51. The Arizal And Inheritance

00:17 Hello, kindelekh. Here is a story from the Arizal. As you know, the Arizal lived hundreds of years ago, way before the Baal Shem Tov, and he was one of the most important teachers of Kabbalah. The Arizal lived the first part of his life in Egypt, in Cairo, and later on, the end of his life, the last few years of his life, he lived in Tzfat, in Eretz Yisrael. The story goes like this. In Poland, at that time, there was a, a boy and a girl who got married. The girl's father was the wealthiest Jew in Poland, the richest Jew in Poland. The father of the kallah gave the couple a nadan. You guys know what a nadan is? It's called a dowry. The dowry is a sum of money which the father of the kallah gives to the couple when they get married, and then the couple can... When they get married, they can take the money and make a business, a store, something they can make a living. They can have a, a job. They can have a business where they can make money and live. Because she-- her father, the kallah's father, was very, very rich, he gives them a huge amount of money, a hundred thousand gold coins. This is like more than a hundred thousand dollars, much more, maybe millions of dollars. But in those days it was a hundred thousand gold coins. The coup- They got married, the chasan and kallah got married, and they're very happy. Then they decided,

02:19 "You know what? We have so much money now, we can do a big business and make a lot of money from it. Let's go to Cairo. Let's move from Poland to Egypt," because in Egypt they heard there's a lot of business where you can buy businesses and make a lot of money, so they, "Let's move to Cairo." Said goodbye to their family, both families, and they moved to Cairo. A few months later, unfortunately, the kallah got very sick and she died very quickly. Suddenly, she died. No children. They didn't have any children yet. It was very sad. So the father of the bride was very, very sad, of course. His daughter died, but he just gave his daughter and his son-in-law, her husband, a hundred thousand gold coins. That's a fortune of money, and now they're not even gonna be married because she's dead, and they're not gonna have children. So he just gave away to a person who's not even really related to him anymore, he gave him a hundred thousand gold coins. Well, according to Halakha, a husband inherits the belongings of his wife. If a, if somebody's wife dies, who are the-- all her belongings go to, all the money she has, it goes to the husband. So even if he gave the money to her, and only gave it to her while she's married to him, uh, but he inherits it because he, according to the Torah, he inherits everything she had. But in the twelve hundreds, which is about, um,

04:11 a thousand, uh, not a thousand years ago, um, uh, eight hundred years ago, there was a, um... No, wait. Eight hundred or more then, right? Eight hundred and twenty years ago, there was a very famous, famous, famous rav. His name was the Rabbeinu Tam. Rabbeinu Tam. Rabbeinu Tam was the grandson of Rashi. His first name was Yaakov. Rabbeinu Yaakov Tam. There's a reason why they called him Tam. We'll see later. The Rabbeinu Tam made a rule that if a couple gets married and the wife dies, the kallah dies in the first year of her marriage and they don't have any children, then, then the money that she had should not go to her husband, it should go back to her family. And it's because Rabbeinu Tam saw that a lot of people didn't wanna give money to their children because they were afraid. There was a lot of war. There was a lot of problems in those days. This was very dangerous times for the Jewish people, so people were very afraid to give money to their children because what if the, the girl dies and, and then all the money's gonna go to the husband who's not even related to them? They don't have any kids from the, from their daughter, so then he's gonna go marry someone else and take the money with him. So Rabbeinu Tam made a rule, right? It's the one of the... It's called one of the takanas, one of the rules of Rabbeinu Tam, that if the wife

05:47 dies the first year of marriage and there's no children, they didn't, they haven't then borne any children, then whatever money she had doesn't go to the husband, should go to her family back, back where it came from But, uh, Rabbeinu Tam was the grandson of Rashi from France, and these were Ashkenazim. You know, there's Ashkenazi Jews and there's Sephardi Jews. Sephardi Jews, they follow the Rambam, they follow Rabbeinu Yosef Karo, all the great Sephardic, uh, Gaonim and Rabbonim. They didn't follow Rabbeinu Tam's rule because Rabbeinu Tam was an Ashkenazi, and the Sephardim only followed their Rabbonim. The Ashkenazim followed their Rabbonim. That's perfectly fine. Everybody should follow the Rabbonim of their community. Rabbeinu Tam wasn't only the Rav of the Jews in France, all the Ashkenazi Jews all over the world followed what Rabbeinu Tam was saying. But the S- the Sephardim Jews who lived in Morocco, in Tunisia, in Egypt, in, um... A lot of them lived in Eretz Yisrael, in Iraq, in Iran. All of those, they followed the Sephardic custom. So according to Ashkenazi custom, when this young man had lost his wife... I remember the daughter of this rich man from Poland, she died. They lived in Cairo, but she died without children. It was the first year of their marriage. Then according to Rabbeinu Tam, the money should go back to her father. And the father insisted, "I want my money back. Now that you don't have any children, you're not related to me anymore. My daughter died, so then

07:38 give me the money back." That's what Rabbeinu Tam said. The son-in-law said, "No, but we live in Cairo. Cairo is mostly Sephardic Jews. There are no Ashkenazi Jews in Cairo, so we follow the Sephardim Minag." Sephardic custom is, you know, just like the Torah says, a husband always inherits his wife. So they had a debate and decided to go to a Rav. Well, the son-in-law said, "I wanna go to the Arizal." He lived in Cairo at the time. "I want him to pasken. I want him to rule what should be-- who is right, me or you. Do I have to give back the money to you, or can I keep the money?" Uh, the father says, "No, no, no, no. We're Ashkenazi Jews. Yeah, you live in Cairo, but we're Ashkenazi Jews. Ashkenazi Jews are supposed to follow what Rabbeinu Tam said." That's what all Ashkenazi Jews do, and that's what it says in Shulchan Aruch, that if you're Ashkenazi and this happens, Chas ve'Shalom, you have to give back the money to the father-in-law. So he said, "I'm only gonna go to a Beth Din if we go to the Beth Din, local Beth Din where I live. I live in Cairo. I want the Beth Din here. And the Arizal was part of the Beth Din. I wanted him to be the one to rule." Well, the father said, he, he has no choice. He said, "Okay, I'll go to the Arizal." Before he traveled to Cairo to see the Arizal, he went

09:15 to Rab Shlomo Luria. See, the Arizal's name was Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, and Rab Shlomo Luria was the Rabbeinu Rav of Lublin. A big, big Gaon, very famous, very big Gaon. He's what's called the Maharshal. Remember I told you a story with the Maharshal in a previous time, another story? An amazing story how the Maharshal was Mechayeh Metim. Well, the Maharshal, Maharshal was one of the greatest Rabbonim of the time, greatest Gaon of the time, and everybody was very, very, you know, in awe of the great Maharshal. So this rich man knew the Maharshal. He made an appointment with him. He says, "Rebbe, I'm gonna go to Cairo, uh, to prove that my son-in-law is wrong, that he needs to give me back the money because my daughter died and there's no children, so he's gonna become totally estranged from me, so I want my money back." So he asked the Maharshal, "Can you please write a Teshuvah?" Teshuvah means write a letter. "And s- and prove that I'm right, that I... he needs to give me back the money because Rabbeinu Tam made a rule, and we're Ashkenazi Jews, and my son-in-law is also Ashkenazi. He just lives in Cairo, but, but he comes from Poland. He's Ashkenazi. So therefore, can you write up something so I can take it with me to the Arizal and show him the letter that you wrote?" And Maharshal says, "Of course." He wrote a long, long letter with a lot of proofs from all over the Shas and

10:40 from the Rambam and from Shulchan Aruch. Very long letter. Very, very deep letter with a lot of, a lot of ideas proving that the father-in-law is right. The father went to other Rabbonim, great, great famous Rabbonim, and also got them to, to write long letters and Teshuvot which they proved from all over the Gemara and Shas and, and, and Bavli and, and Rashi and Tosafot. And they wrote long, long Piralim, long, long letters proving that the father-in-law is right. And with those letters from those very famous Rabbonim, the father-in-law traveled to Cairo to meet his son-in-law and to go to the Arizal's Beth Din. And so they went to the Arizal, and the Arizal listened to both their arguments. The Arizal says, "Listen, I will only give my Psak, my ruling, if the two of you sign a little paper. In that paper, you will say that whatever I will say, you accept. Even if you disagree with it, you'll do whatever I tell you. Otherwise, I don't wanna be involved." The father-in-law and the son-in-law had no choice, and they both signed the letter saying, "We promise to accept whatever the Arizal will say." Okay. The Arizal listened to both and said, "I rule that the son-in-law is right. He can keep the money." The father-in-law was shocked. He says, "Listen, I have letters here from all the Gaonim and the great Rabbanim from Europe, from Poland, from Russia, from everywhere. They're all proving that I'm right. How can you say that I'm wrong?

12:17 And my son-in-law is right, he can keep the money. Can you please write up a teshuvah so I can take it with me? You write a letter pr- what's your proof that my son-in-law is right? And then I'll take the letter to all the Rabbanim to let them see it, that you disagree with all of them." So the Arizal says, "Sure, sure." And the rich man, the father-in-law said, "How long do you need? Do you need a few days to look up all the sources and all the Gemaras and the Rambam and the Rishonim and the Achronim, the, you know, Rashi, Tosfot. Uh, how long it's... It's a big job to write such a long, long, very, very deep, uh, letter that will prove that, uh, my son-in-law is right, so I can show it to them. Let them see what you're thinking." He said, "Do you need a few days maybe?" He says, "No, no, no, no. Two minutes, two minutes." "Two minutes? Oh, no. How can you write up such a long tshu-" "Hey, hey, listen. Stay here, give me two minutes, and I'm gonna write up the reason for my psak." That was very strange. He's gonna take two minutes to write up. The other Rabbanim took weeks to write their tshuvas because it's a very, very difficult thing to write up. It's so many sources and proving and from different places. So the Arizal says, "Just... Here's a little piece of paper." He wrote down the first pasuk from Parashat Mishpatim.

13:43 Parashat Mishpatim starts with the words, "Ve'eila hamishpatim," and these are the laws, "asher tasim lefanehem," which Hashem says to Moshe, "You should place and teach the Jewish people all the laws that have to do with money. What if somebody damages somebody's property, you damage somebody's car, somebody's window. What if you do if you borrow money and you don't have money to pay back. What do you do if you hurt somebody, you punched him in his face and you knocked out his tooth." All these are halachas about what happens when people, um, you know, deal with other people's money. They hurt them, or they hurt their money, and or they borrow things or they sell things. What happens? All the money halachas, right? All the mitzvahs connected to money and people dealing with other people. "Eila hamishpatim," these are the laws, you know, dealing with money and property and people that you should place in front of the Jewish people. And that's all he wrote. And the father-in-law is amazed. "What? This is your letter? Ve'eila hamishpatim asher tasim lefanehem." It doesn't say anything. Just a pasuk in Chumash. Every kid in cheder learns Chumash. So he was a little puzzled. The Arizal says, "Listen, that's all I have to give you. Just take this back to the Rabbanim in Poland." So the father-in-law was... But he promised he'll listen to what the Arizal says. So his son-in-law got the inheritance. He got the, the hundred thousand gold coins, and that's it. The father-in-law went back

15:18 to Poland and met all the Rabbanim, the Maharshal, Rabbi Shlomo Luria, and all the great Gaonim, and said to them, "To, to, to, to your-- to mine and your surprise, the Arizal ruled against you. He said that my son-in-law is right, he can keep the money, even though we're Ashkenazi Jews. And Rabbi Nutam, who's the Rav of all the Ashkenazi Jews, said that if a man gets married to a woman and she dies on the first year of their marriage and they don't have any children that's alive, they're alive, then the money should go back to the family." So he said, "Did he write a long teshuvah where he brought sources and proof?" He says, "Yeah. Here, it's a little note. A pasuk in Chumash, Ve'eila hamishpatim asher tasim lefanehem." That's all he wrote. What? That's all he wrote? Well, what does it say there? Nothing. Ah, he doesn't know how to learn. He doesn't know Gemara. He doesn't know the Rambam. That's why he wrote that. It's just a pasuk in Chumash. He's like an Am Ha'aretz. He started ridiculing the Arizal. Ah, how come he sits on a bet din? He's not supposed to be a, a judge on a bet din because he's... He doesn't know how to learn. The Maharshal also... Now, the Maharshal, his name was Rav Shlomo Luria. Now, what is the Arizal's name? Rabbi Yitzchak Luria. Guess what? The Maharshal and the Arizal were second cousins. They both had the both same last names, Luria. But the Arizal

16:51 was very famous that he was teaching Kabbalah. Kabbalah is the secrets of the Torah, the deeper side of the Torah. The Maharshal was against people learning Kabbalah. He says, "It's only for very, very few great tzadikim, but most people shouldn't learn Kabbalah. It's too deep and too hard." So he was very upset with the Arizal that he's teaching Kabbalah, all these things, to everybody. So the Maharshal says, "Ah, now I see he doesn't even know how to learn. He's such an ignoramus. He's such an Am Ha'aretz. He doesn't know anything. When he writes a pasuk and he says, ah, he goes against the Halakha. The Halakha is like the father-in-law, not the son-in-law. The son-in-law has to give back the money." So the Arizal heard from afar, living in Cairo, that the great Rabbanim in Poland are all talking about him in a very bad way, saying that he doesn't know how to learn, and who is he to be in a bet din and to pasken and to make rulings in Halakha when he doesn't know anything. You have to be a big Talmid Chaham to be able to be a Rav. He decided to send some of his talmidim to the Maharshal. Rav Shlomo Luria was his second cousin, who was also the head of all the Rabbanim in Europe, the most respected one. He's gonna send two of his talmidim, and they will discuss with the Maharshal why he's so upset at him. Why is the Maharshal so upset at the Ari

18:28 Z"L? He gave his two talmidim. They were Sefardim. The two talmidim, they looked like Sefardi Jews. You know, Sefardi Rabbonim, in those days especially, were dressed with special clothes, like striped clothes, long robes, and big turbans. They didn't have hats like we have black hats. They had, like, turbans, very colorful turbans. And of course, they came from Egypt, so their faces were tanned, very sun-tanned, you know, and, uh, white beards. And the Ari Z"L said to them, "Listen, I'm gonna teach you a secret word, a name of Hashem, a particular type of name of Hashem, that if you have kavana when you say that name, it has great magical powers, miraculous powers. You can make a nes when you, when you know that name, and you will arrive in Poland with kfitzas hadelech." You know, it means that you make a long distance in a very short period of time. A distance that takes weeks and weeks and weeks, you do it in one day. It's a miracle. It's a, it's a nes. "But I have to teach you the name, but you have to think when you get onto your, um, camels or on your, on your wagons, you'll see, you'll travel, and the same day you'll be in Poland, in Lublin, in the town where the Maharshal lives." So they, uh... He said to them, "You tell your wives to bake some cupcakes for the way." So the wives baked some cupcakes, and they went on the road. And indeed, by Mincha time,

20:03 late in the afternoon, they arrived in Lublin. Now, they looked very different than everybody else. In Lublin, in Europe, people dress with, like, suits or long suits and long kapotes. But, uh, they looked with clothes that come from the Middle East, from, from Egypt. People-- The Jewish people, the Rabbonim especially, dress-- They, they, they dress very differently. And turbans on their heads. Nobody wore turbans in Poland. And their faces looked very tanned, right? Like the sun was, was, was, was-- had been there shining on their faces for a long time. They were, like, more dark-skinned. And they stopped somebody in the street, said, "Where is the Rav-- Where's the shul of the Maharshal? We wanna daven Mincha." Said, "Oh, yeah, they're daven Mincha right now. Go, go over to that shul." They walked over into the shul, three men, three talmidim, and everybody turned around and said, "Who? Who are those guys? Look, they look so different." Special robes and with turbans and tanned faces. They looked very striking. But nobody said anything. It's the middle of Mincha. A few people had finished Shemoneh Esreh already, so they walked over to them and gave them Shalom Aleichem. Said, "Where are you from?" "Oh, we're from Cairo." "From Cairo? It must have taken you a month or two months to travel." "No, no, we left this morning." "You left this morning?" "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, my, my wife baked some cupcakes. It's still warm. You can see. Still warm from the oven in my house in

21:39 Cairo. Cairo. You see, uh, we just left there-- we left this morning, uh, you know, so a few hours ago." Said, "What? Are they really speaking the truth? This is like a nes. How could it be?" So meanwhile, everybody in the back of the shul is talking, "Wow, who are these guests? Who are these strange people?" Meanwhile, everybody notices that the Maharshal, R' Shlomo Mulhaim, was the Rav of the shul and the Rav of the whole community, was davening in the front Shemoneh Esreh, and he was taking a very, very long time to daven. Very unusual long time, more than normal. Everybody knew, "Why is he davening so long today?" So one of the three men is saying, "I'll tell you why he's davening so long. He's thinking about a horse and a saddle." A saddle is what you put on the horse, on the back of the horse to sit on. You know, when people ride horses, they can't sit on the back of the horse. You have to put the saddle on the back, and then you sit on the saddle. He's thinking about a horse and a saddle in the middle of his davening now. Some people are very upset. "What? You're insulting our Rav. Think our Rav thinks about Hashem when he davens. He doesn't think about horses. He doesn't have machshava zaris, you know, thoughts about other things. Our Rav is a great man. He's a great tzadik." So they said, "Well, but that's what he's thinking about now." So

23:01 people started thinking, "What should we do with these men? They're insulting the Rav. Maybe we should throw them out of the shul." In the meantime, the Maharshal just finished davening. And he said, "Shalom aleichem, Rav." Took three steps back. He finished. And the chazan started repeating the Shemoneh Esreh. But there's a big commotion in the back. These three men are speaking so badly about our Rav. They're saying that he's thinking about horses in the middle of davening. So Maharshal hears there's a commotion. He asks, "What's going on in the back?" They tell him that there's these three men, they come from Egypt, they say, from Cairo, and they're saying that the reason you davened so long today, 'cause you're thinking about horses and saddles. Maharshal said, "Wait a second. They're right. I was thinking about it." So they finished davening Mincha, and the Maharshal turns around, he sees these three men, he says, "These are not simple people. These must be great people, great tzadikim, because how did they know what I was thinking? They must have Ruach Hakodesh." So he walks over, gives them Shalom Aleichem, and says, "Where are you from?" "We're from Cairo. We're talmidim of the Ari Z"L, your second cousin." Says, "Oh, then please come to my house. Come to my house. You'll have supper, and we'll drink something." They go to the Maharshal's house, and when they said to the Maharshal, "We came for you. We came... Our Rebbe, the Ari Z"L, sent us to talk to you. Why

24:23 are you so angry with him? Why are you so... You're speaking-- He hears from far away, from Cairo, that you're speaking bad things about him." And the Maharshal said, "Because look, there's his father-in-law who lost his daughter, his daughter died, and his son-in-law is living in Cairo, and according to the Halakha of the Rabbeinu Tam, you have to give back the money. The son-in-law is supposed to return the money that the father-in-law gave before they got married, but now that his daughter is dead, the money should go back to him." And he, the Ari Z"L, ruled the opposite. And then not on- not only that, he wrote a pasuk Yichemes. When we ask him, what's the reason he paskened like this, he just gave a pasuk Yichemes, a pasuk Yichemes in Parashat Mishpatim. "Ve'eileh ha-mishpatim asher tatzim lifneiem." These are the laws you should place before them. does that say? Nothing. It's just a Pasuk. Went back to Cairo, and they told the Ari Z"L what happened and what the Mashal said to him-- said to them. And the Ari Z"L sat down to write a long letter to his second cousin, the Mashal, explaining to him what he meant with this Pasuk. And he writes, he says, "My dear second cousin, Rav Shlomo, and are you a great man, I just want you to know, the reason I ruled like the Sephardic Minhag, the Sephardic Halacha, that the son-in-law does not have to return the money is because of a reason. Because I know

26:01 about something that you don't know about. I know something about this couple where the wife died and the husband is still here. I know something about them." And he said, "Years ago, many years ago, there were two Jews who came from the same town, and they went on a trip." In those days, you went on a trip, you went on a boat. You want to go to another country, then you had to go across the ocean, and the boats would take you from one country to the next country. They would go, you know, make a long, long trip around the world. And if somebody had to stop over in, in France, then the boat stopped in France, and he continued to Italy. Then he went to Egypt, and then he went to, to Israel, then he went to Morocco. He went all around the world, and everybody who had to get off, got off wherever they had to get off. These two Jews went on business. They were both businessmen. While they were on the ship, one businessman is approached by a goy that he wants to sell this Jew some, uh, you know, jewelry. It was very expensive jewelry. But the Jew saw from looking at the jewelry that this jewelry is worth a lot more money. So he wanted to buy it because he could sell it for a lot more money and make a lot of money. But how much did the jewelry cost? It cost a hundred thousand gold coins. But

27:30 he didn't have that money with him. So he went over with his friend from the same city. He said to him, "Chaim, can you do me a favor? You're gonna come back from business, and I'm gonna come back from business. We're gonna come back home to the same town. I promise I'll pay you back if you give me a loan now of a hundred thousand gold coins. I'll be able to buy this, this merchandise. I'll buy the, the jewelry. And when I come back, I'll be able to sell the jewelry wherever I go and make a lot of money, and I'll be able to give you back the hundred thousand gold coins that you borrowed-- that you loaned me. You gave it to me as a loan." So the, um, friend says, "Sure, no problem. I trust you. I know you. You're a good person. You're an honest person. So I-- here's a hundred thousand gold coins." The Jew, the friend, took the money. He was very excited, and he bought the merchandise. And when he, he had to stop over in one country, his friend who loaned him the money had to go to another country. They all went to business in different places, different locations. The guy who bought the merchandise and took the loan for a hundred thousand gold coins was able to sell all his jewelry for, like, two hundred thousand gold coins. And now he was ready to go back home with a lot of money that he made, and

28:48 he wanted to return the loan to his friend, Yankel, who's-- who gave him the loan of a hundred thousand gold coin. But Yankel went to another country, and he, he came back home. He didn't see Yankel yet. Maybe Yankel is still traveling. They waited and waited and waited and waited. Yankel never showed up. Apparently, Yankel must have died on the ship. Maybe some pirates came, and they attacked the ship and killed everybody on the ship. Nobody knew what happened to him. They knew that he never came back. He didn't have any family either. So he was alone. He was a person alone without any family. So, um, his name was Chaim, right? So Chaim. So Ch-Chaim died, and, um, the other guy who wanted to pay him back couldn't pay him back. So he didn't know what to do. So he kept the money, hoping that maybe one day he'll show up, and he never showed up. Then life continued, and the businessman who borrowed the money, uh, made a lot of money, and he lived a long life. He had a lot of family, a lot of children, until he got very old and also died. When he died, the neshamah went up to Shamayim. This is all a story that Ari Z"L is telling to Rav Shlomo Zalman. The neshamah of this Jew went up to Shamayim, and he sees, ah, Chaim, the guy who gave him the hundred thousand gold coins, is there. And Chaim is saying to, to the Beth Din

30:25 in Shamayim, "He owes me a hundred thousand gold coins, which he never paid me." And of course, the businessman said, "What can I do? I didn't see you. You never came back. You died. I couldn't give you the money." Well, it was decided in Beth Din Shamayim that these two neshamas have to go back into the world, and somehow the borrower of the hundred thousand gold coins will have to return the money to the guy who loaned him the money. And so one neshamah came down And he was the son-in-law. He be- he was born to the body of the son-in-law of this rich man that came to me for the enterer. The son-in-law had the neshamah, has the neshamah of the lender who loaned money to this businessman on the ship but never got paid back. And the wife, the kallah, had the neshamah of the borrower who borrowed the money and now the kallah had to pay back the choson that which that neshamah owed the choson in the previous lifetime, you know, many, many years before. That's why I ruled the halachas like-- that we should follow the halacha like the Sephardim because they live in Cairo, so they should follow Sephardic halacha and therefore the money should go to the son-in-law, and this is why I ruled that way. And so the Mashal gets this letter, and he said, "This is why I wrote the pasuk, "'These are the laws which you should place before them.'" What does the Zohar say

32:21 about this pasuk says the Arizal? There's in the Zohar a very strange commentary on this. The Zohar says, "Hashem says to Moshe Rabbeinu, 'You should teach the Yidden these laws about money and loans and, and damages and when you pay, when you have to pay, when you don't have to pay.'" Says the-- says the Zohar, "In this parasha we learn about the meaning of reincarnation." That's a word in English which means the reason why neshamas who already lived in this world and then they died, why are they coming back again? They're born again into babies' bodies, and they grow up again, and they have to live a whole life again in this world. This happens a lot of times to neshamas. In this parasha, says the Zohar, we learn why. Because sometimes people borrow money, and they never get to pay back because somebody dies or something happens. So sometimes the neshamah has to come all the way back in order to make good on a loan or something, on a debt that you owe money. That's what the Zohar says. So that's why I wrote this pasuk that you should know that the choson and the kallah here in our story, they were already here before in this world. But in the previous ti- time when they were here, the choson was the one who loaned money to the other merchant on the ship, and the guy never paid him back. So now he came to get his money back in this lifetime. When

33:57 the Hashem makes sure that those problems, those, uh, arguments that people have about money that n- requires this type of knowledge that I told you, it'll come to the person that has this knowledge. In other words, this choson and kallah were supposed to... They moved to Cairo. They thought they're gonna do business there. But really the reason was that Hashem made them to go to Cairo, so they would be in my place where I live. So I know what goes on in their neshamas because I can see these things, and I'll be able to pasken in a way that would make good on the loan for what-- which, which is the reason why the neshamas came into the world. Hashem made sure they wouldn't go in front of you because you would pasken the opposite, and then it wouldn't fix the problem which they had from a previous lifetime. So he said, "But rest assured that those cases and arguments of two people, uh, that comes in front of your bet din, you have all the knowledge you need to pasken the shailah." Hashem makes sure that this case goes to the right bet din that has the proper knowledge that is needed to pasken that case.