The Holiness Of Jewish Women - MUSSAR Iggeret HaRAMBAN (3)

0:12All of the old faces, all the young faces—everybody, first of all, I'd like to say thank you for coming. It's cool. Let me tell you, for a person to go to a shiur in this generation at nine o'clock at night, you should already give yourself a round of applause because, in this generation, a lot of people are so busy and... trying to do so many other things that they forget that Torah is the foundation for your life. It's the instruction set. Many of us grew up not even realizing that Torah is even relevant to our day-to-day life. So the series that we're doing on Tuesday night that we started about a month ago is called Iggeret HaRamban. Anyone who doesn't have a book, you should just grab one, it's free. It's a letter of the Ramban, Nachmanides, who wrote a letter to his son almost 900 years ago. His son was still in Spain, and the Ramban was in Eretz Yisrael. He won a debate in Barcelona against the Christian church and showed them that their entire religion of Christianity is completely fake.

1:35Anyone that wants to see the entire debate, after the debate was completed, the Ramban wanted to make sure that Am Yisrael could always use this information to verify that Judaism is the only true religion, the Torah is the only book from God, and most importantly, everything else is considered 100% idolatry. With the exception of Islam, which is not idolatry, but it's still considered heresy. It's still considered that they're enemies of God because of how they misinterpret the Torah. nonetheless, the Ramban asked the church questions or presented questions to the church that, until this day, almost 800 years later, no one can answer. The reason why is because, by answering them, you pretty much nullify the entire Christian religion; you destroy it completely. In order to answer those questions, you pretty much have to admit that Christianity is complete falsehood, nonsense, and... After the church saw that the Ramban beat them after a four-day debate, they still wanted to exert their power over the Jewish people, intimidate them, and pretend as if they had won the debate. However, the Ramban obviously did not remain silent. He published all of the answers that he had given during the debate. When the church saw that he was doing this, they pretty much put out a bounty on his head and...

3:02He had to flee the country; he had to flee, and he went at the age of 70. He went to Eretz Yisrael, which is not like today. Going to Eretz Yisrael, if any of you want to go to Eretz Yisrael, you just go onto the internet, buy a ticket, and tomorrow, within about 15 to 20 hours, you're in Eretz Yisrael. In those days, there was no such thing; you were simply going on a donkey and hoping you're going to survive half the trip, not even the whole trip. So he arrived in Eretz Yisrael, but once he arrived in Eretz Yisrael and he settled down, he was only there for a few years. He decided to send a letter to one of his sons. And this letter is simply the Ramban giving his son instructions on how to live life. If you guys can pay attention to this, it's going to be much more beneficial than your phone. I promise you. Now, if the Ramban is writing a letter to his son, he's not writing a letter, "Hey, how are you? How are the kids? How's your wife? What did you do this weekend? Do you still play soccer a little bit?" He didn't write one of those letters. He wrote letters to his son to explain to him simple instructions on how to live a good life.

4:16which is something that in today's world is virtually unheard of. Most people believe they have a good life because they have fun once in a while. They go watch a movie that scares them or makes them laugh. They find a new girlfriend or a new wife every other day. They have a kid. Sometimes they find out it's not even theirs. They get married shortly after they get divorced, then they get married again. And if you want to be a celebrity, you have to be married and divorced at least five times. Once you're married and divorced five times, then you can become a celebrity. They try some drugs, maybe to take their mind off their stress, and then they realize that the drugs actually create new stress and new problems. They buy a dog; they give the dog away because once they realize they have to pick up after the dog, they realize it's not as much fun as it looks on TV. And people constantly try to do things to occupy their time, playing video games for hours and hours upon hours, watching TV for hours upon hours upon hours, and telling everybody, "Oh, did you see the new series, Lost, Shmost, all these different series? Did you see it? Yeah, I spent the whole weekend watching season one. I watched the whole week." "Oh, so what'd you get out of it?" "Oh, it was great." "Okay, so what'd you learn out of it?" "Well, nothing, really."

5:35Learned absolutely nothing that I could use for real life unless I get stranded on an island and there's smoke that's chasing me. Other than that, to run away from the smoke that's chasing me on the island, you really can't learn anything from that. But you spend 12, 15, 20 hours watching it. I mean, if you can invest 20 hours into something, you should have some type of benefit. We're gonna shlep along. "Oh, I didn't think about that. You're gonna watch season 2 for sure." I Maybe I'll learn something in season two. Maybe there's a different kind of smoke. Maybe one of them is going to get married. Maybe one of them is going to kill the other. People spend an enormous amount of time wasting their lives doing things that have zero benefit. Why? They need to occupy their minds, they need to occupy their time, and they need to... somehow feel even if it's a momentary feeling like they're having fun. But yet, statistics show that this system doesn't work. Why? How do statistics show it? Right now, in Western society, which is, in essence, considered the richest society in the world, which you would think is the happiest because that's what people think is...

6:57Happiness. Money creates happiness, so the richest society in the world also has the highest rate of depression. Every other kid is... Consider someone that has attention deficit disorder. Every kid in school has attention deficit disorder. Tell me all at once, you come to yeshiva. No, no, I'm sorry, Rabbi. I can't. Why not? I have ADD. What do you mean you have ADD? Why do you think that? You know, the psychiatrist told me I have ADD. I asked why. He said because I can't sit down for a while. No, this means you're impatient because you play a lot of video games, and you like immediate benefits for anything you do. Sit there for a little while, get the point, pay attention. After a while, you'll like it. No, I have ADD. They put me in a special class. What class did they put you in? With special ed kids. My classmate's 39 years old. My teacher's 170. And there's a horse in the class. We're not really sure if he's human, though. I have ADD. Every kid has ADD. Every other parent is the parent of a kid with ADD on Prozac. Why? He's depressed. His kid has ADD.

8:02Father regrets that he had to take Viagra, and everybody's on some type of drug to do something. Why? They figure they can't run their lives without something, and... You have an addiction? What are you addicted to? Painkillers. You have any pain? No. So how did you get addicted to painkillers? I don't know. Somebody told me it gives you a little high. Okay, well, you got the high. Why did you continue? I tried again. Okay, so why did you continue? I tried again. Why did you continue? I got addicted. How long have you been addicted? Five years. How many pills do you take? 27 pills a day. You realize that even the guy that actually has pain, the one that has pain, doesn't take 27 pills a day. You realize that, right? You realize the amount of pills that you take every single day should kill you. So the fact that it doesn't kill you every single day, you should do Seudat Hoda'ah. Give a special seudah to Hashem. Thank you, Hashem, for not killing me today. Why? I took 27 painkillers and I didn't die. The guy that's dying, he didn't take 27 painkillers. But I took 27 painkillers. Why did you take painkillers? I was bored. And that's what Shlomo HaMelech says: boredom leads to sin. We live in a generation of bored people.

9:11Every two seconds we check our phones because we hope that somebody sent us a text message or somebody made a post on Facebook or Twitter or something on the internet. Something happened somewhere else that we can have the highlight of the moment. What? Press like. Press like. Would you like it? Yeah. Oh, why don't you like my page? They get upset. Your friends get upset at you. How come you didn't like my page? Well, you're not friends with me anymore. Well, you didn't like my post? I didn't see it. I was working. Oh, you're working now, huh? You're working. You're one of those people. You work. You're like that. That's it right now. That's it. Twenty years with friends, but now you work. You don't have time for me anymore because you work. You can't see my post that I posted, the best movie of the year. What did you post? I didn't see it yet. Oh, you didn't see it even. Now you didn't like it. You didn't even see my post. What did you post? Okay, you know, this time I'll let you go. What did you post that's so important? Oh, you didn't see? In Australia, these two cops stopped traffic to let a few geese pass the road. It got eight million views on YouTube because there are eight million other losers in the world also pressing "like." This is our days.

10:30We wait for text messages. We wait for Facebook posts. We wait for something. Why? Because we have nothing, nothing going on here. Nothing is stimulating our minds, so we have to stimulate it ourselves. And if it's not the Facebook post and the phone texts and all the emails, 5 million emails a day, what is it? We have to replace it with drugs. We have to go and start day trading. Every average Joe became a day trader. Bitcoin, Shmitcoin, all this stuff. I was in the business for 16 years. On day one, someone told me what Bitcoin is. I said, it's a scam, it's all gonna go to zero. Hashem, last year and a half ago, I told you guys it was gonna go to zero. It almost went to zero, recovered, and now people are having a second chance—a second chance not to make money, but to get out. Hashem has mercy on you; get out before it's really zero. But no, no one wants to listen. A 16-year veteran on Wall Street—you don't want to listen to him. You're gonna listen to yourself because you read a few Facebook posts that somebody says it's good. People need some type of immediate relief, immediate stimulation.

11:35So they day trade. They turn their business into day trading. He used to sell toilet paper. Now he decides that he wants to buy and sell containers. He doesn't know what's in a container, but he's going to buy and sell it. One day he's going to realize the container is empty, and the customer knows it. And all of his money is gone. But no. And this also affects us. It affects our marriage. It affects how we raise kids. It affects our day-to-day life. And this is part of the reason why people are so depressed. Why are almost 90% of the people you're gonna meet depressed? Some are clinically depressed, some just complain nonstop—they might as well be depressed. You ask him, "How are you doing?" He starts telling you a slew of problems that he has. A slew of problems: this didn't happen, that didn't happen, this didn't happen, I should have been this, I should have been there, I should have done this—500 million things. He's not happy about a single thing in his life. "Yeah, but didn't you just get married last week?" "Yeah, yeah, I got married, but you know, now I have to pay the bill." $100,000 bill. I'm going to get the money. Why did you have a wedding for $100,000 then? If you can't pay $100,000, why did you have a wedding for $100,000? What do you think, I'm homeless? How can I get married without a $100,000 wedding? Who gets married without a... Regular people get married without a $100,000 wedding. You just go to the Rabbanut, have 10 people, maybe a little bit of shakshuka, maybe a little bit of some baked goods over here. You're finished. No, $100,000. Why show off?

13:01So if you want to make sure that everybody remembers your wedding, I could tell you, for any of you who haven't gotten married yet, I could save you some money. How? Listen to this advice; you're gonna save yourself the money. No one will remember your wedding for good. The only thing that people remember about your wedding is how bad the food was, how bad the band was (if you had a band), how the bride and groom didn't pay attention to them, how the bride didn't look good, how she looked terrible, or how it was this or that. People remember complaints. Why? Because they've conditioned themselves to such a miserable life that they can't see good even if it's staring them in the face. And even if they see good, they appreciate it for a moment and then move on to something else. So, divorce rates right now in America, in some places, are over 90%. 90%—like, for example, if you go to Colorado, you have certain cities within Colorado with a 90% failure ratio. Meaning that if any one of you who never went to a class to learn how to fly a plane decides tomorrow, "You know what, I'm gonna take on a new hobby. I want to go break into El Al. I'm gonna go break into American Airlines. Okay, I'm gonna break in and take one of these 747s. I just want to feel like seeing what happens."

14:27You actually have a higher chance of succeeding, piloting it, landing it, than actually marriage in America. You have a much higher success ratio. You never went to school. Why? Because people believe that if it doesn't work right away, there must be something wrong. They don't believe in fixing things. She yelled at him. He wants to divorce her. He yelled at her. That's it. He's a dog. Throw him out with the garbage. Yeah, but he just yelled at you once. Maybe you deserve to be yelled at. Maybe he deserves to be yelled at. Why don't you just work it out? Why don't you have a discussion? Like, talk like good people. I'll text her. I'll text her. You know what? I think she got mad at me. Why? I didn't like her post on Facebook. This is our lives today. It's a good joke, but it's real. Our lives have turned into a joke. assimilation in America, where Jews are marrying non-Jews. In the best-case scenario, for example, places that have more Jews, more beit knesset, and more yeshivot, are seeing 70% to 72% intermarriage rates. Meaning the so-called religious places in America, over 70% of Jews are marrying goyim. This means we are one generation away from no more Jews.

15:50Places where it's predominantly Reform, over 90% intermarriage rates, Jews are marrying goyim. This happened once in history, and as I've told all the old people here, I'll remind the new ones. I'll tell the new ones and remind the old ones, when did this happen in history? The same exact thing happened right before the Holocaust. Right before the Holocaust, the intermarriage rates in the country, all over Europe, especially Germany, hit sky-high rates to the extent where the Jews of Germany said that Berlin is the new Jerusalem for them. So, with that being said, when you see that clearly, no one here can look in the mirror and honestly say, "I'm happy." Unless you've been coming to the shiurim for at least a year, you can't look in the mirror and say you're happy. Why? You don't even know how to. You don't know how to. You could fake it to yourself. But in reality, the next day you're crying again. The next day you're miserable again. No one can say. Why? Because people don't know what happy is. What is happy? Happy, Rabotai, is not really a feeling. It's a state of mind. It's an existence.

17:09You are happy and fulfilled about your life just because. It doesn't mean you don't have problems. If you don't have problems, that means you're probably dead because once you're dead, there's no more problems, at least not in this world. You have new problems in the next world. But in this world, if you don't have problems, you're not alive. Everybody has problems. Happiness does not mean you don't have problems. Happiness means you're fulfilled. Happiness means that you have a state of mind that you are achieving a significant purpose in your life at all times. Sometimes that purpose is better than others, more significant than others, but nonetheless, you never feel like, "What's the point of life? Why should I live?" You never make stupid statements like every other kid makes today: "I wish I was dead." Every other day, I have a kid send me a text message saying, "I wish I was dead." Why? "I don't know." They don't even know why; they're just depressed. Sometimes that purpose is better than others, more significant than others, but nonetheless, you never feel like, "What's the point of life? Why should I live?" You never make stupid statements like every other kid makes today: "I wish I was dead." Every other day, I have a kid send me a text message saying, "I wish I was dead." Why? "I don't know." They don't even know why; they're just depressed.

18:14If you understood that happiness is a state of mind, that means that you'd understand that in order to test yourself whether you're happy or not, that means that tomorrow morning when you wake up, you're as excited to wake up as if you won the lotto. Without the lotto, though. If you win the lotto, you have to give ma'aser. You wake up in the morning as ecstatic as ever. You're in pain, but you're still happy. You're tired. You're happy. You're single. You're happy. You're married, even more happy. You have kids jumping on your head, happy. No kids, happy. Bankruptcy, happy. Won the lotto, happy. Regardless of what's happening, you're happy. Happy to wake up, happy to go about your life, happy to go talk. Happy to go do whatever it is that you're doing, and... Happy to the extent that even if what you're doing stopped, for example, if your career ended for whatever reason or another, the happiness would not change. If you're happy because you like your job and you like your wife, and you like your kids, that doesn't mean you're happy. It just means you're content with the situation that you have. Happiness means you would be happy with or without everything that you have and...

19:29Why? Because you know that your entire existence is playing a role in a bigger picture. Without HaKadosh Baruch Hu, it is impossible to attain that type of happiness. So the Ramban wrote a letter to his son, giving him instructions. Of course, he tells him to go learn Torah. Of course, he tells him to go respect other people. Of course, he tells him to go do a lot of things. But he specifically worded the letter so that you could learn something from each and every single one of the words, not just the whole letter, and that's what we're trying to study. wrote a letter to his son, giving him instructions. Of course, he tells him to go learn Torah. Of course, he tells him to go respect other people. Of course, he tells him to go do a lot of things. But he specifically worded the letter so that you could learn something from each and every single one of the words, not just the whole letter, and that's what we're trying to study. We're trying to study: Why did the Ramban, one of the greatest giants in history, one of the smartest men that ever lived, decide to use these words versus anything else? So, the Ramban starts even before he starts the actual letter and...

20:30We went over last week that we went over the first half of the pasuk. He chose to start the letter with a heading, a title if you will, where he used the pasuk from the book of Proverbs that Shlomo HaMelech, the wisest man of all time, wrote. Proverbs chapter one, verse number eight, saying, he says, heed my son. discipline of your father and do not forsake the guidance of your mother. So last week we went over the first half of this verse. We said, why did he start with this verse, where he says, heed my son, the discipline of your father? To summarize the entire issue of last week, we could simply do it with one story. In Judaism, we have 620 mitzvot—613 from the Torah that are from God and Seven from the Rabbis, from the sages, not the rabbis of today—the rabbis of 2,000 years ago. There are no new laws coming into practice today anymore, unlike what people think.

21:39You're not allowed to make a new halacha. Any halacha that's, for example, passed on today, if you see a book that says such and such, it's not a new halacha. It's just an innovation of something that already exists. It's just showing you how to use the original halacha from 2,000 years ago and apply it to something that just came into the world today. For example, phones or electricity and so on and so forth. like for example, this one tipesh (this one fool) calls himself a rabbi. He says that if you use technology to make clones of pigs, then it's kosher because the real pig is not kosher. There's no way to make a pig kosher, but if you make a clone of a pig, technically it wasn't born from a mother. So, he deemed it kosher. People are surprised. Wow, I can eat pig. No, you cannot eat pig. He's the only moron that says it's allowed. Nobody else says it's allowed, and you don't listen to one rabbi; you listen to quality sages. Now, one of the rules that we have is that you must rebuke your fellow if you see a fellow Jew violating Shabbat.

22:58And you have a relationship with him. You know who this person is. It's not like some stranger. You know, it's your friend. It's your cousin. It's a member of your kehillah. Part of your shul. And you see him. He's lighting a cigarette on Shabbat. You have an obligation from the Torah to go tell him, this is not allowed on Shabbat. And you can do it in a lot of different ways. There's a nice way. There's a mean way. But the Torah says, no, no. You can't go and Have this rebuke that you're telling them to do so that he's doing something wrong lead you to sin, meaning you can't just go out there and just embarrass anybody that's making a sin. There's a way to do everything. And that's what the Ramban says. You have to first and foremost make sure that this person that's violating Shabbat is he is attentive. Like if you say something to him, he's not one of those people that hate you, that regardless of what comes out of your mouth, he's not going to listen to you just because he doesn't like you. Or perhaps he's your parent, and your parents, no matter how smart you are, they're always going to remember when you were in diapers, so they're probably not going to listen to you either. Make sure that this is a potential listener, not just somebody who's definitely not going to listen to you. Shema, shema, meaning make sure that whoever you're going to rebuke has an attentive ear.

24:18Doesn't mean that they're definitely going to do what you say, but at least they'll listen to what you say. They'll respect what you say. Second, remember, Mussar, which is ethics, character development, is the foundation of our Torah. And Rashi says on Gemara Masechet Shabbat, Mussar is like saying Torah. It's synonymous. It means the same thing. Say Torah, say Mussar, it means the same thing. Why? Because the entire Torah is supposed to teach you Mussar. It's supposed to teach you ethics. It's supposed to teach you how to become a better human being. So what happens when you see sometimes these so-called religious people do horrible things? Steal, rape, pedophilia. There's no end to the horrible things that so-called religious people on the news do. What do you do with that? If you see somebody that looks religious in a casino, somebody that looks religious in a club, somebody that looks religious doing something terrible, he's not religious. He's just wearing a costume. Some people wear a costume once a year. Some people wear a costume every day. He's not religious. He's a faker. Don't blame God for that. Don't blame the Torah for it. The Torah says it's not allowed. If a person is doing something against the Torah, we have a problem. Your job is to use the Torah to become a better quality person.

25:34Not just by learning Mussar. But then he says, if you're going to go and tell somebody Mussar, nobody really likes to be told what to do. Nobody really does. Even if he likes you. Even if he's your student. Even if he's your chavruta or your study mate. He doesn't like you telling him what to do. Nobody likes it. Part of the reason why I never really stayed very long working for anybody is because I don't like to be told what to do. So I would work for somebody, I'd make them a bunch of money, but eventually, I would leave. Why? Because I want to do my own thing. While I'm working for you, I'll be the best employee in the world. I'll work hard, I'll be honest, I'll never steal. Not time, not money, not anything. But you should know from day one, I don't plan on being here forever. Why? I don't want to. And that's what I would say every single time I would work for somebody. That's what your intentions are here. I would say buy you out. And you know it's cute, you know, a little kid saying, "buy out this guy that's been in the business for 20 years," but it happened a few times anyway. No one likes to be told what to do, so if you want to give somebody advice in order for them to improve their life, you have to treat them as if...

26:48Father figure—not that you are above them, not that you're even equal to them, not that you're their father per se. But meaning you have to show them love. What is this like? There was one time an Israeli who spun, which there's a lot of them. No, Hashem, I'm, he says, I'm sure there are a lot of rude people sometimes, especially when they don't have Torah. So, this one guy... Decided that yeah, this Torah sounds real, sounds good, but I don't know. I'm reading in the Torah. He says, I'm really too hard. There is somebody named Hillel, Hillel HaZaken. Hillel was Kodesh Kodashim. He never got angry. He was holy, prayed to Hashem, and... Is there such a person as Hillel today, 3,000 years later, 2,000 years later? He says, if there's a person like Hillel in our generation, I'll do teshuva. But if there's no person in a generation like Hillel that's righteous like him, then why should I do teshuva? If everybody's resha'im, why? Hashem's going to kill everybody? That's what everybody says. Why? Hashem's going to send everybody to Gehinnom? The answer is yes. The answer is yes. If everybody's a rasha, He'll send everybody to Gehinnom. He did it already. It's called Noach. The generation of Noach. Sodom and Gomorrah.

28:05Plenty of other times in the Torah. The point is that he says, if there's nobody in a generation like Hillel, why should I do teshuva? So why did this chutzpan, this rude person, this arrogant person decide to do this? He decided, I'm going to test the rabbis. He got a phone book with the names of the poskim in Eretz Yisrael, all the big rabbis. He decided to call them at 2 o'clock in the morning. Not 2 o'clock in the afternoon, 2 o'clock in the morning. Hello? Yeah. Rabbi? Yes. Listen. If I have sugar on my apple, do I have to... What blessing do I have to do? Is it etz or is it shehakol? Now, obviously, these rabbis are still human beings. Call them at 2 o'clock in the morning. They're not exactly ecstatic. Unless you're a teenager, you don't want anybody calling you at 2 o'clock in the morning. So, a lot of the rabbis hung up the phone on him. So, he's going one after another, after another, after another. They keep hanging up on him, or nobody's answering the phone. He got to the last rabbi. He says, "If this rabbi doesn't become Hillel, I've done my job, Hashem. I tried. I've done my job." He calls the number. "Hello? This is..."

29:32This is Mordechai Eliyahu. How can I help you? Harav Mordechai Eliyahu was the Gadol HaDor, head rabbi of Eretz Yisrael, meaning he just called the biggest rabbi in the world at 2 o'clock in the morning, 2:30 in the morning. Now Mordechai Eliyahu says, "Hello, this is Mordechai Eliyahu. How can I help you?" And the guy says, "Oh, Rabbi, if I have an apple and there's some sugar on it, which bracha do I do? Do I do the Ha'etz? Do I do Shehakol?" And he's expecting the rabbi to hang up on him or say, "No, chutzpan, you call me at two o'clock in the morning, what's the matter with you? Call tomorrow at a normal time." Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu says, oh my son, that's a very good question. He says, see, in the Torah, we have tafel and ikar. We have something that's insignificant and something that's significant. And he starts giving him a shiur about which bracha to do at two o'clock in the morning.

30:39And he's so patient with them. He says, listen, if you're going to eat the sugar separately from the apple, then you do shehakol and you do ha'etz. But you first bless ha'etz. But if you're going to eat it together, since the sugar is insignificant in comparison to the apple, you just do ha'etz and it includes the sugar as well. And he's giving them a shiur, a half-hour shiur. But why do this blessing at two o'clock in the morning? He says, any more questions, my son? And he says to him, "You know, Rabbi, I have to tell you the truth." And he tells him the whole story of why he called. He tells him the whole story of why he called. And he says, "I was looking for a reason why I shouldn't do teshuva. But apparently, we do have a Hillel in our generation. And because of you, tomorrow I'm going to start going to yeshiva."

31:39Why? Why did Rav Mordechai Eliyahu have such a merit? Because he knew, yes, you can yell at people. Yes, you can scream at people. Yes, you can do a lot of things. But you have to know when, how, and whom. most importantly, regardless of what shita you're going to use, regardless of what strategy you're going to use—some is a loud voice, some is a low voice, some with jokes, some with scary stories, some straight to your face, some behind your back—whatever it is, make sure you act with love. This is the confusion that a lot of people have when it comes to Mussar. They think that if you're screaming and firing brimstone, that means you hate people. It's the opposite. It's the opposite. If you're telling people things, you spill your guts, you tell people, "Please do teshuva or this is going to happen or that's going to happen." What are you telling people? "Please do teshuva because I'm trying to warn you. There's a fire. It's on the way. If you don't get out of the way, you're going to get burned."

32:47This, rabotai, was last week's shiur. This week, we're going to continue with the second part of the pasuk. Now, I have some stories, b'ezrat Hashem, today that we're going to tell. Tonight's shiur is going to have quite a few stories, more than usual. Some of them are probably going to make you emotional if you still have a heart in your body. And some of the things... Some of the stories are probably going to make every woman here cry. Maybe some of the men. But most importantly, they will give you some type of understanding of where you come from. Why? Because today, we're going to talk about the second half of the pasuk and see why it says, "Don't forsake the guidance of your mother." Now, the Chachamim say in the Gemara that, why does it say

34:10Don't forsake the guidance of your mother. I'm sorry, Masechet Kiddushin, Kiddushin page 31a, says that naturally a son is more scared of his father. Naturally, a son is more scared of his father. So, the Torah says the commandment of honoring your parents. an obligation that you have for both your mom and your dad. But here we have a pasuk in the Torah in Sefer Vayikra, Chapter 19, Verse 3. It says a person has to be afraid of his mom and his dad: "Keep Shabbat, observe Shabbat, because I am God, I am your God."

35:13I mean, why does it say here, unlike the Ten Commandments where it talks about Shabbat, "You shall observe Shabbat"? When it talks about honoring your parents, it says, "You should honor your father and your mother." Why does it say here that you should be afraid of your mother and father? How come the order changed? How come here it’s mother and father and not like it was in the other pasuk, father and mother? This is because naturally... A man is scared of his father, a boy is scared of his father much more than his mom, and the Torah says you have to honor both of them. But you also have to be scared of your mom too. Why? Because if you're not scared of your mom, if you don't have, and I'm talking about a healthy yirah (fear), not scared that she's going to kill you while you're sleeping, but healthy that you give her respect. You're simply the most ungrateful person on earth because you don't even understand where you came from. Now, I mean, also, when it talks about the discipline of your mom, it's also referring to the second half of the Torah.

36:35We have, Baruch Hashem, when it says in the Torah that we got Torah, it says Torot. Torot is plural for more than one. What's Torot? Torot means that we got a written Torah and an oral Torah. The written Torah is the Five Books of Moses. That we all know; hopefully, we've all read it at least once with commentary, if not more. And most people say, yeah, I don't have any problem with Torah, I understand it's from God. Where do we see the problem? The problem we see is with the Oral Torah. Why? Because the Oral Torah is the one that explains the Written Torah and explains how to fulfill the mitzvot. So even though you're going to see a lot of people say, "Oh, I believe in the Torah," but they still drive on Shabbat. "I believe in the Torah," but they're still married to a goya. "I believe in the Torah," but she's still dating some guy from Honolulu. You know, I believe in the Torah, but they still eat shrimp. Wait, but you say you believe in the Torah. Yeah, I believe in the Torah. I believe God gave us the Torah. Okay, but the Torah says that you're not allowed to do these things. I don't remember reading it. I don't remember reading it. Wait, where does it say? Maybe you're misinterpreting it. No, the interpretation is in the Oral Torah. Ah, yeah, the Oral Torah, it's rabbis maybe, maybe they made it up. Maybe this, maybe that.

37:53And that's what this pasuk is trying to tell us. When you're going to give honor to the Torah, you have to understand the Torah; it's either all or nothing. It's either you honor both the Written and the Oral Torah, or it's as if you've honored nothing. This perhaps is the problem that the Christians have. Also, the Arabs have. And really anyone that does not follow the Torah but says he believes in it, They call it the Old Testament. They call it the Bible. Whatever they call it. Different names they call it. But they don't follow it. Why? Because they say, no, this Oral Torah, Oral Torah is difficult because it says Rabbis' names and it wasn't given at Mount Sinai. The reality is that it was. And there are many, many proofs of it. But more importantly, HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants us to understand that this Written and Oral Torah is no different. You're supposed to have a relationship to it no different than the relationship that you have with your mom, meaning that you always have to remember where you came from. You always have to remember who and what you're all about. If you don't know where you're from, you don't know where you're going. And when a person simply just acts as if the past is irrelevant, his future is in danger. Now...

39:17Russia during the time of Stalin, yemach shemo. First, if anyone doesn't know history, Stalin was one of the worst war criminals in history. During World War II, during the Holocaust, first he was a partner in crime with Hitler, and then he went to war with Hitler. During the same war, the first couple of years they were partners, and then they went to war with each other. And... It was a mental battle between him, Churchill, Hitler, and Roosevelt. Very interesting stuff. But everybody knows that Stalin was one of the worst people on earth. He was a very vicious person who ruled with the type of fear that would make you shake if you understood what he did to his own people. When he saw himself losing in the war, He made a law: Any soldier that surrenders to the Nazis, surrenders. Why are you surrendering? You're surrendering because you don't want to lose your life. And you know that if you continue fighting, you're going to die. So why die? Just surrender. Go to jail until the war is over. Then maybe they'll release you. But at least you're alive. That happens in every war. Any Russian that surrenders is considered a traitor. And as soon as he comes home, back from the Nazi jail, we're going to kill him.

40:43His own leader is going to kill him for surrendering. Insanity. The story goes that one time Stalin lost his pipe, his smoking pipe. He was looking for it, looking for it. At the end of the day, he asked one of his generals, "Okay, what do we have so far?" people admitted to stealing it. He was still working out details to see what they would admit, and there are a hundred more that are up for questioning tomorrow. The fear of the people was so extraordinary; they would literally just say, "Okay, what do you want me to do? You're gonna talk? Fine, just kill me. Just kill me." He lost his pipe, by the way. He found it, and No one stole it. No one stole a stupid pipe. But the people were so afraid of him that, why? He wants to kill? Okay, you know what? I'd rather die for a crime I didn't commit because if I don't do it, he'll probably kill everybody. That's how much of a psychopath he was.

41:49During this time, it was illegal to be Jewish. It was illegal to perform a Brit Milah. Jews who wanted to do a Brit Milah had to break the law. Part of the reason for this was because there were many wicked Jews at the time who started an organization called Yevsektsiya. Yevsektsiya was comprised of communist Jews who were some of the worst people on earth, no different than Nazis, and... And these communist Jews hated Judaism. Their primary joy in life was to kill rabbis, kill religious Jews, destroy religion, burn books, and so on and so forth. I know this is probably news to many of you, but this is reality. I did a whole shiur about it. It's history. It's not propaganda or something. Now, it was illegal to be a Jew. But real Jews find a way to be a Jew. There was one tzaddik that was known as the Mohel. He was the guy that was giving Brit Milah in secret. So, because he never knew, there's no like, hey Rabbi, how are you? Can you come at 8 o'clock tomorrow? There was nothing like that. There was nothing like that. What was it like? Rabbi, baby's right here, please. He's hidden under the tent over here. Come on, quickly. That's how the Rabbi was. He had his tools, his knife on him at all times. At all times, he was ready to give Brit Milah at any given moment.

43:16That was the deal. Why? There's no appointment. There's no ulam, you know, hall, party, have some cholent, have some cake, you know, nothing like that. You are putting your life in danger. They catch anybody here involved, everybody dies. There's no prison sentence. For Brit Milah. One day, a Russian general pulls him over. He says, get in. Get in the car. Get in the Jeep. The rabbi said, okay. He started saying Shema Yisrael. This is the end of my life. One of Stalin's soldiers pulled me over. And he's driving. He's driving out of town. He's driving out of town. He's driving. I said, okay. So he's probably going to torture me. He's thinking of all the tortures this guy is going to do to him. He's scared. The poor guy. He's thinking, what are they going to do to him? Why is he driving? Just kill me here. He's quiet the whole time. Quiet the whole time. Eventually, they get out of the town. He pulls over in front of this small little house. The general looks at him and says, "Go inside, do what you have to do, and come right back out." The rabbi, surprised, gets out of the car and goes inside. He sees a woman, and she has a little package. The package is a cute little Jewish baby. She says, "You're the rabbi who's going to do the brit milah?" He says, "Yes."

44:45Takes out his knife from the hidden compartment in his jacket. He does the brit milah in a couple of minutes, leaves, and goes back into the jeep. Not a single word in the car. Nothing. No, "Oh, who are your parents? Where are you from?" He's scared that this guy's probably going to kill him anyway. He doesn't even know how this all happened. But he couldn't hold himself. At the end of the ride, right before he threw him out of the car, he said, "Okay, go back to your life. Thank you." Before that, the rabbi says to him, "Why? Why?" Why? You're a soldier for Stalin. Why did you care enough to put your life in danger, your wife's life in danger, your kid's life, for what? And the smart general says, "I know this communism stuff, this anti-God stuff, it's not gonna last forever. And I want my son that if one day wants to go back to being a Jew. He wants to go back to being a Torah-based Jew. At least they'll have a sign on his body to remind them that he belongs there. I'll give him a choice between becoming a communist, but at least I'll have a choice.

46:06Every normal person that's old enough eventually realizes you cannot abandon your past. You cannot just say, "I don't connect to Moshe Rabbeinu. He didn't have an iPhone. He didn't have an iPad. He doesn't even know what Facebook is, this Moshe Rabbeinu guy. So I'm not connected to him. He probably doesn't understand the struggle of living in Aventura, where every girl walks around naked." He probably doesn't understand... Muslim America says nothing new is under the sun. All the sins in the world that you guys can commit today were available also three thousand three hundred years ago. Quite frankly, many of them were committed three thousand three hundred years ago. Nothing new is under the sun. The only difference today is that today, you can do it digitally. Other than that, it's the same thing. So everybody understands that in order to connect to your past... You have rules. Rule number one, most important: Don't forsake your past. Don't forsake your mother. Don't forsake who and what you came from. Don't just say, you know what? It's not for me. You know what? I don't have time for it.

47:24You know what? I don't relate. Don't just say it doesn't matter. Don't treat it as if it's not important. Why? Because there's going to come a day where HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to put you in a situation where He's going to say, yes, it is important. It is extremely important. And hopefully, it's not too late at that point. When you hear it from me, it's painless. Maybe you don't like my voice. Maybe you don't like the way I look. But in reality, it's painless. You're gonna get free sushi in a little while, too. It's painless. You hear it's from Hashem. It's not painless most of the time. It's very painful, and for anyone who wants to know a little bit of a smidgen of how painful it can get, it can get much more painful, but it can get... All I recommend is you listen to my personal story. It's on our website and It's called "From Wall Street to the Western Wall" or another lecture. It's called "Hashem Took Back His Millions and Gave Me Emunah Instead." There are a couple of names to my personal story on the internet. I actually gave my personal story here about a year and a half ago or so. And I promise you that if you wait for Hashem to wake you up, you're not gonna be happy when He does. Now, there are a few things that...

48:51violate rule number one, meaning that if a person does them, he forsakes the Torah. He abandons the Torah. He abandons Hashem. He is putting himself in a position where he is saying it all doesn't matter to me. And those things are called issur karet. There are 36 sins in the Torah that are probably not on your phone as you're looking at it. 36 of them. that are in the Torah that if you commit those sins, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says you and I are disconnected. You and I are disconnected until you fix this problem. You and I are disconnected until you fix this problem. I'll give you a few examples of what an issur karet is. Issur karet puts your spiritual Jewish status on suspension. Puts your heaven on suspension if a person dies without doing teshuvah, so correct no heaven ever. If a person lives his whole life without doing teshuvah, and he has a suitcase under his belt, he has a very, very serious and permanent problem. I'm not gonna give you the details, but I could just tell you it's not pretty. There's a few of them. One is issur nida.

50:17being with a woman that's niddah, a woman that has not gone to the mikveh. Now, most people think, "Oh yeah, well I'm not married, so I don't have to worry about my wife going to a mikveh because I don't even have a wife." If you're married, you have to wait half the month. Your wife has her period. After she has her period, she has to wait seven days, seven clean days. And after she has seven clean days, she goes to the mikveh, and then you're allowed to be together. So approximately, you could be together... Half the month, approximately. Some more, some less, depending on her hormonal balance and so on. Now, if you touch your wife, not just intimately, but if you touch her finger, just a finger, you give her a kiss on the cheek, you give her a hug. Hey, honey, how are you? Give her a nice hug, like she's one of your football buddies. Hey, what's up? Give her a high five. You do that, it's karet. Niddah. You touch the niddah, it is karet. You have a very serious problem.

51:21Now most people think, oh, I'm only 18 years old, I don't have a problem, I don't have a wife. Good for me. No, that's the problem. The problem is that you don't realize the problem. Why? If you don't have a wife, that means that you cannot be with anyone. Why? Because if a woman is not married, she's not allowed to go to a mikvah. Which means that all of these cute little single girls that you see, guess what? They're all niddah. They're all niddah, meaning if your best friend happens to be a girl, say, "Hey, Steve, hey, Stacy, how are you?" Niddah. You have a serious problem. "Hey, Sarah, hey, Steve." You know, people do this today. They think they're in Europe. Give each other a kiss on the cheek. Hey, why are you kissing? Who is this woman with you? Kiss each other, they hug each other, damage you show each other, molestation. The last class you're in eighth period, now it's ninth period, we have to kiss each other again. This is niddah in Judaism. You're not allowed to touch a bat yisrael unless she is either your mom—you're allowed to hug her if she's your mom—or she's your wife. Even your sister is...

52:41If she's older than 12 years old, it's highly not recommended to even touch her. Allowed, but only stupid people do it. That's what the Rambam says, literally. Rambam says it in De'ot, only stupid people touch their sister. I'm talking about just giving a hug to his own sister. He says only stupid people do such things. They have empty brains. Now, what's another way to disconnect? being with a non-Jewish girl, being with a non-Jewish man, you have a serious problem. Somebody asked me yesterday; people send me questions. I love the questions people ask me. Why? Because it tells me where we are in a generation. Because if a religious person has asked me such a question, needless to say, the non-religious also don't know. So a religious student of mine, a fantastic student, asked me a question. He says, "Listen, it says in the parasha that a Kohen is not allowed to marry a Zona. He's not allowed to marry a Zona." He says, "Why would anybody want to marry a Zona?" Now, most people understand the word Zona as prostitute, which it does mean. But the Torah says Zona is not just a prostitute.

54:04Zona also means a Jewish girl that was intimate with a goy one time in her life. A Jewish girl that was intimate with a goy one time in her life, for the rest of her life, she's considered a zona. She is not allowed to marry a Kohen. She's allowed to marry anybody else. She's done Teshuva. She's a Tzadika. She's perfect. She's amazing. She's just not allowed to marry a Kohen anymore. Why? A Kohen is not allowed to marry a zona. This is how significant intimacy is in Judaism. Why? HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, "Kedoshim Tihyu" — you be holy because I am holy. Other issues are like Chilul Shabbat. Somebody that drives on Shabbat, plays on their phone on Shabbat, works on Shabbat, smokes cigarettes on Shabbat — it's Issur Karet. Eating chametz on Pesach, eating on Yom Kippur, and so on. There are 36 different sins. But the point is, Rabotai, that if you know that you're not supposed to do it, first and foremost, before you're even considering violating it, find out if it's karet. If it's karet, it's definitely not worth it. Why? Because to do teshuva for karet is not easy. Now, the Gemara Masechet Chullin, page 24b, says Rabbi Chanina...

55:25They asked him, "Where did you get all your strength?" He became good at it all, but wasn't only a giant in Torah, powerful in Torah, but was also physically strong. 80 years old, he was able to take his shoes off and on one foot. Now you 18-20 year olds probably could do it easily. I can't, double your age or more actually. But for an 80-year-old to do that, obviously you need a lot of strength. So they asked Rav Chaim, "Where did you get this strength?" He says, "The chamim and the oil that my mother gave me when I was young gave me the strength," meaning I Grateful for what he has 80 years later for what his mom gave him when he was a kid, meaning that he's not only grateful for what she gave him, but he still connected to it 70-75 years later. This, yes, how can you repent for it? Correct. It starts off with stopping doing it and...

56:37Starts off with that once you stop violating Shabbat, stop violating all these other things already. You have achieved 90% of the battle. The second thing is to say, "I'm sorry to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. I'm sorry I didn't know it was this bad. Sorry, I did it." Third, commit to not going back to it. Say, I promise Hashem, I'm going to do my best not to go back to this goy. I'm going to do my best never to drive on Shabbat. I'm going to do my best never to commit this sin again. And ultimately, get to a point where you regret it. You regret that you ever did it. Meaning that even though you enjoyed it when you did it, you have to learn enough about this topic that you get to a point where you regret the actual sin. It's no longer enjoyable to you. Rabbi Hanina says that one of the critical parts of overcoming the obstacles of the yetzer hara, all of the desires that we have, all of the things that lead to sin, is to remember where you came from. Remember where you came from. Remember that your mom toiled so hard to get you here. Remember that your grandmother toiled so hard to get you here.

57:59During the Holocaust, there were millions of people being butchered simply because they were Jewish, even if they themselves did not want to be Jewish, even if they themselves wanted to be like the goyim. They were butchered because they were Jewish. HaKadosh Baruch Hu designed the world in such a way to make sure that whether you like it or not, you're always going to be reminded at some point in your life that you are a Jew. If you accept it with love, you're better for it. If you reject it, you'll suffer because of it. Now, when a person learns about his heritage, when a person learns about what it took to get to here, for you to be a Jew today, it's very, very simple to understand why it's worth it to continue. Because if you think about it, 3,300 years ago, Moshe Rabbeinu... you're better for it. If you reject it, you'll suffer because of it. Now, when a person learns about his heritage, when a person learns about what it took to get to here, for you to be a Jew today, it's very, very simple to understand why it's worth it to continue. Because if you think about it, 3,300 years ago, Moshe Rabbeinu and millions of Bnei Yisrael were at Mount Sinai, accepted the Torah and the mitzvot. Guys, try to finish as soon as you can and sit down so it's not like a hangout, please. I don't mind you eating, just don't socialize. There are still other people here.

59:01millions of Bnei Yisrael were at Mount Sinai, accepted the Torah and the mitzvot. Guys, try to finish as soon as you can and sit down so it's not like a hangout, please. I don't mind you eating, just don't socialize. There are still other people here. and millions of other people heard the voice of God, saw the words of God, accepted all of it, and for the next 3,000 years Jews will be killed, Jews will be tortured, Jews will be persecuted generation after generation. Whether it's in Turkey, Morocco, Spain, Nazi Germany, or by the Romans or the Greeks, every major civilization at some point or another—world domination was not enough for them—they had to go and disturb this little Jewish nation and...

1:00:13Now, why do these Jews continue to struggle? Why do these Jews continue to fight? Why do they continue? Why don't they just say to the Greeks, listen, you know what? What, you want me to be Greek? What, you want me to put on a toga and adopt your lifestyle? Okay, fine. Why don't they just accept it? Now, unfortunately, some of them did. Some of them became Greeks. But still, in every generation, we had just enough who rejected it, held on to the Torah, and sacrificed their lives for it. Why? It's a fantastic question if you actually think about it. Why would anybody hold on to a book of laws that restricts his life, that tells him that he's not allowed to be with any girl that he wants, that tells him that he's not allowed to do whatever he wants, that tells him that if he does whatever he wants, he can get punished for it? Why should he sacrifice his life for a book that restricts him? Rav Chaim Ozer was one of the Gedolei HaDor.

1:01:15He was the brother-in-law of the Chafetz Chaim. Now, the Chafetz Chaim lived in a house that in today's world probably wouldn't be allowed to exist because of how unkempt it was. He did not allow his own wife to put tiles on the floor. His floor was sand. Why? He says, this is too much. We're enjoying this world too much. If we put stones, we're enjoying this world too much. If somebody comes to the house and they were in mud just now, you're going to probably care so much that they're making your floor muddy that you're not going to want to welcome guests anymore. So it's better off not to have tiles on the floor. So one day his wife says to him, How come you, Chafetz Chaim, are not allowing yourself to enjoy this world? No tiles on the floor. No, no, no, nothing covering the windows. Well, it's nothing like a shack. But my brother, Rav Gudinski, also is a Talmid Chacham. His house is like a castle. Rav Chaim Ozer, his house is like a castle. Chafetz Chaim says to her, how can you compare?

1:02:39Rav Chaim Ozer is a melech. He's a melech. He's a king. He's the Gadol HaDor. It's an obligation in the Torah to make sure that the melech of the generation lives in a palace. What am I? I'm just a Baal Makolet. I just own a little store, a deli. This is the Chafetz Chaim saying about himself. So Rav Chaim Ozer, who the Chafetz Chaim called the melech of the generation, who everybody in the exile had to thank Even having Judaism in that generation, thanks to him. He himself was an orphan, and he says they asked him, "What made Rav Chaim Ozer, Rav Chaim Ozer?" He says, "The only reason I became Rav Chaim Ozer, the only reason I was able to put together the sefer, the book Shu"t Achiezer, is..." Because every morning, my mother, even though she wasn't my biological mother, was grateful enough to call herself my mother. Unlike some people that I meet who, for some reason, resent their parents that adopted them, he says, "My mom, every morning, she would bake me a little cake and give me hot milk and..."

1:04:01And she would wake me up with the smell of the cake and the hot milk. I would be excited to go and eat the cake and drink the milk. She would send me to go learn Torah, and I would be excited to come home after learning Torah all day because, again, my mom would bake me a little cake and make me hot milk. Every day, the same thing. He says, because of that milk, because of that cake, because she sent me to go learn Torah, that's what made me Chaim Rav Chaim Ozer. He didn't say because I learned a lot, because I studied at night, because I did mesirat nefesh, because my rabbi was great, because, you know, I happen to have a really good memory, because I had a good chavruta, none of that. What made me great? My ima, She made me cake, she made me milk, and she constantly sent me to go learn Torah. Why? Because when she made me milk, and she gave me the cake, she said, you're going to go learn Torah today. She showed me it's important to go learn Torah. So when she showed me it's important to go learn Torah, I wanted to go learn Torah. So when I went and learned Torah, I was thinking, wow, it's important to learn Torah. And I started liking learning Torah.

1:05:19And then I say, I can't wait to get home and tell Ima, "What? Ima, I learned Torah." She says, "Oh, you learned Torah. Here's some milk. Here's a cake." That is what made me. If a person spends a minute thinking about all of the sacrifice that their mother made for them, If it doesn't lead you to cry, you simply don't have a heart. Or you have a bad memory. Hopefully, it's a bad memory. If a person thinks about all the sacrifice that his wife, if you're married, makes for you every single day, and it doesn't lead you to cry, either you don't have eyes, or you don't have a memory. Hopefully, it's the memory again. Because we can fix that. Now, The Gemara in Masechet Berachot, page 17a, brings a pasuk from the book of Isaiah. The book of Isaiah says something very interesting that the Chachamim are wondering about.

1:06:34The pasuk talks about how Isaiah is talking to the women of his generation, and he says, "Stop being so complacent because things are not as good as you think they are." But the Chachamim say, "What's the other lesson we should learn from you? When is a woman allowed to be complacent?" What's "complacent"? Complacent means, "I'm okay." You say, "Everything okay? Everything's okay." When are you allowed to just sit there complacent, everything's okay as a woman? Stop being so complacent because things are not as good as you think they are. But the Chachamim say, "What's the other lesson we should learn from you? When is a woman allowed to be complacent?" What's "complacent"? Complacent means, "I'm okay." You say, "Everything okay? Everything's okay." When are you allowed to just sit there complacent, everything's okay as a woman? When I ask this question, when is a woman allowed to say, be considered a woman that's complacent, "Everything is okay, Baruch Hashem. How are you? Baruch Hashem?" When? When? Are you ever allowed to be complacent? So the Gemara in Masechet Berachot says the following: The promise made to women from Heaven

1:07:57even bigger than the one that was made to men. Because a woman has greater power to get to heaven than even her husband. Again, the promise made to women is even bigger than the one that was made for men and Because her power to get to heaven, her ability to get to heaven, is even more significant, a bigger heaven, a better heaven than her own husband. So the Gemara asks, for what? Why is she even going to heaven? He's going to kollel. He's going to yeshiva. She's not learning Torah. Why should she become a Rabbi Akiva undercover? Why? He says the woman goes to Heaven because she sends her kids to go learn Torah and because she waits for her husband to come back from the shiur Torah at 11 o'clock at night. For that, the Chachamim say, "I'm even more confused than when I started." Heaven because she sends her kids to go learn Torah and she waits for her husband until he comes back home from the Beit Midrash. Why does she go to heaven? She goes to heaven because she sends her kids to go learn Torah and because she waits for her husband to come back from the shiur Torah at 11 o'clock at night. For that, the Chachamim say, "I'm even more confused than when I started."

1:09:16First, you said the women are going to go to a bigger heaven. You're saying that if their husbands go learn Torah, if their kids go to yeshiva, they could be shanunot, they could be content, everything is okay. And you're saying they're going to get a bigger heaven than the husband. Why? The husband is the one that's going to yeshiva. The husband's going to learn shiur Torah at 9 o'clock at night. The kid's the one that's going to be in school all day. Why is she the one getting a bigger heaven? The Gemara continues, says, women benefit to have a bigger Olam HaBa because they're the engine. They're the engine that gives the kids and the husband the power to go learn Torah. And as it is stated, greater is the reward for the one who influences another to make a mitzvah than the one who fulfills the mitzvah himself.

1:10:24You'll get a greater reward for bringing somebody to the shiur Torah than what you're gonna get for actually going to the shiur Torah yourself. You get a bigger benefit for encouraging somebody to do a mitzvah than you'll get for doing a mitzvah yourself. But it also works the opposite. It's a bigger sin to lead another person to sin than to sin yourself. So when a woman leads her husband and her children to go learn Torah, she's giving them power. Why? If the wife thinks it's important, the husband's going to take it seriously. If the wife thinks it's not important, then the husband's not going to take it seriously. If every time the husband says, "I'm going to shiur Torah," and she says, "Oh man, again? Again? Why don't you spend time with me?" You have no idea what it means to be a wife. Now, Rav Galinsky, alav ha-shalom, was one of the greatest Mezakei HaRabim of his generation. One time, he was visiting America, and he gave a shiur. They invited him to give a shiur to a group of women whose husbands were studying Torah half the day and working half the day. So Rav Galinsky says

1:11:52There is a Gemara in the Torah, Gemara Masechet Yoma, page 77a, that goes over a pasuk in Tehillim. It says, "It's vain for you who rise early, who sit up late, who eat the bread of sorrow, for indeed He gives His beloved ones restful sleep." Psalm 127 verse 2, David HaMelech talks about the women of Israel. He says, "It’s vain for you who rise early, who sit up late, who eat the bread of sorrow, for indeed He gives His beloved ones restful sleep." You wake up before the kids. Why? So you prepare the kids for school. So you prepare the husband for Minyan. So you prepare the house. Now, I wake up at 11 o’clock. Honey, I’m still tired. Wake up early. Yeah, but it’s hard. He says, exactly. You wake up before the kids. Why? So you prepare the kids for school. So you prepare the husband for minyan. So you prepare the house. Now, I wake up at 11 o’clock. Honey, I’m still tired. Wake up early. Yeah, but it’s hard. He says, exactly.

1:13:06went up, I went to sleep late, he goes exactly, that's what the rest of the pasuk says. The rest of the pasuk, that's what it says. He says it's vain for you to rise early and sit up late. Not only did you wake up early, you went to sleep late. Why'd you go to sleep late? Because the kid didn't want to go to sleep; he was crying all night. The husband had a stomachache, the other kid had a stomachache, everybody had a stomachache. You have no idea what's going on, but you have to be there. Why? Because no one could go to sleep if they're not asleep. You can't go to sleep; you're a mommy. it's vain for you to rise early and sit up late. You wake up early, you go to sleep late. What do you eat? You eat the bread of sorrow. The bread, what do you eat? You ever see a mom that has little kids in the house? She can barely eat. Why? Because there's always somebody crying, somebody's annoyed, somebody's this, somebody's sick. She never has time to eat. She has to eat like a bank robber, like in between missions. Why? Because you always think that somebody's chasing him. Oh, he just grabs something. He doesn't know what it is. He's just eating. He's just eating to live. That's how mothers are. Why? Because you don't know how much time you actually have before the next baby cries, before this one has something happen.

1:14:07You can't eat like everybody else. They have dinner and you're sitting there and so on. I see your hand. I just have to finish the point. So you see that Am Yisrael has kids, has a husband. And David HaMelech says, I already know your life. You wake up really early. You go to sleep really late. Even eating a healthy diet is almost impossible for you. Eating like a normal human being is almost impossible for you. But you should know, Hashem gives His beloved restful sleep. Rav Galinsky says, the Gemara says, what does this mean? He says, when you're a bat Yisrael and you wake up early and you go to sleep late, and you eat the bread of sorrows because you're sending your husband to the kollel, you're sending your husband to go learn Torah, you're sending your kids to go learn Torah, you're constantly doing everything, everything, everything, everything to keep the machine going because you're the engine. You, my friend, become Hashem's beloved. You are considered Yedid Hashem.

1:15:24What's Yedid Hashem? You're friends with Hashem. That's what the pasuk says. The pasuk says that a woman becomes Yedidot Hashem. Yedidah, a friend of Hashem. So Rav Galinski says to the women in the lecture, he says, I'll tell you the truth. If I had a letter from the Chazon Ish, he says, if I had a letter from the Chazon Ish, Gadol HaDor, previous generation of men, if I had a letter from the Chazon Ish, Eh Yankele, Yedidi Yankele, my dear friend, Yankele—which is Rav Galinsky's name, Yaakov Yankele, Yedidi Yankele—if I just had that, I don't have anything to worry about. Hopefully, I just wait until Hashem takes my neshama back. I just go, I just ask my will, the only thing I ask... Bury me with a letter. Why? I go to Shamayim. I go to Shamayim with a letter from the Chazon Ish saying I'm his friend. I'm set. I'm set.

1:16:26He says, imagine if I had a letter from the Rambam. If I had a letter from the Rambam, it says, "My dear friend," I go to Gehinnom, Gehinnom gets scared of me. Why? I have a letter that the Rambam called me his friend. Rambam calls me his friend. He says, imagine I have a letter from Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. I have a letter from Rabbi Akiva, his rabbi. Rabbi Akiva writes me a letter, "Yankele, my dear friend." It doesn't matter what the rest of that letter says. It's worth coming to this world, getting the letter, dying, you're finished. You're good. Why? You go up to Shamayim with this letter, they can't touch you. Why? You're friends with the Rambam. You're friends with Rabbi Akiva. You're friends with Moshe Rabbeinu. You're friends with Avraham Avinu. Avraham Avinu says, "Yankele, my dear friend, you have nothing else to worry about." He says, B'not Yisrael, you have an opportunity. You have an opportunity of a lifetime. Why? You have something in writing. But not from the Chazon Ish. Not from the Rambam. Not from Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai. Not from Rabbi Akiva. Not even from Moshe Rabbeinu. You have something from HaKadosh Baruch Hu.

1:17:46You have a letter from HaKadosh Baruch Hu saying what? You want to be My friend? You want to be My beloved? Send your kids to Talmud Torah. Send your husband to shiur Torah. Send your husband to learn Torah. You, My beloved. You and Me, we're best friends. Best friends. The next day, Rav Galinsky went to collect money at a yeshiva. He had a big yeshiva. He went to collect money. They sent him to a place, a businessman who had a lot of money. He went to his office. He goes, "Oh, you're Rav Galinsky. I'm not giving you anything." "Okay. No, but I'm going to tell you why." "Oh, you're going to tell me why too. No, they're not going to just tell you no; they want to tell you why. I'm going to tell you no." "Okay, tell me why." He goes, "You ruined my life." "How did I ruin your life?" He says, "I have a business. I've been running this business for 40 years. Baruch Hashem, I have a wonderful daughter. I found my wonderful daughter a nice husband. The husband learns. But we had an agreement. Once they get married, the husband learns for a couple of years. But after he learns for a couple of years, he's going to come take over my business. I can go retire. I'm already working for 40 years. I'll go retire."

1:19:05I set up everything. The office. I set him up his own office. I set up everything. Today is supposed to be his first day. Instead of him coming and taking over the company today, I get a phone call from my daughter. "Abba, my husband is not coming to work." "Why? He's sick?" "No." "Something happened?" "No." "So why isn't he coming to work?" "He's going to be in the kollel." "For how long? He's been already there for a couple of years." "He goes, forever." "Why? What happened to our agreement? He's going to run the business. It's a million-dollar company." No, no, Abba, I don't want it. You don't want it? No, I don't want to go to work. Why not? I want to be friends with Hashem. I went to Aish HaTorah, I went to Rav Galinsky last night, and he told me if I want to be friends with Hashem, if I want Hashem to call me my beloved, I have to send my husband to kollel. I am not willing to give it up. I want to be friends with Hashem. So the guy says to Rav Galinsky, see, that's why I'm not giving you any money. Rav Galinsky says, Baruch Hashem that I have the merit to be partners with somebody that's friends with Hashem. You see, rabotai, when a person understands the significance of things, he understands why he's here, why, who, what, when, and how. But unfortunately, as I told you before, it also works the opposite. If a mom does not send her kids to a religious school, if a mom does not send her husband...

1:20:32A place of Torah, and instead, she asked him, "Why don't you take me to a movie? Why don't you go with me to the mall? Why don't we go to Cancun so we could be naked on the beach with the rest of the goyim?" When a woman does such a thing, she also inherits the bigger sin. Now, the Midrash Ma'am Lo'ez by Rav Culi is one of the... More popular midrashim use anywhere between 500 to 1500 sources. It's unbelievable how many sources you have in every single one of the books. And anyone who doesn't know, Rav Culi was one of the Gedolim about 300 years ago. When he was writing the Midrash Ma'am Lo'ez, he would fast for a week straight. He would fast for a week straight, learn, write the book, write everything, the whole week, no eating, no drinking, nothing. Not like he's only fasting for a few hours, you know, in between meals, like us. In between meals, he's having a diet. You know, some people say, "You're on a diet?" "Yeah, yeah, in between meals." "What was the last meal?" "An hour ago, I had a burger." "So when's the diet?" "Till the next burger." No, he stopped eating Motzei Shabbat, not eating until Shabbat again, for a whole week. And the whole time he's learning. Mamash wrote this book with Ruach HaKodesh.

1:21:52Now he brings different sources from across the Torah, from the Zohar, from the Gemara, from the Shulchan Aruch, from the Rishonim, giants. He says the following. He says we have in Parashat Yitro, we got the Ten Commandments. One of the commandments is idolatry. Do not become an idol worshiper. Do not make an image. Don't go buy a Buddha statue and put it in your house. worship a rabbi. Don't worship some athlete. Don't buy any statues. Don't donate to churches and so on and so forth. He says that idolatry also has a taint of idolatry, meaning that when a person commits an obvious sin, he doesn't need much help from the Torah to explain to him that this is no good and... Torah, the Oral Torah, is there to explain to us that sometimes we can commit sins without even realizing they are sins, or even if we know it's a sin, we don't realize how grave it is. So, in Parashat Yitro, he says the following: What's the taint of idolatry? He says a person must teach his children the correct way and make sure that they obtain a good Torah education and keep the norms of Judaism from their childhood.

1:23:17must make sure that by the time the child becomes older, he knows how to live as a Jew and will respect God and His teachings. But if a parent spoils his children and doesn't give them a good Torah education meaning sends them to public school or sends them to one of these fake yeshivot where there's boys and girls or sends them to one of these yeshivot where 30% of the students are goyim, which by the way, there are many here in Florida. They call themselves yeshiva, but 30% of the students, and I know this from my own eyes, are not even Jewish and If a parent spoils their kids, gives them whatever they want, and sends them to yeshiva because his friends go there. Yeah, but his friend is Mustafa. Yeah, but he goes to yeshiva, Mustafa. Yeah, Mustafa's an Arab. Yeah, but he goes to yeshiva, he learns Modeh Ani. Yeah, he can learn Modeh Ani all he wants, but he's still an Arab. You cannot go to school with Mustafa. You cannot go to school with Chris. You can't. Why? You're a Jew, he's not. What happens if my parents send me there? He says, if a parent sends his kids...

1:24:28doesn't give him a good education and they're not going to learn how to keep the commandments. This parent is in constant violation of idol worship. He's in constant violation of "Do not make a carved image," where HaKadosh Baruch Hu says in the Ten Commandments, "Don't make a carved image." Yeah, what does one thing have to do with the other? He says raising a child cannot, not going to have a proper Jewish education, is making a carved image, making a person, because the child will grow up to become a rebel and will dishonor his parents and dishonor God in the end. He's probably going to seek out other religions. He's gonna want Find out what does Christianity have to offer? What does Mustafa have to offer? What does Buddha have to offer? What is India, which worships the cow, the rat, the motorcycle, and everything that moves and doesn't move? What do they have to offer? He wants to go to Hodu. He wants to go to India after the army. This child will seek out other religions and everything except Judaism and

1:25:45Child is apt to commit all sorts of sexual offenses from the Torah and even commit murder. If the child is not educated in his religious roots, he can commit all sorts of crimes because a child without a firm religious value system is susceptible to all harmful influences. Source: Zohar, page 93, Parashat Yitro. Further, it says, a person also has to be careful when he's expressing Torah ideas, if he's giving a chiddush. Why? If the chiddush that he says, some insight that he says from the Torah, is not falling within the rules of the Torah, it just comes and makes sense to him. That's also a form of idolatry. So you have to be very careful if you're bringing a new insight from the Torah that's just out of your own common sense. Because a fake chiddush is equal to a taint of Avodah Zarah. Punishment for a person like that is that his soul will never ascend, will never get to a good place in Olam HaBa because he changed it a lot. The same thing goes with fake rabbis. He says that when the rabbis make far-fetched interpretations of the Torah just to fit their contemporary themes. You know, these politically correct sermons in order to please their congregants and...

1:27:09They're not aware of the tremendous damage that their words are causing, and as a result of their false interpretations, their souls are also cut off and are not allowed to ascend to the heavenly chambers. And this also falls under Avodah Zarah. Now, there are many other aspects of Avodah Zarah, but the point is that a person knows that sometimes... The sin is clear. You are not allowed to do this. You are not allowed to light a fire on Shabbat. You are not allowed to eat pig. Not allowed to desecrate Hashem's name. Certain things are obvious. But Torah is here to tell us that sometimes it's not so obvious. Sometimes you don't think it's a big deal to go to public school. Sometimes you don't think it's a big deal to go see a movie. A PG-13 movie. A rated R movie. A Gehinnom movie. You don't think it's a big deal. Torah says it's a big deal. Why? It starts with one thing and leads to many other things.

1:28:10A person is connected to his roots, connected to his mother. He could overcome this, but if his mother herself is sending him to this stuff, then guess what? Not only will he be punished, she'll get punished even worse than him. Now, all of us have heard the story of Noach. All of us have heard the story of Am Yisrael that... Egypt was taken out of Egypt and eventually arrived at the land of Israel. But what many people forget is that before Am Yisrael arrived in Israel, the land was owned. Who was it owned by? Canaan, the Canaanites. So the question is, how come Hashem took the land from them and... How come Hashem took the land from them? Now you can see there's a pasuk in the Torah that says they made a lot of sins. But what's the foundation? What's the worst part? The Midrash says, Canaan had a very serious problem with Hashem. What was his problem? He didn't respect his father.

1:29:40He's the one that raped Noach after the flood. He disrespected his father, didn't listen to his father, and that's why Noach cursed him. And Noach told him, huh? No, Canaan was his son. But Canaan was the one that actually did the rape. Yes, but Canaan started it. Canaan started it, the son. Yes, but Canaan is the one that caused a lot of the trouble. Now, he didn't respect his father. He didn't honor his father, even when his father told him no. and Hashem cursed him. Hashem cursed Canaan. Hashem cursed Canaan. In the Torah, Hashem cursed Canaan, stating that he is going to be cursed. The curse goes to Canaan. Canaan is going to be a slave to the other descendants. Now, he had a brother. His brother was named Mitzrayim. Mitzrayim is Egypt. So the curse was fulfilled when

1:31:02Egypt was at one point the master of Bnei Yisrael. Egypt was the master, Bnei Yisrael were the slaves. When was the curse fulfilled? When Am Yisrael arrived at Eretz Yisrael. Why? Because now Canaan became the slave of the slave. Because Am Yisrael were technically slaves of his brother Egypt, Mitzrayim. Now Canaan became the slaves of Yisrael. That's when the curse was fulfilled. Why did it start? It started because of dishonoring the parents, disconnecting from where we came from. Now, honoring your parents starts off with, first and foremost, understanding where and who and what you're made of yourself. The Torah explains in the Kabbalah that each part of you, physically and spiritually... Hashem contributes, so there are three partners to each person: the father, the mother, and HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Now, what does each one contribute? The father contributes five things: the bones, the nerves, the brain, the fingernails, and the white part of the eye. That's what the father contributes.

1:32:22The mother contributes also five things: the skin, the flesh, blood, hair, and the dark part of the eye. HaKadosh Baruch Hu contributes ten things, which can negate both of them, five and five. He contributes the neshama, the spirit, the soul, the radiance of the face—the look of a person's face when he's alive is a world apart different than if, chas v'shalom, the person died. And... eyesight, the hearing, speech, the ability to walk, knowledge, understanding, and intellect, which is the knowledge, understanding, and intellect And once a person dies, what does it mean? It simply means that HaKadosh Baruch Hu took back His part. He left the mom and the dad, their parts. The eyes, the bones, everything else left. But without HaKadosh Baruch Hu's part, the partnership fails. That's when a person dies. Now, one of the most extraordinary examples of

1:33:36understanding what it means to connect to your past, understanding the results of the hard work of a parent, the hard work of a mom, In our history, many times there are countless stories, but one of the most famous stories you'll see in several places is in the book of Maccabees, in the Gemara, Masechet Gittin, page 57a or 57b. You also see it in a Midrash, Me'am Loez, and several other places, which is the story of Chana and her seven sons and... Now in your tefillah every day, tefillat Shacharit, you say a pasuk from Tehillim, which states that HaKadosh Baruch Hu sows righteousness, makes the salvation flourish, and creates cures. So the Chachamim say, what does this mean? He says sometimes

1:34:47A person gives tzedakah, a person does something good, and Hashem, instead of giving him the reward right away, plants it. He plants it for another day. He plants it. I'm not going to give him a reward right now; I’ll give him a reward when he needs it. That's why it says, the salvation comes when? When he needs it. Not right now. Right now, yeah, he's giving tzedakah because he wants to get this deal, but I'm not going to make the deal happen. I'm going to take this tzedakah, and I'm going to give him something at a later time. Why? Because ten years later, he's going to need the money. Right now, he doesn't need the money. Right now, he just wants the money. So the story of Chana is one of the great examples that we have in our nation as somebody that planted many, many seeds and saw the seeds flourish in a very extraordinary way, to say the least. If somebody learns the story, it gives you an understanding of who you can be related to if you choose to be a righteous Jew. Now, the story of Chana goes as follows: a couple of thousand years ago, a

1:36:01Antiochus of the Greek Empire decided that he wanted to outlaw Judaism, but that wasn't enough. He wanted to make sure that it was not only illegal to be a Jew, but that all Jews bowed to his idol. Chana is caught by one of his generals named Polypus the Maximus. He brings Chana and her seven sons. There's no mention of the husband. Maybe he died, maybe he wasn't around—whatever the case is, but he brings Chana and her seven sons in front of the Caesar, in front of Antiochus. Antiochus commands them, one after another, to bow to him. Now I'm gonna read you the details of the story word for word.

1:37:01Because you probably heard the story before, where the story starts with, just like I said, each one says, "No, I don't want to bow." He kills each one of them, and they all die in kiddush Hashem. Now, this is a superficial understatement, where when somebody says something like this, where Chana and her sons did not want to bow to an idol, and they died in kiddush Hashem, and then you hear that some Reformed people that were anti-God were murdered by some psychopath in Pittsburgh, and people say that was also Kiddush Hashem. It's not so far-fetched. Why? They died because they didn't want to bow to an idol. No, they died in Pittsburgh because some guy killed them because they were Jewish, even though they themselves did not recognize Judaism for what it is. So, Kiddush Hashem, Kiddush Hashem. It's not so far-fetched for both of it to be considered Kiddush Hashem. Today, people throw around the term Kiddush Hashem for every single incident. Somebody slipped on a banana peel in the middle of the highway, but said Shema Yisrael at some point five hours before—Kiddush Hashem. Somebody got murdered by some terrorist—Kiddush Hashem. Somebody didn't go to church because he was late—everything is Kiddush Hashem today. So, I want to give you a real example of what Kiddush Hashem is. What does the Torah call Kiddush Hashem?

1:38:22Why is it called Kiddush Hashem? So the source is in several places. You can pass these three pictures around. You'll understand what I mean in a minute. The source is in several different places. The book of Maccabees, chapter Bet. Ma'am Lo'ez, Parashat Yitro, Gemara Masechet Gittin, page 57b, and I even double-checked with, or not double-checked but I found that even the Christians published a book 200 years ago in 1827 called the Epitome of General Ecclesiastical History, in essence talking about the history from the beginning of the world all the way to Christianity and thereafter and they obviously mentioned the Jews, and one of the things that they mentioned is, or actually they have a picture of, is the story of Hannah. What picture do they have? The picture of what happened to Hannah's children. By whom? By Christians? By their own people. What did they do to them? So now, Tzedek, I touch on a village even in...

1:39:47The righteous Hannah had seven sons, and one day, Polypus, one of the generals of the king, caught them and brought Hannah and her seven sons to Antiochus, the king. The king took the first son as the rest of the family watched. All the sons were there. And the king tells him, "Why do you need this Torah? Bow to the king. Bow to the idol. Or else, I'm going to kill you in a very strange and unusual death." The son responds,

1:41:09He says, "Don't even waste your words and try to teach us your mistakes, your false beliefs. Our Torah is the Torah that was given to us from our fathers and our forefathers, and we are not going to remove ourselves from it, not right or left." So Adoni HaMelech, hey Mr. King, don't waste your words. Don't say too much. If your will is to kill me, go ahead. Do it right away. Hurry up, actually, so I can go and be in a hurry to go see HaKadosh Baruch Hu now. The king couldn't believe that this young man is talking to him this way. got his soldiers to bring a huge pan, filled it with oil, boiled the oil, and put the person in there. They put the son in there and started literally frying him after they cut off his tongue, his feet, and his hands. You see in the pictures—that's from the Christian book—that's exactly what you see in the pictures in multiple places.

1:42:35Aside from that, they removed his skin, his tongue, and Ramon tortured him in a horrible way until he died al Kiddush Hashem. Why? Tom bowed to an idol. He says to the idol, "Do whatever you're about to do. Go ahead, do it in a hurry. Why? I want to go see Hashem." Not even a consideration. Now, maybe he was a Talmid Chacham, Tzaddik, Kadosh, 20 years. He's learning already. So he'd say, you know what? Chazak u'Baruch. Surely the younger ones are not as strong as him. They brought him the second son. I think it was allowed to go, no? No. It's better to die than sin. There are three sins that you're not allowed to commit, and you have to die for them. One is Avodah Zarah, which is idol worship. Another one is murder. You're not allowed to commit murder. And the third one is a sexual crime. If somebody tells you to have sex with this woman or they'll kill you, you have to die.

1:43:59Who says no? If it was me, I would tell you yes, but I'm not a kid. Who says there are three sins you have to die for? You have to die if they tell you to go to a church or they will kill you. You have to die if they tell you to go worship Buddha or they will kill you. they tell you, "Go rape this woman or we will kill you," you have to die. If they tell you, "Go kill somebody else, or we will kill you," you have to die. But those are the three that are obvious. What most people don't know is that that's when it's private. When it's private, when it's one-on-one, they tell you, "Go worship an idol, or we'll kill you," you have to do it. But if it's public, if it's public, meaning there's a lot of people, there's a lot of people watching... and they say there's a halacha, there's a halacha that you have, look, I'm just making up a halacha right now, that Jews only wear, you know, let's say, blue shoelaces. Violate that halacha. Violate the halacha that from now on you're not gonna wear blue shoelaces. You have to die. And keep that halacha. Why? Because now it's public.

1:45:18public because if you violate it, it's called hillul Hashem. He was him is the worst in the Torah. So now the second son arrived, and the evil king tells him, "Bow to the idol, or I'm gonna kill you just like I killed your brother, with a lot of viciousness and so on." The second son responds to him and hurry up the fire, hurry up the sword, do with me whatever you want, but please, don't detract from me anything you've done to my brother. Meaning, make sure, whatever you did to my brother, do also to me. Don't not do something to me. Do everything you did to him. Do it to me also. Why? I'm also like him. I'm not less righteous than him. I don't have less yirat shamayim than him. I want to die al kiddush Hashem just like him. The king was in shock. The king was in shock. He did not understand how this kid just told him, "Not only kill me, but make sure that all the torture that you did to my brother, do it to me also." And then the son...

1:46:44Here's the guy threatening him again. So the son responds to him. He says, woe unto you, your viciousness on us. What are you thinking? That you're going to do your will and whatever you want with our souls? Our souls are going to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, the One that gave them to us, to a place of extraordinary light that HaKadosh Baruch Hu created, and we will live Chayei HaOlamim (eternal lives), meaning heaven, a place where there is no end. Your soul will go to Gehinnom. We will go to a place where the suffering doesn't end. The king heard this and killed the second son. The third son is brought up in front of him. The third son doesn't wait for the king to talk. Right off the bat...

1:48:10He says to the Melech, "Oy, you wicked enemy of Hashem. What are you trying to scare me with all these punishments, with all these difficulties that you're doing? You think that that's going to scare me?" We have nothing to be scared of. We have nothing to be concerned about. Because we know that this is the will of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. This is to repent for the sins of Am Yisrael. What you're doing to us, HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants this. Why? To repent for the sins of Am Yisrael. This little kid—all of the suffering that we will get, we accept it with ahavah. We accept it with love. cutting off arms, cutting off legs, cutting off heads, cutting off every worst possible thing you can imagine, as you can see in the picture. So it's happening to every one of them. We accept it with love. And they're seeing their brothers going through it. It's not like each one is living some imaginary life. They're watching their brothers going through this, and saying we accept all of it with ahavah, we love it. Why? This is what Hashem wants. And HaKadosh Baruch Hu yiten lanu sechar peulatenu.

1:49:32He says, "And HaKadosh Baruch Hu will give us a reward for what we're doing, but you, you're going to a never-ending suffering, eternal damnation." The king is astonished, and they killed the third son in front of his mom and his brothers. Comes the fourth brother. The fourth brother, no different. He doesn't even wait for the king to say a thing. He says, "Don't even say anything. Don't even say anything. You akhzari (vicious person). Don't extend it. Don't tell me anything. Do whatever you want with my body." My neshamah is going to my King in Heaven, my salvation. HaKadosh Baruch Hu will bring us back and will resurrect us, and we'll come back to life at some point. The king can't even handle the fourth one. He's talking with so much confidence. He doesn't even let him have a second sentence. He kills him. Same thing again all day. Comes the fifth son.

1:50:57He starts cursing them. He says, "You fool, you moron." He calls the king, the son, "little kid, little 10-year-old kid." He says, "Hey, what are you doing? You moron, you fool. You don't even understand your own actions. You don't even know what you're doing." He tells the 7-year-old king, "You don't even know what you're doing." What do you think? He goes, what do you think? HaKadosh Baruch Hu sent us into your hands because He hates us? You think Hashem hates us? Know this. He's only doing this because He loves us and He's bringing us to this because He wants to give us kavod. He's giving us honor by giving us this. A ten-year-old kid. giving us the kavod. Why? Because now we can die al Kiddush Hashem. He can't handle it and kills the fifth son. Bar Aben HaShishi, the sixth son, doesn't talk to him either. The sixth son talks to him in a confident way, saying, "You know, Hashem is really happy with us."

1:52:18really happy with us right now. He's very content with what we're doing, even while dying. He's very content with that because this is kappara (atonement) for all of our sins, what's happening to us. And here we're gonna all die, but you, he's gonna uproot you from the world of the living. He kills the sixth son. Now, at this point, you would think even if the seventh son is a hero like his other brothers, the mom should be hysterical. Anytime you see a mother with her kids, don't mess with them. Why? She'll kill you. She'll kill you. That's it. Don't mess with the mother's kids. Don't mess with them. Why? She'll kill you. A mother can lift a truck over her head just to save her own kid. It's unbelievable how much mothers love their kids. Now,

1:53:18You would think that the mother is hysterical, crying. But it continues. And it says, the mom is watching everything, and she's seeing each one of our sons get killed. But this does not even affect her heart in a negative way. She's not upset. She's actually singing Hallelujah. She's singing to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. She's singing that our children are dying in Kiddush Hashem. She's standing up, watching our holy children being killed, watching their body parts on the floor, the arms, the legs, all cut into little pieces. She's watching all of this and she's happy.

1:54:19And she says this, "My children, my children, I don't know how you got into my stomach. Meaning, who am I? There's a seed that went into my body and you came out? I don't know how that works. That's HaKadosh Baruch Hu." The fact that some seed comes from somebody else and it goes into a woman, and now there's going to be a baby from that? I mean, that doesn't make any sense at all. She says, I don't know how you came into my body. I don't know how HaKadosh Baruch Hu adorned you, meaning He shaped you. Not only did you come into my body, but He shaped you, each one with a certain face, each one with certain features. And then on top of it, He put the neshama inside you. HaKadosh Baruch Hu, the God of Israel, He's the one that created you. He's the one that put you together, gave you your bones, gave you your organs. He's the one that gave you the flesh. He's the one that covered the flesh with skin and with hair. He's the one that put the neshama of life into you.

1:55:33He's the one that brought you to the light of the world. And now, you gave back your neshama to honor His holy Torah. To live a short life and to die in this short life in order for kiddush Hashem. Surely, He is going to resurrect you and bring your neshamot back. Surely, He will save you from the eternal death of Gehinnom and will give you eternal heaven. On all of this, my children, HaKadosh Baruch Hu will pay you a great reward, and you are praiseworthy for doing it. I am praiseworthy for having such children, and... So now this king is starting to lose hope. Why? He's looking terrible. He just killed six kids. There's one kid left. No one's bowing to him. So he tries a different strategy. He goes, he brings the son in front of him. He says, maybe this kid, he's only seven years old.

1:57:00says yeah, says this kid is only seven years old. Maybe I could like tempt him and try to seduce him with something, try to bribe him with something. So at least this woman, this Chana over here, at least she can say, "Oh, I beat Antiochus. I beat Antiochus, that we all, me and my children, all died for the honor of HaKadosh Baruch Hu." Maybe I can at least get this one kid and bribe him with something. So they bring the little kid in front of him, and this kid is seven years old. The king starts begging him, the little seven-year-old. He starts begging him, "Please, please do what I want. Please, I swear to you, I swear to you, if you do what I want, I'm going to make you second-in-command. You will take over the entire kingdom after me. I'll make you my own son." You're going to take over the entire kingdom. You're going to be rich with gold and silver. The seven-year-old kid, the seven-year-old Jew, answers Antiochus, "Woe unto you, the king that's old and stupid."

1:58:23What are you trying to honor, trying to impress me with your lies? You're trying to impress me with your stupidity. Quickly, do what you did to my brothers, to me. Quickly, don't delay, so I can succeed in going to see them next. now Antiochus has one last-ditch effort. He says, "Okay, this kid is brainwashed. Let me go to his mom." So he goes to the mom and says to her, "You know, you're a nice, good woman. Have some mercy on this little boy. Have some mercy on the fruit of your womb." Convince him to do what you want him to do, so at least you'll have one son left. So Hannah was very smart, obviously, and she says to him, "You know, I'll talk to him. I'll talk to him. I'll convince him. I'll convince him, but I need to do it separately. I can't do it in front of you. I need to do it separately." So

1:59:45She's separated from them and they get closer and away from everybody else. And one of the most amazing conversations in the world takes place. So Chana goes to her seven-year-old son. Just imagine if you have a seven-year-old kid in your house. You have a conversation with them. It's a pretty interesting conversation when they're seven years old. This is the conversation she has with a seven-year-old. No, it's a different Chana. She says, B'ni, my son. She says, my son, pay attention to the things that I'm saying to you and understand. I carried you in my womb for nine months. I breastfed you for two years. And I fed you until this day that you are here today. And on top of that, I taught you Yirat Shamayim, fear of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, and from His Torah. And you learned exactly what you can based on your age. I taught you all of it. Now, my son, open your eyes and see the heavens and the earth. See the ocean. See the land. See the sea and the fire and the wind and all of creation.

2:01:13Pay attention, understand, to know that all of this was the creation of HaKadosh Baruch Hu that He made with His own hands. Because after this, HaKadosh Baruch Hu created man to be simple and complete in his serving of Hashem, and to engrave in his heart to have fear of Hashem. For that is what He pays reward for. But one who has assurance or confidence in another person will not be successful. It will be of no use, because all of it is against God. Now, my son, don't let this vicious person seduce you with his lies. Because what will it give you? Even if you're saved from his sentence, from his death sentence, now in this moment, who will save you from the sentence from HaKadosh Baruch Hu? So please, listen to me and die al Kiddush Hashem and go with your brothers. And then, my son,

2:02:42I will see you in your greatness in the place of holiness, that hopefully I will be able to see you in Gan Eden. Hopefully, we will all be under the light of Hashem. There we will celebrate Nagila, and I will come to you and celebrate with you as if I have seen each one of you on your wedding day. She then finalizes this with this: After the son responds, he says, she continued talking. So he cut her off, the kid. He says, my dear mother, why are you delaying me from going and dealing with this? Why don't you let me go and join my holy brothers? Because there's no chance in the world that I'm going to listen to this stupid king. All of what he says are worthless to me. And they are worthless because they're against Hashem. So his mother says to her son, she says, my son, when you get up to Shamayim, go to Avraham Avinu.

2:04:08And you tell Avraham Avinu in my name. You tell Avraham, you were willing to sacrifice one of your sons. I sacrificed seven. The child went back to the king with a strong heart. Says to the melech, oy melech zaken uksil, woe to you, stupid old king, vicious enemy of Hashem. On who you're trying to fool. On who you're trying to win with your words. I'm 7 years old and you're 70. And I'm making fun of everything you're doing. And I know I mock all of your perversions because they include homosexuality, bestiality, and all types of disgusting things. He goes, I make fun of all the things that you do. You disgusting human being. I believe in the Torah of HaKadosh Baruch Hu.

2:05:14If we suffer here from the pain of your sentence in this world, we're all going to live eternally in a place of eternal life where there's no death. But you, you, you, you abomination, you, you homosexual, you are away from Hashem. You are away from Hashem, our God. And He, He's going to take revenge against you. He's going to put you in a place where there's no light and there's no life. He's given him Reishit Chochmah, Masechet Gehinnom. And you're going to go to Makom Choshech V'Tzalmawet. He tells him another place in Gehinnom. You're going to go to the place in Gehinnom called Tzalmawet also. And your soul is not going to find a moment of peace, a moment of rest. Because the trouble and suffering will only surround you. And you will be constantly in fire and brimstone. Because that is your share from God. All of us have a share from God. That's your share.

2:06:43The king was shocked and commanded them to torture the seven-year-old more than all of the other brothers until he died al Kiddush Hashem. Once the seventh son died, Chana stood up proudly, still pure, still holy, and started singing Tehillim to HaKadosh Baruch Hu... and started singing Tehillim to HaKadosh Baruch Hu and said to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, "Hashem, my heart rejoices in You. Hashem, please, Hashem, take my soul back to You so these enemies don't defile me," because she knew that they wanted to rape her. Keep me holy. Show me the place that You've prepared for Your servants, where my sons who died Al Kiddush Hashem, on the sanctification of Your Name, are. Show me where they are and take me there. As she finished praying, Hashem took her neshama and her body fell.

2:08:07At that moment, no, Hashem took her neshama. At that moment, everyone that was there, which apparently that's probably the reason why even the Christian books have this story, because it's not exactly a praise to them. Everyone heard a bat kol come from Shamayim. A heavenly voice came from Shamayim as Hashem took her neshama out. Hashem heard, everybody heard a bat kol. Where Hashem quoted Tehillim, He says, "Mother of sons, rejoice. Happy is the mother whose sons refused to bow down to the idol. In the next world, they will be happy and they will be joyful." You see, Rabotai Yekarim, a person can send their kids to any school... a person can give their kids any education. A person can send their kids to a yeshiva, but the kids can still be damaged later on because when they come home, the house is secular. Or a person can be sent to the best yeshiva, but perhaps even at home it looks okay, but there's too much freedom being given to the son, and

2:09:32Perhaps the parents don't pray for the kid, or perhaps the parents don't show the kid enough love. The point is that there's so much to parenting. There's so much to taking care of children that if a person looks at it just like we say in our tefillah, every single act that we do, every single mitzvah that we do, every single prayer that we do, every single lesson that we learn... Planting a seed—don't look for a reward right now. HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, plant the seeds, plant your tzedakah, plant all the good deeds. Why? I am the Matzmiach Yeshuot; I'm the one that makes the salvation flourish. When does the salvation come? Exactly when you need it, not necessarily when you want it. To finish, I'm going to tell you a couple of stories that I know personally. I love that Rav Alimi, whom I mentioned some months ago, runs an organization for troubled teenagers. He says his great-grandfather was the Rav of Algeria.

2:10:52One of the Gedolei HaDor, his name was Rav Sidi Charef Alimi. And he wrote a book called Vayomer Avraham. In the preface, the beginning of the book, Rav Alimi writes the following: that everything he has achieved in his life is all thanks to his mother. Why? He said, "When I was a child, I was a terrible kid." He writes this about himself in his book. Thrown out of every school, thrown out of yeshiva. I was like the criminal of the streets. But one day, I woke up with an insane will to learn Torah. One day, I just woke up and I just said, "I need to go learn Torah." I ran to the Beit Midrash, and I've been in that Beit Midrash ever since. I never left.

2:11:56After I got older, I got the thought maybe to ask my mom, like maybe she knew something because I started realizing, okay, I like it. I like it, but why? I mean, I used to be a criminal. I used to be terrible. So I asked my mom, "Ima, how did it happen that one day I just decided?" She said, "Oh, I remember." She says, "I saw that with every year that you were growing, the trouble that was surrounding you was growing too. And I knew that it's only going to get worse. So I decided to pray, and I took upon myself a fast. And I said to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, 'I'm going to fast until he does teshuva.'" I'm gonna fast until he does teshuva. If it's a week, I'm gonna die. But at least I tried my best. One day I fasted. No teshuva. Continued fasting into the second day. Not ate at the end of the day. Continued fasting. Two days in a row, no eating, no drinking. Still no teshuva. Continued the third day. Three days, no eating and drinking. When I went to sleep that night,

2:13:22A very old tzaddik appeared in my dream, and he said to me, "Stop fasting. From now on, I'll have the desire to go learn Torah." And in the dream, this tzaddik came to you and kissed you on the head. The next morning, you got up, you went to the kollel, and you haven't left since then. The mother understood our son is in danger. And she said, "You gave me this as collateral. You gave me the son as collateral. I'm just keeping it. So if I cannot keep it, I might as well die. So either you fix the situation, or I'm going to die. Because it's better to die than for my son to be a criminal. For my son to be a Mechalel Shabbat. For my son to be against Hashem. It's better for me to die. Why? Because it was my responsibility. Why?"

2:14:24Rabbinate Kuk, people don’t know, I love Rav Kuk in Tveria, one of the gedolim of the generation, got a phone call from the principal of the yeshiva that two of her sons attend. The principal told the story to Rav Eliyahu, our friend from Yerushalayim. He calls and says, “Listen, I’m sorry, Rabbani, but your two sons are really causing a lot of problems.” In school, they're causing a lot of problems. Can you please talk to them, rebuke them? She goes, no, no, no, it's okay, it's okay. I'll read Tehillim for them. I said, what? What Tehillim? The principal says this. He goes, Tehillim? I'm thinking, what is this crazy woman? What are you talking about Tehillim? Give the kid a nice slap in the face. Tell him to stop causing trouble. But she says, no, no, no, I don't want to. Don't worry. I'll read Tehillim for him. I said, no, but they're causing a lot of trouble. It's like a pogrom in the school with these two kids. Okay, okay, don't worry, me and my husband, we’re both going to read Tehillim for them. The principal of the school told this story. He said, I don't know what she did. I don't know what she read. I don't know what Rav Kook read, but those two kids became the best kids in school. Those two kids became the best kids in yeshiva. Two of the students of Rav Halimi himself when they were 13-14 years old.

2:15:51They were considered, even though it's a relatively religious area, the avaryanim. They were considered the criminals of the neighborhood. They had a little kippah, but just for show. Literally called the criminals of the community. Everything and anything bad, you knew it started and ended with them. Everybody was scared to death of them. One day, they come, They ask Rav Alimi, "Please, can you set us up with a chavruta? Both of us. Can you set us up with a chavruta?" So he sets them up with a chavruta, and they start learning. He says that right now, they're the best kids in the yeshiva. They're the best kids in the school. They're the best, I think, in the kollel already at this point, or maybe almost. All the yeshiva, actually. So after a few years of this, he asks the two kids, "What happened?" I never asked you. I didn't want to bother. I was so surprised that you wanted to actually learn. I think I just said, "Be quiet, quiet. Silence is a gift." Mama said, "The Megillah says, if one word is worth one dollar, quiet is worth two." I didn't say a word, but a few years have passed. Baruch Hashem, you guys tell me that. I mean, already, why? He says, "Both of us, we come from a house. Our parents are very simple people, very old-fashioned people, very simple people."

2:17:15And you know, we didn't really care about anything, but then we started seeing that our mom, every Shabbat, would start reading Tehillim, would start praying, and we hear our names. For us, for Hashem to help us to do teshuva, and she's hysterical, crying every Shabbat. And you're not allowed to cry on Shabbat. But she couldn't control herself, she's crying for us every Shabbat, hysterical. Please do teshuva, please. Hysterical, hysterical. Eventually, it broke us. Eventually, we just couldn't do it. We couldn't look ourselves in the mirror. In the beginning, we were making fun of it. Oh, this crazy lady, crazy lady, crazy lady. Eventually, we couldn't do it anymore. Sometimes, when you're young, you do stupid things. You make stupid mistakes. You make mistakes because you don't think they're even mistakes. Some 30 years ago, A couple comes to the United States from Israel. They do not know right from left and do not really have much going for them. They are struggling to survive, trying to start a new life. Traditional Israeli. One day, after the summer is over, they decide to

2:18:43Time to send their kids to school. They don't have money to pay for these yeshivot. They don't really think there's that much of a big deal to send their kids to American schools, and they send the kids to public schools. As the years pass and the parents get older, they see that the simple sending their kids to school was the biggest mistake they made in their life. Why? Because out of the four boys that they have in the house, one is still too little, but the three older ones are all going out with goyot, one after another. They can't find a Jewish girl for their life. they go now with new goyot every week, every month, every year, planning to marry the goyot. And during this time, the parents start doing teshuva. The parents start realizing that HaKadosh Baruch Hu runs the world. Maybe we should stop working on Shabbat. Maybe we should start keeping Shabbat. Okay, but what are we going to do with our kids? They're still with goyot. And one day, they realize that

2:20:09It's too late. The kids already feel and act like goyim. They consider themselves Jewish. They go to Beit Knesset a few times a year. They have Kiddush. But as far as marrying goyot, being with goyot, doing things that goyim do, they don't think about it twice. Why? We went to school with them. We hung out with them. We were friends with them. What's the problem? the mom starts praying, and she doesn't stop praying every day. She lights a candle every day. She reaches a lean every day. She cries hysterically to HaKadosh Baruch Hu to save her kids from the mistake she made innocently when she was 30 years old. She didn't know right or left, and in reality, she didn't think it was that much of a big deal to send her kids to public school. Now we know the outcome, and

2:21:12but it's too late now. Now the kids are already grown up. This one has that business, this one has that business, this one has this, this one has that. What am I gonna do? She prayed for her kids for 20 years. 20 years every single day, calling rabbis from all over the world. Asking for blessings, asking for all types of segulot, doing all types of mitzvot, taking on more mitzvot ourselves, organizing shiurim, everything and anything she can possibly do. "Save my kids," she pleads. Why? One of them is about to marry someone who is not Jewish. Another one has a new girlfriend every day, none of them are Jewish. The other one doesn't even know himself that he's Jewish. Each one is worse than the other. 20 years she prays for that. Baruch Hashem, the first one starts doing teshuva. One down. The second one lives his life, starts doing teshuva a little bit. Gets stronger. Baruch Hashem. The third one is a problem. Why? The third one has all that life has to offer materially.

2:22:32Not willing to listen to anything that anyone says. Why? He's the boss. When you're the boss, one of the great benefits of being the boss is that no one's allowed to tell you what to do. So you try to tell him what to do, and he says, "Okay, the door's over there. Don't let it hit you on the way out. I appreciate your opinion. I have one too. I have two opinions, actually, for each one you have." Not willing to listen, right, he's not willing to listen, left, and it gets to a point where the prayers have to get stronger. But the prayers are not enough, so Hashem has to get involved. Because the prayers are not sufficient, as I told you about. When the prayers are not sufficient and the ears are not listening, then HaKadosh Baruch Hu gets involved. But when HaKadosh Baruch Hu gets involved, it's much, much more painful.

2:23:32and he goes into a battle for his life for years, and throughout that battle, eventually, he realizes that HaKadosh Baruch Hu runs the world. Little by little, he does teshuva, and today he's in front of you. The amount of prayers that my mom prayed for me—I don't know how many they are. All I know is that for 10 years 10 years, she prayed for me day and night, just so we could fix an innocent mistake from 30 years ago. What was the mistake? Sending the kid to school, just the wrong one. That's it. She didn't send me to go eat pig. We never ate pig. Not in the house, not outside the house. She didn't send me to a casino. She didn't send me to go sell drugs. She didn't send me to become a murderer. No! Everything else was normal. What was the mistake? The wrong school. But by the time she realized it, it was too late.

2:24:44So she now has to ask for help to please fix it. I don't know how. Ten years of praying, ten years of suffering. I know how painful it is for me, but I'm sure it's much more painful to watch sometimes. The other woman in my life who saved my life is my wife and one day decided that even though I don't follow anything really and she, at the time, was of a different religion, it's a good idea to make me a religious Jew. So, she decides to buy me a Tanach. She says, "Here you go." I said, "What am I gonna do with this?" She goes, "Read it. It's about your Heritage. It's about your history. It's where you came from. That's what's going to give you the answers to all your questions. All the questions you have, it's in there. Read it. So now I have work to do. She goes, "Don't work, it's a holiday now. So what, best I said okay, so I eat matzah." He goes, "Eat matzah and everything, stay home. I'll go work, I'll run the office." So what do you care? She was, "I can't, I need to get the answers." Why would she care? I don't know, but she cares.

2:26:12Every single day she cared more and more to make sure that I become religious. Every day she cared more and more that I get connected to the Source. Every day she prayed. Every day she took me to the hospital whenever it was needed. Every time she looked for more doctors and more medicine and more prayers and more this and more that. And you see, when you actually start thinking about the women in your life, whether it's your wife... It's your mom. Really, if you really think about what they've done for you, you arrive at a few conclusions. First, you can never repay them, because the things they did for you, you can never return. You could buy them any present in the world—it won't help. You could pray back for them, but still, you won't know why you're praying for them under different conditions.

2:27:14But most importantly, most importantly, you have to realize that if you're fortunate enough to have a wife, if you're fortunate enough to have a mother, then you have to realize that no one in the world will pray for you and care for you like they will. The only ones who are going to care for you, even if sometimes they're mad at you, even if sometimes they don't feel like talking to you, even if sometimes you disagree with them, at the foundation of it all, the Torah still obligates you to honor them, to fear them, to love them, to connect to them. You have to do it. Why? Because you owe it to them, and... because if it wasn't for them, we wouldn't survive a week. Now, if a person has a wife who's an enemy of God, then that's a different story. If he has a mom who's an enemy of God, it's a different story. But it doesn't mean you disconnect from them automatically. It means you have to treat the relationship differently.

2:28:31as long as they're not instructing you to be an enemy of God, you can have a relationship with them. But if they're telling you that you have to be an enemy of God, then obviously that's a problem. The point is that you cannot just simply cut off people because they disagree with you. You cannot cut off your past because your past is not something you're interested in. You cannot simply ignore the magnitude of things that they've given to you and The fact that your wife is tolerating you at all is already a miracle if you're a guy. The fact that your mom carried you for nine months is already something you can never repay. The fact that they're literally there for you and willing to pray for you day and night just because you have a little cold and you're acting like a baby should remind you that no one in the world will ever love you like them. No one. It's important to remind ourselves why, because sometimes we get annoyed by them and by everything around them. But if we're constantly reminding ourselves what the Ramban started his letter with and...

2:29:42Yes, you have to listen to the mussar of your father, but you also cannot forsake the teachings of your mother, the guidance of your mother, even if sometimes your mother makes mistakes. Even if your mother sometimes sounds like she doesn't make any sense. Even if your wife has an opinion that makes her sound crazy, even if your wife sometimes makes you crazy. In the end, that's you. That's your foundation. That crazy is you. That crazy is you. That foundation is you. And whatever you do with your parents, remember, it's measure for measure; your children will do to you. You disconnect from them, you care less about your parents, guess what? Your kids will also care less about their parents. Send your parents to some nursing home that abuses people and never check in on them and care less about them? Guess what? One day, you'll be old. You'll be gray, and your kids are gonna send you to some nursing home where they put you next to some dog. So yes, it's difficult, but that's why the Chachamim say that honoring your parents is...

2:31:02It's not just one of the foundational mitzvot of the Torah. It's also one of the most difficult mitzvot in the Torah. But difficulty never absolves you. The fact that it's difficult is why there's a big reward for it. And the reward is not just eternity. It's also here. That's why it says when you honor your parents, you get a long life—not just a long life eternally, but a long life here, a life that's worth living. It starts with respecting your mom. It starts with respecting your dad. It starts with realizing that by fulfilling that mitzvah, you're actually sanctifying Hashem's name. You're honoring Hashem's name because the Chachamim explained the reason why the order of the Ten Commandments was given as such. Because if you dishonor your parents, it's considered all five other sins that follow after it and... ...fulfilling that mitzvah, you're actually sanctifying Hashem's name. You're honoring Hashem's name because the Chachamim explained the reason why the order of the Ten Commandments was given as such. If you dishonor your parents, it's considered as if you committed all five other sins that follow it, and...

2:32:06murder, the stealing, jealousy, all the other five Ten Commandments. If you dishonor your parents, you've just violated the other five. Dishonoring your parents is considered like you murdered them in cold blood. Not supporting them when you have money and they need money, and you're not willing to help them, is considered like you stole, and so on and so forth. Why? Because HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, they gave you life, you disconnect from that, that means you'll disconnect from Me at some point also. You can't respect them, you can't respect Me. So, this is a little bit of a reminder for us to, number one, respect and honor what we have. Number two, realize that whatever we invest into our children eventually, eventually that's going to be something that we could speak of. Either we're gonna speak badly about it or we're gonna speak good about it. If you invest like Chana, you can have children like Shmuel HaNavi. I don't know how many people in this generation can do what the seven-year-old did. I don't know how many people could do it. I'm sure there's at least 36 of them that can do it. Respect and honor what we have. Number two, realize that whatever we invest into our children, eventually, that's going to be something that we could speak of. Either we're gonna speak badly about it, or we're gonna speak good about it. If you invest like Chana, you can have children like Shmuel HaNavi. I don't know how many people in this generation can do what the seven-year-old did. I don't know how many people could do it. I'm sure there's at least 36 of them that can do it.

2:33:18But I don't know how many more than that. Our goal as Jews is to have kids just like Chana. Where those kids learn enough about yirat Shamayim, learn enough about reward and punishment, that if chas v'shalom, the test was ever given, we know we would be able to pass. Hopefully, we never have such a test. But you have to educate your kids and yourself and prepare for that. Because that's the generation we live in. We live in such a generation. We live in a generation of Mashiach. We live in a generation where there's going to be a lot of ups and downs. A lot of craziness. A lot of yetzer hara. You have to prepare for it. Sometimes the yetzer hara comes knocking on your door. Sometimes it's a tank. You have to prepare for everything. It starts with educating ourselves. It starts with applying everything to ourselves. If you learn yirat Shamayim, your kids will have yirat Shamayim. You value learning, your kids will value learning. The wife sends the husband to go to a shiur Torah at night, the kids are going to want to go to a shiur Torah at night. The wife values Torah, the husband values Torah.

2:34:29Husband and wife value Torah, the kids will value Torah, and so on and so forth. Once people understand that every one of their actions has a consequence, has a reward, has everything that is going to materialize in this world, then they can live a life that B'ezrat Hashem is worth living. Any questions? Yes. Keeping Shabbat is, yes, I mean, it's both two separate mitzvot. If your parents tell you to violate Shabbat or any mitzvah in the Torah, you're not allowed to listen to them. You're not allowed to listen to them. But if your parents have a life-risk, then obviously you're obligated to violate Shabbat in order to save their life. Also, honoring parents is different for men and women. You should also know that. It's different while you're living in your parents' home. Both men and women, the son and daughter, are obligated to honor their parents. But the son is the only one who is obligated to honor the parents forever, whereas the daughter is only obligated to do it as long as she's living in their house. Once the daughter is married, then she's obligated to her husband first.

2:35:47and only secondary to our parents. If she gets divorced, then she's back to having to honor her parents first. But if she's married, she has to honor her husband before she honors her parents. Her husband takes precedence. This I know is probably not going to be music to some women's ears or men's ears who love their parents and maybe not so much their husband, But the reality is that once a woman gets married, she has to know that the husband becomes the number one. A woman that makes her husband number one will have a happy marriage. A woman that makes her husband, you know, somewhere different than number one, where the kids are number one, or the parents are number one, or work is number one, that woman is either going to have a miserable life or just a lonely life because she'll be divorced. You have the same thing with a husband. If the husband makes his family number one, his wife number one, he'll be a happy husband. If he makes the wife something different, where she's after his parents, she's after the kids, she's after money, she's after the stock market, she's after all these different things, then obviously she's gonna know it, then she's not gonna like it, then she'll reciprocate and... You have the same thing with a husband. If the husband makes his family number one, his wife number one, he'll be a happy husband. If he makes the wife something different, where she's after his parents, she's after the kids, she's after money, she's after the stock market, she's after all these different things, then obviously she's gonna know it, she's not gonna like it, and she'll reciprocate, and...

2:36:57She'll reciprocate, and he'll be a miserable or most likely lonely person. So yes, the Torah obligates us to honor our parents, but there are conditions to things. Nonetheless, if every single person simply worries about their spouse, the person that's next to them, the person that's near them, the person that's dear to them, you're never going to have any problems. But if a person only worries about themselves, then they're always going to have problems. Anything else? Yes? Tomorrow night we have the questions and answers series. Next week, I'm not going to be here on Tuesday. So next week, we have a shiur on Sunday, and no shiur on Tuesday. As far as Wednesday, I'm going to try—I land on Wednesday—and I'll try to do a shiur on Wednesday. But I'll see you guys tomorrow.