Teshuva Questions From New York at BJX (Brooklyn Jewish Xperience Center)

[Music] yeah so I just want to take this opportunity first of all to thank Robert Ru for coming all the way from Florida very very grateful we're looking so forward to heing his words of wisdom and of course I want to also thank Leora for displaying such leadership she was here by class and it's a beautiful venue let me bring down a fantastic speaker who inspired the students so Leora had the idea and she actually executed on on the idea which is fabulous and thank you so much and thank you of course for the delicious pizza as well Lear so without further Ado it's a great pleasure and honor to welcome RAB Ruan who will share with us his life story and tell us how he went from Wall Street to becoming a rabbi and what the transition was why he changed his life he was featured on CNBC he's featured on blueberg news and other famous news outlets it's a great pleasure to have you thank you for we are always excited to come back home come back to New York truly amazing to uh see the transition you know in the old days this was home this was where I had a business had employees uh house family and so on and um um now it's all so far away even though it really wasn't that long ago where I was still on Wall Street so uh we don't have that much time so I'm going to try to answer some questions I'm going to try to cover some parts of the story there's many more details about the personal story on our website bash.org uh there was a recent uh video we made uh with my personal story with a lot of details that also had some footage from uh my old days the uh interviews on CNBC and uh a few other things that from you'll see from my past but the uh today I wanted to go over slightly part of the old story for anyone that hasn't heard it but really more about the uh part that I haven't talked about which is really more of the truva process uh most of what I've talked about over the last few years is what got me to do Chua uh today I'd like to talk a little bit more about what you do once you decide to do chuva so uh to give you a little bit of a brief background ground uh came to the United States when I was 10 years old um went to didn't really know much English but uh you when when you're 10 years old learning a new language is pretty quick um and uh it's truly amazing s so um the um always likes to interfere with my lectures but that uh tells us that we're we're doing something good so uh so I um brief part of my personal story born in Israel came here when I was 10 years old didn't really know much more than the first three letters of the alphabet uh but when you're 10 years old and you go into a new country you uh you Advanced pretty quickly as far as language is concerned and especially since I was a studious person so I Advanced pretty quickly uh went to school played football became an American um um even though we were brought up traditional in Israel and we went to a uh thei school which is you know half religious half secular as soon as you walk into America unless you go 100% religious you become part of the American system and the American system is absolutely not religious uh so religion became a distant memory with the exception of a couple of holidays year R yur you go to the synagogue just for all time sake you know you keep PES you eat some mat with chocolate and you call yourself a Jew um and the thing is though is that throughout all of this time the reason why most people do it my family included is because all of this time we are led to believe that our Judaism is optional whether you follow the law or not is optional you can do it great if you don't do it so what and that's one of the things that I found out later on in my life that uh it's not exactly so optional the choice that we think we have most people you know have a tough time when it comes to free choice they asked the question we talk we had a whole Sher about it a couple of weeks ago the whole concept of free choice if you have free choice how is it possible that you actually have true free choice if God knows what you're going to do if he knows what you're going to do then it's technically not free choice is he causing you to do something else now the easy way to explain it to our human mind is that even though God knows what you're going to do it doesn't necessarily change your choice so for example if let's say I wrote down an envelope a bunch of things I gave it to you and I told you don't open the envelope until tomorrow you went through your whole day at the end of the day you open the envelope you saw that I wrote down everything you did for that day meaning that I knew everything you did for the day before you did it did my knowledge of your action or in action change your decision no same goes where if I know that someone is has instincts at some point they're going to have to eat but I'm going to give them two choices I'm going to give them a pizza I'm going to give them a plastic cup which one are they going to pick up the pizza cuz they're hungry they're not going to eat the plastic cup if they're civiliz human being so the fact that I knew that you're going to pick up the pizza did not change your choice that's in essence a very simple version of explaining free choice the true understanding of free choice is beyond us according to the rambam it's not possible for a human being to understand free choice uh simply because you have to be God in order to know that but what I just explained everyone could understand and that's I think more than enough to explain free choice but in Judaism I was brought up to believe again this is from my own mind it's not necessarily that somebody told me this but I was led to believe that being religious keeping mitv learning Torah all of those keeping Shabbat kosher all of those things were optional if I did it I have a better place in ganeden if I don't do it I'm still in ganed and just a lower level you know like in that movie Titanic where they had you know the lower level for like the homeless people and the higher level for the rich people so I thought okay so the guy that sadik that he learns to and he has a nice hat and beard and everything he gets the higher level of course he works harder than me but everybody goes to ganen that was my belief and I think that's the belief that most people either have or want to have and I'm here to tell you it's false doesn't exist there's no place in the Torah that says that that exist as much as sometimes you hear even rabbis sometimes tell people that everyone goes to ganed and it's not true it's not true the choice that we have that I discovered after learning a lot of toah or at least as much as I could possibly could at the time that I had um was that the choice we have is that if we do good we get good if we do bad we definitely don't get good another example if you go to work you get paid lots of money if you don't get to work they send people to your house and they beat you up that's the free choice we have the free choice I thought we had was that if I don't go to work nothing happens if I go to work I get paid if I don't go to work nothing happens that's what I thought we had so it's you know either way I break even but later on I discovered that no it's not quite that there is some type of punishment there is some type of consequences for it and this is a very very important principle of faith in Judaism the whole it's one of the 13 principles of faith for anyone that wants to consider themselves a Jew anyone that wants to convert to Judaism they must believe in the 13 principles of faith that the ramban put together one of them is the principle of and Onish reward and Punishment anyone that says there's no such thing as punishment they believe in a a different religion it's not Judaism and the reason why is because in order for hasem to be Amit Amit meaning truth there has to be reward and punishment or else why make anybody do anything why should I have the same ganen as mosu when he was extremely religious and I don't want to be religious why should Hitler be in the same place as some of the most righteous people that ever lived why and we know that the whole concept of everyone goes to the same place everything is wonderful is intellectually dishonest everyone here looks educated and everyone here looks like you've spent some time reading some books whether was secular or religious books and you know you read books to be stimulated intellectually as soon as you read a book and it was on the cover of the book it says it's about science it's about uh I don't know some type of really stimulating topic but as soon as you open the book and it talks about Care Bears what do you do he close the book this is nonsense thr into garbage give my money back when we come to the world we go to the business world we want to get a promotion we go to the boss that I want a promotion boss says yeah but it's your first day you can't have a promotion on your first day you come back the second day I have a promotion now he Sayes no if you keep doing it he's going to fire you why because you're acting like a care Bearer it's not realistic you can't get a promotion after your second day or after even your second week even if you're a wonderful human being for you to have the same position as the guy that after promotion you have to earn it to say otherwise is being intellectually dishonest so we have to stop lying to ourselves so I was put in a position where I had to be forced to stop lying to myself where after going to school and working really hard at school I realized I didn't want to be in school anymore I wanted to go make money I went to Wall Street and uh after paying my dues for the first three years being that you know working for other people making them rich and me poor eventually I got my break and in 200 uh one I was finally allowed to be an independent contractor within a big firm an independent broker where I could start getting my own clients and also have my own bills that I had to pay every month I had to pay about $5,000 worth of bills to the office manager for the office rent for the secretary that I didn't use for the papers I didn't want and all the things that he charged me just to get his $5,000 a month and whether I had it or not was irrelevant to him he needed his money regardless on top of the fact that he would get a percentage of everything that I make now if I told him listen but I'm a really nice guy can I just get can I just get by without paying you what do you think he would say no stop acting like a Care Bear it's not it's not realistic in the real world there's no such thing everything has a cost everything has a cost so needless to say the first 6 months of being independent he took all the money I took nothing and I had to borrow a dollar every day from this guy named Dimitri so I could have I could buy coffee and a donut 50 cents for each and that was my food for the day I sneak on the bus every single day in order to get to work leave the house at around 5:30 6:00 in the morning get to the office at 700 or 7:30 leave the office somewhere around midnight 12:30 1:00 in the morning get home by to sleep for a couple of hours and do it all over again every day eventually Hashem blessed me with some success well after about six months I didn't need to borrow a dollar a day I actually got my first, check that actually kept which to me was like all the money in the world but the following month I got $5,000 which at that point I thought I won the lot the following month is another $5,000 month later was $10,000 in November of 2002 which was only about a year after I started being independent I made $117,000 in one month so I broke a company uh office record and all of a sudden I became the guy that everyone wanted to be even though just a few months ago I was the guy that were making fun of because I worked so much and made no money so then I started I continued building a business within the next six months I got to a point where I was the number three largest producing broker in the country for the company out of 5,000 people made my first million dollars I was 23 years old now million dollars I mean I actually took home a million dollars not million dollars like there's a million dollars somewhere in the air but I get like $3 after taxes and fees and paper and cups and secretaries no million dollars like I actually had a million bucks which was something amazing when just the year before I had to borrow a dollar but at that point I had to make a choice in a business world people don't necessarily like to see you grow because they feel like it's taking food off of their table even though there's seven and a half billion people sometimes you'll have competitors act as if there's only one customer in the world you ever see a guy after his competitor open a store next door to him how upset he gets oh he's going to steal all my customers what do you mean it's seven and a half billion people he's going take all of them if he's taking all of them then should probably work for him You' probably be a millionaire anyway why you so worried there's a lot of people in the world you don't have to worry about competition ever never have to worry about competition an enormous amount of clients people that are worried about competition are small-minded people small-minded people never succeed so then I realized that my comp editors were my peers so I had to leave I had to decid that it's time for me to leave go to a different uh place but what's the next place going to be a different firm or is it going to be my own firm and obviously the natural entrepreneu mentality was to start my own company and I started my own company started hiring some people educated from all different types of fancy schools and uh all were very excited to work for this young guy that you know made a few bucks but things got better started making more money it got to a point that by 2006 A bad month would be a couple $100,000 a good month the best month of that year was 1.6 million so if we were making money the first few years by 2006 we got to a point where we're printing money looking at Price Tag was no longer optional it just it was just n non sense you buy whatever you want you do whatever you want but interestingly enough it wasn't materialistic I liked making money for competitive reasons but as far as buying toys I never bought toys never bought boats or planes or any of that stuff it never really interested me most of the money I had I either gave to people to help them or I invested into the business into the stock market and so on at one point I made a smart decision where I actually invested some money in Torah and I uh even though I wasn't religious I brought a seph t I had a seph t made in uh in Israel and uh we had a whole party it was amazing but again this was because I had the money I heard it was a big mitvah and it wasn't because I was planning on becoming religious anytime soon and the reason why I wasn't planning on becoming religious anytime soon is because my wife wasn't Jewish my wife and business partner wasn't Jewish so for me to tell her Hey listen I'm going to become religious would mean I have to get a divorce that wasn't happening thank you that wasn't happening I liked my life I liked my partner everything was wonderful why why change especially since up to now I believed that Judaism was optional want to be religious good for be religious I don't I believe in God in my heart I do before I go to sleep I eat kosher when I can can or whatever I understand is kosher I don't eat pig I don't eat milk and meat I don't work on Shabbat I go to the casino instead that's rest for me rationalize the Jud rationalize the Torah what's wrong with it a lot once you actually delve into the truth you realize just how much is wrong with it you realize that the kosher Pizza is not really kosher because you bought it from dominoes or from Pizza Hut or some non-jewish place and according to me if it was Dairy it was kosher what I didn't realize was that Dairy that's made by go also uses meat from the stomachs of animals most of the time it's pigs sometimes it's different animals and the reason why is because it makes the uh cheese better and of a few other different additions to it but this already has been happening for over 2,000 years it's actually mentioned in thear where they used different parts of the stomach of pigs uh you know for cheese this is not like a new invention or anything so when you eat pizza from a non- kosha place you're actually eating not only non coer but you're eating milk and meat which is one thing I thought I was keeping on top of that when I realized that on Shabbat I didn't work I went to the casino I watched movies I slept did nothing whatever I did whatever I wanted went away to different vacations and I thought if I'm not working that's fine but the whole concept of observing Shabbat has nothing to do with work nothing to do with work what you're not allowed to do on Shabbat is you're not allowed to do but you are allowed to work which means means you're working forem means you're doing certain actions that are part of the secular World part of the mundane World part of the day-to-day life has nothing to do with Shabbat but it's specifically things that are creating so for example if you want to move a table on Shabbat it's perfectly fine it's perfectly fine there's nothing wrong with it if you want to talk to somebody it's perfectly fine F nothing wrong with it but if the table that you're moving is going to be used to not because you want to move from place to place but because you want to dig into the ground you're using the table to dig into the ground to make all in the ground that becomes a different action if the conversation you're having is not just conversation about what Rashi said this week but it's conversation about some real estate you want to buy that's no longer allowed so it's not necessarily the action it's the consequence of Your Action so as far as not working I thought if I'm not working it's fine but it's not about not working it's about what you're actually doing with your time so 2006 everything is fine I try to keep whatever I can whatever makes sense to me I donate a bunch of money whoever needed would come to me and I would give the money so that in my mind made me a sadik I was very generous so why should I go to synagogue if I already am better than most of these people in my mind So eventually God gets your attention there was one time a bunch of kids playing on the beach and one of the kids decid they doesn't want to play on the beach and he wants to wave to the boat that's far away so one of the adults said no stop stop waving to the boat who's he's not going to see you and the kid is waving to the boat he's waving to the boat he's excited about waving to the boat and the adult who doesn't know the kid just finds this ridiculous he's trying to convince him to stop no go play with the rest of the kids build some sand castle or something but the kid like I don't want to play with sand I want to wave to the boat until he waves back to me so the adult says what makes you think that the captain is going to wave back to you the little boy says because he's my father the adult says okay so maybe he's going to look for you maybe he is looking for you maybe he is waving back to you maybe what is this like this is us God is constantly looking for us you give you 20 30 40 50 60 70 120 years however many years each one of us is gifted before we come to this world but throughout the entire time he's looking for you he's looking for you and you can be one of two choices you can be one of the people that's constantly focused on the sand castle where you build it you build it you build it the water comes and it blows up you build it you build it you build it the wind comes and it blows up you're playing with things and you're just wasting your time really you're focusing on material you're focusing on this world so much you build you build you build eventually it's wor worthless why because you can't take it with you to the next world even though Steve Jobs who probably had a part of everyone's life in this room because you had an iPhone at some point Amazing Inventions amazing brain amazing bank account none of it matters he's dead he can't take any of that with him as a matter of fact before he died it was known that he he had at least $7 billion $7 billion writing $7 billion should make you tired let alone having it $7 billion but with all of that money he couldn't buy one liver to save his life for one day all of that money7 billion 7 billion iPhones 7 billion iPads however much you could possibly imagine you would have much more now couldn't buy one liver and all of you have it for free so in reality you're richer than him when you're playing with the sand the material world you focus so much in this world eventually you realize it's all for nothing yes it's nice to have a limo take you to wherever you want to go it's it's nice to have a big house it's nice to have a bank account that gives you comfort that everything's going to be fine but you'd give all of it away all of it for another minute to live one minute if the richest guy in the world was told listen you're either going to die right now or you'll live another minute but you have you'll be poured that one minute it'll still take it you'll still take it so if we focus so much on chasing careers chasing houses chasing all of this stuff eventually we realize it's all for nothing depends when you realize it is the question sometimes AEM will give you more than one try to get your attention I'll give you tests see if you can get your attention if you continue playing with the sand they'll give you more time and more time and more time this is based on your own accounting between you and him but eventually time runs out eventually he says you can't continue playing with the sand you have to be the guy that's waving to me you have to be the guy that's waving to me if not I'm going to come off I'm going to park the boat I'm going to come and then get you that's exactly what happened to me so in May of 2006 I made my $1.6 million for that one month it was wonderful I went to a vac for a month to Las Vegas played in the World Series of Poker and a bunch of other tournaments and I thought I was on top of the world little that I know that I was only months away from having everything turn upside down in November 18th of 2006 that very same year just a few months later I decided to have an elective surgery an elective surgery means it's not it's not something that you have to have but it was just something that annoyed me something that annoys two out of three people in the world it's called hemorrhoids and I went to the doctor and he told me listen this is a very simple surgery I have two to three a day for the last 16 years he says I perform two to three surgeries a day it's very simple you feel uncomfortable for a couple of days you go back to work everything is fine by the way uncomfortable means pain or pressure also means pain but for him it's uncomfortable so he says uncomfortable so anyway so I said okay this uncomfortable and thing that's annoying me twice a year so I'll be uncomfortable for a couple days and have an excuse for another couple days of vacation no problem well it wasn't so uncomfortable in fact when I woke up out of the surgery it was beyond uncomfortable I was screaming and yelling from pain because what I felt was that someone took a big knife like in the Commando movies connected it to an electric outlet and just continued in me over and over again without stopping everywhere not just that area of the body and it won't stop and I'm screaming and I'm yelling and they're giving me painkillers and for the first time in my life I realized that none of the stuff actually works for me I never took drugs because I liked my brain so this was the first time they put drugs in my system and it didn't work eventually they gave me the most amount of morphine legally allowed to calm my body down and I calmed down they said listen I don't know we don't know exactly what happened but uh you seem fine now go home I was excited to go home this was a very exciting day for me having all this pain and finding out what this gome that some people told me about actually looks like in real life so I went home we had a sh sandwich be on the way home got home ate the sandwich went to sleep told everyone thank you for coming and I'm going to sleep and I thought that it was all over it was just beginning 45 minutes later I woke up with even worse pain than I did after the surgery the only difference is that this time it didn't stop for 62 days for 62 days this pain continued but it continued getting worse my body started failing because I wasn't able to sleep and I was also taking a lot of different types of medicine which was ruining my body eventually I started urinating blood blood started coming out of my eyes my ears and all types of wonderful things and eventually the doctor said yeah he's probably dying from what we have no idea no idea what happened has not the pain he has has nothing to do with the surgery nothing to do with it something went wrong something went awfully wrong could have something to do with the guy in the boat though so after two months of this horrifying pain things started calming down instead of taking 50 pain killers a day I came down to about 20 for me that was manageable and I started going back to work started going back to my life and thought that okay I got a second chance at life let me start uh you know going back to things nine months later I feel a pain in the back of my leg I thought maybe I pulled the muscle by later that night I can't really move the next morning I'm in an emergency room they tell me I have a something called a abscess which is an infection but this one is in between two muscles where and it's so big that if I would have waited another hour or two would have blown up went into my blood system and I would have probably died instantly so I said okay so this is not good like yeah we have to do an emergency surgery this surgery is much worse than the first surgery because this time I actually have to stay in the Intensive Care Unit next to the people that are dying for the next 10 days this was the first surgery after a few weeks of being in the hospital and these surgeries are definitely not fun because this type of surgery they have to keep the area open and they have to keep reopening it every day if that wasn't bad enough they reopen it every day to make sure the infection comes out so it gives you a really good taste of how many sensors you have in your body so after a few weeks of this wonderful experience I go back home I think this is over 6 months later another absis another surgery 3 months later another absis another surgery and eventually becomes every month every single month and this continues for 7 years 7 years of 24 hours a day of pain but the pain is no no longer one area the pain is now everything from the bottom of my neck all the way to the bottom of my feet where eventually my legs double in size and I can't really walk everything that could go wrong goes wrong I also start losing money faster than I made it if it was a miracle to make it in the first place it was a bigger Miracle of how we lost it everything that went from Sand to gold in the past turned from gold back to sand just everything went wrong because I had money and you know I the ability to pay for medicine and all types of doctors and so on so we went to over 50 different doctors not even looking for a cure I mean if in initially we thought we're looking for a cure after a few years of this we realized there is no cure we just want to diagnosis what happened what happened most people ask me did you sue the doctor and then the answer is no and simply because I had more money than him what do I need his money for I just want to be healthy I didn't realize it was going to be broke just a few years later but I continued looking for a diagnosis after a while I realized that there's no diagnosis there's no cure this is it this is it now when you're in pain 24 hours a day both emotionally and physically you tend to not want to live life kind of loses its meaning so I started looking at my life and said okay you know what this I got to put an end to this nightmare only problem is these two wonderful women that are investing so much into me my mother and my wife and they're constantly crying and I kind of feel bad that if I killed myself it's they're going to cry more you think about these things but after a while you stop thinking about it after a while it's like you know what they'll manage so I started thinking about legitimately how to commit suicide now by the way people that think about suicide are usually very rational people that commit suicide are irrational it's two different things thinking about it is a natural thing and the the reason why is because we tend to think that everything that's in our life is permanent someone is upset they think they will be upset forever when someone is happy they think they'll be happy forever people forget that things are temporary most things in life are temporary so when you get upset you start crying and you get you lose yourself you start saying stupid things you start doing stupid things why because you think that you're going to have this horrible feeling forever you don't realize that like a week from now you're going to forget you had this feeling you're not gonna you're not to think about this feeling who's this guy who is he who this woman who is she this boss this job none of it matters anymore you forgot about it but at the moment that you feel it you think it's permanent same thing with happiness people get to an elated State of Mind when they make a lot of money when they have intimate relations when they uh you know get a job when their team wins or something like that they start celebrating I saw these two guys in the airport this morning and they were talking about I don't know some team I don't really know what they were talking about they were talking about some team and one of the guy was so excited about if his team wins ah man you don't know what's going to happen man if they win and he was so excited like his whole body was moving like I can bring this guy to the lecture his whole body was y you don't understand what's going to happen if this team wins what's going to happen nothing nothing's going toen you still have to pay rent every month you still have to pay taxes stuff to each stuff nothing's going to happen maybe the guys on the team are going to something's going to change for them they're going to get a bonus you get nothing what are you so excited for but he was so excited about oh if this team is going to win and he was I thought I got to bring this guy to the lecture he didn't want to come off wasn't Jewish so so we think that everything is permanent I thought that my state of mind was going to be permanent I thought my body is going to be permanent I thought nothing's going to change I thought God hated me so I figured okay what do I do now one of the things that the sages teach us in the Torah is that God is not going to give you a test you can't pass now the reason why is because if he brought you into the world purely to suffer he wouldn't bring you here there's a different place for that it's not this world it's called G we're not going to go into what it means and what happens there but in so many words it's very hot it's not a fun place if he wanted you to purely suffer you'd go there he didn't bring you here to suffer he brought you here to overcome an obstacle he brought you here to fulfill a mission he brought you here to work not work for stock market company or Building Company or some company but work for him do something for him fulfill a purpose do something but part of that purpose is overcoming obstacles part of that purpose was building character and to build character requires experience the CEO that earned his his position is a much better CEO than a CEO that got the job from his daddy usually the one that got the job from ABA is not such a good CEO the one that earned it going from the mar room to being a CEO he's usually the guy that takes the company to the next level and the reason why is because he has experience but that experience if you ask him can you tell them about your experience when you read the bios of the most successful people in the world you tend to see that they don't talk about the vacations to Cancun or to Australia or to the Jungle they don't talk about that what do they talk about I was homeless I was poor I was divorced I lost the kid Shalom I did the all the hardship of their life they talk to you about their nightmares if you want to read a bio a real bio of a successful person that means you want to read about their nightmares because that's what made them their experience is what made them the hardships not the vacations not the fancy cars and the planes that's what sells books what actually makes the book is the tough experience so you want to have experience you want to be something special that you're in line hasem wants you to do have it also so I had a lot of different experiences except the experience of sickness at least not to that extent I was sick when I was 16 years old for a little while but not to that extent soem said listen I gave you a bunch of chances you didn't listen but now I'm calling you and you have to listen but he also said that he's going to give me a test that he's not going to give me a test that he can't pass so that means that any test that I have any test that you have he knows you can pass it for sure just like any father is not going to tell his son honey can you go pick up the car for me but not pick up the car from the store but pick it up over your head and bring it into the kitchen a mom is not going to tell her four-year-old daughter to pick up the oven over her head why because she knows she can't do it why should I give her a test she can't pass why should I have her do something that I know she's going to fail because if I give her a test that I know for the fact she's GNA fail then what she's G to think oh I hate her but I don't hate her I love her if Hashem would give us tests that he knew for sure that we were fail that means he hates us if he hated us he put us in a different place not here anything you have in the world you can pass as hard and as big as it seems you can pass it's the only reason you have it you can pass it maybe he can't he can pass it maybe you can't I can pass it maybe somebody else can but whatever test you are given you can for sure pass it because he loves you I didn't think I was going to be able to pass soem says oh you got to that point you got to the point where you don't think you could pass I got to send the rescue team on a day that I started planning what I'm going to do how I'm going to do it all of that stuff my mom God bless her decided that she's going to start calling a bunch of rabbis and ask for blessings and she like every Jewish mom somehow they all have a black book full of rabbis names and she starts calling all these rabbis from different places around the world and she uh doesn't get any answers almost two hours of dialing the phone no answers eventually somebody answers a woman answers in Israel and she asks for a certain Rabbi and the woman says I'm sorry it's the wrong number so imagine you're dialing a phone number 2 hours eventually somebody picks up there's life on the other side of the phone but it's the wrong phone number so naturally what you would do start crying so my Mom starts crying hysterical and Hashem shows the people who's the owner of the house by making the woman be the only woman that we need to reach who is this woman the woman then asks my mom Doris why are you crying she calls my mom by her name my mom is in shock how do you know my name she say I know your name cuz I'm your niece Pina go how did I get to you I don't have your phone number and we've never spoken on the phone ever they don't have each other's phone number but somehow she reached the wrong phone number that reached her which we later find out is the only person that could actually help us and on top of it she recognized her voice which is strange on its own but that's AEM for you when hasm Peaks and tells you hey I'm the one that's running the house I'm the one that's pulling the strings sometimes he wants you to see it she says why are you crying she tells her the whole story my son is dying my son is this my son is that says well if you're looking for a blessing why don't you call R my brother and he lives very close to before he passed he's close to him maybe connected to him and so on you would talk to me yeah of course he'll talk to you why not you're the famous ant from America so my mom calls uh raim he's in the call he calls her back and uh they start talking and I didn't know that R FR existed when I left Israel when I was 10 years old he was an infant he much younger than I am he's about 10 years younger than I am and I didn't even realize that he existed so it's not like we kept in touch or anything so when I called my mom and she told me about this r a frying person I had no idea what she was talking about the interesting part is when I called her now she's talking to FR and R FR gets to the point and he says does he speak Hebrew he says yes he speaks Hebrew ah so can I just call him myself and just talk to him cu no he'll never talk to you and at that very moment is when I called her on the other line when she says he won't talk to you I decided to call my mom for the first time in a long time and my mom is hysterical crying and she says talk to him and I have no idea what she's talking about because she's I'm going into the middle of the conversation she's talk to him talk to him and I said who the FR like who's this why did he make you cry she goes it's your cousin he can help you I said okay just stop crying have whoever you want call me calls me we talk for an hour and 40 minutes what do we talk about about he tells me first story he tells me about the biblical story about Judah and Tamal it took me about four years to realize why he told me that story for another day I'll explain but it was an amazing story I loved it it's one of in Genesis an amazing especially when you realize that the M msia comes from there and a lot of deep secrets to it so we talk about that I so I see this guy's a smart guy so I start asking him questions and he answers in a very different way than what I'm used to when I ask people for questions they usually give me their opinion if I ask you what do you think of the market you tell me what you think of the market based on your opinion and somewhat experience what do you think of the economy tell me your opinion your experience if you tell me what do you think of this building you tell me about your opinion and experience the way he answered questions was very unusual to me first of all I asked him the question goes he made me feel great how he tell me oh that's the same question that so Rabbi so and so asked 812 years ago in this book on this page and this line and he recites the whole thing by heart in the beginning I didn't realize it was by heart I'm like he had the book in front of him how did he know I was going to ask the question so that just just for that just to see what happened I asked another question it's like oh what a great question which made me feel smart I'm asking these great questions these big rabbis asked 300 years ago 800 years ago I'm like yeah of course they ask the same questions come on I asked the same question I'm thinking of I thinking who I am little do I know these people are giants of giants if I could eventually be the dust under their feet it's already an accomplishment like yeah of course the ROM yeah I mean rambam like this of course he asked the same question as me so I ask another question he's like yeah of course Rabbi so and so asked in this book on this page 350 years ago 450 years ago and he gives me these I'm how do you know the pages how do you know the lines how do you know the stuff by you have all these books in front of you go no and I didn't understand what do you mean no no you just asked the question I knew the answer when you asked the question it took me a while to understand what this means like you actually know all these books by heart and little by little I started realizing this is not an opinion this is a source this is somebody else's information that has a source that comes from Mount saai and it was unusual so we spoke for an hour and 40 minutes it was very very invigorating it's different I was surrounded by Yes Men surrounded by people that were constantly telling me yes yes yes applaud everything I did all of a sudden half somebody actually knows what he's talking about so I was looking forward for another phone call but after that phone call I went to my wife and I told her he knows it and she goes who and what said I FR him it's like what does he know like he knows the secret goes what secret to what secret to the world that's that's honestly what I told him he knows how the world is made up she goes keep talking to him I said I don't know his phone number I said I'll call you again so following week as silly as all this sounds it's all happened can't even make this stuff up third Thursday 4:00 he calls me we having a 4H hour convers a three-hour conversation questions and answers I ask questions he gives me page numbers rabbis names lines he recites it by heart I ask every single question I could imagine and I didn't realize how many questions I had the following week we have a conversation at Thursday 4:00 5 hours following week Thursday 4:00 7 hours and from that moment on every single Thursday for an average of six to seven hours we have questions and answers if you had a question I probably asked it I didn't even know I had that many questions I started making up questions just to see how much he knows but also because I knew he knew dinosaurs no problem aliens uh meet purpose of life money women anything I just started asking questions but he didn't just tell me his opinion not once in all the years that I know him did he ever give me his opinion without me asking him specifically for his opinion all of it was what's God's opinion because that's the only opinion that counts your opinion may change next week this week you like ice cream next week you like beef jerky your opinion changes Gods doesn't doesn't it's permanent so I started learning God's opinion and I found out that God's opinion hasn't changed ever but more than that God's opinion is very very strong it's not politically correct and quite frankly it cares less about whether you like it or not even when Moses sort of tried to have a conversation with god about maybe you should do this or maybe you should do that God said I'll do whatever I please I'll give to whoever I want to give and I'll take from whoever I want to take without having to give anyone an explanation for it the good news is is that while this very strict Creator King of Kings he's also our father he also loves us so he tries to give give us explanations but the explanation is here it's in his book called the Torah you want the explanations to everything in your life it's here this is the instructions Torah also means instructions instructions how to live instructions how to be successful in marriage in business in friendship in anything but one of the most important parts of Torah is to be a decent human being this is one of the things that we forget in the world we live in being a in human being people try to do it but superficially they try to say listen you shouldn't say certain things because it may offend someone it may offend someone that's homosexual it may offend someone that's black it may offend someone that's Jewish it may offend someone that's whatever something else in reality everything else they do is offensive so when use people's opinions those opinions are warped and tainted and usually not so good you God's opinion has some Foundation to it so I started learning and it became extraordinary I became addicted to it little by little I started realizing that the situation that I'm in is not easy but also not good the fact that my wife is not Jewish was not a good thing but I'm not planning on leaving her especially since she was the only one that was there for me for the last seven years when I was dying so then I decided that okay maybe I should learn a little bit about her her religion and see maybe maybe there's a match maybe it's good maybe it's bad maybe there's something now I've always thought that Christianity was like second best I never necessarily thought it was fake I just thought it was second best I thought it was like you know was like Torah was real and you know Christianity was like the remix I started learning about it and I realized it's not the remix I realize it's fake it's 100% menm made fake religion all you need to do is look at their own book and you see that there is man-made mistakes in every single page our Torah has 34,800 letters their New Testament has approximately 100,000 our Torah only has one version their version their new Testament has over 200,000 versions there's no two Christians in the entire planet that believe the same thing I met many of them and I helped many of them convert too no two Christians believe the same thing each one of them takes something else from the book and makes it their own someone says he's JC peny is God another guy says he's a messiah another guy says he's a rabbi another guy says he's a sadik another guy says he's just somebody everybody has some other explanation for something else no two believe the same thing no two ever read the entire Bible because the entire Bible according to them includes the Torah which means that there's 75% Torah and 25% new testament which means that 75% is true we all agree the Torah is true even the Christians believe the Torah is true only thing is they don't teach it and they actually tell you not to learn it according to them you shouldn't learn it because it's not relevant anymore the reality is it's not because it's not relevant it's because it contradicts the other 25% there's several places in the Tor where hasem says that yov ainu came down to Egypt with 70 Souls 70 people New Testament says 75 this is a simple human error God did not forget five people that means God didn't write the New Testament in New Testament says there's a wrong address for the the cave of which still exists you go see it even though there's a bunch of terrorist there it still exists the New Testament put it in the wrong City this is a problem God didn't forget the address especially for such an important cave and so on and so forth there are countless mistakes in this new testament but the reason why there are over two billion people that believe it is because most people are told not to read the Old Testament so Jews that have the prize in their hand have the gold in their hand take it for granted sometimes like I did sometimes God's going to tell you listen it's time for you to start reading it so I fell in love with it and then eventually I real realized that I have to save this woman even if it's not for marriage I have to save her so I started learning learning learning learning and everything I learned I taught her we continued learning together eventually to a different set of Miracles she realized that on her own that Christianity is the worst thing on earth it's complete falsehood and over two billion people have fell for it including her and on that day she said okay I'm ready to convert and she took on everything that day even though the bedin didn't obviously take overnight the first day she realized everything is true she took on every single mitvah we knew of modesty everything if we knew it we did it and this leads me to the next Point there's not that much time left but I'll cover it once we decided to do chuva the one advantage we had that I think most people don't realize how significant it is is that we actually had a rabbi and and I think that's one of the things that's the most important part of your chuva is to make yourself a rabbi and book that I have in front of me this a series of that we did we're still doing we're up to I think lecture number 5502 or 53 the sixth lecture or the sixth mishna says says make yourself a rabbi now the and are in order from Mount sa all the way to the talm times so in a span of many many years which means the sixth mishna is very close to mount Z and this six mishna tells you it's important for you to make yourself a rabbi meaning that it's so significant to make yourself a rabbi that you can connect to that you can talk to that you can ask questions you can cry to that you could talk to that you can reason with that without it you'll be lost it's very very easy to Lose Yourself that's why sometimes you see some people start doing chuva and take on more than what they really can all of a sudden the guy didn't keep Shabbat didn't keep kosher didn't keep nothing next week he has a beard week later he has payers three weeks later he's already wearing a $10,000 hat but he still doesn't know alabat still doesn't know Shabbat but he looks like he just came from breath live what are you doing why and the reason why a lot of people do this because many people think that Judaism has to do with exterior exterior is important but it's not as important as here chuva is inside chuva is what's in your heart but what leads you to action not hey I believe in God in my heart that's nonsense that's like it says I believe I'm rich in my heart no your bank account says if you're rich or not I believe my wife loves me well you could believe what you want but if she left you and she filed for a divorce she doesn't love you my friend so there's you have to be real so what I mean in your heart mean what lead you to action so how do you get to a point what do you do first and foremost you have to make yourself to connect to a rabbi wherever the RAB is whoever you connect to whoever you ask you're going to have probably most most of the time you're going to have multiple rabbis in your life you can have a certain Rabbi that's a local Rabbi local Rabbi is going to be the day-to-day person that you ask day-to-day questions sometimes you the rabbi that motivates you more is going to be a rabbi that you watch on TV or on on YouTube or on a you know in different lectures from different places in the world he may be located in Australia maybe located in Florida maybe located in New York wherever he's located the point is is that he could be your lecturer every week or you know that motivates you and then you have your your Rabbi that could potentially be your local Rabbi that knows his stuff or it could be a rabbi that's specialized in a certain type of Al for example if you need uh not every Rabbi knows everything if you need a rabbi that's a specialist in business that may not may or may not be your local Rabbi you have to go to a rabbi that's an expert in business doesn't not only know the laws of business but knows business same thing we know you could be a rabbi that helps you with find a z find a spouse and so on and so forth you're probably going to have multiple rabbis but you always have to have one main guy that directs you to the others one main one that's going to direct you to the others that's the one that's okay that's that's the one you have to have a rabbi and the reason why is because he's the one that's going to call you out he's the one that's going to tell you hey you're taking too much you're doing too much relax don't be overly righteous you just did chat three months ago you don't need to grow a beard that reaches the floor you did cha three months ago you don't need to uh do and don't talk for the whole day relax you could study in a normal way you don't have to not talk take things one at a time now how do you decide what to do first and foremost you have to start with the foundation you have to start with the stuff that's the most important so Shabbat is foundation kosher is part of foundation modesty is part of foundation there's certain foundational mitv where if you don't do them you have a problem learning tah on a daily basis is foundation if you don't learn you won't know there's no such thing as a righteous person that doesn't learn tah no such thing there no such thing there no no way you can be righteous with hem according to his definition without learning as to because you need to know his instructions so first and foremost you have to do the foundational stuff you have to learn to every day you have to take on certain things the second thing is is you have to learn about what you're doing so if you want to do something for example you want to learn about you want to do Shabbat you want to be modest you want to keep kosher learn about it take a book okay I want to learn about kosher what's the significance of kosher take a book there's a few videos online whatever it is take a few things what why should I keep kosher the more you learn about a Mitzvah the more connected to it you become if you become connected to the Mitzvah it'll give you it'll give you the inclination and desire to do it but if just somebody tells you Hey listen you should keep Shabbat why because if you don't God hates you I don't want so that's his problem like you know like if you don't really know the significance of Shabbat it's like I don't care once you realize Shabbat is this you know you realize all the significant things of Shabbat it's amazing it's endless amount of reward you get for it it's literally the make or break of a Chua then okay this makes more sense learning Torah if you ever want to never be bored learn Torah many people get depressed because they're bored they get bored people get bored especially Young Generation they like to go on vacation so they could run away from reality they like to do drugs because they want to run from reality they like to change relationships because they want to run away from reality everyone wants to run away from reality and the reason why is because reality their version of reality is terrible it's boring their brain doesn't work because their brain depends on something material something that's here something they can touch something they can see when you learn Torah you will never be bored once you get into it not day one you have to get into it why and the reason why is because the Torah leads you to constantly think about different things how do I implement this what does this mean what did the rabbi say what did he say and it just just constantly moving Parts it's like the machine got turned on it's been off for 25 30 years and all of a sudden at beginning the cob webs are off after a while it's not Rusty anymore eventually it's running constantly eventually it gets to a point like wow I can't wait for the next Shure I can't wait for the next lecture I can't wait for the next book start you start swallowing books because it gives you life and that's why the Torah says that the Torah is it's the drug of life so few things few to do things is whatever cha you going to do make sure you're serious don't be don't spend your whole life playing with the sand be the guy that's waving to hem say Okay God I got you you're over there I see you I'm not going to wait for you to come off the boat like you did with your I see you let me start doing something something next thing is start with the foundation start with the don't don't be one of the these people no no I'm just going to give and that's going to make me righteous it's not going to make you righteous to be GI no one in the history of mankind has ever got to ganeden purely because of if you don't keep Shabbat you don't keep kosher you don't keep modesty you don't keep the foundational principles of Faith Saka is not going to help you it's just going to buy you more time in this world I gave a lot of it didn't help me only bought me more time be a decent human being learn mus musar is is character development this will help you in all parts of life business relationships Torah connection with God everything do as much as you can to learn about God but get to a point where Tor becomes an important part of your everyday life not like once a week once on Shabbat once in a while when I have time if you're going to breathe today learn to today if you're not going to breathe don't learn if you're not going to breathe today don't have to learn but if you're going to breathe learn any day you plan on breathing also learn one woman asked what about covering your hair a married woman in Judaism has to cover her hair with a with a scarf or a hat she says uh you know a woman that's single doesn't have to cover her hair what about a married woman is there any leniency any leniency that if she's married she doesn't have to cover her hair he says yes there is one all the women got excited they're already ready to take off the yeah there there there's one leniency and what's the lency this is one of the Giants of Giants going to give us a leniency of because if she doesn't have a head she doesn't have to cover her head so certain things that we have to do certain things you have to do so start foundational stuff of Judaism learn to every day if you had to pick what to do first start with learning and the reason why is because learning is going to get you to everything else whereas doing without knowing why eventually you're going to stop learn learn as much as possible watch lectures read books only learn stuff you're interested in that's also very important in the beginning if you're not interested in it put the book down put pick a different book in the beginning it's critical to learn only what you're interested in if my lectures bore you do not watch me please do me a favor don't watch my lectures if I'm boring youit I'm serious why because I could hurt your chuva only if I get your heart shaking a little bit and you're you're doing something about it watch if it doesn't go somewhere else watch a different Rabbi different raban whatever it is do something else read a book don't watch someone just because oh no I know him or I did nothing it's all nonsense here we're here to save our souls don't read a book because it's a famous book read it if you're interested the only book you're obligated to read whether you like it or not is the Torah but this can't be boring just read some commentary see most amazing stories in the world but there's different things ask for guidance stay in touch with the rabbis you know what what book should I do what mitvah should I do always ask for guidance what's going to happen there's no such thing as a stupid question there's no such thing I used to think that there some of the questions I asked were the silliest questions in the world I'll give you guys an example of one woman that we helped convert to Judaism and this woman was already going to conversion before she met us for four years four years and when she sat with my wife to go through learning about she uh she asked my wife isn't it uncomfortable though to go to the mikve and she said no it's actually a wonderful experience you go to mikve once a month and it's it's wonderful she gets separating from everything it's very spiritual it's very holy and so on and so forth and but the woman said no no but isn't it uncomfortable that somebody's touching you my wife looked at what do you mean somebody touching you she thought that the woman that monitors the bed the the mikve actually is the one that checks her and touches her my wife told him Shalom nobody touches you this is the worst who told you this she goes no I just thought I never asked I thought it was a stupid question I thought it was a stupid question so I never asked she thought that someone actually does this thing there's no such thing as super question everything you want to ask everything you've asked everything you're going to ask is important and to finish it off to to understand one of the important rabinal jobs that we have in Judaism is for a rabbi to check whether a woman is pure or not if there's a saf if there's a doubt and it's something called a Bika and this is something that some people like oh this is a strange job that somebody's going to have well just so you know without going into to many details because there's not enough time not because it's not important the most important one of the most important rabbis if not the most important rabbis in history also did it and his name was David King David which the Messiah comes from him he also that was his job too to check theka for women to make sure if they're Pure or not pure for their husbands point being here is that there's no such thing as a stupid question there's no such thing as a question that's say not relevant there's no such thing you have to the person that you pick as your Rabbi you have to feel comfortable with him to ask him everything this is probably the most important part of your Chua and the reason why is because this Rabbi is going to be the one that's going to navigate you where to go how to do what to do when to do are you ready for this are you not ready for this what you need to learn what you don't need to learn what's for a later time what's for now and so on the more you do this the the better your chu is going to be and last but not least take it seriously because eternity is on the line any questions a few [Applause] minutes we didn't cover the whole T so you have a few questions but we have a little bit of time I answered some of your questions I think some of them no nothing yeah hard to accept hardest thing for me to accept is that the pain was for a purpose that losing my health at such a young age losing money didn't really matter to me as much as losing my health um but just having my whole life go upside down getting to a point where I was in literally in pain for 24 hours a day surgeries and so on getting to a point where I realized that it was actually all for my benefit it was for my own good and eventually only because of this Torah realizing that it was actually the best thing that ever happened the greatest thing that ever happened to me was going through that nightmare was oh yeah so I mean it's a after um I started learning I mean the pain continued actually got worse for a little while but psychologically uh once I realized that it has a purpose has a higher purpose has a uh I started um dealing with it better even though I still had just as much pain I was able to tolerate it and and mental is the biggest battle it's even more than the physical um physical is a nightmare don't get me wrong I mean you never quite get used to physical pain but once you are looking at it in a positive perspective life becomes tolerable the pain becomes temporary um the uh just everything just has has a uh has a time and place if you will so that was the first stage the second stage was that after my wife converted um we started getting some major Miracles and uh in so many words the more the closer we got to Hashem the more we did the healthier I got and eventually I got to a point where I'm 99% healthy I mean once in a while I have something but it's very very minute obviously I wasn't even able to walk or stand to give you guys a lecture today I'm flying everywhere and giving lectures and working 20 something hours a day so I'm perfectly healthy uh and that's not due to any medicine it's not due to any doctors uh despite going to over 50 different doctors we still to this day never got a diagnosis still to this day no one knew what happened no one knows what happened people speculated with a million and a half different things we tried a lot of things we tried traditional medicine uh you know different type of medicine we I even got to be a part of a um an experiment a science experiment where they started injecting me with ozone to purify my blood which uh according to what people told me what chemotherapy feels like this feels like it also it's Nightmare and uh to me it felt like death but uh so I became part of an experiment for several months and it didn't help and pretty much nothing helped steroids uh all types of medicine nothing helped only that helped is Torah more I did it the more I did it more I did it things started just working my body stopped hurting infections became more uh you know infrequent you know instead of getting something every month it became every 3 months then every 5 months then every 6 months then it just became once in a blue moon and even when it came it was superficial that would just uh go away with either a couple of antibiotics or would just uh pop on its own and a few days later um things changed my body changed again it's not I'm not back to where I was let's say 25 years old but uh it's drastically better yeah no you got a lot of um non-religious people around you family friends I'm guessing and so everyone yeah so how did they react to you and how did you react them um and or with the exception of my mom who was very very for me getting religious um everyone else was against it and they weren't necessarily against it because they didn't like God or they were anti-religious uh they were against it because they didn't think that was my problem they didn't think that uh me being religious or not religious is going to change anything I'm sick how is religion going to change it because the vision or the visual or perspective that people have of God when you're not connected to him is very limited it's human people think that God is a man even though they don't say God is a man like the Christians do they believe God is a man and the reason why is because reason why I say that is because they limit God for some reason or another God's always broke people always think that God's broke he doesn't have any money he built the whole world he spent all of his money in the creating the world twice because the generation of no destroyed it and somehow when it comes to P everyone wants to work on Shabbat because I have to work on Shabbat I have to make money well you don't believe that God's going to give you the money for for not working on Shabbat oh I don't know maybe I need to help him like oh people have this worked Vision where God needs help so everyone believed that God needs help to heal me so I need to go to doctors I need to work extra hard I need to go make my money back I need to go go do this need to go do that um and that was the flaw that's that is the continuous flaw in the system people don't have enough in hasem people have no understanding that Hashem is everything and is able to do anything he wants if he want you to be healed you'll be healed he wants you to be sick you'll be sick they all the doctors in the world could all stand in one room and say this guy is going to live one more minute if Hashem decides that person will live another 120 years doctor's opinions mean nothing bank accounts mean nothing if you watch some of my lectures I say plenty of personal stories of personal Miracles I've had whether it be money Health Miracles I'm I see Miracles every day and um some of you just can't make up the stories you make up one story two stories three how many stories going to make up I mean you have to already become I don't know Harry Potter already by this point I see Miracles every single day and it's not just my Miracles my students my students see Miracles every day it's amazing and the reason why is because once we decide okay this is the god of the Torah is the only God and if he's God he's got all the time not just sometimes that means we're going all in all in everything I know I'm doing no sometimes no maybe no if no buts I'm all in whatever I can do I'm doing and that's in my opinion it's the only way to do it going 5050 you're going to lose being half religious you're going to lose eventually you're going to break people that are half religious they want to like dip into the secular world you know go to the ball game go to uh you know to the clubs go have a couple of drinks once in a while and be religious on the weekends eventually breaks you have to pick a side you have to pick a side you can't do both especially in this generation generation of the mashia is going to have more test than all the generations put together eventually you're going to have to make a choice can't be 50/50 either you want to be successful or you want to be failure there's no like ah nothing all in or nothing that's the most important thing that I think as my Rabbi taught me it's either you're all in or nothing not necessarily saying you have to do all of it today that's because you don't even know what to do to do all of it today but you intend to learn everything and take on everything over time and do it don't play games with God he's not your friend he's not your brother he's not your buddy he's God the King of Kings we get scared when we see a cop chasing us on the highway it's just human beings we get scared because the IRS is knocking on the door maybe they want to audit us just humans we get scared when some Pres president passes a law that may affect our neighborhood it's just a human being it's the King of Kings it's the one that's responsible for the cells in your body it's not your friend so if you don't play God games with God you're already in the right step you start playing games now you know what I'm going to keep Shabbat but I'm going to stay not mod for a little longer but you know it's wrong though right yeah but I'm not ready but you know it's wrong if you know it's wrong you have to stop have do whatever you can stay in the house don't play games with God because I played games I didn't win doesn't work doesn't work and that's the thing there's too many tests out there especially young people with with honestly I don't I don't I don't envy anyone that's younger than me because I don't know if I would be able to do Chua when I was 20 years old I tried I tried when I was 17 years old I did Chua for a year and a half and then I failed the reason why is because I learned I learned I learned I stopped learning eventually I stopped so I think the uh few things that you have to to work on is get yourself a rabbi learn some Torah take it seriously and work on the foundation first every Mitzvah you're going to do learn about it don't just do stuff because it's nice don't become Aid because it's cool to be Aid you know be at your own level but be serious and I think you'll have a lot of we have another lecture that's completely different right right now we're going to have in in Queens uh it's about drug addiction completely different completely different perspective about drugs and drug addiction I think anyone that comes will enjoy it but if you can't come you can still watch it on uh Facebook and uh YouTube and all these other things but I see you all soon [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] la [Music]