The Foundation Of Real Teshuva (Aur Torah New York)

0:14We're here back in Staten Island at Ohel Torah. Thank you, Rav Zehev. Always amazing to see him. You guys are lucky to have a living Sefer Torah inside your Beit Knesset. A lot of Batei Knesset have Sifrei Torah. You have a living Sefer Torah. His name is Rav Zehev. Anyone who doesn't take advantage of it, it's like missing out on Gan Eden. You have the ticket, but you didn't go. The shiur will also be for Ilui Nishmat, Eliyahu Tisuna Ben Roza, Refuah Shlema to Levana Bat Sara, Sara Bat Levana, Rachel Bat Shulamit, Sara Bat Anat, Michal Bat Titi, and B’ezrat Hashem, all of Am Yisrael will have Refuah Shlema, Refuat HaNefesh, Refuat HaGuf. So, Baruch Hashem, we had a nice shiur in Queens last night. Lots of people, Baruch Hashem.

1:16Lots of chizuk. But sometimes I find that people have a tough time believing that the Torah is real, and they give the credit to the speaker, thinking the speaker came up with it out of his own mind. So sometimes I do this: if you guys want to do it, we can do it, but if not, we can do something else. There’s a lot of Torah we can learn. But instead of teaching you what I want to teach you, maybe you guys can come up with a handful of questions. we'll make that the shiur. We'll connect it to whatever information we have just to show you that when the Torah says, "Kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh," it means that you're all connected. Even the guy you don't like, even the guy that's down the street, even the competition, even the guy from a different family, from a different background, you're connected to him one way or another. Meaning, that the Torah that you're learning, In the middle of the world somewhere, it's somehow connected to the Torah that someone else is learning here. The question that you have in your mind is connected to whatever Torah that I learned today, or yesterday, or at some point. So, sometimes people like to ask questions, and sometimes the questions are much better than the shiur itself. So, whoever wants to come up with a question, we'll connect it to the shiur. Any volunteers? Any questions? It doesn't matter if it's relevant or not relevant. There's no irrelevant questions. Anything? Everyone? Everyone shy?

2:42Want me to ask the questions? I'll ask the questions and I'll answer them. If you have questions, you can interrupt. It's not a prepared speech. Now, in today's world, the most difficult thing that a person can do is teshuva. And the reason why doing teshuva is extremely difficult is Because the first step of doing teshuva is admitting that everything that you've ever believed is wrong. Now, the Gemara says in Masechet Yoma that a person can look right in the mirror and see nothing wrong. All he sees is something wrong everywhere else. Everyone else has flaws. Everyone else is foolish. Everyone else is cheap. Everyone else is this, but he himself doesn't see anything wrong in himself. Which means that in order for you to do teshuva, in order for you to admit that Hashem runs the world, you have to admit that whatever you believed until this point is wrong. And the reason why is because if you believe for a second that when you go to work, you're the one that's making the money, and it's not Hashem giving you the money, it's actually kefira in Hashem.

4:09you've made yourself into a little mini-god. You think that you're making the money. Yeah, but I worked. So what? Who gave you the brain? Who gave you the arms? Who gave you the legs? Who gave you the idea? Who gave you the money? Who gave you the speech? Who sent the customer? Who sent the goods? Who had somebody invent the goods for you to buy them? Says that the molecules within every one of your cells are supposed to work. What if they don't work today? They want to go to sleep. So, to think that we co-create, that we made our money, we built our house, we run the world, it's actually a ma'aseh kefirah. And the reason why is because, in essence, you're removing God from your life. The most important thing that a person needs to know is that in Tehillim, David HaMelech was Kodesh Kodashim. The Mashiach is going to come from him. But this was already decided in creation. This was already decided when Hashem created the world. Since there were certain things that Hashem decided already before He created the world.

5:29He wrote the Torah before He created the world. 974 generations before He created the world, He used black fire on white fire to write the Sefer Torah. And that's why, until this day, every Sefer Torah looks exactly the same. You have the black ink on a white scroll, white background. Why isn't it pink, or yellow, or blue? Blue is nice. Purple maybe. Because that's not the way that Hashem wrote the Torah. And the rule is we have to emulate what Hashem did before He created the world. One of the things that He decided before He created the world is the name of the Mashiach. Now David HaMelech, who had everything that we could all imagine and beyond our imagination, he said in Tehillim number 34, "Go my sons, listen to me," i will teach you the fear of Hashem. Why do I want to fear Hashem? If you go to most lectures today, and you have most speakers today, and you have most people that speak about Torah, saying Yirat Shamayim is almost like saying a curse word. No one wants to talk about Yirat Shamayim. Everyone wants to talk about loving Hashem. We want to love Hashem. We don't want to be afraid of Him.

6:58The problem is that according to the Chachamim, according to HaTorah HaKedoshah, it's impossible to love something when you don't know what it is. Now, once you know what Hashem is, at least whatever you can grasp as a human being, immediately you're going to be scared. Because the first thing you're going to realize is that He's in charge of everything. now every one of you has bodies—you haven't turned into angels yet, at least as far as I know—so you have bodies, your flesh and blood. Inside your flesh and blood, you have proteins, trillions and trillions and trillions of proteins. Each one of these proteins has to fold in a very precise way. If the protein Kasbah Shalom folds in a wrong way. You know, like women know how to fold clothes. If the husband folds the clothes, it's like Tisha B'Av. It's like, "What'd you do? You might as well crumble the clothes." So if you fold the protein like you fold the clothes, you have a problem. Why? Because if the protein is not folded exactly the way it's supposed to, that's where machalot (diseases) come from. Now, how many proteins do you have? Trillions and...

8:23Trillions of proteins. If just one of them, not a hundred thousand or a hundred million or some big number we can't count to, just one folds a little bit to the right, somebody could lose the ability to walk, somebody could lose the ability to see, somebody could lose the ability to breathe, somebody could lose the ability to have an operating heart. One protein. Now, who is responsible for all those proteins folding exactly the same way every single time? Shemit Barach. And it's not a one-time thing, it's a continuous thing because you keep reproducing. One mathematician tried to figure out what is the statistical possibility that every protein will fold exactly the same. He tried to figure it out. Very smart guy. He said, "Okay, I can't figure it out by myself, so I have to have a computer figure out how to figure it out. Not to figure it out, but how to figure out the actual conclusion." He says, and he connected it to what's called a supercomputer. And a supercomputer, after...

9:38Calculating how long it would take to figure out, it says it would take 10 to the 127th power years, which means 10 with 127 zeros after it. Meaning the world can exist a million years and it still wouldn't be the beginning, just to figure out the likelihood of one protein folding the right way. And the same God that's folding every one of these proteins is the God that you have to fear and... Once you understand that He's in charge of these proteins and He's in charge of your brain cells, He's in charge of every single thing, if you're not scared, you're insane. So why aren't people scared today? Why do people do such bad things? There are two reasons for it. Number one, they don't know. They just simply don't know. They don't know the truth, they don't know The consequences of not doing what Hashem wants are significant. People think, like I used to think, that following the Torah is elective. You can do it if you want, but you don't have to. If you want to follow Torah, good for you. If you don't and live a different lifestyle, you're still Jewish, everything is good, Hashem still loves you, and you still have Gan Eden. Like it says in the tefillah on Yom Shishi.

10:59Right before Shabbat comes in, Kol Yisrael yesh lahem chelek le'olam haba, or actually I'm sorry, on Shabbat, Kol Yisrael yesh lahem chelek le'olam haba. Everybody thinks that regardless of whether you're a righteous person or not, regardless of whether you learn Torah or not, regardless of whether you follow Torah or not, regardless of whether you keep Shabbat or not, you have olam haba, you're going to be okay. The problem with that argument is that you didn't read the rest of the Mishnah. That Mishnah, where it says, comes from Masechet Sanhedrin. Now, every time I say Masechet, that means Gemara. Gemara is our Oral Torah. It's one of these books. So, for example, this is an ArtScroll edition of a book. So imagine, each time I say Masechet, it's one of these books. There are 73 of these books. It's 36 Masechtot, but it's 73 editions of this, because it's English and Hebrew. So, when I say Masechet so-and-so, I'm not mentioning the whole book. just mentioning one line within the book, so imagine what's in the rest of the book. So now it says, "All of Israel have a share in the World to Come," and he uses the verse from the prophet Isaiah, "All of you are righteous," and actually gives the definition of what it means. It doesn't mean that everyone has Olam HaBa.

12:26It means that just like the Gemara in Masechet Chagigah, page 15, says that Hashem reserves Olam HaBa for everyone. But there's two Olam HaBas. There's a good one and there's a bad one. There's Gan Eden, and then there's the other hot place. They have different names for it. No, some people call it Gehenom, some people call it Hell, some people call it Kaf HaKela, seven other names. The point is, it's not a pretty place. You don't want to go there. So the Gemara says that Kol Yisrael has a portion. Which one it's going to be depends on you. How do you know which? The rest of that Gemara, after that line, that one verse, there are ten pages explaining, and the following people do not have it. So it says everyone, except the following people. And there are ten pages of who doesn't have it. And when you read it, you have to start doing teshuva. Why? Because you realize that you could be one of them. Now, one of the things that shocked me when I first started doing teshuva is that I realized that following what Hashem says is not an elective. It's not "if you want to, it's okay"; "if you don't feel like it, it's also okay." Hashem loves you regardless and

13:49he loves you, and that's why He gives you time, but it doesn't necessarily mean that He can give you Gan Eden just like He gave Moshe Rabbeinu. There obviously has to be a bill. Now, David HaMelech tried to give us a few hints so we get to the good place, so we get to Gan Eden, so we don't make mistakes that cost us eternity. And he says, "Go, my sons, listen to me." I will teach you fear of Hashem. And the reason why is because in Tehillim 111, verse 10, it says, "The beginning of wisdom is fear of Hashem." And we see this throughout all of the Torah. We see this in the book of Devarim. Moshe Rabbeinu tells Am Yisrael, "What does Hashem want from you other than you fear Him?"

14:50meaning, the only thing He wants from you is for you to fear Him. That's it. Just fear Hashem. So the question is, why do we need to fear Him? Why can't we just love Him? Why can't we just say, "Hashem, I love You. Give me a million bucks. Hashem, I love You. Give me two million, because the million I spent. Hashem, I love You. Give me a big house. Hashem, I love You. Give me a good wife. Give me a good husband. Give me good kids." I love You. Don't give me anything. Just let me keep whatever I have. Hashem, I love You. Let me live to 120 minimum. Why can't it be that way? Why can't it be that way? Because then, chas v'shalom, you're turning Hashem into Santa Claus. Hashem is not Santa Claus. He's also not your friend. He doesn't give you gifts for no reason. It is one of the sages in our history who said that Hashem wants to give you good because He is good. He wants to give you good, but His wisdom knows that He cannot give you good for no reason; there has to be a price. Because if He gave everyone good, they wouldn't appreciate it. So, for example, if every time your kid asked for something, you give it to them, all you're doing is creating a little Hitler.

16:17You're not creating a good kid. Why? If every time your kid asked you for something, you said yes. So in the beginning, he can ask you, okay, Abba, can I have candy? Yes. Abba, can I have another candy? Yes. Abba, can I have another candy? Yes. After a week of "Abba, can I have candy?" then your wife wants to divorce you. Why? Because the kid has no teeth. And the kid doesn't like you anymore. Why? Because he also knows he doesn't have any teeth because of you. So giving him everything he wants is not exactly good. Now, if you fast forward it... Every time you ask Abba for something, he gives it to you, and every time your son asks you for something, you give it to him. He wants candy in the beginning, and then he wants a phone, and then he wants a PlayStation, and then he wants a car, and then he wants a house. David HaMelech is telling us that you're going to make the same mistake that he made one time. He had several sons, and one of his sons he never told "no." Every time he asked for something, he said, "Yes, whatever you want, I have, because I want to give you everything I didn't have as a kid." David HaMelech didn't have exactly the easiest childhood. So one day, the kid asked for something that David HaMelech had to say no to. What was it?

17:36He wanted the malchut. He said, "Abba, you gave me this, you gave me that, you gave me this, you gave me that. You know what? Don't even give me anything more. Just give me your position. I want to be king. I want to be David HaMelech." Hashem says, "You can't be king. Hashem has to choose you." "What do you mean? You've been giving me my whole life everything I want. Now you're going to say no finally? Atkan. Can't do it. I'm going to kill you." And that's actually what he tried to do. Shalom became a little Hitler. Shalom could not tolerate the fact that his father said no because he was used to hearing yes. So everyone knows that just saying yes all the time is not a good thing. Now David HaMelech is telling us that... When we learn what Yirat Shamayim is, we're going to learn when to say yes and when to say no. And Hashem wants to give you good, but He knows that He can't just say yes all the time. If you do good, you get good. If you do bad, the opposite. But the first and most important thing is you need to recognize Him. You can't ask for stuff and not know who He is.

19:06Now, what's the point of having Yirat Shamayim? What's the point of having this fear of Hashem? In Sefer Devarim, the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 28, verse 47, Parashat Ki Tavo, there's a very, very scary parasha that talks about all types of Blessings in the beginning, but then all types of curses after if we don't do, and the verse says, "Because you didn't serve Hashem, your God, with happiness and with a full heart, you're not going to serve your enemies." Now during the Holocaust, the Admorim used to sing this, used to sing this verse. So one of the people came to him and says, "Listen, Kevod HaRav, you know they're killing us, right?" He says, "Yeah, I know. They killed 10 of my kids and my wife." He says, "Every morning you say tefillat shacharit. Before tefillat shacharit, you say birkot hashachar. During birkot hashachar, you say, 'Baruch Hashem, that I'm not a goy.' Thank God I'm not a goy. Do you still say this?"

20:31We're in a Holocaust. We're suffering. We're getting beaten up. We're getting killed. You lost ten sons. You lost a wife. Are you still happy that you're not a goy? And the Admor Mitzans said, "Dafke right now, when we're in the Holocaust, I mean it even more. I mean it even more. Why? Why?" Because Baruch Hashem that I'm part of the nation that's being murdered and I'm not the murderer. And I already knew that this would happen because that's what it says in the Torah. It says such things for us to go work for the enemy only happen because we didn't serve Hashem with happiness and with a full heart. This is what happened, so I know the Torah is real. I know that I'm part of the nation. Okay, we're being murdered. It's not a good thing. I But I know the Torah is emet. This is a proof in the Torah. As unhappy as the situation is, at least it's a good proof that Hashem is not Santa Claus. Hashem is not joking around when He says you have to follow what He says. This is Yirat Shamayim. This is fear of Hashem at its best. This is how the Admorim's sons kept their sanity.

21:54On the other end, the people that didn't have Yirat Shamayim, the people that did not have such Devekut Ba'Hashem, such closeness and attachment to Hashem Himself, when they saw all the things that were happening in the Holocaust, they couldn't take it. They lost their minds. And unfortunately, sometimes when the evil Nazis tried to torture us, they would make it seem like they were giving us food. pretend like they're giving us food. They'd make a big pot of something, and it would have a smell. People that haven't eaten in a few days would hear it, smell something, and run to it. They wouldn't care who's in front of them or who's not in front of them. Many times, they would kill each other just running for the food. Why? Because They weren't working on their yirat shamayim. They weren't necessarily concerned too much about what Hashem thinks and how we're supposed to behave. They were concerned about their nefesh. They were concerned about their bodies. Whereas people like the Admor of Radzin, all they cared about is what is Hashem doing? Why, who, what, when, and how? How can I do teshuva? How can I make sure it doesn't happen? How can I help others? And there's actually a story by Rav Galinsky, alav hashalom. He said a story about another rabbi named Rav Gershon.

23:17He says, this Rav Gershon, every single time we got food, which was very rare, whenever we got food, this Rav Gershon would give it to somebody else. All you got is one cracker for four or five days. He says, "Hashem, no, he looks hungrier than me. I have another day or two to survive; I'm going to give it to him." Why? You don't have to; save yourself. "Let me save him first." That's when you're more concerned about Hashem than you are concerned about yourself. Now, the Torah speaks very highly of someone that works on getting Yirat Shamayim. To such an extent that if you actually look at the Tehillim, and you open the Tehillim, you open the Sefer Tehillim, and you see the verses before This verse in Tehillim, it says that Hashem gives all the blessings, all the good that you could ever imagine for anyone that works on Yirat Shamayim. If you are actively looking to figure out what does Hashem want from you? What is Hashem expecting from you? Is Shabbat something that's holy to you or is Shabbat just another day?

24:42Are you talking business on Shulchan Shabbat? And you're talking about your company? Or are you giving your kids a chiddush about something you learned that week? Or maybe you're hearing it from them. Is Shabbat another day? Or is it the most important day? These are questions you have to ask yourself every single Shabbat and every single day. And the reason why is because the Gemara talks very negatively about anyone that violates Shabbat to such an extent that The Rambam in Hilchot Shabbat, chapter 30, says that a Jew who violates Shabbat on purpose—he decides that he wants to drive on Shabbat because he wants to go to the beach, or he decides he wants to go to the mall to buy a t-shirt, or he decides that he wants to watch TV because there's a game on, or he decides that Shabbat is just like another day, so he goes somewhere that he shouldn't be going to in the first place—The Rambam says in Hilchot Shabbat that Jew is considered 100% an idol worshiper.

25:43he says, not me, this is Rambam. Where did Rambam get it from? The Gemara. Where did the Gemara get it from? The Torah. Where did the Torah come from? Hashem. Now, why is he considered an idol worshiper? Because in the Torah, Hashem says that every time a Jew Shabbat, he's acting as a partner to Hashem, and he's testifying that Hashem created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. You weren't there during creation, and you don't know anyone that was there either. But how do you testify that Hashem did it? I know you did it. I don't have to be there to know you did it. You don't need to be such a genius to realize that Hashem is running the world. If you need scientific proofs, there are plenty of them. If you need rational proofs, there are plenty of them. If you need Torah proofs, there are plenty of them. Any proof you want. We have many shiurim, Baruch Hashem. There are hundreds of shiurim. You go to our website, Be'ezratHashem.org, and you'll find many shiurim about every topic you can imagine. So you don't need to be such a genius to know that God exists. But to know that He exists and to act on it are two different things.

27:02Most Jews believe that God exists. But unfortunately, over 70% of the Jews in the world do not keep Shabbat. The reason why is because most of them think that Shabbat is elective; it's as if you could do it if you want. Now, Hashem said something else. Twelve times. Twelve times in the Five Books of Moses, He says that a Jew who violates Shabbat has a serious problem with Him. Why? Because I expected you to be a witness to say, "God, I know You created the world and You rested on the seventh day." Not because You need to rest, but because You wanted to create a different day out of the week to break up my week, to make sure that I feel like You did, if you will. Not that He needs rest. Hashem doesn't sleep. He doesn't rest. But He created a rest day for you. Now what happens if I don't rest? What happens if I drive or I watch TV or I do all these other things that I do during the rest of the week? Then the Gemara in Masechet Shabbat says that that person is acting as the opposite.

28:14What's the opposite? It's like someone running around in the middle of Broadway screaming, "God, I don't believe in You. I don't believe in You. I don't believe in You. You didn't do anything. You didn't create anything." So, you turn on the car because you think, "I'm going to go get some milk for my wife. I'm going to get milk on Shabbat." The reality is that every time you violate Shabbat, you're screaming to Hashem at the top of your lungs, "Hashem, I don't believe in You." for that, Hashem says that puts you in a very serious condition. What's the condition? A condition of being an idol worshiper. Because the idol worshiper also doesn't believe in God. He believes in a statue he bought from Chinatown for $15. He believes the statue is going to give him money, it's going to give him health, it's going to give him something. He says he doesn't believe, and you don't believe. Same thing, you...

29:16If a husband told his wife, "Honey, I love you," and five minutes later slapped her in the face, she'd say, "Listen honey, if you love me, don't slap me." We can't say to Hashem, "We believe in You," but go to war against Him every week. We can't use that argument. So, when a person understands that... Hashem counts Shabbat as the deal. There are three things that are considered covenants in the Torah: there's Shabbat, there's Tefillin, and then there's your Brit. Rosh Teivot: Shabbat. A Jew is obligated to do two out of the covenants every day. Brit Milah you didn't have to do; your parents did it for you. Tell them thank you. but Brit Milah is not it. We don't mean just the Brit Milah you did when you were eight days old and no one asked you. Brit Milah means you have to protect your Brit. You can't have a new girlfriend every week. You can't have premarital relations. You can't waste seed. You have to make sure you protect this Brit. Why? That's the deal. If you remember in Sefer Bereishit,

30:40when Avraham Avinu sent Eliezer to go look for a wife for his son Yitzchak. He told him, "Listen, make sure you find a woman from my family and make sure she's not a Canaanite. She's not part of this cursed nation of Canaan. And make sure you don't come back here and tell my son, 'No, I found you one, let me show you,' because she doesn't want to come here." Eliezer says, "Okay, fine, fine, no." I'm not gonna do what you say. Of course, Avraham Avinu because—no, no, no, swear to me. Okay, no, I swear. No, no, no, no, swear to me on something that's the most valuable. What's the most valuable? My brit. And it says that he put his hand on his brit. Later on, which we read about two weeks ago, Yaakov Avinu wants to give Yosef, his son... blessing and his sons. He wants to give a blessing, but before that, he says, "Yosef, I need you to promise me something. I need you to promise me that you're not gonna bury me in Egypt." He said, "Okay, Abba, I'm not gonna bury you in Egypt." "No, no, okay. No, nothing. I need you to swear." "Okay, Abba, I swear." "No, you need to swear with the most valuable possession we have. What is it? The brit. Put your hand under my brit." "I put my hand on your brit. I swear."

32:05the brit is not like we think brit with our sick minds; sometimes we're thinking about something bad. The brit is something holy. Why? That means we're connected to God. That's the original deal that started with Avraham Avinu almost 4,000 years ago. That's the brit. The second covenant, the second thing that's called the brit in the Torah is A Jew is obligated to lay tefillin six days a week. On Shabbat, he is not allowed to lay tefillin, and on holidays, he is not allowed to lay tefillin. Other than that, he has to lay tefillin every day. A Jew who doesn't lay tefillin because he doesn't feel like it or doesn't have time to do it, if it happens once in a while, it is a problem, but it's not a serious problem. It's like having a cold or maybe even having pneumonia, but it's not cancer. But if you just decide that tefillin is not for you, you don't have time for it. You have a very busy schedule. God, I'm too busy for you to lay tefillin for five minutes. I'm too busy to put the armor of a king, the crown of a king, on my head and say, "God, I believe in you" every morning or at least before the sun comes down if you forgot in the morning or weren't able to.

33:25The Gemara says that a person has no Olam HaBa. Doesn't matter what he did. He gives tzedakah from here until next year. He gives a million dollars a day. It's not going to help. Why? Every day he told Hashem, I don't care. I don't have time for you. You didn't fulfill the deal. Five minutes a day, it's worth it. Somebody told you, "Listen, I'll give you a million dollars to do a job." Okay. "How long is the job? Five years? I'll do it. No problem." Somebody told you, "You get not a million dollars; you get a zillion dollars every single second." What? Five minutes every day, lay tefillin. Come to have there five minutes; you do it. Tefillin, if you're in a hurry, if not, you do the whole tefillah, it takes 40 minutes, and you finish. Five minutes, you have Olam HaBa, but that also depends on the third brit. The third brit is Shabbat and... So at any given day, you have to fulfill two of them. So every day, six days a week, you have to protect your brit and you have to lay tefillin. On Shabbat, since you can't lay tefillin, you have Shabbat and you have your brit. That at least puts you in good status. But sometimes, sometimes we get so busy working, doing, fighting, arguing, and doing whatever it is that we're doing to run our life, that it's very easy to forget about God. And that's where Yirat Shamayim comes in. Now, Rav Mordechai Eliyahu said a story that was shocking. He said one time, there was a couple that came to him,

34:46doing, fighting, arguing, and doing whatever it is that we're doing to run our life, that it's very easy to forget about God. And that's where Yirat Shamayim comes in. Now, Rav Mordechai Eliyahu said a story that was shocking. He said one time, there was a couple that came to him, I will tell you, these are all true stories. I'm not making it up for entertainment purposes. The point is for me to leave you with something you can take home that could actually affect you. If you go home and you stay exactly the same, then I just failed. I wasted your time. But if you go home and you decide, listen, I got to do something, whatever it is, I don't know what you do and what you don't do. If you're not keeping Shabbat, okay, I have to start figuring out how to keep Shabbat. If you're not laying tefillin, okay, I have to figure out how to start laying tefillin.

35:47If you're not protecting your brit, then you have to figure out how to protect your brit. Whatever it is, you have to figure out how to improve. That's the point of our Torah. Torah means hora'ah. It means instructions. It's instructions on how to live. It's instructions on how to succeed. It's instructions on how to get to Gan Eden. It's like a map. Now Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu That one time a couple came to him, saying, "Rabbi, we need a special blessing. Our daughter is missing. Our only daughter is missing. We don't know where she is." Now, Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, if he didn't have ruach hakodesh, I don't know what he had. All I know is that the things he was able to do are beyond our imagination and... The whole time the mom is crying, he's only paying attention to her. The father says a few words here and there, but he's not paying attention to him at all. At the end of the meeting, he says to the wife, "Listen, go to the grave of the Chida and read Tehillim. And I'm going to send one of my students with you. He's going to show you where and how and who and what. You read there, you'll find the answer."

37:09They go to the grave, and he tells his student, "Listen, I need you to listen to what they say. He told them to read Tehillim. Yes, exactly. I didn't tell them what to read. I told them to read Tehillim. What they pick is something else. That's from Shamayim. They're going to open a sefer of Tehillim. There are 150 Tehillim. Let them read. You listen to what they say. Listen to which one they picked. Okay?" They go to the grave. They start reading Tehillim. The mom is reading Tehillim of David HaMelech, crying to Hashem, "Hashem, don't leave me, Hashem, I love you, Hashem, this, Hashem, this." The husband is reading about war, murder, and fighting. They come back to the Rav, and he says, "The father was reading things that were talking about war and fighting and horrible things, and the wife was praying to Hashem." The Rav says, "Yes." They'll see the truth in a couple of days. Two days later, they found out the father killed the daughter. Why? Because the wife embarrassed him once. The wife embarrassed him one time, and he wanted to get back at the wife. This is when the Gemara says that if you know someone who does not have Yirat Shamayim, you’re not allowed to be inside a closed room with him. Why? He may kill you.

38:40What he means is a nice guy donates, he gives, he's a nice guy. He makes people laugh. If he's not afraid of God, he may kill you the moment you make him angry. Where do we learn it from? Avraham Avinu. Avraham Avinu, when he went to Avimelech, Avimelech didn't know that Sarah was his wife. He thought she was his sister. But after the whole ma'aseh happened... Hashem came to Avimelech and told him, "I'm going to kill you if you don't free Sarah; she's his wife." So Avimelech said to Avraham, "Why did you do this to us? Why didn't you tell us she's your wife? Why did you say she's your sister?" Avraham says a very famous verse: "Because I said, 'Surely there is no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.'" To Avimelech, that gives us an idea of how important Yirat Shamayim is. He says, "I saw that no one here is scared of Hashem, and they would kill me over my wife." Because they're not, what does one thing have to do with the other? Why would they kill you over your wife? Because they're not scared of Hashem. The reason, rabotai, is if somebody is not scared of Hashem, that means that they think they are Hashem. Somebody has to be God.

39:57Somebody has to be God. There can't be nothing; either you think you're God or you believe in God. Either you think you're running the world or He's running the world. One of you has to be running the world. Which means that if you have no Yirat Shamayim, if you don't believe in God to such an extent that you understand that He's running every single thing in the world, that means you think you're running it. So, the moment somebody comes to you and turns your world upside down and... Doesn't give you the money you think you deserve. Doesn't give you the respect you think you deserve. Doesn't give you whatever you think you deserve, whatever you're entitled to. Right or wrong, you lose your mind. You get angry. And the Gemara says that someone who gets angry— all types of negative forces from Gehinnom start taking control over him. Why? He has no Yirat Shamayim. He doesn't think that Hashem is running the world. Even when Hashem is giving you something that's not so good, it's still Him. Even when Hashem is giving you something that's not so good, in the end it really is good. You just have to give it time. Now there was a debate between a kofer named Turnus Rufus and Rabbi Akiva. And the debate was,

41:28There's somebody that's very poor. Turnus Rufus says, "Why are you going to give him any money? For what? If you believe in God, let God pay him. If you believe in God, you think God runs the world. By you giving him any tzedakah, you're going against God. God decided not to give one of His servants any money, and you go and go against God by giving him any money." That's the mindset of someone that doesn't actually believe in God and someone that's a kofer. Rabbi Akiva says, "No, no, no, it's not quite that. It's not that God decided not to give a servant money. It's that God decided to throw His son in jail without any food, and you decide, 'Let me go feed His son.' Now maybe the father that threw his son in jail with no food was really upset." whatever reason he did something really bad and he threw his son in jail. Throughout the week, the father is still upset, but after a while, he cools down. After a while he's not as angry with his son. If a week later he decides, "You know what, it's still my son. I love him. Bring him back here," and then he's reminded, "Oh, I forgot to send anyone to give him any food."

42:53He gets really upset. But now you say, no, no, no. Your honor, I gave him food. I fed your son for the last week. Is he going to be upset at you? He says, no, you saved my son. You saved my son. In the parashat hashavua, you're going to see this week, you learn the definition of what yirat Shamayim is. In a parasha in the beginning, last week we learned that we had seven plagues. Measure for measure, Hashem punished the Egyptians for all their evil acts. But that was the first seven plagues and... The next parasha, he's giving them the next three plagues. And we see that Paro haRasha doesn't do teshuva until the end. Doesn't matter what happens, people are dying, people are suffering. But in the seventh plague, actually in last week's parasha,

44:21When Moshe tells Paro, "Listen, Hashem is going to bring hail. He's going to bring hail on top of everyone, on top of everything. And there's only one way that you can protect yourself. You have to make sure that you bring all your sheep, all your cows, all your donkeys, whoever it is, everything inside. That's the way you can protect yourself." Anything that's outside will be damaged by this hail. It's ice with lava inside it. Good mixture. So it says, in chapter 9, verse 20, "Ha'yarei et dvar Hashem me'avdei Paro, heiniss et avadav ve'et miknehu el habatim. V'asher lo sam libo el dvar Hashem, vay'azov et avadav ve'et miknehu basadeh." says whoever among the servants of Pharaoh feared the word of Hashem chased his servants and his livestock to the house, meaning he put everything inside. And whoever did not take it to heart, did not take the word of Hashem to heart, he left the servants and his livestock in the field. So here, one of the sodot, one of the secrets we learn in the Torah, is actually the language of Hebrew, the lashon hakodesh.

45:45And we know that everything has an opposite. For example, tall, short. Dark, light. Black, white, and so on and so forth. Fat, skinny. So if you ask somebody, what's the opposite of Yirat Shamayim? What's the opposite of fear of Hashem? Most people would answer, no fear of Hashem. One is fear, one is no fear. But that's not what the verse says. The verse says, V'asher lo sam libo. Someone who feared Hashem put everything inside, meaning he heard what Hashem said, he heard what Moshe said, and he put everything, he listened. So the next verse is supposed to be saying the opposite. Now, if it was saying what we thought, it would say someone that didn't fear Hashem didn't put everything inside. But it doesn't say that. It says, V'asher lo sam libo. El dvar Hashem, meaning someone who just didn't take it to heart, lo sam libo, meaning didn't pay attention to the details, didn't realize and take to heart that Hashem is running the world. That's the opposite of yirat Shamayim. Yirat Shamayim is not something that you can just buy from a store. It's not something that you are just born with and...

47:10It's something that you have to actively work on. How do you actively work on it? By paying attention. Now, most people want to get to the second half of the shiur, which is the part of how do we get to the love part? How do we get to loving Hashem and enjoying our relationship with Him, and so on and so forth? Now, to get to the love of Hashem, we have to understand, first of all, what it means to have Yirat Shamayim. The Chachamim say that the lowest level, the Nazir HaKadosh, I saw it. It says that the lowest level of Yirat Shamayim, the lowest level, there are levels. The lowest level is fear of Hashem for punishment. Meaning, I'm not going to violate what Hashem said because I'm scared He's going to punish me. I'm scared He's going to take my money. I'm scared He's going to take my health. I'm scared He's going to take something. I'm scared He's going to punish me. Most people understand that fear. Why? Because they live with that fear every day, with their day-to-day jobs, their day-to-day life. You try not to disregard the traffic laws because you don't want to get a ticket. Not because you like cops. Not because you agree with the government. You just don't want to get a ticket.

48:34You don't want to lose your license. You obey the law, not because you agree with the law, but because you just don't want to get the fine. You don't want to get punished. You don't steal because you don't want to go to jail, not because you think that stealing is so bad. Some people obviously think that stealing is bad, but some people don't. Bernie Madoff didn't think stealing was so bad. Many other people don't think stealing is so bad. That's why they do it every day in their businesses. No, stealing only from the goyim is not bad. It's not stealing for Jews. It's actually worse to steal from the goyim, by the way, because then it's two sins. When you steal from a Jew, you're stealing, and you have a serious problem. You cannot enter Gan Eden until you do teshuvah; you have to give the money back. But when you steal from a goy... Then you made two sins. The first sin is that you stole, and the second sin is that when the goy finds out you stole from him, he's gonna blame the Jews. He's not gonna blame you; he's gonna say all the Jews are thieves. That's called Chilul Hashem. It's one of the three worst sins in all of Judaism. You picked the worst spot to be in because you decided that stealing from the goyim is okay. So, now people that understand this, they don't steal.

49:57Maybe they don't agree. Maybe they think it's okay to steal, but they still don't steal because they don't want to get caught. Sometimes you have couples that she thinks right, he thinks left. He thinks left, she thinks right. He likes blue, she likes green. They're the opposite. But if they want shalom bayit, if they want peace in the house, they're not going to tell the other person that they're always disagreeing with them. There are certain things you just got to be quiet. She wants to run the kitchen a certain way. Let her run the kitchen a certain way. It's not your job. He wants to run the business a certain way. Let him run the business a certain way. She wants to raise the kids a certain way. As long as it's not against God, let her raise the kids a certain way. Whatever it is, it's not your job. She has the job of running the house, running the kids, educating them. You have the job of learning Torah and bringing parnassah to the house. You do your job. She does her job. But if you go into the kitchen and start telling her how to cook, you're not going to have shalom bayit.

50:58Too many chefs in the kitchen. Too many chefs stay out of the kitchen. But it doesn't mean that you agree, but you're not going into the kitchen. It doesn't mean that you agree with everything she does. But you want peace, so you say, you know what, let her do whatever she wants in the kitchen. What do I care? I'd rather she does whatever she does in the kitchen than me have a headache for a week. Who wants this headache? she'd rather tell him, "Listen, I don't really like your business so much, but whatever, if that's the job you want, let him do his job as long as it's an honest living. Whatever, work this job." She's not going to tell him how to run his business. She doesn't agree with you, but she wants to avoid a headache. That, rabotai, is yirat ha'onesh. We don't do things because we don't want to get punished. Everyone understands this. The Zohar HaKadosh says that's the lowest level of fear. Lowest level; every human being understands it. What's the highest level? The highest level of fear is what is called yirat haromemut. You're scared of His majesty. You're scared of His greatness.

52:15Explain to us in a simple way: a couple that has a healthy marriage doesn't have a healthy marriage because they never argue. Every couple has some type of argument; every couple has some type of difference. It's just a reality of life. But how come they have shalom bayit? How come they don't want to kill each other? How come they're always happy despite their differences? What's the secret? The secret is that they know when to be quiet and when not to. The secret is they know that if I yell at her now, I'm not so scared that she's gonna slap me. She's not crazy. I'm not so scared that he's gonna hit me. He's not a psychopath. He's a normal human being. It's an animal, but I'm scared he's gonna be offended, and if he's offended, it's gonna hurt the relationship. It's gonna hurt the relationship. It's gonna hurt the connection between us, and that connection to me is priceless. I don't want to hurt the connection. I'd rather just be quiet at the moment that he's upset or whatever it is, just so I don't hurt the connection. That, by the way, is the secret to shalom bayit. The woman came to a rav and she said, "Rabbi, I have a lot of problems with my husband. I think I want to get a divorce." He says, "Listen, I..."

53:41I'll give you a hint. Before I talk to your husband about divorce and this, I want you to try one last thing. But you have to do it. Okay, fine. It's for sure going to work. Okay, fine. What? Tzedakah? No, no, not tzedakah. What, it's some segulah, some prayer? No, no, it's no prayer. What, I have to wear some type of jewelry? What do I have to do? No, no, no. Something very simple. He says, okay, what? He gives her two big bottles of water. These are very special big bottles of water. It's very holy water. Every time your husband says something that you don't like, immediately take a sip and hold the water in your mouth for three minutes. Don't swallow it. She says, that's going to work? He says, try it for 30 days. Thirty days later, she comes back with the husband. For the love. He's the best man in the world. I love him so much. He says, "For the love, I don't know what you did that fixed everything. Where can I get more of this water? Where can I buy it? Is it in the mountains? Is it in Afghanistan? Is it in Har Sinai (Mount Sinai)? Where can I buy more of this water?" Oh, he goes, "Just go to a local supermarket." "But what's so special about the water?" He goes, "Nothing special about the water. I just know she talks a little too much. If she shuts her mouth for three minutes, there's not gonna be any arguments."

55:07She's quiet for three minutes, there's not gonna be any arguments. Sometimes you talk a little bit too much. We're a generation that loves to talk. We love to talk so much that we all have cell phones every two seconds. We're gonna make sure who's what, oh yeah, how you doing? What do you want? Nothing, I just want to see what you're doing. We just like to talk a lot. Sometimes we like to talk so much, we just want to hear ourselves talk. Oh but the fear of the Almighty means fear of the Almighty means that you don't want to hurt the honor of Hashem because you don't want to hurt the relationship you have between you and Him because you know that every single day you say, "Thank you, Hashem, for bringing back my soul." Because you had emunah in Me. What does it mean he had emunah in you? It means you should say, because I have emunah in you. No. The pasuk says, because you have emunah in Me. What does it mean that Hashem has emunah in you? The Gemara says, in Masechet Berachot, that when a person goes to sleep, it's considered partial death—one-sixtieth of death.

56:35Because the neshamah leaves the body. A large part of the neshamah goes up to Shamayim. And the neshamah is pure. And it goes to Hashem and says, "Hashem, I don't want to go back." Before You sent me, I was pure. Now this guy is stealing. This guy is looking at every girl that moves. This woman is not modest. She doesn't like to wear clothes. She's not covering her hair. She's making sins. She's violating Torah. I don't want to go back. Before You put me in the body, I was pure. Now You put me in his body. Hashem, what's happening to me? I don't want to go back. Hashem says you have to go back. No, I don't want to go back. Hashem, please, please. Hashem, I'm begging You. Don't bring me back. I'm already out. Leave me out. Hashem says you have to go back. I'm demanding you to go back. Why, Hashem? Because I have emunah in him that today he's going to do teshuva. I have emunah that he's going to do teshuva today. Today he's going to be honest. Today she's going to be modest. Today she's going to decide, today’s the day I'm going to start covering my hair like a Jewish woman does. Today’s going to be a day that I'm actually going to put clothes on. Not because it's cold, but because that's what Hashem said.

57:47Today's the day I'm actually going to go to the Beit Knesset and actually learn a little bit. Today's the day that when the Rabbi says something, I'm actually going to listen. Today's the day. I have emunah. Today's the day of teshuva. What if today’s not? We'll try again tomorrow. Tomorrow, He's going to have emunah in you again. So, when we have Yirat HaRomemut, when we have this fear of the Almighty, we're so scared to hurt this relationship, This emunah that Hashem has in us. That today is going to be the day we do teshuva. This week is the first time I'm going to keep Shabbat. This week I'm going to shut down this dishonest business. I'm going to start something new, an honest business. This week I'm going to protect my eyes and not start looking at every woman that walks by. This week I'm going to make sure that I'm not going to waste time watching TV. I'm actually going to learn Torah instead. This week I'm going to work on Fulfilling my purpose of life and not living a purposeless life this week. I'm going to make something of myself. That's Yirat Shamayim. And the sages say, once you get to that level where you're scared of hurting the relationship, that's the beginning of loving Hashem.

59:08Meaning that the highest level of fear of Hashem, the highest level, is the lowest level of loving Hashem. It's just the beginning of loving Hashem. Why is it the beginning of loving Hashem? Because loving Hashem means we're removing our own opinion. Our opinion no longer matters. We care about what His opinion is. What do you want to do? What does Hashem want? What do you think we should do? What do you think Hashem wants? What can we do? What does the Torah say? We look for something called Da'at Torah. What is the Torah's opinion? Meaning, what's God's opinion? That's loving Hashem. Loving Hashem means you're removing your opinion. Your opinion no longer matters. That's why I try in every one of my lectures to make sure that people understand that I try to use as little of my own opinion as possible, because my opinion is irrelevant to you. opinion changes like every human being. One day I like blue; the next day I may like pink. My opinion is human; it's flawed. God's opinion doesn't change. That's why it says in a pasuk, "My thoughts are not like your thoughts." I don't think like you because My opinion doesn't change. So once you get to a point where you realize that Hashem

1:00:34wants you to win. He's setting you up to win. You realize that you can use this; you got your mind to love Hashem. To finalize this, you'll understand it this way: When you have your mind and you actually start thinking about Hashem all the time, what does He want? What does He expect? What did He say? Can I do this deal? Should I do this deal? Should I marry this woman? Should I divorce her? Should I send my kid to yeshiva? Should I send him to public school? Should I do this? Should I do that? Should I teach my kids baseball and football, or should I teach them Torah instead? Should I teach them to be Greeks, or should I teach them to be Jews? We have a lot of Greeks; we have no more Jews. Every year we celebrate Chanukah as if we won the war. Everybody eats sufganiyot bigger than their head and thinks we won the war. The Greeks are in Gehinnom celebrating on Chanukah also, and saying, "These guys think they won the war. Look how many sports they play every day. They play sports. They worry about their bodies. They worry about their money. They worry about material. The last thing they worry about is God. We won the war."

1:01:54So the reality is, is that when a person understands that to think about Hashem is for his favor, then he's going to look for Hashem. You know, start looking for Hashem everywhere, not just in the Sefer Torah. He wakes up in the morning and says, ah, you know what? Thank you, Hashem, for giving me eyes that can see. Thank you, Hashem, for giving me hands that work. Thank you, Hashem, for allowing me to go to the bathroom without screaming in pain. One of the most righteous people that ever lived had a tikkun, a very big test from Hashem. Because of his level, he was able to handle the tikkun. What was his tikkun? The tikkun was that every time he went to the bathroom, he had such suffering that when he screamed, they could hear him in the middle of the ocean. His name was Rebbe. Rebbe was so righteous that the entire generation said if Mashiach came, he would be it. He was a perfect human being, tzaddik, beautiful, amazing—everything was good. If Mashiach was here, he would be it. Hashem would select him to be Mashiach.

1:03:06But he still had a tikkun. He went to the bathroom and he said to his... He was very rich. He told the guy that was feeding his horses, "Feed them right now. Feed them right now at this moment." Why? Because when the horses eat, they make a lot of noise. And he knew that when he goes to the bathroom, he also makes a lot of noise. And he didn't want people to hear him scream because then they'll be sad. He didn't want to make people sad. But even though the horses made a lot of noise, 500 horses made noise, his scream... was louder than the 500 horses. So every time you go to the bathroom, the least you can do is say, "Hashem, thank you for making it work." To help you, I brought you posters called "Asher Yatzar." "Asher Yatzar" is the blessing that you're supposed to say every time you go to the bathroom. Now you're blessing Hashem for making your body work, you're blessing Hashem that You have holes that are open when they're supposed to be and closed when they're supposed to be. You have closings that are closed when they're supposed to be, and they're not open when they're not. But in reality, and I'm telling you from seven years of experience of suffering, that's one thing I have a degree in. I know what it means to suffer. For anyone who doesn't know my story, you can listen to it in the CDs. You should thank Hashem every time you go to the bathroom and you're not screaming like Rebbe.

1:04:31It's much better that you eat a burger, you eat a potato, you eat a tomato, you eat candy, you eat pizza, you eat whatever you eat, and it all comes out in an automatic way, in a painless way. The very least we should do is say, "You know what? I said, Baruch Hashem, thank you. It doesn't hurt." So when you have, you got some... you're gonna start looking for Hashem everywhere, even after you went to the bathroom, because you'll see how amazing it is that it works. Then you're gonna get out of the house, and you'll say, "Thank you, Hashem, for giving me a car." You know how many people don't have cars or the cars they have don't work? And thank you, Hashem, for letting me get to work. You know how many people get into car accidents on the way to work? And... You know how many accidents happen every single day in America? You know how many people die from car accidents every single day? And you drive to work easily and peacefully. Hopefully, you have a shiur Torah in the background. And if you don't, today you'll have CDs that you can listen to shiurim Torah. But the point is you go to work peacefully and easily. No accident, Baruch Hashem, no flat tire. Maybe a little bit of aggravation because you have to pay $100 in tolls, but nonetheless, other than that, you're okay.

1:06:02And then you have to thank Hashem. You know what? Thank you, Hashem, for actually giving me $100 to pay in tolls. You know how many people don't even make $100 in a day? They work a whole day harder than you. There are a lot of people who work harder than all of you, but they still have no money. Hard work doesn't mean you're going to be rich. There are plenty of hard workers who are broke. There are plenty of smart people who are broke. There are many foolish people who are rich. There are many lazy people who are rich too. Hashem decides who is going to be and who's not. It has nothing to do with your hard work. It has nothing to do with the skills that you have. It all depends on what Hashem wants to give you. You do good with your money, Hashem will give you more. You do bad with your money, Hashem will give you less. Now, what happens when you see somebody, it's a Mechalel Shabbat, driving a Ferrari on Shabbat? How could you explain it? How can you explain the people that don't keep mitzvot but have everything? People love to ask this question and... They have houses, they have cars, they have vacations, they have so many houses they don't know where to stay. They have so many bedrooms they don't know where to sleep. But when it comes to God, no, it's not for me. How do you explain people that go against Hashem but yet have everything material? It's written about them at the end of Parashat Va'etchanan.

1:07:29At the end of Parashat Va'etchanan, Hashem says, I pay my haters, I pay my enemies, cash to their face to destroy them. The Rambam explains this verse; he says that there is one punishment, that's the worst punishment in all the Torah that can happen in this world. In the other world that is very far from us to even understand it. There's one punishment here. What's the punishment? Hashem gives up on you. Hashem says, you know what? Don't do teshuva. I don't want your teshuva. Go sin. In fact, I'm gonna give you more life and more money and more ways to sin. That's a mishnah, and I still love you, though. Paying him cash to destroy him. He's giving him more ways to sin because he says this person doesn't want to do teshuva now. I don't want it anymore. So now, when you realize that you're still able to do teshuva because in your heart right now it hurts a little bit, it's like, you know what, I gotta do teshuva. The fact that you're even thinking about teshuva means Hashem didn't give up on you. The fact you're in a shiur Torah at 11 o'clock at night or 10 o'clock at night means Hashem didn't give up on you.

1:08:47The fact that you even know what a beit knesset is means Hashem didn't give up on you. It means that Hashem wants you to do teshuva. And it means that you can do teshuva. For that, you should thank Him. Because just like Rabbi Yisrael Salanter says, as long as the light is still on, there's still work to do. We can still do teshuva. So when you realize that you still have the option of doing teshuva, you can still fix your life, you can still turn everything around. It doesn't mean that you have to quit your job and go to a kollel to be a rabbi. It just means you have to listen to Hashem. That's it. It just means you have to make Him a serious part of your life. You wake up in the morning, say thank you. You go to the bathroom, say thank you. That just teaches you gratitude. Before you go to work, say thank you. How? Pray to Hashem, put tefillin on.

1:09:48you go to work, make sure you're honest. Stop doing things that are dishonest. If you're doing something dishonest, stop. If you're going to get out of the house and you're a woman, make sure you have clothes on. If you want to know what happens to immodest women, just look at the Book of Yeshayahu. The Book of Yeshayahu describes women that are not modest. It's a horrible, horrible thing of what it describes. I'm not even going to go over it. I went over it last night. The point is, You don't want to deal with it. Just put clothes on. Cover your hair. Be modest. Why? God hates zimah. God hates immodesty. The point being, Rabotai, once you make Hashem a part of your life, he's part of your life. You hold it the whole day. Every time you eat, before you eat, you say a blessing. Every time you finish eating, you say a blessing. Every time you do anything, you think of Hashem. Every time you have a question, you think, "What does Hashem want from me? What is He asking? What is He saying?" Simple. Once you actually start seeing the outcome of all of your actions, you also start noticing all the things that He's doing for you and

1:11:02Once you start noticing all the things that He's doing for you, He's giving you a car, He's giving you a house, He's giving you a wife that loves you, He's giving you kids that are good, He's giving you parnasah, He's giving you health, He's giving you miracles, you start noticing miracles. You start noticing that there's literally a miracle every day. Sometimes they have to do directly with you, sometimes they don't. But you see miracles non-stop. Then it becomes easy to fall in love with Hashem. Through your yirat shamayim, you fall in love with Hashem. I'll give you a last story that happened this morning. There was a miracle that I saw with my own eyes. I see miracles, Baruch Hashem, every day. And I always tell people, anyone that needs chizuk, just call me, I'll give you a miracle. When? Happened the same day. Every day is a new miracle. Sometimes with me, sometimes with someone else. So last night, I finished the shiur late at night. By the time I got home, it was maybe 2 o'clock in the morning. I look at my phone. Someone that I know from California sent me a text, and he says this poor Bukharian girl, 15 years old, shema, her father died a month ago. Her mom lost her mind and she gave her up for adoption. So this Jewish girl is now sitting at an orphanage and the orphanage found parents. The only problem is they're not Jewish. They're not Jewish, these parents.

1:12:28to send the Jew to live with non-Jews, you might as well kill him, because from the moment that they go to a non-Jewish house, they officially become goyim. You've destroyed their soul. Shema, so he sends me a text. He says, "Listen, I spoke to the place, and they say we have 24 hours to find new parents." I'm asking myself, "Where can I find new parents for a 15-year-old girl that they don't even know in 24 hours?" Good news. It's not up to me. It's up to Hashem. So I send the text message to a few different people that I know in a couple of groups. I get a text message this morning, maybe around 10 or 11 o'clock. It says, Baruch Hashem, we found parents. They already called, they already made the arrangements, they're going. But it's not the same to go pick her up; it's nothing. By tomorrow, she's going to be in a new house. All I wanted to say is just try a little bit. He's going to do it anyway, you just have to decide that you're going to be the vessel. Are you going to be the tool he uses, or is he going to use someone else? It's your choice. Either way, he's going to do it. Are you going to be the tool? The Gemara in Masechet Shabbat says something that most of us don't understand. Most of us think that if we give tzedakah, we're already doing something good. You give a homeless guy a dollar, you feel like you're a million bucks. Hashem, look, I give the guy a dollar, you should give me at least a million in return.

1:13:57Donated a thousand dollars to the tzedakah. Do you think Hashem should give me at least ten million dollars? He bought an aliyah on Yom Kippur. I said you should give me the town. I'm a tzaddik. You bought two aliyot. I don't have to keep Shabbat anymore. I'm excluded. A lot of people think they come to the Beit Knesset once a year. They buy a few aliyot, they give a little bit of money, and they think that for the rest of the year, they don't have to show up. I showed up once, I donated enough. It's fine. I'm finished. But the Gemara in Masechet Shabbat, on page 23 and also 68, teaches us something extraordinary about tzedakah. There's a mitzvah in the Torah of pe'ah. Not pe'ah like the pe'ah nochrit, like the wig. Pe'ah meaning to give the end of the field. In those days, the common job was to be a farmer, to grow vegetables and so on, and the obligation of every Jew was to give a certain portion of the land, of the fruit that was grown in part of the land, to the poor people. So, the Gemara asks, "Which part of the fruit, which part of the field, does he give? Can he give the middle? Can he give the beginning?"

1:15:18No, no, no, you have to give at the end. You have to give the last piece to pay out, the corner, the end. It's like the Gemara asks, "Why do I have to give my tzedakah at the end? Why can't I just give it whenever I feel like it? I’m giving tzedakah, shouldn't I decide? It's my money." It says you have to make sure to give at the end because if you give at the end... All the poor people are going to know exactly when they're going to get their tzedakah. And you're not going to fail for the sin of wasting their time. They're not just going to sit there waiting for you to give. When are you going to give? Today? No, not today. Tomorrow? Not today. Three weeks they're waiting for you to give. You still didn't give. Because you decided at the end. But maybe next year you're going to decide at the beginning. And every year you're going to decide to change your mind. So it says if you're going to give tzedakah, you're going to give it at the end. That piece. But then on page 68... It says, okay fine, I'm gonna give at the end, but can I just be like Cain? You know there's Cain and Abel in the beginning of Parashat Bereishit. It says that Cain and Abel brought a korban to Hashem. Hashem said to Abel, chazak u'baruch. Good job. I like your korban. I accept it. To Cain, He says, go away. I don't want your korban. I don't want your korban. Why doesn't He want his korban?

1:16:46Because Abel gave me the best. You gave me the worst. You said Hashem doesn't eat the fruit anyway. Let me just give Him the rotten fruit. He doesn't eat it anyway. What does He need my fruit for? Let me just give Him the stuff I don't want. So the Gemara says, what's the tzedakah you're supposed to give the poor? You're supposed to give them the best. The best part. The best part of what you have. Why? That... Showing Hashem that you know He's the one that gave you the money means not giving them what you don't want. You're not giving them the change that you don't want. "Oh hey, a little homeless guy, here's the stuff I don't want. I don't use this anyway. It's going to go to the garbage anyway, so I'm giving you my mineral water bottle that's going to expire in five years. I don't want it." Hashem says, "I don't want the tzedakah you don't want. I want the tzedakah you want. I want the money you want." Why? Because that shows me you know I'm the one that's giving to you anyway. If you do mitzvot because you like them, you missed out on half the mitzvah. Why? Because the real reason you're supposed to do a mitzvah is not because you just like it. You're supposed to do a mitzvah because Hashem said so. So when someone tells you, listen, you know, you used to eat pork. Now you don't eat pork. Did you stop liking pork?

1:18:12No one stops liking pork says, "No, I like pork." Okay, so how come you don't eat it anymore? Because Hashem said so. Okay, you used to drive on Shabbat. How come you don't drive on Shabbat anymore? Because you don't like to drive anymore? No, I don't drive because Hashem said so. The mitzvot are not because you like them. The mitzvot are because Hashem said so. The reward is that you end up liking them. That's yirat Shamayim, Rabotai. Any questions? That's it. We finished all the Torah. We all know questions. No questions. As soon as I finished off the camera, there are 18 questions. Yesterday, they said no questions, and then one person started with questions, and it was an hour and a half of questions. Same price. Okay, so we have a shiur in Brooklyn for whoever wants to join us. Over here, there's a few mitzvot you could fulfill for free. One is a CD. There are double CDs over there that have almost 80 hours of shiurei Torah similar to this. Obviously, different topics: Parashat HaShavua, Yirat Shamayim, Emunah, and so on and so forth. Some are five-minute shiurim, some are three hours. Either way, you put it in your car, you have 80 hours' worth of Torah to listen to.

1:19:25That's the double CDs. The second mitzvah that you can do for free is Asher Yatzar. We made posters, Baruch Hashem. We already made tens of thousands of them. We're giving them out all over the world. This Asher Yatzar is free. You put it on your wall next to your bathroom. It reminds you every time you go to the bathroom. Oh, let me say Asher Yatzar for 30 seconds. I say thank you to Hashem that I'm not like a Rebbe who's been screaming his lungs out for 16 years because he can't go to the bathroom. The last mitzvah is worth a million dollars. What does it mean, a million dollars? Everyone here wants a million dollars. That's because you like material things. I'm telling you something that's worth more than a million dollars. Something that's worth more than a trillion dollars. Every mitzvah that you have in the Torah, the smallest mitzvah, it doesn't matter which mitzvah you have. The smallest mitzvah, pick a mitzvah that you know of. The smallest mitzvah you do at one time is worth more than all the money in the world that ever existed. The good that ever existed for all of mankind that ever existed put together, meaning if you take all of the good that ever existed, whether the good came from money, power, sex, food, whatever it is, all the good that people think is good for all of the people since the beginning of the world until the end of the world, and you put it in a little box, that good is not even one moment in Olam HaBa.

1:20:44There's one mitzvah that you can get many of those moments. Where every single moment you get is one of those mitzvot. What is it? Tzitzit. You wear tzitzit, and every second you wear tzitzit, it's one of those moments. Baruch Hashem, we have different tormim, different donors that donated tzitziyot to give to you for free so you can get a zillion dollars every second. Anyone wants to take on tzitzit? Bechavod, they're over here. You'll have bracha, hatzlacha, parnasa tova, chayim arukim, shlemim, mele'im Torah, mitzvot, u'gmilut chassadim. Baruch Adonai le'olam. Amen ve'amen.