Tobacco vs. Marijuana, Rabbi vs. Gadol, Cash Advance & Eurovision Dangers - STUMP THE RABBI (4)

0:12we're back here in Sunny Isles. We're back to our series of "Stump the Rabbi." Get 50 bucks. All of the tzaddikim in the back, you can bring your pizza to the front and start with some serious questions. I have the questions, I have the answers, but that really wouldn't be so much fun for you guys. So I'm hoping that you guys have some questions. Yesterday People had some questions, but a few people left before they got to ask them. There are a few things I wanted to cover, but let’s see if you have questions first because what I have to cover is probably going to be at least a half hour worth of material, if not more. But the simple rules are these: you ask a question, any question that you have,

1:12My job as a shamash is to show you what the Torah opinion is about it. What's the reason? The reason why we do this is for a few reasons. Number one, it's first and foremost to remind ourselves that our opinion is null and void. Our opinion, regardless of how smart you are, regardless of how high or low your IQ is, is irrelevant. Today, tomorrow, yesterday, and in 20 years from now, your opinion will always be null and void. Why? Because, after all, you're still human. And humans are biased. They're biased, their opinions are biased. You know, you ask somebody, "Do you like such and such?" If the person has a family connection to that person, most of the time, they're going to say yes, even if in their heart they say no. If you say, "Do you like a certain business?" If the person works for that company, or that's his business, most of the time he'll say yes, even though he doesn't really like the business. The point is that our opinions are biased. HaKadosh Baruch Hu's opinion is not biased. Why? Because He tells you exactly what He wants, what He has always wanted, and what He will always want, regardless of what we do.

2:35created the world with such instructions. He created the world with that particular opinion, and He says, "My thoughts are not like your thoughts, My opinion is not like your opinion. My opinion doesn't change because the weather changes." You know, I used to know this guy, and he came to my office. He was my neighbor on Wall Street over there, and I One day he says, oh, can I come by your office? I said, okay, sure. He goes, yeah, I need some guidance, advice, so on and so forth. I said, okay, sure, no, come by. And he sits in my office, and I see this guy, he looks like it's Tisha B'Av. He's like down and upset. I said, what's the matter with you? He goes, oh, no, no, it's okay. I said, no, what's wrong? He goes, no, I get the winter blues. he tells me, "I get the winter blues." At that moment, this is almost 15 years ago — I don’t know, 10, 15 years ago — I didn't know what winter blues are; I had never heard of such a thing. So I said, "What's the winter blues?" He goes, "Oh, when the weather changes, I get depressed." I don't think I ever felt so sorry for a person until I saw this. You get depressed because the weather changed? You're going to be depressed every day for the rest of your life. I could tell you the future like a prophet.

3:52Every spring you'll be cheerful. Every fall you'll be depressed. Who wants to live such a life? Why? Because people don't have a connection to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. People have a connection to themselves and to their own opinion. And that creates a lot of confusion in their mind about the point of life. Where am I going? Why am I here? So the goal is to find out really what's God's opinion about you? What's God's opinion about what you're supposed to do. What happens if you do it and you listen to God? What happens if you don't do it and you don't listen to God? What does He think about people that don't listen to Him? What does He do to people that don't listen to Him? And quite the opposite also. What does He do to people that do listen to Him and... Now the key, Rabotai, is for you to ask questions that actually matter to you. Don't try to stump me just because you're having a ball. If you do that, you're wasting your time. Number one, most likely I'll know the answer. Number two, you're not going to get anything out of it. So you can ask me five questions and you're not going to get anything out of it. What's the point? But if you ask me five questions that you actually care about, if I know the answer, it's actually to your benefit.

5:13to your benefit because now you have an answer that will give you another piece of the foundation of your connection to Hashem that maybe will influence you to change the direction that you have in your life, perhaps to a better direction than the people that you know have. I asked a lot of questions in my life and Baruch Hashem, I tried very hard to find the answer for every single one of them, and I can tell you from experience that if you're very serious about asking questions Even more serious about what to do with the answers, your life is going to be a joy because the actual feeling of getting answers to questions you care about is a high. It's a high greater than any drug can give you. It's a high greater than any type of pleasure in the world can give you, only if you care about the answer. Why? Because if you ask a question where the answer matters to you, that means that once you have that answer and... the answer agrees. You agree with this answer. It agrees with your neshama. That means you now have a substantial reason to take action. You now have authorization to do something. But if you're going to ask me questions that you really don't care about, you're just interested, just curious. Okay, that may be interesting, that may be intellectually stimulating for a little bit, but if it doesn't influence your life, if it doesn't lead to some type of action

6:38then really all you'll be doing is just grinding water. You ever hear the term grinding water? Some of you are young, you probably never heard it. Well, grinding water is like a joke because no matter how much you grind water, it stays water. So please, please, I ask you guys to ask serious questions that you care about. It doesn't matter what the question is. It's where, where are there dinosaurs in the Torah, to how do we know how many stars are in the sky? To, is there proof that kosher slaughter is better than, let's say, shooting an animal in the head? To whatever you want to ask, to is there proof in the Torah that someone who violates Shabbat is considered the enemy of God, or the opposite? Do I really need to keep Shabbat? Is there proof in the Torah that I have to keep Shabbat, and so on and so forth, and... What happens if somebody wears tzitzit? What happens if he decides not to wear tzitzit? What does God think about that? And so on and so forth. Is homosexuality allowed? Is there leniency if you feel inside you were born that way? Whatever, I'm just coming up with questions off the top of my head that other people have asked me in the past. If those are questions that you have, ask them.

7:55But please ask questions you care about. And the reason why is because my goal here is to give you the answers and then hopefully get you closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Closer to starting to take some more actions in your life, to do something about it, to act more like a Jew and less like a goy. I acted like a goy for most of my life. The only problem is I didn't think I was looking like a goy. I didn't think I was acting like a goy until I identified what a Jew is supposed to be like. Most of us don't know the difference between goyim and Jews because we act like them, we dress like them, we talk like them, we speak like them, we eat like them, we date like them. What's the difference? He's a human being, I'm a human being. Some goyim are actually even nicer than some Jews. So why should we distinguish? Well, Hashem says you're supposed to be a light to the nations, not like the nations. A light to the nations, meaning you're supposed to be above and beyond them, better than them, set an example. But if you look like them, act like them, think like them, then how can you be a light at the same time? So, I did not know that Jews are supposed to act, feel, and think differently than goyim.

9:08until I started learning how a Jew is supposed to think, how a Jew is supposed to act, how a Jew is supposed to think and eat and breathe and even procreate. So if you ask those questions, I think you'll get a lot out of this. We can go on for as many hours as you want. You go for one hour, you go for five hours, go for a hundred hours. Don't feel like you have an obligation to run away after an hour. You could stay here for ten hours and we'll keep asking questions until one of us collapses or Mashiach comes. Whichever one happens first. So, without further ado, who wants to go first? You guys, I hear your questions all the time. I don't want your questions. New guys. I hear your questions already 87 times a day. With all due respect, I love you, but I want the new people's questions. Go ahead, guys. Nobody? Everybody's on mute? OK, real control? Sonny? Nothing? Guys in the back with the juice? Yesterday, there were eight questions where people raised their hands while I was talking. But no, I couldn't answer them because I was in the middle of saying a point. Now today, we're on mute. OK. Chabad, no? It's you guys. Were dinosaurs killed in the Flood? Yes. So dinosaurs actually existed during the time of Noach?

10:29Yes. Sefer HaTorah. Sefer HaTorah, Parashat Bereishit. Parashat Bereishit on the fourth day. HaKadosh Baruch Hu created all types of creations. And it says, Vayivra Elohim et ha-taninim ha-gedolim v'et kol ha-nefesh ha-chaya ha-romeset asher shartzu ha-mayim le-minem v'et kol of kanaf le-minehu vayar Elohim ki tov. So in Parashat Bereishit, the book of Genesis, chapter 1, verse 21, it says: "And God created the great sea giants and every living being that creeps, with which the waters teemed, after their kind, and all winged fowl of every kind. And God saw that it was good." Now, the English translation of "sea giants" is an improper translation, and... But they're translating it the way Americans understand it. But Lashon HaKodesh, the holy language, is very, very different than English. First of all, we don't have a vowel system like English. In English, the vowel system is five letters: A, E, I, O, U. A vowel is a foundational letter that has to be in every word. Every word in the English language must possess one of these letters: either A, E, I, O, or U.

11:51In Hebrew, we don't have such a thing. We don't have letters that are vowels. In Hebrew, we have something called Nikud. Nikud is those dots that you see sometimes under or on top of the words. So, Hebrew is a very, very different language. The second thing is, in Hebrew, in English, you have something called synonyms. Synonyms are words that mean the same thing. So, you have two words that mean the same thing, three words that mean the same thing. For example, if you type up a paper for school and you want to look smart, what do you do? You take one of your simple words, you highlight it... You press the right key and then you go to the thesaurus. And it gives you, or you go to synonyms. And it gives you eight or nine different words that mean the same thing, but they're like eight letters or nine letters. So it makes you look smart. Because now, instead of writing a four-letter word, you wrote an eight-letter word. So your teacher actually thinks you're smart, but it's not really you. It's Microsoft Word that's smart. That's what a lot of authors do to make themselves look smart. They don't actually know what these words mean.

12:51In Hebrew, we don't have synonyms. There's no such thing as synonyms in Hebrew. Every single word in the Hebrew language has a different meaning. Even if it's similar to another word, it has a different meaning. So, for example, the word re'eh and the word mabit. Re'eh is to see, and mabit is to stare. But in the English language, you would say both of them as "see" or "he saw." But there's a significant difference between the two. What's the difference? Re'eh means that he looked at it in a favorable way. Mabit is an unfavorable way, meaning he's rebuking it. He doesn't like it. He hates it. There's something wrong with what I see here. Just simply by that word. So the pasuk here says that Hashem created the taninim gedolim. Taninim gedolim literally means, tanin means reptile. G'dolim means giant, so it means literally giant reptiles, which is dinosaurs. Next question. Still on mute. So dinosaurs continued existing for some time. We continue until Parashat Noach.

14:12At the generation of Noach, 99% of all the... I'll answer your question in a second. I'll finish the point. 99% of all dinosaurs died with the exception of one dinosaur. One dinosaur called a Re'em. And the Re'em was a huge animal similar to a combination of a bull and a deer, just really, really big. Lived all the way until the time of David HaMelech, about 3,000 years ago. When he was a teenager, he was a shepherd, and if you read in Tehillim, you see that one time he talks about how he's with his sheep and he's on top of a mountain, but the mountain starts shaking and... Why does the mountain start shaking? Because he didn't realize that it wasn't a mountain. It was actually a re'em. It was that big. He and his sheep went on top of this "mountain," but then the "mountain" started moving, and he realized that he was actually with his sheep on top of a re'em. That was about 3,000 years ago. So unlike scientists who believe that dinosaurs have been extinct for 15 million years, or 15 billion years, or whatever number they come up with every week,

15:20Says that not only do they exist, but they actually even existed 3,000 years ago according to our Torah. So you have a question in the back, please? It can mean, well, crocodiles or reptiles, but it's not saying "big reptile." It says "giant." Giant in comparison to you, maybe, maybe, maybe a If you're comparing everything to you, then everything is giant. You look at a bear, it's giant next to you. If you look at a lion, it's giant next to you. You look at an elephant, it's giant next to you. But there's another pasuk that follows it, that talks about how Hashem created the other animals that swam in the ocean. Here we go. It says, so, So, yeah, the pasuk before it, it says,

16:22So, Hashem created a separate being. "Let the waters teem with teeming living creatures and fowl that fly above it." So, all of the creatures that live in the ocean, whether it's fish, dolphin, crocodiles, frogs, or so on, were created in a previous pasuk. This specific creation of taninim ha'gedolim was a different creation the following day. average-sized in today's world, but people in previous generations were much bigger than you. Now, if you compare yourself to some of my old clients, you'd be like a midget. Why? Because I had clients who were football players. And the smallest client that I had was almost seven feet tall. So next to him, you look like a midget. Today's world, you may think that they're not considered average-sized people. But again, you're assuming that the world is as you see it, meaning that everything that you see is what always was. Here, it says...

17:24That the Levi tribe, the Levi tribe in our Torah, each one of them was at least ten amot. I'm sorry, twenty amot. I'm sorry, ten amot. Ten amot means 20 feet tall. Each one of the Levi'im was 20 feet tall. Why? Because they had to carry the Aron Kodesh, and the Aron Kodesh from bottom to top was ten amot. So, in order for them to carry it without it hitting the floor, because if it hits the floor, they all die. They had to be at least as tall as the actual Aron Kodesh. Why? Because the sticks that actually were holding the Aron Kodesh weren't on the bottom; they were in the middle. So at the very least, the Aron Kodesh would have to be half their size. Therefore, the Gemara says that they had to be at least 10 amot. For example, Moshe Rabbeinu was also 10 amot tall, which is about 20 feet, or almost 7 meters. So people in that generation, now if I say that to you, that makes Moshe Rabbeinu sound like a giant. But Moshe Rabbeinu wasn't a giant. Why? Because there was a giant living at the time of Moshe. There were actually many giants that lived at the time of Moshe. If you look in the Torah, it says that when Am Yisrael sent spies, the Meraglim, to go look at Canaan, which became Eretz Yisrael,

18:47They came back with a bad report. Why? They said, "We saw giants there that are the descendants of the Nephilim." The Nephilim were also giants that lived at the time of Noah. These giants, these Anakim, were their grandkids. He says, "We saw them," and it says in a pasuk in the Torah, "We were like grasshoppers in their eyes," meaning they were so big that we were small like grasshoppers next to them. Now one of those giants was named Og Melech HaBashan, Og the king of Bashan. And Og was the nemesis of Moshe Rabbeinu, and he tried to kill Moshe Rabbeinu. You see in Sefer Devarim, in the book of Deuteronomy, there's a war between Og and all of Am Yisrael. Og tries to kill him, but Moshe Rabbeinu himself kills Og. How? The Gemara and the pasuk in the Torah discuss it. It says that Moshe Rabbeinu... Talks to Hashem. Hashem says, "Don't be scared of him. He will be in your hand just like the other giants have been in your hands. I'll kill him just like I killed all the other ones. Just go fight him like you fight anybody else." Now, we'll share that a comparison between you and me was a giant, but wasn't a giant next to Og. Why? Because it says that Og's bed was the equivalent of nine people, nine people that were 20 feet tall.

20:12That was just his bed, and when Moshe Rabbeinu jumped, that was the biggest bed they could find, but it still didn't fit him. Why? Because when Moshe Rabbeinu went and fought him, he took his staff and jumped. He was 10 amot, so 20 feet tall. Moshe was a strong person. He was able to jump 20 feet in the air, and his staff was 20 feet. So you do the calculation: 60 feet. 60 feet. He's 20 feet. He jumped 20 feet, and the top of the staff is 20 feet. It says that the top of the staff, where did it reach? It reached the bone of the foot of Og. But that was enough effort from Moshe Rabbeinu for Hashem to make Og fall and die. Og was holding up a mountain, and the mountain fell on top of him and killed him. Now, this is very, very mystical in comparison to your day-to-day life, where you're used to Facebook, and you're used to the store downstairs, and you're used to cars, and iPhones, and all that stuff. This sounds like a fairy tale. But these are all things that are literally written in the Torah. It's not like some people believe this. This is what it says in our Torah.

21:19When I first heard this story, I said, show me this. Why? It doesn't make any sense. Because I was used to the same world you're used to. I was used to a world that if I see it, it exists. If I don't see it, it doesn't exist. And that's the problem. I never saw anything in the Torah. I never actually studied the Torah. So once my rabbi actually started showing me the verses in the Torah, I started seeing, wow, this is actually written in the Torah. So if it's written in the Torah and I believe in the Torah, I have to believe this. It's not optional to believe this. You have to believe it because that's what it says. So anytime that I mention something that's in the Torah, notice that I'll try my best to always mention a source, meaning which book in the Torah it's mentioned, or whether it's Written Torah or Oral Torah, anytime I say, for example, Gemara, that means the Oral Torah. The Oral Torah is the oral tradition that we also received at Mount Sinai and was transmitted for generations orally, but then was officially written down. Today, we call it the Talmud or the Gemara. Now, the Gemara, anytime that I mention something to you guys as the Gemara, Masechet such and such, that means that it's a tractate of the Gemara, and I'm not mentioning to you the whole Gemara. All I'm mentioning to you is one little line, one sentence, out of this whole Gemara. Now, this is just one book of the Gemara.

22:39This particular edition of ArtScroll has 73 of them. So, what I'm mentioning to you with all of this—let's say, 5 to 10 minutes of what I've just been talking straight—that's one line, maybe one and a half lines, in this book out of 73 books. So, if these 5 to 10 minutes I just explained to you is one line, imagine what the other 73 books are. And that said, those 73 books are not even 1% of the actual Torah. Because the Torah is extraordinary. The point is that once we start looking at the things that are inside the Torah, you'll find out two things. One, you'll find out that the world is drastically bigger than you can imagine. Much, much bigger. The second thing that you'll realize is that it's a very, very different world. It has been a different world, and it will be a different world than you can imagine. Because we're limited in our understanding, and if you start looking at the Torah, the final conclusion you'll get is that the Torah is always right and...

23:44We are never right and the Torah is wrong. It'll never happen. You'll always, if you dig deep enough, you'll always get to a final conclusion that the Torah is always right, whether it's scientifically, medically, logically, rationally, and so on. I'll give you an example. How many of you know, did I tell you guys, maybe I told you this last week, how many stars are in the sky? Did I tell you guys this? Five billion, okay, what else? Who else, another, wants to throw in the air? Billions. So in 1996, NASA—you guys heard of NASA? Not you, then the ones that are looking at me funny. Okay, so NASA, you heard of NASA, right? Okay, in 1996, NASA connected to a supercomputer which, in essence, wanted to estimate how many stars are in the universe and... Supercomputer is a high-functioning computer, more than your traditional computer. They estimated that the number of stars that are in the heavens, that are in the universe, is 10 to the 20th power. You with me? I'm talking to myself. I already know this, so if you guys know it, then I'll just say something else. Okay, next question. Go ahead.

25:13There's no topic. Go ahead, questions. You're obligated to protect your own body, so you're not allowed to do things that damage your body. Therefore, you're not allowed to smoke. Now, if somebody already became addicted to cigarettes because they have nicotine and they're addictive, There are leniencies for people that smoke cigarettes. While it's never allowed, it's not considered as much of a sin as if somebody who wasn't a smoker knew it’s not allowed to smoke and decided to smoke anyway. So, if you're already a smoker and you're already addicted to it, the best suggestion is to try to quit. Try your best to quit. I was a smoker for 20 years and It's not easy to quit, but if you want it badly enough, you'll quit. I promise you, it's not as hard as you think. And more importantly, you'll benefit greatly from it, monetarily, health-wise, and in many other ways. And quite frankly, once you stop smoking, you discover that it's a very disgusting habit. Because in essence, what you do to yourself every time you smoke a cigarette is you confirm that you're going to be the smelliest guy in the room.

26:25So your wife is going to constantly say that you smell disgusting. Your friends, if they're not smokers, are going to tell you that you smell disgusting. If you have customers, they're not going to want to do business with you because you smell disgusting. And quite frankly, that's not a good look. Not a good look for anybody. But if you're already addicted, then you have a leniency that it's not as grave of a sin. But you should quit because it is bad for you. As far as other things, for example, drugs, whether it's marijuana, ecstasy, cocaine, heroin, and all the other garbage that's in the world, that's never allowed under any condition, unless it's for health reasons, which is only at this point, at least, only one of those drugs I mentioned, marijuana, is used for health reasons. But even those people that have cancer or any type of disease... that traditional painkillers don't work for them and they need to use marijuana, they don't have to smoke marijuana. They could just take CBD, which is a way for them to get the drug but without getting high. The reason why the high is a problem is because you're not allowed as a Jew to be in an altered state of mind on purpose. You're not allowed to alter your state of mind on purpose because you have to always be prepared to talk to Hashem.

27:44Now, if a king came in front of you, you're not going to smoke pot right before you meet him. At least if you're smart, you won't. If, let's say, the President of the United States showed up instead of me, most of you guys wouldn't play with your phones. Most of you guys wouldn't waste your time. All of you guys would dress up, maybe even change your shirt, maybe even look appropriate, use a big word once in a while. Why? Because the President is here. Now, unfortunately, you're stuck with me, but the reality is that... You know who you're dealing with once you have a president in front of you. Now, it's much more significant if you know that God is in front of you. And if God is in front of you, then of course, you cannot be in an altered state of mind. You can't be drunk, you can't be high, and so on. But like I said, the exception for people that use marijuana is CBD, which is for medical reasons only. Not medical reasons like they're bored. Medical reasons like they have serious pain and they need it for it. Next question.

28:45Well, God created everything. He created good and He created bad. He created a gun; now, that gun, you could use it for protection, you can use it to hunt, or you could use it to kill somebody. He created a knife; that knife You can use it to cut food. You can use it to kill somebody. You can use it to slaughter an animal. You can use it for a lot of different reasons. So everything that Hashem created, He created in a way that allows you to practice your free choice to do what you want with it. And THC and all of the other things that are in different drugs can be used for other reasons other than just getting high. You can use it for medicinal reasons. You can use it for many, many other things. It's not just for that. That's what people use it for. But many other doctors and biologists and chemists and so on use these things for different reasons. It's not just for that. That's not its sole purpose in the world. Yes? Tobacco, until about 150 years ago,

30:00was a fantastic product for paper. They make paper out of it. You also use tobacco for food. You also use tobacco for different products that you need in your house. There are many, many things that you can use tobacco for. It's not just cigarettes. Tobacco is a very, very, it's a very cash-rich crop. So the people that grow tobacco know what they're doing because you can use it for a lot of different things. There are some cookies that have tobacco in them. Yes? So, going back pretty much to what you said in regards to marijuana, at the end of the day, I understand it's not comparable to a cigarette. But if we see now, there are many, there are many. Like I want to say, but we do see that many of them do smoke tobacco. However, there's not a good side to it. and it's harmful, and it's totally illogical, 100%. We made it collectively technically allowed because Rav Moshe has been doing it.

31:01However, the same thing could go with marijuana. Yeah, it's bad for you if you're not doing it specifically for medicinal use or whatever the case is. So what's the question? The question is, how come people can't smoke that and also make that considered like it's bad for you and make it immune for everyone else just like cigarettes are, including rabbis smoking cigarettes as well? So it's a two-part question. Okay. So first off, we have to understand that if... we're going to learn, we don't learn from your local rabbi. We don't learn from your average Joe. Even if your average Joe has a unique hormone system that allows him to grow a beard that's from here to the end of the room. That doesn't make anybody righteous. We learn from the Torah and our sages. Now, sages in this generation, previous generation and so on, were called the Gedolim, like he called them. If you see the Gedolei HaDor do something, that's something that you have a question about. If it's good, if it's bad, that's something. But if you see an average Joe, even if that average Joe is a very nice guy, very learned, even knows a lot of Gemara by heart.

32:17We don't learn from him. Why? Because he is not the example that represents Judaism. He's not Da'at Torah. He is a person that knows some Torah. He may even be a Talmid Chacham. But until it's conclusive that he's considered a Gadol, a giant among the generation, he's not the example that we make Psak based off of. That's one. Second thing is, as I mentioned before, Actually, in the last week, we don't learn from people, we learn from books. So, for example, many women that heard my shiurim about wigs and how we proved conclusively that if you're wearing a wig today, you are practicing avodah zarah. You're practicing, you're benefiting from idolatry because over 90% of the real hair wigs that are in the world today come from the idolatry of India and... Now, many of the women that listened to it, Baruch Hashem, many of them took off the wig and, Baruch Hashem, they now have a kosher kisui rosh or a mitpachat or a hat, something like that. But some, who like their wigs more than they like Hashem, started creating excuses for why they're doing this and they do that and so on and so forth. One of the most common excuses that women use, and sometimes their husbands—sometimes, actually, the husbands are worse than the wives, believe it or not. Actually, not sometimes, all the time, the husbands are worse than the wives.

33:42They come back to me and say, "No, no, you must be wrong. Why? Because my Rebbe, my rabbi, his wife wears a wig. The rabbi's wife! And the rabbi is a Talmid Chacham. The rabbi is a Tzadik. The rabbi is great. The rabbi is this." Or they say, "There was some big rabbi from the previous generation whose wife wore a wig, so what you're saying—are those idol worshipers not seeing the idol worship?" I'm saying that, first of all, they're benefiting from idolatry, something completely different. Second thing is, you have to look at the Gemara in Yerushalmi. Yerushalmi talks about how do we learn? How do we learn? One of the people says, "Look, the rabbi's wife is doing such-and-such." The Gemara says you don't learn from the rabbi's wife. You learn from what's written in a book. If it's written in a book, you learn from the book. You don't learn from her. Why? Because she has a yetzer hara. She has an evil inclination. So yes, she may be righteous everywhere else, but in this, she's falling for it. Same thing with people. You see that the rabbi knows a lot of Torah, he does a lot of mitzvot, he does a lot of chesed, but he's doing something wrong. I don't know, maybe he decided to shake a woman's hand, which technically is inappropriate for a Jew. He decided that he wants to go have a drink with a couple of his students at a bar, even though there are women there.

34:57Okay, that doesn't make him the worst person on earth. It's a sin nonetheless, but you're not going to say, "Oh, I saw my rabbi at a casino and therefore I'm allowed." No one's going to rationalize this. The third point, and final, is what I mentioned today, which is that, again, there's a significant difference between marijuana and tobacco. The difference is that although tobacco is drastically worse for you, health-wise, drastically worse because of all the poison that they put in it, it does not alter your state of mind to the same extent that marijuana does. And that's the biggest sin when it comes to marijuana. It's not that God cares less whether you smoke something or not, whether it's tobacco or it's plastic, or you decide to take the glass and make it into a cigarette. No one cares. it's that you're not allowed as a Jew to ever alter your state of mind because you are obligated from the Ten Commandments. The first commandment, "I am God that took you out of Egypt," obligates you as a Jew to always be prepared to meet your Maker, to talk to your Maker, to talk to Hashem. You cannot talk to Hashem drunk; you cannot talk to Hashem high. And that's why I love Rav Moshe Feinstein...

36:14almost 60 years ago that anyone who alters their state of mind intentionally by the use of marijuana is considered a "ben sorer u'moreh," which in Hebrew means a wayward child, who would be given the death penalty. That was what the Gadol HaDor said. What any rabbi in the world today says is irrelevant. Why? No one can compare to the shoes, the shoes, not the whole person, the shoes of Rav Moshe Feinstein. No one. So, we go by previous generation rabbis. That's what he says. Finished. Arguments over. Now you can go to your local Chabad or Breslov or Orthodox or Modern Orthodox or Reform or whatever they call it today—all the different things in the world. And I'm sure you'll find some guy that calls himself a rabbi who says, "No, this guy's crazy. He thinks he's Pinchas. He thinks this, he thinks that. No, come, come. Well, give me a drag. I'll smoke with you."

37:18I'll smoke with you. You know who says this, right? Dror Kasuto, calls himself a rabbi. Rav Dror. Famous, infamous. Famous speaker on YouTube. He goes to different people's houses and tells them all types of sins to do. He tells people, what? Smoking marijuana, it helps you study Torah? Mitzvah. If it helps you study Torah, mitzvah. Not only does he tell people to smoke marijuana, he tells you to smoke before you study Torah. Your wife doesn't want to go to the mikveh? It's okay, you can be with her anyway. Your wife doesn't feel like observing Shabbat, she wants to go to the beach instead? Give her a ride. That's what he tells her. But he calls himself Orthodox. So you want to listen to those people? Enjoy. You'll have it also. You want to listen to what the books say? You want to listen to what the Gedolei HaDor say? It's a different story. And that's what we always have to verify. have to verify where it says this, why it says it, and how they arrive at this conclusion, and you'll see that the Torah makes all the sense in the world if you're looking for the truth. But if you're looking for an excuse to justify your actions, I promise you with a hundred percent guarantee, or your money back, you will find somebody on YouTube to justify whatever evil you want to do. You want to murder six million people? I'll give you a documentary that will convince you it's a mitzvah.

38:34I'll give you a documentary right now that will convince you that by the time you finish it, you'll believe it's a mitzvah to kill six million people. Why? It's a documentary about Hitler's life. I watched it. If I wasn't a Jew who follows mitzvot, I'm telling you, I'd probably become a Nazi. watched. I'm telling you, it's serious. You start looking at his life, you see what he did, you see what he says. He's so passionate, so exciting. Wow. At the end of the documentary—it's three hours—I mean, it took me many, many months to watch this whole thing because I can't watch the whole thing. You go crazy. But anyway, after a while, you finish this whole thing, and it's like you sympathize. It's like... Maybe he's right. What are you talking about? You're starting to say, who said that? You think Hitler's in the room? Maybe he was right. Maybe he did. Why? Because you watch so much propaganda garbage that it infiltrates into your mind. Next thing you know, you're convinced. This is what happens today. Why do you think kids, once a week on average right now in America — on average right now in America it's 1.2 times a week, meaning it's more than once per week — there's a school shooting? How come this doesn't happen in any other country? No other country in the world has this statistic. No other country in the world has a statistic of 1.2 people going to a school and shooting people.

39:56Why is the Western world, the sophisticated and rich world, experiencing such violence? Why are teenagers losing their minds and going to school to start shooting a bunch of innocent people? Why? I have a hunch—it's called video games. My second hunch is movies. My third hunch is the type of environment they live in. You combine all of these three, and by the time a kid is 13 or 14 years old, he's probably "murdered" about two to three million people on a screen, and... become desensitized to human life because of so much blood that he saw on the screen that he thinks it's a video game. And that's what the shooting was. I think it was in Australia or some other country a few months ago. He actually videotaped the whole thing, making sure that his camera was positioned like you would see it in a video game, and he actually put the whole thing on Facebook and And I think he killed maybe 50, 60 people, something like that. Sick people. Why? You see, it's because of video games. Point being, Rabotai, is that if you put enough junk into your head, eventually you will turn into junk. If you put Kedusha into your head, you put good things into your head, eventually you'll turn into good. "You shall be holy, for I am holy." How can you become holy? Start with allowing only good things to enter your mind.

41:16Stop the junk. This takes a little bit of training, a little bit of willpower, but I promise you, it's for your own good. Next question. Yes? No? Go ahead. Let's say that you have a situation with your wife, and you want to, well, it's not that you want to, but it gets to a point where you have a certain threshold, or she's breaking property, or she's doing something. What do you do? You have to explain yourself. What, you want to beat him up? Orphan? Yeah. That makes him normal. People, you give them normally, people, you give them a finger, they want a hand. But that's why you have to select who you help very carefully. You're not allowed to ruin yourself in order to save somebody else because then, in the end, both of you will be ruined.

42:22So you have to make sure that you calculate things properly. If there's a specific situation where you see that somebody's taking advantage of you, then obviously you don't allow them to do it. You remove yourself from the situation. Even if the person is annoying and a person... No, you don't need to do it physically. You just simply ignore the person. He calls, you don't pick up. If he comes to you, say hello and leave. Let's say he's not staying in your house, but he's inside a house that's rented by somebody else, and you have to, like, You have to see him. You have to see him. Not only do I have to see him, but I can't tell him not to go if it's not my house. But let's say he wants to rent an apartment from me. Does he live in your house? No. Okay, Baruch Hashem. But last night, he banged on my door. I gave him all his stuff back, and he literally broke the door and put his stuff back inside without us having it on film. Regardless of that, because of this, it was something that I was thinking about calling the cops, but this... No, you don't want to call the police on another Jew unless you are seriously in danger because then you will be reporting them to the government, which would put you in a status of losing your Olam HaBa, but

43:40You're not allowed to go tell the government about other Jews unless you are in danger. If you're simply being annoyed, that's not danger. That's just annoying. Harassed is annoyed. It's just a different way of saying it. It's a synonym. Harassed, annoyed, it's all just annoying. Now, so what do you do? You simply give this person his stuff and say, "Listen, I'm not interested in having a relationship with you anymore." The end. He calls you; you don't pick up. He knocks on the door; you don't open the door. You see him on the street; you say hello and move on, just as if he was somebody else. That's it. One guy. There's 8 billion. Yeah, I know, I know. I've been in the world for a while. Yes, yes. There's a lot of annoying people. Quite frankly, most people are annoying to some extent or another. Some people are users. Some people are losers. Some people are in between. You have to choose your friends carefully. There was a person, a father, who came to his son. He said, "Son, how many friends do you have?" And the son said, "I'm proud to say I have 300 friends." Do you want the story, or do you want to tell me how many friends you have?

44:48He says, "Abba, I have 300 friends." And his father says, "Son, I've been in the world long enough to know that you don't even have one friend." He goes, "No, Abba, I'm the most popular kid in school. I have 300 friends. Every time I throw a party, 300 people show up. Every time I make a WhatsApp message, 300 people want to join. I have 300 friends, Abba. I can show you on my phone, iPhone, 8, 9, 10, 15, whatever it is. I have it. Abba, proof." Abba says, "You don't even have one." You want proof? The son says yes. He goes, okay, fine. I'll teach you something, son. Go get a nice, juicy lamb. Get the butcher to slaughter it for you and put it in a garbage bag. After that, go to your friends one after another. Now, you have 300 friends. It's going to take too long. Who are your top 30 friends? Can you think of them? He goes, yeah, they're my favorites. I pick them as favorites on my phone. Okay, go to your favorites on your iPhone, your top 30, and show up at their house at 12 o'clock at night. As soon as they open the door, show them the blood coming out of the bag. Don't show them it's a lamb. Tell them, listen, I just killed somebody by accident. Help me out. And you'll learn something. That's what the kid did.

46:08knocked on the door at 12 o'clock at night. They see blood, they shut the door. They see I killed somebody, they shut the door. Nobody's answering. Nobody wants to talk to him. Yeah, but we were boys. We smoked a little. We dated a little. We did a little. We died a little. All that stuff. Listen, all that stuff was fun. I'm not interested in being friends with a murderer. Not interested in going to jail for you. I'm not going to jail for you. I liked you until today. He comes back at the end of the night. He says, Abba, I don't even have one friend. How many friends do you have, Abba? He says, I have half a friend. And you're going to go meet him now. Go to his house. Now it's three o'clock in the morning. Go to his house with the same thing. He goes to his house, knocks on the door, tells the guy, listen. I killed somebody. Help me out. He shows him the blood and everything. The guy says, "Come in. Come in, kid." Covers him and says, "Okay, listen, I'll call your father. Sit down. We'll figure something out. We'll figure something out. Don't worry. It's going to be okay." He tells him the story. "Oh, okay, I see. Your father's a clever guy." So he says to his father, "You have such an amazing friend. I want to be friends with him."

47:22But how come he's only half a friend? How come he's not a full friend? A guy like that should count as five friends. He says he's only a half a friend because what happened over there didn't really have anything to do with him. It's not like you killed somebody that he knows. What did he do? He helped you out to get away, but then you go away. But if it has something to do with him, meaning you took his money, you stole from him, it affected him directly, then you'll see he's only half of it. He's not a full friend. Why? That's how people are. Once you touch their pocket, they're not only not a half a friend, they're nothing. Once you touch their convenience, they're not only not a half a friend, they're zero. And that's the reality. The older you get, the more you realize that if you have one friend who is a real friend, you're a very lucky person. Choose your friends wisely. I know you're all very young and you're still under the impression that all of you are going to be friends forever. I promise you, you won't. And it's not something that occurs. It's just reality. You grow up. You all go in different directions. You marry this one. You marry that one. You go to this state. You go to that state. You have different interests. You have different careers. Life changes. When I was 15, 18, 19 years old, I was sure that my friends from high school were BFFs. We're going to be friends forever. My guys, my friends from football—I was on the football team back then. We cried every season together. We celebrated. We bled together. We're like, yeah.

48:43We're boys. We're boys. Guess what? 20-year reunion? I wouldn't even go. Why? It's a waste of time. It's a waste of time for what? To see a bunch of kids that I was friends with 20 years ago? For what? What are we going to talk about? We won't have common interests. You grow up. Your life moves on. This doesn't mean that the friendship is not valuable. But don't build your life based on friendships. You want a friend? Get a book. Learn something. If you learn something valuable, that will be your friend. Why? Because that value will stay with you forever. A person? Maybe yes, maybe no. But if you're very lucky, you'll have one, maybe two your entire life that are real friends. Ask any old man; they'll tell you the same thing. Next question. No, no. Next, somebody else. You're hogging the questions. No, there's 30 of you. Somebody has to have a question. You guys don't know it? You guys know everything already by now? I didn't know anything when I was 18. No? Anything? Anything you want. I know about this place. He said you should ask a question that you can get. I don't understand.

50:02Yes, yes. What's the unexplainable? So, there are a handful of things in the Torah for which there is no rational reason. Now, the Torah says that Hashem created the world... with one main thing in mind. Gemara Masechet Shabbat says that why did He create the world? He created the world in order for you to fear Him. That's why He created the world. That's His main reason. Now, there are other reasons. There are other things. But He says He created the world so He's the King and you're the servant. That's why He created the world. How do you define who's king, who's servant? Who's afraid of whom? If the king is afraid, he's not the king. If the servant is afraid, he's a good servant. So now, All of the mitzvot that we have in the Torah, there is only one reason, the real reason, that we know for sure without a shadow of a doubt that obligates each one of us to do it. Why? What's the reason?

51:11You have to, because God said so. That's the reason. All the mitzvot, whether it's kashrut, niddah, taharat mishpacha, Shabbat, anything else, any mitzvah you could pick, red heifer, anything, why do we do it? Because God said so. And we are afraid of Him. Why? He's mighty, He's huge, He's endless, and so on and so forth. You're reading, for example, Shema Yisrael. All of you know what Shema Yisrael is, I'm assuming? Shema Yisrael? Okay, Shema Yisrael. Have any of you ever spent time actually learning Shema Yisrael? When you read Shema Yisrael, in the beginning, it sounds really nice. You should love your God with all your heart, with all your life, and all your money. And you should do tefillin and so on and so forth and listen to God. But then it says this. It says, if you don't do what I said.

52:11Then I will blaze my anger on top of you. I will restrain the heavens; there will not be any rain, meaning that it's going to be drought. Then it's going to be famine, and you're all going to die, and there will be so much suffering that the Torah says in Parashat Bechukotai that the hunger will get to such a level that you will eat your own children. because of the starvation. And anyone that thinks that this is just a pasuk to scare you should look in history. It's happened multiple times. Destruction of the First Beit HaMikdash, destruction of the Second Beit HaMikdash. You look at the book of Eicha, Lamentations, it literally says that it happened. You look at what happened during the Holocaust, even, as I told you guys last week. This has happened, unfortunately, many times. This punishment that we read about every day, twice a day, in Shema Yisrael, happened many times. Starvation, to the extent of eating our own children, has happened several times throughout history, meaning that God is not joking. So, rule number one in the Torah: fulfill it because God said so. That's the reason. But, because God loves us and understands His creation's limits,

53:26meaning that we are limited, He knows that we desire more understanding of certain things. We desire some type of benefit for doing anything. We're not robots. We don't want to do things just because. We want something more. We want to see that there's a benefit to it. So most of the mitzvot in the Torah, we see that there are benefits from it. For example, Brit Milah. Anyone who studies circumcision will see that people who have been circumcised have much more protection against STDs (sexually transmitted diseases) and other types of diseases. The actual halacha, the part of the body that you cut, the part of the male member that you cut, is actually something that makes it very easy to get disease and So, sexually transmitted diseases are not as common among Jews as they are among goyim that are uncircumcised. Second thing, Shabbat. Every single professional that has worked for long enough knows that the best part of working is that you're able to afford getting a vacation. As a Jew, you don't need to afford getting a vacation. All you need is to keep Shabbat. You get a vacation once a week.

54:49Scientists and psychologists that have done studies about people that take breaks, especially people that keep Shabbat, say that those people tend to be much more physically and psychologically healthy than the people that do not take a break from the mundane. And so on and so forth. Kosher food, if it's kosher meat, is much healthier than non-kosher meat. Non-kosher meat, as I told you last week or two weeks ago, has a lot of worms, maggots, and disgusting things in it, and disease, whereas kosher meat does not have any of that. So the point is that there are certain benefits. But there are a handful of mitzvot in the Torah which we simply do not know who, what, when, and how. One of them is the red heifer, the parah adumah. Why? What's so difficult about it? Because the mitzvah of parah adumah is irrational. What happens with the parah adumah is they take the parah adumah, the red heifer, to the Beit HaMikdash.

55:52After one of the Kohanim—Gemara Masechet Yoma talks about it—one of the Kohanim slaughters the cow, they burn the cow, they take the ashes, they mix it with the holy water from the Kiyor, the same water that the Kohanim would wash their hands and feet. They also include some specific incense into it, and then they take this new potion, if you will, And they sprinkled it on specific people. Which people? People that are contaminated. People that have Tum'a. Now, Tum'a in the world today is not relevant to us because we're all impure. We're either impure because we've touched a dead body, or we're impure because we touched somebody else that touched a dead body. Or we're impure because we touched a specific type of dead animal, like a dead rat or things of that nature. Or we're impure because we touched the nida. Look, if you've ever been intimate with a woman without being married or you've been intimate with your wife without her going to the mikveh, you have tumat nida. And tumat nida is worse than tumat met.

56:58niddah. The impurity of the niddah is even worse than the impurity of someone who died. It stays longer and is much more difficult to get rid of. The point is that this tumah has only one cure, and that cure is the potion made from the parah adumah. There have only been eight or nine red heifers in history, and We use them at the Beit HaMikdash, and for the last 2,000 years, we have not had a red heifer. This shows us that HaKadosh Baruch Hu only creates things if we need them. If we don't need them, He doesn't create them. Once we need them, He'll create them again. Keep that in mind for the final point. Now, this red heifer, the way it works is that once the Kohen takes... This potion, he sprinkles it on the impure person who touched a dead body or a niddah or whatever it is. He sprinkles it on him, and that person becomes pure. Now, he becomes like everybody else. He's pure. He's allowed to go back to the Beit HaMikdash. He's allowed to go back to the mishkan, to the camp. Everything is good, a fresh start. But until then, he's not allowed. Once he has impurity as a tzara'at or something else, he's not allowed to be around the camp. Now, at the touch him, and so on and so forth. So...

58:20now what's the irrational part of it? The irrational part of it is that the kohen who is purifying all the people—he himself is pure when he starts, and they are impure. But after he finishes purifying everybody, they become pure and he becomes impure. And And Shlomo HaMelech says that doesn't make any sense. Why? It's not like he's contracting the impurity from them. He's not touching them. He's not touching anybody. He's just sprinkling water on them. So he says that doesn't make any sense. Why is he becoming impure and they're pure? Doesn't make any sense. So this is the part that Shlomo HaMelech says. This shows us that even if it doesn't make sense, Hashem obviously has a reason for it. And it doesn't necessarily need to make sense. Now the final point is this. I told you, for 2,000 years, we didn't have a Beit HaMikdash, and we also did not have a red cow either. But the Gemara in Masechet Sotah, page 49b, says that there are going to be different signs before Mashiach comes, different things that are going to happen in the world before Mashiach comes. One of those signs is that there will be a red cow. Guess what? There are two red cows now. They were all born within the last couple of years.

59:41For the first time in 2,000 years, we have red cows, which means that whether you like it or not, Mashiach is coming very soon. Why? They haven't been here for 2,000 years. You could try to breed them, not breed them, try to do whatever you want. You couldn't get them, and trust me, Am Yisrael has been trying very, very hard to get red cows for 2,000 years and failed because it's very specific. It has to be one hundred percent red, not even two black hairs on it, and it can never have carried anything, and so on and so forth. There are a lot of specifics to make sure that this is a red cow. For 2,000 years, there were zero. Right now, we have two. Red cows that are kosher. Right now, we have two of them. One is in Yerushalayim, and one is in an undisclosed location. Some people believe it's in Texas. Okay, let somebody else take a turn, because you already asked one. Next question. Tim Price, go ahead. Okay, so we learned that...

1:00:51Yeah, Moshe didn't write the Torah. HaShem wrote the Torah. Right, right, right. I'm trying to figure out what you're trying to say. Why was Moshe able to write a Sefer Torah and David HaMelech was not able to build a Beit Hamikdash? Well, the Beit Hamikdash is not a book. The Beit Hamikdash is a building. And Hashem did not want His building built with hands that have killed somebody. Even if you killed somebody as part of a mitzvah, He did not want it to be done that way. To such an extent, the specifications of building the Beit Hamikdash, the House of God, were so specific that you weren't even allowed to use steel. You weren't even allowed to use steel to build the Beit Hamikdash. You weren't even allowed to saw things in a traditional way. So that's why Shlomo HaMelech had to command the king of the shedim, of the demons,

1:02:01He commanded him to go find something called a Shamir worm because this Shamir worm has radiation that was able to cut everything, including the stones. That's why, until this day, for example, if you go to the Kotel or you go to the tunnels of the Kotel, you're going to see there's one rock. There's one big rock that's on top of other rocks and and the archaeologists and scientists and everybody else that's been there and sees this rock says we don't have the technology today, with all the iPhones and iPads and all the stuff that we have today—atomic bombs, everything else. He says we don't have the technology today to make such a thing. We don't have the technology today to lift such a rock. Why? The rock is 40 feet long. It's one piece. It's on top. We have no technology in the world that could lift this rock. But somehow, Am Yisrael not only cut this rock, but actually lifted it. So the point is that the technology that we see today with the buttons and everything else, people think that makes it sophisticated, more sophisticated than the past.

1:03:04But if you look at the Midrashim, you look at our Torah, our Oral Torah, you'll see that some of the technology that we possessed as Am Yisrael 1,500 years ago, 2,000 years ago, 2,500 years ago, and even 3,000 years ago was even more advanced than some of the things we have today. So I did a shiur called "Torah and Science and Ancient Wisdom." I recommend people watch it. It talks about the different knowledge that Am Yisrael had about specific things in technology, in medicine, and in all other aspects of science that is far more sophisticated than what we even have today. And they had it 3,000 years ago. So as far as the building, the Beit HaMikdash itself, Hashem wanted it a specific way. And since He's the boss, He calls the shots. Hashem wanted Moshe Rabbeinu to be the one who writes the Torah. He wanted to name the Torah after Moshe Rabbeinu, and Moshe Rabbeinu did not want it. Moshe Rabbeinu was against having a Torah named after him. He was the humblest man of all time.

1:04:12But the point being is that the Gemara Masechet Shabbat says that when the Satan came to Moshe Rabbeinu, he says to Moshe, "Where is the Torah?" He says, "Who am I to have the Torah? You think Hashem gave me the Torah? Who am I in general?" So Hashem says, "Moshe, what are you fibbing? You're lying, Moshe, I gave you the Torah." He says, "Hashem, the Torah is so big, There's no such thing. You gave it to me. You gave me, like, the essence of the Torah. It's not that I have the Torah. I'm just carrying it here. Hashem says, "Oh, you're even humble when it comes to the Torah. I'll name it after you—the Five Books of Moses. You're so humble. You're not even willing to say that you have the Torah in your head. I'll name the Torah after you." The point being that Hashem has His rules, His laws, and His ways. And every single thing that He does, again, the main reason why we follow it is simply because He said so. Other reasons we have. And the more you learn about some of these other reasons, the more fascinating you'll see that it is. Go ahead. Okay.

1:05:22No, but that's the thing. The Kohen is not passing any purity. The Kohen is just sprinkling water. It's not the Kohen, per se, that is doing it. It's the water that's doing it. It's the red heifer water, ashes, that are doing it. So it's irrelevant whether it's him or it's somebody else or anything else. That part, the Gemara says, is not. The reason why it's unexplainable is because the purity is not due to the person. The purity is due to the red heifer, the ashes, and what took place. So if it was, for example... But he's not passing it on. The Gemara says he's not passing it on. In essence, it's this specific water that is doing it. Why he's doing it, Hashem obviously decided why he's doing it. But as far as the person himself, his status only changes because Hashem decreed it so. There are obviously things that are beyond, but trust me when I tell you, if Shlomo HaMelech says that he couldn't figure it out, mostly, you know, we can't either. Somebody else. It's a nice argument, though. It's a nice argument. It just disagrees with the sages. No? Same price. You guys have a question. You're just shy. My friend wanted me to ask you a question. Oh, okay. Your friend. I like your friend. No? Go ahead. I got to read this text message. Okay. It says, What halachot do we follow that we learn from the story of the Mitzrim taking Sarah? Of the what? Of the Mitzrim taking Sarah. Of me...

1:06:50Well, when they kidnapped Sarah, you mean? Yeah. So he says to Avimelech, Avimelech says, "Why did you do this to me?" He says, "I saw that there's no fear of God here. There's no Yirat Shamayim here, there's no Yirat Elohim here. There's no Yirat Shamayim here and you'll kill me." So the Gemara says, why did Avraham assume that because they're not afraid of God, they'll kill him? says if somebody's not afraid of God, that means he thinks he's God, meaning he makes the laws. And if he makes the laws, as soon as you disobey his laws because he's God, he feels the right to kill you. And that's why the Gemara concludes a Jew is not allowed to be inside a room that's closed with somebody that does not fear God. Why? He may kill you.

1:08:00That's the first halacha we learned. Second thing we learned: Midvar sheker tirchak. that we say that from a thing of lies stay away. The Torah doesn't say don't lie. It says stay away from lies. Why? Because lies in the end will always, always end up in a loss. Always end up in a loss. Either it'll show a loss that you have a lack of emunah, or it'll show that you're a corrupt person, or it'll show other things that are negative. In general, a person should never lie or associate himself with a liar. Thing of lies. For example, many people today in the Jewish community have associated themselves with a business that's full of lies. It's called cash lending, or what is it? Cash advance. Cash advance. If you're in that business or you know somebody in that business, you could pretty much kiss your Olam HaBa goodbye. You have no share in the World to Come for sure. I'm not telling you this because I don't like you, but I can tell you at least a handful of reasons why you definitely do not have a share in the World to Come. Number one...

1:09:07A Jew is not allowed to lend another Jew money and charge interest. Not allowed to lend another Jew money and charge interest. If a Jew lends another Jew money and charges interest, everybody loses their Olam HaBa. The lender, the borrower, and the person that was involved in between—the broker—everybody loses Olam HaBa. Hashem says not allowed to lend another Jew money and charge interest. So what's the solution that religious people came up with? Oh, we have a heter iska. What's a heter iska? He's going to sign that I'm an investor. Yeah, but here's the thing: you can fool him, you can fool yourself, but you can't fool God. And the heter iska specifically is supposed to say that it's not a loan, it's an investment. But it actually has to be an investment, not just say it's an investment. Like, you could say it's a Pikachu, you could say it's a parrot, you could say it's a building, but if it's really still a loan, then hey, it's a loan. How do we know it's a loan? That you have to pay it back no matter what happens. That's what makes a loan a loan. What makes something an investment? An investment is something that if you can't pay it back because you lost it, you don't have to pay it back. Why? That's an investment. You invest money, sometimes you lose the money. It happens. That's an investment.

1:10:20Once you have something that says whatever it says, but in reality, it's a loan because you have to pay it back no matter what, you're at the sky. It's toilet paper. Actually, it's worth talking at least all the music, the stuff you can't use it for. So all of these Italy sky and try. I was in a business room for almost 20 years. I know a lot about this stuff. So it's not a I don't have anything against these businesses. It's just a reality. Eteri's kind of people sign is complete garbage. That's number one. Second, realistically, in the last six years since I left the financial industry, the industry of lending found an old law that is literally something that can lead to the next Holocaust. Now, you're gonna call me extreme, you're gonna call me crazy, but if you pay attention, you'll see exactly why. There is an old law in America called a COJ, Confession of Judgment. Now, this law is not a new law, but nobody actually used it. In 2014, only 12 filings of Confession of Judgment suits were filed. 12.

1:11:35There are literally thousands on a monthly basis. Why? Because the cash advance business decided they had some, unfortunately, a Jewish lawyer take advantage of his brain in a negative way and decided to add this COJ to the application. Why? Because the cash advance business is notorious for lending money to people that don't have money to pay back and That's why subprime mortgages failed eventually, because people bought houses they couldn't afford. So, you lend money to people that can't pay it back, or they're just riskier loans. Why are they going to you? Because they can't get it from a bank. That's why they're coming to you. If they could get it from J.P. Morgan, they would get it from a real bank. Trust me, they're not coming to you. Why? Because the bank's interest is 5%. Your interest in the cash advance business could be as much as 400%. Only a moron or a desperate person will borrow money from such a person. moron or desperate, whichever one comes first, sometimes both. Now here's the kicker: this גוי (goy), this גוי (goy) is mal'ach ha-mavet for lending. It's like the death penalty. Why? Because a person that borrows money

1:12:43He signs an application. If things don't work out, if things don't work out, I lose the money. I borrowed money from you, I lose the money. In a regular JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo Bank, I lose the money, I don't have it. They could sue me. We go to court. I could prove my case. They could prove their case. We have years to fight it. If I put collateral, I didn't put collateral, it could take a while. The cash advance business was notorious for losing a lot of money for years. Why? Because most of the borrowers not only would not be able to pay back, but they didn't have much collateral. Even if they had collateral, they would do different types of things to hide the collateral. would sell it, they would put it to a different entity. Long story short, the borrowers would find a way not to pay back the lenders. So, what did the lenders do? They decided to add the COJ. What does the COJ do? COJ is an application that says, "I am guilty, regardless of what you accuse me of." I already denied my own ability to even go to court, which means the minute that somebody is late—we're not even talking about defaults, the minute somebody is late on their payment. Its payment is due on the 15th. He forgot to send a check. Forgotten essentially happens; human after all, your alert didn’t happen, forgot within 48 hours—48 hours.

1:14:08Lender, the cash advance company, could take all of his possessions that were under collateral for that loan without a court, without a judge, without even a lawyer, and Nothing. They simply take everything without even providing the court proof that he actually defaulted or is late or even that this is collateral. They could simply say whatever they want. And within 48 hours, they literally could take possession of his house, his business, his car, everything. Everything that was mentioned in the original agreement. Now, why is this horrible? Because, unfortunately, this leads to a lot of crime from greedy people. What do they do? They are not happy that their guys are paying them 300% interest. It's not enough for them. Just like my mama says, the Gemara in Sukkah says: you give somebody a hundred, they want two hundred; you give two hundred, they want four hundred. They're not happy with their high interest. They want even more. So what do they say? "Listen, what do you want? You want to borrow 50,000? No problem, pay 500 bucks a month." Okay, no problem. The guy pays for two, three, four, five months. They get bored. They say, "Listen, even though we're making good money out of this, we can make more. How? We'll pretend he defaulted."

1:15:17Pretending he defaulted will go to court, say I defaulted. Why? We don't have to prove anything. We have a COJ. He signed. He signed his death penalty. He signed his death penalty over here. We go to the court, the court goes to the ahtar with the marshal, agrees, we go to court, 48 hours, all of the collateral is ours, and he cannot even fight it. Look, even if he goes to a lawyer, you know what the lawyer tells him? Can't help you. Can I help you now? This leads to what's called gezel. Gezel is stealing. No person could ever go to Gan Eden if he has even a dollar stolen. If he stole even a dollar, they stole his life. Can I get it? You cannot go into Gan Eden. So you see, you have another reason why COJ. Last reason. Last reason I'm going to tell you. Who knows the first two laws? Hitler implemented the first two laws that not only put him in a different status than everybody else for the rest of history but also made what's called until this day the biggest financial miracle in history. Who knows the first two laws?

1:16:35the Nuremberg laws. Before that, we're talking about years before it. Hitler first comes into power. What's the first two laws? Okay, I'll save you the time. Rule number one: no more pornography, no more homosexuality. None of that garbage is allowed. Berlin in the '30s and the '20s The Sodom and Gomorrah of the day—they were the Las Vegas of the day. There was the Sodom and Gomorrah of the day: homosexuality, pornography, all the bestiality, all the garbage of the world. That was the capital of the world. He outlawed it. You're no longer allowed. He closed all the bars, all the gay clubs, all the productions, which were all run by Jewish people, unfortunately. Second rule. What's the second rule? The second rule was you're not allowed to charge interest. No more interest. Now you would think, why? What does he care about interest? Well, because all the people that had the money, that lent the money out, would use it. He didn't like it. He said no more interest. Why? Because the high interest that the Jews charged people was so high, it ruined and destroyed the economy in Germany. They destroyed it just like they destroyed Russia.

1:17:51A few years before that, through their communism over there, Jews destroyed Russia. Not non-Jews, Jews destroyed communism. Communism is by Jews. Well, don't let anybody confuse you. Look at history: Karl Marx and all the other sheim resha'im, all Jews, wicked, but nonetheless Jews. They destroyed Russia, and he wrote in Chapter 2 of Mein Kampf that they destroyed Russia. Now, they wanted to destroy Germany. That's why he said he had to destroy them. Now, this doesn't make sense. His point is that's actually real, true history. He saw that the Jews were controlling the financial system and charging such high interest. They destroyed the German economy to the extent that by the time you arrived at the store to buy bread, you had to take a whole horse carriage full of money. By the time you arrived at the store, it wasn't enough. Why? Because the inflation rate was so high. the bread became so much more valuable, and your money went down. So now he says, "What's the cause of this?" Because nobody could afford to do anything, because the interest rates were so high. So he decided, "No more interest rates. You're not allowed to charge interest rates." And at that time, the Great Depression was happening around the entire world. Everyone was in a financial collapse. America was in a financial collapse. England was in a financial collapse. Everybody else was collapsing. Germany collapsed worse than everybody else. But after he passed this law of no more interest, within six years...

1:19:11Six years later, Germany became the leading wealthiest economy in the world. They called it a financial miracle. Why? Because they were the only ones that were bold enough to stop charging interest. This is one of the biggest reasons why he hated Jews, because he believed they destroyed the economy due to their greed. But this doesn't make him right. Don't let this confuse you, but this is happening again. The cash advance business right now is destroying the economy in America. Why? Because all of the people that are defaulting, all of the people that are being stolen from, guess who they are? Small businesses. Small businesses are what build economies, not big businesses. Coca-Cola, Apple, Google, Amazon—those big companies are good for business, but they're not the economy. makes an economy an economy. What makes an economy prosper is when there are small businesses starting and small businesses flourishing because they are the ones that actually hire the most amount of people. If you have small businesses grow, your economy grows. If you have small businesses decline, your economy declines. I was in the financial business for 20 years. This is one thing you can't challenge. Now, when you have an industry whose number one objective is

1:20:33Directly or indirectly, is to destroy small businesses. Guess what? This is happening again. And you'll see, nobody listens to me. Nobody listens to the Torah. Nobody listens to history, and everybody ignores it. This is gonna be a huge blow-up to the extent where you can see how Edom, just like the Torah says, Edom, is gonna come back again. It doesn't become America. it doesn't become America. Why? Because America is Edom, after all. But you'll see what happens, and you'll see that all of a sudden, the six million Jews that are in America feel comfortable. They are sometimes in government, sometimes in politics, running big businesses, and so on and so forth. Guess what? The same exact thing happened in Germany. We were in politics. We were in business. We were prospering. We were great, and In Germany, same exact thing. In Greece, same thing. In Rome, same thing. In Egypt, same thing. But guess what? We get greedy. We get sinful. We become resha'im. What happens? Hashem says, oh, you want to be resha'im? I'll punish you. With what? With the same goyim that you wanted to become like.

1:21:36...and this, Rabotai, is what's happening under our noses. Unfortunately, I don't know whether the Gedolim that we have in this world today are unaware or nonchalant. I'm not really sure. All I can tell you is I've had in my career five times, maybe six times, an aha moment... meaning I saw something to me that was clear as day. I knew this deal was going to work out. I saw a stock; it was four dollars. I said this is worth 32. How long? Two, three, four years. It's going to be 32. Sometimes it happens faster, sometimes longer. Five times in my career, certain things like that happened to me. This is for sure an aha moment unless the government... Actually, by chasdei Hashem (by the mercy of Hashem), He interferes with that industry and completely ruins it. We will see a Holocaust starting from this business. I'm sorry for you. You have to quit. Yes, please.

1:22:42My colleague today, for example, had a deal that he closed where he funded an $85,000 deal. It's funded from new bank documents in the past three months. I was able to tell my colleague that in the next three days or so, he was going to be able to fund triple the amount if he wanted to. However, the interest rate that we charge with our company wasn't necessarily 300%, like you're saying. Not all of it's 300%, but it's still much higher. It's still usury. Yeah. No, no, it goes up to 400%. It's not standard 400%. You're not charging 5%, you're not charging 10%, you're not even charging 30%. 80%, okay, that's still illegal, Torah-wise and law-wise. at all. Yeah, yeah, no, we already covered that. We covered that. Right, I know, I know. So, going back to what I just said, though, is that they can't pay it back. That's number one. Okay? You're still not allowed to lend them the money, though. You can't do that. Number two, what if they're non-Jews? We're talking about Jews here. What if they're non-Jews? That's number two. Which, yeah, it might sound like, oh, all because they're non-Jews doesn't make them different. Right. But it is. No, no, it is or it isn't. Right. Because I have, the reason why I was in Yeshiva for a few years, I wouldn't want to do something that's halakhically, al pi halakha, not allowed.

1:24:10Okay, so I'll answer your questions. I realize that when I spoke to a rabbi who I personally advocate for, he told me that even though it's not, you're still not doing the correct thing, but it's totally, totally not shayach when it comes to Jews. You have to find a new rabbi. So let me explain to you. I'm an honest person, so I don't beat around the bush. I'm going to tell you things as they are. I was on Wall Street for 16 years. I had my own firm. I know a little bit more about the financial business than any rabbi in the world. Why? I was on Wall Street. Before I was a rabbi, I was on Wall Street. I had a firm. I had a brokerage firm. I had a hedge fund. I had an insurance company. Baruch Hashem, I was an executive. I was on CNBC. I was on Bloomberg. I was somebody. I was somebody. It wasn't like some guy that worked at Merrill Lynch made $100,000 a year. You did an $85,000 deal. Well, you lent somebody $85,000. I made $1.6 million for myself in one day. So there's a little bit of experience that came with it to get to that point. Now, so what I'm trying to explain to you is that it's not a matter of what's the deal, what's the profit, what's the commission, what's the company, what's the industry. It's a matter of what's right, what's wrong, what's allowed, and what's not allowed. Now, a Jew first and foremost is never allowed to lend another Jew money with interest. Now, the exception is if the Jew that's borrowing the money is a mechallel Shabbat; you're allowed to charge him interest, but it's still not recommended.

1:25:36Because if that dude does teshuvah, you have to pay him back all the interest. But needless to say, you're not allowed to lend the average Jew that keeps Shabbat money and charge him interest. That's rule number one. So that means that any Jew that you deal with, even if you don't know he's a Jew, and Which most likely you'll run into because sometimes John Cohen is a Jew, John Cohen is not a Jew. You're not really gonna know. It's not on the application to say, "Mr. John, are you a Jew or not?" You're not allowed to ask because it could put you in jail. So you don't know if he's a Jew or not. That means that every day you have a 50-50 chance of losing a lot. Who wants to be in such a business? That's number one. Number two... even if you only deal with goyim, you're still not allowed to do something called usury. Usury is overcharging and lending money in such a way or doing business in such a way that it hurts the public. When you charge somebody an interest that is drastically above the norm, the norm being bank rates, regular bank rates, and what's legally allowed

1:26:38According to the law, when you charge him such interest rates that it becomes very difficult to the extent of almost impossible for the average person to pay it back, you are now in a business where you're taking advantage of people. If he can go to Wells Fargo and get the same loan for 8% and you're charging him 80%, it doesn't matter that you're not at 300%. Even if the average was 8 and you were 15, you are in a problem. Even if the average was 8 and you are 30, you are in a problem. It doesn't have to be 300. 300 just means you're just a psychopath. 80% is still highway robbery. 80% is still against halacha. Why? Because it's usury. But even more so than anything else that I've just said... to Wells Fargo and get the same loan for 8% and you're charging them 80%, it doesn't matter that you're not at 300%. Even if the average was 8 and you were 15, you are in a problem. Even if the average was 8 and you are 30, you are in a problem. It doesn't have to be 300. 300 just means you're just a psychopath. 80% is still highway robbery. 80% is still against halakha. Why? Because it's usury. But even more so than anything else that I've just said... when this is eventually exposed to the public, it will lead every single member that works for these companies, even as a clerk, even not as a broker, a clerk, a secretary, a janitor who works for ABC Lending that does cash advances—when it's officially disclosed to the world, because Hashem is going to do that—guess what

1:27:48And any single person that's involved in Chilul Hashem, the Reshit Chochmah says, what the Gemara in Masechet Rosh Hashanah, page 17a, says: he goes to Gehenom and he doesn't leave. Ever. Even after Mashiach. So why would anybody want to associate with even 1% of anything I just said? The lending, the taking advantage, the Chilul Hashem, the usury, the unethical, even the rabbi that you said that, oh, you really shouldn't do it, but yeah, you can. What kind of rabbi is that? It's a puppet. You have to find yourself a real rabbi that's going to tell you, not allowed. No, not recommended. Not allowed. Not allowed. That's what it is. Not allowed. You have to quit tomorrow. Why? Because I love you and I'm telling the truth. You have to. COJ. Confession of judgment. Not technically. You take their property in 48 hours. Wrong. You're wrong.

1:29:04Before I say something, I research it. You can speak to your boss till next year. I'm telling you, I know what I'm talking about. I did the research before I see anything. Okay, but you can look at your application. The application does not give a bet; it gives you, it gives the company, it gives the company that lent the money the COJ. Again, the company is the cash advance business. They owe money; they're borrowing money from the bank and... But they're the ones that collect it, not the bank. The bank sues your company. Your company is the one that goes to collect the money. How about this? Do yourself a favor. Go on Bloomberg. Go on Google. Look at cash advance businesses; there's a five-part article explaining the entire industry for you. everything I just said with a little bit of sugar on it. Everything I just said without the Torah part, I'll tell you exactly about all the criminals that are in the business. Unfortunately, one thing that we know, I know personally, that the article doesn't know as much, is that predominantly,

1:30:06people that are in this business are guys that used to be in the brokerage business, that went to jail—criminals, thieves, psychopaths, mafia—but predominantly it's Orthodox Jews. Predominantly, it's Orthodox Jews funding it, selling it, and you even have yeshiva kids that have no skills whatsoever Going into that business and starting to make ten to twenty thousand dollars a month without even knowing what to do. Why? This is much worse than the boiler room days of the stock market business thirty years ago because back then, thirty years ago, when there were unethical brokers in the world, you still had to have selling skills. Why? Because at the end of the day, the guy is giving you money, and and you're giving him a dream. Here, you're the one giving him the money. There's no selling. You don't have to do anything. Why? He's the one calling you, asking you, please lend me money. He doesn't know that he's signing a death sentence. He doesn't know that he's about to lose everything he has if you're crooked, if you wink the wrong way, if you have a bad memory, if your alarm doesn't go off. He doesn't know any of that stuff.

1:31:09He thinks, "No, you're Joe, my friend. Joe calls me every Tuesday until we close the deal. Guess what? Joe's no longer in the deal after you sign. The broker is no longer in the deal. You call him after the COJ or a COJ is being implemented, and Joe doesn't pick up the phone. Why? Joe is not in control. He's just a broker. He got paid his commission. Now, if you are in this business, if you know somebody in this business, and you don't hate them..." And you don't hate yourself. You have to send them what I just said. And you have to get them out of that business no matter what you have to do. If you love Jews, you have to let people know this is going to bring an ason to Am Yisrael. It's going to bring a disaster to Am Yisrael. It's gonna bring a disaster no different than the Holocaust. And we can't rely on mitzvot that we're doing because right now the Prime Minister of Israel, this moron Bibi Netanyahu, decided to make a halacha himself. What did he decide? Rabotai, we need Eurovision. The To'eivat Hashem, the disgustingness of Hashem, the singing competition where last year's winner is a transvestite Israeli.

1:32:19We want to bring it to Eretz Yisrael for the third time, really the fourth time, but the third time, and you have the permission to violate Shabbat for it. He decided, Bibi Netanyahu, that as a shiur Torah every Tuesday, he decided that 30,000, 30,000 Jews are allowed to violate the Shabbat coming up. Rav Kanievsky and Rav Edelman just wrote a letter today, published today. They said all of Am Yisrael is in sakanah. All of Am Yisrael is in sakanah right now. All of us have to, tomorrow night, pray, go to the Beit Knesset, recite specific Tehillim. I can tell you which ones they are. Blah so far and do everything, everything possible to ask Hashem for forgiveness. Ask Hashem for mercy because right now there's something happening that most of you don't understand—the magnitude of what's happening. What can you ask? He doesn't write letters. Let me just tell you that people say a lot of things in his name. What can you ask? He doesn't write letters. I

1:33:19He doesn't write letters. He's too busy learning Torah. People say things in his name that he doesn't say. What he says is usually in books. He doesn't write letters. He wrote a letter. He publicized the letter. And he says all of Am Yisrael right now is in serious danger. And we already have signs of it. The day after, Bibi Netanyahu said that 30,000 Jews are allowed to violate Shabbat because suddenly he became a Posek. For Eurovision, for this garbage, for homosexuality, for immodesty, for tzniut, for the garbage in the world, 30,000 people are going to violate Shabbat for it. Guess what? The next day or within 48 hours, 700 missiles were shot at Am Yisrael. 700 missiles within 48 hours. That's not enough? Rav Chaim Kanievsky wrote a letter... Guess what happened today? There was a 4.4 earthquake in Yerushalayim and across the entire country. Israel does not get earthquakes. We're not America. We're not Los Angeles. You have an earthquake in Eretz Yisrael, Gemara says you have a very serious problem. Why? There are Pesukim in the Torah that talk about it. Pesukim in the Torah talk about it. Why does Hashem give earthquakes? Why does Hashem give earthquakes? You look at the Gemara in Yerushalmi, Masechet Berachot.

1:34:35The Perek 9, Halacha number 2. It says that HaKadosh Baruch Hu, on one end, it says in Tehillim that He looks at the land favorably and gives it sustenance from the beginning of the year until the end. But then in another place it says that He looks at the land and He makes it tremble. Why? It says when people certain things that are good He looks at favorably. When people do certain things that are bad, He brings earthquakes. What are the good and the bad? So, the Gemara says the following: The Gemara says when people build theaters and circuses, and events... they celebrate with things that are against Hashem. Hashem sits there in Shamayim, looking at them and gets angry to the point where He wants to destroy the world because His house is destroyed. The Beit HaMikdash is destroyed, and they're sitting there relaxing in a theater at Eurovision. They're over there at the Eurovision, and they're having a good time, but He

1:36:02The Melech Malchei HaMelachim is in Shamayim. He's crying over His Beit HaMikdash, but you're having a good time. He says this gives Him the feeling to destroy the entire world. That's what the Gra says. But then Eliyahu HaNavi says to Rabbi Meir, "Yes, that's one aspect of it, but there's something else too." What else is there? It says that when HaKadosh Baruch Hu looks at the world, He sees that people are far away from Him. He sees that people are far away from Him to such an extent that they're not doing the will of Hashem. In more ways than just the theaters. What ways? Rav Acha says one of the ways, one of the few things that causes earthquakes, is when there is an increase in homosexuality.

1:37:03And then one of the other Tannaim, one of the other Amoraim, the Rabbanan actually, the Rabbis, say, oh, it's not just that, it's the machloket, the different debates, the disagreements, divorces, partnerships breaking, stealing, and things of that nature. Now, we have ourselves several different reasons why the Gemara says that Hashem shakes the land. He brings earthquakes as a sign that you have to do teshuva, whether it's homosexuality or it's being in a theater, immorality, or perhaps it is the different types of machloket and debates and so on that people have that are not for shamayim. Eurovision is not the first time that it's coming to Eretz Yisrael. This is the third time. And Hashem says to the prophet Amos,

1:38:03He says to the prophet Amos in chapters 1 and 2, he says it about 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 times. Seven times he says, or he says, or he says again, What does it all say? Why does it keep mentioning the same thing seven times? Hashem says, thus said Hashem, for the first three transgressions that you did at Edom, at Gaza, at Tyre, different things, the first three times you made this sin, I looked away. I looked somewhere else. I said, oh, give him time, give him time, give him time. the fourth one I will not pardon. I will punish you with the sword, suppress My mercy, and punish you with anger and slaughter incessantly, and so on and so forth. It says horrible things. If you want to read it yourself, you can read it; it's just going to make you cry. Double tight, what's happening right now is not the third time; it's the fourth time. Aside from that, this event...

1:39:29Full of modesty, full of Hillel. Shabbat represented by a transvestite. But last but not least, the good old Admorim are crying over it, saying that this is going to bring a disaster to Am Yisrael. Why? Because the government of Israel always says that it doesn't have enough money to feed the poor and... Right now, statistically speaking, we did a little bit of research. It says there are 1 million kids, 1 million Jewish kids in Eretz Yisrael, that go to sleep starving every night. Hungry every night, 1 million kids, 1 million Jewish kids in Eretz Yisrael going to sleep hungry. Now, if I was the governor and... If anybody normal was the governor and you know that there's 1 million out of 8 million, 12% of your population, and probably 35-40% of the actual kids in the country, are going to sleep hungry every day, the least you should do is what? Feed them and...

1:40:45Feed them. But you know what? You could do something even less. What can you do? Try to save money so you can feed them in the future. Because you don't have money right now. That's why they're hungry, right? So try to save money. What does Bibi Netanyahu do? He takes 50 million shekels. Fifty million shekels. And instead of feeding hungry kids, what does he do? He spends it on Eurovision. To bring Eurovision to Eretz Yisrael. So not only is he telling 30,000 people to violate Shabbat, not only is he promoting homosexuality, immodesty, and all the garbage of the world, but on top of it, instead of actually giving money to the hungry kids in his own country, what is he doing? He's spending it on homosexuality and to'eivat Hashem and all that stuff. This is why, Rabotai, the Gedolei HaDor, Starting to cry because they know that disaster is the only thing that follows such a thing. So, what's happening right now in the world of Jews is far more dangerous than anything we've ever seen in our life. The only thing you can compare it to is...

1:41:59Every single time span that took place right before a disaster, whether it was the Spanish Inquisition or the Holocaust or the Beit HaMikdash—the first one, the second one—every time these disasters happened, there were many, many signs. There was writing on the wall. Like we talked about a few weeks ago about the Holocaust, all the things that happened for years before the Holocaust finally happened, unfortunately, there were many, many signs. I'm afraid to tell you that right now all of that is happening again, and it's happening at a much more rapid pace, and it's very, very scary. Now, all we can do is very limited. One, we could bring you the facts. Do what you want with them. You can curse me out, you can write stupid comments, or you could do something about it. What we're trying to do is, number one, publicize it. Publicize that we're all in danger right now as a nation. Whether you're in America, or you're in Bulgaria, or you're in Israel, it doesn't really make a difference. Once there's a decree, there's a decree on everyone. Whether you keep Shabbat or you don't keep Shabbat, there's a decree on everyone. So, every single person should take it upon themselves and...

1:43:22Some type of mitzvah, something that they're not doing, something that they're weak in. If you are immodest as a woman, this is the time to become modest. Why? At least to fix the tikkun of the immodesty that's being promoted this weekend. If you are mechalel Shabbat, this is the time to start keeping Shabbat. At least start with this Shabbat. Keep this Shabbat. Why? 30,000 Jews are not going to keep Shabbat. The Shabbat, if this happens, some were. Some were, unfortunately. If you're not keeping Shabbat, now is the time to start keeping Shabbat. If you're not modest, now is the time to start being modest. If you're not promoting Torah, if you're not doing kiruv, if you're not donating to kiruv, now is the time to do it. You have to give Am Yisrael merits right now because we are in danger.

1:44:23We are in very, very serious danger, and last but not least, what we're trying to do is actually raise some money for poor kids ourselves. Even though this is not the primary goal of our organization—we're a kiruv organization—we're trying to save neshamos. But when you hear that there are a million Jewish kids who don't have money, when you hear that there are poor religious families... That we know in Yerushalayim don't have food for Shavuot. It's hard to go to sleep in your nice, comfortable American home with 15, 20, 50, 100, 200, 500 thousand dollars in the bank like some people have. It's hard to do that. Now we don't have much money because we lost all of it. But we have a mouth. We have a website. We have an organization. And we're trying to raise as much money as we can. So we're starting a new campaign tomorrow to try to raise as much money as we possibly can to at least get this family some food for Shavuot. Now, we're not going to be able to feed a million people overnight or permanently. But we're going to try to do whatever we can. If we can feed five people, great. If we can feed 500, great. For Pesach, we fed over 400 people.

1:45:43400 people, 400 people ate because of what we tried to do. We will do a thousand times more this time. I don't know how much. All I know is everybody has to do something. But not just one thing. Because there are a lot more people that, unfortunately, are putting the rest of the nation in danger than usual. Whether it's the president of the country, the prime minister, whatever you call him. It's the secular government, or it's the secular people, or it's to confuse people, or it's to confuse rabbis, or it's the businessmen that are not really businessmen, but they're just crooks with a suit. There's just a lot going on. And now it's time for us to do something about it. Every person has to do something. If you can take on a mitzvah, do it. If you can give tzedakah, do it. If you can do both, do it. Do something. I This is one of the things that I wanted to tell you tonight. Other stuff, Baruch Hashem, came from the questions. I think that some of the stuff scared some of the people away. But we have to say it. We have to say it because the reality is, you're stuck with me. This is the saddest news of the world. Really, I'm serious. You're laughing, but I'm very serious. You see, in the previous generations, you look at the Gemara.

1:47:07Previous generations, nobody ever liked the person that was giving people the truth. When Yirmiyahu came to Am Yisrael, he told them that they were sinners. You know what they did? They started beating him up. They started causing him to do bad things and so on and so forth. They started torturing him. He cursed the day he was born. When Zechariah, Zechariah says the pasuk in the Torah, he says to Hashem, "I cursed the day that you brought me to this world." Yirmiyahu, Kodesh Kodashim, curses the day he was born. Zechariah, Navi Kodesh, Navi Kodesh, Gemara Masechet Gittin, page 57b, says something, I mean, it's hard to even say. Zechariah came to the people, told them you have to do teshuva. You know what they did? They slaughtered him like a cow. They slaughtered him like a cow and they left all of his blood, and guess what? The blood never left. The blood never left. The Gemara says,

1:48:08Nebuzaradan, the sergeant, the general of Nebuchadnezzar who destroyed the Beit HaMikdash, came over there and he saw that there's blood boiling on the floor. Years after it happened, not like a week later, years, years later, he sees there's blood boiling over there and he asks the rabbis over there, the Jews over there, "What is this? What is this? Because I know nothing. Nothing. What? Nothing. I never thought I saw a lot of blood. Never saw blood boiling before. What is this?" "Oh, no, it's just that one of our korbanot. We do sacrifices here in the Beit HaMikdash. We do sacrifices. So it's the blood of one of the korbanot." "Oh, yeah, show me." "Show me. I want to see. I want to see how the blood boils. I want to see how it happens. What are they going to do? This is a general that just slaughtered 10 million people. So they take a little sheep, slaughter it, blood comes out. Guess what? It goes into the ground, doesn't stay up, doesn't boil, nothing. It was all done. He wasn't stupid. Vicious, but not stupid."

1:49:11He says to them, if you don't tell me where this blood came from, I'm going to slaughter every single one of you like you slaughtered the sheep. What are they going to do? They said, listen, the truth is, this is the blood of Zechariah, our prophet. We slaughtered him because he told us to do teshuva. He told us we were making mistakes. We didn't like it, so we killed him. And now his blood is boiling because he's taking vengeance. Nebuzaradan says, "I'm gonna take vengeance for him." He started killing everybody. He started killing millions of people. He killed the adults. He started killing people left and right. He came back to the blood, saw it was still boiling, and continued killing. He came back to the blood, saw it was still boiling, and continued killing. It got to a point where literally there were just a few good ones left. He says to the blood, "I killed the worst of them. You want me to kill the best of them too? You want me to kill everybody, the rest of them, the whole nation?" The blood stopped boiling. On the spot, it stopped.

1:50:29Then Nebuzaradan, the mass murderer, did a calculation in his head. He said, "Wait a minute. Look what happened here. These Jewish people slaughtered their own prophet, and look what just happened to them. Their G-d gave me the power to kill all of them. All of these people just died because they killed one guy. What's going to happen to me for killing all of those people?" At that moment, he took off his uniform, sent a suicide letter back home as if he had killed himself, put on a sack as if he were a slave like the Jews, and joined Am Yisrael, converting on the spot. He realized that everything that had just happened was from Hashem. Even the death of a Jew. This is in the Gemara Masechet Gittin; you can see it. It's a horrific, horrific story. Now,

1:51:30Rabotai, when Zechariah rebuked people, they killed him. Jeremiah rebuked people, they tried to kill him. For generation after generation, we've always had people rebuke and remind people what the Torah says. Now, before the Holocaust, we had some of the Gedolei HaDor, we had the Chafetz Chaim cry, Beg people to take him door-to-door to help people do teshuva. HaRav Elchonon Wasserman, zt"l, told people that what I told you a couple of weeks ago—there's going to be a disaster coming soon, please, please do teshuva, do something now. See, there's a very sad situation in this generation. The English-speaking world doesn't have Jeremiah. English-speaking world doesn't have Zechariah. The English-speaking world doesn't have Chafetz Chaim or Rav Wasserman. The English-speaking world doesn't have even one of their shoes. It has Rav Mizrachi, sheyichyeh, and it has me. That's what you're stuck with, guys. There's a couple of Rav Zitron, Baruch Hashem, also and a couple of others here and there. This is where we're at. This is what you have.

1:52:53You don't have anything great. This is how low we've become. You're stuck with me. This is what you have. Why? Because your local rabbi is going to tell you what this young man just told me 20 minutes ago. What? The local rabbi told him, "Yeah, yeah, go, go into the cash advance business. It's not really ethical, but it's okay, it's okay." What is that? Is that a rabbi or a bank robber? Who is that, Nebuchadnezzar or Nebuzaradan? It's definitely not Zechariah. What kind of rabbi is this? Tells his student to go into an illegal business? What kind of rabbi is this? Rabotai, you don't have much, but you know what? You don't need much. You have the Torah, you have a Torah, and you have a distinct difference between someone that lies to you and someone that tells you the truth. Why? You have a lot of people singing to you, a lot of people telling you jokes, and there's only a couple of them that tell you the truth. And the truth, how do you know what it is? It hurts. It hurts, it agrees with the Torah, and it's unchallengeable. That's what it is. So, please take the things that I say to heart. Do something about them, please.

1:54:05Whether it's donate or teshuva or all of the above, do something. If you don't have money and you are a tzaddik, then be a big tzaddik. Come with me to my car. I'll give you a bunch of free CDs to give to people. Hopefully, they will do teshuva too. Whatever it is, if you have time and a pulse, you can do something. You can do something. Don't just sit there on your hands and say, "Yeah, I'm sure somebody else is gonna do it. I'm sure somebody else is gonna donate now." I'm sure somebody else is going to do kiruv now. I'm sure somebody else is going to say something. Don't be one of those losers. Be a winner. Be a leader. Be somebody that does something. Don't worry about everybody else. You do something. Just like some people, Baruch Hashem, here took the initiative, started bringing people, started taking money out of their pocket to pay kids to come to the shiur. Think about it. Why? Other than loving Am Yisrael, why would anybody pay somebody else, a complete stranger, to come learn Torah? Why? Because you want to make Hashem happy. Right now, we have a problem. Hashem is completely unhappy.

1:55:07He just shook Eretz Yisrael in a way that's pretty clear. It's not supposed to be this way. Rabbi Ephraim called me a few minutes after it happened. He said, "I was in a room; the whole room shook. In Yerushalayim, I was in a room; the whole room shook. The house shook. My wife is..." Not sure what was happening. I thought, well, something's wrong with the floor. Never said such a thing. Now, it wasn't a 7.0, chas v'shalom, or 7.9 like the goyim have, because Hashem still loves us. But He's clearly telling us He's not happy. He's not happy about Eurovision. He's not happy about this homosexuality. He's not happy about illegal businesses that are happening in America and other places. He's not happy about how people are behaving when it comes to business. He's not happy that people are declaring divorce as soon as there is a little misunderstanding. He's not happy about a lot of things. We can't fix all those things ourselves, but we can fix ourselves, and we can try to influence other people to fix something. That's the only thing that we ask ourselves. But if you wait, if you're gonna wait for Moshe Rabbeinu to arrive, if you're gonna wait for the Mashiach to arrive, if you're gonna wait for Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov to arrive before you do something about it, I can tell you already now, don't wait. Why? It's gonna be too late.

1:56:19It's gonna be too late, so please take this seriously. I apologize for scaring some of you, but there's nothing I can do about it. Reality is scary, and I promise you it's much, much scarier than I'm telling you. I contain myself, believe it or not. I contain myself for some of the things that I know because I know that simply if I say more, it's not gonna be very... This is enough to hopefully prompt the clever among you that are watching, that are here, that are watching on the internet. The clever among you are going to get the point. The situation is not good. At all. At all, at all. At all, at all. There's not an ounce of good. Get the point. Take the initiative. Do something about it. I'm sorry for scaring you. I really, really am. I don't mind scaring you on Gehenom and Kaf HaKela, all that other stuff, because that's just reading the Torah. But this is like a reality check, that something's happening, and it's not good. So please take the initiative. Do something. Do something. Please, I beg you, do something. Next week, B'ezrat Hashem, I'm going to see you on Sunday. I really can't do any more today. No more questions. I'm done.

1:57:26Next week, B'ezrat Hashem, I'm going to see you on Sunday. We're going to be here doing a different shiur about bitachon, B'ezrat Hashem. We need a lot of bitachon to survive. Hopefully by then we will have good news, that the Eurovision was cancelled or something happened over there, but nobody died and at least nobody showed up either. B'ezrat Hashem, everybody that starts doing teshuvah. Sunday, we have a shiur here. Then I guess I'm going to New York. Anyone that wants to come to the shiurim in New York, there's going to be one Monday night in Queens. Tuesday afternoon in Manhattan and Tuesday night in Queens, B'ezrat Hashem. And then Wednesday, I'm going to be back here, B'ezrat Hashem, doing the shiur that we have here, the questions. Hopefully, some of you are not too scared. Then you can actually come back. We'll have a different question center. Kol Tuv. Hatzlacha Rabbah. Baruch Adonai Le'olam. Amen ve'amen.

1:58:29Thank you for watching.