10 Steps of Connection With HaShem | TORAH FOUNDATION (39)

We're back here on our Sunday night at the Torah Center in Lauder Hill, Florida. We're going to continue our series of the Torah foundations based on the introduction of the and all of Isl continue to support, continue to watch us, continue to grow closer to anyone that wants to support can donate on the website bzashem.org bhtour.org. And uh also for anyone who doesn't know, we have a daily newsletter that goes out to tens of thousands of people every single day, a uh daily mousar. So you can sign up for free on the website and uh get the write up, get some kizuk first thing in the morning. It usually goes out somewhere around 600 7:00 in the morning. So you could do something like that. Get first thing in the morning. So in our generation, it's become very very popular to say, "I love you, Hashem." We talk about it a lot where it's gone to the point where, you know, they made these little rubber bands uh uh bracelets. They say, "I love you, Hashem. There's t-shirts. I love you, Hashem." And all that's wonderful. It's nothing necess necessarily wrong with it with saying, you know, having a t-shirt or a sweatshirt or a cup or anything like that saying, I love you. There's nothing wrong with it. What's wrong is the fact that people don't know what it means to love you. That's what's wrong. And people want to jump straight to the top and the level of the before they even understand what it means to be a Jew. in parad this week's para in the beginning of the parah comes to and uh starts talking to him. Now, if you hear any voices, it's not Hashem. I promise you, you should probably check yourself into a mental institution. But with all jokes aside, speaks to the says, if I remember correctly, that we have 55 prophets mentioned in the Tanakh, 48 males, seven females. Now is had over 1.2 million prophets throughout our history but only 55 of them are mentioned in the Tanakh because those 55 whatever they said was relevant to every single generation. Meaning that the other 1.2 million prophets that we had they were they wereim they were fantastic. I wish we could be the dust under their shoes. But what they said was relevant to their generation and their generation only. And therefore they were not mentioned in the but from there we learn that this conversation between and is very much relevant to us today. Why? It's mentioned in the Torah and the conversation is that Abra tells after he sees that there is Malim there is a these three Arabs coming he doesn't know that they're angels but he sees guests and he says says," he says, "My Lord, if I find favor in your eyes, please pass not away from your servant." Some say he was referring to he was talking to the Malim. Some say he was talking to ashu or both in so many words. Everyone knows that in the middle of the conversation between Abrau says to Hashem, "Hashem, if you like me, if I find favor in your eyes, wait over here. Let me deal with these guests. Let me deal with these guests." Now, of course, we already see from here that the relationship between and was very very unique. But the question that I want to answer is how do you know if you can find if Hashem can find favor if you can find yourself favor in Hashem's eyes? How do we know if Hashem likes us? Now, you can say Hashem loves you. I love Hashem. Hashem loves me. It's all wonderful. Do you know you have a uh text message that Hashem sends you back after you bought the rubber band for $15? He sent you one. He said, "I love you, too." He put your name on it. How do we know? At the end of the parad, Hashem says to know you fear me. And that was the highest level you can get to. He didn't say I love you too. Later on he says that a my beloved I love. But before we get to I love how do we even know that that he finds me good favorable is going to give us a spiritual EKG. In all my uh appearances in the hospitals over the years, they always uh decided to give me different tests. And throughout the years, they gave me a few of these EKGs. A lot less painful than the other tests. But this one is not going to hurt physically. But what it's supposed to do is that this EKG, the spiritual EKG that the is giving us here is supposed to tell us if we even have a heart. Why? If we have a heart. In the 1950s, many of the came to Israel and the Zionist actively did everything and anything possible to destroy their religiosity. They would cut their pot. They would force them to eat tarif. They would force them to watch uh men and women dance together. They would force them to break Shabbat. If you didn't listen to them, then they would not give you food or you wouldn't be able to get a job and therefore you'd starve to death. They would starve them for for days at a time unless they were eating. And there's even a government report that was published in 1950 testifying to everything I'm saying to you. It's not like rumors. Worse of it all is that is that sent the boys sent the kids to Israel from Morocco from different from Alj from uh Libya from different places they weren't aware that this was what's happening. They thought this is so the Zionist had a plan. They said, "Listen, give us the kids first and later on we'll come back for the older people." So they sent the kids and their whole job was to remove the Torah from these kids. And unfortunately, if you fast forward couple of generations since then, you see that the average person that's part of am is does not know the very basics of Judaism. And it's not an insult. It's simply a reality. when they some rabbis uh one particular rabbi went to a school public school in Israel and asked auditorium full of kids this is one of the few times in the history of they allowed a rabbi to speak to secular kids they're more than happy to bring an imam they're more than happy to bring a pastor they're more than happy to bring a Buddhist but to bring a rabbi is completely forbidden But one of the few times the rabbi came, I believe it was benat came and he asked them, he asked the kids full hundreds and hundreds of kids who wrote taleim taleim talking about Israeli kids. No ends, nobody answers. Okay, I'll give you a hint. Davidid and the whole auditorium answered Bengurion funny not so much. This is now. This is not 150 years ago. This is not the uh communist revolution in Russia or something. This is now. This is in recent years during our lifetime. The Zionist plan to uproot to uproot the Torah unfortunately had an impact and if it wasn't for Is like you know all over the did what they did there would be no not form not forem promised that is will always live and that means the Torah will always live. But that doesn't mean that there isn't any collateral damage. So when you say that we live in a generation of ignorant people where they don't know the very basics, it's not an insult. It's a simple reality. It's a reality of the circumstance. I remember when I first did chuva and my rav started mentioning these different rabbis to me, the Rambam, the Ramban, uh you know, a uh they have an all these different rabbis. I had no idea what he's talking about. No idea. And then he mentioned something very very strange to me. He said in such and such. I asked him what is that? What is this? What is it? What is what does that mean? No idea. Now again, I was a relatively very learned person. Read a lot of books, got a lot of uh titles and uh certificates and uh you're smart and you're this and that. I didn't know. I don't know why m never heard of it. what's a mid? I asked him what is a mid? He explained to me what's a mid. And as I was doing chuva, I realized that there's a lot more people like me that are clueless than there are like people think that know a lot. In fact, the more I learned Tawa and the more I started teaching Tawa and the more I reached out to more and more thousands and thousands of people around the world, the more I realized that the problem of ignorance is not just in the secular world. There's a huge group of religious Jews that observe Shabbat, that keep kosher, that even went to yeshiva, that also do not know the basics. And what we've arrived to is a time where people simply believe whatever they hear. So if somebody with a beard or without a beard tells them focus on loving Hashem they say okay so I love Hashem from now on I love Hashem I don't have to be afraid I don't I just love Hashem and he feels like he loves Hashem why because just like he told his wife I love you he told his son I love you he figured he says I love you to Hashem and that means he loves Hashem so the will explain to us the 10 steps that are required in order to connect to each one in different level. Now these steps are the different shim the different gates of the entire sephil different subjects in the entire sephil. Now, even though the Torah has 600 biblical mitzvot and seven rabbitical mitzvot, our Torah is called toat. It's the instructions for life. And therefore, there are literally endless amount of subjects. We have 613 mitro from the Torah. We have seven from the rabbis. But the subjects, the nuances, the details are endless. For example, if you look at the someone, one of my students bought from us a week ago or so. He had his fine for 20 years. He needed to get new pair and uh he wanted to buy and he bought Ashkenazit. He's ashkenazi. So he got the package. He's very happy. The file package that Bez has is second to none. It's a very very special package. You get your own feline and different uh boxes of gold or silver depending on what you pre prefer. You get a little basel bag. It's a really nice package. I want to buy it if I didn't have it already. But he got he's so happy. Get some extra gifts in there. Everything is fantastic. But then a couple days later, he says, "Rabbi, is there a chance that maybe uh I was sent the wrong feline where instead of it being Ashkanazi, it's safari?" Now, if you don't know, you can't tell the difference. This one's a box. That one's a box. This one's black. That one's black. Just because it's a skinny, it's not white. It's not like a filter fish. It's black. This one's square. That one's square. Now, what are you going to do? You're going to start opening the Let me see how the writing is. Yeah, but you're not a su. How does the average guy know the difference between the two? If you don't know there's a difference, there's no way that you can tell. But if you do know there's a difference, you know that the sheen on the head of the Ashkenazim, the bottom of it is pointy. The sheen on the safari is flat like a base. This is one of countless alot, countless customs, countless nuances that are in the Torah that distinguish one from another. And the Torah has endless of these things in every aspect of the Torah because the Torah is not like in Christianity where you go to a church, if the cross doesn't fall on your head and kill you like it did to that uh pastor a couple of weeks ago and you survive the day, you uh you're off for the rest of the week. You go there, they give you a little cracker, you throw some dirty water on you, go home, you're done. We'll see you next week. Go murder, kill, steal, do whatever it is that you want to do. Next week, just make sure you bring some money so we can forgive you. You're done for the rest of the week. You're done. You're finished. In Judaism is there's no such thing. The Torah is your life. It's everything. You wake up in the morning already, you have to think about, wait, why did I wake up? Who woke me up? Who gave me the Where was I? You say why? Why? Thank you. Why? Because I was dead. When I was sleeping, I was dead. Brought the life into me. The says that sleeping is 1/60th of death. Some people go to sleep, they don't wake up. So, first thing in the morning, you already have to think Torah. Then you go to the bathroom, you think Torah. Then you get out of the bath and wash your hands, do you see Torah? Then you want to you have to go pray. Then you have to if you're a male, you have to put on to fill in. Then after that, you want to eat, you have to pray. Then you have to go throughout your day, you have to think constantly, what is Hashem's will? What's happening here? The the the the uh contractor called, but he said he's not showing up. The customer uh you know, ordered everything, but he's not paying. This other guy wants an appointment, and uh you know, I'm going to meet him. You have to constantly think what is the will of Hashem in every aspect of your life. And if you don't have the Torah in your mind at all times, it's impossible for you to be connected to because the Torah is something that is an instruct is a living dynamic instruction set from the moment you are born until you leave this world with no breaks. There's never a break from it. The less a person knows, the less they realize what how does the Torah related to this thing that I'm doing right now. I'm buying gum from the store. I'm filling up gas or if you got a Tesla, I'm filling up the uh battery over here. Whatever it is, how is this related to how is this related? If you don't realize how it's related, then that means you're missing Torah. Now the says as follows. Having decided to write this book on the main elements of the duties of the heart, I focused on selecting for discussion those duties which were most comprehensive and which would include the rest. Meaning I took the 10 major subjects and that's what I discussed. Why? Cuz these 10 include everything else. The subcategories are include under them. But these 10 these 10 steps under them is everything else. And each one of these levels will connect you to in itself. But if you want to collect with level two, it requires level one first. If you want to connect with level three, it requires one and two. You can't just fast forward to level 10. It doesn't work that way. It's like, I want to go to the hundth floor of the uh tower. Okay. Well, you'll have to go through one, two. No, no, no. I just want to jump over there. I'm sorry. It's just not going to happen. Even if you're able to fly, you still have to go all the way up. You still have to pass one, two, three, four. Whatever way you're going to pass it, you still have to pass it. You can't just appear there. And if you think you can, perhaps you need also to be in the mental institution with the guy that hears voices. And he says as follows, I chose the wholehearted acknowledgement of God's unity as the root principle and foundation. The first level, the first and the foundation of it all he says is to know the unity of God. That's the foundation. In fact, the first he says as follows. The foundation of all foundations and the pillar of wisdom is to know that there is a primary being who brought all existence into being. All the entities into the heavens, the earth and what is between them came into existence only from the truth of his being. In so many words, if you do not know that there is only one God and you think that God has a partner, a helper, a uh somebody in that's that also can make decisions like they think in Christianity that the Satan is a separate power that fights God. This is another reason of why their whole religion is idolatry. to think that there's any other power other than is idolatry. Now, somebody asked a very good question that I'm thinking about it right now last week, but I didn't answer it. What's the difference between and abuaz and both are forbidden? Both a person loses their share of the world to come. The difference is Abu is you're worshiping a foreign god. You're worshiping a person. You're worshiping a statue. You're worshiping money. You have given power to something else other than God. Even if that is a person that happens to be a rich customer. That's au means you think God has a helper and one some of the sages say that Christianity their yoske is like shuf some say it's abu some say it's a shito like as if you know they they say the uhh the father the the son and the ghostbusters So they say it's shito. Why? Because as if Hashem has a helper that you need a middleman. That's in essence saying that is God which is what they say. Either way, the Rambam says that if you don't know that everything came from him, there is only one God. There's nothing else to talk about after that. Because if you can't get that into your mind, it's impossible for you to proceed forward. Why? Because if there was two let's say there was there was two gods who decided who decided to create the world which one of them which one won the argument no they both uh decided so what so so what's the point of them why is there two do they debate do they have different opinions who created them? You can't say that they're both infinite because there's two. And the more a person delves into it, the more they realize that understanding and believing that there is one God is the foundation of all foundations in having a connection to Hashem. How so? A person can say that they believe that there's one God but really not understand what it means. So you ask them philosophical questions that people like to ask sometimes because they're high, sometimes because they're bored, sometimes because they're smart people. Depends. It's a mix. Ask the person the why do you eat? Why do you eat? Because I'm hungry. Why are you hungry? Because my body is hungry. Why is your body hungry? Because uh that's uh that's the way Hashem made me. Okay. Well, ask another one. Why do you work? Cuz I need to make money. Why do you need to make money? So I can buy food. Why do you need food? In case I'm hungry. And we go back to the same thing of why at the end. because that's the way made me. Why does it rain? Because the weather changed and there's four seasons. What we learned in uh decided there's going to be four seasons. Part of the year is going to be winter, part of the year is going to be fall, part of the year is going to be summer, part of the year is going to be spring. Hashem decided there's going to be four seasons after the before that there was only one season. It was always perfect weather. That's what the midrasha says. Imagine it was always perfect weather. You can't imagine because we don't even know what perfect weather is. It was always perfect weather. And says there's going to be four seasons. So why is there four why is it rain? Because this is the season. Why is it the season? Because it's not the other seasons. Why is it not the other season? Because of different part of the year. Why did Hashem decide that this is going to be the season where it rains? Why not some other season? Because that's his will. Okay, fine. You have kids. Yeah, I have kids. Where? Why do you have kids? Because married. Why'd you get married? Because I want to spend my life with somebody. Why do you want to spend your life with somebody? Because I want to be I don't want to be lonely. Why would you get lonely? Because that's the way Hashem made me. That's the way Hashem made me. Hashem made me that it's not good for a person to be by himself. Every single question you will ever ask and if you dig deep down inside track it like we just did with a few examples, you will always end up with that is the will of Hashem. Hashem created the world this way. Whether it's giving birth, having kids, getting married, eating, drinking, working, whatever question you have, if you track it back, you keep asking why, why, why, why. At the end, you get to never neverland. What's never never decided. I have no idea why. I don't know why. I'm not Hashem. I don't know why he decided we should eat. Technically, we don't need to. We don't need to eat. Why? Hashem in the in the uh in the desert 40 years. We ate man was completely absorbed into our blood system and did not come out. No one went to the bathroom for 40 years. The only people that went to the bathroom are people that were they wanted other things other than man. It wasn't good enough for them to man. They want birds. They wanted the uh the uh the food of the go. They wanted all types of other stuff. They ended up going to the bathroom. Everybody else that ate man never went to the bathroom. 40 years got to 40 days, 40 nights, three times. He didn't eat, he didn't drink. Which means that simply decided he doesn't have to eat or drink. And if he decided he could he doesn't have to eat a drink, he can decide that anybody else doesn't have to eat a drink. So the reason behind everything, eating, drinking, getting married, desire for different things is this is the will of Hashem. Hashem created me this way. They say, "Okay, but what about the fact that uh I want to do something because I uh you know, I want people to know that I'm really smart to know that." Why do you want that? Well, I like people to think that I'm really smart. Why? Why do you want Why do you care what people think? It's a desire for a desire for honor. Why do you want honor? Oh, because it makes me feel good. Why does it make you feel good? Because also create us as an animal. We have tabot of animals. Akadu decided this. Why? If you overcome the animalistic instinct, you get rewarded. You don't you don't get rewarded and sometimes punished. So at the end of it all, we see that decided all of it and it's our job to understand where it all came from. The more we understand that it all came from, the easier it is for us to follow the next step. Why? Because the next step he says, "Then I considered which of the other duties that we owe to God should follow the acknowledgement of his unity in our discussion." He now is going to give us the nine other steps that are required in order for you to connect. Assuming you passed one, assuming you believe there's only one God, no one can help you or hurt you if it's not the will of Hashem. No customer can enrich you and no government can impoverish you. if doesn't sign off on it. The says that a person does not even get pricricked in his finger by a needle without there being a judgment in heaven saying he deserves it. There's no such thing as suffering without sin. The suffering could be something a person did that day. It could be a week before, a year, 20 years, or even a previous carnation. Why? Because the Torah has an explanation for everything. That's why, for example, in the Torah, it talks about the screaming rocks. You're not going to find this anywhere else in the philos philosophical world. Explain what is a screaming rock. Go next to a rock. The best bet is maybe you go into one of the seashells. You could hear the ocean. That's what it sounds like. That's the best you're going to get. But screaming rock. Why is it saying screaming rock? Why? Because dwa explains there could be a soul inside that rock that's getting punished. So when a kadosbahu created the world, he created it in a perfect way. And anytime a person arrives at a time of his life where they don't understand the question, they don't understand what's happening to them, they don't understand anything in life. This is where they have to land. This is where, okay, you know what? I don't know why this is happening. I don't know why my bank account is empty. I don't know why no one wants to marry me. I don't know why this. I don't know what that. But what I do know for sure is that Kadu does know. For sure he knows. He is not doubting it. He's not confused. He's not confused. He knows exactly. Now, once a person gets to the next one, we're going to just delve into a little bit of each one. We're not going to go deep into each one. We're going to do that over the next few weeks. But the next level is we must therefore come to know him and conceive of his existence through his creations. This is the gate of reflection on creation where you would accept the service of God. I'm sorry. This is the gate of reflection. What is the reflection? The acceptance of the service of God is the third level. What does it mean? The gate of reflection, the more a person analyzes their life, the more they'll be able to and if they have a hashem, the more they'll realize this is there are some people that call themselves atheists. They're very religious people and their religion is not to believe. Their religion is not to believe and to try to recruit as many people to not believe like them. Now if you ever have the misfortune of speaking to one of these people then what you will see in their arguments is that they'll say listen it cannot be that there is a creator to the world with all of the disasters that are happening. Why? Because according to this atheist disasters are a flaw. Because their version of a world that's run by God is heaven where there's no harm, there's no thieves, there's no pain, there's no nothing. Their version of a godly world has to be heaven. and they see all of the different disasters and difficulties that happen in their life and in the world at large as a flaw. Like you have a painting, imagine a painting that is as big as this entire wall here, a masterpiece, something the world has never seen before. But then there's a little scribble somewhere in the painting and the guy comes looks at it and goes piece of garbage. What are you piece of garbage? What are you talking about? This is a masterpiece. All the museums are relocating over here just to see this painting themselves. You're telling me it's garbage? Because yeah, look it has the scribble over here. You don't see the rest of the painting? No, I see I see this little scribble here. Now, the truth is, if you take a closer look at the scribble, you see it's not a scribble. It's the signature of the painter. It's the signature of the painter. Recently was reported that in Africa, aside from them having the fastest growing population in the world, they had the biggest birth rate in the world over the last few years. They have a natural disaster that's happening where there is the land is splitting. All of a sudden the entire piece of land collapses and splits into two. In some cases it's 20 m deep. In other cases they can't see the bottom. Splits the road, splits the mountain, splits everything. And their analysis is that this is going to split the continent. It's going to split Africa into two. Now, anyone that read the Midashim knows this would not be the first time this happened. Baku created originally a single continent, which eventually he decided after the Mab to break it up into seven. But nonetheless, this is happening right now. A person that's an atheist looks at this disaster. Some people are dying. Some people are getting hurt. Some Oh, look there's a there's a flaw in the system. Look, if God created it would break because according to him, if God created, it can't break. Or another person say, look, if God was running the world, how come people are dying from disease? Look at the hospitals. Look at the hospice. Look at all these place people are dying. One of the places that the Satan unfortunately won a lot of hearts in recent history is during COVID 19 because the job that the Satan did during that time to the religious community created no less damage. than what the Zionist did in certain aspects. The Zionist simply tried to convince people not to believe in God and not to follow his rules. Corona virus. The Satan convinced the religious people, not all of them, but many of them unfortunately I know some of them that they could be religious without believing in the Torah and the rules of the Torah and Torah. They could just simply say bad things about why because there's a corona virus, there's a virus, there's people dying and now recently I told you that I looked years ago I looked into the death rates, the birth rates, the death rates and I say it didn't change much during the corona virus. Even though millions of people died, not much changed. I wanted to give you guys a some statistics behind it. The total birth rate per year is 132.5 million births per year. That means that there is a baby born every 4 seconds. I'm sorry, four four births per second. Four babies are born every second. somewhere in the world. During that same second, two people die. Four are born, two die because there's 63.6 6 million deaths per year, which is if you look at the grand scheme of things, 174,000 people die every day. It's a lot of people when you look at the number from your perspective that's human that's limited that can't really see anything beyond a football stadium when I tell you a lot of people what is the imagination able to comprehend when you think of a lot of people you think of a stadium full of people sold out stadium for some sport or some event or maybe the shas full event. How many people are in that stadium? In a best case scenario, 100,000. Best case scenario, you can see 100,000. You can't see their faces, but you could see in your imagination, you could see. Let's say you have a very very developed imagination and you think, "Oh, yeah, I could see maybe 200,000." But that's it. That's the most that the mind can see. Mind cannot comprehend million, 2 million, 10 million, a billion. Needless to say, 8 billion people. But that's what's in the world. There's almost 8 and a half billion people in the world. 174,000 is not even a rounding error. It's like saying in this room, go find me one piece. I hid one piece of dust in this entire 10,000 square foot. Go find it for me. It's blue. Good luck with that. Now to look at the numbers closely, I wanted to see not just the birth rates and the death rates because those are not necessarily the best indication of where the status quo is because we know that the birth rates have gone down over time because people prefer to have pets over over children, especially in western society. For example, the country that had uh the second most births in the world, which is China, lost about 3 million in population over the last year. Why? Because more people died than they were born. Even though they had nearly nine million people born, they lost more than that and the people are getting older and they're not having enough uh not having enough kids. In order for a population to grow, it has to have about 2.2 birth rate. If you're lower than that, that means you're losing people. Now, the birth rates in 2017, for example, was 143 million. versus 57 million deaths. The birth rate in 2026, about 10 years later, is 132.5 million versus 63 million deaths. So, it seems like more people are dying, less people are being born. It looks like it's the end of the world if you're looking only at those numbers. Needless to say, if you look at the 2021, which was the peak of the corona virus deaths, it got to 69 million deaths. But the truth is the final number. How much did the population actually change? Grand scheme of things. And the grand scheme of things is the population didn't change very much. In 2017 it grew by 85 million. In 1884 83 in a uh 2022 74 million last year was 70 million. In so many words, more or less around the same inconsequential number because if you calculate 14 million out of, you know, 80 million, it's a big percentage. But if you calculate 14 million out of 8.3 billion, nothing changed. So when a person analyzes things like this, they realize that yes, from your human perspective, the land separating in Africa or the situation that's happening in France right now where it's turned into a terror state or the birth rates or the death rates or the disease or whatever it is that's coming from your human perspective, it all seems bigger than what it is because we have a limited perspective. But once you start looking at it from a a bird's eye view where simply running the world, you realize that this is his signature of perfection. Why? There has to be this Corona virus has to happen in order for him to reward and punish this world. In order for him to have birth rates, death rates, do whatever they he needs them to do, whatever he wants them to do. The gap in the middle of the road has to happen. The accident has to happen. The guy winning the lottery has to happen. This guy getting married for the fifth time has to happen while the other guy can't even find one shinuk and he's 50 years old. It has to happen. All of these things that don't make sense to us from our own perspective, it's all part of the system that he's running to perfection. What is it like? There was two kids and they both had toys. They both had a toy car. One guy, his car was the cars that we had as little kids that you know, you had a spring, you turn it, turn it, turn it, and then you release and it goes fun little car. I know in this generation you don't even know what I'm talking about, but uh that's what we lived with as little kids. Then you have another kid. His car is a remote control car. He presses the buttons. He goes zoom zoom. He flips and does all types of things. So now they're both playing with the car. The guy turns it. The other guy presses and they go. Now to anyone that's looking from the outside, it's both the same car. They look the same. They're the same color. They're both going forward. So the kid with the remote control says, "How do I make sure that everybody knows that my car is better? It's not like his car. His car is like oldfashioned. It's like Rabbi Ruven's generation in the dinosaurs. It's with a spring. I want to I want to show everybody that I GOT THE CAR. I GOT THE BEST CAR. How How do I do it? How do I show everybody my car is better?" You know what he does? He presses the buttons. He starts turning it. He starts flipping it because it's a remote control car. HE WANTS TO SHOW people that this car is not just going on a spring and it's just going straight and that's it. He wants to show that he's in a control of the car. Akados who runs the world the same way. I want to show you that I'm running the world. If everything was working perfect, if like Rab Fri says, if everything was fixed, everything was perfect, you wouldn't know I'm running the world. So, what I do once in a while, I make the land separate. I give you rain when it's not supposed to rain. I give you snow when it's not supposed to snow. I make the uh the elephant uh start drawing on a painting. I start doing all types of things where you know someone's running the show. Someone's running the show. Someone's playing with the remote control. This cannot happen by itself. So the more a person analyzes all of the different things that they see in the world, the more they realize that this is his signature. The fact that there is a disaster, the fact that there is something extreme, the fact that there is something that you consider abnormality, that's him putting a signature telling you, I did this. It's not just some stone that's always been there and will always be there. It was there and now I took it away. You see how the ocean is beautiful? If you ever go to the ocean, it's one of the most beautiful things in the world. You can see it looks like you could see the end of the world. And everybody likes to see the ocean. You like the sound of the ocean. The only time you don't like it if there's a tsunami coming your way. No one likes a tsunami except if you see a video of it. But if you're there, no one likes it. Well, guess what? That tsunami, it's the same water. That tsunami, it's the same exact water. Didn't It wasn't like all of a sudden there's like an abundance of water that came out of nowhere. It's the same exact water. Hashem decided to change the ground a little bit, shake it up a little bit, and all of a sudden there's a huge 50, 100 foot wave that's coming to destroy anything in its way. As it says, He looks at the land and it shakes. Earthquakes, tsunamis, all of those things is simply looks. Okay, over there. Let's make something. Let's put a little signature on this one. Let's show you. This didn't always exist just like this. It wasn't always a flat nice ocean with little waves for you to enjoy. Once in a while, I'm going to make a 150 foot wave. Once in a while, the ocean is not gonna stop at the beach. If you ask yourself, why does the ocean stop at the beach? Stopped at the beach. But then when there's a tsunami, all of a sudden it goes throughout the entire city. Where's all the water come from? It's always been there. It's just that roars at the ocean. Stop right here. Stop right here. That's what the says. That's where you stop. But then he decides today you're not going to stop there. Today you keep going. Go take one of the Japanese cities. Take one of the uh enemies of Amishan cities. Go take and the ocean goes. These types of things are small examples of how a kadosh shows us he's the one with the remote control. He's the one with the remote control. It was normal to you every day. You've been going to this beach for 25 years. It's always been flat. It's always been beautiful. You always saw the sunset. You have good memories from there. And then one day it was all destroyed because there was a tsunami. Hopefully, you weren't there. Why did Hashem decide that one day will be a tsunami? Why did Hashem decide this particular city will have an earthquake? Why did Hashem decide this particular city will have some type of plague? Why? Why? Why? to show you it wasn't always like this. Don't take it for granted like it's supposed to be this way. Why? Because the more you get used to things, the more you disconnect the association between the creation and the creator himself. You start thinking this always was. And this is the problem in the atheistic mentality where they simply think this always was. This world always was. Now when a person is able to understand that there's nothing else but him especially when it comes to the things I don't understand even more so when it comes to the things that I don't understand about my own personal experiences of why I can't get a job of why I can't get a job of why I'm smart or why I'm not smart or why I'm married or I'm not married all the wise that a person has internally where he's constantly battling himself of why why the more a person believes in the easier it is for him or her to come that internal battle where they realize just like all of the other questions of why I eat or why I drink or why why why at the end of it all it's simply the will of Hashem. This is what Hashem decided it's going to be. Hashem decided, I'm going to be 9 ft tall. Hashem decided I'm going to be a millionaire. Hem decided I'm going to have 17 kids. Hashem's decided I'm going to have whatever it is that a person Hashem decided, Hashem decided this is going to be. The more a person believes in the easier it is for them to answer those questions where instead of saying I don't know which is never a satisfactory answer. The worst thing that a parent can ever do to a child mentally is when the kid ask him a question that's a legitimate question and the parent says, "I don't know." That to the child is like mental abuse. You don't realize it. Why? Because to that little kid, you know everything. You're old. Even if you're 25 years old parent, like how could you not know? How could you not know if there was ever dinosaurs? Ema, how could you not know where uh you know the Noah's ark was buried? How could you not know how tall Mosheu was? How could you not know? How could you not know? A kid asks a parents a legitimate question. The worst thing that a parent can say is, "I don't know." Now, of course, you're not going to know everything. So, what do you do? I don't know, but I'll find out for you. let me go look for it. Why? Because if you leave the kid with I don't know, then that kid starts thinking, wait, if they don't know and they're already old, then there's a problem. No one knows. Cuz if they assume that the parent is the smartest person in the world, they assume that the parent is supposed to know everything. So if you don't know and no one knows this already creates an internal doubt inside that kid which if it grows further will have will will develop it into a safik into a doubt in believing in God. How could you not know? So you're not expected to know everything. I will ask questions in a moment. You're not expected to know everything, but you are expected to be a source of information for your kid where you could find out. We could find out. I don't know the answer to this, but we could ask the rabbi. We could ask the teacher. We could look at a book. We could watch a video. But there's a wealth of information out there. Don't leave the kid or yourself with a I don't know. If you really want to know the answer, you'll find the answer. A lot of times people tell me, "Listen, Rabbi, I had this question for 10 years." I can't believe it. How'd you survive for 10 years with the same question? I can't survive with the same question for 24 hours. How did you survive 10 years with the same question? Do you really had this question for 10 years? Do you really want to know the answer for 10 years? You couldn't find it when everybody's around you. No one knows anything. How do you know? How is it possible you don't have the answer? You didn't. There's no way you really had this question for 10 years. Either you didn't have this question or you didn't really want to know the answer. There's no way you really asked this question for 10 years and no one gave you an answer. It's impossible. It's impossible. A kid can have this same question for 10, 20 years because he asked the one source of information that they have which is their parents. And if the parent says, "I don't know," then the kid assumes no one else knows. An adult is not supposed to think that way. You guys obviously know. You could ask me questions, but if I'm not around, there's other people you can ask. You're adults. A kid doesn't think that way. A kid thinks the parent is supposed to know everything. So now when a person understands the unity of Hashem, understands that there's nothing else but Hashem, that means that all of the questions that you have, whether it's the big questions or the small questions, whether it's about the earthquakes, the tsunamis, or your personal agendas that you have and difficulties and ups and downs you have in your life, the answer to all of them should exist. Either it's a elaborate explanation of why something is happening or it's this is simply the will of Hashem. But either way you have an answer. Now the more you age, this is one of the benefits of aging. There's not many benefits, I promise you, but this is one of them. The older you get, if it's coupled with learning Torah and connecting deeper and deeper to Hashem, the more you realize that all of the disasters that you saw either in your life or other people's lives, not only did they have to happen, but it was for that person's benefit. This guy got his dream job at some financial company. He was an analyst. He was so happy. It was his dream job. He got $85,000 a year right out of school and then the the market downturn and he got fired and he literally thought the world ended. Why? Because it was his dream job. HIS DREAM JOB. AND HOW COULD I LOSE MY DREAM JOB? AND NO ONE WANTS TO HIRE HIM FOR THIS JOB BECAUSE NO ONE needs this job because AI does it better. So it looks like this was a horrible thing that happened and all of his friends are like, "Listen, you're religious. You pray three times a day, sometimes 17, and I don't understand why Hashem did this to you. I feel I don't understand. I don't understand. I don't understand." But if you fast forward, you fast forward 5 years, 10 years, you realize what happened to that guy and you realize that where he ended up is 50 times 50 million times better than what he would ended up if he would have kept that job. Why? Because he lost that job and no one wanted to hire him in that job. He decided to start something else. He decided to start mowing lawns. Looks like a terrible job. He was making 85,000. Now he's barely making 400 bucks a week. Well, guess what? Fast forward 5 10 years. Now he's got a company. He's mowing lawns for the entire city. He's making $85,000 a day. Had he stayed at that job, he'd still be making $80,000 a year 10 years later. But because Hashem got him fired because he wanted to open a better door. Many of the entrepreneurs and success stories that you ever read about started as a failure. Started as something going wrong according to the way it was supposed to go. It was supposed to be this way. This was the plan. This was the dream. And then the dream got ruined. So look like disaster struck. Hashem said, "No, no, no. I just want to show you that I'm I'm in control of the car. I'm moving you in a different direction. Yeah, but I had a plan over there. Good for you. You had a plan. Who cares about your plan? So what? You had a plan. I have a better plan. I have a better plan. You'll see. Fast forward 10 years, you'll see I have a better plan. Most of the companies you see today that are developing these new technologies, new apps, new AI, new uh things, every one of the founders without exception has this type of story. One of the success stories that's really just unbelievable is a company called Andrew. Andrew is in so many words the future of weapons. They're like the movies in reality. Robots, drones, superhuman stuff, like crazy stuff. They make cool stuff. The founder is like the most quirky, strange guy out there. He wears a Hawaiian shirt and shorts and he has hair from like the 1980s. He looks like Beas and Buttthead a little bit. If anybody knows who that is from the, you know, 1990s, shows you my age. And but this guy is a genius. But if I told you that he wouldn't have made this had he not gotten fired from Facebook with a public display of it firing him, he was already made success with some type of development he made for uh some uh glasses that he made. He sold it uh he sold it I think to Facebook. Later on they hired him at Facebook and then they made a public display of him fire firing him. Like literally public embarrassment. Like you would think this guy would go hide himself in some hole and like never want to come out of. Instead, he took advantage of the opportunity and he ended up building something bigger and better than anything he could ever imagine. Every one of the success stories, big or small, is like that. A door shut, a bigger door was open. If a person believes in Hashem being the only source of good, the only source of anything that's hurting you that seems bad. If a person is connected to a they don't have any questions. They may not have all the details of why, but they know where it came from. What is it like the closeni shalom? He lost his wife and 10 kids in the Holocaust. After he lost the first nine and there was only one kid left, each time he found out that one of his kids was murdered by the Nazis. He continued without uh like as if not as if nothing happened but he continued doing what he had to do. He was in the Holocaust. He was surviving. He was connecting to Hashem even eating kosher in the Holocaust. Anyone that read his bio, it's literally a miracle story. Well, you just one miracle after another. The things that the awful awful tests that he had to overcome. But when someone told him that they just found out that his last son was murdered by the Nazis, they said he was shocked. He stopped. He froze for a few moments a way that no one ever saw him like this before because usually everything that they told him he was like everything is for good. You know, he was positive he was continuing. He knew he was in hell. So this is not a surprise but when the 10th kid died he was shocked and then he came back to himself few m just literally a matter of moments. So the dem asked him what happened all the other ones the wife the kids everything else we saw you and but this one was different and the closer rebi says this I felt like I was in the woods as a little boy and I was looking for a way out and then it got dark and I couldn't see where I was walking. I didn't know how to get out and then all of a sudden in the middle of the night somebody hits me in the back and grabs me. I was scared. But then I turned around. I said, "Oh, it's Aba. When you first told me that the last son died, I was shocked. What happened? And then I realized, oh, it's Sabah. I'm not scared anymore. I'm not scared anymore. I know it's from him. I would tell you, the older you get, the more things you're going to have to overcome. You're going to have difficulties. It's not wishing bad on anybody. It's just simple a reality of life. The deeper your connection to a kadosh, the easier it is for you to overcome that obstacles even when you don't have a clear answer where you don't know if this temporary failure will lead to a bigger success. If the fact that your partner just robbed you of all your life savings will be the door that opens to a much better way of making a living or a way that you'll end up meeting your wife or husband or a way that you're going to do discover something you never even thought existed. You don't have all the answers. Why? Right now you're dealing with the fire at hand. It burns. It hurts and you have no idea where it came from. When you have a deep connection to knowing that there's nothing else but him, that means that even if I don't have all the answers, all of the following steps, I can't see into the future. I don't know what's going to be in 5 years from now. Needless to say, 10 years from now, I can barely know what's GOING TO HAPPEN IN FIVE MINUTES from now. And I'm here. But if I know that I came from a bahu, then the one thing I know for sure, he knows. He knows. He's not confused. He's not doubting anything. He's not considering multiple options like I am. He knows exactly what the plan is from the beginning to the end. And if he did this, for sure it's the best. For sure it's the best. I just don't know it yet. So even though I don't know all the steps that will follow if I have a real deep connection with to know that he is the only source that no one can help me and no one can hurt me if it's not the will of Hashem then simply put it's Aba. It's Aba. Okay I don't know what's going to happen but I know it's him. This is step number one. Step number two is to reflect on the creation. Which means that when you look at the creation, whether it's like I said before, the global birth rate, global death rate, you look at it from a human perspective, that's limited. It looks like big numbers. It looks like there's a mistake. It looks like there's a disaster. Oh, a few million people died from this plague. Oh, a few thousand people died from this crash. But you're not realizing that every second there's four people that are born. And every second two people die, which means the population continues to grow. And even though there was a plague, and even though there was a natural disaster, and even though there was a terrorist attack, the population still grew in the same exact number. In the grand scheme of things, nothing changed. If you look at the grand scheme of things, nothing changed. Everything is still normal. From your perspective, it's not normal because maybe your neighborhood or your family or what you watched on the internet seems like it's just happening there. But in reality, when you look at it from the Bah's perspective, nothing changed. He wanted the population to grow another 70 million and it grew another 70 million. Now, one of the ways we could become more familiar with the greatness of Akadu is by looking at his creations, especially those that are most connected to him. Because from the creation, you could identify the greatness of the creator. Israel clearly had more knowledge about any of the things that we can talk about, but also their life was very different where they saw things differently because of that connection. And we saw examples of it during our lifetime of things that to them were day-to-day. For example, a group of people, religious and non-religious, came to Shalom and they told him that this particular person was going to be the next police chief and he wanted to get a from the RAV. Now, Rav Karvski was known not to speak much. Usually he would say which is the acronym for you wouldn't even say he would say which is the it's the uh the uh um acronym but here they ask to give this guy he's going to be he's going to be elected any minute to be the new police chief he wants a he's going to do a good job of Kyvski looks at him he says are you Go in. Okay. No. That's it. And then understand the Rob's going to give him a blessing. No, don't give a blessing. And nobody understood why Raf Kanefki cares if he's a Quran, why it matters, why can't he's a Jew. Give him a blessing. There's no arguing here. Okay, they walked away. 24 hours later, something happened. They decided he's not going to be the police chief. But somebody named Cohen became the police chief. Somebody named Cohen became a police chief. Another example is they came a class came little kids eight nine year old kids cute little pay yeshiva kids and they all came to the r to get blessings and he gave each one of them a blessing each one a blessing except one kid one kid didn't give him a blessing he skipped over him and the rabbi saw this teacher and he figured Okay, I'll put him on the back of the line. He'll go again. And he went again. He didn't give him a blessing. So then the rabbi felt uncomfortable. Every kid got a blessing except this one kid me scan. So he put him goes, "Rabbi, he's going to bless him. I only bless Jews. Bring my own juice in yeshiva learning. They go check the kid's not Jewish. They ask the RV. How did the RV know? What do you mean? You can see he's not Jewish. You can see he's not Jew. Yeah, you can see. He can see you can he's not Jewish. But the is like, yeah, you can see he's not Jewish. Another time they come, a family comes with the their daughter for the Rav. We want the Rav to give a blessing to our daughter. She's getting married. It's a good bul and he's learning and he's this and he's that. All the good qualities in the world and they want that they're going to have a good marriage based on when they get married. instead of getting says, "Okay, he has to convert first." Huh? No, no, no. He's Jewish. He's from a Steinman family. You know, he has to convert first. What do they find out? Find out that his grandmother, she converted reform. No one knew he's not Jewish. theesh of his father the stipon was even more apparent. There's a uh Moshe said the story. He said one time there was a Jew who needed the Yeshua. He was uh had problems and uh he wanted to bring him to the stagon and this Jew was a Shabbat. So he said to you, "I'm sorry I can't take you." He's the stifler knows. Goes, "No, no, he's not going to know. Not going to know. I'll come." Okay. Takes him to the thing. So first he leaves the guy outside and comes inside. The stifler is learning. Comes inside. He looks at him. He starts yelling him. YOU BROUGHT A SHABBAT HERE. OUT. OUT. ALMOST LIKE THE GROUND swallowed him. They ran away. Another time the Rab of Natanya there was a guy that was sick in a community was also Shabbat and he told the Ra, I want you to take me to the stipling. Give me He's sorry I can't. You're Shabbat. He's not going to bless you. He doesn't bless Shabbat. He goes he's not going to know Shabbat. I promise you he's going to What do you mean he's not going to know? He's going to know. He goes, "Quab, he's not going to know." Okay. The next day comes to his house, completely different clothing. He has pot on, he has a hat on, he has the suit, he looks like he's got he's been living in the yeshiva for 20 years. They go to the stipon. Rav Rosenberg comes in first. The other guy is waiting outside. As soon as Rosenberg comes in, the stipen starts yelling. TELL THEM ABOUT TO GET OUT of here. When we hear these types of stories, it's not about Shabbat Shabbat as the key point of what we're trying to learn here. The point is we see that gave a specific type of vision, understanding, and clarity of how he runs the world to his. They see things differently. you'll see driving on Shabbat because he wants to go to the mall to buy sneakers that see you are declaring that doesn't exist because that's what the says. So the more a person sees the work of through his the easier is for us to understand the greatness of Hashem. One last story I tell you that's also amazing. There was a guy is a makabim rabbi and he used to speak against the wigs. Same thing we've been doing for the last 10 years or so showing people that unfortunately the one of the uh ways Satan is fooling this entire generation is convincing them that there's such a thing as a kosher wig. And the reality is that if it's human hair wigs, it's coming from India which is idolatry. And the situation hasn't changed since the time of when the stip when yash says it was coming from India. Nothing has changed since then other than the fact that it's much uh more developed now and uh there's much more money in it now. But the sin of benefiting from idolatry is exactly the same. If you're wearing a a uh human hair wig, you have idolatry. You're benefiting from idolatry on your head, unfortunately. Now, there was one rabbi that would speak against it a lot. And uh after he gave his uh le several lectures, women agreed to take off the wig to throw it out. And he told them, "Give me the wigs so we can burn them all together." After he collected a whole garbage bag full of these, he came to you want to show the RA look at this is the fruits of my labor. I want to show the Rev that I'm succeeding in removing you know getting these to remove the wigs. So he comes to and he's waiting over there. Tell him listen you have to wait. The Rev is learning when he pays attention to you then you come talk to him. And he's sitting over there with the garbage bag. He's sitting there sitting there and he sees the Raady is struggling with something. He's going. Half hour passes. Eventually looks and he goes, "Oh yes, what can I do for you?" I want to show you. Look, look. I All these women took off their wigs. Oh, no. I brought them TO SEE YOU. AH, WHY DID YOU BRING THISH TO MY HOUSE? NOW I UNDERSTAND WHY I COULDN'T UNDERSTAND FOR THE LAST HALF HOUR. For the last half hour, I'm trying to understand something in the Torah and I don't understand it. Now I know you BROUGHT THE TUMAT TO MY HOUSE. GET IT OUT OF HERE. Get it out of the house. Get it out of the house. So when a person learns the the stories of the how they saw life so differently, how things were so clear to them, how they were so sharp, this is it, the end. Like if you went to Ra Yashi for example, you asked a question, you got the answer. You didn't get back and forth, but maybe this rabbi, but maybe. There's no maybe. This is the you want to take it, take it. There was no back and forth, but what if, but what if you want the end next? He wasn't back and forth. Why? He was one of this is the way it was. Sometimes we'll go back and forth. But the point is that when you see the behavior of some of these of how clearly they saw the world, you start understanding the greatness of au because if a kadosh gave this little thing to this sadik to see that this boy that looks like any other boy, he's not Jewish just by looking at him. Or this one, another boy, he looked at him and he said, "Oh, you ate milk and meat." And the boy starts crying. How the rabbi know? The boy admitted, "Yeah, I ate milk and meat. How do you know?" Goes, "What do you mean? I see the goat on your head." What goat? What goat? There's a goat. There's a goat. Draw the goat. I still can't see it. What goat? I see the goat on your head. I see on the forehead. So when you start getting closer to you start understanding that yes I may not have a clear answer of why this particular difficulty is happening but I do know that and there's nothing else but him. One of the things we have in the BH shop that uh that we buy these little cups and stuff like that is we have like a picture both in uh English and also in uh Rashi script where it says envir why why do we have this why not any other statement out there where it could be is it could be anything else because the very basic of it's the basic foundation of whether you believe in Hashem or something else in Christianity They believe in something else. Now, if you ask a Christian, do you believe in God? They'll tell you yes. But that God has either a human body or he has a helper or all types of other convoluted uh things that they create. And the same concept goes everywhere else where in Islam, yes, I believe in God, but he apparently he uh he's not careful with what he gives to the Jewish people because he allowed them to change it because they believe that we changed the Torah. So God gave us the instruction set in Mount Si and somehow we beat the system by changing it according to Islam that our Torah is not the same Torah that we got at Mount Sai. So apparently God says that he's not going to change the Torah, but we change the Torah anyway. We beat God. So all of these types of religions and ideologies, you realize that they're missing this one key ingredient, believing that once you believe there's everything else can go further. So we have the first couple of steps. Now we go to the third step. Once you know that there and you realize that through his creation you can reflect and understand a little bit more about the greatness of the creator. The third step is acceptance of the service of God. This means taking upon yourself all of the mitzvot that you are obligated to do as a male, as a female, as a Jew, as a non-Jew, whatever it is that's applicable to you, you accept it. Why? Because because how great he is. Because it's not a suggestion. Sometimes people say, "Listen, um what if uh you know what if I keep only part of Shabbat? I keep it on Friday but not on uh Saturday. Is that okay? If the Shabbat was mine, I tell you do whatever you want. What do I care? Keep it. Don't keep it. But it's not my Shabbat. Says it's the whole Shabbat or it's not. Now again, certainly it's better to make less sin. So if you keep half of it and uh you don't keep the other half, it's better than not keeping anything at all, but you're still going again. No, you're not coming out. It's just for a little less time. That's it. It's not like, oh, he's going to go to heaven for like, you know, part-time heaven, part time g. No, it's just you're still going there. It's just a little less time. Why? Because said keep Shabbat said keep said all of these different laws. He didn't say you could just pick and choose which ones you like. So when a person understands that accepting the service of God is the third step and not the first step, they start beginning to understand why it has to be in these steps. Because if God needs me like the heretics say or God has partners or God has helpers or there's two gods, then why should I accept this God's instructions? I'll accept a different one. Who says this one is right? Maybe the other one is better. But once I realize step number one is there's no other partner. There's no other religion. There's no other truth. We have a monopoly on the truth. There's only a single truth. There is no two truths. There's a single truth that exists. Everything else is a lie. Without exception. Anyone that tells you otherwise simply does not know the truth themsself. So when you know that step number one is and that you could see the greatness of the creator through his creation, the more you analyze the creation, whether it's something as personal as your human eye and how much is in your human eye or your hand or the ability of your digestive system or anything that you live in your life. The more you analyze anything, a flower. Analyze a flower. How much technology is in a flower, it's more than any computer out there. There's more wisdom in a single petal of flower than there is in all of human technology that was developed by man. The more you see the creation, the easier it is to understand. Oh, that it's even it gets stronger. Then it becomes easier to do step number three which is accepting the service and saying listen whether I understand or I don't understand putting out fine or not whether I understand don't understand to keep Shabbat or not whether I understand or don't understand to eat kosher or not whether I understand or not whether I'm allowed to have a girlfriend not allowed to have a girlfriend whether I understand or not I know simply I'm going to do what it says I accept the service why that's step number three step number four is everyone's favorite step who wants to Okay, everyone wants to skip forward to step number four. Have confidence in hem, then good things will happen. First you have to know. First you have to know there's only if you know there's only hem then will come naturally. Why? If there's only Hashem, then who else am I going to rely on? My customers, my donors, my siblings, my wife, my husband, my dog, my cat, my president, who am I going to rely on? If there's nothing else to rely on, but if there is something else other than it's impossible for me to have why I will always have a doubt, wait, maybe this customer, he's going to be the one that's going to help us uh beat the record of last year. Maybe this investor, he's going to turn our whole company around. Maybe this uh product, it's going to change everything. I'm constantly going to put all of the pressure on something. Maybe it's the product, maybe it's the customer, maybe it's the person, maybe it's the country, maybe it's the law. But when you have and that means that you know that there's only one source there's only one source. So the more you're connected to the easier it is for to flow through your veins the less there's there's less there's hem in your in your mind the less there's in your heart the more difficulty it is for you to have in anything. Why? You're constantly relying on all types of outside factors. Who knows if the customer is going to show up? Who knows if uh this medicine is going to work? Who knows if uh you know this investor will actually uh the check's going to clear? Who knows? Well, it's a human being. He's flawed just like you. But when you realize everything is from starts coming naturally starts becoming something that you can work on to develop even further connection to but without the first three steps everyone's favorite step of does not exist. You cannot have if you believe in you cannot have if you believe in your customers. You cannot have if you believe in your being your source of income. You cannot have ine if you believe in any source of power that exists in the world other than so step number four comes after the first three steps. Fifth step he goes into how serving Hashem we serve him sometimes lishma meaning without complete devotion tell the kid listen it's time to pray again now the kid's going to do it but if you ask him listen do you prefer to do that or maybe play some more games on your tablet. If Hashem gave you the reward for both of them, he told you, "Listen, you get a reward for playing in a tablet or you get a reward for praying." Which one you going to pick? Go play with a tablet. Go play with a tablet. Why? It's more fun for me. It's more fun for me to play with a tablet. Tell the guy, "Listen, you go call another customer, try to close a deal or pray. Which one you want? I want to call the customer. I call the customer. Well, I want to make more money. Where's the money coming from? Oh, yeah. I know. At the end, it comes from Hashem. Okay. So, why you calling the customer? Why don't you call him? Why'd you call Hashem? Why? Because you don't believe that Hashem gave you the pro. You believe you're going to make it. You believe you're going to call the customer. You're going to convince the customer. As if Hashem needs your help. you need your help to call the customer like he doesn't he's not going to send you the money if you don't call the customer. So not all the things that we do alishma are the way they're supposed to. And step number five of connection connecting to is devoting ourselves to Hashem meaning making more and more of our acts for his sake to do his will. Meaning I want to pray. It's not that I want to eat. Rather I want to bless Hashem therefore I eat. I can't just make a blessing on an apple if I'm not going to need an apple. Now, I don't really want an apple, but since I want to bless Hijem, I'm going to take the apple so I can make a blessing. So, therefore, I have to eat the apple. Meaning, the apple is the second step, not the first step. I'm only eating the apple because I want to bless Hashem. That's the ultimate goal. The point is is that a person can't go from zero to being overnight. But step number five is to increase our devotion to a bul where what we do is simply realign our will to be fulfilling a buru's will. Make his will into your will so he can make your will into his. That's what the says. Now ultimately how could a person rationalize such a thing? If you have again step number one, we keep going back to step number one. If you have from the beginning, that means you know all the good where does it come from? From Hashem. That means all wisdom comes from from Hashem. Who makes the best decisions? Hashem. Is it your decision ever going to be right and him wrong? Never. Can you ever pick a better choice than he picked? Never. Which means that the more I have, the easier it is going to be for me to do his will. Why? Because I know his will is better than mine. I want to go to the beach and go surfing. He is taking me instead to the bet midash. It seems like my choice is going to be more fun. But if I end up at the beta midash, then I know that I'm going to benefit here more. And if I really dedicate my time to learning Torah, I'm also going to enjoy myself even more than going surfing. But if I don't have then it's very very hard for me to dedicate any of my actions to literally doing the will of Hashem because I want to and not because I have to, not because I feel like, oh listen, I'm Jewish and therefore I pray. Oh, I'm Jewish. Therefore, I make a blessing. I'm not going to wear modest clothes just because I'm in a Jewish community. I'm gonna do it because I know I'm the daughter of Hashem. And that's what happens sometimes when a daughter of Hashem doesn't forgets that she's a daughter of Hashem. She's modest in one place, but she's not modest in another place. Unfortunately, there's a whole disaster that's happening in certain communities where they're religious there, but not when they're on vacation. It's like people feel like they go on vacation not just from their job and their community. They go on vacation from God. And there's horrible stories that I get from people of what's happening out there. Literally people leave their religion at home. At home they're they look more religious than all of us. on vacation some of the go get confused of who's more of a So the more a person aligns themselves with the easier it is for them to have the right devotion and to understand I'm doing this not just because Hashem commanded me to do it but because I know and I believe and I trust that his will is better than mine. Step number six is perhaps something that's going to be it's going to make sense but at the same token it's going to be as foreign as a different language to some people which is becoming subservient to Hashem. What does it mean to become subservient? Most of us have an ego. So if somebody tells us what to do our natural inclination is to say no. you before you even heard what they said. You want to go no. But you didn't even hear what I said. I just don't want to go. I just don't want anything. Whatever you're saying, I don't want it. Why don't you want it? Because I didn't ask for it. Our natural inclination is to say no. I don't want to. Don't tell me what to do. Don't tell me what to do. I'm just giving you guy. I didn't ask you for guidance. I could help you. Who says you could help me? No one wants to be told what to do. So the thought of being subservient to somebody is foreign to people. Why? They start thinking what what is he a king? What is he making himself a king over me? This guy, who is he to tell me? Who is she to tell me what to do? Now you can play that game with your friends and family and whoever else you don't really want a good relationship with. But if you want a relationship with and you want to get to the next level, that means becoming subservient to meaning whether I want to or I don't want to is irrelevant. When it comes to doing the will of Hashem, my personal will, my personal desire, my obsessions, my lust, my uh, you know, joy, all of that becomes simply irrelevant. Becomes irrelevant. It's not about where am I going to enjoy myself. It's not about where I think it's going to be more fun or more profitable or it's simply what is the will of Hashem. The more a person gets closer to, the more they realize that becoming subservient to the master is not just a good thing to do. It's a necessary thing to do if you want a deep connection with Hashem. Why? Because the more you know about Hashem, the more you understand how great he is and how lowly we are. Not that if you compare yourself to your friend, he has a higher IQ and he's better looking and she's this and it's not that. It's simply understanding how we can never ever give Hashem anything and he gives us everything. So the more you understand your point, our point, where we stand in this entire argument and where Hashem is, the more you realize I need to become a better servant. I need to remove all of these outside desires that I have and inclinations and hormones that I have and just simply throw them in the garbage. This is this is this is not the place for them. This is like a a farmer that wants to come ask the king for for a for more land brings all the manure from the animals to the kingdom. Your highness, can you please give me more land? What more land? You brought the manure to my kingdom. That's our guys. That's our tavot. That's our desire. Our desire, our wants, our needs, our addictions, all that stuff. That's like bringing manure to the kingdom. So the more a person wants to be closer to Hashem, the more they realize naturally I have to become a better servant. I have to work on myself to become more subservient to Hashem. Which means I have to work on uprooting my personal desires. Again, this is not step number one. This is after you did one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. But I'm just simply telling you the ways of the this is what the wrote a thousand years ago. This is the path. This is step number one, two, three, up to seven so far. Step number I'm sorry, six. Step number seven, which will surprise most of you is chuva. Doing chuva. You would think doing chuva should be the first step. That's because you don't understand what chuva is. Before you can begin to do chuva, you have to understand who you're dealing with first. And only after you've understood for a long period of time did you start realizing all the things that you used to do were filthy. And only after a while does a person actually understands how much chuva they really need to do because he thought initially, oh yeah, I got to do chuva for the guy I killed and the money I stole and that time. Okay. So he thinks that he has to do for the big things. For the big things, the deeper your connection to the more you realize the big things is a given. the big things that even a blind person can see the big things. The deeper your connection with the more you realize that the small what you thought of the small things that's where he was testing you. That was the big thing he gave you. The big thing was like putting a carrot in front of a donkey. What are you going to expect him not to eat it? It's there. If he doesn't eat it, then he's probably not a donkey. But if you put a rock in front of the donkey and the donkey eats it, then there's something wrong with the donkey. So when you make some of the sins, it's like, "Oh yeah, so he's a he's a strange donkey. He ate the rock, too. He ate the carrot. He ate the rock. He ate everything. The guy he can't stop eating." That was obvious. That was easy test. That was like putting you on like autopilot. That wasn't the test. The test was are you going to know your way home without me calling you? That's the test. So step number seven is doing cha. Step number eight is personal accounting. Personal accounting means that a person is at a level where they understand the connection to hem. They understand they have ine they're subservient to hem. They're doing chuva every day. But in order for them to really fulfill all of this, they have to constantly analyze every single act that they do. The once started crying and the asked him, why are you crying? He says, "I did my accounting for the last year and I know what I did every single minute for the entire year except 10 minutes. And I don't know what I did those 10 minutes. I wish we didn't know what we did 10 minutes in one day or in one hour." He was crying and he didn't know what he did for 10 minutes. So said the whole year 10 minutes. He says you don't understand what 10 minutes are. He says you don't understand the greatness of 10 minutes of how much you can do in 10 minutes. Now if you really think about it, what could he have possibly done in 10 minutes? Surely he didn't sin. He didn't start driving on Shabbat for 10 minutes. He didn't make any sense. What did he do for 10 minutes? says that's the problem. If I don't know what I did for 10 minutes, that means I didn't serve to the maximum. I didn't serve Hashem to the maximum during those 10 minutes. When a person does person does personal accounting, they're not going to get to the level of the but they can at the very least analyze themselves like a person from today. What did I do today? from last year, 10 years ago, 20 years ago. Today, today analyze today. Okay. I spoke to the customer, I uh went to a meeting, I ate, I drank, I said hello, I said good morning. I Okay, let's analyze those few things that you remember from the day. When you spoke to the customer, were you honest? Were you honest? When you said hello to your coworker, did you say lash too? Say, "Oh, did you hear what happened to Steve over there? That was that part of the hello also or is it was just hello?" Did you look at somebody imodestly when you said hello? When you ate, did you make a blessing? Did you think about Hashem or did you think about the food when you made the blessing? Did you think about how juicy that burger is going to be in your mouth right after you finish the blessing? So, the blessing technically is getting in the way of your juicy burger or did you think about a chem that thank you for giving me a burger? Did you check if the kashoot is valid or it's one of those that no one knows where it came from including the kashoot? Meaning a person can analyze they don't have to be the you can simply analyze what do I what did I do today I woke up I went to pray I uh this I okay what do you remember of day let's analyze what you did today that you remember you remember five things that you did today let's analyze the five things I spoke to a customer I went to the doctor I uh I ate I drank I said hello whatever it is that you do every day Okay, analyze it. That's analyzing those things. Now again, this is not step number one. Don't be a a beginner and say, "Oh, I have to start doing story tomorrow." It's nice if you want, but start with first. Step number nine, and this is completely irrelevant to the overwhelming majority of people that are not just watching this, but that exists in the world, but nonetheless, it is step number nine, which is abstinence from materialism. Why abstinence from materialism? He says, "How could somebody have wholehearted acknowledgement of while he's intoxicated with the wine of love for this world?" Meaning if you have anything else in your heart, you love sports, you love money, you love uh women, men, dogs, cats, video games, there's other love in your heart. How much room is left for Hashem? So this explains why like many of these they were completely uninterested in materialism. It wasn't that they wanted to be poor. They didn't see it that way. They didn't see poor. Like if you go to Abidam's house, you saw that the bed that he had was literally pieces of metal with milk crates under it. And the chair was just a couple of pieces of wood that he put together himself. And this is how he was for 100 years. And he had millions of dollars passed through his hands for the yeshivot and everything else. You had $2 million. Oh, give it to this yeshiva. $5 million. Give it to that yeshiva. They wanted to paint this house. There's mold. Maybe we could paint it. He goes, "Why? Why paint? What's wrong with the walls?" "No, there's uh the guy that owned the paint paint company in Israel came to his house. He said, "I am the owner of this paint company. If the Rav allows me, I'll come here myself and I'll paint the Rub's house. Tells him why. No, to make it nice. He says, "You can paint. You're a good painter." He says, "Yeah, go. Can you paint my shamim? Make it better for me. over here. I don't need it. He didn't care for it. So, it wasn't that they tried to be poor or they didn't. It's just simply the more connected to you are to Hashem, the less connection you have to this material temporary world. So again, I know this is not relevant to most people because people have desires. They grow up a certain way. They understand certain way. But again, this is step number nine. If you did the first eight steps and you got bored, step number nine is next. Now, you'll be surprised at what step number 10 is. Step number one, we know that's the one we're all focusing on. All the other steps make all the sense in the world, but for for most of us, okay, I got to work on myself to get to step number two and three and four and five and uh Alvi I'll get in my lifetime to step number nine. BUT WHAT'S STEP number 10? What is step number 10? What? I have to take my son and do. Yes. What is step number 10? Loving Hashem. Step number 10 is loving Hashem. That's what step number 10 is. To love's will and to fear his anger. Step number 10 of loving Hashem is after step number one and step number two and step number three 4 5 6 7 8 9 you've excelled in them then you could go into team step number 10 of loving Hashem. So when I told you guys last week or the week before that it's a silly thing for people to say that they love Hashem or for people to teach you should love Hashem instead of fear of Hashem. And I told you guys most people don't understand what it means to love Hashem. This is what I was referring to. Most people do not understand what it means to love Hashem. What they really mean when they say I love Hashem is you love what he gives you. When he gives you a brand new car, he gives you a brand new wife, gives you brand new kids, brings you brand new money, brings you brand new health, he brings you stuff, you love what he gives you. It has nothing to do with him. Because if only to our enemies, he took those things away. Who's going to say I love you? Who's going to buy a rubber band and put it on their hand? Everybody says, "What happened to Hashem?" Why? Why? They start questioning Hashem. Why are they questioning Hashem? Because when they said, "I love you, Hashem." Really, what they meant is I love it when you give me what I want or what's good for me. But I don't understand why this is good for me to have this disaster, this difficulty, this uh depression, this this disconnect. But the morad becomes a key part of your key part of your life key part of every single moment in your daytoday. The more you realize that not only and I have to become subservient to him and all of these other things. the more you realize that his greatness is so beyond our comprehension that the fact that he even thinks of us to allow us to exist that alone is a reason for you to love him. Why? Because there's nothing that you could ever give him back for anything that you that he gives you. So much so that says about 800 pages later that all of the mitzvot that you could ever do in your life, let's say you fulfill all, you found some amazing way to fulfill all 613 mitzvot. your man, your woman, your queen, your levie, your is you do all the you do, you do all 630 mitzvot and you did all seven of the rabbitical mitzvot everything and your balid you give every day a million dollars million to a million dollars to headquarters a million more headquarters because we have a lot more bills but you keep doing every day The says if you do all the mitzvot and all the all the things you could possibly do, you still can never pay Hashem back for even a single breath in your lung. All of that is not a payment back to even a single breath. Why? All of what you do is for you. The mitzvot for you. You benefit from them. You benefit from the lifestyle. You benefit from the merits you'll get from it. You benefit from all the good things that come out of it. All that taka you give, you benefit. He doesn't benefit out of it. But the breath that he gives you, only you benefit out of it. He doesn't get anything out of it. So in essence, when you give, you're not really giving. You're taking Hashem says in the let them take from me. Let them take from me a gift. What do you mean take from me? You should say let them give me a gift. No, no, no. Take from me. When you're giving when you give when you give when you give a you give of yourself in reality you're taking because why? You're the only one that benefits out of it. Hashem doesn't benefit out of it. But when he gives you a breath, he doesn't benefit from that either. Only you benefit from it. Hence the reason why the says that all the good that a person could do, he can never return even for a single breath that Hashem gives us. So now when a person realizes that Hashem has no benefit whatsoever in me existing and yet he still gives me what's good for me. When was the last time we did something for anybody without having an interest? When was the last time we did somebody a favor without at least remembering it that you know what when I need a favor I'll call him too. like I'm not going to ask him for a favor now. I'm not I'm going to give him a ride, but I'm not going to ask him for money. But I know in the back of my mind, deep deep deep in the back of my mind that whenever he needs a ride, uh you know, or whenever vice versa, I I have, you know, in the back burner, I have this I have in the back burner, I have a little favor cooking. It's reserved for a rainy day. Well, I did him a favor. I lent him 500 bucks. Yeah, he returned it to me, but that's not it. Why? Because I know if I ever need 500 bucks, I got him to ask. Why? Because I did it for him. This is our natural inclination. Our natural inclination is that yes, I'll do it for you cuz I want to help you, but subconsciously I know that I'm also I have a little stock in you right now. I have a little investment in you right now. Well, I just did you a favor. So, I don't need anything from you right now. But I know if I do, you're the first guy I'm calling. Why? You owe me. Yeah, but I give you money the the money back. Sure you give me the money back, but you owe me favor. Why do I have favor? Because I did you a favor. That's just the way it works. That's just THE WAY IT WORKS. LET'S NOT FOOL EACH OTHER. THAT'S JUST THE WAY IT WORKS. to do something purely out of your heart is almost non-existent without working on yourself. So now when a says I give you air in your lungs, I give you food, I give you your wife, I give you your kids, I give you everything you need and guess what? I don't get anything in return. HOW ARE YOU NOT going to love him? If your imma gave you food, gave you this. Yeah, she still benefits out of it. How? She's happy. It's her kid there. She there's benefits there. But he no benefits and he still does it. So the more becomes a permanent part of our day-to-day life, a permanent fixture in our mind, in our heart, the easier it does for is easier for us to get closer and closer to step number 10. Because step number 10 doesn't just simply mean I love Hashem for all of what he gives me, [sighs] but rather I love Hashem to such a point I no longer have my own personal preference. I no longer want something for me. I no longer want something to benefit. I'm no longer doing mitzvot because of the reward. I'm no longer going to do something because I have some type of personal interest. I'm going to start emulating Hashem by doing something selflessly. Good to do good just because it's good. So now all of those desires that I had when I first started keeping doing chuva and so on, they're not even part of the equation anymore. Why? I love Hashem too much. I don't Do you want to go? What do you mean do I want to go? Do you want to do What do you mean do I want to? What's the will of Hashem? When when when you love Hashem, there's no what do you want to do anymore? It's what's the will of Hashem? That's what I'm going to do. Whether it's hard or it's not hard, whether it's early or it's late, doesn't make a difference. I'm simply going to do the will of Hashem because that's all that's that's that's all the room in my heart. So to say that just because a person bought a little rubber band and put on their hand and they they got to level number 10, I think it's a little bit foolish. That's why. So we all have a lot of work to do. Wherever we are doesn't make much of a difference. What makes a difference of where we're going to be. We could all start level number one. Start with then we go to step number two and little by little grow closer and closer to our but we can't fool ourselves to thinking that we're already at level four and level 10 and level 20 and even levels that the know about. We have to be realistic of where we stand and work on it because once a person knows where they stand then they can start going in the right direction. But if a person deludes themselves and fools themselves to thinking that they're really at a different level, they're already in the wrong direction to begin with. So this is the EKG, the spiritual EKG of the to tell us these 10 steps. These 10 steps, they come in a specific order because that's what's necessary. You can't go to love of Hashem before you even know that. But we start with one, we go to two, we grow closer and closer over the next few weeks will delve deeper into each one. Butem will continue getting closer and closer to and little by little taking care of all of those doubts, those questions, those difficulties that are in our heart and removing them because the more we get closer to the less questions we have. If anybody any particular questions will be happy to answer. Yes. You mentioned a question earlier. How do we know? >> So how do we find favor in a kadosh's eyes? A person that wants to find favor in a kadosh's eyes. Huh? >> How do you know that? >> How do Yeah. How do as a person know if finding favor in a kadosh's eyes? By simply knowing where they stand in this uh in this equation. If this equation matters to them. Meaning if your spiritual EKG that you got today woke up some parts of your heart and motivated you that you know what I got to do better then guess what you find favor in a wise why because you care about your relationship with him but if nothing happened in your heart if everything that came out of my mouth repeating the words nothing affected you it went one ear out the other and didn't even go like, "Ah, come on. This guy's crazy. Ah, come on. This is too much. Ah, come on. No, I know what I'm talking about. I know I love Hashem. He doesn't know what he's talking about." Like, if nothing happened in your heart, nothing shook up your heart. That means you don't really care about Hashem. And of course, you're not going to find fever in Hashem's eyes because you don't even care about the connection. It's like a person says, "Listen, uh, my wife wants to divorce me." Why does she want to divorce you? Because she says I don't talk to her. So, did you talk to her about it? No. No. So why should you talk about it? No, no, I don't feel like talking to her. So if a person doesn't care about the relationship then what do you expect? What do you expect is going to happen? But if you care about the relationship you have with so much so they say I'm going to do something about it. I'm going to talk to him. I'm going to pray to him. I'm going to do what he says. I'm going to learn more about him. Then guess what? Yeah, of course you find favor in Hashem's eyes. And the more you do, the more you'll be favorable in Hashem's eyes. Why? Because the more you dedicate, the more you love. One of the reasons why parents love their kids is because they dedicate so much energy to them. The more a parent dedicates to their kids, the more they love their kids. Same concept with teachers. The more a teacher dedicates to their students, the more they love those students. the less they want to work, the more they dislike the students. Why is it that? Because the more you invest of yourself into something, the more you connect to it. So the [snorts] more you invest into your relationship with, the more you're going to connect to, the less you invest into your relationship with, the more separated you'll be from. And it's it works both ways. So this is why when you want to find favor in eyes, it's not going to come naturally. It's going to require effort. Just like a a good relationship requires effort. Success requires effort. Anything of good of value requires effort. The more value, the more effort. And that's that's the uh that's in essence what the is trying to teach us is that effort comes in steps. It's you can't just go and go all in like uh people do in gambling and let me just go try to get all 10 at once. Doesn't work that way. Yeah. So when what ends up happening is us humans when we think of a word pencil first thing that comes to our head is a pencil >> or any other object or anything. So when we think about Hashem, what's like what are we supposed to think about? Is it something obviously of course the Ram says Hashem doesn't have anything physical to him like what are we supposed to imagine? Are we supposed to imagine his name or like you keep up here or like what are we supposed to see because our our mind what it does is it goes into like these random thoughts when we think about Hashem. So like what are you supposed to think about? The best place, the best place to put your mind and usually the easiest place is to understand the meaning of your blessing. So for example, if you study the sidu a little bit and you understand each part of the blessing when you say Hashem's name uh like what does it mean? uh you start understanding what you say or say resurrection when you start thinking about what you're actually saying that's going to give you the action or the thing that Hashem gave you the benefit that you got out of it when you're saying Hashem's name you're not going to imagine a person you're not going to imagine a body you're not going to imagine hands you're not going to imagine other things you're going to imagine what in essence you're actually saying that's usually the best and the safest place now if a person wants is at a higher level and they want to uh imagine uh do with and stuff like that then a person can but the average person should not even delve into it because they're more likely to get confused than they are to do what they're supposed to. So you could uh see uh uh you know when you say Hashem's name uh you uh don't say it but you could say in your mind meaning he uh he was he is he will be and then you could say the continuous of the blessing. If you do that alongside actually understanding what the blessing is, you're already achieving uh you know a whole lot more than uh than most people. When you do supposed to do to Hashem, like obviously I'm not talking about an hour or like five minutes talking to Hashem, what is it that you're supposed to envision just like the great things that he like for example the action that he does for people or or are you supposed to think about him himself like >> No, you don't think about you think you think about the best thing to do is to >> no image to he has no body or likeness of a What you can do is you can imagine all the great things that he gives you, you know. So, not just the uh money and the material things, but the fact that you have uh air in your lungs, the fact that you have vision, the fact that you have uh sound, uh you know, all the different things you the more grateful you are to uh to a bahud, the easier it is for you to pray to him and to connect to him. But when you start imagining things that are visual, that are that are that are physical, then it's very very easy to land in a uh in a problem where you're actually going to imagine a person. You're going to imagine something physical. Uh and uh sometimes you'll even imagine a foreign god. Uh because once you go in that route, it goes to goes to places that you're not supposed to go to. So eno mud goof he doesn't have foreign god meaning people think of yoske or people think of Buddha or people think of uh some old man that's uh they saw in some cartoon people think of all types of things and uh it all depends also again on how much how much tuma is in a person's life the more if they waste seed or they uh they're involved in any way shape or form in something that's connected to idolatry then they're more susceptible to thinking about the wrong things specifically speifically during those moments. The same thing just by the way happens to men when they're they're together with their wives. They think about somebody else. Why does that happen? It's because of what you did during the day. So those thoughts the the worst thoughts come at the most inappropriate times. Inappropriate time of where you connecting to inappropriate time to you connecting with your spouse. Why? It's an outcome of what you build until that moment. >> Also there's another I know you said that for example we we only benefit from Hashem and Hashem doesn't benefit from us but somebody could say Hashem created a system where where he only gives us like where he we only like gives to us and we don't gift him. So I mean if there was a system like where we could gift him I mean surely would we be able to give him there was a system like that >> but he doesn't need anything >> you know if if if let's say for example I said I want to give you oxygen you don't need oxygen Hashem already gave you plenty yeah but I want to give it to you anyway what am I going to do with it I already have plenty everything that my lungs need already gave me. Yeah, but I want to give it to you anyway, but I don't need it. But I want to give you food, but I already ate. I want to give you money, but I already have enough. You know, like it's so Hashem doesn't need anything. So to there is nothing for us to give him. Need is something that when you give something to someone, it's because there's some type of desire or need. either need for survival or desire as a result of lust or a result of of you know wanting something that uh you that's more than what you have. So Hashem has neither one of those. He doesn't have desires nor does he have needs. So there's nothing for us to give him. But when we do his will that's us serving him and that in essence is fulfilling our purpose. Why? because he created us in order to give us good. But he has a system that he gave to himself, if you will, where you cannot give good to something that betrays you. Just like you cannot give a present to a a child that disrespects you or curses you or goes against you. If you give such a child a present, you're a terrible parent and that child will become a little Hitler because you're in essence rewarding him for evil. So, Hashem wants to give us but in order for that gift to be to achieve the ultimate good we have to achieve good in order to deserve good. So if we don't do good then in essence we are doing things that are uh antithetical to the creation meaning that we're not allowing him to give us the good that he created us to give us because we are not doing we're not fulfilling uh the the good that we're supposed to. So we get punished for in essence uh rejecting the ability to get what he wants to give us. It's like, for example, if you have a uh a machine, a computer, and uh the computer decides that you spent $10,000 for it, and the computer is supposed to be really good on the internet and in graphics and in AI and all the wonderful things, right? And you turn it on, and the only thing that the computer does is just make sound. Beep. Other than that, it doesn't do anything else. Doesn't go on the internet, doesn't do AI, doesn't go graphics. the monitor doesn't turn on. All that does make a really really annoying sound. Now you press some buttons, you hit it, you kick it, you screw it, you do a lot of different things. Doesn't matter. Nothing changes. Beep. You bring a technician. Bring his brother too. Bring his cousin. Bring the entire Best Buy team. Bring Geek Squad. Bring CDW. Bring all the C. Brings HP. You all Packard and Dell's owners to your house all to fix this computer. Everybody works on it. At the end, beep. Same thing. It's like, listen, everybody tells you, "Listen, we don't know. We put all the parts. We put everything. It's just all it knows how to do is beep." What do you do with the computer? >> Throw in the garbage. Why? It doesn't serve its purpose. I bought you. I spent money on you. I did everything on you so you could do my will. When you're not willing to do it, there's no there's no purpose for your creation. So in essence the same concept goes to but same concept with a person if a person does not do the will of Hashem they are in essence rejecting the purpose of their creation. >> Yes. >> Somebody I heard somebody say that was quoting the >> said that when somebody believes in the mid they're sick in their soul. I kind of believe that the Ram said this because obviously like truth spreads out as truth truth always that means that foreign extensions are true. So they're literal they're met everything. So the midress is truth >> how does like one of the all time like say such a thing >> right? So the thing is though you have to understand learning you know and it's it's a person cannot read them literally they have to understand when they read them they also have to read about what other said in order to interpret what they said so the same concept goes about and let's say uh who came before the Rambam talks about uh you know reincarnation and he says it you know simply oh those that believe the reincarnation are fools. Now obviously we know from the Torah from oral Torah the written Torah we know a lot of things endless proofs of reincarnation plus we have you know proofs physical proofs of reincarnation. So what the mean is that when you believe this at face value as this is it then you're a fool. Meaning if you believe that Hashem gave you the stories of with the big fish or the big bird or the big frog or all these different things just to tell you a story about a big frog or just to tell you a story about Moshe Rabenu uh you know flying in the air to go fight OG. If you believe just that you're a fool you're sick in the heart. Why? Because there's a lot more to the Torah. If you believe reincarnation that it just this one became this one and that was it, your mind is too simple to even delve into the subject. Why? There's much more to it. is so when people believe things at face value that's this is just it then they're considered fools in the eyes of the same concept when people misunderstand about what the Rambam said about uh shadim saying people believe in shadim it's it's wrong it's not that you have to understand that the the ra was saying that there's a specific type of that does not exist in is he didn't say he doesn't believe in any of the why because to to not believe in any of the would not only uh be a unique opinion but it would be heresy in the and heresy in the Torah as well because it's in the Torah it's in it's in different parts of the Torah it's in the Tanakh and it's also in a in the in the whole the whole story with Ashai this is in the Torah it's not a fairy tale So a person has to understand that what the Rambam was referring to is a specific type of the talks about how there's different types. There's one that is a shed that is completely spiritual. Then there's one that is uh half spiritual, half uh physical. Then there's one that's completely physical, meaning he looks like you and I, human body. He gets married, he has kids, but he's a shindal. Then there's Mazikim. There's a bunch of different creations. So that specific one he says doesn't exist in is not all the different types all the bells and whistles all the all the different things. So a person needs to know that anytime you're going to arrive at what the say or the midrash says or the says or any part of the Torah says never take it at face value. Always look at what's around it. What the explain it as because you will see that the says that they're poor in one place and rich in another. Meaning that in one place you're going to see one sentence about it and another place you're going to see 15 sentences about it and in another place you're going to see three sentences about it and then another place you're gonna see one word about it. What do you do? You combine all of them. then you know what is you never take things at simply this one sentence the end it's never like that about any subject okay we're going to have some more questions and answers on Wednesday nightm hopefully you guys enjoyed the as much as you enjoy the food but uh just in case we brought the food uh but uh on Wednesday night we're gonna do the stump the rabbi starts at nine o'clock we're gonna have some our uh Wednesdays. Bring some friends, bring some appetites, and bring a lot of questions. Anyone that wants to support, wants to be partners in all the amazing things we do can donate at bzashem.org bht.org and most importantly continue learn to Heat. Heat. [music] Heat. Heat. >> [music]