What Ruins Your Relationship With HaShem? - MUSSAR Iggeret HaRAMBAN (18)

0:15we have our series we haven't done in some time; we're up to number 18. Uh, the shiur today is for Yosef ben Levana, Sara Bat Levana, and Ovadia ben Levana and also David ben Esria, Doris Bat Jorah, Elisheva Chaya Bat Sara, Dvora Bat Mercedes, Batia Bat Sara, and all of Am Yisrael, b'ezrat Hashem, will have refuah sh'lema, refuat hanefesh, refuat haguf. to, I guess, bring us a little bit of reminders for anyone that forgot, or perhaps anyone that hasn't really been part of all of the shiurim, hasn't followed all of the shiurim of this specific series on the Iggeret HaRamban. Nachmanides lived a little over 800 years ago, and he actually

1:31although there are some differences in opinion between him and the Rambam, the Ramban ends with an "n"—Nachmanides—and Rambam ends with an "m." Although they lived in... two different time frames. When the Rambam died, the Ramban was, I believe, five years old or something like that. But still, he honored the Rambam's work so much that he defended much of his work throughout his life, his Torah, his kedushah, because the Rambam had many, many enemies. Ramban as well, and pretty much almost all of the tzaddikim had enemies. But what's unusual is that the Rambam had enemies, some of them were tzaddikim. They were mistaken about some of his work. For example, there is a very famous, one of the most important Mussar books that exists. It's about 800 years old. It's called Shaarei Teshuva.

2:39and it's by Rabbeinu Yonah of Gerona, and he wrote extensive details of what it really means to do teshuva. Anyone that wants to take teshuva seriously needs to go over this book quite a few times to understand it, but nonetheless, it's a very, very deep book, Going to the first couple of chapters, you already realize that where you are, whoever you are, and where you're supposed to be are two different worlds. But the point is, why did Rabbeinu Yonah write so much about teshuva? Because, in essence, he wrote about his own teshuva. He wrote about his own teshuva even though he was an ish kodesh his whole life. He wrote about his own teshuva from the mistake he himself made about his original judgment of the Rambam. He actually joined the others who went against the Rambam initially, thinking his work was heretical because he used some of the opinions of the Goyim, the scientists, and so on. Some people who didn't understand it or perhaps misjudged it or jumped to conclusions literally started burning his books.

3:55And unlike today where, you know, pretty much with the press of a button on Amazon or on any of these, Sefarim Center or ArtScroll or Feldheim, any of these websites that sell Sefarim, pretty much you press a button and the book arrives sometimes the same day, next day, two days later. A machine makes it. Simple. Even if they don't have it in print, if it's a big enough company, they can print it in a day. Back then, Sefarim were handwritten. So imagine, ...a series of the other haskamos. The Rambam's books, 14 volumes—14 volumes just for the series—were handwritten, one after another, one after another. And you see that a bunch of tzaddikim, a bunch of rabbis, are burning your books in the streets. What a kaparah it is! So, one of the people who was actually going against it initially was Rabbeinu Yonah, but then later on, he realized his mistake and... very, very dear mistake and went from place to place for the rest of his life, from synagogue to synagogue, from community to community, publicizing his mistake and publicizing the work of the Rambam. Now, the Ramban also, as an ish kodesh, was involved with Kabbalah, involved with Halachah, involved with Midrashim, involved with pretty much

5:14every aspect of Torah. He wrote something about it honestly, even if you could take the smartest group of people, forget about one person, a group of people, let's say three, four, or five people, and give them 70 years to do what the Ramban did by himself, they wouldn't achieve it. It's unbelievable how much he knew and wrote. Any, any, any gave us in such an extraordinary way that anyone that spends time learning his sefarim, or learning even in this letter, understands that this is chokhmah Elokit, this is divine knowledge. It cannot be something from a human being. Hence the reason why we have already spent almost four months learning just one of his letters, called the Iggeret HaRamban. So, this is a letter that the Ramban wrote to his son, giving him instructions, and in essence, 800 years later, giving us instructions on how to live life. Many people live life no different than animals; they wake up, and the first thing they want to do is eat something, and

6:28relieve themselves at some point in between eating, sometimes before, sometimes after, sometimes both. They go do something to occupy themselves; usually, it's to go make money. They go to work, they come home, and they waste their time on something. Usually, 99% of the time, it's about something that has nothing to do with anything and nothing that will bring them any value to life, like watching television, watching a movie, going to, I don't know, play a sport with their friends and throw a ball back and forth 57,000 times just to see who could throw the ball further. And then, you know, maybe if they're married, they have a wife, have a meaningless conversation, pretty much start the next day, and the same exact thing happens, and... Really, in their mind, all they have is they're ready for tomorrow. They're here today, but they're already talking about tomorrow. They never live today; they live tomorrow. "Yes, how was your day?" "Oh, well, tomorrow's gonna be better." But what about today? "Today, did you do anything?" "No, today wasn't so good, so tomorrow, okay?" But how come you can't enjoy today? You know, today is today. People forget to live today, and they occupy themselves with a lot of things that really do not bring any value to their life, and...

7:40You know, that's the reason why you have big pharma and different drug companies making billions and billions of dollars off of anxiety medicine, all types of psychological medicines, and all types of depression medicines. Simply, if you can invent something to just calm people down to the extent where they become like mannequins, you can make billions of dollars. Why? Because people want to escape reality and... Now, the Torah says not only are you not allowed to escape reality, but you should find a way to enjoy reality, even though reality is difficult at times. And the Ramban gave us a letter where he told us there is a way, there is a system, there is an instruction set, that if you follow it closely, without veering off the path and throwing your own opinion somewhere, Simply follow it. One, two, three, four, five. Step one is this. Step two is this. Step three is this. Step four is this. You follow it to a T, you're not only going to enjoy life, but you'll achieve much, much more than you could have ever imagined achieving doing it any other way. The problem is that we have a huge ego.

9:01So big that you have many people that say they believe in God. They believe in God. I love God. I fear God. I love God. All that stuff. God, yeah, best. But they think they're smarter than God. Why? Because they want to change the system. They don't agree with His system. Now, this is not just this generation. There's nothing new. This is since the beginning of time. People have been trying to change God's instructions even though we know He's God. We say we believe in Him. We say He is so powerful. We just learned last week that He created the whole world and with everything in it. We just realized last week that He created everything already ready-made. He didn't create the egg; He created the chicken that laid the egg. He didn't create a puppy that grew up to be a dog; He created a dog, a fully grown dog. He didn't create a cub that eventually grew up to become a big lion; He created a full lion. He didn't create a little seed that eventually became a tree; He created the whole tree, which also conflicts with the scientists and all the people that like to

10:11You know, go against the Torah, saying all I see is the world is zillions and zillions of years old. Why? Because, you know, look at the trees. You know, every year the trees, some of these older trees, you see they have more and more circles every year. The more rings in the tree itself, you could tell the age of the tree. See, how could the tree be this old if the world is six thousand years old? It makes sense to them. They forgot that Hashem already created the tree. Ready-made, meaning the tree already looked old at creation. Adam HaRishon was 20 years old. He wasn't born, you know, a baby. He wasn't born a baby and saying, "goo goo gaga." Already on the first day, he made a sin with Chava. On the first day, he already made a sin. So, he was a 20-year-old man, and the animals were fully grown. Trees, ready-made. The whole world was ready-made. This conflicts with the rational minds, because to them it doesn't make sense. On one hand, they say that God created the world, but on the other hand, they limit God. Wait, okay, He created the world, but He needs evolution to help Him.

11:31he needs, you know, things to go through a process. What if He could already—He's already powerful enough to create the whole world—why does He need evolution? Why does He need everything to take time? You know, the world expanding and expanding? Why does He need that? If He wanted it to expand, it would expand. If He doesn't want it to expand, it won't expand. If He wants it to be an egg, it'll be an egg. If He wants it to be a chicken, it will be a chicken. If you're already saying He's God, then He's God. He's not limited. Although we don't really have much debate or many doubts at all about the creation aspect of it, the problem is the same logic or flawed logic ruins our day-to-day belief in HaKadosh Baruch Hu. When we think we have a better way than Hashem, the Ramban told us a few things so far. He said first and foremost if... You want to have a good life, you have to learn Mussar. You have to learn Mussar. Mussar is character development in English, if you will. Meaning that if you want to have a better life, you want to have a better life, that requires something. What does that require? It requires you to be better.

12:55The circumstances will not change if you stay the same. If you stay the same person, don't expect things to change. If you're stingy and arrogant and a liar and a thief and this and that, that's going to yield a certain type of outcome. Now, once that outcome is not to your liking, because people are calling you a liar, people are calling you a thief, people are saying you're arrogant, people are calling you names, no one likes you, you're not going to like it so much if you're a normal person. Now, you can do two things at that time. You can either stay the same, or you can change. If you stay the same and nothing changes, don’t be surprised. Why? That's what happens. It didn't work the first time; it won't work the next time. Many people tell me, "Listen, I'm not having any luck. I keep getting fired from every job. I'm not having any luck. I can't find a shidduch. I'm not having any luck. I can't do this. I can't do that. My wife doesn't like me anymore. My husband doesn't like me anymore." It's not luck. It's not luck at all. It's you.

14:13you've been doing the same thing, the same mistake, over and over and over again and expecting a different result. Why? Why is there gonna be a different result? If you want to make more money, that means you have to do something slightly different than what you're doing. If you want to have a different career that you're enjoying more, you have to change jobs. If you want your wife or your husband to be nicer to you, you have to act differently, and... Correction when it comes to money: Obviously, HaKadosh Baruch Hu is the one that decides whether you make money or not, but, logically speaking, if you're going to be selling airheads in the street just to five kids every day, don't expect that that's going to earn you millions of dollars like a job on Wall Street could. could happen if I could know who decides that. Well, you know, one of your customers is an Airhead addict, and he buys, and he's also a multi-millionaire. He buys everything that you have. But most likely, it's not going to happen. You're not putting yourself in a circumstance where this is a reality or even a possibility. The point being, I believe, is that in order for us to have a different outcome in life, we have to change. If we don't change, don't expect things to change.

15:32That's why the Ramban said to us that in order for us to even have a chance of changing, we have to first and foremost accept the obligation to learn Mussar every single day of our lives forever. A little bit every day. Sometimes five minutes a day, sometimes a half hour a day, whatever you can, but every single day. There was a big Rav that uh would speak at different kehillot. One time he asked his son to come with him to a seminar they were having on a weekend, and the son said, "Okay, can I bring my friend?" He said, "Sure, bring a friend." So he brought his friend. This rabbi says, you know, sometimes you see certain people and they just look good. Everything is put together: faces a certain way, bodies a certain way. They're fully healthy. They've got their head on their shoulders. They're smart, they're nice, they're kind—like everything is good. He just looks good; everything looks good. Just a nice kid, smart kid, everything is good. He's like, that was his friend.

16:56Every time I would say something to the friend, he always had a good answer, always had a polite answer. And I said to myself, wow, what a kid. This is a nice, even though he loves his own kid, he says the friend, you know, the other kid is, you know, he's a little jealous. He's a little jealous that this other kid is not his kid. He loves his kid. But you know, this other kid is like, eh. It's like, you know, it's like a diamond. It's very nice, this, that. It's easy. In the seminar, he's talking to other people. Everyone likes him. was like a magnet, says good things, has developed to heart, and says, "Wow, what a nice kid, what a friend, good for my kid to have a friend like this." Okay, but then the father says, "I want to see how maybe it's fake, maybe it's fake." So he decided to follow this kid a little bit over the weekend on the Shabbaton, just to follow him around to see what he does. Maybe it's all fake, maybe really in reality he's a thief, he's a kleptomaniac, he's something, you know. I want to see it. So he started following him around.

17:56follows him around the Shabbat afternoon. He sees that the kid is with everybody. Then, after he sees that everyone is not really looking, he walks away. The rabbi thinks, "That's my opportunity. I'm going to walk after him, just to see where he goes. Where does he go? Maybe he goes to light a cigarette on Shabbat and ruin the whole thing." He starts following him. He sees the kid go down the hall, walking around, and all of a sudden, he takes a little note out of his pocket and He stops. He reads it for exactly two minutes, and he puts it back in his pocket. Then he goes back. When he goes back, the rabbi says, "No, no, no. That's it. I have to do something. Something happened here." So he stops the kid and says, "Listen, I'm sorry. I just noticed you took something out of your pocket and you read it for two minutes. What is it?" The kid, a little shy, responds, "Oh, Kvod Harav, you saw me?" The rabbi says, "Yes, yes. I just now noticed. What did you read?" The boy answers, "Hear this." He shows it. "What did you show him?"

18:56He shows him a little bit of Mussar from the Ramban. He goes, how come you read this out of all things in the world? He says, because in my house, my father told us, my mom told us, there's only one rule. There's no rules in the house. There's only one rule. Every single person has to learn Mussar two minutes a day. Even the baby says my little brother is a little baby. My mom reads Mussar every day for two minutes. She says that the little baby is there after he finishes eating, so he's not crying, and she reads him a little bit of the Iggeret HaRamban. She reads him a little bit of Mishna, she reads a message. Let's say two minutes a day. Every member of the family, two minutes a day. Now, Baruch Hashem, he says, I'm already 16, 17 years old. So, two minutes a day, I fulfill my obligation. Two minutes, I have to do it. I need it. And the rabbi says that's the secret. That's why the kid is this way. Why? Not only did he acclimate himself to have some type of seder, some type of structure in his life, but it's a good structure. It's a structure that tells him, I need to learn something to make myself better every day, even if it's only two minutes a day. As long as it's every day, already that's going to improve me for tomorrow. That's, in essence, the whole message of this letter.

20:21First and foremost, we have to accept the big obligation on ourselves to learn Mussar. Because Mussar is the only cure for spiritual cancer. Many people suffer from cancer. Hashem yerachem. I looked at a statistic recently, and it showed that about 54 to 56 million people die every single year around the world. Out of 8 billion people, almost 54 to 56 million approximately die every year. Recently, I misquoted; I said 18 million. That's only in one country, a big country like China. Around the whole world, 54 to 56 million people die. The second leading cause of death is cancer. The first leading cause of death is heart disease, all types of disease of the heart. But in reality, the other eight billion that are living are also dead in the eyes of Hashem. Almost all of them are also dead in the eyes of Hashem. Why?

21:36Kadosh Baruch Hu says in the Gemara that Resha'im, even during their life, are considered dead. Someone that's not listening to Hashem is a Rasha. That's what a Rasha is. Rasha doesn't mean he's a murderer; obviously, a murderer is a Rasha. But he doesn't have to be a murderer, rapist, pedophile, or thief to be a Rasha. A Rasha could be somebody that's driving on Shabbat and he's Jewish. A Rasha could be somebody that lies to his parents. A Rasha could be somebody that lies to his boss. A Rasha could be somebody that manipulates people. He doesn't necessarily need to be a criminal of society. He could also be somebody that everybody thinks is a very nice guy, but he happens to steal money. He's very nice, but it's just not his money. So, Rasha is just somebody who doesn't listen to Hashem. A Rasha worships idols. The Gemara says that Reshaim, even during their life, are considered dead. Meaning that if they're alive, but they haven't died from cancer, they haven't died from heart disease, they haven't died from all of these other diseases that this report said,

22:48No car accidents, no shark bit them, nothing. But in the eyes of Hashem, they're considered dead. Why are they considered dead? Because they have what's called spiritual cancer. They have spiritual cancer that's killing them every day. The beauty is, unlike physical cancer, which many times does not have a cure, spiritual cancer does have a cure. And it's free. You don't need to go to a doctor. You don't need to go to a lawyer. You don't need to have a lot of money. All you need is to learn Mussar every day. A little bit of Mussar every day, little by little, it's going to fix your spiritual cancer. Why? Because that Mussar is going to teach you that you need to improve certain things. So the Rambam said, First learn Mussar, then he starts going one after another on different topics of things that are dangerous. He says there's something that's so dangerous you should consider it a life risk. What is it? Being angry. You being an angry person puts your life at risk. Why? Your whole life is one big tragedy.

23:58you're always angry. Somebody says something to you, you want to hit him, you want to yell at them, you do yell at them. You start cursing people out. The guy didn't make you coffee that's hot enough to your liking. You want to spill it in his face. Somebody said something to you, somebody cut you off, you want to beep the horn until his mom hears it back at home. You want to do all types of things because people make you angry. Ramban says you already have a disease. Your spiritual cancer is so heavy, you already have it. We have to fix it. How? Go back to learning Mussar, same solution, same concept with everything else, and now we've arrived at something that unfortunately almost every human being, including the religious ones to some extent, has. Some more, some less, some have so much of it that it's unbearable to be next to them, some a little less. Ramban writes... He's talking about what is a person going to be so prideful about? What, he has money? He's prosperous? What is he so prideful about? He says

25:21Prideful? What, you're just looking for honor? Just looking for people to treat you differently because you simply think you're better? You're better looking, you're smarter, you're this, you're that. So you simply are just seeking honor. You're an arrogant person. So the Ramban writes, if it's honor that you're seeking... You're looking for everyone to shake your hand a certain way, look at you a certain way, talk to you a certain way. Make sure they know your entire CV, your whole résumé by heart. Make sure that they read all the titles on your business card. Make sure when they say your name, they say Rabbi such and such. They forget Rabbi, they forget doctor. I remember I had a client one time, and one of my assistants tells me, "Oh, Dr. So-and-so is leaving. He's not transferring the account here anymore." I said, "Why not? What happened?" He goes, "No, he's really upset. He didn't tell me why." I said, "Okay, let me call him." So I call the guy, and the guy is furious.

26:28I said, "What happened? What did I do? I made you money. What's the matter?" He goes, "Do you know how long I spent acquiring my medical degree?" I said, "Yeah, doc, of course, you worked hard, and so on." He goes, "Do you know how much I studied?" I said, "Yeah, yeah, of course, doc, good for you. What's that have to do with anything?" He goes, "How dare you send me a letter calling me 'mister'?" didn't have a defense. I mean, on one hand, he's right, but on the other hand, what am I gonna tell the guy? Listen, take care of your ego over there. Maybe you should open an account instead of you. We're gonna tell them all I did is yell at my secretary, why she made the mistake. I said, "How are you calling Doctor so-and-so a 'mister'? He's ruined the account, a million-dollar account. Why is it such a big deal?" I said, "Apparently, you worked really hard to be a doctor. But is this really arrogance?" It's arrogance, that's all it is. So the Ramban writes, if it's honor that you're seeking, does not honor belong to God? As it's written in the book of Divrei HaYamim 1, chapter 29, verse 12, "Wealth and honor come from You," You meaning Hashem. So the Ramban continues, saying, how can one glorify himself with the honor of his Maker?

27:57The Mesilat Yesharim, the Ramchal, in chapter 11 of his Mesilat Yesharim, writes that the pursuit of glory, the pursuit of kavod, the pursuit of honor, is the number one goal in a human being's life. More than money, power, and even physical pleasure, Person looks for honor, looks for recognition. He wants everybody to know he's the one that built this. He wants everyone to know he read this book. She wants everyone to know those are her kids. She wants everyone to know he's the one that won the award. You know when the kids are doing great, she goes, "No, no, you see those kids? Those are my kids." Okay, thank you, lady. That's your kids, good for you. Who asked you? No, no, I want you to know the ones that got first place, that's my kids. It's my kids. Yours are the losers. Yours are, you know, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th place. Those are the losers. Those are your kids. Mine are first, second, third. Those are my kids. Why? She wants anavah. She wants kavod. Why? She worked hard for it. Ramban writes, mistake. Yeah, you worked hard for it, but really, did you work hard for it? Who's the one that gave you the strength? Who's the one that gave you the idea? Who's the one that gives you oxygen?

29:19Who's the one that's instilled all of this? And you know, who is the one that actually allowed it to happen? We forget where everything comes from because we think that we worked so hard. And then I see, like Rav Yitzchak Sher writes, that this honor, this yearning for honor, this yearning for kavod, is the number one thing that people chase after. Yechezkel Levinstein elaborates further. He says that unlike physical desires, unlike material desires, kavod is the only thing that continues to grow as you age, meaning the average young person they're young, really, all they want is something physical. Either more food, more affection, intimacy, things that they're not allowed to do if they're not married, and so on and so forth.

30:29He wants another phone because one phone is not enough. He wants another bicycle because one bicycle is already a year old. He wants another, you know, his 19th pair of sneakers because the first 18 are already a week old. He wants more stuff. Then, as he gets a little older, he wants a girlfriend. She wants a boyfriend. You want a new dress. You want new this, new that. You want physicality, more material, more and more. Then they grow up, they get an actual job. They realize that money is hard to come by. But still, they continue living their life that way. Why? Because you have a system in the world today that gives you free access to money even though you have no way of paying it back. It's called credit. An 18-year-old kid is given $10,000, $20,000, $30,000, $40,000 spending limits before they even know what it means to make $10,000 or $20,000. They've never made $10,000 in their life, but they're already given access to $20,000. The average kid leaves college $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 in debt aside from the college debt they have. Which, who knows if they're ever going to pay for it? Who knows if they're ever going to use it? The guy completes four years of college with, what, a degree in physical education. Where are you going to be? A gym teacher? Why did you go to college for that? Just run around 50,000 times; they'll give you a job. Why did you have to go spend a quarter of a million dollars of your parents' money to be a gym teacher?

31:49Oh, you got a communications degree. What does that mean? Oh, I know how to speak. What, you didn't know how to speak before you got to college? How did you pass? How did you get to college without knowing how to speak? Where did you go to college for? A communications degree. Oh, I have a theater degree. What are you going to be, a movie star? Are you going to be a movie producer? No, no, nothing. So what are you going to do? No, I'm going to be a salesman. I'm going to sell cars. So why did you get this degree? Oh, it was the easiest class. It was the easiest class to go, take the easiest class. So why did you go to college? Spent a quarter million dollars of your parents' money for what? No, I was having fun. You could have taken $50,000 instead of a quarter million dollars, saved your parents a couple hundred thousand dollars, had fun in different ways. No, but you know, that's the upbringing we have today. Parents send their kids to school without having an idea of why. have go to school without having an idea why, and everybody comes out with just more debt. But even if that's not enough, a bunch of these kids get a bunch of mail as soon as their name goes into the system as a college student. All of the credit companies have a blast with them, and

32:57send them all of the mail in the world. "Open a credit card here, open Discover, open American Express, open this, open in Zimbabwe, open it." Oh, before you know it, the kid's 18 years old. He's never made a dollar in his life. He's got access to $50,000. What do you think he's going to do? Just leave it like that? Come on, if they gave it to me, of course, they rely on me to use it. What are we doing today? Go shopping. What do you buy? Everything. I Go shopping. Well, I need new shoes. But you have shoes. Yeah, but I need more. How many more? Fifteen more pairs. I'll buy you some shoes, too. Why have it? What do you mean you have it? Yeah, credit, credit. Who's going to pay it? Nah, we'll worry about that when we get there. We're not going to be millionaires one day. Every one of these kids leaves college with all this debt. Before he knows it, a month later, he realizes, wait, I have to pay this back? Wait, so I can't just spend it. I have to pay it back. He has no money. He calls his mom and dad. His mom and dad fall for it a few times. They pay the debt a few times. But after a while, they say, listen, son, you got to stop. you got to stop. No more dresses, no more shoes, no more nothing. Enough, enough, enough. But they don't listen. What do they do? They continue spending. So what do they do? They start maneuvering the credit card system. They start borrowing from one credit card in America, taking some cash back with higher interest to pay off another credit card. And they maneuver the system, finagle the system, until they pretty much have to declare bankruptcy. But there's another system. It's called debt consolidation. And

34:16Call it debt consolidation. Debt consolidation says, listen, you owe $10,000. The credit card company knows that they're not going to get the money. What do you do? Just come up with $1,500. Come up with $2,500. Come up with $3,000. Pay the credit card, and the other $7,000 gets written off. Oh, sounds great. Save $7,000. Two problems with this. Number one, if you really have the money and you did it, it's called gezel. You stole. Number two, your credit is ruined. It's almost like you declare bankruptcy. But the kid, he's 25 years old. He hasn't thought about all this yet. So one day he wants to buy a house. They say, "Well, you can't be approved for a bubblegum wrapper." He asks, "What are you talking about?" They respond, "Yeah, but I have a job." They say, "Yeah, but you have bad credit." So now, what happens? All of this happens because we desire more. We want more, we want more stuff. We want people to give us credit recognition. And the credit card companies have a blast with this, the drug companies have a blast with this, the colleges have a blast with this. They know that your parents sometimes are stupid and...

35:16They'll tell you they'll be willing to pay fifty thousand or sixty thousand dollars for college because they want to have some letter that says you went to college for four years. You could just print it for free on the internet, just put Harvard on it if you want to save yourself a quarter million dollars. But no, people want to go the hard way. They want to go and send the kid to college and do nothing and make a bunch of sins. So they do this now if you have a real reason to go to school because you're actually going to be something in your life. You need to learn a specific profession. That's one thing. But quite frankly, most things that people want to do in the world today, you don't need to go to college for. You just need to work hard. But the problem is that we want the prize. We want the kavod. We want the honor. We want the award. We want everyone to have a dinner for us, honoring us. But we don't want to do any of the work for it. We don't want to do any of the work for it. We want to just get it. So that's why, Rabotai, it shows us here that this is not something that makes common sense. This is literally a spiritual disease. So Rav Levinstein says that when it comes to materialism, even that craziness that we just explained now, eventually that will end. Eventually, the person grows up.

36:40Already gets into his late 20s, 30s, b'ezrat Hashem, starts a family. She starts a family. She realizes she doesn't need 57 pairs of shoes. She realizes that those dresses are really not appropriate. She realizes she doesn't need all the stuff that she has. He realizes he doesn't need all this stuff though because you have to work for and pay for it. So the desire for materialism little by little diminishes over time. Especially as a person gets older and they have kids and the kids grow up and things become even more expensive. The kid tells you, "Listen up, I'm getting married." "Okay, son. No problem." "All right, the hall is gonna be $37,000. The food is gonna be another $60,000. The music is gonna be another $25,000." By the time he finishes telling you what his spreadsheet looks like, you're saying, "You know what, son? I don't think you should get married." I don't think she's for you. Ah, but you didn't even meet her yet. No, no, I don't think she's for you. For sure she's not for you. Why? Who wants to pay a quarter million dollars for you to get married? So all of a sudden, when you were his age, you wanted the quarter million dollar wedding. But now that you're the one that's paying for it, all of a sudden it's like, why do you need such a wedding? People tell me, "Listen, we're getting married," and I say, "Okay, great. Mazal tov. Do you know anybody that will lend us money to get married or donate money for our wedding?" I said,

38:04You don't have $5,000 or $4,000 to get married? $10,000 to get married? No, that we have for sure. We have no problem. But our wedding cost a lot more than that. How much did your wedding cost? Our wedding was about sixty or seventy thousand. Did you want other people to pay for your seventy thousand dollar wedding? Are you sick or stupid? Go get a regular wedding with a couple of witnesses and finish. What do you need all this for? To feed a bunch of strangers? What do you need all this for? Why? You want honor? You want kavod. You want everyone to say, ah, that's the best wedding ever. The steak, the steak felt like it was almost alive. I honestly think it said moo to me. It said moo. But I said, ah, you kosher? He said, yeah. Moo, yeah, it's good. I'm telling you, it was the best steak in the world. The music, I can still hear it now, three days later. Everybody wants everyone to talk about their wedding. Why? They want honor. Meaning that the materialism is less than the honor. We get and acquire all this materialism because, in the end, we want something more. The same concept applies when it comes to physicality and intimacy. People chase all of these different things just to pretty much completely destroy any concept of what a good relationship is. The Chafetz Chaim said—I believe, no, the Chazon Ish said—what the goyim and the secular people call love

39:31We call it karet. They think that if they say "I love you" and they hug and kiss without being married, or even if they are married but they do it in the streets, they think it's love. No, "I love her." That's not love. That's karet. That's a sin, a really big one. So, over time, even that desire, both feminine and masculine, diminishes. Guidance: 20 years old, once a lot; 30 years old, slightly less; 40 years old, slightly less; 50, slightly less, unless he's abnormal. But sometimes there's a certain person that's called Maus, someone that's called disgusting, despicable in the eyes of Hashem. Who's that? The Gemara says there are a few people that HaKadosh Baruch Hu hates. One of those people is an old man that chases young women and Old man that wants to get a 20-year-old girlfriend. He is 65, 75 years old, but his girlfriend is 20 years old. He should know he has a certificate waiting for him in Shamayim. What does it say on it? God says to him, instead of saying "I love you" like to the rest of us, He says, "I hate you." Yeah, he's going to go to Shamayim, and God will say to him, "Oh, Abba, I hate you." Why? Old man, you're two years away from going into a diaper, and you're going after a 20-year-old.

40:57You don't even have any of your own teeth anymore. You're going after a 20-year-old? Disgusting human being. No, but she loved me. Yeah, yeah, she loved you. Sure, she loved you. She loved the car you bought her, the bracelet you bought her, and all the other stuff she likes. But that's what happens. But in reality, even the old man that does it, most of the time it's not because of his physical desires; most of the time it's because he wants people to give him honor. So, Levinstein explains... The desire for sensuality, the desire for money—all of that will diminish over time. The one thing that will not diminish, the one thing that will not go down, is the desire for honor. In fact, it's the one thing that will continue increasing over time. Well, if I'm, says... When he was a little boy, he was eight years old. His next-door neighbor in Netanya was completely, completely secular. Didn't keep nothing. Once in a while, he'd come over for the holidays. Rav Chaim, Rav Chaim's father, is a big ba'al chesed. He always has 30, 40, 50 guests on Pesach and different holidays. Some of the stories that you hear from him, it's like, I don't know how you do it.

42:22All the crazies in the world come to his house, and it ends up becoming a great thing. I don't know how he does it. But anyway, he says that the next-door neighbor they had, completely secular, completely like just off. But one day, he comes to Rav Chaim, to Rav Chaim's father, and says, "There's a problem here. Something's wrong with your education of your kids. Something's wrong with my kids." "What's wrong?" "Your son passed by me today. He didn't say hello." Rav Chaim told his son, "You see the neighbor, say hello." Rav Chaim today says to me, "He goes, what does this guy want? He's 50, 60 years old. He got offended that an eight-year-old passed by him and didn't say hello. This is your worry in life?" An eight-year-old will say hello to you. Are you that desperate for attention? That you need the eight-year-old, who doesn't usually think so much about saying hello to people? The best thing that an eight-year-old thinks about is, "Where can I build something or break something? What can I climb?" Do you think an eight-year-old is thinking about manners— "Oh, I'm gonna say hello to my next-door neighbor"?

43:36But the next-door neighbor doesn't know anything about us and says, "No, there's something wrong with the toy here. What? Your eight-year-old didn't give me attention. He didn't say hello?" Well, better yet, sometimes you have these old people who get upset when they see the kids playing in their yard and start yelling at them, "Get off my lawn." Well, it's just grass, buddy. It's just grass; it grows by itself. You don't have to do anything. You touch the guy's mailbox, "Hey, how dare you touch my mailbox!" kid playing, opening and closing it. "Don't ever touch my mailbox! What, you want people to know it's your mailbox, it's your yard, it's your car?" Or they get really, really upset if they see somebody leaning on their car. Not that it's nice or good necessarily to lean on other people's cars—lean on your own car—but it's not really that big of a deal. You're not kicking the thing. Sometimes, some guys are so obsessed with their cars. They start yelling and screaming and maybe even go into a fistfight. Why? Because you leaned on their car? Leaned on their car. Well, you're crazy. It's my car. This is all a result of people who are obsessed with honor, and this continues to increase over time unless a person cures themselves with Mussar.

45:01The Ramban is trying to explain to us that, on one hand, kavod is not good. We're here admitting that kavod only belongs to Hashem, but, on the other hand, we keep chasing it. What's the logic? Why are we naturally all chasing more and more honor even though we know it all belongs to Hashem? Because, rabotai yekarim, The only thing that a person can acquire is external honor—fake honor for stuff he didn't do. He wants to get credit for building a building even though he's not responsible even for the oxygen that he's breathing. Even though he doesn't know if he's going to survive the week. Even though he doesn't know if he's going to be able to eat and chew the food because he has a toothache. He doesn't know everything; Hashem does. But he wants people to give him credit for doing what he did. Why? Because the One that's doing everything is Hashem. Honor is the one thing that HaKadosh Baruch Hu reserved only for Himself as the King. Everything else we're able to have. Honor is the only thing Hashem says it's Mine. Because in reality, I'm the One that's doing everything. Hence the reason why we want it. It's inaccessible. We can't really get real honor.

46:23Shlomo HaMelech says, "Stolen waters are sweeter." You take two cups of water. They gave me two cups of water. Now, whether I drink this cup or this cup, they're both not only pink cups or purple, whatever color this is, but they're also water. What does Shlomo HaMelech say? Shlomo HaMelech says that if one of them was stolen, we would think, "Oh, this is better quality water." This is better quality water. But what do you mean? It's water. They're both coming from the same place. No, no, no. You have no idea about water. I understand water. I understand. Well, you have no idea. What do you drink? You drink mud. You don't understand what you're talking about water. I'm a mineral water expert. Why? Because ayat sarat tells us it's not allowed, it's forbidden. It's better. Really good water. So now, where do we start? Where does it all start? It all starts with Chava. Last week's parasha, parashat Bereshit, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says to Chava, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says actually better yet to Adam HaRishon to tell Chava, you have Gan Eden. Gan Eden, we cannot even imagine the beauty. We cannot even imagine the smell of

47:50you cannot imagine all the good that was there. The Gemara says one of the tzaddikim was struggling financially. He started praying to Hashem, doing everything he could, pleading with Hashem. Hashem sent him Eliyahu HaNavi. Eliyahu HaNavi asked, "Do you want to see Gan Eden?" He said, "Sure." He went to Gan Eden and said, "Wow, this is waiting for you." Take anything you want. Take anything you want from this Gan Eden and then take it back with you. Immediately, he saw that this flower that had the smell was something he said, "Not in this world." He took the flower and he put it in his pocket because, but just you know, whatever you take here, we're gonna deduct it from your reward after you die. Immediately, he said, "No, no, no, take it out. Take it out. I'll take it back. I don't want it." I don't want to, you know, get a little reward for a few years in this world, so I'm gonna lose pieces of the next world. No, no, no. But when he came back to the real world, he came back to this world, the smell of the flower was still on his jacket. The entire city smelled it and said, "What is this smell? Where's it coming from?" They all came to ask, "What is this?" He ended up becoming a multi-millionaire. From what? From selling a little bit of the smell.

49:16Making perfume from a little bit of the smell that touched the flower that touched the jacket. That touched the jacket one time. So now imagine an entire Gan Eden, not just a flower, an entire Gan Eden. Chava had it. Hashem says anything you want except one thing. What? Don't touch the Tree of Knowledge. Dafka, what does she touch? One thing you're not allowed. One thing. One thing. No, no, no. I have to. I have to. There's one thing I can't. That's the one thing that I want. A guy sometimes says, "Oh, listen, that one over there, is she available?" No, no, no. She's married. I'm sorry. She looks like she's single, but no, she's married. Okay, what about the other one? She's single. She's a twin sister. The twin sister looks exactly the same. They are not like they're twice as non. I mentioned maybe it's a twin sister. No, I'm not sure. You guys think I'm making this up. It was actually a scientific research. Scientific research done by goyim. They wanted to see the mindset of men. They showed them identical twins. Identical twins looked exactly the same and...

50:39Both attractive. They brought 10 men, or maybe more. But they said one of the sisters was married, one was single. But the people, the guys, didn't know which one was married, which one was single. They just wanted to see who they were going to pick. 90% picked the married girl. 90% picked the married one. They look exactly the same, so you take two stamps, two stamps exactly the same. That's what they pick; they pick the married one. Why? Because mayim ganuvim yimtaku—stolen water is sweeter. It's not that they knew she's married, that's why they wanted her. Their neshama knew, the yetzer hara knew, "It's forbidden. That's what I want." Us people... We know that kavod is not ours to have. We didn't create anything. We didn't do anything. Everything that we have, HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave us. Everything. With no exception. Instead of focusing on saying thank you to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, we want everyone to know that we acquired this and we acquired that. What honor is there in it? Now, the Gemara in Masechet Chullin

51:59Says something very interesting. It says that the innate quality of a Jew that's looking to be righteous, that HaKadosh Baruch Hu loves, is if a person acts with humility. Anytime somebody gives him a compliment, anytime she gets a compliment, instead of saying, "Oh, you noticed," "Oh, you got a new dress," "Oh, you noticed." You have a new dress? Oh, you noticed. Oh, you're like, "You know, thank you." Instead of saying, "Yeah, I did this, I did that," say, "Baruch Hashem." Instead of saying, "Yeah, I'm the one that did it," give the credit to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. A person like that, who loves Him, who loves the person that says, "It's all Hashem." Anytime a person takes credit for themselves, they don't realize what they're doing to themselves. Aside from the fact that this is detestable to Hashem, there is a system that HaKadosh Baruch Hu has in the world. Anytime somebody suffers a little bit in this world, that suffering is worth something. What is it worth if, let's say, for example...

53:23Somebody breaks their hand. Somebody gets sick. Somebody has lost money, has some form of suffering. But in reality, it's going to happen at some point or another in some form or another to everyone that lives. Suffering is part of life. Hopefully, we don't have it, but in reality, when we realize what it's worth, chachamim say we'll pray for it. Don't pray for it, though. It comes by itself. Now, what is the suffering worth? If you suffer a little bit here, that suffering removes a lot of suffering over there. Meaning, a person is not perfect. There's no such person that's perfect, never makes sins. Everybody makes sins. Hopefully, they're not on purpose, but everybody makes sins. Those sins have a consequence. There's a Gan Eden, there's a Gehinom. We're not going to go into the details, but you realize already, Gan Eden is the good place, Gehinom, not such a good place. Now, the sentence in the bad place, in Gehinom, could be a really, really long time for certain sins. Now, what happens is, let's say, for example, a person suffers here. They got sick for a week. They broke a hand. They lost a bunch of money. Whatever happened, now HaKadosh Baruch Hu takes that suffering and removes suffering that they were supposed to get for a sin they made in Gehinom. So now they only suffered here.

54:53Let's say for five days or even five weeks or even five years. In Shamayim, Hashem removes much, much more. You suffered here for five days. He can remove 50 years of suffering in Gehinom. So on one hand, we don't really want to suffer here. But the Chachamim say if a person knew how much suffering really is worth, they would ask for it. They would pray for it. They would celebrate when they get it. Why? Because they know they're going to get some suffering because they made some mistakes, and... But needless to say, suffering comes by itself because HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants us to have a better Olam HaBa. So He gives us some suffering over here in order to wake us up, in order to remove any possibility of us going to Gehinom and so on and so forth. But the point is that the next time a person loses something or gets hurt in some way, always look at the fact that there is a positive aspect of it. instead of, you're gonna, okay, you're gonna get hurt and offended and so on and so forth for a few days or even a few weeks, know that that's a payment that's worth millions in the next world. But it also works on the opposite end. The opposite end is if a person enjoys too much in this world, that joy is also taken from him or her.

56:15the next world. There's permissible joy, and there's extra motarot—stuff that's not really necessary, stuff that could be even forbidden. There are some pleasures you're not allowed to have. if a person enjoys honor because he just gave a bunch of money and he opened a certain thing and now he put his name on the yeshiva, so everyone that's ever gonna go to this yeshiva, they're gonna know it's Reuven's yeshiva. And everyone says, "Wow, wow, Reuven opened his yeshiva, wow, wow, wow, wow," every day, "wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow." This guy goes to the next world What does he get? A bag of potato chips. Yeah, where's my Gan Eden? You got paid already, buddy. When did I get paid? I opened a whole yeshiva. Yeah, you opened a whole yeshiva, but every day somebody said, "Wow." Everybody said, "Wow," and "Chazak u'Baruch," and "Wow, Chazak u'Baruch," they shook your hand, they did business with you, they did this, they did that. You got all the honor that you got in this world. That was the payment, that was your Gan Eden. Yeah, but it's a lot less. It works the opposite way also.

57:28So, when a person seeks honor, in essence, what are they doing? They're ruining their own Olam HaBa. Because all the good things that you are doing, which surely you're trying to do something good with your life, you want to get paid for it. By seeking honor, in essence, what are you doing? You're getting an advance. You're getting a cash advance. You're getting the payment ahead of time. What is that like? A young kid. ...bought a lotto ticket. The cashier says, "Wow," looks at the thing, sees the kid won. He has it on him, the kid is a little kid—13, 14 years old—doesn't know much. But he sees on his machine, the cashier sees the kid won ten million dollars. He says, "Kid, listen, why don't I buy this? What are you gonna do if you win a lotto? Buy a bicycle?" What kind of bicycle? BMX. How much is a BMX bicycle? $150. He goes, how about this? Forget about this lotto. I'll buy you the bicycle. Give me the ticket. I go, really? How about this? I'll buy you a bicycle, and I'll buy you something else. What else do you want? I want a hamburger. I'll buy you a hamburger, too. What else do you want? Rollerblades? Rollerblades, too. What else do you want, kid? A balloon. Okay, all of them. Really? You're going to do it for me? Yeah. Okay, just give me the ticket.

58:47He takes the ticket, gives him a bicycle, a balloon, rollerblades, and a hamburger for a week. The kid goes around happy as can be. "Look, I got a balloon, I got a bicycle!" He's happy as can be. He's got a balloon, he's got a bicycle. "Look at me, I got a balloon, I got this, I got that." He's the happiest guy in the world. But in reality, all of us know the story: he's the dumbest kid on the planet. He just gave up ten million dollars. He could have bought a whole factory of bicycles. That's us. That's us when we seek honor, when we seek respect from people for things that we've done that are good. In essence, what are we doing? We're getting the bicycle and we're giving up the lotto ticket. A lotto ticket sometimes takes a little while to get there, b'ezrat Hashem. But if you take, if you want a payment now, you're not going to get the lotto ticket here. Here you get a bicycle. They say "chazak u'baruch" for opening the yeshiva. They say "kol hakavod" for doing this, this, and that. That's going to cost you dearly. That's where the Gemara says, someone who acts with humility, someone who even feels uncomfortable when people give him kavod, Hashem loves that person. Why? Because he gets the point.

1:00:14Rav Shach was one of the main people that already, it was almost like prophecy, that he already knew all of the problems that would come out of Chabad at some point 30 years before it happened. For many years, he fought against Chabad and the Lubavitcher Rebbe, saying that they've turned Judaism into something that it's not. Many of the Gedolim agreed with him, although not all of them, even most of them, none of them joined this fight. No one said to be quiet or stop or anything like that. He says what he says, and there's emet in it. I even saw a video of Rav Ovadia saying what Rav Shach says has emet in it. It's not, it's not, it's not wrong. Now, Chabadniks hated Rav Shach. When he died, the hatred was so deep that Chabadniks who are crazy, who don't know what Torah really is, what did they do? They started dancing in the streets. Just like Hamas, the Palestinians dance when Jews are dead. When September 11th happened and 3,000 people died, a bunch of Arab terrorists started dancing in the streets all over the world.

1:01:39These fakers that call themselves Chabad, they started dancing when Rav Shach, one of the Gedolei HaDor, died. Okay, you had a difference of opinion, but you're not supposed to go dance when a Tzadik dies. You know how many punishments you bring to your life for doing such a stupid thing? But that's how difficult the fight was, and that's during the Lubavitcher Rebbe's life. Now Rav Shach, Spread the Torah in every corner of the world. Tens of thousands of people learn his Torah. He wrote books, taught in yeshivot, and did everything you can imagine. He put his hand in every aspect of Torah, each Kodesh. But one of his talmidim, who was a witness, says that when Rav Shach was about a hundred years old, he saw Rav Shach sitting there and start crying, just crying. Gets closer to the Rav to hear, maybe he's murmuring something, saying something, and he hears him murmuring to himself, "I have nothing, I have nothing to get in Olam Haba. I have nothing to get in Olam Haba." So, the talmid is 100 years old. For the Rav, he doesn't want him to cry. When you're older, you start crying, you get overly excited with emotions, you could die.

1:02:58What are you talking about? You have nothing? You have yeshiva. Yeshiva, all these talmidim are here, all these people are learning Torah because of you. Rav Shach starts crying even more. What do you mean you have nothing? All the sefarim that you wrote, you know how many people are learning your sefarim? How many people? He starts crying even more. For all the lectures that you've given everywhere, anytime you had, even when you didn't have any power or strength. He was so sick and in so much pain. But when he arrived at the lecture, he was like a lion. They said it was like there were two Rav Shachs: the Rav Shach before the lecture, who was suffering in so much pain, and the Rav Shach at the lecture, who was like a lion. They couldn't believe he was the same person. All the lectures that you gave, all the shiurim you gave. You gave so much chizuk to Am Yisrael. Rav Shach cries even more and he's hysterical. They start calling doctors. Start calling doctors. Atsaba, please, please calm him down. Something, something. All the people come. Kavod HaRav, please, what's happening? Please. And he keeps repeating the same thing. I have nothing. I have nothing. I have nothing in Olam HaBa. And every time they mention some mitzvah that he did,

1:04:17He starts crying even more. So then finally, they ask him, but why, Kavod HaRav, why isn't all of the stuff that you did worth something? He says, because everything I did, people gave me respect for it. I opened the yeshiva. People know I opened the yeshiva. I wrote the sefarim. People learned. They gave me honor because of the sefarim. I taught the students. They said, I got honor for all of this. I probably don't have anything left in Shamayim. What am I going to have in Shamayim now? But then he remembered, after all the crying, he went, wait, the letters, the letters, what letters? He had a sack of letters of all the pashkvilim, all of the letters, posters, that in the religious neighborhoods When you want to go against somebody, what do you do? You make a bulletin board. You put posters all over the streets. We hate him. He's this one. All types of curses and this and that. He had thousands and thousands of people go against him throughout all of his life. And every time they sent him a letter, a death threat, any type of letter, he kept all of them. He had a whole sack.

1:05:33Ah, this is good; bury me with this— that embarrassment that I got for the sake of the Torah. That's worth something. The yeshiva, Chazak U'Baruch; the books, Chazak U'Baruch; the shiur, Chazak U'Baruch. But what's really worth it are the embarrassments I got— people calling me names, people saying I'm a rasha, people saying I'm this. That's worth something. Why? Because I defended the Torah. This is somebody that understands what it means to run away from honor, Rabotai. Now, the Chachamim continue saying that HaKadosh Baruch Hu loves people that shun honor, loves people that do not look for attention. loves women that are modest and are not looking to be a traffic light. Everywhere she goes, everyone's looking; every time she changes, people notice. He loves women that go and leave like a ghost. No one knows she came; no one knows she left. It's noach.

1:06:46Comes in, no one knows he came in, no one knows he left. He doesn't make a whole scene. You know, sometimes people come to the Knesset. They walk like this, "Hey. Hey, what's up guys?" They look like Martin Luther King, or Nixon starts giving the peace sign. "Make sure I'm in now, you can start Minyan now, he's not to Minyan now." He wants everybody to know he's to pick this. Hashem doesn't like people like this. People who seek attention—Hashem doesn't like it. Why? He said it. Women that seek attention... They put three inches worth of makeup on their face, the wig is longer than the exile, the dress—you don't even know if it's actually a dress or if it's her skin. All that stuff that gets attention from people, Hashem hates it. Why? Part of it is yuhara, but the other part is even worse. It's honor—you're looking for attention. You're looking for kavod for looking a certain way. You're looking for kavod for being something that in reality you didn't create yourself. Why are you getting kavod for? So HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, I love the people that shun kavod, that run away from it. Like who? He says like Moshe Rabbeinu and Aharon. Moshe Rabbeinu and Aharon were the leaders. They literally had all the reasons in the world to be the most arrogant people on the planet. They were the leaders of a nation of millions. They spoke to Hashem. That's enough already.

1:08:15Guts spoke back. That's even more on top of that. They had money, dead children. They had everything that you could possibly want. But when the nation complained to them, they said they're not "no ma," what are we? We're nothing. Where did they learn it from? Their grandfather, Avraham Avinu. Avraham Avinu says to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, "What am I? I'm dust and ashes." Avraham Avinu, they called you the man of God. You're the man of God, Avraham. No, I'm the man of God. I'm nothing. I'm dust and ashes. Avraham Avinu calls himself dust and ashes. He converted the entire world to be monotheistic. Almost the entire world, I'm dust and ashes. Imagine somebody does kiruv which makes all of Am Yisrael do teshuva. Yisrael chazak u'baruch. What chazak u'baruch? I'm dust and ashes. Give one good shiur. They want everyone to say chazak u'baruch for the rest of their life. Do you see my shiur? What, you didn't see my shiur? You're missing out on a lot if you didn't see my shiur. How could you live with yourself not having seen my shiur? They want so much credit for what they did 25 years ago. When did you do it? Last week? No, three years ago.

1:09:30You remember what I said in this shiur three and a half years ago at minute 90? No, I don't remember. No, I'm sorry. Actually, I didn't even watch it. What? You didn't watch it? They want so much credit for things they did, not because they care that you learned. They care that they want the credit. If you didn't give them the credit, it's almost like you took a piece of their heart. Avraham Avinu, on the other hand, actually got a large part of the world to become monotheistic. But when it comes to getting credit, he says, I'm nothing. I am dust and ashes. His grandkids, Aharon and Moshe, say we're nothing. And their grandkid, David HaMelech, says that David HaMelech was related to Moshe Rabbeinu on Miriam's side. And David HaMelech says in Tehillim, I am a worm, but not a man. What do you mean you're a worm? You're king of Am Yisrael. You won the wars. One arrow he would shoot, he would kill 800 people. You can't even do that with a gun. He had so much Kedushah in him that anything he touched turned into something Kadosh. He would take an arrow. You go take an arrow, try to shoot it. One time I tried shooting an arrow, I couldn't get it right. Like this, you start like this. The next thing you know, you're inside the thing.

1:10:58He shot an arrow. An arrow, a regular arrow. There was nothing, no gas in it, no navigation system, nothing. He shot an arrow, and 800 people died. But he was upset. Why? Really, it was supposed to be a thousand. If you're completely Kadosh, he was upset it was only 800. This is David HaMelech, the king of Am Yisrael. Mashiach comes from David HaMelech. Halacha keDavid, the Gemara says. Anything David says, that's halacha. There's no machloket. He's never wrong when it comes to halakha. Imagine Hashem says you think like Me. That's what it means when it says halakha is like him. That means that I agree with you. God says I agree with you, whatever you said. That's actually what I was thinking. So when they're saying halakha keDavid, that means that whatever David is saying, that's actually what Hashem wants. Imagine being such a person. I know what God's thinking. Why? Because that's why I say that's halakha is allowed. Halakha is not allowed. Imagine being such a person. And this person, King David, always says, I am a worm, but not even a man. I'm nothing. Hashem says, that's why I love him. That's why I love him.

1:12:16Now he knows he's not a worm. Moshe Rabbeinu knows he's not nothing. Avraham Avinu knows that he's not ashes. These are not people that are self-conscious. These are not people that are manic depressants. They're not taking Zoloft or Xanax. These are people that understood who's the one that's really behind the wheel. Who is the one that's actually navigating the boat? Who is the one that's making everything happen? be what it is. They're just being little puppets fulfilling the will of Hashem. If they wouldn't do it, Hashem would do it another way. That's a person that HaKadosh Baruch Hu loves. When a person sanctifies Hashem's name, when anytime something good happens or something bad happens, when they simply make the words Baruch Hashem a permanent part of their vocabulary to the extent where literally throughout every single day of their life they're saying it a bunch of times, such a person Hashem will fall in love with, and that person is in love with Hashem. Why? Because he understands who's in control. On the other hand, a person that doesn't is making a mistake as old as the world. In this week's parasha... Permanent part of the vocabulary to the extent where literally throughout every single day of their life they're saying it a bunch of times. Such a person, Hashem will fall in love with, and that person is in love with Hashem. Why? Because he understands who's in control. On the other hand, a person that doesn't is making a mistake as old as the world. In this week's parasha...

1:13:35We continue a story that started from last week's parashat Bereshit. Parashat Noach continues a story that began at the end of parashat Bereshit. In chapter 6 of parashat Bereshit, right at the end, HaKadosh Baruch Hu tells us that this generation of Adam HaRishon was a very unique generation. The people were enormous. They were powerful, they were rich, and they were huge. Huge, meaning they reached the sky in some cases. They were called the Nephilim. He says in chapter 6, verse number 4, the Nephilim were on the earth in those days and also afterwards, when the sons of the rulers would consort with the daughters of men, who would bear to them. They were the mighty who from old were men of devastation. So the Chachamim say, who are these Nephilim? These Nephilim were giants, enormous people, powerful people.

1:15:00rich people. They ran the world. HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave them everything you could possibly imagine. There were also relatively normal-sized people at the same time. It wasn't that everyone was a giant. It wasn't that everyone was just small. It was both. But these people, instead of appreciating what Hashem said, appreciating what Hashem gave them, they took it for granted. How do we know? There are two ways. One, Hashem destroyed the world because of this, as we learn in Parashat Noach. But further, if you fast forward to the end of the Chumash, you go to Sefer Devarim, Parashat Eikev. HaKadosh Baruch Hu says something very interesting. He tells us that He’s going to give us a bunch of different blessings and You're gonna have a blessed land. You're gonna have a blessed life. Your wife will bear children, you will have sustenance, and when you eat, you'll be satisfied. But remember to bless Hashem your God. This is the mitzvah of Birkat HaMazon. But then, in Devarim, chapter 8, verse 11, it says: "Hishamer lecha pen tishkach et Adonai Elohecha l'vilti shmor mitzvotav v'mishpatav v'chukotav asher anokhi metzavecha hayom."

1:16:28Rabenu reminds us. He says, "Take care lest you forget Hashem your God by not observing His commandments, His ordinances, and His decrees which I command you today." So, we see that Hashem first tells Am Yisrael, "You're gonna get all of these blessings. You're gonna have money. Your wives are gonna bear children. Everybody's gonna be healthy. You're gonna win the war. Everything's gonna work out, but just make sure you don't forget God." Wait, where are we getting all these blessings from? From God. So how can we forget Him? If He wrote it, that means it happens. If something is written in the Torah, even though sometimes it doesn't make sense to our rational mind, that means there's a reason for it. So after He tells us all of the things that you want, Hashem can give you. Money, power, this, that, whatever you want, Hashem can give you. And in fact, Hashem will give it to you. Just don't forget Him. Don't forget God. That's the mitzvah. Don't forget God. How are you going to show forgetting God? By not following His Torah, by not following His mitzvot, by not walking around modestly, by not putting on tefillin, by not keeping Shabbat. If you don't do it, you are forgetting God. Like who? You fast forward a couple of paragraphs into chapter 9. It says, don't make the mistake of who?

1:17:56children of the Giants. The children of the Giants—who are these Giants? The Nephilim. It says, "ענקים" (Anakim). You know all those people that I allowed you to destroy in the war as Moshe Rabbeinu and Am Yisrael destroyed the people of Midian. These were big people; the people of Sihon were big people and... Og, Melech HaBashan, big people, each one was bigger than the next. He says they were descendants, Og and Sichon were descendants of who? The Nephilim. They were their descendants, these giants. The only reason I allowed you to destroy them is because they never said thank you. They never followed My mitzvot. They did not appreciate And they forgot God. They forgot who was the one that gave them everything they wanted, taking all the honor for themselves. Now, the message that you're sharing continues, saying that a person who is honest, who is intellectually honest—not just honest, but if you ask him, "Did you go?" and he says yes because he really did, and...

1:19:13Rather, someone who is intellectually honest, where even when something doesn't necessarily agree with their lifestyle, if they know it's true, they adjust. Or at least they admit this is the truth. So, a person who is intellectually honest realizes that every single one of his accomplishments, every single one of her accomplishments, is really a barometer of their obligations. Meaning, your success Your responsibility, meaning that the more successful you are, the more HaKadosh Baruch Hu is expecting from you. If you have a thousand dollars... Who expects you to do the best you possibly can with this thousand dollars? What does it mean to do the best you can? It means using the money for the most mitzvot, the most good that you can produce from this thousand dollars. That's what Hashem is giving you. Now, a thousand dollars may not even be enough to just eat and pay your rent. Okay, so at least when you eat, eat kosher.

1:20:23You're paying rent; live in a kosher neighborhood too. That's it, that's the most Hashem expects from you. You have a thousand dollars; do the best you can with a thousand dollars. Now, what about if you have ten thousand? Now your responsibility is greater. Why? Because now you have more than just paying rent; you have more than just eating; you have a few extra dollars. Okay, those few extra dollars, you have to also use that money for good. You have a responsibility to use that money for good, for spreading Hashem's word, for doing Torah and mitzvot, and so on and so forth. Now you could afford to buy tefillin finally. Now you could finally buy a set and not look for one for free all the time. Now you could actually pay for a few things, right? Okay? There you go. Now you have a bigger responsibility because Hashem gave you more. Now, what about if you have millions of dollars? Instead of being focused so much on how great your third or fourth or fifth house is gonna look once you remodel it, and... you have to be a little bit stressed out, to tell the truth. Why? Because the more money you have, the more responsibility you have to use that money to spread Hashem's word. Now, recently, we came to the conclusion, my wife, my Rav, and I, of something that I haven't really discussed in public, but I'll tell you now.

1:21:54My kids, Baruch Hashem, are little. My oldest daughter is four and a half years old, Baruch Hashem. My son is two and a half, and my youngest is six months old. So up to now, we're educating them at home. Baruch Hashem, we have a fantastic teacher that helps my wife as well. And Baruch Hashem, my kids, they're doing fantastic. The reality is, at some point, they're going to have to go to school. With all due respect to all of the people who are trying their best, after talking to my Rav, it's impossible for me to tell you that I would stay here once it's time for them to go to school. And the reason why is because I want more than what's available. I want more than what's available, so... means that if by the time, let's say, the next year and a half, by the time my daughter is six years old, something drastic doesn't change. We're gonna have to leave Florida. Where are we gonna go? Could be Israel. Most likely it is Israel. Now, on the other hand, there's a problem. What's the problem? Makom she'ein ish... In a place that...

1:23:15you don't have a leader. You have to be the leader. Sadly, this generation is stuck with me. There are not that many people who want to speak the truth. So, that means that you can't just abandon things and let everybody else continue making mistakes. So, what we're trying to do is to see if we could actually do something ourselves. Be'ezrat Hashem, and Actually open a school, but not a school where it's gonna be like, you know, start in a garage, put a bunch of kids there, and hopefully everybody survives. We need a real school, all the way from Aleph to Tav, from kindergarten all the way until the end of high school, with serious Torah. Baruch Hashem, we have all the teachers that we need from Eretz Yisrael and America. They already have all the ideas. There's only one problem: money. So we are interested in opening a serious yeshiva, not some rinky-dink operation to grow it over the next 20 years. I don't have that kind of time, and neither does the generation. The reality is I don't have the time to run an operation. I just want to open it, hopefully with some good people to run it, and that's it. I care less about the kavod or my name or any of that stuff. I just want a place where I know that whoever comes here is going to leave as a committed Jew.

1:24:35He's not gonna marry some guy. Yeah, she's not gonna marry some guy. They're not gonna walk around with miniskirts. These people are gonna come here and learn Torah as it is, no sugar-coating or anything. Just to give the shiur in here, that's what it's gonna be over there. Now, this type of operation requires millions of dollars because you need a huge facility. Because we're also gonna have certain conditions. One of the conditions is we're never gonna say no to somebody because of money. Meaning, if somebody who is Jewish wants to come to this school, they're welcome. The only requirement is that they have to commit to being religious. Meaning, even if they're not religious on day one, they have to be committed to not, you know, learn Torah here, but at home, they're going to watch television and HBO and Fox 5. They have to commit to being religious. You know, I mean religious. They can't go to other schools. They have to be religious even if they're not religious on day one. They can be completely secular, but they must be committed to changing, committed to keeping Shabbat. Not to act like they're going to stay secular and ruin the kid. Then that's worth it. Why? Because that means if I'm going to teach that kid and develop this kid, when he goes home, it's not going to get ruined. What happens in a lot of these places is that I...

1:25:50The kids go to school. They learn whatever they learn. They go to a secular home, so everything the kid learns in school gets ruined at home because the parents want to be secular. That defeats the point. That's just a bunch of work. It's like in Egypt; they made us build a bunch of buildings just to destroy them. I don't want that. So the point is going to be one requirement. Whether they have money or not is irrelevant. Now, To do such a thing, you need a lot of money because some people are going to be able to pay tuition, some people are not going to be able to pay tuition, and some people are not going to want to pay tuition, which means you have to be relatively self-funded. Now, to do such a thing, we need a lot of money, and that's not what we have. We don't have a lot, and we don't have the money. Neither part. So, I... said, you know, we're going to pray for it. If anybody's interested in funding this, you know, somebody asked me just the other day, somebody asked me, why don't you open something? Why don't you open a yeshiva? I said, you know what? Actually, we just thought about it. It arrived during the holidays. This is what we want to do. Okay, so how much is it going to cost? I said, at least $10 million. At least $10 million is going to cost. Probably more, but at least $10 million to get started. Why? We need to build it.

1:27:04So he says to me, "Yeah, but why don't you just start small, maybe like a storefront?" I have no interest in starting in a storefront. There are plenty of storefronts; there are plenty of small, little rinky-dink operations. That's not what I'm looking for. I want an entire education. I want to know that the kid who starts is going to finish. He's not going to have to keep changing schools and constantly apply for this. No, no. Kids start, and they finish. B'ezrat Hashem, we complete the job. This requires a lot. So if you know anyone who is willing to be a partner in this project, please... You're gonna be saving an enormous amount of neshamos because right now, unfortunately, we have a very, very serious problem with the system where you're seeing that even though there are many, many pure neshamos that are graduating some of these schools, there are many more that are coming out completely kofrim. Young kids finish the yeshiva system without even knowing what's karet and asham. No concept of what reward and punishment is. I spoke to a religious woman today. I spoke to a religious woman today for a little bit of time. She goes, you know, this is really shocking. I said, what's shocking? She goes, the fact that you talk about punishment. I said, it's part of the Torah. She goes, I never knew any of it. I said, how long have you been religious? She said, my whole life. I said, what do you mean? You don't know about the 13 principles of faith? She goes, I heard of them. I said, you know there's reward and punishment. She goes, no one ever told me about punishment.

1:28:30She said, you know that only 20% of Am Yisrael left Egypt? She goes, what? Where is it written? I showed her the book. I never heard of such a thing. People growing up frum, without knowing the basic aleph-bet of Judaism. That means there's something wrong with the system. And we have to stop pretending like everything is okay. Because it's not. So, this is my proposal. My proposal is that we're going to try to do something by simply being, having the Will to do it, the people to do it, there's other Shema kodosh. But who knows if we want to do it, the mitzvah. Somebody is going to be smart enough to join this partnership now. Like I said, it's not going to be something that we're going to start small because we don't have that kind of time nor interest. It's not for business. It's not for money. It's simply to educate Am Yisrael to save neshamos from Gehinom. Now, that same person that asked me, "How much do you need?" he said, "Well, I know somebody that has a lot of money."

1:29:31The good news is that there are a lot of Jewish people who have a lot of money. That's the good news. The bad news is that most of those Jewish people who have a lot of money don't know that there's a lot of responsibility from Hashem that is given to them because He gave them so much money. Meaning you don't have the luxury to say no. I don't want to do this project if you have the money for it. Meaning if you have a hundred million dollars, two hundred million dollars, you have money. You don't need any more. And you get this idea, you watch this video right now, and you have the money to do it. You don't have the luxury to say I don't feel like doing it. Why? HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave you a hundred million dollars for this. Not for you to buy another house for the 18th time. Not for you to go invest it into the next Google. You can invest, you can make some money. But the real reason why Hashem gave you the 100 million is so you use that money to spread the Torah. Anyone that pays attention to the world today sees that Am Yisrael, unfortunately, is getting further and further from the truth in the religious world and the secular world alike. One of the reasons

1:30:53Because we do not understand that arrogance is poison when it comes to the relationship between us and HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Now, the Chazon Ish said about himself, "I know that I have the capacity of 1,000 men," meaning that he could do the job of a thousand people himself. But because of this... My obligation to serve HaKadosh Baruch Hu is also that of a thousand men. Hashem gave you a certain intellect, Hashem gave you a certain ability, Hashem gave you a certain responsibility to do something with that. If Hashem gave you a certain bank account that has a lot of zeros, guess what? You have an obligation to use it to sanctify His Name. Or else, in Shamayim, you won't be judged favorably. One of our examples is Nakdimon ben Gurion. The Gemara says Nakdimon ben Gurion used to donate millions and millions of dollars. But Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai and some of the other Chachamim, one day after the whole disaster happened at the Beit HaMikdash, everyone was poor, everyone was looking for food. They saw a woman, a young woman, looking at the feces of the donkeys that belonged to the Arabs.

1:32:21But they notice that she's a Jew. She says, "Who are you?" She says, "I'm Nakdimon ben Gurion's daughter." Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai said, "How could it be? Your father was very wealthy." She said, "Not anymore." He says, "But how could it be that Hashem decided to take away all of his money? He was a big ba'al tzedakah." And the daughter says, "He didn't give enough." "Why? But he gave millions." "Well, millions is not always enough. It's all relative." If a guy that has five million gives four million, that's enough. That's a lot. That's good for you. But if a guy that has a hundred million gives four million, guess what? You're gonna get punished. You're gonna get punished for that four million dollars. Why? You didn't give enough. So that's the thing that we have to understand now. It's very easy to donate to the next shul and build another thirty-million-dollar building. Right now, just within a several-mile facility, In this radius, we have at least three to four synagogues, and the building itself is probably worth 15-20 million dollars. How many minyanim do we have? Barely. Barely half of them have minyanim. We have the buildings but not the minyanim. Meaning we have the infrastructure but not the Jews.

1:33:39Why? Because the Jews want to build the buildings, because they want the names, but not necessarily because they want to go pray. Because the education system is rotten. Not just the schools. Schools also have some good stuff. But what happens after school? You go to shul, you sit there, you listen to the rabbi, huh? Oh, what? no punishment? What do you mean there's no punishment? So everything's good? So I can drive on Shabbat? Oh, okay, it's great. Oh, okay, so I can be like a Christian? I can do whatever I want as long as I believe in Yeshu? And that's what happens every week. Somebody sends me a video of another well-known rabbi that says something that's complete... During Hoshana Rabbah, I spoke to you guys about Manis Friedman. The guy, practically every lecture of his, is complete kefirah. It's almost like he can't help himself. He has to say something against the Torah in every lecture. There's no punishment. There's no Gehinnom. There's no, you know, Hashem needs us. This world is the ikar.

1:34:50Olam HaBa is the tafel. All types of nonsense, being religious is a bad thing, like all types of shtuyot nonsense that he says. Hashem wanted Chava and Adam to sin, mamash. It's like he has a whole library over here of sifrei kodesh. He has a library of kefirah. You can write books about the kefirah that he writes, and there's no source for it whatsoever. It's not like you say, "Yeah, but one chacham does say what he says." Nothing. One after another. Dror Kasuto, that guy, disaster. People that listen to him go off the derech. Off the derech. The guy tells people on camera, "Yeah, if smoking marijuana helps you, smoke right before you learn Torah." Smoke marijuana before you learn Torah? Din karet. Rabbi Moshe Feinstein says somebody who smokes marijuana for pleasure is considered a ben sorer u'moreh. Gadol HaDor says a ben sorer u'moreh. Gezeira penalty, but this Dror, this little bird over there, he says that you can smoke marijuana right before you learn Torah. Hashem Yirachem. And you have countless people like this. And there's a new one every week. Just a few days ago, I got another one.

1:36:07Another hero says that no, what do you think this game? No, we think Hashem is gonna burn you. No, that's just parables. It's not true. A very, very well-known Ashkenazi rabbi. Unfortunately, rabotai, mentioning his name is not even worth it. Why? I'll make him more famous than he already is. For what? The stupid people that listen to him will continue to listen to him anyway. The ones that don't know who he is, hopefully, they stay not knowing who he is. Most of the time, I don't mention the names. Sometimes I do when I see that it's a serious problem. But the point is that many people who go to shul these days don't learn the truth. They learn something that's soothing; they learn a reward system and... They learn a Torah that tells them that you're supposed to do the mitzvot because you're going to get something good. When? Now. The guy tells you, no, you should keep Shabbat because it's going to give you parnassah. You should keep Taharat HaMishpacha because that's going to make your marriage good.

1:37:20You should give tzedakah so Hashem can pay you a hundred times more. One young guy came to me. He says, listen, I'm in serious debt. I said, to who? He says, to the kollel over there. I said, you're in debt to a kollel? That's unusual. He says, why are you in debt to a kollel? He said, oh, last year they had this party, they invited me, and I was doing okay financially. I said, listen, I want to donate a few dollars. So the rabbi says, how much do you want to donate? I don't know. I mean, do you have anything specific? I should donate because how much do you want? A hundred times? He says, a hundred thousand dollars. Because you want a hundred times a hundred thousand dollars? So donate a hundred thousand dollars. He says, I don't have a hundred thousand dollars. I said, yeah, but if you donate a hundred thousand dollars and you commit to giving the hundred thousand dollars, Hashem is going to give you a hundred times that. He signed a paper. He says, "I'm going to donate $100,000 to this kollel." You know what he has right now? He's in debt of $100,000 because he couldn't pay. He feels bad about himself, and it distanced him from the Torah. Why? Because now he's embarrassed to go to that kollel. Why? Because he feels like, "I only paid a part of the balance because I didn't really have the money. Hashem really didn't give me 100 times the $100,000. I only got $3,000, not $100,000. I'm missing $97,000 times $100,000."

1:38:45This reward-in-this-world-based teaching is a disaster. It's a disaster because it's only a matter of time before it fails. Now, where do we know this is a failure from the beginning? We have our Chachamim. The Rishon LeZion, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef, has Yalkut Yosef. Yalkut Yosef was originally started by Rav Ovadia, alav ha-shalom, and then was completed by his son, the current Rishon LeZion. Now in the section about Kibbud Av va-Em, laws of honoring father and mother, he has an essay, a mussar essay, where he talks about Teaching, learning, and doing mitzvot. And he says, if there's a person who feels the need to know the reasons behind doing the mitzvot, he brings up the Gemara that says not only does a person not need the reasons to do mitzvot, but to learn...

1:40:10reasons and think that's why you're doing the mitzvot is bound to fail. He says the following: One must understand that one of the fundamental principles of the Torah is that the main purpose for fulfilling the mitzvot is that God has decreed so and not because we understand the reasons behind them, as it says in the Gemara, Masechet Sanhedrin page 21b. Rabbi Yitzchak says, why were the reasons for the mitzvot not revealed? Meaning, how come we really don't know why we're doing the mitzvot? There's no real reason. It doesn't say keep Shabbat because you're going to get parnasah. It doesn't say that in the Torah. Hashem says keep Shabbat. It doesn't say put on tefillin so Hashem does this. No, He says put on tefillin. It doesn't say a reason for the mitzvot. None of them except two. So the Gemara says, how come we didn't get the reason? So Rabbi Yitzchak answers, since two of the mitzvot had their reasons revealed in the Torah, a great man stumbled on them. Who is this great man? Shlomo HaMelech, the wisest man that ever lived. Shlomo HaMelech, in the book of Devarim, chapter 17, verse 17...

1:41:39It says that a king should not have many wives. Why? Don't have them. It's a mitzvah. If you're a king, you're allowed eighteen wives, but don't have more than this. That's the mitzvah. Shlomo HaMelech says, oh, why not? Because the Torah says don't have many wives because those wives will lead you astray from Hashem, lead you away from Hashem. And the second thing is another mitzvah. The mitzvah is don't have, if you're a king, don't have many horses. Why shouldn't you have many horses? It says that you shouldn't have many horses because that will end up leading you to return to Egypt. What does having horses have to do with Egypt? Why does having many wives mean that you're going to be away from God? If I have five, six, seven, or eight thousand women, I'm going to do stuff. I'm going to be close to God. We learn all day. They can cook, clean, build businesses, and do kiruv. I could be in some cave; leave me alone, right? No, Shlomo HaMelech says, if the reason for not having

1:42:44Why many wives? Because Hashem is saying, "Oh, that's going to lead you away from Me." No, no, no, that doesn't apply to me. Why? Because I'm the smartest man that ever lived. Hashem gave me special wisdom. I already know that Hashem is the best of the best. I'm never going to leave Him alone. I'm never going to be away from Hashem. So this mitzvah applies to other people in place of everybody else, not me. Why? I already know if that's the reason. To go away from Hashem? I know that Hashem is real. He's the one that gave me the chokhmah. He's the one that gave me the kingship. He's the one that gave me everything. I'm never going to leave Hashem. If the reason to not have many horses is to prevent bringing everyone back to Egypt—who wants to go to Egypt anyway? Who wants to go? It's hot over there, terrible weather. There's no gas stations. Who wants to go there? So, I'm going to have many horses. Why? Because I already know I'm not going back to Egypt anyway. says he failed on both tasks. The book of Kings says that Shlomo HaMelech, in chapter 10 verse 29, says that Shlomo HaMelech, when he got old, in Shamayim they said that his wives inclined his heart

1:44:04Meaning that his wives did get him slightly further from Hashem. A couple of his wives weren't exactly tzaddikot. He made a bad decision having them. One of the wives was the daughter of Paro. Hakadosh Baruch Hu was very upset about this wife. When he married her, the Gemara says that Hakadosh Baruch Hu sent Malach Gavriel to hit the ocean. He hit the ocean. The sand came up from the ground and created an island. That island became Rome. Rome is the one that destroyed the Beit HaMikdash that Shlomo HaMelech built. Now, the key is, rabotai, that Hakadosh Baruch Hu says don't do it because you're gonna go away from Me. Shlomo HaMelech says no, but I'm not gonna go away from You, but he ends up going away from Him. Why? Because the real reason was not because the wives were gonna lead you away. That's just the ta'am. That's just the ta'am. That's just one of the reasons. It's not the entire reason. If, let's say, your parents tell you, "Honey, why don't you come and have dinner with us? You look hungry." The fact that you're hungry, the fact that you're hungry, yeah, that's a reason for them to have you come sit down with them. But that's not the real reason they're inviting you. If it was just about feeding you because you're hungry, they would just throw a burger at you and say, "Hey, son, eat."

1:45:25Go eat. Why are they inviting you? There are other reasons. They want you to spend some time with them. They want to see what you're thinking, where you're heading, what's going on with your life, get a little closer to you, figure out what's going on, see if you're in trouble, see if you need any help, develop a relationship with you. There's much more to this dinner than just feeding you. If it was just feeding you, they would just throw a piece of meat at you, like an animal. The point is, sit down with us so we can spend some time together. There are more reasons to it. Maybe they want to tell you something. The point is, rabotai, when HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave us the reasons for these two mitzvot, that wasn't the real reason. And that was the mistake of the smartest man that ever lived. We are not even monkeys next to him. We are monkeys to the monkey power next to Shlomo HaMelech.

1:46:27That's how far we are from Shlomo HaMelech. And he made this mistake. Unfortunately, we make that mistake all the time. Why? We think that we can do mitzvot based on understanding them. And if we don't understand them, then we're not going to do it. And that's why Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef says, a person that does such a thing is just a matter of time before everything fails. Why does everything fail? He says that a person that does the mitzvah only based on his understanding of the decree of what's going on, where if you tell him, "Listen, if you keep Shabbat, you're gonna have good parnassah. If you have this, you're gonna get this," Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef says over here, he says, "One day that person is gonna say, 'You know what? What if I'm gonna get if I'm gonna get Shabbat? I'm gonna get parnassah? You know what? I don't want parnassah; I have enough.'" If I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna find a zivug. You know what? I'm happy single. I'm happy single. I don't want to be married. You take the reward. One time, I told a young kid I went to a Beit Knesset, and I saw one young kid. I told him, "Listen, I'm having a shiur at Sunny Isles. You should come." Eventually, he should come. You know, some of the kids get 15 bucks for the shiur. He goes, "No, Rabbi, you know what? Give my $15 to somebody else. It's okay."

1:47:50Give my $15 to somebody else. It's okay. I don't need the money. He thinks to come to the shiur for the money. That was my mistake though. It wasn't his mistake. He's used to it. He's used to everybody trying to buy him with reward. That's the problem. If you teach rewards-based Judaism, it's bound to fail because at some point someone's gonna tell you, "You know what? Take your reward and go back to where you came from. I don't want the reward. You think it's a reward. I don't. I don't want it. Or it's not worth it for me." And that's the mistake. When we think that the only reason why we're doing the mitzvot is in order to get a reward, it's only a matter of time before it fails. One of the reasons is because there's always going to be somebody that says, I don't want the reward. The other reason is, sometimes the reward doesn't happen. You tell a guy, listen, you keep Shabbat, you're going to get money. The guy, you know, declares bankruptcy a year later. Why? Because Hashem's timing is different than your timing.

1:48:50Expected to make money the next year, Hashem says no. If he keeps Shabbat for ten years straight and he gives ma'aser and he learns Torah and he does all these different things, he's going to think, "I'm going to make him filthy rich, so much money he's going to walk on money." But no, no, he wanted it in a year. He wanted it in nine and a half years. He wanted it in nine point nine years. Hashem says no, no, ten years, eleven years, fifteen years, or never. He doesn't want to give it to you. Why? Because He knows if He gives you money, it's going to ruin you. So when you sell people Judaism, you're selling a different religion. Judaism is not about a reward. The Rambam writes, anyone that thinks that whatever they get that's good in this world is really their reward is a fool. All it is, whatever good you got is for whatever mitzvah that you did. Hashem is giving you the ability to make another mitzvah now. You gave tzedakah, you gave a hundred dollars, Hashem is going to give you more money. Not because the thousand dollars that you got after you gave the hundred is really the reward for the hundred. No, it's that since you gave a hundred, Hashem says, oh, you gave a hundred, you like to give, I'll give you a thousand. Why? So now you can give a thousand.

1:50:12Now you gave a thousand, Hashem's gonna give you ten thousand. Why? So you give ten thousand or whatever it is, but more. Why? That's the point. Mitzvah goreret mitzvah. So what about the reward for all these mitzvot that we're doing here? The Rambam says there's not enough good in the entire world to pay you the reward that you will get in Olam HaBa for the smallest mitzvah you've ever done. ...Meaning the eventual reward that you will get is enormous. There's not enough good in this world to give you that here. Whatever you're getting here is just to enable you to do more good. So to sell people a rewards-based system where you're thinking you're gonna get money here and that's your reward, it's bound to fail. You may not want it. It may not be worth it to you in your own mind... You may simply just not care for it. Or perhaps you don't get it. Why? Hashem says no. Or Hashem has different timing than you. Hashem wants you to do something for 5, 10, 15 years before He rewards you. You want it in 5, 10, 15 minutes. Hashem doesn't work for you. He doesn't dance to your music. When you tell people that's how it's going to happen, you do this, you get this, guess what? Bad things happen.

1:51:34When Shlomo HaMelech, Kodesh Kodeshim Shlomo HaMelech, Shlomo HaMelech says, no, if the reason why Hashem says don't marry many women is because I'm going to go away from Hashem, no, no, I'm not going to do it. I'm going to stay close to Hashem. He failed. He says, no, no, He says don't have many horses because I'm going to go back to Egypt, send everybody to Egypt. No, I'm never going back to Egypt. You know what happened? He sent a bunch of his people to Egypt. Why? To go buy him more horses. Because the best horses apparently were in Egypt. So he did make the mistake. He did send a bunch of people to Egypt. You didn't think that sending people to Egypt is not a mistake. "I'm just getting buying some horses." No, that's a mistake. That's a mistake. It's also a mistake to teach people that you're going to get rewarded in this world. Yes, there are certain rewards in this world, but anything that you get in this world is, in essence, to enable you to do more mitzvot. Now, when a person is constantly looking for credit, constantly looking for attention... constantly looking for recognition, all of that comes from a bad place. It comes from the yetzer hara that tries to tell you that it's good and it's healthy to be arrogant. It's good and it's healthy to be someone that's getting attention because that's what you see every day. You see the people that are the most arrogant running the world today. Look who's running America as far as the president. Perhaps the most arrogant person in the last century.

1:53:03He had an entire show, an entire show celebrating the fact that he's embarrassing people in public by firing them. Now, whether he's a good leader or not is irrelevant. He's definitely better than the one that was before him. But the point being, when it comes to Torah, when it comes to character traits and what we're supposed to, let's say, look up to, this is not it. Why? This guy's the most arrogant person on the planet. You look at the rest of the politicians right next to him. Each one of them is worse than the next. He's probably the best politician that ever lived. Why? He's at least honest. He's arrogant, but he's honest. The rest are filthy liars, also arrogant, but also liars too. So you see here that the character traits of the leaders are not exactly great to emulate. Then you see some of the other people in the world, some of the other so-called leaders or whatever people, the influencers. One of them is more arrogant than the next. Every one of them is more terrible than the next when you look at their personalities. Every one of them wants more and more credit. If you look at the details of their lives, it’s a nightmare. People look up to Tony Robbins. Some people want to emulate him so much they say, "Oh, I'm like Tony Robbins," like he's become such a great role model and...

1:54:31because he made a lot of money telling people a bunch of advice that you should know anyway in a very, very inspiring way. Now, if you look at his own life, he doesn't follow his own advice. Why? He's divorced multiple times and right now he's being sued for sexual harassment by multiple employees. But I say, if somebody accuses you of something, there's a reason for it. You're not innocent. You're guilty a little bit at least. This case, not a little bit. There's much evidence that this guy is filthy and disgusting. And people say, "No, I want to be like Tony Robbins." You want to be like this filthy pig? That's what you want to be like? This is your role model, your superhero? Shame on you! In the Jewish world, you know how many speakers say, I'm Tony Robbins, I'm like this guy, I'm like that guy. People are emulating the goyim. Why don't you emulate Rabbi Akiva? Why don't you emulate Moshe Rabbeinu? When was the last time you heard somebody say, yeah, we're trying to emulate the tzaddikim? Nothing. They want to emulate the goyim. Why? Because they want the reward here. They want the ga'ava here. They want the kavod here. This, Rabotai Yekarim, is one of the

1:55:45systematic or systemic failures that we have is that we have really no idea what basic level Judaism is. You tell people, "What are the 13 principles of faith?" Unless they're in the process of converting, they have no idea what you're talking about. Natural-born Jews, you ask them, "What are the 13 principles of faith?" "Oh, let me open the Siddur." No, no, you know, you're a Jew and... because why do I need to know this? Well, apparently if you don't follow these 13 principles of faith, you're a heretic. We can't count you in a minyan. Really, what is serious was the Ten Commandments because technically, reward and punishment are part of the 13 principles of faith. Reward to the righteous and punishment to the wicked. That means if you don't believe in reward and punishment, we cannot count you in a minyan and

1:56:47quiet, never heard of it before. Why? Did you hear of it? Yes, you do. Even this, Rabotai, all starts because sometimes people think they have better ideas than God. God says the treasure of Hashem is fear of Hashem. Hashem says to us, "My biggest treasure ...is if you fear Me. That's the treasure. Moshe Rabbeinu became Moshe Rabbeinu because he feared G-d. That's what the Ohr HaChaim HaKadosh says. Moshe Rabbeinu became Moshe Rabbeinu because he feared G-d. Hashem says, fear Me. That's a treasure for Me. You're priceless to Me. The average place doesn't teach you Yirat Shamayim. That's why, Rabotai, it's very, very important...

1:57:47It's very important for us to know that we don't know better than Hashem. If Hashem says that fear of Him is what He's looking for, that's the system that He wants. That's what He wants. He wants you to be afraid of Him. If He didn't want you to be afraid of Him, He wouldn't say a bunch of scary stuff in the Torah. Now, what about all of those people that see otherwise and... People that make fun of the Torah, make fun of the Midrashim, make fun of the Gemara—there's more place in Gehenom for them. The Gemara says Gan Eden is 60 times the size of Earth. Gehenom is no less than 60 times the size of Gan Eden. The Chachamim say, why is it so much bigger? It's because a lot more people go to Gehenom. So the people that don't believe in Gehenom, guess what? All of them go to Gehenom. They'll get to know it. They'll be experts. They'll be the biggest experts about what happens in Gehenom. Why? First-hand witness. Yeah, but he did a lot of good. Okay, so he can tell everybody in there, in the Gehenom, he can tell everybody in Gehenom what he did, all the good that he did. That led him to Gehenom. The Chachamim in the Gemara say when they made a small sin, the ta'as is not even a sin.

1:59:14They would fast for years for something that's like a shegag, an accidental sin, and Rabbi Elazar ben Azaria didn't rebuke his neighbor for forgetting that she was not supposed to leave something on top of her cow. The cow was carrying something, and he didn't rebuke his neighbor because he felt bad for her since she was a widow. After he realized his mistake, that he should have rebuked her, he fasted until all of his teeth turned black because he was afraid that maybe in Shamayim they're going to view him as a sinner. "What's going to happen to me?" he thought. Gemara is full of stories of tzaddikim who were so afraid of Hashem punishing them that they would literally fast for years. So, what do you think, they fasted because they had nothing to do?

2:00:16All of these things that talk about punishment—what do you think, people had nothing to do when they were writing? Scary books, like people that make scary movies today to make millions. Oh, everybody's bored today. Let's write a scary book, call it a Chochma. What do people think? Where does the brain come from? Unfortunately, many times, people that have a brain misuse that brain and, unfortunately, become soldiers of the Satan. They publicize things that are against the Torah. Why? Arrogance. They think they know better than Hashem. They say, "No, there's no way that Hashem is going to punish us." One woman in Eretz Yisrael, she has a show on YouTube or something, and... Had a recent thing. I didn't see this, but somebody told me about a new clip. Why did I remove my kisui rosh? She's a religious woman, supposedly. Why did I remove my kisui rosh and put on a wig the size of the length of the exile? Like a horse's tail, it follows her.

2:01:32Why did she take off her kisui rosh and put on a wig? Why? She says, every day I would look at myself, and I didn't like the way that I looked with the kisui rosh, and one day I realized, you know what? This is not what Hashem wants. There's no way that Hashem wants me to be upset. He wants me to look good in the streets. So, I took off my kisui rosh, and I put the $3,000, $4,000 wig on my head. Why? Because that's what God wants. There's no way that God disagrees with her. But that she wants to look good for Steve and Jose and everybody else in the streets, there's no way that God doesn't want her to look good in the streets also. I mean, she's so holy that she knows what God thinks. It's like David HaMelech. This other guy, Yuval Dayan or something like that, was a Breslover, supposedly, for 15, 16 years, gave shiurim in Eretz Yisrael. like a hippie, looks like one of those break dancers, and the thing that you know, but gave some people—I never watched a single shiur that they ever made. But anyway, in the last year, he divorced his wife and went completely off the derech. And if that's not enough, now he's on secular television all day making fun of Judaism.

2:02:56He says, one day, "I realized that all of these rules—I don't like them. So, that's not what Hashem wants. Hashem doesn't want me to follow these rules because I believe in Him. Therefore, He wants me to be happy, and He knows I'm happier not following these rules. The fact that Hashem said to do it, that's for everybody else, not for me. It doesn't make me happy. Where does this come from?" Gaba, another guy here in Florida, used to help some people, but now he helps create more heretics. He decided that he doesn't like the Zohar. He doesn't believe that the Zohar is a holy book. If that's not enough, he doesn't believe the Midrashim are holy either. He thinks that you don't need to believe in them. He makes fun of them on a regular basis. He makes fun of Kabbalah on a regular basis, but he calls himself a rabbi on a regular basis. Now he has debates with who? Anyone who's willing to talk to him. Christians, Catholics, Arabs, whoever is willing to talk to him for his audience. He has these debates or discussions, and you look at all the people that make comments on all of his feeds—every one of them is a bigger heretic than the next. What is he doing? He's creating and breeding more heretics with what? With his so-called Torah.

2:04:23What is his belief? You need to be a good person. Okay, if you're a good person, why are you making fun of the tzaddikim who said that these are holy books, that you have to follow the Torah, and so on and so forth? No, no, they made a mistake. Oh, they made a mistake. Rav Ovadia, you made a mistake, but you didn't make a mistake. Rav Elyashiv, you made a mistake, but you didn't make a mistake. A giant like the Chazon Ish made a mistake, but you, little donkey, you didn't make a mistake. This is happening here in Florida, New York, and Eretz Yisrael—everywhere. Unfortunately, many, many people follow these disgraceful individuals who are so arrogant that they simply decide if something in the Torah doesn't agree with their warped mindset, it must be fake. It must be something that is unacceptable.

2:05:23No way that God agrees with this. This same guy that I just mentioned, his name is Asher Meza. I talked to him a couple of times. He seemed like a decent person until I saw a few of his videos, and I realized the guy's a complete heretic, especially lately. He decides to make a video one day. He goes to a certain place in Eretz Yisrael that's called Gehenna. He says, oh, this is Gehenna, meaning he makes fun of the whole concept of punishment. Starts making fun of Tzaddikim, then he starts making fun of me. Also, he doesn't tell me he makes fun of me; I have to find out from other people. Then he starts making fun of rabbis, making fun of me. The point is, he's making fun of actual Tzaddikim, real people. Calls the Zohar complete nonsense. It's Jewish mysticism that's complete bogus and all types of stuff like this. And what happens? He's breeding other kofrim because why? He calls himself a rabbi, sounds like he knows what he's talking about. He has a lot of pride when he talks, sounds confident. But in reality, anyone who knows what they're talking about sees this guy; you wouldn't even count him in a minyan. One time I saw him in a big Beit Knesset. He came to one of my shiurim four or five years ago. I took a picture with him, said, "Hi, how are you doing? Okay, thank you for coming." Another time, he came to a different shiur, stayed a few minutes. He videotaped me or something like that, so kids said hello. But then after, I heard all of his kefirah and all the things that he started doing. I...

2:06:52distanced myself, but then I saw him at one time at a Shavuot. Shavuot, you learn all night, and one of the things that people like to learn is all. And he came to the shul. I sat there. I'm looking at this guy. I'm like, wait a minute. Why are you here? You make fun of the Zohar all the time. That's what they're going to read over here. He got up and left. But he realizes he's full of it. Bogus. Days fighting with people, arguing with people— for what? To show he knows better. So, he knows better. Better than who? Better than who? People have no kavod for the chachamim, no kavod for HaKadosh Baruch Hu, no kavod for the Torah—nothing. That's a problem because when you think that just because something that it says in the Torah is... Since it does, if it doesn't agree with you, therefore, it's false. Therefore, there's something wrong there already. You know, there's something wrong with you. What is that wrong? You are sick spiritually with something called arrogance, and that's distancing you away from Hashem.

2:08:06To think that just because you don't understand this Gemara, therefore there's a mistake. Because the Gemara says that certain people will be punished forever. And that doesn't make any sense in your little tiny peon brain. Doesn't make sense. There's nothing there. Your ant brain over there, oh mouse, I don't understand what it means forever. I don't understand what it means forever. So you think this is because you don't understand what it means forever, therefore, no, no. It must be false. There's a mistake here. Rabbi Shimon, he made a mistake. And it's happening every day. So that's what the Ramban is trying to warn us about. Really? More than speakers, more than rabbis, more than government officials, more than bosses, the Ramban is trying to warn us about ourselves. Your conquerors, your destroyers will come from within you, meaning you are your own worst enemy. If you're going to fulfill the mitzvot because you think you understand them, it's only a matter of time before you will go against them. If the only reason you're going to do the will of Hashem is because you want to get paid here, it's only a matter of time before you're not going to do the will of Hashem.

2:09:29Because you're not going to like his payment, or his payment system, or his payment structure, or his payment timing. The reality is, if the person's ideology conflicts with the Gemara, conflicts with the Chachamim, conflicts with what's Da'at Torah, automatically, you need to know you're wrong. You will never be right and the Rambam is wrong. You will never be right and the Rambam is wrong. Never. Even the things that you can say, "wait, but this was proven and this was this," babkes. It's just going to take you a little bit more time to understand the next layer of the onion. The Gemara says, Am Yisrael only started understanding the gedula of Moshe Rabbeinu when he died. What gedula? What happened when they first met him?

2:10:30Great, the first shiur we ever gave them was only understood 40 years later. From that, we learn to truly understand what your rabbi really said, to grasp the Torah, to really learn the real intention, the real meaning, the real sod, the real everything; it's going to take you 40 years. Meaning that if you don't understand the whole thing of what the Torah says today, it's not the Torah that's lacking, it's you. It's going to take you more time to digest it. And just because you disagree, it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean anything. This is a very, very important part of building your ideology. In order for you to inherit the crown of Torah, in order for you to even have just the smallest chance of living a righteous, decent life where HaKadosh Baruch Hu is the foundation of your life, you have to lower your head and say, I don't know. What do I have to do? Okay, I'm going to do it. No questions asked.

2:11:45Yeah, but I don't want to be a robot. It's better to be a robot than a rasha. I promise you. You put your head down and say, whether I understand why or I don't understand. Whether I understand why you shake a bunch of leaves and this fruit or not is irrelevant. You still gotta do it. Whether I understand why I have to give tzedakah or not is irrelevant. Whether I understand why I have to learn every single year the same halachot I already read 15 times, what's the 16th time gonna do? You still gotta do it. Why doesn't make a difference. Who said it? That's it. That's enough. That's the only reason. Yeah, what if I disagree? Who are you? Yeah, but you're allowed to have your own opinion. You know the poskim, they disagree with each other. Yeah, the poskim, the gedolim. You're nothing. If you become the Rambam, then you can also debate with the Rambam and...

2:12:54To go and say, yeah, you know, I know what Rav Moshe Feinstein said, but you know, my Rav, he's a Talmid Chacham. He disagrees with Rav Moshe Feinstein. People like this make my skin crawl. I said, your local Rav that's a Talmid Chacham, he disagrees with Rav Moshe Feinstein. He actually put himself in the same sentence as Rav Moshe Feinstein? Like he actually thinks he's allowed to disagree with Rav Moshe Feinstein? Or Rav Elyashiv? Or Rav Ovadia? Or any of the gedolim, he actually put himself in the same paragraph? People like this you have to run away from. Why? They said something? Put your head down and say thank you. Why? Trust me when I tell you, if there's Daas Torah, it's possible. It's definitely not yours. It's theirs. They're much closer to Moshe Rabbeinu than we are ever going to be. Don't try to be a Posek. Don't try to bring any innovations. Just follow instructions. Why? That's what HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants. He wants people that are humble. He wants people that are simple. I'm just going to listen to what HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, and that's it. Don't be overly righteous. Don't try to figure out some way to change the world.

2:14:09Somebody made a comment recently. We published a new video about a tzaddeket from Eretz Yisrael who realized that her wig is avodah zarah. She burned it, and she gave a nice shiur, a four-minute video that motivated many people to start doing teshuvah. We just published it a couple of days ago, and some woman didn't like it. made a comment, made a comment, what's the comment? He goes, no, but don't you understand, there are some Ashkenazi Rabbanim that say it's allowed to have a wig. And I said, who says anything about that? Our argument is not against the Ashkenazi Rabbanim that say the wigs are allowed. Regardless of the fact that I don't agree with it. It doesn't make a difference. I don't have feet big enough to fit in this argument. I can't argue with the Chachamim that say the wigs are allowed. Wigs are not allowed. One thing I can tell you, no one allowed these long wigs. No one. That's one thing I can tell you. But aside from that, that's not the argument. That's not the reason she's burning the wig. If it was about that, she'd just throw it out. Why are they burning the wigs? Because there's conclusive evidence to show that if you have a real hair wig, it's coming from idolatry. Idolatry is not permissible for anybody.

2:15:25Regardless of whether you are Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Yemenite, Chabad, Jew, or Gentile, no one is allowed to benefit from idolatry. That's the argument. Once you've read the evidence that shows that this comes from idolatry, that's it. There's no argument. Forget about whether it's modest or not modest, if I have most of 19 saying it's allowed or not allowed, it doesn't matter. There's no argument and... There's no argument there. There's no matter of if it's modest or not; idolatry, everybody forbids. Why? Because the Torah forbids it. So why do so many people continue to wear wigs even though? Because many people don't know it is. Either they don't know that it's coming from idolatry. For the most part, I would say 99% don't know. There are the few percentage that do know, either don't believe or just have such a great desire for their wigs and their looks and the attention they get that it's hard for them to get rid of it. It also comes from a little bit of arrogance. But it doesn't make them necessarily bad people. Plenty of my students come to the shiurim in different places. They have wigs on. They're just as great as everybody else. They have that sin; other people have other sins. Trust me, I probably have more sins. Everybody has some type of sin, everyone has some type of chait, and everyone has something in the closet. Everyone has something. That's the point of the shiur.

2:16:51lower ourselves, humble ourselves, and realize, okay, I have stuff to fix. I'm addicted to my wig, okay, b'ezrat Hashem, this year I'll get rid of it. I'm addicted to casinos, okay, b'ezrat Hashem, this year I'll get rid of it. I'm addicted to whatever, chas v'shalom, okay, but b'ezrat Hashem, this year I'll get rid of it. Not because it doesn't agree with me, therefore I don't need to change. Hashem is just going to accept me this way because Hashem wants me to be happy. like this Kofel Yuval Dayan says or many of the other people that follow his mentality because he didn't agree with certain things. Therefore, inside that now, she doesn't want me to be religious. This all comes from arrogance, all of it comes from ego, and that's what the Ramban is warning us against. It's not just the ego of sometimes the speakers and The leaders and the politicians, but it's literally our own ego. Our own ego is ten times more dangerous than everybody else's ego. The reason why is because, even if you have a very influential speaker—could be your Rav, could be your teacher, could be your boss, whoever it is—and he's really, really influential…

2:18:10Even if he is influential, at the end of the day, if you're a normal person, you will always value your own opinion more than his. If one day he crosses the line, you'll throw him in the garbage or replace him with something else. One day he crosses the line, he says something that's completely off, you replace him with a bag of potato chips. Why? As influential as he is, he still Separate from me. She's still separate from me. He's not you. Which means that if we are arrogant, if we're lying to ourselves, it's much more dangerous. Because the Gemara says, somebody that's looking to be purified, HaKadosh Baruch Hu helps him. Somebody that's looking to become impure in sin, HaKadosh Baruch Hu opens the door and says, go sin. Meaning, if we're looking to become righteous, HaKadosh Baruch Hu helps us. How? By sending us the right speakers. sending us the right rabbis, sending us the right friends, the right job, the right spouse. If we're looking to be pure, if we're humbling ourselves, and we're trying to be better, Hashem will send us the missing pieces. But if we're liars and fakers and arrogant, and as soon as something disagrees with what we think should be, guess what? That's all Hashem is going to send you.

2:19:33If you're looking for excuses to not fulfill the Torah, Dror Kasuto is going to shop at your house, Manis Friedman is going to come to you, the other Kofer from England, Mirvis, the Rasha, is going to come and knock on your door. All the Reshaim in the world are going to become your best friends. YouTube only recommends them to you. Why? That's what you want. You want Kofrim? Kofrim are going to arrive at your door. You want tzaddikim? Then tzaddikim are going to arrive. Or these people trying to be tzaddikim. That's the difference. That's what the Gemara says. The Gemara says, you are lying to yourself. You're arrogant. You want your opinion to be the only opinion? Okay, we're going to send you people just like you. Because they think, oh, this doesn't make sense that there's punishment. Okay, there's no way there's punishment. Okay, therefore, that's who you're going to get too. And that's why, Rabotai, we are more dangerous than the speakers. Because if we're fakers ourselves, that's what HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives us. He gives us fakers—fakers of friends, fake spouse, fake boss, fake everything. You're arrogant, everyone around you will be arrogant. That's the way it is. It's measure for measure. And that's why it all starts with our own personal teshuva. We put our head down, we simply say, okay, this is what it says.

2:21:00It says keep Shabbat. It says stop working at least two hours before Shabbat so you can get ready. It says that you have to do certain things. It says you have to wear nice clothes for Shabbat. It says you have to have a warm meal for Shabbat. It says you have to spend a lot of money for Shabbat so you have honor. It says all these things. Okay, yeah, but it's expensive. It didn't say if it's expensive don't do it. It said if you can do it, do it. Why? It's a mitzvah and... All the things that it says, it doesn't say, "Oh, if it's hard, don't do it." It says, "If you can do it, do it." If you're an ashir (wealthy person), you do it, and if you're an ani (poor person), you do it. And that's the point, rabotai. If we put our head down and not try to do things only because we understand them... Do it because HaKadosh Baruch Hu said it. That automatically will humble you and make you someone that HaKadosh Baruch Hu loves dearly, much more than the rest of His children that are not doing that. Why? Because you understand how this relationship is supposed to be. You're the son. You're the daughter. He's the Father. He's God. He's the King.

2:22:18Melech Malchei HaMelachim is not just a figure of speech. It's not just something to say. This is what's happening. When it says this song, this song that became famous recently, we'll finish here, the song that became famous by Nissim Black, where it says, "Hashem Melech, Hashem Malach, Hashem Yimloch L'olam Va'ed," that's in the tefillah, that's in the Torah. But what does it really mean? Hashem Melech, Hashem Malach means that Hashem is the king of your current reality. Everything you have right now, that's HaKadosh Baruch Hu. You have pain in your leg, that's Hashem. You don't have any money in your pocket, that's Hashem. You have money in your pocket, that's Hashem. You're alone, that's Hashem. You have too many people around you, that's Hashem. A bunch of immodest women are coming your way, that's Hashem. on the highway you got a flat tire, you're going to be late to the appointment. That's also Hashem. That's Hashem. That means that He is the King of your reality all the time. When you have something, immediately you have to say "Baruch Hashem," whether it's good or bad. Chazal say you have to celebrate the good as much as you celebrate the bad, and vice versa.

2:23:39Why? That's Hashem. That's Hashem Melech. Hashem is the Melech. He's the King of your reality today. What's Hashem Melech? Everything that happened to you. You know, all those bad stories that everybody has. "Oh, when I grew up, I didn't have this." "Oh, when I did this, I didn't have that." All the sad stories that all of us have about our past, that's Hashem. Holocaust—that's Hashem. The Spanish Inquisition—that's Hashem. England in 1190, almost 800 years ago, they started killing a bunch of Jews in the streets because of lending—that's Hashem. That's Hashem. Beit HaMikdash—that's Hashem, destroyed—that's Hashem. Hashem Halach, meaning all of the past. HaKadosh Baruch Hu created, HaKadosh Baruch Hu destroyed. Everything that happened, the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, the stuff you understand, the stuff you're not going to understand, the stuff you'll never understand—all that, that's Hashem. That's Hashem Halach. Hashem Yimloch. Everything you want, whether you know it today or not, will only be given to you if Hashem wills it.

2:24:57You want a wife? You have to ask Hashem. You want a husband? Ask Hashem. You want kids? Ask Hashem. Don't ask the doctor. Ask Hashem. You want money? Ask Hashem. Abba, I need money. Why, shouldn't I ask my boss? No, ask Hashem first. Anything you want in the world, you ask Hashem. Why? Because everything that's going to be your future, only Hashem is going to give it to you. Nobody else. To say, I made money because I bought such and such, kefirah. I got healthy because I started eating healthy, kefirah. Or I started watching this and this, that's why I'm healthy now, kefirah. You may be a healthy body, but you're spiritually sick. You're kofer. Why? Because you think that you got healthy because you eat apples every day, not because Hashem decided you'll be healthy. You think that you have money because you bought XYZ stock, not because Hashem decided that this year He's going to give you more money. Kofer. You think you got married because you were extra nice to her. Kofer. You're spiritually sick.

2:26:13Hashem Malach means past. Hashem Yimloch, future. Everything we want, we have to go to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Say, Abba, I need help. I am addicted to something bad. I need help. Give me the strength, please. You're my Abba after all. You want me to be a good son? You want me to be a good daughter? I'm addicted to miniskirts. I'm addicted to all types of filth. Please, please Abba. Please give me the strength to pass this test. I can't do it without You. You want to pass the test? Ask Hashem. You want to move to a Jewish community because you live in Zimbabwe? Ask Hashem. Don't ask me. Rabbi, can you help me? No, I can't help you. Hashem can help you. People send me emails every day. "Rabbi, do you have some money?" No. "Did you watch one movie?" I lost all the money. And anyway, I wouldn't help you. I'm not Hashem, ask Hashem. Your future? Hashem. That's it. That's where it starts and that's where it ends. You believe anything else? You're spiritually sicker than we thought. And that's, Rabbi, what we all need to arrive at.

2:27:29everything we have, everything we've had, and everything we will have in the future—that's Hashem. That's what Hashem. Next time you hear that song, that's what you see; that's what you think about. Why am I hearing the song? Hashem wants me to hear it to remind me He's the King. Not just because the music makes you happy, dance a little bit, no. Maybe you have another YouTube view. No, Hashem wants to remind you. You're stressed out? Don't be stressed out. It's Hashem. You were nervous? Don't worry. It's Hashem. You don't have something? It's Hashem. Ask Me, cry to Me. That's what I was telling you. In order to do that, you must remove all bits and pieces of arrogance from your system. Why? Because HaKadosh Baruch Hu also says someone that's arrogant and He cannot be in the same space. Because someone that's arrogant, Hashem says, "I find people that are arrogant," Hashem says, "disgusting." Why? They take everything that I did and they take credit for it.

2:28:51not only do they steal the apple and eat it without saying a bracha, but even worse, they say they created the apple. They claim they found the apple, they planted the apple, and the apple is only delicious because of the way they planted it, because they positioned it in a certain direction of the sun, and because they didn't put stickers on it—all of the nonsense that people think makes the apple better. Not only did they steal the apple and didn't even say a blessing on it, they're taking Hashem... that created the apple, but they take credit for actually inventing it. When a person is arrogant, he's removing Hashem from his life. He's destroying that relationship between him and Hashem. She's destroying the relationship between her and Hashem. So the first rule of connection to HaKadosh Baruch Hu is to get down, head down, and say, "Hashem, I know it's you." I know it's You. Please help me. I can't do it by myself. I'm nothing. If Moshe Rabbeinu was nothing, I'm less than nothing. Because I know everything is You. You have to be humble. But not only humble in front of Hashem. Humble in front of people too. Humble all the time. Not just sometimes. Don't pretend. Hashem knows what's in your heart. Be humble to Hashem, but next to your friends you're arrogant as can be. Know that Hashem watches everything.

2:30:20When you understand this, you apply this to your life. Hashem says, not only do I love him, I love her, but I'm going to be next to them in the same room. Why? When they remove their arrogance, they make room for Me. When we remove our arrogance, our ego, what are we really doing? We're making room for Hashem. Not that He needs space physically, chas v'shalom. But the only way that He could be next to us is if we remove our ego. The more ego you have, the less Hashem you have. The less ego you have, the more Hashem you have. That's the reason it not only says that Moshe Rabbeinu was the Ish HaElokim who spoke to Hashem face to face like no other before or after. What does it also say? The humblest man that ever lived. He simply had no ego at all. When you have no ego at all, Hashem says, you have all of Me. That's Hashem. That's what the Ramban is trying to teach us. Stay away from your own ego and stay away from other people's egos. If you see that the teachers, leaders, and anyone else that you have is teaching you Torah...

2:31:44They've invented because that's what makes sense to them. You simply press the off button, the "X" on the right side if you're using Windows. Apple, I have no idea, but someone can tell you. All of these different systems, all of them have an off button. All of them. I think it's on the left side instead of the right. Oh, it's like in England, cars here, cars there. The point is, there is an off button. Anyone's inventing to run away from Him. Everything has to have a source. Everything has to be from Hashem. God is with you. Agree with it, disagree with it, understand it, don't understand it. That's in essence what the Ramban, Baruch Hashem, has taught us today. Anyone have any questions? We can answer a couple of questions, but Baruch Hashem, we will continue tomorrow with another shiur. Anything? But you said that yes, you have to ask for help, you have to ask for money, you have to ask for a zivug, you have to ask Him for everything. The point being is that, number one, know that it's only going to come from Him and…

2:33:07You are, your hishtadlut, your efforts, is in essence your responsibility in order to just fulfill your role. But in reality, the only reason you're going to get anything is because of Him, including teshuva. Succeeding in teshuva is only going to be if Hashem gives you the strength. But you have to show that you want the strength. How do you show you want the strength? By making certain changes in your life. By overcoming your own yetzer hara. You know that you have a problem, and let's say, for example, immodesty. Save yourself from that yetzer hara by simply not going to certain places. Don't go to a nightclub and say, "Hashem, Hashem help me and save me here." What do you think? You're the one that brought yourself here. No one told you to go to a nightclub. So the point is that we have to do certain things in order to stay away from sins, and that will give Hashem a reason to help us even further to overcome these things and complete our teshuva or get our teshuva to a much, much higher level. In essence, there's really no such thing as completing your teshuva because your whole life you're doing teshuva for something. But the point is that the more we try and show Hashem that we're serious, the more Hashem will help us in getting stronger and stronger. Just like we just said,

2:34:23Abadita maaseh be'adol—someone that's looking to become purified, Hashem will help them. How do you become purified? By doing certain things: learning Torah, doing mitzvot, doing chesed, doing kiruv, helping other people do teshuva. All of these different things that people are supposed to do—it's not for Hashem, it's for themselves. Doing kiruv and helping other people do teshuva is for yourself. It's not for Hashem. Hashem, if He wants a certain person to do teshuva, He'll send them some other messenger; it doesn't have to be you. It's that you're doing it for yourself because when you help other people do teshuva, you're also helping yourself because you become stronger as a result of helping somebody else for a few reasons. One of those reasons is that if you, let's say, for example, teach about wasting seed, it will certainly help you. Why? Because if you're teaching it, that means you're also learning it at the same time, both before the shiur and during the shiur. So you're constantly repeating those same things in your own mind. So it's constantly alive in your own brain, in your own veins, in your own everything. And on top of it, there's also an embarrassment factor where you don't want to be a hypocrite. You tell people not to do something, but you're doing it. We're not the cancer doctors who smoke cigarettes outside.

2:35:40Sense of when you teach about wasting seed, that automatically is gonna make your kedusha better. Why? Because you're learning it, you're teaching it, and since you want to follow your own teachings, at least to the best of your ability. So the point is that anytime you help other people, you're also helping yourself. So that's the thing: when you pray and ask Hakadosh Baruch Hu to help you, Hashem will help you, but you have to help yourself also. It's not that you can't just be on autopilot. Just sit there on your couch all day and say, "I'm okay, I want money," and you think that Hashem is gonna go, "Hey, okay, money. See how much do you want? Do you want a whole box?" Well, it doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way. You know, it can if a person is at a very high level of emunah, but not necessarily if you're sitting on a couch, you know, eating potato chips. You have to do other things. The point is that a person needs to help themselves. must help themselves in order to show Hashem that they're really serious. You know, they're really doing everything they can. Once a person does everything they can, Hashem does the rest. Just like Hashem said to Moshe Rabbeinu, "Go build the Menorah in one piece of gold." Moshe Rabbeinu says, "I can't do it. I don't have the know-how. I don't have the ability. I can't do it." Hashem said, "Just do whatever you can; I'll do the rest." What did Moshe Rabbeinu do? Nothing. He got the gold. That's it. Hashem did the whole thing.

2:36:58Why? Hashem just wanted Moshe Rabbeinu to get involved. Rabbi Chanina wanted to bring a present to the Beit HaMikdash. But he didn't have any money, so he took a big boulder and started, you know, shining it, making it shiny, making it shiny. But after he shined it, made it really shiny, he said, okay, I'm going to bring this to the Beit HaMikdash. I'm going to bring it to the Beit HaMikdash. He asked somebody, oh, how much would it cost me to take this boulder to the Beit HaMikdash? He said, oh, it's going to be 500 zuz. Have 500 zuz. How much do you have? Because if I had 500 zuz, I wouldn't be here. I would buy you something for the Beit HaMikdash. He says, "I have one coin." He responds, "One coin? Sorry. Thank you." So Rabbi Chanina was upset this year. "I want to bring a present to the Beit HaMikdash, this beautiful rock. I worked on it the whole year." Hashem sends him three malachim. The three malachim say to him, "What do you want? You want us to move this rock?" "Yes, I want to move it to the Beit HaMikdash." "Okay, no problem. What do you have?" "I have one coin." Okay, that's a good price. We'll take it with you. But one condition. What's the condition? Put your hand on the rock and help us. Okay, he didn't know they were malachim. He put his hand on the rock. Within a second, he's in the Beit HaMikdash. Like, there wasn't a journey that took a few days. One second, like, transported, he's in the Beit HaMikdash. And the malachim are gone.

2:38:15He looked for them. He goes, "Where are these people?" He didn't know they were malachim. "Where are these people?" He got scared. "I forgot to pay them. It's gezel. I'm going to get punished." He runs to the beit din, goes to Rabban Gamliel. He goes, "Please, please help me. I don't know what to do. I promised some people I’m going to pay them for this." He tells them the whole story. Rabban Gamliel starts laughing. He goes, "Oh, Rabbi Chaninah, those were malachim." If you arrived at Yerushalayim from where you were in a second, a journey that usually takes five, six, or seven days, especially with a boulder, if you arrived in one second, that means it was malachim. They don't need your money. So the question is why did they ask him to put his hand on the rock? If they're malachim, they don't need his help. The point is hishtadlut. This is the most you could do: put your hand on the rock. That's it. That's all Hashem wants. All you can do is pray. That's what Hashem wants. Whatever you can do, do. Whatever you can do, do. Hashem will do the rest. But that's, in essence, the same thing with teshuva, same thing with parnassah, same thing with zivug, same thing with everything. Do the best you can with what you have. HaKadosh Baruch Hu will do the rest. Next question. Yes. Yes. I mean, one of the responsibilities of Am Yisrael is to help the goyim. Now,

2:39:37There are many, many non-Jews, righteous Noahides, that watch our shiurim, donate, and do teshuva. Some of them convert to Judaism. Some of them do not; they just stay righteous Noahides. Many Christians, or born Christians, left Christianity because of our shiurim and became righteous Noahides. Some of them even converted to Judaism, Baruch Hashem. Just a couple of days ago, somebody told me that, I didn't know, but apparently when I first met him, he was a Messianic Christian, called himself a Messianic Jew. But he abandoned everything after watching our shiurim and now, Baruch Hashem, is in the process of converting through a Beit Din. So the point is that many, many people watch the shiurim, realize this is the truth, and they do teshuva. So to help them is definitely a mitzvah, but there is something to know about it, and that is that if you are a non-Jew, to help other non-Jews or Jews is important. If you're a Jew, helping Jews and non-Jews is important. But there's a priority. The priority is the Jews. Why? That's what Hashem says. That's His chosen people. That means that if, let's say, you have one Jew that you can help by convincing him to come to the shiur, or you have a hundred non-Jews you can convince to go to the shiur, you go and work on the Jew.

2:41:01One time somebody told me, listen, I have a bunch of people, I have a bunch of non-Jews that want to invite you to come give a lecture. There's going to be 500 of them. I said, when? He said, it's going to be on Tuesday. I said, I'm sorry, I have a shiur. He goes, yeah, but you just come, there's more people there. I said, yeah, there's more people there, but where my shiur is, everybody's Jewish. I have to teach them. First, before. You want to do it on a different day, you want to do it on a Thursday, you want to do it on a Sunday, a day that I'm not teaching, no problem. But if I already have a shiur and it's, I can't. Why? That's what Torah says. It's not discrimination, it's not anything. If it was up to me, I would go to the 500 people. Why? Makes more sense. Go teach 500. When I first heard this halacha, I was really upset. To tell you the truth, I was really upset. My rabbi told me about this, I was really upset. I said, what do you mean? It's 500 people. 500 people instead of, I don't know, at the time I think I had like three people in my shiur. Three people versus 500. Why? Why? Their blood is not redder. It's not about blood. It's what Hashem says. You say, yeah, but they're also better donors anyway. It doesn't matter. It's what Hashem says. You say, yeah, but they really want to learn. These other three don't even want to come. It doesn't matter. It's what Hashem says. That's what it is. That's what Hashem says. That's what Hashem says. See, it doesn't make a difference. So at some points, I used to argue. Now I don't argue at all. Baruch Hashem, I try not to. Why? That's what Hashem says.

2:42:23in the end, it ends up working out. It always, always works out. You listen to what Hashem says, it always works out. But sometimes it doesn't make sense. Sometimes it doesn't make sense. I'm telling you, to the extent that if you have 10,000 people or a million people versus one Jew, you have to go to the Jew. It doesn't make sense, but that's what Hashem says. And if you do what Hashem says, eventually He will have you not only help the one Jew, but also the million too, just at a time that He wants it to happen. It's not that He's abandoning them, He doesn't want you to help them. It's just that there are instructions that Hashem gives, and that's what He wants. Don't do the calculations or any of that. That's also why I tell people when they do kiruv, I say, listen, can you give me something that can send somebody that's not so strong? I send them something, some link or some video. "No, no, this video is too strong. Can you give me something else?" No, no, I can't give you something else. Why? That's what I gave you. You asked me for something, I gave you something. That means that Hashem put it in my mind to give this to you. You want something else? Go, go somewhere else. Go somewhere else. Why? This is what Hashem wants. Don't do the calculation of what's too strong or what's too weak for people.

2:43:38You're not in their mind. You don't know what they're going to do. Don't assume that you can know or you think you know. Oh no, he doesn't like this or that. You don't know anything; you barely know yourself. You ask for a Torah opinion on what you should send, you get it, finished. Go be a robot and just press send. Don't do any calculations of "this is too strong," "this is too light," "this is too this," "this is too that." Just send. If HaShem wants this to work, it can work. If HaShem doesn't want it to work, it doesn't work. We're going to finish with this. If HaShem wants a parrot to help people do teshuva, the parrot will help people do teshuva. There's one parrot in Eretz Yisrael who helped already two people do teshuva. Two people did teshuva from a parrot. How? Both of them were thieves. Both of them heard there's a parrot talking and parrots are worth a lot of money. They broke into the house, took the parrot. A few days later, the guy came back with the parrot. Thanks to your parrot, I'm keeping Shabbat. Why? Because all day the parrot says, "Shabbat Shalom, Shabbat Shalom, Shabbat Shalom, Shabbat Shalom." So eventually, I thought, the parrot knows about Shabbat, and I don't know about Shabbat? I started keeping Shabbat. The same thing happened twice. The same exact parrot, it happened twice. Real story. Meaning, if HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants a parrot to help you do teshuva and wake up your neshama, that's what it's going to be. That's what it's going to be.

2:45:03Don't do any calculations. You don't know anything. I don't know anything. Nobody knows anything. Only HaKadosh Baruch Hu knows. Present, finished. Let HaKadosh Baruch Hu do the rest. B'ezrat Hashem, let's give us the chizuk that we need to continue on for another day, another week. B'ezrat Hashem, get Am Yisrael closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. B'ezrat Hashem, tomorrow we'll have a shiur of questions and answers. Hopefully, even more people will come tomorrow. Baruch Adonai Le'olam. Amen ve'amen. Thank you for watching. B'ezrat Hashem, let's give ourselves the chizuk that we need to continue on for another day, another week. B'ezrat Hashem, let's get Am Yisrael closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. B'ezrat Hashem, tomorrow we'll have a shiur of questions and answers. Hopefully, even more people will come tomorrow. Baruch Adonai Le'olam. Amen ve'amen.