Rav Pinto – This whole pandemic could have come about just because of one single person who is suffering, one person who is suffering tremendous pain.

UPDATE: Rabbi Pinto gave a lecture a day after this and gave more clues as to who he is talking about. See that lecture HERE

This world is not going to remain the same world it was

We’re pleased to bring the expanded remarks of Rav Yoshiyahu Pinto, shlita, translated into English. You can read the original Hebrew HERE, and also see the Rav giving this over in his own words, below (press cc for English Subtitles):

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Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto’s Words:

We are sitting here and performing a huge cheshbon hanefesh (spiritual accounting) about everything that is happening to Am Yisrael.  Each and every moment, we hear about another Jew who is suffering, another Jew who is on a ventilator, due to our sins, another Jew is niftar (passing away), another Jew is niftar.

This is a deep sadness and sorrow, and it’s hard for the soul to deal with the deep soul-suffering, and this enormous pain.

The whole world is suffering, the whole world is in a difficult situation. There has never been a time when the whole world has been in this sort of difficult situation. This is showing us that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is unhappy with the world’s conduct.

What is happening today is equivalent to HaKadosh Baruch Hu bringing a mabul (flood) to the world.

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Due to our many sins, everyone believes themselves to be bigger and smarter [than everyone else], and they are full of thoughts about how to judge the other person. Each person is judging the other person. ‘This is OK, this isn’t OK, this one did something good, this one didn’t do good.’

Each person has all these opinions about how he can accuse everyone else, with every type of accusation that exists in the whole world.

But, when a person really looks at his inner self, at his own selfishness, at where he himself is not OK, this is the single most hardest thing.

The yetzer hara has anesthetized and deadened our hearts, to prevent us from looking at our own inner self.

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Already yesterday, we said that we need to know a basic concept, that this whole pandemic could have come about just because of one single person who is suffering, one person who is suffering tremendous pain.

Sometimes, the pain of a single person can bring on the destruction of the world.

Each of us needs to think about what’s going on around them. We’ve had enough arguments, enough quarrels, enough tension, enough machloket (strife and evil speech), enough things that aren’t good – lashon hara should be erased from the world.

We will pass through this plague, and people will die, there will be difficult things, but this plague will finish.

But you should know, that this world is not going to remain the same world it was.

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Anyone who thinks that this situation is going to pass, and then he can go back to doing things that aren’t good, ‘accursed is one who strikes his fellow stealthily’ (Devarim 27:24) – this just isn’t going to happen.

HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to change His world completely.

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Just as after the mabul, and the generation of the flood, when the world was totally changed.

Just like occurred after all those other times when there were such big shocks across the whole world, at this sort of level, and the world changed – so the same will happen here.

Whoever doesn’t know how to take hold on themselves the way they should, whoever doesn’t know how to connect his nefesh (soul) very strongly with HaKadosh Boruch Hu – after all, how did it use to be with Am Yisrael?

In the past, each person who was part of Am Yisrael was close to Hashem. Every person had a connection with Hashem, they had a dialogue with Hashem, they were close to Hashem.

“Hashem is close to the broken-hearted” (Psalms 34:19).

Whoever has a broken heart, and his heart is submissive, Hashem is close to them.

HaKadosh Baruch Hu is distancing Himself from people who don’t have a surrendered [i.e. humble] heart. “Elokim will not despise a broken and oppressed heart” (Psalms 51:19). A person who is oppressed and broken, Hashem will not despise him.

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Whoever harms the chachamim (Torah scholars), should be considered as though they are muktzeh (i.e. forbidden to touch or come near) because of defilement.

In the old days, could someone say something [bad] about the tzaddikim?! The walls would tremble! But today, attacking the tzaddikim has become something ‘beautiful’, people really enjoy beating up the tzaddikim.

And even rabbis are attacking other rabbis. But a rav who speaks lashon hara about another Rav – we need to tell him that you are passul, passul, passul! (I.e. disqualified). There is nothing more ‘passul’ than you! Why are you speaking lashon hara about a Tzaddik?! It’s forbidden to speak lashon hara about the Tzaddikim!

To argue over the Torah – yes [this is permitted]. I can say yes, and you can say no, it’s permitted to oppose someone else about the Torah. Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai used to oppose each other over the holy Torah, they used to challenge each other and argue. But they still married each other, they were still friends, this is the derech (path) of Hashem.

But when a person says someone else is passul (disqualified), he himself is passul – “each person who disqualifies another person, he disqualifies them with his own flaw.”

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Whoever says to you so-and-so is not good – know that he himself is not good!

Because whoever is not good, he speaks badly about others. Whoever is really good doesn’t see bad in others.

The holy Baal Shem Tov once saw someone desecrate the Shabbat, and he started to cry and to weep a lot. [They asked him] Rabbenu, why are you crying? He replied: Because I saw someone break Shabbat. If I saw someone break Shabbat it’s a sign that I saw someone disgrace a talmid chacham and I stayed silent. Because a talmid chacham is the aspect of Shabbat. Whoever sees the desecration of Shabbat it is a sign that he heard the disgrace of a talmid chacham and remained silent. 

To argue about the Torah is permitted… This is how the Torah was built. Moshe received the Torah from Sinai, and transmitted it to Yehoshua…. Am Yisrael is built like a pyramid, with Moshe at the top. But we have reached the state where one person is killing another, and this is assur (forbidden).

To disagree over the Torah is permitted… This is your derech, and this is my derech. But to engage in machloket (strife, slander and sowing trouble between people)? Or in hatred? Or to be involved in not good things and words? And to involve others in not good things? This has to end.

Each person should accept this upon themselves, and to cut this out.

He has to cut out all this lashon hara. Whoever speaks lashon hara, they are passul! He is muktzeh!

We have HaKadosh Baruch Hu, we have temimut (simplicity), we have avodat Hashem (service of Hashem), the derech Hashem, the simple service of Hashem. This is our life, because these things give us vitality and lengthen our days.

Whoever passes these things by, he will have to manage with his life being bypassed, on the sidelines.

But whoever goes in simplicity, in the path of Hashem, fortunate are the members of his household! This is the true derech Hashem. This is the path of Hashem that a person is established on.

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Hashem gave us a blow, a spiritual shock, because we need to take a look at our inner selves.

To straighten out our lives, and to straighten out our behavior, and to straighten out our deeds, and to know why this evil came to the world.

For as long as we don’t know how to really destroy this plague, in a way that gets straight to the [spiritual] point, and how to really kill it, nothing else that we will try to do will help us. Not vaccines, and not quarantine – nothing!

“The law of the land is the law” – Of course, the doctors are showing tremendous self-sacrifice to treat [patients], and are dying al Kiddush Hashem, they are doing great and good things. But,

“Give oz (strength) to Elokim” (Psalms 68:35).

If we don’t know how to kill-off this plague, it will not die!

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“If Hashem will not guard the city, then in vain will the watchman guard her.”(Psalms 127:1). We could have the best soldiers, with cannons and tanks and missiles and nuclear weapons. But nu, what help did this going give everyone? Nothing!

We have nuclear weapons in space, we have them on land, we have them in the sea – the whole entire world is full of nuclear weapons. In just one second, the whole of planet earth could be ruined and destroyed.

So what did Hashem do? He sent something invisible, that created a churban (destruction) that is unparalleled.

What are the nuclear weapons worth now? What is everything worth now? It’s all worth anything!

HaKadosh Baruch Hu sent something invisible that destroyed the world. How can we beat it? How can we find a cure for the illness? Only if there will be a miracle that is clothed in ‘natural means’.

This miracle clothed in natural means will come when we strengthen ourselves, and seek out the bad thing, what is the thing that caused Hashem to do. We need to find this thing and kill it.

And then, they will find the cure to kill this virus.

Until we find out why Hashem did this, why the Hashem created it, and why Hashem placed in into this world, there will never be a cure. But when we find the true cause…

And it could happen in a single second – someone who hurt someone else could ask for forgiveness, and that person could forgive him – and in one second, they find the cure.

This is in our hands.

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This thing has been created by the pain of someone, by the grief of someone, perhaps, by the pain of many people who have been hurt by many people, or perhaps by the suffering of just one person.

Once we know how to make teshuva for what we’ve done, and to accept upon ourselves to stop doing these things, that the whole world is doing – because see, the whole world has this problem – that’s when we’ll find the medicine and the balm for this thing.

For as long as we just keep playing, even if we manage to take this down temporarily, because we’re weeping and praying, and Hashem hears our prayers, and our shouts and our groans – we’re only tamping it down [temporarily].

If there is another kitrug (accusation), this will rise up again from a different place (some other global catastrophe).

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We need to kill and annihilate it. We need to find the real reason why Hashem brought this evil to the world, and then we need to make real teshuva about that reason.

And then, HaKadosh Baruch Hu will kill this, and He will give strength to the doctors to find the cure, and the balm for this thing in one second, and it will disappear from the world.

For as long as we don’t know how to kill this evil angel, so this evil angel will just continue to run around and to continue. And all the other evil angels will give him a round of applause – no-one else did something like this for hundreds of years, already!

Once a year, the evil angels get together in one place, and distribute medals to each other depending on how many people they killed. And this evil angel, they are giving him a lot of medals, for all the destruction he’s wrought.

So, each person has to rectify their deeds.

“And the living person will take it to heart” (Kohelet 7:2). Each person should think about their thoughts, and to rectify what they’re doing in their surroundings. Afterwards, start thinking more deeply about the community, what have we done, what mistakes did we make, for what reason did Elokim bring this evil to the world? And then, to make very strong teshuva.

Whoever knows that his hand has been engaged in these matters, they will need to make an even stronger teshuva.

And each person needs to make very big teshuva about their lashon hara – very, very, very big teshuva… Teshuva that comes from the depth of the heart, and then he will destroy from his heart the lashon hara until it’s erased from the hearts of people.

And then, HaKadosh Baruch Hu will bring the cure, and all this evil will be erased from the world.

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