Parashat Bo: The Big Bang vs Torah I Jewish Conversion

We have which is the um three we had seven plagues last week we went over. Now we have the last three plagues and then we have it this whole parala culminates with am uh getting uh leaving mit. So there's a lot of things there, a lot of material and and I told you guys one of the things I'm going to try to connect science to a lot of this uh lectures to see how this stuff relates to our life and and also I think the most important thing about the Torah to know especially in the beginning when you're first learning this stuff is that you have to connect it to your life. You have to connect it to something specific to your life. If you connect it to your life, you're not only going to remember it, but you're also going to enjoy it and you're going to grow with it. But if you're going to if you're just going to read the Torah like it's a story, yeah, it's entertaining to to have a story, but it's something that's not really going to move you. The point of Torah is that it's supposed to move you. And that's one of the things that I heard from several rabbis that I uh you know I care a lot about is that uh the khazal or the sages of the past were very very adamant about making sure that every time they give a lecture it moves the people that are watching them in in a very emotional level. It connects to them. Why? because they said, "Listen, if somebody already took the time to come see me, to learn from me, and I'm only going to tell him things that he either already knows or things that don't really change his life in any way, then in reality, all I'm doing is wasting his time. So, if let's say for example, right now, if we only talked about, okay, so we sat here for sh and every week we talked about, okay, this is the shine." Let's say for example, I just read you what the Torah says, like as far as the words. I read the story out to you guys without any explanations, without any additions, without any jokes, without any uh stories, without anything. Just telling just reading the story to you. You could do it yourself. You don't need me for that. So the key is to make sure that when you're learning Torah, you have to connect the pieces because when you connect the pieces and then you take a step back and you look at it, you have you have something special. You have something that's changed you. And that's the thing also what I uh we talked about several times about sometimes you have rabbis that are very funny, but there's a time to move on from the funny part. Or sometimes you have rabbis that will tell you, you know, different alot. They'll go over one alaka after another alaka. You can't do this. You can't do this. You have to do this. You have to do this. You have to do this. Great. It's good to, you know, it's it's important for us to learn. But the reality of it is that first of all, I need to know why. Personally, I need to know why I'm keeping this thing. Okay? In reality, at the end of the day, every mitzvah, every mitzvah, why we do it, there's one answer. Hashem said so. But there's something called t meaning it's like there's a taste of of of of what we get out of it. In essence, uh, and why we're doing, what's the reason behind it? So when somebody just tells you, listen, you can't do this, you can't do this, you could do this, you could do this, you could do this, it's very hard to connect it, especially when someone is trying to really build up their ama and their connection with Hashem to be treated like a robot and constantly just go over, it's really not fun. It's kind of boring. And I love Tawa, but it's it's very it's it's has to be something more. There has to be something more connected to my life somehow. connected to something connected to today. And that's why I think it's very very important to make sure that if you're learning Torah, especially in the beginning, number one, it has to be in you have to be interested in it. So there's many different parts of the Torah. You can't learn all of them at once. Whatever you're going to learn, make sure you're interested in it. That's number one. The second thing is is that if you don't force yourself to learn something, if you have zero interest in it, there are plenty of other things that you'll find interest in that you could learn. The other thing is is that as far as if you're going to learn alai and let's say for example, you like law and you like learning law, then that's different. But if you're similar to me where you know you need to know what to do but at the same time learning too much about that will drive you crazy. It's kind of boring. Then you have to mix it up a little bit. So you spend some time learning sometime learning stories, sometimes learning some of the other parts and trying to find a way to connect all of it together. So when you have people that speak and they're just doing one thing, it's very easy to lose the crowd. It's very easy to just get, you know, you have even if you have 500 people in front of you. If 495 of them are sleeping, you're wasting your time and you're wasting their time. So that's why I always tell you guys, if you have any questions or you have any specific issues you want to talk about, tell me ahead of time. Even you can tell me during the lecture. I'll try to do my best, but tell me ahead of time because again, the point for us is to learn something that's going to move us, that's going to connect us to Hashem, that's going to make us really grow. But if we're just going to talk about things that you guys are not interested in, then obviously you got to let me know. So with every para one of the proofs for me and I always say this is that the way you know that Torah is divine is that you can find the answers in every para to you issues you are personally dealing with at the time that you're reading it meaning at the this weekly para if you study it enough I don't know everybody's each and every single one of the situations but you could find specific answers that relate to you. So now in this para we first start off with learning about the last three plagues. So you have the eth, the ninth and the tenth. The eighth plague in my opinion affects the vast majority of the world. And I'll tell you but it's initially you think wait the la the eighth plague is locusts. Locust like grasshoppers. How could grasshoppers possibly affect the whole world? How could it affect our personal life? Now, the grasshoppers that they had, these locusts that they had, um after the hail, the seventh plague that destroyed most of the plants, most of the fields, most of the food that the Egyptians still had left, um there was still some left. And Hashem pretty much sent Moses to tell If you don't let my people go, we're going to bring these locusts and they're going to eat the rest of what you have. We'll leave you with nothing. No big deal. P obviously is having his heart uh hardened by Hashem and uh he ignores this warning and Hashem moves on and brings the locusts. Now, you guys could look at this stuff on the internet. There's plenty of videos on the internet that uh you could just type in locusts and you'll see that there's not like it was in Egypt, but you see when locusts come, they come in huge huge quantities, millions of them, and they destroy entire farms. It's uh they because there's so many of them they eat everything and they literally if they come to a area of farms they'll destroy the entire farm in 5 minutes. But here is saying that these locusts and the amount and the type and the way and the way this plague is going to play out, it's going to be like never before and never after. It's something special. How do we know this? Once these locusts came first they ate all of the food and the people that there was some Egyptians that were already got to a point where they start started realizing that Hashem obviously is real. This these plagues are not just uh coincidence. They're not just natural events that are happening. They're there's an intelligent design behind it that's causing this to happen to us. especially when they're seeing the Jews not being affected. They left as they plague. So, right. So, now it's been a while already. So, some people are hiding in houses and those people weren't affected, but some people are outside and they are being affected. So now you have locusts everywhere. Initially they eat all the food. Then after that they start going into the houses and eat what's inside. And then after that they go after the eyes of the Egyptians. So this is not your typical locust because generally locusts don't go after humans. So these locusts were terminator locust. They weren't normal locusts. So now the question is first of all why the eyes if you think about the human body it should be the last place somebody goes after because there's so much more flesh everywhere else your arms your hands your legs your feet your stomach head I mean why are the eyes and this is where we learn one of the things that we started talking about last week which is the measure for measure measure for measure with locus was several things. So see it. So the Egyptians uh the Egyptians had a human characteristic that was uncontrollable. They had a desire that was uncontrollable. Meaning that everything that they saw they wanted. And that's why several several uh uh palot ago when we talked about uh au hid his wife Sarah inside a box and he said uh from the Egyptians and he said I don't want them I don't want them to see you because they'll take you. He didn't say I don't want them to know about you. He didn't say I don't want them to uh he specifically said I don't want them to see you. And that's one of the that I I I got uh this week from uh from my cousin is that specifically in regards to the Egyptians that everything that they saw they wanted. And unfortunately we all have a little Egyptian in us. We all have this desire that we want everything. We have one car, we want another car. We have money, we want more money. We have one woman. Sometimes people want more than one woman. So people have a little Egyptian in them. But these particular uh locusts were there to to punish the Egyptians measure for measure for their uncontrollable desires and stop the nonsense and stop the evil ways that they had of going after everything they saw. Just because they saw it, they took it. Every time they saw something that the Jews have, they took it from them. So the Jews never had full freedom of in any way, shape, or form even when they weren't working. They never had any freedom whatsoever. And this is something that was unbearable cuz okay, all right, let's say for example, I'm working. I'm a slave. You're not paying me. You're not doing anything. Fine. Okay. There comes the time where I'm going I stop working. I go home. Maybe I'll eat a little thing and I'll go to sleep. Go back to work. Even that they didn't give them even during that time that small few hours of time that they had privacy they wouldn't give them freedom. They would constantly badger them and bother them with everything possible whether they would come and scare them in the middle of the night or they would go after their women. Uh like we'll learn actually in a uh we already learned uh with Mosher Rabenu when he killed the Egyptian. Uh the story behind that is because the Egyptian went after one of the uh one of the uh Jews wives. Um so they constantly tortured the Jews mentally in every way possible and one of the biggest reasons was because they couldn't control their desires. So the thing that we need to learn is that we need to be able to act differently than number one the Egyptians and two animals. What's the difference between a human and an animal? What's the difference? If somebody said, "Oh, well I eat I like uh to eat tasty food." Well, the animal eats also. It doesn't really matter whether it's tasty or not. Sometimes you'll have an animal that's more picky than others. Like my dog for example. Certain foods he won't even look at. Some he's very picky. Some foods he will. But overall it's obviously not eating. It's not running. It's not jumping. It's not. So something has to be different. As a matter of fact, there are some parts about human beings that are worse than animals. For example, uh uh human beings are the only species in the world that hunts for fun. Like you'll have some people go hunting, kill the animal and not eat it just to kill it. Animals don't do that. So we're we've actually gone to a point where sometimes we're actually lower than animals. But animals will not go hunting or will not go get something just for the purpose of winning. There's always a purpose that is the is part of their ultimate purpose of existence survive, right? They need to survive, but they're not going to kill someone else just for the sake of killing them. They're not going to uh um do anything that's doesn't have an ultimate purpose. And we have to be something similar to that where we can't just go and get stuff, buy things just because we want to have more. Because when you live a materialistic like life like that, unfortunately, you end up not only with financial issues, but you also end up with a very empty life because eventually you run out of stuff that you want to buy. You'd be surprised eventually the stuff that you're getting doesn't move you as it used to. Like for example, you see some people that became um went from poverty to to uh uh to big wealth. Like a lot of athletes out there and stuff like that. And immediately you see these guys, whether it's football players, basketball players, whatever it is, immediately 20-year-old kid just got, you know, came into millions of dollars. first and I've had firsthand know, you know, knowledge of seeing this stuff. First thing they do is they buy a couple of cars. One is not enough. Then it's a couple of houses. One, and all of these houses are bigger than any small civilization needs, let alone one person. Car for each day. There's a car for each day. There's this clothes. Then all of a sudden, they need an entourage and all of these things that are completely unnecessary. But then you hear the career is over after four, five, six years. The guy made $100 million, but he doesn't have a, you know, he doesn't have anything. And that's exactly what we don't want to do. That was what the Egyptians did. Everything that was in front of them, they wanted. So measure for measure punishment for not being able to be a human being like Hashem created with a mind and a ability to overcome desires as a punishment. He punished him with the locusts because this was something that hey listen you're a human being you're not an animal you can control yourself. Let's let's think about this for a second. And that's so again the um the parasa starts with this plague right away because it's a uh it's it's it wants to teach us that this is something much more important than your typical uh than you know really most of the other uh as far as lessons one of the most important lessons out of everything else. It's not in the middle of a pala. For example, you have some of these other uh plagues that happen in the middle of the pala where you could easily miss it or not really give it as much weight. This one is right in the beginning. Usually things that are in the beginning are usually the most significant. For example, if you if you buy a book, usually the author is going to write his best stuff right off the bat because he wants to keep your interest. Or for example, you go to a store, usually a store will put their best goods right in the window because they want you to come in. They're not going to put their best goods in the back and you have to guess whether it's there or not. Usually the best stuff is right in the beginning. So gava is is something not gava um uh desire not being able to overcome our desires is something that is a systemic problem with mankind in general. But obviously in this particular case it affects us because this is a way that you could either control it and have a wonderful life or not control it and have a disaster for a life. Like you have many marriages that break up over materialistic issues. One time they were rich, then became poor, all of a sudden they don't like each other. Why? Because the marriage was superficial and it depended too much on material. Or sometimes you see the opposite. They were poor, loved each other, became rich. All of a sudden they want choice. They want to have options. So again material if you if if if it's not if your desires of a person are not controlled can create so many different problems that obviously Hashm specifically put it in the beginning of a par here because he wants to make sure that we pay attention to this particular one. The other thing that you see in the beginning of the par is so said God of the Hebrews until when will you refuse to be humbled before me? What's the secret behind this particular verse? This is the secret to connection with Hashem. Anyone in the world that wants a connection with Hashem, all he needs to do is read this verse over and over and over again and eventually follow everything it says and you'll be fine. What What What is it? Hashem is sending Moshe and Aon to go tell P. They're not telling him, listen, when are you gonna let my people go? They're not saying that. They're not saying, when are you going to uh, you know, uh, build another pyramid? When are you going to get married? When are you going to have kids? No, they're not asking him this. They're saying when will you become humbled in front of Hashem? Because if someone humbled meaning [Music] Okay, come down to earth. When will you stop playing as if you are a god? When will you stop playing as if you are something special? When will you come and realize that Hashem is above everything including you and praise him? That's what this this particular verse teaches us so much. First of all, someone that has gava. Gava is pride. Someone that has gava, this is one of the people that Hashem cannot stand. He Hashem has several different characteristics that he cannot tolerate. We actually in the specifically says there are certain types of people Hashem hates. So anyone that tells you no, Hashem loves everyone, it's not true. It's against the Torah. if someone says that there are specific people that have character traits that Hashem hates them. So yes, Hashem is merciful, but no one no one no one is no one is allowed to say that Hashem loves everyone with no conditions. Everything is conditional. Hashem gave us rules. Hashem gave us a book. He told us what to do in this world. If you want Hashem to love you and help you and give you all and eternal goodness to follow these rules, if you want to do everything against him, why would he care for you? For what? One of the specific things that Hashem cannot stand is people that have ga why why why is pride such a big deal? Because Hashem says if let's say for example there is a room and someone is trying to show off his richness or whatever Hashem can't cannot go into that cannot bring his kusha into that room. Why? Because Hashem says there can't be two gods. Could only be one god. If he already thinks he's god with all of his pride I can't be there. So right here it's teaching us right in this verse it's teaching us if you want to have a connection to Hashem come down to earth think about the top human beings in history au every one of them specifically they were the highest out there ever in intellect and success in connection to Hashem obviously in every single regards that you could possibly imagine they were the highest they had they had money. They had power. They had everything. But every one of them describes themselves as a nothing. Meaning one of them says, "I am a dust." Another one says, "I'm not even a worm." So the highest of the high, the ones that are the closest to Hashem, the one that spoke to Hashem, saying that they're nothing, but we go around with our hands And we think that everybody owes us something because we have a few dollars or because we have a good-looking woman or a nice car or a nice watch or one of these nonsensical things that people, you know, put a lot of weight into. Or people say, "Oh, look, look at the suit I have." And they show, "Oh, look, I have Armani or the tie. Oh, look, it's this." Oh, why? It's not our money. Nothing. It's nonsense this stuff. You want a connection to Hashem, you cannot have any of this stuff. You cannot act as if you are anything special. And this is exactly what Hashem is telling P. When will you act like a human being? When will you act your part? As long as you think you're God, we have nothing to do with each other. He didn't write it specifically because he knew what he's doing to Paul. There's not one extra letter in the Torah. So obviously, Hashem knew what he's doing to he's causing his heart to be hardened. He's causing him to overcome his, in essence, his pain of dealing with these uh uh uh um uh plagues and go for another one so Hashem can show us his miracles. So obviously if he's doing this technically if Hashem is somewhat indirectly or directly causing to be this way why did he write this for the same reason he wrote the entire Torah to teach us to teach us what was Paul was a big gap very prideful he told everyone he was a god and he's nothing so the point here is that we're not seeing the word god But when someone acts with pride, they're acting as if they're acting as if. So that's one thing that we we're learning. This is just the first few lines. We learned all of this stuff already that somehow I stretched to 25 minutes. Uh and we learned all of this stuff. So it's amazing amazing uh wisdom in this Torah that literally every verse they say that literally every verse in the Torah you could spend days, weeks, months, years just learning one verse. five, six, seven words and it's worth it. Yeah. So now the last thing with the uh with the uh with the locusts and then we move on to the next plague. So the locust obviously are there people are killing them but there's more and more and more of them but some of them have dying. Now locust some some people in the world eat these things. It's disgusting but that's our taste. Grasshoppers. Grasshoppers. Yeah. Locust Locust are a little bit bigger. Sometimes they get a little bigger than others but either way it's still bugs. What is it? Some people eat them. Well, some you go to China, they just have them in uh trays. Just throw all these bugs in trays and they eat. Everything is uh is moving in the trays and they eat it. Yeah, it's not just locusts. Everything else. Actually, you know what? Okay, I'll tell I'll tell you guys a joke. Octopuses. I'll tell you guys a joke. Well, octopus in America. Uh octopus is in every seafood restaurant. eat octopus by the live. I saw the Okay, so there's a joke. Why? Why is you know if somebody wants to get the uh people uh liven up, you give him a joke. The rabbi told me. So the uh why didn't Hashem make Adam and Eve Chinese? Why? Cuz they ate the snake. Cuz then they eat the snake and ruin the whole story. I like Chinese people. This is just a funny joke though. Uh I found it funny. So anyway, so now the locusts are there. So now the Egyptians have lost all of their money. They gave some of their money during the first plague to the Jews like we talked about last week. Then they're losing all of their animals with the the diseases. Then they're losing all of their crops with the hail. Now they're losing the rest of their crops with these uh locusts that are everywhere. This is a problem. So they need money. They need to survive. So now they're seeing, okay, so we have all of these dead locusts. People eat them. We could sell this. So they start gathering buckets and buckets after buckets of dead locusts with a plant to sell so they can get some of their crops. gets to buy something from the next uh country over. And that's when Hashem says, "You will not benefit in any way, shape, or form from these plagues." Just like last week we talked about with the fur from the animals, he didn't allow them to get it. So, what does he do? He does one of the things that uh happens very few times in history. He resurrects the dead. He brings back all of those locusts back to life and they all fly away. So, why did he make them fly away? because he didn't want them to benefit in any way, shape or form. So, this also created other other problems for the Egyptians. Obviously, you tell somebody, "Listen, I have a bunch of goods for you." They show up to buy it, all of those goods have disappeared. It's a little bit of a problem. So, but again, this is again another measure for measure. Um because the way that the Jews became slaves was based on empty promises. We talked about a couple of weeks ago where you know the Jews when they first you know the first uh slavery started Paul is saying the Jews are greater than us in number they're stronger than us. How do they become slaves? Where Palo said I'm going to trick them. Let them come work for me. I'm going to offer them if they're making $10 an hour, I'm going to pay them $1,000 an hour. So, everybody left their jobs, left their businesses. They came to Po. They started working. A little time passed. They said, "No, I can't pay you $1,000 an hour and pay you 500." Okay, fine. They stayed. 500 went to 100. 100 went to 50 and eventually went to zero. So, it's all fake promises with never really an intention of paying them, but making them all fail in all of their other endeavors and pretty much putting them in a situation where they're dependent on. So it's all empty promises. So this is again a measure for measure for the things that did to the Jews. He gave them empty promises and Hashem also put him in a situation where he was going to sell these uh these uh um locust and be able to reby crops but obviously he wasn't able to do it. So the next uh the next plague is the plague of darkness. Okay. Now, this one is a very uh there's a lot a lot of miglash about this one. There's a lot of interpretations of this of this particular plague because the darkness there was two types of dark darkness. Now, the darkness that we're familiar with is in essence darkness being not a uh you know the absence of light meaning when there's no light there's darkness. That's the darkness that we're familiar with that science describes. Um the uh the darkness that we're talking about here is that first of all it was like a foggy type of darkness where it was something that uh there the uh midrash and also the Torah itself says meaning it's it's something that's tangible. It was a tangible something that you can feel. So the first thing is is that it was something that it wasn't just dark that they couldn't see, but it was something that wouldn't even allow it was like something that wouldn't allow them to even light a candle. Wow. And on top of that, in the second three days, there was the first three days they weren't able to really see anything. So therefore, they couldn't really move, go anywhere because they couldn't see where they were going. By the second three days of the uh uh of the uh darkness plague, the darkness became the smoke or the uh the tangible part of the darkness became so thick that they weren't able to move. Meaning that it all froze in place. So if someone was sitting, he couldn't get up. If someone had his hand up, he couldn't move it down. If someone was in uh you know middle of jumping in the air, he got stuck in the air. And on top of that, the Midash says that they heard very scary voices the whole time. So imagine this is like a nightmare movie for three days, for six days in total. They can't move. They hear these scary voices everywhere. They can't move, can't eat, can't drink. This was measure for measure for what they did to the Jews in the middle of the nights. They would wake them up in the middle of the night. Sometimes for no reason, just to scare them, sometimes to make them go to work, sometimes just to torture them. So, Hashem says obviously he's Hashem is just. Hashem only works off of measure for measure. And because of that, this is one of the reasons why they did it. Now the other thing that happened during the uh the uh this particular plague and one of the reasons why you had it where it's so dark and so extreme where they couldn't move is because this was a time where some of the Jewish people got punished. The Torah says that only one out of five Jews left Egypt. Meaning that 80% died in Egypt. Wow. 80% of the Jews, that's a lot. Died in Egypt. And when they die, they're in a darkness plague. Why the darkness plague? Because Hashem told Amishad, "Come to my you know, come. I'm going to take you to a new land." and the land of milk and honey. And a lot of Jews said, "No, no, we're fine over here. We're fine over here in America. We don't want to leave our homes over here. We have a nice house. We got a job. Finally, the Egyptians are treating us nice. Let me stay here. Let me, you know, leave me alone. What am I got to move? Finally, I've been here for so many years. Finally, it's starting to treat me good. Leave me alone. I don't want to go over there." So, Hashem said, "Okay, if you don't want to come with me, I don't need you in this world. You're not in this world for you. you're in a world for me. When the Jew did not want to follow what Hashem said, he lost his purpose and that's the reality. So that was one p that was one one type of people. Another type is that during the darkness plague many of the Jews the Jews had the ability to see. They you know they didn't have darkness. So, Hashem promised to the Jews that listen, you know, to uh uh that they're not going to leave Egypt poor. Borrow some uh um silver and gold pots and pans and different things from from the Egyptian neighbors that you have. So, this was a time for you to be able to look at it. No one's going to bother. You know what everyone has, but don't touch it. And some people that touched it and stole uh stole from the Egyptians, they got punished and died on on the spot. So, this was a uh Good boy. A lack of faith from the Jews. If Hashem said, "You're not going to leave Egypt empty-handed, then you're not going to leave Egypt empty-handed. What do you need to steal for?" And that's the problem with some people. Some people love to use their own logic. They love to think that, "Oh, maybe this is an opportunity." They create things in their mind, you know. So, they say, "Oh, you know what? The uh my boss left the uh the cash drawer empty. Maybe this is Hashem's message for me that I should I should take it." Hashem is not giving you a message to steal. Oh, the customer didn't realize that I overcharged him. Oh, maybe this is Hashem's message to give me extra money. Hashem is not telling you to steal. People try to rationalize their bad behavior and somehow say that it's a sign from Hashem. It's not a sign. Hashem specifically says do not steal. It's one of the ten commandments. Don't steal. Oh no, my see my friend left early. Maybe I should go talk to his wife because he likes her. Hashem didn't tell you to go see his wife. So the thing is though is that people try to rationalize their misbehavior, their disgusting acts by saying, "No, it's a sign. It's a sign. It's always a sign. It's a sign from Hashem. It's a sign from this. If it didn't if you know if if I was uh you know, usually I'm not here, but today I'm here, so maybe she's supposed to be here also. It's meant to be." Yeah, but she's married. Yeah. No, but you know what? She's married, but she doesn't like him. It's meant to be there. We're together. No, no, no. Hashem did not put you into this world to go steal another man's wife. As a matter of fact, it's one of the biggest sins in the Torah. So here we're learning that even his chosen nation, even the nation that is here that he's taking out of Egypt and giving them all these 10 amazing plagues that he's hitting Egypt with specifically. It's it's it's to in essence a somewhat of a reward for the Jews. So he's doing all of this and on top of that you don't believe you don't believe that his in his ways and 80% of the 80% of them stay unbelievable right so that's the thing so this also gives us a little bit of a prophecy this this par also gives us a prophecy about the end of times uh which many people believe is in our generation um where Hashem didn't say that he's going to save everyone. Hashem said he's going to save the ones that are going in his ways. So just because someone was born Jewish because his mom is Jewish and because he had a bilah when he was 8 days old and didn't have a choice but then lived the rest of his life without keeping Shabbat, without keeping koshu, without being uh married appropriately, without doing anything the Torah says and maybe give stakat to a homeless guy once a year. That's not enough. that type of person. Unfortunately, nowhere in the Torah can anyone show you or me or anyone that person will be saved. If the Mashiah came tomorrow, that person is out of luck. That's just the reality. So people that say, "Oh, no, no, no. It's okay. It's not going to happen. Mashia is not going to come now. I have time. I have time. I have time." Hashem didn't tell us when. Mashiah can come tomorrow. Come next week. Come next month. Actually, one of our obligations is to believe that he's coming any day. It's actually an obligation as a Jew to pray for the Mashiach to come as soon as possible. So here in this para, Hashem is telling us, listen, I love you. You're my children, but that love is conditional. If you do what I say and you serve your purpose, then I'll love you forever. But if not, I don't need you. He doesn't need us anyway. But the point is, yeah, he definitely doesn't need us if we're not doing what our purpose is. So to such an extreme that 80% died. It's not like, okay, listen, if 10% died, probably wouldn't even be mentioned. People die. If 20% ah okay it's a big you know it's a plague or something happened little accident somebody would say oh god messed up 30% a okay they weren't good people 80% this this somebody with a with a brain in their in their head should think about this like listen 80% that he's taking out of Egypt the story that we repeat to ourselves every single day we're obligated to know the story we're obligated to repeat the story every day to ourselves. That's what we do in it's one of the reasons why we do because it talks about the Exodus from Egypt. This is the most important story in history. When Hashem says, "I am your God," he doesn't say, "I am your God that created the world." He doesn't say, "I am your God that created Adam and Eve." He says, "I am your God that took you out of Egypt." This is the most important story in history. And in this story, he's also telling us something else. If you don't do what I say, I don't need you. You have no purpose whatsoever. And that's one of the examples we saw in this plague. 80% of the people did not survive. And he did it specifically in the darkness because he did not want the Egyptians to think that Hashem messed up or that everyone is dying, not just them. He didn't want the Egyptians to know that the Jews died. But nonetheless, we know they died. We don't want to be them. So, we don't want to be part of that 80%. That's what we're learning today. for naked. It's actually explained very in a very simple way by par after all of this you have nine plagues have already happened right. Mhm. Po got beat up in a big way. His country nothing went from being number one in the world to nothing. His people destroyed. His crops destroyed. His money gone. everything and all of the things that happened, he got warned from Moshe. So, you would think that by now he'd have some respect for Moshe. By now, he'd say, "Okay, you know what? This Moshe guy is not just a regular guy. He's talking to Hashem." When Moshe comes to him and says, "Let my people go." He says to Moshe, to Moshe, "Get out of here." The first time, "Get out of here. I don't want to see your face anymore. The next time I see your face, I'm going to kill you." After everything that's happened to, he still has the audacity to talk to Moshe like that. He still thinks he's somebody. And Moshe obviously answers him, says, "You spoke correctly. I'm never going to see your face again. But the key here is that this is actually one of the uh uh I'm glad you reminded me of this because this is actually teaches us a little bit about human nature. Hashem says in a in a in a it says um that the evil the wicked people will continue being wicked even at the gate of hell. even when they know that they're just about to be punished for everything that they're doing, they're still going to be wicked. And that's human nature. People that are so tied to materialism, people that are so tied to this world, it's very very difficult to get them out in a way that's nice and calm and you know like a lot of people you know Tawa used to be you know we used to be much higher level than we are today. We're at the lowest level we've been I think in history probably even including um meaning you're supposed to teach in a nice way and people are supposed to like it and and see how beautiful it is, how amazing it is and therefore it is a you know want to do it themselves. Unfortunately in today's age I don't believe in my opinion I don't believe that works 99% of the time. It works to some people of course always an exception to the case but I think most people need to be shooken up a little bit. They need a shakeup. They need to know that something's wrong. And that's why if you look at the statistics, people that do chuba, it's always because either something bad happened like somebody died, somebody uh got sick, somebody lost money, somebody got divorced, some disaster happened, um near-death experience. That's the vast majority of the cases. Very rarely do you have a situation where somebody wakes up one day and does what for example what Nissan is doing right now and is doing chuva just because he likes it. It's very rare. It's very rare. I mean we actually have a privilege of being you know friends with him and seeing this because it's it's very rare. It's unheard of you know. So the key is that we don't want to wait for bad things to happen. But unfortunately, most people don't get the point, don't get the hint until bad things happen. Because everyone always says, "No, it's not going to happen to me. It's not going to happen to me. It's not going to happen to me. It's not going to happen to me. It happened so far away. Happens to those people, not to me." And that's just not reality. So, that's the thing with with within regards to um the 80% is that they figured that, okay, Hashem helped us out. He gave us a good situation here in uh you know in in Egypt. We now have money. We now have our homes. We're also no longer slaves. Pretty much the equivalent or even better situation than every Jew that has in America. Money, this, that, comfort, even better. They're all millionaires. Hashem says, "I didn't bring you to this world to be millionaires. I brought you to do my I brought you to serve your purpose. They didn't want to do it. They thought that they could get away with it and Hashem told them no. So for anyone who thinks that Hashem will wait for you forever, this is a very very precise way of Hashem showing us that that is just not the way it works. As a matter of fact, people that say, "I will do chuva when this and this happen, when I become rich. I will do chuva when I get married. I will do chuva when I have kids. I will do chuva when something something like that happened. As a matter of fact, some of the holy books specifically say someone who says that is not only going against Hashem and angering him, but Hashem makes sure that he never reaches that time. It's actually a very very horrendous but amazing story I heard from Rabbi Mizrai once. There was this kid uh living in uh in New York in Staten Island, New York uh that um Jewish kid had some uh drug issues, problems, this that you know and Rabbi Misra was trying to uh help him do Chva and uh Rabbi found out about him from uh one of his friends and anyway they connected. So he said listen you told the kid we're having seminars come don't worry about money don't worry about anything just come to the seminar. Kid says, "Yes, yes, I'm coming." Rabbi is waiting. Shabbat's almost coming in. You know, it's a weekend Shabbaton. So, they go wait to hotel. They stay at a hotel and all everything is paid for. So, they booked a room for him. They did everything for him. They wait. Shabbat's almost coming in. 6:00, 6:30, 7:00. Kid doesn't show up. Shabbat starts. No show. calls the kid after the uh Shabbat. What happened? Ah, no. Something didn't work out. I promise you. I promise you. Next week, next week happens. Shabbat comes in at 7. 6:00, no answer. 6:30, no answer. 7:00, no answer. Same story as the week before. After the weekend, he calls them. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It couldn't happen. Next time. Third time happens. The same exact thing. Fourth time already he's telling him saying, "I'm going to fall for this kid." The kid calls in. No, I'm going to come. I'm definitely coming. I'm coming this time. I'm going to fall for this guy for the fourth time. He's making a joke out of me, but okay. Come on. Who coming? We're ready for you. Fourth time he doesn't show up. Calls him on Sunday. kid doesn't pick up. He calls the friend that connected the two. Goes, "Ah, your friend made made a joke of me four times. You didn't show him." He goes, "No, you never never believe what happened." What happened? They just went to his house. His friends came to his house and they saw that he had a uh needle stuck in his arm. overdosed with two suitcase right next to his uh Oh, he was ready to go to the fort. Two suitcase next to the couch. Don't play games with Hashem. Don't play games. He's not Hashem is not our friends. He's not a jokester. He's not uh he's not a buddy. It's It's I mean some it's ridiculous. People think that it's like, "Oh, no. I could do whatever I want and Hashem's just going to wait for me. He'll understand. I have a situation to deal with. I have a life. I have a this. I have a that." If you believe in Hashem, take it seriously. Hashem likes serious people. He doesn't like people that think it's a joke. And think about it yourself. If if if you had somebody doing that to you, you wouldn't be able to bear it. you wouldn't even want to talk to that person. And who are we? So it's again it's this stuff is a [Music] Yeah. The younger that you are when you're doing chuva, the uh the more help Hashem will give you. The more help Hashem will give you. say uh that's one of the things that we learned from Kazal is that uh it's very uh it's very critical to do chuba as soon as you possibly can. Now, actually going back to something related to this subject, relating to the significance of Hashem. I told you guys that I'm going to connect somehow. I only realized how I'm going to connect it now. I told you I was going to connect the big bang to this para. So in the beginning of the para, Hashem is reminding Moshe who he is. Meaning he says, "Hashem says to Moses, come to Po for I have made his heart and the hearts of his servants stubborn so that I can put these signs of mine in its midst and so that you may relate in the ears of your son and your son's son that I made the mockery of Egypt and my signs that I placed among them that you may know that I am Hashem." The point is here he says that he's made them made their hearts uh uh hard and he's making a joke out of them out of these Egyptians. So you can remember this and tell your sons, tell your children forever. It's one of our obligations to not only say the story of our Exodus every day and be reminded of the Exodus every day, but also to tell our kids about the Exodus. That's why everyone has to be a teacher to some extent. Even if you don't want to have a class full of people, everyone has to be a teacher to their kids. You have to tell your kids who Hashem is and about the Exodus. But then he ends this thing with something very, very critical, which is something that if you don't pay attention to it, you can just pass it like it's no big deal. He says, "So that you may know that I am Hashem." Now again, there is not one extra letter in the Torah. Not one. Everything has an explanation. Every letter, every puk, every para, everything has a meaning. So now the question you ask about this puk is that Hashem is not talking to Moses for the first time. They already have an ongoing relationship here for a while. They've been talking panimul panim for a while meaning they they've been they're on firstname basis already at this point but at this point if there were cell phones Moses has hashem speed dial he's on speed dial at this point this is this is not this is they have a solid relationship so what does he mean when he says so you may know that I am Hashem what he forgot he forgot that what he he forgot who he's talking to all of a sudden it's uh he doesn't recognize doesn't recognize giant voice that's appearing that the whole world is scared of. What does it mean? He says that I am Hashem. So nobody should forget that and that's where so here's this is our lesson from here. So he's telling us that to make sure that you know that all of this was me that did all of these miracles and all of these amazing things because there will come a day when people fools will create a different story and say that the other story is more believable. Now, obviously, you know, today and for some time now, there's been many scientists that are devout atheists, don't believe in Hashem, don't believe in the Torah, think it's all a wonderful story, but they care less for it. They think that the belief of a uh omnipotent being, a a belief of a creator is ridiculous. and they believe in how the univer universe began through the big bang theory. So, here's here's a couple of things so you guys see what I'm talking about. Um, printed a couple of these. Um, you send it to my uh the game. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, okay. So, this this what you're looking at right now is in essence a map of the big bang theory where they're saying in a be there's a beginning here and they started with an explosion and in essence little stars came out of it and overif billion years we eventually came you know and you had evolution and so on. But the point is that everything started at some point and we are all the way on the right whereas the beginning is on the left. So people that believe in this big bank theory we believe that everything evolved over time. There was a time that there was in essence nothing and now that there's more than just something and they're saying that this is a proof against God. The world expanded and all the the universe expanded and the galaxies and so on and little by little got bigger and all of this wonderful things. I learned this actually from a uh a lecture by uh uh Dr. uh Gerald Schroeder explained this. It's really wonderful. This map, by the way, if you want to get it, it's on wap.com. You'll see the uh evolution map. Oh, the big bang theory map. This is all from NASA. So now he puts it, you know, it's a uh in a phenomenal way. It's a funny thing is that all of these atheists and these evolutionists and and big bang theory believers believe that this is something that goes against God. In reality, this theory as it is now didn't exist 50 years ago. 50 years ago, people were saying, scientists, the entire most of the scientific community said that the world never had a beginning. it meaning it lasted it start it never started it always was but now they changed that theory to a new theory and now they're saying that it began here it began 14 billion years ago 13.77 billion years ago or something around that range with an explosion and the explosion there was an expansion and so on and so forth okay so in here they're saying to us that there was nothing and it was something and is even though we can't create something out of nothing ourselves. They're saying that technically it's possible as long as that something falls within the laws of nature that we have. such as uh quantum mechanics, theory of relativity. So meaning in essence it has to have it has to have the same laws that we have right now. So for example has to gravity has to apply to it. Um the uh the speed of light you know certain speeds that we have all of these different uh things that uh are the laws of the universe and the laws of our world have to apply to whatever is being created. So so they call all of these things the laws of nature. So, you see anything that you see where if somebody's uh jumps, you know that they're going to eventually come down to the ground. If somebody's going to run, you know that they're going to be able to go a certain speed. If something is a uh uh you know um if it's a sound, you know that's going to go a certain speed. If it's light, you know it's going to go a certain speed. Everything has to have a certain everything has a certain uh limitation uh to it. So they're saying that we had nothing and then that nothing in essence created something but it could only create it if that something that was created has all all of these laws of nature have to apply to it. So they're saying that these laws of nature are not physical. They're not something tangible but they do something to the physical. meaning that uh for example gravity is not a physical thing but it causes this notebook to fall. So it it forces this notebook to fall. This is a little bit scientific but I'll try to get to the point. Um and these laws of nature in essence created the physical. They're the ones that so this all the stuff that you see now this energy that you see in essence what this map is is a map of energy is really the point is that energy has always been around you know since this beginning of this beginning point and the energy what E= MC² means is that energy never really change it never really dies it just changes form meaning so it started one way and then as as energy and then eventually became matter it became a uh you let's say a a star and the star became something else and you know eventually became human somehow. Point is that there was a beginning point and there's an end point. So and that energy has certain rules that it has to certain limitations that it has to that it's limited to. So these rules created this energy which means that these rules existed before this energy. Okay. So if you look at the four things these laws of nature that they have over here are not physical but they act on the physical. They created the physical from nothing and they existed before their creation. Then what science did over here is not prove the big bang theory. It proved God. Because those four things are actually the description for Hashem. He's not physical, but he acts on the physical. He acts on everything. He created everything just like he has created the physical and he's before the universe. He's before everything. So these four things, Dr. Gerald Schroeder explains it much much better than I can. But the point is that this big bank theory that everyone puts so much into um doesn't do anything against the Torah. If anything, it proves it even more. It's just a problem with most people that read the sentence and says that's Hashem is reminding us. He's not reminding Moshe. He's reminding us I am Hashem. I did this. Not Moshe. Not Po. Not Israel, not the Gentiles, not anyone else. Not the Big Bang Theory. I did this. Me and no one else is reminding us that there's going to come a time that someone's going to say different. And that someone is so blind that they're going to just avoid reading this sentence that says, "I am Hashem." And they're going to have an excuse to believe in something else by saying that it's easier for them to believe that there is an unlimited amount of stars and an unlimited amount of evolutions and an unlimited amount of mutations, random mutations that somehow turn nothing into something. And eventually that something becomes a perfect creature like a frog or a or or a uh human or a dog or anything. any one of these creations is in essence perfect. There's no flaw because if there was a flaw, it wouldn't exist. It wouldn't survive. So, it's easy for them to believe that random things can happen to somehow create a bunch of perfectness than to believe that I am Hashem. So in case we ever come across them, we could look at their information and actually know more about it than they do because realistically their own people, the the top atheists in the world that are actually intellectual and at the same time objective are not only becoming god believers, but some of them are becoming very very religious. So a uh there was a um I think his name was Foley Foley something like that renowned atheist wrote 30 books 2004 he looked into the DNA advance the technology that we have and looked into the DNA and publicly announced that he's no longer an atheist. is a guy wrote 30 books about it and again and what's what make him uh religious the protein fold something I told you guys a couple of a few weeks ago about the DNA and you know the different parts of the DNA different parts of the uh the cells inside the human body and he saw that there has to be he looked at the patterns of the DNA he looked at the patterns of the chromosomes and everything no He looked at the patterns of everything. He says this is not possible from randomness. This is an intellectual design how to put this together. But for many many years, for 60 70 years, the guy was 80 something. Um he was known as the number one atheist in the world. Foley I think his name is. Foley or Floy something like that. Is he still living? I don't know. I don't know. But uh so this sentence right in the beginning of this para we I mean realistically you could spend the next five hours just learning the first page of this para we learned about uh which is really what we spent the last hour doing. Um but just this sentence over here I am Hashem there's a lot to learn from it because obviously he's not reminding Moshe and he's definitely not talking to Paul because Paul is not in the in the conversation right now. He's talking to us and he's telling us, I am Hashem because there's going to come a time that you will be presented with something that says I'm not that says I'm not here that I didn't do all of these things. And all of those things are going to be against what he says, against the purpose of why we're here. And in reality, it will get us away from him. It's very, very difficult to come back. You know, so rather than try to give ourselves a argument and excuses of why this statement is not true, if you look at all the facts, whether you want to look at scientific facts or you want to look at the religious facts, you could always find Hashem. The only thing is is that are you going to be objective enough? Are you going to be honest enough to really look at it and do what you need to to find the truth? If you do, it's very, very simple to find the truth. It just takes a little work. Um, so the last time that uh Moshe So he was 80 years old. Mhm. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. 80 years old. Um so after this a uh this plague you have the uh a break in the uh again in the middle of the para Hashem tells us about our first mitzvah which is the hodes and he explains to us how the the how important the hodes is um and how it's it's a uh it's something that not only does the nation need to know and needs but needs to celebrate. Um and one of the um amazing things about is that there is a uh actually a scientific proof from Moshes about Hashem being the creator of the universe. um in the uh inmar I believe it's I forgot where it is but in it's a um the for for Jews depends on the moon the signs of the moon but you when when there's uh the moon is barely something you can't see it it's usually when the moon the moon is full usually around the 15th of the month which logically we would think that would be when it's full. It's not. It's the opposite. It's actually when it's almost you could barely see it. And one of the reasons for that is because a uh the moon is in essence one of the signs for the Jewish people to represent the Jewish people that just like in Egypt when we were on the 49th level of tumh that we talked about of impurity that we talked about last week, we thought that we're going to be gone. Hashem gives us the strength and we get back up and become like a full moon. So right when you think that we're gone, we're going to disappear like our many many nations that tried to destroy us throughout history and they think they're going to destroy us and wipe us off the map. We uh we reappear and come back stronger than ever. Um so is you know this is one of the signs of the Jewish people. But another thing as far as scientifically is concerned in the there's a specific calculation where they say you know uh the the moon the moon's rotation around the uh around the earth it gives an exact number where it can never be below that number which is 29 days um 29 days 12 hours 44 minutes and 3 and a3 seconds. meaning that there it will never be less than that. I think it's like 29.058 or something like that uh days. Um it can never be less than that to rotate and move. Meaning it can never be 27. It can be more but it can never be less. So obviously this is not something that people could have known 3,300 years ago. This is predates uh telescopes and the technology that we have today. So the only only way that this knowledge could have come to us would be from the person who from from the creator of the universe that actually put it there. uh so this particular uh number and details more details about it is actually in the but uh this whole concept of that's talked about in this is a uh something that um you could spend probably five hours just talking about but uh you'll learn more about on the weekend I think in sh I think that's what the rabbi wants to talk about Um now this pa is also going to be the same thing that we're going to learn during uh peso pes uh the whole concept of a uh matzah and uh the the zah the you know the kban that we do um the mar. So this is the story of this para is going to be the same thing you're going to repeat in a in a month and a half two months um doing pass pes we'll talk more about the details of that at that time um but a few things that I think are very very interesting about uh this part that talks about pes is that uh when hashem tells us to eat matsot and celebrate the seven days of pes which Raban extended to eight days and eat leavened bread and not eat and then it says if you don't do this that soul shall be cut off from Israel. So if you remember this, this is something we talked about maybe a month ago when we talk about Shabbat uh which is coming up actually in a couple of uh few parot uh Exodus 12. I think it's Exodus 31 something like that which also uses the same language. You will be cut they will be cut off from from the nation. But in in Shabbat it says moat and then it says here it just says. So this is very very important because if someone was to tell us that and all mean the same thing meaning you know I told this to somebody said no means they died and it means they died. I don't know how that makes sense to anybody with a brain but the point is that was the argument. It all means the same thing. It's just re-emphasis of the same thing. Fine. Let's say that's right. If means die, die and also means die. So it's die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die or death death death death death death death death death death death let's say why they're not used like that here this is for violating pes this is for eating on pes it doesn't say die it just says cut off from the nation if it really meant the same thing it would be used again but since it does not it says less which means that this is technically lesser of a punishment than Shabbat can say this is the same punishment. It's a not a good punishment. No one wants to be volunteering for this punishment, but it's less of a punishment. So obviously this is just again another example of why the is literally means uh does not mean die. It means not being Jewish. It means not being part of show it shows you how important Shabbat is, right? The other thing that it says also this is a reminder this a couple of verses here. This is a uh uh Exodus 12 shows something very interesting and to in today's today's age there's a lot of a lot of converts and conversion is something very very special people that are truly converting there's two types of converts there's real converts and there's everyone real converts. You get to meet them. You get to see them. They go through a big amount of effort, huge amount of effort. And it's not easy whether it's family issues or or or any just countless issues of doing it. It's definitely not something easy. And life changes completely once it's done. It's never the same. And there's some people that do it for the wrong reason. They do it for a boyfriend, a girlfriend, uh to please someone in any way, uh for money, whatever. Um those conversions are not real conversions. They never actually are fully conversions. They could fool the families and the rabbis and everyone else, but they cannot fool God. Those conversions never actually uh go through. So, this doesn't really refer to them. Um, this refers to people that convert the real way. And then think about going back. Think about, okay, I converted. I'm done. I'm Jewish now. I don't have to do anything. I could be secular. I don't have to be religious because I'm not a natural-b born Jew. Maybe I'm not the same. So this specific verse is specifically for them in every way, shape or form because this is a literal verse and it says for seven days, this is still talking about pes for seven days leaven may not be found in your houses. For anyone who eats leavening that that soul shall be cut off from the assembly of Israel. So it says again the cut off. This is the second time on the same page whether a convert or a native of Israel. So here it's explaining and reminding the converts that they're the same thing as as naturalborns. There's no difference between the two. Zero difference. whether you just converted from Egypt to become Jewish because there was a lot of Egyptians that wanted to convert to Judaism or there was a uh someone that's naturally a Jew that survived that was one of the 20% that survived. You're all the same. You cannot go back. So someone that did a conversion where they did it for the right reason or wrong reason but they did a right conversion and they're there to live a secular life is not an option. To live halfass is not an option because Hashem is specifically telling you the fact that you made the choice great but the reality of it is that there's no turning back. You made the uh you made the deal and there's no there's no other way. uh of turning back. Um so no one can ever use the excuse in today's age to say, "Oh, you know what? My ancestors weren't weren't really in uh in Mount Si, so I don't really have to do all of this stuff." Hashem is specifically literally telling you, you converted, you are in Mount Si. Whether you converted 2,000 years after this, 3,000 years after this, or you converted a day or it was happening, irrelevant. It's all the same. Were you a convert or you're a native, it's the same. And it's a literal verse, which I think is is really interesting for anyone because there's a lot of conversions today. and uh Hashem, a lot of righteous converts. I just saw a picture of Rabbi Misra. He's in Israel right now. And he met a uh Singapore, a guy from Singapore, Holland, and uh Denmark. All converts. All of them are all three of them are converted because of Ra Mizaki. They all came to Jerusalem to see him. So really, really cool picture. Yeah. You see these guys all all look completely different from each other. All Amash and they live in Israel. I think they all live in Israel now. But they uh they all righteous converts with the keepa with the everything like full force. It's interesting. Amazing. If you look at you look at conversions, Jewish conversions on on on YouTube, there's some amazing amazing stories. Um amazing stories. So it's really uh to be part of to be part of a uh a real conversion is something very very special. Uh so another thing that this para tells us so many so much information we could talk about this para for literally uh five more hours but I know you guys are tired so I'll try to speed it up. Uh next thing also is mentioned in this para is the mizuza. Muzah is, you know, when Hashem told us, I'm going to come down to Egypt myself and not an angel, and I'm going to give him the last plague, which is kill the firstborn, and put a sign of blood. put the blood of the um uh the areas that you kill that you for pes the koban of pess take their blood put it on your doorposts. Now, first of all, why did he pick the why did he pick the aras? Why did he pick this particular animal? T why did he pick the uh this particular animal? Because remember I told you guys that the uh Egyptians had several gods. One of them was the Nile River, one of them was Po himself and one of them was this Aras. So this last plague was to spec specifically to punish this last god of theirs to show them that it's nothing. So he told each one of the people from AmI to um take it, tie it to their beds for a few days and then eventually uh 4 days I think it was and then uh slaughter it and then put it on the mut. Put it on the uh what's it called for uh Yeah, you have to uh roast it. Yeah, you have to roast not uh not can't like boil it or anything like that. He specifically says you have to put it in the fire to eat it. You have to eat it. Um, and the Egyptian, one of the miracles actually, one of the miracles of Egypt was that the Egyptians were furious about this. They're burning their god. They're killing their god and they couldn't do anything about it. So, this is actually one of the miracles. So, after that, after they kill him, he tells them, "Listen, I'm going to take take their blood, put it on your doorpost." like uh not really because Hashem needed a reminder, but it showed that number one annoyed the Egyptians even more, tortured them even more, but number two, it also showed that the Jews followed the word of Hashem. They did everything that he asked them to do. Uh and that's why uh they were uh passed on. That's what Pesak means. Pes means come pass over meaning that he uh he skipped their doors. Yeah. Right. Um try to be falling asleep, huh? I know. It's okay. I know you came here tired already. Um so I mean this there's a lot more to this. Listen, it's a uh um there's also mentioned for the first time in this par the words uh which we'll talk about in a couple of par when uh the uh amra sins with the uh golden calf these which were non-righteous converts um they did that they created that problem until this they were suffering from them. So we'll hear this expression again. I'll talk we'll go back to this and connected to the next para um later on uh [Music] 600. Oh, also um uh I mean this is a misconception, but a lot of people think that um we eat matsah because we didn't have time. Like that's that's I think what people believe. A lot of people believe that we eat matsah because they didn't have enough time to make it in Egypt. So they didn't have enough time to let the bread rise. It didn't rise. Yeah. But that's not really the reason. The real reason the the uh reason why we're eating matsai is because hashem hashem said so because technically we could have stayed for longer and the Egyptians actually thought we would leave early. The Egyptians thought that we would leave that night but Moshe specifically told them that no no we're going to go in the middle of the day. We're going to go in during the day in the open light so no one uh you know there's no reason for us to leave like uh bank robbers. So technically what he what we're learning here is that they had as much time as they wanted to leave. So really the the whole concept of matsah is not because of uh time. It's uh uh because Hashem specifically uh said to uh to make the matsah as a reminder of the Exodus of the reminder of the um and so we can remember it from the food because one of our obligations in life is to teach our children. you have you're obligated to teach your children about the um about this uh about this whole thing about Exodus. Uh oh, this is again another another verse uh 12:48 uh talks again about the converts uh and again says uh converts is the same thing as a uh one law shall be for the native and the proelite who live among you. So uh is meaning there's only one Torah for both of you. There's no uh the G does not have different rules. So again, any G that uh that converted but is thinking about maybe going off the de maybe it doesn't apply to me, maybe they heard something bad on on a news, maybe they heard one of their friends getting uh you know uh picked on because they're a convert and not natural born. First of all, the whole aspect of being a convert Torah specifically tells us it's actually a higher level than a naturalb born. Second of all, it's there's a I believe it's 36 or 46 times in the Torah that's mentioned the protection of the gale, the word gale and the protection of the G uh is mentioned at Torah more than anything else. Third of all, um this is a plain translation. This is not a interpretation or anything else. This is a plain translation specifically says that for anyone who has the uh misunderstanding of what the rights of the convert are versus a naturalb born. This is very very simple explanation. It's not rashi. It's not uh to it's not the it's a specific verse over here specifically says they are the same as a natural as a native. And I think that's very important uh because unfortunately there are some uh uh adod some uh some parts of the Jewish people that uh reject converts. They don't accept them in their in their uh in their congregations and it's a very very big sin. Uh so uh if anybody from those congregations wakes up uh and sees this video by chance, they should look at these couple of verses that I mentioned um because there is no second way of interpreting them. Uh we're not talking about rashi, we're not talking about toot, we're not talking about any any uh uh z or anything. This is just reading the Torah and the shot always has to be relevant. Uh mouth. So the last plague pretty much is the uh the firstborn. Firstborn was a uh was the big one because the first uh first of all himself was a firstborn. But here it says that uh there was a uh death in every house. Now, not every house has a firstborn technically. I mean, tech, you know, let's say somebody has four kids. He has one firstborn, but the firstborn left. He went, he moved, he got married, he has kids, so on. But the Torah specifically says there was death in every house. So, Kazal tell us that the uh if the firstborn left, the next one in line became the firstborn. And in some houses where their um uh in some places where let's say for example the Egyptians left Egypt they were in completely different country but they were first born they would die over there. Uh so this this wasn't just exclusively on uh Egypt literally was every person connected to it in any way uh got punished and and died from this maka. So this was a very very big one and uh this is the one that scared uh uh Po into submission eventually to the point where he went to the street chasing and looking for for Moshe uh and begging him to leave just like Moshe told him that he's going to end up doing. uh tell him leave, take the money, take the sheep, take the cattle, take whatever you want, take everything, just leave. Um and eventually, you know, just like in the beginning of para, Hashem said, "When will you come humbled before me and Paul didn't want to come on his own?" So, Hashem made him come in a different way. And uh that's a message for all of us that Hashem gave us rules. Hashem gave us a basic things that we need to apply to our life. Basic ways to connect to him every day. Basic ways to know what happened and what's happening and what will happen. If we do it, we are truly part of his chosen people. If we don't do it, then we're no different than the people that we're never going to read about again. The people that were part of that 80%. And so here, Hashem is going to get his way one way or another. Didn't want to give it to him, but he ended up giving it to him. So again, it's a uh I think that um there's a lot more that we can learn from this para, but I think the most important lessons that we learned in the beginning probably are the ones that going to hold the the most value, I think, out of this uh sh is that there's always going to be somebody that's going to say that this is not relevant, this is not true, this is not uh um applicable. Um there's going to be constantly people that are not going to want to follow it. And the thing is with people like that is that they always want to bring more people in. If they spent the same amount of energy doing K and bringing people to Hashem, they'd be very very successful. But there's a lot of people all the time that you'll see that they don't want to they don't want to follow and when they see that their friends are becoming more religious, it bothers them. Not because they care that their friend is religious. It's because it reminds them that they're not religious. It reminds them that they don't have a connection with Hashem. So that's what bothers them. So they're going to try to affect you and tell you, "No, no, no, don't do it. It's not real. It's not applicable. I heard something else from this rabbi. I saw this rabbi in the casino. I saw this rabbi do this." They're gonna tell you all these horror stories about different Jews that are making mistakes. And for some reason that negates that uh says that Torah is not real which is nonsense. The Torah is Torah. People are peoples. Two completely different things. Jews are not always the best representatives of Judaism. But they are the chosen people. We have to act like the chosen people. It's not up to other people to do something. It's up to us to do something. You be the best Jew you can. And when your friend comes and tells you don't do it, then your obligation, your obligation is to do what you're supposed to be like this para says that you have to do for your sons. You have to teach them and remind them of this para of this exodus that Hashem took us out of Egypt and no one else. You're obligated to do it and the same thing you're obligated to uh to do with with your friends. And the last thing I'll tell you guys, and I may have given you the story last week, uh, about the guy with 10 sons. Did I tell you about it? Nothing. No. Okay. So, this this is a good story. Even if I told you guys, it's still good to hear it again because it's relevant to what we're talking about. It was a man that had 10 sons. Nine of his sons were poor, very, very poor. And his one son was very rich. And this one son says in shopping. This one son bought his father, you know, all types of things. Bought him a car, bought him a house, bought him a chopper, bought him this, bought him that, and you know, spoiled his father. One day the father got very sick and he was on his deathbed. So the son, businessman, rich one, shows up. He wants to get his father's blessing. And uh before he dies, he says, "Aba, I know I tried to do the best for you. I know that you're probably the proud of me because I tried to do the best for you. I bought you this. I bought you that." And the father says, "You I'm the most disappointed in out of all 10 of my sons. You I'm the most disappointed in." Son's like, "Me? No, no, no. I'm not uh I'm not I'm I'm the one that bought you everything. Exactly. That's why I'm disappointed in you. Why? Why are you disappointed in me? If you love me, then you wouldn't leave your nine other brothers poor like they are. But because you only love yourself, you only bought for yourself and for things that affect you directly, which is me. So what does this teach us? This teach us that when that friend that is bothered by the fact that we're becoming more religious instead of us becoming more religious because it affects him that way. It's actually our responsibility as the rich son that now has a sh in our life. So that's what makes us rich to make him more religious one way or another. That's our responsibility as well. If you can if you have a mouth you have to speak. If you can't speak, take a dollar, buy one of the CDs, give it to the guy, and make him listen to it. Simple as it gets. It's very, very simple. We'll have a lot more people here next week. People coming back from vacation. There's a couple of new people coming. If you guys have any spec anything specific uh that you want to learn about next week, let me know. But uh we're able to somehow connect the uh the uh the big bang into this thing. But um I think the most important part about the Big Bang is to show that even the wrong argument still leads to Hashem. Oh, Hashem, have a uh great week and I'll see you guys next week. as