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There are times, and I don't know if you guys realize that you're in one of those times right now Where you hear a mussar shmuuz that you're gonna remember Not in a week from now, or in a month from now, or in a year from now But in 30 years from now you'll remember tonight. In third, I have no doubt that in 30 years from now you'll remember tonight. Reverend Herschel said, "What did I say in that voice message?" I think I did say, 'Just speak from the heart. Just say whatever is real to you.' That's something that we care about very much in our yeshiva: being real, being authentic, being present with where you're really at. There is not a greater mussar shmuus that we could have received than for Reverend Herschel to be real with us in this moment. Kalamosiv Gareya over here. There's nothing. I have nothing to add. Every word was perfect.
Hershel said he's going to think afterwards. I wish I would have said. I very highly doubt that's true. Because maybe there are more ideas that you could have shared. But what we just saw What every guy in this yeshiva just saw was absolutely real and authentic. I have nothing to add. Not one word. It's mishmar, so we should share a little bit of Torah. The Torah that I'm going to share tonight is really just echoing what Rav Hershel said. No chidushim. The pasuk says, "Al tikach meito neshek v'tarbis" Bi'aresa me'alokacha v'chei achicha imach. Is halacha in this week's parsha? You are not allowed to take interest. You give someone a loan. You're not allowed to charge interest. And the Torah says you're not allowed to charge interest. You should fear Hashem and let your brother live with you. The Gemara says as follows: Tanya Rabbi Shimon Eimer Rabbi Shimon says Mal ve'ribis those who charge interest yoser mima'asha marvichem afsidem more than what they gain they lose.
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V'la'od. And not only that. Not only that, if a person charges interest, he's going to become to belittle Moshe Rabbeinu and the Torah. And he's going to say, "Listen to these words that a yid could come to say if Moshe Rabbeinu would have understood market economics. If he would have understood the amount of money that a person could make from charging ribbis." He never would have asked for charging ribbis. He never would have written those words in the Torah. It is a strange Gemara. It's a strange Gemara. First of all What does it mean when he says "Yosem imashim arvichem avse"? The more you gain, the more you lose. That's true about every avera. Every average, whatever you gain. You're going to lose much more. Every average, you're going to lose much more than you gain. Dafka here by ribbis, Rabbi Shimon comes and he tells us you're going to lose so much. It's so not worth it. It's never worth it.
And it's such an interesting thing. Dafka when it comes to ribbis, that a yid would come and say if Moshe Rabbeinu would have known how awesome ribbis is, he never would have written that one in the Torah. I hate to say it like this, but it's almost like an anti-Semitic Gemara. It's like a Jew is so money hungry that if he would have chapped You think nursing homes you can make a lot of money. Nursing homes is nothing. How much money you can make charging interest. All you got to do, give a guy a hundred bucks, charge him two hundred. It's free money. It's unbelievable. What's the Gemara telling us? The tyra of loans The tyra of loans is a very big tyra. When you come to communities, great communities have interest-free loan gemachs, where Yidden are able to get sometimes thousands, tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Totally interest-free. It's an unbelievable thing that our community has, and great communities. One of the first things that they put into the community when they're building it is how do we build schools? We build mikvaos. Interest-free loan gemachs is big in Klal Yisrael. Why? Why is an interest-free loan gemach so big? So the tirat is like this: When a yid is in pain You guys are young. You don't understand yet the pain of needing money. It's real pain. I'm short. I got hit. My brother just told me his basement flooded. I'll tell you the truth. I'm not sure insurance has ever paid for anything ever. Two things I think in my life. One Whenever they tell you there's a guarantee for a year, you have a warranty. Nobody has ever collected in the history of the world on a warranty. Just now. It's a funny thing. One of the lights exploded in my house. We went to the store.
Exploded, exploded the moment we installed it. We went to the store. They said there's no warranty on that. I said how could that possibly be? I had the thing for less than five minutes. They said unless it comes broken in the box, there's no warranty. What type of warranty is it if you sell it to me broken, then we'll give it back to you? That's not called a warranty. Baruch Hashem, there's a chesidish guy in the store. I said it broke five minutes later. He goes, "Tell me it came broken." I said it broke five minutes later. He goes, "Tell me it came broken. I'm like, 'Dude, I'm not gonna lie to you to save the fifty shekel.' Don't worry, I got it for free. See, rehearsal. That story is true. By the way, then I came to pick it up after it took a month to get it. The guy said that'll be fifty shekel. I said the chassidish guy told me it's free. They gave it to me for free. The point is. There's no such thing as a warranty, and there's no such thing as insurance. My brother's basement floods. 80,000 shekels.
We're getting 80,000 shekels. 80,000 shekels is a lot of money, especially today. The dollar is worth like I feel like we're living in India now. It's not even worth nothing. We should be paying for things in rupees. The. Where am I going to get 80,000 shekel from? A yid is in pain. He turns to his brothers. He turns to his brothers and says, "Can you help a brother out?" Imagine if I—I mean, Baruch Hashem, my brother doesn't come to me for money. In my family, things work the opposite direction. Baruch Hashem, I have brothers that are matzliach in business. I go to them for money. But imagine if my brother calls me up and he says, 'Matt, I lost eighty thousand shekel. I need to, because always wait, floods in basements. Again, that's like another scam. Basements are like a whole complex organism.' You have to replace the pipes, you have to replace the floors, you have to replace the walls. Imagine he comes to me, I need eighty thousand shekel, and I go to him, yes, I'll give you eighty thousand shekel, but I need a hundred sixty thousand shekel back.
You're not a brother. You're not a brother. If your brother comes to you and he says, I need eighty thousand shekel, a brother responds and he goes, that's amazing. I have eighty thousand shekel. Pay me back whenever. Just make sure to get it back to me eventually. I put it away for a chasna Just as long as you get it back to me by the chasna. It would never, ever occur to a brother to say, "How can I monetize your pain?" It would never occur to somebody to turn to their brother and go, 'eighty thousand shekel. I'm going to make a hundred sixty.' That's sick. You're not a brother. It's inhuman. Nestled within. This Torah is a greater question. What's called a brother? Is my brother biological? Is my brother the guy that's my best friend? Is my brother that guy that lives on the block? Is the brother the guy in the community? What if the brother's a yid in South America?
Rev. Herschel said it before, and it's a hundred percent true. There's different areas where Rev. Herschel and I said. Rev. Herschel has inside with his wife. I sit outside, mostly in the cheder mishpachti. There's an area. It's a family waiting room. That's where I met my svardi ladies. I like those ladies. By the way, for the record, they're 70. Just put it in context in case it was misheard. Not sitting. The. It's important clarification. I was listening to it. My wife might hear this move. So. And then See, only rehearsal can really appreciate this. When we fly And Blessed Hashem, we will be flying again soon. When rehearsal and I fly, there are different types of there are different ways that you fly. Some people sit in coach. Some people are middle seat people. When rehearsal and I fly, because we fly often So they give you status.
Status means you sit in a seat with extra leg room. I tell you the truth, more than the seat is the lounge. We don't sit with the peasants. When we're coming down in D Towards your left hand side, some of you guys walked by on the left hand side, the King David Lounge, and there's different sections within the King David Lounge. I am not yet zaycha to make a right into the premium King David Lounge. I only get to go to the regular King David lounge, but I'm an upstairs guy. I don't want to sit downstairs. There's too much people. I don't like it. I don't want to play Jewish geography. I just want to get on a plane. I go upstairs, sit by myself. You get a little soup, you get a little bit of a pizza. It's nice. Gishmak up there. So Rev Hershel and I, we sit in the Cheder Meshpachti. That's like the more exclusive. It's like the lounge. It's like the King David area. But we went where the peasants sit in the main. We wanted to see how the regular people live. We went to the middle.
The chevra is hanging out over there, and that's where we saw the wall. And it's true. Rev Hershel and I are sitting there, and we're—I think—what do they call the silver? The silver donors are Masuqaza. These are the people that have donated serious money to Shadetzedek. And so we're sitting there, going, "Who do we know?" Who do we know? I know that one. I know that one. I don't know that one, but I probably know somebody who knows that one. And so we're sitting there sending off WhatsApps to all the different people. And within a short amount of time, we met with the executive director of Shari Tzedek. Did you end up meeting with Levy? We met with the head doctor of the hospital. It's an unbelievable thing. If there's a yid in South America who could help Rev Herschel, I said to them today, it probably wouldn't take us more than a couple of phone calls to get whatever we need. It's a crazy thing. Do you think? That somebody who's not part of our community, if Chassid v'Shalom, they have to go to the hospital. They go to Lij Hospital, and they need to be there for the weekend. I have a question: Where do they stay?
It's never occurred to anybody in this room to ever ask that question, because wherever we go, there's a beker cholim. If you have to go out of town Somebody made a phone call ahead of time to let them know that you are coming. Some yid showed up to the hospital to give you whatever you need, even though you never met that yid before. Because by us, a brother is not biological, and a brother is not somebody who lives on your block, and a brother is not a best friend. You know who a brother is? Every single yid, that's your brother. Every single Jew is your brother. So if somebody comes to you and they say, "Hey, could I get a loan?" You know what our response is as a community? Our response is, "You're my brother." It would never occur to us to charge interest.
Comes along Rabbi Shimon And he says, "Chaver" If you could charge interest to your brother, you should know you lost something more precious than money. You think you were marviah? You made a hundred thousand shekel. Maybe you made millions of shekel. Maybe you made tens of millions of shekel. You know what you lost? Your humanity. You lost what it means to be a person. You saw another person's pain, and you said, 'How could I monetize that?' That's sick. And you should know, Rabbi Shimon is Dafka saying about Ribis. Because you could eat a cheeseburger and be a human being. You could eat cheese. I'll tell you the truth. I don't have a tayva for that many averas. Today, Baruch Hashem, they figured out even how to make kima kosher cheeseburgers. You go to Smash House. Today you gotta be careful which one you order from on Walt.
You go to Smash House, the cheese is dripping down, the fake bacon. And Mamasch looks like—I imagine it looks like what a—it tastes. I—I hope it tastes like what a Trayvon Burger tastes. I really—I'll be honest. I have—I have a shnitzel taiva. I do. I have a shnitzel. Why do guys put cheese on everything? Every YouTube video has cheese. They wake up in the morning with their cereal and melt cheese on top with a blowtorch. I have a taiva. I have a taiva for a cheeseburger. You should know if you eat a cheeseburger, you did the wrong thing. But you're a person. You're a person. If you could see somebody else's pain and think to yourself, "How could I make a dollar off of that?" You're not a person. I feel like I'm rebent. You're not a person. You're not a human being. I don't know what you are. You're walking protoplasm. You're not a human being. Rosh Hashanah says you lost the most precious thing in the world. You lost your connection to another yid.
And then he says further. He says, and you know what else you're gonna do? He says you lost your humanity. You know what comes next? You're gonna justify your sick morality. That's what happens People can't live with not being a human being. It goes against the grain and they have to rewire all of their morality to fit their appetite. Because I had such a tayva's mammon, because I had such a tayva to get more and more money, and it can't be because I see it's destroying my humanity. What could a person chassid shalom come to say? They're not like making fun of my shabenu. It's a real. These people have a real svarah. They come. They're real loamdim. They come along and they go. You have to understand that at that time, Moshe Rabbeinu, he wasn't really sophisticated enough to understand market economics, and the value of the dollar is always losing three percent. So you have to be invested in the market in the S and P for at least thirty years just to keep up. So really, you have to understand that when I'm charging interest, really I'm losing money. But people will come up with the craziest things to justify.
Their lifestyle, because they know deep inside their soul that it's destroying them. Because the single most powerful thing you have in your life is that when a yid is going through tsara, you stand up and you say, like the pasuk says, "V'chei achicha imach." You come live with me. You're my brother. Come live with me. If you need me, I'm here. So yes Our rebbe came back tonight for a faybringin. And it's midnight, past midnight on a Thursday night And there's not an empty chair. And we're all sitting here together. We want you to be a taker. You gave to this yeshiva and to every boy in this yeshiva, because it is one organism. You gave to us for years. And now it's our opportunity to say, "Come live with us." So you came tonight and you shared with us and you gave us unbelievable chizik because you were real and you taught an unbelievable lesson to every boy of what it means to go through Gehennim and to be real with your feelings and your pain and the real struggles and the real victories. For us, for every guy in this room, you learned the single most important lesson of your year. I have no doubt. There are guys that chazored shir ten times that can pass any Rav Shriyer and Rav Avdal Bachina.
That there are guys that are working and struggling to break their teeth on every single word of Gemara. I have no doubt all those things are true. Baruch Hashem, the yeshiva staged tremendously this year. The single greatest lesson of the year was tonight. The single great, the one that I'm confident that in thirty, forty years from now you'll be taking with you, it was tonight, because tonight you fulfilled the pasuk v'chayachicha imaf Because tonight brothers sat together And nobody thought to themselves, "How can I take advantage?" All we wanted to do was sit and fabray with each other. That is the single greatest moment of this year. You just had it, just now. The pasuk says A Jew who fears God lives with an abundance mentality. He doesn't have to charge ribbis. He knows I'm getting everything I need from Hashem. All I need to do is be with my brothers. This yeshiva has tremendous yerushalmayim.
This yeshiva has tremendous yerushalmayim. We don't need anything but to be with each other. Where's Rafax? There's Rafax. I want to tell you a story about Rafax. I shouldn't embarrass him in public, but I will. Most people don't realize who Rafax is because he's humble. I'm going to tell you who Rafax is. Tonight I got a message from Rafaq. I know he's going to be upset with me for doing this. I don't care. I got a message from Rafaq at 9: 24. Is R. Herschel still planning on coming tonight? Thinking about coming back for Mishmar to see or hear him. I didn't respond to the message until 10:25. 10:31. Thank you. Leaving RBS now. I looked at the clock. I think it was Kimaat half an hour later to the dot. That Rofox walked in. Why do you think Rofox is here?
I'm embarrassed, Ravi. Ravi's here for nights later. See Rav Rafi at the end over there. Why is Rav Rafi here at twelve ten at night? Ravayim I know you guys might not realize this. They have things going on in their life outside of yeshiva. What are you doing here? What are any of us doing here, really? Shimon, it's nice to have such a large chaver for mishmar, but any of us really doing here? You know what the Talmud says? Rav Fox gets in a car at ten thirty at night because he just wants to be here with rehearsal. And Rav Raffi says, "I'm staying because he just wants to be here with rehearsal." And every guy is here tonight because we just want to sit with you. I'll tell you the truth. I keep going to the hospital. Really It's not for you. It's for me.
I just like sitting with you. I just like hanging out with Reversal. How many years have we been hanging out together? Thirteen years. Fourteen years. This is the fourteenth, right? I just like hanging out with him. I like traveling with him. I like going out to restaurants with him in America. Saudi, tell your dad. He knows. I just. I just like sitting with my brother. It's what all of us want. Rav Hershel says Guys, don't forget It's a marathon. Don't forget. Because it's easy. It's easy to be there in the first week. It's easy to be there in the second week. But we're finishing up the third week. Bez Hashem, there's not going to be a fourth week. Bez Hashem, the little bit of news that we got today is only going to be mitgalgel more and more. And Bez Hashem, Rav Hershel and I have a dream.
We don't have to share it publicly, but we both know. That Hagomel is going to be epic. It's going to happen right here with your brothers. Nobody's going to forget. Nobody's going to stop taking Kabbalas. I can promise you. I can promise you. There's nobody, Rebbe, who's gonna for one second not have the name Ariela Chava Baschan Amalke on their lips. Her name is Shoger Befiv. Every one of us is saying it all the time because it's family and we're with you. I want to thank you for coming tonight. You gave us so much unbelievable chizuk. And I want to thank everybody in Yeshiva. For not just being like a thing yeshivas say in a pitch or a kitschy line that somebody writes in a brochure. It's a real brotherhood, and tonight you guys showed that. Let's sing one or two last songs. I know the hour is late. Then we'll go get some cholent. Let's sing one or two last songs together as a family.
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