The Dark Side of Cash Advances: Money, Greed & the Damage Being Done

The average business cannot survive a merchant cash advance. This is the reason why more times than not they go bankrupt. Some people have committed suicide as a result of this. Many people have lost their jobs. Anyone that's helping this business in any way, they all lost their and on top of it they're bringing a holocaust is rabbi. How could this be so wrong if the head rabbi of our community is investing in my business? Meaning he's an investor in cash advance. Anyone that could write a chuva that could prove what we wrote is wrong. Meaning that this merchant cash advance is allowed for Jews. We'll give him $100,000. It's actually much worse that we're lending money with high interest to non-Jews because the pretext of what Hitler used to make everyone follow him was the Jews charge high interest. Yes, there's a lot of bad things that are said about us that are not true, but this one is. >> When does profit become exploitation? You know, a person says, "I'm in business. I can do whatever I want." Who asked you to sign this? >> Okay. Today, our guest is Rabbi Yahon Ruven. We're going to talk about something uh you've been passionate about for years. You call it predator funding. Um, a lot of people know it and they call it cash advanced um or alternative lending. [laughter] Everybody has a different name for it. But before we dive in deep to this um important topic um let's get the viewers uh to get to know you. >> Sure. >> Let's get the viewers to know you a little bit better. >> Sure. >> So I will start with um where did you grow up? I was born in Israel uh in Natana in uh uh the hospital that the closen built in other course >> and uh we were there until I was 10 years old and we came to the United States uh and uh we were a traditional family but once we came to the US we were completely secular we went to public school and uh I already started working as soon as we came to America we all had to help so I already was in business already at 10 years old, working at flea markets, then newspaper routes. Uh when I was in high school, aside from doing uh you know doing well in school, I had three different jobs. Clothing store, shoe store, and two newspaper outs. The newspaper outs and give it to another kid to do the work and that would collect the money. Uh and uh then we went to a lot of other things. Eventually I went into uh investment business in Wall Street uh when I was already 18 19 years old. Uh by the time I was uh 23, I made my first million dollars and I decided to start my own firm >> and uh within a relatively short period of time, the the money uh got to a point of, you know, significant where a bad month would be two $300,000. The best month I had in my career was in uh May of 2006 where I made in one hour 1.6 million. Uh and really one of my aside from you know training salespeople and being a salesperson myself and so on my uh two main things that I did uh well was analyze businesses and you know for investment purposes uh which really was the the big thing and and really uh you know doing the research to find these gems. Uh and uh you know this is something that I spent nearly 20 years doing. Uh but again all this time I was you know I was keeping you know some basic mitzvot here and there but I wasn't keeping Shabbat. I was intermarried. I was completely uh you know disconnected to a certain extent. >> I would like to jump into the cash advance business. Sure. >> I want to pick your brain when it comes to these things. >> Um when is helping someone becoming exploiting someone? Anytime you know that they are going to uh put themselves statistically speaking in a position where they're unlikely to benefit from what you're providing them or you know they're going to lose from it and you're really it's it's a one-sided deal. So when it comes to business, every customer is not necessarily always right, but the point of why the customer is coming to you is because you provide something that is supposed to benefit them. Okay? That's why they're coming to you. >> Had they known that you are in it just to destroy them, just to hurt them, just to take advantage of them, they would have never made themselves into a customer. >> It's it's in a world it's called. It's a I wouldn't have come to you had I known that you're trying to kill me. >> I wouldn't have come to you had I known that you're selling poison. >> So the the merchant cash advance business is known not just by me. It's known by the industry itself uh by journalists by the law itself that it's a predatory lending. Meaning that by default the industry itself is inherently a predator for its customers which are prey because the rates of interest that they charge are so high that it is statistically improbable to the point of impossible for the customer to ever come ahead as a result of it. Now when you have a you know lending in itself is a necessary part of commerce and it's around it's available since the beginning of time >> there's always been lending got stuff for for the bet mikdash from he needed special he needed trees and he gave him a city of gold as a result. So a commerce is perfectly fine. Making money is perfectly fine. Being dishonest, being predatory is never fine. So when it comes to uh charging interest, there's a different deote according to the of whether we're allowed to charge interest or not allowed to charge interest. We have a whole chva about it about you know there's different among the of whether you're allowed to charge interest or not to go to to Jews. It's a known thing that we're not allowed. The Torah says that you're not allowed. But even to there's a whether you're even allowed to charge interest according to the you're not allowed to charge interest to the goim. Uh because the only ones that the Torah talks about to give interest to them is the which is referring to the Canaanite nations and the are not considered. They're considered. So you're not according to you're not even allowed to charge interest to the green. There are other that say that you uh can charge interest but the point here is not the interest. If you have a uh you know home mortgage, you have a credit card, there's going to be interest. But what's the difference here? And all of those normal ways of getting a loan from a bank, from a, you know, mortgage, a credit card, the interest that they're allowed to charge you is still within the uh uh the rates that it's probable that you'll be able to benefit despite the interest because it's not going to kill your profit margins to such an extent or your investment such an extent. >> Still let you live. >> It still lets you live. It's uh now when it comes to merchants cash advance, they're going to they're charging, you know, rates that are absurd, anywhere from 50 to 4,000%. Okay, the the a lot of people say, "No, I only charge 50%." And but then when you start analyzing it, yeah, but it's 50% for 3 months, which anyone that knows a little bit of finance knows that's not 50%. That's 200 that's over 200%. It's not even 200%. It's not 50 times four because it's cumulative. So you're telling him 50, he has to give you 50% on, you know, you gave him 50,000, he has to give you 75,000 after 3 months. That's not 50% interest. That's over 200% interest. M >> so but you're putting the guy in a situation where it is impossible for him to actually get ahead because what ends up happening is that they if you look at any business and this is what I did for many years I analyze businesses a normal business even if he buys the goods for a dollar and sells them for $10 his profit is not $9 because he has employees he has insurance he has all types of government issues he has all types of things he has to pay all overhead if it's a decent business, he's going to make 20 25% profit. So that means that if you're lending him money at 200% or even at 50%, let's say you're a discount merchant cash advance, you're the sadic in the cash advance, you're you're the guy that only only charges 50% a year, >> he's still losing money, >> he's still never going to be able to get ahead. Why? Because it is impossible for a business to make that kind of money. And even if you want to say that the uh they're like a software company like a palunteer that makes 71% profit margins that's not a normal scenario >> right >> when we when we look at a and we look at you know at at things that are are based on the rightkafa you don't look at anomalies you don't look at the one exceptional guy that borrowed money and six months later he tripled it you look at the normaly of of of of how things work and you realize that the average person that borrows money for merchant cash advance business ends up refinancing the loan between three to five times only because he can't pay it back >> and he just has to borrow more money just to be able to buy himself more time in the hopes that he wins the lotto pretty much and then he defaults and then he goes bankrupt and some of them have something called a COJ like a certificate of judgment as part of the contract where they don't the cash advance company doesn't even have to sue him for the money, they literally win the lawsuit by default in one in one second. The second he misses the payment in some states in the country, it's allowed for them to have a certificate of judgment where they take over his uh his uh assets instantly without a lawsuit. Like even when you have a default in a mortgage in a house for an unfortunate situation with person that can't pay their mortgage, >> right? >> It'll take the bank a year, two years, three years sometimes for them to eventually take the take the property. Here is not even a week. >> Here he signed it as part of the paperwork without realizing what he's even signing, which is one of the problems, and it's it's one of many. He signed something that says that he can't fight this in court. the second he miss the second he defaults they go to the court they acquire his property now this their their excuse is that yeah but certificate of jud the uh uh this COJ is not everywhere okay but this is just one of the many problems and and then there are places that it is >> right >> the key here is that people don't realize that this predatory lending that today they call merchant cash advance is not a new thing outlawed lending money to go with interest already 3,000 years ago. uh the uh the the main businesses that unfortunately were the most popular uh that the Jewish people were involved in uh before the destruction of the beta mikdash, before the pilgrims in England in uh in the 1100s, before the Spanish Inquisition, before the pilgrims in Morocco, for the pilgrims in Ukraine, before the Holocaust, every major disaster that the Jewish people have ever had, if you look at the number one business that the Jewish people were involved in was high interest lending to the go, >> right? >> Back then they called it different names. Today they call merchant cash advance, alternative lending, all types of other funny names. At the end of the day, it's you could call it's it's it's a disaster for is to be involved in such a thing. And that's why many have spoken against it over the years for whatever reason or another in our generation. You know, you you have very few people, myself, my rav that speak against it. And I think that the really the only reason why uh that most rabbis are not speaking about it is because they're not aware of what's actually happening. They're thinking that merchants cash advance may be like, you know, you borrowed from a bank because the bank lends. This guy's lending. He just happens to make a higher commission. They don't realize that they're ripping people off. They don't realize that they're charging a guy interest that he can never pay back, that he has to win the lotto in order to break even. >> Right. So, what you're saying is that even if the people in the business, the funders and the brokers are saying we're not lending to Jews, you're saying that is even to the It's it's a it's a problem. >> Not only even to the it's worse because we're lending to the goim. Because here one of the problems that the explain is that if a Jew does something dishonest to another Jew, what happens? You know, Ruven does something wrong to Shimon, Shimon says Ruven is a bad guy. But when Ruven does something wrong to Jose, then guess what? Jose became an becomes an anti-semite. >> He hates all the Jews. And that's why say this is soy gazy is worse than so so it's actually much worse that we're lending money with high interest to non-Jews because it causes and says it's not it doesn't have a fix until a person dies because it's such a big damage that the the the domino effect that happens from is unquantifiable cuz now this guy he realized if you look at any of the lawyers or podcasters or journalists that have uh from Bloomberg and other places that have covered this topic every single time that they talk about it they mention that the people behind it are Jews. It's like Hashem is putting his hand into this business to remind us I'm watching. They're not mentioning listen there's a Chinese guy. They're not mentioning oh yeah there was a black guy in the office. They're not mentioning that the guy is Roman Catholic. No, no. But they're always mentioning that the Jews. Why? Because Shem is watching and he's he's telling us, listen, this is ugly. This is something that happened before. And last time it happened, it didn't end well because the pretext of what Hitler used to make everyone follow him was the Jews charge high interest. Yeah, of course there was non-Jews that were charging high interest. But Hashem didn't care about them doing that. He cared about us doing it because that's that's what happened to us. Same thing with the Spanish Inquisition. Same thing with the programs in in different countries around the world. It got to such a horrible point in Morocco that the chief rabbi of Morocco in the 1800s went and spoke against these people to the king of Morocco. Meaning he spoke against the Jewish people that are charging. He says, "Listen, these Jewish people that are charging, I interest your people. They're not part of us. >> They're doing something against our Torah." So what I'm doing when I'm when I'm sending this message to it's not to speak bad about it's to warn us from repeating the same mistakes that led to a disaster in the past and this is why Raando Shalom said that anyone that lends money with high interest to the goim has a din okay this is not your own ruin this is not the bala from a few years ago that doesn't know anything okay this is this If you look at the chuva that we published that my dear Rav wrote and I helped to my capacity it's a 17page chuva has many many sources and we've even said we've showed this to many even the thought that it's allowed initially after the reach without exception everyone said I can't believe I didn't know this everyone said you're 100% right no one has no one has come and said I don't agree because we've even offered publicly for the last seven or eight years anyone that could write a chuva that could prove what what we wrote is wrong. Meaning that this merchant cash advance is allowed for Jews. We'll give them $100,000. >> And people tried but they didn't even after the first line they said listen I can't disprove this. You're bringing from the last couple of thousand years. So the problem is that either the leaders of our generation are not aware of what's actually happening in his business that they're actually charging these rates. They're thinking it's just like a normal bank or the more unfortunate situation which is some people are just being blinded by the money. >> I'm talking about rabbis. There are certain rabbis that are investing in this business. You're saying a lot of tukas, a lot of money are coming back from these kind of uh >> Well, that's the thing. I I spoke to a lot of people in the industry, brokers in the business. Uh a couple of guys that uh started companies I've succeeded in helping a few people leave the business. >> Uh but unfortunately, not enough. And uh many times you see that the people tell me, "Yeah, but I spoke to my rabbi about it and he said it's okay." I said, "Okay, well, send your rabbi the chuva. Send him this. He he'll read it." And if he read the chuva, he agreed. Most of the time they don't want to read it. Why? Because they want to assume this is okay. Why? Because the guy that they're they're a student just funded their next yeshiva. Just gave them a donation. Just a, you know, a quick one without just to get an aliyah for $150,000. Aliyah on a Tuesday. $150,000 because all of a sudden he likes the rabbi so much. >> So some people are turning a blind eye to it. But in some cases becoming even worse where I've heard one uh one particular person came to me just few weeks ago. Rabbi, how could this be so wrong if the head rabbi of our community, which I'm not going to mention, the head rabbi of our community is investing in my business, meaning he's an investor in cash advance and he's not the only one. So the average guy, the average Jew doesn't know the Okay, listen. We don't know everything. I don't know everything. But if you're if you're a rabbi of a community, if in some cases a there's one particular case is a dian and you're investing in this business, you're a bigger criminal than the people that are running this industry. Why? Because you're obligated to know more than everybody else. So that's the thing. Unfortunately, even a Torah says that unfortunately money makes, you know, people blind. >> Yeah. >> So, this is happening. So, it's it's not a it's not a it's not a small problem. It's not a small problem. And anyone that looks into the industry knows or will get to know that it's inherently evil. And one of the biggest issues that I see in it is that in every industry there's a recruiting office. There's a recruiting team to get the next generation of producers of salespeople. Okay? So if you're a law firm, you want to go to best colleges. You want to go to the Ivy League schools to get the next generation of lawyers. You always want to get the best in every industry. You know, you want if you if you want you're a technology company, you want to go to MIT. you if you're a lawyer, you want to in this business, where's the recruiting happening? Where are they recruit? Are they going to Yale? No. Are they going to Harvard? No. Are they going to Wharton? No. You know where they're going to? Yeshiva. [snorts] >> They're going to Yeshiva. And they're telling the Listen, you've been learning. Good for you. You You know how to say, but really, do you have any life skills? No. How are you going to pay $1,500, $2,000 tuition for the kids you don't even have yet? Okay. How you going to pay tuition? How you going to pay buy a house? Any Jewish community you want to live in, you have to pay a million dollars for a house. >> How are you going to pay for that exactly? You don't have any skills. What are you going to tell them? Rashi uh commentary. What are you going to tell them? You going to tell them that? What are you going to say? So, they scare him that there that apparently Hashem doesn't run the world and tell them, "Listen, but if you want, come work for us. You don't need any skills. You don't need any talents. You don't even need to know how to chase clients. Why? Because they call you. It's not like the investment world where you have to go chase clients and hopefully you'll find somebody that wants to invest with you. Here, the clients call you. Here you you don't you don't they don't give you anything. You're giving them. So, it's the easiest thing in the world. You don't need any skills. You don't need to know how to do anything. You could literally be almost a mute and still make a sale. And yes, you'll make 10 15% commission. What's 10 15%? You lend a guy a million dollars, you're going to make $100,000 or more. And that's just as a broker. So the kid is listening to it. I'm 18 years old. I have no talents. I have no abilities. I need the money. I know how my how much my father is struggling or my cousin is struggling. So yeah, let me go into this. Now, initially, you could give them the excuse that, okay, this 18-year-old Bahul doesn't know anything. Doesn't know it's inherently evil. Doesn't know how much he's going to hurt people cuz he's 18. Most kids that are 18 don't know much. >> But you can't use that excuse a year later. Why? Because after a year happened, those first few months, he eventually closed a few deals. And those few deals that he closed in the first few months, they're already crying to him. What did you do to me? What did you put me into after a year? So, he already knows he's bankrupting somebody. So, after a year, you can't say, "I didn't know I was doing bad." >> Right? >> You can't use that excuse anymore. But what keeps him in? By then, he's already used to making 20, 30, 40, $50,000 a month. the already has the venom inside him and now you're gonna get him out. >> So unfortunately this is something that is targeting our that's why in every single uh special interview article that they write about this industry they always mention and by the way they were Jewish. They don't mention anyone that was a Christian. They don't mention anyone that was Muslim. They don't mention anyone by different colors or race. that they always mention that there's a Jew there. Why? It has nothing to do with the article. But apparently wants to know, hey my dear children, I'm watching. >> But let me talk to you from a different angle. This is the small business owner >> who is struggling who can't who can't he can't make payroll [snorts] >> and uh the banks refuse him. >> Yeah. >> The banks don't want to give him anything. What is he supposed to do? Uh is he supposed to file bankruptcy? to give him a loan is not helping him. You're all you're doing is you're the way that they the uh the merchant cash advance present themselves is misleading to begin with because they present themselves as they are buying his receivables. Okay? Now, if you're really buying somebody's receivables, you have to analyze the assets. You have to analyze the clients. But they don't do any of that. All they analyze is how much money has the in the bank. Why do they care so much about how much money in the bank if they're buying the receivables? Because they're trying to analyze how much lifetime he has left for this business. So long as he has three months worth of lifetime in the business, they'll lend the money. They don't care about his business. They don't care about his payroll. They care about they analyze how much blood can I suck out of him until he dies anyway. So it has nothing to do with helping him. It's a predatory business for a reason. It's called predatory lending for a reason. It's a predator. Predator looks for prey. So, don't care about helping him payroll. So, the guy that can't make his payroll, that's his problem. Them lending him money is not helping him. It's magnifying the problem. >> It's not a solution is what you're saying. It's not it's it's it's it's actually a more difficult death >> because if he doesn't borrow from them, he still has other options. He could still borrow from friends and family. He could still fire some people. He still has other solutions where that he could buy himself more time to give himself a better opportunity to turn things around. But this fast forwards his his demise. >> This doesn't this doesn't delay his demise. This expedites it. >> It just looks like help. >> Yeah. But do they know what they're signing? Do you feel that it's misleading completely? Is it or they're so desperate that they don't care? They just are attached to the business emotionally or, you know, they feel like their whole life is falling apart. >> I've been I've been building business since I was 10 years old. I've been almost 40 years. And I could tell you that as much as a person can love their business, there's there's always going to be a red line. There's always going to be a red line of >> how much he wants of desperation. Yeah. You know, yes, put everything into it, but there's always a red line, >> right? >> At the same token, a person that could start a business is also a person that can understand how, you know, what's what's really is riskreward on things. So when they're signing this documents, there's no way that they ever really understand what they're signing because no one would there would sign this if they knew what's going to be the end, >> right? So walk us through. Let's say someone wants a half a million dollars, >> right? >> What is he signing over there? How does the interest uh work? And how does he look 6 months down the road? He was struggling from this secret. Yeah, he's already being misled from day one because nine out of 10 times the person that he's talking to, he's not giving him his real name. >> So, Shalom is now uh you know uh Steve. Okay, so already we're starting with you know different he's not talking to the right people and then sometimes Shalom pretends to be two or three people. He pretends to be Steve but then he pretends to be Steve's supervisor Joe. You know why? The whole thing is alive from the beginning. I have training video I have training uh uh uh recordings that people gave me uh that uh they got working in this business literally they teach the people to life from the first second. >> Mhm. >> Secondly on the paperwork many times you'll find something where they say something like 9% recovery rate. Now, this 9% recovery rate is to mislead the customer to think that number one, they are a uh they're a company that's trying to collect receivables like they present themselves, which is not. And number two, to present as if it's 9% rate. It's not 9% rate. You know what that 9% is worth? >> Zero. It's the same thing as putting a picture of Pikachu on the paperwork. That 9% has no value whatsoever. That number, that recovery rate is not even advertising. It's literally worthless. It's just purely to mislead and it's very common on those paperworks. Secondly, when they do present the rate at some point or another, they show it as a daily rate, which the average person does not understand, even if he's a businessman, does not understand because no bank tells you we're going to charge you. 2% per day. No, they tell you, "We'll charge you 14% a year. We'll charge you 28% a year if it's a credit card." That's what you know they give you annual percent rate. That's the normal thing that you have to do by law. >> But the merchant cash advance business misleads by saying no we're going to charge you 1.6%. >> So even the guy looks 1.6. Okay. So 1.6% that's pretty good rate. Wow that's even better than my bank. Or in the best case scenario the guy says you know what oh so 1.6. So if I times that by 12 so yeah it's more or less like a credit card. He doesn't realize that 1.6 rate is almost 50% a month. So he doesn't he has no concept of what he's paying. When does he realize it? After he signs the paperwork. After he signs his business away. Pretty much it's a death sentence to the business. Then he wakes up and he realizes, wait, they just drafted money. They took money out of my account for the rate. I just borrowed the money yesterday. Two days later, they're already taking money out. And guess what? The next day, they're taking money out. They're many cases they're taking money out of the account every day which is poison to any normal business because your main thing in any business that creates value for business is cash flow when you're sucking out all the cash flow out of the business. You're killing the business. >> You're out. >> So now they're taking money every day and he can't stop it. He complained on all all he wants. Listen mister, this is what you signed. Oh, you didn't know? Okay, sorry. Next time read the paperwork. So now they're starting to take money out of his account every month. He realizes he put himself into a gem, but he's still optimistic because the guy promises him that listen, don't worry. This is just our first deal to get, you know, to get our feet wet, to get to know you. You know, he's still pretending to be his friend now. We just lent you $50,000. You have to give us $75,000 in a couple of months. That's just to get to know you. But don't worry, after you do this, right, we're going to give you a we're going to refinance the loan to give you a small business loan. you know, like the, you know, small business loans, like the ones that the government helps with and and the ones that you only pay 8% on. This is all fairy tale. This will never happen in three months from now when he doesn't have enough or he even does have enough, they say, "Listen, we can't do this small bit, but if I give you another 300,000 of merchant cash and you pay back $450,000 in a couple of months, then we'll get you that $3 million that you told me you wanted that three, then we'll give you that." So the whole thing is smoking mirrors and all they're doing is trying to refinance him to give him a bigger loan by selling him a bigger dream that one day he's going to get that multi-million dollar investment that will never happen >> because they're just simply sucking more and more that they can out of his business and Hashem help him if his business is not growing at at least 50% a year because at that point the demise is even faster. So the average business cannot survive a merchant cash advance. This is the reason why more times than not they go bankrupt. More times than not they end up in lawsuits. More times than not this ends up destroying jobs, destroying the uh the the guy's life. Some people have committed suicide as a result of this. Many people have lost their jobs. And and one of the big things that's going to make this whole thing blow up is when the government wakes up out of the the government of America and other countries that this is happening in, but mainly America it's hurting realizes that the economy is being destroyed silently as a result of this business. Because the number one thing that moves an economy, any economy, is not the Coca-Cas and the Pepsis and the Apples of the world. It's the small business. So when you are systematically destroying small businesses in every opportunity that you can, you're destroying the economy. And this is exactly what they're doing. This is what they did in in previous generations. And this is what's happening. And it's unfortunate that there's not enough rabbitical leaders, uh, you know, leaders of any kind in the Jewish community speaking against this business. And I think I'm giving everyone the cuffs that they're not aware, >> right, >> of how evil this is. But it's becoming harder and harder for me to believe that because of what I see, because of what I hear. And unfortunately, it's it's it's unbearable. >> Does profit in a business have a cap? Like when does profit become exploitation? You know, a person says, "I'm in business. I can do whatever I want." Who asked you to sign this? I'm I'm I'm introducing to you something. >> My the prophet is is there a cap on profit? Where >> there's no cap there's no cap. There's no cap on a profit. You know, the only time you know where they talk about cap on profits is if you could buy something from a Jew versus buying from a Gentile. You should pay up to 16% more to do business with a Jew over using a Gentile just to help our own brothers and things of that nature. But that's the only time in that I know of that there's ever a cap in in such a thing. No, there's no problem. You could buy something for a penny and sell it for a million. As long as that's what people want to buy, no problem. But this has nothing to do with profit. This has to do with this has to do with manipulating people to do things that are against their own interest >> when they're desperate. >> Again, even the desperate person, had he known that this is his death sentence, he wouldn't do it. So this is this is a uh uh when we look at the aspect of it we realize that they uh you know this is similar to uh when you analyze gambling for example the reason why say that when when one person gambles with another person they uh you're he's not and uh even though both of them agree to the rules let's say they're playing poker >> right >> okay and uh and Ruven beats Shimon if if Ruven and takes the money from Shimon. Now, according to the rules, he's allowed to. >> Yeah. >> But the reality is Shimon would have never played had he known he was going to lose. He only agreed to the rules because he assumed he's going to win. >> Right. >> Okay. So, this is something that's applied when you read the chuva that we published the this is the same concept here. This is a when a person agreed to the rules of this, it's not because he thought this is what you're going to do to him. He thought it's going to be very very different. Right. >> So this is also one of the many reasons of why this this business is forbidden for Jews to do with needless to say with Jews. Um but aside from all of this, it's simply hurting people. >> Like what is the wisdom behind the of ribb? Well, the big thing about ribb the is is is compared to an to the venom of a snake >> to a bite of a snake that has venom in it. >> And the is one of the things what in the beginning you don't realize what happened. Sometimes say that the guy that's giving that's giving alva that's giving a uh a loan appears like he's helping but in reality he's going to he's going to hurt the person. >> The same thing with venom. Venom doesn't kill right away. Takes time >> but eventually it kills. So the key thing with with with rebat in general, the Torah speaks against it both for Jews and Gentiles uh in many different ways. And in fact, even uh you know in according to the opinion of those that say that charging beat at all is allowed. They said it's still a cursed business that anyone that deals with it would eventually lose everything. M >> you know the the one that benefits the most bund out of uh charging interest will end up giving all of that money to someone that uh helps the poor, you know. And they give different examples of how uh uh uh Jewish people that actually benefited from uh charging interest ended up losing all the money to some king because this king gave a lot of uh money to poor people. So there's a lot of different examples of how this thing is inherently evil according to the Torah. Furthermore, one of the things that uh a person has to understand is that is known for having okay is known for having mercy. >> That's one of the signs of a Jew. That's one of the things that distinguishes us from among the nations. When you're in a business and you know that your customer is a victim, he doesn't realize it yet. He doesn't realize he's prey. He thinks he's a hero right now because he found a solution. He found the Joe from Brooklyn, the Joe from Oklahoma, wherever, wherever you told him that you are, he he thinks he found a solution. He doesn't realize he just became a victim. So, when you already know that your average customer is going to go bankrupt, is going to lose as a result of your transaction, where is the mercy? Where is the Jewish mercy? That's the one thing that baffles my mind. What happened to the Jewish heart that's supposed to be merciful? Now, of course, everyone is going to calm their conscience by saying, "Yeah, but I'm giving that stuck to to the shul. I'm using that money to put bread on the table. >> Yeah, I'm I'm providing for my family." Uh according to the GRA the whole issue of reb starts off with who are we allowed to charge uh rebit say if you're going to charge the gim you're not allowed to charge the Jews you charge the gim okay but one of the things that they're saying is that yeah but is everyone allowed to do this no the mit says if you're going to charge rebeat You have to be very careful not to put yourself in a situation where you're constantly next to the nations because you're going to be influenced by them. So therefore, if you [snorts] are a average person, you're only allowed to do the business with them with the with the with the with the nations if there's no other business available to you because the nations are forbidding us to work, which is what happened in past generations. We weren't allowed to be in other industries. So we were forced, if you will, to be in this business. But you're only allowed to make enough money to survive. Meaning to pay your basic minimum expenses, not to buy a $3 million house in the Hamptons, >> right? >> Not to uh get a private jet just to go to a basketball game. That is never allowed. That according to all opinions is never allowed. If you're in a business, you have to you are allowed to do it only to make enough money to survive. But if you want to prosper, you have to be a Tommy. We're not worried about him being uh influenced by the uh nations because uh he's learns to. >> So now one of the one of the comes and says where in his generation already how is it that our entire generation of of financers of people that lend money have suddenly become everybody's where they're just they're just doing this all the time. He says we're not all. How is it that everybody's allowing themselves to be in in the lending businesses already hundreds of years ago? So in our generation, it's even, you know, we've degraded. We haven't become better than than >> for people to simply allow themselves to be in this business. It's only because no one is saying anything that is supposed to. And unfortunately those that uh are uh are have gotten to the point where they don't even care anymore, >> right? >> Uh you know this message is not going to help them until they uh they wake up to have their own personal >> thing saying is that it's missing an awareness and an education about the subject. >> It's it's missing to such a point where people don't even realize it exists. They some people will rationalize it by saying yeah but it's only charging the uh the gim. >> Yeah. the interest. What do I care? >> Like I said, hurting the goim is worse than hurting the Jews. >> According to the Torah, it's worse. >> You compared You compared this to lone sharking. >> This is worse than lone sharking. Loan sharking is something that was very common when I was growing up. >> Yeah, >> that's what the mafia did. Yeah. >> The main money that the mafia made >> was loan sharking. Guess what? The mafia has shut down loan sharking. They all started cash advance businesses. >> It has a beautiful face is what you're saying. Listen, it's a it's a legal way. And you can even have an office. It doesn't have to be the back of the alley. Doesn't have to be in in in uh you know in Joey's garage. >> Now to the mafia, the the struggling businesses used to go to them and beg them for money, too. >> Now they open merchant cash. So now the the the Jewish uh uh merchant cash advance business that looks like a like like it used to be a co that used to look like it used to be Shiva. the next door neighbor is uh the mafia because they're both in the same business. And guess what? The attorney general uh in New York has already fined them nearly $2 billion for their usery, for their unethical businesses. Bloomberg has come out with multiple articles, a whole series of articles about the industry where they caught the heads of merchant cash advance businesses that unfortunately in some cases were Jewish and uh that were associated with the mafia to such an extent that they would send the mafia hitmen to go scare the customers that didn't want to pay back the money or didn't have the money to pay. >> So when I say their colleagues, it's not just a joke. They literally have become colleagues. They literally have become business partners. >> This is this is a disaster of all disasters that no one wants to talk about. It's it's a poison within our community and it's flourishing over the last 10 years. I already heard about the cash advance industry when I was on Wall Street over 20 years ago. I knew it was bad back then. It only got worse over time. In the last 10 years, some of the leaders in the cash advance industry have become publicly traded companies, meaning they're multi-billion dollar companies. Some of them have become major hedge funds or or closed end funds. Uh uh and literally they have major dealings. So, not all of them are big. It's very easy to open a cash advance company, but some of them realize that there's other opportunities that this opens for them. So it's not enough for them to commit one evil. So now there are some of them are opening sister companies that they pretend are not associated which are uh um debt settlement companies. >> So it's not enough for them to rip the guy off once. They know he's not going to have money. So what are they going to do? We need to still make money out of him. So we're going to do we're going to open a company that's called for debt settlement. So after he can't pay back or he wants to settle, there's another way for us to make fees. So they opened debt settlement companies and literally the evil is just continuing to grow. Some have started funds where they collect money from investors saying, "We're going to collect your money and we're going to give you guaranteed 40, 50, 60, 70% interest." How could they guarantee it? Because they're charging the people 3,000% interest. So, they're starting hedge funds to lend money >> to uh to to people. All types of things. This is this is just a cancer that's growing. And um unfortunately, it's uh it doesn't look like it's going to stop anytime soon because of the law. But at the very least, if we could warn some people before they get into uh too deep into this, hopefully we could help them. >> Wow. What message do you have for funders and brokers in this industry? If you want to have any chance whatsoever of going to heaven, any remote chance for heaven, you have to leave the business as soon as possible. Shut it down. Don't sell it. Don't give it to anybody else. Shut it down as if it never existed. And hopefully you'll make enough money from your next venture that's ethical to pay back all the uh all the damage that you've caused. That's the only chance you have because even if you keep Shabbat, even if you uh you give staka, doesn't matter if you give a billion dollars a day in staka, if all that money came from from stolen money, which is what this business is considered, then guess what? You're never going to enter ganed. Why? Because when you go up to when you have gazil on your hands, when you have when you have stolen money, it's called damim. You have blood on your hands. And no one is allowed to go to Ganeden with blood on their hands. Now again, people could say, "Oh, you're this. You're fanatic. You're extreme. You're this." Fine. You don't want to you don't agree with what I'm saying. Read the chuva. Read the chuva. Prove it wrong. Prove it wrong. You want to prove it wrong by all means. But one thing I would say is especially for the Jewish people that consider themselves from before you eat, you you determine whether you the kashoot is good enough for you. Before you marry, you decide whether the shiduk is good enough for you. Before you buy property, you decide whether the property is a good investment. How are you allowing yourself [snorts] to go into an industry without knowing that the permits you to do this evil? Because what you're putting on the line is not just your business career. It's not just money. It's your if [snorts] there's even a 1% chance that I'm right and I know I'm 100% right because again that's but let's say according to the to the uh the doubters >> there's a 1% chance that I'm right that means that every single person that's in this business whether he's a broker an owner even if he's a secretary or she's a secretary in the business anyone that's helping this business in any way they all lost their And on top of it, they're bringing a holocaust is this, from my perspective, I already said this when I first started talking about it. I did a speech in Israel. I did a speech in uh a whole series of speeches in New York maybe about six, seven years ago. I told him back then, and I'll say it again, this is bringing the next Holocaust, and it's bringing it to America. Why? because you're d you're destroying what's most dear to them. At the end of the day, we're just visitors. You can call yourself American as much as you want. American Jew, American, African, whatever you want to call at the end of the day, Amanda is a visitor wherever they are. >> Right? >> The nations, the number one most dear thing to them is their money. >> Correct? >> You're destroying it. You're ruining it with this business for your benefit. Guess what? One day they're gonna wake up. One day they're gonna wake up and they're gonna realize it's you. And guess what? All of us will suffer as a result of it. >> And that's why say someone that does this business is considered din. It's considered as if he's trying to kill the Jewish people. >> So it's it's this is not a small problem. And I've been trying speaking about this for years in all different ways. And like I said, Hashem, we've helped some people, but it's not even scratching the surface. >> Have you ever spoken to people who lost everything which families were destroyed from this? >> Yes, of course. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They the uh I've spoken to both sides. I spoke to people that are brokers in the business, left the business. Uh I've I've spoken to people that have gotten hurt from this business, still being hurt from this business because they're in the middle of loans. What does it psychologically do to a person who is like trapped in this? >> Once if it if you're talking about the customer, the customer is uh wants [snorts] revenge. The customer wants revenge in so many ways. The common denominator among all customers, all people that are in in essence fell for this, they all want revenge. They all feel like someone took advantage of them. They want revenge. This is why many of them are very uh uh uh at some point they speak about it uh either to to news outlets or to anyone's going to listen to them. Um and they want revenge. Why? Because they feel like somebody robbed their house in open daylight. It wasn't like, you know, you stole it behind their back. So they feel like you fooled them. So a lot of people want revenge. This is what breeds anti-semitism. This is what anti-semitism at its core this is what it is. This is what happens. The question is if where you have to put more [clears throat] uh you know emphasis do you put more emphasis on education and bringing awareness to the clients to the customer the struggling business so he knows that this is you know I understand you're desperate and everything or you warn the people not to do it which which gets more of a >> uh I mean listen you you know from from my speeches and from what I do I try to warn both sides at the same time anyone that listens to my shim that especially the ones that discuss this topic and I I I bring it up even a short version of it once in a while anyway >> just to you know uh make sure it's not lost in the uh in the mix >> uh anyone that listens to it automatically will learn that it's not good to be a customer of it and it's not good to be a uh a broker of it. Uh but the truth is that you know our main responsibility is for the people that are you know bringing it that are selling it. And the reason why is because they're the ones that are causing the most damage to reach the rest of society. To tell them that this is bad is never going to help because there's always going to be someone that either doesn't hear you or thinks that he can beat the system. thinks that no, no, but I have a way to do it and I have a strategy and I have this I'll get better. >> Uh, you know, there's still people that believe that you could avoid paying taxes, you know, if you just uh, you know, if you just don't file, you know, like because some they heard online that somebody could told them that uh, if you don't do it, then you know, no one's going to bother you. Like there's still people that believe that these these fairy tales. So, same concept here. You're not going to be able to reach everyone. The second thing is is that also this is a problem that uh Hashem himself is allowing us to decide on because he is allowing it to manifest and get worse. The federal government that should be the number one uh uh to to stop this has decided to keep their head out of it. In fact, even helped them to a certain extent, help protect some of the merchant cash advance business. and they've simply decided to tell all of the states, if you want to deal with this, if you want to shut this business down, have your attorney general start filing lawsuits, individual lawsuits with different ones. And that's what some of the states are doing, which is almost impossible. >> Yeah. >> To to fix such a such a industry problem that way. But the uh state of New York has already uh has been the most aggressive. There are some other states that are doing it, but at the end of the day, this is our problem. Why? Because if a gentile that's from, you know, any country in the world and any nation in the world decides to hurt another gentile, that's their problem. >> That's not our responsibility. >> Right? >> That's not our responsibility. In fact, uh there are seven noahide laws uh to some extent will allow some parts of it and and and forbid some parts of it. So it all depends. It's much more it's it's put it this way. It's a lot easier for to permit them to do it, but for us there is no permission. Uh so for the Jewish people to be involved in such a uh merciless industry gives all of us a bad name. And it's also repeating the same mistake. >> It's history. It's history repeating itself over and over again and it never ended well for us. When people say where was God during the Holocaust, the have that have answered this have always said where was Am before the Holocaust? Where was God during the Spanish Inquisition? Where were the Jewish people before the Spanish Inquisition? Where was God during the destruction of the beta mikdash? Where were the Jewish people before? been a nish is what you're talking about. >> We have to wake up at some point or another. You got to look at the person that's in the mirror and say, "Listen, that's me." At some point or another, we have to realize, listen, you know, yes, there's a lot of bad things that are said about us that are not true, but this one is. Okay? So, there's conspiracies and there's lies and so on. I even have anti-semites that watch my videos. They become lovers of Jews and leave being anti-semmites as a result. Why? Initially, they see my videos. They hear me rebuking my own people. They're like, "Oh, wow. This is an honest rabbi. He's actually bringing stuff that's true." And they say, "I don't understand. Why is he saying these things?" They start watching the other videos and they start realizing, "Wait a minute. the Jews that he's speaking about are when he's speaking when he's rebuking it's the same ones that I have a problem with. But they're not making those they're not uh uh uh doing the bad things that they're doing because they're Jewish. They're doing it because they're humans. It has nothing to do with Judaism. That evil that they're doing has nothing to do with Judaism. So, he also has a problem with it. The Torah has a problem with it. The rest of the Jewish people have a problem with it. >> And guess what? the Jewish people that he's rep that that that he's helping and as a result they do chouva I like them too. So we actually have many people that used to be Nazis that have abandoned Nazism. Some have even converted to Judaism. just in the last week, apparently one of the most famous, you know, public uh uh uh people that was a a former Nazi uh says that our shim have influenced them to abandon that and to now try to build bridges between the Jewish people and the rest of the nation in a positive way rather than being a Nazi. So bringing the truth to the world by saying that we're making a mistake is is the best way for number one for us to admit yes there are some people among us that are are bad apples that are acting you know in bad faith but that's not Judaism that has nothing to do with Judaism that just has to do with personal lust that everyone has. We're concerned with the ones that are among us because that's our responsibility. M you know we can't we can't deny everything. We can't just say listen you know we are always uh perfect and everyone is ungrateful. No listen sometimes we screwed up and we have to fix it. That's what the Torah is for. >> It's a tremendous tremendous message. But let me ask you something. Uh what solution do you have for small businesses who are struggling? >> If a business is struggling as far as getting financing. Yeah, >> if they're already in in a uh situation where they're struggling, but they haven't taken a merchant cash advance loan yet, they have a lot of options. Number one, if the banks don't work, they can go to friends and family. uh they can go to people in the community uh and try to make it a investment uh or a loan or a mixed investment worth loan to make it appealing to people because most businesses that need money they don't need a unreachable amount of money they need 50,000 they need a h 100,000 need 500,000 >> they don't need $5 billion they're not ex and trying to go public with a $2 trillion IPO right >> they need money that's in today's economy is relatively easy for even one person to do. So if you have something that's good, if your business is good, I'm sure you could find an investor that's going to either lend you the money or or or invest into your company, >> right? >> So and and and you're certainly not going to put your company in jeopardy. And you say, "Oh, yeah, but it takes time." Yes, it takes time, but I'd rather you take time and stay in business than it not take time and then you're out of business six months later. >> Right. So, so as far as getting investors or getting people friends, family to lend you the money is usually the best way. Uh that's that's I would say number one. Uh number two, you have other options of getting money. Looking at other assets that you may have. You have a mortgage, you could refinance, you have other assets that you could sell, liquidate, a car that you're not using, jewelry, all types of things that you could come up with the money. >> You're saying become creative, but don't dig your own. >> Don't Don't Yeah. Don't Don't Desperate Time calls for desperate measures, but this is not a desperate measure. This is stupid. >> This is suicide. >> This is just simply jumping off a bridge and hoping that someone catches you. You know, it's it's not it's not a it's not a business that is known for helping its customers. It's a business that literally has entire law firms built just to fight against it. There are literally entire law firms. This is all they do is fight against the merchant cash advance business. There's no other business that has such a thing. >> [clears throat] >> There's no it's it's just one of those things where it's literally we're going to look back at this and we're going to say how did we have any of our people even the one guy that's complete like an atheist Jew how did we even allow him to be in it how did society allow such a thing to exist but this is unfortunately this is Sodom and Gomorrah uh in in uh 2026 some of the things that I talk about are things that uh unfortunately other rabbis don't want to speak about and that's been one of the main things that has helped most people and one of the topics that you mentioned is the merchant cash advance. >> Yeah. >> You know because it's a uh I remember I I remember seeing in one of your shows I didn't see the whole thing yet but there was one gentleman that was spoke speaking about the issues of kadusha you know the porn addiction and things of that nature. This is one of the main topics that I've spoken about over the last 12 years. And I would say that one of the things that would uh correct I hear a lot is that you know people are shy to talk about it. I say it a little bit differently that people are not shy to talk about it. Rabbis are shy to talk about it. People are talking about it everywhere. They're talking about the news. They talk about in the billboards. They talk about in the street. Even in synagogue sometimes. >> It's everywhere. >> It's everywhere. But unfortunately the teachers are uncomfortable in teaching it. And that's that's unfortunately one of the problems. And the same concept with cash advance or other topics that we need someone to tell us the truth whether it's a uh comfortable or uncomfortable. Sometimes you you need to say things and uh at least give people an opportunity to decide for themselves based on you know based on the truth bas without sugar coating it without being politically correct. And it's a uh it's one of the things that we try to do to the best of our ability with with we're always obviously double-checking with our rabbi to make sure that what we're saying has sources and and it's a uh it's been an interesting journey. >> You're known for somebody who uh speaks the truth. >> You're known for somebody who is like uh you know is saying it the way it is. Where does that boldness come from? Well, I my mom tells me that ever since I was a kid, I was like allergic to lies. I can't I I can't bring myself to lie. Uh and I uh since I was a kid, I would find things uh I would find lies as something that's uh >> it didn't resonate with you. >> I didn't like it. I would ask sometimes I would ask a question. If I get an answer that wasn't exactly it, like somebody's putting me I always say something. Listen, this is you said something different last time. So my whole life I've been uh a fighter for the truth of whatever I knew the truth to be. So one of the things that we utilized in business for example when we're in investment business is we would look for red flags in companies. red flag either is going to create an opportunity to make money where other people are not seeing what the truth really is or red flag is that there's trouble behind the scenes and you can make money on the other way and you so you stay away from something. So this is something that I did in in the business world and it also is one of the things that got you know that that ke kept me out of trouble because in the brokerage business especially in the 1990s and early 1980s before I got into it boiler rooms and and and uh and and brokerage firms that simply you know manipulated the public and uh convinced them to invest in things that don't exist and churning the accounts and making you know unreasonable fees and so on. that was a standard that continued into the early 2000s and that was one of the things that I always ran away from because it was disgusting to me. >> Mhm. >> So when I was u working for a company called Raymond James before I started my own firm um I was looking to leave and there was one guy uh that owned a firm called me. He said, "I heard you want to leave and I'm willing to offer you $7 million to come work for us." Now I'm a 23y old kid. $7 million is a lot of money. I that was the first year I made a million dollars. So, it was a uh $7 million, a lot more than I have. Says, "Okay, well, what's the deal?" He said, "Well, bring your clients and I'll give you $7 million in any way you want. You want in cash in a box, you want it in a this, whatever. Why? Just bring your clients." Said, "Okay, but what's the deal?" He's like, "Well, the main thing is you need to buy our investments, what we recommend." I said, "What are your investments?" And he gave me a couple of things. And within 30 seconds, I told him, "No, thank you. This is all garbage. Goes, "Well, why not?" I'm like, "These are all fake companies." He goes, "But what do you care? You're going to make $7 million." I said, "No, I'm not a thief." Not a thief. If I if somebody gave me their money to invest, I'm going to invest it. >> So, that was the uh a test that I had apparently uh you know, at that age. So, even be before becoming religious and and anything else, there was a certain sense of you know, morals that my parents raised me with. >> Right. So, I was going to ask you what kind of values your young My my father always told me that, you know, you can make money in two ways. You can make it the right way, you can make it the wrong way. The the uh the right the wrong way, you'll make a lot of money very very quickly, but you won't last long. The right way, you won't make a lot of money right away, but you'll last a long time. You'll make a lot more. So these types of things and hard work and already starting to work and helping the family at a very very young age, understanding how difficult it is to make a living, to struggle, >> to get kicked out of houses and and and try to rebuild and lose and make all of these different things that struggle uh like the name of the of the podcast >> that shaped a certain character that uh you know to me to steal from anybody else it just doesn't make any sense to me. And uh I I just again the the truth came naturally. But once I realized that my truth was biased when it came to personal issues because I didn't know anything about Torah, I started realizing that I have to adjust and even though it was difficult and even though it means that I have to change major things, it is what it is. if if you're you're either going to be uh you know full of truth or you're going to be living a lie. 99% truth is 100% lie. >> Yeah. >> So that came along with it also. And for me once I started uh teaching Torah it was as if you know Moshe Benu said it. This is what I'm saying. I'm not giving you my opinion. I'm not giving you what what I think. I don't care about what I think. It doesn't matter to me. That's why one of the main things I've always asked my rabbi to do is that anytime we learn something to give me the source so I can go check it so I can go name it for people so they can look at it themselves and see this is not my opinion >> right >> so if somebody has a problem with it they could go to the Rambam they go to the raashi they go to Rabaka they go to Rabenu go complain to them >> right >> and if you really want to complain you want to complain to maybe I'll call you and have a personal meeting with you but your problem is not with me >> right >> so so that's that's the beautiful messenger >> yeah so I'm just giving you the information. And I think that uh that has helped a lot of people that are looking to improve. They're they they want to improve. There are certain people that they don't want to hear it, >> right? >> They they want to live uh they want to live in illusion and the message is not for them >> because if you're not ready, if you're not receptive, nothing's going to help you, >> right? >> But there's many people that are interested and we try. But let me ask you, what did uh Wall Street teach you about people? >> Well, I think one of the biggest things I've seen in my life when it comes to Wall Street and the and the and the world of money is that money makes people do strange things and that everyone has their own character, but they're not going to allow themselves to fully express their character until they have a lot of money in front of them. >> So they say it amplifies the person. So if the person is a good person, it will amplify that. And if the person >> bad, it's it's unfortunately it's it's people think that money changes people. It doesn't change people. He was always that. >> He just he was just pretending to be nice until he got the check, >> until he has the house, until he has the position. Now that he has the position, he's really expressing who he really is. >> And unfortunately, this is one of the things that you see in in in every aspect of life. uh when money makes people do uh some horrible things uh if they don't have that uh you know that uh at least that decent foundation to begin with >> right let me ask you an interesting question uh what is the biggest struggle you had to overcome you know when becoming a bou >> um well I mean I the biggest the biggest thing is just a adjustment of life where you know your personal opinion is no longer by default right you know because we you know being successful being the boss being the one that you know hired and and uh you know trained over 120 people and and helped them become millionaires and so on or at least mo you know some of them um by default you're right no one could tell you what to do >> right >> so now when you have Hashem and you have his messengers, all the rabbis, and you start realizing I have to put my head down to that. I have to realize that I don't know everything. I'm not right by default. It doesn't matter what I have or don't have. And so that that was the first big thing is that you have to humble yourself. >> Right. What you're saying is that the toy humbled you in a way has to >> that uh you you couldn't recognize yourself. >> No, I mean it was a completely different person. I mean, of course, the struggle of life, you know, helped that that that uh that humility become fast-forwarded uh but uh but I think that uh you know, just knowing that you're not right by default. >> Um I think is one of the most important things. Aside from that, it's also just changing your life structure where uh you know, money is not necessarily the top priority in life anymore. uh yes we need material in order to live in this world to do good things and so on and so forth but it's no longer the priority in life there is there's other things that are much more more important there's there's life beyond life >> so these are some of the things that were very very different it was a very big adjustment for me >> right >> um and uh you know as far as like the mitzvot keeping Shabbat and holidays and so on that wasn't so difficult once I decided I want to do it >> right >> once I decide that I it's not that I want to do it it's I also have to do it because if it's true, the whole thing is true, >> right? You can't be >> if it's false, then what am I doing anything for? >> Right. You can't be half pregnant. [laughter] >> No. >> Yeah. It's either you're in or you're out. >> Exactly. Yeah. >> Now, uh what do you think is the greatest gift that u we Jews have? Well, I as far as gift that is, I mean, I think that the special that Hashem gives us in the things we put our mind to, um, where each Jew has a special, a special spark in them that a kadosh puts that, uh, gives us extraordinary levels of success in what we put our minds to, but that also works in a in a positive and a negative way, >> right? And you see throughout history how the greatest influence that the world has seen has always come from the Jewish people you know you know in both in the positive and negative. So we have Mosherenu uh but we also have you know >> you know we we we have a but we also have his grandson. So they destroyed the bet. >> Yeah. uh you know we we have a uh you know sadikim like the the Rambam but we also have Karl Marx with the communism and all the craziness that came from there. So there's a lot of good that came from Am and that's what told uh um Vital that uh when he was tested early in his life uh he was told that he's he's going to have to make a choice either staying in the business world. Apparently he was an alchemist. He found a way to make gold from nothing and he's either going to pick the Torah or he's going to uh stay in business. And he says if you would have stayed in business you would have turned into the worst person in history worse than Haman >> and now you're going to instead of that you're going to be you know the you're going to be a sadik and so on and so forth. So each you know Jewish has that spark in it and put each one of us to do good but we still have our own choice and everything is fromem it's from heaven except the fear of heaven whether you're going to listen to hem or not that's your choice. The spark is there. The potential is there. How are you going to amplify it? That's going to be your choice. >> Wow. Let me ask you a personal question. >> Who was there for you when you needed it most? >> I would say that uh out of all of the people that I've ever met and all the different things that I've been, there's only three people that have been there for me. My mother, you know, my mother and my father, it's in essence one. They were they were the uh uh you know there through thick and thin >> my wife [snorts] and my RV re the uh rest of the people that I've ever met known and so on. Um there's always uh a line >> there's acquaintances >> there there even even people that consider themselves good friends there was always a line that people weren't willing to cross. I remember um that uh this is about um maybe 12 years ago. Um I had an apartment in New York. We moved already to Florida and my apartment was worth somewhere around $4 million, but I had a uh issue with it and it was being foreclosed on and all I needed to come up with was $100,000. It's a $4 million apartment. It had something like uh $2.7 million equity, but at a limited amount of time, all I need is $100,000 to save this house. Now, I had many millionaire friends and billionaire clients and all types of things. Now, I can't call everybody, but I called a few people that I knew that for them, you know, $100,000 is like a penny. Guess what? No one let me the money. One guy that I know that when we used to do business together, each transaction would be no less than a million dollars. like it was usually a million, two million, four million. That's the type of business ZA does. He makes $120 million a year. So $10 million a month is what he makes. When I ask him, listen, I have I'm in a gem. I only have a week to come up with $100,000 to save my house. It's my house. It's the only thing I have left. >> So $4 million. I'm going to sell it >> and I'll give you the money. I'll give you that. I'll give you two whatever you want. [snorts] >> No. You know what? Listen, it's just I'm too busy right now. This is just going to get in the way of things. Going to confuse me. That was his answer. And a few other one guy that I asked, I helped get him a job that he made uh his starting salary was a half a million dollars a year. I helped get him that job and get him out. He was in retirement and he wanted to go back into the business world and he wanted me to help him. I helped him analyze and pretty much present himself that he's the good to be the CEO for this company. And long story short, he got the job making a half a million dollar, $600,000 a year, and he was already very well off. Uh when I asked him for the money, all of a sudden, uh he he was financially tied up. Long story short, when it came when push came to shove, every one of the friends, business associates, whatever you want to call it, there was always a line they will weren't willing to cross. But the few people that there is no limit, there is no time, there is no uh uh nothing. There's simply we're we're one. Like I said, my dear Rabime, my dear wife, and my parents >> and that's that's that's what it that's what it came down to in life. And again, for anyone that uh wants to evaluate themselves and thinks that I'm wrong, please show me how I'm wrong. But uh it's it's it's just just the way it is. >> Wow. A final question. Who is your role model? >> My love. >> Wow. What kind of impact did this man make in your life? >> I think I think it's uh it's a combination of things, but I I think it's a it's just, you know, being dedicated, being selfless, um and um just doing good for the sake of good. not not not really looking for a uh not looking for uh recognition or uh notoriety or fame or any of that stuff. [sighs] And also when I the more I learned to the more I realized that no matter what I do uh I'll never be able to repay him. Just like no one that I help do chuva, it doesn't matter how much they donate or how much they do, they can never pay me back. And the reason why is because, you know, even if I, you know, give Rime a billion dollars a second, it's never going to be the equivalent of one second in heaven that I'll ever get as a result of doing Chuba. >> What he brought you, what he made out of you today has no price. >> There is there's no there's no there's no there's nothing I there's there's nothing that you could ever pay back for it. You know, it's a it's it's not it's not something you could buy with money, right? I was on a straight path to g now beem I have a chance of going to heaven. So that's it's it's a it's it's polar opposites. One is zero chance. One is I have a chance. You know I'm going in the right direction. I'm trying my best. At least I I know the truth. I know where to go. I know the direction. So and that's the thing that has no price. And that's what people don't understand. The importance of helping people do chuva is not just when it comes down to secular people that were like me that were in the business world because in our generation there's so many people confused in every community in the f community in the community in the Ashkenazi safari Israel America the UK wherever you go and benit there's no there's no every house needs something >> and if we truly understand the significance of what it [snorts] means to have a share in olabah. All of us would start doing something about it, you know, because it's there's a lot of people like me out there. There's a lot that that don't know what they're talking about that are, you know, driving on Shabbat and working or even some people that keep on but are in this business of mercants. They they they think that they're from but in reality they're causing uh, you know, much more problems than they are doing good. So I think if more people start realizing that we need to do kiru that's authentic that doesn't sugarcoat it simply tells people this is what Torah says like it or not like it it's not my problem I'm giving you the information decide accordingly you know choose wisely I think the more we support it the more we publicize it the more will have a better chance of you know having a better future because for you. >> It's not a uh it's not easy out there, but I think it could get easier than than where we're at. >> Tremendous tremendous work. >> This episode made us see the world in a little different in a in a little different light. Definitely encouraged us to think more more deeply about the choices we made. >> Yes. >> The choices we make, you know, we have and it's in our hand and we have to make the good choices. We have to be right >> in business and in life. >> Yes. >> Unbelievable stuff. I want to thank you so much for coming in. >> Thank you for having me >> and for the awareness that you brought and the education that you brought to us today. And anyone that wants to see the chuva that I mentioned to you, I'll send I'll send it link. You can read it. You can read. >> Absolutely. Uh it's a very very important thing to at least even if you want to be in this business at least know what what what what it entails at least know what it entails be educated that's the least we could uh we could uh ask for will have mercy on us and give us the >> to overcome this obstacle >> and to overcome all the other obstacles to dom instead of to uh to to to do good to be a light to the nation to be a light to each Sir, we all do. >> Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. >> I'd like to introduce you to your new best friend. [music] We did it. AI Rabbi is here. It's an AI model that is based on kosher Torah sources. 30 different languages that are available to you. So, if you want to ask it in Spanish, in Chinese, Portuguese, whatever you want to do, it's available for you. [music] Can you tell me about the timestamped to the shield? You press [music] this green button, AI Rabbi, on your WhatsApp. You'll have the ability to ask questions at will. You'll be providing sources and most importantly, you'll be able to know the truth and be able [music] to rely on sources.