The Illusion Of Worldly Pleasures - MUSSAR Iggeret HaRAMBAN (38)

0:17We are back on a Tuesday night in Aventura, almost finished, almost completed with the series tonight. the shiur will be for a refuah shlema for our dear friend Yitro ben Avraham. Also for Shmuel ben Rivka, Levana bat Sarah, David ben Esria, Doris bat Jorah, Rav Efraim ben Shulamit, Rav Anitzara bat Anat, Devorah bat Mercedes, Esther bat Zipporah, Serach bat Batya, Batya bat... Sarah and all of Am Yisra'el b'ezrat Hashem will have a Refuah Shlema, Refuat HaNefesh, Refuat HaGuf. Oh, and also for Gabriel ben Shulamit. HaKadosh Baruch Hu yivarech oto. And give him a Refuah Shlema, Refuat HaNefesh, Refuat HaGuf. So, our Igeret HaRamban continues where in the last several months we've reviewed a letter...

1:43that is nearly a thousand years old, somewhere around 850 years old. I've learned a little bit about life and how much of a misconception we have about some things that sometimes we don't think are a big deal, whether it's getting overly angry, being anxious, arrogant, all types of bad character traits, or even just a simple thought process that people have that life ends with death. The number one reason that people make the mistake, the permanent mistake, of committing suicide is because they believe that their problems will end once they die. But the Torah tells us otherwise. The Torah tells us that your life only begins, only begins after you die. but not the same type of life, rather an eternal life, a permanent life. This life is temporary. Everyone knows it. You don't have to be very smart or religious to understand that this life is temporary. The older you get, the more people you know that die. It's not exactly a pleasurable experience or a thing that you want to experience, but the older you get, the more people you're going to know.

3:12they're going to leave the world before you. And one day, we will join them. The question that every smart person, but not smart with IQ, smart with enough wisdom, is going to be a question that is the question of all questions, which is, what happens after you die? Where do you go then? A person that commits suicide is a person that has already arrived at the conclusion, a wrong one, but nonetheless a conclusion that life ends and he will then turn into dust, and then, you know, people walk over him and forget that he ever existed. Or maybe they will remember if he existed, but he himself will not be party to it; she herself is not going to be party to it. Therefore, the problems that she’s leaving she's leaving behind the problems that he has are going to go away, whether it be a financial hardship or sickness or heartbreak or whatever it is. But the Torah tells us a very, very different answer, and the answer is that the only thing that changes after a person dies in this world is his clothing. That's the only thing that changes.

4:40Right now, you have to go to a store to buy clothes. Every so often, you have to buy a jacket or a shirt or pants, and if you're a woman, a dress. Every so often, you have to buy something new. Sometimes because you want something new, sometimes because you gained weight, sometimes because you lost weight, and so on and so forth. In Olam Ha'Emet, there are no clothes. You are your clothes. Your neshama is your clothes. Now, the styles over there are also different. There's no brand names. There's no Nike, Donna Karan, Versace, or Gucci. You know that. There are the sins and the mitzvot that the person made. That's the style. If you made certain sins, your neshama will have certain marks on it for everyone to see, especially you yourself. If you made certain mitzvot, your neshama will have certain things in it. And a person walking around today, he could look like a million bucks, wear a nice suit he bought from some custom tailor, look like a million bucks, has a nice hairdo, got himself groomed, got nice shoes, maybe loafers for four or five hundred bucks.

6:02know he got some colorful socks to make sure that everybody knows that he has style. His belt costs another few hundred dollars, the suit another couple thousand dollars. The guy looks like a million bucks, and if he puts on a kippah, it's a tzaddik. And if he has a beard, oh wow! Don't make such a big deal out of giving people titles. He says in this generation if someone says that, it just means the guy keeps Shabbat. Today, a guy writes a children's book that has to do with Torah, and everybody starts treating him like he's Moshe Rabbeinu. Today, a person walks around puts a nice suit on, he's groomed. Let me shake his hand. You ask the guy to give you a speech, an hour of nothing. You have no idea what he said, but you know it sounded good. Why? He's a good speaker. But you have no idea what he said and how it's useful for your life. All you got out of it is that you don't want to do what he's doing because it sounds really boring. But he speaks well though. He speaks well. Now,

7:28And Olam HaEmet doesn't work like that. Why? There are no clothes. Everyone sees you for what you are. If you're a tzaddik, you don't have to say a word. If you're a rasha, you also don't have to say a word. You walk around with your sins and your mitzvot on your clothing, on your neshama. Now imagine this. Imagine that there was a gathering. Let's call it a school reunion, because everyone went to school at some point. Not everybody worked, but everybody went to school. Now, let's say there's a school reunion, 500, 1,000, 2,000 students from several classes all gathered together to honor you. The whole thing is about you. you're gonna walk around, we're gonna go to the custom tailor three months before to get the suit made, this, the shirt, no, no, I don't want the color this way, I want the color that way, and no, no, the buttons, I don't want the regular ones, I want the ones from bone, and I want this one, and I want that one, and I want the cuff, and the inside, it's got to be red but not the typical red, and you have a whole list. Why? As if anybody cares about your jacket. And anyway, you have yourself all set up, you're done, you're going in there, you're gonna kill it.

8:44when they say, "break a leg," no, I already broke two, buddy, don't worry. You're going there, you're going to give them a speech they've never heard before. Now imagine, you arrive at this place, everyone says, "Wow, what a beard, wow, wow, what a suit, look, you see a suit that's at least two, three thousand dollars, wow," everybody's clapping, clapping, and then all of a sudden, they stop clapping as you get closer to them. And then, not clapping at all, and then they're all getting visibly upset. You have no idea why, and they're looking at you, upset. You're hearing the voice of someone saying awful things in the background, and you're not really sure what's going on. You see names being dropped: "Oh, this guy is the worst," "This guy's this," "You see her? She's fat," "Oh, and she's ugly," and all these things. You're thinking, "What is this?" You turn around, and there's a screen of you. sharing your thoughts about everybody in the crowd. You look at her and think, "Oh, she gained weight," and she just heard you say that. "Oh, look at him. He's got a pimple on his forehead," and he just heard that. "Oh, look at him. I hated that guy, always hated him." Are you saying hi to me? "Yeah, hi, buddy." And all of your thoughts about everyone are on a big hundred-inch screen, and everyone can hear it and everyone can watch it, and

10:13and there's nowhere to run. And it just keeps going. And then once you stop thinking, the producer is very clever. He's not going to let the show end over there. What does he do to you? He starts bringing all of the other thoughts you've had when you knew these people. How you broke her heart, and I cheated him, and how you were the guy that stole it? But you blamed it on somebody else, and you did this, and you did that. It's all on a screen, and now, instead of kol hakavod, everyone starts asking, "Why? Why'd you do this to me? Why'd you do this to me? Why?" And you start seeing people's hearts break in front of you. That's all over. But that's the arrival. You show up, and it's the arrival. You have yourself Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, Moshe, Aharon, David, Shlomo—all of the righteous sages in all of history. Your great-grandparents—they were willing to die just to do one mitzvah.

11:23Your grandfather took his wife to the mikveh—not a mikveh like today, costing three, four, or five hundred thousand dollars with a sauna and everything. No, he took her to a frozen lake at midnight just to fulfill the mitzvah. Your grandmother was willing to go work in some goyish field so she could earn a ruble. Why? So she could make some challah for Shabbat, and that was the only food they ate. then everybody says, "Look at all we did for him to be Jewish, for her to be Jewish, and this is what they did? They desecrated Shabbat like it was a Monday. They ate treif and enjoyed it. They stole money and acted as if it belonged to them. They cheated and lied as if it's a mitzvah." They pretended to be righteous when they knew very well they were wicked. And that's just walking down the aisle to the Beit Din. The Ramban told us, so far, life does not end with our body leaving. All that changes is our clothing.

12:50the beauty is if you prepare your outfit now and continue for the rest of your life, this will not be your movie. You'll actually have Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, Moshe, Aharon, David, Shlomo, and all the righteous sages, and all of your great-grandparents, and everybody from all of Am Yisrael, even the people you didn't even know you were connected to, clapping for you: Chazak U'Baruch! Look at the tzaddik, look at the tzaddeket, his wife. Look at them, look what they did, look how many neshamot they're bringing with them, like Avraham Avinu. Abraham left and he brought all the neshamot that they made. What neshamot did they make? All the people I helped them do teshuva. Everybody claps, everybody cheers as if you're something. Why? Because you became something. When a person understands that, just simple logic, their actions today have a different value.

14:01have a different value. Now, although we all heard this, although we all easily understood this, come later today, tomorrow, next week, sin will appear at our desk. And the sin looks delicious. We want to do it. We want to eat it. We want to take it. We want to look at it. We want to do something with this sin. How come? How come we still, after we know the reality that the sin is expensive, we still fall at times, or at least consider falling, but not falling a little bit, breaking the bank, going all out, knowing that it's not allowed? I'm not allowed to be with this guy. He's not even Jewish. I'm not allowed to be with this girl. She's married. I'm not allowed to take that money; that belongs to him. I'm not allowed to go there; it's full of znut. You know. But you consider it. And sometimes, Hashem yishmor, we do it. How come? We know the reality. We just found out. If we didn't know, we just found out.

15:19We go to the beginning of this series. The Ramban tells us about what chibut hakever is. What happens the second you die before even what I just said happens. When the malachim show up at the grave and start beating the body until the neshama comes out. We know this. We learn this. But we still consider it. How come? Because the yetzer hara is the master of all illusions. Yetzer Hara gives you the illusion that worldly pleasure is real. That if you take one bite, you're going to enjoy it, and it's not going to go bad. That if you go to this place that you're not allowed to go to, it's not going to be so bad like the Rabbi says. And if you go hang out with this girl that one time, I'm not marrying her, just one time, Rabbi. You know, nobody's perfect. Isn't there a verse in the Torah that says that nobody's perfect? And tzaddik shelo yecheta became a scholar. He has the verses for it too.

16:32Not so bad if he watches this movie or he watches this pornography. Or he goes here. He goes there. She goes here. She goes there. It's not gonna be so bad. You're so graphic, Rabbi. No, you should go to Hollywood. It's not gonna be so bad. The Yetzer Hara tells you it's not gonna be so bad. And he tells you that the sin is actually gonna be better than you thought. Now, we fall because we believe the Yetzer Hara instead of believing Hashem. Hashem said, if you sin, you'll get punished. He says it clearly, countless times. He says it directly and indirectly through His sages. If you sin, you'll get punished. In fact, it is so important to understand that all those who sin will get punished. It became one of the 13 principles of faith. The Rambam said, and you can see the details of the 13 principles of faith in Shemonah Perakim, which is part of the Rambam, the Mishneh Torah, after his commentary on Pirkei Avot.

18:03And he says that there are 13 principles of the faith. The first one is that there is one and only one God. He has no partners. He has no helpers. He is one. He has no past, no present, no future. He has no thoughts, no brain, no arms, no legs. He is one. By saying, "Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad," the "Echad" means that He and all of His thoughts and all of His realities and all of the past, present, and future are all one. It's a concept that a human being cannot understand because we are parts. You are not a single thing. You're parts. You're made up of parts. you have skin, you have a brain, you have a heart, you have different organs, different veins, different things that travel through your body. You could be separate from your thoughts, your actions could be the opposite of your thoughts and beliefs, and so on and so forth. Hashem does not have such a thing. His thoughts and His reality are the same. So when we understand the first principles of faith,

19:32completely, we understand that we can never say that Hashem has a brain or has something separate, or He changes His mind. We cannot say such things unless we have permission directly from the Torah to say such a thing, and those are few and far between. What He said Himself, that the outcome should have been this, but He had to decide otherwise because there was a violation of the law, and... Like what it says in the Gemara, Masechet Shabbat, when it came to the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash, He originally wanted to save the people that were religious. He fought for them, but the Satan, the Malach HaMavet, and the Yetzer Hara are also talmidei chachamim. And he came to Him with a strong case that they did not rebuke the rest of the nation, and that's the reason. why they should not be saved, and Hashem says, "You're right." So although Hashem fought for them, He cannot fight against this Torah. The rules of the Torah are for Him Himself as well, that He instilled on Himself. And that's just the beginning, the microcosm of understanding the first principle of faith. When you start, fast forward, you arrive at

21:00principle of faith that says Hashem rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked. The Rambam says that a person who does not believe in any one of these 13 principles—not all 13, that is obvious, but any one of them—teaches the opposite or he himself does not believe or agree. Such a person cannot be considered as part of Am Yisrael. He is considered as part of the wicked among the nation, a heretic, a person who cannot be counted as part of a minyan, and in the eyes of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, he is worse than a murderer. teaches the opposite or he himself does not believe or agree with one of those 13. He cannot be considered as part of Am Yisrael. He is considered as part of the wicked among the nation, a heretic, a person that cannot be counted in a minyan. In the eyes of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, he is worse than a murderer.

22:02So reward and punishment is a very, very big deal in Hashem's eyes. Not because He wants to punish us, but because He knows that the creation that He made needs to know about the consequences of their actions in order for them to evaluate their actions correctly. Because had I known that each one of my actions would have such a heavy consequence, surely I would not do it. If I think that there is no consequence for my actions, why shouldn't I do it? Now, there is this concept in Judaism that's very, very important, which is called limud zechut. Limud zechut on a mitzvah, which is to look at the better side of a mitzvah, to look for the good in them.

23:03A very critical and important mitzvah to fulfill. But unfortunately, one of the most mistaught topics that exists today. People think that limud zechut means that you view the wicked as righteous, even in front of them. When we see that the Rishonim, that all of the sages spoke very, very much against such a thing. So much so that the Ramban writes in his Sha'ar HaGmul that a person that minimizes Punishment or says that Gehinom is less than what it really is, he's considered a kofer, as if he violated the 13 principles of faith. So today we're going to learn about these two topics: one is the optical illusion that we have of thinking that there's pleasures of this world.

24:27But yet at the same time, understand what it actually means to do limud zechut on Am Yisrael. Because if you don't do it, surely you're going to be wicked. If you only view the negative of Am Yisrael, don't think for a second you're going to heaven. On the other hand, if you only say they're good, you also have a problem. Hence the reason why this topic is very important. So the Ramban writes in his letter that after you have reviewed all of these different things in regards to your character traits of anger and arrogance and you've developed Yirat Shamayim and you gave respect to everyone no matter where they stand and you make sure that you study Torah every day and apply it to yourself. He then tells us, so that you may succeed in your ways. All of this that we've done in the last six or so months, the Ramban says, if you do all of this

25:51It's why you should do it: so that you may succeed in your ways and merit Olam HaBa. The lies are hidden for the righteous, not for the wicked, not for the Mechalel Shabbat, not for the thief, not for the kohen, not for the good-looking, but rather for the righteous. Now, first we see that the Ramban is... Highlights the fact that you have to consider Olam HaBa in your life as a number one priority. So much so that he's saying that a person must simply say to himself, if he wants to overcome the obstacles of day-to-day life, the obstacle of the illusion of sin of Has to say to himself and she must say to herself, instead of "I can't wait until he looks at me," "I can't wait until the guys make some whistles at me like I'm a dog," "I can't wait until everyone pays attention to me," instead of that, she must say to herself and he must say to himself, a person must simply say, "I will reserve my enjoyment for the World to Come. All of these things that...

27:18Chasing to get pleasure is going to be to no avail; nothing good will come out of it. Rather, in order for me to overcome it, I not only have to understand and be fully aware that they are forbidden, but that does not mean the joy is forbidden. Rather, the ultimate joy that I'm missing out on, or at least I think I'm missing out on, in this situation—it's not missing. I'm not losing it. I'm just reserving it for another time. I'm not going to enjoy now in order to enjoy much more later. Why? Because this world is not conducive to real pleasure. It's a life of change, a life of work, a life of toil, a life of hardship, a life of ups and downs. That's what life is. But HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants us to experience a part of the payment of what we're gonna get in Olam HaBa, which is Shabbat.

28:41Shabbat is a small amount of what you will really experience. If you truly experience Shabbat and not just sleep all day or just eat all day, if you actually experience Shabbat like you're supposed to, connect to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, enjoy the family, enjoy the beauty of it, enjoy the opposite of what the rest of the week is, cut away from the world and... Shabbat will actually give you a feeling of Olam HaBa. Are you going to say, "Well, I know last week, two weeks ago, three weeks ago, four weeks ago, to be honest with you, Rav, I've been keeping Shabbat for three years and not a single time did I feel Olam HaBa." What does that mean? You haven't gotten there yet. Just a little work that your Shabbat needs in order to get to that level. But surely you can. Sometimes people will do it once in a while. You have one Shabbat. It's amazing. The food was delicious, the company was great, the learning was just fluid, and you didn't want Shabbat to be over. Sometimes it's not quite that; someone argued, someone didn't feel good, you forgot to turn on the plata, so all the food was cold. You know, all types of things happen, and your Shabbat wasn't exactly Olam HaBa. You're hoping it's going to stay in this Olam HaZeh; it's not going to come with you over there.

30:08Happens. The idea is to try to make as many as possible feel like Olam HaBa, because that is supposed to be a glimpse of the World to Come. Just like the Gemara in Masechet Eruvin, page 22a, teaches: "Hayom la'asotam, ulemachar lekabel secharam." Today is the time for their commandments' performance and... Tomorrow is the time for their payment. Deferred payment is the essential mental attitude of the tzaddikim. Whereas instant gratification is not only for the wicked, but also for the miserable. Because people that seek instant gratification, all of them ultimately arrive at the same conclusion, which is that even after they got it or they didn't get it, they still feel empty. It's never enough. The instant gratification, eventually you realize it's not as good as it was in your imagination. You thought it was gonna be good, it looked really good, it smelled really good, but two bites into it, not so good.

31:09which is that even after they got it or they didn't get it, they still feel empty. It's never enough. With instant gratification, eventually you realize it's not as good as it was in your imagination. You thought it was going to be good, it looked really good, it smelled really good, but two bites into it, not so good. You thought it was going to be fun. It looked like fun. It sounded like fun. Five seconds into it, I can't wait for it to be over. You thought it was going to be the one. She's the one. He's the one. I can't believe I found the one. Oh yes, so what? We're not married, the one. All types of things that are one, and eventually, you're alone and one and miserable. she wasn't the one, he wasn't the one. But now you're violated, one. Now you just gave a piece of your body to some stranger, which is one of the most ludicrous things that women do today. They give themselves to strangers thinking, "Oh, I love him, I love him, I love him." Six months later, "I hate him, I hate him, I hate him." Yeah, but you just gave yourself to him for six months.

32:34He's now not even a stranger. He's less than a stranger. He's like a scary stranger. You don't want to be next to this stranger. But for the rest of your life, this stranger is going to be part of it. No, what do you mean? I broke up with him. No, no, no. He's part of it. Why? Once you guys were intimate once, your neshamos, unfortunately, it's going to take a little while for them to separate. A lot of work. A lot of spiritual work. You have to remove... spiritual connection from each other. I made a mistake. Okay, mistakes cost; mistakes have a price. The Gemara in Masechet Kiddushin, page 39b, teaches that the reward of the mitzvot is not to be found in this world. Now, this you could also find as a teaching that was made by Antigonus Ish Socho, who said in the beginning of Pirkei Avot, first chapter, "Do not serve the Master for the sake of reward."

34:04Serve Him as if there's no reward, and then make sure you have that. Now, a couple of his students didn't allow the Rabbi to elaborate. In fact, they didn't even ask him any questions. They just arrived at the conclusion, "Oh, there's no reward in this world? That means there's no reward, period." So what did they do? They started new religions: the Sadducees and the Boethusians. There was a talmid of Antigonus, one of the greatest sages we ever had. Meaning that the misunderstanding of this principle in our Torah has been misunderstood for over 2,500 years. People have made a mistake about this for thousands of years already because they looked at the statement plainly. Oh, there's no reward for mitzvot in this world? Oh, so that means I'm just going to be miserable? Ah, might as well enjoy life. There's no reward? Oh, okay. Might as well. I'm going for it. That's not what we're saying. We're not saying there's no joy in this world. There's no fun in this world. In fact, it's the opposite. The Gemara says that HaKadosh Baruch Hu, if you will, toiled in order to make this world extra beautiful, extra delicious, made you different colors. He could have made everything gray. Imagine everything is gray.

35:31No colors. No one has colors. There's no black. There's no white. There's no burgundy. Nothing. There's just gray. Everything is gray. Or whatever color you want. Everything is just one color. And imagine everything is just one taste. Everything tastes like apples. Everything is gray and it tastes like apples. How boring would life be? Now, you wouldn't know that it could be better because that's the only thing you know. How do you know? One day you have everything available to you, and the next day everything is gray. You become depressed. In a week, everything starts tasting like apples. You're going on a diet, a suicidal one. But that's the misunderstanding. The misunderstanding is that Hashem wants you to live a life that's all gray with no taste. That's not what we're saying. In fact, the Kadosh Baruch Hu says to us, and it says in the Gemara... He created this world with many different types of joy and pleasures in order for you to enjoy it. In fact, the person that does not enjoy the worldly pleasures that Hashem gives him will be rebuked for it. Does that mean you can go to every club? No. Does that mean you can eat everything? No. So, you see, there's a complication now.

36:59Although many of the Chachamim, when they mention the Nazir, the Nazir in the Torah, is a person that does not drink wine and doesn't cut his hair, trying to be extra righteous, one of the Chachamim says he's not righteous; he's wicked. Why? Because he's not taking advantage of the worldly pleasures. It’s not that he's wicked for not taking advantage of the worldly pleasures. But it's that he's not fulfilling the mission of a person, which will give us the answer. On one end, you can't enjoy everything because too much of everything will lead to emptiness. Enjoying everything will lead to nothing and, in fact, a negative. Not enjoying everything is not the role. We're not angels. We have to eat, and we can't eat the same thing every single day for 500 years. We have to see colors, we have to see joy, we have feelings and so on. So where is HaKadosh Baruch Hu in this? Where is the divine will? The divine will is for us to enjoy the worldly pleasures in a permissible way, in a kosher way.

38:22You are allowed to enjoy the world, but you must take Hashem into consideration before your joy. First, you need to know what He wants. Then you see what's available to you, which is clearly what is in front of you. And you see if that matches what He wants. If this burger that looks really delicious is kosher, it's allowed for you to eat. Hungry, covered, enjoy. But if it's not kosher, even if it's really, really delicious, it's still not allowed. If she is your wife and she's Torah-observant and went to the mikveh, it's allowed. If she is not your wife, or even if she is your wife but didn't go to the mikveh, it's not allowed. The point for us to understand is that it's not our role to become angels. If Hashem wanted angels, He would create more angels. Our role is not to become robots and pretend like we're something that we're not. But rather, in the same token, our role is not to be animals either that live on instinct. We see it, we eat it. We see it, we touch it.

39:46Our role is to understand that all of this that's available in the world is for us, not just to enjoy, but to also first, before enjoying it, decipher whether we're allowed to enjoy it and how we're allowed to enjoy it. Just because it's kosher doesn't mean you should go eat it. Why? Because if it's kosher but it's being served in a non-kosher place, such as a non-kosher wedding full of mixed dancing with men and women, not only are you not allowed to eat this meal, you're not even allowed to attend the place. Yeah, but I'm hungry. Eat some cheese in your house. Meaning that even if something looks good and permissible, it's not always permissible. Now David HaMelech, peace be upon him, he himself learned a lot about this, but through his own suffering. There's a mitzvah in the Torah

40:57where it says that if you are in battle, and after you beat the enemy, they have women and children. And if there's a woman, a beautiful woman among the enemy, after you go through a procedure, first of all, making her ugly by shaving her head, letting her grow her nails, and letting her mourn over her dead family, But after that, you convert her and you can marry her. You're allowed. Now, this is not so relevant in today's world, but nonetheless, this was relevant in those days. Something tells me it will become relevant at some point again. Now, David HaMelech went to wars. Unlike his son who never fought a battle, David fought many battles. Battles for Hashem. He fought against the enemies of Hashem. In one of the cases, there was a beautiful woman in battle, and David married her. But the son that he had was Avshalom. Avshalom grew up to become the worst son in history, who wanted to kill his father and take over the kingship.

42:26So, when David saw how Avshalom was growing, he didn't understand. How could this be? He puts on tefillin. He makes sure everybody learns Torah. He does mitzvot. The woman converted in a kosher beit din. It's not like one of these Conservodox types of places where they just convert you because they like you. You know, everything's good. Why did I have this son? Followed the law. The Prophet told us because of his mother is what you mean, but his mom is: "I followed all the mitzvot. It's a mitzvah. I'm allowed to marry her." The Prophet tells the Beit Din in the name of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, David... Pay attention to the verses. There's no two verses next to each other for no reason. There's no two words next to each other for no reason. There's no extra word or extra letter in the Torah. If you look at the verses of the Torah that talk about this, this goyah that's going to convert, you're going to marry, there's a battle and so on. What's right after it? The whole story of having a wayward child, a ben sorer u'moreh.

43:42wayward son that goes against his parents, and you're allowed to kill him before he's bar mitzvah even, because he's such a rotten kid. Now some of the sages said this never actually happened; some of the sages said if it's written, it had to happen. Point being, there's a mitzvah there. So, what do you think? They're next to each other, these two stories, these two issues, these two mitzvot, next to each other for no reason? No, they're here to teach you, David. Here to teach you that even though it's allowed, it doesn't mean it's recommended. It's allowed to marry that woman, but it doesn't mean it's recommended. So why did Hashem make it allowed in the first place? Here we learn another principle: HaKadosh Baruch Hu understands His creation and understands that we are weak. And he knew that if he did not make this woman allowed, many of the soldiers would end up becoming sinners against Hashem and becoming resha'im gemurim. He said, might as well make it allowed. They'll suffer consequences, but at least they won't go to Gehinom. They'll have a little Gehinom in this world with such a son. So sometimes, something is allowed, but not recommended.

45:04So a person needs to know that sometimes there are pleasures in the world that are completely forbidden. And even if they look delicious, don't do it. Not allowed. Sometimes the yetzer hara comes to you in the form of a mitzvah. Looks good. Still not recommended. How would you know if you should or you shouldn't do it? Make yourself a Rav. I had a guy send me messages yesterday, 2, 3 o'clock in the morning. Critical questions. About to start a business. Am I allowed to start this business? Go start a business. Entrepreneur hotline. Why is he calling me? Because he wants to know the halachic ramifications of selling a specific product. If he's allowed to sell it or not allowed to sell it. you sell it, can you not sell it? Can I have people sell it for me, and so on and so forth? Or another guy last week sent me a question, a very serious question that took a few days to answer. He wants to start a place to serve the medical world. The problem is that this business has to be open on Shabbat. Can I do it? Do I have to shut it down?

46:24I have to give the business to the goy. What do I do with these types of questions? There's no one-size-fits-all answer; you can't just say, "No, this is allowed. This is allowed by default." But if you don't ask these questions and find a legitimate psak, you have a very, very serious problem. Why? You enjoyed something that was forbidden and Yeah, but I was just doing business, and I gave myself. Yes, but the master keeps my kosher money. So, it's not a mitzvah, or better yet, yeah, you did this business, and although the business is okay here, it's not okay here, and it created a mitzvah here and a chilul Hashem here. So a person needs to have a Rav, but they ask him questions where they know that not only does this Rav know what he's talking about, but more importantly, this Rav will give him the emet, the unbiased emet. Which means that this Rav is going to take into consideration that the reward for the mitzvot

47:45the real reward is not in this world. Meaning that I'm going to have to sometimes give you answers that are going to make you feel as if you're not allowed to have fun. But in reality, that's not what I'm telling you. What I'm telling you is that what you think is fun is really a disaster in the making. You may not see it, but the Torah does. I'm just simply trying to save you from it. Now The other aspect of this, not having reward in this world, is that we have to understand what reward really is in this world. So the Rambam elaborates on this point, and the Vilna Gaon, five or six hundred years later, says something similar, where he says that there is nothing in this world

48:48adequate enough to serve as a fair payment for any mitzvah. Which means if you actually delve into this sentence, imagine all of the good that you have already had in your life. Remove all the bad. That all of the good you want to have, which is probably a lot more than what you've had—everybody wants more good, which makes you normal. If you don't want good, there's something wrong with you. So, not only the good that you've had but all the good that you want to have—that all that good that you've had and want to have is not even enough as a small down payment for any mitzvah that you've done. we're not talking about the biggest mitzvot, smaller mitzvot. We're not even allowed to measure the mitzvot.

49:53But any mitzvah, whether it be tzitzit or Shabbat or eating kosher or saying a bracha, a rabbinical mitzvah or a biblical mitzvah, doesn't make a difference. The Gaon of Vilna is simply telling us here, the reason why there's no real reward in this world for the mitzvot is because there's not enough material in this world. There's not enough mezumanim, cash, in this world to pay you for any mitzvah. That's how much you get for the mitzvot. But yet you see, Satan confuses us. What does he confuse us with next? The illusion that there is a reward. "Why, he just got a brand new Lamborghini! She just got a brand new house. They just got married; they found each other out of nowhere on the internet. Look, he just started a bottle company. Look, he just sold the bottle company and made a hundred million dollars. These people are living life! He's expanding his house—it looks like a building now."

50:55She has a car that's so big it looks like an 18-wheeler. All these things—look at that! Look, look, look, look, look! The Satan is saying to you, "Look here, look here! Look, look, look, look!" It looks like everybody is having fun except you—little religious you, you little ba'al teshuvah, you little convert, you little frum-from-birth. You're the only one that's really, really serious. Everyone looks like they're having fun except you. Wrong! Satan wants you to think that. I want you to think that all of them are getting rewarded for their mitzvot. Wrong! When you see people get material rewards in this world, there are two possible options. On the negative side, these people could be such a shame and The pasuk in Parashat Va'etchanan applies to them, where HaKadosh Baruch Hu says that He pays cash to His haters in order to eliminate them. HaKadosh Baruch Hu has simply decided this person, I hate him. So, I'm gonna pay him all the reward for the few mitzvot that he or she did in their life now, in this world. Now, since there's not enough cash to pay all at one time...

52:22For the mitzvot that he did, what am I going to do? I'm going to pay him for 20 years straight. I'm going to get him to become a millionaire, billionaire. He's going to become a famous anchor on TV. He's going to become a famous athlete. He's going to become an entrepreneur that builds houses in a new way. He's going to have a bunch of stuff over the next 20, 30, 40 years. For what? For the few mitzvot he did around his bar mitzvah time. Why? I hate him. Because he constantly desecrates My name. Hashem yishmor v'yatzil. Now can that person do teshuva? Absolutely. But many times you see when those people do teshuva, what happens? Hashem says, I love you. Thank you for coming back. I can't wait to give you a big kiss. But before I give you a big kiss, I have to take back all the stuff. What do you mean, Rabbi? Ever since I did teshuva, I started losing money. Baruch Hashem, you should say. Why? It shows that Hashem is accepting your teshuva. He's starting to take back that reward that He gave you for the mitzvot.

53:26Baruch Hashem. Thank you, Hashem. Thank you, thank you for accepting me back. It's really what should be our attitude. You have to be at a very high level to say something like that, but nonetheless, you have to do that. That's what the Gemara in Masechet Berachot says: We have to thank Hashem for good and for bad the same way. You won the lotto, you lost the lotto—say Baruch Hashem. Not Baruch Hashem like Baruch Hashem. No, no, like Baruch Hashem, like you just won the lotto. Not a homeless, Baruch Hashem. Rav Leslie is a very famous rabbi in Eretz Yisrael. Probably one of the funniest people alive. A couple of years ago, his son drowned. His son drowned. He went to dip in the ocean for a mikveh. A whirlwind happened in the ocean.

54:27The guy died, Shem Yishmor. Now, for over 25, 30 years, Rav Leslie helped a lot of people do teshuva, get closer to Hashem in his own unique style. But no one understood how much of a tzaddik he is until his son died. You know why? He did something none of us, I know for me, no chance in the world that I'm at that level. What did he do? His son died. He went to the Kotel with his entire family and started celebrating. After the shiva was over, he went to the Kotel and started celebrating. Why? We're going to celebrate the 21 years that HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave us the son. Why are we going to celebrate his death? Why are we going to cry over his death? Hashem gave us a gift for 20 years. He decided to take it back. I'm going to see him in a long while anyway. It's not gone. It's not over. He just left. He went over there. He's going to Gan Eden already. He died in the middle of a mitzvah. Hashem gave him a gift.

55:28What am I going to cry about? Okay, well, I'll have to cry for a few days, three days, okay, finished. After that, I'm going to celebrate his life. Some of the biggest rabbis in the country, in the world, heard about this and went specifically to Rav Lassri. The Mekubalim, giant rabbis, went to him and said, please, give us a bracha. Give us a bracha, please, give us a bracha. What? You're a different level. You understand the truth. You understand. You fulfill the mitzvah of blessing Hashem the same way for good. The brit milah, how much joy did you have when you had brit milah? How much joy did you have when the child was born? You celebrated his death the same way. What did that become? A kiddush Hashem. Why? Because people understood that's Torah. That's Torah life. Forget the beard, the hat, forget all that stuff. That's Torah.

56:30How many people in the world can do such a thing? Very few. Why? Not everybody has it. It doesn't make them bad. You see that there are levels. But sometimes there are wicked people who say, "I can't stand you. I'm paying you right now." So you see them buying a Lamborghini, a brand new house, selling businesses, being on Forbes magazine, and being on CNBC. They're cashing in. They're printing money. Everything looks good. He's got eight girlfriends, she's got six boyfriends and a dog and everything else. Everything looks like fun. In reality, you should be crying for them. They're sinners if they're going against Hashem, you should be crying for them. But what about when you see people that are decent people? They do their best to follow Hashem's will. They keep Shabbat, they keep Taharat HaMishpacha, they keep kashrut. They keep, but they also have some money. They also have some good stuff. Does that mean I should hate them too? Obviously not. The Rambam explains that since there's no reward...

57:38this world is not sufficient enough to pay for a mitzvah, so our sages tell us in Pirkei Avot, "Schhar mitzvah mitzvah." HaKadosh Baruch Hu rewards you for your mitzvah with something else that's priceless. What is it? The opportunity to do another mitzvah. How does this work? As an example... You decided to give tzedakah. But you gave it with a full heart, no regrets. Because you want to do good, because you want to fulfill Hashem's will. Hashem says, "I like you, kid. I like you, lady. You did good. You gave tzedakah to the right place that helps people do teshuva. You gave tzedakah to the right place that helps people eat. You gave tzedakah to the right place that helps people serve Hashem. Guess what? I'm going to give you more money. Why? So you can make more tzedakah. Make more mitzvot. You were supposed to make $50,000 last year. This year I'm going to increase it to $55,000. Without you even noticing. You thought it’s because you're good at your job. It has nothing to do with it."

58:50Because you've served your tenure. You were there for 10 years where you got a $20,000 raise—it has nothing to do with it. It's because you gave ma'aser. Hashem decided, "I'm gonna give you another 10, another 20, another 30, 100,000." Why? It's how mitzvah goreret mitzvah. She wanted to fulfill the mitzvah, kept her tzniut, she reserved herself till marriage. In a few months of marriage, she's pregnant. No, why? I'm 20 years old, supposed to get pregnant. No, who said? Who said I had a dear friend of mine, a very dear friend of mine, who did everything good. B'ezrat Hashem, in two weeks, they can have a kid. You know how long they're waiting for it? Fourteen years. Fourteen years, I promise you, they tried. Fourteen years going to rabbis, fourteen years praying and crying. Fourteen years doing everything possible. I've got a person that you don't get better than that. Fourteen years they're waiting for a kid. Or you think you had a kid because you're 20 years old, because it's supposed to work? Wrong! Who says? You did a mitzvah, you cared about my children, I'll give you children.

1:00:16Reserve yourself. I'll make sure that when you use it the appropriate way, it'll work. You made sacrifices, you left the forbidden, I'll make sure that you enjoy the allowed. So it's very tough. People have problems with zivug. You know why? This specific issue. They don't reserve themselves. They don't protect their brit. They don't protect their modesty. Hashem says, I can't give you the same reward as I gave a tzaddikah. I gave her a kid six months into marriage. I can't give you the same thing unless I hate you. Now, I don't hate you. I just want you to do teshuva. Reality is about a killing. We see a lot of the things that we get in the world as if they're owed to us. But the truth is, Hashem is giving us good things in the world not because that's the payment for the good that we did, but rather it's the payment to enable us to do even more good and

1:01:22You got more money after you gave tzedakah, not because the more money is the reward for the money you gave, but rather the more money that you got is in order to enable you to give even more money again and make it a cycle, a domino effect. You continue giving, you pass the test, Hashem keeps giving. You give again, pass the test, Hashem gives again, and it keeps going. ...promised it. Now, we're not allowed to question Hashem. You can't say, "Why is this happening to me?" as a public outcry. You can't do that. "Why are you doing this?" You can't do that. You know what you can do, though? You can test Hashem with one mitzvah... Kadosh Baruch Hu Himself tells us, "You are allowed to test Me on this mitzvah." You give maaser, and I promise you'll be rich—maaser v'titashir. Now, what do you think? If you just give 10% three, four, five, six times, it works automatically? Your bank account automatically has 18 digits? It doesn't work like that. Maaser itself is a test.

1:02:45You give the 10%, not off the net after you deducted every single expense for you, your neighbor, and your cousin. And what you have left is $5. You give Him 50 cents. Hashem, big mitzvah, 50 cents. No, I love you, Hashem. I love you. I love you, Hashem, 50 cents. You know, I rounded it to a whole dollar, Hashem, and I have change. No. Maaser is from the gross. What do you mean? If I give from the gross, Rabbi, I'm not going to be able to afford my bills. That's the test. That's the test. What do you mean? It doesn't add up. That's the test. Can I give it to my daughter? No, that's not a test. What do you mean? It goes from one pocket to the other. That's the test. Now you do it once, times are good. Twice, three times, four times, a year straight, two years straight. Coronavirus happened, you're not getting an income now. You're only getting unemployment checks, barely making ends meet. But you still got a little money. Still gotta give. Why? That's the test. That's the test, I will tell you.

1:03:59And then you start seeing little trickles of reward. Once in a while, you see a flourish of reward. You have no idea where the money showed up, but all of a sudden your insurance company decided they like you. They lowered your premium. They decided to give you a refund for some mistake they made five years ago. They send you a check for $5,000. You think it's because you're an honest citizen. No, it's just Hashem using them as a tool to pay you. All of a sudden, your father calls you. "Listen, son, I thought about you. You got something in the mail. Did you get it yet?" "I'm getting it now, Dad. Why? What happened?" "No, look, there's a letter for me." You open the letter. You got a check for $10,000, $20,000. "What's this, Abba?" "I don't know. I just thought about you. I figured it's going to help you out." You think it's because you've been such a good son for 30 years. It has nothing to do with it. Nothing to do with it. It's HaKadosh Baruch Hu paying you. All of a sudden you show up to work, and your boss says, "No, no, this is not your office anymore." "Why, you fired me?" "No, no, no, we're not firing you. Come with me." He takes you down a long hallway. "Yeah, yeah, listen, we really appreciate you," he starts giving you a whole bio about yourself. While you're walking down, you're like, "Ooh, is he firing me? Is he killing me? What is he doing with me?" The next thing you know, you see this giant thing. You think it's the CEO's office. It's your new office.

1:05:19I'm only 27 years old. How'd I get this office? Listen, we like you. We want you to stay, and by the way, this is your new salary. We just tripled it. We think it's because you're good, but it has nothing to do with that. It has to do with HaKadosh Baruch Hu. I'm gonna give Him a little bit more. If you pay attention to the details, you're gonna say Baruch Hashem. First and foremost, you don't pay attention to the details. You're called "honey." I told you I was the best; they just gave me a raise. What, we're going out for dinner? Instead of thinking, "I'll thank Hashem," you're thinking, "Let's go spend this money we haven't even made yet." Why? We got it from Hashem. So it's important to know that, yes, there is joy in this world, but again, I...

1:06:20there is joy that's forbidden. There is joy that's allowed. And then there is joy that is allowed but not recommended. And then there is joy that is part of Hashem's arsenal of tools to give you an opportunity to do more mitzvot. Now, The sages were very, very conscious of this world and very scared of benefiting from it. So much so, there's an endless amount of stories about the poverty that they chose to live in. The Gemara in Masechet Ta'anit has a section of several dapim that talk about the life of Rabbi Chanina. Rabbi Chanina was one of the greatest sages that we ever had. A bat kol came from Shamayim and said that the whole world is eating thanks to the merits of Rabbi Chanina. But Rabbi Chanina, what does he survive on? A kav of carobs! Go try to eat that for breakfast tomorrow; your dentist is gonna love you. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner—carobs. Now, Rabbi Chanina...

1:07:48Time did not have any food for Shabbat, not even anything. Now, he's used to having very little, but here, nothing. So his wife told him, "We don't have anything. We don't have bread. We don't have anything. We'll have a candy—nothing. Go speak to your, you know, go speak to your boss. Time to give you something to eat for Shabbat. Who's your boss?" Oh, so Rabbi Chanina goes to the field and starts pouring his heart out to HaKadosh Baruch Hu and... The Gemara says, a leg of a table made of gold came out from Shamayim. Solid gold came out from Shamayim. Twenty million dollars. I'm not taking it now. You can't sell this on a Friday morning. Right now, go evaluate it. It takes a long time. He says, "Listen." He goes to the guy and says, "Here you go, guys. What? The king just gave you this?" "Yes, the king gave it to me. Just give me a few thousand dollars. We'll figure out how much it's worth later. You'll sell it for me and everything, but give me a few dollars so I can buy something for Shabbat." The guy takes out everything he has. He goes, "Take, take, take, take." It's not even a down payment. So Rabbi Chanina now goes to the stores, gets a bunch of food, and arrives at the house.

1:09:06Baskets of food, but beneath it all, she's wondering: "Wow, Baruch Hashem, but it's a lot. Maybe we’ll get some challah, maybe a little bit of cheese, an egg maybe. Where did all this come from? No, don't worry. Don't worry. Let's go." "What do you mean, 'don't worry'? Where did you get the money?" I got it, I got it. No, no, no, I'm not eating until you tell me where you got the money. Now, what is it? Rabbi Hanina's wife, the Tzadika, she's questioning her husband, what, he robbed a bank? What, she's questioning him if he just stole from somebody? No, it's not that. She's too concerned about worldly pleasures. Why? Is it one of the forbidden joys? Permissible joys? Is it the joy that's permissible but not recommended? She refuses to eat; they've been fasting for a few days already. Until the Beit Din, I'm not eating. He tells her the story: "I went to my boss. I went to Hashem. I said, 'Hashem, I need some money.' HaKadosh Baruch Hu sent me a leg of a table full of gold."

1:10:34So I went, I got a down payment for it, and then I got the groceries. You ready to do Kiddush? I'm not doing Kiddush. Why not? What's wrong now? I'm not doing Kiddush. I'm not going to eat a crumb out of this challah, and any of the food that you got, until you promise me that come Motzei Shabbat, Motzei Shabbat, you're going back to the guy, and you take him back, you give him the money back to him, and you give this back to Hashem. Why? Why do I have to give it back to Hashem? He says, don’t you understand? Rabbi Chanina, don’t you understand that if this leg is here, it's missing from our Olam HaBa? If this leg of the table is here, that means they took it out of Olam HaBa. So now, what does a couple do when they have an argument? If they're secular, they continue to have an argument until they get divorced.

1:11:34If they're smart religious people, they go to a rabbi. So Rabbi Chanina went to the Gadol HaDor, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, Rabbi HaKadosh. Middle of the night, 12 o'clock. They haven't even done kiddush almost. 11 o'clock at night. Rabbi! What happened? We have a little complication, shalom bayit issues. I can't wait for tomorrow. No, no, right now. We need to do kiddush. Tell them the whole story. Okay. Tell your dear tzaddekes wife not to worry, if you're missing anything in Olam HaBa, I'll give it to you. I'll give you my share. Nice, happy, dolled-up, the biggest Rabbi in the world just promised me to give a piece of Olam HaBa. Well, what a better promise than that? He comes home, hopping back. "I needn't worry. Everything's okay. The Rebbe promised us that if anything is missing in Olam HaBa, it's going to come from his share. Let's go talk to the Rebbe." "Why?" "Well, she's questioning your Rebbe now." They go to the Rebbe. 11:30 at night. "Rebbe, I'm sorry." He's embarrassed. "My wife, she wants to talk to you, Rebbe." "Yes, yes, yes, yes. How can I help you?" "Rebbe, I don't understand. You're a big Rebbe. You're a tzaddik. I just don't understand. How can you promise something you can't give?" "What? I keep Shabbat. Rebbe, you your whole life..."

1:13:01Served HaKadosh Baruch Hu in a fantastic way, but nothing was ever missing. You're from the family of Rabban Gamliel. You're from the family of David HaMelech. You never missed a dollar. You always had Baruch Hashem money. My husband, my dear husband, has been serving his whole life Hashem from poverty. You cannot compare a person that serves Hashem from wealth versus a person that serves Hashem from poverty and suffering. How can you compare your Gan Edens? Rabbi HaKadosh says to her, Tzadka mimeni, you're right. Rabbi Chanina, your wife is right. Talmida Chachama, better than both of us. Go return it. The Gemara says it was a bigger miracle that Shamayim took back this gold than it was to give it because usually Shamayim doesn't take back. Shows us that the sages were very, very conscious and very careful with their wives. They were very, very careful and very conscious of joy in this world. The Midrash Bamidbar Rabbah on Bamidbar 21:8 talks about people who look for pleasure in this world in the name of Abba Yudan.

1:14:27It says, I was once invited to a big party hosted by some prominent and prosperous idol worshiper who demanded that every single person in our city attend this enormous, lavish feast that he had prepared with unsurpassed grandeur. Those elegant tables were laden with every possible food and delicacy in the world. The host was beaming with pride as he boasted that there was absolutely nothing missing from the tables. All of a sudden, someone discovered that there was a certain type of seed, actually a certain type of nut, that he saw in some other country that's not here. "Oh, you guys remember that cashew we had in Turkey? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you don't have that here."

1:15:31The rich guy hosting the party heard this, and his face contorted. He got so fuming, so angry, that he started yelling and screaming at the top of his lungs, took all of the tables, flipped them over, and destroyed the whole hall in front of everyone. Anger that no one's ever seen before. Rabbi does tired after he calmed down. Says to him, why did you get so angry? okay this is something missing and this guy noticed one thing that's missing there's 500 different types of cashews he remembers one that exists in Turkey that's not here it's a little annoying you know you made a three-hour video with all types of graphics but the guy's complaining about the volume of the music and he didn't say one word yeah yeah you put all this toil worked on this video for two years but he's complaining about one word yeah it's annoying but why did you get so angry

1:16:44Idol worshiper tells Rabbi Dostai, "Rabbi, it's from your teaching. You teach, and I believe what you teach. You teach that this world, this world is reserved for us, for us idol worshipers. The joy in this world is for us, whereas you, the Jews, will have the World to Come." When he noticed that there's something missing... realized that even this world we don't have. It's all fake. It's all an illusion. It all looks like fun. It all looks like it's good. But when you dig deep down inside the heart of one of those people that looks for instant gratification, that's materialistic, and only cares about worldly pleasures, you'll find that he's the emptiest person you've ever seen, and woman that looks at herself 5,000 times in the mirror, and she looks good, and she looks like something that came from a different planet, and she's constantly fixing this and she's constantly fixing that. You know what? She is suicidal. That's what she is. Why? If her whole life depends on her physique, on her looks...

1:18:11One second, one second. After somebody destroys that, there's no life anymore, which means she's already suffering because she knows that day is going to come when everybody ages. Everybody gains weight and loses weight and gets a pimple and gets this and gets that. She's already suicidal now. She already starts looking at her face as if it's already distorted. Already looks at her face, and everyone else thinks she's beautiful, but she looks at her face as if she has four eyes. She cries at night because she thinks she's ugly. The people that are so consumed with the material, the physicality of this world, you'll find them to be the emptiest people in the world. And this guy found out at his party, after spending five million dollars hosting it, he realized it's all for nothing. Now, here we see that worldly pleasures for people that have had them are very, very different than worldly pleasures for the people that didn't have them. Why? Because the people that had them, they could already tell you outright. Like Shlomo HaMelech had all the worldly pleasures that's allowed. He had all the money in the world. He had cities of gold. Not some gold. He had cities of gold where the floor was gold. That's how much money Shlomo HaMelech had.

1:19:42One foreign king gave him some wood so he could build a better Beit HaMikdash. What, he needs special wood to build a better Beit HaMikdash? What was the payment? He said, "Yeah, you could take that city. The whole city is full of gold. Not that there's gold inside the buildings; the floor is gold. The buildings are gold. Everything is gold." The guy ended up hating that city, though, because everybody was so rich that no one wanted to listen to him. Everyone felt like the king. But that's how much money Shlomo HaMelech had. And Shlomo HaMelech writes in Kohelet, "All of it is nothing. All of it is garbage. All of it is an illusion. It's all an illusion." Now, the guy that didn't have it, the girl that didn't have this pleasure, Why do they still chase it even though Shlomo HaMelech says it means nothing? Even though if you read all the books of all the rich people that have lived life, not the newly rich, the 25-year-olds. Talk about the guys, the veterans, they've been here, they've been rich already for 20, 30 years. They've already grown, fallen, grown, fallen, addicted, not addicted, rehab, they've already gone through life, they got some money. But...

1:21:03They went through life too. You asked them, "What do you think of money?" You read their books, their bios, interviews, and all of a sudden, nothing. If anything, sometimes it’s a curse having so much money. I can tell you, I used to have a lot of money. People have a complete misconception of what money is. I used to tell my employees, "Money will never solve your problems, but you only work to make money. Just know it’s not going to solve your problems." So what are you going to do? It's going to allow you to arrive at your problems in a limo. That's what it's going to do. Money is a tool, no different than a hammer. You never pray for a hammer. Don't start going crazy over money either. But if you're going to work, make money. No problem. There's no problem with making money. Don't worship it. The problem is people worship it. Who worships it? The people that don't have it. Because they still have the illusion that they're different. Now, when I'm rich, I'm going to do something different. When I have it, I'm going to do something different. You know how many people like this I met? I used to have a few clients that were athletes. Worst clients in the world. Why? Guaranteed to become broke. Why? Because they're brand new kids. 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. Somebody just gave them a boatload of money. 20, 30, 40 million dollars. The guy doesn't even know algebra. He doesn't even know how to write checks.

1:22:30First day of contracts, buys five Range Rovers. He doesn't even know why—he doesn't know how to drive five Range Rovers. Why? Because he got a bunch of money. Guess what? Within four years, complete bankruptcy. I wrote an article about this years ago, how the overwhelming majority of athletes go bankrupt within two to four years after their career is over, no matter how much money they made. I On the internet, you'll see an endless amount of stories about athletes that are completely broke. I'm not meaning broke like they're not rich anymore but they still have a few hundred thousand. No, no, I mean broke like they live with mommy. They live with mommy. They live, you know, with mommy who works at Walmart and supports them. Two years ago, the guy had a hundred million dollars. They He's eating bread and cheese because that's what mommy means. And if he says something, he'll get a slap too. "Yeah, but I'm 35 years old." "Okay, you get a slap, 35 years. What happened?" "Acted like a kid." People think they're going to be different. "No, I'm going to do different. I'm going to be smart with my money. I'm going to invest it." They invested it too.

1:23:51now I'm not going to be very frugal. Good luck with that one. You ask people that have had money for a while, not the newly rich, the people that have had it for a while, and they're going to tell you it's all evil. It's all fake. It's all fake. Yeah, it's nice to have money. Surely it's easier to have money than not to have money. At least it looks that way. But it's definitely not what people think it is and what people make it out to be. Now, when a person understands this part and he looks at the Sefer HaYashar in chapter 12, he'll start understanding why the sages are talking in such a way. Where it says that okay, so if... You grew up in this world. You thought that the pleasure of this world was money, intimacy, food, colors, all this stuff, and now you found out that in reality, it's all an illusion. So what is this like? Where do the sages discuss this? The sages say in the Sefer HaYashar...

1:25:16that a person that's in this world without Torah will not understand what good is. Because everything that you think is good is forbidden. Everything that you picture as good, you're not allowed to have, which means it cannot be good. Why? Hashem is not going to create something that's good but not for you. Now, which means that if this burger looks good to you, but it's forbidden, Hashem says, I promise you it's not good. Yeah, but I ate it one time, and it tasted good. It may taste good, but it's still not good. Why? There's an outcome for tasting it. And when you find out what the outcome is and the special malachim that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to designate to show you what happens when you eat a non-kosher burger, and they're going to become your dentist without any type of anesthesia, you're going to see what a bad burger it was. So is it good or not? It may have tasted good, but it definitely wasn't good.

1:26:34Showing us that we only think things are good because we only have part of the picture. Now, what is this like? Sefer HaYashar says the following: imagine people that live inside a cave and never leave that cave. They never know there is an outside and Already a few generations in, they live inside this cave that's so big and so wide it seems like it never ends. So in the morning, it's night; the night is morning. There's no light. There's nothing. They're always inside this mountain. Everything always looks the same. They eat, they drink whatever they can find inside there, whatever creeps in there, and... One day, one of them decides to take a walk, and as you would have it, he discovers that there's an opening. He goes outside and he sees the sun. He sees the blue sky, just a few clouds to make it really pretty, and he sees trees. The trees are full of fruits and

1:27:52is a huge amount of animals and all types of beauty, and he calls everybody in excitement to show them this amazing thing. And they say, "Wow, we've been living here for 40-50 years! We never imagined such a beautiful world existed. All we ever saw was darkness. Everything was black." He says that's a person in this world and then a person arriving at the next world and Person leaves this world. He thinks he's leaving a world. Oh, there's, you know, it's good, it's bad, it's this, it's that. But once you see what the real world looks like, you see how much of a nothing this world is in comparison to what you can have. Hence, the reason why it's worth it for each and every one of us to follow what the Ramban says and reserve our joy for the next world and Now, what to do with Am Yisrael that's addicted to the sin? We're not allowed to hate them. We're allowed to hate their sin. Hate the sin, not the sinner. Bruriah, the wife of Rabbi Meir Baal HaNes, taught him this in the Gemara, in Masechet Brachot.

1:29:22How do we bring them close if they're so addicted? To the sin, to the delicious non-kosher burger, to the non-Jewish spouse, to the non-kosher business and so on and so forth. They're addicted to it. Now, if you tell them, "Listen, you come, you do teshuva and Hashem is gonna—every Shabbat you give—Hashem's gonna help you make more money," and... say, you know what, I like money. I'm going to take you on that. I'm going to keep Shabbat. And he keeps one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine Shabbatot in a row—nine months of Shabbatot in a row. And instead of seeing his business go up, nothing. Maybe even the opposite—business went down. What just happened? His desire to do teshuva.

1:30:24It was very little to begin with. You gave him a little carrot. He finally got there, realized it's a plastic carrot. Didn't pay. Hashem didn't give the money. He kept Shabbat. He kept Shabbat. He didn't get any money. Why did this happen? Because you're a liar. Not because Hashem's a liar. Hashem says He gives you a reward for keeping Shabbat. Never say He's going to give it to you in this world. And even if He said He would give it to you in this world, He didn't say right away. He didn't say after seven months. He didn't say when you want it. He said, "I'll give you a reward for giving ma'aser, and I'll make you rich." He didn't say when. It could be in a week, it could be in a month, it could be six months, it could be six years. He didn't give you a time. He doesn't owe you the time. He's the King; you are maybe a servant. So once you lie to a person, telling him if you keep mitzvot... you're gonna get material reward. You have now changed the Torah, and that's a problem. Why? It's bound to fail. It's bound to fail. And if you do not get this person to start loving Judaism and loving the Torah just for the sake of what it is and

1:31:42Not in order to get some material reward. It's only a matter of time before this person goes back to an even worse level than he was to begin with. This happens an endless amount of times. Many people that come to me tell me, "Listen, Rabbi, don't think that I never kept Shabbat before. Don't think that I never did this. I used to keep it for a year, I kept it for six months, but then I saw it's not doing anything good for me. My wife did so, my husband is, my business this." I said, "Who told, who promised you these things?" The rabbi told me that if I do this, then my business will do that. This is a rabbi making up a new Torah. Something tells you that after six months something's gonna happen. Hopefully, it's no promise. No guarantee. So how do you make people do teshuva? They're sinners. They're going against Hashem. They're going against your Father in Heaven. But by the same token, you have to tell them... The truth. So, the businessmen among us, what do they do? They try to sell Judaism. They tell them, listen, if you do this, Hashem will give you this and that. It doesn't work. And if it works, it's only temporary and it's bound to fail. And all it does is, even if the person continues, he's keeping Judaism for the wrong reason.

1:33:10and they become bitter followers of Hashem. It's like, yeah, I'm keeping it, but I don't know. I don't even know if I really want to do it anymore. Ten years. I'm doing it, but I just don't know if I want to do it anymore. Why? Because the rabbi said that this is going to happen to me, but it never did. Now these businessmen, sometimes they're called rabbis, and they're making a very big mistake, but they think they're doing kiruv. This is not kiruv. This is setting people up with a trap. By the story in the Torah, and the Torah clearly says, "Mi'dvar sheker tirchak" (From a thing of lies you must stay away from). On the other hand, there are other people. that are worse than them. People that only talk about the bad things of Am Yisrael. Ah, they're the worst people. They're all sinners. It's the worst. You know, this guy's not even keeping. She's not even keeping. Only bad. Only bad all the time.

1:34:12They never cry about Am Yisrael. They never beg Hashem for Am Yisrael to do teshuva. They don't help Am Yisrael to do, they don't help anything. They just talk about bad stuff all day. All day. Yeah, yeah, they're all gonna go to Gehinnom. They're all going to, oh. Anything good about them? Yeah, if they do teshuva. No, no, if they don't do teshuva, is there anything good about them? I don't know, Rabbi, you said that if they are sinners, they're not good. No, I said the sin's not good. He doesn't know that he's sitting here. He's confused. He thinks that the joy that's forbidden is good, just like you used to. So, people that are just constantly criticizing Am Yisrael, that's worse. Why? People don't do teshuva that way. So, what do you do? There's a critical teaching that I wish we would have learned years ago, but Baruch Hashem, we're learning it today. Limud zechut is one of the important things that a person needs to know because it'll show him the balance. Because today you have false teachers like the ones we've mentioned in the past that pretend to be righteous Chassidim.

1:35:35Righteous, you know, people say, "No, Am Yisrael, they're all good, all tzadikim. They don't need to do anything. They could stay the same, and Hashem will accept them." That's 100% heresy. Now, if they say, "Am Yisrael is all going to Gehinom, chas v'shalom, they're all bad," that is wickedness, not heresy, but wickedness. Both are bad. Public, it doesn't know the difference. They think that if somebody says Am Yisrael is sinning, automatically they're a bad person. They're full of hatred, they're full of evil, they want to kill people. And the one that says that everyone's okay, everyone's tzadikim, everyone's perfect, ah, he's such a lover of Am Yisrael, he's so wonderful. Look at his nice beard. It doesn't work that way. Look, but it's Hasidut. You learn Hasidut has nothing to do with Hasidut. What's Hasidut? Baal Shem Tov is Hasidut. Baal Shem Tov and his talmidim is Hasidut. What does Baal Shem Tov and his talmidim say? Baal Shem Tov had several big talmidim. One of them, he said to him, "I want you to be the Saba of Israel. I want you to be a grandfather of Am Yisrael. You love Am Yisrael so much. You fight for them so much."

1:37:00You're gonna be called the Saba. His name was Saba Kadisha M'Shapoli. Now, Saba Kadisha M'Shapoli was also friends with Rabbi Zusha, Rabbi Zusha M'Anipoli. So these are the giants among Hasidut. Saba Kadisha M'Shapoli once asked Rabbi Zusha, What do you learn from the verse in the Torah that says, Hashem says, "I'm going to hide My face"? The most frightening verse in the Torah. Rabbi Zusha says, from there I learn that Hashem hides Himself. Where does He hide Himself? Inside the tzaddikim. Why does He hide Himself inside the tzaddikim? Because it says, "I will hide My face." So Hashem says, if you hide your true greatness—your true greatness in Torah, your true greatness in chesed, your true mitzvot, and how great you really are—but you look like you're just an average guy, say, "Oh, listen, how many times have you completed the Shas?" Me, the Shas, oh...

1:38:26How many shiurim do you give? Shiurim, I don't know. You give tzedakah. I heard you did a big thing. You gave millions of dollars in tzedakah. Me? Millions of dollars? Wrong guy, wrong guy. Hide. You're doing a lot of big things. Hide it. Hashem is with that person. Just like He is hiding His glory, His greatness, HaKadosh Baruch Hu hides His glory, His greatness. He looks like nature. Hashem is with him. To the scary verse, we learned something beautiful here. That's Chassidus. Chassidus shows us different aspects of the Torah that are sometimes scary, sometimes truly beautiful, but nonetheless, emet. Today, people call anything that sounds nice Chassidus. But it's not always the case. And I'll show you a few examples that I learned with Rav Fein. Now, Limud zchut that a person is supposed to do, talking about Am Yisrael, is one of the things that the Chafetz Chaim would constantly do. So much so that he was heard saying things that, if he wasn't the gadol hador, if he wasn't the biggest rabbi in the world, we wouldn't even be able to say it.

1:39:52Like, how could somebody talk to Hashem this way? And if you only hear this one story about him, you could easily confuse not only him and his righteousness and zealousness, but all of Judaism altogether. This is why, when you learn about chassidut or about tzaddikim in general, you can't just learn one story about them. You have to learn a bunch; you have to learn the whole book. Why? Because you'll see their whole life, not just this one story that makes them feel like, you know, their day changed. You have to learn a bunch; you have to learn the whole book. Why? Because you'll see their whole life, not just this one story that makes them feel like, you know, their day changed. Judaism. Saba Me'Shittah one time says to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, they heard him pray to HaKadosh Baruch Hu in tears. He says, "Hashem, I think it's Your fault that Am Yisrael is sinning. I..." You and I say this, I think we're going to die in a second. Some of you should probably scream to Hashem, "I think it's Your fault that Am Yisrael is sinning. Look what You did. All of the desires, the good, the joy, You drew it up, You made it easy to feel. You look here, you enjoy. You taste here, you enjoy. You touch here, you enjoy. You look at a book in the Torah, it says all the things that are forbidden, it looks like joy."

1:41:17But punishment, you hid it. What do we have? You have to go find it and understand it and figure out what's going to happen again. It's so easy to feel the joy. But the punishment, you hid. Unless somebody told us to go find it. I promise you, Hashem, that if you did the opposite—if joy was hidden but it was clear what punishment we would get... Not a single Jew with sin. This is speaking to Hashem, telling Him, Hashem, Am Yisrael, they have the potential to be tzaddikim. On the other hand, a person comes to the Sfas Emes. System, you have a problem. There's a guy in this community—a real serious asha (wicked person)—that's targeting me. Every time I start a business, he starts a business right next door to me. Every time I try to make some contracts, he goes and steals the contracts. I try to go to the city to get something, he goes to the city and beats me to it. He's constantly chasing me. It's like he's not doing anything else but targeting me. I...

1:42:45Please help me, for the love of God. My kids are hungry. I don't have anything to eat. No problem. They bring the rasha to the house of the tzaddik. The tzaddik says to him, "Why are you doing it?" "Because I can do whatever I want. No care in the world, doesn't think about it twice. You know, whatever I want. Who are you to tell me?" "But you know it's forbidden from the Torah to do what you're doing." Fibbering off a bit and doing whatever I want. You finished, Rabbi? You finished? The rabbi looks at me and says, "Listen to me. If you don't do teshuvah, I'm going to say Amen. What if you don't do teshuvah? I'm going to say Amen. Amen, what do you want? What right? Go, go, go. I think you're old already. Go, go, go." Submit, you fool, at that moment. says, I believe with full faith that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is the one and only God.

1:43:54There is no other God. He has no image. He has no body or likeness of a body. And he goes on, and he starts repeating the 13 principles of faith. Then he gets to, "I believe with full faith that HaKadosh Baruch Hu will reward the righteous and punish the wicked." Then he says to the heretic, "Now you can go." The guy leaves, takes his first step outside of the house, gets a heart attack, and dies. Everyone's fault. So, on one hand, you have one story that says, "Hashem, it's Your fault. It's because You didn't put the punishment." On the other hand, the guy just died. It's not a rebuke. No, no, no. It's i wish I could do the same thing, by the way. Sounds cool. But then we may have some buddies. Here you have a serious situation here. On one hand, you tell Hashem, "Hashem, they all can be tzaddikim if it wasn't for something." On the other hand, rebuke the person who didn't listen, pray to Hashem, the guy died. What is this like?

1:45:24Imagine a kid runs in the middle of the street. A truck comes. Two seconds, two centimeters from hitting him, it stops. It doesn't hit him. The driver of the truck, a big guy, runs out of the truck, and he is fuming. Kid, you silly kid. I almost killed you. And then he sees the father. He wants to hit this kid because the kid almost, he almost killed himself. Might as well hit him. But then he sees the father screaming, "Oh, oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, Tzadik, thank you so much. You know, my son, he doesn't know. He doesn't know anything. He's a silly kid. He's just a kid. He doesn't think. He doesn't think. I always tell him, 'Son, think, think.' He doesn't think. As we run to the street, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much. You're such a careful driver." The guy wouldn't beat him up anymore. No. Why? He sees this. Now the father takes the kid home.

1:46:38After the thank yous are over, they get in the car. He sits in the car. As soon as the kid sits in the car, he thinks it's over. All right. Thank you. I'm such a good kid. I just didn't think. The second he sits in the car, he's comfortable. The father closes the car, closes the window. Next time, look. What happened? What happened? Did you say, "I'm such a good kid," and thank God that the guy was so careful and he's a good driver? And I'm a good kid. I just didn't think. What happened? What happened? The real Chassidut, the real Judaism, the teaching of limud z'chut on Am Yisrael works as follows: When you are talking to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, you pray for Am Yisrael and you tell Abba, you tell Abba, you tell Abba, "Abba, they're foolish little kids. Please, please give them another chance. They're just stupid kids. They don't know better. They think that the good is bad stuff and the bad is good stuff. They don't know what they're talking about. They don't know Your Torah."

1:47:59Give them another chance. Take corona away. Take the depression away. Take the heresy away. Give them another chance. But when you see the people themselves, you have to tell them, if you don't do teshuva, Hashem is going to rip you in half. You have to change. Why? Because HaKadosh Baruch Hu is not your buddy. And He's not a truck driver either. HaKadosh Baruch Hu wrote in the Torah very clearly. If you do not do teshuva, He will bring punishment. That's how the Middat HaDin works. It works when you pray to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, when you talk to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, when you talk to the public even about Am Yisrael. Glorify them. But when you talk to Am Yisrael, you fulfill the mitzvah of hocheach tochiach. You fulfill the mitzvah of hocheach tochiach, you must rebuke your brother. Why? Because if you don't, they're going to keep running in the street. They're going to keep running in the street and one day, the truck driver is not going to stop, even if he wants to. The reality is, when people tell the public, no, no matter what they do, they're always good. What does that do? It does the work of the Satan.

1:49:27Because the Satan tries to keep us away from teshuva. He's the resistance. When someone with a beard tells the public, no, no matter what, Hashem accepts them, then the people that were even thinking about teshuva or just starting out with teshuva, what do they do? They say, oh, if Hashem is going to accept me anyway, meaning I continue running and moving traffic, looks like fun. I'm going to go back. Oh, back to sinning. What? The Rabbi just said I'm gonna be okay. The real Chassidut rebukes much, much harsher than I can ever do it. One of the great Chassidim in the previous generation, Rabbi Aharon Rata. Unfortunately, his books that I know about are only in Hebrew, but he writes extensively about Gemara Brit. One of the greatest sources about Gemara Brit Tikun HaBrit, the whole issue of Brit, comes from him. He wrote several sefarim, each one holier than the next, each kodesh. But, of course, these nashim kedoshim, the holy people, always have enemies. Clowns try to make fun, try to cool people off, which is a me'asek of Amalek.

1:50:53So, a certain heretic who was working for the newspaper tried to put himself inside the Rebbe's house on Shabbat to look for things to make fun of him about in the paper. So he pretended to be a chassid. And he went inside and he stayed for the whole Shabbat. So the Rebbe looked for different expressions that he used, different things that he said. And the whole time the Rebbe didn’t even look at him. Nothing. No one noticed him because he was there like everybody else. Lots of people were there. Motzei Shabbat, they have a tish. They have a tish. All the Chassidim look forward to getting a little taste of what the Rebbe ate, getting a little taste of the Kedusha that he touched. So this guy's having a ball. Why? This is crazy. These people, 500 people all fighting over a piece of bread. Yeah, this is going to be the cover of the paper. Before it all starts, Rabbi Aharon Roth looks straight into this journalist's face. He says, come. The guy, he's not sure. Can he catch me? He knows who I am. Maybe I'm going to eat the bread. He doesn't know what's going on. The whole Shabbat, he didn't look at him even.

1:52:08So he goes. There's nothing he can do. There are 500 people there. What is he going to do? Say no? So he goes to the Rebbe. The Rebbe doesn't say a word to him, just gives him his hand to shake. He shakes his hand. Within a matter of seconds, the guy starts screaming hysterically. Screaming hysterically like someone is cutting him into pieces. After the Rebbe lets him go, he starts running like a crazy person, saying, I got to do teshuva. Please, please, please help me do teshuva. I got to do it. I got to do it. Please, please. He's screaming. People hold him down, take him down, pin him down. The guy lost his mind. Maybe he's going to hurt himself. They tie him to the chair. What happened? What happened to you? After they gave him some cold water, they tie him to the chair and just tell us what happened to you. He says, "The whole Shabbat, I'm sitting here planning a new article about Rabbi Aharon Rata, thinking about how I'm going to make fun of him. And I thought that the Rebbe didn't even notice me, there are so many people here. But then he called me and he shook my hand. And the second he shook my hand..."

1:53:31He showed me the Gehinnom that's waiting for me and all the things that are going to happen to me in Gehinnom and how they're going to tear me apart for all the things that I'm going to do. I saw it with my own eyes. I was in it. That's Chassidut. That's Chassidut. When we did our shiur about Gehinnom, the first one, it included sources from the Torah of different sages, whether it was the Tanach, the Gemara, or different sages over the years. But then we did a follow-up shiur about Gehinnom based on Chassidut. That's your what most people don't know is that over 1,400 sources were reviewed in order to bring just a small tiny portion of what we brought in that shiur. Anyone that learns the real Chassidut, whether it be the Tanya or works of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov or even the students of the Baal Shem Tov, will see that the real Chassidut is

1:54:58existed back then and even exists right now is very, very different than the Chassidut that's being portrayed to the public in many places. It's critical to pray for Am Yisrael. It's critical to speak positively about Am Yisrael. But it's forbidden to lie to them about teshuva, to lie to them about sin, to lie to them about all of the punishments. Forbidden. Why? Aside from the fact that it doesn't work, it actually has the opposite effect. It's distorting and recreating a new Torah. And that's one of the biggest problems that people don't understand when it comes to these reshaim (wicked people) that mis-teach the stories of the sages by only telling you one aspect of it. They'll only tell you the first story of the Saba of Nevardok, of how he talked to Hashem and said, "Hashem, it's Your fault." I'm going to tell you that part. But they're not going to tell you the second part. They're not going to tell you the second part.

1:56:13Now, if people truly understood how important rebuking is in the eyes of Hashem and His sages, they'd understand that when it's written in the Torah, "The beginning of wisdom is fear of Hashem," this is not a suggestion. This is a factual statement. You only start having wisdom once you have a basic level of fear of Hashem. If you don't have any basic level of fear of Hashem, whatever you think you know is not considered wisdom. It's no different than your mathematical knowledge, your historical knowledge, or your cooking knowledge. If your servitude of Hashem is not founded on top of Yirat Shamayim, it's not wisdom. It's nothing. Why? That's what the Gemara says. When Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai comes, everybody celebrates. Why does Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai get such honor? Rabbi Akiva doesn't get such honor. He's a rabbi. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, every year there's a big holiday in his name.

1:57:38Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai disclosed a lot of secrets to us, secrets that no other sage had the merit to reveal. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, on one end, in Gemara Masechet Shabbat, page 34, says that in his merit he can absolve all of Am Yisrael from their sin. But then another Gemara says When he comes out of the cave, he comes out of the cave, he and his son, after being there for 12 years, and he sees people working. Permissible jobs. They're not stealing. They're not killing people. They're working. They're not working on Shabbat. They're working. He sees them working and not learning Torah. Because of his kedusha, these people went on fire. They went on fire. So, wait a minute, on one end,

1:58:42You said that you, your righteousness, and everything else, you can absolve all of Am Yisrael from din, from punishment. Everybody's gonna go to heaven. On the other hand, you look at a few people working instead of learning Torah, and they're burning, they're dying. What's going on here? Understand the Gemara. When he says that my merit, I can absolve Am Yisrael... From their sin, he's talking to Hashem. "Hashem, You have a case against Am Yisrael. They didn't do good. They didn't keep Shabbat 100%. Their business is not so great. Their Torah is not the greatest. There's missing stuff. Don't worry. Take my account. I got extra. I got extra. Take from me. Take from me, Hashem. Don't punish them. Take from me. Give us some more time to help them do teshuva." But he comes out of the cave and he sees people who are not doing teshuva; they're just working in the world like slaves. Rebuke. When you talk to Hashem, you talk to the masses about Am Yisrael, good. Fight for them. When you talk to them, you have to rebuke them. Why? It's the only way they're going to do teshuva. But if you only compliment them to Hashem,

2:00:03you compliment them to themselves, guess what? No change will happen. Hashem will take your compliments and throw them in the garbage. He says, "You're a liar. You don't believe what you're saying." And that's what the sages have taught us time and time again. When a person reads what the sages truly said with their own eyes and see what the reward is for following this. Sometimes that reward is not enough. So HaKadosh Baruch Hu made sure that we have clarity on what punishment is. The beauty of the Torah is that it's endless. If you toil in it and you toil in it, you will find it. Zambon is trying to tell us here that yes, sometimes there's going to be a time where the reward is going to be distant from you. This Olam HaBa is going to be distant from you. You have to plan everything for Olam HaBa. You can add in all types of worlds, all types of joy. That's what he is saying here.

2:01:26This whole thing that you're doing is for Olam HaBa, that's why you're doing all of it. But notice that he only said this at the end of the letter, the one before last verse. Why? Because by now, you should have already arrived at the conclusion that the sin is not worth it and We already talked about the consequence of anger. We already talked about the consequence of arrogance. We already talked about the consequence of stinginess. We already talked about the consequence of sin. Already for the last six months, he's been saying to you. So now that you understand the consequence of the punishment and the sin is no longer as delicious, now remember that the mitzvot, what is that for? Don't worry about payment here. The big payment is over there. It's over there. That's how you're supposed to learn. That's how you're supposed to teach. And most importantly, that's how you're supposed to live. You get a reward in this world, that's HaKadosh Baruch Hu saying, I like what you're doing, I want you to do more. But don't think for a second that's the real reward. That's just me enabling you to do more. I'm investing more in you to do more of the good that you're doing. But if you're not doing good and you get a reward, it's not a reward. It's actually a punishment.

2:02:48And it's very important for each one of us to know this. Because when we serve Hashem, because we know that's what we're supposed to do, guess what? You get an extra reward just for that too. Why? That's the highest level of serving Hashem. You're not serving Hashem because you want Him to give you a new Bentley. You're not serving Hashem because you want Him to give you anything. Hashem, I want to do this because it's for You. You said I'm supposed to do it. That's why I want to do it. I want to help Am Yisrael do it for You, but I don't care if You give me any reward at all. In fact, I don't need any reward. But I know that if I get another thousand people, another ten thousand people, another million people, another five million people to say kadosh, kadosh, kadosh every single day... That's going to bring you not hot. That's worth it. I don't care if I get anything for it. Imagine you go to a minyan of five million Jews saying kadosh, kadosh. Do you really need a reward after that? Does the car, the house, or anything else matter after that? You have five million Jews saying Birkot Kriya. What if it's all twenty million?

2:04:03What if it's also the hidden couple, a hundred million all saying kadosh, kadosh? Do you really need a reward in this world after you hear such a thing? So, you serve Hashem because you're supposed to, because it's good for you. And guess what? You'll get rewarded even extra for that. But if you serve for stuff, for stuff, for stuff, you're bound to fail. You're bound to fail. Why? Because you're putting the carrot in front of yourself. And if a rabbi taught you that, he's wrong. just like he's wrong for telling you there's no punishment and that everyone is perfect. It's the same level of magnitude. That's, Rabotai HaYekarim, what the Ramban is trying to teach us today. B'Siyata D'Shmaya. B'ezrat Hashem, tomorrow we'll have our shiur about questions and answers. Hopefully, you'll have some questions. There's some more stories about the Saba MiNovardok that we can talk about and many, many other things, B'ezrat Hashem. But until then, Baruch Adonai le'olam. Amen ve'amen.