Ask the Rabbis - Issues That Matter... In Our Lives, Part 1

okay welcome back everybody to another project inspire edition of ask the rabbi once again we have our panel here robert arolovsky is joining us from israel so is ravgov who actually does not have a background to him so we can actually see him uh and roberto feldheim from lakewood new jersey joining he has the most background that's right yeah okay so we are here today as you know we had a session before which was uh a basic judaism and god discussion um there was feedback if you don't mind me going back to the last session just to to reiterate a question that was posed last time and people sent us feedback and by the way all of you who are watching this please send us your feedback we appreciate the feedback that was sent and we're going to address part of it right now we asked a question last night that jews have this feeling that their torah our torah our god is true exists god exists do we have a right to walk around sort of like we're right they're wrong that was a but that was the question that was posed uh you might remember from last session where gaba was discussing his airplane uh his his uh airline flights um i think that it was robiolovsky who said you have really interesting flights by me nobody asked me these questions something like that but uh i'm just gonna repost it because people um emailed in saying that we didn't really answer the question uh it was more of addressing the one who was asking it and what he's feeling at the time that he's asking such a question so i want to put this out i'll start with you roberto if you don't mind um do we have a right to to believe to think we know etc that god exists and the torah is true well let's put this way if somebody could show me that i'm wrong there is no god and there is no torah that's it i'm done i'm finished i'm not doing this because it feels good i'm not doing this as an emotional crutch either it's true or it's not true either there's a garden he gave the torah or there's not and this is a book of fairy tales and if it's a book of fairy tales i gotta tell you i'm a little too old for the easter bunny you know i remember when i was growing up i i grew up in a conservative synagogue and uh the um the head of the education committee wrote an article in the in the journal the synagogue journal before purim explaining how perm never actually happened and it's a zoryastrian uh fairy tale and on and on and on the whole thing so um so my father showed it to me i said okay he copied the whole thing out of grizzle i i read it in the original you know uh it's it's you know i could respond to all this but i have a simpler question how does he look at his kid with a straight face and say go to synagogue and park says dad i'm too old for a zory austrian fairy tale you know i i grew out of this i don't leave out cookies for santa anymore you know it's ridiculous so if this is not true i wouldn't do it now you hear these stories about people who go someplace for shabbos and they have a beautiful meal and they meet the family and they and they have a challenge and they're so inspired to become religious yeah that didn't work for me i was a cynic from the time i was born and um i always fashioned myself something of an intellectual and i was very good at arguing from the time that i was little and i came from a family that was not chamber shabbos and i was not particularly interested in it and so when the people who approached me what won me over was not the fact that this is a better way to live but that it's true that they provided evidence for the existence of god and that he gave the torah and that it's correct to this day those three things so that when i became observant it was kicking and screaming i didn't want to but i was i was faced with the truth and i remember i had a rebbe over jakob will and that's all and he was arguing with us and i said to my friends i said we should we have to argue with this guy they said ignore him he's a fanatic i said what if he's right they said ignore him anyway and i couldn't do that because if it was true then i had to follow it through and if it's not true i would give this up in a second i'm not i'm not i don't need more ritual in my life i don't need any fairy tales either there's a god or there's not a god either he gave the torah or he didn't and that's it the only thing that that the only question to my mind is whether it's real or not everybody has a claim everybody everybody can say that you know uh i know that there's a guy i believe i'm right so what if you believe you're right everybody thinks they're right but you know as north weinberg from asiatore put it once he says if i believe in the world to come and you don't so they don't close the place down for you and open it up for me either it's real or it's not real either it's true it's not true either jesus is the son of god or he's not but that's it there's only there's only two possibilities right god just addressing the um the the point of is the is there a god specific i mean the last time you spoke about the people who would ask you this question on the plane how would you how would you answer somebody who turned you and said like come on right okay it's a great question and um it's funny because i come a little bit from the opposite spectrum from ravsky in terms of i grew up in a religious home so even if you showed me it's not true i'm still going to do it because i have that emotional you know beginning point but i believe it's uh there's a balance of both the intellect the emotion you have to have really be coming from both angles in order to have a healthy relationship with anything just because something's true doesn't mean that everybody's going to follow it at least in my generation right there was a time when there was something called integrity and truth i hear once and once upon a time but uh but i'll tell you like like this and i actually just to quickly jump into a plain story so just to give the idea i actually asked this question to a christian pastor of 40 years i was sitting on a plane it's a long story of how i got into it which i'd love to share but you don't want to hear now but uh i know some of you do though but anyway here's the here's here's i got you here here's the uh the main point of the story i said to this to this christian pastor he was holding a book that says the jews in israel or something so i said oh are you jewish he said no he's a retired pastor i said oh my goodness can i ask you a question and this is the question you know how do we know there's a god how do we know where right how do you know the christianity i don't know judaism i know anything etc so so again i'm going to save you the details although there's very details even though it's worth it the the ikea nukuta that i asked him was was the following question of where where does it all come what's the starting point of everything you have your storyline of christianity i have my storyline of judaism so the the main point is what is the beginning part of where does everything start from so i said if i can ask you a question i'm going to ask you please not to beat around the bush if that's okay and he said to me okay and i don't even run out there with a regular bush regular bus so i said and i'm going to say like for those who are a little bit up on on your your your uh jewish literature let's call it right so then you might know isaiah chapter 51 and jeremiah chapter 31 and 35 or whatever and ecclesiastes chapter seven and one i said do me a favor pastor just don't pull that move or you start pulling out verses and don't address my question and my questions as follows you agree with me on one thing is it correct that pretty much even you agree that there's something called sinai revelation and this is this is essentially where the beginning of judaism is all of judaism starts judaism meaning not to say that there was no such thing as the hebrews and there was the abraham and there was etc but the actual thing called when we become the jewish people um which is is when we the culmination was about sinai we had a revelation or so we claimed the storyline is is that god came and he spoke to the entire jewish people the quick and easy answer which is not going to be satisfying because nothing quick and easy is satisfying all of this needs a lot more and as as vlc will tell you you can get the the whole class on it another time but the quick and easiest understand that the entire jewish people together experienced god speaking with them and saying the words i am the lord your god that took you out of egypt do not have any other gods from before me that that is the storyline we have and then we have essentially what's known as tradition we have tradition passing down from then until now so that's essentially you know how do i know there's a god the way that i know my there's a god is the way i know any history how do you know any history the basics of all history is is that you have a certain amount of eyewitness testimony that makes a claim i can't tell you what the cutoff number is if it's 10 people 50 100 a thousand 10 thousand 100 000 but i think we could all agree when you hit a certain number that it starts to open up to another level of this is probably true our storyline is some around around three million people experiencing god firsthand so i had asked him this is the question the question i asked so fine that's so again forgive me i went off as speakers do but but i i'm trying to stay focused it's 80d forgive me but uh but but at the end of the day this is what it comes down to is that how do i know i know because of missouri because of the tradition passed down from my father's fathers fathers fathers fathers fathers mothers mothers fathers fathers grandfathers uncle now you'll say to christianity the same thing and that's where the question comes in and i said like this i said you know your storyline is is that god basically changed his mind that's your storyline now tell me if god appeared to three million people and he wanted to change his mind wouldn't it make sense to do that again in such a big gathering why is it it happened to only one person or a few people the guy was started a little pulled out in isaiah pulled out of jeremiah then he stopped and he said you know what it's a good question i said thank you my email is robgov gmail.com i am awaiting your response and just last night nothing happened he hasn't responded and it's been about two and a half years so again the quick and easy is misora tradition and that's passed down we have eyewitness testimony of so many people experiencing something and passing that down that my friends is important and then god you're what you're mentioning is really the the bite size of what's called national revelation which is a class that you've given robert has given foreign 30 years or so um so we you can you can look that up you can look out on project inspire site as well uh the discovery national revelation um so again rory feldman will go to you and then i want to get on segway into the questions that begin actually this session is the the bite-sized answer so to speak up do we have a right to walk around with this feeling that torah is true that god exists etc right all right it's good to go last i get to like hear what everybody else says and uh um i want to just tie together all the things because you know there is spoke about that you know the intellectual you have to pursue truth and there's other people who just like a nice travis i i'd like to make shalom between those two guys they both deserve to have a place um you know rayolavski's argument is very compelling and and then we sort of look at the guy who just likes chavez and kogel has something wrong with him and is his jewish is his jewishness lacking because he didn't come to it out of some deep um you know what's the justification for these people okay that's a lot to do you're asking a lot of questions also let me get to the chase um actually i'm going to say one thing first i there's no there's no colleges now there's no classes all i'm doing is zooms you know and what i have had a lot of time i've been spending probably the vast majority of my time doing one-on-one conversations marathon conversations with atheists religious people who who think they've become atheists that's you know not that many but there are there are and normally i'm i don't have time for these people because i'm going to a school i'm going to talk to 50 people 100 people or one guy the class i can do in college it's an hour this guy takes 14 hours so i literally every day i'm i'm doing this stuff and it you know i'd love to do the 14 hour thing for you guys but but here's what i'll say what i tell the guy normally um is first of all you're the luckiest guy in the world because you've developed problems with your high school elementary school god and now you feel adrift without anything um that's lucky because now you get to hear who god really is and you're going to fall in love with god and the way you never were able to fall in love with god when you're in elementary school there's a god that we learn as children before our brains actually kick in and then we don't ask these questions you know we ask these questions in a one-hour panel where we get to talk for five minutes about it that's not fair you know we have post-graduate degrees in physics we deserve at least equal time for god or if you don't give equal time then don't assume that you can ask questions about it you're not qualified so so that's the first i thought it's very it's very exciting it's a great question to ask but if you're brave enough to ask the question then be brave enough to sit down and hear real compelling answers not short sound bites as far as short sound bites go because that's what today is about let me make the most important point in the dialogue is that in the ten commandments there is no mitzvah no commandment to believe in god um there's a lot of thou shalls and thou shalt not in the ten commandments the first commandment is i am the lord your god that's not a commandment it's just a statement of fact how come there's no command to believe in god i'm lord your god you understand there's no command that's clear i also make sure this is like for many people it's a paradigm shift i never heard that it's i am the lord of god is not a command it's a statement i'm god why do we say that and the real answer is is that everyone believes in god there is no such thing as a disbelief in god the reason people think they don't believe in god is because they don't know who what the claim is i think that god is something ridiculous and therefore i don't believe in him i'll tell you in one second now who god is and then you'll see why i say that everyone believes in him and why you don't have to prove it and judaism begins after that point i am the lord of god as a prerequisite to judaism the the kabbalists refer to the nine nine the ten commandments as the sun and the nine planets the planets rotate around the sun but this is the sun and the sun is is given and all of our life is rotating around that so i want to show how i'm lord of god as a son how it's obvious is the sun and clears the sun short little way to understand it everyone in the world spends their entire life doing exactly the same thing the painter sits in front of a canvas with a palette of colors on his arm and takes the colors and he's tending to create a symphony of color the musician does the same thing he's he's content the only difference is his palette instead of being colors it's notes and he's attempting to combine all his notes into one harmonized hole the chef is doing the same thing with his life instead of having a palette of colors or a palette of notes he has a palette of ingredients and the perfume maker does it with sense everyone is attempting to combine their individual components into the one whole and and people in relationships are doing this work with with relationships and and and thinkers facts are doing it with facts and phenomena the entire world is attempting to create a harmonized oneness when they're successful they feel joy when they fail they feel sad oneness is the pursuit of mankind because oneness is meaning and pleasure oneness is truth science isn't the opposite of judaism or religion science is the pursuit of a unified field theory science is the pursuit of oneness the entire world is worshiping oneness from the moment we're born until the moment we die all we want is oneness that's the jewish belief in god hashem hashem god is one not that there's one god there's one god means is one god not two our claim is that god is one he is oneness itself so when we ask how can we prove god what do i have to prove i have to prove that oneness exists because that's our claim so my claim is hashtag there is oneness god has won us your question now is how can we prove that there's god can we prove there's oneness and i'm saying that everyone believes everyone's a religious fanatic about oneness we don't do anything in our lives that's not pursuing oneness from the moment we're born the moment we die we're looking for beauty and truth and meaning and justice and music and art and and hugs it's all different intellectual oneness emotional one is painting music art love we're all religious fanatics what what happens is that religion begins afterwards so now what is the best way to have oneness you know if i if i break the oneness with with one relationship i could betray them with somebody else that i've wanted to see i break that so how do you have maximum oneness do i spend time with my family with my wife with my community with my children do i do intellectual oneness and read books or emotional oneness this is the story so bottom line is is we math my claim we're all worshiping god when someone likes the shabbos meal what they're saying is is that this is the best delivery system for the oneness i always believe in he's not not intellectual he knows the truth he just he says wow finally i found something that makes what i know in my mind to be true in my life that's the beauty of shabbos the intellectual and the experiential and emotional one you all want oneness okay amazing okay so that was really the intellectual answer you know we got we got to the challenge we got we got back around to the challenge but uh i'm going to segue this into into the next question um which is which is really it happens to be a good segue and again i did you guys a favor i sort of combined the questions into categories i'm going to ask three questions now that came in which are broad questions i'm going to start with you guys um i'll give you a shout out at first um here we go here we go even if god exists and torah is true told you it was a good segue who cares what does that mean to me second what is the purpose of life and how do you know and three why do i need god and religion in my life there seem to be many other ways to make life fulfilling so segwaying from is god does god exist and is totally true is that how is that supposed to make my life a fulfilling life and why is that the ultimate seemingly there are other ways to be able to make it fulfilling two was number two again number two was um what is the purpose of life and how do you know you need to tell people tell you now you're fulfilling your purpose in life like really okay how do we know okay very good all right so um so we have three questions i'm gonna repeat them just to make sure i get them and then we're gonna segue into one answer hopefully first one is so fine there's a god who cares uh number two purpose and meaning in life and number three hit it number three number three why do i need god and religion in my life there seemed to be many other ways to make life fulfilling okay very good okay so i was sitting in a chat a bunch of years ago and this guy came out of a class and he was extremely extremely upset so i said what are you upset about what's the problem and he said to me the following line and i thought it was brilliant and it may have been robert glazer or jumped off glazer who said the line and sure many people heard i i just this is just what had happened so that i said what's wrong he says to me he says you know uh can you believe i can't believe the guy just said that i said what do you say he said that a a life without um yesterday i don't know if you want to switch the spotlight i don't know if you're not if you think you're on spotlight i'll give them a matter okay you're good you're good i'm watching you don't worry he says that a life without god is a life without meaning this is this is a statement that whoever the rabbi was i believe whatever glazer said and this boy came out all upset so i said what why does that upset you okay now it's obvious why it upsets him but he said essentially what he found i was like you mean to tell me i don't have a life of meaning okay so in other words what you're telling me is you don't have a life with god he said yeah i don't have god okay so i said well let's let's let's just play this out for a minute you understand we have two options either there is a god or a power or a force or a starting point or something an order or there's chaos random so when somebody says a life without god is life without meaning what essentially are they saying what they're saying is that if there is order then the order came from something if you're gonna say now that there's no god then you're essentially saying everything is random what is the meaning in random the answer and now i'm getting i feel like getting a little too felt behind me too intellectual on this idea but but the mice says the answer is is is very straightforward there is no meaning in random that's the definition of random it's not purposeful so it means to say if you're if you're so what are you insulted by you're insulted by it okay you're right it says what you're insulted by is the fact of i wasn't sure everything i'm not translating out all right so he insulted by is to say to me that i don't believe in god yet i have meaning in my life you might have meaning but that meaning is totally subjective to whatever you want it to be at the current moment and as soon as you no longer feel that way it's gone it's not objective and therefore meaning and purpose is meaningless a life without god is a life for that meaning okay so that would be that would be when you start to say i went to number three because i believe that that encompasses we're gonna come back that's like well there's plenty of ways to get to be able to have connection whatever it's just yes there are plenty of ways where i fell down last time spoke about the fact stay away from the rice of course you can get a lot of joy in life there's no question that a person can get joy in life the question is though we're looking for the optimal we're looking for the highest level we're looking for as objective and real as we can get so that would be the question of that now you say well who cares what's the what does it even matter if there is a fine you know what fine so there is a god so what does even matter what kind of question is that you're saying what i mean fine fine there's only one objective view in terms of what a fulfilling life is right and now the now the question to that you're asking is so what well well yeah what i mean i want to just reiterate that concept of what i mean there's only one objective and it says is that like rabbi relapsed he said either there is a god or there isn't a god and if there isn't then you have to make up your own meaning that's that's the bottom line in which case there is no intrinsic meaning and there is no intrinsic purpose now you might be fine with that and that's your prerogative you are welcome to live your life without any intrinsic or objective meaning and create the meaning of the week and by the way many people do right and then some people live their life like that and are they happy the answer is sure until they're not and then they have to find a new thing right in which case that's where we start to see not exactly that now we just quickly segue into the concept of so what does it make a difference even if there is a god the answer is very simple that gives you the objective meaning and the direction so now you say so then what is the purpose so what is the ultimate purpose once again as we've mentioned these are sound bites there are entire classes and every single one of them be in touch with project inspire they will guide you to every one of these longhand probably with each one of us have our own classes on it but but here's the question you say what is the meaning what is the purpose ultimately the ultimate purpose of life the ultimate in one word in hebrew is called de vegas the vegas literally translates as connecting or cleaving being glued connected to the highest of levels which brings about the greatest pleasure that a person can ever imagine when we connect to that like rabbit father was saying to that symphony and when we connected that unity and we connected at one list oneness then we connect to meaning purpose and walk away with more pleasure than we ever could have ever could have imagined and before you cut me off one last thing every person in the world is looking for one thing every single person is looking for one thing and that's money so sorry wrong class the wrong class every person's looking for one thing and that is happiness everybody wants to feel happy and content and ultimate meaning and that's what judaism is to do direct us towards that purposeful meaning and when we get that then we walk with the greatest pleasure excellent excellent right fell time i never got took a page out of your book but but now you're going to take a page out of his book and we're going to keep this one short you know so here's so here's here's a here's like just a little different twist to it is a young person walks up to you a 20 year old you meet them all the time right regardless of religious background he grew up religious he didn't grow up religious regardless and says to you i know it's true i've heard the proofs yeah yeah so what what are you telling that guy okay i i think we just said it listen so what what's the thing that we just proved at least what i said is what we're proving is that god is what we're proving that there's a ultimate oneness so you're asking is still what what does oneness mean what i'll tell you what it means if god just ended saying that everyone in the world wants the same stuff it's the truest thing everyone has everyone has the same struggles you read any book written by any culture and you can get so involved in the wands and the dreams and the pains of any individual no matter where they came from we crave the same things when when we talk about religion what we're talking about is so all those things we want or all types of oneness we want love we want justice we want things to be fear we want wisdom the best metaphor to answer your question is is i used to use always the puzzle that life is a puzzle and put the pieces together we want to see the beauty of the but it's more than that it's a rubik's cube when you have a rubik's cube it's a sixth dimension a three-dimensional puzzle if you do the green side you can ruin the blue side or and then the orange side this this love and friendship there's families and children there's knowledge and and then there's business and there's community every one of those is important and we care about them music and art imagine us and we write books through a book self-help books on how to raise your children how to be a husband how to be a good employee how to understand physics biology chemistry every book on everything each one of those is the thrill and the joy of awareness the vacuos the experience of god is total oneness so what is that that's when i can figure out how to do the green-sided rubik's cube and not ruin the orange can i can i have a family and be part of the community can i be an emotional person and write poetry and also be intellectual can i dance and can i sing can i be a painter and a chef judaism religion at least what judy is a lot of religions about escaping life judaism is the religion that's saying is that we are going to give you a program where you can have what you're craving you are you don't need us to tell you that you're craving oneness here's how you have it so what all you care about is love and oneness and truth but you have no guide to do it you're gonna alienate people you're gonna you're gonna spend time saving the world and forget your kids or you can spend time with your kids and to get the world or you're going to be booked and have no emotional depth or here is the system for you to experience all the joy and not as independent phenomena it's one thing called oneness and that's the so what everyone understands if it really is that there's nothing cooler we're saying it's all joy simultaneously that's the biggest so what there is i i don't have time now to tell you how it is but i invite you we'll make the zoom for you we'll show you how it does that that's the study of torah it's a lifelong study i don't know i don't know if your whole answer was true but the line of we don't have time for it that was true by the way someone was asking that question of well who cares who cares who cares sorry to repeat last week's discussion or last whatever times discussion but the kids that's that's exactly the point usually a person is coming through some sort of they're in pain they've had a bad experience you know so that's it doesn't have to be saying i want you to chime in on this if you don't mind because because it doesn't have to be because some people don't have to ask the question so what in order to feel so what that means i i would agree with you that somebody who comes up with you and says ah judaism so what maybe that person needs a psychiatrist you know and they're dealing with other issues but people don't have to ask the question in order to wonder so what so one thing i i spent all that time i just want to make sure that i get the last sentence is that the so what based on what we're saying is so what means that you're misunderstanding who god is it's impossible to ask so what on joy on meaning and happiness people think that religion is the opposite of life it's giving up on life for a world to come so then you say so what there's nothing here but and they're expecting us to say no world to come but we're not saying that we're saying that you're making a mistake you're still what is based on a lie someone told you the religion has nothing to do with life religion judy at least judaism is only about life okay wait roberto is sitting around a table and suppose they uh it's never happened to you before i know but suppose even a person who was brought up religious says to you yeah yeah you know i go through the motions i know all about it i've heard all the classes gone through 20 years of torah study and whatnot so what meaning like does it really have to make a difference to me so there's two there's two points to the answer i think point number one is and i go back to where i came in for myself and that is if it's true it's true you you understand how absurd the question is there is a god who created us and everything in the world and he tells you this is the ultimate pleasure and the greatest thing in the world and we say i don't think so i'd rather watch tv i'm telling you though i have the greatest thing in the world yet yeah i think so right so that's just foolish but the messily susharim translating to english is the path of the justice king luzado so he explains god put us in this world for one reason to get the greatest possible pleasure god doesn't need anything from us don't worry he's very secure wakes up in the morning looks in the mirror sees nothing he's fine he doesn't need us to do mitzvos needless to pray he's very high self-esteem right he created the world for us to get the greatest possible pleasure the only thing is you have to figure out what that is because the world is filled with pleasures and you can't have them all so you have to look around and he says the greatest one is going to be a spiritual pleasure right a pleasure that gets better and better and better than this infinite pleasure being close to god right okay then he says the following in the first chapter he says maybe i'm wrong maybe you're just created for the for the physical pleasures of this world and then he asked the question so how come we're not having fun i remember back in the 80s there was a bumper sticker are we having fun yet how come so few people having fun he says life is filled with worries and with problems and with illnesses and sicknesses and pains and suffering and at the end you die now i thought i was the only one to you know think this up there was a movie called city slickers with uh billy crystal he's talking to a third grade class he says enjoy this time of your life it's the best part third grade teenager you think you can do anything your 20s are a blur your 30s you get married you have a couple of kids you say what happened to my 20s 40s you start to lose your hair you grow another chin one of your old girlfriends from high school becomes a grandmother the fifties you can't go out anymore because the music's too loud you'll have a minor operation you'll call it a procedure but it's an operation the sixties of a major operation the music's still too loud but you can't hear it anyway the 70s you and the wife retire to florida you start having supper four o'clock in the afternoon lunch 10 o'clock in the morning breakfast the night before wandering around malls looking for the ultimate frozen yogurt the 80s you'll have a stroke you'll be taken care of by a jamaican woman that your wife can't stand and you call mama now that's it that's exactly what the facilities of sean was saying that is life so i'm speaking to a group of first-year collegiates these guys know everything you know that it's like um who is it mark twain he said when i was 17 you know i thought i knew so much more than my father and when i became 21 i was surprised how much he learned in four years right so i'm talking the first year collegiates they know everything so i figured i'm gonna try and hit them with this idea you know this concept i say listen psychologists tell us most people are not happy life is more sadness and worries and difficulties and problems in life so my question to you is why don't you all just kill yourself by the way they took me off of suicide hotline i don't know why but anyway so one girl says it's not true i'm happy all the time all the time okay good anybody else yeah so as one guy says it's true i'm unhappy most of the time but the happy times carry me through i said so let me restate your position your life is a dark and dismal hell and whenever the muck and mire of your life threatens to suck you underneath you look for a happy moment to hold on to to keep your head above the filth of your life is that about it he says well i wouldn't i wouldn't put it that way i said but that's basically what you're saying i said but if you kill yourself you don't have to keep coming with excuses while you're alive so he sat down i said anybody else no one said anything i went on with the rest of my class and no participation so i said to the person in charge of the group i said it was a pretty dead group pardon the expression and they said what are you talking about these are the collegiates they fight with everybody she said i'm gonna find out and she comes back to me and she says i asked a bunch of the people said why why didn't you argue with him and they said because for the first time in my life i had to confront the fact that i didn't have a good answer to the question why don't i kill myself so what do we do so we take drugs so we drink so we watch tv and videos and we lose ourselves we hook ourselves up to the matrix we live a make-believe life and we never have to face reality and uh and and so when you say to people this is it this is the best are we having fun yet so whereas if i could teach you to have a spiritual experience that will lift you out of this world into this unbelievable light and pleasure that's what jews are about so if you missed that you missed everything you know so you're going to your best friend's wedding and instead you stop uh you stop at one of those rest stops have a cup of coffee and they're having a seinfeld uh you know a festival and you're sitting there watching all the old science you miss your best friend's wedding so one could argue you missed the best because you took the first that came along and that's the answer most people don't live the life they want they live the life that happens and they take this and they take this and ah i happen i happen to get married i happen to live here i have and i happen and then people turn around when they're 60 and they say i wish i could live my life over why because i never thought what the best thing is i could get i just took the next thing and i went from thing to thing the thing and i ended up someplace i don't know if this is where i want to be but this is why i ended up that's i don't know if they're going to be sitting next to you for much longer listen i i've spoken to secular businessmen and i said if i can show you how to find this spiritual pleasure that lifts you out of this world and fills you with this unbelievable pleasure they all say that would be the greatest thing in the world i was sitting on a plane next to a uh israeli businessman in his 50s on his way to an ashram to meet his wife they were studying buddhism and meditation and i said why he goes because you reach a point in your life and you're tired of just the physical pleasures you want some spirituality in your life i said did you ever consider judaism he says what does judaism have to do with spirituality it's about doing mitzvos now you shake a lulula now you eat a mod so now you put a coin in the stock up box and that's it you go for mitzvah mitzvah mitzvah no one taught us that a person can pray and lift yourself out of this world that the gemara says it used to take them after fela an entire hour to get back down to earth because they were in such a spiritual elevated plane but nobody teaches us that was that spirituality meditation lifts us out of this world the reason nobody the viewer says what for because nobody even knows what it is they've no one's ever seen it no one's ever been told that that's the goal and that's what i have to tell you when i used to teach in discovery this would happen to me a lot or in fellowships people would say to me rabbi you're the biggest challenge to my secular lifestyle and i said why he says because i can do anything i want and i know you're living this restrictive lifestyle and i can't help but feel you having more fun in life than i am and i said kills you doesn't it they said yeah i said that's right torah is the party amazing amazing okay i want to move on we have no just spend eight hours on the phone with reverend falcon see if that doesn't do it fourteen he said fourteen fourteen i'm sorry i was going on the abridged the introductory course 14 is over two days we need a two days they save a block yeah you gotta eat you gotta eat also you know okay moving on um here's an interesting question it's very uh it's very um appropriate for the time that we're living in as well here here comes two questions um and here they go jews have always been idealistic at the forefront of every good cause today jews particularly religious jews seem to be very tribal only caring about their own kind shouldn't we care about the world as and such hot topics like racial and social issues climate change issues social work welfare etc and number two to that is don't we stand for tikkun olam perfecting the world why the disconnect okay why do we seem not to be rah-rah about all the great causes out there in the world today or rather much more tribal much more than the within the issues that we uh that we that we that are in our little circles robertolovski i found my old history book from sixth grade and there was a chapter on the light of greek civilization and i always thought that that was so ironic because the greeks call themselves the light and the sages refer to them as darkness the hosha kalpaneta sahon and that's yavan greece is considered darkness and this was exactly the argument we had with the greeks because the greek said the way you light up the world is by taking your idea conquering everybody and forcing it on themselves and what we said is the way you win over is by creating the ideal society and letting the light shine out that becomes the purpose real light is when you produce something that lights up everybody else you know the jews have been like i say through most of their history pretty insular and yet somehow we're always in the forefront of history everybody's looking for the jews right there's an old expression in journalism jews on news and and uh you know i ran an iraq war at war for eight years you never heard about it you know one palestinian kid gets arrested in uh you know in the west bank and boom its headlines you know so when you when you build a better mousetrap when you live a better life it challenges the existence of everybody else in the world and they look and they say i don't know what he has but i want to try to get that and so the best way to challenge the world stephen covey in the seven habits of highly effective people talks about your circle of influence because the end of the day the only person i really have any control over is myself but the more i work on myself the more i extend my circle of influence to more people and that's how you start a movement that's how you start to change the world abram vino was one person but because he had an idea and he lived that idea and looked at ideal it spread across the world feldman does it seem like jews once upon a time were more out there and today religious jews like is is our thought process of let's only care about what's in our small circle but not what's out there uh listen part of me is inclined just to let leave rebellowski's note alone that's it's perfect that's exactly the point i actually give you a uh the torah deals with this specifically in the famous story where jacob yaakov wants to bless joseph's two sons ephraim and menasha and yosef lines up his two sons to the frey menachem in front of yaakov who is now blind and the older sons on the right and the youngest on the left and yaakov switches his hands she careless yodov he switches hands and he puts his right hand on the head of the youngest on his left hand on the head of the other son and everyone's busy why did ya yose against joseph himself says why are you doing that this is the other one the commentary was though asked whatever reason he wanted a switch he has legitimate reasons i'm sure but why didn't he just ask the boys to move around right well why is he switching his hands and doing this weird thing he's an old man let them cater to him switch to boys and then do it properly and the answer is i think the answer is that if you want if you want to change somebody you want to affect something the only thing you can do is change yourself don't try and shift the world around to fit your program you switch your hands you work on yourself you make yourself a better person if the world is not hearing what we're saying loud enough then there's some of some flaw in our message there's some if if we were happy and we're smiling and we're glowing and we're living a certain life then we will we will succeed which which brings me to what i would what i have to add what i have to add again not to even say but you're making a different point but it's not a fair question it's like you know uh somebody's putting out textbooks in a factory and uh and then and every college is using his textbooks and then someone's gonna condemn him for not going to school and teaching every message that's valuable out there is our stuff we're the ones we have everyone's cranking out a beautiful message justice and kindness and love and charity and education and family and loyalty who where did this come from it's us so so we're at the factory cranking out the messes we we're creating foot soldiers people who who are growth oriented who are loving who are inspired are are taking our message if the if the researcher in the in college cut doing cancer research were to leave college and and go and and work in a field hospital someone everyone would say what a hero what a kind guy but it would be the biggest travesty this guy could develop a cure for cancer there are different roles we we we are the messengers of of of of these of all that's beautiful to the world and we have been successful and we continue to be successful everyone out there fighting for justice is a nachos they're fighting our cause and our mission that's not to say that we're not actually doing president we're all busy if the world would would think of that a fraction of of the anyone who knows if you you know if you want to have a kid you called bon aiola if you're sick in the hospital you call beaker hola lakewood has a book this thick of good max you know what gamakas is a free loan fund you want to borrow my lawnmower you need another baby crib you need chairs for your party you need you need benchers you need uh uh get you having guests you need extra cots and beds with pillows and blankets i i resent whoever asked the question any and someone got to you and someone you like the abused wife who starts to think it's her fault somebody beat up on the jew who asked this question and made him feel insecure we're we're the idealists and there's one last point which i'll just say in passage that needs to be said is a lot of times the people making the noise it's because they're not ideal it just there's no noise being made made when you're picking someone up off the floor when you're nursing someone back to health there's no noise the noise is the breaking the windows the noise is lighting fires and adding fireworks that's what annoys us don't mix up those people with idealists idealists are silenced people idealistic are driven by love and compassion the sound that they make is to cook on a little kid just helping to stop crying it's a pat on the back for somebody it doesn't make noise most people out there today who are passing for idealists they couldn't care less about helping the poor they want to knock the successful they want to silence all that's beauty beautiful in the world don't make that this week's torah portion don't make that mistake korach was not loving he said everyone's equal but his goal wasn't to pick up the poor his goal is to knock down the successful to wipe the smile off the face that's the only place that we don't exist that's the arena we're not operating in in the shattering of dreams we're here to rehabilitate dreams we pat people on the back that makes that's a silent sound right you're saying for those who think the jews once were idealistic and thinking about the world and they're no longer today needs to look closer at the jewish or religious communities to see what real idealism is and what we're bringing to the world do you believe that yo i i wanna just um point out two things that we were just discussing number one is that is the concept of i love that isa the abused uh wife anyway so so so back to the focus by the way if i yeah i remember i felt like if god was looking for a gamak for skis yeah if you can help me out but but here here's you send me some mountains i'll send you some skis yeah yeah yeah listen i'm living the life here in your life can you tell anyway so so here here's uh point number one is when we say that they that we're not again going back to the original question they were they were not as idealistic as we once were etcetera i i'm not sure what what we're talking about all together i just don't know what what when were we idealistic that were no longer idealistic who was that now isn't i'm not sure what exactly that question is i believe that you still have plenty you got you got a good uh in america that's you know one of the biggest organizations that's pushing very big things in congress and like in getting to the president and and pushing big agendas and going out and helping and doing tremendous things you have secular jews you have religious jews you have different so i'm not sure exactly i mean it sounds almost like the question is there used to be a lot of secular jews that were very idealistic and now religious jews aren't anymore and i'm not i'm not sure exactly what it was specifically specifically speaking is it would seem to it would seem to many that religious jews or maybe even once you become a religious jew you only care about your little circle that you're dealing with and not the greater world aren't we supposed to be worried about tikkun olam okay it's a it's a different question if if i just want to point that out it's a different question entirely and that's brings us to the second part of tikkun olam in other words it's not that we once were something and now we're no longer it's that unless you're saying i was secular and i was marching on washington and now i'm religious and i'm sitting in a study hall all right okay no but don't religious jews believe that we have a responsibility to perfect the world and make and make it better yeah we absolutely believe that we absolutely believe that that's i think rabbi or lobster i felt that we're both saying the concept of inside out not outside in um i just there's two words that that i'm going to say this is not true but bother me to no end but it's not true but tikkun olam it kills me because because when people use that phrase the the ones that are usually using it are not first of all it kills me because i grew up yeshiva nazis so it's the point is it's tikkun olam it doesn't say anywhere tikkun says but they stop in the middle of the sentence there's there's more words to that sentence they take the words and then they use it to whatever gender they want to use it for the sentences which means what we're trying to do is to bring god's name into the world in other words it's about building connection and relationship of course we have to care we don't leave somebody dying in the street and we don't we don't like it turned a blind eye but at the same time let's understand something and this is a huge paradigm shift and for those who know how to read it's a paradigm shift and i want to share with you just a huge one when it comes to idea of judaism spirituality is king spirituality trumps it trumps everything and what that means is is that one who connects on a spiritual level will change the entire physical existence we're going back to our first question about how do we know there's a god we didn't really address how we know there's torah but i really did in one fell swoop by miami and i've seen that by this sinai revelation when the jewish people are revelation the sinai god gave us the torah and we know that the torah teaches us what is the pillar and foundation of all existence as the tsar puts it but even most people say this are forgive me give them to you for a second i have to say this people say this is there is a teaching in in the literature of ethics from sinai that says beautifully that he is sarah god loves us so much that he gave us a gift it's a clichenda and and he told us this about this gift that he gave us called the torah with which he created the world ever goes to the tsar it's actually a vishnu with which he created the world god created the world with the torah one who spends their time studying learning and building on the concept of torah it has a immediate physical reaction in the world an actual physical reaction now you either buy that or you don't or if you're jewish you buy in half price but at the same time understand this physical only exists as much as spiritual does without spirituality you got nothing so my point being what that we should just get into that just go and start studying torah and don't do anything and it says of course not because we know one of the pillars is like rabbi felt i mentioned and we got books and books galore to fill how much kindness is done but understand at the same time don't confuse your particular agenda with tikkun ola you may be doing a nice thing in your eyes but ultimately bring back to what we call reality and as jews we understand that our reality is based off what the good book tells us and that good book which is the new york times bestseller and i'm sure this that's the king james edition but but but the good book known as the bible or the biblicals today written by the lord himself has told us how we're supposed to live our lives we don't turn a blind eye we do what we can and we push a lot and where there are organizations glory that are helping jews and andrews alike but don't disregard the spiritual entity and don't miss the point of tikkun olam you want to go out you want to paint walls in africa that's really nice but make sure you're also teaching torah as you do it because the purpose is to bring reality and be out of this connection with god excellent can i add one thing who's good you know i'm gonna add one thing so 30 seconds 30 seconds by the way we went on an ace trip and we painted walls in africa with 50 ace students in the school okay but god mentioned in in the kingdom of god the word shakai is really what we're saying the word shakka is a very weird name of god it means he who told the world to stop shaking is a world of cons the word that means the constricting trait of god what what does that mean to fix the world with the trait of shakkai constriction is out i'll tell you a 10 second story a guy a guy comes to me goes what do i tell my wife she's complaining i'm spending too much time learning too much time learning torah and too much time in shul davening so i look at the guy i go yeah that really happened like never he goes what do you mean that's what's going on i said no woman ever told her husband that he's praying and learning too much what must be going on is she thinks you're a faker you're trying to get out of the house if she thought you were really learning and growing there's no one who'd be a bigger encouragement no one would be a bigger fan most people the the rule of helping the world is is it's small arena a lot of people are taking care of big problems because they're running away from putting the mittens on their kids to go to school and the boots over their socks and preparing snacks it's a lot easier to save the world and save your small world you want to fix the world it starts with malchus the small kingdom he gave you don't don't say save the world by by by by taking care of what's nearest and dearest and hardest usually great reverend just close to your mark i just want to add on one point and that is what disturbs me so much about the underpinning of this question is the following the most racial attacks in america this past year were anti-semitic who was out there protesting who's out there saying jewish lives matter throughout throughout new york where people were sitting there hitting people in the head knocking them to the ground there were no police but when the mayor gets out and says i'm warning the jewish community i'm going to come down on you i'm soldering close your playgrounds and everyone else can go out and demonstrate and complain because everybody else matters i hate to say it we have to take care of ourselves because nobody else will the fact that we've been the most acts of discrimination the most active attack violent otherwise nobody cares so unfortunately if jews seem a little parochial it's because nobody else cares about us and frankly we're an endangered species and we should get at least as much attention as the spotted owl to make sure that the jewish people survive and thrive blue and white lives matter very nice okay