Parashat Vayechi: How to be a Good Parent

number nine we're already long term we also have some new people we're growing rapidly oh start like this sometimes and then okay so we got everybody got their tea everybody got their food so now finally we're ready Tom is on the phone I miss din I miss dinner but this is good on uh okay so I thought today was start off with a couple of things with uh about and um I guess try to see how what I said yesterday is an example of not yesterday last week is true where one of the proofs that the Torah is real is that every parasha if you study it at the time that it is for that week and you learn the par you'll actually see something not only relevant to today but it's relevant to your life at that time to your personal life your personal life at that time but obviously listen you can read there's a couple of ways of reading the par is or the entire Torah you can read it in a way where it's just a story and you know people that don't know don't don't know better they say it's the best story ever told you know the story of Moses the story of Abraham the story of Jacob Isaac of the 12 tribes King David so on you know it's a nice story so you're talking about the alter label but you learn the lessons that they teaching you inside the story and the details of what actually happened to these people's lives the meaning of what happened to them into their lives and you see that the instructions are very real very uh obvious but only if you pay attention and the problem is that most people want to say oh no no that means you need to know high level of Hebrew or you need to know this no you don't need to know anything you just need to know any language it's translated to any language you could understand the basic parts of the story give you enough learning the interpretations that Rashi and onos and and uh you know the other uh uh sages gave us are obviously going to give you a lot more details but even the basic meaning of the Torah will still can still impact your life just a basic understanding but you obviously have to understand the words that's why I tell anyone even if you speak Hebrew but it's not your first language it's highly recommended to read it in your native language along with Hebrew in so if it's English you have to read it in English read it in Hebrew because you need to develop your Hebrew but it doesn't do you any good to just read it and not understand anything it's just like prayer for example if you go to sh and you're praying really really fast and you're just trying to race everyone because it seems like everyone is uh you know is a machine especially when you're new in sh and everybody finishes in about 2 and a half seconds and you're just you just said you know for the first time it seems like everybody else is finished there's no point of racing anyone else there's no if you don't understand what you're saying there's no point of doing it especially am mid you see some people in one second I'm like and that's the that's here's the thing here's the the funny thing is about amid I'll tell you guys this is actually very important to know now there are three prayers that are de meaning from hasem from the Tora itself and the rest of the prayers are from raban so the rabbis instituted these laws to do these other prayers now it still is a uh a Commandment that we have to do it what the rabbi said hasem specifically said you have to listen to the rabbis uh because they're my words in this world but uh there's a difference between something that came straight from Hashem an obvious difference versus something that came from a rabbi even if he's the biggest Rabbi in history but still there's a difference so there's three core blessings that you have to do one is two is which is and three is after you uh after you eat uh bread you have to do um now you do only when you eat bread when you eat bread or when you eat when you eat enough M where it's in essence the equivalent of something that satisfied you and it's also good for the table you bless the household the when you do when you're eating when you're eating you have to also uh try your best to say one thing that's on the table before you walk away from the table because your in today's life since we don't have the bet mikash uh the tells us that your table wherever you eat doesn't matter whether it's at work or it's at home wherever it is is the equivalent of the m so in essence every time you eat it's like you're giving a Corban forem so anyone who uh who does eats without a blessing is the equivalent of someone who stole from hasem anyone who eats with a blessing but does not say is the equivalent of a clown so they're just Clowning and obviously hem doesn't like clowns he like serious people so now the the on the food is one before the food and one after the food is specifically the one before the food is from but either way you have to bless the food and it takes meaning from uh so it's a that's the so those are the three prayers that you have to do now so now you ask yourself okay so wait if I have to do every morning let's say you know everybody goes to Shu and Shabbat morning and you see that they're praying for an hour and a half or an hour and they finally get to sh then they go to Amid and then they pray for another let's say 45 minutes or half hour and then it's over but the Amid and relatively short let's say 15 minutes total so how could it be if that's the if that's the if that's the most important part shouldn't it be longer and here's the thing the other prayers before it and after it are in essence supposed to prepare you for it meaning that the prayers in the beginning the ones that you say before before are supposed to the equivalent of the what gar says is that the sages used to meditate for an hour before they prayed to get themselves prepared to talk to Hashem because they knew who they're dealing with not like us we have no clue they knew that they're dealing with hem so if you're going to go talk to the creator of the universe the creator of everything the one that's giving you a a life that the one that's pretty much making the atom spin over and over again just so you could see anything exist then I need to be prepared it's not like I'm going to meet a friend of mine it's not like I'm going to meet my boss it's not like I'm going to be meet uh the president of Israel or president of the United States I'm going to meet the creator of the world this is this is a big deal so for an hour they would meditate just to prepare for this this is the equivalent of our all the prayers that we do which is mostly from T mostly from Psalms it's the equivalent of those prayers because we don't know we're not at their level we don't know what to say most of us don't know what even meditating is let alone do it so for us the the rabbis the sages created prayers an order of prayers uh for us to do to in essence prepare us where they know okay the first prayer maybe you're not really going to get be so much into it the second prayer maybe not really you know by little by little by the time you're into it for 45 minutes or so you're into it you know that you're in a Sho you're not at your friend's uh backyard so it's not the necess it is a necessity but it's not at the same level as and is the peak and that's important they us they're right after each other one after the other you have to take your time and then and then the the prayer of after uh after amid which is usually the time you start seeing people either leave early or not really care or start talking to each other that's not good either uh that's the prayer that the uh the equivalent of what the sages used to do is after they prayed amida they would start meditating they finish that and they start meditating to get themselves down from this high level that they got to to be able to deal with the real world this is all the so obviously again we're not at that level we didn't get as high we didn't get as much Focus as they did so for us we do these other prayers again it is definitely necessary but if you're not under understanding anything now we already can't do what they're doing can't meditate like they were doing so that's we why we have the prayers we can't focus like they're doing okay fine but if we're not even paying attention then what's the point of going it's not you know sh a is not it's not it's not a social hall even though most a lot of people unfortunately use it as a social club it's not a social club and the thing that I don't understand is that since we just realized right now let's say if this is new to all of us we all know that and is the peak that's that's like you said that's the peak that's the most important part of the entire prayer so why is it it's it's the one that people usually just try to run through like you see that sometimes in the beginning when people get to Sho they're singing they're into it they're laughing you know they're really really celebrating Hashem and they're walking around the Sho and they're really doing a lot soon as it get amid you see the guy everyone's standing you see that guy standing 37 seconds somehow he's finished with amid that takes a minimum of six minutes minimum of six minutes I mean even if you're a fast read it takes 6 minutes 7 minutes I mean it does not take 30 seconds it's impossible you could be a genius it does not take that much and also if you think about if you actually understand what you're saying and to put kav to really understand and mean what you're saying has to take more than six minutes so how is he finished in 2 minutes how is he finished even in five minutes especially when you think about most of the people that are finishing really fast they're usually not the most religious people and then you see see the guy that's really religious the one that's black and white the one that's learning to every day and somehow he takes 15 minutes so what you're saying that the guy that goes to Sho once a week is smarter better and knows more to than the guy that goes that his entire life is to and takes 15 minutes how does that make any sense and that's the thing so that's why sometimes when you're praying or all the time really you have to just focus on what you're doing and this is between me and Hashem no one else exists don't look around who's finished who's not finished if they're finished if they're not finished it's irrelevant to you because also keep in mind that during and also during uh they come back they do it again so even if you don't finish with everybody else because you're trying to do your best it's okay just finish it little by little you'll get more kavana into it and you it's more important to have kavana and really try to get something out of this prayer to just erase everybody so you can walk around before everyone else also another good thing to know about uh about amid there's two things actually uh one of them is that when you finish the prayer usually you take the three steps backwards right after you take those three steps assuming that everyone else has not finished yet where they haven't done the the uh stay in the same spot don't go back to three steps stay in that after you take the three steps don't move until until until yeah until the uh rabbi already did the first three when they recited the uh the prayer until he already did the first few prayers then yeah once you do then you can start moving forward the other thing is actually that's from this parasha it's very very interesting uh reminds me from this par not necessarily from this par it's actually something that's say um is during the uh prayer right towards the end you have actually this is this do over there somewhere yeah the white one the white one right yeah there something is a verse there's a verse in here in in this week's P it's that the first letter of that verse is L and the last letter of the verse is hey and that's the first letter and the last letter of my wife's name so now the um the reason why I say this is because in uh in in you actually see that the uh right here after towards the end where it says and then you uh right before you say um um so there's a section over there that uh if you actually read the small print in your s it says you could say something in there and it's over there it's very important and very good to say a verse from the Torah that you have to remember by heart or at least have a little note for yourself that starts with the first letter of your name and ends with the last letter of your name so if you don't know it tell me and I'll I'll get you guys the verse from the Tor for next time I'll get you guys before Shabbat I'll give you guys your verse and each time before this is this is during this is during so during after after shom it's towards the end of uh right before the end of right before the end of there is a um a section where you're telling hem God please protect me uh from you know having an evil tongue from my own speaking uh um um you know and pretty much it's your last shot to really ask AEM for help but even for protection from your own self and then you say uh this is pretty much saying AEM I've have spilled my heart out to you during this prayer really really put a lot of cavana into this prayer please listen to my prayer which also reminds us of what we just talked about before if you prayed the three and a half minutes how much heart did you really have in it so in essence you're finishing the prayer with a lie think about it I mean if you really believe in Hashem and it's not our version of hm it's the torah's version of Hashem then if Hashem is HEM hasem is all the time that's what we said the last few times right if AEM is AEM of the Torah then he's AEM all the time not just when it's convenient for us okay so now if we believe that the Torah is right and the Torah says that when we're praying we're praying to Hashem then that means that when I go to sh or when I pray anywhere Hashem is with me he's all the time he's with me even when I'm not praying but specifically when I'm praying I'm in essence having a uh you know firsthand conversation with the so how could I pray spend 10 minutes 20 minutes an hour praying get to the peak of the prayer and finish the prayer with a that I just gave all my heart but in reality I didn't really care in reality I didn't really mean anything I said in reality I didn't pay attention to what it says I don't understand one word of what understand one thing if somebody finished the prayer very fast what does it mean does it mean he skipped words because there is a minimum time listen I'm listen there are certain people that are really really really smart and much smarter than me or or anybody else that could read faster than the average human being talking about the average average person if the person is goes to Sho once a week that's not average it's it's not good you know if they go into Sho let's say once a week okay they're not the most religious but the sh Shabbat would say you're like me okay so sh Shabbat we go to sh on MH we're giving okay it's good it's not bad I feel like I'm always the last one to finish this that's good isra has nothing to do with it well some people someone that finishes someone that goes to Sho and let's say for example someone that's not even better someone that's not only doesn't uh go to Sho often but someone doesn't even learn toat on a regular basis so which means that it's not necessarily a core part of his life so he's not a let's say if he somehow finishes faster than everybody else or faster than pretty much the rabbi or or half the room the people that you know are people that dedicate a larger part of their life to the tat there's something wrong with that picture that's just common sense it's not the Torah doesn't say that I'm saying that's my own logic if I see a rabbi that I know for a fact a I know he's dedicated more than 30 years of his life to learning toah I know that he's there all the time he's learning all the time and he takes 10 minutes but you took three minutes it doesn't make sense to me it's not it does it's not even you could be smarter than him in science math okay I understand but how how are you supposed to read like word by word you supposed to scan the word see don't not forget you you do that every day I I'm doing that every day so sometimes I'm even I'm Starling you know yes so sometimes you just see for memory and you're just going you're going through okay so the way that as far as people that read it too fast the first question you had people that read it too fast and finish faster than everybody else either they're skipping words or they're doing something called skimming where they're pretty much reading the first couple of words of the sentence the last couple of words skip two words right so they're not really praying they're just going through the motion okay okay now how are we supposed to do it the ideal you know we can't get to the ideal right in one second okay so we have to don't feel too bad about oursel right now but our goal is to not only read but understand the meaning of every word that we read when we're reading it not just the general understanding of okay I know that I know that this particular section talks about hasem protect me in essence for myself I know the general understanding but that's what I what I mean what I mean is that I need to know each word what it mean so now if English is your first language but you speak Hebrew you know how to read my high recommendation is that you have a book similar to this one uh that has the English translation under under the Hebrew under the Hebrew not on a different page so you could say so you can in essence read both words around you know at the same time and develop your Hebrew at the same time but also understand what you're reading so now the more of the verses that you understand the more cavana you're going to have because then it touches your heart you're going to say okay listen I understand that this okay I you know it's very easy to skip around and run around and worry about what everybody else is but again if we're praying to Hashem and it's the real hem not an hem that people created it's the real hem it's the only Hashem then we have to try our best to to say something really important over here because why because at the end of all of this prayer we're saying Hashem I gave you my prayer from my heart I gave you everything so this is a really important verse I mean you're finishing an entire prayer the most important part of the prayer you're saying that it's you gave your whole heart but in reality maybe you didn't so how could you if you really believe you're in front of hm how could you lie to him it's ridiculous so that's why it's really important to have this uh have a lot of kavana so now if you guys don't have this verse from the Tora with your name tell me and I'll get you guys the verse understand what the verse what you okay the verse is you have there's a verse you know pretty much there is a verse yeah for each person each person each name for i' say let's say 99.9% of names out there normal names out there where you getting from the No No from here from here you just have to find a verse that starts with the first letter of your name so Shimon so Shin is the first has to be the first letter of the uh of the uh sentence and the last letter of the sentence has to be n or n okay oh she okay yeah she if she sheim wants the name so we have to find a sentence that starts with the letter shin and ends with the letter n n find so yeah we'll find it and I'll give it to you and you could say that verse right at the end that's what that's the section over there uh and it's it's good so also you're seeing during the prayer you also seeing it's good to you say a verse from the T so now why why is this why am I even telling you this thing this is not some type of cabalistic thing that I'm creating maybe I'm going to ask you guys to start donating me money this is not something I'm creating this is because at the end of times for us each of our own lives not the end mashia I'm talking about the end of our life each person what ends up happening is that our body ends or dies and our soul continues says that this life is the equivalent of a hallway in comparison to the real life so our body dies and our soul continues once the body dies the Mal comes to our uh comes to our grave and initially we're in shock we don't know what's really going on and he asks us what's our name who are you so in order for us because we're so confused in order for us to remember our name this verse is going to help us because they're name because we're going the first thing we need to know in in sh is not how much money we made it's not what kind of car we drove it's not uh you know if you have a house in Panama or if you house a house in an apartment in New York or if you have two girlfriends on the side or if you have a wife that none of that stuff matters in real life what happens in in in sham immediately when you get there they ask you the certain questions number one is did you make time for Tora and then you have 40 days that you have to give all the T that you know you have to say it in 40 days now if you don't know any Tora what are you going to say where you tell no no I was busy working what 100 years you busy working really you didn't make a little an hour well it's it's not exactly like a like an exam or a test because I think I think exam of all exams no no it's an exam but it's not exactly you you pass or you don't pass it's if you know better I think and you're more conscience about the knowledge of the Torah that will help you going in more advanced World otherwise you will not have this ability it's a tool to be able to live over there right but if you don't have this tool so you don't pass it's for own good it's not for somebody else good it's for your own good absolutely but here's the thing and the difference between this world and Sham is that here even if I don't know any tah if I'm a good speaker if I'm Charming if I'm charismatic I can you know give you guys a whole song and dance and speak to you for 5 hours about absolutely nothing did you guys ever see one one of these speakers that speaks for an hour and a half and says nothing right these people drive me crazy it's it's insane I mean around the there's a lot of you go to conferences and sometimes you see people speak and the guy talks for you know 45 minutes an hour sometimes longer and he says nothing like he says words and there a lot of words but the content means nothing right there's no significance whatsoever there's no punchline there's no point it's like a buddy without this all exactly so this is a good addition see we got we got some nice over here so here's the thing we have in this world we have the ability to lie and make up a story even if we don't know we can create something in sham we can't do that so if you really don't know T if you haven't really made a little bit of time every day not saying you have to study 20 hours a day if you study an hour a day you're going to know some to over 50 years 100 years you're going to know some T an hour a day over 50 years you're going to know some Tor it's a lot of hours so you're going to be able to talk for 40 days but if you studied for once a week for an hour when I was just telling you it's not enough so that's the thing that's what we talked about over the last few weeks where it's important for us to create some type of time now we can't just jump to an hour or 2 hours or 5 hours a day from day one have to start somewhere starts with 15 minutes start with 10 minutes whatever you guys can gu day every day but something that you know for sure that you could do every day even if you could do 15 minutes a day every day do that if you could do let's say six days a week you could do 15 minutes but one day a week you have more time you want to do five hours do or even one hour do it but obviously but guarantee yourself that you have a little bit of time this 15 minutes a day you know for sure that's how you get started then after a little while when you're used to already making to a part of your life every day well you know that you're not going to sleep and you're not starting your day without some type OFA then you could add to it a little bit and over time you know over time you can add more and more to it but get to a point where it's part of your life if you listen for example you follow a rabbi online for example you hear a lesson every day comes in all different ways to comes from lectures to comes from reading the books to comes from uh uh CDs from uh YouTube videos can but it's not it's not it's not as developed as my English because I have a book unbelievable Hebrew or English Hebrew I bought it I read it but it's not the level of my English is drastically higher than my Hebrew so it's a frustrating so that book that you that you bought it's unbelievable have they have it in English too I'm sure no it's a it's a Moses is the last book of I learned so much about it about the last book of the of the Kash mm it's different than the first first book yeah it's the last five weeks of his life it's Moses talking to you directly to the level of human being versus God talking to us in the first fours book The F the first four yeah Deuteronomy is a uh I mean it's the last five weeks of his life I believe uh and he's pretty much telling us um how to be reminding us of all the things that have happened to us what we need to in order to survive and uh and to to pretty much serve God and serve our purpose in this world so if we all agree that Hashem is the real hasem and it's what it's in the Torah and we know that everything that it's in this book is is true then obviously our goal should be to do what it says the problem with most people have we talked about in all the other times we've talked in my opinion and and I I've heard this from uh rabbis also and and it's pretty and you see it is that unfortunately even though people like the Torah and sometimes they say they even believe the Torah the reason why they don't live the life of the tah is because they have a different interpretation of what it is versus what it really is Right meaning that there AEM is not the same ashem that's written in the tah there AEM is like a convenient one it's that when I have problems let me pray when is a bar mitzvah let me pray when there a some type of holiday let me pray but during the rest of the year I don't really need I don't need it and that's the problem so that's not a that's not the real AEM and that's you know it's a it's a convenient AEM that people create so the key for us is to get as close to the real hasem as possible the only way to do it is through having toe in our life every day again like I said it does not need to be 20 hours a day 15 conclusion myself you it has to you have to have it 15 minutes a day 20 anything anything you have to do it every day and you'll see I just need to find I need to find some good stories about the Torah because I prefer maybe to read than to listen to CD or I'll get you some books yeah I that's why I asked you guys last week to come up with the the time that you have and whatever material you want I'll you know I'll tell you where it is and if I have it I'll give it to you if if not I'll tell you what to get in it's a a lot of good things all right so so the first thing we see in this in this week's par and we see how it's relevant to our life you know um is that in this which was also called Israel um where we all came from dies so you have one one of the most critical and important human beings in history pass away so obviously Hashem thought this this is important enough to spend an entire chapter explaining what actually happened so it's not like you know sometimes you have people die in the uh in the Torah and it's just one sentence or one verse that explains okay and this one lived this one died and that's it like in for example the beginning of the tah you see that there they tell you about different people that live this one lived 930 years and he died this one lived 500 and something years he had this many kids and he died you know so on so they give you all these people's names and they give you the family tree of where we started you know there was 10 Generations between Adam and n and then there was 10 Generations between Noah and uh Abraham and they tell you pretty much who lived so you see how the reason whyem spent time doing it and telling you all the names is because it also shows you that the Torah wasn't something that was a uh an Hashem and creation and everything wasn't something that was just imagined by Abraham or imagined by Noah it shows you the lineage of exactly who it went from to who and you see exactly the lineage of how it got from Adam to Noah and from Noah to Abraham and it's really important to know because it's again one of the problems with people that don't believe in Hashem people that are call themselves atheists or whatever you know many other names that they have and uh usually these people like to believe in science and things of that nature uh is that they say well listen you know what this is like the telephone game I remember when I was a kid we'd have 10 people one next to the other by time the message got from here to there it changed so in a normal course of a day yes things do change but when you have the constant involvement of a Supreme Being that's nothing like us there there's something you know it's it's very different than your typical uh telephone game because he's involved in the process he involved in the message so again many people lived in the tah many people were you know they we were told about but usually it's very very short sentences but Yakov they spent an entire chapter talking about what happened during that those last moments and it teaches us something very very critical about our own life that I think that is important for everyone to know I don't think it's necessarily uh just for me or for you but it's it's for everyone to really know which is pretty much what's the difference between your average parent and a good parent now can't really can't really compare your good to bad because there's really it's not a it's not a relevant comparison a bad parent could be an abusive parent and someone that's terrible so I would say average because that's most of us are average and good is what the toah defines so before we started I as asked Shimon what's you know with within regards to kids what would you what is the sign of a good parent one who gives his kid everything or ones who tell or one who tells them the truth the truth the truth the truth hurts yeah if you tell your kid let's say for example your kid uh plays uh plays a sport and you see that the kid's really not that good no but this this is not see it's terrible this is not a good uh comparison I'm starting starting it's an example just to show you the the extreme anytime you want to give examples you want to give extremes because that's the only way you would understand if I give you a normal example then it makes things doesn't make you think so if the kid is not good in sports and you tell them you're terrible is that sign of a good parent no not necessarily because maybe May it's good for the kid to exercise maybe it's not his goal in life to be a good baseball player or football player or whatever sports player so telling him really the truth that he's terrible is not necessarily the best way to build up his confidence but on the other hand telling the kid that it's okay for him to not do any his homework and play Playstation instead just because you know he's uh he cleaned his room or something like that just because you want to appease him and you you don't want to cry you don't want her to cry that's bad so we obviously we know the clear difference between good you know good type of honesty and bad type of honesty so now here by the same words you can you don't have to tell him he's terrible because you know that the kid didn't reach his full potential right so you don't you don't tell him you're terrible you tell him listen that's good you do better exactly so there's a Time FR depends how you interet depends how old child is if if it's a child for example if it's three four 5 7 10 years old there's a certain level of truth if he's already in his teens there a certain level of truth if he's in his 20s 30s and 40s there a certain level of Truth obviously you have to treat him based on his age so now there was one time there was these uh uh couple new new couple and uh they thought themselves really really smart they were very very educated people and um they come to the rabbi and like Rabbi listen wanted to know when uh when we should start uh you know when should we learn about how to raise a kid and uh he said okay how old is the kid and like well he was just born two months ago so they felt really good about them themselves because it's brand new he said okay you're about 20 20 years late like what do you mean 20 years how could we possibly he was just born how could he possibly be late he goes because the to tells us that first you have to start with disciplining yourself and that's the only way you're going to be able to discipline your kid because the number one influence that you're going to have on your child is based on you your actions they will emulate what you do they will do exactly what you do if you yell at your wife they're going to think that it's okay to yell at people if you argue with the husband they're going to think it's okay to argue with anyone if you steal they're going to think you're stealing if you tell them listen anyone calls tell them don't tell them I'm home then they're going to think it's okay to lie so whatever you do they're going to do because they they think you are their Idol you are their you mod that's it they're and again in the beginning they don't have their own personality between the ages of two years old you know between zero and two there's really not you know there's no there's no uh no you know they haven't developed anything yet so between the age of two and 12 is the most critical time to to help a child develop their real personality to really teach them the most fundamental things about life because that's when they're developing their personality so the problem with most people that you see everywhere is that most people abandon unintentionally abandon their kids when they're born until they're teenagers like yeah he's a little kid what's the what do I need to do is I need to work so I can make money so I can have money for his college yeah but look I'm not religious and I knew that the image I'm giving to the kids since they're born is very important 100% And that I learned from a lesson in Torah so there you go that when Joseph was in Egypt and ptif was trying to yeah to to you know toce him yeah wife yeah right away he got the F the image of his father Jacob Israel so what I did all the time following this example and that works 100% I have three girls and I put the talit and every morning or I tried every morning you know I pray just for them to look no I pray really but the most important things is also education they look and the picture stay in their mind every morning since they're born until today they look at this picture and if they want to marry somebody who is a GU one down or something they will have this picture right in their face good 100% that's that's what they're going image it's very important so the image whatever you're going to show them exactly as Shimon said it's it's it's very very critical problem with most people is that they think that money is what's going to help their children's life so they spent the uh the beginning part of their marriage and the beginning part of the child's life going to work and giving their spouse or the school or someone else the uh privilege of raising their kids because they figure that you know what I'm going to make money I'm going to save enough money so we could buy a house I'm going to save enough money so I could pay for college I'm going to save enough money so we could help them with the wedding and all these wonderful things and all you know whatever needs to be taught is going to be taught to my kid through somebody else and when it comes for me to teach them something I'm going to be able to teach them something more meaningful because they're already going to be teenagers so they can understand what I say because they're teenagers now they're much smarter it's much easier logically when you think to teach a teenager something than to teach a four-year-old right right that's wrong why is it wrong the problem with that logic and this is what the to tells us the problem with that logic is that when someone is between the ages of 2 and 12 they're developing their personality they're like putty they're like Clay they're going to be what you make them be there are certain things that they already have from their last they Spong everything in but they sponge everything in so if you teach them T Tora is going to be something important in their life if you teach them to be aash they're going to be during their life for the most likely if he thinks stealing it's okay that's what they're going to do now what happen so why can't we teach them when they're 15 or 16 years old because by the time they got to 15 or 16 years old they already have their own personality so now you have to fight their personality in order to get back to the putty in order to get back to the part that you could influence you could still influence them it's never too late even someone that's 40 years old can change it's just a lot more difficult because first you have to go through the barrier through that wall which is their personality that they've developed all these years to finally get to the part that you could actually mold and change and that's why they say that you know someone who has the ability to get to into their life into their children's life early on will have a much much easier future with them as adults because they're going to have the foundation but when someone is thinking that money is more important and business important more important or whatever it is is more important than that and that somebody else is going to do this job unfortunately they're going to miss out on their kid most important life so this also brings brings it brings me to a question that people have a lot is that you know there was one time a guy not a not a not a religious guy and he uh sees this religious guy you know walking with a carrot she has a kid like listen let stop for a second goes yeah yeah what happened what can I do to help you listen I always I always wondered you know you're you're young you're like 20 years old he goes yeah I'm 21 goes how you have any you have more kids or this is the first one he goes no this is my second kid goes I always wondered about you religious people how is it you spend your whole life in Yeshiva and immediately after you you get to 18 19 20 years old you get married and immediately you get you have kids how do you even know how to raise kids when did you have time to learn about kids within a five six seven years you already have a few kids how do you even know how to raise kids me I have I'm already in my 30s he says I haven't even had my first kid because me and my wife are still debating whether we even know what we're doing we're reading all these books we don't know how to do all this stuff he started from young age and he says do you believe in the Torah goes yeah yeah know I go to Sho a couple times a year goes you believe it's true goes yeah I believe it's true he goes then that means you believe in Hashem right go yeah yeah I believe in hhm he goes so you think that Hashem brought us into this world and told us that here here's this world manage on your own goes no no he told us what to do he goes exactly so what do you think he forgot to tell us about how to raise kids okay so what does he say it he goes it's in the same tah just learn the Torah you'll learn how to raise kids just because you don't have kids and you're a teenager doesn't doesn't mean that you don't know how to raise kids because the Torah unlike any other subject unlike science math technology econom e omics any type of finance that you want to anything the difference between Tora and everything else is that not only does it make you smarter like all the other subjects but it actually makes you a better person where you can actually improve yourself as an overall person and it teaches you every subject and that's one of the most amazing things about the toah is that if you see somebody that's been learning toah their entire life like for example my firsthand example with somebody like that is my cousin my cousin klon that's been the biggest influence in my life soim has I I believe he was born with SE T in his hand he he's that he knows an unbelievable amount and he really really dedicated his entire life to Torah in a way that's much higher than normal even people that go toar and stuff like that much much higher than normal he succeeded in a big way so for anyone that's watching and and has to give you an understanding if someone that knows toah there's something called a which is the entire now there's something called is if you read one one Duff out of the gar each day they did the calculation you'd finish thear over seven years approximately seven years it would take you to finish the sh I remember in the synagogue they did one time yeah they do it every in the syn after seven years yes they do a big big uh a big celebration after you finish it so you finish the Shas once every seven years which means that if you do that program which a big very very uh smart Sage came up with that whole program because he saw that in the Yeshiva that every time you know he saw everyone studying and he saw that they um you know a guy that's new to the religion came to the Yeshiva and he didn't really know what to do with himself and he looked around he didn't know where to start he didn't know what to do and then he saw and then you know the rabbi saw that uh every so often the people from the isba that been learning they smile and they go back to studying and you notice what's happening every time that they're smiling it's because they finish one Duff one page so he said this guy doesn't know what he's doing he SN and I want to give him the same feeling as the people that know what they're doing so let's create we create a program let's we do once a day you do one Duff a day which could take you know more or less it could take an hour it could take five hours depending of how uh how deep you get into it uh if you go really fast it could take you an hour after you've got acclimated to it I still think it's very fast if you really delve into it it could take you six months again it depends how deep you go into it but if you do it let's say one Duff which is actually two pages because the duff in the is front and back if you do it every day you could uh uh finish you know you could finish one page each day and you could finish the entire shot over approximately 7 years so my cousin as far as again he's not going to be happy I'm saying this but you know it's just to give you guys the difference between someone that's learning to and and us he already finished the sh when he was still a teenager he finished it four times before he was 20 so you think about it a normal person that's studying every day will take 28 years to finish it four times what he finished somebody who study every day somebody studies every day that's studying the sh like I told you once one du a day no but the guy we study full time like the whole day study full time is learning more than one page a day of course yeah but it's still to finish theas is a gigantic accomplishment it's not something that everyone does even people that do study every day not just because you necessarily mean you study the to that with that depth every day the point is I'm trying to make to you guys is that when you're living a life of Torah you end up learning about everything and that's one of the first things that I discovered about my cousin is that it didn't matter what cuz the first nine months that we met and had our conversations it didn't matter what question it was because that's all the the conversation was it was just one question after another question after another question for my end asking him questions it was whether it was about dinosaurs or about creation or about Noah or about why is my life so difficult or business questions anything that I could come up with I had like this computer that was responding to me and he had an answer for everything but not an answer like I'm giving you an opinion like if you ask me what do you think of the weather today I say oh yeah it's nice that's my opinion because maybe somebody that likes cooler weather would say it's not nice so that's my opinion if it's nice or not he didn't give me his opinion and anyone that's a T that's a big believer and and Advocate and a learner of T is never going to give you their opinion because everybody feel it differently right what are they going to give you what does the toah say so every answer every answer had a source and that was the amazing part so it didn't matter whether it was a business question or a dinosaur question there's a source to it and he showed me the source and that's when I knew there's a difference between what he's learning and what I spent my entire life learning so when you're learning toah and you're giving it to your kids when they're early on in their life you're literally giving them a foundation that it doesn't matter what choices they make in their life they're always going to have that foundation and they're always going to be able to get back to it but if you're giving it them the earlier you give it to them the stronger that Foundation is going to be the later you give it to them the more difficult it's going to be to penetrate you you still give it to them it's never too late for anybody even if somebody's s years old they can still do CH so it's never too late for anyone no one should ever feel bad about themselves that they're too old or anything like that because if you just look at one of the most important people in history which was R AKA he just started learning the alphabet the Hebrew alphabet at the age of 40 40 just the alphabet he didn't forget toah he didn't know anything about toah talk about the alphabet he went to kindergarten with his son to learn the alphabet at the age of 40 and then 24 years ler later you had the biggest Yeshiva in history 24,000 students how long are we talking about this nearly 2,000 years 2000 years ago 2,000 years agoa start 40 40 years old 40 years old you start learning the alphabet just the alphabet so now here's the advantage we have over back then if you wanted a book if you wanted to learn something let's say I know Hebrew I wanted a book doesn't mean that I had it because they didn't we didn't have books back then like we have now most things were Scrolls so that means that they didn't print they would have to write handw write it so they didn't write too many of anything they' have five copies six copies and they distributed among several different cities so if you wanted a certain scroll to learn let's say parts of the zah or parts of the or parts of anything you have to go to a different city usually to a rich person's house that actually has the scroll that owns the scroll and stay there for however long it takes until you finish it was difficult to have 24,000 students like this difficult is to say the least that be genius that's the thing today today with s and a half billion people which is much more people than they had back then yeah no one even comes close to having 24,000 students unbelievable and you have this uh online today exactly so here's the thing we have an advantage now is because unlike back then we' have to literally travel from City to City just to have a book that's true just to have a book just to have something to read to the rich Place rich person's Place yeah you have to go somewhere your whole time there I have to go somewhere for years I never thought about it you know it's true yeah it makes sense just to get this book let's say you want you don't have it in your city you're brand new go crazy you have to go somewhere you have to go somewhere stay there for 6 months a year 2 years just so I could read this book cuz he's not going to let me go back like a library I have to go to his house but those people that did the travel they would say came I mean to do that that's the point that was cuz there was not a lot of much here's so okay so we're not going to travel into another city hasem knew we're not going to travel to another city because AEM is AEM right so he knew that we're not going to travel to another city he knew we're not that big of aadim We're the lowest level what did he do he created the internet but he gave us choice you could either see the worst things on earth on the internet and completely ruined your Anda or you can learn Tor right now there's more Tor on the internet than all of the Tor that people had that there were biggest people in in history mhm it's right it's a button on your phone on your laptop on your just press a button you can learn toah that's right and what do we do instead we look at Facebook instead we look at uh something else instead we look at all this nonsense that's out there that's the thing so we have to wake up a little bit and realize that if you're going to change your kids life you have to start with yourself because they're going to emulate you if you're going to change your life you have to be serious about it you can't give yourself excuses every day of why you're not doing it and why they were able to do it and why this and why that you have to really just do it but again don't expect to be RAB AA in one day 15 minutes a day every day do that for a few months maybe go up to 20 minutes do that for a few months then maybe go up to 25 minutes start small and I promise you you're going to like it so much that not doing it will be torture but first let's get to doing it first do it and you see that if your kids see you learning they'll start treating you different they'll start acting different because you're going to act different yourself because again the Torah changes you true you start reading wow look rabiaa is giving you know he's doing this oh look yino is giving blessings to his uh to his kids look wait a minute why is he why is he telling ruen that he wasn't uh you know he's not going to keep his uh his his first Bor he's not you know even though he's the first child that he had he's not worthy of it and he's losing he lost it Judah is becoming the first right why and you read what happens like oh you know what maybe he's right so that means that you know so there's a certain way you read the stuff what there's a certain way to beside beside the outside story there is a meaning for us 100% inside the story inside the story is the to know how to interpret it it's all that's the beauty of it right now the the basic translation if you read it in your first language will give you a good enough meaning where you could it impacts your life the second thing you do is you read Rashi again in your native language so if English is your native language read it in English don't be a hero and read inre talking about again there's plenty of other books you could read but I'm talking about we're talking about how to prove the Tora is divine which is by showing that the each par has something that's related to our life but the most important part is not just a Reading part but have patience read it not when you're uh waiting for a coffee at uh at a place and you only have 37 seconds before you have to go back to doing something read it sit down 15 minutes I can read a page tomorrow's 15 minutes I can read another page the next day's 15 minutes maybe I can read two pages have some time to understand don't just skim through it like those people were talking about that pray in 5 seconds try to get give it some time you'll see little by little your Hebrew will develop and your English will develop and overall your life will develop and it's it'll make a huge difference in your life and I promise you that it'll each week you'll be astonished the things that you can read and learn from that were always in front of you but you never knew that were right there and then next year when you read it again you'll see that the same gave you a different lesson that's relevant to your life at that time so test it so that's another thing um now what happens if we don't do it what happens with our kids if we don't do what yov is doing so first off let's see what Yakov is doing so Yakov is saying he's giving blessings to his children he starts with ruven and you see that the blessing that he's giving ruen is pretty much a criticism it's not uh it's not a you know it's between me and you I don't know if I want this blessing because he's telling he's rebuking him he's telling him listen you violated my bed you know he ruven was trying to dovah but it ended up being where he was pretty much trying to protect his mom's honor because Yakov had multiple wives and um he pretty much messed with his father's bed that he was going to use with his other mother with his other wife now obviously going into your father's bedroom is inappropriate for a child at any age and so on but you know what he told wuen is that you your first right Hood so this doesn't sound like a like a uh for good yeah so so I'll read you the uh the verse actually if you want uh let's see uh ruven you are my first uh you are my first born my strength and my initial Vigor so right away he's giving him compliments foremost in rank and foremost in power but water like imp impetu impetuosity uh you cannot be foremost because you mounted your father's bed then you desecrated him who ascended my couch so so he he he he interferred with his father intimacy right something like this right exactly so he violated his father's bed that he was uh that uh yov had with uh his other wife so now what is he teaching so he's telling them he's giving them some compliments in the beginning but then he's telling him something that you lost your first okay so he already knew that he lost it by then this is not the first time you heard about it but what is he telling him what's the point why are you telling me now you're dying now now you're reminding me I lost I already lost 20 something years ago you already lost the you know this didn't happen today this this happened 25 years before this and he's telling him he's reminding him that you're You're great and you could be even greater and you could actually when you read the mid it says thatu became huge he did a big chuv already before this and after this contined doing big chuva and became very very righteous it's not uh he wasn't just done he was one of the 12 tribes he says you're great you're amazing but your way to even greater is if you control your own emotions because you couldn't control your emotions you're lost you lost but if you control your emotions you your children your grandchildren and every descendant that you have after that could be as great as it can be you have the ability it's not it's not he's not telling listen you're a fool he's telling look amazing things about him but why did you lose because of that one time that you let your heart the side instead of your brain this teaches us about our own life something happens somebody cuts us off immediately we want to throw our phone at him we want to run him over you want to do something crazy yell at the guy do this do that for what who who wins someone smart said one time being angry at someone is like drinking poison and expecting the other guy to die ni that's a good one because being angry at him he's not going to change he cut you off you already he's already thinking about his life he doesn't care about your he doesn't care that you're angry he probably doesn't even know you're angry so continuing to be angry at him that you're trying to affect him but obviously you're not so it's like you're taking poison you're drinking it and you're expecting him to get bad doesn't make any sense so over here again what's lead leads to 99.99999% of all anger emotions not controlling our emotions there's always a way toat teaches us there's always a way to overcome your anger um and this is what if you don't do it you could lose everything and that's what Ruben he's teaching him this that this one time that you couldn't control your emotions you lost everything but you have the ability to get it all back so that's what we were talking about before when I said if someone loves you are they going to show you they love you because they give you everything like a lot of parents do these days where they buy their kids toys every other weekend and they take them on vacations where the kids don't even know the difference whether they going to France or they're going to the place down the street it just looks nice kids don't know the difference parents for some reason today think that when they take him to these exotic places that the kids are actually going to change their life because of it they don't know the difference even if you take them to the park down the street they don't care M the kids become acclimated to it and used to going to fancy places and and think that it's meaningful because of the parents not because the par not because they wanted it all the kids really want is their parents' time mhm no kids in in the world that's 6 Seven 8 9 10 years old goes to his uh father or mother said listen Mommy Daddy can I you know can we go to the Netherlands next year and then a year after that can we go to uh you know to Panama and then the year after that no kid in the world does that they don't care they just want your time so when you start giving them a life where every demand that they have is purely material then you're training a monster you're not training a normal kid and you're also teaching them something that's not realistic where every time that they complain they think that they're going to get an answer in real life that doesn't work that way MH we can complain all we want every day but if unless we go to work we not going to make any money we can complain all we want every day but unless we do what we need to do at our job the customer is not going to stay with us we complain all we want every day but unless we act really nice to our spouse they're not going to be nice to us so complaining doesn't really do much in real life but when you're a kid it could do wonders because if every time I cry my parent holds me for 5 hours and gives me this and gives me that and just because they don't want to hear me cry they buy me a new toy it tells me oh this works so once they grow up and they become 15 20 25 years old they have this unrealistic expectation of what life is really all about and that's why schl actually specifically said the way to ruin a child's life is by spoiling him that's the way to ruin his life it's the opposite of what parents do today right the parents today comply to the demands of children not the opposite your child is supposed to help you not you help the child supposed to help with the house help with you know bring goodness to the house you're not supposed to be the child's servant so when you spoil a child and you constantly buy them stuff and you train them to have this needy personality then you're creating a monster because one day they're going to have to be married and no one in the world will ever love them as much as their parents which means that they're bound to get get divorced also because they're going to expect their spouse whether it's a male or female to love them as much as their parents cuz their parents anytime they cried they bought them a new toy anytime they cried they bought them a new car anytime they cried they gave them money they did all this stuff for them and their spouse doesn't want to do it they cry and the spouse doesn't really care he's still at work he's still doing this he's still doing that so when you train your child to to have this unrealistic expectation then you're doing exactly what T said to do and that's also something that's actually very interesting in um Kings the uh especially especially if the parents lost their business and the kids are so used to getting money from them and then oh there's no money coming in and the kids the kids they lose it the kids can start hating the parent because what happens is that when you train the child to be connected to material right and then all of a sudden you don't have the money you don't have thei be a blessing some no then you hit the reality and you start to but in the beginning if the kid is used to getting all these toys and not getting honesty he's only getting toys instead of honesty what happens is that the kid stops getting the toys and he thinks that the parent hates him he doesn't think that he doesn't know that you're losing money he doesn't know what that is 10 years old he doesn't know you don't have money or you have money he just thinks that when you love me you gave me stuff now I'm not getting stuff that means you don't love me so he starts acting out and doing things to get attention become a lot of problems and it becomes a very very big problem so in Kings one verse 16 uh uh chapter 1 verse 6 is a very interesting uh uh thing that King David says that is relevant he's talking about a one of his sons Adon um all his days his father had never saddened him by saying why have you done this moreover he was very handsome and his mother bore him after Absalom so this particular Son part of the reason of why uh David spoiled him David spoiled him and gave him everything he wants and never ever said that he's doing anything that he did was good and it wasn't so what ended up happening with this kid is that he ended up becoming a big big disaster for him and uh he rebelled against him he Not only rebelled abshalom was the son before him and Absalom ended up going to war with King David So King David said you know what so instead what I'll do is I'll just give him everything and he'll love me instead of going to f go to war with me so he shows us here why did why do they write it in the tanak if it's in the tanak that means it's important it's not they didn't just write to tell us a nice story right it's not just words put together what's the message this child that he gave everything to for fought uh ended up um trying to uh steal King David's kinghood anyway still tried to go fight him it wasn't enough that he got everything so this shows us that the strategy of giving our kids everything literally everything that they want is a disaster in the making if there's always there's a time for a toy there a time for learning the number one thing you can give your child is teach them something is your time your time is not watching TV with them by the way your time is not uh going and uh you're playing PlayStation with them yeah you could do that if you want but that's not really they're not going to learn anything from that your time is to give them something fundamental that they can actually use in real life that's where the Torah comes in and that's why sometimes a good suggestion for people that are new that have kids that the 15 minutes they're just starting out with to do with their kids so you know what from now on I'm going to tell you a story every day 15 minutes they don't they don't care what story you're telling them kids 5 10 years old 15 years old they don't they just want your time wait okay you know I'm going to read your story every day oh what story We reading oh we're going to read the story that's called okay great okay in the beginning there was this and you read the Torah to them they think it's a story and you're learning and teaching at the same time which makes you a better learner so that's your 50 minutes a day that's a solution you could do um teaching is learning twice uh so now so the other thing we're also learning from these blessings so we're seeing that he's you know he's he's rebuking uh he's rebuking uh ruen and then also he's doing the uh same thing with some of the other the other uh sons that he has but all of them are getting some type of a blessing but there's a very interesting part when it comes [Music] to second so who got the best blessing YF YF y YF got the best blessing everyone else's blessings is about one verse sometimes two verses yadik which is the last blessing is more than a paragraph uh he gets a lot of details well he several the brothers yeah but even more so he he was uh he was the most righteous out of the few uh but also the the uh the blessing he gave uh Judah Yuda uh was also uh that's interesting was also you he was the he he got to be the um he got the rights to be the the leader the first rights of first borhood where are you and he also said in this particular verse he says that the Messiah will come from him right uh which in this uh in this um the is called Shilo shil is shil is the yeah the vers is here actually the Mah is called Shilo Shilo Shilo so David come from Judah King David came from Judah yeah all the we are King David King David most of the Jews are oh okay like Judah so in English it's the scepter shall not depart from Judah nor a scholar from among his his descendants until sh Shilo shall arrive and his will will be an assembled of an assemblage of Nations so he gets the uh the big blessing also but something that's very interesting is right after that He blesses his son zevulun and then after that He blesses isal so give you a little bit of background about these two sons zevulon was a big businessman very very wealthy and was a big sadik only Tor they made a deal between them because they both knew the value of the Torah no one all the 12 tribes knew the Torah what to but because what happens when somebody's successful in business even if they don't want I mean the business requires time if you're going to be successful you're going to maintain a business even if it's successful time my grandfather did a a deal with his brother M one was working for the two families and my grandfather studied and wrote books all his life for the two families that's that's what they did that's that's what they got it this is what they gave that's they got it so that's the thing so the uh the deal comes from them the deal that people have sometimes today and and it's it still exist um so zun was a successful businessman but he knew that even though he studying to it's not enough but in order to maintain his success he need to continue working he couldn't study as much as as much as his brother is didn't care anything about my money all he wanted is T that's it but now he had his brother he knew that he couldn't study as much to so they made a deal you work for both of us and I'll study for both of us so what ends up happening is that zun ends up making money and he's supporting both families and isar is studying day and night and actually one of the midashim says that is actually ended up uh literally studying 24 hours a day all the time never going to sleep so the question is how is that possible physically first of all people were very different back then than we are today and uh so that's the easier explanation the second explanation is that you have to determine you have to understand what sleep is what needs sleep the body or the soul so in reality the soul is the part that needs the rest in essence it's a even though it continues to operate but it's a uh when you're uh when the body is no longer functioning you know the soul continues so what ends up happening is that in order for your soul to be recharged you're either going you're going to need to connect connect it with something spiritual so the reason why people need to go to sleep is because the soul according to Mid and different parts of the tah the soul goes up to the heavens and actually explain you know tells everyone what's happened over the last day so the soul leaves the body the parts of the Soul leave the body so now if someone is learning Torah and you'll see this actually with people that learn toah like some of the big sages that we have you'll notice that they don't very they don't sleep very much and the reason why is because what the typical person gets as far as spirituality during their sleep they're getting it from the Tora during the times they're awake so got so much T and so much spirituality from his tah that he didn't need sleep because his body his body felt as if it's resting at all times so that's Tower is possible so in essence so the question is now explained actually that zun got the blessing first before but Z was younger so the question is why would you give if you're giving it in order of everyone why are you giving it to the youngest instead of giving it to is is aik because he's supporting his brother's family right so that's that's the thing so he says that yes even though is is learning T and T is very important since he's dedicating his life to T he needs help and he's going to find different ways hasm is going to find different ways to help you he he helped him by giving him a brother that's successful well he's giving his brother success so he could support both families but wouldn't be able to succeed with as much to if it wasn't for his brother so one depends on the other so he says because of that Z you're getting the uh the blessing first to continue your success so he could continue having his toah also nice so that's also teach us something about our own life is that sometimes we want to do a lot more than we can listen some people want to study like if it was up to me I would study 24 hours a day just like him sometimes you can sometimes you can't so what do we do when we can't there's other other ways to do it so advice to to that's the number one mitvah there's two two of the most you know there's a list of mitv and even though AEM doesn't necessarily tell us uh listen this one is better than this one this one is better than that one and the reason why they don't say it is because if you knew that if everyone knew that let's say uh I don't know uh praying in the morning is more important than all the other prayers during the day then no one would show up to so you didn't give us a list but there's two very very critical that are in essence it's agreed amongst everybody that they're the most important no no as far as mitv in general things to do with your life one is to help people do chuva and the second thing is is to support people that are studying tah if you can't study tah yourself so if we have the ability to study T but it's not as much as we want it's not 24 hours a day it's not 10 hours a day the number one thing you can do better than writing a seph t that a lot of people like when they're successful they like to you know contribute to a SE or give money to AET or give money to uh I don't know putting a new plaque in the besset or a dinner or any of those things better than all of those things a thousand is supporting someone who dedicated their life to learning tah because that's in essence giving the entire world a reason to exist unfortunately most people don't know this so they spent a lot of time giving to things that matter but nowhere near as much so they end up giving things giving hard-earned money to its things that they're not getting that much credit for so how do you know you really give to Yesa give to know who you want the to specific tell us they are coming and then you hear that there is all kind of scams they take half of the money or something you cannot give to somebody you don't know you don't you cannot give to somebody you don't know you need to know I'm not saying you know them like they're coming over to dinner every night but you need to know who you're giving it to you can't just give blindly like people give to the Red Cross or to some uh commercial they saw on TV that helps pets or helps people with cleff lip you don't give to things like that yeah there's plenty of other people in the world that going to give to it don't worry they're not going to go broke the CEOs of those organizations are still making millions without us even for people that have a nice beard and a hat and all of that good stuff you can't just give them just be the beard and the hat it's good to give but you need to have a reason to give and the reason needs to be where you know that you're giving for the right reason so you need to do a little bit of Investigation so listen if you're giving a $100 $200 $ $300 where it's relatively small money I'm not saying it's not disrespecting money but it's like not it's not worth the time to do too much investigations about a few hundred yeah if somebody if you have the opportunity and you have somebody that looks righteous and says a couple that make sense then yeah of course give but if you're going to give you know a few thousand doll like you know something that you consider that's going to hurt the pocket a little bit which few thousand few million whatever it is that everybody at their own level then just like anything else you're going to do in life investigate if you're going to buy a car and you're going to spend 501 $200,000 on a car you're not just going to buy any car that shows up on Yahoo finance and says oh this is a nice car you're going to do investigation how much gallon you know how many miles per gallon how fast from 0 to 60 because just in case I go into a race you know something you know I need to know you know you investigate right I need to know what's going on with this thing you investigate same thing with these people people know if if they're really a well-respected Yeshiva and well-respected uh Rabbi other people that are well respected well no and there's a few people that you could rely on that you know that are not money driven and you could give it to them but again if you're going to give small money there get to the right place if it's bigger money and you want to give it to the right cause you want to give it to the people are learning to then there are places that you can invest you can look into do a little bit of research and you can find out if you don't know a place and you want I've already done my own research I have a place that I give to I'm sure you ask your cousin to he know I spent a uh a lot of time finding out is uh and um and it's a uh listen it takes a little time if you want a place I have one if you have your own places just do your investigation but the point is is that it just requires a little common sense a little time you know if you're going to give give with your heart right so if you're going to use your heart then use your brain too also don't just don't let it just be because we just learned from the this week rben got punished for only using his heart use your brain too so that's good thing um so is a really really you know good lesson that we have because the value of Torah is really the the core Foundation of this uh of this world and to support it is critical and also one thing I'll tell you guys I don't know if you guys follow Israeli politics at all but obviously if anyone that does knows that the mistreatment of religious people in Israel is just getting worse and worse on a regular basis they treat them worse than terrorists get better treatment than religious people in Israel for the last I think it's over 33 years 35 years something like that religious people that spent their life learning they don't work like the regular people some of them work and study some of them just study plenty of them plenty of them work a lot more of them work that's it people don't know does many of them work a lot more I wish a lot more studied the vast majority of themm time no so hard time would be an understatement so for over 30 years one of the things like you have in this country for example there is welfare people that are poor get welfare okay so if you if you don't work then obviously you're not rich unless you're married rich or something like that so for over 30 years they would get a uh a th000 uh a th000 shekels I think it was a th000 shekels a month which is nothing it's a few hundred $300 which for them somebody doesn't have any money it helps so since a few new rash joined the Israeli government they've been putting pressure and pressure and pressure and pressure cutting down the uh cutting down would be great as of dece as of January 1st zero they get nothing nothing right so they get zero starting starting January 1st they really think zero they're going to get zero as the last check they just got a couple days just second for what they get the thousand it's like welfare it's like help from the government no for help for help with for help with what oh yeah because they because they're not working and they don't they don't make a certain amount St because they're studying Torah so anyone's like in Yeshiva yes anyone that's iniva so now people that go into Yeshiva are actually getting penalized not only are they not getting the money from the government but certain things that they used to get discounts on are going back to regular or even higher prices than normal certain uh benefits they used to have of being removed have already been removed and continuing to be removed um and they're actually even contemplating giving them a penalty like actually charging them a fine for not working but this is mostly of studying right what do you mean people that studying can yeah it's a lot of people though it's uh well I think of Jewish people study every day I mean at least we have a bunch of people no our consci there's a verse in Tora there's a verse in t we read during our our um during our prayers actually is where there will be Tora y meaning day and night so one of the interpretations of this of this uh literal interpretations of this of this verse uh is tell us will be or else the natur state of the world would not continue so one of the simple interpretations of this verse is that if there's one second in this world where someone is not learning tah it would cease to exist instantly so you ask yourself okay even if let's say everyone pressed on the atomic bomb right now but they all press the red button Obama did his job new did his job uh everyone you know the guys from North South North Korea did their job Israel did their job everybody did their job everybody was pressing the like in the movies they all press the red button it still would take more than one second so how do how does how could it be that's where science comes in if you guys remember I think I said it in one of the other uh uh talks we had but I don't think uh Shima was here so everything in creation is made of atoms energy okay now atom has two parts in essence you have the nucleus and then you have the electron that goes around it now the size of the nucleus is much much smaller than the electron that's around it like drastically small like millions of times smaller than that so in reality the space between them is huge it's actually most of the atom is actually empty space 99% of the at solar system similar so now they say that the distance because there's such a significant size difference between the two the distance between the two points is the equivalent between us and the Sun so in reality since 99% of it is empty space how is this solid how do we see it as solid because this really is nothing nothing most of this is made of empty space most of the table most of you most of everything is empty space right so the way it is is that the electron keeps spinning around it over and over again in such a fast way that it looks like it's solid but in reality it's not so just like for example if you have if you have a uh it's an illusion in essence almost like it's if you have like a fan one of those fans if it goes fast it looks like there's one blade if you slow it down it looks like there's a couple of blades if you slow it down the zero then you see there's four blades let's say so how come it only looked like one blade in the beginning when it was really going fast because when it's really going fast you see that as if it's one piece same thing with the atom the electron around it is going so fast that it looks like everything is solid in reality it's nothing and science has pretty much looked at this Torah also looked into this thing and pretty much since the overwhelming majority of everything in creation everything in the universe is actually empty space more than 99% of all things in the universe is just atoms which is empty space if the electron stop spinning for just one second then all we would have left is what really is the matter what's what's matter what's what's left of it and it would look like everything just disappeared because it's the actual contents of the atam are so minimal that it would look like everything just would just disappear so they say that if the atom stops spinning in the entire universe the actual matter will of the entire universe would fit into a box of matches so that's also the answer to our verse how would the verse cease to stop existing you ask you answer that question with another question which is what keeps this electron spinning it's not connected to Electric socket it's not connected to the sun it's not connected to anything Hashem keeps it spinning if there's no tah for one second it stops spinning and if it stops spinning we all disappear there's no death there's no flood there's no uh bombs doesn't mean but how do you connect stopping Torah and the stop of spinning that's the question if we have Tah then that gives hem a reason to continue this planet because we have Torah so if we don't have Torah if we stop learning tah then there's no reason for this world to exist so it's something like Noah something like Noah but even faster you don't do it exactly what you're supposed to do right you get the consequences right so the consequences with Noah is that he still Hashem even though it was a heavy punishment he still gave this world another chance the same thing happened 340 years later with the Tower of Babel uh where the people of Babel were very Wicked and they try to go against theem as if they can and they build this long big tower this giant Tower uh in their fight against God and Hashem destroyed them and actually that's when he created the 70 languages um and the same thing happened uh you know other times but not to the same extent the point is that it's a uh Hashem continued giving us another chance why because because there was always someone learning tah Noah was still connected to hm there was still Torah which was uh his grandfather was a sadik was connected to hasem learning Torah uh there was always a reason to continue this world but when you eliminate people's ability to learn toah because you're making their life difficult you're risking everything without even realizing it the problem is that the people that make the laws don't believe the tah they don't believe it's real they think it's just a book and that's the problem that we have so if we have the ability to support somebody that's learning tah times like this are the times where hasem is really making us as this Messengers because we all make money we all need to pay our bills we all have a responsibilities some of us have extra some of us don't if we have the opportunity to give we should give if we don't have the opportunity to give then we should at least have the intention that whenever you know to try to give at some point or another again it's a uh to give someone that's learning Torah should really be saying to receive because in reality he's helping you a lot more than you're helping him and that's the right way to look at it because yeah you gave him money but Hashem doesn't really need your money you can give him you know can give him money in plenty of other ways the fact that you gave him that means that hasem used you as a vessel to give him money so you're going to get theot but in reality where's theot coming from from him because he's learning to so you're benefiting a lot more than he is cu he has other choices whereas you may not so at times that we can't do we should try to help others do um let me see I'll finish up with this I know you guys are tired um with a good story I think I heard either from my cousin or from Rabbi mizi but either way it's a great story MH um give you perspective of what's the outcome of what we do with our kids so one time there was a rabbi and a son boarding a plane and right next to them next R over there was a scientist and his son boarding a plane and they sitting right next to each other and uh scientist is looking at the rabis you know nodding one of these you know disapproval nods like Fanatics opens his book his son opens the book okay doesn't care what's who's next to him or not he's just in to so uh then he sees that uh the um the scientist son says ABA I'm uh I'm tired you know can you uh can you tell the stst to give me a blanket can you what tell the stst to give me a blanket sure sure son sure sure sure Ste this thing get a blanket oh yeah sure sir okay that's a blanket have um you know a few moments later AB I'm thirsty can can you give me something okay yeah yeah sure son get some to drink a little while later ABA I'm hungry oh okay get your food whatever you want so the whole time the whole flight he's serving his kid he's helping you know his kid is asking for Stuff father's giv him and throughout this whole time the scientist is looking at the rabbi they see something different a few moments later a few moments after they start he sees the son asking ABA ABA do you are you okay do you want me to get you something to cover you maybe you're cold he goes no no I'm okay a few moments later he says how are you hungry maybe I should get you something to eat ask the stst no no no I'm okay little while later you want something to drink okay yeah get me a drink he sees the kid goes gets him a drink the exact opposite yeah so after a while me got on the plane for 5 hours already and scientist this is like I have to ask you a question I've been staring at you the whole time and I don't understand how you guys do it I mean I went to Harvard I learn in the best schools I make a lot of money every year I do this I do that but throughout this whole time I'm serving my kid you what did you learn you went to the shisha so you learned one book your whole life you learned this couple of books he doesn't know what to is he thinks it's just the five books of Moses he doesn't know that it's endless he's like what did you learn one book your whole life what a big deal I read a book a week he says how how is it that your son how did you do that to your son how did you hypnotize him to serve you the whole time he thinks he's hypnotizing so the rabbi is he has to talk to him in his language you know the guy's insulting him a little bit but at the same time he's jealous so he answers him in this way because you see in my world Hashem created everything and we value our ancestors because we know that our forefathers are Abraham Jacob Abraham Isaac and Jacob and we had the 12 tribes we had uh we had Moses and it goes all the way towards us so every time every generation values the previous generation because we they are closer to the ancestors so my son values me because he knows that I'm closer to the ancestors and I know more so I can help him I could teach him things so he treats me with respect because you in your world it's the opposite every creation is supposed to be better than the older one because you guys believe in Innovation and evolution so which means that you are less than your son and his sons are going to be better than him because you guys believe that you're constantly involved and the reason is is because you think that it all came from a monkey so he's treating you worse because he thinks you're a monkey and that's the truth if you give somebody the foundation of tah if you give him the foundation of what everything is more important where to treat the parent as the valuable not the son is the boss then you're giving your son a gift of a lifetime but if you only focus on giving them material items and things of that nature then not only are you mistreating the kid but on top of it you're causing him to live a life of misery that's going to be beyond their control that could potentially ruin not only their life but also their kids because this is an ongoing thing so the most important gift we could give ourself is toah 15 minutes a day or more most important gift gift we give to us to uh to our kids is the same exact thing we could do it together and taught us a little bit about all of this stuff and thank you guys you have any questions or let you guys go to sleep a little bit it was very interesting we have the and I have to say it's good to have shim yeah yes we have we have a great new addition now we have thank and let let thisable