Who Will Be Happy When MaShiach Arrives? (Aur Torah New York)

0:14always amazing to be here. thank you for always hosting us. it's an honor to even know him, let alone being here. as you know, the Gemara in Chagigah 109b says whoever doesn't have a rabbi and decides to make decisions based on his own opinion thinks he's smart, so he decides to make rules and do whatever he wants based on his own understanding. He's going to open a book, say, "Oh, Rambam says this, I'm going to do this. Rambam says that, I'm going to do that," and he decides to do things. You would think this is a good idea, but the Gemara says God hates him. A person who makes halachic decisions by himself and doesn't have a rabbi—Hashem says He hates him. Why? Because he has so much ga'avah (arrogance) that he can make a mistake and be a slave his whole life, and he won't even know it. Why? Because he has too much ga'avah to go ask the rabbi, "Am I right or am I wrong?" So, every person that has a beit midrash in his life, someone who knows the entire Torah by heart and doesn't use it—you have a problem.

1:37You have a problem. You know how they say, "Houston, we have a problem"? You have a problem because you have NASA in Torah right next to you, and you're not even using it. Rabbi Zev. So, Baruch Hashem, we have the merit to be here and, B'ezrat Hashem, to learn together. You can hear me? And the yetzer hara is already starting. Let's see. The yetzer hara likes to interfere with my lectures. He has a good time. Correcting. If the yetzer hara doesn't interfere with the lectures, that means we didn't do a good job. So, the Zohar HaKadosh, Parashat Beshalach, page 58a, says, Why, Hashem, are you standing away from us at the time of tzarah, at the time of terrible things, at the time of all types of horrible things, like the Arabs killing us, Hashem, like they did to the three innocent people in the middle of a kiddush just this past weekend. And as they do every chance they get. So, the Zohar HaKadosh says, why, where's Hashem? Where's Hashem when this happens?

3:04The commentary explains, and also the Zohar HaKadosh explains, that this is actually talking about the end of times. This is talking about the end of times, meaning that at the end of times, Hashem said that He is going to hide. He's going to hide in plain sight, but He's going to hide to let the enemy, to let the terrorist Let the one, a terrorist that has a bomb on him, and a terrorist that's wearing a tie—same thing, whether he's running the United Nations or he's running Hamas—same thing. He's going to let them do whatever they want. He's going to let them go fight for Har HaBayit. Like you see right now in what's happening, all of a sudden, everyone wants Har HaBayit. They don't have enough land. And he says Hashem is going to let them do whatever they want. Why is He going to let them do whatever they want? So He can give them extra punishment. Now, most of us have been excited to see the Mashiach. You have Chabad always celebrating Mashiach, Mashiach, Mashiach.

4:27People saying, you know, making songs about it, people always excited about Mashiach. But the question is: What if Mashiach actually showed up right now? Would we be okay? So, in the Gemara Masechet Ta'anit, page 15a, Rav Nachman bar Yitzchak says not everyone is going to be happy when the Mashiach comes. Not everyone. On the whole, that's a big video sharing simcha. The light to the tzadikim and happiness only to the upright of heart, meaning if you have an upright heart, if you did teshuva, if you are keeping mitzvot, you have no problem. You're going to be b'simcha, you're going to be in with happiness. If you haven't done it yet, you're not going to be very happy when the Mashiach comes, and the reason why is because you're out of time.

5:28out of time. So when we actually look at what it says in the Torah about Mashiach, it doesn't say all kinds of wonderful things all the time. There are some things that are kind of scary. So we'll read a little bit about it, then we'll go into some other things. So first, in the book of Isaiah... The prophet Isaiah says the Mashiach is going to smell your Yirat Shamayim. He's going to smell your Yirat Shamayim, and he's not going to judge you based on the words that are coming out of your mouth. Meaning you're not going to be able to sweet-talk the Mashiach. He comes, he's going to see you, he's going to see all of your sins on the spot like a movie. He's going to smell all the sins of this man. Do you have Yirat Shamayim or not? And based on that, he's going to decide. He's going to be the judge and jury. And the following verse says in Isaiah 11:5, on the spot the Mashiach looks at him and says, "Oh, he has Yirat Shamayim, Tzadik, go, I'll protect you." The other one, "Oh, you stole from people? Rasha. Rasha dies on the spot." So this is not exactly the same as the song.

6:51The song "Mashiach, Mashiach, Mashiach" doesn't say that part. The song makes it sound like everybody's going to be excited, but the Torah says something different. What else does it say? It says, to the prophet Amos, Hashem says to the people of Israel, Chapter 9 verse 8: "Behold, the eyes of the Lord, Hashem, are upon the sinful kingdom," meaning He's talking about Am Yisrael, "and I will destroy it from upon the face of the earth, but will not totally destroy the house of Jacob." Meaning, He's going to punish Am Yisrael at the end of times, but not all of them. "For I decree that I will shake out the house of Israel among all the nations like grain." Shaken in a sieve and not a pebble falls to the ground. They will perish by the sword, all the sinners of my people. See, He's not talking about punishing the Shem, the Arabs, or the missionary Christians. He's not talking about Am Yisrael here. He's saying I'm gonna punish all the rest. I am going to punish all the sinners.

8:12I'm gonna punish them with the sword. Why is He punishing them? He says because they say, "Not because of us will evil approach any sooner." He says, "I'm gonna punish them not only because of their sins, I'm gonna punish them because of all of their excuses of why they couldn't do teshuva." No, the terrorist attack is not because of us. It's not because we don't keep mitzvot. It's not because I don't keep Shabbat. It's not because I have a non-Jewish girlfriend or boyfriend. It's not because of me. It's because of other things. It's just because other people are bad. They blame everybody else except themselves. He says they're going to be the first ones to get punished, the ones that are full of excuses. This, again, doesn't sound like the song. The song is getting further and further from the truth. it says the prophet Jeremiah, Hashem is very upset, and He says, "My people have committed two evils: They've forsaken Me," meaning they've made sins against Me, "the source of living waters, and dug for themselves cisterns that are broken and cannot hold water," meaning they left Me

9:30I'm the source of everything good in the world, and they replaced Me with something broken, something that can't do anything for them. Where did they go? They went after money, they went after girls, they went after nonsense, they went after idol worship. They left Me, the source of everything, and they left Me for garbage. They left the Creator for the creation. So for that, He says, you get two punishments: one for leaving Me, making a sin, two... For the chutzpah of replacing Me, going to work on Shabbat because you don't think I can provide you with enough money, going with a non-Jewish woman because you don't think there are enough Jewish women for you, going with a non-Jewish man because you don't think you're going to find someone Jewish, cheating in business because you don't think you can find an honest customer, and so on and so forth—all the excuses we make to go against Hashem. So here again, it's talking about the end of times. So now, we see in this week's parasha, we're starting Parashat Devarim. And Moshe Rabbeinu starts this book with much harsher rebuke than what I'm telling you. If you read Sefer Devarim and actually understand the words, it's very scary. And I'm not even talking about the commentary. I'm talking about the very basic pshat of what it says in Sefer Devarim. In this week's parasha, Parashat Devarim,

10:58Chapter 1, verse 17, it says: "You shall not show any favoritism in judgment." Small judgment now, big judgment later—everything is going to be the same. Everyone has to tremble, everyone has to be afraid because the judgment, in reality, is in front of God. So here Hashem is commanding His people on how to judge in a Beit Din. The Beit Din of this world, and Chazal explain to us that whatever happens here, the same thing happens up there. If we judge here, it’s the same judgment that's going to go up there. He says there's no favoritism. It's not just because you're a nice guy and you make everyone laugh that everything's okay. There's no favoritism in Hashem's book. You do good, you get good; you do bad, you get bad. This is one of the things that's very hard for people to understand because people, like myself, most of my life, actually thought I had a "get out of jail free" card. I gave a few dollars in tzedakah and figured, you know what, it's enough. I'm a tzaddik.

12:25Some rabbi told me that if I give tzedakah, I'm a tzaddik. So, I'm a tzaddik, I give tzedakah, I gave, I did this, I did that. So I said, okay, this tzedakah tatzil mimavet. No, it's the only verse I knew: tzedakah tatzil mimavet, so that means I can live forever. I give some tzedakah and everything's okay. This is a mistake. Because in reality, tzedakah doesn't actually work that way. The Chafetz Chaim, Zecher Tzaddik Livracha, was asked, "What's the difference between tzedakah and teshuvah? Tzedakah and teshuvah. Because they say, Chazal says, if there's an evil decree on the world, Hashem, there's something bad that's supposed to come to the world, three things can save us." Teshuvah, tefillah, and tzedakah. Tefillah, we understand. We pray to Hashem. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That's very easy to understand. But what's the difference between tzedakah and teshuvah? Tzedakah and teshuvah. So the Chafetz Chaim says that tzedakah is like a river on top of a bridge. You have a bridge that's blocking your ability to go from one city to the other. The tzedakah is going to give you a bridge. But eventually, the bridge is going to get old.

13:48And you can't use it anymore. It's going to break. Eventually, it runs out. Eventually, it's useless. Eventually, it's just a bunch of wood or metal. And you can't use it anymore. Teshuvah, that's not a bridge. Teshuvah just dries up the entire river. There's no more river; it becomes ground. That's what teshuvah is. When we actually give tzedakah in Shamayim, when Chazal says, or Shlomo HaMelech says, it's just buying us more time to do teshuvah, to get to the real purpose. It's not a get-out-of-jail-free card. You can give a million dollars tzedakah every minute. It's not going to help you if you're violating Shabbat. It's not going to help you if you're wasting seed. It's not going to help you if you're cheating in your business. It's not going to help you. The only way to do the right thing and be okay when the Mashiach arrives and be celebrating, singing the song "Mashiach, Mashiach, Mashiach," is if you do teshuvah. The rest of it is not going to help. And this is one of the most important things that a Jew needs to understand. Now, the Yetzer Hara is always going to convince you otherwise. The Yetzer Hara is going to convince you to do some other things. So Hashem gave us the Torah and He says, the Yetzer Hara is smarter than you. The Yetzer Hara is bigger than you. The Yetzer Hara is stronger than you.

15:08There's only one way you can beat him, and I gave you something called the Torah. Torah is the instruction set on exactly how to beat the Yetzer Hara. The problem is, because the Yetzer Hara is so smart, he's going to convince you that the cure is not good. It's boring. It's not for you. It's not relevant. Maybe for some people. Maybe not for me. So he convinces you of something else. So I asked myself one time, what makes the Yetzer Hara so smart? What, does he know the whole Shas by heart? What does he know? What makes him so smart? And the chiddush I had, Baruch Hashem, was that he's so smart that he convinced all of us he doesn't even exist. That's what makes him smart. It's not that he knows the whole Shas. It's not that he knows the whole Torah. It's not that he knows anything. that he convinced you he's not even there. Just like you're knocking on the door, saying, "Hello," and he says, "I'm not home." He's answering the door, saying, "I'm not home," and you won't say, "Oh, okay, when should I come back?" He convinces you he's not even there. So we think that we're going to do things against Hashem, and it's because we want to do it. So the Rambam gives a very good example.

16:30When it talks about a get, you know there are a lot of problems, unfortunately, in the world with those who come to gittin. Some husbands are stubborn, and they don't want to let their wife go even though they want to leave her. They don't want her to marry another guy. And in Torah, you have to have a get. So the Rambam in Hilchot Gerushin, Perek Bet, says in so many words, and I paraphrase it: He says if a person doesn't want to be with his wife anymore and... he has to give her a get. And he has to say, "I'm giving her a get. I want to give her a get." But if he doesn't want to give her a get, but he still doesn't want to live with her, and he doesn't want to give her a get, so we beat him up until he says, "Yes, yes, I want to give her a get." So the question is, wait, isn't this considered ones? Isn't this considered like you're forcing him to give her a get? You said that part of the mitzvah... he says, "I want to give her a get." But here you're beating him up, and then he says, "I want to give her a get." What kind of want is that? He doesn't really want to; he just wants you to stop beating him up. So the Rambam says, no, no, no, he wants to give a get. It's just the yetzer hara convinced him he doesn't. So, by beating him up, you're really beating his yetzer hara up. Eventually, when the yetzer hara leaves, he says, "I want to give a get." You're helping him out and...

17:55So it's not a noose. This is how you do it. This is why it's actually acceptable in Judaism to do such a thing, even though it's not acceptable in modern civilization. This is the way for someone who doesn't want to let a woman move on with her life. This is how we deal with them. But there's a reason for it. So now, all of this comes up to a point where we have to ask ourselves, what's going to happen if the Mashiach comes? Now, the Rambam also says in Hilchot Deot, chapter 3, halacha 3, the third halacha, he says that a, again I'm going to paraphrase it in so many words, that a person should act with subconscious feelings and intent in his heart that he should, if he wants to have a son, let's say if a person wants to have a son, this is what he's talking about, he should have kavana in his mind when he's intimate with his wife to have a son. Perhaps this son is going to be a Talmid Chacham. He's going to be one of Gedolei Yisrael. This is the background of this halacha. Why? Why is he doing this? The Rambam says because whoever walks in such a path all of his days, whoever is thinking like this, constantly has Hashem Yitbarach on his mind all the time, even in business, even when he's intimate with his wife, which are the two very personal things for every man,

19:20His business sometimes is more important than his wife. His wife is sometimes forgotten about by him. But in reality, he's supposed to think about his wife first. But the Rambam says, whichever one you think is more important, think about both of them. Your business, your money, or your wife. If you're thinking about God when you're with both of them, you're considered a kosher person. This is a person that has the ability to fulfill the desire of Hashem Yitbarach. And he goes into details in Shemoneh Perakim, and he says that this is actually how you fulfill the mitzvah of Shema Yisrael and when he says, this mitzvah right here, when you're actually thinking about Hashem during your business, during your intimacy, during those personal intimate times, during those times where no one's going to tell you what to do.

20:20No one's going to tell you whether you should steal from the customer or not. No one knows. No one's going to tell you whether you should overcharge or not. No one's going to tell you if he's going to come back for the change you didn't give him. No one's going to tell you whether you should pay back the loan even though you really have the money, but you can take advantage of a bankruptcy system that lets you get away with it. No one can do anything. It's up to you. Your business is up to you. No one knows. People declare bankruptcy in America every other day, even though they have millions in the bank. Why? They put it in a partnership name, and they think they're tzaddikim. They have the hat, they have the shtreimel, they have everything. They have a few million dollars in the bank, but they're declaring bankruptcy. Why? Because they don't want to pay the painter $50,000. Because they don't want to pay the vendors $2 million. But you have the money. So just for anyone to know, there's no such thing as bankruptcy in Torah. If you have the money, bankruptcy or no bankruptcy, you have to pay the money. You have the money, you have to pay the money. There's no bankruptcy in Shamayim. If you don't pay the money and you have it, you go up to Shamayim, you could be tzaddik gamur. Learn Torah every day, keep Shabbat, keep mitzvot, taharat mishpacha, kosher, teach Torah even. You go up to Shamayim, they go up to Gan Eden, they're like, oh, no, no, I'm sorry, sir. You have blood on your hands. What blood on my hands? You're a thief. You stole money. What's money? I didn't steal any money. You owed the guy $25. You didn't want to pay it back even though you had the money. You declared bankruptcy for $25.

21:44You have to go back. For $25, you have to go back. This is a problem. People declare bankruptcy. Like, no, no, it's America. It's America. It's not America. In Shamayim, it's not America. So again, there are certain things you're allowed to do. There are certain things you're not allowed to do. Make sure you have a rabbi. You ask him, am I allowed to do this? This is why Hashem, in the beginning of this shiur, we said, the Gemara says, a person who makes his own rules, Hashem hates him. Why? He has a rabbi. Telling, can you declare bankruptcy or no? No, you have the money, you can't declare bankruptcy. But I don't want to pay him. Too bad. You shouldn't have borrowed the money. You shouldn't have bought the product. Don't pay, don't buy. So, Rambam says, if you're thinking about Hashem during your business, you're a kosher person. If you think about Hashem when you're intimate with your wife, you're a kosher person. Why? Because if you're not, there's no way you can be a kosher person and... And this is how you fulfill, all of us say twice a day at least, morning and night. We always think, how do I do this mitzvah? These are loving Hashem with all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our money. How? Rambam says this is the way. This is the way. Now what's the significance of being a kosher person? So you understand

23:11what the Gemara thinks about a kosher person. We're not talking about a big rabbi. We're talking about just a simple kosher Jew. What does the Torah think about a simple kosher Jew? Someone who keeps mitzvot, does what Hashem wants, which ends up being his own benefit. What does the Torah think about him? The Gemara in Masechet Moed Katan, page 25a, has a baraita. It says something very scary. Why does bar minan, why do a person's sons or daughters die when they're still little kids? Why? What did the little kids do, miskenim? Why do they die? And the Gemara says, because the parents are being punished for not crying after they heard that a kosher person died. A kosher person in the community died, they didn't cry. It's like, oh, miskenim, what can you do? No big deal. That's another Jew. No big deal. It's okay. You know, like it's like a cat died, same thing. The Gemara says that's a big, big punishment in Shamayim. You don't value a kosher Jew. It's like someone giving you a million-carat diamond, D flawless, and you say, "It's not for me, it's not for me." There's something wrong with you. Love a kosher Jew.

24:41So now, there's a question on this. Doesn't it say that Hashem doesn't punish children for the sins of their parents? Why is the kid gonna die, chas v'shalom, because the parents didn't cry a little bit? What did the kid do? So Rashi says, the verse we're using is But here he's explaining, Rashi explains, no, this is not the same. It says, this is only relevant, the kids dying, the kids are not going to be punished for the parents' sins, only when they become an adult. Once the child is no longer a child, once he's an adult, then he has his own sins and his own din v'cheshbon with Shamayim. But as long as he's a child in your house, He gets punished for your sins. Why? Because he's considered part of you. He's considered like your arm, like your leg. So anyone that's scared for their kids, which is any normal parent, has to do teshuva just for this. Just for this. It doesn't matter if you like teshuva, you like Torah, you like your kids, you have to do teshuva. Why? Because the punishment goes to them. That's why I said this is a scary Gemara.

26:06This is a very scary Gemara. Anyone who has little kids should be trembling. This is one reason alone to do teshuva; you have to be a kosher person. I know, oh, I almost forgot, the shiur will also be l'iluy nishmat these two children, Miriam bat Shoshana, whose mother is now in a very critical situation. She is in a lot of pain. The parents need to do teshuva. Having obviously a huge, huge tikkun, b'ezrat Hashem Hashem shall uplift them, and also Chaim ben Kessia, a little baby, b'ezrat Hashem, will have the tikkun of the nefesh and the guf. It's two little children having tikkun, but it's not the same this year, but b'ezrat Hashem, it will help them. So now the

27:09Gemara Masechet Shabbat, page 32b, lists a bunch of transgressions, a bunch of sins, of why somebody could, chas v'shalom, lose their kids. Going elaborating on this whole situation, so here it's explaining that here what does it have to do with the kosher person that we talked about before. The Mariah explains that when a kosher person passes away, mourning him is a big Kiddush Hashem. Mourning him is a big mitzvah. It's a big honor that can bail somebody out of all the sins they already made. You made the sins, and in Shamayim, they said, "Listen, you made enough sins. We have to punish your kids because of you. You were negligent, so we have to punish your kids." Going to the funeral and giving honor to a kosher person, he says that was your opportunity to save the kid. But you said that it's no big deal, said, "Oh, you had a chance. You didn't use it. It's not our fault. The blood's on your hands. We gave you a chance. We gave you a chance to do teshuvah. Something simple—all you do is cry a little bit for a few hours. All you have to do is arrange a shiur to honor this kosher person." Why is such a big deal about this kosher person?

28:37Anyone that continues, and it says anyone that mourns and weeps over a kosher person, they're forgiven for all of their sins because of the respect that they paid to that person. So the question is, who is this kosher person? This kosher person is someone that's not suspected of any sins and didn't fail to fulfill any mitzvah that he could do. If he knew about a mitzvah, he did it. So this leads us to the next point, which is, if the Mashiach showed up right now, can we say with confidence that we are this kosher person? Because that's what the Torah is talking about. When it says, who is he talking about? The Goel, the Mashiach, Coming to save the ones that used to be a poshea, the ones that used to be thieves, the ones that used to be mechalel Shabbat, the ones that used to be going against Hashem. One who used to be a sinner did teshuva—He comes to save him. Why? Because he became a kosher person. It doesn't say the Goel comes to save everyone.

30:00To save all of Am Yisrael didn't say that. It says to bring the ones, to save the ones that used to be posh'im, used to be sinners. Before they were kosher, now they're kosher. I came to save them. So the reality of it is, there's not that many people that could confidently look in the mirror and say, "You know what? I'm a hundred percent sure I'm a kosher person." And Including myself, probably more than anybody else. Why? Simply because the more you know, the more you realize how much you have to work to become this kosher person. It's not just about money, it's not just about intimacy, it's not just about tefillin, it's not just about keeping Shabbat. There's a lot more that goes into it. I The Rambam continues in Hilchot Teshuva and he says all of the prophets, all of the Nevi'im. He says all the prophets in history, all the prophets we have written in the 24 books in the Tanach.

31:05All of them commanded us to do teshuva. All of them. Back 3,000 years ago, 2,000 years ago, 1,500 years ago. Every single prophet, their number one job was to come to Am Yisrael, remind them they're sinners, remind them they have a spiritual sickness, where they're letting the yetzer hara overcome them. The yetzer hara came and became the ba'al habayit. The prophet, whether it was Jeremiah, Zechariah, Ezekiel, or whoever it was, came and said, "Listen, by the way, the yetzer hara took over. The yetzer hara took over." Am Yisrael wasn't always excited to hear it. So when you hear about the details of what they did to some of these prophets, it's not so pretty. For example, with Zechariah, they didn't really like to hear what he said, so they cut him up into pieces and... So when the second-in-command to Nebuchadnezzar came to Yerushalayim, he saw that there was blood in a certain area of Yerushalayim. And he asked the Jews, "What is this blood? It's boiling like hot water. But it's blood. What is this blood? What is this? Witchcraft? What is this? What is this?"

32:25No, it's nothing. It's just when we do Korbanot. We have a sheep. We do a Korban. It's like this all the time. He said, "Oh yeah, I want to see. I want to see you do it." "I've slaughtered sheep before; their blood didn't boil like this, so I want to see. Maybe you have a special sheep. I want to see." What are they going to do? So they slaughter the sheep, and nothing—regular blood. He says, "No, slaughter another sheep. Maybe the first one didn't work." They slaughter another sheep, and nothing happens. says, "If you don't tell me what this blood is, I'm going to kill everyone." He said, "Really? This used to be our prophet. He came to us and he told us we're sinning." He came to us and he told us we have to do teshuva. He came to us and told us we have to be kosher people. We have to keep Shabbat. We have to stop going with goyim. We have to stop stealing. We have to stop sinning. We have to stop going to nightclubs. We have to stop acting like goyim. We have to stop acting like Mustafa and Chris. We have to start acting like Jews, like Am Yisrael. We didn't like it, so we killed him. So the blood and the blood are other...

33:39Okay, I'm gonna make his revenge, and he started killing everyone. He took all of the rabbanim and killed them first. All of the time he did, I started killing everyone. It got to a point where there were only kids left, and the blood is still boiling. He screams to Shamayim, "He says prophet, prophet. I almost killed everyone." Your blood still boils if you don't stop boiling. I'm gonna kill everyone. The blood stopped. The Prophet came to warn them, but they didn't want to listen. The Beis HaMikdash was destroyed. I love Rav Yisroel Salanter, Zichrono Livracha, who lived almost 200 years ago. He said that thank goodness we have as many doctors as we have sicknesses. Someone has a sickness, whether they have asthma or they have polio. They had all these sicknesses almost 200 years ago. Whatever physical sicknesses we had, we have just as many doctors. Except one sickness: spiritual sickness. Spiritual sicknesses, we have many, many more new spiritual sicknesses every day. But we have no doctors.

35:00One day we have homosexuality as a sickness, another day it's going with goyim as a sickness, another day it's turning the dollar into a god sickness, another day it's being something else. All these sicknesses we have every day. He says we have no doctors. Why? Because there's only one medicine and no one wants to use it. It's called yirat shamayim. You have yirat shamayim, you have a chance to be a kosher person. No yirat shamayim, the sickness will continue getting worse. This is 200 years ago. If I told them today, they would probably think that there's no cure. Because today, we've reached such an extent that many people walk around in the street with clothes that our grandparents used to call underwear, but they wear it as clothes. You ask your grandparents, your parents, your grandparents, Abba, Ima, what did you wear? Was it like this girl over here that came from high school? No, yeah, we wore the same thing, but it was just under our clothes. It was called underwear in our days. Where's the rest of our clothes, son? No, that's all our clothes. She goes, oh, what, they don't have any money to buy the rest of the clothes? Grandparents don't understand why kids don't wear clothes. Doesn't make any sense.

36:20But this is the sickness we have because the Yetzer Hara convinced us that this is okay. He convinced us that you're beautiful if you show your body. The more you show, the more you're beautiful. Hashem says the opposite. Hashem says Sarah Imeinu was the most beautiful woman that ever lived. But even her husband, Avraham Avinu, barely knew how beautiful she really was. She was so beautiful that we look more like monkeys than we do Sarah Imeinu, according to Chazal. You look at a monkey and say, yeah, the best-looking guy and the best-looking woman on earth, you combine them together with all the makeup, with all the manicure and pedicure, and everything you want to put, even if you airbrush it. After all that, they look more like the monkey than they do like Sarah Imeinu. But even Avraham Avinu barely knew how beautiful she was. Why? Because she covered herself. So when you see a young girl or an old woman, which unfortunately today it's both, walking around with underwear, and you say, "Oh wow, she looks good." What are you saying is looking good? Underwear used to sell for $10 a few years ago. Now they sell for $150. There's less material, yet they sell for more money.

37:43It should be less money. At least make sense. It's less material. It's less work. But this is the Yetzer Hara convincing us that this is okay. And we keep playing along. Okay, fine, fine. We'll do teshuva next week. We'll do teshuva next week. We'll do teshuva next week. Eventually, we run out of time. So the Mishnah we learned recently about this also now Rabbi Akiva says I Everything that's given to a person from Hashem Yitbarach is based on collateral, meaning everything you have—your money, your house, your wife, your kids, whatever you have—is collateral. Really, Hashem lent it to you. It's not really yours. Hashem says to the Prophet, "Li ha-kesef v'li ha-zahav" (Mine is the money, Mine is the gold), nothing is yours. You have nothing. Your bank account, My bank account.

38:46Your stock account, My stock account. Your house, it's My house. Your body, it's My body. That's why you're not allowed to kill yourself. So when you have people like this poor singer, I think he was Jewish. He has a Jewish name. He had multiple best-selling albums, two wives, six kids. Seems like he had more money than he could count. a prospering career when he decided to hang himself last week. It wasn't a good decision because the next world that he goes to is much worse than the one he was in. This is a reality. As much as this hurts to hear, this is a reality. We need to know the reality. You need to know what you're working with here before you get a customer. Someone calls and says, "I want to buy something now." Before you invite them to your office, you can ask: Are you going to try to find out what kind of customer this is? Is this guy a wholesaler? Is this guy a retailer? Is this guy trying to buy retail? Is he trying to buy wholesale? Is this guy trying to sneak up on me and give me fake money, or is this guy a legitimate person? You're going to try to do some investigation. Why? Because you're a smart person. You run your life like a business. The good news is Hashem also runs the world like a business.

40:04This is what this Mishnah is about. Rabbi Akiva says, Hashem runs the world like a business. Everything you have is a loan, and you have to pay it back. The next thing he says, there's going to be a net around everyone that has this loan. What's this net? That's the Yetzer Hara. The net is the trap. The Yetzer Hara is going to go to you. He's going to knock on your door. He says, hi, how are you? Can I put one nail on the wall? One nail. He said, no, no, I'm sorry. I don't want your nail on my wall. Listen, I'll pay you $1,000. He tells the rich guy, I'll pay you $1,000 to put one nail on your wall. $1,000. The rich guy likes money. So what does he say? Okay, fine. What do I care? This guy, put a nail on the wall. Pick whatever spot you want. So he puts the nail on the wall. Next day, 12 a.m., The guy comes back. Yes, sir. Well, you want another nail? I have many, many walls. He goes, no, no, no. I just want to put my hat on the nail. My nail, I bought it for $1,000. I want to put my hat on the nail. He goes, well, you couldn't come at 7 o'clock at the normal time? He goes, no, I just, I used my hat all day. I finished with it. Now I want to put the hat on the nail. It's my nail. Okay, the guy's thinking, okay, I got $1,000 for nothing yesterday. Fine, no, no, put the hat on the nail.

41:33The next day, 2 a.m. Yes, you're waking me up. What can I do for you? I want to put my jacket on the nail. You have a nail? My nail. I paid $1,000. I have a contract. See, I have a contract. It says I paid $1,000 for the nail. I want to put my jacket on the nail. You couldn't come at 7 o'clock when I finish my jacket now? I need to put the jacket on the nail. It's hot. Okay, no, put the jacket on the nail. Next day, 3 a.m. It gets worse and worse every day. What do you want today? What? It's 3 o'clock in the morning. Hashem, what do you want? I have to wake up in a few hours to go pray Netz. He goes, no, I need my hat. I need my hat. It's on the nail. You want the jacket too? No, just the hat. I'll come back for the jacket later. Every day, he took and took. Every day, he wants the hat. He puts the hat, he puts the jacket, he puts the hat, he puts that. After two weeks, the guy says, "Listen, no more. That's it, enough. Here's the thousand dollars. No more nail." He replies, "No, no, no, no refunds. We have a contract. You don't want to honor this contract? I take you to Beit Din."

42:44Just take me to Beit Din. They go to Beit Din. The judge says, "You have a contract. It's his nail. You signed it. You got paid. There's no refund. You just have to sell it back to him. You have to honor the contract." So the rich guy is not so happy about himself anymore. He's not so happy about this thousand dollars. This ten million dollar house is being ruined. Why? Because there's this guy bothering him every day, one, two, three, four o'clock in the morning, and he has to comply. A month, two months, three months, four months, five months into it, the guy says, you know what? Take the whole $10 million house, I'm leaving. What is this like? This is the Satan. This is the Yetzer Hara, this is the Malach HaMavet. Gemara says all three are the same thing. Satan comes to you and he says, listen, you're such a tzaddik. You go pray 6 o'clock in the morning, you keep Shabbat, you go do this, you go do that. It's a big mitzvah for me. I'm a homeless guy. Oh, I don't have like you. I'm not so big like you. I just need one sin. Make one sin, one sin, not a big sin. Just do something dishonest at work today. You know the guy that you need to give money to? Give him change? Don't give him the change. It's okay. It's $20. What's the big deal? $20? Don't give him the change.

43:58Small sin, you say it's $20. What's the big deal? The guy probably is rich. Well, I have to give $20. He's rich. It makes you make a little sin. The next day he says listen, it's only one sin. Look how many mitzvot you do, you pray Netz every morning and... You tzaddik, you keep Shabbat, you keep this, you keep that. No, come on. Go look at that girl. She's so pretty. Yeah, but I'm married. So what? Your wife is not going to know. Go look at the girl. Look how pretty she is. Say even a prayer of how Hashem created beautiful people. He makes it like the sin is a mitzvah now. It's only one small nail. And then it's another nail. And next thing you know, he took over the house. And you live your whole life thinking you are tzaddik. In reality, the Malach HaMavet is running the house. But he started with a small nail. That's the trap. That's the trap. The Malach HaMavet is telling you every day, you're running the house, you're tzaddik, you're everything, you give tzedakah. On Yom Kippur, you told everybody you donated $15,000. Great, you don't have to pay though. You told everybody you're going to donate. Donate on Rosh Hashanah, next Rosh Hashanah. Don't pay now. You don't need to pay now. They're okay. Somebody else is going to pay. A lot of people do this. They donate on Yom Kippur, but they don't pay until Rosh Hashanah of next year.

45:14This is not a good thing. Why? Because you're taking away the mitzvah from somebody else. If you don't have to pay now, don't buy. Make somebody else who has money pay now. You can't delay things unless there's a system in place where you have a payment plan. You can't intentionally wait till next year, because the Beit Knesset needs to survive now, not next year. It needs to survive now. You can't say, no, no, I'm going to pay next year. The money is due now. It's a dishonest practice. Same thing with a lot of mitzvot that we do. We say, no, no, you know what? I don't have to do the mitzvah now. I'll do it next week. I'll do it next year. I'll do it next month. I'll do teshuva next year. Let me just go to the casino now. Let me just go to the brothel now. Let me go cheat now. Let me go steal now. One, it's a little sin. It's a little this. Before you know it, the trap took over. That's what Rabbi Akiva said in the beginning of the Mishnah. He says that's the trap. But you know, the shop is open, and the merchant is going to continue extending credit. says life is so, it's like a business. Hashem is going to give you your shop, and the merchant part of Chazal is saying the merchant is really the Satan. The merchant is going to continue giving you credit. He's going to give you every opportunity to make a sin. He's going to help you. You want to steal, he's going to give you an idea how to steal. You want to cheat on your wife, he's going to send every girl in the world to come to you. All of a sudden, you're the best-looking guy in the world.

46:42The guy has three heads, all of a sudden every girl wants him. Why? Because he's married. The single guy is looking for a shidduch, no one wants to look at him. But the guy that's married, all of a sudden his secretary fell in love with him. Why? Satan. Satan is helping him. Someone that wants to make sins, they give him a hand. What do you mean they give him a hand? You want to look at girls? We're going to bring the girls to your house. We're going to bring them to your office. We're going to bring them to the street. You want to look at girls? No problem. We're going to bring them to you. You don't have to look far. We're going to bring them to your screen. All of a sudden, every pop-up, instead of being advertising for cars, it's advertising for women. Why? Because you want to look, so we're going to help you. Because it's all a trap. He's going to continue giving you credit. But Rabbi Akiva reminds us, You should know that the ledger is open and the hand continues to write. And whoever wishes to borrow, let him come and borrow. He said you should know that everything that you're doing, the hand of Shamayim, Hashem is writing it down. Where does he get the information from, aside from being all-knowing? The reason why the Yetzer Hara is called three names is

48:07Satan, Yetzer Hara, Malach HaMavet, because he has three jobs. First, he's the Yetzer Hara. First, he convinces you that he only wants to buy one nail. He convinces you to make a sin. Look at the girl wearing immodest clothing. So what? Everybody dresses immodestly, so you dress immodestly. What's the big deal of wearing a tank top? It's hot. All of a sudden, everyone's hot. Our ancestors with no air conditioner weren't hot. Today everybody with AC units that are 20,000 BTUs, everybody's hot. They were in a desert with three-piece suits, not hot. Us, we have AC units, we're all hot. So we have to wear tank tops and underwear. So we're all hot. It's only one nail. Everybody's naked. So you be naked too. That's the Yetzer Hara. After we fail, He goes up to Shamayim; this is the Satan. He goes up to Hashem and says, "Look, look, look what Your son is doing. Look what Your daughter is doing. Look, You gave her a whole wardrobe full of nice clothes. What's she wearing? She's wearing underwear. Look what she's wearing. She forgot her clothes in the house. Hashem, look, You see? You see, Hashem? You see what she's doing? You see what she's doing?" He goes and he tells on you. He told you to do it, but he goes and tells on you. "You see, she's married. She has no kisui rosh, Hashem. You saw, Hashem? You saw what she did?"

49:29Like Hashem doesn't know. He comes and he tells on you. Warms them up. Imagine you have a fight with your partner, with somebody, and somebody comes. You see what he did? You see what he did? You see what he did? How annoying is that? Now you went from being mad to you want to kill the guy. After that, he acts as the Malach HaMavet. Hashem says, you know what? You're right. You're right. He did this. He did this. He did this. He ran out of time. Go do the next job, Malach HaMavet. Hashem is with you. same one. And the Chazal says that before a person leaves this world, he sees him. He sees the Malach HaMavet. I know someone that saw him and lived. Rav Alon Anava, he had a near-death experience, and he died and he came back to life. And he gives lectures telling about his experience with Neshama Yeterah. It's a very fascinating story. And I talked to him, Baruch Hashem, we became friendly, and I talked to him privately a few times. And he told me, he goes, listen, honestly, what I tell in my lectures is not even 1% of what really happened. It's not even 1%.

50:48I said, yeah, but it's a three-hour lecture. The story is three hours. He goes, yeah, that three hours is not even 1% of what actually happened. I said, no, tell me more. He goes, there's not enough time in the world to tell it. It's too scary. I said, no, so tell me something. Tell me something. He goes, you know what they say about Malach HaMavet? I said, yeah, I read in the books what it says, scary things, scary stuff. He goes, yeah, it's much scarier. Whatever they say, it's much scarier. Much, much scarier. I said, how do you know? He said, I saw it. Saw it. It's much scarier than the movies. This is the same one that told you this morning, this afternoon, and this evening, he's not even inside. Same one. Same one that's convincing you that he's not even there. It's the scariest thing in the world. Every time you do something in Shamayim, he goes upstairs and says, "Look what he did, look what she did, look what he did, look what she did." The hand continues to write, and eventually, Hashem has to send the collectors. The collectors have to make their rounds every day and collect the payment from the person. This is the scariest part of the Mishnah. He says Hashem has to send collectors to give a person all types of tikkunim.

52:14Sometimes it's small tikkunim, sometimes big tikkunim. The point is there's tikkunim. There are different issues you have to deal with. You have to pay. Now, what's the scary part? The scary part is that Rabbi Akiva says whether he realizes that Hashem is running the world or not, it doesn't make a difference. He still gives him tikkunim. Whether he realizes that Hashem is running the world or not, he still has to pay the bill. Whether he enjoyed the food or not, it doesn't make a difference. He still has to pay full price. There's no refunds. you think about this, this is actually very scary because a person can live their entire life saying they're an atheist, saying they don't believe in anything, or acting like an atheist, saying, "You know what? I'm a tinnok she'nishba. I'm religious in my heart. I love Hashem. I like to go to beit knesset, but I also like to go to the beach on Shabbat." I also like to drive on Shabbat. I also like to go around with different women. I don't want to get married. So this is the Ta'ava Lev. This is a person who says, I'm a nice guy. I give tzedakah. I'm a nice guy by his own definition. He says, whether he realizes the truth or not doesn't make a difference. At the time Mashiach comes, or after 120, or whenever it is, when the day comes, when judgment day comes for that person, whether he realizes or not, he starts to pay the full bill.

53:39Fault-priced, there's no such thing as a discount. Now, in this generation, people say, "Yeah, what if he doesn't know? What if he's a tinok shenishba?" There's this term called "tinok shenishba," which in reality means a lost baby. In the old days, the Christian missionaries and people that hated Am Yisrael used to steal our kids and tell them that they were Christian, not Jews. Sometimes they would do it with a smile. Sometimes they would do it by force regardless. They took our kids so someone can grow up thinking that he's not Jewish. So, he's going to finally learn Torah and find out that he doesn't know he's Jewish. But regarding the mitzvot, he's not obligated in the mitzvot. So a lot of people like to say that today’s generation as a whole, everyone is a tinok shenishba. Everyone doesn’t know anything. Everyone’s like this lost baby. This is the biggest lie in Judaism today. There's a lot of lies. This is the biggest one. The reason why is because if you look at the Gemara, Masechet Avodah Zarah, it gives you the exact definition of what Tinok Shenishba is. It gives you the exact definition. What's a Tinok Shenishba? If someone doesn't know he's Jewish, he's a Tinok Shenishba. No problem. Someone knows he's Jewish, he knows Judaism exists, him and being a Tinok Shenishba have nothing to do with each other. He knows Shabbat exists, he doesn't feel like keeping it.

55:07Yes, to pay the full price. There's no "no, no, but he grew up Reform." He grew up not religious. He went to a secular school. He didn't like it; the rabbi beat him up. It doesn't make a difference. You know you're Jewish. You know you're different. You have to keep the mitzvot. There's no "get out of jail free" card. So, many times, we hear this from people that call themselves rabbis, saying, "No, no, everyone's okay. Everyone's okay." The reason why these fake people say everyone's okay is because it's very good for business. Religion is also a business, unfortunately. So a lot of people like to make money from it. So they tell everybody, "You're okay, you're okay, you're okay." Because when you tell people, "You're okay, you're okay, you're okay," they open their pockets. Like, "Oh, that's the guy that keeps telling me I'm okay. I'm going to give him more money." The other guy keeps telling me I have to do teshuva. He keeps telling me I'm sick. He keeps telling me I have something wrong. I don't want to give him any money. He's telling me I have to change. I'm going to give money to the guy that tells me I'm okay. I'm perfect. I'm a tzaddik. He just murdered five people. Yeah, but he said I'm a tzaddik. I'm going to give him $1,000. Yeah, but you have a plan to murder another 10. He goes, yeah, I'm going to give him $10,000 because that's the payment. He's going to tell me I'm a tzaddik for everything I do, good or bad.

56:20So the Gemara in Shabbat, page 54, says that person, that so-called rabbi, goes to a big gehenom (hell) together with the rasha (wicked person). Both of them go. They have suites next to each other. But there's no such thing as being okay because the rabbi lied to him. Because one of the most important mitzvot, if not the most important mitzvah in Judaism, is that we're not really allowed to weigh mitzvot. But the one that Hashem says, "Leave me, but not this mitzvah. Go be an atheist, but don't leave this mitzvah." What mitzvah is that? Learning Torah. He says, "Go, leave me. Say, 'I don't exist, Hashem.' But don't stop learning My Torah." You think, "No, don't learn Torah, but believe in Hashem." Hashem says, "No." Don't believe in Me. Just continue learning Torah. Why? Because if you believe in Me without Torah, eventually you're going to stop believing. Eventually, you're going to turn Me into a human being, like the Christians did. Eventually, you're going to turn Me into something that's not Me. But if you learn My Torah, you're always going to come back to Me. You're going to come back home. If you believe in God, the God of Israel, the way you measure it is very simple. If your god that's in your mind, in your heart, has limitations, it's not God.

57:40...an idol, the same thing like Jesus, the same thing like Buddha, the same thing like all the different statues you buy in Chinatown for $25. The same thing. If your god has no money and you have to work on Shabbat because of it, it's a false god. It's not a real god. If your god can't fix something, it's not the real God, it's something else. Because the God of Israel can do anything. Anything. There's no limitations. Whatever you think is a limitation, that's not God; it's your limitation. So that's how you know whether you believe in the right God or not. If you think you have to work overtime because you need to help God give you money, you don't believe in God; you believe in something else. You're worse than the atheist; at least the atheist says he doesn't believe in anything. You believe in an idol. This is mamash, this is the din, and this is what we have to bear in mind. I say, "Did you believe in me?" and you say, "Yeah, of course I believe in you." So, why did you work on Shabbat? No, I didn't work. My office was closed. Yeah, but you talked business in a business. You talked about the real estate you want to buy. You talked about the stock you just sold. That's business. Most business today is talking; it's not doing. Most business is talking; it's not doing stuff, especially in America. If anybody has missed the last couple of decades, America became the number one producer of nothing and...

59:08We produce nothing in America. We produce convenience by paying other people to do the hard labor. There's barely any factories. There's barely any manufacturing. All of that is done somewhere else: China, Indonesia, India—different places. There are some factories in America, but if you compare it to what it used to be versus now, it's like a different country. What do we produce? Salespeople and... America produces people that can talk: movie stars, singers, salespeople. We sell all kinds of stuff that other people actually built. So, in reality, the fact that America is the number one largest economy in the world purely by words means that our job is words. This means that when you talk in Beit Knesset, you are working. You're part of the American system, and you're working on Shabbat. Better not go to the Beit Knesset. Better stay home. Don't talk to anybody. Talk to the wall. If you have to talk about business, don't go anywhere. Stay inside the bathroom. Why? Because talking on Shabbat is Chilul Shabbat. It's Chayav Mitah. It's the worst punishment in the Torah.

1:00:24Punishment you considered much a hundred percent idol worshiper. Talking on Shabbat about business and people say, "No, no, I just bought the building. It's no big deal. It's a nice building. What are you going to do for it on Tuesday? Tuesday, we're going to change this, we're going to change that." That's business. It's business. The only thing you're allowed to talk about that's related to money on Shabbat is mitzvah. We're going to build a yeshiva. We're going to invest more money into a kollel, and we're going to do zikui harabim, something like that. You're allowed to say that. That's a mitzvah, but your business is not a mitzvah. There's nothing in mitzvah about your business. You're making parnassah. Talking about it on Shabbat, it's 100% like you drove. Drove a car, talking on Shabbat business, same thing. This is something small that many of us are failing at. I see it in every Beit Knesset. Every Beit Knesset I go to on Shabbat, there's at least one or two people talking business. At least one or two people talking business. Why'd you come to Beit Knesset? Just stay home or go to the office at least. Because now you're disturbing everybody else. Everyone else is forced to think about business because you're talking about business. So what happens? Some people come to Beit Knesset just to talk business. No, why are you going to Beit Knesset? You don't even keep Shabbat. Yeah, but Joseph comes to the Beit Knesset. I have to do a deal with him.

1:01:45This actually happened a few years ago. This guy, who was a reform Jew, completely keeping absolutely nothing, decided to go to the Beit Knesset. Why? Because there was a billionaire that went to this specific Beit Knesset. And he ended up finding a way to sit right next to him. Lo and behold, he ended up doing a deal with him. The guy ended up buying a huge brokerage firm. They call it Lehman Brothers. The deal was done in the Beit Knesset and... This is not kosher business. So these are things that are very simple. It's very simple to stop. You come to Beit Knesset, pray. You have nothing to talk about, open sefer Tehillim, start being davener. Open Mishnah Berurah, ask Rav about some halacha, do something that has to do with Shabbat. Because whether he realizes it or not... Whether he realizes it or not, he still has to pay the bill, Rabbi Akiva says. It doesn't matter if he knows or he doesn't know. It doesn't make a difference. Why doesn't it matter? He says because one of the mitzvot is to learn Torah. Which means that if you made a sin because you don't know,

1:03:11If you don't know because you just didn't get to it, you're learning Torah, but you didn't learn everything yet. You just did teshuva last year. You just did teshuva five years ago. You don't know Torah like someone learning his whole life. You didn't get to it, but you're trying. That's okay. That's l'chavana, shogeg. But if you're not learning Torah, And you made a sin. In Shamayim, they turn the one that's accidental into on purpose. Now it becomes a purposeful sin. Now, yeah, but I didn't mean to... He goes, yeah, but you... He goes, no, but I didn't know. It's your fault you didn't know. Why? You didn't learn. Why didn't you learn? Because you wanted to watch the game. Why didn't you learn? Because you wanted to play sports. Why didn't you learn? Because you wanted to sleep eight hours a day. The different reasons you didn’t want to learn, you made excuses. You have to pay the bill whether you know or you don’t know. This is the scary part, meaning just like Moshe Rabbeinu told us in this parashah. There's no favoritism. There's no get-out-of-jail-free card. There's nothing. This is very different from the song. Do you remember the song from the beginning of the shiur? It's very different from the song. We’ll finalize with these two...

1:04:25These collectors have proof to rely on, meaning they have something that they can depend on. What do they have to depend on? They have to depend on this deal that you signed. You signed the deal. In the Gemara, Masechet Niddah, page 16b. It says that every time a seed leaves a male and goes into the female, there's a mal'ach named Laila that takes the seed and goes to Hashem. "Hashem, what should be with the seed? Is it going to be a tall person, a short person, a smart person, a stupid person, a rich person, a poor person? What's going to be with the seed?" And Hashem says all of these things are going to be except one thing. He says he has only one thing to choose. Everything else, I'm gonna choose. I'm gonna choose if he's tall. I'm gonna choose if he's short. I'm gonna choose if he's rich, which means it doesn't matter how much you're working. I'm gonna choose if he's poor, which means it doesn't matter what profession you have. You could be a millionaire garbage pail person, you could be a poor stockbroker, it doesn't make a difference. There are poor people and rich people in every profession. All of it is decided in Shamayim.

1:05:47So Laila is told all of this information, and then it goes into production. This becomes a person. Now, during this time, you have a meeting. You have a meeting with this angel. And this angel is also the one we talked about a few times today. The angel is the Yetzer Hara. And he comes to meet you. He says, listen, I like tzaddikim. Tzaddikim, I love them. It actually says in the Gemara, he loves tzaddikim. Yetzer Hara loves tzaddikim. Because I work for Hashem. My whole job is to help people become tzaddikim. How? By trying to help them become better. By giving them tests. How do you become a better soldier? By overcoming big obstacles. they removed all the obstacles in the field. They told them, listen, no, no, it's too hard for them to climb the wall. It's too hard for them to jump. It's too hard for them. Let them sleep. What happens? The war starts, and everybody dies. Why? Because everybody is lazy. Everybody's sleeping. No one is trained. No one is strong. So, in order to become strong, we all understand we need training. Yetzer Hara comes to give us training. So when you go and you beat the system and...

1:07:06You pass all the training. You do everything you need to do, you become a tzaddik. Satan says, "I like him." That's why he gave Moshe Rabbeinu a bracha. He's a kodesh kodashim. So he comes to the neshamah and says, "Listen, you're going to go into the world in a little while, you're going to become a baby. And the baby's going to become a man or a woman. Remember one thing, I like tzaddikim. But rashaim, I don't like them." Reshaim, I have to punish them. I have the job of punishing them. So remember, if you're a tzaddik, I like you. And if you're a rasha, you have a problem with me. Why? Because you went against my God. So this neshama gets this information, and now you have an opportunity to come to the world and become a tzaddik and... live a whole life. You live 70, 80, 90, 120 years, whatever you end up living. You go up to Shamayim, or the Mashiach comes a little early, and you're still not really sure what you want to do. They give you a meeting with the Malach HaMavet. First, he hits you on the head. He says, "What's your name?" Now, if you did the segulah you're supposed to do in Tefillat Amidah, which is a verse in a pasuk in the Torah with the...

1:08:29starts with the first letter of your name and ends with the last letter of your name. You'll remember your name. If you don't have this pasuk you don't say during Amidah, you're not gonna know. She's gonna keep hitting you. And then he says to you, "No, you weren't a tzaddik. You have a problem." He said, "Why do I have a problem?" Because it says in the Gemara of Masechet Shabbat: Anyone that doesn't keep their word, anyone who doesn't keep their word, Hashem has to punish them. Didn't you keep your word? You made a deal before you came to the world. When the Malach Laila was holding you and asked Hashem, "What is he going to be?" you made a deal. "I'm going to keep mitzvot. I'm going to do teshuva. I'm going to be better. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that." You come to Shamayim and they ask, "What did you do? Nothing. You went to the strip club, you went to the casino, you cheated, you lied, you cheated on your wife. You did this, you did that. You were a rasha. What did you do?" And you say, "I gave tzedakah." Okay, it's like Hashem gave you seventy years. What else did you do? I learned Torah once a year. Okay, once He gave you a building. What else did you do? I was nice to my kids. So is a lion. You don't get, it's not a mitzvah to be nice to your kids. I sent him to school. So did the goyim. You don't get extra schar for sending him to school. You send him to yeshiva, then you get something. But you come to Shamayim, you say you made a deal, you made a promise.

1:09:56And you didn't deliver on the promise. You have a problem now. So now, Rabbi Akiva is telling us in this Mishnah that they have something to rely on because you made a promise. And everything is prepared for the final festive banquet, meaning your whole life has to reach a culmination point. culmination point. Your whole life has to reach a point where it's the climax. Now, Baruch Hashem, we are in a generation of Mashiach, and the generation of Mashiach has the privilege of being persons that could actually see the Mashiach and live. We said in the beginning of the shiur, not everyone's going to be happy when the Mashiach comes, and So if we start doing serious teshuva, we take these things seriously. This is not my opinion. This is Torah. That's why I brought the books. Anyone who doesn't believe it can read the books. You see these things. You see what they said. You take it seriously. You start doing teshuva. You start learning mitzvot. You start doing what you have to do. You start taking things to heart. B'ezrat Hashem, Mashiach shows up, you have nothing to worry about. Whether you live in America or you live on top of the Kotel HaMa'aravi, you have nothing to worry about.

1:11:14If you didn't do teshuva, a lot of people think, "Oh no, the biggest mitzvah is to live in Israel." No, it's not. If you're going to be a tzaddik in America, live in America. If you're going to be a tzaddik in Israel, be in Israel. But if you're living on top of the Kotel HaMa'aravi but you're throwing rocks like the Arabs, that's not going to help you in life. So just living in Israel by default doesn't change anything. What changes something is teshuva. You start doing teshuva. You stop playing games. You start taking Hashem seriously. There's nothing to be ashamed of; you have a lot of good things to have. Now, one thing that helps, and I can tell you it helped me personally, is getting special siyata d'shamaya, getting special assistance from Hashem to beat the Yetzer Hara. The Yetzer Hara is strong, and our desires for all types of things are very, very strong. It's very hard to beat him. Everyone knows it's hard to beat him. But there's a few things that you can do, aside from obviously learning Torah, that could help you beat the Yetzer Hara. Chazal say, who has special treatment to never ever go to this awful, horrible place called Gehenom? They say, someone that helps his students do teshuva. Someone that helps people do teshuva.

1:12:36We do everything we can to make sure that he doesn't go to Gehenom. Why? Because it's not good for the students to see the teacher, the students in Gan Eden, but the teacher in Gehenom. Students are going to be upset. So the beautiful part about doing zikui harabim is that you don't have to be a speaker. You can do it for free. In the book of Yirmiyahu, he says something special. So Hashem said to the Prophet, "If you do teshuva, I'll bring you back, and you'll stand right next to me." Meaning, once you take me seriously and start keeping Shabbat like halacha, not like you feel like it. Not like you don't do anything, but you sleep all day and maybe watch a little TV. No, you keep Shabbat like you're supposed to. You keep Taharat HaMishpacha like you're supposed to. You keep modesty like you're supposed to. Whether it's Kisui Rosh or the skirt or the shirt or all this stuff. 100%. There's no 50%. There's no 50% religious.

1:13:46It's either you're religious or you're not. It's either you have yirat shamayim or you don't have yirat shamayim. All these 50-50 people, they have a serious problem. Why? Because they're doing everything for nothing. Mashiach is going to show up and say, "Oh yeah, I kept Shabbat." Great, you kept Shabbat, but you're a thief. You got reward for Shabbat, but you're getting punished for being a thief. "Yeah, yeah, no, but I wasn't a thief." Yeah, but you violated Shabbat. You ate non-kosher. Someone who doesn't have yirat shamayim. You have a serious problem. You're doing everything for nothing. You're still going to get, you're still going to have to pay a big bill. There's no 50% religious. It's either 100 percent or nothing. And I don't mean you have to become Moshe Rabbeinu, but you have to try. You have to be the best version of you. If you're Yaakov, you have to be the best version of Yaakov. Rabbi Zusha was asked, one of the Gedolei Yisrael in past generations... Students ask him, "For the love you went to galut, you took a lot of kapara upon yourself for the entire nation. Not everybody can do that. What's your dream? What's your dream in life?" And Rabbi Zusha says to them, "My dream in life is to be Zusha. Not a different Zusha, just to be Zusha."

1:15:05I tell him, please, Kvod HaRav, lamdeni, teach us. What does that mean, be Zusha? He says, when I go up to Shamayim, they're not going to ask me, why weren't you Moshe Rabbeinu? They're not going to ask me, why weren't you Rabbi Akiva? They're not going to ask me, why weren't you Rabbi so-and-so? They're going to ask me, why weren't you Zusha? We gave Zusha the skills to be Tzadik Yesod Olam. We gave Zusha the skills to be a talmid chacham. We gave Zusha the opportunity to be a big baal chesed. Why didn't you do that at least? I gave you money, why do you give ten dollars tzedakah? We think I gave you the million dollars, you give ten dollars tzedakah? A 15-year-old paperboy gives ten dollars tzedakah. You're giving the same thing as a 15-year-old paperboy? Busha! Somebody gets $100,000 a month, and they give somebody, oh, I gave him $50. They feel like a tzaddik. What tzaddik? You have $100,000 a month, and you give $50? The paperboy gave $50. He makes $200. Why? Because his heart doesn't have yetzer hara like you. He's pure. It's easy for him to give. You have to go back to being that.

1:16:09So in Shamayim, they say, listen, I gave you money, you didn't give money. I gave you a brain, you used the brain for everything else except Torah. I gave you arms and legs, instead of running to Beit Knesset, you ran to places you're not allowed to go to. I gave you a mouth, instead of saying tefillot, you cursed all day. Everything I gave you, you did the opposite. And you're surprised that Hashem is punishing you? You're surprised He's upset? You're surprised He's calling you kafuy tovah? using his tools, his money, against him. So Rabbi Zusha says, at least I want to be Zusha. At least whatever he gave me, I want to use that. That should be our mentality. Whatever Hashem gave you, use it to the fullest potential. And the best part about it is that whatever He gave you is just enough to be a tzaddik. Everyone here, big or small, young or old, male or female, can be a tzaddik. Because if you didn't have the ability to be a tzaddik, you wouldn't come to the world. Or if you would come to the world, you would come to the world like someone that's considered a "shoteh," considered that he's completely patur, or dismissed from all mitzvot, because he's either autistic or something like that. But if you're a normal human being, you have the opportunity to be your own version of Moshe Rabbeinu, which means that anything less is not acceptable.

1:17:32How do you do it? You start with Yirat Shamayim. You start with saying, okay, Hashem, I know You gave me everything. I've got to start using it. So how do you get this Yirat Shamayim? How do you get this connection? How do you start doing, how do you get this extra boost? The Prophet says you do teshuva, you're going to stand before Hashem. He's going to say, oh, that's my tzaddik. That's my little Moshe Rabbeinu, but his real name is Tzvika. His real name is Aaron. His real name is whatever name. I'm going to accept you, but you want extra boost? Tavia, come, is all in. Help somebody else come back to Me. There's another son I have. He's lost. He's in Bay Ridge. He's in Hong Kong. He's in the Bronx. He's in Manhattan. He's in the Village. He's in San Francisco. Help him. Yeah, but I don't know him. You don't need to know him. You're already online. Send them an email, put it on Facebook. You're already on anyway, instead of looking at some cops saving ducks in the middle of the road and... Take a link of shiur Torah, copy and paste it on your page. But it's not the same—the guy from Hong Kong, he's gonna watch it. Dude, it's free. It's not money. It's free, meaning that there's a bigger kitrug if we don't do it. If it was money and everyone that could do kiruv, anyone that could do zikui harabim, had to be rich, then you're patur because not everybody's rich. If you don't have money, you can't do it. What are you gonna do? But that's the thing—the kitrug on our generation is that you could do it for free and...

1:18:56Even if you have money, obviously even more so, but the point is that if you don't do it, it's a kitrug. Why? Because it says, "Why don't you care about my son? You know he's your brother, right? You know it's your sister, right? Why don't you care about them? What kind of brother are you? What kind of sister are you? How come you didn't care? Why are you so selfish?" It's a kitrug. This is what Tisha B'Av is all about. Tisha B'Av is coming up in less than a week, and we're all supposed to cry and... Now we're all crying. We think we're all crying because of this Beit HaMikdash that was destroyed, the house of Hashem on earth. In reality, we're not crying about the Beit HaMikdash that was destroyed 2,000 years ago. That's not what we're crying about. We're crying that if Hashem put the Beit HaMikdash here today, He would destroy it again. That's what we're crying about. The reason why He destroyed the Beit HaMikdash 2,000 years ago is because He said, "My nation hates each other; they hate each other for no reason." It's called sinat chinam. It's hating for no reason. Why do you hate him? "I hate him." Why? "No reason." What about her? "I hate her." Why? "No reason." Do you know her? "No, but I hate her." Why? "She’s just Kenazi. She’s Yemenite. She’s Sephardi. She’s this, she’s that."

1:20:19That's one reason. What's the other reason? He says even when they're friends, even when they're brothers, even when they're parents and sons and children, they still hate each other. He says, no, my mom loves me. What are you talking about? No, she hates you. She hates you. My father loves me. No, he hates you. What do you mean he hates you? He hates you. Why does he hate you? Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz says the number one type of sinat chinam that we're not even close to fixing, and this was even in his time, is when one Jew sees another Jew making a sin and he doesn't say anything. One Jew sees his brother, his son, his father, his sister, whoever it is, driving on Shabbat, but no, he doesn't say anything. He'll figure it out on his own. He ignores that guy. That's sinat chinam. He hates him. No, it's his brother. He hates him. It's his mother. He hates her. It's his father. He hates them. Why? Because he knows they're drinking poison, and he doesn't say anything.

1:21:22There's no one that's more vicious than that. He knows the guy is drinking poison. He says, no, he'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. He's going to die by the time he figures it out. You see him driving on Shabbat, you don't say anything? You see the guy doing dishonest business, you don't say anything? You see the guy throwing away his life, you don't say anything? You're worse than Paro. That's sinat chinam. That's what we're crying about. We're crying that today, We don't have any doctors because no one wants to be a doctor. No one wants to tell anybody anything. Why? It's his business. I don't want to interfere in his life. I don't want to interfere. I don't want to tell him what to do. I don't want this, and I don't want that. No one wants to do anything. So what happens? We get more problems. What happens? The Arabs come, and they attack us. And they murder us. And Hashem has to send the messengers. Hashem has to send the messengers. Why? It's time to pay the bill. So, there's two ways to bring Mashiach: the good way or the bad way. We ran out of time to do it all good. But we can make it less bad. We can make it less bad. How do we make it less bad? By not making it the same situation that it was in Yetziat Mitzrayim. In Yetziat Mitzrayim, we left Egypt, we're all crying.

1:22:45Everyone left Egypt crying. You think you were slaves for 200 years. You shouldn't cry. You should be happy. The parashah says they were all crying. Crying. Why are you crying? You just left Egypt. You were a slave. Now you're a king. Why are you crying? Chazal say they were crying because all their brothers and sisters were killed. Only 20% of Am Yisrael left Egypt, meaning that 80% Hashem killed. When did He kill them? During the Plague of Darkness. During the Plague of Darkness, He killed 80% of Am Yisrael. Why? They didn't want to do teshuva. They didn't want to do teshuva, so He said, "I don't need them." The 20% who wanted to do teshuva, He took them. The 80% who didn't want to do teshuva, He killed them. He had to kill them during the Plague of Darkness. Why? So the Egyptians wouldn't think that He liked them instead. So He did it when it was dark. He buried them when it was dark. So at least the Egyptians wouldn't think, and it wouldn't become a chilul Hashem. But either way, He had to punish them. Why? They didn't want to do teshuva. But there's a scary Midrash in Me'am Loez. He said it's not 80%, it's 99%. There used to be in Egypt 300 million Jews. 300 million! Only 3 million left. Meaning the Holocaust of 70-plus years ago, where 6 million of our brothers and sisters were murdered in cold blood, was not even close to what happened in Egypt.

1:24:12Right now, if the Mashiach came, we'd be in a similar situation. Hashem, we can make the situation better. I can't do it by myself. Rabbi Mizrachi can't do it by himself. No rabbi in the world can do it by himself. Not even the Gadol Hador. Everyone has to do it. Everyone has to take a CD, give it to their brother. Everyone has to take a link, give it to their brother. Everyone has to do something. Because if you don't do it, you are the reason why the Beit HaMikdash was destroyed today. Not 2,000 years ago, today. Next week, when Tisha B'Av comes, you don't have to cry about what happened 2,000 years ago. We cry about today. There are still people who don't know, and it's because we don't want to tell them. You see somebody being mechalel Shabbat, you see somebody going with someone they are not allowed to go with, you see somebody doing something wrong. You have to tell them something. You have to. If they listen, good. If they don't listen, you try again. Just like a customer. In your business, if a customer wants to buy, great. If he doesn't want to buy, what do you say? I'll lower the price. I'll make it this. You negotiate. So negotiate. What are you negotiating for? You're negotiating to save your brother. You're negotiating to save your son. You're negotiating to make a kosher person. Because we saw how important a kosher person is in Hashem's eyes. Any questions?

1:25:30Even if it gets to a point according to halacha, even if it gets to a point where he wants to beat you up, that's when you stop. If it's an issur de'oraita, there are two types of issurim, there are two types of violations. If it's an issur de'rabbanan, meaning a rabbinical mitzvah, let's say like netilat yadayim, and you know that he's not going to listen. You tell him, "Listen, do netilat yadayim, kavod." No. You know that he's going to say, "Oh, what do you want?" He's going to go crazy? Don't say anything. don't say anything. Why? Because it's a rabbinical mitzvah, and you know he's not gonna listen. Don't say anything. But if you see him driving on Shabbat, even if you know he's gonna curse you out for telling him to keep Shabbat, you have to say it anyway. You have to do something. You could say it, you could have somebody else say it, you could give him a CD, you could bring him to a shiur Torah. You have to do something. It's not one-size-fits-all. Some people can talk about Hashem. Hashem gave me a gift; I can talk. Not everybody can talk. Some people have money. Use money. Some people have, you know, a big network of people. They know a lot of people. Some people know thousands of people. So what do you do? That person, that's their skill. You know a lot of people. Arrange shiurei Torah. Bring a rabbi that tells people the truth, and he'll do the talking for you. But at least do something. Doing nothing is not an option.

1:26:48Have to do something. Whatever tool Hashem gave you, use it. Because that's what He's going to judge you on. He's going to judge you based on the tools you have. He's not going to judge you for what you did with money if you didn't have any money. Somebody's broke. He can't say, "How come you didn't donate a million dollars?" He can't judge you on that. You didn't have a million dollars. If somebody didn't have any friends, how come you didn't tell all your friends? I didn't have any friends. So He's not going to judge you based on something you don't have. He'll judge you based on what you do have. I gave you a skill, why didn't you use it? Why weren't you Zusha? And that's the thing that all of us need to know. What skill did He give you? How did you use it? Both to do teshuva yourself and to help other people do teshuva. Next. What is so rich about the friend that comes from the mother of the wife? If there's Shalom Bayit, then it helps parnassah. If there's no Shalom Bayit, then it destroys parnassah. But the thing is, though, there are other things that also help or hurt parnassah that the man can do. Now, Shalom Bayit is something very significant that can help people get miracles. Now, if somebody wants miracles, there's a Mishnah that says if a man and a woman have Shalom Bayit...

1:28:07If a man and a woman have zachu, they were rewarded and they have shalom bayit, the Shekhinah of Shamayim comes and stands with them. So Chazal say that when the Shekhinah of Hashem came down to Mount Sinai, the angels said, "Hashem, You can't go down because there are people who are ba'alei mum. They have deformities. They're missing arms. They're missing eyes. They're missing legs. The Shekhinah can't go anywhere." has imperfection. So what did Hashem do? He healed everyone. So, the guy who was missing an eye all of a sudden has an eye. The guy who was missing a leg now has a leg. The one who was missing an arm now has an arm. So now, when a couple has the Shekhinah, they get miracles. And I give you a real-life story I just heard today from a student. I have this couple of students, Baruch Hashem, two tzaddikim, and Baruch Hashem, they're pregnant for the first time. They're very serious, they're very committed, and Baruch Hashem, we help them with a lot of different things. We talk about shalom bayit, we talk about parnassah, we talk about a lot of different things, and they're very, very involved with zikui harabim.

1:29:15So they came to me a few days ago and they said, "Listen, you know, now she's pregnant. She's the main one that's providing the living in the house. She makes more money than he does. He focuses more on Torah, Baruch Hashem, and she focuses on the parnassah. But now she's pregnant, eventually going to have the baby, something's going to change and... So what should we do? I said, no, I have to worry about it. You're doing zikui harabim, you're doing kiruv, you have shalom bayit, you have nothing to worry about. Hashem is going to take care of it. Okay, fine, that's great. That sounds great in theory. But what do we do practically? What do we do practically? We have to do something. Do we just stand and do nothing? I said, okay. You're working in this company. Tell the boss that you want to hire somebody to work under you, and you're gonna train this person to do things that you're doing that you don't necessarily need to do. You do the big deals; she does the other things. But you're gonna train this person to be like a version of you. So eventually, when you get to a point where you have the kid, you can start working at home. We train this person.

1:30:16To be in the office with your secretary, she's gonna do all the stuff that you need to be in the office for, and you could do the big things at home. So eventually, when you have the baby, you can work out of the house. Great idea. You have six months to do it, seven months to do it. Sounds good. Three hours ago, three, four hours ago, she sends me a text. She says, "You're never gonna believe it," and Came to the office today, and I was planning to tell my boss your plan to hire somebody. I'm gonna train, I'm gonna teach, and eventually. But before I came to him, he came to me. He said, "Listen. I think you should get yourself an assistant, and you should train her for everything that you're doing." So, it's at the top. Everything I said, the boss did it for her and... Why? Because they invest in zikui harabim, they invest in shalom bayit, they do all the right things. That's what happens. You want miracles, you have to be involved in these things. You need Shechinah, you need Hashem to actually bless you. And it says, Shlomo HaMelech said, someone that Hashem is happy with, even his enemies come and say "I'm sorry" to him. Even if someone wants to know if Hashem is happy with him,

1:31:31You won't have any enemies. Why? Because even his enemies are gonna come and say, "I'm sorry." So that's the thing. When it comes to parnasah, obviously shalom bayit is very important. It's not necessarily mazal of the wife, whether she's lucky or unlucky. It's whether the couple, whether the husband and wife, have kedushah b'neihem. If there's peace between them, that's a place that Hashem wants to attend. If there's no peace between them, There's no Shechinah. So that affects parnasah. There are other things that affect parnasah, but that is the main one. Another couple of questions before I have to go. I have another maybe 10 minutes or so. We didn't finish the whole Torah; it's just a small portion. Baruch Adonai l'olam. Amen v'Amen.