The Power Of SPEECH - MUSSAR Iggeret HaRAMBAN (28)

0:17In the name of God, let's do it and succeed. Shiur Torah, welcome next. We continue our Iggeret HaRamban series here at Ner Avraham in Aventura, Florida. For anyone that lives here and is watching on the internet, you're missing out. Because being part of the shiur, as I always tell you guys, The chachamim talk about it extensively, saying that going to a shiur versus hearing about it or reading about it are worlds apart. Today's shiur will be for a refuah shlema for Avi Mori, David ben Nesria, Doris bat Jorah, Levana bat Sara, Rabbi Efraim ben Shulamit, Rabbanit Sara bat Anat, Stefan ben Katarina, And also a very big thank you to all of those precious souls that support us every day, every month.

1:38And Be'ezrat HaShem HaKadosh Baruch Hu will pay each and every single supporter of ours a thousandfold, both in this world and the next. I can never thank enough all the people that help us, whether it's with $10 or $10,000, whatever it is. Sometimes there's more $10,000, but sometimes there's more $10, and that's okay too. Because the reality is, Rabotai, you have no idea what type of... So if you have to be a part of the key of work that I don't even know how much we do until people tell me. Just this afternoon, a woman that I never heard of in my life tells me that she's been watching the shiurim for some time and not only did it wake up her neshama to leave avodah zara, but it also woke up the neshamot of two of her kids, 12 and 14. Both of them have abandoned avodah zara and... Both of them are in the way of Hashem, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, Baruch Hashem. And this is just for what? Watching shiurim on YouTube somewhere in the middle of the country. There are countless people, Baruch Hashem, that are doing teshuva and they send us messages. Sometimes they send us thank you letters. Sometimes they send us a message two, three years after they've already become tzaddikim.

2:59And they remembered, but the key is, I would tell you, you have no idea how much HaKadosh Baruch Hu loves these shiurim. It has really not much to do with me other than the fact that I eliminate my own choice as far as not really saying much of my own opinion, just telling you guys what Chazal says, what HaKadosh Baruch Hu says. Now, as I told you guys recently, we have been working on this already for the last couple of years. There's been one delay after another. But Baruch Hashem, over the last three or four months, we got really serious with it. And we're coming out with a new CD, a new way to get Am Yisrael to wake up, to get the whole world to wake up, b'ezrat Hashem. And that's with a mix of a CD and DVD that I have here. This is a sample. This is not the real thing. They work, but we don't have all the ones that we have. The DVD is going to be the movie about the personal story plus eight other movies that are fantastic, that have woken up countless people. Baruch Hashem, each movie is better than the next. And then we have the only English CD in history.

4:19It specifically talks about becoming a ba'al teshuva about the issues of tikkun ha'brit. There are 57 shiurim about it. Some are long, like three hours, and are famous, having garnered hundreds of thousands of views and inspired countless thousands of people to do complete teshuva. To shortest you aim that are as short as five to ten minutes. But there are 57 tracks. That's audio only, and then, obviously, the DVD is visual. This is going to be just like our other CDs: the Mussar series, the Wall Street, the Western Wall series. There'll be these nice boxes, and you could distribute them to your community, to your shul, to your local kosher supermarket, and different places. The reality is that This is simply a ticket to Olam HaBa. That's really what some big Talmidei Chachamim told me. This is what I have to say in order to explain to you people what this means. This is simply, each CD is a ticket to Olam HaBa. And the reason why is because the Zohar HaKadosh says that the tikkun of the last generation before Mashiach is going to be Tikkun HaBrit. For women, it's going to be modesty or lack of modesty.

5:43whether it's the long pagan wigs or the short mini skirts, for guys, it's going to be how they watch their eyes or don't watch their eyes and what happens after that—the addiction to pornography, the addiction to adultery, all types of disgusting things that are happening all over the world that I honestly don't want to tell you about. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of telling you the news. I'm sick of it. The news is so disgusting. I don't even want to talk about it. It'll just ruin the whole day. It'll put you in a depression. If you knew half the stuff I knew, you'd go into a depression, and stuff that's happening in the world. Why? It all starts with the foundation, the yesod. The yesod, the Torah calls the brit—that's the yesod. If anyone ever saw those drawings of the Kabbalah, signs of different parts of the body are called different things. You see that the male member, the sex organ, is called yesod. What does it mean? Yesod? Yesod means foundation. What does it mean, foundation? Foundation means if you don't fix this, the rest of what you do goes in the garbage. You can keep Shabbat, you can learn Torah, you can give tzedakah, you can do everything in the world. If you don't fix your brit, you go in again, you're not coming out. This is Torah.

7:03You don't want to believe it? You can read the books for yourself. We have ones on our website for free. One is "Holy Nation." Another one is "Guard Your Brit in Your Eyes." Free books, hundreds of places for free. There are many other things that you could buy on the internet. The point is, Rabotai, that most people today do not understand the magnitude of watching their brit. Hence the reason why this is the first CD in history—sadly, but proudly—the first CD in history about Tikkun HaBrit in English. Which means, right now, we have somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 to 10 million English-speaking Jews. 8 to 10 million English-speaking Jews. 6 million in America, and figure the rest around the world. The vast majority of them, the overwhelming vast majority of them, religious, non-religious, have no idea that guarding the brit is even a big deal. The Goyim have no idea it's even relevant to them. And guess what? It's relevant to them.

8:04That's in the CD. Now, anyone that learns these shiurim is going to do one of two things. Either they're going to do teshuva, or they're simply going to just go crazy and admit themselves into a mental institution. Why? Because if you don't do teshuva after you hear the emet about the brit, you have to consider yourself crazy. You have to consider yourself crazy. Why? Because there's something wrong with you if you don't do teshuva for the brit. Now, want to get as many CDs, air time, and USBs and everything else as there are people in the world, but unfortunately, I'm limited with funds. HaKadosh Baruch Hu took all the money before I did. So, we need your help. We need your help, either if you have money or you know people that have money and... Now, the reality is, you need this more than I need this. And the reason why is because HaKadosh Baruch Hu, He's going to always make the matches come together. The money comes with the product, the woman comes, HaKadosh Baruch Hu brings parnassah.

9:11But why does Am Yisrael need this? Why do the Goyim need this? Why does everybody else need this? Because the reality is, you need to do teshuva for it. All of us have to do teshuva for it. Because we wasted seed at some point, intentionally, unintentionally, unmarried, married, all types of things. All of us, all of us have messed up at one point or another, and some of us are still messing up. I have at least half a dozen to a dozen kids and adults per day, per day that I advise on a regular basis. Difference is not like a half is half a dozen. A dozen kids, the same ones every day? No, no, they come every other day. Sometimes I get 30-40 questions a day about just this issue. Tell me this issue. Baruch Hashem, rabbis, young kids, Jews, non-Jews, all types of people, people realize this is a problem and Some of the comments that you see under these shiurim, you see all these shiurim on the internet, you go on my website, you go to the YouTube page, you see the comments that people make under these shiurim, it's mamash, it breaks your heart. They tell you, listen, I knew I had a problem, and now I know this is it.

10:15Listened to what you said a year ago. I stopped. I stopped touching my brit. You stop action when my whole life has changed. One woman tells me it fixed a mental illness. Another person told me it helped him find a shidduch. All types of fantastic things happen to people that protect their brit, and all types of damage happen to people that do not. Now, Rabbeinu Nachman Breslover, alav ha-shalom, says that all of a man's problems come from the brit, and... You have a problem. You're lacking money. You don't have a shidduch. You don't understand the Torah that you're learning. Somebody hit you and didn't say, "I'm sorry." Somebody bumped into your car and ran away. All types of issues people have in their life. He says, all of it is connected to the brit. Why? If you don't fix your brit, that's the first thing you go to. Don't say it's because you didn't give enough tzedakah. No, no. First thing, brit. Needless to say, if you don't keep anything. But the point I'm trying to tell you is that if you're keeping already, but you still have a lot of problems, Rabbeinu Nachman Breslover says it's connected to the brit. So everyone needs to do teshuva, and teshuva for Pegam HaBrit is extensive because the Arizal writes, based on the Zohar HaKadosh, that for every time a man wasted seed, he has to fast 84 times. Now, since we're a weak generation

11:33the Tanya HaKadosh and many of the Chachamim of Yudaya and other sages have said, listen. We're in a weak generation; people are not going to be able to fast 84 times for every single time they wasted seed. You know, a guy wasted seed three times in a week, four times in a week, and already he lost his parnassah for the month, and... A guy went through his teenage years, didn't even know there's anything wrong. The guy's already in a deficit to Hashem for four or five million dollars. One kid told me this. He's 25 years old. He says, I owe Hashem four million dollars. That's what he said. I don't know. I didn't make this up. That's what he said. You think he's the only one? I got thousands of them. Thousands of kids like this. They didn't know it's bad. And he went to yeshiva. So the point is, this is a very, very expensive crime. Now, HaKadosh Baruch Hu does not expect you to pay $4 million if you don't have $4 million. What does He expect you to pay? He expects you to pay what you have. You have $400 a month? You pay $400 a month. You have $1,000 a month that you could donate? You donate $1,000. You have $10 a month? Donate $10 a month. HaKadosh Baruch Hu knows your bank account, by the way. He doesn't need the code.

12:49He doesn't need to call for your bank account. He has it, they let Him. TD, marriage, all those accounts, they have a deal with HaKadosh Baruch Hu, they let Him see your bank account. He knows what you have. He even knows when you're going to get a raise. And guess what? People that do kiruv get raises. They get all types of raises. HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants to see how much you care, how much you care. Now, This is something that is going to help a person in multiple ways. Number one, when you donate to the campaign, you're donating for us to get more and more CDs. I would love to get a million, a million and a half CDs. Why? Because if I could spread a million and a half CDs all over the country, all over the world, you're talking about somewhere in the range of 10% of the Jewish world and somewhere in the neighborhood of about 20% of the English-speaking world. That's a lot. It's a lot of people. Guess what? A lot of people are going to do teshuva with that. Even if you do a horrible estimate of 1% do teshuva, 15,000 people do teshuva, it's amazing. Or 150,000 people. No, 15,000. 15,000 people do teshuva, it's enormous numbers. One person does teshuva, it's worth it. Now, this helps the person that donates and also helps the person that receives it. And the reason why is because when a person donates for this, every time that person that did teshuva with your dollar,

14:09Every time he would have done it, guess what? That repairs the damage you have done for yourself. That means that account of four million dollars doesn't necessarily need to be four million dollars anymore and... doesn't necessarily need to be four million dollars. You don't need it. You continue to donate, but the account goes down in both directions. It goes down in the direction that you are donating actual money because you keep buying more CDs, more USBs, and more different things. But even more so, it goes down because you're actually getting results. Now, if you just give that four or five hundred dollars to, let's say, a yeshiva, and somebody is learning because of you, that's good. However, it's not going to help you in the same way. It's not going to help you as much because no one's doing teshuvah. We have a break in the yeshiva from your $500, and... So this is, Rabotai, mamash a ticket to Olam HaBa. Now, because of demand and because I like to hear what people say, we've continued publishing and will continue publishing CDs because CDs are the best tool in the world to do kiruv. Number one, they're cost-effective. Number two, even if you don't have a CD player, it's still a fantastic flyer.

15:19So even if you don't have a CD player in your house, you're so modern, you don't have CDs. You don't have a CD in your laptop, you don't have a CD in your desktop, you don't have a CD anywhere. Okay, you're rare, but it exists in the world. No problem. You're going to look at it. You're going to see a very cool picture that Team B'Siyata D'Shmaya made on both sides. You're going to be interested. You're going to open it. You're going to say, okay, let me look this up on the internet. And voila, you have it all over the internet. our channel, different people host our shiurim, our content, and many, many different people all over the world put our material on their websites to help people do teshuva. So that's why sometimes I'll tell you a video hit a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand viewers, and you go look it up yourself, you see only fifty thousand or ten thousand or five thousand. Don't call me a liar; it's just that it's listed in many different places. The point being, Rabotai, is that the cities are a fantastic place to be because they're relatively cost-effective. For a few dollars, you can get people to do teshuva. But since we are living in the modern world, we also have the app, the new app that came out. We have a new updated app. new Be'ezrat Hashem app. It's available both on Android and on Apple. You want to download the app so you can watch all of these shiurim on the app on a regular basis. Every single guy, whether you are watching your brit already or you're not, you should have this on your playlist on a regular basis. Every week, you should learn a little bit about this because there's no one that's above the immorality crime; everyone is a suspect.

16:44Everyone is a suspect. Now, some people are gonna tell you, "Wait a minute. But if it was such a big deal, then how come the Gedolei HaDor didn't talk about it?" Did you check the Gedolei HaDor? Are you saying that they didn't talk about it? Baruch Hashem, the Gedolei HaDor did talk about it. The Shulchan Aruch talked about it. It says it's the worst sin in the Torah. You have something bigger than that? You say, "Oh, but you don't want something more modern." Okay. Recently, we found in Igrot Moshe, Rav Moshe Feinstein writes in his teshuvot, Igrot Moshe in Chelek Tet... He writes that teaching about Pagam HaBrit must be done in all schools and to all suspected people. Sadly, Rav Moshe Feinstein did not know that just fast forward 67 years after him, we're going to live in a generation where pretty much every single man is a suspect. Rav Moshe Feinstein writes you have to teach the issues of arayot, of Pagam HaBrit, to every single person.

17:59Why? A person doesn't do teshuva for wasting seed, and has no chelek l'Olam HaBa. Now, since some people are saying, "Yeah, I like it, I like the whole idea, it's fantastic, but, you know, I only have a USB." So, because we love you and because we love Am Yisrael, we, Baruch Hashem, are also going to come out with a new USB. This cute little thing is a USB. And everything that you have on those CDs, you can have on this little USB. And it opens up in a really cool way, and you have yourself a USB with, Baruch Hashem, even more than what's actually on those CDs. The CDs have almost 57 shiurim and nine movies. Here, there's more. There's even more information on the USB because it's bigger. It has more room. Point being, you put this in your car, you're going to hear audio. You put this in your computer, or if you have a screen, you put it into some of the screens, you'll have visual. Also coming out, the only problem with this is it's a lot more expensive. So, we can't give it out for free everywhere. This, you're talking about a ton more money. But, b'ezrat Hashem, we'll sell them on the website for anyone who wants, and if anyone wants to sponsor them and so on, you can get them. But the point is, this is also now. When are all of these going to come out? We don't have much money, so we couldn't order that much. But, b'ezrat Hashem, the first batch that we were able to afford, the first couple of hundred thousand, and...

19:27Going to be coming probably, b'ezrat Hashem, within the next month and a half, so somewhere around the middle of February we'll have the first batch. The first batch of the first batch. But the rest, we need to raise a whole lot more money. So again, how about I mention this to you because this is what we learned from the Gemara. We know that Rebbe Yehuda HaNasi, Rebbe HaKadosh, was very, very rich and... He was from the family of Rabban Gamliel, which was the lineage of David HaMelech. They were very, very wealthy. But yet it says that Rebbe HaKadosh, every time there was an opportunity to open a new school, a new yeshiva, every time there was a new Sefer Torah, every time there were chesed opportunities, and you need to raise a lot of money, he'd call his friends, his rich friends. My asks why why he has all the money in the world. He has hundreds of horses, tons of cities. He's very rich. What does he need to call his friends? We need the money was for what? Because, no, no, no, he wants to give them the zechut. He wants to share because he cares about them. He wants to share this mitzvah, give them opportunities also to go to Olam HaBa. What kind of Olam HaBa is it gonna be if none of your friends are there?

20:46So, Rabotai, this is an opportunity for anyone who cares for his own neshama. As Rabbeinu Yonah says in Shaarei Teshuva, a person who does not do teshuva is a person who will say to himself when he gets to the Beit Din of Shamayim that he was vicious to his own soul and... Forget about being vicious to all the people that you lied to and cheated on and all that. No, no, the neshama. You say, "How could I be so vicious to my own soul? How could I be so vicious?" Why? Because people plan for a life that's a thousand years, because everyone thinks they're gonna live forever. So they have bank accounts with enough money that's gonna last them five generations. They don't know that they may not even live half a generation themselves. So you have a guy, just recently, a guy—a passed away, me skin. I think he was maybe 52 or 53. Now, he wasn't exactly prepared to die at 52 or 53. Especially, he wasn't prepared to die with millions of dollars in the bank. His plan was to do a lot of big things with this money—buy more buildings, buy more houses. You know, maybe donate a few dollars. But guess what? He died. So now he has double punishment: one for all the things he didn't do, and...

22:10And one for the things he did. Things he did. If you didn't do enough teshuva, you have a very serious problem. But the worst part of it all is for all the things he didn't do. Why? Because he had the money. He had the ticket to get himself into Olam Haba. If you would have simply taken some of the money, instead of buying another building, another 15 houses, another this, another that, you would have taken the money, published another million or two million CDs and USBs and all types of things to help Klal Yisrael do teshuva. Guess what? He'd go up to Shamayim and they'd give him a red carpet. Oh, Tzadik Yesod Olam, why? This guy just helped Klal Yisrael do teshuva. But no, he said, no, I'll do it, but later on. Well, guess what? Later on never happened. Later on never happened. This is what every single person needs to know. One of the downsides of dealing with the public, rabotai, is that you deal with a lot of people and, unfortunately, you get to know about a lot of people dying. And unfortunately, in just the last year and a half, two years,

23:12I had people tell me that their kid, who was a year and a half old, died, Hashem yerachem, to people in their 50s who died. Or one woman who, to this day, sends me messages crying, miskena, it breaks my heart. One day, her seven-year-old daughter, seven years old, mamash, nothing, everything's perfect, gets sick, and two days later, she dies. No one knows why. Seven years old, shetamech shemo. We don't go and complain to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Obviously, HaKadosh Baruch Hu knows what He's doing. But do you think anybody in their wildest dreams thought that a seven-year-old even has a chance of something like this? You get a cold, you're gonna die two days later? Rabotai, every person needs to look at life like this. Every person. Especially if you have opportunities and you have the ability to help your own neshamah. Don't think that you could do it by yourself. You have to help Klal Yisrael. Now, some people ask, how come Some of the announcements that we make seem so melodramatic, like it's all going to end tomorrow. And that's part of what we're going to talk about today. The Ramban writes in his Iggeret, in his letter to his son, in his letter to us, over 800 years ago. Last week he told us that you should act with restraint. You should be embarrassed. Have some embarrassment. Be shy.

24:42some shame when you deal with any type of person, whether the person is a rabbi, your spouse, a teacher, a colleague, or even if it’s a homeless person in the streets. Everybody, you should have a little bit of shame, have a little bit of kavod for every single person, but also for yourself. Don’t think of yourself as being above people. One of the places that we learn this from is actually this week's parasha, and Parashat Shemot, we're starting a new sefer in the Chumash, and we learn in Parashat Shemot. Now, if I ask you, where do we learn about being shy? About being shamefaced? About being humble? First-time person's name. I'm not gonna ask you for a quote. Don't worry. You know I'm not gonna ask you for a verse. Take it easy. Easy on you guys. I'll ask you for a name. Who is the first person we learn about humility from in Sefer Shemot? Satan? Moshe. No, who has a different name? Moshe. Moshe and Moshe. Okay, so they're twins. Twins. We have two Moshes in Parashat Shemot. Moshe, the baby version, and Moshe, the adult version.

26:08Give me somebody else. Somebody else means not Moshe. And if you say Moshe, it's still Moshe. Like if you just change the pronunciation, it's still the same person. Yitro. Okay, Yitro. Yitro, Yitro, but we learned about Moshe before Yitro, or Yitro before Moshe? Okay, so Yitro is another name, no? Miriam. Miriam. No, why Miriam? Miriam. Why Miriam? What did Miriam do that showed humility? She was willing to take care of Moshe. That's not humility. That's chesed. It's kindness. No, no, no, no, no, my genius. No, what's the... Before slavery or after slavery? Before slavery or after slavery, you're too complicated for me. I just want Sefer Shemot. Give me a name. He gave me a name. Why? Why is Moshe's father...

27:08Why is Moshe's father the first one that we hear? No, no, you heard this already from me. See, Rabotai, the Gemara says there are certain rules to the creation. If the Gemara says it, it's true. If you don't agree, we cannot count you in a minyan. Your Judaism is on suspension. The Gemara says, if a person speaks, how can he guarantee that what he says, you listen to? says if he has your mind, whatever comes out of his mouth, you're going to listen to. A person who has your mind doesn't have to convince you. He says something—high voice, low voice, middle voice—it doesn't make a difference. He says something, but Rabbeinu Yishmael, his words are listened to. So we see here that you guys combined an answer. What's Moshe's father's name? Don't tell me you already told me. I want to see if you're awake, huh?

28:09Amram, okay, so Baruch Hashem, one awake. Now, Moshe's father was the Gadol HaDor. The Gemara says he's one of four people that never sinned. And if it wasn't for the original sin of the Tree of Knowledge of Adam HaRishon, he would have never died. Now, being such a giant, That means if somebody comes to you and says, "I don't agree with you. I don't agree with you." You don't agree with me? How could you not? Who are you exactly? How many sefarim did you write? Nothing. How many sefarim did you read? I don't even know how to read. Oh, where did you go to school? I didn't go to school. Who is your father? I'm not sure. I'm an orphan. All right, so what basis do you have to disagree with me? Oh, I don't like what you have to say. Oh, that's why you don't agree with me, because you don't like what I say. But in the real world that we live in, you cannot just say, I don't agree with you based on your opinion. You have to show me facts.

29:19You cannot go to a doctor who's been a surgeon for 20, 30 years, and he says, "Listen, sir, here's the diagnosis, here's the procedure, this is what we're going to do. We're going to cut here, we're going to do this, we're going to do that, and that's what we're going to do." And you, with your ignorance, you don't even know how to pass biology class in 6th grade. You never passed it. All you know is that you looked at the next guy next to you, he was dissecting some frog, you got disgusted, you went to the bathroom, threw up, and for the rest of your life, you don't want to do anything about it. But you're going to tell the doc, "No, doc, I don't think it's the right diagnosis." Doug's going to tell you, "You're cute, you're cute. Bless your heart, bless your heart, bless your heart." That's a Southern way of saying, "You're an idiot." That's what he says, just "Bless your heart." Now, why? Because he says, "I have 40 years' experience in the medical world." I've cut hundreds and hundreds of people, and I sealed them back, and they all walked away perfectly alive. What did you cut? Your steak after it's dead, and it stayed dead? What did you cut? Nothing. You don't know anything. So if somebody comes to Amram, the Gadol HaDor, and says, "Kevod HaRav, I disagree with you," you better come with the proof. Now, Amram had a little daughter, a three- or four-year-old daughter...

30:39she saw that our father made a mistake. I'm a mistake because it says here that in the beginning of the parasha that Am Yisrael was blessed after Yosef HaTzaddik died. Things changed. They were blessed for 210 years that they were in Egypt. They were blessed that each birth was sixfold and... Every time a woman carried for nine months, six babies came out. And it's described that the chachamim say there are six different adjectives describing the growth of Am Yisrael. Each adjective stands for a baby. So, in a matter of a couple of hundred years, we went from being 70 people—70 people that Yaakov Avinu went down to... Egypt with millions and millions. Imagine, you start with 70 people. Okay, they get married. One generation later, you're already a few hundred. That few hundred already multiplies to a few thousand. That few thousand already to tens of thousands. Before you know it, a couple of hundred years later, you have millions and millions of people.

31:53Now it says, and this doesn't want any connection with the tradition of giving kavod to the Bnei Yisrael. No, no, no, I don't want any of this, he says. I don't like it. Look how many of these Israelites, these Jews, there are here. I don't like it. So what do we do? Let's fool them. Let's fool them and get them to work for us, work for the government, communism. Little by little he fools them, they start working for Paro. And before you know it, they're all slaves. Now if that's not enough, Paro, this rasha merusha that made Hitler look like a puppy, says they're still growing though, so you know what? From now on, we're going to start killing off every male baby because his necromancers told him that their salvation, their Mashiach, is going to come from a boy. So, let's kill every boy. So, every boy, we throw them into the ocean, we kill them. Other than that, there's a few killings. One type of kid, we throw them into the Nile River.

33:04let him drown. Another one is, if his father doesn't meet a quota of making enough stones, then we put the baby instead of the stone, Hashem yerachem. Oh, and plus, if that's not enough, Rabotai, Paro, the Midrash says, Paro had the machalat tzara'at. And his necromancers, they told him, "Listen, there's a cure." What's the cure? You have to bathe in Jewish blood every day, but it has to be babies. So he would slaughter 150 babies in the morning and 150 babies at night and take a bath in the blood. That's why if you look at some of the Midrashim, like the... For Pesach, the whole thing that you read for Pesach has some nice pictures. There's one fantastic artist. I forgot what his name is. I think it's Gad. Gad Palak. Gad Palak made a Haggadah. Fantastic. Why? Because it's not just drawings. It's drawings based on the Midrash. Meaning, you're seeing the Midrash come alive. This Haggadah, I have it in my house. I have fun with it. It's unbelievable. Now, you see in a Midrash, you see Paro bathing in mamash blood.

34:11And that's how I was, and many other things. Sometimes it's good to see pictures. Why? Because it gives you an illustration of what nightmare we have gone through for you to be Jewish. Needless to say, what you have to sacrifice in order to stay Jewish. 3,300 years. 3,300 years your ancestors have been fighting for you to be Jewish. Are you going to throw it all away? So now, rabotai ha'yekarim, Amram, the gadol ha'dor, saw what was happening to all the Jewish babies. They were being killed in various ways. Poor kids hadn't even made a sin. They were being killed day and night. He said, "Okay, Yocheved, my wife, Yocheved, I love you, but I have to let you go." Why did he have to let her go? Because if they were going to be together, they would have a baby. And if they had a baby, Pharaoh would kill him. So, he said, "I'm sorry, but I have to go." She cries, but what's she going to do? She says, "Okay, he's right. What can he do? Never sinned in his life."

35:17So he's there. All of a sudden, a little three-year-old with diapers on says, "Hey, Abba." Abba is with his friends. He's learning. He's teaching Torah. The Leviim were learning Torah. They weren't slaves. The Leviim were learning Torah. He wasn't a slave. Don't think for a second that he was picking up stones. He was crying over Am Yisrael. But he was learning Torah. He was learning Torah with the other Leviim, with Ruach HaKodesh. You got a little three-year-old with diapers on. He goes, "Excuse me, Abba." He's embarrassed. Why? He sees this little three-year-old over here. Comes to the Beit Midrash. It's embarrassing. Okay. Especially if it's a girl, you know. "Yes, honey. You lost your bottle somewhere? You need something? What happened?" "Abba, I just wanted to let you know..." your decree is worse than... it's like, imagine your kid saying, "The punishment you just gave, the decision you just made, is worse than Hitler's." By the time they land, they're four years old.

36:41Where? Next to my friends you're embarrassed? Where? Huh? What do you mean? Worse than Hitler? How could you say such a thing? You react. If you're an animal. Amram is not an animal. You know what Amram did? Amram says, my dear daughter, why am I worse than Paro? Why am I worse than Hitler? Little Miriam says to him, Abba, You see, the decree of Paro was only to kill the boys. Your decree to divorce Ima kills both the boys and the girls. Now, no boys or girls are going to come. The decree of Paro came from a rasha, and a rasha, what he says, doesn't always come true. But the decree from you, Abba, you're a tzaddik; your decree has to come true, which means everybody's going to do what you're doing. Everybody's going to divorce their wives. You're killing Am Yisrael worse than Paro. Now, Rabotai HaYekarim, is she right or is she wrong? She's 100% right. But you know what? Sometimes little kids tell us something and they're right, but you don't want to admit it. Why? Because they're little. Because they're little. We have big egos. They're little. We can take advantage. I know more than you. Why? I have underwear older than you. What are you talking about?

38:10Why? Because you have an ego. You don't want to hear this little kid tell you what to do. Now, rabotai, when you're an ish kodesh, it doesn't matter who is telling you what they're telling you. That's why HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, Hashem opened the mouth of the donkey to tell you if the emet, if the truth comes from a donkey, listen to the donkey too. It doesn't make a difference where the truth comes from. That's on the side of Amram. But how did Miriam have the zechut to be the deliverer of the truth, that her truth would be heard? Because many people say the truth, let's say, but not everybody's heard. How come Miriam got the zechut? It's a Pasuk Meforash. It's a Pasuk Meforash, Rabotai Yekarim, where it says that Pharaoh told the two women who were the caretakers, delivering babies, to kill the Jewish babies—Shifra and Puah. And they didn't want to do it. Why didn't they want to do it?

39:30Because the midwives feared God, He made them houses. They didn't want to kill the Jewish babies, no matter what Pharaoh did. You're going to listen to me and not Pharaoh? You fear Me? No problem. I'm going to even make you nice houses in this world. So now, what does Shifra and Puah have to do with Miriam? The Gemara says, who are Shifra and Puah? Shifra and Puah are different names for Miriam and her mother, Yocheved. Puah is called that because she used to blow into the baby, as sometimes the baby would be born but not able to breathe. So, these are different descriptions of the things they did in order to bring the babies to life and save them. But the point is, Rabotai, is that Shifra and Puah are Yocheved and her daughter Miriam, and clearly we see they had Yirat Shamayim. And if you have Yirat Shamayim, HaKadosh Baruch Hu allows all of your words to be heard. And they're heard, and they're listened to, and they're followed. So here we see that the first person that we saw humility from is Amram.

40:54Why? Because Amram had all the opportunities in the world to reject this three-year-old. But because of her own kedusha, he had to listen to her words. And because of his own kedusha, he had to follow too. And he says, "You're right, Miriam. Do me a favor. Make me a shidduch. Shidduch, call your mom. Tell her I want to marry her again. A thousand dollars on each side you get. Shidduch, shidduch. Shidduch." And guess what? Because Amram stood up for the truth even though it was inconvenient. Because Amram admitted the truth even though it was embarrassing. Because Amram admitted the truth even though it was in front of people and they're never gonna ever forget it. Guess what? HaKadosh Baruch Hu rewarded him in this world. He gave him a son from that marriage called Moshe Rabbeinu, the ultimate deliverer of the truth. You stood up for the truth even though it was inconvenient, even though it was embarrassing, even though it was the opposite of what you thought. I'll bring the truth from you. See, here we see, Rabotai, that the Ramban writes that you have to be shame-faced in front of every person, meaning that no matter if it's a three-year-old, a thirty-year-old, or a three-hundred-year-old, it doesn't make a difference. Meaning you have to make sure that you evaluate things objectively.

42:19and not based on your own self-consciousness or your own ego, and so on. But now he continues, and he says if a person were to call you out, don't answer with a loud voice, but respond gently in a low tone, as one who stands before his rabbi. So here the Ramban writes us another tool of how to do teshuva. Every week we hear we have to do teshuva, we have to do teshuva, we have to do teshuva, but for the last few weeks the Ramban has been giving us actual tools. Actual tools of how to do teshuva. So he tells us that first and foremost, be shame-faced and shy in front of others. But further than that, there's a certain behavioral trait you have to have, certain types of things you need to do, which is that you have to speak in a certain voice where you're not going to scare people away. Why? Because your tone doesn't necessarily mean whether you're loud or you're low or you have a deep voice or you have one of these creaky voices. It's not that.

43:41Your tone, your demeanor has extraordinary power. The power of speech has the power to connect you to people, has the power to disconnect you from people, has the power to make people laugh, has the power to make people scared, has the power to make people cry. Sometimes you see certain people watching something and they start crying, but they don't even know why. watch something and they watch this little girl call her ima and it's not really her ima, it's just an actress, but they watch and they start crying. Or they see some, you know, some big bear looking for the baby bear and you got the whole thing, and they start crying because you got little bears, panda bears on some Coca-Cola commercial or something, and you start crying for no reason. You have no idea why. Yeah, something's happening there, Rabotai, something's happening there. No... Your voice, Rabotai, has extraordinary power. Your tone, even more so. Now, the Gedolim knew this, and they communicated to their talmidim in certain ways. And the Rambam writes that although a person must be extreme when it comes to anger to stay away from it, if he's a teacher, if he's a rabbi,

45:08The Rambam writes that if he is a teacher, if he's a rabbi, and he has students that are messing around every two seconds—they get up, they go out, they go in—they're looking at their phone in the middle of the shiur, they fall asleep every single time, they ask questions that don't mean anything just to bust chops, all types of things like this. The Rambam writes the rabbi has to act like he's mad to scare them. Why? To stop messing around. Now, if the person is always scary, then what's the difference? But what happens if someone who is usually not so scary becomes scary? That's scary. So one of the Gedolei HaDor in the previous generation was Rav Tzion Abba Shaul. Rav Tzion Abba Shaul was the chavruta of Rav Ovadia for many decades. They studied as little kids together, and both became the giants of the generation.

46:11Rav Tzion Abba Shaul was known as a very soft, peaceful person, who would run away from machloket. I know one of his talmidim, and it was an issue, a very big issue one time, that we asked him for help on, to see if we would be able to join the fight. And he said, "Listen, I agree with everything that you're saying, you're right, but I cannot join the fight." I said, "Why not?" He says, "Because my rabbi is Rav Tzion Abba Shaul." He says, "Run away from fights. Right or wrong, that's how he learned for 50–60 years. What are you gonna tell him? Okay, don't do it, go against your rabbi? The point is, my opinion didn't matter at this point. So just so you know, this is what it is now. Rav Tzion Abba Shaul had extraordinary students who came from him. One time, two young guys were in a shiur with him and..." The Rav was simplifying his Torah. He would tell people he's only going to be allowed to go to Gan Eden, he's only going to be allowed to go to Olam HaBa not because of his Torah, but rather because of how hard he has to work to simplify it for 14-year-olds. Now, one time there were a couple of students and

47:32Simply didn't get the point, so every two seconds they started bothering the Rav with more questions. "Yeah, what about this? But what about this? But what about that? And this one, and that one, and this one, and that one, and this one?" They just wouldn't get it and disturbed the whole class, disturbed the whole shiur. It was one after another, after another, after another. It just seemed like the whole thing became a joke, and... So Rav Tzion Abba Shaul, who was known for his very calm demeanor, suddenly ga'ar bahem—roared at them, barked at them, as we say in street language. He scared them to death. They understood who the Gadol HaDor was. After that, they evaluated their own actions and realized they had made a very serious mistake. They judged themselves harshly to the extent where they said, "We don't have the merit to learn under such a giant. So let's go and apologize to Rav Tzion and leave. Tell him goodbye. We're sorry." So they came, even though they were scared now because he just barked at them a little while ago. But what are you going to do? You have to say goodbye. He was their teacher; he's the rabbi. You cannot just leave without saying goodbye and apologizing.

48:52They come to the Kevod HaRav. "Can we speak to you?" "Yes?" You see, he still has the image. It was scary. The lion just roared. You don't want to mess with him. He says, "Kevod HaRav, we're very, very sorry for what we did. And we realized that we don't have the merit to study under such a giant. And we're going to leave. We're going to leave the yeshiva." Suddenly, Rav Ben Zion Abba Shaul's demeanor changed in a second. All of a sudden, he becomes the softest thing you've ever seen in your life. He says, "What do you mean you're going to leave? You're my sons. How could a son leave his father? A son can't leave a father. You can't abandon your father. I don't permit you, my children, to leave me."

49:55I was fulfilling the Torah, as the Rambam says, that when kids are fooling around and start messing around, all you gotta do is bark at them once in a while to make sure they go back into shape. I was just fulfilling the Torah. I wasn't really angry at you. You're my children. You're my sons. You cannot leave your father. That's a Rav, that's a Rav. Sometimes you have rabbis that do the first part, the yelling part, and... When the kids come and say, "I'm sorry," you don't get the other part. Just today, I heard a father tell me that his daughters go to this seminary, and the teacher woke up on the wrong side of the bed, and the kids react to a teacher that's this way and... You know, the kids are like sponges. These little kids, six, seven, eight, nine, ten-year-old kids, they’re like sponges. You're in a bad mood, they're in a bad mood. You don't want to be there, they don't want to be there. That's how it works. So the kids were messing around, and his daughter wasn't actually one of them that was messing around, but she happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. She decided to take a paper that someone threw on the floor, pick it up, and throw it in the garbage.

51:20That's all she decided, the victim here. This is not a criminal. She put a paper in the garbage. The teacher, you know, like with the red thing right there. That's going to be the korban, the sacrifice for everybody else. Starts barking at this kid, poor little girl. Starts yelling, "You're going to the principal's office." And the principal in that place is like the Malach HaMavet. The woman that runs this school is our best friend. The principal says to the kids, all the kids, "You're going to all stay outside in the freezing cold for the next few hours until I decide to let you in." The kids are freezing. They don't know what they are going to do. There are no cell phones; it's a religious school, not a public school. They're outside, they're freezing, they don't know how long it's going to be. Eventually, they let her in. Now, while they're outside, this little girl, smart girl, she comes from Baruch Hashem, a good family. She said, you know what? This is what we're going to do. She didn't really do anything wrong. What did she do? She threw a paper in the garbage. The other kids didn't do anything wrong. All criminals. While outside, okay, let's write a letter. Let's write a letter to the principal saying how much we're sorry.

52:35Your principal, I mean principal, we are really sorry. We're sorry for disobeying the rules of the school. A little girl on her own, a 10-year-old girl, thought about this fantastic idea. I wish I could get 30-year-olds to do this. Sorry for doing something we didn't really do, but anyway, they do it. I'm sorry. They come to the principal, and if I were the principal, I'd start crying with the kids. I said, "You're never going to be able to do whatever you want from now on." Oh, it's such a letter. You stop watching, oh, you know, whatever you want. No, throw the paper. That's such a fantastic letter. There's nothing for me to teach you anymore. I become the student; you become the teacher. You can write such a letter on your own, ten years old. This is shite. Takes the letter, rips it up in front of all the kids, "I don't accept it," throws it like this, and... That's why I said Malach HaMavet. What do you think, I call people names for no reason? And now she's demanding all of the kids to get their parents to write a letter apologizing. This is what we have. This is what we have. This is what we have. The father said, "I think I'm going to use a tractor and go into her office with it before I write that letter."

53:53But this is what we have, rabotai. Why? It's all ego. It's all ego. You're allowed to rebuke. You're allowed to even raise your voice if it has good intentions, if you are under control, if you're not losing your mind. But once you start acting based on anger, you're no longer allowed to rebuke, you're no longer allowed to teach, you're no longer allowed to do anything. One rabbi came to Rav Tzadka. started complaining about one of the students in his yeshiva. He says, "For the love of Hashem, I want your heter (permission) to throw this kid out. This kid is a rasha (wicked). When I talk, he talks also. If that's not enough, he starts distracting all the other kids. He eats seeds, you know, sunflower seeds, in the class and throws them at people. This kid is one of those rotten kids. He can't sit, can't stand, nothing. I want to throw him out." Between you and me, I don't even know why he's asking. I would have already thrown this kid out. But that's why I'm not him. Rav Tzadka says, "Wait a minute. Did you fast for this boy?" He says, "What? No, no, he's alive. What do you mean? Resurrection? Why do I fast? Why do I fast for what? Why do I fast? He's alive, the kid. He's just torturing me."

55:20Rav Tzadka says to him, "If you didn't fast about this boy to do teshuva for 40 days, how dare you even think that you're allowed to throw him out? How dare you even think that you're allowed to throw him out? You have to pray for this boy to do teshuva. You have to help this kid do teshuva. That's the point of the teacher. It's not so easy though. Why? Because the kid's throwing seeds on you." That's what the previous generation of great olim that came out of that generation didn't accomplish by themselves. They succeeded because they toiled and persevered, but they also had extraordinary rabbanim. In today's world, it is very, very hard to find rabbis that are willing to sacrifice their lives for strangers. But we see from here, Rabotai, that speech, how you communicate to people, matters quite a bit. And that's why the Mishnah in Pirkei Avot, in the first chapter, fourth Mishnah, says do not speak too much to the woman. And this is referring to your own wife.

56:38Why don't speak to your own wife too much? He says if you speak too much to your wife, that means that you're going to waste a lot of time. That means you're not going to learn Torah, and for sure, you're both going to go to Gehinom. That's what the Mishnah says. If you remember, we had a two-and-a-half-year series about Mishnayot. This, I believe, is maybe the fourth or fifth shiur of how you're limited in how much you have to speak, even with your own wife. And then the Mishnah continues, needless to say, with someone who is not your wife. If you're not allowed to speak to your own wife too much, you know, some guys, they go home, they park. They become like one of the girls. They speak to their wife for three, four, five, six-hour conversations about absolutely nothing. Or what is she doing? Or what are they doing this weekend? Do you want to join them for Shabbat? Do you want to do this? Do you want to do that? Do, do, do, talk. Oh, don't shut up. When are you going to learn Torah? People always tell me, listen, I don't know if I have time to learn Torah. I say, what do you do? What's your schedule? Do you work till 11 o'clock at night? He goes, no, no, I get home at 6 o'clock.

57:38What do you do up to six o'clock? Well, you know, I have dinner. Okay, dinner 15 minutes. No, after you eat, 15-20 minutes, everyone makes it seem like dinner is three hours. 15 minutes max, and that's a big dinner. No, after you eat, then what? I relax, I talk to the wife. Okay, so you talk to the wife. No, then what? I'm tired already. I'm like, how long did you talk to your wife? Talked to her for an hour. Okay, so you still, it's 7:30, 8 o'clock. Okay, finished. What, were you trying to solve the world's problems and now you're finished? Okay? It's still early. It's 8 o'clock. He goes, "No, no, by the time we finish hanging out, you know, it's late. It's already 11 o'clock." I said, "A three-hour conversation? I'd be tired also." A three-hour conversation already gives you time to tell the rest of the world what you talk about for so long. How about time? You have to understand... if what you're saying is valuable, you don't need too many words. Usually, the things that are not valuable require a lot of wasted time. So a person needs to know that he has to even limit his own communication with his wife. You want to learn Torah with her, that's perfect, and

58:57Shua together, that's fantastic, but just socializing and talking about strangers, talking about people you know, talking about family—all that stuff does not require that much time. And even then, you have to limit it because it cannot be at the cost of your learning Torah. But needless to say, the Mishnah here is also teaching us another lesson. It's not just a waste of time, but also the way you talk to women, the way you talk to men, many times... see this and I see how women communicate to men and men communicate to women in an absolutely forbidden way without saying anything outright Without saying anything outright, like, for example, many times you see so-called religious women making a comment on, I don't know, some other guy's Facebook post or whatever social media post, saying something like "You're looking good," or the guy says to the girl "You're looking good." Who says you're allowed to give another person a...

1:00:09Compliment about how they look. If she is your wife, then you're allowed. If she is not your wife, it's a serious issue. Needless to say, publicly people do it freely, people do it nonchalantly. They talk about personal issues... I just... How are you doing? Oh, everything is good. I just got out of the shower. What a shame! You have him on then? Who? What? What do you mean? Why are you telling him that you just got out of the shower? Why are you telling? I just got out of the shower. Why do they need these extra two words? What, to make the Malach HaMavet, the satan, the... It's not all of the park in his head, or just one of them? People, you have to understand, modesty is not just clothing. Modesty is also where your eyes go. Modesty is also what comes into your mouth, what comes out of your mouth, what comes into your ears, what comes out of your ears. It's all a scope of modesty. You have to understand that every single thing that you do has to be calculated.

1:01:17The best yet is when people say, okay, I'll talk to you soon. XOXO. Or one of these nonsensical things that people put, like the emojis, they put a heart sign to just strangers. To just complete strangers. A heart sign. Oh, we miss you. We miss you. You're my wife. You're my husband. We miss you. Where does this "miss you"? Where does this XOXO? Where in the Torah does it say such a thing is allowed? Now, you're going to say, ah, come on, you're strict, you're fanatic, you're like Daesh, you're like ISIS. Okay, Rabotai, if the statistics of divorce were not 80%, then most likely I wouldn't even mention this. But when the statistics show that 80% of marriages in the Western world end within the first five years, meaning it's a complete waste of time, it's a complete waste of time. And now the statistics show that even in the religious world, the numbers are nowhere near the same. They're not 80%, but they're also increasing. They've more than quadrupled in the last 10 or 15 years. You start asking questions. Where are we going wrong? Many times we're going wrong in the way we communicate with the opposite sex. Just because your wife is friends with her doesn't mean that you're allowed to be friends with her.

1:02:41because your husband is friends with him doesn't mean you're allowed to be friends with him. Adultery happens between friends. It doesn't happen with complete strangers. The wife doesn't find some homeless guy in the street that she gave a dollar to and say, "You know what? I like you. Let's go." That doesn't happen. You know what happens? She likes his best friend. And since he's foolish enough to allow his best friend to come for coffee, even when he's not there, guess what? The best friend becomes a best friend. And the same thing vice versa. Adultery happens between friends. It doesn't happen with strangers. The wife doesn't find some homeless guy in the street that she gave a dollar to and say, "You know what? I like you. Let's go." That doesn't happen. You know what happens? She likes his best friend. And since he's foolish enough to allow his best friend to come for coffee, even when he's not there, guess what? The best friend becomes a best friend. And the same thing vice versa. They did a recent statistic in Eretz Yisrael. They said that women cheat as much or more than men on their husbands. Something completely unheard of in history. Why? We have no concept of what modesty is. We treat people as if it's nothing. They call it today in the English world platonic relationships. Oh, I'm not used to not having any guy friends. This religious stuff is tough.

1:03:56You know how many women tell me this? Because you said in one of your shiurim that a woman is not allowed to have guy friends. This is really tough for me. All my friends are guys. I said, yeah, and every single one of those guys has made countless sins because of you. No, it's not like that. For you maybe, but for him it is. No, but I'm married. He's not. No, but he's married, so... Rabotai, you have to wake up, you have to understand, HaKadosh Baruch Hu created a human being, and that human being has an evil inclination. That's why HaKadosh Baruch Hu made rules in the Torah in order to save your marriage, in order to save your sanity, in order to save you an enormous amount of headache and heartache from having divorces, from having to deal with this nightmare. There's a mitzvah of Yichud. You have to understand this mitzvah like you understand the back of your hand. You have to know that you are allowed to be with the opposite gender, if it's your wife, anytime you want. If it's not your wife, there are limited conditions. If your wife is there also, if the door is open, different things. We're not going to go into all the halachot, but the point is, Rabotai, you cannot just think that you can be friends with the opposite gender. That's never allowed.

1:05:20In fact, the Rambam writes, even kissing on the cheek of his own sister, his own older sister, is only done by foolish people. That's the Rambam's language. The Rambam's language says only foolish people kiss their own sister. This is 900 years ago, before the filth swamped the world. But guess what? Today, I think people say, "Ah, no, come on! His own sister! That's crazy! Rambam's a fanatic!" Well, guess what? I'm going to give you a disgusting statistic to show you how holy the Rambam was 900 years ago to teach us. More than we could even imagine. Unfortunately, part of the research... Looking into the addiction of pornography, you find some disgusting facts. One of the most disgusting facts is that the most common pornography that people are attracted to is arayot, meaning incest, as if the storyline is talking about incest and

1:06:33That's what people are attracted to. Why? Because they're already looking for taboo. One guy, one girl is not enough for the average sick mind. They want something else. They want the storyline to talk about a mom and a kid, a father with a daughter, or some type of filth to take the regular filth to the next level. You know, to the tenth power. Which means, if that's what people watch, that's what people think about, that's what people want. The Rambam, 900 years ago, when he said you're not even allowed to kiss your sister, you idiot, he wasn't exaggerating. He wasn't exaggerating. He was telling us, this is what's going to happen to you. You allow yourself something that you think is not a big deal, guess what? Before you know it, it's a big deal. Unfortunately, today in America, in Israel, and in Europe, there are constant trials over the permission of incest. Unfortunately, a father wants to marry his daughter, a daughter wants to marry her father, brothers want to marry each other, and so on and so forth. This is everywhere in the world. Unfortunately, many times they've won the cases and were allowed to do it. So...

1:07:53When the Torah tells us to be careful with the words you choose, needless to say, with the actions you take. Now, when a person communicates in a certain way, he's going to get different results. There was one time, a father who was illiterate, didn't know how to read or write, sent his son away to go learn. He told him, "Any time you need some money, just send me a telegram." Most of you guys probably don't know what a telegram is. A telegram, about a hundred and fifty years ago or a hundred years ago, was like text messaging. The only difference is you didn't have a phone. There was an office, like a post office type of place, where they would use Morse code. You probably don't know what Morse code is. Different machines that they would take on did it. Anyway, Morse code was like text messaging a hundred years ago. Once they got this telegram, a person would come to the recipient and say, "Oh, you got this telegram, and this is what it says. I need such and such; I want such and such." That's how they would communicate for war, for various needs, for commerce, and so on.

1:09:16When somebody would declare war, it was announced via telegram. There was no TV. The Chafetz Chaim says, we learn Mussar from a telegram. Why? You go to the telegram office and tell them, "Listen, I want to write a telegram to tell my friend his father passed away." So the telegram office says, "Okay, we have a minimum of ten words." I don't need ten words. I just said, your father passed away, so just a few words, three words. He goes, okay, whether you pay, whether it's three words, or it's ten words, same charge. Same charge. Okay, your father passed away, there's a good deal on furniture. What else are you going to do? Use the rest of the words. Chafetz Chaim says, from here we learn, we're going to pay for every word we say. From a telegram. From a telegram we learn, we're going to pay, in Shamayim, for every word we say. this father that was illiterate sent the son away and told him anytime you need money, send me a telegram and I'll send you money. So some time passed, the kid sends a telegram. The father gets the message, he goes and picks it up. He doesn't know how to read it, so he goes to the neighbor. Now, what he didn't know is that the neighbor was like Tisha B'Av that day and...

1:10:38The neighbor was in a bad mood. The IRS office had knocked on his door, saying, "Listen, we're coming back to audit you," and all types of bad news. His wife told him something he didn't like, so he said, "Listen, now, can you do me a favor? Can you read this for me?" The neighbor said, "Yeah, sure, here, give me. Abba, give me some money." "What? That's how my son talks to me?" The illiterate father says, "That's how my son talks to me," and... starts cursing the kid out. "I raised this kid all these years. Is this how he talks to me? He yells at me? Yes, I mean this rotten kid. I'm not sending him any money now!" A few weeks pass. The kid is waiting, waiting, waiting. He gets confirmation from the office that the telegram arrived. There's no problem, but no money arrived. So he sent another telegram. Same thing. The guy gets it, says to his neighbor, "Do me a favor, read this for me. This son of mine sent me this telegram." He's still mad. Two weeks later, he's still mad. Now that day, the neighbor was happy. Why? He got a raise at the job. His wife cooked him a nice meal because she wanted to celebrate with him. She was in a good mood. He reads the telegram: "Abba, please send me money."

1:11:52All of a sudden, the father's heart starts melting. He goes, "Oh, my son, my cute son. Of course I'm going to send you, bubele. Of course I'm going to send you some money. I'm going to send even more. Tell me where to put all this money. Tell me what to write. You write it for me. I'll tell you how much money to send." It was the same exact telegram. Just sent again. What happened? One time, the angry guy translated it how he wanted. He was angry, so he translated in an angry way. The second time, it was the same exact telegram, but in a nice way. Why was he happy? It's the same thing with our messages. Our speech is critical. The Rambam tells us that when someone calls you, speak to them with a calm tone and a low voice. He's telling you not to be one of these people who are always shouting, like in the shuk (market). You know, Ima, I need some coffee. No, don't be like one of those people. No one works for you. You have to understand that you have to act in a certain way. But does that mean that you're never allowed to raise your voice? Does that mean that you have to be like one of these monotone, robotic people? No. No. Now, if a person pays attention to the details, they'll see that he'll always win.

1:13:18It's very interesting. There's a spider that arrived from Arizona. He was watching my shiur in Arizona. One of my talmidim sent me a picture, and now he's arrived here in front of me. So it's a tikkun. He wants to watch a shiur. So now, it's just interesting. You arrive right in front of you. So now, you never know. Maybe it's a tikkun, gilgul. He probably came to a shiur five years ago, didn't want to come back, said this guy is... Come back as a spider. So now, now about I... Some people say, "Rabbi, how come you're yelling all the time? How come you're yelling all the time?" One time, I had a shiur, and a guy came to the shiur. It was a good shiur, baruch Hashem, and... After this, a guy comes in, he goes, and he starts asking me questions, saying hello at the door. And I start talking. It was the first time he's ever been at a shiur. It's like, "Wow, now you talk regular." And I asked, "What do you mean?" He replied, "Because all the time I watch you on shiurim on YouTube, and now I watch the shiur, you're yelling all the time. But now, you're just talking like a regular person. You're not yelling at me." I said, "What, do you think I yell all the time? Because..."

1:14:44Now, at that moment, I realized that he hadn't gotten the point. So to explain to him the real point wouldn't really make a difference. And, oh, you know, fluctuate your voice, you change your voice here and there. If after two hours you don't understand the reason why I'm yelling, you missed the whole point of the shiur. You missed the whole point of the shiur. Now, the thing is, though, is that if you are looking... some of the most successful kiruv rabbis that we've had in recent generations or in history, you would simply see the same exact thing. Whether you're talking about Rav Sholom Schwadron, if you hear any of his lectures, you don't have to understand a word that he's saying, you're already scared. He was one of the Gedolei Yisrael. He wasn't just a regular rabbi, he was a giant. You hear the shiurim by Rav Nissim Yagen, alav hashalom. On the smallest things that we don't even think are important, he would get you to a point where you're shaking and you become an expert in it.

1:15:57Starts talking normal, he tells you a joke here and there, and then all of a sudden it's like he yells, "Wash your hands! Wash your hands!" You're scared; you have no idea why he said that so loudly, but you're scared to death. From now on, you're going to wash every single time you leave the bathroom. He had a power of speech unlike any other—something unbelievable and... Highly, highly recommend anyone that speaks Hebrew to listen to it. I mean, I had a person that literally was like an apikores. He started listening to shiurim, started doing teshuva. It's unbelievable. So why is he yelling? Why is Rav Shabaton yelling? Why is there another famous rabbi in Eretz Yisrael, Rav Daniel Zer? Rav Daniel Zer talks a lot about P'gam HaBrit. Don't think he—I don't think there's a word that comes out of his mouth that's not yelling. He screams the whole time. Now, every one of his shiurim, he gives a shiur to a bunch of gangsters; he goes to the worst places, and he gets four or five thousand people, and...

1:17:1145,000 people, they're scared to death, gangsters scared to death, little tattles. Okay. Okay, Kavod HaRav. Sure, absolutely. Gangster—the guy just murdered somebody on the way there. Yes, Kavod HaRav. Yes, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. What happened? Scared to death, starts putting on peyot, everything, starts doing teshuva. Why? Why are you yelling? Why are you yelling? Now, some people say, "Yeah, but you know, you could do it a different way. There are many rabbis that do it a different way. There are rabbis that speak, you know, more sophisticated. You know, they speak in a certain way where it's low tone. Doesn't it say that all of the words of the Torah have to come in a low voice?" Let me explain something to you. There was one time, a guy, two guys, We're on one of these seashores fishing. One guy slipped and fell over into the water and started screaming, "I can't swim! I can't swim!" The other guy on top says, "I can't swim either, but you don't see me screaming." What's the difference between these two? The difference is the guy that's screaming is in pain.

1:18:38He's in pain. He's in pain because he can't swim. The fool that's upstairs is only considering his own perspective. Of course, you're not screaming that you can't swim because you're not in pain right now. You're not about to die. There was one time a businessman, a religious guy, who came into town. In those days, they had different kavod for the Rabbanim. He came into town and... he was hosted. He asked, where can I stay? He said, oh, you can stay at the Rabbi's house. The Rabbanit always has different guests. Stay at the house. You come to the Rabbi's house. So this businessman comes on a Friday. In those days, you didn't have the things of today. So when you brought money with you, ...would give it to the owner of the house, and they would put it in the family safe. Why? Because money is muktzeh; you can't carry it with you. You're not going to leave it on your bed; you're scared. So you give it to the family, you give it to the hotel, whoever is the host of the place, and they'll put it in a safe for you. And then you would get it motzei Shabbat. So he comes in, he meets the Rabbanit. He says to the Rabbanit, "Can you please take this?" Now, he just gave her money that he worked on for three years and...

1:19:52Three years working blood, sweat, and tears to get this money. He's got 10,000 pieces of gold. He gives it to the Rabbanit. The Rabbanit said, "Okay, no problem." Now, Friday comes in, they have a seudah, and then the rabbi gives a shiur. All the kehillah comes and listens to the rabbi's shiur. And this rabbi was an ish kodesh. This rabbi was a person that... in pain because he knew that people were violating Shabbat. He knew that people were intermarrying. He knew that people were mistreating the Torah. Like some of these clowns you have in different communities, whether it's the place in Beverly Hills that has the VIP parking on Shabbat, or it's the other clowns in New York that we just found out about, that they're having casino night in the synagogue and Casino singles night, a shame. You have them playing a Mesibah L’Shonim inside a synagogue, is happening as we speak now. Don't worry, New York is not unique to this; they had it in Florida also just a few months ago—a Shesh Besh poker tournament inside a synagogue. All of these synagogues are trying to cater to the secular world by what? By being just like the secular people.

1:21:20And they think that's going to help people do teshuva. They don't realize that HaKadosh Baruch Hu writes very, very strong things against such people and such places. Places like this that have poker tournaments inside the synagogue. Places like this that have VIP parking at a synagogue on Shabbat. Places like this that have all types of things that are against the Torah inside a synagogue. HaKadosh Baruch Hu says those places turn into houses of idolatry, turn into churches. It's sad. It's sad that this is happening in many places where the rabbis are so infatuated with money, they forget about God. So he said, no, no, we're not. We're only doing a poker tournament in the synagogue because it's all tzedakah money. It's all tzedakah money. No one's really winning and losing. First of all, who are you kidding? Talking to somebody who used to be a pretty good gambler, no gambler goes gambling if there's no money involved. There's no point to the game. You don't play poker for free. You don't play roulette, "Oh, I got the number! Yeah, what do I get? Nothing. Oh yeah, let's play again." No, it doesn't happen. If there's no money involved, there's no gambling.

1:22:39Meaning there has to be money involved at the end. No one's gonna stay. No one's gonna play. Who are you kidding? It's not money. Oh, no, it's tzedakah. Yeah, part of it is tzedakah. Part of it is tzedakah, but not the good kind of tzedakah. Coming from avodah zarah. And the best yet, they actually think it's kosher money because they had some other rabbis tell them it's allowed. Completely against the Torah. Why? You're teaching people to gamble. You're teaching people to gamble, which is 100% assur in the Torah. you're doing it in a synagogue, which means you're putting the kosher stamp on Las Vegas. If you're allowed to gamble in a synagogue, why can't I go to a professional place? It's just because there's more money involved. And the best part yet, it's only for single boys and girls. What kind of crimes are going to be committed that night? Now, this is happening in a couple of weeks in New York. In New York, it's happening. For the kavod of the community, because there are some good people in that community, I'm not going to tell you the name. I'm just hoping they're going to hear this, and they're going to do enough that I don't have to mention the name next week, because that's my last opportunity to get it to stop. But I'm telling you, this, rabotai, is not the only place that's doing it. They're doing it in every other place here. They're doing it here in Florida; they did it right next to my house.

1:24:07place of clowns. They do it in Boca Raton. They do it in different places. Who said it's allowed to gamble? Who said it's allowed to gamble in a synagogue? Who said it's allowed to waste Torah time for such things? Now we're doing kiruv. Yeah? How many Ba'alei Teshuvah did you get at the end of the tournament? Zero. In fact, most people went off the derech at the end. Why do they go to Vegas? Because they're so hot now for gambling, because they won the tournament. Now they want to go to Vegas and commit more crimes. People kid themselves, thinking that there's a different way to help people do teshuvah. Just like this guy who was hearing the Rabbi scream on Shabbat in his kehillah. He came to the Rabbanut. He says to the Rabbanut, "Why is the Rabbi screaming so much?" Why is he yelling so much? And the Rabbinate says, well, the Rabbi is in pain over the fact that Am Yisrael is violating Shabbat, desecrating the Beit Knesset, and violating Hashem's name. So the businessman says, ah, no, I'm religious also. You don't see me screaming. I'm religious also. I'm not screaming at anyone. There's a better way to do it. You don't have to scream.

1:25:28The Rabbanit says, Tzadik, okay, no problem. As you would have it, Yishtabach Shemo, Motzei Shabbat arrives. Motzei Shabbat arrives, the businessman has to go back home, has to go back, has to leave. He says, ah, thank you very much for hosting me, Rabbanit. Thank you, Kavod HaRav. And he waits there, and the Rabbanit says, the Rabbi goes back to his learning, the Rabbanit says, okay, goodbye, thank you for coming, Shavua Tov. The guy stays, he goes, "Yes, Shavua Tov, but are we forgetting something?" She goes, "Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, did you forget to do Havdalah? Okay, come, come, let's do Havdalah." He goes, "No, no, no, what Havdalah? I did Havdalah. No, you're forgetting something." He goes, "No, the money, the money." "Oh, no, don't worry, you don't have to pay me, it's free to stay at the Rabbi's house. You don't have to pay me. No, it's free, you can come anytime you want, come stay with us." No, no, no, the money. I gave you 10,000 pieces of gold before Shabbat. You gave me 10,000 pieces of gold, but give me nothing. No, no, no, I'm sorry sir, Shavua Tov, Shavua Tov. The guy says, "I see now, I see now, the shame, criminals." He starts screaming and yelling at the Rabbinate system, "Why do you scream so much? I..."

1:26:51Why do you scream so much? Because when? Well, how dare you say why I scream so much? You just ruined my life. I'm in so much pain. You took all my money. He goes, ah. Hold on. He goes to the shelf. He goes, here's your money. But now you know, when you're in pain, you scream. You are in pain over your money. So you scream, my husband is in pain over Klal Yisrael. So he screams. When you're in pain, you scream. It's just that different people care about different things. You're motivated by money. That's what you scream about. The Rabbi, he's motivated by helping Klal Yisrael do teshuva. And when he knows that many of them are far, far away from teshuvah, far, far away from Gan Eden, they live in illusion, thinking that everybody goes to Gan Eden. They live in illusion, thinking that everybody is perfectly righteous and is going to be saved by the Mashiach. They live in illusion, thinking that Gehinnom and punishment don't exist, because they listen to false speakers.

1:28:04then what happens? A person that thinks this lives in illusion. The rabbi cries over it. The rabbi is in pain over it, so he screams. Whenever you're in pain, you scream. That's why we yell. That's why you have to yell. That's also why you're never going to see the Christians yell. You're never going to see a Christian speaker yell. In fact, if you have a debate with them, you almost feel like you're debating a robot. Why? They never change their tone. They're always, yeah, you know, Yeshu died, and then he got up. It's like, no, he didn't. No, see, you're mistaken here. What's wrong with this guy? You high? What's the matter with you? How come you're not like fired up? What's the matter with you? I just yelled at you. Yell back at least. Oh, you see, Yoshke told us to love. That's what? Love. I would give you a right and a left. Love. Love. Yell back a little bit. Give me some fire back. Nothing. Nothing. You know why? I'll tell you a secret. You know why? You know why? Because they know it's the truth. That's why they're laughing. You know why they don't yell? Because they care less whether you listen to them or not.

1:29:20There's nothing to do. All they care about is that you keep coming and give them money. They care less if you listen, you like Yoshke, you don't like Yoshke, you believe, you don't believe. As long as your check clears every single month, they care less. They're not in pain about anything. There are 8 billion customers, potential customers in the world. You don't want to listen? They have 8 billion others to replace you. They don't care if you listen, and I said no one's gonna replace you. There are five people waiting in line for every chair. They've got stadiums—stadiums too small to fit tefillah. They shut down places because they could only fit 5,000 people. They shut them down. Why? Because they're moving to a bigger place—15,000, 20,000. Some of these places in different parts of America—in Texas, Tennessee, all parts of the United States, different parts of the world—literally fit 250,000 people. There aren't even sports stadiums big enough for such a thing. It's massive, and guess what? The speaker never yells a word.

1:30:36Never yells a word. He doesn't care if you believe or don't believe. As long as you keep putting some money in that little basket, as long as you give your money every single month, go to hell for all he cares. What does he care? He doesn't care. He's not in pain over you. They have a whole joke of a system. Well, guess what? You know what they're in pain over? Their pain is the fact that they're big guys. You know what they want? They cry to you. Listen, I only have four planes. You know that if you want me to deliver the message, I need a new jet. And this jet, God has already given me the sign of which jet it is. It's only $54 million, he tells you. And you must give it to me. And guess what? These idiots give it to him. He's got four planes. They ask him. The news asks the guy, "Why do you need a fifth plane? You already have one. You have two, three, four. You have pictures on the walls. Why do you need another plane for $55 million? You know how many people you can feed with $55 million?" He goes, "No. You see, all my planes, they're good. But I can't go anywhere I want."

1:31:46just one plane. I would have to have a connecting flight. I would have to stop somewhere. But with this new 54 million dollar plane, I could fly anywhere direct. And guess what? He didn't scream a word about it. And people give. Why? He's not in pain. There's nothing to be in pain about. When you're in pain, you scream, you cry, you yell, you... everything possible because you know that if people don't listen to you, everything is on the line. Everything is on the line now. If a person simply understood this part alone, they'd look at the world very differently. Every conversation would be more meaningful, every relationship would have more substance, and Every time they would listen to something, they would calculate more carefully whether it's worth their time or not. But sometimes people are not looking for substance, they're not looking for the truth, they're looking for excuses. And this is very common in the world, whether it's the religious or the non-religious. If you're looking for the truth, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says you'll find it.

1:33:10You're looking for excuses. You don't even need to look; they'll find you. A couple of young Yeshiva bachurim came to see Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky, one of the Gedolei HaDor in America in a previous generation. They came to the Rav and said, "Rav, we have a big sugya, we have a big kasha, and..." Big question, big difficulty in the Rambam. Okay, I wanted to ask the Rav. And there I sit, they show, thank you to the Rav. Here's what the Rambam says. But it doesn't make sense. Now if the Rav is going to say this, then why is this? And if the Rav is going to say that, then why is that? And they start giving him all the things. If the Rav is going to say this, then we already have the answer for that. And if the Rav is going to say that, then we already have the answer for that. And they go back and they keep telling him. And the Rav, Rav Kamenetsky, is just sitting there for a half hour, doesn't say a word. Just says, psh, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. And his son, Rav Aharon,

1:34:20He's watching there, 13 years old, 14 years old, always listening quietly. He sees the door, his father nodding to these young boys, and they brought a complication from the Rambam, and he's saying, "Wow, I don't know." Because they came up with it, and these guys all left with an ego at least 25 pounds heavier. All three of them come out. They're all big, "See, we brought a question to the gadol hador, and even the gadol hador couldn't figure it out." They're all happy. They leave. Now right after them came in Rav Baruch Ber Gudinsky. And he came in and he's sitting with Rav Kamenetsky. And right away, Rav Kamenetsky tells him, "Look at this kasha, look at this obstacle in the Rambam. The Rambam says such and such. Now, what's the answer?" And he starts giving him the answer, like he just rips apart everything that the other guy just said. And he shows he has the actual answer.

1:35:21So the son of Rav Kamenetsky, he said, "Wait a minute, why didn't he tell the kids? Why didn't he tell these young guys? Why did he let them all leave, thinking he doesn't know the answer, that they have a question that the biggest rabbi in the world doesn't have an answer to?" So after he finished, he said, "Abba, please tell me, why did you let those three boys ask you a question, and for half an hour they're telling you all these complications, and you're saying you don't know, you don't know, you don't know, and you let them go, thinking that you don't know. But obviously, you knew the answer; you just gave the whole answer right now to Rav Baruch Ber." He says, "See, those three boys, I knew right away that they were enjoying the toil of the complication. They were enjoying the obstacle. They were enjoying not having the answer, but rather having excuses. Why should I ruin it for them?" They're not looking for the answer. They're looking for excuses. So if I saw that there are three boys, and they want to learn Torah, they like the excuses, they're enjoying that part, let them go enjoy. Let them go enjoy. My answer is not going to serve them well at that point. Now, of course, you have to know that when it comes to knowing the answer and not telling somebody, that never has anything to do with emunah. Meaning, if somebody has emunah issues and they ask you a question, you have to answer it. But when it's something like this,

1:36:43Difficulty of some kind that doesn't have anything to do with emunah, then you could do such a thing. Either way, the point is that we see here that sometimes it's more important not to say than to say and vice versa. Now, the Ramban writes here something that all of us need to know. He says that Now that you understand the significance of how you communicate, you should always have some type of pedestal, some type of measurement system to compare everything to. If you want to know how to behave, just imagine how you behave next to your rabbi. Now, in this generation, it's a little bit more difficult to say. Why? Because sometimes in this generation, you see people acting towards their rabbi worse than how they act towards terrorists. You know, they have a question for the rabbi. Instead of asking the rabbi, they tell the whole world that the rabbi is the worst person on earth.

1:37:58They don't understand something that the rabbi did. They declare him the worst person on earth, all types of things. People don't have any real respect for rabbis today because they can't determine who's good and who's bad, because they themselves are not exactly good. Now, the Ramban writes that you have to treat your Rav with a certain amount of fear, with a certain amount of awe. Where does the Torah support what the Ramban says? The Gemara Masechet Kiddushin, page 33b, says that any Torah student who fails to stand up respectfully for his Rav is called a Rasha, and he is destined to forget his Torah knowledge. That means that a person could learn day and night He's in Yeshiva for 20 years. He's in Kollel for another 10 years, 15 years. And he feels like he knows a thing or two. He's already completed the Shas a few times. He's gone over a few things, maybe even written a Sefer. And he thinks that already he should be treated as somebody special. So when his Rav comes in,

1:39:25to wherever he is. He doesn't feel like he owes the Rav any special treatment. Why? Because he's in the middle of learning right now. "I don't need to stand up. The Rav's not looking anyway." The Gemara says this person just turned from being somebody that's a religious person, learns Torah all day, does mitzvot, to a Rasha. In the eyes of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, all of that just went into the garbage pile. The person is considered a wicked person. Because everything he did now is in honor of himself, not in honor of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. And even worse, he is now at risk of forgetting everything he knows. Now, the Torah talks about how a person is supposed to have respect for a Rav, how a person is supposed supposed to be scared of saying certain things next to a Rav. In the Gemara Masechet Eruvin, page 63a, it says what happens if somebody asks a question? Let's say you were in a shiur or in a Beit Knesset or in a Beit Midrash and somebody says, Rabbi, or just generally, the rabbi is there, and somebody says,

1:40:51Are we allowed to eat, to drink milk that's just kosher but not Chalav Yisrael? And to you, you're all geniuses, like, yeah, of course, yeah, yeah, of course you can do it. Rav Moshe Feinstein zt"l years ago wrote a kula (leniency), if it's hard to get, you know, Chalav Yisrael, then you can drink the just kosher milk that's not Chalav Yisrael. You don't know the answer, and you say it out loud. Why? Because you know the answer. You want to help him out, right? Gemara says that in that moment, every single person who answered that question and rendered a halachic decision in the presence of the rabbi is now liable for a death penalty from Hashem. They just added a death penalty to their account. Why? Because they disrespected the Torah that's in the rabbi by stating a halachic decision in front of him. he is the Rav in their location. That means the Torah has to come from him, not from every average Joe who decides that he knows the answer. By you saying what you said, it makes it look like he may not know, because you answered faster. It looks like the Rabbi is maybe just wearing a costume. Now you're gonna say, "Okay, okay. That's nice, that's great, that's scary, but where is this in the Torah?" and

1:42:18Where is this in the Torah? Gemara, Masechet Yoma, page 53a. It says the following: There were two tzaddikim in the world, two people that were so righteous according to Hashem that they literally were as great as Moshe Rabbeinu and Aharon HaKohen. Who are these people? Nadav and Avihu. the two sons of Aharon HaKohen. They were next in line to lead Am Yisrael. Meaning that if they were next in line to lead Am Yisrael, they were as great as Moshe Rabbeinu and Aharon HaKohen. One time, there was a conversation that Midrash says took place between Moshe Rabbeinu and Aharon HaKohen, and Moshe Rabbeinu said, "They are greater than us, these two." But then you find out in the Torah that HaKadosh Baruch Hu killed them. HaKadosh Baruch Hu killed them. And the Chachamim go back and forth. What's the reason why HaKadosh Baruch Hu killed these two big tzaddikim? Some say, yeah, they brought eish zarah, they brought a korban, they brought a sacrifice to the Mishkan of Hashem without permission. So the Gemara says, okay, but it's not a good thing. They brought a sacrifice to Hashem.

1:43:45Why do you need special instructions of who, what, when, how? No, you don't understand. There are two rabbis there. There's the Gadol HaDor, Moshe Rabbeinu, and then there's Aharon HaKohen. If you want to peep, If you want to speak, if you want to eat, if you want to drink, if you want to get married, if you want to get divorced, if you want to slaughter, if you want to do anything, you have to ask permission from the rabbi first. When they brought a sacrifice to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, a mitzvah, Without asking the permission of Moshe Rabbeinu, what does that mean? That means they decided, they rendered a halachic decision in front of their rabbi. HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, you just dishonored Moshe Rabbeinu. You dishonored the Torah. You made it seem as if you know more than Moshe Rabbeinu. Death penalty. All your tzidkut, all your righteousness, all that stuff, doesn't mean anything.

1:44:51Nadav and Avihu were killed by HaKadosh Baruch Hu Himself because of dishonoring the rabbi, but not intentionally. Unintentionally. It's not like this generation that people make entire Facebook pages and YouTube videos, dafka against rabbis. Somebody sent me a video today of some guy that I'm assuming used to watch my shiurim. He may still watch the shiurim. Hopefully, he does, so he can get a reality check. He decided to make a video about me. Why? He says that Rabbi Yaron Reuven is endangering Am Yisrael. No more, no less. Why is Rabbi Yaron endangering Am Yisrael? Because I said in a shiur not too long ago, a month ago or so, that anyone who thinks that by buying a gun, that's going to help you survive Gog u'Magog, has very serious emunah problems. Did I say this from my opinion? This is what the Torah says. The Torah says there's not a single person in the world, not a single person in the world, that ever got punished without there being a sin to allow it.

1:46:04Meaning, you will never even lose a hair on your head. You will never even lose a nail. You will never kick the wall by accident, get a stubbed toe, never get a cold, never get anything, unless HaKadosh Baruch Hu authorizes it. Needless to say, you're never going to get shot and killed unless HaKadosh Baruch Hu authorizes it. Which means you buying a gun is not going to help anything. If HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants to kill somebody, guess what? You could be inside a tank and still die. You could be inside a tank and still die without anybody shooting at you. People are delusional, thinking that they are going to be the ones that bring the Mashiach with guns and swords and grenades and missiles. What Torah did you learn? Where does it say this? Then they're going to say, wait a minute, isn't it true that David HaMelech went to war? First of all, when you're David HaMelech, you can do what David HaMelech did.

1:47:23Second of all, look at the rules of war. It says in the Book of Numbers, Moshe Rabbeinu says for every thousand soldiers, we have a thousand people that learn Torah. Why? The Torah is the only reason why the soldiers win, not the war, not the missiles, not the strategy—nothing. Every thousand soldiers has a thousand soldiers that learn Torah. That's rule number one. Number two, David HaMelech did not allow any Person that spoke in between putting the tefillin of the head to the tefillin of the arm by accident, he didn't allow him to be on the team in the army. Why? He says, "They're gonna kill all of us because of you," meaning that all of his soldiers were tzaddikim gemurim. You had Rav Elyashiv. The Steipler Gaon, Rav Ovadia, Moshe Rabbeinu, Aharon HaKohen, these people went to war, not Biryonim, tanks, no, Tzaddikim Gemurim went to war. Why? Because they knew. It's not the missiles and the arrows and the rockets that are winning the war. It's HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Now, if that's not enough for you, go look at Midrash Rabbah. And you see what it says about David HaMelech's wars. It says, David HaMelech

1:48:41was extraordinary. He says to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, "HaKadosh Baruch Hu, these enemies, I'll go chase them, I'll go kill them, and You allow me to do it." HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, "I heard you, go. I'll do what you say." His grandson, great-grandson, Chizkiyahu HaMelech. Chizkiyahu HaMelech was Kodesh Kodeshim. The Gemara says HaKadosh Baruch Hu wanted to make Chizkiyahu Mashiach, to bring the salvation to the entire planet. Chizkiyahu says to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, "Achitofel is here with 185,000 generals." One has an army of millions of people right outside of Yerushalayim, little Yerushalayim. They could all spit, and we would drown. Hezekiah HaMelech says to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, "I'm going to sleep; You go fight the war." Hashem says, "You got it; you said it, I'll do it." The next morning, they all died.

1:49:58Nachachamim say, wait a minute. Are you saying that Hezekiah, okay, he was a tzaddik, he was kodesh kodeshim. But I mean, we already know there's a rule in the Torah, Yeridat HaDorot, the degradation of the generation. No one could ever say that anyone of this generation is greater than someone from the previous generation. Whether it would be Rav Ovadia from five, six years ago, or the Steipler Gaon from 40 years ago, or the Chafetz Chaim, or Rabbi Akiva or Moshe Rabbeinu or anyone from before us. There's a rule in nature that we continuously deteriorate. So here we see this rule also applies to David HaMelech, who is Mashiach. That's the father of the Mashiach, and his grandson Hezekiah was also a tzaddik, but again, it's a few generations later. You cannot say that Hezekiah was better, but how come says to Hashem, "I'm gonna fight, I'm gonna chase them, I'm gonna hit them, and You allow me to do it." Hashem says, "I'll do it. I'll kill them, no problem." He says, "I'm not gonna fight, I'm not gonna pray, I'm not gonna chase anybody. I'm going to sleep."

1:51:15Are you saying, is it possible to ever say such a thing that Chizkiyahu had more emunah in Hashem, had more connection to Hashem? Chas v'shalom. The Midrash Rabbah says the following. He says, no. What you don't understand is this. Chizkiyahu, Chizkiyahu, says HaKadosh Baruch Hu, I cannot go and chase these people. Think that it's not me running. I cannot go and hit these people and not think that it's me hitting them. I cannot go and stab these people and kill these people and not think for a second that it's me. I know it's You. But if I do something, I'm going to think it's me. It's part of me. So, you know, I'm not doing anything. I'm going to sleep. You do it by Yourself. You do it by Yourself. I don't want to dishonor You. You do it by Yourself. David HaMelech. David HaMelech was Kodesh Kodashim. David HaMelech says, I'm going to go chase. I'm going to go hit. I'm going to go do everything. But in reality, I know for sure I'm doing nothing. It's all You.

1:52:31I'll do it, make it look realistic, but I know it's not me, I know it's nothing. I know I'm nothing. I'm a worm, not a man. I'm nothing. It just makes it look realistic for the passersby. So for all of those superheroes that want to be like David HaMelech with their guns and their arrows and whatever you have in your closet over there, You get to an emunah level, an understanding of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, and a connection to HaKadosh Baruch Hu like David HaMelech, you could buy yourself a bazooka, put it in your living room for all I care. But the reality is, Rabotai Yekarim, you want to buy a gun, halachically you're allowed. The point is to understand that it is not going to help you. It's not going to help you connect to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. It's not going to help you fight crime. It's not going to help you. Why? If HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants something to happen to you, it's going to happen. If HaKadosh Baruch Hu doesn't want something to happen to you, no power in the world can change it. No power in the world can change it. If you're glued to Hashem, no power in the world can change it. Now, this is what the Torah says. If you want to say otherwise, that means you have a different Torah.

1:53:54Now, sometimes it's hard to accept what the Torah says. Why? Because it's against logic. It's against logic. Why? Because you're putting yourself in places you don't belong. Like, yeah, but the cops have guns. Yeah, but that's their job. You're not a cop. Yeah, but the army, what, you're just saying we shouldn't have an army? No, that's not what I said, but you're not a soldier. You're a shoe salesman. You sell software. You mow lawns. You're not a guy that kills people. You don't even know how to hold a gun, for heaven's sake. They were questioning whether to give you a license or not. Like, what are you talking about? That's not you. The point is, Abutai, know where your place is. Know what your job is in the world, and even when you don't understand what the Torah is saying, don't be a fool and start publicizing your foolish individual opinion. Because now you've just dug yourself a hole you may never get yourself out of, because you just desecrated the Torah.

1:55:00You desecrated Hashem's name. You spoke against someone that learns Torah. You spoke against someone that teaches Torah. There is no end to the Gehinnom of a person that does such a thing if they don't do Teshuva. The Reshit Chochmah says the following. He says, people that go against Talmidei Chachamim, their punishment is too great. That's what it says, and that's just talking about this world. We're not even talking about the next world. No one's saying that you're automatically going to agree with everything naturally. Obviously, you have a yetzer hara. Obviously, you have an evil inclination that's going to tell you otherwise. It's going to try to fool you. But you have to understand: our Torah is... the only truth that exists. Your logic is manipulated by the yetzer hara, is manipulated by an opposite force that's gonna constantly try to do the opposite, tell you the opposite is right. Now, even though sometimes you could hear things that are against your logic, but the Torah says it. It's hard to accept it, but the Torah says it. What do you do? What do you do in such a situation?

1:56:25Best thing to do is be quiet. Why? So long as you're quiet, the rest of the world doesn't know how stupid you are. The second you start talking and mention things that are against the Torah, guess what? You've uncovered the foolishness that's in your head. Why ruin a surprise for everyone? Why tell everybody you have all these jukim in your head, all these bugs in your head? And... Now, guess what? If you continue learning, eventually you won't be foolish. Eventually, you'll be smart. But you're always going to need the rabbi. You're always going to need the Gemara. You're always going to need the Chumash. You're always going to ask da'at to people that know more than you. The more you know, the more you realize that you don't know. But when you don't know anything, and you simply disagree, it just makes you look stupid. I'm sorry, there's no other way to describe it. It's like going to the doctor's office and telling him that you don't agree with his diagnosis, but you've never gone to medical school. Yeah, maybe you watched one YouTube video and you think you know the diagnosis. So it's ridiculous that people literally just take their own Olam HaBa and throw it in the garbage. Why? For a little ego?

1:57:43Every other week now, there's some new superhero that makes a video about me or other people. They assume they're very good, but they do it on a regular basis. Each week, you put my name up on the internet, and you're gonna find something new. Why? They're trying to become stars. They think this is their ticket to stardom. It's a ticket for sure, but it's just not to stardom though. Why? I'm not mentioning my own opinion. The Ribbono Shel Olam. I'm not mentioning my own opinion. I give you Gemara, I'll give you page numbers and... I give you halachot, I give you every single source. If I didn't mention it, ask, I'll give you the source. You still want to disagree with it, then there's nothing to talk about. But that's the thing, it's important to know, HaKadosh Baruch Hu is not our friend, He's our God. And He does not like when people speak against His Torah, He doesn't like when people speak against people that teach Torah. When you do that, and you do it publicly, you're simply putting your life at risk. Literally. Literally. And that's what the Gemara in Masechet Moed Katan talks about. It says, how come we see sometimes that there are young kids that die? The Gemara says in Moed Katan, it's because the people, the parents of this kid, did not honor a kosher Jew that died.

1:59:14When he died, they weren't sad. They didn't cry. So because they didn't cry over this Jew, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, ah, that was your opportunity to do teshuva. You didn't do it? Okay. Now I'm going to punish you for not honoring a Jew. If HaKadosh Baruch Hu is so strict with a kosher Jew that passed, needless to say, about a kosher Jew that's alive. A kosher Jew is teaching Torah. It's important to know that sometimes the Torah is going to take us to a place that we've never seen before. Many times it does. Instead of fighting it, instead of going to war with it, go find some proofs for your point. See, maybe you do have a valid point. But not because it's your opinion, but because the Torah also says what you said. Don't just decide that your opinion is the Torah. Or just because you heard it in a lecture from somebody 40 years ago, that’s Torah? Do you really remember everything that was said to you 40 years ago? If I ask you, what did you have for breakfast this morning? Nine out of ten people are not going to remember. If I asked you, what was the conversation you had on Tuesday afternoon last week? You’re not going to remember. So how are you so sure about what you heard in a lecture 30, 40 years ago? Maybe you didn't hear it right. Maybe the speaker didn’t speak so well.

2:00:38The point being, Rabotai, don't be so sure to just go against and fight and rebuke for no reason. You're just, mamash, you're making your own lives into just gehinnom. And it's sad, because really the whole purpose of this shiur is to help you, not to get people to hurt themselves. But every other day there's a superhero that's pretty much trying to jump off the bridge, saying, no, I'm going to survive. 5,000 people died before him, and I'm going to be the one that survives. But no, sure, I mean, you didn't see the other piece, dead bodies already enough. So, the Ramban writes us a very, very special letter. He tells us, listen, you want to speak to people, you have to speak to people in different tones, different levels, different languages. Think before you speak. More so when you speak to the opposite gender, even more so when you speak to someone that you're not married to, even more so when you're speaking to a student, even more so when you're speaking to a rabbi, even more so when you're speaking to HaKadosh Baruch Hu during your prayer. Contemplate every word that comes out of your mouth. Contemplate how it comes out. Contemplate why it should come out. Think about it—is it really worth saying? And I bet you this: the more you know Torah, the less you're gonna speak.

2:02:00The less you're going to speak. Why? Because the more you learn Torah, the more you realize that more times than not, what you're about to say is meaningless. There's just simply less junk for you to talk about. If you have a lot of junk to talk about, talk about sports, the stock market, I don't know, all this stuff that people like to talk about, that means there's very, very little Torah, if anything at all. One of the worst signs that a Jew could say about himself is, "Oh yeah, I like sports." ...means there's almost no Torah in your life. Why? Because liking sports means that you follow it. You know how many points people score, how they hit, and how they throw. You know all these statistics. You know how much money they make. You know where they vacation. Yeah, because sports doesn't just come with you just watching a bunch of people throw a ball or kick a ball. Sports comes with the whole enterprise; it comes with that whole addiction and... You go to the game, you make it game day, you have friends over, you play, you buy the jersey, you follow the statistics, you watch the news about it, you know what everybody's opinion is, you know what's going to happen next year, you know who the coach is, you know who the owner is, you know what the budget is, and all this junk comes along with it, which means that there's less and less room for the Torah.

2:03:21There's less and less room for the Torah. So you're saying, "Oh yeah, I like sports." Okay, that means that pretty much you're leaving virtually no room for the Torah. And the same thing goes with a lot of other things. So now, to change that takes time. To abandon things that you think are good and that you like takes time. So, of course, everyone needs to do it tomorrow to change. But the reality is that probably not. So the one thing that the Rambam is trying to tell us is this: you may not be able to change your addiction to sports or money or whatever other non-kosher thing that you're doing. You may not be able to abandon it tomorrow. But there's one thing that you can do starting tomorrow: from now on, know your place. When you're talking to your wife, know who you're talking to. When you're talking to your husband, know who you're talking to. When you're talking to the opposite sex, know who you're talking to. to your boss, know who you're talking to. When you are talking to a Rabbi, know who you're talking to. If he's a wicked Rabbi, a righteous Rabbi, know who you're talking to. Why? Because that means that you have to adjust. You have to adjust yourself based on who you're talking to. If he's a student, know that he's a student. If he's a teacher, know that he's a teacher. You have to adjust. If you adjust for people...

2:04:40You'll adjust for Hashem. And eventually, you'll avoid and abandon all of these bad habits. This helps us abandon some of our own bad habits, helps us avoid some of our own bad character traits, get closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, get closer to the Torah, and get Klal Yisrael to come along as well. Baruch Adonai Le'olam, Amen ve'Amen.