CHAZAQ's Torah Talks #220 Rabbi Chaim Igal Dzhurayev - Investing In Your Eternity

We have to live in this world as as if it's our last moment. And this way you're going to be able to motivate yourself to want to do the right things. It's not a to-do list. When you go to sleep, you don't want to go to sleep. You're going to sleep because you have to sleep because you need energy to serve Hashem. You're eating because you need that energy to serve Hashem. Sir, your life has to revolve around Torah. Not that Torah has to revolve around your life. When it's comfortable, I'm going to go learn to Torah. When it's not comfortable, I'm not. It doesn't work like that. We have to give our lives to today's episode is sponsored by Borism Tax Planning and Advisory. Schedule your free tax strategy session online and get started now. Call us at 212-430-6881 to learn more. Welcome everyone to tonight's episode of of Khazak's Torah Talks podcast. We have special guests every single week. Tonight we have the great great honor to have Rabb Eigal Jer. Welcome. Come on around. Thanks so much for joining us. Very special topic tonight. Investing in your eternity. Before we jump into the topic, if you could tell us just a small background about yourself, great work here in Mus. >> Thank you first of all for hosting me. I know is doing a tremendous well uh tremendous work. So it's a privilege to be here with you guys. So basically I grew up in Wasbekiststan came here when I was 6 years old and then I just started living like everyone else. Had a had a very secular lifestyle. I went to public schools, finished St. John's, eventually met Rab Mosha Walinita the father and he changed my life and I saw how important Torah was and just after years of being with him, it stuck with me and now I just want to be able to go back to the community. >> Beautiful. Well, and we're um as as we jump into the topic tonight, I'm saying you you you're talking about your background and obviously everyone's talking about investing. Everyone's talking about they're talking about investing in in real estate, in Bitcoin. I'm saying we're talking about investing today. What I guess what what would you say what what what's the world's perspective on investing? And I guess what what's what's maybe the perspective that we should actually be investing in? What would you say? >> We should be investing in our time, what we do with investing in Torah. How much of it do we actually learn? That's the real investment that a person is going to take with him. [snorts] Okay. And what what would you say is is is stopping people from uh like I heard from from Rabbi Rabbi Ali Mansor. He said he said like that sometimes you see okay fine there's 50,000 people they're they're in um they're in Yi Stadium the 20,000 people Madison Square Garden but I'm not talking about the C mash this and that. You're just talking about like a regular night a random Tuesday night. there 50,000 people in in the stage you get 50. It's hard to gather 50 people minan calling people up and what 50,000 people what are they talking about? They're talking about the investing in purpose talking about whatever. So what would you say is is holding us back from from from the right investments. The unfortunate truth is the media, the internet. Even though that's what spreads dua, but at the same time that's what actually kills us spiritually because once a person is on his phone, it's very hard to break off. It's very hard. They make it excitement. You know, just to give you just to give you an understanding, I went to St. John for one purpose just to play football. Real real football. >> They canceled it that year because somebody got paralyzed. But if you look at into into the sports world, what is it all about? Hype. Nothing's really there. It's all about hype. The announcement, the people screaming and the be and the it's all about hype. That's all it is. But there's after you leave the game, you don't feel no more satisfaction. But when it's Torah, when you're learning, you have that satisfaction. When you get up from learning, you have that satis it goes with you wherever you go. Well, what would you say is um is somebody they're they're they're maybe since they're a kid, they they have their their their phone or devices and and and they're already seeped into it. They there they're there for five hours a day, 10 hours a day, even more maybe. And and now we're just going to come to them and say, "Stop." What do you mean stop? It's already they're they're addicted. Maybe they're maybe not addicted, but they're habituated it. They're already what that person. So we have to understand why do people like the media? What does it give them? It gives them a good feeling. Correct. At that moment I could agree that it gives you a good feeling. But we also have to understand is their perspective that they put on things they put on the media and whatever they want to do like you said investing they think it's important. So we have to change our perspective at how we look at Torah and how we look at wasting time from it. For example, if a person waste time from learning Torah, is it a very grave sin or is it something, you know, it's, you know, it's as if, you know, I just didn't. Why do you look at the words in Torah? So, it's literally poison, not to learning Torah. It's poison to one soul. >> So, and what would you say is some people they just view they just view Torah as okay, fine. It's like just like there's uh there's there's biology in school, there's history, there's math. Okay, fine. Some people because maybe there's just say there's homework in school or whatever it is, they just see, okay, fine. It's another it's another class on my schedule. If if there's high school or middle school or maybe they just see it, okay, fine. I have my daily schedule. I have to go to minan. Then I have to go then I have to check off a box, go Torah. Then I have to go to then I have to go to work. Then I have to go home to the to the kids or the kids. They just check it off as a box. It's just it's just some knowledge that maybe that we have some people who who view Torah as just that you check off a box. I did my I did my Torah for the day. I'm good. They don't view it as life as eternity. It's just like, hey, it's a sun check. So, unfortunately, that's a very wrong perspective. You know, in Shabbat, they speak about Rab when he was thrown, you know, when they were going to throw him into jail and pap don't teach because otherwise they're going to kill you. So he said, you know, he brought the whole story with the fox and the fish where the fox said, you know, fish, you see people trying to catch you in the net. Come and live with us on the shore outside. So what do you say? What did the fish say to the fox? I thought you were the smartest animal. Little did I know you guys are not so smart. If I come out from the source of life, which is water, which is my source of life, and go on the sea, what's going to happen? He's going to die. Yeah. So what if I have olderness but I have a higher chance of living in the water? Ra said the same thing. Our source of life is Torah. We can't look at learning Torah or doing like a check like a to-do list. That's not No, you have to live Torah. It has to be part of you. If it's not part of you, yeah, you're right. It's going to be very hard to learn. You know the breaks down on he says a lot of people are not able to grow only because of this reason. He said because people they don't give it enough importance. Give an example. A person a doctor comes and he tells him you have 60 minutes to live. What is he going to do next? He's going to invest in stocks. He's going to visit his family. What is he going to do next? What's what what are they going to do? They're going to only want to do what's going to give them eternal reward. But that's how we have to live. We have to live in this world as as if it's our last moment. And this way you're going to be able to motivate yourself to want to do the right things. It's not a to-do list. When you go to sleep, you don't want to go to sleep. You're going to sleep because you have to sleep because you need energy to serve Hashem. You're eating because you need that energy to serve Hashem. Sir, your life has to revolve around Torah. Not that Torah has to revolve around your life. When it's comfortable, I'm going to go learn Torah. When it's not comfortable, I'm not. It doesn't work like that. We have to give our lives to what would you say that uh some somebody has maybe maybe they had um what's it called? The Torah was compared to water. Yes. Maybe they had maybe they they tasted some of the Torah maybe when they were a kid or maybe maybe in their local sh maybe their rabbi I don't know whatever. So maybe they got offended maybe they had a bad experience and whatever it was and like okay fine like Torah is not for me. Like I'm good. Like I'm saying like I don't know but I I tried it out. And I really, Rabbi, I really did. And and let's just say they were really uh real and and they gave it their real shot, but they're like they they didn't taste the sweetness. What would you say to them? >> So the real question is we have to be honest with ourselves. If we had a problem, God forbid, and we ended up going to a doctor. Let's say the doctor gave us the wrong prescription, which happens. Or you take one medicine, it take side effect on another another limb of the body. It happens. Tell me you stop going to the doctors or you try again and again and again. When you have a real when you have 100% believe in the Torah that is met doesn't matter what people are going to tell you. Just because you went to one person or one rabbi and he didn't do what you like or he upseted you in a certain way doesn't mean you have to go ahead and now wash her he turn it down the drain. What does he have to do with Torah? Okay, so he's not a person. Let's say he wasn't the right mission. Let's say he was at the he wasn't the right person right. So you be the right leader now that you try to go and do the right thing >> be the right messenger. >> That's you always that's the honest truth is a lot of us you know we like to listen to we're always learning what we call oral Torah. How many oral Torah are there only one but when people listen outside it's always which is fine but how many of that do you see inside? When was the last time you actually saw inside? What about what the Torah has to say? What what are the real what when you learn Torah inside it says those words in the Torah are going to make you smart. They're going to give you so much so much satisfaction like the says if people would know or they would taste like you just mentioned the sweetness of Torah, you wouldn't be able to rip away from it. You wouldn't be able to. It's impossible. Instead of instead of instead of trying to find how to get them into the shore, they're gonna say, "Rabbi, don't turn off the lights. I'm here. I'm not even here to kick me out." >> Correct. Correct. You know, I just want to point something out. You know, when you look at a snake, what does a snake do? It gives all of its venom and that's that's all it does. Correct? And that poison is going to kill the person. When a person wastes time from learning to Torah, let's say he's on the media, it could be even 30 seconds. I don't care. I'm not I'm not into one hour. People sometimes I'm rabbi. I'm all day scrolling. I go to sleep at 11:00 in bed. I just say one one one real one real. Before I know it's already 3:00 in the morning, right? That's >> Yeah. >> He says even 30 seconds, you just allowed the venom of the real to enter into your spiritual soul. So that just killed 30 seconds, you just killed of your abs. The only vill says this. The only says we don't understand what a second is. That's the we don't understand. >> Yeah. If we knew what a second is, we wouldn't even waste 30 seconds because remember those 30 seconds are your eternal life that you could uh accumulate at that moment. We just lost it. I I sent this nice example. So imagine you have an investment Bitcoin. Everybody knows Bitcoin. I don't know about Bitcoin till just recently. >> It's going down. >> It's going down. Okay, let it go down. [laughter] But people that invested early on when it really hit, you know, they made millions. People that didn't, what happened today? They cry. They knew about it and they didn't invest. They regret it. That's fine. That's physically. That's in this world. People lose money. People make money, money moves. But can you imagine if you had the opportunity to sit and learn Torah and you didn't learn Torah? When you come to the next world, you're going to see that you could have accumulated eternity of reward and you gave all that up just for real, just for a movie, just for a sport that it's not it's not one year. It's not 100. It's eternity. You have any idea what's I mean, I don't know if we understand what eternity is. You have to again it's all about perspective. What what importance do we attach to Torah? So one of the I forgot their name. He says I think it was he says take a bird give me the highest mountain or Mount Everest. Give me any mount the biggest mountain. Take one bird tell him to take one uh pebble of grain and bring it all the way to the other to the other side of the world. All the way till the end. and let him continue doing this until he's able to move the mountain from here to the other end of the world. When he's finished this, we didn't even begin what means eternity doing I mean one moment we don't understand we don't understand and that's all that it's >> it's honestly it's our ignorance. It's our ignorance. We see everybody else is doing so we're doing but we see also everybody else is dying. We don't believe we're going to die one day but that's the problem teaches otherwise. A person has to look at his every single day like his last day so he can make the most of it. >> Return says return one day before your death. What do you mean your death? What do you mean? I want I have I I get a person gets a Google calendar reminder. No, it means every single day you have to you have to live with um with that reality of of investing in your life in your own in in in your family in the in the next world in your time in the Torah. This is Hashem. And well, I guess Rabbi, can you leave us? You have so many amazing gems and and uh Raashem tonight. Could you could you leave us with maybe one take-home message? You have so many gems. What is one practical thing that people can apply to their lives starting tonight? Not in not in not tomorrow morning because tomorrow morning it goes over their head one year, the next year. Right now, tonight it's very simple. I mean, it's hard to do, but it's simple to hear. It's not sevenish. First do it then ask questions. Our biggest problem is like the brings down is that whenever it comes to doing coming learning Torah prayer we have all these we have all these calculations. Okay, I'm going to go there. Okay, how much time I'm going to spend there. Okay, this I'm going to lose. No, no, no. First do just do it. You say just do it. Just get it done. Don't get lost. >> Don't ask questions. We learned from Ravino. When he was doing the came to this way and this way and the water rolls up through the nose, did he even get into conversation? No. The says in order to be able to kill the which is the snake, you have to give it one hit where on its head cuz that's how he's going to die. You can't chop the tail and the he going to run away. You have to hit him on his head that that's how you're going to kill him. How does a person kill his by saying no. But that no has to be decisive. When he comes and he tells you watch one minute, 30 seconds, go just just obey. Your answer should be a no. The says you know what kind of no that there's no room for yes or maybe when you're when you're excuse me when you're complete within yourself when you know what you really want, nothing's going to move you. >> What would you say to people to to like the talk? How how can we be more decisive? Some people that make it they make it lost in decision. Okay, fine. Now there's 700 different learning programs that could the rabbis giving seven shirum there's there's there there's dy dear this what what would you say just like like you're saying to just jump in and just choose something and don't get lost in the details. Well, what how do how does a person who's maybe thinks too much to to how do they become more decisive that they can just they they don't they're not jumping. They're not knock they first they got to ask 14 people's opinion and you ask they need to put on WhatsApp chats and they put on their story and this and that. They ask 17,000 rabbis and and then they never do anything and like they ask them like a year later you're like, "Oh, sorry. I'm still trying to get the consensus. I'm trying to get board approval." Right? Like [laughter] what would you say? people to be more decisive in their life in their Torah and in their learning. So number one like tell us they must learn but not any they have to learn in depth with understanding with real understanding not when they're driving which is nice when they're driving and they're listening that's nice they have to really sit down with a they have to have a project they're going to finish I don't know you know whatever might what they must have a project they sit down with a pen and paper highlight even if they have to record the rabbit listen relist they have to sit down and they have to go over word for word goal. This is my house. They have to be from cover to until I don't finish this. I'm not doing anything else. Yeah. You can listen by the way when you're driving, when you're eating, when you clean the house, reviewing whatever it is and you'll see it's going to change you is what really changes people going back and over. People didn't know what how many times can you say the same thing. Try it. You know what? If I tell you 1 plus one is two. Yeah. It's not interesting. But when you start doing the math yourself, it becomes a whole different ball game. Becomes a whole different ball game. It's all up It's all up to the person himself. If he really wants to like they say where there's a will there's a way that's the finish it's just you know you know there's a place there in in the path that someone wants to go but person wants to go the wrong path not person but in the positive approach of course person wants to wants to improve and person says okay fine I'm going to take a step forward and take not only with that step but hopefully I'm go further on the right >> just to touch upon that there's a beautiful rashi and celebration He says that the his desire is to bring us down. He doesn't care if you do. He doesn't. He wants to make sure that he takes you away from that's all. But he says but he said to if you want you're going to be able to overcome it. Raji says and if you want you'll be able to overpower him overcome him. If you make a deal if I and the other thing if I don't want I won't be able to overcome him. So comes rash and he says something very fascinating. Do you know why many people don't succeed? Because they don't want they can tell other it's this whatever you want. Yeah. I want I just want to let me ask you says my words says you have a person he was not able to get a job right what does he do he doesn't work he dies out of uncle what I'm ask what did he do >> he has side hustles he figures it out he's not going to stay home correct >> why when it comes to Torah I can't do it it's not for me you me that's it what does it mean it's not for you just like you know it says if you're going to seek it like silver and you're going to search like like treasures only then are you going to find your if we don't take the says if we don't look at Torah like business people look for money there is he says there's no way you're going to be able to grow in god-fearing and learning of impossible you have to give everything you have it's as if this is the only thing that's on your mind that's with whenever you what they say he used to tell his wife consider him dead at that moment because that's how persever like that no when I'm learning Torah what's in my mind all right what time me yeah what what what am I going to watch next what am I going to you can't think about these things >> what's the next notification >> you can't think about these things and you have to you know you have to understand it's it's you're not doing it for you're doing it for yourself it's your eternity if especially if you're married for your wife or your children announced and everything. It says a person who learns to call sick but don't uh believe in him leave him in sufferings but if a person doesn't learn Torah he brings notem he brings a suffering upon himself because what say the person is born to >> toil >> to toil hashem says you have to to where you going to toil either you're going to toil in work and and then you're not going to have to toe or if you decide to toe hashem says now everything have to be said that I have to make everything uh in order for you. That's how it works. But you have to toil. >> People come to this world thinking they're going to relax. There's no days. The only time you know they're going to relax. >> I don't know if if they're going to relax there in the grave. There's no relaxing. You shouldn't. We learn from you should not take this world as a comfort zone. You shouldn't come to relax. And this the last thing. The second you want to relax, you should know that's where the is going to come and bring you down. You shouldn't do it. That's it's all about how much do I want it? Do I really want it or not? You know, I have a I have a person whatever student that he's going to college. So I say come for Shabbat. Says, "Rabbi, what's Shabbat? I have to pass the test. My life is dependent. If I pass the test, I make it to the program. If not, it's finished. Oh, my mom spent all the money in college for garbage. Why don't we look at Torah like that also? If I don't know my Torah, what am I going to do tomorrow? I'm not going to answer Hashem." And I just want to bring down the bureau and he says people we we um we so lacks when it comes to Torah not because we not because we don't want to learn. He says because out of out of ignorance he brings down over there mid. He says if a person knows you learn hum you know what Hashem is going to ask him did you learn Mishna? He say no. It says over there, Hashem is going to turn his face away from him and the powers of are going to control him. Did you know that? Did you ever see that? Then if a person learns is going to say, did you learn? Says no. Then it's it's continues. Did you learn? Did you learn? Did you learn Torah? Hashem is going to ask us so many question. Did we were we able to do it? What are you going to if you're he says if your answer is no, he says you're going to come over empty. Yeah, you could. You could do whatever you going to come over empty. The says the person has to be smart and set for himself times to learn Torah. One in the morning and one hour at least at night. It's very important to make yourself set times. And I'm telling you people that do do it. I I teach a lot of them. >> They they can't wait until they learn Torah. Now you have to remember I have to start early because of them. I go to sleep but I have to start early because of them. Cuz they want to learn Torah early in the morning. They down with nets >> before they go to work. They want to and they say I want to invest >> and the days that I do miss, >> they have claims on me. They're not knowing that I go sleep. They know I'm tired. But they say our day is not the same. I'm not speaking about people that are firm. No, I'm speaking about balabatin that are just getting to know. >> Why is it being [clears throat] >> and they can't wait until they come home at night? They can't wait until we start learning Torah at night. Tell them you're not coming. You ruin their day. Tell me you ruin the day. That's how much love they have for Torah. >> Beautiful. We should all take the lessons from the great rabbi over here and and then and then take Torah into your life. Everyone on on their own level and and once you taste that twist that that that sweetness is going to enhance your lives the the your families the community and all clients shows lives. Of course everyone should join us on the weekly to talks podcast. We thank you to anytime for um for for for hosting it as well as all the different podcast players. Of course everyone should sign up for dailygiving.org. It's a great great organization which gives a person signs up to give a dollar a day raashm gives to over 75 different organizations and thank you for inspiring us. >> Well, thank you guys for having me. Much appreciated. Thank you so much guys. >> Thank you so much.