PINCHAS: How To Do The Impossible? | STUMP THE RABBI (238)

back here on a Wednesday night stump the rabbi where afterm you guys will ask some questions will give us the answers tonight show is going to be for the foritana satana David Benria and all of AmI and all the righteous nohives that continue to watch and enjoy the lectures with us and learn with us and support the organization whether it's with their talents with their money or all types of ways that you could support the organization. So tonight, I want to get right into it because uh there's a lot to say, there's a lot to learn. And uh really this is a uh lecture that's going to um either impact you to change certain things or it'll do nothing for you. Uh I don't think it'll be anything in the middle ground. Either you'll stay exactly the same like as if nothing happened and or you'll actually make some changes. It's not going to be gruesome. It's not going to be scary. It's just simply going to tell you some stories, tell you some things that are going to put things in perspective. Pinas begins by highlighting the heroic and impossible act that Pinas bin Elazar bin did. Now, there are many people that consider things impossible until they see somebody else do it. How can we learn from this and use it for life of Torah and learn how to do the impossible? To begin, we know that at the end of last week's Balak Bam gave a idea to Balak after his plan of cursing Am did not work. He told him, "Listen, if you want to get is to get punished by God, then what you need to do is just simply cause them to commit immorality." And that's why Balak sent the daughters of his nation and Midian to go and make sins. And there were certain Jews that fell and made sins. They enticed them by making it as if it's a market. You could just come to the market. They put an old lady at the front to make it seem like it's a neutral, as if it's okay. But as soon as the Jews got there, as soon as Amlad got there, he told, "Listen, there's better prices inside." And inside there was a uh beautiful woman that would entice them to sin. And then as soon as they would want to sin, she would tell them, "Well, first you have to worship my idol." So it just got from bad to worse. And at some point the act of Zim took place where Zimri wanted to embarrass Moshe Rabenu and therefore he took one of the Goyote Cosby and said, "I'm going to be with her even without marriage as if this is something that's allowed." And Pilas hears this. He sees the leaders of Amos Rabenu included crying crying at what's happening crying ate Zim is about to do Zim is doing and Pinas says to Moshe Rabenu weren't you the one that taught us that if you see a Jew in the middle of an act of immorality with a non-Jew someone that's a canai, someone that's zealous for Hashem, truly zealous for Hashem can kill him. And says, "Yes, you're right. You fulfill you uh remember the you do it." Now this sounds simple but in reality when you read what the sages teach about the the details which is that Zimri was the leader of the Shimon tribe he was a king he wasn't just some average person he was surrounded by guards armed guards and they were willing to kill for him had to follow him hide the spear that he's going to kill him with. Pretend like he's befriending the Shimon tribe and he wants to sin just like them until he gets the opportunity to kill Zimli if he sees him in the act. Now at the end of the para there's a peculiar line that talk about where it says in chapter 30 verse number one it's the last verse of the para Moshe said to the children of Israel according to everything that Hashem had commanded Moshe Okay. Nowad says why didn't it use different language here where it says that Moshe said to everything that Hashem commanded him. Why does it say like as if Moshe is speaking about in third person? And all says that's to answer and address all of those heretics that would think for a moment that maybe the oral Torah is not something that we got on Mount Si that perhaps Mosheu invented something or the rabbis invented something. Here Moshe is telling us everything that Hashem told me, I told you. I didn't add anything else to it. And from there we learn also that when you hear something from your rabbi and you want to tell somebody else, not only do you have to mention the source of you know they heard it from your rabbi as the says that someone that mentions the source of where they got what they got brings the salvation closer just like brought the salvation after she told that uh she heard from that there's a plan to assassinate and because she said it in the name of Modai he was written in the book and later on that's how the salvation came but in addition to that we also learn that you not only have to mention the source you have to say it like he said it meaning don't add your own idea your improvisation your kush to it because it may lead others to think that maybe that's what your rabbi also said. How do you even know your idea is right? It could be problematic. And the point being is that here the Torah is telling us that killed Zim and Cosby. But the people initially did not like this. Who are you to rebuke? Who are you to protest? Who are you to take such a act? And akadosh wanted to make sure that everyone knows that not only was this act right but this act brought mercy to the world as it actually saved all of Isel from being destroyed. As the sages tell us, says clearly to Rabenu that the zealousness of Pinas lowered the zealousness of Hashem, if you will, where he was about to destroy Israel. So I did not consume the children of Israel with my in my vengeance. And therefore he gives him shalom which is having the on him at all times. He'll he never dies. He becomes coin gd lots and lots of blessings. But we see here one of the sources where the sages teach that someone that is rebukes and protests in the name of Hashem for the sake of the Torah not for their own you know personal benefits may be viewed by people as something unfavorable. But in the eyes of Hashem, not only is it favorable, not only is it blessed, but it actually brings mercy to the world. The question is, how can someone do such an impossible thing today? Now of course we don't have the permission to do what Pinas did literally but what Pinas did in so many words is no different theoretically speaking than any other impossible act. I know in the business world it's very common where people say that there's certain things that are impossible. In technology people say things are impossible. In uh you know in medicine people certain you know at some point say things are impossible until somebody does it. Some of Israel did things that are impossible. But most people never even heard that they did it. In fact, there are even some great that we've had in past years that were not even recognized as the of Isco the things they did in a newsletter called Mashia that has been going on already for almost 30 years tells a story of the stipon of Yakov Kvski where in his later years the stipler who suffered enormous pain in his legs where he would have to walk with a cane on one hand and he would lean on something on the other side. And every week they would have to remove water an extraordinary amount of water from his from his legs from all the swelling. One Shabbat the stipler on is leaving the shul slowly and one of his sides is his cane and the other side there's a tree and as the Rav is trying to walk he loses his balance and The natural thing that someone would do instinctively when they're about to fall is grab the tree, lean on the tree. But the stipen doesn't do that. Instead, the stiple instinctively hugs himself and allows himself to fall, hurting himself terribly. Why? Why don't you just move your hand just a little bit and catch yourself before you fall? Why hug yourself? That's because you're not allowed to lean on a tree, climb a tree on Shabbat, lest you break a branch. But the stipler held that you're not even allowed to lean on it to such an extent that he trained his instincts to protect himself from such a situation allowing himself to fall. Now the average person doesn't need to fall could catch themselves but the stipen held himself to a much higher standard instinctively. This is not something where you have five minutes to think about. Maybe I should fall, maybe not. We're talking about instant. Someone falls instantly, they grab whatever they can. But he trained his instincts in such a fashion that he instinctively protected himself from crossing a boundary. In the laws of Torah, the stapler was known as someone that's kadosh where he simply could not could not tolerate being in the same room as a Shabbat without you telling him. One guy posing as a religious guy came into the bet midrash. As soon as he came to the bet midrash without disciple going seeing him seeing his face knowing who he is immediately the stip says Shabas outside Shabas clearly clearly something that is beyond the norm. when people would send him letters or come for a blessing usually they would write down what they wanted but there were certain rules if the letter was written by a woman he wouldn't read it even though according to you're allowed but again he took upon himself something above and beyond there was one time where a guy came for a blessing on. And he brought the little note to the stipler. And the stipler looks at the note. He says, "When was this letter written?" Because you're not allowed to just write anything on. Even though it's not Yum, there's still rules. can't just write and do nothing do whatever you want in as if it's a regular regular day. So the stipler says when was this letter written and the guy obviously is you know he wrote it in he didn't know what to answer. So says maybe it's nef in this letter life risk, maybe it's some type of sakana. And the guy says, "No." Immediately the stipler rebukes goes, "What? You think that you can do whatever you want to do with the as if the laws don't exist?" He still blessed the guy, but he could not tolerate people treating the Torah as if it's just something you could do whatever you want with. Another one of the lesserk known certainly the stifler was very well known but someone that was less known was ysef shalom pinasi who was the of the city of kiry. He also trained his instinct in a certain fashion. He would do everything possible to go from place to place to give lectures to give kizuk. So much so that he needed two drivers because the drivers would get tired every day. They would have to switch. They couldn't understand how the rabbi is giving so many lectures one after another. So much so that there were multiple times that the Rav would pass out in the middle of a lecture from tiredness. After passing out, they give him some water. He drink a little bit of water and go back to giving the lecture again. One time he came to a place and there was some wicked person in the crowd saying, "Listen, no more than seven minutes you're allowed to speak here. 7 minutes not a minute more started speaking. The second that he broke the seven minute mark this took his shoe from his foot and threw it at the head of the Rav causing him to fall and bleed from his head. But this did not stop him from going again and giving more lectures and more shuim and moreizuk because he changed his nature in such a way that to help people do chuva to help people get closer to Hashem was no longer a good idea, a mitzvah. It was simply an absolute must. No different than breathing. Now at the end of the says that the people that don't learn to as their as they age they start losing their mind and their instincts. start taking control in a very very horrific way. Where if they were someone that would occasionally use profanity now all of a sudden they would use it all the time. If they were not uh careful in their speech, they would embarrass people in public. They would act like animals completely care less about completely care less about privacy. They would share things about themselves that are too much to share. And of course, anyone that's been around older people knows this to be true. You see that as the uh people age, they start becoming very difficult to deal with to say the least. It's why they many times need someone to care for them. They just stop caring and stop literally behaving like they did in the throughout the rest of their life that no longer care about their hygiene or their privacy or other people's privacy. or manners for that matter. That's the but the although their body gives like any other human many times their instincts sharpen. Meaning their wisdom is sharper, their modesty is better. Their uh character traits are softer and better and improved. They've improved over time. Why? Because these Torah scholars, these have exerted all of their efforts to sanctify themselves to the point where they changed their instincts and therefore their instincts have become different than what they were. As the Abanel says, that a habit becomes nature. If a person makes a habit of looking at things that are not modest, eventually he's not going to be able to control himself. He'll even look at something not modest right next to his wife, right next to his rabbi, right next to the most inappropriate place. If he makes it a habit to say certain things, eat certain things, he'll eventually do it in the wrong places without caring because it's become his nature. So one of the things we learn from the and how they have a better outcome at the end of this life in this world is that a person can actually change their instincts by sanctifying their habits. starting off with protecting their eyes and making it a rule not to look at everything not to look at things that are immodest. Initially, it's hard. You're young, you want to see, you want, you're curious. But if you train yourself initially to protect your eyes and not look at things that are not modest, eventually it'll become your nature. That habit that you took upon yourself becomes your nature where the second you see something that's immodest in your peripheral vision. Immediately you turn away. Even if it's right in front of you on the screen, you turn away. You can look straight at something and not see what that is because of how you've trained yourself. The same thing with eating. A person can train themselves to not eat everything as soon as they see it like an animal. Check. Is it meat? Is it dairy? Is it kosher? What kind of kashoot? No different than how people that want to go on diets and you know health uh uh types of uh regiment they train themselves to control their instincts their natural instincts that wants to eat everything and anything. If a person does that over time he'll have a much easier time controlling it. He won't even have the desire for all the stuff that's not good for him. Another good thing that a person can do is take upon themselves to never leave the house without bringing a with them. Have a seaf always with you. So as soon as there's a moment, whether you're waiting on the bus stop or you're at the doctor's office or wherever it is, instead of waiting and playing with your phone and seeing the news, immediately you open a seaf you have a seaf that you open. Also, this makes it easier if you have to meet someone from the opposite uh gender and you're obviously don't shake their hand, but you can make it more comfortable since you have something in your hand. People usually wouldn't uh reach out to shake your hand if you have something in your hand. Another thing that a person can start training themselves is Don't get angry fast. Not getting angry at all is pretty much asking for the impossible because there are certain people that are very difficult to deal with and they make you angry. What you can do though is control the speed of how quickly you get angry. Give things time before you react. Think about it. Hold your breath for a little bit. Drink some water and leave the m the water in your mouth so it stops you from speaking. Go walk away. Take upon something else that'll occupy your mind before reacting, before talking about it. Let the things simmer a little bit in your mind before you react to them. Because if you're able to control the outbursts, you're already on the path of being able to control your overall anger. But ultimately, while all of these things are very good things to take on, Pinas did not have a problem with his eyes or carrying a book, studying Torah or eating or being angry fast. Pinas did something that sanctified name. Pinas who until this point to my knowledge never killed anybody killed two people in the most gruesome horrific possible way but brave way at the same time saved all of Israel. How did he do it? Because Pin has trained himself his whole life in the ways of Hashem to sanctify his name in every opportunity. One of the benefits that has blessed us with is being able to learn from our rav and the way that he acts and does things. And I remember anytime I go to Israel, seeing how he is with certain people, how he talks with, with regular people, with secular, with with religious, and you get this, the stories add up over the years. And one of the things that is always interesting is if we're in a taxi together and the driver is not religious. Immediately fry is on the job. How can I get this guy to do cha? How can I get this guy to keep me? How can I get this guy to keep Shabbat? And time and time again he tries. Sometimes it works perfectly. Sometimes it doesn't work because the people are against. But the point is that this has been something he's always done his whole life, even as a kid. And uh just in the last uh 24 hours, he uh they're trying to arrange for a uh drive. There's a trip uh that uh we're trying to arrange over there uh for a group of people. and we need a large vehicle to take go from uh uh from between two cities and the whole thing is expensive and we're shopping it around. So he sends a message to one of these companies and uh he asks this is this is the dialogue and he sends a message uh can we find out details about uh a uh uh the uh going from Jerusalem from toa If there's availability, price, and but with one condition, so long as you do not violate Shabbat. Response. Yes, we work during Shabbat and holidays. Prime response, God forbid, we're not going to be able to uh use you. It's you're not allowed to violate Shabbat. Response: Yeah, but you're talking about going on a Monday. We're not, you know, we're not driving on Shabbat for this drive that you're asking about. You're right, says Raime. But somebody that uh desecrates my father, why should I give him panas? Response. Yeah, but there's a chance that you'll go with a different car and then get uh cuz it's a long drive. You'll get gas from a gas station that violates Shabbat. Response from a refine. What we can stop from, we do. Meaning whatever we don't have to use, whatever whatever we can, whatever we can do, we do. and Batashem will be able to change the world. Too bad that you're losing such a big blessing just for the sake of money. Everything is from God, which I'm sure you believe in. Too bad that you're losing this blessing aside from the fact that you're going to get a big punishment in the future. So already this transaction has turned to a Musar conversation and the guy responds what punishment is there something worse than the life we have right now's response those that desecrate Shabbat death penalty In the book of Exodus 31:14, are you familiar with this verse, you received, and he continues, God gave you eyes, legs, a heart, and everything functions through him. Yet you are fighting him. That's really too bad response. Okay, have a good night. Thank you very much regardless maybe as well that you'll do chuva and the guy said, you know, gives one of those emojis where the two hands are together. continues. He sends him a shure that he's done scary about someone that violated Shabbat. The guy responds, "If I do chuva today, would you actually take let me drive you uh next week?" Meaning, it's a big job. He wants the job. He's willing to do says fine response. If you really take upon yourself to keep Shabbat from now on, we'd be happy to use you. Response: Okay, fine. I'll think about it. Thank you. Great, says, "Listen to the sh and understand the blessing that you're missing out on." So now, this is not the first time. This is certainly not the last time. But what do you see here? The average person that sees their fellow Jew violating Shabbat, living a life of secularism, even if you yourself are religious, the average person doesn't care enough to the point where they're willing to make themselves uncomfortable by having these uncomfortable conversations, by having these types of rebukes out of love, but are not necessarily always lovely. The average person says, "Listen, yeah, let him live his life, but uh why do I have to? I don't know him." And you're right. Generally speaking, the people that you should try to help as far as giving a rebuke are people that you know, they have a connection to, they're more likely to be receptive. You could still help strangers by giving them the USBs. Go to the uh Kir store, get one of these uh books or get one of uh these books more likely or some of the other things we have in there and uh distributed in your community. People will learn more Torah. People will understand more and more of what commanded. So you could help the people that are close to you directly by talking to them, by sharing lectures. You could help people that are strangers by giving them books and so on. And you could also obviously donate to support. But those that have become what we know of as were not only because of the amount of Torah that they learned, the amount of knowledge they possessed, the amount of holiness they've acquired, but rather because of how they changed their nature. Because they weren't b born that way. They changed their nature to such an extent that they remove that selfishness, that carelessness and replaced it with an instinct that simply does not allow them to sit quiet while their fellow Jews, while their brothers and sisters are going in the wrong path. They could not stay quiet while Hashem's name is being desecrated. They cannot stay quiet while the Torah is being disgraced. Now, we may not be and doesn't expect us to be. There was one pin and that's going to be but to change our instincts when it's for the sake of improving financials sounds good. To change our instincts for the sake of improving marriage relationships sounds good. To change our instincts for the sake of health sounds good. Eat less. Eat different food. Talk less. Talk do this. Do that. All of those things sound good. But when you hear about changing your instincts, when it comes to caring about your fellow Jew, when it comes to caring about the ultimate destiny or destination, I should say, of your fellow Jew and where they're going, changing your instincts because you care about Hashem. And therefore, you're not going to allow yourself to stay quiet while a whose name is being desecrated. You're not going to allow yourself to stay quiet while you see your fellow Jew in your community driving to shul. You're not going to stay quiet while you see your brothers and sisters, even if you don't know them. continue to simply be in delusion, in a deluded life, deluded ideology, thinking that God needs them and that they're not going to get punished no matter what and all types of other foolish things that unfortunately the Satan has convinced people to believe. You're not going to be able to stay quiet. And not everybody's a good speaker. Not everybody's a good communicator. But the good news is that did give us other tools today where each person can be a how taking time out of every single day and doing kiru during that time whether it's taking our lectures and sharing it with all of your friends family and contacts or it's taking some of the books and every day going and distributing at different houses, different people, different shooles, different yeshiv at different Jewish markets or the USBs or arranging lectures or using your talents and abilities to to help spread the message or a bunch of other things. We literally have a whole kiru guide full of ideas and there are plenty more that can that can be created. Why? Not because you are pinas, but rather because you are you and you're trying to be a better version of you. Not for the sake of profiting money, not for the sake of improving your diet, not for the sake of any personal interest, but rather for the sake of the benefit of your fellow Jew and your connection with your father in heaven. And instead of being the average person who doesn't care or a little bit better than average person that cares only once in a while, some people listening to this will choose to be a pinas for a small part of every single day. maybe five minutes, half hour, an hour, maybe more. But they'll choose to be pinas for a little bit every day. A little bit of every day they're going to distribute some ku material. A little bit every day they're going to arrange another event. A little bit every day they're going to do something to help their fellow Jews get closer to Hashem, both in a religious community and in a non-religious community. And not just with people that they know that it's their family, that it's their brother, it's their sister, it's their mother, but also with people they don't know. Some people are going to listen to this and choose to be pinas. And there's never been a time better than today to be that because you don't have to kill anybody. In fact, you're bringing them back their life. So with that, I think every person needs to do an accounting. Look what Pinas got. He got endless blessings. He never died. He became a people cried just to have good health, just to find a shid, just to have some money to finish the month. Never died. The was with him at all times. Is saved because of him. Even if the blessing you end up getting is 1% of all of that, it's a complete transformation of everything else that you have. And of course always in his ultimate always tries to cheer us on and push us to further and further limits whether it's with more books that we're able to distribute more people are able to help more people that have done chuva more people that are donating more more good things coming out hashem he gave us some more good news a press release that we just sent out today that you may have gotten in your email if you signed up or the WhatsApp groups that the Batashim organization achieved the Guidear platinum seal of transparency which is something extraordinary cuz Guidear also called Candid is a organization that tracks just about two million nonprofit organizations in the United States and it gives them ratings. no rating or co uh bronze, silver, gold and then there's platinum and generally the platinum is the huge organizations that have thousands and thousands of employees and millions and tens of millions and hundreds of millions of dollars. So out of the 2 million organizations only 24,325 nonprofit organizations have this platinum which is the highest rating and made it so that our organization that started off with no rating years ago and then the bronze and then the silver and then last year we achieved the uh or two years ago we achieved the gold which was a big thing just in the last several days we got the news became a platinum seal of transparency by Guidear literally part of the 1% of all organizations which not only shows the significance of the organization itself and how it's well regarded in the industry but also how a kadosh chooses to bless those that spread his word without sugar coating in such a way that may seem like it's hurting you. It may seem like it's dangerous to kill Zimri. He's the leader of the Shimon tribe. You could somebody will kill you back. He could fight back. who says, "You fight in my honor, I'm your protector. And not only that, you're going to bring mercy to the world." And that's why gives special blessings. So while it may not seem like a big deal to people that are not familiar with this, I can assure you out of two million organizations, only 24,000 organizations have it and be just became one of them. It's a very big deal. Look it up. And you'll see and understand in this to us doesn't change what we're going to do tomorrow. To us it's just showing us that again gives us a pat on the back and tell us keep going, keep going, keep pushing because it's needed out there. And that's a blessing that every single person can also acquire. It's not easy. It does come at a price, but in the end, the blessings outweigh any price that you ever paid. You know, it took a lot of time and effort to study for this lecture, and I really hope that you're enjoying it and really growing with every word because I did. If you liked it, if you're enjoying the constant challenge from the Torah, then please like, subscribe, and make sure to share with the people that you care about because you could end up changing their eternity. Thanks again for learning with me. And now back to the lecture. With that being said, you guys can start asking some questions and will give us some answers. Let's see. There a lot of hellos and blessings which I appreciate. But if anybody has questions you could you could send them you brought me back to Judaism. Send me a message on my WhatsApp. Let me know what your name is so I could not only store you on my uh phone if you have any questions but also add you to our groups. All the people that have done shuva to our shim are very very precious to us. If it's a mason student, it hasn't learned. Okay. I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm sorry. Don't take that question. There's some strange conspiracy theory uh people that are just spamming the messages. So by the time I actually read a normal message I have to go through a hundred of them. Which is better to contact your website to donate or through the channel? Uh the best ways to donate through the uh website basm.org. But some people that are overseas uh like for example Brazil uh many times the students that we have in Brazil have a hard time donating on the website uh and even using a credit card. So what they do is uh uh they send us money through Weiss uh W and I could anyone that wants to do that could do it could send me a message and I'll send them the address for Weiss. uh or they uh send us uh cryptocurrency sometimes um sometimes wire transfers but most of the time it's the uh the other two is cheaper than wire transfer. What's a good way to confront people without getting into into much trouble when they're randomly making fun of random people? Uh well, I mean that depends. That depends what uh what are they who are they making fun of? Who are they? Sometimes the best thing to do is to change the topic by uh telling people you guys ever hear the story of such and such. I always tell people that they should learn uh the stories of always have one that uh you're ready to tell. So as soon as there's a situation like this where it's uncomfortable situation, you could just change the conversation completely by saying, "Hey, do you ever hear the story about uh the baltov with the uh with the horse?" Oh, no. Okay. And start telling it even though it has nothing to do with what they were just saying. he was just busy making fun of somebody because of their weight, because of their financial situation, because of whatever. Tell them the story. Change the subject. It's usually the easiest and best thing to do. You're talking to plus you're stopping the uh the fire. Can no do kiru? Uh yes, absolutely. We have many noahides that help us. Some of them donate money. Some of them distribute our books and USBs and Jewish communities. Some of them have specific skills like graphics uh like graphics or or uh uh different things with technology and uh they they volunteer for organization that way. Uh some of them uh simply you know get the you know a certain amount of time every day where they take our lectures and they distribute them all over uh you know Twitter or Facebook or other social media and uh and and get other people to to see it. Uh so yes, of course, whether it's a Jew or or non-Jew, if you're a lover of Hashem and you want to uh publicize this Torah, you could certainly volunteer at our organization and help us uh do ku and help us uh get uh get the truth out there to more and more people. Absolutely. We need as many people as possible. I've come to the live to ask you a question. So ask Does reincarnation happen before judgment? Uh well, reincarnation happens as part of judgment. Meaning that there is different levels of judgment. The first judgment that a person has to deal with when they die is called which is the beatings of the grave. After the beatings of the grave, then they're judged based on their actions. um which is uh they could be judged to uh go to a horrible place like gayome cafeta uh or they can be judged to go to be reincarnated and have to do the whole thing all over again for to fix something or it can be a combination thereof or unless they're righteous they can go to heaven of course uh but uh yeah reincarnation is part of it's part of the judgment How can I buy the album with the uh movies? Do you send it to Europe? Uh if you're talking about the USBs, uh I believe you can buy some of them still on the website, but if you're talking about the new thing, this uh new device that we have, uh this is going to be available soon. It's not available yet, uh but it will be available soon. and when it becomes available uh we will make it available for people to get it uh wherever they are. The only thing is that I could already tell you ahead of time shipping is expensive when we ship to uh uh to the US it's you know if it's uh it's it's relatively affordable. Uh but when it we ship to different countries it's very expensive. So a person already has to be prepared for it. But if you're willing to pay for it, by all means, we'll be happy to send it to uh wherever it is, whether it's the UK or it's uh Brazil or it's Australia. We've sent packages all over the world. We've sent packages to Africa. We've sent packages to uh uh Australia. We've sent uh packages to uh Canada countless times. So, we don't we don't we're not against it. We're happy to do it. It's just that it's expensive. if you will to pay for it. By all means, uh, the beings of the grave is a scary concept. It's not just a concept. It's a reality. I actually have a whole film about it called Keville. C H I B U T. And the next word is H A K E V E R. It's a very, very scary movie. It even has real footage uh that will probably scare you more than the rest of the film. Uh but nonetheless, it's a it's a reality and um a person could learn it, understand it, can do chuva, so they don't have to suffer as much. Uh but uh it's it's a reality. It's part of our Torah. Uh and um it's certainly something that uh a person needs to know. Uh it helps it helps with uh doing chuva. What is my opinion on the Talmud? And who wrote it? Well, the uh Talmud, Babylonian Talmud was written by Rava and Raashi. And uh the Jerusalem Talmud was by Raban uh Raban and I'm sorryan. And um they are a critical part of Torah that we cannot live without of simply because Hashem gave us the Torah and the oral Torah. So the foundation of our oral Torah is the Talmud. Now, the average person out there that only learned uh different tidbits from different anti-semites about the Talmud thinks that the Talmud is evil. Talmud is uh you know is is something that uh uh is bad, but that's simply ignorance. Uh the Talmud has all of the wisdoms that are available in this world, which is seven levels of wisdom. And the person that learns it and studies it not only improves their knowledge of Torah but actually improves their intellectual ability, improves their IQ. Uh and it's certainly something that's beyond the comprehension of uh of of people which but it's this is a foundation of a thought. Rabbi, as a non-Jew, can I study the Talmud and the Torah independently? Non-Jews are not allowed to study the uh Talmud according to the Torah because the Talmud is not really relevant to them. It's u it's not something for them to study. They uh it'll be considered as if they're stealing the Torah. uh what a non-Jew uh can study according to some is the hum which is the five books of Moses the writings the prophets you know based on you know the the basic commentary on it like by rashi and ms those are the two things that are relevant to all of mankind Jews and non-Jews uh certainly Jews have obviously much bigger obligation but uh the point is that uh non-Jews if they're going to learn Torah focus on the things that are relev to you which is the written Torah uh and the mus which is character development. Uh once you start delving into the uh the oral Torah parts like the Talmud cabala z you know things like that you're going into a uh forbidden place and nothing good will eventually come out of it. And I've seen with my own eyes people that disregarded my uh uh you know my uh advice to them to stop you know people that were going in the right direction as Noah hides and um and they were learning and they were improving their life and everything but then you know they they weren't able to convert but they wanted to learn more and they decided to start learning things that are forbidden to them. And at some point I uh told him uh you're not allowed to learn this. Uh so you should stop. Didn't listen. And literally within I don't know maybe a month or less than a month after I told him this somebody tried to kill the person in one case. In other cases they really really bad things happened to them health-wise, financial wise. It happened a few times. Uh, and uh, it's unfortunate because people think that it's just the rabbis trying to hide the Torah or where uh, you know, who are you to tell me what I could learn? Do whatever you want. I'm just when I tell you, you know, don't drink poison, that's not because I benefit, it's because I'm warning you. Uh, if I tell you not to uh, drink and drive, it's not because I benefit. It's because I'm warning you. You don't want to listen. By all means, do what you want. But uh the point is that the sages specifically said that uh the uh you know Talmud is not something for non-Jews to study and it's not relevant to them anyway. It's not the vast majority of it's going to but talk about things that uh have nothing to do with your life and you're not going to even understand it. What is your opinion of Messianic Judaism? It's becoming more popular in the US. Messianic Judaism is Christianity in disguise. It's not Judaism at all. It's simply people that believe in a New Testament, which by definition means that they're practicing Christianity. Even the people within the Messianic uh uh community uh would tell you that if they're honest. And many people that uh have left that community and joined Judaism uh say told have told me told me that it's it's 100% Christianity but it's even worse. Uh the it's it's evangelical Christianity but it's it's one that also uses different tactics to to missionize to de by deceiving by uh pretending to be Jews. So, it's a corrupt uh it's not only idol worship, but it's also corrupt in in in the way that they do things. It's completely unethical. Where am I reading these questions from? Uh I have uh several sources. I have Facebook, I have Tik Tok, I have YouTube, I have WhatsApp, I have several different uh places that people send questions. Okay. I'm wondering why the rabbi does not teach about gay. It seems Listen, you have to ask the rabbis why they do what they do. You can't ask me why somebody else does something that they do. Um Thank you, Rabbi. Can you please explain how Pinas and Balak were both Itto's grandsons? Um, yeah. Well, I mean, as far as uh Balak was uh I believe older than Pinas, uh when it explained that when it came back to to Midian tried to convert everyone, uh Balak had the opportunity to uh convert, but he hated Judaism. He hated the Torah and did not want it and he ended up uh rebelling even more. Uh so he was a direct descendant of uh of Vitro. Uh some say he was his son, some say he was grandson, but nonetheless uh through one of the daughters. The other side as far as Pinas Lavdil uh Pinas Ben Elazar Ben Aquain. Now Elazar was a son of Aquain and Elazar married one of Itro's daughters. Uh and therefore uh he's the uh uh therefore Pinas is grandson. What should a convert woman study? Should a single woman cover her hair? A woman that's trying to convert or even a man that's trying to convert should go to our website bzashim.org. go to the ebook section and over there get what's called the conversion guide. It's a uh conversion guide that tells you all the different things that you're going to need to know for conversion books you need to study. It even has uh it's interactive so you could press the pictures and it takes you to different websites that sell the books. These are not my websites are just random, you know, different websites that sell the books that we recommend for people to buy. Uh we don't get a penny out of it. It's not like some type of like marketing system. You can buy from any way you want, but we tried to make it easy for people by providing you the material that you need to study that you need to know for the sake of conversion. As far as a single woman covering her hair, no, she does not need to cover her hair, but she should not walk around with her hair uh spread. She should have her hair in a ponytail uh so it's a little bit more modest. If your family line has Jewish ancestry, but you're uncertain if it goes up to the mother's line, would there be spiritual signs you are a Jew by dream, by physical happenings? We don't rely on spiritual signs. If you don't know if you're Jewish and you want to be Jewish, you would have to go to bed, Orthodox Bedin, and convert. Uh, could the rabbi comment on Exodus 3:14 where God reveals his name? I am. Uh, that I am. When Moshe asked, um, what exactly do you want me to say? I mean as far as uh Hashem is uh he is what he is. It means that number one Hashem's name is not a uh like uh like a person's name that uh that you could just call him Moshe or Aon or or anything like that. That's number one. Number two um is in essence telling Mosheu that he's not going to understand everything that Hashem does. when Mosher Abenu asked him about why do the you know sometimes we see the righteous suffer and the the wicked prosper and Hashem gave him multiple reasons why but the ultimate reason was I'll do whatever I uh want to do meaning that Hashem has divine judge judgment that's beyond the logic of human beings uh number three uh Hashem is uh telling Moshe Abenu that unlike a person that lives at the moment and uh is familiar with certain parts of the past and is a uh perhaps hopeful uh and optimistic about the future. The only knowledge they have are things that they have already done the past uh and uh the present what they're dealing with. But Hashem does not have a past, present or future. To Hashem, it's everything is the same. The past, the present, and the future are all happening at the same exact time. there is no concept of time. So in essence is telling uh Moshe different things of uh uh you know to show us his thoughts are not like our thoughts his ways are not like our ways. Uh is is his his name is not the same as uh the ideas that a person has are separated from him. Uh Hashem is not separated from his ideas. Uh it's everything is one. That's why we say everything is always everything is a unity and there's no nothing to compare him to. There's no like a number two or someone that's even remotely close to God. Uh he is one of one uh and uh there is nothing to compare him to. Whereas everything else will always have a comparison always have something that's similar or even identical to it. These are just some of the things certainly if you look into uh what Rashi wrote over there or what the Abel Benel wrote over there or uh uh the Midasha certainly the the Ramban there's plenty of commentary on that verse in the there's plenty more that you could find uh over there. What's our website? Our website is bzatem.org which is b as in bezat e z r a t h a s h e m.org. If you just go to my uh YouTube profile uh after this show you'll uh over there there's some links and one of them is the website. Thank you Rabbi. You have shown me the truth and I have come back to God. May he continue to take all of us further in our spiritual journey. Amazing. How can one do chuva for unintentional misstatements about Davididik's character or actions such as mistakenly attributed attributing a certain attitude or behavior to him that wasn't accurate. Um well I mean if you share that material with other people that was wrong then go to those people and tell them you were wrong and here's the correct information. That's and secondly uh from now on take upon yourself that you're not going to state anything that you're not you don't have a source for that you're not for sure that you've heard it and you know validated it uh and you're not just guessing based on logic. All right, let's see what Rabbi is fine to do kiru on this app called OM TV. It's live chats to speak with Israelis where many if not all are can't share your links but I can tell people to search uh I mean listen you have to be careful with going into places like that um if you could just post without seeing a lot of things that's ideal um but you have to be careful you have to you have to know yourself what what you can handle what you can't handle can someone move during during the nine days. If uh uh a person is uh can move during the 3 weeks, during the nine days, it's not ideal to move. Uh this year, it's a little bit easier because the uh tishab falls on a on a Shabbat. So, a lot of the things that you're not allowed to do uh are uh you know, are not are not relevant this year because it falls on a m Shabbat. Um but there's a uh certain preparation that you'll have to do on Friday. Uh but uh it also depends on whether a person is Ashkanazi or Safhari, the Ashkanazim are a little bit more stringent on certain aspects of it. Uh so but if a person is safari and they want to move uh you know after let's say onesh of uh they can move if they can move before or after it's it's better but certainly if they if they need to they they can um peace and prosperity in your home. Was the golden calf built as a symbol of the tribe of Joseph? No, the tribe of Joseph was a bull and the calf was a young uh calf. So, it's two different things. And anyway, the tribe of Joseph preceded the golden calf. Tribe of Joseph or was a time of Yako, hundreds of years before the golden calf sin. Where is the list of things that we can do practically for Kiru? If you want to get it right this second, you can go to our website bzadashem.org. Go to the ebook section, a free ebook section over there. There's going to be a guide to Kiru and you can download it. I think it has like a 100 pages lots of different ideas and that a person can do out to pray for reformed Jews so they could do chuva like you would pray for anybody else. All right. Okay. Let's see another one over here. Um, what inspired you to convert to Judaism? I didn't convert to Judaism. Uh, I was born Jewish. My wife is a converte. But if you want to know my personal story, there's a whole film about it on our uh YouTube channel as well as on the website. It's called Hashem Took Back His Millions. As soon as you go to my YouTube page, uh, your own Rabbi Your own Ruven. uh the I believe the first thing that you'll see uh on the page on the uh like to promote it for the page itself is the movie called Hashem Took back his millions. It's a very very entertaining and inspiring film uh that talks about a lot of things. It talks about why I became a religious Jew, why I left Wall Street and a lot of other things. Uh so if you're interested in that, by all means go over there. millions of uh views uh from different languages in Spanish and English and Hebrew uh in uh French, German, all types of languages. People watch that film and inspired can you make us sure about the Babasali the Bal Muet? It's all he's also important. I've spoken about the Babasali several times over the years. If you just go to my channel and type the name Babasali, you'll see there's several clips uh that they've cut out of my longer lectures that discussed the Babasali, different stories about him. Yes, I used to work on Wall Street. I had a firm. I had a lot of stuff. But you could watch the film for all that. You'll see. You can even see me on TV multiple times discussing that stuff. Hey, Rabbi, no joke. I need advice. Fine. Send a message and I'll be happy to. Okay. The website is B as in Bat E Z R A T H A S H E M.org. But wherever you guys are watching me from, whether it's YouTube or it's a uh Tik Tok or it's Facebook, if you just go to my profile, you'll probably, if you click on the profile, you'll probably find somewhere in there that we put the website. If you're not uh understanding what I'm saying as far as the letters now was an amulet with a bull on it from the Nile River that caused the golden calf Who was it that took the amulet? Ah, okay. So, they there was a guy named Mika. Mika uh was a uh one of the uh babies that was supposed to die that uh the Egyptians would punish the Jews by uh if they didn't meet their quota in making certain amount of stones, they would take the person's child baby and put him instead of the stones. very horrific, vicious thing that the Egyptians did. And when Mosher Abenu saw this, he cried out to God, why why are you letting these uh babies die and Hashem explained to him that these babies really they look cute and everything, but they were actually wicked. They were the wicked that had to uh fall, you know, had to suffer a certain amount of tikun, but still at the end of it all, Mosherenu was still human. And uh even though the uh say was half human half angel because of how holy he became uh still he was still human. So when he saw a baby about you know going into the wall uh he asked God for permission to save Mika and Hashem said if you want to save him you can. And he saved this Mikah. And this Mikah from that point on, you know, always followed Mosheu. And uh when the time came for the Exodus, uh Moshe took upon himself to go fulfill the promise that the uh that Yusf Sadik made. the the rest of the tribes promise him that when the uh exodus eventually happens that they take his bones out of Egypt. So he's buried in uh uh in in Israel. So Mosher Rabenu went and looked for the uh the tomb of Yusf Sadik. The problem was that the Egyptians since they uh they benefited so much from Ysef, how he built their country, made them the richest, wealthiest, strongest country in the world, they uh in essence did not want to lose his body and they took the uh his tomb and they hid it inside the Nile River. So Mosher did not know this and no one knew until he met Sarak. Sarak the daughter of Asher. Sarah was the granddaughter of Yakovu. She was hundreds of years old and she uh was one the last remaining uh direct descendants of Yakov as far as the uh that close the granddaughter. There was a few others but Sarak uh she uh got blessed by Yakovu uh to live a long life and she's one of the 10 people that entered Gan Eden alive and she knew where Ysef Sadi where his tomb is is hidden inside the Nar River. She told that to Mosher Rabenu and Mosher Rabenu went there but it was under the water. So Moshe Rabenu in order to take it out, he took a mate, like a some type of uh metal piece uh that engraved on it uh al rise bull rise on one side and the other side I believe had the name of Hashem and he threw it into the water and uh before that he said to the the bones of Ysef that were inside the water inside this tomb, I'm going to do myoot my efforts you either bring yourself out of the uh uh out of the water or I'm leaving you here. He threw in the mate and it went into the water and the tomb rose and came out of the water and then Mosherenu took the tomb with him and eventually this uh they this was buried uh you know is buried it when they entered Israel. Now since Mika that young kid that Mosher Rabenu saved always followed him he was hiding in the bushes and as soon as Mosherenu was busy with the tomb Mika jumped into the water and grabbed the mate. He kept it and the says that Mika was so evil and so wicked that when Amai left Egypt he brought his idol with him also. He cross he he was crossing Yamsu. Hashem is making miracles and in his hands everybody saying zan this is my god and I'll sanctify him. Mika was pointing at the at the statue was still worshiping the statue was a big big wicked big. Later on whenu went up to Mount Si and uh the got everybody riled up. They wanted a uh you know a replacement for Moshe. They knew they can't replace God, but they wanted a replacement for Moshe. And uh they started throwing the gold into the fire. And Mika took his m that mate that he got from Rabenu and threw it into the fire also. But since this mate was no ordinary mate, it was no ordinary piece of metal. It had a Hashem's name on it and on the other side it said rise bowl rise. So as soon as he threw it into the fire, the gold that was in the fire uh solidified and turned into a bull. And that's why when Mosherenu after he came down from Mount Si and he uh asked uh his brother Aon, you'll see this in the verses, why did you do this to the people? And Aon replies, they uh I didn't do it. The the bull rose by itself. How the bull rose by itself? Exactly like I told you where Mika threw the mate into uh into the fire and it came out uh as a as a bull. And this bull since it was through this uh through this uh um supernatural means that it came out. The bull came out and started talking and it said I am God. So people started worshiping it. They have worshiped it. So it wasn't uh like uh comparable to some statue you buy in Chinatown or you buy on the internet and put it in your garden. This was something very very different. But that's also why when Mosher Abenu came down from Mount Sai, he not only destroyed this golden calf, he literally turned it into uh into dust completely, you know, uh destroying it. Uh and Mika continued being wicked. Later on in the Tanakh, Mika actually opens a uh a place of idolatry and uh gets people to pray to his idol. Uh so he's uh he's still alive later on in the Tanakh. Uh and you can ask why did Hashem not kill him? Uh why did Hashem not kill him? Because sometimes there is a certain purpose that even the wicked people play in the uh ultimate tikun of of of the world. So, Hashem doesn't necessarily kill a person uh just uh because they're wicked uh or not really just because because they're wicked. Hashem will sometimes leave certain wicked people in the world. Number one, to increase and magnify their ultimate punishment. Number two, to serve as a purpose as as as someone that he will use to actually uh rebuke his children. Meaning that when am does the will of Hashem then the nations are scared of it. No matter how many Jews are in the world, no matter how much they have, when Am does the will of Hashem, like we saw at different times of of history, the nations are scared of it. when Amish is does not do the will of Hashem and in fact does the opposite with worship idols, immorality, cash advance business, all the different uh uh sins that Amish is done throughout all of the years. Then Hashem uses the uses the amale uses as Ishmael to go and uh and deliver his punishment through that. That's why you see the pilgrims, the inquisitions, destruction of the first and the second beta mikdash, the holocaust, all of these things were tools that Hashem used to uh to rebuke his children, to punish his children, and to in essence get them to do cha. So, he didn't leave. The Romans were always wicked. The Greeks were always wicked, but Hashem left them in the world in order for them to, you know, to rebuke to to be the rebuke the the stick that Hashem hits his own children with. The Nazis were always wicked. The Spaniards were always wicked. The Turks were always wicked. It wasn't like they became wicked when they started killing Jews. They were always wicked beforehand. Haman was always wicked. Amalik was always wicked. But Hashem in essence uh did not allow them to hurt Am to that extent until crossed the line. And when cross the line, Hashem uses the uh Ishmael to uh to be the stick that Hashem in essence disciplines his children. But Mika was a wicked person from the start and uh he ended up causing a lot of trouble, a lot of trouble for how can we help Israel? If you want to help Israel, you can go to the campaign that we have. It's on our website. There's also a separate page for it where we are continuing to raise money to help people in Israel that uh have lost their home through the attack of what happened in uh with Iran. So you could also see on the campaign page different videos of our team going and giving uh going to the different hotels and different places where these people that have lost their homes uh we give them money, we give them some stuff, books and all types of things to give them some uh some help. So if you want to help people in Israel right now, you could donate over there. If you want to help, you could donate on a regular website. There's plenty of ways that uh you could help. Those are just a couple. How do the Jewish people atone for their sins? You first say you first stop the sin. First stop doing the sin. So if somebody is a uh stole for example, stop stealing and give it back. Give back what you stole. If somebody is made commitment immorality of some kind, stop doing it. That's the first step. Second step, do whatever is necessary to in essence build offense in your life to not go back to the same to the same offense to the same sin. So if let's say just like a person that's uh was an alcoholic and now wants to stop or drug addict and wants to stop or other types of uh addicts the first thing that they're going to do is not go back to the same places or the same friends or same people that they were with. So a person that used to sin specific things has to educate themselves uh about the Torah that discusses that particular sin plus you know restructure their life in a way that they're not put in a position to to make the same sin again. So that's step number two. Step number three say I'm sorry to Hashem that you have gone against them that you violated his Torah. Uh if you do it with tears it's even better. That's step number three. Step number four is the next time you have a test where you have the enticement to sin again, the same sin, pass the test. Pass the test. Now, there's other discussions that I have over the years with uh something called tikunim that a person can do. Uh but the first four, like I just said, that's the foundation. That's the requirement. The other things that I talked about as far as tikunim, that's like an extra bonus that you do after you've done or started at least doing seriously the first four steps. Are the people that work for financial institutions part of their cash advance sin even though they're not the owner of the business? Anyone that works in a predatory business, a corrupt business is part of the uh the problem is part of the sinner. So that means whether you are a broker or an owner or a secretary or a bookkeeper and you or whatever other position that helps the cash advance business which is a predatory business which is a corrupt business which is an evil business. Uh whatever position you're in, you are helping that business function. You're helping that business grow. You're helping that business destroy lives. So certainly you are part of the problem. Certainly you are sinning. Certainly you're going to get punished. Now of course some people will get punished much more than others. But be assured, be assured that the punishment will eventually come. And again to emphasize this enough to people that don't understand the cash advance business is not the only evil corrupt business that's out there in the world. There are others. is obviously the the horrific things that's happening right now in the last few years with online gambling where it's become legal in the United States and literally anyone with a phone uh could have a whole entire casino on his phone. Now it's legal now they they're discussing gambling on sports. They're discussing gambling on national TV. Things that were forbidden for all of history now a standard in that part. There is obviously corruption in in the whole cryptocurrency industries of how literally people are, you know, robbing the public in plain day in plain daylight without being afraid and even making video of themselves laughing at the people they robbed and crime has become legal. Uh, you know, so it's it's horrific. So that's obviously corruption there. There's corruption in all types of industries. But the cash advance business is from my perspective, from my understanding is I don't believe that there is something that is more evil than it. It's also corrupt like everything else that I said, but it has a different a different level of of of evil in it. And I'll tell you why. If somebody steals somebody's money, whether it's through cheating them in the gambling or it's in the uh um you know cryptocurrency scams that are happening literally every single day or other investment scams or uh you know business scams, whatever it is, what they're taking is something that somebody saved up over a period of time. You know, they they worked for it. They, let's say, they steal their 50,000, $100,000, million dollars, whatever it is. But that's it. That's where it ends. The cash advance industry is so evil, is so corrupt that they're not stealing the person's money. They're stealing their life. Why? Because who are the customers of the cash advance industry? Business owners. Small business owners. By small business, people think, "Oh, small business, he probably makes uh, you know, $5,000 a month." No, small business can be anywhere from a couple thousand to $10 million, $20 million. Still considered small business. So, they're lending money to small businesses, which by the way, anyone who doesn't know anything about about how finances work and everything in in in uh in the world. Small businesses are what pushes the economy forward or backwards. It's not the businesses that you hear about in the news, in the stock market all the time, the Microsofts and the Googles of the world. Yes, those businesses are important. Those businesses are great, but they do not push the economy one way or the other because the small businesses are much there's much more of them. The small business are are are very very critical part of the economy. They're very critical part of society. So the cash advance industry goes to the small business owner and gives him a loan that he is simply never going to be able to pay back without literally winning the lottery. uh or or or or or simply putting himself in a uh in impossible situations. Why? Because they're giving him a loan that has what's called a predatory rate. What's a predatory rate? A predatory rate means that the interest that they're charging him, 50, 80, 100, 200, 300, 4,000%. It just simply depends how much they hate this guy and how much they're they're they're willing to to to destroy his life. But even if they're only charging him 6070%. Only which is again that means he bought $100,000 now he has to pay back 160 but it's not really 160 because it acrru but regardless of that that guy does not realize that the amount of interest that he's going to have to pay on this money is much more significant than the amount of money he's going to be able to make with that money. So what ends up happen with most cases is that by the time he realizes what he got himself into where they're taking money from his bank account without needing any authorization anymore because that's part of the contract. You sign a contract with the cash advance business. They take money from his bank account uh automatically every week and whenever they feel like it. It's not like a credit card or some type of mortgage where you they send you a bill and you make a payment. No, they get authorization over your bank account and they take money out of the bank account every week or whenever they feel like it practically. They can literally empty out the guy's bank account if they really want to. Now, what ends up happening if the guy uh let's say empties out his bank account so he doesn't have to pay them or he doesn't have the money or whatever it is, they have so many uh uh different things that they can do to destroy his life that they'll take away all of his assets, his business, his house, his everything. But even without all of that, even if he does everything he can to to uh to actually pay the loan, to do what he can, he doesn't realize when he signs the contract, he doesn't realize what 80% interest means. By the time he realizes it, that that $100,000 just turned into $180,000. And he realizes he can't pay it back because the interest is growing much faster than any profit he potentially made with that money if he invested it in his business. He simply can't catch up. And the payments continue to get bigger. So now what does he do? What do these evil monsters do? They tell him, "Listen, your your payments are higher now. You have to do uh something. You have to give us more, but you don't have more. You know what? We'll give you another loan to buy out this loan. Now you owe us $180,000. We'll give you a new loan for 300,000." So now you have the $180,000 in essence refinance at another high rate and another $120,000 we're giving you to your business as if we're helping you, but in reality they're not helping him. They're destroying him. This is like simply somebody telling you, "I'm going to cure your uh your uh your uh uh uh allergies by putting cancer in your body." So what ends up happening within about a year, usually that's around the average, sometimes a little longer, sometimes even less, this person is put in the position where he is now in an impossible situation. Unless he gets somebody that is, you know, rich and loves him and unconditionally and has the money and everything to just buy out the loan. What he ends up doing is that now he's at has 300 $400,000 that he's borrowed. That $300 $400,000 that he's borrowed has turned into a million dollars that he owes. Which means that even if his business succeeds in growing 30% a year, it's still not going to be able to pay back the loan. And he ends up having to declare bankruptcy. He ends up having to default. He ends up completely losing his business. Now, what does that mean? Why is losing a business much worse than losing a bunch of money in the stock market or cryptocurrency or gambling? Why is losing a business? For anyone that built a business in their life, they would understand this very, it's very close to home. Anyone that doesn't should still understand it. But anyone that's an entrepreneur should understand this very well. If you build a business, entrepreneurs look cool on TV after they succeed. But in reality, there's nothing cool about it in the beginning. Why? Because in so many words, you're doing the impossible and you're doing things that other people are not usually willing to do. You're taking risks. You're putting everything on the line. You're working overtime as a standard. You're not there's no such thing as an entrepreneur that works 9 to5. Employees work 9 to5. Uh at best entrepreneurs don't have a schedule. They work non-stop. Especially in the beginning stages. You work at night, you work during the day, you work in the afternoon. There's there's no vacation. There's no Why? because you need to have money to pay the employees. Those same people that work less than you. Those same people that don't necessarily care about the business as much as you, but you still have to pay them because they work for you. And you have to pay the vendors and you have to pay the IRS and you have to pay the uh this and you have to pay that. So, the guy that's building a business literally is constantly putting everything on the line every single day just to keep this business alive and to be able to hopefully scratch out enough money to be able to live too, to pay the rent, to pay the mortgage, to pay for for tuition, whatever it is for his kids. So in so many words, an entrepreneur that builds a business, he's putting everything he has, everything she has into that business, all of their time, effort, energy, everything in especially in the beginning. Now, a guy that's built a business over 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. Now, that means that he has been doing this for all those years. of course sometimes were more difficult than others during the crisis during the corona during uh different things that uh they had that particular to their business but nonetheless if he has been in this business for 30 years that means that he has gone through hell and back just to keep that business alive just to keep that business from simply going bankrupt just to keep that business from being you know not being obsolete just to keep it relevant whether it's a cafe shop or or a plumbing company or a law firm or whatever it is, regardless of what business it is. If he has been doing it for 20, 30 years, that means he has been putting everything on the line all of that time to pay the employees, to pay for the vendors, to pay the government, to pay the regulators, to pay the uh everything. And it looks like he lives a good life because now he has a million-doll house or he has a nice car. But you don't an an employee will never understand what the owner goes through until he becomes an owner. And now that guy that put everything on the line is in a situation where he needs to borrow money in order to grow his business further in order to pay some bills that he doesn't have the liquidity to pay for. And he thinks that when the cash advance company that doesn't stop marketing through text messaging and online and everything else, they're a marketing machine. When they finally call him and tell him, "Listen, hey Joe, how about I send you $100,000 in the next two days?" Really? You can send me $100,000? Yeah, we can lend it to you. No problem. You just got to sign. We'll lend it to you. Now Joe knows he went to the bank to ask for $100,000. The bank said no. Why? cuz the bank either already lent the money or he doesn't have good credit or that's good enough for them or whatever it is. And Joe says, "Listen, yeah, I'll take this $100,000." Sure. He doesn't even think about the facts that this $100,000 is coming at 80% interest, is coming with terms that he wouldn't even give to his enemies. He's just thinking, "This guy is uh is a godsend. Why? He just called me and he was willing to give me $100,000 in two days nonetheless. Even the mortgage takes a few months." So now the guy's not thinking clearly. He borrows the money and then the payments start being taken a week later from his bank. He starts realizing, "Wait, wait. You guys just took you guys just took $2,000 out of my account." Yeah, Joe, you signed on it. Yeah, but that's I borrowed $100,000. You already took 2,000 a week later. Yeah, listen. It's 80% interest you have to pay every month. Now, he starts to realize what he got himself into. And what ends up happening, Abu Tai, is that guy that built the business for 20, 30 years, slaving, sacrificing everything for that business, ends up closing chop, going completely broke, losing 30 years of his life, even if he has a million dollars in the bank or in his stock portfolio or in a real estate portfolio, That would be inconsequential in his eyes next to what he just lost. Why? You just took this cash advance business just took 30 years of his life, 20 years of his of his life. They literally murdered him. That's why anyone that understands even half 10% of what I understand about that business knows that there's nothing more evil than that business. Now there is a bigger version of this business that's called private credit that's being done with major corporations which also is going to lead to a major bubble and crisis and and disaster in the markets. But that's for another time. The cash advance business is an evil, evil, evil business. And that's just an understatement because unlike the rest of the corruption that has become standard, the gambling, the the perversions, the whatever all the other things that we don't even have to repeat anymore. All of those other criminals, they take a piece of life, a piece of life, a piece of time, a the savings, the the the investment, the speculative part. They take something, but they don't take 30 years of somebody's life. They don't take their business. And guess what? The cash advance industry, their primary target are business owners, small business owners. They're not calling Microsoft asking them if they need a $100 million loan. They're not calling Intel asking them if they need a loan. They're calling Joe and Steve and Shuel and Ruven and and and everybody that they can that's simply not big enough to be out of their league, but also not somebody that just got out of college with uh you know with a $200,000 uh you know um a uh college loan. They're looking for that business owner, especially the ones that have established at least some type of track record. They built they have a million dollar business, $2 million business, $100,000 business, whatever it is, and they destroy it. And I tell you this, I spoke to a lot of the people in the industry. I even have recordings recordings of training videos of how these evil monsters that's that that are running these organizations, how they train people that they're recruiting to become brokers in the cash advance business. It's it's it's literally like uh gangsters that pretend to be righteous. I don't know how else to explain it, but anyway, there was one guy that uh I spoke to and I he told me, "Listen, within uh six months, he made a million dollars. This 18-year-old little kid knew nothing in his life. Made a million dollars in his cash advance business in six months." I told him, "All those guys that you lent the money to make that million dollars, how many of them are still in business?" He's like, "Rabbi, they all went broke. They all declared bankruptcy." Meaning the loan that he gave them that made him a million dollars destroyed all of their lives. So, let's say, let's just hypothetically speaking, let's say he got, I don't know, a 100 deals. 50 deals. That means he just destroyed 50 companies. 50 companies. That means no less than 50 different lives. And of course, all of them had employees. All of them had people that have careers. The damage that this little kid made, and this is just a little kid that worked in the industry for less for a year, a million dollars he made destroyed all these companies. I told him, "How much of the million dollars do you have still left? At least you have something left. He says, "No, that's gone, too." He says, "One of the things that all the cash advanced people end up doing after they go into the business with all the fast money, everybody becomes a drug addict. Everybody becomes a degenerate in drugs. No matter if they're religious, not religious, they all become degenerate losers, corrupt in every aspect of life. I don't care if you have payot that are three times longer than mine or a hat or a beard or you call yourself a rabbi or you're not religious. If you are in that cash advance business, you are a monster. You're going to go to Ganom and never come out and anyone that helped you or the rabbi that supported you that told you that it's okay to do it. Or whoever was part of your corruption is going to go in the same chamber in gum that you're going to go into. Why? Because you are not only destroying people's lives, you're desecrating God's name and you are becoming one of the fuels to power Amalik to power Amalik. That's what Rashi says on the puk when when Hashem warns us not to do uh unjust business. And the next puk after that is a uh is the warning uh the reminder of Amalecch. Rashi says when am does business that corruptly they're giving power to amalik and that's why the sages said clearly clearly this is actually in the name and the prophets even said it the prophets said it someone that that gains money that makes money makes his living in an unjust way cuts off half of his life. So I promise everybody, you're going to see a kadosh whose name sanctified even though it's not going to look pretty. You'll see people not only go to jail, you're going to see people dying young. You're going to see a disaster. You're going to see such horrible things. You're going to think the gay no movie that I made is a pretty movie next to what these people are bringing. There's nothing more evil than someone knowingly doing a business transaction that they know is going to destroy somebody's life. This it's simply evil beyond all comprehension. And I cannot believe I cannot believe that there are people that are supportive of this, calling themselves rabbis without even investigating what they're supportive of. Anyone that looks at what this is knows it's corrupt. I spoke to my dear friend Hamnikov David Hamnik just just the other day. We hashem it's he's an extraordinary Torah scholar huge one of the of one of the of America in the previous generation and he uh him and I have spoken several times over the years and and when I told him about this whole cash advance literally he says you have to do something about it somebody came to him just the other day asking him about cash advance he said I started yelling at the guy he tells me and then he called me told me I started yelling at the guy anyone that has invested stigated. That business knows it's corrupt. The people that are in it know it's corrupt. They may not know it's corrupt on day one, but after 3 months, 6 months, you see all your all your clients are declaring bankruptcy, are crying, are committing suicide, are getting divorced, are are literally losing their life. At that point, you know, the business is corrupt. Why don't they leave right away? Because now they're addicted to the money that they're making. 100, 200, $400,000 a month. this this nobody that barely knows how to read six months ago now is making a h 100,000 a month. How is he going to leave it? Yeah, but you're ruining people's lives. Listen, they chose they'll start justifying. Yeah, they chose to sign. I didn't tell them to sign. So, when I told you guys it's an evil business years ago, I knew what I know. But a lot more has been discovered since then. some that I'm telling you now, some that I'm not telling you. In so many words, trust me when I tell you the damage that this business is going to bring is the disaster that's unquantifiable. Just put it this way. We'll finish off with this destruction of the betach. the pilgrims in England in the 1100s, the Spanish Inquisition, the different pilgrims and massacres that happened in Morocco, the Holocaust, and countless other major disasters in Jewish history. major business, major business that prospered right before those disasters happened was another version of the cash advance business. They called it different things, but it's always that this is not the first time. This is not new. And every major disaster in Jewish history was preceded with the success of this corrupt predatory business. It's sad that people don't learn from history, but hopefully hopefully people understand that the ramifications are significant. If you want to do something about it, you want to help in some way, you can order some of our books that are called store, distribute them in your community, to your rabbi, to the people in the community that speak Hebrew, the karite, they can at least read the uh uh discussion the responses that nobody could dispute showing that it's against the Tawat to be in this business or any any any business similar to it. And uh we could simply pray that we could help more and more people do chuva and save them from uh from this disaster. But it's it's happening. It's getting bigger by the day. It's getting worse by the day. I know that my words bothered that industry bother people in that industry when they say me they send me hate mail and calls and they think that they could threaten me is with us when he's with us doesn't make a difference who's next who's against us. So, as I've said to them and especially those that are brazen and and arrogant about what they do and the the everything that they're doing, as long as allows me, I will continue exposing more and more about the evil nature of this business and any other evil and corruption out there that that is that we can that we could uh uh help people with, to stay away from, to protect them, to warn them from and no matter what threats, no matter what they do, because this is a disaster of fourth stage that is hiding in plain sight and everyone is acting normal as if it's good times. As if it's good times. mind-boggling what's corruption is happening right now. The people that have been watching this and will watch this in the future will take upon themselves to help distribute this lecture, the books, all the different things that will help Amiad see the truth for what it is. And perhaps you'll be fortunate enough like we've been over the years in being able to not only help people do but even get people out of that business. I have many, many people, brokers that were in that business that were making a lot of money that realized what they were doing, asked questions, got the answers, and ended up taking uh, you know, taking Hashem first and and leaving the business. But there's still a lot. Obviously, we still still have a lot of work to do. Each one can be each one of you can be a pin in your own way. In your own way, there's a lot of different things that each person can do. Hopefully each person takes upon themselves to not only do chuva but to also be a pin in their own way and you help people. Do you think that they're money hungry? It's a rhetorical question. Can even pinas be like can even know be like pin? Yes, a no can do a lot of good things that could help people do chuvi. We have some people on our team that are Noah heights that literally do uh hours and hours of kiru every single day. So absolutely Okay, we'll take one more question and then finish off. Yeah, it's been a Q&A already for over an hour. How can a person do kiru if they don't learn tawa? Well, you certainly do need to learn tawa in order to have the merit to do kiru. So we certainly need to be in the process of doing Chuv in order to succeed in Kov. The more you have merits, the more successful you'll be in Cube. Should you leave the UK? What's your other option? Where would you go? What makes it better and what makes it worse? Person has to go and live in a place where they're going to serve Hashem the best way they can. So if you could serve Hashem the best you can somewhere else and still be able to make pasa and still have schlumbite then go wherever that is. But if you go into um to a place what's going to cause you problems divorce or you don't have a way to to uh to to make yourself make a living then uh obviously you have to do a full calculation not just one one item. How can one turn on hot water in a hotel on Shabbat if they already heated the water in a hot water earn uh on Shabbat? Uh before Shabbat. So they have a hot water earn. So it keeps the water hot. They can use that water to make it to make tea. But as far as turning on the water uh from the faucet, hot water, no, you're not allowed to do that cuz that's going to heat up the water and that's cooking. Not allowed to do that. You buy a hot water and cost, you know, doesn't cost much. Depends where you are, but doesn't cost much. You get a hot water and take it with you or order it to the room if you're going to be there for a while. Okay, let's see. Let's see one more question. Oh, it's late. If I had a meal with bread and wine, uh, do I have to say and I said, do I also have to say the after blessing? for the wine. No, the baton covers everything in a hotel. It's a hotel. The boiler would already be on from the other people. Uh yes, but we don't rely on that. Uh we don't rely on that. And uh whether it's a hotel or it's your house or it's an apartment complex on Shabbat, you're not allowed to turn on the hot water. You want hot water, you'll have to have it uh prepared from before Shabbat. That's how the alaka works. I don't make the rules, just follow them. And the ones that Pusk in that way studied the not only the law, they studied the mechanics of the uh the system much more than uh I could even fathom or you uh can one can one as a Jew say I swear no. You're not allowed to swear in God's name. No. Okay. All right. I think that should be enough for tonight. I need to This is my second lecture today. I had one in Hebrew and now this is English. Hashem, give us the strength to do it. Give us the merit to do it. And uh that we were able to do it. We learn together. Each one of you takes upon yourself to be a pinas for part of your everyday. you want to order some books to distribute in your community or USBs or theats posters or different things, you can go to kofstore.org kofstore.org and you can get the stuff for free if you're located in the US. If you're located elsewhere outside of the country, you'll have to pay for shipping and it's not cheap. I don't make the prices though. Uh, as far as if you want to support, you want to donate, you can go to bzashem.org. Uh, it's the best place to donate for our organization. Whether you want to donate through a credit card, you want to donate through uh cryptocurrency or stock or wire transfers, everything is available on that website. Certainly, you can also donate on our app on you know in different ways. But the point is make sure that you take advantage of the opportunities when gives it to you because just because something is available as an opportunity does not mean it's always going to be available. No one knows how much time they have in this world. No one knows what is preparing for us for tomorrow. And that's why we have to push to the absolute limits every chance we get and we all succeed. Called to learn again next week. foreign. [Music] I will tell [Music] alive. [Music] But that's [Music] Oh, we got so long. Yeah. Yeah. [Music]