that my wife is not Jewish and needs to convert, you can't just tell somebody to convert. They have certain beliefs. So we started looking for proofs of what’s real. Is Judaism real? Is Christianity real? My whole life, I just thought that Christianity is just second best. I didn't necessarily think it was fake like I know now. So we started looking for different things. We ran into a video that he made called "The Debate," which I loved and my wife hated. That was also the first video I watched of Rabbi Mizrachi. That's how I discovered Rabbi Mizrachi. By the way, I'll tell you, Rabbi, they showed this to us in school. In high school, in our school, they showed that video, which I'm very thankful for those people that did. And the rabbis that I have, Baruch Hashem, I was surrounded by good rabbis and good influences. But still, even though, Rabbi, I graduated high school, I came out completely. Meaning, not completely, but like I wasn't religious.

28:41because what I think, and the system that high school and schools are missing, Jewish schools, is the foundational system. They don't teach the fundamentals; they don't answer questions that are fundamental. Don't you think basic things are not known by most Jews, religious and non-religious? Right. And they were teaching us Gemara; they were teaching whatever you want. But what does that whole building stand on? When you're trying to build a building, you first start with, you know, a foundation. And they weren't giving it to us. And kids come out, they go off the derech. Well, that's the thing. Most religious people that I've met that have had, you know, problems with their emunah, problems with their hashkafah, is because they learned the basics, the Chumash, the five books of Moses, they learned it when they were kids. but they stopped learning it as they got into their teenage years. So by the time they got to, you know, 20, 25, 30, 35 years old, they learned some Gemara, but they didn't really know the basics, which is what you learn from the Chumash, the Five Books of Moses. They never knew that there's punishment literally stated in the Torah and so on. So the problem is that the system teaches you certain parts of the Torah at different parts of life, and then just stops teaching you at some point.

30:07the fundamental things. And even things like I said before, the 13 principles of faith is something that's so fundamental to Judaism that it's customary to have it in every single siddur and recite it at the end of Shacharit, at the end of the morning prayer, every day. Most Jews don't even know it's in their siddur because very few people do it. So there are certain things that are there that have been instilled there by the sages from previous generations but the current leaders that we have right now, the current teaching system that we have right now, simply skips it or doesn't think it's important. I don't really exactly know what's the mentality, but I do know that we are now at a generation where there are literally rabbis already at this point that have never heard anything about punishment or Gehinnom. Or the basic fundamentals of Judaism. Rabbis. We're not talking about just the students now. I have people who have come to me and told me that they have never heard it until they started watching my lectures. Wait a minute. You're a rabbi. Why are you watching my lecture? I should be watching yours. Well, I never heard about punishment. I said, yeah, but you're a rabbi. He goes, no, I mean, I heard that there is punishment. I just never heard the details until you said it. But it's listed in the Torah. He goes, yeah, but...

31:27i don't know why. When you said it, I realized it's real. And it's baffling to me that this is what we have. So, again, it's not so much that I want to harp on the fact that punishment is something you need to concern yourself with, but when you simply don't know it exists, you live a very, very different life. when you don't know that there is a consequence and what the price is, you live a very, very different life. And we live in a generation where the fundamentals of Judaism are absent to everyone unless you search for it yourself. And it's very critical that every person do themselves a favor and start looking for what is the truth, what is the purpose of life, because I promise you, you can make as much money as you want, you can't take it with you after you die. You can buy as many houses as you want. You can't take them with you after you die. None of the stuff you possess in this world you can take with you. You can't take anything with you. All you can take with you is the consequence of your actions. So regardless of where you are today, you should know what they are and then decide how you want to live your life once you know that. Know what the price is before you decide, "No, I'm going to buy that."

32:43Be smart. And that's, in essence, what we try to teach to many people in very simple language. We use everything as a source. And that's also one of the things that I'm very particular about—to let people know that anytime you hear anything that contradicts what we said, please provide a source. Because when we say something, we provide a source. Which book says it? Just like our rabbis do. Which book said it? What page? If you want to look it up and see with your own eyes, you can find it. and not just take my word for it. You shouldn't take my word for it. You shouldn't take anybody's word for it, because that's not the way of Am Yisrael. Am Yisrael, in the Mishnah in Pirkei Avot, the sixth chapter, says that you're obligated to mention a source for the things you say. Just like Esther, when she said what she said to Ahasuerus, she said it in the name of Mordechai. If she would have said it just from herself, The whole salvation that happened on Purim would have never happened. But because she said it in the name of Mordechai, Ahasuerus ended up looking at his book of memories, saw Mordechai's name again there, and decided to reward him, and that's obviously how Hashem brought the salvation. So from there we learn that when you mention sources, you're bringing the Mashiach closer.

34:02Because that's how we know that whatever you said connects all the way to Mount Sinai. It's not something new. It's old news, but it's new to us, perhaps. But it's from the Torah. But when you mention things without a source, we don't know if you made it up. We don't know if it's from a different religion. We don't know if it's heresy. We don't know. So we can't believe it. So that's why I tell people, if you look at all the people that are heretics, public heretics that we fight against publicly, they never mention a single source for any of their things that they say because that source doesn't exist in the Torah. It exists in idolatry maybe. It exists in their mind, but it doesn't exist in our Torah. And if it's not in our Torah, it doesn't make a difference. So that's what people need to do. They need to take their life seriously. You want to make money, make money. You want to get married, get married. You want to have kids, have kids. It's not getting in the way of all those things, correct. But there's more to life than things. Take your life seriously because, you know, it's your life, and you don't want to wake up after it's too late. Rabbi, what is a proper Jewish ideology? Especially since this is the topic, and I see a lot of Rabbanim and how they...

35:19they teach their kehillot and their people, and it looks like everyone has a different ideology. What is the proper Jewish ideology? Well, you know, like a typical Jew, I'll answer your question with another question and then give you the answer to both. Sure. What does everybody want from God? What does everybody want from God? Health. Stuff. Right. We want stuff. want health, want money, want stuff. We want stuff from God. We constantly want stuff. So the question is, how do we get our stuff? Does God have a secret of how to get our stuff? Well, in our tefillah, in our everyday prayers, and you just prayed it a few hours ago, at Mincha, we read Tehillim before we go into Amidah, and it says how we get our stuff. It says, the will of those who fear Him He will fulfill, and their cries He will hear and He will save them. In so many words, if somebody has fear of Hashem because he knows the truth, Hashem will give him what he's already thinking about; he doesn't even have to ask for it. But if he even gets to the point where he's in trouble and he's crying about it, for sure Hashem is going to bring him salvation.

36:43In so many words, you want stuff, you have to have fear of Hashem. That is why the Gemara in the first chapter says, "The treasure of Hashem is fear." Our fear of Him. Why? Because if you fear God, that means you understand who you're dealing with. And that means that you're going to deal with Him differently than how you deal with someone you're not afraid of. I'm not afraid of you... You're not afraid of me... So if I tell you something you don't like... You're not going to listen to me... And I'm not going to listen to you... But if God says something to us... Surely we're going to listen... Why? Because we're scared to death... That's what HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants... He wants us to be scared to death of Him... Why? Because if we're scared... We're not going to sin... At least not purposefully... So... By doing that... We have a real connection with Hashem... And He starts doing our will... The beauty is... That there are levels of fear... And the sages teach us that the lowest level of connection with Hashem is fear of Him due to punishment. Meaning, I'm going to do what He says because I don't want Him to hurt me. I don't want Him to make me sick. I don't want Him to make me poor, and so on. The highest level of fear of God, Hashem, is fear of His majesty. Meaning, His highness. Where you don't want to disrespect Him or hurt the relationship that you have with Him. Similar to a marriage.

38:12where you don't want to yell at your wife, not because you're afraid she'll punch you (unless she's really big), but because you're afraid that she'll get offended. You're afraid that she's going to get offended. You don't want to hurt the relationship. So, that's the right type of fear. And that's the highest level of fear. You're afraid of hurting the relationship between you and God. That's the highest level of fear. And Rabbi Akiva teaches us that the highest level of fear of God is the lowest level of loving God. That's the beginning of loving God, which means that all of those people who say that they love God but they're not scared of Him are living in an illusion. You cannot get to love unless you already have the foundation. Like you said, you have to have the foundation. And that's why we want God to give us our stuff. He gives us clear instructions on how to do it. Clear. Do what I say, and I'll give you your stuff. And that's generally the right ideology, where if you think about God before you take any action, before you go to a store, you decide, does God want me to go to the store or not? Oh, there are a lot of immodest women in there. Okay, so obviously God doesn't want me to go there. Okay, I'm going to order it online instead. Okay, I'm going to go eat. Well, does God want me to eat this food? No, it's not kosher. Oh, God doesn't want that. So before you do anything, you think about what does God want for me? Does God approve of this or not?

39:39Before you do business, think, "I'm going to do business with this guy. Yeah, but really, he's a thief. And probably the money that he has is stolen. So obviously, God doesn't want me to do it." So when you think like that, when you think about what does God want, because you're afraid of hurting this relationship, your actions now change. But when you're not afraid of God, you don't care what He thinks. You're not even thinking about what He thinks or what He wants. You do whatever you want. You do whatever fits. And hence the reason why there are so many literal criminals in the business world today. I'm not talking about the criminals with guns. I'm talking about criminals that are running businesses. They call themselves entrepreneurs or businessmen and women that you hire for something. You pay them the money, and they simply don't deliver. They just decide not to give you what you paid for. Forget about false advertising and fake products. That's obvious. i'm talking about people that, listen, you hired this lawyer or this doctor or this whatever, any type of profession. He says, give me $5,000 and I'll do XYZ job for you. You do what you have to by giving him the money to buy services. Personally, I have never found one ethical business person in my life. One. I've dealt with thousands.

41:00Either they lie right away, or it's just a matter of time. After two, three, or four transactions, that's when they lie. They're waiting for you to become a bigger fish. But people simply believe that stealing and cheating are a normal part of business that is required in order to get ahead. And it's very common for people to just be okay with the fact that they're not delivering what they promised. And they justify it. They say, no, no, but I did most of the job. I undercharged them. I did most of it. And you see it constantly where people are cheating each other, lying to each other, and that's because they're not afraid of anyone. They're not afraid that Hashem is watching. Another example of rabbis, I hear, I have friends that tell me, I have a few people that are not yet keeping Shabbat, but they're coming on to keeping Shabbat. You know, I'm trying this way, that way, whatever, to influence them.

42:06And from the kehillot that they like to go, their Orthodox rabbis tell them, "Okay, since you're not keeping Shabbat, you can drive to our shul. It's better than sitting home and playing video games or whatever you're going to do. It's better that, okay, you're going to drive now, but at least you will pray in our synagogue. For two or three hours, you will keep Shabbat." So, something like this. How do you see that? whoever that rabbi is, he should be put in jail for being a criminal because he is lying to the person in such a way that he is actually enabling that guy to continue staying Mechalel Shabbat for the rest of his life by, in essence, putting the OK stamp on it because what is the logic of a human being? If you tell me... ...that since I'm not keeping, I can drive. So that means that driving on Shabbat can't be that bad. If it was that bad, you would obviously tell me. He tells them, "I want to jump off the bridge." He tells them, "Yeah, he tells them, anyways, you're not keeping it, so it's better that you keep it for three hours or five hours, however much you're going to be in our shul."

43:25That's how they understand it. And they tell me. And I tell them, it's not right. He can't give you the authority to do that if he doesn't tell you. You may violate it for the 24 hours, but he can't give you the authority to go beyond Torah. and tell you you're all out, like he's a posek or whatever he thinks he is. There are a lot of rabbis that do that. In fact, there is so much driving on Shabbat here in Florida and other parts of the world that, for example, the first house we lived in in Florida when we moved here from New York, was in Boca Raton, Florida, and there's a very big shul there run by this heretic Goldberg—his name is Ephraim Goldberg—who wanted to bring a Christian missionary to give a lecture to the whole community, which is insanity of its own. But anyway, this wasn't a surprise to people. Why? Because he has an entire parking lot

44:40designated for all of the people that drive on Shabbat. You have something like 150 to 200 cars driving in every Shabbat to each minyan. There are several minyanim. When I first saw them, it was the first time I ever saw anything like it in my life. I couldn't believe it. You see people drive up, get out of the car, yet they have a kippah. They look like you and me. They have a kippah, and they come out with a tallit bag, arriving at 5 o'clock in the morning. It's a net with his car. And one time I asked the guy, "Why are you driving to shul? What's the problem?" He said, "You're not driving to shul? What do you mean? I've been driving for 20 years. The rabbi said it's okay." Why? Because once you say it's okay for him to drive for six months or for one year, then what happens to that person is that after that year is over, let's say... And even if the rabbi comes back to him and says, "Listen, you've been driving for a year. It's time for you to change." The guy says, "Listen, Rabbi, I'm not ready. I'm growing slowly, step by step. You know, so if I already did it for one year, that means that two years is not that bad. And once you get to two years, if I already did it for two years, then four years is not that bad. Before you know it, it's just not bad at all. Because if it was really that bad, then you would have already told me on day one. If driving on Shabbat was the same as suicide..."

46:05...then you would tell me, well, the Torah does tell you that. The Torah does tell you that driving on Shabbat is akin to suicide. But the rabbis who are not telling you that, in essence, are harming you even more. Because if they had told you on day one, you would have at least known. Even if you didn't listen to him, even if you would have ignored him, even if you would have continued violating Shabbat and not come to shul, at the very least, you would have heard the truth. once in your life, and that will sit on your heart. Well, you're never going to ever think that it's okay to sin. You may continue sinning, but you're not going to justify it as if it's okay to sin. By telling people it's okay to take God's law slowly and at your own pace as if you're the law and you're the ruler, again, it's creating a new religion. And nobody does teshuva as a result of it because it's simply telling people, It's okay to pick and choose whatever you want. God did not say that in the Torah. God says that if you violate Shabbat, you're considered 100% an idol worshiper. Show me how many rabbis in the world, aside from the ones that I mentioned, actually tell that to their congregation. So I'll tell you. Some of these rabbis would tell you in response, "We will...

47:28people will be afraid. People will leave. People will never come back. Sorry, not that they wouldn't come back to their organization, but they would not even want to hear of this religion. They would not want to become Ba'alei Teshuva. So what do you tell them? Well, are you smarter than God? If you're smarter than God, then do whatever you want. But according to God, that's what He wanted them to know because He said it in the Torah 12 times, which means that your 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11-year-olds... are learning this in their Chumash, where He said it 12 times, that someone who violates Shabbat gets the death penalty, gets cut off from the nation, and is considered an idol worshiper. That's what the halacha is, meaning that's the Jewish law: that someone who drives on Shabbat is considered an idol worshiper, no different than a Christian or a Buddhist. So if God said it literally in the Torah, not a parable, not an interpretation, He literally said it 12 times, then unless you're smarter than God and your rule and your logic is better than God's, you have to say what God said. And that's the problem, is that people think that they're smarter and more merciful than God, and they assume that people cannot handle the truth. This is the politically correct mentality that we have today, where people are constantly afraid to offend each other, so much so that they're killing each other. It's true. It's true.

48:56that they're feeding you poison, but because they don't want to scare you, they tell you it's candy. I'd rather you just tell me it's poison so I can say my last few prayers before I die. But they lie to people with a smile, thinking that it's okay. It's like people who say, "Listen, no offense," and then they offend you. It's a completely ridiculous mentality. And that's unfortunately what's happening: they're telling people, "No, no, because I love you, I'm going to lie to you." Why? Why are you lying to me? Why don't you just tell me what God says and let me decide? How to handle it? How do you know what I'm going to do? How do you know that I'm not going to come back? How do you know that I'm not going to take it well? How do you know? Are you a prophet? Are you God? Because God knew that I was going to find out. He wrote it in His book. He wrote it in His book so many times that if He didn't want me to know, why did He write it in His book so many times?

49:57The thing is that everybody's playing prophet and that people are not going to take it well, but that's bogus because Rabbi Mizrachi and I, I don't know as much about the other rabbis, but Rabbi Mizrachi and I work very closely together. And I can tell you, Baruch Hashem, Baruch Hashem, he has countless ba'alei teshuva every day. I've seen the messages, I've seen the people and so on. Baruch Hashem, there's not a day that I don't have... More emails every day of people that are doing teshuva from Rabbi Shulim. Every single day, there are more people sending new messages. Not the same people—new messages. That's beautiful. Every day I get messages from people, and many of them are new ba'alei teshuva, new people changing their lives every day. The reality is, I asked somebody, I sat with somebody—a rabbi—when I went to Canada. I sat with him for an hour with a few other rabbis, discussing the strategies. And he has the same exact mentality where he says, no, I don't want to scare people. They're going to run away, and so on and so forth. The general, what do they call it? Mainstream strategy. So my friend, who's a very serious Talmid Chacham, asked him, listen, how long are you doing Kiruv? He said, oh, probably 25 years, 20, 25 years.

51:13And he asked him, so how many people do you think you have helped do Teshuvah in those 25 years? With your whole organization, not just you, your whole organization, it's a big money organization. And he proudly said, 100, probably 100. 25 years, 100 people. And he looks at him, he goes, he does that every week, looking at me. And he goes, well, I guess you don't think 100 is good then. He says, it's not a matter of it's not good. It's obviously better than zero. But 25 years for 100 when you can do it in a week. I mean, you have to say there's no way that I'm that much better a speaker or looking or smarter. It has nothing to do with that. It's just you're not afraid to say the clear truth, the honest truth. You tell people the truth. Let them decide. Treat them like adults. What if some of those people will get turned away by that truth? Is that okay according to what is taught to us in the books? Meaning, let's say you speak to 50 people. 45 will be so loving that you are telling them the truth and will hear it out and will try to change. And 10 will get up and say, "You're mental and I'm leaving." Is that okay? Like I said, there's no question that we can come up with that's new.

52:40The Rambam asked the same question as you, and he answered it. He said literally in his book, the Rambam, one of the greatest sages we ever had in history, lived about 900 years ago. He says, if I give a speech and tell people the truth, and it's in front of 10,000 people, and 9,999 will run away, and only one will do teshuva, that is perfect because I only came for him. Well, beautiful. I only came for that one guy because the 9,999, they didn't want the truth anyway. It has nothing to do with me. They can use you as an excuse that that's why they're going away, but it's not the real reason. The reason why they don't want to do it is because they don't want to do it. It has nothing to do with you. You cannot turn off something that's off. If someone is not keeping Shabbat, which is the basic minimum of Judaism, that's as off as it gets. If the Torah calls that person an idol worshiper, there's no more off than that. So you cannot turn off such a person. If he says, "No, no, now I'm not going to come back,"

53:53you're not doing anyone a favor by coming if you're driving on Shabbat because the Torah, even in the Ten Commandments, does not command you to come to shul. But it does command you in the Fourth Commandment to keep Shabbat. You know, you don't have a commandment in the entire Torah to go pray with people. That's a rabbinical mitzvah. That's nice to do if you can. But there's no reason whatsoever to violate Shabbat for that. So, All of the people, whether they be rabbis or messengers or regular people, who think that they're smarter than God or more merciful than God, and who are telling people that they can drive and eventually change and grow step by step... You know, next time you get sick, the doctor's going to come to you and say, "Listen, here's the medicine, but because I don't want you to get healthy right away, I'm going to give you one crumb at a time. Because I want to collect a fee. Every day you're in the hospital is $20,000. So I don't want you to leave tomorrow. So I'm going to give you a little crumb every day. That way you could be here for like three years. We're going to become good friends, and I'll become really rich as a doctor. And you get a little crumb, and you're going to..."

55:07The guy's life's in danger. There's no time here for step-by-step. You know, if a person is violating Shabbat or making one of the cardinal sins of the Torah, that means that their life is in danger. And unfortunately, they're playing with fire. I have a story that just happened as we speak. A few years ago, I got news that my uncle... who's very, very rich. He has probably a hundred or more million dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars, got very rich. He got news while he was on vacation that his 23-year-old son fell off a scooter that he was about to drive on the second day of Rosh Hashanah because they didn't keep anything. The mom is an atheist and the father pretty much does whatever he wants. He says he believes in God, but in his own way. So the kid also believes in God in his own way. So the 23-year-old kid fell off of a scooter right in front of the door, hit his head, and passed out. The neighbor saw it and called the ambulance. They took him to the hospital. They did all types of checks. They know the family; they're very rich. They said, "Everything's okay. Just go home and rest." This 23-year-old kid, who had his whole life ahead of him, went home, went to sleep, and died.

56:34Now, that was three years ago. Six months ago, or four to six months ago, they found his brother, who was 48 years old, dead in his apartment. They didn't disclose how; you know, you can guess how. So now a father with hundreds of millions of dollars just saw two of his sons die in his own lifetime. And if that's not bad enough to wake you up, if that's not bad enough to wake a person up, just this Monday, I got a call from my father that this really, really rich uncle is not going to be able to buy himself an extra minute in life with all the millions that he has because he just got diagnosed with throat cancer. Which pretty much means that we're finished. And all the money in the world is not going to help you there. Now, I can assure you that if some rabbi at some point that he donated to or he met, I'm sure he met rabbis in his life, and I'm sure he donated some money to somebody, because, of course, when you have money, you have friends. I know. They used to come to my office too. If somebody would have told him the truth at some point, I am certain, I am certain without a doubt, that his life would be different.

57:58And the reason why I'm certain is because if there was no way for him to change, God wouldn't put him in the world in the first place. God doesn't put in the world somebody that cannot do teshuva. God doesn't put somebody in the world... as someone that can't fulfill the mitzvot. That's why in the book of Deuteronomy, Sefer Devarim, Moshe Rabbeinu tells us, "It is in your mouth and in your heart to do it." Meaning, you were designed and programmed to follow the entire Torah. And the only reason why you think it's hard is because you've been disobeying the instructions your whole life. Once you start obeying the instructions, you'll realize that you were born for it. You were created for it. And it's easy and it's enjoyable. If somebody would have told him the truth, his life would be different and he wouldn't suffer like he's suffering right now. And all the money in the world—he's living proof. Right now, it's happening over a few weeks, a few days. Living proof that all the money in the world cannot buy you anything. Nothing in real life. Nothing that's meaningful.

59:07He doesn't care about the vacation he went on. He doesn't care about the houses he owns and the buildings he owns. He doesn't care about the companies. He doesn't care about anything right now. Right now, all he wants is another day in life. He wants his kids back. And anyone that lied to him took all of that away from him. So that's the sad part. You know, I tried telling him the truth. Unfortunately, at this point, after going against Hashem for 70 plus years, it's very hard for a person to change. Hopefully, he changes before he dies. There's still a chance, but the point is that there are many young people that are still in their teens, 20s, 30s, and 40s, who are actively searching for the truth. They go to shul, and they attend programs just to hear the truth, but they're being lied to. So even if a person is looking for the truth, he has to remember that he has to look for it really hard, and that's what... God says in Deuteronomy chapter 4, if you look for Me you will find Me, but only if you look for Me with all of your heart and all of your soul. It's not enough to just look for God and call yourself spiritual. You have to look for it really hard, just like you work really hard to make money, or to find a spouse, or to do something special. You have to look for the truth really, really hard, until you get to the point where you know for sure this is it.

1:00:32Rabbi, I just want to notify everyone. This live session is going to end in 15 seconds as Instagram sets a one-hour rule. So I will start a new one because there were a lot of questions. Please, everyone, hop on there. Okay. Thank you. Step by step. The guy's life is in danger. There's no time here for step by step. You know, if a person is violating Shabbat or committing one of the cardinal sins... ...violating Shabbat or committing one of the cardinal sins. Of the Talat, that means that their life is in danger. And unfortunately, they're playing with fire. I have a story that just happened as we speak. A few years ago, I got news that my uncle, who is very, very rich—he has probably a hundred or more million dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars—got very rich. He got news while he was on vacation that his 23-year-old son fell off a scooter that he was about to drive on the second day of Rosh Hashanah because they didn't keep anything. The mom is an atheist, and the father pretty much does whatever he wants. He says he believes in God, but in his own way. So the kid also believes in God in his own way. So the 23-year-old kid fell off a scooter right in front of the door, hit his head, and passed out.

1:02:00The neighbors saw it, called the ambulance. They took him to the hospital. They did all types of checks. They know the family; they're very rich. They said, "Everything's okay. Just go home and rest." This 23-year-old kid, who had his whole life ahead of him, went home, went to sleep, and died. Now, that was three years ago. Six months ago, four months ago, four to six months ago, they found his brother, who’s 48 years old, or was 48 years old, dead in his apartment. They didn’t disclose how; you know, you can guess how. So now a father with hundreds of millions of dollars just saw two of his sons die in his own lifetime. And if that’s not bad enough to wake you up, if that’s not bad enough to wake a person up, just this Monday, I got a call from my father saying, that this really, really rich uncle is not going to be able to buy himself an extra minute in life with all the millions that he has because he just got diagnosed with throat cancer, which pretty much means that he's finished. And all the money in the world is not going to help you there. Now, I can assure you

1:03:18that if some rabbi at some point that he donated to or he met, I'm sure he met rabbis in his life, and I'm sure he donated some money to somebody. Because, of course, when you have money, you have friends. I know. They used to come to my office too. Somebody would have told him at some point, the truth, I am certain. I am certain without a doubt that his life would be different. And the reason why I'm certain is because if there was no way for him to change, God wouldn't put him in the world in the first place. God doesn't put someone in the world who cannot do teshuva. God doesn't put someone in the world... as someone that can't fulfill the mitzvot. That's why in the book of Deuteronomy, Sefer Devarim, Moshe Rabbeinu tells us, it's in your mouth, it's in your heart to do it. Meaning, you were designed and programmed to follow the entire Torah. And the only reason why you think it's hard is because you've been disobeying the instructions your whole life. Once you start obeying the instructions, you'll realize that you were born for it.

1:04:28You were created for it. And it's easy and it's enjoyable. If somebody would have told him the truth, his life would be different and he wouldn't suffer like he's suffering right now. And all the money in the world, he's living proof. Right now, it's happening in a few weeks, a few days. Living proof that all the money in the world cannot buy you anything. Nothing in real life. Nothing that's meaningful. He doesn't care about the vacation he went on. He doesn't care about the houses he owns and the buildings he owns. He doesn't care about the companies. He doesn't care about anything right now. Right now, all he wants is another day in life. He wants his kids back. And anyone that lied to him took all of that away from him. So that's the sad part. You know, I tried telling him the truth. Unfortunately, at this point, after going against Hashem for 70-plus years, it's very hard for a person to change. Hopefully, he changes before he dies. there's still a chance. But the point is that there are many young people who are still in their teens, 20s, 30s, and 40s who are actively searching for the truth. They go to shul and they attend programs just to hear the truth, but they're being lied to. So even if the person is looking for the truth, he has to remember: you have to look for it really hard. And that's what

1:05:45God says in Deuteronomy chapter 4, if you look for Me, you will find Me, but only if you look for Me with all of your heart and all of your soul. It's not enough to just look for God and call yourself spiritual. You have to look for it really hard, just like you work really hard to make money or to find a spouse or to do something special. You have to look for the truth really, really hard. Until you get to the point where you know for sure this is it. Rabbi, I just want to notify everyone. This live session is going to end in 15 seconds as Instagram sets a one-hour rule. So I will start a new one because there were a lot of questions. Please everyone, hop on there. Thank you. Okay, this is part two with Rabbi Reuven. We will ask him a few questions that you guys asked us, and it should be good. Okay, let's get Rabbi Reuven in here. So...

1:06:55Okay, people are joining. Yeah, I'm so sorry about this. I know I said one hour. There's a limit and all that kind of stuff. But the way it went down, and I promised people that we're going to take a few questions. All right, let's go. Let's go for the questions. So, guys, leave some questions. I saw a lot of questions on the previous post. I'll try to answer them quickly because I'm assuming there's a lot of questions. So I'll try to answer them quickly. Yeah, let's do a few questions. Guys, leave your questions that you guys left on the previous live. i will just ask, let's just start before they start asking questions. From one of my great guys, and he was like, there's different kinds of Jewish ideologies. I'm like, what do you mean? There's Jewish ideology or it's not? That's how I understand it. So my question is, it's not even a question. Like, how do we, I don't know, tell them or like what it is that I don't even know how to ask this question. What is a proper Jewish ideology? Like people understand this is okay. So once they classify, they're like, that's okay. And that's okay. And that's okay. And what kind of, so we have to understand that the Torah is not a history book.

1:08:17The Torah is a book of laws that has histories in it. Now, all of the laws that we have today stem from the Torah. So we first have the written Torah, the five books of Moses, then you have the Tanakh, which is the Nevi'im and the Ketuvim, and the writings in the... You have, then after that, you have the Oral Torah, which is the Mishnah, the Gemara, the Shulchan Aruch, the Rambam, and so on and so forth. So the way a person needs to look at things is that From every one of the rules that we have today, if you open a Yalkut Yosef today, or a Mishneh Torah, or you open any type of halachic book, all of those rules that you have in there have to have some type of connection to the five books of Moshe. They can't just come up out of thin air. So even the Rabbinical Mitzvot have a connection to the written Torah. Now, a person needs to know that if...

1:09:18his ideology, his mindset, his thought process, if it violates those rules, then it is the wrong ideology. If it complies with those rules, then he's more in line with the right ideology. So the first thing that a person needs to know is that there are 13 principles of faith that are 13 foundational principles that every Jew must have for their ideologies. that there is one God and that God knows your thoughts. He's everywhere. He was, He is, He will be. He is the one that controls everything. So if a person thinks that they are the one responsible for making money and not God, that's already a problem with rule number one. If they think that they got unlucky and it's not God that did it to them, that's already a problem with rule number one. If they think that the Holocaust was because of Hitler and bad people and not because God did it, that's already a problem with rule number one. Because God runs the world in such a fashion that nothing happens in the world unless He checks off on it, unless He writes the check and His checks always clear. So a person needs to have an ideology that is divine providence. they got unlucky and it's not God that did it to them, that's already a problem with rule number one. If they think that the Holocaust was because of Hitler and bad people and not because God did it, that's already a problem with rule number one. Because God runs the world in such a fashion that nothing happens in the world unless He checks off on it, unless He writes the check and His checks always clear. So a person needs to have an ideology that is Divine Providence.

1:10:37and God runs the world and nothing happens without His approval, including things that are really, really bad. That's difficult for a lot of people in modern society to accept because we feel like we have a lot of control in our life. So he needs to know that. If his ideology complies with this rule number one, then you go to rule number two. You know that the Torah, the Written Torah, and the Oral Torah will never be changed. This is what we have. We got it at Mount Sinai. If he thinks he's smarter... than the Rambam, and he could contradict the Rambam. He could disagree with the Rambam. He could disagree with the Shulchan Aruch. He could disagree with the big sages of our generation. He could just pretty much do whatever he wants and decide what the law is according to his understanding. That's the problem with rule number two. Why? Because we have to understand that Am Yisrael without sages is nothing. It's like a bird without feathers, as stated by Rabbi Akiva. So the point is that You have to understand that you have a life to live and you have your own opinion, which is fine to have that own opinion, but you're only allowed to execute that opinion if it agrees with the rules. If it disagrees with them, then you have the wrong ideology. So that's, in essence, the basic foundation. Yeah, obviously, I have a whole series that we just started recently, about a month and a half ago, called Jewish Hashkafa, which means Jewish ideology. Ideology, correct.

1:12:05So what is a Jewish ideology supposed to be? We go by the book by the Chazon Ish, and he goes deep into it, starting with appreciating your eyes, appreciating your mouth, appreciating different things, and understanding what they are. Understanding why you have fingerprints, why you have fingers. Understanding this stuff actually has to do with your ideology. So when a person has the right ideology, he's going to be able to connect all of these things just like a nervous system of a body is connected to everything else. Next question. Okay, so we're getting a few questions from our audience right now. Okay. um okay, uh Yigal Herman is asking: "Anti-Semitism is at an all-time high on YouTube. Every day there is a new channel talking all types of fake conspiracy theories against Jews. How should we deal with that? Should we respond?" Yes, we should respond, a hundred percent, by doing teshuva. That's the response. It's the only correct response to have.

1:13:16to anti-Semitism, is doing teshuva, which is what we're talking about the whole night, which is doing what God says. And the reason why is because one of the rules that we have in the Torah is, is one of the halachot, that not because Yaakov is a bad guy, not because Yaakov beat him up and ran away, but rather because Esav is a tool that God uses The goyim are a tool that God uses in order to rebuke Yaakov, in order to rebuke Am Yisrael, to do teshuva. And if you notice, the times that we were the most religious were the times that we were suffering the most. So God uses Esav as anti-Semitism, meaning God uses anti-Semitism as a stick to hit us in order to get our attention to do teshuva before worse things happen. So first it starts with anti-Semitism. then it starts with aggressive anti-Semitism, and then there's a Holocaust, a pogrom, an Inquisition, and many, many other things that have happened throughout all of the times where we didn't get the message from the Nevi'im, we didn't get the message from the Chachamim, they told us and we didn't listen to them, and therefore the anti-Semitism ended up becoming a Holocaust. And you can look at it historically, I have a playlist on my website and on the YouTube page called

1:14:44Holocaust research, and in that playlist, there's at least a dozen lectures that we've done about different historical facts of what happened before the Holocaust, of how Am Yisrael acted before the Holocaust. When you understand what we did and you see how much it violated Hashem's rules, you understand why the Holocaust happened. And it wasn't because the Nazis were just bad people. Yes, they were bad people, but Hashem only allowed them to exercise that evil they had because we were also bad. Okay, next question. Shuva Movement is asking, does a person who does teshuva for wasting seed get guaranteed to find a zivug? A person who does teshuva for wasting seed needs to understand that teshuva for anything takes a lifetime. Because you don't get a text message or a WhatsApp or even an Instagram from Hashem telling you that you finished it, that you finished doing teshuva. The only thing that I've seen in the sefarim hakedoshim that indicates to you that your teshuva is complete is when your desire to sin, that specific sin, is no longer there.

1:16:09You no longer desire to make that sin. And the problem with the sin that you mentioned, which is wasting seed, the Torah specifically says, the Oral Torah specifically says, no one is above this sin, meaning everyone is subject to it. Everyone is vulnerable to it, which means that your teshuva for wasting seed has to be a lifetime commitment. It doesn't stop today, tomorrow, or next week. It's a lifelong process. But... you will see for sure that if you do teshuva for wasting seed, you will see an enormous amount of blessings in your life. You will see your finances improve. You'll see your health improve. you'll see everything else improve, and surely Hashem, who sees that you are doing teshuva, will continue rewarding you, because the reward for a mitzvah is another mitzvah. And a person who protects their brit, Hashem rewards them with a way to use their brit in a kosher way, and obviously the only kosher way is with a wife. Okay. Um...

1:17:16Malkiel is asking, does it make sense for a young Jewish couple to move from New York City to Aventura? I don't know. Aventura is in Florida where I live. If you live in Manhattan and you want to move to Aventura, there's not much of a difference between the two. The one is Gehinom, the other one is Kaf HaKela. Why? Because there's so much garbage in the streets that you cannot simply walk without seeing something immodest. But if you're already used to it and you want to protect yourself, then, you know, again, it won't be necessarily much of a move. But if you live in the better parts of Manhattan... there's not much of a difference between the two. The one is Gehinom, the other one is Kaf HaKela. Why? Because there's so much garbage in the streets that you cannot simply walk without seeing something immodest. But if you're already used to it and you want to protect yourself, then, you know, again, it won't be necessarily much of a move. But if you live in the better parts of Manhattan... of New York, whether it be Brooklyn religious neighborhoods, or Queens religious neighborhoods, or Staten Island religious neighborhoods, or even Manhattan has a few religious neighborhoods, or Monsey, from there to Aventura, absolutely not. Even though I live 15 minutes from there, I'm already here, I'm on a job. I don't leave my house. I have a very different life than most people. I have two places that I go to: my house or the place that I'm giving a shiur. I don't go to stores, I don't go to malls, I don't go outside, because...

1:18:30you go outside, you're in trouble. I feel bad for people that work outside. So the key is you have to understand, if you live in a religious neighborhood right now in New York or anywhere else in the world, do not move to Florida. Do not move to Florida at all. Not Aventura, not anywhere else. But if you live in a place that's secular, moving to Aventura is not necessarily that much of a change. It may be worse, it may be better, the weather, this. It all depends on other factors. The same thing is moving to Israel. People think that if you move to Israel, you become religious automatically. You know, you go to Tel Aviv, it's worse than Sodom and Gomorrah. You know, I'd say we have a campaign that we want to implement over there and we're determining if we're even allowed to have this campaign because it's supposed to be in Tel Aviv and who will we send as like a korban, as a sacrifice, to go give flyers and CDs in Tel Aviv. You go in there a Jew, you come out something else. So, just because Tel Aviv is, you know, there are Jews there, there are religious people there, is it recommended to move there? No. Same thing with Florida, same thing with New York. Not everything is one size fits all. So, I would recommend a person evaluate many things and have a real rabbi that they trust, who has the right ideology himself, and ask him, "What's the best thing for me to do?" Okay. Um,

1:19:55Jess is asking, does it say in the Torah to pray like the text in the Siddur, or is it rabbinical? The tefillah that we have originally started with Avraham Avinu, where he instituted the tefillah of Shacharit, the morning prayer. He did not write the same thing that we have in the Siddur, but he instituted praying in the morning. Itzhak instituted the prayer of Mincha and Yaakov of Arvit, Maariv. Now, the actual text that we have in our Siddur today was originally instituted by the Anshei Knesset HaGedolah, which was the heads of Am Yisrael about 2,000 years ago, but they did not write all of those prayers. They took them from different places that already existed, where, if you notice, more than 70% I would guesstimate of your Siddur is Tehillim, is Psalms. So that was already around 3,000 years ago from David HaMelech's times and even before him. Some of the Tehillim already existed at the time of Adam HaRishon. Adam HaRishon wrote one Tehillim, and Moshe Rabbeinu wrote Tehillim and others. It's just that David HaMelech put them all together and compiled them into 150. So a large part of your Siddur is Tehillim, is Psalms.

1:21:22And the Shelah, who knew different mystical things of what's happening in heaven and knew the will of Hashem a whole lot more than we do, designated that we would say specific Tehillim and specific prayers at specific times. And that's how it started. And then over the years, the customs changed. Changed from the people that lived in Europe versus the people that lived in the Middle East. So you have the Ashkenazi in Europe and the Sephardi in the Middle East. So their customs are a little bit different. Some of the prayers are slightly different, but in general, the overall concept and the overall language even is generally the same. It's generally the same. There are slight differences between them, but not to the extent where you would think it's a different religion or it's that different to the extent where you wouldn't know this is, you know, obviously your brother. If a fake Rav gives a shiur, speaking against Hashem, someone or Zechut, what does it mean for the people it was Zechut for? That they have no Zechut. Wow.

1:22:43people that you have to understand that the Gemara says that HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives the merit to someone that has merit already and does not give the obligation to someone that has debt, meaning He gives money to someone that's already rich, if you will, as an example, hypothetically. He gives more money to the rich and gives more debt to the one that already has debt. But we're talking about sins and mitzvot, obviously, not money. Someone that has merit will have more people giving him more merit and doing good shiurim for him and making good mitzvot for him. Someone that has an obligation, has a lot of sins, gets more people to, in essence, make more sins in his name and create more problems for him, unfortunately. gets more people to, in essence, make more sins in his name and create more problems for him, unfortunately. Yosef is asking, should we introduce strictness and punishment to people that are first comers? Like they're starting out, they just heard about this G-d, Judaism. How do we approach these kinds of people? And should we? And who should?

1:23:57I generally recommend for people to try to give the main job of helping people do teshuva to the professionals instead of doing it themselves because there's a certain way to speak to certain people. And if you're speaking to your friend or a family member, many times their ego will not allow them to listen to you just because they're friends or they're family and so on. So I would recommend that instead of you telling them, you simply share a lecture, share a clip that we made, or Rav Mizrachi made, rather than do that, because that's also less attacking. I'm now talking to the general public, so even though that message pertains to your friend, he doesn't know I'm talking to him. He thinks I'm just talking generally, and it happens to, coincidentally, have to do with him. So it's not as aggressive in his eyes, in his ego. The second thing is, it's also... ...a lot of experience in how to talk and how to say certain things, how to talk about punishment, and when to talk about punishment. And third and most importantly, to know that when Am Yisrael was first introduced to God the first and last time in public, which was at Mount Sinai, it says in Parashat Yitro that God spoke the Ten Commandments. He spoke the first two. But after He spoke the second one, Am Yisrael told Moshe Rabbeinu, "You go and...

1:25:19...and talk to Him. We'll do whatever He says, and then hear what He said. We'll do it, and then we'll do it. Why? Because the sages teach us that every time God spoke and completed the commandment—the first commandment—all of Am Yisrael died. Everybody died. God resurrected them, brought them back to life, said the second commandment, and they all died again. Brought them back to life. Now, obviously, they're scared of dying again. Moshe, you go talk to Him. We'll do whatever He says because if He continues talking, we're going to die again. We're scared. So Moshe says to them, "Don't worry. He's just scaring you so you don't sin." It's a literal verse in the Torah: God is scaring you so you don't sin, which means that... Teaching people about consequences is very important, even in childhood. When you teach a child anything, you have to tell him, if you do it, you'll get good. If you don't do it, you get bad. You get, you know, the consequences. So if you're able to teach that to a three-year-old, surely you can teach that to a 15-year-old, a 20-year-old, or even a 50-year-old who is new to Judaism. You just don't need to necessarily go into all the details. You can just let me do it or let Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi do it through our lectures.

1:26:37Kolob is asking, the milchama against Erev Rav is going to be the bloodiest one in the end of times. What could you say about it? And I would even add, there are a lot of Jewish influencers on Instagram and all over the place, all that kind of stuff. What do you say? What do you say? Well, Erev Rav we're speaking about. I have a few lectures that discuss Erev Rav. There's actually one lecture that's designated only about Erev Rav and what defines Erev Rav. And if a person wants to know if they are part of Erev Rav, it's also in those lectures as well. You have to know that the war against Erev Rav cannot be fought with sticks and stones and guns and weapons. The war against Erev Rav is the original war that started at the beginning of the world of good versus evil. Kedusha versus Tumah. And the only way to beat the Tumah, the impurity of the world, the evil of the world, is by increasing the Kedusha. with sticks and stones and guns and weapons. The war against Erev Rav is the original war that started at the beginning of the world: good versus evil, Kedusha versus Tumah. And the only way to beat the Tumah, the impurity of the world, the evil of the world, is by increasing the Kedusha.

1:27:55So if a person wants to fight the Erev Rav, he has to support more Kedusha in the world, produce more Kedusha in the world. If he fights it any other way, whether it's making videos discussing the different conspiracy theories or different crazy organizations, that's not fighting the Erev Rav. That may be educational, it may be interesting, but that's not creating any ammunition whatsoever. ammunition whatsoever. The only ammunition and the only weapon that can fight the Erev Rav is producing more holiness in the world, more Kedusha in the world. That's the only thing that can do it. Because all the weapons in the world are not going to help us in that last war of Gog and Magog. Because the Prophet Zechariah says in chapter 14 that this war will destroy two-thirds of the world right away. So you have 8 billion people Assuming that number stays the same by the time Gog and Magog starts, six billion people will die instantly. And the Gaon of Vilna says it will take nine minutes. At the time this was written, we didn't have atomic bombs. So when he said nine minutes, people asked, how? What are we going to shoot them with, arrows? How are we going to kill two-thirds of the world? Now we obviously know. So two-thirds of the world will die right away. The last third, Hashem says, I will...

1:29:23Test them like you refine gold and silver. Meaning that the last third is not guaranteed. They're not assured they'll survive. They'll have to experience some serious difficulty in order to verify whether they're righteous or they're wicked. And it's going to be a major fight. Now, is the good side going to win because of their weapons? No. Is the good side going to win because of their planes in the Iron Dome or because of protection by America? No. The evil is not going to be defeated that way. How is the good going to win? By being righteous and being pretty much one of the people that has a ticket that allows them to be protected by Hashem and for the Mashiach to fight for them. So, when the Mashiach comes, he himself is going to kill everyone. He himself is going to kill with simply his mouth. No weapons. No, he doesn't have a bazooka. He's not coming with a machete and a bazooka. He's not coming like a rando. He's coming just with his mouth. And he's going to smell the sins of any sinner, as it says in the Torah, through the prophet. And he's going to speak words, and people are going to die. Just words. No weapons, no war, no army, no nothing. By himself. So, there's not going to be any army. There's not going to be anyone helping him.

1:30:44As far as any tanks, it's not Independence Day in the movies. Everybody gathers together. It's just the Mashiach fighting. How do I get the Mashiach to fight for me? By producing Kedusha to the extent where I will be protected. I'm a full Baal Teshuvah. I'm part of the righteous. That's how. And anyone that focuses on anything else is simply not helping themselves. Yabra is asking, "Yabrahams, do you have any advice on how to jump out of bed to daven in the morning? The yetzer hara can be very strong when trying to keep me in bed." The first is that you have to get up like a lion to go serve your Master in Heaven. Unfortunately, not everybody knows that, nor does everyone who knows it remember it. So, we have to go into more practical purposes. If you have a very hard time getting up in the morning, first off, you need to make sure that you go to sleep for a sufficient amount of hours, no less than six hours a day, seven to eight hours, depending on how much sleep you need. Definitely not more than eight hours. But if you have a hard time, then you should get at least six hours of sleep. If you're one of the people that's a little stronger and more used to sleeping less, you could sleep less, as long as you're using your time effectively, learning Torah with it and not just surfing the Internet.

1:32:11But go get sufficient sleep. The second thing is to have some type of sprayer, like one of those sprays full of water, next to your bed. First thing in the morning, you say Modeh Ani, pick up the spray, and spray yourself in the face. Don't wait to go to the bathroom to wash your face; spray yourself in the face right away. That will make you a little bit more alert. And then just get up and, you know, go on with your day. It's always going to be a battle, especially if you wake up really early in the morning. But you have to have the most important tool, which is willpower. So you have to schedule your day in such a way that you have something really important to do every morning. Or if you're late, it will cost you. Because fear is the number one motivator that we have as human beings. Rabbi, it's up to you if you want me to get this. There are a few more questions. And I know we spoke for about an hour and it's already extended. Since we're already in, we'll go for another 10 minutes and then we'll finish. Sure. Taria is asking, "If someone becomes religious, should they remove all their non-religious connections from their life? Or how should they go about it?"

1:33:37When a person becomes seriously religious, their friends, family, hobbies, and so on are naturally going to conflict with their new life. There are certain things that they must run away from immediately. If their friends are mocking the Torah, if their hobbies are against the Torah, things that are outright against the Torah, you have to run away from. But then there are certain things that it's impossible to run away from because there's too close of a tie. For example, your parents or your siblings. To run away from them is not only not necessarily recommended in all cases or even most cases, but it's also impossible for most people. Where their parents perhaps are not religious, just disconnecting from them is not necessarily the right step. So what do you do? You move. You move far away, but you stay in touch. You stay in touch. That way, you're able to talk to them on the phone, see them less frequently, but still maintain that contact. And when you do meet them, you meet them under certain circumstances where you're in your own world. They come visit you in your city. They come visit you in your town and in your religious life, and they get to see your life rather than, you know.

1:34:57you go see them and pretty much try to bring as many people that are close to you to your world rather than you going to their world. Correct. Never go to their world. Never go to the mall with them. Never go to the movies with them. Never go to some club with them because you want to do kiruv. There's no kiruv in clubs. There's no kiruv in any of these places. There is one tzaddik that actually did that, but that's a completely different story. It's a one-in-a-generation type of story. But the point is that... You cannot go to the bad world and think that you're strong enough to overcome it. You have to bring people to your world. Just like it says in the Mishnah in Avot, Aharon HaKohen, Rodef Shalom, he was to chase peace, and he would bring people to the Torah. Why doesn't it say he would bring Torah to the people? Because we're not allowed to lower Torah to satisfy people. We have to raise people to the Torah. Torah always stays the same. You have to raise people to the Torah. You have to bring those secular people that you want in your life still to your religious life and tell them, while you're in my house, you have to keep Shabbat. If you don't want to keep Shabbat, don't come to my house on Shabbat. Come on a different day. You know, I'm not telling you what to do. Just, I don't want you to disrespect my house and my God in front of my face. You want to eat non-kosher? No problem. Just don't eat it in front of me. Just like I'm not going to do certain things to make you uncomfortable, I don't want you to do things that make me uncomfortable.

1:36:25so that's the thing, when you tell people the truth like that, they'll also respect you and they'll respect your beliefs. And anyone that doesn't, it's good for you to disconnect with them altogether because they're simply a bad person. Osnat Musaeva is asking if a woman with kids cannot really pray because her kids are small and need her attention, can she thank Hashem in her own words and pray in her own words? Is that okay? A woman is not obligated to do all of the mitzvot that are bound to time. So she's not obligated to pray the Shacharit, Mincha, and Arvit prayers at their specific times. But she is obligated to say them once per day. Meaning, she has to pick one of those prayers and do that one. Or at the very, very least, say the Shema Yisrael prayer once per day. and the Amidah prayer once per day. Those two things are the minimum of minimum. So it can never be just your words. It has to be Shema Yisrael once a day and Amidah once a day at any time during the day. So I'm assuming that you are just like my wife. You have the kids running around the house. They want your attention. I also have kids. I'm not an alien. I have kids too. I have a wife too. And she barely sleeps because the kids wake up. I get it. Trust me, I see it all the time.

1:37:52And I thank her every single day for it because I know I couldn't do it. But I also do know that at some point, the kids go to sleep. At some point, the kids become busy with something. So it's not 100% of the day. So use that 5, 10, 15-minute window to pray the Amidah. And then that other 5, 10-minute window another time to pray the Shema Yisrael or vice versa. Use that time. Use your time wisely. I know that you're going to be tired, and by the time you get that window, it's almost like, "Oh, I finally get to relax." But you have to do what you have to do if you want your kids to do it, too. If your kids see you pray, guess what? They're going to say, "Ima, can we pray, too?" And next thing you know, you have a little minyan in your house, and it's much easier to pray. Ladina is asking, hi, question. When Mashiach comes, what happens to the righteous goyim? Do they die, or will they continue to live? And what will be their mission at that point? The prophet says, also in Zechariah, and talks about in Ezekiel too, where after the Mashiach comes, there’s, like I told you, two-thirds of the world will be destroyed. The last third will be purified, if you will.

1:39:09and minimized to only keep the righteous, and there's going to be righteous Jews and righteous Gentiles. The prophet says that 10 from every one of the 70 nations will hold on to every Jew's corner of his tzitzit, meaning that 700 righteous Gentiles will be at the corner of everyone that has a tzitzit. So that's 2,800 righteous Gentiles who will be designated as students. for one righteous Jew to be their rabbi. And if he wears more than one tzitzit, then he has 5,600. Or if you're like Rav Kook from Tveria, probably 50,000, 60,000, because he wears 50,000. So every righteous Jew will have 2,800 students that are righteous Gentiles, that they are going to be his students, but also manage the affairs of this world, because the world is also going to continue operating for another 1,000 years.

1:40:10so they're also going to continue managing the ways of the world, whether it be food or other things, and learning Torah. And they will go to Heaven. Now, it's not the same Heaven as the Jewish people, but nonetheless, it is definitely Heaven. It is definitely a world that has unlimited joy and happiness. And the righteous Gentiles will be there. What are the obligations of a non-Jew? And do they have to do as much teshuva as a Jew? Well, the number of mitzvot that the Gentile has to do is less, but the obligation of a non-Jew can sometimes be more. And this is a complicated question because it's a long answer, but I'll try to finish off the night with this because it's a long answer. unless there's some other pressing question. This is it. So the Gentile has, in order for him to be righteous, first of all, he has to believe in the Torah only. Nothing else. No Quran, no Buddha, no New Testament, none of that other garbage. Only the Torah. And he has to comply with the seven Noahide laws and the ethical rules of the Torah. So it's seven plus about...

1:41:36Another 55 or 60 that are ethical rules of the Torah. For example, honoring your parents is not one of the seven Noahide rules, but it's an ethical rule. You should honor your parents so long as they're decent people, not anti-Semites and anti-God. So there are certain things that are ethical rules. Being honest in your business is not one of the seven Noahides, but in essence, it's an ethical rule. So those ethical rules they learn from the teachings of Mussar. Mussar, which is what we teach predominantly, which is ethics. So a non-Jew's obligation is to purify himself or herself and make themselves a much better quality human being. And one of the ways to make themselves a better quality human being is by actually helping the Jews become more religious. Because that's, in essence, publicizing the Torah and helping Hashem's chosen get closer to Him. Now, the problem is that even though there are fewer rules for the Gentile, there's a problem. The problem is that if they make an error, if they violate God's rules, their punishment is more severe than that of the Jews. Wow.

1:43:03One reason is because they have fewer rules. So, for example, if a Jew steals and he gets caught, he has to pay double. But if a non-Jew steals, it's the death penalty. So the punishment for them is worse. And it's not just punishment here, it's punishment there in Shamayim, in heaven. So if a Jew steals and he goes up to Shamayim, he has a very serious problem, but the non-Jew has a much bigger problem. Also, doing teshuva is much more difficult to explain or needless to say to let people know that even for a non-Jew, there is no real concept of teshuva. Meaning that although they can go to heaven even though they were sinners in the past, there has to be some suffering for their sins. That suffering can come in this world and that suffering can come in the next world. But there has to be some suffering for their sins. Whereas a Jew can elevate themselves to such an extent where they can eliminate all suffering whatsoever. Now, this is not very common for a Jew to do such a thing. But nonetheless, there is that difference. There is that difference where teshuva for a non-Jew is virtually non-existent without suffering. Even in this world, they can't just, you know, say like, no, they can't be, well,

1:44:33In reality, nobody has an easy life. Everybody has suffering. So don't get taken aback and be so upset and say, oh, I'm going to suffer anyway, so let me just go all the way. No, don't have that wrong mentality. Make sure you know that, again, there's suffering. That suffering has a value. And if you're getting suffering in this world, trust me when I tell you, it's good. Why? Because it's better to have suffering in this world than in the next one. But again, the whole aspect of Teshuva is a specific gift that only Am Yisrael received. Just like Shabbat, only Am Yisrael is allowed to keep Shabbat. Non-Jews are not allowed to keep Shabbat. There are certain gifts that Am Yisrael received, such as the Oral Law, much of which is forbidden for non-Jews. There are certain things that the non-Jew will lose out on for being a non-Jew. But again, he gains or benefits in that there's less obligation in some aspects. But one thing I tell everybody is this: If you can become a Jew, you're stupid if you don't become a Jew. But if you can't become a Jew, you can't because your spouse doesn't want to become a Jew anymore.

1:45:50There's no reason for you to get divorced. They're a good person. They're good at everything else. They're just not ready to be a Jew. That's fine. You can't become a Jew. You live in some place where there's no Jews, and you can't even be a part of the Jewish community. You have certain circumstances where you cannot become a Jew. Then it's fine for you to be a Noahide. But if you can become a Jew and you don't, you're the biggest fool in the world. Because you're serving God anyway. You're serving God anyway. But all you're doing is that in order to save yourself from doing a little more work, you're adding a whole lot more risk to your life for punishment, which doesn't make any sense. Makes sense. And the last question we have coming in here, it's about Shabbat. A person is asking for a friend. Any good books to read about the laws of Shabbat for practical situations today? Yehudah Swiat is asking. Yeah, there is a... If you're Ashkenazi... or you're brand new to Judaism, I would recommend that you go on our website, bezrathashem.org, and you order the Kiruv package because that Kiruv package has many books in it. One of them is Rabbi Mizrachi's book, one of them is Rabbi Cohen's book, and one of them is a book about Hilchot Shabbat. I actually have a copy of Rabbi Mizrachi's.

1:47:10Yeah, it's a very good book. But there's one book that we add in our Kiruv package that's Hilchot Shabbat, the laws of Shabbat. And I recommend it to everybody that's brand new to Judaism or they are Ashkenazi because these are rules according to Ashkenazi customs. But if you are already in Judaism for a few years and you're religious already for a few years and you're Sephardi, then I would recommend Yalkut Yosef. Shabbat is the one that you would study. There are many, many other books to learn about Shabbat, but I would say that it all depends on the level of the person. For English speakers, that's the best thing. For Sephardi Jews, and for Ashkenazi Jews, there are several different types. It all depends on your level. If you're new, then I would say the one that we have. It's fantastic. I mean, it's a big book. It's still probably 350, 400 pages, but it just goes into the bottom line rather than going into the details of the details of the details of the bottom line. So it just tells you yes, no, yes, no, what to do, what not to do, rather than going into all the intricate details that some of the bigger collections do. But nonetheless, it covers a lot of ground.

1:48:32I would recommend that. If you're, again, more advanced and have been religious for 5, 10, 15 years, then I would recommend other things. So contact me via WhatsApp at 917-468-2324, and you can send a question. I answer the questions there. Or you can ask questions on our app, which is B'nat Hashem, available on the App Store for iPhone and also on Android. Those are usually the best ways to contact me, and I'll answer your questions. You can also join our WhatsApp groups and so on. Robert, two more things. There's a beautiful question coming; I can't hesitate to ask you. Are conversions delayed because of COVID-19? That's an interesting question. Are conversions delayed because of COVID-19? Yes and no. It depends on the beit din. It depends on the people. It depends on everything. I can tell you for sure. ...that God doesn't delay anybody's salvation. So if your salvation is due today, you would convert today, you would get your salvation. Where do we learn that from? We learn it from Yosef HaTzaddik. Yosef HaTzaddik was in prison, in a hole in the bottom of the ground. But then it says that they ran him out of this hole in the ground, this prison that he was in for over a decade.

1:49:55And within literally a matter of minutes, he became the second in command to the biggest, strongest country in the world, the Viceroy of Egypt. Why did they hurry him up? Why didn't they just walk him? Why didn't they just walk him, take his time, take a shower, and relax for a few days? Why did God make the Egyptians run him out of the jail and within literally a matter of minutes become the second in command to the king? Because the time for salvation came. That's it. He's not allowed to stay there for an extra second, for an extra minute, which means that if it was your time to get the salvation, whether that salvation is conversion, or that salvation is money, or that salvation is a zivug (getting married), or a child, God would give it to you at the precise time, no matter if COVID-19 or COVID-500. No one can stop the salvation. So that means that you have to work on your emunah (faith) and your bitachon (trust). to know that the time hasn't come yet. Time hasn't come. If it hasn't come yet, then there's a reason for it. Get stronger, get closer to Hashem. If it's not Hashem's will, you won't get it. Last thing, Rabbi, what is your message to people during these times, COVID-19, and what are your thoughts about the situation? Briefly. I think that if we look at COVID-19, it's a very, very clear message to the world at large and to Am Yisrael that God is not happy.

1:51:23And the clock is running out before much worse things happen. Although COVID-19 affected millions of people, relatively speaking, the number of deceased is relatively minimal in comparison to the number of people who have gotten sick and been affected by it. The bigger impact has been economic. Many more people suffered economically than they did physically. Although, again, even one person is a life. We have to look at things more economically. Relatively speaking, there are 55 million people who die every year. That's about 200,000 or so every day. So that means that if 300,000 died from COVID-19, it's a lot. But compared to the 55 million that die anyway, and the 200,000 that die every day anyway, it's not the Holocaust. So the bigger impact was a financial impact, a global impact, a societal impact. a mental impact. The message was specific there. God was not necessarily interested in killing people, per se, but rather shocking them into fearing Him by affecting all of the things they find dear to them. So if we do not start figuring out where we're steering wrong, ourselves, our community,

1:52:46our people, our friends, our society, if we don't start changing that, then I can assure you that God already promised in the Torah many times that the next one is going to be much worse. It's not going to be 300,000 people. The message from God is to do teshuva before things get much worse. And I think that we're not going to have as much time next time. So it's not a prophecy of mine. It's just mentioned in the Torah numerous times. One of the places is actually in this week's Torah portion. At the same time that you're asking this question, God answers the question where He says, if you treat Me with casualness, you treat the damage that I cause as if it's nature, as if it's bad luck, as if it's happenstance, then I will treat you with the ultimate casualness, meaning you'll seek salvation and I'll make it seem like it's background noise. I want to answer your prayer, and I'll bring more punishment and horrible, horrible things. So this is a message for people to start paying attention to the big question of: What's the purpose of my life? What's the purpose of my life?

1:54:10And not only ask the question, but search for the answer too. And don't give up until you find it. We have that answer in our shiurim every week. We have shiurim on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays. They're on Facebook Live usually. And then the next day they're on YouTube. There are also short clips of our shiurim every day. You can find us on the app. You can find us on the website, bezrathashem.org. You can find our CDs; we just came out with a brand new CD on USB that has our movie on it and many, many other lectures. So there are a lot of ways that, b'ezrat Hashem, we utilize to try to spread His Torah in different ways and spread His Torah to the four corners of the world. And b'ezrat Hashem, we're very accessible. It's just that, again, if you want to find the truth, you have to look hard. You have to work hard for it. You have to sit there for hours and hours every day and make a commitment to solving life's bigger problems, like the purpose.

1:55:16Guys, for the people that are watching, Rabbi Yaron's movie that was greatly produced, I loved it. I enjoyed it. I was watching with my nieces. They loved it. And they were saying to me, there are things that we watched, we saw, that are not taught in our schools. So, thank you for that, Rabbi. And this person is asking, I live in Las Vegas, but there is no Beit Din here. I have a heavy heart and desire to convert, so I'm thinking about moving to Florida. What do you say to this person, Rabbi? If you move to Florida, then move close to us. Come to our shiurim every week, and B'ezrat Hashem, we will help you convert once you're ready. So that's that. The movie is in our link; you can go to our bio and click on that. Beautifully produced. Thank you, Rabbi, for that, and thank you for everything you're doing. Thank you for going overboard on time with us. It was good questions; it was good Torah. Once you start good Torah, you can't stop. Exactly. Thank you so much, Rabbi. Thank you very much. Good night, guys. Thank you all for joining. This was Rabbi Yaron Reuven, the founder and rabbi of Be'ezrat Hashem, Inc. Stay tuned for our upcoming lectures, guest speakers, and good night, guys. Thank you so much for watching.

1:56:31the founder and rabbi of Be'ezrat Hashem, Inc. Stay tuned for our upcoming lectures and guest speakers. Good night, everyone. Thank you so much for watching.