Talking Business with Rabbi Yaron Reuven in Montreal

[Music] thank you for having me it's wonderful to be here it's uh you know it's I see the snow outside I just remember it scares me because it reminds me of New York I can tell you there's a little bit of a difference when we saw snow like this in New York we stayed home everything shuts down everything shuts down everything shuts down you stay home you guys you're operating like it's sunny outside uh so um oh told maybe you want to talk a little bit about business you know different places in the Tor I'm going to say a couple of words but really I really want it to be mostly your questions more more questions interesting things that you have to say we'll try to find some place to uh to uh see what we can find in the see how the can help us business very has a very very big place in theah you know the say if you want to you want to be a you want to be aad you have to go learn go learn business rules why go learn business rules why why you shouldn't you learn something else why is business rules the D of business why is that make you a sadik because you go to be you ever notice everybody looks the same everybody look like they just came out of Mount saob everybody's there it's very easy to pretend you're aik in the because everybody looks the same you have you have everybody looks the same when are you really the real you in business there's no pretending in business you can't pretend to be a sadik why because if if you pretend to be if you uh you know if you pretend to be a sadik in business that means you really are a sadik but in reality uh Unfortunately today there's a lot of people that wear the hat we have the beard Have All Uniform but uh they operate sometimes like Bernie Mayo uh person that gave a lot OFA money that everyone thought he was a really big tadik for many many years until they eventually found out that was stolen money that he was giving so T has a lot to say about business somebody asked me a question today he said uh I don't understand do you really think that this report that came out of Fox News yesterday that uh scientists have come up with a I guess they call it the confirmation for us it's just uh means not very much but nonetheless a confirmation of the Torah which is that all human beings originally came from two people scientist just came out yesterday it was reported on Fox News scientists reported that they confirmed that all human beings came from two people what's the news what's the we know what's what's the but for the rest of the world that's not exactly learning T and doesn't believe and has different questions for them it's the biggest K in the world like oh now I'm going to be religious so one guy asked me a question he said wait a minute but does it really does it really make sense that the whole tah is real that it's not some type of parable or some type of story that's trying to teach us some like he has a difficulty believing in parts of the toah like Noah yes there is a problem believing in how all the animals fit in one you know boat the size of a football field because even though it's very big still you can't fit all the animals there better yet he had a bigger question he said wait a minute how is there that let's say all of the animals went miraculously obviously it's a miracle into the T they went to the T and eventually they landed on Mount Alat which is in Turkey still to this day you could see it now somebody actually found it almost 20 years ago already but uh it's not exactly the easiest tourist site in the world because number one they don't actually like people and number two it's in the top of a mountain but anyway there's pictures there's video videos of of of the that has actually been found but still there's a question what's the question if everybody landed on this one place how did the kangaroo end up in Australia how did the kangaroo end up in different places that you can't get there from the ship like from that area it can't swim the kangaroos don't swim so maybe the the scientists are right with Evolution this is seems like a very very difficult question but in fact the only answer that is 100% legitimate and very very easy to explain can only be understood by business people it cannot be understood by people that are don't know business the reason why is because we have something called Commerce if you have a product let's say you have a phone today everybody sells phones you have a phone it's a new phone it's the greatest phone if you only if it's the best phone the cheapest phone the best phone all the best things but if you only going to sell it to your neighborhood it's a waste of time why what are you going to make the most money you're going to make is from your neighborhood few dollars you want to make real money you have to send it to a different country how do you do it you put it on a ship they send it there today they also use planes but for the for the most ships have been used Commerce has been used for many many years today it's phones many years ago used to be kangaroos used to be horses used to be uh silk used to be spices and so on and so forth so somebody decided to sell an Arabian horse from Saudi Arabia and arriv in America it arrived in Brazil it arrived in different places that's it it's a very simple explanation people make such a big deal how did the kangaroo arrive in Australia not a big deal somebody wanted to to sell a kangaroo because they knew that a different country didn't have it and they want to pay more money for it if you're going to give a guy that has a million horses another horse he doesn't care what are you going to give him you going have a kangaroo because he doesn't have a kangaroo he thinks it's an alien she's willing to give you whatever you want so business has a very very big and important place in the Tora there a m that we're about to publish in our newsletter from that was never been published soon and I read it last night was the first time I actually saw it and he says a story it's it's a relatively well-known story but uh the way he puts it makes it explain these stories he says that even the even theik need to know business but not just business per se as far as the rules and regul but also the Torah the Torah perspective of business the when he was young he uh got just got married and he got a little bit of money and he uh came to his rabi came to the T came to the B he told him I'm thinking about investing this money that I got from my parents-in-law with this uh very well-known businessman what do you think he says I think that uh you should instead give it to let us do with it let us do good things with it to help people that need it but whenever you need it come to me and I'll give it back to you like helping people do CH helping people get close to T let us use it for CU you don't need it right now it's a lot of money you don't need it right now take whatever you need whatever you don't need give it to me like I'm the bank I'm going to do you know use it for toah but eventually day you need it come I'll give it back to you so the Young The Young sadik was not comfortable it's really my money I really want to make more money and I don't know so he didn't answer he didn't give him an answer and he left the meeting and he decided to go invested with the businessman despite the fact that his Rabbi B big big one of the biggest rabbis in history this is what kabad is based on today told him that uh he should do something else and as you would have it sometime past the businessman that he invested with went bankrupt lost all the money had nothing to show for it all the Investments went to zero and the sadik comes back to the bat to his Rabbi and he says um tail between his legs what could I do what should I do I lost everything he says listen I'm sorry that you lost everything but I'm even more sorry that you don't have losing money that means it's from hem is from you it's up to you to have meaning you have to have some faith in the rabbis in the ways of the Torah if tells you it gives you advice don't worry about whether it makes sense or not because hasm gave him those words specifically for you I told you do invest that money in Tora because I knew there's always a possibility for there's always a possibility for him to lose the money you didn't take it you didn't take it that way you took it a different way and unfortunately we had a very expensive lesson meaning that for us today it's not just uh as easy as the go where they just decide to invest in something and hope for the best they just deci to decide to uh start a business and hope for the best is not supposed to operate that way is always supposed to consult with a what do you think even though he's not a partner in a business even especially if he's not a partner of the business because you don't want him to have a bias you know you want him to be unbiased because if he is then uh is uh even even he can be steered the wrong way you have to go to someone that's has no share No stake whatsoever in the business and ask him what do you think of this deal Bigg or small and you will see that some of the biggest business deals in the world always have some type of behind it it's very very important why because first and foremost the have a different perspective that the typical business person simply cannot see why they're stuck in Tor they're they're looking at things that from the perspective of hem all day business people are looking from the perspective of business people all day so that means you can sh violates it's it's you can't compare the two you need a different perspective the second thing is when someone truly has a the Tora and therefore has in some type of that that they chose to get some guidance from then that means that AEM is going to give that specific message specifically for you catered for you well even though sometimes a person could would never even imagine that this Rabbi should know anything about business you'd be very surprised even the go sometimes rely on rabbis there's a very well-known story that happened almost I guess maybe 15 years ago or so that there was a famous basketball player LeBron James that he was considering moving teams I think he was in Cleveland and he was considering going somewhere else Miami Miami now this was a big decision for him because there you know one team was willing to give him Earth the other one was willing to give him Mars so it wasn't really about money it was about money but it wasn't about money so he didn't know what to do and the go don't have anything so what did he do he went to Rabbi Pinto Rab in New York and he asked him for advice and he gave the advice and he took it and he went to the other team meaning a even a could appreciate what does it mean so if a could appreciate it us needless to say for us we should do it so it's very very important to know that before you make any deal especially the bigger deals not you know if it's $100 you know you should be to manage yourself but for things that are meaningful that are significant to buy a company to sell a company to to uh expand the company to do things that are you know significant for you to buy a house even sell a house move things like that always consult with a someone that is focused on Tora simply because they'll give you a different perspective and they'll also give you because this is one of the things that we need we need in business in order for us to have when I was in a business world in the beginning I made nothing but along the way started being successful I got to a point where I was making over $3,000 an hour so after a while you you realize that you're pretty good at this business but uh you're not that good how are you making so much money there's a lot of people that uh work in the stock market there's a lot of people that work in Investments a lot of people work in a lot of businesses but not everybody makes money there's also a lot of people that make money but not everybody has so these are things that a Jew has to take into consideration and to realize yes there's money to be made but there's a kosher way to make it there's a non- koser way to make it there's a right way there's a wrong way are you willing to make a lot of money right now but risk your eternity if you are then it's a person is a fool for doing such a thing you have to realize that yes hasem wants you to succeed but he wants you to succeed in a Kosher Way so even though some times the ETS is going to send you millions and millions of dollars on a table always remember this is a test after I made about after I made my first million dollars in 2003 I uh decided that it's time for me to leave the company and to start either work for another company or to uh or to work for myself now when you're successful people want to hire you so big companies like Smith Barney maril ly Goldman Sachs all these different companies that are famous in the investment business were giving me offers but then one day my friend from the office told me listen maybe you should talk to my other friend he has a small firm but uh he pays well I said no problem have him call me so the guy calls me and uh we start chitchatting he's like listen what kind of business do you have how much money you managing and so on and so forth he's like listen I can get give you an offer on the table right now I said what kind of offer he said I'll give you $3.6 million cash like literally cash like actual money cash just to sign the deal another $3.6 million as soon as you transfer your clients over $7.2 million for a 23 year old kid is pretty good no I said okay what's the conditions what's what's the deal okay it's nice money I like the money but what what does it come with what what's the catch goes no no no catch just that you have to follow our strategy I said okay what kind of strategy is this he says you have to invest in only firm recommended stocks only if the firm recommends these stocks are you allowed to invest in them I said okay this is not exactly the ideal situation because I like doing my own research but tell me give me uh an example of what kind of stocks you recommend and he starts giving me recommendations and I see sh and gorra this is a Ponzi scheme this is another scam this is another scam like the average person wouldn't know it's a scam but if you're in a business you realize the whole thing is a scam every single penny of of that you're investing into it is going to their pocket and they're never going to see it again a big scan unfortunately it still exists to this day not that the same magnitude but it still exists to this day I say no thank you goodbye goes what do you mean I'll give you money I said you give me money but uh I'm not a thief he goes no we're not stealing this these are real companies said for you it's a real company but for other people it's not real companies click now this was one of the biggest test in my life especially I was 23 I wasn't religious but it was a very very big test of a character trait are you a thief or not are you willing to sell your soul to the de devil or not now yes you made a million dollars but a million dollars is nothing in comparison to seven especially cash but the reality is are you willing to sell your soul for it are you willing to break the rules are you willing to go to the other side and M just take food off of people's tables take it from their kids just to feed yourself this is a question each and every single businessman has to ask themselves because eventually the will come with a very very generous offer he's going to ask you are you want to sell your soul I'll give you anything you want just violate Shabbat I'll give you anything you want just marry the Goya I'll give you anything you want just cheat here lie here do here do this and I can tell you from experience if you pass that test the amount of blessings you're going to end up getting in your life will supersede any amount of money you would have ever gotten otherwise and the reason why is because once Hashem sees you have good character traits you have honesty in you and you're not willing to break the rules just for a little bit of paper then there's a reason for him to give you more because that means that you understand that there's a a sh there's someone watching there's someone watching everything that we're doing this is the very basic Foundation of Judaism if we have no concept that there's a Creator in the world we are no different than Hitler no different than Hitler why he decided that he's going to run the world he decided that he's going to kill a bunch of people happen to be Jews and anyone that resembled them because he figured you know what I don't like them so much like me I'm going to change things this is no different than a person decides to take something that doesn't belong to him knowingly why you're deciding to change nature so it's very important that when a person does a deal to double check with a different set of eyes why because sometimes we're so excited about building something big that we're willing to vend certain rules to such an extent that we really didn't bent them we just changed them so the will tell no this is bending this is changing he's going to remind you bending is okay changing is not okay you always need somebody to give you that kosher set of eyes because I can tell you that even though we made a lot of money at one point aside from hasem taking it all and so on before that we never had we never had it didn't matter how much money we made whether we made $200,000 for the month or $1.6 million which which was the best month I had in my career either way by the following month there was no money left meaning didn't matter how much money you made half a million dollar $200,000 50 doesn't make a difference by the next month it was all spent on something expanding the office another investment a lawsuit uh you know like something something happened where it was never left it was always struggling for another month so it didn't make a difference there was just simply no there was no blessing you were constantly chasing your tail trying to you know to catch up oh I need this month what do you mean you need this month you had $500,000 two weeks ago yeah yeah but it's gone already I invested it I did this I did this and you're constantly chasing your tail you're constantly chasing your tail once a person has it doesn't make a difference how much money they make they have everything they need and that I'm telling you I promise you it's the biggest B in life once you have everything you need the rest of it is just keeping score doesn't make a difference what your bank account says just keeping score oh okay this month oh I did good I did bad I did this but either way my kids are eating my wife is Happy the the car is running the house is paid whatever I need is there the rest of it is keeping SC whenever hasm is ready to give me more he'll give me more and ultimately when a person does good things with their money Hashem will even he's giving hem more of a reason to give him more so it's always important to remember hem when you're doing business because he's the one this is one of our one of our foundations of Judaism to to always remember he's the one that's giving it to you it's not you you're just being a vess you're just you know trying to do your your effort but in reality it's hasem giving you the money so give me some questions that you have and uh we'll go from there a question um what about curving a bit the reality of your books to get a big loan from the bank is that considered stealing not stealing it's a it's a very it's a very very difficult sh in a sense that uh the perspective of what's curving and what's not curving my perspective your perspective may be different so you have to look at the actual situation uh specifically the second thing is you have to look at the uh the significance of the deal because sometimes banks have foolish rules uh that are not based on logic that they're just based on certain principles for example when I was uh trying I tried to expand my business at some point it was uh worth a lot of money and I wanted to get a loan in order to expend it further and uh I went to the bank I had a bunch of money with the bank so I figured ideally HSBC the bank I was banking with you should lend me a bunch of money and they told me no no we uh you have money with us you're a good customer thank you very much we lend your money all day but there's a problem lend your money there's only under one condition I said what's that condition he says dollar for dollar so what what does it mean dollar for dollar he says if you want $10 million you have to give us $10 million and then you're not allowed to use that $10 million it's like in jail until you give back the other $10 million so so I told him so you're telling me I'm borrowing my own money she goes well you can kind of call it that way I said what kind of stupidity is this this doesn't make any sense why would I do such a thing I'm paying interest on my own money she goes well you're in the Securities business you're in the investment business and we have a rule that this is what we do with securities business so in a situation like that this is different then let's say for example if a uh a different business a different industry so it all depends where curving what curving is I would have to look at specifically the the issue per se the rules per se to give you more of a direct uh answer it's not it cannot be a a general question similar to the question we're talking about yesterday within regards to taxes you know certain governments have certain rules are you allowed to uh you know to to skim a little are you're not allowed to skim a little do you have to make sure that you pay in every single transaction where you know for example you go to a guy and he tells you listen if you pay $100 cash I won't charge you taxes are you allowed to do it are you not allowed to do it this is not an answer that you could just simply give a general statement to everybody hey do whatever you want everything has to be evaluated on a Case by case basis I would assume in such a scenario somebody who you said difference between bending and changing natur so a scenario where your your business is making $250,000 a year and you want to show to a bank that you're making half a million that's changing your real Chang yes that's as saying that I'll show you my bid up of my business my my earnings before interest taxes pration versus showing you my net net profit after everything that's not changing anything it's just showing you a different figure that's more attractive anyone that's not that's exactly it it's you know it's a it's a uh if you're telling them for example that your revenues are a million dollar but in reality it's $10 uh it's very very different and telling them listen my bottom line what I take home is 50,000 versus 500,000 because on the books that you showed them 50,000 it's really you wrote off every single thing under the sun and the other one is like as if you're the biggest taxpayer in the world so it's it's this again it's it's bending it's changing better explanation what do you what do you do right now me this I do I study I I learn and I teach that's all I do today uh after uh I I me it's a whole story you know that will take time but if you want I brought some CDs it gives you my personal story at one point in 2006 I got sick uh financially was the best year of my life uh but uh physically it was the beginning of the end and uh I had a surgery that went wrong I went into uh a struggle to save my life for the next seven years and uh throughout that seven years when you can't really work and you can't continue building and the market crashes along the way and everything that could go wrong goes wrong and every deal that used to turn to Gold turned to ashes instead and pretty much Hashem literally destructed every single sign of any resemblance of any success that I ever had um I realized that Hashem runs the world and uh along the way I started becoming more and more religious simply because I realized there's something wrong with my life I need some answers I couldn't find it in any other place other than the Tor and the more I found the answers in the Tor the less interested I became in business it's a uh it's not that business is not interesting to me is that it's not as interesting to me as helping people that are in a similar situation like I used to be I'm glad touch on that but a followup would be wouldn't you be helping people more also financially if you'd be donating this money that you be making to various causes yeah well if if if there were many rabbis that tell the truth like I do then yes you're 100% right unfortunately in the entire world according to some big that I know there's less than 10 in the world I'm one of them unfortunately meaning there are a lot of rabbis in the world but there are not a lot of people that are willing to tell the truth to people which means they're going to tell them the consequence of going against theem a lot of rabbis will tell you stories a lot of rabbis will tell you nice things things that you maybe make you feel you know good about yourself but not everyone is going to tell you the real truth of what says says that are get to the gruesome details of messing with hem and the reason why is because in today's world there's something called political correctness and people are trying to be popular they're trying to be famous and sometimes this changes the truth to such an extent that a person that violates by driving to beet feels good about himself because he says no the rabbi never told me anything so I've been driving to beess for 20 years if if there was something wrong he must you should have told me since he never told me so that means there's nothing wrong with him why did the rabbi never tell him anything because the guy donates 10 20 30 $50,000 a year and the rabbi is scared that if I tell him to stop driving on Shabbat he's not going to like me as much and then I'm not going to get his donation and then I'm not going to be able to use the $50,000 to expand my house or to expand to b nesset or to give he went and they start doing accounting with his on the line so he's sacrificing he's taking his throwing it in G maybe to hopefully use that money for something else this is 100% forbidden in the world so yes ideally if we had many many raban that were saying the truth then yes you would need another businessman world to fund those braan what we have today is we have a lot of businessmen we have plenty of Jewish businessmen and plenty of donations and plenty of money we just don't have enough emit so this is one of the problems that we have before mashia arrives that a lot of people have gone to this such high level of success in this generation that it's very easy for them to forget God very easy they could tell you they can tell you they can tell you all the all the different things that everybody says tell you all that stuff but in reality says so so what's going on with your business and oh no no I did good what do you mean you did good hasm did good no no what do you mean it was my idea I came up with the phone I came up with the product I came up with the marketing truth be told you came up with nothing you came up with zero nothing not even 1% a person is not allowed to take 1% credit even for his effort he's not allowed why because even your effort depended on hasem depend on hem allowing your brain to work depending on hasem giving you the idea depending on HM in every aspect of it again this is the type of truth that not everyone is willing to say and it gets much much more significant so when it comes to business I realized that there was a lot of people that were confused just like me and they simply created a new truth because I had two to three rabbis come to my office every week and every single one of them got money every week like clockwork sometimes more sometimes less but every single time they got money I had my office for 15 years 16 years so if you do the math let's just make it simple once a week for 10 years how many times is that 520 that means that they had 520 opportunities to tell me to stop driving on Shabbat and become a Jew that means had 520 opportunities to tell me that I have to marry a Jew and not a non-jew they had 520 opportunities to tell me that there are rules to the game There are rules to being a Jew you can't just do whatever you want 520 opportunities but no they didn't take even a single opportunity why they were too focused on the green too focused on the money this hurt me personally because since they didn't tell me Hashem had to tell me and when Hashem tells you something it hurts it's not a nice lecture it's not a smile it tells you with life things things that happen sickness money loss we call it the the the the things that are you know that we we lose because of the a because of the sins that you made so it's better off that a person listens to somebody like me than Hashem getting involved because to me it may be annoying it maybe not something that you want to hear but it's relatively painless Hashem I promise you it's not painless it's not painless and I had to learn it through M I have to fight for my life this happens every single day so I decided that it's much more important to go make more Jews than to go make more money it's much more important to make more Jews real Jews than to go make more businessmen and we help businessmen and we help families and we help G that want to become Jews we help all types of people but the key is to focus on theit and hasm provides hasem provides it's definitely not the Millions or even a fraction of it but I can tell you one thing for sure the best thing that ever happened to me was losing every single penny that I ever had and even better is the fact that I see Miracles every single month because now we have more than we had when we were making $5 million a year why right now I don't nothing is missing nothing's missing I'm I'm not I don't have I don't own a house I don't own anything you look at my bank you start laughing but I probably have more more Comfort than most people in the world why I don't have I don't have to worry about money ever again why I know Hashem runs the world I arrived at a conclusion that Hashem runs the world I'm going to go do what he wants me to do the rest of it is his problems my wife one tells me one time uh honey uh we have $6,000 in bills coming up in two days I said okay she was what do you want me to do I don't look at the bank she was well I looked at the bank I said okay no know what happened she well it's empty it's empty there's nothing zero in the bank I said okay she was what do we do nothing we continue doing what we're supposed to do continue working continue learning continue what we're supposed to do yeah but the bills are do in two days I said yeah it's plenty of time for it's his problem it's not my problem it's not my problem as soon as we finished this conversation we're both laughing we're both smiling went back to learning went back to doing I get a phone call from my uh phone number I don't know and I usually don't pick up I just I have to pick this one up I pick up hey Y how are you I'm really sorry sorry what did you do who's this what no it's Doo It's Doo like do do I'm thinking he no D remember David from this I'm like oh David how are you D okay whatever I haven't talked to this guy in six years how you doing he goes listen I'm really sorry I said sorry for what he goes listen I'm really really sorry don't you don't have to be what what did you do I haven't talked to you in 5 six seven years he goes no 5 years ago you left me $5,000 and I told you I was going to pay you back as soon as I come back from Israel and uh I never paid you back and I've been eating myself up for months thinking how do I get there and the embarrassment that I haven't paid him in so long so I can't take it anymore please text me your bank account text me your bank account I'm going to deposit the money right now This Guy's excited to pay me my money back that I forgot about whoever calls you out of nowhere and see he's excited to pay you back so I text him the phone number a few minutes uh maybe a half hour later my bank I get I check my bank I see dude deposit 6,000 I go back D I'm like no D thank you very much but I'm sorry you not allowed 5,000 he goes no no no 6,000 I said no it's not allow it's interest it's I go no it's not worth it he goes no no no listen to me the 5,000 is the the Thousand for the that you're doing because I've been watching you on the internet I've been watching you on the internet and you're helping me do CH meaning how much did I need 6,000 how much arrived 6,000 is that what do you think is better you working for it from 8:00 in the morning till 8:00 at night get 6,000 or me doing absolutely nothing you going S I got close it up the next question save price in the wrong fi is is who invited me to this thing next price is is as a business person okay you're still in business it's just the difference 100% 100% I'm running an organization now it has money and so on it's just that we operate a different thing exactly now the question is is there something wrong for a business to say I want a million because you know that the the next thing is I want two and the next thing is I want four and it's non-ending okay is there a point that you say as a Jew that there has to be an end here there has to be a stop you get enough you do you you you make enough money that you need MH and again each one you'll Define need yeah exactly my daughter always tells me she needs all the candy in the world but she doesn't really need them right so is there a point that you say that's all I need or and is there anything wrong with saying no I want more I want more I want more I want more and I want more and maybe that's going against the so it's to say I don't need more would be against human nature so maybe have to get no it's not it's it's it's similar to what you're saying but slightly different the says that you give a person 100 he wants 200 give him 200 he wants 400 give him 400 he wants 800 meaning human nature the way Hashem created us will always want more why did hasem create us with a constant desire for more because we're supposed to use that desire to want more T more we're supposed to be ambitious but ambitious to do his will not necessarily our will only the second thing the says that it says that there's no person in the history of mankind that ever died with even half of what he wanted meaning that it doesn't matter how much you get it's still never going to be enough and by the time a person leaves this world it's not even going to be half of what he wants meaning he originally he always wanted double what he had which means that he always had half of what he wanted when by the time he he leaves this world it's not even that because his desire has grown so much now to one more makes you a human being it's perfectly fine to want more what's not fine is if you want more for the wrong reason you want more because you want a bigger house that you don't need you want a third car even though you could only drive one you want a eighth watch even though you could only tell time on one of them you want more because of stuff if you want more so you could do more with it thenm has more of a reason to give you more so there are certain things that a person needs to do with the money order for hasem to have a reason not only to give him more like he wants anyway but in order to justify keeping it so we have rules of we have rules of these are two different things as long as a person gives at least 10% of his money to the sake of T to publicize T to get people to do Chua and so on you're giving hem more than enough reason to give you the other 90% what if that 10% is given to like say families in need or like I said if it's depends who the families in need are if the families in need are in the middle of Africa because you saw a TV commercial that's not as important as families in need that are learning toah that are Jews and so on so again it's it's we have to have the right definition of things but nonetheless we want to make sure that we want more because we want to do more mitv and in essence our payment our payment our return payment from Hashem for using that 10% to do more mitv is the other 90% said but there was a person by name of nagon benon in the Tora he was one of the richest people of the land and to such an extent that the entire nation was living off of him and two other rich people one day ran sees his daughter collecting seeds from the waste of the horses and the donkeys he says who are you what are you doing here why you why are you looking through the waste of the the horses what's the matter with you she go I'm looking for food and there certain grains that the donkeys and the horses didn't digest and I'm taking it out so we could eat those we got mean the such level of poverty that uh starvation she goes who are you she goes I'm daughter she go how could it be he the richest man in the land and he's a sadik not only he's Rich he's a sadik she says he used to be rich but we lost everything so I asked how could this be he gave a lot of staka he says yes he gave a lot of but according to his status it was not enough meaning that giving it's not necessarily a specific number a million dollars a billion dollars no no it's based on specific numbers that the Torah has but also based on need so a person let's say for example that makes $100,000 should give M but a person that makes 10 20 $30 million should give much more than that because there's no reason in the world you to what are you going to do $20 million a year how many houses can you buy you can only live in one so a person needs to make sure that he wants hem to give him more so he can do more with it help Jewish people that are struggling help people that are learning tah help people doing chuba meaning different things for the nation and not uh you want to save some elephant uh you know make sure that they have a nice cage like this family in Israel they had nothing to do with their money they donated a half a million dollars so they could build a new cage for an elephant in the zoo in his this is they felt that this is important another family invested almost $2 million to save some butterflies now they think it's a Mitzvah in reality they get punished for things like this because hasem gave you a tool and you misused it so it's perfectly fine to want more but always remember there has to be a valid Torah reason a kosher reason of why you want more you're allowed to enjoy yourself you're allowed to be rich there's plenty of s in history that have been very very rich one of the biggest in history that the entire generation thought he's mashia is reii was tremendously Rich hundreds of horses and everything you can possibly imagine he had tons and tons of money he himself never enjoyed the money CU he did so muchaka and so on but he had plenty of money there plenty of rich people but again always remember you have to use the money for the purpose of of you do that you're allowed to have a nice car you're allowed to have nice clothes Lamborghini again depends if the Lamborghini is relevant to your income meaning if you're making $500,000 a year and you're driving a Lamborghini you're not only stupid but you're also not a sadik why because you're D you're spending half your net worth on a car but if you're making $10 million then a Lamborghini is fine why because it's it's nothing it's 2% of your income you understand the problem is that most people that drive Lamborghinis it's their entire that's their entire nut that's every everything that's their their entire paycheck goes to the car because they want to show off to the guys so yes you as a matter of fact if you're rich you're not allowed to wear clothes to make you look like a regular person you have to wear nice clothes you have to wear nice clothes you have to look rich you can't wear like some of these Hollywood stars that have $200 million in a bank they look like bums you're not allowed to look like that you have to actually because you have to Hashem gave you a gift you have to be a representative of that gift meaning you have to tell people yes I have it I'm representative it which means that anyone that needs my help you could easily identify me why I look a certain way I act a certain way I'm the son of the king I look like the son of the king I'm not looking like the homeless guy down the street him and I wearing the same outfit you said you have to look the part so it's perfectly fine to be rich but always remember you have a job to do hasm gave you a tool he gave you $10 million not so you just buy Lamborghinis so you can use a few dollars to go publicize a story in the world that's the only reason if we do it he'll continue giving us more because once AEM sees that you're a good partner you're giving him a reason to give you more he gave you 10 you gave one he gave you 20 you gave two he gave you 30 you gave three and sometimes even six and because you decide to be you realize you don't need the whole 20 I'm going to give 20% because there's more need for them than for me you start doing business like that meaning you're doing business with hem you're doing business with hm you're never going to lose you'll have and you'll realize that you're always end up succeeding in the end even though logically doesn't make sense logically like what do you mean you're telling me to give more money out of the pocket and out of the money and out of the effort that I'm doing and some I'm going to have more money yes it doesn't make logical sense but that's the life of a Jew it's not supposed to make sense if you're looking for it to make sense you're looking for a different religion so this is this is the only explanation that's emit that's valid with the Torah that I found out only after the fact and I can tell you that today part of what we do is we help many families every month specifically in Israel that of people that are learning to people that are M dedicating their life and they only make $500 a month $600 a month from the which is not enough money to in any place to give food for six seven eight kids so part of what we do is every month we send 51 $15,000 every single month like clockwork whatever we can to go help them that's part of what we do the other part of what we do is we give sh for free the other thing what we do we give CDs and lectures and uh posters everything we do is free obviously it's free but somebody has to pay for it so the more we do the more hasem sends how it's his business I don't ask any questions but when you're a good partner with hmm sends you exactly what you need you just have to give him a reason next question you're quiet I need a question from you you have to have something okay um it touches a little on his question it's true that if you look at the har public today also in Israel well mostly in Israel there the vast majority are below the poverty line but they're the happiest like you so wellside right okay however good where in does it tell you to live your maximum spiritually in poverty why do we have a system that creates from Jews MH with poverty why can't we have a system that promotes T first M the best of the class will become the next gu thir the bottom third but business and I'm not saying the opposite because I know you'll interject no I agree with you so so so the liid system today the American liid system today that's what I call it promotes promotes a non nonsecular does not promote a nonsecular education right and this produces families that make $500 serving AEM okay of course it gives the opportunity for the less from rich people to do Mis and support them I know that rationale too however where in t do we see this Systema has a debate with a K with a heretic famous heretic he tells him listen uh something wrong with your belief says if you say your God loves you people why does he make poor people if he loves you so much how come he makes poor people says so he can save the rest of us from gay that's the that's the he says to save the rest of us from G why rest of us are so focused on business and money and girls and this and watches and all the stuff that we forget about God so what's going to save us hopefully one day we're going to do CH that's the that we gave to the guy that dedicated his life to so that's one that one easy answer the more difficult answer is a more a reality of the times in the old times the uh the amount of distractions that we had was much more limited we had less screens we had less phones less TVs Less in the world and so on so the average person was able to focus and also had a mental capacity that's much more significant than today so a giant like the rambam writes in his that you're not allowed to depend on the public not only you shouldn't you're not allowed to depend on the public he considers it he considers that if you are only learning to and you're going to go ask for from people it's you're not you're not representing the T never told you to uh to go ask for you want to learn learn but go work too so his perspective is similar to what we're saying here but what's changed especially over the last few hundred years is that our m Al capacity and just simply our yet and our love of hem has changed to such an extent that if you tell a person go work and go become a yes he may be a decent Jew but becoming the becoming the next becoming his full potential it's not going to happen why we simply don't have it we don't have that level of discipline on the masses maybe you're going to find one or two here and there but the reality is is that for every thousand of that are making $500 a month only one of them only one of them will become a big huge the other 999 999 we need them for the survival of the entire people we need them to learn they're not going to become the biggest in the world they're not going to become the G they're not going to become R they're not going to become that but we need them why because 99% of the rest of the public are not even close to learning TOA even on a regular basis the such an extent that today almost 80% of do not even keep Shabbat meaning at this stage if we didn't have those 999 learning tah the other 80% wouldn't have any permission whatsoever to live to live I'm not talking about to have money to live to exist in the world it's it's worse than Noah so we need them to go learn to the other aspect of looking at this chuv is that we always have to remember that the page 16 a and 16b says that on decides what you're going to get regardless of what you do regardless of how what kind of profession you have regardless of how many hours you work and how many ideas you have hasem decides how much P you're going to make which means that if a person truly believed in hem with he would learn full time like says where he says you learn full time you learn full time don't ever work a single a single day a single minute why you have but there's another that goes again says no no no but not everybody's at your level not everybody has a that they could just work and the is going to arrive at home they have to do something so some people they need to do it and hasem will decide how much money they can survive with to give them a test that they could survive with they you view them as poor I view them as poor Hashem doesn't view them as poor hasem is giving them the perfect test that they can handle just like he's giving you the test that you can handle he's giv me a test that I can handle to say that there's a mistake and how much and who and what is in essence saying that hm is kind of making a mistake there's no mistake but the reality is that we are supposed to also look at it as an opportunity for us number one how can we help them learn how can we help them what can we do to to to benefit out of this okay he's learning I'm alive because of him what can I do to help this so he's not struggling so because even if he spends five minutes thinking about money that's already five minutes too much how can I help him what can I do to go help him you know not even have the five minutes of of of of issues how can I make sure that he has a refrigerator how can I make sure that he has a washing machine and so on and so forth so I'm working okay so I'm gonna help I'm gonna use my money to go help this person that's learning to why because there's there's a deal there's a person that works and learns and there's a person that learns learns meaning everybody has to learn but there's one person that's literally sacrifices everything so it's a good business deal for the guy that works cuz he needs him now some people in the world are of the mindset of still of the rambam that you have to work you have to work and there is a truth to it it's not 100% false there are some people that should not go to k there are certain people that shouldn't be allowed inside of K and the reason why is because they go to col to smoke cigarettes they go to col to go hang out outside with the guys they're not really learning and they create a lot of because a lot of the secular people they look at them outside of the col they smoking cigarettes they're not learning they like oh why don't you go to the Army why don't you go to work why don't you go do something with your life so such people they should not you're that perspective they shouldn't even be allowed in the other people that are learning you have to understand that they have a place in the world they have a place in the world if a person can do both he should but most people in this generation can barely do one of them okay you said a lot yes the I'm not talking about those exceptions that's not example to look at I'm not we're not looking at that I'm talking about if you're to mold a system if you're if you had to choose the system right the system today this touches on the second answer gaming the B the the system we have today would be great if we could apply to right right because like you said there's so distractions there's the internet there's money there's women there's everything however it's not being applied it's being applied to the cream of the crop it's being applied to the you know the observant The Firm whatever so we are I mean it's not a like based on your answer how how are we creating a system for the or for the religious or for the observant for the traditional that is no I'm not to use the word dooming them to pover Poverty but will eventually Force other people to support them personally I support a lot of cousins in this system and I'm happy to support them that's my mission right I'm okay with that okay but it's a system I mean there's no way out there's no way out and even though they're happy there's a lot of stress let's not let's not sugarcoat it right the biggest the the most religious families with seven kids when your kid doesn't eat in the morning and the only meal he has is at school it's stress stress millionaire also has stress what everybody has stress 100 no we're not talking about the exceptions we're talking about we're molding a system right well I mean it it it every system you're going to find a red flag in every system you're going to find an error in every system there's nothing there's no perfect solution uh I'm looking for Source from from about about how should the educational system be supp to learn full says you have to learn full time says no you should work and learn that's the M it's a very famous m and what's the conclusion the conclusion is that the you learn full time because you're at that level only some of them succeeded this way and that way so if you can handle the test you should work you should learn full-time if you can't then don't is that the system we have today some people apply it some people apply their own system we have a whole entire to some people follow it some people don't follow it the key is for everybody has to the key is for everybody to know themselves get to know themselves and understand how much they can handle Hashem is never going to give you a test that you can't handle and it's unfortunate that people don't realize that the stress and the struggle that's going to come to them anyway even if they had a job there's one that was a really serious he was learning with for several years and uh eventually he got to a point where the stress broke him and uh decided to leave the in the K he was making like everybody else $500 a month with the kids with the wife with all the problems but for years he was surviving they offered him a job to make good money and technology and so on and so forth and he after he left the col he says I'm struggling much much worse meaning the more money did not change anything in fact situation deteriorated why because the was at the and not at work meaning his job was not to go to work his job was to stay at to Cola and struggle that struggle because that struggle was coming to him anyway but that's why my question was based on individual based on the the overall system the system the overall syst the system my personal opinion is that every father is supposed to teach his son some type of trade they need to do something with their Torah they can't just go into a into a room close themselves and I'll see you in 90 years that is not something that you're supposed to do you're supposed to do something with your Torah because the says that if you learn Tor for your own sake only it's like a person that doesn't have a God it's like a person you're not supposed to just keep your Torah to yourself you're supposed to do something with it write a book sell the book uh go teach go to give lectures do something you're not just supposed to learn and be a bookworm and do nothing else you're supposed to do something with it and unfortunately some people are either self-conscious and they don't want to speak to the public or don't have enough confidence and they don't want to write something maybe they're just used to their own uh their own uh you know four walls different reasons for different people and uh I know that we started we did a program about uh two and a half years ago where I uh had to convince uh 10 to each give on the internet record themselves we sent them cameras we uh you know we sent the money to entice them go give shim now you would think giving an that makes $500 a month $2,500 to go give some go give five he'd run at it I wish everybody gave me $500 for a so I told him give originally we had 20 people by the time we did the recordings only 10 people agreed why the other 10 were so nervous they're like I don't know I don't know what to say I don't know anything what do you mean you're learning in cold 15 years what do you mean you don't know anything what did you learn I'm I'm nervous I'm this I'm that they just didn't have the so it's not necessarily they were brought up a certain way it's also the individual person's test they're not ready to get out of their own way sometimes just like sometimes we have a certain dilemma in our own life where a person for example is not ready to get married even though he has the perfect girl and she's wonderful and she's a sadika but he's just not sure yet why he doesn't really know he's PR much pretty much he's his own biggest enemy or sometimes somebody has a business deal and he knows it's a better thing he's going to expand his company he's going to add more employees and more this and more that but he still he can't sign the dotted lines why because I don't know it bothers him that now he's going to have a partner it bothers him he doesn't really know why it bothers him but it bothers him so sometimes we are Our Own Worst Enemy and we get our you know in our own way so the true answer is is that uh yes the system definitely could be better if people did what the did for the most part which is work part of the day and learn part of the day but the reality is quite different today most people are struggling doing one or the other most people that are working have a very easy time forgetting about God most people that are learning have a very easy time forgetting about the rest of the people the rest of the Jews in the world so ideally you have to always understand that there's two sides of the world you can't do one you can't do the other you have to do something with it and uh you know this is Al this has to do with teachings how you bring up your kids they're not going to learn this stuff in Yesa they're not going to learn this stuff in most places they're going to learn this from their parents parents you know their parents are going to teach them and I'm sure different people have different different perspectives like for example I'm hoping that my kid will become a big and but I'm not going to restrict him from uh certain necessary secular knowledge like math and language and so on you need to know these things because you need to know how to communicate you need to know how to function and unfortunately in some places in the world they've restricted them to so you know just specific parts of the Tor that they come out of sha complete idiots they don't know anything of the regular World they don't know how to function and it breaks them they see the first time they saw a telephone is a 19 years old well why why is it such a big surprise a guy uh you know broke first time after he saw telephone so you have to you have to use your own in so many words you have to use your own to change the entire system not in my power or yours and but in general I agree with you 100% that it definitely could be better it should be better and uh and it should be about should be a balance of the two but if you see that you really have the talent and the ability to go sit there and learn from and you know 15 hours straight without B be you're one of those that could eventually write some books 100% you should do it because we need you we need you in a world but if you see that uh you're really more interested in smoking cigarettes then uh what's your view on uh today business and social media and exposing yourself building a personal brand exposing your successes I mean if you go on social media I'm active on LinkedIn LinkedIn is a professional plat me too okay so a lot of FRS a lot are exposing everything from A to Z from the charity that they give to the successes that they make to the money that they make to whatever it is just because they feel this necessity to have to show to people that they're successful so people should trust them and want to give them business right hence building a personal brand yeah that's a big big thing right now that's happening in the world people feel that they can't build themselves up in business or as an entrepreneur or as a self-employed professional unless they build that personal brand and because the pressure of even full mids on social on LinkedIn doing all that it makes people feel like this is what they need to be doing it be it's becoming it's became rampant it's a uh you know sees G as something that's despicable in his eyes and he uses that GAA that Pride that a person exposes uh in order to break them eventually to punish them because he's disgusted by it because in the reality you're never allowed to show you know your your guns in so many words of all the successes that you made you're supposed to be humble and if you think that showing all of your successes is going to help you the Torah says the opposite in reality a person should keep all of his successes only between him and God and His failures he can publicized why it's good for all those people with saying that anytime they got sick they would publicize it to all their haters go go tell my hater over there that I'm sick why they'll start feeling bad for me he's not going to hate me as much anymore this the failures go publicized successes keep to yourself humble this is also a secret in business I could tell you in a business world we literally made tens of millions of dollars I me it was an enormous amount of money and it wasn't a lot it wasn't getting lucky it was hard work I started work at 5:30 in the morning I finished at midnight sometimes 2:00 in the morning sleep a couple of hours go back to work it was no no life no nothing so it wasn't like how I got lucky and I picked the right stock and everything worked out it was a lot of lot hard work but in general the one thing that I Tred to do really really hard is keep all the success four walls no one people knew I was successful but no one really knew how much until it all collapsed once in a while they would hear oh just made a million dollar deal your own van just bought a $5 million house your own did something because it would become public somehow through some way or another but in general it's bad news to publicize your success it's bad news it's bad it's not good for your profile in any way because also all of the people are going to look at you and they're not going to say wow what a brand he has what are they going to look at you it's like how did he cheat how did he steal who did he rob there's no way that he could afford that house with his job there's no way that he could afford a third car with with this money so he's doing something wrong they're always going to look at you with the wrong perspective why cuz that's the nature of people and in general when people are showing off their and they for example safaris have this horrible but unfortunately it's a necessary of of donating in public meaning you go to beet who wants the Ali 10,000 20,000 50 million whatever it is and everybody say what even though he drove to what aik the reality is when a person get to sh he's going to cry cry blood he's going to cry why he's going to see that all that c that he got from the k for donating money he that took 98% of all of the merits of the that he gave meaning all he has left is 2% and he see how much he's getting in sham for the 2% he's going to cry for not having the other 98% so the reality is if you want real Anonymous donations don't even tell anybody nothing nothing nothing if you can don't even tell the person you're donating to if you could donate anonymously with a check with no name on it that's how you donate that's the best way why because that means you're getting 100% of the in sh if you're looking for from people I could tell you from personal experience no one really cares no one really cares about how great you are they're all trying to take you down anyway they feel like every dollar you make is coming out of their pocket even if you're in a different business no one wants to see you successful even your best friend that says wow good job he doesn't really care he doesn't really care he feels you made a dollar somehow that affected his pocket so don't publicize it's a very very bad thing that's part of the problem because that person who's doing it those people are doing it who have 30 20 and 30 and 40 and 50,000 followers behind them praising them constantly every day for what they're doing then it's sending a certain message right the person who doesn't have the courage to do it it's sending him a message of saying hey maybe I should get on board right to the person who's doing it it's telling him it's validating that hey you know because I'm being I'm being I'm I'm telling you should donate money right look how much success I'm getting there is there are certain things there are certain times you should publicize a mitvah there are certain most of the time you should not uh most of the time you should keep it to yourself but if you know that for example you there's a really legitimate cause like a cause for Tora not to save a monkey and you know that if people know that you donated $100 they're also going to donate $100 then it's better to lose that Merit for donating the 100 because you'll gain much more because you caused 100 other people to donate 100 but so again that's why that's where the comes from that's where you have to ask okay what do you think I want to publicize on my LinkedIn on my Facebook on Twitter on all these things that I donate $100 to this uh to to whatever to something that's going to get Jews to become more Jewish what do you think about that well who cares about what you do well actually I have 100,000 followers that if I do something each one of them will at least donate another 100 they'll tell you it's the biggest mitvah in the world to publicize why because that way that yes or that would have never gotten most of those people on their own so now you became for that but the reality is that most people are not doing it they're not publicizing their to get other people to donate they're showing off their to show off to show off that they're successful so you have to you have you have to take you have to see yourself you have to you have to be with yourself you have to like why am I doing it why am I publ I publicizing it to show off my guns to tell people that I just made 50,000 last month or am I doing it because I actually really care about hasem and you have to be honest with yourself because if you lie to yourself no can help you anyway come down he can help you why if you're lying to yourself all Hashem knows that's it so you have to you have to test yourself you have to say like really what uh huh have to to the airport have to airport oh so these are different these are important things you have to stick to a because sometimes he's going to tell you a perspective that because you're so busy in business it's not that you can't think about it you're simply not thinking about it because you're busy with business you're busy with your own thing so double check what do you think what do you think what is the Torah perspective of this just like he asked what does the Torah say about this and it says a few things there's a few things that it says okay and then you play the puzzle you put the right pieces in the right place have a clear answer last question if you have one is experienced in business one is not better go see the one the experience uh one is a experience in business one is not which one do you go to uh go to the one who has the yeah you go to the if you have a if you have a uh you know a problem with your heart you go to the DTI or you go to the hardship yeah you have to go to the one that's an expert in business yeah yeah you go to the expert you can't you can't just have one for everything that's it uh you have to have you know if you know you have to have somebody that's an expert in certain things and help you you go where the answer is good for you that's that's a lenient Rabbi you know yeah you have you have to go with a place where if you have if you have a serious issue you go to the expert you know a person has a leg uh you know he wants to uh you know replaces KN he's not going to go to the dentist he's going to go to somebody it's an expert in that field same thing with with anything else you want advised marriage you go to a that's an expert in marriage advice in SCH you you have issues with business you go to an expert in business and so on and so forth most have relatively vast knowledge that they have a understanding of many fields but not everything and you have to double check with him and if he's an honest he'll tell you I don't know but I have somebody that does if he's honest if he's not honest why are you going to him anyway he don't know so we have to double check you have to it's again you'll see you'll see over time if the advice that's being given to you is makes sense it has to make sense if the guy tells you listen you're asking him should I buy the house should I sell the house he tells you you know what I think you should go get groceries that's it that's advice doesn't make any sense it's not relevant to your question so if you see that this the advice is constantly not relevant to what you're asking uh then obviously you're going to the wrong address so you'll see I mean yeah he's right sometimes you don't know what you don't know but you'll see through experience sometimes you don't know that uh a certain doctor is really has two left hands because he has a degree says MD on it and uh it looks wonderful but in reality uh he's horrible you're only going to find out after the fact that's why we have to pray to Hashem every single day to please protect us protect us before we do a mitvah protect us after we do a Mitzvah protect us before we go to a rabbi protect us after we go to Rabbi protect us before everything why because only hem can dictate the outcome of anything and as long as you know that hem runs the world hm you have help from hm thank you very much for having me you have to get catch a flight B hasem but please be in touch we have some business card somewhere in there they have my app on the on the back of it you could scan it with your picture and you get all the shim and so on on on your phone we have to be technologically advanced these days [Music] n [Music] [Applause] [Music] n [Music]