The Value of Learning Torah at Yeshivat Doresh

[Music] great to be here at yes and thank you for the invite it's my first time here a couple of familiar faces that set it up we learn together every uh Tuesday night together so the uh it's very interesting you guys set up the Shure you know usually it's the rabbis that set up this year here it's the students setting up this so we see that we have uh some zealous people here so that's very good now um recent news everyone's very excited about about what happened with how the president of the United States recognized that uh Jerusalem is the capital of Israel not that we necessarily needed his uh approval but many people are very excited about this now we talked about it in the earlier this week that this is actually more of a prophecy coming true that uh at the end of the days before the mashia comes asav it's going to make ishma very upset asav is a which is really all of the uh Western world what it's United States Europe and so on and they don't and uh Ishmael is all of the Arab countries and we've always wondered how is it going to be that ishma and asav are ever going to get into a fight but it seems like what's happening right now in the world is um looks like it looks like it now so while everyone is very excited about what's happening with Yim what's happening with modern Israel at the end of the day we're forgetting that we're still fighting the same war that we've been fighting for almost 2,000 years which is the war that we're going to have a uh Memorial of in just a few days on kanuka you know in kanuka many people are very excited about it whether they're secular or they're religious Orthodox reform conservative real Jews fake Jews everyone's excited about everybody likes hanuka even the GRE like hanuka but very few people actually know the real reason of behind kanuka very few people actually understand the significance be behind hukah they think it's because of a miracle of some oil now we've had much bigger Miracles we've had much bigger miracles in history for example the fact that was born s who did not even have a uterus how can you have a baby if you don't have a uterus so there was a miracle it's a much bigger Miracle than some oil lasting eight days we've had countless miracles in uh MIT every one of the Miracles we had a bunch of frogs show up and terrorize the uh the Egyptians but not the Jews we had a bunch of lions and uh bears and bats and all types of strange you know vicious animals terrorized the Egyptians but not the Jews but we're not celebrating pesak Just One Day at a Time celebrating PES for the whole thing so we've had much bigger miracles than just oil but we're not celebrating those bigger Miracles why because the truth is that kanuka is not about the miracle of the oil the truth is is that hanuka is the miracle of Hashem getting involved in our world the opposite of what the yanim the the Greeks thought the Greeks mythology they were very smart people but stupid at the same time meaning that they had a lot of intellect when it came to archaeology when it came to different you know math and secular knowledge but and they believed that there was a god they believe that there was a Creator to the world you don't necessarily need to be a genius to realize that everything had to come from somewhere but they decided that God created the world and then he left he went somewhere else he went on vacation and US Jew says no God is very much here and he's running the world and he cares about everything he cares about the shield that we're having right now he cares about he cares about Shabbat he cares about uh you know all types of things relating to kosher he cares if you do a blessing if you don't do a blessing he cares about everything the Greeks disagreed the Greek says no God created the world but then he left so the nest of kanuka starts with a miracle of how five religious guys that never fought a war in their life beat an army of millions and millions of Greeks you have the mabes take over realize that the yanim the the Greeks are destroying us from within they're not just destroying us with you know telling us listen you should convert to Christianity like the Greeks did later on like the uh Romans did later on the Greeks tried to destroy the Torah only they said listen why don't you come work for our government why don't you come work for our legal department why don't you come work for you know make a lot of money and let's it just don't keep Shabbat anymore don't do anymore don't uh count any rodes anymore don't keep all of these covenants you have with your God don't keep it anymore we'll give you a lot of money we'll uh we'll give you anything that you want just don't keep these mitv and unfortunately many Jews fell for it unfortunately many Jews decided that you know what maybe it's an easier way of life life to go leave the Torah alone let's go make some money let's go in government let's go into Hollywood let's go do whatever we want to do and live freely and maybe they're right maybe God doesn't care he's a big God he has a whole universe to deal with why does he care about if I go work for the Greeks or I go work for the Jews what difference is it to him he's a big God he has plenty of people to deal with what does he care about me and unfortunately many Jews were called meaning they became Greeks so when the five religious guys the decided that this has to be put to an end their father started by saying whoever is with God is with me unfortunately only Five Guys stood up said okay us who his sons no one else stood up no one else said okay let's go fight in the beginning later on a few people joined but right away in the beginning was him and his five Sons that's it so now if you think about this logically it doesn't matter if they had War experience or not it doesn't matter if they were strong or not it doesn't matter if they were SM smart or not how are you going to go you and five guys fight an army that's the strongest army in the world with much bigger weapons with much uh you know more structured bigger Army bigger everything how you going to go fight them so obviously here we see that they realized something that many of us till this day don't realize which is that Wars are not won by presidents Wars are not won by airplanes Wars are not won with tanks Wars are not won with swords Wars are won byash decides who's going to win the war and who's not there was a very famous story of Alexander mdon Alexander the Great and he was a leader and pretty much took took over the entire world after he was the number one leader of all time until the MH will come and one day some Jewish haters which were also Jews themselves came to Alexander mdon came to Alexander the Great and they told him listen there's these Jews they're not following your laws we should destroy them this that the other thing they convince him to come to Y and Destroy bet mikdash so Alexander comes with a huge Army millions and millions of people the people go tell raban Gamel they tell ran for Alexander Great is coming here he's coming to destroy the BET mikdash what do did he start doing R get worried he start uh being concerned no he said oh let's go meet him he took a few of his uh helpers and they went to go meet Alexander the Great but not with weapons with nothing no fight so as the story goes both rested on you know they both got to the top of uh different mountains rest of the night and the and the next morning the side of raban Gamel and the side of Alexander the Great met at the bottom and as soon as they saw face to face laang is on his horse Alexander's on his horse Alexander gets off of his horse comes to ran Gamel bows to him bows to him like as if he's his King so no one understood how could it be this Alexander is the leader of the of the world he's the king what is he praying you know what is he bowing to this Rabbi and he says to them every night that I go to sleep they tell me in my dreams what my next battle is and where I'm going to to win and every single time I see his face telling me where to go and where where I'm going to win and that all of my battles are going to be won because of him because of some Torah that he's learning so we see this is one historical lesson that is believes in it's part of the oral tah we see that Wars are not won by Spears or weapons or guns or planes or anything like that meaning that the whole of kanuka has nothing to do with the wars that you die in The makab W if you read the mid of all the wars that the fought they're extraordinary very similar to the battles that the 12 tribes fought bov the 12 tribes if you read the midashim about the war that they won in mid mid and several others you see extraordinary stories I mean it's superheroes y would get angry and kill 30,000 of them by himself today even with a with gun you can't do that you would get upset these people are trying to attack he'd kill all of them by himself it seemed unreal and seph says that yud the from the 12 tribes benob yud yob actually reincarnated as the G of makab and that's why the mid that talks about yud makab also fought similar battles and he also killed T tens of thousands of people by himself as well he had the strength of Yuda benov and so do the others and all of these battles with tens of thousands of Goen being killed by these few Jews is not really discussed on kanuka the main story that everyone knows except if they learn Yeshiva like you guys the main story that everybody knows is that there was some oil they found you know one can of oil that wasn't ruined by the go we used it and miraculously until we got Replacements it stayed lit up for the next eight days so really the miracle is seven days because it was good enough for one day and it was America for another seven days that's that's what we talk about we don't really talk about the Stories the intricate battles of udah killing 8,000 people on the first day another 2,000 on the second day 20,000 on the third day all these great miraculous stories we don't talk about that really much sometimes even people that are really religious and learned don't actually even know this stuff why because that's not the big deal that's not the big deal of kanuka the big deal of kanuka is that spirituality that the Torah actually won the war now I'm gonna ask you guys a question ask answer honestly how many of you want to be one day for a living forever like not look no don't go to Wall Street don't be a lawyer don't be a doctor don't be anything else you want to learn to for the rest of your life how many of you interesting question maybe maybe there's one maybe two I want to learn Tor but I also want money right you want to learn Tor you want to learn money money and Torah but just Torah by itself no right now the question is why why is it that such few people aspire to become you got a question do your you can learn Torah you can learn Tor but you also need to be able to make money money won't just randomly come like learning all it's a great thing but it won't just like randomly come to you who says you're you're not anything that will okay sure people sure do all day sure okay not many people know what right okay so now if you know the value of something it's much easier to appreciate it and if I told you if I held a Little Rock in my hand I told you guys I found this on the way here it's a little rock none of you would be impressed but if I told you oh this rock happens to be a100 million Diamond that extra fact that I added at the end changes everything it doesn't matter matter if I found it doesn't matter if I have it doesn't make a difference the fact that it's worth a100 million changes the whole story meaning that once you understand the value of something Everything Changes M there's a very famous Mish that we're not going to go over the entire mishna obviously but Ben Z says and so on and so forth who's SM who's wise someone that learns from everyone one of the things that he says is very very famous M who is Rich someone who is happy with his lot and it gives you a source from Psalms 1282 and it says it says when you eat of the labor of your hands you're praiseworthy and all is well with you you're praiseworthy in this world and all is well with you in the world to come now we're back to our question how could someone be happy with a share when he doesn't have much of a share how can someone like rev styman in Israel I mean they if you guys ever see any of the videos it's one of the he has a bed that's made out of uh cartons they put a little mattress on a few milk cartons he's 105 years old people would give him Millions If he if he only said yes they give him Millions but he gives but he himself live you know sleeps on milk cartons with a mattress on it and they call it a bed many of the that you read about have lived very very poor lives if you read some of the stories about before he became the famous rabya when he was a young man he had a house that was just one room for him his wife and his kids but I don't mean one room like one bedroom and then there's a bathroom and then there's a kitchen and then there is a uh no no one room literally that's it just one room no bathroom bathroom you have to go to bathroom you have to leave the house go outside to somewhere else you have to go to a public bathroom kitchen you cook somewhere else one room that's what he had and the sisters of his wife made fun of her said what are you going to eat the books how's he going to make any money he just learns to all it how is he going to survive like he was saying how's he going to survive he's gonna eat the books they fast forward the story you know how they survived he became a very well-known a a sop and so on and so forth but during that time before he became Rya that's the famous Rya the question was the same question he was asking how you going to survive what kept them going what kept radya going what kept R kvki going what G kept the stier going going what kept all of these what kept them going before they became f after they become famous and people are donating money like it's going out of style fine talking about before when they were just like you no one knew them except their own family no one knew them what kept them going yeah faith in that had faith in hem it's great a lot of people have you telling me that no one here has any everybody a okay well you don't think hasm has a plan for you also he has a plan but what's the difference you have auna I know you havea you're not Yesa asking for some someone to come speak to you and teach you T at 9:00 on a Saturday night for no reason obviously have some level of obviously have some level of obviously understand this you know something it's not like you're not you know something so what's the difference what's the difference all the you have you read about him in left his wife for 24 years she was sleeping on straw for all those years and you never say never heard a story of AKA complaining to Hashem Hashem do you have a plan for me you have a plan nothing nothing there's no story what kept Him going not important fine it's not important maybe they don't want to be Donald Trump rich but they still need to eat so the question is what kept them going the follow-up question is how how could they fulfill the Torah fulfill the Torah by following this law because if you're GNA be you can't be a bigad a big after you're rich you have to do it already when you're poor how can you fulfill this m which says who is Rich one who's happy with a share how could you be happy with your share when all you have is a little room and when anyone wanted to meet radya the the wife and the kids would hide under the table they would hide under the table they put a a cover like this the wife and the kids would be under the table they would have a meeting and stay quiet and would meet whoever it is half hour an hour whatever it is how how could you be happy about such a thing it's very hard to be happy just thinking about it the difference is my dear friends is there was was a significant difference the significant difference is not in simplea the significant difference started with understanding what is the Torah what's the Torah is a Torah just a bunch of books that we learn to you know to hear stories about yob abam you know the 12 tribes mhu it's nice story is it just a story book The Z says anyone that thinks that the Torah is a history book doesn't have a right to live so obviously it's not a history book tells us history but it's not a history book per se it's not the purpose so it's it just a book a simple book of laws tells us do this don't do this do this don't do this if hasem just wanted to do that just give a finished ready we're done if it's just a book of laws that's it only thing is for laws just give us the laws allowed not allowed allowed not allowed allowed not allowed we're finished is that going to keep somebody like R under a table maybe not so what is it be the navi Jeremiah says item told him a very big secret a secret that if anyone here actually understands it if anyone in the world truly understands it it changes their perspective about life altogether not not just about Torah but about life altogether and he says in chapter 33 verse 25 translation thus said Hashem if not for my Covenant day and night the rules of the world will cease to exist meaning told Jeremiah there's a very big secret in creation 974 Generations before I created the world I created the Torah says that hasm took black fire on White Fire and he wrote the Torah himself wrote the Torah himself and that's why till this day we take a scroll that has a parchment that's white and we put Black Ink on it and it's not pink or green or blue or any other color in essence it's trying to replicate what started already 974 Generations before the creation of the world huh yeah but you could put it in blue also and you wouldn't tell the difference you could put it in red it's also visible and many other colors that's not the reason the real reason is because it's supposed to in essence be like a uh similar to how hasem wrote the Torah originally but nonetheless huh gener time 974 Generations meaning that the the actually says that this 974 Generations were supposed to be a generation of people that existed but since they were all Wicked Hashem in essence instead of putting them all in one generation he split them up into small little bits and pieces throughout all of time until the mash comes different planet no no not different planet it's all on this planet it's just different times that's why there's rash in every generation but the point being is that decided that I'm going to write this Torah and this Torah is really the reason for the world this Torah if if the world is going to exist they must comply with this Torah so that's why it says that on if you see it says at at the beginning at the end of every single dayem said it was evening it was morning it was evening morning it was morning it was it was uh night it was Day first day end of first day end of second day end of third day and the fourth day but then when it gets to sh when it gets to to Friday it says y it's an extra letter it's an extra letter in there so Shabbat says asks what's this extra ha what's this extra letter it says this extra hay is symbolic of the deal that hasem made with the angel that's responding responsible for Earth for the planet Earth why he made a deal he says Dear Earth if accepts the Torah when I give it to them at Mount in the future they'll get to see Shabbat the next day if not I'm they're never going to see Shabbat I'm bringing back the world to what it was before you which is to why because the entire purpose of the Torah of the of the world is for the T to be f build so now this again is repeated in Mount sa in Mount sa the mid says that the um Mount Si actually went over they didn't it says that am stood Under the Mountain what does it mean under how do you stand under a mountain you stand next to a mountain because no it was under the mountain why Under the Mountain Hashem miraculously bent the mountain like a like a over the over is he said to them if you accept the Torah this is like our wedding it's like our wedding it's like a covers you if not this is going to be your grave the mountain is going to fall on top of you meaning you have no real Choice here you have to accept the Torah so now we're back to Jeremiah Jeremiah here says verse from hem Shem says says if it's not from my Orin original Covenant my original deal that I made in creation being fulfilled day and night the rules of the world will cease to exist meaning if there's not someone that's fulfilling the learning of Torah day and night someone in the world has to be learning Torah could be in America could be in Israel could be in Afghanistan could be all over Europe could be anywhere it doesn't make a difference but someone must be learning at all times in order for the world to exist that's the breit if not for the bit between hem and the world and I'm is meaning I'll end the rules of the world so now until recent science we didn't really understand what this means so have you ever heard of something called an Adam Adam is energy everyone says everything is made of energy well this is what it really looks like like this is what an atom looks like okay I mean this is obviously a uh Digital Image but the point is this is what they try to make it look like so Adam has in essence Three core Parts there's the ball inside that's comprised of two parts one's called a nucle uh uh a um Neutron and one's called a proton and then there's a small ball that's rotating around it really really fast called an electron now everything and anything that you have in the world whether it's you me the tables the building food phones everything everything and anything is made out of these atoms the tiny little microscopic little piece of energy and it's pretty much in essence one ball that's attached to another one and then there's a small ball rotating around it and that's what makes up everything in matter everything in the world so now scientists looked into this ball looked into this atom and they discovered something very interesting they discovered that 99% of the atom is free space is nothing it's nothing meaning that let's say if we compare it to something we can see right now let's just imagine a grain of sand inside this big room and that's it nothing else that's an atom but like I said everything here it's solid how could it be solid how can you knock on this how could I be here how could the books be here if most of it is nothing the way it works is very similar to the fans that are on top of you if you see the fans that are on top of you they're walking pretty fast it looks like maybe there's one or two blades looks like there's one or two blades that are making this rotation in is really cold air but if you slow it down or perhaps if you turn it off you see that most likely there's four blades five blades why are there five blades so how come I can't see the five blades right now because it's going really fast when it goes really fast if it goes even faster than this it'll actually look like there's a single blade the same concept with the atoms because the electron is rotating around the proton and the neutron so fast it looks like it's solid it looks like it's a single blade it looks like this is actually Sal but this is really what they call an optical illusion in reality most of what's he all of what's here all of what's on the entire world is nothing most of the universe is empty space so why do we see you me cameras cars houses uh buildings giant things how can we see cu the electrons are working really really fast so scientist said that how could this be what how how could this ever be stopped let's say if they ever wanted to stop what happens if the electron stops spinning what if it stop spinning if you turn this thing off you'd know that you'd see a single blade it would uncover the illusion right now the illusion is that it's like maybe one or two blades if you stop it the illusion is uncovered and you see that there's five blades like he said so the illusion is no longer there same goes with the atom if the atom stops spinning if the electron stops spinning the empty space is now exposed and the scientists say that if the empty space is ever exposed then it won't be exposed well you'll see it from a distance or you'll see that it's something different it will just simply disappear simply because most 99.9% of everything in the world is nothing which means that we are all depending on this atom continuing to spin faster and faster and faster and faster in order for us to exist now this helps us understand what hem means when hem says he's saying if not for somebody learning Torah somewhere in the world the rules of the world will cease to exist what he's saying that the world will simply cease to exist it's not going to be like Noah where a bunch of caused a lot of trouble and Hashem destroyed the world after trying to get them to do chuva for a 100 years no no he says if there's not somebody in the world learning toah that's it it's finished there's no warnings there's no I'm going to send them an email or I'm going to send them a prophet I'm going to try to convince them to do no no no it'll just simply cease to exist no text no WhatsApp no Facebooks no nothing no warnings this what he says in a PUK if someone's not fulfilling this Covenant this breit if he's not fulfilling it the world ceases to exist so now if you understand what I'm saying to you the value of Torah just changed drastically it doesn't matter if you're kki or you just you or just me makes no difference doesn't say if you're not learning at the highest level the with and and it doesn't say that it just says Covenant it just says learning Torah if there's not someone in the world learning Torah the world ceases to exist forget about president forget about you know all of the things in the world forget about money forget about everything if there's not someone in the world learning Torah there is no world sure first we have to understand the part of the Torah if we think the Torah is just a thing we should do on the side as part of our life what you don't understand you understand it but you know it's not you're not tell me you're not the highest that you want to be but that's exactly the point here this Covenant that told us it has nothing to do with your level it has nothing to do with whether you're an average student below average or the giant of the generation it makes no different if someone is learning Torah in the world in essence they're the superhero the superheroes that we actually heard about in the uh in last week's parasa theim the tribes the sons of yov you read the midashim you see how they beat all of these all of these people that went against them they killed all of them they had physical strength not just spiritual strength they that had physical strength the same story you're going to hear in a couple of days the mabes beat this giant army they had physical strength they were strong but that's not what we celebrating in either place you're not really hearing much about either one of them what are we hearing about we're hear ing about the spiritual aspect of it we're hearing about that Yuda admitted he was wrong we're not hearing about yudah was really strong we're hearing yudah this week he admitted he was wrong with Tamal he thought that something happened and it didn't and he admitted oh why because that's what hasem said in essence with the mbes same thing okay great that they fought Wars but what kept the what gave them the power so first and foremost when you truly understand that when you're learning Torah doesn't matter what level you're at you're literally keeping the world apart it changes its significance you are now a superhero that's why it says that's why it says why would you be why would you be happy with your lot why is that considered a once you understand what you have when you're learning one PUK a day one Mish day one da a day one day whatever you're learning it doesn't matter your level once you understand that you actually the one you're the learning T you're the doesn't matter what level who why if you're the rabbi you're the student you understand you don't understand it's hard it's easy it's enjoyable it's not enjoyable once you understand that for that moment that you sat there and you learned Torah you kept the world alive Everything Changes Everything Changes why it doesn't feel like meaningless quite the opposite it feels like it's the most significant thing in the world because no money in the world can buy you that now I'm going to segue a little bit to give you guys an understanding that perhaps maybe you think I don't understand much about money if you don't know my story so most people that will come through you and tell you listen you should focus more on Torah don't necessarily Focus so much on money material usually it's because they never had any there's a famous saying or you know money is the rule of all evil but usually the people that say that never really had any money well the interesting news is is that I did I had many millions many many millions before I started teaching tah had a very successful career on Wall Street investing my money as well as other people's money into different companies the stock market and so on and so forth started at a young age started around 18 years old and continued had about a 16-year career built a business had uh insurance company Investment Company brokerage firm all types of different companies that you may or may not know what they are but the point is my job was to invest in the market invest in the stock market and public companies and sometimes private now Hashem decided to give me a lot of material success and it got to a point where on a bad month meaning a month that I didn't really work so hard I would make over $200,000 on a bad month not a bad year A month a bad one if it was a good month like the best month of my career which was main 2006 I made $1.6 million it's one month it was really one day and then I stopped working for the rest of the month so as far as money plenty of it had an apartment on a 35th floor on Wall Street in New York you know was a bigger than this house over here it was a 2,000 squ foot uh apartment all one level 400 foot balcony worth $4 million had all all the money that people usually want or at least that you could that's still relevant had it I was on television I had some decent publicity and usually when you have a lot of money you have a lot of friends even though they're all fake but the point being is that material success I had but one day on November 18th of 2006 just a few months after the best month of my career I had a surgery that went wrong something went wrong with the surgery it was supposed to be a simple surgery and it went wrong they cut the some type of nerve which till this day they don't know what they actually did but that nerve that surgery changed my body forever to such an extent that when I woke up out of the surgery I woke up in pain but not the type of pain like you'd say oh maybe you broke your nail or you broke your finger or even you broke your arm no not that kind of pain the pain that's equivalent to if you took let's say for example one of these giant Cobra knives and you connect it to electric outlet and you start cutting up your body that's the type of pain it was the most horrendous Possible Pain you could imagine and it wouldn't stop and it kept giving me more and more painkillers all types of different drugs my body rejected them and it just wouldn't work and the pain just wouldn't stop eventually after a few hours of this they told my wife that they gave me the most amount ofone morphine legally allowed which would kill most people and they said if it doesn't work there's nothing else we can do for him it worked it calmed my body down we went home thinking that this was a hiccup and it just going to it's it's gone now it's finished little do we know that 45 minutes after I I fell asleep I would wake up with much worse pain but this time it wouldn't stop stop for 62 days this time it wouldn't stop for 62 days and when you have that kind of pain for such an EXT extraordinary long amount of time obviously you're not able to sleep you're not able to function you're not able to eat you're not able to live all you really want to do is die just want the Pain to End my body started failing my eyes started bleeding my ears started becoming infected uh everything I started dying pretty much but just really really slow and vicious like some of the things you may read in the gar of slow and vicious death that was pretty much happening to me it was like my own version of gome in this world after those 62 days the pain started subsiding to some extent started slowing down a little bit it was pain for 34s of the day instead of the entire day I had to take less pain colors but little by little I was going back to myself thinking oh have a second chance at life I was excited that the pain was over at least what it was it was level 100 now it's level 75 and then 60 and then 50 and then you know so little by little was getting back to normal I was excited to go back to my life I didn't really care about money because obviously the money that I had millions and millions of dollars became worthless when I had all the pain because the money couldn't solve any other the problems I thought I was going back to life but 9 months later I had a pain in the back of my leg that was getting worse and worse by the minute I had to go to the emergency room and the emergency room told me that I have an infection called a abscess that is on a verge of exploding in between a muscle the leg muscle and the rectal muscle and if it does is most likely will go into my bloodstream and I would die so I have to have an emergency surgery which is not going to be an easy surgery long story short this surgery is worse than the the first one and this time I have to stay an intensive care unit next to a bunch of people that are half dead or dying for the next two weeks so we have the surgery lot of pain very very difficult recovery long story short after a month of this I'm back to my house I'm back to work I'm thinking back to life is the money valuable here yet still not six months later I thought I would get back to life six months later I have another pain on a different leg only have two legs there one on the right one on the left first one hurt I had a surgery now it's the left one I have to have another surgery another recovery another nightmare another pain finished go home recover thinking it's over okay now it's already been a year and a half of this nightmare I'm thinking it's over now should go back to my life I'm losing money also in the market cuz I can't work as much and so on and so forth but I'm thinking who cares let me just get back to normal life stop having pain I'm living on painkillers I'm in a lot of pain all the time I have to go to doctors left and right so after the second surgery or third surgery I think it's okay three months later now as you noticed the time span between surgery to surgery keeps getting shorter and shorter 3 months later another surgery another recovery a month later and then again after another month and then it continues every single month and then it gets to a point where I have to literally go to doctors every week sometimes three four or five times a week I got to a point where I became a uh part of an experiment they wanted to experiment on my body to see what's wrong with it because none of the doctors could diagnose it over 50 different doctors different types of doctors traditional medicine holistic medicine medicine we've heard of medicine we didn't hear of it didn't make a difference I had plenty of money so I figured I could buy the best medicine that can cure this the problem is that in order to cure something you have to have a diagnosis there was no diagnosis and the reason why is because the diagnosis kept the the sickness continued deteriorating it started with just a simple surgery to an abscess to now I have pain in my body from my neck all the way to the bottom of my feet for absolutely no reason whatsoever 24 hours a day is the money valuable at this point still no so you live in pain 24 hours a day the only thing that gives you somewhat Sean is the few moments of no pain here and there but every month you have to have a surgery every month you have to see plenty of doctors that themselves have no hope now I start losing my money the money I thought I had that was valuable Market starts going down I start making you know the Investments that I had start going the opposite direction the business that was worth once $40 million becomes Cuts in half as far his value overnight and then eventually becomes worthless the friends that I thought I had become enemies they start stealing whatever is left because all they cared about was also money and little by little showed me another version of this since I was not following the breit not and not I was not following the Torah not morning and not night I wasn't born like you guys I didn't go to yes I kept whatever I felt was rational whatever made sense to me and sh has Mercy on us initially he gives us small tests to see if he can get our attention if we don't do chuva he gives us bigger test if we still don't do chuva he gives us bigger test and depending on what the purpose goal the the purpose of that person's goal in life is Hashem will decide what to do with him some people he takes away from the world some people he gives them biger test until they break but this pain this test this nightmare continued for seven years it wasn't a month it wasn't two months it wasn't a year it wasn't a bad two years and it literally got to a point where every single penny that I had was gone my health was gone all the friends were gone everything was gone the only thing that was left was my wife that's it but along the way I started realizing that all of these doctors these 50 plus doctors that I went through all had the same answer they didn't know what was wrong so I knew there's only one doctor left that can fix it and that's I know that's the only doctor I believed in God I was limited I didn't know much but I knew that there is a God I know it's the god of Israel I knew the Torah existed I just didn't follow it I said okay so let's see maybe this God is not like the Greek said where he doesn't care maybe he does care so I started looking into it here and there but still nothing serious one day my mom calls Israel to try to see if she can get a blessing from rabbis in Israel for her dying son and after two hours of calling nobody answers the phone she eventually reaches some phone number and the woman answers and the woman says how can I help you and she says I'm looking for Rabbi so and so whatever the rabbi's name was and the woman says in Hebrew I'm sorry it's the wrong phone number so after two hours of calling desperately she finally gets to a person and the person that answers says she dialed the wrong phone number it's very discouraging to say the least my mom starts crying and performs a miracle where the one person she called actually ends up being a person that knows her and not only knows her is the only person that could help the woman on the other side of the phone recognizes my mom's voice and she says dois which her name and she say who are you how do you know my name he says well I'm your niece Pina why are you crying she goes how did I reach you how do I reach you I don't have your phone number P we've never spoken on the phone they weren't close like how did you know first of all how did you recognize a voice I mean usually if your friends call you every day or you know often you recognize their voice when they call you don't have to say who they are but if you've never spoken to somebody on the phone and now the first time they're talking to you you recognize their voice that already by itself is a miracle on top of it she cares says why are you crying now says well it's my son everyone's heard my son is dying and so on and so forth meaning me he says well if you're looking for a rabbi why don't you call my brother RAB frim he's connected to RAB vadya at the time he was alive and U maybe connect you to him maybe he can help you himself he's a big so she calls R frim and rim was very very smart and he got straight to the the point and he says to my mom well him and I have never met I didn't actually even know he existed so she asked the FR he asked he asked my mom he's like well can I speak to him does he speak Hebrew he says yes he speaks Hebrew but I don't think he'll want to talk to you because he doesn't want to talk to anybody he's in a lot of pain he's suffering and at that very moment true happened and I decided to call my mom on the other line and my mom is crying hysterical on the line now I don't know about this conversation this whole story I just told you I don't know this happened I don't know that she's been calling people for the last two hours I don't know that she's been talking to her FR for the last 20 minutes I don't know any of this all I know is I'm calling my mom to say hello for the first time in a long time and my mom is crying and says talk to him talk to him and I have no idea who she's talking about I said who am I talking to and why are you crying she's talked to aan I said who's this a Fran is why is he making you cry she goes no no he's your cousin he's a rabbi I said okay if you got to stop crying I'll talk to him just stop crying tell him to call me I'll talk to him so ra FR calls me and I you know we start talking and I tell him yeah I have pain I have this I have that he's like you you like stories I said yeah I like stories goes you ever hear the story about UD and Tamar the story from this CH I said no I never heard the story of UDA and Tamal what's the story of you tells me the story of you and I asked him how come hasem did this why did hasem make this whole balagan between Yuda and Tamal to make him think that he's with one woman but really he's with another and it ends up being tamad and from there Comes The MASH why did hasem do all of this says because sometimes if people knew how significant something is they wouldn't know how to deal with it if I threw a rock at you right now I just I threw it in the air I threw a rock at you and I said catch like a ball you'd catch it no problem none of you are going to run into it whoever is close as to will catch it but if I told you listen I have a100 million doll Diamond catch and I threw it in the air all of you would run into each other trying to catch this diamond why it's significant significant if would have told y what's about to happen it would been different it would have been different knew but yud did not know if yud would have known it would have been different in fact if you that would have known it would have opened up the door for the the into fear and if you notice throughout all of the generations the story of the mhia whether it's the story of lot being with his own daughters or it's y Tamar or it's David and B all of the stories that are connect connected to the msah always weird always strange always not really normal why because if we knew the significance of what's about to take place it would be too much for us to handle now you I'm sure you have some questions but the point I'm trying to tell you is to finish it off with this after I discovered the Torah and I started learning with initially we learned for an hour and a half and then two hours then 3 hours then 7 hours and so on and so forth little by little I became addicted to the Torah and it wasn't because the Torah was paying my bills no it wasn't it wasn't because somebody showed up to my house and said hello sir yeah you're learning tour today okay here's a check for $110,000 good luck it wasn't it was actually quite the opposite whatever I had left whatever few million dollars I had left after losing so many millions that also went away I lost the rest of it too I lost the rest whatever I had I had millions and millions and millions of dollars and whatever I had after I started learning Torah I figured oh now that I'm doing CH now I keep Shabbat now I'm keeping this I'm keeping all these different things now it's it's going to go a little better I'm going to get more I'm going to get all the money back absolutely not absolutely not quite the opposite I lost everything else but after the day that I lost the last few hundred th000 at 9:30 in the morning had a few hundred th000 in the in the account at 9:35 it was gone the investment went bad it disappeared literally in a matter of moments but already at that point a few years into it I was already starting to teach tah and I already understood the value of tah so I shut off the computer and I went back to studying to because I had to teach a later that night and I cared less about the money why because I know God gave God took may his name be blessed at that moment I understood that moment I understood what the Torah actually meant the Torah wasn't just a book to tell you Stories the Torah wasn't just a book to tell you laws the Torah was literally the living being of this world was everything it kept this world alive and as long as you are part of it you're part of of the energy that's keeping the world alive it's much more significant than any money you could ever make it's much more significant than any job you could ever attain and I'm not telling you this because I don't know the value of money I'm not telling you this because I don't know the value of anything else I'm telling you because I do I had it the only reason I'm sitting here with you andash several times a week I give lectures and as you noticed I'm perfectly healthy it wasn't because of doctors no doctor still knows what happened if you look at my medical file it's about 5 feet thick so it's taller than this about 5 feet thick you can't even carry it anymore I have to have cabinets to put all the medical file but now today you don't use that stuff you you just send it to people on email so anytime I would go to the doctor I would send them this huge Drive of all this medical files and then I would show up to the doctor and doctor would look at the file and look at me and look at the file and look at me he's like no no I'm sorry wrong patient one second I'll be right back you think I'm the wrong guy because there's no way it matches the guy that's on this file is dying the guy that's in front of him is perfectly healthy it doesn't make sense that's the point it's not supposed to make sense Hashem makes sense if you understood that when you learn Torah you're keeping the world alive it's easy to become to become happier with your share because your share is being a partner in keeping the world alive that's what kept radya through all the struggles that's what kept rki R AKA and all of the stories I'm sure you guys heard the story about RAB AA when there were very very poor before he became RAB AA and Rael one day one day out of all the 24 years one day she complained a little bit she was upset why the only thing they owned was straw only thing they owned was a little straw that's it so Hashem had mercy on them and he sentah pretended to be even more homeless than them pretended to be a poor person knocked on their door hello like yes how can I help you all they have is straw they don't have any money they don't have any food they don't have anything all they have is straw they have this little poor man knocks on the door hello hello yeah yeah please how can I help you please please we need I need your help we just had a baby and we don't have anything we don't have can we have some straw can we have some straw so we can put the baby in the straw to protect the baby yeah of course you have some straw we can give you straw they start giving them straw they give the straw the straw they feel rich now they give him all the straw good Shalom good luck to you and then they felt happy for themselves but let me ask you a question couldn't has just send samei with a check for a million bucks and that's it solve the problem why do he send a homeless guy asking for straw what's theat why can't you just give him a check for a million bucks why it's hard for hasm to send a million dollars it's because of this mishna if he would have sent a million dollars or two million or five million or 10 million eventually it wouldn't have been enough it wouldn't have solved the problem it wouldn't have made him happy with a share why because there's always someone that has more there's always going to be someone that has more the says you give someone 100 he wants 200 give him 200 he wants 400 give 400 he wants 800 your natural evil inclination will always want more than what you have and the reason hasm gave it to you is so you use that same inclination to want more Torah but if he gave him the ability to see that he's not so bad because there's someone worse than him there's someone that doesn't even have straw say ah whatever we have this is for the good too there someone that's always worse than us that solved the problem permanently million dollars would have solved the problem for a little while eventually he wouldn't have solved the problem eventually would have wanted more but to know that someone actually has less than you makes you appreciate what you have today so this is my friends what all of us need to understand to be a some will achieve it some may not decides who to give to but how does he decide he wrote it in Mish Mish chapter 2 the first six verses it says my child if you accept my words and treasure my Commandments with yourself to make your ears attentive to wisdom incline your heart to understanding for only if you call out to understanding and and give forth your voice to discernment if you seek it as if it were silver if you search for it as if it were Hidden Treasures then you'll understand the fear of hem and discover the knowledge of God in so many words the wisest man of all time is giving us Toes or to prophecy is what's aem's message to us you want to be a you want to be a true partner to Creation seek Torah like you would seek silver meaning k money seek Torah like it's the greatest treasure in the world because it is it doesn't matter what you understand right now you don't get paid from hasem based on your understanding you get paid from hasem based on your effort based on your toil there's a very famous story and then on ask you and then you guys could ask whatever questions you have it's a very famous story as a regular average young guy like you guys I was learning one day there was a guy that hated him in Yesa the and he decided to set him up decided to set him up and he told the Arab cleaning lady that worked in Yesa told listen I'll give you $110,000 he was very rich I'll give you $10,000 tell everyone that he did something inappropriate with you $10,000 why not she doesn't care about a Jew so that's what she said the next day big balagan breaking news tell media this guy did this this guy did that big bag Biga comes to the student says listen I know you didn't do it I know you I know you for years you're not the biggest you're not the one thing for sure I know you didn't do what they say they do but everyone thinks you did so I think it's best for you to just go go to a different Yesa in a different city I'll tell you where to go you go over there once things come down over here in a year two years three years whenever they forget this the story I'll send you a letter and you'll come back said okay and he left he goes to another city a year passes by one day this Arab lady she gets a bad feeling you know she feels bad what happened the guy who was kicking Yesa so she starts asking about where did he go where did this guy go like oh he went to Yesa so and so a different city different place she decided I'm going to go find him she goes and she finds him and she says listen I'm really sorry what I did to you I know it's you know it's not true the guy paid me $10,000 and I was struggling I didn't have any money I had to do something and he offered it right at the right time at the right place but I feel bad now it ruined your whole life it ruined this it ruined that listen if you're willing to tell at least say a nice word for me to the rabbi I'm willing to admit that the whole thing I said is completely fake just tell him not to fire me it's a good enough deal get back his reputation get back his life it's a good deal he gets up out of the chair and then he sits down again goes no I'm not interested thank you very much for your offer but you can just go back to your life don't worry about it it's fine she goes why why not he goes no it's okay it's fine it's fine why why not why not why you want me don't want don't you want me to clear up your name he says listen when you did what you did obviously it's wrong I didn't do it and you ruined my reputation and everyone thinks I did all these nasty things and I mean I understand it's wrong and I didn't do it but because I'm a yid because I'm a Jew it became desecrated the name of hasem so now if I go back it's going to uncover the story again but now not only I didn't do it which is good for me but then they're GNA say why another Jew is the one that paid her off that to lie and to sabotage another Jew what happens another and for me to clear up my name and violate hashem's name desecrate hm's name for another second it's not worth it why the only reason I'm studying is because the only reason I'm learning Torah is because it's it's it's it's the deal between me and hem so how could I go protect my own name care about my own name at all and go violate his name not interested and years later when he told the story to his students he says before that day I was a very average student even below average but after I decided that hashem's name is more important to me than my own name hasem opened up my mind and all of a sudden I understood [Music] everything and some call him which is one of the in previous generations so the that you have right now it's good what you can get to is based on how do you get there understand the value of what you're doing it's not just reading some books some some some it's not that my friends what's happening in the world today depends on you depends on you what's happening y with it's good or it's bad go prophecies good ones bad ones all of that stuff depends on B all of it depends the existence of the world depends on B it's not dependent on another millionaire in the world if there's another millionaire in the world nothing changes you're not going to impact the World by having more money right now you have nothing let's say tomorrow you wake up you have 10 billion dollar in the bank nothing changes in the world nothing so what are you going to buy more buildings big deal somebody else would have bought it if you weren't there keep keeps the world running is the very simple very innocent and very pure Torah that you learn day and night any questions why do angel for the world that's the way of a king it's not a matter of need it's a matter of this is the way of a king so for example a king if a king had a single enemy or better yet if a king need to clean his room his room gets dirty now is it appropriate for a king to clean his own room no he's the king it's not the way of a king so what does he do he has servants that clean the room it's not that he can't clean the room he can clean the room no problem it's not that he can't cook and clean it's not that he can't do anything it's that it's not the way of a king a king has servants by definition that's one of the things to have a king if you're a king but you have no servants no people no nothing then you're not really a king you're just a crazy person you understand so the way of a king is to have servants and that's one of the things that we also learned from when hasem says let's create him in our image when it says our image that's M asked hem why are you saying our image it makes people think there's more than one God he says no we write it there because I want to know that I consider my servants whether they're people or they're my uh Angels which I control all of them I still consider their opinion I still consider their worth why I created them they're my creation so he doesn't need any of us doesn't need the Angels doesn't need the people doesn't need anything but still not the way of a king to be alone yeah were con screaming Ken 24 hours a day 24 hours a day 24 hours a day in pain I mean sometimes the pain would subside and it would be painful but uh not to the point of screaming and then I would get something called like shooting pains so it's like uh the shooting pains would be in different parts of my body but it would be the equivalent of like getting electrocuted so You' start seeing me like shake uncontrollably it was very very uncomfortable for other people to see me so I G I became a little antisocial uh not because I didn't like people but because I didn't like the looks on their faces when they saw me it's very uncomfortable it's already uncomfortable to be in pain but to see other people react to you being in pain is very very uncomfortable it makes you very uncomfortable so I started uh seeing less and less people uh and really only went to the places that I had to go to so for example we used to go even though we didn't really keep Shabbat we used to go to my parents house for a Friday night meal and I stopped going and the reason why is because this episode would happen all the time it would be in a lot of pain I'd start shaking uncontrollably I'd start screaming sometimes from Pain and it would be uncomfortable to see their you know their faces and sometimes their tears you know seeing uh seeing me suffer so it was a very very long and uh difficult uh Journey but it's the best thing that ever happened to me yeah what caused the pain as far as the uh the the pain from originally or the pain after the fact after the after the fact they don't know after the fact over 50 different doctors of the best doctors in the uh at least in the United States could not figure it out because it would come in different parts of the body sometimes it would be the bottom of my feet sometimes it would be my leg sometimes it would be my arm sometimes be my chest different parts of the body sometimes but my rectum different parts of the body that are completely not connected not to the original surgery or any other surgery but something would happen and would create a uh shooting pain in the different parts and also my my uh body started changing my uh I was for about a year and a half I wasn't able to walk my uh feet swelled up and my legs swelled up and doubled in size so again no one knew why no one understood why no one could explain it uh and um pretty much it was a very very strange uh episode because no one can diagnose it and even until this day no one could diagnose it yeah canc no not cancer cancer is uh very very different cancer you could identify because there's a cell that grows uh drastically and you can see it here there's a just pure pain with no uh no source of uh of Reason whereas with cancer you see the the source of everything yeah and cancer doesn't necessarily hurt how many years ago was this uh it started 2006 so 11 years ago and it continued for a little over seven years till 2013 so we're in 17 well I mean start it stopped gradually it didn't stop all at once it stopped gradually little by little you know went from you know how just like it went from no surgeries to surgeries every month um after I the more I got uh glued to the Torah and learning the pain can continued the money loss continued but I had happiness I had pleasure uh and the pain subsided along with the fact that it didn't matter to me as much I was getting enough pleasure from learning that even when I did have pain it w it didn't affect me psychologically to the same extent the biggest difficulty with pain or with sickness in general more so than uh more so than than the physical aspect of it is the mental aspect of it it's much more difficult to to survive mentally than physically and the reason why is because we're programmed in a way where our yet tells us that whatever we're at right now is permanent so if you're having a good time you're thinking that the good time is going to last forever if you're rich you're think you're going to be rich forever if you're depressed you think you're going to be depressed forever if you're sick you feel like you're GNA be sick forever and so on and so forth whatever our programs us to think that whatever feeling we have is permanent that's why people get depressed after let's say a a bad breakup or a divorce or a uh they lost money or all types of things they get so depressed they kill themselves and the reason why is because they feel like the negative feeling they have at that moment is never going to go away but that couldn't be further from the truth whatever you have right now is temporary everything is temporary everything everything is temporary nothing that's not temporary so the tells you it's not temporary so once I realized that it's not temporary that it is that it is temporary on top of the fact that I knew that the Torah actually discusses it and there is a value to it it calmed me down and I was able to deal with the mental battle better physical was still difficult but little by little the physical aspect of it started improving and now instead of surgeries every month it would be every six months and then it started being you know a little longer and then it just stopped and you know I still have some pain here and there but if you compare the pain that I have today versus a few years ago I mean it's I know 1% of what it used to be but the 1% that I have is still a lot sometimes but again that's because you don't understand what I actually had several years ago like sometimes I'll get pain where I'm not able to really do much I have to like sit down and wait for the pain to go away for a few hours but that's still absolutely nothing really nothing nothing in comparison to what it was that then back then it was literally screaming and yelling 24 hours a day it's not it's it's it's not something that's comparable I can't compare it to anything else none of you understand what I really mean and none of you will ever understand what I mean uh only few understand it that saw it but even they can't understand because the only way you can understand is feeling it so it's a uh it's what I needed and Hashem obviously knows best and it's the best thing that ever happened to me losing the money getting sick all the pain all of that is the best thing that ever happened to me and the reason why is because all of the what I thought was good that I had the material good I had whether it was money friends company recognition Fame all of that was worthless at the time of need it was worthless and even at the time I didn't need it it was worthless the reason why I didn't have the good happy feeling I have now happiness is not something you could write a check for fulfillment purpose you can't write a check there's no price for it you can't feel like you're really part of anything significant that's beyond you without being connected to Hashem and that's what people don't understand people think that they need money in order to serve hem they need money in order to do good in life in reality you don't need anything Hashem will pay your bills one way or another and you don't need to work if you don't want to if you want to learn T will pay your bills without working but again that also depends on youra my point today is to tell you guys that what you're doing right now what you're doing tomorrow morning what you're doing the next day the learning Torah that you think is meaningless that you think is okay and even if you think it's meaningful you definitely didn't think it's keeping the world going that's what it's doing that's my point my point is that most people that learn Torah even though they learn Torah they still don't understand how significant to this they just think it's tradition it's because their parents sent them there or it's because to do or maybe I'll give you a good feeling inside no no it's much much more significant than that yeah yeah but it also kills you at the same time not necessar chemo chemotherapy is is not necessarily a uh cure it's in essence kills all the good and the bad in your body with the hopes that there's going to be enough good that survives to rebuild but that's only for cancer patients not just for just for for nothing uh you don't just do it for no reason but I don't need it so it's not a it's not something that applicable yeah everything uh the way to do it is that you have to learn M most people learn about the and they know what to do sometimes the learn about the story of and they learn about what happened and what other peoples did but very few understand the purpose behind all of it the purpose behind all of it all of the all of the stories all of the all of these things the purpose of all of it is to perfect you to make you the best version of you as possible and the way you become a perfect you the way that each one of you become a perfect version of you is by getting closer to hasem how do you get closer to hem by fixing your midot in the by the ramb it's I believe it's chapter seven he says what's the difference between all of the prophets and mhu now the very simple the very simple thing that everyone knows is that mosenu is the only one that spoke to Hashem face to face meaning he was awake while all the other prophets were sleeping either they were sleeping or they were meditating or they had epilepsy or something but they weren't awake they weren't like you and I standing up and talking Moshe spoke to Hashem like you and I are talking at any moment that's why he had to he had to leave his wife he had to be pure at all times point being is Hashem could talk to Moshe whenever he wanted Moshe could talk to hm whenever he wanted free free conversation like as if they were next to each other all the time everyone else including all the other prophets whether it's job Ezekiel Isaiah anyone else had to go through a process had to go to sleep they had to meditate they do different things to talk to Hashem so the rambam asks why what why is there a difference the answer is is that the level of Prophecy that mosu had what's much more significant if you look at the five books of Moses it's pretty clear there's obviously a lot of Secrets behind it but the language itself when you read the five books of Moses the it's very it's relatively simple to understand it's not rocket science like some of the other books that are very difficult to understand like for example you read the prophet Ezekiel and how he describes the third mikdash and all these what they do in sh it's very very difficult to understand very different language the description that he gives is hard to understand same thing with Isaiah same thing with everyone else butu Five Books of Moses you could pretty much not have to be a to understand the basics not all of it is prophecy right no all of it is Prophet every word is is prophecy just different different levels of Prophecy but the point is is that what mhu prophesized or said or relevant it's much clearer language the way he spoke to Hashem was much clearer type of Prophecy so the rambam ask why why is Moshe so different from everyone else the answer is Moshe perfected his midot each time you have a bad character trait it's like putting a wall between you and Hashem if someone is angry they have a wall of anger between them and Hashem if one someone is angry and stingy they're cheap there's two walls between them and Hashem if someone is angry stingy and uh they're I don't know they uh they're also egotistical it's another wall between them and Hashem and every bad character trait is another wall between them and Hashem so all of the prophets W and they've perfected themselves to a very high level but not perfect Moshe according to the rambam perfected his mid his character traits to such an extent that the only thing separating him and Hashem was the equivalent of a glass wall meaning you could see through it nothing that's why he felt confident to say to Hem Hem show me show me show me everything why there's nothing between us Hashem says you can't see my face and live why you're still a human being if I show you everything I can't show it to you in this body but you can see as much as anyone else is ever going to see why you've perfected your midot so Moshe was very an was very was very humble so how could he dare ask hasem to show him his C to show him everything because he knew he deserved it he knew he perfected his midot he got to the highest level hasm says you're going to get this what you're seeing right now is the highest anyone is ever going to see no one's ever going to see as much Prophecy with that level of clarity like you so each time the other Prophet spoke to Hashem it was lower why they didn't perfect their midot like Moshe to us we're very far from that point is that when you perfect your midot you're breaking these walls each time you perfect a mid each time you work on a Mida if you have anger issues if you have stinginess issues if you're lazy if if you're whatever whatever whatever bad everyone has something bad at least one or two every time you work on it every time you get it better you're actually eliminating a separation between you and Hashem the less separation the more you can feel him both spiritually and physically both spiritually and physically you can get to such an extent where when you learn Torah and this is true I'm not just telling you a like a a story a real I'm telling you 100% you can get to a point where you learn Torah and actually get a physical reaction from it not learn Torah and it feels good oh it's nice I know a no I don't mean that I mean you learn Torah on a high level and you can feel a physical reaction where your whole body becomes numb and all types of wonderful things that I can't even explain to you you can get a physical reaction from Torah study that's Torah you can't get that from Math Science History or any of the other secular subjects so when you start learning mus each time you learn M it'll remind you of different mid you have to work on it remind you of a different character tree you have to work on you start thinking about how to fix it you start fixing this character trait you're breaking the wall That's separating between you and Hashem you break between you and Hashem there's a reaction there's a connection something happens something happens and that's what I would recommend to every single person if you're not learning M already now learn at least at least a half hour of m a day if not an hour or two learn as much as you can but at the very least you should learn a half hour of m a day but learning m is not like learning Al where you read it passively you just read it just to see what it says learning mus you can learn learn just one little tiny paragraph for 5 hours why cuz you're meditating on what it says what does it mean angry how am I angry today you start asking yourself why am I angry oh why did I get you start thinking about what it actually says it's not like just to know what to don't be angry okay Finish no it's not that learning m is trying to think about how it's applicable to you and how you could use it because each time you use it just imagine there's a wall that was broken that's separating you and Hashem another wall another wall another wall another wall and little by little you're going to see that the Torah that you have changes drastically you'll have much bigger understanding you'll have much bigger enjoyment and ultimately you'll serve AEM at a much higher level where you'll realize that you really are a partner in this whole world moving rotating is much more significance to you being 15 16 17 18 year old whatever it is just learning in a cola and no one sees no one knows you exist you didn't write any books you didn't write any what's the difference there's a big difference it's a big difference you learning right now you're keeping the world alive I'm not saying this to to Horn I'm telling you 100% that's why I left Wall Street that's why instead of going back now that I'm healthy I go back make millions I go back and make all the money not only I don't go back I run away from it I don't listen to the news I don't care about it I care less about all of it all I do is what I'm doing right now I learn I teach that's it why it's much more significant and how do I pay the bills Hashem sends how there's Miracles every month every month somehow money shows up different different people donate different people send different people help hem sends the money so yes it does work it does work you learn to you do the will of hem money does show up but you have to do it to as much as possible not just sometimes anything else have have a job and again depends what you're doing if you're learning all day all night that is your job if you're learning two hours a day like a and not necessarily A rebbi if you're learning all day all night you should obviously learn to teach says that page 17 says if someone learns without an intention to to teach is like someone who doesn't have a god meaning that your purpose of learning should be to ultimately teach may not necessarily be to teach right now but the future date to teach you to teach in as a rabbi in a k or a Yesa or to give lectures or to give Tas to different people the point is you're supposed to teach at some point or Teach Your Kids Teach Your Kids Teach Your Wife teach yourself you have to teach now to be a full-time Torah scholar at all times is not necessarily for everyone but everyone can do it it's not for everyone but everyone can do it all of you can do it but not everyone is going to do it and the reason why is because some people have a connection to material and they must work somewhat and that's fine the most important thing is to understand that the Torah part of your life however much it is that's what's keeping the world going not the money you're making doesn't matter if you're giv stua doesn't matter if you're rich doesn't matter if you are just surviving it doesn't make a difference the part that's keeping the world alive is the Torah part it's not anything else anything else right so so the thing is is is to understand we actually learned this a couple of weeks ago I mean as far as the uh the a it's not referring to AA like going to work in a supermarket or to work in a uh um you know on Wall Street the is talking about is prayer praying to Hashem AB like work it's praying to hem so the Torah is fulfilling it's learning the Torah toiling in Torah finding the in Torah the is to pray to hem to connect to hem and is to share it share it with the world uh so to just learn by itself just for your own sake is selfish so it's not that's not what you're supposed to do to just pray and not do anything about it that's also not good because you have to learn what to do and how to do it to just be kind to everybody else and not know how to be kind not know the rules of kindness also so all of them come together you have to know all of them you have to you know the Torah is the is the part that gives you the instruction of how to do everything else now again it doesn't necessarily mean that uh working and making money is a bad thing it just means that we need more people that are actually going to be partners to Hashem giving us an excuse to keep this giving him an excuse to keep this world going we need much more yes then we need we need millionaires you know and everyone claims oh listen once I'm a millionaire I'm gonna pay for Yeshiva the reality of it is that yes today you mean it but once you have the millions you don't always mean it it doesn't always work out that way why because the of today is not the same it's going to have it's going to be there when you have the million but again it's a right now the most significant thing that all of you should take from this is that what you're doing is extraordinary learning doesn't seem like it's extraord seems like it's like every day well big deal I pass a test I fail a test I learn I don't learn I read a page I don't read a page I finish the shots I don't finish the shots I finish another page I don't finish another page who cares anything else this should be a little bit of encouragement for all of you guys to continue not only the week but overall this kanuka to share it with uh your families your friends and in General carry this forward because sometimes Torah gets difficult the life of Torah is not easy a lot of people you know the yet is going to send you different messages they're going tell you to go the opposite go in a different direction so when you understand how significant M how significant what you're doing is you realize that A lot's relying on it is much more valuable than anything else that you can possibly do or anything else that anybody else can do amen [Music] [Applause] [Music] la [Music]