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Awakening The Jewish Hearts Questions & Answers| Monsey Satmar Community

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Rabbi Yaron Reuven avatar
Rabbi Yaron Reuven

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We're here in Mie. Thank you very much for having me. Thank you for making this whole thing happen. All the sponsors, all the supporters and all of you that came, thank you very much for coming. I had a lot of different ideas of what to talk about, but also Rav told me that people like to ask questions. So if you guys have specific questions you want to ask, if not there's a bunch of different ideas. One of the uh questions that uh I thought about is what is the difference between all of the all the whether it's of Sat or Moshe Feinstein or Yusev or all the different that have lived throughout the generations. What's the difference between how they feel about the next Jew regardless of where he came from, regardless if he's from their kaya or somebody else's ka, whether he's or he's the whether he's this or a different and the average person, the average Jew out there, what's the uh the big difference now when uh you're as you So, one of the things that you learn as you get older and older, you start realizing that you don't know as much as you thought when you were younger. When I was younger, I remember before I had kids, I would look at other people's kids and I say, "My kids are going to be much better than that. My kids are going to be like soldiers. My kids are going to say do everything I say." Once I had kids once I had kids, I would do everything that they say. You realize that uh not everything not everything goes as planned. You start learning, you start learning. So, but one of the things that we see in our generation is that is different. In the old generations, the tell us that, you know, if somebody had a problem, they would go to the Rebi, they would go to have a discussion with their parents, they would go to a different uncle, a cousin, a brother, somebody, somebody would take them on and as a uh under their wing and and try to help them. And usually, more times than not, this worked out. Today usually you just give him some drugs and uh the parents become calm because the kid is sleeping. Usually you know today every other kid has some type of uh you know attention deficit disorder or some other disorder. We we've turned an entire generation to balm like everybody has a deformity. No one can handle their problems. And it's not true because the the the Jewish nama the Jewish nama has not changed. The Jewish nama hasn't changed. The same nama that was at at Mount Si is still here today. So when we look at things and we see that really the nish itself hasn't changed but our the way our ability to handle things and how we deal with things has changed. So one of the best things that we can do is look at how is handled the similar problems because as Rabia says is are like wings. We are the dove they're the wings without without the wings the dove is just a piece of meat. So we have to look at what did and how does it apply to us. Now Einstein was known as not only a Torah giant but they say you know how just like they say about the Rambam they say also about Feinstein when it comes to when it comes to humility. But Feinstein wasn't uh always that way. He grew to become that. And there was a story I told the uh of your kids earlier that I think really starts things in the right perspective. In the Yeshiva, there was a little boy that apparently came from a uh newly religious family. And this little boy, his name was Phillip. And he was wearing short jeans, pants, and he didn't look like everybody else in the yeshiva. But this little five, sixy old boy was confused, was looking through his pockets. Some of the kids asked him, "Everything okay?" And he didn't answer anybody. It's okay. Don't answer anybody, but he moves on. Eventually, Mosha Feinstein's walking down the hall. He sees this boy. He says, "Hi, Yelled. Hi. Hi, boy. How uh I'm Moshe. Can I what's your name?" says, "Phillip"? Says, "Philip, can I help you with something?" Says, "Yeah, I'm looking for a nickel so I can make a phone call to my parents." Says, "I can help you." And he starts looking through his pockets. Oh, I don't have one, but one second. Just wait here. Phillip, wait one here. I'm going to get it for you. 5-year-old six-year-old says, "Okay." No, he doesn't know what Mosha Feinstein is. doesn't know that this is this is the Mosherenu of the generation that's going to get him a little 5-cent little nickel. He just knows he needs a nickel. But Mosha Feinstein goes to the room. All the are learning over there and uh he taps on one of the Yakov, you have a nickel. Yakov knows who is just No, no, no. It's in the room. I can go get it. No, no, no. Be tora. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. Then he goes to Moshe. You have a nickel. No, but I have a dua. Ta. It's okay. It's okay. He goes from one bah to the next. The whole class. Nobody has a nickel on them. You know what? Let me check in stocker box. Maybe somebody put a nickel in there. He opens the stocker box. He sees there's a nickel. He takes a quarter out of his pocket. Puts it there. And he takes the nickel. And then he goes and he's walking as fast as a 90-year-old man can. Phillip. Phillip. I got it. I got it. I got it for you. But Philillip is not smiling. Philip is sad. By the time he gets to him, says, "Philip, I got it. I got the nickel." Ah, it's too late. You took too much time. Why? Why not? No, you don't understand. Finally, after all this time that I'm here, I found a boy, David, that wants to play with me, and I really like him. And I wanted to play with him, but he was waiting for me because I realized that if I go play with him, my parents are going to worry. So I wanted to call my parents. But by the time you brought the nickel, David left already. That's it. I don't have any friends again. And the kid starts crying. No, between us. If you just gave the kid a nickel and the friend left, what do you say? Okay, so find another friend. No, David's the last kid in the world. That's the attitude of a normal person. Normal person is what? The boy left, David left. Okay, I'll find you 500 other Davids. That's the normal attitude. But Mosha Feinstein is not a normal person. He says to him, "Phillip, you're right. It's my fault. It's my fault. I took too long, but I don't give up. LET'S GO FIND DAVID." NO, he left. He left. The kid is not doesn't care. He's upset. He's crying. He laughed. No, no, we'll find him. Come on, David. Let's go together. He takes the little boy by the hand and they walk out of the uh building and they start going from playground to playground. 90-year-old Moshe Feinstein and a little 5-year-old kid with little jean shorts. They're walking from playground to playground. Is he here? No, he's not here. See, you took too long. Okay. Okay. Well, for the next one. Next one. By the time they got to the third playground, he said, "Yeah, he's here, but look, he's playing with somebody else already." Says, "But wait one sec. Wait one here." Moshe Feinstein goes to David. David is hanging out on the swing. He's already playing with somebody else. He's living life. Five, six year old. It's the best thing in the life. He's on a swing. Sees the old man coming up to him. Says, "David, Phillip is here, but I'm playing with somebody already." No, no, no. David, you don't understand. Phillip is a really good friend. He wants to play with you. He really wanted to play with you. Yeah, but he took too long. I want to wait for him. I already found somebody else. Who cares to play with him, too? All three of you can play. I don't know. David Phillip is the best friend you could ever have. I'm telling you, I know him. Okay, fine. Fine. I'll play with him. Brings David along. Now, while this is happening, there's some adults and some other older kids that know who Moshe Feinstein is. They think maybe it's his grandson. They think they have no idea. Why is Rabos Feinstein in the playground? No one knows. So, David and Philip start playing. Rabos Feinstein asks uh David, where's uh uh Philillip, uh what's the phone number so I can call your parents and tell them that everything is okay? He gives him the phone number and he leaves. After the Raosha Feinstein leaves, the other kids come up to this kid. He's like, "Is Raosha Feinstein your grandfather?" He goes, "No." He goes, "Do you know who he is?" Goes, "I don't know. I think he's yawi." Now, to him, that's what it was. To Philillip, that's what it was. That was yaw. The reality is there's a difference. What's the difference when we look at a story like that about before we saw the conclusion? The average person says, "Listen, Phillip, you lost your friend. Find another one. Tough it out. Go find something else. Figure it out. This is not the end of the world. Stop being a crybaby. Don't make it a big deal. Everything's going to be okay." Whatever other explanation we're going to come up with in different words, that's generally the way we look at things as regular people. Is didn't just hear what people said and want to help them. They felt their pain. And that's one of the big differences when we see in today versus in previous generations. There is wanting to do good, wanting to help, and then there's feeling the other person's pain. And this is one of the greatest things that a person that wants to do better can start looking at things from a different perspective because how could I feel the next person's pain rather than just do good for the sake of good or do good to make myself feel good because I did good. What can bring me to feel the other person's pain? because that will change the whole equation that will change the the uh everything that the way we look at things. Now shalom also has a uh similar story that but another a different type of boy. He did not have any kids, but he treated his uh his tomidim like they were his kids. And he would him and the rabbi would come to their houses. They would be hosted by them and he would treat them like kids. And every time one of the tomidim got married, the rabbi would buy new dresses. My son is getting married. She would get a new dress as a celebration. And one of the times they came to one of the Tomid and this Tomed had a little boy that was about a year year and a half old. So as any father does, he wants to teach his kid how to walk. So what did he do? He had a ball in his hand. And he told the kid, "Come, come, come." And the kid, you know, manages to get up on two legs and starts walking. And as he gets closer, the father, what does he do? What most fathers do? He takes a step back or two steps back. Why? To make him walk more. What are you doing? What are you doing? IT'S looking I'm not wearing shates. It's not Shabbat. The ball's not m What did I do? He says, "The Torah tells us don't hurt your brother. What are you doing? You're torturing him." He says, "Well, I'm teaching him how to walk." Cuz no, if you want him to walk, just stand wherever you want to stand and he'll get to you if he wants to get to you. But he got up finally. He walked all over all over to you and what are you doing? You're walking away. Why are you walking away? YOU KNOW WHAT KIND OF PAIN YOU'RE CAUSING HIM? Not from the father's perspective. Of course, the father loves his kid. But what's the difference here? Difference is the father loves the kid, but the rub feels the kid. The father loves the kid. There's no question about it that he loves the kid or else he would be doing something else. But the rav feels the kid. Why? Because the closer you get to through the more you start feeling the other that are around you. Now a person that suffers from any type of pain usually doesn't need to think about it. Hashem, I had a lot of pain throughout my life. And as I always tell people, I may not know a lot of different things, but I'm an expert in pain. And anyone that wants to know the uh the film or we did about my personal story, what am I even talking about? If you don't know the story, there's a film called Hashem Took Back His Millions. And it tells you a nice short summary of what happened. But the key is that when a person suffers pain, he doesn't have to think about it. The pain is just there. And even if he doesn't think about it, the pain is still there. Also, the pain is not like it's like it has hours of operation or it clocks in, it clocks out. It just shows up whether you like it or you don't like it. So to feel another person's pain, it's not possible unless you start thinking from a different perspective than we naturally do. Now, not everyone here has kids. Not everyone here may necessarily even see the same perspective on how to raise kids, but everyone here, I'm sure, knows at least one person that's not necessarily a big fan of Hashem right now or that's not necessarily interested in Torah anymore. And by everyone has somebody that they know, a cousin, a friend, a neighbor, or or someone that either is off the D or never got on it or whatever the case may be. Now, if you guys may have heard a couple of weeks ago, there was a little boy, maybe four or five year old boy in Israel. The father took him to I think the beach and uh just to walk on the beach. He was looking at something. The kid was playing. He turned around. The kid disappeared. After the kid disappeared, the whole country the whole country started looking for him. Everyone doesn't matter where you were, whether you were religious or you're not religious, you were from Tel Aviv or you were from Yushim or you from everyone started gathering and looking for this kid. Where did this 5-year-old kid go? Where could he possibly go? All of a sudden, there was a All of a sudden, everyone was brothers together. Once they found the kid, everyone celebrated as if it was their kid. So, everyone understands here that if there's a shalom, a 5-year-old kid that disappears and you find them, it's a big celebration. Everyone has from it. Everyone is happy this happened. I remember when I went to uh Canada a couple of months ago, there was a young girl that disappeared. I think it was for almost a week and a uh while we were there I think the day later or two days later they found her. It was big uh big miracle that they found her and she was okay. So when we find someone that was lost everyone could understand whether they're religious or not whether they're satir or they're bo or they're safari orazi or yeite or whatever. Everyone understands we just found a treasure. We just found something good. Something amazing just happened. But the question is, how do we feel when we hear that another Jew just started keeping Shabbat? Do we get just as excited? How do we feel when we hear that another woman started covering our hair? How do we feel when we hear that this guy just left his non-Jewish girlfriend? Usually it's like if you want you need a place to come for you come to my house. Like as if he's like a beggar in the street like listen if you don't have a place to eat you come to my house. There's no LIKE YAY THIS GUY'S keeping Shabbat. No one does that. Who does it? Is anyone excited? Oh he's keeping No. Maybe the rabbi that helped him keep Shabbat, maybe the family that's uh waiting for him to do cha for 5, 10, 15 years. But generally speaking, the average Jew out he hears that another Jew did, it's like, "Okay, good for you." What's the difference? The 5-year-old boy was missing. That was just the body. Everyone can connect to the body. Everyone can understand why that's significant and everyone was happy when the body was found. Thank you. Has been looking for every single Jew to do chuva so he can bring this salvation for 3,300 plus years. Which means if you have a Jew, whether you know him personally or you don't know him personally, whether he's a family member or he's a complete stranger, whether he's your neighbor or he lives in Algeria, whether he lives in your or he lives in a completely opposite, whether he's safari or is a been waiting for him for over 3,000 years to come home. And as the says, every single day there's a but call that comes out from Mount Si. Every day there's a but call but nobody hears it. So the BMT of a if nobody hears it then how come there's a but call every day. One of the reasons is because in order to hear the bad call the nama has to be connected to the source. The nama has to remind itself that we were also at nai. And even though we find ourselves at a synagogue hashem in the beginning of the week at 8 n o'clock at night and we feel perfectly fine being in this place, that guy that was also at Mount Si, that girl that was also at Mount Si, they prefer to be at a nightclub. They prefer to be at a bar. They prefer to be at a casino. They prefer to be any other place but here. And the reason why is because they're lost. Now, I don't know if us all of a sudden starting to cheer each other on, to be excited about helping people do chuva is necessarily going to bring them out of the bar. But what I do know is that if we became a little bit more sensitive about not just bodies but also about this would change things because when it comes down to is your is just as significant to and if we don't start becoming more sensitive to what is looking for then what really do we expect? What has changed in the last 3,000 years? What did we do that's different? Why do we want to build us the bet? What have we changed? Everyone likes to talk about everyone likes to talk about baseless hatred. Even though sometimes the people that talk about baseless hatred, they themselves hate more than other people because they don't like somebody from a different ka. But the reality is if anyone wants to take something upon themselves and get a little stronger from this time to next year. I would say we maybe we cannot get to the level of Feinstein and that could feel another Jew but perhaps we could take upon ourselves something that's going to make us a little bit more sensitive to some Jew that's not necessarily as close to he doesn't really want to go to the synagogue. He doesn't necessarily want to learn Musar. He doesn't necessarily want to uh you know uh pray three times a day. How do we get more sensitive about it? First and foremost, try to motivate him to learn more. Try to motiv motivate him to do more Torah. And if you can't do it yourself, you can support it. People that are doing it. One of the beautiful things that we did at our organization since we our whole goal is to help people do cha is to make this thing. This is a tablet that doesn't go on the internet. All it has is 19 hours of the best films we've made in the last 12 years. That the whole goal of every film is inspired to change, inspired to motivate people, but using technology to do it. You open it, it starts, you don't even have to press play. Starts with a song to cheer you up. Then after that you uh the next uh one is uh is the film that I told you about. Hashem took back his millions and it gives you a uh the battery died. But the point is and it comes with the uh with the cable for the charger. The point is this is one of the devices. This is what we call a kiru box that we use this to give it to different people because it doesn't matter where you came from. Whether you're a 18-year-old kid that likes to play on your your iPhone all day or you came from a different that forbids internet or you are uh from Israel or you're from America, everyone likes technology and uh everyone can use such a thing. Why? It doesn't have commercials. It doesn't have anything boring and has things that will interest anyone. And anyone that goes through this, you're going to see some interesting films that will inspire anybody to change. If you go through the entire 19 hours and you haven't uh and you haven't changed, you can get a special signature from me that you are duk. You're you're completely the system is not working. The system is not working. Why do we make this? Not to make money. We made this because we're trying to do everything we possibly can to reach Jews wherever they are in their life. Because over the last 12 years, I've seen Jews from all walks of life, some from the secular world, some from the religious world that are completely disconnected. They may have a keeper even bigger than mine. But if you ask them, "What's the purpose of life? Why are you even here in the world? What do you believe about Hashem?" They have no idea. Some people even think that like the Hashem has a body. Or some people think that Hashem needs you like as if he has some type of lacking of some kind. Some people think uh you know all types of things that really are the opposite of what Torah is because they don't have the basics of found the basic foundation of the Torah. So it doesn't matter where they came from. Every Jew needs to get a little bit of that's going to make them a little closer to and what we've been trying to do over the last 12 years is reach every single one of them. We have our uh our uh videos in 15 different languages reaching people from all over the world to try to get people to understand the basic foundation of the Torah. Because if no one is going to care about them, then guess what? They're going to stay exactly where they were. How do I know? I was one of them. I grew up in Israel. I uh came to the United States when I was 10 years old. when uh we weren't exactly uh you can't call us exactly religious. If you call going to synagogue once a year or twice a year during the holidays religious then I was very religious. I would go once twice a year but if you call keeping Shabbat religious you keep eat kosher religious not so much. I wasn't so good at that. I uh didn't eat pig but I wasn't exactly uh you know kalav is but something changed as I got into the business world I started uh managing money for millionaires and billionaires made a lot of money myself and at some point said okay you've had enough of this now the next chapter of your life my life turned upside down I got very very sick uh surgery jury that went wrong. Had to fight for my life for many years. And at that point, I realized that there has to be more to life than just money, just material, just things like that. And I started realizing that uh I need to uh I need to ask the boss to have some mercy on me. Now, most people that do chv gives them a slap in the face or sometimes a punch or sometimes both. And then they realize, okay, Hashem, please help me. Now, we can wait and do nothing and at some point or another, everyone will have the chance. That's what the Rambam says before Mashiah comes, everyone is going to have that chance. There's Bo Magog, there's the end of days, all that stuff. There's there's no guarantee that another Holocaust is not going to happen. There's no book that says that there there's no Holocaust. There's this we're in a situation where people realize anti-semitism is on the rise. the uh and it's it's even popular to be anti-Semitic now there's a lot of problems so we could do nothing and stay the same or we could say listen maybe we can do something about it maybe we can't save everybody or help everybody but maybe if every single person here says you know what I'm going to try to help that one person that as soon as the rabbi said you have somebody in your family or friend that you know that he's not religious that guy I'm going to try to see if I can help I'm going to try to see if I could help him do chva in some way. Bring him to ash or bring send him a sh. Do something to show him that maybe I don't feel his pain, but I want to. Maybe I don't understand his confusion, but I want to. Maybe I don't really know why he's not close to Hashem, but I want to. Because all of those issues have a solution. There's no question does not have a solution. Torah has everything in it. When I was in business, rabbis would come to my office every single week. And every single time they came, I gave them taka. And since I had a lot of money, it was easy to give. I had an office for 16 years. And I did the math at one point, but I'll make it even simpler. Even if they came once per week for 10 years, that means they had 520 chances to tell me that I'm living like a To tell me that I'm Shabbat, to tell me that I'm the equivalent of an idol worshipper. To tell me that I'm not going to have gun at some point. To tell me maybe you should consider changing. To tell me, you know what? Let's learn Torah together. See what we learn together. anything other than you have to give. But guess what? For 16 years and a whole lot more than 520 times, no one cared about. They cared about the money I gave them. Sometimes a,000, sometimes 2,000, sometimes 500, sometimes 100, sometimes 5,000. All types of dollar bills. All of them liked it. But when it came to me doing chuva, me keeping Shabbat, any of those things, no one cared. That's the missing link. We can't just say we are and is when we have nearly 80% of Is are not even keeping Shabbat. We can't call ourselves that we're one nation when really many of us don't even care what the other half is doing. We just try to stay away. as long as they don't affect my kid like they have rabies. We've gotten to a point that even if people among our own community, own religious community, all of a sudden they wear a different color shirt or they change the kea or they go to a different shul or they start reading a certain uh book that is not exactly part of the uh what everybody else is learning. All of a sudden we start cancelling each other out. If we want to have autout, we have to start at the very least start looking at things and try to help each other. Start looking at things from a way we can start feeling each other. And if we do that, we're going to start becoming much more concerned about the Jew, whether he's religious or he's not religious, whether he's my cousin or he's my uncle or he's my next door neighbor. and try to see maybe you know what instead of me being worried about whether he has kalas for Shabbat or me being worried about whether he has a place to stay or whether the kid is lost or he's not lost maybe I should worry a little bit about his nisha maybe I could do something for his nishama and if I can't do it because he's not in my circle or I don't know how to talk somebody else can do it I could either ask the rabbi to speak to him I can bring a speaker to speak to him I can send him a video I can give him a ku box I could do something and I think if we do that a lot of things are going to change last thing I would say to you is this if this was all a good idea it would be nice but nobody should feel obligated to do it it's just a good idea a lot of people have a lot of good idea everything that I'm saying is a Torah obligation we have we have an obligation to love a fellow Jew we also have you have to you're obligated to love the convert. In fact, the Rambam says the convert you have to love him more than a naturalb born Jew. You have to love him as much as you love Hashem. Third, we have now to love your fellow Jew. We can understand. I love my brother. Yeah, good. To love Hashem, we can understand. But what does it mean to love Hashem? How do I express love to Hashem? How do you how do you express love to There's no greater way to show a father that you love him by caring about his kids. Even if his kids don't look like you, even if his kids are from a different or a different kaya or they're completely different, you're a safari, they're I don't know your own Ruben from Florida, whatever it is. If a person wants to show, they love him, then he starts loving his kids. My recommendation for every single person that's here, make kiru, make helping other Jews a priority in your life. If you have the ability to talk to them, talk to them. If you don't have the ability to talk to them, send them my will talk to them. If they want something material, physical, you could get them one of these things. If you want to send them a link, they have internet, you could send them a link. There's a million different ways that could wake we can wake up a lot of different people. And I think that if every single person that attended today says, "You know what? I'm going to try with one guy. The whole year I'm going to try to spend to help this one guy." Guess what? Next time we come here, there's not going to be this amount of people. There's going to be 100 times more people. Why? Because each one of those people is not only going to be affected by what you did for them, by caring about them, but it's also going to be a domino effect, and they're going to want to do it for somebody else. And that's usually how how how Kira works. Once a person sees that somebody else cares about them, naturally they're going to want to care about somebody else. Why? Because that's just the way nature is. That's the way you got that's the way is. If we see that somebody cares about us, then we see them. It's good to care people and we want to return it and we're going to do the same exact thing. So, this is something that I hope that some of the people here are going to take seriously and maybe even do something about it. There's a lot of different ideas and I'm hoping that somebody will uh take uh take it to heart. But now I know that some of you have maybe maybe have some questions. So you could ask any question. I'll be more than happy to answer. Usually when I turn off the cameras there's usually 500 questions. So I'll try to pretend like that. Let's pretend I shut off the cameras. questions everybody. Everybody's lost question. So if I turn off the cameras, that's when the questions are going to start. &gt;&gt; Yes. &gt;&gt; In your video, you spoke about a lot more money. &gt;&gt; Yes. &gt;&gt; You ever miss the aspect of having a lot of money? Not the time for life you're living, but the aspect of having a lot of money. that &gt;&gt; as far as as far as having material mean as far as having something it's always nice to be able to buy whatever you need and who never lacked me any of that. So whatever I always needed sent it to me. Now I uh the needs changed the focus changed but uh the hand of Hashem never changed. So throughout all of the years uh even after I lost everything I never lacked anything. Certainly there was a struggle. Certainly it's very different to go from working and making $3,600 an hour just for existing to working for free 20 hours a day to a bunch of people that sometimes don't even appreciate what you do for them. So it's definitely a big life change from being the boss that creates the opinion to being somebody that tell people tell them why why you even talking. So a lot of things have changed from that perspective. But you know the uh the uh material aspect of item we always had a roof over our head. We always had food to eat and akadu made many miracles along the way that uh especially through the difficult times that uh made me see his hand much more than I was able to see it if everything just continued coming in and flowing in. Now the first several years of uh when I became a uh rabbi and uh after I lost uh uh you know everything those were some very very difficult years because literally you had to live on a miracle from day to day. You know we uh just had a kid and we didn't have enough money to buy a crib. Didn't have money to have a crib. We didn't have money to pay rent but every month somehow money would show up. My parents would send or somebody else would send and the money would come right in time. What about the crib? And and and I also learned once I had a kid, the cribs are really expensive. Apparently, they're not like uh you know, at the 99 cent store. They're expensive. So, okay, the kids in the hospital, just born, my daughter, God bless her, uh and uh have nothing prepared. All of a sudden, my friend calls me, says, "Listen, I heard you just had a kid. You need a crib. Somebody tapping my phones. The feds something. It was uh Yeah, sure. I'll I'll take it. Sure. Why not? Yeah, why? I was going to get one. Yeah. Listen, I have this crib. It's just sitting in, you know, just sitting in my garage. It's not doing anything. It's pretty much brand new. You need it? Yeah, sure. I'll come pick it up. He goes, "No, no, no. I'LL BRING IT TO YOUR HOUSE." comes brings to their house, builds the whole thing and these types of miracles start happening on a regular basis. strangest things in the world will just happen and simply showed me he's like listen I took the money but I'm still here and this continued after some time going through some different test one time I uh was invited to uh to come to Canada and uh to speak over there and uh one of the people uh asked me he's like rabbi somebody said that uh you Uh, you do this because of the money. And this is again, there's like maybe 300 people there. He's saying this in front of me. He's saying, he's like, you do this for the money. I'm like, oh, I do it for the money. Okay, let me show you my bank account. So, I take my phone. I said, man, let's show you a bank account. We go open the account. I'm like, oh, look, see. He goes, you have 100. You have $750 in the account. I'm like, yeah, but look when it came in. It came in an hour ago, which means that until an hour ago there was zero. So he says, "So how do you live?" I'm like, "Exactly like that." So in the beginning, this is how it was. It was miracle after miracle after miracle. But after some time, we built the organization. More and more people got impacted by it. More and more people supported made even more miracles. And throughout all of the years, I continue to see miracles. Nothing is lacking. If uh you know, from an outside perspective, nothing has changed. But uh the biggest thing that you know when when you ask me this question, the biggest thing that I can think of that, uh would make things uh different is if I had another 20 or $30 million in the bank right now, then I can magnify the effect of what we're doing. That's the only thing that would change. I wouldn't buy a private jet. I wouldn't buy a Ferrari. I wouldn't buy a fancy apartment in some town that I'm never going to visit. I wouldn't get get a second home because I don't even have a first home. What I would do is I would use it to help the organization do much more than what it's doing. And that's because that's what we've been doing since day one. I put everything that I had into it, everything that was left into it. And until this day, I haven't taken a salary. 12 years I've been working for free. So what would I do with more money? this magnified by, you know, as much as we possibly can with more money. So instead of selling these things for 150 bucks, I could give them for free. Just like we've given out nearly 400,000 books for free. We published uh close to 50 books already over the last uh 12 years that Reverend Fry has written. I have written a couple of them. He wrote the rest. So it kind of makes me look better. Uh but uh we didn't just publish them and print them. We also gave them for free. So, uh, we have a live counter on, uh, there's a website called kofubstore.org where you could, uh, order our books for free, boxes of books, 20, 15 to 20 books per box. And there's a live counter. Every time somebody orders a box, it goes up by another 20. And over there, you'll see, I think at some point, I think now it's around 368,000 books been given for free. So, just just calculate. And each book, it's not like, you know, it's not like a pamphlet. It's not a pamphlet that costs like 40 cents. It's a book like a sepha sepha. You get an arch girl with the hard cover and everything else. That kind of book, top quality books. And uh right now we're in the process of printing uh three new books. I just got the samples. They look good. We placed the order. There's 75,000 books on the way. So more and more books are going to come. More and more books are going to be distributed. And uh aside from that, who gave us enough money also to give uh about 2.5 million USBs, CDs, and all types of posters for free. Perhaps you've seen some of our posters on different walls. That's all free. Uh aside from those 2 and a half million, we've also uh helped close to 280 251,000 poor Jewish people in Isl. So provided and so the beautiful thing is is that if I had more, I could do more. But one thing I can tell you for sure is that just like we say in the I'm not aik but I'm trying to be all I can tell you is that hasn't left. He's still there. He just gives different people different tests. Whatever they can handle and when he thinks that I can handle an extra 20 or 30 or 40 or $50 million or $50 billion in the bank, he'll send that to to test me on that one. Until now he's tested us in different ways. Now he's testing in this way. We'll continue doing our best to pass the test. What else? Yes. &gt;&gt; Um I don't know where to start the question for what ask but um the Jewish people their mission in the world is to be a light &gt;&gt; light to the nations. &gt;&gt; Okay. &gt;&gt; Helping helping ourselves. That's what we we need helping. a lot of lost back as far as for the rest of the world which was also the kind of the goal of being elected the nations and there's the no laws where there's not really a lot of like direction or resources for the noahides and I was just wanted to ask her what your opinion on is it more like is our job still to just focus on ourselves or is that Is that something that we should that we're really going to help them? &gt;&gt; Should we have a noight organization in so many words? &gt;&gt; It's a good question. So, uh when we say we have to be the Torah tells us and obligates us to be that is not necessarily referring to uh we should go and teach the goim how to be better. Rather, it's initially referring to we should make ourselves better. Why? Because the better we are, the better the uh we we are sanctifying name. So we're making the Torah look better. The worse we are the more we are making. So in fact if if you look at the uh the the puk that we read every single year about uh uh when it uh rashi says over there on the place that uh why is the verse that talks about honest business right before the verse that talks about to remember Amalik and Rashi says it's because every time a Jew is doing dishonest business he's actually empowering Amalech which means that If we want to weaken Amalik, we should do the opposite. We should be honest in business. We should be ethical. We should be have more. We should do better. We the better we become as Jews, the more better servants of Hashem we become, the more we are emulating Hashem and the more we are in essence being a light to the nations. So our top priority is each person needs to work on themselves to improve themselves. Second priority is to help our fellow Jews. And the reason why is because your brother is your first. Your brothers if you have to givea for example the the first that you have to look at who needs is your own family. Even if you have a nice guy in a community that doesn't have much and you have a choice either your brother or your the nice guy. You have to help your brother first. And even if let's say your brother doesn't need but the nice guy he needs but there's also a uh a famous uh you know uh nice guy from a different town. If the first nice guy is in your town you have to help him first. Meaning that we have to give to whoever is closest to us first. So since we're at a situation where nearly 80% of am right now is not aware of their obligation to keep Shabbat. 94% of American Jews have uh have said that they do not believe that uh you have a that you could not work on Shabbat. Like there's a very limited amount of understanding of what are a Jewish person's responsibilities in the world. So since we have so much to do with the Jewish people, our first priority is there. Now, if while you're helping Jews, there's also some non-Jews that happen to listen that benefit from it also, no problem. But to make, let's say, for example, a focused effort just on non-Jews is not what is. This is uh you know a uh all of were aware that the vast majority of the world is non-Jews but none of them ever spent much time teaching the non-Jews or writing books for the non-Jews. Why? Because we have so many problems at home that are not being taken care of that there's not enough time to help the non-Jews and the Jews at the same time. Plus more than that, really the best way to help the non-Jews is by starting at home because the better the Jewish people become, the better we become as a as an impact on the rest of the world. One of the places that uh that uh the the um the Jewish people learn their bad behavior is if they look at how the non-Jews treat each other. It's unfortunate, but it's a reality. For example, in the in the the says that the reason why uh lending money with interest as a business is uh is forbidden for a Jewish person is because if he lends money to non-Jews uh with interest, then he's going to deal with them on a regular basis. And if he deals with them on a regular basis, he's going to be influenced from them on a regular basis. And then he's going to get further from Hashem. So if he is going to lend money with interest, first of all, it has to be reasonable interest and not like what they do in cash advance where they rip people off. It has to be something that's normal bank rates. But second of all, he has to uh uh do it to make just enough money to survive. Meaning, if he has, let's say, $2,000 a month in bills, that's what he's allowed to make from that business. He's not allowed to become rich from it. Why? because if he's going to spend a lot of time in there, then he's going to end up being influenced by the public. So, we see from there that our influence of the uh uh of uh on the on the non-Jews starts with by influencing ourselves. Now, there are some uh organizations that have steered away from what is have said and they started what you call noahide organizations. This is a mistake. And why is it a mistake? From my experience of helping thousands and thousands of Noahites. I have many tell me that are not Jewish. Many people that I guide, many people that I helped, many people that support. I have no problem with it. Even in every sh that I I give, I always give a blessing to those nohides that support that are learning with us. But to have a specific organization just catered for noahhides is inventing a new religion. And that's one of the prohibitions on Noahides. Why? Because a noahide that starts learning in such a fashion where he is has organized learning like a he has organized learning like a Jew, like a religious Jew. He's not going to be satisfied with it. Why? He wants more because now he's comparing himself to the Jew. The Jew is learning. He's learning. The Jew prays. I want to pray. The Jew has a sidue. I want a sidu. Yeah, but that's not the way it works. A no is not supposed to have a sidu. The way that a no is supposed to pray is from his heart. Why? Because our sidul was written by and it's specifically customized for if a uses that for themselves they're lying in every prayer. Why? Because it says uh blessed are you that you commanded me. He didn't command you. You're lying to Hashem. Uh thank you Hashem for giving me. He didn't give you. You're lying to Hashem. So what happens these noahhide organizations what they've done is initially they had a good intention to make like a center for for for the nohides but it was never enough because now the nohides want more because now they're competing now they're comparing themselves to the the uh the uh the Jewish organization say yeah but they have a sidul we want a sidul they have this we want this and now some of them are already starting to wear talit some of them are wearing tit some of them are wearing a keepa some of them even call themselves rabbi. There's one guy that I spoke to maybe 11 years ago. He used to be a priest and he abandoned uh that uh that idol worship and he uh initially was intending to convert but for whatever reason or another he did not convert. And uh now if you're going to uh if you're going to be a rabbi good you can teach. if you're not going to be a rabbi uh and you want to let's say for example teach the non-Jews go and teach the non-Jews but he was happy with the fact that people thought of him as one way or another way and the guy started teaching as if he's a real rabbi and he's not even Jewish and the average person that's watching him can't tell it's not like like he has a tattoo on his head that says not Jewish so what happens is is that they start getting so confused with who and what they are. So, six days a week they act as if they're a Jew on Sunday. Sometimes they go to church or sometimes they go to they I have one guy that's from uh I think he's from Holland or one of the European countries that uh he pretends to be a Jew six days a week on but on Sunday he goes to church with his wife. Why? Because what they're looking for is is uh they're looking for structure. They're looking to feel religious but they like the Jewish teachings. So it becomes a big mishmash. So when it comes to noahides they can learn mousar character development in order to improve themselves and that's where they should remain focused. Once they start steering away from that it it ends up becoming very confusing. They start inventing new laws. They start creating a new religion and sometimes they end up becoming anti-semmites. And I'll give you one uh a couple of examples of that that I've seen from experience. Many times the nohides when they first start their original goal is to become Jewish. And sometimes along the way they uh come to the conclusion that they cannot convert either because they lack money or they're married to someone who doesn't want to convert or all types of reasons that uh that uh ends up happening being a obstacle in their road that limits their ability to convert like they want to or like they planned. And uh this creates a certain bitterness like they did all this work and they feel even more religious than some of the Jews they met but they don't have the nama or they don't have the title. They don't have the certificate. They don't have whatever it is they were looking for the way they visualize it. And guess what? They start hating on other Jews and many times they become anti-semitic. Other times they start delving into different books that they're not allowed to go to according to the Torah and they don't have the spiritual tools to handle those tools. So I'll give you an example that happened yesterday morning. There's one guy that has been watching my shim for several years. At some point or another, he want he wanted to convert. For whatever reason or another, he has not been able to. Then he got married which became even more difficult. Long story short, he started delving into parts of the Torah that he should not be involved in at all. In fact, even most Jews should not be involved in. But he decided that he knows more than the he decided that everything is allowed because everything is available. All you got to do is press a button, it becomes available. You press a button, it shows up at your house. You give him some money, the book shows up. You press a button, you get it for free. You can download it. So, he decided to delve into all types of things that uh he should not delve into. And yesterday morning, he sends me a message. Rabbi, I found a great kush. The Arizel is an idol worshipper and I could prove it through gimatria. No, thank you. I'm not interested for your proof. Your conclusion is wrong without me even knowing what your how you got to it. And you are exactly the proof of why no should not learn anything more than Musar. And there are even some opinions that even that is a limited. Why? In order to learn Torah, it's not about just having the ability to read. We're not reading philosophy. We're not reading a novel. It's not a Harry Potter book. There has to be certain spiritual tools that make you capable of understanding and applying the Torah that you're learning. So when you do not have certain tools, certain spiritual tools, you could read the same book as I do and have a completely different understanding. You could read the same book as as your best friend and have a completely understanding. It's not because he's smarter or you're smarter. It's the more a person perfects their midot, the more a person humbles themselves, the more a person make turns themselves into a vessel that says my opinion is meaningless. I am nothing. The closer you are to knowing that you are nothing, the closer you are to becoming a vessel that will get something from Hashem. The more you think you are something and that your opinion is meaningful, the more you are closer to nothing that is not capable of receiving something from. Why? Because made the Torah like water. And the water the says it always goes to the bottom. It starts at the top of the mountain and it goes to the bottom. What does it mean it goes to the bottom? It goes to the most humble. Why? Because the Torah is not just words. The Torah is spiritual tools that will only fit a vessel that is prepared properly for it. So when somebody that is not supposed to learn cabala, that is not supposed to learn different aspects of the oral Torah, decides they're going to do it anyway, then all they're doing is they're guaranteeing that there's not there's going to be a dead end street, that they're going to get to the wrong direction. And that's what happens many times. And I've seen this from experience. I even had one guy that you actually you were reminding me of. I had one guy that I warned him. Really smart guy, really nice guy. Spent some time in jail before I met him. Did some stupid things in jail. He discovered Judaism. Long story short, he wanted to convert. Had a bunch of delays. Anyway, he started uh uh he planned to convert, but he got married and there was some delays, but along the way, he started learning a lot. And at some point I told him, "Listen, you're learning things you're not supposed to learn. You're learning things you're not supposed to learn. Don't learn it. It's not good for you. If you want to convert, learn the things that are relevant to to conversion. If you're not going to convert, then stick with what I've said, which is what have said." He didn't want to listen. So one day he went home after work right before he decides to go inside the house. Somebody decides to rob him. He doesn't want to give him the wallet. The guy shoots him in the stomach and he almost dies. After that, he stopped learning Tawa. Why? Because he realized that this didn't this doesn't happen to just anybody. He wasn't living in some gangster neighborhood that these types of things happen. This was a message from Shine. There's certain things wants to give you with open arms, but there's certain things you're just not entitled to. You want to be entitled to it, you have to elevate yourself to it. And that's the mistake that people are making when they're looking at at the Torah like a book and they're saying, "Listen, why can't you just teach this to everybody and teach the masses Cabala?" Because the masses cannot handle Cabala. And anyone that says, "I teach the public Cabala, either he doesn't know what Cabala is or something that's even worse." The reality is not everyone could learn every part of the Torah. And when you organize the uh the Noahides as if it's an institution, as if it's a religion, it's only a matter of time before people going to ask for more than what they started off with because it's they're now organized and they're going to compare themselves to something else that's organized. It's not an easy thing to be noahhide, but it's not impossible either. You just have to uh stick to the script. And I think that the that the people that do will will benefit the most from what else? Yes. &gt;&gt; So I've noticing lately a lot of people are using marijuana as a way to connect. &gt;&gt; Mhm. &gt;&gt; And I've heard many times the reasons why this is not allowed, but I wouldn't just &gt;&gt; find us. So there are some people that work in the mafia and uh they right before they kill somebody every Sunday they like to you know they get 25,000 ahead they they sometimes do the cross they sometimes do a prayer and they believe that they get closer to God right before they kill somebody. So just because somebody says they get closer to God by doing something stupid doesn't really mean they get closer to God. And unfortunately in the world of drugs it's the same concept. There are sometimes people that call themselves rabbis. They have the beard. They have a nice hat. They have the whole garments. They look like they just came from Mount Si, but the version even. And uh they tell people to to to do all types of drugs, hallucinogens, marijuana, all types of things to get you closer to Hashem. But this shows two things. Number one, they don't know anything about Allah. And number two, they're a drug addict themselves. That's what it shows. So if you want to learn from drug addicts, I have better institutions for you. There are institutions specifically made from drug addicts. You could just go learn from them. You don't need to learn from a rabbi. But if you want to learn from a rabbi, you want to learn from a real rabbi. You have to learn the basics of Einstein said it multiple times which is mentioned in the anything that alters your mind is not something that you're allowed to use if you're going to pray or talk to Hashem. Why? Because to be a servant of Hashem, you have to be saloo. You have to be clear. &gt;&gt; You have to be clearminded. You cannot have something that alters your state of mind and be someone that is even allowed to pray. So much so that he writes that a person that takes elective drugs, meaning he takes the drugs, he smokes marijuana because he feels like it, not because he has some type of disease and he's this is the only uh uh thing that there's that's going to help his pain. We're talking about someone that is enjoying it. Mosha Feinstein says a person that does that is considered in the same level as a ben which the Torah says the ben would get a death penalty. So to say that someone is going to get closer to by taking drugs is like saying that uh you know that like I said you could go learn from from from drug lords you could learn from from junkies. This is not what the Torah is. help you become more emotional. &gt;&gt; Emotional learning four hours straight also will get you more more emotional. The Satan will try to convince you that there's a shortcut to anything. He could tell you there's a shortcut to become rich. He could tell you there's a shortcut to get married. He could tell you there's a shortcut to a lot of different things. But anyone that's lived long enough knows that all of those shortcuts are dead ends. If smoking marijuana or doing any type of uh any type of drug was something that would be allowed, then they would say it's allowed. They would say even the mushen who smoked a joint in Mount Sai. They would say that did took some ecstasy pills right before he did the but it doesn't say that. Why? Because doesn't want to alter your state of mind. Because what he wants is you not an altered version of you. He wants the wants your heart, not the heart that is manipulated through chemicals that got to some place that the Satan makes you think like as if you got to Hashem. Because if a person really cries to really tries to get closer to they're going to get to a much higher level. They don't need drugs to do it. They don't need uh they don't need help. did not create the the Torah in a way where you need anything to help you get there. That's why says the the Torah is not in heaven. It's not on top of the mountain. It's not across the ocean. Where is it? It's it's in your mouth. It's in your heart to fulfill it. Made the Torah so easy that anyone can get there. You don't have to be a big rabbi. You don't have to be the biggest. any Jew can get to without anything that's going to help them. All you're going to do is simply give your heart, try, pray, cry, and you'll get there. But the ones that tell you that you need some type of uh drug to to get closer to a baku are simply manipulating the truth in order to apparently uh start a uh a very successful uh drug dealing business or drug counseling business or both. Some people have the rehab. Some people have the uh next door to the uh to the the drug dealer and we have actually in Florida there's some junkie from Canada. Uh he decided that uh he caused enough damage in Canada. So he decided to open a center in uh North Miami Beach where a bunch of room Jews come to get high and pretend like they're religious. Now, I've spoken against it, but apparently the rest of the community that lives over there doesn't think there's anything wrong with it. So, it's a it's not a problem that's just uh in there. It's not just a problem that's here. It's it's it's an ascafa problem. People are not aware of what we're even doing in this world and how to do it. So I think that uh if people are looking for legitimate answers they should not look for someone that is creating a new direction. We have to stick to the we have to stick to what worked all the what they used is what we want to use because that's what kept us alive. All these new directions these new ways this is not what kept alive. this uh to to say that we need drugs to to connect to me it's it just sounds like uh it's like we should learn Musar from Nazis like as far as that is from the reality this is as far from reality so I I don't understand I don't understand how that Satan convince people but unfortunately the Satan works in uh you know in unusual ways that he could convince people to do the exact opposite of what they're supposed to Any else? Same price. Same price. The questions we uh Yeah. &gt;&gt; Same price. Two for one. &gt;&gt; A lot of times we hear something. &gt;&gt; Yeah. &gt;&gt; And it gives us a very strong. &gt;&gt; Yeah. &gt;&gt; It fizzles out. &gt;&gt; Good. &gt;&gt; And even more than that. We convince ourselves that any negative reaction to that fizzling out is really just the telling me that I'm a bad person and I'm so chuba I'm really a good person. So how do we keep that fizzle alive to continue growing in the path of cha versus just starting something and then letting it fizzle out and trick ourselves that we're still on the correct path. &gt;&gt; Okay. So first of all, it's very very important for a person to understand when they're trying to get closer to Hashem, they will have failures on the way to success. Failure is not an option. It's an inevitability. Everyone fails on the way to the top. So failure does not automatically mean bad. Failure is simply a necessary part of success. Whether it's in business, in marriage, in raising kids, in in getting closer to every aspect in learning Torah, failure is part. So don't ever think that just because I failed in something that I was trying to do, therefore I'm bad. No, it's just simply this happens, you fail, get up, try again. You fail, get up, try again. That's that that that's it's a necessary part of success. So failure first and foremost fail failure does not mean bad. Failure does not mean evil. Failure is something that happens on the way to success. Now the difference between the successful person versus the failure is the successful person failed on the way to success and the failure fell and decided he's going to stay laying down. He decided that okay, I'm a loser. I'm just gonna stay a loser. Now, every person when he was a kid fell down, fell on the floor, you tried to climb the little tree, fell. H what'd you do? You got up. Now, even after you fell five times, no kid ever say, you know what, I fell five times and said, I'm staying here for the rest of my life. No one does that. Everyone gets up at some point. So, the same concept with this, same concept with Abu. You fell, get up again. That's in essence in order to succeed you have to simply push yourself to keep getting up. Now as far as getting impacted by shim in a positive way and keeping that impact a is like spiritual fuel to the nama. But just like your car whether it's a Tesla or it's a regular fuel the energy doesn't last forever. At some point you need a recharge. At some point, every nishama needs a recharge. That's why there's daily there's daily mus that's necessary. That's why there's daily that's necessary. That's why the says there's certain things that always need there's always need. One of them is to learn more about one of them learn to get more every day. M is necessary every day. Sometimes you need an hour, sometimes you need 15 minutes, sometimes the whole day, sometimes you need 20 minutes. Every day is different. But you have to get on a regular basis. Now out of let's say my average sh that I usually give is about two hours I don't think that any one of my students is going to do everything that I said or even 10% of what I said in the sh the goal of every shure is to generally speaking give you the inspiration and you take one thing out of that entire shure and say I'm going to try that I'm going to do that and tomorrow you do And you do it until the next shield, which is a couple of days later. And guess what? In the next sh you got another two hours of fuel. And you say that one thing, I'm going to do that. Yeah, but I have the other thing. Okay, so I'll just do both. And you start doing both. And before you know it, ah, one of them got a little stronger, one of them got a little weaker. But by the time you were confused, which one? What am I going to do? I didn't do this one good. Oh, I'm not good enough. Another sear came. So you got another one thing and that's the thing that's why you constantly need and that's why it's very very important for a person to keep getting from the same source. The BMT speaks about he calls it the sadik. He says there's a sadik that has fruits and there's a sadik that doesn't have fruits. The one that sadik that has doesn't have fruits he learns for himself by himself. So he doesn't have any fruits. Then there's a sadik that's like a tamal. He has like a uh figs. They have delicious taste. What is that? That's a dick that has fruits. So he learns to also teach to also have students to also have those students become teachers and so on and so forth. He has fruits, he has books, he has so on. So what your goal is is to be that to to keep getting closer and closer to that. Whether it's going to be your direct success that's going to help somebody do chuva or it's going to be the results of your effort that somebody else is going to succeed. But either way, you keep going and you keep growing. And the more a person connects to the source that's given them without starting to go right or left, the more the fuel keeps going in the right direction. A lot of times what people what people make a mistake on is the uh breast says similar to what said about but he says that sometimes a person doesn't realize that the sadik that hashem sent a person it's not just any sadik but if that sadik was able to impact his that means that in his in his mercy for that person he gave give you a specific connection which means that even if you find a different sadik even if you find 500 other sadikim and they're all great but they won't be custom made for your nama like the first one why that one has a direct line from you know in from your from your the Torah is going to impact you the most that way so even if you listen to 500 other ones none of them are going to be able to have the same impact on your ina so many times people they make the they fall for the Satan's mistake the for the Satan's trap where they say listen I've been listening or reading these books for uh for 5 years let me try something else and then they find themselves a year later two years later much weaker much further from Hashem than they were a couple years ago even though they continued reading even though they continued listening but just something else just uh this morning somebody asked me uh Rabbi I need some uh uh guidance I feel like I'm uh you know I'm uh much weaker now. I feel like this like in a negative way. I said okay so what uh what happened? He goes I don't know. I'm asking you. I said okay so when was the last time you felt good? He said four months ago. And uh I said okay so four months ago. Are you listening to as many shim of mine today as you were four months ago? Go. No. Tell you the truth, Rabbi. No. I kind of stopped. I'm like okay. So that's your answer. If four months ago, if until four months ago, you've been watching them for a year, two years, three years, it helped you, it restructured your life, you became happy, you became successful, everything was working good, and then you decided to press the stop button. Now it's not working. What do you expect? It goes on autopilot. I mean, after all, I'm not a Tesla, guys. Coming soon. But the reality is necessary all the time. That's the way it works in the Torah. And a person has to know that the never has an end. You're going to need it every day. Every day. And his mercy made Torah more accessible today than any other generation. Because today, it's not like in the old days when they listen to Moshenu speak. That was a one time speech. He's not repeating it. Today, if you like this you, you can listen to it tomorrow on YouTube. You can listen to it the next day. You can listen to it every single day for the rest of your life. Why? because it'll be available. So books are available, videos are available, there's a lot of things that are available, which means that the Torah is always going to uh be available for a person that's actually looking for it. Just don't fall for the trap of the that's trying to get you to go in a different route that uh and pretending that that's a better route. There's if there's one thing that's working, don't fix what's not broken. Any questions from the women's side? Usually women have questions that are better than the men, but today it's they uh hopefully they didn't fall asleep behind the uh anything else. Anybody else? &gt;&gt; Who is your &gt;&gt; My rabbi is Rabbi Fry Kakon. Rabbi Fry Kaklon is also happens to be my cousin, but I didn't know he even existed until I met him. And uh he's the one that helped me do Chuva. He's the one that I've been learning with every single day since I started. Uh and uh he is uh for anyone who doesn't know he's an extraordinary he's in uh gives shim every single day. He is uh he's written uh over 50 books by now. uh books, uh responses, uh uh shavas, uh you know, cabala, pretty much uh every every topic across the spectrum of the Torah. Uh and um he's uh he's not only someone that has uh has taught me Torah, but is someone that guides me on a day-to-day basis. There's nothing that I do without asking him first what he thinks yes or no good or not and there's no limitation this goes from everything from personal to uh to teaching to students to everything else even if I know the answer even if there somebody asked me an question or somebody asked me a specific question I ask him I tell them listen this is the question I think this is the answer am I right or am I wrong uh and The reason why is because I know different parts of my own yet and uh and uh I know how what what I need and therefore I know that one of the things that I need is I need to not trust myself. I need to always humble myself to never rely on just my own opinion because once you start relying on your own opinion there's a uh there's no limitation of how far that can go uh in the wrong direction. So I always want to make sure that whatever I do, whatever I say, whatever I quote in the shim, everything has a backing behind it. And that's why also anytime somebody tells me that they don't like what I say, I said, well, your problem is not with me. Your problem is maybe with the Rambam or the balot or maybe with Rashi or maybe you have a problem with a rabbi. Maybe you even have a problem with your problem is definitely not with me because everything that I'm bringing you is from them. So when I uh when I learn with uh with him, one of the things that I always ask him uh is to always uh show me the sources because it's not only that I learn from him what where something specific is, but I also try to learn around it, what's before, what's after it, if I could add to it, if I could uh uh bring uh some more color to certain things, explanations and so on. Uh but uh this is what's worked in the last uh 12 years of of teaching and uh I think that uh you know again it's if it wasn't for that uh I would still be on Wall Street. I would still be on Wall Street trying to break my head and be the next billionaire. &gt;&gt; Yeah. Yes. &gt;&gt; Question from the story. &gt;&gt; Repeat that again. &gt;&gt; Yeah. &gt;&gt; Israel came to &gt;&gt; right. So wouldn't it make sense for a prodigious to let their kids let's say would an argument be made like if was on a higher level so wouldn't it would you make an argument to a parent to say to him let your kids go to public school let them choose just like he was a priest gave everything up and Hashem said this is the guy he gave everything up and he came wasn't he wasn't born, &gt;&gt; right? Well, the thing is &gt;&gt; no. &gt;&gt; No, he didn't give it he didn't give his son on the eighth day because he thought that it was going to be a sak it's going to be a danger to to give in the middle of the desert which it was a danger but Hashem did not punish him for not giving him a a brea uh on the way. what he punished uh Musher Rabenu on was that once they stopped at a certain motel and Mosherenu didn't give him a bilah right away that's when Hashem punished them and that's why had to save his life meaning that Moshe was right for not giving a his son a brick while they're on the way because it is it was a life danger to do it but he was wrong for delaying it once they stopped the same concept also with when it comes to there's a of where the came before Matanto or after Matanto. The Ramban has a uh has an opinion that's different than Rashi. Some say that the Torah is in chronological order where it came after Matanto and some say that it's a he came before it. Either way was a unique nama because it went through the world of Abu D. He was the priest, he was the pope, he was a lot of different things and he was also a man that was looking for the truth. So every time he found that something was not true, he went to something else. Now when it says heard, what did he hear? He heard all of the miracles that did form Is. But to him, it was different to hear it than everybody else. Why? Because before he became a pope and in median, he was one of the three advisers of Pero. Perau had three advisers. One of them was, one of them was Bil and one of them was Job. Now, Pero asked these advisers, "What should we do with these Israelites because they're becoming such great a number said, "Leave them alone. They're they're doing good for you there." Ysef Sadik is the one that built Egypt. Bilam said, "Kill them. Enslave them. Kill them and so on. destroy them. Uh Job stayed silent. So after it was concluded that par is going to go with Bilam's opinion, it had to flee. He had to run away. Uh and uh and and Job was also had to leave, but Hashem Hashem punished him or tested him in such a way that he had to suffer for a year with all the different tests that Job had. Now since was not of the opinion of Bilam he knew that it's wrong to torment the Jewish people. So after all of those years that that tormented the Jewish people and then Hashem brought the salvation and part of the salvation was the 10 plagues and each plague was specifically given as a measure for measure punishment on the Egyptians for doing something evil to the Jews. And on top of that also split the ocean and drowned the Egyptians. when it says knew the whole story from before. He knew all of what the Egyptians did to the Jewish people and he saw how Hashem punished them with exactly what they did to the Jewish people as a measure for measure. So as soon as he saw that he says he heard and he realized there is no other god. Not only that Hashem is the greatest of of everything but there is nothing else that could give such a precise punishment as a uh you know uh for for what they did. Now he at that point gave up everything went and be converted to Judaism joined his daughter which was the wife of uh of of Mosher Rabenu and uh he didn't stop there later on he decided to go back to Midian and to convert the rest of his family and he only joined is after 40 years when they were already at uh at is where he broughtund thou 100,000 of his family members they were all, you know, at a level where they were all practicing Judaism and the say that his descendants got to a level where they all got to so they became extremely righteous people. Now, as far as the second part of your uh uh your what you said as far as why not send our people, our kids to public school and let them uh let them choose for themsel. Now the Rambam writes that regardless of who you are, regardless of where you were brought up, regardless of uh you know how a person uh how smart or how foolish a person is, they will be impacted by their surroundings. Meaning if you live among Chinese people, after a while you're going to be influenced by those Chinese people. If you live among Jewish people, after a while you'll be influenced by those Jewish people. If you live among criminals, after a while you'll be influenced by those criminals. That's just a reality. Which means that if a person if a Jewish person sends their children to a public school that where the majority of the kids are not Jewish and uh could very well be practicing uh all forms of idolatry and even more so when they see Jewish people there, those Jewish people are not religious at all. They're not saying every single day. They're not keeping Shabbat. they're not giving you which means their ch those kids that that are in that public school are going to be the influence of that of on that kid. Why would you want to do that if you want your kid to serve Hashem? I went to public school. It wasn't exactly a positive influence. Uh because if the Jewish people's ultimate goal is to educate their kids to serve Hashem, then they have to do everything possible to keep them on that path and to limit the influences from society. Because who says that we're allowed to take risks with uh with with Jewish namot like a gamble? Let him pick. Why should I just let him pick? He doesn't know what's right or wrong yet. He's just a kid. The whole job of a parent, regardless of whether it's a Jewish or a Gentile parent, the whole job of a parent is to make decisions on behalf of their child for their child's best interest because the child does not know enough to know what their best interest is yet. You did not know as much about what you know today when you were 8 years old. You did not have the ability and the knowledge to make the right decisions at 10 years old. Why? Because you didn't have experience. So this is something that the parent is responsible for to make the decisions on behalf of their children because they have the experience and on top of that the the the Jewish sages throughout history have cho have given us the knowledge of what the right decision is to make which means that even if the parent himself doesn't know what the right choice is they could ask what's the right choice says this is what's written this is what we do and this is what we do why because we know that's the right choice so it's we we We we we help the kids by directing them in the right direction. Kim &gt;&gt; tragic example of this is bringing up kids into a secular environment in school and saying what gender you are. &gt;&gt; Okay. So that's that's another thing that we have as a as an addition uh addition to the disaster is that when I was a kid if uh you know if somebody was uh started smoking all the parents in neighborhood says don't hang out with that kid. Why? he's a 9-year-old kid or 10-y old kid that's smoking cigarettes, don't hang out with him anymore. Why? Because at that time, it was still a not accepted for a 10-year-old kid or 11-y old kid to smoke. If uh if uh if that was uh you know with uh later on if somebody did drugs or if somebody had a girlfriend, all types of different things, all the parents more or less it was like a small world. Everyone knew who was doing who was doing what, who was doing not. Today it's a very different world. Today kids go to school and sometimes the teachers convince the boy that he's not really a boy but he's a girl. And sometimes they bring a new teacher who pretends to be a girl but it's really a boy dressed as a girl or vice versa. Today there's the the education in the public school system in America is bottom of the barrel to such a point that many of the non-Jews have stopped sending their kids to public school to the point where homeschooling has become more widespread among the non-Jews than ever in history because they're so unhappy with what's happening with the public schools. So to uh to to send any boy to a public school today in America is taking a risk. The first risk is an ideological risk where you could send your kid to a school as a boy, he could come back at thinking he's a girl. You could send her as a girl, she come back thinking she's a she's a boy. That's number one. Number two, America has gotten to the point where the amount of mass school shootings we have in America today on the average is one every half days. One every two and a half days. Not all of it gets reported on TV, but the statistic is that one every 2.4 4 days, which means there's a lot of schools, but every parent has to think maybe today is the day that they the there's a public school shooting in that school. So, it's a very serious risk uh as far as safety is concerned. It's not exactly safe. And why? Because again, it's a different a different uh environment, different ideology. Third and most important for a Jewish person to send his kids to a public school the law writes 300 years ago is considered as if the Jewish person has sent their kids to an idol as if they brought a sacrifice to mole. He he makes he makes this uh this equivalent to idolatry. Why? Because when you're sending your kids to public school, you're sending them to get miseducated. They're not getting educated. They're getting miseducated. They're being educated that we came from some amoeba. They're getting getting educated that the world is zillions of years old and the Torah is just a fairy tale. They're getting educated in things that are foreign to the Torah, that are the opposite of the Torah, that are heretical according to the Torah. So to they're they're getting educated to uh to think that we came from monkeys. I remember one day I came back from school and I was uh 10 years old and I told uh Ima do you know we came from monkeys? She looks at me she goes what are you talking about? She goes that's what I learned today. We came from monkeysma you used to be a chimpanzee. She almost gave me a slap that I'm like what are you talking about? I told that's why I look I showed her the book. This is nonsense. We came from Hashem Torah scholar. And I continued having and developing those questions, many years later. But guess what? What an average parent thinks is not going to influence their kid is going to influence their kid a lot more than they think. a little cartoon that tells kids that the world is 13 and a half billion years old and it all started from some amoeba that after meiosis or mitosis, it split into two and eventually turned into some lizard that became a parrot that became a monkey that became a dinosaur that became a become a bear and at some point decide to become a human with two legs but then he decided being a human is difficult to become a monkey again. All that nonsense. Guess what? That cartoon is going to influence that boy and he's going to be confused until someone puts some real wisdom into that that affects him. Why? Because he's always going to have doubts. He's always going to have doubts. Why? Because sometimes it sounds real. Sometimes it sounds like it's legit. Sometimes it makes sense. Sometimes the lie is so good it sounds better than the truth. And that's what the says in the the lie it doesn't live unless it has a little bit of truth in it. A little bit of truth in it then it has life. If it's 100% false it can't live. So how could for example evolution how could evolution something that is very widespread and a lot of people believe in it. How could that be? What's the truth in it? The page 12 12A says uh uh that before every before he created the world there was just him. Then he created a point and he expanded it and he roared and and that point continued expanding until he roared at the heavens and said die. And that's why we call him El Shakai because he's the god that said die that said enough. And that's also when we say that uh uh fear of heaven, why do we say fear of heaven? Why don't we say fear of God? Why don't we say something else? Because the first thing to fear Hashem is the heavens. He wrote on it that it stopped expanding. So the difference between the uh the uh the the big bang and what our says is they both say it started from a point and it expanded. What's the difference? difference is two things. Number one, according to the big bang, the world continued to expand. According to the Torah, it stopped expanding because God said stop. Second point of difference, big bang does not have an explanation of what that first point came from. Where did it come from? We don't know. We do know it came from God. He created that first point. So, you see, every lie has a little bit of truth in it. But if you send a kid to the zim, to the wolves of the public school system, how do you expect him to survive? He doesn't have the tools. So what is he gonna do? He's going to believe that we came from monkeys. He's going to believe that today he's a boy, tomorrow he's a girl, and next week maybe he's even a dragon. There was a girl that made a video of herself and she was asking the community to help her. What was the help she was asking? She said, "It's very difficult for me to be a dragon because when I fly, my wings get wet when it's raining. What do you other dragons do? What do you What does the community of dragons do when it rains and your and your wet and your wings get wet?" And this girl said it with all seriousness. She believes she's a dragon and that her wings are wet and she has a problem in life that her wings her wings are wet. This is public school education. And guess what? This girl was a teacher. You She wasn't even a student to public school. She was a teacher in public school. So if you want to send your kids to such a thing, it's better off not to have kids. Have a pet instead. It's easier. You no anyone can tell them he came from or anything else. The dog is going to be fine. But if you want to have your kids go the right direction, don't send them to public school. Because in today's society, public school is a danger to everyone, both Jews and Gentiles. It's not it's not it's not a healthy place. &gt;&gt; Yes. &gt;&gt; Yeah. Because she answered her prayers. &gt;&gt; Yes. So it says that people so much &gt;&gt; right. &gt;&gt; So the question is everybody in the community knew why was so surprised when he married her because she was sad. She cried. Hashem answered her prayer. If he got &gt;&gt; and she was supposed to marry &gt;&gt; so why was he so surprised when he married her? Why such a strong reaction? &gt;&gt; Because the original deal was for &gt;&gt; it's not a matter of what she what she want right. No, but that's the thing. It's &gt;&gt; so so it's just this is like this. For example, if you went into a business deal and he said, "Listen, I'm going to give you $5 million for this building." And the guy says, "Sure, no problem. Let's uh we'll give you the lawyers, the documents, wire the transfer, everything is good." You wire the money, you sign the documents, you go to the building, and you try to open it and it doesn't work. And the security guard says, "Sir, what can I help you with?" "Oh, I bought this building." "No, no, no. This is not this building. You got the one from behind because the one from behind, that's the one we're going to be developing. It's going to be much better. It's prettier. It has better view. It has better apartments. whatever excuse he's going to give you, you're going to say, "Yeah, but that's not what I agreed to." Even if you say it's better, even if you say it's nicer, even if you say this building has been praying for me, that's not what I agreed to when I signed the documents. When when Jacob spoke to uh to Lavan, he said, "I want to marry your younger daughter. I want to marry Rael." And and uh uh Lavan, that's what he agreed to. And so when there was a surprise later on, it wasn't necessarily that Yakov hated her or didn't like her or anything like that or or thought that she wasn't righteous enough. Is that the original agreement was one thing and Leavan tricked him. Now Rael tried to warn Yakov, tried to warn Yakov that her father is a liar and a father is going to try to trick him. And he says, "I'll be a brother to him." meaning that just like he is a liar, I'll be a liar just like him. I'll fool him, too. And that's why I'll give him conditions that he's not going to be able to fool me. I'm gonna say, "I want your daughter, your youngest daughter, the little daughter." So, he only has one younger one, one little one. There's twins. Yakov in his wildest dreams never thought that Leavan is just simply, he's not going to, you know, trick him. He's simply going to outright change the deal. He's simply going to not do what they agreed on. Not even in a in a way of manipulating things. He says, "Listen, whatever you wanted, uh, that's great that you wanted it, but that's not our custom. Our custom is to marry the older daughter first." Yeah, but what about our agreement? He goes, "Oh, well, if you want to do that agreement, you could just work for me for another seven years, and I'll give you the other one, too." Meaning, I'll give you what you want, but you have to take this one first. So it's a it's the the manipulation of that Yakov expected from Lavan uh was was not enough. Lavan was even more tricky, more corrupt, uh more wicked than what Yakov expected. And uh this did not end there. Even after 20 years of working for him, when Leavan accused him of of stealing from him and so on, Yakov said, "You uh uh you you changed the deal that we had as far as money over a hundred times." Meaning, imagine working for somebody and he changes your salary a hundred times because every time he changes the deal, Hashem makes it successful. So, he changes the deal to try to make it less successful. He sees it successful again, he changes it again. A hundred times he changed the deal. So the level of corruption that came from Levan was even a surprise to uh to to &gt;&gt; Yakovs. Hashem runs the world as far as the conclusions, but a person still chooses what they're going to do. Meaning the says everything is from heaven except the fear of heaven. Which means that Hashem uh allows us to make the choice. If you decide to jump, you can jump. If you decide to sit, you'll sit. If you decide to pray, you can pray. If you decide to givea, you'll givea. You can choose what you want to do. What Hashem decides is what's going to be the outcome. Meaning, if you if you jump, Hashem is going to decide how high it's going to be. Hashem is going to decide how you're going to land. If you decide to sit, Hashem is going to decide how comfortable the chair is going to be. If you decide to uh to to pray, Hashem is going to decide if you're gonna have distractions during that prayer. If you decide to givea Hashem is going to decide how much uh fruit is going to come out of the that you give, meaning how much good results will come out as a result of your so you decide what to do. Hashem decides the results. Because if Hashem would have decided what to do for you, then it would not be for him uh fair for him to reward or to punish us. Because if he decides whether you're going to punch somebody in the face or not, why would he punish you? If he decides whether you're going to steal or not, why would he punish you for stealing? Or why would he reward you for not stealing? So you have the ability to choose what to do. Hashem will choose what the outcome is going to be. So that's what a uh everything is from heaven except the fear of heaven. That's what that means. Yes. &gt;&gt; What is the best way to give um to show little kids love to &gt;&gt; show little kids love to Hashem? Uh first and foremost is to never think that the kid is too young to learn about Hashem. Okay. You can start at the beginning. The uh it's very the kids are like a sponge. everything that you teach them, they're they're going to learn. They're going to enjoy it. They're going to like it. They're going to believe it. So, if you tell them stories about sadikim, the best thing says that the best thing that you can you could uh learn uh is a uh stories about sadikim. If because if you want to learn about the ways of hem because when you hear the stories of sadikim, you see how Hashem runs the world and how he makes miracles for this sadik or how he helps this poor person. All different things. You see how Hashem runs the world. So when kids learn these types of stories, they develop a special not only a special connection with Hashem, but a special belief in Hashem's awesomeness. So that's one way that you can teach them how to uh how to love Hashem from the stories of Tadikim. If your kids watch something on the internet, we have a channel called BH Kids where we turn different stories that I've said during uh lectures and different stories from the Torah into little cartoons into little 5 10 minute cartoons where uh they can watch these uh cool stories and bo a lot of parents say this is a great for their kids uh and some adults say it's great for them too. Uh they like cartoons also they're just bigger. But uh the point is is that there's uh there's a lot of good stuff that you could teach a kids from those stories. That's the first thing. Second thing is is to show them by example. A kid is going to be a uh a replica of you. So if he sees that before you, let's say for example, before you wanted to drink, you said a blessing that's barely legible. It's so quick that no one even knows whether you mumbled or you blessed. So guess what? He's going to learn the same way. But if he sees that you're blessing where you're breaking the blessing into three whatever the blessing is, he sees that you have a little bit of patience for that blessing. He's going to learn to do the same thing and not swallow his words because he's going to learn that this has meaning. This has significance that right now I'm thanking Hashem for giving me something to drink. I'm thanking Hashem for giving me food. So teaching them how to bless and in general leading by example is how they see you treat the the Torah and learning Torah if they see that you make it special if they see that you make Shabbat special if they see that every mitzvah you do even if it's giving taka let's say for example you want to give $5 to the and you say you give it to your kid you're going to givea today you give the kid the $5 come put it in its stocker box. Guess what? He's going to think this is the greatest thing in the world. He's going to want to give money away all the time. Why? Because he remembers it when he was 5 years old. He had the first time he ever held a $5 bill was that he's going to want to do for the rest of his life. So the more excited you are about mitzvot, the more excited he or she is going to be about mitzvot. And it's a uh and the more they connect to the mitzvah that way, the more they're gonna start asking you questions about Hashem, why should I do this? Why should I do is why should I wear a keepa? all of the and you have to have uh either the answers or a way to get the answers from either Shure or from Arab or wherever it is to give them the answers for questions because the worst thing that a kid could have is questions with no answers. &gt;&gt; And how is um that generation more and more open-minded and see more stuff? What are like kids going to look like in 20 years from now? Judaism in the past was something that we uh should do because the following the Torah is going to get us to gidden and not following the Torah gets us to gum. In our generation, Judaism is not just for the sake of ganed and gay. Judaism today and living a life of Torah today is simply a survival of the human race. Because the people that are going with the Torah and following the Torah, they at least have a direction of what it's still like to be a human being, a decent human being. The further people become from the Torah, the further they become from acting like human beings. You see how people behave. Like I said, a guy thinks he's a girl, the girl thinks she's a boy, some people think they're dragons, some people think they're angels. every other day someone thinks he's Msiah. There's a lot of craziness happening in the world. So in the world today, you have to on one end understand that technology is not going away. So to just simply shut our eyes from everything and pretend like it doesn't exist is not possible for most people. On the other hand, we can't just accept everything with open arms. So every responsible parent that wants to show their kids, let's say, for example, videos has to take the time to check it for themsel. So if it's a Torah video, for example, you have to make sure it's really a Torah organization and not a missionary organization that calls itself Torah because there's a lot of Christians out there that pretend to be Jews and they say that they're also teaching Torah, but in reality, their agenda is always to teach about Yoske. So, every parent can't just put their kids on some uh on some YouTube channel and hope for the best. The parents have to take the time to doublech checkck what their kids are watching. Uh because to just say, "Listen, my kid is never going to use technology is not a reality, especially not in America." So a parent has to understand that you have to uh you know uh um adapt to the environment to a certain extent but not accepting everything and uh we're going to be just like everybody else everything with step by step with concern with worry with uh with with doublecheing and triple checking even I told a parent earlier today that even you know the a lot of parents have become very uh comfortable with sending their kids to camps. Sending their kids to camps. Don't be so comfortable just sending your kid to any camp. Double check who's the counselor. Double check who's the rabbi. Double check who's there. Why? There are too many horrible stories that come to me after they already happen of what happened to this kid or that kid in the camp or in different places where instead of going to a camp and having a good time, the kid got a trauma for the rest of his life. So to just putting our kids on autopilot and just sending them wherever hoping that it's going to work out. That's the last thing that people can do. Don't treat your kid like people you know drive Teslas where it drives by itself. You have to be involved. You have to be connected. Third thing is try to maintain some type of uh healthy conversation with your kids on a regular basis. even if it's a uh you know if it's a mother once a day if it's a father at least once or twice a week to to talk to them to see what's going on in their life what are they thinking what are they not thinking what they're happy about what they're not happy about see that your kid is still healthy not just he goes to shul and he has a keepa on and he wears tit but to see that the kid is okay why because sometimes if the kids stop talking to the parents for an extended period of time they develop this like discomfort they feel like if they're going to talk to their parents they're bothering them. So continue talking to your kid. Why? Because the world around them is changing much more rapidly than it changed when you were a kid. And we had certain tools to deal with it that our kids don't have. We had certain struggles that our kids don't have. I had to start working when I was 10 years old. But my kids will will never even think think of such an idea. Why? It's a different reality. It's a different world. To tell it, you know, the way the way you look at it is that how the generations have changed just in the last four generations. All of us look at our parents like they're superheroes and our parents look at our grandparents as superheroes. Why? My grandparents had to walk from one country to the next. They had to immigrate. They had to leave Libya and they had to go to the next country by foot. Many people left Yemen by foot, Syria by foot. uh uh different literally they walked from country to country. Some survived, some didn't survive, but that's was normal. Our parents didn't walk from country to country, but they walked to school an hour, 2 hours, 3 hours each way. That was normal. We or me, I walk to school 20 minutes. My kids, your kids, hopefully they can walk to the bathroom without getting assistance. Why? That's the generation. That's the technological evolution. The next generation, most likely they won't need to walk. They'll probably be levitating or flying in some type of cyborg or something like that. So, but again, there's advantages, there's disadvantages to this stuff. Either way, the responsibility of a parent is always going to be there. You have to make decisions on their behalf because they don't know what's good for them yet. They don't know what's bad for them. Don't just say, "Listen, do your best. You have to be involved because you're a parent. You have life experience at least 20 or 30 years more than them. You're going to know better." And when you have all of the technology out there, always make sure that whatever you're going as far as in the world of technology, number one, you're double-checking it or your wife is double-checking it. And number two, you're always following data as far as whether this is even appropriate or not. Because to to some uh to some communities to to use the internet altogether is like a the worst thing in the world. Whereas in other communities, it is acceptable if there's monitoring. So you have to make sure that you know you don't you don't go too far away from where where where where you need to be. But at the same token, you can't just tell the kids, listen, this doesn't exist because in a society that we live in today, a lot of stuff exists. And if the kid is going to find out only when he's 18 years old, he's going to have a lot more difficult time dealing with it. You know, because if you pretend like the uh the internet and the uh the phones and the computers don't exist, and then the kid one day gets married, he's 18, 20 years old, and that's the first time he discovers what a computer is. Guess what? He's not going to know how to deal with it and all the garbage that comes with it. Whereas at least, if you tell him, listen, you're 10 years old. You can use this program because this is a Torah program. this is a uh you know this is a uh thing because they're not even selling books anymore. They're sell they're giving you your education on some type of tablet. You tell them what's allowed, what's not allowed. Again, in certain communities that was that's going to be uh uh acceptable. In other communities, they're never going to go that way. But either way, you have to know how to guide them. How to guide them. And uh it's uh last but not least, pray a whole lot. Never stop praying. The disciple go was asked one time, "How did you merit to have such a son as of Kany?" He says, "You see this keeper?" He had a big keeper. He says, "I filled it up with tears every day. And until this day, I filled it up with tears." Karfki was already 60some years old. But but this his father, the sniper go continued to cry for him. So we have to cry for our kids or at the very least pray for them. Um and combination of all of these things is uh is going to definitely give uh good results. It's just always always double check. If you if you decide something you don't see the right results, ask again. Okay, I did this. It didn't get the right results. Sometimes it's because you missed a step. Sometimes is because uh the uh uh something changed. So if if something doesn't get you to get right results, it's uh it's never a problem to ask again. It's never a problem to double check again. Maybe the uh the what's allowed today is not going to be allowed tomorrow because some factor changed. Like for example, YouTube Kids when it first came out was perfectly fine for most normal kids. Today, YouTube Kids is worse than regular YouTube. Literally, regular YouTube is is is not I'm not saying that should be for everybody, but YouTube kids is one of the worst things you can show your kids. Why? Literally, you see how they have an agenda in in the shows where they're teaching, oh, this female horse is married to another female horse and now they're having a son somehow. Like, why do I need to know this is a female horse or that's a female horse? It's an agenda. So the the stuff that they're presenting to kids today is uh a lot of there's a lot of uh hidden agendas. So don't assume that just because something says kids, it's always going to be allowed. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's horrible. And that's why you have to constantly double check stuff. Yeah. Anything else? We have some new people. So the new people could also feel free to ask questions. Yes. &gt;&gt; Big focus on the website. There are a lot of videos about wasting. &gt;&gt; Good. How did that become your focus and you just mentioned a few points that &gt;&gt; so when it comes to when it comes to kadusha the issues of uh wasting seed uh the issues of of of morality this is the foundation of our Torah the says you be holy because I am holy. Both Rashi and the Ramban said on that place that anywhere that you're going to find holiness, you will find morality. You will find people that are reserve themselves when it comes to the issues of kaduca when it comes to issues of uh of keeping themselves uh pure. Any place that you see immorality will not have kadusha. the foundation of our nish, the if you look, if you ever saw that uh that diagram, the cabalistic diagram, the ass is where the brit is. A person cannot elevate themselves to any level of kaduca while still wasting seed, while still being immoral, while committing adultery even if he is immoral with himself. In fact, a person that uh that wastes seed doesn't realize the amount of damage that he's causing is because says um the person has a small member in his body if he satiates it, meaning if he feeds it all the time, he's always going to remain hungry. If he starves it, he'll be satiated. This is how it's works in the human body that gave. A person that constantly feeds his lust will always lust for more. A person that starves his lust, meaning he controls it. He acts like a decent human being, is going to be under control. Is going to be mentally healthier. He's going to be physically healthier. Now this goes further. The Gamban writes 750 years ago that if a person continues to feed his lust, meaning he wastes seed to the point where it's on a regular basis, eventually it's not going to be enough for him. He's going to want something more taboo. Therefore, he starts becoming immoral with people. Eventually, one girlfriend is not enough. He's going to want something more taboo. So, he has multiple. He becomes promiscuous with others. Eventually, if he doesn't satiate himself enough there and he wants to be promiscuous with that, he's going to want more. This leads the Ramban writes, this leads to homosexuality, meaning it's not enough for him to be with women, he's going to want to be with men, too. If that's not enough and he continues being promiscuous, eventually becomes beastiality, goes with animals. And this is already written 750 years ago. Prime examples of this happening in the past generations belar and multiple other kings were married to animals. Belhatar's queen was a dog. Bil his wife was a donkey. These are people that were multi-millionaires had access to whatever they want. They weren't like some ugly garg little in the corner troll that no one wanted to look like. Okay, these are people that had access to whatever they want, but they chose a dog. They chose a donkey. They chose all types of strange animals. Why? Because they were they satiated their lust in so many different ways that it never was enough. They wanted something more. One of the things that Nebuets did is that since he was the most powerful king uh and will be the most powerful king until Mashiach comes is that he would summon all of the junior kings, all of the kings of the other countries to come to him so he could rape them. And that's what he did with every single king. He would bring him and he would rape them. This is all in I'm not making this stuff up. This is not like fairy tales. So &gt;&gt; he he he had no limitations. He had no limitations. and eventually animals too. So the point is is that when a person thinks, "Oh, it's my body. What's the difference? Why does Hashem care? Why did he give me this tava if if it's not allowed?" All these different types of excuses. You have to understand, just because Hashem gave you the ability to spit doesn't mean you need to turn into a camel. Just because Hashem gave you hands doesn't mean that you know that you're allowed to steal everything that you want. Okay? Just because somebody likes to burn things, he is a kleptomaniac, doesn't mean that you should invite him for your Shabbat dinner. Okay? He says, so you have to understand that just because something is possible doesn't mean we need to do it. And a person, Hashem gave each and every single person a test and the ability to withstand it. Now, over the last 12 years, I taught about this topic for a couple of reasons. Number one, because like I said, it's the foundation of the Torah. Without it, there is no kaduca. Number two, this is what throughout all of the generations spoke about time and time again from the from Noah says destroyed the world. Why you destroy the world? Because of wasting seed. Why uh uh hate the Canaanites? Because they were they were they did all types of immorality. Why destroy Sodom and Gomorrah? Because of this. Every single destruction that has happened in the Torah always has to do with this. &gt;&gt; Someone is struggling with it. &gt;&gt; So someone that everyone is struggling with it. Even the guy that's been keeping himself clean for six months is struggling with it. Everyone's struggling with it. Now the biggest reason why people are struggling with it is because they do not have the tools of how to withstand it. So what I started doing over the last 12 years is I gave a lot of shim about the topic. We even have a film called Tikunit which is also online. It's free. Everything that I say is free or if somebody wants to get a tablet they get tablets on this thing also. It's one of the 19 hours films that are in it. This tikun film has 116 sources from across different parts of the Torah of where it talks about this topic. But 116 is only less than 1% of 1% of the sources that talk about it. This is just stuff that we highlighted. Over the years, we've made hundreds hundreds of uh shim and short clips about this topic because in order for a person to pass this test, it's not enough for them to know it's wrong. They need to know it's wrong. They need to know it's uh uh bad for them and they need to know that they can overcome it. But in order to overcome it, they need the tools. The tools are knowledge. You need to have certain basic knowledge of why it's wrong. What's the price of if I don't if I just start to to ignore it and how do I overcome this? What do I need to do? How do I treat my body? How do I uh how do I treat my uh and I'm not just talking about oh watch your eyes. Watch your eyes. Everybody knows. Don't look at schmutz. You need you need a sh for that. No. How do I treat my body? Most of the times people that are addicted to it are very very comfortable with themselves. Especially when naked. They go in the shower, they roam around, they start looking themselves in the mirror, they start flexing, they start looking. Oh, I got old look there's a gray hair. Don't be so comfortable with your body. The more comfortable with you are with your body, the more likely you are to fall for this trap. Also, if you're going to a mikvah, if your mikvah is one of those mikv where it's like a college locker room where people just walk around naked as if they're just came on, don't go to that mikvah. If the people over there are not covering themselves, it's better not to go to the mikvah as a guy. Why? Even looking, even seeing another guy is going to impact you. Even if you don't have the tava, you have to understand there are certain things that we're not supposed to do. For example, a lot of people don't know you're not allowed to see two animals mating. Not allowed to see two animals mating. The average person says, "I don't have a tava for it. What am I? Uh, no. It's not about that. There's everything that you're not supposed to do. If you do it, it causes a certain defect, a certain damage, a certain break in that in that nisha, a certain kipa is formed. So this type of information most people don't have it or if they heard it, they forgot it. So we have a bunch of shim. If a person starts watching them, it'll start giving them different insights of how to overcome it. It gives them a daily. In the beginning, it could be that they need an hour a day. After they've uh they started protecting their breath, they have some kak. They could they don't need an hour a day. They need only a half hour a day. After a while, it's enough. 15 minutes a day, 15 minutes a day. 5 minutes a day, depending on where you are. But it's not a smooth sailing. It's not like somebody stops on day one and that's it. They become your sadik tomorrow. Doesn't work that way. Like I said before, the way to success is full of failures. So in the beginning the guy starts off he's a teenager he's regular he he wastes seat every single day now he heard that if he continues to doing it he doesn't do chuva he goes to gum and he's never going to come out why because that's what the says that's what the says and there's a lot more details that you guys probably don't want to hear of what happens over there but there's a movie about that too uh the point is it's called gum anybody wants to know what happens there's 176 sources in that film it's a very good film huh Of course, you could do chuva. Everything you could do chuva so long as you're alive. If you're alive, you could do chuva. Once we're finished in this world, there's no more chuva. Now, the good news is loves all of you. Even if you made as many sins as I made in my life. He still loves you. That's why you're still alive. That's why you can still do chuva. Now, the beautiful part is is that it's available for you to do it, but no one's going to do it for you. So now once a person learns that I can't do that I that I have to stop but he's already addicted to it. He's a teenager. He was doing it like as if it's breakfast, lunch and dinner. But now he realize I can't do it. For him to go from this to zero. It's not going to happen. It's not going to go he's not going to go from from from being an addict to zero overnight. So it has to be it's never okay to do it. Don't ever think for a second that it's ever okay to do it even once. But we also have to be realistic of what's possible for him to do. Where does he stand at that point? So the goal is stop as much as possible. Hold yourself for 2 days, 3 days, 4 days a week, as much as you can. So he holds himself two, three, rabbi, four days. I just fell. Okay, start again. Now you know you can hold it for four days. Next time seven days. Rabbi, I fell again. Okay, start again. Now you held it on for for two weeks. Before you know it, he's holding on three, four, five months. The more a person overcomes the obstacle, the stronger they become, the more braha comes to their life, the more comes to their life. And by the way, the number one way to lose the of is by wasting seed. That's the number one thing that kills the braha. Everyone can make money, but not everyone can have. It's two different things. I know guys that can make a million dollars a month, but all the money goes to legal bills, hospital bills, problems. So, they make a million a month, but they have no braha. Then you have a guy that makes 70 $80,000 a year, but he has everything he wants. Why? He has the million-doll guy doesn't have two different things. So, one of the ways to destroy is this. a person waste seed they ruin their and that's why I've talked about it many many times this is the foundation of our Torah and the number two reason of why I spoke about it so many times over the years is because for whatever reason or another many rabbis stop talking about it in the previous generation this was standard foundation of Judaism this was a standard foundation all of taught this they wrote about this. There are many about this. But in our politically correct generation, apparently it's okay to talk about porn to each other. It's okay to to uh to to publicize porn. It's okay to do a lot of things except to teach that it's not good. Somehow it became okay to huh &gt;&gt; they came the conclusion that it's good. &gt;&gt; Well, if they came to the conclusion that it's good, you see how Yeah. They came to the conclusion that it's good. You see how society is degrading. So society is getting worse. The divorce the divorce rate is the highest it's ever been. And in order to be a celebrity, you have to be you have to be divorced at least five times. Before you divorced five times, you can't be a celebrity. So the key is to understand, &gt;&gt; huh? How do you &gt;&gt; how do you how do you make money? How do you &gt;&gt; bring the how do you bring? First thing first thing that you want to do is to stop doing the things that ruin the baha because hashem already has shea coming to you. When you do things that ruin the ba which I'll I'll give you a few of them that means that the shea is coming down but it's going to different places person wasted big part of shea goes somewhere else and if you really want to know where it goes it goes to somebody you don't like goes to your enemies so it's a double punishment. So the guy that you don't like that you just saw with a brand new car and a brand new house and a brand new this that could have been yours but you gave it to him. So that's one. Second thing is Shabbat person doesn't doesn't keep Shabbat like big part of the third thing is problems with if there's no schlomite man and woman constantly fighting it ruins the &gt;&gt; huh &gt;&gt; no schlomite is important but not everybody's married &gt;&gt; even without &gt;&gt; not everybody's married &gt;&gt; even without logic not help &gt;&gt; oh yeah of course of course the the that in itself rules to the slide to the uh the wasting seat. The third thing the third thing that ruins the sheffa is a uh if if the if the wife is not modest what if the wife if the if if the guy is married to a woman that walks around like she you know forgot her clothes are home. Uh so that that kind of that kind of thing ruins a lot of baka. The uh the next thing that ruins is uh being you know being dishonest in business doing things that are against the Torah such as a uh a to to to make money from initially looks like you're making a lot of money but every time a person lends money with charging interest they acquire themselves the curse that they will eventually lose that money at some point. There's no such thing that whoever is rich was good or whatever good luck &gt;&gt; there. No, there's a person like I said there's two different things there's making &gt;&gt; right. Hashem does Hashem if every time a person smoked a cigarette on Shabbat his head would blow up then then then everybody would know that okay you're not allowed to smoke on Shabbat there's no test. So Hashem doesn't punish right away. Hashem gives us chances to show, &gt;&gt; right? Hashem allows us to to make make choices, but eventually everything comes to judgment. Everything comes Some people they get uh they get judged earlier, some people later, some people get it in their teenagers, some people later on in their life, but at some point or another closes the accounts with everybody. Initially, there's an illusion. This is what writes in that it looks like the evil person, the wicked people are prospering, but he says but I've seen that eventually uh you know closes the accounts with everybody. It's just it's an illusion. It's an illusion. So again, if a person wants to have the first thing is to to stop doing the things that ruin the that in itself is going to change your mazal. That in itself is going to improve your situation. If you know let's say out of five things that I mentioned you know that you're doing one thing wrong you fix that automatically your is going to change. This is guaranteed and proven. If a person if a person uh already let's say for example all of these things he's perfect he protects his height his wife is modest uh you know everything is he's uh you know sadik then he wants to increase his then he then he needs to do things that increase to increase braha you have to you can do a few things number one you can take a if you want to have protection for your money, you give ma to support. If you want to become rich, you give that's what the vill says. Someone that gives to publicize to help people do to to uh to support the world of Torah and they want protection, they give ma. If they want to become rich during their lifetime, they give to give mas and to give is not easy for everyone. Some some people it's easy for them, some people it's very difficult for them depending on their tikun in this world. Some people have the mid of giving, some people they have the midav of of taking. So it all depends on what your test is. The second thing is that a person can do to bring baka is to support uh helping people do chuvat to help people do chuva to be involved in it in some way or another. Why? Because this is the most favorite thing in the in the eyes of Hashem. Because when you bring one of his children back to him, the prophet says, "If you bring someone that used to be a shabas, used to be a kufair, used to be something and you bring him back to as you're going to be like my mouth." Meaning what you ask for says, "I'm going to do." &gt;&gt; Huh? &gt;&gt; Everybody wants to see it. &gt;&gt; Everyone wants to see it. Uh, it happens. I mean, if you if you've been watching some of my videos over the years, you would see it. I have every year we have an annual campaign on we have campaigns throughout the whole year for a lot of things that we do, but the biggest campaign that we have is during high holidays. That's usually when we raise the most amount of money. That's usually when we have a special blessing. And every year we publicize the miracles of the past year for the big donors. There are certain people that buy a special blessing don uh donation and every year we publicize they we have them on video. They tell us we don't know what they what their miracle is. They tell us what happened to you from last year. And every year we have new miracles. Woman had a uh uh uh cancer, cancer is gone. A guy married for 10 years, no kids, has kids. uh a person that uh had uh uh $15,000 to his name ended up the year with a million half dollars. Uh all types all of it all of it is in there and we make sure all these videos are public. &gt;&gt; All of these videos are public. Ask ask all these all these videos are public and there's a lot of miracles that are not reported. I keep asking the people to to report the uh miracles &gt;&gt; but every year we have more and more. Why &gt;&gt; the commission? So why why why do we publicize it? Because one of the things that promises is when when you support Torah, you're supposed to get a blessing. So I always tell people and I don't know if anybody else does it. I don't know of anybody else that does it also. I tell people if you're seriously donating to our organization over an extended period of time and you don't see any blessing, then there's something wrong with us. What? You're supposed to be see a blessing. Now I'm not saying it's going to automatically fix every problem you have, but you're supposed to see a blessing. You're supposed to see some major improvement. There has to be. Some people get health, some people get finances, some people get everybody gets something. Now, many times people they donate, they feel good, they get compliments, but they don't really receive any results. They don't really see any difference in their life. And they've already gotten to a point where they feel like, listen, I just give because it's good to give. &gt;&gt; Yes, it's good to give, but You would give more if you saw results. &gt;&gt; So that's why we like to publicize the results to show people, listen, this is what these people got. Choose wisely. Some people tell me, listen, I gave 10 times more to such and such organization. I haven't gotten anything. I say, okay, so try something else. Huh? &gt;&gt; I give to a lot of people. &gt;&gt; Again, just because you give doesn't mean it's automatically the right place. So if you give for example to to a person that's a corrupt person says if a person gives money to a person that's corrupt it's considered in the same level as wasting seed. Why? You're taking the shif that hem gave you and you're wasting it. You're giving it to support something bad. So, so a person has to know that just like you do research on your real estate before you buy it, on your stocks before you buy it, on your lawyer before you hire him, on your employee before you, just like you do research on anything else, you have to do research on the stock that you give of what is it going to do? What is it actually supporting? Is it just buying this guy a new car because he wants the new 2027 model or is it actually going to publicize a Kadoshu's name? What's the what's going to be what's gonna happen with this money? Okay, I see the campaign. They want to raise a million, two million, five million, 10 million. Fine. What's going to happen? What's going to happen as a result? And and and check, you have to see where your money is going. Why? Because if we give blindly, it's like as if we're wasting it. And I know a lot of people saying, "Listen, I give blindly. Hashem takes care of it." Fine. Would you do your real estate transactions like that? Would you hire a lawyer? Listen, I'm going to hire any lawyer, and Hashem's going to do the rest. Amuna, you have to apply the same amuna that you do on other investments on this investment. Why? If you're if I told you, listen, you have an extra $5 million. No, I don't have extra $5 million. I have $5 million, but I don't have extra $5 million. Okay, I have a really, really good deal for you. Okay, what's the deal? I can't tell you, but give me the $5 million and I'll invest it for you. You're going to give me the $5 million, Mito. Why not? What are you talking about, Rabbi? You're a nice guy, but I'm not going to give you $5 million until I see it. I want to see the building with my eyes. I want to see the field. I want to see the horses. I want TO SEE SOMETHING. WHY CAN'T YOU just trust me? I'm a rabbi after all. No, no, no. Rabbi, trust you. Trust you. But first, I want to test you. I want to see the first one. So, how come on material that's only going to be in this world and it's only in the temporary world, you do the research, but on an investment for eternity, you don't do the research. $5 million for a piece of real estate, you would do the research. But the real estate, even if it's the best piece of real estate in the world, it turns to $100 million after a person dies, guess what? It's worthless. Can't take it with him. But that but that same money that he's going to invest into publicizing, into helping poor, into whatever good they're going to do, that's going to come with him. How come he's not checking it? So a person has an obligation to do the minimum of seeing where is this money going and not just blindly give because if you would blindly give in business that blindly give in sta if you're such a do you trust Hashem blindly I'm going to invest in whatever I'm going to hire whatever I trust in Hashem then you can give taka blindly but if you're going to investigate every investment 10 times before you invest and get five references for every employee, before you hire him. Then you have to do some double-checking on also where you give and why you give. Why? Because this is an investment. It's not just like uh do good for the sake of good. It's an investment. It's an investment into your and once people show up to Allah, they're going to either have surprises or disappointments. They build a house here, $5 million house, kitchen, $150,000. They want to show up to Shamim at least with the same thing. They want to have also $510 million house in Shamim. They also want to have a $200,000 kitchen in Shamim. But if they donated to a bunch of corrupt places, if they wasted their money, if they gambled, they ate all types of things in Shamim, maybe they're going to have a bathroom. The house, not so much. &gt;&gt; Why? Hashem gave you Hashem gave you money to invest. Invest wisely both in this world and the next. &gt;&gt; Anything &gt;&gt; tell us about the transparency of investing in &gt;&gt; one of the beautiful things that uh people that have been with us for a while is uh know is that I like to be an open book. I like to tell people whatever question you have I'll answer. Whether it's uh personal, business or whatever, I have no problem. And also, I like to make everything that we do public. So, like I said, when people uh you know uh want to hear about miracles, I ask different donors to please make a public video about what happened to you. &gt;&gt; Uh there uh there is a No, but there's specific people. Uh every year there's more. Aside from that, I also, you know, all the numbers, all our financials, everything is public. Anyone that types in bazadashem.org or can go on guidear or candid can see the financials can see where the money goes can see I haven't taken a salary in 12 years can see I work for free can see all of these things so all of these things why do I why do I do all of this because I'm the most spec uh uh uh skeptical person out there what I did for a living for almost 20 years is I analyze investments I analyze red flags I look for problems I look for mistakes So I want people to know this is what it is and this is what you're getting so there's no surprises we disclose so much that the organization called guidear also it's called candid they have uh they track nearly 2 million nonprofit organizations only 1% of all of those nonprofit organizations have the highest level of transparency called the platinum So let's say call 20 20,000 to level of platinum it's called &gt;&gt; Gara Gara platinum. So only 1% uh have this platinum which is again out of 2 million about 20,000. Most of the organizations that have this platinum are huge organizations with tens and tens of millions of dollars and staff and so on and so forth. But we've worked very very hard to be so transparent that we've gotten the platinum for the last three years in a row. And our goal is to continue. Why? I want to show everybody this is what we do. This is what you get. Now you know where your money is going. Because that's what I did on Wall Street. Wall Street I had to give people a statement every month. At the end of a statement, this is what you get. This is you invested in this. This is what you got. Every year you get a a statement. Same concept with with with donations. I think that people need to invest a little bit more time into what they donate, where they donate, why they donate, because according to our supposed to get results for supporting Torah in this world and the next, not just the next world. It's not supposed to be just in you're also supposed to get results in this world. Which means that if you're not getting if your life hasn't improved, there's one of a few problems. either you're not giving enough or you're giving to the wrong places. That's that's pretty much it's a very limited amount of possibilities. So a person has to double check if they're not giving enough that's a problem. If they're giving more than enough, they're one of the then if are you giving to the wrong place. The third obstac the third possibility is like I said before is a person is doing something to ruin their if they're doing something to ruin their doesn't matter how much they give. If they're making money from stealing from people or they're in one of these corrupt businesses of merchant cash advance doesn't matter if they give a billion dollars a day. None of that is going to give them they may make more money. &gt;&gt; Huh? these people. &gt;&gt; It's worse. It's worse when they do business with Goim because when you when I take when when Ruven takes advantage of Shimon, then Shimon doesn't like Ruven anymore. But when Ruven takes advantage of Jose, then guess what? Jose becomes becomes an anti-Semite. So that becomes and the Rambam writes that is the worst of all. The says the worst of all. What does it mean the worst of all? That means that according to the means that the person cannot do easy chuva forem and in most cases he has to die in order to start doing chuva for it. The uh the uh some of the that spoke about it like uh says that you could fix with kushem but to do kushem is not easy. People think that just because you uh you gave to your next door neighbor, it's it's not so simple to do. But uh to to go and take advantage of go uh is worse than taking advantage of Jews because take advantage of a Jew, you're hurting a Jew. It's not good. Person has to do cha for it. But if you hurt a gely is worse than a than a Jew. I have a shul about this. We also have an chuva of why the merchant cash advance business is forbidden for Jews. And we've offered anyone that's a that wants to prove this chuva wrong $100,000. The offer has been going on for seven years. Every that has read the chuva agreed with it. &gt;&gt; Huh? &gt;&gt; Why is it why why is why is it wrong for for for us to lend money to go? is only &gt;&gt; that's that's what a lot of have thought initially until until they learn more about the topic. It's not a mitzvah. It's a meaning you're allowed to charge interest to the but it's not a mitzvah. How do we know it's not a mitzvah? A lot of people say, "Wait, the Rambam says it's a mitzvah, but how come it's not part of?" When the Rambam wrote, he had all of the mitzvot listed. There's no mitzvah of charging rebat and who most of the time pusans like to says it's not a mitzvah it's a meaning it's permitted to charge the go interest but permitted does not mean charge them whatever they want charge them whatever you want because once you get to a point where you're charging the the predatory rates meaning that statistically poss it's it's statistically impossible for that customer to ever get ahead then it's not considered lending anymore. It's considered gazil. So if you're charging the guy, let's say for example, 20%, like the bank or the credit card, 29%. Then it's statistically probable for him to pay the money back because a normal business, a normal business that functions, even if you buy the goods for $1 and you sell them for $10, your profit margin is not 90%. because you have overhead, you have the electricity, you have the employees, you have the insurance, you have all of the different things. At the end of the day, if you're a healthy business, you make 25% profit margin. That's a healthy business. 20 25%. If you're a software company with very little uh overhead, you're like Palunteer, the most profitable software company in the last few years, you're at 71%. Which is an anomaly. It's not realistic. Most businesses, healthy businesses, your mom and pop shops, your plumber, your electrician, your lawyer, 20 25% is a healthy business after expenses. Which means if you are lending money to a person and their interest is 200%, because they're charging you 50% for every 3 months, which annualized is over 200% per year. That means it is impossible for that business to ever be profitable because the cost of money is higher than the profitability that's possible. This is the reason why the industry is called predatory. Predatory means that the business itself pres on its customers. The average person that borrows money for merchant cash advance ends up borrowing money three to five times to refinance the same loan until they declare bankruptcy. When the merchant cash advance company is analyzing who their c who they're going to lend money to, they're not analyzing what kind of business you have. They're analyzing how much money you have in the bank in order to assess whether you have at least 90 days of lifetime because that's all they need in order to suck out the blood and the money and whatever is left of the business. Now, most people are not familiar with this business and not realizing the kind of damage that it's causing because some people assume that you know if you could charge interest to the gim, you could charge anything you want. But that's not the case. In fact, there are some that say it's to charge the the Christians in the any interest. writes that when it says it's not referring to the ad or to Ishmael is the is not the is not or or is the and therefore he says that the the is a uh is is someone you're allowed to charge interest but the uh the and the uh uh and are included under a because there's different verse in the Torah it says that uh don't uh don't torment your brother a do is considered is considered and therefore you're not even allowed to charge them interest at all in fact writes people that lend money to go with in with high interest are causing two so one they are lending money with interest which is always frowned upon so show that even forbid it in his time to lend money to go at all as far as charging interest. But on top of that, they're increasing anti-semitism. So much so that Raando says someone that lends money to go with high interest has a din meaning he's he's considered as if he's trying to kill Jews. We have a whole cha on it that has historical sources sources discusses the Rambam that people confuse discusses the discusses the really the whole issue of lending money with interest when the mitzvah talks about it it says we're really allowed to lend money with interest to go under two conditions one there's no other jobs available to the Jews which was very common in past generations because they restrict us from being lawyers, from being doctors, from being a lot of different things. So, we were forced to be in this business of lending money. There's no other way for us to make money and therefore we're allowed to lend money with interest to just make enough to survive, but we're not allowed to prosper from it because it's not a good business. Two, if you're those are the two conditions. That's what the mat says. Now, why does it matter if you're says the reason why you're not allowed to make a lot of money in this business of lending money with interest to the goim is because if you're lending money to the goim with interest and you're making a lot of it, that means you're going to socialize with them on a regular basis. That means they're going to influence you on a regular basis and before you know it, you're going to turn into a go yourself. So therefore, you can make just enough money to survive because that will limit the amount of time you spend with them. So how come the is allowed to make a lot of money from it? That's because he's a and we're not worried about him being influenced by the he learns to all day. So now the comes and this is already hundreds of years ago. the comes and says I don't understand how we have an entire generation where everybody's a how is it that everybody's because everybody's uh is lending money with interest and they're becoming rich of it in this generation because obviously they're not just making a basic living like the first condition they're becoming rich how is it that they're becoming rich what they all tell me that they're allowing themselves to make so much money out of this business he says but we didn't become So how did it happen? In fact, in a podcast that I did earlier today and in many of my shim and even in a film that we made called news, there's a whole segment about historical proofs document historical proofs that before every major Jewish disaster, destruction of the first beta mikdash, destruction of the second betmdash, the programs in England in the 1100s, the Spanish Inquisition, the programs in Morocco Morocco, the programs in Ukraine, the Holocaust, every major disaster, national disaster that the Jewish people have had in history. The number one business for the Jewish people before that is highinterest lending to the Gim. This is not a coincidence. This is a reality. In previous generations, it was called different names. Today, it's called merchant cash advance. And I've been saying this for at least seven or eight years. The last time I did a whole tour of Shereim in New York was about seven eight years ago. I went to different places and I told them back then this business is bringing the next holocaust. In the last seven years, did anti-semitism increase or did we become sadikim and everybody loves us all of a sudden? Everything has gotten worse in the last seven years. When I said it seven, eight years ago, anti-semitism wasn't exactly where it was right now. We were in much better. And guess what? Cash advance business only grew during that time. It it grew to such an extent that it became normal. People are flaunting the $300,000 watch they made they bought this week for money they made this week. People are looking up. &gt;&gt; People are huh &gt;&gt; they took it, &gt;&gt; right? Well, they took it from one of their customers that couldn't pay the loan. Uh they people are flaunting money. People are throwing money. People are thinking that this is okay. Why? Because the the common excuse is listen, we're only doing it to go. And number two, the rabbi says it's okay. Which rabbi? No one wants to put their name on it. But the reality is every single to we've given this chuva that we have published that has read it. We told him, listen, if you could write a chuva that proves this wrong, $100,000 payable to whoever you want. Every single person that has read the chba has agreed there's no way to disprove this chba. This business is not allowed for Jewish people. There's no permission to do it. Why? It's considered it's considered it's uh it it violates multiple it's there's multiple things that this business is that people do not realize unless they study intensely the of the it's not like as simple as people say. Some people say no listen the Rambam says it's a mitzvah. No, you misunderstood the Rambam. If it was a mitzvah, it would be listed in one of the one of the 630 mitzvot. In his book, he wrote a it's not there, which means it's not a mitzvah. It's a it's a permission, but it's not a permission, a license to steal. There's a difference between charging like the like the what's happening in the world and that is predatory. The Torah did not give us permission to destroy people's lives. And the more a person learns about this business, the more they realize this business is destroying the economy. It's destroying lives. People are committing suicide as a result of what's happening to their business. And this is not a new thing. This is not a new thing. This is something that a uh uh unfortunately a mistake that Am has made many times in history and it never ended well. The chief rabbi of Morocco in the 1800s spoke against the people that were lending money with high interest as if like he was speaking to the government against his own people. Why? He says there the anti-semitism all you guys hate us because of these people. The same thing happened in Ukraine. Same thing happened all over the generations. This has happened. This is not a new problem. It's just called a new name. But unfortunately I am from uh from uh from what I know I am the only English speakaking rabbi that's speaking about it or in Hebrew is uh my rather is the only Hebrew speaking rabbi speaking about it. Nobody else speaking about it either because they're not aware of the problem or they're part of the problem. That's that's that those are the only two realities. &gt;&gt; Huh? &gt;&gt; The chuva is on our website. You go to bzashem.org. There's a section called uh uh free uh PDFs and free books you can download. It's in one of two books. There's a book called it's one of the chas over there or there's uh that's or if you could just simply want to send me a text message or email, I could just send you the links to those two books. Save you the time and you could just uh look into those uh the two books that we published. But it's a uh it's a chuva that is uh full of information, full of sources, very very little opinion uh if any at all. It's a legitimate chuva and uh it's uh it's something that uh we're hoping that a lot more people become aware of because this business is going to bring a big but it's it's bringing it already. There's a lot of lawyers and journalists that talk about this. And interestingly enough, even though there are some non-Jews in it, including the mafia, that have shut down their lone shark business and replaced it with merchant cash advance because it's just a legal way to do the same exact thing. Um if you look at every every journalist Bloomberg did a whole special, five article special about it, five uh week special. Uh the attorney general finded this industry, two of the leading companies in this industry, nearly $2 billion. There are more major publicly traded companies that have come from this. There are journalists that are covering it. There are lawyers that are covering it. Everyone that spoke about it never mentions the black guy that works in there, never mentions the Italian, never mentions the Christians, the Catholic, never mentions the Muslim, the the the uh the atheist, but everyone happens to know this guy is Jewish. These owners are Jewish. Now, obviously, there are some Gim that work in this business, but only we're mentioned. Why? Number one, we're a dominant force in that business. It's a reality. It's not a it's not a conspiracy. We're the majority of the people in this business. And number two, it's showing us, listen, you want to act like, you want to do things that that are that are against the Torah, I'll make sure to use to to be the stick. This is a reality. It's not a new problem. I have people that have watched some of my shim about this topic and other things that when they first saw my video, they were anti-semites. They were Nazis. And they thought, wait, look, he's talking against his own people. Look, this this rabbi, they started watching more of my shim and they started realizing, listen, there's a difference between who what the Torah says and what some people say. Not every Jew is the best representation of Judaism. Some people are a misrepresentation. There's always a bad apple. And guess what? Some of these Nazis realize that there's such a big difference between what we're supposed to be and what the people they hate are. He says it's two different people. The people that they hate, they're not doing what they're doing that's bad because they're Jewish. They're doing what they're doing bad because they're people. George Soros is not a a a uh because he's Jewish. He's ashame because he's a selfish person and he cares less about anybody else but himself. And all of those people that the Nazis and all of these anti-semites like to highlight as bad Jews, some of these Nazis realize from my huh? &gt;&gt; Yeah. But a lot of times they start realizing, listen, these people that that are being highlighted, they're not doing what they're doing because they're Jewish. They're doing it because they're people. And guess what? Some of these Nazis became former Nazis and some of them even converted to Judaism. Just in a uh last week, a famous uh Nazi uh publicly stated that he is no longer a Nazi. He's already been doing it for the last few months, but a week ago, he publicly stated that he stopped being a Nazi because of our shim. instead of being a Nazi now loves Jews and he wants to make bridges between between uh you know to make peace. So the beautiful thing is that the truth of the Torah is always going to bring good but we have to understand what the truth is. The Torah is not supposed to hurt anyone. There's no such law in the Torah that allows us that permits us to do things that hurt the nations. There's no such permission whatsoever. Boo nearly killed Yanavi. Yan the prophet. It's one of the books of the Tanakh. Why did he almost kill Yanavi? Because Yanavi didn't want to go help the goim. He told listen, go tell the goim five words. If you don't do Chuv, Hashem is going to destroy you in 40 days. This is five words in Hebrew. You not didn't want to do it. So Hashem almost killed him. Put him through this whole city for what? for not wanting to help the GOIM BY TELLING HIM FIVE WORDS. So if Yaha was went through hell and back just because he didn't want to tell the goim a message not to teach them not to do kiru with them just simply to tell them listen warning from if you don't do is going to destroy you if you're not suffer to such an extent just for not wanting to help the goim with that why would anybody think that we're allowed or the Torah allows us to hurt to go. Hashem created them too. I'm not saying that we need to go and stop all the good that we do for the Jewish people and start giving it to the non-Jewish community. But again, to go from being a known as a merciful nation to being a nation that has people in it that are praying on the goim, the Torah doesn't permit such a thing. And this business is a predatory business. There's no other way. Now, some rabbis are not aware. Some rabbis are unfamiliar. Like I said, before I became a rabbi, I spent nearly two decades being a Wall Street executive. I invested and researched investments for a living. I analyzed businesses. That was my expertise. No rabbi can tell me I don't know what I'm talking about. I knew about this cash advance business when I was still on Wall Street. And I already knew that it was corrupt back then. I didn't know the aspect of it because I wasn't religious. But I knew it was a corrupt business back then. This business has always been corrupt. When I got became religious and became and started realizing this is very popular among the religious Jews, I almost fainted. Said how could it be? Why would a religious Jew be in this business? The most corrupt business in the world. Everybody knows it. And unfortunately, the more I screamed about it, the more it became uh it became more and more popular over the years. In the last 5 years, it became standard. Became standard. Where do they recruit? They go to yeshivas and they tell bahim, listen, you're 18 years old. You don't really have any talents. You don't have any abilities. And you all, you know how expensive it is to live in a Jewish community. The house 700, 800,000, a million dollars if it's a new community. If it's an old, if it's a community like this, million and a half, 2 million, 4 million, 5 million, you have to be multi-millionaire just to get a house to live in. And that's just for the house. Tuition, you have kids, every kid's going to cost you a couple thousand a month. If you want to send him to school, that means you can't be poor to be a Jew. And what talents do you have? You're 18 years old. You do you know how to put your keep on by yourself? What do you know in your life? So, you want to make money? Okay, I can teach you how to make money. How? Come to this office, pick up the phone, and say, "Yes, Mr. Jones, we'll lend you a million dollars." It requires no talent, no ability, no skill set whatsoever. You don't even need to call the people. They call you. It's not like a regular sales job where you need to develop special communication skills in order to convince the guy to do something. The guy is calling you. You're not asking him to give you anything. You're giving him. All he has to do is sign the paperwork. All you have to do is fool him to make him think that this is good for him. That's it. You're telling him, "Listen, we're are we're not a merchant cash advance. We are uh you know, we're we're a factoring company. We're uh going to recover your receivables. We have a 9% recovery rate. This is all manure. This is all lies. They put eight 9% on the paperwork. 8% recovery. You know what that means? Nothing. It has nothing to do with what the deal is. It's just complete figment of imagination to steer the person's attention into something to make them believe that's what they're going to get charged. Or they say, "Oh, we're only going to charge you 1.6%." But they don't realize it's 1.64% per day. What is that annualized to be? Over three 400%. Oh, I said, "No, no, we're only going to charge you what? You want to borrow the money? We're going to give you 50 to give us 75,000 in 3 months. We're only charging you 50%. 50% after 3 months is not 50%. 50% after 3 months is over 200% annualized. All of this tricks may work on people that don't know business. According to Allah, it's a predatory business. It's forbidden in every way, shape, or form. And there is no less than a half a dozen reasons why it's and there's no doubt in my mind that this is bringing to Amalik. The stronger this business is, the stronger Amalcch is going to become. And that's what's happened in the last several years. And unfortunately, that's what happened in past generations. I'm hoping I know I'm not going to change everything. My hope is that more and more people realize the truth to the point where at the very least not as many people go to this business. Number two, people stop looking up to these losers that are stealing people's money and calling it making a living because he bought a new Porsche or he bought a new Ferrari or he has a $400,000 watch. If he made that money from cash advance, it's the same thing as him making that money from murdering people. It's no different. It's dam it's not it's not consider it's it's considered gimm g is it's when you steal money it's called damim. You just destroyed somebody's life. Now, anyone that spent any time building a business knows how much neph requires to build a business, to pay the bills on time, to pay the employees on time, to make sure you pay your your your in for your inventory, your suppliers, to make sure that you're complying with the law, to make sure everybody gets money. People that start businesses have to lose sleep, have to lose time with their family, have to lose pretty much their life just to build a business. So imagine a business built after 2530 years. He's got 2530 employees. He has lost a lot of sleep over the last 30 years, but he finally built a business. He thinks, "Listen, I'm going to borrow 500,000 from this cash advance. I'm going to be able to expand the business." He doesn't realize that he's writing himself a death sentence. Now, after he refinances that loan from cash advance to cash advance, from lie to lie because they keep telling him they're going to send him to a uh they're going to give him after the second loan, then we got to know you. Then we give you a uh small business loan, which is only going to be 12%. It's only going to be 8%. They give them all types of tricks to buy more time, but each time they get more commission eventually, they even send them to a uh sister company of debt settlement. That's another way they can make more money on on on commissions. It's the same company, just different uh different different name on the door. Sometimes it's in the same building. The point is that after they do this, the guy declares bankruptcy. What does it mean declare bankruptcy? That means that a 30-year business goes to garbage. That means 20 employees are unemployed. That means that all the suppliers that fed their kids with that money gone. The amount of damage that every business that gets shut down from this company, from this commercial cash advance, is unquantifiable. It's not he just hurt one guy. When the when Wall Street had corrupt businesses as a standard in the 1980s, the damage was limited. Why? The boiler room convinced some guy to invest $500,000, a million dollar, whatever it was, in some investment. Let's say the investment was fake. He stole the money. Guess what? That doctor or that lawyer that invested a million dollars, he lost a million dollars. The end. He got hurt. That's it. The business continued. His profession continued. His life continued and he rebuilt himself. Here it's different. The corruption in this, you're not destroying a person. You're destroying an entire company. You're destroying entire families. The magnitude of the fraud and the damage from this is much much worse than people imagine. This is the reason why every time we had a disaster right before it number one business high interest lending to non-Jews. So my goal is to spread the message so less people go into it. Number two that less people realize that the to to this is nothing to appreciate. This is nothing to look up to. And quite frankly, quite frankly, I'm hoping I'm hoping that every community says, "You know what? Anyone that's in cash advance business, we don't want to stuck up." Now, I know that's high hopes. I know that's maybe, you know, I'm imagining, but one thing I can tell you, nothing good will ever come out of that money. Anything that's built from that money, from that staka will be destroyed at some point. Why? It's stolen money. It's not It's not It's not money. It's not it's not a braha money and I'm hoping that more and more people realize that is not here to be a uh uh a darkness to the nations. We're here to be aim means we cannot do things that we know for sure will hurt them. We have no permission to just hurt the goim. When you hurt a it's worse than hurting a Jew. Why? because hurting a creates. So just uh a uh the whole idea of of doing this becoming a standard you see how the Satan has fooled an entire generation and I'm hoping that all of you guys you probably know at least one person that's in the business that that's how widespread it is. Tell him, "You know what? Maybe you should read this chuva before you lose your maybe you should read this chuva with your rabbi, with explain to you what it says, and then you can decide your your eternity based on that." Because before you decide who to marry, you do some research. Before you decide what to invest, you do some research. Maybe before you invest your into a business that's going to make you lose it, maybe you should read this cha. Maybe it's not allowed because the reality is that even if there's only I know for sure I'm right. It's not it's not my opinion. It's not dua. But even if there's 1% chance that I'm right, that means that everybody in this in this industry, the broker, the owner, the secretary, even the janitor that's involved in this business is in trouble. And not small trouble. So I'm hoping that more and more people in every room community will take this to heart. Why? Because the situation only got worse. And some of you, I know I already see from the looks on the faces. Some of you know everything I'm saying is not only true, but you there's even extra extra extra on it that I'm not even saying. It's worse. And every guy that I spoke to in this<02:56:21