The Women Of Chanukah (Shaarei Bina Torah Academy)

0:15We're so happy that she's here. Hi, good morning, girls. So I'm really excited that Mrs. Watkins, Mrs. Gold, and Dr. Rand scheduled the time to have my rabbi speak. I think the girls are really going to enjoy it. He personally changed my life so much. Clarity and everything is so right. What we need to be doing in this world Hi everyone, thank you for having me. Thank you to all the teachers and all the students for coming. Baruch Hashem. We had the merit to teach in Montreal about a week ago. Also, a nice group of kids that really were just yearning for more emet, for more truth in the world because today we live in a world

1:17that there's no corner that you can turn to where people are not confused. There are confused kids, there are confused adults; everyone's confused. And the beauty of the Torah that we have, that Am Yisrael has, is that the Torah has the answers. You just have to look into it. Part of the problem that we have today is that we spend a lot of time looking at the goyim, looking at the other nations, and we forget that we're more special. You know, most people, you know, they look, for example, at the president of the United States, and they say, wow, I want to be the president. Or some people look at the president's wife and say, oh, I want to be the president's wife. Meaning you want to have all the honor and the glory that it looks like they're getting. It looks like it's fun. You know, there's new clothes every day. They ride the world in private airplanes. It sounds like fun. But the Mishnah in Pirkei Avot that we learned last night in the shiur tells us that don't look at the kings ...of other nations, of our nation, of anybody. Don't look at any king and be jealous. Don't look at the kings, meaning it's not just about not being jealous of a regular person who may be smarter or looks better or has more money. No, no, even the best of the best—don't even look at the kings and be jealous of them. Why? Because your crown is better than their crown; your table is better than their table.

2:39So how could it be that their table is full of gold, and mine is barely plastic? How is my table any better? It's all based on perception. It's all based on what you actually are looking at. If you're looking at material, then of course you're going to see that they have a private plane and we have a toy plane. You're going to see that they have a gold table, and we have a plastic table. So if you look at the basic material, then of course it's very easy to get confused. How could your table be better than theirs? If you take it to the market and you compare the two prices, people are going to kick you out of the market. It's like, what are you talking about? Their table is much more valuable than yours. But if you look at the real perspective of things, the perspective of Hashem, and how He decided to run the world, and what's truly meaningful in the world, then you'll see that your table is not only more valuable, but your table is infinitely more important in every aspect. It's just that we have to look at things in the right way. Now, most of my life, I was secular. I didn't learn Torah. When I was a kid in Israel, up until age 10, I went to a traditional school. We had kippot, we had tzitzit, but at home, we kept what we wanted. But then, when we came to the United States almost 30 years ago, I went to public school and didn't get a Torah education like you, Baruch Hashem, have.

4:03So most of my life, I had to try to make sense out of things my own way. So once in a while, you'll hear a story from the Torah and you try to compare it to something you learned in school, maybe some type of scientific book that you learned. So I read a lot of science. I tried to understand where we came from, how we came, what we came from. But throughout all of my life, I never felt like I really had the answer. I never really felt like I really had the answer, because you can never find two scientists who agree with each other. And even if they agree, who says they're right? So Baruch Hashem, some years ago, I started doing teshuva, I started learning Torah, and I started realizing there's only one source in the world that's reliable, that you know for sure, can never be wrong. And that's the source being the Creator Himself. The Creator Himself, why? Anything you want to know, if He said it in the Torah, that's it, you have to take it. You can rely on it, whether you understand it completely or not is irrelevant. The point is, He said it, you can take that to the bank. You can rely on it. And there are so many Torah proofs, there are so many ways that you can prove that the Torah is divine, if we'd only spend a little bit of time researching it. But today I was asked to talk a little bit about what it means to be a Jewish woman.

5:22And just so we get a little bit of the right perspective of what it means to be a bat Yisrael. Everybody tells you, "Oh, you're special, you're special, you're special." Your mom tells you you're special. Your dad tells you you're special. Your teachers tell you you're special. And if they don't, trust me, they mean it. What makes a bat Yisrael so special? What's so special about them? Okay, you look at one girl. She's Jewish. Oh, she's a bat Yisrael. Another girl, she's not Jewish. She's not a bat Yisrael. So what makes her more special? Isn't that racist? Isn't that unfair? Is it her fault that she wasn't born Jewish? What makes the Jews so special? Hanukkah teaches us that this is one of the mitzvot that women are obligated to fulfill just as much as the men. Unlike all of the other mitzvot that are bound to time, for example, things like learning Torah or laying tefillin or other mitzvot that are bound to time, women are not obligated to the same extent as men.

6:28But when it comes to Hanukkah, even though it is bound to time, there's a specific time of the year that you have to light the candles, there's a specific time during the day you have to light the candles, the sages explain to us that women are obligated to do it just as much as the men. And the reason why is because women are as much responsible for the miracle of Hanukkah just as much as the men, possibly even more. I'm sure that you've all heard the story of Yehudit. Yehudit was alive during the time of the story of Hanukkah. She was a young girl who wasn't exactly the most popular, wasn't exactly the richest, wasn't exactly the most famous, and wasn't exactly acknowledged by everyone. Oh, this is Yehudit, she's walking down the street, let's say hello. No one knew who she was; she was just a regular person, a regular Bat Yisrael. But we know her name over 2,000 years later because of one single act. One single act that she did is the reason why we're alive today. All of us. Men, women, children. It doesn't make a difference. Everyone. We're all alive because of her. Why? Part of what the Greeks did in order to destroy or try to destroy Am Yisrael was to take away our right to learn Torah. And Am Yisrael without Torah is like a fish without water.

7:55Sometimes you'll see a person that has all the material in the world. He has a fancy car, a fancy house, fancy everything, but he doesn't keep Shabbat. You say, oh, what's the big deal? He doesn't keep Shabbat. If you follow his life long enough, you'll see what's the big deal. All the material doesn't give him any joy. Why? Because without Torah, it's impossible to be happy in the world. Because happiness is a spiritual feeling. It's not a physical feeling. You can't attain it. without actually having some type of Torah. So the Greeks knew this, and they tried to remove our Torah from us by making laws that made it very difficult for us to learn Torah, to teach Torah. They outlawed the mitzvah of Rosh Chodesh. You weren't allowed to calculate the time, which they knew is very critical, because without us knowing the time, how are we gonna know when to pray? How are we gonna know when to keep Shabbat? How are we gonna know how to keep any of the holidays? Time is very, very critical in Judaism, so they tried to do everything they possibly could to remove us as far as possible from the Torah. Now, once Am Yisrael gets weak spiritually, they become weak physically and mentally. And that's exactly what happened. They started becoming helpless and stopped defending themselves. It got to a point where even the religious people started following the Greeks.

9:25They decided that maybe, maybe they had a better way. Maybe they didn't need to be that religious, and we started falling one after another. Even the warriors became weakened, not because they themselves were weak, but because they saw their friends, their cousins, their path, their teachers—they saw everybody else going along with the Greeks or even just doing nothing about it. It got to a point where everyone became weak. Yehudit the holy, Yehudit saw that if something is not done now, everything is going to fail, everything is going to break. So she made a plan to take advantage of the Greeks' rules against them. The Greeks had a horrible rule where if you ever wanted to get married, the potential wife had to go and meet one of the Greek leaders first and... To pretend like she's going to be his wife for a day. For Bat Yisrael, this is the worst possible thought. What do you mean? You're not my husband and you want me to talk to you? Why would I talk to you? You're not my husband. But this was their rule because they wanted to violate every aspect of our Torah.

10:40So Yehudit says, "See these Greeks, they're so stupid that they think we are actually buying into their nonsense. So I'll do it. I'll pretend like I'm buying into it. I'll pretend like I'm going to be his wife for a day." She says, "Oh yeah, yeah, you want me to be your wife? Sure, sure, I'm coming." And she comes over there and she goes, "Listen, let's celebrate." So she gives him some drinks and some food to get him really tired. And all of his soldiers are happy, like, "Wow, look, this Jewish woman is coming to our leader. Wow, it's so great." And they're buying into it. The whole time she has a plan. What's the plan? I can't wait until he falls asleep. Why? Because as soon as he falls asleep, she kills him. And she kills him in a very, very extraordinary way to make sure that everybody knew it wasn't an accident. There was no murder trial. There was no need for any witnesses. Everyone knew this was planned. And she made sure to go show all of her brothers she killed not only a Greek, but one of the leaders of the Greeks because she said, "If I, a teenager, can go fight against one of the leaders of the Greeks and win, what's to say that you can't? What's to say that you can't?" "Yeah, but we're few." "So?" "Yeah, but we don't have that many weapons." "So?" "Yeah, but there's so much money." "So what?"

12:10All of those rules of having a lot, having little, having money, having no money, having good fortune, having no fortune, that's all what the goyim rely on. Am Yisrael is above and beyond that. Am Yisrael doesn't have such rules. Am Yisrael has Hashem. And that's all we need. The rest of the nations, since they worship idols for the most part, They have to rely on luck. They have to rely on fortune. They have to rely on materialism. Am Yisrael doesn't have to rely on anything other than Hashem. So what? We have five people? It's more than enough. Yeah, but they have millions. Great! It's even a bigger miracle. Now, none of this sounds logical. But that's the Torah. Anyone who tries to make logic of every aspect of the Torah is eventually going to hit a wall. Because there are many parts of the Torah that are not logical, and they're not meant to be logical, and they cannot be logical. It's not logical for the whole world to start from a piece of dust that Hashem decided to make into a human being. There's nothing logical about it. There's nothing logical that two people created billions that we have today. It's not logical. Why? Because our mind can't get to the point of understanding how two people could lead to so many.

13:28Okay, so maybe Grandpa has, you know, 500 grandkids. I can understand 500. I can't understand 8 billion. It's not logical. It's not logical to think that one day Hashem put some rain into the world and everyone died except Noach and his family. They survived. It's not logical. It's not logical that one day millions of people get to an ocean, and the ocean splits exactly when they're there, exactly how they needed it to split, and then it manages to kill all of their enemies instantaneously, all of them without exception. Aside from Pharaoh, meaning there was nobody that was able to swim away, float, or survive even though he got injured. No, all the enemies died, and all the Jews survived. It's not logical. But that's because it's not meant to be logical. It's meant to be divine. It's meant to explain to us that this is from Hashem. Hashem is above and beyond logic. And it's important for Am Yisrael to know that our responsibility is also above and beyond logic. Now they say that the entire merit of Am Yisrael leaving Egypt

14:43Because of bnot Yisrael. It wasn't because of bnei Yisrael; it was because of bnot Yisrael, the daughters of Yisrael. Why? They go to the kollel, they learn Torah, they finish the Shas. What do they do? That's a big deal. What's the big deal? What do women do? They work. The men worked. This is—no. You see, the men were mentally broken because of the hard work that the Egyptians gave them. Men need to feel powerful. Men need to feel... honor, respect. They need to feel something significant or else they lose their value. They lose their sense of self. So when they came home to their wives, they didn't want to live anymore. So why, you know, bring kids to the world? Why should I ever think even of kids? Look at my life. I'm going to bring more kids to this horrible world? The wives thought about the future. They didn't think about today. They thought about the future. They said, "Yes, today is hard. Today, we have a hard life. But nothing is permanent. Who said that this is permanent? Who says that we're going to be here in Egypt tomorrow? Who says that Pharaoh is going to stay our leader for another 50 years? Who says, okay, so he's the leader, okay? It's not logical for us to leave Egypt, but who cares about logic? We're Israel! We are above logic." So the women were responsible for...

16:10Encourage the men to continue living, to continue finding a way to find happiness, to continue finding a way to bring a family into the world, even though statistically speaking, it was more likely that the kids were going to die as soon as they were born because they were boys and It wasn't logical for the women to say, no, listen, I'm going to carry a baby for nine months, and yeah, there's definitely a 50% chance that Pharaoh is going to kill him. But who cares? Why? Hashem runs the world. If Hashem wants it to happen, it's going to happen. For such a simple thought that's completely illogical, that most women today are not even thinking about doing, is what earned B'not Yisrael the merit of saving all of Am Yisrael. The same goes for the time of Mashiach, the time that we're in today. Our sages explained to us that the merit of the women, the merit of B'not Yisrael, is what's going to bring the Mashiach. When you look at it, Baruch Hashem, you're all learning Torah, you're all learning mitzvot, but one day you're going to graduate and you're going to go into the real world, and B'not Yisrael, be wives and

17:27children to the world. Some people will go into the work world and business, and some people will be housewives and take care of the family. I mean, no one's becoming Moshe Rabbeinu. So what merit is a simple little girl from today going to have that's going to actually help bring the Mashiach? Every single one of you can bring the Mashiach. Why? What's so special? Special is that the Tests that we have today are so extraordinary and so illogical that the only way you can pass them is if you stick to the Torah regardless of whether it makes sense to you or not. That's what God said. I'm doing it. Why? I have no idea. He said it. You have questions, go to Him. Maybe He'll answer you. Part of the challenge that we have today, which is very difficult for women, is modesty. Very difficult. It's very difficult for women to understand why modesty is still relevant today. Almost every woman in the world practically walks around in underwear. No, but seriously, think about it: in a previous generation—Baruch Hashem, I'm a little older than you—in the old generation, what people call clothes today that they go outside with, in the old generation, people wouldn't go outside with it.

18:49they'll go to sleep with it. They wouldn't go outside with it. But today, there are celebrities on big screens who are proud to walk around like this, and people celebrate them. Oh, look, she's almost not wearing any clothes. Wow, yay. Look, what do you mean? There's something wrong here. She forgot her clothes at home. Somebody get her a jacket. Help her out. Maybe she couldn't afford it. She spent it on the stage. today it's confusing. Why? Because you see the most celebrated people in the world are doing the exact opposite of the Torah. Hashem says be modest; they're not modest. Hashem says be humble; they're the opposite of humble. Whatever Hashem said, people are doing the opposite. But yet, they're getting all the credit. They're getting all the attention. Everyone is cheering for them and clapping for them. So it's confusing for a young little girl today to say, well, I don't understand. How is it that I, little me, little 12-, 13-, 14-, 15-, 16-, 17-year-old little me, is more important than this woman that's on stage? This woman that's on television?

20:02Getting all the honor and going in a private jet. Little me, more important than her? I can bring the Messiah and she can't? How can that be? It doesn't make any sense. The bigger the difficulty, the bigger the reward. In this generation, we have to look at our Torah in order to get some type of understanding of what it means to be a Bat Yisrael. even though it doesn't make sense sometimes. A few weeks ago, we read Parashat Vayishlach. In Parashat Vayishlach, there's an event that took place that's completely illogical, but yet gives us a clear understanding of what's the responsibility and what's the importance of a Bat Yisrael, no matter the age. It says, It says that Dinah, the daughter of Leah, who was born to Yaakov, one of the daughters of Leah and Yaakov, went out to look over the daughters of the land. Meaning she went out just to see what the goyim were doing. She didn't get a boyfriend. She didn't go to a club or some place that's not allowed. She just wanted to see what the non-Jewish girls were doing in the neighborhood. I just want to see.

21:23That's it. Just see. She's not interested in doing something that's against the Torah. She's not interested in getting a tattoo. She's not interested in eating pork. No, she just wants to see what they are doing. That's it. But we see here that Hashem did not agree even with this. Kol kevuda bat melech penima. The entire honor of a bat Yisrael is inside. You have no business going to see what the non-Jewish people are doing. No business looking at the television and the internet to see how they're celebrating all of these celebrities that are going against the Torah. No business. Why? Because Dina tried it. She just wanted to see what was going on over there. Hashem said, if you spend too much time looking at what other people are doing, you're going to get confused about what your role is in life. And you're going to think that you're supposed to do what they're doing. You're supposed to put clothes on like them. You're supposed to go on stage and be celebrated like them. You're supposed to be looking for attention like them. And you're going to get confused about what your role is in the world. And if you get confused about what your role is in the world, everyone suffers. Why? Because it delays the Mashiach. It delays the salvation of the entire nation of Israel. Yeah, but it doesn't make any sense. So?

22:50That's what Hashem said. How do we see? What's the proof? Look what happened to Dina. She just went to look and see what the goyim were doing. Just to see. What's so bad about just seeing? Well, Hashem made it so that one of the goyim decided to force her to be his wife for a day. The worst possible thought that any parent can have is his daughter being taken by some person against her will. The worst possible thing in the world. Now, why is this so horrible? Why is this mentioned in the Torah? Because regardless of how old you are, whether you're in sixth grade or seventh grade or 12th grade or you're 25 or 45 or 55, as a Jew, you have to read this story at least once per year. the story of Dina and all of the uncomfortable and embarrassing things that happened to her, we're all responsible to read this story. So now she lived here for a short amount of time in the world, but she's an neshama, which is eternal.

24:00The Torah is eternal, which means that she has to listen to this story being read by every fifth grader, sixth grader, 12th grader, 25-year-old, 45-year-old, 55-year-old. How long? Eternally, forever. She has to listen to the one mistake she made in her life. She just went to see what other people were doing. One time, she made a mistake. She just went to check, and she has to hear these embarrassing details. Forever, this is the nightmare of all nightmares. What is it like? Imagine one day you were so tired in the morning that you forgot to leave your house with your regular clothes; you left your house in pajamas. How embarrassing would that be? Leaving your house in pajamas, but you forgot you were wearing pajamas. You have two different shoes on. You're in your flip-flops. You're not really sure where you're going, but you have to go to school. You're in a hurry. And then all of a sudden, they start taking pictures of you. The newspapers, look, she's in her pajamas. I can't believe it. They put it all over the newspapers, all over the television, all over the internet. And the next morning, you wake up and see every newspaper has your picture in pajamas. How embarrassing is that?

25:16you try to run away, okay, I'm not going to look at this newspaper. You see there's another newspaper with your picture in pajamas. And then you see it's on a big screen, and then you see it's on the internet, and everywhere you go, it's constantly seeing yourself in your embarrassing moment where you're like half asleep in your pajamas. This is not even one percent of the embarrassment that Dinah had to have. Why? She forgot what her responsibility is as a Bat Yisrael. A Bat Yisrael is responsible for all of Am Yisrael. So even though sometimes it doesn't make any logical sense, you are the one that's going to help us bring the Mashiach. By overcoming the tests, overcoming the things that are against human logic, against our own common sense, by overcoming these tests you become the most important person on the planet. more important than me, more important than any other rabbi, more important than anyone else in the world. Why? Because you overcame a test, such as modesty in this generation, where it's equivalent to a kid who is Akedat Yitzchak—willing to sacrifice his life. Why? Because God said so. Yeah, but it doesn't make any sense. So what? God said it, so we're doing it.

26:38A woman that remains modest throughout her entire life and does not look at the goyim and feel jealous, does not look at the goyim and think there's anything better over there. In fact, she feels bad for them that they don't have Torah. To admit, she looks at other Jews and she tries to find a way to bring them closer to Hashem, to make them enjoy the purity and beauty of the Torah. She looks at them and she says, "Oh, if you don't know, I feel bad for you, so let me bring you in." A woman that overcomes the test to such an extent is no different than Yitzchak Avinu. Why? He overcame a test that was supernatural. In this generation, a Bat Yisrael that sticks to the Torah, whether it makes sense to her or not, is no different than Yitzchak Avinu. This is the reason why Am Yisrael had the merit to leave Egypt. This is the reason why Am Yisrael, b'ezrat Hashem, will have the merit to see Mashiach. This is the reason why we're all still here today for Hanukkah. Because a Bat Yisrael overcame a test that was supernatural. Illogical. Didn't make any sense whatsoever. But she did it because God said so. If you stick to the Torah and its simplicity and just say, what does God say here?

28:02Well, God says you have to wear such and such clothes that cover. Okay, fine. God says you have to keep Shabbat. Okay. God says you have to keep kosher. Okay. God says you have to make sure that you do certain things according to the Torah. Okay, fine. But what about all my friends that are not doing it? It doesn't make a difference. You have to be responsible for you. We'll finish with this story that I heard from Rav Ovadia, z"l. He said once in his old age that when he was younger, he said, "With the Torah that I'm learning and the good deeds that I'm doing, I'm going to change the world." Years passed, and he saw that the world wasn't really changing much; if anything, it got worse. More people were violating Shabbat. More people were eating non-kosher. More Jews wanted to be non-Jews. More people became confused. He said, okay, I'm not going to change the world. Maybe I'll just change my city. More years passed, and he saw that the city, yeah, of course, there were a few people doing teshuva. There was another beit knesset, another Chabad, another this, another that. Okay, things were happening, but for the most part, things were deteriorating.

29:30It's okay, I can't change the city. Let me just change my neighborhood. I'm going to change my neighborhood. Change everybody around me. And yeah, a few people did teshuva, and a few people started coming to Beit Knesset, but a few more stopped coming to Beit Knesset. A few more stopped eating kosher. So you saw, obviously, I can't change the world. I can't change the city. I can't change the neighborhood. You know what? Let's at least change my own home. people in my own house. And little by little, you saw that, yes, some of the people in his house, he was able to help because they were looking for help. If someone is looking for help, that means that they're going to accept help when you give it to them. If someone thinks that they're fine, don't waste your time trying to help them. Why? Because even if you give them help, they're going to reject it. You can't give the truth to everyone. You can only give the truth to people that are willing to accept the truth. Many people simply don't want to hear it. They tell you, "No, no, I'm fine. You live your life, I'll live my life." This "live and let live" mentality means that they're just not ready to be a vessel of truth. You can't help them. But some people are willing. They're willing, they're able. They're just waiting for somebody to say something. He says, for some people in my family, I was able to help them. But some, a few, I wasn't able to.

30:57...then he realized, "If only I started by fixing myself first. I can't change the world, I can't change the city, I can't change the town. I can't even change everybody in my family. But that's because I'm focusing on everybody else except me."... Let me focus on me. If I focus on me doing good, me doing what Hashem said, me doing all the things that I'm responsible for doing, then all of the people that are willing to accept the truth, they're going to see me and say, "Oh, look at this guy. He's walking around with a smile on his face. What's he so happy about? Wow, look at this girl. She looks so happy. What's she so happy about?" Oh, look at them. They're so fulfilled. They're so good in school. They're so good to their family. Everybody likes them. What's so special about them? Why do they have this light around them? Like, what's going on? Everyone's going to want to know the secret. What's the secret to your happiness?

31:59And they're going to ask you, what's the secret? Why are you so happy? How are you so good in school? How come everybody likes you? What's the secret? Oh, I'm listening to Hashem. I'm doing what Hashem said. Yeah, but it doesn't make any sense all the time. It doesn't make a difference. Hashem said it, that's enough for me. The Gaon MiVilna said, if I changed myself, that alone would have changed everybody else eventually. Because the people that were willing to accept the truth would have seen it. They would have wanted it. They would have asked for it. All of the others that are not seen, not interested in the truth, I can't help them anyway. I can't help them anyway. Why? Because whether they see it, they don't see it, they're rejecting it regardless. A person needs to know today, a bat Yisrael needs to know today that you have an extraordinary responsibility. And it starts with you. If you fix you, if you help you, little by little other people are going to be attracted to you and they're going to want to know your secret. How are you so comfortable with these modest clothes? How are you so comfortable keeping Shabbat? How are you so comfortable keeping all of the mitzvot? They're going to see, wow, what's your secret? They start seeing you do good, B'ezrat Hashem, they're going to want to do good. And little by little, each and every single one of you is going to bring the Mashiach Tzidkeinu closer and closer and bring salvation to the world.

33:18Thank you very much for learning with me. Any questions, anybody? Yes? No, actually, the difference between the Torah and all other religions, whether it be Christianity or... Muslim the Islam is that a Jew not only has to ask questions, but it's an obligation of Judaism. If you look at our entire Oral Torah, it is comprised of questions and And toiling in Torah doesn't just mean reading books. Toiling in Torah means searching for the answer. Search for the answer until you find emet, until you find and are content with the answer, ensuring it makes sense from all different perspectives. So yes, you have to ask questions, but you have to ask them in a way where you are mamash, 100% satisfied with this answer, and this answer that you have

34:28also agreed upon by all the major sages, not just your own opinion. You have to continue searching for the truth. So yes, sometimes certain things are not going to make sense, but that means that you're supposed to look for more and more information and more details to try to make sense out of it. Sometimes you just have to accept that certain things are supernatural. For example, a lot of people try To say that if the Torah doesn't agree with modern scientific theories, then it's wrong. This is a mistake. This is actually kefirah. The reason why is because the Torah is not obligated to match anything. Torah is the Torah. Science has to catch up with the Torah, not the Torah catch up with science. But you can prove the Torah scientifically. What if you can't? What if there's a certain thing that doesn't make sense scientifically? You still have to believe it. Why? Because the Torah takes precedence over anything else. So a lot of people, for example, try to explain Kriyat Yam Suf—the Sea of Reeds splitting—and they say it doesn't make any sense that the ocean is going to split. It's so big. It's so massive. It's so this. There was a program on television some years ago, I believe it was on the Discovery Channel. A Jewish guy put it together, and he has a theory that a tsunami

35:49A tsunami happened at the right place at the right time where a big wave and a lot of wind came from the west, and a big wave came and split the ocean for just enough time for millions of people to cross the ocean. This is the way that he explained Kriyat Yam Suf scientifically. This is complete nonsense. It's complete nonsense. If it was a tsunami, we would already know it because it would be written in the Torah. But aside from that, to try to explain a miracle by simple nature, by the things that we understand, is against the Torah. We're not supposed to always have things understood to us in every aspect from the way we are, from the way we see them. We have certain things that are explainable, and certain things that are just supernatural. Supernatural means it's beyond our ability to understand it. For example, the question that people have difficulty with is, where did God come from? Where did God come from? This is a very, very big question that certain people, who want to justify committing sins in life, ask. They say, "Listen, if you can't explain to me where God came from, then I don't want to believe in Him. I don't want to believe in the Torah." This is also a nonsensical question. The reason why is because if God has a God, then He's not God.

37:02Meaning, it's impossible for God to have a God and still be God. It's what we call a non-starter question. You simply just have to understand and believe there is no beginning before God. There's just God, and then eventually we came along after He created us. There are just certain things that are beyond our understanding. There's also the aspect of free choice. The Rambam says that he explained free choice to a certain extent, but he says he can't go into the real depths of understanding free choice because it's impossible for a human mind to understand it. It's impossible for a human mind to understand true free choice. We can understand aspects of it. So, the point I'm trying to make without going into all the details is that there are certain things that you have to toil for. If you want to find the law, you want to find a story, you want to find certain things, there are many sages who have asked the same questions that you're asking and that you will be asking in the future. And you're responsible for looking for those answers.

38:04but then there are certain times we're going to get to certain laws and there's simply no logical explanation for it. For example, the red heifer: there's no explanation of why the red heifer makes one impure person pure and one pure person impure at the same time. There's no explanation; even Shlomo HaMelech says this law doesn't make any sense. It's beyond my intellect. It's beyond anything that I can understand. So there's a certain time that you have to realize that there are certain things that are just not going to make sense to us while we're here. But that's very few things. That's very few things. The reason why I mention it is because sometimes the Yetzer Hara tells us that if you can't explain everything, then that means everything else should go in a wastebasket. But the reality is that we can't explain everything in anything anyway. For example, does anybody here ever use a phone? You guys have used a phone before, right? Okay, do you know how it works? How does it work? You press a button, and then what happens? Okay, then somebody else from somewhere else answers the phone. How does that happen? How come the person comes to your house? Do you see the signal?

39:21Do you see radio waves anywhere here? Where are the radio waves? There's no radio; you don't see it. But you rely on it. You rely on it. Why? Even though you can't see it, you have a concept, you have an understanding that it exists, even though you don't see it. Same thing with many things in life. Somebody gets sick, chas v'shalom, they go to a doctor. The doctor says he has an antibiotic. He says, "Oh doc, listen, I refuse to take this antibiotic until you explain to me how it works." The doctor says, "Well, listen, I can explain to you how it works. The problem is, it's going to take 20 years. By then, you're going to die ten times over already if you don't take this antibiotic today." Meaning, you can't wait to understand everything in order to do it. There are just certain things you have to have blind faith in. There are certain things you have to simply do. So, with that being said, don't ever let a wall that you're hitting where you're not understanding something be an excuse to not do what Hashem says. Just know that if you don't understand, it's not a lacking from the Torah, it's our lacking.

40:26we are lacking; we just have to work harder to find the truth. We have to work harder for Hashem to unveil it to us, and sometimes it takes a little more work than others. I know for me, for example, when I started doing teshuvah, before I even considered keeping Shabbat, I had nine months' worth of questions. Literally nine months' worth of questions to a very big chacham, my Rav Ephraim Kachlon. And I would ask him every week at least seven hours' worth of questions. You could do the math how many questions that is. We've been speaking for, I don't know, a half-hour, an hour. We've answered a few questions. Imagine every week seven hours for nine months. That's how many questions I had. a lot of questions: whether there's dinosaurs, whether we came from monkeys, whether there's aliens, whether we have free choice, was I here before this life—all types of questions that I had, and I had to have some answers. I got to the answers and eventually I realized that all I had in my hand was answers and excuses.

41:28Which one should I rely on? I relied on the answers. So yes, there are many, many answers for almost every question that you have. But even if you can't find an answer, especially at a young age when we are really zealous to find more answers, don't ever let that be a hurdle where you say, "You know what? Until I get this answer, I'm not keeping Shabbos anymore. Until I have this answer, I'm not going to be mad. I didn't have this answer, so I don't do this." No. Keep doing, and you'll see that Hashem will unveil the answer to you at some point or another. You just have to work harder for it. Anything else? Yes? Does that mean that Mashiach is a girl? No. Mashiach, it says Mashiach ben David, Mashiach, the son of David. But we do know that a girl is responsible for him because he can't come by himself. Now, Mashiach originally comes from Shevet Yehudah. And at some point down the line, there was a woman by the name of Ruth, Ruth HaMoaviah. that she made a huge mitzvah, a huge mesirut nefesh, a huge sacrifice to the extent that Hashem says, "You know what, you made such a big sacrifice for Am Yisrael, Mashiach is going to come from you." But to make sure that you see part of the reward, He made her have such a long life that she not only saw her kids,

42:45She saw a grandkid, David HaMelech, and she saw a great-great-grandkid, Shlomo HaMelech, meaning she actually saw how the lineage of the Mashiach was really beginning. Now, obviously, 2,000 years later, we're still waiting for Mashiach, but it's not because of Ruth, it's because of us. We're waiting for Mashiach because we're still waiting to do teshuva. But in general, the woman is responsible for bringing the Mashiach because women get Gan Eden for sending their children to yeshiva. They get Gan Eden because they send their children to go learn Torah. They send their husbands to go learn Torah. Every time a woman sends her husband or children to go learn Torah, she gets every single one of the mitzvot that they're doing, meaning they're partners. He gets one mitzvah, she gets one mitzvah. He gets two mitzvot, she gets two mitzvot. She's a partner in every single thing that he does. To such an extent that the Rogatchover, about a hundred years ago, was a big chacham. He was one of the biggest rabbis in the world. He says, "You know, I'm going to go to Gan Eden only because of my wife." I said, "Yeah, but you're such a big rabbi, such a chacham. Everybody looks up to you. What do you mean you're going to go to Gan Eden for your wife? Your wife, okay, she's a nice tzadika, but you're going to go on your own merit." He goes, "No, no, absolutely not. I'm only going to go to Gan Eden because of my wife." They say, "Can you explain?" He says, "You see..."

44:12I'm learning Torah to the best of my abilities, but when I get up to Shamayim, over there they learn the real Torah, meaning there's no questions in Shamayim. Everything is available. Here, we have a lot of questions and we have some answers. In Shamayim, there's no questions; there's just truth, there's just available information for you to consume. So, I'm going to go up to Shamayim thinking, "Oh, I know something," and then they'll show me, "You don't know anything. You don't know anything compared to the Torah in this world in comparison to the Torah in heaven. It's like you barely know anything." So we're not going to give you Gan Eden. And then my wife is going to come and say, okay, I want to go to Gan Eden. But why? Why should you go to Gan Eden? Because my husband went to learn Torah. He goes, yeah, but he doesn't know anything. It's not my fault he doesn't know anything. I sent him to yeshiva. The Torah says to send my husband to yeshiva. I sent him to yeshiva. It's not my fault he doesn't know anything. He says, okay, you're right, you're right. Oh, okay, okay, you go to Gan Eden. And then she comes back to the Beit Din. She says, "Ah, miserable in Gan Eden." "Why are you miserable in Gan Eden? It's nice over there, good weather, good food, what's the problem?" Gan Eden says, "My husband's not there. Without my husband, it's Gehinnom, it's not Gan Eden." "Okay, okay, bring the Ruzhiner Rebbe, he can go to Gan Eden also." It's not my fault he doesn't know anything. I sent him to yeshiva. The Torah says to send my husband to yeshiva. I sent him to yeshiva. It's not my fault he doesn't know anything. He says, "Okay, you're right, you're right. Oh, okay, okay, you go to Gan Eden." And then she comes back to the Beit Din. She says, "Ah, I'm miserable in Gan Eden." "Why are you miserable in Gan Eden? It's nice over there, good weather, good food, what's the problem?" Gan Eden says, "My husband's not there. Without my husband, it's Gehinnom, it's not Gan Eden." "Okay, okay, bring the Ruzhiner Rebbe, he can go to Gan Eden also."

45:23The point is that a woman who sends her kids and her husband to go spend time learning Torah, it's a sacrifice. It's not easy. Why? You love your husband, you want to be next to him. You love your kids, you want to be next to them. You want to be next to them, but you're sending them away because you know that we as a nation need them to go learn and fulfill the Torah. And that's a major sacrifice for a woman. It's one of the biggest sacrifices she can make. It's against her own interest, meaning she wants to spend more time with her kids. But instead, she has to send them to yeshiva. Why? Because she knows that this is for the betterment of the nation. Such a mentality is why a woman is responsible for bringing the Messiah. Next question. Yeah? into I mean in the shamayim, what's the point of learning Torah in your mind? If you have all the answers already, so the

46:34Right, so the Torah is endless. Now, the Gemara in Masechet Shabbat says that when Moshe Rabbeinu was on Mount Sinai and he was gifted the Torah from Hashem, the Yetzer Hara, the Malach HaMavet came and was hysterical. He was like, what happened? Where's the Torah? Where's the Torah? He was looking in Shamayim. Where's the Torah? Hashem says, I gave it to Moshe. I gave it to Moshe. He came to Moshe. He goes, Moshe, where's the Torah? He goes, no, no, I don't have the Torah. Hashem has the Torah. I don't have the Torah. Hashem says, Moshe, you're fibbing. I gave you the Torah. He goes, no, Hashem, really, you gave me like the netzot, like a small part of the Torah. You didn't give me the whole Torah. Meaning that what we have today is not the entire Torah. We have a part of the Torah. We have a small part of the Torah. That small part of the Torah, if you spent every single waking minute from now until a million years studying, you still wouldn't be able to grasp all of the possibilities and the answers and the wealth of information that's in there. And that's only a small aspect of the Torah. To such an extent that when they came to Rabbi Eliezer ben Hurkanos, the Rabbi of Rabbi Akiva, they asked, "How much Torah do you know?"

47:54He says, well, if you take, as an analogy, as an example, and make all the water of all of the oceans, which is a little over 70% of the globe, it's over 70% water. He says, if you take all of that water and let's say it becomes ink, becomes ink. And then you take all of the trees in the world and let's say they become pens to use this ink. And then you take all of the land that's left, the other 30% or so, and you turn that into paper. All of that is not enough—all that ink, all those pens, and all that paper is not enough to write the Torah that I know. Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrkanus says, "And that Torah that I know is not even 1% of the Torah that my rabbis know—Rabbi Yochanan knows. And that Torah is not even 1% of his rabbis, meaning that the Torah is literally endless." Someone came to Rav Ovadia's house one time, a journalist, and he saw that he has literally over 60,000 books, meaning there were no walls, just books. And he thought that Rav Ovadia doesn't know all these books. And he wrote an article saying that Rav Ovadia

49:09He's old. You shouldn't rely on him anymore. He's forgetful. So Rav Ovadia invited this journalist and he said to him, "Well, what makes you think that I'm forgetful? Did I forget something?" He said, "Well, listen, you're old and you're already in your 80s. I mean, it's natural for people to get old and forget." He says, "Well, listen, you see all these books? Why don't you pick any book you want? Tell me the name of the book. Open the book anywhere you want. Tell me the first word. And let's see if I remember what it says." The journalist climbed the ladder and went to the back of the shelves to look for a book that still had dust on it. Even if he had read it, it was a long time ago, so of course, he wouldn't remember it. He opened the book and read the title. He opened the book in the middle, read the first couple of words, and Rav Ovadia literally recited the rest of what the page said word for word. make sure that this wasn't a trick. He tried it with another book, and the same thing happened. Another book, and the same thing happened. Another book, and the same thing happened. The amount of information that he knew was immense; it's not even human. The journalist had to write a new article saying, "Not only was I wrong about my assessment about Rav Ovadia and his memory, but his memory is not human. I don't think anybody else in the world has such a memory. It's impossible to have such a memory, to know 60,000 books by heart."

50:29And those 60,000 books, they're not even 1% of 1% of the Torah that's available to us even. So the Torah that we learn in Shamayim is the real Torah that's even more endless than what we have today. And the Gemara and the Zohar HaKadosh both say that when a person gets to Gan Eden, they get to enjoy the biggest joy of all, which is the Shechinah itself. Meaning that you go to Shamayim and you learn Torah with Hashem. And that type of pleasure where literally you get a spiritual high to get all of the answers and all of the information and all of the understandings of the makeup of every single thing, and why everything happened, and why everything that's happening, and a lot of other things that are beyond even our scope of understanding today—you get all of that to no end. And that is the ultimate pleasure. I'll give you a small example of what it means. Let's say, for example, you were ever looking for some big answer, you were looking for something really important.

51:37you couldn't find it, not after an hour, not after five hours, not after 10 hours, but you're trying really hard you're looking on the computer, and you're looking in the books, and you go to the library, if they still exist, and you go to different places, just trying to find this information. Hours and hours and days and weeks and months and years, and you just can't find it. But one day, you happen to run across it somewhere, and you find your answer. The type of pleasure that you get from finding this answer is unexplainable in words. This is a small part of the feeling that a person has in Shamayim all the time. as they're constantly finding the answers for everything. But not small answers—the biggest answers in history. So, this is the type of stuff that happens in Shamayim. But you can experience parts of it here by toiling in Torah. By going into Torah and looking for certain things that perhaps sometimes don't make sense. And you'll see that one of the sages asked the same question, and they found an answer that 99 out of 100 times will make sense to every single person that reads it who's actually looking for truth.

52:43The key is to make sure not to manipulate that truth with our own opinion. Because once we manipulate the truth with our own opinion to fit our own convenience, then we don't know if our truth is really true. Their truth is true. Our truth is not always true. So you always have to double-check with a rabbi, with a talmid chacham, to make sure that your assessment is correct. You know, and that's, it's important to read things with commentary. You know, because a lot of people try to, you know, Read the Torah like the Christians read the Torah. They read it literally and they try to explain it themselves. Oh, such and such thing happened? Oh yeah, I think that this happened. Who says you're right? says you're right, but the sages said the same thing. They also think, "No, no, the sages don't think." The sages have something to rely on, where they're connecting 500 pieces together to get to their opinion. You're seeing the end product; you're just using your own logic for your answer. They're not using logic; they're using sources. So it's very, very important to use sources, and our sources have to be the sages.

53:47And if a person continues to stay true to that, they'll have an endless amount of pleasure in this world when they learn, and they'll also have an endless amount of pleasure when they fulfill mitzvot, because they'll know, listen, this mitzvah, Understand it. I understand it to my expense to the point where I can enjoy this mitzvah. It makes sense to me why Hashem wants me to stop once a week and keep Shabbat. It makes sense to me why Hashem wants me to keep kosher. It makes sense to me why Hashem wants me to be like a princess, like a queen. I can't walk around like everybody else. It makes sense because I'm the daughter of Hashem. I can't walk around like everybody else, so it makes sense. The more you know about mitzvot, the more you'll enjoy. Yeah, next. Okay? Yeah, anyone who has questions after, please go. Is that okay? Yeah, yeah, sure. I'll stay for as long as they want. Yeah, sure. Thank you very much. It's good to meet you. It's good to see you soon. Thank you.

54:48Yes, hi. Thank you so much. I just have a question. Yes. Does Hashem not employ the forces of nature to carry out what we, in our understanding, call miracles? Yes. He uses nature as tools. He uses people as tools. He uses everything as tools to implement His will. Then why would it be... It would be ridiculous to say that the tsunami was by luck. But it could have been a tsunami, but we know it is directed by Hashem for that purpose. Right, that's the problem. That person wasn't saying that. He was saying that it just happened to be, like by luck there was a tsunami that helped us. So that's the problem. To say that it was a tsunami, we don't really care. We don't care whether it's a tsunami or it was something else. The point is to say that it just happened to happen by luck, that's the problem. So when people are trying to make science right in the Torah, like secondary, that's when we fall off the cliff. Hashem is like the ultimate rational being. He's the truth, meaning that He is the logic. And so the Torah is pure logic. And if it's logic in the purest form, it's sometimes beyond our capacity to fully understand it.

55:59It could be, like, G-d does employ the forces of nature because those are the malachim for Him, His messengers. So, it's not that the Torah is illogical. It's illogical to us, to our capacities. It's illogical to us, meaning it's not always comprehensible for us. 100%. There are answers for everything. It's just that we're not necessarily always able to comprehend them. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Next thing you do is share. Do you understand what you're doing? 100%. There are answers for everything. It's just that we're not necessarily always able to comprehend them. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. The next thing you do is share. Do you understand what you're doing?