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The Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe Podcast Collection is the one-stop shop for the Torah inspiration shared by Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe in one simple feed. The Jewish Inspiration Podcast, Parsha Review Podcast, Thinking Talmudist Podcast, Living Jewishly Podcast and Unboxing Judaism Podcast all in one convenient place. Enjoy!
You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of TORCH in Houston, Texas. This is the Thinking Talmudist podcast.
Welcome back, my dear friends. Good Friday morning to everyone. It is lovely to re-immerse ourselves in the study of Talmud. Previously, we talked about the mitzvah of tzedakah, of giving charity, about identifying the needs of poor people, understanding with sensitivity, this was the most important part, with sensitivity, understanding what each person needs. Not just this is, we talked about it subsequently, in various different classes since our last Talmud class,
that if you have, it's not about what you are giving, because two people can give the same amount. We gave an example. If someone gives a donation of $1,000 to their synagogue, and Elon Musk gives a $1,000 donation to the same cause, did they give the same donation? No. Because the first person who gave $1,000, it's very possible that they have to save up for weeks and weeks to give that tremendous dedication. This guy doesn't have to think twice about $1,000, nothing for him.
He makes $1,000 every minute, much more than that. But you understand that it's different for every person, not only in the giving, but also in the receiving, because giving it to the person who just lost their job from Enron as CEO, to them it comes with an extra level of embarrassment that they need to come onto the public for help, that they need to, but someone else who was always impoverished, that is, okay, to them it's a big help.
But such a person who was once at the top, and they had their own chauffeur and their own private chef, and now they're destitute and they need to come onto the public, that is devastatingly embarrassing. And that's what the Torah says. Have a sense of sympathy, a sense of delicate understanding to what the person is going through. Now the Talmud continues with an interesting story of people who were masquerading as paupers, but they really weren't. And we'll see what happens here.
So the Gemara cites a braisa that discusses swindlers who masquerade as paupers. The rabbi is taught on the braisa, and this is in Ketubot 68a, Ketubot 68a, on the top of the page. So the rabbi is taught on the braisa. One who blinds his eye, and bloats his stomach, and shrivels his leg in order to solicit charity. He will not depart from this world until he indeed experiences such afflictions. That means if someone, you know, makes... This is one of the reasons our sages tell us
never ever show on yourself something that, for example, oh, they cut off his arm. Don't show it on yourself. Because if, God forbid, you show it on yourself, this Talmud teaches us that if someone fakes an injury, it's why I tell my... I grew up with this. Like, never sit on a wheelchair. Because, God forbid, you'll need the wheelchair. Never play with crutches because you'll break your leg and need the crutches. It's a big thing. First is because you don't want to get...
You don't want to have the evil eye. But also it's very important for a person to protect themselves from presenting themselves in a certain way where people will then see, and then they'll actually fall into that situation. So again, someone who does these in order to solicit charity, unjustifiably, will not depart from this world until he indeed experiences such an affliction. Ha-me-kabot staka ve-einu tzaruch l'kach? One who accepts charity but does not truly need it? Sofo einu niftar minu olamatchi yavu l'dekach?
Will end up needing... that he will not depart this world until he experiences such a need, and that's a terrible, terrible thing. Yeah, so Rashi explains, if he makes it appear that he was afflicted with one of these conditions but really wasn't, that is a terrible thing. Now, there is... It's one of the reasons a person should be very careful not to mock people, not to laugh at other people, because that could also fall into that category
of someone who is portraying something unjustly, and then you could be afflicted with that same exact challenge. Okay, so the Gemara cites a related Mishnah. Tanan Hasam, we learned in a Mishnah regarding a pauper who does not have at least 200 zuz in cash. So what is the threshold of someone who is poor? Our sages tell us someone who doesn't have 200 zuz. 200 zuz, I don't know what that amount would be today. What would that be?
It doesn't say over here what the exact amount is in our currency, but imagine someone who doesn't have 200 zuz. Well, let's say it's $200 in our currency today. Let's imagine, okay? So imagine, here's the interesting thing, and the Talmud goes into this whole conversation. So someone who has $190 can receive money from the pocket of the community, but someone who has 200 cannot, right? So someone might say, it's better for me to have 190
so that I can benefit from the communities, right? It's almost like that in our welfare system. $750 today, okay. So imagine that someone doesn't have $750, then, okay, so now what do we demand of that person? Is that AI perplexity? Is that, yeah, perplexity, there we go. He likes the perplexity AI. So thank you. In-house AI, like, okay. So now the question is, ein mechaiv, and also limkor, is beisov es klei tashmishon. So someone who does not have at least 200 zuz
falls into the category of impoverished. We do not require him to sell his house or the utensils he uses in order to attain a full 200 zuz and thereby avoid taking charity. So imagine somebody loses their job, they lose their livelihoods, and now they still have a car, they still have a house, right? But they don't have $750, according to perplexity, that that's the equivalent of 200 zuz that makes someone fall under the poverty line.
We started saying, one second, before we said that, we started saying that all of these entitlement programs, so you have, it's an interesting thing that they have. If a person has less than a certain amount, and today, if you go online, they have the poverty line based on how many people are in your household. And that poverty line changes with inflation, obviously, so that changes. So if someone is below that line, they can get the benefits of all of the Medicaid
and all of the free buses and the free phones, the Obama phone, and you can get the free television, you name the benefit, they give you all of these entitlement programs. Now, if someone is just above that, now what? You get nothing. You have to pay for your other, right, and that's very difficult. So what they actually do in many states is they have something called the CHIP program, which is not Medicaid, but it's Medicaid minus. Okay, Medicaid minus. What does that mean?
That you'll have to pay, it's like Medicaid, but you'll have to pay a small copay. It's like, it means you can get that same ride as someone who has Medicaid, but you have to pay a small amount. And I think it's a very beautiful thing that our country understands that there are people who may be poor, there may be people who are needy, so if they fall below that threshold, you have to help them totally. But if they're just above it,
there's like a little thin line of those who are above that little poverty line, and people in that category can also benefit from those entitlement programs, but on a lesser level. And that's a tremendous, you know, one of the things they say, our sages of this and the past generation say, is that America is a kingdom of kindness. It's a kingdom of kindness. If you think about even what was discussed here before class began, and before we opened up the live broadcast,
so one of the things that was said was that we were talking about the Iran deal, should they, should they not? But you know what's being discussed as well is reparations for rebuilding. What do you mean? This is war. Why would you do such a thing? Yeah, it is a mindset. There's a mindset of kindness that we need to appreciate that we have in our country of being kind. Not only that, in civil law, if someone did something,
if someone does a crime, but there was nobody who was affected by that crime. I did something. I did something wrong. It didn't affect another person. They will give you a more lenient punishment because there was no one harmed. You understand? There's a certain level of Rachmanus of, okay, I'm sure we can get a lot of discussion here from our in-house lawyer about this, but we'll talk about it another time. Okay, God willing. Okay, so now the Talmud now says
they don't have to get rid of their assets. Okay, the first part of the Mishnah states that one who has 200 zuz is not classified as poor and is thus ineligible to take the entitlements the Torah grants to the poor like Lekhet, Shikra, and Pe'er Masarani. The Mishnah then proceeds to state the ruling cited here that if one has less than 200 zuz, we do not require him to sell his house or utensils to reach the 200 zuz limit.
So we don't tell him, go sell your lawnmower, go sell your car, go sell your, you know, whatever assets you have so that now you'll be above the threshold of a poor person. Why is that? Why do we think that is? Because he's already poor. He's already, right? He's already poor. Now you're gonna make him depart with his heirloom ring that he got from his great-grandmother. Like, you know what I mean? It's like, you have to break them more.
Okay, so there's something about rachamim, a certain level of mercy that we have for someone who's impoverished. The Gemara notes a contradiction between this Mishnah and a Bridesong. And is it not so, right? Is it indeed so that we do not require him to sell his utensils? He must sell the gold utensils in order to gain the need, the needed money, and use instead silver utensils. If he was already using silver utensils, he should sell them to acquire copper utensils.
So what are you telling me that we're not requiring somebody to sell off his home or his utensils? We see that the Bridesong says that he does need to downgrade from your gold to silver, downgrade from your silver to your gold. So what are you talking about? So the Gemara resolves the contradiction. Rabbi Zvid said, there is no difficulty. This, the Bridesong's ruling that we require him to sell his utensils and exchange them for those of lesser value,
deals with utensils such as a bed and table. Whereas the Mishnah's ruling that we do not require him to sell his utensils and exchange them for those of lesser value, deals with utensils such as cups and plates. Cups and plates, you're going to make him change his kitchen plates? Really? You're going to make him change that, right? Okay. You want to say his fancy bed, which has gold gilded posts, that we require him to sell, right? Because that's not an essential,
but his plates that he eats on, you're going to make him sell those plates? That we don't require him to do. The Torah asks, he says, why is it any different about cups and plates that we do not require him to sell them and use similar items of lesser value? Why not? Because he can reasonably say the cheaper one is repulsive. I'm going to eat off paper plates now, like the thin paper plate. When I had, you know, not China,
it doesn't have to be China, fancy China, but he had an earthenware plate. He had an Ikea plate, right? He says, now you're going to force me to eat, you know, from the paper, thin paper plate, that's going to have oil stains every time I put my food on it. That's not, it's not, it's not that it's, oh, well, what does it make a difference? You're a poor person. So just take what you get. He says,
it's going to be repulsive to me. He says, but with regard to a bed and table too. He says, he can reasonably say the cheaper one is not acceptable to me. For people are generally finicky about the bed they sleep in and the table they eat upon as well. So, you know, by the way, it's very interesting. We learned this in halacha, you know, in our everyday Judaism class on Sunday mornings.
We learned that when a person eats, halacha says, you need to make sure that the place in which you eat is clean. Eat from a clean table. Don't eat on a dirty table. And this is the same applies, by the way, when you're in a restaurant. You're in a restaurant, make sure the table is cleaned. It's clean. Wait, if it takes two minutes to be seated, make sure the table is clean before you sit down.
There's a number of reasons for it because when, first is, when a person eats, their mind needs to be settled. You can't be, you can't be in a state where you're not relaxed when you're eating. But additionally, there's a hygienic aspect of this. There's an aspect of just a clean area. Your food will fall on the table, right? You're going to be tempted to pick it off the table and eat it. Again,
this is going to be in your own home. Clean the table first. Clean the table first. Have a clean, it gives you a freshness of mind. It gives you a clarity. It gives you an appetite when the area is clean. Take a few minutes, clean the area before you eat. Okay, but here he's saying that people, when they sleep, can be very finicky about that. People, when they eat, can be very finicky. Oh,
I'm going to have a table that's now going to wobble. It's going to be tilted. I'm sure you've all been to a restaurant where the table was uneven and you're like, things are sliding down the table. Right? It makes you unsettled. And when a person eats, this is something I think people take for granted. We don't recognize the importance of how intimate our eating is. We mentioned previously that you will never, ever find the picture
of the Queen of England eating. Ever. You will not find. Go look online. Unless it's AI, you will not find a picture. Why? Because it's a, when you're royalty, you're private. Eating is a very intimate thing. You keep it private. It's, it's something that you don't typically see people of prominence eating in public. It's not, it's not a nice thing. It's not, it's, it's unbecoming for someone who is,
who is on an elevated plane to eat. The, the Talmud talks about this. The Talmud says that someone who eats in the marketplace is considered like a dog. And you know what? It's a very interesting thing. The Talmud then continues. He's compared to a dog. Why? Because a dog has no self-dignity. He doesn't care. He'll eat any place. You just give him its food, it'll eat it. It doesn't care. And he's not valid
to give testimony in court. Why? What did he do wrong? He just ate in public. He's sitting in the mall and he's eating in the marketplace in the mall and he's eating like this, eating his pizza while he's walking down the, you know, down the escalator. What's the big deal? What's the big deal? Because if you don't value yourself, our sages tell us, you don't value others either. If you don't value
your own worth, how can you give testimony in court about the value of another person that we should trust or not trust, that we should believe or not believe, how will you properly declare the value of another human being when you don't value your own self? Our sages teach us the importance. It's not just a dignity thing for yourself. It is. You know, I always say, if you have a,
if you have a big, a black tie affair at your home, you invited all these prominent guests, you invited Ken Paxton to do his launch event for his senatorial seat. Right, Ron? I'm looking at you. Right? Okay. Okay, I'm not looking. I know. I know, I know. No, no, no. So I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. But imagine you had such an event, black tie event, everyone, right? And your dog
starts barking. So what do you do? You throw him some food and there he is. He doesn't care that this is such a prominent event. He doesn't care that this is Ron hosting his Joe Biden event. You know, this is such a prominent event. This dog doesn't care. This dog is eating, biting on that bone. He's going to, like, as if nothing, he doesn't care what was going on around him
because he has no self-worth in that regard. A human being has to carry themselves in a proper way, which is, I think, it's a good thing but also not such a good thing. You know, Steve Jobs broke the, the, broke the mold of how a CEO walks around. It used to be CEOs would walk around in a suit and tie. They would walk around with professional clothes. And then he shows up
on the scene. Remember, he shows up on the stage with that little iPod. Remember that? And he pulls it out of his pocket. He said, imagine if you can have a thousand songs in your pocket. It was like, oh, it's the most amazing thing. Right? I think it was 2003, 2004 when he released the iPod and with the one with the circle, you can just go like that, right,
and move your songs along. But he came on the stage in jeans and a T-shirt. And it was like the revelation of a whole new world of how CEOs started carrying themselves casual. Everything is casual. The problem with that is that, is that people lost their own value to who they are. The people lost a sense of dignity. So people walk around in whatever way they walk around. You see people
flying on planes. It used to be people used to prepare themselves. They used to fly with dignity. Today, people come in their pajamas and their slippers. It's like, what's going on here? Like, the people don't have any self-worth. And that's not a good thing for our generation because if you don't value yourself, there's no way you'll value other people. It's the same exact principle. I will also tell you, though,
that one of my rabbis witnessed the following experience where one of his fellow colleagues was outside in front of the yeshiva on a phone, on a cell phone, right when the cell phones came out, like the early 2000s. And his rabbi passed by and said to him, you realize that this falls into the same category of a dog eating, of a person eating in public like a dog. You don't have self-worth.
Now, it could be that that changes over time because today, everybody has a phone. Everybody talks on their phone. And everybody's walking around with their phone, right? So maybe we could distinguish between someone talking on the phone and someone walking blindly on the phone. I'm sure you've seen those videos of people walking right into dumpsters and people walking into cars and people walking into, you know, into a water fountain. You know, it's like, it's unfortunate
that people get so distracted and people are not, by the way, driving while texting is more dangerous than driving drunk. It's terrible. They have DUI for driving under intoxication. There should be DUT, driving under texting, right? It's a terrible thing. And people don't recognize the dangers of it. It's really, really, really dangerous. So they're a word of encouragement for people to stay off their devices while they drive. Very important. And now,
we see here the Talmud says that we don't have to get someone to the point of below 200 zuz for them to become uncomfortable in that sense. Now, a person can argue and say, well, don't come onto the community's lap for help when you're still living in your lavish life. It's not necessarily the case. The fact that they have a roof over their head, even in the state of Texas, they may have gotten this
from the Talmud. In the state of Texas, if someone sues you, they can take away all your money, but they cannot take you out of your house. They cannot take you out of your house. And that's an important thing for a person to see. Still, you have to give the person the ability to live with dignity, even if they're coming onto the community for assistance. I would say like this, there's also, you know,
if you send your child to private school, yeshiva is private school, and we pay an enormous, an enormous amount of money to tuition. I'm talking, it's a lot, okay? Okay? It's a lot. I have, thank God, six children that I'm still paying tuition for. It's a lot, okay? And if you need financial aid, financial assistance, because they're charging $20,000 per child on average. It's an enormous amount for six children. That's more than my salary, right?
So it's a lot of money. So what do you do? How do you deal with that? So you tell the school, and they have a financial aid program. I don't know if they raise the level of tuition so that, you know, so that they raise the, so for those who can pay, they pay and cover for those who don't to offset the cost. But either way, I don't want to get into that. I don't run the school,
but many times, they'll make you fill out an application, and they go through every single detail, what car you drive, what year of the car, what they make in the model. They want to know your last vacations. They want to know, because if you're spending money, and in a way, it could be justified. In a way, it's like, why do you need to neuter them to give them their discount, okay? But the, sometimes the questions
could be really invasive. Thank God, in Houston, we're better than in most places, but the school is, it deals with you in a dignified way. But sometimes the questions that people are asking, you know, if you're going on a cruise, and you're able to spend all that money on a cruise, why can't you spend that money on your child's tuition? And it's a valid question that should be asked. It could be asked and should be asked.
If you're going on vacations, and you're going on these expensive programs, why can't you just, instead, have a little bit more of a simple vacation, and spend the rest of that money on your child's tuition without asking? Now, if you're paying your full tuition, do whatever you want. But if you're asking for the financial aid, then perhaps it shouldn't be that you're driving a fancy car and going on lavish vacations. Okay. It's an interesting balance
that's required. But again, it's a balance. It's a balance that needs to be. Okay. So the Gemara proposes a different resolution. Oma Rava B'rei De-Raba. Rava, the son of Raba, said, Be-ma charei sho de-kasba, that the braisah, which requires him to sell the more expensive items and replace it with the less expensive item, is dealing with a silver plow. What does that mean? Since a plow is a gardening tool rather than a utensil for personal use,
he's required to exchange it rather than to accept charity. So your silver plow, that you should exchange. The Mishnah, on the other hand, which does not require him to sell and exchange utensils of greater value for those of lesser value, deals with utensils for personal use regarding which people are often finicky. So your own personal, you know, get rid of that watch and buy yourself, you know, a simple Casio watch that costs 10 bucks.
Get rid of that, you know, your clothes and go with the cheaper clothes. Get rid of your, you know, that's personal things. You're not required because people are a little bit more specific about it. You see that the clothes that people shop for, they're very, very cautious that it should be this and it should be that. They wanted this color. They wanted this size. They wanted this. They wanted that. It's very, very specific.
They want this, this fabric, that fabric. So I hurt. I wouldn't know. I don't like shopping ever, ever. My wife knows. Like to me, it's a punishment to go shopping. So it's like, it's a real, it's like a sentence. Like if they have a bench, I'll sit on the bench. I think those stores are the best stores in the world. It's like if they have a bench there for the husbands and all the husbands
are sitting there, you know, and just waiting. You know, take the credit card, but just don't bother me. I don't want to go shopping. Which one do you like, this one or this one? They look the same. We'll just make it right. So you know exactly what I'm talking about, don't you? All right. Okay, good. So now, others translate ma'choresha de kasba as a silver comb. It is used to groom oneself in the bathhouse.
And although this comb is designated for personal use, it differs from other personal use utensils in that it is very uncommon for such a comb to be made from silver. Hence, it is considered an absolute luxury and he is required to exchange it for a comb of lesser value rather than accept charity. So here you are walking around with a Rolex hair comb. Okay? It's not necessary. Why do people need, why do you need
to walk around with that? Sell that for a little plastic comb and that, because that's not a necessity item. That's not a finicky item. That's a luxury item. And the luxury item, so we have to define what luxury is and what necessity is. There are things that are luxury and there are things that are necessity. And if a person is unable to get by and yet they have all of these luxuries, perhaps let go of
some of those luxuries so that you don't have to come on to the community. Okay, so now the Gemara says, the Gemara proposes yet another resolution to the contradiction between the Mishnah and the Bresa. And that is because again the Mishnah says you don't need to sell your belongings in order to elevate yourself above the poverty line and the Bresa says that you do need to sell. So how do we deal with this contradiction?
So one more proposal. Rav Papa said, lol kasha, it is not difficult. The ruling here in the Mishnah that he does not have to sell his utensils pertains to a pauper who is not yet subject to a court-imposed seizure. Whereas the ruling here in the Bresa that he must sell his utensils pertains to a person who is already subject to a court-imposed seizure. Meaning, what does he say here? The Mishnah deals with a person who does not have
200 zuz in cash and wishes to take the entitlements granted to the poor. In that case, the Mishnah rules that although the proceeds of such a sale would allow him to reach the 200 zuz threshold, he is not required to sell. Hence, he is considered to be under the 200 zuz limit and eligible to take those entitlements. The Bresa, however, deals with a person who did have 200 zuz in cash and unlawfully took
some of the entitlements granted to the poor. So he says, I don't have, but he really did. When the court discovers the truth later, they force him to repay that which he took. And according to Rav Papa, that's why in the event that he has no money with which to pay, the court seizes his expensive utensils, exchanges them for those of lesser value, and uses the proceeds to repay that which he owes.
So what we see here is he came on to the community charity. He tells them I'm poor. They found out that he wasn't. He was above the threshold of the 200 zuz. And now he has to repay, recompense the community charity fund. So there was a ruling in a Jewish court where the court says, we have to collect the money from you. And in such a case, they will collect the money from him. How do they do that?
He says, I don't have. I really don't have now. So we sell his silver comb. We sell his fancy Rolls Royce hubcaps so that now he can afford to pay back the community fund. So this is how the Talmud here concludes this discussion about this dilemma of what do we do with someone who's at the poverty line. So this is just, again, it's an interesting threshold that when a person is just above that, like they say,
they talk about this. When you hear people talking about economics, they'll tell you what the median income is and what the poverty line is, et cetera, et cetera. And sometimes people say, you know, if I'm above that line and now I have to pay things out of, you know, not from, and I don't get them free from the entitlement programs, now I'm going to end up with a lot less than someone who's below that poverty line.
And that's a very difficult thing for a person to deal with, which is why they might come to being dishonest to fall beneath that line, and that's a big challenge. So what if you're rich and you've got this big, beautiful house? You lose all your money. You're well below the poverty line. Can they require you to sell this big house and get a smaller one? No, so that's what the Mishnah says. You're not required to sell the home.
You're not required to. Now, the question is, how are you going to maintain the home? That's going to be a big problem because you're just, your mortgage payments or your taxes or your upkeep, your utilities could be a fortune. So you can't require the community to help pay for your luxurious lifestyle. Yeah, the requirement might be for someone to downsize a bit. Now, if you have 3,000 children, that's a different story.
You don't need that big home. But if you have two children, perhaps you can go to something which is... Well, I have a hundred servants. A hundred servants, right. All right, so that's... Yeah, so that is how the Talmud here concludes this conversation. Let me see if there's another... Yeah, so that's how the Talmud concludes this conversation. And hopefully we should always be on the giving side of charity and never on the receiving side
and never on the receiving side. I think that what the Talmud here says about being very cautious about not using ailments in a wrong way, asking for mercy in a wrong way, asking for people's assistance when someone is not sick, heaven forbid, and making them believe they are is a very, very terrible thing for a person to do something like that because as the Talmud here says, you are destined, God forbid, to get that
and to fall into that situation even though it's not something that you really had. All right, so this concludes today's Talmud, this Talmud, because now begins a new Mishnah. So wishing our dear friends online a beautiful Shabbos. Thank you. We're going to continue here in our class. Yeah. Okay, you had a question? Right. I'll tell you, it's a big dilemma. We had a story a little while back in our family. Someone posted
one of those selling this jewelry, you know, whatever, like selling, on a community bulletin. It was an online community bulletin. What was posted there? Selling the great Rebetzin, my grandmother, Rebetzin Wolbe's engagement ring. I'm like, who's that? It turns out that my grandmother gave one of my cousins her engagement ring that she got. And this granddaughter decided, I need the money, let me just sell it. And the family was up in arms,
like, this is crazy, right? Sell it to someone in the family who has, right? And, you know, you're selling it out there to, you know, so that's a big question. I wouldn't know what, like, are they obligated to it? They're definitely not obligated to it. It's theirs. They got it as a gift from the grandmother. It's theirs. But, right, then the other grandchildren were a little bit worked up. They were like, you know,
why didn't you announce it to the family? Let the family get first dibs on it. And they said, well, we feel uncomfortable charging the family for it. Yeah, so it's a complicated thing. It's not a simple matter. My grandmother, blessed memory, after we had our third or fourth, so she was an old Hungarian woman, and she was like spunky as can be. And she tells me once, I tell her, Bobby, I'm in Borough Park. I came to visit you.
She says, one second, before you come here, how many children do you have? So I said, I think I said I had four. She says, slowpoke, right? So I said, what do you mean? I said, I have four. Like, take it easy. So she said, I want to die with a thousand grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She says, if I'm going to come up to heaven and I'm not going to have, what are they going to tell me?
She says, move it. Let's go. That was my grandmother's attitude about this. She wanted, look, she's a survivor. She met my grandfather of blessed memory in the DP camp. They were both in Auschwitz, and it was a tragic existence there. And when they came out, they were determined to rebuild the Jewish people. And I would say fairly that she had probably five to 600 descendants from her by the time she passed. Yes, there is. Okay.
So the Torah tells us that the world was created. Now, proof is to be fruitful and multiply. So that mitzvah in itself is to have a boy and a girl. So anybody who has a son and a daughter fulfills that mitzvah. You fulfilled that mitzvah. You're done. That's two. Right. But the Torah says that the world wasn't created just to live in. Le'shev es yitzorah, it was created so that we fill the world with humanity.
And that's by having children. So there is a specific command. I can pull up the exact verse if you'd like. So that's the great miracle of Hashem's hand. I would invite you, personally invite you, to our Monday night class. We have a class on Monday night that begins here at seven o'clock, which is all about reliance on Hashem. That doesn't mean that we don't have jobs. That doesn't mean that we don't put forward an effort. But our success ultimately
is in the hands of Hashem. And Hashem wants us to fill this world with beautiful little children. And it's His job to ensure that they have food to eat. It's His job that we have enough money to pay their tuition with or without financial aid. And it's our job to ensure that they have summer camps as well. And I can tell you that being a father to eight magnificent beautiful children, does it have its challenges financially? 100%.
But there's also tremendous, tremendous miracles that happen every single day. Every single day. Okay, I can tell you miracle after miracle that I've experienced where there are situations, scenarios where I don't know how we're going to get, how we're going to pay the month. I don't know how we're going to do it, right? And Hashem sends a miracle from here and a miracle from there. And every time there's something else that comes and we still, you know, thank God.
I'll be honest with you. My daughter, as you know and recall, I'm sure a year ago, yes, a year ago, she lost her baby. It was very, very tragic for her, for all of us, for the whole family. So she's in a very small apartment right now. It was just her and her husband. She's going to have a baby. And they need to move to another apartment. They had a miracle of finding an apartment that's double the size
for only 500 shekel more than they're currently paying. 500 shekel is $150. It's unheard of. It is a total miracle. She called me. She's so excited. But she needs furniture. She needs to fill up a house now. Exactly. That's 200 zoos at least, right? So she called us and asked for help. And, of course, we're parents and we love our children. We want to help. But I'm thinking, like, where in the world will I come up with
the money to help them out? I want to, you know, give them something nice, a few thousand dollars so that they can buy some furniture. I kid you not. I get a letter in the mail from an insurance that I had a few years ago. And they said, we just did our whatever. We realized that you had a $4,900 balance in your account that we owe you. This happened this week. So I told my wife,
here's the money for our daughter. There you go. There's the money so that now she can buy her furniture. But I was like, I literally had no idea where this is coming from. But Hashem sent it just like that. So yeah, I think it's an important thing for us to recognize that our joy is to be there for our children and to help them. Right? How? You think, here's the problem, Ron. You think that there's
a finite amount of money. That's not true. Hashem has an infinite amount of money. And he has an infinite amount of messengers that he can send. And sometimes it comes to the insurance company. Sometimes it'll come from a tax return. Every time it can come from something else. And I'm telling you that I have stories like this all the time. Now, on the opposite side of things, I have a very dear friend of mine here in Houston.
Some of you may or may not have known him. Well, I'm not going to say his name, obviously. But he told me that he said he did not want to get married. He did not want to have children until he had their college fund completely secured. The problem is that by the time he was, you know, paid down his mortgage and because he felt it was irresponsible for him to do otherwise. How can I bring children to this world
if I have a mortgage? How can I bring children to this world if I don't know how I'm going to put them through school? And by the time he did have all that secured funding, he was too old to have children. And it was very tragic. It was very tragic for him. And I've talked to him many, many times. And he says, I wish I would have had my priorities right. I wish I would have met you
40 years ago. My life would be different. And it's sad because some people think that the dollar or the finances is what secures a person. And it's not true. It's our thing. You know what I saw this morning? I saw the most beautiful thing. It's the same thing I saw yesterday morning. And that is a bird right outside our window by the kitchen in my house. There's a bird there. And it had a twig in its mouth.
So I said to my daughter, I said, it looks like it's building a nest. Let's wait and see. Sure enough, it flew right on top of my door, decided that that's where it wants to lay its nest. So I was talking to my daughter about this. I said, look at this amazing bird. You think he's worried about how he's going to pay his bills? How is he going to pay his bills? But you know what? Hashem feeds him
exactly the way He feeds us with miracles. And we don't have to know all the answers. He goes out, he finds a twig, brings it to his nest. He finds another twig, brings it to his nest. Eventually he'll lay his eggs and we can do the mitzvah of Shiloah HaKan. We'll be able to do the mitzvah. I can bring the whole class. We can all do this tremendous mitzvah of sending away the mother bird and taking the young.
It's a special, special mitzvah. So God willing, we'll do that as soon as the nest is done. I don't want to ruin it. I think it's putting it right on top of my speaker. I have a speaker outside and like right on top of the speaker is where the speaker is. But I don't want the music. The music is, it's like when the kids go into the pool. We put the music on. I don't want it
to get scared from it. You know, or all the eggs to hatch with the music. You know, it's just going to play a lullaby. A lullaby. Rockabye baby. Right? All right. My dear friends, have an amazing Shabbos. Thank you very, very much. I enjoyed our Talmud study. Next week, we will start a new piece of Talmud.
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