THE POWER OF TESHUVAH

0:06How could Hashem turn the Gemara in Masechet Yoma, page 86, says that there are, in essence, two levels of teshuva. In essence, there are obviously sub-levels, but two levels of teshuva. There's teshuva from fear of Hashem, and there's teshuva from love of Hashem. If somebody does teshuva, where they repent for their sins because they're afraid that God will punish them, whether it be in this world or the next, they're afraid that Hashem would take away their money, take away people that they love, and so on and so forth, put them in Gehinnom. Then, the Gemara says that all of their sins that they've already committed turn from purposeful sins to accidental sins, meaning that the punishment is much, much less severe; a world of difference, a world of difference.

1:16To give you an example of what a world of difference looks like, to some extent, if somebody violated Shabbat at the time of the Beit HaMikdash. Okay, if he, let's say, drove a car to shul, the penalty is death. But if he forgot it was Shabbat and he drove the car because he forgot, not because he knew—he forgot, it was a mistake—he thought it was a Friday, he thought it's Tuesday. He drank too much last night, so he forgot. That's an accidental sin. What's the difference? Death penalty. It's the worst. What is accidental? He did the same exact act—drove, drove. Same exact act. He drove here, drove here. But here, he knew it was Shabbat, and he violated it anyway. Here, he didn't know it was Shabbat—a mistake. What's the punishment? Bring a nice cow, sacrifice it. You'll cry a little bit because, in reality, it's supposed to be you being slaughtered instead of the cow. That's it. You go back home. That's what a world of difference looks like in this world. So, in essence, when the Gemara says that all of those intentional sins that were supposed to carry the death penalty turn into accidental sins, you understand now better how much lesser the punishment is. So, that's already a big deal.

2:33Now, the Gemara continues and says that if somebody does teshuva out of love for Hashem, then all of their intentional sins transform into mitzvot. This means that if a person worshiped an idol, Hashem turns that action into a mitzvah. Instead of receiving the death penalty, he now gets a reward for it. That's how powerful teshuva out of love is. Now, as far as Hashem doesn't change the act. A person committed idolatry, a person committed murder, Hashem is not going to bring that person back to life because you did teshuva. Hashem is not going to make that reading of the New Testament now a permissible thing because you decided to do teshuva. He doesn't change the act itself. He changes the... The outcome of the act, meaning what you're supposed to get, implies there's a cause and effect. The effect here is that a person who was supposed to suffer in Gehinnom (Purgatory) for his idolatry is now told by Hashem (God), "No, not only is he not going to get hurt, not only is he not going to get punished, but instead, I'm going to give him a reward." Why? Because now he's turned his entire life around.

3:48and he loves me, and he's doing teshuvah from loving me, and therefore I give him a reward for it. He turned everything else. So, in essence, this is a supernatural act because it doesn't make any sense whatsoever. But in all reality, teshuvah in general doesn't make any rational sense. For all of those people that are very typically really wicked, they call themselves "rational Jews." That's because they try to rationalize the Torah. But the Torah, the last thing it is, is rational. It's not rational. There are many rational things in it, but it's not a rational thing. It's not rational that Hashem will start the world with two people and expect it to grow to billions. It's not rational just because He said. It's not rational that Hashem would split the ocean for a small group of people, even though there are many, many more around the world. Just choose them. It's not rational for Hashem to obligate you to put on tefillin six days a week, or if you don't want to put on tefillin at all, okay, then I'll just put you in Gehinnom permanently. That's what the Gemara Masechet Rosh Hashanah says on page 17a. It says, who goes to Gehinnom permanently? It says people that make sins with their body. With their body.

5:04...obviously, since when considering the body, we're thinking, "Oh, wasting seed, yeah, that's an obvious one." But the Midrash says, what's not an obvious sin with the body? It says someone who does not put on tefillin, doesn't want to put on tefillin. Oh, that's why he goes to Gehinnom permanently, to the seventh level, doesn't get out—for tefillin, for tefillin. Why? It's a sin with the body. Does that make any sense? No, it doesn't make any sense at all. Why? Because we are lowly nothings... Who says that Hashem has to explain Himself to us? Who? Who told you that you deserve an explanation? Does it make sense or not make sense? For what? What am I getting? So, wait, if I don't put on this black box around my arm, I get punished permanently? But if I put on this little box, with some straps, that could cost thousands of dollars... If I put it on, do I get rewarded permanently? Does that make any sense? That Hashem cares if I put a piece of leather on my arm? Does that make sense to you? No, nothing about it makes sense. Who says it has to make sense to you? But that's HaKadosh Baruch Hu's rules.

6:18So that's the thing a person needs to know; it's very critical for a person to know it's not about things being rational or not rational, or all of those things. It's not about that. It's about Hashem having rules in the world. So now, teshuva is not a rational thing. Why is it not a rational thing? Because, in essence, what is teshuva? Teshuva is Hashem telling you, yes, you are a criminal, I witnessed it, the heaven and the earth witnessed it, and other people witnessed it, but if you say I'm sorry, if it's just "I'm sorry," I'll let you go. If it's "I'm sorry, and now I love You too," not only that, I'll reward you for it. What is that like? Imagine, you just said, had a Ponzi scheme, robbed the bank, a billion dollars. You took from other people's pockets and life savings and put it in your pocket. SEC, FBI catch you, under arrest, bring you, you have the right to remain silent, but we prefer that you talk so you can perjure yourself.

7:33...and you go to jail. They put you in a cage like a dog. You show up in front of the trial; lots of people are there. The judge looks like he just came out of some horror film, and then he smiles at you. He says, "You know you're guilty, right?" "Yes, Your Honor." "So, you stole?" "You're admitting you stole a billion dollars?" "Yes, Your Honor." "Well, you're admitting that this money came from hard-working people?" "Yes, Your Honor, I know." Should you admit? Yeah, yeah, admit. Are you sorry for it? To be honest with you, are you honest? Yes, I'm sorry. All of a sudden, the judge starts dancing on the stage. He goes, look at him. Look at you. Look at you. You know what? You're sorry, right? Yeah, I'm sorry. Tell me you love me. I love you. How about this: just because of everything you just said, not only are you free to go, I'm gonna let you keep the billion dollars you stole. And just to make you feel really good, so it doesn't seem like a scam, I'm gonna give you another billion dollars. How about that? I love you too, by the way. Does that make any sense to you? Does that make any sense to you?

8:53doesn't make any sense, but that's how much Hakadosh Baruch Hu loves you. When you do teshuvah, that's how much you admit you're wrong; you're crying, you say "I'm sorry," and on top of it, you say "I love You," closing the sefer. Who says, "How about this, you keep the spoils of your theft, and I'm going to give you more"? Why? Because you did the right thing. But if you continue ignoring Hashem's message, and continue ignoring Hashem's irrational opportunity to give you a reward to no end, Hashem says, "Listen, not only have you gone against Me, you continue going against Me after I offered you a reward just to stop. Surely, you have so much tumah on your neshama that the only way to remove it is by gehenom." only way to remove is by getting them because every single time a person makes a sin he creates a klipah, a shell, around his neshama, a very thin shell around his neshama, and can only break it if he does teshuva. In his famous sefer,

10:15that he speaks to different dibbukim in ruchot. He writes that one time he spoke to the Neshama of Shabtai Tzvi, Shem Resha'im Yirkav. Shabtai Tzvi was one of the most horrific false messiahs that existed a few hundred years ago. Until this day, there are followers of Shabtai Tzvi. Even though he eventually converted to Islam, he was a miracle worker from all types of tumah that he was involved in and had many followers until this day. The point being is that Shabtai Tzvi one time came as a dybbuk. into a person's body, and Rav Yehuda Fetaya spoke to him. And Shabtai Tzvi told him a little bit about the suffering that he's experiencing in Kaf HaKela, and he told him, I'm going to help you. And he replied, you can't help me, because the klipa that I have is an amah thick. An amah thick. It's two feet. Two feet thick.

11:22Two feet thick of sins, the klipah around his neshama. To fix that, you need a miracle. The Ben Ish Chai came to Rav Yehuda Fatiyah and told him, don't mess with it. Don't mess with it. Can't fix it. And even if you try to fix it, it'll cause you a lot of damage. Rav Yehuda Fatiyah was at a very high level himself and decided to continue doing it as a result of trying to help, trying to help Shabtai Tzvi, both of his sons died. Both of his hands died. Dealing with this stuff is not a picnic. The point being is, how do you get a two-foot thick klipah? A lot of sins. This Rasha used to take a piece of pork and make a blessing: "Baruch Matir HaAsurim" — "Blessed is the one who permits the forbidden." Ham! A rabbi permits the forbidden, takes a married woman, and makes a blessing. He is the one that permits the forbidden because he says he's the Mashiach, so he can permit the forbidden and go with a married woman. All of his followers will do it — every sin under the sun. They ask him, "How come you've converted to Islam then?" Because he claims, "I have to go into the depth of the Tumah to break it in order to come back."

12:42Not to save them. All types of craziness. People that have tumah around them, there's no end to it. There's no end to the stupidity. But only if you have chochmah in you can you see that this is craziness. But the people that don't have chochmah in them, they follow it and they fall too. They follow it too. And even people that do have chochmah in them, if they're not objective in their understanding of certain things, they can easily fall into it too. The point being is that teshuvah itself is an irrational thing, and Hashem allows us to do it, gives us the merit to do it, and when we do, we get rewarded for it. It's not that He changes the past—that's already done—but rather changes the outcome from it as a result of the things that you're doing. He gives you different opportunities to fix the things that you've done in the past. For example, if a person... has had certain sins in the past, Hashem will restructure the world in order for you to be able to fix it. So, for example, if you had an abortion in the past — okay, now you can't bring that baby back, you already murdered somebody. How does Hashem do it? Number one, you have a child that is already a part of a tikkun; that's already a big deal. Number two, Hashem will send you somebody

13:58that wants to have an abortion. All of a sudden, he wants to be her friend. All of a sudden, she wants to be her friend, and they want to have an abortion. So what does Hashem do? He sends you the customer. So what? You convince them not to do it. He sends you an email from a company that helps people who want to have abortions. There's a whole part of the organization dedicated to helping women with money and other resources who are considering abortions. We do this on a smaller scale, of course, because we're not as big as they are. Many women who want to have abortions, number one, need to be educated. Educating them that it's not just a piece of meat; it's a real human being. Number two, sometimes even money. If they need money, if that's the reason, it's the craziest thing in the world, but sometimes people want to commit murder because of money. So we help them, baruch Hashem. The point is, each one of those things, the person that donated those few hundred dollars, that few thousand dollars, to help that woman not have an abortion, guess what? That's a tikkun for them. That's a tikkun for them. And it's different things. Why did Hashem send this opportunity? Because she wants to do teshuva, so now Hashem is going to give her a way to do teshuva.

15:08Same thing for idolatry. Someone who is committed to idolatry, Hashem is going to help them do teshuva for it. One way to do teshuva for idolatry is by keeping Shabbat. Keep Shabbat. Help people keep Shabbat. When you help people keep Shabbat, it rectifies idolatry. The same applies to also fighting against idolatry. And other things, such as Tikkun HaBrit. Someone who was promiscuous in their past, either with themselves or with other people, as we've discussed many times, can find rectification through Tikkun HaBrit. sponsoring those CDs, sharing those lectures, hosting events that have to do with Tikkun HaBrit (rectification of the covenant), which addresses promiscuity, immorality, and things of that nature. So when a person wants to do teshuva (repentance) out of love, Hashem (God) gives them the opportunities to fix those outcomes. Yeah, you can't bring back that person that you killed, that little baby that you killed because you couldn't see it; you can't fix that. But I'm going to give you an opportunity to fix it, and what ends up happening is that Hashem takes the neshama that was supposed to come and puts it in the one that is going to come. Why?

16:21with something, something too much for him. Hashem runs the world, Hashem runs the world. And many, many stories, especially among Chassidut, Stories of the Baal Shem Tov, the Maggid of Mezritch, or Rabbi Zusha, and so on, discuss various topics regarding reincarnations and things of that nature. All of these relate to tikkunim, people doing teshuva, or Hashem undertaking different actions to rectify different neshamos, because Hashem doesn't want to destroy a neshama. He doesn't want to punish someone permanently. Meaning, by the time Hashem punishes somebody permanently, it's because He has no other option, as He has given him all the other choices. This is why one time, Rabbi Frand told me that he was invited to a funeral to say something about a young man who was a criminal and got murdered.

17:22Now, while he was being driven there by one of the family members, they were talking. They were close, and during the conversation, the family member said to him, "The truth is, Rav Efraim told him this. I couldn't believe he said it, but he did." Rav Efraim said, "Listen, you and I both know that the best thing that ever happened to this child is that Hashem took him young." The guy almost got into a car accident when he heard this because they were on their way to the funeral. It's not like this was already in the past; it was the same year, or perhaps one or two years later. The guy had just died. Rav Efraim says the truth as it is. But don't try this at home. He says to him, "Listen, I'm not going to tell this to the rest of the family. Don't worry. But between you and me, we both know the best thing that Hashem did for him is that He took him now." So the guy says, "How?" He says, what does this guy do? He was a criminal. We both know he was a criminal. Everybody knows he was a criminal. The whole city knew he was a criminal. On top of it, he violated every Shabbat. Every Shabbat you violate, it's issur karet. Hashem says, I'm going to kill you. Not only in this world, but in the next world. On top of that, he was a womanizer.

18:32Married women, single women. Every single time he touches one of those women, it's nida, it's karet. Every single day of his life he was committing sins of karet. Karet, karet, karet, karet. Constantly. Do you know how many death penalties he was incurring? The longer he would have lived, the more karet he would accumulate. The punishment would be different. Hashem apparently saw some merit, Rabbi Feinstein says. Rabbi Feinstein says, apparently he had some merit from maybe his grandfather or something that led Hashem to have mercy on him and take him young before he could completely destroy himself. took him while he was still young, I think, maybe he was like 17 years old or something like that—a young kid, already a full-blown criminal. Hashem did him a favor. Now again, like I said, coming from Rav Frayim, he could explain this. You don't try this at home, even me, don't try this at home. Why? Because it's not an easy thing to explain to people, but nonetheless, This is very, very, uh, common language among the tzadikim, where they understand that this life is not it; it's not the end, it's not the beginning. It's very hard to explain this to most people because most people are very emotional, very emotional, or emotional about this, and they don't. When you're emotional, as we've learned from the Chazon Ish, it's impossible for you to be, you know, intellectual.

19:52And that's the problem. When a person understands that there's reincarnation, they realize there is no such thing as a truly new soul. This baby has already been here for at least 3,000 years, from the time of Mount Sinai. So, we're all old. I'm not the only old one here. The point is that when a person understands these concepts, they recognize that Hashem runs the world in a precise way, and nothing happens without reason. gives us a bigger responsibility then. And the reason why is because if it means that this is not my first try in this world, that I've been here already, at least for over 3,000 years, and this is also at the same time, according to our sages, the generation of Moshiach, that means that Hashem has given me many, many tries. Apparently I have not completed my tikkun yet, therefore I kept coming back. But this is the last chance because I cannot rely on being reincarnated again, as the world is coming to an end. Moshiach is coming. Whether it's next week, next year, or in 20 years, no one knows. And anyone who tells you he knows is a liar. But everyone knows that we are in that time. We are in that time.

21:17This is our last chance. Even the Steipler Gaon, Rabbi Kanievsky's father, when he was alive, already said 40 years ago that no one can rely on reincarnations anymore. Why? Pretty much everybody's had enough chances. So, in essence, this means that Hashem's mercy, on one hand, is scary because this is my last chance. had so much mercy on me, but He's giving me this last chance. So, on one hand, it's scary; on the other hand, it's invigorating. Why? Because if I actually do this right, if you do this right, all of the sins you've ever committed from your first gilgul can turn into mitzvot. We're not just talking about the zillions of sins a person can make by the time he's 20 years old. We're talking about a person that does it right, that serious teshuva, gets close to Hashem, follows the Torah, everything he knows he does, everything she knows she does, doesn't care about society and what they think and what this, no liberalism, no nothing, just Hashem. A person that does that,

22:29literally can get themselves to a point to fix, not just their own life, but fix the source all the way from the beginning. All the way from the beginning. Fix all of the losses that ever happened and turn them into wins. So on one hand, the mercy is scary because this is my last chance. On the other hand, what an opportunity. Let us all take this opportunity that HaKadosh Baruch Hu has given us where you'll also have newer features allowing you to use the app while engaging with other applications on your phone. You'll be able to share the shiurim directly from the app. You'll be able to donate online and support our kiruv and our Torah work that we're doing. where you'll also have newer features where you can use the app while using other applications on your phone. You'll be able to share the shiurim directly from the app. You'll be able to donate online and support our cause and our Torah work that we're doing.

23:35And the most exciting feature is that you'll be able to actually ask questions directly on the app and get answers from the rabbis directly from the app. This is something unprecedented, and Baruch Hashem, we will be able to offer it. Thank you again for all of your support. Check it out. Make sure you have the Kosher Torah that will re-energize your neshama each and every single day. Call for b'hatzlacha.