Can You Not Lie For a Day? | TORAH FOUNDATION (28)

She's brilliant. Fore speech. Where are you? We are back here starting a new week of our Torah foundation series. Tonight's show is going to be for the and all of AmI and all the righteous noises that continue to learn to Torah with us, continue to support the organization. Anyone that wants to support us can donate onem.org. So, I have a question for you. In fact has a question for all of us. Can you live without lying for a single day? In so many words, can you not lie for a day? Now before you answer the question so quickly, it seems simple. The reality is quite different if you put this into action. The is guiding us into the world of truth. Yet, you won't realize how it affects you until you actually take action. With the help of some amazing real stories from Torah sages and situations that we've dealt with personally, we dig deeper into the world of lies that have actually enveloped the hearts of many people to the point where they've become accustomed to them without even realizing it. Aside from the lesson learned, the lecture is going to challenge all of us that want to live a life that's closer to Hashem and his signature of emit. So in the last lecture last week told us be wholehearted with hem and he gave us some verses from different parts of the Torah to let us know that being wholehearted with Hashem is not just something that we should try to do but in essence this is what we were created to do. It's not just Noah that the Torah says on him or that Hashem said he was wholehearted with me. No, it's also us. Because the reality is, as my dear Rabime says, so long as a person does not act with truth in their heart, their life becomes purposeless. In other words, so long as a person acts even good acts without actually inspecting their heart for reason, for purpose, for an outcome, then they're missing the whole point. This is really what the is trying to point us towards and get us to understand what it means to live a life of truth. Because really, a person can live their entire life as if they're on a path of Hashem. They're keeping Shabbat. They're keeping modesty. They're eating kosher. They're putting on to fill in. And they may feel that they're righteous and they're righteous with Hashem, but yet they never actually give much thought to their actions. They just simply do. And with that being said, they missed the whole point. Now, what's real introspection? What does a real introspection of the heart look like? There's an amazing story that I heard from my dear that shows how a sadik takes their auate takes their servitude of hem to a point where every action must have a purpose. the Rav of the old city of Yushimdo Nebai Neb Nebi. I may have butchered the name. I'm sorry. He's a old Jewish Sadik 91 years old. He's the Russa of Yeshivat Nativ. And he was also the and of for about 40 years. During one of those years, they asked the Rav to come to America and give some lectures. And they told him, "In your honor, we'll get you first class tickets to the plane. Everyone knows first class tickets are very expensive." But to their surprise, the Rav tells them, "No, no, that's not what I want." Okay, what does the Rev want? He said, "On the way there to America, I want the back seat of the plane, which is the simplest seat, usually the cheapest seat in the plane. And on the way back to Israel, I want the front seat, the one that's the closest to the front, perhaps the most expensive." So they asked the revel I mean if you're comfortable with a regular seat why don't you take it both ways and if you're not comfortable with the regular seat why don't you take first class birthways said you don't understand he says on the way there I'm leaving Israel and since we have a mitzvah to be in the land of Israel. I want to be in Israel for that extra microscond because I'm in the back of the plane and on the way back to Israel, I want to be in the front of the plane and therefore I'll be the first one on the plane that is going to be inside the land of Israel even if it's by a microscond. So of course the tidim said we'll do what you ask but can you explain to us why is this even important and he says to them how much would have Moshe Benu paid for that one millisecond of being in the land of Israel. This is a person that has not just developed this thought that day. This is a life where a person looks into every one of their actions and evaluates what is the purpose? Why am I doing what I'm doing? and does not do anything without making sure that they introspected their heart to ensure that the action has a purpose, a meaning, a goal, an outcome and not just one of these robotic acts that unfortunately we all get accustomed to. This is not like regular people where most of the acts that people do are usually purposeless or selfish. If you tell somebody, listen, you're flying to Israel or to any other country, most important thought in the person's mind is okay, which seat am I going to get? window seat, an aisle seat. I don't want the middle seat because then people are pushing me from both sides. Do I get a first class seat? Do I get the worst class seat? Which one do I get? How fast do I get there? How am I going to get there? That's usually the thought process of a normal person. When a person starts to introspect their heart like the is trying to guide us to, they start monitoring their behavior and it'll end up changing their daily behavior forever. Now, if a person chooses not to and simply ignore the instructions of the sages, they may not feel at first that there's a difference. But as life continues to progress, little by little, they start realizing that their life is missing something. It's empty of something. A sense of purposelessness. Meaning living life without an actual purpose. Even if they're fulfilling the Torah, they feel like there's a disconnect. It's no surprise you see that some people could go to yeshiva could go to a seminary for the first 18 20 years of their life and then all of a sudden just abandon everything as if it's overnight. It really wasn't overnight. It's been happening the whole time. When they prayed, they said the words, but didn't connect to the God that's supposed to be listening to them. When they made a blessing, they really focus more on the fact that they want to eat. And this blessing is what gets in the way of them eating. When they put on their clothes, they simply put on the clothes that their parents bought for them and not necessarily the ones they chose for themselves if they had a choice. When they read, they looked at it like it's homework. Meaning, it's a task. It's a burden. It's something I can't wait to get rid of. Instead of being excited to learn Torah, instead of being excited to develop their mind and their heart to become closer to Hashem, they simply did it because someone told them they have to in order to pass the class. What is this like? Today we had a drive and on the way I saw there was a I guess it was a gas station on the road and on the roof of the gas station there were cars. There were three cars. And the first thought, of course, is how do they get cars to stay on top of there? And then you see that inside there's nothing. It's just a shell. Now, what if somebody told you, "Do you want to buy the fancy car of your dreams? I don't know, you want a Ferrari or Lamborghini or whatever it is that you want." And of course, you're going to say, "Well, I don't know if I can afford it." Listen, $2,000. You got it. You say, "Of course. I can't wait to drive it. Where I get the keys?" He go, "No, no, there's no keys." What do you mean no keys? What kind of car has no keys? Well, it's just a shell. It's just the body of the car, but there's nothing inside. There's no seats. There's no engine. There's no steering wheel. There's nothing. It's only good for pictures. You could take a picture, a selfie, put it on the internet as if you own a Lamborghini, a $500,000 car, but in reality, it's just a shell made out of plastic. And tell them, well, it's not even worth $2 for most normal people. Why would I want just a show? I want the inside. I want to be able to drive it. I want to be able to sit in it. Oh, now you're asking for too much. The same concept goes with our life. Sometimes we don't realize that the actions that we take in life are so meaningless are so disconnected from the purpose that we do things just because we do things just because someone told us to do it but we never really ask we never developed a connection to it. Now, of course, the Torah itself says, the sages teach that in a place where people do things even not for the right purpose, eventually they'll get to the right purpose. But getting to that right purpose is not on automatic. It requires effort. Requires you to ask questions. It requires you to make an effort to connect to the words, to the teachings, to take action. to apply these teachings to your life and not necessarily just hear them like they're background music in an elevator. Because if there's no heart, just like the car without an engine or a seat, you're not going anywhere. Whether you're putting on or not, keeping Shabbat or not, learning Torah or not, without putting your heart into it, it won't raise you to get closer to Hashem. You could do the actions, but you won't enjoy Shabbat like the do that connected. You could put on a toillin and you can say all you want that it connects your mind and your soul and your heart, but if you don't really think about Hashem during those few moments, you're missing the whole point. Statements like words are empty. If they're not connected to some type of action, now the heart and the body are supposed to be on the same page, just like the told us last week. Because when they're not on the same page, you end up making mistakes that seem like not a big deal. For example, when it comes to you forget to say, you think, "Ah, I forgot." When you're saying, you skip a paragraph without realizing it, or you forgot whether you made a blessing or not, a real story that happened recently in Israel in a fume neighborhood. One of the guys was at his file and then all of a sudden asked himself, "Wait, am I rolling the feline because I prayed already or am I did I just get here and I'm supposed to be unrolling because I have to pray." He completely forgot whether he prayed or not. This shows that not only his prayer had complete disconnect from the purpose, but who knows what his other prayers look like. And he's not alone. Many of us sometimes pray with our mind so far away from the prayer because we're thinking about what we need to do after the prayer. We need to go to work. We need to eat. We need to have a meeting. Whatever it is, we miss the point. The ultimate purpose of prayer is the prayer itself. This is why there's certain strategies of how to slow yourself down after you've become accustomed to the prayer and you're not new to the prayer. you're not new to the religion because in the beginning it's much easier to have a lot more uh meaning in your prayer because you're new and the words are still not flowing in your veins. But after you've been praying for many years and you've become accustomed to the prayer where you know it by heart or at least most of it, it's very easy to forget where you are in a page because you haven't been reading. You've been simply reciting what you already know. Now although that has advantages, the biggest disadvantage, the biggest loss is the connection to the words. You stop thinking about the words naturally. You have to actually make a bigger effort. This is because the body has become accustomed to the words. But the heart never does. The heart has to exert itself in order to become accustomed to the words each and every time a new. There was once a guy that got married to a daughter of a rich man. And this rich man said to him, "Listen, I heard that you learn Torah. I want you to learn Tawra. I have a house. I'll give it to you guys. It's full of books. All you have to do is learn. I'll take care of everything else. I heard you're a big mid. You're dedicated. So 12 hours a day. You start at 8 9:00 in the morning all the way till 8 9:00 at night. We'll provide you the food. We'll provide you the money you need to pay the bills. All you do is learn. Seems like the deal of a lifetime. Only problem is that the guy wasn't uh the biggest learner. Let's just say that. So, he would learn, but after a few hours, he didn't want to learn anymore. He said, you know, three, four, five hours, enough. This guy wants me to learn nine hours. So he snuck in a newspaper, a magazine, read about what's happening in the world. But anytime you would hear footsteps, oh, the my father-in-law is checking on me, so I have to make sure I sound like I'm learning. So as soon as he would hear footsteps or any type of noise, all of a sudden All of a sudden he would say one of the common statements in the which is what Abay said one of the most common one of the most great and extraordinary sages that ever lived. Every suga has his name in it. And he was not one that had an easy journey. grew up an orphan and had to overcome extraordinary obstacles. Certainly no less than anybody else that's watching this, but still rose to greatness. But as this bah is trying to fill up his day, the footsteps keep bothering him. Why is this father-in-law bothering me? Three months passed, six months passed, nine months passed. After a year, he's like, "Listen, enough is enough. Every day I hear footsteps. This guy's checking on me. I didn't marry him. I married his daughter. So, you know what? Tomorrow, I'm going to face him. Enough with the checking on me." At this point, this guy is reading the newspaper 80% of the time. figuring that only learning a couple of hours is enough. So he waited by the door waiting waiting to hear some type of noise and then all of a sudden he hears the steps. He hears the ground his mate is moving. He quickly opens the door. WHAT ARE YOU CHECKING ON ME? But he doesn't see anybody in front of him. Instead, he looks down and he sees the family cat. And he realizes that this whole time that he's been pretending to read, pretending to learn any time he would hear the footsteps, he was doing all of it for the sake of the cat. Unfortunately, many times people do what they do in their servitude of Hashem. And needless to say, in life itself, in their business, in their marriage, in their socializing for the sake of others, without even realizing it, never putting much thought into it. They act the way they act because that's the way they see other people act. This is very common among young kids, especially teenagers. They see their friends talking a certain way. All of a sudden, they decide to use the same lowly vocabulary that their friends have. today's world in this generation unfortunately the highlight of some kids' life is when they find a teacher that speaks their language. Which language is that? The madeup language of teenagers. They literally invented a language where they've turned every word into some strange sound and they can't speak proper language. instead of saying that they instead of simply laughing instead of saying something is funny they'll use lol or something similar. Now if you write it as a text that's one thing but to actually speak that way that's a problem. Many times people start doing it because they see somebody else doing it. Now, if you have good friends that have positive influence that are teaching you to do good, they teach you to do to help others, to be kind, to be well-mannered, to be studious, to be more honest, then good. Be influenced by them. But as we all know, that's not the way it works. One of the most critical problems that every single parent on planet earth has to deal with, no matter what school they send their kids to, it could be the best yeshiva in the world. Is the reality that even if you send your kid to the best skill in the world, best school in the world, one kid could ruin everything. How? Simple. A bad kid sits next to your kid and decides to be a bad influence. Even if the school is great and the teachers are great and the environment is great, but if that one rotten kid decides to befriend your kid, you can throw everything into the garbage. Why? That's the way it works. And the Rambam Buskins this not a discovery of today. The Rambam already wrote this as a reality of life over 800 years ago. We are influenced by our surroundings. So even if you send your kid to the BEST YESHIVA TO THE best seminary, if they get stuck next to a bad kid, only Hashem can help you. Now, when a person has not yet developed their own backbone yet, has not yet developed their own character yet, they're very easy to influence and they're influencable. They see things, they copy them. They see people speak a certain way, they copy it. They see people act a certain way, they copy it. Now, this doesn't only work on kids. This also works on adults. You see, sometimes people chuva or newly converted to Judaism, one of the things they want to do is to move to a more religious neighborhood. So far, sounds good. Now from a lot of experience over the last decade plus of helping people do chuva convert and get closer to Hashem giving to all types of people whether they were born religious or not people that are people that all walks of life we get to see the journey that some people take and one of the saddest things that I get to is when people lose who they are because they don't have a backbone. Before they converted, before they did chuva, they felt lost and then they found the Torah and they found the truth and that truth brought fire into them. They loved Hashem. They believed in Hashem. They started learning Torah seriously. They started realizing there's so much that needs to be fixed. They left Kiru. They wanted to help others and along the way they wanted to move to a more religious neighborhood. But as the Satan would have it, as they moved from community to community, finding something that's always better, they went to a place and they saw, well, everyone looks really religious on the outside. They're all wearing the traditional garments of today, the black and white. They all go to shul. They all say good shabas, Shabbat shalom. and they want to fit in. That's so far so good. But as part of the process of them fitting in, they start seeing how people behave every day. And not everyone is as zealous for Hashem as they are. In fact, many of them remind them of their secular past. Many of them remind them of not so religious people. even though they're in a religious environment. And this type of scene makes them rethink themselves. Maybe I don't need to be as zealous for Hashem. Maybe I don't need to be as serious about the mitzvot. Maybe I just need to fit in. And they start fitting in, but not in a positive way. Rather, they lose their fire. They lose their zealousness. They lose their passion for Hashem. And they just simply fit in. Which means look religious on the outside. What's inside, whatever is there is there. Whether it's rotten or good, who knows? And they stop growing. It's a very very sad thing because you know that that person doesn't even realize that they're in the Satan's trap from both ends and they don't even realize it. They think they're going in the right direction because they figure I'm going to a weekly sh with the rabbi. I'm learning dafomi. Yes, but you lost your fire. You stopped crying for Hashem. You stopped trying to do better. you stopped growing. You stopped caring about your fellow Jew. Even when you see him going against Hashem, you simply just started caring about fitting in. And unfortunately, this is a very common thing that if a person does not check themselves, they could go like this for the rest of their life. The same goes for people that are born into a religious family and just go with the flow. They fit in to the community. They fit in with the outfits. They fit in with the behavior. They fit in with everything. They don't necessarily develop their own spine. They don't develop their own connection to Hashem. And little by little, they start realizing that this thing we call Judaism is just a thing we do. No different shalom, but no different than, let's say, some people in some island in the middle of nowhere that walk around with just underwear on and little spears in their hand and they paint their face. They feel normal in their environment and you feel normal in your environment. There's no difference between the two. When the body and the soul are not in agreement then unfortunately whatever we do is not going to elevate us to get closer to Hashem. Now as the says regarding a person whose inside is not like his outside. The prophet Malachi, the last prophet in chapter 11:4 says his heart was not whole with Hashem, his God. Meaning that the soul wanted to connect to Hashem. The soul wanted to do the will of Hashem, but the body was going in a diff different direction. A person can teach all types of things in the name of of breastlive of the balto of whoever it is but in their own personal life they project materialism and a complete disregard for Torah laws. But wait, just now you were telling us about of breast. Just now you told us about the Just now you told us about the of the How do you allow yourself to act in such a way that contradicts everything they stood for? If you ask them this, they'll tell you what are you talking about? They won't even know what you're talking about. Why? Because the liars enveloped their heart to such an extent that they don't even realize it's there. They don't realize it's there because they weren't wholehearted with Hashem. The Vik says in chapter 78 verse 36 and 37 they flattered him with their mouths lied to him with their tongues and their hearts were disloyal to him. In so many words, what David is telling us is that this is not a new problem. Already at the time of David, already at the time from before, there are always been people that said the right thing. They said, they said the prayers. They even said Torah to tell you about what the did. But none of this was applied to themsel. None of this was something that they would actually check whether their heart matches their actions of their body. So they flattered Hashem with their mouth, with their prayers, with their praises, but really they lied to him. Their words weren't what they actually felt. They just said it to say it. That's what you say. It's like, what's the most annoying friend? The person that you ask him, "How are you?" and he starts telling you exactly how he's doing. Really, when you asked him because you didn't care, you ask him how are you? You're hoping to say good or could be better or not bad or something quick so you can just move on. I remember when I was on Wall Street early in my days, one of the companies that I worked for, I had this boss that he would come into the office and uh he'd say, "Look at me." He'd say, "How are you?" And before I even had the time to respond, he already walked away. Now in his mind he already fulfilled his cordial behavior purpose. He simply wanted to look cordial. He wanted to look nice. He wanted to look like he cared. But his behavior were as far from that as possible. Literally he would say, "How are you?" And he would not even care about what your response was. He would just simply walk away. And he would do this with everybody. Somebody that's so consumed with their own life, with their own actions, does not leave any room for anybody else to enter. So in his mind, whether you're good or not, he doesn't have time for it. He just needs to look like he's cordial. He just needs to look like he's polite. Unfortunately, many times people do this and they ask, "How are you?" And they find it annoying if the other person starts telling them, "Well, listen how I am. Ah, not so good. My wife got and I got into a fight this morning." And the kids, they did something wrong. They got in trouble. And also the teachers, they called about one of my kids. I don't know what to do. And you know, my back is hurting me again from that accident I had. And they start telling you like, "Whoa." You're like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. I just hope you said, "Hashem, listen. I'm not your counselor. I'm not your psychiatrist. I just want to say how are you? WHY? NOT FOR YOU. FOR ME, cuz I wanted to look like I'm uh nice. If that's the way you see how are you, it's better off not to say anything. It's better off not to say anything. Why? Because you're putting yourself in a situation where your mind and your body, your heart, your soul, and your body don't agree. You're just said, "How are you?" Just for yourself. not because you care about him or her. And if that's the case, either change or change directions, meaning go in a different directions. You don't have to run into them to ask how are you? Now the tells us about the vid and how the vidame already saw this problem in his day and he says they flattered Hashem with their mouth but they lied to him with their tongues and the conclusion is that in Hashem's eyes that means that they were disloyal to Hashem. Meaning that although you can discount the importance of being honest in every part of your life in different way that you could rationalize it whether it's when you say hello to people or the way you conduct yourself in other places but who could rationalize being disloyal to Hashem intentionally because at one point or another we're all going to have to meet our maker. And when we meet him, all of those exteriors, the possessions, the fancy watches, the expensive cars, the multi-million dollar houses, the special plastic uh surgeries that makes you look like you're 20 years younger. the wigs that's long enough to sweep the floor. All of that doesn't matter. Why? Because one of our 13 principles of faith is that a kadosh knows our heart. So all of those material possessions that carried us into this world of lies that made people look at us in a certain way and think of us in a certain way. Oh, he's successful. Oh, she's successful. Oh, THEY LOOK SO HAPPY. OH, ALL THAT STUFF. Once we meet our maker, once we meet a kadosh, NONE OF THAT MATTERS. WHY? It's all the same. The exterior and the interior are one in front of a You can't show off with your long wig. You can't show off with the expensive Rolex. You can't tell, listen, you see my new car, half a million dollars. Had to wait two years for it. Can't do all that. Oh, did you see the shure I did? 500 people online said they liked it. None of that stuff matters. Why? Sees your heart. What were you thinking when you were walking around like that? making yourself look like you're 30 years younger than you really are. Were you really doing it for the sake of your husband or for the sake of your neighbor? Were you doing it to fit in into this world or were you doing it in order to serve Hashem in some way? What were you thinking when you bought that fancy car? Was it because this car helped you serve a kadoshu in such in a better way somehow? Or it helped you serve yourself and make yourself a public image so people can think of you as this is the guy to invest with. This is the guy to do things with. Why? He's got money. Why did you do all those things? All of that is going to come up at the bed of heaven and is going to show us over there. You said that you buying that suit for uh for Shabbat, right? Custom suit, $9,000. You said you to your friend that you're justifying buying this $9,000 suit for Shabbat. And then Hashem asks you, "Then how come you wore it on a Tuesday as your first day of wearing it? If you bought it for Shabbat in the honor of Shabbat, why'd you wear it on a Tuesday? You said you bought the house for $5 million?" because you wanted to have guests. But how come every time that your wife said she wants to have her family over or friends over or somebody from the community over or to host a rabbi, you said, "Listen, honey, I don't feel good this weekend." Every time for 10 years that you own the house, where are the guests? So you said you did a mitzvah because whatever you bought, you justified that it was supposed to be connected to me. But in reality, your heart already at that time was far away. You knew you weren't buying the suit for Shabbat. You were buying it because you wanted to have the most expensive suit in the synagogue. You knew you weren't buying the house for the sake of guests. You just wanted to have the biggest house on the block. You knew that when the customer said, "Is this a good deal?" You knew it wasn't a good deal for him, but you knew that if you do the deal with them and you convince them it's good, they're going to make enough commissions to buy another expensive watch. They flattered him with their mouths. They lied to him with their tongues. And their hearts were disloyal to him. And then the continues and says it is well known if someone contradicts himself or proves himself to be a liar whether in speech or in deed in action. Everyone knows that people will no longer believe him or is in his in his integrity and they'll have no confidence in his sincerity. Meaning, if he's a liar and people find out he's a liar, no one's going to want to do business with him anymore. No one's want to go going to want to talk to him anymore or trust him with a secret. Why? He's a liar. You told, "Listen, I got a secret for you. I'm going to do this and this, but don't tell anybody. I'm telling you because you're my good friend." The next day, you find out five PEOPLE FOUND OUT HOW I only told you. I don't know. I don't know. What do you mean you don't know? You're the only person that knew. You realize he's not a person to tell secrets to. You realize it's not a person with integrity. Next time you won't tell him a secret. Next time you won't do business with him. This is common knowledge. What's not common knowledge says the is that similarly in our outer and inner selves there are contradictions where if our talk is not matched with our intentions if our actions of our limbs are at odds with our convictions of our heart then our worship of God is imperfect for God does not accept insincere service as the prophet Isaiah A writes in chapter 61 verse number 8, I cannot tolerate iniquity along with holy assembly. Meaning is telling us that you may be able to fool your friends, your community, your customers, your business partners. You may fool them that you're sincere. You may fool them that you're honest. You may fool them that you mean well, but I know your heart and I can't stand it. I can't tolerate it when you present what you have as if it's a holy assembly, but in reality, it's full of lies. As the prophet Isaiah says in chapter 61 verse8, for I God love justice. I despise robbery in a burnt offering. And furthermore, the prophet Malachi says in the name of God in chapter 1 vers8, when you offer a blind animals for sacrifice, is that not evil? Because it has a moon has a defect. You're not allowed to bring a sacrifice that has a defect. So Hashem says when you offer an animal, you can't see that it's missing a leg or it's missing an ear, but it's blind and you know it as if I'm not going to know it and you offer it as a sacrifice. Is that not evil? When you offer those that are lame or sick, where you know that this bull is going to die within the next few months and you offer it as a sacrifice, not because you're sacrificing to Hashem, just because you KNOW IT'S GOING TO DIE ANYWAY, so might as well use it, get rid of it. It's less it's like it's less of a loss. Is that not evil? Says Hashem, try presenting this to your governor. Will he be pleased when you you show him this favor? Will he show you favor? When we pray to Hashem, when we do his mitzvot, when we learn his Torah, if we're not putting thought behind what we're doing, and we simply do just because we don't want to look bad in front of other people, that's not only going to disconnect us from the mitzvot, and it's not going to elevate us closer to Hashem, but it's also going to seep into our behavior in the rest of life. This is very common in the world of business as I always like to mention because that's the thing that most people spend most of their lives doing. Have you ever had a job you needed a contractor for? Usually the best experiences people have in their life is when they hire a contractor to do some type of remodeling in their in their house. And I hope you can sense my sarcasm. Why? Because the contractor, you hire him to redo your bathroom, fix your bathroom, redo your kitchen, living room, whatever it is that you want to do. And of course, he says, "Sure, sure. I can do. I can do. I can do. How many you want? They always say yes. And also they say how much it's going to cost. Oh, it's going to cost you 5,000, 50,000, 100,000, 500,000 depending on what the job is and how long is it going to take? Oh, we could finish this in uh a month and a half. We can finish this in two weeks. We can finish this in five weeks. Always reasonable. But then three months after they've missed the deadline, you now find yourself in a situation where they refuse to come back and finish the job. And the only way they're willing to come back is if you pay them more than what you originally agreed. And in some cases, they just simply disappear and go to the next customer to do the same exact thing. They all do the same thing. Oh no, I got stuck over here. I have another job. I have another this. I did it. All of them have the same book of excuses. This is one example of a person that has allowed lies to envelope their heart to the point where they've become accustomed to it. If you ask them, "Are you an honest business person?" They'll tell you, "Of course, I work very hard. I wake up 5:00 in the morning. I come home at 6:00 at night." They connect their hours of operation and their hard labor to honesty, to integrity. Even though the two have nothing to do with each other. If you're working hard, stealing from people, lying to people, you're not an honest person. It has nothing to do with how hard you work. So if you ask that guy if he's honest, if he has integrity, if he's A GOOD GUY, HE'LL TELL YOU, "OF COURSE, what do you mean? I work so hard. I wake up in the morning to feed my kids. Yeah, but they're your kids. They're not birds on the street. I mean, it's not exactly You don't necessarily get so much extra credit for feeding your own kids. I mean, if you didn't want the kids, don't have kids. Have birds instead. Have a cat. The fact that you're feeding your kids because you had the kids. You didn't want to feed kids, don't have them. But he thinks that just because he does what he created for himself. He created for himself the schedule. He created for himself the five jobs that he can't handle. He created for himself all of these things. And he thinks that even if he cannot meet the conditions that he gave the customers, the fact that he's still working hard somewhere else somehow benefits the customer that he didn't work for. The same concept goes for people that have fallen into the trap of the generation that has repeated itself generation after generation for the last 3,000 years since the time of Schlommo when Schlommo outlawed outlawed lending when interest not only to Jews because the Torah already outlaws it but Schlommo outlawed Jews lending to non-Jews with interest. Why? In his wisdom, he saw the inherent evil that will come from lending with interest. But unfortunately, is not with us anymore. And this horrific situation of lending money with interest has repeated itself generation after generation. every time heating up to the point where it's usually the pretext that the anti-semites use to justify destroying the Jewish community. Whether it's right before the destruction of the beta mikdash where the gentile enemy used it as a reason of why they're justifying killing the Jews and destroying the beta mdash or it was before the time of the destruction and massacres that took place in England in the 1100s or it's during the times of the crusades or it's during the time of the Spanish Inquisition around the same time where they all used Jews lending money with interest, high interest as their justification for killing us or it's before the Holocaust. The same thing is happening now. Although there are many non-Jews in the cash advance business. If you look at anyone that speaks against the Jews, they will always mention Jews lending money with interest. They're not going to mention their Italian brother lending money with interest. They're not going to mention Tony and and and and Geranimo from the mafia that have been lending money with high interest for the last several decades since the Alapone DAYS. THEY'RE NOT GOING TO MENTION THAT. THEY'RE NOT GOING TO mention all of the money that was stolen by their brothers and sisters that came from all countries of the world. What are they going to mention? They're going to mention Ara and Yakov and Shurel that calls himself Sammy now and Dudu that really is David but now HE GOES BY SCOTT BECAUSE HE WANTS TO SOUND AMERICAN. They're going to mention all of those guys. Why? Because they have one thing in common. They're Jews. And therefore, anyone that has looked into the merchant cash advance business with two open eyes and a working brain sees that it's an inherently evil business, the praise on its customers. And unfortunately, unlike other businesses where if you are working at a Goldman Sachs that was started by Jews or Lehman Brothers Alam Shalom that was started by Jews, no longer in business of course anymore. or you're one of the major law firms of the world, one of the major consulting firms of the world. You're at Accenture, you're at Palanteer, you're one of these major companies. When you're recruiting, what are you looking for? You're looking for the best of the best in the graduating class based on their grades, based on their extracurricular activities, based on certain metrics. If you're looking for numbers, you're looking for statistics. Unfortunately, in the merchant cash advance business, they don't look for any of that. In fact, they won't even recruit from Harvard or Princeton or anywhere else. Who are they looking for? People with zero skills and very, very weak spines within the Jewish community. should come to who doesn't know much more than learning who doesn't know much more than the fact that he went to yeshiva until he's 18 years old but now he's trying to figure out how is he going to pay for getting married how is he going to pay the $1,500 $2,000 a month tuition for the kids that he doesn't even have yet how is he going to do all these things and since he doesn't really have that much connection with Hashem because he believes he was in the religious community just because he was born into it and not because who decided so. So now he's looking for money. He's looking for blood. So the cash advance business, what do they do? That's who they recruit. You're one of us. You don't have any skill set to build any rockets. You don't have any skill set to develop any new artificial intelligence. You don't even know how to put the cap back on your shampoo. SO YOU KNOW WHAT? YOU'RE PERFECT FOR THIS BUSINESS. WHY? You could answer the phone. The customer calls you, just tell them, "Yes, YES, YES. THIS IS GOOD FOR YOU." REQUIRES ZERO SKILLS, ZERO TALENT, and most importantly, no spine, no integrity whatsoever. But now, you'll learn with experience. How? So from the beginning, anyone that looks at the merchant cash business as a business sees that the inherent evil is already from the foundation. They start off by telling you that they're here to help you. Really, what they're looking for is a business that has enough money to survive six months. Three months is also okay. Why? That's how long they want you to be a customer. They don't care about the survival of your business. Even if they tell you this money is going to make you grow and you're GOING TO BECOME MUCH MORE SUCCESSFUL in two, three years from now, inherently they know. The math doesn't work that way. Why? Because they're telling, listen, I can get you $50,000 by tomorrow. But when you get the contract, it says $75,000. And you're thinking, oh wow, I borrowed 75,000. Sounds good. The bank gets the money. You say, "Wait a minute. I get 50,000." You said 75. No, that's what the interest what you have to pay back in 3 months. Now, a person does simple math. Says, "Oh, so it's 50% interest. That's what the broker told me AT 50%." BUT IN REALITY, it's a lie. Why? 50% in three months is 200% over a year. And that's considered a good deal. Now, when you ask them, listen, you can't do this, you can't do that. You're lending the money. Like, no, no, no. We're not lending the money. We are buying their receivables. We're a factoring business. Well, I know some factoring companies already from the times of Wall Street where I knew some people that were in that business. Never cared for it so much, but I know it's a necessary business for certain industries. Anyone that's in the factoring business knows that the most important data that the factoring company acquires before they decide whether to lend money or not is to look at the receivables to look at which customers are actually paying you on a regular basis and which are not. GUESS WHAT? MERCHANT GAS BUSINESS DOESN'T CHECK. THEY DON'T CARE. WHY? BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT A FACTORING BUSINESS. THEY'RE A factory of robbing people, destroying their life, but they're not a factoring business. But this is good for the pitch. Meaning that the salesman says things in the beginning that he doesn't realize it's false. He calls himself I'm bar buying the receivables or factoring business. In the beginning, he knows he doesn't know if it's a lie. Why? He's an 18-year-old who doesn't know anything. 6 months into it, when his customers are starting to go bankrupt unless they borrow three, four, five times more with a higher interest, he starts realizing, well, what I said to them six months ago was a lie. We're not really a factoring business. We're not really buying their receivables. We're simply taking as much money as we can from whatever is left in the business's lifetime. And then they put on their contracts percentage recovery 9% 8%. Why? Why do they put 9% recovery? to make it seem like they're a factoring business. But in reality, that percentage is meaningless. It has nothing to do with anything. It just makes the customer think that this is the interest they're charging him 9%. But they're not charging him 9%. They're charging him 100, 200, 400, 4,000%. One of the things that a person realizes within that first year of working into the cash advance business, I know from people that I've spoken that have are in it and have left it and unfortunately some got into it and then left it and didn't believe what I said is that the merchant cash advance business is not just a predatory business. It's the predatory of the highest regard because the only thing they evaluate is how much money you have in the bank based on your expenses in order to determine how much lifetime you have. If you have three to six months worth of lifetime, you're a customer. Money is coming in. They'll lend you money. Why? because they're gonna want to suck dry that last six months from you a little faster. They don't care about your business. They don't care about your success. They simply try to make two, three, four times their money within a short period of time while you're still alive so they can move on to the next barely living business. And if you don't believe what I say, you could simply talk to the lawyers that deal with it. You don't want to believe what I said, even though I spent nearly two decades on Wall Street. I know more about finance than probably most people out there. You want to believe me? You think I'm making this stuff up? Go talk to lawyers. Lawyers that deal with this. Go look it up. Go look at the case law. Go look at why did the New York Attorney General find them over a billion dollars? What normal business gets fined for a billion dollars and gets outlawed if it's a legitimate business? Many businesses get fined for doing wrong things. But to become outlawed, to be shut down, obviously there's something wrong. But unfortunately, the law of the land allows people to override it and people continue. They just simply change the name on the door. So how is it that such an inherently evil business has crept itself back into even the from communities where the recruiting agents of the merchant cash business are specifically looking for young Jewish kids that don't know anything to become their new salesman so long as they're in business. Why? because they have one thing in common. Their hearts and their bodies don't agree. Their body will go to shu. We'll pray to Hashem. We'll say Shabbat shalom, a good chabas. Their body will even take money out of their pocket and give it as SAKA TO THE NEW building in the community that's going to be a yeshiva. As one of the kashad van salesman told me, do you know how much Torah we're supporting in Go Magog? All of those places are going to be destroyed if not before. Why? They're all built on lies. Every one of those buildings that was built with cash advance money is all going to be destroyed to nothing. No different than the reform in the conservative places. Why? You cannot lie to Hashem. You cannot lie to Hashem and think that you're doing a mitzvah with stolen money. You can't go into a business that prays on its CUSTOMERS KNOWING THAT YOU'RE PRAYING on the customer and tell them, "I'm giving you a good deal." Anyone that has left the business has left it for this reason. They simply got sick of lying. I've spoken to several of them. More than several. Every one of the guys that I've spoken to that has left the business told me, "Rabbi, you're right. I knew you were right. It just took me a while to catch up to it because the money was so good." Well, guess what? The gay is going to be really good for those that don't leave because it's literally destroying people's lives. And it's not the first time. So, how did this creep into the Jewish community? Again, we're not the only ones in there. Joey and Tommy and all the other nations are also in it, but we're going to be the ones that get highlighted. We are the ones that are already being highlighted. You look at anybody that's made a video about it. from news uh companies to nonprofit organizations, anyone that becomes like a media outlet of some kind to report on what's happening that decides to take merchant cash advance as a subject to cover. All of THEM SHOW FOOTAGE. ALL OF THE PEOPLE IN THE FOOTAGE ARE JEWISH. ALL OF THE PEOPLE ARE JEWISH. LITERALLY, THEY ALL IT'S LIKE THEY ONLY FIND US. As if Patel, THE THE GUY FROM INDIA, IS NOT THERE. HE'S NOT IN A BUSINESS. YEAH, BUT HE'S THERE. HE OWNS ONE. NO, NO, NO, NO. It's it's it's it's just it's just Ara that calls himself AI. Why is running the show? Abai is running the show. When your heart and your body are not in sync, it'll lower you to the bottom of the barrel. Not only because you become accustomed to lying to Hashem through the mitzvot, through the good deeds you pretend to do, but because it's going to lead you to justify to lie to other people. If you could lie to Hashem so easily, then of course it becomes much easier to lie to people. Here we see that what the is trying to ingrain into our hearts is not that it's good to inspect our heart but it's an absolute necessity if you want to have an ounce of truth left in it. When a person decides to take on the truth it's not an easy process. Why? Because if you don't do it with the Torah as your guide, you could easily fall into a trap. The Benishai Shalom gave a example as he did through his stories where he said there was one time a guy that says I'm going to fight I'm going to fight the lies. I'm not gonna lie. As he's sitting at his desk, all of a sudden he sees this green creature in a cloud show up next to him. He looks at him. He says, "Who are you?" He says, "Me? I thought you know me. I'm Mr. Lies. I'm the one that you use every day when you lie TO PEOPLE. JUST GET OUT OF HERE. I don't want you here. You're disgusting. Because listen, don't talk to me that way because I may listen to you and I'm going to leave and you're going to need me tomorrow. Who's going to need you? Who needs you? You're lies. YOU'RE DISGUSTING. EVEN GOD HATES YOU. OKAY, you said it. I'm out. But don't ask for me back. He disappeared. The next morning he wakes up, hears knocks on his door, opens the door and he sees the living maid that lives in his house, takes care of everything. But for the first time, he notices that she's a balatum. She has a defect. She has a deformed body, deformed face. And really he hired her because he wanted to give her a job and do something good. But this morning he forgot about that. He looks at he goes, "You have to look at every morning." And she's holding his dime cup to give it to him as she does every morning. And she what what master was a so awful looking. Oh, I can't. I have to get rid of you. Why did I even hire you to look at this every day? And the poor lady starts hysterical crying. What happened to what happened to my master? He was so nice to me until now. And she runs away. And then he catches him and goes, why did I say that? Oh, that's not nice. All right. Well, anyway, I got to go to my meeting. I have a meeting with my aunt. So, he gets ready. He goes to the meeting with his rich aunt that is very very sick and he knows that she's also very very rich and he's one of the people that's going to inherit her wealth. As he gets to his hint says, "Oh my dear nephew, how are you?" He says, "Uh, to tell you the truth, I'm actually a little bit annoyed that you haven't died yet because you know what? I really need the money. I have a few business deals I want to get into, and I I could really uh use the money that you have, especially this house. I could sell it pretty quickly and then buy something else and get into these businesses. So, can you just die already?" The ant looks at him goes, "What? WHO ARE YOU? WICKED. WICKED GOD. GET OUT OF HERE. you're out of the will. And he's catching himself, what? What did I just do? What did I just do? As he gets kicked out of the house, he doesn't realize why is he saying these things. And then he sees one of his old friends. His friend Yakov is like, "Hey, how are you? Good morning. Good morning. Maybe for you because you're a lazy bum. You haven't worked in six months. Me at least I work." and he starts telling them about all of his flaws that YaKob has. YaKob says, "What happened to you? What kind of friend are you? You're hurting me. Get out of here." And then he starts realizing, "Why am I talking to everybody this way? Why am I talking to everybody this way?" And then he remembers what happened to him last night when Mr. Lies came to him and told him, "You're going to need me. Don't talk to me that way. So he starts praying please Mr. lies come help me help me. Now of course the benesai says this is not in any way shape or form justifying lying but rather to teach us morals. How so? When a person has accustomed themselves to lying in such a way that it's become literally roots in every part of their heart, then that means that they can start justifying their lives even in their good deeds. So instead of learning how to truly love the creation that Hashem has created, people have accustomed themselves to lie because it's to their interest. Instead of simply looking at the good that the maid servant had that she's giving him something and saying thank you. Instead of caring or concerning yourself with their personal appearance not being to your likings, you simply commented on things because it's against your uh preference. When a person doesn't think deeply about their actions, they can justify doing good while they're doing bad. They can justify doing bad while doing good. Ultimately, this is no different than the person that doesn't like their coworker to actually answer when you say, "How are you?" other than simply a one-word answer if that much. But knows our heart which means that when we come in front of a all of the exterior show off becomes irrelevant because he knows what actually was in our heart during those times. Raov Pavarski the elder and the rashiva of Yeshivat Ponovich he's 94 years old had a period of his life where he suffered enormous amount of pain to the extent where literally disabled him except when he had a shield to Anytime there was a the pain disappeared. The rabbi told him, "Maybe we should just arrange for you to have 24 hours a day from the morning till the night sleep. And if you can't sleep, have more at least you're not suffering." Only during the times he had he didn't suffer every time. All the other time constant suffering. But one day during his he started getting the pain again and the pain became horrific. After he completed the shield to he prayed to Hashem said master of the universe I know that you are the one that gave me this suffering and I'm not kicking them away. It's just that until now the suffering that you gave me did not disturb my Torah. Quite the opposite. Any time that I was teaching Torah, giving a sh the suffering did not interfere. But now they've gone to the point where they're interfering with the Torah. So it's Torah. It's wasting time, Torah time. Please, I ask you to remove them. And literally from that moment on, the suffering simply disappeared. It didn't come back. Not during a not after. Why? This is a person that ensured that their heart and their actions were in the same place for many many years. It didn't just start that day. When somebody came to Rafki, one of the close people to him, invited him to a family wedding. of Kanye told them I'm sorry I cannot come maybe the next one. So of course they don't want to burden the Rav. They realize the Rav is busy with what he calls his debts which is how much Torah learning he has to complete each and every day. So the next wedding that a few years later that Telmid didn't even bother inviting the Rav because he knew the Rav is just continuing to grow in Tawa even more and there's no reason to bother and to come to a wedding. But to his surprise even though he did not invite Ravki Raf Kanye showed up at the wedding he said I didn't want to burden you to even invite you to the wedding because I know you're busy. Why did you come? Said I told you a few years ago, maybe the next one. Meaning when we say to somebody, listen, I can't do it now. Maybe next time. Where we're just using it as a figure of speech. Meaning we're trying to make you feel better, make ourselves feel better. I can't do it now. Maybe later. In so many words, saying to you, "Just get out of my face. Leave me alone. But when a sadik says it that has their soul and their body in the same place in agreement, when he said maybe next one, he remembered it when the next one came up without anyone needing to remind him. Our Torah has a kadu signature on it. A kadoshbah whose signature is emit is truth. If a person wants to take on a challenge to live a day without lying, they have to do it with wisdom. Meaning, so long as the lie, I'm sorry, so long as the truth doesn't hurt somebody. Meaning, don't be like the story that we said with a guy that stopped lying and then he started telling everybody all of their flaws because that's not going to be a mitzvah. That's not going to be growth. That's not going to be any good. When we say live a day without lying, live a week without lying, live a lifetime without lying, that means when it's not just affecting others, it's affecting you more than everybody else. When you're doing a mitzvah, when you're praying to Hashem, when you're learning Torah, when you're giving daka, whatever it is that you do, do it with integrity. Do it with honesty. If you're going to do business, do it with integrity. Do it with honesty. If you're going to say something to someone, make sure it's true. And if you're going to lie somebody to somebody, make sure it's changing the truth like Hashem himself did with au when Sah was laughing about how could I get pregnant at 90 years old and Hashem didn't tell him that Sah said my husband is old but rather that she was insecure about herself meaning he changed the truth didn't outright lie. So the point is is anytime you're going to change the truth, do it in a favor of somebody else, not yourself. Change the truth for somebody else's benefit, not your own. If you're going to say the truth, make sure that it applies to you more than everybody else. Because if your heart and your soul are dishonest to Hashem, you're quickly going to become dishonest to everybody else. Whether it's during your prayers or during your mitzvah or it's during your business or your teachings or your parenting or even your socializing with your next door neighbor. Truth is a signature of Hashem for a reason. He expects his children to follow. So when we say we're Hashem's children, we have to start thinking about what does that mean? Hashem doesn't have a body or the likeness of a body like the idoltors of the world think and how they've humanized God. So what does it mean that we're Hashem's children? Think of this. When someone sees you with your kids, one of the most comforting things that anyone could ever tell a parent is, "Oh, wow. He looks like you. Oh, wow. She looks like you." When they tell you that your kids look exactly like you, it's comforting. It makes a parent feel good. Why? You could see it's my kid. Now, when Hashem does not have a body, obviously we can't say we look like Hashem, but you can tell if somebody is Hashem's chosen child or not when their life is based on emulating Hashem. So, if your life is full of truth without exception, then guess what? Everyone can tell. Wow. That's Hashem's son. That's Hashem's daughter. Why? THEY LOOK JUST LIKE HIM. They're full of truth. That's the goal. And we can achieve it. Not just for a day, not just for a week, but for a lifetime. But before we get ahead of ourselves, it starts with a day. To everyone that takes it on, thank you very much for learning with me. May Hashem give success to anyone that has the courage and the integrity to take this on. Live a life of truth. It's only going to benefit you, especially in the long run. Anyone that wants to support can donate on our website bzadashem.org or bhour.org or many of the other ways you could support. And of course, anyone that hasn't tried our AI rabbi app to get the answers to their many questions on demand, you could get it at a rabbi.org. org or you can get AI rabbi on uh the app store of uh Apple and Google and so on. Thank you very much and we'll learn again soon. This is not an award. It's much more than that. What is it? It's the candid platinum seal of transparency. There are 1.8 million nonprofits in the United States. Less than 1% of them are recognized at the highest tier of financial program transparency of platinum. Bashem for the third year in a rowm is one of them. What is it? This candid platinum seal of transparency is where an organization publishes publicly not just its financials and governance but verified program outcomes. Numbers that have to be reproven every single year. Most nonprofits our size don't even apply. Documentation is demanding. The accountability is uncomfortable. But we pursue it because you deserve to know exactly what your support is doing. What did your support do in the year 2025? Here's what your support did this past year, and it was verified by Candid. 238,000 Jewish individuals were fed or financially assisted. Over 15,000 Torah lectures and 500 Torah films were produced and distributed across 23 channels and 15 languages. 280,000 free by Rabbi Fry Kaklon and myself were distributed worldwide for free, up from 150,000 the year before. 2.3 million outreach materials were given out free of charge like the Aelatsar and USB CDs. All of this Bo Hashem was funded almost entirely by individual donors just like yourself. No foundation grants, just people like you who watched our videos, got inspired, and decided to do something with us. Why do we pursue this? In Judaism, we say that a person is judged not by what they do once, but what they do consistently. Earning platinum once shows that you can prepare a good report. earning it three years in a row proves it's how we actually operate. When you give Bzad Hashem your donations, you're not just trusting us. You're trusting a system that's been audited, verified, and made public three times over. And your trust is something that we hold very dear. We don't take it lightly. One of the most amazing things we have now is the kirutore.org where people can order free books and other materials. But in addition to that, we also have realtime numbers of what we've done. So you could actually see that the numbers have gone up much more since this report was officially granted to us last year. If you want to be part of what we're building, go to bezem.org/donate. The link is going to be in the description. And you want to see exactly where every dollar is being used. Our full candid profile is also going to be linked below. See it for yourself. And if you know someone who's been waiting to support a Torah outreach organization that actually proves what it does with people's donations, share this video with them. 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