The HIDDEN LIFE OF SACRIFICES of Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi AMAZING STORY

1:15The last thing you have is normal. When you do Kiruv for Am Yisrael, there's nothing normal about your life. When you send a text message to a rabbi at 3:30 in the morning and he answers, it's not because you woke him up. It's because he doesn't sleep. It's not because he has nothing to do. It's because he has too much to do. But you see, Before I started doing kiruv myself, as far as speaking, I was doing kiruv differently. I was giving people books, CDs, and packages. I was publicizing Rabbi Ephraim's shiurim on the internet. And I used to listen to three, four, five lectures of Rabbi Mizrachi every day. Oh, it was like clockwork. It was always on. It was always something. I was constantly writing notes, constantly learning from Rabbi Mizrachi. Ephraim was non-stop, but I never really appreciated him as much as I did after I started speaking to people. Most people that listened to him would say, "Oh, I'm his biggest fan! Oh, I love him! Oh, I listen to all of his shiurim!" Trust me when I tell you, you have no idea who you're dealing with. You have no idea who you're dealing with.

2:36Because what you see is like a movie; it's like an illusion. It's like you think you know the celebrity because you saw him in a movie, and maybe you saw him at a restaurant, and you said hello, and he gave you an autograph. Similarly, stories that nobody hears are the stories of their life and my master, but I heard this story. This gives you a little bit of perspective. Everybody knows what happened after the whole balagan (chaos) that occurred with the Holocaust comments. They were mistranslated and manipulated. He didn't care about the fact that he was right; he cared about the fact that people thought he was wrong. He went to the Holocaust survivor and kissed his hand, despite it being taped and broadcast over the internet. You are capturing footage of some elderly man kissing another man's hand. Who is he, the cloud? Stories that nobody hears are the stories of their life, and my master, but I heard this story. To me, this just gives you a little bit of perspective. I mean, everybody knows what happened after the whole balagan (chaos) that happened with the Holocaust comments that were mistranslated and manipulated. He didn't care about the fact that he was right. He cared about the fact that people thought he was wrong. He went to a Holocaust survivor and kissed his hand. No matter that people were taping, and it was going to go all over the internet. You're taping some old man, you're kissing his hand. Who is he to the klal (community)? What do you mean? It's a Yehudi Kadosh. He's a holy Jew. I don't want him to be offended. Yeah, but he doesn't know you. It doesn't make a difference. Meaning that the significance of how you view every Jew, you look at them as though this is the most prized thing in the world. So when I was in Canada, after one of the shiurim, we stuck around for a little while talking, answering questions, and addressing private matters with some people. And then a group of people stayed behind, and we continued the discussion.

3:47Romans Rocky came up and told me a story. I had never heard it before; it was a story that nobody had ever heard outside of Rabbi's family and maybe the people who were present. Aside from that, nobody else knew. Why? Because I heard a lot of people asking, "Is it on the shiurim?" This is one of those stories that if I don't say it, you're never going to know it, but I have to say it. I have to say it. Why? You have to understand who you're dealing with. The kavod for chachamim is so important because people treat him like he's some regular rabbi, like he's some local Chabad rabbi or Breslov rabbi or Modern Orthodox rabbi who just comes to shul, prays with you a few times, gives you a two-minute shiur between Mincha and Arvit and says "Chazak U'Baruch, I'll see you on Shabbos." People think this is a regular person. A few years ago, I think it was the first time maybe he was invited over there. Hashem gave him a test. I know for sure. I'm not telling you I don't want to, I know for sure I would have failed miserably. Like I'm telling you now already, I failed. I failed a test, even in imagination. I failed. Not even in my imagination would I have passed. You know, any imagination, you look like Superman in imagination. I'm telling you, I failed. So he went to Montreal. He had a big Shabbaton set up, a big Shabbaton, lots of people supposed to come, and...

5:11Hashem wanted to give him a test. Oh, wow. What a test! Literally, like a day or so before he came, some lefty liberal group went to the media and said, "We have a new report!" What new report? "Religious extremism coming to Canada." What? So they highlight five people, including... four Muslims that are on a terror watch list and Rav Mizrahi. One of the biggest tzaddikim in our generation is being put next to murderers, rapists, killers. He's on the same network. Now the fools over there, they don't know who Rav Mizrahi is because some people just are like living under a rock for the last 25 years. So they say, oh, no, no, he's here already. They're worried about the Shabbaton. What do you mean, not going to have the Shabbaton? He's here. There are hundreds of people waiting. There are a lot of people waiting. They want to come. No, no, we can't. It's a shul. It's this. We can't. We don't want the media to come. What media to come? It's Shabbat; no media is coming to you. No, we don't want the attention. I don't know. He's already over there. Everything is already set up. The CDs are there. He's there. People are there. People are ready. The Beit Knesset does not even want to rent them the place.

6:40Now I'm telling you personally, at that moment, I said, you don't want me? No problem. The plane is right there. See ya. Thank you. What do I care? You don't want to have me? No, thank you. Who's losing out, me or you? I have information you need. You don't like it? See ya. What's the problem? That's the mentality of a fool like me. Why? He's saying there are Jews here that need information to do teshuva. What difference does it make if there's a shul or not? Find me a floor. I'll lecture on the floor with everybody, sitting on the floor together for the whole Shabbat. They're all sitting on the floor in the kitchen of the guy who told me the story—his kitchen. It's not a third-hand story; it's the guy's kitchen. He's telling me the story: we were all on the floor, there was no place to move, everybody was sitting on the floor. Love. He's there with us on the floor. We're learning the whole Shabbat, everybody. The walls of that kitchen have merit now because he has a big house, baruch Hashem.

7:45He cares about Am Yisrael. He cares about Torah. You shouldn't care about, oh, no kavod. They're not giving me the respect I deserve. I've been in this for 20 years. What kavod? Nobody owes me anything. I have the merit to go help some people do teshuva. Baruch Hashem. What kavod? Who wants kavod? Why would I ever want kavod? You guys think, you see in the lectures, he says, no, don't be a ga'avan, don't be, you know, be humble, be humble. And you think, oh, he's just saying it. But you can't just say it. It's either you live it or you don't. The average person that literally just graduated rabbinical school, 24 years old, still a little bit, you know, needs the tissue to constantly follow him, to clean his nose. He still doesn't know how to clean his own nose yet. He goes to a place only if they pay him at least a thousand dollars to speak. He's not coming otherwise. Nobody speaks for free. If you're not paying him a thousand dollars, he's not coming. If you've been a speaker for 20 years, the minimum is five, ten, or twenty thousand dollars, depending on how big and what type of speaker you are. Some speakers get hundreds of thousands, but even the worst speaker in the world, the guy who just started last week, gets a thousand dollars for an hour.

9:07Plane ticket, hotel, five-star meals—by the time he left for the weekend, you'd spend at least 10 grand for the worst guy. You're going there for free and, on top of it, they embarrass you by canceling an event and not even allowing you to rent a place. Forget it. If you don't want no kavod, I'll rent it out. We'll enter from the back so no one sees us. No. No, we want no association. Okay, we have no association. No one else wants association. No one else wants to do anything else. Do we have a floor? Do we have four walls? Okay, that's enough. But what about the kavod? What kavod? Who said I need kavod? Who said I need kavod to do kiruv? All I need is Jews. Kavod? Hopefully I don't get it. That's what the tzaddik says. You watch lectures like, oh yeah, yeah, he's nice. I like the way he talks. Well, I like the way he talks. People have no idea what you're dealing with. Baruch Hashem, we have the merit, we have the merit to have such a tzaddik in our generation. I know, hopefully he doesn't get upset at me for telling people about his sipurei tzaddikim. But people need to know who you're dealing with. You're watching shiurim of someone who sacrificed a quarter of a century of his life. You have no right to ask any questions like, oh, what does he think of this? But maybe he made a mistake in this.

10:28People have sacrificed their life and family, they were told to do something that most people can't do. They deserve much more than what they're getting. His wife, who, oh, how I wish I could have the zechut to be in her shoes, even if I could just be at the level of her shoes, I'll be fine. Someone sacrifices; a woman sacrifices her husband for 25 years, and... Doesn't get better than that. This is what we have to understand. There are some people that are popular. There are some people that are very charismatic when they speak, but when the words come out of their mouths, it's all nonsense. It's all foolishness. Why? Because they like the bank a lot more than they like the people. But when you have somebody who's been giving the truth to Am Yisrael, the uncensored truth for 25 years, it's time we understand what it means. It's time we understand how to honor these people, how to give them kavod for their Torah, for their mesirut nefesh. This is not a regular rabbi. These are not regular people. These are people who are sacrificing themselves for nothing, for free.

11:31For free. Baruch Hashem, Hashem provides. But the point is, rabotai, that you need to know when you're learning Torah from one person who just got paid $10,000 to come, and another person who is not getting paid, it's a different type of Torah. It's a different type of Torah. One person tells you the truth, and the other one tells you what you want to hear. It's a completely different Torah altogether. It's a different religion. It's a different religion. So here we see that even if you reach the level of Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi, you're still not allowed to ask for gedulah and you need to continuously engage in sincere teshuva. You're still not allowed to ask for gedulah. You're still not allowed to chase kavod. You still have to do yoter milimudecha. You still have to constantly do teshuva. So if somebody like this has to do teshuva, what about us? What about us?