Do I still have free choice? Does anyone have free choice in this world? - Rabbi Alon Anava

the risks. No, now it's harder. Now it's even harder. I did I didn't lose my my free choice because the more the more you climb, the harder it gets. You ever saw these piles of uh cards that they go like that? The more you go higher, the more risk it is to fall and you move a little bit, the whole thing falls. The higher you grow in the spiritual level, the high harder it is to maintain it. Now in my particular case, I'm back into a body for 28 years. I fed my Oh, I gave him the best of the best. Now he's cashing in. So I I I I have a little advantage. But even the fact that I know the consequences, it doesn't make it easier. It makes me smarter because I can say, "Okay, I don't want to do it." But when the wants to strike, he's going to strike. Doesn't matter who you are, he's going to strike. David failed. So me 100 times more. When your soul is in your body, you can't count on anything. And you have to pray to Hashem 50 times a day to assist you. It's called if you don't have Hashem's help, no force in the world. You can't stand in front of the You must have Hashem's assistance. That's why we pray in the morning. That's it. Wait. He was waiting very patiently. All right. So, I wanted to ask um it's been bothering you for a while. Based on what you said that when you went up, it didn't take away from your free will, right? Why didn't Hashem create the system that we all had an experience to be able to see uh the truth clearly and then come and then apply ourselves to it? Because like this in the world so many people are not are not naturally a rush. They just never it's ignorance. Their ignorance creates you know it bothers me for a while. I never got a really good answer. Maybe based on you know what happened to you. Do you have a a The thing is that you you also had that experience. You just don't remember it. Everybody had that experience. Why didn't Hashem program it that we do remember it? You said cuz then then there's not going to be a free will. Right. But you said it didn't take away from your will that you saw whatever you saw. Very few people have this to go through something like a near-death experience to see something and come back. If Hashem would give everybody the same thing that there wouldn't be the concept of free will and then the whole point there's no point of the world without the free will. The free will was created because Hashem wants you to choose between this and this. Now if I'm going to now come and give you I'm going to hold two keys. This keys is for the Ferrari and these keys is for the 89 Toyota. Is there free wheel here? No. You're going to take the keys of the Ferrari with no question. Why? Because this is a $200,000 car. This is a car that you will have to pay me to drive it. Okay? So, there's no free will here. Free will kicks in when two things are exactly the same. Now, I don't know what's the difference between this and this. That's the free will. Hashem wants to give you a reward. He wants to make you work for your reward. And he wants you to choose. You choose. You want this, you want this, right? But I'm saying let's we still have the the the goof, right? The body naturally pulls a person down. So regardless if you would see you said for yourself, right? You there's still a natural. The thing is that you said you gave yourself your own answer. You said the goof pulls you down. You know when the goof is going to pull you down? The body is when you let it pull you down. The whole point is God put you a a pure soul in a body in a nephesh Bit so you will take your powers and elevate that the goof will not pull you down rather that your goof is going to take you to the synagogue. That's the whole point. The whole point why you are here is not to fix your soul. Your soul is fine. Exactly how you said before. We are not hashem. Our soul is pure before we jump down to this world. We see everything. We get the point, you get hired and then you forget everything. Your point in this world is to take the body to take the goof and to elevate it to a point that your body wakes up 6:00 in the morning and you just want to go to pray at 6:00 in the morning and you want to train your nephew to eat only kosher food and when you look at a woman doesn't bother me at all and I need to do this and then this this is your job in this world. Very few people would lose their because if they would lose it what's the point of them being here only at sadikur there's levels of of sadikim only at sadik gamur means that's it he killed his he already achieved that level he doesn't have a but the majority of people are not even even close to that level so it doesn't matter if some one out of a 100 thousand has a near-death experience and he all the people that I spoke to that had a near-death experience They all said the same thing. Yes, I saw. I got burnt. Now I have a little bit of extra fear, but I'm back home. I'm back in a body. My body now has a lot of desires and I have an effic. So yes, I do have a little bit of a advantage. But with the advantage comes a disadvantage. Yeah, a lot of people tell you, "Oh, I envy you because you now it's easy for you to be to be religious." No, with this advantage comes also a big disadvantage. Now, every little thing I'm like, you know, I I I can't even, you know, do I have a mistake now? You know, it says is particular with like in the the the the thickness of a hair. The easiest way to explain it, I have two kids. I have six, but I have two boys. I have three boys and three girls. Two of the boys are very close in age. One of them doesn't have an alarm clock. He wakes up at 6:00 in the morning. He's already dressed waiting to Yeshiva. He's the first one downstairs waiting for the bus. He comes home, does his homemakers straight A everything. I don't even tell him you want to go to you want. He comes to me with a book. Okay, Aba, we got to learn our Mishna. No problems. Okay, the other one complete opposite in the morning. Wake up. Wake up. you know he's going to give me any excuse in the book I'm tired my leg hurts my toas hurts you know to get him to sit down to do homework it's impossible to shle him to sh now if the first one will do some little mistake what you I don't expecting you to do it when the other one the one that doesn't like waking up in the morning suddenly does something good what I can't believe it. So, Hashem, we are like this in the eyes of Hashem. Some people, Hashem is looking at them and you just blink the wrong way. Hashem, what? How did you do it from me? I'm not expecting that. For me, I'm expecting an arrow from him. Okay. So, he didn't come to a minion this morning. I know he has a this big. Remember, how can Hashem judge somebody? Let's say you never had your experience. You said you went up and Hashem was telling you did this wrong, this wrong, this wrong. How can you be judged? You never in your life learned you can't do this on Shabbat. You can't do that on Shabbat. What's the judgment if you never knew something? Like I'm gonna judge you for I'm going to stop you now because they first of all, Hashem didn't judge me for anything. Hashem just sits there and look. But to answer your question, I don't know if you were in one of the lectures. And if you were, maybe you didn't hear me saying that. They only judge me for what I knew. only for what I know. They didn't tell me, "Oh, you made coffee on Shabbat. This is called bishul. You can't cook on Shabbat." They didn't tell me that. You're not allowed to rip letters on Shabbat. They didn't show me that I'm ripping the paper. So, if you did everything that you knew was right as a person who was not religious in the same place as Mosha. No. No. What they showed me is that I stole. You don't need the Torah to to know if to steal or not to steal. They showed me that I cheated, that I cursed, that I pushed. I'll tell you what was my problem. My problem was that I grew up in Israel. In Israel, you can't not know. I hated religious people and Hashem should have mercy on me. I used to barbecue pork on Yum Kipur to annoy my neighbors. That's how I was now. I knew if I wouldn't know, I can't come up to Sham and says, "I'm so Nobody told me. Come on. Nobody told you. You did it on purpose. So whatever I knew, they told me, you know, you knew. And whatever the Torah is not talking about it, not to steal, not to, you know, I was the bully of the of the class class. If somebody would come in my way, I would I was the one who's making fun of everybody. And I was big and strong. Nobody wanted to mess with me. I would in, you know, insult people in front of everybody. I would get a kick out of it. Now, I'm not saying it to like I'm saying it to you. Understand, you know, where I came from that they're telling me that you don't need the Torah. You don't need to be a religious person or to go to yeshiva, not to make fun of people, not to steal, not to cheat, not to lie. You don't need the Torah. They didn't show me anything that I have to learn in Yeshiva. He only showed me the things that I knew cuz I knew that I am kipur in order to eat because I had many religious papers and they told me kipur today you can't eat now I can't come up to shim and say hey it's not fair I'm because my parents didn't teach me but another hund other people taught you shut up I have a question so let's say all the people in Israel are they considered students in Israel or no I I don't know no no no look you can you can you can on any Jew and say, you know, he doesn't know and yeah, you can you should on any Jews it means to to to not only judge favorably but not to say out loud, oh yeah, he knew and then there's a reality is that a lot of people go under they put themselves under the umbrella of fine put yourself but you have to be true to yourself. So if you know something is not permitted, you can't come and say I didn't know. You know what I mean? Now in Israel, I don't know. There's a lot of people in America that also know. If you grew in Alaska on a mountain, okay, no, I'll give you 90% for free because you really don't know. In Israel, I can't say who's tinoxba, who's not because you know a lot of people they get uh I don't even know how they call them in Israel, but they get uh religious education of yeshiva, but they're not really religious. They actually learn. I have a friend who knows. He knows. He's not religious. He doesn't know. Suto. Yeah. In high school I learned it because it was a um you know in Israel there's no su it's like a something whatever whatever doesn't matter the definition. Now what was with a person like this you're already learning it and you're not practicing it. So I I'm not the one to judge who's not is asking about me. In my particular case, what I knew they pointed out very simple don't don't pretend you're so good. But the judgment on those things higher meaning you know like what you should have known does it become more okay here you have a different problem. You have a to learn Torah. So then you come and say oh I didn't know. What do you mean you didn't know? You have a you have a to learn. It can come and backfire if at you. You know what I mean? How the severity the severity is not necessarily how much you know, how much you don't know. In my I can only talk in my particular case that what was pointed in my case is things that I knew and 90% of them were things between me and another person, cheating on other people, stealing from other people, cursing other people, beating people up, things between you and me. I don't need the Torah to be a normal person. Take the the a nice gentile. He's going to tell you it's not the right thing to cheat in business. I'm sorry. It's not the right thing to curse. So if you would have done perfect all the things that you knew all of them perfectly, then you'd be in the same place like you did everything to your capacity. Yes and no. But on the other hand, you have to understand like this. A person doesn't just born in this world randomly. Then she came back down to the world. It was we all reincarnated. So when you were standing in the heavenly courts and they decided to reincarnate you depending on your mitzvot if you had a lot of mitzvot a lot of they told you you know what we want to help you. So you have to fix the sin of we're going to put you know what's all the forbidden relations we're going to put you in a religious family where you grow up in yeshiva and you never mingle with girls. because you don't even know what girls steal when you're 20. We're going to make it easy on you. Or you have to fix the sin of stealing. We'll put you in a very rich family. You'll never miss anything. You're not going to have the tava to steal. A different soul can come and say, "Oh, wait a minute. You were so bad and you failed so many times in stealing. We're going to put you with a yet this big for stealing and all your life your will be to steal." Now you're going to work hard for it. This is what our sages say person who comes to do he gets a lot of assistance from above. But the same place it also says if I'm going to do a sin and I'm going to right away do count on my chuva. It's called I'm going to now make the sin tomorrow I'll do the chuva and must speak. Now it doesn't mean that the chuv are closed. It just means you have no assistance which means that your yet is going to work overtime with a few more agents. They're saying you we're not helping. So you're not randomly thrown thrown in this world. If you thrown in this world, it's precise from the heavenly court why you went where you went. And there's no such a thing like you said I'm going to reach my capacity because every person every person wherever he is before he gets born in the womb he's sitting in the mother's womb for 9 months an angel is his kut he has an angel teaching him the entire Torah not only that he's teaching him the entire Torah he's giving him a tour of how his life was going to look he's taking him everywhere he's showing him he's showing him here you're going to get born here is going to be your bitzvah here you're going to get married here you're going to live here's your grave he's showing him the grave there's no time in shamine and then you know the story the soul goes out satan hits him on his face makes him forget everything that's it the same angel who's waiting right when the person leaves the soul leaves the the soul leaves the body that angel is standing right there hi wow remember me I look familiar right then you remember everything the thing is that that soul sends you messages. I mean that angel all your life. All your life you get thousands of messages from shamine to move you. Hey, hey, hey, don't come here. Don't come this. But you never know when it's a good message and when it's not. That's a whole different story. Right now he's asking if a person feels that he reaches his capacity. You can't reach your capacity and say I did the to the maximum of my ability because first of all you know till here will send you a messenger and tell you oh by the way you're not supposed to do that whether you will accept it or not that's a different thing today in the morning I was in the mikvah and I see a man a yamaka he's in the mikvah that's already already an advanced stage and he puts on his left chew on ties it. Then he puts his right shoe on. No, sorry. He put his right shoe on and he tied it. Then he put his left shoe on and tied it. Told him you know just by you know you have to put your right shoe on then you put your left shoe on then you tie your left shoe on then you tie your right shoe on. You know I'm not saying insult or something. I'm just I just noticed this particular man looked at me and he's like thank you for reminding me. You know, I I remember learning it 20 years ago. I totally forgot. I I didn't even notice. Yeah, I didn't even notice. Thank you so much. Now, did he reach his capacity? No, he forgot something. And maybe he didn't know. Could be that he would be the first time that he ever heard it and he' be like, you know what? Wow, thank you for telling me. I'm still going to start doing it. Hashem constantly sends you people. That's what says Hashem is not going to leave you alone for one second. you reached your capacity right away. You're going to get somebody who comes and tells you you have to do this, this is not allowed, now you have to do that. So you can't come to the heavenly court and says I'm very sorry I reached my capacity cuz Hashem will constantly send you more and more and more. From what he said before, you cannot come to shayim and and sue and say, you know that I didn't know cuz they're going to come and tell you the first law is that you have to learn Torah. You have to if you would learn Torah you would know don't complain now so you know in my case I was such a that when I went to the heavenly court I didn't have any I didn't I wasn't able to negotiate or the reality is that every person comes down to the world doesn't matter who he is he's going to have a he's going to have a I know great great rabbis they have a they're a human being and the more you climb the more That's will climb with you because it's not fair that if you start in boxing in whether you call it uh featherweight. No, no, no, no. It's not what I'm trying to say. If you start in boxing, you featherweight now. So you 60 lb, the other guy's 60 lb. Then you gain weight. Now you become 80 lb. And then you go and you become suddenly 200 lb. They're not going to put you in a ring with a 60 lb. You're going to knock him out in one one shot. You 200 lb, your appointment will be 200 lb. You grow in Torah, your grows with you. It's not going to be fair that you're like so good in in in your and is like, you know, so you grow your grows with you and you will never pass him. You'll never this is levels that we don't we don't relate to these levels. So once Mashiach will come, he's going to he's going to kill him. How you going to get married? That's the first thing. How do you get married? Have kids. You're going to do it like did it without. When Mashia will come, what? When Mashia will come, he's going to There's not going to be any. That's why you're not going to hate. There's not going to be jealousy. There's not going to be disease. There's not going to be death. There's not going to be nothing. Right away. What about the beta mikdash? Right away. Beta mdash comes. Some people say it's going to fall or some people say that. I don't know. I don't have has to build it physically. No. Everybody says the same thing. Beta mikdash. The third beta mikdash is built by Hashem that everybody says how it's going to come down to the world. That doesn't I don't care how it comes as long as it comes. But the first two the first two temples were destroyed because a man built it. The third beta mikdashm says this time I'm going to build it. It will never be destroyed. Which means it's built in shamim if it's going to come down with a crane or what? I don't care how it comes. I really don't. I'll stand with my iPhone taking the video like this and putting on Facebook. Look, look. So how it happens, I don't care. But the reality is every there's no maket. Beta mdash is built by hashem and shm. There's no maket here. Can you tell us some of the like the first like five step five steps? Let's say what's going to happen like when mashia comes like if you know signs before like right now. Yeah. Okay. Hold on for a second. What's your question? One uh let's say like about the thing you talking about the messages. Messages like let's say I wanted to go to certain yeshiva right and all of a sudden I see like these three people they just start mentioning this yeshiva. I feel like it's a sign, but I don't know if it's a good sign or a bad sign, and the person never knows. Okay? So, how can you ever differentiate what's a good sign, what's a bad sign? It could be a sign from the No. Okay. So, the Torah, the Torah teaches you, right? You know this Mishna, you don't know this Mishnah. Torah tells you, make yourself a rabbi and you're not going to have any doubts. Something comes, you go to your rabbi, you already tell your rabbi, this is the opportunity I have. the rabbi knows you, the rabbi knows that, then the rabbi knows this. He tells you it's not good. Move on. Or your rabbi tells you it's fine. That's why you have to always have a rabbi. You can't say I I'm going to do it by myself. I met not too long ago somebody he told me I'm last year. I'm becoming very religious. I told him that's amazing. Where where do you learn? Told me I know I watch videos on YouTube. I told him YouTube is not of yeshiva. YouTube. You watch a few videos and that's it. You need to learn. You have to go to Shiva. You can't learn on YouTube. YouTube is not a rabbi. It's good. I also put you videos on YouTube. It's good. When you borrow you, it better to watch on YouTube videos than to look look at nonsense. You have to go to yeshiva. You need a rav you need a rabbi that knows you. He he he he understands you. He knows everything about you and he kind of guides you. Everybody has a love. So if you want to know if the message is good or bad, you go to your and you tell him this is this is the information that I got. Can be a yeshiva, can be a shid, can be a place to live, a business. That's why you you don't make a a decision by yourself. But if you really want to make it by yourself, let's say your tells you something and you're not happy with the answer. First of all, you have to if you appoint yourself, you have to be battel to the you have to listen. The Ra tells you this, you listen. That's what the rabbi told me. But if you don't have that opportunity, you have to just see for yourself. And the easiest way to see if it's good or bad, look at what's going to be the result. If the result is going to be positive, then it's a good thing. The result is going to be negative. That's your answer. You have to look three steps forward. Be true. Make a calculations. If I go here, here, here, and here, this is what's going to be the result. If I go to that direction, what's going to be the result? 1 + 1. If it's two, it's good. If it's three, it's not good.