Smart and Dumb at the Same Time - Current Events

Good evening. This lecture will be, b'ezrat Hashem, leilum nishmat vo'rabat Mercedes, lev ben Efraim Yosef, Rivka bat Chaviva, and derfuat Eran ben Elka. And also it will be for Eluinu Shmatz, R' Abatz Natan, Daniel ben Natan, Artur ben Avraham Avinu. Also, Latzlachat Chaviv ben Mazal and Shidur Bimera. I want to remind you we have a new website. Please enjoy it, it's a very good one. Www.machy.org. Divine Information is 25 years old. This one is brand new. We made it very, very advanced. You have everything there. You have suggested video. You can do all the donations by click of a button. You can basically do everything there and more. RabbiMizrachi.org. Similar to the app. You can see it's the same designer who made both. Yesterday in Queens, in the first 10-15 minutes, I spoke about current events. I spoke about the lousy, wicked Israeli Supreme Court. And then I spoke about the fact that finally the government agreed to bring tens of thousands of workers from India, Sri Lanka, China, but not Arabs, meaning the amount of Arabs that will work in Israel will be very, very low. Why? We saw what they do. They come supposedly to work. They make damages in a construction site. They collect information. They come and murder you. It's just a matter of time until they get up and murder us. So, I mean, as much as we need workers, we want to be alive. What is the point of someone building your house and then he kills you? What do you need the house for? So now the government will bring different kind of people to work. They're not a threat. Indians will not murder us. And the Chinese will not murder us. But there is a different problem. The problem is that almost all these Indians, especially the poor ones, almost all of them are idol worshippers. They worship all kinds of statues with all kinds of animal faces. Some of them worship the cow. They worship all kinds of men that they turn them into gods. So many different gods to the eyes of these Indians. So even though they are not a physical threat, they are a spiritual threat. They're going to fill up Israel with their idols. Something that God hates really, really hates is idol worshipping. Whether it's a Jew that does it or a Gentile, both of them according to God's Torah is death penalty. It's not just for Jews. Obviously Jews cannot worship anyone but God. Even Muslims understand that. Muslims understand there's nothing but God. They call him Allah. It comes from the word Elohim, Elohim. So they made it Allah. Same thing, El comes from our Torah. So they believe in a fake prophet, but they don't believe in the fake god. They don't make up fake gods. They don't worship idols, they don't worship statues, they don't worship animals. They worship the God, the God of Heaven. So the question is now, what's worse? To have Israel full of 90,000 hostile, evil, cruel terrorists, almost all of them terrorists, their ideologies, you saw what they're capable of doing. Or to fill up the land with 90,000 people that almost all of them idol worshippers. It's a very, very big question. It's no joke. I'm not so sure that the options of bringing Indians and Chinese and Thailandes or whatever is a better idea. I'm not so sure why. That could cause us more death. Yes, the Arabs unfortunately just murdered almost 1,400 people in one shot. And now lots of soldiers are dying. And then they'll kill us basically every day. There's not a day without casualties. The question is, what's worse? Okay, so they'll kill us, kill us, kill us. In the end, it came to almost 1,500 dead, let's say. Right? And these Indians can bring such tragedy to Israel because idol worshiping brings natural disasters. But then again, I'm asking a different question. Let's say we don't bring them. We will find workers that are not idol worshippers. We have a different problem. All these filthy gay parades, they also bring natural disasters. Like October 7th, it's a disaster. It's a natural disaster. What's natural about it? Usually natural is tsunamis, earthquakes like it just happened in Japan. You know? That's called natural disaster. Corona, COVID, that's natural disasters. A mass terrorist attack, how do you define that as a natural disaster? The answer is the nature of Ishmael is to murder. That's a nature. It's a law in the world. That Ishmael is pere adam. That's what God said in the Torah. He made them. So he writes in the Torah, Ishmael pere adam, yadoba kol ve'at kol bo. All the holy Jewish books from more than 2,000 years ago already and all the prophets spoke about the tragedies that the children of Ishmael will give to the children of Israel. I want to remind you that 2,000 years ago the Arabs didn't have even 1% of the power they have today. They were nothing. They were just living in the desert with camels and tents like Bedouins. They didn't have armies and weapons and bombs and rockets and oil and trillions of dollars and everybody kiss up to them because of the oil. They didn't have that. So all these prophecies that were written in the Jewish books and by the prophets and by the Zohar, the Kabbalah, and the Talmud This was against all odds, against logic. Nobody could ever dream that these Arabs would be able one day to harm us. They were very not sophisticated. They were not really a threat. But what do you see? Everything happened exactly as it's written. So that's— it is, it's indeed a natural disaster. But it's not only a natural disaster to the Jewish people, it's a natural disaster to the whole world. The world beginning to understand that. But I think that by the time they really get the whole picture, it will be way too late for them. It's already late for the Europeans. Basically, Europe is done. It's gone completely. And in United States, it depends on this election. It's very, very critical for the future of this country. If the Democrats win again, basically you can say Kaddish for United States. It's over. If the Republicans would win and they will be serious about taking actually actions to save the future of this country, then maybe there is a hope here. We will see what Hashem wants. If Hashem wants United States to be over, the Democrats would win again. If they win again, imagine 4 more years with Joe Biden. Imagine, you know. So it is what it is. We see now the whole world begin to understand that there's really nothing to count on. Look, we counted on the army, the Israeli army, with all due respect to them and the gratitude and the broken heart for all the dead soldiers and the wounded ones. We know by now 100% that the army cannot basically— shh— the army cannot save us. They're stuck now there. Every day they kill a few dozens of terrorists. That's the purpose? Keeping thousands of thousands of soldiers away from the family, away from their business. They're all— a lot of them from in reserve. They already don't work for 3 months. Their businesses are bankrupt. They have no income. They use the little savings they had. And what do they do? In the end, they kill 50 terrorists a day while 1,000 were born in the same day. We're going in reverse. You know, the Hamas officially, according to the news, they have 30,000 armed terrorists who are trained. But in a minute, they can hire another 100,000 that are ready to come kill. All they have to do is to get another check from Qatar or Iran. That's it. They recruit. Every teenager is a potential murderer there because they brainwash them from very young age. Age 3 already they turn them into monsters. It's in their DNA to murder and to hate Jews. It's in their DNA to torture the world because that's what the Torah says, a wild beast. That's it. It's written. It's not my opinion or your opinion. Well, I'm talking about what's written in the Torah. So when you take someone that potentially is very dangerous and God himself name him a wild beast, "Peres Adam," you know what "Peres" means? "Wild." Adam means looks like a human, but it's really not. Does not behave like regular human. I mean, the whole world was shocked from the pictures and the videos they saw. On October 7th, the goyim that came to Israel and they showed them the video, they were all crying. It wasn't even their people. They saw what they did to the women there and to the children, how they cut their parts and how they burned them alive and how they raped them. And that you saw that people, normal people cannot do things like this. Even if you pay someone a million dollars, take some European decent men, He's not a Jew. Tell him, listen, Hans, I'll pay you now a million dollars, I want you to take a baby and cut his leg, cut his hands, chop his head off, put him in a microwave and press start. He won't be able to do it. Jews? I don't think there's one Jew in the world who will be able to do such a thing. Not even one. So in reality, you see what G-d wrote in the Torah happens in front of our eyes. So the sad news is there is no solution. There's no political solution and there's no military solution. There's really no solution. The problem will only get worse every day. That's really what's happening. Don't let anyone fool you. If it makes you feel good when you hear on the news that today they killed 40 murderers from the Hamas, You're nothing but naive. They press a button, they get 400 instead. You kill the 400, they press a button, they get 4,000 instead. You kill the 4,000, they press a button, they'll get 40,000 instead. They have unlimited amount of murderers. Unlimited amount of murderers. Do you know how many other Arabs are dying to come and fight? If they only will invite them from all over, from Morocco, from Algeria. Same people who went to join ISIS are more than happy to come. And I remember when I was in Belgium, in Antwerp, the young rabbi there that hosted me, we drove together to pray Shacharit in the morning. As we come, we drive, we have to make a left turn. We're standing at the light. and problems. As we're standing at the light to make a left, I see a lot of Arabs standing by the sidewalk next to some store in the intersection. And he said to me, "You see all of these? They just came back from Syria. They go, they fight. They're all ISIS. They go to Syria." They fight, they kill people, then come back to Antwerp, stay here a week or two, they go back, kill more, and come back like nothing happened. In and out. They are Belgian citizens. They have citizenship. Do you know what I mean? Like this you have in France or in England or all these places. If Hamas will come to a situation that they will have no terrorists left, and one phone call, they will import. It's no problem for them. See, Hashem designed this tragedy to us and to the world in such a way that no matter what you do, you will not have any solution. Now we have to see, okay, so what we have to do to get rid of this problem? The answer is to fix our relationship with Hashem. Bringing 90,000 idol worshippers into Israel, I'm not sure it's going to solve the problem. Plus, what's better, that a murderer will build your home or an idol worshipper will build your home? Which one is worse? You have a Hamas terrorist comes from Judea and Samaria to work every day with a permit. You see in their eyes how they want to slaughter you when they work in your home. Some of them pretend to be nice, but those who pretend to be nice, they caught hundreds of them as parts of the attack. People who work there in those kibbutzim, these kibbutznikim were feeding them, making them coffee, You know, being so nice to them, they came and slaughtered them. Was it physical threat or spiritual threat? So the question now, if you have to choose, you have only two options: a murderer will build your home or an idol worshiper will build your home. I would choose a Chacham. Which one of the two is better? My opinion, better not to have a home. Live in some apartment, rent, I don't know what. Not easy, Rabotai, it's not easy. I ask an Indian convert. There's one Indian convert, very, very clever, speaks Hebrew like Israeli, almost have no accent. If you go to Israel now, no one will know he's not Israeli. Maybe when they see his passport, they see an Indian name, they'll know, but in interaction, you won't even know. He's in Canada, you know, serious, became Baal Teshuvah, he's good Ashkafah. So I asked him, I asked him, all these workers are about to come to Israel, how many percentage-wise, how many of them are idol worshippers? He told me at least 70%. The rule is the more poor the people are, the more idol worshippers there are, the more religious they are. It's very interesting. The whole world is like this. The more poor the people are, the more they searching for God. So when you find the right God, oh, at least something good came out of your poverty. But when you find a cow, meh, pache la pachat. It gets worse by the minute. Searching for God and in the end finding a cow, no? Searching for God and find in the end some Buddha statue, no? Obviously it didn't lead you anywhere. But you see all over the world, you go to Mexico or Mexico City, in the big city almost no one is religious. People, you know, like Europeans, business people. Big buildings, fancy cars. You don't see religion there. You go to all the poor villages of Mexico, every block you have iglesia, a church. Every second word by the people there, José, José, María. They all have these little statues, they all worship them, light candles, bow down to their Guedes. What do you see? It's very interesting. The more materialistic the people are, the less they search for God. The more poor they are, the more they search for God. So in general, poverty is a good thing. What's better, to be rich, not connected to God, and then die and go to hell for eternity? or to be poor, suffer, and be connected to God and go to heaven? Obviously, the answer is clear. But again, this is only when you find the real God. If you find the son of God— you know, there was yesterday an article in the Israeli news that now this false claim started again between Christmas and New Year's Eve. The Jews killed Jaycee. You know, every once in a while there's a wave, a Jew killed. I said to myself, if I was a Christian, God forbid, and the father in the church would tell me in his speech that the Jews killed our God, that second I would stop right away to be a Christian. What kind of a God I have that some Jew killed him or 5 or 10 Jews killed him? Who needs a God like this that can be killed by people? Do you understand the absurdity or no? He said he died for our sins. That's another stupid issue. I'm just asking something else. You come and say our God was killed by the Jews. The answer should be shame on you, you fool. You can still call someone that was killed by people a God? How dumb could it be? Do you get the point or no? But again, I guess when it comes to faith, not always you find logic. Same thing we find with Lavan when he's chasing Yaakov. When Yaakov ran away with the two daughters of Lavan, his wives, with all the children and the sheep, Lavan finds out Yaakov escaped, chased him, took a week until finally caught him. When on the way Hashem came to him when he slept, you know, you have to sleep on the road. He said to him, don't dare to touch Yaakov. Don't say anything good or anything bad to him. I'm warning you. Once he came to Yaakov, what did he say? Why did you steal my God? Just yesterday I spoke to the real God, you fool, who was warning you, don't mess with my son Yaakov. What's the first thing he say? Why you left like this, like a thief in the middle of the night? You didn't let me kiss and hug my grandchildren goodbye. I would make you a nice party. And by the way, how did you dare to steal my god? Same stupidity. If he was a god, I was able to steal him, you fool. You get the point or no? Here it is. It's similar to what they asked the Hamas terrorists 2, 3 years ago. You're shooting thousands of rockets and you basically hit nothing. You don't hit anything. Once in a blue moon you hit an apartment or something. Most of your rockets don't do any damage. So what is the fool answering? What can we do? Their God is protecting protecting them from our rockets. When we train, we hit the target a lot. But when we shoot at them, at the Jews, their God protecting them. So why you continue to shoot, you idiot? Isn't it enough for you to realize that what you do is the wrong thing? It sounds very stupid, no? You know, by the way, you should know the same people, the same people that act so stupid, worshipping a cow, worshipping a statue that they made at home, or the father made it and they bow down to it, or shooting rockets at civilians and see how God protects them and continue to shoot. All of that is act of morons. There's really no other words for these people. Dumbest. How do you explain that some of these people are big doctors, surgeons, lawyers, business people, diamond dealers? People who understand, you know, how to make money or educated. So the answer is there's no contradiction. There's two kinds of stupidity. There is physical stupidity and spiritual stupidity. Spiritual stupidity. Whenever the Torah says, "Tameh, tameh, impure, nitmetem," it's always talking about spiritual stupidity. You can be a math professor, genius with numbers. Wow, what a brain, like a scientist. And then he says the world was made from a random explosion. How dumb you can be. I mean, you know all these numbers and formulas and calculating and you memorize so many formulas. I mean, it's very impressive. You know geometry, you know physics, you know medicine, you know science. In the end, you say, you know, I walked to the street, there was an explosion and look what a beautiful bottle came with the sticker with all the writings, you know. It was a random explosion. You're a professor of math, you're normal? If someone would say such thing, the whole world would throw into the garbage. If I would be the head of the university and he worked for me and he said that this bottle was made by an explosion, I would send him to psychiatric evaluation. Definitely would fire him. I wouldn't want the student to have such a stupid teacher. Why, when the same teacher come and say that the world was made from that explosion, nobody see anything wrong here? How can it be? It's a contradiction. The answer, this is not a religious matter. That's why you see the truth. When it comes to religious matters, because of your sins, Hashem makes sure that you will be blinded. Why? Because to see the divine truth, you need merit. If you're an idol worshipper, you can't see the truth. If you are a mechalel Shabbat, a Jew, mechalel Shabbat, you cannot see the truth. If you eat not kosher food, when it comes to spirituality, you will always choose what's negative. In business, you can be clever. In everything else, you can be clever. When it comes to righteous or wicked, You're the dumbest. And I can give you millions of examples, but that's not our topic. Let's move on. Speaking about all these idol worshippers, I want to read to you a story. It's written in a book, Masekhdolim, Parashat Balak. Many years ago in Damascus— Damascus is in Syria— there was a priest, Christian priest, His name was Abba Goulish. Goulish, not goulash. Goulish. That was in charge of the church there. You know, by the Arabs, some Arabs are Christian. In Lebanon, in Syria, in Israel, there's a lot of Christian Arabs. I mean, the Muslims destroyed them, give them hell. But there are some Christian Arabs in Lebanon. There's a Christian— there's a party in the government, the Notsrim, the Vanoni. Abba Goulish used to collect donations from the community for the idol worshiping in his church. But in reality, he was stealing almost all the money to his own pocket, stealing the money. He lived a wealthy life. You know, some of the American priests, they have private jets. They live the life. Limo takes them everywhere. You know, they live the life. Why? Christians are very generous, those religious Christians. They give donations. By the way, you see that sometimes they do fundraising by the Christians. Almost everyone donates. Almost everyone. If you have a church with 10,000 people, I don't think you'll find that many who do not contribute. You ask yourself, how can it be? Because some of these people in their everyday life, they're very, very stingy. In their business, they fight for every dollar. But when it comes to donate to their idol, they are very generous. Why is it? Who helps them Who encouraged them to do it? Satan. It's very good for Satan that the Gentiles will be idol worshippers. Same thing is very good for him that the Jews will be idol worshippers if he can get them to worship an idol. Usually Jews are not running to be idol worshippers, usually, but there are some. There are people who live in Japan and in some places like this, they worship idols. And when a person wants to donate, whether it's a Jew or Gentile, first thing that Satan wants is to make you not donate. If he sees that you're anxious to give, feel guilty about your sins, you want Father Jaycee to help you to repent, you want to do something good, you feel guilty about your, you know, your conscience bothers you. So what happened? If the Satan will see that you're about to donate to a kosher cause, immediately he diverts your donation to something horrible. If he cannot convince you to give to something horrible, he will convince you to give to something not as important. Give you an example. If you wanted to give a donation to a good cause, Immediately the Satan would come and try to turn you into some faker that will steal your money. Like this, nothing good will happen from your money. If you're not that stupid, when you have a rabbi that you consult with and you ask him, who should I give, where should I invest? And he told you, don't give to that place, don't. And in the end you got saved. Now the Satan comes with another attempt. Okay, you don't want to give to the crook. There is a poor family, send them $1,000. They need food. What's wrong with that? Very nice mitzvah, of course. Beautiful mitzvah. But compared to give it to someone who sits and learns Torah all day, all night, all year round, it's nothing to compare. You just— it just diverts your donation from diamonds into silver coins. That's what you're going to get. Okay, at least I didn't make him earn diamonds. So, that's the same thing by the Christians. If you're gonna have a Gentile that wants now to give money for the rabbi to save Jewish souls, lost Jewish souls, and bring them closer to God, that's a huge profit for the Gentile. Immediately, Satan will come and say, "No, but you have a cousin, he's doing very bad, and he's hoping that you're going to help him financially to pay his mortgage." So that Gentile will be fooled by Satan. Instead of giving to Kiruv to save souls, he will go to some idol worshipper from the church. And help him to pay the mortgage. Okay, so he will keep his house, and that house he has the statue of JC and Maria. Do you understand the point? That Gentile didn't want to support the idol. He just wanted to support his uncle or cousin or parents. I have hundreds of cases like this. Some Gentiles are very smart. They think straight. And I saw from the way they ask that they understand what they're talking about. For instance, I had a guy that was supporting his parents, Spanish idol worshippers, with all their statues in the home, bowing down to Maria and this, putting all kinds of sacrifices. He said, "Now I realize that idol worshipping is a huge sin for me." No matter how much I try to speak to my parents to stop with their idols and belief in JC and all this idol worshiping, they are already programmed from the day they were born. In Iglesia, Mexico, all the idols, all the Maria, every other word, that's what they talk about. Impossible to save them. But the question is, am I allowed to to help them, to donate to them. Why? Because no matter how many times I told them, do not use my money for the church or to give to the church or to give to all your idols, please do not do it. It doesn't help. They're already programmed. So now he's asking if it's a sin or it's mitzvah to give. You understand? On one hand, he doesn't want to be ungrateful to his parents who raised him. So the heart is playing a role here, right? You act with your feelings. Feelings. How can I hurt my parents? It's normal. We are people, we have feelings. Then the brain also participates in the debate. Yes, but how can you support their idol worshiping? You make it worse for them. If you really love them, the last thing you want is to give them money. Same thing if your parents eat not kosher food. You don't want to give them cash because with the cash they go and buy pepperoni pizza or shrimps or pork. So every time they eat, they will be punished for every bite. It will be your fault. Without your money, they wouldn't buy that pizza or shrimp or whatever. So what's the solution? Buy them kosher food. "Tell them you can only buy in this supermarket, which is all kosher over there, whatever you need. I'll pay the bill." You force them to get kosher food. At least you do not become a partner to their crimes. Sometimes it can get sophisticated. I'll give you an example. A few days ago, one of my students, smart man, businessman, Usually he has a car. I mean, he drives his car everywhere. It was the night that they go in, make parties, you know, and get drunk. So before he got into his car to drive to some family event, he decided this time to take an Uber. It's about 40 minutes drive. So he will take an Uber to get there and an Uber to come back. Why? He's afraid. He has a nice car. He's afraid maybe someone vandalizes his car. There's a lot of drunk people on the street. He doesn't want to run into an accident. You know what? Let me just take an Uber, not take risks. He takes an Uber. He goes to that event. On the way back, The driver, the driver is a Muslim from Uzbekistan. Uzbeki Muslim. The driver stopped at the red light. They stand now at the light. A car came from behind. Boom! Hit them on the back. Who does such a thing? Either a drug addict or A drunk driver or someone that was texting and driving. But usually today with the new cars, they have a special system that would beep and stop the car. But this guy didn't have a brand new car. Boom! The driver comes out. And— the phone? Wow, I got your attention, I see. Yeah, wow, that's a good sign. That means I'm not so boring after all. So, yeah, so What happened? They come out. You know how it is when you get hit by the back, your neck, your back. What did they find out? A Jewish driver. And he recognized him. He recognized him. And he drinks and drives. He was in some kind of a family event, the driver that hit them. He drank a few shots. His mouth smelled from alcohol. The Uzbek Muslim is about to either kill him or wants to call the police. If the police come, that Jew goes to jail for who knows how many years. Drinking and driving, it's a very big crime. But now the question is, what do you do? Do you say, listen, he's a friend of mine, I know him, I saw him in family events, but he should pay for what he did. He should pay for what he did. Let him go to jail. Let him sit a month in jail. Let him sit, then later, when the verdict will be, you know, probably will be 2, 3 years in prison. Let him learn his lesson. But then you think, but his wife and children, they're all gonna be now Nobody support them. It's a whole thing. A lot of innocent people get hurt. So what are you supposed to do? One way, he's a rich man. He can take out some stuff of cash, give it to this Muslim driver, "Calm down. I'll fix your car like brand new. Here, take extra. Don't call the police." Why? Save a Jew from prison. It's a big mitzvah to save Jews from prison. It's called pidyon shvuim. Even though there are some exceptions to the rule, not every Jew you're allowed to save from prison. If he's a drug addict that sells drugs to kids, you're allowed to save him from prison? You have to hope that he'll stay there for the rest of his life or die there. Because if he dies, 1,000 Jewish teenagers will stay alive. If he will come out of prison, 1,000 Jewish kids will die, or other people, not just Jews. A lot of innocent people will die. Drug dealers are mass murderers, even though they busy convincing themselves that they are not. And if you wouldn't buy from me, you would buy— there's hundreds like me out there, so you will get the drugs anyway. This is the same thing the Arab terrorists that drives the murderers to put a bomb in somewhere, they say to the police, in Israel. If he wouldn't drive with me, he would drive with a different taxi driver. What's the difference? He will get to the club and put the bomb anyway, right? But he's still going to go to 20 years in prison for driving the terrorist to the place of the attack. So in the end, the guy gave him money, he calmed him down. He said, don't worry, go to this place, they'll fix your car, we'll take care of everything, you're not going to lose anything. What did he care? He made money. Probably made 5 times more than the ride. But then he called me after the fact to ask me if he did the right thing or not. Because, you know, middle of the night, you not always know what to do. You try to use your common sense, but sometimes you make mistakes. You make mistakes sometimes. I just give an example. Let's say you want to release a Jew from prison. Not a drug addict, a secular Jew. You're allowed to release a secular Jew from prison? If he's mechalel Shabbat. If you keep him in prison, he will be mechalel Shabbat in prison. Whether it's gonna be out of prison or in prison, in both places he will be mechalel Shabbat. So why not taking him out? It's not because of me he is going to break Shabbat. With or without me, he will break Shabbat. Wait, if it's a person that eats kosher, in jail there's no kosher. If I take him out now, at least he'll be able to eat kosher food. It's not religious, but at least eat kosher. So something good will come out of it. But it all depends if he's married or not. If he's married to a secular woman, she does not go to the mikveh. They don't keep Taharat Mishpacha. Every time they are intimate, it's a very, very huge sin. Huge, huge crime against Hashem. Every time two secular people are together intimately, it's a huge crime. Such a terrible crime that both souls are cut permanently from the afterlife. And I'm not allowed to be intimate with a Jewish woman that she's in a state of Nida. She didn't go to the mikveh. As long as she didn't go to the mikveh, she has impurity of Nida after her last period. She needs to go to the mikveh. She didn't go to the mikveh. His wife doesn't go ever to the mikveh. Every time he's with her, both of them have another cut in their list, in their file, which will happen to them when they die. It will be a disaster. So now when he's in prison, he cannot be with her. You're actually saving both of them. You are doing them a favor. On the other hand, he's crying to you, you his uncle, you are his cousin, you are his brother. 'Brother, help me out. I'm dying here. There's a lot of dangerous people here. I don't know what's going to happen to me. I don't even know if I'm going to come out alive.' The jails in America is a disaster. Monsters sitting right there. Monsters. All kinds of horrible people. 'I don't belong here. I won't make it.' Cries to you. So your heart is breaking, but your brain say "Stay there for your own good." Why? Once I take you out every night or every other night, you will have a terrible caret. So I'm doing you a favor. Better someone will punch you over there and kick you than you're gonna have a caret. That's logic, Torah logic. But there is a third solution. You tell them, "Okay, I'm willing to release you to pay the bail, whatever." and only one condition, that you swear and make a vow that you do not touch your wife unless she goes to the mikveh first. You keep tarat mishpacha. Why don't you tell him, I will only take you out if you become shomer Shabbat? Because it's not relevant to the case. It's not relevant to the case. It can be mechaneh Shabbat in jail as well. I mean, it doesn't need you. Either way, it's going to be mechaneh Shabbat. But right now he cannot violate the law of Nidah once he's in prison. So the only one who can get him back into his sin is your money. Do you want to participate in such a crime against God? The answer is no. If you're smart, you don't want. So what do you do? On one hand, you don't want to be a partner to the crime and still pay for it. Not only You're going to be punished for what you're doing. It also costs you a lot of money. I'm paying to be punished. So what's the solution? There is a third solution. I'm more than happy to release you in one condition. Taarat mishpacha, you're not going to break the laws. Usually when they are so desperate, they're willing to accept it. Now what happened if he lied? Well, of course, I'll give you my word, I promise, I make a vow, and I make a Neder, and he went home and didn't care. Now he's home, he's released, forgot about you, and he was intimate with his wife. Are you still liable for it? Logically or not? I got a promise from a person. But what happened if this person is known to be a liar and a deceiver and a crook? Is his word worth less than a toilet paper? Can you rely on his word? You know, that is chronological liar. You know, these liars that constantly constantly lying nonstop, can't stop lying. Can you rely on his promise? His promise is similar to the promise of the drug addict that he promised his parents not to touch drugs again. Same level of promise, which is basically worthless. So it all depends. If we know we have a secular person that respects this world, and when he says something, you can rely on his word, then you can release him. You make him promise and the rest is not in your hand. But if it's known that this person is sleazy crook and everything about him is lies, you cannot rely on his promise. Chazaka that he's lying. Certainty that he's lying. You cannot rely on it. Every person has a status. But it's not— there is a general status, righteous or wicked. That's a general status. But even righteous and wicked, you can divide their status to a lot of mini status. Meaning, okay, this person is righteous overall, is doing a lot of great things in the world, but even righteous people sometimes do wrong things. So let's say this righteous person have one bad issue about him. What? He has a little bit, out of curiosity, that's his nature, he smell around gossip. He likes to hear gossip. But other than that, he's a Shomer Mitzvot, learn Torah, tzaddik, eats kosher, give donations, kids in the best yeshiva. He does a lot of wonderful things, but one weakness he has. What happened? Who was it? Who? Ah, wow, you sure? That's his weakness. So when it comes to Lashon Hara, he is not perfect. His status in Lashon Hara is negative. When it comes to keeping Shabbat, very positive. Generosity, positive. Praying with all his heart, positive. Taharat Mishpachayn, modesty, positive. Almost everything positive. One or two things negative. It's normal, no one is, no one is Hashem. We have issues. Or the wicked person, overall is wicked but he has some good things. For instance, he's very generous because he has a sensitive heart, this wicked crook. When he sees someone suffer, he runs to give donation. Oh, you heard about this family? They're very— they lost their house, they're losing their house. How much, how much they need? They have to pay the mortgage right away by tomorrow. How much, how much they need? 3,000? On me, here, go give them the money. You know, he's generous like this. When it comes to charity, his status is positive. He gives. But when it comes to conducting business honestly, negative. Cheat the customer, lie, cheat the insurance, cheat the UPS. He's a big crook. I know a lot of crooks that are very generous. By the way, the reason that they are generous is because they are crooks. They need to calm down their conscience. That bothers them very much. That's why a lot of the murderers in Israel, the head of the mafias— there's different mafias— they are very generous. They give money to all kinds of babas. Yeah. One time they even put on the media, on the news, a recording between a head murderer to one rabbi It was such a hilul Hashem, I actually started to cry from anger. You know, sometimes you cry from sadness, but sometimes you cry from anger. You know these feelings, you cry from anger? I felt, mamasha, I have tears of anger for the hilul Hashem that this Baba did with all his custom. How he was kissing up to these murderers. Cruel murderer. The police said that he killed at least 7 people with his own hands, but they couldn't prove the case. People were afraid. Witnesses afraid to show up. A witness disappeared. All of a sudden he's out of Israel, doesn't come back. This kind of a monster. You have to see how he was kissing up to him. Tzadik, tzadik, tzadik. Maybe 10 times he called him tzadik. I wanted to vomit. Such unbelievable hypocrisy in this world. But this murderer, now in the war, paid tens of thousands of dollars or shekels to buy the soldier bulletproof vest. Not only that, he went with trucks, few vans, full of gifts for the soldiers, food, candy, I don't know, whatever, and made himself a great PR. He drove to the area where all the soldiers are, started to give them. Here, come, for you, for you, for you. It's very expensive. Spend, who knows, maybe more than 100,000 shekels. He make it in a second because they collect protection. They bully people, they blackmail people, they kill people, they rob places, they sell drugs, prostitution, casinos. It's not clean money. Why is he so— why became Santa Claus on Christmas Eve? Good thing he didn't come with the hat and the red outfit. The murderer. I hope he won't hear this recording. Why, why, why? My life will be in a risk. I hope he doesn't understand English. So what happened? Why is he so generous? Because they kill people for a living. Or they kill kids with drugs. Or they take women's life and turn them into you know what. He knows where his money come from and he knows there is a God. Few times I saw pictures of him with a yarmulke. Comes to places of religious people. What do you see? That sometimes the reason that people are generous is because they are crooks or because they are gangsters. They want to relax their guilty feelings. It's very, very common phenomenon. So you get the point. You have a general status, but you can break it to hundreds of different statuses. With Shabbat, wicked. Eating kosher, wicked. Tarat Mishpacha, wicked. Conducting business honestly, wicked. Generosity, righteous. On this particular manner, or It could be respect to the Chachamim. A lot of these murderers give a huge respect to the rabbis. I'm talking to you from experience. You have to see how they respect the rabbi. Come, kiss the hand. I was in jail a few times in Israel, spoke to these very dangerous people. I never in my life saw such respect. They respected me like I'm a king. Forget about a king. You know how people respect kings? That's how it was. Stood 50-something prisoners, one line. It's a hallway to get to the plate. You see, I spoke to them between all the rooms. You know the room in the jail? They get them all of them and there's a long hallway. They put a long table with all kinds of candies and pretzels and stuff. They buy from the canteen. So they made up a mamash, a nice table. I felt like it's almost Yom Tov. It was few days before Rosh Hashanah. I gave them a 2-hour speech. I have to see the respect they give. They all come, kiss your hand. Wow, this is people who knows what they did. They're waiting for life sentence. This is a place where they are in a jail in Beersheva. That's while their trial is going. It's trials that take 3 years. It's not a little robbery, you know, robbery in 2 months you finished. Probably murders, probably drug trafficking, who knows what else. So this is serious gangsters. Anywhere from age 20 to age 60 were there. Some of them already, they already sat for many years in prison. They give a huge respect to rabbis. It's unbelievable. It's a little bit hard to understand how it— how can it be? You come to a lefty liberal from the university, treat you like garbage. Say rabbi wants to kill him. You look at this murderer or drug dealer, he treats the rabbi like a king. Makes sense to you? Should have been the other way around, no? Guilty conscience. The professor in university doesn't feel that he's guilty with his sins. This is the way they raise him. He thinks it's okay. Those criminals feel guilty. So when they have an opportunity to do a mitzvah, even tefillin, you come to the jail, everyone will stand on line to put tefillin. Everyone. You know? So let's move on. So remember our friend over here, the idol worshipper? What was his name? Let's see who remembers. Abba Ghoulish. Abba Ghoulish said to the people of his community, you know, the people of his community give him donations for the church in Syria, in Damascus, and he lives like a king. One time— wait, the car, was it good or not good? Did you release the guy? No, you only release him if he commits not to violate the Arat Mishpachay. Answer that already. Yeah, the drunk guy. Ah, the drunk guy. Oh, it's a good question. So I told the guy, overall it's a good decision what you made because you just saved someone from going to prison, but that cannot go on like that. You have to take this guy sit with him and scream at him that he should be ashamed of himself to drink alcohol and get on the wheel and drive. That's— tell him that he's a huge criminal. How do I know that that's the right decision? Let's see who's clever. It's a close call. How do I know that that's the right decision? I didn't say it to make him feel good. If I would think that he did the wrong thing, I would tell him, you did, you should have done the other way around. You should actually call the police quickly, you yourself. But how do I know that that was the right thing? No, no, use your head. You need a Gemara head for that. No. Look at all the evidence and the story. The jail was worse than the punishment from Hashem? No. How many cars you have in the night in New York City that night? Over a million. This Jewish guy, the drunk, from all the million cars, which car he hit? The car of someone who lives two blocks away from him and go to the same shul. And this guy never take a taxi. He has his own fancy car. He never takes a taxi. The one time in 20 years that he decided, maybe tonight I will take an Uber, and it happened. What do you see? That Hashem did not want this criminal to go to jail yet. He wanted him to get his final warning. Next time when he do that, Hashem will bury him for life. That's very obvious. This was a final warning because anybody else in that Uber, his life is over. Who knows when he's gonna see daylight. From all of the cars, Which car he hit? You know, we're not talking here a little town in Israel that everyone knows everyone. This is New York State, 20 million people, more than a million cars on the road right now. What are the odds? 1 to a million that he will hit someone he knows. But if it was a poor Jew in a taxi, it wouldn't help. The only reason that this Muslim driver agreed, because he saw his watch and his clothes and he saw from where he picked him up. You get it? And right away gave him cash. Don't worry, I'll take care of you. So the greed to make some bucks overcame the Revenge feeling. That reminds me about the story that my father, alahu akbar, used to tell. He loved that story because this story has a lot of musarasquel. How do you say musarasquel in English? Who knows? Life lessons? No, let it be life lessons. In the old days You didn't have milk like today that they sell them in cartons, you know, pasteurized. The milk used to come directly from the makhlava where they milk the cows or the sheep, whatever. It goes into barrels and into bottles, bottles, and you go with a special bicycle with a bell. You go to where all the workers are, you ring the bell, or you have a megaphone. "Halav! Halav!" Early in the morning, 7, 8 in the morning, people want milk. The people from the window see that the guy arrived. Same thing with watermelons. He used to come with a horse. "Avatiya! Chalasakin!" Everybody comes down from all buildings buying watermelons. This is how it was. The world was a little bit different than today. So now he comes with 50 or 100 bottles that he owns the bottles, you know, it's bottles that are open in the top. There's no lid or it's not sealed. He fill up from a big container into the bottles and he sell you a bottle for half a lira. Half a lira was a coin. And all the workers come down, they give him yesterday's bottles, the used one, and take different one and he goes and he rinses them, wash them, and then he fills it with fresh milk. Milk that doesn't have preservatives. You smell the cow smell into the milk when you drink it. Much like— but, you know, because it's no preservatives. Sometimes it gets spoiled, especially in August, July, you know, a few hours until you get to the place. And you know when milk gets spoiled, it becomes creamy, you know, on top, you know, the smell is horrible. What happened? One of the workers— this is a place where they make diamonds, you know— one of the workers Didn't pay attention, took a sip from the milk, right away speeded up. What was the name of the milkman? Shmiel. Shmiel, it means Shmuel, but the Hasidim, they pronounce it Shmiel. Shmiel, Shmiel, Shmuel, Samuel. So that was a Hasidish milkman. You know, he has a little beret hat, his beard coming. So when Shmuel was about to leave the site, from the second floor, that worker took the container of milk, spilled it on his head. He got a shower. The cream was all over his beret hat. And his face, I don't have to tell you the smell. Shmuel was fuming. A tragedy was about to happen. Shmuel is running now to go upstairs. There are two floors. He runs. The worker realized what he did. He looks at my father and says, "Well, what am I going to do now?" An older man, we're gonna beat him up. How do we get out of this situation? My father told him, there's nothing that money will not solve. Wait with 1 lira. When he gets into the door, serve him. Oh no, no, I don't think it's gonna help. Don't worry, my father had the money. Shmuel came, run, run, run. Open the door, "Ephraim!" My father said, "This is for you, Shmuel." He took the money, turned around and went like nothing happened. This is what people are all about. Everyone is Shmuel. Shmuel was willing to get compensation of 1 lira, 2 bottles of milk, whatever it was. It solved the issue right away. Some people have higher price, but in the end almost everyone has a price. Almost everyone. In Mexico, when a policeman pull you over— when I was in Mexico, I'm driving with the guy, he's driving me around. I see police, police in Mexico, you know. In Mexico, you don't have highways in Mexico City. you have to drive from the streets, there's no highways. And every half a minute you have a bump. Disaster to drive there. Boom, bam, boom, bam. There's no highways. Traffic, this. Then you see police directing traffic. I asked the guy, "Tell me if the police pull you over here. Is it serious?" He started to laugh. This Syrian guy. I said, why are you laughing? He said, ah, he pulls you over, como está, señor? You take out $5, he takes the money, kisses your hand, and says, Dios te bendiga. He gives you mishaberach. No ticket, no nothing. I said, ma, just like that, right? He said, yeah. That's normal here. Nothing out of the ordinary. I say, "What, for $5?" He said, "You know how much he makes in the whole month? He stands here in the sun, in humidity all day. How much he makes a month? $500. All month. 10 cows like this a day, $5 each. It triples his salary." corrupted countries. In Arabic, it's called bakshish. In Arab countries, you solve all problems with bakshish. Whenever you need, you need to go in, there's a guard, "Keef halak, Ahmed?" Ah! Not only that, becomes your bodyguard. Why? Corrupted countries. By the way, don't think that United States or Israel or Europe, it's any better. It's much worse there. It's just behind the scene. The bribery is done in a more classic way, not so cheap like this in front of everyone. They do it in a different way. I have I'm going to help you out to get out of these problems. You don't have to give me anything, but I have a foundation that I'm the president over there. I would be very happy if you can make a generous contribution to that foundation, which will go to the foundation and go to his back pocket. Sleepy Joe, that's his son, with weapon, with everyone corrupted. All the Israeli generals, all of a sudden, all of them multimillionaires. They make $5,000 a month salary. How they all have big, big, big houses, 20,000 square feet and farms? You saw Ariel Sharon, what a house he has? Size of Brooklyn. How he became such a billionaire? For being a chief of command or general. See, Gallant, the minister now, the one who's in charge of the war now, Gallant, he was supposed to be chief of command before. They disqualified him because the media published the size of his house and people started to ask questions. How can a general have a $20 million home? Where did it come from? We never saw him working in selling diamonds or selling real estate. He was a soldier all his life. How all of a sudden, just like when you have a policeman here in Brooklyn, how much he makes a year? $50,000, $60,000, $70,000 after taxes. I don't know how much he has left. All of a sudden, one day show up with a Bentley. No, in Israel we have ever say? 'Amevin yavin.' You know what it means, 'Amevin yavin'? The one who understands will understand. We'll get the point. Anyway, let's go back to Abba Goulish. So Abba Goulish lived the life by stealing from all the community over there in a church in Damascus. One time At that time, Abba Gulish had a very big problem in his personal life. He stood in front of the statue of JC, you know, and begged JC to help him out. Screaming, crying, kissing his feet, "Please, Father, help me." Nothing helped. Then Abaguli say, you know what, the heck with the Son of God. What do I need a son? Let me go to the Father. Avinu Shebashamayim, Avinu Malkenu. Abaguli started to scream to Hashem, if you get me out of it, I will do teshuvah. Hashem made him a miracle. The problem was He decided that he quit his job as a priest. He makes Aliyah. Back then there was no Jewish agency. So they were lucky. They could make Aliyah easily. Today the Jewish agency will do everything they can to prevent you from making Aliyah if you're religious. If you're not religious or you're gay, they welcome you. But if you're religious, You can forget about Aliyah. So what happened? This Abba Goulish decided to convert. He arrived to Tiberias. The Bedouin over there converted him and he became a religious Jew in Tiberias. Started to be known to the community and they decided that he has a talent to organize things. They made him the gabai of the shul. You know how you ask the cat to watch the cheese? Can I nominate you to be the guard? What do I have to keep? All the cheeses here. Yeah, of course, you can rely on me. So they took the cat to watch the milk. So once he saw again cash coming to his hands all all day, his desire to money started again and he started to steal more and more and more. After a few months, he became blind in one eye. This is a real story. It's not a— it actually happened. He became blind in one eye but continued to steal with the other eye. He can still count money. But Hashem didn't leave him. After a while, he became blind in his second eye. They fired him from the shul. I'm sorry, we cannot have a blind gabai here. We need someone to see what he's doing. And they put a different tzaddik gabai, not a thief. Now Abba Guli is sitting alone in his home. People forgot about him. He's not anymore working. Walking in the street because he's blind. Slowly, slowly, he became a marshmallow. Plus, when you're blind, life is not a picnic, you know. All you see is black screen. You don't see anything. After a while, a group of Christians arrived to Israel, to the Galilee. What for? To follow the the footsteps of their idol in Nazareth. It's not far from Tiberias. And they heard that the previous priest living over here, they started to ask questions. They sent them to his apartment. They knock on the door. They see a miserable Jew like this, yamakabir, blind. Who is this? 'We are your people from the church. You used to be our priest.' They were shocked. They said, 'Wow, you became a Jew, you traitor. You didn't just quit, you came here to be a Jew. Look what you got. You got what you deserve. You left JC and you got your punishment.' He has revenge against you. Get up, repent, come back to JC. He will redeem you from all your sins. Come with us to Damascus, stand in front of the idol and declare that you want to repent. Abba Ghouli say, you good people, let me come with you. He got dressed, he walked with them to Damascus. They put him on a carriage with the horses. When they arrived to Damascus, they started to spread the rumor. Remember the priest? He was a traitor. He went with the Jews, he became a religious Jew, but now he's coming to ask forgiveness from JC. Everyone tomorrow At 2 PM should be in a church. An event like this you don't get to see that often. Thousands of people came. They made a stage. They put that statue high, you know. They brought him over here. Everybody was complete silence. When there was complete silence, they said, "No, start talking." He said, "Brothers and sisters, you used to be my sheep and I was your shepherd. I came to confess in front of you today. I want you all to know that when I was your priest, I used to steal all your donations, almost everything you donated came to my own pocket. So I'm really sorry for what I've done to you. Since you did not know, you never protest. You didn't rebuke me. But I was also ungrateful to the statue. I'm a priest over here and I take all the money that's supposed to come to him, I take it to myself. He also didn't know about it. That's why he never punished me, because I would steal the money before it comes to his attention. Since he doesn't have eyes or ears, he cannot hear, he cannot see, he couldn't stand in my way. And then one day I realized that my life is all fake, so I left the nonsense and I accepted on myself to be a servant of the real God, the God of Israel that watches everything and hears everything. You cannot hide from Him anything. And once I get a job that all the donations comes again to my hand, my Yetzer Hara, my evil inclination, woke up again and I started my evil ways again to steal more. but this time it was different. I was dealing with a real God, not a piece of metal, and He saw what I did and He made me blind. This is my confession. By the time he finished his speech, his eyes came back. The goyim were shocked. It was the biggest kedusha Hashem. When the goyim saw the miracles, It was such a huge Kiddush Hashem. Many of them came to him and say, "You just save us from this idol." That was even better than my debate with the priest. So many Christian Arabs in Damascus decided to leave their idol immediately. Now, after we got a little inspired and warmed up and finished the introduction, I have to ask you a question. In the parasha on Shabbat, Yaakov Avinu is finishing his life, age 147, and then we start Sefer Shemot. Meaning the slavery is about to start, all the problems in Egypt is about to start. Yosef brings his two sons, Ephraim and Menashe, that Yaakov will give them a blessing before he leaves the world. And this is what's written in the Torah. First he asked, who are they? Because Yaakov is now becoming blind. Yitzchak became blind before he died. Yaakov now cannot see. But Yaakov has Ruach HaKodesh, it's a prophet. Immediately he sees that from these two boys wicked kings will come to the world. Chav and Yehu. Rishaim. And Yaakov saw that he lost his Ruach HaKodesh, you know, the blessing doesn't come out. So this is Rabotai, listen to what's going on now. Yosef said to him, 'Don't worry, here is my ketubah. I got married in a legal way.' That's the connection. 'I see that wicked people are going to come from your children.' The question we have to ask, when Yaakov now gave blessing to all the tribes, every one of his brothers, every one of them had wicked people coming from them. And he gave them the blessing. He didn't lose the prophecy. But when Ephraim and Menashe came, the children of Yosef, he lost his vision. What happened? This was before he gave the blessing to the brothers. Before the brothers came for the final goodbye, this is now before. First Ephraim and Menashe, Yaakov loses vision. Then he gives them a blessing in the end, and then later he gives to the brothers. But the brothers also have a Rosh Ha'im came out of them. Why by them he didn't lose the vision? The answer is because it's not the same. In Yaakov's mind, all he wanted is to marry one woman, Rachel. That's the one he loved. It's true he loved Leah also, but it was forced on him. He didn't choose her. In his mind, Yosef is his bechor, is his real firstborn. Because if I was married only to Rachel, I would only have Yosef the firstborn. He should be the one who continues my way. Plus, he's my original student. I learned with him all these years when he was a child. So I looked at my continuation through Yosef. The brothers, okay, but they are from Leah, Zilpah, Bilhah. It's not my priority. This is the woman I love. The children from her are more important to me than the others. So if from the woman I love I'm going to have grandchildren that going to be very wicked, Machtiar Rabbim, and people that put idols, and people that rebel against God. I became very sad that moment. It broke the heart. And when a person becomes sad, immediately loses prophecy. You can never get prophecy when you're sad. That's a rule. If you get angry, Or you get sad, immediately Hashem leaves you on the spot. That's why sadness, it's a very tricky thing. Remember, we spoke about it a month ago. What's the right way? A person committed a sin, it breaks his heart. It's broken. It's good or bad? If you say it's good that his heart is broken, immediately you'll say, but Hashem leave you when you said like this. Shchina is not here. So it's not good. If you say he begins to dance after he just committed a horrible sin. You just did a horrible caret. You just murdered someone. That's a fool. So what's going on? Looks like a contradiction. What's the right thing to do? To be happy or to be sad? If you're sad, Hashem leaves you. If you're happy when you commit a sin, there's no despicable criminal more than you. Why are you dancing? You just committed a horrible sin. It's written, "Prayers of a broken heart Hashem accepts." In Rosh Hashanah, you have two cantors that you can hire for the community. One is rich and one is poor. Both religious, both have good voice. One is a rich man, one is a poor man. Who you should hire? The poor has priority. Why? He comes already with a broken, sad heart. Contradiction. Don't you want someone that is happy? Someone that is happy, the Shekhina didn't leave him. Someone that is sad and broken, the Shekhina doesn't come near him. So the answer is, depends. There are two kinds of sadness, positive and negative. When you said that you lose money, negative sadness. When you said you don't have 'too many children,' you only have 2 or 3, you wanted 10— negative. When you said that they fired you— negative. When you said that you went out on a date and the girl didn't want you— negative. When you committed a sin and you said— positive. Should have a broken heart to repent. When you come to repent, you must have a broken heart. Look at the confession. It has to be done with a broken heart. Hatano, Avinu, Pashanu. Come to Hashem to beg for our life. What kind of begging is this? Hashem, forgive my sins. What did you smoke? Hey, what's going on with you? There is a group like this in the north of Israel. You have to see how they pray. They all take all kinds of assistants, if you know what I mean. They play trance music. You know, like this for hours. You should see them— tallit and fillin, beer, long peyot. Like this, like in a club in Manhattan. They're all in a different planet from the drugs they take. One time I was in the north. The guy told me, "Come, I want to show you something." "Come, I want to show you something." We walk into the shul. I see one guy sitting. Like this. You can see right away. Then I see one in the corner, loud trance music, and the guy for 10, 20 minutes, that, you know, jumping like this with the face to the wall. Look, you know how the goats jump? Like this. So I said to him, "What's going on over here?" He said, "Poor people. They became religious, but they continue with their old ways." just turn it into shachrit. This is the morning prayers with trance music. Phelim, Talit, tam, tam, tam, tam, tam, tam, like this. Smell the grass, of course, everywhere and other things. No, you know that there are people who always do everything they can to look for something positive. You know this kind of people? They went, there was one big tzaddik, his name was the Rebbe from Berdichev. And the Rebbe from Berdichev was always trying to see positive, positive in people. One time they walk in the street with his students and they saw a dead dog. So everybody said, "Ugh, what is this?" stinky nevelah. Nevelah means a dead body of an animal. And he said, but look how white is the teeth of the dog. How does it help? The whole neighborhood is horrible smell. Baruch Hashem, the teeth of the dog is white. But the rabbi doesn't know it. Of course he know it. Why would Why did he reply like this? To pinch them. To bring to their attention before you criticize something terrible and smell bad and look bad, did you check first to see something positive there or no? So this kind of people always look for the positive. If they will come to this shul with the drug addicts jumping like this with trance music. What would they say? Two people come in, one is Midat HaDeem, one is Midat HaRachamin. The Midat HaDeem would say, "What a hilul Hashem, look at these lowlifes, what they have no shame, they want to continue the way they used to be pretending to be religious, shame on them, drugs, music of goyim." What kind of this? Bizayon of the shul. A whole list of criticism, and every word is true. The Midat HaRachamim will have a different report. We just witnessed an unbelievable phenomena. People that were deep in the impurity, in the tumah, came mamash from the cords of the Sitra Achra, addicted to drugs and to horrible music, changed everything and became Baalei Teshuvah. They come to pray at least, they put filin, they put tallit. Who would ever believe that people like this would put tallit and filin? Whatever he say, it's also true. But who's right more? The answer is sometimes in life you have contradictions in what you do. You do something, for that something you're going to be rewarded and punished. Both. Punished for what you did wrong in it and rewarded for the good thing. For instance, you come to shul to pray shacharit at 10 AM. On Shabbat? Minyan, whiskey, herring. Rabbi, what's the Rash? 10:30 they start. Baruch Atah Hashem, pukei achivrim. Maivrim? Vrim. 10:30 already. Baruch Atah Hashem, ano tenlaya efkoach. Of course, at 10:30 everyone is koach already. So now it's a yuch hilul Hashem. It's a disgrace. It's mamash bushot, busha to show up to shul at Shabbat at 10:30 in the morning. I would die before I have to do such thing. Show up at 10:30? Phew. Remember my rebbe in yeshiva, Rabbi Berkowitz, heard that someone went to daven in the weekday at 9 o'clock. He used to give shiurim in Nefesh HaChaim, deep shiurim, every day 20 minutes before we finish the seder sheni. I never forget his face. You know, these Ashkenazim, when they shy, they become like a tomato, the face very red. You know how red his face was? He said, I cannot imagine myself Showing up to the shul at 9:00 AM. I would be so ashamed. I would not be able to pray. If I had an illness, let's say I didn't feel good, bathroom, something, I would rather pray at home than to show up to shul at 9:00. And all the people that were smiling. 9:00? Come see what happened at 10:30 over there in the shtiebel. So now a person shows up at 10:30, definitely is going to be punished for the Chilul Hashem, no question about it. But he's also going to be rewarded for the Tefillah. After all, it was 2 and a half hours reading, praising Hashem, singing Hallelujah, singing Az Yashir Moshe, answering Kedushah, Baruch Hu, Birkat Kohanim, saying Kaddish. A lot of mitzvot he did. He heard the reading of the Torah. Maybe the Rebbe gave a speech, Baruch Hashem, he collected 10, 20 mitzvot that day, and he's going to be punished for the time he showed up. Sometimes in the same transaction you get reward and punished. Where's the Hilul Hashem? Huh? Where's the Hilul Hashem? It's a huge Hilul Hashem. How is it Hilul Hashem? It's not going in. Hilul Hashem is in front of Jews also. Not only. Hilul Hashem is in front of yourself also. Also. Why? Because you embarrass the reputation of Hashem. And I want to tell you, you know, one time the Rebbe, there was one Rebbe and two people came and they're arguing by him. So the first one spoke and he said to him, you're 100% right. Then was the turn of the second one to say his case. He spoke, he said, "You are 100% right." The wife was serving tea, she said, "Hey, Rabbi Moshe, if Reuven is 100% right and Shimon is 100% right, how are you going to rule?" He said, "You are also right." You know, this kind of Rebbes, they want everyone to be happy. Those are the ones you have to stay away the most. They are not here to teach the truth. They're here to find favor in the eyes of the public. That's also a hilul Hashem. They want publicity, rating, rating, rating. I want everyone to be happy. Imagine all the prophets would come and say only a part of the prophecy. I ask them, why don't you say the whole thing? I don't want people to be upset. A prophet that does not release the prophecy that Hashem gave him, what's his punishment? Death penalty. Kovech nevuato. He hides his nevuah inside his chest, does not let it out. Death penalty. We can learn a little bit from here about the importance of rebuking people. If you can rebuke people and give them a speech to inspire them to change and you don't, it's not good. So Rabotai, Yaakov, listen to what Yaakov says, "Vata ashneb anechano ladim lechaberetz Mitzrayim." Your two boys that were born in Eretz Yisrael, Ephraim Menashe, kereuven veshimon yuli. For me, they're like Reuben and Shimon. What does it mean? Who understands? What is he saying? Why Reuben and Shimon? Why not Judah, Levi? Mazekereuven veshimon yuli. Reuben and Shimon are the the firstborn from who? From Leah. For me, Ephraim and Menashe are the Reuben and Shimon, even though they're much younger than the children of Leah, right? A lot younger. But for me, I look at them, you are my main son. They're going to be each one of them a separate tribe. Yosef is two tribes, Ephraim and Menashe. Now we continue, Yaakov, "Ani bevo'im i Padan," when I came from the city of Padan, "meta alay Rachel," your mother Rachel died on the way, "wer be'eretz Kanaan, bader ech," before we enter the Holy Land. just before we arrived to the border, she died. I buried her on the way, Ephrat, which is in the city of Bethlehem. Meaning, Rashi writes, Lo lechti afilu lebet lechem. If I would continue another mile or two, I would bury her in Israel. I buried her in exile before we entered the Holy Land. I know you upset at me for that. Why? Why didn't I take her to bury her in Merata Machpela like I buried Leah there? Leah, where was buried? Me'arat Hamachpela with Sarah and Rivka. Rachel did not make it there. So he is now apologizing to Yosef for not treating his mother in a proper way, supposedly. That's what it looks like. But we have to understand what's going on here. Yaakov should have said, I apologize that I didn't bury her where I buried Leah, in Merat HaMachpela. Who cares if you bury her before the border or after the border? Either way, Yosef will be upset. How is it going to comfort him if she was buried a mile before the border or a mile after the border? Either way, she didn't go to Merat HaMachpela. That's where she deserved to be buried. So either way he would be upset. So what does it mean I buried her on the way? I didn't bury her inside Israel. Either way Yosef will not be happy. You understand the question or no? Tzari'cha, Yaakov should have said, if you like me, swear to me that you should not bury me in Egypt. I want to lay down with my fathers. Take me from Egypt and bury me in Merat HaMachpela. Now it was the time to apologize. And if you're going to say you want me to bury you with Avraham and Yitzchak in Merat HaMachpela in Chevron, how come you didn't do the same to my mother? Right? If you're going to ask me that, you know, the answer to that would be, listen carefully, Yosef did not have any claim against Yaakov. Why he buried Rachel on the way and why he didn't bury her in Merata Machpela? Why? Because Yaakov had a good answer for it. What would be the answer of Yaakov? The answer is, Leah was my first wife officially. She comes before the second wife. When you bear, when you get married, and today nobody marry more than one wife, almost nobody. In Yemen, it's still possible. In Morocco used to be possible in the time of Baba Saleh. By the Ashkenazim, already more than 1,000 years, it doesn't happen. Rabbeinu Gershom made a herem that no European Jew will marry more than one wife. Why? Afraid of the Christians. The Christians were very angry about it. Because by them, if you get married to a woman, you're stuck with her forever. You're not allowed to get divorced. They call it Catholic marriage. Hatunah katolit. No divorce by them. The Torah says if you want to get divorced, you're allowed to get divorced. This is the way to do it, but I don't care what's written. They make up their own rules. So when they saw the Jews have more than one wife, they went crazy. Mazal tov, what's going on in our country? They do whatever they want. It's against our rules. They didn't want to get into all kinds of problems. He made a decree. It could be also that anyway a man cannot handle one woman, now you want him to have three. It was already a problem. So by the Ashkenazim, it's already a herem. You put a ban. That's why, by the way, there is a difference between the ketubah of the Sefaradim and the ketubah of the Ashkenazim. By the Ashkenazim, the husband does not swear to his wife that he will not married another woman without her permission. There's no need for it. Anyway, they're not allowed. Their chief rabbi made a ban in Europe, so that's it. Nobody can ever change it, and the ban was for 1,000 years. It expires, I think, 10 years ago. Good luck trying to change it after 1,000 years. So by the European, nobody would even think about it. Let's say the chacham say that it's not allowed, finish. Similar to the Syrians. They had a bad deed, I don't know, about 80, 90 years ago. They don't accept converts. Nobody can marry our boys. Why? They saw there are too many incidents, too many fake converts. They made a decree, no more converts. No converts will be converted by our communities. And no converts can join our communities. They can go anywhere they want. We have nothing personal against them. We just make a decree. Why? We want to reserve the community. And by the way, it worked. One of the most reserved communities is the Syrian community. Syrian-Lebanese. They have some attachment of Egyptians and Iraqis that snuck in and even few Temanim. Some of them even became the rabbis, baruch Hashem. Aval. In the end, everybody followed the tradition. So by the Sefaradim, there was no ban. So in Morocco, in Yemen, in some other places, they used to marry more than one. That's why in the Ketubah it says, "I swear to her with a handshake that I will not marry anyone without her consent. Meaning he marry a woman and then he say to her, listen, I want to marry someone 20 years younger than you. How is she supposed to feel? He married her, she gave him, I don't know, 10 kids. She's now 50, he's 52. He comes to her and say, listen, you had your good days. I would like to get 25-year-old girl. What are the odds that he will still be alive after that speech? Today, not that long. Usually it would take 5 minutes. Either she kill him or kill herself, but it won't end good. Right or wrong? But, but the first wife have the more rights, as you can see. So Yaakov has an answer. What do you want? Officially, I married Leah before I married Rachel. I love Rachel more, no question about it. The crook deceived me. I ended up marrying Leah first. She comes first to the burial. If you have two wives who— and you have one grave next to you, who's gonna be buried closer to you? The first or the second? I have a better question for you. If you have two wives, in the resurrection of the dead, who's gonna rise? Both of them will become your wives again or only one? So first they have to be righteous. If one of them is not righteous, she wasn't modest when she dressed, she can dream about resurrection. But if both of them were righteous and they came back to life, now you have two wives again. What happened if you have 10 different wives in 10 different reincarnations? First First life you were Abraham, on your second life you were Yitzchak, on the third life you were Yaakov, on the third life, the next life you were Yosef, on the next life you were Menashe. Every life you have a different wife. Sarah, Rivka, Rachel, Leah, Yocheved. You have 5 different wives in 5 different bodies. Now you resurrect All 5 resurrected, Sarah, Rivkah, and they all stand over here. Who are you going to choose? Who are you? I was your wife in your first life. And you? I was your wife in your third life. Who is going to be with you? All 5? The most righteous one? None of them? Would it be any meaning to husband and wife after the resurrection of the dead? Will it even be important? No more Yetzer Hara anyway. Kids are not going to be born anyway. What would be the significance of marriage? Everyone would learn Torah nonstop like addicts. It would be an addiction because there's no it's not gonna be any resistance. Today you tell the guy, go and learn Torah, he will find you 5,000 excuses why he can't. Where? What? What's the name? I don't know. Will they accept me? I'm waiting for an answer. In reality, he doesn't really want to go, so he uses all the difficulties to postpone the ketz. I remember You know what I did? I drove here in Ocean Parkway. I see a sign, Mikdash Melech. Used to be a yeshiva here, Mikdash Melech. I say, you know what? Yeshiva? I lived in Lower East Side, Manhattan. I drive, drove here. I saw a sign on the right side, Mikdash Melech. I went to the service road, parked the car, walked inside. Who is in charge? They show me a rabbi, Rabbi Strauss. Shalom, Rabbi, nice to meet you. I want to learn Torah. Can you assign someone here to learn with me? Just like that. He was shocked. My, you want to come full day? I said, no, I want to come after work. I come, you tell me the 'Give me a few minutes.' He assigned for me a guy. Then when I moved to Muncie, I see the guy in the shul there. 'What are you doing here?' I said, 'This is my father-in-law, the owner of the shul.' What a small world. But right away I started to come and learn. If you want to learn, you'll find who to learn with. Everyone who says otherwise It's all excuses. All excuses. It's interesting, when you are a salesman, you do not agree that a different salesman will steal the deal from you. You'll burn the city. But when it comes to mitzvot, you're very generous. Let him do it first. You can learn with him, it's okay. Wow, such a noble man. So Yaakov, he said, "Leah was married to me first. She has the right to be next to me when we buried your mother Rachel. Once I married her, I already violated the rules of Hashem." Which rules? They're not allowed to marry two sisters. So how did Yaakov do it? It was before the Torah was given officially. But so what? But everybody already kept the mitzvot. Abraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, they kept the mitzvot. Oh, the Ramban says, but it wasn't as significant because it was out of Israel. Israel. That's why Hashem made Rachel die in the entry when Yaakov was about to enter Israel. That's when Rachel died, a mile before, that he would not violate those, the rule of not being married to two sisters inside the Holy Land. So he said, once I married your mother, I went into a problematic status. That's why Hashem took her on the way. Why didn't he take Leah? Because when I married Leah, there was no violation. Only when I married Rachel, the violation came. When you have a wife and she's pregnant and she's in the 9th month and the doctor now saying the baby risk your wife's life. We can save only one of them. Either we have to kill the baby to save the life of your wife, or we have to kill the wife to save the life of your son. What does the Torah say to do? Save the wife. What if the wife says, I'm already 50, 'How many more years I have left to live? 10, 20, 30? The baby will have 80 years of life. Give him life. His life will be more meaningful. I lived most of my life. I'm contributing my death to the life of this baby.' You don't hear him. You don't listen to him. But it's logical. If you have A boat in the middle of the ocean in a big storm and there is only room for two, you and another person, and on the boat you have a 20-year-old guy and 90-year-old guy. Who should you get on the boat? The 90 already lived his life anyway, he's gonna die any day. Why making the 20-year-old die. Makes sense or no? Should save the younger. This one already have children, grandchildren, and grand-grandchildren, great-grandchildren here. He lived his life. Baruch Hashem, he may go to heaven now. What about this guy, 20, no wife, no children, no nothing yet? Give him a chance to live. Why do you think the Hamas are releasing all the 80 and 90 and 75 years old for by coincidence? No, they want to torture the young. They know that Israel wants the young. They don't want 90 or 80. They already live their life. When a 90 years old, old woman or a man died, it It doesn't break their hearts like a 20-year-old that died. You can say all you want, but that's reality. When children die, we suffer the most. Children. So the younger the person is, the more pain you have. Unless if it's the old person is a big rabbi, talmid chacham, then for sure he comes before the young one. If it's Amaretz, of course you save the young. What happen if you can save only one? You or one of them? You have to save yourself. But what happen if you are 20 and you have a way to save yourself or the rabbi that is 90 and his life, his health is not so great? Meaning every day that he lives is a miracle as it is. Should you sacrifice your life to save the Chacham? Yes. If it was Amaretz, then for sure your life comes first. What happened if he's your brother, biological brother? You comes first. What happened if he's your father or mother? You come first. What happened if he's your son? You come first unless the other person, whether it is your father, whether it is your son, whether it is a rabbi, whether it is a stranger, if he's a big Chacham that the public needs him, he comes before your life. This is the value of the Torah. Mamzer am Haaretz, mamzer You know what Mamzer means? Someone who was born to a brother and sister that had intimacy. Or a married woman that cheated and became pregnant from a person who is not her husband. That's an illegitimate person, meaning he was born in a huge sin. You may say the Torah says that he can only marry Mamzeret Lachim. Cannot marry a regular Jew, either Mamzeret or a convert. But an original Jew from birth that is not a Mamzer, he cannot marry. You may say it's not fair, the mother cheated and the baby suffered. The Torah says, "Everyone dies according to his own sins," the Torah says. Children don't die for their parents' sin. Parents don't die from their children's sin. Lo yum tu avot al banim, lo yum tu banim al avot, ish bechet oyumat, it's written. If that's the case, why now this mamzer has to suffer because his mother committed a sin or because a brother and sister committed a sin and he came to the world? Why does he have to suffer? They, Torah gave them death penalty and karet and all these problems. Let them pay for what they did. He should not be guilty of anything, should be perfectly legit. Right or wrong? Huh? Why are you saying yes, Ma? You contradicting Hashem? Hashem Irachem. I tricked you. I was expecting you to scream, no, absolutely he's guilty. Taught in the Torah that he is guilty, he is guilty. He is guilty of what? In his past life he did the same thing. What do you think? What do you think, it's coincidence why this Neshamah came in this illegitimate boy? It's someone who did the same thing, went with a married woman. Now he's born to the same scenario like what he did in his past life. It's all measure for measure and everything is calculated. Calculated. However, now you have a mamzer like this that is a huge chacham, and you have a Kohen Amaretz, a multi-millionaire Kohen that built the shul. Try to describe a scenario here. Ocean Parkway, $50 million shul. There is a businessman, Mr. Kohen, and he gave $50 million and they built a beautiful all 7-floor shuls. Youth minyan, this minyan, gym, whatever you want. Old age club. And the Kohen Hamaretz now is sitting in a shul with a 16-year-old mamzer talmid chacham that doesn't stop learning. Bakib ashas, poskim. According to the Torah, Who has to get the first Aliyah to go up to the Torah? This 16-year-old Mamzer. The 7-year-old multimillionaire Kohen with his $20,000 suit and his bow tie, they say, "Amud, Mamzer ben Mamzeret." And the Kohen sitting like this, everyone looks at him. I built this place and they don't give me the first Aliyah. I'm a Kohen. I'm from the family of Aaron, a Kohen. Torah says Kohen goes first. Kohen ama aretz. No, my friend. Ama aretz, nigmarasera, uile ashlichola klavim. He deserves to be eaten by the dogs. Do you— did you know that the only religion in the world that to be an ignorant person in that religion is a crime is Judaism? If you're an ignorant Muslim, you're not a criminal. Don't have to be here. You have a question, you ask the Imam. Imam Mustafa. What should I do? They'll tell you what to do. That's it. Nobody looks at you as a criminal. If you're a Christian ignorant, you don't know the laws of Christianity, you're not a criminal. If you're Buddhist, you don't know the laws of Buddha, not a criminal. If you join United Talmid Chachamim, you are a huge criminal. If you would hear what the Torah says about you, you will kill yourself, literally. Of course, I didn't say you should kill yourself, I say you would kill yourself. And for that you will be punished also, for killing yourself. By the way, do you know what's the punishment for killing yourself? You are being judged as a murderer, like you murder a stranger and he has no share to the world to come and even condition doesn't help him. Someone that commits suicide and you cannot bury him in a Jewish cemetery, to bury him on the other side of the wall, just like Michal El Shabbat. You also have to bury them outside. You have to make a fence and they have to bury them outside because Michal El Shabbat count like a non-Jew in the Torah. You should know it. But what if someone overdoses, like, but they— you don't know if he meant to or he had a bad I don't think the drug addicts overdose because they want to die. I really don't think so. It's just that they sometimes they stop and then they take it and that's what kills them or they, they just keep taking and taking until the body cannot take it. Rabbi, what if someone jumps off a bridge but they regret it while they're falling? They always do. It's a very good question. It's a good question what you ask. If a second before he died he regrets it, it could be teshuvah. If a person, 3 seconds before he was killed or died in an accident, he saw the death coming, he saw the tree is about to smash him and he cannot move, the whole building is falling on his head in a second, any second, or there's fire that that any minute will arrive to him and he's trapped, he cannot get up. And he says, "Hashem, forgive me, I'm sorry, I wish I can relive my life as a tzaddik, forgive me for all my sins." That's already a partial teshuvah. This alone can get him another life, another reincarnation. Can save him from going directly to hell right now for the time being. We'll have to rebirth to be reborn. Anyway, I just want to finish it. So Yaakov has a claim, so that's why Yosef has no claim against Yaakov. Now Yaakov come to Yosef and say, I took the firstborn title from Reuven and give it to you. You are the son of Rachel. For me, you are my firstborn. By the way, it's permitted to do such thing or no? There's a clear verse in the Torah that you're not allowed to do it. Right? You have a— it's exactly the case of Yaakov. Person has two wives. One, he was— he married her and she's not she's not loved compared to the second one. She's hated. It's not literally hate. He loves her, but then the second one he loves a lot more. So he wants to take the firstborn from the second one and give him the title that you are my firstborn to this woman. But the other one is older from the first wife. He is the older. He gets double than all the other brothers. You cannot play dumb and say, "No, he's the firstborn." But here we see that Yaakov actually tells Yosef, very interesting, he says, "I'm informing you that I took the bechorah from Reuven." This is a different reason because Reuven changed the beds. It's a whole different story. "And I'm giving it to you." to the son of the firstborn from Rachel. Why am I doing it? You're not supposed to do it, right? Why am I doing it? Because Lavan tricked me. I never agreed to marry Leah first. It was all deceiving, meqachtawut. For me, if it was up to me, I never married Leah. I wanted to marry Rachel. So now comes back the question. If that's the case, and I'm your firstborn, Yosef, and Rachel is the only wife in your eyes, why didn't you bury her in Me'aret Hamachpela? You hear the question now? Oh, now it became tricky. Here Yaakov has to apologize. He said, I know that you have a good point, 'But I want you to know that I received a prophecy about it. Hashem told me to bury her exactly there.' Why? By the time the Jews will go to exile in Babylon, in Bavel, they will pass through this path, the Rech Efrat over there, Bethlehem. And when they pass there, they will see the grave of their mother, the righteous Rachel. She will cry to Hashem and beg for mercy on them, as it's written as a prophecy. Kol bara man ishma, there's a loud voice. Rachel mevakal banea, Rachel cries for her children, and Hakadosh Baruch Hu, God answered her. Yes, sachar li prulat ech, neum Hashem, Veshavu banim ligvulam. Don't worry, thanks to your crying, you will have results and reward for your crying. What will be the result? These children will return to their land. By the way, all Avraham, Yitzchak, everyone, all the tzaddikim, Moshe, Aaron. Nobody can save the Jews from exile. Rachel was the only one. Why is it? Because she was humiliated and embarrassed. Her sister took her place. She gave her the sign. She did not embarrass her and she didn't make a beep. She took all the suffering while she was quiet. And because of that, she has the special power to cry for their children. Mida keneged mida. Why Reuven lost the bechorah? Because he criticized his father Yaakov. He moved the bed of Yaakov to the tent of Bilaam. And meaning he did not agree that Yaakov will go to Rachel. He have to go to Bilaam. Huh? And when it happened, Yosef did not say one word when Yaakov wanted him to bury him in Eretz Israel. Yosef could have said to him, you didn't bury my mother in Eretz Israel, why you want me to bury you there, but since he did not say it, right? So Hashem tested Yosef. If Yosef would say it, there will be a sin for him. He did not criticize father. His father did something that doesn't look logical to Yosef, but he didn't make a peep. When his father did something that Reuven didn't like, Reuven actually criticized his father in public. That's why Reuven lost the bechora and Yosef got it instead. Now when Yaakov give him the bechorah, bechorah means that you are the firstborn, the most important son, he say to him, Efraim, you know why? Because you did not make a beep when I buried Rachel. You could have come to me, what are you doing? Why you burying my mother over here? Why you don't take her to where she belongs. Since you did not say anything, you actually inherit, inherit your place. I would finish with one last thing. The Masechet Derech Eretz, chapter 7, it's written, Rabbi Akiva said— Rabbi Akiva lived 2,000 years ago. He says, "I became bal teshuvah when I was 40. I started to learn in yeshiva. I had rabbis." Okay. "One time I walked on the way," Rabbi Akiva said, "and I found a dead body, a Jew that died. Nobody saw him yet. He just probably died 20 minutes before, an hour before, and I passed by and I see a dead body." I picked him up and I walked with him, arba milin, it's miles, you know how far? Until I brought him to the cemetery and buried him. It was a Jewish cemetery where they have graves. When I came to say the story to my Rabbi, Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua, two Rabbis, They told me, you're going to be punished for every step you carry that body with you. Ma'aleh alecha ki ilu shafacht adam naki. Like you killed him. That's how bad it is. Why is it? Because you didn't know the law. The law is when someone died anywhere in open field somewhere, that's becomes his grave. Today it's not like that. Today you have cemeteries, they take care of it. But in the old days, people could die in the middle of nowhere. What are you going to do? Where are you going to bury him? You're far away from community, you're in the middle of 3, 4 days' journey. You need to bury him. Where is he going to be buried? The place where he died. Now what happened if someone chopped his head off? The head fell 10 steps to the left and the body fell to the right. So now, what do you— where you bury him? Where the body or where the head? The body. I give you an example. You have a guy, 6'5", giant. His head, small head, size of a soccer ball. The body body is 6'4.5" and the head is half a foot. What's the majority? The body, no? So you bury him where the body or you bury him where the little ping-pong ball is there? Huh? The head? Why the head? The head is the whole human being. And the shama is there, everything is there, the brain. So you bury him where the head is. So it doesn't go by majority in quantity, it goes by majority in quality. Same thing when the Torah— every time the Torah speaks about majority, it means quality. Not quantity. The Torah says if there is arguments between the rabbis, if you're allowed or not allowed, some say allowed, some say not allowed. Today I asked my Indian student, the convert from Canada, I told him what's going to be now, they bring 90,000 workers, all these Indians going to worship their idols. So he explained to me that usually they will not do it in public because they know some people are disgusted by idol worshiping because they know it from Dubai because they live among Arabs. These Indians, they walk by a Muslim, Muslim don't allow idol worshiping. So he said they will do it in their house, which is still bad for the Holy Land to have Avodah Zarah, it's not good. But he said, I asked him, but what if they would come and bow down to the cows in Israel? Israel. In the kibbutzim, the moshavim, there's a lot of cows. Imagine every cow that walks by, 10 Indians come. What's gonna be? We won't be able to eat those cows. It's cows that became an idol. Avodah Zarah. Doesn't belong to them. So they'll buy it. Good point. If they don't own it, they doesn't be— So they buy a cow and they all worship it. 100 Indians will chip in, buy a cow, and they share the urine of the cow. Every day someone else gets it. They drink it, you know. They fight for it. They even sell it in a pharmacy. When they go on trips, they take it with them in a bag. This is what the Indian guy explained to me. He explained to me— I'm not such an expert in Indian and idol worshiping. So let's say Rabotai, and you know, they lay on the floor and the cow walks on their back. Do you know how much a cow weighs? More than a ton. Imagine I put a refrigerator on your head, on your back. How you get up alive from it? How it doesn't break your spine? I don't know how they agree to do it. I saw one time a video how they all lay down on the street and the cows walk on their back. I don't know, strange things. But anyway, so he told me, no, it's machloket haposkim. We made fun a little bit. He laughed. He said, it's machloket haposkim. It's disagreement among the Indian scholars. Some say that the cow is not the idol, it's a symbol of an idol. Machloket if it's the actual idol. Some say you only worship the idol in India, but out of India, let go. So therefore every cow will be fake sfeka, if you know what I mean. So fake sfeka. Safek if this cow is idol or just a symbol of an idol. And if you're going to say that is an idol, it's a fake if you only worship it in India or also in Israel. Since you have two doubts, the majority. So the Torah, when the Torah says, if there will be an argument among the Jewish scholars if it's allowed or not allowed, follow the majority. What does it mean, majority? I'll tell you what it means. You have right now, Chacham Ovadia Yosef Zatzal. Just before he passed, he was 93. You ask him a very complicated question. If a married woman, is she needs a get or the marriage was not kosher? He checked the witnesses, he checked all the evidence. And he says she's not permitted to get married to any other man until her husband will give her the get. She's a gunah. 100 rabbis from synagogue, from different batei dinim, teaching in yeshiva, they all say she can get remarried without a get. But Rav Ovadia said no, she's eshet ish. Who we must listen to? What happened to the majority? 100 against 1. The answer, we don't go by quantity. Quality. Majority in the level of the knowledge in Torah. You have 1,000 people, who is the highest in knowledge? Him. Okay, put him aside. I need 2 more. Because we need 3 to have a Bedin. You need minimum 3. Find 2 more. Him and him are the highest. All the other ones can go back home. We take the top 3 and whatever they rule, we follow the majority. That's what the Torah meant. Who picks them? The people of the generation. For instance, if now we had to choose Rabbi X, Rabbi Y, Rabbi B, Rabbi V, Rabbi T, or Rav Ben Zion Abba Sha'ul? There would be any argument? No, everyone would know. All the rabbis themselves would say, why, in 5 minutes you know that he knows the whole Torah and the other ones don't know even half of it. The bluff of having limited knowledge cannot last more than a day or two. Nobody would put himself in a position that everyone will expose his ignorance. The opposite, even big scholars in Torah would always recommend someone else to get the job. He should be the chief rabbi, not me. No, but you are greater. No, no, he. You know, I've been seeing Rabbi Shaul yesterday, I heard the story. Yesterday I heard the story, it's very interesting. One Talmid came to Rabbeinu Yonah ben Sha'ul, he said to him, Rabbi, I would like to ask you permission to start teaching Torah to the public. You know me for many years, I'm your student. Am I worthy? Today nobody asks. Open a YouTube page and yalla, all the kofrim, all the heretics, one after the the other. He came to ask him, Rabbi, you know me for more than 20 years, I'm a student in Porat Yosef. He told him, yes, of course, you should have taught already a long time ago, meaning you were already from years ago, not from today. You should have asked a long time ago. He said to him, "Thank you, Rabbi, I'm happy you give me your endorsement." Just before he went out of the door, Rav Menzion called him back, "Come back." He said to him, "Who are you going to teach the people like? Like which Posek?" He said, "Like you, you are my Rabbi." He said, "So you're going to contradict Rav Ovadia?" He said, I'm going to follow your Psakim and you contradict Rav Ovadia. He said, so you're not worthy to teach. He said, Rabbi, you're getting me confused. You contradict Rav Ovadia and when I'm going to say something like you, you're going to blame me for contradicting Rabbi Ovadia? I do not mean to contradict him. I follow you. You contradict him, say you are not me. He said, exactly, that's why you are my shelter. If they ask me who you rule like, I say like you. You're a big Chacham. He said to him, no, you're wrong. You can follow me yourself. My student can follow me, yes, but the public should follow Rav Ovadia. He is the Posekador for the entire nation. Was Rav Ben Zion less than Rav Ovadia? No. Rav Ovadia himself speaks about him words that you cannot imagine about the depth of his brain and what a superstar he was in learning. But he was so humble. Every time he was together in the same place with Rav Ovadia and people came to ask him, he refused to answer. Why are you asking me? The Dorador is here, ask him. He used to put two tefillin like the Kabbalists. You know, the Kabbalists, they have two tiny tefillin, one they hide with the kippah and the other one is— When he used to go to a place that Rav Ovadia was there, he would put only the regular one, the big. I asked him, Rabbi, what happened today? He said, the Chacham is here, I cannot go against his Psak. We follow Kabbalah, but when I come to a place that he's there, I'm not going to go with two while he's going with one. See, there's a lot of things that people don't take into consideration. You have to be very big in the Torah in order for you to know it. So we're going back to the first question. The question that I ask, and if you give me an answer, we'll finish right here. What's worse? To have 90,000 Arab terrorists working in Israel and killing us every day? Or to have tens of thousands of nice people, not hostile, not antisemite, not murderers for sure. They're going to be in their corner, not bother anyone. But they will worship their idols in the Holy Land. Which one of the two scenarios we have to prefer? No question. The true question? No question. No, it's not a question. What's the answer? Huh? Better to take the murderers. Idol worshippers are worse, no? Arabs worship the same thing. I'd rather not answer it before I dive into this question. It's a serious question. It's no joke. Especially when you have to ask questions like this, you have to ask, "Pos ke Ado?" Because we have a rule, "Pikuach Nefesh doche everything." But "Pikuach Nefesh" does not prevent Avodah Zarah. They tell you worship an idol, or die. You have to die not to agree. However, that's not me worshiping an idol, it's the goyim. Do I have an obligation to stop them? If they live in Israel, yes. But if I do not stop them, is also I have to die in order for me to stop the Rav Odessa or only for myself I have to die? The answer, only for myself. The Torah says, you have to make sure your communities is clean from idol worshiping. So what do you do? The Rambam writes, you ask them to either to become righteous Gentiles and stop with their idol worshiping and keep the Seven Laws of Noah, then they can be residents of Israel. Or you tell them to leave Israel. They cannot live here. You want to be an idol worshiper? You have to go do it in a different place. How come we don't have to go to every country and clean the idols from there? That's not our obligation. The Torah says, from among yourself, not from the entire world. I don't have to go to China and make sure the Chinese do not worship their idols, or in India, or in any other country. If I can do it easily, teach them the right way, why not? It's mitzvah. But if I can't, I have to worry about my own communities. B'ezrat Hashem, we will come up with the answer. Until then, I just want you to know next week we will still have a lecture, and after that I'm going to Eretz Israel for 3 weeks. I'm going to Israel for 3 weeks. For Israel? Yeah, the flyer will be made. We're still now accepting people that wants to organize lectures. I will have 2 weekend seminars. Anyone want to participate sponsoring, you get a huge profit on your money, huge, because we make dozens of ba'alei teshuvah every weekend. You're gonna have a share in all of them. And we can, we're still paying the debt of the Miami Shabbaton. It's very expensive. Everything is very expensive just to bring speaker with the wife, airfare, car rental, a lot of expenses. Same thing in Israel. I'm going to have two Besrat Hashem seminars, one the usual one we have and another one. So two, one after the other. In 8 days we're going to have two big weekend seminars to hundreds of people. People each. Plus the regular many lectures and all kinds of things. I'm going to speak in the jails to the prisoners, on the radio shows. If you want to have a share in that trip, just, you can donate on mizrachi77@yahoo.com. That's the Zelle. Venmo: Rabbi Mizrachi, no space. That's the ID for Venmo. People Who wants to donate with credit cards, PayPal, it's all available. Don't forget the new website, rabbiimizrachi.org. Those who still does not have my app, I don't know what you're waiting for. Are you waiting for the Mashiach to download it to your phone? It won't happen. Sometimes I get complaints from people about the lecture in YouTube. What's the complaint? YouTube, we don't want advertisement. They're not exactly listening to what we say. In the end, they do whatever they want. So one guy writes to me, how did you allow this commercial? What? Collecting money for the children of Gaza. Obviously it's not something you published, so of course not, it's YouTube. Someone pay for that advertisement, but don't— can't you prevent it? I said, I don't, I don't I don't understand the argument. Why don't you watch me on my app? Why do you need to watch me on the filthy YouTube? You get the point or no? 613 tube? Oh, here you go. I just learned something new. 613 tube. 613, the numbers. 6:13 tube, get rid of the advertisement from YouTube. But I have a better solution. Download my app, Rabbi Yosef Mizrahi. You can do double speed, you can do everything. Plus you have suggestion of other lectures similar, Parasha Teshuvuah. I don't get it. Why people will not download the app? They are still— the app is more than 2 years old already, something like that. There are still people who prefer to watch on YouTube live instead of the app, and the app is wonderful quality, especially now Benji got a new phone. From the next lecture, he will set it up. Hopefully before Mashiach would arrive, he'll do it, and then we'll be able to watch in the highest quality, even 4K. Baruch Hashem, we're becoming more professional. Baruch Adonai Elohim, amen, v'amen. Rabbi Chanan Yabin Hakashiyahu, mayor.