UNITY! UNITY! UNITY! The BIGGEST CHIZUK EVENT of the Year RABBI YOSEF MIZRACHI & RABBI YARON REUVEN

0:39Shavua Tov to everyone. Sorry, Shavua Tov to everyone. It's a pleasure for me to be here and to see everyone gathered together. First and foremost, I would like to just say that to be here and to be in front of all of these people, and I know that there's people watching online from the networks, from the Ganim, it took a lot of work. everyone gathered together. First and foremost, I would like to just say that to be here and to be in front of all of these people, and I know that there's people watching online from the networks, from the Ganim, it took a lot of work. We started working at the end of last summer. And before we got a team together, Baruch Hashem, if this team wasn't put together, we would not be here tonight. I'd like to just name the team because they deserve a big Yasher Koach. They work day and night, mamash. Yedidya,

1:59There's Isabel. There's also Ricky Benaroch. There's Adina Sibat. Did I forget anyone? I don't think so. Baruch Hashem, they all worked together. And I have to say that two of them, I have to mention, Yadid Abba Yosef and Isabel Zuzmarchi, went above and beyond any expectations that any of us had. They worked much through the night. I would go to bed, at about 1 or 2 in the morning, wake up 3 or 4 as the baby was crying, and I would get messages. "Can we get this? This person said this. Can we arrange this?" And it takes a lot of effort, but Baruch Hashem, I'm very happy to be here with everyone, because there's a good friend of mine, a rabbi in the city, every time I see him, he says, "Baruch Hashem, we give a lot of respect to doctors." And they do receive a lot of respect, and they do deserve it, because they work hard for it.

3:20But these people worked to bring neshamos and to save these neshamos. Because at the end of the day, after 120, when the doctor has no place anymore, and he also gets to 120, only the neshamos stay. And they're the ones that we have to work on, everyone according to their level. Everyone has his own tikkun, everyone has his own difficulties. But when we gather today, and when we gather on nights like this, through the keteret, through the title of unity, and all coming together for Torah, Then HaKadosh Baruch Hu shines light on us ad bli dai. You have no idea how much light we bring down by every single person's little effort—by sharing a message, bringing someone over, sending them the video after, and sharing it so that the Divrei Torah can touch their hearts and can serve as a refuah. They can be mamash a doctor for the people that they save, and they give a refuah, health to the neshama.

4:26I don't want to take too much time. I just want to give, before I forget, certain names that we're doing. And a person that is, I'm going to ask everyone to answer amen to. Two people that are in critical, one person that is in a critical condition. Their name is certain names that we're mentioning. And a person that I am going to ask everyone to answer "amen" to. Two people who are critical, one person who is in critical condition. Their name is Avigayil Meral Basha Baila, and also Aharon, the child. And to it, before I give the speaker to the Rabbanim,

5:31I would just like to explain a little bit what Shalhevet stands for. Shalhevet was created on a, we can say, a shlichut from Rabbi David Abuhatzeira. When I was living in Eretz Yisrael during the first year of our wedding, and we said that we had to come back to Montreal because my father was sick. Many of you knew my father. And he passed away a few months after we came back. But before coming to Montreal, I went to see Rabbi David. And I asked him, I said, we're going back to Montreal, I have to be there for my father, I have to be there for my mother, I have to be there for my sisters. But I feel like I want to stay here because Eretz Yisrael is where we should be. So I told him, if I'm leaving Eretz Yisrael, should I build a Beit Midrash over there? He said, not only do you have to do it, you have to build a Beit Midrash in Montreal. And you have to give shiurim, and you have to bring people to the Torah, and you have to give the message to the people of the Torah. And Baruch Hashem, we live on His brachot. Just this week, He blessed everyone, and He blessed us to be here.

6:50And Shalhevet started that way because I have my uncle who is in Paris, who has the zechut to have at least 2,000 students go through him a year, my father's brother. And he also has the association over there that's called Shalhevet. So I told him that we would take the same name and build the same type of organization here in Montreal. And b'ezrat Hashem, since 2011 that we are back here, we've been working. For those who know us, for those who come to shiurim, we're at the synagogue Beit Hameram on McCary, where the resident Solomon used to be. We give shiurim, baruch Hashem, there every day. And we not only give them internally, but we go and do these events because we know that a lot of people... From these situations of all being together and united, and when we're all together, the effect is a thousandfold. It's not just because you probably have 300 more people here tonight, that it's 300 effects. It's 300...

7:52a few hundred times fold. Why? Because when we come together, there is nothing that can separate us. And at the end of the day, that's what HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants from us. He's looking to see how His children are behaving, and if they're together, and if they're caring for one another. And how do we care for one another? Not just with money, not just with health, not just with food. We have to make sure that we are here to accomplish what He sent us to do. Yesterday, most of you stood up like the minhag is in the city for the aliyah, the sixth aliyah. When the rabbi goes up, we stand up for the Aseret HaDibrot. We can say that He came to us and spoke to Am Yisrael as one. And it's the time that it is written in the Torah and is told over to us. So, Baruch Hashem, we take that strength with us tonight. And we do the same thing. We're all here to say, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, we want from the Torah. We want to listen. We want to change, everyone at their level. We want to hear the truth. It's hard? Yes, it's hard. Sometimes it's very hard. Just like when you go tell someone that smoking is hard and you have to stop. It's the same thing.

9:08It's hard, but you have to make that choice. You have to make that effort. You have to listen to the way it's supposed to be listened to. Baruch Hashem. I pray that HaKadosh Baruch Hu opens our hearts, that we can serve Him, that we can make Him happy, all together, individually, and as a klal. And, Baruch Hashem, without taking more of your time, I welcome Rav Yaron Reuven to come and speak to the crowd. If I can please ask everyone just to make sure to turn off their phones. Hold the microphone, you should feel like you're in a spaceship.

10:12So, first of all, thank you everyone for having me and Rabbi Mizrahi. I know Rabbi Mizrahi is much easier than having me. But first, you know, a big thank you, a big zechut to Rabbi Gadifra, Isabel, Albert, and Yedidia. and all of the people that were involved in the last couple of months to make this event happen. The goal of today is to find out a little bit more about Achdut. You know, people love to talk about Achdut, how Am Yisrael is supposed to be together, be together, be together, but between us, don't tell anybody. Who are we kidding? You give a Russian guy some Moroccan food, he's going to tell you, were you trying to kill me with the spices? You give it to the Moroccan guy, the Russian guy's food. He's like, I wouldn't feed my cat this food. What are you talking about? Gefilte fish? Are you out of your mind? The first time I went to a friend of mine's house, he had some red dish, which all Sephardic dishes are red. What is it? It's red. It's good. Okay. It's spicy. Okay. It's good. And I start eating it. It's like, what is this? He goes, it's gefilte fish. I said, stop it.

11:30No, don't lie to me. I don't eat gefilte fish. I'm Sephardic, no? What is it? It's gefilte fish. I said, how can gefilte fish be red? He goes, it's Tripoli. Gefilte fish from Tripoli. I said, okay. But really, you know, we can't even get along about food. We can't get along about which Beit Knesset to go to. We can't get along, quite frankly, about anything. So how can we keep talking about Achdut? How can we talk about Achdut? How can we talk about unity? What unity do we have? The Ashkenazim like the Ashkenazim, the Sephardim like the Sephardim, and everybody hates each other. What? Really, let's be serious. What achdut do we really have? Baruch Hashem, our Torah, kedusha, tells us a couple of times that we've had achdut. It tells us a couple of times that we've had achdut. And the Torah is not just a book of laws, which really that's the main thing that it is, but it's also a little bit of a history of a little bit of the history of Am Yisrael, not necessarily of what we've done and what we didn't do, but actually what worked and what didn't. Now, if you look at the world today, it doesn't really make a difference if you are religious or not. Everyone agrees that the world is upside down. A year ago, it looked like everything was going great.

12:54Over the last year, a lot of things have changed. The economy is shaky, the market is shaky. You have a virus that no one knows how to control. You have elections in America where people want to kill someone off. You have almost a revolution in almost every country, whether it be in Africa or in Israel. You have a lot of things happening. So unity is the last thing that's really on anybody's mind right now. But really, the Torah tells us there are a few times... We had unity. The first time we had unity was at Teivat Noach. Teivat Noach, everyone knows, even if you're not religious, everyone knows the story of Noach, at least some of it. That HaKadosh Baruch Hu simply had it with the world. He said, you don't want to keep any mitzvot. You don't want to do this. You don't want to do that. Instead, you want to do the opposite of what I want? Okay, so I don't need this world. Let me destroy the world. So what unity was there? The unity that Parashat Noach describes is the unity of the animals. The animals were united. Suddenly, the lion looked at the zebra, and he didn't think about lunch. He said, "Hey zebra, you're here too? Okay, b'seder." He looked at the calf, he looked at the sheep, and he didn't eat it.

14:14Now, even though there are some Midrashim that say that up to that point they were all vegetarian, still, how come they didn't fight? If you see two cats together, they fight. Two dogs together, they fight. Over here, you have a million animals in a little boat, and no one's fighting. We had unity. What was the reason for this unity? Unity. The reason for the unity, Rabotai, is because no one wanted to get into a fight and be the first one thrown out into the disaster that's outside, into the destruction that's outside. Another time we had unity was in the same parasha, in the Tower of Babel. A bunch of reshaim, a bunch of wicked people, decided that they wanted to take on Hashem and fight Him. So they wanted to build a tower to get to the sky and fight Hashem. get to the sky and fight Hashem. They were united. This is actually the reason why Hashem didn't kill all of them. He killed the people of the Flood, but He didn't kill the people of the Tower of Babel. The difference between the two: the people of the Flood He killed because, even though they were sinning, they weren't united. The people of the Tower of Babel were sinning, but they were united. Unity counts for a lot in Hashem's eyes.

15:38even when it comes to sins. But obviously, this didn't work out very well. Hashem doesn't like sinners, whether they're united or not, and eventually, He turned some of them into monkeys, some of them into elephants, and some of them He scattered all over the world. The point is that we had another moment of unity at this time. The next time we had unity was in last week's parasha, parashat Yitro. And last week's parasha, in chapter 19, verse 2, it says that Am Yisrael parked. Parked at the bottom of the mountain. And Am Yisrael was there, Am Yisrael was encamped there. And Rashi, our commentator from 900 years ago, says that Am Yisrael was united not only in flesh and blood, but also in spirit. They all had one heart, they all had one goal.

16:45They all had one purpose. What was that purpose? To fulfill the will of Hashem. Even though they all had their own individual desires. This guy wanted to buy, you know, to open a store. The other guy wanted to, you know, sell stuff. The other guy wanted to get married. Everybody had their own stuff they wanted to do. But they had one common denominator, which is that they all wanted to do the will of Hashem at that point. They all wanted to be at Har Sinai. They still didn't know what they were getting themselves into. But nonetheless, they all wanted to be there. So we see that we have three different things that unite us. One, is if we're all in trouble, like the generation of the Mabul—we all were forced to be inside a teivah (an ark) because we didn't want to go into the disaster that's outside. Two, we're all making sins. or three, we all do what Hashem wants. Those are the three possibilities of being united. Now, the Haggadah of Pesach, we have a song that's sung by everyone, Dayenu. And at some point, we say, even if You would have brought us to the mountain, to Mount Sinai, but didn't give us the Torah, Dayenu, it would have been enough.

18:13So the Rav MiBrisk says, what do you mean? Why would it be enough for Hashem to bring us all the way to the mountain, all the way to Mount Sinai, after He made all these miracles, and not give us the Torah? Isn't the whole point getting the Torah? So Rav MiBrisk says, there are really three possibilities of how a person can be united with the rest of his brothers. Either they're all in trouble, or they're all making a crime against Hashem, or they're in it for a good reason like the Torah. If Hashem brought us over there, even if we're not in trouble, we're not making sins, oh, it's good enough that we even got that, we got united. That's how valuable unity is. But there is one problem, Rabotai. The problem is, that we know that making sins and being in trouble are not options that we want. But yet if you tell people, come for a shiur Torah, it's not every day that you get 500 people to show up. Now, the Gemara, Masechet Sanhedrin, page 97b, talks about the end of days. What's going to happen before Mashiach comes? Now, people love to talk about Mashiach,

19:29Sometimes they live in a fantasy, thinking that Mashiach is going to pay all of their bills, fix all of their ailments, as if he's Social Security and welfare, and maybe the Red Cross too. People have a little bit of a delusion. They go, "I can't wait for Mashiach to come." Why? "Oh, he'll take care of my debt." Mashiach is not going to take care of your debt, I promise you. He's not going to take care of your debt. "Oh, all my troubles." What kind of troubles do you have? Mashiach is not going to be the welfare. But people want Mashiach to come. Now, the sages spoke about Mashiach very differently. I promise you that not one time in the Gemara will you find the sages screaming "Mashiach now." Never. You're never going to see the sages say, "I can't wait for Mashiach to come." Never going to see it. In fact, you see the opposite. You see Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, the rabbi of Rabbi Akiva, Say, I want Mashiach to come, not while I'm alive though. I want him to come because that's when Hashem's climactic point of the world is going to arrive when Mashiach comes. So I want it to happen, I want Hashem to be happy. But I don't want to be alive during that time. That's what one of the greatest rabbis Am Yisrael ever had said. And many followed. Why? Because of this Gemara I'm about to read to you.

20:56When the sages spoke about Mashiach, they didn't give any discounts. They didn't sugarcoat, and they definitely weren't politically correct. And they said the following. Rabbi Eliezer, the same Rabbi Eliezer that I just spoke about, says, if the Jewish people do teshuva, which means they have to start keeping Shabbat, Taharat Mishpacha, kosher, and be honest in their business. Meaning, if they start changing their lives to do what God says and not necessarily what they feel like doing, if the Jewish people do teshuva, they'll be redeemed. Meaning, the Mashiach will come, will bring them salvation, and they will not have to worry about the goyim killing them, pogroms, inquisitions, and the Holocaust. All of that will simply be a distant memory. But if not, they won't be redeemed. Meaning, if they don't do teshuva, Mashiach's not coming. So Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi says, what do you mean he's not coming? Let me elaborate on your point. It's not that he's not coming. It's not that the Mashiach is not coming. He's coming, whether you like it or not, he's coming. But if they don't do teshuva, the conditions change.

22:13If they don't do teshuva, if Am Yisrael does not start keeping Shabbat, if Am Yisrael does not start keeping modesty rules, if Am Yisrael does not start keeping kosher, both in business and in their mouths, if they don't start doing it, then Hashem is going to force a situation on them. How? He's going to force them to do teshuva by sending them a leader like Haman that's going to force them to do teshuva. And the Midrash Tanchuma elaborates on that. He goes, what does it mean? He's going to send them a leader like Haman. Haman didn't really torture us; he just wanted to kill us. But he didn't torture us. He says, no, that's the difference. If it's at the time of Mashiach, then it's going to be like Haman with additional torture, like a Haman-slash-Hitler, yimach shemo. That's the condition. If they do teshuva, Mashiach can walk in right here, right now, and all of us are celebrating, we're all going to sing together. If we don't do teshuva, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi says, okay, Hashem says, you're going to do teshuva one way or the other. It's just going to be under a different condition. What's the condition? I'm going to send Haman. So here we see, that the Midrash Tanchuma in Parashat Bechukotai...

23:34Scares the living lights out of us by telling us that, yeah, he's coming for sure; he's coming. The question is, under what kind of condition is he going to come? Now, the good news is that at this point we will have unity. But do we want that kind of unity, though? Do we want that kind of unity that comes from a Holocaust? Anyone that spent a little time reading some of the stories of what happened during the Holocaust, you probably heard the stories of the Rav MiTzanz, the Klausenberger Rebbe. He was an Ish Kodesh, that just to do what he did every day, maybe we need to work a lifetime. If you heard him pray just a regular Mincha prayer, regular Mincha everyday prayer, and you didn't start crying, you should check your pulse. Maybe you're not alive. The way he prayed regular Mincha every single day, the way he cried to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, I don't know how he's human. I don't know how he's classified as human. Now, this is a person that not only survived the Holocaust but thrived during the Holocaust, despite the fact that Hitler, yimach shemo, murdered 11 of his children and his wife in the Holocaust.

24:58but anyone that asked him why this is happening, why did we have all this happen to us, the Klausenberger Rebbe didn't get confused. He had an explanation. One guy shows up to America after the Holocaust, a couple of years after the Holocaust, and he comes to a rabbi and he says, I'm a Jew. Can you help me discover what it means to be a Jew? You're a rabbi, right? So the rabbi looks at this guy and he sees this guy has tattoos everywhere. He says, "Yeah, you're a Jew like I'm an Indian. What's Jewish about you? What makes you a Jew?" He goes, "I'm definitely a Jew." He goes, "What makes you a Jew?" He goes, "I'm a Jew." He goes, "Your mom is a Jew?" "I don't know if she's a Jew. But I know that in the Holocaust they said I was a Jew." He says, "But what makes you a Jew? Do you have like a Jewish name?" "No. No." Do you remember any learning? Maybe you went to yeshiva? He goes, what's yeshiva? Forget about that. Do you remember the prayers maybe? You know a prayer, something? He goes, what's that? He goes, okay, forget it. Do you have any songs? He goes, ah, songs I have. He goes, I have a song. What song do you have? He says, I have a song that I heard hundreds of times during the Holocaust. He says, what song is this?

26:23He says, this song is a song that stuck in my mind. And it says, because you did not serve Hashem with happiness and joy, you will now serve your enemies. And he has this Chassidic tune to it. He says, this is the song you remember? He goes, this song I'm never going to forget. He goes, where did you learn this song? He says, listen, there was this one guy in the Holocaust, in the barracks over there. Secretly, everybody called him the Dayan. This guy was a rabbi. But you can't tell the Nazis this is the rabbi because they like to torture rabbis extra. But this guy was a rabbi. I didn't know what a rabbi really meant. All I know is that's what they called him. Now every time I looked at him, he was always like saying this: "Because you didn't serve Hashem with happiness and joy, you're going to serve the enemies." What kind of song is this? One time, the Nazis, yimach shemam, wanted to have fun with the Jews by torturing them. And they wanted us to run up and down 500 stairs with a 30-kilo rock. And they made me and him run together up and down. If we survived, good. If not, the Nazis had a good laugh at it. Now, a lot of people didn't survive.

27:50But the whole time I was there, what made me survive was because I couldn't stop hearing the rabbi sing the whole time. The same song. And he's not singing it crying. He's singing it happily. And I said to him, "Rabbi, Why are you singing now, of all times in the world? You're not scared you're going to fall? You're not scared of what's going to happen? He says, "No, my son, you don't understand. This pasuk, this verse, is a testimony that the Torah is real." Why is this pasuk? Why? He says, "Because just like HaKadosh Baruch Hu says there are blessings that come if we do certain things, the opposite also applies." And the opposite is exactly what we're living, which shows that when He said it, He meant it. And he says, this was the Klausenberger Rebbe. There was no confusion whatsoever. He wasn't one of those people that went to Hashem complaining, "Why did You do this to me and why did You do that to me?" He knew, he understood that HaKadosh Baruch Hu has an ultimate purpose for all of us.

29:02But the truth be told is that Hashem didn't bring us to this world in order to punish us. He brought us to this world in order to reward us. And that's really the ultimate purpose of creation. He told us that He is good, but in order for Him to be good, He has to create good. You cannot say, "I'm a good person," but be selfish at the same time. You cannot say, "I'm a good person," but the only person that you care about is yourself, and that's it. It's not possible. In order to be good, by definition, you have to create good. So Hashem says, "I want to give you good. Because I am good, I want to give you good. But I also know that if I give you good for no good reason, then that, in essence, is the opposite of good." If you have your son come to you and say, "Ima, I failed every single test this semester. Can I get a present?" Now you're laughing, but there are some kids telling their parents that same exact thing. And sometimes they get the present. Would you classify those parents as good parents or bad ones?

30:23They're not such good parents. If the kid failed every test, you can't give him a present. If you give him a good present, then all you're doing is enabling him to become a criminal because he thinks that failure is a good thing. On the other hand, if the kid says, listen, I passed some, I failed some. Okay, maybe. A present for the good, not such a present for the bad. If he did really well, then you get a big present for everything. But the point is that everyone understands the concept of reward and punishment. It's not a big genius thing. HaKadosh Baruch Hu is the same way. He says, if I give them good when they do the opposite of what I told them to do, it's bad. It's not good. Which means, Rabotai HaYekarim, that when we do not do what Hashem says, in essence, what are we doing? we are stopping Him from providing us the good that He wants to give us in the first place. We're tying His hands behind His back; we're forcing Him to give us bad. And the Sages say that's part of the reason why He punishes us. Because, in essence, what does He really want to do? He wants to give us good. But He cannot give us good unless we do good. So, in essence, that's the reason why HaKadosh Baruch Hu is very serious about the things that He said. Now,

31:45If a person pays attention to some of the things that the Sages said, he sees that every time that HaKadosh Baruch Hu mentions any type of punishment, there's also a reward next to it. But by the same token, we see that the reward doesn't necessarily come easy. Now, in last week's parasha, we hear about Yitro. Yitro. It says, Yitro heard, he was the Kohen Midyan, he was the former Pope of Midyan, and he came down to Mount Sinai with Moshe Rabbeinu's wife, who was Yitro's daughter, and his kids. Now, if you're trying to, let's say, bring somebody closer, You're trying to get them closer to Judaism. What is the traditional approach? It's probably not what I've been saying for the last half hour. It's probably a little different. Usually, the traditional approach is, you know what, if you do good and you keep Shabbat, Hashem is going to give you a bunch of money.

33:02And if you keep taharat mishpacha, Hashem is going to give you a bunch of money. And if you keep kosher, Hashem is going to give you a bunch of money. Because the first two bunches are not enough. So you get more money. And if you do this, you get more money. And you get health, and you get this. And in reality, it doesn't really work. Why? There are plenty of people keeping kosher who don't have any money. There are plenty of people who keep Shabbat who don't have any money. There are plenty of people who keep taharat mishpacha and they're broke. So how can we keep telling this to people? Why do we keep telling people, if you do what Hashem says, He'll give you a bunch of stuff? He'll give you stuff, give you a car, give you a shidduch, give, give, give, give, give, give. It doesn't really work. Sometimes, but not always. It's not like a foolproof system. But you know what does work for sure all the time? Telling people the truth. Even if it's inconvenient. Even if it's inconvenient.

34:03And Moshe Rabbeinu teaches us this in this week's parasha. When Yitro comes to him, Moshe Rabbeinu says to Yitro all of the travel that has befallen them on the way, He tells Yitro, you just came from Midyan, you were comfortable over there, you were wealthy over there, you were popular over there. Well, you want to join us here at Mount Sinai? We're about to receive the Torah. Listen, before you decide to join us, I have to tell you a lot of stuff that's happened to us. The Egyptians tried to kill us. And then we didn't have any food. And then we were stuck in front of the ocean, and we didn't know what was going to happen. There were anacondas on the right, scorpions the size of humans on the left. We weren't sure what was going to happen. We almost died. And if that wasn't enough, there was a bunch of guys fighting. And if that wasn't enough, we didn't have any water. And he starts telling us all about problems. What kind of kiruv rabbi is Moshe Rabbeinu here? Shouldn't he come, listen, why should you be a guy, be a Jew, you'll have a lot of money. You'll have cars and houses. Why didn't he tell him any of this stuff? He told him all of the problems that Am Yisrael has had so far. And he tells him all of the suffering they endured in Egypt.

35:21how if you didn't meet the quota, they would kill your kids, and now if you didn't do this, they would kill somebody else, and now if you didn't do that, constantly killing people, constant suffering. That's what Moshe Rabbeinu was telling Yitro. Now the Gemara, in Masechet Yevamot, on page 47a, says, what are the conditions to converting somebody? You know, today, the world is very different. For the first time in history, people want to convert to Judaism in massive numbers. There have always been people who wanted to convert to Judaism, but now it's on a massive scale. People from all over the world want to become Jewish. Now, this may make sense to you, because maybe you like being a Jew, but in reality, for a goy to want to be a Jew, it doesn't actually make any sense. It doesn't. Yesterday you were allowed to eat pig and shrimp and bats and cats. Today you're not allowed to eat anything but chicken and cow and calf, and only if it's kosher, from the best kashrut, and if not, the mashgiach is going to catch you and say, hey, it's not good.

36:39It's not good. Rabbi Yifat says, no, it's not good. Why? You have to make sure it's kosher, 100%. And he's right. He's right. But yesterday I ate bats and cats, like the Chinese. What's the problem? The problem is if you're a Jew, you're not allowed. So why should I convert? In reality, it doesn't make any sense. Yesterday you were able to drive on Shabbat, no problem. Today, you drive on Shabbat, death penalty. Now, since we don't have the Sanhedrin, we can't kill anybody who drives on Shabbat, so Hashem takes care of business. That's His business. We have a job of helping people stop driving on Shabbat. Hashem, His job is to have patience until we do it. But the reality is, for a non-Jew to want to be Jewish doesn't make any sense whatsoever, yet you see it on a massive scale. Why? The Gemara Masechet Avodah Zarah, page 3b, beginning of 4a, says a prophecy of what's going to happen before Mashiach comes. Many people would want to become Jewish, even though it doesn't make any sense. So the Gemara says, what are the conditions of converting them? The old-fashioned conditions, we don't really follow these per se anymore, because it's much more difficult today to tell who's real and who's not.

38:07But the real halacha is this: he comes to the beit din and says, "I want to be a Jew." And they say to him, "Listen, why do you want to be a Jew? Don't you realize that the goyim are trying to kill us every other day, that they torture us at every opportunity, and that every other week there's some type of problem that Am Yisrael has? There's a Holocaust, there's a pogrom, there's an Inquisition. They're going to blame us for something; they blamed us for the Black Plague, what do you think, they're not going to blame us for corona? At some point, just give it time." Everything that's wrong in the world, they have to blame the Jew. Why? Who else is there to blame? Themselves? Are you crazy? They're going to blame us. Why would you want to be a Jew? If the goy responds to the Beit Din and says, yes, and I'm not even worthy to be like them, meaning they're so great with all these problems, they still serve Hashem, I wish I was like them. The Gemara says we convert them on the spot.

39:08We tell them a little bit of the small laws. We tell them a little bit about the big laws. We tell them, listen, if you drive on Shabbat, Hashem is going to kill you. If you eat, you tell them some things, but you convert them on the spot. No questions asked. This is amazing. This is amazing. Why? The Gemara tells us, that this guy who didn't have to keep everything, it doesn't actually make any sense for him to keep, says he wants to keep despite the fact that it doesn't make sense, and we convert him right away. But the first thing that we do is we tell him about our problems. Don't convert without knowing about our problems. Remember the Holocaust? Yeah, that was our people. Remember the Spanish Inquisition? Yeah, that was us too. Black Plague, they were killing us. England in the 1100s, that's us. In Rome, Greece, us too. Turks, Spaniards, us. Everybody tried to kill us. Just know, that's what you're joining. Why? If you want to be a Jew, sacrifice has to become part of your life. If you're not willing to sacrifice, you're never going to be a good Jew. So now, Rabotai HaKedoshim, what's our final point?

40:27Our point is this: We have an opportunity to sacrifice everything for the sake of Hashem. Everything for the sake of Hashem. We can sacrifice certain desires that we want and realize that Hashem doesn't want them, and therefore, we stop. We can sacrifice our time that we want to waste and instead invest it in learning about Hashem. We can sacrifice our money that we want to use to buy a bunch of different things we don't need, and instead use it for the sake of publicizing Torah. You have to make sacrifices. Hashem says if you make those sacrifices, then you'll be the reason why I bring the Mashiach in a good way. But if you don't, and everyone continues to be selfish, only doing things that fit their own life, their own house, and even their own community, but nothing outside, and we don't have unity, then HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, you still did not learn the point. and everyone continues to be selfish, only doing things that fit their own life, their own house, and even their own community, but nothing outside, and we don't have unity, then HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, "You still did not learn the point." In order for us to have unity, it could only come in one of three conditions: Either we're all doing something wrong, which doesn't end well, or,

41:46we all are sanctifying Hashem's name. We're all doing something good. Like today, Baruch Hashem, we're all learning Torah. Or Hashem says, we're all fighting for our lives. Now, when Yitro came to Moshe Rabbeinu, Yitro did not expect this kind of news. Moshe Rabbeinu told him, "Listen Yitro, if you want to be part of Am Yisrael, you have to understand that this trouble, this suffering, this is how Hashem runs the world in order to keep us Jews. Anti-Semitism is something we need in the world. I know this sounds like the opposite of what you hear. Why would I need anti-Semitism?" Anti-Semitism is terrible. I agree it's terrible. But we need it. Why? Right now in America, there are over 80% of Jews marrying non-Jews. That means 8 out of every 10 Jews are marrying non-Jews, and Judaism ends with them. In some sections like Denver, over 90%. Over 90%. That means you have a better chance of winning the lotto twice in one year than actually marrying a Jew in Colorado.

43:06And that's when the Americans have already declared that 50% of them hate Jews. And that's with anti-Semitism at 50%. Imagine there was 0% anti-Semitism. We'd simply not have Jews. So anti-Semitism and all of the different troubles that happened to us on the road... There are different ways that HaKadosh Baruch Hu calls us and tries to get our attention. Not because He wants to punish us, not because He gets a pleasure out of punishing us, but rather this is the way He runs the world in order to keep His sheep, keep His herd contained, and not go out of control. Now, we can help all of it by simply understanding that Hashem gave us rules. He says, you have seven days in a week, one day I want for Me. It's called Shabbat. On Shabbat, you're not allowed to drive if you're a Jew. If you're a non-Jew, drive as much as you want. If you're a Jew, you're not allowed to drive on Shabbat, not even to Beit Knesset. On Shabbat, you're not allowed to cook. You're not allowed to work. There are certain things you're not allowed to do on Shabbat. Hashem says that Shabbat may not mean a lot to you.

44:31but Hashem says that Shabbat means a lot to Me. Why? Because I created Shabbat for you. I created Shabbat just for you. I don't need Shabbat. Hashem has everything. What did He do for Shabbat? In essence, He minimized Himself by taking the creation that could have taken Him an instant to create and spreading it over six days. So you can have one day that He doesn't create, and that will be the same day that you don't create. And therefore, you would feel like your Father in Heaven. So He says, I created Shabbat for you. So you take that present and throw it in My face? That's not so nice. That's like a bride and groom arriving at their wedding day. Everyone's excited. And the groom tells the bride, "Listen, I have a present for you. Why don't you open it?" This big present shows up, and they see the big box. They open the big box, and there's another box in it. They open the small box, and there's another box in it. There's another box, and another box, and another box. After 15 minutes of opening boxes and building up the crowd's excitement, they finally get to a little box.

45:49And she opens the little box and you see there a hundred-million-dollar diamond. Everybody's like, "Ooh, ah, ee," all types of noises. You're not even sure if they're pets or they're humans. But everybody's impressed by this diamond except the kallah. She looks at the diamond, says, "Eek," and she throws it in his face. How many of you by a show of hands would still marry this girl? Nobody? So she's going to stay alone? Well, that's us when we violate Shabbat. When we violate Shabbat, that's the same thing. It's actually worse. Because the ring you bought in the store, some guy made it. Shabbat, Hashem made it. And He made it just for you. Now sometimes we think, "I keep Shabbat already, Rabbi. I'm religious, so this half-dyslexia is not even for me." Wrong. If your Shabbat is not the best day of the week and it's so good that you're already starting to prepare for it on Monday, then how good is your Shabbat?

46:53Shabbat is supposed to be a taste of Olam HaBa. A taste of Olam HaBa, meaning you're supposed to think of Olam HaBa on Shabbat. If you're not thinking of Olam HaBa on Shabbat, okay, so you have some work to do too. That means, Rabbi Tzvi, that all of us have an opportunity to take a small mitzvah and turn it into the biggest mitzvah that we can even imagine. And that's one way that we can sanctify Hashem's name and bring better judgment not only to ourselves but also to the nation. But lastly, since the lecture is not going to reach all of Am Yisrael right now, what do we do about the rest of us? We heard the truth, we heard what we need to do — fine. So, a few hundred people here are going to do it, a few thousand people are going to do it on the internet, but everyone knows there's a lot more than just a few thousand Jews in the world. Now, one of the things that the Sages said, that every person is going to have to answer for at the time of Mashiach, is that Mashiach is going to ask us, "What did you do to bring me? What did you do to bring me?"

48:17Now, if we're going to answer him, why learn Torah? He says, thank you, but you learn Torah for yourself. Because if you don't learn Torah, you don't know how to be a Jew. How could you know how to be a Jew if you don't learn Torah? Why do you keep Shabbat? Why? Because some rabbi told you? Maybe he's lying. Or why do you keep Pesach? Oh, because it's in some book. Did you ever read the book? Oh, so you don't really know. So you're just keeping, just like a robot. Meaning, if you don't learn Torah, you don't know how to be a Jew. So, in reality, you learn Torah for yourself. Oh, but I did mitzvot. You did mitzvot for yourself. Why? You want to go to Gan Eden. You want to go to Gan Eden? You have to learn Torah. You have to do mitzvot. You want to go somewhere else? Don't do mitzvot. Don't keep Torah. There are two options. 50-50. The point being, the Torah and the mitzvot you did are for yourself. I prayed. You prayed for yourself. What did you do for me? Mashiach is going to ask you.

49:17And the truth is, there's only one thing we can do for Him. Torah and mitzvot, that's for us. Prayer, that's for us. Saying "Mashiach now," I'm not even sure who that's for. There is one thing we can all do. It's called gemilut chasadim. It's called overwhelming kindness. But we have to clarify what kindness means. Kindness does not mean if you make challah and you don't really like the taste, so you give it to your neighbor to eat and make it seem like it's a favor. That's not kindness. That just means you want to get rid of food and you don't want to throw it out. What's real kindness? Overwhelming kindness, rabotai, is giving something to someone that is priceless and that's not something that they could simply get on their own so easily, or perhaps they're not getting it because they're not aware it's available. Now, what's the greatest gift that you can give someone? If you bought them a car, the car is going to go bad in a few years. If you bought them a house, in a few years the house will be too small.

50:32Materialism ends at some point. What's not going to end? Heaven. Gan Eden is not going to end. If you give somebody an opportunity to get to Gan Eden, that's the greatest kindness you can possibly give them. Now, how do you get somebody to Gan Eden? By simply introducing them to the truth. Both Rav Mizrachi and I, Baruch Hashem, work day and night to try to help people discover the truth. Just like we're doing here in Montreal, Baruch Hashem, we'll do in different places. And we continue to do it year after year. Baruch Hashem, he's been doing it for over two decades. I myself have been doing it for five or six years. The key is that we have one job on our mind, and that's to introduce people to the truth so at least they know how to get to Gan Eden. So they don't arrive in Shamayim confused, saying, "Oh, I didn't know how to get here." Now, there's only one trick to get to Gan Eden, and that's to fulfill the Torah. But most Jews don't know that. Most Jews think that just by them being Jews, they're automatically going to go into Gan Eden. It's not true. In order to go to Gan Eden, you have to fulfill the Torah. There is no other way. If you don't fulfill the Torah, you cannot enter it.

51:46Now, the beautiful part is that the message doesn't actually take that long. You give him this lecture, a link of this lecture will be publicized tomorrow. He watches the lecture. Maybe he likes it, maybe he doesn't like it. Maybe he likes me, maybe he likes Rav Mizrachi. Whatever he does, the point is he'll get something out of it. He'll use it in his life to change his life, in order to go on a path that's actually going to help him or her go to Gan Eden. And you now have given this person a present that he can never repay you for. In fact, it's a present that the only one that can repay you for it is Hashem Himself. Because Hashem is going to ask you, "What did you do in order to bring the Mashiach?" And the only correct answer is if you helped other Jews get closer to Hashem. That's the only thing that you can do for Hashem: bring more and more of His children closer to Him. Because He has everything else; money He doesn't need—it's all His. Your house He doesn't need—He already has a house. He doesn't need anything else other than His children to come back home. He's been looking for us for over 3,300 years. Now imagine, He's been looking for His son or His daughter for 3,300 years.

53:08And the son doesn't come home. But finally, you get them. You give them one of the CDs that's outside for free, or one of the flyers that I put out there for free. And you give them the movie. You give them the CD. And he watches it, she watches it. They start doing teshuva. The next thing you know, they start saying Shema Yisrael every day. They start putting on tefillin every day. They start keeping Shabbat once a week. They start keeping kosher. They start doing teshuva. They start going to shiurim. They start inviting you to shiurim. They start becoming more religious than you and me. Guess what? You just saved this person's olam haba. And you just gave Hashem a favor. That's the only thing you can do for Him. This, Rabotai, are only two things that I would suggest a person focus on. themselves doing teshuva, by keeping Shabbat, by keeping all of the mitzvot, by learning Torah every day, and by focusing on helping Am Yisrael. Because those are the only two things that will create true unity. All other unities are not unities we want. We don't want the unity that comes from sins, of us sinning together by going to some baseball or football game or some concert. We don't want that kind of unity. It's called Sodom.

54:26Anyone that knows the story of Sodom and Gomorrah knows it didn't end so well for the Sodomites. That's not the type of unity we want. We also don't want the unity of the generation of Noach. We don't want the generation of Noach. We don't want to have unity because we're forced to be in one little cage because we want to survive. Because there's disaster outside. We don't want that kind of unity. The only unity we want is unity that's comprised of Kedusha. And that unity needs us to do teshuva, and b'ezrat Hashem, the rest of our brothers and sisters to do teshuva as well. Baruch Adonai le'olam. Amen ve'amen.

55:28Without taking any time at all, we're going to give the microphone to Rav Mizrachi. for his inspiring words. And just a reminder that B'ezrat Hashem, after Rabbi Mizrachi speaks, we will have the raffle as it was written on the flyers. After that, whoever wants to stay, there will be an open period with no time limit. If you want to stay until 2 in the morning, you're welcome to do so. The Rabbanim are here to answer. There's a question and answer period. that will be held here after we do the raffle. For whoever wants to stay for whatever questions, whether they are personal or public, the Rabbanim are here for us.

56:34Good evening, everyone. It's my great honor and pleasure to be here tonight in Montreal and to see a lot of wonderful friends, familiar faces from over the years. We even had a big Shabbaton here once in this place. Thank you very much, Rav Gad Ifrah, for this wonderful organization and all the team that helped to organize it. The greatest investment in life is to organize Torah activity. Whether it's live events, online, or in CDs, or any possible way to bring the knowledge of Hashem to people, nothing is greater than that. If people would know the value of the reward of bringing people closer to Hashem, they would run after an individual for 70 years. The greatest investment in life is to organize Torah activity. Whether it's live events, online, or in CDs, or any possible way to bring the knowledge of Hashem to people, nothing is greater than that. If people would know the value of the reward of bringing people closer to Hashem, they would run after an individual for 70 years. with sorrow and pain and aggravation, just to get one person to become religious. That was already a great achievement in a person's life. That's what the Zohar in Parashat Terumah says. The Zohar is the Kabbalah, the Jewish mysticism, the mystical part of Judaism.

57:59which most people do not really touch in their lifetime. It's for special scholars. It also says in the Zohar that in the next world, everyone who is righteous will have eternal life. And he is going to cash out on all the achievements that he attained in his lifetime. He can either make it big time or he can lose big time. It's free will. Nobody forces you to go into any one of the two sides. That's what the Rambam, the greatest rabbi in the last thousand years in Halacha, the Rambam Maimonides, writes in the Laws of Repentance that there is no power that pushes a person to the right side or to the left side, to the positive or to the negative. Rather, the person chooses 100% what to do. To be righteous or to be wicked is 100% in a person's hand. Everything else was decided for you. If you'd be smart, if you'd be not so smart, you'd be handsome, you'd not be handsome, pretty, not pretty, rich, poor, healthy, not so healthy. Who are your parents? Where are you going to be born? How are they going to raise you? Everything was already decided for you.

59:23From the minute you were created, the night that your father and your mother were together, there was an angel who took one drop and went in front of God and said, "Dear God, what's going to be the fortune of this drop of seed?" And all the decisions, one by one, were made for you. Except one decision: if you will be righteous or wicked, it's 100% in your hand. You can be a generous sponsor of great things and help the poor, help the yeshiva, help Torah, help with a lot of great things. Or, you can be a thief. Nobody forces you to be this and nobody forces you to be that. You can be a modest woman. You can be a woman that is not modest. You can be a Jew that keeps the Sabbath, the eternal covenant with God. Or you can be a Jew that rebels against his Creator, disregards the Sabbath, and violates all the rules of the holy covenant that God made with the Jewish people. You should know one thing: the only religion in the world, from more than 80,000 religions—fake religions are popping up every week in the world...

1:00:40From these 80,000 religions, there's only one religion that can be proven 100% scientifically, that leaves no argument, no doubt whatsoever. Only if the person is 5% honest, doesn't have to be so honest, 5% honesty he has, after 20 minutes of argument, he gets the point. Because all he needs to do is read my book. preparation for eternal life, after one or two chapters, no arguments anymore. How do I know? After 25 years of experience, I should know by now, no? I'm still looking for the one person that had something to contradict the Torah. You'll never find. People speak a lot of nonsense, obviously, every minute a new thing. But when it comes to reality, it's all baloney. There's now one solid argument against the Torah. The only book that can be proven 100% as the book of God is our Torah. And you want to hear something unbelievable? Who do you think are number one on the list of the deniers of the Torah? You have thousands of, I don't know, hundreds of nations

1:02:00Go ask the Christians—two billion people. Do you believe God gave the Jews the Torah in a public event in front of millions of witnesses, and all the Jews heard the voice of God speaking to Moshe in a public event? Everybody witnessed it? Do you believe it? Every Christian will tell you, "Of course. What's the question? It's in our New Testament. That's what we hear in the church. That's what every priest is preaching. That's how we grew up." That's our tradition. Our religion is based on your religion. Without you, we have nothing. Ask 1.8 billion Muslims. Do you believe God gave the Jews the Torah in a public event? Of course. What's the question? Where do we know all the names? Ibrahim, Yusuf, Maryam, Musa. Where did all these names come from? Ismail. It's all from your Torah. If we denied your Torah as the book of God, would we call our children by the names of the Jews? Would we call our children Abraham, Ibrahim? Where did we get those names from? Not only that, we don't eat pork. Where did we learn it from? We don't charge interest from each other. Where did we learn it from? Our women dress modestly.

1:03:21Where did they learn it from? And many other hundreds of things that they do. It all comes from the Torah. The only ones that dare to challenge and argue against the Torah are Jews. That's the reality. You don't believe me? In one minute, I'll prove it to you. If you know a little bit about Israeli politics, there are 120 members in the Israeli Knesset. 14 of them are Arab. Almost all 14 are pro-terrorism. They're not hiding it. They speak in the Knesset in their speeches about killing Israelis. They're very happy that Jews are dying. They're speaking openly. One thing I like about the Arabs is that there's no hypocrisy there. They tell you to your face, "We're waiting for the moment that we can slaughter you." They're not smiling at you, asking, "How are you doing? It's a beautiful day," and then plotting against you once you leave the elevator. It doesn't work like that with them. If they like you, they're nice. Some of them are very nice. You come, you speak to them. "Oh, I just came from Israel," one Arab told my friend.

1:04:35In Hebrew, you know what it means? This is a superb Jew. That's how all the Jews should be. Why? All I did was give him a little respect. Made him coffee, gave him something to eat. Treated him very nicely. He's willing to die for me. There are people like this. Actually, believe it or not, the majority of the Arabs are like this. But the ones that are terrorists, they show you in your face as soon as they see you that they're waiting for the moment they can choke you to death. They're not hiding it. They're not pretending and smiling. Right in your face. But one thing, you ask the terrorist, do you believe that God gave me the Torah 2,000 years before your Muhammad? Of course. No argument. Now let's talk about Israeli politics for 30 seconds. You have 120 people sitting in the Knesset, each one of them worth 50,000 people. To sit there, you need 50,000 voters.

1:05:38That's roughly about 6 million options, I mean, from the amount of citizens that live in Israel. Let's analyze it. Eight seats go to a person named Lieberman whose declaration in the election is, "Give me the power to destroy the Torah and the religion and the yeshivot." That's 400,000 Israelis right there. that say, we want to destroy the Torah, to destroy any memory of this God and this Torah. 400,000 people, Lieberman. Then we have Lapid. Lapid is about 14, 15 seats. Massive. How many? 15 times 50,000. 750,000. What are we standing on? 1,150,000 Israelis who say, give us the control that we should destroy Judaism. That's almost 1.2 million people. Then you have Meretz. Five seats, sometimes six.

1:06:47That's almost 1.2 million people. Then you have Meretz. Five seats, sometimes six. It's every minute on TV. That's all they talk about. They don't speak about Iran. They don't speak about economy. They don't speak about rights to the elder people. Nothing. Just let's cancel Brit Milah. Let's cancel Shabbat. Let's make Shabbat a regular working transportation day. That's almost 300,000 people. What is it? 1.45 million people already in Israel that say that all we care about is to destroy the yeshivot and the Jewish heritage. That's all they care about. If you don't believe me, just watch their commercials now before the elections. It's every minute on TV. That's all they talk about. They don't speak about Iran. They don't speak about the economy. They don't speak about the rights of the elderly. Nothing. Just "let's cancel Brit Milah." "Let's cancel Shabbat." "Let's make Shabbat a regular working transportation day." Let's close the yeshivot. Let's throw the religious people into the garbage. That's all they can talk about. That's right there, 1.45 million people. Now you have the guns. Guns, guns themselves. It's another 16, 18, half of them also like that. But they also care about other things. So they don't vote for the others, they vote for guns because they care about this and that. But they're also anti-religion. So before we even start, we have two million people in Israel that all they care about is to destroy the Torah. Now, I want to ask you a question.

1:08:08Do you think that one of these two million people who wants to destroy the Torah and erase any memory of it, has ever read one page in the Torah and knows how to explain the words in simple Hebrew? One, from the two million. If you find me one, I'll give you a very nice prize. Two million Israelis, all they speak about is destroying the Torah. Not one of them can explain one chapter in the Torah. In simple words, forget about Kabbalah, forget about secrets, forget about Rashi, forget about Gemara, Midrashim, forget about all the things around, forget about it. I'm not expecting any of that. I'm just saying, explain to me in simple Hebrew like they explain in first grade in Yeshiva. Chassidic, Litvish, Sephardic, first grade, they already know how to explain the Chumash.

1:09:11They begin to learn. So the little kid, "Hey Mendel, tell me what's the parasha says." He'll explain to you what the words mean. "Hey Moshe, come explain." He'll explain to you. Go to the Prime Minister of Israel. Tell him, "Explain to me one chapter in the Torah." He has no idea. Ask all these politicians who speak to destroy the Torah, to destroy the religion. Not one of them has ever read the Torah once in their life. They have no idea what it talks about. The level of ignorance is below zero because an average Arab knows more Torah than them. An average Christian knows more Torah than them. But they speak their entire life against something they have no idea what it is. Sounds very foolish, I know, but that's reality. Can't deny it. You disagree with me? You bring me one person who knows how to explain the meaning of the words of the Torah, find one secular guy, and I'll give you a thousand dollars in front of a camera. Find me one in Israel. I've been doing this for 25 years; they don't know. You know what, forget about it. I'll go even further with you. To read one page in a Rambam without mistake, find me one person who can. To read Hebrew, almost nobody knows it.

1:10:32Here I say almost nobody knows, because some very intelligent people, they may know how to read, which is a great achievement. To know how to read, forget about knowing the Torah. The Torah, you know, you have to learn. If you learn the Torah for 1,000 years, you still don't know 1% of it. Rechava y'mineyah is larger than the ocean. But people think, we're talking about some tradition over here. What are you talking about? All the philosophers, all the greatest people in history, the doctors, the smartest people in history lived 100% according to the Torah. They did not move an inch from one of the laws of the Torah. As a matter of fact, it takes five minutes to prove to all Christians that they all live in a lie. Why? Because when you ask them, who's your hero, they will all say J.C. So, you admire JC? Of course. Whether you believe he's the son of God, whether you believe he's the Messiah, you obviously give him a lot of respect. So you ask him, based on JC's legacy, what's the obligation of every Christian in the world? The answer is...

1:11:50to keep all the commandments of the Torah and not to change even one of them. Where did JC say it? In the New Testament, in the book of Matthew, chapter 5, verse 17 to verse 19, it's written, I did not come to contradict the Torah. I did not come to change the Torah. Not to change even one letter, like Yud. Yud is a small letter. Not even a part of the Yud. If anyone will change one letter from the Torah and will teach people otherwise, they will be cursed by the Kingdom of Heaven. Meaning, translation, J.C. said to the group of people that he had in his cult on the street, if anyone will dare to change one letter from the Torah or one of the commandments, God will curse him for eternity. Do you know one Christian that keeps one mitzvah of the Torah? Correctly, you don't have. Not even the priests. First thing is, you have to ask the priest, why are you not married? What would they say?

1:13:04Intimacy between a man and a woman is not something holy. If you want to be holy, you have to suffer all your life and be alone. I don't want to tell you the results of this ideology. Where does it lead us to? Because the Torah says the exact opposite. A person without a woman is an incomplete person. The Torah says, a person can never reach his full potential without a woman, a companion to support him and to be with him. The first mitzvah in the Torah is to get married and have children. The first mitzvah of the Torah from the 613. Why is it the first one? Because without it, there's nothing to talk about. There's no continuation to the world. No continuation to the world. If you want to reach a high level... When Hashem created Adam, He looked at him, and saw that he was alone. He said, "It is not good for man to be without a woman. I will make him a partner."

1:14:07a partner. And what does it say right after that? Once you get married and you find your woman, you even leave your parents, who are the most important people in your life, and your wife becomes the number one person in your life. That's what the Torah says. What does the priest do? Forget it, we have to be alone. It's contradicting the Torah. Why is it? Because they don't know Torah. They know a little bit here and there, but they don't know what the Torah says. We, the Jewish people, are so lucky that if we knew how lucky we are, we would run in the streets like crazy. Like, you know, these fans that their team wins. I think a year or two ago, the Canadian team won the championship. Do you remember how people ran around and screamed all over here? Do you remember or no? Was it basketball, no? When was that, two years ago or more? Huh? One year ago? Not 20 years ago. I'm talking, I was here. Couldn't drive anywhere. Toronto, yes, Toronto. I know Toronto and Montreal are two different cities. But don't exaggerate. Anyway.

1:15:29You saw people running out and going around in the street like they won the whole world. What did they win? One guy took a piece of leather and threw it into the net. Yes! What's the achievement? Honor. Fame. Glory. I'm the best. The ego. Feeling the ego. I'm the best. Ask a lot of these stars that make, I don't know, 15, 20 million dollars a year. This year, you're going to make only 5 million, but you're going to win the championship. Or you make 15, and you come last in the league. Ask them, what do you think will be their answer? Oh, we want the championship. Why? That's our dream. And what exactly is the championship? Taking a cup, going like this. We don't hold a piece of metal and go like this and cry. We have the Torah, the book of God, the Creator of the world. A piece of metal like this. One American congresswoman came to Israel. When was that? Simchat Torah. So she drove in the street with her driver, and she saw Jews in the street, you know, in Israel, on Motzei Simchat Torah, they're all dancing with music in the street. She asked, what's the party for?

1:16:55So the driver, the Israeli driver, said to her, "They are dancing with the Jewish book of law." That's how he explained it to her. So she said, "I wish in America people would hold the Constitution and dance like this." We have to tell this madam that the reason in America nobody dances with the Constitution is because corrupted people wrote it. So there's nothing to dance with. But our Constitution is the Creator of the world. It's 100% pure. It's 100% the truth. And the most important thing is it's the key to the life of eternity. As the Torah says, I'm giving you today the good and the life and the good, the bad and the death, and you should choose life. Meaning you can choose death. What do you mean, "choose death"? Most people don't commit suicide, even though now the number of suicide cases is the highest it's ever been in history, which I'm going to talk about in a few minutes. Why are people so sad and depressed nowadays? What's going wrong? What went wrong here?

1:18:10But the Torah says, "I am putting in front of you today the good and the life, and I put the bad and the poison. And you will decide which one you want to eat: from the tree of life or from the tree of death." It's 100% in your hands. Therefore, in the end, you have no one to complain to, no one but yourself. You can complain, why didn't You make me pretty? Okay, you have a case. Why didn't You make me so smart? Okay, you have a case. Why am I not so rich? You have a case. Everything that Hashem decided, you can argue, you can ask, hey, why did You make me like this? Why am I not healthy? Why don't I have legs? Why am I blind? Everyone with their problems. But why am I wicked? There's only one person to blame, it's yourself. That's the beauty of it. Because now everybody gets exactly what they deserve. But you know what? It gets even better. You don't only get what you deserve based on your actions. The Torah says, I'm paying each one of you based on the fruit of his actions. Fruit of his actions. Fruit. What came out of the tree? The tree is one thing. The tree, you go, you buy a tree, $3,000, you plant it.

1:19:28Right now it's empty; there's nothing. You wait six months, and it's full of oranges. You take a thousand oranges, you sell them, you make two or three thousand dollars, whatever you make. Next year the same, next year the same, forever. This investment brings fruits. You're getting paid by the fruits. How many fruits are coming off the tree? The more fruits you get, the more money you make. Very simple. Same thing here. The more mitzvot you make, the more your next world will be superb. And there's no limit. It can go higher and higher and higher and higher. Every little commandment changes your status. Every little commandment. You and your friend did exactly the same. You did in the end one more mitzvah than him, you're already higher than him. The jealousy is tremendous in the next world. When you see people you knew learned with you in the same yeshiva, prayed with you in the same synagogue, you grew up together. You had greater potential. You were much smarter. But you were lazy. And your friend, who was not so smart but was a hard-working person, when you see in the next world that he is in a higher place than you, you can't forgive yourself. What a fool I am. I had more tools than him to succeed, but I was lazy. I wasted my time on nonsense. And look how much he achieved.

1:20:55One thing we should know is that when you conduct business today, let's say you have a car, and your car is not driving well. You need to take it to the mechanic. The mechanic asks you, what's the problem? There's an electrical problem. The mechanic says, okay, come back at 3 p.m. You leave the car in the morning and come back at 3 p.m. You show up at 3. "Sir, the car is all opened up. Everything, every box is open, wires everywhere. Sir, we have very, very serious difficulty locating the problem with your car. You will have to leave it overnight." Sounds familiar, right? At least to me. "You're going to have to leave it until tomorrow. Don't worry, they'll give you a loaner car." Good. Next morning you call, "Is my car ready?" "Still not, still no luck. Call back at 4 p.m."

1:21:56Next day, next day, next day, Thursday already. He gave them the car Monday, Thursday. Tomorrow it'll be ready for sure. We're close to finding the problem. Friday afternoon, soon Shabbat. Hey, is my car ready? Just come and take your car. We're going crazy here. What do you mean? We cannot find the problem. No matter what we did, we cannot find the problem. Just come, take your car, and get out of here. You come to the garage, you're so angry. They're angry. You are angry. You come in. You say, I'm sorry. We tried all week. We couldn't find the problem. We're 20 years in business. We never saw such a thing. Okay. He gives you the bill. Here is the bill. What? What's this? $3,000. Labor parts. You say, excuse me? I have to pay you? You know what lawsuit I'm preparing for you? You're talking to me about me paying you? What do you want? Where is your heart? We walked from Monday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and today. We worked on your car for 50 hours. Each hour is $100. It's supposed to be $5,000, but because we didn't fix the problem, we only charge you three. You should be very happy. We gave you 40% off. Makes sense or no?

1:23:22From the mechanic's point of view, it makes a lot of sense. You work like a dog, what do you want? He has to get paid partially by the hour. But in this world, you only get paid based on achievement. You achieve nothing, you get zero. Sometimes you even get a punishment. If you didn't fix it, they'll sue you. Not only do you get nothing, but you also end up paying after you put in time and effort. We are very lucky that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is not like that. Imagine if He would pay us based on achievement. Where would we end? The good news is that He pays us based on our effort. And effort, everybody can put in. Even the dumbest person. Even the poorest person. Even the least talented person you ever met. Effort, everyone can put in. In what you do, you find what you know how to do, and you put in effort.

1:24:28Based on the efforts, that's how the reward is. So what are we saying here? You can have two guys in yeshiva. They both learned 40 years in their life Torah. One became Chacham Ovadia Yosef, the biggest Chacham in the world. And the other one became a regular, simple avrech. Nothing special. Nobody knows him. But the one who became nothing great... Maybe he put more effort into the learning because his brain is not so capable. The other one was very sharp, very smart, and caught everything quickly. It's fantastic to learn Gemara when you have a super sharp brain. This is where you enjoy the most in life. Who enjoys learning Gemara? Sharp people. The people whose brains are not so sharp and not so fast and don't have such great concentration and memory, it's very difficult for them to learn. You see the difficulty on their faces. Who gets a greater reward? The one that is not so famous. Why? Because he put in more effort and it wasn't as delicious in his mouth, the Torah that he learned. Same thing with a woman. If a woman is not modest...

1:25:45And she becomes modest now in her clothing. Her friend doesn't have a challenge; she has always been modest. That's the way she grew up. That's the way all her parents were, and her grandparents for generations. She doesn't have any temptation to dress immodestly. The other one grew up in Manhattan, in a worse place, in the village over there, where one walks naked. You're not sure sometimes if you're on a street or in a zoo, by the way people dress, because in a zoo, nobody gets dressed. The animals have no obligation to get dressed. See, animals have no shame. They can do the most intimate thing in front of a crowd, and they don't feel that something is wrong because they are animals, and they don't have a divine soul. but a person that has a divine soul is supposed to be embarrassed to behave like an animal. And if you find that a person is walking in the street like an animal and is not embarrassed, you have to check what is sick in his soul. What went wrong? I'll give you a parable, you'll understand. If you have a nice car, you spend $200,000, you bought an expensive car. If instead of gasoline you put milk, and instead of oil, you put water, how long exactly will the car drive? It will choke, smoke will come out, smells will come out. Not exactly going to function. Let's analyze our life today. Most people in the world, almost everybody, is very happy with their life, or everyone is a face of Tisha B'Av?

1:27:06And instead of oil, you put water. How long exactly will the car drive? It will choke, smoke will come out, smells will come out. Not exactly going to function. Let's analyze our life today. Most people in the world, almost everybody, is very happy with their life, or is everyone a face of Tisha B'Av? Most people, when you look at their faces in the subway, on the train, in the street, everybody's thinking about their problems, about their mortgage, about their marriage, about their children, about their addictions, about the money people owe them. So many struggles and problems. Almost everyone is half-crying. You look at people's faces, you have to see. I see it after my lectures. Everywhere I go, a line of people comes with their problems. You already see before they begin to talk what level of agony they're in from zero to a hundred. By the face. You already see. You already know. The next person that is waiting to talk to me, that's probably a very serious problem. How do I know? I look at the face. I see body language.

1:28:26Some people have small problems. Some people have huge problems. Some people have such problems that I stay speechless. I don't even know what to answer. That's how bad it is. I don't know where to start. Most people are sad. Most people are depressed. Half of the people in America are on Prozac. Do they have Prozac in Canada? Probably a different name, no? Something French, no? Don't worry, depression in English and in French is the same depression. So half of the people in America are in depression. The addiction to materialism only goes higher and higher. If you take away the materialism from a person's life, you kill him. Commit suicide right away. I don't want to live. What do you want? I have $30 million. I left with two. Oh, it's still better than most people who have two. No, no, I don't want to leave. Don't talk to me. Don't call me. They hang up the phone. One week. Where is he? A minute before the lecture I got. Before I walked in, I got a call. Speak to my brother. What happened? For one week he's missing. What? Before he went missing, he said, I have no more reason to live. But if I would show you the kid that said that, you would be sure that he's the prince of the world.

1:29:52very rich, very handsome, from a very good family, has everything a person dreams of having. He already has it from a very young age. What a person dreams of achieving, he got it all for free, on a gold platter. He doesn't want to leave. Big problem. Now I hope that after this lecture, I won't find out something bad about him. Few days he doesn't pick up the phone, nobody knows where he is. It's very scary. But this is the situation that we're facing every hour of our work. Everywhere we go, many people are depressed. Divorce rate, more than 70%. Children in serious drug addictions, horrible drugs, can't believe what's happening. So many are dying every year. It's unbelievable what's happening here. The more we analyze the world, we must admit, regardless of religion, this includes even secular people, many secular people and goyim, they say the world is coming to an end. That's it. Something is happening. We realize something is about to happen.

1:31:10Now you know that the world literally is in serious jeopardy. If they don't find a cure for this virus, within a year, the whole world will be finished. Thousands of people are getting it every day in China. Some people say, wow, tens of thousands. They're hiding the real information. I saw a video; the Chinese police go and shoot people. They know they're all infected. They shoot them and you see the bodies on the floor. Why do they shoot them? It's much easier to shoot them than to take care of them. And in China, life doesn't exactly have any value because there are no human rights. No human rights in China. I was there. I saw it with my own eyes. If the Chinese government decides that they want to make a highway on this street and there are three buildings over there, they knock on the door and say, "Excuse me, 48 hours, pack your stuff and leave." What do you mean? It's my apartment. I paid $5 million for it. That's the price of the apartments there in Guangzhou. Five million dollars for a lousy apartment with rats walking around. Five million dollars I pay. "We don't care. You have 48 hours; pack your stuff and leave." After 48 hours, they come, they knock down the building. Whether you're inside or outside, they don't care. Bam, the building comes down because they want to make a highway.

1:32:33Do you think you can go to the Supreme Court? There's no court. Everything is owned by the government. You are owned by the government. You're lucky we let you breathe. That's China. There were Olympic Games. They decided they don't want scooters on the roads. It's too risky for terrorism. So they put trucks on the road. Everyone with motorcycles, hey, come here. Take the motorcycle. Goodbye. That's it. You don't give it back. There's nobody to appeal to. You understand? Add on top of it what they eat. If you saw some videos, without going into details, I don't want to ruin your night. And now you understand why there's such a big epidemic that always starts there. It's unbelievable. SARS also started there. This one started there now. But this one is much more contagious. One person goes into a room, like this room, big, he sneezes one time, everybody can get it. You don't only get it if you're next to him. If you walk there three minutes later in the same area, it's still in the air. You breathe one time, you're dead. 50%. Maybe yes, maybe not. And if a person did not die, he can catch it again a week later from someone else. So what's going to happen to humanity?

1:33:56If Hashem won't make a miracle like He did in 2003, and somehow He made SARS disappear, nobody understands how; one day it disappeared against the laws of nature. Maybe that was the last warning. How do we know? If this time Hashem won't make a miracle, we have one year to live. So let's grab as much as we can. Because remember, it doesn't matter how long we're going to be in this world, because this world anyway is temporary. We, Baruch Hashem, know from the Torah that if we will be righteous, we will go to a place full of unbelievable spiritual pleasure that words cannot describe. The Gemara says, the righteous people will sit in the next world with a special crown on their heads. That's an analogy. and will enjoy the greatness of God. If you want to ask me to describe to you the greatness of God, you are dreaming. I have no idea how wonderful it's going to be. But I know one thing—it's better than anything you can imagine. And if you're still not convinced, you don't have to count on me. It's written clearly. What's written? Listen carefully. If you take

1:35:22All the pleasure of all the people, of all the generations, of the entire world, from the creation of Adam until the end of the world, and their entire lives, which is 70 or 80 years of life. 7.5 billion people. Multiply by 70 or 80 years. Multiply by 365 days. Multiply by 24 hours. Multiply by 60 minutes. Multiply by 60 seconds. The numbers are all the way from here to New York. Do you understand the number of seconds? Now, every second we have pleasure. We see, we listen to music, we eat. We do things. We enjoy life. This guy enjoying this, this girl enjoying that. We are constantly in pleasure, on and off. And all this pleasure of all the people combined is a mountain all the way from here to the moon. This huge mountain of pleasure does not reach...

1:36:32One hour of a righteous Jewish man or woman in the afterlife, in the next world. And that's a guarantee not from a politician. Not from Trump or Netanyahu or a congressman. No, no. This is a guarantee from the One who created each one of you. Now the question is, do you want to believe Him or do you think He's a liar? That's really the question. Do you really think God is a liar? I don't think so. If anyone we can rely on 100% with no doubt, that's Him. And He promised that. It's written in the Gemara. One hour of the pleasure that will happen to the soul in the afterlife is greater than this entire world combined. Now imagine what people who do not live according to the Torah are going to lose. Good people, great people, Ashkenazi, Moroccan, Syrian, Persian, Bukharian, it doesn't matter. Most Jews have good hearts. In times of trouble, they run, asking, "Can I help? Can I volunteer?" But ignorance plays a key role here. The ignorance of not learning Torah, not listening to CDs, not reading books...

1:37:57Not learning about the purpose of our life will cost us in the end such a price we will never ever forgive ourselves. Never. You know, one little mistake can cost you life. This girl in Israel, she had seven grams of grass. Enough, I think, for one or two cigarettes of grass. I think here it's legal. In some places it's legal. But she went with that to Russia. She got seven years in prison. Lucky her that she had some relative that works for Netanyahu and drove him crazy, and in the end, the Israeli government gave Russia all kinds of gifts to release her. Do you know how many thousands of Israelis like this are in jails in the world? In Thailand, in Turkey, in Bangkok, in Japan, in places you cannot believe, in South America. They sleep on the floor, 20, 20, in one square meter, one on top of the other. People, I don't want to tell you what they do over there. There's no bathroom. People do it right there on the floor, and it's rats like this, or in India, on their head. Just a few months ago, they lived in Tel Aviv on the beach, surfing, enjoying life, and in one minute, 30 years in Thailand.

1:39:18There's nobody to talk to. There are people over there who are so evil. You beg, you scream, you cry for your life, then you just go to the bathroom. They treat you like you're nothing, you're in hell. You should hear the stories I heard from people. Some people managed to escape the jail. Some people pretended they were sick, and they took them to the hospital. They took a life risk from the third floor. They jumped. Either I die, or I run out of here. Crossed the border. Somehow I ended up in Israel. Some of them in yeshivot. You can hear their stories. You cannot believe. In one second, the life of a person can be gone. In one second. Can we look at this basketball star? 41 years old. $600 million. Everywhere he goes, everyone bows down to him. Selfie, selfie, picture. Kobe, Kobe, Kobe. King of the world coming everywhere. Did he ever imagine, in five minutes, I'm going to be dust? Do we know what's going to happen tomorrow morning, tomorrow night? Do we know what's going to happen? We don't know. One thing we do know: if by the time we leave the world, we will be Shomer Shabbat. We will dress modestly. We will eat kosher. We will learn Torah daily. Men will put tefillin.

1:40:34We'll give lots of charity. We'll be honest. We'll not be liars. We'll not speak lashon hara and hurt people. We will keep the basic laws of the Torah. By the way, you should know the Torah has 613 commandments. 70% of them at least are not in effect because we don't have the Beit HaMikdash. All the sacrifices, all the ma'aserot of the Kohanim, all these things, a lot of it is not in effect. Some mitzvot are only for women. So the man doesn't have it. Or the other way around. Some mitzvot are only if you're a boss. If you're a boss, you have employees. It doesn't apply to a regular person. Some mitzvot are only if you're a Kohen, or if you're a Levi. So there are certain things that don't apply to everyone. In the end, all together it comes to about 60-something mitzvot. Some mitzvot are once a year. Pesach, Sukkot, Arba'at HaMinim, Lulav, Etrog, Yom Kippur, once a year, no big deal. Shabbat, once a week. But most of the daily mitzvot are to be a decent person, not to be a crook, to make your money honestly, not to cheat people, not to cheat the government, not to cheat the goyim, and not to steal from the goyim. When you steal from a non-Jew, it's even worse than stealing from a Jew. Both of them are sins from the Torah.

1:42:01But when he steals from a non-Jew and he finds out, that can cause the death of thousands of Jews. Because he's going crazy now. Look what the Jew did to me. You know, after the Holocaust, some of the Jews were released by the Russians and the Americans in Poland. They came out of Auschwitz. They lost everything they had. One single person, two out of a family. That's it. Everyone died. So they went back to their streets, to where they grew up, to where the business was, to where their house was, and the Polish people had already occupied it. They moved in and they got a beautiful mansion there in Warsaw. How much did they pay for it? Zero. They knew the Jews were taking... Three, four, six months ago. Let's move in. Broke in. We live there. Until today, nobody ever returned the Jewish property. Same thing in Iran. Same thing in Libya. Same thing in Spain. Same thing everywhere. So when the Jews came back and the Polish saw that the Jews came back, some of them, dozens of them, you know what they did to them? They took axes. Imagine an axe. Imagine what an axe can do.

1:43:15They ran to them, stuck it to their head, and split their head open. That's what they did to them. They were not less cruel than the Nazis. So they asked them, why did you hate them so much? After all that they went through. Didn't you have mercy on them? They asked the old Polish people, "What happened back then?" So I saw some of their interviews. You know what they answered? Just the thought... that they're going to go back into our business world here in Poland and cheat us like they used to do before in business and take advantage of us. We got so nervous, we could not afford it. So in the end, what killed those survivors after they made it? They made it out of the Holocaust. They were released. What killed them in the end? Lack of integrity and no honesty, at least according to the claims of these Polish people. There was one kid, that American soldier named Vinegar. An American soldier, Jew. A Jew in the American army. He liberated the camps. He saw one very skinny boy, and this Jew had tzitzit, he had a helmet, but he had a kippah. So he started to speak to him in Yiddish.

1:44:43And the Jew started to run. The survivor. And the American soldier was chasing him. He ran into the forest. And he's chasing him, the soldiers. And he keeps screaming to him in Yiddish, "Don't be afraid. I'm not an enemy. I'm a Jew myself. Look, I have tzitzit." But the kid didn't care. He continued to run and run and run and run and run until he came to some tree. He started to dig. He dug in. What was he looking for? He took out a big silver menorah, handmade, a work of art of great value. He cleaned the sand. He was crying, hysterically crying. The soldier asked him, "What's this?" He said, "It's the only thing I have left from my family. We hid this the day before they took us. It's all I have left." This American soldier asked him, "Would you agree to come with me to America?" He said, "How will I go to America? I don't know anyone in America." The soldier replied, "I will adopt you. I will make an application to adopt you as a survivor of the war. Would you come?" "Of course I'd come. Where do I have to go? I don't have a place." He took him with him to America, and he lived in Manhattan.

1:46:10They put the menorah, they clean it, they put it by the window. This visitor, I had a friend who works for the Museum of Art in Manhattan. One day he came to visit. When he saw this menorah, his eyes almost came out. What? Where did you get this from? It's not mine; it's the boy that I adopted. The boy? Do you know how much it's worth? There's only four like this in the whole world. It's worth a fortune. Where is the boy? He called the boy. He asked him, would you sell the museum this menorah? I will give you a check for $50,000 right now. This was right after the war. Now, in case you don't know, at that time, with $50,000, you could buy four mansions in New York. One mansion today is worth more than $2 million. $2 million. With $50,000, with the property where I live, there are four properties. They were sold for $27,000 just around the time of the Holocaust. Four huge lots, huge. Each lot is bigger than this big shul. Four lots, $27,000. Each lot today is $600,000, $700,000 without a house. Just the lots.

1:47:30Went up like crazy. So I imagine how much $50,000 was 70 years ago. A huge amount of money. The boy said, "I can't sell it. It's the only memory I have of my family on Hanukkah. We were sitting around the menorah, my mother, you know. I can't sell it." So you'll be a rich man. You're not even Bar Mitzvah. You'll be a very wealthy kid. Nobody has this kind of money. What are you going to do with this menorah? I can't sell it. It's too painful for me. Tough. He refused to sell, refused to sell. Then Hanukkah came. What do you do on Hanukkah? You light this menorah. Third day of Hanukkah. They lit the third candle. This is a story that happened. Someone knocks on the door. Yes? Yes? Open the door, see a yente woman like this, speaking in Yiddish, broken English. Excuse me. Yes? Can I look at your menorah? I saw from the window you have a special menorah. Yeah, yeah, please, be my guest. She comes to the menorah. She touches it, begins to cry, shaking. I don't know where you got this. I had the same exact one before the war.

1:48:57They took it away from us. They killed all of us. I stayed by myself. He said, "That's not mine. It's a kid. I brought him from there. Wait a minute. Let me call him." He called him up from the room. He comes out. He looked at the woman. The woman looked at him. He screamed, "Mommy!" He was sure his mother was dead. And I don't have to tell you the excitement over there. I always, when I read the story and I remember it, I remember one thing about it. Miracles like this happen to us all the time. We just don't always see it. But I want to ask you a question. Most kids would sell the menorah, right? $50,000 is like $8 million today. Bar Mitzvah kid, alone, without a family, in Manhattan, living with someone as an adopted kid, can go and buy himself a beautiful apartment and buy a business or two. What would he prefer? To do that or to keep that menorah? The answer is pretty obvious. But this kid had values. Money was not everything for him. If he had sold the menorah, he would never have met his mother again.

1:50:14In his entire life. The only reason he got his mother back is because he passed the test that Hashem gave him. And then he obviously was able to unite with her for the rest of his life. This is what our life is all about. Every day Hashem gives us tests. How do I know it? It's written in the Torah. I'm strict with you. I'm torturing you, even to a level of torture, mental torture, physical torture, to check what's in your heart. Will you be faithful to Me and keep My laws? Or, God forbid, will you be ungrateful? It's a verse in the Torah. I'm testing you to check what's in your heart. Are you with Me when it's bad or only when it's good? When the millions are floating into your account, are you with Me when you have nothing? Are you with Me when you're sick? Are you with Me when you cannot find your soulmate? Or when you cannot find a job for a year?

1:51:29or all kinds of other problems, or you're alone in a jail, in darkness, at the end of the world. Nobody even knows you exist. Are you with Me, or are you not with Me? Every minute of our life is a test. Avraham Avinu, our main father, the first one, nine tests Hashem tested him. Each one of them we wouldn't pass. Jumping into the fire, all kinds of things. The last one, Hashem told him, take your only son after a hundred years that he waited for him. Take your only son and sacrifice him to Me on the mountain of Moriah. No questions asked. Avraham Avinu wants to do the mitzvah. A hundred years he waited for that moment to have a child. Now you're going to slaughter him? No questions asked? And that's after Hashem told you it's not good to sacrifice children, it's idol worship, Yitzchak will inherit you, you won't die alone. All the promises that Hashem made to him, in one minute, are about to break each one of them. Now I want to ask you a question. If Hashem would do it to us, and tell us to take our only child,

1:52:48and sacrifice him to Hashem? How much of a choice would we have? Can you go against God? I have no choice; once the decree is made, that's it. So what's the big deal? So Avraham also agreed to do it. I would also do it. I would say to Hashem, "No, no, I'm sorry, I refuse." Like they say in Israel, would I be able to even talk if Hashem said, "Take your only son"? I would be frozen. with a broken heart, but I couldn't make it big. Take your son, take your son, what can I do? But inside my heart, I will go crazy, and my mind will explode. How can he do it to me? How did he fool me like this? How is he going to break his promises to me? How can it be that this is the God that I followed all my life, right? A million questions we would have. That's the greatness about Avraham, that the Gemara said that he did not even think

1:53:49One little thing against Hashem. That's why he's a legend. To sacrifice the child, many people would do, because there's no choice. That's what Hashem wants; He will take him anyway. But not to think a word against it, as only one in a generation, perhaps one in history, could have made it, and this was Avraham Avinu. After the final test, Hashem said to Avraham, "Now I know you are a God-fearing person." What do You mean? Until now You didn't know? When I jumped into the fire, You didn't know? When I went to fight and save my nephew Lot and risk my life, You didn't know? all the other things that I did, it wasn't enough for You to know? I taught the whole world that there is one God, that all the idols are nonsense, there's only one truth, and it still was not enough? I made so many converts, I taught the whole world about Your greatness, I saved so many from Avodah Zarah, I canceled it from the world, I gave my life for You, I jumped into the fire, it's not enough? The answer is, you have to know the difference

1:55:06Everything, yes, yes, yes. It's all great. You're great, you're great, you're a tzaddik. There's no question about it. When will I put my stamp on you? Stamp, meaning there's no return. That's it. I put my stamp on you with no hesitation. When you are willing to sacrifice for Me the most precious thing in your life. I tell you, when you come to speak to secular Jews, after you prove to them that the Torah is divine, and only the Creator of the world was able to write such a book, no human being had the knowledge, what human being knows the future, what human being knows all the oceans and the galaxies and the renewal of the moon, no one will be able to know things like this, only the Creator of the world. After you know that the Torah is 100% the book of God, Still, we pick and choose. You come to a woman, I want you to be Shomer Shabbos. Okay, not so hard. I'll sleep, I'll eat, I'll go to the synagogue, enjoy the davening, you know, be with my family, a day of rest. I'll manage. Good. I want you to eat kosher. What's the big deal? Every other restaurant today is kosher. Every product, or you, okay, this, cupcake.

1:56:29Almost everything today is kosher. No big deal. No big deal. Until you come to modesty. Once you come to modesty, the whole body begins to shrink. Oh, right away? I have to? Why is it? Because that's the hardest test for women, with the greatest reward. When do you know a woman is really religious? When she's willing to cover her beauty and keep it only for her husband, not for the street. when she's willing to cover her beauty and keep it only for her husband, not for the street. Why? Not because she wants to. Her will is to go and show her beauty everywhere. That's what she's proud of. Everyone likes to show off the skills that they have. A wise person will always display his wisdom. A great athlete will always show how he plays. Great chess player will always try to initiate chess games. Everyone tries to improve in what is good. A woman, what's the most attractive thing about her? It's her beauty. So if Hashem gave her special beauty, all she wants is to go and show it. But Hashem says, you're not allowed. That's not the way of My children to behave. It's not a safari over here. So, so what happens? She has to fight with herself.

1:57:52Because it's so difficult, she gets a huge reward. And if she doesn't, every day that she walks in the street immodestly, every man that looks at her, a punishment goes immediately into her account. Multiply it by millions of men in her lifetime, and you do the math. One woman once told me, you're a little bit too extreme. I heard it a few times in my life. You're a little bit too extreme. Today, it's unbelievable; you read clear verses from the Torah, and you're considered extreme. So really, the claim is not against the speaker; it's against the writer of the Torah, but put that aside. She said to him, "What, I cannot be pretty for myself to feel good about myself?" I say, so the 20, 30 minutes before you leave the house, putting on makeup, doing your hair, all these things, changing your clothes three times before you leave the house, is this for yourself or for the people to see you? "For myself. I want to feel good about myself. I want to be pretty, feel good about myself." Very convincing. So I ask, let me ask you this: Let's say you're on a plane.

1:59:09and the plane landed, emergency landed, everybody died besides you. You're the only survivor. And what do you have with you? Your makeup bag, box. So you come out of the plane, and you begin to walk. Chimpanzee, giraffe, elephant, snake, walking around all day, no people, only monkeys, only lions, some dogs. Now the next morning you wake up in the morning on the island. How long would you sit to do your hair and your makeup and this and all that? How long? She even laughed at her nonsense. She said, oh, I get your point. I said, of course. When you're lonely, what, you're going to put makeup for the monkey? Hey, chimpanzee, I'm here. Come here. Why don't you look at me? I put makeup for you. Sometimes people don't understand that what they do comes from their subconscious. Sometimes a righteous woman, she'll be very offended if you tell her, "Why are you putting on such a show when you go to a place where it’s all men? Why? You usually don't put on such a show when you go. All of a sudden, you're now very, very pretty. What? You're suspecting me? I'm a religious woman." If you connect her now to a lie detector, she will pass the test.

2:00:29When you ask her, "Did you put on the show for the man on the street or in a place over there? God forbid," the machine will show that she's not lying. Why? Because it comes from the subconscious, not from the conscious. Do you understand? Most of the things we do in life come from the subconscious. Now time is running out. I would like to clarify at least one point. The way the world became is almost impossible to survive like this anymore. All the values collapse. Society is very corrupt. Politicians are corrupt. The police are corrupt. The army is corrupt. Almost everywhere you go, you can't believe what's going on. You cannot believe what the world became. Terrorism everywhere, fear and panic everywhere. Every other person is in constant panic attack, anxiety attack, panic attack, vibration, shaking, depressed, pills, drugs, in and out of all kinds of mental institutions. Almost every other person has a private shrink, psychologist, psychiatrist. What's going on? That's not the way Hashem wanted the world to be.

2:01:46If the wound came to where it became, that means something went wrong. Now, I want to ask you, is it possible to fix what went wrong without locating the root of the problem? If you have a root canal, and you don't open the tooth to check what's inside, you just give an antibiotic and Advil. For now, it looks like you treated the problem. Oh, there's no more swelling, no more pain. I can go to work. What will happen tomorrow? It comes right back. Okay, again, Advil and antibiotic. After a while, the body doesn't react to it anymore. It can die, that's it. It can go to the brain, whatever. We never treat the root of our problems. Never. Everything we do in our life is we only treat the symptoms of the problem—the symptoms that God made to wake us up before it's too late for us. But we are too lazy or sometimes wicked or sometimes have other reasons for it. We don't want to work hard to fix the root of our problems. So what do we do? We go to some Kabbalists, give them a thousand-dollar check with a list of names to give a blessing. "Bless me, bless my daughter." Okay, fine, I will. But what about you? Are you going to change or are you going to stay the way you are? "I'm great."

2:03:14When people go and check their mezuzot, you know what they do before they go? They read Tehillim that at least one of them will be not kosher. Why? It's a hundred bucks now. The mezuzah is not kosher. You have to buy a new one. If five of them are not kosher, it's five hundred dollars. Why do you hope that at least one mezuzah is not kosher? I'll tell you why. Because we have tons of problems in life. Tons of problems in life. And you don't want to start changing your pride, your ego, your anger, your jealousy, your lack of emunah, all the problems that you have in your life. You don't want to change them. So you hope that one mezuzah is not kosher. Oh, that's why I suffer. That's why there's no business. That's why I cannot find a shidduch. The mezuzah was not kosher. Look, it doesn't have the word b'neichem. That's why I don't have kids. Ten years. Papa, can you believe it? No, you don't have kids because you don't know how to raise kids. Hashem is anxious to give kids, but how is He going to give you kids?

2:04:22What kind of examples do you give them? You're going to make them infidels. You're going to make them atheists. You're going to send them to schools and to teachers that will teach them how to be the worst, most despicable people on the face of the earth. To follow abomination, to walk naked on the street in all kinds of parades, if you know what I mean. That's what you're going to teach them. If you're willing to teach them what I want you to teach them, of course, I'm very happy. My goal is to make every one of my children happy. But sometimes they're not a vessel to accept the blessing. They're not a vessel. So, Rabotai, I want you to know the way for repentance is not short, I admit. It may take years. But there's a wonderful thing about Hashem. If you enter the right path to make repentance, even though you're far away from your destination, very far. Rabbeinu Yonah writes, one of the greatest rabbis 900 years ago, Rambam says, you must do full repentance, all the way to the end, that's it, you're a righteous person.

2:05:40Rabbeinu Yonah, of course, agrees. You have to do repentance, of course. There's nobody who argues about that. The Torah says, but Rabbeinu Yonah gives us a beautiful understanding about teshuva, about repentance. What he says is, if you get on the right highway... And you're finally on the right destination. And you died. You didn't make it. You died on the way. You did not reach your goal. Don't worry, you're still in a good situation because you entered the right path. Meaning, if every one of the people that sits here tonight that is still not Shomer Shabbat, still not eating kosher, still not dressing modestly, still not behaving according to the requirements of the Torah, Now, this second, not tomorrow, not another five minutes, right this second, everyone will close his eyes and say, "I want to change, dear God, dear Father in Heaven."

2:06:42I finally understand what it means to be a Jew. What does it mean, the purpose of life? Why did you give us Torah? Torah means instruction. I understand there's life of eternity. I don't want to end up a loser and lose all of that. I want to make it. Help me out. Now, I'll tell you one wonderful thing that you're all going to like. Every one of you that came here tonight... for sure is very special in the eyes of Hashem. Very special. Guaranteed. Not maybe. It's not a theory. It's guaranteed. How do I know? Very simple. The Torah says that in order for you to hear the word of God, but the real word of God, not the politically correct fake word of God, which is totally the opposite of His word. The real word of God, according to the Torah. If Hashem brought you here tonight to sit for two or three hours and to hear it, and then you're going to have time to ask questions after the raffle which we're about to start, that means that Hashem did a lot for you to come here tonight. I know there are some people here that don't normally go to lectures. Some people I recognize from the past. But some people, maybe it's the first time they came. You didn't come here by coincidence.

2:08:05To hear the word of Hashem, you need a special merit. And if He got you to come here tonight, that means He expects something from you. I will finish with one final story, and you will get the point. We had in our community in Israel a legendary rabbi. He was actually the head rabbi of the entire religious world. His name was Rav Shach, Rosh Yeshivat Ponovezh. He passed, I think, at 107 or 108 years old. When he was 16 years old, he was in yeshiva. The yeshiva was very poor. Snow, just like here in Montreal, all over. And they slept on the floor. There were no mattresses. No money for a mattress. For two years, he was sleeping like a dog on the floor, freezing. No mattress on the floor. Not even a blanket to put underneath. Half of the boys in yeshiva had a mattress, those who were there for many years. And everybody who came had to wait in line. When someone got married and left, the mattress passed to one of the younger kids. For two years, he slept on the floor, learning Torah all day.

2:09:27Then he had an uncle who was very rich. He had a big factory. His uncle sent him a telegraph, a letter. He said, "Eliezer, I don't have kids as you know. One day I will die. Who's going to take all of that? It's a big factory, more than 100 workers. I need you to come here to live by me." He was very poor. Rav Shach was very poor. His bar mitzvah was... His mother sent him a pair of tefillin with a messenger. That's it. That was his bar mitzvah. No money for anything, not even for l'chaim. So he said to him, "One day this is all going to be yours. We live in a city with lots of religious people. You can come here, you can go to learn, but I want to start teaching you how to take over the business. I'm an old man. I'm not so healthy. If I die, that's it. It's all going to be left for the government." So he sent him with the letter, he sent him tickets for the train. He was 16 years old. He came to the Rosh Yeshiva. He said to the Rosh Yeshiva, "That's it, I decided to go to my uncle, I'm going to live by him and learn the job. Look, I don't even have a mattress. My bones hurt, my body hurts. I can't live like this anymore."

2:10:51Everybody tried to convince him, "Be patient, you'll get a mattress." "No, no, no, enough is enough." He hugged everyone, everyone said goodbye, and he's on the way with his suitcase outside of the yeshiva, walking towards the train. As he walked out, a woman came, dragging a mattress. "Excuse me, young boy?" "Yes." "Are you learning in this yeshiva?" "Yes." Look, I heard that you don't have mattresses over here. My husband just passed away a week ago. Today I got up from the shiva, and if I don't need his mattress, I can donate it. Do you have a mattress? He looked at her and said, No, for two years I've been sleeping on the floor. Oh, very good. I found the right guy. Here, the mattress is yours. It's a gift. She gave him the mattress and left. Now he's with a suitcase, with a mattress. already answered back a letter to his uncle that is on the way. He's going to take the train into the life of millions, becoming a millionaire at age 16, inheriting all this wealth. But he wasn't a fool like us. We would get on the train, most likely. We already set up our minds: I'm going to make millions now, I'm going to be rich, I'm going to have a life. What is this? I sleep on the floor. He got the point.

2:12:14I said, why did Hashem send me a mattress five seconds before I got on the train? He couldn't send it to me a year ago or two years ago. He knew how I was suffering, freezing on the floor every day. Because He doesn't want me to leave the Torah. It's not random, no coincidence in life. Everything has perfect timing. I turned around and walked in with a mattress. "Rabbi, I changed my mind. Hashem sent me His answer. I got a mattress." He got a mattress, stayed in yeshiva. Three years later, the Rosh Yeshiva came to him and said, "I want you to go out on a date with my niece." "Who is she?" "An orphan. Has no parents. Poor girl. No money." All his friends that learn in yeshiva all got to marry rich girls whose parents gave them an apartment. They gave them an apartment so they could sit and learn Torah. And he was the best student. He should have gotten the best girl. But the Rosh Yeshiva said to him, "I want you to marry this poor orphan." The Rav Shach asked him, "Where exactly will we live? I don't have any money and she doesn't have parents."

2:13:30He said to him, "You live in my living room. In the living room, in my house." He said to him, "No problem, Rabbi, but there's already a couple living in your living room and it's a small room." He said, "Don't worry, we take a blanket, we stick it to the ceiling, and we divide the room into two halves. You'll be on one side, and they'll be on the other side. Imagine you move your elbow, boom, into the eye of your friend's wife. Oh, sorry, I had to stretch." How can you even sneeze? How can you talk? Imagine, wow, wow, somebody's right here. You are here, your wife is here, and there's a couple right here. By mistake, you go like this, you break her head. Imagine the feeling. Who can live in such a situation? Freshly out of the chuppah. He said to him, if that's what the Rav thinks is the right thing to do, I will take it. And he got married to her and moved into his living room. Not for long.

2:14:35Maybe a few weeks, maybe a few months. The Nazis came to town. Showed up in his town. He said to his wife, "Look, everyone here has an apartment. They are attached to this town. You and me have nothing here. Let's get on a boat and go to Eretz Yisrael. We had the British here." in Eretz Yisrael. Let's go on the boat. What do we have here? Whatever we have here, we have there. Please, we'll be in the Holy Land. Let's go. They got on the boat. They went to Eretz Yisrael. A few days later, his friends also put their apartments up for sale. And nobody buys. It doesn't happen from today to today. So they locked the borders. Hitler closed the gates. Nobody could come in or out. You want to go out? You have to prove you're a Jew, you're not a Jew. All his friends that laughed at him: "You should have gotten the best apartment. You're so naive. Why did you agree to marry this poor orphan?" All of them got brutally murdered. And he became the biggest rabbi in the world.

2:15:48The head of the biggest yeshiva, one of the biggest yeshivot. For how many years? For so many years. One time when there was a war, the rabbi sent them home. He went home by train. His mother told him, "Why did you come back home?" He said, "They're bombing next to the yeshiva." She said to him, "What kind of a rabbi do you have? He doesn't know that if anything will save us in a time of war, it's learning Torah? He sends you back home? He didn't want responsibility. Go back to the yeshiva." "Okay, I need money for the train." "Where will I get you money for the train? I don't have money for the train." So he took his bag and walked for one week. One week he walked with a heavy bag. One week. Walking and walking to get back to the yeshiva. Couldn't afford the train. When he came to the yeshiva, everybody was home. Only the Rebbe was there. "What are you doing here? How did you get here?" "I walked now for a week."

2:16:52My mother got very upset that I came back home. I told her, it's very dangerous here, there's a war. She said, don't worry, the Torah will protect you. I couldn't say no, so I came back. She said, you walked all the way from your house to here? Yes, we don't have money for the train. He felt so bad for him, he saw that his shoes were all ripped. He gave him 300 rubles, a lot of money. He said, I want to buy these shoes from you. Let me buy them. Why do you need these shoes? They're ripped. Go buy yourself new shoes and you have some left over. And these shoes today are in a wall unit of the Rosh Yeshiva of Lakewood in New Jersey. You walk in, you see a lot of silver things. Inside you see two red shoes. What are these shoes doing here? These shoes represent the amount of sacrifice that a Jew was willing to make for the Torah. So I'm not asking each one of you to be him.

2:17:53I'm realistic. I understand New York, Montreal, it's a different planet. All I'm begging each one of you, if you're not Shomer Shabbat, we're playing with fire, rabotai. Chilul Shabbat has no share in the World to Come. The soul is going to be cut for eternity. It's an unbelievable punishment. To lose everything for driving a car to Macy's or Starbucks, isn't it a shame? The Torah says, "I'm going to cut that soul." Hashem is not a liar. It says, everyone who would create fire on Shabbat and break Shabbat, I will cut his soul permanently. What do you think, it's a joke? People who have tefillin, they don't put it on. They don't have two minutes a day for Hashem. Two minutes a day they don't have. Hashem gives them millions, houses, cars, money; they marry off their children, they have plenty to help their children. Two minutes a day to put on tefillin, they refuse. They have two restaurants, kosher and non-kosher. What's the difference? 10% on the price, 20% on the price, 30%. He has money, it's not that he's poor. He goes into the treif and eats non-kosher meat. Rabotai, it's not a joke.

2:19:07it could be that in a few months everything will be over. As of now, the doctors and the scientists say it will take them a year and a half to find a vaccine for this coronavirus. A year and a half, everybody understands nobody will be left in the world. So now we're counting on a miracle. As of now, the world is about to end. If Hashem will make a miracle, we believe. We believe that Hashem will save us. But maybe not. Maybe He's fed up with the way the world has become. Maybe He's tired of what's happening today in the world, that people behave like Sodom and Gomorrah. Maybe He's tired of the internet that destroys our children all day and all night. Maybe He's tired of seeing all kinds of gay parades and abominations and naked people waving flags, wanting to rebel against His rules and change the laws of nature. Maybe He's tired of that. Maybe He's tired of everything. Look, there's no government in Israel. We're going into a third election. Same thing, I'm telling you. There's not going to be a prime minister. One year, no government. Why? I'm tired of you. Sick and tired of you. That's the message. When did you hear that there's no government? One election, no government. Second election, no government. Now, as they describe the polls, the same thing. No government.

2:20:31Fourth election? You know how many billions of shekels every election costs? We're not exactly a rich country. The coronavirus is threatening not only our lives, but also threatening the parnassah of each one of us. Tens of thousands of Jews are working with China, importing, exporting. Everything is dead now. Nothing. Nobody can do business. There are people right now already for more than a month and they don’t make a dollar. They pay employees. They pay rent. They pay a lot of things and they cannot get their merchandise. The CDs are stuck in China. You don't know if you'll ever get them. And it's going now to Singapore and the Philippines, and now Israelis on a boat in Japan got it. And it went to Canada, it went to the United States, it goes everywhere. In Egypt, they found it. We don't know what's going to happen. At least now, when it's a time of judgment in the world, everyone wants to become serious. Because remember, there's not going to be an endless amount of chances to do teshuva. Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, got six chances. By the sixth plague,

2:21:41Hashem said to Moshe, no more games. From now on, even if he wants to do teshuva and repent, he can't. Why? I block his free will. No more. We don't want, G-d forbid, to be in the same situation where we get a chance and another one and another one, and in the end, Hashem will block the free will. I want to thank you again. Now we're going to do the raffle. Maybe you get lucky; you win some money here tonight. Enjoy the Torah and get paid for it. Maybe we'll see. Thank you very much. Hope to see you again. Please, Rebbe.

2:23:27"Maybe you get lucky; you win some money here tonight. Enjoy the Torah and get paid for it. Maybe we'll see. Thank you very much. Hope to see you again. Please, Rebbe, what do you think? They're not going to blame us for Corona? At some point, you give it time. Everything that's wrong in the world, they have to blame the Jew. What else is there to blame? Themselves? Are you crazy? They've got to blame us. Why would you want to beat you?" What do you think, they're not going to blame us for Corona? At some point, you give it time. Everything that's wrong in the world, they have to blame the Jew. What else is there to blame? Themselves? Are you crazy? They've got to blame us. Why would you want to beat yourself?