Method To Learn Like The Sages | TORAH FOUNDATION (23)

We're back here on our Sunday night starting a new week which is going to be a fantastic week. Tonight's show you is going to be a sponsored for the uh the health of Elizabeth Bat Maretti uh and uh also to grant the Elizabeth spur maker a lot of and also for the forana all the tests. that they're doing with her will simply be a complete waste of time where she'll have for her entire life 120 years and also awes of for Eli Ysef and Satan Satana David and all of Israel and all the righteous Noahides that continue to support the organization continue to help us with all the amazing things that we're doing. So we have our series of Torah foundation. Torah foundation is based on the we're reading word for word of the introduction and learning simply uh enough to rewire our minds. And the question that we're going to answer today is how did the sages our holy sages how did they learn Torah? No, this seems like a simple question, but the answer is not going to be a history lesson, but rather an eyeopener for anyone who learns Torah, despite the fact that the Rabenua was uh at the time of the Gwanim, certainly one of the ganim his now going to clarify that the method to learn successfully is only going to be attained if we follow in the footsteps of those that mastered it before him. The sages of the Talmud, the this answer that the is going to tell us is going to enlighten many people about what part of their Torah learning is on the right path and what part is, let's just say, off the as they say. Don't be offended. It's simply the truth. In we start off with a census and the Torah says take a census. But the sages tell us take the heads is also referring to instructions to all leaders. Either we will count you among the best of them or we're simply going to take your head off if you're a bad leader. Why is this the case? Why is it such a black and white Torah? Because did not want to give us confusing laws and thereby told us clear instructions of what is good and what is not. What he wants and what he doesn't want. And a person that wants to do the will of Hashem is going to spend as much time as they possibly can figuring out what is the will of Hashem. And that's what the is now going to address first in telling us again why he chose to write this. out of all the subjects that he could learn, out of all the subjects that he can teach, he chose this a that's called duties of the heart in English or in Hebrew, which is simply put introspection of our hearts of whether we are serving Hashem or ourselves. And he says, "From what I've read of the conduct of our early masters and from what has come down to us of their sayings, I have found that they were more enthusiastic and concentrated their efforts more in the fulfillment of their own actual duties rather than the developing of new applications of legal rulings or in resolving bizarre and complex hypothetical questions. They would concentrate on general principles of the law and would clarify what is forbidden and what is permitted and then they would become immersed and absorbed in a refinement of their conduct and the duties of the heart. Here the is starting off by telling us do you know why I wrote this book? I wrote it because I saw that the sages focused their efforts on relevant and relevant what's allowed and what's not allowed is not allowed is allowed. It's the opposite of what I said in English. In so many words, I saw says the as great as the sages were, they were able to revive the dead. They were able to do things that were supernatural. Testifies that he saw people from a different world. uh the amount of miracles that are mentioned in the Talmud are simply innumerable especially when you go into the deeper details of things. The stories of different events that they saw of where he saw all these giant beings whether it be animals or people. This is just some of the things that are mentioned, but it's wasn't the focus. The focus of the Talmud, the focus of the sages was on what's allowed and what's not allowed. And then about character development. What Rabenu Baka is trying to tell us here is that the sages did not spend time delving into hypothetical situations that didn't happen even though it's interesting. For example, if somebody tells you, I have a question, and I don't have an answer for it, but it's a big question, and I don't even know if anybody's ever asked this Torah question. Okay, what's the question, son? If somebody's born with two heads, which head does he put the Tefillin on or does he put twoin on? Well, that's a very interesting question. What is the answer? Well, I have another question, Rabbi. Okay. If somebody is born with four arms, which arm does he put the fillain on? Or does he have to buy four pairs of tofillin? What if he has only two heads and four arms? So, does that mean that he buys four pairs of tofillin, but really two of them are not going to be used? Do you have a member of your family that's an octopus? And if you don't, this is an irrelevant question. The sages did not waste their time dealing with irrelevant hypothetical questions because the key to learning Torah is what and who is Hashem and what does he obligate me to do? That's the point of Tawa. Who is this God that created me that gives me life every millisecond? And what does he want for me? The key of what our Torah teaches is relevant laws. Laws that you could apply to your life. Not hypothetical circumstances that never happened or would happen once in a blue, but rather things that are practical. But the sages were able to go far above and beyond the practical. Why didn't they delve into a question like, "What do you do with four arms and two heads?" Because this did not help them live their life. And needless to say this is not going to help you live your life even if you had answers to such questions. When Rabbi Ysef would teach his famous sh of the balabatim of the regular people, he would give them a sh about different alas, what's allowed, what's not allowed, how do you make a blessing, when do you make a blessing, when do you not make a blessing, when is it better for you not to make a blessing, and when is it an absolute must that you need to make a blessing? But he would see that these regular average bluecollar people would sometimes lose focus. The moment he noticed that anyone lost focus, he would bang on the table and say m a story something that happened. And after telling them the story as if reviving the people, everyone's always interested in stories. he would go back to teaching him about what's allowed and what's not allowed. When a person studies Torah for the sake of mental stimulation, for the sake of learning about the supernatural forces that are very much real. What ends up happening many times is that they forget what they're actually supposed to be doing in this world. What this Torah is really for. What is it like? It's like a person comes to a bank, says, "Hi, I'm here to uh apply for a loan for a million dollars." The bank teller looks at this guy, says, "Are you such and such?" He says, "Yeah, you're Steve Cohen." I said, "Yeah, I'm Steve Cohen." And you came here to borrow a million dollars? Yes. Are you sure you want to borrow a million dollars? Yes, I do. I'm certain. I'm positive. Sir, we've been looking for you for 10 years. You owe the bank $10 million and you have the audacity to now ask for a million. And this delusional Steve says to them, "Well, you know, forget about the $10 million for now. I need to borrow a million dollars. Just pretend I'm a different uh customer. I'm a new customer. What do you mean forget you owe us $10 million? Well, look, I have uh you know, contacts on. They're blue, so I look different like the guy from 10 years ago. Let's just pretend I'm not him. This is what it's like when I hear that people are learning things that have to do with Cabala, mysticism, or different laws that have nothing to do with their day-to-day life. They're no different than the illusional Steve. Absolutely no different. Why? They're looking and spending their time, their effort, their resources learning about things that have nothing to do with their obligation and in fact making them forget about their obligation. A person could literally be busy themselves with doing uh all types of he goes to the uh middle of the forest, spends two hours there speaking to Hashem. Sounds great. But then you see the guy driving on Shabbat, cooking on Shabbat, speaking business on Shabbat, actually doing business on Shabbat, setting up appointments for Monday or Tuesday while he's on Shabbat. Like, excuse me. Uh, have you learned? No, I don't have time. Why not? Because my Torah time is designated to uh I speak to Hashem to make sure he understands me. This is not this is foolishness. And unfortunately, when a person forgets what the point of learning Torah is, they can end up spending the majority, if not all of their time, learning things that have no relevance whatsoever in their life. They could become experts in what will happen once the Msiah comes, but yet have zero chance of actually being there because they're still violating the entire Torah and have no clue that they're doing it. The Rambanadis said famously about 750 years ago which we quoted in our previous series that once you're about to get up from the book from the seaf that you're learning before you walk away from it think about what have you learned that you could actually apply to your life. Here the Ramban is clearly telling us the same thing that the said 250 years before him. If you've just spent an hour, 2 hours, 15 minutes, whatever it is, 5 hours learning Torah, but you have no idea how you could apply this to your life, you missed the whole point. You're simply going in the wrong direction. You're learning things that you can't apply. You may be an expert in the red heer. So when the beta mikdash is built, everyone is going to line up out your door waiting for you to tell them how do you make sure that this is a proper red heer. Problem is you don't know how to keep the basics of laws today while you're allowed. The in page 9A asks what is a who is a what does he need to know? He needs to know. He needs to know the writings. He needs to know how to do. He needs to know how to slaughter. He needs to know how to wed people. How to deal with people when they're dying. how to tell them what they're allowed, what they're not allowed to do, bury people, and so on. And all that is needed for daytoday living. That's what the says. Meaning that if you know the most unusual details about the end of days, the most extraordinary stories that the Midash has ever told. You know every detail about the afterlife. You know, all of the gulot that were brought down from above by the most holy people. But you don't know the laws of daytoday Torah, daytoday Judaism, you've missed the mark. You've wasted your time. One of the things that Rabb Fry, my own dear, Rabbon, adds to this list from is that today more than ever, there's an added skill that's necessary for anyone that's going to be a rabbi, which is you must know how to give a Torah. It's not enough to know how to do circumcisions, how to do a uh uh slaughtering, all of these other things. It's good. It's important. That's what the MA says. But in today's world, there's so much ignorance about what Torah is, what Torah scholars are, that if you don't teach people, you're simply going to seem like just somebody that is wasting their time. So when somebody asks you listen come on we're in between we have five 10 minutes give a if you say no I don't have anything right now wasn't prepared well guess what they're going to say many times out loud then what do you do learning and call it all day if you don't have something to say what do you do all day what do you learn all day because to the average person It's perfectly normal for them to think that you are learning things that apply to day-to-day life for them. And they're right. They're very much right. So the is telling us don't waste your time learning things that you can't apply and make that make you feel better as if you know better than others. In fact, he says that if you want to succeed in learning Torah, you have to follow in the footsteps of those that mastered it. And our holy sages themselves would not waste their efforts resolving bizarre and complex hypothetical questions. They would not do pilpool like they do in Yeshivot today where they spend literally months on a single douff of instead of going through the entire m and thereby going through the entire shas they could literally spend the entire four or five years going through one or two mut still missing 90% of the why because they're going through all types of hypothetical circumstances. Who could come up with the most unusual question? Who could come up with the most difficult thing to answer? And some unfortunately even think that this is what Torah is supposed to be to the point where they now go to the next level and decide to write a book. and they'll write a book about all types of questions that the average person has no concept of what they're even talking about. They're going to give you all of the details of why we put on to fill in on the weak arm versus the strong arm. Why you need to be very careful with specific types of Why you have to be very very careful with all types of different things that the average person never even heard of because the average person out there which is the majority of am is needs to know the basics. Am I allowed to drive on Shabbat? Am I allowed to speak business on Shabbat if I'm not actually doing any transactions? Can I do business with non-Jews any way that I want just because they're non-Jews? Or can I have to uh be honest with them? Can I uh cheat on my wife if she doesn't find out? Can I sell used goods as if they're new if I rehash them? By the way, the questions to all of these, while they should be common sense that you're not allowed to do any of these dishonest things, most people don't know. A person that wants to learn Tawra will ask questions that you see that their mind is working. For example, there was a question that was asked a few days ago. Somebody said, "Well, listen. I work at a restaurant, and I I'm not a particular fan of the food, but uh the boss gives me food, and of course, I'm not going to throw it out, so I give it to poor people after work." Is that considered? Is that considered as if I'm being dishonest with my employer who thinks he's giving me the food? And the answer is, by the way, if the owner is giving you the food, that it's for you, and then you could do whatever you want with it. But if he has conditions of why he's giving it to you, meaning that he's only giving it to you for you to eat and not to distribute it somewhere else, then obviously you're not allowed to do that. not allowed to take it and make him think that you're eating it when in fact if he knew you were giving it to somebody else he wouldn't give it to you. So a person like that, you see that their mind is working. They're already beyond am I allowed to cheat or lie to people. They're going to the next level. But the average person is not even there. The average person thinks that they could just do whatever they want, however they want, and they'll just find somebody to tell them that it's allowed. A person asked me just a few days ago, if merchant cash advance is as bad as you say and not allowed according to the Torah, why is rabbi such and such investing in it? I said, I I can't speak on anybody else's behalf, but if he or anybody else is investing in it, working in it, involved in it in any way, shape, or form, they're violating the Torah. In fact, just in the last 24 hours, we had another that we brought the answer to that Rab Fry published in the first the uh the fifth volume and also in the uh uh and we gave it to another someone that has completed the sh a few times. someone that has lived a life of Torah. And when I first brought this to him, I told him, "Are you allowed to lend money to go with uh charge him anything you want?" He said, "From the basic understanding and I have, I think, yeah, why not?" I said, "Okay." So his initial inclination was like everybody else, if you're lending to Jews, you're not allowed to charge interest because the Torah clearly says you're not allowed to in last week's para and other places. But if you're lending to the nations, which is what the word goim means, then you're not allowed. You're you're allowed to charge them whatever you want. Goim is not a derogatory word. It simply means the nations. Even is called in the Torah god, a holy nation. So he was under the understanding like most people even those that have learned Torah but perhaps did not spend extra time learning the alot of and business and so on. Torah is wider than the ocean. Not everybody studies everything. And he was under the understanding that yeah as long as you're doing business with non-Jews you could charge him what you want. I said okay no problem. So I gave him the answer, gave him the book. I said, "Please read this and let me know what you think." Took a few days, maybe even a week. I spoke to him today. I said, "So what does Kodo think?" His face became white and he's dark. And he says, "How how could anybody uh respond to such a thing?" "OF COURSE IT'S not allowed." I said, "Wait, but you said it was allowed." He goes, "Not that. I didn't understand it this way." He brought sources from every possible way. Starting the chuva by telling you, "Why would you think it's allowed?" Meaning he's actually helping the people that think it's allowed build their case. He tells them, "You think it's allowed because of this? You think it's allowed because this said this? You think it's allowed because of this? Because of this." And he builds them a mountain. So they BUILD CONFIDENCE. OH YES, YOU SEE it's allowed. YOUR OWN REVEN IS A LIAR. Your own Ruven DOESN'T KNOW WHAT HE'S TALKING ABOUT. AND HE BUILDS THEIR MOUNTAIN. AND HE BUILDS THEIR MOUNTAIN AND ALL OF THE DIFFERENT REASONS OF WHY THEY WOULD THINK IT'S ALLOWED. And then all OF IT COMES CRASHING down when he clarifies every single thing you can possibly imagine and everything you thought and show you why it's wrong. By the end of the chuva, the told me, "How could anyone think it's allowed after they read this chuva?" And I told him, "We have yet to find anybody that thinks it's allowed after they read the chba." The only people that think that merchant cash advance is allowed for Jewish people to deal with are people that have not read the chba, including rabbis, even those, and especially those that invest in it. The Torah would never ever allowed a Jew to conduct predatory business. The Torah would never allowed a Jew to do things that hurt other people. But unfortunately, when you don't learn Torah properly, you could think what's allowed is not allowed and what's not allowed is allowed. What's pure is not pure and what's not pure is pure. Why? Because of your own personal agenda. The is telling us stop with your hypothetical questions in order to bring yourself more cav more honor. Start asking questions that are relevant. Not the ones that have never been asked before, but rather the ones that are being asked every day. When a person sees someone that calls themselves a rabbi on the internet, they assume that this is a person of knowledge and they assume that whatever they're saying is true. I'm here to tell you for the millionth time, don't assume anything. Don't assume that anything that I say is true. Don't assume that anything that anybody ever says is true. Check. Check the sources. If it sounds unusual, if it sounds unbelievable, if it sounds the opposite of good, check the sources. See if he said something. If I said something and I brought you a source, GO AND CHECK THE SOURCE. Don't take my word for it. Don't take anybody's word for it. That's one of the ways that they learn in real yes that when they would learn they would say listen to SAYS THAT I DON'T BELIEVE toot what do you mean you don't believe to no what I mean is I'm not just going to take the tofoot's words I'm going to check the source that even the ballet toot said they mentioned the verse I want to go see what the verse says and you go double check. Today more than ever there are things that even the decent human mind knows doesn't make any sense and yet people are saying it's okay. Somebody brought to my attention another another Apicos that presents himself as a rabbi. Don't ask me the name. I'm already tired of all the wars. But the guy says without thinking twice. They asked him are reform and Orthodox Jews the same. He says all Jews are the same. I'm actually I don't connect to either Orthodox or to reform. This is aut. What do you mean they're the same? You either follow the Torah or you don't. If you reject that the Torah is from God, which is what the reform do, then obviously that's not the same as those that accept the Torah. Is transgender be a sin? That's what they ask him. Well, I don't like to say the word sin. Well, let's just talk about what is good and what is bad and what you connect to because saying the word sin that just makes it like, you know, too much and people don't like it. Wait, so you're more merciful than God. You don't say the word sin. There's a lot of people out there that will do anything for the sake of likes, for the sake of popularity, and they'll say anything just for more people to accept them, for more people to like them. But that's not the Torah. The Torah tells us yes or no on everything. But what about when it comes to complicated issues? says the these masters of ours, these sages that delved into the Torah's deepest secrets would concentrate on the general principles of the law, and they would clarify what is forbidden and what is permitted, and they would become immersed and absorbed in a refinement of their conduct and the duties of the heart. When a bizarre case would come before them which required a new application of the previous ruling, they would at that time conceptualize the problem and derive a law from an established principle. Meaning that when something unusual came to them, they weren't running away from questions, no matter how bizarre the question was. If somebody is born with a unidentifiable gender because their body is deformed, when somebody is has all types of unusual cases, they wouldn't run away. They would answer every question, the simple ones, the difficult ones. But the difference is they wouldn't just come up with their own opinion of what they think. First, they would take the question, as bizarre as it may be, and they would try to connect it to a where is it connected to a already established law in the Torah. Meaning instead of just trying to elevate the minds into never neverland, let's conceptualize how this problem actually applies to real life and where did our Torah speak about this part of life beforehand? It says they would not trouble their minds over such bizarre cases as matters of the world seem trivial to them. Meaning they wouldn't waste their time on hypothetical issues. If there's no actual real case, don't ask the question. Don't ask me what you do if there's four arms or what you do if there's two heads. Unless you have two heads or unless you have four arms or you have somebody in your family or in your community that that has the case. They didn't care about the hypothetical cases. They were too busy dealing with reality beforehand. they would not trouble their minds with such cases. And when they had to reach a decision in such a matter, if they found the law to be evident from the fundamental principles passed down to them from the prophets, they would decide the law accordingly. If however they were faced with a case which demanded a new application of those principles, they would subject it to conceptual analysis. If opinion was unanimous, they would issue a decision. If there was a difference in opinion, they would follow the opinion of the majority just like it's written in page 88b. A question of law was brought before them. If they had a tradition on the matter, they stated it to them. And if not, they took a vote. If those who ruled ritually pure were in majority, they declared it ritually pure. If those who ruled ritually impure were the majority, then they declared it ritually impure. The principle which they followed was when there is a minority opinion and a majority opinion, the ala is like the majority. See the nearly a thousand years ago tells us what happened at the time of the sages about 600 700 years before him and even before that that our sages our masters did not delve into never neverland types of questions. Rather they dealt with reality. what affected each and every person on a day-to-day basis. That's what we need to know everything about. And if a situation like that came up, they would simply see what did our prophet say? What did Mosher Abenu say? What did the rest of our prophet say about this particular law? And if something was already said, that's what we apply. We're not going to create a new law just because we like him or just because he's rich or just because it's profitable if that's what the law is. That's what the law is. But what about if there isn't an established law about this particular circumstance because it's something new in the world such as electronics, computers, all of the developments that have happened throughout the generations. Each generation had developments, new developments. Some of them you were easily able to apply to previous generations. Some you weren't able to. So the says if they were faced with such a situation then they would subject it to conceptual analysis. Meaning they would see okay we have this new circumstance that cannot be matched to previous generations. For example, artificial intelligence. There's a lot of different laws that are being evaluated as we speak when it comes to artificial intelligence. How you are allowed to apply it to your day-to-day life. If you have, let's say, a smart house and the moment you walk in, the thing goes on. If it's a sensor, obviously, you know, this is not a uh you're not turning on the light yourself, but you're benefiting from something that is really in your control. But then when it comes to artificial intelligence, it goes even further than the sensor of the previous or the past generation. Can you do certain things? So, a lot of these things can be compared to the past. Some of these things are brand new. The same thing happened in previous generations. So the sages would conceptualize the issue. How does this actually apply to life? This new technology, this new f find findings, this new condition of the people. And then they would vote. If everything was unanimous, everyone said it's allowed, then it's allowed. If everyone said it's not allowed, then it's not allowed. But if it was a meaning there's a one side that says allowed one says that says not allowed they would pick the majority and from that moment on even those that disagreed before the vote agreed with the ruling because that's in itself is one of the laws of the Torah that gave Not just the history of what happened to Am, not just the applicable at that time and forever more, but also the rules of scriptural extra uh uh extrapolation of taking what you see and knowing how to apply it to a specific law, to a specific condition. You can't just decide this makes sense to you. And you'll see many times in the Talmud, they're having a debate about something and one of the sages says, "Oh, well, I have a verse in it to relevant to this." But the other sage would say, "Well, you can't use that verse." Why not? It makes perfect sense. even though it makes perfect sense, that verse is already used for a completely different law. And you can't use that verse for multiple laws. So your entire argument, if it's resting just on this verse, you don't have an argument anymore. You can't just decide to pick and choose which law applies to which situation, to which verse. So there are rules. There are rules for understanding and applying the Torah that the sages knew. We no longer have the ability nor the permission to extrapolate from the Torah different things that are new. Everything has already been given to us. We just take what exists and apply it to new conditions. But the sages had these rules. That's one of the things we got at Mount Si. That's part of the oral Torah, a key part of the oral Torah. And when there was a majority on one side, that became the final. When somebody came to the Rebi Mikot and told them, "Listen, Shalom over here just completed the ent learning the entire Shas." The Rebi Mikosk says to him, he might have completed learning the entire sh, but what did the sh actually teach him? What does that mean? You could read a book. Anybody could read a book as long as you know how to read. But when it comes to Torah, if you're reading a book in such a superficial way that you're just reading it without applying it to your life, you missed the boat. You missed the mark. You missed the point. The whole point is to apply things to your life, not just to stimulate your mind. So when people that barely know how to observe Shabbat, how to make blessings, what to bless on and what not, how to do the basic honest business, and they're telling you that they're learning Cabala with Rabbi so and so, or they're learning all of the numerical values of every single thing that will ever happen, and all types of other things that people like to spend their time doing. You realize that the average person out there doesn't actually understand the point of Torah. If you're not learning Tawra that you're going to apply to your life, what's going to change? On the other hand, there are some that like to learn Mousar to the point where that's the only thing they learn. As much as we love Mousar, as much as we teach Musar, as we've said time and time again in the past, whether it was during the series of or it's in other serieses that we've discussed it, Mousar is not the entire Torah. If somebody is learning only mul and does not learn then they can learn about the obligation of to be in a hurry to be quick to do the will of hashem without even knowing what the will of hashem is. So yeah they know you have to be zealous to go do the will of hashem but how come you're not zealous to do the blessings properly? How come you're not zealous to learn the basic laws of yumto? How come you're not zealous to conduct your daytoday life in accordance to the Torah? Why is it that you've been violating the Torah for six months without asking questions and only ask questions after you got in trouble? A person has to understand that learning mus is of utmost importance. But that's not the entire Torah. And that's why the says if you want to know how to learn Torah, you have to learn from those that mastered it. First they would concentrate on the general principles of the law and they would clarify what is forbidden and what is permitted. First they need to know what the law is. Am I allowed to eat non-cosher when it's for business purposes? No. Am I allowed to go into a non- kosher restaurant if it's forbidden purposes? Answer is no. Am I allowed to own a non- kosher restaurants? The answer is depends. Does everybody know that you're the owner and you're Jewish? If that's the case, then no. But if you are a silent partner, you have a non-Jew running it, then it's a different answer. It's not recommended, but it's a different answer. In some cases, yes, in some cases, no. So when a person understands that there is an obligation to know what is the will of Hashem when it comes to the laws allowed not allowed forbidden permitted then the sages would become immersed and absorbed in the refinement of their conduct and the duties of the heart. says after they learned the amount of ala they need to learn for the day then they would spend the rest of their time perfecting themselves perfecting their character. If you see yourself learning Torah already for several years but yet everybody complains that you're still a stingy person. Everybody's still complaining that you're still an arrogant person. People tend to not like you. You have problems with everybody. Guess what? The problem is with you, not them. Now, you're gonna say, "No, it's because I'm zealous for the mitzvot." If you were truly zealous for the mitzvot the proper way, people would love you. Even the people that don't keep the mitzvot would love you. Why? Because you would know how to get them to understand why you're doing what you're doing and perhaps why they should do the same thing. If you find yourself that you're learning to for several years and you're still have no blessing in your life whatsoever, double check. Double check if what you're learning is proper or not, it's correct or not. If you're learning Torah for several years, but you still cannot say a Torah Shabbat, ask yourself why. Why don't I have a story to tell my little kids? Why don't I have something to say to my family after I learned every day this whole week? The sages learned what's allowed at what is not allowed. But they didn't become like some of these arrogant people that think they've done chuva, think that they've learned enough mousar and now they're only going to learn. There's no such thing. Mousar has to be part of your daytoday life as a Jew for your whole life. And needless to say, non-Jews, mousar is the foundation of all of your learning. If you don't learn mad, then you're not going to know how to serve Hashem at all because you don't have to learn all the mitzvot. In fact, you're not even allowed to learn all the mitzvot because it's not relevant to you. Hashem wants you to spend time with things that are relevant to you. Many times when non-Jews start learning laws of the Jews, they become confused. They start living half Jewish, half non-Jewish life. So either you convert to Judaism and then you continue learning the laws. Or if you're going to stay non-Jew, then stop learning the laws. You're not allowed because it's going to create confusion because it's going to end up causing you to invent a new religion like many people have. Start fooling yourself into thinking that it's okay for you to keep Shabbat because you like it. The is telling us our masters told us clearly you need to learn what's allowed and what's not allowed. But you also have to then immerse yourself in mousar in character development to perfect yourself to refine yourself. Become more calm. Become more humble. Become more zealous for Hashem. Become more interested in publicizing his name rather than yours. Become more generous. Become a better version of yourself. And the better is defined by Hashem's better rather than your own better. If a person refineses their character through the Torah, then they're serving Hashem. But if a person stays arrogant, stays stingy, stays ignorant of the purpose, what's the point? And it's not just me saying what's the point. Shabbat page 31A says if a person learns the entire Mishna which was the foundation of the oral Torah he knows the whole thing all six parts of it but he does not have he does not have fear of heaven it's worthless it's as if he learned nothing that's what the says MEANING THAT EVEN IF YOU KNOW all of the text and all of the stories and all of the laws, but you do not have fear of God, which means fear of punishment and eventually can mean fear of his majesty, his holiness, his greatness, which is a higher level of fear. But the average person today and even the higher level people today have no concept of the second level. For them as of breast said, for them it would be great if they simply feared punishment that it would already be an achievement. Fear of p punishment means that before you take an action any action whether it's a business transaction or relationship of any kind uh eat go somewhere you'd ask what does Hashem think of this action before you do it not after don't send the rapper and then ask am I supposed to bless on this rather before you eat don't say is my business transaction okay according to the Torah after you've conducted business for several months rather do it before you do business. And the says if a person learns the entire Mishna, the entire foundation of the oral Torah, but still has not acquired fear of Hashem, he's done. He goes to Gum. Why? Your learning is worthless. The learning you've done is worthless. You missed the point. You study the Torah as if it's a intellectual exercise. You fail the test. So of course a person in order for them to acquire fear of Hashem they must learn not just the laws of what's allowed and what's not allowed but also how to behave how to refine your conduct how to serve Hashem properly what are the duties of your heart what is the obligation of your heart what are you supposed to be thinking When you're praying, when you're learning, when you're conducting business, when you're together with your spouse, when you're with a customer, when you're with your enemy, when you have problems, when you're suffering pain, the duties of the heart apply to every single aspect of our existence. Because if we leave anything outside of what Hashem said, outside of what our holy Torah said, we're definitely going to make mistakes. We're going to arrive at wrong judgments. Like somebody told me or wrote to me, I don't understand why God makes children that are born deformed. I said, "Well, there is what's called this reincarnations." And that person did something in their previous life in order for Hashem to conclude that this would be their tikun. Their response was, "Well, if it's all about them being bad, then there's no room to love God anymore." Okay, that's only because as I answered this person, it's only because you have no idea what or who God is and what the purpose of life is. Your words are coming purely from emotions. Whereas what I'm telling you is coming from what our Torah said and our sages taught. And after a dialogue back and forth, I explained to this person that each person that comes to this world, whether they are end up being an abused child or the parent that's abusing them, whether it's coming as a healthy person or unhealthy person, every person that comes to this world is coming in order to rectify something they've done in their previous life. Sometimes the abused person is someone that was the abuser in a previous life. Their rectification is for them to be abused measure for measure. Sometimes a person comes to this world blind not because it's a punishment for them but rather it's because Hashem is helping them not look at things that are inappropriate because in their previous life they were perfectly righteous and everything except one thing and in order to protect them from making a sin with their eyes and add to their account Hashem just brings them to the world blind so So they only have to live a life to fix something completely different from the eyes. The point being is when you start thinking that you're more merciful than God, then it's no wonder more people think that it's vicious to slaughter animals, which by far is one of the dumbest things of this generation. How could the Torah allow slaughtering animals? It's vicious. God would never say such a thing. This is pure foolishness. Why? Number one, you've elevated the animals to be in the same level as humans. That in itself is moronic. Secondly, you're thinking that you are more merciful than God. He created them and he's the one that told us they were created for human needs. The cow is not here in this world in order for it to walk around Broadway and see what's the next show. The cow is not there to walk around in the wilderness to see if she will enjoy the view of the mountains from this side or perhaps from the other side that our friends went to. The cow didn't come to the world in order to go to the beach or take a vacation. It came to the world to be used by people. The Jewish people at one point when we had the bet mdash were able to slaughter them and bring them as a sacrifice. This would rectify the soul within that cow. It would elevate it to a higher existence. Sometimes there would literally be a human soul in the animal because that was its tikun. and the sacrifice or eating it as a kosher animal would actually elevate it to a higher level, perhaps even back to being a human being. Other times it was simply to rectify this particular spark that Hashem created and elevated higher. Not every animal has a human soul in it. The point being is that when you think that you're more merciful and more intelligent than God, then you start thinking stupid things like killing animals is vicious. Now again, we're not allowed and the Torah forbids us from torturing animals, from abusing them, but to use them is not only allowed. In many cases, it's a mitzvah. their uses for different animals in different ways. But a person that thinks that they're going to protest against the Torah by being vegan only showed their ignorance of what life is. Because even if you don't eat the animals, you're still benefiting from them. Yes. Exactly. Even if you don't eat a steak, even if you don't eat a burger, even if you don't eat a hot dog, and you don't even eat a schnitle that my wife made, which is really stupid of you not to eat from her because her snitle, amazing. You don't eat it. You think that you're helping the chickens because of that? You're making a mistake. Why? Do you have a hairbrush? Where do you think those hairs came from? Many times, where do you think the brush came from? It's not always plastic. You have a belt. What do you think? Leather is something that rains from the clouds. Comes from animals, soap, shampoo, conditioner. What do you think? It's just chemicals that have strange names. Where do you think your perfume comes from? sweat glands of animals. What do you think that the scientists come to the pig? The scientists come to all the different raccoons and different animals and say, "Excuse me, Mr. Raccoon. Hello. Are you okay?" "Yes, WE NEED YOUR SWEAT GLAND, PLEASE." And the raccoon says, "For what?" "Well, we need to make perfume. It's called Donna Karen. WOULD YOU MIND?" NO, THAT'S NOT WHAT HAPPENS. YOU KNOW WHAT THEY DO? THEY KILL THE RACCOON. THEY KILL THE PIG. THEY KILL THE ANIMAL. AND THEN THEY TAKE WHATEVER THEY WANT. So if you're using a perfume or you're using a hairbrush or shampoo or every other product that's out there, if you have shoes, GUESS WHAT? YOU'RE BENEFITING FROM ANIMALS even if you don't eat them. This simply goes to show people that as much as people would delude themselves to think that they're more merciful than God, more times than not, they're not even merciful at all. They're just delusional and arrogant people. Our holy Torah tells us you have to know what's allowed and you have to know what's not allowed. Secondly, Torah tells us, "Use me, use the holy Torah in order to refine yourself." If your wife is constantly complaining that you're an angry person, that means you're not learning Torah properly. If your community always looks in a different direction when it comes to charity because you're Mr. Stingy, everyone's given up on you, you're not learning Torah. If every time somebody wants to hear a they look away from you because you have nothing to say or what you say has nothing to do with anything. You're more of a newscaster rather than you are a Torah speaker. You're missing the point. Our holy Torah is a manual. It's an instruction set. of how to live not in hypothetical never neverland but in this world in this generation in this day. The more you learn what the Torah says the easier it is going to be for you to apply it to your life. And if you're finding yourself learning from someone where you don't really know how to apply what he's saying to your life, then change. Find a different teacher. Find a different book. Find something that's relevant to you. Learn it and move on to the next subject. Learn it and move on to the next subject. But again, each subject is very extensive. You want to learn the laws of Maser, there are dozens of books about it. You want to learn the laws of there are dozens of books on it. You don't have to read every single book. You need to know enough. One of the ways that I saw how people that consider themselves baluva or religious are misinformed of what the Torah is. is when someone sent me a message that they wanted to bring something to my attention and they said, "I think that you need to get rid of the people on your team, my wonderful team, Hashem. Wonderful, precious, priceless team Hashem." I asked why. Said you need people that care about you. Okay, fine. No. Uh uh not sure what you think they why these people are working or volunteering for us if they don't care. But okay, why do you say that? Because I see all these posters of alahas that have to do with the bathroom. This is not good for you. What what is that? You have to teach Torah. This person is so delusional, so clueless of what the Torah is that they don't realize that even going to the bathroom has rules, rules of modesty. So when our beautiful precious put together different posters, different things that have to do with how does a Jew have to go to the bathroom, how to deal with his own body, her own body in privacy. They were dealing with some of the most sensitive and important things of your daytoday life that most people, even if they've been RELIGIOUS THEIR WHOLE LIFE, DO NOT EVEN KNOW. YES, the Torah even has rules of how to go to the bathroom, how to be alone in your birthday suit. Because if you don't know how to act, then you could fool yourself into thinking that you're a modest person. But in reality, you're far from it. You could fool yourself into thinking that you're following the Torah, but in reality, you don't even know a big part of it. And that's why when we started the series of pictures where we have a group daily pictures where every day a couple of pictures with an on them where the pictures explaining the are published in our one of our WhatsApp groups which is very very popular. I decided that the best thing to start off with is the laws of every day from the morning. And of course, it goes into other things. But why? Because the average person out there could literally be a bachela for 5, 10, 20 years and still not know how to wash their hands properly. still not know how to say a blessing after they relieve themselves, after they eat, drink, and so on. They may know some basics, but a lot of the small details they don't know, and sometimes a lot of the big details they don't know. So much so that people think it's unusual to talk about that part of life when in reality we spent an enormous part of our lives in that position in that way in places that are private not in front of people. If you don't know how to act privately then certainly you're not going to know how to act publicly. And that's why in when they asked Nakman to say a eulogy for a that passed away. They said, "Oh, he was this. He was good. He was and he was a modest person." Said, "How do you know he was modest? Have you gone to the bathroom? Have you seen him go to the bathroom? Why is that relevant? Because if you don't know what modesty is in the bathroom, then certainly you don't know what modesty is period. So while somebody may think that they know better than what the Torah is, that they have their favorite rules that they keep and therefore they think that if they keep them, they keep the entire Torah. The is telling us if you want to succeed in learning Torah, you can't just focus on one topic in Judaism. You have to learn the laws, what's allowed, what's not allowed. And then after you've learned what you need to learn that day, if allowed and not allowed, then you go into character refinement, which is learning of Mousar, which is how to apply those laws. What is the consequences of not following those laws? What's on the line? What can you get as a reward? What can you get as a punishment? This is the way that created us to be motivated by fear as well as by potential reward. If you just motivate someone with reward all the time, like Pavlov's dog, then all you'll get is a dog that knows how to go to the door when the bell rings. That's all you're going to get. But if you know how to teach somebody both reward and punishment where they understand that there's a consequence for going against Hashem. They understand it as a consequence for ignoring the mitzvot, for forsaking them, for insulting them, for simply manipulating them into something new in order for people to like you and make yourself more popular. The balm mus will teach you what the consequences are for that such a person. And that's why the says that after they would decide what the is based on the majority, they preserved for us their views on morality, the ideal personality. each man according to his own time and place in Pelv. Meaning that these holy sages that exerted their efforts to no end about what's allowed and what's not allowed, what's relevant and what's irrelevant. not wasting time on hypothetical situation but rather on conceptual things, real things. The rest of their time was spent on purifying and refining themsel and investigating their own hearts and thereby teaching their students how to do the same themselves. All of those teachings of morality says the is what we put in the study during this time of the year is something that we spent several years teaching. We have a whole series of 179 lectures I believe each one averaging close to three hours. Each one completely different from the next. Full of new insights, full of amazing and useful information about morality, about how to truly inspire yourself to become better. This is why we still recommend it years after we've done it because those teachings never get old. In fact, they get better each time you learn them because the more you've learned other parts of or even if you learn that one, the next time you learn it, you understand even more of how it applies to you. And this is what is trying to get us to do. Learn ala learn mousar because if you learn one without the other just like the goa said nearly 600 years later you'll be missing a critical part of the equation to the point where you're not going to be able to arrive at the right conclusion very often. You may know the law but you don't know how to apply it. You may know how you're supposed to behave, but you're not even sure if it's applicable because you don't really know what the law is. The two go together. We need to know what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. And more than anything else, we need to know what not to waste our time doing. Don't learn things that simply do not apply to your life. Whether it's the cabalistic teachings of those that claim to teach cabala or it's very deep that is not really relevant to your day-to-day life because quite frankly you're not going to be a khen. So why are you learning about the shulim about kanim and how they're supposed to bring sacrifices when the bet mdash is rebuilt and a lot of the different things that are taught out there that are perhaps interesting to many people or even to some people but if you're going to listen to them if you're going to read them make sure they're applicable to you because if they're not you're wasting your Torah time on things that you can't apply. And that is not time that you're ever going to get back again. Use your time wisely because that's one thing that you can't buy back. Thank you very much for learning with me. May Hashem bless each and every one of you to successfully learn Torah that's applicable to your day-to-day life and you'll be able to succeed to actually apply it to your lives. Anyone that wants to support can donate on our website.org org or bh tora.org or you could donate on YouTube. You could donate on Facebook. There's a lot of different ways that you could donate. You could also donate on our website cryptocurrency and stocks. And of course, you could always donate on our app that you could watch the lectures on without any distractions of commercials and so on. That's you could find it in the app store, the Bezm app. And of course, for any of you that have yet to download and subscribe to the AI Rabbi app that you have that we have, uh, you're simply missing out because once you have that app, you'll also realize that you have a lot more questions you want answers for and you'll finally be able to get them. you'll be able to get those answers with the reliable sources that are not just hallucinating like a lot of other AI out there is doing because our database is something that is reliable and not just something generic that's off of the larger internet that has rules that are the opposite of the truth and rules that are true. This is available aireabi.org or and more good news are coming soon. Uh next week, uh we're likely not going to have this lecture because I'm going to be traveling next week. I'll be in Canada uh in Toronto for a few days. Uh but uh anybody that um wants to arrange a lecture while I'm in Toronto, I'm only going to be for a few days. Anyone that wants to arrange a lecture in Toronto while I'm there, I'd be more than happy to do it. Uh but um there's some stuff that I have to take care of over there. But nonetheless, anyone that uh wants to learn with us again, we'll be having another shure on Wednesday, our famous stump the rabbi lecture, which will discuss a lot of new things about the and other things that will give us called toem. We will learn again later this week. >> I'd like to introduce you to your new best friend. We did it. AI Rabbi is here. It's an AI model that is based on kosher Torah sources, 30 different languages that are available to you. So if you want to ask it in Spanish, in Chinese, Portuguese, whatever you want to do, it's available for you. Can you tell me about So it's timestamped to the shield. You press this green button, AI, Rabbi, on your WhatsApp. You'll have the ability to ask questions at will. We'll be providing sources and most importantly, you'll be able to know the truth and be able to rely on the sources.