What Decision To Make Before MaShiach Arrives? (8 Minutes)

1:30This is a little bit discouraging for some of us because we study for a half-hour, and we already think, "I've studied a half-hour today." It's best, I tell people, to start doing teshuva. Start like I did: 15 minutes a day. Fifteen minutes a day, if you study every day, b'ezrat Hashem, your teshuva will be real. Your teshuva will survive. No Torah, or Torah once in a while—like once a week I come to a shiur—teshuva doesn't last. Teshuva doesn't last. Or, it's a teshuva that's like 50-50 teshuva. I keep Shabbat, but I steal during the week. I keep Shabbat, but my wife wants to divorce me because I cheat on her every day. I keep mitzvot, but I'm the guy that goes to the casino with the beer and the hat too. You understand? It's not a real teshuva. It's not a real teshuva. So it's either real or not. Why do we need to know if it's real or not teshuva? Because there's a Gemara that a lot of people misunderstand, and I heard a nice chiddush recently from Rav Nissim Yagen, Zecher Tzadik Livracha, who said that in the times of Mashiach, the prophets say, and Chazal say, that Mashiach cannot come. He will not come unless it's a generation where everyone is righteous and...

2:54Or is everyone wicked? The Chazal asks, wait a minute. We know that it's not possible for everyone to be righteous. It's not possible. We're lucky if we have ten. Like Avraham Avinu was praying to Hashem, "Please save Sedom if there's ten righteous people." Hashem says, "I'll save it if there's ten righteous people." Unfortunately, there weren't. Our Sedom today is called Las Vegas. There are other places that are mini-Sedoms. But that's the famous one. For ten righteous people, Hashem will save it. Avraham didn't have it. To say a whole generation of righteous people, everyone is righteous, it's far-fetched. But on the same token, everyone wicked? Nah, come on, no. Even in the time of Nimrod, the Rasha Merusha, who started idol worship, the generation of Avraham Avinu... He said, "Either worship the idol, which is me, or I'll throw you into the fire." What did Avraham do? He jumped into the fire because the people that tried to throw him in went on fire. The fire was so big and so powerful that it burned them, but it didn't burn Avraham. Avraham is standing over there, and he said, "No." So he asked, "Come on, are you going to pray to me then?" Avraham replied, "No," and jumps into the fire.

4:19All the angels—Michael, Raphael, Gabriel—pray to Hashem: "Hashem, look at your servant Avraham. He's jumping into the fire just so as not to desecrate your name. Please, let us save him." Hashem Yitbarach says, "No. You won't save him. He is alone." in the world. He's the only one that believes in me in the entire world. Millions and millions of people, only one guy believes in me. And just like there's one of him, there's only one of me in heaven. I'm going to save him myself. And Hashem Yitbarach Himself went, goes over there, and He saves Avraham Avinu, and He walks with him in the fire. What that means, we don't know. All we know is the walking hand in hand in the fire. So we know that a generation of completely, fully wicked people is not possible. So how's the Mashiach going to come? The answer is, when the Mashiach comes, everyone at that point will already have to make a decision. Either you're fully righteous, or you're fully wicked. That's the answer.

5:47That's what the Gemara means. It's not that the entire generation needs to be righteous or the entire generation needs to be wicked. It's that if you want to be saved, you have to either be fully righteous or fully wicked. Now, fully righteous doesn't necessarily mean that each one of us has to be a Gadol Hador. Fully righteous means that you are exerting 100% of your effort to do Ratzon Hashem, to do the will of Hashem. You're doing everything you can to study as much as you can. And if your ability at this point means you just started doing teshuva, and it's 15 minutes, but that's 100% your full effort, then you've done teshuva. But if you're one of these people who can study for 6 hours, yet instead you play 5 hours' worth of video games and study for an hour thinking that you're doing Hashem a favor, you have a problem. The times of the Mashiach are here. Mashiach can show up tomorrow. In a few days, in a few years, we don't know exactly. All we know is that according to the Gemara Masechet Avoda Zara, once he arrives, the clock runs out. No more conversion, no more teshuva, no more nothing. You are what you are. If you're still deciding whether I'm going to keep Shabbat or not, because it's not convenient for my lifestyle, you run out of time.

7:11You won't have a second chance. There's no more gilgulim, which we talked about two days ago. There's no more reincarnation. There's no more, "Oh, can you please do teshuva? Here, have a CD." There's no more. There's no more, "Oh, do you want to convert and do the will of Hashem? Or do you want to stay in Noach, the least righteous?" Oh, let me think about it. Okay, think about it. Good luck thinking about it. Mashiach comes, no more. The key is that we have to make a decision about whether we want to be fake Jews or real ones. Do we want to do the complete will of Hashem or what we think is the will of Hashem? Rabban Yochanan Ben Zakkai is telling you here, first and foremost, you have to understand that if you even want to have a chance, a chance, a small chance, of doing the will of Hashem, first you have to understand what's the will of Hashem. The will of Hashem, but not your will. As we learned in the previous Mishnah, make His will into your will, and He will make your will into His will. But what's His will? What does He want us to do? Rabban Yochanan is telling you what. He said, you came here to learn Torah. But learning Torah, obviously, is more than just learning a book. It's fulfilling it.

8:33to learn to do. You've just experienced another Torah class.