Should All Jews Be Orthodox? | TORAH FOUNDATION (16)

Sh my Lord. in my Oh, [singing] I see it. We >> [singing] [music] [singing] >> He makes [music] you >> [singing] >> We are back here on our Sunday night Torah foundation series and it's also tishvat. Tishva tonight, Tishvat tomorrow. There's also a special gula that if you didn't know, Robert Fry wrote it in his new book that there's a special mala special significance to reading the uh Shira malot. There's a uh 14 or 15 Shira malot in the psalms which are amazing teammade into songs. So there's a special playlist on the chuba music uh channel for all of the shalot. You can listen to all of them during tishvat. It's a special mala. You could also ask a for special blessings while listening to them or reading them if you'd like. Uh but uh certainly enjoy them. So with that being said, tonight's show is going to be for the less benadavid and also for to them and to all of those wonderful people that continue to support the organization and again a big yes to all of you that are doing the tikun with us because it's certainly helping helping you it's helping is and it's uh certainly helping us uh get the word out there that people need to do chuva and a reminder for everyone to take advantage of the uh car magnets that we have in the Kiru store. Get yourself one of these car magnets and turn your car, truck or whatever you have to put this magnet on into a mitzvah machine if uh not for just a uh you know for months at least for the next you know month or so while you still have the opportunity to help people do cha for this particular issue and of course there's many books on there and USBs and a lot of things that you can distribute in your community. So with that introduction being said, Tubishvat of course is a very very special day and for this special day we have a very special shield. We usually uh uh try to uh stick to the subject at hand and uh tonight we're going to continue doing that of course, but also we're going to mention something that uh I saw uh that was brought to my attention uh from a podcast by uh a couple of modern Orthodox rabbis that uh were discussing a uh the kiru kiru in the world today, especially in the American world today and uh why it's not working like it should be for the modern orthodox. Theoretically speaking, it should be the most effective in the modern orthodox world because they like they said themselves there's not much of a exterior change between someone that's secular to someone that's not an orthodox. So in a recent podcast by uh called 1840 the question of whether all Jews should be orthodox was asked in order to understand what's missing from the modern orthodox cube efforts that are not working like they should. If you pay attention to people that are doing cha you see that most people are coming from like what I do. They have you're seeing people going into theish world. you're seeing people going into a lot more places than the modern orthodox world when in fact logically speaking it should be the opposite. People should make you know more chuva with them and perhaps less with shim like mine. So that's the reason why they're asking the question. They didn't bring me up or anything but again that's logically the answer the question. Now although the was written nearly a thousand years ago, Hashem's never ending guidance shows us that words actually answer this question and much more. with the help of the clarifying light from the sages and of course what we learned from our dear Rabbi Frank Kaklon we'll see the missing ingredient jump out at us like never before. If you're politically correct, if you're confident in your ways to the point of arrogance or if you're simply selectively ignorant, this will sting a little bit. Perhaps you may want to uh hold your seats because there are some things that are clear truth that some people don't like to hear. But like I said, these are not my own words. When it is my own words, you'll know. The tells us that he evaluated many different reasons to try to figure out why this book about the obligations of the heart, inspecting your heart in your servitude of Hashem wasn't written by somebody before him. He looked into the written Torah and he saw that it's all over it. the obligation to do this. He looked into the oral Torah and found even more proofs. He thought about it whether it makes sense or not. And that was even more supportive proof of why this book should be written. Then he started thinking perhaps everyone is already righteous which is what we talked about in the previous year. And he said, "Well, we don't have to just look at our own current generation, which again is speaking at his time, needless to say, our time." He said, "We can look at what's happening in a Tanakh, and we see that not everybody is righteous." And in fact, while most people were fulfilling the words of the Torah physically, they're putting on, they're putting on, covering their head, all of the different things. They're praying You see clearly that the obligations of the heart were not being followed with the exception of the exceptional such as himself testifies of my beloved loved Hashem. Why he loved Hashem? Because he used his entire heart to serve Hashem. He inspected himself, inspected his actions in order to ensure that he's serving Hashem to the absolute maximum. And there are of course other exceptional people that are mentioned in the Tanakh, but if you look at the general public of the Jewish world, it wasn't the case. Many did not do the same thing. So we see from a Tanakh itself that this is a longstanding problem and not a new one. It's similar to the problem that we have today in our generation where the word rebuke has somehow become like a negative word in a Jewish world. Even though when you listen to let's say famous speakers that are supposed to be motivational inspirational speakers in the secular world whether it's the Tony Robbins and the likes you see them constantly rebuke their crowd and that's actually why people go there. If you go to the endless amount of business coaches, some of which have never actually had a business, but nonetheless, their expertise is not business, but rather rebuking people, their customers. They're paying customers of everything that they're doing wrong. How many times are you posting on the internet? Twice a day. Ah, it's not enough. How many times you posting once? Ah, it's not enough. How many times you posting 10 times? Ah, it's not enough. Where are you posting? What are you doing? How are you doing? How many customers do you have? How many employees do you have? And they constantly criticize whatever their customer is doing. It can never be right. And in fact, that's why the customer is coming to them. They want somebody to tell them what to do. So when you look at the secular world, whether it be business or any type of guidance, marriage guidance, parenting guidance, uh anything, the number one objective of the speaker is to tell people that whatever it is that they're doing is wrong and thereby they need to change it. and everyone runs to them specifically for that. But when you come to the world of Torah, somehow we're confused. Somehow when the word rebuke comes or even just simply the rebuke itself comes, you're always going to find those people that say, "No, no rebuke is needed in our generation. Everyone is okay in their own way. Everyone's fine. The Torah accepts everyone. Hashem accepts everyone as they are. But we know that this is not true. The Torah doesn't accept everyone as they are. That's why it has rules. Rules of why some people get reward and some people get punished. rules that were broken of why certain people got the death penalty and some people got rewarded and they got endless blessings. The Torah never changes. It's one of our 13 principles of faith. And the is trying to remind us of all of the obligations of the heart that we have and what's actually standing between us and the goal and in fact what's standing between us and all of Israel especially the ones that are here in America and the western world and becoming orthodox. Why is it that 1840 and many of the people out there that are teaching don't believe that is the holy Jewish people cannot become what designed them to become which is to follow the Torah which is in accordance to the orthodox Judaism. It's not accordance to reform. It's not accordance to uh conservative. It's certainly not according to modern because again all of the rules have not changed. If you've reformed them, modernized them or somehow made them politically correct, you have steered away from the path. Now again, these are not necessarily always breaking the rules, but nonetheless, the question is how come orthodoxy does not seem like a possibility in the eyes of those that are supposed to teach it where you have some people say, "No, we don't rebuke people. We don't tell them about them violating Shabbat as they they're ruining their eternal life. They won't have a share of the world to come. No, we we tell them things that make them feel better. But you do realize that the Torah doesn't do that. Quite the opposite. The Torah actually rebukes those people that do not rebuke. Many people don't realize that if you don't rebuke the sin comes upon you as we saw in the in Shabbat it's a whole segment about it where first in page 54b talks about the general understanding whoever has the ability to protest against the members of his household but does not protest is punished for the transgressions of the member of his household. Similarly, one who could protest against the people of his town but does not is punished for the transgressions of the people of his town. Further, one that has the ability to protest against the entire world but does not protest is punished for the transgression of the entire world. So here we see that there's a Torah obligation that the brings in the mitzvah. One of the 613 mitzvah is you must rebuke. There's also mitzvah of protesting against wicked people, against uh you know heretics and so on. These are two different mitzvot that are part of the 613 mitzvot. And the is in essence clarifying that the obligation is not just it's good if you do it but rather if you don't do it there's a consequence based on the stage that you have. If your only stage is the people of your own home, you see them that they're not following the Torah and you don't rebuke them, you'll get punished the same way they will because you had an opportunity to rebuke them for not being modest, for not keeping Shabbat and so on. On the other hand, if you have a stage like you have a synagogue, you have a pulpit, you have a uh some type of way to reach many people online then and you don't rebuke people, you don't tell them that what they're doing is wrong, you don't fight against the heresy that's out there, then guess what? Hashem gave you a stage and you're misusing it and therefore you'll be punished for all that you're not doing. And as a result of you not doing it, people continue to sin. And in fact, the bigger you are, the more responsibility is given to you. So much so that it says that if someone has the ability to protest against the entire world and he doesn't, Hashem gave you a stage where you have millions of people listening to you and you don't use that stage to protest against those that are violating the Torah to help people understand the same thing that the business coach is trying to help them understand. the same thing that the marriage coach is trying to help people understand that what they're doing is wrong and you don't do it, then you're punished for their transgressions. And some people would say, well, yeah, you know, it's not really that they're punished for their transgression. I mean, if the guy kept Shabbat his whole life and he didn't rebuke his uh his neighbor or his colleague for violating Shabbat even once, he's not going to be punished for violating Shabbat. they'll probably, you know, not get a higher gun eden or probably miss a reward or maybe I'll get a slap on the wrist or something. No, that's not what the says. In fact, gives examples says what is the meaning of that which is written in the by the prophet Isaiah 3:14 in the name of God that Hashem will enter into judgment with the elders of his people and its rulers. What does it mean? says, "If the rulers sinned still, what sin did the did the elders commit?" Meaning, okay, the rulers of the kingdom sinned. But what does that have to do with the elders? the elders, meaning the theim, the the rabbis rather say that the Torah, the U scripture is saying about the elders who did not protest against the sinful action of the leaders and were therefore brought to judgment by God. Meaning, you were the rabbis, you saw BB and and and the other uh the other uh people that are running the government going against the Torah and you didn't speak against it. Guess what? You have yourself a problem. Where did we see this in our history? says to Raishimon, "You should reprove these officials of the house of the Ael for their sins." Says to him, "Yeah, but they don't accept rebuke for me." says to him, even though they don't accept it, you should still reprove them. Because we learned from the son of the same one that told us what he told us earlier that a good decree that a kadosh brings to has decided to bring to the world is never taken back except once. What was the reason? There was no rebuke where initially told the angel before he destroyed the bet mikdash before he brought destruction to go and mark the foreheads of the people who sigh and moan over all the abominations. Mark their heads with a tough, the letter t. That way when the angel of destruction that I send comes down, oh no, these people don't touch them. WHY? THEY'RE UPSET that there's abominations, there's idol worship, there's immorality. They're righteous people, so they're not, you know, they should be marked, not to be punished. The Holy One blessed me. He said to Malakiel, "Mark them with a tav of ink on their forehead." That will be for the righteous people. And the wicked people should be a tub of blood. Meaning both should have the letter t and one should be ink, one should be blood. Obviously, this is all spiritual speaking. But the comes, the angel of destruction comes and says, "Master of the universe. What's the difference between these and these people?" Hashem says, "Wow, these are completely righteous people. They kept Shabbat. They kept family purity. They went to Besset. They put on to fill in. They learned Torah. The others they were they were worshiping idols says the argues back says those righteous people those people you call righteous also had the opportunity to protest the abominations that they saw the people do but they didn't protest. They didn't rebuke anybody. So they didn't fill the entire Hashem says to the Yeah, but I already know that even if they would have rebuked them, they wouldn't have listened. But the Malik gives the worst of the worst answers, which is the correct answer. you know, Hashem, that they wouldn't have listened, but they didn't know. They didn't know if anybody's going to listen or not. Therefore, they were still obligated. And at that point, says the took back that original good decree to save the righteous people from the destruction of the betach. and in fact says to the angels of destruction begin with my sanctuary meaning punish the righteous first. Now the tells us what is the significance of the letter t that was put why t out of everything t could mean you shall live to the righteous t can mean you'll die to the wicked because the last letter of hashem's signature is emit the last letter is tough. Furthermore, I thought why did he change the to live to also because of of that you shall rebuke, you shall protest. And in fact, the gives us the information we need in order to apply it to our life today because we are not at the time of the bet mikdash. Even though the sages say every day that the bet mdash is not built, it's as if it was destroyed again. page 55b says whoever says that the sons of who gad whoever says that his sons and pin sinned is mistaken how could this be to itself says that they sinned says no you don't understand what you don't understand is that Kafnei was sinning and Pinas saw it and did not rebuke him. And therefore, Pinas, the son of Eli, was charged with the same punishment as his brother, not because he made the sin, but rather because he didn't rebuke. And therefore, he is judged as if he himself sinned. The same sin. Furthermore, our sages tell us in the Torah inshim page 78, anyone that has a doubt in his hand of whether he should rebuke or not should know that if he doesn't rebuke, he will be charged for the same sin as the one he's supposed to rebuke as if he himself committed that sin. One of the examples we see is even in the book of kings alf in chapter 11 verse number six says that did evil in the eyes of hashem and not like the ways of his father his righteous father Davidid says that the brought a uh bad things to the What is it was the idol worship but we know that did not do that was completely righteous. So the Shabbat page 56 56B says when it says that Schlam did evil in the eyes of Hashem, it's not because he actually worshiped idols shalom, but rather because some of his wives worshiped idols and he did not rebuke them and therefore he was charged as if he did the same thing. That's why you That's why the Torah itself states he did evil in the eyes of Hashem. The Shabbat in chapter five number four says this is to teach you that if you do not rebuke you are charged with the same sin as if you did it. And it's like Isaac Yakov also says the same thing for those that are in a position of leadership such as a pulpit rabbi or rabbi or influencer mashpia who wants to kiss up to people. He wants to make everybody feel like they are righteous, that they're all good. I don't want to rebuke them that they're driving on Shabbat. I don't want to rebuke them that they're not modest. He says, this guy that's a kissing up due to his he doesn't rebuke them. He doesn't rebuke his fellow Jews. And what ends up happening, he will be prosecuted on THE EXACT SIN THAT they are committing as if he himself did it. And because of this was written in the Torah, you must rebuke your fellow and you should not come to a way of sin which heaven have mercy means that he says that if you don't rebuke them because you're too busy kissing up to them and don't tell them the truth about their sins, you will be punished for their sin as if you yourself did it. So now tells us that our problem of not doing chuva is not necessarily just because we're ignorant of what we need to do, but rather because sometimes we have leaders or people that have knowledge. Doesn't necessarily need to be a leader. It could be even your neighbor that knows more than you do. Simply choose not to tell you the truth because they assume that either you don't care or you won't listen anyway. What is it like? says our dear Rabbi Fry, what if there was a plague of some kind spread? Everyone knew there's a plague and you have to go from town to town to give people some type of vaccine, something. I know it's a sensitive topic. This has nothing to do with the whole corona situation we're talking about. You actually have a legitimate cure. You're not trying to kill people. You go from town to town and you get to one town and the guy says, "No, no, you don't need to come here. Why not? Everybody's okay." What do you mean? How do you know everybody's okay? No, I see. Everybody's okay. Everybody feels healthy. Now, if you have the responsibility of people's lives in your hands, are you just going to trust his word that everybody's okay? and just go to the next town, risking the fact that he may not be correct or he may be actually even lying and thereby everybody's going to die because of you or at least some of them. In the world of Torah, this is called these are the rulings that have to do with life and death. When it comes to life and death, we do not conclude a decision based on assumptions, based on I think he said it's right. I think he said it's wrong. No, there's no I think. You have to know with certainty. And says because I wanted to know with certainty, I CHECKED. I checked the written Torah and it says yes, I have to write this book because it hasn't been written. I checked the oral Torah and the oral Tawa also agrees. I thought to myself rationally, logically, it also agreed. But then I said maybe everybody already knows this. Everybody's doing this. But then I LOOKED NOT JUST AT my neighborhood. I looked throughout all of history that's written in our Torah. And again I came out with the same conclusion that whoever says we don't need it is wrong is absolutely wrong because we do. We do need to know this information because without it there are major consequences that people are not aware of. So much so that even the righteous people that lived at the time of the beta mikdash were ruled against because although they did the physical mitzvot there was one significant mitzvah that requires the heart that they didn't do and that mitzvah is caring about your fellow Jew to the point where you're willing to risk the relationship. You're willing to risk discomfort. You're willing to risk argument even for the sake of helping your fellow Jew and without having any benefit. That's a mitzvah of the heart. That's a mitzvah. If you love your fellow Jew, if you love, that mitzvah becomes your everyday business. If you don't, if there's a lacking in your love for your fellow Jew, and needless to say, if there's a lacking in your love for, then you can make up endless amount of arguments of why it's not your job to rebuke this guy. Maybe it's somebody else's job. Maybe somebody else will do it. And that's the mistake. But then says something further. Another problem that he had in his days which unfortunately we also have today. He says at some point there are those that are drawn to the Torah study. They want to learn. They want to learn how to serve Hashem. So they go, they press play on some YouTube video, they go to a shul, there's a lecture someone's given, but they see something that doesn't exactly inspire them to change. Why? Because the person that's speaking is only speaking in a way that would make people look at him as if he's a really knowledgeable person. He is a genius. He is a scholar. He knows so much more than I do. Wow. HE KNOWS SO MUCH. I DON'T EVEN UNDERSTAND WHAT HE'S TALKING about where he's only wants to be considered a scholar by the by the common people and to be thought of as a great man and therefore they veer off the path of a Torah that actually helps people and teach Torah that does not bring any excellence of character, does not help people fix their character traits, does not correct personal faults and rather it neglects the fundamentals of our religion and the foundations. In so many words, it's someone that is teaching subjects that are either not relevant to the people that he's teaching it to because they don't even know that they need to get their own. And you're talking about the different levels of hid of the mitzvah. They're not even sure that they really need a muza in every door and they shouldn't buy it on some AliExpress or some uh eBay. And you're talking about all of the different types of writing that could be put based on different. The subject is not what they need. Instead of teaching them that they have an obligation to have a good quality muza, that they have an obligation to observe Shabbat to its fullest and not once a year or for an hour a day or something like that or some other deformity that people try to pacify their conscience with. They teach them things that are beyond their spiritual pay grade. Why? What benefit do they get? Because the more sophisticated you speak to the common person, the more you seem to them like, "Wow, he's a genius. He must be a ga. He must be really righteous." Says it's quite the opposite. It's quite the opposite. In fact, one of the commentators on the the writes that this also stems from people that instead of [snorts] studying and teaching the basic fundamentals to improve people's character, They teach them all types of pilim meaning twisting the different arguments in all types of directions in such a fashion that it shows how clever the speaker is, how clever the writer is of how he can think in such unusual ways. But in reality, it doesn't help anybody. It only makes him look smart to those commoners. But none of them are going to end up keeping Shabbat or becoming modest or do anything as a result of it. He's going to start teaching them all types of cabalistic terms. Oh, you have the and you have the you have the mal and you have THE THIS. THE GIRL is walking around with no arms and no legs. What malut? What are you talking about? She thinks she's a cabalist. SHE DOESN'T EVEN KNOW THE basic laws of modesty. What are you talking about? But guess what? She is certain that her rabbi that taught her all these cabalistic terms is a genius and is righteous and is perfect in his ways. Even though she still walks around immodest, even though she's still not even sure how to keep Shabbat, needless to say, she's not even sure she's supposed to keep kosher inside the house and also outside of the house. Why says the toon they toil and toil in order to do pulim. In fact, he says this is only because they want to show people their wisdom, their intellect to give honor to themselves in in the first volume written by our dear Rabbi Fry years ago. The sixth volume was just published for anyone that wants to get the copies for their community for free. This is the first volume written nearly 20 years ago by Alif. He has a write up called the more you try to elevate the speech if you will to do pilpool to go sophisticated to show your mental gymnastics. You ended up straying away from the path. And he brings the words of the sages throughout history that talked about those that do that. As the Mala famously says, from all of this, it turned into bilbulb means confusion. And those that learn this way become ashame because they bring so many different opinions that the actual is far away from them. Furthermore, we see that other with its papo Epstein many of them warned people warned am not to fall into this trap of doing all this. In fact, pap writes in his pel in he says regards to the wisdom meaning learning to teaching to when you want to go into the depth make sure you're going to depth for the sake of Allah. Because if you're just trying to do mental gymnastics to show all the different possibilities that you think and maybe and could be and this be and not be those that are doing all this people, this is empowering the This is not coming from this coming this is coming from the in fact oft says this that if you're going to do it has to have one purpose to get to the truth [snorts] that is actually relevant. Not to show how your khalif how you are very sharp in your thinking. Because if somebody will only understand what you're writing because of the people then he doesn't understand. If he understands the basics allowed, not allowed, yes, no, then he can understand then. But if you need to take him on all this journey of all of the different possibilities to show how you're such a clever person, when you're talking about things that are not relevant to the bottom line, neither you or he actually understand what is really the point. And there's other things that he wrote in here just giving you a small tidbit. Many of spoke about it. In fact, the sephelish also comments on this and says this is the reason why the original pressed the need to learn books of Musar and Shamim, especially to those who learn Torah regularly because this learning of Musim will help them learn to for the sake of heaven. And without it, they cannot learn to because all of the bad character traits stem from the lack of learning Mal. And the greater the scholar, meaning the more he learns Torah, the greater is, as we see in the more Torah learning a person does, the more they're required to learn Mus to accompany it. And that's why the page 72b says, "Woe to those who learn but don't have the says about this. It's too bad for those who don't have a courtyard yet they make themselves a fancy gate for that courtyard. And Rashi says the courtyard is m isim the gate is the Torah. If you're just building the gate but you don't have what's the point? What is the point of this learning? What is the point of this teaching if you're not getting people to change their behavior to become closer to Hashem by actually fulfilling the will of Hashem, fulfilling the mitzvot? Then what's the point of them knowing all of this, all of the all of the different things that you're teaching them if they're not actually coming to action? also says what is the is referring to when he says that they are steering [snorts] away from the foundations of the Torah. They're steering away from teaching people about real and hem that there's only one God and no partners and less materialism disconnecting from the material and on this vital wrote in Shahak Dam in page 18 says even though there are those who toil in Torah there are those that their intentions are not where they're supposed to be but rather for self-interest and in our days because of our many sins they've turned the Torah into an axe where their toiling in Torah is in order to get some type of reward of recognition of honor and not to help people do chuva. And their actions are similar to those of the generation of the Palaga, the tower of Babel, where they want to build themselves a tower in order to make themselves a name, says the we have the Jewish people who put special neshot in each and every single one of them. If you're asking whether all Jewish people can become orthodox Jews, you do not understand the significance of a Jewish nama in your mouth, in your heart to do it. Meaning this is what you were created for. No matter where you started, you could start in a reformed household. You can start in a uh a agnostic household in a a idol worship household in secular house. DOESN'T MAKE A DIFFERENCE. Every Jewish nishama can actually become a fully completely orthodox Jew if they simply are given the tools. But if you are more worried about what's in their pocket than you are what's in their mind and what's in their heart, if you're more worried about people's opinions than you are about saving Jewish souls from gay, then of course you're not going to teach people the right way. So when you ask the question on this podcast, which again I don't have anything against it's an interesting conversation, but it's a very important subject that I don't believe they got the answer to. If you're asking the question of why is the modern Orthodox world failing if you will in Kiru because theoretically speaking it actually should be the most successful. They've modernized certain things, whether it be modesty or other things that the jump from completely secular to modern orthodox is not a very far leap. It's not a leap at all in many cases. In fact, if you go to some of the biggest modern Orthodox Jews, you'll see that many people still drive on Shabbat even though they've been coming to that synagogue for 20 years. The first Tom that I had over 10 years ago was living in the Boca Raton community with Ephraim Goldberg over there as their leader and driving to shul every single Shabbat for 21 years. Never learning that you're not allowed to drive on Shabbat in 20 years. The first time he ever heard it was for me in the first year that I gave him. and hashem he started keeping Shabbat a week later. Meaning that this guy has been going to sh praying for 20 years but never once did anybody tell him that driving on Shabbat is forbidden. He was an innocent naive soul and of course he had the obligation to learn on his own but he didn't. He relied on the leaders and the leaders failed him and countless other people. So to jump from Shabbat to keeping Shabbat seems like a far far move, but it wasn't. All he needed was somebody to tell him it's an obligation and not a suggestion. Somebody to tell him that if he doesn't there's a consequence. So theoretically speaking, from somebody to go from secular to fully religious, observing Shabbat, observing the mitzvot seems like a far jump. So the modern Orthodox says, "No, it's if we're modern and we look more like them, then it doesn't it's not really a far jump." Then you have to explain what the 1840 podcast was trying to figure out, which is how come we're still failing? How come most of the people that do chuva are coming from either strong speakers that are telling them fear, are telling them consequences, or they're coming to communities that are fully religious. They're going to they're going to This guy went from being a secular atheist to complete even though he has NO CONNECTION WHATSOEVER TO but he has now become a full-fledged. How come? How do he go from there? How come he didn't stop by the modern Orthodox on the way? That's the question. My personal answer is from what we've learned here and from my experience is that our sages teach us words that come from the heart get to the heart. If you yourself [snorts] do not have your full heart in your au in your servitude of Hashem and you're looking for different things to permit yourself even though the Torah says otherwise. You're looking for permissions to watch movies even though our sages have said absolutely not. You're looking for reasons of why modesty doesn't need to be what the Torah says. You're looking for permission to do things that the Torah says otherwise. The say otherwise. You're more interested in the community affairs of bringing everyone together without actually bringing everyone together. meaning bringing everyone together physically. So, we're all going to dance around the same fire. We're all going to dance inside the synagogue. We're all going to the lavish meals. We're all going to be together and we're all going TO SAY I'M IS TOGETHER AND SING ALONG. But when it comes to are we going to be together with mitzvot? Are we going to be together in Hashem going to put us both in heaven? Not so much. So when you in your heart are missing then of course whoever is listening to you is also going to be missing. If you're not 100% with the mindset of me, whoever is for God, come with me. And you're not 100% convinced that you want to serve HASHEM TO THE ABSOLUTE maximum that you can and you will try harder and harder every time you fail because you will fail on the way to success. But if you have already accepted failure as permissible, if you've already accepted ignoring certain mitzvot as if they're not relevant to you or to this generation anymore, then your heart is not really fully there. So when you're speaking to somebody where their heart is not really fully in a secular world anymore, they want to change. So but they want to change into something that is certain, something that's confident, something that is absolute. When they look at you, they say, "Well, listen. Yeah, he has a keepa and he goes to shul, but more or less he does the same things I do. More or less he looks the same way I do. More or less. There's not much of a difference between us. He looks uncertain and I am uncertain. He's uncertain whether Hashem actually looks at every single thing that we do. Just like the PW research came out with 10 years ago on a research they did on a modern Orthodox community where they said that nearly 50% of the people in that study do not believe in us do not believe in divine providence which is heresy by the way not to believe it. You don't believe that Hashem is watching every single thing. If you're not so sure in your beliefs, why should I go to you? The secular guy looks at them and says, "I'm more sure in my secularism than you are about your religiosity." But when they look at those fanatics that are screaming their lungs out, telling you that Hashem doesn't just love you, he obligates you. He obligates you to love him back. He obligates you to fear him. He obligates you to follow him. And there's a consequence. A consequence that could be good if you do. A consequence that is awful, horrible, disastrous if you don't. And that [snorts] fanaticism that is coming from the words of the Torah is for the first time showing this secular person certainty, showing them something that's coming from the heart. Yes, I'm far from perfect, but I keep trying. I can tell you what the map looks like, which direction to go and what I'm trying to do to go in that straight path. When that secular-minded person hears that, he says, "You know what? He knows where he's going. At least where he's trying TO GO. HE'S NOT TRYING TO MAKE ANY SHORTCUTS. HE'S NOT TRYING TO SKIP A STEP. He's simply doing what God said at Mount Si. He's relying on the shoulders of the greatest rabbis in history. I'm more confident in that. I can connect to that. Why? Because although this guy that also says he's religious from the modern Orthodox place from the modern place claims he's religious too claims she's religious too when I asked them about does God punish they weren't sure. When I asked them why did God bring the Holocaust? They weren't sure. They said, "We we don't know anything. There were more uncertainties in their words than there is even in the secular world." Why? Because at least in the secular world, even when you don't know, you just invent stuff because you don't want to look stupid. But with this fanatic guy, with theseim, with thisim, WITH THIS ORTHODOX PEOPLE, they don't skip a beat. Every question has an answer. Even though I don't like the answers. I DON'T LIKE THE FACT THAT GOD PUNISHED US, THEREFORE THE Holocaust came. But that's what he said he will do if we violate the Torah. I don't like the fact that there's a heaven and a hell. I don't like this whole gay part. But at least that's an answer of what happens to bad people. At least I know that I'm not going to be in the same place as Hitler. At least I know I'm not going to BE IN THE SAME place as the rapist and the pedophiles just because they happen to be Jewish. At least I know that if I do good and I'm not a complete disaster, I'm not going to end up in the same place as some degenerate thief murderer. To tell me that everybody goes to heaven doesn't make sense. It doesn't agree with the heart. How could it be that JUST BECAUSE HIS MOTHER WAS JEWISH, THEREFORE HE GOES TO HEAVEN? That makes no sense. But yet a non-Jew THAT IS COMPLETELY RIGHTEOUS, HE'S GOING TO NOTHING. THAT doesn't make any sense. And if you're GOING TO SAY EVERYONE GOES to heaven, then why are we keeping mitzvot? Why isn't terrorism allowed? You see, the more YOU TRY TO RATIONALIZE the Torah, the more you destroy it because you're subjecting it to man-made thoughts, man-made mentality. And a person that is absent of Torah, completely ignorant of it. He's like a clean empty vessel. He's already heard enough lies in his life. He's looking for truth. You lie to them or you tell him what you think is truth, but his nishama is still Jewish. He'll recognize it. Doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense that everybody goes to heaven. It doesn't make sense that everyone is considered righteous just because they didn't learn. It doesn't make sense that there's only reward and no punishment. It doesn't make sense that punishment is temporary for everybody. So whether he stole from one person or a thousand people, it's the same punishment. Or whether he killed one or he killed a thousand, it's the same punishment. Or if HE'S REALLY BAD, HE JUST DISAPPEARS. THAT'S NOT A PUNISHMENT. The Ramban, right? 700 years ago to say that the wicked people just simply GET DESTROYED AND THAT'S IT. THAT'S NOT A PUNISHMENT. That would be to their benefit. Great. They could do all the crimes in the world and then just disappear, GET DESTROYED, NOTHING. DON'T SUFFER. THAT'S NOT A PUNISHMENT. These things don't make sense. And therefore, they don't enter the heart. The only people that follow those are people that are not using their heart, but rather they're using their desires, their so-called common sense. They're using their rationalizations. And that's why most people that are returning to Hashem are not returning in that direction. They want more. They want more. They want more of Hashem. So if somebody wants to really do ku really help people, they have to evaluate themselves. The is telling us if you're looking to look wise, to look scholarly, to look like you are some great man or woman in front of people, you won't succeed. You may succeed in getting followers and getting likes and getting subscribers, but not in changing people's lives in a positive way. Because that type of teachings is not going to change people since you yourself have not changed when there's no heart. There's no real results and gives us a little bit of an example of some of the things that a person can understand. when learning and teaching says belief in the unity of God is an example. Is this something that we're obligated to investigate intellectually or is it enough to know by way of tradition and declare it as the naive people do without argument or proof that our God is one? Must we investigate the meaning of the absolute one and the relative one in order to differentiate between this meaning and that of other ex existing unities in so many words says something that you would think is simple to for people to teach is not being taught the unity of God. What is the unity of God? We've discussed it in previous and we'll discuss it further later on in the series. But when you say there's nothing else but God that means that it's not is one God like the number that you think one because the number that you think one is a he calls it a relative one a where it could go and become one can turn into two one can turn into zero one can turn into half. It's changeable. It's one relative to something else. Says that's not God. God is the absolute one where it doesn't change. There can never be no God, less God, or more God. There's only one Hashem. And therefore a person has to realize that he cannot have parts because if you have parts you yourself are not one. God is not one if he has parts. If he's made up of parts he cannot have any physicality. This is the the the basis of the flaw of the argument of the New Testament where they think that God made himself into a human. This is antithetical to the one God because it's not one relative to two or three or four or five or zero. It's an absolute one and certainly it's a deep subject. It's earlier part of our series which again we will cover even further later on but I highly recommend you watch the earlier ones. But he says this particular argument of knowing this is it good to know or an obligation to know. And says it is forbidden for a believer in God to remain in ignorance of these matters. For the Torah has cautioned us in this regard, saying in the book of Deuteronomy 4:39, understand it today and reflect on it in your heart. Hashem is the God in the heavens above and on earth below. And in fact the Rambamus just like the meaning this is not just good Musar this is in chapter one of the Rambam says the foundation of all foundations and the pillar of wisdom is to know that there is a primary being who brought all existence into being. All the entities in the heavens, the earth and what is between them came into existence only from the truth of his being. And he goes further and we've discussed it before that he doesn't require anyone. It's not possible for him not to exist and so on and so forth. But here the is telling us not only that you should know this but rather that it's an obligation and the Rambamaskins it's an obligation for you to know that God is one to know that there's a God not to believe in God that's not enough you can't just have blind faith it's not enough and the same is true says the of the other duties of the heart which have been mentioned and will be mentioned. The believer's faith is not complete unless he knows of them and practices them. This is the inner wisdom which is the light of the heart and the radiance of the soul. It is this that the verse refers to in Psalm 51:8. Surely you desire truth in the inward parts. Teach me wisdom in my innermost being. David in essence is crying toad constantly to get closer and closer to him. The more righteous the people were, the more they feared Hashem, the more they cried to get closer to him, the more they feared punishment, the more they yearned for the truth. The wicked exact opposite of that. The more wicked, the less fear of God. The more wicked, the less concern about closeness to God. The more wicked, the more they disagree with God. As if they even have a say in the argument. When a person wants to make a change in their life in order to get to the truth, they're not looking for something that is simply going to make them feel good temporarily. They're looking for a ticket to eternal good. And that eternal good begins here. Good in this world. Good in this world doesn't mean you don't have problems. Everybody has problems. Everybody has difficulties. Good in this world knowing is knowing that someone is watching over you and everything that's happening is for the ultimate good even though you don't understand it. Now, when somebody asks you, "Where was God during October 7th?" or they ask you, "Where was God during the Holocaust?" As we've said many times over the years, the answer is according to the Torah, not only he was there, he did it. That's the answer. Now, of course, to someone that has not learned the truth of the Torah, this sounds awful. What do you mean? You mean that he was there? And not only he was there, but he actually allowed 6 million Jews to be murdered. In fact, he allowed many more than 6 million Jews to be murdered over the years. The first beta mdash, the second beta mdash, the Spanish Inquisitions, the endless pilgrims. The Holocaust wasn't the first holocaust. October 7th wasn't the first disaster and signed off on all of them just like we saw in Shabbat. So if your question is where was God the answer is simple. You should ask a further question. Why? The answer is Torah says if you follow what Hashem says, you'll have blessings. You have two and a half parachut that only TALK ABOUT REBUKE. EVERY talks about rebuke in some way or another, punishment some way or another, but there's two that simply that's the three that are simply that's all it talks about and half of where you see literally it's like curses, punishments, horrible, horrible things happen to when they do not follow the Torah and amazing things happen if they do follow the Torah. So if you look at what he says don't do and the consequence for violating, you'll see the Holocaust literally. You'll see the programs literally you'll see the Inquisition literally. Not that it justifies the evil people that killed. It doesn't justify them at all. They'll get punished for it too, just like the Egyptians got punished. But after all, God told Abraham that his children will be subject to horrible things in Egypt. And that's what happened. But how come Abraham did not debate, OH THAT'S NOT FAIR. WHERE WAS GOD DURING uh how come how come God didn't how come didn't ask these questions? How come David didn't ask these questions? Because they knew the third part. And the third part, if you are one of these politically correct or more righteous than thou, you're not going to get it. But if you actually want to learn something deep, certainly going to rub you the wrong way initially, but it's 100% emit This is what it is. Six million Jews got murdered. Cold blood, horrible, awful disaster, endless suffering. We all know that. What did they lose according to the Torah? Yes, I just asked that. What did they lose? What did they lose? Are you going to sell? What do you mean? They lost their life. Is that really a loss? Is that really a loss according to the Torah? Because everyone knows there were some righteous people and there were some people that were atheist and intermarried people. weren't exactly righteous according to the Torah that died during the Holocaust. Both righteous and wicked died during this evil decree. But at the end of the day, what did they lose? The answer is they did not lose. Why? We certainly lost. We certainly lost the ability to connect with those people. the ability to learn from them, the ability to to to to have them in our life. But they those people that died just simply because they were Jewish, died simply because the there's Hitlers in every generation didn't lose. Do you know why they didn't lose? Because if they were righteous in accordance to the Torah, Akados did them the greatest favor in the world. Favor so big, a kindness so big that Rabio prayed for it every day of his life. [snorts] They died on kadushem. They died because they were Jewish. They died defending their Judaism. Which means that Hashem ended their time in this miserable world and took them to Ganondin. Why would that be a loss to them? Of course, their descendants, to their family members, certainly a loss. But to the person that died that got murdered, the righteous person is a kadosh. SHE GOES TO GANEDIN. WHO WANTS TO LIVE IN THIS WORLD? WHAT? EVERY DAY YOU HAVE TO WAKE UP WITH MORE PAIN, with more agony, with more bills, with more annoying situations. Who wants TO LIVE IN THIS WORLD? YOU'RE TELLING ME THAT IF A WHO CAME TO YOU RIGHT NOW AND TOLD YOU, DO YOU WANT TO DIE AND GO TO HEAVEN or do you want to stay in this world? Is any one of you insane enough to say, "No, I want to stay in this world." If you want to stay in this world, then you have no idea what ganed is. which means that those that are righteous that died went to heaven. Hashem simply ended their journey in this world and they got the ultimate reward that they've always wanted. Now you're going to ask again if you're clever. Well, not everybody was righteous. Some people were intermarried with non-Jews. Some people were atheists. Some people were uh you know uh not religious at all. Yes. And even to them he did a great kindness because although you can't say that they all have a first class ticket to heaven, you have to do mitzvot in order to go to heaven. You can't enter heaven just because you suffered. You have to do mitzvot. But when you have the merit of having a death due to the fact that you're Jewish, when you have such a major disaster happen and your life end in such a way, it's a huge that takes you off of the horrible path that you're on that's against Hashem and puts you on the right path and gives you the opportunity to go to heaven when it did not exist beforehand. Whether that opportunity is after some cleaning process be before heaven or it's a reincarnation or whatever the accounting that Hashem does but nonetheless those that were idol worshippers intermarried horrible path against Hashem didn't lose either because if they continued living in this world they would have made more sins and eliminated any chance of them ever going to heaven. Any chance of them ever getting a reward, any chance of ever having an eternal good did them the kindness and he stopped them in their evil path and got them back on a path that gives them a chance for good. So you see when a person understands that reward and punishment are only good. The good is the punishment. The good is the reward. Everything is good. Why? Because it's justice. Because it's true. Because the only way to truly connect to Bahu is if you simply investigate the inner truth in your heart and realize that this is the only truth that can exist. Everything else has question marks on it. Whether it's the other false religions that are constantly trying to reargue the same lies recycled from generation to generation or the people that try to modernize the truth and recycle it into the same religion but with a different tagline. The same truth we got at Mount Si is the same truth that we have today. But the only way to help people get to that truth is if you're doing your best living it. If you have your life, your heart completely enched into it and doing everything you possibly can to connect to the truth. Then guess what? Other people will want to do the same thing because they're looking for direction. They're not looking to lead when they don't even know the direction. They're looking for someone who knows the directions. They're looking for someone who knows how to get to the right destination. So, if you veer it off right, left, and everywhere in between, it's going to be impossible for anybody to really follow you over the long run. Why? because seems like you don't even know where you're going yourself. But if you know that this is the road, as hard as it may be or as hard as it looks to be, it's the only road that leads to the destination that a kadosh gave us that he wants us to get to, but it's in our hands to get to. The truth is only one. There's no multiple truths. There's just one truth. There's one Torah. There's one emit. But in order to help people, in order to help ourselves, the says you have to inspect your heart over and over and over again in order to make sure that you're still on the right path. in order to make sure that you are on a path that's the will of Hashem and not the will of your desires, the will of your honor, the will of your respect, but rather the will of Hashem. The more we do that, the more we know that we're going to go in that one direction that wanted us to go to and will succeed. If we try hard enough, we'll succeed because created us for this. But if a person is confused. If a person is convinced to change directions, to change rules, to change the tradition, then it's a person that's trying to start something different than the truth. And for sure you could know that that's already false by definition. The is telling us the ultimate piece of knowledge for anyone that wants to help people do chuva, anyone that wants to do kiru. Ask yourself, why? Why do you want to help somebody do chuva? Is it because you're looking for a friend? Is it because you're looking for somebody to be a cheerleader? Is it because you're looking for someone to give you high five and say you're the best and give you honor to call you a sadik or is it because you want to help them because you know the destination and the journey are the best it could possibly be. If you're looking for the first, you're looking for honor, you're looking for money, you're looking for all of the other personal benefits, do yourself and them a favor. Don't help anybody. Help yourself. Get yourself out of the hole that you're in. But if you are looking to help somebody do chuva because you know the truth and you know that the one path is the same path that we've always had, then go for it. people will follow and they'll thank you in the end. And even if they don't, you'll be happy for doing it because you're doing the will of Hashem. And that's as great as can be. That's already more than enough. Thank you very much for learning with me. Hashem bless each and every single one of us to succeed in doing kiru in helping am each and every single one of them become orthodox orthodox Jews according to the Torah without exception and simply try our best to do our best and if we fail the only obligation we have is to do chuva and try Again, Hashem is not expecting us to be perfect. He's expecting us to try and if we try hard enough, he will help us to succeed. Anyone that wants to support all of the Kiru that our organization is doing can donate on our website bhour.org or bzadashem.org. You can also donate via YouTube and Facebook and all the other different social medias. But of course, ultimately the most important donation is your time that you are watching these lectures and you're sharing them with as many people as you possibly can so they could learn and benefit the same way you did. Anything more is obviously very much appreciated. Call to and enjoy your >> I'd like to introduce you to your new best friend. We did it. AI Rabbi is here. It's an AI model that is based on kosher Torah sources. 30 different languages that are available to you. So if you want to ask him in [music] Spanish, in Chinese, Portuguese, whatever you want to do, it's available for you. Can you tell me about the via? So it's [music] timestamped to the shield. You press this green button. Hey, Rabbi on your WhatsApp. You'll have the ability to ask questions at will. You'll be providing sources and most importantly, you'll be able to know the truth and be able to rely on sources.