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Torah Foundation: The Real ONE. (Series Premiere)

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Rabbi Yaron Reuven avatar
Rabbi Yaron Reuven

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[Music] There's so much darkness in this world. Education's lost, truths not unfurled, how to fear Hashem, how to keep his way, what to do and what to avoid all day. How to fix the sins of old. How to come close. how to see his love unfold. Everywhere are traps, everywhere are gaps. So you can only win by learning the right path from a Torah sage. A servant of Hashem. So you can only win by searching the counil of a Torah sage. A servant of a servant of Hashem. So you can only win by the Torah of Hashem. [Music] Stir in a minute. >> You might stumble. You might fall. You might see your problems. You might not know the proper way. On a narrow bridge where shadows sway, people are blind at night. Hasham's toy is the only life. Behold, Hashem will bless all his servants, the Torah schemes. [Music] You will wonder, you will see [Music] If you search in a holy way, may every soulmath [Music] We are starting a new series tonight. And tonight you and series will be for the and all of Amis and all the righteous Noahides. Anyone that wants to sponsor lectures can go toem.org. You could sponsor lectures over there. Also, if you want or anything like that is also on the website at bzadashem.org. And also, we have a specially dedicated link for anyone that wants to get these amazing Kiru boxes that's going to help you do Kiru and uh entertain your friends as well as help them do Chuva. You can go to kirubox.org or kirubox.com I should say. This is by far, as I've said once and probably will continue saying it a thousand times, the best possible tool in the history of uh Zikabim in the history of Kiru simply because it gives you everything in a silver platter. All you got to do is just give it to somebody and certainly you'll be able to change their lives if they open it. Of course, opening it is up to them, but something so interesting is uh very very uh enticing to open. So with that being said, Rabai, we have a new series and the new series is something that is very much needed. have been studying it for several years and uh continue to studying it inem this is something that is out of all of the different subjects that we thought about the different books that are out there uh different uh uh options that people have suggested to us we felt it's right to uh do a series about the foundation of Torah what does it mean the foundation of Torah understanding the basic basic principles of our Torah the basic amuna what is it that we need to believe now even though we've done a series about Jewish based on the by the this is going to be based on literally uh and the entire series is going to be about the what is the the duties of the heart is what it translates to well nearly a thousand years ago the very basics of Jewish Jewish philosophy, amuna and understanding were clarified by Rabenu Bakya Iben Pakuda. Now while the text is readily available for everyone that wants to read it in different languages even few people know it and live by it unfortunately in the world that we live in today. Now, this series is going to bring to light this extraordinary light that came to the world already a thousand years ago and is going to be something that will clarify every possible question that you may have. Yes, every possible philosophical question, any question you have is in this book. But of course, if you learn it yourself, you read it yourself, you may have one understanding, but when you learn it with people that have studied it, with people that uh we are nourishing all of our Torah from, you'll have a much clearer understanding. And anyone that has read or the Ramban or any of the other serieses that we've done versus uh you know reading them uh you see that there is a big difference between the two. Now, one of the amazing stories that uh I read uh with uh with my dear family in a seph about different Zilberstein says a story that was told by Rav Moshe Shapira the Roshiva of Berakov who told a story about the extraordinary ga The pillar of truth in that generation and had a ka that loved Hashem, yearned for Hashem. But of course, the Satan likes to disrupt everything that's good. And one time there was a known uh heretic. Let's just say that he wasn't known as the Mr. Heretic, but he was known as a mid, as a speaker that teaches Torah, but he also teaches her through the Torah, sort of like the heretics that we deal with today. And this mid came to the bisque and he wanted to speak. But of course everything have to has to get approval from the ravique. So when he came to him he told the rav can I speak at kila to the community and the rais says no absolutely not says well rabbi you don't have to worry about all of these things that uh you don't agree with because what I'll do is I'll literally read from the verses of the Torah and I can even show you which verses I'm going going to read and what I'm going to tell them and says no you can't speak but what's the problem and the bree gives an answer of all answers he says you have to understand that even kosher meat becomes becomes non-cooser if it's cooked in a non-coosher pot because the taste that's inside that's absorbed by the pot will end up being absorbed by the meat making it and the same is true with the kosher words of a Torah that are spoken by a non-cooser person like you you will turn them into meaning that even if a person learns the basic basic verses of a Torah, needless to say, philosophical topics, deep issues that are beyond the scope of normal conversation, but if they hear it from a non-cooser speaker, non-cooser source, certainly those words will turn into. Now, in order for us to truly understand the magnitude of what we're going to be learning together because this is going to be a long series and we're only starting with the introduction and as we progress we'll decide whether we're going to go into other parts of the book but just the introduction alone is significant. Now the person that translated this and this came this was originally written nearly a thousand years ago. Rabbak was uh alive in uh you know among us nearly a thousand years ago aboutund 150 years before the Rambam who were also going to visit today as he clarifies some of the points of Baka and this book was written when he was in Spain but it was written in Arabic it was translated to Hebrew was translated to English and I'm sure it's been translated to many other languages since then. But the people that have studied this are not just your and they're not just the average people because this book is for everyone. As the translator of this particular edition writes that this book will teach you about one's conception of God. It's about the reflection and gratitude, trust and sincerity, discipline and love. It's a book about inner life. Today they may call that philosophy, but that's too of too much of a general term. Benu Bak wrote this book in the last third of the 11th century. He lived in Spain. He was a Dian. But he wrote this book in such a way that it was be useful for the advanced student like himself which he wrote it for himself as well as a novice somebody that's new to the asenu writes I decided to write this down in a book so that I might expect myself always to know them and bring self to perform them. A book that would spur on the observant and steer up the indifferent, bolster the beginner and show the way to those who are perplexed. Meaning this is the guide for the perplexed before the Rambam. I wrote it to enlighten myself as well as to stimulate the simple and the negligent among the people of our faith. Who are the ones that praise this book? Rabio in his mitim, the book that was the personal journal of the B where he had conversations with the angel, the mid inhab the angel instructs to read every day in order to subdue the and overcome his power required that all of his disciples study the on a daily basis in order to awaken the hearts to God's most awesome who is the author of in a seph called the in a Um this is in his will. He writes a person should immerse himself in for that book one can acquire the inner essence of the select qualities necessary for serving God. One must delve into this book more deeply than one would delve into the study of and profound systems of thought. meaning more should be spent learning this book than anything else. If you want to know the foundation of what Jewish thought is supposed to be, the go in aid is writes that he was very fond of two major books. the minor and who the writes in his that he learned a thousand times and only then he attained the level that he reached. He wrote this book a thousand times and it's not a small book. And of course the series that we just completed recently of also mentioned it. If you remember, we mentioned it in the series and of course we want to go in the path of when mentioned it in the book to study. We were happy that we're studying it, but we're unhappy that many of you are not studying it. And said with fear and awe, one should engage each day in the study of Musar such as and the grandson of the said that every day for about 15 minutes before every shure that he would give, he would study with his students one of the segments of in order to fire their hearts with the awe of Hashem. And almost all of his Musar teachings and practices were from the words of this holy book. And it was his wish that his students study it in their youth. So they established themselves one clear way, one clear in order to serve Hashem. So much so that said to theamar's grandson, you are the living and called. He writes about and that whoever reads this book and the introduction which is what we're going to be studying will note the force of his of his holiness and that his words live and endure and serve as great lights. The author of Yehuda Pearlman said that our sages have taught us that if a man sees that suffering come upon him, he should examine his conduct. This is the page 58. Now there could be no such examinations more thorough than the study of this book which analyzes in fine detail human drives and actions in so many words. As you will see from this book through your own independent reading to our studies together that this book literally knows the heart of man better than you know yourself by a factor of a million. The stiponki once wrote that whoever has not seen the lights of the holy words of the will be missing very much. He'll be wanting inside in the purity of all that is holy. In so many words, anyone that wants to get closer to Anyone that wants to understand how beyond the that you do every day, beyond the learning that you do every day, the is what you owe yourself in order to understand how to reshape your heart to serve. Now thisai may seem for some people too difficult. Why? Because some of the things that Bak writes are far beyond the scope of the average person to even do. But as he himself writes in his chapter 8 section number two, whatever you can't realize indeed, meaning whatever you can't do, at least master in knowledge. At least learn it because that will get you a step closer to actually doing it. In the introduction to Immediately we'll see that there is a significant difference in the way that the of past generations speak and this is not just the first time. This you see this happen many times and how they begin and he writes Blessed is Hashem, the God of Israel, the only One who is truly one whose existence is eternal and whose goodness is perpetual. Who created all that exists as evidence of his oneness. Formed creations as testimony of his might and brought things into being to bear witness to his wisdom and great goodness. And then he brings a couple of verses from Taim which we'll go into later. But the first thing you see that begins with blessing Hashem. Many times when you get books today talking about Jewish books, you're not going to see blessing of Hashem as the beginning. Certainly, it's common to see it somewhere, usually towards the end of the blessing as the greatest blessing to Hashem for allowing me to do this and so on. But before that comes the publishing company, comes the friends, comes the kava, comes the rabbi, comes the wife, comes the kids, comes the sponsor, comes everybody else, and then at the end, Hashem. Now this is not necessarily to minimize their gratitude to Hashem, but it's to show a difference to highlight a difference of then and now. But here is not just thanking Hashem. He's teaching us something. Says, "Blessed is Hashem, the God of Israel. What does it mean blessed? Why do I need to learn from this? What do I need to learn from this? The first thing that is trying to tell us, know who you're talking about. Know the greatness of this is who you're going to be talking about. This is who you're going to be discovering. This is who you should have known all along. His greatness is so great it's beyond human comprehension. But the greater you analyze things, the more you analyze things, the more you'll discover his greatness. and simultaneously also discover his humility in the process. Because as great as he is, he's trying to tell you, this is a God that is unlike anything else you can imagine. And he starts giving us clarification. He's not just God like the nations create a God out of their statues and imaginations. He's not just the God of Israel, but rather the only one who is truly one. What does that mean? The only one that is truly one. The number one that people use today is simply a representation of quantity. But here is telling us as taught me many times that if this one can turn into two or any other number then it's no longer the real one because today's one is a representation of quantity that is just telling you that It's not another quantity. It's one because it's not two. It's one because it's not zero. It's one because it's not something else. But if there would be another one, there would be something else. So when you say, I have one car, yes, you have one car, but if you had another car, then you would have two cars. I have one house. If you had another house, you'd have two houses. I have one wife. If you had another one, you'd be miserable. I mean, you you'd have two wives. The point is is that if you have one that's a representation of quantity, that means that it's only one because it's not something else. But here is telling us one when it's when it's referring to Hashem that's the true one. That's the one that cannot be anything else. He is the only real one because there is no other choice. Now, as we said, the Rambam about 100 150 years later clarified some of the points of and is something that we've reviewed briefly in past lectures. In chapter one, he tells us a few things and I'll go through this briefly so not to go too deep into one particular aspect because there's a lot to learn. The Rambam writes, "The foundation of all foundations and the pillar of wisdom is to know that there is a primary being who brought into being all existence. All the beings of the heavens, the earth and what is between them came into existence only from the truth of his being. If one would imagine that he does not exist, no other being could possibly exist. If one would imagine that none of the other entities aside from him exist, he alone would continue to exist. In so many words, he does not need the creation. He doesn't need you nor the entire creation. The nullification of their existence will not nullify his existence because all the other entities require him and he blessed be he does not require them or any one of them and therefore the truth of his being does not resemble the truth of any of their beings. This in itself, the foundation of a Torah, already completely crushes any heretic out there that tells you God needs you or anything similar to it. And we'll discuss why they even do it because it comes from this. Why they say such a thing because it's not a new idea. It's just packaged differently. Continues the Rambam in the fourth ala. This is implied by the prophet Jeremiah's statement in chapter 10:10. And God your Lord is true. Meaning he alone is true and no other entity possesses truth that compares to his truth. This is what is meant by what Mosheu said in the book of Deuteronomy 4:35. There's nothing else aside from him. This was in last week's paran meaning that aside from him there is no true existence like his. This entity is the god of the world and the lord of the entire earth. He controls the sphere with infinite and un unbounded power. This by the way also clarifies that the earth is a sphere. It's round. It's not flat like some of the modern day crazies say. The power that he has continues without interruption because the sphere meaning the earth constant is constantly revolving and it's impossible for it to revolve without someone causing it to revolve. That one is he, meaning Hashem, blessed be he, who causes it to revolve without a hand or any other corporal dimension. Also again speaks and clarifies all the heretics that say that Hashem has an arm and a head and a leg and all types of body parts that are, you know, they try to give you an idea of how they've humanized God. The Rambam in the foundation of a Torah, the Torah tells you this is not only false, it's forbidden. The knowledge of this concept is a positive commandment, says the Rambam. As the Torah in the Exodus 20:2 says, I am God your Lord. Anyone who presumes that there is another God transgresses a negative commandment. As Exodus chapter 20:3 says, "You shall have no other gods before me." And such a person that thinks that there is more than one God denies the fundamental principle of faith because this is the great principle of faith upon which all depend on. So all of what I just said is simply an introduction for the next point where he clarifies what is saying when he says that God is the truly one and the Rambam says this God is one. Now, of course, he already said it before, but but he's bringing this everything that was said now as a pretext, an explanation that's necessary before he gives us the seventh alaka. What does that mean? That God is one. You have one car, you have one house, you have one husband. Good for you. Only one husband because if you had two husbands, you probably would have no husband. You could commit suicide or divorce. People can barely handle what they have. That's one. They want more, but they barely handle one. The Rambam is telling us there's one God. What does it mean one God? This God is one. He is not two or more, but one unified in a manner which surpasses any unity that is found in the world. Meaning he is not one in a matter of a general category which includes many individual entities nor one in the way that the body is divided into different portions and dimensions. Rather he's unified and there is there exists no unity similar to his in this world. So here he's telling you that although you consider yourself as one, you are not really one. Why? Because you're made up of parts. You have your different organs, different limbs, different, you know, your thoughts are separate from you. Your past is separate from you. Your future is separate from you. You're made up of parts. We're all made up of parts. Everything is made up of parts. But Hashem there is no parts. The past, the present, and the future are all one. His the thoughts of Hashem and Hashem are the same. They're it's not a separate entity. And the Rambam clarifies further. He says if there were many gods, they would have body and form because like entities that are separated from each other only through the circumstances associated with body and form. In so many words, if there were multiple gods, these multiple gods would also have multiple parts. Were the creator to have a body and form, meaning if the heretics were right by saying that he has an arm and he has a leg and he has a this and he has that, this would negate everything that we just said. Why? says the Rambam, if he had a body in a form, he would have limitations and definition because it's impossible for a body not to be limited. Any entity which itself is limited and defined possesses only limited and defined power. Even if it's extremely powerful, it's limited to space, to time, to the limitations of the parts. But since our God, blessed be his name, possesses unlimited power as evidenced by the continuous revolution of the sphere, meaning the world. We see that his power is not the power of a body since he is not a body. The cir circumstances associated with bodies that produce division and separation are not relevant to him. And therefore, it's impossible for him to have anything other than one. And the knowledge of this concept fulfills a positive commandment which taught us in Deuteronomy 6:4. So up to here and of course he goes even deeper than that in the Rambam which perhaps we'll go into in other parts of this series. But here we see that the chose his words very very carefully and not just say things superficially, say things without a deep meaning behind them. The more a person learns Jewish philosophy from the more they're going to understand the truth and the purpose of creation. Now, continues, excuse me, and says, "Aside from God being the only true one, he's also eternal. Why does one thing have to do with the other?" Now, many people that do not study Torah and do not understand the truth of the Torah like to believe all types of things such as the world has always been here. But when you tell them that this cannot be true because the world whether it's earth or the universe as great as it is as big as it is when all said and done it's material. And something that's material something that's physical cannot be internal. It has to be created. It has to come from something. Whether it came from a one little cell that expanded, went through meiosis and mitosis, and then turned into some monkey or turned into a lizard with monkey ears and a monkey tail, doesn't really make a difference. The point is, anything material, whether it be the sun or the earth or the moon or the other planets or the tree in your backyard or you or me, anything that's material had to start from somewhere. It cannot be eternal. And this is not up for debate. This is just simply a reality. So when you tell those very same people, typically it's people that think that they're scientific minded, that their science is flawed. They say, "Well, we don't know. Maybe it took a million years." I said, "Even it took a billion billion years. It doesn't make a difference. It's still at the end of the day material. Material cannot come from nothing. It has to start from somewhere. On the other hand, when we're describing Hashem here, which is indescribable, but we're only getting small aspects that are understandable to the human mind. As the Rambam writes also in that all of these different descriptions of Hashem in the Torah is simply in order to give the human mind the ability to understand certain things that Hashem wanted us to understand. Whether it's the strong arm or that the uh that Hashem was angry or all these different adjectives that he used to describe Hashem. This is simply for us to understand them. In fact, you know what? Since we're already on it, I'll even show you the Rambam where he literally says he gives an answer to all the heretics that try to humanize God. And he says as followed number nine in chapter one. So what's the meaning of the expression that's employed by the Torah? below his feet written by the finger of God, God's hand, God's eyes, God's ears, and other things, says the Rambam. All of these expressions were used to relate to human thought processes which know only corporal imagery because the Torah speaks in the language of man. Hashem didn't write the Torah for angels. He didn't write the Torah for himself. He wrote it for us. This is our manual. This is our Torah. Torah means instructions. Instructions not for him. Instructions for us. So therefore, these are only descriptive terms such as what it's written in Deuteronomy 32:41. I will wet my lighting sword. So the Rambam says, does Hashem have a sword? Does he need a sword to kill? Rather, this is a metaphoric imagery, says the Rambam. And the same goes with all of the other expressions. They're all metaphoric imagery. And he gives other proofs of this. But the point is that when you understand that God is eternal that means he cannot be material. And in fact the sephim writes that here in the introduction of the teaches us three foundations within the first few words where he's telling us that God is one truly one his existence is eternal because the unity of God confirms that he's eternal. Why does the unity of God confirm his eternity? Because if someone else created him, then certainly that someone else would be able to be him or greater than him. And therefore, as Rab Fryman has said, his omnipotence, his omniscience, his unity, his eternity shows his greatness, but also his goodness too. Why? Because as great as he is, he doesn't need us. But he still created us and he still takes care of us and every other creature on planet earth and in the entire universe in every single millisecond that it exists. In fact, as when the scientists discovered all of the particles, the atoms, they realized that there's even a life force within things that they thought have no life, such as rocks, leaves, you know, trees, sand, everything has some force, some life force. where the second that these atoms that are spinning, if they were to stop for even a second, that creation would cease to exist. It wouldn't crumble because crumbling just simply means it separates into multiple parts. If the atoms that make up all of creation, they're spinning faster than you can possibly imagine, if they would stop spinning, that creation would cease to exist. It would just disappear as if it never existed. What keeps the atom spinning? That's the life force. That life force comes from. So now the is telling us that this one and only God who has always been here, who's eternal, whose goodness is perpetual, meaning he's not only great, he's not only he's always been here. The more you understand about his greatness, the more you'll understand his goodness. There's no end to his good because the to understand it in a different way. Good is not something that a human can simply define based on their own bias because what's good to you may be bad for somebody else. You can say your company made good profits, but your customers don't agree with it because you stole from them. You can say that you have a good business, but the uh the legal authorities don't agree because you're, you know, you're a corrupt business. You can say you're a good husband, but your wife may not agree because you beat her up every week. You can say you are a good president, but uh that's only the people that are in your party say they agree with. everyone that's on the opposite party don't agree with. So good if it's defined by human beings unfortunately it's bias. So what is good really? Good is something that produces good. The ultimate good shows his goodness because he created good. Not because he needs it, not because he has a benefit out of it, but rather for because he's good. That's it. He created us out of his goodness. Not because he yearns for us, not because he benefits from us. And not like some of the heretics say, "Yeah, but what kind of king would be a king without a someone to command?" That means that you think that this king is lacking. That is heresy. He was not lacking. In fact, he says it in the Torah that he doesn't need human beings to rule. He has trillions and trillions of uh of angels. So there's no such thing as we provide good to Hashem. Now, of course, Hashem wants us to do good because he created us out of his goodness and he wants to give us good. But since you cannot give good without rules, otherwise it would not really be good. If you just give your kids everything that they want, you're not making them better kids. You're making them spoiled. You're making them run. You're making them have a mentality that is not healthy. Why? Because they'll grow up and get into a world that doesn't give them whatever they want. They'll see a lot of rejection in their life and they won't know how to deal with it because they're used to getting everything they want. So just giving them everything they want is not a good thing. There has to be rules. If you do good, you read what I the Torah that we learned. you uh follow what Torah says. You do what Abai and say then you'll get good. If you don't, you won't get it. So every normal parent understands this. Same thing if you work for a company. A company that gives raises to its employees just for existing is not a company that will continue to prosper. Why? Because if those employees get used to the fact that as long as they continue sitting and warming the chairs in the company, they're going to get a raise every year no matter what, eventually those employees will stop pushing further for the benefit of the company and rather become more selfish and self-centered while they know, listen, all I need to do is stay out of trouble and last year another year so I can get a raise and last year for another year until I get another raise. meaning I don't have to work harder in order to earn more good. I just have to exist. So a company like that that gives more and more big raises and bonuses to its employees without any performance measure is not a company that will succeed. On the other hand, a company that gives performance metrics and all types of different uh goals for people to that want to be ambitious to push themselves to, that's a company that will succeed much more than the first one. So in his goodness because he created us without any need and he took us out of Egypt to show that as an example that he doesn't need us because he brought us from the bottom. We were slaves. Further than that, he wants to give us good because that's why he created us. But in order for that good to truly be good, there has to be performance measure. Meaning if you do what I say, you will get more good. You'll get the ultimate good. But if you don't, you have gone against the purpose of creation and thereby I am not going to give you good and as a punishment for you not doing what I told you. You have destroyed the purpose of creation of you and therefore you deserve a punishment and that's when people get punished severely and could even be destroyed completely for eternity. But the point is is that his greatness, his eternity is one of the things that shows us his goodness. Further says the he is the one who created all that exists as evidence of his oneness. What does it mean that his creation are evidence of his oneness? If a person looks at the greatness of creation, whether it be Sorry. Seems like the shut us down on the on the internet. We're finally here. The new Kiru box. Opens up. A nice little cushion here. We got Let's see if it's charged. >> Isn't that amazing? It's the best life. Now available at bizen.com.org.org. [Applause] >> Get yourself 20 of them, 30 of them, 50 of them. Distribute them to all the people that you care about and you get people to do the cha. So anyone that's watching, you can watch us on bh.live live or uh the YouTube uh channel uh that's also live but I see that some things went down anyway here the is now telling us as great as he is he's eternal he's good but he wants us to know that and therefore he created certain things to show us that he is one. And also he formed creations as a testimony of his might. Meaning that when you look at the creation, you'll understand how great he is. Now the in page 59A tells us about some of the creations. Rab Alexandri said in the name of Rabui, thunder was created only to straighten out the crookedness within the heart. As it says in Ecclesiastes 3:14, "And God has acted so that man should stand in awe of him." Now, no matter who you are, when there is strong thunder, every heart shakes naturally. It's not even something that you could hold back. Why? Because it literally sounds like the world is breaking. Now, if you have little kids, of course, you want to calm them down. You want to say all types of things like, "Oh yeah, maybe the angels are playing bowling or uh maybe uh you know uh something funny is happening to calm the kids down." But in reality, even your own heart is shaking. Why? Cuz sometimes the thunder is so close to home like it literally feels like Hashem is breaking the world. Now does thunder produce anything? No. Unlike lightning which you can say well the lightning it's its energy it uses the whatever you want to rationalize why lightning is there thunder you can't rationalize as why did hashem create it doesn't produce anything the says opposite no it does it does produce one of the most important things that exists which is what fear of heaven the whole purpose of thunder is to make you scared. That's why Hashem created it. That's why Hashem created it. Now, the also goes into the creation of the rainbow and and other things and what blessings are said. But ultimately the is trying to tell us when thunder happens what am I supposed to do? You're supposed to make a blessing. What's the blessing? That his strength and his overall control and awesomeness fills the world. Meaning that what is saying here that Hashem created all that exists as evidence of his oneness and create and formed creations as a testimony of his might. One of the prime examples of it is thunder. And in fact, that's what we bless in a thunder. that his greatness, his awesomeness, his strength fills the world. Meaning there's no part of the world, the universe, that you won't find Hashem, that you won't find his might. Now, one of the most detestable things to deal with in the world is someone that's arrogant. Someone that thinks that the world was, you know, revolves around their finger because they are rich or because they have a position of power or because they uh, you know, they uh come from an important family or because of their beauty or whatever it is. But the reality is no matter who that person is, if you compare that person to instead of seeing them face to face, but rather you see them from on top of a building, all of a sudden they're less significant. If you look at them from the top of a highriser like the Empire State Building or the Sears Towers and you look down at this person, they look like a tiny little ant. You look at them from the top of a mountain, you could barely see them. If you look at them, you try to look at them from 30,000 ft in the air from a plane, you can't see them. They're so insignificant. It's as if they don't exist. Now if you look even for the building from outer space, you go let's say to the moon and you look for that building, you can't even find it. You go to the sun to even look at the earth, you can't find it. And if you go further to other stars or planets that are much bigger than the sun, it's even more insignificant. Why did do all of that? To show you that as arrogant as someone that may be because of what they have, because of what I gave them, in reality, anyone with a healthy mind knows that this person is inconsequential in the big picture. They're here today, they're gone tomorrow. Whether it's the Medici family, the Rothschide family, the Bush family, the uh uh other billionaires and millionaires throughout all of history, it doesn't make a difference. They're here today, they're gone tomorrow. With all of the history of, let's say, the Vanderbilt family and all of the glory they had, they have two people left within all of their descendants. And neither one of them is going to bring any children to the world, if you understand what I mean. They both they're not going to continue the lineage. Let's just say that. Now, if you look at the original Vanderbilt family, you thought, "Oh, listen. This family will last forever. They're going to control the world. Who knows?" The Medici family, same thing. The Rothchilds, unfortunately, same thing. They've steered so far away from where they started by Sadik to literally that are sponsoring idol worship. Now the people that saw those powerful families at their height thought, oh this this family controls the world. This family controls the country, controls the this control of that. Okay. Yeah, maybe it looked like that at that time, but really in the grand scheme of things, in Hashem's eternal creation that he created, he's eternal, but is this temporary creation, they're insignificant. They're insignificant. Even the people of today or the Elon Musk and the Bill Gates of the world and all of those people, they're as temporary as anybody else. When people saw Steve Jobs at his height, when he was producing one iPhone after another and a iPad and changing the world, no one in their, you know, furthest part of their mind was to think that Steve Jobs was only a few years away from dying, not even being able to see the real success of the company that he built. Because with all the billions that he had, he couldn't buy a new liver, a small part of the body, that made all the difference. He needed Hashem for that. And that's why before he died, he said one regret that he had was that he never spent any time learning about his creator. He claimed himself to be an atheist until it was too late. So when a person thinks that the world revolves around them, that everybody owes them something, that everybody has to submit to them, there's nothing more disgusting than that. Why? Because it's literally the exact opposite of that. You're as temporary as the next guy. No matter what you have. Now even if someone is great, they could still never be compared to the greatness of a even if that person is great in the world of Torah. For example, the wisdom of the many times people do not understand that the were not just and they were literally geniuses beyond human comprehension. And anytime people from the secular world uh you know were introduced and had the merit to meet one of the great sages literally they were uh dumbfounded. It's not a surprise that people like Napoleon came to Jewish sages to ask for guidance. presidents, kings of empires. One of the we had in the past century was ozinski. Rabi was not only the doll but he was literally a genius among geniuses. He would have seven telmidim in front of him all writing his answers but all of them writing different answers completely for different topics. Now, if somebody were to ask you, let's say whatever your profession is, let's say you're a professional marketer, but you also know a little bit about jewelry, and you also know a little bit about starting a company, and you also know a little bit about marriage, and you also know a little bit about raising kids, and you happen to know how to cook a good steak. Now, if somebody asked you questions about one of those things, perhaps you could answer them. But if somebody wanted a detailed answer of the mechanics of the answer, the the all the details, the blueprint of the answer, not just conversation, something to write, something to explain. If you're a brilliant person in that particular subject, perhaps you could do it. But if they asked you for two of those subjects that you know that you're really good at, but they asked you for two of them at the same time. Average person say, "What do you mean two? Wait, I'll finish with one and then I'll go to the other after I finish after a few years, a few months, a few days." But what at the same time? What about if it's seven? That's what you would find at the bet mid of Ozinski where he would have seven talmid each one of them asking the deepest mo most profound questions about specific subject matters whether it's theot of uh you know or all completely separate subjects completely separate subjects. He would give them the narration of what to write. Seven of them at the same time. As soon as he would give one, as he's writing it, he has the time to give to the second one. While he's writing, the second one is writing. The first one is still writing. He has time to give to the third one. These two, these two are still writing. He has time to give to the third one. These three are writing because they're all writing a lot. He has time to give to the fourth one and then the fifth one and the sixth one and the seventh one. By the time he got to the seventh one, he gave him the answer. The first one completed writing what he told him. He has time to go back to him again. And this would continue literally like heavenly music by a master unlike the world has ever seen. And as great as o was, you cannot compare him to the go. You cannot compare him to the you cannot compare him to the Rambam. You cannot compare him to they were much greater than him. Why? They were they preceded him. And it wasn't they're greater because they came earlier. They simply were greater. Meaning the wisdom of the sages was beyond comprehension. And as great as the sages were, the more clearer they were about the greatness of says that the evidence of his creation is of his oneness is in the creation. You see the earth and how it is. You see all of the different mechanics of the creation. You understand that there's life in everything that has to come from somewhere. But he also formed the creation as a testimony of his might. There we saw the thunder and other things like it. You see the mountains, you see the greatness of the sun, the moon, all the different extraordinary things that are in the world. The more you understand about creation, the easier it is to understand another part of the greatness of Hashem. And he brought things into being to bear witness to his wisdom and his great goodness. What does it mean that he brought things into being? Meaning he renewed everything and he constantly renews everything. And these things that he renews are a constant witness to his wisdom and his creation. The midrash says that the said in chapter 145:4 which the brings here who said to Hashem one generation praises your works to another and tells of your mighty acts. So David was proud of himself how he praises Hashem every day and now every generation praises Hashem and the midl says that Hashem sent him a message that it didn't begin with him this praise in fact it's in the creation itself where in the creation The frog. The frog opened its mouth and spoke to the vidame. And the frog said to the vidamelik, I sing praises to Hashem all day long and all night. And David says, when do you do it? And the frog says all the time, all the time from the more literally 24 hours a day, what is the frog says? Blessed is the name of his glorious kingdom forever and ever. Because the greatest praise of Hashem is that his creatures serve him with whatever ability he gives them. Hashem gave me the ability to croak. That's what my croak is saying. All day I bless Hashem. So from here we see that creation each part of it has ways to praise him. And if you look at the which is said it wrote it and said it uh it's it's something that's extraordinarily valuable to read on a regular basis. Some say once a week, some say more, some say less. But the point is is that it's seeing how each creation has a verse and a way for it to praise Hashem. The creation is constantly bearing witness to Hashem's wisdom and his goodness because each part of the creation knows its maker. As the prophet says, The even the bull knows who its owner is and even the donkey knows its master. But my children they don't. Sometimes we forget who Hashem is. The vid says all your works praise you and your devoted ones bless you. They speak of the glory of your kingship and tell of your might to make known to men his mighty deeds and the majestic splendor of his kingship. See here the vidame is not just talking about theim that are praising hem in order for other people to know. He's also talking about the creation. All of the animals, all of the creations, as the says, the shim, the heavens, they sing to Hashem. It says song of heaven, earth and their allegiance. The shmim, the heavens declare the glory of God and the expanse of the sky relates his handiwork. This is uh Psalm 19:2. And then the earth also sings and says Hashem's is the earth and its fullness. Meaning it's it's everything belongs to Hashem. The inhabited land and those who dwell in it. As the verse says, from the edge of the earth we have heard songs, glory for the righteous. The garden of Eden sings. Gay sings. There's a song coming out of Gom for Hashem. For he seated the yearning soul and filled the hungry soul with good. The desert sings, the field sing, the waters sing. Each angel that is in essence the s the uh angel of each one of these creations that Hashem instilled sings and praises the creator. All of the oceans, all of the rivers, the streams, the night, the day, the moon, the sun. Each one of these creations has a praise for each one of them is a different verse in it. And then you look at the fruits, the vegetables, the uh flowers. Then you go into the animals which many kids love to see. It's especially long one long praise by the rooster. because he has several calls. In the first call, he says, "Raise up your hands, O gates, and be uplifted, you everlasting entrances, so that the king of glory may enter." Who is the king of glory? Hashem, the mighty and strong. Hashem, the strong in battle. That's the first call. The second call, he says it again, but with slightly different words. And the third call and a fourth call. Seven calls. Meaning the rooster is especially glued to Hashem. You hear cuckoo. That's what you hear. There's no kukaliku. The kukuiku is only in your ears. That rooster is praising Hashem. It knows its owner. Now one of the interesting things you're also going to see is that through the peril you also find different secrets of the creation of why is saying why the saying that this creation praises Hashem but also shows his goodness. When you see a human being rise to power, one of the things that is constant unfortunately is that the greater the power that a person has, the more they become disconnected from reality and many times they become vicious to those that are under them. One of the most powerful people that lived in the last century was Stalin. So much so that as much power as Putin has today, he is nothing in comparison to what Stalin was and how much control Stalin had of his people. They would literally brainwash kids and the people to believe that he's God. They would bring these kids into a room in order to brainwash them to believe that Stalin is God. And they would tell the kids, "Pray to Stalin to give you candy. Say, Stalin, Stalin, give me candy." And the kids, you know, innocent little kids, they say, "Stalin, Stalin, give me candy." And then they would open this ceiling and candy would fall. And the kids literally would start believing that oh this came from Stalin like as if it wasn't all set up. Now of course what ended up happening with Stalin he became all powerful but that was only temporary. The people hated him celebrated his death. Till this day, anyone that is even remotely in line with the thinking of Stalin is frowned upon and and is disgusting in the eyes of people. When they asked one uh young boy, who's uh who's your mother? He says Russia. Russia is my mother. Who's your father? Stalin. What do you want to have when you grow up? I want to be an orphan. I don't want to have mother Russian. I don't want to have father Stalin. The reality is that this delusional person became extremely powerful but that power went to his head to such a point where he literally became the most vicious person on the planet. Many say he was much worse than Hitler. He killed even his own people, millions of his own people. But that's one of the things that you see in humans repeated generation after generation whether it's the per or the Hammans or it's the Nebuchadet or it's the Roman Caesars and the and the Greeks or the you know the the Sultans of the Turk Turkish Empire or whoever it is you see the more power they have the more vicious they become the more discon connected from reality they become and the more disconnected from God they become because they start believing that they themselves are God and that's usually when God destroys them and shows them that they are not only what they think they are nothing they're just simply the new lunch for the maggots and the worms Now on the other hand, the more you discover different parts of his greatness, the more you see his humility, the more you see his goodness. And one of the small tiny microcosmic examples that you see of the goodness of Hashem of how he cares about every creature. Now if you were to say listen he cares about only the righteous people then how do the wicked people survive? If you say he cares only about people then how do the animals survive? So you see that every single creature in the world exists due to his hand and it's not always so simple like you would think. For example, the ped says about the raven. The raven praises Hashem. And the raven says the verse from Job 38:41, "Who prepares nourishment for the raven when its young ones call out for God helpless without food? Now, why is the raven the one to say such a thing that the young ravens call out to God because they're helpless without food? Why you telling me that every little baby raven is helpless without food? Yes. Yes. Every baby raven is is is actually in a destitute situation. Why? Because in his ultimate wisdom created the raven in such a way that every baby raven is born white. The parents of the raven see a white baby and they're racist like ah is not mine and they fly away. They fly away from the baby ravens. Now where's the baby ravens going to get food? Well, he's going to go to Walmart. He's going to go to Publix. Maybe uh the Rabit's going to call lunch for him and say maybe he's going to get something. Where's he going to get food? No. Sends that baby raven. Every baby raven flies for him to survive on, for him to eat, for him to grow enough where he changes colors and he becomes a parent and he becomes vicious on his on his babies also that are born white. Thereby the reason why in the it uncovers one of the mysteries of creation. Why why is the raven saying that every baby raven is is is crying to Hashem because he's he doesn't have food. Because that's the reality. That is the reality. Hashem created that in order for us to see his goodness that even a raven that you may not think is an important part of creation. You may not think that is something that Hashem cares about. It just exists. No, the opposite worries about even the baby raven that nobody else including his parents care about. showing you his greatness of how he knows about every single thing. Unlike a person where the average person cannot even h handle having two conversations at once, let alone seven, 10, 50, a million, two million, a kadosh knows every little small detail of all of the creation that exists, whether it's a new baby raven that that was born or millions of them that were born every day or the fish or the whale or the monkey or you or me or whatever issues that out who's aware of every single thing and he literally nourishes every single creation, every moment that it's alive. Now when a person starts understanding the greatness of Hashem, they also start understanding that they can't understand the greatness of Hashem. Because if you try to put your head around what we just said, it's impossible. What do you mean he knows everything? Yes, everything. What does everything mean? Nobody could really imagine everything. The most that a person can imagine is perhaps the little small world around them. Their family, what their kids are doing, what the wife or the husband is doing, what's going to be at work tomorrow, more or less, the customers that he has to call, the business he has to do, if the car works or he has to send it to the uh to the shop to get fixed. Hopefully uh his feet heal because they hurt right now and he hopes that by tomorrow they feel better. You know, that's what he understands. He understands a small little world around him. He has no idea what's happening at his friend's house. Definitely doesn't know what's going on in all of the employees houses or the boss's house or the customer's houses. Needless to say, he has no concept whatsoever what's happening in the neighborhood next door to him or people he doesn't know or the country next to him or even uh the the animals in the park that's across the street. He has no idea what's going on over there. So when you understand now that not only knows everything that's going on with you, everything that's going on with your family, everything that's going on inside your bodies, everything that's going on inside your minds, everything that's happening in your neighborhood, everything that's happening in your country, everything that's happening in your world, everything that's happening in the creation, the one that you're aware of and the parts that you're not aware of. And every single part of it depends on his constant knowledge and nourishment and renewal of that creation at every single moment of existence more than words. There's nothing else we can do because there's no way to understand what that means. The human mind cannot comprehend such things. We could barely comprehend what our wife wants, what our kids want. Why are they even crying? Why are they happy? Why are they broke something but they're celebrating? Why? What's going on? You have no idea what's going on even in your backyard. But is greatness knows and understands every single part of the creation. But not just now from the beginning to the end. Meaning from the creation beginning to the end beyond any concept of time. It's all the same to him at all at once. The more you try to go deep into this, the more you understand. I don't understand and I don't have the capability or the tools to understand this. Therefore, comes the and tells us there are going to be things that you're not going to be able to do, but master them by learning about them. Learn about this. The more you learn about the greatness of Hashem, you'll understand parts that are good for you. Well, you understand as great as he is, look how good he is. As big as he is, he still cares about this crow. He still cares about this raven. He still cares about this little turtle. He still cares to give the the lion food every day. He still cares about this guy that doesn't believe in God. He still cares about all of this. Yes. And everything has reward. Everything has punishment in the in the world of Torah. But again, there's the creation that is all part of this all-encompassing system. But yet one thing you will always find is that the sociopaths of like Stalin are not the only enemies of the truth of the Torah because there will come heretics. Heretics no different than what Whisk was simply telling them they have no permission to enter, no permission to speak. And the one common denominator of all heretics, whether their heresy is towards clear idolatry like in Christianity, Catholicism and other types of idolatry or it's heresy that is aiming towards humanizing God. The one common denominator is that all of these heretics have one strategy. And that's humanizing God by simply telling you things like God needs you. God turn into a human being. They call him Yoshk or Jesus or other types of silly names? Why? Why do all of these heretics and idol worshippers keep using the same trick that unfortunately fools many people? But it's the same trick, which is to humanize God. What's your obsession with humanizing God? Why not just say, "Okay, you believe in God, the same God of Israel, the same one, the same eternal, the same everything. But I think something else. I think that there is a different mitzvah of different things because once you believe in the one God, the one God of Israel, the one God of the existence, the one that has no parts, the one that is eternal, the one that is perpetually good, that means he's not like you. That means that you don't have any type of excuse to use as far as not listening to him. You can't calm that conscience that just sinned. So what the heretics will constantly do is they'll humanize God in order to minimize God. In order to make it seem as if God needs you or God is just like you. If he is human, if he has parts and he has thoughts, then he changes his mind. Then he could also make an exception for you. then he also maybe gets confused like you, has a bad day like you. And what they do is simply try time and time again to humanize God because they have one goal. It's not that they really care about having a God that's walking on two legs like them. It's not that they really care about God being a human or not. No, the goal is if he could humanize God, that means he can give God conditions that would allow him to do whatever he wants. Because if this God that he believes in, that has become partially human, is someone that I can negotiate with because he needs me, because he wants my mitzvot, because he benefits from my because he uh he gets confused, he regrets, and all those things that he can say, you know what, that means that I'm allowed to do whatever I want today. He'll commit adultery. He'll steal somebody else's wife. She'll steal somebody else's husband. He'll steal somebody else's money. She'll steal somebody else's uh whatever it is. But then they'll tell the same God that they believe in that they've humanized, listen, I know that yesterday I did something that you don't like, but don't worry. Today I'll put on today I'll give extra staka. Today I I'll do something good so it'll be better. meaning I'll justify the bad by doing good for you. One of the major turn of events in the world of Christianity is when they started selling permission to do whatever you want. How simple. They told you commit every sin under the sun. Murder, rape, stealing, whatever you want. As long as you go to the church and give them money and they'll throw some dirty water on you, tell you to say a few throw a few Hail Marys, a few footballs, a few this, a few that. As long as you make the church rich, you can do whatever you want. Of course, this caused even inner turmoil within the world of the church. But one idolatry is not better than the other idolatry. But unfortunately, this falsehood is not only there because heretics come in all shapes and sizes and they all have the same trick with a different mask. They all have the intention to humanize God in order to remove the foundation of our Torah, which is reward and pun and punishment. If God needs you, that means that you can do whatever you want that violates his law. But tell him that listen, I'll do something good tomorrow. I'll put on tomorrow because you need it. I'll say is tomorrow because you need it. I'll uh give staka tomorrow because you need it. Not me. I don't need to give staka. You need me to give staka. And in essence, what they're going to do is they'll humanize God in order to justify their sins, in order to justify going against God. And this same exact concept happens in all of the false religions, whether it's Christianity or it's Islam, where in Islam simply they have instead of sanctifying life, they sanctify death. Their whole goal is to die murdering a bunch of Jews, what they call kofels, so they can go fulfill all of their lust with 70 virgins. Any anyone that believes that God wants that is somebody that's a that's a lunatic. The se the very same holy God that created the world that hates immorality, that hates immodesty, that hates injustice, that hates murder, he's going to reward you with lust for killing people, for being a shahid. They celebrate death. They sanctify death in the name of God. But it's not the same God. It's a figment of their imagination. Same concept in the world of Christianity. The world of Christianity. What do you see right now in the stores? You see them filling up the stores with all types of coffins and and and and all types of scary ghosts and scary things to celebrate their Halloween. Literally the day of death. They're celebrating death. Why? Because these are all the manipulations of people that have humanized God to their own manipulated mind for their own interest. Unfortunately, even in the world of Judaism, you have people that are heretics that steer away from the text that make up their own convoluted argument. And the goal of all of them is the same. In the church, it's simply to allow you to commit every sin under the sun. Murder, pilgrims, inquisitions, eight crusades that murdered millions of people, but still call yourself the religion of love. In the world of Islam, massacre everyone and anyone that disagrees with you in front of everybody without a care in the world in the name of the religion. Shah be a shahid. Be uh you know and if if even if they want to submit and and and and say listen we don't want to fight you they still have to write a donkey on the other side. You have to abuse them and insult them. And why? so you could fulfill your lusts of marrying 70 women in the next world. All of them are going to be sadly surprised that they were wrong and not just about the women, but they want to fulfill their lusts. In the world of Torah, there are all types of enemies that seep and get themselves in with a mask. A mask of a rabbi, a mask of a so-called scholar. But when you compare what they say to what our holy sages say, you see a world of difference. But for the average person that's not familiar with what the truth looks like, the heretics always sound good. They sound reasonable. They make God sound like a friend, a companion, someone that understands you and will accept you no matter what you do. If God had no rules, he wouldn't be God. There wouldn't be a reward and punishment system. There wouldn't be a point of rewarding anyone or punishing anyone or giving anyone anything more than somebody else. It makes no sense whatsoever. But yet the constant toil of the heretics is to take the belief in God and distorted by humanizing him by telling you that you can do something that's the opposite of what he says as long as you do something else to make up for it. And this is one of the things that the will teach us little by little addressing every single part that our heart needs to know that our heart doesn't even realize it doesn't knows. And you'll see that as we learn more and more of what says more question marks disappear, new ones appear, and then those disappear. Why? because he's he's answering questions we have and questions we didn't even realize we have. And little by little, a person starts having a much better comprehension of who they're serving, why they're serving him, and what's the best way to do it. When a person has complete faith in Hashem, they'll have an easy time putting their life on the line for him. And now I don't just mean die one time. I mean live with Hashem as their primary as number one, two, and three. their one of the great examples of it is a story about a that was also named Rafael Pisho. Rabi Pishoto was very very wealthy but he wasn't always. One thing that was constant about is that he did everything and anything he could to learn as much Tora as possible every day. Now, this wasn't exactly something that was easy. He was in Syria. It was very difficult to make a living, but every day he'd wake up, pray at nights. After praying, he'd study some some and some where it has little tidbits of different parts of the Torah every day for every day for a different day. And a lot of that especially ones that are focusing on one particular subject as their main learning uh during the day usually they like to learn because uh that gives them at least some uh review of everything else. And every day would study in the morning for a few hours get to after he finish get to work to his office at 10:00 wait for any customer to come. Customer comes there's any work to be done finish and go learn again. What was his work? He was a broker for jewels. People would come to him and they'd want him to sell these different jewels that they had, different stone, precious stones and he had different customers for it and he would get a broker's fee. Now, his wife wasn't really a big fan of him learning Torah so much because she wanted him to work more so he can make more money. Butto did not pay mind to her. He continued on his way, learned Tawra with complete dedication and he's even mentioned in some chuvot. Anyway, he was known as an expert and also somebody as very honest. And of course, anyone that's dedicated to the Torah by default has to be honest. One day after he's finishes learning gets to work 10:00 but he sees that somebody is waiting for him by the door. You see this person is looks like a respectable wellto-do. He says yeah can I help you? Says yeah let's go inside. They go inside. Says he was a Arab that came from uh from uh Gaza and uh he says listen I have uh heard about you of how you're honest and I came all the way here to Syria so you could uh tell me what you can sell my jewels for. It's okay. Sure. No problem. Let me see. The Arab takes off his turban. In those days, that's what they wore. Took off his turban and it was a hat inside a hat. He unwrapped it and then he starts taking out little jewels out of it. One, two, continues. Then when he gets to the last stone, this stone is something different. This stone is the size of an egg. Something unbelievable. He says, "I want you to sell this. How much can you get for this stone?" Says, "This one is very special. I could probably have a customer for it. Probably pay you $100,000 for it." In those days, $100,000 was worth a fortune, millions of dollars today. He says, "Okay, find me a customer. I'll sell it." Says, "Where are you staying?" He says, "I'm visiting here. So, I'm staying at the hotel down the street." So, if you find somebody come to the hotel, tell me. Says, "Okay." As soon as he left finished, he said, "I got the customer for the day." He left. He left the office where to go study Torah again. Go study for another couple hours. After studying a couple hours, he went back to the office again. On the way back, he passed by that hotel. That's the way the direction was. And he sees that in front of this hotel, this big commotion, people around screaming, "Yeah, that comes to the seas all these people are there." Says, "Shada, what's happening here?" And they said to him, "No, this uh we're waiting for the police to come, the government to come." says, "Why?" He says, "This guy, this visitor came here. He's been here for a week at this hotel and uh he just died. He got a heart attack and he died." But the hotel wants their money. So, we're waiting to see what the city's going to do. They're gonna probably sell us clothes so we can get the money to pay the uh pay the hotel. Histo says maybe it's him, maybe not. He stays quiet. Let me see what happens. The uh police come here. Everybody, yeah. Yes, we're going to sell his clothes. Whoever bids, we're going to take the money and pay the hotel. He sees this is the guy. And their nature was to literally sell the clothes right off of his back. No care or concern about human uh dignity or anything else. Starts off we sell the shoes. You had nice shoes. There you go. Shoes. One says five 10 12 13 14 15 18 Allah go. Sold 18. The guy gave him 18. That's it. Sold their shoes. Now they want to sell the gle that he had what he was wearing. How much? Two, four, 10, 12, 16. Yala go. Okay. Pay the 16. They cut. That's how they sold different parts. Then they got to the taboo. The little scarf that's covering the the hat between with a hat. But unlike the rest of his clothes that were fancy and nice, this was old. You know, people wore those things all the time. They were sweaty, oily. So, the bidding wasn't so much. Not everybody was interested in this thing. So, one guy said two, nobody bid. Nobody bid, nobody bid. Says, "Okay, 10." So, they saw this Jew bidding 10 on this. So they said, "You know what? Let's take him for a ride. He looks like he wants this thing. Maybe it's something religious for them. Let's make him pay for it." So So they started bidding it up. 11 should said 12, 13, 14. G, let him pay more. Let him pay more. No. 15. Eventually he paid 18 for it, which is much more than what you could buy brand new for. But he paid, they thought, the Arabs thought they're making fun of the Jew to make him pay so much for this thing. He took it, went to his office, you know, pray to Hashem, maybe the diamonds are still there, maybe not. Who knows? Open it one layer after another. Open, open. And then one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. All nine stones with the with the stones it's the size of a baby egg all there became extremely wealthy became a without ever slowing down on Torah without ever even thinking that slowing down on the Torah was even an option. Why? Because he knew who was the boss. He knew who is his master. He knew who brings He knew who brings panasai. He knew who is the one that gives him everything he has whether he works two hours or 20 hours. And that's why his righteousness only increased because his Torah only increased despite the money. And that is one of the things that you'll see as you learn more and more about Hashem in this series. The goal of it is to make you closer to Hashem, to make you more grateful to Hashem, to make you look forward to serving Hashem. Because when you do something over and over again without really knowing something new about it, something that's more significant than what you knew the day before that you could quickly become used to it, become accustomed to it, and the prayer turns into something robotic and the learning becomes something that's h not moving anymore. are you're just doing it because that's what you've been doing. The goal of the Torah is to constantly reshape us, to constantly improve us. And that's why wrote which is literally forcing us to inspect our own hearts in order to fill the missing pieces in order to reignite all of the darkness that could be found there. but also in order for us to have the tools to serve Hashem at the highest level which includes fighting against all falsehood, heresy, and anything that's the opposite of what the truth is. We have something that's available to us from nearly a thousand years ago that could really refix and reshape our lives for eternity. And that's we're going to learn together. Thank you very much for learning with me. Will continue learning, growing and spreading this Torah to every single part of this world. So at the very least, the light that brought to the world a thousand years ago that's been available will benefit more people so they can run away from the falsehood. they can get closer to the light that's Hashem and know that there's one and only God and there's one way to serve him which is with the truth. Thank you everyone. Anyone that wants to support, wants to sponsor one of these lectures, we'll have them every Sunday. You can go to the website bzadashem.org. And of course, if you want to order some books and different things for your community to to spread out, you go to the Kir store and uh get that because we ship them all over the place. We look forward to helping your community with it as well. We'll learn again soon. Heat. [Applause] Heat. When a person has knowledge of a sense, every