YOM KIPPUR INVESTMENTS (18 minutes)

0:10There is an enormous amount of generosity that comes out of people during this time of the year because they believe that it's going to help them do teshuva. They're partially right, partially wrong. The Maharsha says that if a person donates money because he's looking for kavod, not only is it not a mitzvah, it's actually a sin. So if you're going to donate money, don't be one of these fools that donates publicly and makes sure that everybody knows that you did it. It's not only not a mitzvah, it's an aveirah. That's number one. You want to donate? Donate. Donate quietly. You don't necessarily need to donate anonymously, but at least donate quietly. Whether you want to donate to the Beit Knesset, or you want to donate to kiruv, or you want to donate to whoever you want to donate to, whatever good cause you want to donate to, be quiet. Second, before Yom Kippur, there's something called kaparot. There's a custom in Am Yisrael across the board from Ashkenazim and Sephardim. Everyone has this custom to do kaparot. In the old days, they would kill a chicken, slaughter a chicken, and then, you know, after putting it around the person's head and...

1:33and as symbolic, not mamash, but symbolic of the sacrifices that we would make as part of our repentance in the Beit HaMikdash. Now, the Ramban, as well as the Shulchan Aruch of Yosef Karo, as well as the Rabbeinu Asher was actually, yeah, the Rabbanim and Shulchan Aruch specifically did not agree with this custom, and they actually called it superstition. They called it superstition and went against it. Rashi and the Arizal, as well as a few others, did like this custom. They said it's not superstition. It's just symbolic. So throughout the generations, even though there have been both sides to the equation, some people continued to kill the chickens, to slaughter the chickens, as a token of kaparah as a...

2:49sort of like a ransom for their own life, a sacrifice for their own life, where it's supposed to entice a person to do teshuvah by realizing that it's really supposed to be them being slaughtered for their sins and not the chicken. There's a couple of problems with this custom. Number one is that we make sins the size of a cow, but we're only killing a chicken. That's what Rav Yagen used to say. It's unfair for the chicken. But the real reason is that in those days when they actually permitted it, the chickens would be given to the poor people and eaten by the poor people. Today, especially in large communities that do these kapporot, for the most part, they throw most of them out, if not all of them out, because no one wants them. No one wants these chickens; no one wants your chicken that's full of your so-called sins, even though it's only symbolic. People are so superstitious that they don't want the chicken that's full of sins. So you see hundreds and hundreds of chickens going to the garbage. This, according to all opinions, is a wasteful practice, which is not allowed. So because of that and other reasons, we follow what the Mishnah Berurah says, which is that you should replace the chicken with money and

4:14replace the chicken with money—something that's the value of a chicken. So, in the last couple of years, what we did, b'ezrat Hashem, is that some people who know a poor person can give them the money instead. The value of a chicken is anywhere between 15 and 25 dollars, so let's say you even do 18 dollars, 18 and a half dollars and... You can give it directly to a poor person. You know, if you don't know anyone, at least not anyone that's a ben Torah and also poor at the same time, then what you can do is you can donate the money to Be'ezrat Hashem, and we give it to orphans and poor people that are in Israel who are also in the Torah world, not just the local homeless person. it's $18.65. The reason why there's 65 cents is that we're trying to cover the transaction cost, so the entire $18 goes to the people. We're not taking a single penny for business. There's no, it's not a moneymaker for us or anything. It's just a service provider. It's $18 per person.

5:21But if it's a so if you have, let's say, I don't know, ten people in your house, then it's 180 dollars. If you have two people in your house, it's $36, but plus 36.5 cents, so $36.50. But if your wife is pregnant, then you have to give three for her and You have to give three, and the reason why is because of the child. Since you don't know if the child is a boy or a girl, you have to give one for a potential boy and one for a potential girl. So, for a pregnant woman, you have to give three. Again, you don't have to; this is a custom. If you want to do it, you can do it. If you don't want to do it, don't do it. Again, people who are cheap are thinking that this is some type of money-making scheme. So, for those people, please don't give it to us; deal with it yourself. People that understand this mitzvah want to do it. They connect to it. They can do it. Now, the other thing is in regard to donations during this time. You see a lot of people going above and beyond their normal donations. They save up all of their oomph of donations for this time of the year, well, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and one of the main reasons is because people see them and...

6:36In the Beit Knesset, they sell Aliyot or they publicize what people donated; they publicize who's on the diamond list, who's on the gold list. You know what? Every Beit Knesset has their own way of trying to convince people to donate more and more money. Now, the mitzvah of writing a Sefer Torah is the last mitzvah in the Torah. But the Chachamim say that this was during the time when writing an actual Sefer Torah was applicable. a commandment in the Torah for a person to fulfill at a time when people used to actually learn from the scroll itself. Today, since we live in a generation where people learn from books, it's much more important to actually sponsor, invest, and donate for the sake of books and learning Torah and people doing teshuva and I just finished an article that I wrote today, which will be published tomorrow, discussing the religious world and secularism in general. One of the main observations is that, in today's world, most people are spending an enormous amount of resources building more buildings, more centers, more synagogues, more places, more walls, more Torah centers and yeshivot, and so on. They're so busy raising millions of dollars for these places that it just seems like no one seems to realize that the average place doesn't even fill up 10% of capacity for Torah lectures.

8:00Building more buildings, more centers, more synagogues, more places, more walls, more Torah centers, and yeshivot, and so on. They're so busy raising millions of dollars for these places that it just seems like no one seems to realize that the average place doesn't even fill up 10% of capacity for Torah lectures. We're not the only ones that have a low attendance. This is considered a lot for a lecture. You see a lot of places with the exception of major events. For example, if I or somebody else comes from out of town, then you can have more people show up. The regulars have a lecture with five people, seven people, ten people. The Beit Knesset can host 500, but five or ten people show up, twenty people show up. Why? And We have a lot of buildings, but very few Jews. And I don't mean Jews as far as the population; I mean Jews that actually want to be Jews, Jews that are becoming more Jewish, Jews that are actually interested in being Jews, and Jews that are proud to be Jews. That's one of the things that people need to understand. Yes, you could donate another five thousand or fifty thousand or five hundred thousand, and...

9:20So they could buy another extension to the building and have another library nobody uses, and have more books that stay new for 25 years. You can do it. It's your money. But if the reality is it's not going to help you in Heaven. It's not going to help you in Heaven that there's another building that has books in it that no one reads. What will help Jews actually become more Jewish? Jews that are looking to become more Jewish are actually coming to shul and praying, and not just chit-chatting. People are actually doing teshuvah, people are actually doing mitzvot. These are some of the things a person needs to realize. A lot of people, God bless them, they tell me, "Oh, yeah, Rabbi, you helped me do teshuvah. I just donated all my money to some organization and..." This is every single day. Just yesterday, four people told me, "Thank you for helping me donate all my money to the big inyan." And I think to myself, you are saying thank you to me at the same time you're telling me that you don't want anyone else to do the same thing you did. It's mind-boggling to me that unless you remind people to donate, they simply don't do it. So I'm going to give you two things that we're doing because people need to, like, make everything tangible; they need to touch it, they need to feel it. So, first thing first, there's another two CDs coming out.

10:37Two CDs are coming out. Oh, it's been a long time since we've come out with our own CDs. We came out with two CDs, "Wall Street" and "The Western Wall," a couple of years ago. Over the last couple of years, then our previous two CDs. Now, these are the next two CDs in the series. So our first print is 50,000. First print is 50,000. These CDs are given to people for free, even though we sell them on the website. Sonny will tell you he sees the orders, and it's virtually none. So far, we've given away close to half a million CDs for free. Somebody has to pay for them; somebody has to sponsor them. Anyone that wants to sponsor CDs, you could sponsor five dollars or five million dollars—whatever you want. The more you sponsor them, the more people do teshuva; if you don't sponsor them, people don't do teshuva. That's as simple as it gets. The next thing is these Asher Yatzar cards. If you notice... This one is double-sided, not like the last one. Why is it double-sided? Because now we want to say thank you and I love you to our brothers, the Ashkenazim. The first edition, I didn't realize it was my mistake, was only a Sephardic nusach. So we wanted to make an Ashkenazi nusach, but we realized that this has two sides.

11:58So, since we don't know who's who, instead of sending a box of justice to this one and a box of justice to that one, and so on and so forth, every poster will have both. Right now, we're printing 40,000 of them, which are supposed to cost almost six dollars each. We've already given out almost 60,000 for free. Anyone who wants to sponsor them, there's 40,000 on the way. Whatever you want to sponsor, you want to sponsor five, you want to sponsor five thousand, whatever you want. These are the things that make people do teshuvah. Why? They not only see, "Oh, I have to thank Hashem that I could actually go to the bathroom and I didn't just die." But on top of it, it's a little sticker. There's a little stamp on the bottom over here where if they put their camera on it, it downloads our app. Once they download the app, they have to do teshuvah. Why? You can't download the app without listening to it. You can't miss it. What I don't know about and So this is another way to help people do teshuvah. Last but not least, this is the first time I'm talking about these first two. Some of you know about this last one; no one knows about it. We're coming out with our first book. Our first book is going to be in Hebrew.

13:13The first book is predominantly going to be in Hebrew, and the reason why we did it this way is because Baruch Hashem 90% of our lectures are in English, and the Hebrew-speaking public doesn't have enough of our Torah. So we're coming out with a book, Be'ezrat Hashem, hopefully within the next several months it'll be out, and then copies and so on. But this too, unlike businesses, is gonna be given for free. It's not gonna be sold on ArtScroll or on Amazon or anything. It's gonna be given for free for the same reason we do everything else for free. It's all for Hashem, so it's free. We give it; it'll cost-free and doesn't cost anything. Someone who wants to have their name as a sponsor in the book or anything like that can contact us; we will be happy to talk about it. This is something that you'll see in the book. You'll be a partner in the book. This book, even the walls are going to do teshuva. This book goes straight to the source. It's not like I chit-chat with you guys here and there, laugh with you here and there, joke once in a blue moon. No, this one goes straight to the bottom line. Over 400 sources, 400 sources from the Torah listed in the book that literally an atheist, an ape, a goy, a half-Jew, a middle Jew, a big Jew, a small Jew, a fat Jew, a skinny Jew—everybody can do teshuva from this book.

14:39Start with Hebrew, and without a sham, after that, add some more English stuff. But later on, so this is another very, very big project based on the shul. The book itself is finished. There's another chef. The book is finished. It's now being edited. The cover is almost finished, and there's some printing. Printing takes a little bit of time. But obviously, we need to raise more money. So anyone that wants to be generous is Before you send ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, or a hundred thousand dollars to your shul, I'm not saying don't donate to the shul, but you have to look at these big investments you make as what's going to generate the most amount of return. The Beit Knesset you could donate ten, twenty thousand dollars. How many people are going to do teshuva from the Beit Knesset by going to Shacharit and Mincha and maybe hearing one halacha a day? How many? How many are going to do teshuva versus a company that only does kiruv all day and does everything for free? This is now, I'm not trying to be a salesman here. I don't make any money out of this. Reality is, every person needs to evaluate themselves. People love to donate to these other places that show their name on the internet. They show their name: "Oh, he donated $500 to the chandelier." You want those donations? You want your name to be on a chandelier? Donate to them. You want your name to be in Shamayim? That's a different story.

15:57There's others, some everyone takes all of this into account, thinks about this very carefully, and there's others, some do teshuva and help others do teshuva right now. You have an opportunity of a lifetime. You're gonna see a bunch of strangers in shul. You see a bunch of people you don't see there the rest of the year in shul. There's a reason why you don't see them. They don't know anything. Do yourself a favor, say something. Say something. Want to come over for dinner after Yom Kippur? Want to come over for Shabbat? Want to come to the shiur? You have to listen to this CD I have. What is it? It's amazing. What is it about? I just got to show it to you. Say something, Ribbono shel Olam. You have a mouth. All year we talk Lashon Hara. At least say something good once a year. Say something. These people, you may not see them for another year. You may not see these people for another year. Say something. You don't necessarily need to tell Masechet Gehinnom. Say something, give him a CD. After the business, do something. If you're driving to shul, park in front of the shul. Have a bunch of CDs in your car. As soon as everybody comes out, give out CDs one at a time. You're like a machine. Do something. It's the best opportunity of the year. Almost everyone goes to shul on Yom Tov. Almost everyone, and...

17:21Pesach Hashem, this will give you guys some ideas to think about teshuva, and Pesach Hashem, this will also help all of Am Yisrael do teshuva.