October 7, Anti-Semitism & Jewish Greatness - Rabbi YY Jacobson

This Torah class is brought to you by Torah anytime.com. >> Thank you for your very kind remarks and words. Thank you to the Arari family. So I was here a few year I was a few years ago invited to come into a classroom a Shia room in BMG in Lakewood and there were enough people to fill the room. It was pretty packed. A few of you went to some other rooms. I think that was the coron uh right before the corona year right the year before and uh to be able to see the growth of this and of the community coming together with such aim is really thrilling and inspiring and a privilege and a gift for me personally to be able to be here with you during these special days leading up to a new amazing, incredible year with God's grace and to be able to feel once again the warmth and the hospitality and the friendship and the brotherhood that this community is known for the world over is really a great gift and very very inspiring and empowering. So, thank you for the invitation. Thank you for the privilege and thank you for this and may God grace us all. May you have your most amazing year yet for you and your loved ones materially, spiritually with the most revealed abundant blessings in all of that your heart desires and a year of true victory and a year of true redemption. Amen. >> So I was once in Miami. I was at a lecture and I went out and I was late. I had to get to the airport. It was before Yum Kipper. I needed to get back home and my taxi didn't come and I ordered another one and it also didn't come. A few cars were not coming and it was very very late. And then I saw something. I saw the late Senator Joseph Lieberman. All shalom. He was a senator of Connecticut for many years. Joe Lieberman and his wife. May she be healthy. Hadassa Lieberman. see them going into a limo and even though he was a senator and it's not so nice but I needed a lift to the airport and I had a hunch. So I went over and I said, "Senator, forgive me. Maybe you go." He said, "Yeah." I said, "I know it's maybe inappropriate, but maybe I could sneak into the front seat cuz I need to get to the airport and my taxis are not coming and I won't say a word. Don't worry, I'm going to be quiet." "Sure," he said. Come in. So I went near the driver, but once he was there, I'm going to be quiet. So I'm going to go home. It's not a Jewish thing to do. Yeah. Somebody once asked Ellie Weisel if there is a tradition in of silence in Judaism because wherever he goes, they don't stop talking. So he wants to know if there's a tradition of silence in Judaism. So Weisel said, "Yeah, but we don't talk about it." So what am I going to talk about? My silence. So I turned around. And I apologized again. I said, "I'm sorry, but once I'm here, I have to ask you a question. There's a joke, a story I've been telling about both of you for many years now, and I don't know if it's true, and I want to verify it. Here's the story. Joe Lieberman was running to become vice president of the United States. You may remember, together with Al Gore, on the ticket of Al Gore, president, and Joe Lieberman, vice president. Many Jews were ecstatic. An orthodox Jew, Ashimo Mitzvah, vice president of America. At the end of the day, they lost. Gore lost and Lieberman lost. He came home that evening and his wife Hadasa greets him and she sees that he's depressed. They lost elections. He was depressed, melancholy. And she looks at him and says, "Joe, you don't have to be depressed and sad. In this house, you will always be vice president. I heard this joke. I heard it years ago." And I say it, it's a good joke. You know, Jewish women, Jewish husbands, I don't mean to remind you. I know you ran away, but whatever. You're going to come back over here. You could be presidents. I don't care. Over here, you could be a president. I'm fine. So, uh, Hadas Aliban looks at me and she says, "It's a good story." I don't know what that means, but you'll give your own interpretation. But I remember this because I was reflecting very deeply on the state of the Jewish people today, not just in Israel, of course, but really the world over. And it's something that is on one hand so baffling, so disturbing, so startling, so enigmatic, so bizarre, so unfathomable. You understand my English? You learn English not too bad. So unfathomable and yet in a very strange way. Also very moving, very holy, very inspiring. You know sometimes students ask the question and it's a very common question today. Rabbi Jacobson, can you really be a rational person and believe that the Torah is divine? I mean, there's 12,000 religions that we know about. Many others that are absolute we don't know about. And everybody claims God said it. That's what they do. Can a rational thinking, open-minded person who doesn't just want to accept what their grandmother told them, but they really want to appreciate it internally just like you would investigate science, physics, mathematic, cosmology, or the stock market. Can a rational Jew who thinks about things, who wants truth, authenticity, really believe wholeheartedly, sincerely that every word of the Torah was dictated to Mosher Rabenu, by Hashem himself, by the creator of the world. And it's a fair question. It's an important question, which is why sages and commentators and thinkers have discussed it and explored it over the generations. And I know professor kel rabbi professor kel will speak soon. It's one of his great topics permission to believe. But I told my group of students I said that I want you to know something. The way I see it is that maybe one of the deepest deepest proofs in a very real way to the truth of Torah is what has happened in the world. October 8th, 2023. Because when you look at it, it is so irrational to the point that it's mind staggering almost like the sun telling me the sun has risen today in the west and setting in the east. A little country, 6.6 6 million Jews surrounded by 57 Muslim countries. Not two, not 10. 57 Muslim countries. One little Jewish state. The size of Dallas International Airport. That's Israel. Or near my hometown, the size of New Jersey. Tiny little country. It would be like a football field and a match on the football field. And this little country one morning October 7th is attacked by monsters who invade 6:30 a.m. burn, behead, rape, torture. I'm not going to get graphic now, but everybody knows what I'm talking about. abduct, capture until today with not just murderous intentions, with a sadism, with a barbarity, with a cruelty that we thought we heard about in the from the Middle Ages from 1648, 1649 pgrams of Kalanetski of the Kazaks in Poland and videoed and recorded and proud. The Germans wanted to hide the evidence. They understood that it's shameful, at least for the world. But they they recorded it. And you have to hear something fascinating. I couldn't believe it till I read it. Two weeks ago, there was a international film festival in Toronto. And one of the films was about October 7th. And they didn't accept it. You know why? They said, "We don't have permission from Kamas to use their footage. It's illegal. And I'm like, wow. Imagine we're not allowed to publish pictures of the Holocaust because Hitler and Gobels Himmler and Aishma didn't give us permission. And you don't behave illegally towards such special people. Unbelievable. This is Toronto 2025. And the country is attacked. 250 hostages taken, 1,200 murdered. And Kamas says, "We're going to do it again and again until every last Jew, heaven forbid in Israel and in the world is dead." So a country a few weeks later goes into Gaza to destroy this enemy that wants to burn would love to burn every Jew alive in its day. You would think that the civilized world would at least show a little empathy towards this Jewish homeland. What happened in the days and weeks and months until today afterwards baggle boggles their imagination. Not only was Israel not empathized with, but demonstrations emerge all over the world and they're protesting pro- kamas against Israel. And you're not talking about demonstrations in Afghanistan, in Syria, in Egypt. I get that. You're talking about Harvard University, Yale University, Oxford University, Colombia University, Ivy League universities filled with Jewish boys and girls that Jewish parents were so proud of that they could pay $400,000 to get your kid through four years of Harvard. Turns out he comes out after four years. He doesn't know the difference between Hitler and Churchill. A rabbi at Duke told me nearby there's UNC, University of North Carolina. On October 12th, 2023, there was a demonstration there at UNC University North Carolina. And the demonstration, of course, was pro kamas. There's a Jewish professor, a secular Jew, who teaches at the university. And when he saw this from the window, he was disgusted. So he went out and he started to scream, "You're a bunch of Nazis. You support genocide." And the police escort him away supposedly for his own safety. As he was screaming at the pro- kamas protesters, you're Nazis. He comes back to the university and then he comes in to give his lecture and before he begins his lecture, one of the girls, his students comes over to him with a rose. He says, "Why rose?" She said, "I saw and I heard what you said outside of the protest and I was so proud of you how you stood up for truth. I just want to show a gesture of support and sympathy and here is my rose. He looks at her and says, "You must be Jewish." She says, "I'm not. I'm a gentile. I'm Christian." So he says to her, "So why do you care?" She says, "What do you mean? You're the chosen people." He looks at her and says, "Come on. You already know me. You're in my class for many months. I'm an atheist. I don't believe that we're the chosen people. We're not the chosen people. We're just the regular people. I don't believe God exists. What are you selling this to me? And this girl looks at him and says, "Professor, you may not believe it, but we all know it. It was such a powerful moment." Because you ask yourself, I don't understand. In the Congo last few years, 5 million people were killed. 5 million in Cheschna, 200,000 in Darur, Sudan, 4 million people in Syria, 600,000 people by their own government, including through chemical warfare and many children and many other massacres in the world. I didn't see one demonstration. Nobody even knows about these things. Nobody even knows about it. And here a tiny country attacking an enemy that's swearing to destroy every Jew. And it's condemned by professors and journalists and politicians and leaders and thinkers, including some self-hating Jews. How do you explain this? I don't understand. You care about human life. Syria, 600,000 people. Congo, 5 million, not 20, not 30,000, not 40,000. And the only way you can even begin to make sense of any of this is when you appreciate the truth. And that is that everything the Torah says about the Jewish people is not just valid, but it's authentic to the tea. that there's something about Israel and there's something about the Jew that is so metaphysical is so transcendental is so meta-historical that it triggers people in ways that they themselves may not even appreciate how deeply it triggers them that when the Torah keeps on saying again and again that God says I've choosing this people to be a blessing to the world he tells the first Jew You Abraham, you will become a blessing for all the nations of the world. You are the moral beacons, the ambassadors of the creator to transform the planet as we say three day times a day or as we're going to say it two weeks. Our goal is let every creation, let every creature become consciously cognizant of the truth of oneness of anoid and that the Jewish people represent the ambassadors theim of Hashem himself in this world to represent that there is truth, there is goodness, there is morality, there's a difference between good and evil, truth and falsehood and that this title tiny tiny nation represents that truth and it's eternal. Then you look at it and suddenly we see 4,000 years later we still trigger that same passionate response that is completely disproportionate and irrational. Why? What? When? You know, there's one mitzvah in the Torah that always baffled me. It's so interesting. You come into any shul in the world and they want to know if there's a minion. Over here we know there's a minion. But sometimes there's eight people, nine people. They're not sure. So you expect, right? Any newcomer to a shul, they're always baffled. The rabbi 1 2 3. No, you're not allowed to count Jews. So you come into say not one, not two, not three, not four. And if they're hungry, they do. And if they're not hungry, they do. What's the big deal? Just do 1 2 3 4 5. You're not let it count Jews. A verse in Paris, God tells Mosheisa, when you want to make a census of the Jewish people, do not count them. How do you count them? Let everybody give a contribution of you count the money. What is this? God knew that this is a way to make a Jewish appeal. How you going to get them to give? You make We have to make a census. We can only count money. Wh What's the point? What's the big deal? And there won't be a plague. Why is it so serious? My friends, there's a very profound message here. Why do people make a census? Why? Why does anybody make a census? The answer is when you take a count, it demonstrates power. If a country shows we have 1 million troops, it means don't start up. If a company shows that we have 3,000 employees, it demonstrates potency. When a country has a large number of citizens, it means there's a great workforce, there's taxes, there's revenue, there's potentiality. Whenever you count, it's in order to show an impressive power. God tells Moshe, "If Jews ever count themselves, you know what's going to happen? They're going to go into depression." You know why? It's a tiny little people. How many Jews are there in the world? People don't realize we do not constitute even a quarter of 1% of humanity. People sometimes think Jews are like 20%, 10%. We're not even 1%. We're not a half a percent. We're not a quarter of a percent. 0.2. The number of Jews is smaller than a statistical error on a Chinese census. Yeah. Check it out. We have almost three billion Christians, almost two billion Muslims, 1.2 billion Chinese. As I'm talking, another million were born. They're going to have shalom zak Friday night. And Jews, we struggle for every soul. Every soul, 14 million, maybe 15, 15 and a half, 16k. Not even a quarter of a percent. Jews are going to look and say, "We're supposed to survive, thrive, and change the world. Is this a joke? What a mockery." They say, "There was once a Christian priest and a minister and a rabbi. They went to Starbucks to have a latte for 950. So, what are they going to talk about?" They talk about what they would like to hear people say at their funeral. That's a nice conversation. The priest says, "I would love to hear somebody say at my funeral, he was a true man of God. He served the Lord." Minister says, "I would like to hear somebody say, "At my funeral, he was a real friend. He knew how to be there for the people." Rabbi, how about you? What would you like to hear someone say, "At your funeral?" The rabbi says, "At my funeral, I would love to hear somebody say, you know, I think he's moving. I just got it. A nation, a nation to experience such persecution. I don't know if you know, we can count on one hand, maybe two hands, the number of cities and countries from which the Jewish people were not expelled throughout history. Panama is one of them. But not many. Not many. Almost on one hand, the countries that did not expel us over three and a half thousand years. So you're telling me, Hashem, we're going to survive. We're going to thrive. But not only that, we're going to influence the whole world. Doesn't make sense. God says, don't count Jews. You're going to get the wrong impression. Count their contributions. Don't count them. Count what they have given the world and you'll see a different picture. You'll see something that is also super rational. We have something in America called the Nobel Prizes. Nobel Prizes began around 120 years ago. Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, gives a Nobel prizes for five great contributions to advance progress in the world. If Jews don't constitute a quarter of 1% of humanity, how many Jews should have received a Nobel Prize from the 900 Nobel prizes in the last 100 years? The answer is a half a Jew. Actually, a quarter of a Jew. That would have been statistically correct. In reality, you'll take a look and you'll see that in some of the areas, Jews have received almost 40% or 30% or 25% of Nobel prizes. And people are like what? Muslims have received four Nobel prizes and one of them Yaser Arafat for peace. Yes. Yes. Chinese 11 Jews shouldn't have received one. Disproportionate. God says don't count them. Count what they give. Count their contributions. And that's in the world of medicine, literature, peace, economics, cosmology, science, physics. I've told my students in the last 100 years there have been four revolutions that changed the world in the year world of science, the world of biology, the world of politics, and the world of psychology. The world of science and physics was transformed by Professor Albert Einstein. The world of psychology by Ziggman Freud whose real name was Schllo Miller Freud just for the record. Politics for good or bad but the world was changed by Carl Marx and biology by Charles Darwin. Marx, Freud, Einstein were Jewish and Darwin was wrong. Now I should say this Markx was also wrong but it would have ruined the joke. So okay it's fascinating. Now if you look in the world of spirituality of ethics the flow of sages, rabbisim, kings, leaders, visionaries, righteous, holy people, what they gave the world in terms of ethics and depth and godliness and holiness. It's incessant. It's endless. Not 40%. It's endless till till this very day. that the righteousness the sensitivity to goodness the fight for goodness the holiness the God says don't count them you have to always look what they give then you'll be able to appreciate you're dealing with a different type of people and this doesn't generate arrogance it generates humility I once saw a Christian writer wrote people accuse the Jewish people for calling themselves the chosen nation by God it's so arrogant and he writes something so profound and moving. He says, "Don't you realize that when you look at how much they contributed and their achievements, the fact that they called the themselves the chosen people is the humblest explanation for their achievements. They're actually giving God the credit. It's the humblest explanation of their achievements. The most humble explanation. They're like, "Nothing to do with us. We just ended up here. God chose But Jews doubted this for many generations. Could you really believe this? I mean, come on. We just had bad masle in Europe, bad masel in Poland, bad masle in Russia, bad masle in Germany, bad masle in Spain. That's why we came to Panama. Masle mausle mausle. And finally after the Holocaust, Jews had an era of peace and acceptance and no more anti-semitism. And then suddenly I know I come from America. Many American Jews really really believed we have finally integrated successfully. The world loves us. And how many Jews have been the greatest proponents of left causes for humanitarianism and me too movements and women's rights and minorities rights and every fight against bigotry and even microaggressions and suddenly when women are tortured the way they were on October 7th all these movements you're Jewish you're human. You're even human. Has a Jew eyes a Jew nose as Shakespeare wrote in The Merchant of Venice. And Jews say, "What happened? Where we where did this come from? What did we do wrong? How bizarre. But it all goes back here. You see that every word of the Torah is authentic. The Jewish people are the link between heaven and earth. The Jewish people are the ambassadors of the creator of the world that represent truth, eternity. We are conduits. We are channels. And even the Jews who say, "Not me. Not me. Not me. I'm just a regular guy. I like sushi and golf and a couple of dollars." They don't believe it. And sometimes we ask ourselves, are we the same Jews who stood at Sinai? Are we the Jews who left Egypt? We're the Jews who crossed the Red Sea. We're the Jews who went over the Jordan with Joshua. We're the Jews who built the first betam mikdash with David and Solomon. We're the Jews who fought with Rabbi Aaka, who learned by Rabb Zakai. We are the Jews who sat and produced the Ramba and Rashi and the greatest of the greatest sages and sadikim. We We're just regular Jews. We're not the same people. Come on. One second. Just take a look at the hatred and you'll see it's the same Jews. The same way we were hated 3,000 years ago, 2,000 years ago, thousand years ago, 500 years, 100 years ago, it's the same hatred to these very same people. And no difference what type of keeper, no keeper, this hat, strial, no hat. Why? I'll tell you why. Because evil senses holiness and is allergic to it. Things have been compared to the miners, canaries of history. If you know how miners work, they go down to dig for coal. Before they go down, you know what they do? They send down canary birds into the mines cuz canary birds are sensitive to poison, to noxious fumes. If the canary birds don't come back, you know, don't go down. There's poison. If the canary birds come back, the miners follow. The Jews are the canaries of history. Wherever there is poison, we attract it first. The Kuzari says, Rabbi Alvi says, wherever there's evil, they attack the Jews first because they sense the holiness, the godliness, the kusha, and they attack it. But it never ends with Jews. It starts with Jews. It never ends with Jews. Stalin began with Jews. Didn't end with Jews. Hitler started with Jews, didn't end with Jews. The suicide bombers started with Israel. They don't end with Israel. The miners canaries attract that. And when you look at this, you could say, "Wow, what a disaster. What a catastrophe." And it's painful. We must also say, "Wow, look at the kadusha of amra. Look at the holiness of the Jewish people." It says in King David says, "I become wise from my enemies." And one interpretation is tell me who your enemy is and I'll tell you who you are. Don't tell me who your friends are. I don't care. Tell me who hates you and then I know who you are. And here we ask a question. Wow. If we are a people that was hated by Pharaoh and the Vader, by Hmon and by Titus, byki and Turkade, by Hitler and by bin Laden, by Narah and by Ahmedad, every one of them evil monsters. I want to know what are the Jewish people doing so right to attract all these people's hatred. If Hitler sees you as his greatest enemy, I want to be your friend. There is something so glorious, so powerful, so divine and sacred that the kipa, the tuma, the impurity experiences in such a deep way and is so allergic and is so committed to destroy, to annihilate, to obliterate. What you're seeing today in the world is not just anti-semitism and hatred. You're seeing this spiritual holiness that the creator of the world invested in his people with a mission to light up our lives, our homes, our communities, and the world with truth, with msuat. Sometimes I look in the mirror and I say, "I'm just a simple guy." They don't think you're simple. Somehow they see in you In every Jew, they see everything. And it's true. You could learn from this the power of that a soul is a peace of hem. And when you ask a very deep question and the deep question is how did this happen? God says no count their contributions. But how did this happen? How do you explain it? How do you explain it? If you ask today, where is the Egyptian Empire? Where are they? Where is the Assyrian Empire? Where is the Babylonian Empire, the Persian Empire, the Greek Empire, the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire? Where are they? And the answer is they're in Wikipedia. They're all there in Wikipedia. And then you ask, where are the Jewish people? This little little minority. And the answer is we created Wikipedia with Google, with Facebook, with ways, with Instagram, with Telegram, with all the other interesting stuff. Why? Cuz we like to write the obituaries of our enemies. As I'm talking, you can go on to Wikipedia, go to and edit their orbituary. But we don't only like to edit their obituaries. We also like to eat them. And that's why we took our greatest enemies and we turned them into the most delicious Jewish foods. That's our revenge. We took anti and we turned them into a latka. We took Hmon and we turned them into a hint. We took Pharaoh and we turned them into a matzab ball and we're taking kamas and turning them into humus. We don't only want to write their obituaries. We want to literally become fat from our enemies. Humanached, moatza balls, lkas. And these foods, my friends, do make us fat. It turns out actually that our enemies are still killing us. But this time it's through the food. Because the common denominator of all these foods is carbs. Somebody once asked me not Jewish. Why do Jews eat so many oily stuff on Kaneka? Latkas, donuts. So for Jews, we have the answer, but I knew it's not going to work for a Goya. To explain to Hershe, professor that really the minora was supposed to burn for one night, but the oil burned for eight nights and therefore we soak the LKUS for eight hours and then eight years in oil to commemorate the miracle of the minora. So for Jews it's perfect. Of course, of course. Give me another donut. Another one. Another one. The oil eight days, eight donuts. But for that doesn't work. So I needed a simple explanation. The simple explanation I give is Kaneka represents the victory of the Jews over the Greeks. The Greeks were into looks, sports, Olympics, and fashion. So on Khan when we defeated them, we make sure to eat those foods that will guarantee that we will never look like them. Say, "Oh, this is a deep cabalistic, very deep cabalistic explanation." But when somebody really asks how does that happen, you write their obituaries, you eat them, turn them into foods. And if you again take a very rational approach, those of you who are familiar a little bit with the scientific method, you know, whenever scientists want to examine how something survives over many many generations in difficult circumstances, whether it's an insect, a reptile, You'll hear me. What scientists do is they search for a characteristic that this organism has maintained throughout its entire history because you can't attribute longevity to something that was only there part of the time. You need to look for something that is a constant and then you could say, "Ah, this must be it." When you ask a question, we're here 3,400 years since Moses, 3,800 years since Abraham. It's a lot of time. They once asked a Chinese politician, "What's your opinion about the American and French Revolution?" He said, "It's too early to tell." But for us, it's not too early to tell. And you say 4,000 years later going strong Panama. Going strong. How? Tell tell me how. So we have to look for a characteristic that was always there. Can't look for something that was there for 500 years, 1,000 years, 2,000 years. That doesn't explain the eternity. So now you ask a question. Is there one characteristic that accompanied the Jewish people from the day we stood at Sinai till today 3,337 years later? Exactly. Is there one characteristic that we can identify and say this is it? And people ask this is a great question. So people will tell me food. But no different cultures of Jews ate completely different food. Some Jews don't know what geila fish is ramanlam. Some Jews don't know what is. Even worse, culture, Jewish culture varies constantly. Till today, there are cultural things of Ashkanazm this farm think. And conversely, some people say a country we wish, but for most of our history, we were exiled from our country. Some people say language. Halavi. Most Jews till today don't know the language our language military an army hali most of our history we didn't have that and we suffered the question is is there one thing that carried the Jewish people and was there with them from the day we became a people in every corner of the world in good times bad times thrilling moments and horrible moments when the sun was shining and when the sun set in the hol the holy land and outside of the holy land and north and south, east, west have a few. You would have to ask which one is the most important, but there's only one and that is from the day we stood on the mountain till today. three and a half thousand years wherever Jews were. They had the Torah and the celebration of the mitzvah that they lived, breathed, celebrated and bequeath to their children with nephesh with commitment and love and devotion. The Messma, the great of andal both give a brilliant commentary. There's a very strange mitzvah in the Torah. You weren't allowed to take away the poles from the auron. From the ark when they put the ark into the holy of holies, the poles had to remain steadfast to the auron. Why? Who cares? Do you know that the mishkun in one place was for 369 years in Shilo? You can't take out the poles 369 years. If you buy a Van Go painting or a Rebrand for $29 million, you leave the suitcase in your dining room. You put it away. It's not nice to have poles. You put it away. Say as follows. There's a very profound message here. The ark was in the holy of holies in the capital in Jerusalem in the holy temple, the epicenter of the Jewish people. What happens to every single nation when they get exiled? They lose their independence. They lose their commonwealth. They lose their army. They lose their political and military power. They assimilate. Even the Roman Empire, most powerful empire, where are they? They were defeated and they assimilate. I never go to Macy's or Century 21 and meet somebody. Who are you? I'm a grandson of Caligia. I'm an anacle of Julius Caesar. My ela ela ela zeta was Vpasian but I meet thousands of Jewish nudnik. My z was you know who I am. How does that happen? God says don't take the poles away from the ark. As long as the Jewish people will carry with them the auron, the ark, wherever they go, they will have a transplant of Israel and Jerusalem and the beta mikdash and the holy of holies in their dining room, in their shs, in their schools, in their communities. That's what happened. Henria was a German poet. He converted to Christianity. And he writes, he says, German for the 1700s. They were making fun of the Jews that they don't have a homeland. This is the 1700s. And hyena said he was a mashummed he was a convert. He said they do have a homeland. It's a portable homeland. How do you think the miracle happened that 70 years ago and today 6.7 million Jews live in Israel? In 1948 there were 600,000 Jews in Israel and 1% of them were killed in the war of independence. 6,000 Jews. Today there's more than 6 million Jews there. Do you know that in a few years, for the first time since King Solomon, more than half of the Jewish people will be living in the Holy Land? Don't take that for granted. How did that happen after 2,000 years? The answer is cuz we, the Aron, had polls and wherever we went, we took the ark. So, we could be living in Panama or in Sustavitz, in Budapest or in broad. And when it came time for you faced Jerusalem learning, observing, celebrating whether it's learning about the carbon or the carbon the consciousness of the shakadashim of the ark was alive. That's the secret of the polls. So there's one constant characteristic that was always there. So if somebody asks what is the greatest power of the Jewish people, we don't have to be brilliant. You don't even have to have crazy faith. You could use science as a guide. Look, look where is Hmon? Where is VPian? Where is Titus? Where are we? That's the significance of when Jews know who they are. They understand their holiness. They understand their power and they understand that the world feels it and senses it and looks up to that. Everything changes. Everything is transformed. My dearest friends, I'm going to conclude with a story that happened with me. I was invited a few years ago by the Pentagon to give the keynote address to the chief of chaplain of the US Army, the Navy, the Army, and the Air Force. They have an annual spiritual retreat, a Christian where the chief of chaplain come together to inspire themselves. Now, usually they always had Billy Graham, the great Christian preacher, to speak. It's a whole story. Douglas Carver, the chief of chaplain, met aid, Colonel Yank of Goldstein at the first Gulf War and they became friends. They slept in one tent and when he became the chief of chaplain, he said, "Enough with Billy Graham. I want to hear from a Jew." And he asks Goldstein. Give me the Jewish Billy Graham. So he calls me up and he says, "I'm giving you sma. You are the Jewish Billy Graham. If the Pentagon calls you, you're officially the Jewish Billy Graham." I said, "Shr, don't tell my mother-in-law I don't need this. It's good for the Jews." He says, "It's very good for the Jews." And show the Pentagon called the Jewish Billy Graham. And I was invited to South to Hilton Head, South Carolina to give the keynote address to more than a thousand Gentiles, the spiritual leaders of the US Army, mostly Christian, Catholics, Baptists, Mormons, all different branches of Christianity, Epis Episcopalian, few Muslims, a few Hindus, a few Buddhists, very few Jews because there's not so many Jewish soldiers. They like more real estate for whatever reason. So there's not many Jewish chaplain over there. like 10 of them, mostly Christians. So, how did I know it was a non-Jewish event? The keynote address was 8:00 in the morning. Who ever heard of a Jewish event with a keynote? 8:00 in the morning. 8:00 in the morning. Mat a bagel. Maybe you think you're this, you're that. 8:00 shine. They were already up 4 in the morning jogging on the beach with their Bibles. It was quite an interesting experience for me. Anyway, I spoke to them and it was very novel. It was also very intriguing because, you know, Gentiles listen to speeches different than Jews. You know that. Now, I love Jews. I love Jews. In fact, my mother is Jewish. My father is Jewish. I married a Jewish woman. My kids are Jewish. I'm Jewish. But one thing, I don't like to fly with Jews. And I don't like to speak uh Okay. And speaking to Jews is hard. Flying with Jews, you know what it looks like. Right. It's a shul. It's not a flight. It's a shul. It's a bish. It's a k. Yeah. The other day in ll there was a guy. He wanted to sleep for 11 hours. Ll. Good luck. Good luck. So he put up a sign by his seat. I ma I david mv. I don't want a davin shak here. Okay. I don't have sushi. I don't have a pacifier. I don't have baby wipes. I don't have a cider. I don't have an art scroll. I do not have the bubbali's gulas for turbulence. I have no tissues. I have no diapers. I have no band-aids. I have no kami. I have no tahillim. I have no I have nothing. And he thought nobody will wake him. 5 minutes after he falls asleep, somebody is already banging him in his ribs. They don't just wake you up. It's like right in the ribs right here. You know what I mean? He's still sleeping. He's like, "Read the sign." The guy says, "I read the sign. I need something. Read it again. I read it. What do you want? Nothing like flying with my brothers and sisters. Do you remember there was an airline tower earlier? So once they're going to Israel, it's Kaneka time. You know, December 25th, January 1st. They land, the captain says to all those who are sitting, happy new year. To all those who are standing, happy Kaneka. Okay. Speaking to Jews is also very interesting because every Jew who hears you speak already has an opinion. Do you know that? Jews don't listen. They have opinions. And if they hear something either it's like this I heard already. This I heard I know it already. He's repeating himself. And if it's good you're like I'm going to use it next week. Very hard for Jews to listen really. But though and also feedback is not so easy with the Jews. They don't like giving feedback. The best you get is especially the Ashkanaza but I'm not going to go there at the moment. It's like stiff neck. But over there they were like, "Halleluah, rabbi. Halleluah. Yay. Halleluah." They also know the Bible. I'm aaya. They finished the verses and we had a great time over there. It was very interesting. I got like a hundred invitations to come to the churches next Sunday to speak. But uh yeah, I didn't think it's a career for a nice Brooklyn Jewish boy. So that was the end of that. But something very interesting happened. Douglas Carver, a Baptist, a Baptist boy, gets up and he turns to the crowd and he says, "I wonder where did Rabbi Jacobson learn to speak with so much passion weird." And then I know he learned from the Baptists because if you know the Baptists, they're like, "Oh yeah, God loves you." So he says, "Rabbi Jacobson must have spent time by us, by the Baptists." And that's where he learned how to communicate. And everybody started to laugh. You know, it was pretty funny with a yam capas, a beard, you know, Baptist child. I'm Jewish. So, of course, I'm part of the website www.jwegilt.com. So, right away, I feel guilty. Why do I feel guilty? Publicly, he said that I was spending time with the Baptists. Baptism is Christianity. I have to make a mah. after protest. But then I'm like, "You idiot. He was joking. Everybody sees you're not a Baptist. I mean, the Yamaka gives it away a little bit." And then I'm like, "Yeah, but even if one guy," and I'm going back and forth. I'm torturing myself. And then I'm like, "The guy was joking. It was a cute joke cuz he's a Baptist and he was complimenting you." And then I'm thinking, but even as a joke, Jews had so much sacrifice not to embrace Christianity. That's why we're here today because of our ancestors. And in America, first century, I'm going to be quiet. And I'm going back and forth, back and forth. And then I decided, you know, they didn't invite me because of my looks or my brains. They invited me as a representative of the Jewish people. And if my ancestors paid such a deep price to stay Jewish, I owe it to them just to say something. And I knew you're not supposed to interrupt a four-star general. If you do, you have to do 900 push-ups. Now, I'm a slim, handsome guy. But 900 push-ups is pushing it. I'm not the Navy Seals yet. And then I thought, Yankl Goldstein is never going to forgive me, and they're never going to invite me again. You know, they won't invite me. It's not nice, but I don't have a choice. And I literally interrupted him. And I said, "General Carver, no, you got it wrong. The Baptists learned it from us. We stood at Sinai and the Baptists learned it from us." And suddenly the entire audience broke out in an applause. And even Carver, the general, is also applauding me. And I'm like, what? When he said I was a Baptist, they all laughed. When I said you learned it from us, they were all applauding me. And then I realized the powerful truth that I always heard from my Reb, from my teacher. The world respects Jews who respect Judaism. The world is embarrassed by Jews who are embarrassed by Judaism. Thank you very, very much. You've just experienced another Torah class brought to you by tora anytime.com.