The Shofar Secret That Can Turn Around Rosh HaShanah Judgement - STUMP THE RABBI (23)

0:15We are back here in Sunny Isles, Florida. Baruch Hashem. We have a couple of new faces. Always good to see new faces. Always good to see old faces. This is, Baruch Hashem, the last shiur of the year. Rosh Hashanah is coming in just a few days. Judgment Day, Baruch Hashem, is coming. Hopefully, we do what we're supposed to do during that time and do what we're supposed to do even beforehand, which is to do teshuvah. one of the mitzvot that we learn in this week's parasha. The shiur is going to be for a refuah shlema for Levana bat Sarah. David ben Esria, Doris bat Dora, also for a refuah shlema, refuat hanefesh, refuat haguf, for Shmuel ben Simcha Chana, and Raphael ben Simcha Chana, Moshe Yaakov Yisrael ben Simcha Chana, and Yitzhak Shushan ben...

1:16Simcha Chana, our dear friends from Eretz Yisrael, from Tiberias. Tzadikim doing serious teshuva and doing zikui harabim, spreading our CDs and all types of Torah around Eretz Yisrael, Baruch Hashem. This, as I said in the short film that came out today, Teshuva Music No. 4, that this is a responsibility of every one of us. ...visual image that the team put on there also mamash hit the spot for a lot of people, myself included. If it wasn't me, I'd still be moved. Nonetheless, the main responsibility that every one of us has, aside from doing teshuva ourselves, is to help Am Yisrael do teshuva. One of the reasons is because there are many sins that we don't even remember committing. Where even though all of us are trying to get closer and closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, each one of us is trying to start praying, start learning, stop sinning the big sins. All that effort is very good, but as I said here in a full lecture a month or two ago and in the short film that was released today, the music definitely put it to another level and the... visual image that the team put on there also mamash hit the spot for a lot of people, myself included. If it wasn't me, I'd still be moved. Nonetheless, the main responsibility that every one of us has, aside from doing teshuva ourselves, is to help Am Yisrael do teshuva. One of the reasons is because there are many sins that we don't even remember committing.

2:43Remember, a lot of time has passed. Who remembers what they did when they were 15 years old and now they're 35? Most people don't. But it still counts in Shamayim. In Shamayim, they remember everything. So that's one. The second thing is sometimes you don't know enough about Torah to even know that what you did was a sin. You didn't know it was a sin, so how are you going to do teshuvah if you don't know it's a sin? And a third part is that we don't have that much time. Reality is, Mashiach can come at any given moment, or our own personal Mashiach, which unfortunately we all have to realize is a reality, which is that most people die before they expect. Most people don't die from natural causes. Almost eighteen and a half million people die every single year around the world—eighteen and a half million people. It's a lot of people. You're talking about a couple hundred thousand people every day. Go to sleep, don't wake up. Some of them are five years old, some of them are 15 years old, some are 25, some are 35, some are 45, some are 85. But if you look at the percentages of the 85-95 versus the 25-35-45, you would think it should be a lot more of the older, but it's not. It's the opposite. It's the opposite. Much younger people die. Why? That's why Hashem decides.

4:10So that means that, statistically speaking, Rabotai, I mean, we don't really know how much time we have. Nobody is guaranteed tomorrow. So that means that in order for us to complete our teshuva before we leave this world, we have to not only do our best, but also try to get other people to do their best. Because every time they do a mitzvah, it counts for us. Somebody asked me, how does the whole issue of doing teshuva for wasting seed work? we don't know all the details of Cheshbonot Shamayim and how Hashem evaluates every single thing because it all depends on the difficulty of the person. It depends on what type of test he has and so on. But generally speaking, if a person stops another person from wasting seed, they just literally did the most amazing thing they could possibly do for themselves. And the reason why is because every time that person would have wasted seed, Hashem knows it would have happened. That counts for that person who actually did it and helped him do teshuva. So it undoes what he did. Let's say, for example, he's 15, 16, 17 years old. He never knew that he's not supposed to waste seed. By the time he finds out, he already did it how many times? He doesn't even know how many times—100, 200, 300 times, 3,000 times, who knows. And

5:36Now he wants to do teshuva. Why? Because he knows if he doesn't do teshuva, he goes to Gehenom, chapter 7, the place of the seventh gate of Gehenom. And unfortunately, he doesn't leave. So he has to do teshuva. He's scared. He doesn't want to go to Gehenom. What's he going to get? Okay, smart, Baruch Hashem. So that means he has to do teshuva. First off, he has to stop. Stop sinning. Second off, he has to commit to stopping. Putting all types of fences around himself to not get himself to that point. If he knows that every time he goes to a certain place, he sees immodest things, he doesn't go anymore. If he knows every time he hangs out with certain people, that’s what happens, he doesn't do it anymore. If he knows that if he watches certain things, that happens, he doesn't do it anymore. He puts a fence around the fence. The third thing is he does serious teshuva on it by... Learning about the sin, we have over 30 lectures about it. Learning all of them on a regular basis, even after you finish the entire playlist, start again over and over again alongside everything else. Why? He has to become an expert in it to understand how big the damage is, so he can feel bad about it and cry. Every time a tear comes out, it fixes something. Takes the tears, puts it on his forehead. The Arizal says it's a big tikkun. He also learns that he has to learn Torah aside from this.

6:54learns Gemara, learns Chumash. It helps him. Then he gets other people to stop because even though he's doing teshuva, he stopped. He can't fix the few thousand times that he did it right away; it takes time. But if he gets a few people to stop, one of his friends stopped. Okay. So now every time that guy doesn't do it, it goes to his cheshbon. So it's like as if he didn't do it once, he didn't do it once, it's twice, and... You got another friend, two, three, four. By the end of the year, he has ten friends that stopped. Even if they didn't stop permanently, they just stopped sometimes. They were doing it five times a week; now they're doing it once. That's also good. That also counts for him. Why? You think, "Oh, why? They're still killing." Yeah, but it's less. Each time somebody—scientists said that 300 million seeds come out of him and... Talking about 300 million shedim. 300 million demons are created every time he ejaculates. So that means now, okay, he did it once, it's still 300 million. But 300 million is much less than one and a half billion. It's a lot easier to fix that. So that way, Rabotai, he's helping himself in a great way by helping other people do teshuva. But that also gives him strength to continue staying strong.

8:20Because now he's the influencer. She's the influencer. She got her friends to stop wearing wigs. But one day, she has a simcha. She has a simcha, and she wants to wear a wig. Why? Because, you know, she's used to wearing the mitpachat already for two, three, four, five years. She likes the mitpachat. She even wears it in a nice way. She puts jewels on it. All that stuff is good, right? But there's a simcha. You know, all the people she hasn't seen in 15 years are going to show up. The cousins, the aunts, the uncles, the nephews, the neighbors, the enemies, the friends, everybody's showing up. She wants to look extra good. So she knows that if they see her now with the mitpachat, maybe they're going to say something uncomfortable. So she has the yetzer hara to take the wig out of the closet that she should have burned already. She has the yetzer hara to go and put it back on her head. But then she thinks to herself, wait a minute. I already got all my girlfriends to stop. I got three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine girlfriends to stop. How could I show up to my own event with the wig on if I got nine people to stop? So that kiruv that she did gives her strength to overcome the yetzer hara that she has. But if she never did any kiruv and she's not an influencer, if he never did any kiruv and he's not an influencer...

9:36Yetzer Hara shows up and at some point he could potentially lose and it starts all over again. But either way, he has to get himself up and start all over. The point being is that doing kiruv is extremely important for every single person, especially if you're a very social person, if you have a lot of friends, if you know a lot of people, if you have 500 or 5000 people that you're connected to on Facebook and all of these other social networks. The only reason HaKadosh Baruch Hu allowed these places to exist and be created Simply because it's a tool for us to spread Torah much faster than what we've been able to do in the past. In the past, if you were the best speaker in the world, the Ben Ish Chai, three times a year, he would have a lecture with 10,000 people. 10,000 people! Alevai, I had 10,000 people in one lecture. It's like a stadium. But guess what? Even though I'm not even 1% of 1% of 1% of the Ben Ish Chai, in a matter of one month I get to a lot more people than the Ben Ish Chai did. Why? Because I have two million, two and a half million hours or minutes of Torah being learned. So even though here, let's say there's 50 people, over the next month enough people are going to watch this shiur and other shiurim that we have on the internet, that it accumulates to over two million minutes per month.

10:572 million minutes versus 10,000 people. You can't count. There's no comparison. Why did HaKadosh Baruch Hu allow someone like me to reach so many more people? Because we're out of time. We're out of time. Mashiach is around the corner. Everybody's running on tight times. And the point is that the Torah is the last chance for everybody to do teshuva. It's the last chance. So HaKadosh Baruch Hu is making sure that in every corner of the world, everybody gets a chance. Every little, every shiur that has emet in it is going to get to every corner. And everybody is going to have an opportunity to listen to the truth. Right now, we are finalizing, Be'ezrat Hashem, the translation, the subtitles to the movie that we've been working on for the last year and a half of my personal story. And Baruch Hashem, all of the people working on it amazed by it, to be honest with you. I was amazed by it, even though it's my story, just because of the visual effect and everything—the music, the visual effect, everything that they put in is really, really amazing stuff. But we saw that this is so impactful and so amazing that we have to do as much as possible to share it in every corner of the world. So, right now, we're putting subtitles on it and

12:13So far, we have Hebrew completed, Baruch Hashem, finalized a couple of days ago. Hebrew, Dutch, Spanish, Korean, German, Russian, and a few other languages that I can't remember. The point is, it's going to be in close to 10 different languages when it's released, b'ezrat Hashem, very soon—maybe even as soon as next week. Because this is the type of movie that anyone with a brain and eyes, it's going to be motivating. Jew, non-Jew is irrelevant. You watch it, you'll be motivated because it has to do with everything. It has to do with money, it has to do with health, it has to do with success, failure, religion, the secular world, intermarriage, a lot of different things. Scary stuff, fun stuff, funny stuff, all types of interesting things. And also the reality is that we're out of time. We're simply out of time. It's very important that each person takes the opportunities that they're being given from Hashem and takes advantage of them to do teshuva. And that's really the main purpose of Rosh Hashanah. Now, there are a few things that I can tell you about Rosh Hashanah and really what we're supposed to be doing over the next couple of days, but this can go on for a little while. So if you guys have specific questions, we'll start with those and then we'll move on to some of the other things that I have. So who has some questions?

13:40if they stop completely, it depends on how high their level of teshuva is If their teshuva is from fear only, the Gemara in Masechet Yoma, page 86a, and it's also at the end of the Gemara, Masechet Yoma again, says that if a person does teshuva purely out of fear, then their purposeful sins, the ones they did on purpose, turn into shogegim, turn into accidental sins, still a sin. doesn't get wiped out. They still have to go to Gehinnom, but not forever. If their teshuva is from ahavah, they fall in love with HaKadosh Baruch Hu. That takes time. You can't do that on day one; that takes a lot of time and a lot of Torah. But they can get there because first, you have to get to the highest level of fear, and then you start to fall in love with Hashem. It can't be straight to loving Hashem. If they get to loving Hashem, it can actually turn all of their sins into mitzvot and

15:02Meaning they had three and a half trillion sins, now they have three and a half trillion mitzvot. That's how amazing HaKadosh Baruch Hu is, how amazing teshuvah is. But the truth is, most people are never going to get to that level. And the reason why is because most people are not willing to dedicate their entire life to learning Torah to get to a level of loving HaKadosh Baruch Hu. They'll love a little bit, they'll be scared a little bit, it'll be a combination of both. So if his teshuvah is real, it's the highest level of teshuvah, then yeah, he's going to be, you know, the highest level. He's not going to have any sins. Everything's going to be mitzvot. If it's a little lower, but still very high, he could have shogeg, meaning that he's still going to have sins, but it's not the type of sin that he goes to Gehinnom forever. He's just going to have to pay for it. He has to pay the fine, whatever the fine is. But if he does kiruv, even if he doesn't do the highest level of teshuvah, the amount of people that are doing mitzvot on his behalf is going to get him to the highest level that's even possible. The highest level that's even possible. To such an extent that the Zohar HaKadosh says that someone that does kiruv, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, pretty much already decides what his din is before Rosh Hashanah already.

16:25He says, "I'm sitting with you in the judgment. I'm with you in the court. As if Hashem is being prosecuted also." Why? We're partners. We're partners. I created them. You created them. Why? Because you helped them do teshuvah. So we're partners. We're both in the court. Who's the judge? Oh, me too, also. So that's why it's important. Now, how does a person do kiruv? It's very simple. People think that kiruv is some elaborate thing. You have to sit here at the table and talk to people. You don't have to do it at all. you don't have to talk to people, ever. You can do kiruv in multiple ways. The most common and effective way to do kiruv, if you're not a public speaker, which is few and far in between, and to be honest with you, if I were you, I wouldn't be a speaker. It's a very, very hard life, and it's very hard to succeed. It's very, very hard to succeed as a speaker. The reason why is because you are now public property when you're a speaker. If you're going to speak the truth, that means that the public is going to constantly complain about you. They're going to say, "Oh, that's too scary." "Oh, it's too this." Like you wrote it: "Oh, how come you always mention it again?" "Oh, I didn't, I just read it. What do you want from my life? Don't watch if you don't like it. What do you want?" "Oh, how come you don't do this?" "Oh, maybe you should do that." Everybody has their suggestions for you. So, if you don't have thick skin and you aren't full of emet, what do you do? You stop and become soft like everybody else, like 99% of the speakers. You start telling people only stories and fun stuff and pretend like it's chassidut.

17:35How come you always mention it again? Oh, I didn't. I just read it. What do you want from my life? Don't watch if you don't like it. What do you want? Oh, how come you don't do this? Oh, maybe you should do that. Everybody has their suggestions for you. So, if you don't have thick skin and you aren't full of emet, what do you do? You stop and become soft like everybody else, like 99% of the speakers. You start telling people only stories and fun stuff and pretend like it's chassidut and... Pretend like it's that style. No, it's just the Torah and there's no punishment. Somebody came to this shul last night. He says, listen, I gave up on this place. I said, well, what happened? He goes, ah. He sat down with me, the guy was almost mamash, almost crying. Almost crying. He says, I came, I've been in this kehillah for so many years, my brother had a shul, 15 years, da-da-da-da-da. I said, so what happened? He says, one time here in a shul, and one of the guys, I hear him, and I said, you know what, I have to ask. He says, the way you're talking about Hashem, you're talking as if there's no punishment. And he says, so I said, you believe in punishment, right? That's what the guy says. You ask the rabbi, but there's two other rabbis there.

18:40you believe in punishment, right? The rabbi looks at him as if he came from a different planet. He goes, mah pitom? There's no punishment. So this thing is punishment? Now, this guy actually knows Torah. He says, what do you mean no punishment? It's the 13 Principles of Faith—Rambam's 13 Principles of Faith. If you don't believe in punishment, we can't count you in a minyan. You're a non-Jew. You're going... No, what are you talking about? There's no punishment. No punishment. So now, the poor guy is shocked. So he says, okay, maybe there's just one kofer, there's a rabbi, but he's not a rabbi. He's a ra. Just ra and go by. You know? So he's hoping that the other two, the other two are going to say something. He looks at the other guy, he's like, what do you want? He agrees. So he's like, oh, maybe the gadol, the gadol, the big rabbi, looks at him, hope, signs of hope, no, Moshe Rabbeinu, help us. There's a Moshe, it's not even Korach. There's no punishment. He says this shows like a huge building, 30 million dollars, very famous rabbis don't believe in a basic foundation of Judaism.

19:51Now, they used to when they were 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 years old. But something happened along the way. The public influenced them because every time you mention punishment, people cringe a little bit. They don't like to hear it, so they stop talking about it. But you stop talking about it, eventually, you start forgetting, you start believing, and you start believing the hocus-pocus you're talking about. You create a new Torah. That's why, Rabotai, the Sefer Chassidim says... a speaker does not influence his people to do teshuva when HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave him 50 people to speak to, 500 people to speak to, a thousand people to speak to, a million people to speak to. He will pay the din on every single one of them. What do you mean I gave you a million people? You had a million views on your shiur. Not a single person did teshuva. In fact, they got worse because of you. They started doing teshuva because they listened to Rabbi Yaron, but then they listened to you and they went back to their goyish nefesh because you told them there's no Gehinom. You told them there's no punishment, so they went back to the goyish ways. Oh, there's no punishment? Okay, so let me have fun. There's no punishment? Let me do this. So that means being a speaker is very hard for most people, better not to be. So how do you do kiruv? Money. Everyone here either works or will work at some point in their life and...

21:17No one needs 100% of their money. But the good news is, HaKadosh Baruch Hu doesn't want 100% of their money. What does He want? 10%. He says, I'm going to give you 100%, but use 10% to publicize Torah. 10%. You want to be a tzaddik? 20%. But if you do 10%, you're still good. That 10%, use it to fund Kiruv. If you made $1,000, you take $100—it's 10%. Use it for Kiruv. You made a million, you take $100,000, or you take $10,000, whatever it is, 10%. You do that like clockwork. Never skip a day. Never think about it too much. Don't even do too many calculations. And you'll be surprised at how extraordinary that is in Shamayim. Because that not only shows HaKadosh Baruch Hu that you believe that He's the one that provides you the parnasah, Also, He gives him a reason to give you more. Why? He says, "You're a good partner to have. I give you, you publicize My Torah without ever saying a word. All you do is write checks or press a button on the internet, PayPal, or whatever. Go to B'Hatzlacha.com, you send your money, that's it. Finished."

22:27Auto, every month. You don't even do it. Some people, they're so smart, they know how much they're going to make. It's the same thing every month. So what do they do? They subscribe. Auto payment, like a phone bill. $150 a month, $500 a month, whatever it is. These people are geniuses. Geniuses. Imagine, you go to Gan Eden, you didn't do anything. Geniuses. You know how many geniuses there are in the world? Very few. That's the sad part. It's a lot of people that donate money, but very few geniuses. Why? I mean, you see some people, they build hospitals. They build buildings. They build a zoo. They save butterflies that are stranded for survival. There's only 16 left. They saved the tiger named Steve because his nail broke. They spent millions of dollars. Somebody sent me a video two weeks ago. A team of doctors. I mean, each one of these doctors back home makes no less than half a million dollars a year. Fifteen of them went to Africa, so you're talking about a significant investment. Each one of them went for a two- to three-week expedition. Why? They had to save an elephant that

23:52that was stuck in the mud and almost starved to death. So you see 15 doctors, experts—you're talking about an investment of no less than a quarter million dollars that somebody paid to go save an elephant that was dying. Now you go ask those same 15 geniuses in the secular world to go take the quarter million dollars and publicize Torah. It's like, "What, are you crazy? It's expensive." Expensive? We can use it to save another elephant. Save a human? No, save somebody from getting home? No, save a thousand people again? No, but to save an elephant so he doesn't die and get eaten by the rest of the animals, which is what he's supposed to do anyway. No, we have to save the elephant. Or you want to save, like, this imbecile homosexual woman that's on TV, whatever her name is. What's her name? The one with the short hair? She looks like a boy. Ellen, Ellen... that girl. Yeah, that one, Ellen DeGenerate. Ellen DeGenerate. She, DeGenerate? Yeah, DeGenerate. DeGenerate, same thing. Ellen DeGenerate, she has a special foundation and she got the other guy, the other actor. She got the other guy to give her $4 million to start a foundation for what? To save special gorillas in South America. There are gorillas that there's only like 600 of them left.

25:19She feels bad. So she got millions of dollars from foolish people for what? To go save them. They don't need saving. If a shaman wants to save them, he doesn't need your money. No, no, but Ashton Kutcher, the other genius, he decided to give her $4 million on TV. And then many other people gave her millions and millions of dollars for what? To go save monkeys. Save people? No, why? People are going to save themselves. Let them work. Why don't you go to South America? You know what? You want to take the money, put it in South America? No problem. Why don't you take the millions of dollars, 10, 20 million dollars you have? Why don't you go feed the people? How about that? Instead of feeding the monkeys more bananas that they can find on their own, why don't you go feed the people? How about that? Go to Venezuela. People are starving. They're eating from the garbage. Why don't you go there? Why don't you go to Argentina where their money went down by 90%? Why don't you go feed them? Why don't you go to Greece? Why don't you go to a different place where people are actually starving? No, no, we're going to save monkeys. Let's save monkeys. You know how much Gehenom these people are going to pay for using the bracha that HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave them to go save monkeys or elephants? So that's a stupid person that thinks he's smart. And there's a genius who doesn't even realize he's a genius. The guy that's sending 500 bucks a month.

26:40Maaser or whatever he's sending as maaser. Autopilot, go help people do teshuva. That guy is the biggest genius in the world. These other people that have a lot more zeros next to their name—all they are is a zero. Why? He goes to Gan Eden; they go to Gehinnom. So you can do kiruv with money. Now let's say you don't have any bracha. Some people, they're so precious to HaKadosh Baruch Hu that He wants to clean them up from every sin possible. So what does He do? He gives them poverty. Baruch Hashem, there aren't many of those in Florida. Most people in Florida are middle to upper class. But let's say a person is suffering and doesn't have any money. Pretty much every dollar he has, he already knows where it's being spent. He doesn't have anything, and he doesn't even spend on donuts. He makes donuts at home. Guy doesn't spend a nickel. He doesn't have any money. So that guy, he doesn't have money. He doesn't have speaking ability. So what does he do? He has to use his time. Time. You have a skill. You know how to do something with that skill. Use part of that skill to do kiruv. Graphics, marketing, whatever that skill is. If that skill is not useful for kiruv, then use your time. Take, I don't know, a half hour a day, an hour a day to do kiruv. How? Invite people to come to the lecture.

28:03That's it. You have, I don't know, 500 people on your phone. Take the invitation that Michal sent you and forward it to all 500. That's it. Finished. You did your hishtadlut. Guess what? You go to Gan Eden for that. For what? For pressing forward. Now, what happens if you don't press forward? In Shamayim, they say, look, we didn't give you money. We didn't give you a skill. We didn't give you the ability to speak. We didn't give you anything. All we gave you is a phone that had a forward button, and you still didn't use it. You went on Facebook or Shamayim's book, all these things, but you didn't even press share. Why? You could have gone to Gan Eden, and now you don't. But you did share the monkey videos. You did share the duck video. You shared the soccer game. That, you did share. You remember the share, which means that you knew that the share button exists. But you never thought to share Torah. You never thought to share the invitation to come to the shiur. And that way, nobody came because of you. So why? You still want us to put you in Gan Eden? Can't. Why? Because it's still sins.

29:08So that means I will tell you that everybody could do something. Everybody could do something. For the most part, most people are going to use money; some people will use skills; some people will use a combination of both. Either way, a person, all they need to do is want it. They just need to want to help other Jews go to Gan Eden. That's it. That's all they need. If you want it bad enough, you'll find a way. You'll find a way. And that's the biggest bracha you can give yourself. Next question. Yes. New guy from Philadelphia. How do your aveirot turn into mitzvot? How does that process work? So, how do the aveirot turn into... Yeah, it's a good question. It's a good question. It's a long answer. It's a long answer, but I'll give it to you. So, the Gemara in Masechet Yoma. See, you see how the Ishmael opened the page even before the shiur started. I told you, one day Hashem is going to give you the lecture. I'm just going to sit here as a fan. Pointless for me to come. He makes it seem like I actually know anything. Anyway, so, HaKadosh Baruch Hu yishtabach Shemo.

30:27No adjective to describe how great he is is sufficient. That's why, by the way, if you look at some of the commentary some Siddurim have on the Shema Yisrael, after you get to Emet, you know, the Tzitzit part, and then you go to Emet, and you start giving him all types of favorable adjectives. He's this, he's great, he's amazing, da-da-da-da-da. But some of the commentaries said, don't ever think this is enough. Don't ever think that this is actually all He is. This is like something. It's nothing in reality, but it's something. Because if you really describe all He is, the world will end, the Mashiach will come several times already, and it's not going to be enough. That's how great He is. So anyway, this Gemara says that out of the sins, out of the sins actually turn into mitzvot. It says, There is a pasuk in the Torah in Exodus 34:7. It's a very famous pasuk where Moshe Rabbeinu tells the nation, "Nosei Avon V'Pesha V'Chata'ah," that HaKadosh Baruch Hu forgives the avon, the pesha, and the chata'ah. He forgives the sin that he did purposefully; He forgives—that's avon. He forgives the pesha...

31:54the sin that you did not only purposefully but mamash to get Hashem angry. And He forgives the sin that is a chet, which is an accidental sin, meaning you didn't even know it was a sin. The Chachamim ask, how come it's this order? Shouldn't it be first, meaning first, He forgives the small sin that you didn't even know was a sin. Then the sin you did on purpose, but because you just desire it, not because you hate Hashem. You desire to eat pork. It's not because you hate Hashem. You just like pork. You desire to do certain things, not because you hate Hashem. So forgive that too. And then eventually, maybe hopefully, you'll forgive the big sin, the one that you are like Menashe, Hashem Yerachem. You look at the book of Chronicles 2, chapter 33. It talks about Menashe. Hashem, what this guy did. But HaKadosh Baruch Hu still accepted his teshuva. Why? Because he cried to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, and he humbled himself eventually. Maybe we'll talk about that later on. But anyway, so the Gemara talks about this. How come this is the order? So, simply speaking, it says that really this is the proof from the Torah that

33:08that it's not that that's the order of him forgiving, but when a person does real teshuva, HaKadosh Baruch Hu turns his sins that were on purpose and even the worst sins, the sins of mamash, getting Hashem angry, into an accidental sin. That's the source of the Torah that says it. Now, in the end of the Gemara, page 86b, it says that, again, It all depends on the level of teshuvah. If the person Doing teshuvah purely based out of fear of punishment. He doesn't want to go to Gehinnom. That's it. That's why he does teshuvah, not because he loves Hashem, not because he loves mitzvot, not because he can't wait to learn more Torah and he literally spends every second learning. He literally spends every second thinking about Kaddosh Baruch Hu. No, he just doesn't want to go to Gehinnom. Or better yet, he doesn't really understand what Gehinnom is, but he understands what Gehinnom in this world means. He doesn't want to get sick.

34:09He got sick one time. He felt like he was going to die. He doesn't want that feeling again. Or better yet, he never got really sick, but he has a lot of money, and he's scared to lose it. The more money you have, the more scared you are to lose it. So he saw his friend, who had a lot of money, lose all of it. He saw what happened to his life: his wife left him, his kids left him, even the dog left him—shame on him. So he says, "I don't want to be like him." He's scared to lose money, so he starts doing teshuvah just so he won't lose money. That's it, not because he... heaven, hell, nothing. He just doesn't want to lose. So that's still good, but that will get the sins to turn into accidental sins because it's only fear. But if he does teshuvah, just like the pasuk says, it's called teshuvah from loving Hashem. Or... Where it's to such an extent that he literally does everything and anything possible to serve HaKadosh Baruch Hu. He looks for more ways to serve HaKadosh Baruch Hu. He's petrified of Him, but not just of sin. He's petrified of hurting the relationship he has with Him. Similar to a husband and wife. A husband, if he's a normal husband, and a wife, if she's a normal wife, they don't not hit each other because they're scared the other person's going to hit back.

35:29They're not not doing it because of that. They don't not yell at each other because they're scared that the other person is going to yell back. That's not the reason. They're not going to yell at each other or hurt each other because they're scared to hurt the relationship, the connection they have. He loves her so much he's not going to do certain things even if he wants to. Why? Because he doesn't want to hurt the connection. He knows that if he yells at her, she's going to be offended and she's not going to want to talk to him for three or four hours, or maybe three or four days, and he can't handle that. And he can't handle that. He has to talk to her. He has to. So he wants to yell at her, but he doesn't want to. Why? Because he doesn't want to lose her for three days. He doesn't want to lose her for three hours. So that is fear, that is a fear out of love, in essence. That's the highest level of fear. You don't sin, not because you're scared only of Gehenom, it's that too, but also because you don't want to hurt the relationship you have with Hashem. And that's the beginning of actually loving Hashem. What's actually loving Hashem? Loving Hashem is, theoretically speaking, if HaKadosh Baruch Hu came to you and said, listen,

36:40I said you have to keep all the mitzvot. All of mankind has to keep mitzvot. The Jews have to keep all of the commandments from the Torah. The non-Jews have to keep the seven Noahide laws. Also from the Torah, but fewer laws. Everybody that's going to do it is going to heaven. Everyone that doesn't do it is going to hell. But you have a special deal. You, whether you do it or you don't do it, you're still going to Gehenom. You are like the Baal Shem Tov. You say, "You know what, Hashem? Since I know I'm going to Gehenom anyway, but I love You. So I'm still going to serve You and fulfill all of the mitzvot anyway. Why? Because I know it makes You happy. Whatever 'happy' means to You, it makes You happy. That's serving You. I still want to be Your servant, even though I'm going to get punished for it. That's loving Hashem." Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, 200 years ago, says that such people are almost nonexistent in his generation. So, people talk about loving Hashem, but they're living in an imagination. It doesn't really exist; it’s not common, to say the least. There are some yachidim, Gedolei HaDor, big tzaddikim here and there who got to that level, but as far as the masses, no chance in the world. Most people that are really on a high level are a combination of the two.

38:04But if somebody gets to even a combination of the two—some love, some fear—which means love and fear, and then fear is just fear, that person can get to a point where HaKadosh Baruch Hu turns the sins that he made into mitzvot. So now, let's say he did teshuvah for Shabbat. In the past, he violated Shabbat, and now he started keeping Shabbat. Beginning, he started keeping Shabbat by sleeping all day. He just didn't violate it. That's not exactly teshuvah out of fear, but then he said, "You know what? I want to do more." So, he started doing Kiddush and started going to beit knesset. Okay, it's still fear, but it's better than it was. But then he said, "You know what? I want to make Shabbat like it's a holiday every week." Pretty much his entire week... ...is like Shammai. From Motzei Shabbat all the way to Shabbat, they prepared for Shabbat the whole week. On Sunday, they buy an animal, a chicken, or a cow—whatever they buy for Shabbat. But they pick the best one. But if, let's say,...

39:15He saw on Wednesday a better cow or a better chicken. He bought that one. She said, "Yeah, but you already bought one." He goes, "That one I'll eat today, but this better one I'll buy for Shabbat." The whole week he only thought about Shabbat. Finally got to Shabbat, special food, special environment, special Torah that he learned for Shabbat. He has some guests. He has oneg Shabbat, but real Shabbat—not just to wine and dine people and feed a bunch of strangers. It's full of Torah. It's full of Kedusha. It's full of Simcha. That is full for that Shabbat. Why? Because now you're taking the Shabbat and you're making it a holiday every week. Not to show people off your house, but to show people off your Shabbat. I only know one person who does this. I'm sure many other people do it, but I know one person who does it. Rabbi Ephraim. Everyone knows, Baruch Hashem, you want to see a Shabbat, how it's supposed to be, you go to Rabbi Ephraim's house. Rabbi Ephraim is not rich. As far as money, but on Shabbat, you would think Bill Gates works for him. When we were at his house, we stayed at his house a couple of times. I didn't know where it ended, where it started. All I knew is that I never wanted it to end. It was just unbelievable. But everybody knew it. It's just an unbelievable environment.

40:34Alvi we could ever get to such a point. The point being, it's possible, but that person that turns no Shabbat into oneg Shabbat to the highest level. He has guests, he has food, he has all the different beautiful things of Shabbat where everybody pretty much leaves Shabbat sad. Why sad? Because it's over, not "Baruch Hashem, it's over." What's a Shabbat? "Okay, where's the phone? Where's the phone? Where's the phone?" He can't wait for the phone. He can't wait to go back to work on Sunday. That kind of Shabbat, I'm not even sure it's Shabbat. He has the type of Shabbat that he actually feels bad for ending. That's the best Shabbat. And that's Teshuva Me’ahava. So he didn't do Teshuva Me’ahava for everything, but he did it for that. So he could literally turn his old Shabbatot into mitzvot. And that's generally how it works. It's not like it's all or nothing. HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants to give us reward, and He'll look for different places to give us the ultimate reward. Even if it's just one out of a thousand, He's still going to give us that one. So it works that way. And again, it's about becoming an expert in one mitzvah. That's actually one of the things that Chazal say: every person needs to pick one mitzvah to be an expert in, know all the halachot, do it the best way possible. When you do it, celebrate, be happy like this is your mitzvah. This is your mitzvah. This is the one, that's it. This is your baby. You're doing everything else, but this is your baby and...

42:00Some people pick the etrog. They like the etrog. Etrog is their thing. The etrog, they're not like everybody else. They go to the local guy, pick whatever thing they have. They're not even sure if it's a lemon or an etrog, but as long as it's cheap, they buy it. No, some people, they go to a special guy. They have a special order already in advance. "Listen, give me the best one." "Yeah, how much is your budget?" "Whatever you have. Whatever you have." I know one Jew who did that one time. Tries to do it all the time, but you don't succeed all the time. One time, you went to an etrog place in New York, and you know, I looked at the etrogim. There it is, in New York, Baruch Hashem, it's not like Florida, where you have to meet somebody in some hidden office because it's like a side business. Over there, it's like actual stores; they sell the stuff. So, you go to different stores, checking etrogim. "What do you have? What do you have? What do you have?" One of the stores you got to, The guy said, "Uh, listen, what are you looking for?" He says, "I'm looking for the best one." "What's your budget? Because whatever you want, the best kind of customer. What do you want?" He goes, "Oh, what do you want, like a fifty-dollar, one-hundred-dollar one?" Because whatever you want." One of the workers, like a light went off, he goes, "Hold on one second." He went to the back and came out with this big bag.

43:22Opened up because, "Come, come over here, away from all the customers." Open like a safe, mamash like a safe. Open this thing. It's wrapped up in more wrapping. He takes it out and it's, oh my mosh, it's like a melon. Huge Yemenite etrog, the best etrog. By the way, Yemenite etrogim are the only ones we know for sure are kosher. The rest of them, you're not sure if it's a lemon or it's an etrog. If you have an opportunity to buy a Yemenite etrog, buy that. But if you don't have an opportunity, you have an opportunity. Anyway, Yemenite etrog, but it's huge. Some of them are really big. How much? $600. Now remember, this is useful for one day. The rest of it, you don't have to. Like if the etrog is pasul the second day, you can still use it. But if it's pasul the first day, you can't use it. Meaning the mitzvah really is for one day. You're paying $600 to use this thing for one day. How do you use it? You don't eat it. What do you do? You carry it to the Beit Knesset. You're carrying your football to the Beit Knesset. That's all you're doing. This guy was so excited. He said, "Sold." He didn't negotiate anything. You know, usually Jews negotiate. The worst thing you can do is give a Jew something, and he says, "Yes." Why? He says, "Well, I could have gotten more from him." So he says, "Yes, sold." The guy was so happy, takes out $600. Why was this such a big deal? Maybe the guy's a millionaire. If the guy's a millionaire, $600 is not a big deal. What's such a big deal? That was all of his money. That's all the money he had.

44:50gave all of his money to buy this etrog. Why am I telling you this story? Because those who like this mitzvah. How do I know? If you see pictures, you see that etrog for two years. The etrog lasted two years. Two Sukkot. Now you take your etrog for $30, for $50, for $500, whatever you buy etrog. Within a month, it turns into disgusting, smelly stuff. Why? It's natural. You take an apple, you put it on a shelf, you put it wherever you put it, it goes bad. Mamash, miraculously, I saw pictures myself. Same etrog, two years. Fresh, fresh like it just mamash came off the tree for two years. Almost survived the third year. Unbelievable. Mamash, a miracle, like something, it's not normal. I know for a fruit to last, I mean, go try, use any preservative you want. Without putting it in the fridge, without putting anything into it. After Sukkot was over, he put it back in the foil over there. That's it, left it, forgot about it.

45:54A year later. Oh, yeah, you know what? Let's check what happened to the etrog. Maybe it's like a bunch of, like, you know, mold and bugs and I don't know, it's liquid. Surprise, no smell. Takes it off the thing, opens the closet. It's perfect. Like it just came off the tree. Why? HaKadosh Baruch Hu likes this mitzvah. Likes this mitzvah. So the point is, rabotai, if you become an expert in a mitzvah, and you do your best in it, HaKadosh Baruch Hu will give you special siyata dishmaya in this mitzvah. So try to pick one this Rosh Hashanah. Next question. Anybody else or you? No offense, just want everybody to go to... Yes? Before Rosh Hashanah, are we, like this Hashem, make shed light? There is a concept in Judaism called Cheshbon HaNefesh. Cheshbon HaNefesh means self-accounting, to account for

47:16Do an accounting of your own sins and your own mitzvot. In essence, try to judge yourself now. Naturally, every person who is not living in some illusion and is mentally stable, within three to five seconds, knows at least a handful of things they're doing wrong and If they know a little bit of Torah, they don't need to be a big chacham. They just learn parashat hashavua. They came to five, ten shiurim. Better yet, they just listened to one shiur, one of our shiurim, for two hours and actually paid attention without playing with their phone. They already know that after they finished that shiur, there are at least two, three, four things they're doing wrong and they have to do teshuva for it. Every person is like this. You guys think that I'm sitting over here, and you're sitting over there, and I'm like the tzaddik and you guys are the reshaim, chas v'shalom. 99% of lectures are directed at myself; 1% is perhaps directed at someone who exists online. I don't know. I don't mean you guys. It's a nickname. How do I know? So, all of the things we talk about in the lecture are things that we all have to work on. Now, a person listens to a shiur, reads a book of emet, and...

48:36Within a few seconds, he realizes, okay, check, check, check, check, but it's not really check, it's like an X. But you don't want to put an X on yourself, so you put check. I'm a sinner here, sinner here, sinner here, sinner here. You have to work on it. So anybody that does a little bit of self-accounting knows, okay, I have a few things to work on. The Rabbi mentioned... Gava (pride) is disgusting to Hashem. Okay. Sometimes I'm prideful. Why? Whenever somebody cuts me off, I lose my mind. That's pride. Whenever somebody talks to me a certain way, I lose my mind. That's pride. Whenever somebody tells me what to do, I don't like it. That's pride. And so on and so forth. When they didn't agree to my terms of the deal, I just canceled the whole deal. That's pride. Whenever she tells me to go take out the garbage, I don't want to. That's pride. Because I don't think I'm a garbage man, as if I'm better than a garbage man. That's pride. So, Hashem is disgusted by pride. So already everybody here is guilty to some extent. Some more, some less. Every shiur has that. So, everybody that's going to do self-accounting, within a few seconds, they know they're guilty of a few things. Pick one. Don't pick all of them.

49:49Don't be overly righteous. You pick all of them, you'll end up failing at everything. Pick one. Pick one thing you know for sure you're failing at. And say, this is the one I'm going to do teshuva in, and I'm going to become an expert in it. You pick one. And you start learning about it, and working on it, and doing everything possible to do teshuva for this. After you're going on for a little while on this one thing, then you start picking up some other stuff too. To a smaller extent, but still, this one still stays your baby. And little by little you get better with it, better with it, and you get some strength with it; you become good at it. Then you start some other big one. But the point is, you have to pick one. Don't pick everything. Don't pick, unless it's the obvious stuff, like, you know, if you're driving on Shabbat, eating pork, and you're intermarried, you don't really have that kind of time; you can't just pick one. You know there are certain things you have to just simply stop. But there are things that are going to take time to work on, which are usually character traits. Either way, you have to pick one big one and start working on it little by little. Learn more and more about it; become an expert in it. And if you show up to Rosh Hashanah with that type of mindset, you'll be judged favorably. How do I know? Does anybody here know why we have the mitzvah of shofar?

51:15Now, you guys have all gone to Beit Knesset for Rosh Hashanah, I'm assuming, right? It's not that you guys have all been to Beit Knesset, right? You went to Beit Knesset, you heard the shofar, some people even own a shofar in their house. They like to do it; everybody likes to blow the shofar. It's kind of hard, but it's fun. Now, most people don't really know why we even blow the shofar. How come we don't blow, like, a horn? It's easier. Why don't we have, like, a nice piano? Play some Bach or Beethoven. Why not? How come it's a shofar? It's an animal, no? Who has something? Zach. Zach. That's what the Gemara says in Rosh Hashanah, page 16a. Ah, that's the big question. Why does it weaken the Satan? What does it have to do with the Satan? All it is, I should have brought my shofar, I just got a shofar. And it's amazing that this thing, a piece of an animal, actually has so much power if used effectively. It has the power of a million atomic bombs.

52:45has the power to change nature if used the right way. Or it could simply be something on your shelf. Either nothing or something unbelievable. What is it? It's a horn. It's an animal. That's it. Some are the long ones. Some are the short ones. But they all have the same power or the same uselessness. Whatever you want. You look at it every time you go to a Judaica store and it looks cool, but you don't really feel like paying five hundred dollars for it. So you just go to visit the Judaica store to look at it for free. Or one day, you have a good day at work and you buy it for no reason. You just tell people you have a shofar, but in reality, you don't really know that this thing is like a million atomic bombs. One time, there was a guy that I... Was a tokea in the Beit Knesset. He was the guy that would do it every year. He's good at it, and he did it for a few years, but one day he got into some financial troubles, lost some money, and got into some problems. The prayer to Hashem did not work, and he decided to go to the religion of love

54:04religion of love and inquisitions and holocausts also, but Christianity, why? Because in Christianity, they pay you. They pay you to convert to Christianity. They pay you in Christianity to become Christians. The missionaries spent over 300 million dollars a year just to convert Israelis in Eretz Yisrael alone. We're not talking about the rest of the world, the rest of the world is billions. Eretz Yisrael alone, three hundred million dollars a year to convert Jews to Christianity, to idol worship. They have eight billion people in the world, but they want to mess with the few million that we have. Mamash, the Satan himself. Now, one of the ways they do it is by giving people money. For years, in the old days, they also killed them too. Today, not so much. Today, they just give money. So this guy had some problems and figured, you know what, let me go to the religion of love that pays some money too. But it wasn't enough for him. He wanted to stay there, he wanted the kavod of being the ba'al tokea too. He wants to blow the shofar every year also. So he went to the Beit Knesset, he goes, I want to make sure I still have my position at the Beit Knesset for Rosh Hashanah to blow the shofar. Rabbi says, what? You're a mumar, you. Anybody that converts to Christianity is called a mumar. Somebody that's

55:33Heretic! You can't count them in the minyan. You can't unless he does teshuvah. No, permanently. You're a mumar. You convert to Christianity? You abandoned the Kadosh Baruch Hu. What are you talking about? You're gonna blow the shofar for the rest of us? And this guy was a shatnez. Like he's a professional rasha. It wasn't enough for him. No, what did he do? He went to the king. He went to the king. The king goes, "Listen, Your Highness, I..." you believe it? The Jews are not letting me have my old job. I had this job already for 20 years. I want my job. He goes, "What's your job?" because I'm about to care. He goes, "What's that?" I blow the horn for the Jews. He goes, "Okay, so what's the problem?" because now they fired me. "Okay, so they fired you, find somebody else." "No, Your Highness, you know why they fired me? Because I became like you. I became a Christian like you." The king said, "What? They fired you because you became a Christian? I'll come..." "Okay, we're going to take care of the Jews. They don't give you a job, I'm going to slaughter all of them. They look for a reason to kill us."

56:39think that anti-Semitism is theoretical. It's a reality right now. There was a video that just came out a couple of days ago. Anti-Semitism in America has gone up over 40% in the last year. It was already 40% of Americans who admitted to being anti-Semitic. Now, we're talking about probably somewhere around 65% of Americans admitting to being anti-Semitic. They're already starting to kill people in the streets and some places in New York, every other day, somebody gets a rock thrown at them, gets beaten up—all types of horrible things are happening. People are living in an illusion; they think that everything is good now. But anyway, he brings the king to the Jews and says, "Listen, you've got to give him his job back." So the rabbi is smart; he goes, "Listen, we can't mess with the king. The guy you can mess with, you know, you'd say no. But the king came; you know, you say no to the king, he kills everybody." The rabbi says, "Your Highness, you must know with your wisdom, what's the most important day of the year for the Jews?" So the king says, "Oh, of course, it's Yom Kippur." The rabbi says, "Exactly, Your Highness. That's what we're going to do. Because of you, we're going to give him the mitzvah of blowing the shofar on Yom Kippur for the kehillah."

57:57The king is happy. "Thank you very much for honoring me. Chavod." But the rashah, the mumar, said, "Hey, hey, hey, no, that's not good. Your Highness, they're tricking us here." The king asks, "What do you want?" He replies, "Yes, you blow the shofar on Yom Kippur, but it's not even an obligation. It's a minhag. It's a minhag to blow the shofar on Yom Kippur. It's not an obligation. The real obligation is on Rosh Hashanah." The king says, "You're still complaining?" They're giving you the biggest day, and you start complaining, "My important day, less important?" Get out of here already! The king kicked them out already. The point being, rabotai, is that the shofar is a big deal in Judaism. Why? Because HaKadosh Baruch Hu Himself says that the shofar is a big deal. But why? Why is it a big deal? Now, as our dear friend says, the Gemara in Masechet Rosh Hashanah, page 16a and also 16b, goes into a whole... debate, a whole sugya about the significance of shofar. It says, why do you blow a shofar? It says, what do you mean, why do you blow a shofar? Rachmana said, blow a shofar. HaKadosh Baruch Hu said, the Merciful One said, blow a shofar in the Torah. It says, you must blow a shofar. It says, but why do you blow a shofar? So it says, look, it says also, this is something special to Hashem, because the shofar

59:19...is something that confuses the Satan. The Satan is full of eyes, 6,000 years old, and he's confused by a horn from an animal? Why is he confused? So this is in Tehillim, David HaMelech says in Tehillim 89, verse 16, "Ashrei ha'am yodei teruah, Hashem b'or panecha yehaleichun." That says praiseworthy is the nation that knows the teruah. Teruah is one of the main sounds of the shofar. Praiseworthy is the nation that knows the teruah. That's Am Yisrael. Why? Because it's symbolic that they're going with Hashem. They're going in the way of Hashem. So the Midrash Rabbah, Vayikra Rabbah, Parashat Emor, in Parashat 29, or Daled. Rabbi Hoshaya says, why is David HaMelech saying praiseworthy is the nation, meaning Am Yisrael, that knows how to blow a teruah, blow a shofar? What, the other nations don't know how to blow a shofar? What, the other nations don't have musical instruments too? What's the big deal? They brought a bull, what's the, what?

1:00:39A few tries, you do it. Everybody does it. They have violins. They have all types of things. What's a... David HaMelech took a pasuk in the Torah and decided it's so important that they're praiseworthy, that they know how to blow a shofar. Everybody knows how to blow a shofar also. So Rabbi Hoshaya says, it's not that they know and they don't know. There must be some goyim that know how to blow a shofar. Only Am Yisrael knows how to use the Torah to entice their Creator to rise from His throne of judgment and move and sit on His throne of mercy instead. On the seventh month, on Rosh Hashanah, HaKadosh Baruch Hu is sitting on His throne of judgment. says, guilty, punished, guilty, punished, guilty, punished. And now, because of this shofar, He gets up out of this throne to go and sit on His throne of mercy. Says, yeah, he did it, but look, he's doing better now. So forgive him. Let him go. Yeah, but he did it. Yeah, he did it, but he's trying better now. Let it go. He's innocent. Give him more time.

1:02:06It all comes from the shofar. Why does the shofar have such significance? The shofar comes from the word l'shaper. L'shaper means to improve. Now the same Midrash Rabbah, Parashat Emor, says that HaKadosh Baruch Hu says to Am Yisrael, just like you, improved your actions, shapartem. improved your actions, shippartem, By the time you came to blow the shofar, you didn't just blow the shofar and do nothing, then go home and barbecue on Shabbat. No, you prepared the selichot, you went to the shiurim, and when you prayed, you didn't just pray and read the words while thinking about baseball, basketball, and your business. You've already been doing teshuva for a while; you're working on yourself, and you're saying to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, "HaKadosh Baruch Hu, listen, in reality, we're losers."

1:03:12That's the reality. It's difficult to keep Shabbat. It's difficult to eat kosher. It's difficult to watch your eyes. It's difficult to do all these things. It's difficult for me to do teshuva. Honestly, I don't deserve anything. And I'm crying to You. I'm crying to You to please help me. The shofar is a cry. The three types of tekiot from the shofar are three symbolic sounds that sound like crying. the two that's like, "Please Hashem, I don't even have words to say. I'm so guilty." The two that's like, and the two that's pretty much hysterical crying, as if somebody just died. That's our teruah. The Shofar is symbolic of us crying to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. And when you cry to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, you can't even talk. So you say, "Hashem, I'm guilty, I'm so guilty. I have nothing to say for myself. I can't even talk, so I'm just crying, and this is the Shofar sound." HaKadosh Baruch Hu says to us, "That's Teshuvah."

1:04:36If you've been preparing yourself the whole month already, you're crying to me on a regular basis, you're working on yourself, you know that you're failing, but you're going to try better. You promise to try better. You're not guaranteeing, but you're going to try. You're doing something about it. You know that you don't know all the halachot of Shabbat. So what do you do? You say, Hashem, I'm going to start learning halachot Shabbat. And eventually, I'll know them and I'll keep Shabbat appropriately. You know that wasting seed is an addiction for you. So you say, "Listen, it's hard for me to stop overnight. But at least I'm going to stop watching all this pornography. I'm going to stop looking at every girl that moves. I'm going to stop going on the internet on websites that I'm not allowed to. I'm going to stop watching TV. I'm going to watch my eyes, at least. I'm going to do the best that I can so at least I'm not causing myself to do it." I'm going to do something about it. You know that your job is illegal. You're in a cash advance business. Or you sell illegal goods. Or you bait and switch and you cheat people. Say, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, I don't know how I'm going to pay the bills, but all I know is that You don't like what I'm doing. So I quit. I quit. I'm not working in this business anymore. Why? I don't want to cheat anymore. Why? Because I know You hate it.

1:05:57You know that you don't know enough. You say, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, listen, I can't become an avrech overnight. I can't go learn 8, 10, 12 hours a day. But HaKadosh Baruch Hu, for sure, I could do 15 minutes a day. Just like I need to eat and breathe every day, I need to learn Torah at least 15 minutes a day and gradually go up. But you make a commitment that from now on, I'm learning every day. No matter what, even if an atomic bomb, chas v'shalom, comes, I'm still getting my 15 minutes. After I did that for a little while—three, four, five, six months—15 minutes, now you go up to a half hour. Then a half hour a day, then it's an hour. Whenever you get a chance, you could do more. You come to shul for two hours. You listen to a shiur for two hours, but you don't take the two hours and spread it over the whole week. It's every day. Why? Because you said, "I have to learn Torah yom v'laila (morning and night). I can't do all of it, but I'm gonna try." Why? By making a commitment. To learn Torah every day. A little bit. I'm going to watch a shiur. I'm going to watch a clip. And so on and so forth. I'm going to go to BeEzratHashem.org to go.

1:06:58HaKadosh Baruch Hu, I've been stingy my whole life. And anytime I gave tzedakah, I only gave tzedakah for honor. So what am I going to do, Hashem? From now on, just like I have the auto-pay for my phone bill, AT&T, the ducks, 100, 200 bucks from me automatically every year, every month. And the cable takes money, and this one takes money, and everybody takes money from me, and the car takes money. You know what, HaKadosh Baruch Hu? Because you like it. Not because I understand. Because you like it, from now on, I'm going to take ma'aser, send it to BeEzratHashem.org so they can help people do teshuva. Send it to a real kiruv organization that's going to help people do teshuva. Automatically, without thinking about it twice. Meaning, I'm not saying I'm going to give all my savings, no, I don't know, I like my savings. What I'm going to do, I'm going to try from now. Point is, you come to HaKadosh Baruch Hu on Rosh Hashanah, With something in your hands other than just sins, you've tried, you've tried, you've tried, and by the time you get to the tefillah, you're crying to HaKadosh Baruch Hu because you understand how hard it is to do teshuva. But you still want HaKadosh Baruch Hu to forgive you. You still want HaKadosh Baruch Hu to give you a much better year than the last one. You still want to live. You know, nobody wants to die if they're normal.

1:08:21Rav Friedlander, alav ha-shalom, when he got the machalah, he got the cancer, he told his talmidim, "Bring me to the yeshiva, in the bed, right before Rosh Hashanah." He said, "But Rav, why?" He said, "I want to show the talmidim that's what they're praying for. They're praying so they don't end up being the same way. Why? You're healthy now, you think you'll be healthy tomorrow? You're alive now, you think you'll be alive tomorrow? Who guaranteed you that? Who promised you tomorrow?" You have money today, you think you have money tomorrow? All these different people are making a lot of money on nothing today. Most people, in reality, work a lot less, a lot less hard than they did in the past. People are making millions all for nothing. All for nothing. A guy... ...decides that he's gonna start opening a website on Amazon. He starts selling, I don't know, something. Ends up somebody likes it. He's selling little, I don't know, MP3 players or glasses or whatever. It hits. It hits all of a sudden. Ten, fifteen, twenty thousand dollars a week goes into his account. He thinks he's a genius now. He forgets. It's Hakadosh Baruch Hu...

1:09:30He barely does anything all day, drinking beer and watching TV, thinking he's a genius of the world because he's making money. Other people do a few trades. They got lucky with one option they bought for $1,000, which turned into a million dollars. They think they're geniuses, the next Warren Buffett. I think it’s doomed if you get sick of those behaviors. All types of people, they invent something—one guy I know invented a certain type of saw or plier or something. He sold it to a big company and... almost $55 million. It took him $55 to make it. He sold it for $55 million and thought he was a genius. People are making a fortune off of nothing, because Hashem always gives people a chance to do mitzvot, but they forget. They don't use it for that, because they think they're going to have it tomorrow. And then you hear or you see them in the news—they lost everything. They died, or there was a lawsuit all of a sudden. It’s not really theirs. Their dream turned into a nightmare. The guy won the lotto, but he committed suicide. You know how often that happens? People win hundreds of millions of dollars, but then they call it the biggest curse that happened in their life. It’s a known thing. So HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives everybody a chance, and He’s giving everyone many, many chances, and...

1:10:54But they don't use it the right way. They don't realize that HaKadosh Baruch Hu can take all of it, all of the blessings, and turn them into curses. So when a person does real teshuva, he says, you know what, listen HaKadosh Baruch Hu, I can't do all of it. I'm failing constantly. But I promise one thing, I'm gonna try. But don't say to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, "I'm gonna try," like you tell the rabbi, "I'm gonna try to come," but you don't end up coming for six months. I'm gonna come to the lecture. Bli neder. Bli neder is pretty much no nicely. A religious no. It's a religious no. It's a no with a kippah on. Bli neder, I'm gonna come. Bli neder, I'm gonna come. That's like pretty much, I'm not coming, but you have a kippah on, so maybe peyos. Bli neder. Don't do that to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. No, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, I'm gonna try. Bli neder, I'm gonna try to watch my eyes. And then five minutes later, you're watching some website. No, if you do real teshuva, you say to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, listen, I'm a loser. I'm failing. And really, you should convict me. I'm guilty. I can't deny the sins that I made. You know everything that I did, even more than I know. Because I don't even know all the sins. I'm so illiterate in Torah. I honestly don't even know all the sins that I committed. Because I don't even know some of the stuff is even sins. So in reality, I'm guilty and you should charge me, HaKadosh Baruch Hu. You're my Father after all. Please, give me another chance. Based on what? Based on the promise that I'm going to try to do better.

1:12:23But not just with words. I took some actions to show You I'm serious. This last month, this last day, this last week, whatever it is, I've been praying to You. I've been learning. I've been changing different things in my life. I left the goya. I left the goy. I left the job. I left the sin. I stopped eating pork. I threw it all in the garbage. I did something. And I promise to stick with it. And then the Midrash Rabbah says, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says to us, He says to Am Yisrael, He says to all of the ba'alei teshuvah, which is everyone that is considered religious. Whether you were born with a hat or without is irrelevant; it doesn't make you religious. If you're religious, that means you're ba'alei teshuvah every day, especially on Rosh Hashanah. Midrash Rabbah says, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says to Am Yisrael, just like you improved your actions, I will improve your judgment by rising from My throne of judgment and sitting on the throne of mercy. And this is why, Rabbotai, if you notice on Rosh Hashanah, you're going to see that when the guy starts blowing the shofar, initially he's sitting down and then he's standing up.

1:13:46Initially he's sitting down, and then he's standing up. And I say, why is he sitting down and then standing up? Why are we sitting down and then standing up? We're sitting down, then it says, no, guys, okay, I'm blowing the shofar again, and stand up this time. But why? If it was okay for us to sit, let us sit. He goes, no, the shofar is a representation of someone that's a mishtaper, someone that's improving their actions, someone that's committed to doing teshuva. in order for Hashem to be committed to improve our judgment. And just like Hashem rises from His chair of judgment and then sits on the chair of mercy, we rise like HaKadosh Baruch Hu rises, and then we sit like HaKadosh Baruch Hu sits. In essence, we're all in the same courtroom together. And that's what HaKadosh Baruch Hu expects from us. Now, how do we know that real teshuva is always accepted?

1:14:48If we go to the Book of Chronicles, Chapter 33, Divrei Hayamim Bet, Chapter 33, it talks about one of the kings of Israel during the time of the Beit HaMikdash. It says, his name was Menashe. Menashe was the son of Chizkiyahu. Chizkiyahu was Kodesh Kodashim. So much so, that HaKadosh Baruch Hu wanted to make him Mashiach. Not that it's a pasuk in the Torah, but HaKadosh Baruch Hu wanted to make him Mashiach. However, the Mekatreg, the Satan, came and convinced Hashem otherwise, because of one tiny little slip-up. On his level, it was big. On our level, it's not even a sin.

1:15:50One tiny slip-up and Mashiach didn't come. We were literally one second away from Mashiach coming several times throughout history. No Holocaust, no Inquisition, no nothing. One little slip-up. He didn't sanctify HaKadosh Baruch Hu's name one time. He was so holy, the Gemara in Moed Katan says, when they buried him... They buried him with a Sefer Torah. You're not allowed to do that. But Chizkiyahu was so holy, they said it's the same thing. The Sefer Torah and Chizkiyahu, it's both Sefer Torah. But after that, not allowed. Why? Nobody is that holy. But Chizkiyahu is that holy. Sefer Torah. Mamash. But his son, Rasha Merusha, Menashe. So much so, the Torah says, This Menashe was the king after Chizkiyahu. He did what was evil in the eyes of Hashem, like the abominations of the nations that Hashem had driven out before the children of Israel. He rebuilt the high places that his father Chizkiyahu had broken. All of the Avodah Zarah that his father destroyed, he rebuilt it.

1:17:09He brought Avodah Zarah everywhere. It also says in the Gemara Masechet Sanhedrin that everywhere he saw the name of Hashem, he erased it. He didn't just have to erase Hashem's name; he erased it everywhere he could. He committed incest. He committed murder. He murdered the Gadol HaDor, his grandfather Yeshayahu (Isaiah). The whole book of Isaiah—it's his grandfather. He murdered him, cut him to pieces. murder, rape, incest, idolatry, every sin you can possibly imagine. But then it says in verse number 10 that Hashem spoke to Menashe and his people, but they didn't listen. So HaKadosh Baruch Hu Took the next step, says so. Hashem brought against them the officers of the king of Assyria's army, and they captured Menashe with hunting hooks and bound him in chains and led him off to Babylonia. They took Menashe, put him in a huge pot, and started cooking him in Iraq, in Babylonia, in Babylon. They started cooking him, started to eat him. They were cannibals.

1:18:31Initially, the Gemara says that Menashe started praying to his idols—Buddha, Ba'al, all the stuff, JCPenney, everything you want. Idols don't talk. They have mouths, but they don't speak. They have eyes, but they can't see. They have ears, but they can't hear. Nothing. They can't do anything. He tried every idol in the book; it didn't work. Then it says, but in his distress, he beseeched Hashem as God. and he humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. He prayed to Him, and He was entreated by Him and heard his supplications. He returned to Jerusalem to his kingship, and then Menashe realized that Hashem is God. What happened here? Menashe, after committing all the crimes in the world... prayed to the idols. They didn't answer. Then he says, you know what? Hashem, if You're really there, if You really exist, You're going to save me right now. If not, You're nothing. All of the malachim shut their gates.

1:19:41Says this chutzpan, menuval, despicable, rude person, who committed every sin in the world, now he wants to do teshuva but give Hashem conditions? Like, if You answer my prayers now, then You're okay. If not, You're nothing. None of the malachim wanted his prayers to go to Hashem. But Menashe was sincere. His heart broke. He humbled himself. He became nothing. He knew this was his only chance. HaKadosh Baruch Hu answered him Himself. When you break your heart for HaKadosh Baruch Hu, humble yourself, realize you're wrong, and commit to change, Hashem says your prayer will always be accepted. Even when all the traditional ways don't work, you cry by committing to become better. I'll accept your prayer. You commit to be better. That's why many times you see certain miracles that have happened to certain people. Many famous rabbis have even televised this. A woman had no ability to have kids. She comes to a lecture, the rabbi tells her, put kisui rosh on.

1:21:08put kisui rosh on, keep mitzvot. You can have a kid. He goes, what do you mean? What, just putting this piece of towel on my head and keeping a couple of mitzvot, that's gonna change my body? The doctor said there's zero chance of having kids. He says, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says otherwise. They do it. They come back a year later with a little baby. I've seen it with my own eyes. I had a couple come to me. Said they've been married for five years. Five years they're married. No kids. Trying. No kids. Doesn't work. Doctor said nothing. I said, okay, let's do this one mitzvah. What mitzvah? Let's follow the halacha, do chuppah and kiddushin, keep Shabbat. Because what? So I'm going to sleep all day on Shabbat, maybe eat some cholent, and then I'm going to have a couple of guys sit there in my chuppah, say amen, the rabbi is going to bless us, that's going to change my body, that's going to change my wife's body, all of a sudden I'm going to have kids? So listen, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says to do it, you do it. Your wife's going to go to mikveh? What, to go in a pool? That's going to change her body? To go in a pool? She can go in a pool right now. I said, no, no, not the pool. You go to mikveh. At the time of the month, she is allowed to go to mikveh. Okay, so she goes to a pool. They don't understand, so they call it a pool. And we sleep all day and eat some cholent on Shabbat and just don't drive. And what else? You put a little mitpachat or something? You put this towel on your head? That's all going to change her body? All of a sudden we're going to have kids? What is this, magic? I said, it's HaKadosh Baruch Hu.

1:22:36Okay, Tamim Tihyeh Im Hashem. You want to do it? Let's try it. Ten months later, right after the wedding, ten months later, little baby. Nine months later. Baby, on the day they got married, it worked. Why? Because the doctor said it's going to work. But the doctor said no. Who's the doctor? Who's the doctor? Who is he to call the shots? You know how many miracles you see every single day? You do what HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, you cry to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, you commit to do better. Commit to do better. Countless things you see every single day. That's teshuva, rabotai. Menashe did teshuva and HaKadosh Baruch Hu accepted him to such an extent that when he cried to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, HaKadosh Baruch Hu took that huge pot that he was boiling in and Miraculously made it fly in the air, and it flew all the way from Iraq, from Babylon, all the way to Yerushalayim. It was the first UFO. That's what happened, that's what it says. How are you going to leave all these terrorists trying to kill you, eat you? How are you going to leave? Guys, listen, I'm not kosher. Don't eat me.

1:23:55happened, so I say, "Mama, who answered his prayers?" He took this pot, and it flew all the way to Yerushalayim. It landed back in his castle, protected all of his sergeants, everything. But all of a sudden, he's a tzaddik. Why? Because HaKadosh Baruch Hu is God. Who else could have done what just happened? He became a big kiruv personality, making everybody start doing teshuva. Unfortunately, his son Amon never did teshuva and became a bigger rasha than he used to be. And because he didn't want to do teshuva, Amon did not humble himself before Hashem as his father Menashe had humbled himself. For he, Amon, incurred much guilt. Eventually, HaKadosh Baruch Hu said, "You're out of time." And his servants conspired against him and killed him in his own palace. Amon's pride did not allow him to do teshuva. And HaKadosh Baruch Hu killed him with his own ga'ava. How? All of the people that used to work for him and say, "Yes, sir, yes, sir, yes, your highness, yes, your highness," they ended up cutting him into pieces. The pride of man leads to his fall. His father humbled himself, said, "I'm wrong, I'm going to do teshuva." So this is why, Rabotai, the shofar is not something that we can replace with a horn of some kind.

1:25:23Some sound, some digital sound, like the Reform people do and other religions do. The shofar is symbolic. It's not just the horn or just the sound. Every little bit of the Torah has a significant meaning. Now, the real zealous among us fought for the shofar, fought for the mitzvot. I'll give you an example. You guys have heard of the Anusim, the Spanish Inquisition? You heard of it, right? During the time of the Spanish Inquisition, there were tzaddikim in the world that fought for every mitzvah. But unfortunately, they were in a time, not like us—Baruch Hashem—that we can do mitzvot whenever we feel like it. For them, if they were caught doing a mitzvah, they would get killed in the middle of the street. So they did everything they could underground. They would make matzot underground; they had tunnels underground to make matzot for Pesach, pray underground, all types of things. But now there's a problem. Why? Rosh Hashanah has a mitzvah from the Torah to listen and blow the shofar. But how are we going to do it without the goyim catching us? Because even if you blow it underground, there still is a sound. And it's not like the shofar, it's not like that's finished. It's a hundred teru'ot.

1:26:48goes on for a while, something's gonna happen. Now we're gonna do it. Everybody got their money together, all these Anusim Jews, all these tzaddikim. What did they do? They got everybody's money together. They came to the goyim and said, "Ah, we have a special event for you. We're gonna have a concert, gonna have a concert, an orchestra, the best musicians in all of Portugal and Spain and so on. We'll have a concert when? On Rosh Hashanah." the green. All the Christians are happy as can be. "Wow, look! See, finally these Jews are, uh, learning, uh, having concerts." All of the important, uh, self-proclaimed important, uh, you know, idol worshipers go to this concert. But then there is the main event. The last thing, the last thing is the best musician of all, and he is a Jew. he has the last two minutes. He has the last two minutes of the concert. The concert goes on for a while. The Jews, during this time, they're all praying on the ground, nobody's bothering them. But then there's the last two minutes. The last two minutes is a Jew, that's a famous musician. All this balagan is famous, but he comes with a new tool nobody has ever seen before. What is it?

1:28:04All of a sudden, the last two minutes to finish the performance. All the Jews are listening to it. Why? That's their Torah. That's the last mitzvah of Rosh Hashanah. Shanah Tovah, Shanah Tovah, all the great things. It's music. Oh, wow, this is new. Wow, really innovative. Wow, ooh, wow. No, no, all the Jews just fulfilled the mitzvah of Rosh Hashanah. All the Jews. But that's how much we fought for Rosh Hashanah. That's how much we fought for the mitzvah of the Shofar. That's how much we fought for HaKadosh Baruch Hu's mercy. We want HaKadosh Baruch Hu to rise from His Throne of Judgment and sit on the Throne of Mercy. Now, the last thing that a person wants to do is be nonchalant. simply careless, like I'm okay. I went to the Beit Knesset. I prayed for a few hours. I even donated some money, and that's it. And the reason why is because a person that says Shalom Yihyeh Li. The parasha right before Rosh Hashanah, this week's parasha, says that a person that says I'm okay, I'll just do whatever I can whenever I feel like it, and so on, says that HaKadosh Baruch Hu doesn't forgive him. Now, the Mishnah in Masechet Yoma, Perek Chet...

1:29:29Mishnah number nine says, someone that says, "Fine, I'll do my best, but I'm gonna go back to my sins." I'll do teshuva today for Rosh Hashanah. But next week I'm going back to the illegal business. Next week I'm going back with the Goyah. Next week I'm going back to the nightclubs. Next week I'm going back to the mixed beach, to the mixed dance parties, all that stuff. I'm not really doing teshuva. But everything's going to be okay. Why? Because we have Rosh Hashanah. It's not Rosh Hashanah, we have Yom Kippur. It says Yom Kippur, HaKadosh Baruch Hu. He forgives everybody, right? Mishnah says, no, no, it doesn't forgive everybody. If a person says, I'm going to sin, but then I'll do teshuva. I'm going to sin, but then I'll do teshuva. Like, I'm going to sin with her, but then I'm going to go back and do teshuva. Say, I'm sorry, Hashem. I'm going to sin and go back to Hashem. It says in the Mishnah here, not only is this teshuva nonsense, but even Yom Kippur does not help him. Even prayers on Yom Kippur don't help him.

1:30:50Yeah, but how's everybody else? Yes, everybody else except him. If you're not committed to change, Yom Kippur is another day for you. If you're gonna continue sinning, things that you know are sins, you're gonna continue violating Shabbat, you're gonna continue being intermarried, you're gonna continue eating pork and continue doing all these different things, illegal things according to the Torah, and you're not committing to change them, and... Yom Kippur is another day for you. It's not gonna help you. You could donate a million dollars. It's not gonna help you. You could pray there, and some people go on Yom Kippur and they become malachim. They start wearing white. They think they're a dove. They go to Yom Kippur. They have a little dove outfit. They're all white. Before Yom Kippur, they dip in their pool. They think it's a mikveh or they go to the beach, nude beach, but they think it's a mikveh over there. Like, no, no, I'm clean. They stay in the shul the whole time. You see this guy, where were you all year? All year, I've never seen you, but Yom Kippur, Baruch Hashem, you're here for 25 hours. He didn't leave the shul. He goes, no, I slept in the shul. I'm here the whole time. He doesn't even take a break like everybody else. He thinks he's good. Why? He thinks he's going to pray for 25 hours and he can go back and do whatever he wants. The Mishnah says, if you're not committing to change,

1:32:07you're not committing to improve yourself. You're not committing to stop sinning and do something about it. Your 25 hours of being in the shul, your mikveh, your white outfit, whatever you did, your shana tova, whatever you said, all of it goes directly into the deleted box. You know the deleted box? On your computer, you put delete and there's a garbage pail on your screen. That's where it goes. It goes there. completely useless. Why? Because Hashem doesn't need you to fast. Because Hashem doesn't need your white outfit. Because Hashem doesn't need your 25 hours of prayers. What is He asking for? He's asking for your heart. He's asking for you to do teshuva. That's the whole point. That's the whole point of Judgment Day. But if you think everything's okay, shalom yihyeh li, peace will be upon me, everything's okay, you do your thing, I'll do my thing, Hashem understands me type of mentality, that type of person is a danger to himself. That's a person who's a danger to himself. So the most critical thing for a person to do is to understand that they have to do something.

1:33:19Hashem is not expecting us to become Moshe Rabbeinu and Sarah Imeinu overnight, but we have to do something. Commit to some type of change. Commit to using our money ethically. Commit to making money ethically. Commit to, you know, working on our middot. Commit to learning regularly. Commit to doing something and improving our life, but something serious. Don't just say, listen, Hashem, every time I see a homeless guy, I'm going to give him five dollars. That's not teshuva. it's nice, it's a mitzvah, and I'm sure the homeless guy is going to be happy, but HaKadosh Baruch Hu, that's not teshuva. Teshuva means you're willing, you're going to change your life. That's the point. That's the point of the shofar. And shofar sounds are symbolic of us crying. So in essence, what is the summary of everything we just said? Your teshuva has to be in a way where pretty much it's hard and you're committing to your hardship and you're crying about it. You're crying to Hashem to forgive you even though technically you don't deserve it, based on the promise that it'll be worth it for Hashem to forgive you because you're gonna change.

1:34:32You're crying to convince them to change. That's the whole point of this whole Shofar. That's the point. Now, there's a couple of questions that I have here. The first question is, can a kosher Jew be in a business partnership for a non-kosher restaurant? What is the halacha in this situation? Yes and no. Yes and no is the answer. How is it yes or no? A Jew is forbidden from benefiting from food that's milk and meat. It says in the Torah three times, in the same verse, that you're not allowed to eat milk and meat. It says it three times because you're not allowed to eat it, you're not allowed to sell it.

1:35:32you're not allowed to cook it. So if a Jew sells milk and meat, it's forbidden. So that's the "no" part. He's not allowed to benefit from selling this non-kosher food if it's milk and meat. But can he own the place? And the answer is yes. So how could it be "yes" and "no" at the same time? He owns the place, he owns shares in the company, but he doesn't go there. He's simply a silent partner. He doesn't go there; no one knows he owns it unless they look for it in some papers and corporate documents. He owns shares in a company that sells all types of non-kosher food, and... ...owns stock in it, or he owns the business, or he owns the building, but he never goes there. They simply send him a check to his home or transfer it to him electronically. He's not there; he's a silent partner. Once a year, they send him some profits, whatever it is. He's allowed to own it; he's allowed to have shares in this thing. But if he's going to work there or even show up at the place once in a while, it's 100% forbidden...

1:36:47It's forbidden to work there because he'll be directly benefiting from actually selling it. But it's also forbidden even if he shows up once in a while or even if his name is on the door. And the reason is different. What's the reason? Hillul Hashem. That's the desecration of Hashem's name. If a Jew with a kippah comes to a non-kosher McDonald's or something like that, everyone will say, "Oh, see, Jews are all fakers with the kippah, eating cheeseburgers." It's a desecration of Hashem's name. But if he just gives two or three million dollars to some guy to run a McDonald's partnership, technically he's allowed to. Nonetheless, he still shouldn't, even though he's allowed to give three, four, or five million dollars to go buy some non-kosher franchise. He still shouldn't. Why? Because there are plenty of ways to make money in a kosher way 100%. Why do you need to involve yourself in something that's not kosher?

1:37:48Because technically some of your customers, you cannot ask the customer, "Listen, do you want cheese on that or not? Oh, and by the way, are you Jewish?" That cannot be, you know, "Fries, cheese, are you Jewish?" That can't be one of the questions. Which means that at some point, a Jew that's ignorant of the law is going to come to this McDonald's or this steak shop and is going to eat your food. And technically, you benefit out of it. Enabled him, you allowed him, you helped him even violate Hashem's word. Why do you even want a piece of that? Why do you want a piece of that? You think there's gonna be berachah behind such a business? One time a guy came to me and says, "Listen, I wanna give a lot of money to kiruv." Somebody told me this guy's worth a hundred million dollars, and he donated nothing in the end. He was really, really excited to donate, donate, donate, and donated nothing. So when somebody asked me, "did that guy ever do something?" I said, "no, he never donated." He goes, "yeah, he's really rich." I said, "okay, he's really rich, but really poor at the same time, I guess. Because he doesn't have the merit to donate to kiruv. Hashem doesn't allow just anybody to do it. Because if you make somebody that's a rasha, that's a sinner..."

1:39:03Someone presses someone that's about you, huh? You'll be like my mouth. Meaning just like Hakadosh Baruch Hu says something and it comes to life, you'll be the same thing. You'll pray for something, Hashem is going to make it happen. Why? Because you are, in essence, creating these neshamot that are doing teshuva. They used to be sinners destined for Gehinnom, but now they're going to Gan Eden because you helped them do teshuva. Because you gave that hundred dollars or that hundred thousand or the hundred million, whatever you gave that helped somebody do teshuva. In essence, your prayers get VIP treatment and... Hussain says to such an extent, you become a partner with HaKadosh Baruch Hu, you're like Him. Now, Hashem doesn't want to give this privilege to just anybody with money. That person has to have merit in order for Hashem to give him this privilege, this VIP card, that pretty much every blessing he says comes true. So, this guy never ended up donating. So, I asked, what does this guy do that he made so much money? He said, oh, he has nightclubs and... I said, ah, Baruch Hashem, now I know why HaKadosh Baruch Hu did not let this guy donate. He says, why? He's Charedi, he's religious, he keeps Shabbat. I said, yeah, he's religious, he keeps Shabbat and everything else, but he's a Machti Rabim. He's somebody that causes the public to sin with his nightclub.

1:40:21People go to his nightclub. They make all the sins in the world—drugs, alcohol, promiscuity, tzniut—all the sins in the world in his nightclubs. He makes thousands of people sin every single night, and you think that Hashem is going to let a guy that has a factory of sins and sinners also have a factory of tzaddikim? No chance in the world. No chance in the world. That's not measure for measure. It's the opposite. He's helping people sin. He's going to also help people make mitzvot? No chance in the world. He doesn't have the merit. Yeah, but he has money. He has bupkis. He's poor in Shamayim. He's considered a rasha. Yeah, but he keeps Shabbat. Okay, so on Shabbat, they'll turn off the fire in Gehenom. That's it. There's plenty of Shomrei Shabbat in Gehenom, by the way. People think that only the Mechalelei Shabbat go to Gehenom. No, that's just one section. There are six other sections. There are plenty of Shomrei Shabbat that go to Gehenom. Why? Because of other things, other reasons. So this guy that's a Chareidi, or he calls himself Chareidi, has the peyos and everything. He has a nice villa waiting for him in Gehenom. Why? Because he gets 20, 30,000 people that sin every single night. Shalom Aleichem, how many sins?

1:41:33So a guy like that, HaKadosh Baruch Hu is not gonna let him donate the cube. Maybe he'll donate to some giraffe or some local shul that barely has a minyan, or I don't know, to some painting. He'll donate for that. Or maybe he'll save a monkey with Ellen Degeneres. He'll save a monkey with her. Maybe he'll do that, but to save Neshamot? Never gonna happen. Why? He doesn't have the merit. So A person has to always take into account: is this non-kosher business the only way that Hashem has to give me parnasah? Obviously not. If you think that, you're kofer. So that means that you have to get out of it, sell the business, sell your stake in it, and go start something kosher. And I promise you, you'll have more bracha. So that's the answer there. Second one. In school, one of the teachers said that Hashem says letters and names that keep the world existing. How does Hashem say all the letters at the same time? Is this what keeps the world existing? Ah, very interesting. So, the Torah says that HaKadosh Baruch Hu looked into the Torah...

1:43:00the blueprint of the world, and then He created the world, meaning it wasn't that the world was created first and then the Torah was written. It was that the Torah was written 974 generations before the world, and then Hashem created the world. How so? He wrote the Torah. He wrote all the laws, not the stories. He wrote the laws. He says, "Okay, so there's going to be a law of kashrut." Kosher animals, non-kosher animals. So if there's kashrut, I'm going to have to make kosher animals and non-kosher animals, because if everything's kosher, there's no point for the kashrut laws, because you can eat everything. If there's only non-kosher, then you can't follow anything, because everything's not kosher, so there's nothing to think about. So He made kosher animals and non-kosher animals, and He gave us signs. What makes a kosher animal? What makes a non-kosher animal? But then there's also fish. What makes a kosher fish? What makes a non-kosher fish? If it has fins and scales, it's a kosher fish. If it doesn't have fins and scales, then it's not a kosher fish. Even if it just has fins, it's not a kosher fish. It has to have both signs. So a shark, although it has fins, it's not kosher because it doesn't have scales.

1:44:16Octopus or shrimp or any one of these cockroaches that's on the bottom of the ocean—those are not kosher. Why? Because they don't have fins. They don't have scales, but they're also scavengers. They're, in essence, the cockroaches of the ocean. You're not allowed to eat cockroaches. So, in order for it to be a kosher fish, it has to have fins and scales. With animals, it has to be a... First of all, it cannot be a carnivore. It cannot be a meat-eating animal by default. But even more than that, it has to be an animal that chews cud and has split hooves. And you'll see that all of the animals that we are allowed to eat are vegetarians. They're not carnivores. Why? Because the dam, whatever you eat, turns into you, turns into blood. So HaKadosh Baruch Hu doesn't want us to be animalistic. ...A person that eats animalistic animals, like vicious animals, is also vicious. This is the reason why the Nazis, the Russians, and all Amalek have no problem chopping people's heads off. Because they eat animals that are vicious. They eat pig; they eat all types of animals. They pretty much eat whatever moves, whatever doesn't move, whatever flies. They don't necessarily think too much about their diet. People love the pig, the pig...

1:45:37is the most disgusting animal on the planet. It's the only animal that exists that even if the most poisonous snake in the world bites it, nothing happens. Nothing happens. And the reason why is because the skin of the pig is so infested with poison that it's actually more poisonous than the snake's poison. A snake can bite, a cobra can bite a pig, and nothing happens. Because the skin of the pig is so infested, it's actually worse than the poison. One of the ways you could see this: take a steak and then take a piece of pig. Put Coca-Cola on both of them. You'll see that the pig, within a matter of minutes, maggots start coming out of it. You can never clean the meat of a pig. Ever. It's permanently infested. And the reason why is because the pig eats everything. It eats poop. It eats its own babies. It eats people. It eats feces. It eats everything. Literally. It eats literally everything. Everything it eats. It's the most disgusting animal on the planet. And it's a tumah. You're not allowed to benefit. You're not allowed to raise a pig. Like some people are crazy in America. They raise pigs as pets. You're not allowed to as a Jew.

1:47:04Not to sell them. It's a filthy animal. The point is that the pig is a filthy animal, but people eat it. What happens? They become filthy too in their behavior. They become filthy too. Also, some people like to hunt. A Jew is never allowed to hunt. Not to hunt. Why not to hunt? Because we have a law called Tza'ar Ba'alei Chayim. You're not allowed to hurt an animal for no reason and... so if you're gonna, you know, eat an animal, you can eat a cow. You slaughter it in a kosher way, and you eat it. But if you don't feel like eating it, meaning you just feel like killing the cow just for fun, you want to shoot it, throw some, you know, throw some bullets into it just to have some fun, you're not allowed to. Why? Because you're just killing one of Hashem's creatures for no reason. That's vicious. So, going to shoot a deer with a bow and arrow or with a gun is forbidden. And the reason why is because if you shoot it with a bow and arrow or with a gun, you can't eat it because then it's not kosher. The only way it could be kosher is if you slaughter it. So that means that hunting can never be kosher because you're killing it in a non-kosher way. Therefore, hunting is not allowed. You're just going to hurt the animal, and you can't do anything with it. So, hunting is not allowed.

1:48:20so we have a lot of laws that actually help the world and become a better place, but unfortunately, Jews don't know much of this and they think that they're supposed to improve the world. There's this whole concept in the world of "make the world a better place." It's all nonsense. Make yourself a better person and the world will follow. Stop trying to fix the world; fix yourself and People are constantly projecting to fix the world, to fix things that are bigger than them, because in reality, you can't do anything. But they say, "No, I'm going to fix the world. I'm going to fix hunger in Nigeria. I'm going to fix thirst somewhere else. I'm going to fix this over there." Fix yourself. Instead of fixing them, fix you. After you fix yourself by following it, I promise you, the world around you will become a better place and... Stop trying to fix the world. Hashem doesn't need you to fix the world. Now we're going to fix global warming. How? I'm going to convince people to recycle. Oh, so Hashem needs you for that? I want to fix this. Stop trying to fix the world. Fix yourself. If you're fixing yourself, then you can also fix the world. It's nice to do charitable things, help homeless people, help poor people, you know, give food, give money, give time, give this. That's not a problem. But don't ever think that that replaces that.

1:49:44fix yourself and then help others. Don't think that by helping others, now you're absolved from the mitzvah. So, the key is to know that the world was created in a certain way. By using these laws that He gave in the Torah, and then creating the world that followed, He knew that there's gonna be the written in the Torah that there's a mitzvah of taharat mishpacha, so He created a male and a female, and the female has the time of the month in order for this mitzvah to be fulfilled. You know that there's a mitzvah of, uh, of all types of things, uh, let's say tzitzit, so He gave us the materials in the world for us to create the tzitzit and so on and so forth. So now these laws Already written, the world, in essence, has to have them. But how does it actually take place? How does it take place? HaKadosh Baruch Hu took the words, put them together, and His saying those words created it. Why? Because when Hashem speaks, it's not like us speaking; we speak, but we don't see anything being created out of it.

1:50:59But when HaKadosh Baruch Hu speaks, something is created. So if He says "book," a book exists. It comes into being, comes to life. If He says "world," the world comes to life. Tree, tree comes to life. So, He puts the letters together. The totality of those letters coming together that makes the word also, in essence, creates something. What is it like? This is like the world is made of all of these zeroes and ones and energy and atoms and so on and so forth. And in reality, all of us and everything is made out of energy. And it's all of these tiny little atoms that you can't see with the naked eye. You need some microscopes, special microscopes for it. And HaKadosh Baruch Hu, in essence, allows all of these atoms to come together, spin really fast so you can't tell that they're even there.

1:52:02And therefore, everything to us looks solid. This book looks solid. Sunny looks solid. You guys look solid. Everybody looks solid. Chairs are solid. Everything is solid. Everything looks like it's good. But in reality, it's actually a bunch of spinning atoms, of which 99% of the atom is empty space. The only reason it looks solid is because it's spinning so fast. Similar to when you see a fan on the ceiling, it spins really fast, and it looks like there's a single blade. ... but if you slow down or stop the fan all of a sudden, the truth is exposed and you see that there are five blades or six blades. How come it looks like a single blade at first, but now it looks like five? Because when it’s spinning really fast, it creates the optical illusion that it's a single blade. How come you look solid and everything looks solid in the world? Because there's the optical illusion created by the atom spinning really fast. It's in essence all solid, all one piece, but in reality, it's nothing—99% is zero, empty space. So, in essence, what makes all of this come to life? The name of HaKadosh Baruch Hu.

1:53:12HaKadosh Baruch Hu puts the words together to, in essence, create everything, and the power of His holy name, in essence, puts life into creation, similar to how you answer the question when somebody asks, "Okay, so if the atom is spinning, and that's why everything is solid..." What happens if it stops spinning? The same thing that happens if the fan stops spinning—you see the truth, you see that there are five blades. But only here with the atom, you see that 99% of it is empty space, meaning that the emptiness, the nothingness, is exposed. Therefore, if the atom stops spinning for a second, everything simply disappears; it doesn't get destroyed. It doesn't explode. It just disappears because it's empty. It's nothing. So, the next question is: what keeps it spinning? The power of HaKadosh Baruch Hu's name. So, that whole process is constantly done.

1:54:1424 hours a day, seven days a week, HaKadosh Baruch Hu recreates the creation over and over again. Be'ezrat Hashem, soon we're going to publish a video, maybe even do it in a shiur. One of my dear friends in Eretz Yisrael is a Talmid Chacham. He's also a physicist and an engineer, and has really peculiar things that he found in science and nature that show HaKadosh Baruch Hu's name. And how, mamash, you see HaKadosh Baruch Hu's name in everything. In the universe, in plants, in people, in everything. And Be'ezrat Hashem, we're going to make a video together to go over it. Maybe next time, maybe after, Be'ezrat Hashem, after Rosh Hashanah, we'll do it here. But the point is that HaKadosh Baruch Hu's name, the power of His name, is in essence giving life to the creation. Any other questions? Let me see what time it is. Can they get a physical reaction from their learning and praying? Physical and visual.

1:55:42The answer is yes and no. Yes, it can happen. But no, in the sense that it's not so simple. Meaning, it's not something that's going to happen to most people. For most people, it's never going to happen to them. It's not because it's not possible for it to happen to them. It's that most people are not necessarily going to have the wherewithal or even the effort that's required for such a thing to happen. But can every one of us do it? Yes. The Rambam writes in Halacha that every Jew should aspire to be like Moshe Rabbeinu because he can be. Not that you could be on the level of Moshe Rabbeinu because that would be kefirah. Because it says in the Torah, no one's gonna be like Moshe Rabbeinu. But meaning, be like Moshe Rabbeinu in the sense of his righteousness, that you could reach your full potential. You could reach your full potential. And the Gemara in Masechet Avodah Zarah gives the direct instructions of how to reach Ruach HaKodesh.

1:56:47There's direct instructions on how you can reach Ruach HaKodesh, and there's actually a shiur, I think even a couple of times, in the Mussar Pirkei Avot series, where I went over the entire step-by-step process. If anybody wants Ruach HaKodesh, you have direct, exact, precise instructions on how to attain Ruach HaKodesh if you want. When you have Ruach HaKodesh, lots of stuff happens. Lots of stuff happens. All types of cool things happen. You should get it. You should try it this week. uh, point is that, yes, can you get it? Can it happen? Yes, some people even say they have it, but in reality, they're all either delirious or, you know, something can happen sometimes, but it doesn't necessarily always mean that it's a good thing. There are some people that can, in essence, be a show at least like the nature change as a result of their action, whether it's making something disappear or making something appear or walking on water or crushing something with their mind or moving something that exists in the world and

1:58:05But most of the time, it's from the Tumah of the world. It's not the Kedusha. I know somebody that can do it with Kedusha, but he doesn't do it anymore. He doesn't mess with it because it takes a lot out of you. It's not such a simple thing to do, but also it's dangerous. It's dangerous to deal with that stuff. But the people that deal with the tumah, it's also dangerous, but they already sold their soul to the devil, pretty much. But there are certain things that people do that use the power of the tumah in order to manipulate nature without really going further into the details. I'd say there are plenty of people that do it. And those people usually are... very extreme, very strange, and what they're doing is real. It's just that it's problematic to anybody that is associated with it. How do you think they learned that stuff? Google? No, no, it's not necessarily Google. It's not hard. It's not hard? You can do it in five minutes if you want. I won't do it.

1:59:37Well, I already said it in the past, so I could say it again. One thing is there's a Ouija board. Ouija boards are real. A Ouija board is a peculiar board. You can make it out of anything. The content of the board and the material of the board is insignificant. You can make it out of paper, you can make it out of wood. It has numbers and letters on it and so on, and you get a few people together. At least one person needs to understand the koach ha-tumah, the power of the tumah, and you call a neshama from the other world to come and give you information. paper, you can make it out of wood. It has numbers and letters on it and so on, and you get a few people together. At least one person needs to understand the koach ha-tumah, the power of the tumah, and you call a neshama from the other world to come and give you information, and That is one way that you can get a lot of information about this world that the natural person cannot get: future, past, details, and so on. It's real. The only problem is that once you do that, you become a slave to those creatures, and they're not going to go away for free. So it's very dangerous, and it's forbidden for a Jew to do it because it's considered idolatry.

2:00:57So it's forbidden for a Jew to do it. The only reason I'm mentioning it is because I mentioned it actually even last week, I think, that some, you know, there are famous stories of Jews that did it and got hurt as a result of it. So, Ouija board is one way. The Gemara also says that if somebody wants to see all the creatures around them that you can't see with the naked eye, then you can take a cat... kill the cat, take its stomach, burn it, take the ashes, put them on your eyes, and then pretty much you'll live in Gehenom, because you'll see everything that's around you, and there's no way to undo it. One of the Gedolim, in the time of the Gemara, did it, and he started praying to die, because he couldn't take it, because it was so scary. But he was lucky and fortunate enough that he had a lot of Torah, plus a lot of friends that were Kodesh Kodashim, they were also Tana'im, And they had the power to undo it. We don't have such power today. So that's another way to do it. Also, the people that use the Kochot HaTumah, they in essence bring sacrifices to the Satan. And those sacrifices are seed and blood. So they use their sperm and they use their blood as a sacrifice to the Satan.

2:02:20A person that does it and knows a few things about what they need to do could be given a lot of power. But also, it's committing suicide because there's no way to undo it. There's no way to undo it; you pretty much have to commit suicide. So there are people in the world that do it. There are people who even know how to do voodoo. You know, certain dolls they could use to put somebody under a spell. if they take a hair of his or a fingernail or something like that, they can, in essence, have influence over his body. This is very common in South America, Haiti, and different places like that. They can take control over people's bodies and hurt them because of this. This is also why, when you cut your nails, you should always flush them down the toilet. It's part of the reason, not the only reason, but it's part of the reason that you should always make sure that you don't leave remains everywhere. I mean, in America, it's not very common. Another thing is that it's very common among different goyim, especially South Americans; the Spanish use this often, but also many other non-Jewish nations use this. A woman's period can bring tum'ah.

2:03:47And if she puts it in the food of somebody, she could influence the person. So these are dangerous things. That means that you have to be careful whose house you eat in. Now, some people will say this is crazy. And they're going to take what I say like it's crazy. And they're going to do it. And they're going to ruin their life. They're going to think that I'm a crazy person, that I'm making stuff up. And they're going to try to do it. And they're going to ruin their life. And I can't help them. So don't ask me for help on this stuff. I can just tell you what it is. There are other things. But the point is that if you want to play with fire, you're going to get burned. You're going to get burned. This is what it is. If you want to commit suicide, it's easy to just jump off a bridge. But there are a lot of things in the world. Kochot HaTumah are not a joke. It's real. Many of the opinions are that the reason why, for example, Jesus was able to perform miracles, things that were supernatural, was because he was using kochot haTumah. He was using the impure powers. He wasn't using kedusha. He did do some of those things. You know, whatever, some of the miracles they say he did, he did. That's not exactly a big deal, because at the time of the Gemara, at the time he lived, the average Tanna was able to do 50 million more times than what he did.

2:05:14But people don't talk about that. We have Tannaim that split the ocean. We have Tannaim that brought back the dead many times. It's not a big deal. But people make a big deal out of this mumar, mamzer Jesus because he performed miracles. But the way he performed miracles is through tumah, all types of spells and impurity, and so on. Because there is a palace of impurity in the world. And you can do a lot of things with them, and sometimes even people who are professionals in the world, like, for example, illusionists. Some of them are just really good and crafty at what they do, but some of them are actually using kochot hatumah to perform magic. Some of them are actually using this stuff to perform magic. But you know, it's good luck in Gehenom when it eventually ends. But let's say it is real; it does exist. So, there are multiple opinions on it. We did a whole shiur about it; we spoke about it several times. We have a whole shiur, two and a half hours long, about the different opinions. But most importantly, the most common opinion is that he did exist.

2:06:40most common opinion is that he did exist. The problem for the Christians is that the only document that verifies that he existed is the Torah, meaning the Gemara. They don't have any secular historical information that proves his existence because the New Testament, the false testament, was written between 70 to 300 years after he died and Meaning that the writers, the authors of the New Testament, never even saw him. They never saw him. It's not like he spoke to them or anything like that or taught anybody. So that's one. Two, at the time that he lived, there were newspapers. There were journalists all the time. There were journalists all the way from the time of Egypt. Many of the things that were written in the Torah, you could see that Egyptian journalists wrote about it in their scribes. You could see that they wrote about it in the different hieroglyphics and so on. They found out many of the things that were written in the Torah, the oceans being split, the ten plagues, all that stuff was actually written by Egyptians in their newspapers, if you will. So it's a third unbiased party.

2:07:59wrote about what's written in the Torah, and this is in all types of museums for anyone who wants to know. Now there's even, for example, you go to, I think it's in Holland, a museum of a certain nation that talks about how they were the descendants of Bilaam, and they ran away from Yehoshua bin Nun. used to be one of the nations that lived in, uh, the Girgashi. They ran away. Why were they the only ones who ran away? They lived in Egypt, but they left. They ran away. Why? Because Yehoshua went after them. They ran away. And they curse Yehoshua ben Nun and so on. But in essence, it's what there is in the Torah. They ran away from him. So this is a third party that, in essence, is not a Jew. So we have evidence of certain things. Why? Because journalists always existed. Historians always existed. Meaning that anytime there was somebody special, Somebody wrote about it. Today it's even more extensive. If some 13-year-old kid hits a grand slam, it's in five local newspapers and 18 different internet sites. If some kid eats an ice cream and has a cockroach in it, it's all over the news in every country and every language.

2:09:13If there's a terrorist attack in some small town no one ever heard of, every newspaper, every TV channel, all of a sudden CNN is interested in going to, I don't know, Guatemala. Why? Because something happened over there. So 2,000 years ago, it wasn't that different. So you would think some newspaper, some historian, somebody would write something about this special guy with a rock star haircut, that's making miracles, bringing back the dead, walking on water, making one bucket into many fish. You would think somebody's writing something about it, but nothing. Bupkis. Bupkis. The only document that existed at his time that actually mentions him is the Gemara. The problem for the Christians is, and the reason why they hate the Gemara, and why they killed countless Jews because of the Gemara, and they forced the Jews to censor the Gemara and remove his name from it. We still have it only in the old copies of the Gemara, but the new ones that you see today don't have Jesus' name in them.

2:10:19You go get ArtScroll, you don't have Jesus' name in it. But anyone that sees the old Gemara, the original copy, sees that his name is in it. Gemara Masechet Sotah, Avodah Zarah, Shabbat, Sanhedrin, Gittin. It's in half a dozen or more Gemarot, his name. Who he was, what happened, all the details. We talked about a story last week of how he came to life, how he's really a mamzer. His mother was married to a Jew, but then she cheated on him with some goy. The point is that the Gemara says who he was, how he came about, and that he was a mamzer and he's in Gehinnom and he's never going to leave. So the non-Jews don't like that. The Christians don't like that stuff. So they killed us for it. They killed many of us over it. So the general opinion is that he did exist and It's a, and we know exactly who he was and what he did. And that’s it. Somebody wants to say he didn't exist. Okay. I don’t really know what the benefit of saying it doesn’t exist. The funny thing is, though, is that anytime I've come out with a video about Christianity and showing how it's false, sometimes, you know, Christians obviously don't like it.

2:11:38but you know they'll say something ridiculous like, "Oh, you don't understand," or something like, "No proof," or anything like that. You don't understand. But the worst people are religious Jews that defend Christianity. Those are the worst people. And you'll see in the comments on my YouTube videos, last week's video that came out with that story, the only ones that are defending Jesus are religious Jews. Not religious like Haredim, people that are actually unashamed. People that are like half-Reform, half-secular, half-something. You know, they think they're religious. They think they know stuff. Why? Because they watched a few YouTube videos. And they decide, no, no, the opinion is this. As if they read all the books. They read one book, maybe. But they decide they know the opinion. So the point is that it exists. The general, most common opinion is that yes. who and what he was, we understand who he was. There's a lot of material about him, but you know, it's not very commonly spoken about in the way that we speak about it because, you know, people don't want problems with the goyim. I, on the other hand, think that it's important to speak about it because there are many Jews that are ignorant about the truth, and they simply think that we're hiding it and

2:12:52so it's important to expose it to show how filthy Christianity is because, in the last 25 years, almost half a million Jews have converted to Christianity due to their ignorance. Many celebrity Jews, who were not observant to begin with, are becoming openly Christian, and these celebrities are very influential to other ignorant kids and other ignorant people. And therefore, you have to speak about it. You have to speak about it. So we actually do a lot of anti-missionary work. We have one organization called One for Israel. Because these people, their entire existence is to destroy the Torah. Their entire existence is a group of Israeli Jews that have obviously become Umerim. They're the worst people on earth. And anyone that gets offended by my wish for their death is simply an idiot and does not understand the danger that Am Yisrael is in from these people. These are simply the most dangerous people on earth. that have obviously become meshumadim. They're the worst people on earth. And anyone that gets offended by my wish for their death is simply an idiot and does not understand the danger that Am Yisrael is in from these people. These are simply the most dangerous people on earth.

2:14:11have an endless amount of money, and they make countless high-end videos to convince Israelis and Americans to convert to Christianity, and they're very good at it. They're very, very good at it. So, they're very dangerous. We've had a whole story with them; they've been battling Rav Reuven on the internet. But the point is that these people are very, very dangerous. But they're not only dangerous in Eretz Yisrael, they're also doing it in America. And they're so good at it that people don't even realize there's anything wrong. And some Jews that support them are not even realizing that they're supporting Christianity. So this is happening. This is happening in the world. It's a dangerous place. What else? Also, why would Hashem give human beings the power to bring back the dead if Hashem killed them? When HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives the Tannaim the power to change nature, if you will, it's not for no reason.

2:15:34something happened and I'll give you an example. The Gemara says that one of the tzaddikim from Bavel was defending his rabbi, but his defense of his rabbi was too aggressive. His rabbi told him he has to leave Bavel, he has to leave Iraq, he has to go to Eretz Yisrael. But he has to pretend like he doesn't know anything. He can't go there and be the gadol that he is over there. He has to be quiet for seven years. But go to the yeshiva of Rabbi Yochanan. So Rabbi Yochanan, his chavruta was Reish Lakish. They would teach every day. And the guy came to the yeshiva, and Reish Lakish was teaching. Now he remembers that Reish Lakish, he's allowed to talk to him. He's allowed to exchange ideas, but he shouldn't tell Rabbi Yochanan that he really knows all this information. Honor the rabbi over there. He's the gadol ha-dor. You be quiet when he's there. That's what his rabbi told him. But Reish Lakish,

2:16:53You could, you know, anybody else, like he doesn't need to talk specifically, anybody else you could talk to, you could exchange information, but don't try to become the big rabbi over there. So anyway, Reish Lakish was giving a shiur, and all of a sudden this new guy is answering all the questions, giving tough questions. Reish Lakish, who's this chacham? Where did this guy come from? He came from Babylonia. So Reish Lakish says to his rabbi, Rabbi Yochanan, the lions, Babylon has come to Yerushalayim, meaning tomorrow you have a shiur, make sure you're prepared for the shiur. Why? There's a lion, there's a guy, a big talmid chacham from Babylon. He's here. It's not a regular talmid. This one is something special. I had a shiur today, I was struggling with him. So Rabbi Yochanan was very old and his eyes, his eyebrows... So big they covered his eyes. Anytime he wanted to see somebody with his holy eyes, he would have somebody lift his eyebrows. He was an old man, and he would sit on seven different pillows as he was teaching everybody else. But since this talmid was so impressive, they put him in the front row. The closer you are to Rabbi Yochanan, the more honor you got. Rabbi Yochanan started teaching.

2:18:23Taught the first step, expecting him to ask a question. He asked a question. Rabbi Yochanan says, "Oh, so he's not first level." He pointed to the people to tell him to go back a row. "He's not first level. Yeah, get up, go to the second row." Continued teaching. He didn't say anything. "Oh, so you don't even know questions about this either? Second row? Go to the third row." He continued teaching, didn't ask any questions. Why? Because he doesn't know he's not allowed to talk. He doesn't know he's not allowed to talk. So he continues to bring him back. Now, he is embarrassed so much because the Gemara says when someone has a devar Torah to say, something to say, but he fasts, he doesn't say it. It's a huge kaparat avonot for him. It's a huge difficulty for him. He has something to say, he has the answer, but he stays quiet. It's a huge, huge difficulty for him. So he, long story short, was forced to go back seven rows. And then he said, ah, may these seven rows be counted as if I fasted for seven years and didn't say anything for seven years. So then after that, he says, listen, Rabbi, can you please go and bring the first question again? So Rabbi Yochanan said the first question, and he gave him an answer.

2:19:46He said, "Bring him back a row." He said, "Second question again." Another row, another row. Long story short, he went all the way back to the front row. So Rabbi Yochanan was so impressed by this guy who had all these answers that he asked his assistant, "I want to see him. I want to see what he looks like, this tzaddik. I want to see what he looks like." So he raised his eyebrow and he opened his eyes and saw that the guy looked like he was smiling. So he thought he was laughing at him. He's laughing at him because he got the answer and bested him on the spot. He looked at him, and he died. Right now, what, I want to kill him? No, it’s that Rabbi Yochanan was so holy that the fact that he suffered, suffered for a second thinking that this guy is making fun of him. Hashem says, "No, no, no, I'm suffering because of this guy. No, he has no right to live."

2:20:47lost his right to live because he’s suffering because of him. He died. They took the guy, buried him in some cave. A couple of days later, the issue comes up, and they asked the students or mentioned that the guy was really hot. He goes, "Wow, you mentioned him in this context? He did something wrong. He’s laughing in my face." He goes, "No, he wasn't laughing in your face at all." He goes, "What do you mean? I saw him with my own eyes; he's laughing in my face." He goes, "No, he has a cut. He has a cut on his face, a deformity on his face that looks like he's smiling all the time. He wasn't laughing at you. He just looks like he's smiling all the time." Rabbi Yochanan says, "What? Chas v'shalom. What happened? He died. Bring him back." He goes, "We'll bring him back. We buried him." "Okay, so let's go bring him back." Let's go bring him back. Take me to his grave. They took him to the grave. And you see he's in a tunnel. He's in a cave. But in front of the cave there's a huge giant anaconda. Rabbi Yochanan says to the anaconda, move. Nothing. The anaconda is there. He goes, Rabbi Yochanan, I'm here. The power of the Torah. Move. Nothing. In the honor of the tzaddik. Nothing.

2:22:14I'm the talmid of the tzaddik. Rabbi Yochanan says, I'm his student. And it kind of moves a little, nothing. Okay, now you're allowed to enter. Rabbi Yochanan went, prayed for half a second, and the guy came back to life. Why? Because now, initially, Rabbi Yochanan was so holy that HaKadosh Baruch Hu, in essence, made His will, his will. If somebody caused him suffering, they, in essence, lost the right to live. They lost the right to live. So Hashem said he lost his right to live. But now that he's no longer causing him suffering. In fact, it's causing him suffering that he's dead. Oh, okay. So let's bring him back to life. You think it's any more difficult for Hashem to bring back someone that died than it is to take a putrid seed and turn it into you? Turn it into me? Now, same thing, what is the difference? The difference is on what merit. And that's why the Gemara in Masechet Niddah says that anytime the man is with his wife, the seed goes into the body, and there's an angel called Lailah that takes the seed and goes up to Hashem and says, what will be with this seed?

2:23:35Will he live, will he die, will he be male, be female, tall, short, rich, poor, meaning what merit? What merit will be given to this person? But in essence, does it even have a merit to come to life? Because there's a place in heaven called Guf where all the neshamot are. Which one of those neshamot is going to go into this seed, and what will you give it in the world? All of this is decided already before you come to the world. Rich, poor, tall, short, black, white, green, whatever you're going to be, is already decided before you come to the world. The only thing that you decide in this world is whether you're going to listen to Hashem or not. That's the only thing you're going to decide. There are certain things that you can change as far as through your prayers and your teshuva, but that's not because you're changing Hashem's decree. That's because you're changing your own merit due to your actions. Before you did teshuva, your merit was equal to one. After you did teshuva, your merit increased to three or four or five or six or nine. Therefore, that nine deserves something else. The level one version of you deserved bupkis. The level nine of you deserves anything you want. That's also the same concept when it comes to suffering. People think that they can escape suffering.

2:24:55They say, "Listen, I'm not going to have as many kids because I don't want to; it's too difficult to have kids." So people stop having kids after two or three, thinking, "No, I can't afford more kids. It's too difficult to raise kids." Even if they can afford it, they don't want to have kids because it's hard to raise them. They figure if it's hard to manage two kids, it'll be more difficult to manage three kids, and it'll be even more difficult to manage four kids, and so on and so forth. This is... Why? Because in essence what you're saying is that you're deciding that this is Hashem giving you a mitzvah, but you're going to suffer because of it. So what is the way to understand it? On Rosh Hashanah, in a few days from now, HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to decide everything—whether we live, whether we die, chas v'shalom, whether we are going to make money, lose money, and so on. But one of the things that He's going to decide is how much suffering every person is going to get that year. So let's say if we measure the suffering, each person gets, let's say, his 20 pounds of suffering. One guy gets 20 pounds, another guy gets 10 pounds, another guy gets 50 pounds, whatever it is. But let's say one guy gets 20 pounds of suffering. No matter what, that's his. That's his 20 pounds. That's his allocation for this year. That's his 20 pounds of suffering. Whether he has three kids, four kids, 18 kids, or none, he's still getting 20 pounds of suffering. That's what was decreed on him.

2:26:20so that means that if he has, let's say, two kids and his main suffering is coming through the kids, let's say, then each kid is, hypothetically speaking, 10 pounds of suffering. So each kid's going to be really difficult. But now if he has four kids, it's not going to be 40 pounds. It's not going to be 10 each. What is it going to be? 20 divided by 4. So now, all of a sudden, each kid is 5, and That's a much more manageable kid. That's a regular kid. I could deal with this kind of kid. It's actually easier to deal with the four kids than it is the two kids. Because the two kids, they were pretty much climbing the walls and eating the neighbors' vegetables. The four kids, they're just being kids. They're just breaking stuff once in a while. Once he goes, he goes five, six, it's still 20 pounds. Guess what? It's even easier all of a sudden. Yes, I think even his house. I Understand, so the point is that people think that "more" means "less" or vice versa. You just have to understand that Hashem decided many things before you even came to the world and

2:27:27The things that you can change, you can change through your actions. You can improve things through your actions, and you can hurt things through your actions. If a person stops following the Torah and mitzvot, he can bring a lot of damage to his life. If he starts making more sins, he can bring a lot of damage to his life. So the point is that most of us think that we can't change anything, but in reality, we can. We can't change a lot, but it all starts with doing teshuva. All of it. It doesn't matter how you started your life. It doesn't even actually matter where you are right now. It doesn't matter if you keep Shabbat or you don't keep Shabbat. It doesn't matter anything. What matters is what you're going to do from now on. If a person decides and takes the initiative to change and improve their life, they can have a fantastic Rosh Hashanah. That's where HaKadosh Baruch Hu is pretty much going to decide, okay, so... You commit to doing teshuva, I'm gonna give you more time. Where it could have been that literally HaKadosh Baruch Hu already said, okay, he doesn't do teshuva by now and I'm finished already. But now you decided two minutes later, two minutes before this, okay, you know what, Hashem, I'm gonna do something. What? I'm gonna do teshuva. How? I'm gonna start keeping mitzvot. I'm gonna start learning. I'm gonna start supporting kiruv. I'm gonna do a lot of different things that I never did before.

2:28:46This is part of the reason why a lot of people give tzedakah on the holidays because, in essence, this is supposed to influence the decisions in heaven by showing some type of initiative to change. But foolish people promise to give tzedakah but don't. They buy the aliyah, say yeah, ten thousand, five thousand, twenty thousand, but they don't pay and... That person is, in essence, committing spiritual suicide. Or somebody saying, "Oh, listen Rabbi, here is a check," and the check bounces. This is a mistake, a very big mistake. I will finalize with this: one time, a guy didn't follow Torah and mitzvot, died, and was called up to shamayim. They said, "Listen, you didn't follow very much." I'm sorry, you're going to have to go to Gehinom. So the guy is burning into ashes. But one day, they open up the gate that never opens. "Ah, Steve, no, come out." "What?" He's carrying a poor guy. He's like falling apart. "Come out, me, come out." "Yeah, yeah, come, come, come. You're going somewhere else." The guy comes down in pieces. His fingers are falling off. He's like a coal.

2:30:11Alright, what's going on? What's happening? That's it. You're going to Gan Eden. Really? I finished? Yeah, yeah, you're done. You're going to Gan Eden. Wow, the son, he starts healing. He goes to, they let him in. He sees, wow, beautiful things in Gan Eden. Wow, he starts going in. There's food, there's this, there's no fire. Wow, amazing. He goes, whoa, what happened? He goes, oh, your son, your son just donated a million dollars. Donate a million dollars to a Beit HaKnesset. So, as that said, he saved your life. You know how many souls are going to be saved by this million dollars. I knew my son was going to do it for me. I know it. I know he's going to come through for me. I know it. Oh, what a son I had, a Tzaddik! I knew that kid was going to come through. He's not going to follow his father's foolish steps and... ...know because when I left the world, I was worried. He starts talking to the Malach, becomes best friends with him. All right, you know, I was worried because, you know, I showed him out of me. I introduced him to his girlfriend. I did this. I figured, this guy is going to be worse than me. I'm never leaving Gehinnom. But now you're telling me my son just gave a million dollars to B'ezrat Hashem. Oh, what a son I have! I knew he could do it for me...

2:31:19So he hangs out for two, three days. He's having a good time, time of his life. All of a sudden, Malach Chabala, Duma, comes over there, grabs him by the shoulders. "Yalla, Steve, let's go. You're going back." "What happened? I'm here. I'm in Gan Eden. You don't know where my son is. My son gave a million dollars to B'ezrat Hashem." Duma says, "Hey, the check bounced." Now, even though it's a joke, it actually happened. I had a guy give me a check, and you know, you get the usual chazak u'baruch once in a while, you get a text message, thank you, chazak u'baruch, Hashem bless you, and the check bounced. The check bounced, not a million dollars, just a few hundred dollars. It ended up costing us like $25, you know, the bank charges you money. So I tell the guy, listen, I don't know what happened with the financials, but at least give me the $25 so it doesn't cost us money. We're losing money because of this.

2:32:21M.I.A. (missing in action). One time, I saw him. I said, "Listen, do you remember I sent you a bunch of messages? Can you just get $20? Forget the money that you gave; if you don't have it, you don't have it, no problem. But at least $20 so it's not considered as if you stole. It's not considered as if you stole from a place of holiness, a place that does kedushah. You can't mess with us like messing with the Beit Hamikdash. Crazy to do that." So, yeah, I'll do it. I'm not... I have to pay for him. Why? Because I don't want to go to Gehinnom. My skin... Crazy people. Yalla. Anything else? Yes, yes. This concept just introduced right now because you had to forgive him because of what he probably didn't realize. So you had to forgive him to release him so he doesn't have to... Now, in this time where we're trying to repent, how do we... forgiveness. Forgiveness is an important thing if a person is alive.

2:33:44A regular person, and you did bad by him—if you took money from him, you have to give it back, simply. But if it's something like you insulted him, you hurt him in some way, or you hurt her in some way, then you have to try to ask for their forgiveness three times. Three times. If they do not forgive you after three times, you have fulfilled your obligation. You're okay. You did your job. You asked for forgiveness. They don't want to forgive you. They don't want to forgive you. There's nothing you can do about it. You did it three times. Three times you've humbled yourself and asked for forgiveness, but not the type of forgiveness where you go to the guy and say, "Hey, listen, I'm sorry about what happened, but you know you were wrong too." That's not saying I'm sorry. Listen, listen, you know what happened. It's my bad. I'm sorry about it. But by the way, you're not exactly so right yourself. That's not asking for forgiveness. That's, in essence, just starting the argument, making it even worse. Saying I'm sorry means, listen, I'm really sorry. I was wrong, even though you were right.

2:34:50Even though you think you're right, whatever it is, I'm sorry. My bad. I did bad. I'm wrong. Oh, no. No, it wasn't. I know it was not. I'm sorry. I'm wrong. Yes, I'm sorry. I love you. Please forgive me. Sorry means, in essence, you have to pretty much remove your pride and say, "I'm sorry, I was wrong," even if you weren't a hundred percent wrong. That's "I'm sorry." You try to do that three times and... If the person is difficult and doesn’t, sorry, doesn’t want to forgive you after three times, there’s nothing you can do. But that’s only if he’s a common person. If he’s a Talmid Chacham, if he’s a Talmid Chacham, then even if it’s a thousand times, he says no, you have to keep going. A thousand times. A thousand times he says no, I don’t want to forgive you, you have to keep going. You have to keep asking for forgiveness. Why? You hurt one of Hashem's soldiers, you have a very, very serious problem. Do whatever you can to get his forgiveness. Normally, it doesn't require that many times, but the Gemara says, even if it does, even if this Talmid Chacham, some Talmidei Chachamim, they have a little bit of Ga'ava, they have a little bit of a, you know, you know,

2:36:16anger in them, fire in them, that they don't want to forgive you. And there actually is a Gemara in Masechet Yoma that says that if somebody, a Talmid Chacham, somebody goes against them and he doesn't take revenge, he's not a Talmid Chacham. If somebody took advantage of him because of money, then forgive him. But if somebody embarrassed him in public, he said, don't let it go. Like it says in the Gemara, don't let it go. Take revenge. Know yourself. If something happens to them in the world, let it happen. Why? Because when he went against a Talmid Chacham, he went against the Torah. It's not about the Talmid Chacham himself. It's the Torah that he represents. So if you offended, if you wrote a comment on the internet against some Talmid Chacham, or for example, one guy that was watching my shiurim for a while, and one day I said something about Zionists being Resha'im. This guy didn't like it, even though he was watching my shiurim already for like a year, two years, helped him do teshuva. But he didn't like what I said about the Zionists being resha'im, even though it's true. And he sent me an email cursing my wife out, and all types of names. Now if you curse me out, you say whatever you say to me, it doesn't really make a difference to me. You've mentioned my wife into it, you mentioned my kid, you mentioned anything about it, most likely if you die a strange death, I'm going to laugh.

2:37:46What does she have to do with it? What does she have to do with it? What did she do to you? So a person like this, most likely, even if he apologizes a thousand times, most likely won't accept it. Why? You crossed the line. You want to curse me out. You want to insult me. You don't like what I said. You don't agree with me. No problem. But why did you cross the line? Why did you go there? So everybody's got that line. Everybody's got that line. Everybody's got a line. Don't cross that line. Sometimes people cross the line. so it depends. Does that mean that if that person not forgiving means that they're bad? No, it doesn't mean that they're bad. It means you crossed the line. You crossed the line. There's something, but that's assuming again, that it's normal under normal circumstances. Either way, it's a person that went against Talmidei Chachamim; they made a comment on the internet They said Lashon Hara; they caused the lecture to be cancelled, things like that. They have to do everything possible to get forgiveness. Now, everyone knows the book Sha'arei Teshuva by Rabbeinu Yonah, written almost 800 years ago. What very few people don't know is that the entire book, which is one of the most important Mussar books ever written in the history of the world...

2:39:08That book is very deep. It's something mamash. He must have written it with some level of Ruach HaKodesh. He was one of the talmidim of the Ramban, I believe. But anyway, Rabbeinu Yonah was one of the people who went against the Rambam. When he found out that the Rambam really is right and he's really the Gadol HaDor, he realized that he went against... the biggest rabbi in the world, he decided to spend the rest of his life going from community to community to publicize his apology to the Rambam, just in case his words against the Rambam reached that community. You don't know where it's reached. You said one word over here, somebody was here, but he moved back to somewhere else. And then he told somebody else, then he told somebody else. You don't know where it reached. He spent the rest of his life going from community to community, publicizing that he's wrong. The Rambam is the biggest rabbi in the world. He's the Kodesh Kodashim and his whole life, this whole period of what he did, from that he wrote Shaarei Teshuvah. Shaarei Teshuvah is the culmination of his two decades of teshuvah for saying one thing against the Rambam. publicizing that he's wrong. The Rambam is the biggest rabbi in the world. He's the Kodesh Kodashim and his whole life, this whole period of what he did, from that he wrote Shaarei Teshuvah. Shaarei Teshuvah is the culmination of his two decades of teshuvah for saying one thing against the Rambam.

2:40:32And if you see what he writes in just the first few chapters, already you have pachad Elohim, you're already scared to death. What he says about if you don't do teshuvah. And what you have to do in order to do teshuvah. So, the point is that if a person went against somebody in the Talmid Chacham, they have to do whatever they can to undo it. They have to do whatever they can to undo it. And by the way, just to finalize everything, that's actually the Gemara in Masechet Gittin. that says that Onkelos, before he converted, did a seance and he brought back three neshamot to ask them if he should convert and what’s happening in the next world. One of the neshamot was his uncle Titus. He asked him, "Should I convert?" He said, "No, it's too hard to be a Jew." He says, "But who's in control in the real world where you are?" He says, "The Jews, the righteous Jews." He says, "What's happening to you?" Titus says, "I'm getting punished, where they're burning me to ashes every day, spreading me around all the oceans of the world, and then they put me back together, and then they burn me all over again. So then, after, that's my punishment." That's what Titus says. Then he brought back Bilaam.

2:41:53Bilam, should I convert? He says, don't convert. It's too hard. It's too hard to convert. It's too hard to be a Jew. Just torture the Jews in this world and leave your benefit for one world. He says, but who runs the world over there? Who benefits over there? He goes, the righteous Jews. He says, where are you? He goes, oh, I'm being boiled every day in semen. They're boiling me in semen. Why? Because I wasted seed with my donkey. So then he brought back Jesus. And he asked Jesus, should I convert? He says, yes, convert. He goes, who runs the world over there? He goes, the righteous Jews. The righteous Jews are the ones that benefit on top in the real world. And he says to him, so where are you? He says, I am in the seventh level of Gehinom, and they're boiling me in feces every day. He says, why? He says, because I went against Talmidei Chachamim. I went against the rabbis. My punishment is eternity. So even though he was a Jew, even though he actually told the truth that he should convert because he could be a righteous Jew and so on, that didn't help his case. Why? He went against Talmidei Chachamim. That's the whole thing with him.

2:43:17That's the whole thing with him. So some of these foolish people that make comments on the internet, "Don't listen to this rabbi, don't listen to Rabbi Yaron, don't listen to Rabbi Mizrachi, don't listen to Rabbi Zitron," or whatever it is. You make a comment on the internet, you send an email to somebody, you send a text message to somebody, or you even make a comment saying, "Yeah, I guess some people like him, but I don't really like him. He's not my taste." And that stupid comment... influences another person not to listen to our shiurim, you have a very, very serious cheshbon in Shamayim. You have a very serious cheshbon in Shamayim. You pretty much have to become that rabbi's employee for free in order for him to forgive you because you have no idea the level of damage that that caused. So that's some of the things that people do nonchalantly and lose their Olam Haba without even knowing it. They're just, you know, walking corpses. A lot of people do it. Many times you see it with people that want to convert, but strangely it never works. Strangely, the Beit Din never wants to talk to them. Strangely, no one ever wants to sponsor them. Ten years already they're in a conversion process, but nothing happens. Why? Because they probably did something like this. They did something like this and said Lashon Hara about Am Yisrael and so on.

2:44:41People like that are a danger to society and, most importantly, a danger to themselves. So during this Rosh Hashanah, a person should take the initiative and commit to change. Pick one thing that you're going to change. If you are smart, you'll pick even more because there are certain things that are easy. One thing I would recommend for everybody to do is that if There is a shiur Torah, and it's a real shiur Torah. Unless it's a positive comment, don't comment at all. On the internet, ever. Unless it's a positive comment that's going to influence other people to watch it, don't comment at all. Sometimes people comment on the thread of the live feed and just talk to each other—it's a mistake. You're influencing other people to stop watching the shiur and look at your comments. It's a mistake. You shouldn't do it. You shouldn't even watch the shiur if you're going to do that. Or some people say, "Oh yeah, I don't really like that." You shouldn't do it. Don't watch the shiur if you don't like it. Why? Because you're influencing other people to go away from the shiur. You're influencing people to go away from the Torah. So unless it's a positive comment, don't make a comment at all. That shouldn't be too difficult. If you don't have something good to say, don't say anything at all. You've probably heard this when you were growing up. Two, do everything you possibly can to evaluate yourself fairly

2:46:08Pick one thing that you're gonna become an expert in. One thing that you're gonna be—this is your baby. You're gonna be the best at this mitzvah. But that doesn't mean that you could ignore everything else. All the other things that you're obviously doing that you know are wrong already—commit to Hashem, "I'm gonna work on them. I'm gonna do something about them to fix them." Three, make some type of plan to do kiruv. And as I said to you guys earlier, I... Money is the most common way to do it simply because most people are busy living their lives. They don't have the ability or time to do kiruv on a regular basis. Plus, it's just an easy mitzvah to do—all you gotta do is just send money without doing any work. I mean, if you can do more, do more, but... You should do it. This is the reason why we started that drive for people that want us to specifically pray for them. Specifically, donate $1,800. Some people love it and they want to do it, but some people say, "Why? Why is it so important? Why is it so expensive?" I said, "You want to donate? Don't donate at all. Well, it's expensive. Well, yeah. Am I buying a plane with this money? This is for kiruv purposes. It's just to entice people to do something because if I don't set an amount, people are gonna send $18. What's $18 gonna do?"

2:47:28What am I gonna do with $18? If you have $1,800, donate $1,800. But if I don't tell you, you're not gonna donate $1,800. You know, don't give $18. Do you think that $18 is gonna do something? What am I gonna do with $18? Maybe buy a book and give it to you. Not even today; the average book I give to people costs $25-$30. Every week, we send kiruv packages worth thousands of dollars for free. People think $18 is okay. If that's all you have, I want it. That’s the best you can offer in this world. But if you have $1,800 to give, yet you only give $18, you're not helping yourself. If you have, you have. But some people don't have. So we said, okay, payment plan, $150 a month. 12 months, it's $1,800. It's not the biggest deal in the world. You don't have it, you don't have it. But if you have it, you should give it. Why? Because at least you're going to do something with your money. And especially now that people are donating anyway. People say, yeah, but I give, I give. Listen, somebody came to the Chafetz Chaim. He said, Kvod HaRav, I'm giving this money for a bracha.

2:48:29That's why he wasn't exactly impressed with the guy. This is not enough for the rabbis. It's a lot of money. Yeah, it's not enough because I love it. All the $30,000 is a lot of money. Yeah, it's not enough. It's not enough. I'll just call the Rav. No, $30,000 is not enough. He says, let's do a fair accounting of your calculations, your own finances. What do you do? I give a lot of tzedakah. I give a lot to all these different places. Okay, so let's do the accounting. I want to see what you make and what you spend. They did an accounting. The guy gave the accounting, and to his surprise, he realized that he spends more money on window treatments than he does on Torah. He never knew it. He thought that he spends $30,000 here, $20,000 there. He figured that he funds a lot of Torah because it's a lot of money. But in comparison to his pleasures of the world, he actually spent more money fixing his windows, putting window treatments, putting these fancy schmancy felts and all types of fabric around his windows. He spent more money on that than on Torah.

2:49:46But he never thought about it because he figured he spent $30,000 here, $40,000 there. It looks like a big number. It is a big number, but not relatively speaking. Most people think that they give a lot more than they do. Ninety-nine percent of people do not even give the 10% they are obligated to give. Go look at your salary. You got $100,000 last year. Did you give $10,000? Oh, no, I have expenses. So what? You still need to give $10,000. Did you give it to Maaser? You didn't give Maaser. Okay, so you didn't give enough. Oh, but if Hashem gives me more, liar. If Hashem gives you more, it doesn't mean you're going to give more. It doesn't mean you're going to give more. It doesn't mean that. It's the opposite. The more you have, it's harder to give. So every person has to evaluate how much tzedakah they're really giving. If you're not giving Maaser, you're nowhere near giving enough. If you make a lot of money, you should give a lot more than Maaser. You want to show him you give 20% even, but the point is that you have to get giving into your life. Giving needs to be a significant part of your life because you're giving Hashem a signature showing that you know that all of it is coming from Him. That's number one. And number two is that you know that the bracha, the bracha that's coming from Hashem, is also from the same place that will decide whether to give you more or not.

2:51:10Now you're showing that you're a good partner. Why? Because you're using the money that He gives you, the bracha that He gives you, for what? To publicize His name. Unlike most people, that Hashem gives them bracha, what do they do? They desecrate His name. He gives them money, they go to nightclubs with it. He gives them the ability to have kids, they waste seed. He gives them eyes, they look at improper things. But you're showing you give ma'aser, you're showing that you're a good partner to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, oh, it's worth it for Me to give this guy. It's worth it for Me to give this guy more money. But people get offended. Oh, no, why is it so expensive? What, are you selling the Torah? Who's selling the Torah? I don't even have a car. People think that you're making money out of this. No, it's not money. You don't want to give? Don't give. You're not doing me a favor. That's the reality. You're not doing me a favor. There's not even one ounce of favor in here. You're giving to a kiruv organization. That's real. You're doing yourself a favor. If you don't think it's a favor, don't do it. Keep your money, enjoy it, go buy bubblegum with it. I don't care. It makes no difference to me, because I was in simchah another way. That's the thing that people don't understand. I hate to talk about money because I remember that the people that used to come to me, all they cared about was money and...

2:52:27They never care about me doing teshuva, but the problem is that because we never talk about money, there are more and more expenses and more and more issues with it. So you have to sometimes mention it to people to remind them: listen, you watch three shiurim a week, but the last time you donated was three months ago. You donated $100. What, you only make $100 every three months? No, you probably make five thousand a month, right? So how come you only gave $100? And the best part is, like, oh, well, you never asked. I never knew. Well, I have to ask you. You didn't watch the shiurim. I have one guy who tells me, listen, you helped me do teshuva, you changed my life. Since I've been watching your shiurim, already for a year and a half, I've been giving my local Chabad $600 a month. I'm so happy about it. So, blessed another guy tells me one day, this is maybe four years ago. He tells me, "I was like, oh, yeah, I told you, you need tefillin, you have tefillin?" He said, "No." I said, "Okay, I'll get you tefillin." I got him a thousand-dollar pair of tefillin, somebody sponsored a thousand or twelve hundred-dollar pair of tefillin because the guy said he didn't have any money. So, Joe needs it. At the time, I said, "If I have somebody, I'll give it to you." I don't have a sponsor right now. A couple of people ask me, I don't have it. But if I have it, I'll give it. I don't care.

2:53:44But now we ask more questions because we've made a couple of mistakes, and like this one I'm mentioning to you right now. I sent the guy a thousand-dollar pair of tefillin for free, books, this, that, and the other thing. He says he has no money. He wants to do teshuvah. He's already 60 years old. Maybe one day he'll have it. Maybe he doesn't. Two months later, three months later, he sends me, "Oh, yeah, thank you, wow, it changed my life, oh Hashem, great. You know, I just gave $400 to Breslov, and another $400 to Chabad. They've really been so helpful, and thank you very..." I said to myself, is this guy stupid with a degree or without a degree? He's still working on it. First of all, you lied, you have money. Second of all, I don't understand. Sent you a thousand-dollar parrot flea for free. You never thought to give the money back? No, so sometimes you have to tell people. Every single day, every single day, people ask me if they should donate to somebody else and

2:54:50Listen, is this organization kosher? Can I donate there? Is this kollel kosher? Is this yeshiva kosher? Can you help publicize this campaign? I got one today. Can you do me a favor? They're doing a matching. Can you help publicize this Beit Knesset's campaign on your page so other people could donate there? I'm thinking of myself. Wise people think, "I live on manna," or like, "I don't understand." So, sometimes you have to mention it. I hate it. I hate to talk about it. You have to understand how much of a kaparah (atonement) it is for me, you know? So, the point is that sometimes you have to mention this stuff because people don't get the point. People don't get the point. But like I said, if you... make a priority in your life, meaning that you're going to help other people. You will help yourself in this world and the next. If you don't, and you think that you could do without it, by all means, you technically can, but will it happen? I don't know. It all depends on you. It all depends on you. I just think that most people, from my experience,

2:55:59have too much difficulty doing teshuva for big sins by themselves. They need the help of others. They need others doing teshuva. So that's it. Unless you guys have any other critical questions, the halachot of Rosh Hashanah are relatively simple. Rosh Hashanah is like Shabbat. So you know not to drive on Rosh Hashanah, you know not to use your phones on Rosh Hashanah, not even for kinyan purposes, and... You're allowed to cook from fire to fire, but in Florida, there's no gas here. So fire to fire is pretty much completely irrelevant here. So you have to pretty much cook everything before the Chag and put it on the hot plate during the Chag. If you live somewhere else, like in New York and other places that have gas, then you can use fire to fire to light the gas, but your local rabbi, I'm sure, is going to go over this stuff with you. You have to go to the Beit Knesset if you're a guy to pray with the minyan, but also most important to listen to the Shofar. Shofar is a mitzvah from the Torah. So even if you hate the Beit Knesset, then suck it up and go to the Beit Knesset. But if it's a Beit Knesset where everybody's talking and socializing and you can't even hear anything, then you don't have to go. You don't have to go. But if people are relatively decent and they have some respect for the Torah, where they listen to Amidah and so on,

2:57:28At least during that time, they're quiet and go. Also, for the people that do not speak Hebrew, know how to read Hebrew, or know how to make the sounds in Hebrew, but they don't know what it actually means, there is a special significance to the words that Chazal used to put the Amidah, the prayer of Amidah, together. It's better if you read Amidah only in Hebrew. The rest of the prayers you can read in English. Most of it is Tehillim and so on. But Amidah specifically, it's better that you read it in Hebrew, even if you don't know what the words mean, because what you're going to do over these next couple of days is look at the Amidah in the Machzor of Rosh Hashanah in English, learn what it says, so when you read it in Hebrew, you still have an understanding of what's going on. You still haven't understood. The rest of the prayers you read in English. It's good that you understand what you're saying, but that specific prayer, you should try to do it in Hebrew, meaning that you should, if you know. If you don't know, you don't know. If you don't know Hebrew at all, you don't know how to pronounce it, then you're an anus. There's no problem.

2:58:42But if you do know, at least make the sounds. Again, learn the prayer. On the eve of Rosh Hashanah, make sure to have a festive meal with all the simanim, whether it's the rimon (pomegranate) or the different fruits that are used. There's no specific obligation to use any one over the other. They're all customs. So if you don't have one, don't lose your mind, don't get angry, and don't be upset. It's okay. They're all just customs. To all customs. Women, when you light the candle for Yom Tov, don't say the blessing of Shehecheyanu. Wait for your husband to come home when you do the Kiddush, and he'll say Shehecheyanu for the whole family. The second day of Rosh Hashanah, you cannot say Shehecheyanu on the Kiddush, so it's good to get a fruit that you haven't eaten in the last year, a new fruit, and say Shehecheyanu on the fruit. You're not allowed to say Shehecheyanu on the second day because it's not really new; it's already the second day of Rosh Hashanah. Rosh Hashanah is the only holiday that is celebrated for two days everywhere, including Eretz Yisrael. That's the other thing. The food that your wife makes or that you make, if it's good or not, it's not going to change your din in Shamayim. But if you get angry during the meal, that's going to change your din.

3:00:07Meaning, even if the food tastes like it belongs to animals, don't get angry. Why? Because it's not going to change your judgment in Shamayim. But if you get angry at your wife, or you insult whoever cooked the food, that's going to change your din. That's going to change your din. It's a very, very bad thing to get angry on Rosh Hashanah. So whatever happens, remember, the Yetzer Hara is going to try to make you angry. Why? Because if you get angry on Rosh Hashanah, you pretty much ruin your whole year. don't get angry at all. Make sure to spend as much time as you can in the beit knesset, learning, and enjoying the chag. And that's it. It's a fantastic chag. It's a fantastic opportunity to enjoy with the family. Our next shiur is going to be next Wednesday. Next Wednesday is the next shiur, and pretty much for the next month, the shiur is pretty much going to be probably once a week. either going to be a Wednesday or a Sunday whenever there's no holidays for a couple of reasons. One is because we have the holidays, but also it's a time for me to take a little bit more time to re-energize. But we're still going to try our best to have at least one shiur per week. Obviously, if you have any crisis, first call 9-1-1. When they tell you that they can't help you, then you can text me. May all of us have a...

3:01:30Hopefully you will take each word that I said and remember at least part of it to do some teshuva before Rosh Hashanah and arrive at Rosh Hashanah prepared to change. Prepared to change. When you're prepared to change, HaKadosh Baruch Hu will also change the decree that we really deserve into what we want, which is, b’ezrat Hashem, only good, and we'll get blessings, b’ezrat Hashem. So thank you very much for learning with me over this last year. All of the people that have supported us, whether it's financially, by sharing the shiurim, or by simply sending a nice email or a letter, whatever you did to support our work, the Kiddush Hashem that we're trying to do, thank you very much for it. The people that are living in Eretz Yisrael are going to have the merit, about 15 of them, to go to the Siyum HaShas. that Rabbi Ephraim is having, the party he's having tomorrow when he completes the Shas, each time it's like a wedding celebration. It's a big hall with people and so on. So about 15 of our students are actually going tomorrow.

3:02:40tomorrow over there, b'ezrat Hashem. So, anyone that wants to watch, some of the event is going to actually be on Facebook Live. We'll see you tomorrow, b'ezrat Hashem. But again, remember, the chag is a time to do teshuva, and it's also a time to be with your family. It's a time to enjoy life, not a time to worry about work and money and all these other things that you worry about the rest of the week. And then, b'ezrat Hashem, next week we'll start talking about Yom Kippur and some of the other things. Baruch Adonai le'olam. Amen ve'amen. Thank you for watching. B'ezrat Hashem, next week we'll start talking about Yom Kippur and some of the other things. Baruch Adonai le'olam. Amen ve'amen.