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This Jewish Inspiration Podcast is dedicated to learning, understanding and enhancing our relationship with Hashem by working on improving our G-d given soul traits and aspiring to reflect His holy name each and every day. The goal is for each listener to hear something inspirational with each episode that will enhance their life.
You're listening to Rabbi Arieh Wolde, Director of TORCH, the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. This is the Jewish Inspiration Podcast.
Alright, welcome back everybody to the Jewish Inspiration Podcast. We are Mondays. What's Mondays? Mosher Masterclass. We're back. Today I would like to share with all of our participants, those online, those on Zoom, those on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, those beautiful faces right here in the room, in the lovely TORCH Center. I want to congratulate my daughter and son-in-law on the birth of a baby boy. Baruch Hashem.
However, my dear friends, I do plea that each and every one of you open your hearts and pray. The little baby was born very, very, very preemie at 25 weeks and is in the NICU in Jerusalem, in the hospital. And we need your prayers. We ask that if you have a moment after class, after learning Torah, to pray. That will be very, very meaningful and will owe you the world. Along with that is that tonight's class will be dedicated to the speedy recovery, healing of both the baby and the mother.
It's Tinoch, because the baby didn't have a bris yet. It's a boy. Because the baby didn't have a bris yet, it doesn't have a name yet. Therefore, it's called Tinoch, which means baby. Tinoch ben Mi'ira. That's my daughter's name, right? So Tinoch ben Mi'ira, but Sahava, the daughter of Sahava. So that's if you can say a special prayer tonight, say some psalms. And of course, the Torah study that we're studying together today should be a merit for their healing and speedy recovery.
And God willing, babies should be extremely, extremely healthy and live a vibrant, very vibrant, healthy Jewish life filled with glowing Hashem's light into the world. That's our responsibility, right? That's what we learn here. It should be a vestibule for Hashem's light to shine out to the world. That's what we're here for. So Hashem should help Tinoch ben Mi'ira bat Zahava to have a speedy recovery. And let's start learning. So we're up to way number 24.
We met our author of the Orcha Sadiqim in the Gate of Remembrance in the Treasure for Life edition on page 628. So we're in the middle of the Gate of Remembrance. And if you remember, we already mentioned 23 different remembrances. And we're almost done. But the last one was, To always remember the greatness of Hashem. My dear friends, I hope we learned a lesson. I hope we learned a lesson. And that yesterday when we saw the news of a ballistic missile coming from Yemen
and landing about 200 yards from where you had tens of thousands of people in the Israeli airport in Tel Aviv, that you didn't say, oh, well, how lucky are we that it didn't hit? But rather, I hope that each of you did and felt the way we've been talking about how we should feel. That this is an open miracle. This is an open modern day splitting of the Red Sea. We don't have to be 3,300 years ago celebrating, Ah, Az Yashir Moshe Rabbeinu.
Then Moshe and the Jewish people sang praise to Hashem. Today, today we have, today we have had, only 24 hours ago we had a revelation from the Almighty where He's smiling and giving us a hug and saying, I see you, I love you. Where the Almighty tells us, I'm protecting you. I'm watching over you. And you know what's even more surprising? Is that not only that Israel has its own aerial defense, but now we have backup of the American THAAD missile defense system. And nothing helped.
You know why? Hashem made it not work. Because Hashem says, I want you to know that I'm here and I'm smiling at you. I want you to know that I'm here. You know, we went into a ditch. If you saw the video footage, you see a bunch of dirt flying up in the air. Nothing happened. Nothing. Some dirt flew onto the road. That's it. No building was destroyed. Thank God not a single human being was injured or even worse. What an incredible gift.
And in a very populated area. I don't know if you've ever driven there on the road. It's like the road right, everyone passes by that road to get to the terminal. Nothing happened. Landed into a ditch. Why? Because Hashem is reminding us in this generation more than ever, where we think everything, we're in control of everything. We have it all. We know. We're so smart. We have technology and we have AI and we have so many automated things.
We probably collectively in this room right here, we probably have 500 devices that can be automated. It's the light. Turn the lights on. Turn the lights off. Turn the music on. Turn the music off. Turn the pool. Your sprinkler system you were just talking about probably does it by his phone. I'm telling you. Look, he's smiling there. He's saying, yeah, exactly. I got control by my phone. We feel like we're in control of everything and it's a mistake.
It's a huge mistake. Not I love technology. Trust me. I have the same thing. Smart home, the whole thing. But we can't fall into the trap of thinking that we are in control. Hashem is in control. Hashem is in control and he knows exactly every missile where it belongs. And Hashem says, I'm showing you my entire loving nation, my entire people. I'm showing you that I'm here and that I love you and that I care about you and here's a hug for me.
The busiest place for Jews to travel, for Jews to come and go. The airport. Baruch Hashem, nothing happened. So what we need to do is thank Hashem. Hashem, maybe I didn't have such a clear vision before yesterday, but today I know you're there. I know that you're right there protecting the Jewish people wherever we are. You're right here with us protecting me every single day. And this is something that if we can remember this every single day of our lives,
to remember what it means that Hashem is right here next to me. Hashem protects me. Hashem saves me. How many times have I spoken to people who are in really dire situations, really challenging circumstances, and I said, why don't you pray? Well, you think God can make that money just show up in my bank account? You think God can make that happen like right now? I said, yes. And then sure enough, a day later I meet them and so I knew what happened.
Oh, something random happened. There is no random. That's nothing random. I got it. Someone sat over here right in this room today. I learned with my study partner this morning and he tells me you won't believe it. He says the IRS has owed him money for like seven, eight years and they've been reaching out to the IRS like, oh, we're going to cut the check. We'll send it to you. We don't know why it's getting delayed.
Then another time, another seven years he's running after them. He started praying, started taking upon himself to pray. Suddenly one check arrives and then another check arrives and then another check arrives. It's like, it's not random. Hashem is saying, I hear your voice. I hear your prayers. I hear exactly you're talking to me. I'm talking back to you. But sometimes we don't like to because like, oh, God knows. It happened to be my friend came over and he did. No, no happened to.
You know what they say in Hebrew? Mikre, which means happenstance, is from the letters rak mehashem. Only from Hashem. It's only from Hashem. There's no such thing as happenstance. There's no such thing as like, oh, it happened to be just so like, you know. No, there's no such thing in Judaism. It's all the hand of Hashem. And we have to remember this and we have to internalize this. This miracle that happened yesterday in Tel Aviv. Remember the date, May 4th, 2025.
This was a hug from God. God says, I love my people. I want you to remember, I am in control. Everyone's about to say, oh, the IDF is finally doing their job in Gaza. They're going all out and they had long meetings yesterday. Like, they're determined. Remember, Hashem is in control. It's not our bullets. It's not our tanks. It's not our Air Force. It's not our military brilliance. It's not our Mossad and it's not our Shabak. It's the hand of Hashem.
And that's the reminder we got yesterday. We got a reminder Hashem is in control of everything. And it was an open miracle just like the Jewish people experienced at Mount Sinai and the Jewish people experienced in the desert and the Jewish people experienced. And we asked the question. I don't understand. They're literally, they're eating the manna which descends from heaven every day and these guys have the audacity to serve idolatry? What's wrong with them? We all asked that question. Like, how is it possible?
It's possible because we love to answer things up to nature. Just so happens to be. Just so happens to be. There was a miracle that showed up at my doorstep. Just so happens to be. There was a miracle and the sea split. It just so happens to be that Amalek came to attack the Jewish people and the arrows went back to kill them. Everything happens. Everything is happenstance. It just so happened to be. How convenient. Sages remind us.
Always remember the hand of Hashem. Always remember that it's a living hand of Hashem. You know those things that, you know, you put in the quarter and I remember they used to have it in the supermarkets. They used to have a hand and it would grab a doll and then it would drop it down. You know, they'd pay the quarter. And most people, the hand of Hashem doesn't miss. It puts you exactly where you need to be.
It picks you up, puts you here, puts you there. You have no idea why you ended up in that place. Hashem knew exactly what he was doing. He picks this person up, puts them there. That person puts them there. Everybody's in the right place they need to be. And we're all in the right place we need to be right now, sitting and studying Torah together. Even though outside it's pouring rain. It's like Noah and his ark. Noah, right? Outside was a flood.
Inside was a sanctuary of service of Hashem. And I'm so honored that we're here tonight to study and to learn Torah together. All right. So on page 628 in the Treasure for Life edition of the Orchid Siddiquim, in the ways of the righteous, in the gate of remembrance. So we're going to conclude today. We have the last three sections here of this chapter. We're going to hopefully have the time today to finish up this chapter. The 24th thing to remember.
A person should always remember and a person should always pay attention that his eyes are weak and cannot scrutinize too well vessels of silver and gold bearing delicate designs. That someone whose eyes are weak cannot scrutinize delicate designs of gold and silver. No one who sees a beautiful vessel cannot scrutinize delicate designs of gold and silver. Someone who has weak eyes won't notice all the detail. He can see it. He sees that it's there. But he can't see the fine details.
Someone who has healthy eyes is able to discern and to see all of the detail, the fine detail in the gold and silver. He says, if someone had the great fortune of studying Torah when they were young, when they were a child, they went to Cheder and they learned in Yeshiva and they studied Torah from when they were 4 years old, 5 years old, 6 years old. They learned Chumash, they learned the Parsha and they learned Halacha and they learned Tefillah, the prayers.
He says, be very careful to rely on what you learned then. Because maybe you didn't understand it completely. Maybe you didn't go down to the full extent of understanding. Which is why we mentioned so many times here that don't celebrate the holidays today like you celebrated them when you were 7 years old. Make your Pesach Seder more special. Make your Hanukkah more special. Make the observance of all the mitzvahs. Don't just say, oh, well, when I was a child I learned about it
and that's enough for me. No. What did we understand when we were a child? We understand a little bit. Now we're older. We're more mature. We're more developed. We have more discernment. We're able to understand things more. So then surely we should learn it with a greater depth. Don't rely on that understanding which was infant understanding relative to our abilities and capabilities now. Because as a person grows, his intellect grows, his understanding grows.
And you understand more today than you did when you were 5 years old and 7 years old and 15 years old even. Therefore, when your wisdom becomes stronger and you start understanding things with more intellect, Amazing, amazing paragraph here. He says, when you start understanding things more, learn it more. Learn more. Investigate more. Because the things that you understood as a child will now become more enriched because your intellect is more developed. So the more your intellect is developed,
the more you'll be able to learn and understand. He says, don't rely on what you learned only as a child. That's good. It's a very good framework. But dig in deeper. Don't let yourself just be comfortable with 10-year-old wisdom. Let it become mature wisdom. And I can tell you this about myself, by the way. There are many things that I learned in Geder, in preschool, in grade school, in high school, and many, many, many, many times,
I look over the Parsha again every year, every week, looking over the Parsha again. And I'm like, that wasn't there the last time I looked at it. Right? And it's not because it wasn't there, but it's now you look at it with new eyes. Every year, you're more wiser, hopefully, and you look at it and you're like, oh, it's like a breath of fresh air. It's like, this was bothering me for so many years. Finally, I have an answer.
It was there all along, but my mind wasn't developed enough to understand that. And that's the brilliance, the most amazing thing about studying Torah is that every time you learn it, it is fresh and new as if it's the first time you've ever learned it. So you learn about the Ten Commandments. You learn about the whole revelation at Mount Sinai. You read those verses, chapter 20, 21, Exodus, and you're like, I've learned this before. But now you look at it and you're like, one second,
why does it say this and why does it say that? And you start reading the commentaries like, oh my gosh, I never knew that. I never knew that. And you learn other areas of the Torah, the story of Adam and Eve and the story of Cain and Abel and the story of Noah and his family and the ark and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph and the matriarchs and the tribes and the enslavement in Egypt and Moses and the ten plagues and the Ten Commandments.
And then you learn about the building of the tabernacle and the wardrobe of the high priest. You learn about the offerings in Leviticus and all the laws, the multitude of laws that are given to the Jewish people in the book of Leviticus. And then you see the journey of the Jewish people in numbers. Oh, they're coming and going and they're going and they're coming and setting up tent and traveling and then breaking it down, up and down. It's like so much going on.
Do you know it never stops? Asking questions. Asking questions. This is what he says here. This is how he concludes here. This paragraph, he says, Always investigate. Always ask questions. Not only about what you learn, but everything you hear. Someone tells you a story, must be fact, right? No. Ask, inquire. I want to share with you an amazing story. I think I recently said it here, but Ramosha Feinstein, who was the great, great, great halachic,
I mean, in the last century, he was probably the leading, the leading halachic decisor in modern American Jewry. He lived in the United States for the last, I think, 50 years of his life. Originally, he was from Belarus. Today, what's today's Belarus used to be Poland. Brilliant mind and he learned and learned and learned. You know what he did? You know what he learned? He learned the entire tractate, the entire Talmud of tractate Shabbat. Every Shabbat. You know what that means?
You know how many pages that is? It's about 150 pages in tractate Shabbat. And it's not New York Times, okay? It's not some novel. It's not reading about some space aliens, okay? This is difficult, focus-required study, and he finished that every single Shabbos. I'm talking about someone who studied all of Torah. I'll just tell you one more. I love so many stories about Ramosha Feinstein. He was such a special man. He called his nephew one time, and he tells his nephew,
I got a big mazel tov. He says, okay, mazel tov. What is it this time? He says, yeah, I just finished the Talmud for the fourth time. The whole Talmud. So his nephew says to him, uncle, with all due respect, I remember it was about a decade ago you told me that you finished the Talmud 101 times. So how can this be the fourth time? He says, yeah, this is my fourth time finishing it 101 times. Okay, you understand?
You understand what greatness we're talking about in Torah wisdom, Torah knowledge, the entire Talmud, 2,711 folios of Talmud. Over 404 times. I'll tell you why you learn it 101 times, because the Talmud says that when you learn something 100 times and you learn it 101 times, it's very different. So the goal is to get to 101 times many. Okay, that's the goal. I'll tell you what a special person he was. One of my favorite stories about Rav Moshe Feinstein.
Rav Moshe Feinstein, someone once, a woman, an elderly woman called his house. And he was busy. So as you can expect, he's a big rabbi, the leading rabbi in New York City. He got questions all the time. But this woman called on Friday afternoon. It's a busy time in every Jewish house. The student of Rabbi Feinstein picked up the phone. And he hears this elderly woman. She says, Hi, can I please speak to Rabbi Feinstein?
So he says, I'm sorry, Rabbi Feinstein is very busy right now. It's right before Shabbos. How can I help you? So she says, I wanted to know what time candle lighting is. So the student, in a way of almost like, don't waste the rabbi's time. He says, you know, candle lighting is whatever time it is, 630. But, you know, you don't need to call Rabbi Feinstein to ask him for candle lighting time. You can look at any Jewish calendar. Every Jewish calendar has the candle lighting time.
She says, I have no idea what you're talking about Jewish calendar. I've been calling Rabbi Feinstein for the last 25 years. He never said anything about Jewish calendars. Imagine that. This woman has been calling Rabbi Feinstein for 25 years. And every week, lovingly, patiently, he answers the phone. And he tells her exactly what time candle lighting is. It was above him. He can't answer this woman. He can be patient and calm with every human being, loving and respectful to every human being.
I'm not so holy and so high that I can't take the time to answer this woman's important question of what time candle lighting is. She probably opened up the yellow pages, looked for a rabbi, and she's like, oh, here's a rabbi. And she called Rabbi Feinstein. Why does she know who Rabbi Feinstein is? She has no idea who Rabbi Feinstein is. Let me tell you one more story about Rabbi Feinstein. Rabbi Feinstein was such an incredible sage, such an incredible master of Torah,
that wherever he went, the people would escort him. They would escort him to his car and then from the car to the yeshiva. And wherever he went, people would line up. People wanted to ask him a question, a halachic question. He has books and books. We have them here. Books and books of responsa. People were asking him questions from all around the globe. We're asking him halachic questions. And he would write not a short answer, yes, no.
He would bring you every single source in the Talmud, in the Mishnah, in the Midrash. You name it. In the Babylonian Talmud, in the Jerusalem Talmud. You name it. He would bring you all the sources and halachic here, there, everywhere. And he would give you a full two, three, four, 15-page response to the simple question that you asked. It wasn't just like a yes, no, don't bother me. I remember one of my friends in yeshiva asked a very prominent rabbi.
He had like 25 questions he asked him. He sent him a letter and the rabbi responded back, When you'll be in Bnei Brak, come in. Meaning, you asked me too many questions for me to respond. When you come to Bnei Brak, which is where the rabbi lived, kishetiyeh, this is one word. Bnei Brak, two more words, tikanes. Four-word answer to this guy's 20 questions. Right? Ramosha took the time, and this is not to take away from the other rabbi. The other rabbi was amazing.
But Ramosha took the time to respond to each and every question. So people would walk after davening in the yeshiva, people would walk Rabbi Feinstein to his car. His driver was waiting there, and the driver, you know, they'd open the door and Rabbi Feinstein would get into the car, and eventually the conversation would end, they'd close the door, and he would drive, he would take the rabbi home. He'd take Rabbi Feinstein home. One time after they left the yeshiva, Rabbi Feinstein,
after they turned the corner away from the yeshiva, Rabbi Feinstein tells the driver, if you don't mind, can you stop the car? Stops the car, is everything okay? Rabbi Feinstein opens his door with his left hand and pulls his hand out of the door. Someone didn't realize, but they closed the door on Ramosha Feinstein's hand. So the driver says to Rabbi Feinstein, he says, that's very, very painful. He says, why didn't you tell me when we left?
He says, can you imagine how embarrassed the person would be if I told you then, and I had to reopen the door and close it, that he'll never be able to live it down, that he closed the door on my hand? I waited till we turned the corner, where they won't be able to tell anymore, and now pulled his hand out of the door. That's how careful, how sensitive. How sensitive he was to someone else, to another human being. That's what Torah brings.
Torah brings a person to a sensitivity, to understanding what you're worth, what other people are worth, and to not hurt other people's feelings. That's the sensitivity that Ramosha Feinstein had, such a delicate, sweet, soft-spoken person. Dedicated every minute of his life to learning Torah. Let me tell you another story about Feinstein, which relates to what we're talking about here. To investigate, we said, right? A woman comes to Rabbi Feinstein, and she says, my son is under the chuppah of this boy.
My son is really a mamzer, meaning I had an extramarital affair, and this child is the result of that. I never told anybody, but this child is really not, I don't know, she was probably angry at her son for whatever reason. She decides, she tells Rabbi Ramosha Feinstein. So Rabbi Feinstein says, okay, tell me the story again. She says the story again. Tell me the story again. Says the story again. And Ramosha Feinstein says, she's not believed, right?
And he continues on with the blessings under the chuppah. Why wasn't she believed? Because when you interrogate, you know what happens? They ask you the same question over and over again. But if you're making up the story, you forget what you made up last time. So you make up new pieces of information this time. And each time, they don't corroborate. They don't work out together, all that information. Keep on investigating. You'll get to the truth eventually. It's very interesting.
In EMT, that's one of the things they teach you, is to ask repeatedly the same question. You know why? Because the first responder comes into the room. He says, so are you on any medications? No. The second guy comes in. Are you on any medication? Oh, yeah, I'm on, they give you two. Why didn't you mention earlier? I didn't realize that was a medication. I didn't think of it, or I didn't realize that was important to mention.
So you ask the question again, and suddenly you see there's more things. And he's like, keep on, every few minutes, you ask the question again and again and again, because suddenly they might remember something. When was the last time you ate? Well, I didn't eat in 24 hours. Well, actually, I did. It's like, I got a little hungry. I did eat something. I did drink something. These are things that are very important for you to know, and that's why the halacha says,
here the author says, that always ask and interrogate. Someone tells you a story. Oh, did you hear about so-and-so? Did you hear? Let me tell you a story. Sit down. I saw this with my own eyes. You ask him, tell me the story again. So where was he? Well, listen, I wasn't really, you know the story about the rabbi who stole the Torah? Never heard of a story of the rabbi?
Let me tell you the story of the rabbi who stole the Torah. So the guy goes over to his friend, and he says, did you hear that the rabbi stole the Torah scroll from the synagogue? He says, yeah. He says, it's a true story. The rabbi stole this Torah from the synagogue. It's unbelievable. He says, really? Who did you hear this from? Again, investigate. He says, I heard it from Joe. He goes to Joe.
He says, you said that the rabbi stole the Torah from the synagogue? He says, I never said such a thing. I said it was the rabbi's son who stole the Torah scroll from the synagogue. He says, really? Who did you hear that from? He says, I heard that from Moshe. He goes to Moshe. He says, Moshe, you said that the rabbi's son stole a Torah scroll from the synagogue? He says, God forbid. I never said such a thing.
I said that the rabbi's son stole a book from the synagogue. Not the Torah scroll. Not an actual Sefer Torah. I said he stole a book. He says, who did you hear that from? He says, I heard that from Yankel. He goes to Yankel. He says, Yankel, you said that the rabbi's son stole a book from the synagogue? He says, I never said such a thing. I said that the rabbi's son stole the Dvar Torah that he said from a book in the synagogue.
He stole the idea from one of the books that he was learning. See how things roll? You have to investigate. Investigate. Investigate. Ask questions. You'll be surprised by how the broken telephone goes. Right? You've got to be careful. Don't just because someone says, I trust in what he says. What he says is gold. And then you find out that it's not. You've got to be careful. So particularly with wisdom, you have to investigate.
Someone tells you something in learning a Torah study. I told you, and I welcome this. This is why we have a segment of our everyday Judaism podcast, which is for people to ask questions. Ask. Ask. Ask. At the end of every class, when we go offline, we do the same. People ask questions. You said this. What's your proof? What's your reference for that? It's very important. There's a reason why I don't share it, because then the flow of the class.
I used to do it. I used to give the exact. And then people would be like, oh, how do you spell that, rabbi? And then the whole class would lose it. I don't even know where I'm at anymore. So yeah. So now, you don't understand something? Ask. Interrogate. From all of my teachers, I have grown wise. Why? You ask a question. I remember in one of my classes back probably 15 years ago, I still remember who the person was,
because he's a member of our class every Friday. Right? The wonderful doctor. So I remember I was teaching a class, and it says, I remember we were talking about how to pray, that when a person prays, he should be animated, physically animated. Get involved in your prayer. Don't just like, oh, talk with all of your, every fiber of your being should pray. I brought it from the Talmud, which brings it from a verse in Psalms, where King David says,
that all of my bones should praise Hashem. What does that mean? That when you pray, it shouldn't just be your lips moving like Hannah, but rather your entire body should be moving. Hashem, I'm talking to you. You're animated. Imagine someone standing, even if you see people coming into the Oval Office, and they're standing in front of the president. Yes, Mr. President, but they get a little animated. They start moving their hand. They're having a conversation. You can see that they're moving.
You can see that they're alive. So, too, when we talk to the Almighty, that's exactly what we need to do. What do we do? We get animated. You're having a conversation. You're not making a presentation. You're talking to Hashem. Okay. A person should not think, Oh, what am I going to learn more than I already knew when I was a child? I already know everything there is to know. I went to Haider when I was a kid. I learned the Parsha.
I know my stuff. There's always more to learn. Have you seen a man who is wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him. That's what King Solomon tells us. Someone who thinks they're really wise, find a local fool. They're smarter than him. Okay. That's something to remember at all times. To remember this at all times. Number 25. The 25th remembrance. Remember the pleasure and the joy of Olam Haba.
A person should remove the love of this world from his heart. The shelf over there is the Messias Yisharim. Right there. Perfect. Perfect. Thank you. And a person should elevate and intensify his love for the world to come within him. Just like fire and water cannot reside together in one vessel. Because the fire will put out the water. Sorry, the water will put out the fire.
So too, don't ever fall into the trap of thinking that you can also maximize this world in pleasure and that world in pleasure. Because something is coming at the expense of the other. Thank you very much. I want to read to you here. He says something so amazing. The Ram Chal says something. Such a fundamental principle. Listen to this beautiful paragraph from the Messias Yisharim. Give him a little note to tell him I'm reading his favorite Ram Chal. Okay? Okay, okay, good.
Having explained that man's purpose in this world is to attain closeness to Hashem, Ram Chal proceeds to explain that the entire purpose of the world itself is to enable man to attain this closeness. How? If you look at this even further. This world was created for us to work and to do things. However, as a result of a person investing in doing the work that we need to do in this world, he stands in a great challenge.
If a person is too drawn to this world, to the physical enticements, to the materialistic urges and desires of this world, and what's going to happen as a result? You're going to distance yourself from God. Because you get caught up in the new car, in the new house, in the new watches, the new jewelry, the new furniture, the new materialistic things, whatever they may be. He becomes degraded and degrades the entire world with him.
He says, and if one controls his urges and his desires, and he cleaves to Hashem, and he uses this world only as a tool to connect to the Almighty. Yeah, you know what? Hashem blessed me with good things. How do I serve Hashem with that? Ah, it's not for me to knock down my house that I just built to build another one, to buy a newer car, to trade in the old one which is only six months old, right?
And to constantly upgrade and upgrade and upgrade and upgrade and be indulged in a physical materialistic life, but rather to take the physical world and elevate it. He becomes elevated and the world itself becomes elevated with him. And then he talks about the choice that a person has. The choice, because if a person elevates himself in physicality, he lowers himself in spirituality, and vice versa. If a person elevates himself spiritually, he lowers himself physically. Meaning, he doesn't need it anymore. He doesn't need it anymore.
I remember my father-in-law, may he live and be well. He once asked me when I was on one of my trips with my wife. We were heading back to Israel when we lived there. He says, I want you to go to this rabbi. He was one of his rabbis. I want you to go and give him some money. He gave me an envelope. He says, please bring this to this tzaddik. I want you to give him some charity. I go, I'm looking for the address.
I'm looking. I see there's a little shack. Like, literally a shack. You'd think this is like in the third ward. You know what I mean? It's like, you'd think this is like, nobody lives here. This is probably where people park their bicycles. I go up this rickety steps, and it's like a knock on the door, and this holy, holy tzaddik opens the door. He has like a little beard, hunched over, probably 94, 95 years old. A smile from Africa to, you know, to China.
It was an enormous smile, greets me. I said, you know, I realize his house was small. His house was smaller than this room. His house was smaller than this beautiful classroom library in the Torch Center. A teeny little house. Like, his kitchen was also part of his bedroom, and he was like, it was like, you can't imagine how small. You know what he had? The greatest joy in the world. You've never seen a person smile like that.
You've never seen a person so delighted with life. What do you mean? What do you mean? Wouldn't it be nice to have a nice yacht and go on vacation? More, more, Mishnah tells us, the more things you have, the more worries you have. You know, before you had a car, you didn't have to worry about a flat tire and a transmission and brake fluid and the steering fluid and getting your inspection and doing the registration. The more possessions you have, the more worries you have.
The Mishnah, the Mishnah says this. The more possessions, the more worries. Period. That's a fact. That's the reality. So what happens if you have more possessions, more materialism, you're going to have more worries, you're going to have the same amount of time to invest in your spirituality? Probably not. Probably not. Because I'm busy taking care of the things. What? I have to take care of these things. Right? I have to.
So we got the plumbing issue and then we have the piping issue and then we have the electrical issues and then we have the this issues and the floor and we have to change the paint and we have to do this, do that. So busy taking care of the materialism. And all its job is to do is to service us. Instead, we're serving it. Remember when I bought my first home, someone told me, he says, just be careful. A home is a bottomless pit.
You can always find something to fix. You can always find something that needs to be done. You need to do this and you need to repaint and you need to fix the gutter and you need to fix the roof. There's always something to do. You know why? Because there's always a Yetzirah. That's why. And the Yetzirah, always his job is to keep us busy so that we don't have time to invest and focus on our spirituality. So what does he do?
He finds things for us to be busy with. He finds things. Oh, he's too focused on his learning today. Let me throw him a curveball. Let me give him a flat tire. Right? So that now you're going to have an excuse not to go to class anymore. Now I have an excuse not to do this, not to do that. Or, you know, you're on your way to visit somebody who needs a visit. It's a big mitzvah. They're lonely. I think they'll accept my excuse.
You want an excuse or you want to do the mitzvah? Right? Yetzirah plays with us. He tries to throw rocks at us and he tries to throw, how do you call those things that the speeding trap, the speeding things? Spikes. Spikes. He tries to throw the spikes in front of us so that we slow down. That's what the Yetzirah is trying to do to us. He's trying to get us to stop in our path of attaining a next level,
a greater level of spirituality, of closeness to Hashem. That's what he's trying to do. He says over here this is the challenge, this is the challenge, the challenge that people are getting carried away of the pleasantness of this world. Lower the love for materialism, up the love for spirituality. Lower physicality, raise spirituality. One of the great pious people said, just like fire and water don't get along, So too, it's fire and water. This world and the world to come, there's a big, big, big struggle.
You know what's amazing though? While we reside in this world as a physical being, it's not true, we have this piece of heaven within us. There's a piece of heaven within each and every one of us that's saying, no, no, no, no, don't get comfortable here. It's always nudging us. Take another step in your growth. Don't suffice. Don't rest on your laurels and be comfortable. The only reason to love this world is because in this world we acquire food for the world to come.
In this world, you know what we do in this world? We do mitzvahs. Imagine someone has a billion dollars. A billion dollars. And they're 90 years old. What are they going to do with that billion dollars? What are they going to do? Are you going to die with the billion dollars? You're not going to be able to take it with you. So what are you going to do with it? Give it away. I've got a billion dollars, a lot of money to give away.
How am I going to give it away? I worked so hard for this. Yeah, you give it to your children. How much? How much? This world is the only place we can do that. We can build ourselves the greatest world to come when we invest this world in it. When we say, you know what, I'm not going to work. After someone dies, they can't give charity anymore. After someone dies, they can't visit the sick anymore. After someone dies, they can't shake a lulav anymore.
And they can't study Torah anymore. So it turns out the only value we have in this world is the value that we can invest for the next world. This is the only place we can do that. The only place that we can invest in our spiritual IRA that's with us in the world to come is in this world. It's the only place we can put that investment in. Or as they call it, a financial vehicle. Okay? An investment vehicle.
The only way you can invest in the world to come is this world. This world is very precious. But if we get carried away with this world in the wrong way and we don't see it as a tool to acquire our place in the world to come, then what happens? We get carried away. And that's tragic. Then people lose sight of what this world is all about. This world is all about investing in the next world. That's it. That's the purpose.
The 26th thing to remember. A person has to remember that those who fear God, fear God because they understand that there is an accountability. There is Doj. When I turned 47, I made a kiddush in shul. I made a celebration in shul on Shabbos to all of my friends. They asked me to speak. So I spoke. I said, you know, I feel like I just opened up a Doj office, the Department of Geriatric Efficiency. I'm getting old. I have to start taking accountability.
Am I learning the way I should learn? Am I praying the way I should pray? Am I doing mitzvahs the way I should do mitzvahs? Am I doing all the things the way God wants me to do them? Or am I just riding a wave? Am I just riding a wave? A person has to realize that there are repercussions to our actions. If we do good, we get good. If we do no good, heaven forbid. There's accountability. That a person needs to always remember.
A person realizes that if I rebelled against the king, I would have accountability. So, too, there's accountability before the Almighty. Hashem's not going to say, why didn't you do like so-and-so? I remember when my brother was about 17 years old, just to show you the Talmud says that when wine goes in, the secrets come out. My father was drunk as could be on Purim, only on Purim. My father was trying to inspire my brother to make a man out of himself.
This is my older brother, one of my older brothers. He's a good boy. He's a rabbi today. He's a very, very holy Jew. But at the time, he was probably struggling. My father said to him, you're wasting your life. You're not maximizing your potential. He says, what do you mean? He says, let me tell you what's going to happen. One day, we're all going to stand in front of the Almighty alone. And our whole life, we're accustomed to like, oh, I'm with all my friends.
Look, we're all the same. We're all the same. We're all doing what I do, what my neighbors do. I do what everyone does. Everyone's doing it. How many times have you heard that? Well, everyone does it. It's got to be good. Everyone does it. He says, you know what's going to happen is that you're going to stand in front of the heavenly tribunal. And you're going to look around for your family and friends. Where's everybody?
You're going to realize that it's only you there standing in front of God. And God's going to say not, why weren't you like Joe Schmo? Why weren't you like that guy? He's going to say, why weren't you you? I gave you potential. Why didn't you maximize you? Eric, you should have been Eric. Didn't expect you to be somebody else. I wanted you to be you. We're going to turn around and be like, well, I did what everybody else did. What everybody else?
Who are you talking about? Who else? Who else? I remember this as clear as day. Even an inebriated man was talking the absolute truth of the Torah. We are held accountable for ourselves. Why didn't you maximize you? Not why weren't you like your neighbor? Why weren't you like your friend? Why weren't you like your classmate? Why weren't you like your sibling? God's not going to ask you that. He's going to say, I asked you to be you. I gave you special talents.
You special abilities. I gave you special talents. I gave you a personality. I gave you characteristics. I gave you a unique package that's just for you to maximize you. Why didn't you maximize you? That's the question. And we'll be held accountable. We'll be held accountable. It's like imagine someone buys a muscle car. Do you hear this, Mr. Mustang? Imagine he takes the Mustang and he drives it like a Corolla. You'd be like, what? Why would you have it?
Why would you buy a muscle car and drive it like a Corolla? It doesn't make any sense. It has so much potential. We all understand. It's like you're wasting an opportunity. That's us. If Hashem gave us the Mustang abilities of character, of intellect. The difference between someone who's, let's say, Mensa. What's the highest number in Mensa? The highest number. Let's say 160. Brilliant, brilliant. Okay? 140 to get in. This guy is 160. Smartest guy on earth.
Then you have another guy who's an 80. So who is more going for him? Most would say the 160. It's not true. Because the 160 is gonna be held to a different standard. I gave you double the intellect of the guy who's the 80 and he produced more than you. You can't say anymore average. I just need to be average. No, there's no such thing as average. You have to be the greatest you can be. And that's the 26th remembrance.
What is the 27th? She yisgar esmi shehiches ha-melech v'nishchayev miso, v'choma ola v'yiser oso me'at v'hechaziro alkano, kama yismach oso ha-machis lisbol me'at yisurim tachas ha-miso. If someone angers the king and incurred the death penalty, and the king had compassion, he had mercy on him, and chastised him somewhat and restored him to his post, he gives him what we call a slap on the wrist. How happy would this person be to suffer a few small afflictions instead of death? Death?
He was gonna put you to death. Instead, what? We just learned last week in our prayer podcast, we talked about why we do the offerings, why we recite the offerings in the morning. You know why? Because the midrash brings that Abraham asked God, God, what's gonna be in 2025 when the Jewish people are gonna be in Houston, Texas, and they're not gonna have an altar? They're not gonna have a temple to bring an offering?
And it's not gonna be able to be an atonement for them? What are they gonna do? God says, if they read these portions, it's as if they brought the offering. What is that offering? You know what would happen when they brought that offering? It would be a moment of reckoning because they suddenly see this animal is getting slaughtered instead of me. I was meant to be slaughtered, and now this animal is being taken in my stead. Oh, wow. Hashem has mercy.
Hashem, I beg for your forgiveness. Hashem, please forgive me for I've sinned. Hashem, please forgive me. I made mistakes. Hashem, please forgive me. This is what we have to realize. Hashem allows us to do tshuva, to repent. Sometimes we get a little slap on the wrist, but it's better than a death penalty, that I can tell you. Someone who has any type of afflictions should think about this thought. Hashem gave you a gift instead of death, God forbid.
God gave you just a little bit of pain. Hashem is doing an act of kindness by just giving you this little affliction. Therefore, a person should accept all affliction with love and with total acceptance, with joy. And this is a great sign that he embraces Hashem's decree. That's the goal. I love you, Hashem. And thank you for giving me this incredible opportunity to feel that closeness. Because it could have been a lot worse. It could have been a death penalty.
Instead, you've just given me a little patch. Unbelievable. So, this concludes day number 108.
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