Who Needs TeShuva Before Rosh HaShana (Netive Ezra-Aventura)

0:13Wonderful to be here at Netivei Ezra, right before Rosh Hashana, last minute Teshuva. I actually was here one time, I did a short D'var Torah, maybe about a year or two ago. One of my dear friends, Rabbi Raphael, did a halacha shiur for his son and invited me to speak here for a few minutes, so I think I met a couple of you in the past. But As far as, does anybody here, other than the obvious ones, know my shiurim? Have you ever watched any of my shiurim? Tell the story in between. Does anybody have any specific questions or issues that have bothered them their whole life? Like, what was here before, you know, the world? Or, are there dinosaurs in the Torah? Or, how can we prove the Torah is real? Or, why is it tzadik v'ra lo, rasha v'tov lo? You know, really difficult questions. Make it difficult for me. I find it very difficult to forgive myself. Forgive yourself. Okay. Depends how bad it was. Depends. Depends how bad it was.

1:33Okay, we'll answer that too. Okay, that's one. Anybody else want to volunteer? Throw, throw, throw nice ones. It has nothing to do with me anyway. It's all Hashem. Okay. We live here, so we're like, you know, contradicting ourselves a little bit. Okay. Okay. Rambam also lived outside of Eretz Yisrael. Talmud Bavli was also written outside of Eretz Yisrael. It's Bavli. Bavli is Bavel. It was where Saddam Hussein was. Okay, that's two. No? Next. Again, I'm going to answer all of them, b'ezrat Hashem, in the shiur. Go. More. Okay, you can interrupt in the middle. Make it easy for you. And if you don't come up with questions, I'll come up with questions. And I'll give you the answers also. Hopefully, Omid Betzer is going to give the answers. The Parashat HaShavua that we have, Parashat Nitzavim, gives us the source of Teshuva. The whole concept, the idea, the mitzvah that you gave to do Teshuva is in this week's Parashah, when Moshe Rabbeinu tells Am Yisrael, V'shavta Ad Hashem Elohecha V'shamata B'koloh.

3:02and you return to Hashem your God, and you heard His voice, and you did everything that He said, the Ramban says this is the source of the mitzvah of teshuva. Now, interestingly enough, every year we read this right before Yom HaDin, right before Rosh Hashanah. Meaning that if you haven't done teshuva by now, you're kind of running out of time. Yom HaDin is in a few days. Now, the question is, who is this mitzvah for? We have to ask ourselves every day, especially now because Yom HaDin is in a few days. Yom HaDin means Judgment Day. Judgment Day means that for the entire world, the Gemara in Masechet Rosh Hashanah, page 16b, says everyone is like Bnei Meron. What's Bnei Meron? They give an analogy. They said when Hami in the old days would do Maaser. They would give the mitzvah of Maaser, and it was on cattle. They would take each one of their cattle, each one of their sheep, and have them enter a small entrance. That way, no two could fit; it could only fit one at a time. It would be one straight, long, long, long straight line. Imagine five hundred, five thousand, fifty thousand sheep, one straight line from here to Jamaica.

4:28Long line, one at a time. Why? Because they had to count the Maaser. How do you count Maaser? You go one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. And on the tenth one, you paint them. You paint the tenth one. Say, ah, that's Hekdesh. That's the Beit HaMikdash. Doesn't belong to me anymore. Even if I like him, even if he's a cute sheep, and I like him, and I give him a name, it doesn't belong to me anymore. Why? Because when it comes to Mitzvat Maaser, One of the most significant things that a person needs to do in order to succeed in Maaser is try to remove all of the barriers, all the Yetzer Hara that he has. When it comes to it, so that's why, for example, today anybody that usually fulfills the mitzvah of maaser, the ones that succeed usually do it every week or every two weeks, meaning every time they get money. The ones that try to do it once a year usually fail, and the reason why is because "L'petach chatat rovetz," Hashem said to Cain in parashat Bereishit, if you leave an opening

5:33Leave a little opening for the yetzer hara, and he's going to break down the door. He only needs a little bit of an opening. So what happens is... When we leave a little opening for the yetzer hara, when it comes to maaser, we say, no, no, I'll give it at the end of the year. It's easier for me. That's when I get my bonus. That's when my stock portfolio really does this, really does that. I'll give the big money at the end of the year. What am I going to give the rabbi $50? I'm going to give the rabbi $50. I'm going to give him a nice check, $50,000. Nice, at the end of the year, though. No, no, $50, no. Imagine the kehillah knows I give the rabbi $50, they may put me on cherem. Give a check, a nice check. What happens at the end of the year? All of a sudden, at the end of the year? Oh, yeah, Rabbi. Can I give you an IOU? Why? Because all of a sudden, something happens. Why? Because now, all of a sudden, we have a lot of other expenses, a lot of other ideas, a lot of this, a lot of that. By the time the end of the year comes, it's now a big check. It's much harder to write a big check than a small check.

6:39So the Chachamim say when you give Maaser with the sheep, with the cows, with anything else, you have to remove the free choice. You have to remove your own ideas. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. On the tenth one, it doesn't matter if you like the sheep, if he's big, if he's fat, if he's cute, it doesn't make a difference. He's number ten, he doesn't belong to you. Now, what do we learn from this? Chachamim say in the Gemara Masechet Rosh Hashanah that Am Yisrael, the world at large, is like Bnei Meron. What's Bnei Meron? We also go in front of the Beit Din of Shamayim, and Hashem counts us one after another. One, two, three, four, five, one after another. Each person gets judged individually. So the Chachamim say, so why is it a line? Why can't Hashem judge everyone? No, here's the problem. The problem is that the Torah tells us that tzaddikim get judged right away to chayim. Tzaddikim, someone's a tzaddik, there's nothing to worry about. Chayim, he goes, he gets life. Reshaim, death. So what's the whole judgment for? This is how He judges. How does He judge? We've always heard our whole life, kol Yisrael arevim zeh lazeh. All of Am Yisrael are connected to each other. So,

7:57The Chachamim explained to us that when judgment works in Hashem Yitbarach on Rosh Hashanah, He judges us in a line because He shows us why we're connected. The Tzaddikim are at the front of the line. The Reshaim are at the back of the line. Why is that the case? Because the tzaddikim, the closer you are to the front, the more your judgment is based only on you. Meaning, if you're in front of the line, you're a little Moshe Rabbeinu, all you have to work with is your own judgment. So even if you're harsh on yourself, it's good. Why is it good? Because if you're harsh on yourself, that means you're doing teshuvah on a daily basis. Come, come, come. There are seats right here. Come, sit. Same price. So, if you're harsh on yourself the whole year—not harsh on yourself, making yourself depressed, but harsh in the sense that you're giving yourself mussar—you say to yourself, "You know what? I got to be better. I got to do better. I got to do this. I got to do that. I got to wear more modest clothes. I got to cover my hair. I got to give tzedakah. I got to learn Torah. I got to stop worrying so much about olam hazeh, this world, constantly. I already have a house here. I'm not sure if I have a house over there."

9:10People spend millions of dollars and their whole life savings to build a world here. It's gonna last maximum their whole life, maximum, their whole life. Why? After that, they can't take it. But over there, not so much. Over there, we need a mortgage. We need a mortgage over there; we're not even sure they're gonna lend us any money. Not everybody's prepared for olam haba. So, the tzaddikim are in the front of the line. Because all they have to worry about is their own cheshbon. But once the guy is second in line, he's after the first one, now he has to worry about his cheshbon and the guy in front of him. Because his actions are connected. If the guy in front of him is a Tzadik, it's not so bad. If he's a Rasha, he has a problem. The Resha'im are in the back of the line. Why are the Resha'im in the back of the line? Because they get punished not only for what they did themselves, but also for what they caused other people to do. Because the more of a Rasha he is, the more he influences the public. And the Rambam writes there are 24 types of sins that Hashem makes it difficult for these people to do teshuva. Makes it difficult for these people to do teshuva. Almost impossible.

10:30One of the top four is someone that causes other people to sin. Someone that says, "Guys, let's go to the beach on Shabbat." "Guys, why don't we go and have some nice McDonald's right now? Non-kosher McDonald's. Come, come over here." Why don't we have... An immodest woman, almost half of the world doesn't even know what modesty is and the other half doesn't care. An immodest woman walks around, somebody tells her, "You have to start putting clothes on." She says, "No, no, clothes off other people." So she's a machti'at harabim. Why? Every time a guy looks at her, he thinks about her when he's with his wife. She's a machti'at harabim. People like that have a very serious problem on Yom HaDin. Why? Because they don't just have to worry about their own problems. Now they have to worry about other people's problems—the other people that they cause to sin. So that's why the Gemara says that there are tzaddikim and resha'im. What about the ones in the middle?

11:30the Beinonim have to wait for Yom Kippur. Why do they have to wait for Yom Kippur? Because that's the appeal. That's the time where, if it didn't really work out for us so much on Rosh Hashanah, then we have to change everything by adding one mitzvah. The Rambam teaches us that every Jew has to look at himself as if he's a Beinoni, as if he's in the middle. Why? Because one mitzvah turns him into a Tzaddik; one aveira turns him into a Rasha. What mitzvah? So what mitzvah is he going to do? What mitzvah is he going to do? On Yom Kippur we have a mitzvah. What mitzvah is it? Teshuva. The rest of the year it's good to do teshuva. But on Yom Kippur, it's actually a mitzvah to do teshuva. So that's what's going to take us to become tzaddikim. But how are we going to know? Maybe we made a few aveirot in between. Maybe we made a few aveirot in between. What's going to happen? So in reality, Chachamim teach us that, between all of us, we're all depending on a miracle. When you see your friend for the first time after a year, you don't say Shehecheyanu. You don't say Shehecheyanu.

12:46What do you say? Why do you say? Why do you say? I didn't see you in a year. I missed you so much. I love you. How are you? How's everything? How are the kids? How's the wife? How's everything? But before all that, I say, Hashem revives the dead. I know you went to Tahiti for a year. I know you didn't die. I know you didn't come back from death. Why am I making a blessing of? Because the Chachamim teach us, if a person survived. Rosh Hashanah, Yom HaDin, and he didn't die. It's a miracle. It's a miracle. Why? Because he's a beinoni. He's in the middle. Meaning he's depending on a miracle. So what does it mean? It means that the mitzvah that we have in Parashat Nitzavim is for all of us. It's for all of us. It's not just for the resha'im. It's not only for the mechallel Shabbat. It's not only for the guy that's going with the eshet ish. It's not only for the avaryan. It's for everyone. Teshuvah is for everyone. The problem today is that in the secular world, most people know nothing. Like I didn't know most of my life, I knew nothing. I still don't know that much, but I knew mamash nothing.

14:05And you never think that you have to do teshuvah. Why? You figure teshuvah is for religious people. It's for religious people. You figure Shabbat, it's a nice thing to do. But it's for you, it's not for me. It's for other people. You guys like to have teshuvah and everything. I like to go to the casino. That's what the chiloni says. That's what the secular person says. You want to go to Beit Knesset? Ashrecha, enjoy Beit Knesset. I like to go to the beach on Shabbat. What's the problem? I'm not telling you what to do. Don't tell me what to do. You like to go with a Jewish woman? I like to go with a Goyah. What's the problem? Tell me what to do. You don't even know me. The Chiloni thinks, the secular person thinks, you do you, I do me. Live and let live. He thinks he has an option. He thinks he has a bargaining tool. He can just do whatever he wants. So, that's why the Chiloni, most of the time, it's simply because we are in a generation of ignorant people. We are in a generation of people who simply do not know the truth. And I don't mean know the truth like they've heard of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. Even the Goyim have heard of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. Even if you go to the zoo, I'm sure you're going to find one monkey that's going to say Avraham. It's not a big deal to know who Avraham Avinu is. Everybody knows who Avraham Avinu is. Just because you know Avraham Avinu doesn't mean you go to Gan Eden.

15:25Knowing the truth, I mean knowing emet, knowing what is the depth of judgment, knowing in reality: What's the price? What's the cost of going against the system? Do I really have free choice, or is it really choice, not free? It's an expensive choice in the religious world. We simply think teshuvah is for the secular people. Why? We keep Shabbat, we keep kashrut, the wife goes to the mikveh, Baruch Hashem. Teshuvah? Yeah, this mitzvah, Hashem did something nice, He did a chesed for the chilonim. He did a chesed for the secular people. He wrote them a parashah. The secular people think, "Yeah, Hashem is so nice. You see how much He loves Am Yisrael? Even when they're chilonim, even when they're secular, He gives them a parashah. You see how nice He is?" We think that teshuvah is for the secular people in the religious world. So now, most of my life, this was the mentality that I had, just like most people in the world, religious and non-religious. Everybody has the same mindset.

16:34And the reason why is because we think we have free choice. We don't have free choice. We have choice. What's choice? Now, if it was free choice, free choice means that if you go to work, you make money. You don't go to work, you don't make any money. That's free choice, meaning you can do whatever you want. You do mitzvot, you get rewarded. You don't do mitzvot, you're lost. That's free choice. Free choice, you can do whatever you want. We don't have that in the Torah. If you look at the Torah very carefully, you look at this parasha, the one before it, the one before it, the one before it, and pretty much every parasha in the Torah, you see, Hashem doesn't say you have such a thing. It's the opposite, actually. He says you have choice. There's a price for everything. He doesn't say... You have brachot or klalot. You have blessings or curses. It doesn't say that. You have brachot ve'klalot. Meaning they come together. It's a package deal. Whether you like it or not, it's a package deal. If you do good, you get brachot. You get blessings. If you don't, you get klalot. That's it. Simple. What's the klalot? You guys heard what happened in Parashat Ki Tavo. Anyone that understands what it says in Parashat Ki Tavo, if he's not shaking by the end, he should read it again.

17:49Because he doesn't understand, because Hashem says such horrible things about what happens to Am Yisrael when they don't keep mitzvot. We see there's no such thing as free choice. It's an illusion. It's a delusion. It's a fantasy. Anyone that wants to look and verify could just look at the history of Am Yisrael throughout the last 3,300 years and see what happens to us every time we decide to be hiloni, every time we decide to assimilate, every time we decide to have a non-Jewish girlfriend, every time we decide to go out and do things that are not exactly so kosher. You look at the Beit HaMikdash, the first one, blood was filling the streets, a river of blood. Second Beit HaMikdash, river of blood, Spanish Inquisitions, the pogroms, the Holocaust. Some of the things people don't like to talk about is that there's actually also proof in the Torah. Parashat Ki Tavo was fulfilled in many places, and one of the Rabbanim who survived the Holocaust said that the most difficult thing for him was when he saw that Parashat Bechukotai and Ki Tavo came true. He says, "How do you know it came true?" He says, "Because in there it says that when we get to such a low level and Hashem is forced to punish us, He'll get us to such a level of starvation where the parents will eat their own children."

19:17this is what it says in Parashat Ki Tavo. Now, people say, "Yeah, but that didn't really happen." It actually did, not once, not twice, but multiple times. In the book of Eicha (Lamentations), we read. Why do you think everybody cries? Because they are the only ones who understand what it says. Says that nashim tzidkaniyot, the tzidkaniyot of yesteryear, now, Hashem, are eating their own kids. What happened? Well, you don't have McDonald's? You don't have something else? No? Second Beit HaMikdash, same thing. This happened 2,000 years ago. Chalash with this scary stuff. Problem is it happened 70 years ago also, in the Holocaust. Multiple stories. I love me see me again that you guys have a, alav hashalom. You have the book here on the table. We should read the book. Why? He says that one of the people he met that survived the Holocaust, he says the worst part of the Holocaust is when they would change us from place to place, from Auschwitz to another deathly camp. Why? Because you see how everybody's so starving to death to such an extent. They can't wait for the other guy to die so they can eat his liver. That's me'anesh. It's a line. This is what's happening.

20:35Why is Hashem, the loving God that we have, doing such a thing to His nation? He loves us. He says to the prophet, "I love you, I love you." He says to us, "I love you." Why would such a loving God do such a thing to us? The reason why, Rabotai, Because we don't have free choice; we have choice. And what is choice? Choice means you go to work, you make money. You don't go to work, the boss sends somebody to the house, and they beat you up. That's what we have. That's what we have. Hashem said, "I created the world. I created Shamayim va'aretz. I created everything for you." I Created everything in six days not because it took Me six days because I had to get a license and contract and this one and that one. I created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, not because I need to sleep. No, I minimized Myself. I minimized Myself to slow down Creation so I can give you a gift, to feel like Me once a week.

21:42Even though I created everything in a moment, I put everything in different places, the Midrash says. Hashem put everything in different places, and over the six days, He put it in the right place. So everything was, in essence, in outer space, in the cosmos, the sun, the moon, everything, but over the six days, Hashem took it just like a builder. A builder buys all the tools, all the stones, all the sheetrock, all the everything, but over a period of time, he puts everything in place. Love, just as Hashem did the same thing. I created everything in a moment, but I wanted to put it all together one piece at a time, one piece every day. Why? Because there's no way for my child to feel like me if he doesn't feel like me. He's not gonna think I'm his father. You have to feel like your father; you have to identify with your father to know he's your father. Hashem says, "I'm gonna do it, so I'm gonna actually give you a gift," He says to Moshe Rabbeinu even before... I have a big gift in my treasure chest, and its name is Shabbat. Go and tell Am Yisrael I'm going to give it to them. I'm going to gift it to them. It's my biggest matanah that I have. Even before Matan Torah. It's my biggest matanah. Why? Because Am Yisrael said to Moshe Rabbeinu, "Moshe, why are you taking us out of Egypt?"

23:09Dangerous desert, pikuach nefesh, why do we have to go? What are we going to get for it? So Moshe Rabbeinu asked Hashem, "What do I tell them?" Hashem says, "Tell them they're going to get Olam Haba." They said, "Okay, this Olam Haba of yours, has anybody gone there and come back to tell us what it looks like?" Like today, every day you tell us about this Olam Haba. You keep talking about it. Has anybody gone there and come back? Yeah, a few people did, by the way, but anyway, has anybody gone there and come back? It's called a near-death experience. Approximately 30 million people have experienced it. Now, I've documented at least how many more I have no idea, not documented, but as far as actual people. Asking questions to Hashem about this Olam Haba of yours, has anybody come back? Can we feel it, can we see something? Hashem said, "Yeah, I have Shabbat. Shabbat is like Olam Haba if you celebrate Shabbat the right way. If your whole Shabbat is about cholent and jahnun and all the delicious foods, but you eat, you go to sleep, you eat, you go to the Knesset, you eat, you go to sleep—that's your whole Shabbat—that's not Olam Haba."

24:21Casper Shalom, if that's all I'm about, shimmy, I care what Olam Haba we have. We're going to be fat people in Olam Haba. What we're going to have, that's all Olam Haba? Just eat jahnun, eat the cholent, eat the chamin, eat the couscous, and everything else. That's all Olam Haba? Shame on him. What Olam Haba? Rather, Olam Haba is there already. If that's all Olam Haba is, what's Olam Haba? Olam Haba is if you connect the Torah to your Shabbat. Olam Haba is if you delve in Torah and you understand why you're even here in the first place. because of the reward that you get for learning Torah on Shabbat, at least a thousandfold more than what you get for the rest of the week. To such an extent that Rav Shalom used to give up on his sleep on Shabbat. He wouldn't sleep at all, not a minute. People would ask him, "For the love, you know sleep is something, it's rest. Isn't that oneg?" He would say, "No, oneg is learning Torah." They would respond, "Yeah, but you could sleep a little bit." He would go, "You think I'm gonna miss out on the mitzvah a thousandfold of my mitzvot on Shabbat learning Torah?" and Once a person learns real Torah, not just with the guys to have fun and have a few cookies and tea, he understands what "oneg Shabbat" truly is.

25:28understands what Olah is once he shares Torah with his family, and the little kids know what Torah is, and the wife knows what Torah is, and everything he learned during the week. He gives a little drasha to his family, things like that. Once he actually has something to bring to the table other than cholent, he knows what Olah is. So Hashem says, "This is Olah. This is a piece of Olah if you understand what it is." I want a gift to the Am Yisrael. Why is it such a big gift? Because this gift required me to minimize myself, to change myself. Hashem, who doesn't change, had to change Himself. How? He had to minimize Himself. He says it took Me really a second, a rega. A rega is like a moment. Gemara Masechet Berachot says what's a moment? What's a rega? Some say it's one fifteen-thousandth of a second. One fifteen-thousandth of a second. So this rega is how long it took Him to really create the world. There's no actual time. But I had to change myself. Why? Because in order for you to feel that we're related, then I had to take everything and put it one piece at a time. One piece at a time. On Sunday, on Monday, Tuesday, Rishon, Sheni, Shlishi, Revi'i, Chamishi, Shishi. And then on the seventh day, no more creation. Why? Because that's something you can do also. You can't create.

26:48Human beings, as smart as they can be, can't create anything. Even if you say, "Yeah, but what about those scientists from Russia who put together some stem cells and got a sheep?" They didn't create it; they just took what already existed. They took what already existed, and now they have a sheep. Creating means you took nothing and got something out of it. That is something we cannot do. We cannot create. We can innovate, we can... things more meshuga, more complicated, more advanced, and so on. But we cannot create. Hashem is the only one that can create; that's why He's called the Creator, and we are the creation. Now, Hashem says, since you can't create, we can't have the same feeling as creation. But what we can do is—both of us cannot create. So why is that significant? Because on Shabbat, I didn't create. I didn't create; I stopped creating, and... By not creating, He actually created Shabbat. But nonetheless, that's the 39 Melachot. The 39 restrictions that we have on Shabbat, the 39 things that we have on Shabbat, are 39 things that are in essence creations. They're taking one thing and turning it into something else. Now, it's not necessary that you're not allowed to work. A lot of people think that you're not allowed to work. It's completely not true. Just ask your wife. On Shabbat, she works harder than the rest of the week.

28:08It's not that you can't work. It's that you cannot do certain things that were not allowed, that were allowed to be done, in order to build the Beit HaMikdash. And the reason why is because Hashem symbolically told us that even to build My own house in this world, you're not allowed to do on Shabbat, because Shabbat is even more significant than that. And that's why the Rambam in Hilchot Shabbat, chapter 30, last halacha, says that a Jew who violates Shabbat is 100% an idol worshiper. He's not considered part of Am Yisrael; he's considered an idol worshiper like the Christians. He's considered an idol worshiper like the guy who bought a Buddha statue for $15 from Chinatown and bowed to it like it's going to do something. Same thing. Hashem says a Jew... Why? He says because he the biggest president in the world, and the Gemara says he spit on Hashem's face. It's like he's running in the middle of the street, and he's screaming at Hashem, "I don't believe in You." Now this mitzvah of Shabbat, all of you know, you've all heard of it, and

29:14a lot of Am Yisrael said they did not hear it. I heard about it, but I didn't know some of the stuff I just told you. Every Jew, as a matter of fact, every person on the planet, has heard of Shabbat. Why? Because the best proof that the Torah is the first divine document and the last divine document is actually the name Shabbat. The fact that we have a week based on seven days, the alone as proof. Why? Because if, let's say, for example, there was some other document before it—although we just created it, a little tiny nation created the Torah—why would the rest of the world listen to us and also follow the seven-day, 24-hour day system? The seven-day system came from the Torah; it didn't come from anywhere else, and 24-hour-a-day system came from the Torah; it didn't come from anywhere else. So how come everyone agrees that the first day of the week is Yom Rishon? They called Sunday after one of their idols. But in reality, until recent generations, we didn't have Rishon, Sheni, Shlishi, Revii, Chamishi. We didn't have such names. We didn't have Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. We didn't have that. When you ask somebody, "What day is today?" and if it was Sunday, you would say Rishon B'Shabbat.

30:31it's the first day of Shabbat. What do you mean? We're on the first day, we're one day closer to Shabbat. Meaning all week, you're getting ready for Shabbat. All of creation was getting ready for Shabbat. Jew, non-Jew, everybody's getting ready for Shabbat. The whole world was revolving around Shabbat. So when a Jew feels like Shabbat is a time to take a nap, it's not really Shabbat. When a Jew feels like his time on Shabbat is to go to the beach, it's not really Shabbat. simply doesn't understand the magnitude of Shabbat. Now, we came to the United States almost 30 years ago. I was 10 years old and only knew about three or four letters in the English alphabet, but when you're 10 years old, you catch up to the language very quickly and By the time I was a teenager, even though I had a few jobs, I already learned to work. I had a few newspaper routes. I worked in a clothing store, in a shoe store, and I was also an athlete and a good student in school. But that was my generation, the last of the Mohicans. In this generation, we only start getting jobs at 35. My generation, Baruch Hashem, at 10 years old, you already had a job. If not, you were not going to eat. This generation, at 35 years old, maybe you get your first job.

31:50At 34, he just took the bottle out; the binky came out at 34 years old. The guy still has a binky sometimes because he's playing video games with his friends. Thirty-four-year-old men play video games, and people think this is normal. "What are you doing this weekend?" "I'm playing video games." "Wait, didn't you just turn 40 last week?" "Yeah, what's the matter? What's wrong with playing video games?" You're 40 years old; video games are for children, for toddlers, and... This is the generation we live in today. Why don't you go to work? Why don't you find a zivug? Who's going to want to marry a guy who plays video games at 35 years old? What, somebody's going to play video games with him, maybe? This is the generation we live in. People play video games at 40 years old. Instead of going to work, instead of doing something, instead of learning Torah, actually having mashmaut to their life, we play nonsense. So, my generation is a little different. At 18 years old, joined Wall Street. But Wall Street is not for the weak of heart. Wall Street is not for people that want to be spoon-fed. Wall Street is survival of the fittest. Wall Street people, they try to take whatever they can get out of each other, out of the clients, and out of anybody that has any type of heart movement. Anyone that moves, anyone that walks, anyone that speaks—they try to take advantage.

33:19Everything is an opportunity, including the employees, the employers, and anything else. For the first few years, I had to pay my dues and work for other people. They made a ton of money off of my work. I barely made ends meet. The most I ever made was maybe $1,500 a month. The work schedule would be grueling, and I would have to leave my house at 6:30 in the morning to get to the office by 8 because I had to take the bus and... We actually travel in New York, unlike Florida, where no one wants to travel past 15 minutes. In New York, the average person travels an hour each way to work. Today, I tell people, you know, you have a lecture, you have a shiur, he goes, where is it? Oh, it's in Aventura. Oh, that's far. I said, where do you live? He goes, I live in Hollywood. I said, I live in Hollywood. It's 15 minutes, 20 minutes max, with traffic 25. He goes, yeah, it's far. I said, what, you carry? You're still using the carts? You have to carry on top of your head? Oh, you have a car. You just press the pedal. It's far? It's a 25-minute drive. Hashem yerachem, kapparah! Come, come. I think there are some chairs in the back. People don't want to travel.

34:33I saw a young kid, cute kid outside, and apparently he knew, no, yeah, okay, he knew who I was, and I said, oh, you're going to come for the shiur? He goes, it's going to be on the internet? I said, yeah, Baruch Hashem, Baruch Hashem, it's going to be on the internet, but live is much better. You get to be part of the shiur, you can interrupt me, you can throw curveballs at me, you can throw tomatoes at me, be part of the shiur. No, no, watch it on the internet. It's much more comfortable. It's the generation we live in. first few years I paid my dues. I worked for Wall Street and didn't make so much money. 8 o'clock in the morning, I had to be at work already making phone calls. 8 o'clock at night is when the job ended. Get on the bus again, another hour, hour and a half home. Had to study for the Series 7, which is a 265-question test to get a license, and sleep a couple of hours and get back to work every day. I If you had results, you survived, you made it to the next day. No results, no job. After a few years of doing this, eventually I went to a different firm, and the supposed partner that I started with was already in the business for maybe 10 or more years, already had a few clients, and he said, you're going to get some accounts and I'll develop them. I said, no problem, and we had a deal.

35:58After you reneged on a deal only 30 days later because I brought all the clients, but he didn't feel like working, I told him, "Okay, so give me at least the money that we made from the college." But no, he said, "I didn't promise you that." Still, it's another month. Long story short, after two months of playing with me, the partnership broke, and... But then I told the branch manager, "Listen, I want to be independent. Even though I'm new and I don't have any clients, I don't really have much to bring to the table other than work ethics. I want to be independent. I don't want any more partners because I've had enough. I've already been in the business for three years and not much to show for it." He says, "What are your intentions here?" And I said, "To buy you out." I'm a young kid with a lot of chutzpah, but I had good work ethics. Founded, you know, he found it entertaining that this little kid with a kippah and peyos says he'll buy you out. The guy's been in the business for 20 years. He said, "Okay, fine, no problem." I think it was the next day or two days later after he told me officially I'm allowed to be independent, September 11th happened. Not exactly the most ideal time to have clients, but for me, it was a perfect time. Why? Everyone hated their broker, so I could get their clients. All you have to do is make phone calls and...

37:16Long story short, I work during a time that nobody else works, but I also realized that I have one thing that they don't have. I have my youth, and I have work ethics that most people don't want to have. The reason why is because they want to have a life. They want to have a wife. They want to have kids. They want to have stuff to do. I just wanted to be a millionaire. So they want to work from 9 to 5. So I figured, okay, they've been in the business for 20 years, 9 to 5. I can't catch up to 20 years with a normal schedule. So what could I do? I'm going to start my day at 5:36, get to the office by 6:37, do any research that I need to do by 8 o'clock. At 8 o'clock, start making phone calls. Stop making phone calls at midnight because officially at midnight, I can't call anyone anymore because even three hours back is California. And after 9 o'clock p.m., you cannot call anybody legally. Unless they're your client already, so I work all the way till midnight from 6 a.m. and then go on the bus, get home by around 1:30 or 2 o'clock, sleep for a couple of hours, and b'ezrat Hashem get back to the office the next day. A few hours of sleep—perfect plan, no? I thought it was a wonderful plan. All the people in my neighborhood made fun of me, though. They said, "Why do you come home at 2 o'clock in the morning from your job? What do you work?" So I said, "I work on Wall Street." I said, "You know, slavery ended 3,000 years ago."

38:35So I continued this for the first few months. I didn't really make much money. I struggled. I had to borrow a dollar every day from this guy named Dimitri in order to buy coffee and a donut, and that was my food for the day. But after about six months, I made my first thousand dollars, which for me was all the money in the world. The next month, I made five thousand. The next month, I made another five or six thousand. The next month, I made ten thousand. By November of 2002, approximately a year after I started, I made $117,000 in one month. I broke a company record in that office, at least. But then, after that, a few of my investments worked out, a few deals worked out. I gathered a lot of clients in a really terrible time. A lot of my clients made a lot of money in a bad market. And I started building the business. A year later, I became the number three largest producing broker in the country. On a bad month, we'd make a couple hundred thousand dollars a month. Then I decided to leave the company, start my own, and start hiring people, analysts. Brokers I trained about 135 different people to become good salesmen. Some succeeded in a big way, some failed miserably. I fired a couple of people, Baruch Hashem, that ended up becoming Ponzi schemers. So actually, both of them are in jail. One guy got off; the third one got off. A lot of interesting, a lot of interesting stories on Wall Street. On that alone, we could write a book, but that book is not gonna help you.

40:07What's going to help you is what happened after. By 2006, I got to a point where I reached my best month of the year, which was May of 2006. I made 1.6 million dollars for a month, really a day. It was a big deal. I decided to go on vacation for 40 days. Moshe Rabbeinu went to Har Sinai for 40 days. I went to Las Vegas for 40 days. Hashem didn't like it so much. I didn't lose any money, but Hashem ran out of patience after that, and everything started going downhill. So I decided, okay, you know what? Business is having a slowdown. Let me do some other things. Business is still going; we're still making money like it's garbage pails with money every month. Not as much as a few months before, but we're still doing okay. We're not struggling. But let's do some other stuff. Let me take care of my health and... decided to have elective surgery, and something went wrong with the surgery. I woke up from the surgery screaming and yelling, asking everyone to kill me because the pain was intolerable. My wife didn't want to listen, my mom didn't want to agree, and the doctors had no clue what had just happened. After a few hours of this screaming and yelling, eventually the maximum amount of morphine legally allowed was actually put into my system, which calmed me down. Because it was elective surgery, they couldn't wait to release me.

41:36Because if they kept me in the hospital, they'd probably have a lawsuit on their hands. They left me and wanted me to go home. I thought, okay, the pain is in the past. I'm a very optimistic person usually, and I went home. I went to sleep. I woke up 45 minutes later with even worse pain than I had a few hours earlier. Only this time, it didn't stop for 62 days. And for 62 days... body slowly but surely continued to fail. It had nothing to do with the surgery because now it wasn't pain where the surgery was. Now it was pain everywhere, from the neck all the way to the bottom of the feet. My liver started failing. I started urinating blood. My eyes started bleeding. My ears started bleeding. Everything started bleeding. I went to the doctors, the emergency rooms, and so on and so forth. Everyone said, "Listen, he's dying, but we have no idea why." and

42:36After two months of this game on earth, my body started calming down, and I figured, you know, God's given me another chance. But I thought again: it's the same God I've believed in for the last 26 years, my kind of God. The God that I could just do whatever I want, not the God that says... They're not that one, the one that I invented in my mind like 99% of the population. The one that says, "You do you, I do me. You want to keep my mitzvot? Ashercha! You don't want to? No problem." That's the kind of God I believed in. Which is also the reason why Mechalel Shabbat is considered an idol worshiper, because even if he tells you, "Listen, I believe in God more than you. I love God more than you. I sing all the time 'Mi Shema'amin Lo Mefahed' with Eyal Golan—whoever believes is never afraid. I sing songs like they do in the soccer stadiums. HaKadosh Baruch Hu, Anachnu Ohavim Otcha, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, we love you," they sing in the stadium.

43:4299% of the Mechalel Shabbat Torah says, yeah, they say HaKadosh Baruch Hu, but it's a different one. If they say they love Hashem, a lot of people say they love Hashem. It's a different Hashem, though. It's just someone that's called Hashem in their mind because the Hashem of Am Yisrael has rules. He has rules and he says if you don't follow the rules, you have a serious, serious problem. Now, most people think, "Okay, I'll worry about it when I get there," but oh Hashem, there are people like me that got there early. Because after two months, I thought it was over. I thought I could go back to my life, go back to making money, go back to building my firm. My intention was to build the next Merrill Lynch, the next Goldman Sachs, the next big Wall Street empire, and Had the knowledge, I had the ability, I had everything that you need to have in order to do it. The only thing I didn't have, I didn't have any beracha. A lot of people make a lot of money, but very few have beracha. Plenty of people make a lot of money. You see a lot of people make a lot of money, but they're always struggling. You ever see those people? They have a house bigger than Antiochus, but they barely know how they're gonna pay the mortgage, and

44:54They have a car; you just look at the parking lot sometimes of the houses in Jewish communities. I'm talking about just the garage; you see the parking lot. They have four or five thousand dollars in the garage—four or five thousand dollars worth of payments a month. This guy has a Mercedes; the other one has this; one has that. They're paying four or five thousand dollars a month just for cars. What a bizbuz kesef, what a waste of money. And you ask the guy, "Listen, maybe you want to donate to help some Jews do teshuvah," and Maybe you want to donate to some homeless people. Maybe you want to donate for the chag, something. No, I don't have any money. What do you mean you don't have any money? You have $5,000 sitting in the garage. You don't even use it. Very few people have beracha in their money. Sometimes even if they don't have the toys, they still don't have the beracha. And the reason is because Hashem decides if you have beracha in your money based on actions. The Gemara in Rosh Hashanah page 16a ...and also Beitza 17b says that Hashem decides what parnassah we're going to get on Rosh Hashanah. I'm sorry, 16a and 16b. Both of them state that Hashem decides what parnassah you're going to get on Rosh Hashanah...

46:00So, on Rosh Hashanah, in a couple of days from now, every one of us is going to the Beit Knesset. We say to Hashem, "We love you," and we all say, "Hashem, you're the King, you're the King, you're the King." In reality, you should know that He's not only deciding if you're going to live or die; He's also going to decide if you're going to have any money. That's why everyone wants to pray. Once you tell people they have to pray for money, everyone comes to the Beit Knesset on Rosh Hashanah. Because why? It's the time to pray for money. I had money, plenty of it. Now I don't have any. B'chasdei Hashem, I started to realize I don't really have other things either. I don't have health. I don't feel that good. I'm still in pain, but not as much as I was after the surgery. Nine months later, after the surgery, I wake up with a pain in my leg. By the next day, I'm in the intensive care unit and... They said that I have an infection in between two muscles that connect the leg to the rectal area that is so big and so dangerous that if I would have waited another couple of hours, the infection would have exploded, gone straight into my blood system, and I would have died within an hour. "Sir, we have to give you a surgery immediately." And what they didn't tell me is that the recovery is worse than the surgery. The recovery for this type of surgery is they don't stitch you up.

47:29In fact, they leave it open, and they keep reopening it every few hours to let the infection come out, just to make sure. If you didn't have enough kaparat avonot, now you're going to have.

48:49So now you're in an intensive care unit for a few weeks. A few people next to me died. A few other people were screaming as much as I was. You compare screams, and everyone hates each other. Why? You're tired of hearing him scream, even though you're also screaming. This is what happens when you think everybody's friends in the hospital. No, he's like, shut up already. Will you scream also? Yeah, but I can scream. everybody's screaming because you're in pain. He's scared. The guy's been trained. No one cares. The doctor's like, "Sir, we already gave you the painkillers three hours ago." I said, "Okay, three hours ago I had pain. You gave it to me. It worked for three minutes. I'm still in pain three hours later. What do you think, I'm a junkie? I want to have pain?" They don't care. Like, we have a system. They treat you like cattle. By the way, the worst sleep you're ever going to get is in the hospital. Why? They wake you up every two hours to make sure you're alive. I said, if you let me sleep, I'll stay alive. If you keep being like this, I'm going to die soon. But not from the disease, from you. What a kapparat avonot. You're in there for a month. Even your enemies, you don't want them to have such experiences. Anyway, after that, suffering, pain, and so on, you go back to work, go back to your world, no teshuva, no nothing. You're thinking, okay, this happens, this happens. You know, things happen in people's lives.

50:09People always think that, oh, yeah, you know, some people, they have good luck. Some people, they have bad luck. Some people, they have good luck. They get married when they're young. They have kids when they're young. They make money when they're young. Everything when they're young. Everything is good. Everything is great. They're just lucky people. The Chafetz Chaim says these people are a disaster, those people that say such stupid things that some people are lucky. There's no such thing as some people are lucky. Some people, Hashem decides to give this, and some people, Hashem decides to give that. But some people, they say, "Yeah, but this guy is unlucky. He got sick. He lost money. He did this. He's just an unlucky guy. It's not gonna happen to me. It's not gonna happen to me. It happened to him. It's not gonna happen to me." It's also in this week's parasha. It's also in this week's parasha where Hashem says to Am Yisrael, "Make sure you're not one of these people that says 'shalom yihye li' (peace will be upon me). I could just do whatever I need to do. I'm okay with Hashem. We'll figure things out. Shalom yihye li." Why? Because for that, you get two punishments: one for the sin and two for being so foolish and thinking that you're excluded from the system.

51:21And Rashi says on the pasuk, he says a person that says "shalom," meaning I'll be religious in my heart, I don't have to do anything about it. Everything is gonna be okay. Don't worry so much, Rabbi. Don't worry so much. Not everybody has your life. Don't worry. I'm gonna be okay. Hashem understands me. We're in a different generation now. Moshe Rabbeinu didn't have a car. That's why he didn't drive on Shabbat. Moshe Rabbeinu—everybody was wearing sackcloth as their clothing. Today, they don't sell sackcloth in the stores, so we wear miniskirts. What, what? Blame Hashem? If He didn't want miniskirts, He wouldn't give us the idea. This is the type of stuff that people say to me all the time. Like, why would Hashem allow us to invent miniskirts and immodest clothing if He didn't want us to be immodest? Why did Hashem allow us to invent cars if He didn’t want us to drive on Shabbat? Why didn't He just have the car turn off on Shabbat automatically? That eliminates free choice, by the way. But anyway, a person that says such things is a person who says, "Shalom yiheye li," and Rashi and Onkelos say the same thing to complete each other. They say someone that says, "Shalom yiheye li, peace will be upon me, I could just be religious in my heart. I could just do my thing, and eventually, I'll do teshuva. Eventually, I'll get to it. After I make a few million first, let me make a few million dollars. Then I'll be more religious than you."

52:41I'll be like a Moshe Rabbeinu in our generation. I just need a few million dollars though first. I need to work on Shabbat, just this Shabbat—only one more Shabbat. I'll work on Shabbat, then I'll keep every Shabbat. Such a person, Rashi says, all of the sins that he made by accident his whole life and... Because he simply didn't know Hashem until this point. He didn't know Me. He's my son. She's my daughter. I love her so much. She didn't know anything. I was gonna let this all go once they did teshuvah because they didn't know. But now that he says, "Shalom alei," now he says, "No, no, I'll just do it when I get a chance." Now, not only do I have to punish him for the things he knows, now I have to punish him for all the things he didn't know until this point and... For being such a chutzpan. For thinking he could fool me. For thinking I am the King of Kings and I'm just gonna wait for him. Like I have nothing to do. You're making the king wait. Dor HaChaim, Rabbi Yisrael Salanter had some extraordinary talmidim. One of them was Rabbi Yitzchak Blazer. And he says, Rabbeinu Yonah uses a source, Rabbeinu Yonah in Shaarei Teshuva,

53:59says that a sinner who delays repenting, who delays doing teshuva, his punishment continues to get worse every single day. Not just his whole life, once, one time. Every day the punishment accumulates. It's just like, for example, in the business world, the way we would convince people to invest a lot of money on a regular basis, not just one time. So we tell them, listen, there's an investment that's good, but then there's the cumulative effect. where if you continuously add to the investment account on a regular basis, if we continuously get good results on a continuous basis, the effect, the return is magnified. For example, if you make 10% every year, every seven years, you double your money. Mathematically, it's no genius, no invention. You make 10% a year, seven years in a row, you double your money every seven years. That's how multimillionaires make a lot of money. By the way, most people think that millionaires make their money because they had a big hit. It's not true. Once in a while, they have a big hit, but the reality is most people who made a lot of money in the investment world did so because they made small returns on a consistent basis. Most importantly, don't lose any money. That's the most important rule. You might not make a lot, but just don't lose. Rule number one, Warren Buffett said, don't lose money. Rule number two, read number one: don't lose any money. But, of course, losing is part of winning; you just have to win more often.

55:24The point is that at this point, I thought that Shalom Yeli, I thought I'll get to it, I'll get to it. I knew what Judaism was. I wasn't exactly aware of the magnitude, but I knew that Shabbat existed. I kept Shabbat for about a year and a half when I was 17. And Hashem said, "I'm sick and tired of your secular status. It's time to wake you up." First surgery, terrible. Second surgery, got worse. I figured, okay, this just happens. Six months later, I'm back in the ICU. Another surgery, different part of the body. More pain, more screaming, more dead people next to me. Lots of fun. Three months later, I'm back in the hospital. Another surgery, more pain, more painkillers. Two months later, one month later, and then it gets to a point where I'm at a doctor or in a hospital at least twice a week.

56:25To such an extent that we went to over 50 doctors, 50 experts in every field. Holistic medicine, traditional medicine, the best of the best, the worst of the worst, whichever one you wanted. Anyone that had a pulse, we went to him. We had plenty of money. We needed to use it for something. Might as well use it to live. One common denominator that all the doctors had, they all had the same diagnosis. What's the diagnosis? We have no idea what's wrong with you. We have no idea why you're always in pain 24 hours a day while you keep getting recurring infections in different odd parts of your body that have no connection to each other, and that you're in pain to such an extent where even to sit or stand or communicate with you fine folks was not possible. The reason why was because it would be very uncomfortable for you to be next to me, as every few minutes I would start screaming at the top of my lungs because I felt that I was being electrocuted.

57:26And if it wasn't the electrocution that hurt, it was the dagger feeling, like someone was ripping my skin apart into 50 pieces. And if that wasn't enough, once in a while, I would get a real nice gift from Shamayim, baruch Hashem, I would feel like I was on fire. For a good two, three, four, five hours. Nice. You ever burn your finger? Anybody ever burn their finger? It hurts a little bit, right? Imagine your whole body is like that for like five hours. My rabbi says, "Oh, it's domeh le'tzaraat." In the Torah, there's something called tzaraat. It's a spiritual and physical disease. This continued for seven years. Obviously, my business went to nothing. My friends became enemies because, of course, when the lion is weak, we still have to eat, so might as well eat him. Friends became enemies, my business went to nothing, and I started losing my purpose to live because my purpose until now was to become successful. Now I can't be successful. Everything that I touched, which used to turn to gold, started turning into dust.

58:40Investments went wrong. Deals went wrong. One guy was supposed to... I wanted to expand the company because I was still optimistic. I still had the same brain, still had the same personality. Even though I was in a lot of pain, I was still trying to fight through. I still had the firm, still had value. And I found the guy that I met playing poker in a casino. His name was Pete, a Greek guy. And how did we meet? We met because I bluffed them on $60,000 and won, and he found it very, very interesting that I could bluff on that kind of money. In fact, the whole casino found it very interesting. So from that day on, everyone wanted to play with me. I had a lot of friends who wanted my money, though. Such good friends. When the whole casino stops when you walk in, that means you're the fish, by the way, not the shark. But the reality is that I didn't know that there's a rule in the Torah that if you play, if you gamble, number one, it's not allowed because it's considered mesachek bekubya. It's considered a place of clowns. The second reason why you're not allowed to gamble is because it's considered gezel (theft).

59:50It's considered stealing because the other side doesn't actually agree to give it to you, even though you both have rules. There are rules you both agree on: if I win, I take the money; if you win, you take the money. You both agree, but in reality, you only agree to these rules because, subconsciously, you believe you're going to win. Nobody goes to the casino saying, "I'm going to lose." Everybody says, "This time, I'm going to win." Yeah, but you've lost nine hundred times in a row. Exactly. What's the chance I'm going to lose nine hundred and one? I lost 900 times in a row. What's the chance of 901? Come on. Even flipping a coin is easier. So, what, are you stupid? You should learn from me. Come, you should come with me. Watch me win. And you lose 901. But why? Why is it considered stealing? Because you thought you were going to win. So once you lost, you don't really like the rules you agreed to anymore. So you're actually giving them the money, but it's against your will. What happens when you take something against somebody's will? It's considered stealing.

1:00:51Gambling is not allowed in Torah, and I can give you eight other sources if you'd like. Because I know that Jewish people love to gamble, as we love to do everything that's not allowed. So now, yeah, there's a pasuk in the Torah where Shlomo HaMelech says, "Stolen waters are sweeter." All water tastes the same, but the stolen one is sweeter. Why? Because it's stolen. It's the same exact water, though—same price, same everything—but it's stolen. I like it better. And... We like the sin much better because we have a yetzer hara. We have a yetzer hara that makes us want to do this sin because it makes it seem like it's glorious, it's magnified, it's everything, it's good. The yetzer hara mebalbel otanu. It confuses us to think the sin is good for us. So now, Met this Pete, we talked business after that, and Pete and I agreed he's gonna buy a piece of the firm. The firm was valued at 48 million dollars. He was gonna buy, he's gonna invest five million dollars into the firm. Four point eight million dollars gonna invest by ten percent, but in order for him to get the money, he needed help to sell his building or refinance one of his buildings. And...

1:02:03I said, "What's the problem? Let me see your building." I saw his building. I said, "I could sell a few. Even though I'm not in the real estate business, I have contacts, I have this, I have that. No problem." He's like, "Yeah, okay, so you're going to do it?" I said, "No problem, I'll do it." So I got the lender to say, "Lend the money." So he's going to take the money against the building until we finally sell it. Give him $20 million against the building. And... You already had a loan on it already. He had like, I don't know, maybe borrowed, like, thirteen, fourteen million dollars on the building, but the building was worth more. So, lend them twenty, twenty-five million—whatever they were gonna lend them at the time, I don't remember exactly. And out of the extras, you're gonna give me the four point eight million dollars that he agreed to give me. The lender agrees. Baruch Hashem. Everything is a good deal. All right. Okay, when are we closing? We're closing next week. I Hashem next week. We're closing. Pete says, "Listen, I got a problem closing on another building to buy it for my plumbing company. Next month, we're closing," he said. "I'm buying another building for my plumbing company. I need to buy, but I need some money for the down payment." "So how much is that down payment?" "The down payment is a million and a half dollars." "So how much are you short?" "Half a million dollars." "I'll give it to you. I'll give you half a million. I'll write you a check for 500,000 dollars." "Oh, really?" "Yeah, no problem. I have a bunch of money."

1:03:19You're investing because we could do more things. It's not that I'm broke. I have money. I have a million dollars. I'll wire it to you right now. I'll wire you the half a million dollars. You're just going to give me, instead of 4.8 million, you're going to give me 5.3 million. I said, I'm going to get in a month from now, I'm going to get 5.3 million. What do I care about this half a million dollars? I'll get the money back anyway. I know he has the money because we're doing the building. So I lend them the money, no problem. Over the next couple of weeks, we get the agreement to him. The lawyers messed up the agreement, which is a story in itself. Anyway, the day before the closing, the day before I'm supposed to get 5.3 million dollars, what happens? Lehman Brothers declares bankruptcy. Lehman Brothers was one of the biggest financial firms in the world. When they declared bankruptcy, the market officially crashed. Everything crashed after that. Why? Because Lehman Brothers was in control of lending everywhere. Anyone that ever borrowed any money on any corner of the world had some connection to Lehman Brothers and...

1:04:28Didn't matter if it was a small broker, big broker, mom-and-pop, or billionaire company. Everybody depended on Lehman Brothers. Over a weekend, before the weekend they were worth 150 billion dollars, and after the weekend they were worth zero. Literally overnight, they went to zero. The lender says, "Sorry, we can't lend you any money. The borrower died." The lender died. It's called Lehman Brothers. Everything, like I said, they used to turn to gold, now turned back to ashes. This was one of many, many examples that I had to experience. By the way, it's been now, what, 12 years? I'm still waiting for the half a million dollars. So I couldn't sell the firm. Eventually, the firm was dissolved. Eventually, I left the business. But on the way out, there were a few other interesting stories. Downsize and downsize and downsize. Eventually, I was just running a small, little mom-and-pop hedge fund, managing a few dollars of my own money and some other people's. I had a few hundred thousand dollars left to trade in my name. I figured I was going to rebuild myself. One day, our biggest investment declared some type of financial issue. The market overreacted. At 9:30 in the morning, I had a few hundred thousand dollars of my own money plus other people's money. By 9:35, we all had zero.

1:05:57things that it was literally as if it was a bigger miracle to lose the money than to make it in the first place. But by then, I cared less, and the reason why is because, in between all of this time, I was introduced to a big chacham in a miraculous way. One day, my mom was calling a list of rabbis that she had to get a blessing for her dying son. No one answered, but after two hours she reached a number in Israel, and the woman said, "I'm sorry ma'am," in Hebrew obviously, "it's the wrong number." My mom, after calling for two hours to a bunch of rabbis and nobody answering the phone, obviously at this point starts breaking down and starts crying to the stranger lady. But as Hashem runs the world, everything that He does is always the best. Chazal said, "At the end, you'll see a ma'amar from Rabbi Akiva." Rabbi Akiva says, "Everything that the Merciful One does, it's always the best." Not "it's always good," "it's always the best." What's the difference? Good is our perception of good. The best means there's nothing else that can be better. So that means that, for example, if I wanted to go from here to New York, for example, I can go in a bunch of different ways. I can go on a plane, I can go on a motorcycle, I can go in a car, on a boat, plenty of ways.

1:07:25Hashem has an infinite amount of ways to take us from point A to point B. He always picks the best way, meaning that anyone that says, "I think Hashem made a mistake. This test is too big for me. This difficulty is too big for me," is actually committing heresy. It's actually kefirah. It's actually heresy. Why? Because the foundation of our belief is that He knows the future, He knows the past, and He knows the best. Meaning, whatever you have in your life, it's the best. So now you're going to ask me, or someone else asked me, where was Hashem during the Holocaust? What, it's the best to kill six million people? And the answer is yes. Why is it the best to kill six million of our brothers? So why is it the best to kill six million of our brothers and sisters? Why is it the best? Because if He didn't kill six million, there would be zero. Because right before the Holocaust, the assimilation rates around the world were over 80%, meaning that we were literally one generation away from not being Am Yisrael anymore.

1:08:35You're one generation away from not being Am Yisrael anymore. So it's either Hashem gave us the electric shock, like you give someone who died to bring him back to life, which is going to hurt a little bit or a lot, or you just let him die. And Hashem promised Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov that He's not going to let us die, even if it's going to hurt. So the answer that anyone's ever going to ask you, "Where was God during the Holocaust?" The answer is in parashat Bechukotai. The answer is in parashat Ki Tavo. The answer is in parashat Ha'azinu and the rest of the Torah. Where was He? He's the one that did it. That's where He was. Why? To save us. Because it was the best. Out of the terrible circumstances that we put ourselves in, it was the best possibility. It was the best possibility, unfortunately. Now, what's so sad about this news? All of us have grandparents that were there and great-grandparents, and there were good people and there were bad people. But there were a lot of people there, and b'ezrat Hashem, most of them are in a good place now. But they're crying still, even though many of them are in Gan Eden. They're crying still now. Why are they crying? Because we are in a worse situation today than they were in before the Holocaust, and...

1:09:58Right now, there are parts of America that have over 90% assimilation. Ninety percent assimilation means 9 out of 10 people marry a non-Jew. Statistically speaking, if things continue as they are and people don't start doing serious teshuva, there will no longer be any more Jews within a couple of generations. They did a study after the Holocaust; they tracked 100 families that were Orthodox, 100 families that were Conservative, 100 families that were Reform, and 100 families that were secular to see after four generations what we have left. What's considered today as Modern Orthodox. 100 families that were Conservative, 100 families that were Reform, and 100 families that were secular to see after four generations. What do we have left? The Ultra-Orthodox, after four generations, have gone from 100. They've developed a group, Baruch Hashem. They got over 3,300 people. 100 grew to 3,300 people. The Modern Orthodox, or what was called in that day Masorti, still grew to 300 or so families. Drastic change, 90% difference, but nonetheless still grew. The Conservative dropped.

1:11:18How much? By 50%. 46 to be exact. 100 people after four generations, instead of growing as a result of reproduction—normal reproduction—if you have 2.1 babies per family, you're naturally going to grow. After four generations, they shrunk to 54 people. The Reform dropped to 13. They dropped almost 90%. The reason why is because the rabbi of the Reform movement is usually not Jewish themselves. Instead of giving bar mitzvahs to boys, they give bar mitzvahs to dogs. You can see this on the internet. Unfortunately, they literally give a bar mitzvah with tefillin for $1,000 for a dog. The rabbi is a woman who is not even Jewish—a Chinese woman in Colorado heads the biggest Reform shul there. She's not even Jewish. That's Reform. They call themselves Reform Jews.

1:12:20But you would think this was the worst. The truth is, it's not the worst. The worst is the one that says, "Shalom aleichem." The worst is the one that is secular, who says, "I believe in God, so I go to beit knesset twice a year on Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah. But I’m a bigger believer in God than you are. I do more than you. I give a lot of tzedakah. I give this, I give that. I do, I do, I do. But I do it my way." Secular people, after four generations, were down to four people. Four generations resulted in a 96% decline according to Pew Research, 2006-2013. That means that within one generation, the secular are no longer Jewish. Within one generation, the Reform are no longer Jewish, and Within one to one and a half generations, the Reform are no longer Jewish. The only thing that's going to be left is the Ultra-Orthodox and the semi-Modern Orthodox. What's the problem? The tests have changed today. Statistics are no longer as relevant. The reason why is because, at the time they started these studies, the biggest yetzer hara...

1:13:43The biggest yetzer hara that people would have was maybe to go to one movie a year at the theater because that's all they could afford. Today, with the press of a button, you can have all the gashmiut in the world in front of you in a second. Back then, when they started the study, if you go to the government buildings in Florida, to get a license or to get a passport or anything, you'll see pictures of what was in Florida 100 years ago. They show you pictures of goyim on the beach. On the beach, you see 100 years ago, 70 years ago, 80 years ago, you see that the goyim (non-Jews) on the beach are more modest than the most righteous rabbanit in the world today. Their dress is three times their size. They all cover their heads. They all cover their bodies. There's no such thing as short sleeves. They wore short sleeves, but they called it underwear. They wore shorts, but they called it underwear, meaning they wore it, but nobody ever saw it other than their spouse. Today, we go outside with underwear. Today, we tell our wives, "Honey, come on, you coming or what?" "Yeah, but I only have underwear on." "Perfect, come on, let's show the fellows."

1:15:02Let's show the fellows what I have. You tell your wife to go outside half-naked or maybe even mamash naked. Why? We go to the beaches and we think it's okay. We have people that call themselves Orthodox in France. In France, it's almost like halacha. It's almost like halacha to go to the beach. But I'm not talking about going to the beach if you're secular. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about Orthodox people. There are even Rabaniyot that go to the beach with a bikini. But she calls herself Orthodox. Why? We're confused. We think that "Shalom Bayit" is relevant. It's a mitzvah. We think that we can do whatever we want. And everything is going to be fine because we go to Beit Knesset here and there. And we give a few shekels tzedakah. I didn't know all of this. I didn't know the magnitude of all these things. So I continued my life. But eventually, I met a big chacham named Rav Ephraim. And Rav Ephraim, how did I meet him? When my mom called the wrong phone number in Israel, the woman ended up being my cousin. And she said, why are you crying? And she told her, I'm crying because my son is dying, and I need a blessing from a big rabbi. She says, why don't you talk to my brother, Rav Ephraim? He says, sure, will he talk to me? He's so busy learning and so on. She goes, of course, he'll talk to you. So she talks to him, and I didn't know that Rav Ephraim even existed.

1:16:28we left Israel when I was very young, and we didn't really keep in touch with anyone—at least I didn't; my mom did, of course. After a little bit of time hearing my story from my mom, Rav Ephraim asked my mom if I speak Hebrew so he could talk to me because he doesn't speak English. For him, learning English would be considered wasting time. Instead of learning, learning a language is a waste of time. That's what you see a lot with the Chachamim—they're geniuses in everything, but they don't always speak multiple languages. The reason why is because they don't want to waste their Torah time. So anyway, he says yes, he speaks Hebrew. We got on the phone. He called me. We spoke for an hour and 40 minutes, and the reason why is because we hit it off right away. I found somebody who is very smart and had answers to questions I've had my whole life. Questions that I've always had, things that I didn't think were such a big deal until I asked and I got the answer. And would ask him a question, he would give me an answer. Whether it was about dinosaurs, the purpose of life, why am I suffering, or why am I sick—all types of interesting questions that people ask all the time. And I found out something very, very peculiar about the human being, especially the Jew. A Jew, unlike the goyim...

1:17:46It's an obligation, not just a mitzvah. It's an obligation for him to ask questions. That's the whole Gemara, the whole Oral Torah, is questions and answers. Why is it an obligation for us to learn and ask questions, whereas the goyim, you go to church, and they tell you, "Ask him, listen, prove to me such and such," like, "No, no, don't ask any questions. We're not allowed to ask questions. You just have to believe, my son, you have to believe." And Yeah, but it doesn't make sense. You're saying that the Torah agrees with the New Testament. Yes, of course, of course it agrees. The Torah is, uh, yeah, it's a big deal. Yeah, but the reality is, you look at the New Testament, it contradicts the Torah. No, of course not. What do you mean? I have proof. In the Torah, it says that Yaakov Avinu came down to Mitzrayim with 70 nefashot. In the New Testament, it says 75. What, did God forget how to count? In the Torah it says the Ma'arat HaMachpelah is in Chevron. In Chevron. We could see it today. You go check it if you want, Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov are over there. The New Testament says it's in Shechem. It's a different city altogether. Why does Hashem need a GPS system? There are mistakes. There are actual real mistakes that a five-year-old would know.

1:19:07In the Torah, it says, it's part of the Ten Commandments. Show me one guy that keeps Shabbat. Show me one Christian that keeps Shabbat. They don't even know how. Some of them say, no, I keep Shabbat. How do you keep Shabbat? Oh, I don't drive and I don't work. That doesn't mean you keep Shabbat. The donkey also doesn't drive and doesn't work on Shabbat. That doesn't mean he goes all over the world to keep Shabbat. There are a lot of things to Shabbat. There are a lot of rules to Shabbat. You can't just say, oh, because I don't drive, I keep Shabbat. There are a lot of rules to Shabbat. We don't know the rules unless we learn the Oral Torah. So, I didn't know all this stuff, and I started asking questions. I realized these questions are changing my life, and I realized something peculiar: a Jew that has questions, if he doesn't get answers to them... Or if he asks them and he can't get answers because he asked the wrong person. Not every rabbi is an expert in these types of questions. Some people know other things. They don't always know the answers to these questions or other questions. Some rabbis are experts in halakha. Some rabbis are experts in philosophy. Some rabbis are experts in mussar. Some rabbis are experts in Torah and science. And so on and so forth. Not every rabbi knows everything. Unless he's a gadol hador.

1:20:20So I asked some rabbis some questions, and they didn't give me answers. I didn't know how much it bothered me. I didn't realize that was my basis for my lifestyle. Because I didn't get answers, I figured since they don't know the answers, that means they don't know what they're talking about. Just like I don't know what I'm talking about. So I'd rather listen to myself than somebody else's opinion. Because if he doesn't have the answer and I don't have the answer, we are on equal ground. He just has a beard. It's free. The goat has a beard also, so I'm not gonna listen to him. He's not gonna listen to me. That's it. And I figured I'm gonna make my own rules. When someone asked me, "Listen, do you really think it's a good idea to be married to a non-Jew?" I said, "What? Show me it's not. Show me one Jewish woman who's gonna love me as much as this non-Jew." They said, "Do you really think it's a good idea to drive on Shabbat? Show me it's not. Where's it say in the Torah that Moshe Rabbeinu had a car?" you make you rationalize things, but then Hashem wakes you up, and He wakes you up, and He wakes you up and wakes you up in different ways. He had a nice, special way, and now I started getting my answers, because after Hashem broke me to pieces, I was ready to get answers. Sometimes you have the answer punch you in the face, but you still don't want to accept it.

1:21:43Sometimes people ask a question because they want an answer. Sometimes they want to ask the question because they want to show that maybe you don't know, or they want to show you that they know, or they just want to justify their life. So they ask certain questions that justify their pre-existing behavior. They're not asking a question to actually get an answer. They're not asking a question in order to change their behavior. They're just asking a question just because they want to ask. So... person doesn't only need to be one that asks questions. He has to be ready to be a vessel to accept the answers. The Gaon of Vilna, before he left to go to Eretz Yisrael, wrote his wife a letter, and he said, "Honey, I'm going to Eretz Yisrael." In those days, there wasn't a certainty that you're going to come back. There were no planes. You go on a long trip; there's no guarantee you're coming back. So, he wrote a letter like a will. One of the things he wrote—you can find this letter online—it's called "Igeret HaGra." He says, if the kids curse, if any of the children in the house curse, hit them. Hit them.

1:22:53And at the end of the letter, he says the reason why he said to hit them, why? Because other people say, no, if they curse, maybe it just came out. You know, all of us, once in a while, it comes out. Comes out once in a while, you get really, really annoyed, something comes out. The Gemara says somebody that curses can lose blessings of 70 years just for one curse. We have to be careful with our mouth. Why? Because this mouth is supposed to bless Hashem. The Gemara says if you pray for kids who curse, hit them right away. Why hit them? Because if they're already at a level of cursing, that means that they've made some type of sins that the only way for them to do teshuva is by them getting hit because they've developed something called a klipah. Their heart has become a heart of stone. And the only way to get water out of stone, if you're not Moshe Rabbeinu, is by hitting it. So you have to hit them to wake them up. For them to be accepting of the truth, you have to hit them sometimes in this generation. When do people do teshuva? After Hashem hits them. Apparently, I needed a few hits, so after I got my hits, Hashem started sending me the answers because I became ready for the answers.

1:24:08Little by little, I started realizing that the purpose of life is definitely not in the direction that I'm on; the purpose of life is very, very different. I started learning more and more Torah, Baruch Hashem, and started realizing that there are a lot of people just like me. A lot of people are on a road driving 150 miles an hour straight into a wall. What's the difference? They don't know, just like I didn't know, but I know now. The reason why I decided to leave Wall Street and... no money went broke, but to trust Hashem 100% that somehow He's going to pay all the bills is because I figured there's not enough people telling people the truth of Torah. A lot of people teach Torah. You can find Torah in every corner, you can find Torah in every application, in every phone, in every corner. You can find Torah. This generation has more Torah than the generation of the Rambam. The average Joe today can get Torah, more Torah on his phone than the Rambam had 900 years ago. All you need is an application or internet. You get the shiur Torah to watch them, different rabbis, different sugyot, different gemarot, different mishnayot, everything you want you can get on your phone if you really want. You have an enormous amount of Torah, but it's also a case against us if we don't use it. But unfortunately, even though there's a lot of Torah in the world, still there's not a lot of people that know the truth. And the reason is, is because today

1:25:34We have a lot of people who have turned, instead of to God, Hashem, the God of the Torah, to the god of money. So, a lot of people are so worried about money, they're afraid to tell people the truth. They figure that if they tell people some of the things that I've been telling you for the last hour... Maybe you're not going to donate. Maybe you're not going to come back to this shiur. Maybe you're not going to come to the Beit Knesset. Maybe you're going to be turned off. Maybe you're going to be turned on. All these different shikulim, all these different, you know, weighings that they do, these accountings that they do, they figure that maybe I should give them a softer version of the Torah. Like a Smurfs Torah, like a cartoon. The problem is, it's not the same Torah. If anyone there reads just a simple Parashat HaShavua, We're obligated to read the Parashat HaShavua three times a week. Every male has to read it three times: twice normally and once with commentary. Even if you read it once, but at least you understand it—meaning you read it in a language you understand, not just make the sounds in Hebrew. Actually understand what it says. Already you're going to have to do teshuva if you believe what it says. Why? Because it's scary. What it says in the Torah is scary. It says that at one point there were only a few people in the world. One of them was named Cain.

1:26:50Kayin didn't like his brother so much. He was a little jealous. He killed his brother. Hashem punished him forever, destroying his lineage after seven generations. There are no more Kayinim in the world. We have one crime. It doesn't say he made a lot of crimes. He made one crime, and Hashem punished him for eternity. Then you go to the next parasha: up north, there was a bunch of people who didn't really like to follow the will of Hashem. They decided to go to clubs, to nightclubs, to bars, and... To steal from each other. To go to casinos. You know, like today. Just 4,500 years ago. What did Hashem do? He destroyed everyone. There's no more from that generation, except the sons of Noach. That's it. But they all made a sin for a little while. What's the big deal? Why don't you just let it go? Because Hashem is not us. He's not a human being. He's the King of Kings. He destroyed the whole world. If you read the Midrash of what He did to them, Hashem Yirachem. He melted them. You know how you melt sugar? You put a little sugar cube in water, and it melts into nothing, and eventually there's nothing left. It all dissolves into the water. That's what He did with them.

1:28:05If that's not scary, parashat Noach, we just started the Torah, you almost get a heart attack from what happened to people just a few years ago. It's the scary part. You go, you continue, you see the people in the time of Avraham Avinu. People in the time of Avraham Avinu, they decide, listen, we don't want any guests. No guests in our house. No guests, no tzedakah. No guests, no tzedakah, and we like a little bit of homosexuality on the side. little bit of homosexuality on the side, and they made sure that if you wanted to be a citizen, you had to be rich. You had to be rich. They were more than happy if you were homosexual and didn’t invite any guests either. These were the rules of the town. It's called Sodom, and Hashem destroyed all of it. Nothing was left. To this day, even a fish cannot swim there. A fish, a worm is not even there. Has anybody ever gone to the Yam Hamelach? There's not even worms. There's no life whatsoever. 4,500 years later, nothing is left. If that's not scary, what's scary then?

1:29:16A woman looked back, one of the people who was supposed to be safe. She just peeked behind her to see what was happening. It's a normal reaction, a reflex. Look behind you—half of you are going to look. Why? It's a reflex. If you heard a bomb behind you, you're going to look. So she peeked, and Hashem turned her into a pillar of salt. If that's not scary, what's scary? Every parasha has scary nightmares in it if you just know what it says. The problem is, we don't. And the problem is that a lot of people that teach today pick the non-scary parts dafka because the non-scary parts get people just to come. But we don't need to just come; we don't need to be sheep. We need to be Jews; we need to know the answers. And the reason why is because a Jew that asks questions and he doesn't get the answers and... He has something called a safek. A safek means a doubt. A doubt has the same numerical value as the word Amalek. Amalek is the enemy of Hashem, not just Am Yisrael. It's the enemy of Hashem because they did everything specifically to destroy belief in Hashem. And Hashem vowed, Hashem promised that before...

1:30:36end, He's going to destroy Amalek Himself because Amalek is not only a nation; it's a doubt, a belief based on falsehood. Amalek is the source of all evil in the world, whether it be Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, or atheism, or... simply the nationalistic mentality or equality. Some tzaddik sends me questions—15, 16 years old—sends me questions every few days. He says some feminist debated me. She says, "Look, even the Torah says it's supposed to be equality." I said, "What does she mean equality? Does she mean that men and women are the same?" I said, "Okay, then how come Hashem didn't make just men or just women? Why did He make everybody men or everybody women?" I The problem is that people think that it is supposed to be equality because nobody likes their job. The men want to be women, and the women want to be men. The reality is there's no such thing as equality in the Torah. Everybody has a role. Your role, I can't do it; my role, you can't do. Simple. It doesn't mean that my role is better than yours, and it doesn't mean that your role is better than mine. It simply means you are special, and so am I. And...

1:31:59The woman has a role. She's supposed to build the Jewish household. That's her role. That's why she doesn't have to go to Beit Knesset. Not on Rosh Hashanah, not on Yom Kippur, and not on Shabbat, not any time throughout the entire year. She does not need to step into Beit Knesset. As a matter of fact, the Gaon of Vilna told his wife, "Don't ever go to Beit Knesset. Don't ever go to Beit Knesset." Why? Only bad things happen for women there—chit-chat, Lashon Hara. Don't go to Beit Knesset. He didn't even have a women's section in his Beit Knesset. His own Beit Knesset didn't have a women's section. Even if you wanted to go, you can't go. His own wife wanted to go, you can't go. Why? There's no women's section. Why? The Beit Knesset is not for you. Why? What's for you? Build the house. That's why the Gemara, the Chachamim, call their wives "Bayit." What's Bayit? House. Where's my house? Wherever my wife is. My house is wherever my wife is. My house sometimes is in Florida, sometimes it's in New York, sometimes it's in Israel. Wherever my wife is, that's my house. Not the sheetrock and the stones. But when a husband tells his wife she's the house, then she's going to want to build the house. But when the husband tells the wife she's a shmatte, she's a little towel that cleans and cooks, and that's all she's good for, of course she wants to be something else. Of course she wants to go to the Beit Knesset because over there they appreciate her.

1:33:25Obviously, a person needs to know the reason why she wants to be something else is because you're not making her feel good about what she is. Marriage is a wonderful thing. The problem, as Rav Avigdor Miller used to say, is Hashem gives it to children; people don't know how to be married. So a person needs to know you have a role, the wife has a role. She has to build the house. The husband is... ...has to build a Torah. If the husband doesn't have Torah, don't expect your kids to be tzaddikim. Don't expect your kids to have good middot. Don't expect your kids to even marry Jews in this generation. There's so much yetzer hara, there's so much pritzut in the streets. If you're not hungry for Torah, you're not going to make it. All the 50-50s, you're not going to make it. Why? Because we're in a generation of... Number one is clueless and number two has more options to sin against Hashem than any other generation in history. With one button, you could either become a Talmid Chacham or you could become Amalek. One button on your phone depends on which website you go to. One button, one phone call, one meeting, one job, one deal. It's very simple. And this is some of the things that a lot of people don't like to share, and I realized that if I knew the price of...

1:34:41Going against Hashem. I'm not telling you. I would have changed right away. I'm not telling you anything, all I'm saying is at least I would have had a chance. At least I would have had it because it's always 50-50. I can't tell you I would have listened to some tzaddik that would have told me, "Listen, here's the Torah, here's the truth, my friend, about all the stuff, all the punishments, all the Gehinnom, all that stuff." And I would listen right away. I can't tell you for sure I would have listened, but I can't tell you for sure I wouldn't have listened. But the truth be told is that no one has the right to decide for me. No one has the right to decide for you what you're going to listen to and what you're not going to listen to. That's why Hashem put it in the Chumash. The basic level of Torah that every Jew has to learn, and any Jew that learns the Chumash with basic level commentary by Rashi, actually understands what's being said here. Not just reads it literally like the goyim. Actually understands what it meant. What's meant by Mot Yumat. Why does it say die twice on Mechalel Shabbat?

1:35:44Because, as Rashi explains, death in this world, death in olam haba. What is olam haba? And he starts going into things that are above and beyond our pay grade. There's no olam haba, that means suffering, that means terrible, and so on and so forth. Once he understands there's a price for these things, it's a price. Decisions are different. A guy goes to a restaurant. He says, "Listen, I want steak and the beans and the rice and the other steak and the lamb and this and that." It's like, "Sir, wait, did you turn around the menu to see the price for everything?" "Oh, there's a price? I just thought it just lists all the things you have." "Yeah. No, that is the brochure." That's the brochure for the restaurant of what we serve. You have to turn it around, and that's the menu. The menu has the prices on it. The guy turns around the menu, and he becomes weak in a moment. Why? He sees the steak is $150. All of a sudden, he's not hungry anymore. He sees the rice that costs 37 cents is $80 because it's pink, because it's yellow, because it came from Guatemala or something, came from some hole in the world, and they're gonna put a price on it. All of a sudden, he doesn't want to be just vegetarian. He wants to be vegan. He wants to be anti-rice. He wants to protest against rice. He doesn't want anyone to eat rice again if it's gonna be sold for $87 for a little plate.

1:37:08All of a sudden, he says to the guy, "Listen, do you have some water for free from the faucet?" Why? He knows the price. Once we know the price, rabotai, everything changes. And that's the most important thing that we need to know before Rosh Hashanah. We need to know the price. What's on the line on Rosh Hashanah? Am Yisrael. needs to know the price. They have to come to Hashem and say, "Listen, Hashem, we sinned accidentally, on purpose, intentionally. We did a bunch of things. But now we know the price of it because we learned Parashat HaShavua. We learned the book of Devarim. We learned Ki Tavo. We learned Nitzavim. We learned all of these different things. We saw what You do. You're not joking, Hashem. We learned what's happening. We know there's a price to this." Promise next year is going to be better. I promise this year. I'm already promising now this year. I'm going to learn Torah every day. I already learned every day until now. See, I learned the last few days. They only found out on Thursday, but since Thursday until Sunday, I already learned every day. Okay, it's not that much, but it shows I'm serious. I showed up every day. I learned 15 minutes. I learned five hours. I'm not a little talmid chacham. Just 15 minutes a day. I got 15 minutes. I got 15 minutes a day. You start something. That's how I started—15 minutes a day.

1:38:2915 minutes a day, little by little, you build it up from there. Why? Because you know it's a mitzvah from the Torah to learn every day. I'm going to tell you one last thing that's going to make everyone think a little bit over these next few days. A lot of people like to delay teshuvah, especially young people. Young people love to delay teshuvah. Why? They say, "Listen, it's hard to do teshuvah when you're single." were married, so you get it. You buy your wife jewelry, and everything becomes easier when you have somebody to help you. Thinking you have a choice, like Hashem is just gonna wait until you get married. Who says you're gonna get married? Who says you're gonna live the week? Who can tell me for sure, "I know for sure I'm gonna wake up tomorrow"? Who can tell me that? One of my, unfortunately, people that used to come to a couple of my shiurim, she made aliyah a year ago. She's in her 40s. Tzedakah, kisui rosh, everything. Early 40s, perfectly healthy. Tzedakah. On Sunday, she had a brain aneurysm. On Monday, she died. Last week. Did you think that she thought, that anyone thought, that she was going to even have the smallest chance of dying at that age, on that day? Right before Rosh Hashanah?

1:39:48Wasn't even a thought. Don't even worry about it. No one even worries about death, even the 90-year-old. You think that Warren Buffett—he's 90 years old already, the guy knows Antiochus—you think he's worried about dying? No, he's still doing business deals. Why are you doing a 20-year business deal? You're 90! What are you doing a 20-year deal for? Who's gonna see it? Who cares in 20 years? You're not gonna live to see it. Oh, what do you mean? Everyone thinks they're gonna live forever. So they delay teshuva. They delay teshuva. People say, no, once I get married, once I get rich, once I have this, once I have that. And all of Israel says, a person that delays teshuva does not understand, does not understand, Rabotai, how many problems he's giving himself. What kind of problems, what kind of tzarot he's bringing to himself. How much he's magnifying the punishment. Because he's treating Hashem like a friend. Now the Gemara... The Gemara says in Masechet Yevamot, page 48b, about the horrible punishment that comes to people who delay teshuva. They say, no, I'm not ready for it yet. No one says you need to become Moshe Rabbeinu overnight. You have to do something. It's not that difficult to keep Shabbat. Just don't drive. Just don't use the TV. Don't even have a TV, better yet. Don't use electricity. Leave everything on if you want.

1:41:16It's not that difficult. It's not just having a vacation once a week. That's all it is. No one says that eating kosher is that difficult. In America, there's a kosher place on every corner. You don't have to eat treif. It's not that big of a deal. Trust me, you'll live on kosher too. No, it's expensive. Not really. Today, it's almost the same price. That's just a fairy tale. People say, no, it's so much more expensive. It's not so much more expensive. Even the meat. Trust me, you go to a restaurant, whether it's kosher or not kosher, the steak's still 50 bucks. And if you're already going to restaurants, you can afford either steak. If you already give yourself the luxury of going to a restaurant, you can afford it. People complain, it's expensive, it's expensive. Yeah, but so is a navigation system. $3,000 for a navigation system you're never going to use, but you didn't have a problem buying it, even though you get navigation for free on your phone. But $3,000 for a navigation system and $10,000 rims, we have money for. But a $15 kosher steak, no, it's too expensive. I need to get the $7 one that's made from pig.

1:42:18So people need to think about these things. Because the Gemara in Masechet Yevamot says the lame teshuvah is horrible. What's one of the examples they use? They say, you know, there are certain types of people that Hashem really, really loves. Who are they? Converts. Converts. converts. Hashem loves converts. He actually calls Am Yisrael converts, but He loves people that are converts. To such an extent that the Rambam in Hilchot De'ot, chapter 5, chapter 6, halacha number 4, the Rambam—everyone agrees with the Rambam. It's not like it's just his opinion. Some people today are like, "Yeah, my Rebbe over here says this, and my local Rebbe says that." There's no opinion if it's the Rambam; it's everybody's opinion. Why? Because the entire Shulchan Aruch agrees with the Rambam. So now, the Rambam says Hashem commanded us concerning the love of the convert just as He has commanded us in loving Himself, kmo she tziva al ahavat atzmo.

1:43:24It's written in Sefer Devarim, chapter 11, verse 1: "And you shall love Hashem, your God." The Holy One, blessed be He, Himself loves the convert, as it states: "And He loves the convert." The Rambam explains that just as a person is obligated to have unlimited love for Hashem and... To love Hashem more than anything, more than his parents, more than his wife, more than his kids, more than anything. The mitzvah of the Torah means that Hashem comes first before anyone—before your wife, before your husband, before your kids, before anything. He's the only one you are obligated to die for, whereas you are not obligated to die for anybody else and... If somebody gives you avodah zarah, go pray for this avodah zarah, it will kill you, you have to die. But if someone, if your wife says, either kiss me or I kill you, you're not allowed to die. Not allowed to. So now Rambam says you have to love G-d in an unlimited way. But Hashem says, Hashem says,

1:44:36This unlimited way was supposed to teach us to also love the convert in an unlimited way, meaning that you have to actually love the convert even more than a natural-born Jew. You have to love the convert even more than a natural-born Jew to such an extent that the Sefer HaMitzvot says that Hashem's love for converts is so extraordinary that He created an extra mitzvah for them and... There's an extra mitzvah that He created, which is the love of converts. He added, it was supposed to be 612 mitzvot, He added an extra one for the converts. One time, the Rambam wrote a letter to a convert named Ovadia, 900 years ago, who was having a tough time. And the Rambam wrote him a letter and he says, "I envy you." Why? Because although the Jews, Am Yisrael, can trace their lineage to Avraham Avinu, The convert's connection to Judaism is dependent on God Himself. All of us, they say, born to Jewish mothers and so on, are all connected somehow, in some way, to Avraham Avinu. But the Rambam says that the convert is directly connected to God, and that's why God says you have to love him just like you love Me.

1:45:59just like you love Me. So here we see the Rambam and the rest of the Chachamim tell us how much Hashem loves the converts. 36 times it's mentioned in the Torah how much to love converts. But yet the Gemara in Masechet Yevamot page 48b says, you know the converts, you know after they convert many of them suffer. Many of them suffer after they convert. They have a hard time with money, marriage, a lot of kapparat avonot. Why do so many converts have suffering after they convert? Hashem loves them. Why do they have so much suffering? If He loves them, why does He give them suffering? The Gemara says, because they delayed their conversion. Meaning, they didn't take it seriously enough to convert today. They delayed it to next week because they weren't ready this week. They didn't have the money yet. They're going to get paid next week, so they'll do it next week. They'll go to the Beit Din next week. Yeah, why don't you just borrow money? No, I don't like borrowing money. I'll just do it when I have my own money. Oh, so that means you're just going to let the Shechinah wait. You let the Shechinah wait so you can serve Hashem later, next week. For that, you get punished.

1:47:13Why? Because you think that it's okay, you can serve Hashem whenever you want. But then the holy side says, wait a minute, think about it. The guy is not even obligated to convert. He's not even obligated to convert, not obligated to convert. He says exactly, that's the point. Just imagine, Hashem punishes the ger for delaying the conversion, even if he's not obligated to convert. Imagine the Jew that is obligated to do teshuva that delays his teshuva. What kind of punishment he would get? Hashem yerachem, when he's obligated to do teshuva. If the one that's not obligated to do gets punished, imagine what the one that is obligated to do gets. This, rabotai, is some of the things we need to know. We have a few days. We have a few days to get serious. Pick something. Whatever you're doing right now, it's not enough. Why? Because you're meeting me.

1:48:13Hashem didn't send me into your life because you're Moshe Rabbeinu. He also didn't send me to you because I'm Moshe Rabbeinu. The point is we're meeting each other for a reason. I'm supposed to remind you of something; you're supposed to remind me of something. The reality is we have a couple of days to do teshuva. Show up to Rosh Hashanah with Hashem. You know what? Okay, maybe last year I slacked a little bit. I'm taking this on. I'm doing something. This year I'm going to do this. This year I'm going to do this. How are you going to prove you're going to do it? Not just words. Not just words. Bipiv u'v'sfatav kibduni, v'libo rachak mimeni, the pasuk says. In their mouths, in their lips, they respected me, they honored me, but in their hearts, they were far from me. A lot of people talk cheap. Talk, talk, talk, but they don't do anything. You have to start doing now, today, tomorrow, the next day. It's only a couple of days. Do something. Whatever you said you're going to do, start today. Start tomorrow. Start right away. Why? I didn't do it the whole year, but I started doing it now. If you start doing it now, it shows you're serious. Whatever it is that you're gonna do, it shows you're serious. If your wife told you, "Listen, really, I'm not really sure this is really working out." No, no, I want it to work out. "Okay, show me you want it to work out." Oh, I'll get back to you in two weeks. See you. Hopefully, we'll find a solution. So, hopefully, we'll find a solution. Somebody says, "Listen, honey, I'm going to Uman. I'm going to Uman for a year." She says, "Okay, you pray for a good solution."

1:49:41Pray for a good shidduch, because when you come back, I'm not going to be here. Pray, Rabbi Nachman is going to give you a good shidduch. Why? Why are you going to leave your wife on Rosh Hashanah? Unless your wife wants you to. If you're on the same team, if you both understand, a lot of guys go there because they think it's a good thing, but unless their wife thinks it's also a good thing, they're not allowed to go. These are the things we need to know. Rosh Hashanah is in a couple of days. B'ezrat Hashem, this will help us do some cheshbon nefesh, get us to do a little bit of teshuva, a lot of bit of teshuva, and then B'ezrat Hashem, spread the news. Spread the news to Am Yisrael, spread the news to our families, our friends. There are some free CDs that I brought for you guys. There are two CDs in each package. So it's approximately 80 hours of me. 80 hours of Torah. So even if you don't like my face, you can still just hear my voice. Same Torah though. Bye. A lot of interesting things. B'ezrat Hashem, any questions you can ask away? Other than that, B'ezrat Hashem, we'll learn again together soon. Any questions? Just a comment. Okay. My son worked at Lehman Brothers. Ah, okay. At the time that it collapsed. And he came into the dining room. There was another employee there. The woman was crying. And the staff, or whatever, said, "What happened?" She said, "I invested every penny of my retirement."

1:50:57I know of guys that were making, literally before the crash, two million a year, three million a year. They came outside with little boxes with their little notebooks and calculators. They were allowed to keep a couple of pens. Nothing. Millions of dollars went to nothing. Gone. Same thing with Bear Stearns. Same thing with a bunch of guys. A bunch of guys lost money. This will get all of us to wake up. Amein.