Where Was God During The Holocaust ? Tisha b'Av ( Beit Eliyahu New York)

0:01Thank you for having me. May Hashem bless every single one of you to see better days. We have a day of aveilut once again. We are mourning on Tisha B'Av. And for anyone who did not watch the lecture last night on TorahAnytime.com or on Chazaq, Thank you for having me. May Hashem bless every single one of you to see better days. We have a day of aveilut once again. We are mourning on Tisha B'Av. And for anyone who did not watch the lecture last night on TorahAnytime.com or on Chazaq,

1:18I'll go over some of the same things, but also a few new things that we didn't have enough time to go over. The purpose of our lecture is to do a couple of things. On one end, every Jew needs to know where we came from. Every Jew needs to know where we came from. Every Jew needs to know our history. But also, every Jew needs to know his Maker. Every Jew needs to know who's boss. Avraham Avinu taught us the value of Yirat Shamayim. When he said that He didn't tell the truth because he knew that the place where he was standing did not have any Yirat Shamayim, and because of that, he knew that they would kill him if he told them the truth about hiding his wife. When a Jew doesn't have any connection to Hashem or any connection to the history of Am Yisrael, it's impossible to have Yirat Shamayim. And a day like today,

2:44it's a time every single one of us needs to do everything that's possible to start working on getting some Yirat Shamayim. Even though the most popular strategy for the last few hundred years by teachers and Rabbis has been to teach Torah, darchei Torah, darchei Noam, in a nice way, a pleasant way, tell people nice stories, try to revive your heart by giving you encouragement. The reality of it is that if the strategy was working, then 80% of Am Yisrael would actually be keeping Shabbat, instead of only 20%. So we see that the strategy is not working, not because there's anything wrong with the Rabbis themselves, chas v'shalom, there's nothing wrong with them, But there's something wrong with the strategy itself. And the strategy is being politically correct. And as I'm sure all of you have heard from Rabbi Mizrachi, who gives lectures here regularly, political correctness is the poison of our generation. It's the disease we have, but we don't even know we do. The most important thing that we need to learn is that Hashem is not politically correct. As we see in Parashat Yitro, Am Yisrael gets very scared

4:11of hearing Hashem's voice, they die, they're brought back to life, they die again, they're brought back to life. Each time they hear the first commandment, they die; the second commandment, they die. They get very, very scared of Hashem, and Moshe tells them, "Hashem is scaring you so you don't sin." This is actually written in the Torah. He's scaring you so you don't sin. Which means that Hashem likes this strategy. So let's use it. Most people ask a common question: where was God during the Holocaust? This is a very similar question to the one we started with yesterday, and b'ezrat Hashem we're going to try to answer it. But I encourage everyone to stay until the end, because if you leave in the middle, you're probably only going to leave depressed.

5:12And my goal is not just to leave you depressed, even though that's part of the goal. The goal is, because this is a day we're supposed to be depressed about what we're missing: connection to Hashem, seeing miracles 24 hours a day, a place where it's so great and so extraordinary that anyone who walks into it already does teshuva. You wouldn't need the guidance of rabbis. but we don't have it. So when you think about that, you think about all the things that we're missing, you're supposed to get a little depressed, if not a lot depressed. But really, the goal is to inspire you. The goal is to inspire you to do something about it. Because unfortunately, right now, Am Yisrael has a big problem. And the biggest part of the problem

6:14is that we don't know we have a problem. When 80% of our brothers and sisters do not keep Shabbat and are considered idol worshippers based on Torah and Halacha, it's not a good look. It's not a good feeling. Some are family members, some are friends, some are neighbors, some are colleagues. Every one of us is suffering from this. We know somebody that's important to us that's putting their eternity in danger and does not even know it's in danger. So the goal is to inspire us to do something about it. Because if you leave it up to just a few rabbis to inspire the world, it's not going to work. Each one of you has to do it. Why do we have to do it? Hashem gives us half the Torah full of stories and extraordinary reward, but the other half tells us of the consequences of not listening to Him. There are two specific parshiot that talk about really deep details of what happens when we don't follow what Hashem said.

7:40One of them is Parashat Bechukotai, and the other one is Ki Tavo. Bechukotai was directly dictated by Hashem Yitbarach to Moshe Rabbeinu. And Ki Tavo, which is in Sefer Devarim, the one we just started last week, was actually written by Moshe Rabbeinu with Ruach HaKodesh and has even more details about what was already said. Now, these two parashot actually answer the question of why the Holocaust happened. The simple answer is because we sinned. When Am Yisrael sins, Hashem has to punish them. Even though it's not nice to hear, it's a reality. If you read the book of Eicha last night, or a little bit of it today, you'll see in chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, it says it in every single chapter. Why did Hashem destroy the Beit HaMikdash? We sinned. We went against Him. After we sinned, He sent us some messengers, and we didn't listen. He sent us more messengers, and we didn't listen. And more and more and more, and we didn't listen, and eventually, He had to do something about it.

9:08Why does He have to do something about it? Because when He wrote the Torah 974 generations before the world was created, He signed it. He signed it with a signature called emet, truth, which means that He cannot change it. If He says that you have reward and punishment, that means that we all have reward and punishment. If He says that in order for you to get to Gan Eden, you have to comply with the Torah, then that's the only way. There's no shortcuts, there's no kombina. It's only a one-way ticket. But if He also wrote in the Torah that if you sin, He will give you an opportunity to do teshuva, but if you don't do teshuva, not only do you not do teshuva, but you take it, you make the sins like they're not really a big deal. You drive on Shabbat, not only do you drive, you drive to Beit Knesset. What's wrong with driving on Shabbat? Moshe didn't have a car, that's why he didn't drive. That's what they say.

10:19you'd be like, it's not a big deal to drive. You're driving in front of everyone, you have no problem. Cigarettes, seven days a week. Kosher, sometimes, whenever I have a chance. You treat the Torah like it's a newspaper. Then Hashem is saying, not only do you get punished for the sin, but you get punished for the treatment of the sin. And Parashat Bechukotai says, He gives us four levels of punishment, each one getting worse than the other. In today's generation, most shuls read this parashah very quietly. Obviously, this is the opposite of what previous generations did. Our grandparents and great-grandparents actually used to read these two parshiyot extra loud. And I'm not talking about 500 or 1,000 years ago. I'm talking about 100 years ago. give us a little bit of insight into how much has changed. The reason why we read it so quietly today is because we don't want to hear the truth. It's time to hear it. As each punishment gets worse and worse, most people that hear it and witness it don't actually know what it means, either because they don't really understand Lashon HaKodesh,

11:45or they're just not paying attention. So I had a guy during this Parashat Bechukotai. I was actually doing some lectures in New York, and I ran into a guy that I know, and I know he violates Shabbat. I tried to explain to him that coming to Beit Knesset on Shabbat, but then going to have a barbecue, or go and watch TV, or going to the mall and operating like it's a regular day, it's probably making his case even worse. Because now, you have no excuse of saying, I was an anus and I lived in some jungle. I didn't even know what Shabbat was or what Judaism was. You're coming to Beit Knesset, so obviously you know what Shabbat is. You live in New York; there's no way that you don't know what Judaism is. You live in Israel, you live in different parts of Florida, California, even certain parts of Africa have a lot of Jews. You live amongst Jews; you know what Judaism is. If you know what Judaism is, you know it starts with Shabbat. So coming to Beit Knesset and then going to drive your car, you're making your situation worse. And according to the Torah, you're going to have yourself a pretty serious punishment.

13:04He's like, no, I think you're a machmir, he tells me. I think Hashem understands me. I said, okay. Do you remember the parasha we read today? He goes, yeah, I remember it. I said, how many times did you read it in your life? 20 years, he tells me. So at least 20 times? He says, yes. I said, do you understand what the parasha says? He goes, yeah, I understand. I said, okay. Do you remember the parasha that talks about punishment? He says, yeah, I remember something about punishment. Do you remember what it said? He goes, no, I'm not a Talmid Chacham, I don't remember what it says. I said, okay. Do you remember that there were four levels of punishment? And he says, yeah, something like that. I said, do you remember the fifth level? No, what did it say? This is what it says. And despite this, you will not heed me, meaning if you still don't do teshuva, and you behave towards me with casualness, the Torah, whatever you want it to be.

14:27like the Conservative and the Reform. I will behave towards you with a fury of casualness. I will chastise you, even I, seven ways for your sins. You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters will you eat. So I asked him, do you remember this part? His face was in shock. He says, "No, I don't remember this part." I said, "Yes, part of the punishment if we don't do teshuva is Hashem will bring us to such a situation where we actually have to eat our children out of starvation and fear." He asked, "Has something like this ever happened?" I said, "Yes."

15:29In the book of Jeremiah, Hashem chooses Jeremiah to be a prophet while he's still young. And Jeremiah says, "Hashem, what prophet did you choose that the nation did not want to kill or stone to death? I'm just a young guy." Hashem says, yes, I chose you because you're young. Meaning you're still not tainted with political correctness. You're still not worried about raising money for some cause. You're still not worried about parnassah. You're still pure. Still tahor. That's why I chose you. So when Yirmiyahu comes to Am Yisrael and he sees some of them sinning, like the tribe of Ephraim, a very famous story, chapter 15 of Yirmiyahu, we see Yirmiyahu cursing the day that he was born. Chazal asks, why was he cursing the day that he was born? Or maybe chapter 17, 15 is actually, he was crying to Hashem to make it stop. 17, he was cursing the day he was born.

16:51why? Because he came and he saw the tribe of Ephraim wasting seed. And he told them, you know, this is one of the worst sins in the Torah. And if you do it on purpose, There will be no salvation for you. The punishment is eternal. There are three sins that bring someone to the seventh level of Gehenom where they cannot get out. One is wasting seed. Another one is Chilul Shabbat. And the third one is Chilul Hashem. So he tells the tribe of Ephraim, if you don't stop, you have yourself a serious problem—an eternal problem. The tribe of Ephraim probably belonged to this generation because they didn't like to be rebuked. To such an extent that they surrounded them and forced them to waste seed just like them. They said, you either do the same thing as us or we'll make it even worse and rape you.

18:11Jeremiah got to a point where, even though he was considered an anus, and there's even a Midrash that was written by his son, Ben Sira, that says that it wasn't considered a sin for a longer story, but nonetheless, Jeremiah felt the pain of the sin because he was so deeply connected with Hashem, and literally cursed the day that he was born. People are wasting seed by the minute, not even understanding the significance of the worlds that they're exploding. When someone violates Shabbat, it doesn't seem like it's a big deal. They drive, they play with their phone, they answer an email like it can't wait, they pick up the phone just in case the client is not going to call them back tomorrow. They don't realize that the minute they turn on that phone, The minute they turn on that gas in the car, there are worlds in heaven that are exploding. You just don't see it. But just like it says in the Gemara, every Jew...

19:37Every Jew has a chelek l'olam haba. But then it continues, but who doesn't? In Beit Knesset, we read the first part. So most people think that every Jew has chelek l'olam haba, doesn't matter what they do. The reality of it is that if you read the rest of the Masechet Kiddushin, you see that they give you a list of people that do not have chelek l'olam haba, because they lose it from their own action. One of them is Chilul Shabbat. So, what happens to these people? What happens to their Olam HaBa? Two things. One, it's given to someone else if someone else tried to help them. And two, they lose it. Every time you sin, it doesn't seem like anything happens. But it's just like the story that Rabbi Mizrachi says. He says, you know, there's a guy that they put into a room and tell him, "Listen, you only have one job. What's the job? Make sure nobody presses the red button. Don't press the red button." What does the red button do? It doesn't matter what it does. You have a gun; anybody comes next to the red button, shoot them. Don’t let anyone press the red button.

21:01Okay, the guy's not exactly a genius. He's just sitting there one day, two days. He's thinking to himself, maybe they're fooling me. Maybe I'll get a better job. He ends up becoming friendly with the janitor. He says, "Jose, how are you doing?" He says, "Okay." They start talking. He goes, "So what do you do?" He goes, "Oh, I watch this red button." "What's the red button?" He goes, "I don't know." So press it. He goes, no, I can't press it. That was the first day. By the second day, he's like, you want to have a drink? Okay, let's have a drink. After one or two drinks, press the red button. He goes, yeah, let's see what happens. Maybe they are fooling me. He starts pressing it. Yeah, see? Nothing's happening. The whole thing was a joke. Five minutes later, an army comes in with guns looking for the terrorists, only to see these two idiots next to the button pressing it like it's a video game. It's like, don't you understand that every time you press the red button, a missile is going and hitting another country? You just killed 500,000 people, you moron. But I didn't see it. It doesn't matter that you didn't see it. We told you not to press the red button.

22:22Hashem told you 12 times in the Torah, don't press the red button and violate Shabbat. Not one button, 12. Not one warning. Don't turn on the car on Shabbat. Don't play with your phone on Shabbat. Told you. Every time you do it, there's a missile. So after 120, somebody arrives in the next world and they go, what happened to my Olam HaBa? It's full of destruction. Oh yeah, this is the first button you press, second button, third button, fourth button, fifth button, sixth button, seventh button. And that was just the first Shabbat. Let me show you the rest of your life. So despite Yirmiyahu's efforts, Am Yisrael did not want to do teshuvah.

23:22And we see that Hashem fulfilled His promise in the book of Eicha. He gives us insights in chapter 4. And He says, He gives us details of what happened during Churban HaBayit HaMikdash. And he tells us that the starvation that we got to was so horrendous that the babies would die from starvation while still trying to get milk from their mothers. If that wasn't bad enough, some mothers, he calls them merciful. They had rachmanut. So they'd kill their babies before. But now they had to save themselves. So, they'd eat the babies. So, that was the first example of how Hashem fulfills His promise, to show us He's not joking. But most people today are like me before I did teshuvah and woke up, and with a few shtarot from Hashem,

24:51Baruch Hashem. And then can't connect to the Beit HaMikdash. You tell somebody, "Oh, do you remember Tisha B'Av? Avelut." They tell you, "What's Tisha B'Av? Is it a holiday? You know, you have to mourn." "Because what, for the Holocaust?" "Okay, Holocaust too, but it's Churban Beit HaMikdash." "Because what, is that next to the mall?" People have no clue. No clue whatsoever what it means. Rabbi Meir Mazuz says that the time to mourn is today. But it's time to mourn all of the disasters that have happened to Am Yisrael, not just the Churban Beit HaMikdash. And one of the reasons is because most people can't connect. It's far away from us. It's 2,000 years ago. People have a hard time connecting to 2,000 years ago.

25:53So one of the answers to why Hashem made this giant disaster 70 years ago, which we call the Holocaust, is to give us something to mourn. Obviously, that's not the only reason, but it's to give us something to connect to. Rabbeinu Yechezkel, in his book Kaf HaKela, He was in the Holocaust and he wrote this book. And he highlights the worst part of the Holocaust, worse than the beatings, worse than the torture, worse than the gas chambers, was the fact that the verse in Parashat Bechukotai came true, where he tells a story. One day, the Nazis decided to wake up the innocent Jews extra early to go to work. But today's work was worse than yesterday's and the day before's because there was no drinking, no eating—not that they ate much anyway, and not that they drank much anyway—but this was beyond the normal torture. Non-stop work.

27:23People would die on the job. But after they finally finished and came back to camp, they saw a Nazi soldier cooking in a huge pot in front of their camp. So everyone was excited, thinking, "Oh, maybe these Nazis actually have a heart." We haven't smelled or eaten meat in years. Maybe this is a reward for the slavery and torture we just went through. So they all ran towards the pot and grabbed whatever they could and started eating. Until a Jewish guy came out of the camp and started screaming, "No! They're your children." If you meditate on that story for about two minutes, you'll probably start crying. The Churban Beit HaMikdash HaRishon and Sheni were different. The first Beit HaMikdash was destroyed for three major sins.

28:44Avodah zarah, shefichut damim, v'gilu'i arayot. Idol worship, murder, and sexual immorality. That's the basic pshat. In reality, there's a little bit more to the details. The Beit HaMikdash HaSheni was destroyed due to sinat chinam, baseless hatred. And again, in reality, there are more details, and we'll go over some of those details. The avodah zarah that we talked about that happened in the Beit HaMikdash was that they actually worshipped idols. It's hard to explain how people who were seeing miracles every minute were worshipping an idol. until you read the Midrash and you see that these idols actually had powers. Hashem actually gave these idols powers. That was the test of the generation. So when they prayed to these idols, it wasn't like the idol you buy from Chinatown for $15. These idols were able to speak, walk, and actually fulfill their prayers.

30:09When Rava asked Menashe, when he had a dream about Menashe, "If you know so much Torah, how did you worship idols?" He said, "If you were in my generation, you'd chase the idols even worse than I did. Aside from the desire that the generation had, similar to the one we have today, about money and about sex, that was the generation over there that had this issue with idol worship." about money, and about sex, that was the generation over there that had this issue with idol worship. But in today's generation, we think that we don't have this problem anymore. We think that Avodah Zarah is gone. Unfortunately, Avodah Zarah has a new face. It's called money. If any of you ever looked at a dollar bill, you see on a dollar bill it says a nice sentence on the bottom: "In God We Trust." Most people take the sentence literally and think that it means the dollar is God. This is the reason why most people spend their lives chasing money.

31:30Spend 15, 16, 17 hours a day working. They want to be the next Bill Gates. They want to be the next Warren Buffett. They want to make a lot of money because they have to compete with their neighbor's big house. And since their neighbor got a brand new car, they can't live with themselves. They're eating themselves up. How could he have a new car and I still have my little toot-toot over here? So they work extra hard. And they start taking unnecessary risks. They borrow money they can't return. The borrowed money they start gambling. All the while, there's a Churban Beit HaMikdash at home. They haven't seen their kids in months. The wife doesn't even remember their name. Torah is like a foreign word in the house.

32:31And they forgot who Hashem is. They forgot who is the One that gives them parnassah. They made themselves a new god called money. Shefichut damim is not just murder, because unfortunately we still have that problem in the world, Baruch Hashem, not to the same extent as we had in Beit HaMikdash. But it's actually worse because it's combined with gilui arayot. In today's generation, there's a new type of murder, but it's not one person at a time; it's 300 million. Every teenager that goes home, sometimes even from a yeshiva, and the yeshiva did not teach him... some mussar, some yirat shamayim, and the details of the significance of wasting seed. He goes home, and he wants to relax; he wants thirty seconds of pleasure. And since he's not married, he helps himself to destroy three hundred million souls. Scientists have

33:57Done some serious analysis and they say that an average ejaculation is 300 million seeds. Which means that every time a teenager wastes seed, they just killed America. You do it five times a week, you destroy China. By the end of the month, you've killed an entire planet. Good luck in Gehinom. But unfortunately, it's not the teenager's fault that he doesn't know that it's that bad. He never heard it in yeshiva. Out of all the English on the internet, and trust me, I've done the research, there's only three shiurim about the topic. One by Rav Yitzchak Yosef, one by Rabbi Alon Anava, and one by me. I'm not telling you that I made a shiur Torah about wasting seed to give myself any respect, honor, or anything. I'm explaining to you this is a shame. That there are thousands of rabbis that know more Torah than I could ever know, have been studying Torah for 20, 30, 40, 50 years, one by Rav Alon Anava, and one by me. I'm not telling you that I made a shiur Torah about wasting seed to give myself any respect, honor, or anything. I'm explaining to you this is a shame. That there are thousands of rabbis that know more Torah than I could ever know, have been studying Torah for 20, 30, 40, 50 years,

35:25And yet you have a Baal Teshuva from a few years ago who is the only one that has four hours' worth of Torah specifically talking about the subject. All the information that you have on the internet in English totals about five and a half hours. It's very sad. So of course, the teenager is going to go home and think it's not a big deal. How can you expect anything else from him? He's not learning it in yeshiva. He's not learning it in public school. The opposite. Yeah, go relax, go relax. If he watches TV, he even hears medical opinions that it's good for you. If you really want to know the truth about it, you should watch one of these shiurim that I have, especially the one that was made in New York a few months ago for three hours. explains how someone who wastes seed is building themselves not only a gehenom that they can't see that's in the next world, but actually in this world. Because there's a book that was written 180 years ago that shows scientific evidence of how someone is slowly but surely destroying their body. Medically.

36:48So if we thought that we solved the problem, we now find out that we actually have a bigger problem. Back then, at least we were killing one at a time. Most teenagers today have killed at least seven or eight billion people. And this wasting seed is connected to both, and it's a sex crime. And people wonder why the sex organs of males and females are infested with cancer in our generation. We didn't have this 150 years ago. The Second Temple was destroyed for sinat chinam. Most people think it's because the Sephardim don't like the Ashkenazim and the Ashkenazim don't like the Sephardim. And the Yemenites don't like anyone, and the Bukharians sometimes like and sometimes don't like. And then the Iraqis are not really sure. And the guys from Tripoli, there's not really that many of us left, so we'll just disregard them and make it seem like they're Moroccans.

38:16And everyone claims that their food is the best. And no one is willing to pray at each other's kehillah. They think that that nonsense is sinat chinam. Yes, it's sinat chinam. But it's not really the real reason of why we're still in the disaster that we're facing today. Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz, who lived a couple of hundred years ago, who did zikui harabim, did kiruv his whole life, trying to save Am Yisrael. He said that the biggest sinat chinam, that we still suffer from, the worst type of sinat chinam, is when one Jew sees another sinning, one Jew sees another going against Hashem, and doesn't say anything. That's sinat chinam.

39:21If anyone watched or listened to the 613 commandments series that Rav Mizrachi has, it goes into detail about the 613 mitzvot that we have, whether it's Shabbat, Korbanot, all 613. And it shows you how each one of them has a source in the Torah. Most people think that of the 620 mitzvot that we have, 613 are from rabbis, 7 are from Hashem. In reality, it's the opposite. It's 613 from Hashem, 7 from rabbis. The most interesting part is the ones that, you know, as much as people complain about rabbis creating new laws and so on, the ones that people like the most, the mitzvot that people like the most, without knowing, are actually the rabbinical ones. Chanukah, saying a bracha before you eat, reading Hallel, it's the simple ones. So one of these mitzvot, out of the 613 from Hashem, not even from the rabbis, it's called, You must rebuke your nation.

40:47You see one of your brothers and sisters from Am Yisrael sinning, and you have some type of connection to him. He's your brother, she's your sister, neighbor, colleague, or friend, part of your kehillah. You see him sinning; you have to find a way to tell him the truth. Why? Because obviously, if you're not sinning, you're not sinning for a reason. You're not sinning because you're scared of Hashem. You're not sinning because you love Hashem. You're not sinning because you know the consequence. So if you know the consequence, then Rabbi Yonatan Eibeshitz says it's the same thing as knowing like a train is coming. If it was a train coming, and it was a person standing on the tracks, just not paying attention, just whistling, whistling, middle of the train. He's looking at the sun, no idea why he's even there, thinking life is grand. There's a train coming, he's on the track, and you're watching this live. Would you say something? Would you push him out of the way? Would you at least whisper?

42:14Would you even just say this? You would, right? You'd probably even do it for a cat. You'd probably even move a cat. How many heroes did we hear about on the news? Mr. So-and-so saved a monkey in some zoo. Look, there's a video on YouTube, got one billion hits. A cop saves a group of ducks. From a highway. National hero. He saved ducks. Saved people. Let's start with people. We'll worry about ducks after. If you don't save them, the train's going to hit them. And I'll be on it tonight because it says... That's the sinat chinam that we're still suffering for. And that's why the Beit HaMikdash has not been built for 1,948 years. Because we're still scared to tell people the truth. We're still scared of what they're going to think of us. Maybe they won't invite us to Shabbat anymore. Maybe they won't donate to our shul. Maybe they won't buy me a new car.

43:37Maybe the foundation I'm starting is not going to get up and running because I'm not going to get money from the kehillah because I told them that if they violate Shabbat, everything else that they do is meaningless. There's no teshuvah without Shabbat. Chazal says that even if you found a way, which is not possible obviously, but you found a way to keep 612 out of 613 mitzvot. Found a way. But the one that you don't keep is Shabbat. The 612 that you do mean nothing. It's like you did nothing. Why? Shabbat is the foundation of Judaism. Now, the reason why you can't do all 612 or 613 is because they're not all relevant to one person. Some are just for Kohanim. Some are just for women. Some are just for men. Some are just for the Beit HaMikdash. Some you can only do in Eretz Yisrael, and so on. In reality, each one of us is responsible for probably a couple of hundred. Did you ever test yourself and see how many you're actually doing? So when Hashem brings

44:54Punishment to us, like the Churban HaBayit HaMikdash, the Inquisition, the persecutions that we've gotten generation after generation. There's always a reason for it. When people ask you, where was God during the Holocaust? There's really only one answer. He did it. He was there. He's the one that pressed the button. That's the real answer. That's really the only answer. There's no such thing as suffering without sin. I know that some big rabbis in the past liked to lighten the hearts of the nation by telling them nicer things. No, the Nazis were evil, and the Romans were evil, and the Egyptians were evil, and the Spaniards were evil. Pretty much everyone is evil. Yes, you're right, everyone is evil, but Hashem still uses evil as a tool. We actually learn it from the book of Exodus, one of the most famous books of our Torah, which talks about when Hashem tells us that He took away the free choice of Pharaoh. Pharaoh did not have free choice.

46:25Hashem was using him like you use one of your toys when you're a little kid when you play with the army soldiers, to fulfill His will. If that wasn't enough, and we thought maybe it's a one-time scenario, we also learn it in this week's parasha. Sichon. Hashem took away their free choice, even though they were going to war, and they lost. Their free choice was removed so they would want to go to war with Am Yisrael. Chazal teach us that Hashem does this regularly. He takes the free choice of leaders on a regular basis because that's how He runs the world.

47:25This is why it's not exactly so surprising that in a recent lecture I heard that when someone had actually read Mein Kampf of the psychotic רשע גמור (Rasha Gamur) Hitler, read that Hitler rationalized his argument to destroy Am Yisrael because they were going against God. Rav Yitzchak Yedidya Frankel, who lived during the time of the beginning of modern Israel, saw that Jews were starting to drive on Shabbat. He couldn't deal with it. He couldn't let his brothers drive to Gehenom.

48:37So he got his kehillah together and he told everyone, bring your tallitot and he put all the tallitot on the floor. And a Jew in a truck sees all these tallitot and stops immediately. He comes out of the truck, crying. He said, what are you doing? These tallitot are on the floor. Please move them, I need to go. Because if you want to go, go on a tallit, drive on a tallit. Because no, how could I drive on a tallit? The Rav says, how can you drive against Hashem? Please, for the Rav, move these, move these tallitot. The Rav says, I'm not moving. The guy couldn't handle it. He got back into his truck, turned around, and left. Driving against Hashem and driving on a Sefer Torah, we don't have a problem with. Rav Galinsky

50:03You can fix it, it's okay. If you need to take it, yeah, it's one o'clock. You can sit. In the book of Eicha, chapter 1, verse 11, it says, "All her people sigh, searching for food." They have given their treasure for food to revive their souls. See, O Lord, and behold how I have become a glutton. Translation: During the Churban Beit HaMikdash, we were in such starvation. And because the Zionists of the day called Biryonim

51:30decided they did not want to have peace with the goyim. They wanted to go to war. They wanted to be heroes. But the sages, the tzaddikim, said, no, no, let's just make peace. We don't need to go to war. Let's just learn Torah, have a simple life. That's it. They want to rule, let them rule. As long as they give us the Beit Knesset, the Yeshiva, what do we need any more than this? But the Biryonim, no, no, no, no, no. we'll reform. We want power too. We want to be on CNN. We want to run Starbucks. We want to run corporate America. We're not going to bow down to anyone. Your Torah is not really doing anything for us. See, you said, yes, but it's the Roman army.

52:32We can't beat them. We don't have the merit. No, no, but we have muscles. We have weapons. Your muscles and your weapons are useless. If you look at the Midrash on Sefer Eichah, it talks about the weapons. It talks about how the Beit HaMikdash was before it was destroyed. And you see that it beats all odds. It says there are generally three means of protecting a city. There are three things that a city needs to have in order to protect itself. It has to have an impregnable fortress, something that's obviously difficult to get through. It has to have a huge population that scares away the enemy. It also has to have intelligence and sophistication that will allow the people to beat anyone that does decide to go against them. Money, obviously, is part of it.

54:00weapons are part of it. This is all we had in Yerushalayim. But not only that, we were on top of a mountain. If you know anything about war, no one ever wants to go to war with somebody that's on top of a mountain, and they're on the bottom of the mountain. That leverage pretty much guarantees that the one on top of the mountain will win. because they can hide away from fire. The ones on the bottom are exposed to the fire. One can hide, the other one can't. So, we had all of this. No different than the missiles we have today, and the airplanes, and the ships, and the army, and the Mossad, and all the things that Jewish people are very proud of.

55:04But Jeremiah teaches us something here: without God, you have already lost the war. So when these gibborim, these biryonim, wanted to go to war, and the tzaddikim were trying to stop them, Maybe they were billionaires with their muscles, but their brains weren't exactly very big. Because in order to force everyone to do what they wanted, they went and burned all of the food. All of the food reserves that Am Yisrael had in Jerusalem, they burned everything. So now you have to listen to us. Now you have to go to war. So people started starving.

56:04and they got to a point where they started selling everything. In the beginning, before eating their own children, they first started selling their diamonds for nothing. A diamond that was worth fifty million dollars was not even worth five when you can't survive another five minutes if you don't eat or drink. So, the rich and the poor, in one day, joined the same class, everyone was in the same boat. Rav Galinsky says that after the Holocaust was over and they were on a ship leaving the Gehenom that they were in, he saw two Jews fighting. "How could you be fighting? We just left Auschwitz, we survived, and you guys are fighting? To be celebrating should be anything but fighting," he says. One guy tells the other guy, "No, he's a shaygetz, he's a thief. Because why? What did he steal from you? Because just two weeks ago I was moments away from dying, I hadn't eaten in a few days."

57:05Auschwitz, we survived, and you guys are fighting? To be celebrating should be anything but fighting," he says. One guy tells the other guy, "No, he's a shaygetz, he's a thief." "Because why? What did he steal from you?" "Because just two weeks ago I was moments away from dying. I hadn't eaten in a few days." I was struggling to survive. I was begging anyone who would give me just a piece of potato, and he gave me a potato. So Galinsky says, "Oh, why is he a thief then?" Because the price for the potato, I told him, I gave him one of the things that I was able to hide for all these years from my past wealth. I had a diamond, a very big diamond that's worth a fortune. And I told him that I'll give him this diamond, this rock, in exchange for the potato. Now I want the diamond back. If he wants a potato, I'll give him a potato back. But I'm not gonna give him a diamond. I'll give him a farm of potatoes. Just give me back the diamond.

58:33So that's why he's a thief. He took my diamond. Rav Galinsky says, so I told the guy, now if he didn't give you the potato, how much is the diamond worth? He says, nothing. I'll be dead. She says, so you're telling me that the only reason you're here is because of the power that the potato gave you, and now you're using that power to go against the guy that gave it to you. This is what we do every day with Hashem. Hashem gives you eyes to learn Torah. We use it to look at women. that the potato gave you, and now you're using that power to go against the guy that gave it to you. This is what we do every day with Hashem. Hashem gives you eyes to learn Torah, and we use them to look at women. Hashem gives you hands to lay tefillin, and we use them to steal in our business. Hashem gives you a mouth to say divrei Torah, to praise His name, to pray. Yet, it's hard to walk by a New York street without hearing curses.

1:00:13In a conversation between the Chafetz Chaim and Rabbi Ponovezh that was two days long. Two straight days of conversation where the only break was just to go pray with the minyan. Rabbi Ponovezh disclosed a few of the secrets that went on in that conversation. This is almost 20 years before World War II. He said, the Chafetz Chaim told me that World War II is going to make World War I look like a kindergarten. It's going to be much, much worse. As we know, it's exactly what happened. But he also told me that World War III The war of Gog and Magog will make World War II look like kindergarten. Most Jews are worrying about their business, living their life, planning their next vacation for Pesach, or maybe for a summer vacation.

1:01:41thinking everything's okay, competing with their neighbor for the biggest house in the neighborhood. They're already bored of the car they bought last week because their neighbor got the same one, but it's black and theirs is white. We're living in an illusion. All the while, World War III already started. It's just quiet. If you look into the history books, all of these major wars started quietly. It wasn't just one day. Everybody just started beating each other up. It starts quietly with one big country versus a small one. And then a few more get involved. And it continues for a little while. It lingers and it lingers. A few people die that nobody cares about. And eventually, another big bully joins the party. And then everybody is having a brawl. This is basically how every major war in history has happened. This already started. September 11th of 2015, just less than a year ago, the Russian government decided to send a ship with 200 atomic bombs to Syria. When they were asked, "Why do you need so many atomic bombs?" the response was, "To fight ISIS."

1:03:09Now, obviously, anyone with a little bit of logic knows that you don't need an atomic bomb to fight gangsters. And you definitely don't need 200 of them. Twenty could destroy the whole world, if not less. So what do you need 200 for? Obviously, it's not just for ISIS. Obviously, it's preparation for something a little bigger. Anyone that followed the news a little bit would notice that Russia and America are not exactly best friends lately. You also notice that the rest of the world is not exactly happy with each other. It appears that everyone wants to fight. Anti-Semitism is the highest it's ever been. Recent statistics in America... would notice that Russia and America are not exactly best friends lately. You also notice that the rest of the world is not exactly happy with each other. It appears that everyone wants to fight. Anti-Semitism is the highest it's ever been. Recent statistics in America showed that over 40% of Americans admit to being anti-Semitic. And these are our allies. These are our friends. And it's only the ones that admit it. The Jews, on the other hand, are sleeping.

1:04:27A recent Pew study said that over 60% of Jews in America are intermarried, but in some sections of America, like Denver, over 90% of Jews are marrying goyim. That means that nine out of ten families are permanently cutting themselves out of Judaism. And the one that's left is 50-50, because he may still be chiloni. He may still be secular. Now, for anyone who's in doubt about intermarriage, about having a goyishe girlfriend or boyfriend, he's really nice, and she's really nice, you should watch my personal story and ask yourself if you want to go through the same journey I did. If you do, enjoy. Hashem is not going to let you just do what you want in this world when we're running out of time. But it wasn't an easy journey. And I don't recommend it for anyone. Most people won't survive. Somehow, Hashem gave me the strength to do it. Gave me someone special. But when so many people are in it already and not even having a clue of what it means, just imagine this:

1:05:57if you're a Jew today, that means that somehow, someway, you have lineage and forefathers that connect you directly to Moshe Rabbeinu, directly to Aharon HaKohen, directly to Am Yisrael that was at Har Sinai. And for over 3,300 years, We've been dying to protect that very same Judaism. We fought wars, we went through Holocausts, endured pogroms, were burned, were lynched, starved, faced disaster after disaster that even a horror movie can't picture. just for you to be Jewish, that's it. There's no other benefit in this world, at least. And you, who are about to marry a goya, are going to stop it. Because any non-Jewish woman who brings a child into the world, that child is not Jewish.

1:07:24So you're going to end it. You're going to have to end something that's been going on for 3,300 years now. Are you ready for that responsibility? Are you ready to go to HaKadosh Baruch Hu and answer to Moshe Rabbeinu, to Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, to David HaMelech, to Shlomo HaMelech, to Rabbi Akiva, that they peeled his skin just because he was Jewish for you. Are you ready to say, "Nah, all the things you guys did for me, it's not for me"? I don't see the difference. Goyim are nice people, which is right; there are some that are very nice. Still, it doesn't mean you're allowed to be with them.

1:08:29So, are you ready to end this chain that's been going on for 3,000 years with you? Judaism ends with you. Are you ready to end Judaism? Did you ever ask yourself that question? The very same question is asked of someone who's not keeping Shabbat. and even someone that's not keeping Taharat HaMishpacha and any one of the 36 major sins in Judaism that cut you off from our people. Obviously, intermarriage is worse than all because it officially cuts you off, whereas the other ones you can do teshuva a lot easier. But nonetheless, you have to understand that whatever you are, your kids will be worse. We don't get better over time; we get worse.

1:09:31Even though we have iPhones and iPads, we're still stupider than our previous generation. The previous generation was able to do math in their head. In our generation, you ask a guy five times five, they take out their iPhone and start doing calculations. You ask someone a phone number, nine out of ten times, they don't even know. How do you even expect them to remember seven digits? they immediately go to the phone book. No one remembers phone numbers. If I ask you an equation that's very simple that a six-year-old should be able to do, 12 times 12, 50% of the public can't do it. It's 144. I also, I guess, The point is that we stopped using our heads and started using technology, thinking that it makes us smarter. It actually doesn't. There was one time a Rabbi and his son on a plane next to some goy that was with his son

1:10:58and throughout the whole plane ride, the nice guy is sitting on the plane and his son comes to him. "Abba, I'm hungry." So, Abba gets up, goes to get some food. "Abba, I'm tired." Abba gets up, brings a blanket. "Abba, I'm bored." Abba goes into the bag, gives him a game. Abba, I'm thirsty. Twelve hours of this terror. On the other hand, this very same Abba that's serving his kid sees the Rabbi and his son, and he's eating himself up for twelve hours. Because he sees the Rabbi sitting there, and the kid asking the Abba, "Abba, are you thirsty?" "No, no, son, it's okay." "Abba, are you hungry?" Salam, okay. Abba, here's a cover, here's a blanket in case you're tired. Everything that his son was asking him, on the other hand, was the opposite. So, towards the end of the flight, he asks the Rabbi, "How'd you do it? How'd you train him that way?" He says, "It's very simple. He says, in your world, you believe that..."

1:12:25You came from monkeys, right? He says, yeah, of course. Monkeys and we are almost the same. That's how it is. So it means that each generation that's new is better than the last. Obviously, the monkey is not as good as a human being. You're better than the monkey, right? Yeah, of course. Which means that you are closer to the monkey than your son is. He goes, yes. He goes, that means you're closer to being a monkey than your son. He says, so what? See, in our world, it's the opposite. We all came from Adam and Chava, and Adam and Chava were the best. And we've continuously deteriorated every generation, which means that I am closer to the best than my son is. So while my son thinks of me as someone closer to the source, your son looks at you like a monkey. That's why he asks you to do things for him. This is true.

1:13:54In Massechet Gittin, page 58, Rabbi Yishmael ben Elisha had a son and a daughter that were both known for their beauty. Something extraordinary. They were very, very beautiful people in those days. Not like the promiscuity that's prevalent today. We're talking about truly beautiful people—very beautiful, very modest, very holy. But the Nashim, the Romans, took them both as hostages and sold them in the market. And then the two people that ended up owning them—one owned the daughter, the other one owned the son— They said, "These people are so beautiful, we have to make more." So, they found each other, and they didn't know that the son and the daughter were brother and sister. They put them both in a dark cell, waiting for nature to take its course, waiting for the son and daughter to be intimate with each other.

1:15:16And as soon as the son and daughter got into the room and just saw darkness, they didn't know who the other person was, but they knew what the Romans were expecting them to do. Going against Hashem, committing a sin of gilui arayot—it's better that you die than commit a sexual crime. It's better that you die than worship an idol. It's better that you die than murder anyone. It's three major cardinal sins you're not allowed to commit under any condition. So now they're asking these two young kids to commit that sin. So the two kids can't do it. They're just thinking about it. They're hysterically crying. They're crying all night. And in the morning, finally the sun comes in and they see each other's face. and the amount of sorrow that they had according to the Gemara made them both cry to death. These very same resha'im, Romans, also took three ships' worth of Jewish kids they were planning to use as their toys.

1:16:51both boys and girls. When these young virgin girls realize that this is what they're doing, they decide to all jump into the sea and commit suicide. Better to die than sin. When the boys saw the girls jump into the water and realized that they're going to be the Romans' toys, They also jumped into the water. Dying al Kiddush Hashem, better to die than sin. Young kids. Rabbeinu Yechezkel has numerous stories that he tells of how the Nazis used to do the same thing to little kids.

1:17:53And as soon as they got bored with them, they'd kill them. One major lesson we need to learn from this is that if the little kids of the previous generation were willing to die and not sin, Why do we welcome the sin? Why do we go looking for it? We're not expecting anyone to kill themselves over not sinning, at least if they're not connected to Hashem at the highest possible level, but at least stop looking for it.

1:19:11Many people think that there was no mercy during the Holocaust, during the Churban Beit HaMikdash. And anyone that thinks that doesn't really know the details. One of the Jews that actually was in a concentration camp for five years miraculously survived. And he tells the story of how every single day he would spend every moment he could praying to Hashem, asking for salvation. Any type of salvation, even to such an extent that other people were committing suicide next to him just to get away from the Nazis. They would run to the electric fences on purpose. They just couldn't take it. He had emunah in Hashem. He constantly prayed to Hashem, asking for help. He survived five years. Towards the end of the war, the Nazis knew that they were in trouble, but it didn't stop them from performing evil. So one day they tell everyone, "Listen, when the Americans and the British come here, tell them we fed you." So here are a bunch of loaves of bread. Each one of you gets a full loaf of bread. To the Jewish people in that day, there was something out of this world. A loaf of bread. Everyone lined up, waiting for this piece of bread. This Jew being one of them.

1:20:36Tell them we fed you. So here are a bunch of loaves of bread. Each one of you gets a full loaf of bread. To the Jewish people in that day, this was something out of this world: a loaf of bread. Everyone lined up, waiting for this piece of bread, this Jew being one of them. He hasn't seen a full loaf of bread that's actually fresh in years. Finally, he gets to his turn and he takes one of these breads, and the Nazi who gave it to him turns around. He thinks to himself, maybe this is the last bread I'm ever going to eat. He decides to stay in line, hoping the Nazi doesn't see him and gives him another one. And as he would have it, the Nazi turns around and forgets that he just gave it to him, and he gives him another one. This was like Gan Eden for him. Two loaves of bread! One was already Olam HaBa, the second one. Salvation had finally come. But salvation wasn’t long-lived because moments later, as he walked away,

1:22:04A big giant Russian guy came up to him and said, "I saw what you did and I want one of those loaves. Because the Nazis also took Russian soldiers as prisoners." He says, "Give me one of them." He says, "No, no, no. I'm not giving you anything. I fought for it. This is my loaf. You're not getting anything." So the Russian whistled, and all of a sudden, he had five or six of his buddies show up, and they started beating this Jew up non-stop. They beat him to the floor, blood everywhere, and obviously, no one's doing anything; no one can do anything. And next thing you know, he passes out. But before he passes out,

1:23:05He just thinks about how angry he is at Hashem, saying, "Hashem, why did You let me survive all this time to get to this bread only to lose it? It would have been better if I didn't get the bread at all." Maybe he's fasting too. After he says this, he passes out. He wakes up hours and hours later, not even remembering when the last time he was able to sleep for a few hours was. He sees it’s empty around him.

1:24:08He gets up finally after struggling to get up, and he walks to the next room. He sees everyone dead, with bread and crumbs still in their mouths, full of poison. When it says, Yeshuat Hashem k'heref ayin... Hashem's salvation will come to you faster than the blink of an eye. It's usually not the same salvation you're looking for. We tell Hashem, "Hashem, give me the lotto so I can be rich and I can donate some CDs." You don't need to be rich to donate some CDs. They're only a dollar. Say, "Hashem, give me an easy life so I can go learn Torah." One doesn't necessarily need to go with the other. You're obligated to learn Torah regardless. "Hashem, make me famous so I can publicize things." You don't need to publicize to the world; publicize to your own family. We look for all types of salvations from Hashem. Similar to this story, there was one time there was a mom

1:25:33Had a son that was in financial trouble. And she prays to Hashem and says, "Hashem, make my son a doctor. I heard doctors make a lot of money. Make my son a doctor miraculously overnight. And he'll make money. He'll get out of this debt that he has." She prays, she prays, she prays. A month, two months, three months, nothing happens. The son is still selling beer. She says, "Hashem, maybe asking for him to be a doctor is too much. Make him a lawyer." She prays, she prays, she prays, she prays. A month, two months, three months, nothing changes. The son still sells beer. Only now the situation got worse because he ran out of merchandise. Mom doesn't know what to do, and she thinks that Hashem made a mistake and forgot her son. But all of a sudden, one day, there's a knock on the door. There's this important-looking man in front of him, and he says to her son, "I heard you make beer. I'm here from out of town and..."

1:26:57I want to get a glass of beer. He goes, "I'm sorry, I don't have any more merchandise. I'm out. I only have the bottom of the barrel. Nothing." He goes, "Okay, I know you Jews. You just want more money. That's your negotiation tactic. Fine. Instead of giving you $15 for a glass, I'll give you $100." He goes, "No, no, no, I'm serious. I don't have any more. I'm done. It's not about the $100. I'd love to take your $100. I don't have." "Okay, fine, fine. $300, one glass." Jewish thinks to himself, why is Hashem giving me this tikkun? The guy wants to pay $300 for one glass. I don't even sell a whole barrel for $300. He says, you know what? Give me the $300. Hold on a second. He goes downstairs and sees the bottom of the barrel is nothing, just some of the dregs left on the bottom. He says, put some water and give it to him.

1:27:57Worst case, he'll have some flavor. Worst case scenario, he beats me up and takes the $300. It's been worse. Best case, he takes it, maybe he gives me a piece of the $300. So that's what he does. Takes some water, puts it at the bottom of the barrel, shakes it up, puts it in the glass, gives it to the guy. The guy drinks it. And it's like heaven. It's like, wow. I knew it. I knew you were lying to me. I knew you Jews had this. I knew all you wanted is 300. This is the best beer I ever had. The Jew, obviously, is in a dream. And then Hashem makes it better. When this so-called important man tells him, "Listen, I'm actually the mayor of the city next to us." and have a very, very big party in three months from now. I want 300 barrels of that very same beer, and I'm willing to pay you the same price of $300 per glass. He calls one of his servants to bring him a couple of sacks full of gold coins, and this young Jew becomes rich overnight. The mother sees this whole story and looks at Hashem and says

1:29:19You know, You played me, Hashem. Even I didn't think of that. People are constantly looking for solutions for Hashem, like He needs help. But He specifically told you that whatever you think of, He doesn't think of. It's not even a thought. Your human thoughts are too low for Him. My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts. If you are looking for a certain salvation, and you think that something specific is your salvation, it's usually not going to be the one that Hashem uses. And even during the worst possible times of the Churban Beit HaMikdash HaRishon and Beit HaMikdash HaSheni, we even had some salvation. There was some light that at the end of the tunnel. So, the prophet Jeremiah in the book of Eicha tells us exactly the root of the problem in chapter 1, verse 19, and several other places in the book of Eicha.

1:30:45I called for my lovers, but they deceived me. My priests and my elders perished in the city as they sought food to keep themselves alive. The Midrash says that when he's talking about his lovers deceiving him, it's actually referencing the false prophets of the time. It's actually referencing the false prophets of the time. People claiming to be prophets, coming to the nation, telling them, no, no, you're all tzaddikim. Because if you look at the history of all prophets, they all had one common job. They were all kiruv rabbis. Their job was to rebuke the people. This is why in the Gemara Masechet Megillah, it says, what did Hashem do when Moshe Rabbeinu died? The Gemara says He cried, saying, who else is going to be there to rebuke My nation? Who's going to tell them the truth? And we see that we've gotten worse and worse at telling the truth over the generations, that by the generation of Yirmiyahu,

1:32:12we just started creating a new set of truths. Instead of telling people to keep Shabbat, we told them to become human beings and actually obey the Torah, be a light to the nations, and learn some Torah. We told them whatever you do is fine as long as you have a good heart. So after the nation realizes that all of these lies from these fake prophets, a.k.a. fake rabbis, have led to their own disaster. They were crying at how they let these false lovers deceive them. In Gemara Masechet Ketubot, page 105b, Abaye, who is on practically every page of the Gemara almost, He says, if you see a talmid chacham that everyone likes, don't be so impressed. A talmid chacham? Don't be impressed? Why not? If they like him, it's a good thing. Maybe they can learn from him, right? Logically, that's what you would think. A talmid chacham everyone likes? Why not? Abaye says, no, no, no. If everyone likes him, don't be so impressed. Why not?

1:33:39Because the only reason everyone likes him is because he doesn't rebuke anyone. He doesn't tell anyone the truth. He just calls everybody tzaddikim. You're a tzaddik. You have a good heart. You have a good neshamah. Your family is very important. Oh, and by the way, we need some support for the Beit Knesset. That's what they do. Abaye already told us this. And Abaye also says that this is the reason these very same false Talmidei Chachamim are the reason why in the Gemara, Masechet Shabbat, page 119b, it states that shame, embarrassment, and torture were brought upon the Talmidei Chachamim of the days of the Beit HaMikdash first.

1:34:42Gemara asks, how could it be? Why would you punish the tzaddikim before the resha'im? If you look at the history of what happened, Churban Beit HaMikdash, you would think, oh, the guy goes and learns Gemara every day. He should be rewarded. It should make him a spiritual bubble and protect him. Nazi comes with something, can't go through the bubble. He looks at it funny, it explodes. The Jew is protected with his Gemara book. That's what you think, right? It's the opposite. Gemara Masechet Shabbat says, no, those people got punished first. Why? It says because they did not rebuke the nation. They didn't tell people the truth. And if you don't rebuke the nation, if you don't fulfill the mitzvah, you're not considered a righteous person. You're an incomplete righteous person. How so? In the Gemara, Masechet Avodah Zarah, it explains exactly what that means. On page 17, it says someone that goes and learns Torah without an intention of teaching,

1:36:09He learns for himself. He likes Gemara. It's very mentally stimulating. It's very interesting. There's science in it. There’s all types of financial information in it. There’s ethical information. There’s all types of intelligence in the Gemara. It's endless intelligence. Extraordinary. So you want to learn Gemara? Well, if you don't like Gemara, you want to learn Sipurei Tzadikim. They're interesting. They're inspiring. Or if you don't want that, you want to learn Chumash, you want to learn what happened in the desert. Someone wants to learn the Torah without the intention of teaching. He wants to keep it to himself. The Gemara calls him an idol worshiper. It says that guy is like someone who doesn't have a God. Didn't the Rabbi just tell us for the last two hours that learning Torah is a good thing? It's a little bit of a contradiction here, no? The Gemara explains that in order for you to get close to Hashem, you have to learn Torah. That's step number one. Now, just like a successful married couple eventually realizes that they have more and more in common and more and more things that they both enjoy,

1:37:36and character traits that one didn't have before the relationship but now they're trying to emulate. If one was a calm person and the other one was angry, if it's a good quality relationship, over time the angry one will become more calm. If it's a bad quality relationship, the calm one will become angry. The point of a relationship is for one plus one to equal more than two. if it's two, then it's not as if you were alone. So the point of learning Torah is to get closer to Hashem by emulating His middot—His kindness, His love, His mercy. Now, eventually, you get to a point where you realize that all Hashem does all day and all night is give.

1:38:39So how can you be so selfish and keep all that Torah to yourself? That means that you're not learning Torah for Torah's sake. You're not learning Torah in order to emulate the middot of Hashem. You're learning Torah like it's a history book. And Hashem says that it's like someone who doesn't have a God. What Am Yisrael needs is good teaching, good leadership, and a lot of truth. We had a few throughout history, Baruch Hashem, but we need more. We need them today. Rav Elchanan Wasserman, who was safe in the United States, heard about what was happening to his students in Germany and decided that he had to go be with them. His students in the U.S. said, "No, it's dangerous, it's life-threatening." He replied, "I cannot leave my students to suffer at a time like this without me." And he went to Germany and was murdered there.

1:40:06But one of the students that actually survived publicized what Rav Wasserman said before everyone died. Rav Wasserman said, "Listen, apparently we're all korbanot for Am Yisrael. We're all sacrifices for Am Yisrael." Now if you remember the mitzvah of the korban, It has to be done with pure thought. It has to be done the right way, because if you think about the wrong thing, it's called a pigul. The korban is not accepted. It's a damaged korban; it's a damaged sacrifice. So I want to make sure that all of you don't even think for a second that you're overly righteous because you're dying al Kiddush Hashem. Don't even think for a second that you're extra special. Just bless Hashem and do His will. Just like us.

1:41:27Zohar Chadash, Parashat Noach, has Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus answering a question. They ask him, when is the Mashiach going to come? And Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, who was one of the rabbis of Rabbi Akiva, says when there's at least ten tzaddikim that can learn Torah without machloket. Ten tzaddikim learn Torah in a room, or even in one place in the world. Or even if they're all in different places, but they all agree. Ten. Without machloket, Mashiach is going to come instantly. In the Gemara, Masechet Sukkah, page 45b, it says that every generation must have 36 tzaddikim in order to save the generation.

1:42:29So what this means is that despite having 36 tzaddikim in every generation for over 2,000 years, we have yet to have 36 tzaddikim that even have 10 that agree with each other. So long as some people think that rebuking others is a bad thing or that telling people only half the truth is not exactly... Theft. Theft of the truth. Salvation is not going to come in a nice way. Each one of us has to do everything possible not to repeat what happened. So, the one thing that I know that will help us is if every single person in this room or any person that's watching this, whether you're Ultra-Orthodox or half-a-duck or you're one of those ducks that the cop saved on the highway, if you have any life in you whatsoever and you care about Am Yisrael, you take five minutes a day to do Kiruv. Five minutes. You have 24 hours in a day.

1:43:30is if every single person in this room or any person that's watching this, whether you're Ultra-Orthodox or half-a-duck or you're one of those ducks that the cop saved on the highway, if you have any life in you whatsoever and you care about Am Yisrael, you take five minutes a day to do Kiruv. Five minutes. You have 24 hours in a day. Take five minutes. And here's the reason why. Aside from everything we've just talked about, take five minutes a day to get another Jew closer to Hashem. You can either give out CDs, You could sponsor CDs. If you don't have any money, you could just copy and paste. If you're already on the internet, take one of these lectures. You could take this lecture or any other lecture I have, or Rabbi Mizrachi has. Any lecture that's going to shake people up. Copy and paste. Like it on Facebook. Send it to people. Arrange shiurim like we have today. Bring rabbis that actually tell the truth.

1:44:48Do something. There are a lot of ideas you can implement. And if you don't have time, then contribute money. If you don't have money, then contribute time. But you have to do something. Because if we don't do anything, the picture doesn't get prettier, as you can see. It's a sequel: Noach, Egypt, Sodom and Gomorrah, But the Mikdash, first one, second one, obviously not all in order, but the point is that you see that this is a sequel. This keeps happening. Each one of us has to be the prophet of all generations. Each one of us has to publicize the truth. If you can speak, speak. If you can't, bring someone who can. If that's not possible... Give them a digital version. It's very easy to do kiruv. And I'll tell you one major story that should wake all of us up. I have this guy that helps me with publicizing the shiur Torah. He lives in Bulgaria. He was born not Jewish.

1:46:14He discovered Judaism and Torah and fell in love with it despite the fact that his parents are ultra, ultra-Orthodox idol worshipers—Evangelical Christians. This means that he has to fight the tumah 24 hours a day. I have another guy from India who actually has idol worship in his house—the family that he lives with. And both of them helped me publicize Torah on the internet with the videos. They help with everything: text messaging, we have 20 different WhatsApp groups, thousands and thousands of people following us on Facebook and YouTube, and all of these channels need help—making the videos, cutting them, and so on. And these two goyim,

1:47:16"...that are in the process of conversion are contributing for free. Not only to me, they also help Rabbi Mizrachi. Now, one of them had a brit milah last week. Now, when you're eight days old and you have a brit milah, usually you don't remember it by the time you're 20. But when you're in your 20s and you have a brit milah, you still remember it when you're 80." he had a brit milah. He's a grown man, and later that day, the very same day that he had the brit milah, I saw him on the internet publicizing my Torah lessons. I told him, "What are you doing? Didn't you have the surgery today?" He said, "No, no, they had it. It went okay." I said, "Aren't you in pain?" He goes, "Yeah, yeah, I'm in pain, but..." What can you do? B'ezrat Hashem, it will be better. He says, "Yes, but don't you want to rest? Brit Milah is not exactly a small thing." And he gives me an answer that will forever shock me: "Where is Am Yisrael going to learn Torah if I don't publicize Torah and just sit here and cry in my own pain?"

1:48:41How are they going to find Torah if I'm sleeping and resting? The other assistant has decided that the only way that he can convert is if he can get out of there. He can get out of the avodah zarah (idol worship) in India. He sends me pictures Of all these extraordinary things that happen over there that make me think, how is Hashem not destroying this place right on the spot? They worship rats, cows, drink cow urine, all that stuff is true. It's not just stuff that Rabbi Mizrachi says, it's true, I have pictures. They worship motorcycles, they worship trees. I have pictures of all of this. They actually have a tree with a bunch of things on it, and they worship it. And they have a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. They put a bunch of things on it, and they worship that. He says many houses have cow urine in the fridge in order to purify the house. Some people drink it. Hashem, foolishness has no limits. And if it was a stock, it would be infinity as far as price. He says, the only way that I can...

1:50:01become part of the chosen people is getting out of here. But the only way that I can get out of here is if I have a job. So he's taking an enormous amount of tests in order to get this certificate, this financial certificate. He's taking tests that would take an average person maybe seven, eight, or nine years in one year. Why? Not really because he wants to go on Wall Street, or he wants to be a millionaire, or because of anything material. The only reason he's doing it is to be like you. To be a Jew. So when you go up to Shamayim, they're going to ask you, "What did you do for Hashem?"

1:51:02If you answer, "I learned Torah, I went to a class once or twice a week, and I learned Parashat HaShavua once a day for ten minutes." It's good for you, but it's for you. That just got you into the door. What do you do for Hashem? There's a mitzvah of sanctifying His name, Kiddush Hashem. What did you do for Hashem? Because I did late tefillin. At least five times a week. Not six. I'm not a big... Five. On Sundays, I was sleeping till ten. Okay, that's also for you. I eat kosher. No. Well, if you want to learn Torah, you have to eat kosher. Because if you don't eat kosher, you can't learn Torah. The Torah says, someone who eats non-kosher becomes a metumtam. Meaning, it stupefies them spiritually. Torah uses the word "nitmetem." "Nitmetem" means to impurify. But the word in the Torah is missing a letter. It's missing an aleph. And Chazal say, don't say "v'nitmetem," say "nitamtem." Don't say it makes them impure, say that it makes them stupid. Meaning that when you eat non-kosher food, all that non-kosher food turns into blood.

1:52:27Everything that you eat turns into blood. Whatever doesn't turn into blood leaves your body. So now, when you have impure things turn into blood, it becomes part of you. You eat the non-kosher pizza at Domino's and the local pizzeria that's on every single corner in New York. At the same time, not only are you eating non-kosher cheese, which is problematic, but you actually don't realize that that very cheese has meat in it. This is the reason why, when you go to a supermarket, there are only 5 or 6 kosher cheeses and 150 non-kosher ones. One of the ingredients that they've been using for over 2000 years in non-kosher cheese is meat. It comes from the stomach of pigs. You can look this up online or, if you want, I can send you a list of ingredients with details. If you ever see an orange juice that doesn't have a kosher sign on it, don't worry. It's not the rabbi's fault. There was a company called Sunny Delight that, until about five or six years ago, did not have a kosher sign on it, and some Jewish people thought that the rabbis had a monopoly on the kosher market, not letting this poor little company in — evil rabbis. But anyone that investigated the ingredients...

1:53:28kosher sign on it, don't worry. It's not the rabbi's fault. There was a company called Sunny Delight that, until about five or six years ago, did not have a kosher sign on it, and some Jewish people thought that the rabbis had a monopoly on the kosher market, not letting this poor little company in—evil rabbis. But anyone that investigated the ingredients would actually find out why Sunny Delight did not have a kosher sign. It's because they used an interesting ingredient to make their orange juice more yellow. They used food coloring. They wanted to make their orange juice more yellow than everybody else's natural orange juice. When it's more yellow, it's more appealing, looks healthier, looks more fun. It's more marketable. We make more money. So they used beetles for food coloring. Now on the ingredients, you're never gonna see beetles. Usually, you're gonna see a code name like E326 or something that sounds like a jet plane.

1:54:43anything that's not kosher, it has nothing to do with rabbis. It's easier to become kosher in today's world than it's ever been before. Kosher has become an industry. Which means that anything that's not kosher has a specific reason. It's so bad that even wicked rabbis have a doubt. They can't let it through. I'm not saying that all rabbis are wicked. I'm just saying that even the people that are trying to justify things by closing an eye, can't even close an eye for this. So the first thing that all of us need to understand is that when you get up to Shamayim, they're going to ask you, what did you do for Hashem? If you say Torah, He'll tell you He did it for you. If you say Tefillin, it's also for you. If you say you ate kosher, He said the first two depended on this one. are trying to justify things by closing an eye, can't even close an eye for this. So the first thing that all of us need to understand is that when you get up to Shamayim, they're going to ask you, what did you do for Hashem? If you say Torah, He'll tell you He did it for you. If you say Tefillin, it's also for you. If you say you ate kosher, He said the first two depended on this one. Let's go back to the first question. What did you do for Hashem? He said, well, this is all I did. He says, okay, well, why didn't you do kiruv? And you ask him why, how to do it? He said, well, I don't know. Think about it. You're here in front of me, but 15 million of my other children can't show up. And if you would have just told your neighborhood

1:56:11that had 50 of your friends, the 50 would have told another 50. And the 100 would have told another 100. And within one or two generations, another million would be right next to you. So what you didn't do cost Me a million of My children. Just like the statistic of the intermarriage that we talked about before becomes much worse when we see the outcome. We had 6 million Jews in America 70 years ago, after the Holocaust. That was what was left. Seventy years later, we still have 6 million Jews. Mathematically, it doesn't make any sense. Every civilization grows over time, whether they're Muslims, Jews, or Americans. Or anything, unless there's a disaster that ruins it. Now, I would have told you that before the Holocaust it was 6 million. And today it's 6 million. You say, oh, Baruch Hashem, at least we have 6 million left. But this I'm telling you is 6 million after the Holocaust. And 70 years later, we had zero growth. Because we do have a disaster. It's a silent Holocaust. It's called intermarriage. If there was no intermarriage...

1:57:37we'd have 36 million Jews in America alone. That means that intermarriage killed 30 million Jewish souls. Five times more than the Holocaust did. Why? Because Am Yisrael didn't want to tell their neighbor to stop marrying goyim. But it didn't start with just marrying goyim. It said, eh, keeping Shabbat is an elective. You don't have to keep the whole Shabbat. Keep half. By the next generation, it's not the first half or the second half. By the third generation, it's not only not keeping Shabbat, it's not keeping anything. Maybe you go to shul once or twice a year. By the fourth generation, you don't understand why there's a difference between Jews and gentiles. By the time you arrive at the 1990s, when I arrived in America, You start looking at Jews as if they're the racist ones. Why are you being so racist? My friend Chris and my friend Christina are perfectly fine people. Why can't I marry them? Why? It all starts with no one ever telling the first guy anything. And we all have a choice. We can either do something about it, or just continue looking at me with long faces, trying to figure out what I am saying.

1:59:03Or just continue looking at me with long faces, trying to figure out what I am saying? We could either affect our neighbors, start telling our friends, "Hey, listen, buddy, you know that girlfriend you started dating? Let's stop. I'll introduce you to somebody better." By the way, you know the beach that you go to on Shabbat? I know you're not going to stop going to the beach, but let's go on Sunday. By the way, instead of watching the game on Monday night, why don't we get together an extra half hour early? I learned, watch a shiur. Then you can watch the game, because you're not going to stop the game right away. You can't turn a rasha into a tzaddik overnight. But start somewhere. Start somewhere. Each one of you can take five minutes of your day. If you can take more, you should do more. Five minutes.

2:00:07Because eventually you're going to go up to Shamayim, and they're going to ask you, "What have you done for Hashem?" And if you don't have an answer, they're going to bring Vimesh and Emmanuel to you and they're going to say, "Wait, so how come these two righteous goyim were able to still do Kiddush Hashem at the same time they were surrounded by idol worship, even before they converted, even when there was the pain of circumcision?" And you can't, you're not going to have a very good case to defend yourself. So B'ezrat Hashem, this just wakes us up, gets us to work, gets us to start sanctifying Hashem's name, and gets us to realize that whatever He wrote in His Torah is real. He's fulfilled it many, many times to make sure that we're reminded in every single generation that it is very much real, both the reward and the punishment. And B'ezrat Hashem, next time that we talk, we have some good news because the Mashiach is here out of good purpose. Baruch Adonai le'olam. Amen ve'amen. Any questions? If anybody could shut it off.