Are We Too Shy To Do Biggest Mitzvah | Torat HaChassidut (25)

[Music] Let me be crystal clear. You're misses played. You want to keep your guard tongue or lose it all. That's decree except for three cases. But even then carefully don't front like it's light like it's no big deal cuz each false word man is real as he met and when you lie you reject what he meant it's a soul rod creeping slow in disguise till the truth gets buried beneath your lies think he don't see when you bend the line but truth's got roots that outlast time becomes a step a lying ain't survival it's a spiritual crawl or nothing there ain't no graight [Music] Truth or do your life on a single lie. Keep it real even when it's rough cuz falsehood's easy, but truth is tough. Say it's just white lies, but your national records each twist and disguise unleash. Said your shape can shift, your face, your form, your soul can drift. You lie for profit, you lie for fame. Then watch it all burn. You either walk straight or you fade away [Music] in your life. [Music] to everybody. We're back here on our Sunday night Sunday night sh withins which will give us a lot of blessings a lot of to us to all the people that are watching and learning with us and continuing to work on themselves. Tonight's show is going to be for the foravid and all of Isra and all the righteous noises that continue to support continue to help us with all the amazing things that the organization is doing. Anyone that wants to donate can donate atm.org. You could also help us with the food campaign to help poor people in Israel for this upcoming holiday in just a few days of Shvat. We have a campaign, a shot campaign. Uh so uh all your help is certainly appreciated. Uh of course you could donate uh through credit card. You could donate through Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency. You could send checks. There's plenty of ways that you could support and help us. As I told somebody today, all we need is 36 bitcoins uh for us to be able to buy the building to start the center we've been talking about for the last five years, but certainly we need help uh for also the food campaigns and the books and all the other amazing things. Another uh reminder for anyone that hasn't uh woken up yet and hasn't taken advantage of an opportunity of a lifetime to truly fight a malik uh by uh distributing the books uh that we've put on the Kiru store for free that you can order and distribute in your Jewish community for Hebrew speakers. kirutore.org. We have the uh new uh books on there. There's going to be another book uh going on there in the uh probably the next 24 hours or so. That's a uh book that's been 20 years in the making. Uh commentary of one of the Israel uh from over 100 years ago uh which we'll talk about once it's posted. But there's a lot of good stuff on the store. Lots of things you could distribute in your community. And of course, literally fight with that recent book we put on there. the one that is uh that's a uh shows proofs that are indisputable uh from across the spectrums of the Torah of why the uh teachings of Manis Freedman and anyone that follows in his footsteps are 100% against the Torah and considered heretical. Uh this is a fight we've been having for years and will continue until it's literally uprooted from the world byem. So, with that being said, uh the last reminder we have is uh simply to remind everyone to subscribe to the channels, subscribe to the AI Rabbi to answer all of your questions. Uh and you'd be surprised at the amount of questions that the AI rabbi uh can uh answer. Literally unbelievable answers that uh many people like. I know my my kids enjoy it. I enjoy it. Many subscribers like it. It's a uh fantastic uh use of today's uh technology. So of shalom in section 16 in uh katan has been delving into the minds of each and every single person that's been learning with us here in the series last week telling us of how a person has to uproot their stubbornness and their laziness because literally these are not just bad habits but as we uh showed laziness literally could lead to every possible sin uh under the sun. Now whether it starts off as laziness to go to shul or laziness to pray or laziness to study or laziness to work or laziness to uh do the things that you need to do in life, laziness is inherently a bad thing, not just a bad habit. And of showed us literally how it could be the root of all sins. Now we're going and delving into the next character traits. The next character trait being busha shyness. Now being shy generally speaking is viewed as something good. But tells us that there is a version of being shy that's inherently bad. And he says as follows. Likewise, someone who is naturally shy in a bad way should train himself to pray in a loud voice and energetically for 40 days in order to fulfill the verse. All my bones will say, "Oh God, who is like you?" This is from Psalms 35:10. He should say the blessings over the Torah in a loud voice, doing so until heaven helps him remove this negative form of embarrassment. Now person that's shy generally speaking would think that's a good thing. In fact the tells us in multiple places that there's three signs that is have bu which is shyness mercifulness and they like to do they like to help. They like to you know they're inherently merciful uh nation and they have shyness. Now, when you see somebody that uh is Jewish but is acting the opposite of this, where they're stingy and do not like to help anybody but themselves, or they're violent and they want to hurt people, or they have no shame, they're very uh uh uh just simply obnoxious and they like to get attention constantly. They have no shame in their acts. What does that mean? That means they're not acting Jewish. That means that they're acting more like the nations, more like everyone else. They're not acting like a Jew. Now, generally speaking, you're seeing here that being shy is a good thing. But Kazal teaches us as I learned from my dear Ra Rab there is no such thing as a mid as a character trait that is only good even if it's humility and certainly if it's bu if it's shyness one of the prime examples of this on the positive end we know that Musher Rabenu was the humblest man that ever lived as the greatest but at the same token the most humility. So we've always known that humility is good. But the page 55b tells us of a story that not only is a story that is shocking, but it's actually one of the foundational stories of what happened nearly 2,000 years ago at the destruction of the beta mikdash. Everyone has heard the story of Kamza and Bamza. The two people father and a son. Bam means the son of Kamza where uh one of them was a uh a friend of a person that was having a uh celebration and the other one was an enemy. And when this person was having a party, he invited all the important guests, rabbis, important people in the community and he sent his uh messenger to send an invitation to his friend Kama. But instead of sending it to his friend, the messenger made a mistake and he invited Bamza, his enemy. So when Bama got the invitation, he said, "Oh, maybe maybe he wants to make peace. Sure, I'll make peace with him. I'll go to the celebration. I'll go to the feast. And he went. But as soon as the host saw him, he could not believe his eyes how this enemy of his has the audacity to be at his feast. He told him, "Get out of here right now." Bakama said, "Please don't embarrass me. I got an invitation. What's the wrong invitation then? You weren't supposed to get it. Your father was supposed to get it." And everyone is hearing this including the rabbis. In fact, the mid says that one of Is there hearing this ben of Kulos? He was there and did and Midash says he didn't say anything and neither did anybody else. Why didn't he say anything? He was too humble to tell somebody that he's wrong. Oh, who am I to tell him that he's wrong and embarrassing him? Maybe I'll tell him another time. Now, this led from bad to worse. As Bama left shamed in front of everyone, he vowed to take revenge against Am not only against his enemy, but now everyone became his enemies, including the rabbis because they did not stand up for him. So he went to the Roman Caesar and he told him, you know, these Jews are going against you. They uh think that you are uh worthless that even if you brought a sacrifice to their temple to their beta mikdash they wouldn't accept it. He said Caesar says ah come on they're loyal to me they would never reject my uh sacrifices. So comes says look I'll do it I'll bring a sacrifice in your name and you'll see they'll reject it. Yeah, go ahead. Give him give him our uh one of our sacrifices. What did he bring as a sacrifice? Some say he brought a pig. Some say he brought a regular goat. So a pig, of course they're not going to accept. But a goat, why wouldn't they? So say he took a knife and made a uh slashed the uh the goat to make it pagum to make it defective and we cannot accept a defective sacrifice if it's coming from a Jew. But now it's coming from the Caesar. You would think that uh would just say listen just replace it with something else or just accept it. We don't want to get in trouble with the Caesar. Well, he got there and uh Khim saw, wait, what's going on here? This is a uh on behalf of the Roman Empire. Yeah. Well, we we can't accept it. This is uh defective. This is defective. But the majority of the rabbis said, "Listen, defective, no defective. If we say no, the Roman Caesar is going to be embarrassed. he could uh go to war with us, destroy everybody, kill everybody. The decision was up to the b of what do we do? Says we can't accept it. Okay, we can't accept it. Then we have to kill. Why? Because if we don't kill him, he's going to go back to the Caesar. He's already obviously we see this guy put a trap in our way. He's going to go to uh to the Caesar. He's going to tell him and uh then we're in trouble. So, okay, we can accept it. Fine. It's blemished, but let's let's kill the messenger. Kulas thought about it and said, "No, no, no. We cannot we cannot kill a fellow Jew. What fellow Jew? He's afraid. No, but we can't kill him. He's still a Jew. He is a uh maybe he's a Tinoishba. Maybe uh he uh you know he didn't mean it. Maybe he won't do it. He had such humility that he could not condemn anybody even when it was apparent to everybody else. In one other case, the says there was a uh the midrash says that the uh there was uh two uh two cobot, two pieces of meat that there was a mak at the belt between bet and bet the students of and they asked the ruling of which one is the right one, which one is kosher from He didn't want there to be a fight. He didn't want there to be a mlo. So what did he do? He took one of the pieces of the meat and threw it behind the lounge. So that way there's only one meat to judge on instead of giving them a ruling. That this seems like a nice righteous thing to do. Avoid avoid killing a fellow Jew. Avoid problems. But the says in page 55b of had humility that was not good. Not a good level of humility. And that level of humility stopped him from expressing the the strength that you need to have when and therefore it ended up causing the destruction of the beta mikdash because since he did not accept the the sacrifice of um um bakam he went back to the Roman Caesar and reported bad things about Am is and that led to the destruction of the beta mikdash. So we see from there that yes having humility is a fantastic thing if you know how to use it. But when it comes to Torah, you have to have humility at the right place, but you also have to have to show a position of strength when it comes to the truth. So is telling us that there is a type of shyness that is not good. The type of shyness of shame of what we call busha that is inherently bad that comes from the page 28 says that when came down after the sins is made people were scared. saw the scared faces everyone had when they're hearing Hashem's voice and when they're scared to death about all the punishments that could happen and so on. And he says to them, "This fear that you have, it's good because Hashem is intentionally scaring you in order for you not to sin." Because the fear that comes from shame of shame in front of his majesty, shame in front of sinning, that fear will stop you from actually sinning. So there's a good level of here that you're having. Another end was a story of shalom where parents brought their little kid, cute kid, three years old to perform the customary which is cutting the hair for the first time at 3 years old. And uh the kid was inherently shy. So shy that he refused to come to the rabbi. Scared. so shy. This dragged on for a while much more than normal. The parents got uh embarrassed. How is this kid not you know it's embarrassing the kid is not coming to to the sadik. He's spending time. He's waiting. So of course in the holy ways of he turned the shame that the parents had into something good to make them feel good. He says, "Oh, Hashem, you merited having a shy child. That means he's not going to sin when he gets older." So again, we see examples of someone that has shame, that has bu uh has no shame, we all know is a bad thing. But someone that has shame that could be bad, we need to dig a little bit deeper in order to understand it. When a person sees the for the first time, they'll see that the first mitzvah puts in there. So does the tool is make sure that you are bold when you are serving Hashem. Have no shame whatsoever in your servitude of Hashem. Don't be concerned whatsoever about what other people think of you becoming religious, of you becoming modest. All of a sudden they're making fun of you because they're used to you walking around with no arms and no legs. Now all of a sudden you're covered. They haven't seen anyone like that in in in their life. So they're making fun of you or they're making fun of you because you wear in a keep all of a sudden you have a tit says if you want to serve Hashem properly and go to heaven. Remove all of those thoughts out of your mind about what are people going to think now that I'm religious? What are people going to think now that instead of going to the movies I go to the bet midash to learn Torah for a few hours? What are people going to think that instead of me buying a watch, I'm giving that money to so I could help build a community to build a shul to help more people do chuva? What are people going to think that I do this? What are people going to think? If you want to go to heaven, remove that thought out of your mind about what people are going to think when they're thinking about things that are the opposite of the Torah. Because if you're concerned about what people think, you're going to have an impossible time serving Hashem. Now on the other end, a person that has shame, busha, a nature that is shy, usually that's usually a person that's easier to deal with, easier to compromise with, easier to uh grow with. It's usually a much better relationship. But sometimes the comes to a person in a way that he cannot even imagine. In fact, there are many mitzvot that people take pride in doing them. They even publicize them that they went to a certain place certain or or they uh they helped somebody they did. You know, people like to sometimes publicize their mitzvot and they take pride in what they do. They have a they gathered a bunch of women to do kala. They uh you know they had a lecture. You know people like to publicize mitzvah at times. They take pride. Yet there is one mitzvah that most people are too shy to do. And of is now going identifying a version of the that most people don't even realize exists. In fact, this yet is hidden in plain sight and was one of the underlying causes of the destruction of the beta mikdash as we just said. And what's most baffling is that people have no problem doing this act in the secular world. They even appreciate it. But when it comes to the spiritual world, the is so strong that it convinces some people that this mitzvah is a sin. What ends up happening is that when a person has a level of busha, level of shyness that it stops them from serving Hashem properly, then the most natural place for the to stop them is to stop them when it comes to rebuke. to stop them when it comes to reproving somebody because he's going to tell them, "Yeah, I know that guy is talking in the middle of prayer, but who are you to tell him what to do? Yeah, I know that woman is walking around not modest, but come on, you're not a rabbi. How are you going to tell her what to do? You know, I know that guy drove to sh and he drives to shul on Shabbat all the time, but let the rabbi do it. Why are you going to say something? The is going to tell you that it's not your place. Perhaps you're not going to do it and you're going to bring embarrassment to him. What about the heretic that's speaking in the shul or invited into the shul? Why don't you say something about that? Listen, I don't know enough to know how and when and and and maybe I'm just not going to go. And the is going to do everything possible to convince the person not to perform the mitzvah that our sages teach us is actually the biggest you can possibly do. You see, busha is bad when it holds you back from doing this because helping a person do chuva, helping a person know that he's making a mistake and going against Hashem is the greatest that you could do for that person. But if he doesn't know that he's doing something wrong, if no one tells him that it's wrong enough to comment on it, then I'll simply just continue doing it. My dear Rab Fry has some of the greatest personal stories that we learn from that are always applicable to how to deal with different teachings that we have. Says this past Shabbat he was giving a sh in the shoe in the bed midash we have over there. And uh as he's given the shoe, he sees there's a new guy and the new guy religious keeper everything, but he's biting his nails the whole time. And of course, this is not only not good to do for different uh purity and impurity cabalistic reasons, but it's also forbidden to do on Shabbat. Forbidden from biting your nails or even skin or tearing off your skin if you have skin, let's say, that's uh coming out on your fingers, which happens often to people that have dry skin. You're not allowed to uh take it off. Needless to say, you're not allowed to bite your nails. But this guy was going to town on his nails. Her friend says, "I'm lucky you only had 10 fingers." And I'm trying while I'm I'm speaking and giving the shoe, I'm trying to figure out how am I going to tell this guy without embarrassing him. So I'm trying to hint to him during the shure by saying you know when nobody's looking going like this no or but he's not getting the message after the shu says I have to tell him but I'm going to tell him so he decided that at the end of the shield he's going to go to the entrance and block the entrance so everybody has to go next to him and uh eventually the guy's going to come up. So that's what he does. And the people come and they start asking Ra Fry some questions. And while they're asking some questions, the guy sneaks out on the side and leaves like, "Ah, I missed it." So as he comes out, he sees the guy's not too far off. He catches up to him like, "Oh, how are you for coming to the sh?" And the guy's happy. Yeah. The rabbi's talking to him. And uh he says to him, "Listen, just I want to teach you a uh I learned, you know, he's not coming to him in a way where he's yelling at him or insulting him. He's almost trying to get him to to his level because the whole point of the rebuke is to help him, not to embarrass him or shame him. And it's never comfortable to rebuke anybody, to reprove them. It's never a pleasing event. If you're happy to rebuke people, there's something wrong with you. Usually, it's because you're doing it the wrong way because you like embarrassing people. Point of rebuke from the Torah is to help a person. So, he says, "Listen, I learned this that you know, you're not allowed to bite your nails on Shabbat. It's considered." And the guy accept, "Oh, I didn't know. I didn't know. Oh, thank you so much, Rabbi. I appreciate it." Of course, Rab never knew. He would the guy could have simply said what or who are you to tell me or all types of other expressions rejecting what he said but that's not something that stopped from actually going to do it because he knew that he had an obligation to help this guy at least inform him of his mistake. Another funny story was one time Rab Fry was a guest in uh some synagogue and uh it was over the holidays and uh he came to the prayer in the morning and uh he noticed that you know unusual that there was uh quite a few women also in the shak prayer. Usually women don't come to the sh prayer uh on the holidays. They come maybe on Shabbat sometimes, but usually women come, you know, uh but here he saw that there's a bunch of women in the uh in the uh women's area and there's a mita and the women are, you know, talking to the men. They're all friendly. You know, these these people know each other for a long time. And for it's the first time he's there. So he got a seat all the way in the back which is right next to the mita. But to his dismay as soon as they you know they started praying there was a part of the song there was part of the prayer that was like singing and the women knew the whole song and they started singing. Now for him it's not a problem. Number one he doesn't know what they look like. So the the whole concept of that uh the woman's voice is a forbidden for for far singing is forbidden for a man to hear. It's only if he knows what she looks like. So it's not a problem. But he knows that the other guys in the not only they're uh familiar they're even socializing with him. Yeah. Look uh Sima is really singing good today and TP is Wow. Your voice sounds good. Like they're all like celebrating this. clueless about the fact that it's that you know listening to a woman sing that you know that she is a uh what she looks like it's not considered a uh modest thing it's not allowed so he takes upon himself okay I have to do something to go and tell these women that come to this sh every single day for 20 30 years it's not going to happen tell not to sing it's not going to happen they're not going to listen the ka you see the ka is accepting welcoming him even. So what does he do? He starts singing even louder than they do. So they're and he sings even louder like literally obnoxiously loud just to drown out their voice not for his own needs but to help the other people in the ka. Now, in the beginning, they were singing all the songs he's familiar with, but since it was a Ashkanazi uh uh shul, there was certain songs that he wasn't familiar with. So, what do you do? You make it up. You start singing the song as you see fit. And the whole prayer, people are looking at him like, "Whoa, this guy is really uh excited to be here." His voice, hello. It's a little loud but and he's singing why I have to help my dear fellow Jews not to sin. Not to sin. And the way he tells it is much funnier than what I said. But you could just imagine this coming to a everybody's, you know, modern, going there a little older. They're uh happy with their uh place and all of a sudden you have this new guys singing obnoxiously loud that they don't even understand why. Why is all this excitement? Where'd you come from? He's doing it to protect them. As he says, rebuke is never fun, but it's necessary. It's a necessary. It's a necessary kindness if it's done right. That's why tells us right from the beginning of the don't be shy when you're serving Hashem because if you're shy serving Hashem you're not going to be able to serve Hashem when it comes to prayer. Certainly, there are times that people tell me, "Listen, sometimes I pray better when I'm by myself than when I pray with a minan." And yes, that's true for most people. But if you could have a minan, certainly there's a benefit in going to the minyan because you're doing with the not only you're, you know, adding to a minan, but also because you could have the opportunity to help other people. If you know Torah, you learn to you could help other people that are making certain mistakes. The page 31A says when would himself you would see him start from one end of the room and end up at the other end of the room from all of the bowing and the emotional expression that he had in serving Hashem. But when he prayed with the community, he would shorten his prayer and movements. Not because he was embarrassed, not because he was shy of expressing himself and moving and doing everything he did when he was by himself, but rather because he understood that this was not necessary for them to do. And if he did it next to them because of his position because he was everyone would follow or they would simply try to appease him moving everything around just because the rabbis moving that way and doing things. So he said no when he was with the community he prayed like they did. But this did not this type of expression of serving Hashem when he prayed by himself was not the only time he had excitement. If there was an opportunity to do a mitzvah, whether it was to pray to Hashem or to rebuke somebody, that uh commitment to Hashem stayed the same way. Because our sages teach us that when it comes to doing, many people love to do, people like to do kindness. They look for opportunities to give somebody a right to the airport or to give to the poor or to send money to people that need it in Israel or different things. People love to do and that's a good thing. That's part of it's one of the things that distinguishes us from the nations. There's no uh nobody does as much as Am is but the greatest the greatest kindness that you can do for your fellow Jew is actually to rebuke him. Now how does that compare? If let's say if let's say you see that uh you want to help somebody and as the Torah says if somebody has a donkey and the donkey falls uh in the hole or if let's say the uh stuff falls off the donkey go and help him first. In fact, if you have your enemy and your friend have both the same similar problem with their donkey, go help your enemy first. And says, "Why help your enemy first?" Because helping your enemy first is not only doing for him, but also it's doing for yourself. Because by helping your enemy first, you're working on your own character trait, your own ego of not forgiving and so on. But the reality is that when you help somebody in need, that's a temporary help. Once you help him with that donkey or whatever need, let's say his car broke down in today's world, that's it. He drives on and he's moves on with his life. The help started and ended at the same time and that's it. Now, if you see somebody poor, struggling financially, they can't pay their rent, they they they don't have money for food, you give them, it's great mitzvah. But again, explained to us that yes, that's big mitzvah, but it starts and it ends right away because that help that you gave him, that food that you gave him, that rent that you paid for, that's it. Once you paid it, it's finished. He has to again do whatever is necessary in order to make ends meet the next day, the next week, the next month. It's not you're not coming and helping him every single day for the rest of his life. You didn't just adopt him. You didn't adopt her and make her somebody going to pay for everything she wants or needs. No, you helped him. You gave him staka and you moved on. So again, similar to the donkey where you helped him and you exerted yourself to help him, but that help ended as soon as the mission was accomplished. The same thing with staka. Once you gave the money, that's it. Mission was accomplished. your impact is finished. Even if you give a person a job, which is a great mitzvah to do. So they say it's a greater to give somebody a way to make a living than to to give him just money because if he if you give him a job then he's not going to have the same embarrassment as accepting taka. So if you're able to give somebody a job or get somebody a job somewhere that's a very big but again there's a limitation where the help that you're giving him is only in one world because even if he's going to have this job for the rest of his life another 30 40 years he's going to work for that company and he's going to make a paycheck and he's going to buy things he's going to do things and everything is fine still all of that remains in this world. On the other hand, when you see that somebody is going in a route in a path that is against Hashem, they're violating Shabbat. They're listening to heretics, they are dressing immodestly, they're doing things that are inherently against the Torah. and you rebuke that person, what you're doing there is something that can help that person permanently in this world and the next. something that doesn't end with that one time or two times or five times or 100 times you rebuke them to finally stop driving on Shabbat or stop dressing him modestly or stop stealing in his business or whatever it is that they're doing. Once you rebuke that person and it finally works, that person is going to change their life as a result. Why? because from now on he's going to start keeping Shabbat or from now on he's going to stop stealing in or from now on she's going to stop dressing immodestly. So now the rest of her life in this world is changed. Every day changes as a result of what you did. And that doesn't end there because all of her new actions of dressing modestly of keeping which eventually leads to family purity which eventually leads to sending her kids to religious schools which eventually leads to you know doing uh uh good things that uh encourage our husband to want to learn more Torah and so on. That now is changing the lives of others around her. And it's also going to add up to our eternal life. The life after this life where a person leaves this world at whatever age Hashem determines. Real life begins. The eternal life begins. Hashem judges the person based on their actions in accordance to his law book which is the Torah. He sees the law and compares them to the person's actions. I have a law that Jews have to keep Shabbat. You kept Shabbat. Very good. You'll get rewarded for every single second you kept Shabbat. I have a law of modesty. You were modest. You'll get rewarded for every single second that you had a modest clothes on. When you spoke modestly, when you acted modestly, when you dressed modestly, all of that you'll be rewarded for. I have a reward for eating kosher. you ate kosher food, you'll get rewarded for every little bite that you ever made eating kosher food. And Hashem compares the person's actions that could have been the opposite if you did not rebuke them. If you did not tell them that they're going in the wrong path, if you didn't send them the lecture, the sh that is going to motivate them to change, inspire them to change because now they have more information. Until now, the average Jew that they were familiar with, that they spend their time with was too shy to tell them the truth. I'm not talking about the secular Jews that they were familiar with that themselves are also clues. I'm talking about the religious sister she has or the religious brother she has or the rabbi in the community or the religious neighbor that she has or all the different religious people that she or he knew. They knew that she was violating Shabbat. He was violating Shabbat. knew he was stealing in his everybody knew but they were too shy to tell them that this is forbidden and they'll get punished for it. But you went forward and was bold enough in the ways of Hashem to go and tell them. And as a result of that, that person instead of arriving at the bed of Shamine with desecration of Shabbat their whole life with desecration of Hashem's name non-stop. They are now arriving with mitzvot. That you did for them has no end. But the does not want that to happen. So what does he do? He comes to you and he tells you, listen, you know, who are you to tell them that they're uh not religious enough? You know, who are you to tell people not to listen to this uh heretic? Let somebody else do it. You know, who are you to judge people? You know, you shouldn't judge people. And the tries to give you every single excuse under the sun to convince you not to do it. Or worse yet, to convince you to do it, but in the wrong way. where instead of going to the person and trying to help them by telling them they're going in the wrong way, you go to the person and you start insulting them. Ah, you lose their look, you're not even keeping Shabbat. Look, you what kind of Jew are you? You're uh not even modest. And the people is like, well, if this is what religious Jew acts like, I don't want to be like you. I may not be religious like you as far as the way you look, but I'm not a nasty person like you. So instead of helping them, you're insulting them. So of course it's not going to work. That's also in fact many people that think that they're fulfilling the mitzvah of rebuking their fellow brothers, their fellow Jews are not fulfilling the mitzvah. They're just insulting people. So now we see that there is something that can you can do that is the greatest kindness you can possibly do for everyone that could change their life and their eternity. But yet tells you not to do it. The from about 700 years ago tells us the details of every mitzvah. In mitzvah 239 is the mitzvah of the obligation to reprove a fellow Jew who does not act properly. and says as follows. This is based on the that's in the book of Leviticus chapter 19 verse 19 verse1 17 that you shall surely reprove your fellow and do not bear a sin because of him. So the says we're commanded to reprove a fellow Jew who does not conduct himself properly whether it be regarding matters between man and his fellow meaning interpersonal affairs or regarding matters between man and his god meaning observance of mitzvot as the Torah says you shall surely reprove your fellow and do not bear a sin because of Now the sages in the wrote on this verse from where do we know that even if you have already reproved him meaning your fellow Jew regarding a sin four or five times and he didn't repent yet you're obligated to reprove him again to teach this the Torah says you shall reprove you shall surely reprove using a double double phraseology to indicate that one is obligated to offer a reproof multiple times. And page 31A says, "You shall surely reprove even a hundred times if necessary." Now, when you first set out to reprove a sinner, it's proper for a person to reprove the sinner in private, similar to how Raime did in the shul with the guy that was biting his nails. There's no need to embarrass the guy, say something to him in the middle of the lecture or in front of everybody else. Certainly, you need to tell him, but you don't have to tell him right this second. You can wait a few moments until the sh is over, until you see him after. Say it in such a way where it's almost like we're learning together or perhaps I used to also not know it. Make the guy feel good about it. So you do it in private with a soft tongue, gentle words so that he does not become embarrassed because the Torah says reprove him but don't bear a sin because of him. There's no reason for you to embarrass him at first. However, there is no doubt, says the that if the sinner does not repent of his sins as a result of this more discreet manner of reproof, we may then humiliate that sinner publicly, publicizing his sin and degrading him for it until he returns to the good path and does chuva. So we see here that there is a time where if somebody you tell somebody listen I see that you're driving to sh on Shabbat and I don't know if the rabbi told you or if the rabbi knows not sure what happened but it's forbidden to drive on Shabbat. In fact someone that drives on Shabbat is considered an idol worshipper. It's a horrible thing. Or if you see somebody for example that is consistently speaking in the middle of the prayer all types of conversations with his friends while the is happening tell the person first listen I don't know if you realize but the someone the says that if you speak in sh while there's praying it's considered such a horrible sin that they compares it to a murderer. K was a murderer. The language that uses is the same language that Hashem used on after he murdered his brother Evan. Now I know you don't mean to be a murderer, but when you speak in that's in essence what's uh what where you're putting yourself next to. These are your new friends. So at first you tell a guy he stops good. But if you see him driving again next week and again the next week or he's talking shoe regularly, you don't have to continue doing it silently. You tell listen, you can't count this guy and I told him already three, four times to uh stop driving on Shabbat and he's still driving on Shabbat and the rabbi can't give him an aliyah. You can't uh count this guy in minan. We don't have 10. If he's number 10, we don't have 10. What about the fact that this will embarrass him? The says yes, that's the point. If he's not listening to the rebuke when you try it in a nice way, you have the permission of the to do it publicly. But of course, you're going to say, "Wait, but then I'm going to embarrass him. And didn't it say that it's better off to, you know, jump into fire than embarrass a fellow Jew?" That's the the will tell you not to do the mitzvah at all because you're going to say to yourself, "Wait, listen. I don't know if this guy's going to listen to me. I haven't told him anything yet, but I see him driving to shabbat all the time or I see him eating non-coosher all the time or I see that uh, you know, she's walking around non modest all the time, even if it's to the sh and if I tell her something, maybe she's not going to listen. So, it's better off not to say the will tell you not to do it. the will tell you not to do it at all. Not even the first time. Not even a nice way. Why? Because maybe you'll embarrass them. Maybe you'll embarrass yourself. What are people going to think? Who am I to tell them? They're going to think I'm judging. All types of other types of arguments. But this is what the says. This is the mitzvah itself. And in fact, the purpose of the mitzvah says the is to bring peace, which is the opposite of what the is telling you. The always magnifies everything into something that it doesn't exist. You're thinking about helping somebody by telling them to eat kosher food or to keep Shabbat or to something else. That's the Tawra says and the says, "No, no, no. If you tell him that maybe it's going to be because then he's going to say that uh you guys are pushing too much. You're judging him and he's not going to come anymore. So, it's better that he comes driving on Shabbat that he doesn't come at all." Or maybe this the always magnifies things but in reality the says the say that the rebuke is for the sake of helping him and in fact the rebuke will bring peace. How so? Among the underlying purposes of this mitzvah says the with respect to reprimanding one's fellow regarding personal grievances that this matter of confronting one's fellow and expressing disapproval actually provides peace and good between people. Now, how could it be that you told him, "Listen, I heard that uh apparently you stole I mean, you misappropriate the money that uh that uh Ruven gave you. So, I think you should give it back to him. You should appropriate it. It was misappropriated. Appropriate back to his pocket." Now, you're thinking, "Wait, if I tell him that, say, "Oh, who you tell me how to run my business? It's between us. It's between this. It's between Who are you? says, "No, no, go do it. What you're doing is going to bring peace." How is it going to bring peace? Maybe he's going to get mad at me. Maybe he's going to yell at me. Maybe he's going to punch me in the face. Says the For when one person sins against another, the wrong party gently reprimands the wrongdoer in private. The wrongdoer will generally explain his actions and apologize to them. If he's a normal decent human being, you tell him, "Listen, by the way, you charge me 5,000 when you really said it was 500. It's an extra zero over there. That's a whole lot more money." So, a normal person that's not a thief inherently, that's not an evil person. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'll give you the money back. Therefore, you created peace as a result of it. He in turn will accept the wrongdoers's apology and will make peace with him. Oh, I thought he stole it, but I guess it was just a mistake. I thought he didn't want to pay me my salary, but I really He just forgot or the system didn't work. You will inev inevitably you will invariably harbor hatred towards him in his heart if he doesn't reprimand him. Meaning if you don't reprimand the guy, you don't tell him he did wrong to you or did wrong to somebody else that you're familiar with, what ends up happening, the guy that was wronged will end up hating the other guy, which is another sin. So now both of them are sinning because he's going to think, "Oh, see, he didn't invite me and that's why because he doesn't like me, because I'm this, because I'm that." And he's going to think of all of these things in his mind. A lot of times people spend more time in other people's minds of what other people are thinking than in in their own minds. One of the most annoying things in the world is when people think they can think for you. Oh, you know I didn't call because I thought that you were da da da da. Oh, you know I didn't come because I thought that you were da da da da da. Why are you thinking for me? No, I didn't say it because I thought that you wait. Why didn't you just ask me what I think or what I said or why did you think for me? Who asked you to enter my brain? Who invited you in there? I invited you to my house. I invited you to the lecture. I invited you to do this and that. I didn't invite you into my brain. Why are you thinking for me? But many times people do this. Oh, no. I don't want to call her. Why don't you want to call her? Because I think that as soon as I call her, she's going to think, "Oh, why am I calling? I want something. I need something." So, I'm just not going to call her. But maybe she's just going to be happy to hear from you because you haven't called her. No. No. I don't I don't I don't think she thinks that way. How do you know how she thinks? How do you know what's in her mind? Many times people spend an exorbitant amount of effort entering other people's minds without any invitation and they always conclude wrong. They always conclude wrong. They always get to the wrong conclusion. And this is another form of the so the says that if you rebuke you reprove the person you tell them listen you did something wrong to me you hurt me you didn't do this you didn't do that if the other person is a decent human being then guess what they're going to be happy that you told them that oh I'm sorry I didn't know I didn't pay you I'm sorry I didn't know that I was uh that late I'm sorry I didn't know it bothered you and guess what they're going to apologize you're going to accept their apology ology and that's it finished. But what ends up happening is when people spend their efforts and time being in other people's minds, they think for them, they assume for them, they conclude for them. And guess what? They end relationships. They just simply stop talking to people because they assume that the other person hates them or doesn't want to talk to them or or or whatever it is. they assume when in reality the other person is really upset and I don't know. I don't know why she doesn't answer my calls anymore. I don't know why she doesn't uh she doesn't uh say hi. I don't know. They don't even know what happened. They don't even know why this other person is upset at them. They have no idea. But in your mind, no, she knows. He knows why I did it. He knows why. He's not stupid. He knows that he hurt me. No, he actually doesn't. Yeah, because I asked this and he didn't answer. Maybe he just forgot. Maybe uh something else came up maybe like why don't you just talk ask them yet is not going to let you. So the goal of rebuking is not only when you see another guy violating Shabbat it's also for interpersonal relationships which is more common than you can possibly imagine. Many times people destroy good relationships as a result of what they think other people think. and they conclude as a result of it. But if these are decent people, especially if they're from religious Jews, you shouldn't accuse them of all these things. Now, so the goal of the rebuke when it comes to interpersonal relationships is to bring peace. One of the examples that says that led to a disaster is of shalom of shalom and ammon after ammon did the horrible sin that he did to tamal the sister of of shalom of shalom didn't speak to him about it and therefore ammon did not know that ab shalom was going to kill him he acted like he was his friend reality is if ab shalom would have spoken to him about it certainly It would have been a bad thing, but it wouldn't have ended up with murder. So, the purpose of the mitzvah is to promote peace and harmony between people because the goal of the Torah is to promote peace. All of the ways of the Torah, ways of pleasantness, and all of its path are peace. Further, when there is a person that is a dangerous person, a person that's violent, and rebuking such a person could actually bring harm to a person, then there's a different mitzvah. Our sages taught us as the that when a person is offering reproof the rebuke that he's not looking to benefit from them. He's simply looking to help somebody else. But there is a sinner that is known by everyone because of his intense sinfulness. He cares less. In fact, he's a violent and wicked person and everyone is scared of him because he could kill them or hurt them if they say anything to them. In such a person, you're not obligated in this mitzvah, not obligated to put yourself in danger for the sake of, you know, rebuking some mafia boss. In fact, it's a mitzvah to stay silent in such a case. because clearly your rebuke is not going to be accepted anyway. Nevertheless, every person of conscience ought to reflect and be very diligent regarding these matters. He should consider and determine whether perhaps there is there can be a benefit in his words to the sinner where were he to reprove him. For if there is even a possibility that the sinner will heed his words, then he has to do it. He has to reprove. But in the case where he fears that the sinner might physically harm him, then he shall trust in Hashem that he will assist him in battling the enemies. And his heart should not be faint, nor shall he fear because Hashem will protect those that love him. And if the sinner repents, does Chuva, he will receive a great heavenly reward for this. And if he says, "Listen, he's not exactly this guy that drives on Shabbat is not exactly a murderer or anything like that, but I don't know if I tell him not to drive on Shabbat. Maybe he's going to get angry at me or maybe uh, you know, it says overstepping my boundaries or maybe he's not going to do business with me anymore. Or maybe he's not going to come to sh anymore because of me. So I don't want to do it." So before you make such a foolish decision says as follows and this is in multiple places in the in the across the spectrum of the where it says on the other hand whoever has it within his power to cause a sinner to do chuva to return and repent by protesting his sinful actions but does not protest is therefore himself held responsible for that sinner's misdeeds. This matter is clear from the words of our sages as well as from scripture itself page 54b talks about it in many other places. In fact, our sages of blessed memory also said mitsia that even if one of a lesser stature sees somebody sinning, he is also obligated to reprove a person that's of greater stature if he sees the greater person following an incorrect path. So even if you are new to Torah or you only been religious for a few years and you see that there so-called rabbi that's teaching heresy or inviting missionaries to shul or anything like that, you are also obligated. Yeah, but he's much greater than me. He's been teaching Tawa for 50 years. He has a big sh with a thousand people and so on. Yes. Yes. All that good stuff. You are obligated to reprove. Why? Because it's clear that what he's doing is wrong. He's teaching things that are against the Torah. You are also obligated. And if you don't, you are part of the problem. You are part of the problem. And this mitzvah applies in every location, says the and in all times to both men and women. One who transgresses this mitzvah and does not rebuke a sinner in a matter that we've described above has violated this mitzvah obligation and is considered to belong to the class of sinful people who act this way. He's held responsible for the sinner's misdeeds as if he committed them too. So here we see explains this mitzvah and shows that being shy when it comes to rebuke is not a good idea. At the same token, sometimes a person is not only not shy, but is very very obnoxiously in yourrface telling everyone that they're doing wrong, telling the rabbis wrong, telling the people they're wrong. And that's that's where the lines are crossed. That's where they don't not only they don't have busha, but they have the opposite. They're brazen. One who makes his fellow fellow's face turn white from shame in public. This mitzvah number 240 has violated the Torah. Now the underlying mitzvah of not being allowed to humiliate somebody because it causes a great emotional suffering for people. It's compared to literally the greatest level of suffering. Now, the explains that if we weren't warned about humiliating our fellow Jews in all situations, including rebuking them, rather only that rebuke pertains to matters that are between man and his fellow, then things would be different. You think that you're not allowed to embarrass them about other things, but when it comes to rebuke, embarrass everybody. But no, that's not what it says. That's not what it says. Even when it comes to rebuking, a person has to know there's a way to do it. And one rule of thumb is to know whether you're rebuking for the right reason or the wrong reason is are you looking to help them or are you looking to show that you're right? Which one is more important to you? Are you looking to rescue them or are you looking to prove that you know which one are you trying to do? Which one is a priority to you? Because if you're looking forward to publicizing their sin or publicizing their shame, then you're not really looking to help them. You're looking to raise yourself over other people's grave. But if you're looking to help, then usually you're going to try whatever you possibly can to help them without getting attention. Unless there's no other choice. So people ask, well what about the different people usually rabbis that we have exposed in the past and showed that they are heretics and teaching against the Torah does not fall into shaming them. No, it's not the same thing. Why? regarding heavenly matters. Meaning, when rebuking a sinner for being a derelict in mitzvah observances, if the sinner does not repent as a result of reproof initially attempted in private, it's a mitzvah to embarrass him in public, to publicize the sin, to disgrace him, and to condemn him until he returns to the path of good as was the practice of the prophets towards the sinners of Israel. Also, the laws of this mitzvah of which the sages of blessed memory stated pertain to amit. What is your fellow Jews? Now, how does that relate to people that teach things that are against the Torah? We need to go to the words of the because everyone likes to say speaking against such and such is because you're saying that he's bad even though it's a uh something that uh he doesn't agree that it's bad. Well, if he's teaching things that are against the 13 principles of faith, if he's teaching against what the sages have taught, then we know that what he's teaching is heresy. In fact, says in 8, the entire is of applies specifically to a victim who the Torah considers to be your brother, your fellow Jew, Amit, someone who observes Torah and mitzvot. But to those people who are known as heretics, apostates, it is a mitzvah to degrade and humiliate them either directly to them in their presence or not in their presence for whatever sins they were seen committing or sins that we've heard they committed. Meaning, you don't even have to necessarily even see the sins they made. If they're known as heretics, you could even just simply believe whatever people say about them that's bad. As the Torah instructs in Vayah in uh uh Leviticus 25:17, do not oppress your fellow Jew. In Vayah 19:16, do not pedal gossip in society. And these people are not included in this warning because they have repudiated Hashem and don't behave as Jews should. This is expressed by 139:21. Those who hate you, Hashem, I will hate. And those who rise up against you, I will fight. The definition of a heretic, apostate, is someone who repudiates the Torah and denies the pro that prophecy was given to Israel's prophets. Whether he denies the written Torah or the Torah handed down through the generations by oral tradition, the sh the Talmud, this person is a heretic. Even if he says that the entire Torah is God's given is God-given except for one sentence or except for a single logical deduction made by our sages or even a single learned from the juke position of two sentences in a Torah or one single grammatical issue in denying even the seemingly inconsequential details says the this person has repudiated the entire Torah denying the authority of the sages and has rejected Hashem, he is therefore a heretic, an apostate. Now, needless to say, if somebody teaches things that are against the 13 principles of faith where it says that Hashem does not have a body or the likeness of a body and he tells people that Hashem has a body, has an arm, has everything or that Hashem needs you and all and there's no judgment, there's no gay, nobody's going to go to gay, everybody goes to heaven. These are things that are not even hard to understand. You clearly see these are violations of so to such a person it is a mitzvah as the says to go against them to publicize their sins to degrade them. Why is it a mitzvah? Why is it a mitzvah? Shouldn't it be a mitzvah? Okay, just stay away from them. No, no, no. You don't understand. Once he becomes such a person, it's no longer a mitzvah to rebuke him to help him do chuva. No, the mitzvah now becomes to help everybody else from becoming his victims from following in the same footsteps. That's the mitzvah now. It's not a mitzvah now to go help him. He's a heretic. He's an apicos. He's a lunatic. He is a idol worshipper. You're not going to change him anytime soon. No, the mitzvah here now is to rescue all of the victims that could fall prey to his slick tongue. And that's what a lot of people do not understand. Now, says further. that usually if somebody makes a crime, you shouldn't exaggerate what they say out of proportion. Just have to state the facts. State the facts of what they did and that's it. But there is one underlying rule. This is There's one exception where the underlying rule that prevails here is that the disclosure can only be made shine. But if the person is one of these types of people that's not because it's permissible to exaggerate the crime even meaning let's say for example they are they uh said that uh heresy and they're heretic and so on and but you also found out that they did something else. You can exaggerate what they've done. Even it's to that extent. Why? Because it's no longer the mitzvah to help them do chuva, but rather to protect everyone else from falling victim to them. Now, the truth is that's one of the most baffling parts of this yet that convinces people not to rebuke properly. On one end, we know that the works on ego where it makes people rebuke but for the wrong reason where they're trying to embarrass people, shame people for their own personal agenda, for their own personal benefit. That's one that's easy to identify. If you're not looking to help people, then obviously you shouldn't be rebuking. You should be rebuking yourself. On the other hand, there's another that tells people, "No, no, I don't want to give out this book or share these lectures or or or publicize this uh letter or or or in so many words fight against Amalecch because I'm embarrassed of what people going to say, of what people going to think and and and all types of things." That's the baffling part. Why is it baffling? Because if you pay attention to the secular world for a moment, we put the Torah to the side for a moment and we go to the world that most people live in most of their days, which is a secular world. In the secular world, people have no problem giving or accepting criticism and rebuke. In fact, they welcome it. If, let's say, somebody has food stuck in their teeth and you see it. Now, it's obviously not a pleasing thing to know that every time they're saying something to you, you're seeing a little garden pop out of their teeth. So, if you told them that, they're going to what? They're going to be upset that you told them. No, they're going to say, "Oh, thank you so much." And they fix it right away. They're not going to say, "Oh, who are you to tell me what I have in my teeth? Why are you even looking at my teeth? Who are you who judged my teeth? My teeth are perfect until you looked at them." They're not going to do that. And you, on the other hand, are not going to think twice. Well, listen. Should I tell them to have a little garden sticking out of their teeth or should I just keep it to myself and somebody else is going to do it? Or they're going to figure out on their own? No. Obvious if you're a decent human being. Needless to say, if you're a friend and you care about this person, you're going to tell them as quickly as possible, "Listen, by the way, buddy, you have something stuck in your teeth." Sure, it's a little bit embarrassment for a moment, but it's worth that little embarrassment before a bigger embarrassment if they go to a meeting or they try to apply for a job or they have a client and while they're talking trying to present a million-dollar product, the all the guy can think of is the garden and whether they're going to plant some roses in there or or maybe some vegetables. So, of course, they're going to appreciate you telling them to have something stuck in their teeth. On the other hand, if you see something more uh embarrassing, you see, oh, they left their zipper open, what are you going to think? Oh, they should I tell them or should I tell them? If I tell them, maybe they're going to think, why am I looking down there? It's that sua. Or no, you're not going to think that. You're going to say, "Listen, buddy. You forgot your your zipper is still open. You forgot to button your pants. You forgot to button your shirt." And guess what they're going to do? Say, "Oh, thank you so much. Wow, so embarrassing. Thank you. Thank you so much. you help me. They're so appreciative of your criticism, of your rebuke, of your reproof, of your helping them get on the right path they want to be on. One of the most common types of comments that you see on the internet when you see videos that get the most attention aside from, "Oh, this is great. I love the video. very informative. The ones that get the most attention are who? The ones that criticize the speaker. Ones that criticize the speaker. Oh, why did it take you 13 minutes to get to the point and just repeat the same thing for the first nine minutes? You could have made this video four minutes and save me my time. I like the message, but it would carry out too long. Now, usually the speaker should be upset. Oh, how could this guy be criticizing me? I'm trying my best. No, but what do you see? Usually, most of the people, they comment. Oh, you're right. I could have cut my speech a little shorter. I could have made this into a shorter clip. I could have said my point faster. Instead of repeating the same thing three times, I could have gotten to the point. Thank you for the uh I always appreciate the constructive criticism. The speaker appreciates it. He doesn't necessarily want it, but it's a reality. He needs to improve his speech. And people have no problem criticizing the speakers. They speak too much. They speak too little. They speak ambiguously. They speak too plainly. They speak. People have no problem criticizing the speaker regardless who the speaker is, including rabbis. Some of the most uh uh uh memorable comments that I've read over the years are ones that were criticisms of things that really didn't need to be criticized, but people felt the need to do it where I would talk for three hours and out of the three hours, the only comment that this person would have is, you know, in that story that you said about Rabaka, the story is correct, but it's not Rabaka, it's Raban. Now, thank you very much for letting me know. You could have easily let me know by sending me an email or a text message, but you made sure to make that privately publicly because you want everyone to know that you know more than the rabbi, you know more than the speaker. So, sometimes these things you'll see where out of three hours, lots of information. An average three-hour lecture of mine has somewhere in the neighborhood of 40,000 words. They pick one word that maybe or maybe not. you said incorrectly and that's their conclusion and they'll say but they have no problem they have no qualms or second thoughts about making this public comment. Best parts is sometimes you have people making comments about the videos we've made exposing the heretics and speaking about it and some of the commenters will say listen I love you rabbi and everything that you do but you know you know wasn't uh uh it's only because I care and I'm telling you but this is because you're speaking about him and you're saying this and you're saying that and you shouldn't do it and they give me this whole mousar of why I'm wrong. Interestingly enough, they don't think that what they're doing is wrong. Where they're going against what I'm saying in the name of the sages publicly, but that's not that's apparently allowed. And me going against somebody that is a heretic according to the Torah, publicly is not allowed. Them going against somebody, you know, that's that's me publicly is allowed. me doing it is not allowed. What happens? That's the the will confuse people of when to use shame and when not to use it. And that's why I told you the rule of thumb when it comes to rebuke is the purpose behind it. If you're trying to help, then certainly you are in the right direction. Now question is who you're trying to help. If you're trying to help yourself, then you're back to the wrong direction. If you're trying to help somebody, that's let's say the speaker, you're again in the in the right direction. But sometimes there's no place to help the speaker anymore because like the said, sometimes the speaker is a criminal. So who do you have to help? You have to help all the victims. Now in the secular world, people have no problem to rebuke to criticize. But when it comes to rebuking regarding the nama, whether it's somebody speaking in shul or somebody that's a uh Shabbat or someone that's uh immoral in other ways or somebody that's in a corrupt business or whatever, that's when people's turns on to fight it to tell the person who are you to tell me not to talk in sh unfortunately a situation where you have some shuls that have people in it where you tell them don't talk to in shul during prayer and everything and instead of them being quiet they start yelling and make it a whole obnoxious argument huh who said who said who said shh who said shh who are you to tell me sh what do you mean you were praying here we pray the synagogue sh What? What? And they start becoming even more loud than they were before. These are criminals. There's some places seen in his own eyes. He says the people got into a fist fight over somebody saying sh literally there's some places where they're literally just like uh a place uh that uh you have to run away from arguments constantly. You know, as a joke, they said that the uh how did Jacob Enu knew know that uh when he woke up from the dream that this is a place of uh of Hashem? How did he know? How the Tawat says he knew because obviously he's had a vision and a prophecy and so on. But the uh speakers to to make light of the matter a little bit to said no no he knew because it says that the rocks he was sleeping on started fighting. So if there's fights, of course, this is a place where the synagogue, this is a please, please. Unfortunately, some places have so many fights that even if you try to help somebody, they're they reject and repel any type of spiritual help to the point where it's impossible to help anybody. But if you told them, listen, you know, your business really is doing terrible, you should start doing XYZ. Fix it. Your advertising is terrible. your uh secretary doesn't know what she's doing or he do he's doing. Your uh staff doesn't know how to make sales. You got to fix it. You start telling him stuff about his business. Guess what? He said, "Thank you so much. Wow, that's free consulting. I'm going to change it. I'm going to make I'm I'm going to take all your recommendations." But you told him, "Listen, your prayer is terrible. It's too fast to even finish Amida. You finish Amida before everybody even finishes the first three steps. What are you to judge me? How do you know what I pray? How do I know? How do you know what I know? This is the This is the that convinces people to reject, rebuke, that's going to help them. But needless to say, we are still obligated to do it. We are still obligated to protest against people that are going in the wrong path. We are still obligated to fight against the heresy and the amalik. We're still obligated to do everything. Why? Because if we don't then we are repeating the same sin that destroyed the beta mikdash. The says in page 9b that the beta mdash was destroyed because of baseless hatred. Shalom writes what is this? What is this baseless hatred that happened at the time of the bet mikdash that led to its destruction? The was that everyone stopped rebuking each other to the point where each person thought let me just live my life. I'm going to live for myself. I'm going to concerned for my soul and no concern for his soul. He'll do whatever he needs to do. If he wants to drive on Shabbat, okay, that's his problem. He wants to marry a Goya, that's his problem. She wants to walk around imas, that's her problem. I'm going to do what I have to do with my business, with my family. I'm going to make sure my kids are religious. I'm going to make sure I'm going to do I'm going to pray right. I'm going to give right. And if he wants to do bad things, that's his problem. Says that is the baseless hatred that destroyed the bet. Why? You know that he's going to gay as a result of his actions. Yet, you stay quiet. You know why you stay quiet? And you don't tell him to stop sinning and stop stealing and stop lying and stop doing all the things. You know why? Because you don't have you don't have baseless love. You only love people that could do something for you. You only love people if you could get something out of it. But to love a Jew, your fellow Jew, and be concerned about his spiritual well-being without having any benefit out of it. It's simply to help him, you don't have that. That's why you don't care that he's going to gainome as a result of bringing missionaries to his synagogue or speaking heresy or learning heresy. You don't care that he continues to drive on Shabbat. Why? Because you don't love him. You don't love him because you're not getting anything out of it. And says that is the destroyed the bet. You're watching people literally kill themselves yet you stay quiet and sometimes even give them the gun. Why? Listen, he wants to enjoy play with the gun. Okay, so let him do it. Oh, he wants to kill himself. That's his problem. Listen, why do I have to get in the way? I have my own problems. Why do I have to get in the way? And the reality is when you do not care about your fellow Jew, not only you violating this of not rebuking, but also explains you're violating the you must love your fellow Jew like you love yourself. If you see your fellow Jew going against Hashem and you don't say anything, that means you don't love him. That means you don't love him. And this is the greatest problem we have because the yetzer is fooled generation after generation for 2,000 years already to continue in this passion in his in his in his in his path to such an extent that when you finally do rebuke somebody, you finally do protest against wicked heretics and so on, what do they do? Oh, you're speaking against a uh rabbis heresy. Oh, that's what are you talking about? No, no, it's that you're you're gonna go to gay. Wait, I'm gonna go to gay because I'm I'm proving that what he said is against the Torah. I'm going to go to Gome for that. He's murdering himself and others spiritually and I'm going to go and get punished for it. Or better yet, you're publicizing. Listen, you're making a mistake. You're inviting Christian missionaries to your synagogue. This is inherently against the Torah and it's endangering the entire community. What do they do? They send the FBI to the house. That's what happened. That's what Goldberg did. He sent the FBI to my house because I was telling him that he's not allowed to invite Christian missionaries to a synagogue because he's endangering the entire spiritual status of a thousand families in his community. What do they do as a response? Or he does as a response. He sends the FBI to my house. This is the place we are in at this point. You're telling the guy, "Listen, you're about to murder your entire K spiritually. You are going against the Torah according to all opinions." What do they do? Instead of saying, "You know what? Thank you so much. We didn't realize we're making a mistake. Wow, we appreciate it." Oh, you know what? Not even say thank you. Just simply stop. What do they do? They sent to the FBI. They do every possible thing they can to destroy your life. Who are you to tell us that we're doing wrong? It's not me. It's the Torah telling you you're doing wrong. I'm simply the one that's saying it out loud because no one else is doing it. I'd be more than happy to give somebody else the uh the uh the flag to go run around and tell you that you're doing something wrong, but nobody else wants to do it. So, I'm doing it. I'm trying to help you. I'm trying to help your community. I'm trying to help is not looking for a reward or a payment or anything. And I'm simply telling you what you're doing against the Torah. That's it. If you heard somebody come tell you, listen, you know what? The lighting you have in your synagogue is not good or your staff is not happy enough or your uh you know, your clothing is not modern enough or not good enough, you take that advice and be very happy with it. If somebody told you that you're doing a bunch of things wrong with your business, no problem accepting it. Somebody told you that you need to lose some pounds. You need to lose some weight. No problem accepting it. Somebody told you you're not speaking clearly enough. You know, it sounds like you're stuttering a little bit. Sounds like you don't know what you're talking about. No problem accepting it. But somebody tells you that you're going against Hashem and provide you proof that you are. What do you do? Send the FBI against them. Blacklist them. Do everything possible to make them sound like they're crazy. But they just came to help you. And that's what happens. The works overtime in order to make you think that the mitzvah is a sin and the sin is a mitzvah. And sometimes the is going to tell you, listen, the rabbis did say that it's good to be shy. That's what Jews are supposed to be. So how can you go and rebuke somebody that's not shy? That's not humble. You're judging them. You are uh being uh brazen. You're being a know-it-all. No, just stay quiet. Let it let God run the world. He's going to fix it. It's the exact opposite of what a kadosh says. Because you are a Jew, you have an obligation to help any Jew that comes in your sphere. If he if Hashem showed you this Jew failing, he showed you that Jew failing for a reason. He could have showed it to everybody else, but he showed it to you. Why? He's giving you an opportunity. Just like if he gave you a treasure, he's giving you an opportunity to do something good with that treasure. Same concept here. But unfortunately, when a person does not have enough the can toy with them in every possible way and make them literally a messenger of the Satan. I'll give you a story of how the works. Real story. There's a rabbi that is trying to build a ka. He has a new ka. Most of the people that are in his ka they drive to Shabbat. They're not modest. But unfortunately, that's the world we live in right now. If you're starting a ka most of the time, you're going to start off with mostly not religious people. And the job of the rabbi is to make them more religious, to encourage them to become more religious. Now, usually what you want is a couple of religious people, hopefully at least 10, that are going to be the anchor of the ka of the community that you could build on that they could strengthen everyone else alongside with the rabbi. So you want to their help. But sometimes the rabbi either has too much of an ego, too little knowledge or a combination of a bunch of things to the point where the can manipulate him in such a way where he will cater to the wicked and go against the righteous. We've seen this unfortunately many times over the years where people would literally make the wicked righteous in the eyes of people and the righteous wicked and that's the uh said that's one of the signs of the it's also a sign of anyway one place has a relatively new ka most of the people are not exactly very religious but there's a few people that are one of them happens to be a student of mine righteous sadik good person very very good midot because he's my student simply has good midot person very more than just a the average let's just say that very committed And now I know him well enough and his family well enough to know that every word that he says is gold. It's it's not no madeup stories, no exaggerations, no nothing. And he comes to me for different guidance of different things. And a few times he told me, listen, there's an issue with the shul. He's counting people that are, you know, in a minyan when they're not really Shabbat. What should we do? Or there's an issue with modesty with some of the people. And you know, different times I advise him with different things. And I noticed that a few times that he brought something to the attention of the rabbi and you know in a proper way and so on. You know the rabbi didn't necessarily always act or react in a the right way. But I thought okay maybe he didn't understand. I always try to give the rabbis especially ones that are building a community from scratch the benefit of the doubt. That benefit of the doubt ended when I saw this that this is dedicated learns prays has check mark next to all the good places and most of the ka not only they don't have checks next to the right places but they have checks next to the wrong places but you know they'll change One day, this Tommy gets a phone call from the rabbi, meaning this is out of the way. This is not like they're best friends or they they hang out on weekends. The rabbi makes a call to the tomid to the my toid not his toid one of the members of the kila and uh he tells listen uh someone told me that the uh uh burritos or whatever this bread that you bring to the uh uh to the shul that you eat on sudashit is not Therefore, it's kosher, but it's not meaning that it was made by Jews all the way. Long story short, it's not, so don't bring it anymore. So now the rabbi that has a bunch of people that are violating Shabbat, walking around with no clothes on in sh calls the religious guy that keeps everything and tells him don't bring the bread that is not up to his standard of kashoot. Even though it's kosher, it has kashoot from a recognized you know uh u or you know some u orthodox union. It's not like some no-name. It's not It's not He's not pinging pig to the sh and saying this is kosher. This is simply some dough. And he says, "No, it's not. Don't bring it anymore." And he makes a point out of it. How do you even know? I asked when he told me this. said, "How does he even know that your little burrito is pi nut? I mean, did you tell people, listen, I'm eating this and it's not pi?" Like, how would somebody even know? He says, "I don't know. Apparently, somebody looked at the rapper." I looked at the rapper. Literally, you need a microscopic lens to see the U on it like most products. And if I ask patisa, you you would see pisa next to it. But nonetheless, why would anybody look at the wrapper of the bread that you're eating? I don't know, he said. So that's why I knew they're looking for him, meaning he's too righteous for them. But that was not enough to prove the point that this was a mistake. What was the mistake? The greater mistake is that the rabbi was not allowed to do what he did. Why not? because it's against section 168 168 five says clearly a pure loaf of a non-Jews bread and a coarse loaf of Jewish bread if he is not careful not to eat the non-Jewish bread. He recites a blessing on whichever one of them that he'll want. Meaning, it's clearly telling you there's no problem of eating bread that was made by a non-Jew. Obviously, it's it's not putting pig in it. It's just simply a uh some flour. It's not uh we're not putting any any type of meat in it. We're not putting any cheese in it. Simply spread. Okay. So if you want to be stringent and only eat Jewish bread, meaning pat is, no problem. Good for you. But if you want to eat also non-Jewish bread, it's also allowed. If you're not careful about, you know, you're eating either one and you want to do kdush, then you could eat, you can make the blessing on either one. If he is careful not to eat the non-Jewish bread, then he removes the non-Jewish bread from the table until after the blessing. Meaning that if you have a kadush, you have people and you have a uh bread that was made by Jews, bread that made them non-Jews, but you you're careful not to eat the non-Jewish bread, you only eat pat. So they may eat whatever they want but you are. So what do you do? You you move the non-Jewish bread from while you do the blessing and then you can put it back if you want. Okay. And if the house owner is not careful not to eat the non-Jewish bread and his intent is only is to only eat the non-Jewish bread during the entire meal because it's pure. But his household members ate from the impure Jewish bread. And both types of bread are placed on the table. He needs to break from the pure non-Jewish bread since he's the one who breaks and his intent is only is to only eat from that bread. And if the house owner is careful not to eat the non-Jewish bread. Oh, actually I'll get to let's explain this one first. So here he's telling us that if the house owner eats Jewish and non-Jewish bread, but here in this case he intends to eat from the non-Jewish bread because it's better quality in this case. But his household members ate from the non-Jewish from the Jewish bread. Then he puts both of them on the table, but he makes the blessing on the non-Jewish bread because he's the one that's going to eat first from the bread and he's going to eat from non-Jewish bread anyway. So he makes the blessing on that. The last part is the key of why I'm reading all of this. If the house owner is careful not to eat non-Jewish bread and a Jew who isn't careful with this is reclining with him at the table since the mitzvah is imposed on the house owner he should break from the nice non-Jewish one and since he was permitted to break he was permitted for the entire meal. This is what the is saying here. He only eats, but he has a guest who eats and not patis. Non-Jewish bread. It's kosher, but it's just non Jewish bread. And this guy that came as a guest, he brought with him the bread that's from non-Jews. What do you do? You're you only eat. You're the owner, but you have a guest, a Jewish guest that brought bread that's not says the you make the kush and you make the mitzvah by breaking it from the non-Jewish bread and you eat the non-Jewish bread the whole meal. You, the guy that doesn't eat, you now have to eat nonpatisal. you now have to eat the guest bread. So, not only is the rabbi wrong for telling the guy not to bring his non-Jewish bread, not pisel bread. But in fact, if he actually understood Ala, he would know that in reality, if he was doing the kdouch, he would actually have to eat from his bread, from the non from the non-Jewish bread, the nonpatis bread according to from there you see that will convince somebody that the wicked Shabbat do not need rebuke. You could let them continue sinning in the name of Kiru. But the righteous that keep Torah and mitzvot that want to tell people to do chuva, they'll rebuke them. They'll say bad things about them. They'll even invent sins in their name just to make them look like they're crazy. That's how the works. He'll convince you that the sins are a mitzvah and the mitzvah is a sin. How do you beat it? You learn Tawa. You have a serious rabbi that's going to teach you the truth. And when rebuke comes your way, accept it with a thank you. No less a thank you than the CEO of a major corporation says to a consultant that rebukes him and tells him that he's running his multi-billion dollar business to the ground. You, Mr. CEO, are ruining your business because your sales staff is terrible, your marketing is terrible, your this is terrible, your attitude is terrible. And guess what the CEO says? Thank you very much. That's what I pay you for to tell me what I'm doing wrong. so I can fix it. And here's the money to pay you for telling me that I'm wrong. That CEO said thank you to the consultant, the students of that famous speaker giving some TED talk telling them that they're all going in the wrong direction and there's a better path, but they're living a lie. They're all going to say thank you and write a check and say thank you. So when somebody comes and tells you that your nishama is going in the wrong direction, you're going against Hashem. He's not even asking you for money. He's simply telling you you're going to go if you continue in this path. If you continue listening to heretics, if you continue going with missionaries, if you continue violating Shabbat, if you continue going against the Torah, you're going to go to Gom and bring whoever is with you with you. At the very least, you should say thank you. But you know what? if they really mean to help you, they don't even care about your thank you. They just want you to help yourself finally and go in the right path. And may it be his will that all those that are going in the wrong path accept this rebuke and do something about it. Something that finally is going to put them in the right direction. Thank you very much for learning with me. and bless each and every single one of you to have the strength to overcome the and all of his cleverness to be able to know when the truth is for your benefit and when the lie is trying to destroy you and be able to accept the truth at face value and have the strength to apply to your life. Anyone that wants to support can donate at the bottom.org org website. You could donate on YouTube. You could donate cryptocurrency stock, all types of different things to help us do all the wonderful things that we're doing. Whether it's feeding the poor in Israel or the in our coals or the countless books that we're giving for free, we are crossing 300,000 books giving you for free right now. Lots of good stuff, lots of good things. And of course, the AI rabbi continues to impress people and giving them wonderful answers. And bashm also helps me to uh alleviate some of the responsibility of answering people because the answers come al people get the answers on their own finally by still having it from a source of truth. So anyone that wants to support wants to be a partner with us with all of the kushm that we're doing is welcome to it. and most importantly we're looking forward to continue learning with everyone and continue growing and continue getting closer and closer to Hashem partly by destroying and partly by simply falling in love with Hashem more and more every day. Thank you very much. I'd like to introduce you to your new best friend. We did it. AI Rabbi is here. It's an AI model that is based on kosher Torah sources, 30 different languages that are available to you. So if you want to ask it in Spanish, in Chinese, Portuguese, whatever you want to do, it's available for you. Can you tell me about timestamped to the shield? Press this green button. Hey, Rabbi, on your WhatsApp, you'll have the ability to ask questions at work. You'll be providing sources, but most importantly, you'll be able to know the truth and be able to rely on sources.