Why Does HaShem Want Your Heart | TORAH FOUNDATION (7)

la. La. Words can hurts your mouth. Avoid the stain. Every harmful word is evil. Keep your mouth closed to protect your soul. a few minutes [singing] to gossip. Silence is power. Don't start a fight [singing] >> if you have from Peru. Nice. All right, we're almost ready. [singing] Keep your mouth shut. Am [singing] >> I real Jew or fake? Watch the lecture and you'll see. We're back here on our Sunday night series of the Torah foundations. And tonight is going to be for the and all of Am and all the righteous nohides that continue to support the organization, continue to learn with us, continue to share. Everyone that has not gotten themselves one of these Kiru boxes, do yourself the favor and get one or 10 or 50 of them as soon as you possibly can. Just go to kyovbox.org, kyovbox.org, and you can get yourself as many as you'd like. 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Tuesday uh it will go and uh enjoy it. And of course, those of you that uh have kids, tune in to our BH Kids channel, which each week produces more and more kids uh films that uh are uh certainly good for kids of all ages, even ones that are my age. For the team that's working on that and we continue publicizing Torah in every way for every person. So tonight we continue the the duties of the heart series based on the is written about a thousand years ago by and uh we're going to discuss something that uh is simply something you hear often you even say but perhaps have never delved into. What does it actually mean? Why does Hashem want your heart? We've all heard it, but few people have actually delved into the meaning of Hashem wanting your heart. The tells us the real reason of why he wrote this book and the real meaning of giving our hearts to Hashem. This will go along with some extraordinary stories of from past generations that will enlighten and awaken our hearts, I believe, more than ever before. Simply put, so the is continuing the introduction of why we even need this and he says as follows. There are two sides to the study of the commandments in the Torah. [snorts] The explicit external side and the hidden inner side. In order to learn about the hidden side, I examined the books that were written by our post Talmudic masters which include many works and the commandments and discovered that all their efforts to interpret and clarify were devoted to one of three aims. One of the aims was to explain the Torah in the books of the prophets. This was done in two ways. either by explaining the meaning of the words and the subject matter as our masters did with most of the books of the Torah or by explaining the matters of uh language, grammar and usage in great detail and by clarifying difficult word forms as in the books of the janak or the maso and those who followed their methods. The second aim was the preparation of the brief summaries of the commandments like the works of or of the compilations of the commandments that can be fulfilled today such as theot orot and other likes of the collection or of the collection like those of some of the in their responses which deal with the commandments that pertain to the body with the legal decisions. The third aim was to win acceptance in the hearts of the people for the Torah teachings by bringing proofs and refuting heretics as in the book of beliefs and opinions, the foundations of religion and the book of al- mukamis and others like it. So here the in essence tells us the background story of why he wrote this book. Why did he write this book? And then he goes into a personal experience. I examined these writings and did not find among them a book devoted to the knowledge of the inward life. I found this field, the knowledge of the duties of the heart to be a neglected one. No one had ever written a book about its foundations. This came as a great shock to me and I began to wonder perhaps these duties are not obligatory according to the Torah, but are rather part of one's moral obligation to do what is most upright and proper. Perhaps they're like those things which are above and beyond the call of duty like optional for which we are not accountable and will not be punished should we ignore them. Perhaps that is why the early masters neglected to write a book about them. So before we get to his conclusion, we see that the is telling you that I found a topic that no one wrote about and it gave me a what's called affect a doubt. Perhaps this issue is not necessary. This is not only shows his own personal experience but also shows the humility of our where before you write a book before you go on to the journey of deciding to write a sephil first you write you see what did other write did somebody else write about it so what's the point of me writing about it why go on the same path as that someone that's much greater than me already passed through it and provided all the answers but if nothing was written about it. Perhaps I'm wrong for even thinking that it should be written unlike people today where people think that they should write something simply because they want to write. This is not the way of Torah. So before we go into his conclusion, we're going to go section by section as we've done of what is the teaching us here. When the starts and tells us that there are two sides to the study of the commandments in the Torah, the explicit external side and the hidden inner side, the average person immediately thinks that perhaps he's talking about the secret part of the Torah, the cabala. But that's not the case. As we know or should know there is something called the wisdom behind the mitzvot and every mitzvah has logical simple physical realistic goals that au instilled into them. But there's also called a a hidden goal. And by hidden, it doesn't mean coalistic, but rather a deeper a deeper meaning to it, a deeper objective. Now, the midrash tells us that Hashem gave us the mitzvot in order to attach and cleanse the creatures. And therefore, the numerous goals that each mitzvah have are supposed to weld together onto each person that's doing them. The more you discover about that mitzvah, the more you'd like to fulfill it. The more you fulfill it, the more you end up discovering how it's affecting you, how it has a hidden meaning, how it has a deeper meaning. And the more a person delves into a mitzvah, the more they realize not only how beneficial it is, but in fact how much they've been missing out on by not fulfilling it. Now the Talmud is the foundation of of the simple meaning of the laws and instructions that we got from Mount Si as our sages clarify everything. But the Talmud itself is based off of the teachings of the Mishna. We have six parts to the Mishna Moashim and discusses the laws and instructions about kimed is all the holidays which also include Shabbat. Nashim which means means women is all the laws pertaining to women. Kushim marrying them. Gim divorce. The agreement of a man marrying a woman. Also you know the the vows even nazil which also has to do with vows. Somebody takes a vow upon themselves to become a nazir. Then we have the next section of nzikim. This is in essence the monetary laws. damages, damages between business partners, neighbors, lawsuits, things of that nature. >> [snorts] >> say anyone that wants to become wise learn the then we have has to do with the sacrifices in which is the purity and impurity perhaps the most difficult among them. Now the simple instructions of the laws and judgments that are in it are for all of to learn and apply to their life. But the deeper intrinsic meanings, not Cabala, but the deeper meanings of the laws, the deeper meanings of the instructions are not in it, or at least they're not as clear. Now, our Torah is has four parts, and I don't mean four books, but rather four different types of understandings, which is has the acronym of Pardes, a uh field pades is the pay stands for the simple meaning which is the deeper meaning of what it hints to the which is the midrash the behind the scenes and the sod which is the secret meaning that a lot of people like to skip right to but don't skip this is not just my instructions but this is the instructions of all Because without a clear understanding of the you not only don't have the ability to understand the sod the the secret meanings but rather you don't have understanding of anything. In fact, in the famous by he delves into this matter and he says that there are some people that like to skip the the simple meaning of everything that our sages have told us and what Hashem has told us because they want to go straight to the cabala. They want to go into mystical things. They want to make things move with their mind. They want to have all types of kavanote when they pray. But a person that skips could even use the s the secret the mystical in order to acquire which is the worst thing that you can do. How so? says, "A person at the time of the beta mdash when they used to bring kbano sacrifices. If they delved into the secret meaning of the pes and all of the covenant, all of the holy names of and all of the extraordinary things that this sacrifice means in the upper worlds can delve so deep into it that he would forget about the sacrifice itself and end up missing the deadline of bringing the sacrifice or eating the uh kob. PES in time and thereby acquire themselves a sin of there are two mitzvot in the Torah where if you do not fulfill them you get there are 36 as says in the beginning 36 that if you do if you violate them you get like and things of that nature but there is ones that if you don't fulfill the mitzvah, you get and those are two. One being the pes someone doesn't bring the pes not if they're anus but rather they could have but they didn't for example like we gave now where they're thinking so much about the significance and the cabalistic meanings of that they forget to actually do it and fulfill the mitzvah like like they're supposed to. And then the other one is the mitzvah of a Jew that does not have a circumcision when they're able to it's a sin of I heard a story somebody sent me fantastic story that of course not only has to do with this matter but also has to do with the parva last week this week that uh we'll put this point in a extraordinary perspective of where we are in the world. As you know in Alshaba we talked about the signs of Msiach and it's very clear for anyone that watched the lecture at least the first few hours of it of how the signs of Messiah are as clear as day. It could be coming at any given moment, whether it's tomorrow or it's a year from now or 20 years from now, but it's certainly in our lifetime. All of the signs are there. Of course, before that, there's going to be many false messiahs. And every other day, somebody's claiming to be Msiah or people are claiming that their rabbi is Msiah or all types of nonsense that's out there in the world. But we'll delve into that perhaps a little later. Nonetheless, one of the things that we learn in Par last week is that when a kadosh told to do the Abra had a son, Ishmael and Ishmael did a Brit also at the age of 13. And says that this this is will be a merit for his descendants until the time of Mashiach. And of course his descendants, the Ishmaim are tormenting us for over a thousand years now,400 years. And they're going to torment us more than ever before Mashiach comes. And one of the reasons they have so much power is because of this bleak milah because he did it at such an old you know age 13 years old while the Jew is doing it at 8 days old. I heard a story from when uh he went on a trip with Solomon to the country of Georgia, a communist country that at one point forbid the Jews from practicing Judaism to the point where they forbid circumcision. And therefore the community there has many people that have not circumcised and even got accustomed to the point of not circumcising their kids even when the laws became more lenient. So went there with to do circumcision for Jews that they verified are Jewish that wanted a brick later in their life. 10 years old, 15 years old, 40 years old, 80 years old. When they got there, there was a whole line of people looking to get their bilah that they have verified. And it's of course when it's not an 8 8 day old baby, it's no longer a simple procedure, but rather it's a surgery. But nonetheless, these Jews were willing to sacrifice everything for this mitzvah. One of the young people that came was a 14-year-old boy. And the mo spoke to him in Russian, asked him, "Where where is your parents?" He says, "No, I didn't tell my mother because I didn't want her to uh to tell me not to do it, and it's my mitzvah. I want to do it. I don't want anyone to get in the way." Sadik. So they put him on the bed and they start the operation. I merited to witness a couple of these operations for some of our converts that converted in their 30s and 40s and it's no simple matter. It's a extraordinary miss. doesn't hurt them because of course it's a surgery and they numb the area but nonetheless it's scary scary to watch scary to be a part of needless to say scary to do but people that really want to become part of is do it do it every day but it can't be someone that's new in doing it's legitimate surgery so anyway this young boy sat there or laid down there and they started the operation As other people are waiting on the line in the middle of the surgery, the door to the synagogue busts open and a woman in our house clothes is yelling in Russian. And then the son, the the BOY YELLS BACK AT her in Russian and then she yells back. So says, "I thought that she's a disgruntled mother. She perhaps she doesn't want him to do it. what he found out. But then he sees that the Moel the Moel starts to cry and continues the operation. After ask him what happened here, he says as this boy was doing the surgery, his mother came in. She just found out that her dear son is doing a breit mah and she cried out, "WHY DIDN'T YOU tell me that you're doing a brit? I WOULD HAVE BOUGHT A NEW DRESS TO CELEBRATE the occasion." AND THE BOY TELLS, "I DIDN'T KNOW THAT YOU WOULD BE SUPPORTIVE." AND SHE TELLS HIM, "I'VE ALWAYS WANTED YOU TO DO a bleak mahaba, but I was scared to tell you because you got older." And the mo cries, who is like you is and says, why did this all happen? It happened because of that Zadosh that says that Ishmael, our enemy, will torment us and will have the power to TORMENT US BECAUSE OF SOME MERIT that happened thousands of years ago from their forefather Ishmael. BUT SINCE LOVES HIS CHILDREN, he prepared a way FOR US TO DEFEND ourselves spiritually. how he left a bunch of his children without BLEMOS FOR THEM TO DO BECAUSE THEY LIVE IN COUNTRIES WHERE it's forbidden. It's an outlaw if you do a bilah. So they will then have not only the ability but the TO DO AT 14 years old, at 40 years old, at 70 years old and end up not only fulfilling this mitzvah, but actually defending is because now the case of Ishmael is no longer valid. You had one that did a mai 13. LOOK HOW MANY OF US ARE DOING AT 40 and 50 and 80 provides the cure before the ailment. So the is a mitzvah that continues your whole life. Not only doing the but also protecting your all the we've made over the years the films we've made discussing tikun. It's not a suggestion, but rather it's a commandment from a Torah. And of course, those who have not watched those films or have not watched them in a while, certainly highly recommended to have them on your mustwatch on a regular basis list until you overcome that desire, until you overcome the obstacle of wasting seed and looking at things that are immodest. Because if a person wants to truly fulfill the mitzvah of they have to protect their which starts off by protecting your eyes. But why would you do it? That's what those shim and the film are for to teach you why it's necessary, why it's an obligation, why you're ending up losing everything as a result of violating this mitzvah, which includes losing money. Doesn't matter. Even if you have a million dollars, you were supposed to have 10 million, 20 million, 50 million. There was one guy that was an investor who told me, "Since I heard this, I noticed every single time I make this sin, I lose at least $25,000 the next day in my trading account." I told him, "Oh, it's a very expensive, it's a very expensive uh desire. Stop it." He said, "Yeah, I know. I have to give me away. We sent them the tikun bleed guide which has a whole compilation of shim and other things that we've compiled over the last 10 years of teaching this topic that has helped countless people. Anyone that wants it can either go to our website bzashem.org and download it for free on the uh uh ebook section or you can just send me a message on WhatsApp and I'll send it to you. It's simply a mustwatch. But if a person does not understand the significance of it, then they'll think that they've already completed the mitzvah at 8 days old and they're done. It's not done. The is telling us there's a lot more to the mitzvot than you can possibly imagine. There is the simple meaning and then there is the deeper meaning. Why is the deeper meaning called hidden? It's because the main objective of the Torah is to be clear instructions and therefore anything that's not that is considered part of the part of the hidden and starts to delve into the different parts that he reviewed before he wrote wrote this book and he says that he examined the books that were written by our Telmudic masters, the post Talmudic masters which included many works on the commandments and he said there were three parts that everyone covered. One explaining the Torah and the books of the prophets. This was done either by explaining the meaning of the words or by explaining the matters of language, grammar, the way they used the uh the words. For example, the the word that we learn in the book of in chapter 6 verse number eight that you read in Israel to put on are called toafot. according to our oral Torah. But the delved into it and said, "Why is Hashem calling it? Why put between your eyes toot your arm? What is it?" Says, "Put it on and treat it as if it is jewelry, as if it's precious jewels. A person that treats their like it's precious jewels number one is not going to mistreat them. Number two is not going to put you know go with them wherever he wants such as the bathroom and things of that nature. And number two, if you really treat them like they're jewelry, you're not going to be stingy when you buy feline and decide to buy feline based on who's selling it at the cheapest price regardless of who the suare is. When people ask me about, you know, getting usually they're asking the wrong questions because they're looking, oh, maybe I should get the uh the ones that based on the writings of the Ariza or maybe I should write this. You're not you're asking the wrong questions. You're asking the wrong question. You should if you're safari Jew, you get the safari. You're Ashkenazi Jew, you get the Ashkenazi. If you are married, you get and you already, you know, accustomed to wearing, you have, you want to get a better quality one, by all means, but you should also get the you have two pairs of you wear one after the other. After you complete your you could put on the take off the rashi and then put on the then say the or the over there says that it's best ideal to put the after you've completed the entire after a little take an extra 10 minutes or so put on the it adds study to with it but nonetheless the point is that a person that's usually ask the wrong questions. What's the price is usually not supposed to be the number one question. It's supposed to be what's the quality. Who's the do you know the does he have or is he just somebody that knows how to write? I saw somebody mention uh different topics on their uh videos and under the videos they have all types of affiliated links for things that they either sell directly or they recommend others and I guess they get a commission out of it and they recommended to buy on Amazon for $400, $500. I'm willing to bet you the $500 that you get the $500, you go send it to a suare and he's going to tell you you overspend. What do you mean I overspend? It's $500. It's a third of the price of other. Yeah. Yeah, but you overspend. How did I overspend? Because these feline that you bought for $500 are not worth $5. You're not going to buy a good pair of fle for $500. Not today anymore. Perhaps 10 years ago, 15 years ago, the price of quality is going to cost you a whole lot more than that. 1,500, 2,000, 3,000 depending on the quality. But nonetheless, a person that's buying things based on price will end up having a bunch of disappointments. They'll discover two, three, four years later that they've been laying with a non-coosher which means that each day not only did they not fulfill they didn't fulfill the mitzvah of putting on but on top of that they said Hashem's name in vain. So instead of a mitzvah ended up being a sin like one of the videos we published not too long ago of somebody discovering after two years of having that he bought for cheap that there was no there was nothing there was no scroll inside. So that discount ended up being very expensive. So the tells us that one of the aims is to write commentary on the Torah on the prophets also to clarify different deeper meanings of the words. The second aim was the preparation of brief summaries of the commandments. like some of the books that were written in his time to tally to summarize all of the mitzvot from the which was later on after him done by the Rambam and then later on by the because the Talmud has all it in there but it's not organized. So the throughout the generations took each piece, summarized it, condensed it, clarified it. The famous story of the B of that he had a mid there's even a mid is the angel. They used to teach him to every day. And when was writing the The mid came to him and told him, "You better hurry up and complete the because there is another big that is also writing something similar the same thing. And whoever finishes first will have the for all generations of went into it full force and completed the and sent copies around the world including to one of the Moshe is when the Rama got it when he got the initially it's like Oh, all my work, all my work was for waste. Same thing I was writing, he's writing, he wrote already. But then he writes, "Oh, Hashem had mercy on me because he wrote all of it suck based on the ro and the Rambam." But there are other Ashkenazi the Rottenberg the Balot that he did not include which is our custom. So I'll add that and he wrote the and he called it meaning like means set table and map is like table cover showing the Rama's humility not looking to compete just looking to publicize the the the Hashem looking to publicize the Torah. So here he already wrote the I just have the cover for anyone that needs what our from said about each and every mitzvah each and every throughout the generations everyone saw the necessity for both of them. So today when you buy a you have both the and combined into one. But these not only show us their brilliance but also their humility because their intentions was not to make money. In fact the was very very wealthy. This was the last thing that he needed to make money on. But aside from that, they needed to express their burning desire for their burning desire for the love of And if that meant that he has to be submissive to lower his head in humility for Ko or any of the other. It wasn't a second thought. Because the goal is to publicize name the continues and says that there's a third aim. The third aim by the earlier in their writings was to deal with heretics to win the acceptance of the hearts of the people for the Torah's teachings by bringing proofs and refuting heretics. And he gives examples of different books that were written to deal with heretics. The books of beliefs and opinions, the foundations of religion. showing us that dealing with heretics is not something unique to our generation by any means. This is something that our forefathers had to deal with since the beginning of time. In fact, one of the uh [snorts and clears throat] we just learned about wasam that lived he passed away about 65 years ago. Lived from 1881 to 1962 according to Gagorian calendar. born in Algeria then made aliyah the age of about four to Israel. His father was a great mubal. He himself became an extraordinary became the chief rabbi of uh of Gaza, Egypta, multiple places everywhere he went they immediately discovered this is a among us. So by the name of interestingly enough was not only someone that lived in different parts of the world gave kizuk to different ko to the Syrian community to all types of kot that he encountered. But he also fulfilled the mitzvah of refuting the heretics. Among his writings were two books that he wrote. One of them called know what to respond to the apical. This is from theot. Mishnavot says know what to answer. What to respond to the aicost to the heretics. This was an extraordinary work that he actually wrote together with the Muslim MUI to fight against Christian missionaries that was spreading their idolatry and affecting both the Jewish and Muslim communities. And both of them teamed up to write a book to help both communities. Don't go to idolatry. He also wrote another book called a debate with the with the heretics which also was another anti-missionary book to give the for their when dealing with all of the heresy and all of the idolatry coming from the missionaries. We see that fighting against idolatry. Heresy is not a new thing. It's literally has been a requirement for all of our generations. And what most people don't understand today is that this is also part of our tradition. In fact, the Mishna in tells of a very early on sad story of heresy of what happened. What happened when someone does not have a rabbi? The Mishnavot says that one of the great leaders, one of the zugot, this is even before the tanim antigonos, the leader of he taught the Mishna that says don't serve Hashem for the sake of receiving a reward, but rather be like servants who serve Hashem, not for the sake of receiving a reward. and let the fear of heaven be upon you so that the reward will be doubled in the future. The goal of this was to teach his students that you should serve Hashem not just from fear but also fear and love combination. Elevate yourself. Don't just serve him as a result of you're afraid to go to gum or you're afraid to lose money but also elevate yourself over time. You can't start with love. You have to start somewhere though. You have to start with fear. But don't stay there because you'll have to elevate yourself over time because that will double your reward in the long run. Unfortunately, Antiggonos had two students, Tadok and Bus, who continued his tradition by teaching this. But they didn't teach it as clearly as their teacher. They did not explain things like their teacher did. And in fact, this led to a problem. And aan says these students and who studied these words of his taught them to their own students. And those students in turn taught Antigonos's words to their own students. By the third generation, because of lack of clarity, because they did not explain it like the original teacher did, the students rose up and examined the words of their teachers, saying, "Why would our teachers say such a thing that one should not expect a reward for serving Hashem? Is it conceivable that a worker would should labor the entire day and not receive his payment in the evening? We must conclude then that our teachers, our fathers know for certain that there is no ABA and that the resurrection of the dead in the future is not going to happen. because if there was, they wouldn't say such a thing. However, they realized that there is no world after this one and there's not going to be a resurrection. And therefore, they said, "Serve God anyway, even without expecting a reward." This convoluted and manipulated understanding led them to abandon the Torah altogether. But they tried to bring people with them. But when people saw that they're not keeping not the written tora, not the oral Torah, they realized this strategy is not working. So they pretended like they're keeping the Torah. And one of the ways that they express their religiosity is by using golden vessels in all of their lives full of gold. This was a way that they express religiosity by having material. Why? They said, "Look, these masters that we have, they're called the Pharisees. Pharisees come from Pushim." meaning the ones that are separated and have, you know, from the materialism of the world. We're not like them. They're fools. We're going to enjoy this world because there is no Allah. They're accepting upon themselves suffering, but there's no benefit because there's no So, we're going to enjoy this world and be full of materialism. The truth is though that the explains that if one sticks to his rabbi and listens to everything, these things will not happen today. Not a day goes by where somebody does not claim to be either the student of somebody that knows the entire Torah or somebody that their rabbi is Mashiach or somebody that knows the entire Torah. And the reality is either this person doesn't know what the Torah is and how big it is or they're simply a crazy person. Because to say that somebody knows the entire Torah is not only foolish, it's simply ridiculous. It's simply ridiculous. But those that are true students of the Torah have to understand that to acquire knowledge of Torah is not just a matter of watching a lecture or reading a book or even having a rabbi, but rather already understanding that this is a lifelong process that even if someone as great as Rab Vad Ysef who knew tens of thousands of books by heart did not know the entire Torah. So to say that, oh, this rabbi knows the entire Torah, it's it's just simply foolish. Okay, so maybe even if he was able to answer you on some of the questions you asked, doesn't mean or quote you sources, doesn't mean that he knows the entire Torah. But people quickly say, "No, this rabbi knows the entire Torah." It's a ridiculous thing because even those that lived over a couple thousand years ago that I can assure you they knew a whole lot more Torah than anybody of today made the error of not clarifying not clarifying what their rabbi said and allowing that to influence their behavior. But in chapter six says that if somebody has or if somebody wants to be aid, there has to be a certain attitude about learning where it says if you're going to have students, if you're going to be a student and you're going to teach people, don't sit before them on a couch, nor on a chair, nor on a bench. You sit on a chair while they sit on the ground. Meaning, don't sit next to each other in chairs as if you're equals. Why? They have to understand they're the students. You're the master. And the student should accept each and every word that emerges from your mouth with dread and awe, trembling in fear, meaning believing and understanding that not only does the teacher, the rabbi no more, but this is my connection to Mount Si. And when says become dusty in the dust of their feet, it means that when a Torah scholar comes to town, don't say I have no need for him. Rather go to him and learn from him. And when you do, don't sit with him on the couch, nor on a chair, nor on a bench, but rather sit before him on the ground and accept every word that emerges from his mouth with dread, awe, trembling, and fear. In the same way, our ancestors accepted every word emerging from God at Mount Si with dread, awe, trembling, and fear. Meaning, the Mishna is trying to tell us it's not just about listening. It's about attitude of how to accept words of Torah. When a person thinks that their rabbi is no different than them, then why would they listen to them? This is actually what happened with one of the other at the time who was one of the great Zugot, one of the great sages among Isel. He's the sixth Mishna. And he had a horrible student named Yes, who thought that the rabbi is just like him because he liked to look at women. He thought the rabbi looks like to look at women. And of course, we all know what happened when Yeshua went against and from him came over 2,000 years of suffering from Is. Unfortunately, this type of mentality continues till this day where people pick and choose what to listen to, what not to listen to, what to tell, what not to tell. They have a problem, they'll blame the rabbi instead of themselves. They switch rabbis like they switch clothes. the rabbi tells them that they have to fix something, they pick a different rabbi that doesn't tell them anything. Or worse yet, they pick somebody that tells them everything is good. You're perfect as you are. Even if you're Shabbat, even if you are not learning Torah, how do they justify it? They say, "Look, this rabbi is so holy, so smart. He knows the entire Torah." So of course if he knows the entire whatever he says if he says I'm good then I'm I must be good. The Torah tells us otherwise. If you want to be a or even if you want to be a kosher Jew, it requires you following the mit. I merited and continue to merit learning from my dear Raime practically every day for over 15 years now. I've never learned from anybody else. you know, of course, occasionally watch you here and there, especially early on, but as far as sitting down with a rabbi one-on-one, only rabbi I've ever learned from is Rabime. And with Rabime, I've learned everything that I know because even the things that I would read on my own, whether it was in the or was in the Mishna or was in in the orim or all of the other different things, I would always double check with him things that I read. If I had a kush, if I had a misunderstanding, if I had an understanding and this ra is how I kept myself connected to the source at all costs day in day out even when he would tell me things that I didn't want to hear because it was difficult for me to hear it for me to do it I understood I am the person sitting on the or he's the master and he's the only one that I've learned from and there's no reason there was no reason for me to look anywhere else. I knew this is the source. People today they go rabbi hopping. They'll watch a few of my lectures. They'll watch somebody else's lectures. And they'll use it one to gain some knowledge, looking for nice stories that they like, looking for a new insight on something, but it's in many cases not really something that's going to they're going to change their life. Why? because they have so many different choices that they're learning from that they figure that since they have three, four, five different rabbis that they're listening to, they could just pick and choose who to watch today, who to listen to, who to agree with, who to disagree with, and they'll even send messages to the rabbis rebuking the rabbi for saying something they don't like. or sometimes even tell the rabbi, listen, can you explain to me what this other rabbi said? Why should I explain? He should explain himself. In so many words, many times people don't understand what they're doing when they're learning Torah. They have exchanged their Netflix and their uh their TV shows with rabbi shows. Instead of learning what the rabbi is saying and seeing how it's applicable to their life and how to apply it to their life, they get entertained. Oh, I'm waiting for the juicy story. Maybe maybe the rabbi is going to do this. Maybe he's going to say that. And you see people sometimes watching shuet for 10 20 years NOTHING CHANGES. NOTHING CHANGES but they feel religious. They feel like they know. And if you ask him why why do you listen to this PARTICULAR RABBI? NO. THE RABBI KNOWS THE ENTIRE TORAH. If you think your rabbi [snorts] knows the entire Torah, not only do you not know your rabbi, but you don't even know what Torah is yet. Why? The Torah is wider than the ocean. And if you have that mentality where you think it, you have a very very unfortunately demented understanding of what the Torah is and how to apply it to your life. Rabbis are not celebrities. Rabbis are not people that you're supposed to simply just be entertained by. They're supposed to give you clarifications of how to serve a how to connect to a how to change your life, how to become a better person and not just give you some way out. Well, listen, you're you're good and therefore don't worry. Just just just keep uh just keep doing uh one, two, three, and everything's going to be fine. It doesn't work that way. You're supposed to grow with every lecture, with every shoe. If you find out your rabbi that you're listening to is discussing more of politics or the news or his own personal opinions than teaching Torah. It's no different than watching the news. Now, of course, you could connect things from the news or everything else to the Torah, but that is not supposed to be the main aspect of the shield. The main aspect of the shield is supposed to be what our sages taught us as clear instructions that we are supposed to apply to our lives. Inspiration to change. So the is saying his inspiration to write this se this monumental foundational se that has been studied endless times by am was only after he studied all of the works that came before him and was able to get to a point of breaking it down into three main topics. Understanding each one had its place of importance, including fighting against heretics, including commentary, including understanding different parts of the language. And he says, I examined these writings and I did not find among them a book that was devoted to the knowledge of the inward life. I found that this field of the knowledge of the duties of the heart to be a neglected one. No one has ever written a book about its foundations. So here the is telling us I wrote this because no one else wrote it. Had someone else written it. There would be no purpose of me writing it unless I could add. I'm not looking to sell books. I'm not looking for people to call me an author or rabbi. I'm looking to to glorify to make the Torah even greater. Which is another reason of why when you say this such and such rabbi knows the entire Torah, it's foolish because that means that he knows every single book that was ever written about every single topic. And if you just simply go into any bet midash, you'll see how enormous their book collection is and then realize that whatever book collection they have, even if they have a 100,000 there is not even 10% of the Torah. But the is telling us this was a shock to him because he found this personally so important to delve into your heart and understand how things affect your heart, how you're supposed to think when you're doing mitzvot, when you're serving Hashem. But instead of saying, well, since nobody wrote it, I I have to write it because they must all be wrong and I'm right. He doesn't say that. Says, I began to wonder perhaps these duties of the heart that I thought are not an obligation like I thought according to the Torah. Perhaps they are just part of one's moral obligation to do what's most upright and proper like those things that are above and beyond like but yet still optional where if we don't do it we're not going to get punished. Here we also see how fear of the Almighty is always the foundation of every reason, every uh uh decision. If somebody wants to know whether they have or not, simple. Do you think about Hashem before you make every decision or not? Or is it just before you make big decisions or before you make religious decisions? If you think about what does Hashem think, what does Hashem say about this act before you do it, then certainly you have. But if you only think after the fact or you don't think at all or you only think about some of the things, then of course it shows a lacking. here the is telling us maybe this duties of the heart is just something that I thought is important but maybe it's not because if didn't write it or clarify it it's obviously certainly in the Torah because you see it from the book itself he brings endless sources from the entire Tanakh from uh the the five books of Moses the writings the prophets other that have written about it but again he's looking for something that is similar to the other works that was that condensed and focused on one particular topic rather than something general that you find everywhere in the Torah because every topic is in the Torah is in the Talmud is in the uh uh the writings of the sages is in the entire Tanakh but something more condensed like some of these three particular topics that he mentioned he hasn't found but perhaps there's no reason for it. That's his initial feeling. Perhaps it's not necessary because if it was then somebody would have written it because if we don't do it we get punished. But when I investigated the matter of are the duties of the heart obligatory or not from a point of view of reason, scripture and rabbitic tradition, I found that the duties of the heart to be the basis of all of the commandments whereby if they were to be undermined, there would be no point to any of the duties of the glimpse in so many words after he investigated this not only based on his logical sense but reviewing the entire Torah and what said what the prophet said what the sages said he realized this is everywhere in fact it's so important that if we do not delve into our actions. If we don't if we do not inspect our heart, then none of the actions that we do physically, whether it's putting on tit or praying or anything else that we do, none of it is going to be done correctly. As the page 49B says, if somebody says to a woman, if a Jew says to a woman, you are beer to me based on the condition that I am completely righteous that I'm a sadik. And says even if he was a rash at the time he said it, she still betrod it to him. Why? Maybe the chuva before he said it and therefore she's betrod to him by that statement according to Jewish law. And the leaf, one of the great sages says, "When did he do chuva?" He did chuva in his heart. And that already counts in heaven and here. The chuva of the heart already counts if he's serious. If it's a real chuva, hem knows what's in your heart. It's one of our 13 principles of faith. If he really did chuva in his heart, she really is betrothed to him because he met the condition has a couple of chuvot in his from his shim that uh there was a few young uh Jewish kids that uh played around with this and thought it's funny. And one of the kids said to a girl that was on the bus, "You are you are betrothed to me." And they all laughed. But there was a rabbi on there on the bus and said, "Listen, according to she's betrothed to you." No, no, no, no. I was just kidding. I'm not I don't want to get married. I'm only 16 years old. And the girl is crying. No, I don't want to marry him. What are you talking about? But I'm only 15 years old. No. Says you have to go and you have to get a get going. You have to get a get. Why? Torah is what you say here. It's not just empty words. It's not just empty words. In so many words, what the is trying to tell us here is what the said in many places in the page 106b. Hem wants your heart. What does it mean? Hashem wants your heart. The sages explain, "Wherever your heart is is where you are." So much so that writes in Mish in Proverbs 23 26, "My child, give give your heart to me and your eyes will desire my ways. is telling us if we give our heart to a we will love the mitzvot we will love learning to the reason why you're struggling with your Torah learning is not because the Torah is not delicious beautiful no it's because your mind and heart is elsewhere you want to be playing games you want to make money you want to do other things so your heart is not focused on Torah and therefore even when the Torah is as beautiful as can possibly be your heart is somewhere else. But if you want to elevate yourself, you want to complete the shas, complete the hum, complete the midash, complete the complete the complete another part of the Torah. It all starts with your heart. If you want to have a good prayer, your ma prayer, your shak prayer, your prayer, your yum kipur prayer, even the your heart has to be in it. If you're thinking about other things, you simply are not fulfilling the mitzvah the way it's supposed to. It's like a robot talking. It's like a machine. You can learn Torah for three hours, but if your heart is somewhere else, you're not going to like it. You're not going to enjoy it. You're not going to understand it. You're not going to be elevated by it. You could be watching a shield, but if it's as something like it's in the background where you're still doing your work, you're still talking to your friends, and the sh is in the background. Guess what? It will not affect you one bit. It will not improve your life. It will not help you in any way, shape or form. There was one guy that when Rim went to his house, he heard in the back. He said, "There's another rabbi here." goes, "No, no, I have a shield to running in the house 24 hours a day. Even if I don't listen, it's it's out there. It's good. It's good for the uh to have it." If I'm told, well, supposed to listen to it, not just have it in the background. No, no, Rabbi, it's good. It's good. Few years later when this guy started going off the and not keeping like he was supposed to and not listening to it wasn't really a surprise because to him having a sher in the background was enough. It was good for the air like as if it's a a purifier of some kind. This is not the way of supposed to listen and pay attention. And as I've said a million and a half times to anyone that wants to ever consider themselves not even just my student but a student of Torah, if you're watching, whether it's live or it's in uh online and you don't have a notebook in front of you to write at least some of the stuff that you're learning, it's almost a waste of time. It's good to listen, but you're not going to remember 99% of it. And if you didn't write it down, it's not going to be committed to memory beyond maybe telling a friend's story 15 minutes later or an hour later after you heard it. But after that, you ask a person a day later, "What the rabbi say yesterday?" They won't be able to repeat even one thing. If you want to learn Torah, it has to be with a notebook, with focus, with your heart. If it's not with your heart, you're not there. And that's why I tell people, I've learned everything from Frank sits with me day in day out, in the middle of the night, in the afternoon, as often as we possibly can. I don't have any interest in sitting with anybody else, learning from anybody else. Of course, when I'm not able to learn with him and let's say I'm on the road, I'll put it on a sh if it's not his, it's another rabbi that I like, no problem. And if I hear something that I like, I'll write it down on my phone or a piece of paper. But the main body of learning has always been from Rab Fry, always will be from Rabime and has always been the same way. how RAM speaks. I listen. I have a notebook. We record the conversation. I listen to it again. I'll ask questions. We'll go back and forth sometimes. But the same student that started when I knew absolutely nothing is the same many years later when I know a little bit more than nothing. Same thing. Nothing has changed. In fact, still trying to work on becoming even better. Still trying to learn how to apply better. So when a person tells me, "Oh yeah, Rabbi such and such is my rabbi." I wonder how did you determine that? because you watch lectures or you attend lectures or because you really apply what he says to your life every day because you really seriously study. Because if you seriously study praiseworthy you are that you've made yourself a rabbi just like the Torah commands us. But if you're like most people where you're just listening to it in the background, I feel bad for you. Why? You've wasted five, 10, 20, 30 years of your life deluding yourself to thinking you have a rabbi and that you've learned Torah. You haven't learned anything. So now is telling us we have to understand that the heart is everything. clarifies and says that if you give Hashem your heart, you will desire his ways. Says, "The place that I love is where my legs take me." based on what Davidid said in Psalm 119 verse number 59 where he says I considered my ways and returned my feet to your testimonies where the midash says thought each day oh I need to go to the meeting with this king with this prince with this minister with this servant Whatever it is, I have to go all these places. But in the end, I ended up in the bet midlash. How come I'm always in the bet midlash? I had to go to the meeting. There's kings waiting for me, but I'm always in the bet midlash somehow. Why? You know why, Hashem? BECAUSE MY HEART IS CONSTANTLY WITH YOU. SO, I'M THINKING I have to go to all these meetings, but my heart is with you. So, my legs take me there. My legs keep taking me to you. If your heart is thinking about Hashem, you will have a burning desire to connect to Hashem in every single possible way in your life. Whether it's through your business or your simple day-to-day tasks, your marriage, your with your kids, everything and anything. some examples of theim from past generations that had the glory of Torah, but yet the fire of Kadusha burning in their heart that only a few merited to see. one of the greatim, the rebi of he was extraordinarily wealthy, had a carriage, a golden carriage with six horses and golden shoes, literally boots of gold. When somebody dared speak against the RV, one of the Telm that was most that was closest to the Rebi said to him, "You're speaking against the Reb of Ruin. You don't understand what you're talking about. You see those boots? You see those boots that are gold? If you notice, they don't have so there's no bottom to the shoe. The Rebi is barefoot on the floor despite rocks and thorns and all types of painful things and every day it's full of blood because while he wants to represent the glory of the Torah for others he himself is taking on and his heart is constantly burning with fear of Hashem so much so that he's always holding his heart because he's so scared of Hashem of Chernovich wrote the Shabbat, one of the greatim third generation after the Baltov. He was also very close and friendly with Rabizusha Kodesh Keshim. And the Rebe of Chernovich one time was surprised to see his dear frienda coming to town and was so happy. HE SAID, "OH, KABIZUSHA, PLEASE, PLEASE LET ME HOST you for Shabbat." says to him only on one condition. Sure. Sure. Any anything that you listen to everything THAT I SAY TO DO? ABSOLUTELY. I would be honored to host you and listen to what you say. As they're walking into the town, there's a huge puddle of water ahead of them. And Rabizusha stops and says to the of Chernovich says, "You know, you promised me, right?" Yeah, sure. I promised you. You You promised to listen to everything I said, right? Yes. For the Of course, we're going for Shabbat. Okay. So, you promised? Yes, I promised. So you see I'm working on myself says and I thought to myself during my my introspection what do I need to do better and I thought ah I need to serve a I need to serve and who is a greater in this generation other than younovich which is now not sure which way to run. He has in front of him. He's telling him he's a great but again he doesn't want to lose his guest. And then continues and says to him, well, you see, since I have to serve at Tom and you promise to help me, let me please serve you. Okay, Rabbi, fine. Let's let's go for Shabbat. Goes, "No, no, no. I want to start now. What do you want to do?" He says, "Well, since you're such a great Tom, it's not honor for you to burden yourself by walking around this big tunnel. So, let me lay on top of the tunnel and you walk on top of my body to cross the tunnel." The moment the Reb of Chernobich heard this, he just simply ran away. How could he ever do such a thing to the giant of the generation? AND AS HE'S RUNNING AWAY, SAYS TO HIM, "BUT YOU PROMISED. YOU PROMISED." [screaming] The greater the more they literally had a burning desire for they knew if I have to fulfill this mitzvah by serving a and that meant I have to go and lay on a puddle embarrass myself give coffee whatever it is then absolutely of course this is not normal this is great sages don't lay on any puddle for uh tomorrow and think that you're a sadik and you're abizusha tomorrow The point I'm trying to tell you is we learn from the great to show where they are and where we are and at least try to get better. In another timeusha is in a bet midrash and he sees that there's a there he says come on let's learn together and was like oh no but but I don't think I'm at your level that I could learn with with such fire. And no come on we'll learn something simple. Okay, fine. Fine. What are we learning? Says, "Okay, get Okay, seems innocent enough." They open the first says, "When do we read the soa says to him, well, how do you know it says? There's no nikud. So, how do you know it's matai?" So the says I mean that's the tradition has said that this is the thing that makes most sense. No. He says, "Who says it's that that's the uh the it's what else would it be?" Abiza says, "What is me?" MEAT SAYS FROM MY FEAR OF I READ THE AT NIGHT BECAUSE I DREAD I'M FEAR I'M A SCARE OF AND THEREFORE I READ the at that moment did not know what to do with himself and ran out of the bet midrash he realized he is in a different elevated world that's does not belong to where he is are great sages delved into the words of the written Torah, of the prophets, of the writings, of the Talmud, of the M, of every single aspect of the Torah. When somebody says, "Oh, I've read the Rambam," that's great, but what about all of the commentaries, the literally the endless commentaries on the Rambam? when somebody says, "I've covered the Talmud." But what about the endless commentaries that clarify the Talmud, the Balot, the the great the great sages that literally are endless. When somebody says, "I'm learning Torah," that's good. But when somebody thinks that they've completed something then you have to ask did you complete just your study session or you think you know the entire Talmud or you think you know the entire or you think you know this entire subject because you've covered all grounds because if you think you covered everything you haven't learned anything. If you've completed your session, your goal for now, that's good. You're in the right way. You need to have goals. How much you're going to learn, when you're going to learn, how much you're going to complete, when you're going to complete it. It's very very important to have goals. It's very very go very very important to know what you've done. But only a delusional person would think that either they or someone else knows everything because when it comes to the Torah, it's an endless ocean. And that's in essence the reason why the wrote this. He said the Torah is an endless ocean. But when it comes to this extraordinarily important issue of the duties of the heart, no one has written something that's condensed. And it's important for you to know it because if you don't know your responsibility of inspecting your heart, of the obligations of your heart, then everything else that you're doing will end up being superficial. Even if you're watching a shir every day, even if you're reading a book, even if you're doing a duffy, because inspecting your heart is connected to every single aspect of serving a kadosh, whether it's learning to or shaking the love or putting on to fill in or anything else. And if your mitzvot have nothing to do with the heart, then they're like mad. It's like a act of nothingness. This is one of the great distinguishing factors between the world of Torah versus everything else in life. When you're in business, you don't need to have your heart into your business. You just need to make money. When you're playing a sport, you don't need to love the game. You just need to win. Or if you're playing for entertainment, enjoy yourself. It doesn't matter if you win or lose. When it comes to serving a kadosh, if your heart is not there, you're not fulfilling the purpose. Even if you're reading a book, even if you're listening to, if your heart is not there, you are going in the wrong path. Those of antiggonos, their heart wasn't there. So when they taught that lecture to their students, they didn't teach it with the same zeal and fire as their rav. So their students understood even less than them and they delivered this teachings to their students with even less and by the third generation it was a completely different religion. If you're looking for different ways to justify some new concept that you've invented and you haven't found any great sages that have discussed it, that have clarified it, then at the very least humble yourself like the says, when I saw that no one else covered it, I thought perhaps I'm wrong. But only after I saw that this is everywhere. It just hasn't been condensed. I realized I was right. It's just no one has done the kindness to the generation of condensing everything and putting everything, collecting everything into one place. But certainly you could find the teachings of everywhere. And you'll see it throughout the series. And if you read the you'll see it literally in every second every second sentence more verses more proofs of every single part of the teachings. The Torah is connected like your nervous system. Every single part is connected. The key part that makes everything operate and function is the heart. And the is saying as many wires as you have, as many different options as you have, as many books you have in your library, if they're not connected to the heart, you have nothing. But if they are, then you're going in the right direction. Then you can build on that. Then you can really become something. And we all continue the tradition, continue the mass, continue the teachings, continue the learning of the Torah as our forefathers have done from generation to generation for over 3,000 years and be able to not only learn it and apply it, but also to teach it to our children and the next generation in the same zeal, excitement. ment and clarity as our teachers. Thank you very much for learning with me. May Hashem bless each and every one of us to succeed in this endeavor. Anyone that wants to support and can to help us continue sharing the Torah in so many different languages in so many different ways can go and donate on our website bzadashem.org or bhour.org. You could also get many of your questions answered by downloading our AI rabbi uh app. It's a very cheap subscription if you sign up for a whole year. I think it's only like $12 a month. So, it's very necessary application. Not because you're going to ask it questions every two minutes or every single day, but when you need it, you will have it. Just like anything else that's important in life, you want to have it when you need it. It's like insurance but for your life, for your mind, for your ability to live with understanding that you have access to when perhaps the rabbi is not easily accessible to you. And last but not least, for those of you that are clever and want to reserve yourself a penthouse of all pen houses in Aaba, get yourself as many ballet chuva as you can. How do you get ballet chuva? You get these kiru boxes and you give it to people. They watch it. They will do cha. Why? We've done the work for you. All you got to do is give it to people. They open it. They watch it. They'll do cha. You can get this on kirubox.org or on our website.org. Get as many as you can and will be happy to send it to you wherever you are. Call to and will learn again later this week. >> 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 [music] sources, 30 different languages that are available to you. So if you want to ask it in Spanish, [music] in Chinese, Portuguese, whatever you want to do, it's available for you. Can you tell me about So it's timestamped to the shield. You press this green button. AI rabbi on your WhatsApp. [music] You'll have the ability to ask questions at will. You'll be providing sources and most importantly, you'll be able to know the truth and be able to rely on the sources.