What Does Torah Say About Presidency? (11 minutes)

0:02But to give you just a little bit of an idea regarding this whole issue with politics, I generally don't like to really talk about politics. I never really liked it even before Torah, just because in order for you to be a politician, you have to be a professional liar. It's just a reality. It's not necessarily a new insight that I created. This is what it is. You have to, if you want to be a successful lawyer, which we'll talk about today, you have to be a professional lawyer. And most politicians are former lawyers, lawyers, judges, and so on. And the reason why is because you have to be able to speak out of both sides of your mouth. You have to say this and sometimes do something else. You have to do something else and say something else. You always have to be politically correct. That's why they call it politically correct. It's not a compliment to tell somebody they're politically correct. So when you're politically correct, you're talking out of both sides of your mouth, and you're doing things that look appropriate but are not usually appropriate or what's needed. And I think that...

1:13Even though it's definitely better for Am Yisrael not to have, you know, Hillary Clinton as the president and her terrorist assistant behind her, Huma Abedin. It's definitely better not to have them. But I wouldn't necessarily say, okay, this is the Mashiach is here either. you know, okay, Donald Trump seems like a nice person, and great that his daughter converted, but it doesn't mean anything. It means absolutely nothing. It means that at the time he made a promise that he's going to defend Israel, and at the time that he made a promise that he's going to be on the side of Israel, and he's going to do this, he probably meant it. But as soon as he became... The leader of America, officially Hashem took away his free choice.

2:14This, we have several sources in the Torah that say this. His free choice is no longer available. Hashem will use him as a tool to do His will. If Am Yisrael does teshuva, then He'll use him to do good for Am Yisrael. If Am Yisrael does not do teshuva, then He'll use him to go and wake up Am Yisrael. And waking up is not usually a pleasant process. I never heard anybody enjoy waking up. No one enjoys waking up. The first couple of seconds are terrible. It's like, ah, I prefer to sleep. You're lazy. You want to sleep for, you want to snooze for another 10 minutes, another 10 hours, whatever you want to snooze for. No one wants to wake up in the morning. It's not a pleasant process. Once you're awake, hopefully, you have a pleasant day. But in reality, waking up is not fun. Same concept with waking up to the truth. Changing your life, realizing that you're not allowed to work on Shabbat anymore, realizing that you can't eat at McDonald's, realizing that you have to separate from your spouse because they're of a different faith, realizing that you have to leave your synagogue because they're idol-worshipping there instead of worshipping Hashem, they're worshipping some rabbi. You know, it's a wake-up call. People don't like wake-up calls, but they're necessary.

3:28They're very much a necessary tool of Hashem. So I think that when people are actually celebrating so much that Donald Trump won and that everything is going to be fine now, it's a complete delusion. It's not the Torah; it's not the mindset of the Torah. Yes, it's definitely better than the other person from a rational perspective. But what ends up happening from this point on is only in the hands of Hashem. It's always been in the hands of Hashem, and obviously, since Hashem saw that mankind is unfortunately foolish and they were most likely going to make the wrong choice, Hashem had to take control. Because at least with Donald Trump, it's probably going to look realistic, as if it's his opinion. Whereas if Hashem wanted Hillary Clinton to stop being anti-Semitic, that's more unrealistic. That's more unrealistic. So I think ultimately everyone needs to understand that whatever Hashem wants to happen is going to happen. When people ask me the question of where was Hashem during the Holocaust, the answer is very simple. We made three or four lectures about it. He did it. He was there.

4:49You know, there's no such thing as Hashem doing evil. He's not doing evil. It's not that He created the world to destroy it. But He created the world in order for the world to serve Him. So when people get their head around that and realize that the purpose of your life, the ultimate purpose of your life, is to do the will of Hashem, and by that you will benefit the most, by serving Him you'll benefit the most, then you realize that whatever way you're serving Him. Whatever direction He's sending you, whatever obstacles and hurdles you have to go through, that's the will of Hashem. You'll have a much easier time dealing with it. But people that say, "No, listen, I have no interest in Judaism, I have no interest in following this God of yours," I'm happy. I have my millions, I have my company, I have my kids, I have everything. I'm happy. And this we talked about yesterday a little bit, about someone that's a rasha, someone that's wicked, and wicked against Hashem, meaning not necessarily a mass murderer, it doesn't have to be a mass murderer, just somebody that's not keeping any of the mitzvot, not fulfilling the will of Hashem.

6:06And how could it be? It's wicked, and it's prospering. So in last night's Mishnah, it says, never ever get to despair. Never think that just because this wicked person is in a good position right now, that Hashem is not going to punish him. Punishment will come. And it's not only in the next world, it's in this world also. The problem that most people have is that they see the outside picture. They see the illusion. They see the Facebook pictures of how he went on vacation. They see the rumors of how he just bought this other company. They see the news article of how somebody has given him credit. They don't see the fact that one of his three companies just declared bankruptcy, and that was the biggest one. They don't see that one of his children is autistic, b'ezrat Hashem. They don't see that his wife is actually cheating on him, and he doesn't even know. They don't see those things. You don't publicize those things. You don't see real life. So, I think it's very, very important for everyone to understand that when Hashem wants to run the world, He's going to run the world. There's nothing you can do to get in the way. And not you, not me, not Donald Trump, not anyone. The best we can do is...

7:21...you will feel a sense of fulfillment and purpose in your life. Embrace the mitzvot and the teachings of the Torah as an opportunity to strengthen your connection with the Creator. It's crucial to keep in mind that the world is filled with challenges and distractions, but maintaining a steadfast faith and commitment to Hashem will guide us through. ...enjoyable the processes, but when we're living in a world full of illusions, where we think that just because we have a new leader, a new politician, a new this, a new that, everything is going to be fine, and people are already celebrating as if the Mashiach already came, it scares me a lot. It scares me a lot, and the reason why is because this is exactly how it was right before World War II, right before the Holocaust. The Jewish people were at the top of Germany's ladder. They were top politicians, they were top businessmen, they were top... everything. Everything was great. The only thing they weren't at the top of was religion. Why? Because 80% of them were intermarried and converted to Christianity and Catholicism—80% of them in Germany, and obviously very high percentages across all of Europe.

8:38The point being is that we did everything except what God told us. So God said, okay, so you think you have all the money, you think you have all the power, you're putting all of your eggs and all of your investments and betting it on man. And I wrote in the Torah, Arur, cursed is the man that depends on man. Instead of God, meaning the pride of man is what Hashem is going to use as a tool to embarrass him, to bring him down. And just like those politicians thought, you know, in Germany, that they were doing good. for their people by being politicians. Well, Hashem made those very same politicians elect and bring to power the very same rasha that ended up killing 6 million of us. So, you know, it's a, I think that the fact that so many people are depending on the government and on anything, it's just a mistake, and it's very sad to me that, you know, that people are just, mamash, like, just spending so much of their energy following it at all. I only know it from my students.

10:00You know, they tell me, "Oh, did you see this? Did you see this?" I don't know. I don't see it, but I hear you. I hear you're talking about it, you're talking about it, you're talking—everybody's talking about it. Listen, everything is good. I just don't necessarily see it that way. I guess maybe I'm a little bit more skeptical because I also come from Wall Street, and we were paid to be skeptical. We were paid to look for red flags. We were paid to look for bad things, for something wrong with the picture, because every time you analyze a company, if you only look at it in an optimistic way, you're bound to fail. Eventually, you're going to see, oh, wait a minute, by the way, this company's cooking their books, they're cheating, and you were so excited about their future. And the prospects of their new product, you didn't realize that in the meantime, everything they have in the bank is fake because you were so optimistic. So that's what we're paid to do. And the same concept applies to politicians. It's no different. It's no different. No different from anything else.