Yetzer Hara Grows With Your Bank Account

0:06Now, how do we know this in actuality? What's the proof that we can see every day? Every day you can see proof, mamash, 100%. I tell people if anyone wants proof of the Satan, just come watch a shiur. Look at how many distractions there are in every shiur. The camera goes upside down, this one calls, that one calls, the camera breaks, this one, everything. Mamash, the whole week everything works except during the shiur. So this is another way you can actually see the Yetzer Hara live. How do you know the Yetzer Hara doesn't want you to learn Torah, and he actually wants you to work? When was the last time you tried learning Torah, but something happened right before you learned Torah? Something happened. You want to learn Torah, but there's a flat tire. You want to learn Torah, but all of a sudden, the kids are crying. You want to learn Torah, and all of a sudden, your spouse is yelling at you. You want to learn Torah, but you can't find your shoes. You want to learn Torah, but you lost a book. You want to learn Torah, and the computer doesn't work. You want to learn Torah, but it's Hurricane Irma. Irma came for what? You want to learn Torah for the first time in 10 years. You want to learn Torah, and Irma came. You want to learn Torah, but when was the last time you prioritized Torah over work?

1:21Oh, honey, I'm gonna work overtime. Does the yetzer hara ever interfere? No. Go work overtime. Go work the rest of the year, honey. Go, go, work, work, work. We need the money. Well, honey, we have ten million dollars in the bank. Yeah, we need it. We need it for school. The yetzer hara never interferes with work. Go work forever. Stay there. Just don't learn Torah. The yetzer hara will never interfere with your job. Never. Because he wants you to stay there. He wants you to occupy yourself with work and with the mundane things of this world. So you stay away from Torah. Why? Because work keeps you away from it. Torah is the poison against him; it's the potion that kills him. That's why Rabbi Chaim says the Satan will never, ever disturb you from business, and he'll prefer for you to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week—not six days, no Shabbat. Seven days a week, work on Shabbat too. Why? Not Torah. As long as it's not Torah, go do it. That's mamash a proof you can see every day. Go try it. Try it at home. Try this. This is mamash a proof. Go. You want to learn Torah? Watch how many interferences you have before you want to achieve Torah.

2:38I'm gonna interfere before you. I want honey. I want to go to shul. She didn't talk to you the whole day. When she talked to you, she said nothing the whole day. I am going to shul now, but I needed you. What do you mean? I've been at home for 12 hours. You didn't say you needed anything; you didn't even say hello yet. Good morning. I was busy, but no, I needed you. Why? I gotta go to shul, I'm sorry. I need you now. For what? You end up sitting there at home waiting for hours. You could have gone to shul and come back home already. But it's not since what happened. went to your wife to go to you or the opposite, or the kids, or the car, or all of a sudden your boss calls you, "Hey, listen, I need you in the office." "When?" "Now." "What do you mean it's eight o'clock at night? I need to go right now." "No, no, no, we need to, we have a closing, we have a deal that you got to come in." "But it's eight o'clock at night, I have a family, I have..." "It doesn't matter, you have to come in." He puts pressure on you, making you feel like you're going to lose your job. You're not going to lose your job. You're not going to lose your job. All you're going to lose is shiur Torah. That's all you're going to lose. But that's Yetzer Hara. Mamash, try this at home. Watch, you open a sefer, all of a sudden you're tired. Before you opened the sefer, you were like a bull. You were able to rip trees with your teeth out of the ground.

3:58Open a sefer Gemara, open Chumash, open anything, all of a sudden, like mamash, there's like a plague on you, you're dying. You're sleeping, you can't move. Pain, tooth pain, ear pain, this pain, that pain. Why? You open Sefer Torah. All of a sudden, you're like narcoleptic. You know, narcolepsy is people have the disease, they talk to you, talk to you, all of a sudden, boop, they fall asleep. All day you are alive like a lion. Fall asleep like a baby. I don't know why they say fall asleep like a baby. These babies don't fall asleep; they don't sleep. My babies go to sleep at 3 o'clock in the morning. I'm competing with them. They don't sleep. I don't know why they say "sleep like a baby." My babies don't sleep, God bless them. I think the guy that made the quote never had any kids. That's what happened. Never had any kids. So Rabbi Meir tells you the basics. You see, all these Mishnayot are very basic, very basic principles of Torah. He says, "Less work, more Torah." Why? The prime reason for your existence is learning and following the Torah. Business, Hashem is going to give it to you one way or another. Never turn your life to such an extent

5:21which, unfortunately, all of us are victims of, where business becomes a priority and Torah becomes secondary. Our goal in life is to make Torah the priority and business something we do in order to learn Torah. That's the goal in life—the goal in life is not to make business a priority; it's to make Torah a priority. Now, this is very hard for people because the Satan is Convinces you with genius arguments. He says, listen, it's very nice. This rabbi is telling you to go learn Torah and have no business, or less business, or all business. But hey, who pays for the CDs that he has? Who pays for the organization, b'ezrat Hashem? Who pays for the rent? Who pays for the car? Who pays for the food? He needs money. I'm not talking about themselves; he needs money. So, can people donate if they don't work? There's no donations. I So if I work, now the Yetzer Hara goes a step further. He says, "See, maybe people are not donating much, so I have to work extra so I can give more donations." Because, honestly, a million times I've heard this: "Once I become rich, I'm going to donate all my money to Kiruv."

6:34Once I have this million dollars, ten million dollars, a hundred million dollars, or whatever zillion dollar dreams that people have, once I have that, I'm going to donate zillions, half of it, I'm going to give to Kiruv. Oh, I bought this lotto ticket, Kvoda Rav. Oh, great, how much is it worth? It's 500 million dollars. Well, good luck to you. No, no, Kvoda Rav, you should pray for this. Why? Half of it's going to you. Amen. Amen. One time, There was a guy, he came to a rabbi. He says, "I want you to pray for me to Hashem so that I win this lotto ticket, $10 million." The rabbi says, "No problem, I'll pray for you." A week passes, nothing, he didn't win. He goes back to the rabbi and asks, "What happened?" The rabbi responds, "Sometimes our prayers are not answered. Sometimes Hashem says no." The man questions, "What kind of God is this? No, pray for me harder." Fine, fine, fine, listen. For the love of... Up until last time, I said I was gonna give myself, gonna give 1 million. This time, I'm giving you half. Rabbi says, "I'm in, no problem. I'll pray because I'm giving you half. For the love. No problem praying, 5 million to me, 5 million to you. We are shutfim, we're partners. No problem praying for you all week. Tomorrow, toss for everything. I learned for you." Another week passes, no money. I...

7:57The guy says, ah, this guy's not serious. He goes to the church over there. He goes, hey, priest, go, you know, put down your idol for a second. Come over here. The priest responds, yeah, I was just washing your statue. It had some syrup on its eyes. We pretended like it was blood. What happened? The guy goes, I want you to pray for me. So I win the lotto. I give half to the church. No problem, pray for you. Next day, jackpot, $10 million. The guy, the next day, he's driving in his brand new car, and he passes by this church, and he passes by this synagogue, and his friend is in the car. And as soon as he passes by the church, he looks at it, and he looks at the, you know, says, you know, like this, and he looks at the synagogue, he starts laughing. His friend says, "Why are you laughing?" He responds, "Ah, the God of Israel is not a sucker. He knew I'm not going to pay." His friend says, "Why are you laughing?" He responds, "Ah, the God of Israel is not a sucker. He knew I wasn't going to pay. The God of Israel, He knew I wasn't going to pay. That's a good one."

9:09So that's the thing. Everybody says, "Listen, once I make this deal, I'm gonna be a millionaire. I'm gonna give money to kiruv, I'm gonna save neshamos, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that." But I have a question for you: What makes you think, what part of the Torah did you learn, that makes you think that your yetzer hara is not going to grow with your bank account? What makes you think... Your desire right now, a hundred percent, you say you're going to give right now. I believe you. But I believe that if you had it, you'd give, but you don't have it. That's why you have no yetzer hara for it. What makes you think the yetzer hara doesn't change with your bank account? What makes you think that once you have the money, you're still going to want to give just like you wanted to give when you didn't have? Everybody says, "I'm going to give when I don't have." One guy, they came to him, they said, "Listen..." We want to make sure that you are worthy of being one of the sergeants of the Caesar. Okay, ask. What do you need? We need to see your loyalty. No problem. What about your donkey? Would you give it to the Caesar? No problem. Give it to him right away. Your cow? You give it to the Caesar? No problem. On the spot. You ask, I give. Okay, good. So far, so good. Your chicken?

10:34You give your chicken, he goes, "No, no, no chicken, no chicken. Not giving you my chicken." This guy is crazy. "Get him out of here. Get him out of here. Give the cow, give the donkey. Not give a chicken." They throw him out. They're like, "This guy doesn't even have a profile. You know, the profile they try to test from 1 to 10. This guy is not even a 1. He's like the donkey, the chicken. What's wrong with you?" They kick him out. One of his friends asks him outside, "What's wrong with you?" Donkey, the cow you give, but chicken you wouldn't give? I mean, if anything, it should be the opposite. No, no, listen, let me tell you something. Donkey, I don't have. Cow, I don't have. Chicken, I have. I'm not giving him my chicken. Something I don't have, I give to them any time. I have a dog; I don't have a donkey. Take it, though. Cow, I don't have. They want to give me a cow? I'll give it back to them, no problem. But my chicken, that's my chicken. I'm not giving my chicken. People want to give away the stuff they don't have all the time. the time they want to give it. I'll give you a million, I get it. No, but that's not the test. Hashem says now is the test. Now, now you're making 500 a week, now it's time to give ma'aser.

11:46That's the test. So Rabbi Meir says, listen, you're trying to overwork because you think that if you make more money, you're going to give more to Torah or you're going to be able to learn more Torah. Who says, who says you're right? The Yetzer Hara changes with your bank account. The Yetzer Hara changes with your bank account. He's going to grow with the bank account. So you think that you're going to make more money, and therefore you're going to have more time to retire. You're going to say, "Listen, I'm going to work 20 or 30 years for my pension. Once I'm on pension, I'm leaving everything behind and only learning Torah from morning to night." But then the yetzer hara shows up at your pension party and you say, "Oh, what are you doing here? You were with me for 30 years." He goes, "No, no, I left you alone for 30 years because you were working. I didn't bother you then. But now, I'm here for this stage, now I'm here for the retirement, to ensure you don't learn one ounce of Torah." And the struggle continues. It's not supposed to be easy. That's the Yetzer Hara. Don't try to fool him. It doesn't work. The only way is to give him a portion of Torah when it's hard for you. When the kids are crying, when the wife is complaining, when the husband doesn't want, all this stuff, that's when you learn Torah. That's when you learn Torah. It's not supposed to be easy. And to think that if you have more money, it's going to change things, it's not going to change anything. It's going to make it harder, more difficult.

13:03So that's the first rule Rabbi Meir says, very simple, very simple, but very difficult at the same time. It's very simple, but very, very difficult. Why? Because the Yetzer Hara, you can't see him unless you look for him.