Torah Basics Explained: No Suffering Without Sin (35 Minutes)

1:30Don't worry, I didn't understand it either. Hillel is telling us again; he's the one that's been telling us about these last few Mishnayot—something that happened in his life. What happened here seems like a simple event, but it can easily change your life if we just pay attention to the details. He also saw a skull floating on the water. And he said to it, he spoke to the skull: "Because you drowned others, they drowned you. And eventually, those who drowned you will be drowned." Hillel is here addressing a skull. which doesn’t sound like something a genius would do, but a holy person would do. Nonetheless, it's exactly what they would do, because here he's teaching us one of the foundational 13 principles of faith. If you do not believe in it, you cannot consider yourself fully Jewish. If you do not believe in it, and you went in front of a Beit Din, like some of my students who want to convert, they won't convert you.

2:47If you don't believe in it, you have no share in the World to Come. It's a significant belief. And the belief is that there's a Judge who judges us, and He judges us for the righteous, there's a reward, and for the wicked, there's punishment. If a person does not believe in reward and punishment, they are not believing in one of the foundational principles of the Torah. Dan Hilal berkata di sini, dia melihat gulgolet ini, dan gulgolet ini terlihat di air. Dia berkata bahwa gulgolet itu tidak muncul di air dengan sendirinya; pasti berasal dari suatu tempat. Jika orang ini adalah manusia yang baik, Hashem tidak akan memberinya akhir yang menakutkan. just a horrible ending as far as the fact that he died but a horrible ending in the sense that he didn't even get the honorable type of burial. Now, of course, we know this was one of them, and we know that they all suffered horrendous deaths. This does not mean that they were wicked; this was a sacrifice for things that happened in previous generations. But nonetheless,

4:06they still got, many of them still got the honor of being buried. It's rare for someone not to get the honor of being buried. Some of them didn't, unfortunately, but that's a different story. From a general perspective, most people, regardless of how they pass, have the honor of being buried, have the honor of being respected, but this gulgoles, this skull, did not. And he let it be said that it's because of something he did. The skull belonged to somebody, and it's not some mikreh; it's not some coincidence or some accident. Hashem didn't miss out. Hashem didn't make a mistake. There's no such thing as Hashem making mistakes. If Hashem were able to make mistakes, He wouldn't be Hashem; He would be human. So Elan is telling us here...

5:07that first and foremost, you have to know that everything we do has a consequence. In the Gemara, Masechet Shabbat, it gives us this principle directly from the Torah. Rav Ami said, "There is no death without transgression, and there is no suffering without sin." So this is a pretty short statement, but it's huge. First, he's telling you there's no such thing as someone dying without them making a sin, with the exception of four people. The Gemara, Masechet Shabbat, same page, just a little further on, 55. without a transgression, and there's no suffering without sin. So this is a pretty short statement, but it's huge. First, he's telling you there's no such thing as someone dying without having committed a sin. With the exception of four people. The Gemara, Masechet Shabbat, same page, just a little further on, 55a. It says there are four people throughout history who died without making a sin. The only reason Hashem caused their death is because of the sin of Adam, the original sin. Aside from that, they committed no sins. Who are these four people? One of them is Amram, Moses' father. Another one is Yishai, King David's father. Another is Binyamin, Yaakov's son. The fourth one is Kilav, one of David's sons.

6:32So, we have four people throughout history that are noted in Gemara Masechet Shabbat, page 55b, saying there are only four people in history that didn't sin. They died because of the original sin. They died for a sin of a previous generation, many, many, many years before. But for the rest of us, the only reason someone ever dies is because of some type of sin they made in their life. However, it also says something else: there's no suffering without sin. So wait a minute, first you die because of the sin, then you suffer because of the sins. Which one is it? So here we see that there's a significant difference in the words for sin in Hebrew. Chet is a sin that was accidental. You didn’t know it was a sin. You didn’t mean to. You accidentally ran into the light switch on Shabbat and turned it on. Not on purpose. Accidentally you ran into it. In the days of the Sanhedrin and the days of the Beit HaMikdash, you have to bring a korban. You turn on the light on Shabbat, you have to bring a korban for doing it by accident. If you did it on purpose, and there were two witnesses, you'd be sentenced to death. There's no teshuva for that. You turn on the light on purpose, and it's not a joke; you don't just bring the korban, you become the korban. Do you understand? Now, why do you have to bring a korban for turning on the light by accident? Come on, Hashem, relax. I didn't mean to turn on the light. Why do I have to bring a korban? It's not a cheap korban; it's a whole cow.

8:01$10,000, $20,000 for one light. Hashem, relax. Let me be like the poor people, bring a little bird. One light, I have to spend $20,000? You really need this korban, you really need this cow? There are 15 million other people bringing a korban every Shabbat. Why do I have to bring my korban? Because in reality, Hashem is trying to tell you something. That accident you made... It should have never happened. If you had the proper amount of Yirat Shamayim, if you had the proper amount of fear of Hashem, you wouldn't have even dared to make an accidental sin. And the korban is just a reminder that in reality, you're supposed to be the korban. In reality, you're the one that's supposed to die right now. But have mercy. Because if I judged that strictly, the whole nation wouldn't survive a week. But that's an accidental sin. For a sin done on purpose, there's no teshuva. No teshuva. Where do we learn it from? Tzelofchad. Tzelofchad, whom we're going to read about in a few months, is the first Shabbat violator in history. This is in the Torah. This is not Chazal, not Rashi, not Midrash. This is an actual story in the Torah. A person named Tzelofchad, a week after we received the Torah, meaning we've only had the Torah for two weeks.

9:29He violated Shabbat. They arrested him. And Moshe came to Hashem and said to Him, "Hashem, what do I do with him?" What do you mean, "What do you do with him?" He knows the Torah, Moshe. Moshe was already at Har Sinai. He knew the Torah. He doesn't know what to do? The question is not whether to judge him and execute him or not; the question was, what kind of death penalty is he going to get? The worst kind or the second worst? And Hashem says, the worst kind: kill him with stoning in front of the entire nation. So for anyone who is still wondering whether Shabbat is important or not, or has family who is wondering whether Shabbat is important or not, they should know; they should read the Torah to learn about a person by the name of Tzelofchad, who violated Shabbat only one week after we got the Torah. This means that if there was ever leniency from Shamayim, Say, you know what? You only had the Torah for a week. You didn't read the whole book. Come on, it takes us a year to read it, and we're dedicated. In a week, you're going to read the whole Torah? You didn't read the whole book. Relax, Hashem, no? Now relax. I gave you Shabbat—you have to keep it. So if he didn't have an excuse, we definitely don't have an excuse because we're 3,330 years later. We had enough time to read the Torah. And this is why the Kavod also says...

10:58That someone who commits a sin as a result of lack of knowledge—if the lack of knowledge is just because he studied but just didn't get to it, then it's shogeg. It's accidental. But if it's a lack of knowledge because he just chose not to study, then that sin becomes intentional; it becomes mezid. No one shows up to Shamayim with millions of shogeg sins if he studied Torah. It's either meizid, it's either on purpose, or there's no sin. Or very few accidentally you haven't gone through because you didn't complete the whole Torah. So here the Mishnah is telling us that chet is an accidental sin. Avon is on purpose. So Rav Ami here in the Gemara is telling us one of the foundational things that is going to explain to us this Mishnah and actually a controversial issue called reincarnation, Gilgulim. He's saying here, if someone made an accidental sin, then they're going to get suffering.

12:13Because in reality, you're supposed to get the death penalty, but I'm going to give you suffering just because I'm going to give you another chance. The suffering is actually a reward. The suffering is called kaparat avonot. Just like the kaparat avonot that I had on the way here. Getting into a car accident, I probably made some type of sin. It doesn't happen for no reason. Or you think I'm a tzadik? I make sins also. So, I did something. I don't know what I did. I have to do some cheshbonot when I get home, b'ezrat Hashem. I have to do some cheshbonot shamayim, see what's going on. What did I do? Cheshbon hanefesh. I have to figure out what I did to get into a car accident on the way to a lecture. Okay, on one end I can explain it in a nice way, say it's the Satan's fault. But the Satan doesn't have rule over the world. I have to sign off on something. I have to do something to influence him, to give him permission. So suffering is kapparat avonot. For anyone who did not hear my personal story, my personal teshuva story, it's in the CDs. It's the first track on the black one. It's a very popular lecture, Baruch Hashem, people from all over the world have been influenced by it. It involves millions of dollars, fame, fortune, a medical mystery, a medical disaster, and seven years of fighting for my life until I found the truth.

13:32It's an interesting story, Baruch Hashem, I'm not going to go into it now. But nonetheless, as the prophet Yirmiyahu starts the third chapter of Eicha, the book of Lamentations, he says, I know suffering. That's how he starts the book. I know suffering. He saw the Churban Beit HaMikdash; he saw a river of blood of Am Yisrael. He knows suffering. On my small level, I know suffering too. Like him, I understand the weight of suffering. However, when the Torah tells me that if you have made a sin, you're going to face suffering, I have an answer. I've faced suffering, but when it speaks of avon, a more grievous sin, you get the death penalty. This is when someone makes an intentional sin, and Hashem essentially decrees that your time is up. That’s the consequence of receiving a death penalty for certain sins. ...like him, but I know suffering. So when this tells me, "Here, you made a sin; you're going to get suffering," I have an answer: "I got some suffering." But then it says aveira—you get the death penalty when someone makes an intentional sin. And Hashem pretty much says, "Your time is clocked out; we ran out of time." That's what we get a death penalty for. So then the Mishnah continues, or the Gemara continues, and it says, there is no death without a transgression, without an accidental sin. And he uses Yechezkel 18:20 as a source, Tzidkat ha-Tzadik alav tiyeh.

14:52The soul that sins, it will die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, nor shall the father bear the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him. So here we see that he explains the Mishnah in a very simple way. telling us that if you're suffering for any reason whatsoever, there's a reason for it. If someone dies, whether it's early, late, there's a reason for it. If this gulgolet, if this skull is here, there's a reason for it. Now many people like to go after Rabbi Mizrachi because of some things that he said and taught. about reincarnation, about autistic children, about children that die at a young age, about people that get diseases, people that are born with different types of disabilities. In reality, anyone that has actually studied a little bit of Torah would know that everything he says has a source.

16:15This being one of them. This is the Gemara. This also comes from the Zohar. It comes from Kabbalah. It comes from Divrei Chazal. It comes from Reshit Chochmah. There are countless sources that back everything that he says. Why does everybody still not like to hear it? Number one, because they're ignorant and they don't think there's an actual source. And number two, because it's not politically correct to say that someone that came to this world with a disease of some kind, or someone that died early. It's his fault. Doesn't sound nice. But Hashem told you it is. Hashem told you it is his fault. It doesn't necessarily make him a bad person, and it doesn't make you better. But if we don't take responsibility for our actions, how are we going to do teshuvah? So, first and foremost, anyone that wants to learn a little bit about Gilgulim, about reincarnations, everything that we really know as far as understanding from reincarnation and all of the mystical parts of the Torah, most of it came from the Zohar and we got it from the Arizal. His student wrote a book on his behalf called Sha'ar HaGilgulim, The Gate of Reincarnation, and from there we have a lot of different secrets.

17:30Now, most people, myself included, in the past, thought that reincarnation is cool. It's great. I get another chance. So if I don't do teshuva now, I'll do teshuva next time. So I do teshuva. If I'm not going to keep Shabbat now, Shabbat's going to return. These tzaddikim are telling me that I'm going to come back again. Some say we're going to come back three times. Some say more. This Tehillat Hazara says that three times you come back and people think, oh, I only have three chances, so obviously from here, this may be my last chance, maybe not. It's a 50-50 shot. So, to explain that, it's not three chances. It could be many, many chances. It's just three chances as a human being. Three chances in a row as a human being. After that, it's a Baal Chayim. After that, it's an animal. Setelah itu bisa menjadi sebuah tanah, setelah itu bisa menjadi sebuah domain, sebuah rakah. Ada bukti-bukti berbeda, bukti-bukti ilmiah tersebut juga. Seseorang yang ingin melihatnya, sebenarnya ada rakah yang bergerak. Di hutan, di tempat-tempat berbeda di hutan, di Amerika, di Tenggara Amerika, di tempat-tempat berbeda di seluruh dunia yang memiliki hutan, sebenarnya ada rakah yang bergerak.

18:52Obviously, they don't move like us, and they don't go to the store in five minutes, but if they actually took cameras and left them there for an extended period of time, they saw that the actual rocks moved across the desert and made streaks on the ground. Just like the car behind me, right before it smashed into me, made some streaks, the rocks also make some streaks. There's also a pasuk in the Torah where it says the rocks that scream. What does it mean, rocks that scream? Why would a rock scream? There's a part of a soul there. So that's one example of how the essence of everything in creation can have a spiritual component. So, it's not three times and we're out, it's three times as a human being. Now, obviously, an animal can't do the ultimate t'shuvah like a human being can. So, in essence, the animal's goal would be if there is a neshama in it. Not every animal has a neshama. Some are just animals. Some have a human neshama in them, which is a huge level of suffering, by the way, for the right neshama to be in the wrong body. But, in essence, this is...

19:56A topic that a lot of people don't feel comfortable with because when you really understand a Gilgul, when you really understand reincarnation, you understand that in general, all reincarnations, all of them are a form of punishment. It's not a good thing. It's a good thing because it's a form of Hashem's mercy, not to give us, you know, eternal punishment, chas v'shalom, but it is a punishment. Because once the soul leaves this world, it gets an opportunity to see the real world. Once it sees the real world, it realizes that there will be eternal good, eternal greatness, and eternal pleasure. Then it's told, "Hey, listen, you have to go back. You have to go back." What is it like? The sages explain that this is like someone who had some financial issues and told his family, "Listen, I'm going to go away..." to a faraway place to go make some money, and I'll come back in a few years. Not like today where you go on a plane, and three hours later you're in a different country. Back then, you had to travel on a boat. Sometimes just the trip would take six or seven months. So he went six or seven months on a boat. Now if he went six months on a boat, he's not going to stay there for only a month. He worked there for a few years, two, three, or four years. After that, the same trip back. He's already been gone for five years.

21:14Sends a letter before he got back, so make sure that the family waits for him at the place where he's going to land. Finally, he gets there. He's about to give his family a big hug and a kiss, and the border patrol stops him and says, "Oh, we have a description of someone that looks exactly like you, and it says here that we're not allowed to let you in." He says, "Why? What did I do?" So, you borrowed $10. $10 from some guy named Shmuley, in the place that you are in, and you have to return it. He goes, "You know how long it took me to get here? It took me six months to get here, and I've been gone for four years. In six months, I haven't been gone for five years. You want me to go back all the way over there for $10? Listen, I'll give you $1,000. What's $10? I'm going to go back there for $10? I'll give you $1,000. You send it to him and keep the other $900 for yourself. Sorry, sir." We're honest people; we don't provide such a service. The only way is for you to go back, pay the ten dollars, and then come back. This is what a gilgul is; this is what reincarnation is. Someone that borrowed ten dollars from a friend or someone that borrowed a hundred dollars from a family member...

22:40did not return it in their life, unless that person said, meaning, "I forgive you," which most people don't really think about. Unless that debt was forgiven, it's considered stealing; it's considered gezel. You stole it, and no one that has gezel on his hands can go into Gan Eden. Meaning, you could be Rabbi Akiva; you could have mitzvot like Moshe Rabbeinu. You get to Gan Eden, the gate, sorry sir, you still owe $10 to Tzvika back in Israel. You have to go back. They have to put you into another body, and this, they say, Chazal says, is a higher level of suffering than some parts of Gehenom. Because here you saw, it was right there, it was within your reach. I made all my mitzvot, I did teshuvah, I kept Shabbat, I kept this, I kept that. $10 I have to go back to this life of suffering, and who says that I'm going to survive? I'm going to do teshuva again. That I'll keep mitzvot this time. I'm not going to fall for the girl. I'm not going to fall for the guy. I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do that. Who knows? Gilgul is not exactly something we should rely on. You have a chance. You have a chance to do teshuva now. You have a chance to do good now. Now, sometimes we have

24:07a person that came to this world in what looks to us like an unfortunate situation: autistic, brain-damaged, all types of disabilities. And people have a very, very hard time talking about this because they think that they're miskenim. They think that they're poor people. Baruch Hashem, over the last probably 25 to 30 years, maybe even longer, we've had technology that allows us to communicate with some of them, not all of them but some of them, many of them, and in many cases, we found out a lot of different secrets of what they really feel, what they really think, and there's actually proof, the scientific proofs that some of these people have told us that they still have knowledge and memory of their previous lives. We've had technology that allows us to communicate with some of them, not all of them, but some of them. Many of them, and in many cases, we have found out a lot of different secrets of what they really feel, what they really think. There's actually proof, scientific proof, that some of these people have told us that they still have knowledge and memory of their previous life. One of them has made, there are a few of them who have made videos you can watch online. One of them I remember watching one time. They communicate with him through a computer, and they ask him all different types of questions. He keeps telling them that they need to do teshuva, they need to do teshuva. And they ask, "Okay, but why are you here? Aren't you suffering? Isn't it bad for you?" He responds, "I made a really big sin. That's why I came back."

25:34So, you say a really big sin, what are you thinking? Automatically, you're thinking karet, you're thinking Shabbat, you're thinking zera levatala, wasting seed, you're thinking he married a goya, you're thinking the worst possible thing in the world. So he made a really big sin, he had a very hard time admitting what the sin was. Finally, he admits, he says, I said lashon hara. I said Lashon Hara, that's why I came back as a brain-damaged person in this world. Lashon Hara. Does any one of us here finish a day without saying Lashon Hara? Forget a lifetime. We go to Beit Knesset to say Lashon Hara, or at least gather some ammunition so we can say Lashon Hara afterward. Have something to talk about, make the day interesting. So now, automatically people say, "Oh, miskin, he's suffering so much." They ask them this. He says, "You should feel bad for you." He says, "I'm a tzaddik," he says. "I'm almost done with my tikkun. And then I'm going to Gan Eden. You have a long way to go," he tells them. These neshamos that come down,

27:00and autistic children or brain-damaged people — their knowledge, they feel bad for us. They feel bad for us because they already know the truth. We feel bad for them because we don't know the truth. What are the sins that they made? I'm not God; I don't know what everybody's sins are. What I do know is that Chazal tells us, the measure-for-measure punishment did not cease to exist from the world after the Beit HaMikdash was destroyed. There are certain mitzvot in the Torah that are no longer applicable. We can't make korbanot. We don't have a Beit HaMikdash. Even though one of my students keeps asking about making a korban, I keep telling him we can't make a korban. I'd like to join them to do it, but we can't make a korban. Once the Beit HaMikdash was built, no more korbanot. Once the Beit HaMikdash was destroyed, no more korbanot. Only korbanot is allowed, sacrifice is allowed in the Beit HaMikdash. So that is an enormous mitzvah. If you look at the 613 mitzvot that we have, biblical mitzvot that we have, you'll see that many of them, a large percentage of them, have to do with korbanot, with sacrifice. This means that a large part of these mitzvot that we got from Hashem, we can't do.

28:29So this is missing. But it's not up to us. Hashem made this rule. So some things are no longer valid. Some things are no longer applicable until the Beit HaMikdash, the third one is built. But Hashem is specifically telling us here, my measure for measure, the way I calculate punishment and reward, measure for measure, with or without the Beit HaMikdash, is valid. With or without you agreeing with it, it is valid. With or without you liking it, it's valid. And this is something that is the reason why the Rambam put it as one of the 13 principles of faith. Whether we like it, don't like it, believe it, or don't believe it, it doesn't make a difference. Why? Because it has countless sources in the Torah. So, each time one of these souls comes here, obviously it's very difficult for the family around them. May Hashem have mercy on them. Each time we see it from an outside perspective, it looks even worse. We don't know how they deal with it, you know, even for one day. But in reality, Chazal is telling us that everyone in that situation has a reason for it. Now, to think otherwise,

29:44When people are trying to be politically correct, and they're saying, oh, you're saying that this guy watched pornography, and that's why he's blind. You're saying that this guy said Lashon Hara, and that's why he can't speak. You're saying that this guy stole, and that's why he can't move his arms. You know, all types of things that make logical sense. If you stole, then you wouldn't have arms. If you violated the Torah through your eyes, you wouldn't be able to see. It makes logical sense. It's not a one-size-fits-all. It's not that every single blind person watched pornography. But it's a logical explanation. It's a hypothetical example. But to think anything else, meaning to think that a person is blind and he's purely a misken, just like, "Poor guy, he didn't do anything," or "No, he's a tzadik, he's a good guy," to think that is actually kefirah. To think that he doesn't deserve that punishment is kefirah against Hashem. Because, in essence, what you're saying is that Hashem made a mistake. Hashem shouldn't have given him blindness. Hashem shouldn't have given him poverty. Hashem shouldn't have given him disability. To say that Hashem should do something or not is a problem. The best explanation, the most correct explanation, is the one that we have from the Torah. There's no suffering without sin.

31:09Even though a lot of people don't like to hear it, and a lot of people don't like to talk about it, this is something that's very, very important because it's something that's repeated constantly. Every time someone wants to go against a rabbi who rebukes, or a rabbi who helps people do teshuva through what the Torah says, and through the instructions that the Torah provides, and he mentions things like this, the first thing they mention is, "Oh, he talks about autistic people," "Oh, he talks about blind people," "He talks about this, and he talks about that." Yes, the Torah talks about it too. And this is the Mishnah. This exact Mishnah is telling us that Hillel, whom we learned about from previous Mishnayot, emphasizes the importance of understanding the greatness of a teacher through his students. To truly appreciate how good a teacher is, one must first recognize the caliber of his students. The Gemara in Masechet Berachot explains that a student may take 40 years to fully grasp what his rabbi really said. What does this mean? I attended the drasha and listened to the rabbi, yet it takes time to truly comprehend his teachings. After that, I had a meeting with him. I understood what he said perfectly. He said, no. To really understand what the rabbi really meant, if the rabbi knew you, if it's personal advice, the rabbi knows you, it will really take you 40 years to understand what he means. Just like Am Yisrael took 40 years to finally understand the greatness of Moshe Rabbeinu. So, Hillel said about his top student,

32:31was Yonatan ben Uziel. His worst student was Rabbi Yochanan. Yonatan ben Uziel was so holy that whenever he would study Torah, it would create a spiritual fire; if a bird flew over him, it would catch fire. I study, and nothing happens. Bird flies, bird doesn’t fly, sometimes doesn't even look at me. He studies, and fire. Bird goes on fire. I think about fire. Rabbi Yochanan was the least of his students. What did Rabbi Yochanan know? He knew the entire Torah by heart, all the Midrashim, all the Shulchan Aruch, all the Gemara, all the Zohar, all the Mishnayot, all of Maaseh Bereishit, meaning what happened before this world, and all of Maaseh Merkava, what happens beyond this world. Also, if that's not enough, he also knew the language of the shedim. Shedim would come, and he would talk to them. Demons come, and you talk to them. We see a demon, and we run away. We get a heart attack. He would talk to them. Malachim come, and they talk to him also. He knew their language. If that wasn't enough, once in a while he'd talk to trees and birds. He knows the language of the trees and birds. We barely know how to spell "bird," but he knew how to talk to them.

33:58This is the least of Hillel's students. And this is Hillel that's saying this. This is the Hillel that's talking about this skull. And he's saying, you, skull. You're only a skull floating over here because you made a sin. You killed somebody, and that's why somebody killed you. You made somebody's skull float in the middle of the river and not have a proper burial. And that's why Hashem did it to you. And the people that did it to you will also get the same thing. Somebody like that you should listen to.