If You're Already Serving, Serve Like Avraham - MUSSAR Pirkei Avot (3)

[Music] great to be in Miami again haven't seen you guys in a long time we have cd number tw's out lots of presents different uh things that will help us get closer to Hashem now that we've said I'm sorry to Hashem give us another chance give us another opportunity judge us in the Book of Life judge us with theik judge us with the neon judge us with the greatest of great okay so now we have to do something about it we can't just say give us everything and we don't do anything we still stay this thing same thing like last year we have to get keep getting better so we're going to learn a few things that going to help us get better today also the tooto yua Mika bardes Garcia idil magero Josephina Matos Isabel Perez Mela perezz ruven Pablos Jose AA Sarah B Lavana Lavana bat SAR David benri mayem give them all a so as you know we started a series as even though you know we've gone through the uh entire Five Books of Moses so far a couple of times and uh we're starting to get to a point we realize that okay now that we know the basics of the story we know that some parts of the uh M that we can learn the ethics that we can learn that we can learn from the five books of Moses we have to get into deeper uh ethical Behavior and the reason why is because why we choose m versus let's say for example go going over going over the laws of Judaism is because number one to learn the laws of Judaism there are countless places that you can do it many many rabis teach Al there's many many books that teach Al you know you could read a book yourself you could watch if you look at the internet or you look at just overall Torah in general the overwhelming majority of teaching is about the laws is about what you need to do what we have very little of is how to be a Jew how to behave how to become what calls benadam Adam you know some someone not just a son of man but someone that represents an ethical person whether a man or woman and someone that has fixed his midot his character traits and I see a lot of times where there unfortunately sometimes you you see people that have learned many they know all different types of laws but they forgot how to behave like human beings there's racism sexism uh stinginess uh you know anger all types of flawed Behavior traits that we need to talk about so hasem had the sages put together a mish which they call we have each one of the sages say different things different M different sayings of what they did in their life for themselves in essence how they behaved uh and what's obviously commanded by the Torah to behave as such and what could easily change your life if you could apply even one of all of these Mish we're going to go over even if you apply one of these Mish we're going to probably have this series is probably going to be over 100 as I'm seeing right now I thought that initially maybe we're going to go over two three or four Mish each time it seems like the pace that we're going it's only one mishna per sh um because each one of them if you really cover it uh it takes takes a it takes a lot it's a lot of a lot of teaching and even then we don't we're not that deep into it so this is going to be a very intense lesson that is going to teach us each Mish and how it could apply to our life whether it's to our business to our family to our just day-to-day life and how we can make ourselves better people cuz knowing the story is great knowing where we came from is phenomenal knowing the mitv is obviously necessary all of these things are important but if we do all of these mitzvot and we show the world an exterior that represents Judaism but the interior is rotten we're still angry all the time we're still sad all the time we're still depressed we still have anxiety we still have all types of bitterness we're still still cheap and we have a hard time giving or lending money to a friend we still have all of these flawed character traits then according to the gar according to the oral Tor our Behavior traits is making all of our look terrible as it says a someone that knows a lot of T someone that's considered a scholar that has bad midot that has bad character traits a dead animal on a street is better than him that's how important mid do so the V was asked why is it that if character traits character development is so important why is it that it's not one of the 613 Commandments one of the 613 MIT that we have in a why does it say mitvah number 614 fix your midot why is it in a mitvah of itself and the V with his genius answered very simply he said the point of all of these mitv is to make you a human being the point of all of these all of these ways to connect to hem is to make you a structure that will keep you gated and protect you from yourself protect you from your own bad character traits if you know every single day that you have to wake up you have to say what do you learn first lesson you got out of you you just woke up you just had you had just the resurrection of the Dead you woke up he saying what saying thank you to Hashem first thing you learned gratitude you have to be you have to show gratitude somebody does something for you whether it's a good job or a bad job whether you like it you don't like it whether you ask for you and ask for it be gracious say thank you thank you can buy you your next World just one simple thank you after you do that you go and you wash your hands and you say Another Blessing already you're learning that there's a structure there's a structure to life you have to have order in your life you can't just be one of these people that Wings it and just does whatever he wants you wake up whenever you want you go to sleep whenever you want you go to work sometimes you don't go to work sometimes you say hello sometimes you don't say hello sometimes everything is just like you know the Wild Wild West can't do this already you realize that there's a structure of everything that you want to do there's something has to take place before it then you wash your hands so it teach you hygiene you have to have hygiene you can't be one of these guys that uh you know wears all of these uh fancy clothes but you forgot to take a shower so the rest of the world is suffering being next to you then it causes it doesn't you can wear all the black and white in the world but if you're smelly then it's people think that all Jews smell then so people need to okay hygiene is very important too yeah you are a servant and a representation of Hashem at all times we are commanded to be a light to the Nations which means that at all moments we have to be prepared to be at our best this is also the reason why we just passed the uh holiday of which is a fantastic holiday of Celebration but one of the things that unfortunately we fail at at times is that we forget ourselves you know AEM tells us that we're supposed to celebrate and sometimes we take it too far sometimes people instead of just having a little bit of a drink if they like that type of stuff they like the drink they want to have a little bit of a drink to get a buz and just get a good feeling they drink a third of the bottle and show up to the miniature bet mikdash called the Bess in our generation like alcoholics they smell of alcohol they act like they're alcoholics they fall all over each other and what are they doing it they're doing it right next to the seph T if this was the BET mikdash and the sun was around they would get the death penalty on the spot on the spot no no no trial on the spot they get death penalty yeah the same thing happen with Aon right Aaron's kids two of AR kids there's five reasons of why they say that they uh they got AEM killed them one of the reasons is because they had a couple of drinks before they went to KES kashim you're not allowed to walk into sh drunk or even with too much alcohol this leads me to my next issue that people have asked me about but I never brought it in a sh so it's good to just mention and then go into is the fact of why people always ask are we allowed to smoke marijuana now in the past it was illegal in America now it's legal now it's advocated now it's celebrated now there is investment seminars specifically made for investing in marijuana companies so little by little we see that Sodom and gamorra is becoming America or America is becoming sodam and gomorah but nonetheless people are investing in marijuana people are building these multi-billion dollar industry that just a few uh year years ago was illegal and people would go to jail for it and get murdered for it now it's celebrated why because there is tax money we can make some money off of it you see how quickly we sell our soul for money all of a sudden all of those feelings we had about how it's not good and how it kills brain cells and how it's not appropriate and so on and so forth all those ethical things that people said as the reason why it's illegal for all these years all of a sudden we forgot about them why it's legal now it's legal in Colorado it's legal in California it's legal here it's legal there go ahead you know so now if you see somebody with their eyes red you don't ask what's wrong like ah you had a cupcake from uh so and so weed seller they give they give a blessing somebody like that it's better than smoking right you know and it's it's celebrated so this is not allowed in Judaism and the reason why it's not allowed unless it's for medicinal reasons unless it's legitimately for medicinal reasons which 90 at least 90% of people that smoke weed or have any type of marijuana product are not doing it for medicinal reasons they're able to get it because some doctor sold his soul and gave them a fake card and told them listen you could use this medical C to go get your weed because you're an addict but not really because they have real medical problems there's no way that every 18 to 25 year old in America has medical problems to give them a uh medical card now but people want to believe their own lies and nonetheless unless it's truly for medical reasons meaning someone has cancer they suffer from major pain someone has Aid they suffer from major pain someone has some type of major disease that causes him serious serious pain so yes you can use marijuana for different reasons that it's going to help you with your pain and it's not really effective at all times by the way it's not effective for everyone not everyone benefits out of it but nonetheless if it helps you yes you can use it for that there's no question there's no problem but the reality of it is that 90% of the people do not have medical problems and they're smoking it purely for pleasure because they want to leave real there's a reality and then there's everything that else that's out there they don't want reality they want to be somewhere else they want to think somewhere else they want to feel somewhere else they're not happy with their present state of mind so they want to create an illusion this is not allowed and the reason why it's not allowed is the ver for the very same reason of why we're not allowed to drink and become uh alcoholics or even drunk especially if we go to because a Jew is commanded to be a light to the Nations but by being a light to the Nations it means that you have to know that not only you representing yourself as a Jew in front of people you're representing God but that also means that you have to be ready at all times to meet God to meet your maker at all times you have to be prepared for if Hashem uncovered himself and showed himself to you you're prepared at that moment you look and act appropriate at that moment especially in a besset now if you're drunk it's not exactly the best way to show up to you meet your maker but if you were going to meet your new boss or you going to meet one of the uh new presidents or one of these new governor or somebody of importance you're not going to show up drunk at least if you have any sense in you at least if you have any self-respect you're not going to show up drunk you're not going to show up high oh yeah I just had a brownie you're not going to do that why because you know it's just not appropriate it's not the way you do it so why is it appropriate to do it next to God cuz you don't see him just pay attention you'll see him everywhere so as far as smoking weed eating marijuana anything that gets you out of your state of mind is not allowed so someone asked me the other day well what about coffee coffee also changes your state of mind that's not necessarily the same level of changing your State of Mind first and foremost you have to uh you know most people that drink coffee are normal human beings that have one cup of coffee in the morning to wake them up not 17 cups of coffee to get them to a point where they're like hysterical Maniacs so assuming you drink coffee like a normal human being doesn't really change your state of mind just wakes you up if anything it helps you with your prayers and you're not falling asleep with your on and even the in the in the they tell you to water or coffee okay it's fine it's fine there no yes no no there no problem with it there's no problem with it it's just it's to make you more alert doesn't change your State of Mind makes you more you know makes you awake or it could make you awake for me it doesn't really affect me at all uh most things don't affect me I have a strange body of one of these bodies that you have to donate to science one day and see what's going on but uh some people this stuff affects them you know Red Bull and coffee and all these types of things it's fine it's not the same level of of uh you know you'll have a cup of coffee and go meet president uh whoever is going to be the winner in a week but you're not going to have a a quick joint next to this President right right you're not going to have a uh a nice shot of tequila right next to this president but you can have a cup of coffee in your hand right why cuz it's it's acceptable it's acceptable behavior so if it's acceptable behavior then obviously you have to realize if acceptable behavior for a lowly king of Flesh and Blood that'll be acceptable for the King of Kings if it's not acceptable for them then it's not acceptable for the King of Kings obviously even more so so that's the main thing in regards to answering the question about weed and uh Al it's very very important for people to know that it's not just appropriate behavior it's also that the judgment is very very dear and a lot of people have a tough time with some of the parts have a tough time believing some of the things we say in regards to the Judgment because we're one of very few people that actually talk about judgment uh publicly so I brought a couple of sources I just you know I just went over recently and uh the this countless sources there's just a couple of them so you understand that what we're saying it's not my opinion shalom it's not my my opinion is not even worth one letter any letter you pick in the entire Tora is not worth that one my opinion so no one can ever think listen this guy's a he's a stringent guy it's not my if it's stringency then it's my opinion I'm telling you everything I'm saying to you is standard basic level even though the basic level seems like it's a stringency for everyone else that's not what the Torah says Torah says this is basic so when we talk about punishment when we talk about the hand of God being involved in our day-to-day life and being gracious and merciful in good times when we're serving him but also being judgmental when we're not it's not an opinion it is written so to give you an understanding so each one of these sages that's mentioned by name in thear meant that he was at least at the level of Reviving The Dead meaning there was many people that knew Torah many people knew tah in those days there was really very few people that were not religious if someone was not religious usually they were just a Kil they were heretic they went against the religions either you were really religious a sadik or you were a heretic but you know it wasn't like a secular neighborhood there was no such thing there's no people walk you know spending uh their time going to the movies together or uh playing uh Pokemon it's either you were religious or you were a heretic so anyone that learned to doesn't necessarily mean that he got to high levels but the ones that got to really high levels became but then there were people that were considered or the sages that some of them mentioned things that contributed to the Torah but then there's ones that are even higher than the standard that if you just contributed to the Torah but you weren't the highest level then it would just say someone said so and so but if they mentioned you by name that means you're a big deal means you are written in stone here you're written it to For Eternity for eternity your name is going to be known so that means you have to be a big deal not just a righteous person you have to be something that's not human for Our Generation so here you have razar razar was one of the major sages and every time he came to this particular verse in the Book of Genesis chapter 453 where it says but his brothers could not answer him for they were astounded before him this verse if you remember is from the story of Joseph and his brothers where his brothers thought that he died after they sold him or he was somewhere they didn't know that he turned into this viscero the very same viscero that's controlling Egypt controlling the food controlling pretty much everything and is also controlling their Destiny at that very moment cuz he's the one that's going to decide whether they're going to live or die whether it's going to be a war or there going to be peace so when he uncovered his face and he told told them I am your brother is my father still alive they suddenly realized that this brother they sold two decades ago is still alive and well and actually better than ever and they had through prophecy Hashem showed them the whole picture and they saw every everything that they did and they immediately felt sorry but not sorry like Hey listen I bumped into you I'm sorry Hey listen I forgot to uh bring the money that I owe you I'm sorry Hey listen I can't pay you back I'm sorry not that level of sorry the level of sorry that when someone gets to shim and the Judgment Day is in front of him and they show him the movie of his entire life everything he's done from the moment he was born until he arrived they show him the entire moving they say why did you sin there why did you sin there why did you sin there why did you sin there every single sin every single time you said every single time you forgot to say a blessing and say thank you to Hashem every single time you played on your phone just Shalom you're going to miss the updates on Shabbat for the elections every single time you decide not to listen to the rabbi every single time we decide you know what today I don't feel like being modest I want to show off to my friends to show them that I look good still every time you end against theem they're going to show you every time and anyone that has had a near-death experience will tell you that the worst possible thing that they experienced in that world is the busha is the shame the shame that now that they know the truth they know that AEM is 100% am there's no there's nothing separating them from Hashem they know everything in the to is real they know everything about Hashem is real it's much more transparent that we could even imagine and on top of it they see how they acted for the last 30 40 or 50 years and the level of shame that they have they say is you only only wanting to die is not enough you just want to cease to exist you don't want to exist that's how the level of bush that you have and that's the level of bush that the 12 tribes had here the shame they had of what they did to their brother soar says every time I read this verse I cry why does he cry now if this is the rebuke of flesh and blood that causes so much consternation the rebuke of the Holy One blessed is he will be all the more if the brothers of yadik felt such horror such shame in front of a human being imagine the shame we're going to feel in front of me when we know the full picture so this is something that again people don't think about it but it's nonetheless a very very big part of the of the punishment another interesting thing that you know when we talk about some things we're not obviously going to talk about details of it but just to give you guys a little bit of an idea that I want to bring up a couple of these points that really eliminate these naysayers or anything that you may or may not hear from other places where they tell you no it's too harsh Gom doesn't exist it's only one year you know they people there's a whole there's actually aabad article that was written a few years ago unfortunately that after it was written The Way It Was Written was a complete complete complete heresy by big organization a respectable organization which I know that if there rabi was still alive he would not only not allow this article to be written but he would probably make sure that this person that wrote the article will be housed in a in a in in a room and not allowed to go out until he knows the truth cuz someone asked does Judaism believe in G and someone asked this question if Judaism believes in Gom and the way that this person wrote this article he made it seem like Gom was not only not really such a bad place in some extent it actually seemed like it was good that's how he defined Gom now there is no book and there's no sources for such craziness even the G know that GOM is not a good place and uh no big deal [Music] okay by definition everyone knows that gome is not a mentioned gome somebody get Satan has to interfere like hey what are you talking about my house for so this guy made it seem which is a common description of it where they say no it's like a washing machine you know it's a uh you go there for a year they clean you up and then you go to G ganeden this is complete nonsense there's no Source whatsoever for what what what's stated over there and there's a major confusion about this whole thing about it being one year first of all there's no such thing it could be infinite amount of years there actually page 17 says that certain people that go to G never leave will come the world would end but their their Gom will never end so there's there's actual G oral T that is specifically saying the opposite but more so than that it's they make it seem like it's not such a bad place and it's important for us to know these things because this Mish we're going to learn today part of it is to understand what is so here in this it says and it's likewise so with respect to the measure of punishment for it is written like the number of the days that you spied out the land now that they in fact sin for 40 years but they sin for only 40 days rather this to teach us the following teaching anyone who commits a transgression even one day in the Year scripture considers it against him as if he transgressed the entire year so this they're using a source this is Page 5B this here they're teaching something that is very very scary scary than even the description of Gom what's the scary part here what what are they trying to scare the daylight out of us with this they're using the sin of the spies that we learned about with mosenu where they said listen the spies they went to Canan which is later to be called is for 40 days they reported bad news about it and then Hashem punished us for 40 years kazal is here to teach us that if someone makes a sin they shouldn't think it's oh okay I made a sin it's not really that big of a deal he says that some sins you could be sinned for one day of sin you could be punished for a year so this why am I mention mention in this particular because sometimes we mention in that there are parts of there are parts of punishment that are not just a year or 5 years it could be 5,000 years it could be 50 million years there's no concept of time in such a place so people are saying wait a minut how could it be 50 million years if the world is only less than 6,000 years old number one there's no concept of time over there because there's no matter but number two it specifically say you could be punished for one sin for you know that's one day for a whole year so the point being here is that when someone is going to State their opinion publicly whether it's in an article or a lecture or even just behavior in general in the bet they have to realize that they are responsible for everything that they do you're as a Jew you're responsible for every single one one of your actions and if you're not going to be a light to the Nations make sure you're not a Darkness to it either make sure you're not representing Judaism in a bad way and this is one of the main things we learned from because each and every one of these tools is going to teach us how to become better human beings the um we went over a little bit of the Paras last night but one of the things things that we learn when there is no control fromat Noah you know in essence in Noah the people of that generation had everything they were very very wealthy they had the world was drastically more beautiful they had all types of things that are beyond our imagination they were big they were strong they were wealthy they had everything and anything that they could possibly desire but they were no longer able to control themselves and Mankind started doing things against AEM against the rules that God dictated whether it's men with men like it's socially acceptable today or it's with animals or it's stealing each other's wives or it's all types of things that are M like crazy but became normal to them and unfortunately we see slowly but surely is becoming normal today and from no we realize and we learn that the mitvah of not wasting seed is first mentioned in this Paras if anyone remembers the uh the 3-hour lecture that I had in New York about wasting seed the First Source that's mentioned in the Torah of not to waste seed this is actually one of the mitv that is mentioned after the Maul in chapter n verse six after Hashem destroyed the world because these people were not able to control themselves because they were stealing from each other raping each other and doing everything against Mankind's benefit Shem decides to unfortunately for them destroy the world and start over with Noah and after destroying the world and putting the globe on the major trauma that aged the world an extraordinary amount he tells Noah listen you're going to start the world with your family this is the opportunity you have to recreate the world but know that in order for me not to you know I'm not going to destroy the world again but you have to comply with some basic laws that are going to apply to mankind forever and he gives him the seven laws of Noah now kazal says that the first sick were already around were already there before the maem gave the first six to to to Adam but he gave the seventh one to Noah and that's why it's called by the name of Noah Noah laws but one of the laws is do not murder do not murder which is a very logical law this is the reason why you know all seven laws all seven noahide laws are very logical which is the reason why when a according to the Tora when a noahide violates one of these seven laws their punishment is always a death penalty it's not like in Judaism where there's different punishments for example if a Jew Steals and is caught without admitting that he stole he has to pay double if he stole 100 he has to pay 200 if he stole 200 he has to pay 400 but a noahide a non-jew that stole according to the Torah even if he stole a the punishment is a death penalty so this is this is a reason why is because number one they have much fewer number of rules than the Jews and number two all of their rules are very basic logic in order for you to have a civilized world so one of the laws that hasem gives Noah is that listen do not murder but the way that he gives it is very different than the way it's mentioned in the rest of the Tora including the Ten Commandments if you look at the 10 commandments of when hasem says do not murder it says two words but here in it's very clear that it's more than just do not murder in chapter 9 verse 6 it says [Music] whoever sheds the blood of man within the man his blood will be splitted because in the image of God Hashem made him a Hashem made man so here we see this is not just a simple do not murder this is whoever spills the blood of man within the man his blood will be spilled so we already know his blood will be spilled that's the punishment that means that somebody murders his his punishment is death penalty but it starts you different it says if you the blood of a man within a man if it just meant pure murder then it would be the blood of a man anyone that spills the blood of a man that's it that's murder but it doesn't say that doesn't say anyone that spills the blood of a man it says anyone though it splits the blood of a man within the man damam the blood of a man within a man what's the blood of a man within a man that's his seed that's his seed that's a sperm so here we find the first literal Source in the Torah about wasting seed now we're not going to have a whole wasting seed sh we've already put about four and a half five hours into it in other lectures but the point I'm trying to make here is that what is really the foundational reason of why people waste seed and why Hashem cares about it here specifically at the beginning of the Torah in essence the beginning of the new world cuz Noah started the new world again this is not the same world that Adam had that world was created was created and destroyed this is a whole new world he's starting from scratch the reason why hasem according to the zos destroyed the world primarily was because of wasting seed when mankind lost the value of Life the appreciation for the value of life to the point where they would waste their seed and kill millions of Souls of potential Souls each and every single time they lost their right to live and Hashem is specifically mentioning this to Noah to know that whether you are righteous Gentile or you are a Jew that's obligated to be a light to the Nations you're obligated by this mitvah and you cannot treat these potential Souls like it's nothing now the main reason of why this sin happens which is the point of what I'm trying to get to is when mankind has no structure has no it's impossible for them to have control when you don't think that someone's watching everything that you're doing whether it's or if you do a blessing on the cookie or if you're learning to or if you're modest or if you keep Shabbat or if you do anything big or small if you don't think someone's watching every single business transaction that you're making and I'm not talking about the government if you don't think that someone's watching every single time you think to yourself do I give or do I not GI do I make the blessing do I not make the blessing do I go to shol do I not go to sh if you don't think someone's watching then you've made yourself your own God because there has to be a god there has to be a master of the world even if it's you yourself you're saying there has to be be someone in control of everything if you're saying there's no God Shalom but if you're saying that that means you're the master of your own world which means that you've made yourself into your own Idol and at that point if you're your own Idol if you have no you have no fear of the almighty that's watching you at all times then it's very easy to lose control it's very easy to acting and doing everything according to your desires and Hashem is telling you that from your simple lack of your simple lack of appreciation not even saying mod in the morning you could easily get to a point of making one of the worst sins in the tah which is committing murder of hundreds of millions of souls on a daily [Music] basis now this control is something that's not easy to attain after we're tainted with the immodesty of the world but it's not impossible either it's very few things that someone needs to do sometimes someone is trying to obviously he not doing it intentionally anymore they watch they're scared they're looking to do CH they stop but they still have some things that they're not uh in control over like for example when they go to sleep so there's a few things that someone needs to do first and foremost obviously the most important beginning stage is you have to watch your eyes if you watch IM modesty whether it's live you know in the world that you live around every time you see a woman you're like one of these you know uh Toys you buy at the baseball games with the bobble heads you look at everything that walks you're going to waste seed whether intentionally or not intentionally you look at you look at women even if you're looking at modest women if every time every time a woman moves if she's modest or not modest if you look at every single woman or a lot of women you're going to waste seed your imagination is going to do its thing you're going to imagine the modest woman that you're seeing at the betet like the immodest woman you saw before you did chva so first and foremost you have to start watching your eyes start getting used to looking at the floor start getting used to training yourself that every time you see a woman you see what you need to see which is saying hello if you need to say hello and then looking away or looking into nothing sometimes I could look straight at you this is takes some time but I could look straight at you but I'm not really looking at you I'm looking you see me as looking at you but I'm really looking on top of your head or the side of your head I'm not really looking at your face and that's necessary not for men it's necessary for women cuz sometimes I can't really look at them so now if I looked at the floor every single time people like is there something wrong with you are you looking for something you lose Keys what happened so you have to train yourself so first and foremost you have to train your eyes and it's not easy but it's possible number one two you have to make sure that you're not one of these people that curses every two seconds you have to start watching your mouth if you speak like a truck driver this one level of immodesty leads to another step number three you have to make sure that you're not putting yourself at risk at all times if your surroundings are constantly in modest places you're going to have an impossible time being modest whether it's a because you your meetings uh always have to take uh place at a bar you know there's a lot of networking events that happen in bars or different Gatherings where pretty much you know everyone shows up half naked on the female side and three piece suits on the male side each one is trying to dress to impress hoping that they bring someone home instead of the business you have to stay away from stuff like that someone wants to meet you meet them at a coffee shop meet them at your office you don't need to go to those places you don't need to go there there's plenty of ways you can make Business Without necessarily putting yourself in a place that's full of immodesty I understand people think oh wait but maybe I'm going to lose an opportunity Well yeah if you don't believe in God then yes you'll lose an opportunity but if you believe in God then God knows that you're not going there not because you don't want the business you're not going there because you don't want to see modest women so I'll give you the business other ways if you believe God runs the world you have nothing to worry about so watching your eyes watching your surroundings watching your mouth and last but not least choosing your friends if all of your friends are lifetimes away from you where their idea of fun is going to strip clubs and bars which you used to do before you went to went uh and did cha then you have to lose those friends or get to do cha whichever happens first if you can't get them to do cha you have to lose your friends eventually the stronger your chuva is the more that relationship is going to lose its meaning because you're going to have less and less in common so the point of all of this is to understand that Hashem is telling us here this one of the first seven mitv that we've gotten in the world is a critical Mitzvah don't waste seed you learn it from Noah I destroyed the world because of this but the only reason why it got to such a high level sin is because people could not control themselves a very very simple thing to do if you start with the right foot if you teach your kids from the beginning from when they're three and four and five and six years old that they have to have structure they have to say thank you they have to wash their hands they have to keep their hygiene they have to pray they have to study they have to do all these different if you teach them structure but with a meaning that you're doing it for some you're doing it for someone you're doing it for AEM you're not doing it because you're you know there just you want to read books for no reason there's a reason for all of it then you're giving yourself a structure and you won't get to such a high level sin but if there's no structure and if you're just doing it for you know pretty much just because somebody told you to do it and you don't get your an your questions answered eventually you're going to fall off and what can happen so so far we've learned the first couple of mish and we see that in the first mishna we got the lineage and the history of where the Torah came from is started from Mount Siem gave the Torah to Moses who gave it to Joshua who gave it to the elders who gave it to the prophets who gave it to an the great the man of the great assembly and then the last member of of uh was shimik and we learned about him last night about how he said that the world is based on three things or standing on three things Torah the service of God and upon loving kindness and the history lesson continues with the m within it Shimon sadik had many students and here you have one of the people that got the teachings from shimik as it says leader of so received the tradition from Shimon the righteous Shimon sadik he was accustomed to say be not as servants who serve the master for the sake of receiving even a token reward but rather like servants who serve the master not for the sake of receiving a token reward and nonetheless the fear of Heaven should be upon you so first and foremost we realize that antig antigonos is not just a regular Average Joe when it says the kazal says that any anytime someone is mentioned is named in the mishna aot as is he is it's a the most important person in that place so he was the leader of s and he received his teachings from Shimon tadik the greatest teacher of his time and he was accustomed to say and we learned yesterday that anytime it says he was accustomed to say it really means he was meaning he lived by these rules he didn't just teach them as thear says someone who teaches something but does something else it's better that he would choke inside his mother's belly and never come to the world being a hypocrite is not acceptable in Judaism and this is why we if someone that's Torah observant it would be impossible for them to be a good politician so until is saying there's a few lessons here plus be not as servants who serve the master for the sake of receiving even a token reward he's saying listen all of us are a for hem anyway all of us are Servants of hem whether you like it or not it's hashem's world it's not your world you don't run the show you don't really decide anything you don't decide whether you're going to come to life you don't decide whether you're going to live or die you don't decide whether you're male or female you don't decide if you're rich or poor you don't really decide anything the only thing you decide is whether you're going to have or not everything is from sh everything is from Heaven except the fear of Heaven meaning that the only thing that you can decide is whether you're going to be righteous or not whether you're going to listen to the T and comply with it or not so first and foremost realize that this is hashem's world now you can serve AEM in one of two ways you can serve him only because you want a reward you're doing it because there's going to be a reward at the end or he's telling you you could serve him not because of the reward now of course there's nothing wrong with serving hem because we're going to get a reward it says in the first 10 there's 10 blessings before the curses there's 10 verses of blessings all these different blessings that someone who serves AEM is going to get they're going to have children they're going to have wealth they're their enemies are going to die and so on and so forth different types of blessings that someone is going to receive for serving AEM but before we get into that let's have a little bit of an understanding of what a true understanding of your position in the world really means the was once overheard making a a accounting with God someone of the students overheard him and he said dear God let's calculate what have you done for me and what have I done for you you you've given me the privilege of writing the very famous book M and many many other's books are lifechanging and what have I done for you nothing please dear God give me the opportunity to do something for you now us if we write a forget a k if we write just what it says we go to sh write what what the rabbi said or not only that we just remember it oh remember it or not only that we just listen to it we listen to somebody says something we listen to it we already think look what I did for you look I listen to I opened the book today I studied for 15 minutes for you like that's the differ the wrote books books that are changing lives changing Destinies changing eternity and he's saying all of this was for me it wasn't wasn't I benefited not AEM everything that I did everything that was was done Hashem did for me he gave me the in sight to write these books he gave me the ideas he gave me the body that it's able to write the eyes that are able to see the hand that's able to write the brain that's able to think the N that's able to breathe and operate all of that Hashem did for me I didn't do it for him I only benefited out of it he didn't benefit one bit Hashem is perfect this is a holy that has holy thoughts this is T this is the mindset of Torah when we look at life that way where we see that the way we view things is a little bit wrong like people constantly ask me listen when is AEM going to make such and such work out for me make the deal work out for me make me find a z uh give me morea give me children give me this give me that when is Hashem going to finally give me they have a little bit of a misunderstanding of the relationship because number one they're completely not appreciating what they already have because if you're saying when is he going to give me that means that what you have is not enough the eyes you have are not enough the ears that could hear are not enough the air you breathe is not enough the food you eat is not enough the wife you have is not enough the husband you have is not enough the job you have is not enough everything is not enough so Hashem is not giving you enough and on top of that you're acting like he owes it to you which is even worse you're looking at the world in a very very wrong State of Mind where you think that hasem owes you anything so the mishna starts with a very very important word where he's telling us listen remember you're aadim you are Servants of hem you're here to serve him he's not here to serve you and that is a very very important state of mind that we need to get to you can't get there overnight obviously but it's something you have to train yourself the next time you're about to ask Hashem for something next time you want to ask him for something hasem give me P give me Z give me this give me this give me this one suggestion remember I told you guys that it's maybe an this sh or a different sh that a good idea to get blessings and to uh really connect to Hashem is by making time every day to thank Hashem every day every day is oh take a minute take 30 seconds Take 5 minutes minutes however much time you want to have thank Hashem for something or a bunch of things whatever you want to thank him for so good idea is before you ask Hashem for something ask him for anything say thank you first why just think about it this way if a father has two sons and one son really really loves him and appreciates the father unbelievably well the other son not so appreciative not so appreciative who does his father want to give more to the one that says thank you ABA I really really appreciate I know that you would want to give me even more but this is what I have and I appreciate thank you ABA even if you can't give me I know that you want to give me thank you ABA for whatever you're even thinking of giving me or you already gave me or what you gave me in the past thank you thank you thank you and the other one is like like this generation's attitude which is that's it that's it you you give them their salary you give them their present you give them their whatever oh that's it it's constant level of disappointment have you ever met anybody in this generation that's not constantly disappointed do you get a car oh that's it what do you mean that's it it's a brand new car it's a car I actually saw a video one time this really much like it's like a something unbelievable they took a video of these parents you know middle class parents bought their I don't know 17 18-year-old kid a car bought him a car but it wasn't obviously a 17 18 year old is just starting to drive so you're not going to buy him a brand new car if you're a smart parent if if you buy him a brand new car you're an idiot even if you're a uh you know rich person there's really no need to buy him a brand new car because he's going to ruin it he doesn't know how to drive he's going to ruin it and it's just a waste of money so buy him some basic level car doesn't necessarily need to be a uh you know uh a three- Wheel car but you know it's be a basic level car so anyway so they buy him a standard used car he sees the car and he starts screaming at his parents and cursing them and then he takes I don't know some type of like broom or something and start smashing the car of how this is not the car he wanted he wanted a brand new car this is this gener but sometimes this is us with AEM though he gives us everything but we're forgetting about it we don't want what he what he gave us we're smashing it no no no I want the other one I want the other one but I gave you wife already yeah but I want the other one she's uh younger and she has longer hair yeah but I gave you kids yeah but I don't want them anymore I want uh a dog instead but I gave you a job yeah but I want to be a millionaire I'm not a millionaire yet yeah but you are a million no no I want to be like Bill Gates I want to be like this one everything he gives us it's always not enough what we saying that's it that's it and this is part of the nature of men is is is evil inclination will always tell him to want more says give a man 100 he wants 200 give him 200 he wants 400 meaning that he'll never ever have enough unless he realizes where it's coming from really and what's the point of all of it if he has a connection with hem that he can control that desire he can control that desire but it takes work if someone is not going to control his desire for material then he'll never have enough he'll always say that's it always be unfulfilled so first and most important thing is to understand is that if we're going to start BEC getting to the habit of thanking AEM first and then asking for something you could ask as much as you want but first thank him be appreciative of what we already have you already a better servant you're already showing that you realize the order and who comes first who comes second you already realize there's a structure but now he's telling you yes it says that there's going to be many blessings as it says in the book of and also in there's many many blessings that mankind gets for serving Hashem but he says don't be one of those people that only serves hem because you're going to get an award be one of these people that serves them not for the sake of the award now this is a very very high level of serving Hashem so why does he and then after that he says nonetheless fear fear hem which is a lower level so here first of all he's telling you you should really ideally you should serve AEM like abah aino like likeu like like David like these great extraordinary forefathers that we have these perfect human beings who wanted nothing other than to connect to hasem he says serve him like that job the prophet job says even if if I knew that hasem was going to kill me and destroy me I'd still serve him I'd still serve him I believe is or it be but in the it says there's a did job serve AEM purely out of fear or purely out of love if it was fear it was the highest level of fear if it was love it was also a high level of Love why highest level of fear because the highest level of fear of hem is fear of a disconnect not fear of a punishment fear of punishment is the lowest level of serving hem you do the mitv you fulfill the Commandments why because you don't want to get punished you don't want to lose money you don't want to get divorc Shalom you don't want to lose any children you don't want to go to G you don't want all these bad things that we talk about from time to time you don't want all those bad things to happen to you so that's why you do it that's the lowest level of serving hasem it's still good it's respectable especially for this generation but nonetheless it's the lowest level the highest level of fear of hem is fear of hem like a good relationship meaning if a husband and a wife have a healthy relationship then the husband and the wife are not going to yell at each other and hate each other and do things like that they're going to communicate now the reason why even if the wife makes the husband upset or vice versa they're not going to act in a way where for example if let's say the the wife is not going to talk to the husband a certain way or the husband is not going to talk to the wife in a certain way not because they're scared that the other one's going to hit them if you're scared the other one's going to hit them then it's not a healthy relationship we're talking about a healthy relationship the reason why they're not going to insult the other person is because they're scared that this insult is going to lead to a disconnect where if I insult my wife then she's not going to talk to me and her not talking to me is unbearable to me I can't deal with it my whole day goes to nothing so I can't do it so then I'm not going to insult her the husband is not going to insult the wife because of that the wife is not going to insult the husband because of that so that's not a fear of pun pment per se that's physical like the lowest level of serving hasem but rather a fear of a disconnect of hurting the relationship so that's the highest level of fear of hem as well where abrah ainu was willing to sacrifice his son not because he was expecting some award from ashem Hey listen you're a sadik you are a ainu you are you descendants are going to be like the stars of the Heaven and the uh you know numerous like the sand and so on and so forth no you didn't expect any of that he was willing to sacrifice his son because that was what Hashem requested or what he understood that hasem requested and he wanted to do everything he possibly can to be connected to hasem didn't matter what it was didn't matter if there was a sacrifice it didn't matter if it was hard it didn't matter if it made sense it didn't matter if it didn't make sense nothing mattered he loved theem to such an extent that he wanted to make sure that he would do everything to not hurt that relationship not hurt that connection but the point here is is that he's telling you if you're serving AEM serve him like where you're not just serving him for for a award of some kind you're serving him without any award that's the highest level where even like job said even if you were to kill you'd still do it why because that's the highest level that's the ideal level what is this like if a father has two sons again and one of them really really loves the father and every time the father even hints that he wants something the kid immediately goes and gets it the father wants a coffee he runs and he gets him a coffee father wants somebody to go get milk he runs and he gets milk the father wants a book or paper or this or that he runs and he does everything right away the other son doesn't really like his father that much so he doesn't run anywhere so and the father says listen It's upsetting that I don't see him I ask him for coffee he doesn't do it say okay you know what okay takes out his wallet he goes okay if you go get me coffee I'll pay you five bucks oh for five bucks sure he runs to the place gets some coffee thank you I love you ABA he doesn't really love ABA he loves the $5 ABA wants paper ABA wants this ABA wants that every time it's for a payment so now when the father is going to do his review one day he's going to think about you know who do I really want to give my inheritance to the one that milked me for money every single time I asked him for something every coffee cost me five bucks every ride cost me 20 every everything had a payment or the one that did it just because I asked them to just because he loved me who am I going to give my inheritance to well the one I paid him all this reward okay I love him he's great he's fine he's my son at least he did it he's not a terrible son where he didn't do it even after I paid him but the one that did it just because obviously I want to give him more so antigonos is telling you if you're already going to do it do it at the highest possible level shoot to be like Abu shoot to be likeu shoot to be like Noah complete with hem the greatest of his generation go for the best just like you want you go to work you don't go to work because oh I want to make a basic living and be half homeless my whole life no you go to work to be multi-millionaire you want the next idea is going to be Microsoft the next idea is going to be Google that's what you think everybody thinks that everybody thinks their next idea is the greatest thing since life bread that's why they go to work Napoleon used to say I want all my soldiers to want to be commanders any soldier who doesn't want to be a commander I don't want him to be my Soldier because if he doesn't want to be a commander then he's definitely not going to be a good soldier either you have an opport opportunity to be the greatest of great so an is telling you I learned from my shimik the greatest of his generation the one that was around prophets at all times the one that made uh Alexander the Great bow to him Alexander Great the guy that run conquered the whole world bowed to him on all four I learned from him something amazing he's telling you if you're going to serve hem go for the whole pie and serve him out of complete love not just because you're going to get an award do it just because it's the right thing to do it's the right thing to do to work on your midot it's the right thing to do to not be angry and work on yourself to realize that there's really never a reason to be angry ever the only reason you're angry is because you have Gava you have pride you think that the world needs to run according to your tune and if it doesn't run according to your tune you're angry that's why the calls that idol worship you've made yourself a you think that the world should run according to your tune and if you think the world needs to run according to your tune you're a mini God you have a problem there's no share of the world to come to somebody as a mini God so someone that knows this is okay it's dangerous to have anger I have to work on myself I have to work on not being angry why am I angry why do I get upset every time the baby cries why do I get upset every time my wife wakes me up in the middle of the night with a question why do I get upset because this and this happened all these different things that happened to your life everybody has their you know little things pet peeves that annoy them why does it annoy you why does it make you so angry I mean it's it's mindboggling sometimes how big things don't matter but small things make you want to destroy the world like Hashem did with the time of Noah I tell you personally before Tor if I was God I would destroy the world every day every day I had like I would get upset at these small things and I would literally want to just destroy the world like this guy came late sir you just made a million dollars today I don't care but one of my employees came in 6 minutes late what do you care that he came in 6 minutes late my whole world changed because the guy came in 6 minutes late you made money you did this doesn't make a difference but that's the thing when you have no real purpose in life you make small stupid things your purpose so someone that wants to serve Hashem and get to the highest level has to know there's obviously a track of how to get there you have to work on these midot you have to work on your character cha which is the reason why we're doing this whole series to begin with but he's already telling you from the beginning listen the Torah is not of the mindset that you're not able to do something the Torah will never tell you that you cannot be the most righteous person of your generation the Torah will never tell you that you're not able to be a the Torah will never tell you that you cannot do anything that's will get you the greatest ever Torah is the opposite he's starting the mishna the first three Mish it's not like somewhere in the middle maybe it's less important Shalom but the point you get my point here the opening the mishna with this less that telling you listen if you're going to already service God be like AB already be like no be like Moshe go for everything why are you settling for just one little Diamond okay so you do really good do the prayer too not just the why just a prayer act accordingly be a walking learn some T also why just learn toah fulfill it too do what it says in the Torah why just fulfill the Torah when you're in private do it in public show people why it's a great thing to be a Jew why you're proud to be a Jew why you want to die to be a Jew go for the whole thing don't settle for half of modesty like sometimes I have women that ask oh is this modest like you know they send you a picture of some clothes or or or they give you you know a question is this shirt modest is this thing if you're asking if it's modest obviously you realize there's some problem there if you're asking obviously it's not clearly modest right right or no yeah I wants to do it but you want someone to sign off that it's okay you want me to sign off so I can go to Gom instead I don't want to go to Gom for you you're not going to go to for me no one wants to go to gay home for anybody else so why do you want me to sign for it you know it's modest or not same thing with people listen is this a kosher deal they sign a deal with somebody it's clearly not Kosher not legally and not ethically is this kosher you're asking me because you know it's not not that I'm telling people don't ask me questions ask me as many questions as you want that's how you learn but most of the time you know the answer you're I knows the answer why CU your study the same T that I studied inside your mother's womb it also studi the Torah we know the same tah you know what's right and wrong everyone knows what's right and wrong so the first thing you going to ask yourself am I really am I being am I full of it if you're already going to do it do it 100% And I give you a something that you could Implement in business also obviously from hasem this is material of this world versus eternity but to give you an understanding of like a lot of people ask me for like business ideas of what made us successful in the past and um I can tell you this mishna not that I knew this mishna all these years ago but this mishna was one of the secrets to the success we had this mishna how he's saying here if you serve AEM not for the sake of reward but rather serve hasem just for the sake of serving Hashem ultimately what's going to happen you're going to get rewarded even more the fact that you're serving him not for the reward is going to get you the bigger reward aino obviously has a higher reward than any of us or anybody else pretty much why he didn't service him for the reward he didn't go put his son on a slaughter house for some big uh Mansion was not telling ABA ABA tied a little tighter because said oh yeah I can't wait for my ABA to kill me because I'm gonna get a big uh lot ticket in sham he didn't say that doesn't say there's no verse that says that there's no midash even that says that yov didn't serve hem make sure all of his sons are make sure that came from him wasn't named is because he was waiting for oh how great my reward is going to be in this Moshe same thing Moshe didn't even want the job M he didn't even want the job he says I'm not good enough to have this great job that you want me to have who am I I'm nothing I'm less than nothing didn't want to be king didn't want to be nothing he said I'm a worm and not is I'm a worm and not a man worm so these extraordinary people teaching us something very very important about business actually says because they served theem not for the reward but just for the sake of it they ended up getting a much greater reward right in the business world one of the things that we used to do which a lot of very successful companies do in one form of another is offer a lot of stuff for free lot of stuff for free so for example if you noticed anybody that has a smartphone so you won't know this you won't understand this part because you don't like smartphones but you see that there something called applications there something called applications I got to bust the chops a little bit about the smartphone thing one day you have to get the smartphone I have a tablet oh tablet okay so you already it's fine so you have a you have the apps right but 99% of the apps you can get them for free right you get the app for free but then after you use it for like 2 3 weeks they ask you do you want to buy the full app cuz there's certain features that are missing so why they give it to you for free they want you to to get a taste out of it and then it's easy to convince you to buy it you even want to buy them sometimes it's free for so long that you want to pay for it just to make sure this happened to me with one app it was so good that even though it didn't cost money I was looking for the premium version maybe it has something better once in a while it happens I'm one of those guys that actually if it's something good I'll try to show some appreciation so but this is what we did on Wall Street so I would offer clients different things for free like an analysis of their other accounts elsewhere a uh second opinion on their business and a bunch of different services for free that other people would charge an extraordinary amount of money for sometimes it worked out really really well sometimes it wasn't some people that I did it for were unappreciative and actually really uh made me second guess myself but for the most part uh a lot of the success we had was because people saw that we cared they saw that I care about what's going on in their life what's going on in their business what's going I would have conversations with them sometimes for an hour and a half about something that has nothing to do with business they ask me for Life advice they ask me for advice with their kids they'd ask me for advice with their business they'd ask me with advice with different employees they have different things that had nothing to do with the stock market which is pretty much what I did for a living my job was to invest their money but we would have hourlong conversations about something completely irrelevant but that's what made the deal that conversation that show of care that's not for a a reward of sometime if I talk to the guy for two hours about giving him analysis on his business I'm not getting paid for the business if he sells the company or doesn't sell the company doesn't make a difference in my life if I give him valuation of his company which sometimes will take a lot of work I would give him an evaluation which other companies can charge tens of thousands of dollars like if somebody wanted me to do that today I would charge him you know a couple thousand an hour just to analyze their business but I'll give them a real value in the past I would do it for free why did I do it for free was I hate money or something no I like money very much at the time why did I do it for free I would give him a service that's let's say worth $10,000 for free like analyze his business or analyze his portfolio or analyze something else it's worth a lot of money worth 10 $15,000 for free without any expectation whatsoever but end up inheriting different business where he would say listen this guy's such a nice guy he analyzed my business he did something that other people would charge me 10 15 grand for so you know what let me give him a little bit more work see he would send me more money and the transaction that I would do would be 50 $660,000 so I would do a service for $10 $15,000 for free and then he end up sending me a few million dollars so I would invest the money I'd make 50 100 Grand and this is how people it got to a point where each month people would send me anywhere between $2 to $10 million every single month of new money to invest in the business which is a considerable amount of money in that business this is as I always say anything that's any good must have a source in the Torah so this little bright idea that I thought I had you see it's in the serve AEM not because of the award because that's how you're really going to get the real award if you're already going to get to that point already do it now the question is why does which is Leviticus 26 verse4 and Deuteronomy 11:13 and each one has 10 verses and 13 verses respectively of blessings material blessings why does AEM mention all of these blessings that we're going to get we're going to get money we're going to get kids we're going to beat our enemies we're going to do this we're going to do that why is he mentioning all of these blessings if in reality we're learning here from one of the greatest sages that ever lived that ideally you should serve hem not for the award why mention it then Noel what do you think why mention in the Tor that you going to get all this reward if ideally you really shouldn't be looking for it I don't I didn't know either before I learned his but I always give you I think you know more than so the ramb rambam 91 he says something M breakthrough in so many words he's saying this all of the awards of this world the material the money the building the wife the kids all of that stuff that's not your real award for the mitzvot instead they are an assurance from God that all the physical conditions necessary for man to perform the Commandments will be provided to him so that he will be able to serve God even more and be worthy of Greater reward in the world to come meaning you do a Mitzvah you give myself give 10% and you don't give it to Hanah parties you give it to to K you do it for to learn you do something effective and hasem says I'll make you rich that's what he says he's not making you rich as an award for your no the award for the Mas is what's going to the outcome of your m is what you're going to get award for why is he making you rich then he's making you rich according to the r according to our Torah in order to allow you to make even more mitv because you made one mitvah I'm so happy with you I'm gonna give you another opportunity to make another mitvah as it says each mitvah leads to another Mitzvah soem says oh you did one mitvah so you like my mitvah so let me give you another opportunity to do another mitvah so you give so I'm going to give you more money to give more you give more I'm going to give you more money to give more you got married oh you made a mitvah of getting married I'm going to give you kids so you have more MIT you had one kid and the kid goes to Yeshiva I'm going to give you more kids more kids are going to go to Yeshiva you have a legitimate operation in your business let me publicize it make you successful so you could not only give Stak but you could publicize how a Jew runs a business business so the material award that you get here is not the real award it's nothing it's bbas in comparison to the real award you're going to get in but he's only giving it to you in this he says it in he's going to give you this material just to enable you to make more MIT to give you an opportunity to make even more for the real world this if someone really thinks about it is the ultimate definition of the graciousness of Hashem if you think about it Hashem owes us nothing nothing we owe him everything just like the I wrote all these books I did all this this but but you did it I didn't do anything you allowed me to write it you allow you gave me the Insight I did everything but in reality you did everything MH hasem owes us nothing everything that we have it's purely us getting from him we give him nothing but he's telling us that the more you do of what I you're commanded to do anyway you're commanded to givea you're commanded to late feeling you're commanded to be a servant of hem you're commanded to keep Shabbat you're commanded it's not an option you have to do it the more you do it the more I'm going to give you opportuni to do even more the more you learn T the more insights I'm going to give you of things you're going to find from the Tora they going to make you even want to learn even more Tor the more mitv you're going to make the more opportunities I'm going to give you to make even more mitv which means the more you do things that are going to get you an award that's Eternal the more I'm going to give you an opportunity to get even a bigger award I don't want you to just be a millionaire in shamim I want you to be a trillionaire so if you're looking to be a millionaire I want you to be more so is that a reward that's the ultimate reward that's the real reward all right the reward is obviously what's happens in sham but the actual reward here is not the money gives you but the ability to do something with this money the ability to do something with these MIT they trans into more Health more Health more positive attitude more more ways to more ways to serve AEM more more ways to be like Abu right right anonos finishes this thing with something off where he says okay serve AEM the ultimate Way serve him like don't serve him for some reward realize that he wants more for you than you even want for yourself and nonetheless fear fear of Heaven should be upon you doesn't really fit it should be if we understand the order of things it should be have fear of hasem that's the lowest level and eventually get to being like loving but here he finishes it with it whyos is telling you this if you're already going to serve hasem serve him the best you possibly can look go for the whole thing but hey if you don't make it don't go crazy don't forget you have to have your at the least have your at the least fear the almighty maybe you're not going to be the next maybe you're not going to beu maybe you're not even going to be the localad but don't turn into some don't turn into some heretic and uh you know start uh a new reform or conservative Sho or something or Christianity or Messianic uh religion or something okay you weren't Abu fine but listen at the very least you still have to have fear of the almighty you must have fear of the AL Mighty now the says and also hem was reviewing the nation and he says he didn't find a Mida a character trait that is has better than poverty is amazing stories but it's very scary it says the best character trait that am is has according to Hashem when he did his review is when they have poverty this is uh okay so what's the here what is What is the uh sages explain here says what are we here for why did you come to did you ever ask yourself this FR K just did a we just did a video three minute video it's in Hebrew we're going to get some type of subtitles to it it's really a powerful video it's only 3 minutes but it's m powerful it's very simple it's a it's a it's a video only of questions no answers it's only questions what's the main question why did we come to the world what's the purpose of life do you ever ask yourself this question what's the meaning of life what's the purpose why am I here why do I feel right when I eat a cow that was a living being well I I asked because it doesn't speak I asked myself uh question but I don't know if if it's it's kind of a different but the same thing and is it was the purpose of God to make the man mhm I mean that's that's a question question that I think goes without want to say I mean did God has really mind to make the man knowing that all the sin will happen can wanted to is good and wanted to create good so therefore he created men in order to give him good what about the behavior I mean okay but man has an opportunity to be righteous or Wicked if he's righteous he get gets rewarded for being righteous if he's wicked he gets punished for being Wicked but the point is that when man does not realize that in a clear way that he's only here because Hashem created him then the question is why is he here so what is the point right so if you don't have a God if you don't believe in God then what's the point of your life all right why are you here so that's why did you come to the world why do you think that you have the right to kill an animal that's alive just like you and eat it what makes you an authority over that animal why just because you have a weapon what makes you have the right to kill a fish that's also life a living being there's many groups that are anti meat you know the all the the vegetarian and vegan and so on that they're anti meat eating and so on and even fish I say what gives you the right to kill a cow who do you think you are you going to kill a cow you going to kill a sheep you're going to kill a lamb you're going to kill all these animals who gives you the right to kill them they're alive they have families they have kids what gives you the right what gives you the right to eat the tomato because according to science tomato is alive tomato is alive that's why that's why that's the question I would ask the vegetarian right you got a tomato so Tomato's alive what gives you the right to eat a tomato what gives you the right to eat a banana what giv gives you the right to eat anything it's all alive even plants that you don't eat have feelings it was already tested in 1950s you already know since the 1950s you connect a light detector to a plant it will actually move the uh the pin it has feelings if you think in your mind I'm going to burn this plant the pin goes all over the place showing signs of fear think which means it can read your mind so what gives you the right to chop down trees what gives you the right it's a big question it is even more so if you don't have a God then what's the point of your life why are you so upset if somebody dies if he had no purp if if there was no purpose to his life why are we so upset if he dies now you can't tell me that the purpose in life is to eat cuz obviously it's not you can't tell me that the purpose of life is to get married because obviously it's not many people live life without getting married so if it's a purpose it must be Universal a species must have a universal purpose can't be that just one monkey has a purpose to climb trees and the rest of the monkeys have a purpose to just eat bananas but not climb trees that means that they're all right and he's wrong it cannot be he has a different purpose it has to be a universal purpose for a species and then independent goals or Ambitions if you will if mankind has a purpose it has to be a universal purpose and then independent Ambitions so if there is as the atheists say no God then what is the purpose now if you say to get married then obviously it's not because that can't be cuz many people don't get married if you say it's to have kids the same answer is many people don't have kids if you say it's to be successful many people don't have success as a matter of fact as we said in in previous lectures if you make over $300,000 a year you are in a top 1% of income earners in the entire universe of 7.6 billion people $300,000 is not that much money yes it's a lot of money but it's not what we view as Rich we view as rich as like Donald Trump or something or I don't know or Hillary Clinton now apparently she's also very rich uh that's what' you as rich not $300,000 $300,000 a decent lawyer makes $300,000 but but at least in New York New York they do I don't know in Florida maybe they make 10% of that apparently I don't know some sometimes more sometimes less but in New York everybody charges $1,000 an hour so point being here is that if it's m it obviously can't be money it can't be food can't be money it can't be your it can't be something that ends can't be all just to build your company what if the company goes out of business then that means that there was no purpose and not all of mankind is not part of your company so a person must ask themselves what is the purpose then if it's to be nice be a good person like some people like to say especially the Young Generation is to be good and do good Define good who defines good good to you may be bad to me you view good as killing Jews I view good as you not killing Jews we have a problem your good is going to destroy my good or my good is going to destroy your good which means it cannot be our purpose cuz we must have a universal purpose our purpose must be the same can't be opposites half the world can say yes and the other one say no and we have we're we're the same species so good is relative so that's the thing so good the human level humans humans humans that Define good it's it's they are defining it based on their own agenda okay so that means that good cannot be defined by mankind good can only be defined by the manufacturer by the one that actually created them by the one that actually defined what good is okay so AEM knows exactly what the purpose of the world is for the good or for he tells you what good is and he tells you what the bad is and it's good for for for both exactly exactly so that's so that's the thing kosher e kosher is is good universally Good The Bad is exactly exactly so now if someone if someone is saying to do good that's the purpose of life then obviously you can't get to that point because your definition of good is not valid uh so which gets us to a point where if unless you believe in an ultimate Creator you cannot get to a point of the purpose of life answering the simple but important question of what's the purpose of life and if there is no purpose then why do we cry when someone dies his time is over he's going to turn into a plant according to atheists so what's the problem why are you crying why are you so upset he had no purpose anyway he was like the button that's on the bottom of shirts that you buy that you know that's never going to be used what was I mean he didn't bring anything to the world why you so upset if he had no purpose which is the reason why everyone that's in hospice about to die they usually become very religious because they realized that they're they were full of it and what they claimed was the purpose of life whether it was their company or their children or their marriage or their success or their fame or their show or all of these material things in reality are worthless because they can't take any of that to where they're going next and they realize that the only one that could actually know the purpose is the one that created them and they knew what it was all along they just decided not to listen they decide to follow their desires and not listen to the source which creates a very very serious problem because if someone is alive in this world without knowing what their purpose is they're in great danger of wasting their life and only realizing that they've wasted wasted it once they've already arrived at hospice once it's already too late so we we we have uh desires or needs it's two different things two different things needs is I need to eat or else I'm going to die I need to breathe or else I'm going to die I need to uh you know do all types of things for basic level survival desires is I want I want I want a really nice car I want a big house I want a lot of money I want this I want that people want all types of things so the reality is is that your wants are not needs right the problem in today's generation and in many generations before but specifically with us is that we're constantly confused between the wants and needs you see a little kid crying when he's in a supermarket Emma buy me the candy I need it I need it no no you don't need it you want it you don't need the candy you want the candy MH you don't want the iPhone you don't need the uh uh iPhone you want the iPhone so that's the that's the uh yeah good you don't so so that so it's controlling it's controlling ourselves to a point where we realize that there is obviously a threshold a threshold of where we have to distinguish between the two now in thear where it says that Hashem did not find a Mida a character trait it's better than poverty in is what does k sayem wants us to be like one of the righteous people that we have the potential to be like but he also knows that we have these desires we have this yet which we learned hem created us with a we have this evil inclination that steers us in a direction opposite of what hasm wants us to go in opposite of our purpose to life so he says listen if I give you more money then you can fulfill more of these desires and if you fulfill more of these desires you're going to want even more and you're going with each time you fulfill one of these desires you're more likely to get further away from me the more money you have the more problems you can get yourself into the problem you get yourself into the easier it is to forget about Hashem so hasem says because I want you to be close to me the best thing you can do is be poor me now this doesn't necessarily mean poor to the point where we can't eat but poor to the point where we're just basic level surviving and this is the reason why if you look at for for example some of the major tadim of this generation and past generation whether it's ofan of kvi all of these major sikim in the world if you go and see their houses they literally look like a box of you know some old box from 300 years ago it's unbelievable that they live in these conditions to them there's there's nothing wrong in their eyes but to the rest of the world that goes and sees it it's unbelievable to live in this these conditions especially when you know that millions and millions of dollars cross their hands on a regular basis any one of these rabbis can ask anybody for $10 million they'll get it tomorrow no questions asked money goes through their hands on a regular basis to fund these yeshivas to find these cor to fund all of these major organizations they have they don't even touch but they don't touch the money they don't care for the money all they need is just for their basic needs to survive they just want they literally want to live off of just their needs why because all they want they already have what is it it's called Torah when you really have Smart Torah you no longer have a desire for anything else and this is why the gar is telling us that if you really know the significance of how difficult it is to battle the yet of money you'd never pray for money if you know yet for major financial success you'd never pray for it if you know the major for some of these desires that we have you'd never want them why because you know that you could potentially get yourself into some serious trouble now the um GR rebe who took over the Kaa for his father the after he took over this K these came to him and they said your father promised us that if we recite the verse in Hal in did I bring a sedor you have a sedor okay so your father promised us that no it's okay it's okay no big deal your father promised uses we say the prayer of it's one of the seven rabinal MIT no it's okay it's okay it's fine it's fine it's fine don't worry so one of the seven rabal is to say the don't worry don't worry fine no no it's fine it's fine it's it's just breaking off the thing it's don't worry about it's really not that important tell them thank you it has some Hebrew in it no yeah yes Hebrew yeah it's really not that I'm born just a I usually bring my with me where did he go he's looking for C do right now yes no it doesn't make a difference it's not that important shouldn't have asked s I'm sorry for making you go all over the place it's not necessary it's completely not necessary okay so let's let I'll give you the point so the K comes to the G and it says thank you and it says for the your father promised us that if we say the in Hal every time we pray Hal if we say an and with a lot of Cav m meaning save us hem please Hashem save us then our an then our prayers will be answered but it's not working it's not working we checked we we we've been doing it we've been doing it we've been doing it and it's not working we're uh praying to Hashem it's not working so the rabi says which Anna do you think he meant and I said what do you mean it says an no please hem help us save us now says no that's not the one that he meant the one that he meant is which is in psalm 16 16 16 which is also in Hal it comes before the hasem save us before it says Hashem save us before it says help meem I am your servant meaning that asem provides the saves the people that claim themselves as his true servants so before you go and start asking for hem to save you ask yourself first are you truly a servant are you really serving hem like you're supposed to or you doing everything only for the award and if you're doing everything for the award it's not exactly your full potential you understand so this is some of the things that we have to understand from this mishna to finalize all of this I give you a there's a very very famous story from this mishna that happened that actually teaches us the importance of teaching but not just teaching teaching in the right way in the book of which gives a P gives a commentary on it says of the story where it says antigonos had two students he had two students and these two students there's a uh debate whether it's the two students themselves misunderstood or the two students became teachers but their students misunderstood according to the rambam but one of the students was called sadok and the other one was uh buus and these two students they heard this mishna from anonos I said wait a minute what is it saying in this mishna don't serve AEM like someone that's looking for a reward serve him like that's not looking for a reward like maybe these sages maybe these rabbis are saying don't don't serve AEM like there's an award because they know that in reality there really isn't an award in reality there isn't so why would they say what other reason would they say don't expect an award maybe they're saying there's no award so these two instead of going to the rabbi and getting to the bottom of it and asking questions what do they do they ended up becoming complete Kim complete Heretics and they started two movements one called the Sadducees named after sadok and one called the boim which is after buus named after them these two uh and their major push is against the oral Torah against the rabbis so listen Okay the written Tor it's fine we agree with it but the oral Torah we don't believe in it because look what it says in the oral Torah it says don't worship hem don't serve AEM for an award so if you're not going to serve AEM for an award that means it's probably isn't an award so the whole thing is fake the whole thing is not good they don't know what they're talking about so this is very very important to teach us a very valuable lesson for anybody that's teaching whether it's someone that's teaching themselves or someone that is teaching others is that the power of your word is much more significant than you can imagine the power of your actions is much more significant than you could imagine in we learned that hasem gave Noah a sign the sign was I'm not going to destroy the world and as a sign I'm going to put this rainbow less than 350 years later the Tower of Babel is built by a bunch of wicked people that are trying to build a building that is going to go fight God and Hashem says since they have Unity even though they're Wicked they're not hurting each other the power of UN is that hasem is not going to punish someone that's United the reason why for example you see the uh Arabs according to numbers they should rule the world even though they already rule a big part of it through their terrorism but nonetheless they should actually literally rule the world they have numbers they have two billion people and a lot of money and so on why don't they rule the world because they don't have Unity between them if they had Unity between them it's Mercy from they don't have Unity same thing with if is had Unity the the few million that we have in the world had actual Unity we'd also rule the world the power of unity is extraordinary sohem says these people at the Tower of Babel had Unity that's why it didn't destroy them so what but in order for them I couldn't let them continue sinning and going against me so what did I do I created 70 languages before that there was only one language there was just the Hebrew holy language that's the that was the universal language that was the only language that was spoken in the world but now at the toar of Babel which is at the end of no we see that hem that's why it's called Babel Babel is B like to confuse the world he confused them by having each one of them speak a different language so when each one said something to the other they didn't understand each other so they could no longer deliver on their word and it says in the page 49 whoever paid the punishment to the generation of the flood and the generation of the Tower of Babel he will pay the punishment to the one who doesn't stand by his own word so here the kazal tells us that the same one that punished the generation of Noah is the same one punished the generation of the Tower of Babel he also will punish the one who doesn't hold his word meaning hasem punished the generation of Noah but then made a promise not to destroy the world after it by creating a uh rainbow so even though he could have destroyed the world again at the Tower of Babel he didn't destroy the world he just destroyed that area over there destroy the Tower of Babel and a lot of those people themselves even some of them turn into monkeys and so on why didn't he destroy the world Tower of Babel aside from Unity because he made a word he gave his word that I'm not going to destroy the world again so the mishna here is telling us that the value of your word is extraordinary because hem is saying I've been keeping my word for over 5,700 years every time you see a rainbow technically Hashem wants to destroy the world but I haven't destroyed the world because of the words because of the promise I made to no less than 5,700 about 4,000 years ago promise I made to no not to destroy the world I'm still holding my word so just like I held myself at the time of after Noah at the Tower of Babel at the time after Egypt before Egypt after Egypt bet mikdash and so on and so forth all these times millions of times that had an opportunity and a right to destroy the world I didn't do it because I'm good for my word I expect you to do the same so when someone makes a agreement with somebody else and doesn't hold their word here the is telling you that you are going against God here not just against people because you're doing something that's the opposite of God just like Hashem is always gracious always giving this is the reason someone that's stingy someone that's cheap gets punished why because it's literally the opposite of God Hashem always gives and never receives so someone that's cheap doesn't want to give so it's the opposite of hem same thing within regards to someone that doesn't hold their word someone that makes a promise and doesn't keep his promise you make a promise you're not going to hold your world it's the opposite of what hasem has been doing for all these years so the the value of your word is extraordinary and this mishna anonos is teaching us how important it really is because on one end if we take the teachings of Shimon sadik we see that Shimon sadik is giving us the secret to Ultimate success he's saying if you're already going to go for it worship hem be a servant of hem be likeu be like be like be like Moshe be like the be like somebody great great but at the very least have some that's if you understand that Mish correctly if you don't understand that mishna correctly if the word that was taught to you was incorrect if the teacher was too scared to tell you the truth if you just wanted to to know some parts not the other parts then Shalom someone can turn out to be like the Sadducees and end up becoming a complete Cel say no the only reason you're said in this mishna don't expect a uh don't work for AEM don't serve AEM for a uh an award because there is no award and if there's no award then there's no point to do all of it which is what happened with the Christians that are pretty much saying that listen you serve hasem without doing anything just believe in this guy and that's it every he died for your sins he died for them you could just do whatever you want you could be modest you could be stingy you could be a murderer you could be whatever you want as long as you believe in this guy everything's fine to up you're safe if you believe everything is so it's complete nonsense it's completely against the Torah now people don't have to final as last point I'll give you a story I just heard today um people don't have an understanding a full understanding of the magnitude of the sages that are mentioned in this mishna as I me mentioned in the beginning of this year each one of these people was able to revive the dead what people give this JC Penny guy credit for that he revived somebody from the dead whether he did or he didn't there's no proof of it even if he did it's not a big deal cuz every single person mentioned in thear did the same thing and more there's a uh story in thear says a uh ran one of the uh people there was two kids that were his uh nephews that would come to the Yeshiva both of them will mute both mute weren't weren't able they were born without the ability to speak so no one knew if they're smart if they're not smart can't they can't speak they can't teach they can't answer they can't nothing all he would see when he would teach them is just they're nodding they're nodding nodding so one day he had mercy on them he prayed and they both got healed both were able to start able to start speaking something they were born without the ability to speak it's not like a uh you know they cut their tongue they were never able to speak all of a sudden prays and both of them are able to speak and then they start teaching and everyone finds out these two are geniuses so all this time we didn't know what Torah they knew because they couldn't speak but now we know cuz now they could speak but the point of the story of of relevant to us is that we see that he was able to change CH sages were able to change nature it says in the book of Jeremiah you'll be like my mouth so each one of these sages when they write something it's much more than just some uh you know some guy some author wrote a book in a book or something like that when there's an that they have passed it's the difference between life and death and to give somebody an idea I heard this story today today you know these near-death experiences where people die and come back to life are happening more and more often millions of people have died and come back to life and every one of them is reporting a very similar story they saw light some people see more some people see less some people talk to people there some people don't but the point is that very similar stories across the board and some people see things that are beyond the normal like for example Rabbi alava that's you know started getting Torah knowledge that you couldn't get unless you studied toah for at least 25 30 years and even then it's not necessarily guaranteed so different things that people get from these near-death experiences it's really amazing and it says at the end of uh times there's going to be all types of strange things this is not different than what we've learned from the books but there was another woman that uh just shared her near-death experience she died and came back to life and she was a religious woman she's always been a religious woman um and but she was making her own sins she was saying she was a complaining about God because her life was very difficult she says about ourselves that she uh even though she was religious as far as making the mitv having him not so much the the operating stuff as far as the way the world looks at her of course yeah it looks you're making a you pray you look a certain part the outside the exterior looked perfect but she says on herself the interior was completely broken and I was constantly complaining against Hashem I was constantly thinking that uh you know things are not right I was constantly saying about you know certain types of people and and then she says when she had this near-death experience whether it was a heart attack or something that just pretty much got her out of this world she went up to the bed of sham and I'm not going to go through the whole story but the point is that she went to the bed of sham and she the Dan the BET of sh theal say that the uh the head of the bed is going to be the the of that generation there's going to be different there three and the uh ones that are the head of them are the highest of that generation the so she saw one di over there which she didn't mention his name and then she saw ra and the other Dian was saying she was crying you know she saw whole life she was embarrassed she went through this whole shame she said it was like she wanted something worse than death for herself for all this shame even though she was a religious woman how dare I complain against theem all these different things she says in the story it's m it's very uh I wish it was in English so more people could see it but anyway she says in the story after all the shame I'm begging for help I'm begging for them to bring me back to my body and Dian says no she will not return meaning it's it she's dead and she's begging and begging him no please come come back I have kids I have a husband I promise to do CH I promise to never complain against hem I promise not to say I promise this I promis that no not coming back you're not going to come back this is De is not like uh police officer and Sh says no you're not coming back says no and she's hysterical crying but then she starts seeing theot of the people she helped them do chv a few people she helped few women she helped them by teaching them how to do you know to keep nid a few people she taught them how to keep Shabbat she say no help me help me tell them that I taught you Tora tell him that I taught you this and then says to her you're going to go you're going to come back but the other day answer is no she's not going to come back he arguing with him she's not going to come back Rob says she's going to come back she going to come back she's not going to come back then she says I'm crying hysterical please please please give me the chance give me the chance give me the chance and the guy keeps saying no no no no no no no and then she says raada Slams on the table and says she I rule she comes back and she woke up up W what's my point sages that are mentioned in the gar are people that beyond their understanding matters of life and death Eternal good or Eternal suffering were decided just by their words so to say ah I don't agree with the rambam I don't thinka was right is a little more extreme a little this who are you to even question these people you little eternity is decided by their words and you're saying you agree you don't agree you even give an opinion your opinion is meaningless you just discovered if there's a purpose to life you're saying you're going to agree or disagree with Al of people that decide life or death in sh this is one of the most important valuable lessons you can learn from a who are these a who are these and how can we eventually pray just to be their shoes that they threw out once we realize even a little bit of how great they were then maybe we could start appreciating the Torah that you're try trying to teach us but until we get to a point of realizing how great they were we're never going to appreciate their Torah as long as someone thinks that their opinion their little measley opinion their little 2016 opinion or 5777 year opinion is valid in any way shape or form in comparison to the sages that spoke to God through rues or prophecy or face to face like mosu there's nothing to talk about I can't teach you Torah you can't learn tah can't do anything you think your opinion counts you think you're anything you're in a different world you're so far away from where reality is we have to go send you to keep watching r f klin's three minute video ask yourself what's the purpose of life what's the purpose of life you're still in such a far stage this is too far for you already you understand so the point of all this is to make ourselves better human beings rule number one start your day by saying thank you any questions I have a question on the on the the par the one yesterday that when you you were explaining the the why um I mean yes to keep Shabbat why is not not allowed it's not allowed or not recommended that was me my not allowed not allowed because they would create another it's another religion can you explain a little bit right so now if you have you have 63 and Judaism from the Torah seven seven laws from the rabbis right so 620 total laws but each one of those laws breaks down into many other laws as and so on but the point is that Judaism is defined by those this is how someone that wants to be Jewish has to comply with all of those laws that apply to him if he's a coin there's certain laws that apply to him if he's not a coin there certain laws don't apply to him if he's if it's a woman there's certain laws that apply to her if it's not a woman if it's a man then there certain laws that apply to him and so on so everything that applies to that person they must do if they want to be Jewish now to say that you can just take one law and keep that without keeping the rest is in essence saying that the Torah is incomplete it's imperfect that you can just choose different parts of it and selectively choose whichever one you want like custom made which in essence means that you are deciding what's good and what's bad and you're not listening to The Source who decided what's good and what's bad Hashem gave all of those laws you didn't say listen you can keep some of them and you don't have to keep some of the other ones everything that applies to you you have to keep that's why every time he mentions to observe the mitv in the Tor in the book of Exodus in The Book of Leviticus in the Book of Numbers in the book of Deuteronomy pretty much all of the books the talk about every single time he says observe my Commandments every time he says observe all my Commandments he doesn't say just observe some he doesn't say ah observe just you're fine you're good it's on me don't worry you're it's too toughy don't worry about it he doesn't say that he says All or Nothing which means if you want to observe the Commandments you have to know that you have to observe all of them now of course to some people obviously it's very very difficult to observe all the Commandments but that doesn't mean they don't have to you're still obligated to do it the fact that you're not doing it doesn't mean it's okay that you're not doing it it just means that you're not doing it and you'll get punished for not doing it uh if you're obligated to do it you're not doing it you'll get punished for it so it doesn't necessarily mean so just like I told my first uh student in Florida I told him listen first year we had I wish I would recorded it first year we had I told him listen I'm going to tell you the truth and you do do whatever you want meaning I'm not going to sugarcoat anything I'm not going to tell you what I think you uh you know you're able to hear or not able to hear I don't know what you're able to what you're not able to I'm going to tell you what God Said and you do whatever you want I'm not going to judge you I'm not going to say you're good or you're bad or anything I'm going to tell you what you have to do and I told him and I knew he doesn't keep shabat so right off the first shot I already told him listen not you know you're not let the drive on Shabbat and so on and to him it was a surprise he's been driving to Sho for 25 years no one ever told him anything and I told him listen you're never allowed to drive on Shabbat if you want to drive drive it's your problem but you're not allowed to you are in the process of conversion doesn't matter if you're in the early early stages of conversion then yes I mean you're still still early but if you're in a later stages of conversion meaning you're planning on converting Within a few months then yeah you have to start keeping about 99% everything everything except one small violation uhhuh uh the the one last violation that you do which is intentional like turning on a light not driving a small violation that you do internally um and uh then you know usually like a month before you uh convert then you keep 100% not 99% but the point is that I told listen I'm going to tell you what it is and do what you want so if I know you drive on Shabbat I'm telling you're not allowed to continue driving that's up to you either way now you know the truth now you know the truth so the same thing with anyone else that's out there they have to understand if they want to keep all of the laws in the Torah they have to they convert to Judaism they can't just pick and choose mitvah they want to listen to or not why whether it's Shabbat or it's anything else why because that would mean that you're creating your own religion you're just taking a few mitv that are in saying okay I like these I don't like the rest right you can't do that that's not what God Said So that's what ramb is saying it's not that Hashem says that Hey listen uh the go are uh bad people no there's plenty of go that are great people some of them are even prophets job was not a Jew but he was a prophet so it's some of the greatest people that ever lived with it's not a problem the point is that hasem is telling us here is that listen you have an option you going to be a Jew anyone can be a Jew practically everyone in our generation could be a Jew you want to be a Jew want to keep Shabbat want to keep kosher want to keep all these convert no problem you want to just keep Shabbat not allowed to you're allowed to rest on Shabbat even if you're not Jewish you're allowed to not work on Shabbat even if you're not Jewish you're allowed to celebrate on Shabbat even if you're not Jewish you're allowed to have a nice meal on Shabbat even if you're not Jewish what you're not allowed to do as a non-jew is you're not to refrain from doing things specifically because it says it in the Torah meaning it says in the Torah do not light fire so you're not allowed to not light fire because it says it in the Torah because you're not allowed to do it you're not allowed to refrain from the 39 restrictions that it says in the Torah that you're not allowed to do if you're not Jewish why because that would mean that you're keeping a law that's not for you if you want to keep it then keep everything if you don't want to keep if you want to keep everything don't keep that either you could celebrate on Shabbat you could enjoy your Shabbat there's no questions about it you could make it a day of rest you could celebrate make it a great day but you can't keep Shabbat unfortunately what happens this actually brings me to another point there are some of the uh this generation I heard it at least from um two place two two people uh that um are telling people that non-jews are allowed to keep Shabbat NOS are allowed to keep Shabbat and they're calling it GED they're calling it all different types of names and in essence yeah they're they're they're calling it they're calling it all types of things and they're confusing the public and this actually goes back to our teaching of this par is that if we truly understood truly understood and respected who these sages are we never dare say something that they didn't say we' never dare we' never dare if if it doesn't say in the Mish if it doesn't say in if it doesn't say in the if it doesn't say literally somewhere in the Tor by one of these great minds that a certain is that a Jew that non-jew is allowed to keep Shabbat who are you to say otherwise so that's also a level of arrogance that some people have where it's not intentional like they're trying to do they're trying to do kindness for people but in reality they're not doing kindness because they they want to people to um not feel like they're left out but if they really wanted them to feel not left out just tell them just convert to Judaism if you want to keep shabat convert to Judaism what's the what's the problem you know so so that's the thing so listen as far as as far as keeping Shabbat in regards to enjoying the dinners the lunches the prayers the uh family you can do that anyway right you don't have to be Jewish to do that you can do it every day if you want right but as far as refraining from the 39 restrictions that is specifically for Jews so if you want to be Jewish be Jewish right you know so so that's the thing I know for some people I have one student an amazing amazing human being she is M like special Soul if she could convert she'd convert today not tomorrow today already in the middle of sh she convert and she knows probably more than most people most rabbis even she knows a lot of tah and she wants to convert um but a husband is not ready yet he's concerned he believes in the Tora and but he's concerned that he's not going to be able to fulfill the entire Torah he's not going to be able to fulfill all the mitv because he doesn't know enough which is an incorrect feeling why because you're not rewarded in Judaism for fulfilling the entire tah you're not rewarded in Judaism for learning the entire to you're not rewarded in Judaism for knowing the entire T what are you rewarded for you're rewarded for trying and this is actually going to be one of the in it's in we're going to learn it the key is to try your best the key is to do everything you can to be modest do everything you can to be righteous do everything you can to have cavana in your prayer do everything you you can to learn as much as you can okay I know it's 1:00 in the morning I'm really tired let me push an extra five minutes five minutes I have maybe I don't have another hour to study maybe I don't have that much power and that much strength to study for another hour but five minutes I have and he stud the next 5 minutes that extra five minutes according to thear could be more valuable than a year worth of Torah so you get rewarded for that 5 minutes that's the that's what hasem is looking for he's looking for he's looking for self-sacrifice he's not looking for you to be an Al computer he's not looking for you to be a uh you know just a uh a robot he's looking for you to try your best try your best he eight paves away for the rest in Exodus 14:14 Moses tells God will fight your Wars and you shall remain silent meaning that once you've already exerted all of your own effort you've tried your best I tried my best to make P I tried my best to find a z I've tried my best to you know work on my I tried my best to understand this I tried my best in whatever it is that you're doing to serve AEM I tried my best AEM now it's your turn that's the bottom that's that's Judaism that's connection to Hashem so if he's watching this lecture right now the best thing I can tell him is the best thing I've always I've told him before I believe is that you don't have to worry about fulfilling the entire Torah the only thing you have to worry about is fulfilling your job meaning doing your best which you're obligated to do anyway right even even if you're not Jewish you're obligated to do your best as a non-jew you have you're obligated to try your best to be a righteous noahide which means that if you're already exerting your best this Mish says go for the best go for ab says in this Mish that's the beauty of it so you see that all of this Insight that we've learned for the last couple of hours this is from two verses in the Tor yeah two verses one little from all it we could talk about it for another week so imagine this whole book is full of it and this is one of thousands and thousands of books that we have in the tah tens of thousands of books so when somebody in this generation this lowly generation say no no I don't think that the rambam is right I don't think that antigos is right I don't think thata is right who are you you're not even an ant next to these people an ant is actually closer to them than you are because an aunt at least knows she's not like them you understand so that's the thing the most important part that someone needs to truly understand when they're learning T is know your place know where you are know where you stand these are extraordinary people and as we learned from the story today apparently they're uh they're not finished with their job in this world they're deciding who lives and dies sometimes still any else we had another great sh next week week uh we have a sh at uh usual sh Tuesday night at my house and then Wednesday we have a sh at the uh the lighthouse project in Aventura okay so we're back to doing that every two weeks we're going to do a sh there every other week okay uh at the Lighthouse project so I think it's not far from me it's like 20 minutes from here something like that from here 20 minutes with no traffic 3 hours with traffic oh yeah uh so we're going to do a sh over there most likely I believe we're going to continue the series over there as well and now you saying that I remember we're going to continue the series in every lecture because there just so much in each Mish that it's a uh it's it's a lecture of its own now you say I I'm now talking about the word you say that the sages of made you know I remember the story was a personal story about is a we're going downtown to the parking lot there and uh I was with a friend of mine he everything went B but time he want to pay there he forgot the we forgot the wallets and the mhm in my car oh fine it's fine you can turn it off no no it's fine it's fine no no I'm looking if the thing is still on the battery so anyway so when we got the the the guard in there said look I I don't they guy said get in there don't whatever give it the ticket when we went there to court went went out and everything say let's spy by the car pass by the car go and pay so we were there and he was there and then the guy wasn't there and then he told them look the other person that was here uh we we didn't pay so we have money said you know something that was exactly the same thing he told me H he said I got to go but it's something that's pretty sure going to happen here it's a guy that's going to come and pay you he a you they have award he probably going to come here and pay you so it's it's a word when you when you when you educated to have for me it was a lesson because I didn't have my keep on I said my said he say but why you didn't we didn't because he's so he's so ukip so he said he's Jew he's going to come and pay don't accept his payment listen when when someone is a is a uh is a Jew it's the world will hold you to a higher standard whether you like it or not the world will hold you to a higher standard and it's a uh there's one that I gave I don't a year and a half ago that uh is definitely worth saying again because it gives people an understanding of what's expected from them just like in the uh story of we just mentioned of the G rebbi that told him listen you know you're uh asking for hasem for to save you but right before it says an it says you know I am your servant so first he says try your best be his true servant then I'll help you so people have a confusion about which one comes first which one doesn't so the sages on the very same sages that put this book together very same sages that gave us our entire Tora they also put together our prayer different parts of our prayer and one part of the prayer is the umot corot which is the part that we talk about the different and how we uh you know theem has an incense offering that we're decreed to do and it says you know there's different parts of the incense offering and it has to be done in a precise way and it gives you exactly which incense offering there is and we say this a couple times a day say twice in and once in M the saftic I think uh ashkanazi eight less times but nonetheless it's said everyone knows what Koba note is it's and most people don't understand really when they read a lot of people know it by heart and they read this cooba note they read this incense offering and it says that [Music] the smell of the uh incense offering is pleasing to Hashem which is what it says in the Torah they're not really understanding the purpose behind it so some time ago in this very same prayer it says that two of the sages raban and rabuda both say the same thing that if one of the incense offerings is incorrect one of them is incorrect death penalty penal meaning if instead of 50 g you put 40 G or 60 G or you just didn't put it at all death penalty first I read this and everybody read this every day no one ever asked themselves what do you mean a little bit extreme okay I understand listen coming into the drunk I understand okay that I understand okay you show up to hasem drunk you deserve death just for even thinking about it you deserve death violating Shabbat okay we already see violated Shabbat first violator of Shabbat I understand somebody murders it says 10 commandments one of The Commandments do murder I understand but messing up on an incense offering I get a death penalty come on no hasem why so uptight what's going on here so the beauty of it when you understand what's going on here takes this to takes this prayer to a different level number one and number two also shows you your responsibility as a Jew so first we need to understand what is this incense offering what did it actually do physically in the world what did it do so kazal teach us that when they would make this incense offering it would create a pillar of smoke create a pillar of smoke like you see a uh you know know a uh a pillar or a building a pillar okay straight up and this pillar would reach all the way to the sky and even if there was strong wind it blow it wouldn't move so now what H what's the effect of this pillar of smoke they have three people that see this pillar of smoke we were in the desert for 40 years we're in bet mikdash for total of 900 years the first one the second one you have three different types of people see this pillar of smoke there's someone from the local camp that's a Jew there's someone that left the camp that's a Jew and there's a the Jew that's in the camp that's in the BET mikdash sees this pillar he's having day-to-day problems he's having amuna problems P didn't come in on time he's having some difficulties with his wife he's confused of what the purpose of life is for he's not really sure what's going on he sees the pillar he ah it reminds him to talking to God now when the pillar is going they're talking to Hashem okay AEM I understand I have a now cuz I see AEM I see I see I see the the work of hem this Miracle of a pillar being in you know not moving despite wind despite rain despite everything it's a miracle I see it it helps my so I helped that guy the second guy that's a Jew that's outside of the camp he got into an argument with his KLA should we pray asazi style should we pray sapharic style should we pray yemenite style should we use this k that he says you know what I'm leaving everything I don't like it he left but you know when you go away every once in a while you turn around you turn around you see how far you are from where you came from cuz you want to you know checking out things so when he turns around after he's like in the mountains already what does he see he also sees the pillar like ah reminds him he's like ah listen Judaism is not based on the Jews Judaism is based on your relationship withm so it doesn't matter if I'm a Jew inside the bet mikdash with tens of millions of Jews or I'm on an island by myself I still have to be Jewish because the connection to hasem is what's important from the pillar helps him says okay so let me come back forget about this m who cares he comes back what' you do now you did kiru you brought him back first you helped him with second guy you helped him you did K you brought him back do Chua the third guy who is the he's from a different nation and what is he saying he's anti-semite like why does AEM listen to these Jews why does hasem do anything for them he made this gave him this Torah he makes the Miracles all the big Nations wanted to destroy them the Nazis the Romans the Greeks the Turks the Spaniards who didn't want to destroy them and they survived out outlived everybody for what and he sees he looks up he he sees the pillar also he go ah why does hem make all these Miracles who's like you you're doing all these things for hm you do these specific incense offering that no other nation is doing this for hasem No Other Nation gives K to hasem No Other Nation prays to hem like he said to pray to it no other Nation eats kosher like you eat no other Nation lays like you lay No Other Nation keep shab like keep you know like you do No Other Nation keep 620 Me Like You Do No Other Nation studies this like you do that's why he makes miracles for them so you helped K now when the see whyem is doing good things for so now we see from here from these three things we understand why this incense offering is important but still it doesn't answer why if you ruin it and not saying that you're not going to do it at all I'm saying if according to it says not if you don't give put any incense offering it says if you just put less than what it's supposed to be the ramban says that if someone made a mistake with the incense offering and it wasn't precise amount exactly like it says to say exact quantity exact order exact precise how we got it from Mount sa it would become meaning a foreign fire what's a foreign fire it's a fire but there's no pillar so now what happens when there's no pillar of smoke let's see same three people the first one that had problems because of schom because of P because of this because of that he looks up he sees nothing there's no pillar so what happens he gets even he's like he thinks he's alone he leaves the camp he becomes like the number two guy the second guy already left the camp because he had M he turns around what does he see he doesn't see nothing all he sees is the guys that he got into a fight with he goes oh that's the reason why I left so he continues leaving you end up losing a Jew forever Shalom he instead of doing kiru he left now and the third one the he says why is AEM making all these miracles for the Jews he looks up he also sees nothing goes what did they do that we don't do maybe a made a mistake maybe there is Noom what does that turn out to be that's and is death penalty that's why say if you miss on one ingredient you have to understand the consequences it's not the ingredient that we care about it's not even the fire that you care about it's those three people that you end up ruining their life because you didn't pay attention to the AL cuz you thought that maybe your baseball game is more important you thought that maybe your opinion is more important you thought maybe you could do it better than you understand that's the significance of the small mitvah reminding us of it every single day in our prayer every day and everybody reads it nobody knows what's going on read it one time two times three 50 times a week they read it you have no idea what's going on HM is reminding you if you're a Jew you have to be a light to the Nations you have to be that pillar you're either going to be a Kem or you're going to be a we all live Tor love Tor and end up being K amen amen [Music] [Applause] [Music] for