A Ba'al Teshuva, A Convert, and Little Ovadia Reuven (Brit Mila Special)

[Music] n okay first of all i' like to thank everyone for coming hasem continues to perform miracles for us where uh it wasn't too long ago we didn't even know whether the Tor was real whether hem was real whether anything in life was real and today was Ed by amazing students our amazing family amazing Kal with two children now that observe on a daily basis and uh like said to call you're giving me too much so in of my new son oad I I'd like to say a few things and also thank my parents for uh coming here for holding all of this making all of this happen not only bringing us to the world but supporting us all the way till today thank my brothers from coming from all over the country amazing with their families with kids only celebrations we see each other we celebrate brother brother my amazing kala who has been with me for almost 15 years now fighting the battles whether it was on Wall Street or it was uh the fight for the kashem that we fight every single day my amazing kalaz never stopped giving she continues to give the biggest sadik I've ever met and mamash it's a it's truly amazing that uh she's still with me and [Applause] also like to thank all of you all of my students my friends family all of you for coming it's truly amazing to see all of you we had the uh honor and the to have two sets of students get married in the last week so today after I finish talking we'll also do for them and the interesting part and with we'll try to connect it to why we picked the name of now in one set of the students we have a BAL Chua that's actually was my first student My First Student in Florida was Nissan first year we ever recorded was just me and him and I told him Nissan Nissan started it [Applause] all and really in the beginning neither one of us knew what we were doing I knew a few things in the Torah not that I know that much now but I knew a few things and was also new I told him listen I'm going to tell you what God Said based on what it's written over here based on what kazal says and you do whatever you want not going to judge you you don't want to do it do it I'm going to tell you what he says and you decide for yourself and we started the first you were just me and him and originally it was just supposed to be just me and him and maybe some other people we weren't really supposed to record it but why did we record it cuz at that time my father continue have he uh he actually was in the hospital and he um he told me listen I want to uh I want to see your sh I heard you doing a sh I want to see your sh so I said okay so I'll record it so I took my iPad I recorded it and uh now you have to send it I thought I could email it but the file was too big so I figured okay let me try to do this let me try to do this I couldn't figure out any other way you know what easiest way to do it is put on YouTube and just send him the link so that's what I did I put it on YouTube and I sent him the link and that was really the only plan was for him to watch it maybe my brothers would watch it or something but that's it but after a week I saw that there's other people watching there's more than one click like wow other people maybe 15 20 clicks 20 people watch this sh and some people even commented like oh wow this actually helped other people so we said okay let's record the next sh andash two and a half years later we're reaching over 200,000 people a week 200,000 people a week from all over the world from Australia to uh America all over the country all over the world we even have people in Africa in Tahiti in Bali and all these I even have people in Afghanistan bbai m in bombai I mean it's unbelievable and we have amazing people in India we have and we have amazing people like some of our students that are helping us get Reach people spread it on the internet do everything they can each one of these helpers there's so many of them that Ken will have many many more even but they continue to publicize the Torah with her it's Facebook or it's Twitter or it's this or it's that we're constantly reaching more and more people and there's constantly more messages and more people doing chuva more people converting more people getting closer and closer to and it's changing their life and this is all teamwork but of course all of it starts with that's what we call the company the organization because it's all about so we have the first student that started it all and as the r said earlier today that when first person that shows up the Manan the first person he gets the for the entire Manan it's like he pray 10 times is Aug we've learned much from him we contined to learn from him we had the and thanks to my father to bring him here to be the to give us some him and his raban have really influenced our life in such a big way it's just honestly just sit next to him you do chuva you don't have to do anything just sit next to him you do chuva amazing so you learn things just by listening to what he says regular conversation and that's actually what thear says gar says aside from learning from the book and aside from learning from the lectures it's very important for each person to connect themselves to sadik and stay next to him just listen to how he handles his life how he goes to the store how he treats his kids how he treats his wife even how he goes to the bathroom because you have to be modest you have to be modest when you go to the bathroom you can't be like a animal so when you sit next to on have is such amazing midot you already do CH at least one or two midot every two minutes so now this was one set of students two and a half years ago he told me that the uh he wants to get married and we had the privilege to see the wedding just in yesterday yesterday had the wedding and it's amazing the funny thing is about this wedding Thea is that they tell me that they've been next door neighbors the whole time they just never knew each other existed until hasem wanted them to see it just like when hag the shahu when she went to the desert she started crying to hem there's no water soem said send her Angels said look there's a well over here and kazal say you know the well was always there Hashem didn't create a well it was right there the whole time but she didn't see it why cuz you could only see things if hasem allows it could be right next to you but you can't see it sometimes so you have to have the to see even something that's right in front of you the other couple both amazing students one B one a convert and this is the one that I told you about that we went to the bed the bedine was so impressed at how much she knew that they kept asking a question they said you already you already passed the test but we just want to know how much you know and and they continued asking 5 minutes later she was already finished but they continued asking her questions that would became like a for an hour and a half an hour and a half sitting with the asking questions just to see how much he knows and after we finish the conversion an amazing day we all went to go pray what is she doing I see she's reading a book what book find me find me people like this find me more people like this you know it's it's amazing she's reading after the conversion you know after convers you want to relax go to sleep I don't know go celebrate what you doing the sadik that's with us also now he actually's working with us helping us on a daily basis so we have privilege to see and be part of amazing lives amazing chuva stories now many people that know the name of vya immediately think of who we lost just a few years ago and everyone knows whether you're ashkanazi or Safari or whatever you are everyone knows everyone agrees he was one of the Giants of giants one of the Giants of all generations but there's also a prophet Oya and many people don't know the story of prophet aadya because it's not such a big book it's actually in your basic tanak maybe one page two pages it's one NE it's one prophecy of what's going to happen at the end of times of how Hashem is going to punish the enemies of Israel the enemies of Israel we have many enemies we've collected through the last few thousand years and Hashem is told aadya the prophet aadya how he's going to punish them but who is this aadya why did he get such aot to become a prophet why did he get just a to have one of the 24 books in the Torah about his life I don't have a book there's no book says Jon there's no book he has a book why so vya originally wasn't Jewish aadya was actually working at the kinghood the kingdom of the IIM of the enemies where the king the wicked King decided after listening to his wife e to kill all the prophets kill all the prophets of am Isel and aadya despite being a non-jew was a general at the enemies Army but he knew the value of the Torah he knew the significance of Hashem he knew he knew he had to protect the Torah so he did what every one of us has to do every day he did something called he put his life on the line for hem and yes that's what I said every one of us has to put our life on the line for hem every day why because Hashem gave you life it's the least you can do is give him back honor his name with your life so if I took 100 prophets and he hid them putting his life on a line now the Torah doesn't forget about finances you have to feed these people so the Torah also told us that he had to go borrow money to feed these 100 prophets 100 holy prophets he had to go borrow money with interest who did he borrow money from the wicked King's son which is actually one of the ways we learn that money doesn't have any friends cuz even though his father wanted to kill everyone as soon as the son heard that he could make some money out of it he didn't tell his father bribery can even fool the wise and of course it fools the wicked every day so he borrowed money from this person eventually the time came we had to pay it back but he had no money so this wicked person came to and said listen you don't have any money I'll just take your children instead I'll take your children to become slaves now aadya if he was one of us most lik you say you know what don't take my kids don't take anything thank you very much take the 100 prophets I tried guys but I'm sorry I'm not going to give you my kids okay I love AEM up to here I love hasm I protected 100 prophets I borrowed some money but now you want to take my kids okay now no thank you take the 100 prophets oh you know I take 50 and 50 next week maybe I'll get some maybe I'll get down payment but for forem to continue to continue the lineage to continue getting getting direct messages from he gave him his children he gave him the children just to make sure that we have more prophets that we have more of a connection to and as a as a reward for this extraordinary hem blessed him with prophecy he made him a prophet said you protect the prophets measure for measure I'll make you a prophet you honor my prophets I'll make you a prophet and with that he became one of the few people that's mentioned in the Torah and we had prophecy for many many more years because of him and obviously he converted became AED now was very similar in different ways there's many in is there's many there's no shortage of there's no shortage of whether they're secular or religious there's many there many people that are wise even in the tah world even today there's many one of the sages say that even today we have people with wisdom like the gim but because they have bad mid hem doesn't show them how much wisdom they have there's many people that have wasn't alone with but what made special what what made him so special didn't just fear AEM didn't just study his Torah lived his Torah and he was zealous for hem 24 hours a day he was not only a is in his house he was not only a is in Thea was a is all the time if there was no you had to get in the way you had to bring AED back in there he had a very good job being one part of the bed in Egypt amazing job good finances a lot of cavod everything and anything he wanted he had lectures every day for a young guy one day he finds out that the Jewish hospital is selling n is is uh feeding everyone including the doctors non kosher food this to him this is ridiculous so he came to them and he said listen you obviously you have to you made a mistake maybe you have to bring kosha food so no we have to go to the board we have to go to the board of directors we had already board already 80 years ago the the biggest disaster that ever happened to Judaism is making Boards of directors because usually the boards of directors are a bunch of bunch of people don't really care about hem they just want position you want kab they want respect so that's exactly what happened is this uh Board of Directors for this uh for this hospital was a bunch of people didn't really care about hasem they just cared about Cav they cared about money so they brought it to them and said no listen kosher food is too expensive it's expensive no expensive it's just a Jewish hospital you have to feed people kosher food long story short the fight continued got to the point says listen it's either you feed these people kosher food or I am leaving the job I quit what do you quit I mean you don't have to eat the food you're not in the hospital what do you care what do you care if they eat non kosher food some of them are sick some of the doctors the doctors want to be let them be the patients don't have any choice what do you care so much that you're going to put put your job your livelihood your honor your respect on the line for them what do you care about them so much because knew and believed every single word in the Tor and he said that each and every single one of us is connected each and every single one of us is responsible for our neighbor even if we don't know his name you're Jewish he's Jewish you're responsible for what he does you can't just let him continue being a sinner without ever saying a word that's why one of the 63 in is make sure to rebuke and repr reprove your brother if you see him making a mistake whether he's or he's angry or he doesn't know how to keep kosher whatever it is you have to rebuke your brother of course it also says don't bring yourself to sin by rebuking anyone by starting to yell at them in the middle of the street or start throwing rocks at him like some crazy people do you have to rebuke him in a certain way but the point being is that you have to make sure that you say something radya didn't only say something he did something eventually quit his job they tried bringing him back they promised them that they're going to change he saw that they're not changing and eventually he left many years later [Music] he was giving shim every Shabbat at some point he was giving six seven shim every Shabbat if we do six seven shim every month it's already a miracle he did six seven shim only on Shabbat and one time he left the shoe got out of the you know finished the shoe as soon as he finished the shoe boom a ball hits him in the face and his turban falls off obviously this is not a very uh pleasing event butya picks up his hat looks at who did it he said come here for a second come he sees it's one of the neighborhood kids Troublemaker what would you do if somebody just kicked the ball in your face and most likely on purpose maybe make him eat the ball nobody says to him he sees did you eat today did you eat little boy says no I didn't eat cuz you want to eat at my house the kid said eat the one that told the story he said yeah sure I'm actually hungry oh come with me so he takes him to his house and he gives him food and he eats he says you want more says yeah I want more and he gave more food and the boy says later on I found out that I actually took his food cuz wasn't wasn't Rich was very very poor there was only enough for him and his wife and he gave him his meal he gave him his food for this little boy he doesn't even know that kicked the ball in his face so he said you're tired you want to rest maybe so okay I'll rest so he went rested Shabbat was over and says okay what do you want to do now he adopted this little boy already what do you want to do now he goes I want to I want to go to the cinema okay you have money for the cinema go no I don't have any money kids as poor as it gets was what is it one L and again like I said ra himself is poor like I'm going to give you one Le but you have to promise me that next week you make sure everyone else is over there is quiet when I'm giving a you and you come back to me and you eat with me again next week for sure yes for I'll do it okay he gave him the L he went to the cinema and the next week as soon asya comes to the Sho the boy is already ready a cake for the rav everyone's going to be quiet I'll make sure everybody's quiet over here RAV gave the sh comes out of the sh the boy is excited and waiting for having a meal with the r he doesn't even know who he's talking to he's just you R gave him food and he goes with him and he eats with him and little by little he starts learning with him and although the book this is one of uh the stories that's actually in the bio of radya the book doesn't say the name because of the honor of who this person came to be they say that the little boy became one of one of the heads of the bed de in Israel why because cared that's it all you have to do is care a little bit one of the Giants of the generations one said that the biggest that we still have till today is what one Jew sees another Jew making a sin and doesn't say anything says this because he says everyone thinks that is because maybe the asazi doesn't like the Safari or the Safari doesn't like the ashkanazi or the Lish doesn't like this no no that's not the the biggest one we still have is when we see each other not eating kosher not not doing this not doing that we don't say anything that's why because one of you knows that it's a problem someone's aab in essence what he's doing every time he turns on the car he's turning on an atomic bomb in hisa so one day he's going to get to thisa after 120 and he sees only destruction say hey what kind of is this you said in he said everybody what kind of is this destruction destruction destruction what is this the building there used to be nice building here oh yeah yeah destroyed it turned into lava instead what happened what kind of is this goes yeah you did it when and they're going to show him a movie show a movie of all the atomic bombs he ignited himself every time he turned on the car played with the phone ripped paper all the different things of Shabbat that we are not allowed to do you created yourself so now if you know you know how to keep Shabbat you're learning Shabbat you're observing Shabbat you have a friend you have a family doesn't keep Shabbat you tell them listen come eat you hungry you eat anyway right it's free don't worry I won't charge you for the food you eat anyway either way you eat whether it's Shabbat or it's Yen doesn't make a difference you eat right so come to my house and eat and once they get to your house house try to keep them there for as long as possible give him some Ching so they fall asleep till M Shabbat give him as much Co of food as possible eventually the Kos of food will turn into their blood and eventually they going to give you enough time to bring them back to hasem but sometimes you have to convince people in different ways but that was theah of regardless of how big he was regardless of the fact that he already knew more tah when he was 10 years old in probably most people in the world today when he was 10 years old his father took him to Baghdad with him and little aadya went to the K and he was sitting down with a bunch of old men over hearing their sh and uh eventually he says to them you know that uh M what you're saying right now is wrong you're not understanding the M correctly so one of the older men said hey rude little person you 10 years old going to tell us how to study one of the other ones was actually hey hold on a second his 10-year-old said that we're wrong maybe he's right how Are We Wrong how are he wrong and radya says little now 10 years old he says yeah the tosot which is one of the commentaries actually what he says and he starts reciting it by by Heart By Heart the tosot say commentary on commentary this is like you know the small print this is the small print on the small print he remembers that by heart immediately one of the older men got off the chair and started running ran out of the Yesa looking for the head RV he says to him one of the saying that's in thear where says to raanan a li came from Israel to B this little 10-year-old and the head R comes to him and he says you studying Mish just a little bit because says that you're allowed to lie about how much you know meaning to be humble to say you know less than what you really do this I also learned from Ab so he ask him how much do you know no I don't know just a few Mish what Mish did you uh learn because no nothing small small but which one tell me tell me which one goes no just a little neim just a little small little what other one what other one no just a little this one oh just a little this one and he sees that they're not letting it go so he has to keep telling him he can't lie outright you have he's trying to steer him a different way but the Rob is very very smart that he's not letting it go and little by little they just discovered that he just finished the entire sh the entire mishna says what about you finish anyar no only a little bit not muchar which just a little Bama just a little B just a little bit before you know it you already finished half the of the 10 years old and he stayed in Baghdad for the next 6 months and the people that were there who said the story eventually they all did alyah to Israel the people there said that for the next 6 months this 10-year-old aadya he was our Rabbi he would give us a sh every day 10 years old and he continued being zealous for hem continued being an is not just learning but implementing it trying to help the and trying to help the common men the little guy the little kid with a tank top playing soccer on Shabbat not really knowing what the purpose of life is the average Joe that is a runs a uh truck or delivers milk or works at a grocery store you bring all of them every night to a Sho an hour two hours three hours he would teach them and eventually he said the biggest reward I ever got in this world is seeing that their children all became all became why because he cared but sometimes caring has a cost sometimes caring and showing that you're zealous for hem that you love hem makes other people call you crazy makes other people call you fanatic makes other people want to kill you and this is actually what Rya experienced throughout us entire life they tried killing him several times they called him names they wrote articles against him even at the end of his days it got to a point when he was in his 80s one guy that never ever met him journalist famous journalist decided to write an article why should anyone listen to rad anymore he's already too old he probably forgot everything probably senile what are you going to listen to this old man for because this journalist is used to secular mentality where the gar says when someone is not connected to the Tora the older they get the more of a baby they become when someone is the older they get the wiser and sharper they become so this guy never read this so he says yeah he probably forgot everything already probably's not like he used to be so even though R never really cared about articles or anything like that he actually cared about this one he said you know what why don't you invite this guy to my house come to the Head Rob of is of Israel's house immediately the guy came and uh he says then yes you uh I saw you wrote an article about me he said that I forgot everything what made you what made you say that did I tell you that cuz no you never said it so what made you think that I forgot everything cuz come on you know would all do respect you know you're older it's you're already over 80 years old everybody forgets everything already when that's 70 I'm giving you credit like he's doing him a Tova he's doing me a favor he goes okay let's test can we test it no you know I don't want to embarrass you you don't need to test anything it's fine I already wrote the article what do you care goes can we test it do you care it doesn't cost you anything it's free okay well how do you want to test it goes look at my library some say there was 20,000 some say there was 60,000 books I don't really know all I know is there's many many thousands tens of thousands of books in his Library there was no walls big house no walls and he says pick any book you want any one of them doesn't matter which one just tell me the title of the book open the book anywhere you want and just don't tell me the page just anywhere tell me the first word first first word that's it and the guy said listen even if you had good memory even if you were 25 years old not 85 years old 25 years old it's still ridiculous even a computer doesn't remember that you type on the computer takes at least few minutes to figure something like that out but anyway fine to entertain you I'll go do it so he goes he thinks maybe it's a trick so he climbs the ladder to try to get one of the books all the way in the back that still has dust on it so he knows he has obviously if he has dust on it he hasn't touched it in many years at least many months he picks a book all the way in the back gives him the title opens the book and Rya repeats every single word on that page and continues and continues say oh wait hold on a this is not normal let's try another one he picks another book somewhere else maybe it was a trick opens the book and R repeats every single word for on the page the journalist was so amazed he had to write another article he says in this new article Not only was I wrong which is first time in history by the way any journalist ever said they were wrong Not only was I wrong about his memory but the memory he actually has is not human it's not human and Rya was as sharp as can possibly be until his last day and he fought for the truth until his last day if he saw it was rashim even if they were heads of government when the head of the government of Israel the head number one did something against am is he cursed him in public he said may he sleep and never wake up and that's what happened he went to a coma for many years and eventually died he didn't matter if he was big he was rich he was small it doesn't make a difference if we're not for hasem what do we have and that's one thing that we always have to remind ourselves every day we cry to hem give me parasa give me Health give me Z give me good job give me schom give me car give me this give me that give me give me give me give me give me give okay fine give me you want to give you it's the only way you're going to get it anyway is going to give it to you you but you ever ask yourself the question what are you giving him what are you giving hem it's for you every time you pray you're not helping him you're helping you you're saying thank you saying thank you let's it somebody gave you a drink right now what are you going to say Thank you so if somebody gave you life you should also say thank you so it's for you doesn't make you good just makes you normal if you learn some Torah it's also for you why to connect to him if you're not connected to him what do you have Bob kiss you have nothing so it's also for you children for you he already has millions and millions and millions it's for you the CH children what are you doing for him and that's one of the things that we could all do which is care a little bit care a little bit about our neighbor and the one major similarity that you have between the convert and the Bal Chua is in essence they're both exactly the same the Bal Chua and the convert are exactly the same if they're real the reason why is because before the G before the convert became a g a convert could have been anything could have been a idol worshipper could have been a uh just a noahide could have been righteous could have been not righteous could have been anything there's some righteous non-jews and there's some righteous there's some not you know Wicked ones the Jew on the other hand before he had AEM he couldn't be righteous there's no such thing as righteous without hasem but in essence what the says in seven places and also the and and also the five books of Moses is when a Jew violates Shabbat he's actually considered a wicked non-jew it's considered an idol worshipper so in essence when a Jew does chuva he's in essence doing the same exact thing as the convert only thing is he hasn't go have to go in front of a bedin he's got it easy he doesn't have to call me in the middle of the night sayy can you go to the bedin doesn't have to do that doesn't have to send me an email with the whole life story doesn't have to learn every single thing in the world just to become Jewish he already had the to be Jewish when he was born or she was born so we have to take advantage of it so when a Jew does Chua and he comes back to Hashem he starts fresh he starts clean he's like a baby when a couple gets married and they have a like both of these amazing couples have with no balagan that's against theem doing everything what hem said then one of the presents that Hashem promises is to wipe away their sins make them both like babies that's why everybody asks them for blessings cuz they're clean so whether you're a convert you're balua now that you're here there's only one other thing that Hashem asks you just one other thing you took care of your soul you got married you're learning a little bit you're keeping a little bit good you're doing what you're supposed to do there's only one last thing that Hashem asked you to do which is what did whether it's the prophet or protect the honor of hem by caring just a little bit care just a little bit about your neighbor about your friend about your brother about your father about your sister about your somebody in a Kila you don't even know their name and sometimes even about your R Who maybe he's making a mistake remind them by the way this is not allowed this is not okay do chva come back to hem do what did whether it's the prophet or the my son do that show a little Caress for and you'll fulfill your mission in this world and we should all see the mashia in our day [Applause] way [Music] [Applause] [Music]