MUSSAR Iggeret HaRAMBAN

[Music] we are going to start a new series today um my intention is is to uh have a series than the last one we had a the series which is one of the foundations of all M was a two and a half year series so uh we figured we'll try to do something a little uh shorter uh but uh from just even learning for the first je the the way of Holiness it's um I don't know how short it's actually going to end up being I mean yes technically we can cover it in uh one Shure but you're not really going to you know change much if you do that I'm going to try to do obviously a series my uh estimation I would say is maybe this is going to be about six months probably about six months worth of shim depending on how many shim we have per week on this series uh but either way um the the series is going to be about one of the most important letters that has ever been written this letter is a letter that has been printed probably more times than any other letter in history the letter has been written in your in many cases especially in many cases have this letter in their many people have included this letter in their uh and for the last 800 or so years this letter has been distributed in countless languages places and there's a lot of different commentaries on the letter in reality you can study this letter from now until the end of the world and you probably still find new new things from it and the letter is called Aran the letter that the ramban RAB mhei RAB m benman G he R MOS was uh lived in gundi in um in Spain and uh but he's more well known as the ramban with the N at the end there's the rambam which we've spoken about many times uh my manad and then there's the ramban uh which is no less known uh it may be not as popular as the rambam in certain aspects but in the world of Tora the enormous amount of uh Tora that he wrote when you start delving into it a little bit you see quickly that uh anyone that studied the rambam immediately continued and started learning the ramban which was the very next generation and uh the amount of Tora that he wrote whether it was is World encompassing commentary on the entire talmud or the entire tah or the different uh M books that he put together and letters and discourses or the very famous debate that he had in Barcelona against the uh Jew that went astray and became a Christian and tried to debate am Isel by saying that the Messiah already came his name was yesu and they forced the the ran to debate him they forced one Jew that's a heretic to debate a Jew that's a sadik because they wanted to show to the Christian world and the Jewish world that hey uh you know Christianity is the way to go now the ran did not want to do this debate because he knew that the way that the Christians play is not exactly very fair if you lose then they're very happy but if you win they kill you and your family and your friends and most likely everybody that you know and you don't know so the ran knew this about the Christians nothing has changed by the way in 800 years they still play unfair typically if you watch any debates typically the expert Debaters in the Christian world look for rabbis that at least when it comes to knowledge about debating and knowledge about Christianity there um the underdog to say the least some of them are halfway when it comes to the issue and I call them that simply because they should have never allowed themselves on the stage if you don't know their world better than them you're not allowed to go on stage why because then you but unfortunately many people like the stage and they go and debate these Christians and cause a big or sometimes people call themselves rabbis but they're really not even Jewish so it's very confusing it's very confusing but the point is is that when is a real Rabbi that's knowledgeable that's knows who what when how in Judaism as well as how to debate it how to defend it when he wins if the Christians can take advantage and manipulate it they will for example a lot of people for almost 30 years have been uh trying to convince Rabbi toia singer to debate Michael Brown again they debated already 30 years ago and they want to debate again and Rabbi Toby singer a us to even uh entertain it why he won the first debate then he didn't lose why why does he why doesn't he want to debate him again because Michael Brown is a scam artist and he manipulated the recordings he manipulated a lot of different things and uh he did a lot of different things that are against the rules of debate so people like that there's no debate same thing goes with that uh monster what's his name Shapiro that monster uh Shapiro that uh calls himself a Messianic Jew but uh definitely looks like he just came out of a crazy hospital he wanted to debate me and uh we have no interest in debating anybody we just put out the information and you do what you want with it you want to go to Gom don't follow it you want to go to ganed follow it that's it very simple and we brought a lot of proofs against Christianity but he made a couple of videos trying to defend it but really just stepped on his own feet but I actually asked about I asked about uh who this person is when we were doing research on the person and uh I actually got fantastic information when uh there was a potential debate That was supposed to happen between him and Rabbi tovia singer raber tovia singer was actually entertaining debating this monster because shapira did not exactly uh you know wake up yesterday he realized that he's going to lose so what did he do he simply tried to get Rabbi to Singa arrested by calling the uh the authorities of some foreign country that he was in and saying he's a terrorist and saying he's a crazy person and so on and so forth simply try to get him arrested so he doesn't show up to the debate so after that obviously they're not going to debate no one's going to debate such a psychopath the point is why am I tell you all this stuff number one we always have to make sure that we fulfill our of insulting idolatry says what is a Jew what's a Jew who's called a Jew who's called a Jew what said somebody because his mom's a Jew there's a lot of people that their moms are Jew and they're not exactly Jews who's a Jew says is a Jew yeah but why is m a Jew M was a Jew because he defended Judaism against idolatry is a Jew even though before Judaism she's still a Jew why she defended Judaism she defended the tah against idolatry anyone that fights idolatry that's a Jew that's a Jew the ran Shalom 800 years ago was put in a position where he was the only one that can and would defend Judaism knowing that it's very likely that they're going to kill him in immediately either during the debate after the debate nonetheless Hashem protected him he made a very big Kem and he destroyed Christianity in a 4-day debate 4day debate but after this debate the Christians don't like taking a loss so they pretend like they won telling different people that they won and uh then they decided to go tell the Jews they want also so they went to the synagogue where the ramban was actually uh staying at because he wasn't from Barcelona and decided to uh give a lecture in in the synagogue by Christianity thinking the ramban's over there but he's not GNA say anything because why because debate's over debate's over if he says something we're going to kill him now now there's no rules during a debate we promised the king promised him he's not going to kill him but now bet they thought that the ran is scared of them so as soon as they finished talking the ramban gave such a lecture the walls did chuva the walls did chuva the king walked out some of his other people walked out and a few stayed behind destroying Christianity all over and this is actually also one of the things that's published in the point is is that in order to BEC a it's not just about reading a lot of books or being very smart or having photographic memory or we're doing a few big mitv here and there in order to become a a giant you have to know rule number one is that you have to fight for the Torah under all cost at any place at any time it's part of the reason why the Tor is called there a in the Tora says means the book of Wars Rashi on the play says what's book of Wars says t what Wars wars to defend the Torah Wars to defend so now the ran everything and anything that he touched he made sure that it's full of Kus he made sure to check it and double check it and triple check it to make sure that this is the right representation of our holy Torah and not just spit things out because they sound good I'll tell you a good story just to make you feel good so much so that after this debate after winning the debate the ramban realized that some people may fall for the trick of thinking that the Christians won because they didn't hear it they weren't there and there's a lot more Christians in the world than there are Jews so what did he do he wrote down word for word what both sides said and from this place we have this till today 800 years have passed 800 years have passed not a single Christian in the world can respond to these questions that the ramban brought up meaning if anybody ever wants to win a debate all they need to do is Master this section of the ramban that's it you don't need anything else actually if you add anything else you're probably going to ruin it you're going to ruin it why you have one of the biggest giants that ever lived not just 800 years ago ever put everything on a silver platter but people think that they're smart and clever and they do their own thing and sometimes ruin it the point is that after he put this into paper and he publicized it the church did not like this very much and put out a uh in essence a bounty on his his head but since the king promised them that they're not going to kill him gave him a little bit of a warning and allowed him to escape of course it's all a protecting anyone that's fulfilling a Mitzvah will never get hurt from it and the ramban at almost 70 years old a little over 70 years old escaped and went to is after he arrived at is he settled in AKO first but then on his I believe it was the second year he decided that he's going to spend in he was expecting to see the beauty the glory all the things he ever learned in his life by he thought I'm going to see some beauty there when he arrives in he writes a letter to his son M breaks your heart he tells his son Y is in ruins the Holier the place the more Hashem destroyed it you would think the opposite but nonetheless it is the Holier it is the more hasem destroyed it but he decided to take one of the abandoned houses over there turn into AET have his over there he uh made a very very well-known discourse a big lecture if you will about that's published also in we'll go over that as well throughout the series um but you see the depth of each one of their words the that reviewed his work if you're you have to review his work you can't be a without it and that reviewed his work they went to the extent of saying in all of his work imagine a set of books bigger than anything you have here covering the then more books on the entire T then more books on then more books onal W how much cabala then more books on mus then more I mean every subject you can imagine philosophy science everything you can imagine he wrote about it they say all of that work work all of it from beginning to end there's not a single letter in there meaning every letter every not every word not every sentence not every paragraph every letter was placed at the right place at the right time so when you review his work you realize this is big but for us to review what he wrote in the the Tor I mean aside from it taking uh probably a lifetime it a uh yeah I have to be a big to do that and I think that we have to start small so we start with one of the most famous letters that was ever written if not the most famous letter called which the ran wrote to his son nman named after his father that was still back in Spain the ramban wrote him once he got to is I believe this was the second year that the ramban was in is which was only uh a couple years before he went to and uh he wrote this to his son and each and every single word in this letter can be studied reviewed over and over again to the extent of making us into actual turning us from animals that all of us are still are at some point or another some more some less into human beings into what wants you to be by destroying the horrible midot that's within our nature that's so ingrained in our nature sometimes we don't even realize it's bad sometimes you H you get so used to bad character traits you don't even think it's bad why I haven't called you in seven eight years say thank you for anything you've ever given me never nothing never this so but every time I call you the first time I called you in five years I decide to ask for something there's nothing wrong with that why meaning people do things and they don't see anything wrong with it what I just saw there was some money on the table and I took it what what why why would I think it's yours well my house it's my office I don't know you could put two and two together if it's my house or it's my office if there's money there usually belongs to me if you found it in the street ah yeah there's 8 billion people in the street but if it's inside my house it's inside my my office more times than not it's probably mine oh it's his I didn't think about that I didn't think about that you didn't think about that you didn't think about that people don't see clearly and even when they do something wrong many times they're so used to it they've done it so many times that they've gotten to the point where they don't see any bad in it at all someone can walk around with body odor that's so hideous you think you're in a zoo you think that you're you you're you're visiting you know one of these Farms that you know on the farm you expect you know the cows are not exactly uh you know they don't smell like roses you go to a farm on what is it Sheridan Sheridan or or sterling sterling there's a nice uh cow Farm over there I want to go there one day every time we go over there I see all the cows it look like they're having fun don't look like they're stressfree having a good time eating some grass but I bet you if you get a little closer it doesn't smell like roses over there why it's cows some people walk around like this but they're people and they don't see anything wrong with it they don't see anything wrong with it somebody sent me a question I want to show you examples real life examples you don't think I'm just the only one in the world that think this stuff somebody asked me a question today today live can you please tell me the of flushing the toilet on the holiday and Shabbat because we just came back from a getaway a weekend getaway that was a Jewish event and uh the uh I don't know apparently some you know people there were complaining the workers there were complaining that certain amount of Jewish people decided not to flush the toilet and when they complain to them why don't you flush the toilet it's disgusting you know we're not in a zoo they said no it's against our religion it's Shabbat it's it's p so this poor person asked me innocently please tell me didn't know I'm violating Shabbat I'm violating the my flush in the toilet now they're innocent obviously they're not violating Shabbat there's no such Al They you're not allowed to flush the toilet on Shabbat in fact fact it's a sin from the Tor to not flush the toilet because you're causing other people harm you're causing AEM how do you explain such things you explain such things because some people are either so disgusting they've gotten used to disgusting and they think that the rest of the world should also jump along in their disgusting world or or their humor their humor and just nonchalant attitude about other people's feelings other people's like hygiene other people's Health other people's existence if you will simply is not part of their think thought process at all they just want to see what you're going to do so they go to public bathrooms and destroy the public bathroom and you go over there you're like what nobody works here no somebody works there it's just that people are disgusting do this in your own house now where there other people why do I tell you all this disgusting stuff because this disgusting stuff is what we see every day every day you go to public bathrooms they're disgusting you go to hotels disgusting some places you go to beet you go to a uh store you go anywhere you see people for some reason or another have no problem sometimes acting disgusting why because they haven't learned the they have gotten so used to their negative traits they forgot they were bad they don't realize that they were bad they don't realize disgusting exists there are many things that are considered disgusting I'm showing you things that are clear and simple for you to understand like smell like hygiene but writes in the T someone that's arrogant is also considered disgusting also considered dis there are many things that are considered disgusting to hem meaning that if a person wants to get close to a first and foremost stop being disgusting now easy part taking a shower being uh you know maintaining your hygiene realizing there's other people in the world that's easy that would take you a decision that's 5 seconds and one day that's it the rest of the stuff is a life time why because that means you have to work on your midot and start identifying what is considered disgusting in the eyes of my Creator so the that the ramban wrote to his son begins with humility and ends with humility with an ultimate goal of reaching with an ultimate goal of reaching a level where you have viewed as beautiful in the eyes of hem and every little line every little verse can be studied in depth but today before we start the letter we're going to go into a section of introducing it trying to get a little bit of of a better idea of the world around this letter like we've talked about so far the commentary on the letter before the letter the introduction this is some of the parts that for whatever reason or another people miss out a lot you know when they buy a book many times people buy a book I mean like a real book like not not Harry Potter people buy a book one book or a different's book whether it be or or whatever it is or even just a a for whatever reason or another people feel like it's perfectly fine and a given to skip the introduction the author's introduction the uh editor introduction the translators introduction whoever worked on his book usually wrote an introduction and they skip it just to go to the meat right way I personally think this is a very big mistake it's a very big mistake number one is because everyone knows that your first impression better be good if it's not good if it's not good most likely we're not moving forward a book A book takes a while to build up usually most books take a while to build up they don't go to the climatic part point of the book right away takes time to build it up takes time to even connect to the book sometimes a few chapters but the introduction the preface the part that the author the the uh the editor the translator whoever worked on his on his book this this body of work whoever did it the introduction that's in essence the best of the best if the intro is bad you can rest assure the rest of it's garbage why cuz that person is not writing the intro in the beginning you're reading it in the beginning he's writing the intro after he sacrificed years of his life writing the whole book Pretty much telling you this is what to expect but in a very short form instead of five six 700 pages one two three four five pages so you'll see that there's a lot of wisdom in the introductions for example I remember when I first listened to the series uh by I think that the introduction the first page of the was probably the longest part of the entire series I think it was two lectures if I remember correctly whereas the rest of it which are chapters which are much longer than the introduction the rest of it were usually one lecture each but the introduction two lectures why if you have a good introduction you're going to know what to do with the rest if you don't have a good introduction you're going to be confused you don't know where you are who is this person why should I listen to him it's a lot of questions so as I said it's a Monumental letter that was written 800 years ago as a letter from the ran to his son and of course if the ran wrote this letter which is only a couple of pages telling Specific Instructions to his son of how to get to become the ultimate servant of a obviously knows that his son is capable of doing it so tonight's sh I forgot but result I thought about it the whole time I just didn't know what to say it tonight's Sho is also going to be for for uh Rene B Rose and also s Raam raan Leana and all of so is a way for the ramban to give his son a set of instructions of how to manage his life from that day moving forward for the rest of his life by the way if anybody has a mind to lower the air conditioner to uh normal temperature it's it's lowered it's already lowered in the T still apparently okay said when I go out to sh I say you don't have to send to G was already in there um so some of the commentaries that the put on the on the ran on this letter is this where the wrote a uh published this letter and is one of the uh main places that have published this letter and commentary on it and says the following he instructed his son to read this letter once every week to inspire him to act with humility to read it every week to teach it to his children so that they might learn it by heart in order to train them in their youth to fear God now this may seem like a very simple instruction very simple commentary but even the commentary did not get to where it is simply by their own opinion why there's a p in that says this there's a p in the Tor that says in Proverbs 22 verse number fourl says the result of humility is why do we teach humility because it'll get you to which means that if you see an arrogant person walking around you don't have to ask or even think whether he has or not it's impossible to have it one goes with the other you have eventually you'll reach humility you have humility you will reach why because in essence what what are you doing with with either whether it's humility or in essence you are identifying there are eyes that are watching you at all times is watching you at all times if every person here every person watching every person that will watch in the future this lecture decides to take one thing from the entire series which I have no idea how many lectures going to be just takes one thing from now on I'm going to act as if a is watching me all the time that's it nothing else he listens to everything else goes in deleted box that person become sadik that person becomes a perfect sadik perfect sik why if you believe and you act as if you believe that aosh is watching you at all times automatically you will start acting differently over time you'll start seeing that certain things that have become normal to you are not exactly acceptable behavior are not exactly what should be normal you start questioning yourself why because Somebody's Watching in companies that are big companies everybody messes around not that you know most employees they don't work the whole time you know you pay them 9 to5 but they don't work 9 to5 really people say oh yeah I have a night to five yeah if you work three hours a day it's a it's a it's a miracle don't work why they mess around they go they smoke they eat they chitchat they hide in the stock room they hide in inside the stock itself yeah do stuff yeah why because they don't believe anybody's watching cuz they assume that the only one that's watching is the boss and the boss is on break the boss went to a meeting the boss is watching a different department a different Factory a different place they forgot there's a bigger boss it's called a and a is always watching he's never on break he's never in a meeting and when you're sitting over there stealing your boss's time he writes in the book yeah thief thief stole three hours from his boss doing absolutely nothing when the boss specifically instructed him please during those 3 hours make sure you finish the reports make sure you finish the research make sure you take care of this this and this now in some cases some bosses are lenient they know you're going to mess around They Don't Really Care why because that's just the way the uh the way of the company for example Google is one of those companies in the technology World apparently has become very very common they have like a different approach cuz they have different type of employees and they actually help their employees waste time they help them they give them a game room a lunch room a sleep room they have a a room just to go to sleep in the middle of the day they're paying you for it go sleep there have your a little place you go sleep over there go play go uh play basketball play all types of things why because they're not measuring you on the number of hours that you're work they're measuring you based on performance you have certain deadlines you have certain things that we're going to measure you on we're going to give you six months a year two years we're going to invest in you we're going to pay you a few hundred, a year and we want something that's worth a few million dollars in two years from now do whatever you want play don't play doesn't make a difference to us work even on your own application your own side business doesn't make a difference but in two years from now in two years from now deadline six hours from now deadline now you may think oh yeah so maybe the guy is going to waste time for two years and then eventually he's going to catch up no my friend doesn't work that way why because the reality is if you're going to do something meaningful it's going to take you some time it's going to take you some time yes you could mess around a little bit and waste time a little bit but you're going to have to be a relatively focused person to get to the promised land to get to some significant project so if you're going to be eating beastly in bomba all day within two years you're not going to have a job and that's a very very bad decision to lose such a job if you already have one like that the point is that not all companies are the same some companies will allow you to waste time because they know that's just part of the the job I remember I had a friend uh in New York he used to have uh restaurants and I asked them one time how do you uh run all these restaurants when you're never actually there you know you watch everything on camera here and there but you travel a lot like aren't you afraid of people going to steal go of course they steal I said so so why don't you fire them he goes no they have to steal of course they steal the job of the restaurer the guy that owns the restaurant is just to make sure they don't steal too much they leave you some you want to be a successful restaurant you want to be successful in restaurant you should know get-go they're going to steal the employees the waiters The Waitresses the cooks the the chefs the cashier the everybody they're going to steal for sure they're going to steal but if you want to own the place just make sure they don't steal too much leave you some that's the way it works apparently in the restaurant business Sodom and Gomorrah world that we live in but it's true it's true people steal so much they forget it's stealing so schl already told us that if you want to get to you have to start with humility and that's in essence what the says that this letter is all about this letter is about humility in order to get to to the fear of godav writes in his all types of wonderful uh words about this but the thing that stood out is that he says the ramban promises his son that any day that he should write he should read this letter every day and that any day that he reads this letter he will not have any problems and the says this is not a promise just to his son this is a promise to anybody that's going to read this letter that's why made sure to get this letter to the rest of the world and the says every person should read this letter at least once per week at least once per week so you connect to says fortunate is the person who listens to the ramban's words because he will achieve Serenity and peace of mind what are these words read this letter once a week at least and if you do read it once a week or even if you read it once a month or you read it uh throughout this series whatever the case is you're going to see that the more times you read this letter the more you connect to it the more you understand different things next week I'm going to bring you guys a copy of the uh letter in a book but since we uh didn't get it yet and also um uh we're not going into the letter yet well uh I in bring it with me but I I'll place the order and I'll get it for you guys I'll bring it next week for anyone that's going to come on a regular basis uh if you want to get it on your own you could just go to artscroll.com they sell thousands of these there's a uh hard copy version soft copy version $3 version $15 version whatever version you want the point is is to read it but it's not just the letter the letter itself you can get for free it's the commentary that's important the letter you can read but it's really important to know what the commentary is now the ramban says that when he saw how yush was as destroyed as it is you would think that he would take all of the people that are in y they're living in Ruins places destroyed you figured that he's going to be like I don't know maybe like more of like a modern day Rabbi that's gonna give everybody everything's okay because sikim everybody has a share of the world to come don't worry the terrorist came he shut up but he's not going to break us up we're going to be United we're going to be strong no one's going to take that's what he going say right like today's Rabbi something happens everybody's yeah yeah everybody everybody that died is a martyr everybody that died is a sadik all of a sudden everybody's good so he figur he goes to you're surrounded by death pretty much I know my my grandfather I love a Shalom sa Gabriel when he's all the stories of what he saw during the time of the Holocaust during World War II they eventually got to tripol they eventually got to that part of the world and they started bombing started bombing civilian areas everywhere he says people were dying when they were throwing the bombs people were dying in the street like flies flies flies people were dying in the hundreds and hundreds of people regular not soldiers regular people regular people walking around bomb boom hundreds and hundreds of people blowing up body pieces everywhere and no one knew what to do my grandfather she unbelievable that he has it's it's it's a extraordinary him and I believe one of his brothers or a couple of his brothers they took the bodies and buried them talk the bodies arms legs I can't even think of stuff like this and I remember my mom told me when he would come home every night after burying all these bodies he would be full of blood full of blood of the people that he buried and my mom asked him as a little girl ABA weren't you scared you know you go to the cemetery late at night he would tell them stories of how he saw all types of Spirits there things moving noises all types of stuff you tell them stories about it because you know every time I look at my hands I see all their faces he looks at his hands he sees the faces of all the people he buried see their faces on his hands so my mom tells a little girl she says ABA aren't you scared he says BCI my daughter you don't need to be scared of dead people need to be scared of living people living people are you scared of they're already dead they're dead so when you have a place of ruins Y is in a couple of days by the way maybe tomorrow we'll talk a little bit about it when you think about times of Wars there are literally there's no mercy there is what the politically correct world like to call likes to call collateral damage everywhere but in reality it's horrifying so you would think the ran shows up is is shows up to a city in Ruins there are a few Jews that stayed behind holy Jews that stayed behind they're there you would think the rabbi theor he's already older he's in his 70s he's give them a nice everybody you're okay stay United loves you that's what people today do somebody slips on a banana everybody's okay you all have a share of the world to come same thing as if they die somebody dies everybody's okay so you don't really know what's bad because every doesn't make a difference what you say what happens everybody's okay stay United ever as well to C so you don't really know if it's bad is it good what just happened now B why I got the same news is it P is it is it is it it's always the same lecture everybody's okay everybody has share the world to come love everybody thean gives a lecture I mean if you I'll you know what to save the time I'll just read it for you I'll read not the whole lecture I'll give you I'll give you a little bit of an understanding so because I'm I'm trying to put the words together and is not giving it to me and I'm telling you because I don't think you can say this any clearer this is what he this is what he says in the lecture now the cities in Ruins cities in Ruins and I'm I highlighted a little bit so I'm going to read you why I highlight it he says in the rabbi said in the Hereafter meaning after the uh mhia comes time mhia comes this is beginning two 2 a and Hereafter the Holy One blessed is he blessed be he will bring a scroll of the law meaning will bring the seph T and place it on his lap and say he who has engaged in the study and observance of this Torah shall come forward and receive reward thereupon aware that they're not they can't claim that they have any share of this reward since they didn't study the Torah all the nations of the world will gather and assemble in confusion and and trepidation they're going to be scared to death why they learned toah they learned Bible they learn new new false Testament they learn muhamad they learn a lot of junk but by the way this also includes all of the Jews that are learning junk same thing so the Holy One blessed is he what is he GNA say to them what do you say to them don't worry stay United everybody has a share the world what is he going to say what is he going to say don't come before me in confusion were you confused I don't want to see you you conf diffused you don't know what to do here oh that means you don't learn t i don't look at you why the ran continues all that came into the world passes before him pertaining to matters of this world each one is Judge to determine if he is worthy of being granted peace riches possessions and honor or whether he will be sentenced to die during that year or to suffer visitations of Affliction sorrow and poverty in short the Judgment of concerns all matters that affect the human body in this world including life children sustenance however does not Embrace a judgment of the soul that whether the soul is worthy of ganeden and enjoyment of eternal life of the world to come or whether it will be sentenced to G and destruction this is abai the beginning this is how he starts the lecture to a bunch of people that live in Ruins at no point does he give them everybody's okay everybody has a share of the world to come don't worry you're okay she's okay because we're okay because we suffer no point in fact no does that nobody does that only today people that claim to be do it which means a very very interesting point of view that you have to look at the r what is he what is he actually really teaching Us in few words no matter what tragedy you have in your life you had in your life no matter what difficulty you have in your life you had in your life no matter what is going on at no point throughout your entire life of 120 years do you have permission from a to sin yes there's a holocaust yes there is a prgram yes there's an inquisition yes there's a destruction yes there's a lot of bad stuff that doesn't make a difference when it comes to Tor you still have to follow the Tor you still have to follow the T why because the tah is Rules from God the very same God that put all of these laws together that put all of these problems together meaning that the rambam is trying to teach us that the whole point of our tah is not just for good times not just for when things are easy but the contrary the opposite it's for all the time especially when times are difficult you never have a get out of jail free ticket this is why he gave a bunch of people on the head much stronger M than I could ever teach when during one of the most difficult times in their life now why does the rambam one of the biggest giants that ever lived in the world feel that opposite really what's popular today why does he feel that he should give a little bit of strong conversation Gom G all types of stuff that not everybody really likes to talk about at least not one of those subjects why does he feel like he should give it to people that are already struggling why what what makes that okay what makes that okay if a person understands what is our point in the world what is the job in the world then You' understand that m is not character development in order to improve you as a human being only but the literal definition of m is self-discipline self-discipline in order to attain self-control now when you think about self-control every one of us can think about at least one or two people that we know that are completely out of control sometimes they're out of control naturally all the time sometimes they look like everything's under control until something happens oh she looks like she's under control under control under control under control under control until there's no money in the bank there's no money in the bank or the check bounced or I don't know something happened what all control gone oh he looks like everything is under control until somebody uh didn't pay him until somebody insulted him until somebody you know you know uh cut him off in the highway he looks like he's under control like oh he's such a happy guy happy guy all the time somebody cuts him off in the highway all of a sudden you see this gorilla come out what like scared you could become you could become a little what are those things uh the um what those things the grape that they make in small what is it called uh raisin ra become a little raisin you become a little raisin next what happened what did he do he like murder somebody you like he cut me offy hey guy okay he cut a lot of other people off also you lose control lose control so M as funny as it is it's supposed to teach us self-control meaning that one of the Ambitions that you're supposed to have in your life is attaining self-control and attaining Perfection of your character in simple language being the same under all conditions always with a smile always positive always in essence under control that is supposed to be your pursuit in life always understanding that a is here everything is under control not because you know that you're controlling it no opposite because you're not controlling anything he's controlling it yeah but everything's out of control it's a flat tire late appointment got fired there's no food in the fridge there's no money in the bank there all types of problems IRS is calling government's this all types of stuff happens yes yes stuff happens knows what he's doing the point of all of the M that we learn on a day-to-day basis is to try to shape our own character in order to perfect it to the point where we're always the same we're always okay we're always going straight of course they're going to be sometimes the smile is bigger than others sometimes you're going to even have to cry somebody dies a big Rabbi dies somebody you have to cry it's three days you cry but you don't lose your mind you don't lose control you don't lose your cool to the extent where you start doing things that are the old version of you why because if you do that that means nothing has Chang that just means it was dormant for a while like a volcano a volcano is still a volcano volano even when it's not erupting but no smart person is going to go play next to the volcano why cuz it can erupt at any moment doesn't want to mess with us if we're still a volcano he says no no you have to remove the volcano out of your life you have to shape your character to the point where it's no longer a volcano theim tried to teach contain your anger contain your feelings keep him in inside keep him inside keep him inside guess what the guy dies at 65 years old 55 years old 45 years old 25 years old why he's been containing it the whole time m is supposed to teach us how to shape our character in order for it not to be contained it's simply we know oh this is not good at least from the way it looks but knows what he's doing it's not good from where it looks from my perspective but thank God I'm not running the show thank God cuz I wouldn't know what to do I if I was running the show I wouldn't know what to do so thank God I'm not running the show he's running the show we keep going I still have a job to do I still have to go to beet I still have to pray I still have to learn still have to work still have to be a father still have to be a mother still have to do all this I still have to do everything I have to do no matter what what's happening how do I know what to do just look at the to gives you an instruction set from 1 to 600 20 you have an instruction set now in essence what is this trying to teach us it's trying to teach us that a really wants us to attain the self-control to purify ourselves and one of the ways that if a person doesn't take this into consideration he's simply never going to attain self-control or really anything significant in his life one of the ways to attain self-control to attain a Perfection of character is by simply looking at what motivates you what is motivating you to do XYZ and then review that motivation is that motivation pure good according to the Torah or not if it's according to the Torah go with it if your motivation is pure it's according to the Tor it has a good world around it you're going in the right direction with pure motivation you're going to get to good results good results will ultim make everything make sense to the extent where you're going to know yes it looks like it's out of control but don't worry if you keep doing the right thing good things will eventually happen when do you not have this promise when your motivation is rotten when your motivation is selfish when your motivation is only for you only for you to benefit everybody else loses I don't care what happen let them all die for all I care let them all lose for all I care let them all do this for all I care you don't care about everybody else that means a selfish motivation a selfish motivation like that it's not pure selfish motivation like that is against the Torah with such a motivation you're never going to attain self-control why because you're yourself out of control because your motivation is off balance it's a against what you're supposed to do this means that before you make every single move you have to ask yourself why am I doing this I'm working for such and such company why okay I'm working to make a living good you don't have to necessarily believe in all the dreams of the boss you're working that to make a living you're a teacher you're a doctor you're a lawyer you're I don't know uh archaeologist whatever you are you're working there to make a living your real life begins after work fine but now you're still at work now right okay you're there if you were the boss watching you now watching somebody like you would you be happy with you if you are the boss watching somebody working like you really now would you be happy with you when you're playing with your phone all day when you're sleeping in the bathroom for an extra half hour because last night you went out and had a couple of drinks but you're pretending to have a bad stomach but in reality you're just tired so you're sleeping in the bathroom like would you hire you if the answer is no that means that there's a very serious problem here your motivation is to make money fine no problem making money you need to make money money is a tool we need to use in the world but you're going about it in a very rotten way very selfish way you're assuming that you're entitled to it you're assuming they just have to pay you all this money CU you went to school or because you showed up or because you have a good-look eyelash or something I don't know like that's wrong that's a rotten motivation it's a rotten motivation you have a partnership with somebody great you're going to do a partnership your business his business obviously you're trying to partner because you're trying to make 1 plus 1 equal 3 you're trying to make more together than you would wake by yourself fine but are you being honest with this partner or you're trying to like wheel and deal on the side you're trying to cheat him in a different way you're trying to make sure that all the customers that pay cash that doesn't go in a register all the customers that they could do something on the side pay your a little bit of partnership on the side you're not going to tell them so you get the customers to do second business with you first business with both of you second business just with you and that's what happens in a lot of Partnerships in the beginning everything looks fine one guy needs money the other guy needs uh you know a uh equipment or Talent or whatever it is they join everybody's good Kaya everybody's happy they make money a little bit but eventually somebody gets greedy they said listen I'm working harder than him he's working harder than this so what do they do they start something on a side so all the customers come to the main company they say listen you ever need me call me it's a card but the phone number is his cell phone number phone number the email is his personal email so when he calls him finally two three four months later he does a job but on his private company not the company that came that's stealing that's a 100% stealing you go to person goes to sh Thief what happens to a thief a thief comes back to get sometimes he'll come back as a screw sometimes he'll come back as a dog sometimes he'll come back as a wall I'll come back as something to pay back the person he stole you stole a screw you'll come back as a screw you stole some money you'll come back as a bank teller ATM machine why you're not allowed to go to geden as a thief can't but this happens normally why because people do not review their actions and the purity of their actions they only look at things from their perspective this is also what makes it very difficult to work with people when you know this stuff it's very difficult to work with people why because you see people's colors you see that yeah they want you to work with them but in reality they want to have everything they don't want to give you anything they just simply want you to be their Workhorse they get all the benefit they get all the donations they get all the marketing they get all the fame they get everything and you just uh thank you why you're good job go go yeah you're the the generation you you go you go you okay but how I'm gonna pay how gonna how I'm GNA eat hm's gonna send you hm's GNA send you hm's gonna send you very hard to work with people like this why because you see that if the if the if the motivation behind what they do with you is impure most likely it's impure everywhere else also so for this reason for this reason gave us the because naturally our motivation is impure naturally our motivation is selfish naturally we could only see ourselves in every equation naturally that's the way we are naturally when you have imagine this you're hungry you're hungry now you want to eat right you're hungry you want to eat one thing leads to the other now you're going to come up with I don't you have $10 in your pocket what do you think I'm going to get something for $10 to to to to make something to eat right that's your natural instinct what is it supposed to be what it's supposed to be wait maybe my wife's hungry too so maybe I should get something a little cheaper than $10 so both of us can eat maybe my kids's hungry too maybe my kids's hungry too so maybe I should get something cheaper to make it for both of us I don't have to eat a a burger the size of a Guam I can eat just enough to satiate myself what cuz I only have 10 bucks if I only have 10 bucks and I eat and I'm I'm I'm fine but then I finally get home or I you know what and the kid's hungry the wife's hungry and I don't have another $10 then what what they're going to go I'm going to be I'm going to be okay and then not naturally you think about yourself supernaturally you think about everybody else gave us and say the sole purpose of God's is to refine and purify mankind where do we know this from where do we learn this from we actually learn this from a very interesting Mitzvah in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 22 first verse very interesting mitzvah it says you shall not see the ox of your brother or his sheep or goat cast off and hide yourself from them you shall surely return them to your brother in so many words you see that one of your brothers lost something you saw that his Ox his donkey his something went astray ran away from him and you you know it's his you know it's his but he's not around it's a big field I mean it's 50 60 100 acres he's back you know 20 acres ago so if you take this bull into your Camp he's not going to tell it's not like the bull has a name on it you put it into your place he's not going to be able to tell just like if you saw one of your friends he doesn't have to be really a friend like friends meaning it's just a fellow Jew you saw your drops he takes his you know something out of his wallet and $2 or $300 fall out of his pocket he doesn't notice it falls on the floor now you could take the $300 that he dropped you could take the donkey you could take the bull and no one will ever know that it belongs to someone else why because the $300 doesn't have his name on it the donkey doesn't have his name on it the bull doesn't have his name on it you can put with the rest of your uh your cattle and everything else and you're fine you're finished you could put the $300 in your pocket no one can ever prove it is $300 T says don't do this you're not allowed to do this why what are you going to tell me oh it's not nice I give you 500 reasons of why it's perfectly nice it's nice because now the $300 gonna help me do MIT I'm G to give it to kiru I'm going to give it to some homeless guy this guy's Rich anyway he doesn't need the $300 maybe he stole the 300 oh I give you Reasons from here to next year of why it's very nice for me to think 300 bucks why does the Toran say don't do it why if you see your brother suffering even if he doesn't realize that something is hurting him even if he doesn't realize that his current status is bad for him even if he doesn't realize he's eating poison he's living a life of poison his uh his his life is radioactive it's terrible even if he doesn't realize it you sit there and do nothing about it you might as well kill the guy why because it's not human it's not human behavior to see another fellow Jew another fellow human being suffer and you just do nothing about it in fact it's specifically given us as an example from an animal why you're not even allowed to see an animal suffer and do nothing about it because if you can just see an animal see a human being suffer and it doesn't bother you you can see somebody lose you can see somebody get hit you could see somebody suffering pain and it doesn't bother you you have lost your Humanity one of the tests that the evil Nazis gave their soldiers before they decided whether they're going to accept them or not especially when it came to the ones that worked for M they would give them specific test because Mangal was I've told you guys a couple of stories about he would take Jewish people and perform all types of horrible evil tests without any anesthesia without any painkillers you just simply cut them open just to see what happens give them drug all types of horrible horrible things maybe we'll talk about it tomorrow but he himself obviously we know this is not a human being this is Mal himself but what about all the other people that worked for him all the soldiers all the other people that were bash if you ever saw a holocaust film you see these people are they taking bodies and just throwing it like it's a sack and they're eating a sandwich and they're perfectly happy they're taking pictures of it they're happy they're smoking cigarettes like it's like nothing there are thousands of dead people next to you and they're just eating a sandwich they're joking around like nothing how how do you get to that level of insanity one of the ways they tested that this person is qualified to be a Nazi qualified to be a Nazi wasn't a test of a uh paper you know it started they give them a living cat they give the Nazi before he became a Nazi they give him a living cat okay you see this cat it's cute right all right we want you to take off his head out of his body with your own hands though no knife with your own hands that's the that's the test if you can't do that you cannot be part of the army you have to murder something living innocent and Alive with your own hands if you can do that you could be a Nazi now all of us are shocked with this right this is still happening right now just in a different way a lot of us see people struggling all the time we do nothing you see a homeless guy in the street you have three four bucks in your pocket you have five bucks in your pocket you don't need you see the guy struggling you don't give him the $2 give him $3 if you have it you don't have it you don't have it you see somebody came to theet he looks a little weird he smells a little weird he acts a little weird but he's looking for sakaka and it's like annoying because you really just came here to pray yeah but he came here for money too you came here to pray he came here to make a living don't make fun of him don't say go go go he's in that position you're in that position people see their brothers and sisters living a life that guarantees them G for eternity because they because they're going against theem on a regular basis and they themselves oh I keep Shabbat oh I'm married to a Jew oh I keep MIT okay but yeah your brother your cousin your neighbor your stranger in the sh you saw him drive to sh on Shabbat you saw him eat pig you saw him violate PES how come he didn't say nothing you saw your fellow Jew guaranteeing himself guarantee Mark guarantee according to ra ra every single book ever written in Tor guarantees this person's going to gain I'm not coming out and you just sit there and look pretty no no it's not my business it's not my business that uh he violat Shabbat why do I care so you can see your fellow Jew living a life that's the opposite of what a wants for him he's driving on Shabbat she's driving on shabat he's marrying a Goya she's marrying a he's acting IM she's acting IM they're doing things that are against and you say nothing you my friend are worse than a Nazi why because at least the Nazi said I'm a Nazi that's what I do I'm a bad person I'm a Nazi but you my friend you claim to be sadik you're a Jew you're is you're you cannot see a Jew that you're somehow connected to continue living a life of sins and say nothing about it you have to do something if you don't have speaking skills don't speak I'll speak for you give him a CD you don't have money for a CD I'll give it to you for free you don't have the CD itself take a link from YouTube from this lecture from any lecture we've ever made send it them on a text message send it to them on an email oh I don't know if they're going to don't do any don't do any accounting from Heaven of what he likes what he doesn't like what he'll accept what he doesn't accept oh maybe I spoke to somebody yesterday I told him you know you have to tell people the truth you have to do this you have to do that yeah but you know you could turn them off I said I'm sorry you cannot turn off you cannot turn off somebody that's already married to a they're already as off as can be you cannot turn cold into something more black a life that's against theh is As Black As It Gets now he doesn't realize it she doesn't realizes that she's living a life against AEM she doesn't realize it but you do you have to show them hey this life that you're living I have a suggestion what is it listen to this guy you finished you finished next time you see them do you listen oh not yet oh you should listen you want to come over the house we'll listen together follow up do something do something now a lot of people going to say well you know I'm busy I got my own life I got my own problems I got my own struggles well it's time for this so gave us specific in order to refine our character and make us more human beings and less animals and one of the very well-known very famous things that Jews around the world know even if they're not religious is all of are responsible for each other now sometimes you're responsible to help each other fin financially sometimes you're responsible to help each other spiritually sometimes both the point being is that this is supposed to be one of the primary focuses of a Jewish person's life and better yet it's also supposed to be one of the primary focuses of a non-jewish person's life one of the primary responsibilities of noahides in the world is to get more people to follow the Tor whether it's to be noahides or to be more uh religious Jews it's one of their goals that's what they get reward for but if everybody's just going to worry about themselves worry about themselves worry about themselves we're going to live in a very very horrible world now a lot of people say yeah I'm really busy I work a lot I do this I do that no one's asking you to quit your job no one's asking you to start touring the country giving lectures for free no one's asking you to take your entire bank account your entire savings account your entire retirement account and uh donate it no one's asking you to do that yes every person has a responsibilities has a life has so on and so forth but let's really test let's really test if your lack of doing your lack of contributing eting your lack of action is because you're so busy or because you don't care here's a question what do you do on your free time don't tell me you don't have free time everybody has free time in fact most of our time is free people have so much free time they spend extra time in the bathroom looking at videos on the internet playing on Facebook hiding from the family people have so much free time so much free time they just take a nap in the middle of the afternoon why I didn't have anything to do I want to burn some time they chain smoke they do all types of things just to burn time people have a lot of free time what do you do on your free time tell me what do you do on your free time you have extra time at something you have 24 hours a day what do you do with those few hours you have 15 minutes you have an hour you have two what do you do with that hour a day what do you do you just sit there look at there nothing yeah you do something what do you do if you do something that's connected to helping others it's connected to getting people closer to then you care but if you still don't on your free time if you still don't with the extra money that you don't need if every single thing is only for something else then it's not because you're too busy it's because you don't care just like a crucible separates the when you take a gold for example gold is not 100% pure gold has other metals in it so they put it into a crucible you know they heat it up and so on you know to separate the purity of the gold from everything else says in Proverbs 27: that look at this there too much small print says says a refining pot is for silver and a crucible is for gold and a man according to his Praises say what is saying here what does have to do putting gold in The Crucible silver you know separating the junk from the gold and the silver what does that have to do with uh what a person Praises what do have to do with it Shalon explains he says what is trying to tell you is that in sh when they evaluate you when they evaluate what you did with your time that extra time you did when they evaluate what you did with the extra money that you didn't really need you know that that saving savings account when they evaluate what you did and who you really are they're going to want to see what's the net what's really you now you have when you find gold in a mountain or on the ground or something it's not pure gold it has other junk it has a Little Rock has some other metals has stuff in it you put it in a crucible you once you uh heat up and it's uh lava again why because all we want to get is what's the neck what's actually left from this huge Boulder that we found that we saw that there's gold in it there's some silver in it what's left because all what's left that's what I care I care about the net net net what's left of this huge Boulder what do I have three four five six seven ounces good okay that's what I have I know it's not going to be three tons but out of three tons if I get one ounce that's a good idea it's fine says in sh they're going to measure you the same way they're going to say okay fine listen you were busy you had work you were married you had kids running around the house you had all stuff you were doing fine no you had a lot of stuff to do fine right but net net what came out of all of it what came out when you had the free time when you had the extra money when the extra change the the little pushka box the all the other stuff like what came out of all of it what came out of all of it now you're going to know based on what you praise in the world based on what you say Wow to that's what you care about that's what you're going to invest into if during that time that was extra time that was time to burn you watch TV you play sports with your friends you took a nap you went for a seventh meal of the day you uh did that's what you did that's you that's your net that's who you are and shine say oh he's a hamburger he's a TV he's a imaginary football player he's all this he's that that's him that's the net net because all the other stuff work and family and kids all the he has to do that stuff to survive but how do we know who he is what does he do with the extra stuff what is he what is the stuff that motivates him when he sees something ah wow what does he say Wow to that's him that's him thisai is what each one of us has to evaluate as our what is our motivation because naturally if we do not follow the rules of the Torah our natural nature will be very harsh very selfish very unreasonable and no different than any animal in the zoo if you do not have an instruction set that's Divine the ramban says nothing separates you from the donkey that you're writing there's no difference between the two you why he's alive you're you're alive he eats you eat he gets hungry he eats you get hungry you eat he procreates you procreate he sleeps you sleep he does whatever he feels like you do whatever you feel like nothing there's no difference between you but you're not an animal that's the problem he's doing right you're not an animal he's doing his job you're not you're doing his job who's doing your job so gave us all of these mitv in order to accustom us to life of compassion sensitivity a life that takes other people into into account where before we decide whether we're going to go somewhere or not we would think who else would want to come with me maybe I could bring somebody with me before we buy something for ourselves we think maybe somebody else needs the money more than I do need the stuff we start thinking about the world around us a lot more to the extent where if a person is truly pure he thinks about the world around them all the time if a person's impure all they can think about is themselves all they can think about is their own problems all they can think about is their own life all they can figure out how do I look how do I this how do I I I I all they have is ey there's no there's no some somebody else all it's ey wants us to get out of this trend get out of this pattern that is our natural self but there's only one way to do it which is by using as toah now if a person starts caring about things as simple as an animal things as simple as a neighbor things as simple as his own children things as simple as his spouse things that are simple to care for just the world around you he can start becoming more and more like AEM that cares about everybody else around him but if all he thinks about all she thinks about is herself this person is no different than an animal now gives a very interesting p as an example page 133b they have a debate have a debate what is the debate debate is what if you have to do on Shabbat you do Shabbat even though technically the cutting the blood all that stuff is you're not supposed to do it on Shabbat you're not let to slaughter on Shabbat but since we are commanded to do it on Eighth Day if the baby was born a natural B birth you have to do it on eth day on Shabbat right that's the but he said what if you have somebody came do but uh he messed up he messed up he didn't cut the whole thing he didn't you know with the little baby sometimes it's easy because it's very very they're very small so what happens sometimes you mess up if you don't bring an expert you I've heard tragic stories about stuff like this you have to make sure that you don't just pick anybody off the street me happens sometimes people mess up even the best of the best mess up they mess up things happen they don't cut a certain part or they cut too much something happens asks what happens if he left over a piece of skin that was supposed to be cut he left it over now it doesn't hurt the baby anymore or any less the baby's eight days old can he come back on Shabbat it's still Shabbat can you come back on Shabbat and cut it so one side says absolutely has to come back the other side says absolutely not what you add of your mind why says listen you're allowed to violate Shabbat the one that says no you're not allowed you're allowed to violate Shabbat because theit once he cut already that's it finished theit the fact that it's not perfect he still fulfilled his what he supposed to it's not the most beautiful but nonetheless it's a he has no permission to do it again on shab he come back on Sunday he come back on Monday on Tuesday on Wednesday but he cannot come back on Shabbat why because he no longer has the permission to violate Shabbat to fix the the other side say no no no you're wrong we have a commandment from the T what's the Commandment from the tor when was crossing the ocean crossing the Sea of reeds gave prophecy to all of they all saw what was happening in the Heavens little babies little babies little adults everybody saw what was happening in the Heavens to such an extent that women that were pregnant women that were pregnant the stomach became apparently uh transparent and people saw the baby pointing at this is my God and I will beautify him the little baby in the stomach that's God guys that's God that's God right there that's what it say this is God and I will beautify him say what do we learn from this we learn a lot of things from this from this P we learn they supposed to beautify the MIT by a beautiful by a beautiful buy beautiful don't buy the $300 homeless ones you found on eBay and you're not even sure if they're for Jews or not maybe it's for some Christian or something put them on buy a nice set ofin be an adult no I havein for my bar mitzvah yeah but you're 37 buddy your should have been retired 20 years ago no okay it's supposed to last I don't know 10 20 years but hey you were Bar Mitzvah kid back then your your arm was half the size buy nice you see people with drive a uh $150,000 car to theet the talit they borrow from the sh they borrow the one from the sh that's that's free go buy yourself a talit for a couple hundred dollars that's nice go buy a talit go buy go buy something nice you have the guy he still has coffee stains on it go buy a nice T go buy a nice what you think you can take your car to point is when people do mitv they think that they should look for discounts people sometimes like to make fun they ask you oh nice why where'd you get this oh tell I got from such and such wow how much was it $300 $400 $500 for the talk that what are you crazy ah they fooled you they say how come they fooled me like yeah my my I got for $30 I say you're a trog we're not even sure if it's a lemon or it's AOG mine's an AOG but but why why why is it okay for me to spend three $400 for an talking him $30 because he doesn't understand that the mitvah is HEM is not asking you oh please do Mitzvah I need you to do it he wants you to want to do it how do you show you have a desire to do the mitvah by doing mitv in a beautiful way show them you want to wearin by buying a nice set ofine don't look for the cheapest one if you could afford something more expensive if you can't afford you can't afford but if you can afford to spend 501 $200,000 on a car surely you could spend a couple thousand on F if you could spend a half a million dollars in a house surely you could spend a few hundred dollars on a toit surely you could spend a few hundred dollars on a doog surely you can do a lot of things better but you go to the supermarket oh wow these cookies $8 no I just I'm I'm gonna get something else yeah but it's Kos P yeah yeah we're not going to eat cookies this P you're not eat cookies why because it's $8 yeah but your car outside is $190,000 but you're worried about the $8 cookies why because they don't understand they're supposed to beautify the mitvah beautify the Mitzvah why that's what a is telling us in this is one of the lessons say but then the say that's not the only thing we learned from that first thing we learned is that Amisha was pointing it says this is God now beautify him second thing we learned from this verse is to say oh you want to beautify it says beautify my MIT if you're going to spend money spend money on Modest clothes spend money on MIT spend money doing something good but then the say this ABA says is like if you move the letters a little bit you could say an who me and him meaning what me and God I want to be like God how I want to be like him I want to act like him he's generous I'm generous he's compassionate I'm compassionate he's happy I'm happy he's patient I'm patient he's dedicated I'm dedicated whatever hasem is I want to be like him how can I be like him through the I can be like him through the MIT this is what is the message that m in general is supposed to teach us that's why said clink tightly to M to ethical discipline Don't Let it Loose guard it carefully for it is your life it's Proverbs 4:13 and the explains that the point of a person the point the whole point of a person coming to the world is in order to perfect their character and to get to such a high level of self-control that they fix all of the flaws that are within them naturally if a person leaves this lives in a life without constantly fixing their midot without using the tah as an instruction set to fix themselves he says then what is your life for then why live there's just no point there's no point to your life if you're not continuously progressing and becoming a better person so now we have a very serious question every one of us probably thought of this question you guys are all thinking of this question I'm sure you are in the beginning of the sh I told you a few things that were kind of disgusting and I told you that the disgusting Behavior was by religious people now for the last hour and a half I'm telling you if you become your religious you become religious you're going to become not disgusting you going become beautiful Z you're going to be beautiful like God how could it be how could it be that there are religious people that keep Shabbat that keep they keep kosher but they're disgusting but Tora says no if you keep the the T you're not going to be disgusting you're going to be beautiful opposite how could it be no who who wants to volunteer and answer it's quite simple when a person does a mitvah it all depends on what motivates him if the motivation has ceased to exist meaning that the original motivation was to let's say do what Hashem wants do what hasem commanded but after a while he got used to it after a while it became normal for him to not work on Shabbat it became normal for him to eat only kosher food it became normal for him to go to shul a couple times a day became normal for him if that's all become normal for him then guess what the motivation behind the action no longer exists therefore it's no longer the same Mitzvah it's a Mitzvah without kav it's like a a goof without a it's like a body without a soul yeah you're doing the action you're going to Sho you're eating bread you're uh you're doing stuff but there's nothing behind it and if there's no there's nothing behind it it's not going to beautify you it's just you doing something this guy's buying a burger you're buying a burger he decides to buy it from McDonald's you buy it from the kosher place that's it that's not me that's not the same thing it's it's the same thing though why you decide to eat from this restaurant he decides to eat from that restaurant has nothing to do with the Mitzvah meaning that if there's noav in your in your mitvah in your anything in anything that you're doing if there's no kavana there's no real meaning behind it there's no motivation behind it it's not going to beautify you in fact it's more likely going to make you disgusting because while you look like a guy that's supposed to be beautiful you're going to do a lot of things that are not so beautiful and that's why one of the most repulsive things in the world in the Tora is that it says says in the tah that one of the most repulsive things is to see a beautiful woman that's immodest that's what a says is one of the most disgusting things in the world a beautiful woman she's beautiful face beautiful features beautiful body but she dresses and acts immodestly this finds as one of the most repulsive things in the world why I gave you a soul that's a piece of me he says something that's unimaginable on top of that I give you a beautiful body a beautiful feature to represent the inner beauty and you go treat it as if it's everybody's property you go treat it as if it's something that's nothing that everyone's allowed to look everyone's allowed to touch everyone's allowed everyone everyone you are using the beauty that I gave you like it's garbage that's why any woman that wants to get closer to doesn't have to do much more than look in the mirror if you respect yourself as a woman then you realize that something that's valuable is not public property you don't make something valuable public property No One's Gonna Take the most expensive diamond in the world and just leave it in the street in the park for the kids to play no one's going to take an expensive painting that's I don't know some artist uh wrote or Drew and it's worth hundreds of millions of dollars and just put it in display in some public school no one's going to take something very very valuable and just put it in the street and just say oh yeah it's here for the taking guess what all of the valuable material in the world is not worth even a minute of the life of a single but Isel but when that but Isel acts as if she's public property she not only allows it she welcomes the attention and desires of the public by dressing a certain way by acting a certain way by looking a certain way by talking a certain way every guy she sees she's flirty with him she talks to him she hugs him hey how are you how you doing hey oh you are making yourself public property you're not valuing yourself as if you're Priceless this is what our nature our nature without tah is always gonna do we're always gonna mistreat ourself we're always gonna treat oursel as if we're like everybody else and that's the opposite of what we're supposed to be so is supposed to wake a person up to understand that he's not like everybody else but the ramban wanted to make sure that each and every word each and every line in each and every single thing that he writes you can learn from you can take into account to such an extent as I said before that the say that there was not a single extra letter and in the letter in all of his writing the kav almost a little over 300 years ago one of the most well-known musar books written by I love K noville has a very interesting story I told you before but it's worth telling again because there was a little bit of a minor imperfections in the story the first time we said it didn't change the meaning of the story but nonetheless always good to be correct the in chapter 81 he writes a story about the ramban same ran Moshe he writes a story about him he says that the ramban wrote that anytime you see a Jew leave Judaism and join Christianity join idol worship you could be assured that this Jew came from idolatrous seed something already from the beginning is unkosher about him his father's probably not Jewish the mom probably cheated the father probably cheated there's something wrong already from the time before he came to the world he's not your normal Jew he's not your normal Jew he's not like something had to have happened maybe the mom was uh didn't go to mik maybe she cheated on the father maybe the father cheated maybe the father's not even Jewish something had to have happened in order for that of a Jew to go and become Christian because why a normal Jew should be repulsed by Christianity you should find it as something that naturally without even knowing a lot about religion naturally you should be disgusted by Christianity naturally why it's Idol it's idol worship it's it's something that doesn't make any sense to any normal human being now you're going to say wait a minute there's two billion people in the world what they're all not normal no they're not normal it's not normal it's not normal to believe in a religion and put everything into it without actually reading the book you say no they read the book no way they read the book anybody ever read the book knows it's fake or else they're not normal if you read the book you know it doesn't make any sense doesn't make any sense contradicts every every every line is contradicted the or the other so thean writes that if a Jew goes to Christianity he's already abnormal from the beginning now of course the Christians were always after the ramban and the Christians in those days were actually very uh very smart not like today's Christians they're just conmen in those days they actually read theim of the and when he published this that fif the pope read this read the ramban said if one of the Jews becomes a Christian catholic whatever that means there's something wrong with from the beginning I mean that's a bold statement as you would have it shortly later one of the ramban's children went into the Christian world so of course Theo the pope he's he's as happy as can be he makes sure the ran comes to visit commands the ramban to come come come he says oh you see you wrote this you just published this that if if one of your people becomes a Christian then there's something wrong with them but look your own son is contradicting what you're saying why you're big Raba your wife is a big raban so obviously there's something wrong what you're saying at that moment the ran did not have an answer he went home and he started hysterical crying he got into a point he just hysterical crying not about his son not about his son about the fact that there may be a mistake in the Torah that he wrote why why is it such a big deal okay people make mistakes people make mistakes you ever go somewhere and you made a wrong right or a wrong left I don't think there's ever a time I've gone somewhere I didn't make a wrong right or wrong left if I go straight for one place the other has to be something wrong the navigation is tell me no no hey Rabbi you're going the right direction stop it make a right make a right you're going the right direction stop it has no have to make a mistake people make mistakes so why is the ran making such a big deal that maybe he made a mistake if you make a mistake because you're using your human logic that's normal that's perfectly fine who really cares you're just human but when it comes to Torah it's not supposed to be your intellect your logic your understanding it's supposed to be a interpretation of what a who said meaning it's supposed to be what Hashem said not what you feel like he said oh this feels good what if it doesn't feel good tomorrow like one conservative Rabbi a couple years ago wrote an article he says I don't feel like God really meant it when he said that homosexuality is not allowed I don't really feel like he really meant it wrote an article he publish this I don't feel like he really meant it that's what he said I don't feel like he really meant it I think it there's no way that that God meant such such a horrible thing I don't feel like it or some other guy calls himself Orthodox Rabbi I don't think it's right I don't feel like it's right for orthodox rabbis not to be the rabbis that make weddings with men and men so I'm going to do it I'm G to make many weddings with men and men as an orthodox Rabbi he feels like it's the right thing when it's your feelings when it's your logic when it's your own brain who cares if you make a mistake but when it's God that's a big problem when you made a mistake thinking that your understanding is God's understanding and there there was a mistake now you have a problem why the ran says if I made a mistake thinking that what I thought is what God is thinking and in reality it's not who's to say that the rest of my Torah is not wrong also one time one of the people that would uh constantly ask questions of Moshe Feinstein Shalom every day he would have countless people waiting for him after he prayed as he would leave the bet the to go home hundreds and hundreds of people would follow him with endless amount of questions all parts of Al all parts of books everything off the top of his head like unbelievable just like M of the generation any question you had he tell you what the answer is which book to find it what page what line who what when and how who contradicted it who agreed I mean unbelievable knowledge something that's if I didn't start learning a little bit in the secular world it's impossible to understand it's impossible to understand that a human being could actually possess such knowledge and still be considered human one time a guy T said ah RAB you're wrong wrong wrong wrong Al wrong no he goes you're going against almost uh almost 400 years ago one of the was a uh the Shak and the Shak wrote lots of work lots of lots of things and his name was R aen and this Jew was telling M your conclusion is against the sh from 400 years ago the you forgot what you're doing at that moment MOS Feinstein they say stopped immediately changed Direction hurried up to go get the book get the Shar open no I didn't make a mistake it's right here it's right here and he says the day that I forget one sa one little commentary one line one line that the Shak said 400 years ago the day that I forget one of them is the day I sto being a p if I forget one not the whole thing not all you know pages and and books no no one thing I forget the sh said 400 years ago if I forget it one time I'm not going to be po second anymore why because that means that if I forgot one who's to say I'm not going to forget something else who's to say that my mind is connected toh the way it's supposed to be when the ramban was upset was crying hysterical saying I can't believe it maybe I made a mistake maybe I made a mistake writing this that if a Jew leaves Judaism goes to Christianity that means there's something wrong originally from when it started and now I have a contradiction if there's a contradiction in this maybe the everything that I know is contradiction but of course anyone that remembers the story and remembers the part where his dear wife the raban tells him Rabbi stop crying and let me tell you a story she says years ago I went to the mikve as the time came for me to become pure and I went to the mikve and it was at night and one of the noblemen of the city saw me and liked what he saw so he forced one of his soldiers to get me and force me to come to his house and rape me and that night from his seed I conceived the son now if you don't believe me she takes out a bag and shows them this is his thumb that I bit off while he was raping me thean was so happy now yes he just found out that his son is not really a son yes he just found out that his dear wife that he loves got raped many years ago but none of that mattered why it was against her will she didn't do it on purpose she fought she has evidence the kid left but more importantly than everything else the Torah is right he runs to the pope and he brings the thumb and he says look Torah is right this guy he raped my wife he tells him the whole story oh that's a big accusation it's a big accusation he tells the soldiers go bring the nobleman here go bring him here they bring him Pope sees that he's wearing a glove says uh take off your glove glove he doesn't want to the says they they forced him to take off his glove after they take off the glove they see oh he's got only four fingers he's missing a finger says what happened to your finger he says years ago I raped a Jewish woman a married Jewish woman and she bit off my thumb the ran at that moment says something that all of us wish that we could have one day in our life where we can say it because we're responsible for it he says so you see that our Torah is true and that the words of our sages and our God are true meaning you see what we have in our Torah you see all that doesn't make any sense it's all true why because T says it and it comes from God the sages say it and all they're telling you is what God already said God said it and there's no other God there's no three like you think biggest Kem there was 800 years ago came from something disgusting came from something awful but nonetheless if a person thinks cleanly thinks correctly thinks the right way at all times will give him opportunities to sanctify his name and make the biggest mitvah there is so up to here is the introduction to the letter next week maybe tomorrow I'm not sure maybe we'll continue the series tomorrow we'll still we do the other thing tomorrow right we're uh the questions right you guys ask me uh questions yeah you guys actually started asking questions so next week we're going to continue the letter I'm going to try to have a copy of it and of the book for each one of you if you want to buy it on your own you can buy it on your own um to try to understand each and every sentence with what the rambam is trying to teach us how we could use each one of these lines and apply it in our own life in order to purify our actions to purify our minds to purify every single move and step that we have that way we don't have to waste our time being like a one of these uh what are they called uh these uh little things that look like mice hamsters hamsters and around in a circle circle circle circle but the same thing keeps happening over and over again you start a new project and it failed you start a new relationship and it fails you start a new Endeavor and it fails you start and it fail fail fail you constantly go back and you hit the wall everything you start hits the wall everything you start gets you to become depressed everything you do doesn't make you happy why you don't have you don't have pure actions you don't have pure mind it's very important to purify yourself especially now we have only a few weeks left before mat this is the time this is the time when we have to do everything possible to purify ourself but purify ourselves doesn't mean you're going to go to the mik 500 times a day purify ourselves means we have to purify our mind and start grabbing onto something and start doing it yeah have to use the MIT in order to purify you so if you're already doing something if you go to scho every day if you learn every day if you're uh whatever it is that you do every day that's connected to Hashem and you stop getting that feeling from it that exciting feeling from it okay that should be the task today okay I have to start fixing this I have to start fixing this if you're seeing that really uh you're used to your board of Life your board of Judaism your board of Torah it's time to change it it's time to change it that means you don't have kavana that means there something wrong if you see that you're constantly hitting the wall everything you do is failing that means that your intentions are not pure and Hashem is trying to help you by making everything fail because if you would succeed it would get worse point is is that this series is going to help us purify specific things I talk a lot about humility and anger different types of midot try to use different writings of the rambam and there are other sages uh to try to get a little bit of a better idea of what it means to be pure and how we could attain as much of it in our lifetime as possible uh any questions yes I had a question um example somebody a Jewish man in his 50s marries a Goya they're done with a childbearing ears what's the or the consequence is exactly the same even though there's no let's say menopause already have there's no there's no kids what's the story well a man a man doesn't stop having the ability to have kids he still has seed so every time he ejects seed he's wasting seed which the calls the biggest sin in the T that's SIN number one sin number two is he's not allowed to even touch even on our hand forget about being intimate needless to say we're talking about he's not even allowed to touch our hand even if they're 70 years old even if they're 7,000 years old 7,000 years old they all they know what happened in the Maul they know what happened in the Maul still not to touch each other why he's a Jew she's not even abah ainu abah ainu had the law that he's not allowed to marry the Canaanites I'm going to give you a k for your wonderful question the says why did why did send why are you GNA tell me ah he told AB he told Abu your descendants are going to go to a foreign land they're going to be slaves over there but I'll take him out eventually why why do we have to go through that just tell us listen I'm God here's your Torah be human beings here's the ran I'll teach you m what's the problem why do we have to go through all of that for what zad says the marriage between the descendants of yov the descendants of the descendants of Abraham for them to marry anyone but B was viewed as so hideous in the eyes of hem that he says I have to send the actual sages themselves the actual sadik themselves I have to actually send yobu and the 12 tribes have to send them to Egypt make them feel comfortable make them feel at home why so they could settle there and be there and all become slaves why because once they become slaves they're going to go to Egypt the Egyptians are going to become disgusted by them and if the Egyptians are disgusted by them they're not going to want to marry them if they don't want to marry them then will stay is but if the Egyptians the Canaanites the midianites the Babylonia whoever it is if everybody else sees oh these these these Jews they're nice people maybe we can marry them maybe we can hang out with them maybe we could do this guess what there wouldn't be today there wouldn't be today why it would have been lost already in Egypt so had to put Yu and his sons and his grandsons M at life risk and actual real life risk for the their descendants millions of them were murdered and called blood for what to preserve the seed of so if a person intermares today no matter how old he is or how young he is 4,000 years later that simply means he doesn't realize how important this is in the eyes of a if is willing to send his own Sons to the Holocaust to ashz he's willing to send his own Sons to ashit to gas Chambers for what to save them to save them what makes you think that it's okay in his eyes that one Jew is marrying a non-jew boy girl doesn't make a difference never so that's the thing why do we do it because we don't know we don't know that it's important in the eyes of hem we don't know what the Torah says and many times we act as if we don't care sometimes we don't care because we're so ignorant we don't realize we're supposed to care sometimes we don't care because we're so busy working for the Mal for the Satan himself that we forget that we're supposed to care we're we're supposed to work for hm instead of malit needless to say there are many many sins that have to do with a Jew and a gentile when they when they're intimate and there's kabalah about it there's about it thear says that a Jew that's intimate with a non-jew has to reincarnate as a dog so if anybody wants to become a poodle go enjoy yourself we'll sell you for 150 bucks in a puppy store isn't it wor for a jeast uh no not necessarily that's they're both good to G know they both have to get punished they both have to live with sin uh they both have a very very serious chuva to do do they could both fix it but they're both in very very serious problems because if a Jewish woman marries a uh uh a non-jew in most cases not all cases because I already know myself several cases where things have changed drastically I have a couple of students where a Jewish woman married a non-jew and eventually they uh the Jew ended up converting and their their kids ended up becoming sikim and things worked out but this is a very rare rare circumstance in most cases when a Jewish woman marries a non-jewish man the kids become very confused uh most likely atheist or completely completely away from religion altogether uh and uh in essence now she has to go to not only G know for our own sins but the sins of our children because it's her fault so it's uh it's a horrible horrible uh idea follow what is the punishment for the Gentile in that relationship Eternal damnation he's considered a murderer when a when a non-jew is intimate with a Jew according to the noahide laws which is the Torah he's considered as if he committed murder because he murdered a Jewish Soul by doing that and a murderer if he's a noahide has to uh get Eternal Gom meaning he has a Gom and it doesn't end so next more good news Ken of course it has to be in your own uh your own efforts if it's at somebody else's expense meaning what you're taking advantage of somebody else that's feeling no you're not allowed to uh Rob uh rob Peter to pay Paul not allowed to go rob some banks you can give no that would not all there's novah that comes in the way of sin you have to obviously beautify mitah but at the same token the explain it's in actually in the section about the and Sh where it talks about how a person needs to make sure that even though they may have certain uh for example the night of sh the night of sh it's a to uh you know stay up all night and learn tah for men for men women are not supposed to do it but it's okay for women to do it on OA the reason why is because the uh the Mitzvah of is to bring the mashiach and we're all responsible to bring the mashiah so everybody's supposed to stay up during oaba but the of learning T that's not only men are obligated to do it so they're only they supposed to stay up all night now the is to read a certain s a certain s that goes over the entire Tor goes over the entire t a little bit of each is a to do it but speaking you are allowed to study whatever you want in the Torah meaning if you want to learn the whole night no problem but the is to learned this specific s that put together now if the place that you're at if you're at a Sho where they're doing the Minh the custom you're not allowed to study you have to do what they're doing if they're all doing what is the custom you have to do what they're doing you can't go to the side and go study gar you have to do what they're doing you want to do with something else go home but a lot more difficult to stay up by yourself all night by you know why why why is that the case because you're not supposed to be different you're not supposed to try you know do things to be different at the same token you're supposed to be different but in different aspects meaning you're not supposed to be uh different means that if they're righteous you're righteous but if they're Wicked you're not supposed to be Wicked also you have to use your brain also so as far as beautifying a mitvah beautifying a mitvah is so long as it's not hurting somebody else you have to beautify mitzvah for example if somebody want to learn it's perfectly good to learn T learning to it's like as if you're fulfilling the entire T but if you decide to come to this shoe and you go learn your book in the middle of the Sho that's not a mitv it's an it's a sin why because you're disturbing everybody else if you came to the Sho and you're uh you know you come you sit you stand up you C you sit you stand up you go outside you go inside you could drink coffee you put a phone call you better off not come to the Sho why you're disturbing everybody you're disturbing everybody what you could tell your friends that you went to the Sho but in reality you're disturbing everybody so the point is is that your mitvah cannot hurt other people cannot hurt other people you have to be very careful that it doesn't hurt other people so if you're learning make sure that you're learning at a place where you can learn if let's say there's a lot of other people learning you know then you learn if uh it's a specific prayer then and let's say for example they pick you to be K and the K is used to praying let's Sayid normal I don't know let's say eight 10 minutes seven minutes whatever it is let's say to do but you want to do you want to do in a half hour you're not allowed to be Kazan over there why you cannot force everybody to do a half hour that's now even though it's great that you're doing it do it somewhere else so yeah yes it's beautiful that you want to be Aid it's beautiful that you want to do certain things but you can't push that on somebody else so everybody has to that's that's the point of always uh double-checking our own actions and seeing what is our motivation if our motivation is to get closer to meaning by pure actions then all of these thoughts are going to come to you naturally because your motivation is going to be to make Hashem happy to make Hashem proud of of you well obviously he'll be proud of you if you do good but not if you murder a few of his kids on the way there you understand yeah you could you know you could go drive to a uh you know help people with an ambulance to to uh save their life but if you kill people on the way to save this one guy in the back that's not thank you for thank you but no thank you so beautifying the Mitzvah is definitely an obligation that we have to do uh but needless to say it's also something that a person needs to take into consideration how is it affecting other people anything else tomorrow night we have a sh we actually back here tomorrow night tomorrow night it's going to be questions and answers anybody that gets a uh had some good questions ask them tomorrow amen [Music] n [Music] [Applause] [Music]