The Most Critical Part Of Torah That Became A BIG SECRET (7 Minutes)

0:02So someone asked me recently, and then we're going to start the shiur b'ezrat Hashem. What's the difference? What's the difference between what you do, you know, what Rabbi Mizrachi does, and what the majority of the public does, what the majority of the rabbis do? They speak very differently. They don't tell people that a mechallel Shabbat mot yumat. They don't tell people that if you violate Shabbat, according to the Rambam, Hilchot Shabbat...

1:29If you look at Masechet Sanhedrin, the Gemara in Masechet Sanhedrin, from page 91 all the way to about 98, it has a very interesting portion that all of us know because we read it in the Tefillah on Shabbat. It says, every Jew, every one of Am Yisrael, has a share in the world to come. All of us know this. So everyone assumes, oh, I was born Jewish, I'm lucky, I have a share in the world to come. The problem is, that's just the first line of the Mishnah. The rest of the Mishnah, over the next 8 pages, 8 dapim, which is really 16 pages because daf Gemara is 2 pages. It says, and these are the people who do not have a share in the world to come. It provides all of the classifications of what happens if you commit these sins, and you have no share in the world to come, chas v'shalom. One of them being Mechalei Shabbat. So when someone asked me what's the difference, I told him there is a difference. The Rabbis, Baruch Hashem, most Rabbis, they're not intentionally doing something bad. They speak Torah, just like I'm speaking Torah. They read the Torah, I read the Torah. They read Parashat HaShavua, I read Parashat HaShavua. They read Pirkei Avot, I read Pirkei Avot. There's only one small difference. They read the nice things.

2:47They make you feel good, make you sleep at night, and you're happy. It makes you feel like Hashem loves you, and you're perfect, and you don't have to do teshuva. You're already a tzaddik, just give tzedakah, and everything is fine. Nice parts of the Torah, the nice stories, everything is good. Maybe a little bit of shalom bayit here and there, a few halachot here and there. But overall, they don't force you to do anything. They just tell you, "Listen, you're a Jew, every Jew has a share in the world to come." It's a nice part of the Torah. What I try to do, based on what I've learned from my teachers, Rav Mizrachi and Rav Efraim, is not just to do the nice part of the Torah, because that would do you a disservice. So I figured, I'm not smart enough to pick which one is the best part of the Torah. So, what do I do? I read the whole Torah. We teach the Torah, the nice parts and the not nice parts. The part that says that if you keep Shabbat, it even is a tikkun, it's even a teshuva for Avodah Zarah. Chas v'Shalom, somebody was an idol worshipper one day. They didn't know, the miskenim, they didn't know. They worshipped an idol. They worshipped their rabbi, they worshipped "J.C. Penney," they worshipped, I don't know, something they bought from Chinatown. They worshipped something.

4:09They didn't know. Miskenim, they didn't know. It says, you keep Shabbat, that's your tikkun. That is your repentance, that's your teshuva, for Avodah Zarah. Avodah Zarah is the worst possible thing you can do. You keep Shabbat, that's your tikkun. That's the nice part. On the other hand, it also says, why is Avodah Zarah in the Torah? It's mentioned twelve times with the phrase "Mot Yumat." Mot Yumat means death upon death. Death in this world, death in the next world, meaning no share in the World to Come. So we ask, why is it that every time it mentions Shabbat, it mentions idol worship right next to it? Right next to it, you have Shabbat, and immediately before or after, it mentions idol worship. Similarly, every time it mentions the sin of homosexuality in the Torah, it also mentions bestiality. Every time, you look for yourself. You look in the Torah, you find in the books of Moshe. Every time you have homosexuality, you have bestiality. A man with a man, a man with an animal, a woman with an animal. A man drives on Shabbat to the Beit Knesset. A man worshipping an idol that he bought from Chinatown for 15 dollars. Same thing. Why? Because in Hashem's eyes, it's the same thing. It's the same sin.

5:32The guy is driving to shul on Shabbat, similar to the person who bought the avodah zarah (idol) and worshipped it. Whether it's on Shabbat, Yom Rishon, Yom Sheni, or any day. It's the same situation. The person who is in a relationship that goes against the Torah, like the way Bilam was. Remember Bilam? Bilam HaRasha? He was a prophet. A wicked prophet. Do you know who his wife was? The donkey. The donkey was considered his wife. It's the same kind of issue. So we see here... If we learn only the nice parts of the Torah, we miss out on understanding the complete picture. It's not fair. What if you didn’t know certain things? What if you're like my first student when I moved to Florida a couple of years ago? For 25 years, he would drive me to shul, and nobody ever told him otherwise. For 25 years, he was driving to shul on Shabbat, even though he lived only about a 15-minute walk away. But with the weather here in Florida, who feels like walking? Who wants to walk in this? So he thought, okay, I'll just drive. For 25 years, he's been driving to shul on Shabbat, and not one person ever told him he's not allowed to drive on Shabbat. He's obviously not a Talmid Chacham. He never opened a book of Torah in his life. The closest he ever got to Torah was reading Tehillim once in a while. No one ever told him. He goes and prays like a robot. He doesn't know. So, whoever is teaching him just the nice parts of the Torah is not being fair because he doesn't know for 25 years. So, we don't know what you don't know. Therefore, what we do is tell you everything there is to know.

7:00At least everything that I know. And b'ezrat Hashem, hopefully, we find a chiddush at some point down the entire shiur. We make sure that it's long enough that at least I have an opportunity to give you a chiddush at some point. You've just experienced another Torah class.