Serie de Pirkei Avot #2

Good evening. Today it's the second lesson in our series that we started last week, with the series of Pirkei Avot, words of wisdom, the chapters of the sages, of the fathers, that taught us wisdom and advice for life. What to do, what not to do, how to behave, how to correct our characters, personality, We almost finished the first chapter, and we will finish it, B'ezrat Hashem, today. The last thing we learned about last week was that we have to judge every person to a positive judgment, because obviously sometimes it looks like a person is doing something wrong, but eventually, if you know all the details, you see that it wasn't wrong. Actually, it was very positive. But giving the benefit of the doubt, as the Mishnah advises us, we have to know that it doesn't apply to every person. Because if a person is well known to repeat the same sin every day, every week, and then you saw him doing it once again, obviously you don't judge him to favor. You judge him to the negative side because, you know, he's been doing it every day. So there's nothing here to play fool. And say, oh, you know what, maybe it just looks like a sin, but obviously he's not really committing a sin. It's probably something that we don't know. No. So if somebody is well known is not keeping Shabbat, and you see him on Shabbat going into his car, you have to say, I saw this person is mechalel Shabbat. And if a person is known as a big thief, and he was caught and convicted in a base din already for a few times about stealing, and something disappeared in the house and he was there. So he's the main suspect. If the police ask you, who is your suspect? You say him. And that's the way it works. The only thing is that if a person has a chazaka, a certainty of a kosher person in this subject that we are talking about right now, if he has a certainty of a kosher person, means there's no, he's never been convicted, he wasn't caught ever about it, then from that moment we have to judge him as not guilty and so forth and so on. So this is what we covered last year. Today I continue. We are in Mishnah Zayin, the 7th Mishnah, in chapter 1, first chapter. Nittaya Arbeli says, the next thing that the Chachamim says, "Arhek mishaken ra." You got to be very careful. You got to be very careful with the, from a bad neighbor. The same way the Chachamim said that a good neighbor is better than a further brother. If you have a brother far away across the ocean or the other side of the country and you see him once a year, and then you have a neighbor that you see every few hours, the neighbor is more critical for your life. You know, you see him, you talk to him, you can do things together, you need his help, he needs your help. You are closer even though your brother is far away. I mean, what can you do? Right now the neighbor is closer. But at the same time that shachen, carob, is better than a brother that is very far. At the same time, we have to be very careful who are the neighbors that we choose. Not always it's in our hand. Not always, as you know. But most of the time it is in our hand. Now here is the time to make sure that you understand what does it mean here. When a Jew has to move from one apartment to another apartment, from one location to the other, first thing he has to check is not the house that he's going to buy, like most people do. It's a very big mistake. The first thing he has to check, if he's married and he has children, is what's the level of the schools, the Yeshivot, in that area. How many shivot they have? What is options? Because you can buy a beautiful house for foreclosure, for very cheap bargain, and then he has no schools to send the kids, and your life become hell. You have to send them with buses, with the private driver. The kids are getting tired to school. By the time they get to school, they cannot focus. It's big problem. So first thing, if you saw a house for a very good price in a certain area, first thing you check, what are the schools over there? Sometimes it can be very good Yeshivot, but you cannot fit your own children. For instance, if it's very strict Hasidish Yeshiva, it's not so good for Baalei Teshuvah, especially if they are Sfaradim. It's no connection. It's like Chinese and Japanese cannot be in the same class. It doesn't work. Biggest mistake if you tell Chinese, excuse me, are you Japanese? It's the end of your life. Or Korean and Chinese. For us, we cannot tell the difference, but for them it's a big thing. It's like telling an Israeli, "Excuse me, are you Arab?" Or to tell a Palestinian, "Are you Israeli?" You understand the point, right? So, first of all, he won't connect to the Yiddish. They speak Yiddish, he doesn't know it, so he won't be able to do anything. Second, they look different, they dress different, they have their own customs. It's not so fair to just throw the key. Oh, show me a Shabbos, Rabbi, it's good. No, it doesn't work that way. So you have to find, first of all, and that's the hardest thing, by the way, a good school. But it's not enough to have good schools. You need to know who the people in the neighborhood, what kind of people you have. Very modern, very religious, How the holiday is going to look in the block. Do you have cars there on Shabbat? Do you not have cars on Shabbat? So many things to consider. And of course, who are the neighbors next to you? If you share a wall, who are the neighbors from the other side? Are they screaming? Are they cursing? Are they putting loud television on Shabbat that you sit in Shabbat and you're going to hear all the curses and the nonsense from the other side of the wall? Do you have arrogant neighbors above you that they're constantly going to make your life miserable? There's a lot of things to check. That's why the Mishnah says, "Arhek mi shachen ras." Stay away from bad neighbors. It's a disaster. It's a very big problem. You know, "Val di traver la rasha." The next advice, stay away from wicked people. Whether they have money, they famous, they can get you all kinds of things, stay away from them. You know, it's a disaster to become friendly with a wicked person. Rabbi, but we grew up together. He's my cousin. You know, a lot of excuses. Excuses we can find all the way from here to the end of the world. The bottom line is, if your friends are wicked, it's just a matter of time until you become like them. And that's the famous saying: tell me who your friends are and I tell you who you are. Right? If a person walks here through the door now, we don't know him. And after 5 minutes of conversation with him, we know he tells us that his friends is this head of the mafia and the head of that gang and the other murderer and the drug dealer. This is his friends. This is who he hanging up with. We have to know if he's good or not. We already know who he is because a kosher person doesn't connect to filthy people. You know what it is? Many Baalei Teshuvah for real that they starting to learn Torah they cannot go back to their work anymore. Let's say they work with Goyim, they have customer service there, they have secretaries. The way they dress, the way they talk, the way they eat, the way they're on the phone, the jokes that they make. The more he purifies soul, the more his soul becomes holy, the more he suffers. I remember when I was in, when I 15 years ago, when I was still in business, I was suffering going to the office. Mamas suffering going to the office and see the kind of people that were there. Because you know how it is, every 5 minutes that they have nothing to do, they sit together, they talk, you have to hear it, and it brings you down in your holiness by the way they talk. And I remember that I started to go less and less days. So instead of 5 days a week, I I started to come 4 days a week. And I was already considering that they will lower my paycheck. But Baruch Hashem, Hashem gave me the talent that I was a good salesman and the bank needed me very much. So they didn't want to play games with me. Because banks in this country always steal representative one from the other. If there's a good representative, they will always offer you more to come work for them because they know you bring them millions of dollars every year business. So, Baruch Hashem, since I had a good reputation, so they pretend they don't see that I only come 4 days. And then I say, 4 days, it's a hell for me here. I cannot be here. Then I went 3 days and then 2 days and then 1 day. I was going 1 day early in the morning until midnight to try to do everything I do in 1 week in 1 day. And it's technically, technically, when you think about it, One day, it's not such a big deal. You have 6 days in a Jewish environment. One day I couldn't take it. For one day I gave up the entire job. I gave up the entire job. I just couldn't go there even one day a week. They say, "You're crazy. For one day we pay you like a week of work and one day you don't want to come?" What is it? Because once you learn Torah, You start your day in Yeshiva, you see all the righteous people around you. What a world! And all of a sudden you have to drive to that place. It's a death sentence. Now you know that your soul is purified. If you're with them and you're okay with them, my friend, you didn't even start your Teshuvah. If you can be with this kind of Goyim, the way they talk, the music that they listen to, the way they dress, the things that they do, the jokes that they make, and you're not suffering, I promise you, take my word for that, you didn't even start the first step in your teshuvah. You want, you want to be religious, you want to be close to Hashem, but you are all the way on the other side. Because a kosher person, I remember that my son say one word in yeshiva, they already call me that they want to throw him out. If you knew what word he said, you wouldn't believe it. Even me, I thought that they went out of their mind. Then later I started to investigate it and I saw that for the eyes of these tzadikim, it's the end of the world. The end of the world. He said, "What the hell?" That's what he says. That's it. For such an expression, they gave him the last warning. You understand? The president is speaking like this every 5 minutes in this country. The lawyers, the judges, the teachers, the doctors, every second word out of their mouth is this. But over there, they made a committee. What a disaster! You understand? You understand now what's the two worlds here? Two different worlds. And of course, this is all the influence of the media. What do you think? It's all the brainwashing them with these movies and the rap music and these and destroying their soul completely. Because the Goyim also have souls. And make no mistake, a Goy that wants to work on himself, he can become not only righteous, he can become holy. I said that in one of the lectures. I have a whole lecture in the website, Righteous Gentiles. To show that there is no discrimination. Imen ani limili. If I won't take care of myself, nobody will do the job for me. Not my kids, not my parents, not my Rabbi, not my wife, nobody. I have to worry about my own soul. Same thing by the Goyim. And a Goy can be holy. The Gemara says, Goy sheyoshev osek batorah u'kmo kohen gadol. A Goy can reach a level of a Kohen Gadol. Kohen Gadol, Kohen Gadol. Supposedly, I will explain soon why I say supposedly, is the most important person in the world. The most important nation in the world is the nation of Israel. And from the nation of Israel, who is the highlight? Who is the most important person? The one who goes into Kodesh HaKodashim once a year on Yom Kippur to make a special prayer with Hashem that his mind has to be pure. If he thinks about something wrong, he dies right there. They pull him, they tie a rope to his leg, then in case he doesn't come out, nobody can enter and take him out, his body. So they pull the rope. This is a Kohen Gadol. But why do I tell you that supposedly? Because as you can see right away, we're coming into the next Mishnah. The next Mishnah will tell us that speaking about Shemaiah and Naftaliyon, two converts. That became the most important rabbis and were teaching all the Chachamim that we read their names in the Gemara. They were the Rebbes that teaching. And the Gemara says that they were in such a high level that one time they were walking on the street and the Kohen Gadol was walking and there was hundreds or maybe thousands of followers following the Kohen Gadol to give him respect. And when everyone saw on the other side of the street these two Chachamim, these two converts, Shemaiah and Naftali, walking, everybody went right away to the other side of the street and followed them. So the Kohen Gadol got very upset. His ego, you know. So he went and he started to make a big deal out of it. So the Kohen Gadol told them, "Yavo bnei ha'amim le'shalom." The descendants of the nations, of the Gentiles, will come for peace. It's like pinching them. So why? Because they were descendants of Sancheriv. Sancheriv was a king. That he made a revolution in the world. What kind of revolution? He started to mix all the nations. He took the Egyptians that were in Egypt, threw them out. He took the Babylonians, moved them here. He took people from here and there and all the Goyim started to mix. That's why we don't know which Goy is what. Cannot point today at any Goy and say this is Amalek, this is a Greek. This is Egyptian. No, you cannot do it. Why? Even an Arab, not necessarily is Ishmael. Maybe his great-grandparents could be from the Greeks. Now he speaks Arab. Many Jews speak in many different languages. The language and the accent doesn't say who are your roots. Where is your root coming from? So today it's very hard to know. So he told them, oh, the descendants of Sancheriv, all of a sudden like he is pinching them. They came to make peace. So they answered him, "Yavo leshalom bnei ha'amim shel sima aser Aaron." It says they answered him, "Those, the descendants of the nations, will really come with peace." Like he says, because they are following the behaving of Aaron Hakohen. What was special about Aaron? Aaron was running after Jews to make peace between them. That was his specialty. He takes Reuven, he takes Shimon. They had a fight, they arguing, they partners in a business, starting Lashon Hara. He starts to fool them. He comes to Shimon and he say, you know, I saw Reuven yesterday on the street. He told me that it's his heart that you're not talking to him. He likes you. He doesn't understand why you have a fight. So stupid. He wish you would forgive him. Then he goes to the other one and say the same thing. And it's never happened. He makes it up. And then Reuben just heard that Shimon is not angry at him and is hoping that he will forgive him. And then he says the same thing to the other side, and then he invites them to his house. And once they come, they are not embarrassed one from each other because I just heard that my enemy loves me and forgave me and hopes that I will forgive him. And he heard the same thing about me. So as soon as we see each other, What are we doing? Shaking hands, sorry, forgive me, mechila, oh, it's over. You got it? So this is what it is. So they told him the descendants of the nations, they can come to peace because they follow the behaving of Aaron. And the descendants of Aaron, which is him because he is a Kohen. The Kohenim, they all came from Aaron HaKohen. The descendants of Aaron will not come to peace. Why? Because they don't behave like their father Aaron. So bottom line, let's translate it to simple English. He saw that everybody left him and went with these two converts. So it was eating his heart. So he pinched them. He said to them, oh, all of a sudden the descendants of Sancheriv became people of peace. So they told him, yeah, they became people of peace because they copy and they follow the way of Aaron HaKohen. However, it's very sad that the children of Aaron, like you, don't follow their father's ways because he was always peaceful person and look at you. So what are we learning from this story? To change the ego is a very, very hard mission. Very, very hard. Believe me, every person has ego. Some more, some less. To find a person that had ego and got rid of it completely, where? Show me where. It's almost impossible to find. The Yetzer Hara is trying to make the person always proud, proud. Me, me, they're going to tell me this, they're going to do this to me, they're going to do this, they don't pay respect. You know, this is every, this is a disease that everybody has. Everybody. Even the Kohen Gadol. That's the point here. The Kohen Gadol, the most important person, look at him, he's getting offended that these two rabbis took away the honor from him. That's how bad. That's, by the way, why Hashem loved Moshe Rabbeinu so much. What, Moshe Rabbeinu was the smartest person in the nation? No. Korach was just as smart. Korach was from the same family. Korach was rich. Korach was charismatic. Korach wasn't stuttering. There was a lot of other important people. From everybody, Hashem loved Moshe the most. Why? Because he was humble. Why? Being humble is a great gift. It's not a joke. It will affect your entire life. You never get angry. You never get offended. You're not upset. You don't care what people say about you. You don't care how much respect they give you. You have so many So many things that are off your mind. You don't have to worry. Most of the problems that people have with their fights and their feelings is what the people say about them. Somebody saw her in a supermarket, she didn't give her a compliment. Wow, I just bought my new wig, she couldn't say anything to me. She comes to her husband for half an hour. You see, she's jealous. I told you, you're telling me no. I'm telling you she is. She's jealous with me. She couldn't tell me that I lost 20 pounds after killing myself in a gym? That's what you hear all day. What? You couldn't give me a compliment? What's going on here? The Gemara says, it's actually in a Zohar, that there's one tzaddik that was all his life tzaddik, all his life. But one time, One time he was in the yeshiva and somebody from the yeshiva, one of the students, was giving a speech. He was giving a speech. And when the student, when the scholar was giving a speech, he forgot one verse. He started the verse, let's say from the Prophet or from the Torah, and he didn't remember it. So he got stuck in the middle of his speech. There is nothing that the lecturers hate the most than to get stuck in the middle. That's like the end of the world. Like you say something, oh, a blackout. Where was I? You know, so he got stuck. So somebody wanted to save his honor. He was about to tell him the next word. So this tzaddik, tzaddik, the Zohar said tzaddik, perfect tzaddik. He went like this, shh, let's see if he can get it on his own. That's all. That was the only sin he made in his life, the Zohar says. That's it. We dream in a day, in a day, we have one good day like this, that that's all the sins that we made, we'll be very happy. All his life, one sin, shh, and the guy got embarrassed. The Zohar says, guess what was his punishment? For that second. Shh! That's all. They put him in the gate of heaven for 40 days and let him see what's going on inside. And he screams for 40 days, let me in, let me in. They say no. 40 days for one shh. He cannot enter. He didn't go to Gehenna. That's good. He didn't have to go to hell. But to see heaven and not going in, sometimes is worse than going to hell. They asked the Gaon of Vilna, Rabbi, they went into his room, they saw him Tisha B'Av, he sits on the floor and learns Gemara. It's not allowed to learn Torah on Tisha B'Av. It's halacha. Halacha, on Tisha B'Av you're not allowed to learn Torah. Why? The Torah makes a person very happy. It's the ultimate happiness, the real happiness for the soul. Better than drugs, better than illusions, better than dreams, better than money, better than flowers, better than diamonds, It's better than anything. A person gets connected to the Torah for real, it's amazing. It's like you go to a different world. You can check. Take a depressed person or take a person that has a lot of bills and problems in his marriage and problems with his children and follow him with a camera. When he sits in a shiur for an hour, how happy he is. As soon as the shiur is over, he gets up, he goes back to his reality, whoop, Here comes the depression. It's like the feeling of Motzei Shabbat. When Shabbos is over, as soon as you finish the Havdalah, you feel like depression in your heart, emptiness. Why? The extra soul left the body. You have this extra soul, it leaves right after the Havdalah. So that's why we smell the Samim, because the soul that remains feel better by smelling good smells. You know, so it's very interesting. So they come to the Gaon Yehudah and say, Rabbi, on Tisha B'Av you're learning Torah? Don't you know it's not allowed? So he says to them, I cannot live one minute without the Torah. So they told him, Rabbi, when they wrote this halacha in Shulchan Aruch, they also— there were people in the time of the Shulchan Aruch, 500 years ago, that couldn't live without the Torah. But they still didn't learn until Shabbat. So guess what was his answer? He said, I know that there is a chance that I will be burned in hell for not following the Shulchan Aruch 100%, but I'm accepting it with full understanding and full love. It's worth it for me to go to hell than to lose one day of Torah. You understand what's going on here? I'm willing to get burned for learning Torah. We? Oh, until we agree to see, to learn how much we need, forget it. Let's not even talk about it. You know, my cousin, Askar ben Zion Abba Shaul, you heard about him from me already. He passed away 11 years ago. It was the biggest Sephardic rabbi in the world and also the biggest Kabbalist in the world by far from all the others. And I promise you, he never put any ad in the newspaper, "Mekubal balair, a Kabbalist is coming to town, make reservation." "I'm going to be in that place, please everybody come to get an advice." And of course they have a jar. It wasn't like that. It was the real one, was hiding himself, teaching Kabbalah to his students. Nothing, do not make any noise out there. Here is the holiest person. No. So him, my cousin asked him, Rabbi, you look like such a perfect person. I've been doing my, I put so much effort to catch you making one sin, one little sin. I can never find. You never waste a minute on a learning. You eat so little. I see how you eat. You take a piece of bread, you dip it in a black coffee, you dip it in a black coffee, and you eat. That's your full meal for the day. You're such a humble person. You run away from honor, from pride. I'm trying, I'm trying to find one sin, one sin that you are doing, or one Mitzvah that you're not doing properly. And I can't. Tell me, please, save me the time. Which Mitzvah you cannot keep? So he thought he's going to say, "Ve'ahavta lere'acha kamocha." You should love your Jewish brother like you love yourself. This is an impossible Mitzvah to keep. Let's be honest. Impossible. Why it's impossible? Do you know what it means you should love your Jewish friend or brother like you love yourself? I once gave a story about this for us to understand what is it. If a person goes to his neighborhood and he sees ambulance, police, people are standing downstairs from his building, a tragedy just happened. He sees all these people, police cars, something happened. So he gets very nervous. So he's starting to walk fast. His pulse goes from 52 right away to 80. Or 200. He's nervous. You see one of the neighbors standing there and says, "Itzik, what happened?" He says, "A boy fell from the third floor." So now the first thing that he says— here, you're lucky, the VIP is kept for you. I know you're going to bring such beautiful flowers. Very good. Come, come in. Come, come. Where is the writing girl? The birthday girl. Very good. Yeah, the birthday girl is giving a speech now. So anyway, yeah, so, so yeah, so he comes to the neighborhood, he asked the neighbor, what happened? He said, boy fell from the third floor. 3rd floor. So he knows that his apartment is on the 3rd floor. So first thing comes to his mind is, oh, God forbid, my son maybe fell from the window. So now he's about to get a heart attack. So then he says, which boy? He says, the son of that family. So he goes, ah, oh, Hashem, give me, give me water, I'm dying. "Baruch Hashem, Hashem, thank you, thank you, it's not my son." This is a sign that he doesn't keep this Mitzvah. Because according to the Torah, if you love your Jewish brother like you love yourself, then when you heard that his boy fell from the window, you have to feel exactly like when your son fell. You have to scream, you have to fall on the floor, you have to cry, you have to be— you know the rest. But when you hear that it's his son, oof, what a relief. That's a sign that nobody keeps Mitzvah. And I promise you that if he is going to be the chief Rabbi in the world today, if in that scenario, he is also going to go, oof, what a relief. With all due respect. We are people, we're not perfect. "Lo nitna Torah lemalachei asheret," Chazal say, the Torah wasn't given to the angels of Hashem. If it was given to them, they are perfect. They don't have Yetzer Hara. We, we're a bunch of losers. There's a lot to correct, and obviously that's one of them. So he asked the Rav, Rav, which Mitzvah I don't keep? He was almost sure that he's going to tell him V'afteh l'erach hakamocha, but that's not what he says. He said, there's a Lacha here, come here. There's a Lacha, it says, there's a Lacha, it's called that you cannot think about the V'ray Torah, words of Torah, when you sit inside the bathroom or in any other dirty place that there's bad smell there or something. He said, I don't understand how they made this Halacha. It's impossible. You understand what we're talking here about? He asked him which Mitzvah he don't keep. So he said, the only Mitzvah I cannot keep, I admit, is when I'm in a bathroom, I cannot stop thinking about the Torah that I learned because every second of my life is only Torah. I have nothing else in my life. I'm so deep into it that when I walk, I think about it. When I fall asleep, I think about it. First thing I open my mind, I think about it. This is the way I am. People who knew him, they saw that his eyes never stopped moving. A person walking the street and his eyes are like this, you can see how he's deeply inside thoughts. It's not here. One time he came out of the shul on Shabbat. His house is one block away in Jerusalem. In Surotskyne he lived, if you know Yerushalayim. One block away, like from here to across the street. They found him on Shabbat, 2 hours away, walking distance from the shul, in a secular neighborhood. Cars, people. Yerushalayim has 21% secular people. It's less and less every year. Soon, by the grace of G-d, it's going to be all Jews and Arabs. At least it's going to be modesty, you know. So anyway, 21% only seculars. And it's— they realize, why do we need to pay so much money? Because the religious American that comes, the French made real estate triple in the last 2 years. And they are paying more and more and more. It doesn't pay for them. And they don't like the atmosphere. They're not religious people. Most of them are allergic to religious people. That's the truth. They're allergic. They don't feel comfortable. It's one of the biggest jokes. It's a religious wedding, a real kosher religious wedding. It's separate. Men separate, women separate. Somehow every husband and wife that are not religious, when they come to a religious wedding, it's like the night of their honeymoon. They are like they say in Hebrew, "Zugyonim." You know what it means, "Zugyonim"? Who knows Hebrew here? What does it mean, "Zugyonim"? How do you say it in English? Yeah, they cannot separate for one second. In the house for the last 10 years, they abuse each other from morning to night, nonstop. Cursing, abuse, violence. He's beating her up. She runs to her parents every week with the kids. I don't have to tell you the story. Disrespect, cheating, who knows what else. All of a sudden when they come to religious wedding, what? Excuse me? What, I'm gonna go there and my husband's gonna go there? No! Well, we want to sit together. What? Just yesterday he was begging you to sit, eat with him dinner. You threw it in his face and went to the bedroom. It's not that. They cannot stand each other. It's just that they allergic to religion, so everything religious gets them upset. But if they only think, who are we hating here? We hate God. That's the truth. Because the religious people, at least most of them, what they do is what the Torah says, right? They keep Shabbat. The Torah says to keep Shabbat. To be modest, the Torah says to be modest, right? To put a yarmulke, the Torah says. Tzitzit, everything is the Torah. So what are they hating? Who are they hating? They are hating the Torah. But they don't have the guts to come and say, I hate God. It doesn't sound good, you know, even the goyim don't dare to say it, right? So it's very easy to take it on the key, on the religious people. They're primitive, they don't work, they don't serve in the army, they don't do this, they don't pay taxes. They have a long list. And that's the reality today where we live in. So he says to him, I don't know how it's possible to be 10 minutes in the bathroom and those don't— 10 minutes to block your mind not to think the Vrai Torah. We don't think the Vrai Torah 10 minutes a day, the ordinary people. Even those who goes with tzitzit and yarmulke. All day is in mortgages, in the business, in the customers, which customer, why my customer not answering my call, and this and that. In the end, maybe a minute a day. Even when he puts a tape in the car, between me and you, did he listen to one minute of it? How do I know? I know some of my CDs are rocking the heart, like when a person really pays attention to it, He begins to shake. Sometimes you give it to a person and say, okay, I'm going to listen to it now. He drives, you call him, now you listen to it? Yes. So how was it? It was nice. He didn't listen to one word. Yeah, he put it in, he's not a liar. He puts it in, he promises he's going to listen, he listened. But you know how he listened? While it was in, he looked around, he thought about what happened in the office. Yeah, he heard the thank you very much for coming, we'll see you next week. That's what he heard. That's why we make videos today. Why I have to make music in my video and pictures? Why? Imagine 4 hours of talking only. The people will burn me alive. What are you, crazy? So like this, I make movies, pictures. All of a sudden they see something is moving, so it keeps them sitting. You understand? That's how bad it became. Entertaining, entertaining. So, so far what we said: stay away from bad neighborhood, stay away from bad neighbor, do not connect to wicked people because your end will be that you'll be like them or worse than them. And never give up. That's a common problem. People give up very fast. Sick people, people who did not— it's very interesting when it comes to money, 70-year-old men that never made it still have dreams. One day I'll make it. Iran Zir, another meeting, another show. I remember when I was in business, I met a Scottish person, an old person. Then he was at least 75 years old. I was embarrassed to ask him his age, but at least 75 years old. His name was Martin Graham Brown, Scottish, goy from Scotland. I met him one day, came to my office, we met. I saw that he is a cyclopedia of business, this guy. He knows all the banks, all the companies, all the stock market, everything he knows. It's like you can't believe that a person learns so much about But he doesn't have a penny. It's zero. One time I went with him in the street. I told him, let's meet in the street and we go to that building for a meeting. He came with a skirt. You know, the Scottish people, they wear mini skirts. I said to myself, God, yeah, I know I'm not righteous, but why are you embarrassing me like this? I walk with him on the street, 75 years old, he walks with skirts. All his life. I said, at that time I couldn't think, how this guy still have the energy, 75 years old, he didn't give up. Still thinking. The way he was talking, you never saw such a thing. Oh, we gonna convince this guy. Great! We'll make the money. Don't worry, you know how much is 5% from that? It's half a million dollars a year and this. 24 hours you're gonna be— one of your legs is already in hell. You're thinking— in Israel, the president is 86 years old. They asked him just recently in an interview if he thinks that he is gonna run for the election to be a prime minister again. He's in a very good shape, you know. I know an 82-year-old man in Manhattan, very wealthy man. He still plays tennis. 82 years old, yes, once a week he plays tennis. So I asked the maid, how in 82 years old he can run to play tennis? She said, well, he used to be in a much better shape, but he had a problem in his knee. Since he made the surgery by the best doctor, he ruined his knee. His knee was okay before. Now after that, it's very hard for him to move. Oh, so, Levi, let me ask you a question. Can we make a birthday every Monday? Huh? Why do you care? Every Monday you make up a birthday for the boy, for you, for her, for— very good. Anyway, my time is running out soon. Shh! So never to give up, never to give up. Because the Navi, the Prophet, says— maybe you move here that they can sit here, move to this chair. The Prophet Yeshayahu, Isaiah in English, in chapter 59, this is what he says in verse 1. He says like this: Hen lo katzrayad Hashem yoshia. The hand of Hashem is never short, is not limited, it's unlimited. The salvation of Hashem, it's 1, 2, 3. If only Hashem will agree, the salvation will be very easy. That's why a person should never give up. Then we continue. Don't make yourself like the lawyers. They're not talking about the lawyers in a court here. They're talking lawyers in a beis din, rabbis that come to protect the defendants or give them advice in a beis din according to the Torah. Why is it? What's the problem? So the explanation is because the lawyers in their job, it's almost impossible not to make crimes. A lawyer, it's almost impossible not to become a a partner of the criminal that he's about to defend. Why? Just it's enough that he tells him, you have to say that you were here. You have to say that you were sleeping. You have to say that maybe your father and mother will back it up. They said that you were there at the time because then they're going to ask you about this. And he gives them advice what to say, what not to say, and protecting the criminals. If this criminal goes on free, every crime, every crime he's going to make from now until the end of his life, this lawyer will pay for it big time, 100%, like the criminal. That's why a Jew can never become a criminal lawyer. Can never. Not a defense and not a prosecutor. The only laws that The only field that Jews can practice is business and real estate and some others. I do not know all the fields, but for sure they cannot be, for instance, a family lawyer. Why cannot be a family lawyer? Because a husband and wife go to court. She wants to sue her husband and her husband says to her, okay, let's go to the rabbis. Lets the Rabbi decide. But she knows that if we go to the Rabbi, she would lose because the Torah is to the favor of the man in some fields that the secular court will judge to her side. So she right away runs to the court and invites him to a court hearing. Now, the lawyer that represents her, if he is a Jew, and the judge will decide that the husband will have to do such and such, or he won't be able to see to see his children or only once a week. So this is against God's wish. So because of that lawyer, now these kids are going not to have a father or something like this, and it's going to be a chain reaction, and that's against God's wish. God says how to get divorced. There's a ketubah, she deserves to get money. If there are kids, she deserves to get child support. It's 100%. And no woman has to tolerate abuse from her husband or anything like this. We know, we spoke about this in the lecture that we made here about Shalom Bayit. But there are ways how to get divorced. There are ways how to split the property, whatever they have. By representing them in a secular, goyish court, for sure it won't be according to the Torah. Also, I give you an example. If you are a prosecutor and they bring a Jewish thief, somebody that just got caught stealing, he stole from somebody's pocket, I don't know, $10,000. According to the Torah, if he would be convicted in a Beit Din based on the kosher two witnesses, two kosher witnesses, all he had to do is pay double. He gives back the 10,000 that he stole, and he has to give an extra 10,000 to the person he stole from, and they let him go. Two minutes later, they let him go. Here, okay, no problem. You caught me. I'm very sorry. Here, take your 10. Here is another 10. Leave me alone. Goodbye. He goes back to his children and learns Torah with them. Hopefully next time he won't steal. But here, they can put him in jail now for 4 or 5 years. So the Jew, the prosecutor that goes to the judge and says this, look, it's this, it's that, it's dangerous, you know, they brainwash the head of the judge and in the end he goes to jail. Every day he sits in jail and his family is suffering. This lawyer will pay for it in Olam Haba. That's why only fools go to be lawyers when it comes to criminal. Why? Because it's not going according to the Torah. There is a judge to the world. The system is all corrupted here. You cannot go by the system. You know, so I give you another example. Let's say a Jew had inside information about a stock that will go up. Somebody called him up. He told him, you know, there's a stock named such-and-such. My father works in this company. In one week, they're going to announce that they found a cure for this disease, and the stock will go from $2 to $50 at least. Go buy as many as you can. Okay, so now this guy had $2. He went, he bought, I don't know, 10,000 shares. For $20,000. A week after, it jumped to $50,000. Now, they have security systems. All of a sudden, a red flag was raised. So the security see this is a company that nobody buys any stocks there. 100, 300, 1,000 shares, it's already a record. All of a sudden, a guy bought 20,000 a day before it went up. They start their investigation and they catch the guy. You know what's the punishment for that in this country? If somebody told you buy this stock and you bought it and you made money because you knew in advance that it's going to go up or down. You know what's the punishment here? Worse than rape. It's worse than rape. A rapist gets less. It has to be 5 to 7 years in prison. And they take away everything he owns, his houses, his money, they freeze everything, his cars, they leave him with nothing. So if he has $20 million, they take everything. They leave him $5,000 or a very small amount just to eat for another month or two until the trial, and they run after him, they don't leave him alone. And this is perfectly legal according to the Torah. It's not even a sin. It's not a sin. In Japan, by the way, it's also not a sin. In Japan, people can tell people about everything. Why it's not a sin? I'll give you an example why it's not a sin. What is it like? Let's say your father owned a grocery store, a big supermarket, and he got old. He's already 70 years old. He's tired. It's a very hard job to own a supermarket. Deliveries, trucks, billing, customers. So he wants to sell the business. Now since he's not feeling well, he's an old person, he's a sick person, he's anxious to sell the business. Let's say the business is worth $1 million, but since he's in a rush to sell, he speaks to his wife and says, you know what, even for half a million I'll sell it. I don't care. I just want to get rid of this trouble. Store. So his son heard that and he goes to his best friends and say, run, run to my father, make him an offer of half a million dollars and take the store before he is going to put it in the newspaper. Because once he's going to put it in the newspapers, somebody else will get it. And believe me, it's a goldmine, the store. And they went and bought the store. What's wrong about it? It's happening all the time. But if it happens in the stock market, You go to jail, you understand? So the Torah says you got lucky. Somebody told you that this company will do good. You got lucky. It's no problem. This is just giving you an example. So if the prosecutor is a Jew, where 90% of them are, every Jew that they send to jail and break the family, it's like murder. They have to pay for it. They have to pay for it. The judge has to pay for it if he's a Jew. And that's why The Mishnah says stay away from this. This is not a job. You should know that the Gemara says the best of the lawyers and the best of the doctors are ending up in hell. That's what's going to be their end. Why? Why? There's no good doctors? There's no good lawyers? Of course there are. But it's a very hard test in life that most people will not pass. Very hard test. What is it like to be a lawyer and not to commit sins to protect your clients? It is almost impossible to teach them what to say, how to say. It is almost impossible. Plus, one of the things that the lawyers do is they destroy their own customers. They will keep the trial as long as possible because they continue to make money more and more and more every time they go to the court. Another $15,000, $20,000 for a day. And tomorrow there's another meeting, so it's another few thousand. And they have to write another fax or something, so it's another few thousand. They stretch it as much as they can, especially in divorce cases, because they are the one who makes all the profits. So it's very big Yetzer Hara. The doctors, it's another problem. They think they save life, and life and death is only in the hands of Hashem. And there's another problem with doctors. Since they work with sick people that die constantly, they see death a lot, and they see injuries, they don't have feelings anymore to the people. They don't feel it. A Jew just died, they go back, smoke a cigar after. It doesn't bother them anymore. Why? When a person sees death all the time, that's the way, that's the nature of a person. He gets used to everything. You get used to it. That's what it was. You know, in the Holocaust, people were eating the little piece of bread and there were body stinks around all over. They sat and ate. It's a way of life. There's nothing they can do. What can they do? They got used to it. So now let's move on. When the defendants are standing in front of you, always consider them as wicked. Consider them guilty. But when the court case ended, when the trial ended, look at them as righteous people because they accepted the judgment, they accept the ruling of the judge. From this moment on, you have to think about them again as righteous as before the trial. But in the middle of the trial, you got to be tough. You have to be— you have to search for the truth. You cannot be nice to them. Excuse me, are you? 'Do you agree to tell us where were you last night at 10 o'clock?' You gotta be tough to the end because you have to find the truth. Well, once they got convicted, they guilty, they got their punishment, they said they go out from this moment on. You have to have a pity on them and if there's any way you can help them, it's right there. Then when the witnesses come to testify You make sure to investigate them very, very carefully. Why? Because if you don't, they can make up a story. They learn it together. Let's send our friends to jail and take away his business. Okay, so let's say that, you know, that person that died yesterday, let's say that he's the murderer. So I'm going to go first. I'm going to say that I was passing by. I saw him. He was wearing sunglasses. He had the red hat and he had the gun and he shot him and he threw him into the water. The whole story like they heard on the news and they match what to say. Two witnesses come, supposedly they don't know each other. The Torah says based on two witnesses you convict a person. That's why you got to investigate them so carefully. And the judges were very, very clever how they investigated people. You have no idea. I tell you a story and we'll finish with that because time is running out. There was a rabbi based in Jerusalem, Rabbi Yaakov Moutsafi, a holy man, a Kabbalist, and a big Talmid Chacham, and he was the head of the court in Jerusalem about 50, 60 years ago. His brother was also very big Mekubal, Rav Salman Moutsafi. They from Iraq, they came to Israel. And their son is Rav Ben Zion Mutzafi, one of the most important Sefaradim rabbis in Yerushalayim today. It's a very holy family, Baruch Hashem, blessed from generations. So he is the judge. Two guys come to the Beit Din. One claimed that his friend stole away all his life savings, $40,000. They work in a factory by the Dead Sea for about 30 years. They worked together since they were young, and now one of them has to marry his daughter. Let's say Reuven had to marry his daughter and he comes to Shimon to lend money from him. And he says, Shimon, I know you can lend me money. Help me now. I'll marry my daughter. In one year from now, I receive my pension. Once I receive the pension, I'll pay you in one shot everything. So, you know, they trusted each other. They eat every day. They walk walk all day together for 30 years. They see each other more than they see their wives and their kids. And never believed that he can do, he can pull a trick on him. So he said, okay, take $40,000, no problem. A year later, he said, what happened, Shimon? Two weeks ago you got your pension money and you're not offering me to pay back. So he told him to pay back for what? He said, for the $40,000 that I gave you. What happened to you? You're becoming senile? You didn't give me any money. What are you talking about? He said, come on, I don't have time for jokes. I started to realize that you're losing your mind. You never gave me any money. You sure you gave it to me? What's wrong with you? He began to scream, don't play tricks with me, it's all my life savings. Make a long story short, they go to court. They go to court. He asked Rav Yaakov Motsafi, the head judge, he asked Shimon, do you have an agreement? No, Rabbi, I trusted him 100%. Do you have any witness that saw you giving him the money? No. Do you have a check, something? No, I gave him all my money in cash. So what do you expect me to do? I'm not an angel, I'm a judge. I have to go by what I see. You don't have a document, you don't have witnesses. Everybody can come and say, lend money to somebody and ask him to give. You have to give me something. He said, Rabbi, I don't have anything. I trusted him. So the Rabbi told the Reuven, okay, listen, it seems that your situation is good. There's nothing that we can use against you. But in this court, we go according to Kabbalah. All I need from you is to come tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock. Before I let you go, we make a special way that we make you swear. But we don't make you swear on a Torah. We have a special way. We bring a person that will die tonight. Somebody is going to die tonight. I'm going to call the Hevrat Kadisha. To bring his body tomorrow morning on the way to the funeral to pass by here, by the court building, and I would like you to hold his hand and to say a few words after me, to repeat, and then if everything is okay, you can go. So the guy said, I don't care, Rabbi, I'll come, but what is this? I never heard of such a thing. So, yeah, nobody does it. This is a way that I do it, but I want to tell you something. If you're going to lie, You will feel that the hand of the dead person is becoming tighter and tighter around your hand. If you continue to lie, it gets to a point that the damage can happen to you, and Chasvei Shalom, you can even die. So I want you to consider at night if you want to do it or not, because in case there's something you want to tell us, please say it now. Say, no, Rabbi, no, it's crazy, I didn't take anything from him. Okay, come tomorrow morning, 9 o'clock. He thought maybe the rabbi is joking with me, you know, scaring me. Comes at 9 o'clock, he sees a car from Chevrat Kadisha pulls in into the driveway. They take out the body on wheels, they bring it up to the courtroom. So he said, come, come. He said, here. They take from— they move the sheets. He said, hold this, hold his hand. And he takes the hand of the dead person, they push it around his hand and say, "Repeat after me." He said, "In the name of Hashem, this, I swear that I never received any money from Shimon and he never gave me any money, no cash, no..." You know, whatever he told him to say. And all of a sudden, he feels that the dead body, the hand is really getting tighter. And the rabbi in the meantime has a sidur and he reads, okay, And he sees all kinds of weird names, all the names of the angels. He said, be careful, you're playing with fire. It's better you say the truth. And this rabbi, all of a sudden, he's really feeling it's becoming very hard. It's much hard. He said, it's the last chance now. If you're not going to say the truth right now, in another 30 seconds it will be too late. You can be dropped. You're going to drop dead here. Okay, okay, rabbi, I took the money. How much you took? 40,000 dollars. When? On this day. Where? In the locker room. You sure? 100%? Yes. Okay. Baruch Atah. Rabbi said, okay, you can get up. The dead body became more alive than ever. And everybody hugged. And they got him the money. And the phone call at 10 o'clock exactly as we planned. This is— that's what it means, be a clever judge. Nowhere in the Torah it says that he had to do such a thing. Based on the Torah, that's it. You have to let him go. No witnesses, no document, no nothing. But that's what it says, investigate the witnesses. So good, so good that you're going to find the truth. You know, one guy came to the rabbi in court and say, He says to him, you took the money from him? He says, no. He says, you didn't steal it? He says, no. Then he saw the rabbi that this guy, the crook, he took tobacco. You know the powder, the tobacco that the old people like to put in their nose? The tobacco, the brown tobacco, and they sneeze. So he took the tobacco out. So the rabbi said, wow, you know, for years I've been looking for somebody in this town that has tobacco. 'Can I use your tobacco?' So he said, 'Sure, Rabbi.' He is very honored now. Why? Because the judge is asking me for tobacco. For sure he won't convict me, right? So as the judge took the tobacco, in the meantime they continue with the trial. He called up his assistant and said, 'Run quickly to his wife, take this tobacco box, run to his wife and say to the wife, your husband asked me to tell you to give him back the wallet that he stole from this guy yesterday, and the sign that it's true, he gave me his personal tobacco box. So the guy ran, he comes to his wife, hello Mrs. X, yes, your husband in a trial is in a big mess, so he told me to run to you quickly to get the wallet before it's too late. And the sign that he really told me to get the wallet that he stole from this guy Shimon, he gave me his tobacco box. The poor wife, she sees, she recognizes her husband's tobacco. She runs and gets the wallet. She gives it to the assistant of the judge. He runs to the judge. He says, here is the wallet. So he says, here is your tobacco. You understand what it means to be a clever judge? That's why the people, when they came to Rabbi Yaakov, Muzzafi, they know over here you don't play games. No matter what you're going to think about, he is cleverer than you. The Gemara says a story that one thief stole from another, and they told him, are you admitting that you stole the money? He said, no, I got the money and I returned it to him already. I admit he gave me the money, but I returned the money. So the Rabbi said, okay, in that case you have to swear on the name of Hashem and the Torah. So they put the Torah, there is fire all over, and he says, in the name of Hashem— he has to say the name of Hashem— I swear that I return the money to him. Now what did he do? To swear on false testimony in the name of Hashem, it's the third commandment. First one, I am your God that took you out of Egypt. Second one, you should not have any other god besides me. Third one, do never carry the name of Hashem on a false testimony or just like that in the streets. And the fourth one, to keep the Shabbat, which is an eternal covenant between the nation of Israel to the Creator of the world for eternity. Those are the four commandments. So the third one, you should never mention the name of Hashem. So by swearing and a lie is a very big sin. You cannot make teshuvah for that. The Torah says, Hashem will not erase it from your file. Even if you make teshuvah, you are still punished for that. You still get punished for that. Which other sins, if you make Teshuvah, Hashem is willing to forgive or to reduce the punishment. On this, it's a serious problem. So now, before he swore, Reuven is suing him. So he says, okay, hold my cane, then let me hold the Torah. I have to hold the Torah in two hands. Comes with his cane. So he gives him the cane and he says, I swear that the money that he gave me, I return it to him and it's in his hand. So this guy went crazy. Not only you stole the money from me, you swear in the name of Hashem. He takes the stick and he bangs on the table with all his anger. Boom! The stick was all empty inside. It broke and all the money was inside the stick. Everything went all over. So even the thief, when he came to swear in the name of Hashem, he got scared. Because, you know, to steal, one day I will have money, I'll return double, no big deal. But to swear in the name of Hashem, I know I'm going to pay big time. So what did he do? He put all the money inside the cane. By the minute that he swore, he said, I swear that I returned him the money. It's in his hand. It's not a lie. It's in his hand. And after that, I take it back and now it's mine. But Hashem saw that and the guy, he did the thing and everything came out. Thank you very much. We'll see you next Monday. Mazal tov. Kol Tov.