Shiur Torah #62 Women of Chanukah, Parenting & College Education Advice, Driving on Shabbat

Thank you for having me again. Uh it's nice to be back. Uh as we were just talking about the the whole um miracle of of uh Hanukkah. You know what uh many people don't realize is that the miracle of Hanukkah is not necessarily just because of a few Jewish men warriors fought and obviously had Hashem's miracle, you know, uh power that that he gave them and and then he made a miracle and they won the war or purely because, you know, some oil instead of burning for one day burned for eight days. That's not really the true miracle. The true miracle is how the women were in those days. How courageous the women were in those days. Uh to a much much higher extent than most people give give them credit for. And the reason why we talk about it is because in today's age, many many people that don't know about the truth of Torah, especially women that don't know much about Torah, think that Judaism and the Torah is sexist. They think that we're prejudice against women. And it's that's nothing further from the truth. As we talked about the last time I was here, we're talking about the power of the modesty of a woman and how that is something that's more significant than any mitzvah that she can possibly do. A modest woman is already completing 60% of her mitzvot. That's 60%. Which means that an immodest woman, even if she does 100% of all the other mitzvot, she only has 40%. She can't pass the test. So modesty is already a big thing. But now the the women of the time of two 2,000 years ago, a little over 2,000 years ago, the time of the Greeks when they were persecuting the Jews, the whole story is that the Greeks wanted to do to us what pretty much is still happening today. They wanted us to leave Judaism. They had no interest in killing Jews. Unlike the Nazis that wanted to kill Jews or the Romans that wanted to kill Jews or many other nations that have been wanting to kill the Jews since the beginning of time, the Greeks actually had no interest in killing Jews. They just wanted to kill Judaism. They said, "Listen, if you leave the Shabbat, don't keep Shabbat, don't do circumcision, and don't learn Tawa, not only will we not kill you, but we'll actually give you very, very important and respectful jobs. We're going to give you very important jobs. You could be the uh, you know, a big lawyer, a big a uh accountant, a uh a uh government member. You could have all the respect. You could uh judge matches in the uh you know in uh that we have in all these fights. You could do a lot of different things that Jews in general were not entitled to at the time. And they said, "Listen, all we want you to do is stop keeping this Shabbat of yours. Stop keeping this circumcision. Be like us. We don't keep Shabbat. We don't think that there's a need to uh declare that God created the heaven and the earth in six days. We think that maybe you know God created the world but then he left. That's what the Greeks believed. Yes, there had to be a creator but he left. He doesn't care if I do. He doesn't care if I do feeling every day. He doesn't really care if I turn on the light on Shabbat. Why does he care? The Greeks said no. He created the world because they were very smart to Greeks. But he left. He doesn't care about the small things. What about circumcision? Circumcision? Why? You're telling me that God made a mistake? If God created you, he created you perfect. So why are you ruining it? Why are you cutting off a piece of the body? You're saying that God made a mistake. That was the argument, which is a very rational, very logical argument. You're telling me that God created you not perfect and he needs you little human to make yourself perfect? He needs your help. If you already created everything, it's a very logical argument. It's wrong, but it's a very logical argument. And then Torah, they knew the secret to Judaism is Torah. The secret to a connection with God is the Torah. A Jew without Torah cannot be a Jew. He can say he's Jewish. It could say on some type of certificate or business card or passport or anything in the world that he's Jewish, but a connection with Hashem, it's very very difficult to have something that's real because Hashem gave you the instructions of how to connect with him in the Torah. So if you if I'm not going to read the Torah and I don't know what it says, I just hear stories once a year during the holidays when I go to synagogue. I hear one, you know, I hear a story. Okay. So once a year I have connection with Hashem but if I go through rough times or if I go through good times does you know where am I going to look? I can't really I don't know how to connect with him. It's like saying yeah he's my best friend but I don't have his phone number. So it's like having a uh an email. You have a most important person in the world's email. He says listen anything you need email me from obviously Hashem is much more than any important person we have in the world. But the point is that most important person in the world you meet, he says, "Listen, anything you need, just email me. No phone number, no nothing else. Just email me." Wow. I need a million dollars, sends me a million dollars. I need uh, you know, help with uh, you know, some type of uh, medicine, he helps me with the medicine. I need a job, he gets me a job. Anything I need, it's perfect. You just answer it right away. So, one day comes and you need this help. I said, "Oh, great. Where's the business card? Oh, I don't have the business card, but I wrote it on a napkin. You see the napkin got wet. So, this one letter is missing. The other one is you're not so sure if it's a C or it's an O. So, you guess so you guess. You type in the email, but you keep getting an error message. Invalid email. There's one letter in an entire email doesn't work. The email is worthless. Same thing with a Jew. He may think that going to Beckness once a year or even once a week or maybe uh you know a uh saying that he's Jewish or writing on a passport or any type of uh identification that he's Jewish or saying that his mom is Jewish or even doing some of the mitzvot here and there makes him Jewish. Yeah, it's good. It's nice. It's a good start for, you know, if you're, you know, two years old. But to be really Jewish, you need the entire email. You need the entire instructions. And that's the connection with the Torah. Tawa is required by a Jew every day. Whether it's 15 minutes or it's 15 hours, all depends on you. Different people have different uh lives, different levels. But every Jew is required to learn Tawra every day. The Greeks during this time a couple of thousand years ago knew that this is our connection. This is our direct dial with the most important thing in the world. And they said, "Listen, we can't beat them. Even though there's only a few of them, and there's many, many of us, we have many, many uh, you know, weapons. They have nothing. But they have this god that somehow made them defeat every other nation that came in their way." The biggest nation in history, the Egyptians, he beat them. the uh Nebuer and and his people even though the Jews didn't beat them eventually. Hashem destroyed him. The Persians destroyed him, the Turks destroyed, everybody else is he destroyed somehow. And these Jews are the only ones that survive technically. They're not even supposed to be here. So it must be this Hashem. So if we stop the what's what's the secret to this Hashem? Secret is their connection with him, this Torah. So if we stop them from learning Torah, there's no connection anymore. We don't need to kill them. They're killing themselves eventually. How are they going to kill themselves? How they don't they're not going to actually kill themselves? How are they going to kill themselves? By saying, "Listen, if we don't learn Torah, we're just like you." So if we're just like you, our boys are going to marry your girls and your girls are going to marry our boys. So all of us become instead of all, you know, Jewish and and and Greeks, it becomes everybody is one nation. and the Jews are destroyed. And this is what's happening today. 2,000 years later, 80% of the Jewish people do not keep Shabbat. Over 70% of the ones that are in America not only do not keep Shabbat, but are either in intermarriage relationships or on their way. And if you ask any any Jewish couple, older couple, do you want your kids to marry a non-Jew? Oh, mito. But then 25 years later, when your son or daughter brings a non-Jewish uh boy or girl, oh, she's so cute, such a nice person. What's wrong with her? What are you going to do? That's who he hung out with his whole life. He She was his next door neighbor. Such a She is a nice girl. There's nothing wrong with the non-Jews. Some of them are the most amazing people you could ever meet. But God said, "You're not allowed to be with them." That's it. Simple as it gets. So the Greeks knew all of this. They were very very smart. They knew that the secret to a connection with God is the Torah. So they said, "Stop learning Torah." And some of the Jews unfortunately fell for this trap and stopped learning Tawa. And not only stopped learning Tawa, but started taking advantage of what they thought were taking advantage of all the money-making opportunities with the Greeks. They took these jobs. They became government members and they felt important and they started helping the Greeks to find any Jewish leader that's dangerous for this Greek movement. But the Jews as a whole were not fighting. What changed everything? The real miracle, the biggest miracle of Hanukkah is what the women decided to do next. There's two big stories that I know. I'm sure there's many, many others, but one of them is the story of what all of the women did. The women decided that they're seeing their men sitting doing nothing against the Greeks. They're seeing their people being destroyed. They're seeing their Torah being destroyed. They're seeing that the connection with Hashem is getting worse and worse with everyone. And little by little, they're seeing the kids on the street that used to wear, you know, the Jewish clothes and go to Bikeset and go to Yeshiva. All of a sudden, they're wearing the clothes that the Greeks are wearing, whether it's tight jeans like people wear today or the tight shirts or the guys that for some reason guys today think like they all need to look like, you know, homosexuals. I don't know why, but for some reason being being, you know, looking like you just came out of a uh some type of m plastic machine that wrapped the clothes really tight to you that became very popular today. I think there was a uh a rapper by name of Little Wayne that made it popular where he said you have to wear girls jeans, right? That's it. So uh so he's rich and famous. So people, you know, he has uh $500 million to wear this girl's jeans. Fine. But what are you getting for wearing the girls jeans? You're paying the 200. You're making them the $500 million. You're looking like the Greeks. So for some reason, this is this is a disease amongst Israeli men. A lot of Israeli men, I mean, Jews in general are are doing it. And it's overall, not just Jews, but a lot of people are doing it. And it's become a modesty problem for men. We've never had a modesty problem for men in history until today. Generally, the modesty problem has always been with women. But the modesty problem with women really wasn't around until the last 100 years or so. Even non-Jewish women used to be modest. If you look at pictures of women that used to go to the beach 100 years ago, they would go with gowns. They would look more modest than the most modest rait in the world today. And I'm talking about non-Jews. Of course, the Jews would be modest. So, the problem was with the women, but today we have a problem with the women, obviously, but with the men, too. So, I'm not really sure whether we're trying to compete with Sodom and Gomorrah or not, but things are deteriorating fast. And that's why we pray every day that the that Hashem saves us from it getting any worse and the Mashiach comes because we're not really sure what's going to be left if we're around another generation. So now the women back then saw that their children are getting worse and worse. They're not interested in Torah. They're not interested in Judaism. And the husbands are not doing anything about it. So each woman that gave birth, as soon as she gave birth, she took the kid, she would go to the wall in Jerusalem. She'd climb the wall and she'd jump off and kill herself. And before she come jumped off and kill us, she said, "If you're not going to fight for our nation, we might as well die now. At least we'll die Jewish." And she would actually give the kid uh on the eth day. She would wait 8 days, give the child a circumcision, and then kill ourselves. Says, "You're already killing us anyway by not doing anything. Might as well die, but at least we're going to die Jewish. At least my child will die Jewish." This is courage. That's beyond our understanding because when I saw this story, nobody in the world can do something like this today. Even telling the story scares me. Thinking about a woman just gave birth. Woman just gave birth right now. Still in bed. Well, she's not thinking about climbing any walls, killing herself for this. Listen, they have problems. They have problems. Leave them alone. You just gave birth. You carried a kid for 9 months. Oops. Who needs this uh problems from these people? That's what people today think. Back then it was very very different. People were very close to Hashem, very attached to Hashem. They knew what the Torah meant. They knew what the connection was. And the woman realized that if she's not going to take control, there's not going to be Judaism. And without Judaism, there's nothing nothing for the Jews, nothing for the world. One of the one of the uh parts in the Torah says when hem speaks to he says that if it wasn't for the Jews keeping the Torah there's no purpose for the world. None. So and says it himself if there which is if it's not for my covenant which he's referring to the Torah day and night the rules of the heaven and the earth will cease to exist. the world would cease to exist instantly. Now, when this was first written a few thousand years ago, we all wondered how could well, Hashem is going to bring he already said he's not going to bring another flood. So, how could it be? After science discovered what has always been there, but finally discovered it themselves, discovered the atom, they realized that the world is not what we think it is. If you look at the world as we see it, everything looks solid. The TV, the series looks solid, the wall looks solid. You look solid, the rock looks solid. Everything looks solid. In reality, nothing is solid. In reality, everything is made out of atoms. So to cut it short, not get too scientific, but to to explain to you what this means is that everything that we have in the world, everything that exists is made out of atoms. It's energy. Now an atom has these two parts. It has the nucleus. It has the electron running around it pretty much. So but the two parts are significantly different in size. So for example, if one of them is this book and the other one is this entire city, it's a huge difference in size. So and the separation between them because it's so big is like between us and the sun. Very very big difference. So in reality most of the atom is completely empty space. There's nothing there. Most of the atom is completely empty space. There's nothing there. 99.9% of the atom is empty space. which means that 99% of everything that we see is completely empty space. We just see it as solid because it's spinning really really fast. The way to understand this is that if you ever see a fan, okay, so we have a fan here. But if the fan goes much faster, then it looks like instead of there being five blades, there's one blade. Why does it look like there's only one blade? Cuz it's going really, really fast. You think there's only one blade. Once it slows down, it looks like there's two blades. slows down a little more, then we see three or four. Slows down more, we see down there's five. So you see the fact that it's going much slower, we see more. But if it goes faster, we see much less of what reality is. Same concept applies to atoms because everything look goes really really fast. Everything seems like it's solid. Now the question is what happens if it stops spinning? Unlike the fan which will show us that there's five blades, the atom will show us that there is nothing. That 99% of everything we see does not exist. It literally is nothing. So if the empty space is exposed, then everything would just disappear. And the entire universe according to scientists and also not too different from the Torah. The entire cosmos, the entire universe, everything everything as far as the amount of matter of actual stuff that actually exists could all fit into a box of matches. Most of everything we see is nothing. Why do I say this? Because Hashem said, "If it's not for my covenant between me and the nation of Israel, for them to learn Torah every day, if for one minute, for one second, no one in the world is learning some level of Torah, everything will just cease to exist." So the way we could visualize it now with science helping us is that how would it cease to exist? God said he's not going to bring the flood. He's not going to make a war. He's not he doesn't need uh you know uh tanks or airplanes or atomic bombs. He'll just stop the the atoms from spinning and everything will just disappear as if it never existed. This is how important the Torah is. And the women that lived 2,000 years ago that saved the Jewish people knew this. They knew this much more than we know even after we just what we just learned. They knew Hashem. They didn't just believe in him. That's the goal that every Jew needs to have, to know Hashem, to really truly know that Hashem exists and not just believe that Hashem exists. Another big story about a uh was a the story of Yodit. Yudit saw that the men were not doing anything. So, she decided that she's going to pretend like she wants to marry one of the Greek leaders. So the uh the Greeks made a law that before any Jewish woman is allowed to marry her husband then she has to be with him first to make sure that he tries everything and she's not a virgin when she goes to to her new husband. This is the wickedness of the Greeks because again for them body was everything. So if body is everything I only want the best. Why should I give it to these lowly Jews? So she said, "Okay, I'm going to take advantage of this stupidity that he has and I'm going to bring to him. I'm going to make it like as if I'm happy to do it." So she brought to him a bunch of cheeses, bunch of Jewish cheeses. Now, if you eat a lot of cheese or eat anything heavy, you get sleepy. So she gave him this and he saw she's bringing him wine. She's bringing him cheese, celebration. Everybody's happy and she's feeding him and feeding him. He's like, "Oh, don't touch me yet. Listen, I want you to be happy." Eventually, he gets happy enough that he gets very, very tired and he goes to sleep. And at that very moment, she takes a knife out of her bag and cuts off his head. She puts the head back in her bag. And then she goes back to her Jewish people, our Jewish brothers and sisters, and she takes the leader of the Greeks head, one of the Caesars, and she says, "This is what I was able to do. How could I do this and the rest of you are doing nothing? And this gave the Jewish people a lot of a lot of strength, a lot of courage and it made a lot of fear in the in the Greeks. The Greeks said our leader just died. One of the main things that in war what you do is you try to kill the leaders. You know the war with Iraq was over as soon as Saddam Hussein was was done. Most of the any war that was a major war. Usually it's because the leader is done. You know the uh World War II was was over. Not because the Americans joined, not because the British finally started beating them. As soon as Hitler was out of the picture, the war was over. As soon as soon as Hashem decided that it's time for this leader to go, it was over. So Jewish women today need to understand that in Judaism and the Torah, they have much much more power than the men. much much more significance in their, you know, in their position in Judaism than men do because you are responsible for the Jewish household. If you raise your kid to be Jewish, he will be Jewish his whole life. Of course, there's exceptions to the case. Shalom, maybe he'll go off to death. But if you give them a good foundation, you make sure that it doesn't matter what you have to do, whether you have to sell the televisions and the and the appliances to make sure they goes to yeshiva, you have to beg to the rabbis to give you money so your kid can go to yeshiva and never step a foot into a public school. That's what you have to do as a mother. How nice your house is is not important. What's what's really what's really important is whether your kid goes to yeshiva or not, whether your kid's going to have Jewish education or not. going to public school, you're destroying the kid. And the reason why you're destroying the kid is because he's going to be with a bunch of Greeks. I'm not saying they're bad people, but they're not Jewish. So, what's going to happen? He's going to wake up one day, he's 20 years old. He's 20 years old, and he says, "Hey, look, I have my girlfriend. She's not Jewish, but she was my friend for 20 years. There was nothing wrong with her for 20 years. Why is there something wrong with her now?" Aba, why is there something wrong with it now? You didn't tell me there's anything wrong for 20 years. Why is there something wrong now? Somebody came to the Rabbi one time. He was and he said, "Uh, Rabbi, I have a big problem. My kid wants to marry a nonjew." He says, "What yeshiva?" And the father is crying, crying, crying. Rabbi was very emotional. He got he is truly connected to people. Sees one of the fellow Jew crying. He starts crying with him. He says, "What yeshiva did you send your boy?" Yeshiva. "No, no, no. You didn't go to yeshiva." What k did he go to? No, no, no. He didn't go to k. So you taught him all the Torah that he knows. No, no, he doesn't know Torah. So what does he know? He says, "I'd send him to public school and uh I we did kush once in a while despite loving amad." He told the truth even when it hurt and he said wicked it's your fault. It's not his fault. He doesn't know anything. It's your fault. You knew you was you were responsible for everything. And that's the thing that people don't understand. I spoke to a woman uh just the other day about Jewish education. I have a group on Facebook. It's a couple of thousand members. I post different sharim, not just my own. Posted something about Jewish education and it's like an 8-minute video by Rabi Mahi uh that really hits home. And uh one of the women says, "Yes, but if you don't have money, then public school has to do." A lot of people say, "Yeah, if you don't have money, then public school is the is the only answer." The reality of it is that if we really want something, especially a woman, you always find a way to get it. If you want something from your husband, you find a way to get it. If you want something, if you want a brand new car, you find a way to get it. If you want to survive in life, you find a way to get it. Now, obviously, if you don't have money, then you have to find a way by going to the rabbi and asking for assistance. Yes, I know it's going to hurt your pride. I know it's not it's not fun to go asking for money or asking for help, but you have to you have to look at it a different way. You can't look at it like I'm asking for money. You're asking the rabbi and this yeshiva. And if it's not one yeshiva, it's another one. If it's not another one, then another one. You keep going to different ones until you find one that's going to help you. And there's enough good Jews in the world that someone's going to help you. You keep doing it until you find one. Why? Because you're not you're not it's not about the school. It's about saving a soul. You're making a path for your child to succeed. I don't want to succeed in life as far as money and and career, but succeed with a a purpose in life. If your kid's not going to go to is going to go and be surrounded by non-Jews his whole life, then one day he's going to wake up and he's going to tell you, "Listen, I don't feel Jew. There's nothing there's no connection between me and the creator." This is why we celebrate Hanukkah because Hanukkah is is a is a holiday that not only did we have miracles from above uh of winning a war be beating a a giant uh army, a giant nation that hated Judaism as a whole. But Hanukkah is a holiday that we celebrate Judaism. We celebrate being Jewish. And there's never a time that it was at more risk in the last 2,000 years than at this time 2,000 years ago with the Greeks because again like I said they weren't interested in killing Jews. And that's the thing that we have today. Today we have a problem where many of the uh Jewish people today have no concept of what Judaism really is. And it starts with this Torah. Now the uh the shik usually has usually is read during this the time of Hanukkah. Not always but usually is. And it's a continuation of the story of what we went over uh last week. Uh uh we talked about Joseph and how his uh his brothers sold him purely out of jealousy. But not jealousy in a sense that they felt like a uh he's uh better than them. uh and they wanted to uh take advantage of the you know the fact that he there were many in these little but jealousy in a sense that they felt that he has a deeper connection with their father that maybe he doesn't deserve because they felt that with his dreams and the interpretation that he had with his dreams maybe he's really trying to ruin the plan that the family has and because he says that one day all of you are going to bow down to Now, according to the prophecy that Jacob have had and it'll be given from God, there's not going to be one one of the tribes that's going to lead all of them. So, they're saying, you know, there was supposed to be 12 tribes, 12 sons. This one son is saying that he's going to lead all of us. This doesn't seem like it fits the prophecy. Maybe he's trying to ruin the plan. Maybe he's trying to take over. So, it's our obligation to kill him. But maybe we're wrong. So instead of killing him, we'll sell him. So that way there's no blood on our hands. But what they told Yakov, they they told their father that they uh sold him in order to they told their father that they killed that he died from a an animal. So now at the end of last week's para they talk about Yseph being in jail after the whole incident with Potifar's wife. Ysef was not willing to uh violate the uh you know violate Potifar's wife even though she was begging him to do it. He knew that he's not allowed to be with a married woman. uh which uh you know is something that is uh nonetheless also a problem today. People don't see that as a big deal. Not not only do people don't think that it's a big deal, but there's actually some couples that ask each other to be with each other's wife today because they think that may stimulate the passion in their home. So I'm saying all of these things because they're real because that's the world we live in today. As much as we as much as it's awful to hear, it's as real as it gets. This is the world we live in. This is everything that people need to understand of why we need the Torah. It's not about wanting the Torah. We need it because as long as we don't have the Torah, things like being with other people's wives, walking around half naked or completely naked, killing, stealing, and pretty much every rule that God gave us seem like an elective seem like it's I could do it or not do it. Being nice becomes something subjective. It's a uh I'm nice based on my own definition. Hitler thought he was being nice. He was he thought he believed truly that he was doing the world a favor by killing all of the Jews. It wasn't that he thought that he was evil. He didn't wake up every morning and say, "Oh, I want to be the most evil man in the world." He thought he was doing the world a favor. This is what happens when you don't have Torah in your life. When you don't have directions from the creator, from the manufacturer of how to use the product, there's no there's no telling of how wrong you'll use it. You could have a uh phone, but you've never seen a phone before. So, to you, it's just a box. So, you think, "Oh, maybe this is a weapon. Maybe I'm supposed to throw it at people. Or maybe this is a cup holder. or maybe this is something I'm supposed to uh put into my dishwasher and uh just to uh to hold it together. Who knows what it is? Without following the instructions, there's no telling of how wrong you're going to be. There's no limit to how wrong we're going to be. As smart as we are, we're not we're not smarter than the creator or even a 1% of him. So, Hashem gave us the Torah because he knows that this is the only way we're going to survive. We need the Torah because we need to understand it's the only way we're going to survive. Even during this time, even though we haven't received the Torah until almost a uh several hundred years after this whole story in Mount Sai, the sages and the forefathers uh the forefathers of Amitov and all of their children were following the Torah, most of the Torah. So, Ysef goes to jail and then he has a incident where these two cellmates have a dream. He interprets their dream. One of them dies. The other one gets his job back being the wine the cup bearer for for Pero. And he and Ysef asks him to remember him once uh once he gets his job back. Now because Ysef asked him twice. He asked him the first time remember me if the you know once you get back to your job and then at the end of the interpretation he said again don't forget me. Remember me you know mention me to to I'm innocent. They've been here for 10 years already. That was already too much, too much effort on Ysef's level. And Hashem punished them by adding two more years to a sentence. Each one of us is required to have some level of effort in order for us to survive. The amount of effort versus the amount of amuna, the amount of faith you have to have in Hashem, all depends. If you have a 100% faith that Hashem is going to help you, then all you need to do is learn to all day. You don't ever have to worry about money and money will come. But if you worry about money, if you're worrying about how you're going to survive, that means that you don't have 100% faith. Maybe it's 90%, maybe it's 60%, maybe it's 30%. So the amount of effort you have to exert is based on how much amuna you have. Now that doesn't necessarily mean that all of us need to stop working tomorrow and just get into a room, close the doors and and and learn Tawraat. Each person has his own uh job in the world. But it's very very important to have uh serious amount of emad which you have to work on on a daily basis not just something you're born with and use the amount of effort that is what's necessary not necessarily you know if you're working 18 hours a day you pretty much have no whatsoever in Hashem you're thinking that you're the one that's going to make the money. If you're working a normal day and then you you make time for the family, you make time to learn to okay fine then you have then you're doing what you need to do. But if you have no time for Torah because you're working all the time because you think that you need to make money, then you have to know that you have zero amuna. You and Hashem don't have much of a connection. This is this is as real as it gets because if you really believe that Hashem created the heaven and the earth then that means that you would believe that if you do what he says he would provide for you every day when we read anytime you eat bread you have to do at the end of say I've been young I've been old and I've never seen a righteous person ever starve never seen it's no such If you do what Hashem says, of course you're going to, you know, Hashem's going to feed you. He's not going to make you starve because uh you have uh you know, you're learning Torah. So work as far as how much time you spend at work is again you have to make sure that work is in order to show your effort. But Torah has to be a priority. Now when Ysef asked in his level, he made too much effort. He was supposed to ask once. Okay. You want to ask help from this guy that you helped that Hashem gave you everything and uh you know to translate the dream. You want to tell him listen mention it to Paul. Fine. Once he asked the second time, Hashem said, "No, you crossed the line for that. You're going to get punished for each request. You in jail for another two years." Now at the beginning of this para it says it happened at the end of the two years to the day was dreaming that behold he was standing over the river when behold out of the river there emerged seven cows of beautiful appearance and robust flesh and they were grazing in the marshland. So par has this first of all it's telling us at the end of two years which is shows that it's at the end of two years exactly. So this this is to teach us that when Hashem gives us some type of punishment, it's exact. Same thing that he gives us any type of reward, it's exact. He's very precise. No one will ever suffer even an extra minute more than they need to. This we also learned when when his brothers when Yseph's brothers sold him, instead of him being sent to Egypt in a typical uh caravan that's usually full of oil and tar, which smells very bad, Hashem made those uh those merchants carry uh uh perfume. So at least throughout that whole journey, he didn't suffer from bad smell because okay, he had to suffer, but not that much. Hashem limited the show to remind Joseph, hey listen, I'm with you. There's only a limited amount of suffering that you're going to get and I'm going to limit it. Same thing here exactly after the uh 12 years the suffering was over. This gives us a lot of hope when we go through life and we have problems. Everyone there's not a person in the world that doesn't have problems. The Jewish pro Jewish nation has countless problems. We have people that are chasing us with knives. We have people that are, you know, trying to evict us from countries. They're trying to boycott us. They're trying to Every single thing that you can imagine is happening. And it's not just in far away lands. It's happening in America. It's happening in Israel. It's happening at home. You know, there was not too long ago there was a uh murder in uh in in Florida of, you know, just an innocent uh Jew going to McNess. Some crazy uh kid decided to murder him. We have problems non-stop. We need to understand that anything that Hashem decrees is very precise. So when we're going through our problems, we need to pray not because we need to pray because we think that hey listen, maybe Hashem made a mistake. Whatever Hashem decided, it's for our best interest. When Job got all the punishment that he had in the book of Job, his wife was telling him, "Why do you even bother praying to this God still?" And he says, "Foolish woman. Hashem, God gave, God took, says, anyway, may his name be blessed." But then as he kept going through more and more problems when God spoke to him through prophecy he said before that actually he said maybe God made a mistake maybe he thinks that Job in Hebrew is a and a if you change one of the letters and you move it to another place it spells ov means enemy says maybe God thinks that instead of me being a I'm really OV I'm an enemy. So when God spoke to him in a in in prophecy says God says to him, I know every single one of your hairs on your head. I know its name. Apparently each one of our hairs has a name. I know each one of its name. Created the heaven and the earth. Every single thing that moves in this world, everything that operates, he knows it. There's no, he doesn't give it to anybody else to do. He does everything. and you think I made a mistake with your name to to think that you're an enemy. No, you were supposed to get this and that's it. So when we pray, it's not that we pray that Hashem made a mistake. We pray that Hashem have even extra mercy to maybe make it end a little sooner because we can't handle it. We can't handle it. But in reality, it's good to know that all bad things come to an end. Eventually comes to an end. Whether it's an illness or it's financial difficulties or any any type of difficulty, it's going to end. The secret to making it end faster is connect to the one that gave it to you. Give him a reason. Now, if I was to go to a king of flesh and blood, I said, "Listen, I have some financial problems and I showed up to this king of flesh and blood, do you think I would show up with shorts and a t-shirt?" No. Right. Especially the shorts t-shirt that are dirty and maybe one of them has a hole. Probably not. Right. So over here, it says that before he got to Pal, they dressed him up. They ran him out of the jail, which also shows that as soon as the punishment was over, Hashem made them actually make him run out of the jail to translate Po's dream. means they rushed him and Pharaoh sent, you know, he was looking for somebody to translate these dreams, but no, none of his people were able to translate these dreams until this uh cup bearer finally remembered this Hebrew, this Jew that was in jail with him two years ago that helped him out. And he says, "Oh, listen. Don't kill all of us." Because per Pharaoh got really, really upset. He says, "Listen, I have all I'm paying all of you guys a lot of money to be interpreters of dreams to be the wise people. Apparently, you're all fools and liars. If somebody doesn't translate my dream today, you're all dying." So, the cup bearer realized, "Okay, we're all going to die or we're going to have to find something." Finally, desperate times calls for desperate measures. You remember this Hebrew that was in jail. So when they're bringing, he tells Po, "Listen, when I was in jail two years ago, I met this uh this Hebrew, this slave, this young guy." He gives him a really bad description to show that even when a wicked person gives a uh doesn't you do a favor, it's still not 100% favor. It's like he's giving you the money, but in reality, he's kind of pulling it back or he's trying to find a way that to steal it from you. you know, he's lending you money, but he also made you sign a contract that 95% of all profits go to him. So, you're never going to be ahead. He's charging you 80% interest. That's a wicked person. So, he's giving a description to uh to Pharaoh and Pharaoh makes them uh calls on him. They they they run him out of this dungeon. And not even moments later, the punishment is pretty much over. They dress him up. They shave him. They dress him very appropriately. Now, if I was at this back to be talking to this king of flesh and blood, if I came to this king of flesh and blood and I said, "Listen, I have some financial problems." Would I say it in a way where I'm cursing and yelling at him and maybe even tell him, "Listen, you owe me. You owe me this money. Why do I owe you? I don't know. I just feel like you're the king. You have a lot of money. Give it to me." Most likely the king is going to kill me to say the least. Right. He's not going to answer me with a positive response. Absolutely. All right. So, we have to understand that when we're requesting stuff from the real king, from the king above us, when we show up to ask Hashem for things, whether it's for pona, whether it's for a zeu, whether you to find a partner, a uh, you know, a wife or a husband, uh, whether it's for children, whether it's for any type of salvation whatsoever, we have to show up with something. We can't demand. Hashem doesn't owe us anything. He's the king. We're here to serve him. He's not here to serve us. He's not Santa Claus. So, we have to show up with something. Now, what do we show up with? What can we possibly offer someone that has everything? It's the only thing he wants from us. Okay, Hashem, listen. Until now, I wasn't modest. I wasn't modest. From now on, I'm going to be modest. But you can't say from now on if you give me this stuff Hashem. No, first you're modest. First you take the step. You say, "Look, Hashem, I've been modest for the last week. Look, Hashem, I've been modest for the last 6 months. I'm reading more Torah. I'm being more observant. I'm keeping better kosher. I'm doing You're doing so You're showing up to Hashem with some type of report. Look, Hashem, I'm being a good boy. Look, Hashem, I'm being a good girl. I'm doing what you want me to do. The best thing about Hashem is once you start doing what he wants you to do, you don't have to ask. But even if you get to a point where you need to ask, at least you have something to show for it. Now Ysef, what did he have to show for it for for a king of flesh and blood? King of flesh and blood asks him, Paul asks him, listen, I heard about you. You translate dreams. No, I don't translate translate dreams. It's beyond me. Only if God wants you to know the dream, he's going to give it to me. But me, I don't know. I'm just a human. Between you and me, if I was in jail for 12 years and somebody asked me, can you translate dream time to? Yeah, sure. How many you want? Yeah. Just don't put me back in jail. Right. But you had tells the truth. So now he translate the dreams and he tells uh he gives a uh a a message telling him listen you're going to have seven years of abundance where you're going to make a lot of money. The stock market's going to go up every day like it's been going since 2009 the market's been going up on a daily basis. Everything's going to be fine. You're going to have a surplus. But then there's going to be seven years of famine. The market's going to crash. It's going to crash so bad they're going to forget that it was ever good. Which, by the way, personally, I've been predicting the market's going to crash for the last couple years. Obviously, I've been wrong, but I still think that it's going to crash very soon. Not because of a profit, but just because nothing makes sense. Nothing makes sense. The fact that you have technology companies that barely make any money being valued at 50, 60, 70 billion. the fact that you have some companies that are, you know, in business for less than 10 years, make a few dollars, but they're better valuations than companies like Walmart and Coca-Cola. A lot of things don't make any sense. But people are stupid and they're going to continue paying for these uh companies and for these stocks. And then when it crashes like it did in 2008, it's like, "Oh, I knew it's going to do it. So why don't you sell?" No, I just didn't think it's going to happen then. Okay, but once it started, why don't you sell? No. Like, so that's the thing. No one knew anything. It's because people are too greedy to really change their ways. People always think that it's gonna they're gonna win. So now is telling Paul, listen, you could be like those people or you could be smart. You could find a very smart person that not only knows finance, knows money, but also somebody that knows how to preserve food. It's not just putting your food in a bunch of boxes and hope for the best. So Po saw that this kid is special. The reason why he saw he's special is because when he translated his dream, Po tried to make he tried to test Yseph. He wanted to see if he's really just coming up with whatever description he had. So as Po is telling him the dream, he's changing the dream. He's not really telling him his dream. He's telling, "Okay, so there was seven cows, but then there was uh three mice walking around." Now, Kazal says that Ysef also dreamt the same dream the night before. He saw his dream. Was no fool, right? Paul was a genius. He was also a wizard. He's very smart. He was very powerful. So that's why he's testing him. Mhm. He's saying if this guy knows my if he really is a dream interpreter, then he's going to catch me making a mistake in the dream. Is that But if he's just a Bubba, if he's just one of those guys, he can tell me, "Okay, seven cows mean $7 million. Seven other cows mean $7 billion. He's going to tell me whatever he wants. How do I know it's true?" So he tries to test him in an unusual way by saying making mistakes when he's telling him to dream. And each time he he says something fake, Ysef stops him and says, "No, no, no. You didn't dream that. There was no seven. There was no mice. There was only the seven cows. So every time you would do it, Ysef would correct him. It got so much to the point that by the end of the dream, Po was telling him, "Were you watching my dream? How do you know this stuff?" There's something unusual about this kid. Mhm. So at the end after he tells him everything that's going to happen, Paul looks at his other servants, all of his government members, all of the people that he has, could we find another like him? A man in whom is the spirit of God? God is in this person. He knows things that no one else could possibly tell you that they know. Okay, maybe this guy can make a stick turn into a uh, you know, into a snake. Or maybe this one can do a few magic tricks here and there, but it's not real. It's illusion. This kid actually knows my dream. This kid actually knows a lot. Can't find anybody like him. The reason why he asked his servants is because there was a lot of anti-semitism at the time. The Egyptians hated the Jews already. So much so that they wouldn't even eat at the same table as them. And that's why later on in this para when Joseph sits down with his brothers to eat, his servants and he himself are sitting at different tables. He can't show that he's Jewish to his brothers. And his servants under no condition would ever sit with a bunch of 10 Jews. It's like they they felt like we're a disease. So po even though he's po he's telling him listen forget about whether we like them or not. There's nobody like this kid this is something uh this is something better than all of us. Another thing is that in order to there was a rule in Egypt according to the there was a rule in Egypt that the person that spoke the most amount of languages he would become parole. Now P he had a throne where it wasn't like just a seat like we see in the movies. His throne had steps. He was sitting on top of a throne. There was many many steps over 70 steps. So with every step so you would speak to Ysef in a language. If Ysef knew the language, you would speak to him back in that language and he would take one step. And then Ysef would speak in a language and Po would speak in that language and he would take another step. Now P was so smart. He knew 70 languages. 70 languages. Ysef had a miracle happen the night before. An angel came down to uh Gabriel came down. The angel Gabriel came. Hashem sent Gabriel and he tried to teach him 71 languages. It was too much for Joseph's human body. So Hashem just gave it to him. He just gave him all all 71 languages. So when he arrived at the throne after 70, both of them know 70. And then finally, Joseph speaks Hebrew, the 71st language, which Pharaoh didn't know. So Pharaoh says, "Listen, there's no one like you, but I'm going to make a deal. You can't tell anyone that you know one more language than me, but I'll make you king. But I'll make you king. I'll give you no one will be more powerful than you. Only I can oversee you." And that's what he says over here. Pharaoh says to Joseph, "I am Pharaoh, and without you, no man may lift his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt. and he gives him a special name and then he gets him a wife which has a story of its own but nonetheless it's not just because he translated the dream but in reality he showed him something that in reality that if the Egyptians found out about the 71 languages that Joseph knew they would make him king they would make him king anyway so Joseph made a sway made a nether and this nether is a swear in Judaism. He made a promise. I I swear that he will never tell anyone that he knows more languages than Pharaoh. Later on, this comes in very key once Joseph's father uh many years later, about 20 or so years later, uh or 17 years later, um dies and Joseph wants to go bury his father. Pharaoh doesn't want Joseph to leave. He's the king. They're making a lot of money because of him. Everything is great. They're almost worshiping this kid. He's not a kid anymore, but they're worshiping this young guy. Pharaoh doesn't want him to leave. So, Joseph says to Pharaoh, "Listen, I swore to my father that I would bury him in the cave of Mah. Now, if you tell me that I can't, you being the king, if you tell me that I can't keep this swear and I have to cancel the swear I made to my father, that means I also have to make this swear that I made to you 20 years ago. And I have to tell everybody that I speak 71 languages and that was the only reason why Pharaoh let uh Joseph go bury his father in a different place. So now moving on you have Joseph in a matter of moments goes from being in a dungeon for 12 years suffering to now he's the most powerful man in the world. No one could uh could say do anything without him. The Midrash says that on that day Pharaoh gave Joseph a gifts of fields um estates as well as three 3,00. Now, in today's uh doing the math, in today's numbers, that's somewhere in the neighborhood of about 400 or $450 million. He gave him on his first day at his job. It's a nice boss to have. Bonus. It's a nice bonus. Bonus. It's better than Goldman Sachs. So, Joseph didn't just have a position. Now, he became very, very rich, too. Now during the next seven years it happened as Joseph said and the dream he translated the dream. Uh if anyone wants to know a little bit more about dreams I talked about it in last night's sh that I did at my house. Uh I speak about it extensively about dreams. So I don't want to go over the same thing. So you should watch the video. Uh I sent it to you and anyone that wants the videos you could either subscribe or just give me your uh uh email or tech or uh phones and I could text it to you. But uh everything that he said in his dream happened and uh this next seven years they're making a lot of money. They're uh and Joseph is preserving all of this extra food. A few other people that were smart also tried to preserve the food. But after seven years when the famine starts another miracle happens and all of the other people that try to preserve food, their food goes bad. And only food that go that's that's preserved is the food that Joseph preserved. So putting Joseph in a position of significant power having giving him a monopoly. Now the Egyptians had some reserves that goes away. They want to get some more food. They come to uh Po. They come to Joseph. Joseph says no. Okay. If you want to uh if you want the food, circumcise yourself. Why do I have to circumcise myself? We're not Jewish. Joseph knew that all your this anti-semitism is going to continue, especially when he knows that he sees that his brothers are going to come eventually. His family is going to come. The Jewish people are going to come. The 70 people that was in the family of of Jacob at the time. Okay. Please. uh the 70 people uh that were uh at the uh there were 70 Jews in the world, 70 Hebrews or Israelites. They're going to come to Egypt and you're going to make fun of them because they have circumcision. You call them half a man, half of this. They're collectible. So I don't want my family to be made fun of because God's laws. So if you want food, circumcise yourself. So they all go to uh they don't want to circumcise themselves. They all run to uh to Po. Paul says, "Listen, he's the one with the power. Do whatever he says. Look at everything that's happened." But when we were making money the first seven years, I said, "Okay, maybe you got lucky. We made some money because of him." But once the famine started, once exactly the timing and we everyone, the whole world started losing money except us. It wasn't just a famine in Egypt. It was a worldwide famine. No one had food. The only place in the world that had food was Egypt was Joseph. So this this may if if Pharaoh was rich before Joseph get there right now there's no limit to how much he has. If he was a billionaire, now he's a multi- trillionaire. Because imagine one person in the entire world has food. You pay whatever you want. Whatever he wants. He wants to charge you a million dollars for an apple. You pay him a million dollars for an apple. So now you have a uh situation where the uh they have to circumcise themselves and a couple of years pass into this famine. It gets worse and worse. It gets to a point where Yakov and his children are starting to feel the pain back at home. So this was really the plan of uh of Joseph where he says eventually these my family is going to come. And uh he told all of the servants the day is going to come give me a description of these uh few people. If they walk into this city, you let me know right away. But also make sure anyone that's uh buying food. Has to be the guy that uh wants to buy the food. You can't send a a servant to buy food for him because I want to see every person that's buying food. I couldn't tell them it's because I'm looking for my brothers. something. So he had a whole plan of how to make sure that when his brothers eventually come, he's going to see them. Now, the last time he saw his brother was 22 years ago. Last time he was a little 17year-old kid, no beard, clean shaven. So his uh when his brothers finally come, YaKob sends them. He says, "Listen, go to Egypt. I I hear they're the only ones that have food. go there, but make sure that uh all of you don't go into the same gate. Go into 10 different gates. He sent 10 out of the 11. Benjamin stayed home. He sent 10 out of the 11. He said go through 10 different gates. The reason why you have to go to 10 different gates because if they see if everyone sees you coming out of first gate, then they know you're all from the same family and they see you have so much they give you the evil eye. So this shows that the evil eye is very real. It's not some illusion or some superstition. Evil eye is 100% real. Which by the way, the says anyone that is uh scared of evil eye or some you know uh they should do what um Yakov teaches us. You take uh your uh right hand and your left hand. You take the two thumbs. You put them like this. Say I am from the seed of uh your sadik and he is above the uh the evil eye. Uh and then there's another verse um uh um and then you know you see this this verse that Jacob says as the blessing for Sadik before he dies and it's a uh you know it's something that protects you against evil eye. The other thing that protects you against evil eye is praying to Hashem. That's the best thing. Every time you say if there's good news always say if there's bad news always say if you want something say everything either blessing of Hashem or with Hashem's help always involve and make Hashem as a constant part of your of your speech make him a constant part of your life. The more you mention Hashem during your day the more connected you are going to be to him. But if Hashem, if you're only connecting to Hashem through prayer, okay, so you pray in the morning, you pray in the afternoon. Okay, so you connect to them twice a day. Okay, so I do a blessing here and there. So you connect them five times a day. Fine. That's good. It's not bad. But what if you instead of five, you connect them a thousand times. It doesn't require that much effort. You just say it in I mean like obvious you just say it for yourself or you could say it to yourself. You could say it when people speak to you. It's up to you. uh you know it's a uh again you have to you have to say Hashem because you can't use the real name of Hashem right uh that's the third commandment you're not allowed to use his name in vain which means just talk saying the real name of Hashem casually you're not allowed that's what you mean by that right uh that's why we say Hashem means that name so we're not actually saying a name we're saying the names uh the the real name is the one that we use during prayer uh or it's one of the real names so Now, we're not allowed to use that. We say Hashem. Hashem means the name. You can say Hashem as many times as you want. Uh to you, it means the same thing, but it's obviously uh you're still giving his name so much respect that you're not actually saying it. But again, you should make it a a part of your language, make it a part of your speech because that can help you stay connected and remind you, especially during difficult times. There's not a day that goes by that people don't have a difficult time. Whether it's an employee or a boss or a customer or some uh driver that just cut you off or police officer that pulled us off, a pull us over or or somebody that's robbing you or somebody that's cheating you there. It's constant problems. It's constant every day. When we say when somebody says, "Where are you going?" or "What are you doing today?" Oh, but it's not Hashem. I'm supposed to do ABC. that already reminds us today he's here. It subconsciously reminds you that he's in control. Don't worry, whatever is happening, he wants it to happen. It's for your interest. So, make Hashem a constant part of your speech because that reminds you consciously and subconsciously that he is a uh a permanent part of your life. Uh so now after uh Joseph makes all of these elaborate laws to make sure that when his brothers arrive, he sees them. The brothers arrive, all 10 of them, they all go through 10 different gates and uh after a few days, you know, we um he hears about them, but then they don't show up. So then Joseph sends his soldiers to go look for these 10 people. He gives description of what these people look like. Even though he hasn't seen them in 22 years, he remembers how the older ones look like. So, he gives a description. They get arrested and they're all brought to his house to uh to uh the uh to Joseph. Now, Joseph uh obviously they can't recognize him. It's been 22 years. He has a beard now. He's not a 17year-old kid. I don't know. but he recognizes them. And to make sure that they don't recognize him, he doesn't speak their language. He doesn't speak Hebrew. He speaks to them through an interpreter. And he speaks very harshly. He's very mean to them. Oh, you're spies. No, no, no. We're not spies. Uh, no, you're spies. Why would you come through through 10 10 different gates unless you're spying for someone else? No, really. We're looking for our brother. Which brother you looking for? And they tell him, "No, we have 12 brothers from the same father. One of them is gone and one of them is still with our father." And he said, "What if I," the Midash says that he asks them, "What if I found this brother of yours or if someone found this brother of yours, but he didn't want to give him back to you?" and they respond to him. We would fight until either they're dead or we're dead to save this brother. This really made uh see that there maybe there's a possibility that they changed. Amen. So now he goes back and forth with them. They he's constantly calling them spies. They're trying to convince him they're not spies. He throws all of them in jail. They're in jail for 3 days. After 3 days, he says, "Okay, you know what? I'm not going to be uh like you. I'm uh you know, I have some mercy on this family of yours that's waiting back at home. So, I'm going to give you guys a chance by sending nine of you back home. I'm going to keep Shimon, the brother, in jail. So, if you want him back, you have to come back. Not only all nine of you, but you have to come back with this 11th brother of yours that you say you have. Because if you really have another brother, then uh you'll bring them. If you don't have another brother, then obviously, you know, then uh you I was writing you as our spies and I'll track you down and kill all of you. Now, the big question here is why were the 10 brothers so scared of Joseph? Because what we're going to what we learned in last week's para is that they were all big warriors with supernatural powers. Mhm. the uh actually in last week's shure we talked about how the source of of uh of all superheroes like X-Men and uh all the superheroes you see in the movies today the whole concept of superheroes comes from the Torah it actually comes from the 12 tribes because if you see the midrash you see the oral Torah it talks about the wars that they fought and it gives you real details how they jumped over giant walls and they picked up boulders and they killed you know, 20, 30, 40,000 men in a day, you know, just the 10 of them, not talking about the dam and an army of 50,000 people. So, they had superpowers. So, what do these 10 people have uh so scared of this one guy? So, there's two answers to that. Number one is the obvious answer that we see in today's world, which is always seeks peace first under all conditions, even if it requires us to suffer. You see this in today's world with Israel. Even though the Israeli government is not exactly a uh observant Jewish government, they're still Jewish nonetheless. And you see that when we go to war with the terrorists, we do things that no other government in their right mind would ever do. Uh there was a video recently posted by um the Prager University uh of a commander from the uh you know United Kingdom army uh talking about how the Israeli army the IDF is the most um civil and uh most merciful army in history of war because he said I was at war with them you know on their side a couple years ago when they were going against the uh Hamas and because they did not want to hurt civilians, they would actually call the terrorist house and tell and put flyers in the street telling them that they're going to bomb the neighborhood. They're going to bomb specific houses. Now, when you're in war, civilians die. It's unfortunate, but it's collateral damage. It happens. Now, America did not call Saddam Hussein's friends or and and tell them, "Listen, by the way, we're going to bomb your castle before they did it." Japan did not call America before they bombed the uh Pearl Harbor and say, "Hey, by the way, the surfers that are hanging out there, tell them not to go to the beach there because we're going to bomb." No one does this. But the Israeli army that comes from the root of Jacob says, "Listen, we don't want to kill civilians. we know that you have bombs in this house. So the few of you that you know don't want to die and hopefully are not terrorists. Leave and it would put hundreds of thousand millions of flyers all over the streets telling people that they're going to bomb this place. So this shows you that you know in order to be a Jew you have to have mercy. But Amad has even beyond the mercy of a normal human being. And Ysef says I have mercy. I'm going to let you go bring food to your families, but you got to go bring me back this kid, this other Why do you want this one uh one brother? Because that was his natural brother. The other brothers came from different mothers. Benjamin is the only one that came from the same mother from now. When they go back to uh tell uh Yakov what happened, Shimon is back there. We have all this food, but we lost one of our brothers. It's not exactly the best news in the world. Yakov is not very happy with them. And especially when they when Ruven tells him, listen, in order for us to get Shimon back, we have to bring Benjamin over there. Benjamin over there. There's a big problem. He's not willing to do it. And Ruven tells him, Ruven, the the oldest brother, tells him, listen, if uh I'll take the responsibility and if uh I don't bring him back, you can kill both of my kids. So the Midash says that uh Jacob ignored him, saying, "What a fool my firstborn son is, thinking that his two sons are not my two sons also, that I would kill them." What kind of deal is this? You're telling me that if you don't bring one of my sons, I should kill two more sons. How does that make any sense? But the w didn't really mean kill my sons. He meant, you know, I'm going to take responsibility. I'm really serious. I'm very passionate. Now, having passion when you're speaking is very, very important because when you speak from the heart, people will listen. Something sometimes having too much passion is not exactly the most effective thing. So the uh there's a good story where this one guy was a uh trying to teach his kid Torah, trying to teach us to Torah and uh kid just doesn't learn, you know, doesn't speak a word. He's three years old, hasn't spoken a word, nothing. So he's trying to teach the first words for this kid. He wants to teach him something. Kid is not saying one word. One day, two days, one week, two weeks, three weeks, he's not speaking. He's thinking this this kid is I don't know is a fool or he's maybe he's uh something wrong with him. So one day he takes him with him to uh to the market to the Israeli market. In Israel it doesn't matter whether it's 2015 the year 2015 or 1915. There's certain parts of Israel that are still like the old days. So even today you go to the middle of Tel Aviv, you're always going to find a guy with a donkey and watermelons carrying watermelons. And the guy with the donkey with the watermelons screams which is watermelon on the knife like you get fresh watermelon and the guy is screaming at the top of his lungs. So he passed by this watermelon salesman and the kid 2 minutes later starts saying he starts saying watermelon on the knife. So the father so the father says I'm trying to teach this kid Hebrew Torah for three weeks. He's this fool kid doesn't doesn't want to listen to anything. He listens to this uh watermelon salesman for two minutes and he already says it. He goes to the rabbi and tells him what my kid there's something wrong with him. He goes, "No." He said, "When you were trying to teach him a Torah, you're just trying to teach him just to get it over with." The guy that's selling watermelons, he's thinking about if I don't sell these watermelons, they're going to evict me out of my house. So when he says when he says watermelon, he's trying to sell them. He's saying it with his all of his heart. If you're going to teach Torah, Teach it with all your heart. Don't be a computer. You want to want to teach your kids something, teach it with all your heart. Don't be one of these people. Yes. It says 20 March through uh put some passion into it. Show them that you care. Be involved. Be involved. You know, that's that's the the most important thing in education is to be involved. You have to make it like you're learning also. Even if you're not learning, even if your kid's six years old and obviously you know the math that he's learning, you know the uh English that he's learning, you know the Torah that he's learning, even if you know all of it, act like you're learning also because if you're excited about it, they're going to be excited about it. But if you look at it like A B C, and if you're boring, they're going to think it's boring. Where are they going to go? Mommy, where I hate school. You hate school. What' school do to you? Somebody beat you up? No. The teacher make fun of you? No. Then why? I don't know. All the There's no reason. They just hate school. Why do they hate school? They hate school because of you. Cuz you're showing them that they that's boring. You tell them I hate wood. And you're watching the TV on the side. I can't wait till this be over. It's like you're praying to Hashem that this homework is going to be over. It's like, you know what, honey? Go play. I'll do the homework for you. And you do the kid. You do the homework for the kid. It's the worst thing you can do. Do go watch TV. Go watch TV. I'll finish the homework for you. You can't take it. You're killing your kid. You're destroying him. He's going to hate school. He's going to hate school. It's not good. School is very important. One of the most important things for for for uh that people need to understand about school is that even though most of what you learn, especially public school, most of what you learn in school you're not going to use in real life. So, what's the point of school? School teaches you how to think. It's not that you need to know history and what uh Antio did 2,300 years ago. Antio is not coming back from the dead. He's not going to talk to you. He's not going to ask you, do you remember me? It's not that you need to remember, you know, who was the first president of uh United States before you die. They're not going to ask you, listen, before you die, we need to ask you, do you know who the first president was? No one cares. No one's going to ask you if you know what the coine or the tangent of a number is in math. No one's going to ask you if you know the square root of 81. None of that stuff is actually used in real life. The point of all of it, the point of whether it's grade school, kindergarten, high school, obviously hopefully all of them being Jewish organizations for Jews. um and even college is to teach you how to think. If you're going to go to college, the reality of it is most of the time you're going to spend in college is complete waste of money. The only valuable time you have is probably the la, you know, maybe a junior year, your third year, maybe the part of your senior year. Most of college is just partying and wasting aba's money because most kids don't know anything about what they want to do. And even if they finished school, they still don't know if they want to do it. And even if they want to do it, it's a real job. They have to go to more school. So if you're going to school, you know, regular school, obviously you have to already go into it thinking that school is going to teach me how to think, how to make my brain work. The beauty about the Torah is that if you teach a kid from being young kid Torah, by the time he's 12 or 13 years old, his brain is sharper than any doctor you have in the in the world. At 13 years old, if he learned mala at 13 years old, bring any doctor you want in the world. He's the kid's going to be smarter than him because the teaches you to work your brain in in some in a completely different way. It takes you to a different level. Any yeshiva kid you're gonna bring next to him, someone that really learns. I'm talking about somebody that learns an hour a day, someone that truly learns Torah, serious student, even a teenager, it's going to be smarter than anybody you want in the world. It's completely changes your brain. And it's never too late. Doesn't have to doesn't mean that the kid has to be born with the in his hand. Even if you start at 40 years old, never learn a page of you start now. After 5, 6, 7, 10 years of serious studying, you're going to start looking at the world like it's two different places. You can't recognize the world you live in. You can't even recognize yourself from 10 years ago. Changes your brain completely. The Torah has something not only spiritual in it, but it's also something that makes you think in a completely unusual way to secular knowledge. So, first thing is to teach us how to think. As far as if you're going to go for a career in the world and you're going to go to college for it, then it better be a meaningful career. If you're already going to work, I already always tell people, listen, as far as business, I spent some time in the business world. We had a uh, you know, some big successes at times. I've decided to spend my life to be in the in the Torah world now. And um, it's not because I can't get a job. It's not because of any other reason other than the fact that I think that God needs more Jews than he does need business people. It doesn't necessarily mean that everybody has to do it. He gave me a gift. I could speak. I like to learn. So the two go together and I could influence people to do chan. Hashem, we've had a lot of success doing it. But at the same token, this knowledge that he's given me about business over all these years and the experience that I have, I still have it. So I try to help people with business. And I tell him, listen, if you're already going to do business, at least do it the right way. Don't go there and waste your time. If you're going to go to work and just making $5 an hour, you know, while the guy sitting right next to you is making 150 just because he spends an extra hour at work, there's something wrong with you. If you're going, you know, so if you're going to do anything, at least do it the right way. If someone is going to go to college and they want to go for a career, have some type of direction. Don't go for a communications degree. Don't go for an English degree. Don't waste $100,000, $200,000 of your parents' money for absolutely no reason whatsoever. If you're going to go for a degree, go for a real degree. What you want to be an engineer, you want to be a lawyer, you want to be a doctor, you want to be, I don't know, something. But don't be, oh, no, I'm going there because I want to be a teacher. You don't need to go to the most fanciest college in the world to be a teacher. Go to community school, pay $3,000 a year, and you'll be just as good of a teacher. That's what you want to do, then. So again, when we're educating our kids, it's when it comes down to Jewish education, the most important thing we need to understand is that Jewish education is saving their soul. More important than any career in the world you're ever going to give them, you have to give them Jewish education in school, not just at home. It has to be 24/7. They have to understand they're Jewish 24 hours a day. Second thing is if you want to make your kids succeed in life in general, make sure that they learn as early as possible, which you know the yeshiva will do that. And third of all, if if the kid eventually once they're 17, 18 years old, they get to a point where they want to go towards the career world, then if they've been learning, you know, their whole life, they're going to be a top student and they'll do they'll make some good decisions. But in general, try to be a a light to them by giving them a direction. Don't just send your kid and hope for the best that he's going to make the decision by themselves cuz at the end of the day they're still 17, 18 years old. They don't really know that much. They know maybe they'll know some Torah, but they're not going to know life yet. So if you if you want your kid to be excited about learning, you have to be excited. If you have little kids, you're doing their homework for them, don't do the homework for them. Even if it's the kid goes to it's better that the kid goes to school with no homework than you doing the homework for them. Why? But then he's going to fail, right? So why why is it what parents wants their kid to fail? No one. Right? But what happens when you fail? You get embarrassed. You're not happy. No one wants to be a loser. So when you realize that you failed, okay, I have to do better. Now I'm going to do homework better. Now I'm not going to play anymore. It builds the kid's self-esteem. You can't make a kid expect you to do everything for them because the real world is not like that. You can't do everything for the kid and the kid's 25 years old. He's still expecting mommy to wake him up in the morning and make him lunch. He's 25. He's a real man. Go away. Do you know live your life? So, when you're doing their homework and saying that, "No, no, don't worry, it's a uh I'll do it for you." That's what you're training him to be. You're training to be one of these 30-year-old kids that's still living at home. And you don't want that. So you want them to be excited about learning. And so my best suggestion is to fake it until you make it. You know, they say even pretend that you're excited about it even though it's boring, even though it's annoying, even though you rather be doing a million and a half other things. If you show excitement about it after a few times, you're not going to have to help them. They're going to do it by themselves because you're excited about it. Everybody, every everybody wants to do something you're excited about. Just imagine if you're excited about a TV show, your kids automatically love it. If you're excited about a certain sport, your kids are automatically fans. If you're excited about a certain food, all of a sudden, this is my favorite food. Well, you've never eaten it before. No, it's my favorite. Em, my favorite. You never eat it before. No, no, I know. It's my favorite. Anything you're excited, they're excited about because a kid thinks that you're the best. You're you're you're idol. So, if you're going to teach them all these things, be excited about it. And I think that's that makes them much more effective. Now after this going back to the para you have the situation with Jacob has to make a difficult decision. Now I already have one son that supposedly got killed another son is in jail. In order for me to save the one son I have to risk nine because it's possibility that this terrible you know visceroy may not uh you know may kill all of them. Maybe he's asking for all of them to come. So the Midash says that uh Yakov Yakov is it's not just a simple language. He says here listen you should go bring him a gift and hopefully he has mercy. The real the real thing about Yakov Yakov wasn't someone to fool around with. Yakov had a direct connection with God. If you collect all of the people in the world, all of the holy and everything in the world, maybe maybe all of us could be the equivalent of his nail. Jacob had a direct connection with God. So Yakov when he went to Asav, a lot of people think that Yakov was just giving compliments to a wicked person by saying, "Hey, listen. I seeing you is like seeing the face of an angel." The real hidden message here is that it wasn't like that. He said, "Yes, seeing you is like seeing a hidden the face of an angel. The real secret is that he was telling him, by the way, I'm not the same yeshiva boy I was 34 years ago. Seeing a face of an angel, that means that my friends are angels. I see angels all the time. So, don't mess with me. You hang out with a bunch of clowns, a bunch of ISIS members, bunch of uh drug dealers and uh and uh you know, scavengers that murder people for fun. I hang out with angels. We could destroy you in a second. You understand? So just like somebody says in a says that the uh what is this like? It's like somebody that goes gets invited to a a house and he finds out that the host wants to kill him. So how does he get out of this situation? So he tells the host, "Oh wow, the food is so good. It reminds me of the food that I had at the king's house. So, what does the host think? Host immediately thinks, "Wait, he went to eat at the king's house? That means they're friends. Nobody just goes to the king's house to eat lunch. That means they're friends. So, if I kill him, the king's going to find out. The king finds out he's going to kill me." So, automatically, the host doesn't want to kill him anymore. So, this is what Yakob is doing to the way I hang out with your your face reminds me of angels because I'm trying to tell you that I hang out with angels. Don't mess with me. Same thing as what he did to this mysterious king that he hasn't met. He tells his sons, "Listen, just like I brought to Isab, I I send him special gifts." That's to buy them to soften their heart a little bit. Prayer, I'll pray for El Shai. I I'll pray for the God that created the heaven and the earth to say enough. D means uh in Hebrew means enough. So the the God that created the heaven and the earth, but eventually he said enough. I created enough. That's it. No more creations. Nothing's going to be created. So just like he said enough of creations and he ended creation after the six days. He's going to say the end of my pro problems. No more problems for Yakov anymore. So I'll pray to I'll pray to God to so you have mercy but also give him this letter. So in this letter it says it's a really interesting letter and he tells him and so I'm going to summarize it and uh he tells this mysterious king I heard you're smart I heard you're nice da da da but I also heard that you accused my children of being spies and at the moment that I heard that you're accusing my kids of being spies and took one of them to jail I almost looked up at the heavens and had two tears come out of my eyes. And if those two tears would have come out, the God of heaven and the earth would have turned your entire country and kingdom and friends and everything you have into dust. So make sure that when my kids get there, you treat them nice. He sends them a threat letter. So make sure that when I send my kids there, you bring all of them back and you treat them good. So he sends him a threat letter. So you know when you read the Torah sometimes, you know, it seems like why was why were the 12 tribes scared? Why was Yakov so passive? That's why you have to read the story behind the story. So now going back to the question of why were the 12 tribes scared if they uh the 11 you know 10 of them why were they so scared of this one guy because when they saw Yoseph and they saw that he had this not just this position of money and everything but he also had this wisdom and he started telling them things about their past that they forgot about reminding them of Joseph reminding them of their past reminding them of their own sin at that moment they started feeling guilty. And as soon as they started feeling guilty, all of the powers that Hashem gave them disappeared. So they felt like just regular people. But then they started admiring this guy. They started saying, "Listen, you know, to saying to their father, listen, he's not exactly the most wicked person because look, he even sent us home. He had mercy on us. He sent us with a lot of food. You know, if he just wanted to kill us, he could have killed us on the spot. He sent us all back. So, and also his wisdom is amazing. He knows things about us that we didn't even know. He knew exactly what kind of beds we slept in when we were young. They don't realize that it's really their brother telling them. So now Yakov doesn't want to do it initially. Doesn't want to send them initially. And then after they start getting to the point of uh running out of food. As we said earlier, desperate times call for desperate measures. And Jacob says, "Okay, go and get the uh get the food." And he said, "You Judah comes to me." He goes, "Yeah, but we have to bring Benjamin." And at that time, all the little kids, all the children of the brothers came and telling Yakov, "We're all going to die if we're if we don't get food." So they hit his heart a little bit, made the made made Sabah feel a little guilty, he says, "Okay, take Ben Beyamin and also take this letter." So they all get to Egypt and to their surprise, Ysef welcomes them, welcomes them in his house. Now they're thinking initially that he's maybe he's welcome us welcoming us in his house because he wants to arrest us and kill all of us. So immediately they take the money that uh was left in their bags which they thought that uh somebody was trying to trap them and they give it they try to give it to this uh servant of the uh of of Ysef which ends up being Manasha his son which they don't know yet. And he said, "No, no, there was a mistake made. Uh, the last time we came here, we bought some food, but for some reason, the money was put back in our bags." And Masha says, "No, no, no. You've paid you paid full uh full price. All the money that uh you gave me, I have. This money is a blessing from your god." To surprised, he's like, "You have nothing to worry about. you were invited here to have lunch with the uh with uh the visceroy. Now they are very very surprised. Now at the same token they also know that they cannot eat food with the grain. First of all the Egyptians didn't eat meat. didn't eat they didn't eat uh cows or uh or sheep they worshiped them but Jews that was their main meal so that was also part of the reason why the Egyptians would not sit with the Jews because they would be disgusted that they're eating their god. Uh second thing is Jews have kosher laws and even though we didn't get the Torah until a few hundred years after this happened, the uh the patriarchs and the 12 tribes were all keeping kosher laws. So since Joseph was a Jew, 100% kosher Jew, um he uh made sure that he told Manasha, his son, take one of the uh take one of the animals and bring them to the slaughter and show them how you slaughter it. So they see that you're slaughtering it in a kosher way. and also show them all of the food that you're preparing in a kosher way so they don't have a problem eating. So the all these guys are staring the tribes have seen this. They're amazed. How does this Egyptian know about all of these rules? There's only 70 people in the world know about this stuff. It's not like today where there's internet, there's Facebook, there's millions of Jews. I mean there's really only 15 million Jews or so in the world, but if you ask the go, they think there's at least two or three billion. But still the Jews have a big influence in the world today. Back then there's 70 of us. 70 that's it. 70 is you know it's one family. So they're asking how do these people from Egypt know know these know these rules? How do this know this stuff? And he continues to amaze them. Now as soon as he arrives he sees the brother. He sees Beyamin and he says, "Oh, so this is the brother you you were talking about." And he uh takes Beenyamin privately and he starts talking to him again. He's uh wants to find out about his younger brother, but he can't tell him that he's the brother. He says, "So, uh what happened to this other brother of yours that they say is gone?" He's like, "Oh, yeah." Benjamin starts talking about him. "Oh yeah, Ben, I miss him. He's this." Starts saying all these compliments about him. So he says, "Oh yeah. Um, do you have any kids? Cuz Benjamin says, "Yeah, I have 10 kids." He says, "What's the names of your kids?" And he gives him the 10 names of the kids. He goes, "How did these are unusual names? Where did you get these names?" And he explains to Ysef every one of the names, how it's named after Ysef. 10 kids all named after after his brother. At that moment, Ysef became very very emotional and he ran away. He couldn't do It says in the paral he says he had to uh his um emotions overtook him and he had to walk away because he could he couldn't handle it. So he went to wash his face and then he came back and he says okay it's time to eat and then he started calling out each one of the brothers names but he called them to and where to sit but he called them out in order of of birth. Now there again, these are 10 adults. They're not It's not like a kids where you say, "Okay, one's 17 and I can tell the difference between a 12 12y old and a 17y old and a 25y old." They're all adults. So, especially the older ones, how can you tell the difference? So, he calls each one of them in order of where to sit. And after all of them, says, "Oh, and Benjamin, I also used to have a brother like him, and my mom also died, so he's going to sit next to me. So he gives him special treatment and he gives him five times the amount of food than the the rest of the brothers. And the reason why he did this is he wanted to see if the other brothers are going to be jealous of Benjamin just like they were jealous of Ysef. So throughout this whole this whole show that he's putting is to test out to see if they're going to do if they're willing to do to Benjamin what they did to him. After this, he sends them all on their way, but with a trap, he puts a uh his uh his cup in uh he puts it in in the sack of Benjamin. And before they leave the city, before they go out, 2,000 Amote, he sends his son Mina to catch them. Now, why why why 2,000 amote? because the uh that day that they were supposed to leave was Shabbat. And on Shabbat, you're not allowed to uh leave a city, not allowed to go beyond 2,000. Now, even though the uh um the brothers were all keeping Shabbat to them, it was to leave the king's house, you know, was saving our life, but Ysef knew that they're not really saving their life. He's not going to kill them. So, he doesn't want them to violate Shabbat. So he's going to have them stop right before they reach the limit to make sure they don't violate Shabbat. This also teaches us again in regards to driving on Shabbat when people when I tell people about you know how you're better off never walking into a beset in your entire life than driving on Shabbat to a Bikeset once. Never ever go to a beset. If your bikes is not close enough to your house, don't go. pray at home. Not allowed to drive to Not allowed to drive to bikes. You're not allowed to drive on Shabbat ever. There's never an excuse to drive on Shabbat to a Bikeset. The only time you're allowed to drive on Shabbat is if it's to save a life. If Shalom something happens, you have to take somebody to the hospital, you yourself have to go to the hospital, fine, you're allowed to drive. Shabbat is put on hold. It's not Shabbat is canled. Shabbat is put on hold. Meaning that as soon as you arrive to the to the hospital, the danger is over because control is taken by the doctors and the nurses and everything. So at that moment that you arrive to the hospital, Shabbat is back on. That means you cannot go back. You can't stop watching TV and uh drive back home. You have to leave your car on at the hospital and you know maybe ask a nonjud to shut it off or tell him, "Listen, I'm leaving my car there. Give him the keys and hope that he gets the picture." You're not allowed to drive the car back home, maybe go to the mall. You know, I already violated Shabbat. I ruined it. No. Shabbat is put on hold until there's no more life risk. As soon as the life risk is over, Shabbat is back on. So, this is another reason why I explain to people, you know, as far as as far as driving on Shabbat, it's not just that it's obvious that it's fire. And with with cars, it's every time you press the gas pedal, it's a new fire. It's a new violation of Shabbat. It's not just one violation of Shabbat. It's you could drive from point A to 15 minutes. You could be doing 15 million uh violations of Shabbat because you pressing the gas pedal, pressing the brake, turning the radio, turning it off, you know, a uh a million and a half things you're doing in the car. So it's not just one violation of Shabbat. That's why I'm very It makes me very upset sometimes to hear that rabbis tell their people, "Listen, come to the even though they know they drive. You can't drive on Shabbat. It's according to all according to Judaism. You're not ever allowed to drive. Now what do you do in a situation where the basset is too far from your house? You have one of two things that you can do. One, find a new masset that's closer. If there's no other mass that's closer and obviously you can't just you're not a multi-millionaire that just buy a house the next day next to the mcnesset you have a friend in the masset stay there for Shabbat go to a friend tell them listen I live 25 minutes away from the nearest mcneset you live 2 minutes from the mcnesset you live 5 minutes mcnesset let me stay at your house for they'll spend Shabbat together until I find another situation until I move until I I arrange something one friend two friend if you go into the same mcess for a while you develop relationship with a a lot of people. So each each week you do with somebody else. It becomes fun also having guests in the house. It's a you could be like having guests. It's a big privilege, a big mitzvah to bring guests into your house, especially if you're helping them keep Shabbat. So it makes it's very it's very upsetting when when rabbis take this uh notion that it's okay to tell people to drive on Shabbat as long as they come to the masses because maybe if they come to the Mikess for a long amount of time, eventually they're going to keep Shabbat on their own. That's complete nonsense. And the reason why it's nonsense is because it's against all logic. If you're telling people that it's okay to violate Shabbat now, what's to tell them that it's not okay to violate Shabbat in 5 years from now? It was okay then. I don't want to go to level B. I'm still a level A. If the rabbis say it's okay for me to be a level A, which means God is okay with me being a level A, I'm going to stay at level A. I don't want to be a level B. I want to drive to Shabbat forever. All human logic will go against ever going to level B and stopping to drive. Which means you have to treat people like adults. Tell them the truth. They make their own decisions. I'm not judging anyone. I'm not telling anyone that they're a bad person shalom or anything like that. This is what God said. You do what you want. Somebody wants to succeed in life, they do certain things. If it's money that they're chasing, they work certain jobs. They work certain hours. They make certain investments. Someone wants to succeed with a relationship with God. It requires nothing less than that. Simple. But you tell people the truth. Let them decide for themselves. You know, it's not my responsibility or anyone else's responsibility to make decisions for you. You make your own decisions. So when a rabbi is telling them, "No, no, I can't tell them the truth about Shabbat because if I tell them the truth about Shabbat, they're not allowed to drive. They're not going to be able to handle it. And maybe they're not going to come anymore." How do you know they're not going to come anymore? Well, you're them. You're in their brain. You're in their heart. Maybe they love Hashem more than you. They just don't know. I have a guy when I first started doing the sharim in in Florida about a year and a half ago. This one guy, wonderful guy, what an amazing guy. Amash golden heart. This guy Nissan, the first guy that used to come to uh come to the sh to this day. Amazing person, just didn't know much. So we started, I told him from the beginning, said, "Listen, I'll tell you the truth. I'll never judge you. You do what you want." So I mention Shabbat almost every lecture. So because I think it's very very critical uh not based just on my teachings based on what Hashem said and it's a very critical problem in today's age because a lot of people don't keep it. So I mentioned Shabbat to him and he tells me he's like, "Listen, I've been driving to Shu for 20 years. No one told me since he never learned to lie in his life. His knowledge came from the besset. Whatever they would say, that's what he knew. He didn't take Torah books to his house and read on his own. He didn't do anything like that. So whatever they said in any sh at the besset on Shabbat when he would go there because he's not going the rest of the week. So he goes on Shabbat once a week. A rabbi gives a lecture. He talks about I don't know whatever he talks about. That's his knowledge. That's it. That's all he knows. And the people, they all know him. They know what he does. He's not the only one that drives. So now he tells me, "I've been driving to shoe for 20 years. I didn't know I couldn't drive." I knew it wasn't exactly what the black and white ultraorththodox do, but I didn't know it was that bad. As we continue learning, if you guys ever want to see a lecture about some more details about Shabbat, I made one. It's on YouTube. You'll see that every time Hashem talks about Shabbat and the punishment of Shabbat in the Torah, he puts it right next to the punishment of idol worship. Because someone that violates Shabbat is the same thing as someone that's idol worshiping. Same thing in Hashem's eyes, not my eyes. I love everyone. Hashem loves everyone. But Hashem made the rules. I didn't he didn't ask me for permission. This is what he says. I brought I put a lecture. It talks about how it could how it doesn't make any logical sense to us that violating Shabbat is the same thing as a guy that bought a uh a statue from Chinatown for $10 and is bowing to it like a Doesn't make any sense. But that's what it says. So now when we learn these things, the key is that it helps us know the truth. Once we know the truth, maybe we can change. Oh, it's not my car. I was thinking maybe it's my car. Um, we can make a decision at that point. No rabbi in the world is allowed to make a decision for you. I don't care if they're the biggest, smartest, most successful, or they're a beginner. You need to make decisions for yourself. Of course, it's very, very important for someone to when they're doing chuba to get themselves a rabbi, someone that's honest, someone that knows the rules, someone that's going to tell you things based on you. Now, you can't take every single mitzvah on overnight because you'll overwhelm yourself. But that's why it's important to, you know, develop a relationship with a rabbi because they know you. know what you're ready for as far as the things that are beyond the basics. No one could ever say you're not ready for Shabbat cuz Shabbat is the minimum requirement. They could say, "Okay, maybe you're not ready to do. You could drink regular milk and not milk directly from Israel. Maybe there's certain blessings you don't need to do. There's certain you're at certain levels. Fine. But there are certain things that are a minimum necessity of what a Jew needs in order to have a relationship with God in the first place. Shabbat is is that one. The reason why we have ten commandments, they're all in order. The first three are directly between us and God. God says, "I'm the only God. Don't use my name in vain." That's the third one. The second one is don't have a idol. And the fourth one is Shabbat. Observe the Shabbat. Fifth one is respect your parents. Sixth one is murder. Why is sixth one murder and the fourth one Shabbat? Because Shabbat is considered higher than murder. Violating Shabbat is considered worse than murdering someone according to God's eyes. Our logic would say no. I said our logic would say shalom God is wrong. Murdering somebody is much worse. How do we know? You want to tell me what? How? Because if we found out that one of the people we know murdered somebody shalom, then we're not going to invite him for Shabbat dinner. We're not going to invite him to our birthday party. He's a murderer, right? But our friends that are violating Shabbat every week, there are best men in the wedding. There are best friends. There are the best people in the world. We don't think it's that bad. So, it's time for us to start thinking about what does God think? Forget about what people think. What does God think? That's why it's important to learn some of these things because these are the basics of Judaism that are necessary for us to have a relationship with the creator that we want so much from. He's already giving us a lot we want even more. So, it's good. It's fine. Give him a reason. So now when a someone really wants a relationship with God, he wants to listen to the truth. It's not always easy to hear the truth because sometimes it means that we're wrong. But in uh Proverbs Melik, which was the smartest man of all time, Hashem gave him a gift both of wealth and wisdom. Wisdom beyond any man in history. When he was 12 years old, he became the king. And anyone that becomes a king, what does he want? He wants power. He wants dominance. He wants material. Instead, this 12-year-old kid, son of King David, one of the most righteous people in history. Even the goim reads psalms that King David wrote, most of them. asks Hashem for the knowledge to judge his nation justly. Doesn't ask for money, doesn't ask for women, doesn't ask to be popular, doesn't ask for uh anything. He asks to have the wisdom. So Hashem says, "You ask me for something that's the perfect request. I'm going to give you everything that a person would want and on top of that." So King Solomon had all the money in the world. He had all the power. He had complete peace throughout his entire kingdom. Uh but uh his whole uh his whole time that he lived. No war, no nothing, no problems. So he knew what he was talking about is my point. Not only is he smart, he had experience, he had money, he had everything that you could possibly want. So when he writes in his he wrote three books that are part of the Tanakh uh Song of Songs, Proverbs and um Ecclesiastes. And um in Proverbs 19:3 he says the foolishness of man meaning the foolishness of man his sins perverts his way which means it brings him to punishment but his heart frets against Hashem meaning that a a person doesn't doesn't learn Tawa. So he makes a bunch of sins. So it's just foolishness. Out of ignorance, he makes sins. Eventually he has to pay the bill. He sees punishment. He says things are not going good in his life. His job is not as good. His marriage is not good. His kids don't like him. His wife doesn't like him. His friends no everything is bad. And he doesn't even realize that if this continues, the next world is even worse. Says so eventually has to pay the bill. Eventually gets the punishment. Life's not exactly great. Once he gets it, this guy instead of doing chah, he get he blames Hashem, he blames Hashem for his misfortune, which is really the wrong out of his own actions. So what is King Solomon trying to tell us here? He's trying to tell us that we as human beings are different than every other species in the world. were the only things that can change. A lion cannot change. He cannot one day wake up and say, "Listen, you know what? I don't want to be a lion anymore. I want to be a lawyer." The zebra says, "You know what? I don't like these stripes. I want I want to be solid. I want to change my clothes." The alligator says, "You know what? I want to become vegetarian." Can't happen. The dog can't run the house. Even though in some families, the dog does run the house. can't it can't happen. Mankind is the only thing that can improve. We are the only ones that can make ourselves better. We could improve our midot our characteristics. We could turn from being the most angry person in the world to being huh I remember before I had to as a permanent part of my life. The first word out of my mouth in the morning instead of today saying thank you God for bringing back my soul. First word out of my mouth was a curse was a curse word. I always felt like I was late to something. You know, when you're you're in a material world, you're in a business world, you're always, you know, time is money. You're thinking that time is money. You're thinking that something's not happen. Even I only slept 2 hours, 3 hours. I figured that 3 hours was too much. I would tell people I would sleep. I'm sleep. I'll sleep when I die. I need to go make money. I need to do this. I need to buy this. I need to do I was constantly in that. The first word out of my mouth was a was a curse. I don't know how my wife stayed with me to be honest with you. Shows she is. But seriously, it's when you're in that world, when you're completely away from Hashem, there's no boundaries to how bad you can be because everything is up to you to decide what's good and bad. And like we said earlier, Hitler, Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, ISIS, everyone that's evil in everyone else's eyes is not evil in their own eyes. There are some people that think they're good because it's all based on their definition. Even though they don't know anything about what's good or bad, the only one that knows what's good or bad is the one that manufactured everything, the one that created everything. So, King Solomon is telling us here that you have the power to improve. It doesn't matter whether you're 20 or 15 or 40 or 60. Obviously, as you get older, it becomes more difficult, but it's never impossible. As long as the light is on, you can change. Our goal in life is not only to just to be robots. Our goal in life is to connect to Hashem which has extraordinary benefits in this world and the next. By connecting to Hashem in multiple ways. One is to make him involved in our daily life. Two is to do what he wants. That's how we're making him involved in our daily life. Three is to act like him. Emulate his behavior. Hashem is slow to anger. We should be slow to anger. Hashem is merciful. We should be merciful. Hashem is forgiving. We should be forgiving. Emulate his behavior because the way you behave is the way he's going to behave towards you. If you don't forgive someone for making a mistake, he's not going to forgive you cuz he's going to show you, listen, oh, your wife said the wrong thing to you. Oh, what'd you do? Oh, look, you did you didn't forgive her for three days. Oh, okay. So, why should I forgive you? Oh, she said sorry and you didn't say you didn't accept it. So why should I accept your sorry? Oh, the homeless guy asked you for some money and you didn't want to give him. Even though you had $300 in your pocket, you couldn't give him two bucks. You couldn't give him $3. So why should I give you? The way we act is the way he's going to act with us. This is the most important lessons that we could learn from from the Torah. The Torah is not a history book. The Torah is instructions of how to live. We're supposed to learn the through the story. We're supposed to learn the their behavior and what is the purpose of life. Not just about learning a nice story. We like the midrashim. We like the different things that happened. We like the fact that Joseph has this whole plan of how to test his brothers, how Jacob is sending a threatening letter. It's all very, very enjoyable. But the message behind the story is why Hashem wrote the Torah. Because if it was purely a history book, there would be a lot more details, a lot more. He would tell you exactly every day that they lived. He would tell you about every day. But here you can see one Pala is in the year 1600 from creation. The next pala is in 1948, 300 years later. The next pala is 60 years later. Next pala is a day later. you know, there's no there's no way uh uh exact order as far as not day by day because Hashem included everything that we can learn from to impact our life. So when we're able to hear things like the wisdom of the Torah that King Solomon is teaching here by telling us don't be one of these fools that makes sins gets punished and then blames Hashem. Okay, you made sins. Fine. Hashem said before I created the the world, I created choubba. Everything is subject to choubba. Everyone can do chuba. Even the worst kind can do cha there is in which is ethics of our fathers. It's a um it says uh 5:21 says whoever influences the masses to become uh righteous to do cha shall not be the cause of sin. meaning anyone that helps people do chuva, Hashem puts things in his way to make sure he doesn't sin. So even if he's naturally going to sin and you know, let's say looking at women, he's not going to put women in his way. If he's really really connected to Hashem, he's going to literally eliminate the opportunities to sin from his way. Because if this person is worrying about Hashem's children, he's trying to help people do chuba, get back to Hashem. Hashem is going to worry more about him. But then he talks about another person. But one who influences the masses to sin will not be given the means to repent. Says one that makes other people sin. Instead of tell Shabbat, he tells them, "Come on, let's go to a baseball game on Shabbat. instead of uh listen to kosher restaurant that you want to go to kosher restaurant instead of eat kosher I want to go to a restaurant I want to go to kosher restaurant come on pork is so much more delicious instead of come on let's go to bnesset let's uh pray no aess let's go to the beach somebody that does those things which all seem innocent they all happen in all of our life we have plenty of those friends that do that those people are creating a very very big bill for themselves. It says here that they don't they they instead of what they do for the person that makes other people do chuva that they make them not make sense pretty much for this person they close the doors of chuva for that person. What does it mean when when it the heavens close the doors of chuva? It means that it becomes more difficult for them to do chuva. Everyone can do chuva. Even what even this particular means that it's not that they can't do cha but they have less opportunities. So instead of let's say for example messages from Hashem being sent to you in 10 different ways. You got to work you're thinking what is my purpose of life? Hashem gave you a thought. All of a sudden you see something on the computer and you see a shield to by someone interesting. Next thing you know, your wife calls you and says, "By the way, you know, and she mentions something about uh that she saw that's really inspiring. That's connections you to Hashem." So, there's a bunch of different ways that Hashem is connecting to you, helping you do chuva, giving you the message in 10 different ways. Someone that makes other people sin, yeah, he can do chuva, but he's not going to send them as many messages. Maybe he'll send them one. So, that's what it means when he closes the door. at least one of one of the meanings of when they close the doors of chuva, everyone could do chuva, but if you make other people sin, it's going to be much much more difficult for you to do cha. So, the key is for us to listen to this uh great m that teaches us, which is that we want to make sure that we're not those fools that wake up one day after we sin, we blame Hashem. Why don't you tell me? Because he told us, I'm not here by coincidence. He didn't send me into your life and he didn't send you into my life by pure coincidence. No such thing as coincidence. You need whatever I'm saying, he's telling me what to say. I didn't prepare the lecture. So the key here is someone here needs to hear whatever I'm saying or somebody somebody online that's going to watch this video needs to hear what I'm saying. The key is that we want to be one of those people that says, "No, no, I'm not going to be the fool. I'm going to be the one that changes. I'm going to be the one that repents. I'm going to be the one that does what Hashem wants." How do I know what Hashem wants? It's in the Tawra and each week will do shim once a week, once twice a month, whatever it is. The key is anytime that you want to get closer to Hashem, the instructions are not far from you. The end of this para which what we'll finish with because the story continues next in next week's para is that Ysef sends the brothers with a trap of this goblet this cup to see if they're going to give up their brother because he puts it in the sack of Benjamin of Benjamin. As soon as he uh as uh they get caught, they don't think that they did anything and they realize that their the brother Benjamin took or at least it looks like he took this this goblet and they go back begging this king to forgive them. And that's actually where the para ends. But throughout this whole process, you're going to see how the 12 tribes are the 10 brothers or 11 brothers are all going to be tested, including yourself are all going to be tested in what they truly feel about each other. If they don't really care about Benjamin, they say, "You know what? What are we fighting with this big giant king? Leave this kid. He stole the goblet. That's it. Leave him alone. Let me go home. I'll tell that father, I'm sorry. What could I do? He stole. It's his problem." If they feel a little more for him, they're going to try to convince the king. If the king says, "No, figure out something else. Maybe fight. maybe pray, do something. On the other hand, Joseph has to test himself. How long can I keep the story going on? There comes a time in a person's life that they're going to get tested. They're going to get a very, very big test. It's going to test your character. Hashem is going to test your character. Do you really want a true connection with me or do you want to just tell people you have one? Do you really want to be directly connected with me or are you one of these people that just likes to say, "No, I I'm Jewish, but I don't keep that much." Are you going to defend my Torah and tell people the truth, or are you spineless and feel like people can't handle it or you can't handle their reactions? There's going to come a time that God is going to test your character. We know this because that's what he did to anyone he loved. anyone he loved in the Torah, whether it was Abraham, whether it was Isaac, whether it was Jacob, whether it was the 12 tribes individually or together, whether it was Moses, the one the only person in history that spoke to him face to face, whether it was Aaron or Miriam, King David, Solomon, everyone, everyone he loved, the closest people to him, he tested each and every one of them with the most difficult tests. You look at the most righteous people in today's age, you see them going through tests. Those tests are not for nothing. God is not torturing us for no reason. He's testing our character. And he says it specifically in Torah. I test you because I want to see if you truly love me. Do you really love me or you want to just tell people that is a Shabbat as important to you as it is to me? or you think that you can make a new rule, override my rule because my rules are not not not available anymore. They're not they're not relevant anymore like people think. And that's some of the things that people need to understand is that again, it's not easy or it's not simple to be a simple Jew. It's not simple to be a simple Jew, but it's worth it. And that's what we learned from all of these stories is that these important characters are being tested. We're being tested. We're going to find out what they did with their test. We're going to find out what we did with our test, too. Hopefully, all of us have the same positive results. Unless you guys have any questions. I have a I have a question. Right. Question. I don't know. people question. What is what is mik that's in the beginning of the para [Music] what's the question? Yeah. Yeah. What is what was the meaning of? Oh, it happened like it's a uh mik means it ended. It's the end. K is end. Okay. Kimme is end of times. Okay. Okay. The other one is talk a bit about Joseph's wife. We heard innat Yeah. Uh Osnat once once once Joseph got the position of a uh of being the visceroy, being the in essence the king of Egypt. Pharaoh said it's not a um it's not good for a king to be a bachelor to be a single guy. So let's say uh let's get you married. Now Joseph can't just marry any woman, right? So but every woman in Egypt wanted him. Yeah. So on one end he knows that he comes from the uh the Hebrews. He goes he comes from from the chosen people of Hashem. On other end, he's in the middle of Egypt and he's being forced to get married. What is he going to do? So, Hashem already gave the cure to the ailment before we even knew there is an ailment. A couple of weeks ago, we learned that actually when I came here, we learned about Dena and how she got raped, right, by Right. Yeah. Out of that rape came a a girl, a daughter. Now, Dena was very embarrassed that this rape ended up resulting in a child. You know, in Judaism, we're not allowed to uh abort, not allow abortions. Mhm. It's considered complete murder. So, even back then, they knew it. So, she couldn't kill the baby. Even though technically if it's a if it's a rape and it's situations like that there is ways there is a uh certain scheme that would allow it if it's really really early on. Nonetheless, it's a very controversial issue and both in Judaism and otherwise. But the point to stay on topic here is that she gave birth to this daughter but she was too embarrassed to see this kid every day. So Jacob, her her father said, "Listen, why don't you send uh the the girl away to a good family? He'll find the family." And he found the family. Who's the family? The family of Potifa. Potifer and his wife. His wife was one of the most beautiful women in history. They weren't able to have kids. But so they were happily going to adopt this baby. Now this baby is not. Now, how did Hashem make sure that uh Joseph knew that Ashnot is allowed to him is because Jacob wanted to make sure that Ashnot knew that she was Jewish. So, he gave her a medallion and on the medallion he inscribed that she comes, you know, my name is so and so and I come from the seed of Jacob, Isaac and Abraham. So when uh when Pharaoh gave the uh the position to uh to Joseph, he gave him a bunch. He gave him a special gold necklace and a ring and also a special uh caravan like a uh a chariot chariot. So when uh when Joseph was uh traveling in the city, all the women would throw their underweares at him say showing that they're available and then one woman threw a medallion and he picked up the medallion and he said and he saw what it wrote. He saw that in he it's inscribed in Hebrew. No one else in Egypt knew Hebrew, you know. So he saw inscribed in Hebrew. I'm from the family of Jacob. He found out who the girl was and that's who he married. Mhm. So, this also shows us, one of the things that it shows us is that the um the the big lesson here is that Hashem will always give us the cure before we even realize we're sick. Any problem that we have, Hashem already has the cure. It's just that we have to be patient enough to see it through. Um any type of issue that we've always had throughout history is Hashem already has a solution for it. It's just that we have to number one be patient. Number two, be deserving. You know, meaning by deserving, I don't mean that you have to a uh you know, be the most righteous person in history to deserve Hashem to help you. Even you believing in Hashem is enough of a reason for him to help you. The point is is that Hashem is going to give you different tests based on your level, based on how you improve. If you're in level A, he's going to give you level A tests. If you're in level B, he's going to give you a little bit more difficult tests. But he's going to give you all of these tests in order to make you grow to get better. Same thing if you want, you know, if somebody wants to become very strong, wants to become a bodybuilder, they have to go to the gym. Now, logically, it doesn't make sense. Why would you want to lift more weights? I want to lift less. I don't even want to lift any weights. I want to stay at home. But if you want to get big and strong, you have to lift weights. So, in the beginning, it's 5 lb, then it's 10 lb, then it's 20 lb, then it's 50 lbs, and so on. You keep lifting more and more weights because you want to rip more muscles and eventually become bigger. Same concept with the test. Hashem is going to keep giving you more tests to build your character. And but the solution to all of these things that sometimes we feel are never going to end. He already has the problem that someone may have with a uh you know let's say with uh finding a house. Hashem already has exactly the house that he's belongs to this person that he's entitled to that he wants to give him. He just wants this person to pass a test and eventually he's going to show him this house. Money, Hashem already has the money ready for him. Anything, anything in life that a person desires, Hashem already has everything ready for you. It's just that sometimes we're not ready to see it. What else? Good. Any other questions? No, no, there two questions. I already ask them two questions. You can ask many as you want. So, I'm here anything about the chabbat that you cannot ch right on. I say only two way to solve the problem is my question is somebody else give you a right is not allowed neither. Somebody gives you a right to where the tokness you mean? Yeah. It's a uh if someone needs to go somewhere and there it's a uh they're old and sick, then it uh could potentially be permitted for a non-Jew to give them a ride somewhere. But on a occasional basis, you know, you could find potentially, you know, some uh some pKe that will permit that if they're old or sick. If they're normal like you and I, then ride won't work. They have to find a better way to uh get closer to the Basset if they want to go. I know this this is very this is a very big this is a very big problem in in Florida and around around the the US. It's not as much of a problem in New York where I lived before I moved here because New York is everything's on top of each other and there's a math in every corner. Mhm. But here in Florida, everyone drives and everything's far away. Everything's 15 minutes away. Uh so I know this is a problem and it's a very very big test, a very big difficulty for people. But I promise you, I've seen it for my own life. I've seen it for my own tests. And if you want to see some of the tests that I've gone through, there's a lecture number 45 number 45 on YouTube. That's my uh that's one of the ones that I did. It's a big part of a uh my personal story and uh tells most of it, not all of it. There's some details that were just too gruesome to tell people. Uh but some of my own personal stories, hell, and a bunch of other things that I've gone through. And I promise you, if you do what Hashem wants, you can't lose. Maybe you won't see the reward right in first day or first week, but I promise you if you do what he wants, you'll only win and you'll win a lot more than you could ever even want. And it's a uh it's uh some of the stuff that I say. I know it's not what you hear from most rabbis. Uh it's not what people uh people get shocked sometimes when they hear that Shabbat is worse than murder or that uh driving on Shabbat to Bikeset is not only it's not okay, you're better off not never going to besset. And I've even had a uh you know couple of times where people that were supposed to know um told me not to say it. And I don't care what people say. I care what what God says. The people that I look up to are people that see the truth. One of them is Rabbi M. Rahi, which I've given you guys some CDs of his stuff. Uh he has thousands of lectures. He's been doing it for over 20 years. Um he tells the truth exactly how it is, both in Hebrew and English. And some of his stuff has been um translated to other languages. Rabbi Kaflo, he's he's been my kava and my rabbi for since I started this whole journey several years ago. Um he's again there's only one version of the truth. There's no two versions of the truth. Even though sometimes the truth is painful. No one wants to know that they are not perfect. But the reality of it is that we are none of us are perfect. The beauty is that we could all improve. Whatever mistakes you made until now it's fine but get better. You know, some woman asked me recently, how do I, you know, fix the sins that I made because she was very promiscuous? I don't I don't know what kind or what level, but point is that she was very promiscuous woman. And uh she how do I um fix what I did? The first thing I told is stop sinning. Okay, of course there's a million other things you can do. There's prayers, there's jad, there's this, there's that. But the first thing you need to do is stop doing it. You know, that's that's that's really the most important thing. Figure out a way. Again, I know Bikes is far away. It's 20 minutes, 25 minutes. It's not exactly uh ideal for us to ask people for a favor. Listen, I want to go to Besset. Can you let me stay at your house uh this weekend or pay for a hotel that's closer? It costs money. I know it's not easy, but I promise you, it says it in the Torah. Make his will into your will and he will make your will into his will. Do what he says like he wants you to do it and he'll do whatever you want without you even asking. So you win. It's just that you have to have the patience to see the prize, you know. So it's it's a uh there's no such thing as a Jew that does what Hashem wants and loses. no such thing. It's just that some of the tests are bigger than others. But uh again, it's a um the reward is so much bigger that it's just like when Joseph interpreted the dream for Pharaoh Pharaoh, you know, he told Pharaoh, listen, the seven first seven years are be going to be good. The second seven years are going to be really bad, but so bad that you're going to forget about the good. God is the opposite. In the beginning, it's a little difficult because you're changing your life. If you're changing, you know, some tests here and there, but the good that you're going to get after is so good, you're going to forget there was ever any bad, you're going to forget there was ever any tests. When you get to a point, you could even get to a level where every time there's a test, you're like, "Oh, thank God. Wow, great. I got another test." You're excited for the tests because that's we all get to that level. But all the sages, all the people that you see that are the really big mubaleim, they um they bless Hashem for the tests as much as they bless him for bless him for the rewards, you know, and uh it's it's important for us to know the truth because it's the only way we can change, you you know, I mean, as far as as far as uh uh driving and things like that, which with Shabbat, again, there's different levels of Shabbat, but uh driving under no condition is it ever allowed. I just uh recommend that um if you find either either a closer synagogue or find a place to stay, it's closer. Um and if there's no choice whatsoever, stay home. you know, I mean, staying home is not is not it's not not the ideal, but under no condition is it uh you know, is it is it the right decision for you to drive, but I'm sure you have enough friends in this community that uh would be more than happy to have you uh stay with them for Shabbat. It's much more fun also once you once you shut off yourself from the real world from the world that we see every day from cars from cell phones from TV from you know restaurants from all that stuff when you shut off you shut off one day seventh day this is just between me and God and you have your family you have your friends that's true this is the greatest day in the world it's the greatest day in the world I had no one in the world had more excuses than me to not keep Shabbat. I was a big businessman. My meetings were on Shabbat. My fun was on Shabbat. So if it was if it was for business reasons when I can't meet him during the week, I worked during the week. And if it's like, "Oh, finally I'm not working. So I want to go have fun. I want to go to a casino. I want to go to a vacation. I want to do this. I want to do that." I'm telling you, no. And I had money and I had everything available to me. So there was no restrictions whatsoever. So when I found out about Shabbat, I started saying, "No, but how can I keep Shabbat? I have meetings, but okay, maybe I can make the meetings on Sunday." Then I started saying, "Okay, but what about my vacations? What about this?" And then I started listening to myself say these excuses and I just said to myself, I was actually on the phone with a with Rabbi Kakum and I said, "I'm so full of it. It's all nonsense. It's all excuses. If I really wanted to keep Shabbat, I just keep Shabbat. just find a way. Just like I found a way to do everything else in the world. You have to find a way. And I listened to my own words saying, "No, but I have meanings. No, but I have this. No, but I have this." But every one of the excuses that I had, even though it seemed like it was the size of a mountain, in reality was nothing. It was just the was the evil inclination. And I just said to him, "Honestly, I'm just full of it. I'm just going to keep Shabbat. I don't know how, but I'll just find a way." And that's how I kept Shabbat. That's how I kept my first Shabbat. And um my wife and I kept the Shabbat. We were in the house. We couldn't leave the house. We were living on the 35th floor. So, you can't go up and down the stairs of 35 floors. So, we just stayed home the whole uh the whole Shabbat. And uh you know she made food, we got the hot plate, you know um we got a the Torah and science book I think it was or some other book that we just read together and we had I prayed at home and it was probably one of the greatest days of my life because it was so different than anything else I ever experienced. Even though when I was, you know, maybe almost 20 years ago, when I was uh 17, I kept Shabbat for about a year and a half. Uh but then I stopped. So I kept Shabbat for a while, but it was nothing like this. My Shabbat when I was 17 years old was I'd sleep as much as possible until Shabbat was over because I had no connection to any synagogue. I had no connection to Torah. I would listen here and there, but I wasn't truly connected. So the Shabbat that if you want to truly enjoy Shabbat, involve it with the family, involve it with people you love, and most importantly, involve it with Hashem. Study some Torah. Shabbat is the best time to learn Tawa. If you get a reward of just for for argument sake, if you get a reward of $100 for every minute that you uh that you study Torah during the week on Shabbat, you get a thousand times that. You get a million dollars for every time for for all Shabbat that you uh all to every minute that you learn Tawa. Shabbat's reward of learning Tawa is a thousand times more than during the week. So, it's very very worthwhile to learn Tawra during Shabbat. But again, we can't learn we can't learn Torah while we're driving in the car. You know, it's like showing up to the king asking him for a million dollars while I'm throwing spears at him. It's not it's not it's not. So, again, we have to find a way. But it's not the you will find a way. I see you love Hashem. No pe regular people that don't love Hashem don't show up to ash at 10 o'clock at night 11 o'clock at night just uh you know you know so obviously all of you love Hashem all of you want to connect with Hashem on a much deeper level and you will you'll succeed you know and again you need anything you have any questions I only know one version of the truth so I'd love to answer anything amen