Origin of Ugly Stories From Community | TORAH FOUNDATION (24)

On our Sunday night show, Torah Foundation, where after some divrei Torah, we're going to be enlightened, we're going to be smarter, we're going to be better, and bezrat Hashem, we're going to apply these to our lives. Tonight's show is going to be for the refuah shleimah and hatzlacha rabbah for Rabbi Efraim ben Shulamit, Rabbanit Sarah bat Anat, Rabbanit Levana bat Sarah, Sarah bat Levana, Avi Mori David ben Israel, Im Imorati Doris bat Zhoa, and all of Am Israel, and all the righteous Noahides that continue to support the organization. Today we released a video where I spoke about the significance of being a part of the or receiving the um the platinum seal from Candid for 3 years in a row. I highly recommend those of you that have supported or want to support to watch that video so you understand the difference between that and perhaps what you are supporting out there and see the site for yourself which is better. So, Abba Tayya Karim, it seems like every day, at least it seems like, every day there's another ugly story that's popping up from the Jewish world. The anti-Semites are having a party on our behalf, on our brothers' behalf, on our sisters' behalf. The media is having a festival publicizing stories about the Frum community. We're not just talking about the Jewish people, we're talking about the Frum community. There's new ugly stories popping out what seems like every day. And many are asking, "How did we get here?" Despite the fact that the Chovot HaLevavot was written over a thousand years ago, today the Chovot HaLevavot is going to answer that exact question for us. This is how the Torah works. It's divine, it's timeless, and it's certainly going to answer our questions no matter what they are. Perhaps we can't fix what already happened, but after learning what the Chovot HaLevavot is telling us, maybe we could fix ourselves before what's coming. Years ago, there was an extraordinary tzaddik named Rabbi Uri Zohar. Well, in his former days, he publicized himself, so this is not something that's unknown. It's a very much a big part of his personality, his story similar to how Hashem took back his millions, the story about my personal life being on Wall Street for nearly two decades is very much part of why people connect to our shul. Rabbi Uri Zohar was what you would call the elite Hollywood personality of Israel. An actor, producer, but after doing teshuvah, a very, very serious teshuvah, a very dedicated teshuvah, Rabbi Uri Zohar was uh a force to be uh a force, in so many words. It's just something that really you could not ignore, whether you were secular or you were religious, because he woke up the neshamah in ways that most people didn't even realize existed. In one of the interviews that Rabbi Uri Zohar had in the media, there was a woman that was interviewing him about his story, why he left what uh was considered success in the secular eyes to go to what they seem as fanaticism or as something that is ancient, old, not good, whatever you want to describe it. And of course, after a very inspiring interview the, uh, the journalist, the woman that was interviewing him, wanted to shake his hands. And Rabbi Oury Zohar kindly rejected her offer and said, "I'm sorry, I can't. It's against the Torah." But she said, "Yeah, but there's nothing between us. What's the big deal? We just had a nice interview." And he says to her, "Let me tell you a story. One of the rabbis that has helped me in my life is a tzaddik by the name of Rabbi Shmuel Dvir. He is a dayyan, he's a tzaddik, yirei shamayim. And he would be given all types of tasks that dayyanim get that are not exactly so much fun. One of them was that one day two lawyers show up at the bet din. One lawyer is the husband, one lawyer is the wife. And after many years of marriage, these two people that were 50 years old or so wanted to get a divorce. And they needed the rabbi to process the get. But the rabbi noticed that the husband was completely dismissing the fact that his wife has been his wife for so many years, supportive and everything. And to his dismay, he saw how this husband completely mistreated this wife by cheating on her with his 25-year-old secretary who was half her age and wanted to leave his soon-to-be ex-wife with nothing. And he had all types of legalistic reasons of why he should leave her with nothing. After Rav Shmuel Dvir worked on this item by item task by task he completely destroyed the case of the husband and showing him how he is not being fair, he's not being honest and that he needs to give his ex-wife the ketubah. He needs to give her some of the uh financials. Of course, the ex-wife is sad about the divorce, but very happy about that she's not left with nothing. And at the end of the case, after the husband leaves not exactly very happy the wife or the ex-wife takes her hand and wants to shake the Dayan Rav Shmuel Dvir's hand. And of course, the Dayan says, "I'm sorry, ma'am but I cannot shake your hand. It's against the Torah." And she says to him, "Yes, but Kvod haRav, there's nothing between us. This is just a formality. This is how we conduct ourselves in the world, especially after everything you've done for me. The least I can do is shake your hand." And Rav Dvir says to her "I know that the Torah's ways seem foreign to you, seem ancient to you seem irrelevant to you. But the truth is that if your husband conducted himself the same way that I do, the same way that my forefathers did, all the way back to the beginning of time, we would not have a divorce today. This about Karim, the more you think about this story, the more you realize how profound and relevant it is to our times. There's not a day that goes by that the day deem are simply filling up with new divorce cases. Used to be something that the firm community was proud of, that there's very rarely any divorce in the community. Today, there are entire campaigns going against the entire institution of Judaism in a in the name of Judaism, but really a reformed version. Today, there are things that are happening within the community that your ears do not want to hear and your eyes certainly do not want to see. And we wish we did not even know they existed, but unfortunately, they do. How could this be something that is coming out of our own backyard, our own Jewish communities that are learning Torah, that are doing the mitzvot? If you were to say that one secular person killed another secular person, we understand. If you say that the Zionist government is treating its fellow Jews, or what's supposed to be its fellow Jews, the so-called Jewish government is treating its Jewish people in a nice way, you'd say, "Yeah, of course, they're supposed to." But if you'd say they're mistreating them, we've already become accustomed to that. In fact, there hasn't been a bigger enemy to the Jewish people in history that has done and is doing what the so-called Zionist government is doing right now. Arresting people for learning Torah, arresting people for their beliefs. Doing things that even the Romans and the Greeks did not do. But, needless to say, this is something that is not exactly unexpected when you have an atheistic government that also promotes all types of immorality on a regular basis. Of course, it was only a matter of time before they made the Jewish people, which are supposed to be their brothers, but in reality, this is the This is the king. It was only a matter of time before they declared us their enemies. So, it's not really a surprise. What is a surprise is that there are men that deal with immorality issues and are saying that every month there are between 70 to 90 new cases of all types of heinous, horrific immoralities happening in and all types of places, communities. Stuff that's unheard of. There is a famous woman that, unfortunately, was empowered by some of the reformed rabbis that call themselves Orthodox that we've exposed over the years that is now encouraging women to expose themselves publicly in order to encourage the public and others to get their husbands to to leave them, to give them a get. These types of horrific things are certainly all against the Torah. The public doesn't know it. Certainly the non-Jewish public doesn't know it. But needless to say, these stories keep coming out. Stories of donor fraud, stories of embezzlement, stories of lawsuits, Ponzi schemes, all types of ugly stories. Ugh. And this is without following the media or the news. This is just SIMPLY COMING FROM ALL LEFTS, all sides. It won't stop coming in. It's literally you want to look for the cave that Rabbi Shimon BAR YOCHAI FOUND AND HIDE yourself in there for 13 years at least. But I'm sure in today's world with all of the technology, they'll find you there, too. How do we get here? How did we get here? Rabbeinu Yonah says that if we conducted ourselves the way our forefathers did, we wouldn't be here. And the Chovot Halevavot proves that. In this section, the Chovot Halevavot begins by something that is very common to anyone that has real dedication to their rabbi, to their teacher, and understands what it means to have a rabbi. And he says, "The rabbis of the Talmud related stories about their teachers, which give us an idea of their depth of mind and of the great efforts they made to refine their personal conduct." Anyone that was a real talmid of any rabbi, whether it's today's or past years, always has good stories about their rabbis. There's no shortage of amazing bios by Art Scroll and Feldheim and other publishers out there that are telling you the behind the scenes of great sadikim, whether it be Rav Ovadia Yosef, Rav Aaron Kotler, the Klausenberger Rebbe, Rav Wasserman, the Chofetz Chaim, and countless others which Baruch Hashem we have merited to read and learn from. And there's no shortage of these bios, but they will never really encompass the entire life of the tzadik because there's always new stories coming up. Because the life of a tzadik literally is what the Gemara says, you have to learn even from their mundane conversations because that's Torah, too. One example of that was told by a chacham by name of Rabbi Yitzchak Bardah. Rabbi Yitzchak Bardah is the uh brother-in-law of Rav Meir Mazuz, alav hashalom. And he told a couple of stories to show the enormous tzadik that lived among us and we just lost recently. And Rabbi Yitzchak Bardah says that when he was younger he didn't really know much about the ways of the world. He focused all of his life on learning Torah. But one day came that uh he wanted to be tested by one of Gedolei Yisrael that came from Baghdad Rav Salman Chagai Aboudi. And Rav Aboudi was one of these tzadikim Yirei Shamayim that would test chachamim for 9 hours. A 9-hour test across all spectrums of the If you knew it, you knew it. You didn't know it, you didn't make it. But everyone that wanted to be tested by him knew they had to prepare. Get a lot of rest the day before. So Abba Dan says the night the day before, let me go to the store, maybe get some food to eat. But he didn't know much about stores. He went to the store, he says he saw two pitas. He says, "Oh, I want to get these two pitas." And then he saw some cheese on the counter. They used to sell cheese by the pound. He says, "I want some of that, too." So the store clerk says to him, "How much do you want?" He says, "You know, I remember my mom used to get something maybe 25, so maybe 25 kilos?" The guy looked at him, "25 kilos? No. What 25 kilos? For you only?" He goes, "What? People don't buy that?" He goes, "No. What did Where did you get that number?" He goes, "My mom used to buy cheese, and it used to be something with 25." He goes, "No, not 25 kilos, maybe 250 grams." "250 grams you want?" "Oh, okay, okay." So he bought that. He didn't know much. But one day he bought a refrigerator, and something happened, the check didn't clear, and they, of course, they got him to go to court, and they took him to court, and the court decided that uh they're going to take back the refrigerator. And of course, Abba Dan, young man, goes to Abba Mazuz, says, "Why did this happen to me?" And Abba Mazuz says, "The answer to your question is in the teachings of the dikduk of the vowel called shvana. There's shvana, and there's shvanah. If you know this, you'll know this, you'll know the answer. And he explained to them, when do we use shva na and when do we use shva nach? These are the two dots that are under the letter. And he gives them these five rules. And the first, if it's the uh the uh shva na is in the first letter, then we express it. It's shva nach is silent, shva na is something that's expressed. So, for example, if it's in the first letter, like the word bi- like the letter uh the word bereshit, bereshit, but if you see the those two dots somewhere else, it'll be pronounced differently. It'll be silent. The second rule is if it's in the second letter and the third letter, and like in the word kaspecha, your money, the letter sameach and the letter pei or fei [snorts] has both of them have the shva na, so the second one is what you express or pronounce, and the third one you don't, so it's kaspecha. So, I'm sorry, the third one is what you you uh you say. Long story short, he gives them these five different rules. And from there he says, "Look, the words we used were bereshit, kaspecha, shoftim, dibru, hallelujah. So, how do I learn about the problem with my uh refrigerator from this?" He says, "Bereshit, in the beginning, it was your money, it was your kesef, kaspecha. But after the shofetim dibru, after the judges spoke, it wasn't so much your money anymore. So what do we do when we lose money? Hallelujah, thank you Hakadosh Baruchu." And Rav Mordechai says "Rav Mazuz literally made this on the spot to show you his genius." But there were many geniuses over the years. There are many geniuses today. Not all of them are tzadikim that you'd want to learn everything from and praise. He says to learn about the righteousness of Rav Mazuz, all you got to see is just simply the rest of the stories of things that happened. One time there was a rich Bukharan that came to the shul, came to the uh uh Beit Midrash of Rav Mazuz. And this Bukharan wasn't exactly uh talmid chacham, didn't know very much, but he was very very wealthy. And he used to wear the beautiful golden jackets that they wear in the Bukharan community, especially those that are very wealthy. And he got a lot of kavod. So they gave him an aliyah. And since he didn't know much, when they opened the sefer Torah, he touched the scroll. But to his dismay, as soon as he did that, which by the way is forbidden, people saw, but then they heard. What did they hear? They hear of Meir Mazuz SCREAMING "FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!" THE GUY GOT SO scared that he literally turned around and ran out of the shul. Ran away. A week later, he sees Rav Berda in the street. And he says to him, "I don't understand. Where is the manners from your rabbi? Why did he have to yell at me? Why? Because I touched the uh somebody told me it's because I touched the uh the cloth. I touched the um the parchment of the sefer Torah. Okay, he could have just told me "Don't touch." "Excuse me, you're touching something you're not supposed to touch." WHY DO YOU HAVE TO YELL AT ME FIRE FIRE? Rav Berda says to this nice Bukharian guy, he says to him, "If you knew the rav, you wouldn't have any questions." He says, "What do you mean?" He says, "You see, the rav, he doesn't just teach about yirat shamayim, about the fear of Hashem. He sees it and he lives it." He says, "Well, but he can't just say 'Excuse me' politely." He says, "You don't understand. If you were, let's say, walking and then you saw somebody that's working and he was backing up as he was carrying something he was backing up backing up not looking what's behind him, and you realized that if he takes another step, he's going to fall off the cliff. What would you do at that point? Uh we'd tell him. But how would you tell him? Would you tell him, "Excuse me, sir. You're about to fall off the cliff. Maybe you want to stop. Maybe you want to be careful." "No, I wouldn't do that." The Bukharian guy says, "I'd be dumb. I'D YELL AT HIM, 'STOP IT! STOP IT! YOU'RE ABOUT TO FALL!'" HE SAYS, "RAV MEIR MAZUZ, SHAMAYIM. He doesn't just talk about it. He doesn't just read about it. He sees the disaster that's about to happen or that's happening. The fact that you TOUCHED THE PARCHMENT ALREADY is the disaster. It can't get any worse than that. And therefore he screamed fire, fire. One story that I told years ago that's always worth telling was I'd say maybe 10, a little over 10 years ago. Probably closer to 12 years ago. I went to Israel. And I spent a lot of time with my dear brother of Ephraim. And of course we already learned for several years before that and transformed our lives, but this it's different to learn from a book, to learn from a lecture, to learn from words than it is to learn when you see the rav. That's called shimush. And one day we were walking. I don't know if it was going to a shiur or going to shul, wherever we were walking to. And the topic of modesty came up. Teaching it, learning it and so on. And at some point Rav Ephraim says to me, I keep telling him what's happening in the world, you know, things that he's not exactly uh informed about cuz he lives a very different life. And uh I told him, "Listen, you know, people are walking around this way, that way. People are this. And it's hard for people to watch their eyes. It's everywhere. It's billboards. It's uh commercials. It's everywhere." And he asked me, "Why do they look?" And I was confused. What do you mean? Why do they look? And he looks at me confused. He goes, "I don't understand. Why do they look? Isn't it disgusting?" I was confused now. Last night checked, looking at something immodest, especially at that time, was not exactly considered disgusting by society, which I WAS VERY MUCH PART OF. SO, I said, "What do you mean it's disgusting? I don't understand." And he just looks at me straight in the eyes. He says, "I don't understand you. Why do they look at something so disgusting? Don't they see THAT SHE'S ON FIRE and melting?" At that moment, I understood this is not somebody that I'm used to. I haven't met anybody like this on Wall Street. Now, the Hovot Halevavot is telling us that the Hakhamim of the Talmud told stories about their rabbis, of how their rabbis acted, of how their rabbis spoke, of how their rabbis dealt with different circumstances, in order to teach us what we need to do. Even though it's many years later, the teachings are timeless. And the first story that the Hovot Halevavot brings is from the Gemara in Masekhet Berakhot, which starts off with a complaint. What is the complaint? The Gemara in Masekhet Berakhot, page 28, has a conversation between Rav Papa and Abaye. Two of the Amoraim. And Rav Papa says to Abaye, "What was different about the earlier generations from whom miracles occurred to us, where miracles are not happening?" This is a very COMMON QUESTION TODAY. HOW COME A GUY DOESN'T OPEN THE SEA FOR ME? How come he doesn't speak to me? I prayed at least every day this week. You know, people think that just because they do a few good things, therefore they deserve nothing less than Krias Yam Suf, the splitting of the ocean, or at least maybe a little bit of feeling of Moshiach ben Yisrael for a few minutes, where God speaks to you face-to-face. This is not exactly what Rav Papa is asking about. He's simply saying, "Look, the previous generations" He's not even talking about thousands of years ago. He's talking about the generation of Rabbi Yehudah, which was the generation before them. So, he said, "How come they got miracles, and we're not getting miracles? And if you were to say that it's because the earlier generations surpassed us in Torah study, it's not true," says Rav Papa. "For in the time of Rabbi Yehudah, all the Torah studies of the academies was concentrated on the tractate of Nezikin, damages, business. Maseches Bava Kamma, Bava Metzia, Bava Basra. We, on the other hand, in our generation, study all six orders of the Mishnah. Meaning, we're more well-versed in more things than the previous generation. They focus on specific things in their schools. It's not that they didn't know it. It's that in his day, there was more focus on one part of the Torah, whereas in this generation, there is a wider focus. So, we're learning a lot of different subjects. But yet, we know that when there was a drought, Rabbi Yehuda would merely remove one shoe as a sign of affliction, meaning that a fast is about to start because it hasn't rained. And as soon as he would remove that shoe, rain would come down from HEAVEN IMMEDIATELY. WHEREAS US, ON THE other hand, it doesn't matter if we remove the shoe, we fast, we afflict ourselves, we cry out profusely in prayer, and it's as if no one is paying attention to us. Why should this be so? It's a legitimate question by Rav Papa. RAV ABAYE answers Rav Papa, and he says to him, "The earlier generations sacrificed themselves to sanctify Hashem's name. And therefore, they were deserving of having miracles performed for them. Whereas we, on the other hand, do not sacrifice ourselves to sanctify Hashem's name." Now, of course, the Hakhamim explain this is not referring to dying on Kiddush Hashem, because we know that all of the Hakhamim happily died on Kiddush Hashem, not just in this generation, even generations later. Time of the Holocaust, Rav Wasserman and all the tzaddikim that came with him died on Kiddush Hashem. He literally gave them a shiur about how to die a KIDDUSH HASHEM. NOT EVERYBODY that died in the Holocaust died on Kiddush Hashem, but there were certain tzaddikim that happily welcomed dying on Kiddush Hashem. But this is not what Abaye is talking about. He says there is the obligation to sanctify Hashem's name, to do Kiddush Hashem. But then there's the extra. The generation of Rav Yehuda, they lived to do the extra. We don't. To give you an example, he says, it wasn't Rav Yehuda only. The whole generation was like this. Meaning that when Rav Yehuda took off his shoe, it wasn't enough that he was a tzaddik. THE WHOLE GENERATION WERE TZADDIKIM. So it wasn't just his merit, but rather the whole generation had merits. Where they only had to literally take off their shoes, show some signs of affliction, and Hashem already answered their prayers. Because they lived to sanctify Hashem's name. And one of the stories Abaye says, says there was Rav Adda bar Ahava. He saw a woman that was walking in the shuk, in the market, with what's called a karbalta, which was a fancy hat. Very fancy hat that royalty wore. That wasn't exactly something that a Jewish woman should wear. Some say that the Maharsha says that this karbalta also had shatnez. When Rav Adda bar Ahava saw this, he quickly ran over to her AND HE RIPPED IT OFF HER HEAD. SAYING, "NO. THIS WILL NOT BE WORN BY A WOMAN in our community." But, then this woman starts speaking to him in a different language. And he finds out she's not even Jewish. She's a some non-Jew that's coming to take some pictures and buy stuff from the market. SHE TAKES THEM TO THE COURT. And she says, "He Look what he did to me. This rabbi." And the judges say, "You're right. We have to fine him 400 zuz." How much is 400 zuz? We know from the song of Pesach that we sing after we do Laila Seder, Chad Gadya, Chad Gadya, that you buy the the goat for uh for two zuzim. And a goat today is about $200. So, if $200 is two zuzim, that means one zuz is $100. He's fined 400 zuz, $40,000. For what? For taking off the karbalta from this non-Jewish woman. How did Rav Adda bar Ahava respond? He says, "What is your name, ma'am?" She says, "Matun." He says, "Matun, Matun was worth 400 zuz to me." Meaning that Matun also is referencing that it's a matana, it's like a gift. A gift, a gift that I got fined for $40,000 FOR SANCTIFYING A Kadosh Baruch Hu's name, even though she was not Jewish and you didn't have to do that. The fact that I would do this if it was a Jew shows that I'm not worried about likes, dislikes, popularity lack of popularity whether they invite me, they don't invite me, I only worry about the glory of Hashem. Further, the Gemara says more stories of that generation. Another tzaddik by name of Rav Gidal. Rav Gidal would sit at the entrance of the women's mikveh. And each time a bat Yisrael would come, he would tell her, "This is how you dip. This is how you do it." And the talmidim came to Rav Gidal says, "Kvod haRav, aren't you worried about the yetzer hara, all these women?" He says to them "Women? They look like ducks to me. I don't know what you're talking about, yetzer hara. These are little ducks, geese." And the same thing goes with Rabbi Yochanan. Rabban Yochanan was one of the most beautiful people that Hashem ever created. He was from the family of the Yerushalmis. And the Yerushalmis had special beauty similar to Yosef haTzaddik where their skin was so shiny that when he would just take off a little bit of his sleeve, it would light up the entire room. Their beauty was unlike anything else that existed in the world today. And Rabban Yochanan would also sit at the entrance of the mikveh in order for the B'not Israel to look at him after they dip in the mikveh so their children would come out as beautiful as him. And when they asked him, "Kod Rav, aren't you worried about the the evil eye? People look at you with beautiful this." He says, "I am from the descendants of Yosef HaTzaddik. Evil eye cannot cannot touch us." Now, of course, no one in the following generations was able to do such a thing without falling for the yetzer hara. Needless to say, no one in our generation should even think they can do such a thing. But the point is that Abaye says to Rav Papa, "You're thinking that the previous generation 30 40 years ago was similar to us. They had arms. They had legs. They learned Torah and we have arms. We have legs. We learn Torah." But when you actually look at their actions and how they lived their life, you see that they were a world apart. As if it was a different species even though it's the still the same nation. Because they lived to sanctify Kadosh Baruchu's name. Even when they didn't have to. And therefore the Gemara says in Masechet Avodah Zarah on page 17, "What's the difference between somebody that learns Torah versus somebody that does chesed also?" Rav Avun says, "Whoever engages in Torah study in itself, >> [snorts] >> by itself." Meaning, he only learns Torah. He goes to his room, he learns Torah. Oh, listen, somebody wants to talk to you. No, I don't have time, learning. Oh, listen, somebody has emunah issues. No, I'm sorry, I'm learning. Oh, there's some people are inviting, you know, they need somebody to speak at the local shul, maybe give a shield Torah. I'm sorry, I'm learning. He engages in Torah study only. Says the Gamara in Maseches Avodah Zarah, page 17B, "This person is like one who has no God." Excuse me? Ravuna says, "Whoever engages in Torah study only is like one who has no God." What does it mean, you like one who has no God? For it says, in the Book of Chronicles, Chronicles 2, chapter 15, verse 3, "Many days passed by for Israel without a true God and without Torah." Now, what's meant without a true God? It's to teach us that whoever engages in Torah study only is like one who has no God. But what does that actually mean? To have no God means, obviously, they still believe in God, they study his Torah. But if you're expecting Hashem to protect you because of the Torah that you're learning, you'll be unpleasantly surprised. Says Rashi, "Person that learns Torah without doing Hesed, without doing kindness, that Torah will not protect them. And the Maharsha explains, Hashem's primary attribute is his interactions with men in loving kindness. And man is charged with emulating Hashem's ways. If the person does this, then Hashem will be his God and relate to him with loving kindness and protect him from harm. predicted that because he himself did not Hashem in this central aspect, he would not be saved from the Roman executioner that was going to kill him. Meaning, this is not something that the sages are saying about somebody else. They're saying about themselves, "Oh, I just got caught by the police, by the government that's chasing us, that's looking for excuses to hurt us. Hashem is not GOING TO HELP ME. WHY? I didn't DO ENOUGH KINDNESS. WHAT KIND OF KINDNESS? I DIDN'T DO ENOUGH KINDNESS. I didn't help enough people go back to Hashem. Why? Because the ultimate attribute of Hashem is to give loving kindness. And the greatest kindness you can possibly give to any human on planet Earth is to show him who created him, who gave him life, who created all of this. What are the rules that he gave you? What are the purpose of your creation? So, if you're learning Hashem's Torah, but you're keeping it to yourself, >> [snorts] >> then what are you learning for? And from there, my dear friends, even the sages themselves rebuke themselves and knew exactly what will be with them if they did not do something. Now, of course, my dear friends, even the did engage in kindness, but he judged himself harshly because he knew how much he could have done if he pushed A LITTLE EXTRA ABOVE THE EXTRA HE WAS ALREADY PUSHING. But the truth is that Hashem did give him many miracles. When one of the Romans tried to hurt him, bring him to the court, Hashem made one miracle after another for Rabbi Chanina. When the judges asked Rabbi Chanina, "Why did you learn Torah?" He answered them. They asked him, "Is this all you do or" He says to them, "No, I'm also a weaver." He says, "You're a weaver? You weave?" He says, "Yeah, I weave." He says, "Okay." They brought in front of him a uh two different uh a warp and a reel of a woof. He says, "Can you even tell us the difference between these?" At that moment the Gemara says a miracle happened. And Hashem brought a female bee and a male bee that sat on different parts of the woof. And he knew how to distinguish male and female bees in order to give the right answers to the Romans. After they asked him in different questions and they tried to make him fail, they asked him the question of how is it that you didn't come to the house of idolatry, the house of Avidan? So, I'm too old. Too old to go. And if I go there, I'm afraid that I won't make it. They'll trample me. So, the Roman said to him, "Who? What old man was ever trampled that day?" You have any stories? As soon as they said that, somebody came into the room and told them, "Oh, today an old man got trampled at the house of Avidan." One miracle after another, but then there was one rasha that really wanted to destroy him. So, Hashem sent to Eliyahu Hanavi. And Eliyahu Hanavi came and said, "The Caesar is calling you. So, before you continue prosecuting against this Jewish person, you have to go see the Caesar." And this was a journey. As soon as he left, the uh the palace, Eliyahu Hanavi showed up again and kicked him, and he's still flying in the air till this day. In so many words, Rabbi Hanina, Rabbi Elazar, Rabbi Yehuda, all of these tzadikim got miracles. Why? Didn't just learn Torah. They did chesed, too. Because their ultimate goal in life was to sanctify Kadosh Baruchu's name. And they taught that if >> [snorts] >> you learn even the entire Torah, that's what you think is the entire Torah, but you do not do chesed, it's as if you have a different God. And therefore, the Chovot Halevavot says, "And it became clear to me that an act which is performed for God's sake is in essence made up of two things, purity of heart and purity of mind. Any corruption of the inner intent renders the good act unacceptable, even if it's performed many times on a regular basis. Here the Hovot Halevavot is telling us it's not enough for you to do good. It's not enough for you to give staka, it's not enough for you to learn Torah, it's not enough for you to give somebody a ride, it's not enough for you to teach It's not enough for you to do anything that's good. Why? If you want all the blessings that come with doing good, then it has to be both heart and mind. You can't just donate, give your ma'aser, and then complain about the fact that you don't have enough money. Or that you can't buy the luxuries you want to buy. Why? That turns whatever good you did into something that is corrupted. You're still getting a merit for giving, you're still getting a merit for learning Torah, you still get a merit for doing good things, but the ultimate fruits that you would have had had you had good intentions behind it, had your heart been complete with it, is a world of difference from where you are. Many times people do good things. They learn Torah, but the whole time they're looking at the clock, they can't wait to finish. Why? They have an appointment, they want to go eat, they want to go drink, they want to go this, they want to go there. So, they're learning Torah, but they're learning Torah like as if it's an uh doctor's appointment. They can't wait to get, you know, to end it. They give tzedakah, but they're wishing they didn't have to. They're wishing that this person was already become rich and all Jews will be rich, so therefore I can keep all my money to myself. They do good, but their intentions are corrupted. The purity of heart and mind is not there. And the vote says that any corruptions of the inner intent renders the good act unacceptable. Even if it's performed many times and on a regular basis. And he brings a source. He says, the prophet Yeshayahu, Isaiah chapter 1, verse 15 and 16 says, in the name of Hashem, "Even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood." This is referring to stolen money. People that made money from unethical businesses like merchant cash advance or selling goods that are used, but they sell them as new, or all types of businesses that unfortunately have become accustomed to doing things against the Torah. Like, for example, one of the horrible things that's happening in the world today is in the world of jewelry. The world of jewelry has now infected many other businesses, where now it's become custom to end every transaction with gambling. So, they decide, "I'm going to buy this watch or this diamond or whatever it is from you for, let's just say, any price. 5,000, 50,000, 100,000." The prices are all over the place cuz they These are valuable goods. So, they agree on a price, 100,000, let's say. All right. It's not enough to just agree to 100,000. Let's gamble. What do they gamble? "I'm either going to pay you 90,000 or 110,000. So, either either I'm going to pay 10,000 less or 10,000 more than what we agreed. And then what do they do? They either play cards for it or they flip a coin or some other silly thing. And what they don't realize that all of the blessing, all of the bracha that Hakadosh Baruch Hu just gave them just became corrupted. Meaning even if they win the bet, even if they win the bet, that money will not be spent on anything that's blessed. It'll be spent on problems, lawyers, doctors, IRS, Amalek, all types of horrible things. Why? You have turned a blessing that Hashem gave you into a sin. You just took money from somebody who doesn't want to give it to you. When the guy loses the bet, he doesn't really want to give you the extra. Even though it's the rules of the game, it's against the Torah. And unfortunately, this is not once or twice or three times. It's become a normal thing in the jewelry business and in other businesses now that have been infected by the stupidity. They even make videos about this. And some of them are really, really stupid. They literally gamble 50, 100, 200,000 dollars at a time. They agreed 50,000, 100,000 on something. It's okay, either I'm going to pay you NOTHING OR PAY YOU 200,000 DOLLARS. AND GUESS WHAT? Somebody always loses. Meaning somebody in that transaction is always considered A THIEF, A GANAV in the in the eyes of Hashem. Hashem says, I gave you a blessing. I sent you a customer to give you 100,000 dollars. Instead of taking 100,000 dollars, you now stole from him? Or you just wasted it and got nothing for it and let him steal from you? Both parties instead of having bracha, have a klala in their hands. Every transaction. So, when the prophet Isaiah says, "Even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen to you. Your hands are full of blood. Your hands are full of stolen money." And this is why I'm not a prophet or the son of a prophet, but I could already predict you. All of these people you see on Tik Tok and Facebook and all of these other social medias that are looking like they're printing money. This guy is 25 years old making 5 million a year, 10 million, 20 million. YOU'LL SEE EVERY SINGLE ONE of them that gambles, within a matter of a few years, they will not have food to eat. Why? That's the promise of a Torah. It's not a klala. It's not I'm not cursing anybody. I wish them all to do teshuvah. I even spoke to a few of them. But, unfortunately, when the satan catches you, he catches you by the teeth. He catches you by the teeth. He doesn't want to let go. And people think there's no problem with it. That's why the chachamim says doing teshuvah for gezel, for stealing, is more difficult than doing teshuvah for immorality. Why? When you do teshuvah for immorality, you know you you know what you did. You know you weren't supposed to be with her. You know you weren't supposed to be with him. IT'S AGAINST THE TORAH. BUT, when people are told you have to do teshuvah for stealing, "What stealing? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? MY BUSINESS MAKES $5 A YEAR HONESTLY. I have customers. I sell them. I don't sell them fake stuff like the other guy. I sell them real things." No, no, no, you don't understand. Half of the transactions you have, even if it's 1% of the transactions that you have, involved gambling, even if it's for $5, you just turned that blessing into a curse. You have to do teshuvah. "NO, COME ON, RABBI. YOU'RE A FANATIC. YOU'RE EXTREME. THIS IS TODAY. YOU KNOW, IT'S FOR TIK TOK. IT'S FOR THE PEOPLE. It's for the media. It's popular. IT'S FOR GAY NO, BUT FOR KAF KAF KELA. IT'S FOR RE ANOTHER GILGUL. YOU'LL HAVE TO COME BACK FOR $5 AND FOR 50,000 EVERY BET ANOTHER GILGUL. TRY IT. LISTEN, YOU DON'T want to listen to bechavod. Hakadosh Baruch Hu has endless times to bring people as different things in order for them to pay back the bet. Sometimes you'll come back as a rabbit, sometimes you'll come back as a horse, sometimes you'll come back as a person. Sometimes even a flower. Perhaps I'll buy you as a for Shabbat and give it to my wife. Say, "Oh, Shabbat shalom, honey." Rabbotai Yekirim, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is not our friend. He doesn't work the way we do. These are not things that I make up. These are things that are in the Sifrei Hakadoshim. What benefit do I have in telling people this stuff that scares the lights out of people? The reality is the reality. And the prophet says, "Hakadosh Baruch Hu is telling them, you pray, I won't listen. Why? Your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves. Make yourselves clean. Remove your evil deeds from my tent. Cease to do evil." And if that's not enough, Moshe Rabbenu comes in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 30 verse 14, "Rather, it's a thing that's very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart that you can do." Meaning all of this stuff that sounds impossible, it's impossible for you to stop cheating on your wife or being immoral, or it's impossible for you to stop stealing or gambling or whatever you want to call it, it's not impossible. It's just a matter of willpower. Hakadosh Baruch Hu created you in order for you to fulfill the Torah. That's what you were made for. Meaning you are better at that than anything else you think. Even though you think that you have ADD, even if you think that you can't do it, and you weren't born religious, and your grandfather was a this, and your doesn't make a difference. If you apply yourself, you will see you're better at being a servant of Hashem than anything else in the world. It's in your mouth, it's in your heart to do it. You were created for this. No matter what you can use your phone for, the best function that a phone does is call. Yeah, of course you can use it as a little computer to go on the internet, to use AI, to send messages, but at the end of the day, the best thing that a phone is for is to make calls. That's what it's for. You can even use IT AS A WEAPON IF YOU WANT, BUT IT'S still better as a phone. You can use it as a door stopper, but it's better as a phone. Why? That's what it was created for. A Jew was created to serve Hashem. There's nothing in the world that he's going to be better at than serving Hashem. He just has to apply himself. And then the word of the word brings the last source and he says, in the name of Melech in Mishlei chapter 23 verse 26, "My son, give me your heart and your eyes. Let them keep my way to keep Let them keep to my ways." Meaning Hakadosh Baruchu is not asking us to reinvent ourself. He's simply telling us, "Give me your heart." Give me your heart. As the Gemara says, "Rachmana liba ba'i." Hakadosh Baruchu wants our heart. Not be religious in your heart, but actually dedicate all of those extra emotions and passion that you have for money, for gambling, for immorality, for whatever it is that you're spending all this extra energy on, give it to Hashem and you'll see that you're better at that than anything else. Now, what happens when a person learns to what? Grows up in a Torah home, perhaps even teaches Torah, but yet doesn't change. In fact, you see that there's rotten fruits coming out of it. Melech says in Kohelet in chapter 7 verse 8, "Tova acharit davar mereshito." The end is better than the beginning. What does it mean? Says you're going to know whether something was good from the beginning by seeing how it is later on. In the beginning, everything looks good. Everything looks good. People are excited about something. They have a new startup. They have a new business. They have a new idea. They're so excited. They're not even thinking about all of the roadblocks that are in the way because if they spent even a minute thinking about all the roadblocks, they're not going to start. That's why in order to be an entrepreneur, in order to be an inventor, in order to be anybody that innovates and does something, they can't think about all of the possibilities of failure. They have to be the ultimate optimist. Still reasonable, but they have to be optimistic much more than the average. People that cannot bring themselves to that level of optimism can never be an entrepreneur, can never be successful beyond the norm. They could simply be like everybody else. But the reality is some ideas work out and some ideas fail. Before they became successful, all of the people that have succeeded that you read about, that you hear about, whether it be Elon Musk or uh Bezos or Steve Jobs or uh even Warren Buffett, they had failures after failures on the way to success. If you asked Warren Buffett, "What was the worst investment he ever made?" He would tell you, "Berkshire Hathaway." Yes, the very same company that is still called today Berkshire Hathaway, that's worth hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars, that used to actually be a textile company. And that was the worst investment of his life. It was all based on ego. He was supposed to tender the shares at 11:30, the guy didn't want to give him 11:30, he cut him short by 11:30 by 20 cents. He ended up doing a lot of stupid things as a result of his ego. And the investment failed miserably. Other investments he made after that under the roof of Berkshire Hathaway worked out tremendously to what it became now, but that original investment was the biggest failure of his life. The same concept with all of the successful people that you hear. They had many failures on the way to success, but they could not focus all of their energy on the failures. They had to constantly be optimistic to look beyond that. To look beyond the failures, beyond the roadblocks, beyond the explosions of rockets and everything else that they're trying to invent. These are all necessary things. But the truth is, if you see some of the outcomes, you already know that even in the beginning they were good. It was a necessary evil. It was a cost of doing business. It was a risk versus reward that was favorable. Meaning that even though there were many failures on the way to success, when you see success, real success, you already see that the original failure was actually good. It was necessary. But sometimes, you see something that looks successful, but later on it becomes a disaster. In the business world, we saw many of those during the 1990s and early 2000s, all the dot-com companies, the pets.coms of the world and all types of other silly businesses that really had nothing more than just a domain name. And there are many silly businesses like that that came up and came and got destroyed in the last few years where there was a all the NFTs, these fake uh you know, pretty much they sold pictures on the internet for millions and millions of dollars. All types of silly things. And you know that if you look at the failure, you see it was a failure from the beginning. It was never worth anything and never will be worth anything. And there was just enough elation in the market that people just decided to invent value. And eventually, it collapsed and there's going to be other collapses coming soon. The point is, this is not just in business. This is also in our life itself >> [snorts] >> and our efforts to serve Hashem. Sometimes you can look at something and it looks good, but there's no way for you to know whether it's good or not. Why? Because there hasn't been enough time for it to produce fruits. The Gemara in Maseches Taanis, page seven, 7A, says in the name of Rabbi Bana'ah, whoever studies Torah for its own sake, his Torah scholarship becomes an elixir of life to him, like a drug of life. As it says in a Proverbs chapter 3 verse 18, the Torah is a tree of life for those who cling to it. On the other hand, the Torah also sell says that it will be a cure that enters through your navel. And further, for one who has found me has found life. Meaning that anyone that learns Torah for the right purpose, the Torah will bring him blessing, the Torah will bring him cures, the Torah will bring him life. But on the other hand, says Rabbi Bana, whoever studies Torah not for its own sake, meaning it's not somebody that's not studying Torah. We're talking about somebody that studies Torah, but not for its own sake. His Torah scholarship becomes a deadly poison to him. Meaning that the more he studies Torah, the more he becomes a hazard to himself and to others. What does it mean if he studies Torah for the right reason or he studies Torah for the wrong reason? If he studies Torah for the right reason, we already know from the previous that we read in the Torah, that means that he's going to use the Torah in order to emulate Hashem, in order to show kindness, in order to better himself, in order to improve his behavior, in order to show kindness, in order to be a servant of Hashem. Which means on the other hand, if he studies Torah but not for the right reasons, he's studying Torah to show people he knows better than them. He studies Torah in order to make money out of it. He studies Torah in order to get a specific job, a position. He studies Torah in order to manipulate people. He studies Torah in order to use it like an axe or a hammer in order to make people submit to him. That person, the Torah becomes poisonous for him and for anyone else that learns from him. And therefore HaMelech says, "Tov acharit davar mereshito." The end is better than the beginning. You can see somebody that has horrible character traits. And you say he's learning Torah, so he's going to improve. You don't know if he's going to improve or not. Why? It depends how he's learning. If he's learning mussar, if he's learning Torah in order to apply it to himself, to better himself, to better ourself, then certainly it's a matter of time before they become better. But if the person is learning Torah in order to be a show-off, in order to look down AT PEOPLE THAT DON'T KNOW as much as him or her, in order to manipulate the rules, in order to change, in order to reform, then guess what? That original rotten character that they have will actually only get worse. But you're only going to know that later on when you see their fruits. So when people come to me and they ask, "Oh, have you HEARD ABOUT THIS FLATBUSH GIRL? She is now convincing Jewish women to expose themselves in order to force the public to take upon themselves the husbands of women and all types of other people to force her husband to divorce her." AND THIS FLATBUSH GIRL THINKS SHE'S DOING A MITZVAH. SHE'S DOING CHESED. AND OF COURSE, this is all against the Torah what she's doing, what these women are doing. This is pre-suit. This is Sodom and Gomorrah. This is reform. This is to'eivah. There's not enough horrible words to describe what she's doing. But she's doing good in her eyes and apparently whoever is following her. Where did she get this empowerment from? That, rebbe, I I don't know anybody else that's asking that. Everyone is focusing on her. She has been a loudmouth for a long time. So, they're seeing that she's continuing getting worse and worse year by year. She's been doing it for let's SAY 5, 10, 15 YEARS, whatever it's been. Each year she's gotten worse than the year before. Now she's getting the public's attention more than ever because she's literally causing not these to treat themselves like not. So, it's getting more OF AN OUTCRY OUT THERE, BUT in reality, this is not new. This is going from bad to worse. Never let never let that But no one's asking, "Where did she get this empowerment from?" She got the empowerment from Why why Jacobson and other reform mentality people that partnered up with her to promote her cause years ago and made movies with her and made video clips with her AND MADE ALL TYPES OF EVENTS WITH HER TILL YEAH, YOU SHOULD [screaming] FIGHT FOR THE JEWISH WOMEN THAT DIDN'T GET A GET. WHO TOLD YOU YOU'RE ALLOWED TO do this? I'll put that in your cream. Melech says, "Tova charis the vermin a shita." All of those rabbis, all of those people that are not rabbis the donors, the customers anyone that was on her team early on empowered her to continue getting worse, especially those that are popular, those that have so-called rabbinical positions. They're the reason why this is happening. Much more than her. SHE WAS ALREADY GOING OFF the cliff on her own. They just gave her a boost to get there faster and to bring more people down with her. So, as much as PEOPLE WOULD SAY, "OH, WE SHOULD PUT HER ON CHEREM." I say it's already too late for that. She doesn't care. Who should be put on cherem? All of those people that supported and support her today. They should all be put ON CHEREM UNLESS THEY DO the opposite and now say, "No, no, no, this is not what we meant. She's going against the Torah." AND SPENT MUCH MORE EFFORT FIXING the monster that they helped create. Because you see that the initial inclination to help women, the initial inclination to help not Israel looked good. But the outcome is this, you know it wasn't good even from the beginning. The but they are coming. When the Torah tells us something it's not always clear how this applies to your life. In fact, for many people it's not even clear that it applies to life all together. And therefore the of the vote is trying to tell us you see the stories of the king are about other to the king. Their teachers, THEIR TEACHERS' TEACHERS. WHY ARE THEY TELLING THESE STORIES IF THEY'RE TO THE KING ALREADY? Because we can learn from them. Because you can learn from them. Well, even though you may not think that this applies to you the more you learn Torah, the more you learn about the behavior of the to the king, the more you realize if the Torah that you're learning is actually working or not. If your wife complained about you being stingy, you being angry, you being arrogant before you started learning Torah and she's still complaining about that 5, 10 YEARS LATER, GUESS WHAT? ALL OF THE Torah that YOU HAVE LEARNED HASN'T WORKED. BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT APPLYING IT TO YOURSELF. IF YOUR husband is was complaining about you being immodest, immoral, uh you know, in in certain ways, the way you behave, the way you communicate, or he's uh your angry, or you're moody, or whatever it is, he complain about you. 10 years ago before you started learning Torah, AND HE'S STILL COMPLAINING ABOUT THAT NOW, GUESS WHAT? IT'S NOT WORKING. BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT APPLYING it to yourself. You're only applying it to the parts you want. You're applying it to mikveh. You're applying it to keep Shabbat. Taking a vacation once a week. You're applying it to your new style of clothing. But if you're not applying it to your behavior, guess what? It's not working. The Torah is supposed to make us better. Not change us. You're still the same person, but a better version. If you're not becoming a better version of yourself, that means you're not paying attention. That means that the Torah that you're learning, even if you're learning 10 hours of lectures a day, but you're still a stingy person, you're still an angry person, you're still an arrogant person, you still don't care, you still don't believe, you still have all of the same issues, then guess what? It's no different than listening to music. Nothing changes. It's time people started reflecting, especially those that have actually been watching the lectures for years. It's not because of the speaker. Cuz sometimes a speaker can tell you all the things you need to do. But as the in Masechet Shabbat says, "EIN ADAM RO'EH CHOVA BE'ATZMO." A PERSON DOES NOT see the obligation themself. The speaker is talking about don't be arrogant, don't be stingy, don't be evil, don't cheat, DON'T LIE, ALL THE THINGS THAT you're supposed to warn people from doing things. But you are watching and saying, "Yeah, you know those cheaters? Shh. Terrible people." Even though he's cheating himself. Oh, you know those liars? Yeah, I hate liars. Even though he just lied to his wife and kids about where he was 10 minutes ago. HE DOESN'T APPLY IT to himself. A but I CAME THE WHOLE POINT OF A toy is to apply it to ourselves in every single aspect. And even though we cannot do everything on day one, we can do something. And we can do something more the next day. And we can do something more the next day. And something more the next day. And if you continue applying everything you're learning to the best of your ability, guess what? If you try, Hakadosh Baruch Hu will help you. Just like the says in Pirkei Avot, "A body tell me saying be a dough." Somebody that LOOKS TO BECOME PURIFIED, Hakadosh Baruch Hu will help him. But a body tell me putting low, but somebody is looking to become impure, Hashem will open the door for him. When somebody wants to make Jewish women sin, Hakadosh Baruch Hu will OPEN THE DOOR. GO. YOU WANT TO BECOME THE SO-CALLED GETTING GIRL, FLASH BUTCH GIRL? GUESS WHAT? YOU WANT TO MAKE YOURSELF FAMOUS and make it seem as if you're doing a mitzvah? I'll make you famous, Hashem says. A famous sinner. A famous rasha'it. A famous person that lost their olam haba in public. You'll be famous. Titus was famous, also. Haman was famous. Pharaoh was famous. A lot of famous people. You want to be famous? Go. You want to even make pretend like you care about the mitzvah of THE TORAH? I'LL MAKE YOU FAMOUS. YOU WANT TO TELL JEWISH WOMEN THAT THEY CAN MARRY NON-JEWS BECAUSE IT'S DIFFICULT TO GET DIVORCED IN THE JEWISH BRO. YOU WANT to change the Torah, reform it in the name of the rabbis THAT SUPPORTED YOU? I'LL MAKE YOU FAMOUS, Hashem says. No problem. No problem. There are many people that do all type of what we call combinot. They try to beat the system. They try to convince people to give to one thing, but in reality they're giving to something else. They try to tell people you're helping this cause, but in reality you're helping something else. David Hamel says, don't think that Hakadosh Baruch Hu didn't notice you lied. Don't think that Hakadosh Baruch Hu did not notice that you lied. David Hamel says in Psalm chapter 85 verse 12, "Emet merets titsmach." The emet, the truth, even if you cover it with all the dirt in the world, eventually it'll rise. Eventually it'll rise. How do you know if SOMETHING IS REALLY GOOD? What fruits DOES IT CREATE? WHAT fruits does it create? If you're teaching Torah, but your students are reshaim, your students are heretics, your students are evil people, guess what? The teachers are reshaim, too. But if you're teaching wicked people Torah, and they become good, guess what? That also shows that the the teacher is good, too. What is the fruits that you're creating? In my own dear Rav's sefer, Ach Ot Ve'Achavah Yisrael in volume number four, we're now up to volume number seven is coming out soon, b'ezrat Hashem. We have number six still left in the store. In volume number four, one of the questions he asked he was asked from a person in Canada. In Semon 25, was about a Torah teacher that claimed all you need to do in this generation is just learn Torah. You don't have to worry about action. You don't have to worry about learning from Tzadikkim. You don't even have to worry about learning doing mitzvot. You just have to learn Torah. Is this true? And Reb Ephraim went source after source addressing this nonsense claim of this false teacher from Canada. And one of the sources was what the Gemara says in Maseches Yevamos. And the Ela Torah, gam Torah ennu. A person that says, "I ONLY HAVE TORAH. THAT'S ALL I CARE ABOUT." Even the Torah he doesn't have. Why? There's no such thing as I only have Torah. You have to fulfill the Torah. You can't just learn Torah. The Torah is there to be fulfilled. La'asot, to do. Hashem didn't just give us a book for us to become, you know, very intellectual. To become uh elevated intellectually. No. He didn't give us a Torah for us to be very very excited about and and and very No. Give us to do instructions. Torah means instructions. Instructions to do. If you're learning Torah and it's not causing you to change your behavior, then there is something wrong. Not with the Torah, with you. If you're not becoming a better quality person, if you're not becoming closer to Hashem, if you're not becoming someone that has more emunah in Hashem that he runs the world, if you're not becoming someone that has more bitachon that everything that's happening in your life, no matter how it looks, whether it looks good or looks bad, is always for your best interest, then you're missing a key part of the Torah. It's supposed to change. It's supposed to change you. Not by changing you to a different person, but making you a better version of yourself. Making you a better version of yourself. And the Chachamim say, "How do we know if somebody is on the way to becoming a better version of himself? By his actions. If we only see him learning Torah, he went to Yeshiva, she went to seminary, and then after they finish Yeshiva, they finish seminary, they go live life as a Jew, they get married to Jewish people, they have kids that are Jewish kids, they send them to the Yeshiva, but you see them in unethical businesses, you see them little by little becoming less modest, you see them being very mean to some people, being Guess what? That Torah that you learned, it didn't help you. Why? You're not applying it to your life. You're not applying it to your life. The Torah is something that needs to be applied to life on a day-to-day basis. And if you think, "Oh, I learned Torah, but that's enough." It's not enough. Because the fruits that will come out of you are either going to be beautiful, delicious fruits of righteousness, or they're going to be rotten fruits. And therefore, all of these stories that we keep hearing about these ugly stories that are coming out these are not new. These are old news that you didn't know about. You see the prophet Isaiah chapter 14 verse 29 says "Ki meshoresh nachash yetze tzefa." From the root or the inwards of the nachash, the snake another snake will come. What does it mean? Simply put if you have a snake and after some time he lays eggs or she lays eggs. Now those eggs look like any other eggs. BUT GUESS WHAT? CHICKENS ARE NOT COMING OUT OF THAT. Geese are not coming out of those eggs. What's it GOING TO BE? SNAKES. WHY? From a snake come snakes. >> [snorts] >> If the beginning of your act that is painted with kindness, that is painted with falsehood, that is painted with all types of things that you're really not. But you're doing it in order to manipulate people, to give to you, to do business with you. So you fooled some people. You fooled a lot of people to doing business with you, to supporting you to listen to you. Even though you had a snake in your hand, you said "No, no, no, this snake he only lays eggs that are going to be geese and doves and eventually everyone's going to see that the fruit of your labor is other snakes. Why? Cuz you're a snake. So, don't be surprised if you see some of these rotten stories. They were rotten from the beginning. You just didn't know about it. If you hear about somebody that's a businessman and now all of a sudden he's caught as a Ponzi schemer, he stole hundreds of millions of dollars. Guess what? He was a thief already from the beginning. He didn't just become a thief when they caught him. He's been a THIEF THE WHOLE TIME. AND IF YOU CHECK ENOUGH BACKGROUND, YOU'LL SEE that he was a thief even as a child usually. IF YOU FIND OUT, "OH, THIS woman cheated." Guess what? It's not the first time. It's just the first time she got caught. So, all of these stories that the media likes to make it seem as if it's only the Jewish people sin, only the Jewish people make but it's not. There's not a second that goes by without some type of crime, hideous crime, that happens in the non-Jewish world. If they had the level of crime that we have in our Jewish communities, they would be considered as if they're righteous among the nations. They forgot when they're trying to spend all of their energy hating us, they somehow forget that America is the only place on planet Earth that has a school shooting averaged every week. They forgot that in the secular world, there's more crime in a single week than the Jewish world in an entire year. They forgot that Ponzi schemes, bank robberies, murders, rapes, pedophilia, all of these horrible things happen every second. But, they want to remind us that we did bad, too. Do you know why? It's not because they want to remind us. It's because Hashem is sending them to remind us. Not of the fact that we did a crime. We knew we did a crime from day one if we did it. A person that steals knows he's a thief from day one. A person that's a liar knows that he's A LIAR FROM DAY ONE. A PERSON THAT'S A CRIMINAL knows that he's a criminal from day one. So, what is Hashem sending THE TO GO AND AND REMIND them of what? To remind you that the reason why you are in this situation is because you abandoned the Torah. You did not treat the Torah as a book of instructions from God, but rather you treat it as simply a book that's on the shelf that you tell people you follow. You did not represent Judaism. You represented yourself. So, for all of the non-Jews that are watching Jewish criminals in the media, they're not representators of the Jewish people. They're representators of themselves. Because Judaism is based on the Torah. And the Torah tells us to do good, not to do evil. If you see a Jew that's doing things that are against humanity, that means it's also against the Torah. If you see a Jew that's stealing, killing, doing anything that's against humanity, hurting the public, in business and otherwise, know for sure that whether he has peyot that are 50 times longer than mine or not and he has a kippah that reaches the heavens, he's not representing Judaism. He's representing himself. She's representing herself. Because our holy Torah is the word of God. God doesn't make mistakes. He gave us clear instructions. When we follow those instructions, we are the best thing that the world has. There is no other nation that even comes close to how good the Jewish people are as a benefit to society. When we follow the Torah. When we don't follow the Torah, unfortunately, Malachi Vibe itself, your conquerors, your destroyers will come from within you. So, now Hakadosh Baruch Hu is sending the non-Jewish world to remind us that we abandoned him, that we abandoned this Torah. And there's a new ugly story coming out on a daily basis. Rabotai Karim, these ugly stories have been ugly from day one. Someone decided to ignore it and let it be ugly, but unknown. Someone decided to give it cuffs hood, fake cuffs hood, benefit of the doubt that maybe one day it'll turn good. And it didn't turn good. The eggs of the snake turned into snakes. Someone decided that they don't want to speak up and cause a machloket. And now we have a disaster. So, you see Rabotai, every community has its problems. Every community has its fakers, its problem people, it's you. Every community has this stuff. But not every community has the holy Torah as an instruction for us to do teshuvah. How do we do teshuvah? We start applying what the Torah says to our lives. When Hashem says to do something, we do it. When we see or we hear a story about one of the righteous people that lived in the previous generations, whether it's 30 years ago or 3,000 years ago, we have to learn from that story something that would apply to our lives today. That's a reason why Hashem is sending you that story today. He's sending you that story today so you can apply it to your life today. Don't learn stories just for the emotional benefit. Learn stories for something that's going to actually help you. You can apply it to your life. The Hovot Halevavot is telling us our holy sages told stories of their rabbis. Because they themselves, as holy and great as they were, they still realized they need to become better. They can become better. And if they thought that they could become better, then needless to say we can, too. And all of those horrible things that are happening, whether it's the Yeshivot that are being arrested just because they're religious by the Zionist police that has now joined forces with the army in Israel, where literally if you called to complain about somebody a house, if they find out that you, the complainer, are religious Yeshiva Bahur, they come and arrest you instead of the thief. So, we're living in times that are upside down. Why is Hashem doing all of this to us? Because we did it to ourself. We did it to ourselves. Those among us that have been learning Torah in Yeshiva and Kolel, it's good. But it's not enough. You have to start taking that knowledge that you got from Yeshiva and Kollel and help your fellow Jews that don't know anything. And if you don't know how to teach, then use other resources to help. Donate money to people that do know how to teach. Donate time, distribute material, do something to do kindness for your fellow Jews even if you don't consider them your fellow Jews. The fact that we have 80% of Am Yisrael not keeping Shabbat and most religious Jews don't really care. That in itself is a disaster that is warranting all of the things that are happening to the religious community. We have to do better. Those that are not keeping, you have to choose which side you're on. Either way you'll be judged as Jew. But you could either like you're you're you're a and you're like one of the nations and you also hate the religious people and then eventually realize that the non-Jews also hate you, too, even if you're not religious. In fact, they hate you more. Or you can at the very least live as a Jew and end up getting the protection that the righteous Jews will end up getting when Mashiach comes. One way or the other, Abba Tayik Karim, all of us can start taking the Torah that we have and apply it to our life, become better versions of ourselves, start sanctifying Hashem's name, start living for Kiddush Hashem. So at the very least, we have enough Kiddush Hashem to silence some of the chillul Hashem that's coming out from the flat bush girls of the world and other scammers out there that are pretending to represent Judaism in their fake way. But I got to tell you, the wicked people are not going to stop. It's going to get worse. The only thing we can do about it is we can get better. Be as it may, we'll get better. We'll encourage others to get better. Do chuvah and sanctify his name no less than the generations before us. Thank you very much for learning with me. May bless each and every one of us with success and sanctify his name more today than ever before. Anyone that wants to partner with us in sanctifying his name by distributing his torah, distributing all of his torah in different ways, the books, the cards, the USBs, and all the other wonderful things that we're doing in so many different languages, you could donate on our website .org. And you could help us whether you want to donate with stock or cryptocurrency or credit card or even if you want to send jewelry. Whatever it is, we appreciate it. Whatever help you can give us, we will use it to sanctify his name. And anyone that's interested in seeing the wonderful report that we have published on on Candid that got us the uh three years in a row of platinum, which is the highest level, can go to that website. We have links on our website to show you and you could see that when you donate to the sham, you're donating to publicize torah. And that's why it's so successful. Thank you very much. We'll learn again later this week. 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 financial program transparency of platinum. Baruch Hashem, for the third year in a row, Be'ezrat Hashem 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 re-proven every single year. Most nonprofits our size don't even apply. The documentation is demanding, the accountabilities 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 Sefarim by Rabbi Ephraim Kachlon 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 Ashrei Yatzar and USB CDs. All of this, Baruch 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 3 years in a row proves it's how we actually operate. When you give Be'ezrat 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 kiruvstore.org where people can order free books and other materials but in addition to that, we also have real-time numbers of what we've done. So, you can 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 beezratashem.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. Thank you for the 3 years of trust, and beezratashem, we keep going. When we do this, we do this together.