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Before we begin this episode, I need only 60 seconds of your attention.
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This week and this week only we do our only fundraiser of the year, givetorch.net.
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We ask our friends, our listeners, our viewers, our participants to partner with us so that
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we can continue doing the work we do.
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We don't cancel any classes.
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We don't make any exceptions for days off so that we can raise money.
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No, we want to continue to teach.
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We want to continue to influence in every way we can, just so that you know, last year
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in 2025, our videos grew 295% in their exposure, in their viewership.
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Our podcasts grew, some of them 10%, some of them 30, 40, 50, 60, some of them 200%.
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Really unbelievable growth in the listenership of our podcasts.
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But not only that, we have in our torch center, we have ongoing classes, we have lunch
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and learns, we have evening classes and chavaras and people's homes.
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We have our torchwood community.
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We have torchunify the new young professional division of torch.
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We are guns blazing, doing unbelievable things and we want your partnership.
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We need your partnership.
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And if you want to hear an extended pitch, you can listen at the end of this podcast,
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we have some testimonials from participants and you can hear more about what we do.
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My dear friends, thank you and enjoy the episode.
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You're listening to Rabbi Arya, will be of torch in Houston, Texas.
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This is the Jewish Inspiration Podcast.
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Welcome everybody, good morning.
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It is so wonderful to be here.
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There's beautiful, magnificent Sunday morning here in Houston, Texas.
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I wanted to take some time before we get onto a regular programming of the everyday Judaism
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podcast and talk a little bit about what's going on in the world.
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You know, the Torah tells us that there's a special blessing that should be recited.
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When one comes back from a dangerous place, if someone is stuck in the desert or if someone
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is on a medical challenge, someone's very ill, someone's in a prison, you release, you
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should say, hago melchaim chayevim tovot, shagmalani kultov, we're giving thanks to Hashem.
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We're giving praise to Hashem for his kindness, for his mercy, for his goodness that he has
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It's a very, very important thing that we need to do.
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We say this generally, people say it along with the Torah reading.
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So when someone gets an aliyah and they experience something like, I recently had in my synagogue,
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someone was ill and when he came back, he's like, it's important for me to get an aliyah
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because they need to thank Hashem.
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For healing me, I'm happy that I'm still alive.
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I want to just thank God.
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What is the blessing?
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Blessed are you Hashem, our God, King of the Universe, who grants good things to the undeserving
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who has granted every goodness to me.
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And then the congregation responds, a main, may he who has granted goodness to you, continue
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to grant every goodness to you forever, such a beautiful blessing.
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What is this blessing that we are thanking Hashem?
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What is this blessing that we're thanking Hashem?
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So we need to recognize the mercy that Hashem has with us.
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I sat yesterday after Shabbos, I sat by my desk, and I started asking my chat.
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I started asking, I asked the following question, how many missiles have been launched from
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I ran to Israel in the past five years?
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So I have a total here that will record over a thousand ballistic missiles.
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Over a thousand ballistic missiles were shot, a thousand 180 missiles, approximately
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Then I asked, how many landed in populated areas in Israel and how many were intercepted?
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The answer was, he gave in each one of the battles, how many landed on the first 150 that
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were sent in 2024, zero to one, okay, so 150 were sent, and 99 percent were flicked out
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of the year by Hashem.
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In the October battle in 2024, 180 were sent, and two to five landed in populated areas,
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landed but not necessarily populated areas.
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In 2025 and June 13, this past year, they sent 566 ballistic missiles of which 20 to 31
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landed in Israel, which is 95 percent were intercepted, and now recently they sent 300
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ballistic missiles, and between five and 12 landed in Israel, some in populated areas
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and some in deserted areas.
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And then I asked, what's about the Houthis?
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And they sent approximately 180 missiles from Yemen all the way to Israel, and how many
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of them were intercepted, a total of 99 percent of them, 99 percent.
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Why is it important for me to go through all these numbers?
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Why, like, who cares about the numbers?
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Who cares about this?
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It's a great miracle, great.
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We're going to try to put everything together, everything together in all of our teachings,
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you know, in our prayer class, when we talked about Hodu, we said, Hodu Hashem, Kirub
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Ishmael, Hodu Be Amim Ali-Losov, give thanks to Hashem, the clearest name, make his
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acts known among the peoples.
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Zerulo, Zamrulo, Sikhubikhal Nifloosov, sing to him, make music to Hashem, speak of all
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We shouldn't say, oh, it's in general, general rule, God has been good to the Jewish people.
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Here and there, a missile fell through the cracks.
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Every single missile needs to be praised that Hashem intercepted it.
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Oh, Iron Dome, David Slink, it's nonsense, it's the hand of Hashem.
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The Iranians, last week said that something supernatural is happening for the Israelis.
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The Iranians said that.
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Shouldn't we recognize the supernatural events that Hashem is performing in front of our
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To stop and realize, this is not normal.
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And we go about our day, and I don't see many people like, you know, here and there, I
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hear people telling me, you know, I too, by the way, I have children in Israel who want
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to come visit us for Pesach and can't leave Israel because their flights were all canceled.
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Oh, that's such a pain, it's such a heartache because we want our children to be back
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or ready to visit for Pesach and they can't.
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Do we realize the miracles that are going on?
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Do we realize the unbelievable magnitude of these miracles in front of our eyes?
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And when does it happen?
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And the days of Purim, the days that precede Pesach, who knows if it'll continue to
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Pesach, they say there was a talk of a ceasefire, maybe, maybe not, we'll see what happens.
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But what happened when the Jewish people were in Egypt?
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They had the splitting of the sea, the splitting of the sea.
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What an amazing miracle.
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Everyone witnessed it.
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What happened just a few days later?
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90 days later, they're serving the golden calf, 50 days till they received the Torah at
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Mount Sinai from the splitting of the sea.
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And then 40 days after that, they have the golden calf.
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What's wrong with them?
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I mean, you just saw the splitting of the sea.
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You saw the miracles of the ten plagues that transpired, that God demolished the Egyptians.
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And now you're serving a golden calf.
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What's wrong with you?
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See, our nature is to just get busy with life.
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Our nature is, and by the way, during this whole time, the Jewish people are benefiting
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from mana, that descents from heaven every morning.
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They're living in miracles, and yet they don't realize the miracles.
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We are no different today, where we are living in miracles and not recognizing the miracles
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that we are experiencing.
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Combine, we have over here what?
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1500 rockets, ballistic missiles.
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We're not talking about the ones from Hamas, 1500.
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I mean, these things are a thousand kilograms of explosives.
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They can take out a city block.
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And yet people are just traveling around, going here, going there in the United States,
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outside of Israel, in the diaspora, and in Israel.
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People are just moving out of life.
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It's a little inconvenience, but we'll get through it.
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We have to stop and say, holdul Hashem.
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We have to stop and we have to sing Hashem's praise wherever we go.
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It's the most miraculous thing in the world.
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We're living in a world.
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They say that, you know, they're two and a half billion Muslims.
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Not everyone is a terrorist, only ten percent of them.
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So 250 million of them are.
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How many Jews are there in the world?
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17 million in the entire world.
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We're living in miracles.
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We have to say them.
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We said in our prayer class, we have to say it every day because if you stop saying the
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praises of Hashem, you start forgetting them.
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You stop recognizing them.
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You stop seeing the goodness of Hashem.
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If you stop praising, Basu Mayam, Alayam, you should also say every day, every day,
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pronounce it again.
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We wake up in the morning, say Hashem.
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Thank you for saving the Jewish people.
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Thank you for protecting the land of Israel.
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Thank you for saving us, whether it be the temple in Detroit, the terrorist, attempted
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terrorist attack, whoever else it may be.
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We have to declare this every day, vocally, pronounce it and thank you Hashem.
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We're not running from anything.
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I titled this Iran, Iran, Iran.
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We're not running anymore.
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We're proud to declare our Judaism.
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So Hashem wants from us.
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Hashem wants us to be proud.
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We don't take off the amaca.
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We don't take off the symbolism.
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We put out, pull out the high necklace.
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We pull out the star of David.
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We're it with pride.
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Not to hide our Judaism.
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To embrace it and to declare Hashem's greatness every single day.
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It's unbelievable, it's unfathomable.
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The degree to which these miracles are clear in front of our eyes, they're clear in
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I highly recommend, I have this, it's in alarm, it's called the red alert.
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Every time there's a rocket heading towards Israel, whether it be from Kisbalah, whether
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it be from the Iranians or from the Houthis, you get a notification.
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So we don't feel numb.
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And you'll realize that it's at every hour of the day.
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I think it was Thursday night, more than half of Israel was in the bomb shelters.
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Know what that means?
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How many people can't go to work the next day?
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How many children are off schedule?
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How many kids are not going to be able to go to school?
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I mean the whole country, everything is turned over.
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Hashem is protecting us.
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Hashem is trying to wake us up.
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Like what's the wake up call, wake up, wake up, shake us out of bed.
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We're in a sleep, we're in a sleep, in a deep sleep.
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What I'd like to do is I'd like to encourage each and every one of us to declare every day.
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You read the news, you read these miracles, declare it, say Hashem, thank you.
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Thank you for protecting us from those 13 missiles.
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Hashem Thursday night, they over a hundred rockets came from Khizbalah, from Lebanon.
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Minimum damage, minimal damage, maximum miracles, maximum Hashem is protecting us.
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Holy technology is so advanced, Hashem's hand is so advanced.
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Creator of heaven and earth, Hashem is showing us every single day is miracles.
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We have to declare it, Basu-mi-yoyim al-Yoyim, Yeshua say.
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Declare it every day, the salvation that Hashem brings to us.
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We can't become numb to it.
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We have to recognize it every single day.
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We have to declare it every day.
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Shear it every day.
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Hashem should bless us all.
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That we should all be uprooted from our comforts here in the United States,
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transported to your Shalayim.
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We pray every day with sech-a-Zen-o-i-Nin-u-Beshub-Khalati-Yamber-Akhameem.
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Hashem, our eyes should see your return to Zion in our days, speedily in our days,
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with mercy, that Hashem's temple descend back onto the temple mount,
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that we be able to bring our offerings in the temple.
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How important it is for us to realize.
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Recognize, Hashem loves us, Hashem wants us.
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We have to, yeah, it's comfortable here in the United States.
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It's comfortable, people in Europe, people wherever they are, till we get rattled.
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We have to wake up.
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We have to get ready.
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Dear friends, we should continue to see the amazing, beautiful hand of Hashem,
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every single day of our lives, and declare it out in the open.
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Run towards Hashem.
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Run towards Hashem, recognize his incredible miracles.
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We should continue to be blessed every single day, I mean.
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You've been listening to Rabbi Arya Wilby on a podcast produced by Torch,
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the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston.
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Please help sponsor an episode so we can continue to produce more quality Jewish content
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for our listeners around the globe.
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Please visit torchweb.org to donate and partner with us on this incredible endeavor.
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I understand there's a fundraiser going on.
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Why would listeners want to donate to Torch versus other organizations?
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A very, very good question, very valid question.
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I want to tell you something like this, okay?
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Torch is here for one reason.
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Torch is here to share the word of Torah with the world.
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Any one of you listeners out there listening on a podcast, listening in a video last year
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alone, our videos grew, our video exposure grew 295%.
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If I told you that there was an investment in the stock market that is going to grow 295%.
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Everyone would invest.
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I am telling you, my dear listeners, that last year our YouTube videos alone grew 295%
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Our podcast, there are many podcasts that grew by well over 200% as well.
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This is a great investment.
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I really believe so.
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I really feel this, my bones.
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I know myself that I keep a very meticulous log of all of our videos.
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Last year in 2025, we published 1,092 videos.
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I don't know about you, but I think that's a lot of videos.
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To me, it's an exceptional privilege to be able to teach and learn Torah together with
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so many amazing people, not only you here in the room, and those of you on Zoom every
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day, but also those listening on the podcasts, and those of you watching live online or later
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online, a video on demand, and we're on all these different platforms.
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It's all because we have a foundation here in Houston, Texas, where we learn, teach from
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our towards center and share that Torah with the world.
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That's just one component.
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We have the towards center.
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We have our torch media.
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We also have torch wood, which is a torch community with now 15 families, robust programming
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for the men, for the women, for the children, every job is there's over 100 people there
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for kiddish and for davening.
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We'll go on over there.
19:43
Then we have our newest young professional division, our unify.
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It's just unbelievable the things that are going on and what we're trying to do is really
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open up for people one time a year, where we ask everyone to invest in torch.
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This is a time, get in on the ground floor, because the midst of us that we're trying
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to do, we cannot do without the support of the community.
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That's the honest truth.
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I don't say it as a cliche, oh, we're partners, da da da da, I really, we cannot do it.
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We can't keep these lights on.
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We can't have these cameras.
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We can't do the broadcasting.
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We can't do any of this without the support of our partners.
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And therefore, this one week that you have, you can go to givetorch.net, givetorch.net
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and contribute every dollar that you contribute is matched by donors.
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The entire week the campaign will be up till we reach our goal, because this is our budget
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We do everything we can to not stop even a single program to raise money.
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We continue, all of our classes will be on our Monday lunch and learn will be on our
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Monday night month, Mr. Mondays will be on our Tuesday morning classes will be on Tuesday
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Wednesday and everything is on because that's why we're here.
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We're here not to raise money.
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We're here to teach Torah.
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So if y'all would be so kind and generous and support us, we'll be able to end this campaign
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just like they did for the temple, right?
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What would happen to the temple?
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I'm ready to do the same.
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Please help us, my dear friends, givetorch.net, givetorch.net.
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I appreciate your question.
21:24
Now I want to talk about giving to torch.
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We are so blessed that God has given us, and it's not just for us, it's for the whole
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As a matter of fact, our choice being chosen is to be a light to the nations, bring Torah
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Okay, they don't have to all do the commandments, but this is, as you have often said, the
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owner's manual for living.
21:52
And for those of us who grew up at a time where a good Jewish education was not available
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Now there's a little bit here, a little bit there.
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I am so grateful that I get to come here four times a week.
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More importantly, as a good friend of mine once said, if you could learn everything from
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a video or a book, there would be no universities.
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And here at torch, not only can you come and participate, but even if you can't come,
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we take people on Zoom who ask questions.
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And I don't know any other organization where you can't, you can actually participate
22:37
long distance with a rabbi.
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So studying torch is like trying to eat an elephant.
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You do it one bite at a time.
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How do you learn Torah one bite at a time?
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And that's what you give to us.
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And for all of you out there, not only is this invaluable, you couldn't put a dollar value
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on it, but in addition to that, it's always free.
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And the only way it is always free is if you help provide the funds that we need with
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the only ask once, you go to some places every single week, they pass the pot and try to
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get money out of you.
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But here they wait once a year, they don't bother you, they don't send out a give me,
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give me, give me once a year.
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That's all we ask, give torch.net.
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All my friends or my friends from class and my rabbis, they're my friends.
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That is my solicitation from y'all to please contribute, give torch.net.
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Thank you for letting me speak.
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Supporting torch is one of the best things you could possibly do.
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It will change your life, Jewish, not Jewish.
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Being part of torch will inspire you, will teach you life lessons and will give you all
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the tools you need to be successful in life, marriage, family and all areas of your life.
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Support torch if you can, we thank you very much.
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I know with confidence that the Almighty will succeed our way and we will raise all the
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money we need to continue to operate, but I want you to be part of it.
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And if you can please, whatever donation amount, the smallest, the largest, it doesn't
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I want you as a partner.
24:25
If you can please go to give torch.net and donate so that you can be a partner in what
24:32
I'd greatly appreciate it and I hope you enjoy this episode.