After Hours with Rabbi Yaron Reuven (37)

any questions the sh they will show you where your eyes were right yes they'll show you where your thoughts were where your eyes were everything in terms of like when you go as like they'll show you okay you were sitting in a Shabbat dinner and then the daughter of this Rabbi walked and sounds like what do you he's asking if what you're asking is if you're stating a or you're uh you're asking a question so the end was a question I want to confirm okay so when a person goes up to sh the the depth of the judgment is scary as can be the two students of rant promised each other that whoever dies first comes back to the other in a dream and tells them what's happening over there so one of them eventually died and uh after 11 months he comes back to his friend is in a dream so first question is how come it took you so long to come back he says I've been in judgment I've been in trial for the last almost a year he says okay can you tell me what tell me how we okay well not okay how is Judgment over there he says the depth of the judgment is much much deeper than we thought I'm not allowed to tell you all the details that go on but I can tell you that it's much much deeper now these people were literally Angels walking on Earth among us if you listen about the things that they had and what they did and how they managed their life you read some of the books by students like Blazer and others you see some of the things and how they manage their life literally this is like Angels not human beings and he's saying it's much worse than we thought it's much deeper than we thought everything they show if you ever wink the wrong way not only if you looked at some at some girl that's not your wife you looked at her what happens in sh what happens on the bed and sh they bring the girl the girl the innocent girl and they bring our husband who's your best friend and they bring her father and they bring your father and they bring everybody that's there like this what you did you looked at my daughter disgusting human being you looked at my daughter you're married you're 30 years older than her you're looking at my daughter you're disgusting you that's what you did you're looking you have to what are you going to do and and then top of your best friend's like you looked at my looked at my wife you looked at my wife you this what you did you called yourself my best friend friend you looked at my wife wants to beat you up in sh what embarrass you want to die you want to die he says is worse he says that's the embarrassment that's the bu that's the scariest part gets to such a point that a person asks send me to g a person a that s begs send me to G that's how horrible it is so a person needs to know we're not saying this for no reason we're not saying this because we created it we're not saying this because uh we make anything out of it we're saying this because number one it helps us remind ourselves what we need to do or what we need to stay away from the second thing is hopefully you learn from it too because this is the cure for the spiritual cancer we all have this is the cure there's no other cure there's no other Pon there's nothing else there's nothing else you cannot achieve happiness any other way if you don't learn how to be grateful you're never going to be happy you don't learn how to watch your eyes and never look at the other guy you never going to be happy you don't learn how to watch your ears your mouth and everything else you're never going to be happy why because you're always going to have desires and everything's going to go out of control and just your life is going to be miserable I'm telling you I'm not this is no show none of you pay me anything there's no there's no there's no fee I'm telling you abai I had plenty of money all the money you could possibly want and imagine and so on and I'm telling you if I had an option of getting all of it times a million all of the money I ever had times a million meaning whatever I had time a million I'll become number one fors 500 but not the feeling that I have today let it all go in the garbage and G with the rest of the it's not worth a minute of today why because because you don't need money and all the material to attain happiness in fact it's more difficult it's more difficult and that's what you have to understand don't waste your time chasing materialism thinking it's going to solve your problems if you have problems materialism will never solve it it will never solve it your problem is always spiritual as always said trying to solve a broken heart trying to solve a depression with materialism is stupidity why you're trying to fix a spiritual problem with materialism it doesn't go it's not even a square in a round hole it's nothing into a into a hole or it's a square into into a wall it doesn't work you cannot fix the spiritual problem with materialism it just doesn't work it doesn't work so yes we're not saying go out you know be homeless and don't have anything but to think that that's going to solve your problem to to to have your whole life dependent on it your whole happiness dependent on it you're literally ruining yourself you're drinking poison asking yourself why am I sick why am I sick that's what we're doing why am I sick whole a life that's only because of money is a life that's never going to be happy and I'm telling you that's the difference between and abah both of them were prophets both of them had extraordinary opportunities both of them had the ability to get to the highest level possible but bam chose to chase money and that's why money destroyed him when he was offered money by the king of Sodom he says don't give me a penny why I don't want you to ever think that you made me Rich I'm not even going to take a shoelace from you a shoelace from you why if it doesn't come from God in a clear way I don't want it I don't want it look at all these people that have sold assult to the devil thinking they're going to be happy because of it nothing yeah bam yeah at the time yeah at the time there was no Judaism yet because it was before mat so the Tor says that hem in his wisdom knew that says that hem knew that at the end of times when the mhia comes the go going to come and complain to Hashem and they're going to say to Hashem listen it's not fair that you brought a messiah and a savior to your people and uh nothing to us because we never had the right it was never a fair chance you know they had the Torah they had mhu what do we have so Hashem says in order to solve this problem I'm GNA give them the same thing I'm I giveu I'm going to give them a prophet that's like mosenu and his name was bam so that way if they say listen they had mosenu I could tell you had bam and as a matter of fact bam had one power even bigger than mosu he had he knew a moment that hm would be is delivers punishment they call it the moment that Hashem is angry even though hm doesn't get angry like us there's something called AA Rea is 115,000 of a second that Hashem during that 115,000 of a second is when he brings the punishment to the world whatever punishment is supposed to come to the world whoever violated Shabbat or all types of other things in the world that's when hasem if there's a time to punish people that's the time he does it it's one so bam knew that Rea knew that moment that Hashem is angry and because of that he could wish for anyone to be added to that punishment list and Hashem would punish them that's why balak asked him to come and curse am because he knew that moment says you know when Hashem is is angry so use that moment to add the entire is to that moment and punish all of them and that's why you say in the uh in the uh 10 remembrances at the end of Shak every day there are 10 things you're supposed to remember this is after sh one of them is what happened between balak and Bam and how hasem contained his anger during that time meaning that even though he gave bam a special power to know when Hashem is angry and when to deliver punishment when bam used that power used that talent that He had or whatever you want to call it hasem said you don't control me now I'm not going to be angry during that moment why because I'm God it's not that I gave you the power to control me I gave you the power to do other thing good things with it to bless your people and so on and so forth now you want to curse my people then I'm not going to be angry at all even during the time that I'm supposed to be angry because that's the way I programmed myself now I'm not going to be so in essence this is something we're supposed to remember that Hashem in essence overcame his own midot his own his own things that he limited himself with so the point is is that hem created bam in such a way way because he wanted the go to always have the uh to never have the excuse that they never had a prophet as great as ours and so on and so forth there were other righteous uh prophets that were not Jews for example job job also was not Jewish and he was a righteous uh Prophet that spoke to Hashem and there's a book in the Torah written about job uh so there are there were other prophets that were non-jewish that were righteous but nonetheless the uh bam is the most powerful one out of all of them but he did not use his powers and the gifts that has gave him for good and it took instead of becoming the greatest prophet he became the worst became the worst which shows us that no matter what gifts hem gives you you could become the best you could become the worst that's why the rambam says that every single person can be as great as mosenu meaning your own version of mosenu you can reach your full potential just like mosenu reach his own full potential yeah that do what he wants he can do whatever he wants for himself that he goes however this example here could be used as a prove that based on the teaching of the Torah what [Music] is so 974 Generations before hasem created the world the says that hasem took Torah he took a black fire and he wrote on White Fire symbolic in seph t they always use Black Ink on white scroll symbolic of the original black fire on white fire that hasm wrote the Tora and this day every Tora that's a Kosh seph T has to be copied from another seph you're not allowed to write a seph t for memory so in this t not only made rules for mankind and for nature and for the animals and for and so on he also made rules for himself and the reason why he made rules for himself is because Hashem is the ultimate good really the point of him why he created the world is because he's the ultimate good and the only way for good to exercise its goodness is by giving good what the defines a person as good is if they do good if a person says I'm a good person you ask him okay so what what makes you a good person it's like well I uh I play video games okay that's you may be good at video games but it doesn't make you a good person well I uh I have a good job you may be good at your job and your job may be a good job but that doesn't make you a good person well I uh I'm married okay you have a spouse good for you it still doesn't make you good what makes you good if you do good meaning you share something good you do something that's good for others and not necessarily always good for you sometimes that may be something as simple as giving somebody a ride that's out of your way or giving some money that you worked really hard for to somebody else that is never going to give it back to you I.E sometimes it's going to be other good like giving somebody compliment where that person may or may not ever be able to give you a compliment or want to give your compliment a smile is a form of good because when you show somebody a smile automatically they naturally will become improve their mood even if they feel like they're if they see a smile it'll improve their mood if they see your face is worse than theirs then all you're doing is is hurting them so that's why the would always say if you're in a bad mood make sure you don't show it on your face because not everybody else's fault that you're in a bad mood so now Hashem that's the ultimate good wanted to give good wanted to do good and therefore he created Mankind in order for him to exercise this goodness in order to bring good to other people bring good to you have to create something but at the same token because of his Tim wisdom he knew that good could only be exercised if it has conditions meaning that he cannot give a creation everything that's good and it be good because good in order for it to be good it has something to be has to have an opposite you have to know what bad is in order for you to identify that light exist you have to know what darkness is uh in order for you to understand that someone is tall you have to see something that's shorter than them and so on and so forth but if everyone reached the sky then no one would say oh you're really big no everybody's like that there has to be an opposite so Hashem says that in order for me to for for the creation to know because they're not all knowing like him where he knows he's good he doesn't need to have an opposite he's the Creator the creator doesn't have to have rules for himself it doesn't need to have anything teach him anything he's the ultimate knowledge but the creation is not the ultimate knowledge and therefore the creation needs to have an opposite needs to know what bad is and needs to know how to get good I can't just show them bad and that bad is never going to touch them because then it's not really realistic if oh yeah there's a bad there's a gay no but no one's there there's a volcano but no one's ever there oh okay then it's just it's like sightseing it's like you see it on you know no one's there no there's G over and there's people there oh who goes there people go against me people well don't do good oh okay wait hold on a second okay so what what do I have to do so Hashem in essence gave rules for himself where he does not allow himself according to the Torah that he wrote to take anyone into ganeden unless they follow a strict set of rules the same token he does not absolve somebody from G unless they follow strict set of rules so even though somebody may be a very nice person to people and very funny and very generous and very this and very that but he decided that he feels like driving every Shabbat to the beach he may be good on everything else but he's still going to Gom and he's not leaving why because that's the rules that the Creator made so a person needs to know that this Creator even though he loves you more than you love yourself he also loves all the people before you and all the people be after you and he cannot hurt all all of them for you even more so he cannot hurt himself by making himself turn into a liar for you for your sake so he cannot give you good unless you earn it unless you earn it unless you comply with these rules and that's why says after you listen to all these things meaning after you do all this then you get the good it's not you're going to get the good for no reason so the rules that Hashem created for himself limits him why because if it was up to him and there was no rules it would just create good and everything would be good and there would be no point and that was the initial creation where he created just angels that just got good and the angels themselves suffered for it why they said listen the suffered for it they said listen we got good good good good but we don't deserve any of it so this is bad for us now it's turned into bad so that's why he created this world which we talked about in previous shim uh of why he created we asked hem to actually create this world in essence so this means that a person cannot think that just because he's ABC Hashem is going to let it go Hashem doesn't let go of anything anyone that thinks that hasem just lets go of things gets an extra punishment for such Behavior no it says in says in anyone that says just lets go of these things he just lets him go they let go of his uh inner parts meaning they cut him into little stick pieces make chicken cutlets out of them yeah I say that if you forgive someone who harmed you Hashem automatically forgives you for what you've done something like that if you give yourself if you give cuot to other people hem will give you cuot if you forgive if you forgive other people they forgive you yes but that you did something for that it's not did nothing you did something for it sometimes I want to forgive someone say he stole from money but deep inside I wish that happen to him oh then you didn't forgive him because he caused harm but in the way I'm trying oh sorry start it starts with you say the forgiving but how do I actually get to a point where I mean it the way first you have to start with action by saying to the guy I forgive you even though you don't mean it in your heart in reality you want a truck to hit him but you you tell him I forgive you why because you know that for your it's much better to forgive him he tell I forgive you I forgive you I forgive you but in reality in your heart you don't forgive him but what happens your words will lead to your actions so initially you're not going to forgive him but you're gonna say you do but after you do it your n will enjoy the Mal that you did so much that it's going to actually soften up you're going to break a kipa that's covering it and eventually it's going to lead you to really forgive the person this is why the uh say that a person that wants to learn what AEM should be always be the one that's insulted but never the insult her always be the one that people talk bad about but never talks bad about other people always Abus but never the abuser and never be never feel bad for it why because once you know that the reward for doing all of this is hasem is going to teach you tah himself you realize it's worth it the problem is that even the in says that when someone says about you it hurts you even they got hurt by it it's hard to forgive it's hard to forgive somebody saying about you or bad things about you or they stole money from you like you're saying and so it's hard to forgive so what do you do first you have to take action to at least make it look like you forgive at least make it look like you uh you're not offended by it and eventually you get to a point where you're not why because your n enjoys the level that you've gone to how you've improved yourself to such an extent that eventually it actually happens to you I'll give you guys a story long time I tell you guys a story no uh there was a there was a few few of on a train one time couple hundred years ago and uh they were on a long train ride to kovno and uh they saw there's like an old man on the train didn't look like much and you know it's a long train ride they're there for a long time they wanted to have a good time so sometimes people find a good time by by Annoying other people so one of the guys started playing with the guy's ear play with his ear a little bit old man didn't respond then he uh played with the other ear he didn't respond then they started flicking things at him he didn't respond they got really bold after a while one of the guys the main guy decid he's going to burn one of his hairs on his beard and he burned a few hairs of his beard and the old man didn't respond shortly after he burned the hair on his beard they stopped at kovo they reached kovno and they see over there there are literally thousands and thousands of people waiting anxiously foru isant now there they are don't know where's we've been on the train this whole time and we missed out where's rant when a few people showed up on the train and it's the old men they've been torturing for the last few hours they wanted to die they started crying and the guy was crying to I'm sorry I didn't mean it you know and crying you know and the Rabbi says why you crying it didn't bother me what no it didn't bother me no no no no it was okay I'm fine it didn't bother me at all there's nothing nothing to forgive you it didn't bother me at all goes what what do you mean we did this he goes I know what you did I was here I know what you did it didn't bother me tell you sure it didn't bother me why I saw that you're having such a good time I said a few Jews a few Jews are having a good time wow great so what so it's annoying to me or what no I I enjoyed your good time so much I enjoyed it it made me feel good he says why are you here the asked him why are you here he goes I'm here I'm going to go get tested to be a I'm gon supposed to uh become a butcher or whatever he goes okay let me test you he starts asking him some questions and he finds out out the guy is certified bam doesn't know anything certifi he knows all the of knows nothing he says you know what once you come to me I'll study with you I'll train you for a few more months I'll study with you one on one is telling the guy just burned his beard an hour ago come I'll study with you oneon-one like he has nothing else to do with his life come I'll teach you oneon-one I'm going to teach you and then you're going to go he teaches him oneon-one for a few months then he writes him a letter recommendation letter to the head of the ran at the time he tells him please treat this very important he is big he's very important he's more than certified I tested him myself he's more than certified to have all of this and so on and so so tell who saw this they never said anything the rabbi speaks they don't say nothing like like some people where Rabbi speaks we speak on top of him so he fine listen the fact that it didn't bother you that they were messing with you and the beard and the burning and that all that stuff fine the fact doesn't bother you're like an angel or something fine doesn't bother you but why did you go to the extent of spending your precious valuable time to teach him and on top of it write this letter about him the guy what the of was smarter than him you're writing a he says listen initially it didn't bother me when he was doing all those things it didn't bother me but then as he repeated it that he did it to me I saw that it started to bother me he said it and it started to bother me and I started to hate him a little bit so I needed to remove this hate from my heart how can I remove the hate from my heart I decide I'm going to do good for him I'm GNA do good for him I'm GNA help him out why if I do good for him good creates good what good is going to create I'm be it's going to cause me to love him why because I did good for him this is this is like thoughts of like of of this is divine thoughts this is not human being but that's what we're expected to be that's what we're expected to be we're supposed to think like this instead of taking revenge against the guy we're supposed to think how could I do him a favor yeah yeah you like what what you mean like the that put together uh yeah I mean it doesn't hurt it doesn't hurt at all uh T is I've talked about it before as far as the main things for T are number one stop that's number one obvious two learn about the topic learn about the topic of wasting seed to in general we have several several clips about it uh it's critical to learn about it there some books about it spoke about it spoke about it a few others spoke about it uh it's important to know uh the of of of the M it's very very critical to learn it SEC the third thing is is to learn gar learn gar and the reason why is because gar is the toughest the most difficult part of the Tor and when you learn with toiling and you it's difficult for you that helps fix the breit that's the third thing fourth thing do K and the reason why is because even if you stop wasting and all of that good stuff you do chuva for that you still have to fix the past the only way to fix the past critically is by getting other people to stop so by arranging lectures specifically Al about the subject is one way about giving out CDs that have that lecture on it talking to your friends about it if you have the ability to speak sharing lectures do whatever K you can that has to do specifically with it there's not that many uh speakers in English language that talk about it so you don't have a uh difficulty picking who's going to be the one that makes life a little easier but nonetheless uh that's another one and then there's other things as obviously there's uh giving money uh there's the AR writes that for every time a person wasted seed they have to fast 84 times or eat or uh pay 84 fasts meaning 84 meals so if let's say meal is uh is $5 then it's $420 for every time a person wasted seed obviously the average person is going to you know have to pay I don't know a lot of money that they may not have so you don't have to pay all of it in one shot you could do let's say once a month $420 or I don't know once it depends on your money how much money you have uh once every three months or whatever it is if you have a lot of money then write a big check if you don't have a lot of money then uh the point is it's supposed to hurt don't just write the check when it doesn't hurt don't just write listen you have uh $50,000 in your account but you're only writing a check for 400 bucks that doesn't hurt like you have to write something that's a little little painful why that's the tun that's the tun um now you don't have to write all $50,000 make yourself homeless but the point is that it shouldn't be $4 uh so that's another thing and the last but not least is also to to do as far as put together um that also helps uh but uh again it's by itself it's not enough by itself is not enough even would say that to you it's not it's not me saying it it's by itself it's not enough there's it's part part of it it's part of it it's like for example you want to build a building you know it's good you have some nails but it's not enough the nails are not enough by themselves even if the nails are really strong and they're 10 inches long each and so on it's great it's just not enough not saying that that it's insignificant it's just not enough it's a critical part it's just not enough so that that particular tun yes uh is also good to do for somebody that's up that late at night if it's not going to interfere with their studying but always remember if it's either doing or any or learning T always learn T learning T is much more important than any tiun you're ever going to do in your life the rambam said that if a person understood the value of learning Tor at night he would never ever sleep at night you would never waste a single night you would learn to all night every night you'd sleep during the day now of course you function you live in a regular world where you need to uh work and so on during the day but a person needs to take advantage of his night so if that 15 minutes or so or 20 minutes that it takes him to do is replacing 20 minutes of learning T then don't do learn T instead um so but if he doesn't have the energy to do to learn T but he has the energy to do then he does that um but those you know there's a few other T that you can do always you could always consult and and confirm it but the biggest tun of all is learning T that's the biggest tun of everything learning T and giving those are the two biggest things but again by itself is not enough learning to by itself not enough you always have to do combination learning Torah has to get to a point where it's hurts is very valuable in a tah if you're comfortable learning to that means you're not learning enough if you're comfortable giving that means you're not giving enough you have to push yourself push yourself you give $2 easy give three whatever it is that's gonna pinch a little bit that's that's that's that shows that it's a you have to beat that a little bit make that threshold a little further further and further every time is there a differ between someone it's just hurt the fact that they lost money and someone else who wishes something bad to happen to the person who sto pay back because if he's going to say he forges the guy and then his he's wishing for truck to him and then he tonight does lose twice um the wishing that on people we learned had a bunch of gangsters annoy him every day and um he had it with them and he came home and he started praying for them to die and his wife BR was a in some cases even more than some of the male sages in a few places she was right and they were wrong this was one of the places and she told her husband don't you know that you're supposed to hate this Hashem said hate the sin and not the sinner you're not supposed to pray for the sinner to die supposed to pray for the sin to die and he says he says she's right so instead of hating the Sinners he hated the sin he started praying for them to do Chua and thear continues to say that because he prayed for them to do Chua they actually had the Merit to do chuva and they all did chuva eventually so when a person hates another person in their heart because they stole money from them uh there's a few problems with that number one you're not really you're not allowed to hate anybody in your heart It's a Sin from the T right before says You must love your brother like you love yourself right before it the verse says don't hate your brother in your heart so hating somebody in your heart is a sin from aah now it's hard not to hate somebody when he went against you when he hurt you so that's where comes in when you believe that everything comes from Hashem that means that in reality he was only allowed to steal from you because Hashem said so if he wasn't allowed to steal from you if you didn't deserve him to steal from you then Hashem would never allow that to happen there's no power outside God that means if your wife instead of saying good morning she cursed your mother out that means you deserve it it doesn't mean that she's right she's wrong obviously but and she's and she should feel bad for the fact that Hashem used there as a vessel to punish you but nonetheless you indeed deserve to be punished for whatever reason or another if somebody stole from you that means hasem signed off yeah yeah $500,000 from your own yeah he'll lend it to him he'll say he'll get back to him in 90 days and 10 years later didn't give it back yep signed off signed the signed signed why because apparently you deserve it it you deserved it you got a half of a real story uh so uh you wanted a real story I give you half a real story so the point is is that a uh a person that has full knows that Hashem runs the world Hashem pulls the wires Hashem allows Hitler to run the show or not that person is going to have a much easier time dealing with losses because he knows that nothing happen in without that's actually what made uh as great as he was when shim cursed him out with a with a means every single curse in the book first each each letter of the word stood for a curse n no womanizer me um um no uh me something something I forget it I forget it but anyway every letter thear says stood for a different different curse uh and uh m m he called him M uh and so on so uh anyway he uh he cursed him in front of everyone now one of his loyal servants said to King David he says why am I gon to allow this dead dog to curse my highness let me go there and just flick his head off let me just chop his head off real quick and let this dead dog die and David says Shalom he didn't curse me Hashem did from here at that moment kazal explains to us that Hashem saw how DAV not just said it but he really felt it in his heart he really felt it in his heart he wasn't offended by him he wasn't offended by him because he really knew that he would only be allowed to curse him even a word curse him if hasem allowed it at that moment hasem decid you're gonna be the fourth of carrying my myav not because he wrote the not because he was a sedik any other time not because he suffered no because of this particular event because he knew full force he knew inside his heart hm knows what's in your heart he knew that hem runs the world so when a person knows that hem runs the world and is like it says that were glued to AEM then that person is going to have much easier time dealing with people and suffering from people of course it's much easier said than done and that's why I said first we have to act and eventually the feelings follow eventually the feelings follow so sometimes it's very easy to hate people because they make it easy for you to hate them they do things that are mean they do things that are selfish but I can tell you from experience hate never pays off it never pays off because it never goes away unless you force it out of your heart it never gives you good feeling and if you ever want to fix something or if the other person ever wants to say I'm sorry you're never going to forgive them why because you're too busy hating them so sometimes you have to you have to just suck it up and just realize that in reality you have to hate the sin not the sinner now of course I'm talking about a normal circumstances I'm not talking about things that uh person did that's permanent like murder and rape and things of that nature people like that according to the Torah deserve death penalty but uh I'm talking about you know monetary issues like what you're saying and things of that nature either way each person has to obviously look at the Torah as its uh as its guide and and to know when how who what and so on it's uh listen it's very easy to hate people sometimes because people are selfish um and not Greatful and so on and so forth but uh if our feelings were the uh the the main thing that we should follow then in reality we wouldn't follow the rest of the Torah either so we have to overcome these things we have to overcome these things each one of us has to overcome it anybody else but tomorrow night we're gonna start a new Mish uh start a new mishna and tomorrow is mish is going to be tomorrow's m is going to be says be a bold like leopard light like an eagle Swift as a deer and strong like a lion to carry out the will of your father in Heaven this is talks about and then pretty much going you know overcoming the that we've become so good friends with in our life and trying to overcome [Music] for [Music] [Applause] [Music] he [Music]