Who Are You Comparing Your Torah Knowledge With

1:31Listen, if I offended you, I didn't mean to offend you. He brought me a cake. I'm dead serious, son. He was there. I can't make this stuff up. I would die; I can't make this stuff up. The guy, because I knew him, he came to a bunch of my classes, but he knows more than me. And he wanted to make sure that I know that he knows more than me. Something told me he knows more than me, and maybe he thought I was offended because I wasn't responding. So he came to my house with a cake with his friend, and they were handing me a cake. I don't know. He's like, "Oh, listen, I didn't want to offend you or anything." Oh, okay. I wasn't really offended, but it's strange for someone to tell you that they know more than you. I don't know. Is it that important for you to tell me that you know more than me? I don't know. It's strange to me what kind of information people share. But fine, okay, you brought me a cake. It's a nice gesture or something. I don't know. But before, I was holding the cake. I wasn't really too interested in this whole conversation. So I was holding the cake, still like halfway. And then he helped me out. Why? His friend said, no, listen. It's obvious he knows more than you.

2:43I gave him the cake back and said, thank you very much. Why, you don't want peace? I said, what's wrong with you? No, strange people. Strange people. Why? His argument was that because he's religious from birth, and he learned with some rabbis, some big rabbis, and he just needs to know that I should know that he knows more than me. Now, if this wasn't enough, I can't make this stuff up. If this wasn't enough, he decided to call Rabbi Ephraim. Because I arranged for him to go to Rabbi Ephraim's house one time a few years ago, so he could meet, get a bracha and whatever. And so he had Rabbi Ephraim's phone number. Rabbi Ephraim told me anytime you need anything, call me, no problem. He liked the kid. So he called Rabbi Ephraim.

3:45If I, if I says to me, "You don't have to be upset, he's a shoteh." You have to be upset. He's not. He tells me, "No, don't be upset. I know he's annoying, everything happened, but don't be upset. He's sick. He's a sick person." So why, he goes, because the guy starts telling me things about how the gedolei hador all call him before they put up psak, and Before all of this, not one of them would. There was one respected gadol hador who called him regularly. Before they published a psak in one of their sefarim, they would call him. When he starts the conversation, he says, "You know, I am not a regular person," so he tells him, "You know, I am not a regular person," as well. I'm an honorable person, he tells him. He comes out of his mouth, and I find he has good middot, so he doesn't hang up the phone on him. He listens to this foolish person. And then he starts telling them, oh, listen, all of the gedolei hador, they didn't contact me. They asked my opinion about everything.

4:50that's when I find myself saying, "Okay, thank you." At the end of the conversation, he tells me, "Listen, you don't have to be upset." I said, "Why am I upset? The guy's really annoying." "No, you’re not upset. Why?" "He's just okay. He's put two and two together. He's smart. It's not a normal place. He's sick in his mind." I this guy hounded me for months, every day, every day would send me a text until I blocked him. Eventually, I just couldn't take it; there's just so much you can take. But the point is that sometimes the Torah will actually make a person arrogant. Why? Why? Why would such a holy thing make a person arrogant? Because you're surrounded by a bunch of people that actually don't know much constantly when you're in such a community. This generation, most people are not even sure if they came from monkeys or not. There are millions and millions of people that honestly believe they are somehow related to the chimpanzee in the zoo, and those same people believe that the chimpanzee they're related to, their 'grandfather the chimpanzee,' is also related to some, I don't know, some amoeba on the floor somewhere because that's how it originally started. They actually believe that their relative is like amoeba one, amoeba two, amoeba three; like they actually believe they're related to all of this and...

5:54Those same people believe that the chimpanzee they're related to, their grandfather, the chimpanzee, is also related to some, I don't know, some amoeba on the floor somewhere because that's how the chimpanzee originally started, originally from some amoeba. They actually believe that their relative is like amoeba one, amoeba two, amoeba three. They actually believe they're related to all of this, and... So what is it when you talk to certain people about God? They're so confused. They have no idea what's going on. I start talking about halacha, they have no idea what's going on, and I'm not just talking about unaffiliated Jews. Pew Research said that over 34% of Jews in America do not believe in God, and 64% think it's perfectly fine to be a Jew without believing in God, and... Like, the statistics are horrifying. And these are just the ones that admitted it. The point is, rabotai, that you start telling people about parashat haShavua, Moshe Rabbeinu, halacha of Shabbat, halacha of Taharat HaMishpacha, all different things. Most people look at you at the beginning as if to say, "What planet did you come from? Like halacha, what is that?"

7:17What are you talking about? You have no idea what you're talking about. Most people grew up like me, thinking that, okay, you know, the Torah has some good stories in it. It's very interesting, and there are some laws for special people. Until you delve into it, and delve into it deep, you think you're convinced that the sages are no different than you. You think that the Rambam and you are just two really smart people. I'm smart in my way. We're the same. I could teach the Rambam a few things and the Rambam could teach me a few things. That's what people think. People think that they could criticize the sages like they criticize their best friend from school. And they can disagree with a great rabbi from this generation openly, like it's not a big deal. Like, what, he's just a rabbi who wrote a few books. Smart in his way. I'm smart in my way. We're the same, I could teach the Rambam a few things, and the Rambam could teach me a few things—that's what people think. People think that they can criticize the sages like they criticize their best friend from school, and they can disagree with a giant rabbi from this generation. They could disagree with them openly as if it's not a big deal, thinking, "What, he's just a rabbi who wrote a few books." so it's such a high level of ignorance in the generation that when you're not ignorant completely, when you know at least the weekly parasha, you know at least the day-to-day halachot of running your life as a Jew, you do more than you do on Yom Kippur, you know you're supposed to eat kosher food, you know how to discern between kosher and non-kosher, you know basic day-to-day Jewish life and

8:43You don't learn Mussar, and you don't develop your character traits. By default, you think you're better than everybody else. By default, you think that when they said you're the chosen people, really they meant only you, and the rest of mankind are a bunch of losers, useless, and... You treat people as such, and that's why sometimes you see people who look religious do horrible things as human beings. Disgrace, disgrace to the Torah, disgrace to Hashem, disgrace to their families, disgracing everything. Why? Because they never learned the basics of Mussar, which is character development. For you to not just be a decent human being. But to be what you think you are already, which is someone who knows something, is misguided. The biggest disease that a person can have, which could spoil all of it, is taking his Torah knowledge and pretending to be something he is not.

9:56already possessed, that he already acquired, that he went to school, that he went to yeshiva, that he read some books, that he didn't go on some weekends because he read these books, and he has a whole library and he read some of them, and it looks like he read the other ones, but he really didn't. It just looks like it because they're really old. But the point is that to everybody else, he's like the Moshe Rabbeinu of the community. When everyone has a question, they go to him not necessarily because he knows the answer, but because he knows how to get the answer. He doesn't necessarily know the answer, but he knows how to get the answer. So if they're on the phone with him and they don't really know what he's doing, he's like, "Hold on one second, I'm just going to do something." One second. "Oh, yeah, yeah, I got the answer for you. Yeah, yeah." In reality, he was looking on Google. When he said, "Hold on a second, I got to take care of something else," it wasn't a different question; he was looking for the answer because he doesn't know what you're saying. He just went on a Google search. The first thing that popped up, Moshe. Yeah, Moshe. The person asking the question wouldn't know the difference. He knows the other guy doesn't know. He just knows somewhat of how to find the inside out. So everyone starts looking at this guy as if he's a talmid chacham. This guy's a tzaddik, a tzaddik. People give him kavod. But it's better to get a curse from Haman than from such a person. Why? Because it's all a lie.

11:20It's very easy to fall into this trap. Why? Because you're surrounded by a bunch of people that know even less than you. So sometimes, you fall into it, and they start calling you. You start thinking you're really something because, in comparison to them, you are. But that's not who you're supposed to compare yourself to. The best athlete is not the best athlete because he plays with a bunch of fifth graders and he's 25. The best athlete is someone who is the best in comparison to his peers, people who are on the same level as him or better, higher. If all of your competition is a bunch of losers, guess what? You're a loser. Even if you're good in reality, no one's ever going to know it. Why? Because the competition, what you're comparing yourself against, is irrelevant. It's immaterial.

12:25If you're saying, listen, my house is worth at least $10 million. Why? Look at this house. I saw it on TV. They had a similar house like this. It was worth this, and it was worth that, and it was worth this, and it was worth that. Okay, great. Where is it located? Oh, it's located in the middle of the worst neighborhood in the world. Well, guess what? It's not worth even half of what you said. Why? Because even though your house looks like all the other houses that are on television, that are highlighted, beautiful, and cost a lot of money to make, their surrounding neighborhood is like your house's. Therefore, their house is worth a certain price. Your surrounding neighborhood is crime, criminals, and prison cells. Well, guess what? It's not worth even half of what you said. Why? Because even though your house looks like all the other houses that are on television, that are highlighted and that are beautiful and cost a lot of money to make, their surrounding neighborhood houses are just like it. Therefore, their house is worth a certain price. Your surrounding neighborhood is filled with crime and criminals, creating a virtual prison cell for your home. That's your next-door neighbor; your house, by default, is not going to have the same value. Why? Because the comps are not the same. If you are comparing yourself to fifth graders, and you are 25, you cannot say, "I'm a big talmid chacham." Why? Because your comparison is against fifth graders. If you want to be a good oved baTorah, you have to compare yourself to what you're supposed to, not even necessarily to other people, and...

13:38In order to be able to compare yourself to another person in Torah, at the minimum, you have to be at their level. Meaning, it's not the same comparison as comparing houses. You cannot compare yourself to Rav Ovadia unless you are on the same level as Rav Ovadia. So, some people like to say, they like to have these battles, they think that rabbis and sages are like superheroes. You know, the X-Men can beat Magneto, and Magneto can beat Hulk, and they think that they can compare them like they can fight. So they think, "No, Rabbi Elyashiv is much greater than Rav Ovadia. Rav Ovadia is much greater than this Rav or that Rav," and they start comparing like who's greater. This is the silliest thing in the world. Why? Because what you're doing is you're thinking that you can actually understand how much they know, and unless you know... What they know, you don't know; how much they know, it's not something to compare. Needless to say, when a person wants to compare themselves to people that are really chachamim, at the very least they need to achieve just as much as them. If you wrote 50 or 100 books that the entire generation said "Wow, amazing, you changed the world," then perhaps you can compare.

15:00If you open enough Batei Midrash, Yeshivot, Kolels, Mikvehs, and so on like some of the Gedolim, then you have something. But if you're just this average guy that just started learning Torah five years ago and you remember a few Gemarot by heart, khalas, finish, stop with this ridiculousness. The problem is that the ego of a person is constantly fed because he's comparing himself to the wrong thing. Not only is he seeking honor, but he also has this false sense of superiority because of his knowledge. Whereas a person that is running away from honor and running away from arrogance is constantly vigilant about the sources and influences on his knowledge. He understands that true wisdom comes from humility and constantly striving for growth, rather than resting on laurels. He's constantly going to feel that whatever he knows is insignificant in comparison to what he's supposed to know. He's not going to base his knowledge on what other people know but rather on what he is supposed to know, meaning you're going to look at the amount of Torah that's available that you even know exists, which by the way, whatever you know exists is not even a portion of what actually exists.

16:18amount of Torah that's available that you even know exists, which, by the way, whatever you know exists is not even a portion of what actually exists. But let's say you went on one of these websites. There's a few websites out there like HebrewBooks.com, I think, and a few others that have like 60, 70, 80, 90 thousand sefarim available for free, sefarim kodesh. Let's say now that this includes Gemara; it includes a lot of things, but a lot of things that we haven't even scratched the surface of. So, you know that these 90,000 books exist, right? How many of them do you know? Two books, five books, ten books, a hundred books, two hundred books, you know? Five hundred books? Yeah, wow. You already wrote a book, five hundred books, a thousand books. Oh. Okay, you're still missing another 92,000. So even if you know, even if you're such a chochom that you've written a book and you know a thousand books, you're still missing 92,000 just from that website. Not considering the other ones, not the other libraries, not the stuff that's not even on the net—just that website. Just that one tiny little source.

17:36You don't even know 1% of the stuff that you know exists. You haven't even read the introduction from the author on 92,000 other books. What exactly are you proud of? What knowledge do you actually think you have? It's not to make a person depressed and give up; it's just to kill that ego and realize, yes, good, chazak u'baruch, that you know parashat hashavua. Chazak u'baruch, that you know a few halachot by heart and a few gemarot, and maybe you've even finished the Shas once or twice. Maybe. To what we're supposed to know, no human being has the right to even think about arrogance. Why? Because the more you learn, the more you realize how much more information is available. The more you know, the more you realize how much you don't know. Those 93,000 books I just mentioned to you: that's one small collection.

18:44You realize, multiply it by a million, and we still haven't scratched the surface. Multiply 93,000 by a million, and you still haven't scratched the surface of the available Torah in the world today. Needless to say, the knowledge that is not available to us because we lost 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva. So when a person is going to do whatever... Necessary in order to destroy his ego, because he wants to become a kosher vessel for the Torah. He's going to constantly look at all the tasks he needs to accomplish: "Okay, I need to read this book, I need to do this, I need to do that." And not just acknowledge, "I need," but he's actually going to do it. To be active on it, and everything he does, he's going to write it down. He's going to consistently acquire more knowledge and continuously go over it, trying again and again. Constantly battling and acquiring a little bit every day. Even if he studies for 24 hours a day for a week straight, he's still not going to finish the Torah. Even if he studies 24 hours a day, seven days a week for 150 years straight, he's still not going to finish even 1% of it. It's not for him to finish.

20:04Every day you require a little more: another few hours here, another 20 minutes there, another 5 minutes, another 10 minutes, every day. How do I apply this? How do I apply that? It's not just learning it as a theoretical exercise. How do I apply it? Every day, when you work on killing the ego a little bit more, that spiritual thirst is actually going to propel the person to true greatness.