Behar - Robbing the Poor of their Dignity (Say Good Morning!)

2:09 It's like we're actually robbing the poor. It's like we're ganavim. It's like we're thieves. We're robbing the poor. So we have a couple of questions to ask on Rashi and this Medrash. The first question is Why would we assume That if we don't help him now, it's going to be five times more difficult. Let's say we don't help him now. He falls and becomes totally impoverished, and we don't help him. A year later We would say he's what? Twice as poor. Three years later, we would say he's three times as poor, right? Why do we assume that when someone becomes poor, they become exponentially poor? In other words, I would assume a person goes from having a hundred thousand dollars and now they spent a hundred thousand dollars because they didn't have a job and now they're at zero. I would assume that at the end of year two, they're in the hole what, a hundred thousand dollars. At the end of year three, they're in the hole, two hundred thousand dollars.

3:11 It seems like from what Rashi is saying that's not the way it works. That at the end of year one, you're so far in the hole that you're five. It's at least five times worse than when you started. That's a very strange thing. I would assume that it just goes year by year. Rashi says no, it goes exponentially. That's number one. Question number two. I can understand that not giving tzedakah is not a good thing. We should all give tzedakah. But the Medrash takes it one step further. The Medrash says not giving tzedakah to somebody who's on his way down is like you're robbing them. That seems very extreme. Why I haven't robbed them. I didn't help them, but to say that I actually robbed them—how did I rob them? What does that mean? So I want to share with you a vart that I heard from Rabbi Yechonon Zwi, an amazing vart.

4:01 And he tells us the following: There's a Gemara in Brachos. The Gemara in Brachos is discussing a pasuk in Yeshaya And the Gemara says as follows: The Gemara says that the pasuk in Yeshaya says, 'What you have stolen from the poor is in your houses.' That's what the pasuk in Yeshayah says, and Rashi says the Gemara is curious here. Why are we singling out stealing from the poor? Stealing from the rich is just as big an aveira as stealing from the poor. It doesn't matter if I steal from somebody who has millions of dollars or if I steal from somebody that has a thousand dollars. Either way, I'm still a ganav. But the pasuk here seems to be singling out if you steal from the poor, that's terrible. Additionally, if you were going to steal from somebody, who would it make more natural sense to steal from?

4:50 Steal from the rich because you can get more if you steal from the rich than you can from the poor. So the Gemara says, listen to what the Gemara says, an unbelievable one. The Gemara says we're talking about a case where someone greets you, someone says Shalom Aleichem, and you ignore them. That's what the pasuk is talking about. If somebody says Shalom Aleichem to you and you don't say Shalom Aleichem back, you're called a thief. Quoting this pasuk from Yeshaya, that if you steal from the poor, it's in your houses. What does that mean? If somebody who's poor comes and wishes you a shalom aleichem, and you don't answer a shalom aleichem back, you're called a gazlam. What does that mean? So there's an unbelievable tirya here. It's a tirya for every single one of us. What happens to a poor person? If you've ever been poor, or if you've ever been in a situation where you feel poor, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

5:52 You're walking down the street, you see somebody, and you say shalom aleichem, and they ignore you. What they take from you? They took something much bigger than money. They took your dignity. You're not worth me recognizing your existence. A gift that every one of us can give to every single other person is the gift of saying Shalom Aleichem. We should run. The Gemara says to say Shalom Aleichem to somebody else before they say Shalom Aleichem to us. It was a boy who came to Yeshiva many years ago. One of my all-time favorites. Really great boy. He was for sure locked and loaded coming to Mivaseret. It was his number one choice. He wasn't even thinking about going to another Yeshiva. And then he found out that there was a group of boys from his high school who had gotten into Mivaseret and were considering coming. And all of a sudden, he was having second thoughts. He said, "Maybe I shouldn't go to Mivaseret."

6:47 He came to Eretz Yisrael to visit the yeshiva. And he told me when he got there. He said, "I was locked and loaded in Mivaseret. Now I'm not so sure." I said, "Why?" He said, "Because this group of boys is considering coming to yeshiva." I said, "What's wrong with this group of boys?" He said, "Rebbe, I don't know how to tell you this, but these are like the worst group of guys ever." I said, "Really? It's not really what we're known for." I'm so curious. What makes them so bad? Because I've been with these boys in elementary school, middle school, and high school. And I walk down the hallway And they don't acknowledge my existence. It's like I'm a ghost. I walk down the hall, they walk down the hall. It's like I don't exist. They don't say Shalom Aleichem. They don't know my name. They don't talk to me. I've been in school with them for 12 years. Could you imagine?

7:34 The feeling that he had. He was ready to leave. He said Mevaseret is the best yeshiva for me. But if these guys come, I'm sick and tired of being a ghost. I'll never forget that language that he used. He was a ghost. He was a ghost. It was kiilu. He didn't exist. A person says shalom aleichem to another person. You have the opportunity to bring them to life. There's a minig in Kallah Yisrael, an old tradition in Kallah Yisrael. That Reb Freifeld was the founding Rosh Yeshiva of Shaiyashu. In Yiddish, if somebody wishes you a gut morgen, a good morning, you wish them a gut yar, a good year. Somebody says good morning. You respond to them with a good year. So Rofrithold asked the question. He said, "Why is it that if somebody wishes you a good morning, you wish them an entire good year? That doesn't seem to be balanced, right?" Somebody says good morning. What do you say back to them? You say good morning.

8:22 Why do you have to wish somebody a good year because they wished you a good morning? The answer is it's very simple. When somebody wishes you a good morning, they say you are worthy of recognition. You're important in this world. You wake up in the morning. You say good morning to somebody. It's a gift that you give somebody. You know how much it's worth—an entire year. It's worth an entire year. You say good morning to somebody. I want to share with you guys something exceptionally beautiful. The way that we relate to other people makes a very big difference. If you're willing to look at somebody and say you are of value, you should know you could save their life. I want to tell you an amazing story. This is a true story. It's a scary story. It was a boy who came to yeshiva many years ago. Great guy.

9:08 We interviewed him. Great kid. A smile that could light up the world. He comes to yeshiva day one. Excited to see him. Comes to daven. I'm sitting in a seat right across from him. The mashgiach of the yeshiva, Rabbi Glanz, is sitting right across from him. The boy puts on his. He puts. We, the rebbeim, put on our towels and tefillin. The boy sat there the entire davening. He didn't put on his tefillin. He didn't open up a seder. He just sat there staring straight ahead for the entire davening. It's very weird to come Not open a seder, not put on your tefillin. He just came and he sat there and he stared straight ahead. At the end of davening, I said to him, Shalom aleichem, good morning. The mashgiach said to him, Shalom aleichem, good morning. He didn't respond. He didn't say a word. Didn't respond. Just walked away. I said that was strange. Maybe he's jet lagged. Who knows? The next day, come to davening. I put on my tallis and tefillin. The mashgiach Rabbi Glanz puts on his tallis and tefillin. This boy comes, sits down, doesn't open his seder, doesn't put on tefillin. At the end of davening, I said to him, "Good morning." Mashgiach said to him, "Good morning."

10:10 Looks at us Doesn't say a word Walks out of shul. Two for two. Very strange. The next day, same thing. He comes, doesn't open seder, doesn't put on his tefillin. At the end of davening, 'Good morning. Good morning.' He doesn't say a word. He walks out. I have a rule: three times and you're out. I don't have to like chase after you. Maybe he wants some space from us. Maybe he's not interested. So on day four, I was like, okay, Beseder, you do your thing. I'm not going to do my thing. Like, I'm not going to sit there wishing you good morning if you're not even going to have the courtesy to respond. But Rabbi Glanz is a better rabbi than I am. And Rabbi Glanz said to him, "Good morning." And the boy didn't respond. Day five, Rabbi Glanz says, "Good morning," and he doesn't respond. Day six, day seven And so on and so forth. This took us to January. To January, September, October, November, December, every single day, Rabbi Glanz would wish him a good morning. Every single day, he would stare at him, not say a word, and then walk off. And it was unbelievable. He just pushed it and didn't respond. One day after davening, Rabbi Glanz says to him, "Good morning." He looks at Rabbi Glanz and he goes, "Good morning," and he walks away.

11:13 Rabbi Glanz looks at me and he goes, "My God!" I look back at him and I said "He speaks." It was the first word we heard from him. The next day: Good morning. He responds: Good morning. And it's going like this for a couple of weeks. All of a sudden, he comes to shul one morning, totally unexpected. He puts on his tefillin, opens up his siddur, and starts to daven. At the end of davening, Rabbi Glanz says to him, "Good morning." He says, "Good morning," and he walks off. "Good morning. Good morning." And this goes on now for a couple of weeks. The boy's coming to shul and he's davening and he's putting on tefillin. And at the end, he would say, "Good morning." And then, in the beginning of February and the end of January, I can't tell you exact date. One day, Rebbe Glanz says to him, "Good morning." And he says to Rebbe Glanz, "Good morning." He says, "Rebbe, do you think we could speak today?" Rebbe Glanz says, "Sure." Rebbe Glanz turns to me afterwards, after the boy had left. He goes, "Do you think it's okay if I take off the morning and go speak to him?" I'm like, "Yes, go speak to him. Who cares? Whatever, just go."

12:08 You have to understand something about Rebbe Glanz. He's a third-degree black belt in mixed martial arts. He's not the type of person to get thrown by things. He comes back into the beis medrash about two and a half hours later. He's white as a ghost. I've never seen him like this before, and he's shaking. He says, "I need to speak to you outside." I said, "Sure, no problem." I walk outside. I said, "What happened? How was it?" He goes, "You're not going to believe this." When you interviewed him, he was a great kid. Something happened. It doesn't matter what, and I can't tell you because it's not relevant to you. And it would be lashon hara for me to betray what happened. But he went through something capital T trauma. From the time that you interviewed him and accepted him until September, That's why he came the way he came. He went through something really, really terrible. And he came to yeshiva ready to take his life.

12:56 Ready to take his life And he was testing us: Will they care about me if I treat them like absolute garbage? Will they care about me if I don't do anything that the yeshiva wants me to do? Will they care about me if they say good morning and I push it and ignore them? He said, Rabbi Glanz, you don't understand. I've been testing you for months. Every single day, when you said good morning. I said I won't take my life today. But let's see what he does tomorrow. And you didn't give up on me for all of these months. I just want to say thank you because you saved my life. And he was shaking Rabbi Glanz when he told me this story. A good morning can save somebody's life. A good morning tells somebody that they matter. You say shalom aleichem. You're telling somebody you have dignity. You are of importance. My Rosh Yeshiva Zechariah Kolov Ralch, Rav Brunschvigel, he was European. He used to tell us every guy. He would say, say good morning to your friends, and maybe he'll say, why should I say good morning? I don't even mean it. It's just a platitude. He would say, I have a good eitzah for you.

14:01 Mean it. It's an unbelievable thing that Rav Brunschvigel was teaching us. Do you know what it's like if you met someone? Or you wake up in the morning, you roll over in bed, you turn to your roommate, and you actually say Good morning. I want to wish you a good morning. I want to let you know that today I hope something great happens to you, because there's somebody who cares about you enough to wish you a good morning. That is a tremendous value that you can provide to somebody else. And if chas v'shalom, there's somebody who's suffering in this world. And you don't treat them with dignity You should know you're a gazlan. That's what the Gemara tells you. You're a gazlan. You know what you've stolen? You've stolen their self-respect. A person who's on their way down, you have the opportunity to catch them. That's the greatest gift that you can give to somebody. You don't say, 'You made your bed, now sleep in it.' No. If somebody's on their way down, you catch them and you say you're a person of dignity, even though you're on your way down. I want to tell you two beautiful stories.

15:05 I was in America fundraising for the yeshiva. And I met with the person who gave the yeshiva Baruch Hashem a very significant amount of money to help with scholarships for next year. And he told me an unbelievable story. He told me that there was a young man he was meeting with, a guy in his late twenties. And this guy was meeting with this person that I was meeting with. We're going to call him Avram. His name is not Avram. We're going to call him Avram. He was meeting with Avram to discuss a real estate venture in Long Island. Avram works for somebody who's exceptionally wealthy. When I say exceptionally wealthy, I don't mean somebody who has millions or tens of millions or hundreds of millions. The person that Avram works for, he manages his investment portfolio, is worth billions and billions of dollars. We're talking about a serious, seriously wealthy person.

15:52 He asks this guy, Avram asks this guy in his late 20s. He said, "How did you get this meeting with me? How are you connected to this very wealthy person?" So this guy leans back in his chair and he says, "I'll tell you how I got connected to him. I'm the youngest of eight." I'm the youngest of eight. And my father abandoned my family when I was one year old. When I was one year old, my father walked out on our family. He left us homeless and penniless because my mother didn't have a job. She was a homemaker. And we didn't know how we were going to survive. My mother ran to the rab of the town. She said to the rab of the town that he had to help us. The rab of the town ran all over to all the different people in the town, and he raised a couple thousand dollars, but nothing that was going to save this family's life. And he didn't know what to do, so he called another rab, a major rab in the Orthodox community. He said, I have this family, eight children. The mother doesn't have a job. She doesn't have any skills to have a job. The family is going to starve to death if we don't help them. I don't know what to do. I ran around to all the people in my community.

16:54 My community can't afford to support this family. What should I do? So this Rav said, "Let me tell this story. I have a congregant, somebody who dabbles in my shul. Let me tell them this story and see if maybe he can help out." " This billionaire, you know what he did? It's a wild story. He bought the family a house. He sent the mother to nursing school so that she should have a parnasa. And he paid for all of the children's education. This kid was one at the time. That means that he put this kid through nursery school, kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, high school, yeshiva, and college, and beyond. He said, "Now I'm post college, and I had this idea for a real estate venture in Long Island. So who did I go to? I went to the benefactor who's been helping my family the entire time, and he sent me to you to pitch the idea."

17:40 If I stop the story right now, it's already an amazing story about a family helping another family. But there's one caveat to the story that's even better. Avraham told me in the Rosh Yeshiva. We were sitting in his office in Midtown Manhattan, a beautiful office. He said, 'You should know every time I get set up with a meeting from this billionaire, he always tells me without fail how the meeting came to be. This guy sits next to me, and Shul. This guy is a third cousin. This guy is a friend of a friend. Only once in all of the years that I've been working for this billionaire, only once' Did he ever not tell me how the meeting came to be? It was this guy. He said, 'Why?' Because every other meeting, it was a friend of a friend, it was a guy who sits next to me in shul, or a third cousin. If he had told me how this meeting came to be, he would have been telling me about the tzedakah that he gave, and he keeps the tzedakah private and nobody should know.

18:31 Girls, if you do the math This guy gave well over a million dollars to this family, and most of that money is not tax deductible. You can't just buy somebody a house and send them to school and call it charity. It's not the way it works legally. And nobody even knew about it. But the godless of the story is he wasn't bragging. There was a Jew who was there who needed help. It wasn't a Jew from his community. It wasn't a Jew that he knew. Somebody called him up and said, 'Look, you have money. You're in a position to help. Help this person out. Restore their dignity,' and that's what he did. If it was me, I might feel like this guy already gave us over a million dollars. I should go to him now to invest in my real estate venture. But this kid didn't feel that way. Because he never made him feel that way. Because in all of the years that he was giving them tzedakah, he never made them feel less than. Other rabbi, it was on privilege to give to you. We just finished the Mivaseret fundraiser.

19:28 I want to tell you that there's two types of. I made a lot of phone calls. I spent Sunday morning early from Sunday morning all the way through late Monday evening making a tremendous amount of phone calls to friends, to alumni, to parents of the yeshiva, anybody that I could call. It was a scholarship campaign. I want to help the guys out. I want to tell you, there's two types of givers. There's people that give begrudgingly. They reach into their pocket, they pull out ten dollars, they pull out eighteen dollars. I'm thankful for every single dollar that they give. But some people feel like they're doing me a favor, and some people said, "Thank you for giving me the opportunity to give." And I want you to know that it was ironic. The people who gave me the most money were the ones that said thank you to me. There were people that gave thirty thousand dollars, fifty thousand dollars, and twenty thousand dollars. $10,000

20:12 And the irony is that every one of them came to us and said, "Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be a shutef, to be a partner in this project to help young men who don't have the money to go to yeshiva. It's a sukhst for me to be able to give. That's the right hashkafa when it comes to tzedakah, it's a sukhst for us to give. The only reason that Hashem gives us money is to give it away." We're not meant to use money for ourselves. If we buy something for ourselves, it's because that's going to help us in our avodas Hashem. Every dollar that we spend in our lives, we're going to have to give a din v'cheshbonah. Why did we use that dollar in this way? Remember that we are the stewards of Hakadosh Baruch Hu's money, and the way that we're supposed to use money is to give dignity to others. If you see someone who doesn't have, and I've been on both sides of the aisle. I can't say that my family was ever poor, but we were definitely lower middle class. And maybe we were lower than that.

21:09 I don't know. My father says we're lower middle class, but that may just be because he doesn't want to admit that we're lower than that. But I want to tell you that we also lived Baruch Hashem in a place called Lawrence, New York. For those of you from the Five Towns, you know that Lawrence, New York, is not a poor community at all. And I've been on both sides of the aisle, and I have to tell you It's a gift. It's a gift to have money if you give it to others. If you use the money for yourself, it's not a gift. My father, when I was 16 years old, and we had moved to Lawrence, lost his job. For three weeks, he was out of a job.

21:40 My dad's not like a frumy guy. He doesn't say frum things. My father's a bal tshuva. He's never been a frumy guy. He's a good Jew, but he's never been the guy to like give me a shmooz. When I was growing up, my father used to say to me, 'A little learning never hurts. So let's learn as little as possible.' You understand? This is my rebellion against my father. Chas v'shal. My father's an awesome person. I want you to know, when he lost his job, I went to my dad and I said, 'Dad, what's going to be? Do we have to move? Are we gonna like? What are we like? We gotta go back to cutting coupons? How's this gonna work?'

22:08 So my father said, and it's the first and last thing I ever heard him say. Since then, I never heard him say another thing, and he never said a thing before that. He said, when I had money, I was blessed to give it away to Tzadka, and I hope that I, Kadosh Baruch Hu, will send me another job so that I'll have the opportunity to give more to Tzadka. I never heard him say something like that in my life. It was the most incredible thing I ever heard him say, and he meant it. I knew my father was about stock, but I never knew how important it was to him. If you have money in your pocket, that's a gift. You know what the gift is? The opportunity to raise somebody else up. You know why that poor person goes down? Not just that he doesn't go down a hundred thousand then two hundred thousand, three hundred thousand. You know why he loses so much so fast? Because he lost his dignity. There's nothing like feeling the feeling of being a loser. The feeling of I can't provide for my family. One of the most painful feelings in the world. You know what happens to such a person? They don't just lose it all. They lose it all and then some, because they don't know how to recover, because there's nobody home.

23:04 Says Chazal, if you see somebody and they're falling and you don't help them, you're stealing. You're stealing from them. You had an opportunity to restore their dignity, instead you took it. They walked by you and you said, "I'm not geyrusu." There are people that they're wealthy and they know it. It's power. They walk into a room. You ever see these people? They walk into a room and they survey the territory. You ever hear that? You ever see that? They walk into a room, they go like this, they're like. Looking around And then they choose somebody out of the crowd and they go shalom aleichem. It's like you are worthy of my shalom aleichem. My rasha shiva, my rebbeim, when they walked into the room, they came in with a smile on their face. They greeted people. Ad rabbah, they greeted people that weren't the top guys in yeshiva, and they greeted them with the same shalom aleichem that they greeted everybody else, because they knew that every shalom aleichem mattered. Our face is a rishos harabim; it's public domain. When you walk around and your face is like just a blank stare, you had an opportunity to smile at somebody. You had an opportunity to say good morning. You had an opportunity to say shalom aleichem. You're a ganef. You're a ganef if you don't give that to somebody else.

24:08 How do we do this? What's the secret? Look at the pasuk. The chiyomoch achicha. You know what the key is? You have to see other Jews as your brothers. How do you restore somebody's dignity? You should say, "Why is it my responsibility? Why should I have to take care of them?" You know what the answer is? Because that's your brother. They never met them. They live in a different community. That's your brother. There's a way to give tzedakah. I want to teach you how it goes. You want to see how the way to give tzedakah goes? It's very simple. If somebody knocks on your door And you're annoyed And you're annoyed, so you begrudgingly give them a couple of shekels. Chaval. You lost a tremendous opportunity. If your brother came to the door, how would you treat them? If your brother or sister came to the door and said, "I need help" What would you say? You would say, "Of course, come in. It's a privilege to help you. Let me do. What can I do to help you get back on your feet?"

25:06 There's a story of a very big rasha shiva who came into a gvir's office. He came into a wealthy man's office. He sat down in the office and he said to this guy. The guy said to rasha shiva, 'You didn't have to come to me. If you would have told me that you need tzedakah, I would have come to you.' The Rosh Yeshiva said, 'No, it's okay. I'm happy to come to you.' He said, "How can I help?" He said, "There's a person, unfortunately, Lo Alenu, he's in a very tough spot." He has five children. His job isn't going so well. He's really falling apart. So if you could do anything to help, the guy said, "Of course. Who should I make the check out to?" He said, "Make it out to your brother." It was this guy's own brother. He was unaware of the pain that his own brother was in. That's not just a failure in tzedakah. That's a failure in sensitivity. Tzedakah means you got money because somebody else needs it, and in the right moment, you're going to have the opportunity to give it. To give tzedakah is a privilege. I want to tell you, I went a couple of months ago to America.

26:04 And I have a fake cousin. Anyone here have a fake cousin? You know what I mean by a fake cousin? Like your mom's best friend is your aunt. So their kids are your cousins. I've got fake cousins. I have fake cousins on my mom's side. I have fake cousins on my dad's side. These cousins are my fake cousins on my dad's side. So I heard that one of my fake cousins has a husband who did very well in business. He's in nursing homes, and Baruch Hashem, he's done very well in business. From what I heard, he sits there giving out money all day long on Sunday. Anybody who comes knocks on his door. I gave a sheir in the five towns a couple of months ago. My fake cousin, her sister, and my fake aunt all came to the sheir. So I said to my fake cousin, "Is it true that your husband just sits there giving out money all day?" She said, "Yeah." I said, I want to collect from him. I want to knock on the door and I want to.

26:49 I'm not obviously going to collect from him. I don't need money, but I just want to see what will happen. She said, by all means, show up at the door, but he's going to recognize you. I said, why would he recognize me? He hasn't seen me in over 10 years. She said, okay, give it a shot. So I go to this house, beautiful house in Lawrence. I made myself look all disheveled. I have my hat. I put it on sideways. Pulled out my hair a little bit. I can pull it off if I want to. I've got the whole thing going. I'm this close from being that guy. Not obvious at all. I go, I knock on the door, and I sheepishly looked. "I'm helping my yeshiva. I came to America. If you could please donate a little bit to my yeshiva." The guy looks at me with such warmth. He goes, "Please come on in." I said, "Thank you so much." I came in. He goes, "Can I get you something to drink?" I said, "Yes." And he goes, "Which yeshiva are you from? Are you from Shalvim or Rishit?

27:40 So I said, 'Shalvim.' He goes, 'Good, I give the Shalvim and Reisha. The only place I don't give is Mivaser.' He was joking. He knew it was me right away. That's why he said. So I said, "Oh, you do know it's me." He goes, "Of course. How you doing?" I sat down in his kitchen. I'm schmoozing with my fake cousin and my fake aunt, who are not. They're not fake. They're very real to me. But they're fake cousins and fake aunts. And he was in the kitchen schmoozing with us for a couple of minutes, and then he walked out. I didn't think about it. And he came back and handed me a check. So I said to him, "What are you doing?" I was just joking around. I was messing around. I was messing around. I didn't come here. I haven't even looked at the check yet. I said, "What are you doing?" I came here for a gag. I didn't come here for money. He says, "Yeah, but if you came here, it's for a reason." He says, "Don't worry. Take the tzedakah." I was like, "I can't. I didn't come here for money."

28:27 I came here just to see you. I came just to say hello. He goes, "Take it." I turned to my fake cousin. I said, "What do I do?" She said, "Take it. If you don't take it, he's going to give it to somebody else. I may as well go to your yeshiva." I opened up the check. It was not a small amount of money. It was not $100, $500, or $1,000. It was many thousands of dollars. I said, "You've got to be kidding me! I can't take this. It's too much." He said, "It's my pleasure. It's my privilege. There's a reason you came to the door. Please take the money." I was so touched by it. I like, I just showed up. I haven't seen the guy in years. I haven't seen my fake cousin in years. Of course, I feel very close to them. But like, just so much to give. With why? Because if you're part of Klal Yisrael, if you see yourself as part of Am Yisrael. If you say Hashem is my father, and that means you're my brother and you're my sister, that's the most beautiful gift in the world. There's a beautiful mussel.

29:15 That a very wealthy father Who's marrying off his last child And he says to all the children in the family, he goes, every penny that you spend on this wedding, every penny I'm going to reimburse you for. Suits, dresses, makeup, hair. I've made weddings now for my daughter, so I understand suits are a very small amount of money. Hair, makeup, nails—this is a very big thing. Colors of weddings—I understand this is a very important thing. I'm not sure why it's an important thing, but I understand this is an important thing. He says, "Every penny you spend, I'm gonna pay you back." So the kids went all out. The grandkids went all out. This is gonna be gavaldik. They got new hats, new ties, new belts, new shoes, new everything. Comes the day of the wedding, and there was one brother who didn't have so much money. He wasn't able to spend so much money. His kids came in, gowns from a gamach, and their old suits and their old hats. At the end of the wedding, all the siblings who did have money, who spent all these thousands of dollars getting their kids new stuff, they brought the receipts to their father and they said, "Okay, Dad, we spent thousands of dollars. Can we get reimbursed?" He said, "I'm not reimbursing any of you a penny."

30:19 They said, 'Abba, what are you talking about? We spent thousands of dollars because you said you were reimbursing us.' He pointed to his son who didn't have so much money. He said, "That's my son." If you were his brothers, you would have made sure that he was taken care of for this wedding. But you didn't make sure that your brother was taken care of, which means you're not his brothers. And if you're not his brothers, then you're not my son. I said I would reimburse my children. You want to be the child of Hakadosh Baruch Hu? How do you treat your siblings? The litmus test of greatness in Judaism is not how much Torah you know. Anybody can learn from a book. There are people that can be great scholars of Rashi and Ramban. And they could know Shas Mal Pe, but it doesn't mean that they're Al Kadosh Baruch Hu's child. The litmus test of if you're Al Kadosh Baruch Hu's child is how you treat your siblings.

31:05 If you have someone who's on the way down, if you see somebody who's suffering, and I don't just mean financially, obviously financially too, but if you see a girl in seminary and she's struggling and she doesn't have so many friends and she's going through a hard time, how much work does it take to put your arm around her shoulder and say, "Hey "You want to talk?" There's a boy in yeshiva who told me last week it was heartbreaking. He was going through a hard time in yeshiva, and one of the boys said to him, if you ever need to talk to me, you could talk to me. And the boy came to my office, and he said, really? After the way that he treated me this year, he thinks I'm going to open up to him? All those times that he made me feel like a stranger in the room? That there are five guys in the room, and four of them went away for Shabbos together, and I was the one that was excluded, and now he wants to put his arm around me and talk to me? I hear his pain. I hear where he's coming from.

31:54 It's a privilege to be able to pick somebody up when they're down. But if you want to pick somebody up when they're down, you have to pick them up when they're not down. Now he's all the way down, and he says, 'I don't want your help because where were you this entire time that I was falling? When I was lonely this entire year, where were you for me?' You weren't my brother then. You're not going to be my brother now. Why should I be vulnerable with you now? Why should I trust you now when you were the source of so much shame for me this year when I was so alone? It's an unbelievable mussar. That we're getting in this week's parsha. Save people before they go down. If we treat everybody with kindness and compassion, if we're really sisters to each other, then we're going to see their pain even before they know they're in pain. We're going to position ourselves to be there for people even well before they fall, so that when they fall, they won't fall exponentially because we'll be there, lifting them up the entire way.

32:43 You told me that you went. Who told me you went to the tavern for Shabbos? I'm not going to say his name. Let's not say his name publicly, but I want to tell you something about him. Baruch Hashem, he did very well for himself in business. He's basically retired now. Now he does like projects on the side. He's a very tsneis person. But he's done very well for himself. He's done very well for himself. And we have a chaver who lo alena was not done so well in business. And I want to tell you that the guy you went to for Shabbos has been there every step of the way. We've been friends now for 27 years. For many, many of those years, we had a chaver who didn't do so well in business, and the entire time he was there for him as a friend, just to talk, to help him out. I saw the dignity that he gave this person.

33:26 It's not about giving somebody a job. It's not only about giving somebody a job. It's about being a true friend. He treated him like a brother. I want you to know, I look up to him. He's my friend, but I look up to him in many ways. You went there for Shabbos. You think you saw a simple person. You thought you saw a simple family. You didn't see a simple family. You saw somebody extraordinary, somebody who knows how to lift up other yidden when they're down. It's an art form. There are some people that they lift you up, they make you feel so low when they give you money. There are some people that they say it's a privilege to give you to them. It's a privilege to help you out. If you're given the gift of money, girls, spend it. Spend it. Don't spend it on narishtay. Money is meant to be spent, but what are you spending it on? You can spend money to lift other people up. I want to share with you one last art, one last story, really. When I was a kid, I was in Yeshiva Darche Torah.

34:16 And Rabbi Bender gave a shmuuz to us every single Friday. I want to tell you a story that he told us. There was a kid in Darche Huloa Aleinu lost the father. Lost his father So obviously tuition was going to be very hard to come by. A parent walked into Darche's office, not a wealthy man Puts down a check on Rabbi Bender's desk A sizeable check. Rabbi Bender looks at this man and he goes, "What's this for?" He said, "You know this guy that just passed away." I want to cover his tuition for a couple of years. Rabbi Bender said he was shocked. He says I didn't even know that you were friends with him because I didn't know him at all. Because you didn't know him at all, and you're giving this sum of money. Where did you get the money from? He said every year my wife and I have been saving up to refinish our basement. And now this guy passed away, and we know that the yeshiva is going to have to go fundraise his tuition because nobody home is going to be paying tuition anymore.

35:08 Who's going to take care of him? We said, who says that we should finish our basement? And that Rabbi Bender should have to run around every night collecting money. Maybe we had this money in order to pay this boy's tuition. Rabbi Bender was nespal from this. He was flabbergasted. He said this shmoos. He said it changed his life. Here is a guy who's not a man of means, but he had thousands of dollars that he put away because he wanted to finish his basement. But money is not for finishing your basement. That doesn't mean there is anything wrong with finishing your basement. But you were going to have to make a din v'cheshbon on that money. Did I give you that money to finish your basement? You have a fine basement. You need to get the nicest basement, or is your basement fine? But Lamaisa Yenem is stuck, and they don't have any money. Somebody told me a story. You girls know who Bernie Madoff was? Bernie Madoff stole billions and billions of dollars.

35:51 The greatest Ponzi scheme in the history of the world. He stole billions and billions of dollars. Somebody came to Rav Yishav Zechetadik of Racha in Yerushalayim, and they said, 'I lost a hundred million dollars in Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme. A hundred million dollars I lost. Rabbi, can you please give me a bracha?' Rav Yishav looked at him and he said, 'You had a hundred million dollars.' He goes, 'No, Rebbe. I thought I had a hundred million dollars, but I lost it in the Madoff scheme, and now I can't get it. Rebbe, could you give me a bracha that I could get a hundred million dollars somehow?' And Rebbe Yeshua just looks at him and says, 'You had a hundred million dollars.' He says, 'Yes, Rebbe, I had it, but I lost it.' Rebbe Yeshua goes, You had a hundred million dollars. Do you know how many people in Kali Yisrael don't have homes? Do you know how many people in Kali Yisrael don't have food to eat and can't pay tuition? You had a hundred million dollars.

36:33 I'm not saying that everybody is obligated to give away all their money. Obviously, that's not the halacha. We're supposed to give away not more than 20%. I know wealthy people that went to Gedolei Ador to ask for a hetter to be able to give 50% of their earnings. Rav Shechter, the Rosh Yeshiva of Vayu, he talks about. He's very public about this. He doesn't talk about any of his chumras, but he's public about this one chumra. He gives away 50% of his earnings to tzedakah. He's not a wealthy man at all. Guys ask him all the time, Rebbe, why do you give 50% of your earnings away? You're not wealthy. He goes. What do you mean? I own my apartment.

37:04 He said, I own my apartment. The guy doesn't. He doesn't have a car. People drive him from place to place. He says, What do I need already? He gives away half of his parnaxa to tzedaka. Do you know how much money Klal Yisrael would have if everybody was machpedan meiser? This gvir that I met with in the city, the one that told me that story about the guy that took care of the family, he told me he gives away 20% of his earnings to tzedaka. If we have money, money is meant to be given away. Money is meant to restore dignity. Money is a gift that you're given from Hakadosh Baruch Hu to save people, not to spend it on your own lavish vacations. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with taking a vacation, but you have to make a din v'cheshiv. This vacation that I just took What could I have done with that money?

37:44 You'll say to me, but is there anything wrong with taking a vacation? Chas v'shalom, nothing wrong with taking a vacation, nothing wrong at all. But you have to ask yourself, did I need that vacation, or what if I would have taken $10,000 less? I could have sent somebody to yeshiva, I could have sent somebody to seminary. It's not a joke. Money is a gift that we get from the Rebbe Nachshon. The most important thing that we have is to raise people up who don't have enough for themselves. I don't know if the Air Marianne runs a campaign. Do they? Starting next week. This is fortuitous timing. But I want to tell you something. If you have an opportunity to be a part of it

38:16 That's a schuz. Don't be embarrassed to get on the phone. Don't be embarrassed to call people up. Don't be embarrassed to call friends and neighbors and say, 'Listen, can you give $18? It's matched. Can give thirty-six dollars. Can give one hundred and eighty dollars.' Don't be embarrassed. It's you're changing yourself. You're going to give a gift to somebody else. You're not asking for yourself. You're asking for somebody else. You're not saying please put money in my pocket. You're saying please allow girls to have the gift of bare Miriam that maybe haven't come yet, or maybe we're coming and we all can't afford to do it. We all know that the Rebbitzin kills herself to run this place. It's a schul that we're going to have to participate in. So don't be embarrassed. Don't be embarrassed to stick out your hand and say please help. That's what the Rebbeinu Shlom gave us money for. The Rebbeinu Shlom gave us money to help others. Girls have a beautiful Shabbos.