Rav Matisyahu Weldon speaking at Yeshivas Bein Hazmanim at Scheiner's Shul

is Matis Yahu Ye Yehuda Weldon and this is not a shar it's uh a schmoo perhaps it's the story of my life in a certain sense and the lessons that I learned along the way um I am a Garrett Sedic I do not I did not grow up in Muny New York um in fact in a certain sense you could say my story is called from my to my mother was born in Muny Indiana And I'm now here living in Muny, New York. Fun fact, it was actually the Muny Indians who used to live here. They were pushed westward by English settlers and they founded Muny Indiana. So there is a heckage between the two locations, not just me. Um I despite appearance, I stand before you with a long reckle, a nice long beard, an up hat. But despite what you're all thinking, I was not born with this beard. I was born as a non-Jewish individual by the name of Matthew Patrick Weldon. I was not a farmer, but I grew up surrounded by farms. I grew up surrounded by cornfields in a place for all intents and purposes we will refer to as Nowhere'sville, Indiana. That's where I'm from. Nowhere'sville, Indiana. A place that has a a population of perhaps 1,500 people at most. Now, keep in mind just the population of Muny alone, I think they did a census some 10 years ago and there was over 75,000 people living here in Muny. I think we've far exceeded 150,000 at this point. And I think that's just from Yiddin. I grew up in a place with 1500 people, 1,500. A type of place that you leave your doors unlocked at nighttime. A place where there's no crime, that there's trust. Everyone knows who everyone else is. And so coming from there to here is quite the journey. And I'd like to share a couple of thoughts about what I went through along the way. It does not start with me. However, it starts with my mother. My mother also is a guarist, my younger sister as well. And she's currently living in Jerusalem. She's married Hashem. And it starts with her. We grew up in the church in Christianity within Asov, the ideology of Asov. And we were fundamental Baptist Christians. And what's shy and relevant to understand about fundamental Baptist Christians versus other groups is that they very much are a breakaway from Catholicism. Catholicism, the Catholics, the ones that really are like real sunny Israel. They they do not like Yidden. Fundamental Baptists do. They're much more on the queue of they try to entice Jews to come to their religion. Catholics don't like us. And they're very much more obvious in terms of avoid zara. They pray not to um what they claim is God. They they actually pray to Mary God's mother, Yoshka's mother. The whole concept. So not only do they have the avoid of the trinity where they claim that Hashem somehow someway became a a human being which itself is already share but they they actually don't even pray to Isaish. They pray to his mother. So they're much more and there's other nucas involved but what shy has to understand is that they're much more obviously avoid than the rest of the Protestant reformation that happened with Luther later on. So we're growing up in a in a religion, a group within Christianity that's very conscious of of odara in a certain sense. We're not like them. But my mother had questions. Christianity itself there it's the concept of the religion itself is difficult to understand and it leaves a lot of questions unanswered and she did not have the answers. When she went to the leadership of the church, when she went to the pastors of the church, she did not have answers. And so she decided to do one simple thing. She decided to dab in. Now she didn't know who Hashem was. She didn't know that she was talking to Akaju. All she understood was it's clear that there is a creator. This world is built through intelligent design. And anyone who has at least two brain cells to rub together will understand that if you send I heard a wonderful mush. I'm sure other people have heard this mush before. If you send a tornado through a graveyard, it will and and you would say to this person, "Yeah, this, you know, this tornado is full of broken pieces of planes and electronics and it just built a Boeing 747 l out of nowhere. The wings, the bolts, screwed everything into place." Yeah, you know, it just it built itself. The person would say, "You're a mishuga and everything else that you have to say is now irrelevant because you proved to me that you don't have DAS. You do not have the faculty of logic to actually think things through that A could be a direct cause of B equals C. And therefore this world with all of its tremendous tremendous details has to have a creator. So she knows there's a creator, but she doesn't know who he is or what he wants. So she decides she's going to get to the bottom of it by just asking. She decides to lock herself into her closet. total privacy. And she cries and she says, "Whoever is listening, I have a lot of questions about my religion. I don't understand why I'm here or the purpose of why I exist and and I haven't been given answers up to this point. So, I'm asking you, I know you're listening to me. Reveal yourself to me. If I'm in the wrong religion, I am more than happy to change. I will uproot my entire life and I will dedicate myself to that service." But if you do not reveal yourself to me, I don't want to hear it when I get up to the next world. You have no Tinus on me. Shouldn't say the word Tina. She didn't know the word Tinus exists. But you have no Tus on me. You can have nothing to say to me. When I get up in the next world and you say to me, "Oh, well, why didn't you believe in me?" I'm going to say, "Excuse you. Why didn't you reveal yourself to me? I asked." And you see, that's almost in a certain sense, putting Hashem on the spot. But at the same time, we have a Mishna in the Mishna in Perkyos. It's actually not a Mishna. It's a it's it's a mimer. It's incill. And it says if a person comes to you and says, I looked and I toiled, but I didn't find I'll tell him and don't believe him. If a person says, I didn't look, I didn't bother, but I found, also don't believe him. Only when a person says, See I toiled I LOOKED AND IT found believe him says this is going on different this is going on the gilo of the is not just like ana hey if you don't understand keep going until you understand it it's a in the foundation of the bria itself this is not a sigula this is teva if you walk over to a light switch you flip it on it's Not oh I'm going to flip it on and like maybe innness if Hashem wants the light will come on in a certain sense yes Hashim creates everything but Hashem creates tea that's me and that is a causal relationship so if I flip ON THE LIGHT SWITCH I know with a 99.99% certainty unless Hashem decides to deviate from his temp that he created the light is going to go on so this is a hashemal is telling you Hashem only reveals himself to those who actually look. And if you DO LOOK, YOU WILL FIND. If a person says, "I found I didn't look." No. Shim doesn't work that way. If a person says, "I didn't look at all and I I found or I found and I didn't look." Either way, Him's not going to reveal himself. That's not how he fears the belt. But if you do look, you will find. And that is not just for understanding Tyro, which it is. It's deeper than that. That is the reason why we are here. That's Aramino. Where's the Balhabira? That's the Medisha. The Aramino looks in the world and he says, "There is a creator in the world. Where are you?" And Hashem says, "Ah, you know, I've been waiting like 2,000 years for somebody to ask that. The generation around us, the non-Jews, they're not going to necessarily be asked why they weren't Sadikim. They're just going to be asked one simple question. Why didn't you ask? Why didn't you look? If you just looked, if you took five minutes out of your scrolling on social media, out of your chasing materialism just to say, "What in the world is going on here?" That's all it would have took. And that's what my mother did. She didn't realize she was tapping into this concept of, but she said, "I am looking." So she says, "If you don't tell me or reveal yourself to me, then I don't want to hear it when I get up to shine because I'm asking you now with to me misite with with a with a genuine honesty that Hashem took her very seriously. At this time she was doing her. She did not expect that there was going to be a mal coming down Minim to reveal everything from her as if she was mob from Hari. She understood she had to do heras. All she was going to do was get up early in the morning, a couple hours before her young kids would get out of bed, and she was going to learn Tanakh. My mother was somewhat of a biblical scholar in terms of the context of Christianity. And she was learning Tanakh at this time. She said, "Forget about the Christian writings, what they call the New Testament. I'm going to go to the original source material." She started learning Hebrew. She started labeling things in the house. She started learning Tanakh. And she started um particularly Tahillim in the in the Tahillim. She saw see the one thing to understand about the relationship between propaganda is it's all about titles. We live in a generation of fake news in a certain sense. We all understand that it's all about how you phrase the messaging. So Christian this is not new. This is something that the Christians have been doing for a very very long time. They control the tarum shed with that. There's a reason why kazal say that came to the world by the target that once gets his hand on how you're going to t things in the translation it's gone and so the way they tyra which is coming from a lesson of instruction let me help you out and show you the way it's a burdensome law it's a yoke to be hated and that's how they translate it law which is very sterile and it does not convey the proper meaning what Torah means and she quickly realized this. And so she translates and scratches out scratch out, you know, with a pen, puts a line through it. every single time it says law in her King James translation into English that was translated from Greek and she writes in in replacement of the word lawyer and she starts to read and she realizes just how and she sees just how in love the Raanum is with David and David with and she starts to see the Nim and all of a sudden she realizes wait you know if if Hashem is perfect which he is he's infallible if he makes a promise you know it's logical to assume assume he's probably going to keep it. That was the whole idea in a certain sense aliphat of asking the how do I know how do I know you're promising me and my descendants say it's by the sard but how do I know that they're going to keep it and says why are you asking how I'm going to keep my promise am I not God so your children will experience suffering all shot that's the limud and so she realizes Christianity doesn't have the truth truth. And not only that, but Yiddishkite is the truth. The mitzvah are still they're still relevant. And so she decides, "We're going to leave the church." She didn't leave without a uh a fight. However, she went to the the the leadership of the church to the pastors. And she says, "Great news. We're wrong. We've been wrong for 2,000 years. It's actually the Jewish people who have the truth. Isn't this great?" And this pastor is like sitting here like, "That's not what I learned in Bob Jones University. That's not what I learned in my religious seminary. That's not what I was told. That's not my dogma. So, who do you think you are? We have our religion. Why are you asking questions?" She's like, "No, but they have the answers. Don't you at least aren't you curious?" He said, "No, no, I'm not curious at all." She walked out of that meeting quite distraught and word quickly circulated. You see the church doesn't have a concept of lashhara. Don't speak lashhara. You know they they don't have uh by their tables a little thing saying don't speak lashhara. So therefore and they don't have a so quick word quickly circulates around the entire church that my mom's a kifer and that she is not to be trusted but she was contracted for the year. She couldn't just leave immediately. Even though she was currently ostracized, excommunicated within her own church. She couldn't leave because she was a teacher in the preschool and they only had a few teachers on staff and they had to have the exact number that they had. I think it was three. Three teachers on staff in order to legally be a preschool. She was contracted for the year. So, she has to spend the next 9 months in a building being stared at, being judged. It was very difficult. Meanwhile, I was not helping. I was in first grade and I have always had a big mouth and I've always had zero filter when it comes to what I say. So I'm running around in first grade going, guess what, guys? We're keeping chabas. We're keeping chabas. I have no chores on Saturday. Do you have chores? Yeah, you do. But I don't because I rest because I've got the Sabbath. And the other boys are quite jealous. They're upset. So they go and they tell their mommies that they deserve no chores. Why? Because Jesus was a Jew. And I got my mother in quite a bit of trouble because of this. I, you know, a young child. You have no concept of exactly what's going on. I didn't know about the politics of the day. Meanwhile, my older sister, Alex, who's six years older, she was in the middle, middle school going on high school. No, really, sixth, seventh grade. She was going around saying, "I get to drink wine every Friday night. Do you get to drink wine? It's a big no no in the Fundamental Baptist Church to drink wine. It's very much a no no. It's taboo. And yet my sister is going around bragging to her friends saying, "I get to drink wine from a silver chalice cup every Friday night. Do you get to do that?" No, you don't. But I do. Again, jealousy. Mommy, tati, tati. Mommy and daddy, why can't we make kish? So this caused quite a bit of stir for my mother to add insult to injury. My mother was very strong however and she decided what she's going to do is she's going to write a whole contress as to why Christianity is wrong. And she went on the last day of work and she mailed it. She didn't mail it. She went and put it inside of every single mailbox of every congregant of that church as a parting gift. And then we left and now we become homeschooled and we're on the journey to Yiddish. We were very much not Jews at this point and you could not distinguish if you were to walk into our house. You really couldn't distinguish any difference between us and other non-Jews around us except for we were trying our best. You see the is a divine document. There's a reason why you have to have to is what says is what Hashem means by what he says. If Hashem gives you a mitzvah, we know there are myriads of myriads of details of exactly how to fulfill that mitzvah. So when Hashem says keep chabas or keep we didn't understand anything with terms of tor does not help you out with what means. It says don't boil a g and its mother's milk. How are we supposed to fulfill that? This is like before to any time, mind you. So we're out on an island. So it's true that we did not boil any young little goats in its mother's milk. We didn't. We were very mocked. But we had a nice bust of chilling on Chabas. Our Shabas was just a day to watch cartoons in our PJs and to not go out and do business. It just says rest. So that's what we did. We just hung out in our PJs all day. My mother made an ice buster for call of chilling. She was mav the concept of chilling. She didn't we don't have any concept of bishel or any shikas to lamentas. But my mother knew that it was a tear for her to do dishes and to cook. So she's like I'm getting a crockpot. I'm setting something up before shabas. Not because there's and there's mala. It's because I just don't want to be bothered because it's my day of rest. Why shouldn't I have to? I want my day off also. It's not just for my kids. So she was the concept of chill. The only difference is ours had baser and in it. The way we kept sukus was an interesting idea. It just says make a temporary dwelling in the tyra. It doesn't say any all the details about lulov and it has to have this. It can't have perfect blemish. All all those details is all torch. We didn't have that at the time. And so it just says make a temporary dwelling. So my mother, she was quite clever. She decided she's going to go to Walmart and buy a tent, a threeperson tent. That's a temporary dwelling. And so every year we camped out in the tent for 7 days. And that was our sukus and it was Gishmak again to pet we didn't have. So we didn't know. We were there rain or shine. There was a blizzard outside. We were in the tent. I remember it's snowing like three feet and my mother went outside, made sure she dug out a little trench in a walkway to get to our tent so that we could freeze to death at night because that was our and I remember one year I was asleep. My mother thought both of us really were asleep, but I had woken up and my mother was sitting there talking to the rabbon. This point we had moved on a little bit. We had um more information but not everything. And she said, "Aba." That's what my mother refers to when she wants to talk to Hashem. She says, "Aba." So, I actually have the same thing, especially when I'm really desperate and I'm going through its and I need Yeshua, I say, "Aba." And I speak to him directly. And so, my mother said, "Aba, this is probably not what you had in mind. I don't think that Kali Israel had a tent from Walmart in the midbar." And it's probably not. Again, I'm translating to lash. She didn't say the word, but you'll bear with me. This is probably not it's probably not what you had in mind, but this is what we have and this is what we know. And if you give us more, we will do more. And I feel that aes in that moment was looking down on my mother with a big smile like what what a cute little child. You're doing what you can with what you have. And that's the second claw. The first claw is you have to look you got to and hashem will talk reveal himself. The second claw is whatever you do have whatever spiritual level you are on now do with that what you can 100%. And hashem will smile at you. Every single Jew has a a busha. We actually have two ideas of busha. The kazal say that one of these simid is that he's a bisha. He has bua and bua is a very healthy thing. But we have two different places or sources for bua. There's one that say comes from the and there's one that comes from hari when kal is was overwhelmed by and we say to we can't handle this. We couldn't handle the park that we died and the left body. We said we can't handle this. you just speak to my masher will speak to us and my says hashem is just trying to put the year hashem on you cuz I'll say zubusha that's buusha so which is it do we get busha from the or do we get from and the of it's both there's two different types of bua the you get from the is the busha when you do something wrong we have a concept of Jewish guilt Jewish guilt is good. Everything Hashem creates has a good side and a bad side to it. Healthy guilt is an indication there's something wrong. Just like pain is an indication there's a sickness now in the body and Hashem wants you to do something about it. Guilt is the spiritual sickness indicator. So when I do something wrong, I feel bad. There's a second type of busha says and that's the busha. When I do something right, I didn't do it enough. I didn't do it with the proper kavonas. I'm not at sadic like I'd like to be. And that's what we get from Hari. That's what we get from Hareni that we realize we saw what Hashem is and just how high we can go and I'm still not there. And so within the nama of every we feel that every time we do something right there's a little pain. That pain is the drive to push us viter. But we have to do what we can with what we have. If all you have is a temporary dwelling, a suka in the middle of a blizzard and it's not but that's your spiritual mandrega right now, cling to it and relish and hold on to it because that will make Hashim smile and push you further. Now growing up I actually thought I was Jewish. For me, what a Jew was was anybody who wants to fulfill the ruts in her. I didn't have a concept of Jew and non-Jew to the extent that like I went to a public school with a keepa and citus on excuse me. >> It was only later that I found out, no, there's a whole concept of conversion. You're not actually Jewish. My mother told me I was not Jewish. And I said, what do you know? I'm Jewish. I go I I learn Tanakh. I I keep the Tyra to whatever extent we can. I sit in a tent every year for seven days. I'm Jewish. And I used to get teased. You know, I've been Christian schooled, homeschooled, public schoolled, online school, yeshiva. I've seen the whole gambit of education. And I remember in my public school days, the kids around me would say like, you know, why are you wearing that funny hat? Why are you wearing this? I said, cuz I'm Jewish. And they would say, you know, they would try to make fun of me and I would make fun of them back. And I would say, you know, it's a real shame that you don't know who your creator is. I do. I'm confident in who I am. So, it's not an embarrassment for me. It's an embarrassment for you. You're walking around bald. And that confidence I had stuck with me all the way up into my teenage years. But I found out at a certain point I was not actually Jewish. And that's when I really understood the difference between a Jew and a non-Jew. There is an objective difference. There's a reason why you have to go through the mikvah. You have to have a you have to go to the mikvah. You have to have mil. You have to go through a bezdon. You have to have aar. There is a procedure. And if you do not follow that procedure properly, you are not Jewish. The mitzvah you perform are not. If a makes a spiritually, nothing happens. Abra worlds are created. Why? Because there is a true difference between a Jew and a non-Jew. Originally, there was no difference. Right? Before Abraino, there's no distinction. No ADA between the nations of the world and us. It was just mankind. Even before mankind, before the species of humans existed, it was just a y and he was given a wife. Hashem wants that there should be a next world. There should be a recipient in that next world to receive his goodness. And that that recipient should earn his place there. That's what Hashem wants. All Hashem needs is one. So there was other mishian other mishians sinned and he messed up. He was originally just supposed to remove the original concealment Hashem put on the world. He had a mitzvah according to um someone showing him he had both a mitzvah and a mitzvah and mitzvah to eat of all the other trees. All he needed to do was what? What is a mitzvah? A choice between there's something else besides the limit. It's my own will and I don't feel like it right now. I'm going to hit the snooze and go back to sleep. Or hashem wants you to do something that's not about your will. It's about his will. And when you choose to do his will, you're testifying that only he exists. And if you testify that only he exists, you get to experience that reality that you yourself just created. It's me. Remember what we said about the light bulb? We're creating olhaba right here, right now. It's not just a bank account that you put in a mitzvah and you get back the investment later. You're creating the mitzius that is the next world by testifying only god exists. That's what a mitzvah is fundamentally. And so when other fails to do that he creates an added kil to the bri added destruction that goes on for 10 generations. 10 generations we were given from Adam to they failed. The m came it was supposed to be the mashiach. The mayim shelter was supposed to come down but instead it became actual physical analog of the Tyra May itself and we were destroyed. No toino another 10 generations they also failed to the point where we get to aino says you know I'll do the job I will do the task not only that me and my descendants Hashem says great now the are going to be taken out of that concept now there's going to be a real difference between a Jew and a nonju what a yid is is called a mak by virtue of his noma we have the function of either removing Hashim's concealment from the world or adding to that concealment that is what we have that is why you we live in a world of anti-semitism that's why say that cena comes from Sinai comes from harina because really the makapat the sealing between the nations of the world and us because hashem gave them another chance he went to every other um and offered them the Torah along with us hari seals the deal between us and them and now if there's in the world it's our fault because we were mallet we didn't do our job that's what GULLIS IS EFFECTIVELY MORE IN THE WORLD so say you know But CA comes from CA on a very very very deep level. I heard this I forget which RA I heard this from. I heard this on a show years ago. It's a it's a fundamental the in their nama feel the and they know it's our fault. They can't put their finger on it. They just know the Jews somehow run the world. It comes out with a distortion and without truth and so they think that we control the weather which we don't. If we did it wouldn't rain as much except for maybe but fundamentally in their understand that the reason why gul exists the reason why this is a mat of it's their fault because they're not doing what they're supposed to do and therefore comes from the more mitzvah we do the more we are then the more comes to the belt that's the difference between a Jew and a non-Jew a non-Jew makes a no longer can he affect the spiritual world he can only affect the physical world right here right now, but he doesn't affect what's going on in him the way we can. When I understood that, I was no longer upset. I used to be very, very frustrated that Hashem did not allow me to become Jewish, that I had to be from the outside in. Why do I have to fight so hard to get here? I used to go for walks, again, nowhere'sville, Indiana, very safe place. I used to sneak out at like 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning and just like go for a walk on the the train tracks that biseected the entire town and every 30 minutes, 45 minutes or so, a train would come by and you got so used to it that you didn't even hear the the locomotive pulling the the whistle and letting everybody know it's coming through town. It becomes such background noise, you don't even realize. And I would go on the railroad tracks. I was I would always be mir to uh walk in a specific direction so you can see it coming. You have to be safe. But I would go for a walk 2 3 4 in the morning and I would talk to Hashem and I would ask him questions and I would say why did you create me as a non-Jew? It's not fair. Especially when I understood this. I understood there's a real difference. Now I have to earn it. And I said it's not fair. I'm standing before you today and I would never change one bit of that. It was only then I didn't understand. Now I understand that I have a certain perspective that I needed to have to propel me and my life going forward. Just like someone who is an FFB for example or a vultura wherever he comes from whatever his background is that is special for you that you need for your tick. Even if you only understand that at the end of your life and so that's the difference between a Jew and a non-Jew. And we should really appreciate what that means. Now, growing up, we were studying Judaism and Christianity simultaneously. If you're going to leave a religion, you must know it like the back of your hand. You must be a bucky or you are not leaving the religion to find truth. You're running away from something. Often times, a trauma, if you're comfortable in the place you are, you're not going to leave. A person only leaves the place he is physically and spiritually if he's emotionally, physically, or spiritually uncomfortable in that place. So if a person really is searching for truth, he's going to make sure the religion he's in, he's gone through it with a fine tooththed comb. And that's what we did. We were studying Christianity to find out everything that's wrong with it with a true clarkite. And we were studying Judaism to understand what the truth is. And this concept I heard originally from Rabbi Meno Kessan. And it was uh a fundamental way that we see the world that we developed also. We came to understand as we went through this journey, as we were discovering the differences between Judaism and Christianity. I'm going to let you guys in on a wonderful secret. There are only two religions in the world. I will explain what I mean. What is a religion? A religion is a belief system that deals with the God problem. What's the God problem? Guilt. How do I understand what it means to do something wrong? And there are two options when it comes to how you deal with guilt. You can either create a belief system that is the whole concept or you can confront it headon. So ancient avoid how do they deal with the concept of guilt? Well, I have one god that says one cheita and one god that says another shittita. I can pick and choose and therefore I don't actually have to do anything wrong. If I want to pursue a specific tya or a specific action that really is wrong according to his belief, I just go and find a different piece of wood and bow down to that one that says it's okay. So now I have no guilt and I'm free. The next is the Greeks. The Greeks were interesting there. They had a pantheon of gods, but their gods were just as sinful as they were. their gods also cheated and lied and stole. And therefore, if the gods are doing it, then I'm hopeless. And therefore, again, the Greeks successfully uproot the concept of guilt completely. Then you have Christianity. Christianity is a cheeky one. They've actually had a couple of different methodologies over the years, but fundamentally they're all kind of the same. Hashem took care of the guilt for you, and now you don't have to do anything anymore. Oh went and he suffered. He went through the issum. You don't have to do mitzvah anymore. You don't have to do anything. Just believe that he did and then you're good. Oh, and if you don't believe then it's ganam forever. It's fire insurance if you think about it. That's what it is. Genum forever. By the way, gem forever doesn't actually make sense in a certain sense. If a person does a sin in a physical goof, that means that fundamentally that sin was limited in scope. There was a beginning and an end to it. So how could you suffer eternally for something you did in a finite space? We understand what tickun is. Tikun is uproot that which you did spiritually. But there's an end to that. you have to do if you go through the the the kisfer I haven't myself but I heard in sh that there are like hundreds upon hundreds of fasts that a person has to do just to uproot one of but then after that especially with the advent of this we do and we serve aim we're not in that in a certain sense I mean perhaps there are some out there that are but that's not how we fear the belt anymore there is a mahalik though there is a ticket and once you have your tick on that's So Christianity doesn't make sense but they get rid of the god problem in the first place. This is what a mullik's problem was with us. Amalik is a very interesting character. He is yatal queskov and we have to kill out every single man woman and child and goat and SHEEP ANYTHING FROM THEM WE HAVE TO UPROOT THEM. WHY? OKAY. All the other nations of the world also persecute us. Asov, especially Ishmo. We see how much of a thorn in our side they are right now. And yet we don't have to wage total war and annihilation against them. So why does Hashem hate a Malik so much? And what's a Malik's problem? You know, usually if you attack someone, it's because militarily they're a threat. That was Putin's whole rationalization for going into Ukraine. Ukraine is flirting with NATO. They're coming closer to joining to NATO and that's on our borders and we can't have that. We need buffer states. So I'm threatened. I'm going to invade cuz I'll say that a mullik crossed five borders to get to us in the midbar to attack us. FIVE BORDERS. WE'RE NOT A THREAT TO THEM. NOT ONLY THAT, you know how expensive it is logistically to win a war that way to move an army, especially back then. The United States military spent a million dollars a day in Iraq. And I think some estimates over here were spending billions of dollars. I think a billion dollars a day now with what's going on in in Iran, especially with how technologically savvy we are. Costs a lot for one missile. So, how is it that a mole decides we're not a threat? And yet, they're Moister Neph to basically spend all the money they have to come and attack us. What's their problem? They believe in a god. We believe in a god. Nope. In fact, HE BELIEVES IN HUNDREDS OF GODS. THEY ALL ARE WORSHIPING OF HOYAZARA. WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM? We say one thing that Amalik and the rest of the world don't. There's only one God objectively. There is no escape route to the concept of guilt. You have to admit to yourself in front of your creator, you did something wrong and you have to change that. A Malik cannot stand. That's what Hmon's problem was with Morai. It's not the Morai. Moreai bows down because he's an ish Yehoodi because he has a belief system that does not allow him to get around the problem that is the god problem that Hmon says my people were moer nephesh for >> and therefore I have to destroy you. That's yo doesn't hate us. He hates the that we represent. That's yo and that's why a mullik is mo and that's why we have to uproot that ideology because in a certain sense there is someone who is a pagan he's there's a Christian they all fundly believe in something then there's an atheist an atheist doesn't believe in anything which is much worse of a madrega one of the tamidim of the ramal I forget what his name is he says over that there are levels madreas to and if a comes from a higher place in shamim he'll believe in something. But if he comes from a lower place in Sham, he'll be an atheist. He won't believe in anything but you know what's the lowest place? Believing in God and saying, "I'm going to go to war against you. I'm going to defeat you. I'm going to destroy you." That's even worse than an atheist. An atheist just says, "I'm going to ignore the problem and say, you know, he probably doesn't exist." That's not hating God. A mullik hates the yadesk. And therefore, there are only two religions in the world. You have to understand this is a there is Judaism and everything else. We are the only religion in the world that proclaims if you do something wrong turns out you did something wrong and you have to admit that and you have to change and it's not going to be easy because when we admit that we did something wrong what are we admitting we're weak fundamentally we're not a we're admitting that ano mad that's the truth and that's the whole task we're here in the first place that's the amazing part of chuva it actually uproots remember how we said that a mitzvah is testifying to the reality that only god exists and a sin effectively is the opposite testifying to a reality where God does not exist. So when I do chuva and I say only exists, you are now turning that reality that you created where doesn't exist back into a reality where itaka does. Chuva is mid and mida. It's not magic. It's turning on a light switch. It's to be understood very importantly. When you do chuva, don't just say in your heart, I'm sorry, I did something wrong. As if like you're trying to appease him. It's different than that. You're uprooting the reality you yourself created. So take it very very seriously. So when we understood we were studying Christianity and Judaism simultaneously to figure out what the truth is. We realized there are only two religions in the world. And what brought us to that truth is genuine curiosity. We used to have a timeline. We would sit in my mother's room and we had a timeline from other Marish to Bush Jr. about all the different um for those who are um born after the year 2000. who was a US president and he took us to Iraq and we had a timeline all the way up to Bush Jr. of what was going on during the Romans at this period and the Mayan civilization and the Egyptians and we had a timeline of world history trying to figure out what went wrong. Why are the Christians claiming that they're the new Kai Israel and what happened at the first century and what's going on with Yashka? What what is the truth? And we would sit under this timeline and we would ask Hashem questions. Ask her a bunch some questions he's going to answer. The Tyra says it's a Mishna actually inbag says dive into the Tyra and dive into it again because everything is in it. Which means fundamentally says in why does it have a double? Because what this mission is telling you is if you learn a hiddish in a certain puzzle learn it again because you're going to find anotherish and anotherish and anotherish. Anybody who has ever been through any understand that there's a mish and all your ways know and it's touched like a billion times to mean a bunch of different things. Especially in I've seen personally at least 15 different ways you can understand because of who created a that's infinite. So keep diving into it. But why does it have to come from binbag? There are two gimm that bring two din besides for who gives us the whole tarum. But you have two gimm you have bin bag and immediately the next mishna bin he that says buffoon agra according to the struggle is the reward and kazal say that they were gimm during the times of the second bish mdnash specifically the Roman period in a time where it was user for them to convert. So they changed their name to hide from the Romans who were actively hunting them down. And bin Bagb changes his name as a remis to Aro and Sarah. A ro gets a hey. Sarah gets a hey. Baze gimmel equals gamachia five. He's been five five bin he and bin he is even more direct. They both change their names to be a remnis of Roman s. Why? Here's the question. Why do these two dinul and have to come from the shamas of gim? What ifal said it that way? Because a gic has a natural curiosity for re reality. WHY DO I EXIST? WHY DO I HAVE 10 fingers and 10 toes? You ever ask that question? I asked that question when I was 8 YEARS OLD. WHY? HANDS ARE so weird. Why do they look the way they do? What if feet look the way they do? They're completely different from hands. And yet you still have five and five. There's a symmetrical situation going on. Why is that? Why do things exist? Why do we have four seasons? Why is the earth on a tilt? What happened in the past? And that honest curiosity. If you search for with that genuine curiosity, Hashem will give you answers. Every says this abos has to have a of a we're going through pes now and you have to see yourself as if you're going through mit now. The mitzvah of shall love the g. The Tyra never gives you a reason generally speaking for a mitzvah. They say, "Why do you have to love the g?" Because you yourself forg you know what it's like to suffer deeper. They have a curiosity that you need to be momshik from and get that healthy curiosity for yourself because that's how you find the in your life right here right now. from and to the extent that you do that you will receive more Giloy of the Rabon than you could ever imagine. And so I'll give you one nakuda that Hashem gave us underneath that timeline. This is very important to understand that there's like one last kipa that you have to get rid of as a as a Christian as like what to do with Oish. What do you do with Yoshka? Was he a Russia completely or was he Lushma? Was he like innocent completely and the the church made up all the stories about him? Was he actually a sadic and and a candidate for Messiah and they just took it and made this whole cult around his personality? Like what actually happened with him? What's the mash? What's the job of the Messiah? And when we realized what the job of Mashiach was, we realized that has nothing to do with him. We're sitting under the timeline and in order to understand this there's a claw from something. He says that Hashem keeps the entire Torah. In fact, you see this a lot by that Hashem keeps the entire Torah. How does Hashem keep the mitzvah of has a whole limud but I'm going to present the limud that is my own interpretation and I think there is to it what is anony is someone who is poor but the Torah tells us that the mitz is it's really not your soda it's his that you owe him wants to be and he wants to increase in the world so he gave his part to you to give to him it's really is. So, who's poor but has a claim to the seducka? He's about to get somebody who doesn't have Tyra cuz you're only rich if you have Tyra. Tyra is the Yeshua of the world. It's the wealth. So, who does not have Tyra but has a claim to that Torah and it's not a Baluva because Balchuva whether he likes it or not has a before he's religious. He has a claim. He's still in the bris of Roma. So, who is outside of that bris but has a claim to it? That is a g before his nisgayire. That is a Jewish noma trapped inside of the goof of a non-Jew. And what does a geretic need to receive truth? He needs answers to the hard questions that he's asking with his honest curiosity. That's a matana. So we're sitting under this timeline and it just hit me like a ton of bricks. It was like 14 15 at the time and I realized I said whoa mom everyone stop his name is spelled alf dollar men we know from the medish that al marishian gave 70 years of his life to the nama of David because he foresaw that would be a stillborn that the would be wrapped around and he would not be able to breathe he would not be born so gives 70 years of his life to the nishma the nishma of the nama of but the mashia The mashia mashia is also it's the same again this goes back to me to connect me the same that brought sin to the world is the one that's going to be responsible with the rest of goal behind him to be makria and to usher in the mashiach and how do you spell Adam's name olive daled me Adam David Mashiach rash I found out later this is a zyra kadesh The zyra kadesh brings down this heart. Now what does a 15year-old have any toesh? A 15-year-old who's not Jewish. That's called we had a question. What do you do with them? We know there's something going on something finicky. What's going on with the mash? Hashem says I'm going to give you something. And that once we understood that we realized that it's Judaism and nothing else. And that was all we needed. Now my struggle was not like my mother's. My mother's struggle was really about philosophy and understanding the dogma of the church and exploring the what's going on in terms of their belief system. That was not mine. I grew up effectively being handfed these differences by my mother. My struggle was unique and that is my parents got divorced when I was in seventh grade. I had to go into the public school. I was this like sheltered timis little boy and I had to go into a public school where on the first day I got c a question about my own personal orientation to use a lush noki and I was very confused as to what in the world they were talking about. I was very quickly exposed to the real tuma and the the impurity of this world and my struggle was with tya. I saw drug use. I engaged in it. I saw I had um a relationship, in fact, a long-term relationship with a girl who later on decided she was going to convert to Judaism with me. We were together for over two years. She was enrolled in the Bezden after we had actually moved to the Jewish community and she was working as the secretary in the Shul and last minute she decides Judaism isn't really for her. She had a, you know, once we became, we learned more. I realized we had to be part and it's not appropriate to have contact. We have to separate. She couldn't handle that. Turns out she was really only converting for me. And so she says, "I'm leaving and I want you to come with me." And she tries to convince me not to become Jewish. And I looked at her and I said, "What are you talking about? I decided to choose the rabbanish way before I ever met you. You think I would leave the rabbanum for a for a girl? No, >> you're not part of this then. Then that's not what we're doing. And so we left. She left. And the last day that I saw her was the day before I left for Yeshiva. Was still in the gator's process. She was kind of in the middle of leaving. She called me over to her house one day and she tried to convince me to leave. This is this is how the Sultan operates. Once he got me out of I left the public school in the middle of my sophomore year, my 10th year of school. And in fact, I remember the principal comes over and he goes, "Why are you leaving public school? Why are you leaving us?" I said, "I'm going to be homeschooled. I'm going to be online schooled actually." Um because I realized that public school really caters to the lowest common denominator. And I care about my education. Again, no filter. I didn't realize that like I saw on his face afterward. He was like, "Oh, uh have fun." He walks away and I'm just like, what's his problem? But I left and I left that whole scene. I left the parties. I left the physicality. Even when I was in those parties, we would go and we would use drugs. Nothing crazy, but we smoke marijuana. And I would be there and we'd be sitting there amongst the plumes of smoke and I would say, you know, let's talk about free will, guys. Let's talk about God. And they're like, who is this guy? Like, okay, we're here to get deep, but not really deep. YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT THE GOD PROBLEM. Leave us alone. And so everywhere I went, I was I really had one foot in but one foot out. And so I decided to leave that life and to leave that world of physicality. But I've seen it. I experienced it for myself. I've done the drugs. I've dranken the alcohol. I've had relationships. Many people ask me if the grass is greener on the other side, particularly FFBS, because the world out there is seductive. But the problem is that seduction does not last and it leaves you just needing more to fulfill that void within within you that you just created because you were running from your creator. So people ask me if the grass is greener on the other side and I know from personal experience there is no grass on the other side. It doesn't exist. It's a dim. It's an illusion. The only pleasure that exists truly that's eternal qualitatively and quantitatively is miz hash as the realm says he puts it down in other places in the beginning of his note I'm sorry that the only reason we're here is to have pleasure from the h for us that's what we're here for that's the only pleasure worth chasing because the only one that's real that actually exists so there is no grass on the other Now, with that being said, what sold me on the Tyra, it's enough to understand intellectually what the truth is. It's another thing to have it in your bones as a reality. And it's something you have to feel. If somebody comes over to you and sticks a pin in your arm, you're going to go, "Ow." And he's going to say, "Were you really in pain? Maybe we should create a study funded by the government, the taxpayers, to figure out if you were in pain or not, and we'll measure the volume with which you exclaimed, "Ow." And we'll measure the physiological situation. If if you sit there and explain this to this guy, he's like, "What are you doing? You're a fool." I said, "Ow, I know it without effect. I don't have to study the external stimuli to realize that I'm in pain." There's a knowledge that's intellectual, but then there's a knowledge that's experiential that you know for yourself because you lived it. You know your exist. Why? Cuz I'm sitting here talking to you and you're listening to me. That's how I know I exist. Cuz I experience that. And that knowledge is so deep, so integral, no one can take that away from you. If someone comes along and starts to speak about philosophy and maybe you don't exist, you're going to look at him and say, "You are too sophisticated for your own good. You have to start with Olive and Bates before you get to Gimmel." And so what made Tyra real for me was the following idea was maybe 16 17 I wanted to start working on myself spiritually now and to any time exists and we're moving towards the bezdon and at 17 we moved to Indianapolis where we actually enrolled in the bezdon there and we were going through the gayish process officially and so I have a lot more Tyra under my belt and I wanted to start working on myself spiritually. I said to myself, I am going to not get angry the next time I get angry. If you think about it, it's just intellectual in a certain sense of uh I know I'm not supposed to get angry. I know I'm going to get angry because the sun's going to tempt me that way. I know what the rules of the game are. It's rigged. I'll just never be angry for the rest of my life. Simple. But it's not simple, is it? Every single one of us is sitting there either smiling or exhaling through their nose. Wow. No, of course he's gonna get angry. And the next time it happened, it happened two days later. I said, "I'm not going to get angry." And it happened 2 days later. I got angry and I decided to not be angry. So, I go, "Don't be angry. Why am I shaking?" I realized that I couldn't stop it. I had a physiological response. Something is happening that's outside of my own consciousness that's affecting my body that I'm not in control of. And that's when I understood there's a spiritual war going on within the individual that's real and experiential Isra says Rashi and that's what he needs the first scared sedic in the world that's what he needs to come to what are those two things a mole there is a spiritual war that is not mental it is experiential there's a reason why kazal say that a person cannot sin unless He has a ru says the garra that enters into him. That means not that a person gets drunk and he does a var that happens. That's but deeper than that. If a person is sober, we've all been there. Unless we're a perfect sad and we never sin. But those who are normal bon we've all been there. You did a sin and the moment it was over you said what in the world did I just do? You feel terrible. You have a moment of guilt. EXCUSE ME. TWO SECONDS AGO. WHERE WAS THAT GUILT? WHERE WAS THAT CLARITY? WHERE DID IT GO? That's because the ru just left. Hashem gives the individual the ability to remove the intellect so that you actually have an opportunity to actually choose what you truly want on an experiential level. And if you try to resist, your body will resist you. And that's good because the more you resist, the more you actually remove active tuma from yourself. It's an active process. If a person has a real tiba and he's trying not to give in, he will break a sweat doing nothing because he's not just doing nothing. He's not al in the sense that he's just sitting there bottle. He's actually engaged in a war that is truly experiential. That's Milam. That's what Israel understood that the atahara is a real psychological phenomenon that exists within the he has a task to perform. And what's his goal? What is he accomplishing with that task of the or even the the lowest of the low spiritually the experiences greater than that's what is it is the reward of removing the zoyma the impurity of the as we go through mitz because there are three ways you can do tickai mitzvah tshoua or that's really we mentioned in the beginning that's what a romino was really asking on on a deep level. Hashem, you said my my generations are going to receive the Tyra. How do I know? What if they decide to sin? You said yourself that they have to earn it through free will. What if they decide they want nothing to do with your how will you force them to do it and still have them earn it? Hashem says simple suffering. And that's how they will get. So we go through the suffering and we remove so much tumor from us that we were able to receive the giloy that was understands these two fundamental there is a task and a job to do. It is real and experiential even though you don't see it all the time and you're accomplishing something with that task and that's all I need to know. There's a purpose of life then forget about me running away from the god problem. Let's run towards the rabbi this time and that's is and that's WHY IS IN HIS NAME and his para because that's the guide fundamentally is what you're actually doing here. So with that we go to what's called the aadis let me ask you something why is a g called b of roman bins why roino out of out of anyone how come just not nobody what why bat of roino it's not just cuz he made gar was the last task he had to do the and what was the it was hashem presenting himself as illogical so I'm going to paint you a picture of what exactly happened to me as I joined we are were up to the point where I left for yeshiva the day before I told the girl who I was involved with. I want nothing to do with you anymore. If you don't want their abund then then I'm moving on because Hashem is more important. So now I go to yeshiva and they told me I can only be there for 2 weeks. Now for me the reason I asked to go to yeshiva in the first place cuz I was spiritually dying in Indiana. There's really not much there. It's growing now. At the time there really wasn't much there. It's a minion of maybe 15 families and and there's no real sheer going on and it was a real slow growth process. We were there for already a year and a half going on two and I haven't really learned much. So I said to the rough, "Send me to Yeshiva." So he sends me here to Arsame and Muny. And I go and the Manal says, "You can be here for 2 weeks, but you're not Jewish. So to have you in the dorms on a permanent basis is against our policy. You can come for 2 weeks." So I didn't really believe him. I'm like, I'm going to go. I'm going to shine. I'm going to stag. I'm going to impress him. He'll let me stay in the dorms. There was no suffic in my mind. I wouldn't be able to stay. Two weeks comes. And by the way, two weeks come and go. I was the first person in the base measures. Not a kidish. I didn't have a yahara. OF COURSE, I WAS THE FIRST PERSON THAT BASED MEDISH. In fact, we had in my dorm room, we had me who is currently not Jewish. We had a yra, a ley, and a kaya. So, lefida kadusha is the tuma in a certain sense and the atahara. So, I was the first person in the base medish. The yrol was second to get up in our room after that. The ley a little bit after that, he slept in for like an hour and the cayen slept till noon. just to show you a little bit of how the relationship of of of Kadusha and Duma works. So I go and I sit before the manal and I say, "Okay, I'm here to make my plea to let you let me stay. Let me stay here in the he says, "No, you have to go home. It's our policy. I'm sticking by it." And this just it really defeated me because I realized something that if I go home, I'm going to spend the next four, five, six, seven years slowly learning like one ho week. I was working very very hard working nights and days as as an automotive locksmith. There is no cave rim in Indiana. I was the caveim and it was exhausting. I the the sultan was keeping me so busy. I couldn't I couldn't operate and there's no yeshiva. There's no shim. So I can't just sit and absorb anything. There's nothing to absorb in a certain sense except for a weekly para share. And that was what I looked forward to every week was that weekly parha share. But that's all I had. So I knew that this was a spiritual death sentence. So I went to my door room and I started crying. I realized what the sakana I was Julian and I called one of the rabb that I had come close to and I was crying to him and I told him the whole story. He said, "Let me ask you something. If you are told that Hashem doesn't want you to be Jewish, what are you going to do? Because you want to be a Jew. So you want to do whatever Hashem says, right?" Said, "Yeah." He said, "What if Hashem asks you not to be Jewish?" I said, "Then I wouldn't listen. I want to be Jewish." He says, "Then you're not ready. Go for a walk. talk to the rabbon and give me a call. So I go for a walk and I walk down 306 down Viola to kind of where Rabbi Hollander Shul is kind of in in that area. I had no idea where I was. I got myself good and lost. I was gone for an hour and a half. And I say, you know, Hashem, I know that you know my story. You wrote it after all. Um but I need to work through this mentally. So I'm going to now tell you my entire life story. And I am going to tell you, you know, where I've gotten up to. So I sit here and I tell him basically of how my entire life I've been yearning to become Jewish. I've been yearning to be part of CLA Israel and you come and you give me two weeks and on top of everything else the manal the first Shabas was an in Shabas that I was there. We were sitting there at the shabas table Friday night and all of the buffer are there and they're singing and I was there like mouththing the sounds cuz I didn't know what smears were. So, I'm just sitting there like just making sure that like the person next to me, I wasn't loud enough to where he didn't realize I didn't know what I was saying. But, I started crying because I was so moved. For the first time in my life, I realized that I was around people that were likeminded, but also wanted to get close to the Rabal Shalom. And that was such a deep connection moment that I had that I started crying. Wasn't trying to make a whole scene of it, but it was quietly to myself. I had tears. And the mal saw that and he said to himself, "This is an individual whose head is in the clouds. He's coming to convert." He knew a little bit. I I spoke about a little bit. I was always moving towards the reckle in a certain sense. I had a I had an tois and he's like, "This guy is all spiritual and he doesn't realize what what work Judaism is." And to his credit, that's his job. His job is to figure out if I'm lash his job is to figure out if I am real. His job is to figure out if I know what I'm getting myself into because if you take a non-Jew and turn him into a Jew, what happens is if that Jew does not follow the rules, then he's malf all of a sudden. Just as we spoke about the difference between a Jew and a non-Jew, the rabbon and the bestin have the greatest responsibility in the world. That's why we push Garam away because it's real the decision you're making. So I don't fault him in a certain sense because he was doing exactly what he was supposed to do. He was doing his due diligence, but he told me, "Your head is in the clouds." He just didn't realize that the application was wrong. His his his approach was correct, and that's what we had to do with every single gay edict potentially who's going to convert. But that wasn't who I was. So I I'm sitting there and I'm like, I come and all you give me IS TWO WEEKS. I spend 18 years searching for you and you give me two weeks in return. What's going on? This is the hardest thing YOU COULD HAVE EVER ASKED OF ME. Not to be Jewish, TO GO HOME, A SPIRITUAL DEATH SENTENCE. THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE TELLING ME. I GET TWO WEEKS IN YESHIVA. That's all I get. This is the hardest thing you could have ever asked for me. This is the hardest thing you could have ever asked for me. Wait a minute. This is the hardest THING YOU COULD HAVE EVER ASKED ME. THIS IS THE ONLY thing that you could have ever asked for me. You have nothing else TO TEST ME WITH, DO YOU? I passed all THE OTHER TESTS. I PASSED MATERIALISM. I PASSED THE FALSITY OF THIS WORLD. NOW, THERE'S ONLY ONE TEST LEFT TO PASS, AND THAT IS, can I deal with you when you're illogical? I realized the most Jewish thing that I could ever do. And I said this to Hashem. I said if the most Jewish the most Jewish I ever become is accepting the fact that I'm not Jewish denu that's what I will have I will go home who knows what will happen I accept right here right now this is my moment of Judaism this is my moment to be a yeid if hashem didn't give us the tyro he took me out of it and gave me two weeks in yeshiva dum so I said okay I accept the fact that I'm not Jewish and I danced my way home And I sat before the manal and I said I accept what's going on and I told him my new realization. He referenced the titk because he understood at that time what was going on that I didn't and he sent me home. Now before this I didn't realize that I just passed the test and now Shamine was about to open up. U the ro that I had gotten close to who told me to go for a walk was very concerned that maybe it was just because I wanted to be and so maybe I wasn't getting a fair shake. So he takes me to my to the Nickelsburgger reba over here and he sits me down before the nickelberger reba and I didn't know how to write a kaf so I put down a ket matio yehuda even though I wasn't ben yet and he puts down the kaf and and for those who understand what a kaf is that sadi who's on that level can see understand and see your sh when he looks at it so he's looking at this kaf that says a bit of ramen he goes like this I kid you not he goes what's your name again and I had been informed what a kafa was about 5 minutes prior by this r who was taking me. So I looked at him I knew exactly what he was asking. I answered the question he was really asking. I said I haven't converted yet. I knew that whatever was happening the nama on that was not me yet. So he puts it down and goes how can I help you? And I tell him the whole story and he says I'm going to put you in touch with the famous Gedric of Aram Goldstein Goldstein Goldberg. He he's famous. He's from South America. He has a shul and he's a big askin for gay and he says get in touch with him. We give him a call. He lives hours away but it happens to be he's in kus yo for kasa that night says if you can get there we'll talk. So we drive 30 minutes up to kuso. We get there we smoo with him in the back hallways of this kasa and he says I'm going to take you out of one bezdon and put you in this other in my you just have to go home. This is two weeks before pes this is now. He says, "You're going to go home, spend pes with your family, and then after that, you just have to find a place to stay in Muny for 30 days while you meet with the best several times. You'll be converted, and then boom, everything will be great from there. We'll put you in Shiva." I said, "Wonderful." This all happened around me. I didn't try to do it. This RV felt bad for me. He takes me there and all of a sudden, all because I accepted upon myself that I'm not going to be Jewish. So, I get home and I'm like, "Where am I going to stay for 30 days?" And as I'm having this conversation with my mother, I get a call and it's the Manal of our Samantha, the same Manal who told me to go home. He calls me up and I kid you not. He said, you know, I was thinking this over. Why don't you come back for like 30 days just for 30 days? We'll see how things go and we'll take it from there. Have a good speechless. That's all I needed was 30 days. He didn't know about the hol, the bezen, all the all the mishagas that that the people were doing around me to help me. And so I go and I go back after Pesak and I'm there and after 30 days he says you know what just go ahead and stay. I thought about what you said because I told him that my head was not in the clouds. I told him what was really going on. He thought about it. He realized and there was some other details as well. But Lammya, he said, "You should stay and I converted soon after." And in fact, it's very interesting. Before you get t uh put into a second basin, you have to be taken out of the first bestin. You can't be in two for Garrison once. And so I had a real problem because I just been removed from one best and put into another. And so he tells me this man that, you know, things are going well and he's going to speak to the vested and I kind of like am worried a little bit. And I called um Rab Roman. I'm like, "What's going on?" And he says, "You know what happens to be? I just forgot to take you out of the first basin. I didn't I didn't even call him. So don't WORRY ABOUT IT. EVERYTHING'S FINE." Nothing changed. Literally, I'm just the same person in the same Yeshiva and the same bezen. All because I accepted the fact that I wasn't Jewish. And I converted a few months after that. And the last nakuda is after I converted I realized what's difficult for a gaythetic is to um to assimilate in a healthy way into the belt to speak a certain way to keep the not to be so independent to where he knows better to the extent that he sticks out like a sore thumb and everyone knows yeah that's a good look at her look at him go look how cute he is I'm really I'm the kind of from you I you know he really has to stick in and fit in with going on if he wants to really incorporate properly into a Jewish lifestyle, especially if he wants his children to be successful. And so I dedicate the next year to looking Jewish, to sounding Jewish. Anytime I made a mistake, I had a couple of friends of mine that would point out certain mistakes. I told them to keep pointing out those mistakes every time I pronounced a word wrong, every time I did something. And I did some real mistakes. I used to bend my knees and bow every single brah of 15 times and I did this for like a year and a half in nobody said a word because I'm so cute but I wish that they would have and someone came up to me and goes I noticed that you're bending your bees you know like a lot I was like you're not I guess I'm just a and he says you know you're not supposed to. It just says here at the beginning and here at the end and I just I didn't understand that and he pointed it out to me. The first time I ever dabbing from the alm I sat there and practiced for months and then now I'm sitting there and I'm ready and I dab Thursday night in yeshiva going into an offshabas and someone comes up after me after the dbing. He says good shabas and I said what are you talking about? He said in the shabas for that entire my I'm talking I mean I like I went into it I put all my into it. I'VE BEEN PRACTICING FOR TWO MONTHS FOR this and nobody said a word because and I said Matt that's really the place where you're allowed to make those mistakes and it's healthy to make those mistakes and I was embarrassed and my face was red but I understood that I have to make those mistakes and I thanked him and then promptly went home to my dorm closed the door and cried out of embarrassment. Couple of years later came to I already had the uh the Becka show. I put on a Becca show for shops before I had a record during the week. I already joined the that is Stalin today and I was in the stall and it was Kaneka and Khan is like the one y you don't wear a beta for you don't put on big day shabas I didn't know that because I don't know everyone's wearing long and black but they're wearing reckless they're wearing weekday go I didn't know that I was like everybody's being fancy I want to be fancy too so I put on my becka I wear a short jacket during the week at that time and a beckon show I put on a becka and I show up to sh and I dabin for like three four days I go to kilo in the morning with a becka I'm in Um, I think it was Rockland Kosher and someone comes up to me and goes MASLETOV MAZ BALSIMKA. I'M LIKE what are you talking about? He's like balsima. You know the bees. I'm like no it's just it's kanuka. He goes. So I go to davin that next night and the person sitting next to me goes I am in awe from you. I'm like why? He said cuz you're wearing a beta. I said am I not supposed to? Are you not? He goes, "No, we don't wear fat for Kaneka, but I see that you're just you're mashanica that much." And I said, "Oh, yeah." I went home. I told my wife and I cried out of embarrassment because I was making those mistakes and it was difficult. That is a difficult problem is making those mistakes. But you have to make those mistakes. I spent a year and a half trying to look for them. And you know what happened? I lost my relationship with God. I got extremely depressed. I only showed up for chakras because people would notice that I didn't. If I woke up late, I didn't dare come to Shiners because I was embarrassed that I was walking in at 11:00 in the morning to Davin. So, I wouldn't din at all. And if I did, I would dab in my room. I didn't want people to think I wasn't. And Yiddish kite for me became. And it became very, very difficult. I couldn't learn. I didn't want to talk to her about Shalom because I was just reminded of how guilty I was. Even if I did something wrong, I still had Bucha. And I realized that just because you break into Claell, just because you have a hat and jacket and on the outside everything looks great, it doesn't mean your heart is connected to your creator doesn't mean the Yiddish kite is real for you. Because the East, the oriental peoples of the East realize something that the Western world didn't. The western world, the Spitz mch is someone who's intellectually smart and savvy, the philosopher, the doctor, the professor. But the eastern world is not Isaac and that they realize that what's going on is panemas. But all they have is panemas. They don't have a healthy relationship to theonians. And so they sit there and they're parish from everything of physicality and they just sit and meditate for 18 hours a day and that's all they do. So the east is wrong, the west is wrong. Yiddish is in the middle. Yiddish says you have to have because the BUT THE PMAS IS THE WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ME WHEN I put on and when he puts on when he puts on fillain he grows the pmius of his connection of what he's feeling with the and that's how he connects to his creator and that's what we have to strive to do and that's a lesson that I had learned. So to recap, pull it all together and then afterwards if anyone has any questions, I'm more than happy to to stay for a few minutes and answer any questions that you have as we get closer to Pes. Don't forget Yogati Matsasi. If you look will reveal himself to you. It's a fundamental in the Bria. It's not a school. It's do what you have with what you can. If you're holding in a spiritual place, don't say, "Well, I'm not at Sadi." Okay? I was just a non-Jew at 12 years old sitting in a tent for seven days, but I did what I could with what I had, and now I'm standing here. And you can do the same. Understand the difference between what a Jew and a non-Jew really is. That you're a masake. Everything you do is important, extremely important. And what a gift that is. We need to have gratitude for that. There are only two religions in the world. Every time you're presented with a mitzvah or an aa to remove yourself from, it's fundamentally a question of ovado or anoid. Do not be scared of your guilt. Understand what it is and what function it serves for you and you will grow spiritually. Understand and what it means to have a mindset of a because we were gitan only ask questions and more questions and more questions. Never stop asking questions. To the extent that you do will be the will be the reward. Do not worry about if there's grass on the other side. There is no grass on the other side is not a fancy poetic word. It is a reality that we are striving towards. Understand what understood about and that there is a battle. There is a goal. It is experiential. It's not theoretical. It is real. It is around you. It is right now and you are achieving something with that. Understand what it means to have an ADK. Why did I have to have a situation where a sim presented himself as illogical to me? Because you guys have MYSELF YOU HAVE THAT BUT A does not have the in of relate to their illogically because he doesn't from so spiritually he doesn't have that DNA like you have. He has to get it himself. That's why he's called a benov. He has to earn the aadisk the hard way to be told not to be a Jew and to accept that and that's the most Jewish he'll ever be. So understand what kayak you have that when Hashem doesn't make sense in your life that's okay too and understand the difference between the east and the west in terms of how to view yourself and your relationship with the voice of Hashem. If you feel like putting on and you're not getting anywhere it's because the heart is not in it. the shel mitzvah of what you're doing. The ura says testifies that the told him the only reason he got his mad is the way it is because he had a shell mitzvah that's all Hashm wants is your heart and if you are in appropriately it'll be you have to have both the east is wrong the west is wrong we are the ones who know how to get close to the and with that we should all be zer to experience PES in a real proper way, a kosher way. We should be should show up and say, "Guys, let's just go home. Enough suffering." And with that, we should be to come closer to the Thank you for listening. If anybody has any questions, I'm more than happy to to answer them. And that's it.