What does the Torah say about The Great American Solar Eclipse? (15 minutes)

1:39A lot of bad things followed 1918; after World War One, there was World War Two. There was the Great Depression. A lot of bad things happened. Like in Masechet Sukkah, page 29a, it says when such a thing happens, it's a sign from God, as if there is an hourglass, as if there is a ticking clock. when Hashem's patience, in so many words, will run out. There's something bad coming specifically to the place of where it's shown. If it's shown in the West, something bad will happen in the West. If it's seen in the East, something bad will happen in the East, and So, they say, what are the reasons now? I'm going to tell you what the Gemara says are the reasons for such a thing. If those reasons are not valid, you have nothing to worry about. If these reasons are valid, you have to make a different choice. What are the reasons for such a thing to happen? If a giant sage, one of the Av Beit Din, died and was not mourned properly and...

3:01Rabbis are not respected and honored like they're supposed to be, especially the ones that have passed recently, whether it be HaRav Ovadia Yosef or other giants that have passed away just in this past year. If they were not mourned properly, some will say yes, some will say no, whether it's valid or not. So, too, families are breaking shidduchim. We're not talking about the chatan and kallah breaking the shidduch, we're talking about the families. Family breaking the shidduch. Abba and Ima are supposed to help the son. Abba and Ima are supposed to help the daughter, but instead, they break the shidduch. No, no, no. He's Moroccan. No, he's Ashkenazi. No, he's Sephardi. No, he's Yemenite. No, he's Ethiopian. No, we don't like him because he's too tall. He's too short. He's too rich. He's too poor. He's too this. He's too that. Have you heard of such a thing? No, never heard of a broken shidduch over such reasons, right? Just to let you know, last night from 2 o'clock to 3 o'clock in the morning, I spoke to a guy in Canada. About what? His father, who's a Rabbi, is doing everything he can to break the shidduch. Everything he can. Everything he can for months to break the shidduch. Why? The pride of man will be his downfall. That's reason number two. Reason number three: Homosexuality becoming acceptable.

4:29have a heritage of the thing. Maybe a gay pride parade or something like that in this generation in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, America. Not that that's the thing, right? Such nothing like this. No, only in the generation of Jeremiah maybe. Or the last and the most scary one, which answers your questions from before this year. You didn't even ask it, but it's going to answer it already if two brothers Blood was shed on the same day. Two brothers shed blood on the same day. For anyone who didn't read the news just a few days ago, two Jewish brothers were stabbed over a parking space. One died, and he knew one of them. Two kids got into a fight; two young guys got into a fight with some other... over parking spot. The hoodlum in the other car didn't like it, so he decided to stab both brothers. One died; the other one got stabbed in his arm, but Baruch Hashem, he's okay. So the Gemara in Masechet Sukkah says this would be one of the reasons why, I don't know, this is God, this has nothing to do with me. Other reasons for these such things are forgeries in Jewish law and...

5:58You heard of such a thing? Forgeries in Jewish law? People that invite maybe Christian missionaries to the shuls? You ever heard of such a thing? False witnesses, like the people that pretend they're religious because they have a beard, but they lie? Understand, and... Disrespecting the Land of Israel, doing things that are against the Torah, whether it be cutting fruit trees or raising a specific type of cattle, is not appropriate. Out of the list of almost—I believe—eight or nine things, I think we're violating at least 90%. I'm not here to scare you; I'm here to tell you what the Torah says, what the law states, because observance is crucial. If you haven't started doing teshuvah, I don't care if you were born religious, are religious, think you're religious, or want to be religious. If you haven't started doing teshuvah, you're running out of time. I talk to all types of people every day.

7:24The conclusion of many of the conversations is that many people are very, very comfortable with where they stand. If they're not religious, they come and tell me, "I have a problem. I'm sick, I'm divorced, whatever, something happens, some disaster." They want some help, some advice. Well, Baruch Hashem, we try to do the best that we can, and... Guiding them along the way, to convey the truth. Okay. Listen, you have this, you have this, you have this. Okay, great. You have only one solution. I have a solution, but you have one solution. It's only one. There's only one medicine. There's one cure to all of your problems. Oh, great, they get excited - divorced, sick, poor, headaches all the time, whatever; all the problems, one solution, one pill fixes everything. Great. What should I do? Listen to God. What do you mean God said in the Torah to keep Shabbat? That means you have to keep Shabbat not just once this week, but all the time. God said you have to wear clothes that are modest. Modest, meaning if you're wearing a skirt as a woman, you have to wear a skirt that covers your knees after you sit down, not that you're pulling it down constantly.

8:39Constantly for 20 minutes, just to make sure it covers the knees. It has to cover the knees after you sit down, which means, ideally, the skirt should be very loose and all the way down to the ankles. That's ideally how it's supposed to be. But if you want to play with a little bit of fire and wear a shorter skirt, fine. But it still has to be kosher; your clothes have to be loose. You can't go out there thinking that you're modest even if it's a long skirt, if it looks like a bodysuit, okay? When Hashem says, "I'm going to test you," in this week's parasha, I'm going to test you. So here he says in chapter 12, verse 6, "There shall you bring your elevation offerings and feast offerings—your tithes, your ma'aser, what you raise up with your hand, and your vow offerings, and your freewill offerings, and your firstborn offerings." Why just say "I'm making an offering to Hashem"? If you're striving to be a kosher Jew, you have to do so with all of your heart and resources. there yet. There shall you bring your elevation offerings, feast offerings, and your tithes, meaning your ma'aser, and what you raise up with your hand, your vow offerings, your freewill offerings, and your firstborn offerings. Why just say your offering, Yaakov? I know that's it. No, no, you want to be a kosher Jew. It has to be with all of your money.

10:05Not just the money that you make from the side business that’s cash; you give $20 from it, the whole thing, the company, the big company, the small company, the stock market, the IRA, the 401k, and all the 'K's. All of them. If you want to be a kosher Jew, don't cheat Hashem. Don't cheat Hashem and think that you're okay. So here, he's telling you all the different types of korbanot, all the different types of, k'viyachol, tzedakah. "You want to be close to Me," He says, "and that's to be with all of them, not just with the ones that you think make you look good." Like people go to beit knesset twice a year; they give tzedakah on Yom Kippur, but they don't pay until Rosh Hashanah of next year. That's not tzedakah. Why? Because all you did was a marketing effort. You told everybody that you're very, very humble, honest, and great by donating publicly, but you didn't really give until next year. That's not tzedakah; that's a marketing investment, because the whole year, you got business and...

11:21People think this guy's honest, and he's generous, and he's great. He gave ten, twenty, thirty thousand dollars to the big nest that he screamed out. Fifteen thousand dollars for aliyah? What aliyah? Just do what it says in the Torah. Forget the aliyah; just do what it says for free. Free—you don't have to go on aliyah, you don't have to buy anything—just do what it says for free. So Hashem is telling you in this week's parashah... Follow it with all of your money. So next week, this event, this giant event that hasn't happened in decades, also happens to be on Rosh Chodesh Elul, which is also called Yom Kippur Katan, Rosh Chodesh Elul. is a time for Teshuva. If there was ever a time for a person to really start digging deep inside and try to find all these character flaws that he has and start working on them, this would be the time. Because Hashem, during this month, brings us the Shechina down; He gets closer to us and He says, "Okay, I'm listening. I'm listening."

12:48What do you got? What are you saying? What do you want? The whole year you're asking me for stuff. Fine, I'm listening. No. What are you doing for me? Okay, I gave you last year. I decided you're going to get $100,000. You got $100,000. Wife, I gave you. Last year you got married. Kids, you had a kid six months ago. No. What are you doing for me? What about now? When are you going to start learning Torah? When are you going to start doing mitzvot like you're supposed to and not stop pretending like you're doing it? You know, like the guy that's only a tzaddik inside the Beit Knesset. Inside the Beit Knesset, he puts the kippah on. Outside, he looks like everybody else. No, when are you going to look like a proud Jew all the time? When? So, Rosh Chodesh Elul is happening, and we also have this event happening. And anyone that hasn't been sleeping under a rock also knows that the war already started.

13:49But it's about to get bigger. Right now, it's a chicken match between North Korea and Donald Trump about who's going to press the button first. They're both eager to press it. It's an ego battle, and they're both eager to press it. The next war is the last war. It's not a matter of prophecy or anything even remotely close to prophecy; it's just common sense. Just common sense. The next war is the last one, and... So now Hashem has given you many, many signs and many, many different things to explain to you that it's time for us to do teshuva. You have this major event, you have Rosh Chodesh Elul, you have Parashat HaShavua. What is He telling us just in the first verse of the parasha? You have what's happening worldwide, how much Am Yisrael is hated and despised everywhere, whether it's in America or in Israel or anywhere. It's happening.

14:49So now this public service announcement is either going to wake you up or it's going to confirm that you're dead.