Why You Must Double Check Every Action You Take

1:03No one says, wow, I can't wait, I can't wait to start snorting, wow, it's going to be so amazing. Once I'm 18, yeah, wow, oh, at 12 maybe. No one does that. The first time someone takes a puff of some marijuana or some other poison, he doesn't think he's going to be addicted to crack in a few years. He doesn't think like that. The first time he takes a drink, At 9, 10, 11 years old, this irresponsible father hands him a drink, saying, "Oh, he's just a kid, it's just for fun." What kind of fun? Your child is on a path to becoming an alcoholic in just a few years. What, you don't believe it? He's only nine, you say? Let me tell you, I know someone who became an alcoholic at nine years old. At 55, he's still battling it. And who gave him his first drink? His brother. What's the big deal? No one ever thinks that it's going to get to a point where you're on the wrong side permanently. Not even for an extended period of time. No one thinks like that. And that's also the same thing in business. The rasha, Bernie Madoff, stole billions of dollars and, even more so, the livelihood of many people on Wall Street.

2:25No one ever thought this guy was such a bad person. Why didn't anybody double-check more diligently? And why did everyone just simply pursue him with money? Because he was doing business with the government. He was on the board of directors of the self-regulatory system of the industry. This meant that the regulators were hesitant to regulate him since he was one of them. No one questioned this guy. Why? He is on the right team. So how could he, being on the right team, do wrong more than everybody else? No one questioned it. But after he got caught and made an error so enormous that there's simply no way to do teshuvah for it until he dies. After that, when they got his story, The only thing that he said honestly is that he didn't mean to do it. When he first started out, he started out with good intentions. And I believe him on that. Everything else is a lie because the vast majority of scams start with good intentions. I didn't mean to do it. I just meant to do this one thing.

3:52And it got too far. I lost Oviya, so I figured if I lie a little bit, then I can make up for it and I'll even give them a bonus. And it didn't work out. So the lie got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And before you know it, it's too much to fix. He never thought he would steal $50 billion and destroy hundreds and hundreds of families. He never thought that some of his clients, whom he also called his friends, would commit suicide because of him. He never imagined that his own son would take his life due to his actions. He never thought. Well, it's just business. A few people give me money, and that's it. He never considered how much wrong could result from a small wrong decision that was initially planned to be temporary. Just a couple of weeks ago, a young man in Eretz Yisrael decided to take advantage of a religious woman that I know and stole $3,000 from her. Now, to some of you, it seems like a lot of money, to some of you maybe not. To her, it was a ton of money. In fact, it was all she had.

5:20And he told her that he's going to perform a certain service for her that she needed. He said if she doesn't pay him the money, then he would discard her file and jeopardize everything she had worked for, causing her significant stress. She said that she couldn't pay the entire amount. He replied, "Listen, I'll just take $500 from your card." She agreed and gave him the card number. She then signed an agreement. And what does he do? Takes a lot more than $500. Cleans out our bank account. $3,000 gone. She calls, and suddenly he's not available. She calls again, and suddenly it's, "We'll get back to you." Gone. Emails are unanswered. She feels so horrible... that she not only doesn't have the money that she had, which she needs, but on top of that, someone took advantage of her. That betrayal, that feeling of being violated. Now, many people have stolen from me over the years, so I know how it feels. And I don't know how many things are worse than that. But nonetheless,

6:49This guy, when he took the money, what did he think? Okay, it's a little wrong, but I'm going to do right with it. I'll pay her back at some other point. I'll make up for it by doing good here and I'll do that. He didn't mean to kill anybody. He didn't mean to hurt anybody. He didn't mean to do any of that stuff. He just thought, I need the money, she has it, that's it. What's the problem? He didn't know exactly how much she had in her account. He didn't know how she'd react to it. Well, he is likely not watching this. But in Shamayim, they are. And they're watching him. And right now, he's decreed a murderer. Why? Because of all of the anxiety that he caused this poor woman, she started bleeding and ended up having a late miscarriage. and had to go to the hospital, emergency service, because of a hemorrhage, to the extent where she almost died herself. Baruch Hashem, she didn't. But this guy that wanted to do a little wrong, to hopefully do a little right later on, right now he doesn't realize he's a murderer. And that's sometimes what we don't think about, that our little decisions

8:12And our violation of the right and wrong could be simply too big to fix. And if it is possible to fix it, it'll take a whole lot more.

9:13Thank you for your attention.