Purim - The secret for Bitachon (Trusting) and Emunah (Faith) - Rabbi Alon Anava

We're in a very powerful month, the month of Adar, and this year we get a a double portion. A leap year. Even though I don't I don't like using words in English for biblical and Hebrew terms, because leap year doesn't mean nothing. In Hebrew it's called shana me'uberet. A pregnant year. That makes sense. The reason why it's pregnant because we go in Judaism by the cycle of the moon. And there is also a annual cycle of the sun, which is 365 days in the year. But if you go by the cycle of the moon, we're missing 11 days every year. And what happens is that after the second and third year, we have a whole gap of 1 month, so we have to add another month to the order. And then what happens is that the cycle of the month of the sun cycle of the month of the moon, they meet. And as a result from that, there's a pregnancy. Like a man and a woman when they meet in the right way, of course, then there's going to be pregnancy. And the month of Adar is a very powerful month, and I'm sure you ever heard the the saying from the Torah "Mi she'nichnas Adar marbim b'simcha." When Adar comes in, we increase joy. There's an argument between our sages why in Adar you increase joy. I think you should increase joy in Nissan. Because in Nissan we were redeemed. I think it's a good enough reason to be also increase joy. And why just only Nissan? How about we increase joy in Sivan? We got the Torah. Let's increase joy in Tishrei. This is all the chaggim. Why Adar? Because one little miracle? Okay, so we were saved. You know how many times we were saved? You know how many times you can add to the list of miracles? Why dafka in Adar we increase joy? Not because of the historical act or the historical event that happened during Adar. It's because the teachings of Kabbalah, this is brought down by the book that is called Sefer Yetzirah, the book of formation, the real the original book of Kabbalah that we have, that Adam HaRishon received this information directly from Hashem, and he gave it to his son, Seth, who later on gave it to Enoch until it came to Noah. Noah gave it to Shem. Shem gave it to Eber, and Eber gave it to Abraham Avinu, and Abraham Avinu compiled it. To some opinions, it's Rabbi Akiva that actually compiled it, but nevertheless, the book is attributed to Adam HaRishon and Rabbi Akiva and Abraham Avinu. This is the best first book of Kabbalah that we have with unbelievable information. It says there that every month has a letter that creates the month, is has a connection to one of the tribes of the 12 tribes. And not only that, the month always has a connection to one of the senses that we have. Most people are aware of five senses, but there are 12 senses. And the sense of the month of Adar is called tzochok. Tzochok means laughter. Which means that the sense of the month is laughter, and therefore "Mi she'nichnas Adar, when Adar comes in, marbim b'simcha." So we increase joy. The only problem is that the laughter that we are aware of is called tzochok tumah. Laughter that's coming from impurity. Because I'm laughing at something that is is not coming from kedusha. Very sad, if you go now on social media and you see so many different videos. The videos that are important of shiurei Torah and important information, they don't have much views. But then you see a video of somebody falling off their bike in a very embarrassing way, 70 million views. Why? People enjoy seeing somebody else falling, and everybody has a kick out of it. Ah, laughing and this is laughter that's not coming from a holy place. Now, where do we we receive most of our laughter? From nonsense. Either it's a movie or a sitcom or a joke. And constantly, I mean, everybody wants to laugh. Everyone wants to Everybody wants to be happy, but we're not getting this tzochok this laughter from a from a real place. So that tzochok, this laughter is coming from a place of tumah, of a place of impurity. And in the month of Adar, one has the ability to reach to the level of reaching the real tzochok, the real laughter. I'm sure you're familiar with the chapter of Tehillim that we read before we say Birkat Hamazon to some And in other they say it in many different times, but there's a chapter of Tehillim that we say "Shir Hama'alot, B'shuv Hashem et shivat Tzion." When Hashem is going to return to Yerushalayim, "Hayinu k'cholmim." We were as dreamers. What does it say after that? "Az yimalei s'chok pinu." Then our mouth will be filled with laughter. So what do you think when Mashiach is going to come? There's going to come up some stand-up comedy person stand on the stage of the Beit Hamikdash and start giving us jokes? Why would be filled our mouth be filled with laughter? Because this is when we're going to experience the real laughter. What is real joy and laughter? And now we don't experience that because the laughter that we are aware of is coming from a very external and a very impure place. But on the month of Adar, this sense is much more accessible. So our sages explain "Mi she'nichnas Adar, marbim b'simcha." It has nothing to do with the historical fact. It has to do with the ability that the sense of the month deep down inside of the depth of my soul is laughter. Now I want to find out how do I get this laughter? Because at the end of the day, when you're really looking deep down into our own personal life, most people are not so happy. The sad reality that most people on this planet are actually the opposite of happy. Depressed, sad, fall into depression and and despair. Very hard to put fast smile on their faces. I mean, people put smile on their faces, but 99% of the time it's fake smiles. If you would know what's going on, the storm of emotions that is going on inside, it doesn't doesn't fit the face outside. Outside in the form of people, "How are you? How are you? Everything's going great." And then and then when the door shuts behind the crowd, that's the sad reality. And a lot of people, you know, when they when they hear that, it doesn't sound true. But that is the reality. And you know when you know that? Late at night when you're already in pajamas in bed and everybody's asleep, and you're still checking your phone for the hundredth time like as if an email came at 1:00 in the morning, and then you finally decide to say goodbye to this companion, and and and then you're lying in bed and you hear the clock, and you can't fall asleep cuz your mind is bothering you. Each one has a different thing that bothers them. One is bothering them how I'm going to pay my mortgage. Another one is bothering them my wife is driving me nuts. Another one is bothering them his kids is not even listening to him. Another one Everybody has problems. And at the end of the day, when the the engine shuts down and it's just you and yourself, now you make a real and most people they just want to put the cover over their head and says "I can't take this anymore. Die." I'm I got it up to here. And that's the sad reality. And very few people they know how to deal with it or to cope with it. And a fraction of people actually know how to to completely ignore it. So if you want to look at it in a very external way, we're moments before Mashiach is coming, so everybody has to go through some type of a challenge because there's nothing else to do. Mashiach is coming. The Kadosh Baruch Hu is already pressing us to a wall. The people are going to be screaming already for Mashiach to come. So if you think right now the pressure is on, it's going to be much worse. Because as long as Mashiach is not here, Hashem wants us to scream for Mashiach. He doesn't want us to to be forced. Then the pressure will go stronger and stronger and stronger only. So people will just say "Enough. I I I just want Mashiach to come." You know, people call me from so many different places of the world with so many different problems, and I always say same thing, pray for Mashiach to come. "No, Rabbi, that's not a good advice. I need advice." Pray for Mashiach to come cuz Mashiach is going to solve all your problems. If you think any type of other answer will solve your problems, you're wrong. Mashiach is a is the problem solver. So why don't you pray for him to come? He'll solve problems. But till Mashiach comes, we're sitting here with a burden right here on our neck that allow me to live my life calm and smooth or to even to focus. Many people that I tell them, "Okay, why don't you increase in Torah and mitzvot? Why don't you learn more Torah? Why don't you do more acts of kindness? Why don't you make space for Mashiach to come?" "I can't. It's too much. The burden I have to work 18 hours. I have to worry. So many things. I don't even have time to pray. I don't even have time to learn. How do you expect me to sit and learn quietly when I have so many things bothering me on my mind?" So the sad part is that we're so affected and overwhelmed from the external part of our life that we are neglecting the core of our soul that if I know how to reach to the depth of my soul and bring this to the surface, then at least I know how to deal with the world. And not that I'm trying to be the one who gives bad news, but it's just going to become worse. It's not going to get better and then Messiah comes. It's getting worse and then Messiah comes. And that's just even if you're looking at it with natural eyes. Two years ago Trump got elected. Everybody's like, "Oh, okay. Now it's going to get better." Listen, nothing to do with Trump. Trump is a puppet. And I'm not going into political opinions here. It's just a puppet of the Kadosh Baruch Hu. So, the situation in And this type of situation is not getting better, it's just getting worse till Messiah will come. So, you have to buckle up, take a deep breath, and try to find the way how am I surviving. Now we're on survival mode. People now they use this term airplane mode. We're now on survival mode. We're just switched it already. Now just survive. There's nothing but surviving. But you want to make sure that the survival mode at least I'm functioning. Because really what we want to do before Messiah comes is to increase in Torah and mitzvot, grow in my spiritual level and my observance. Even though it sounds completely hard to fathom, how can I become more observant right now? Because if I would give you now a deadline and a date, Messiah is coming on this date, wouldn't you get your act together? If Hashem Yishmor, somebody would come and tell every almost every normal individual, you have a month to live, wouldn't you change the way how you're living? Wouldn't you live your life completely different? You would probably now negate 80% of the things that you're focusing on by saying, "It doesn't matter. I'm going to die in a month. So, why focus on these things? Let me focus on important things." But nobody wants to live with that thought, even though, you know, either one of us can go any second. But our human thoughts are not programmed that any second I can go. Because if a person would know that I'm I have a month to live, would you really worry about nonsense? I always work with a list of priorities. Now where I was the whole Shabbat, the family that hosted me, the wife told me, "Listen, I'm I have a business and I find it hard to run my business. You look that you're pretty on top of your on top of your business and you seem like a pretty business pretty busy man. How do you run your schedule? What is your schedule?" I told her, "You really want to know my schedule? I wake up at 4:00 in the morning. I go to a freezing cold mikveh and then I learn for 3 hours. Then I teach at Avei Yeshiva. I teach till 10:30 in the morning which is including Shacharit in it. Then we do changing of the guards. I go to the ladies section. I teach the ladies till 1:30. Then at 1:30 I come. I have half an hour that I sit with my secretary and we go through all the details that I need to know to start delegating jobs. 2:00 to 4:00 I sit on the phone and I'm accepting phone calls and private meetings. Each phone call is about 5 minutes. I talk to hundreds of people and I hear all the problems of all the world. 4:00 is Mincha. After Mincha shiur in Zohar. After that shiur Arvit. And we have Arvit. Then I come home. I sit with my wife. We eat. I play with my kids. I put them to sleep. 8:30 at night starts the marathon till 2:30 in the morning. And that includes a million and one phone calls and million things that I do. And running the entire show. And then around 2:00 I go to sleep again. So, she told me, "But you wake up at 4:00." So, so yeah. If I'm lucky I get 2 hours. And she was like, "And and and and isn't doesn't it wear you off?" I said, "No, because you know, when you're busy giving and exporting, you're not you're you're running on Hashem's energy. What do we say every time we take the Torah out? Hashem oz l'amo yiten. Hashem gives you might. You Who do you think gives you might? Who do you think gives you power? The food that you eat? The the energy bars? You only get energy from the Kadosh Baruch Hu through your soul, of course. And the proof to that is take a dead person, give him an energy bar. Would it make a difference? No, he's dead. Why? Cuz the soul is not there. If the soul has energy, the person can be functioning 3 days straight without any any rest. So, she was telling me, "I have problem with the managing my my time." And I told her, "You know why? Because most people have a problem in our generation that we are controlled by many different external powers. And for the sake of the example, we'll call it right now a klipa. A klipa is a negative energy that in many cases I create. And this negative energy goes against me and uses my own power to go against me. And there's many different types of klipot. We just read a few weeks ago that Am Yisrael went out of Mitzrayim. Yeah, we went out of Mitzrayim. Even though the story happened 3,400 years ago, the Torah is not a history book. The Torah is not here for me to find out what happened 3,300 years ago. The Torah is is actual what's going on right now in my life. Now, when we're reading about the state of Mitzrayim, this is not the country Mitzrayim, 700 km south of Israel. Mitzrayim is a state of mind, which the translation of Mitzrayim, Mitzrayim in Hebrew comes from the word meitzar. Meitzar is a limitation, something that limits me. Some people, what limits them is a cigarette. In our day they call it an addiction, but it's a very harsh word. People don't like hearing the word addiction. But many people are addicted to cigarettes. It's a state of limitation that every 2 minutes have to go out and smoke. As it means that a little piece of paper and nicotine is controlling me right now. Some people their addictions are worse, like drugs, alcohol, gambling. Some people are addicted to a cup of coffee. People are addicted to their phones, to Facebook. This is a state of Mitzrayim that I'm limited. I'm not free. The young man that was here and he had to leave, he asked me, "How come when after I had my near-death experience it took me 2 years to start getting into the program?" He told me, "What? You didn't do anything for 2 years?" So, I told him, "I I didn't even wear a yarmulke. I would put tefillin on in the morning. And I didn't eat meat and dairy. And I slowly slowly started working on myself." So, he's like, "How can it be?" I said, "Because it took me 2 years just to get rid of all these habits. All these habits that were limiting me. And all the external things that were putting me in a place that I'm not free to serve Hashem. Then once I was ready, now I started serving Hashem. So, we are constantly sunk into Mitzrayim, into a place of limitation. And who's the ruler of Mitzrayim? That's of course Pharaoh. Now when we imagine Pharaoh, we imagine Yul Brynner, right? From The Ten Commandments. Pharaoh was this big. According to the Talmud, he was one amah big. He was a little a dwarf. He was a mechashef, a sorcerer. But nevertheless, Pharaoh is a klipa. Now Pharaoh is a klipa that is controlling us up until today. Nothing changed. Not only that, Pharaoh, if you're taking the word Pharaoh, if you write it in Hebrew, it's pei, resh, ayin, heh. But if you switch the order of the letters, what do you get? Hafra'ah. Hafra'ah is something that disturbs you. Something that is distracting you. Have you noticed how many distractions you have all day long in your life? This is a distraction. You know how many times it's distracting you every day? 100 times? 200 times? Every time this goes zzz That's a distraction. How many times you're trying to work, but an email comes in? You go to the email. You're doing something. You're learning. I have a yeshiva. I prohibit people to come into my yeshiva with a phone. And you know people think people listen? People in the middle of the class and they run out. So, why did you come to the class? Did you get anything from the class? Your tookus went You run out. So, I tell people, "If you're coming with your phone, don't come. Because when you leave the room, you're distracting the rest of the class." So, if you're already willing to learn, why you coming with a distraction? You know that when I became observant, I just wanted to learn Torah. So, in the beginning I mean after I got married, I'm sorry. In the beginning I learned in the yeshiva, my wife worked and I used to learn. Some point we had a child and another child and another child. So, at some point I had to start providing financially to the family. And what am I going to do? So, at the time I decided, based on many decisions, we opened a photography business. And it was a very successful business because I would do two, three weddings a month. And the rest of the time I would sit and learn. I learned in yeshiva for 7 years. 7 years I was able to learn Torah from morning till night. And I had a business, and a very successful business. And all I do is one, two, or three, four weddings a month. That's it. I'm finished with it. This class is for 7 years. 7 years I sat in yeshiva from morning till night. Do you think I ever went with a phone to yeshiva? If my wife wanted to reach me, you know where I am with a phone of the yeshiva. You know where I am. I never went with a phone. Okay, so then then it's when the iPhones started coming out. But why would I want to go to yeshiva with a phone? Who needs to get me? Trump? No. Emergency, my wife needs to get me. She knows how to get me. Why do I need to take with me a distraction? So, we are so immersed in this klipa of Pharaoh that we're constantly full of distractions. Most people are extremely not productive. The student that asked me today, "How are you so productive?" So, I said, "Because I don't let distractions disturb me. I don't let things from around me disturb me. When it's time for me to learn, I learn. Period. And it's time for me to teach, check it. It's time for me to take phone calls, I don't let the distractions of the world distract me. And don't think that I'm different from you. I have six kids. I also have to pay tuition. I have a huge organization that comes with a huge financial burden. I have to worry about money all day long, too. But I don't let it bother me. I have a house, I have a wife, I have kids, I have many, many things, exactly what everybody else has. It's not that somehow money's coming into my bank account and I have 17 assistants that are running the show. I have the exact same problems that most people have. But I don't let the burden of other things burden me. I also have to pay credit cards, mortgages, but it doesn't sit here. Why? Because it's not my problem. It's Hashem's problem. You know my my problem is? My problem is the same problem you all have. My problem is Hashem tells me, "You pray three times a day. You learn Torah, you do mitzvot, you do acts of kindness. It's my responsibility to take care of the rest." You think Hashem brought me to the world to worry about money? Hashem said, "I brought you to the world to worry about Torah. I will pay the bills." Now when I take responsibility, then Hashem says, "Okay, that's how you deal with it." I don't take responsibility. I take responsibility of what I need to do. I'll tell you a story, a little bit personal, but it's such a small group that it's fine and the camera's not here. But nevertheless, Baruch Hashem, we have a a met a huge merit. I don't even know what type of a merit. I moved to Israel 3 and 1/2 years ago. Thursday, I had a little class like this in a friend's house in Brooklyn. And he helped me loaded the container the day I moved to Israel because it was one big mess what was going on there. And and and I needed as much as help possible. He helped me. Yesterday on Thursday, we were in his house, he did a little class like this. Every after everybody went, we were sitting and talking and he was telling me, "How long you in Israel already?" He told me 3 and 1/2 years. He's like, "3 and 1/2 years? When you left Israel to Israel, I mean, the first year we really didn't do much. Now Baruch Hashem, he's like I don't He told me, "I don't know what type of a zechut, what type of a miracle we have a women's seminary that is designed for all the women to learn Torah. There's no such a thing in the world. Now a 60-year-old woman wants to learn Torah, where does she go? She's nowhere to go. She has where to go. She comes to us. We have a student that she's 79 years old. All her all her ladies that learn by us are 40s, 50s, 60s. Some are divorced, some are widows, some are married. They come for 2 weeks, but it's designed just for married women. We started that 3 years ago, became Baruch Hashem a huge hit. So, we did the exact same thing for men a year and a half ago. All the men have a yeshiva for all the men. We have an 84-year-old student that comes every day with his shaking hands, holding a barely holding his Gemara, but he prays with us, he learns with us, he sits there. And all the men that are in their 50s and 60s, I'm like the the baby there. The only one with blue with with brown black hair in my beard. I mean, there's a few young ones there. But nevertheless, unbelievable. And with all this and we started a big shul with different programs and Baruch Hashem, it's growing and growing. So, with all these beautiful things comes a huge financial responsibility. Last year, it was a a very time that I I you know, there was a very large amount that I needed to come up with. And where do you go to get money? You go to America, right? So, Uncle Sam. So, I came here and in booked right away, we booked lectures and a big big events. My daughter came with me. The first lecture, we finished the lecture, I come out, you know, we always have in the outside the big table with CDs and books and then the charity boxes and everything and I came out and anyways, we barely made anything that night, barely to cover the fuel to come there. And the first four nights, every lecture was a disaster. The fourth night, we made a big lecture. At the end of the lecture, I come out and I tell my daughter, "No, what was going on today?" She tells me $78. $78? That's not even going to cover the car rental. And I'm starting to hyperventilate. I mean, I have to come up with this massive amount of money and I'm getting $78. It doesn't even cover the the the literally the car rental. And in my mind, I'm like, you know, it puts a lot of pressure on you. 4 days into the tour already. And I decided I was like, "You know what? I made a switch in my mind. I said, "This is totally not my problem. This is not my I'm not the the the treasurer of the organization. My job is to come and teach Torah, to inspire people, to answer people's questions. I'm it's not my problem to worry about money. I have a I I did I ask for this job? I didn't ask for this job. The second that I made a switch in my mind, that night at the end of the night, a gentleman came to me and he told me, "If you don't mind, I have a personal question. Can I ask you when everybody leaves?" Of course, go ahead. He asked me the question that question went till 5:00 in the morning. And and you know, gladly I have no problem. My daughter already crashed in the car. Towards the end of the night, he gives me a envelope. He says, "Thank you so much. I appreciate your time and your guidance and your help and Fine, now you know what that means an envelope. This is not an invitation to his daughter's wedding. It's an envelope. What's going to be in the envelope? And in my mind, like should I open it? Should I not open it? I mean, it that night may be like a 36. Thank you for your for your for your great work. So, I have no problem. I don't disregard any any amount that is being coming into support the organization. But it was Okay, so I left it in the in the car. 3 days I didn't touch that envelope. I was like, "Hashem, money is not my problem. I came here, I have lectures to prepare. I have to come up with I I can't just come here and just have to prepare the lecture. I have lectures to prepare, I have meetings I have to people talk to people, answer people. This is not my problem." After 3 days, my daughter's like, "No, open it already. Open it already." So, I open up the the envelope and sure enough, it was enough to cover much more than what I was expecting. And I was like, "Look at this. You give all the responsibility to the Kadosh Baruch Hu and you're saying, 'Hashem, this is your problem. It's not my problem.' I'm fulfilling my my part of the deal. I came here to do lectures. I didn't come here to talk to people about business. I came here to do lectures and to prepare classes. And the second that you give all the responsibility to the Kadosh Baruch Hu, the Kadosh Baruch Hu says, 'Trust me, I can do whatever I want. I can turn money even from nothing. I will do anything.' And I'm just talking about the money department. It's anything. You know many people come and tell me I have problems with my wife, with I have a problem with shalom bayit. Why are you even worrying about that? You worry about what you need to worry. You'll see the Kadosh Baruch Hu turns everything around. We take responsibility that doesn't belong to us and then we whine and cry that we have too much burden on our shoulders. And if Hashem would somehow communicate with you, he would tell you, "Did I tell you to worry about it?" Do you think that my kids worry about tuition? Have you ever seen an 8-year-old pacing in the the living room saying, "Oh my gosh, where is my father going to pay the tuition? I don't Have you ever seen such a thing?" No. So, why do you worry about that? Your son is not worried about yet. They're happy not to go to school. Yeah. So, the same way that a kid, you know, we'll take it one step further. Ever seen an animal in the wild in the wild is worrying about money? Ever seen a cat like, "Oh my gosh, where am I going to get my food?" The cat knows it's going to somehow find food. It goes around, sniffs in some garbage bins and it finds a good meal. The point is that we take so much responsibility that has nothing to do with me. And then I worry. And then I worry. And then I worry. And then the worry is so hard that I become depressed and sad and anxiety and oh my gosh, now now I'm a nervous break I'm I'm nervous wreck. So, the first poor person that comes in the radius of 3 feet of me, that poor wife of mine, that the anger comes out. And then that poor child that just wants to get a hug from his father, another explosion of anger. And everybody around me and I'm I'm a total mess. And what's the what's the bottom line at the end of the day? Then when it's the little nights of the little hours of the night when I'm in bed, I'm my mind is like a like a Moroccan discotheque in my mind. I can't even think of anything. So, not that I've ever been to a Moroccan discotheque. Just the sound of it, all the the tabuka them. You know, we have a next to us a Moroccan shul. We hear the the I mean, you say tabuka in English, those big drums. So, the point is that there's constantly disturbance and all sorts of things that are distracting me in my life, constantly. Doesn't matter who you are, doesn't matter where you come from, doesn't matter what's your background. Constantly there's flicking things in my mind, especially if you live in New York. I don't even know how people live here. It's just the pressure just of the city, it's already that's I drove down the Queens Boulevard, I was like, "I know people live here." It's just like But nevertheless, this world is full of distractions. And you have a distraction in your pocket and then you have distraction on your desk and oh, so many different distractions that you can't even function. I don't even know how people are productive in their life. I sometimes see these people how they're conducting their life, 3 minutes here, 3 minutes here, 3 minutes here. Very few people that I see that they're able to sit down and to concentrate on what they're doing. You know, when I always tell tell men tell men, you know, you have to learn Torah. You can't learn Torah by you know, reading it from your phone or sitting on the subway, you know, like this. Like how can you learn Torah like this? Learn Torah, you sit in front of the book and you learn Torah. And I see people come to our shiurim, I see they're so not focused on the shiur. And and it's it's unbelievable. And then and then what happens they look at me like, "Well, well, well, what are you saying? What?" "Oh, you didn't understand what I said? No, can you repeat it?" No, I can't repeat it. Be focused on what I'm talking. Most people are so easily distracted. The attention span is so like Now, the problem is what happens is that when I'm so distracted that I'm not productive and when I'm not productive then I'm not doing what I'm what I'm supposed to do. And then I'm so overwhelmed with all these distractions then then I cave under the pressure of these distractions. So, I'm letting Paroh come into my life. And Paroh, we thought we got rid of him. You know, Paroh didn't die. Paroh washed got washed out to the sea and he survived. So, Paroh didn't die. Physically, I'm talking about. So, nevertheless also spiritually he didn't die and he's stuck in our life. And we are dealing with all sorts of different clipot in our life that in most cases I create and I feed. Last week I was giving a a beautiful shiur about Purim. You can find it online where I was explaining No, we repeat the whole class, but I was explaining that for example, Purim, who's the the the mean guy in the story of Purim? Of course is Haman. We have Haman and Ahasuerus. But both Haman and Ahasuerus are different types of clipot. Ahasuerus, if you break the name Ahasuerus, it means ach shel rosh. Ach shel rosh. Who's the rosh? Rosh is Nebuchadnezzar. This is a prophecy of Daniel that when he went up to the worlds above, he saw the head of the impurity of tumah was Nebuchadnezzar. But Ahasuerus was ach shel rosh. He was his brother coming from a very high place of impurity. And Haman is another manifestation of Amalek, another type of klipa. But nevertheless when I feed the klipa or to say it even different, the klipa is always going to come and feed me its energy. Now, when I enjoy what the klipa is feeding me I have some type of pleasure from it, then it has control over me. That's why the Torah teaches you to segregate yourself. Kadesh etsmecha bemutar lecha. Sanctify yourself with you are permitted. Why? Because when I derive any type of pleasure from food, from clothes, from money, from vacations, from marital relations, doesn't matter what. When I derive pleasure from something that is not kedusha then it has control over me. And then I have no control. Like a zombie into the cookie bar jar. So, I need to know how to segregate myself from things that are permitted to me. But so I don't get any pleasure from anything that is coming from this other side of of of of kedusha. So, when do you allowed to derive pleasure? On Shabbat. Shabbat. Go the whole nine yards. Eat whatever you want. Pleasure in beautiful clothes. Pleasure in whatever you want. During the week, why would you want to take anything from this world? Cuz the second that you derive pleasure from something that is mundane, it has control over you. So, sages have told us many times and in many different places, kadesh etsmecha bemutar lecha. Sanctify yourself with what you are permitted. You're permitted to eat, but you don't have to eat seven cookies. One cookie is enough. You're permitted to do many things, but it doesn't mean you have to indulge in it too much. Why? Cuz it will end up controlling you. The problem with that is that I am so open and receptive to attacks from the outside that the result is that I fall into either sadness, depression, and one of the worst things that I fall into is called chosser bitachon. Is that I don't have any bitachon. I don't have any trust and secure in the power of the Kadosh Baruch Hu. So, it's broken into two segments. To emunah, to believe in Hashem like as if I don't believe Hashem can do anything. And more than that, I lose all my bitachon. I don't have faith in Hashem. I don't trust Hashem. What do you think Hashem is going to just neglect you? Think Hashem is going to kick you to the to the curve? Hashem already brought you into this world. He's going to take care of you. Trillions of animals are walking around the streets. What, he doesn't take care of them? Billions and billions of fish in the sea. What, you think Hashem is neglecting some of the fishes? "No, you I don't want to feed." Hashem takes care of all his creations including you. The only problem with us that I lose this trust that Hashem will take care of me so I remove myself from the Kadosh Baruch Hu. And I say, "No, no, Hashem I need to take care of it." Hashem says, "You fool. I can take care of it for you. You worry about what I put you in this world. I put you in this world to learn to do acts of kindness, to pray with a quiet mind. Don't take your phone to the minyan. Pray three times a day. You think praying is a hobby? Praying is a job. Our sages call prayer avodah. It's a job. You were hired to pray. To That's a job. You have to do it the best way possible. You're not serving your master if every second you're checking your text and are you praying? Well, how do you even dare to come into the minyan with a phone? It's time to pray now. Shut the phone. This is an hour that it's me and the Kadosh Baruch Hu. Kadosh Baruch Hu hired me. Can you imagine the report that the bosses If imagine Hashem would tell you now something. How dare you come into my house? Beit Hashem is where I pray. It's the house of Hashem. You come into with this thing? You came now to to to work for me for 1 hour. How dare you think of business right now? The problem is that we don't know how to shut down the system. Very few people know how to walk into the minyan and shut down the system and say right now I'm praying. I don't worry about anything right now. I can care less if the world will explode. Right now I came to the minyan. Very few people know how to shut the system down. And I'm giving one example out of many with the praying. It's almost with anything. How many parents can quietly sit with their child for 20 minutes and read them a book without being distracted every 2 seconds? But this is the time for the child right now. You know, in my extremely busy schedule, I have six kids, Baruch Hashem. Baruch Hashem the six days in the week because every kid gets one day of the week private time. When they have my undevoted attention. And each one rotate it with the days. Sometimes this child is on Sunday, this child is on Monday, but everybody gets private time because they know they barely see me. Every 2 months I'm on I'm on a trip. Even when I'm not on a trip, I'm busy from morning till night. So, one Sunday everybody gets each child gets his undevoted private time. And if chas veshalom somebody will disturb them, oh, they get upset. But in that time I'm devoted just for the child. So, if it's my 3-year-old, I'm on the ground rolling. If it's my 5-year-old, I'm talking to her about whatever she wants me to talk to her. I'm a completely different individual. I don't know, you might lose a lot of respect to me if you see me with my kids on the floor jumping, doing all sorts of noises, but that's their that's their time. And this is sacred time. And I'm not bothered by anything. Phone calls, I don't care. Missiles can fall down. Now it's my time with my daughter or my boy. Nothing can bother me. And just so you understand, our house is like I don't even know how you say it in English. In the neighborhood we say beit aliya la regel. Our house is in the middle of the old city of Tzfat. The door is open. We don't even bother to close the door. It's like tachana rakevet. It's like a subway station. In and out, in and out. Sometimes people come and say, "What's going on here? This is how it is all the whole day?" And I don't have a moment break. But when it comes to my kids, sorry, it's close the door. This is my time now with with my kid. So how do you turn that switch off? Because everybody needs that switch. Because everybody What I'm telling now, I'm giving some personal examples and some very general examples. You take what I'm saying now, take it to your own private life. But the fact is to summarize it before we come to the solution is that we're all distracted one way or another. One person the distraction is coming from the finance side. Another person the distraction is coming from kids that don't listen to them. Oh, Hashem is going on. Another person the distraction is coming from running to a doctor all day long. Lo alenu. But there are distractions coming from so many different directions and I need to know how to shut down the distractions for A, so I can be productive in what I really need to do. More than that how that not to let it affect me. You think you're the only one that owe money to a credit card company? No. Millions owe money to the credit card company. Millions owe money to the mortgage. Millions have to pay tuition. You're not the only one. But some people know how to shut it down and not let me let it affect me. And you know what, when you're productive and especially on what you need to do, let Hashem worry about things. Most people have this much bitachon. Most people have this much emunah in the Kadosh Baruch Hu. You know, I always give the same story, same example. Most of us, Baruch Hashem, are baalei teshuvah. We became observant. And if you're not baal teshuvah, then at some point in your life you did your teshuvah even if you're a born observant. But the point is that every person that becomes observant in the beginning, Kadosh Baruch Hu gives you a free run. Give you a year or two, everything goes well, easy. And you're like, "I'm flying colors." You Suddenly you're becoming the next Baba Sali of the generation. But at some point after the Kadosh Baruch Hu gave you a good run then they meet up in the heavens. They have a committee that is appointed just for you. And they sit there all in the committee, they open the file, and they say, "Okay, we gave him 2 years of a good run. Now it's time to give him the first challenge. Everybody has to get a challenge." So, they're sitting in the committee. What should we challenge the person for? So, they say, "How about we challenge the person with the you know, let's send him a beautiful woman to distract him. Let's see how he will react." Ah, we'll do that to everybody. Okay, let's think of a different challenge. Suddenly, one guy of the committee says, "Let's just challenge them with money. We do it to everybody. Everybody has to go to challenge with money." Okay, all in favor? They all raise their hands. Fine. All okay. The next day, the person loses $5. You know what's his reaction? Thank you, Hashem. Everything that Hashem does is for the good. Kol man de Rachmana avid letava avid. Everything that Hashem does is amazing. Kaparat avonot. This is a atonement for my sins. Hashem is amazing. Thank you so much. Accepting the the yoke of the Torah. They're looking from the committee from above. Wow. Amazing. Look how he passed the challenge. They're raising, you know, the the numbers 9.9, 9.8, 10. Wow. Look how he passed that challenge. The same guy from the committee says, "Come on, guys. $5. Bump it up a little bit." Okay. The next day, he loses $50. Same reaction. Baruch Hashem. Everything that Hashem does is amazing. This is kaparat avonot. It's to wipe off my sins. Hashem is amazing. I love Hashem. Dancing and wow. Same reaction. Clapping their hands. Everybody's giving him a 10. 1.0. Everything. Unbelievable. The same guy from the committee says, "Come on, guys. $50. Bump it up." The next day, the person loses $50,000. Suddenly, the reaction is not the same. Hashem is not such a great Hashem. Why is it happening to me? I'm such a good person. This is not kaparat avonot. Not everything that Hashem does is good. Suddenly, they add a few more zeros to the challenge and their emunah in Hashem jumps out of the window. So, when we have a small challenge, it's very easy to fight the challenge. When the challenge becomes heavy, the bitachon, the emunah, the faith that they have in Hashem jumps out of the window in the same speed that you blink your eyes. So, most people they have this much amount of bitachon in the Kadosh Baruch Hu that they're blindly going into any challenge with no problem. The first one that we learn in our history was Avraham Avinu. Nimrod comes and says, "I'm going to throw you into the fire." Now, people imagine like a little bonfire like in Lag BaOmer. You know what was the furnace of of Nimrod? We're talking here about a huge fire, and they say, "Oh, we're going to throw you into the fire." Think of Avraham Avinu blinked and said, "Throw me in. I don't care. I'll show you." And he had such bitachon that he went into the fire, nothing happened to him. And how many times we've seen history great sages that they have such bitachon in the Kadosh Baruch Hu look at Nachshon ben Aminadav just jumped in the water. The water opened. So, when I have unbelievable bitachon, I walk through walls. But we have this much bitachon. And it's not because you're doing something wrong. It's because you're vulnerable to the attack coming from the outside. Now, for the solution, because Okay, I got the point. I'm vulnerable, I'm distracted, a lot of things are bothering me. I don't have trust in Hashem. But what's the solution? So, I started by telling you that we're celebrating the month of Adar. The month of Adar is a very powerful month. And in the month of Adar, not this month, but next month, we're going to be celebrating a beautiful holiday, the Purim, the holiday of Purim. The holiday of Purim is a very unique holiday. And like every other holiday, the holiday has mitzvot that we have to do. Very interestingly, this year it doesn't happen in that same order because we have the shanah me'uberet, but usually, usually, we would read this set of parashot right before Purim. So, last week, we read parashat Terumah. And in parashat Terumah, it says the key to all my problems. Ve'asitem li mikdash veshachanti betocham. Build me a sanctuary, a mikdash, and I will dwell in you. End of story. Now, we can finish the lecture. Go on. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute. What's this mikdash that you want me to build? There's a even a greater question in our sages that they ask, "What does it mean veshachanti betocham? Ve'asitem li mikdash, one mikdash should be veshachanti betocho. And I dwell in it. And one, why is he saying plural betocham? So, our sages answer, "Betocham means betoch kol echad mikem, in each and every one of you. Meaning that I'm the mishkan, I'm the mikdash. I have to sanctify my body, Hashem will dwell in me." But this is that's nice, but there's a more deeper explanation why he says betocham. The Ariza, Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, comes and says, "Don't read it betocham, rather cut the word in half. Not exactly half, but cut the word, and you will get betoch mem. Right? Cuz betocham, you write bet, taf, chaf, vav, mem. Cut it, so you will be left the word betoch in mem. Mem is a letter. But mem, when it comes at the end of the word, it's called mem sofit. It's like a square. It's not an open mem. Regular mem is open from the bottom. This is a mem sofit. This is square. Open close like a square. There's a letter that is resembling the look of this mem, and this is the letter bet. The letter that the Torah opens. Bereshit bara Elohim et hashamaim ve'et ha'aretz. It's not by chance that that's the letter that starts the Torah. Wouldn't you think that should be the letter aleph that starts the Torah? Or maybe another letter? But nevertheless, the Torah starts with the letter bet. Why? Look at the the shape of bet. It has a base. It has a top, and it has a wall. And it has one wall that is completely open. Our sages call it the northern wind. This is where the yetzer hara comes into the world from. Has to be an entrance for the yetzer hara. Because if there wouldn't be yetzer hara, what's the point of this world? If the world will have not have a yetzer hara, so what challenge would I have? What's the point of creating the world? The point of creating the world is to have a challenge. Then I should overpower the challenge. Right? So, the Kadosh Baruch Hu already left the space open for the yetzer hara to come in. Now, let's go back to this mem. In Purim, there are four mitzvot that everybody, women and children, don't have to do. Everybody has to do these mitzvot. Amazingly, all these mitzvot start with the letter mem. I like calling it the four mems. Mikra megillah, matanot la'evyonim, mishloach manot, and mishteh vesimcha. Four mitzvot that I have to do in Purim, not me, everybody. And they all start with the letter mem. Okay, very nice. What does that got to do with me? How does that have to do with what we were talking about for the last 40 minutes? Purim is just one day of the year that I can get certain energy. Because all the holidays in the Jewish calendar is not because a historical event. The holidays that we commemorate on our calendar has nothing to do with a Jewish event that happened in the history. I know people think, "Okay, it's time we celebrate the going out of Egypt." Correct. And Shavuot, we got the Torah. That's correct, too. But the reason why we repeatedly do it over and over is not because something happened in the history. Because on that specific day, a godly light came down to the universe that changed the energy and the structure of the world and affected the universe to a point that every year it repeats itself. Take for example the holiday of Hanukkah, which is not a biblical holiday. Pesach, Shavuot, Sukkot, Rosh Hashanah, Kippur, it's all biblical, it's written in the Torah. Hanukkah is not written in the Torah. So, what's so unique about Hanukkah that our sages decided to make a holiday? You know how many miracles we had in the past that can also be considered as a miracle? I'm not even going to name how many miracles we had. Okay, so there was a war with the Hasmoneans and the and the Yavanim, and we won. You know that Yeshua also won a war in a miraculous way. He was about to lose the war, and suddenly, the sun freezes in the sky, and Yeshua wins the war. I mean, isn't that a big miracle that we should also make a holiday for that? Why Hanukkah and not the war of Yeshua and many others? The sages that were alive at the time of Hanukkah, they didn't consider this as okay, another miracle. But the next year, on the 25th day of Kislev, in their ruach hakodesh, they saw the exact same light coming back to their world, and they said, "Wait a minute. This is not a one-time miracle. This is now a recurring miracle. So, we have to make a holiday." That's the same thing with Purim. All the rest of the miracles never weren't weren't coming in a recurring way or repeating way. So, what does it mean in Hebrew when you say the word holiday? The words in English never make sense. To learn Torah or to approach Judaism in the language of English will never make sense because holidays mean going on a kosher yacht and sitting like this on a deck chair. That's a holiday. But in Hebrew, a holiday is hug. Hug means something that goes around in a circle. A circle in Hebrew in Hebrew it goes la hug. You know the hands on the clock how they call in Hebrew? Mehogim. What does that mean? That something goes in a circle constantly. If something goes in a circle, it's always will come to the same point where it started. This is what it means a holiday in Hebrew hug. That the whole cycle of the year goes around and well comes to the same day. And on that same day something happens and it repeats itself. So on the time of Purim, it's a very auspicious time. Yeah, a great miracle happened. Even though if you really look at the history, you know that the whole thing happened in Nissan not in Adar. Because the whole negotiating with the Hash and Haman was on the 13th day of Nissan. On the 14th day of Nissan, that's when Mordecai he not convince he he uh oh he pushed Esther he told her you have to do it on the 14 days of Nissan and on the 15th day of Nissan, that's when it switched and they killed Haman. You know that up until today some people they celebrate on the 15th day of Nissan the outside of Haman. So really why am I celebrating it in Adar? Because dafka specifically on the 13th day of Adar that's when something happened. I'm sure you know the story that Haman was making a lottery when should I do the destruction and he fell on the month of Adar he says oh that's a perfect month. Why? Because the redeemer died on in Adar Moshe Rabbeinu. And little did he know that Moshe Rabbeinu was also born in Adar. But if this is the case, so why he didn't he do it on Zion Adar? Why did he do it on the 13th day of Adar? A very beautiful explanation to that is that when Moshe Rabbeinu was giving over the Torah, who did he give the Torah to? To Yeshua. To Yeshua. Yeshua Moshe already gave it over. But when Moshe Rabbeinu died, Yeshua lost 3,000 halakhot. Now how long does it take to sit shiva? From Zion Adar. Zion chet tet yud yud aleph yud bet yud gimmel. The shiva of Moshe Rabbeinu finished on yud gimmel. That's when Yeshua said oh my god I forgot 3,000 halakhot that Moshe Rabbeinu gave me. I forgot to put it in my iPhone. I still record it. Haman knew that that was the day that we let go of the Torah. We lost a part of the Torah. So we weaker. So there's many reasons why Purim is we're celebrating it on the 13th day when we fast and the 14th day is Purim. But the whole point to take from that we're not going into the history right now of Purim rather to understand that something happened in the universe that day. So that's why I'm doing these four mitzvot. But these four mitzvot I have to do all year long. And if I know how to do these four mitzvot all all year long, that's the switch. Now let's try to figure out what what are these mitzvot that I have to do all year long? Because I don't read the Megillah every day. I read the Megillah once a year. So let's now analyze real quickly the mitzvot of Purim that everybody has to do. Remember the four main ones mikra Megillah mishloach manot matanot la'evyonim and mishteh ve simcha. The first mitzvah is called mikra Megillah. Mikra Megillah yes I read the Megillah on Purim but what do I do something that resembles this all day long all year round? Mikra Megillah corresponds to learning Torah. Which means that I have to learn Torah every day. How long does it take to read the Megillah? 45 minutes. Go to a Yemenite shul it takes them two hours. But I lived in Los Angeles next to a Yemenite shul. They read every word wow wow Haman Achashverosh two and a half hours you like already you know after tell him Esther you like you there almost dying. But nevertheless how long it takes to read the Megillah? 45 minutes to an hour. Let's round it up to an hour. Minimum one hour a day you have to learn Torah minimum. Minimum. What? I didn't want to say that out loud. Go go go about shul that's 25 minutes. But nevertheless Listen I live in Safed we celebrate Purim two days. Because all the walled cities you you celebrate Purim twice. So we have two days of Purim. The first year I came to Purim to Safed I was like really another day of fun oh no. But anyways To learn Torah is minimum an hour a day. To learn Torah less than that it's not you don't even warm up the engine. You can't learn Torah less than hour a day. My opinion is minimum two hours. You want to learn a little bit of halakha a little bit of mikra about the parashah maybe some gemara or oral Torah Mishnah a little bit of Hasidut Zohar how can you do it in less than two hours? There's no chance. Now of course everybody says two hours where can I find in my time two hours? Okay so be one less hour on Facebook. You'll find time. If you want you'll find the time. What's two hours? Two hours is nothing to learn Torah. Really if you want to learn Torah in the right way minimum two hours. And you know women also have to learn Torah. Women say no no no no I don't have to learn anything. Who says that women don't have to learn Torah? Everybody has to learn Torah. So first and most important you have to find time a day that you learn Torah. And in Torah is including everything that has to come with the Torah praying and learning and so forth. The next mitzvah is matanot la'evyonim. Very simple this corresponds to acts of kindness. Hesed you have to do acts of kindness every day. Not once a week every day. And if you want my personal opinion minimum minimum five acts of kindness every day. If you come to the end of the day and you cannot count on your hand that you did five acts of kindness, don't go to sleep. How can you not do five acts of kindness? Now to give you a little bit of a discount even if you're nice to your wife that's an act of kindness cuz most husbands are not always so nice to their wife and vice versa. But you want to make at least five acts of kindness a day. And I'm not talking about now putting a quarter in a in a in a charity box. That's not an act of kindness just a little bit of charity. An act of kindness is when it's not convenient for you. If you have a hundred million dollars in your bank account to give a thousand dollar check is not a big deal. But nevertheless it's also nice. But what I'm saying is an act of kindness is when it's not convenient. When somebody comes to to you when you're running out of shul and you're in a rush and he tells you do you have five minutes I have a question for you? And in your mind you're like how am I getting rid of this guy right now? So an act of kindness is when it's not convenient for you but you're doing something for somebody else. This is the matanot la'evyonim. Third mitzvah is called mishloach manot we'll skip it for a second we'll go to the fourth mitzvah which is called mishteh ve simcha. What's mishteh? Mishteh is a feast. When do we have a feast? Three of them we have on Shabbat. That means observing Shabbat. What's simcha? You have to be be simcha. You have to if you do it the shem be simcha. But we have to have three meals on Shabbat. This is the feast that we're talking about. You know Shabbat is around the table. And if you don't observe Shabbat a hundred percent then you're missing that part of the mitzvah. And I know I know a lot of people say oh I I observe Shabbat I'm a professional. Okay so you always have how to bump it up. Make a nicer meal more guests in the meal. Pray even longer and so forth. Accept the Shabbat a little bit earlier. Take the Shabbat out later. You know I used to observe Shabbat for years when I became observant. And when I went through the entire Shulchan Aruch it took me time to get to the section of Shabbat. But when I finally came to the section of Shabbat this is the first few years after I was observing Shabbat I found out that I'm not even observing Shabbat. I'm messing it up in almost anything that is possible. Why? Because there's one of the prohibitions that is called borer. Oh I was mixing everything I was doing everything the wrong way. There's one prohibition that is called muktzeh. I was messing it up big time. There's another prohibition called bishul. I was cooking things left and right. I just didn't know cuz I was doing it general. So when I went to the what's called the needy greedy I found out I'm not even observing Shabbat. I'm messing it up all the time. So observing Shabbat is one of the most important things. And needless to say this is the last corresponding to the last mitzvah of mishteh ve simcha. But now we're stuck with that third mitzvah that is very hard to understand. This mitzvah is called mishloach manot. You know what's this mitzvah? I pack in a bag all sorts of food and I give it to you. And you do the same thing to me. Why do I need your food? I'll keep my food. Is there any logic to this mitzvah? I got to give matanot la'evyonim. I gave already charity. What do I need your bag with oranges or whatever you give me or the or the now it's baskets with all sorts of chocolate and you know by the way this is a safek if it's a mishloach manot cuz it has to be food. Has to be edible food. But nevertheless now the mishloach manot is people go you know and beautiful stuff. But nevertheless what's the point? Just buy it to yourselves. Can you find any logic behind this mitzvah? There's not much of a logic. Okay it's a nice gesture. But what's the logic behind it? The Ari Hakadosh Rabbi Yitzchak Luria says that each and every one of us has a unique godly spark that is attached to our neshama. This godly spark is a piece of God and is unique like a barcode. There's no such a spark to anywhere in the world. Our our sages say in the Talmud Shuv The same way that their opinions are different, that's how their faces are different. You know why our faces and and our hand lines are different? Because the body is like a empty balloon. You ever saw these balloons that when they don't have air, it's just a little rubber and then you blow air in it, whoop, it inflates and it gets a shape. Our body is discovered. The soul that comes in, the soul is built from five components. The lowest level of all five is called nefesh. The nefesh has a shape. And the second that the nefesh goes into the body, you know what it does? It pushes against the body and then the body gets a shape. So I get what's called the panim, the lines in my face. And also I get fingerprints and the lines in the hand. You know there's no duplicate to this. Billions of people. There are 7.4 billion in this planet right now, but 100 years ago there there was another 7 billion and 100 years ago another 7 billion. Give or take. Nobody has an identical fingerprint. You know why? Because the fingerprint is the soul pushing out on the body and it's unique. Remember when we were kids they had this game that has a lot of pins and you put it on your face and it pushed out from the other side of the face look. The soul comes into the body and it pushes everything out. Now the soul is unique. There's no duplication of souls. The Kadosh explains that each and every one of us has a godly spark in our soul that nobody else has. When we do mishloach manot, I give you a piece of my spark, you give me a piece of your spark and we share. You know how we call this mitzvah? Ahavat Yisrael. You know what's the opposition of Ahavat Yisrael? The other side is sinat chinam. The story of Purim happened 67 years after the destruction of the second of the first temple. The first temple was destroyed for my idolatry, forbidden relations and bloodshed. When they left Yerushalayim, the prophet Yirmiyahu told them 70 years you're going. Sure enough, 67 years later was the story of Purim. 3 years later they make a yud and they go back to Yerushalayim. The second temple was destroyed for one sin, sinat chinam. Baseless hate. Since the sin is not revealed, then the length of the exile is not revealed. And up until today, 1950 years to be exact, we are in exile because of sinat chinam. Now we don't know when it's going to end. Now when I tell people there's sinat chinam, oh no, no, everybody loves each other. I don't know what medication you're on. People don't love each other. There's this much Ahavat Yisrael and this much sinat chinam and we can choose to ignore it or you can choose to acknowledge it, but the reality is that there's not a lot of Ahavat Yisrael. I travel into many communities, many shuls, many countries. I don't see much Ahavat Yisrael. Now you know we don't lack in our in our generation we have a lot of everything. We have a lot of Torah. We never had so much Torah in any generation. You know how many thousands of yeshivot around the world? Go to YouTube, millions of hours of Torah you can found. There's Torah wherever you want, how many you want. There's not a lack of Torah. There's not a lack of charity and chesed in the world. You know how many charity organizations you have out there? I don't know about you, I get like 50 emails every day of all the fundraisers of all the organizations in the world. I'm sure you get them too. There's a lot of chesed in the world. But we're missing this Ahavat Yisrael, this real true love and unconditional love to another person even though he's different, even though he's not the same mind frame of mine. And the sinat chinam, Hashem yerachem, this person hates this person, he's a Sephardi and he's an Ashkenazi and he belongs to this group and he belongs to that group and his rabbi said this about my rabbi and I mean you can't ignore the reality. The reality is that this the sinat chinam is out of control. Even in the same shul. You know how many shuls I go to and I see what's going on in the shul. Politics. Different rabbis and it's all machine of sinat chinam. And sinat chinam can be even between me and my wife because she said something that I'm not happy about. And then for that moment I don't like her. I don't agree with her. The sinat chinam is a little bit out of control. This is this mitzvah, the fourth one of the link of the men. If you learn Torah every day, check. You do acts of kindness every day, check. Every day. Observe Shabbat once a week, that's you can't observe it more than that, check. Now apply this unconditional love, this Ahavat Yisrael, that I help another person. To help another person it's easy. How about not being judgmental to another person? How about not being angry over another person did something wrong to you? That's part of sinat chinam, I'm sorry to tell you. Even if you are a million percent right, I'm sure at least once in your life there if not 50 times, somebody did something to you, you are 100% right, but you still hate him. Why are you hating him? The guy is a shaliach of the Kadosh Baruchu. He's the staff. Kadosh Baruchu decided to smack you on your tuchus and he used that person to be the staff. And you're upset at the staff? This is This is a attitude of a dog. Take a stick now and hit the dog, the dog will bite the stick. He will not bite you. Because the dog doesn't understand that it's you that it's using the stick. He sees a stick attacking it. So people do something bad to me and I think that person did something to me. No, Hashem says, I am doing it to you. That's the shaliach. Why are you upset at that person? So this sinat chinam is not necessarily because I'm Sephardi and he's an Ashkenazi. The sinat chinam is sometimes somebody makes a little bit more money than me. Right away pinches my heart. How come he's more successful than me? That's sinat chinam, I'm sorry to tell you. You can translate it as jealousy. It's under the umbrella of sinat chinam. That person is more successful. This person is more closer to this individual. That person is like this and this person That's sinat chinam, I'm sorry to tell you. If we know how to close that men with these four mitzvot, that's the switch that allows you to segregate disturbance coming from the outside. That's it. It's not that you're doing something wrong and you don't trust Hashem. It's not that you're doing something wrong. Everybody has challenges. You're not the only one. Everybody has challenges and and they come in kilobytes, in terabytes. But some people know how to put the switch down and to ignore it and be productive in what they're supposed to do. Some don't. The way to segregate yourself, put yourself in this men where you have these four walls, you have to be busy with learning Torah. I know it's not easy to learn Torah 2 hours a day, but it can be done, trust me, it can be done. I know it's not easy to do a lot of acts of kindness. You find how to do it. Because why? Because it's going to help you from the back door. And definitely the observing of Shabbat and you want to take it that if you need to learn the Torah, so learn it. You hold Shabbat, you know what to do and what not to do. And then you apply it and every day Hashem is going to challenge you. That neighbor parks on your lawn. This person sat in your seat in shul. It's arousing in you all this sinat chinam. What I told you before, Moshe Rabbeinu knew how to live a day, how to move aside. Learn how to move aside. Learn how to give in. Why? That's the real Ahavat Yisrael. That I do something for somebody that not necessarily is I'm going to get anything in return. And maybe that person even did something bad against me. Or maybe the person is talking lashon hara about me or slandering me. But who says I have to hate the person? I might not have to agree with what he's doing, but who says I have to hate him? Now if I know how to close that last wall of the men, I guarantee to you you're going to be in a bunker. Nothing will come from the outside to bother you. Not the distractions, not the challenges, it's not going to affect you. It's not going to remove it. Don't think for one second that's it, you're getting rid of the challenges. The challenges will be there. But you develop this unbelievable trust and bitachon that Hashem will take care of Hashem is taking care of millions of people. He's not going to take care of me. You know some people have financial problems for 10 years. 10 years somehow you're still eating, you're still living, you're still everything is okay. So the bank account is but but you still live. The system is still running. So the point we want to take from that is that this is all distractions. Everything that is in your life that is taking you off your focus is distractions that you're not going to be focused. So the challenges that you're dealing with is that you're not going to pray calm. Try to think, when was the last time you prayed and your mind was on the words and not on the problems that you have. Most people after three words in the pray, the the thoughts are somewhere somewhere in the universe and then you wake up when the shatz What? Where was I? So when was the last time you prayed with a clear mind? So you have to understand that you are constantly subject to attacks from the outside, but I have to create myself a bunker. And this bunker is not only that the time of Purim is a auspicious time to actually to to apply it, but then the rest of the year when I follow all these mitzvot, try it, put it to the test, you'll see a total difference in in life. But it has to be genuine and real. Not to learn one week, an hour a day Torah and then leave it alone. That your limud Torah is sacred, is precious. You know, I have a very very special seder that I do with my kids. I highly guarantee to you to do it with your boys if they're under the age of bar mitzvah. If you read one Mishnah a day from the entire Shishah Sedarim Mishnah Yomi, one Mishnah a day, in 6 year you finish the entire Shas. So, I have a uh uh I have to call it a habit. How would you call it? A seder with my kids that every time one of my boys turns 7, we start learning one Mishnah a day. And then on their bar mitzvah they do a Siyum of the entire Shas. Uh what a beautiful idea for a bar mitzvah boy to come to his bar mitzvah after he does the Aliyah, before the speech, after the speech, it doesn't matter. That he finished the entire Shas. Now, you know what it does for me and my son? It's 10 minutes. It's just me and my son learning. Now, the 12 and 1/2 year old is already more sharp. It's But the 7 year old, how creative I have to become to teach him a Mishnah when it's talking about biblical terms and all sorts of things that with agriculture or whatever. But it's a time that I'm with my son. It's a private time with my son. It's sacred. It's the time that I'm with my son. It's 10 minutes that I have to teach and give him over the Torah. This will stick with the child for the rest of his life. Why? Because it was a private time with the father. It's not necessarily the limud Torah. That's how your your limud Torah has to be. I see people coming to my classes in the morning. They're like tourists. They come with their coffee and the croissant. You know, you're coming for for uh uh coffee and cake? You came to learn. Sit and listen. That's all I hear in the morning. I can't stand it. People come with those brown bags. That's a distraction. For me that's a distraction. Excuse me, come with your your croissant, sit it outside. So, you come to learn. When I came to learn, I was like magneted to my rabbi. I I if there was some distraction, no no no no no no no no right now right now. Uh you learn and on everything that you do. Then you apply this into the life. When you put now it's time to pray, no distractions. Now it's time to learn, no distractions. Now is the time for me to spend with my child. You know how to partition your life. You slowly slowly build a system that you're not distracted. You know, people get very upset at me. I emailed you 2 hours ago. Okay. You think I check my emails every moment? What am I expecting an email from Donald Trump to ask me to which direction to to put the missile or which brick to put on the wall? I check my emails once a day, at night. I'm sorry to tell you, if it's urgent, you know, call my secretary. She'll tell me it's urgent. Why do you check your email 17 times an hour? Why? Is it Can you imagine how many hours a day you're wasting on just checking the You're going like this. Habibi, you looked into the WhatsApp list already 10 times this hour. Why do you look at it again? I check I also have a smartphone. I also have emails. I also have a whole system. I check my emails once a day. Why? Because anytime to check it in the middle of the day it's a distraction. It's not the time now to check the email. Emails are between 10 to 11:00 at night. You know what? We We were functioning very well 20 years ago without WhatsApp, without email, without anything. Just today in the middle where I was we remember we were reminiscing. Remember we had beepers? It was so much fun. We were doing pretty well 30 years ago without anything. So, you need to understand that your day is very valuable. And if you're missing out your time to pray, sorry to tell you that moment will never come back. And when you're missing the time to learn Torah, that moment is lost. Now, don't cry that the distractions are pulling you down into a uh whirlpool of worries and thoughts. Sorry to tell you, you are literally opening all the doors to any attack coming from the outside by all these forces. You're It's your problem. Manage your day much better. Close, seal all these places where the distractions are coming from. Put the the time and the care and the thought when it has to do with what you have to do. Trust me, your life will look completely different. And again, it's not that it's the challenges will stop, but it's under control. And I'm not worried. And I'm not under stress. And I'm not losing time in sleep. You know, my wife always gets very upset at me. She says, "How do you fall asleep within a fraction of a second?" When I go to sleep, it literally takes me three of a hundredths of a second to fall asleep. I just put my head on the pillow and that's it. I'm already out. She was like, "How do you fall asleep so fast?" I turn this way and then this way and then this way and then that way. I told her, "Well, first of all, I only have 2 hours to sleep. I don't have time to waste on thoughts. But more than that, I'm not worried. I don't owe anybody anything. I don't have to do anything that I I already did it. I Nothing is bothering me. I'm not distracted. Oh my god, how I leave all the worries to Hashem. I need to worry about anything. I don't have to worry about anything. It's not my job to worry about anything. So, my eyes close and right away the system is down because the brain is not over overworking. It's not worried about nothing. You know how you say worry in Hebrew? Da'agah. You have the letters from the alphabet aleph, gimel, dalet, hey. You know which letter you're missing? You're missing missing the letter bet. Bitachon. If you have bitachon in the Kadosh Baruch Hu, you trust Hashem, you don't worry. Why worry? It's the biggest waste of time. It's actually kind of a slap to Hashem's face to when you worry. It's almost like my child coming to me and he's worrying. Sometimes I tell my children, "You worry about something? You ever missed anything? You ever skipped a meal? You ever went to school without shoes? What are you worried about?" Hashem tells you, "What are you worried about?" Really, when you're thinking about it, it's kind of chutzpah to worry. It's kind of to turn your back and Hashem says, "I don't trust that you're going to take care of business." You You don't think I'm going to take care of you? I brought you into this world. Hashem tells you, "You worry about what you need to worry about. I'll worry about what you need to worry about." I tend to worry from seeing other people suffer. Doesn't matter. Worry doesn't help you in any situation. Even if you see your loved one under stress, worry will worry will make any difference? Don't worry. Pray for that person. Do a certain act to help the person. So, you think to yourself, "Who am I that Hashem is going to spare me?" just uh but just just This is exactly the distraction of the klipah to coming and tell you, "You see that person is so holy and they're going through stress, so much more so you." But that's just a show of the yetzer hara to put you under stress. But first of all, most important what I'm saying here is this is not an easy thing that tomorrow you start your day and that's it. You finish with it. I'm just giving you the practicality and the tools. And this takes time to master. But at least you have some type of a plan. If you don't work with a plan, you'll never achieve anything. You know that the most successful people in the world, they work with a plan. There's a There's a plan there. There's a strategy. You ever saw army going into a war without a plan? "Yeah, let's go in and I will figure it out on the way." That That's That's That's not how it works. You see great leaders, there's a plan. And they work one step after the other. There's a strategy. I also work with a plan. So, it doesn't mean that you're productive the next day. Sometimes the plan takes out a month to to over to actually to come to to to to be fruitful. But But this is the point. The point right now that if you're focusing on yourself, we are constantly thrown distractions. You know, in the Israeli army, I can tell you that the one of the things one of the ways how they train the soldiers is that they put a lot of pressure on you and to see how you're reacting in pressure. And for example, you you're sitting in a shooting range and you have to shoot at the target. But if it's all quiet and you're sitting very comfortable and you're like this, of course you'll hit the target. But you know, they do they come behind you and they smack you on your head or on on on your back. "YEAH, THEY'RE SHOOTING ON YOU. THEY'RE SHOOTING YOU." AND THEY'RE MAKING A WHOLE commotion and you're like So, now you're not able to to to focus. But the point is that yeah, there's constantly something banging on your head. Of course, when everything is relaxed and they aim and all, of course I'll aim I'll shoot right. But constantly there's action distracting you. Torah comes and tells you, first of all, relax. First of all, segregate all these distractions. Don't let it even come and affect you. Most people are not really functioning. I'm looking at people and not that I have some x-ray visions. I see the volcano of thoughts and emotions in their body. People sitting like this and you're saying, "Ooh, look at that. Person is so relaxed now." No, they're not. Inside a whole tornado going on. But the outside The other day I was sitting on the subway. Everybody's like No, they're not. Inside there's a tornado of emotions and thoughts. But the outside is So the point is that everybody's under this tornado. So the the the trick here and again I'm not saying it's easy. But we have an auspicious time at the time of Adar. We have the day of Purim that will focus on it to do this mitzvot in the best way possible that it gives me the koach to do the rest of the year. When Purim comes, when it comes to the Megillah, most people don't really listen to the Megillah. They're starving. It's after a fast. And they're not really thinking of the Megillah right now. They're thinking of the the the the steak or whatever they're about to eat. Focus on the Megillah. Listen to it. You know that if you skipped one vowel, it's like as if you didn't read the Megillah. When you're listening, the ba'al koreh, the one who's reading the Megillah, says the brachot, you have to listen. He's including you in the brachot and you have to listen to every word. You have to look at your own Megillah. And if you missed one vowel, you it's like as if you didn't listen to the Megillah. Pay attention to the Megillah. You know why? Because this is going to give you koach for the entire year to learn Torah with focus. Then you have to do matanot la'evyonim. Do it the right way. Don't give a few quarters to some beggars that come to the shul. Do it the right way. Same thing with mishloach manot, and same thing mishteh simchah. Some people just buy, you know, falafel balls and eat it. This is not a mishteh. A Purim party has to be a serious Purim party. When you sit and you eat, you wash your hands, you do a seudah. That gives you strength for the rest of the year to do all these four mitzvot. Now, I'm not saying these four mitzvot are easy. But put it as your highest priority, then you see that the Kadosh Baruch Hu takes responsibility away from you. You know, I always give the same example how Kadosh Baruch Hu takes care of business. Besides that we have this beautiful center for the women that are learning, it comes with a lot of problems because half the women are either abused or abandoned or we have stories from Hashem Yerachem. There's never a dull moment in our house. Because be meit half of them are poor women that are coming from all sorts of places in the world. Half of them are single mothers that their husband just disappeared. And we have cases from here till tomorrow. It's not comfortable women that are coming there with millions of dollars just to enjoy the learning. It's women that are going through a lot of problems. So one night, in the middle of the night, a lady comes knocking on the door, frantic. She's holding her baby. Her husband is beating her up. And our house is a shelter, okay? She comes into the house. 2:00 in the morning. The whole house is swarming with police. All the outside is police car. Everybody's "What's going on in the house of the rabbi?" What's the police there all night? She's in our house. The husband is calling me, threatening me. A whole balagan. And of course she doesn't want to go home. The whole house is up. Finally, after a while, she decides, "Okay, she stays. She sleeps on our couch." 4:00 in the morning, the the whole fiasco is done. So in the morning I had a meeting. I had to call the person and say, "Listen, I can't come to the meeting. I have to push it to the afternoon." When I finally met the person, he tells me, "Why did you have to push the meeting? What's wrong?" I told him, "Listen, last night, so you know, a woman came to our house." And I tell him the whole story. And he tells me, "Doesn't it bother you that a woman comes in the middle of the night, knocks on your door, barges into your house, the police is coming, interrogating you, her, the husband is threatening you? Now, doesn't it bother you that she sleeps on your couch? The whole house is up." And I told him, "No, it doesn't bother me." He's like, "Be meit, it doesn't Really doesn't bother you?" I told him, "Yeah, it doesn't bother me. You know why? Because when you take care of other people's problems, Hashem take Hashem takes care of your problems." So I said, "I'm busy taking care of other people's problems, then Hashem takes care of my problems. That's it. I rather deal with other people's problems and leave all the responsibility to Hashem to take care of." So in the same idea, when you let Hashem take care take care of your problems, he Let him take care of it. My problem is not to worry about things in this world. My problem is to worry about praying in a minyan, learning Torah, educating my kids to Torah and mitzvot, sitting with my kid right now and teaching him Torah or doing homework with him. Whatever it is, I have responsibilities in this world and my responsibility on the list of responsibility is not to worry about things that has nothing to do with me. Now, when I take all this responsibility and I give it to the Kadosh Baruch Hu, Hashem says, "Stop. Thank you. I'll take care of it. You worry about your problems." So when I want to remove all these distractions from my life, I have to segregate. What are my responsibilities? Am I doing my responsibilities? And if you go through the list and you're honest, you'll see that half of this responsibilities you're not really doing. How many times you prayed at home because you don't feel like going to the minyan or you're too distracted to go to the minyan or whatever it is. I'm just giving one example out of many. How many times you accept Shabbat a minute before Shabbat comes or maybe it's a minute after Shabbat cuz you're busy and you were working till an hour before Shabbat or whatever thing was going on in your mind. Why don't you accept Shabbat quietly, calmly an hour before Shabbat? Who says that in that 18 minutes you're really hitting the the the the time of Shabbat? So I'm I I can give you now a million and one examples. Your responsibility is to worry about your Torah, the Torah of your kids, the education of your kids, your praying, your learning Torah, the acts of kindness, everything that I just said. You do that in a very systematic way, you'll see that you are closing that mem betoch ha'mem. Shh, it's segregating itself. Now, what happens? How did they start the whole example? "Va'asitem li mikdash veshachanti betocham." Once you close this mem, you know what happens? You know who comes and visits? Kadosh Baruch Hu comes and visits. Now Hashem is dwelling in me, then I don't have anxieties, I don't have fears, I don't worry because Hashem is in me. I'm energized, I'm happy, I'm full of bitachon, full of confidence. Why? Because Hashem is in me. If you worry, means Hashem is not dwelling in you right now. If you under stress, anxiety, fear, Hashem jumped out. He says, "I'm sorry to tell you, I can't be This is not a mikdash. This is not a holy place for me to dwell in." That's part of the distractions. The distractions is what I said they're going to increase and increase and increase. Don't have to put a No, no, you don't have to put it any smile. You have to plan your day in the in the I don't have to say the word hierarchy, but when I work on my schedule, I put I like working with lists and I always put from the highest priority to the least important priority. And for example now, I came now for 10 days. This trip was not supposed to be about about the lectures. This trip was coming to take care of business. On the way, I'm already here. I'll do some lectures. I came with an organized list. One of the things that are not only the highest priority, are a must. This is the highest priority. Finish with this, go to the next part of the list. So I always work with highest priorities. When you wake up in the morning, what is your highest priority? To get your tuchus to the mikveh and get to the minyan in shacharit after or before you learn Torah. If you did anything anything that is not answering this priority, you missed out. And most people what they do the first thing when they wake up in the morning, open the phone, open the news, open the mail, open the computer. Why you open your phone in the morning? Why do you need to find out? So that you'll get the email 2 hours later. Worry about first what you need to do. The second that you move yourself from what you need to do, the whole day is messed up. I find it myself that if I don't follow my order of priorities, everything makes gets messed up. So I'm not saying that life is going to reduce the the the problems, but you need to learn to create a system how you first ignore everything and you prioritize. Now, start your day with an hour of Torah and I'm dipping in the mikveh and I pray pray shacharit in a minyan quietly and the phone is home, I guarantee to you the day is different. You're going to see all the disasters in the world. Doesn't affect you cuz you surrounded yourself with such power. You started the day with Torah. You started the day with acts of kindness. You started the day with so much you nourish your soul. You come to the to the next task, you're not overwhelmed. I'm overwhelmed. Do I look overwhelmed? I'm the most calm, peaceful person. I fall asleep. I can fall asleep now here in the chair with all the noise. Why? Nothing bothers me. And it's not that I'm different than any person. Rather, I don't take things in the measure that lets them affect me. And why? Not because I'm Superman. Because I focus on what I need to do and that surrounds me with this shield that nothing affects me. And again, I'm not saying I'm Superman. I just take this method and I apply it. So when I wake up in my morning in the morning, my priority is not to shove a cookie in my mouth or to excuse my language or to make a cup of coffee. My priority is to get to the mikveh. And this is not a fun mikveh that I go to. It's like 32 and a and a degree freezing. Yeah, it's not a fun mikveh to go in. I know. I mean, some people enjoy it. I don't. It's like you're going It's like a But it doesn't matter. It's kabbalat ol. First thing in the morning, dip in something in a freezing cold mikveh. But my priority, first finish your learning and your prayers. Your day is completely different. I guarantee to you. Most people, they wake up in the morning, "Okay, I'll pray. I'm natural. There's a later minyan, I'll go there. And before you know it, 12:00 in the afternoon, you didn't pray yet. Oh, okay, now I can't go to the minyan, there's no minyan. Okay, I'll pray by myself. Let me just check the emails a few minutes, and before I know it, it's already 2:00. You didn't pray yet. How do you want to be productive that day? Now comes already 4:00. I'm going to pray, it's already 4:00. Okay, so I'll just put filling on without praying. No, it is, so you missed the whole Shacharit. And then this is You think I'm the only one that I Everybody's going through something. So this is one example of many. You take this this example and you apply it into your life. But the point is that when you're not working in a system of the highest priority, you know when I came to the strip, like I told you, I had a list of six things that were highest priority. I did not stop and rest until I finished these six things. Once I finished that, that's it. I accomplished what I came to New York for. Now we go to the next priority list. But at least I was able to call my wife after 3 days. That's it, it's done. I made it. Originally, I was supposed to come from Sunday to Thursday. And I was like, this is not enough. I only have three business days, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. I had to sit with our accountant, we have a nonprofit profit here, finish the taxes of last year, my personal taxes, I had to sit with our accountant, the lawyer, banks. I had to deal with so many things that had nothing to do with with the mayor lectures. And a long long list. But that was highest priority. No time for distractions. Don't you think that a million people called me, can you come and give a class in my show? Can you come and meet me? No. First, let me deal with what I need to deal with. And that's how I operate always. I have lists, I work in a very organized way, and I prioritize things. So for me, if I started the day and I did anything in the morning before I went to pray, learn, and pray in a minyan, sorry to tell you, the day is messed. I can tell you already the day is messed up. What if you start the day like that, and then and things go worse than before, and then you start worrying? But that But that's where the Yetzer Hara The Yetzer Hara is very unhappy when you outsmart him. So he will come and show you a reality to to again distract you. If you completely ignore the Yetzer Hara, he's going to come from here. So you're going to ignore him, he's going to come from here. You think he's going to let go it so easy? He doesn't give up. The Yetzer Hara is like a insurance agent. He doesn't leave you alone. So you throw him out of the window, he comes through the door. You close the door, he comes through the window. So of course the Yetzer Hara is going to try to put you under stress. And I'm not saying that that's it, you take this method tomorrow morning, you you you figure it out. Yeah, the Yetzer Hara is constantly going to throw these distractions at you. Now like it's anything that you want to get rid of. In the first week, two, three, four, five weeks, oh, it's of course it's hardest, because the Yetzer Hara doesn't want you to succeed. So he's going to crush you right away. But it's almost like when a person wants to quit smoking, go on a diet, whatever it is. The first few weeks are always the hardest. Once you get it into the system, then you're able to It's turning your system. So the first week or two that you're saying, okay, that's it, I'm going to be focused now, I'm going to fight the Yetzer Hara. Ooh, now he's going to come full force. And the Yetzer Hara is a master of showing you fake news. The Yetzer Hara is a air balloon. It's like a a virtual reality of any of nothing. The Yetzer Hara is a master of illusions. To come and show you something. Look now, we're going to read next week, Ki Tisa. Moshe Rabbeinu goes up to the mountain, they count 40 days. What do you think, they're ignorant? They don't know how to count 40 days. They know exactly how to count 40 days. But what does the Yetzer Hara do? He shows them a vision of Moshe Rabbeinu dying, and the Malachim in Shamayim are burying him. Oh, and they believe this vision. All you need to do is take a needle, poke it, and it explodes, and that's it. So the Yetzer Hara, he's a master of throwing something in your face, and you believe it. You know what we say in Hebrew? Peti ma'amin lechol davar. He He pulls you, and you believe everything that he says. Like the Nachash and Chava. He rolled her around his finger. You have to say, no, I don't believe you right now. Now, it doesn't mean that he runs away. For the first week, the first month, could be the first 3 months, he's not going to leave you alone. You think he's going to leave you alone so easy? Especially that you're coming out with a bold plan, he's going to take two steps ahead of you already. You have to be prepared, and you know how you prepared? You can't fight something that is beyond your means. You have to be a robot. I don't know if you noticed, a lot of the things in the Torah is robotic. Why? Because when you do something in a system of a robot, you have to focus on what you're doing, like a soldier. You can't be distracted. That's why when you really think about Why do we have to pray three times a day in a certain order? Because if every day would be something else, then it wouldn't be robotic. And when it's robotic, it means that you're doing it, doesn't matter what's coming as interferences. Now it doesn't mean again, everything that I said now, it's much easier said than done. But at least you want to start applying that. And when you start applying that, then at some point you'll get to a point that you master it. Besides the fact that when do you get the most koach to do it? First of all, in the month of Adar, cuz the whole month has this energy. But when Purim comes, that's when you have to strike the iron while it's hot. Because I mentioned before, the holiday is not because of a historical event, it's because on these days, on the 14th day of Adar, a very powerful energy comes down to the world. How do you tap into the energy? Mikra Megillah, mishteh vesimcha, matanot la'evyonim, umishloach manot. You tap into this energy. How? But you have to do it the best. You know, the first few years in Purim, I didn't even listen to Megillah. I was still hungry. I would get distracted. Later on, when I became more observant, then I would really hear the Megillah again an hour later, because I knew that I didn't read it the right way. I didn't listen to it the right way. And in the first few years in Purim, you think we did a mishteh? Well, I bought a hamburger. Hey, I'll you'd say day chova, wash my hands. No, do it all the way. So Purim is the time that the energy is the most powerful. You do it the right way, you tap into this energy, this this will feed you for the rest of the year. So what is marbim besimcha for Adar? What is doing it practical way? The practical way is to tap into the energy of the month that this this energy of tzoch. How do I tap into this energy of tzoch? This was a I mean, I gave a whole class on it, and it's posted online, but it's very thoroughly explained, but the idea is is that Let me give it very very short. I started by saying that Sefer Yetzirah explains that every month is is created by a letter. The month that precedes Adar is the month of Shevat. Based on Sefer Yetzirah, the letter that creates the month of Shevat is the letter tzadik. And the letter that creates the month of Adar is the letter kuf. What is the sense of the month of Adar? Tzoch. Now, when I'm trying to figure out what what is this tzoch? Is it a Is it a joke? Is it a funny comedy show? No. It's something that's coming from the depths of my soul. When I want to find out about anything in this world, you know where I go to? To the source. And what is the source? Only the Torah. Where is the first time that I find the concept of laughter in the Torah? With Yitzchak. Very good. First comes the angel to tell Avraham Avinu that he's going to have a baby, Avraham laughs. Sarah hears that, she laughs. A year later, Yitzchak is born. What does Sarah says? Tzoch asah li Elohim. Hashem made brought laughter to me. And therefore, she calls him Yitzchak. Yud tzachak. Now, you take the word tzachak. Tzoch. Tzoch is tzachak. The first letter is tzadik. The last letter is kuf. The letter tzadik of Shevat, the letter kuf of Adar. That's already two-thirds of the root of the word tzachak. Now, very interestingly, who gave birth to Yitzchak? Sarah and Avraham, right? Sarah was how old when she gave birth? 90. 90. What was the What's the numerical value of 90? Tzadik. How old was Avraham Avinu? Kuf. 100. When tzadik and kuf come together, they bring tzoch, laughter. So Yitzchak is the source of the laughter. Sarah kicked out of the house Ishmael and Hagar. I don't want this guy. Oh, he's making jokes with my son. Ishmael was teaching Yitzchak how to break into bank accounts, hot-wire cars, hack into computer. He was teaching him all the bad things. Sarah says, no, no, no, no. He's bringing in the the fake tzoch into my house. Now, what is Yitzchak? What does Yitzchak stand for? Pachad Yitzchak. Yirah. Right? If you want to really bring out the real laughter, it's only about Yirat Shamayim. Which means on Adar, how do you marbim besimcha? You increase in Yirat Shamayim. You take the power of Yitzchak, the shoresh of Yitzchak, which is gevurah and yirah, and you increase in Yirat Shamayim. You know, Yitzchak was all about yirah. The more you increase in your Yirat Shamayim, then you bring out to the surface the real tzoch. This is marbim besimcha. And you know where you increase your shamayim? It's with those little things that you really brush off and you don't really pay attention to. Little little things. And you know I'll give you examples, my own personal examples. You use it to your own examples. When I became observant, when you become observant, you you Mr. Fanatic. And then a year or two year later, you start giving yourself all sorts of discounts. So when I became observant, I was like sharp like a like a knife of the shochet. Five years into my to the observant world, you know, you give up here, you give up here. So at some point, I started washing my hands with a cup in the bathroom. You know you're not to wash your hands in the bathroom with a cup. So people say, "Okay, so I I take the seat of the toilet off." So? So in my mind I would constantly brush it off. "Ah, you know, I'm lazy to go now to the kitchen. Let me do it in the bathroom real quick." So increasing of your shamayim is to come and say, "No, go down. It will take you 40 seconds. Big deal. Wash in the kitchen of the sink." Now you come to the kitchen of the sink. Okay, so move all the the cups. You can't wash on the cups. Now all these these are the things that you like I call the syndrome. Now when you're very particular in these little things, that's when you increase your shamayim. Because if you brush it off by saying ah then where's your shamayim? What? You only have your shamayim God fearing when it comes to Shabbat or to murder or to other things? You claim your shamayim starts in the little little things. Then you're able to really have your shamayim for big things. So you look in your life the things that you brush off. You know you're not allowed to talk when you have to fill in in your head. So I see how to doubt. You know you're not even to have a distraction in your mind. For years I would be a mute when filling is on my head. For years somebody would talk to me. And at some point you let go. So here a little conversation, here a little conversation and of course I found myself after a couple years and I'm talking with the filling on my head. And at some point I go, "Okay, this has to stop. You're not allowed to talk when you have to fill in in your head." It says you're not allowed to have a distraction of your thought. It's like a doubt. So this is your shamayim. 99.9% of men talk when they have filling on their head. Where's your shamayim? So start with something this big. Don't start with now eating pork. You're not going to eat pork. You're not going to drive on Shabbat. But you're going to wash your hands in the toilet. You're going to talk when the filling is on your head. I'm just giving you personal examples. You use it to your own turf. It's the things that you How many times you know we do have it's not a minhag. This is a halacha. You have to have water next to your bed to wash your hands. It's not a cabbalistic thing. It says in the Shulchan Aruch you're not allowed to walk four amot without washing your hands. Four amot it's not like a foot. Right? Amot is the hiluch arba amot. Four seconds. So what do we do? We put water next to our bed. Now with all you don't have to say it out loud in front of anybody. When was the last time you did it? How many times you skip it? All right, listen we're all human. So I also had the same thing. Once then the water will be next to me. Like like no questions here. And then five years, 10 years into the practice of religion. Okay, one time I forget. One time I fall asleep. One time I'm not so particular. So you open all these little gaps. This is the shamayim that we lose. I'm not going to eat a pork sandwich and I'm not going to drive on Shabbat. But with these little things This is what Rashi says in parashat Ekev asher dash ba'akevav. Ah, this is not so important. But the second that you neglect these little things then you start opening bigger gaps for real problem in your shamayim. The problem is then when I have a 100% your shamayim I'm so covered You know what happens? The true essence of the neshama comes out. And the neshama holds in it this component of tzoch, of laughter. This is not the tzoch of the what's called holy luter leitzanut. Rather it's the real laughter. So marbin be simcha, I know it's tricky. Okay, let me put some music and start dancing. That's also This is will be the more pshat of it. But marbin be simcha is start increasing in your avodat Hashem when it comes to your shamayim. And what I gave now is a very short version of the whole I gave a whole class last week. It's you can find it online about the month of Adar where I'm talking about this whole idea with the birth of the tzaddik and the kuf and Avraham and Sarah and why should the month of Shvat and why the month of Adar and all beautiful explanation based on sefer yetzirah and another book that's called the bnei sachar and all beautiful explanation but gives you the truth of how do I expose this laughter. It's not about playing music and dancing all day long. That's nice. This is not the marbin be simcha. The marbin be simcha is that I have to increase in my level of of your shamayim and by default the real essence come out. The soul is vulnerable. Just to give you an analogy, if you scare a turtle, what does it do with the head? It goes in. Now you how do you get the head out? You think you go and the head comes out. The soul when it's still vulnerable closes into the body into very deep into the body. Why? Because it's it's it's vulnerable. So you add your shamayim the soul feels oh a little bit comfortable. This is my analogy by the way. The soul soul can feel a little bit more comfortable, comes out. But when I'm very vulnerable because I'm not doing all these little things in your shamayim the soul says, "Listen, I don't want to get hurt now." Now go expose the soul now. The soul inside of it has this component that is called tzoch and it's empowered and very very strong in the month of Adar. Because that's the sense our soul has sensed 12 senses. This is the sense now in the month of Adar there is easy access. How do we do it? To make a long story short to save you an hour and a half on the class online is your shamayim. It's only your shamayim. That's the Itzhak. Very interestingly, if you're looking at the word tzachak, tzoch, tzaddik chet kuf. So I explained very briefly tzaddik is the 90, Sarah, kuf 100, Avraham. When they come together they birth Itzhak and so forth. Tzaddik and kuf is a two thirds of the root of the word tzachak. But in the middle what do you have? A chet. In in English when you want to express laughter what do you say? Ha ha ha. In Hebrew what do you say? Cha cha cha. That's the chet. There's a tzaddik and a kuf and the middle is the chet. Cha cha cha. So Itzhak as serious as he was then he was the source of laughter. But pachad Itzhak, Itzhak was all about gevurah and yirah. Gevurah, what is gevurah? It's din, it's segregating myself. I this I segregate myself from anything coming from the outside. That's gevurah. So this is the pachad Itzhak and your shamayim. And your shamayim is not about eating now like I told you a a ham and cheese sandwich. Listen, you don't have to ever eat that. You think the yetzer hara is going to try even? The yetzer hara doesn't come to you and tells you pick up the phone on Shabbat. There's no chance there. But he will come and tell you you can wash your hands in the bathroom. It's fine. Who says it's fine? It's not fine. Whatever. But but the the washing of the hands in the toilet it's a place of tumah. Why would you wash your hands in the in the toilet? I'm just giving one example out of many. You use this is my example. You use your example. There's so many different things where you brush off the the little things. You know the other day we're in the mikvah so I see my son putting his shoes on and he's a little boy but nevertheless I tell him, "Why are you tying your right shoe first? You tie your left shoe first." So he does the same thing. Ah. It's not ah. This is not an ah. If it says in the Shulchan Aruch that you put your right shoe and then you put your left shoe and then you tie your left shoe and then you tie your right shoe then do we think it's a recommendation? Hm? Yeah? You know the famous story with the shoes? That's what I told my son. He's young. He didn't want to he didn't understand the importance. But I'll tell you a story and this is a true story. three or 24 years ago there was a disaster in Israel. It's called the Son of Misoka came. The disaster of the helicopters. Two helicopters that take Yeah, 72 73. Something like that. 73 or 74 soldiers were going to a mission in Lebanon in two helicopters. Helicopters collided and they exploded in the air. Every There's not one Israeli who didn't know about Son of Misoka came. Everybody heard about it. Yeah, exactly. A week ago. And the week ago was the anniversary. I don't have to say anniversary but they yahrzeit the the day of remembrance. Anyways, everybody It's like 9/11. Tell any Israeli a Son of Misoka came they'll tell you where they were. I remember exactly where I was. It was a big disaster in Israel. Nevertheless the story is that there's a soldier and he goes on his leave on Shabbat. Soldiers they serve in the army for two weeks. On Friday they go out. He hitchhikes and a man stops. "Where do you need?" "I need to go woo." He tells him to the north of Israel. Says, "Listen, it's hard going." Takes him and he says, "Listen, you're not going to make it to home. Why don't you come and spend Shabbat with me? And I'll take you in the morning on Sunday. I I promise you I'll take you to the base on Sunday." So ah listen, you know, the soldier is secular, the guy is religious. Finally, some he says, "Listen, you don't have to observe Shabbat. Just come. Just don't don't travel on Shabbat. Stay in my place. You can eat. You don't have to do whatever whatever we do. I'll take you to the base Sunday morning." Okay. He agrees. Then my guy lives in Bnei Brakh. They stop there. He organizes for him a room. The soldier eats with them. He doesn't participate in anything. But he decided on Shavuot to eat to go with him. And the rav, the rabbi of the Beit Knesset is talking all sorts of halachot and he says the halacha about the shoes. Putting the right shoe on. Putting the left shoe on. Tying the left shoe on. Tying the right shoe on. Okay. Shabbat ends. The man takes the soldier to his base like he promised. Okay. In the morning in the army when all the soldiers get ready, there's a certain tradition. I don't know if to call it a tradition, but an act that you everybody gets in formation in a shape of the letter chet called misdar. All the soldiers are standing and they brief them for the morning activities or whatever. Okay. So, they're all standing there and suddenly the soldier says, "Oh my god, I forgot in misdar. I forgot to do the shoes. I made it the wrong way." He raises his hands, tells the commander, "Can I go to the the bathroom?" Yeah. He goes to the tent. He doesn't go to the bathroom. He goes to the tent. Takes his shoes off. Puts it back on and he ties it the right way. Going back. Okay. Next day, same thing. He stands in formation. Oh, before I forgot the shoe. I did it the wrong way. Again, he raises his hand, asks the commander, "Can I go to the bathroom?" Instead of going to the bathroom, he goes to the tent, takes off his shoes, puts the shoes again, ties them right way. The third day, again. He runs to the bathroom. Instead of the bathroom, he goes to the tent. This time the commander says, "What's going on with this guy? Three days in a row, every time we're standing in the misdar in the formation in the morning, he goes to the tent." He decides to follow him. He goes to the tent, finds him without shoes. "What are you doing here?" I start stuttering. Right away, he puts him to a court martial, detained to the base for 14 days. What do we call in Hebrew "kibbel rituk"? Detained to the base. That's how it works in the army. Now, what happens? The entire pluga, the entire uh a pluga is three platoons. They're all going to the helicopters. He's detained to the base. All of them die. And he's in the base detained. And that's when he makes the connection how it saved his life, the shoes. This man, it's a true story. This man is an Orthodox man lives in Yerushalayim. He tells this story and he made the connection how this little mitzvah made him detained and not go up on the helicopters. He would die with all the rest of the soldiers. So, this is a problem. I was telling this this story to my kid when he told me So, if tells you to do something and it comes through halacha, our sages didn't sit there 2,000 years ago in a cave and saying, "Okay, how are we going to bother these guys?" There's something more mystical to it. There's something kabbalistic behind it. There's a the wisdom of God behind it. So, if Hashem tells you to put the right shoe, the left shoe, then tie the left shoe, then tie the right shoe, there's something behind it. Do it. This is because most people say, "This is this is not a big thing. It's shoes." So, everybody has their little thing that they say, "Ah, that's not so important." Life. If it says in Shulchan Aruch, if the Torah says it, it is important. Where do you increase in these things? In the things that you usually You increase that, I guarantee to you the This is the The will start increasing and increasing. Then you start laughing at everything. The credit card bill comes. So, he's just laughing at everything and you know what? The laughter it breaks any boundaries. And you know when you see the challenge disappear? When you're laughing at the face of the challenge. When you're being impressed and overwhelmed from the challenge, it got you. It nailed you. When you totally ignore it and you're even laughing at it, then it disappears. You poked it with a needle like poking a balloon. We're going to continue with more questions and answers if you want, but the point we want to take from today from tonight is that the is in me. The trust and that I have in We're all born with in The soul is born. It's built into the soul this and this and this in It's just so pushed inside in the depth of my soul because I'm overwhelmed because what's going on around me. I just need to know how to take it out. And the practical way I don't I like working practical, not in theory. Theory is beautiful, but practical. Take something from tonight. You walk out of this door and you're not applying it in your life. So, besides eating pizza and sushi, what did you come for tonight? You came to take something and tomorrow morning you apply which means that tomorrow morning that you're 6:00 in the morning, you're in the 7:00, you're already praying. After you did your hour learning and you start your day fresh, ready for war. So, and you think the is just going to let you go to the Oh, no. He's going to bring a lot of distractions. But the point is that you want to start and you want to apply that and you want to make sure that your bunker is surrounded this war these four that these are the that you're saying I'm going to do it. I'm doing it. How we say I'm going to do it. Doesn't matter what happens, I'm doing it. And you put this on your highest priority, suddenly you see the the energy around you shifts. How we say it in Hebrew in Hebrew? You do it, it's going to work. If you fall after a week or two, the is going to come full force against you. Don't be impressed. How we say in our terminology? You know what happens when the does? He overwhelms you. Once you're overwhelmed, that's it. He got you. Don't Don't be overwhelmed. It's just a little bit of a show. You ignore it completely, it disappears. This is this fake reality that the master of deception is putting in front of you and you get so overwhelmed. Ignore it for the first time and you'll see that nothing happens. May Hashem If we're able to really apply this into your life, I guarantee to you we're going to have a beautiful We're going to be able to see the dwelling in our in our own May Hashem we'll see happiness and health in our life and and May Hashem