The CURE FOR ENEMIES & Cancer

0:16Thank you very much for coming. Baruch Hashem. We have our Sunday Funday shiur for anyone that was wondering what we were doing. I'll explain in a second. The shiur will be for Yosef ben Levanah, Levanah bat Sarah, Sarah bat Levanah, Ovadia ben Levanah, Rav Ephraim ben Shulamit, Rabbanit Sarah bat Anat, Chaim ben Sarah, David ben Esria, Doris bat Jorah, Elad ben Doris, So for anyone that was wondering, just for the sake of education, what we were doing, the Shulchan Aruch says that although the Gemara says in Masechet Berachot that the vast majority of dreams are meaningless, a compilation of your imagination that's comprised of things that you've seen in your life, as we've said many times. You went to the zoo one time, you

1:38says that although the Gemara says in Masechet Berachot that the vast majority of dreams are meaningless, a compilation of your imagination that's comprised of things that you've seen in your life, as we've said many times. You went to the zoo one time, you Haven't watched enough of shiurim, so you watch a movie. You saw some female. You saw somebody on a motorcycle. So you dream of an elephant riding a motorcycle, but he has a girl's outfit on. You have an imagination. What does it mean? Nothing. It means you should watch your eyes. That's what it means. That's really what it means. But the Shulchan Aruch says that there are certain dreams that are considered dangerous. And one of those that's very common is if you see yourself or somebody else losing teeth, where the teeth fall off completely. That's a very dangerous dream to such an extent that the Shulchan Aruch says you have to fast. You have to fast.

2:56But you don't have to fast, meaning that you could actually solve that issue with tzedakah, whatever it costs you to eat per day. If, let's say, you're an average eater and you live in America, I don't know, if you make your own food, maybe it costs you $10, $20, $30 a day to eat. You should usually give no less than chai, no less than $18. If it was my opinion, I'd say give more, which is, you know, a lot more money. It's $440. But anyway, at least give chai. But in general, you should give tzedakah instead of the fast. Also, you should do some serious learning and make sure that you take the dream seriously, meaning that this is a sign from HaKadosh Baruch Hu that you have to do teshuvah for something. If your question is, what do I have to do teshuvah for? That means everything. If you don't know what you have to do teshuvah for, that means everything. Why? Because the Gemara says, if you looked and you haven't found any sins, that means bitul Torah.

4:05That means you haven't learned enough Torah. So that's what you have to do teshuvah for. So the Gemara says, what do you mean? If he couldn't find these sins, why does it have to be such a big sin that he didn't learn enough Torah? He says, no, no, no. That doesn't mean he didn't learn enough Torah. That means he hasn't learned enough Torah to know that everything he's doing is a sin. That's how little he knows. Meaning, first and foremost, you have to take it as a sign that you have to do teshuvah, but obviously give tzedakah. But sometimes... Chazal told us that you have to take extra precautions if it's a repetitive dream, or perhaps if a woman is pregnant and she has such a dream, then there are certain things that the sages have taught us, which is what we read together. You need three eidim, three kosher Jews, to recite... A certain nusach, a certain prayer together with the actual dreamer themselves. It cannot be done over the internet. So if somebody tells you, "Yeah, I'll do it for you over the internet," it doesn't work. You have to actually have this. It's like a beit din. A beit din is three kosher Jews and the person that's being judged. And the point is that everybody has to pray together a specific type of prayer.

5:21So that's what you guys were watching. And it turns the dream that chas v'shalom could have been a klala, could have been a curse, into a blessing. B'ezrat Hashem, all of our dreams turn into a blessing. But this, Rabotai, is simply an opening reminder to us of what we're missing out if we do not have Torah. If you notice in Parashat HaShavua, and every time HaKadosh Baruch Hu talks to Yaakov, it always says that He talks to Yaakov b'layla. He talks to Yaakov at night. When He talks to Avraham, it never says He talks to him at night. When He talks to Yitzchak, it doesn't say He talks to Yitzchak at night. So Rav Yagen says, why b'layla? Why b'layla? is because Yaakov, his entire life was layla, meaning problems, constant problems, like us, constant problems, but not even 1% of 1% of what Yaakov Avinu had. All of us have problems, constantly have problems, or every day there's mamash, the phone, my phone sent me a text message, not somebody, the phone sent me a text message, it says retirement coming soon, enough, enough with the tzarot, enough with the problems, Hashem Yirachem,

6:37The phone is complaining already. AT&T said, listen, call us with the text messages. We didn't mean unlimited that much. Unlimited didn't mean that much. At least get some happy messages once in a while. But Baruch Hashem, I got a couple of happy messages. Got a lot of tzarot also, but I got a couple of happy messages. A tzaddeket I never met from Yerushalayim sends me a message. She says, religious girl, frum girl, everything is good. She says, I'm surrounded by chachamim, all types of really religious, smart people, says, but I cannot learn about Yirat Shamayim anywhere near here. Everybody talks about chesed and good and nice and Hashem loves you, everything is good. She says half of Torah is missing, so I learn it from you, Baruch Hashem. So I came here, Baruch Hashem, I say, Ishtabach Shemo, or imagine, a frum girl in Eretz Yisrael is learning Yirat Shamayim from where? From Sedom. Why? Because somebody decided to teach Yirat Shamayim in English.

7:38Another wonderful thing that I heard today: somebody that I met several years ago, when he was almost down and out—down and out like he was really, really in bad shape. Without elaborating, whatever you think is bad, think worse, and... Baruch Hashem, serious about shiurim, serious about doing kiruv, gives out CDs, publicizes Torah on a regular basis. Today he says to me, everyone is wondering, where did I get this term, because I say it 30 times a day. I said, go from that three, four years ago to today, everybody's asking him, he's the rabbi now. He's the rabbi of the kehillah. Why does he have so much emunah in Hashem? He constantly says His name 30 times a day. Everything, praise be His name. That's a huge, huge growth from being in mamash kaf hakela to Baruch Hashem, living with Hashem in your life. That's why it saddens me, Rabotai Yekarim, that so many of our brothers and sisters, and sometimes really it's us too, we don't even know how to be Jews. We don't even know what we have when it comes to Torah. We look for all types of tricks.

8:55get a quick fix, we go to some kabbalist, someone that calls himself a kabbalist, so maybe he'll sell us a book that's going to fix all of our problems. We don't know what the book is going to say, and we don't even know how to read it, but we figured that if we pay enough money, it's going to fix our problems. Never in our wildest dreams did we think, why don't we get the book that we could get for free called the Torah and do what it says? That's a mystical book you don't know how to read. But we want the kabbalist told me that if I buy this book and I give a few extra shekels, then everything is gonna go away. Well, what about the fact that you don't know how to dress? What about the fact that you still don't keep Shabbat the right way or at all? What about the fact that half the food you eat may be safek (doubtful in kashrut)? What about all of that? No, you didn't mention anything about that. You didn't mention anything about also you went to the wrong person and... Well, no, he didn't sell it to me. He sold it to my girlfriend. Any rabbi that sells Kabbalistic books to women is 100% criminal. Criminal. Why? Because, number one, you shouldn't sell to the public in general. It's not for the public. Kabbalah is not for the public. It's for specific people that are at a certain level. Number two, women don't learn Kabbalah. What are you selling it for?

10:15But of course, you hear these stories, and then you hear people that say, "Listen, I'm sorry to tell you, I have bad news. You don't know me, but my daughter or my son is about to get married to a non-Jew in a week. In a week. Oh, how long have they been dating? Two weeks? No, they've been dating for three years. Where were you three years ago? Can you help? What do you mean, can I help? It's a week before. Wait, you think I'm Superman?" Even Moshe Rabbeinu would have a difficult time helping in a week. Why? Because once you already have your feelings and your emotions in it, and you already see yourself living a certain life with this non-Jew, you're living your certain life already with this non-Jew already for a few years, to fix it at this point is almost impossible. You really have to have Yad Hashem get involved and do something extraordinary. Many times I hear people that call themselves frum,

11:15call themselves frum. No, no, I ask them for certain: what do you learn? What do you know? They ask basic things. I say, "How often do you learn?" "You know, once in a while. I learn a shiur from my rabbi, maybe on Shabbat." So how are you frum? How are you religious? If you don't learn Torah every single day of your life, how do you call yourself religious? I'm not saying to learn 24 hours a day, but learn Torah every day and how are you going to know how to be frum? Because you put a kippah on or a long dress that makes you frum? If you do not know what the Torah says, if you do not know the value of one page in the Torah, you don't even know what it means to be a Jew. Many times I ask myself, do I know how to be a Jew? Say, wait, but you teach — does that mean that I really know how to be a Jew? I don't know. I read about these tzaddikim. They know how to be Jews. I'll give you an example. The Klosenberger Rebbe, ish kodesh, fire, fire of God mamash. You could see it in his eyes. Pictures of him make you want to cry. He lost ten kids and his wife in the Holocaust, but never lost a beat. Always

12:39In the Holocaust, he kept every single halacha better than any one of us. Pesach, Chanukah, Shabbat, Yom Kippur, everything. He asked how, these Nazis are gonna kill you even if you say Baruch, he found a way. The Klausenberger Rebbe, Alev HaShalom, after Baruch Hashem, the was over, the Nazis, yimach shemam v'zichram, surrendered, were defeated. The Americans came into the camps and they found out one of the soldiers was a religious Jew. And he met the Rebbe and the Rebbe asked him, "Do you have tefillin?" Do you have tefillin? Do you have tefillin? He goes, yes, I have tefillin. They were made by a serious chassid. He goes, please, please, give me, give me, give me. I have to put tefillin on. But the Rebbe had tefillin. He had tefillin the whole time he was in the Holocaust. Why does he want his tefillin? He says, the whole time I had tefillin, I wasn't sure if they're 100% kosher because of what they've gone through. So I put them on every day and everybody else put them on every day, but we could not say a bracha on them.

14:05Weren't sure, maybe they're not kosher. Maybe we sometimes put on the best $2,000 tefillin and we forget the bracha. Why? Because maybe, maybe we forget. After everybody is excited they've been saved, everyone wants to relax, be saved, eat this, that, and the other thing. The Klosenberger Rebbe says we have a mitzvah we have to fulfill right now. He goes to the American soldiers. He says, "I want you to designate a car to me because we need to bury all the dead. We have a chiyuv to bury all the dead. There's dead people everywhere on the train tracks. They starved us to death on different marches; people would die over there or if you stopped they'd shoot you. Hashem, what they went through!" He says, "How many people I saw all over, you couldn't do anything." But now that we can, you have a call, let's go, we have to start burying the dead. He got a few Jewish guys, let's go, we have to go bury the dead. They're barely skeletons themselves. They get the energy, the energy of Torah in them, and they start burying the dead bodies. The Rebbe was very weak to begin with, but he was burying all day, all night. At the end of one day, he came back to the camp, and he just simply collapsed.

15:31One of the people, one of the Hasidim, ran over to him with a can that he saw some other kid carrying, a can that had some food in it. The kid finished the food and he said, "Give me the can. Give me the can, I'll make the Rebbe tea to give him some energy." He didn't have 16-ounce steaks there. "Give me, I'll give him some tea." He gave it, "Rebbe, Rebbe." He goes, "What do you have there?" He's on the floor, almost about to die. "What do you have there?" Zav tea for the rabbi. He goes, "Yeah, but where did you get that can?" He goes, "There was a kid who was just eating out of it." He goes, "I'm sorry. You could put it aside. I'm not going to drink from it. It wasn't in the mikveh. The can wasn't in the mikveh. I'm not going to drink. I'd rather die than drink from a can that wasn't in the mikveh. That's a Jew. That's a Jew who knows how to be a Jew." What's the difference between us and him? Aside from shamayim v'aretz. He knows what it means to put a kli in a mikveh. He knows what it means, the mitzvah of burying a Jewish dead. He knows the mitzvah of putting on tefillin. We still don't know. We still don't know what it means to learn one daf gemara. We don't know the value of it. So today, be'ezrat Hashem, we'll try to get a little bit of an understanding, rabotai. What does it mean? What does it mean to be a Jew?

16:59Because many people are looking for segulot, they're looking for different quick tricks to fix their problems. Everything but teshuva. And the reality is, is that there is a segula that you can fix everything. And it's written in the Yabia Omer, Rabbi Ovadia writes it, he says the source is Yalkut Shimoni. He says if you want a segula of all segulot, something that's a quick trick, To fix all your problems, whatever Torah you're learning, double it. You're learning one daf a day, double it to two. You learn five dapim a day, learn ten. Whatever you're doing, learn more. Wait, but I'm not learning anything. Oh, hence your problems. Why are you asking why you have problems then? What do you think, a segula is going to work for someone who doesn't learn Torah? Hashem is just, what is He, a magician? He's just going to give tricks to whoever wants? It doesn't work that way. We have a ticket, but it doesn't mean it's going to work though. You have to follow the instructions on the back of the card. Just like if you're going to go to a theater, if you walk in there with flip-flops and a tank top and hand them front row tickets, they're going to say thank you for the tickets, but they're not for you. You cannot enter. Why? Because the back of the ticket has instructions.

18:28You have to wear shoes. You have to look appropriate. Maybe even wear a suit. Maybe wear a classy dress. You cannot walk around like you might as well go to the beach. Rabbi Eliyahu Lopian, a lover of Shalom, was an Ish Kodesh that had the merit to see Eliyahu HaNavi. And you could see the Kedushah on his face. He tells a story. He says there was one time a boy and his boy was very, very sick, so sick from the starvation that was happening at the time that he was in and out of consciousness. There was such starvation in those days that he didn't have any food. It wasn't like today, where just for a shiur Torah you get $150, $200 worth of food, and half of it is going to go to waste.

19:29those days, you didn't have a piece of bread three weeks old to eat sometimes. But when the father doesn't have anything to buy, he doesn't have any money, and he doesn't have any food to buy, what are you going to do? He was weak and he started dying. The father would cry by his bed day and night. One day, he brought his friends from school to come visit him. And the boy says, Abba, who are these boys? And his Abba started crying. He says, no, these are your friends. You don't remember them? These are your friends from school. He goes, oh, okay. A day or two later, he brought his brothers inside the room to make him happy. And the boy says to his Abba, who are they?

20:31He says, B'ni, these are your brothers. You know, your brother David, Yitzchak. Oh, okay. A few days later, the father walks in and starts talking to the boy. And the boy says to his Abba, who are you? The father cried so much he passed out. And a short while later, the kid died. Rabbi Eliyahu Lopian says, we see from here, Rabotai, that once a person stops recognizing his father, it's a sign that he's dying. We sometimes forget who our Father in Heaven is, which means our neshama is slowly dying.

21:31Many of our brothers and sisters don't even know who Abba is. They don't even know who HaKadosh Baruch Hu is, their Father in Heaven. And they're living a life as if they're alive, but in reality, they're spiritually dead. But if they go and meet someone who has a beard and a hat, or a Rabbanit, and they ask him, "Do you have any pitronot, any solutions for my problems?" Very, very rarely will they hear teshuva. The solution many times is to say, "Yeah, maybe if you give over here and you come in, maybe bake some challah, and maybe if you come to the Chanukah party, maybe you come to his bar mitzvah, have a good time." They go, eat a few doughnuts, get fatter, but nothing changes, and...

22:32Money problems are still there; sometimes they get worse. Marriage problems are still there, but sometimes they get worse. Nothing changes. Why? Because they came to what was supposed to be the right area, but unfortunately, they were misdirected. Today, one of my students said to me she was very disappointed. She asked a certain rabbi if he wants to have me come speak there for free so he doesn’t have to worry about any money. She was told, "No, we're not really in agreement with Rabbi Reuven's teachings. We're not really in agreement." Really? With Rabbi Reuven's teachings? She said, "Ninety percent of the kehillah drives on Shabbat to witness it." certain rabbi if he wants to have me come speak there for free so he doesn’t have to worry about any money. She was told, "No, we're not really in agreement with Rabbi Reuven's teachings. We're not really in agreement." Really? With Rabbi Reuven's teachings? She said, "Ninety percent of the kehillah drives on Shabbat to witness it," and... Almost everybody eats treif. What's not to agree with someone that says this stuff is not allowed? She was very disappointed. She told me about it. Usually, people find out this stuff. They don't want to tell me, but she told me about it. I said, "Wait, you live in that such-and-such area?" She said, "Yeah." I said, "Do me a favor, make sure on Pesach don't buy matzot from that rabbi."

23:59He has a bakery where he pretends to make kosher matzah. What he doesn't tell the kehillah is that he rents the place to goyim at the Kabbalah Center for matzah day during the entire time before Pesach. This means the entire place is non-kosher. But he sells it to you people as if it's matzah shemurah, special matzah. It's not even kosher matzah. Slamming kosher matzah at this place. So how do you know? I said one of his employees is my student. She left, obviously. When she told me this, I said, "Are you sure?" She goes, "Yeah, I worked there for two years. I didn't know." So yeah, the guy that says that I'm not kosher, he doesn't agree with my students. There's a Gemara that says someone that cancels out others, he himself is canceled. He himself has a mum, a default, a deficiency. What do we teach you? We teach Torah from Hashem. We teach Torah from Hashem. If I don't bring you a source, you ask me for a source, and I give you a source, same day or next day. I don't believe till this day anyone has asked for a source and I couldn't provide it. Which means that if you disagree with what we teach, you're disagreeing with Hashem. You're disagreeing with the sages. Style, they call it. What style? Torah.

25:23What style about it? If Moshe Rabbeinu came here, would you disagree with him also because he'd say the same thing? Not that I'm even the dust under his feet, but he would say the same exact Torah. The Torah didn't change. Which means that sometimes we forget the value of the Torah. We forget to ask if our rabbis forgot what the Torah is. We forget what the rabbanit knows what the Torah is. Rabotai, it's time we have to start thinking a little harder about this. Because if we don't know who HaKadosh Baruch Hu is, you have no reason whatsoever to celebrate Chanukah. Chanukah is coming up in a couple of weeks. Everyone's looking forward to it. Most people think Chanukah is about sufganiyot. And maybe if you have enough oil, you'll light the candles. Everybody thinks it's donuts and latkes. You have some oil left, maybe for the Hanukkiah too. Oh no, the Hanukkiah is what, from the 99-cent store? You bought the candles? You should have spent the oil on the candles instead of the donuts. It says, Rabotai, in Chanukah,

26:48in the bracha, it says that in Al HaNissim, the bracha that you recite during Hanukkah, the eight days of Hanukkah, it says that they lit the candles, the lights, in the courtyard, your holy courtyard. But Chazal says, wait a minute, why do they say that they lit the candles in the courtyard? In reality, where did they light the candles in the Beit HaMikdash? Inside the Heichal, the inner Heichal. The inner chamber, they lit it in there. The Kedushah of the Beit HaMikdash and how it was built, That the light, instead of our buildings today where we depend on light coming from the outside, there was so much holiness inside the Beit HaMikdash that the window was positioned in a certain way to take the light from the Beit HaMikdash to light the world, to light the entire courtyard, to light everywhere. So, we lit the Hanukkiah inside, the menorah inside. So how come it says that they lit it in the courtyard outside?

28:00So the Mechilta says that they lit a second light, a second menorah in the courtyard to publicize the miracle inside and outside. This, Rabotai, is what we have to do. Sometimes you learn Torah, but you keep it to yourself. You keep the light inside. You learned a nice shiur, you got motivated by it, but you don't share it. Two million minutes a month, two million minutes a month, learn from one of our channels. In reality, it should be 200 million. Same amount of fans, 200 million. Why? If everyone was kind enough, right now, to press share with at least 10% of their Facebook friends, with at least 10% of the people they have on their phone,

29:00With at least 10% of their friends they know in school or at work. Just share. Don't send me any money. Just press share for this shiur or any other shiur. Every time you watch a shiur, press send, press share. 10% of your friends. You have 500 friends? Share with 50. You have 5,000? You’ve got a lot of work to do—500. Start with 50, start with 10. A lot of people watch, but they keep it to themselves. They keep the light inside. They learn something, you ask them, you have a kiddush. No one's here. The rabbi is not here today, maybe you could say something for somebody. "No, no, I don't know anything. I don't know anything." Everybody goes home. Hey, mister "I don't know anything" keeps everything to himself. Everybody goes home, nobody learned, so hard to go eat doughnuts. So we're not allowed to keep it inside. On the other hand, sometimes some people are only worried about what's outside. Oh, this rabbi is doing this, this kehillah is doing this, Chabad is this, you know, Breslov is that, Pupa is this, Orthodox is this, Reform is this. They worry about talking about everybody else. What about your house? How's your house? Is your house kosher, Badatz?

30:15your house has Torah. You're complaining about everybody else. You know, Shabbat, you know. Do you have to work on your middot? What about you? Okay, everybody else, no problem. What about you, though? Don't worry so much about everybody else; also worry about you. Yes, we talk about other people, but we also talk about ourselves. The mussar is for ourselves first. The point is... that Chazal told us that this decree of lighting the lights outside doesn't mean you only light them outside. It doesn't mean you only light them inside. It means you have to have a Torah message in your house and also outside your house. Don't just focus on these parties where some communities have, they have a whole big Chanukah. Chanukah, a big menorah in the courtyard somewhere of the Knesset. Everybody gathers around, sings a couple of songs, they light the thing, and then they leave. Eat a few sufganiyot and then they leave. Yeah, chazak u'baruch for the candle lighting, that's good. But that's not the reason why we have Chanukah. That's not the reason why we have Chanukah.

31:33Chanukah is a celebration of the tzaddikim that were few, who destroyed the reshaim that were many. That's what Chanukah is. Chanukah is about the few rabbis who were barely able to lift a machine gun, barely able to lift a sword even. How they beat the countless reshaim, kofrim, liberal lefties, Reform, and all types of other mentalities, missionaries. Few tzaddikim, many reshaim. Just like today. Just like today. The Arizal says that Chazal, anytime they made any type of decree, any law, it wasn't for that generation. It was for the next generation. It was for the future. The miracles of Hanukkah that we talk about are something for us to learn from. The miracle of how the Tzaddikim won over the Resha'im. To simply go to a party, light some menorah, and think that that's what makes you Jewish—I'm sorry, but you're wrong. That's not what makes us Jewish. What makes us Jewish is the Torah.

32:57Judaism was only born at Matan Torah on Mount Sinai. There was no Judaism beforehand. Before that, we were called Israelites. Now, Rabbi Shlomkin of Mitzvil, alav hashalom, was asked by his talmid, Rabbi Eliyahu Roth, How come you always tell us to go say sipurim of tzaddikim, talk about all these tzaddikim? We're not on their level. We can't compare to these people who wouldn't even drink from a can because it didn't go into a mikveh, even though you're in a Holocaust and haven't eaten in three days. We're not on that level. What's the point? So Rabbi Shlomkin of Mitzvil says we say the stories of the tzaddikim for three reasons. First reason, to understand the distance between us and them. To understand the distance between us and them. What's a tzaddik and where do we stand? So we have something to shoot for.

34:02but also something to admire, also something to appreciate, also to understand that when someone says the Rambam said such and such, Rabbi Akiva said such and such, Rava said such and such, Abaye said such and such, you don't even think for a second that you can have a conflicting opinion. Sometimes people do today. They make whole videos about what—no, I don't agree with the Baal HaTanya, I don't agree with the Rambam here, I don't agree with Rabbi Yosef Karo here. Like, as if you're on a level to agree or disagree with them. First, understand where you are, where they are; if you can sacrifice your life like they did, then maybe, maybe you're qualified to learn that Torah, but you're still not qualified to to go against them. Second, it's impossible, it's impossible to listen to sipurei tzaddikim, to the stories of our sages, on a regular basis and stay the same person. Impossible. If you stay the same after you've heard many sipurei tzaddikim, you get a special certificate, satum.

35:22Your heart is closed. Your mind is closed. You may be a daat shoteh, like a drunk. In Shamayim, they're not going to count you with the people that are crazy. You hear stories about what our sages went through and how they sacrificed their lives simply to learn one shura of Gemara, one line in the Gemara, and that doesn't affect you in any way after you've heard it a thousand times? Something's wrong and... You should double-check if you're really Jewish. And even then, you should double-check if you're human. Why? Because many non-Jews want to become Jewish because of these stories. Rabbi Shlomkin Mezvid says the third reason is that change includes the storyteller himself. Those stories are not only supposed to change the crowd; they're supposed to change the guy that's telling the story. He's supposed to be affected. If you told a story such as this and you yourself weren't touched, something's wrong. Now, David HaMelech in Tehillim 119:59 says, "I considered my ways and I returned my feet to your testimonies."

36:52Meaning that David HaMelech says, "I considered my ways, I thought about what I'm doing." He did Cheshbon HaNefesh, what we call Cheshbon HaNefesh. He started calculating his own actions. "What am I doing? Am I doing right? Am I doing wrong?" And "I returned to your testimonies," meaning I returned to learn Torah. But the Midrash Rabbah gives a commentary on it. In Vayikra, Parashat Bechukotai, it says that David HaMelech would say to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, "HaKadosh Baruch Hu, every day, I say to myself, 'I'm gonna go to such and such place and see such and such person.' And yet my feet would bring me to the synagogues and the Beit Midrash instead." Meaning, he says, David HaMelech, he's a king. He has appointments. He has to run the country, the army, the financial situation, the enemies, the friends, everything. He says, every day I say I'm going to go to such and such place, but instead I go to the Beit Midrash. So, Rav Ephraim says, his pshat is,

38:15is that every day, David HaMelech loves Torah so much, he goes and learns. But then he says, I have to go take care of this business though. So he plans on going, okay, what I didn't do today, I'm going to go to somewhere else. I'm going to go to it tomorrow. Because I'm learning today, so tomorrow I'll do it. I didn't pay the bills today, I'll pay them tomorrow. I didn't take care of the army situation, I'll take care of it tomorrow. Because I learned today. Instead of going, I learned today, I'll go tomorrow. But tomorrow comes, and he wants to go to the Beit Midrash, and he wants to learn again. So he says, okay, tomorrow, tomorrow. Every day he goes back to the Beit Midrash. That's what Rabbi Ephraim says. But the Yad Mordechai MiSatmar, the Satmar Rebbe, gives an extraordinary chiddush. He says the following: Think about it. Even an average Jew, Shomer Torah u'Mitzvot, Once in a while, he says, you know, okay, I got to take care of business. But once in a while, he says, you know what, let me go to the Beit Midrash. Meaning he has an idea to go take care of those things. But once in a while, he says, you know what, my idea today is to go to the Beit Midrash. Meaning he plans to go to the Beit Midrash to learn. He plans on going to the shiur and learning, even if he's an average Jew. So what, David HaMelech never thinks about going to the Beit Midrash, but he goes there anyway? Well, he never wants to go to the Beit Midrash. He always plans to go somewhere else, but he ends up in the Beit Midrash.

39:43So the Yad Moshe of Satmar says, what is he really telling us? What is he really telling us? Why is David HaMelech telling us that every day he's supposed to go to such and such place to take care of such and such person, but he ends up at the Beit Midrash instead? So the Satmar Rebbe says, he says, David HaMelech is telling us, look how many enemies I have. Look how many enemies I have. I have so many enemies. Why is he telling us he has so many enemies here? What is the connection? Because David HaMelech was an Ish Kodesh, a huge Talmid Chacham, to such an extent that Halacha keDavid—anything David HaMelech says, that's the Halacha. What does that mean when anything David HaMelech says, that's the Halacha? Even some of the tzaddikim, even some of the greatest rabbis in history, they said something, but the halacha is not like them. Beit Shammai was an Ish Kodesh, but many times Beit Hillel won. It doesn't mean that Beit Hillel is smarter or more righteous. It just means that the halacha in this world most of the time follows Beit Hillel. Many times Abaye lost the battle with Rava, even though Abaye was an Ish Kodesh.

41:03Many times the biggest sages in the world weren't right; halacha is something else. But when it says if David says it, halacha keDavid. What does that really mean? It means that David thinks like God. What he thinks, that's what Hashem wants. That's it. Whatever thought—imagine being like that—whatever you think, yeah, that's exactly what God wants. That's exactly what's inside God's heart. Right now, what you think, that's exactly it. Imagine being like that. So now David HaMelech, who knew so much Torah and halacha ke-David, knew that there's a klal, a rule in nature that HaKadosh Baruch Hu instilled, which we learn in the Gemara Masechet Gittin: "Hashkem ve'arev aleihem le'Beit HaMidrash ve'en kolun me'eleihim." It says arrive early at the Beit Midrash, the study hall, and leave late.

42:03Come early and leave late, from learning, on account of them, and they will disappear on their own. David HaMelech is saying to us, you have problems. What do you have? You have what? The landlord? You have bills? You have an enemy? Somebody's trying to get you fired? Someone's talking bad about you? Someone is spreading rumors about you? Someone is trying to harm you in some way? No problem. There's a rule that HaKadosh Baruch Hu instilled in the world. What is the rule? You go to the Beit Midrash early, learn all day, leave late, be the last one there, and those enemies will disappear by themselves. You won't have to do a thing. That's a rule in nature that HaKadosh Baruch Hu instilled in the world. If you have problems, go to the Beit Midrash, not to the court office. Not to go sue them or go on Instagram and Facebook and all these social media lashon hara tools to give them a bad name. No! All you gotta do is go to the Beit Midrash, learn Torah, and finish. But not once, not twice, not three times—regularly. As many problems and enemies as you have, that's how much you need to study. Most of us, all day and all night, pretty much.

43:23So the Admo"r MiSatmar says, look how many enemies David HaMelech had. Every day he has Doeg HaEdomi who wants to kill him. Achitofel wants to kill him. His son Avshalom wants to kill him. Shaul HaMelech wants to kill him. Everybody wants to kill him. There's nobody in history that had more enemies than David HaMelech. The father of the Mashiach had more enemies than anybody else. But instead of going and battling them and killing them, yeah, he was a hero, he was a warrior. He killed all of them, no problem. No, go to Beit Midrash. So the Admo"r MiSatmar says, how did David HaMelech deal with these problems? Not like us, who complain about it, talk about it, this about it. No, no, go to Beit Midrash, learn Torah, Hashem is going to take care of the problem. You have a cancer in your life? A cancerous friend, a cancerous boss, a cancerous employee, a cancerous spouse, a cancerous problem of some kind, cancer itself? Go to Beit Midrash, learn Torah, Hashem is going to take care of the problem. Any problem you have, if you learn enough Torah, Hashem is going to solve it. Yeah, but I learned Torah already for three months and He hasn't solved it. Okay, you haven't learned enough. Maybe Hashem wants three years, maybe six months. Who knows? Every

44:46Sickness has a certain amount that requires. My son Yosef, God bless him, today we got antibiotics for him. He has ear infections. So we looked at the prescription. It's almost like an adult, 500 milligrams, almost over 400 milligrams of amoxicillin for a little baby that's seven or eight months old. That's a lot. What does that mean? It means that the infection is pretty serious. That's what it means. It means the infection is pretty serious. If it wasn't a serious infection, either they wouldn't prescribe anything at all or a much lower dose. Anytime I get an infection, I go to the doctor. The doctor says, "Okay, listen, if you stay alive, maybe this is going to help you. How much? 2,000 milligrams of amoxicillin. It's either going to kill you or you'll live. 50-50 chance. Good luck, son."

45:47Why? It's really sick. Really sick, that's what happens. If you're not really sick, they give you Advil. Until you go to sleep on it, take some soup. So David HaMelech tells us if you're sick, or you have people around you that are sick, you have certain problems, you have certain issues, please, please use the one and only cure for all cancer, whether it's spiritual cancer or it's cancer mamash. Learn Torah. Please, please use the one and only cure for all cancer, whether it's spiritual cancer or it's cancer mamash. Learn Torah. Learn Torah seriously. Now we've said this a million and a half times already, but people sometimes still don't get it. I have certain people that have been watching shiurim, or at least they tell me they watch shiurim, but nothing changed. So once in a while I ask them, how come... I'm still hanging out with the non-Jews. How come you're still acting like a non-Jew? How come you still watch movies? How come you still listen to rap and hip-hop and all this junk music that puts filth into your mind? You say you've been listening to my shiurim for two years, three years. How come you still have all that filth in your life? You watch every single shiur. I have three shiurim a week. That's nine hours of Torah or eight hours sometimes, but it's a lot. No, I don't watch that much. I watch the clips. I watch the clips.

47:09You watch the five-minute clips. That's your entire Torah for the week? The five-minute clip? That's what you get by with? The five-minute clip is for your break. It's not to build yourself as a Jew with. That's for when you take a break. You know, you go outside, you want fresh air, you have nothing to do, you want something, you want fresh air of Kedusha. That's what you listen to the clips for. You don't learn Torah from that. It's not the Torah that you're saying, "Oh, I'm a Jew because of this." It's good to hold you up until you get to a real shiur. Don't just think that learning from five-minute clips is enough, especially if you're already telling me that you've been watching for a year or two. That's just for the beginning, to get you in. If you don't watch at least one full shiur from beginning to end like a student, meaning you're writing notes, you're studying it like a sefer, which means that the shiur should take you probably double the amount of time it is. If it's two hours, it should take you four hours. If you don't do that at least once a week, you pretty much are not watching anything. You're pretty much not watching anything. Nothing's going to change by you. You'll be still the same thing that you were before you started. Why? It's not enough.

48:22You know how hard it is to put a shiur together? You know how many books you have to read, how many sacrifices you have to make just to make a shiur? Before you would give a shiur every day, you would go into a room without any books for 20 minutes. Leave, and it was you every time. Well, if you think maybe studying should have a book, but no books. So one of the students tried following him for a while. He couldn't get in, so he got the courage to ask the Rav, "This is Torah, and I need to learn it. Please tell me, why do you go before every single shiur? You go into this room, you stay there for 20 minutes, the door is locked, and then you come out." "Are you doing there?" he says. "You people don't understand how difficult it is to put a shiur together. How many sacrifices I have to make in order to put a shiur together."

49:36My health is terrible. All types of problems. And how many, how many sacrifices I have to make to put a single shiur together. But every time I show up to a shiur, one guy is playing with his nose. The other guy is playing with his ears. The other one has decided to tie his tefillin in the middle of the shiur. The other guy is focused on potato chips. The other guy is deciding to do an Asher Yatzar 25 times because every five minutes he goes to the bathroom. But I say to myself, I say to myself, Shlomo Zalman, you are not allowed to be angry. Shlomo Zalman, you are not allowed to be angry. Not allowed to be angry, Shlomo. Not allowed to be angry. It's not good to be angry. I say this to myself over and over and over again for 20 minutes. That way, when I show up, and he's eating potato chips, and he's saying Asher Yatzar for the 27th time, and nobody appreciates how much sacrifice I put in for this shiur, I don't get angry. Why? Because I did what I could. I did what I could. Torah is in the world. Torah is in the world. Now, Purim has a mitzvah. Everyone loves this mitzvah. Get drunk. People like to drink.

51:03It's an excuse for the average guy, even if he doesn't keep Shabbat, to get drunk. All of a sudden, everyone's a chassid on Purim. "No, Rabbi, I'm really religious. You know how many bottles I drank on Purim? I downed the whole vodka by myself within the first five minutes, before the rabbi even showed up." Chassid. L'kavod Shabbat? Not sure. What is that? Is that what you eat after you get drunk? The Gemara, Masechet Megillah, page 7b, says to drink until you don't know who's Haman and who's Mordechai. So people use this as a pretext or excuse, if you will, to get drunk to the point where you can't recognize who your friend is. But what is someone that has Da'at Torah? meaning the opinion of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, the opinion of the Torah. What does He say? The Maharal says Purim is really beautiful. When I learned this, I really enjoyed it because it shows you the difference between an average person and someone who has Da'at Torah. The Maharal says Purim is a time where you're supposed to get to such a high level of Kedusha.

52:33So much Torah that you've learned. So many ma’asim tovim that you did. You gave tzedakah at night, you gave tzedakah in the morning, you gave tzedakah after the Megillah, before the Megillah, you gave mishloach manot, you learned the Megillah already so you prepared so it's not the first time you've ever read it. You know, you did so much to prepare for this holy holiday. You're supposed to get on such a high level that you finally realize The decree didn't come from Haman, and it wasn't even saved by Mordechai. It's HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Everything is HaKadosh Baruch Hu. It's not him. It's Him. All your problems, it's not him or her or that or it that's causing you. It's HaKadosh Baruch Hu talking to you, trying to get your attention. On Purim, that's what you're supposed to get to. That's what I mean, drunk with spirituality, drunk with Torah. Get on a high level of Kedusha that you finally realize that there's no such thing as suffering without sin. There's no such thing as a problem for no reason. There's no such thing as Bibi Netanyahu is going to save us or Trump is going to save us or the economy is going to save us or my savings are going to save us or my wife or daughter or husband or son is going to save us. No!

53:58Only HaKadosh Baruch Hu. There's nothing else but HaKadosh Baruch Hu. That's what you're supposed to get to. Finally understand everything is Hashem. Everything. You have a problem? Talk to Hashem. Why? He's the one that gave it to you. You have something good? Thank Hashem. Why? He's the one that gave it to you. Or you think that your wife gave it to you? You think your husband gave it to you? Or you think your teacher gave you that grade? You think your boss gave you that raise? HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave you that raise. He just uses your boss to make it look realistic, to make it within nature. Nature is one of the ways that HaKadosh Baruch Hu hides Himself. That's why the numerical value of the letters HaTeva is the same numerical value as Elohim, 86. Now, if a person wants to get to such a level of understanding that everything is from Hashem, where is he going to learn this from? In the streets? Where is he going to learn that all of his problems are coming from Hashem? All of his solutions are also from Hashem. Where is he going to learn it from? In the bar? In the club? In school? Where is he going to learn it from? In the movies?

55:24Maybe watching NFL Sunday Night Football? Maybe John Madden's gonna tell you in the halftime show? Where is he gonna learn that? Who's the reason for everything? Where? You're only gonna learn it in the Beit Midrash. You're only gonna learn it in the Shiur Torah. You're only gonna learn it when you're learning. It's the only way you're gonna learn it. Why? Because if you're trying to learn it any other way, that means you're dealing with problems. You're too busy to learn. You're busy fighting the fires that you're dealing with in life: flat tire, lack of money, you got to a place you have no way to get back, so on and so forth. You're only going to learn these things in the shiur Torah, in the Beit Midrash learning Torah. If a person understood that the solution to all of his problems is in a shiur Torah, do you think he would want to go anywhere else? I have a guy send me a message. It melted my heart. He sends me a message and says, "I want to move to Florida." I said, "Where are you?" He says, "I'm in Jerusalem." I said, "Don't move to Florida. What, are you crazy? I said, if you're in Sodom, come to Gomorrah. But you're in Jerusalem, and you want to move?" He goes, "Yeah, but you're there."

56:36I said, "Okay, watch me on the internet." He goes, "No, but maybe I can be next to you in a few minutes." I said, "Thank you very much for the compliments, but you can learn. If you have any questions, send me on WhatsApp. You don't need to move here." He goes, "Yeah, but I'm not going to be in Jerusalem forever. I'm going to New York eventually. Go back home." He lives in New York. He wants to come back to New York. A few people from all over the world want to move here. Why? Because they want to learn. But yet the people that are here don't want to come. You have to convince them to come. Oh, can you come? What happened? It's you. What's you? You know, Tuesday night's shiur, the Wednesday night's shiur, the Sunday night's shiur, the same shiur that we told you about 87 times for the last six months? Oh, that's you. Yeah, I went one time. Went three months ago. How was it? It was pretty good. So why don't you come back? Ah, you know, I'm busy. Well, what are you busy with? You know, there's a game tonight. There's a game tonight. I got work tomorrow. I'm hungry. I'm tired. I don't know why, but I have to tell you no. Someone's calling me. Let me get back to you. I'll give an excuse too. They don't even know why they don't want to come. If they knew that the solution to all of their problems is in the shiur Torah, not only would they come, they wouldn't want to leave. There are people from all over the world, all over the world, that understand it. They want to move here.

57:55But they watch it online, just like many other people. Oy Hashem, countless people watch it online, but they want to move. Why? Maybe I can get an extra minute. Maybe I could be part of the shiur. Maybe I could do something. Those are people that understand the value of learning Torah. Sometimes we forget. Now, the mind of a Talmid Chacham doesn't only focus on the Torah and always looks for the solution for all of the problems from the Torah, but in essence, the mind of a Talmid Chacham doesn't even acknowledge the world around them because they look at the Torah in a certain way This is the blueprint of creation. If certain things happened, it was supposed to happen because it is all part of the divine plan. They stop acknowledging certain things in the world that the average person pays attention to. I'll give you an example. One of the famous stories that was told by Rabbi Reuven Elbaz, shlita, one of the biggest mekarevim...

59:16In the world, over the last few generations, people that have helped countless people—can't even put a number on it—countless people do teshuva, learn Torah. He told a story about Rabbi Ovadia, Rabbi Shalom. He says that one time, there was a kennes, a certain shiur, a lecture, that Rabbi Ovadia was giving at Knesset Yezdim. It would have an average of about 4,000 people in the shiur every week. 4,000 people. Just like us. 4,000 people. Now, when the Rav would enter or the Rav would leave, it was dangerous. Why? Because people were so enamored by his kedusha, they literally were just, mamash, doing all types of crazy things just to get close to him. Kiss his hand, kiss his hat, kiss his shoulder, something. Rav Efraim told me one time that he went to his house and there were a bunch of guys from Eilat. Countless people were in the house. The guys from Eilat were so enamored by him. They wanted to get so close to the Rav that they threw an entire bench out of the way, almost hitting the Rav. Mamash, at the last second, he moved. It was mamash like as if Hashem changed nature. The bench went one way, and the Rav went a different way. He's an old man. He's not like a Mission Impossible.

1:00:45It wasn't for bad. He was so enamored by him, by his kedushah, they just wanted to get a little closer to him. And the bench was in the way. So any time he would enter or leave, there was a lot of sakana. So there was a bodyguard. One guy, big guy. He was like a mountain. I think in his previous gilgul, he was a mountain. Big guy. Pretty much, as soon as the Rav was ready to go, he would simply go like this. And that was pretty much like a, you know, Western Wall in three corners though. You couldn't get close to anything. And he would walk, and the Rav would walk behind him. Now the Rav was very tzanua, was very, very modest. All he would look, he wouldn't look at anything. He would simply look at the floor the whole time. He wouldn't notice who, what, when, and how, nothing. So one time, his driver, Avner, told the Rav, there's a guy that's helping us protect the Rav for the last few months already. You know, and Baruch Hashem, he's doing a really good job. Maybe the Rav could give him a bracha. So Rav Ovadia said to him, yeah sure, tell him to come to the car. Tell him to come inside the car, give him a bracha. So Avner, the driver, went outside the car, got the bodyguard, and said, come, come, come inside the car, the Rav is going to give you a blessing.

1:02:14Blessing, he goes into the car, but he is already engrossed in the book. He's already glued to the book. I'm not, no, no, don't interrupt the Rav. He doesn't like it. Wait until he finishes. I'll give you a bracha. Come with us, we'll take a ride, we'll take the Rav to his house. We get there, and the Rav comes back to earth. I'll give you a bracha. The Baraket says, Baruch Hashem. He's the one that's telling the story, by the way. The Baraket told the story. If they could get a ride with Rav Ovadiah in a car, that alone is enough. So they drive. The shiur entered somewhere around 10:30. They arrive at the house shortly later. Rav Ovadiah hasn't moved his face from the book. Not right, not left, not what time it is, where are we going, who's here, who's that, nothing. He's glued to the book as if nothing in the world exists. They open the door, he moves with the book. He moves with the book just as if it’s one piece, connected to his body. He moves with the book, going up the stairs, not leaving it. That's how he would learn constantly, all the time. As a side note, one time Bibi Netanyahu and his paparazzi went to visit Rav Ovadiah with all the cameras and such. During that time, Rav Ovadiah was learning. They all show up—countless people, reporters, and the Prime Minister of Israel.

1:03:41Shabbat Mashiach that they thought he comes there. Oh, but he's learning. He even knows this. Learning, learning, learning for 15 minutes. The Prime Minister, imagine Donald Trump comes to your house and you're learning. You don't even notice that he's next to you. I'll vey (woe) we don't even know this is on TV. But nonetheless, people all they do is notice everything. Everything he says, it's 500 Jews reporting and... You hear what a job Trump says. No, but I'm sure you gotta tell me. So he's there, sitting, sitting, sitting, nothing. He's learning. They told Bibi, "If we don't tell him anything, he's gonna be here for hours. He's not gonna know you're here." Bibi didn't know it wasn't the show. We mean the Prime Minister. She said things and never to taking pictures, everything, and he's learning as if nothing in the world exists. After about 15-16 minutes, okay, okay, so they tell the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister is here. Oh, oh, oh, he must not have known he was there. He was inside the Torah. When he's in his car, the bodyguard, huge guy, nice guy though, huge guy, he's sitting over there, he doesn't know he's there. He's learning his Torah, he's in the book. They go upstairs to his house.

1:05:06He's still with the book. He goes to his room. He sits in the room and he's still with the book. Avner, the driver, sits with the guy. He's there waiting, waiting, waiting. Because he's not allowed to bother the rabbi when he's learning. He's in a different world. It's like you wake somebody out of a sleep. Crazy. He's learning. So I figure eventually he's going to stop. 10:30, 11:30, 12:30, 1:30. He hasn't left the book. Eventually, Avner says to the guy, "Listen, I gotta go, but you stay here. He's gonna finish soon." Three hours they're there. "He's gonna finish soon. You stay here. He's gonna give you a berachah." Okay. So the berachah continues the story. He says, "1:30, 2, 2:30. I'm falling asleep in the Rav's house. He hasn't moved." 2:45 at 3 o'clock in the morning. I'm barely moving. Finally, the Rav gets up, not because he's finished studying, but because he wants to go and get another book. But then he sees me and goes, "Who are you?"

1:06:19Like, he surprised them there. "Who are you?" he goes. Oh, he wasn't sure what to say. "Oh, you know, Avner told me to come again." He goes, "Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I forgot you were there. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. I didn't know you were there. Oh, come on, come on, I'll make you tea. I'll make you tea. Come, I'll give you tea." He made him tea at three o'clock in the morning. Why? He didn't know he was there. "I didn't mean to leave you there for five hours." While I was over there learning Torah with Moshe Rabbeinu. But yet, people have the audacity to say, "No, I don't agree with Rabbeinu." Study for five minutes like that. Let's see. Five minutes, not five hours, five minutes. Not knowing that your phone rang 15 times. Telling people, "Listen, shut off your phone while you learn." "Oh, come on, Rabbi, you're machmir, you're stringent for me. My rabbi texts while he learns."

1:07:24That's a person that understands the value of Torah. We'll get there one day. But the point is, why do we say these stories? To understand what to shoot for. That even if we shoot really high but end up not quite there, even halfway, 10% of the way, we're still much higher than we are today. Now, David HaMelech says that if you want to fight your enemies, go learn Torah. But sometimes people, even if they go to a Beit Midrash, they don't value the Torah quite as much as they're supposed to. Maybe they got used to it. Maybe they never really learned it. Because sometimes you talk to avreichim in different places, and they're jealous of the secular people. Ephraim had a conversation with an avrech, somebody who learns in kollel, you know, religious from birth and so on, learns in kollel, says, "I have a lot of yetzer hara lately." Why? His brothers are not exactly tzaddikim, they're off the derech, and they tell him about all the disgusting stuff they do all day against Hashem. And he says, "I'm a little jealous. They go to the beach with girls and this and that." Now he learns Torah, but he didn't learn yet the value of Torah yet.

1:08:50Let me give you an example. It's a famous story from Yeshivat Volozhin. Yeshivat Volozhin was a place that, just to enter and be accepted, you had to know 250 dapim of Gemara by heart. 250 dapim, which is really 500 pages, by heart to be accepted. Or you had to have serious, serious siyata dishmaya when you met with the Rav and he liked you because he saw that you have the mesirut nefesh that's required to become a talmid chacham. There was a boy named Leibel, and Leibel... When Hashem gave away chochmah in the world, wisdom in the world, he didn't get his share. He wasn't exactly the brightest among them. He wasn't the sharpest among them. But when he came to the Rav and he said to him, "Listen, Kvod Harav, I want to learn here." He said, "What do you know?" He said, "I don't know anything. But I have an extraordinary desire to learn Torah."

1:10:12I want to learn Torah. It's all I want in life. "Because you want to learn? Here, take a sefer, go learn." He sits down, he starts learning. Everybody's going, do, do, do. He's having trouble with the alef-bet. Forgets this, that, learning alef-bet, alef-bet. Finally gets it, then forgot, goes through the shurot again, forgets, forgets, tries again, tries again, tries again. Poor guy is killing himself just to go to any shiur, any anything. After six months, six months, Libel completes one daf Gemara. One daf Gemara is two pages in six months, learning day and night. We're not talking about, like today, learning two hours, taking a break, another hour, taking a break, break, break, then taking another break from the break. No, all day, all night, six months, one daf. At this point, Leibel is on cloud nine. He's the happiest guy in the world. There is no one in the world at that moment. There was no one in the world. I checked, no one in the world was happier than him, and

1:11:40No one. He was so happy, he was mamash dancing. You guys think, "This guy, quit. Six months, one daf, even I can do better." Leibel is happier than ever. But guess what? You're not the only ones who thought he should quit. At that time, Purim came, and the guys had a couple of drinks. One of the guys from the yeshiva had a little bit too many. And he says to Leibel, Leibel was still happy, Purim, he finished his daf Gemara, the guy feels like he's in Gan Eden. One of the guys that had a few drinks says, "Leibel, think about it. How many shoes could you have put together in six months? How many suits could you have sewn in six months? How many fields could you have cleaned up to collect all the crops in six months? So much stuff you could have done in six months."

1:12:42Instead, what'd you do? One daf Gemara? Come on, Leibel. We'd finish a daf every few minutes. One daf Gemara in six months. Maybe it should be shoes or suits or something. As soon as those words of venom left his mouth, the whole room, hundreds and hundreds of boys, Quieted, everyone knew he crossed the line, including the guy that said it. Leibel started crying hysterically. He stood up with tears running down his face. He says, "Look how much I love you." Six months I toiled. Six months I'm breaking my head to learn one daf Gemara, and baruch Hashem, I learned it. I learned a daf Gemara. I learned one daf Gemara. I had the zechut to learn the living Torah that can never be taken away from me.

1:14:07They don't know what a daf Gemara is because they think it's just a daf, just another page. I know, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, this makes me part of the living Torah for eternity. No matter what I have to go through, I will continue learning. Thank you, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, for never making me a shoemaker or a suit maker or some millionaire that had tons and tons of money but not a single daf Gemara. Thank you, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, for giving me the opportunity to learn one daf Gemara. And he's saying this while he's crying hysterically. And the entire room of yeshiva boys are listening to his sicha. Finally, understand what it actually means to learn one daf of the Living Torah. One of the boys that said the story says he continued following the rebbe to see what would happen. He says his mind never opened up miraculously to become the greatest sage of the generation, but...

1:15:20His commitment to Torah, his love of Torah, didn't allow him to ever give up for a moment, and eventually, he completed the entire Shas and the entire Shulchan Aruch. He wrote commentary on the entire Shas and the entire Shulchan Aruch. Why? He knew the value of one page in the Living Torah. We know what the value is, like Leibowitz did. This is not 5,000 years ago, rabotai. I'm talking about a couple of hundred years ago. Now, David HaMelech Said that if you want to fight your enemies, all you got to do is learn one daf Gemara, two daf Gemara, anything. Learn. Although Leibowitz didn't learn the entire Shas, he knew this. He knew that the only enemy, the only enemy he has is the yetzer hara (evil inclination).

1:16:37He's not good enough. He doesn't know enough. He's not smart enough. He's not rich enough. He's not this enough, and he's not that enough, and he's tired, and he's hungry, and all the excuses that every single one of us have. Yes, somebody, did you learn today? I'll get to it later. When's later? Next week? Next week comes. Oh, you're still here. Oh. we don't know the value of learning Torah yet. We think it's just stories. If a person wants to get rid of their problems, they must learn Torah, not only because Hashem commanded it, but also because it's really the only cure to your problems. You can try going to the doctor You could try going to the lawyer. You could try going to the accountant. You could try going to some counselor that's going to tell you to get married or get divorced or do both at the same time but just don't tell anyone. You know, you could try to go to all these different consultants. The reality is, the Torah is the cure for everything, every cancer that exists, if we only believed it and acted like we do. When you see

1:18:00videos of Chachamim learning or you hear the stories like I told you today so far of Rav Ovadia or some of the other Chachamim, some of this stuff seems like it's impossible. It's only impossible if you do not believe that the value of one daf Gemara makes you connected to the living Torah for eternity. As long as you don't believe that you learning one time is gonna make you part of the Torah for eternity, it's gonna be difficult. But if you believe 100% that you become one with the Torah, you become a part of the Torah when you learn it, when you toil over it, seriously—not just read a few commentaries and go to sleep—you really toil over it and understand what's going on. You break a sweat or two. And now you're going to become part of the Torah? All of a sudden, it doesn't become as hard. You start falling in love with the Torah, but this transition phase may take a few months, may even take a few years. It depends on your willpower, it depends on how much you try to fall in love with the Torah. But anyone who toils over Torah eventually wins. There's even a Mishnah in Pirkei Avot about it. The Mishnah in Pirkei Avot says, Rabbi Yonatan says,

1:19:25Whoever fulfills the Torah despite poverty will ultimately fulfill it in wealth. So, there are a few commentaries on this Mishnah. We did a whole lecture about it in our Mussar Pirkei Avot series. First and foremost, this Mishnah tells you the basic pshat. Whether you're rich or poor, you're obligated to learn Torah. Whether you have problems or you don't have problems, you're obligated to learn Torah. But needless to say, if you learn Torah despite your problems, despite problems such as even poverty, eventually part of the reward will be that you will be able to learn when you're rich too. Meaning, Hashem will reward you for learning through poverty. One of the famous examples, out of many, is Rabbi Ovadia himself. When he first started, when he first got married, their entire house with the kids was one room. Some talmid chacham came to visit him, wanting to talk Torah with him.

1:20:33He said we were sitting there talking Torah. The house was one room. I was wondering where his family was. For an hour and a half, we're talking. After an hour and a half, I heard a baby crying. I was looking, but there was nothing else. There were no bathrooms. There was no kitchen. There was nothing. Just one room. And I'm hearing crying, and eventually, I realized it's under the table. The Rebbetzin and the kids were under the table while Rabbi Ovadia was having a Torah meeting. That's how poor they were, but that's how committed they were too. Before he left us in this world as yetomim, as orphans, Baruch Hashem, he wasn't missing anything. Not that he cared for it, but nonetheless, Baruch Hashem, he had plenty. And many other tzaddikim also did. Rabbi Akiva, his wife, when he was learning for 24 years, sold her hair so she could eat. Eventually, Rabbi Akiva became the richest man in the world. The Gemara says he got his wealth from three different places.

1:21:35His father-in-law, Kalba Savua, was one of the sources of his wealth, but not the only source. He bought his wife a crown of Yerushalayim. But not a crown that says "Yerushalayim" like some people's belt says "Gucci." It was a crown with diamonds that actually depicted the map of Yerushalayim—something like we've never seen before. Now, so the pshat of the Gemara is that... Mishnah is someone that fulfills the Torah out of poverty and doesn't make excuses. "I don't have any money. I have to get two jobs. I can't learn. Three jobs. I can't learn." No, you find a way to learn. On the way to work, back to work, you wake up early, you go to sleep late. Whatever you got to do, you learn. Eventually, you'll learn the same beautiful Torah when you're rich, too. But there's also...

1:22:36other things we can learn from it. It's a famous story of a meeting between two G'dolei HaDor, Rav Aharon Kotler and Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner, the Pachad Yitzchak. Rav Aharon Kotler, Lakewood, anyone that knows the name knows the two go together. And one time they met. And as they're exchanging words of Torah and there are people there, it's wonderful to see two G'dolim just sitting next to each other, let alone speaking Torah. You see what their minds think. And Rav Hutner says, you know, this Mishnah says that anyone who fulfills the Torah from poverty is eventually going to be merited to fulfill the Torah from wealth. He says the Gemara Masechet Niddah, HaMasechet Nedarim

1:23:46says that really there's no such thing as poverty other than poverty of Torah knowledge. Meaning, who cares about how much money you have? The question is how much Torah you have. Because even if you have a lot of money, in Shamayim you arrive poor. You have no money there. Even if you have no money over here, over there you may arrive rich if you have a lot of Torah. So the only poverty that's considered in Shamayim is poverty of Torah. So Rabbeinu Yona says, the Pachad Yitzchak says, anyone that learns Torah, when it's difficult for him, when his brain is undeveloped, he's still like a little embryo. He's like a simpleton. Not such a smart, smart guy. It's hard for him to read. He doesn't even know Hebrew yet. He doesn't know Aramaic. In fact, he barely even knows English, even though it's his first language. He's having a hard time understanding who's Rava, who's Abaye, even though he sees them on every page. He continues. He breaks his head. Eventually, his reward is that he's going to be a Talmid Chacham. He's going to see. He's going to see a lot of chidushim the world has never seen before. As he's saying this basic Torah, you see the Gadol HaDor, Rabbi Aharon Kotler,

1:25:13start crying hysterically. Hysterically and uncontrollably. He's an old man. People started getting scared for the Rav. It's not Tishah B'Av. Okay, the Beit HaMikdash was destroyed, but not right this second. Why is the Rav crying? No one can stop him. He's crying and crying and crying. Everyone's in shock. Why is he crying so much? Eventually, they give him a cup of cold water. Kvod HaRav, here, here, please relax, relax. He finally calms down. And Rav Hutner asks him, Kvod HaRav, did I offend the Rav? Did I say something to offend the Rav? He says, no, no, chas v'shalom. What you said, that's the real pshat. That's the real meaning of this Mishna. That's the real meaning of this Mishnah, but what can I do?

1:26:16HaKadosh Baruch Hu made me a genius. I was born a genius. So learning Torah was never difficult for me. Everything is easy. I learned this. I learned as much as I want. It was never difficult for me. And I'm crying. Just imagine, HaKadosh Baruch Hu made me stupid. How much more Torah I could bring to the world. How many chiddushim I would discover today as a result of learning Torah that I cannot discover because HaKadosh Baruch Hu made me so smart. Today, somebody has a high IQ, and they walk around with their chest puffed up like they rediscovered the earth. The guy knows a few big words, and he thinks, "Talk to me with a certain level of respect." What do you mean? I finished the Shas, I finished this, I finished that, I finished going to the bathroom, I need respect, something. The Gadol HaDor understood. Technically, yes, Chazak U'Baruch, you learned a lot of Torah. But if you really love Torah, if you really love Torah, you love the fight too. You love the fight. Now, if a person wants to inherit the crown of Torah, there are certain benefits that come with it.

1:27:45One, in every shiur, we always mention something to do with reward and punishment. Not that I have some strange desire or fascination with punishment, chas v'shalom, but because it has to do with Torah. This is Torah, and we need to learn it. Especially since, unfortunately, today it's not very common to hear about it. But even in a shiur like this, where we learn about the value of Torah, we also can learn a way out of the punishment. Now, anyone who watched our shiur about Gehenom or any one of the other shiurim that talk about different punishments always asks, "How do I get out of this situation? How do I get myself away from it?" So... The Chachamim say that anyone that keeps Shabbat, anyone that observes Shabbat, even if he sinned other sins, on Shabbat he will not suffer Gehenom. They'll take him out of Gehenom. That's already a plus. Because even if he does other sins, at least one day a week he's not gonna have Gehenom. But the Chafetz Chaim gives a chiddush. The Chafetz Chaim says,

1:29:14Even the preparations, the preparations for Shabbat, count as keeping Shabbat. Meaning, if you were cooking and cleaning for Shabbat for a few hours, that's also counted as part of your Shabbat keeping. So now, let's say your Shabbat is 25 hours and... Preparing, cooking, and cleaning took you five or six hours. Now, instead of only gaining from the 25 hours, it's 30 hours. If you're like Beit Shammai, if you follow Shammai, you start preparing for Shabbat on Sunday. As soon as Motza'ei Shabbat comes, you're already looking for a cow to slaughter, searching for the best fish, looking for something good. Your preparation for Shabbat all week makes your week different because of the preparation for Shabbat. One of the talmidim of the Chafetz Chaim, Rav Steinman, we just lost him just a few years ago, gives an extraordinary chiddush on the Chafetz Chaim. He says, learning Hilchot Shabbat is preparation for Shabbat. It's not just the cooking and cleaning and you made the cake and you baked the cookies.

1:30:36and you made the cholent, and you made schnitzel, and you made all the soup, and it's all delicious. That's good. But if you learned Hilchot Shabbat on Monday for an hour, on Tuesday for a half hour, on Wednesday for three hours, throughout the whole week, you're learning Hilchot Shabbat. Why? Because you're preparing your neshamah. For Shabbat, that's like you're keeping Shabbat. That gets removed from anything that has to go over there. Alone, that alone, that alone already could get us out of a lot of problems that we create for ourselves. Obviously, if we do teshuvah the whole week, we're not going to have any time in Gehinnom. But this again, this is like a free ticket. This is like a free ticket that you go up to Shamayim and say, did you use the free ticket? Oh, I forgot. The Beit Din of Shamayim, I'm all going to do at the same time. We tried to get you out of it. We tried. You didn't want to get yourself out of it. Halachot Shabbat. Every Jew has to learn Halachot Shabbat. The Chafetz Chaim in the beginning of Mishnah Berurah says, anyone who does not learn Halachot Shabbat is definitely violating Shabbat. Yeah, but I was born religious. Good for you. You're violating Shabbat if you're not learning Halachot Shabbat. Yeah, but I learned it already. When?

1:31:49Ah, you know, a few years ago. Okay, so you have to learn it again. How many times? Your whole life. Why? Because there are always things that you're going to forget. There are always things that get renewed with different circumstances. So, when you learn Torah, you also get the benefit of literally getting yourself out of a situation that you got yourself into in the first place. Getting yourself removed from any type of punishment that we're all so scared of. The last thing I can tell you... is that Torah also teaches a person how to live. Many people spend countless, countless thousands and thousands of dollars going to different types of therapists, different types of coaches to tell them how to live, how to be married, how to stay divorced, how to raise kids, how to not have kids, how to treat their dog,

1:32:50to convince someone not to have a dog. All types of shtuyot that people ask and pay people to advise them on how to do, how to work. Well, you go to work and you do what they tell you. Oh, but it's hard for me and they're not talking to me the right way. They're not treating me the right way. Okay, either get a better job or do better at your job so they treat you better. Pick one. Whatever is easier. I The key is, rabotai, we spend countless, countless dollars to be told things that we really should know to begin with. But worse than all of it is that it's available for free inside the Torah. The Torah tells us how to live, how to be married, how to be a good husband, how to be a good wife. A couple that wants a good life has to learn Torah together. At least 15 minutes, 20 minutes, a half-hour a day, listen to a shiur together. Instead of watching this avodah zarah called television, watch a shiur Torah. Instead of seeing some immodest woman on TV who gets paid 20 million dollars for taking her clothes off, watch a shiur Torah and get yourself Olam HaBa instead of Gehinnom.

1:34:08Instead of wasting your mind listening to a bunch of guys hitting each other on a football field, baseball field, or hockey rink, listen to a shiur Torah. You can listen to a shiur Torah, you can learn about something that's going to help your marriage, help your life, help your kids, help a lot of things, and not have to go to marriage counselors after you both pretty much want to get a divorce. Now, You could see how the tzaddikim that lived among us a year ago, two years ago, still do, how they lived, how their shalom bayit was. One of the famous shalom bayit lessons that we can learn is from one of the chassidim, Rav Sheinberg. Rav Chaim Pinchas Sheinberg, alav ha-shalom. He was an extraordinary talmid chacham and a huge tzaddik. He used to wear 80 tzitziot. 80. I have to convince people by giving them tzitziot for free to wear one. He would wear 80 tzitziot from tzemel, from wool. Now in the winter, cold, if it's in New York, maybe you're going to survive and not melt. And nachat, son of Yerushalayim, of Israel, shemirat HaShem. 80 tzitziot, rabotai.

1:35:32Now, aside from his tzidkut, his righteousness, his huge knowledge of Torah, Rav Sheinberg also was very well known for his kavod for his rabbanit, for his wife. How much kavod he would give her. Every time he had a lot of talmidim, and all of these talmidim, his yeshiva, They would have simchot, they would have bar mitzvahs, bat mitzvahs, you know, weddings, all types of things. And they would invite the Rav to come, and he would come to see his students get married. So literally, on a regular basis, he would have simchot every day, every day. And he would never ever come home without bringing a nice present for the Rabbanit from the simcha. Like us, sometimes you go to see how you forget your wife before you forget your husband. One time a woman called me. She goes, "Listen, is it a problem that my husband is sitting shiva for his father, but I'm on vacation in Florida? Do you think that's a problem?" I said, "That depends. When did you go? Did you go before he died or after he died?" She was like, "No, no, he died two days ago. I just went today."

1:36:52said, "Well, divorce is in your future. Not prophecy, though." She goes on vacation while her husband is sitting shiva. Why? Because she planned it with her girlfriends. She planned it with her girlfriends. Shimmy of him—a wife going on vacation without her husband, shimmy of him—a husband going on vacation without his wife, or shimmy of him. Where do we learn this from? A cookie in a Chinese store? Where do people learn how to be husband and wife? So Rav Scheinberg, alav ha-shalom, every single time he would have a simcha, he would make a nice plate, all types of things, but he would arrive mamash like he was prepared from heaven. He would arrive home, he would say, Rabbanit, chashavti aleich, I thought about you. We're not talking about when they were 25 or 70 years old; every single time, for all the years, for every simcha, he would come back and say, "Rabbanit, I thought about you," even when she couldn't eat anymore. She was sick and couldn't eat, but he still thought about her. One time, the driver drove away with the plate inside. He refused to go inside the house until they found the driver and...

1:38:16They had to go find the driver, go to his house in the middle of the night, get him to open the car, get the plate, then give it to the rabbi, so then he could go into the house. Why? Rabbanit, I thought about you. I thought about you. Not because she needed to eat the food, but because he wanted her to know she was always on his mind. Torah teaches you how to be a husband. If you don't have Torah, you have no clue how to be a husband. It's not a coincidence that the divorce rate is over 80% in Western society. It's not a coincidence. It's not a coincidence that the divorce rate is going higher and higher to the extent where you pretty much have almost as big of a chance of winning the lotto twice than actually having a marriage that will last a lifetime. People don't have Torah, huh? They have no idea how to be husbands, how to be wives. to be parents, how to be anything. The Torah is something that will teach you how to be a husband

1:39:25how to be a son, how to be a daughter, how to be a wife, how to be a human being, how to care about other people, how not to be one of these terrible, terrible, soulless people that walk next to a homeless person that's struggling, and instead of giving him a helping hand, you mock him or ignore him, better yet. The Torah will teach you how to be a human being. You see somebody struggling, You could help. If you can't, you can't, but in reality, most people can; they just don't want to. There's no one to blame. Like some people say, "Rabbi, I'm gonna donate once I get paid in three months. I have a big deal going on. Then I'm gonna donate." Well, for CDs, you want CDs? You know what happens with those people? They never donate. Why? You don't donate when you have little, that means you don't want to donate, so you definitely won't donate when you have a lot. But the ones that donate when they have little, guess what? They always donate. The amounts increase. Their income increases because they start getting more, but guess what? Their donations also increase. Why? Because they really want to do it. Because they really care about other people. Because they really care about Torah. They value the Torah. But I... I

1:40:50It's time that we actually start valuing the Torah and not just tell people, "Yeah, yeah, I keep Torah and mitzvot. I keep it." What do you keep it? In the closet? In the bank? Where do you keep it? Torah is not for us to just simply read, Rabotai. The Torah is for us to live. And that's why David HaMelech says to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, "One day in Your courtyards is better than a thousand elsewhere." Rashi says one day in a Beit Midrash learning Torah is better than a thousand in different places that I would choose myself. Meaning, that's not Torah. But in order to have that, Rabotai, we have to learn, we have to fulfill, we have to work on ourselves. We have to sometimes learn certain things that are questioning our own behavior. putting us under the scrutiny, putting us under the heat because it's not comfortable, pushing us to our limits because we always think we're doing enough. The truth is, if you're still alive, you're not doing enough. This is the main lesson that the Torah is teaching us every single day: to let us know that whatever we're doing, it may be good, it may be bad, but either way, it's not enough. You could do more, you could learn more, and

1:42:19You can give more. There are countless Jews in the world that do not know who Abba is. As Rabbi Lapian said to us earlier, he told us, people that do not know who Abba is are surely a short distance from death. Many of them are already spiritually dead. Many people watch the shiurim, love the shiurim. The shiurim help them. but they keep the light to themselves. They don't share the shiurim. If every single person that watches the shiurim shares it with 50 people, not only will the views increase, but the teshuva would increase. If every single person takes a few dollars they have in their pocket, takes a few dollars from their bank account, and Actually donate so we could actually do more. Many more people will get the zechut, many more people will do teshuva, and I will not get as many people calling me, telling me my daughter or my son is about to marry a goy. Every day that I'm awake, Baruch Hashem, Baruch Hashem, why? Because Baruch Hashem that I'm awake, I can help people. But unfortunately, I have a lot of people to help, new ones every day, every day, guys, and...

1:43:43There's not enough time in a day. Someone told me, "Listen, how come you don't do more?" I said, "I don't have enough time to do what I'm doing." He said, "Well, now maybe you could open the yeshiva and do this and do this and do this." I said, "Yeah, for sure I can do it. Just give me a bunch of assistants to do what I'm doing now." "Why can't you get an assistant?" For the same reason I can't get a yeshiva for $10 million. Both of them are just as pricey. You have to have help to do this. If you're benefiting from these shiurim, you have to reach into your pocket and start helping. Why? Because the reality is, you are not doing kiruv yourself most of the time, or all the time. Somebody has to do it for you. If that person is me, then help me. You're not paying my bills, trust me. Somebody else is paying my bills. HaKadosh Baruch Hu is paying my bills. But you're helping yourself.

1:44:44Be'ezrat Hashem is not an organization that makes people millionaires as far as dollars. But it helps people do teshuva. Many people simply benefit, but they keep the light to themselves. Chanukah is a time that people have to understand there are literally millions and millions of Jews who do not know who HaKadosh Baruch Hu is. How are we gonna reach them? By ourselves? We're going to reach them by ourselves, okay? So Shlomi is going to make another movie, and Yeshaya is going to make some more music, and Reuven is going to publicize it all over the world. The team is going to put translations on it, and the people are going to put it on Facebook. Oh, it's all good. Okay, so far what can we do? We can reach two million hours a month. Good. What about the other 15 million people? What do you want to do about them? Just let them all go to Gehinnom? And then after we finish them, what do you want to do about the other 8 billion people? You want to let all of them go to Gehinnom? And you have a big bank account? No, but I don't have a big bank account. I only have $10,000 in my account. Okay. Can you afford 1%? $100? $50? I never ask for money because it's uncomfortable for me. Why? I'm used to working for $3,000 an hour. I don't need your $100. I'm used to working for $3,000 an hour. This is embarrassing for me.

1:46:09But the reality is, Rabotai, people keep telling me, I don't have any place to send my kids to school. I said, why? I can't afford it. I said, well, you know what? If I had my yeshiva, you'd be able to afford it. Why? I'd just pay for it. Because no kid is allowed to be rejected if he wants to go learn in yeshiva, with or without money. Another person tells me, I wanted to go to yeshiva, and they rejected me. I said, why? He said, they said I wasn't religious enough. I said, that's the job of the yeshiva, to make you religious enough. If I had a yeshiva, then guess what? You'd be religious enough. Why? Because we would make you religious enough. Countless boys that go to yeshiva come to me crying and say, "I'm addicted." What are you addicted to? Crack cocaine? Marijuana? No, I'm addicted to gambling. I said, "I'm trying to print a few hundred thousand CDs. Hopefully, it's going to help more people before the next Holocaust happens." How are we going to pay for it? Only HaKadosh Baruch Hu knows. But even if we get a couple of hundred thousand printed, at best, it'll help a couple hundred thousand people. What about the other 15 million? What about the other 8 billion? How are we going to get to them? Rabotai, you can always say, "Yeah, Hashem will help, Hashem will help." But that's only for your own problems.

1:47:34Your problems, you're allowed to say Hashem Ya'azor. Other people's problems, Klal Yisrael's problems, that's your problem. You have to pay for it. That's the rule in the Torah. That's what Chazal says. That's what Rabbi Yisrael Salanter says. Your problems, you can say as much as you want, Be'ezrat Hashem. But if you don't want to have problems in your own house, start worrying about Klal Yisrael. Start worrying about other people's problems. Not just about how big your stomach is on Shabbat, not just about what's the next car you're gonna buy, or the next house, or the next kitchen. It's time that people understand without kiruv, there simply will not be any more Jews, chas v'shalom. Forget about the division between religious and ba'alei teshuva and non-religious. There's simply not gonna be anyone that... Because if we're not going to increase the teshuva in the world, this is simply going to become a plague that's going to eat us alive. And the only thing that's going to save us is Yad Hashem. And I already told you guys many times, Yad Hashem is not gentle. It comes in the form of Holocausts and inquisitions and destructions of the Beit HaMikdash.

1:48:53But if we finally use our minds and use them to activate our hands into our pockets to help the best we can, at the very least we're doing our share. At the very least we're doing our share. And no, you're not going to get any kavod from me for doing your share. You get kavod from Hashem. You don't need kavod from me. You don't need a special letter from me saying how amazing of a human being you are. You need HaKadosh Baruch Hu to say that. It's much more valuable. This is what each and every single person needs to take. Why? Because the reality is, Rabotai, to earn Torah is not just about learning it. So let's say today we got chizuk for learning it. Now we have to get chizuk for fulfilling it. The first rule of fulfilling it is Kol Yisrael arevim zeh lazeh. All of Am Yisrael are responsible for each other. All of Am Yisrael are responsible for each other. You have right now almost 15 million Jews in the world today, where the majority of them are guaranteed not good news if they do not do teshuva. How would you like to go to the Beit Din of Shamayim if they show you your Gan Eden because you kept Torah and Mitzvot, but then they show you 15 million Jews, Hashem yerachem. You're gonna be happy in Gan Eden by yourself?

1:50:22Your cousin, your aunt, your uncle, your mother, your son, your daughter, all marrying goyim, goyot, pray to a rabbi, pray to a monk, pray to a table, pray to all types of things except HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Why do you think they're going to Gan Eden for that? Guess what? If we don't help them, HaKadosh Baruch Hu has to, and that's going to be very painful. I'm tired of religious people calling me and asking me for help, and they're not helping themselves. I'm tired of non-religious people asking me for help, and they're not helping themselves. How can you help yourself? Help Klal Yisrael. Start with learning. Seriously. Every shiur, watch it. Every shiur, watch it. Why? It's going to give you chizuk. You need it. I need it. All of us need it. If I don't say the shiur, if I skip a shiur, I can tell you myself, if I don't do a shiur, I already get weaker. If I miss one shiur a week, or if the shiur gets a little shorter, and it's not firing, I get weaker. And I'm the one speaking the shiur.

1:51:37You need this shiur. You need this Torah. Why? You can't get it anywhere else. What do you have? One, two, three other speakers in the world that speak English like this and say emet, Rav Mizrachi, God bless him. How many more? What else do you have? A couple of other ones that randomly do strong shiurim. Sometimes this, sometimes that. Okay, Baruch Hashem. At least they do that. The rest of the people that speak Torah, what do they speak? Tell you to feel good about all the sins that you're doing. Or like this kofer that I've been having an argument with for the last week, telling you there's no such thing as suffering, there's no such thing as punishment. He's a Rosh Yeshiva. He doesn't believe in punishment. He also doesn't understand; halacha says you cannot count him in a minyan. Rosh Yeshiva, you cannot count him in a minyan. He's a Rosh Yeshiva. You cannot count him in a minyan. He's not considered a Jew. He's considered a heretic 100%. Does not believe in punishment. That's one of the 13 ikarim. Rabotai, if we have so many problems in Klal Yisrael, it's not going to solve itself. Each one of us has to get stronger with learning. And the reason why is because we have to start learning enough so we can appreciate the Torah. And then hopefully, hopefully, that will make our hearts turn on to the point where we want to share it.

1:53:04want to be a speaker? Be a speaker. You want to do my job? Do it. I need a million of you. He needs 10 million of you. You want to speak? Speak, as long as you speak the truth. It's not a monopoly in this job. I'll even help you if you speak emet. You know what you're doing? No problem. But who wants to do this? Few and far in between. A lot of people say, "Yeah, I want to be a speaker. I want to be a speaker." I said, "Yeah, you know what the salary is?" "No." "How much?" "Zero." how do you eat? I said, "Hashem." "No, be'emet?" "Yeah, exactly, be'emet, Hashem." "Oh, you have savings?" I said, "Yeah, exactly, zero." "So how do you pay the rent?" "I don't know, it shows up. Hashem has mercy on me every month, and He sends me some chasid who gives me a few dollars, and somehow at the end of the month, we pay the bills. People think because they donate a thousand, two thousand, five thousand that we're living large or something." I'm the only employee in Be'ezrat Hashem who doesn't get a salary. I'm not doing, I'm not telling you all of this to give myself any kavod or anything. I'm simply explaining to you, you need to help yourself. How? First, you have to learn Torah. Second, you have to fulfill it by caring about Klal Yisrael. The vast majority of Klal Yisrael simply do not know who Abba is.

1:54:29And unless we start sharing the message on a much larger scale, we need an advertising budget, not just the free stuff we've been doing for five years, but actually have an advertising budget to make sure each lecture reaches at least 10% of Klal Yisrael. Every lecture should reach at least a million and a half people. Every lecture gets to the entire Klal Yisrael to just make sure that this information is disseminated in every corner of the world. Every lecture has the right amount of crowd. Every event has the right amount of people. Every person that wants to go to yeshiva has money to pay for it. Every person that's simply hungry has food, both spiritually and physically. You have to help people. You can't just help yourself your whole life. And if you don't have enough to even help yourself, you're struggling with yourself, okay, no problem. You could share the lectures for free. You probably know one or two people that have a few dollars, that have a good job, that get paid $100,000 a year or more, right? Okay, ask them to donate. Ask them to listen to this shiur. Either way, the point is, be creative to do something for Klal Yisrael. And the reason why is this. Eventually,

1:55:43All of us are going to see HaKadosh Baruch Hu. And HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to ask us, what did you do for Me? If you're going to say, I learned Torah, He's going to say, no. You learned Torah for you. You learned Torah so you can get to Gan Eden. You learned Torah so you can learn how to be a husband. You learned Torah so you know how to be a daughter. You learn Torah so you can know how to be a son, or a wife, or a businessman, or an honest person, or ethical, and so on. That's what you learn Torah for. Not for Me. Okay, I did mitzvot. Again, not for Me, Hashem is going to tell you. Mitzvot taught you patience, taught you ethics, taught you good stuff. Plus, it gave your life a purpose. So it's not for Me. What else did you do? I made money, definitely not for Hashem. I had kids, definitely not for Hashem. I got married, not for Hashem. The only thing you can do for Hashem is bring His children back home. That's netzach for Hashem.

1:57:01You help His children get chizuk so they don't go off the derech. You help Hashem's children to get on the derech in general because they never learned it. You help people get closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. That's for Hashem. And if you do something for Hashem, levu alai v'ani porea, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says. Borrow on My account and I'll pay. Borrow on My account for Shabbat and I'll pay. Borrow on My account to do kiruv and I'll pay. Borrow on My account, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, and I'll pay. Whatever you do for Me, I'll pay cash. No problem. If a person learns enough Torah, he'll believe what I just said 100%. And he'll do whatever is necessary to do kiruv, to help Am Yisrael do teshuva. This gives us the chizuk that we all need. to not only help ourselves value the Torah, learn the Torah, but also implement the Torah by doing kiruv day and night to get literally all of Am Yisrael to do teshuva. Even the wicked ones that we don't like, Be'ezrat Hashem, they become the righteous ones we love. Baruch Adonai le'olam, amen ve'amen.