Quotes of Rabbi Yaron Reuven Part 1

The bottom line conclusion is this: To copy the whole book and sell it is generally (most Poskim) are not in favour of it, there are some Poskim that say it’s allowed. Generally, you’re not going to have many Poskim agree with that. To copy it, the whole thing, just for yourself, not a problem. To copy parts of it and reproduce those parts of it and share it with as many people as you want; on the internet, on your videos, that according to all opinions is allowed. Even the ones that are stringent and say you are not allowed to copy, they are only referring you are not allowed to copy the whole thing. But as far as copying a few pages, making pictures of a few pages, and publicising it to the world, there is no one that we have found that is saying you are not allowed to do that at all. So even though the copyright, trademark, and other warnings that you have in front of the books telling you don’t do it, if you are simply doing it for the sake of zikui harabim [granting merit to the many], for kiruv, to teach people, to help people learn Torah and it’s just a few pages, you’re not making money of it. There’s no problem whatsoever in doing it.  

 

[Should a Jewish man put effort into learning Hebrew, including for certain major prayers or is it better they focus on learning?] It all depends on the amount of time that they have to learn every single day. If a person has two hours or more per day to learn, then they could spend 15 minutes, 20 minutes a day learning a little bit of Hebrew, it’s not gonna hurt. But if they only learn an hour a day, less than two hours a day, they don’t have time to learn Hebrew. They just need to learn the basics of what to say, when to say it. And eventually they could spend some more time learning Hebrew. But if they have three, four or five hours a day to learn, then certainly they could put half hour, 40 minutes of that time to learn a little bit more Hebrew if they want for a period of time, not forever, for a period of time. Don’t make Hebrew your Judaism. Hebrew is not Judaism. Hebrew is a language that is used in Judaism but it’s not a prerequisite in order for you to be a righteous Jew. No one goes to Heaven just because they speak Hebrew. But people do go to Heaven because they know Torah. So if you could learn enough Torah while simultaneously learning some Hebrew, good for you. But if you don’t have time to do both then obviously you have to learn Torah. That’s the priority. 

 

A woman that loves her husband is going to do whatever the husband wants her to do. A man that loves his wife is going to do whatever the wife wants to do. So long as it’s within the grounds of Torah. 

 

Holy things that can come out of a marriage, one of them being children. And since this holiness can create further holiness, the Satan will fight hardest during that time where there is actually Mikveh Night; where it’s in essence the preparation for the holy act. So it’s very common for Jewish women that are going to the mikveh, that day of the mikveh to have a very difficult day. To try to ruin their mood. To try to put them in a bad mindset. To try to give difficulties to the husband. To remove the interest that they have. To try to make them think that it’s not even necessary…A mikveh is only for married Jewish women. Single Jewish women are forbidden from going to the mikveh. This is a takkanah from Chazal in order to eliminate immorality – people feeling they could simply do whatever they want even without being married. It’s forbidden for a Jewish woman to go to the mikveh unless she is married. And it is certainly forbidden for non-Jewish women to go to the mikveh. Now when it comes to men, Jewish men can go to the mikveh but they don’t have to. It’s not an obligation… If a woman is not going into the mikveh, that is the first place you have to fix. If your wife is not going to the mikveh, you have a very, very serious problem, you are not allowed to be with her…Because there is so much that can come out on a positive end from a woman going to the mikveh, the Satan attacks. The Satan attacks heavily to try to do whatever he can to eliminate any possibility of a holy soul coming to the world. 

 

Why is HaKadosh Baruch Hu allowing this holy mitzvah to have such difficulty? Because anytime a person wants to get a big gift, a gift that could change your life, a gift that can change the world, a gift that can fight the impurity of the world, a gift full of holiness, there must be tests. Holiness does not come for free…Family purity is not just something a woman is supposed to do by herself. The husband’s job is not only to wait at home excited. But rather the preparation by the husband has to be already even a couple of days before. Why? Number one: the atmosphere. The mood must be the best it possibly can be already well before this. Despite all the tests, despite all the difficulties, somebody wants to argue, make sure it’s not you. If the wife wants to argue, make sure you don’t argue back. You have kids, keep those kids contained, keep them active, make sure that the day of the mikveh you do some exercises with them, whatever you can do to make sure that they’re tired so they go to sleep early. And they don’t interrupt that time. Make sure that the wife is not working so hard on that day. If you can cook, [then] cook. If you can order food, order food. Whatever you can do to make it a more pleasing day, do it. Don’t be one of these husbands that simply thinks that he is getting served like a King and he doesn’t have to do anything. If you’re going to be that way with that type of mentality and you’re going to leave your wife to fight the Satan by herself, you’re not going to succeed in achieving holiness. Why? Because the Satan is too strong for one person. You have to do whatever you can to help your wife want to do this mitzvah. This mitzvah is so critical that even if a person has a huge event that day, whether it’s a shiur Torah or it’s a business meeting, or whatever it is. If it’s Mikveh Night you have to cancel it. Why? If it’s going to interrupt Mikveh Night, you have to cancel it. Why? Because Mikveh Night is that important. It’s the foundation of Jewish marriage. 

 

If you truly believed that the Moshiach is going to come, the Moshiach of the Torah, then why are you spending all of your money on buying property, investments of this world? If the world is going to end, there’s going to be Gog u’Magog and a war…Why are you investing more into this world rather than taking an extraordinary amount of your wealth and investing it into the Torah. Because the only thing that’s going to be valuable is what you invested into the Torah. The house you bought: Worthless. The car you have: Worthless. The precious metals you have, the stocks you have, the bitcoin you have, some secret compartment underground you have, all that stuff is worthless. Moshiach comes, everything that you have that’s physical, that’s tangible, is worthless. The only thing that is of any value is how much of the money that you have that you actually invested into publicising HaKadosh Baruch Hu’s Name. If you invested all of your money into this world, you’re going to be the poorest person in the world, when Moshiach comes. 

 

You have the rules of the Torah. You have the laws of the Torah. If you are complying with the rules of the Torah to the best of your ability and you’re not making any major sins that you know of, then you’re already on the way of righteousness. But if you don’t know what the Torah says at all, you don’t know what the rules of the Torah is. And you’re continuing to just simply assume that you’re a decent human being then you could be sure that you’re wicked. Why? If you don’t know what the Torah says, for sure you are violating it. Why, because the Torah laws are not the laws of man, they don’t come to people naturally. Many people self-proclaim that they are righteous because they don’t do crimes against humanity like murdering, raping, paedophilia, things of that nature. But they don’t realise that some of their business transactions are against the Torah. Either they are dishonest to the owners of the business they work for by stealing time or by cheating customers or they cheat their managers or they are doing all types of things that are illegal. They’re not following the laws of Shabbat…So even if a person is not killing people it doesn’t make you righteous.  

 

 When it comes to spreading filth, when it comes to spreading lies, no one has any trouble. They will do it in the middle of the night. They’ll do it in the middle of a vacation. They’ll leave everything that they’re doing just to spread the lies. They never think twice about spreading lies. But when it comes to spreading truth, everyone has difficulties. Why? Because to spread truth you have to have the merit already in order for Hashem to allow you to spread His truth. Whereas lies, you don’t need merits for that. In fact, you just need sins which unfortunately we all have some. 

 

Korach wanted to fight with Moshe Rabbeinu at Mount Sinai already. At Mount Sinai there was already a fight. Korach started by getting a huge following of rabbis [not technically called rabbis in Tanakh, but understand the point]. 250 rabbis followed him. The biggest rabbis in the world at the time. All of them died. All of them exploded. All of them disappeared from the face of the Earth. 

 

There’s a bunch of new Christians, whether they call themselves Messianic Jews or they call themselves Jewish Christians, Christian Jew, and all types of mishmash. New belief systems. Some even call themselves “rabbi” now even though they’re not even Jewish and needless to say they don’t know any Torah. But they know a few things, they know enough to be dangerous. 

 

A person needs to know that Hashem knows we are going to make mistakes. He expects us to make mistakes. But mistakes are a world of difference from rejection. Rejection of the Law, rejection of the Torah, distortions of the Torah makes a person an enemy of the Torah. 

 

…And that is the way that you should say it. But if you don’t want to tell them the truth, you want them to go to Gehinnom. You want them to stay ignorant for the rest of their life, you want to see them burn in Gehinnom because you did not give them the information, then by all means, don’t tell them. Tell them that you can’t go and tell them that, you know that, that’s it… enjoy, have a good time. So in so many words, they’re going to have a religious person tell them, have a good time, I can’t go but you have a good time. Mazel tov. So in so many words, they’re not going to learn the truth from a religious person. And they’re going to go on with their life and feel like they’re doing a mitzvah because they’re having a wedding after all, Jewish wedding. So if you have no problem seeing people burn, and melt and suffer, during their life, and after, then certainly you can avoid telling them the truth. 

 

[Is a Jew allowed to inform a complaint to an insurance company if a Jewish dentist is not billing correctly or overcharging a Jewish patient?] No, you’re not allowed to go and complain to some type of entity about somebody, you have to go to that Jewish dentist and tell them that there is the wrong billing, there’s the wrong charge. And if they do not want to correct it, then you can go and take them to a Beit Din. And if they don’t want to attend a Beit Din, and they would go, you know, they would be put on cherem. But you can get a permission from the Beit Din at that point to either go to the insurance company, or to file a lawsuit or something else. But in order to go to someone outside of the Beit Din, you have to get permission from the Beit Din. Because anyone that goes to the government or to any type of entity that could hurt a Jew is considered a moser [informer]. And the moser is a person that is excluded from Am Yisrael. It’s a horrible decree so you can’t just simply go against Jews.  

 

Telling a non-Jew to do something directly is problematic. What you can do is you can already tell them ahead of time to make sure that before Shabbat, to make sure that the house is always comfortable for them, it’s not too cold, it’s not too hot. And if she hears or he hears that the father or whoever the patient is, is cold than to lower the temperature on their own without them being said, telling them directly to lower the temperature. So you could do that, you could in essence inform them to be more conscious of the temperature in the room and conscious of how your father feels. But to go and tell them directly to lower the temperature is problematic. 

 

If you want to go to Gehinnom and you want your cousin’s to go to Gehinnom too then by all means buy Barbie dolls and all of the things that are against the Torah and teach people that it’s okay to be immodest. But if you want to go to Gan Eden, which I know you do, and you want them to learn that Barbie dolls are not good toys and in fact, are forbidden for Jews to have because they’re immodest. And they are teaching to be immodest. And in fact, some of the dolls today are complete, you know, the homosexuals and LGBTQ garbage. So certainly no Jews should buy these dolls. These dolls are certainly not for Klal Yisrael. Anyone that cares about a Hashem is not going to be involved in anything that’s directly offensive to Hashem and His Torah, which means immodest dolls, immodest clothes, immodest movies, immodest shows, anything that has immodesty is forbidden for Klal Yisrael to be involved in any way, shape or form. It’s also forbidden for a Jew to be involved in immodest clothing as a business. You know, there are many Jews, unfortunately, in the apparel business, and unfortunately, many of them are selling immodest clothes in so many words, they’re causing people to sin. So they have a very, very serious problem in Shamayim when they get up there because they’re causing the public to sin.  

 

It is certainly a mitzvah to donate blood. In fact, you could donate a kidney, even. Because a person can live with one kidney, there’s actually a Jewish organisation that was set up in order to match Jews with Jews…the point being is, is that to donate a kidney is allowed. Needless to say, donating blood is allowed. 

 

Now this particular organisation, I don’t have to necessarily mention the name. This organisation literally teaches lies left and right. But they’ve already raised enough money to write eight Sifrei Torah. What do you need eight Sifrei Torah for? Even if you have a huge Shule with 1000 people you still don’t need eight Sifrei Torah. But they’ve already gotten donations for eight Sifrei Torah, and they are about 20% away from the ninth one. So that means people donated hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions already for just for Sifrei Torah. For what? For an organisation that already has more than they need. An organisation that teaches things that are the opposite of the Torah. An organisation that literally is full of wicked people. So why did Hashem allow this? Because those people that donated didn’t deserve to have their money go to a place that actually is going to use a Sefer Torah for the right reasons. And the same goes with a lot of other organisations that are getting millions of dollars. Whether those organisations are Jews or idol worshipers, if the organisation is wicked, and people are donating to them, that doesn’t only speak about the organisation, it speaks about the donor status. The donor status, the donor that’s donating to a wicked organisation, that’s in essence Hashem telling you: ‘You, I don’t want your money. I don’t want your money.’ 

 

Watch other lectures with them, send them lectures, educate them that way rather than speak to them about it. Because if they watch one of our lectures, they’re not only going to be educated, but they’re also going to feel comfortable to apply some of these things because they’re not feeling like somebody’s talking down to them. That’s like a family member or a friend because they’re listening to somebody in the video. So many times people are not willing to listen to their friends or family, rebuking them or telling them that they need to do teshuvah because of their ego. But when it comes from somebody like myself that’s on a screen or if you see me in a live lecture one day, it’s much easier for people to take it on because they know that it’s coming from somebody that doesn’t even know them. And they feel like they’re in essence choosing to follow what they learned rather than choosing to follow what somebody told him to do. So if you share the lectures with them, that’s certainly going to help them. Be consistent with it, be patient with it, don’t yell at them or criticise them for not watching, just be consistent, keep trying. Second thing is also lead by example, the more, the better you become, the better you behave, the better your character traits are, the better your life becomes, people are going to see it, and they’re going to take notice. And many times they’re going to want to do the same thing. 

 

You always tell them, ‘Listen, this is the law, you do whatever you want, but this is what the law is, this what the truth is, you do what you’re doing, you’re gonna get punished. But I’m telling you this because I love you, not because I don’t love you.’ So you never change the truth for anybody. You never customise the truth in new form. You simply tell people what it is, but you say it with love, with passion, with compassion, and you keep that door open with them. And guess what, one day, when they see enough good, they’re interested in it, their spark is turned on. They’re going to call you, they’re gonna text you, they’re going to say, ‘Listen, can you recommend a book? Can you recommend a lecture? Can you recommend such and such?’ And that’s your door and you go on that horse and you try to help them as much as possible and you tell them listen, ‘Yes, sure, I got books. In fact, you know what, I even have an extra book I’m gonna send you.’ And even if you don’t have it, if you have 20 bucks, buy them the book and give it to them. Be a partner in their teshuvah. Answer their questions, anytime you need something, be welcoming, and so on. But again, it’s a it’s all based on how you manage your life. If you’re the type of person that is befriending everybody, and accepting everything that they do no matter what without a rebuke then no one is ever going to change because of that. No one will ever do teshuvah because you’re accepting them under all conditions. But people will do teshuvah if you tell them the truth and you give them a rebuke from compassion rather [than] from criticism. And you try to help them, but at the same token, even if they’re not accepting your help, you’re still offering it, you still have your hand out. 

 

…We don’t rebuke people. We don’t tell them to stop going to the electric outlet. We keep letting them go. Go electric outlet. Yeah, but it’s intermarriage. ‘Let him go, let him go, he’ll find out on his own.’ Go electric outlet, no but mihalel Shabbat mot yumat. No, let him go, let him go. Go electric, no, no, no, it’s Reform. No, it’s okay, it’s okay, Sadducees, all of these things. They keep letting them go to electric outlet; why? Because they don’t love you. They don’t love you. They love your money. That’s as tahlis as it gets. How do I know? I was one of them. I was one of, I am the example. I am the example of why it doesn’t work, of why mamash if you don’t have a merit, Rambam says in Hilchot Teshuvah, he says at the end of times, not everybody’s going to be happy. Not everybody’s going to be happy Mashiach came, it actually says in Masechat Taanit also, Masechat Taanit says at the end of times not everybody’s going to be happy that Mashiach came. Why? Not everybody’s going to be saved. He says you have to have zechut to do teshuva at the end of times, you have to have zechut, you to have merit to do teshuva at the end of times. You have to have merit. So you think about it this way. I had two to three people come to my office every week [for] 15 years. Let’s just make the numbers easy, 10 years. And let’s make the numbers easy, one person a week, not three. One person a week, every week, 10 years, how many is that? 520…One person a week, 52 weeks a year is 52×10, you add a zero to the 52…520…That means you had with your beard and your hat and your tzedakah box 520 chances to tell me, ‘Mr Reuven, you’re married to a goya [non-Jewish woman].’ ‘Oh, Mr. Reuven, mihalel Shabbat. It’s the electric outlet! It’s the electric outlet, Mr Reuven, but thank you for the tzedakah.’ See this, ‘Mr Reuven, you’re eating not kosher,’ [then] Run! Do something! Even you got the tzedakah then run, but tell me something! 520 times! When are you going to tell me? When, when is it going to work? When is it going to work? If you had 15 years, and it was two to three people a week not one person a week, that obviously means that the 520 is a low estimate. But even with 520, if it didn’t, if you didn’t do it after 500 times, when are you going to do it? When is this system going to work!? When?? The slowest system of “one day he is going to realise it”? When is it going to work? That’s the mentality. ‘No, no, he’s going to realise it on his own.’ When is he going to realise it? When? That’s why I say, they don’t care about you, they don’t care about me, they care about money. Bottom line, I’m telling you this, someone that’s in it, someone that was out of it, I see it. It’s just a reality, doesn’t mean everyone, doesn’t mean they’re all bad. But we all have to be real. We all have to just see things as they are. You give someone tzedakah, double check. Double check, where is the money going? Is it going to expand his kitchen or is it going to help Am Yisrael? Mabrook, you want to expand the kitchen, fine! I just don’t want to pay for it. You want to buy an extension to your house, mabrook, enjoy! I don’t want to pay for it though. Enjoy, I don’t want to pay for it though. I want to help people do teshuvah. I want to get Hashem’s little children that are running into sockets, that put their fingers into sockets, put their entire bodies into the electric socket, I want to take them out and return them to God. Here God, he’s a little electrocuted but you have him, it’s Your job now. It’s Your problem. I took him out of the socket, he’s a little burnt, his hair is a little off, he’s got a few scars, but he’s here. Here, good luck. I brought him back, I did my job. After that, it’s Hashem’s job. But to pay for his kitchen, to pay for the extension, to pay for the new car, for the third car, for the fourth car, for the fifth car and for the extended beard, I’m not paying. It’s not my job. You want to do it, mabrook, enjoy! No problem. I have nothing against rich people, I used to be one of them. Nothing against them, I just don’t want to pay for it. 

 

So you will see sometimes there are certain people that even if they speak okay, they say nice things, 20 years they have been giving speeches, maybe they helped a hundred people do teshuvah, 50 people, 10 people. I met one guy that was already in the kiruv world for I think close to 25 or even almost 30 years. When we asked him, ‘How many people have you helped do teshuvah?’ He probably said a hundred. Now again a hundred people helping them do teshuvah is fantastic but over 25-30 years, quite frankly, it’s not fantastic, let’s just say that. Because a person can do a whole lot more than that. You can do that in a day if you really exerted yourself enough. You can do that in a week, you can do that in a month. But you can certainly do a lot more than a hundred because to make a hundred people do teshuvah over 25 years, that means you made four people do teshuvah every year. Four people to do teshuvah every year, you shouldn’t even be a rabbi. You could just be an average Joe that just gives out CDs once or twice a year and you can make more people do teshuvah than that.