Are You Doing It for Hashem — or for the Money? Rabbi Rakhmin Dodobayev

Rabbi Yosef Haim, he wrote the book Mashal Nimshal. In that book uh there's a small story that a guy walking around the street and he sees that there's a big noise somewhere on the street and at a corner. So, he comes over and he sees people over there playing cards. Says and they were all Jewish, unfortunately. And he says to them, "How can you play cards? It's forbidden to play cards. It's forbidden. It's a virah. It's ganivah. It's It's stealing." And he was giving them mussar. Ethics. He was telling them not to do it. And they gathered all the money and they gave it to this person says, "You know what? You're right. These are the money for you." So, the guy sees he got a salary. He was so happy. So, he went uh he he bought he bought some stuff. So, one month he was uh he was very fortunate. >> [music] >> And then all of a sudden he sees he has no money in his pocket. Then he says, "Aha, where can I get the money? Oh, I'm going to go again to that corner. Maybe if they can play money, >> [music] >> they're going to give me the money and they'll have a pity on me." So, he goes again they're playing cards. He comes over and says, "How dare you playing cards?" And people they looking very angry and they tell him, "Get out of here." And they beat him up so badly. He got a black eye and so on. They broke his arm and they broke his legs and he comes to the rabbi and he says, "Rabbi, this what happened to me. First time I went in, I spoke with them, they gave me their money, they made it to show up. The second time I went in, >> [music] >> they threw me out. They They start punching me." The rabbi told him, "Listen, the first time when you spoke, you spoke with out of your soul, out of your heart. The second time when you came over, you came over to make some money. And that's why they figure out that you are a faker." So, the Ben Ish Hai says, "What comes out from this story? When we all start we all start from our souls And then the Yitzhara comes over, he tells us, "Ah, you don't need to do it, you know, just, you know, uh it's not so important." >> [music] >> And then we're losing our heart and our souls. These days we should bring our souls, our hearts back to pray to Hashem with intention. [music] I wish everybody Chodesh Tov U'Mevorach and Ketiva U'Chatima Tova.