The Footsteps Of Tzadikim - MUSSAR Iggeret HaRAMBAN (22)

0:15So, our series on the Ramban continues. We have a, Baruch Hashem, Little by little, we're learning more and more about what HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants from us. Now, how do we know that the Chachamim are the ones that have the instructions of what HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants? Maybe you know better. Maybe I know better. Maybe some guy off the street knows better what Hashem wants. Every time people see one of our videos and they don't like what they hear, whether it's because we say that a Mechalel Shabbat, according to Hashem, is someone that's considered a goy, or if a person wastes seed, whether it's by himself or with a girlfriend because he's not married, and every time they're together it's in essence wasting seed, then he's going to go to Gehenom forever and never come out unless he does teshuva. You know, things like that make people's skin crawl.

1:43And it makes them upset if they're sinners. If they're tzaddikim, it doesn't upset them. You're never gonna see Rav Chaim Kanievsky get upset if somebody says that. You're never gonna see him upset. You're never gonna see Rav Ovadia Yosef get upset if somebody says, you know, if somebody embarrasses another Jew in public, he has no share in the World to Come. You're never gonna see that. Why? He doesn't do stuff like that. So if you're not a criminal, don't get upset at what who says. Who gets upset? The criminal. Who are the people that don't like smoking laws? People that smoke. The non-smokers don't care if they say from now on you have to be 87 to smoke cigarettes. All the people that don't smoke are not going to care less. 87, 97, you should make it illegal completely. But the guys that are smoking, whether they're 13 years old, or they're 30 years old, or they're 80 years old, say, hey, you ruined my thing. I got something going on over here. What are you doing? What is this law? I don't like it. It's prejudice. Racist. This. Why? Because you're a criminal. You are the one that they're talking about. So it's very, very important for us to know that,

3:00when it comes to Torah, sometimes people make comments, and one of the most popular comments that people make when they are the criminal, when they're the ones that hear something that they don't like, is: "Who made you God? Who made you the messenger of God? Who made you the one that knows what God wants?" You know, one of those three versions: "How do you know what God wants that you're saying such and such?" Well, it's written in the Torah. Well, how do you know that's what it means? Maybe it means something else. Maybe when it says "death penalty," it really means he wins the lottery. And to Hashem, winning the lottery is so unimportant that it's like a death penalty. Maybe that's what it means. Sometimes people hear what they don't want to hear, and they try to manipulate the truth to soothe themselves. And they say, "Who's the one that made you know what the truth is?" The most popular one is saying, "Oh, you know, there are 70 faces to the Torah." This is one of the most commonly used terms that people use in order to justify their sheker, to justify their lies. Why? Because what people think when they're ignorant...

4:13That statement that there's 70 faces of the Torah to them means that you could pretty much do whatever you want. Why? Because whatever you're doing, there's like one of those 70 is your version, as if there are 70 interpretations of the Torah. Like there's a mechalel Shabbat 100%, there's a mechalel Shabbat 90%, there's a mechalel Shabbat 50%, and there's a guy that just does it once in a while, and then there's a guy that he doesn't really mean to, but he does it anyway, and so on and so forth. 70 faces to the Torah, as I've explained in previous lectures, simply means that there are 70 things that you can get from the same pasuk, from the same word, from the same paragraph, in the same parasha, and But those, all 70, all 70 of them, must meet the rules of the Torah. Meaning, it cannot simply be, you decide one day, oh, you know what, if it's already 70, let me throw in a 71st. What's the difference? 70, 71, no, who's counting? Oh, maybe minus, I don't know it, but maybe minus 70. Maybe minus 69, they've been waiting for me to be number 70. There are certain rules, and you're going to read in the Gemara,

5:27Chazal, who toiled and toiled over the Torah, mastered these rules and made sure that every single one of their interpretations, every single one of their commentaries, every single one of the halachot that they actually mentioned and that made it what we live by today, meets all of those rules—not some of the rules, but all of the rules. If your chiddush, if you will, your new insight and... new chiddush idea violates those rules, then it's simply toilet paper. That's all it's worth. It's not worth, it's not Torah. It's nice you're going to get rewarded for learning and trying, but you're not going to get rewarded for having a chiddush because it's not a chiddush. It's wrong. It's like handing over the test to your teacher and saying, "Oh teach, I finished the test." You come back the next day, you get the test: zero. What do you mean? You know how long I worked on this test? Teach, I was here for seven hours, like the Series 7 exam I took when I was in the investment business. Seven-hour test. I sat there for seven hours. The teacher gives me zero. He goes, "What's the matter with you? I filled out every question. Every single one of the questions I put C, C, C, C, C, C. Sometimes A, C, C, C. You know, I had a whole pattern. They evened all the things, looked like a face of a lion. What's the matter with you? How come you didn't give me a good grade?" Because all of your answers were wrong.

6:55That's why. The fact that you filled out the test doesn't make it anything. It means you did something, but you did something wrong. The point is, rabotai, that in order for us to know what HaKadosh Baruch Hu said, what HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants, we're obligated to go to our sages because they're the ones that have toiled day and night their entire lives. in order to find out and uncover what He said, you are not going to know more than them. While you may study an hour, two hours, five hours, or 10 hours a day, let's say for five years, 10 years, or 20 years, that's still going to be the equivalent of zero in comparison to someone that studied for 60 years. It's still going to be the equivalent of zero in comparison to someone that lived 800, 900 years ago, like the Rambam or the Ramban. They had different level brains. To such an extent that the smartest human being that lives today, pick whoever you want, whether he's a Jew or not, is closer to a monkey in intellect and mental power than he is to the Rambam.

8:17And that's the smartest person. The average person is obviously much less smart than the smartest person. If the smartest person, let's say, has an IQ of 200, like they say this certain mathematician has, and a few other geniuses in the world, let's say they have an IQ of 200 or 180 or 170, all these numbers that people like to publicize, no problem. That guy is like an ant next to the Rambam. Now, some people say, wait a minute, the Rambam didn't invent the rocket. The Rambam didn't have to invent the rocket to show us that he's a genius. Why? You look at his work. Anyone that spends enough time toiling and learning what the Rambam actually says will see that this is literally, it might as well, for us in our generation, it might as well be divine. It might as well be Hashem that actually wrote it. That's how much higher it is than anything else that's available to us in our world today. Including all the rocket scientists and the mathematicians and the chess players and so on. So with that being said, how do we know that someone is a chacham? Well, first and foremost, when somebody's a chacham, whether they like it or not, before they know it they get discovered by others through their work. They published books. They wrote certain answers, poskim, and certain halachot.

9:42did certain achievements in the Torah world that are unlike others. If, let's say for example, you're 35 years old and you just finished the Shas for the first time, you get a nice chazak u'baruch. But you're not considered a talmid chacham. You're not considered da'at Torah. You're considered a chacham, you're good. Chazak u'baruch, it's good for you. You did good. But to be da'at Torah, where you're going to be on the same level as Rav Chaim Kanievsky, you're far away from that. Far away. And that's no offense to any of us. I'm included in this equation also. It's just a reality. Why? Because Rav Kanievsky has been doing it his whole life and has gotten to the point, even from his childhood, that he learns the Torah to such an extent that he sees the world from the eyes of the Torah. I'll give you an example. Several decades ago, there was a very famous war in Israel called the Six-Day War. The Six-Day War was one of the biggest miracles that happened to modern-day Israel because the way it looked, it was going to be the next Holocaust. That's the way it looked; everyone agreed. "Okay, this is the end." How it all turned around was mamash Yad Hashem. There are so many amazing miraculous stories that happened during the Six-Day War that even sometimes people who were completely secular soldiers in the army became completely religious.

11:08Because of the miracles they saw, one guy was on his own in a tank trying to scout out to see what's going on. Suddenly, he sees a whole army of tanks, a whole line of tanks from the enemy, from the Arabs. One after another, it looks as if this is Gog and Magog. And he is by himself. Myself meaning even if he shoots really, really fast, best case scenario, he takes one tank down, maybe two, before they shoot him to pieces. Now, by the time his friends are gonna come, he's already gonna be in pieces squared. They're not only gonna be pieces, they're gonna run him over already. So there's no time to get help or run away. He's gonna get attention. What does he do? He says, "Shema Yisrael." It's Mesirat Nefesh. What else is going to help you now? He's not a religious guy, but it's Mesirat Nefesh. It's Mesirat Nefesh. I don't know. I don't know. And as you would have it, years ago, a radio channel was interrupted, and they broke into the Arabs' channel. Somebody said, "It's a trap. It's a trap. Turn around, turn around," and...

12:32Of those tanks that were coming, the husband, Shalom, conquered that side of Israel. Somebody was on the radio, on their radio, in Arabic. "It's a trap. It's a trap. Turn around. They have a bunch of others right behind this one guy." They turned around right away. Now, to this day, no one knows who said that. No one knows what they were talking about, because there was no trap. He was by himself. He was as defenseless as you are right now, sitting in front of me. Why? Yad Hashem. Now, when someone came to Rav Chaim Kanievsky, he was, at the time of the Six-Day War, much, much younger. He was a Novardok rabbi, learning in a kollel. Now, every so often you would hear a tank shoot. You know, a tank shoots, it's like an earthquake. And you know, buildings would shake, there would be a big sound, even louder than my voice. And,

13:32Continue learning. He's learning. Everybody else ran away. He's learning. His mother is learning. After you know, things are getting louder and louder, somebody ran in and said, "Rav, there are tanks outside." He says, "What's a tank? What's a tank? You've never heard what a tank is?" They said, "No, it's this big machine, a piece of it goes, oh." So, let's think: does it receive tumah or not? Let's think about it. Does it accept Tumah? Why? Because there's a halacha that at the time of the Beit HaMikdash, when Tumah and Tahara was applicable, today we cannot practice it, we don't have the Beit HaMikdash, where in essence everything is impure. But in those days you were able to purify things. With the Parah Adumah, or with the Mikveh, and so on. Now, there's a rule that Let's say, for example, a piece of wood cannot accept tumah, cannot accept impurity, unless it has a pocket or a hole inside. So, for example, if the piece of wood is, let's say, a broomstick, it cannot accept tumah; you can't make it impure. But if this broomstick is hollow or it has a pocket where you could put some stuff in, then it can accept tumah. And...

14:52Piece of metal, on the other hand, like a sword, can accept tumah even if it doesn't have a hollow. So since Avkhanetz didn't know what a tank was and what it's made of, he's asking, "So can this tank accept tumah? Can it or can't it accept tumah? What is it made out of?" Here it may sound silly to some people, but this is a simple explanation of how the mind of somebody works when all they do is learn Torah. They start seeing the world with the eyes of the Torah. Needless to say, they know what HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants much more than we do, when we don't even know what the mind of Torah is until today. So, the Ramban has been telling us over these last several months, step by step, sentence by sentence in his letter, the Iggeret HaRamban, exactly what HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants from us, exactly what HaKadosh Baruch Hu expects from us. In his letter that he wrote to his son, but in essence, to us as well.

16:05you learn this letter, and you see that each and every sentence in this letter is a lesson of its own. It's a shiur of its own. So the Ramban, who lived a little over 800 years ago, we got to part of the letter that says, the Ramban says, thus I shall explain to you how you may accustom yourself to the quality of humility, to walk with it always. Now although the Ramban has mentioned humility, has mentioned anger, has mentioned all types of character traits over these last few months in the letter, here he's telling us Now that you got the point to run away from anger, to run away from bad character traits and so on, let's work on the good traits. Let's work on the things that are going to make you into a tzaddik. If you want to be a tzaddik, this is what you have to do. If you want to be a rasha, ignore this. Press skip and go to something else. Go watch ducks crossing the road. Go watch somebody tell you that you're already a tzaddik even if you don't do something.

17:24Like someone told me today, there's a guy with a long beard, you know, telling people that when you die, HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to come to you and say, "I'm sorry to you." This is what he says. Our friend Manis. Our friend Manis. This is a chidush. He has a chidush. When you die, HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to come to you and say, "I'm sorry to you for putting you through such a tough life." This is what he says to people. Sh'tabach Shemo. I mean, you can't even—I don't know what hole you got this chidush out of. Which one did you get it from? Who told you this, Esav? Point is, Rabotai, there are simple instructions in the Torah, and none of them tell you that you're already a tzaddik by default. It doesn't matter who your father is. Esav—his grandfather was Avraham Avinu, and his father was Yitzchak Avinu. and his brother was Yaakov Avinu. Who has a better family than him? Nobody in this generation. Yet it says in the Torah, Hashem says, I hate him. So for all of those people that say, "Oh no, Hashem loves everyone," this is one pasuk out of many simple proofs in the Torah that Hashem does not love everyone. He clearly says He hates him.

18:54Why does He hate Esav? Why doesn't He say, "I hate Pharaoh"? Pharaoh killed millions of Jews. How come He doesn't say He hates Nebuchadnezzar? Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the Beit HaMikdash, killed millions of Jews, made the Holocaust look like child's play. How come there's no pasuk in the Torah that says that He hated anyone else? Pedophiles, or bank robbers—why doesn't He hate them? How come He hates Esav? Because Esav... had the perfect opportunity to be the biggest rabbi in the world. His grandfather was Avraham Avinu, his father was Yitzchak, and his brother was Yaakov. And the Midrash says that originally, when he was born, he had the same exact opportunities as his brother, Yaakov. Until they reached their teenage years, people could not tell them apart. They looked exactly the same. Both were in yeshiva, kollel; everything was the same. You couldn't tell the difference. If he showed up today, Esav would show up and look like a mekubal. People would start kissing his hand. He knew a lot of Torah.

20:08But he still went against it. Why? Because he loved his desires. He loved having girlfriends. He loved overeating. Like he tells his brother, "Give me this food, this red food, or else I'm going to die." What do you mean? You're going to die if you don't eat? What does that mean? It means, Rabotai, that he was so obsessed with materialism, it became him. And that's why it says, His name is Edom. Why? Because he ate something adom. He ate something red, so his name was Edom. So what does that mean? If you eat cholent, your name is now cholent? You eat schnitzel, your name now in Shamayim is schnitzel? Or shish kebab? What is the Torah trying to teach us? The Torah is teaching us that he became so connected to his desires for materialism, that's his name. Anything you want. You want a girl? No, no, I can't say no. I love her. Why do you love her? You just met her last week. No, no, I need her. What need her? You need air. What need her? No, no, I need this. I want this. Like a little baby. A little three-year-old kid says, no, buy me this, buy me this. What is it? I want this, the whole store. I need it. What need it? You want it. You don't need it. No. Esav, he needs it. And that forced him into Gehinom. Why? You follow all your desires. There's no other place than Gehinom.

21:35Esav had an opportunity to be your father and my father because the Midrash Me'am Loez says originally he was supposed to be a father to six out of the twelve tribes. Six were supposed to come from Esav and six were supposed to come from Yaakov. But because Esav lost his Olam HaBa, all twelve came from Yaakov. So, Esav had all the opportunities in the world to be a big tzaddik. he lost it. Now, when a person understands that HaKadosh Baruch Hu has certain rules, certain rules that are not advice or some type of recommendation, and there is a very heavy consequence if we don't follow it, things change. If you thought it's optional, if some type of bat kol (a heavenly voice) came out of the heavens right now, said, "From now on, you don't have to keep any mitzvot. You could drive on Shabbat, eat pork with cheese on Yom Kippur, do whatever you want. How many Jews in the world would continue keeping Shabbat, continue keeping kosher, continue doing what Hashem says? How many? How many of you? Ask yourself the question."

23:02How many of you would continue keeping Shabbat and mitzvot and everything? If you heard a voice, Hashem said it. Hashem said you don't have to keep it anymore. You can if you want to, but you don't have to. How many of us will really say, no, no, no, I like Shabbat so much, I have to keep it. I like kosher so much, I'm not going to eat bacon with cheese. I like this so much, no, no, I'm not going to make sense. How many of us are pretending to be such tzaddikim? Reality is about if you think that you're gonna continue keeping the laws. There's a very, very good chance you're lying to yourself. Why? Because we're already violating the laws now when we're trying to do them. Meaning that we don't have that real connection yet. Well, only a shiur number 828 in the series by the end of the series. It's tzaddikim. We don't have such a high connection. Esav had all the opportunities in the world, and he failed. Yaakov had all the opportunities in the world, and he passed. The Ramban says to us that if you want to be like Yaakov, you have to follow certain footsteps—the footsteps of tzaddikim. What are the footsteps of tzaddikim? He says clearly: You have to accustom yourself to

24:21to the most important quality of a tzaddik, the most important quality of a righteous man or woman, which is humility. Humility is something that is as rare as it is misunderstood. People think that if somebody walks around like this, that makes them humble, or if they talk with a really low voice, that makes them humble, or if they're really old, that makes them humble. Today, my goal is, be'ezrat Hashem, to try to explain a little bit more of what humility actually means. Humility is not self-consciousness. Meaning, a humble person doesn't think of himself as a loser. Moshe Rabbeinu didn't think of himself as a loser. Even though he says, "we're nothing," Moshe was a very capable person who was very strong and beat Og, Melech HaBashan. On top of it, he was very rich. He didn't pretend he was poor. He had the money. He didn't pretend he was weak. He fought wars. He didn't pretend he was stupid. He knew more Torah than anyone else in the world put together. So he didn't pretend like he didn't know these things, but he knew where they came from. That's the big difference. So humility is something that's often confused with a lack of confidence or something that people think of themselves as something lesser than what they really are.

25:45with a lack of confidence or something that people think of themselves as something lesser than what they really are. And that's actually the opposite of what HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants. HaKadosh Baruch Hu does not want you to think that you're less than what you are. He gave you a certain amount of power, a certain amount of ability, a certain amount of skills, and He wants you to use all of them to their fullest potential in a kosher way, in a way to serve Him. When the Rambam writes that a person has to walk with humility, he doesn't leave it at that. He says you have to do it always, meaning humility is not like a physical possession where once you buy it, you have it and Let's say, for example, you have a good job. You made a bunch of money. You make ten thousand dollars an hour, and you decide that you want to buy an expensive car. You want to buy a car for two million dollars. If you're making ten thousand dollars an hour, you can afford it. Unfortunately, most people that buy those cars can't afford them. That's why there's a very big secondary market for those cars. But anyway, let's say you make this money, you want to buy the car, and...

27:04This is your dream since you were a kid. You wanted a Ferrari, a Bentley, one of these fancy schmancy cars. You wanted a house with 18 rooms. You had all this stuff, and you have the money to buy all of it in cash. No mortgage, no loans, no nothing. You walk into the place with a bag of cash. Once you have the car... It's yours. You don't have to worry about it tomorrow, whether someone is taking it from you unless they stole it from you. You don't have to worry about buying it again tomorrow. You have it; you bought it already. It's yours. That's not how humility works. Humility, the Ramban tells us a secret, is something that you have to reacquire every single moment of your life. Hence the difficulty of achieving such a lofty level of being called a tzaddik. Now, the Mesilat Yesharim, the Ramchal, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, in his very famous sefer, Mesilat Yesharim, has a whole chapter about humility, chapter 22. And he says the following:

28:18In the beginning of chapter 22, when he talks about the virtue of humility, 300 years ago, he writes the following: "He says that through analysis, we will discover that humility is dependent both on thought and deed. Meaning, it's not just something that you can have simply by the way you walk, the way you dress, or even the way you speak." He says that before one can act in accordance with humility, one must have humility of thought. First and foremost, humility starts where? In your mind. How you think.

29:27Yourself, how you think about other people, how you treat other people, how you treat Hashem, how you treat yourself—it all starts with how you think. Looks can be very deceiving. I've seen people that have a beard five times bigger than mine. I'm talking about like a lion. Lion guys used to come to my office, French guy collecting money; he could have built a company from the money I gave him. This guy, after I did teshuva, I discovered is probably one of the worst people on earth. He told me himself, the worst thing I ever did was teshuva. And he's a rabbi. He told me, the worst thing I ever did was teshuva. Worst thing. My mom, when I was sick, I was in the hospital, I was getting surgeries almost on a monthly basis. I knew all the nurses by their first names. So I was in the hospital, and, uh, one of the times, you know, the guy would come to my office all the time, and my mom saw him, and she says, "Why don't you tell him something? Maybe he should do teshuva, keep Shabbat, keep something. He doesn't keep anything. You tell him something. Maybe, you know, Hashem wants him to do it. That's why he's getting sick." My mom, God bless her, was too scared to tell me stuff herself because I wouldn't listen anyway to her because she's my mom, and you know that's how kids are. They don't listen to their mom because we always think we're smarter than them.

30:53But where would she go to? She went to the rabbi. Why? What's the rabbi's job? To tell people the truth. So she tells this guy, why don't you tell him? He says, no, that's not my job. She says, no, tell him to keep Shabbat, not to go work on Wall Street. Tell him to go keep Shabbat. Tell him to keep kashrut. Tell him to do mitzvot. He says, no, that's not my job to tell him to do mitzvot. That's not my job to tell him to keep Shabbat. It's not my job. She goes, so what's your job? He goes, oh, my job is to tell him he's a good person. That's what he says. The job is to collect money. That's what the job is. So here we see that sometimes, even though someone can look very, very humble, and if you see his picture, you're going to think this guy must be a mekubal. Must be something special. But in reality, rasha merusha. And unfortunately, there are others like him. There are many tzaddikim in the world also. Or I should say, there are tzaddikim in the world. Not many. There are tzaddikim in the world. But unfortunately, there's a reason why the Gemara says in several places that Gehinnom is bigger than Gan Eden. More people go there than Gan Eden. So here you see that the Ramchal starts off with a clear explanation. Humility starts in your mind, not by how you look.

32:20of course, the looks have to match what's in your mind, but needless to say, if you look one way, it doesn't mean that you think another. But if you want to acquire humility, you have to start by psychologically thinking about things the opposite of how we currently think. And he says, one who attempts to be humble indeed without first cultivating an inner commitment towards humility, belongs to the class of pseudo-humble and evil people, mentioned above, whose hypocrisy is greater than any evil found in the world. So for all of those that are offended by me calling people Resha'im, you should know that Ramchal also called people Resha'im. Who are these people of Resha'im? They look one way and act another. Someone that acts like, you know, they pretend to be humble, but in reality is not. He says, he talks like that, but in reality he's a lion that eats people alive. All he cares about is the opposite of what Hashem cares about. The Ramchal says, this type of person, this hypocrite, is greater than any evil found in the world. Meaning, there's no other person that's more of a Rasha than him. Including the Mechalel Shabbat. Including the person that kills people. Physically kills them.

33:47This guy that's a hypocrite is worse than him. Why? Because the guy that kills people, you know he kills people. No one thought Hitler was a tzaddik. They worshipped him, they made him into some false god, but no one thought he was a tzaddik. They thought he was a hero, not a tzaddik. He explained clearly who he was and what he was. He explained clearly that he wants to kill every Jew in the world, and anyone that goes against him, and so on and so forth. Someone that's a hypocrite, someone that pretends to be a tzaddik, but in reality is not, the Ramchal says he's worse than Hitler. That's how bad it is to be a hypocrite according to Da'as Torah. Now, fake humility is easy to acquire; it takes about one second. Real humility takes a little longer.

34:48And I'm going to give you a few examples of what humility looks like. Because most people think very differently about humility, where they think that, you know, like I said before, self-consciousness, you think of yourself as a nothing, doesn't necessarily mean that. It means that and other things. Some time ago, there was a riot by the Ethiopians in Eretz Yisrael. It was all over the news. They killed an Ethiopian guy, unjustly and unfortunately. The Ethiopians did something that made matters much worse, started rioting all over Eretz Yisrael, closing down the roads, causing chaos no different than what happened here in America when Rodney King got beat up by the cops and it was caught on camera and other things. unjustly and unfortunately. The Ethiopians did something that made matters much worse, starting riots all over Eretz Yisrael, closing down the roads, causing chaos no different than what happened here in America when Rodney King got beaten up by the cops, and it was caught on camera and other things. Now, ...that time, since the roads were closed, traffic was difficult, to say the least. But during that time, there were actually two weddings, two religious weddings, and the two groups of people arrived. They both had the weddings in the same hall, at the same time, next door to each other. You know, the hall is really, really big, and it has a couple of rooms for a wedding hall, and...

36:17So all that separates the two is, in essence, like a door. Or, you know, there's like a hallway in between them. But it's a huge, enormous building. So the bride and groom arrive on both ends. The guests arrive on both ends. But the music, the band, only arrives for one. Only arrives for one. Why? Because the band for the other one is stuck in traffic because of the riots from the Ethiopians. What's happening over there? Can't get there. I'm sorry. We're stuck in dead traffic. It's not even moving. There are cops everywhere and a few people are in danger. It's such-and-such. There's just no chance of me coming now. One of the guys there, you know, one of these heavy man types of people, very friendly person, said, "Listen, one candle, one light of a candle, can light for many people. We don't, you know, it's okay. No problem. What do we do? It's okay. Some wires connected the speakers." to the band of the other guy also. So the same music that was playing for the couple whose band actually showed up, the same exact thing was playing for the people whose band didn't show up. So at least they have some music. At least they have some simcha. So anything they heard over there in room A, they heard in room B. And that was how the night started.

37:44they have the music, they have some simcha. The Chassidim are dancing. Of course, everything is separated like a wedding is supposed to be because they don't want any shedim to come with them at home. Because that's what happens when you go to mixed weddings, everyone is having a very good time. know, Steven and Miriam are dancing together. David and Samantha are also dancing together, and the shedim are also dancing with them. Then they go home with them, and they stay at their house too. They cause them to get divorced, and they cause them to hate each other. Sometimes, they even cause them to cheat on each other. All types of "fun" stuff. All types of "fun" stuff. That's what happens when you go to a mixed dancing wedding. Why? Because HaKadosh Baruch Hu cannot attend a mixed dancing wedding. So who has to come? Shedim come. Why do shedim come? Why are they so attracted to a mixed dance wedding? Don’t they have a better place in Shamayim? No. You just created them. When you did Giluy Arayot, which is a crime in the Torah that's a death penalty, it's better to die than to do it. It's one of the three cardinal sins. When you do it, what do you do? You create Shedim. And these Shedim are not going home. Why? You're their father. You're their mother. They want to go home. Abba, Ima, I'm coming home.

39:04No, that's where I live. I live with you. Until when? Oh, until you destroy me. How could I destroy you? You have to do teshuva. How could I do teshuva if I went to a mixed dancing wedding? How could I do teshuva if I danced in a mixed dancing wedding? How could I do teshuva if I was the DJ in a mixed dancing wedding? Same exact teshuva as you can do for everything else. First and foremost, learn the significance of the crime. Learn the Torah about it. You can watch several videos that I've made, and several videos that Rav Mizrachi made, and you pretty much know all the basics that you need to know. You have to say "I'm sorry" to HaKadosh Baruch Hu that you did such a horrible thing. Three, make sure that you commit to never ever going to a mixed dancing wedding, bar mitzvah, or any type of event. that even if it's your brother that's getting married, you already have it in your mind, it's better off for you to die than to attend it. That's what the Torah says.

40:09Once you do that, you're already 75% of the way there. How can you get the other quarter? The other quarter is a little harder. Why? It involves other people. You have to share this knowledge with other people. Other people that go to weddings, go to bar mitzvahs, go to all types of things, they don't know this stuff. They go, they dance, they have a good time, they don't realize that a lot of the problems that happen right away after these events are because of what they did. Most people don't do the calculation because they don't know, they don't care to know, they don't believe. We told one couple everything I just told you, showed the proofs, the Sefer Chasidim, Gemara, and many other sources. They didn't want to listen. I think I told you guys this: the wedding was fantastic—only for the guests, though. Why? Because the couple was on the verge of divorce for a few years. Every day they wanted to kill each other. Every single day. Their parents on both sides almost died.

41:12Right away, right after. One a couple of months later, one a few weeks later, one again nine months later, all types of horrible things happened to them, one after another, like a domino effect. Everybody's like, "Why is God doing this to me?" Like they're blaming God for their problems. So this, Rabotai, is very, very critical to know. Now, this wedding wasn't like that. The wedding of these Hasidim was like the wedding of Elhanan and Michal. Only HaKadosh Baruch Hu was there. No shedim. Only tzaddikim were there. No shedim. Kedusha was there. Shechina was there. And, b’ezrat Hashem, we will have more of those. Now, the key is, Rabotai, that you have tzaddikim, you have different things, and of course the yetzer hara has to interfere a little bit. That's the last to interfere. So what does he do? Genius idea, genius. Now there's a minhag that people who live in the Torah world have to give kavod to the rabbi. I know this is not common, but sometimes people give kavod to the rabbi.

42:25They say, you know, they give, you know, they do kavod for the rabbi sometimes. I know this is like a mind-blowing chiddush, but it actually has a source in the Torah. It has a source in the Torah. You have to give kavod to the rabbi. It has a source. Now, sometimes they give so much kavod because they know this guy is more important than my father. Why? My father brought me to this world, the Gemara says. The rabbi is going to get me to Olam Haba. That's why the Gemara says if there are two people in jail, your father and the rabbi, who do you free first if you can only free one? You free the rabbi. Fathers don't like this. Why? But if your father's coming to you, then you free your father. Then you free your father. The point is about... That these two were having a nice, wonderful wedding, the Shekhinah is there, everything is good. Yet Sarah comes with a little trick. What does she do? The rabbi, a big rabbi, one of the weddings of wedding A, walks in and it's like a siman that the Hasidim give today to each other. If the rabbi comes in, change the song. It has to have a special song for the rabbi and...

43:42The song says, "Yomim al yemay melech tosif, yosif." Who's the king they are referring to? The rabbis are like kings. Rabbis are to be honored. So they start singing a nice song. I don't have such a good voice or know all the lyrics, but the point is, it's a good song. Anyway, now they're starting to sing because the rabbi came and know somebody touches their beard, gets the point. Dude, everybody starts singing, standing up. At the other wedding, they're also hearing that song. Why? It's connected with the kabbalas ponim. But what is it when they're hearing the song at the same moment? groom, his old uncle. His old uncle. Not a big talmid chacham or anything. His old uncle, nice guy, knows a few things, but he's not a big rabbi, influenced the public. No, he's just an old uncle. He shows up at that moment. And the second he walks in, everybody stands up. You have the same minhag. They stand up. It's like, wow. That's the welcome. Finally, I get the welcome that I've wanted my whole life. You see?

45:01Everybody is dancing for the uncle now, not just the rabbi on the other side. They're dancing for the uncle. He was so amazed at the kavod they gave him. Oh, he had a check in his pocket. He was going to give it to the bridegroom—five hundred dollars, five hundred shekels, whatever it is—and you know, he was going to put it in the teiva where they put the checks, where they put all the presents, and This also, by the way, he does for some people. Some people go to weddings and don't bring presents because they think their presence is a present. It’s not a present; you showed up. It's an expense. You go to a wedding, you go to a bar mitzvah, at least pay how much it cost them to bring you. Please pay that. Don't be one of these people that comes to a wedding and gives $25 and... Bring something. Bring enough to cover your expense. $100, $150, depending on the wedding. Obviously, if it's a very wealthy couple and they're having a million-dollar wedding, you give according to your ability. But if it's a regular average couple, don't come to the wedding with a blender. Hey guys, mazal tov, $29.99, but I got it on sale. Two for one. I have one in my house. We have the same thing. Mine's blue, yours is red. Don't do that. Have some manners.

46:23New couple, they don't have any money. This is one of the ways couples usually start their life. Now he comes, he has a $500 check; he's gonna give it to the couple. But after this, after this thought, he decides to do something more generous. He takes down, looks at the check, rips the check, and takes another check. You know, old-timers walk around with checkbooks still. He takes another check and writes five thousand. Five thousand. Puts it in the envelope, puts it in the place, and goes, he's as happy as can be. After the bride and groom finish the night, simcha, great, wonderful, they go home. After everything settles down, they want to go, "What do we get? What do we get?" It's part of the fun. It's like little kids. "What do we get? Oh, Abba gave me this. Oh, Ima gave me this. Oh, this guy gave me only that. I'm not going to his wedding. Oh, this one." You know, you start doing calculations. Okay, yeah, what do you get? And they get to the uncle. The old uncle surprises them. What? Oh, expected a present from the uncle, but no, come on, five thousand? Not even that close to him. Five thousand! We have to call him. They call him and say, "We want to thank you so much for your generosity."

47:44Shraka, it helps us so much. He says to them, "Huh? That's right! What kavod you gave me! No one in my life ever gave me such kavod that you gave to the song and this and that. And I actually originally was going to give you 500, but I saw how much you gave me kavod. I said, 'No, no, no, these are a special couple. I'm going to give them five thousand!'" So the couple said this story to a couple of friends of how it happened, how Hashem made certain things happen, and the music really happened at the same time he came in, and he took it as if it's kavod for him. No big deal, he got the kavod. In the religious world, what happens? In the whole world? It gets to the other couple. The other couple hears it, the ones that provided the music. find out they call and listen, we heard and we're sorry, but there's a very serious mistake here. We didn't get our 4,500 yet. What 4,500? Your uncle gave you 500, that's what he came with, but because of the music that we provided, he gave another 4,500. We give the 4,500 to us because we provided the music and

48:59Moppy Tom 4,500. What are you talking about? Give it to us. No, no, okay. We'll go to Din Torah. You have a problem? You go to Din Torah. You go to a Talmid Chacham. People sometimes will sell their parents for money. What are you guys saying? Wow, this is not even anything, but that's what happened. They went to Din Torah. Originally, they went to Rav Levinstein, Rav Shlomo Levinstein, Talmid Chacham. has fantastic shiurim on the internet in Hebrew and lots of chiddushim. He has a fantastic series about David HaMelech. I didn't watch the whole thing, but a few things that I watched, he has a lot of chiddushim. Anyways, a very serious talmid chacham. And they come to him. Now, he can't deal with nonsense. He got mad at this question. He goes, "Are you serious? Ah, no, come on, leave me alone with these silly, stupid questions. Go, go, go to somebody else. Go to Rav Zilberstein. Rav Zilberstein is 85 years old. Talmid Chacham Atzum. Wrote the commentary on Sdei Chemed. Huge guy, 85 years old. He has a face, mamash, like a malach. And he is an expert on complicated issues. Expert."

50:15Things like this, weird questions like this. Who does the money belong to? Of course, Halacha is that it belongs to the couple that got the present, not the ones that provided the music. That's really the Halacha. Halacha is they don't have to give them anything because they didn't really provide the music especially for him. They were benefiting from it also. They didn't do it specifically for him. And it's unintentional and so on and so forth. I'm not going to go into the din of why they don't have to give them anything. But the point is that this actually happened. what mussar can we learn from this story? So the Rabbi says there's a few things you can learn. First, look how much money a person is willing to pay just to get a little kavod, just to get a little respect, a little honor. He came with 500; you gave him a little honor. You stood up for him. You sang a little song for him. He did a little chizuk, but all of a sudden, 5,000, meaning he's willing to pay ten times. Ten times, just to say, "Give me a little respect." This is why people that are professional money raisers, or what they call in the political world, power brokers, are

51:33They know exactly how to get to your heart, how to get to your ego, make you feel good about yourself, make you feel like you're a million bucks, or a billion bucks, or depending on where your net worth is, maybe a hundred billion bucks, whatever it is. People that know how to collect money, they're experts at it. They make you feel like you're the best in the world. Now the guy is willing to pay ten times the amount. Just to get a little kavod. Hence the inner desire of every normal human being of how much we like it when people tell us, "Good job." When people tell us, "You're the best." When people tell us, "There's no one else in the world like you." You want shalom bayit? Tell your wife everything she cooks is the best food in the world. but I don't really like it. Do you want to stay married, or do you want to tell her the truth? Which one is it? You want to tell the truth? Then you'll be divorced. You want to stay married? Tell her you like it, even if you don't like it, and eventually, you'll grow to like it. Now, guys, sometimes they treat their wives

53:01Like they treat their guy friends. This is a perfect recipe for divorce. Perfect. Like if you want to get divorced, treat your wife just like you treat your boys. Just like you treat your sons. Just like you treat your friends. Just like you treat your co-workers. Just like you treat the guys that you have a couple of drinks with. You treat your wife just like them, for sure you're getting divorced. Guaranteed all your money back. Why? She's not your boy. Yeah, but we're friends. Yeah, but she's still not that. You want your wife to simply run away every single time you walk into the room? Tell her what you think of certain physical features. You don't like too fat, too skinny, too this, too that. I don't like your hair. I like your hair. I like your eyes. I don't like your eyes. Or best yet, I've ever heard, a guy told his wife, guy told his wife, he doesn't like how she is when they're alone doing the thing and... You want your wife to simply run away every single time you walk into the room? Tell her what you think of certain physical features. You don't like? Too fat, too skinny, too this, too that. I don't like your hair. I like your hair. I like your eyes. I don't like your eyes. Or best yet, I've ever heard, a guy told his wife, he doesn't like how she is when they're alone doing the thing and... I don't like it. I told him, "You know you're going to get divorced because now she understands you." He got divorced. From that day, she ran away from him, ran away from her. I know you from him, and eventually, she left him. Why? An animal is better than you. It doesn't speak, which makes it better. You spoke already, worse. Why? Because the garbage that came out of your mouth ruined this girl's confidence for the rest of her life. Another guy...

54:27Pretends to be a Chasid, the guy that used to come here and make a mess. One time he came to me and asked me for relationship advice. So I asked him, so why does she run away from you? Why doesn't she want to be with you anymore? He said, no, it's not a big deal. I just cursed her out a bunch of times. And I did this and I did that and I told her. And he told me some of the things he said to her. I said, you should be in a mental institution or in jail. For what you said to this poor girl, you traumatized her. He goes, no, what did I do? I just said some words, what's the big deal? I said, what you said, I'm not even going to repeat it, for your kavod, what you said traumatized this girl. She will never ever be the same. You simply murdered this girl. She will never be the same. She has to simply reincarnate to go back to what she was before you said that to her. Some guys don't think it's a big deal to say some of this stuff. woman doesn't have the same heart as a guy. You can make fun of a guy in a lot of different ways and most guys won't take it personally. You say one little thing about a woman—finished. Sometimes they'll keep it in their stomach and sometimes they won't say anything. But they'll cry as soon as you leave and forever. The relationship just goes downhill from there. So you see, the point is that...

55:53The way you treat people, the way you talk about them, it's very, very important to be generous when it comes to compliments. Compliment your wife, compliment your kids, tell them you love them, tell them you care about them, tell them they're good. They need it. Everybody needs compliments, including you, including me. Everyone needs compliments. Once in a while, everyone needs a little bit of, you're doing a good job. Everyone needs it. The difference between someone that's normal versus someone that's sick... when someone lives for those compliments, when someone cannot tolerate not being complimented even when he doesn't do a good job, the guy expects to be complimented for showing up to work on time. What do you want, a cookie or do you want us to perform theatrics every time you show up at eight o'clock? "Here he comes again!" What do you want, you're working for UPS, what do you want? Guys in my office when I was on Wall Street. They say, "How come you never tell me I'm doing a good job?" I said, "What did you do? Did you make any money?" "No, but I always come on time." I said, "I pay you to come on time. That's the compliment. If I didn't like it, you wouldn't get paid and you'd be fired." People want compliments for things that they're supposed to do, or better yet, people want compliments for things they're not doing to their potential. That's a sick person.

57:18But everyone needs compliments. Everyone needs a little bit of, "You're doing a good job, you're going in the right direction." Everyone needs it. If someone works, works, works, works, and does everything he's supposed to do, and no one ever recognizes what they're doing, it starts eating them up, naturally. Being painful, he never appreciates me. He never says I'm beautiful. He never says I'm cooking well. He never says I'm taking care of the kids. He never says anything. She doesn't say I'm doing a good job. I'm paying for this, I'm doing this, and she never says anything. There's no compliments in the house. Little by little, the relationship becomes more like roommates. You live together out of convenience because you don't want to spend all your money and savings on divorce lawyers. When there's no compliments in a relationship, in essence, it eats up the relationship, it eats up the love, and it gets to a point where you're roommates out of convenience until there's a better roommate available. This is what happens in the world. Same goes with employees. Same goes with bosses. Same goes with everybody—students. Everybody needs a little bit. But again, the difference between a healthy and a sick person: a healthy person needs it, but not all the time. Just whenever—certain times. A sick person lives off of it.

58:30They have to make sure that if they ever did a mitzvah, if they ever did anyone a favor, they publicize this on CNN, Fox News, CNBC, and even PBS that no one watches. They publicize it on every single news network. They want everyone in the world to know they gave $2,000 in tzedakah during Rosh Hashanah. They want everyone to know they finished their Siyum HaShas that they read the Talmud today or tomorrow. And last week, and three weeks ago, and they're already three weeks ahead. They're reading. They want you to know, "Hey, by the way, you know what I did today? I read the Talmud." "Okay, next week." "You know what I did today? Did you read the Talmud?" "I read the Talmud." "Okay, good for you." "You know what I did today?" "What?" "I read the Talmud." "Okay, give me something new." I read the Talmud. You must give me a hug or something. What'd you get out of it? They want you to know they're doing something. These sick people. Sometimes people do it, you know, unintentionally, that they don't mean any harm by it. But if you see that a person is constantly telling you about their achievements, in essence, every time you see them, even if you've known them for five or ten years, they're constantly giving you their resume.

59:50all their achievements. They worked here, they do this, they know this guy. You know, like name droppers. Have you ever met name droppers? You know, people that say to you, "Oh yeah, you know what? I just came back from meeting such-and-such. Some billionaire. Oh, by the way, I know his son. I'm best friends with his son. You know his son? I mean, I know him." And he starts dropping names, and he starts telling you all the people he knows. They don’t know him, but he knows them, and he tells you a whole list of the Forbes 500 of how he spent the weekend with them. These people are sick. These sick people. Pray for them. Pray for them to hopefully wake up one day and not finish their life so sick. It's very sad because it's a very spiritual disease. Now, this guy, this uncle, gets so much kavod; for him, it was worth ten times more. All of us would pay for a little kavod. The question is, how much more? The second mussar lesson that we learn from this story is that if a person deserves kavod, he deserves it. In Shamayim, they decided you deserve kavod. There's nothing in the world that will stop it, meaning Hashem will ensure that this person receives the honor that they deserve, and no one can get in the way. This means that this uncle actually deserves this honor.

1:01:12Now, he never expected to get any honor. He never thought anybody even thought of him that way. He never even thought anyone knew that he did anything useful to get such honor. But HaKadosh Baruch Hu obviously agreed that he deserves a lot of honor. And because he deserves a lot of honor, Hashem made all types of things happen in the world in order for him to get it. The last part is if someone deserves a certain amount of money... No matter what you will do, you'll get it. Yeah, but their business is down, so they'll still get the money. Yeah, but they just got this. It doesn't make a difference. If you deserve a certain amount of money, if Hashem on Rosh Hashanah decided that you're going to get $5,000, it doesn't have to come from your day job. It doesn't have to come from a usual circumstance. That's the problem that constantly tortures people when it comes to Emunah, because we limit Hashem to the things that we know. So people complain about money because they assume that, number one, they deserve a lot more than what they're getting, and

1:02:23Number two, that there's no way for them to get more without doing something themselves to help, like they have to work a second job, or they have to work on Shabbat, or they have to do a side gig that's not really one hundred percent legal, or they have to do something where they may lose their job. And now they have to wheel and deal. HaKadosh Baruch Hu says I want to give you a certain amount of money, no power in the world will stop it. And there's no way that you're going to be able to figure out how I'm going to give it to you because I could literally change nature itself to make all of these come true. If you deserve a certain amount of honor or you deserve a certain amount of kavod, you deserve a certain amount of money, guess what? I can make a bunch of disgruntled Ethiopian Jews... Cause a riot. Why? Because the riot is going to cause what? The band...

1:03:25not show up because they're stuck in traffic. And on top of that, I'm going to make one of the guys really be a friendly guy and say, "You know what, guys? What do you care? Let me just connect the wire from your speaker to that speaker." And incidentally, the hall just bought that wire three days before. And on top of that, what else can I do aside from giving you the hall the idea to go buy this wire that they usually don't need? What else can I do? The same moment that the rabbi arrives, the uncle arrives. and the uncle has his checkbook on him too. Here, Rabotai, if you think all of this stuff is a coincidence, you're spiritually sick. You see Yad Hashem, the hand of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, literally manipulating nature, manipulating the creation, manipulating the world exactly how He wants it, like putty. For what? To give the couple a few extra dollars that He decided they're going to get and to give the uncle a little bit of kavod that he deserves but he's not going to get anywhere else. HaKadosh Baruch Hu literally can change nature and does change nature in order to fulfill His will. A person that limits Hashem

1:04:51how he can help you, or how the opposite, chas v'shalom, is a person with a very sick emunah. It's an emunah that's sick because you're limiting Hashem, the Unlimited. Now, so you see here, Rabotai, that when a person is trying to acquire a An anav is trying to acquire humility. First and foremost, he has to understand that he must have a complete belief in HaKadosh Baruch Hu running the world. He has to be a talmid chacham in hashgacha pratit, in Divine Providence. Hashem is monitoring and managing your world, and He's watching you at all times, which means that you're on His camera at all times. You don't have to worry about whether they see you or he sees you. No, no, you have to worry about Him seeing you because He is. If you truly understand that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is watching and recording you, automatically that lowers your ego. If you know that there are cops down the road on the highway, automatically, what do you do? You slow down. Slow down. Yeah, but it's 65. No, no, let me just go 55. I

1:06:17Yeah, but you were going 90 two minutes ago. Yeah, no, no. You know what? I just have the sudden urge to go slow. I want to be safe. Suddenly he wants to go 55. Why? Because he knows the cop is around the corner. If you know, mamash know, know with knowledge, know just like I'm in front of you. You know that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is watching you, automatically it humbles you. So the first thing to learn is that humility requires a certain amount of emunah. Further, the Steipler Gaon, Rav Yaakov Kanievsky, his father, was known as the Steipler Gaon. Rav Yaakov Kanievsky wrote in Sefer Chayei Olam, in Chelek Alef, Perek Chaf Zayin. 127, and I'm gonna read you verbatim the translation of what he says: "Know this: Anyone who did not acquire the trait of humility has no concept or perception or understanding of the value of humility. But not only this..."

1:07:44even one who has acquired the trait of humility for a certain time frame and understands the lowliness of himself, how low he is, but lost this humility as a result of distraction or committing a sin, again the concept and significance of humility disappears from him. until he nearly has no concept at all of its significance that is known to the ones who know it, meaning known to the ones that are wise. This, Rabotai, is the reason why the Ramban writes that with humility, you have to constantly have it, constantly work on it, both mentally, physically, psychologically, constantly act a certain way, constantly talk a certain way, constantly look a certain way because even if you acquired humility, you understand your lowliness. You understand that the second you get a stomachache, the second you get a headache, the second you get a toothache, no matter how many muscles you have and how many layers of cubes you have on your stomach, you become a nothing and

1:09:02The second you're constipated, no matter how smart you are and how high your IQ is, you're suffering. The second you have an ingrown toenail, all the money in the world that you have means zero because of the pain and agony you're dealing with. The moment a gun was invented, the strongest man in the world became useless. People spend all of their time today... fight. They have all these shows on TV: UFC, Ultimate Fighting Championship, and so on. This guy punches that one, this guy punches the other one. They try to kill each other, but at the end, they hug each other. It's, you know, and people try to do it for a living. At least they're getting paid for it. Not exactly that we recommend this, but the point is that at least they're getting paid for it. The silly part is people trying to act like them for free and... They spend all their time in the gym. They start pushing tires like they're the next championship guy. The guy's changing his tire, and he goes, "You know what? Instead of just throwing this tire, let me flip it a few times." He thinks he's Rocky. He starts running in the street without his shirt on, and he sings the tune that says, "And he's got his love handles going on the side, hitting the floor with his fatness, but he thinks he's Rocky."

1:10:24He starts going like this, punching into the air because he thinks he's a champion. He gets to the top of the staircase, puts his hands up because he thinks he's strong. It's a joke, but do you know how many people do this every day? Every time you see a person running around immodestly, that's what they're doing, and... You see a guy running around the street. He's jogging. Now, jogging is good. You want to exercise, right? No problem. But if he's jogging or she's jogging immodestly, the theatrics I just did for you, that's what they're doing. What are they doing? He's walking around—he's 65 years old—but he's walking around with no shirt on, as if it's good looks for anybody in the world. He's walking around with no shirt on because he started exercising six years ago and he looks like he's still alive. This guy, in his mind, he's Rocky. In his mind, he is the champion. She starts running around with those kinds of clothes. What does she want? Attention. Look at me. Look at me. I'm running. I'm running. I'm running. Get attention. These are sick people. These are very sick people. If it was allowed, I would tell you to look at them, just to give them at least some meaning to their life, unfortunately. But it's not allowed. Not allowed. Now,

1:11:41Humility, rabotai, is a person who is not looking for attention. He or she is not looking for credit for everything that they are doing. In fact, they are constantly trying and working on becoming a better version of themselves. And the Ramban says that even if you acquired humility for a moment, you worked on yourself, you realized that your lowliness, that in reality, you and everybody else in the world came from a putrid seed, and you and everybody else in the world is eventually going to be lunch food for maggots. you don't think of yourself as better than anybody else. If you have more money, Hashem gave it to you. If you're smarter, naturally, Hashem gave that to you also. If you're better looking, you didn't create yourself. Hashem created you. He's the one that made you better looking. You don't think of yourself as better than anyone else simply because of something you did not do on your own. When a person works on their humility and realizes where they stand, they understand that these gifts are from Hashem and that they should not lead to arrogance.

1:12:44Even though they acquire a little bit of humility, there's no guarantee that that humility will be available to you tomorrow. Why? Because you could lose focus for a moment and think the new chiddush that you got on the weekly parasha makes you talmid chacham. So when somebody tells you that Rav Ovadia or Rav Elyashiv or one of the Gedolei HaDor says such and such, you already think of yourself on such a lofty level. You're like, no, I don't think, I don't agree with Rav Ovadia now. No, I don't think I'm gonna ask, you know, what he was talking about. You know, he's older. He's older. You already be why? Because you've got a chiddush on the parasha that actually may meet the requirements. You already think you're a talmid chacham. You gave a thousand lectures in five years, you're like, now I'm a doctor. I'm gonna go now. You actually start believing the comments people say on the internet. People say sometimes, you know, cute comments on the internet, compliments. It's not all curses sometimes. They actually say nice things.

1:13:45You know, sometimes people send me comments saying, "Go look, this guy said you're the smartest guy in the generation." I start laughing. I say, "Ah, they have no idea what 'smart' means if they actually think I'm the smartest in the generation. They have no idea what a Talmid Chacham is." Rabbi Akiva was a Talmid Chacham. Now, I don't know anything. I work on something, but I can't be delusional and think that I'm at the level of how people sometimes describe me. Same thing, anyone that actually knows what wisdom really is. Once you discover what wisdom is, at least to some capacity that you have, you realize how far you are from it. This is why in the entire Gemara, the entire Gemara, it doesn't matter how big the rabbi is, the entire history of Am Yisrael, no matter how big the rabbi is, he's always called a Talmid Chacham. A Talmid Chacham. What's a Talmid Chacham? A wise student. the more you acquire Torah, the more you realize how much more there is for you to learn. So the Ramban says you have to go with this humility always because it's not something that once you acquire it, it's yours. If you don't go with it always, you could easily fall in a second. When you don't understand your own loneliness, you don't understand your own vulnerability

1:15:10Human being, you don't understand your own risk to lose everything in a second. You start imagining yourself as someone that you're not. You simply become what the Ramchal told us: someone that literally lives an imaginary life. This is why the Ramban says that humility starts with your mind and... Many times people tell me, "I want to be this; I want to be an astronaut; I want to be the most famous speaker in the world. I want to be a billionaire. I want to be a rabbi; I want to be a talmid yeshiva learning 18 hours a day." Sometimes you say "Chazak u'baruch," but more often than not, you say, "Hashem, please help them." Why? Because they're imagining that they are at that point where they could even aspire to such a thing and... example someone asked me a question a few days ago. He says to me, he's a nice guy

1:16:12Doing teshuvah, but he has a lot of yetzer hara. So he told me himself. He's like, "Listen, I'm living in both worlds 50-50. Sometimes I'm going all out. I watch the shiurim, I learn, I keep, I this, I that. But then, you know, the yetzer hara shows up. It's a girl, it's this, it's the guys, it's work, it's money, and all of a sudden I'm going back to my old self." And he says, "I think my only solution is to go to yeshiva full-time. Full-time to go to yeshiva. That way I'll beat the yetzer hara." If he was 16, 17, 18 years old, let's say, you know what? So go for it. Go for it. You're 16, 17 years old, go for it. Yeah, you go. You're still going to school anyway. Still in the learning stages of your life, go for it. But if you're 40, 50 years old, doing that is a mistake. Why? In order to go from 50-50 to va Barely learning sometimes even a half hour, an hour a day, to go to learn in the yeshiva where you're going to be learning 10, 12, 13, 14 hours a day. I'm sorry, my friend. You're not going to make it. You're not going to make it a week. Why? Because you're still connected.

1:17:26This world and to completely separate from it in one shot is too severe for most people to survive. Although there are survivors that sometimes are very, very kitzoni (extreme) and they make the change in one second, it’s very rare for them to last. Sometimes the guy can go to yeshiva; he goes from nothing to yeshiva full-time, and all of a sudden the guy is in yeshiva for a year straight, two years straight. He says, "Okay, listen. I gotta go back to making money. My savings is zero. I gotta go. I gotta do stuff to eat." He goes back into the regular world, and you start seeing the guy quickly fall into his old ways. Fall back into the, it's, uh, all of a sudden some college about again. All of a sudden his kippah gets smaller and smaller every week. All of a sudden the beard comes off. That's why I always tell people, you need to grow your neshama first before you grow your beard. Grow your neshama first before you grow your beard. It's not something that, you know, people think the exterior is what makes you religious. One of the biggest jokes, for my personal entertainment, is to see how non-Jews who say they want to convert look like chassidim before they have even converted. To me, it's pure entertainment. It makes me sick to my stomach a little bit, but sometimes I laugh too. Depends on my mood for the day.

1:18:49There are a few of them on the internet that I used to be connected to until I got sick of it and I just blocked them. Because not only do they pretend to be Jews, they must look like Chassidim. You look at them. If you don't know who they are, you think this guy was born with the peyot, the beard, the hat, the whole thing. He's not even Jewish. He starts talking to you in Yiddish. Says a Yiddish word. He doesn't know what it means though, but he heard somebody say it, he heard Rabbi Nachman say some Yiddish word, and he says it. Habibi, even if you converted tomorrow, you're still not allowed to use those words. You didn't come from there. That's not your heritage. It's not connected to you. What do you use when you say "Zay gezunt"? What's "Zay gezunt", Habibi? What's "Zay gezunt"? What's it to you in "Zay gezunt"? When did you become a European? When did you, what does it have to do with you? It's a joke. Or best yet, they start criticizing the rabbis. That's the best one. They criticize me or Rav Mizrachi or some other rabbi. No, the rabbi said this. Rabbi Nachman said this. It's always people that are fanatic with Hasidut that do this.

1:20:04Because Chassidut is the one where you can see the most exterior effects. The exterior effect of Chassidut is the most visible. You could have some of the biggest Talmidei Chachamim look like average regular people. They have a kippah, they look respectable, but they don't look to you like they are Gedolei HaDor. But you see one of these people that's a faker—his peyot reach the floor, his beard can sweep the floor. Everything—the hat reaches the moon, he wears a nice jacket that reaches the floor like he's a Rosh Yeshiva. Why? Because all that stuff you could just get with money. Changing your neshama requires a lot more than money, though. But it's for entertainment purposes, and sometimes it's sickening. It's sickening because these people live literally an imaginary life. Their imagination is so far from reality, they start picturing themselves and viewing themselves as Talmidei Chachamim. They start rebuking the public or the rabbis that have toiled for years and years to acquire some type of Torah, but then with their diaper amount of Torah they've acquired in the few years that they've been learning, no, no, no, I don't agree with this rabbi. His shita, his shita is not good. It's not good. He starts criticizing. This, Abotai, is a very, very dangerous illness.

1:21:32dangerous ailment. Why? That person could think like that for the rest of his life. It doesn't mean just even the car sometimes. It's Jewish people. A lot of times, Jewish people talk about where they live an imaginary life. I had a guy come to me one time after a lecture, and we start talking, and he lists, I don't even know how many complaints against me, and Oh, you do this and you do that, and we talk about this, your voice is this, and you talk about that. You did this, you didn't say that. I'm doing like I made mistakes in the Torah, but my way and how and who and what didn't meet his needs, and he started complaining. Yeah, and I spoke to my friend in New York, and he says, I told him about you, and he says he doesn't like you. Then I tried to get you to come to the shul, and they said, "No, no, he's not for us." So you see, people don't like you. I said, well, according to statistics, they kind of do. Million, two million minutes a month. I don't know who's watching it. Pikachu? Of course, you're gonna have some people who don't like it, but if you look at the statistics, you're wrong. But I don't say that stuff. I simply listen to this guy give me criticism of the world. So after he finishes with his criticism, I ask him, "So why do you come? Why do you watch my shiurim?" "No, no, I like you. I just think you could get better."

1:23:02I said, "Okay, well, no one else likes me according to you, and everything that I'm doing is not your fit. Why don't you become a speaker? Why don't you do a better job? You could speak so much better. You have such a better voice, and you go do it." He goes, "No, you don't know what I'm doing." He starts doing all this pantomime. "No, you don't understand. I help so many people." I'm like, "How many people do you help? How many people do you help?" "How many people do you know? No, you don't understand how much I do. I'm like, I know I don't understand, but how much do you do? How many people do you deal with today? No, no, you don't understand how much I do. I said, okay fine, how much do you do? I don't understand, you're right. How much do you actually do? You don't understand what I know. I know I don't understand how much you know, but how much do you know? Tell me. For an hour and a half straight, this is the way this conversation is. I thought I was talking to a mental patient." People live an imaginary life, thinking they are much greater than what they really are, thinking they can do much better than anyone else that's at least trying, simply living an imaginary life. A guy comes into a shul on his second day of teshuva, already expecting the rabbi to cater the shul to him.

1:24:16Woman walks into the community for the first month. She's already rebuking every single woman that's wearing a wig. Why? Because she decided to put it in her pocket because she likes it, not because of Hashem. She starts rebuking everyone. Take it easy. Take it easy. First, go along, then get along. You know you have to do certain things in time. Focus on yourself. Stop living this imaginary life and... This happens to all of us. At every single moment in our life, there's a little obstacle where we start thinking that we're better than we are. I could tell you it happened to me quite a few times. I told you guys the funny story of how I was sure that Hashem was going to talk to me, right? I know it's for educational reasons, but I really thought it was. I was on the 35th floor. I mean, I thought I was closer to God than anyone. The 35th floor in New York, I didn't know it was really getting home over there. But, you know, I thought it was good. So, I wasn't in the city. The 35th floor, I'm doing it in the freezing cold of winter in New York. I'm doing it with a dude on the 35th floor, crying, talking about who I was sure was going to be a voice coming from Heaven.

1:25:31It's you I'm waiting for. Why didn't you come three hours ago? Why are you making me freeze? Okay? I guess it's required. I was sure something was going to happen. Imaginary, imaginary, all of us have it. I make fun of it because I want you to feel comfortable because it happens to you too. It happens to everybody. How do you eliminate this imaginary life? You learn more Torah, you learn more Mussar, and you understand what greatness really means and where you stand in comparison. Don't compare yourself to losers. Compare yourself to winners. If you want to be the best, you have to compete with the best, not with a bunch of people who are missing half their limbs. You have to compete with people that are better. You have to understand that that's how you get better. But when you live an imaginary life, unfortunately, you are restricting your own growth because you already assume that you know enough, you're doing enough. You don't try to become better because you already think of yourself as good enough, and...

1:26:45And this is one of the sicknesses, one of the most deadly diseases known to man, because it's undetectable by anyone other than you. Everyone else could know it, but no one's going to tell you, and you're not going to listen. You have to know for yourself that you're living an imaginary life because no one knows what's in your mind. They know what you say, and it sounds like craziness, but a lot of people are not going to tell you. people are not going to tell you that you're crazy. They're going to tell you, "Oh, yeah, wow. Don't invite him next time, alright? Next time, because he's not from us. He's not like us. This guy, he left us long ago. He's already half gone. He's not sure which side he's on." You have to get to know yourself, know where you stand now. Zechut tzaddik livracha was such a gadol baTorah that the Berskha Rebbe, the Rav Soloveitchik, who was one of the gedolei hador himself,

1:27:53Would come to him and say, "Tell me what the psak halacha is. Tell me what the halacha is, but don't tell me the ta'am. Meaning, don't tell me the reasons of why it's yes or no. Just tell me what it is. Why? Hearing Torah from you is like Moshe MiSinai. I don't need to know how you got to this conclusion. I already know it's Moshe MiSinai from you. That's how much of a chacham he was. One of the gedolei hador comes to him, and says, "Just tell me yes or no," like he's a little student, like an eight-year-old, "Rabbi, am I allowed to eat this? Rabbi, am I allowed to carry in my neighborhood when there's no eruv? What if it's just outside of my house? Rabbi, am I allowed to go here? Am I allowed to go there?" He's like an eight-year-old or ten-year-old. This is what one of the gedolim says to another. Now, Rabbi Yitzchak Elchanan... was a giant Gaon, wrote several books. One of his books is called "Ein Yitzchak" and many others. Now he was discovered as one of the gedolim already early on, and when he decided that he wanted to publish a sefer, all of the Asherim...

1:29:09of the Asherim, all of the rich people of Kovno of Lita, and all these different countries in Europe and Russia. They were all competing to donate for this book. Why? They wanted the zechut; they wanted to be part of this dissemination of Torah. But one guy was looking to make such an enormous donation, he was going to be responsible for literally everything: publishing, workers, selling, advertising. He wanted to take the whole thing on. He was very, very rich and he wanted to meet with the Rabbi. So when he came to him, the Rabbi looks at him and he says to him, Your name is Yaakov? He says, yeah. He says, Cohen? He says, yeah, Kevod HaRav, you know? Yeah, you used to go to Yeshiva, you know, many years ago. This specific Yeshiva. He says, well, Kevod HaRav has Ruach HaKodesh? No, no, it's not Ruach HaKodesh, no. He says, I'm sorry, but I can't take the donation from you.

1:30:35Don't want your donation. We're talking about a guy, you know, sometimes you do a fundraiser, and you know sometimes you get a nice donor that gives a substantial amount. And then there's a bunch of small donations. This guy wanted to take the whole pie and a half on his own. But the gadol says, "No, I don't want your donation at all. I don't want your donation." This guy Yaakov says, "Why? Because my name is Yaakov and I'm Mishpat Cohen? What’s the...?" Why not? He says to him, "You remember in your yeshiva, there used to be a little kid, a little poor kid that used to come to the yeshiva? People used to make fun of him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, what do you mean? Yeah, Yitzi, Yitzi the batlan."

1:31:35Because, yeah, yeah, Yitzi the batlan. You remember that kid? Because, yeah, poor kid. Yeah, they used to make fun of him, just, you know, have a laugh a little bit. Yitzi, the batlan. Why was he the batlan? Oh, he used to learn Torah. He didn't hang out with the guys. He didn't have fun with us. Always learning, learning. You know, a nerd. He says, you remember one time, Yitzi came to you and he said, you know, you just bought new shoes. You bought new shoes. So he asked you, can you please give me your old shoes that you're not using anymore? Because I don't have shoes. I don't have shoes. So can you give me old shoes? And you're always stingy, like, why should I give my old shoes? Go get a job. Go buy your own shoes. I'm going to have these second shoes reserved in case something happens to my new shoes. Why do I have to give you my shoes? And if he told you, yeah, but I don't have any shoes. My feet are bleeding in the snow. To go an hour walk every day to come to the yeshiva, My feet, by the time I get here, they're bleeding. They're puffy. Please, give me shoes. It's not the new shoes now. It's the old ones that you put in the closet. You're not going to use them. Hey, get out of here. Go, go. You remember that? So the guy is embarrassed. He kind of didn't think anybody else knew the story. And he says, yeah, yeah, I remember. So Rabbi Elchonon says to him,

1:33:06You know, that kid, you know how many times he got sick because he was walking around barefoot in the snow? You know how many times he was bleeding excessively? You know how many times he couldn't even learn Torah because of the pain and agony that he was in? Because you were stingy with your shoes. The guy feels even more embarrassed. He goes, "Yeah, I mean, you know, it's my fault; I should have given him my shoes." He says, "Do you understand how much Torah is not available in the world today because you didn't want to give him your used pair of shoes? Because he could have learned Torah instead of lying down in pain and agony. But he couldn't learn Torah because you didn't want to give him your shoes." So there's less Torah in the world because Yitzi the Batlan couldn't get the shoes that you weren't using. And I can't take your donation. I don't want your donation. Because I'm Yitzi the Batlan. I'm Yitzchak Elchanan. You could have bought your Olam Haba with a pair of used shoes.

1:34:35I don't want anything from you. When a person wants to acquire the trait of humility, one of the most important characteristics of a humble person is considering other people. How are they feeling? How would this make them feel? What can I do for them? Why is that naturally the act of a humble person? Because an arrogant person, the opposite, all they can think of is themselves. When an arrogant person looks in the mirror, they only see themselves. They never see the problems that are behind them. They simply see themselves. That's all they care about. A humble person is the exact opposite. A similar story happened in a different part of the world where a person came to Rav Ovadia, an older gentleman, maybe seventy years old or so. He came to Rav Ovadia and said, "I need some type of segulah or something because my legs have been hurting me for 50 years. The doctors and hospitals, no one knows how to diagnose it, nothing. Maybe the Rav..." A similar story happened in a different part of the world where a person came to Rav Ovadia, an older gentleman, maybe seventy years old or so. He came to Rav Ovadia and said, "I need some type of segulah or something because my legs have been hurting me for 50 years. The doctors and hospitals, no one knows how to diagnose it, nothing. Maybe the Rav..."

1:36:01Give me some type of segulah or something so I could get rid of this pain. Rav Ovadia says, "And what's your name?" He says his name. Rav Ovadia asks, "You're from Mishpacha such-and-such, the family of such-and-such?" He says, "Yeah." Rav Ovadia goes, "You grew up over there, right?" Which is normal in Israel; everybody knows where everybody grew up and whose family is whose. He goes, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was good." Rav Ovadia responds, "Well, well, well, well, wow. Rav Ovadia, yeah, you were not in that family. You went to that yeshiva, right?" The man says, "Yeah, that's right." Rav Ovadia then says, "There's no cure for your leg pain other than teshuvah." The man is confused and asks, "What?" Rav Ovadia explains, "You hurt somebody, and that's why you have leg pain." I never hurt anybody. You hurt someone, and that's why your legs hurt. For 50 years. God knows something that I don't know. He goes, "Think. Think for yourself what you did." I don't tell you why. "My wife?" He goes, "No, no, no, it's not your wife." "My parents?" He goes, "No, no, it's not your parents. It's not your parents." "My colleagues, my brothers?" He goes, "No, no, think far, far, far before the leg pain started. 50, 60 years ago."

1:37:23She goes, "Why? We're kids." Yeah, there used to be this kid in the school. Poor kid. I don't know. His shoes were open. You know, they were ripped. He couldn't afford to buy new shoes, so his shoes were open. So I used to call him the hippopotamus. Why? Because his shoes were always open like the mouth of a hippopotamus. "That?" He says, "Yeah, that." "That's why I have pain in my legs for 50 years?" He says, "Yeah." Yeah, that's why your legs hurt for 50 years. "How does the Rav know?" He says, "I was the kid. You embarrassed me in front of the entire school. You know how much I suffered because of that? You couldn't afford more shoes, but you embarrassed me in front of everyone. That's why your legs hurt for 50 years." So, the people that get offended when they hear that the Chachamim say, "When you do something wrong, Hashem punishes you in different ways, whether it's pain, agony, or having certain children," people get offended by this. They don't realize that Hashem punishing you in this world is actually kindness from Hashem. It's kindness from Hashem.

1:38:46And the reason why is because if Hashem is punishing you in this world, it simply means He's trying to remove that punishment from your account so you don't have to get punished in the next world. When some people read what the Arizal says in Shaar HaGilgulim, in his sefer Shaar HaGilgulim, He says that there are certain people who commit certain sins, and Hashem reincarnates them in specific ways because of those sins. If they sinned with their eyes, such as looking at immodest women or immodest things, they could come to this incarnation with problems in their eyes, problems with their legs, and so on and so forth. People get offended by this. Oh, how dare you say that about autistic kids? How dare you say that about people that have sicknesses? How dare you? But that person By him having that deformity, it's actually kindness from Hashem. It's not that you pray for it, but it's actually when you think about it and you understand where you stand in the creation, where you're the creation, He's the Creator, and He only did this to you because you did something first.

1:40:04It's better to punish you here than punish you in an eternal world, because the punishment here is temporary, whereas the punishment there can be eternal. Eternity is much longer than 70 or 80 years, and you realize this is kindness. You suffer 50 years, 60 years, 10 years, 5 years, whatever, 5 weeks, instead of suffering for 5,000 years, 5 million years. Anyone that understands the math says, oh, this is Baruch Hashem. That's why the Gemara Masechet Berachot says you're supposed to thank Hashem for good and for bad the same way. But it's a high level of emunah, a high level of understanding where you stand in the creation. Now, Problem that we have sometimes is that we don't understand where we are in the creation. We don't understand why we get certain punishments, why we have certain difficulties, and we ask questions like, "Why did Hashem do this to me? Why did Hashem do this to me? Where's Hashem now?" Meaning automatically, we assume Hashem is wrong and

1:41:18doing whatever it is He's doing in our life. There's nothing more arrogant than that. Why? By saying that this bad thing that's happening to you is wrong, you shouldn't have lost all your money, you shouldn't have gotten sick, you shouldn't have such-and-such happen to you, why is Hashem doing this to me? What is that really assuming indirectly? that you're perfect. That you don't deserve it. Are you really so sure? You looked at the entire Torah? You looked at the entire Torah and you compared every one of your attributes, every one of your behaviors, every one of your mitzvot in comparison to the Torah and you are Malach Hashem? You're perfect? You don't have to fix anything? There's no such thing as a person who doesn't sin. Everybody sins. Some big, some small. Why do people think this?

1:42:19A couple of reasons. One of the reasons is, like I said, their imagination leads them to believe that they're much greater than what they really are. They live an imaginary life. They live a life where they think that they're much more righteous than they really are, much smarter than they really are, much better than what they really are. They simply do not know what they're supposed to be doing. This is the majority of the reasons why it's happening to us sometimes. Because of false teachings, like we've mentioned in the past and warned you about time and time again, where people tell you that Hashem is going to apologize to you versus you apologizing to Hashem. The Creator, the King of Kings, is going to come to you and say, "I'm sorry," instead of you saying, "I'm sorry" to Him. This comes from an imagination to the tenth power. It's now next level.

1:43:19Making the arrogance get to such a high degree that you've actually turned the Creator into the slave. Shame on you. One of the things that we'll see is that the closer people are to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, the more they know Torah, because the more you know Torah, the closer you are to Hashem. And the closer they are to Hashem, the more humble they become and And the more they fear Hashem, meaning the opposite of the ignorant. The ignorant walk around with their chest sticking out, thinking, Olam HaBa is my father's. I own the place. You want a place? I got you a place. Don't worry. It's on me. They think they can get everybody else to a new suite in Olam HaBa. The guy does not even know Aleph Bet yet. He doesn't know Modeh Ani Lefanecha, but he's for sure guaranteed he's going to heaven. Why? God understands me. But yet, people like Rav Elyashiv, Rav Ovadia, the Steipler Gaon, David HaMelech, Avraham Avinu, and Moshe Rabbeinu are scared to death. Now, who knows more? The guy that is buying people suites in Heaven that he doesn't even own or even know what it looks like? Or Moshe Rabbeinu? The Ramban?

1:44:47says in a different place that someone who is truly afraid of Hashem, meaning someone who has a deep fear and reverence for Hashem, doesn't go to doctors. We're not at that level. Chachamim say we are not at that level to not go to doctors. Why? We don't have such a high level of emunah and Yirat Shamayim that we are simply going to believe that Hashem is going to cure us even if it's Hashem Yirachem, some type of serious disease. So you go to doctors. Hashem created doctors for a reason. You're allowed to use them. But what does it feel like or look like when someone does have such a high level of Yirat Shamayim and doesn't go to doctors. Does that mean they don't get sick? The opposite. There are some people in the world that don't go to doctors because of their Yirat Shamayim, not because they're crazy. But most of them are not known to the world, meaning they're not famous. However, there are some famous stories that came out about Chachamim. One of the examples is the Chacham, the Netziv miVolozhin.

1:46:07Anatomy Volodymyr was Rav Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin, from Volozhin. He was the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Volozhin. To give you an understanding of what it means, you hear this Volozhin name often. What does it mean to be the Rosh Yeshiva of one of the top yeshivot, if not the top yeshiva in history? What is it like? In those days, this yeshiva only catered to the best of the best. What's the best of the best? The best of the best today means your father has a certain amount in his bank account. If your father has a few million dollars to donate, you're considered the best of the best, even if you don't know a little bit. In those days, what was the best of the best? The admissions test to Yeshivat Volozhin was that you had to memorize 250 pages of Gemara by heart and you were tested on it word for word. Most people have never read a page of Gemara and even the ones that have read the Gemara don't remember one daf by heart.

1:47:24Young teenagers had to know 250 pages of Gemara by heart. Today, they are few and far between. How many people would even be accepted to such a yeshiva? They exist in the world, but very few—very few. He was the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Volozhin, and he had such a connection to HaKadosh Baruch Hu that he would not go to a doctor. All he would do Anytime he would get any pain, he would analyze where the pain was coming from. He'd analyze what sin he might have committed with that part of his body. If his legs hurt, he would say, "Wait, did I go somewhere instead of going to learn? Instead of going to shul, did I go somewhere that I shouldn't have gone and wasted time?" If his eye hurt, he would ask, "Did I look at something inappropriately?" If his tongue hurt, he would wonder, "Did I eat something that I shouldn't have eaten?" If a body part hurt him, he would analyze the body part and say, "Okay, what sin did I commit with this body part? Do teshuvah, and it would stop hurting." This means self-diagnosis but also providing the cure. But one time, he got sick for a week with such agonizing pain that he didn't even know where it was coming from. You know, sometimes you have pain, may you never know it.

1:48:54That's literally your entire body hurts. I know that some parts of my life, Baruch Hashem, HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave me the merit to experience pain. That's very, very interesting to talk about because I know that as much as I describe it, you won't understand. It's like explaining to a blind person what blue looks like. Oh, it's like green. So sometimes I feel like literally instead of blood, there's lava. Under my skin, it's not fun. Such pain is not fun. Sometimes, when you have such pain, it's literally your whole body that hurts. You can't think, you can't function; your arms hurt, your legs hurt, everything hurts. You simply cannot... it's... you feel like you're dying but you're still alive, and it's like a slow death, but you kind of hope that something happens. It's one of those, and you never think it's going to be over. Sometimes, when a person has a really bad toothache, it almost feels like that. Sometimes, when somebody has a really serious headache, it almost feels like that. Now, the Netziv MiVolozhin had serious pain for a week, to the extent where his wife said, "That's it. You've got to go to the doctor. You don't want to go to the doctor because you don't want to waste time from Torah. I'm going to bring the doctor here." And she brings the doctor.

1:50:18Doctor comes, analyzes him, and diagnoses it. He goes, "Okay, this is where the problem is. Take this medicine and everything should be fine." Then the Netziv looks at it, looks at the prescription, reads it for a moment, rips it up, and throws it in the garbage. The Rebbetzin looks at him, "Why? Why did we bring the doctor if you're not going to buy the medicine?" says no for a week now I'm trying to figure out what hurts, what body part is the one that's causing all the problems. The doctor helped me by telling me where the damage is coming from. So now all I need to do is do teshuvah for that body part, and the pain will go away. All I need to know is where the pain is coming from. I just had so much pain I didn't know, didn't know where it's coming from. That's what it means to have such yirat Shamayim. You don't go to doctors if you have such a high level of yirat Shamayim. Don't go to doctors. Why? You have malach, but if you don't keep going to doctors, if you have to, b'ezrat Hashem you don't have to. So, a person like this is a person that not only has ahavah, not only has humility, but...

1:51:46But has yirat Shamayim, has love of Hashem, is living according to it, and how do we learn that from this story? Because to have such a high level of focus on what to do and how to do in this world that HaKadosh Baruch Hu created, to know that all you need to do is to fix the sin that that body part made, to have such a clear focus on your mission in the world, you must possess all of these attributes. Many times we mistakenly and arrogantly come to Hashem with complaints because we don't do cheshbon hanefesh. We think that we got a flat tire because Hashem hates us. We think that we lost our money because Hashem is punishing us. We think that something and such and such happened

1:52:46because there must be a mistake. Somebody took advantage of us. He stole my money. She took it. We blame people instead of ourselves. We don't do cheshbon hanefesh. And that stems from arrogance, the opposite of humility, because we assume by default that we're perfect. Now, a person that has humility, Rav Ephraim explains that has no complaints whatsoever about Hashem. The fewer complaints you have about Hashem regarding the difficulties in your life, not the good things—who's going to complain about good things? "Oh, Hashem, I only made a million dollars this year." Who's going to complain about that? Sick people. If you have Yirat Shamayim, obviously you're not going to think like that. I'm talking about a person who has humility, true humility. A high level of humility. The difficulties in their life, they're not going to complain to Hashem about it. Why? They know that all of this is happening for their own benefit. They have done something wrong. Hashem is trying to build them and get them out of the hole that they've put themselves into.

1:54:05The reality is you understand your position in the creation. You're here to serve Hakadosh Baruch Hu, not Him here to serve you. But one of the greatest ways that a person can show that they have humility is by expressing it in how they care about other people. Making sure that you never hurt anyone, making sure that you You think about other people, making sure that you think about other people to the extent where you think about, will such and such embarrass them? Not if, will I embarrass them if I say something? No, if such and such event happens, will it embarrass them? I'll give you an example. One time a Jew sees that he's in Beit Knesset, And he says, he saw that one of the guys in the Beit Knesset came late. And this guy is a regular. He's not like a new person. He's a regular in the Beit Knesset, but he happened to come late. So by the time he came, everybody was about to finish Amidah. They're about to finish Amidah. So he was just starting Amidah. He was starting Amidah. And he was standing right next to him.

1:55:30instead of sitting down like everybody else after Amidah, he decided to stay and continue as if he's praying. Why? He thought to himself, "Wait, I am the only guy standing now, which means that if anyone didn't see me come late, they are going to see me now because I'm the only one standing." And I think, "Ah, see, this guy's late. He's not even that religious. Ah, that guy, I'm not gonna invite him to the Siyum HaShas. I'm not gonna do it." No, we're gonna start having the Yetzer Hara give him thoughts in their head about this guy because he was late. Maybe the guy is late because something happened on the way—his wife was sick, his kid had a flat tire, problems with work—a million and a half reasons. Why should he be embarrassed because he is late? But if we're both standing, they're not gonna make fun of both of us. And even if they do it, it's not a big deal. It's not the same. They're not going to focus on one of us. So now I'm going to stand next to him. Why? Because now two people are standing. What do you assume? Oh, they're just slow prayers. These are the tzaddikim. These guys, their Amidah is longer than everybody else's Siyum HaShas already. There you go. They're Chassidim. Three hours. Why? Because there are two people standing. So he continued standing next to him the whole time.

1:56:53this is caring about other people. It's not about your friend. It's not about your partner. It's not about your son or daughter. It's simply caring about another Jew, simply caring about another human being and how other people perceive them if certain things happen. That means that you have to constantly think this. It's not something that just happens where you know, "Oh, this guy just fell. Let me pick him up." No, no, you have to think what could happen if he falls. You have to remove your own self from your equation and start thinking about other people constantly. That's one of the greatest signs of somebody that's humble. Now

1:57:54Someone asked Rav Ovadia, you know, some questions. One of his, I think it was his chavruta, asked him some questions. And Rav Ovadia got to the topic of Olam Haba. Rav Ovadia says, that's the book, you know, it says in the Gemara, "Ashrei Adam," praiseworthy is the person that arrives to heaven, to the judgment of heaven, with his book in his hand. So, Rav Ovadia says, Rav Ovadia, who wrote many, many books, Baruch Hashem, says, that's the book that I'm going to take with me to heaven. So, the chavruta says to him, "What, the Yoreh De'ah, the Yabia Omer, all these famous books that you have?" "No, no, no, no, not that one." "Which one?" "Go, that one, go get that one over there." He takes the book,

1:58:54Takes the book out. It's like a journal. It wasn't a journal. All the people that he helped do teshuva. All the kiruv that he did in his life, that's the book. I can't wait to take to Shamayim. Yeah, but all the halachot, the psakim, the big things, that's good. That's good. That's all good. But this is what I'm taking to Shamayim. All the people that I helped do teshuva. All the kiruv that I did in my life for 90 plus years, all that stuff, that's what I'm taking to Shamayim. The Torah is huge. He's going to learn that Torah. Why? It shows you care about other people, not just about yourself. Doing kiruv and helping people do teshuva and get closer to Hashem by doing mitzvot, by coming to shiurim, by keeping Shabbat, by keeping kosher, that is one of the greatest things that a person can do in order to develop the character trait of humility. It forces you to help a bunch of strangers, not just the people that you care about and you know. If you're truly doing kiruv, you're doing it at every opportunity you can. Sometimes it's your best friend from 25 years ago; sometimes it's your brother or your father. Sometimes it's just some stranger that looks Jewish, and you start a conversation with them. He says, "Are you Jewish? Oh, why don't you come to this shiur in Aventura? It's the guy that yells, but he's kind of nice anyway."

2:00:24Compton is your next thing. You know this guy becomes a tzaddik. She becomes a tzaddeket by doing kiruv on a regular basis and contributing to helping people do teshuva, whether it's by bringing more people to the lectures, publicizing them and sharing them on the internet, or donating your maaser on a regular basis to it, where they could use this money to help more and more people do teshuva. Showing a sham you care about other people that are even not connected to you. You're thinking about other people's olam haba, not just yours. You're thinking about and you feel bad about other people not going to heaven. So you're trying to help them get there. You feel bad about people not knowing the truth. So you try to bring it to them. Not because you're trying to be right, but you're trying to save them. You're trying to help people that don't even know they're sick, and...

2:01:26To give you an understanding of what it means to be truly humble and care about other people, there was a gathering of women, about a thousand women, who got together. Jewish women, Orthodox Jewish women, to get some chizuk, emunah, kosher event, one Rabbanit after another. The last Rabbanit that went on really got people excited. Got them excited, got them really so excited they started singing a song. They started singing a very famous religious song, "Vezakeini Legadel Banim U'Bnei Banim." chizuk, emunah, kosher event, one Rabbanit after another. The last Rabbanit that went on really got people excited. Got them excited, got them really so excited they started singing a song. They started singing a very famous religious song, "Vezakeini Legadel Banim U'Bnei Banim." May You give me the merit to raise children and have grandchildren that will bring light to the world with their Torah and their good deeds. And now a thousand women start singing this well-known song, and all of them are excited and passionate. But then there are two women that are just talking.

2:02:53And one of them especially wouldn't shut up. She's saying jokes, another joke, another joke, another joke, and then she starts talking about politics. You know, and a few of the women are like, come on, it's exciting right now. Shh, shh. Either sing or shh. Ignores them as she goes, gives her more jokes and more politics and more of this and more of that. Nothing, as if nothing in the world is happening, and she is excited about politics and her jokes, talking to this other person. And some of the girls are, you know, they're upset. Finally, they get to the end of the song, and one of the women couldn't hold herself and she came over to rebuke her. "Sister, excuse me, but..." Couldn't find a better time or a better place to talk to your friend and give her jokes and politics and all the things they were saying. I mean, so many women here are singing Yigdal Hashem and so on. Now you talk to your friend about all this stuff. She says to her, "Let me tell you something. My friend has been married for 20 years and...

2:04:09but the doctor is saying that she'll never be able to have a kid. She hasn't had any kids, and she will never have any kids. She can't have kids. And I knew that my friend, if she was going to be involved, the emotional song that you are all singing together about having kids and grandkids that are talmidei chachamim, bringing light to the world, would simply destroy her because she says, "What kids? What light to the world? I'm living in darkness. I have had no kids for 20 years." And I know I annoyed some women With my jokes and my politics. But I had to do whatever I could to steer her attention away from what was going on. Because if she was going to be involved, it would have destroyed my friend. So although I annoyed a few women, I'll take that sin to heaven. And I'll show Hashem what I did. That, rabotai, also comes from humility.

2:05:13you're not thinking about, "Oh, you know what, I like this song. Let me sing along with everybody else because my situation is, I relate to the song." When a person is humbled, they naturally think about other people: how they will feel, how they can feel, and they act based on that. So as we can see from here, the Ramban is telling us that humility is much more extraordinary than simply being a guy that puts his head down and makes himself seem like he's some peasant. There's a lot more when you delve into humility. B'ezrat Hashem, this will give us enough chizuk to understand the significance of humility so we can start acquiring it more, we can start chasing it more, and understand that acquiring this trait is simply acquiring Olam HaBa. Baruch Adonai le'olam, amen ve'amen.