It's Hard To Be Religious When You Have Doubts

Good afternoon, everyone. I'm honored to come here to speak to you today. And I heard from Mary that Some of you have some questions and Baruch Hashem, I hope I'm the right guy to answer all your questions. There are two ways in Avodat Hashem. One is the Hasidic way, Emunat Mima, Emunah, faith, no questions asked. My father did, my grandfather did, all the way to Moshe Rabbeinu. That's what I do. I don't ask questions. I was born to Jewish family. We keep Shabbos, we eat kosher, we daven, we do all these things, we learn Torah. That's it. I go with my Emunah. That's one way. It's good for some people. Some people don't have questions. They don't have doubts. If my father did it and my grandfather and the Rambam did it and the Vilna Gaon and all the Rebbes, everybody was a genius and they checked everything, they learned all their life Torah and it was good for them and they lived like that, it's good for me as well. I don't need to break my head. Then there is another way. Some people are curious, skeptic. Everything in life they ask million questions. They don't believe, I'm not sure, they're not— they're not— 100% confident in what to do, how to do. And automatically, when it comes to keeping Torah and Mitzvot, with the help of the Yetzer Hara, it makes the situation very bad. Because everything they do, they ask themselves a question: How do I know I'm not wasting my time? Maybe they fooled me. Maybe I'm in the wrong path. So what do you do with people like this? You have to understand, if you want to eat something when you're hungry and you're not sure, maybe the food have poison, you will think a million times before you eat. And even when you eat, you won't enjoy it. Why you don't enjoy it? Because you have a doubt. When you have a doubt, it eats you from inside. For some kids your age or younger or older, the way of Emunah Atmimah Unfortunately, not always work. They need more proofs. After they know 100% that that's the right way, you see a tremendous change in their lifestyle. Hundreds of times Hasidic boy told me over the years, I'm just telling you between us, my father made me Chusid, you made me Yid. Meaning until now I didn't know anything, I just learned what they told me, I grew up Hasidish and that's it. I didn't know that the Torah demands to know Hashem. That the Torah says that before you talk about Emunah, you have to have 100% knowledge. 100%. Below 100%, it's not knowledge, it's Emunah, it's faith. 100% is knowing, right? If you ask me, do you know Hashem? Do you believe you sit right now in front of Barry Webber? I don't answer, I believe so. I answer, I know so. Right? You understand the difference? If I say I believe so, then I'm not sure. Maybe it's someone that looks like him, maybe it's his brother, I'm not sure. When I say I believe, in science, believing means not knowing, in a way. Believing means partial knowledge or no knowledge or questionable knowledge. If you have a million dollars and someone comes and says to you, "Come invest it in this deal," what would convince you to invest the money? If you don't know who the person is, you don't know what the profit's going to be, you don't know how long it's going to take to see your money back, you don't know any of that, would you put your money? If you're a fool, yes. Somebody smart eliminates all the doubt. What's my collateral? What's my security? What happens if the deal goes bad? The more you eliminate the doubts, the easier it is to give your money. Right? Even though in business there's no 100%, people invest their money with 90%. It's also good, better than nothing. But that's not what the Torah say. All over the Torah Hashem say to us, you have to know I'm your God. "V'da'atem ki ani Hashem." "Da'et Hashem Elokecha." Know your God. That all the nations should know that I'm your God. You should know today I'm the only God above the sky and under the ground. There's no other. Many verses in the Torah speaks about knowledge. Comes the question, how do I know God exists? How do I know he runs the world if I cannot prove he exists with my 5 senses? I can't see him, I can't smell him, I cannot taste him, I cannot hear him, and I cannot touch him. I have 5 senses that everything in my life, I, whatever I do in my life, I use my 5 senses. I see, I smell, I touch, I hear. You understand? All these things that we do help us to live. How would you know what to eat? You have to see, you smell, maybe it's spoiled. So we use our 5 senses. You listen to conversations, so you use your ears. You do things with your hands, you use your hands. You need your 5 senses. Sometimes you use one, sometimes you use two, sometimes you use all five. But without the 5 senses, it's like a car without wheels, without an engine, without a transmission. How are you going to function? You need your senses. But now we have a dilemma, because when we open up the Torah, the Torah said that God is telling each one of us, "You must know 100% I made the world. You must know I made you. You must know I run the show. You must know I record you every second of your life." You must know I put your soul in your body. You must know I put you here in a test. You must know I'm the only God. You must know that this Torah is the only truth and it will never change. You must know when you die you're gonna go to a good place or a bad place, depends what you're gonna achieve in your life. All these things you must know, not believe. Now the question returns, how do I know? How do I know? I mean, it makes sense that somebody made this world. I'm not stupid. If I see such an amazing world, it's enough to see an orange. If you're smart, you already know there is a God. You don't need Torah, you don't need to go to yeshiva to understand there is a Creator to the world. Every fool sees a creation, he knows there is a Creator, right? If I tell you, now you see this video camera over there, it was made by a random experiment. Explosion. Would you continue to listen to me after that? What would you say? Barry, next time bring someone normal. Don't bring crazy people, right? What would make me crazy? One comment. This camera was made by itself. Possible? Phone was made by itself. This table was made by itself. A jacket was made by itself. A bottle of water, plastic, it costs 1 cent to make. If I come and say it made by itself, none of you will take me serious. Because you know it's not possible. It's very interesting that people that you will tell them that, they will tell you, you're crazy. But these people, they teach in university that the whole world was made by itself. When you come and tell them a bottle of water was made by itself, by itself, you say, "Ah, you're crazy, you need a mental institution, you're not normal." But when you say, "Okay, maybe I'm not normal because I claim that the cup was made by itself, but you claim the brain was made by itself." What's harder to believe, that a cup was made by itself or a brain was made by itself? A brain, do you know what a brain is? 10 trillion connections inside. 10 trillion connections. It's 10 billion multiplied by 1,000, and it's all water, 80% water, size of an apple. And there's wires, one hair from your head, it's 1,000 wires combined. That's how thin they are. Inside water, connected in many different places, that if you cut one of them, you're dead immediately, or in coma, one of the two. And to say something like this was made by himself, you have to be super, super, super stupid. Would you agree to marry a woman that says such thing? How can you rely on anything she says ever again? She's not normal. I want to ask you a question. Why we live with that when people go to university, they pay fortune to learn, to get a degree, when a professor stand over there and teach this nonsense? Why people can live with this bluff? Why everyone cooperates with this lie? The world was made by an explosion, it was billions of explosions, one of them worked out. Why we live with this, with such stupid assumption? Do you really think that one person in the world believes in this nonsense? This is like taking drugs. Exactly the same thing. Person is sad, he's weak. Somebody come, an evil person come and offer him to destroy his life. And he's telling him, "Oh, you're gonna feel good, you're gonna forget about your problem." For how long? For an hour. Then the problems become worse. Then his life is over. Then he can't get married, then he can't get a job, then he cannot do anything with his life. Thousands of our kids died because of it in the last 20, 30 years. Why is it? Because they were not smart enough not to start. So the question is, running away to drugs is lying to ourselves that the situation will become better. It's similar to a person that has a car and the red light went on, check engine. You may have a very serious problem with the engine. Engine in a good car could be more than $10,000 to replace. So a normal person, what does he do right away? Immediately gets into the garage, cancel everything he has to say, and he runs immediately into the garage. Why? Before the engine— the engine will go on fire, right? Someone foolish will ignore the check engine, continue to drive. Until you will be stuck in a tunnel and the car goes on fire. Okay? So someone foolish will ignore the check engine. But we have the third kind. We have the kind that will go to the garage and the mechanic will tell them there are two ways to fix your problem. One is to spend $2,000 and fix the engine, and one is just to cut the wire of the red light. They cut the wire and there's not going to be a light. So, if a person said, "How much that would be?" Say, "$1." "Oh, great! Here is a dollar, cut the wire, no check engine." What will happen a week later? The car will still go on fire. This is what you say, it's easy to run away from reality. To run away from the truth, to live in illusion. Anybody here wants to live his entire life in illusion and in a lie? Anyone here? You want to live 70, 80, 90 years here and in the end one day you find out that not one minute of your life was the truth, it's always a lie, an illusion? Who can tell me what is the problem living in illusion? So I live 8 years in illusion. One day I die and I'll find out my whole life was a lie, an illusion. So what? Okay. You wasted 7 years. Well, you played basketball, you watched movies, you ate burgers, you went on trips, you slept a lot. Aren't we anyways in an illusion? Even if we do If you do good, according to the afterlife, aren't we in illusion in the body? We live, there are many illusions in life, even for religious people there are a lot of illusions. For instance, sometimes you feel bad about something that happened to you, you're depressed for 2 years, you're upset, it burns you from inside, and only 2 years later you found out that thanks to to that, you're going to become a millionaire. What happened 2 years ago that you felt so bad about it actually got you to become a very rich guy. For 2 years you lived in illusion. 2 years you were upset and sad and depressed for no reason. For something that happens to you was very good. So there are many, many illusions in life. A bad marriage is an illusion. You see a girl, You don't care if she's righteous, modest. You don't check the important thing. You only check one thing, which is material. You like her, whatever the case is. You're not checking if she's going to be a good wife, good mother. So you get married, you make a show, you make a wedding, you spend tons of money, all these things, and then 6 months later you divorce. Everything was an illusion. There are many illusions in life. What is the problem with the illusion? When the illusion explodes in your face— there are different kinds of illusion. Sometimes you buy a book, you spend $20, you thought it's a great book. You read 40 pages— terrible book. How long the illusion took? 4 hours and $20. No big deal. Nobody dies from losing $20 and 4 hours of his life. Life. That's a small illusion. The price was minor. But some illusions are critical. You eat something that you think it's healthy and it causes you cancer, God forbid. You don't know. You think Diet Coke is healthy. Diet Coke. "Wow, I'm not gonna gain weight. I'm too heavy. I'm on a diet." You drink it for 3 years, you get cancer. That illusion is very painful. You're gonna need hundreds of thousands of dollars of treatment now. And suffering, and your beard falls off, and your hair falls off, and you can't work, and sometimes you die. This is an example of an illusion that has very serious price. Now, who can tell me what's worse than to live 80 years, to die, your soul comes out of your body? If you watch my film Life After Death, you will know exactly what happened when we die. Die. It's been proven scientifically also. You come out of your body, you see your body is laying on the floor, everyone crying, your children, your parents, your siblings. "Wow, call 911, he's dead, look what happened!" And you fly above everyone and then your soul keeps going higher and higher until you enter the court of heaven. Like a court here, but much, much, much scarier. And then you begin to— your trial begins. From the minute you're born and crawling on a rug until the minute you die, every second of your life is displayed. Everything. And then by the time you finish, you realize that your entire life was a mistake. And you made horrible sins and crimes against the Creator of the world. And the worst part is now you're going to have to pay for each one of those sins. You cannot get away with one. So you have billions of sins, billions. Chilul Shabbos, one of the worst sins. Watching dirty things on the internet, horrible thing. It's all sins from the Torah, clear verses. It's clear in the Torah. Every time you watch something not tsanua, not kosher, it's a sin worse than eating pork. Worse than eating pork. Eating pork, it's a much, much smaller sin than to watch something on YouTube that women are there or not sneeze. There's a much bigger sin with much bigger punishment. Why? Because it contaminates the soul completely. It takes your heart, your head away from the kedusha. You cannot focus. You come to a Gemara shiur, you don't want to even listen to one word. What's the reason for it? The Gemara is very interesting. There's thousands of kids in this age that are addicted to it. They can't stop learning. So why the other one is not interested even to hear one line? Because he's so tame, so impure for what he sees and what he hears and what he eats. All these things contaminate the Neshamah. That's what the Torah told us. Lortu shaktsu, le shaket, shaketste shaketzeinu, shaket matzmishukatz. That the Neshamah loses the holiness of it, goes down, it becomes impure. And there are certain things who makes it happen. Sins with women, watching dirty things, eating dirty things, listening to all kinds of bad words in songs. Non-kosher music makes very big damage to the Neshamah. There are a lot of things that destroys the Neshamah, but I'm not here to give you a mussar talk because I'm sure you have Rabbanim that do it just as good. I'm here for one reason. I want by the time I leave here that none of you will have one doubt about few things. One, there is a God. Two, He gave us the Torah in a public event. Three, every word in the Torah, it's His. No human being added or erased anything from the Torah. For that, not only the written Torah is divine, the oral Torah, what we call the Mishnah and the Gemara, all the information that relates to halacha, it's all divine. There are parts in the Talmud that is not divine. The life of Rabbi Akiva, it's biography. It's not from Har Sinai. If they tell you Rabbi Akiva went here and met a boy and the boy, his father died, his father That has nothing to do with the Torah. It's just to tell you things that happen, current events. Also medicine. Some of the medicine the Chachamim wrote came from the Greeks. The Greeks were the doctors of that time. Today some doctors say that those medicines are not— they're worthless, they're not good. That doesn't mean there's a mistake in the Talmud. Because today if I write a book and people ask me, are you allowed to be Mechalel Shabbos for for this disease. So I go to a big doctor and I ask him about this disease, if it's a life risk, what's the chances. And he tells me, yeah, yeah, it's a life risk. So I write in my book, you're allowed to be mechalel Shabbos. If you get an attack with this disease, you have to go to the hospital on Shabbos. I write it in my book. 30 years after I died, a different doctor comes to the world and says, "Whatever we believed until now, it's incorrect. This disease can never kill. There's no life risk here. It's just an illusion. People thought that it's killing. There's no chance to die." So now you go back to my book. What do you say? "Ah, there's a mistake in the book. You're allowed to be mechalel Shabbos for this disease." It's not my mistake. It's the doctor's mistake. You understand the difference? If I tell you, "Allah ha," what comes from the Torah, it will always be divine. And when it's divine, there's no mistakes. If I count on doctors, on scientists that say certain things that the Torah did not discuss, if I write that in my book and one day will be proven as not true, that's not a mistake. You have to know what you're talking about. I give you one example. In the Torah, it says that Jews are allowed to eat seafood In one condition, it has to have fins and scales. You want to know if it's kosher? You went fishing now, you went to Seven Lakes, you caught a fish you never saw in your life, this fish, never. You want to know if you can barbecue this fish here or no? What are you going to do, go to the encyclopedia and check what kind of fish is this? Waste 3 days? Thousands of fish, how are you going to know? The Torah says if it has fins and scales, it's kosher. So he said, okay, let's scratch it. Scales are falling off. It has fins. Kosher. What's the name of it? I don't know. Who cares? It's kosher. How do you know it's kosher? The Torah says, kol asher yesh lo skaske sed ve'snapir tochelu. Everything that has fins and scales, you're allowed to eat. Now you go to the oral Torah, the Gemara, the Mishnah, the Gemara. Gemara says, everything that has scales will always have fins. 7 words. Kol sheyeshlo kaskezet, yeshlo snapir. Let's see if you're clever now. What I'm showing you. It's a huge risk to write such a thing in a book. 72% of the world is water. Almost the whole world is water. Look how much land we have and that's not even a quarter of the world. I mean, yes, it's a quarter of the world, that's it. 72% is water. If you look at the globe, it's all blue. How deep? How deep from here to Monroe? 12 kilometers. Maybe 7 miles. Okay, it's much deeper. It's much deeper, but they can't reach because there's a lot of pressure in the bottom of the ocean. But it's very, very deep. In the ocean is very, very deep. How many kinds of fish we know? More than 40,000 by names. And there are scorpions and turtles and all kinds of other— horse. There's a lot of things in the ocean. Huh? Yeah, they keep discovering new ones. Very good point. So the Torah was given to us how many years ago? 3,300 years ago. And the Torah say, the oral Torah, remember Torah Shebe'al Peh, the Torah say everything that have scales will always have fins. Everything. If somebody will find one day something in the ocean that have scales but doesn't have fins, what would happen to Judaism? It will all be over. Everything will be over. [Speaker] The Gemara also says that the world is straight. [Speaker] Wait, we'll get to it. Everything will be over. Why? Because there's mistakes. It's taken in the Torah. I was counting on that, that every time I go to Chinese store and buy half a fish, I don't need to see the fins because the Torah says if it has scales, it's kosher. It will always have fins. So if you go to Mr. Lee in Chinatown and you see half a fish, you don't see the fins. Somebody else bought the fins. You only see the head and half of the body. And you see scales, you know it's kosher. Why? How do you know? Wait, wait, we'll get to that. But first, the Torah says if it has scales, it must have fins. Okay, so now you saw scales. If one day somebody will find something that has scales and doesn't have fins, what would happen? What would happen? Basically, we found a mistake in Halacha, in the Torah, Halacha Lemoshe Mitzvot. What we believe that Hashem gave turned to be wrong. How can we rely on this Torah anymore if we find one mistake? Now, the comments that you made, the Gemara said the world is flat, it's not true. It clearly says 2,000 10 years ago in a Zohar, "Kola yeshuv mitgal gela beigul kekadur." The world is round and turning around and there are people on the top of the ball and there are people in the bottom of the ball. But remember what I said about the Gemara. The Gemara could include in it things that is not from the Torah. For instance, there was an argument if the world is going around the sun the sun or the sun is going around the world? There was an argument in the time of the Greeks. The answer to this question is not in the Torah. Hashem never told us. He did not tell us if the earth goes around the sun or the sun goes around the earth. So the Greeks, they were not stupid people. They were all scientists, mathematicians. They were thinking, what Is more logical that the servant goes around the king to serve him when the king sits and the servant goes around to serve him? Or that the servant sits and the king goes around him? What makes more sense? The servant goes around the king. Oh, so our world is the king and the sun is our servant. It gives us light, gives us heat, heat, takes care of the plants. So the sun was made to serve us. That means if it was made for me, we know that the sun appears and disappears, so we know it goes around us. One time is on one side of the world, one time is on the other side of the world. So they assume that the sun goes around the earth. The Chachamim agree with that. Why not? It makes perfect sense. Later on, when we have NASA and we see pictures, we see it's the other way around. That's no mistake in the Torah. Ruach Hakodesh is not 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, or your entire life. It comes and goes. Ruach Hakodesh doesn't exist all the time. Even if you're the most righteous person in the world, you can make mistakes. Moshe Rabbeinu made mistakes. Rabbi Akiva made mistakes. Many other big Tanaim made mistakes. Nevi'im made mistakes. Prophets made mistakes. It's in the Tanakh. I give you one example. David Amalek came to Nathan the Navi. Nathan was a big Navi 3,000 years ago. Wasn't a rabbi of today. Take 1,000 Rebbis today, it's not going to reach Nathan alone. With his level. David Amalek came to him and said to him, I want to build a Beit Hamikdash for Hashem. 3,000 years ago. I want to build a Beit Hamikdash. The Navi told him, yeah, you should be matzliach, you should be successful. Hashem will help you, you build a Beit Hamikdash. Then Hashem came to him at night, said, why did you tell David to build Beit Hamikdash? That's not what I said. He cannot build Beit Hamikdash. Why? He's a soldier and he killed people in a war. Even though there were big Rasha'im, goyim, that mitzvah to kill them, but the hands that spills blood cannot build such a holy place like Beit HaMikdash. He cannot build it, but his son will build it. Here you go. The prophet did not have Ruach HaKodesh and did not have prophecy. His common sense was nobody deserves more than David Amalek to build Beit HaMikdash. The biggest tzaddik. He did not take into consideration that because he killed people in a war, it would bother Hashem. The Gemara was written— again, there are parts. First of all, you know how long it took to write the Gemara? The Gemara took many, many years to write, but it's a conclusion of 400 years of halacha. 400 years. and everything when it comes to Halacha, you see the Ruach HaKodesh in front of your eyes. Because two rabbis, Rav Ashi and Rav Ina, how were they able to know 400 years all over the world, yeshivot, all the opinions of every Tana in every subject in the Torah to build such a thing? Based on memory? It's above our ability. Today, even with computers, we couldn't do such thing. To remember in every topic the opinion of every rabbi for 400 years. Remember, there was no internet, no telephone, no books, no printed books. There's no way to call and find out, hey, what was Rabbi Akiva's opinion about this and this and that? They were very limited and they were able to write such a thing. No, practice Halacha is one thing. We are now talking about all the arguments in the Gemara to know the opinion of every Tanna and Amora in every subject. Can you know anyone that could have done it today? There's no way to know it. Maybe they were geniuses. We have geniuses today also, but cannot do 1% of it. You cannot. There's people that know Shas by heart. There's no such thing. Nobody knows Shas by heart. In the world. Because here is someone that you can't catch him in places, in shuls, anywhere. Yeah, there are a lot of Baruch Hashem Geonim. I'm not saying no, but to know everything, every word by heart. I'm willing to put my money that if we go and ask him specific pages in the Gemara, you will see that he doesn't know every word. Whatever you want. And you're gonna lose. And it doesn't take even a bit away from his level, that he is one of the biggest Chachamim in the world. And even people that have photographic memory, photographic memory, they still don't know every word by heart. They know almost every page, what is it talking about, but not word by word. He didn't know word by word. You can— That's true, he knew every book word by word. Where it is in a shelf in every room in every place in the house. But you can't compare it to know thousands of thousands of words and word by word. So what do we trust, what don't we trust? Okay, so now I don't want— I think we're going off the topic. If you want one time a lecture what parts of the Gemara and what divine, what parts of the Gemara is current event and science That's a whole different topic. I have a lecture about it, 3 kinds of knowledge in the Talmud. If you have time, you watch it and you get the point. I am talking now about what we know for sure came from Mount Sinai. Everything that relates to halacha, like the fish, it's something you need to know. The renewal of the moon, you need to know the cycle of the renewal of the moon because it's involved with Rosh Chodesh. Today we have a calendar, so it's it's not so critical. But back in time when you needed the witnesses to come and testify, you needed witnesses to come and say that they saw the renewal of the moon, the Gemara had to tell you the minimal cycle of the renewal of the moon. That's what I show in my film Torah and Science. Why do you need to know? Because one time witnesses came to the Beit Din and they said, we just saw the renewal of the moon. And the Rabbi, Rabban Gamliel, he told them, you're all wrong. What do you mean? We came from outside, you're sitting inside. We're all wrong, you're all wrong, he said. Why? Because the renewal of the moon can never be less than 29 days and a half. Half is 12 hours and 2/3 of the hour, which is 40 minutes, and 73 parts of the minute. So it comes 29.530590. That's the minimal cycle of the renewal of all the moons. No, it will never be less. Blue moon? What's blue moon? I never heard of it, I don't know what it is. I never saw the moon more than once a month. It always comes in the beginning of of the month it's very small, by the 15th of the month it's full, and then it decreases. There's an expression, once in a blue moon, I guess. Anyway, what I don't know about, I don't want to talk about. If you tell me later on what it is, I'll check what it is. But one thing I want you to understand, I actually brought with me one book. Oh, I brought my book with me. I know not all of you may have patience to read books, but this one is special. If you read this book, Preparation for Eternal Life, it will set up every doubt you ever had. Every person that read this book, even it's a— that's my book. Even if even a goy, a goy that reads this, immediately beg to convert immediately. You cannot believe it. Why? Because it gets the whole thing in one book. How do we know? How do we know? For instance, do you know, do you know what's the main difference between Judaism to 80,000 religions and cults that came after? One very, very serious difference that changed everything. Who knows? Can I ask one more question? Very good. Well, wait, first let's answer Mike Kushevsky. Very good. Every religion that started, one guy came and he told the story. Muhammad came, the angel Gabriel gave me the Quran. How many people saw it? Nobody. This Mary, the Christian, she said, I had a dream, God came to me in a dream. How many people saw the dream? Nobody. There was one Buddha, he came one day, he said, I saw the light. I had a special spiritual experience. How many people saw it? Nobody. So you keep going. Every cult, every religion that started by someone, that's his story. Now you want to believe him or you don't want to believe him. It's right away 50% doubt. Maybe it happened, maybe he's lying, or maybe he's dreaming. Okay. Our religion can never be faked. Because very, very simple. Millions of people standing around Mount Sinai when Moshe Rabbeinu gives them the Torah. Now, when Moshe gives them the Torah in a live event, Moshe say to them, "All of you heard me and Hashem speaking." There are millions of people there. That was not on Mount Sinai, that was before he died. When he gives them the Torah. When did he give them the Torah? The day he died. And he gives them now the Torah. Mount Sinai, we got nothing. We only heard the first two commandments. That's it. That's it. Hashem came. He wanted to say the Aseret HaDibrot. Everybody got scared. They said to Moshe, we're scared. We don't want to hear it. Huh? Fine. But when Hashem spoke, after the second commandments, everyone got so scared, afraid to die. So Moshe relaxed them, don't worry, Hashem is not here to hurt you, he's just testing you. And he went up to the mountain. Then he came down 40 days later. What did he bring? Torah Shebe'alpeh and the second commandments. And Torah Shebichtav until Parasha Tito. What already happened. What did not happen yet? He will write in 40 years from Parashat Yitro until the end of Sefer Devarim. Every once in a while Hashem took him to Ol Moed and showed him what to write until he concluded the Torah in the last day of his life. And by a miracle he wrote 13 Sifrei Torah. One he put aside, one he gave to each tribe. And now they received the Torah in full for the first time. And it's like what's written in the Torah. You were slaves in Egypt. If it didn't happen, they would say to him, excuse me, Moshe, maybe you lost your mind. I mean, I know we know you're old, but we were never been in Egypt. And Pharaoh did this to you. It never happened. You saw blood all over. It didn't happen. You saw billions of frogs. It didn't happen. Every firstborn in Egypt died. It didn't happen. The Red Sea opened and you went through and the Egyptians drowned. It never happened. All of you heard me speaking to God. I didn't hear you speaking to God. It says here that I heard you speaking to God. I'm sorry, it didn't happen. It's all fairy tales. No one would be comfortable who would agree to take such a religion with so many mistakes in a book. Can I convince each one of you that I brought you here from Japan? If I came and I started my speech I am the messenger of God that I brought all of you Hasidish boys from Japan into Hermon, into this place. What would you say? This guy probably took something. It's not normal. Would you agree now if I say to you as results of that, that I just proved to you that I'm the messenger of God because I brought you from Japan on my wings and I carried you in the air and I brought you here to Hermon. And because of that, all of you must listen to me. And the first thing I want you to do is to come and pick up my car in the air and walk with that all the way to Monsey because I'm the messenger of God. So what does it mean that I brought you on wings? And can finish a riem. That's an expression. Can finish a riem means You know, like flying. No, but it's— if you specifically talk about one war, then you're right. But if you look at the whole picture, there's no doubt here. The Torah says, I opened the Red Sea for you. Yes. I took you out. Yes. The Egyptians drowned. Yes. I walked you 40 years in the desert. Yes. You heard me speaking to God. Yes. All these things happened. If one of them did not happen, No one would agree to keep even one thing. Now wait, it gets better. If somebody is a faker and he wants to write a book of religion, he's pretending that he's the messenger of God. What is his motivation? Why would a person come today and say, "I'm a prophet. God gave me this book." What's his incentive? 1, he wants to be famous. 2, power to control people. 3, money, donations, give me money, 10%, miser. 4, to be remembered in history as the messenger of God. 5, I think I'm the smartest, everyone should listen to me, and if I would not pretend I'm a prophet, They won't listen to me. So the only way to make them listen to my wisdom is to lie and to say that I'm the messenger of God. Did I cover everything? Or if you're not normal and delusional. Okay, all right. Now, so when I come to you now and I know I faked a book, I wrote it last night in my kitchen. If I come now Knowing I'm not a prophet. I know I'm not a prophet, but I'm pretending I am. So I say, I am your prophet, you all must listen to me, this is what God gave me to give you. So now, if I give you a religion to keep, what's better for me? To make the religion very easy, 4 or 5 things, or to make it very hard? When would you love me more? When would you not fight me? When I give you an easy religion, 4 or 5 things to do and that's it? Give 1% of your money, tzedakah, if you like. Daven one time a month, 5 minutes. Put tefillin one time a year. Eat whatever you like. Basically everything is allowed, like Christianity. What did they have then? Islam is very hard. Wait, wait, we'll talk about Islam. Wait one minute. Islam copy from Judaism. Islam, whatever they say, they copy from the Torah. Ramadan is not copy. Ramadan, fasting 40 days. Everything in Islam, it's stolen from the Torah, but they wanted to make it better to show they are better than us. We pray on Yom Kippur 5 times. The rest of the year we pray 3 times. So they say, oh, they pray 5 times on Yom Kippur, we're gonna pray 5 times every day. Okay, their women is covered, they're very modest. We only, we're gonna make our women cover and also cover the face. By us, we're not allowed to cover the face. They said, we're gonna be more modest than you, we cover the face. Okay, so we don't eat pork, they don't eat pork. We don't charge interest one Jew to another, they don't charge interest. We have fast, Yom Kippur we fast and other days we fast. They would do 40 days Ramadan fast to show you we are more strict than you. That's the whole concept, different concept. And still it's the biggest religion. It doesn't matter. What do you have more? What do you have in nature, more gold or more sand? Yeah, but people don't want easy. But if you're saying that if you want people to join, make it easy, it's like a little cozy lap. No, no, wait. At first I didn't finish. If you would hear my whole argument, then you would see there's no argument here. But let me first finish, then I answer you. So would I bring you an easy religion to keep or a hard one? Most likely an easy one. Will I make the laws of the Torah logical or I will make 80% of them against human logic? Logical, right? You should not steal, it's logical. You should not kill, it's logical. Respect your parents, it's logical. But why do I care if you eat chametz or not? Who cares what you eat? How does it change anything? Why do I care if you eat chametz? Why does it help me if one week you're not gonna eat bread? How does it benefit me if I'm a faker and I brought the Torah and I made it up? What do I gain by not letting the whole nation eat pasta and beer and bread for one week? They're only gonna hate me. What do I gain by forcing them to give 10 or 20% Tzedakah? I didn't tell them to give it to to me to give to widows? What do I care about this? How do I benefit from it? What do I care if they take lulav and etrog and they go like this for 8 days? How does it help me? What do I care if they sit in a sukkah one week? They're all gonna get angry. Look, we have to leave our house in the heat, in the sun. What is this? What does it help me? 80% of the laws of the Torah is against human logic. What human being will make such laws? What person will make a law that if you see a bird in a nest, you gotta get rid of it, take the chicks, put it away, and thanks to that you're gonna have long life? Do you know a person that will make such a strange law? What does he get from it? So you see that a lot of the laws of the Torah are very unique and they are not logical in human logic. We don't even understand why Hashem made it. Some of the laws we understand. Some, for instance, sacrifices. If I'm a faker, how does it help me that we're gonna kill 1 million sheep a year? We're going against ourselves. Every sheep is $300. Every minute sacrifice another goat, another one, another one, another one, another one. Slaughtering, putting it on a misbeach. How does it help me? Why do I care if somebody wrote something on Shabbat that he's gonna take a sheep and burn it in Yerushalayim? How does it help me? So we see that a lot of these laws could not be made by a human being. Then when we review the Torah, it's full of prophecies. No other book have prophecies. Quran does not have one Nivua, does not have one prophecy. Prophecy, the Quran? Not even one. They call him Prophet Muhammad, but he did not give one prophecy. If you find a prophecy in the Quran— I'm not talking what he copied from Navi Esha'iyah and Ikhazkel. The prophecy that one day the Jews are going to be extinct and they're going to hide in the back of a tree and the tree is going to be— That's not a prophecy. They said one day we're going to have to do it. One day we're gonna have to kill all Jews and even the one, the tree will scream there's a Jew hiding here. But if you know a little bit Quran, the first half of the Quran speaks very nice about the Jews. The people of God, God gave them the land, they are the chosen people. Unbelievable. The end of the Quran speaks very bad about the Jews. What happened? How can a book contradict itself? The answer is when Muhammad started with the fake book, he came to the Jews in Saudi Arabia hoping they will accept him as a prophet. If the Jews will accept me, everyone will accept me because they are the one who gave us the book. He actually called us Amas Sefir, the nation of the book, Muhammad. He gave us the title. After he found out that the Jews denied him, and told him, "You're fake, you're not a prophet." That's when he started to kill the Jews, do it. So you see, the first half of the Quran speaks beautifully about the Jews. He actually married a Jew, unfortunately, and he put his sword by a Jew because he said you can trust the Jews. And he said if you have questions about the Quran, you have to go to the Jews and ask them because they got the Torah before you. And he said that God said I defeated the evil people, Pharaoh and his nation, and I brought the chosen people into the Holy Land and gave them the land. That's all from the Quran. The Torah is also this. The Torah also says, the first part says about good, and then the Jews did averot, and it says that I will destroy you. No, it's different. Over there, it doesn't speak about averot of the Jews. It says that the Jews are special and God took them out of Egypt and gave them the Holy Land. All of a sudden, he said one day, a tree would scream to kill the Jews and this and that, like this and that, like that. Complete contradiction. The answer is because until he had still had hopes that the Jews will accept him, he spoke very nice about them and showed them what the book said and he thought that the Jews will accept him. But the Jews threw him away. And now you ask me about the Quran, you have to understand You have to understand how the Quran started. The Quran— Muhammad went from one family to another. Would you take my book and accept me as a prophet or you all get killed. Everyone who refused to accept it, he killed them. Until today, everyone who refused to accept Islam, they kill him. That's not a way— that's not a way to prove that the religion is true. Is divine. Oh, if I'm not gonna do it, you're gonna kill me? Okay, so I'll be Muslim. That's not— Torah doesn't say that. Moshe didn't say to anyone, if you're not gonna do it, I will kill you. Hashem said, Hashem said. But you see that it doesn't happen right away. It's not like this. I come with a sword, would you be Muslim? No, I don't want. So I'm gonna chop your head off. Okay, okay, I'll be Muslim. Kafaleh, Malkhigigid, after they agree. After they agree. So I suggest really each one of you will read this. It is, it first of all gives you a lot of proofs to know that the Torah can never be written by human being. Never. No human being was able to know what the Torah knew. Definitely not 3,300 years ago. Not only the fish, the renewal of the moon, the number of the stars, codes in the Torah. Codes in the Torah. I give you one example. In Parashat Bo, it says information about the Rambam. Is it possible? How many years the Torah was written before the Rambam? Who knows? 2,400 years before the Rambam was born. And And it's giving us information about the Rambam, about Mishneh Torah, about 613 commandments. How is it possible? I'll tell you. Etze vayomer Hashem el Moshe lo ishma paro elchem leman rebot muftay be'eretz Mitzrayim. Vayomer Hashem el Moshe. You take the name of Moshe, you circle it. You count 49 letters. 1, 2, 3. You continue. 1, 2, 3. You count 49 letters. The 50th letter will be Shin. So you have Mem. Now you circle the Shin. You count 49 letters. The 50th letter will be Nun. You circle it. You count 49 letters. The 50th letter will be He. You get the word Mishneh. You go to the bottom of the page, you see Torah. Tav, you circle the Tav, you count 49 letters. You see Vav, 49 letters. Resh, 49 letters. Hey. So you have Mishneh on the top of the page, you have Torah on the bottom of the page. What is the difference between Mishneh and Torah? How many letters? 613 letters. In a chapter that speaks about Moshe that lives in Mitzrayim, Rambam lives in Mitzrayim. Rebbot muftay be'eretz Mitzrayim, abbreviation Rambam. Rebbot, resh, muftay, mem, be'eretz, be'et, Mitzrayim, mem, Rambam. What was he? The doctor of the king. It's a lefparo. There's a lot of hints about Rambam in the text, but now Now, if you watch my film Torah and Science, I show it on the screen, the page. Mishneh Torah is the book the Rambam wrote that speaks about 613 commandments. So you have Mishneh in equal skip, Torah in equal skip, and the skip between Mishneh and Torah, 613 letters. If you're smart, you don't need more than that. You don't need any other proof. Can I ask a question? Yes. What's the point of living in this world? Is it like a race where I can get the most Mitzvot and then I get heaven? Or is there something more to this life? Okay, so the purpose of the Torah, it's written clearly in the Torah, the purpose of life. The purpose of life is written in the Torah. It's written in a pasuk, Lemaan Anotra. You have tortures in life, suffering. I'm testing you all the time. To examine your heart. Will you keep my mitzvot or not? Will you still be loyal and pass the test that I gave you even though it's hard or not? And what does it say right after that? That I should reward you in your end. I will reward you in your end. When is the end? When you die. No old people got any reward before they died. Their life become harder. If you suffer when you're 60, you suffer much more when you're 70. Yes, so you suffer a lot more when you get old. You know, no old person got any reward in his life. So the Torah say, in your end I will reward you. Lehetifcha, I will give you the good that I promised. Ba'acharitecha, acharit means end. In your end, you're gonna get paid for what you did right. And if you did wrong, you're gonna get the punishment. Now the question is, why to begin with Hashem made the world and did not put us directly in heaven and that's it? Why you need to put us here in a test? Did you ever read So right there in the beginning, first chapter, in the beginning of this, I have a whole CD about the whole book. If you want to listen, it's very good, will make you very strong in Emunah. But in the beginning of the book, the Ramchal explained that the Neshamah could not enjoy a free gift. If a person comes to ask for Tzedakah, knocks on your door, you open the door. You never find someone that comes and says, "Hey, hurry up, give me tzedakah, I'm hungry, quick." Did you ever see such thing? When a person asks for tzedakah, you see his whole body shrink, he puts his head down, "I'm sorry, I'm hungry, can you help me out?" Even the people in the intersection, "Can you spare some change?" They always come like that. You never saw someone come like this, "Excuse me, me, I'm hungry, give me tzlaka. There's no such thing. When you get paid about something you don't deserve, you have a shame. When you earn it, there's no shame. I earned it. You're not doing me any favor. The only way for us to enjoy the eternal pleasure that the Torah promised when we die is if we earned it. If we got it as a free gift, we you don't enjoy it. What is it like if I take one of you to stay by me in my house? I give you a credit card, I give you a car, I give you as much food as you want, I do your laundry. Whatever you want, right away I run to take care of. In the first day, enjoy. Second day, you enjoy a little bit less. Every day you suffer more. Then you begin to come and offer me help. Can I help you with the garbage? 'Can I help you to wash the car? Can I pick up your son from school?' Why all of a sudden you want to work? You're here on vacation. You came here for me to take care of you. You don't have to clean. You don't have to do anything. You don't have to wash the car and you don't have to go and drive anyone. Why are you suggesting that? Because you want to justify what I give you. Because as long as I keep giving it to you for free, free, you suffer. You don't enjoy. To the point that you say, "No, enough, enough. You gave me too much. I'm embarrassed. Please, I'm ashamed. No, no, no more, no more." No, no, you're here for us to give you. You're not enjoying. But if you earn, if you work for it, that's why it's bigger mitzvah to find a job for Yid than to give him tzedakah. Why? Logically, everyone would want to get free money. Who wants to go to work? If somebody wants to give you $1,000 help, would you rather get the $1,000 as a gift or you rather work and earn it? Physically, you would rather get it for free. So why most people would say, no, no, don't give me a gift. Let me work. Find me a job. Why is it? Because they suffer receiving a free gift. It eats you from inside. This is what the Torah says. I will put you in a place with Yetzer Hara, the evil inclination. I'll give you the Torah. If you learn Torah, it helps you to fight the Yetzer Hara. If you pass the test, I will reward you. [Speaker:STUDENT] What about fear? If you tell me, you keep me in the house, and you know, I don't want to work. You know, if you don't want to work, not only I'm going to send you out of the house, I'm going to put you in, you know, a big thing of fire. You're going to stay there for whatever time. You just touched a very good point. That's what I always ask in my lecture. Do you think we have Bechira in life or no? What do you think? Or we are robots? Is Hashem moving us with remote control or we actually choose what we want to do? All of you sitting here, all of you now sitting here, if you didn't want to sit here, you get up and go out, right? So the question— tough, we got it, we'll make a note of it. So now, so now the question is, we all understand that we have Chira. How do we know? We're different than the animals. We can choose between good and bad. We are the only living creature that can choose to do something we don't like. But animals, they will always choose what they like. If you put meat in front of a dog or you put, I don't know, something sweet, jelly, whatever, he will always eat the meat. He doesn't like the other thing. It's not his food. You put good food at the door, he will always eat it. We rather eat bread, but we will eat matzah. Why? Because that's what has to be done even though we don't like it. We will stand in the street and shake lulav even though people pass by and we feel a little bit strange. Matzah wasn't that normal. No. A lot of people hate matzah. A lot of people hate matzah and they eat it because Hashem said so. Just because. You like matzah. Some people don't. It doesn't matter you like, you don't like. The idea, you get the point. We are the only one that choose to do against our pleasure. Against what we are desiring to do. You want to steal now? You're gonna have a million dollar. Nobody's here. Nobody. The diamonds stay here. The guy went out of the room. You can grab it and run and they will never know where you are. You have a million-dollar diamond. What's holding you? Hashem is watching. I'm gonna pay the price. So you can choose to do against your will. Animals cannot choose against their will. You cannot come to the tiger and say, don't eat the zebra now, wait 3 hours. We want to take some pictures, then eat the zebra. He's hungry now, he's gonna eat the zebra with or without you. You cannot stop him. Now, this is my question to you. Do you think that our free will is free or it's not free? You know what's the difference between free will and will? Free will and free will of choice? What's the difference? Do you know? Who knows what's the difference? I'll tell you what's the difference. I'll tell you what's the difference. I say to you, "Look, if you come to work tomorrow morning by my supermarket, I'll pay you $15 an hour. You work every day 10 hours, you're gonna make $150. If you come, very good, you make money." You get up in the morning, you're not in the mood to come. It's too cold, raining, I don't know what. You decided to stay in bed. What did you lose? The $150 that you could have made. More than that, you didn't lose. Okay? But what if I say to you, if you come tomorrow, you're gonna make $150, and if you don't come, if you don't come, you're going to lose $150. Are you with me or no? If you come, you make $150. If you don't come, I make you pay $150. 50. Which one of the two scenarios is free? The first or the second? The first, because the first there's no punishment. You come, you earn. You don't come, you stay what you are. No punishment. The second one has a reward and punishment. You come, you get a reward. You don't come, you get a punishment. Now you ask me, ah, Everything in the Torah is like this. You do what I say, I'm gonna pay you. You don't do, I'm gonna punish you. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Think before you answer. If you have a kid, if you have a kid and you make a system with your kid, when you listen to me and you do what I ask you to do, I'm gonna give you money and I'm gonna let you use the car and I'm gonna send you to Israel once a I'm gonna do a lot of great things for you. And if you don't listen to me, I'll take away your phone and I'll take away your money and I won't send you to Israel and I'm gonna not let you leave the house for a week. The fact that you gave your son all these warnings and punishments, which sometimes you will give him if he doesn't do the right thing, it's an indication of love or hate? What is it? 100% love. You don't hate your son. Why are you giving your son a punishment? You want to help him out. If you're not gonna punish him now, in 2 years from now he's gonna murder people. Now it's the time to take care of the problem. People understand only one language: what do I have to lose? In Israel, everyone was driving very fast until 10 years ago. You're supposed to to drive 60 miles an hour, people would drive 90. Why? Why not? It saves time. Now they put cameras everywhere in Israel. In a GPS, matzlem alef hanekha. If you go to Israel, you know what I'm talking about. You drive 1 mile, camera. Another mile, camera. 2 more miles, camera. Everywhere, police here, camera here, police there, camera there. You have to see everyone drive very slow now. Why people drive slow? Because they believe you should drive slow? No, they're very frustrated. They hate to drive slow. It wastes a lot of time and sometimes it's really not necessary. 2 AM at night, you have highway with 4 lanes, why should I drive 60 if I can drive 80 and the car goes easy? It would save me another half an hour on the road. Every day to lose half an hour, it's a lot of time. All the time. Why do I drive slow? Because if not, I'm gonna pay 2,000 shekels fine. And then after once or twice, they'll take away my license. What made me do the right thing? Only the punishment. Now, if the Torah would come in the end of the Torah, after we read the whole Torah, Hashem would say to us, and now my Jews, My dear Jewish kids, after you saw my Torah, after you read my recommendation, I allow you to do whatever you want. If you keep my Torah and mitzvot, you're gonna get a huge reward in the afterlife. If you don't keep, no punishment. One day you die, you become sand, and that will be the end of it. How many people you think would stay for based on a promise for Olam Haba, for the next world. In my opinion, at least 80, maybe even 90% of the frum people within few months would totally leave the religion. Why? Because, you know what, so I won't be in Olam Haba. People are not so smart. They don't understand what does it mean Olam Haba. If they really understood, they would kill for that. But the point is that people don't see it actual, so they think, "Ah, in another 40 years I'm gonna have Olam Haba." So if you waive the punishment, I'm happy. Okay, so I could be Mechalel Shabbos, there's no more Motiumat, there's no more Karet to the soul, there's no more Gehinnom. Ah, Baruch Sheptarano, fantastic. Oh, so you are in the 10% of the smart people. Yeah, yeah, very good. That shows wisdom. Don't threaten me that I'm going to go to hell if I do something wrong. Now you ruin everything. Now you ruin everything. You started very good. You started very good. What you started was very good. I, even if you cancel the punishment, I will still be from because I'm afraid to lose my Olam Haba. That's very smart. But don't say the next thing that you say. Don't scare me with the punishment because the punishment helped Moshe Rabbeinu, for sure it helps you also. Moshe Rabbeinu, Hashem showed him Gehinnom. The Gemara says he was shaking. He was shaking until Hashem told him, I told him, "Don't worry, you're not going there." He did not relax. So we all move by the fear. Fear, it's a great motivation. Even though you don't like to admit it, people hate to admit that they act under fear, but every minute of your life you move based on fear. When you drive, you're afraid of police or some drunk driver that will hit you. You're afraid of a flat tire. You're afraid to miss your appointment. You're afraid of IRS, you're afraid of your parents, you're afraid of your rabbi, you're afraid not to have a school, you're afraid to have a school. Some people depend who you are. You're afraid of a lot of things. You're afraid not to get a job, you're afraid not to get paid, you're afraid the check will bounce, you're afraid you'll be sick, you have pain, you're afraid it's cancer. You don't see good, wow, maybe I'm diabetic. There is so many things we scared of and it's kosher. No problem. When it comes to Torah, all of a sudden everyone barks. "Oof! Why? Why Gehinnom? Why this? Why that? Why Hashem is so strict?" Why the police is strict? Nobody cries. Why I arrest a thief? Nobody cries. Because they understand it. Because they see it. They see it. That's it. Do you see radio waves? No, but I know if I charge the phone. Do you see radio waves? Can you see the radio waves? You can't. Can you prove them with the 5 senses? So why do you get on a plane on the way to Israel? Why? Why are you not afraid? So you see the results. Oh, here you go. So when you read the Torah and you see that a person can never write such a book, 'Only the one that created the world was able to write it.' Are you suspecting that he's a liar? What are you saying? No, no, no, no. You know common sense? You know what common sense means? Okay. I tell you what common sense is. You listen now to the radio, the news, and the police say someone just got murdered. The police found mud on the rug. That's what they said on the news. Someone that has common sense, he doesn't need everything to be told to him. Oh, there was mud on the rug, that means there was a rainy day. Maybe there's snow outside, maybe water on the floor, that's why there was mud. In a sunny day when everything is dry and nice, there's no mud on the rug, right? How did I learn about the mud? I investigated on my own. Okay, now, when I see someone sitting in Los Angeles is speaking and a second later I see him and hear him on a screen in New York. How did he get to New York in one second? I know he arrived to New York through the air. How? I don't know. But I see the final result. What's the final result? He had to come from Los Angeles to New York through the air. But I can't prove that radio waves. I don't need to. I see the results. I see the world. I see suffering. I see Holocaust. I see how much we suffer when we don't listen to Hashem. I see all these things that the Torah discuss about. I see the prophecies are one by one, they all happen. Do you know? Do you know how brave you have to be to write in the Torah, I'm gonna bring you to the land when there are 7 nations over there. Remember, that's before they enter the land. Only Yehoshua Ben Nun took them to Israel. This is Moshe Rabbeinu still. Moshe Rabbeinu wrote in the Torah, I am taking you to Eretz Israel, to the land of Canaan, when there are 7 nations with 7 massive armies waiting for us over there. Russia, China, United States, Germany, all the big countries with massive army and horses and soldiers, and we, the nation of Israel, not exactly such an army. We going to get into Israel, we going to defeat them, I'm gonna kick them out of the land, not because you are better than them, because they are worse than you, and I promised to Abraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov that I will give you the land. You are nothing better than these goyim, but the goyim already made so many sins and avodah zarah and lack of modesty issues, so I'm kicking them out of the land and I'm giving you the land instead because I owe to your father Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, not because you are righteous. That's what the Torah says. I'm giving you the land. Now, what human being can take such a risk? Do you know a person that will take such a risk to bring a nation with children and women into Israel to fight 7 nations? Logically, they should have killed us all in a day. In a day. And yet we killed them and we kicked them out. And then the Torah says, you will build Beit HaMikdash, Beit HaBechira, in a place that I will show you. And if you don't listen to me, I will destroy it. A nation from far that you don't recognize their language will come. Their sign is an eagle. They will come and destroy the Temple and they will sell you as slaves to Egypt on boats. Everything here is against logic. First of all, how will I get to Israel? Second, how will I win against this nation? Third, how will I kick them out? Fourth, how will I build a Beit Hamikdash? Five, if Beit Hamikdash will be destroyed, it will be destroyed from one of their neighbors. No, no, it will be a nation cruel that have no mercy on women and children that will come from far. Who? The Romans. Their sign is an eagle. The Romans' eagle, the Russian eagles, the Nazis' eagle, America eagle. All the children of Esav, eagle, eagle, eagle, always their sign eagle. Look at the flag. Unbelievable. They will come from far. You won't recognize their language. Because if it's one of the neighbors, you know their language. They come from a place you don't recognize their language, and they will sell you to Egypt on boats. They will say, why do you need a boat? Let them walk to Egypt. It's few days of walking. Why should I bring boat from Italy, put the slaves, take them on boats to Egypt? And the Torah say in Egypt, nobody would want to buy you. The price of a slave will be less than the than the meal of a horse. Horse eats straw. How much is this? $5? The price of a slave will be— nobody wanna buy you. This is a prophecy. This is one of many prophecies in the Torah that happened exactly. They sold us to Egypt. Nobody wanted to buy. They sent us on boats. They destroyed the Beit HaMikdash. They were very cruel. Their sign was an eagle. We didn't know their language. Everything the Torah said happened. And there are many other prophecies in the Torah. That the Torah, for instance, did you know the Holocaust is described in the Torah? Who knows what Parasha speaks about the Holocaust? Who knows? Parasha Vayelech. Hashem say to Moshe, one day I will make a Holocaust to the Jewish people. In different words, this nation will betray me They'll follow the goyim. I will set the goyim to kill them all. That's what it says in Parashat Vayelech. I will close my eyes. Astera astir panay me'em. I will not be there to help them. I will put them in the hand of this cruel goyim to kill them. That's all in Parashat Vayelech. Now I know what you're gonna say. And says also how the goyim are going to wonder, say how one person killed hundreds of— That's in a different parsha. That's B'Chukotai. That's B'Chukotai. Huh? Which one? The goyim will wonder. Why? How did it happen that one goy— see the videos, you see— Right, right. 100%. So now you may come and say to me, very nice, the Torah definitely speaks about a big tragedy that will happen to the Jewish people, but how do you know it's the Holocaust? Maybe the Torah speaks about the destruction of the Temple. Maybe the Torah says about different pogroms that took place in history. How do you know this part speaks about the Holocaust? Who knows? The word the Holocaust in Hebrew in the Shon Kodesh appears in that chapter in equal code, equal mathematical skip. Hashoah, the Holocaust. Hey, Shin, Vav, Aleph, Hey. You have Hey, 49 letters. Shin, 49 letters. Vav, 49 letters. Aleph, 49 letters. Hey. In the part in the Torah that speaks about a Holocaust that will happen to the Jews. The word Holocaust is hidden right there. And there isn't anywhere else in the whole Torah that says, that says— Do it and you see that's the only place. You put it in a computer, Torah codes, put Hashoah, it finds it right there. And you know what? Something even better than that. The Torah said to the Jews, don't worship the God of the wood and the God of the stone, right? Elohe etzva'even, the God of the wood and the God of the stone. Which God of the wood, which religion of the wood and religion of the stone? The Christian is knock on wood, right? The cross of JCPenney, right or wrong? The Muslims is the stone in Mecca. The Torah said to the Jews, I will spread you all over the world. Be careful over there not to follow the religion of these goyim, the gods of the wood and the god of the stone. You may say, how do you know he's speaking about Islam and Christianity? Maybe just speaking about the idols that people make from wood and people make from stone. How do you know he's speaking about Islam? Islam and Christianity? The answer is in this pasuk. You have Yoshke, Yud, Shin, Vav in equal skip. Yud, 49 letters. Shin, 49 letters. Vav. Rasha tevot emar shemov zichro. Yud, Shin, Vav. And you have Mecca. Mem, 49 letters. Chaf, 49 letters. Hey. In that pasuk That warned the Jews not to follow the religion of the wood and the religion of the rock. Which two words are hidden in the mathematical code? Mecca and JC. Coincidence? Random? What are the odds? Not even 1 to a billion that something like this happened by itself. The more you talk to me the more you will know the Torah is divine. The question is, what are you going to do with that? You are young kids, the Yetzer Hara is in the highest level right now in your age. Distracts you, gives you all kinds of illusions, false promises. You're not so interested sometimes to learn. Sometimes kids, all they care about is to enjoy the moment, to smoke, to go to sleep, to play music. I'm not saying you shouldn't sleep. I'm not saying you shouldn't play music. I'm not saying you should not eat good. I'm not saying you should not go on trips. Hashem has no problem that you also enjoy olam hazeh. We are not Christian. In Christianity, they invented something. You want to be righteous, you have to suffer. The Torah doesn't say such thing. The Torah says one day a year you suffer, Yom Kippur. That's it. The rest of the year, eat well. Dress well, enjoy. You want music? You like music? Listen to music. You like good food? Eat good food. No problem. Just don't be a pig. Don't exaggerate. Don't exaggerate. Meaning don't look for the fanciest clothes, don't look for the fanciest car, don't look for the— everything you do, you want to do the fanciest because nothing is enough for you. That's not good. That's already an addiction. That's already Olam HaZeh Avodas HaRah. But at the same time, you have to know the main thing is Torah and Emunah and Irachamayim. And the most important thing is Tikun Hamidos. You have to fix your midos. If you're proud, you gotta get rid of it. If you're lazy, gotta get rid of it. If you're angry, you gotta get rid of it. If you feel that you're foolish, You cannot understand what you learn. You have to put a lot of efforts in the learning, extra than other people that are smart. Don't worry, it will open up. I saw in my life stupid people that did not understand one line in a Gemara for 3 years. Yeshiva for Baal HaYeshuva. It's not a frum frum bird, they learn from a young age. So when they get to your age, they should already know what's going on in a Gemara. But somebody who just became religious age 23, 24, doesn't know, never opened a Gemara. He sits 3 years in yeshiva, he's now 28 already, and he doesn't understand one line in a Gemara. Won't you think it's a waste of time? And all of a sudden, after 3 years, in my own eyes I saw, Hashem opened up his head, quickly went to the highest class in yeshiva, quickly within weeks. Nobody wanted to learn Chavrutah with him. "Ah, it's a waste of time. This guy doesn't understand anything." But he never gave up. He was always on time, always trying again and again and again. And Hashem says, somebody like this must succeed. "Le'fum tzarah agra." The more you put efforts in life, the more you will succeed. Any more questions before we finish? Preparation for the next world. But you can enjoy this world as well. The next world is to receive the divine endless reward. That's what the Torah says. It says if you take all the pleasure of all the people of all the generations of this world combined, all the pleasures, it will not be equal to one one hour of the pleasure in the afterlife which is eternal. It's not fulfilling at all. You don't know what it is, how do you know if it's fulfilling or not? But the joy is not fulfilled. The question is also, I mean, if you get paid for something— Do you know? Do you know? Can you define to me? No, wait, wait, wait. Wait, wait, can you define for me what spiritual pleasure is? Oh, so how do you criticize something you don't know what it is? Right now you enjoy delicious food. Wait, wait, you enjoy delicious food? Okay, you know, there are many things that Hashem made in the world that gives us pleasure, okay? But if you take all the pleasures combined, you have a wife, you enjoy with her, you have the music, you have good food, vacations, nice clothes, art, I don't know, whatever people like. Combine everything together of 7.5 billion people, multiply by 78 years, put a huge mountain of pleasure. Huge! All of us run after pleasure. It doesn't matter you're Hasidish, you're Litvish, you're Sephardi, or you're a goy. Everybody runs after pleasure because that's the the human nature. The Torah comes and says put a limit. Don't be an animal. Control yourself. No problem, I want you to enjoy. I didn't tell you to eat mud. Eat good bread, eat nice cheese, eat chicken, eat fish. No problem, enjoy it. Don't be a pig. That's the whole point. So now the Torah says if you take all the pleasure, everything combined won't be equal to the one hour pleasure the pleasure your Neshamah will have. So why are you not anxious to get it like he is? Oh, now I got your mistake. I didn't understand you before. Every material pleasure, you're right, after a few hours you do it again and again and again, you want to vomit. If you eat the same steak every day, after a month you can't look at it. That's material because Hashem told us material is temporary and it's a lie. But spiritual, the pleasure will never ever end. Spiritual. What's fulfillment? Once you over here in this world, you have to fulfill certain goals. But once you already fulfill them and now you are getting the pleasure pleasure that you earn, there is no need for fulfillment anymore. Fulfillment is only in this world, not in the next world. In the next world is G-d paying, paying you for what you deserve. Now you're collecting, you're receiving, and you're enjoying. Now remember, this is a divine pleasure to the soul, not to the body. That's why you will never get tired of it. Every desire you have physical, when you do it, do it, do it, then every time you enjoy less. Because that's the way Hashem made the world to show you it's all temporary and fake. Okay, let's say someone here in this world somehow manages to get continuous joy. He's not going to be very happy even if he has joy. In this world? Yes. Because the joy— what joy you have in this world? What joy? You make money, it brings you joy. You get married, it brings you joy. You have children, it brings you joy. But you get used You get used to it. You get used to your wife. In the first month, wow, you're so excited. Wow, I just got married. 2 years later, you got used to it. Again, you keep going back to fulfilling. Fulfillment. Fulfillment. You have an empty vessel and you filled it up. That's called fulfillment. Now, you want to have money to You want to buy a house. Once you got the money that you need, you fulfilled your mission. You want to get married. You don't want to die single. You want to get married and you want to have children. You got married. You have few children. You fulfilled your mission. There is no more fulfillment. You already got it. No, but I'm not talking about achieving goals here. Remember, this is already over. We're talking the next one is It's pure pleasure of the soul, pure pleasure of the soul. Imagine you sleep, imagine you sleep in a dream and you have the greatest dream you can imagine and it never ends. You sleep like this for million years and you keep enjoying and enjoying. It's never gonna wear off because it's a spiritual pleasure. You thinking in physical pleasure. I'm saying is, if I sit here and do what I like, let's say it's going to wear off, but in the moment I'm enjoying it, I don't feel like I'm doing anything. I feel very empty inside. Because it's physical. When you win the lottery, you're excited for 3, 4 days, you can't sleep. And you feel so great. Then it's empty. Then you got used to it. But even during those 3 days you don't feel like you did anything. You're just doing nothing, it's empty. So what? So what? Okay, so you don't feel, so what? So what? What's wrong with that? First of all, I feel that I did something. If I tried very hard and I achieved my goal, I feel very satisfied. Most people are happy with what they achieve. But the point is that even when you achieve it and you think, "When I will achieve it, it will make me happy." comes the reality and shows you that what you thought that will make you happy does not make you happy. Who can make you happy? Connection to Hashem. Do you know of Mordechai Steiner from Vishnitz? Did you ever daven by Vishnitz? He was here last week. You know, I want to tell you a story and we'll finish here. About 22, 23 years ago, I came to Monsey for the first time in my life. And then I'd ask, "Where can I catch a later minyan? Not always I can be at 7 o'clock in a yeshiva. Sometimes sleep very late. Where can I?" "Oh, Vishnitz, they have every 15 minutes minyanim. Can catch even 9 o'clock." I went to Vishnitz for the first time in my life. You have to think about it. I'm Israeli, bal tshuva, not from America, and not Hasidish. Totally the opposite of everything that you find in Vishnitz. I walk there, I see all the Hasidim there, you know, hundreds, thousands, I don't know how many from everywhere running, going, talking Yiddish. I'm looking and I'm asking for, looking for a Minyan. I saw a Minyan, I walk inside and never saw in my life Amol HaShtein there. I see a man jumping, crying, you know, you saw, you saw him davening or no? You didn't see him? I saw him but today he was just speaking. You have to see him. I could see how he runs, how he cries, how he sits down, gets up like this. I'm a very rational guy, I like to analyze things. Since I don't know who is this person, I thought to myself, there are two options right now in front of my eyes. One, that I see the most crazy person in the world. Like they say, mishugeneh. And the other option is that I see the most righteous person in the world. There's no in-between. If it's mishugeneh, it's mishugeneh. Mishugeneh, they run, they talk to themselves, whatever they do. They're not controlling what they do. If it's not mishugeneh, then I'm standing in front of a person that is attached to Hakadosh Baruch Hu in the highest level possible. We're not in Yom Kippur, filat neila now. It's Shachris in a weekday and he's crying like this, crying and running. I started to check around. Oh my God, it's a big tzaddik. He's like this from age 13. That's how he davened. It's a very special neshamah. One time I was driving on the street, I saw him walking with his tefillin bag. I made a U-turn on the spot, I say, let me have the merit to have this tzaddik sitting in my car. So, Rabbi, he didn't know what I want from him. What do you want? I said, Rabbi, where are you going? I'll take you, I'll give you a ride. He was hesitating for a second. I took him to his home. So you see what veikus a person can reach in this world. Somebody like him, he needs trips. He needs vacation, he needs ice cream, he needs the nonsense that we need? No, because he's so in such a high spiritual level, all these things is mud in his eyes. Besides Tefillah and Kedusha and Mikveh and Torah, what else somebody like this have in his life? Because we need all these things that other people, they need a trip, they need music, they need food, they need restaurant. These big people, I have a lot of people like this in my yeshiva in Yerushalayim, not in his level, of course. I have serious people that learn all day. They don't care about anything, nothing. They don't know what smartphone is, they never saw laptop. All their mind is in the Torah. Nothing will distract them from an hour of Torah. There's no— each one of you can be like this. If you really want. And I think that what will help you to be like this, it's first you read this book. It's going to change your whole life. Read it. You had a question, no? Yes, please. Once you're in the next world, what is the point of Gehinnom? Gehinnom is a dry clean. Hashem made a concept that when you make, when you make sins, There are spiritual stains on the soul. Spiritual stains, like when you smoke, there are stains on the lung. So, when you have spiritual stains from the sin, you cannot enter heaven with such dirt. So, you have to be clean. Just like they clean the silver with fire, that's how they clean the stains from the soul. Now, you ask me— Yes, you want to be clean. You want to be clean. Okay, so now you're asking me, you're asking me why it has to be painful? Why so bad? I mean, worse than Auschwitz. The answer is once you set a system with reward and punishment, you have tzadikim that give their life for Hashem, never steal, no lashon hara, no wickedness. Women, no drugs, none of these things. And then you have the Rishonim, treif, drugs, chalal Shabbos, goyas, shikses, women, stealing, who knows what. They both live their life. This one try for Hashem and give Hashem respect 7 years. The other one do the exact opposite, spits at Hashem, disrespect the Torah, make fun of the Rebbes, and they both died. Do you expect the Rasha, the wicked one, to get the same end like the Tzadik? If, Chas V'Shalom, something like this will happen, then the whole Torah becomes a lie. Then the question is, why should we be Tzadikim if I'm gonna spit at Hashem every day and He's gonna put me in heaven? What motivation I have to fight against my Yetzer Hara? Most of us are not— Okay, so who told you that you're going to go to Gehinnom? You don't have to go to Gehinnom. You do teshuvah and you don't have to go there. If you make a, everyone makes a veros, almost everyone makes a veros. That's why Hashem gives teshuvah. Why do you have teshuvah for? Why not? It's the easy, because that's stupid. Why didn't he make teshuvah? So now they're gonna clean him by force. You could clean yourself by doing teshuvah when you're alive. You didn't do it, we'll clean you for you. Very much. Root canal also hurt and it fixed the tooth. Root canal, why does it have to hurt so much? That's the way Hashem made the world. I want to thank you very much for for singing here so nicely. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Baruch Adonai, olam amen.