Why Are We Crying About Missionary Cancellation? (10 minutes)

1:18to connect to it, to connect to many other things that Hashem wants us to learn. And again, as I've mentioned many times in the last few shiurim that we've talked about it, this is not a personal battle against any particular rabbi or kehillah. The reality is, aside from the people that are still fighting for the wrong side, the one who stands to lose the most is me. I live there, it's an uncomfortable situation. I can't go to shul anymore over there; I have to change locations, move, and so on. So if I were really worried about my own personal convenience or my family's convenience, especially with a brand new son, then this is the last thing that would be on my mind. Why would I want to disturb my own life? Now, this whole debacle with the missionary, which, for some strange reason, some people still claim he's not a missionary, even though there are actual videos that we've shown and highlighted on the internet where he says not only is he a missionary, but he also wants everyone to be a missionary because that's what he trains missionaries for. But we're going to ignore reality because let's not let the facts get in the way of everyone's version of the truth, whatever their version is today. The most difficult part today is the fact...

2:36that the missionary is the one who actually canceled the lecture. Now, even though we know, of course, this is the will of Hashem, Hashem Yitbarach saw the Mesirut Nefesh of how the team tried to do everything and anything possible for the honor of Hashem, ensuring that this disaster doesn't happen and that we don't have even one Jew in danger. It's not for my kavod, it's not for anybody else's kavod; just for the sake of Am Yisrael. As much as some people like to think that it's for some alternative motive, I have no idea what that alternative motive is or what it could be. Nonetheless, the whole point was to stop a danger before it happens. Now, why is it a problem that the missionary actually canceled it? The problem is that to find out, how do we find out? We found out from an article that was written where the Rabbi says that not only is he upset to announce that the missionary, Matthew Kelley, is not coming, but he cried. He cried at the news that he's not coming. Now, I don't know, the last time,

4:00Biggest rabbis in the world came to a certain town, whether it's Florida somewhere, or it's in New York or somewhere else, and he was supposed to go to a certain kehilla, and he didn't go. The schedule got mixed up; he got busy, traffic – whatever the reason was. Did you ever see anyone cry because the rav didn't show up? In my personal experience, never. I never even heard of anybody crying because the rabbi didn't come. But a missionary didn't come, and they were crying. So this obviously shows that the ideology is a little off. We're still not sure what's happening here. Now, why am I mentioning this again? Haven't we harped on this issue time and time again? It's against halacha to bring this guy. We've gone over this. What's the chidush? The chiddush is, when you are a rabbi, you are going to, whether you like it or not, affect and impact your kehillah. You're going to affect and impact your followers. Like it or not, you're going to affect them. Right or wrong, they're going to follow you. Many people are going to follow you blindly. It's just a reality. So what ends up happening is that if you see the comments on this article,

5:26The worst possible thing that could happen ended up happening. Forget about the fact that they said that we did the Chillul Hashem. The ones that went against it, we did the Chillul Hashem. Forget about the fact that they, for some reason, are blaming Rabbi Mizrachi for this anyway. I have no idea why they're blaming Rabbi Mizrahi, even though, yes, of course, he made a little section of his lecture talking about it. He didn't start the whole thing, but for whatever reason, they want him to be the korban. They're blaming him for starting the whole thing and controlling it and manipulating everything. No reason whatsoever. Forget about the fact that they're going against a big mezakeh harabim, someone who helps people do teshuva. Forget about the numbers. It doesn't matter whether it's a thousand people who do teshuva or a million people who do teshuva because they're irrelevant. If one person did teshuva because of Rabbi Mizrahi, He's already something special, not just according to me, but according to the Torah. And I know for sure that he's made thousands upon thousands do teshuva. I know them—my family included. But nonetheless, let's say, it's not Rabbi Mizrachi, that's different.

6:40The issue here is the fact that when you have a big rabbi saying that something that's wrong is right, the Kehillah believes it. So if you look at the comments, what do the comments say? One Kehillah member has been bothering me nonstop for the last few days. He hasn't stopped commenting on Facebook to me and on YouTube, and everywhere he could find me, he's sending me comments. how much of a bad person I am and I don't know this, and I don't know that, and I'm constantly insulted. The best part about it is that this guy is a rabbi, and his hat is this big. He's got one of those furry hats, nice, nice, five, six, seven thousand dollars at least. But he's telling me now, I provide him with sources. He doesn't even read the sources. I'm just bad. That's okay. So, you have one. That's not so bad. It's not so bad. Then you have another guy who sends me another email and a message on Facebook, saying it's time to move from Lago. He knows my address, and he starts, you know, sending me a little mini-threat that it's time for me to move away. I say, no big deal. Baruch Hashem, in person, I'm a little bit more intimidating than I am on camera, especially when I have Hashem on my side. No problem. Fine, you want to threaten me? Threaten me. I can't.

8:08What's the worst of it all? This is nothing, all this stuff. Inconvenience to me, who cares? What's the worst of it all? Another guy says, oh, let's send a public apology. Let's send a public apology to Matthew Kelly. As a kehillah, we should send out a public apology for an idol worshipper missionary that steals Jewish souls every day. We're going to send him a public apology. But that wasn't enough. Another member wanted to top him off. He says, you know what? Let's all go and donate to the church. You think I'm kidding? Go look at the comments yourself. Let's go donate to the church. Let's go support avodah zarah. Meaning if Kelly would have actually come a little bit better off already, that's how warped this ideology is. That's how dangerous it is when a leader doesn't take hold and say, "Listen, according to Halacha, I made a mistake. It's not allowed. I didn't know he was a missionary. Oh, I know, it doesn't make a difference—I made a mistake—as long as you're still fighting for your kavod."

9:25Fighting for whatever reason you're fighting and telling people you cried over it, and how were the sinners and this and all this nonsense that's going on. The tefillah is gonna follow it, and what happens with these comments? All the comments that are saying, "Hey look, but this halacha says this, this halacha says this," people that are supporting both of these didn't happen. They erase all of those comments, and the comments that say, "Let's go donate to the church," they don't erase. It's still there, probably gonna be there for at least another half hour before they delete that. Let's go donate to the church. What are we doing here? Are they going to say that's allowed too? Is it allowed to donate to the church? You're going to go, just put a pasul in the middle of the synagogue and that's it. Finish it already. Finish. Change religion. Listen. with all due respect to everyone that knows Torah, everyone that's learned a day of Gemara, not a lifetime of Gemara, a day of Gemara, there's truth and there's falsehood. There's nothing in between. There's no gray. There's yes, there's no. There's Chilul Hashem, there's Kiddush Hashem. that's it. When it comes to Avodah Zarah,

10:49Hashem is very, very stringent—so stringent and so disgusted by it—that He says this in the Book of Yechezkel, He says to the Navi in chapter 20 from verse 32 all the way to verse 39. I'm not going to read the whole part. In the beginning, he tells us about the prophecy of what's going to happen at the end of times. He says, "You want to be like the Goyim and worship idols, but I will roll over you with a strong force in the end, and you'll serve Hashem."