Great Literature Part 2 (Ep. 294)

Hi, this is David Alowski and welcome back to the Rabbi Alowski show. And whether you're watching with our friends at Torren any time who are also our producers now or wherever you watch or listen to your podcasts, as always, we're happy to have you along. And uh don't forget to like, share, subscribe, and comment. And as always, keep your comments civil and uh try if you can, unless you mamish have some kind of personality disorder, try not to make nasty comments. It's really not that hard. It's not hard. I know people who never make any nasty comments. And if they do, they don't take the time to actually write it down. So, if you're mamish, you know, feel like you have to make these comments. As I mentioned last time, I will uh delete them. And my advice is get professional help because there's clearly something wrong with you. I don't know why why would anybody do this. And uh to all of the major major major major major major major majority of our uh of our listening audience, thank you so much. Your comments mean a lot. And uh I'm going to address some of them. Yeah. Um uh today because uh you know it's the end of Bisman. Next week already it's going to be L. We're going to be into LL mode and things, you know. So, uh, let's do a little housekeeping, take care of some things that need to be done. First and foremost, we have a sponsor this week, Anonymous, uh, um, sponsored to keep the Rabbi Show going. So, thank you so much. And, uh, as always, we need more sponsorships to be able to keep the Rabi Show going. So, please uh if uh if you're if you've been thinking of it, every now and then someone says to me, I've been thinking of doing it and I think this is the time. Well, thank you so much. It's uh it's the support that keeps us going. People have said to me, you know, maybe you should set up a payw wall or have part of the program, you know, behind the payw wall so that you get to the point like some of these podcasts you say, if you want to hear the rest of the show, then you have to subscribe, you know, whatever and stuff like that. And I said that's that's not why I do this. I do this to try to give and to you know to to give to give uh Israel you know a good feeling uh because one of the comments which uh was made last week was uh why is he talking about literature? Why isn't he talking about Torah? Yeah. So uh luckily somebody commented back to him you know Ian in season one the podcast it's a show not a shir this is not a shar I give shirim yeah you can go into any time and look revolv straight for well mostly anyway Torah yeah but uh but the podcast I talk about whatever I want whatever moves me and that I think will give uh you know uh meaning to people that they'll they'll get some inspiration and things like that and uh some enjoyment from it. So if you're looking for just straight Torah then by all means go to Tory time. I have quite a few Torah Shir up there and uh you know by all means that's that's the that's the address for you. This is not that address. Yeah. Okay. Um so uh so I had a few comments. One was a comment I got a number of times actually and that is when I did my podcast on AI, they said, "But you never said what AI said." What did they come up with? So, so here is what AI suggested. I will read it to you. The question was, "What would be a good topic for Ray Dowski to speak about on his next podcast?" Chat GPT said, "Here are several strong topic ideas that would fit Rab David Orlowski's signature style, combining Torah insight, practical life guidance, and humor depending on his goals for the episode. Category one, Torah and personal growth. How to be from and normal. A classic Orofski style blend of humor and insight on balancing religious seriousness with being emotionally healthy and socially normal. The art of chuva all year long making chuva a daily habit and not just a rashana panic project. How to talk to Hashem when you don't know what to say in unreal personal tila not just checking off the sitter for younger listeners or singles why you're not married yet and why that might be okay with the classic Rabiolski spin a muna effort and self self surviving shik season with your sanity intact a practical and spiritual road road map to managing pressure and keeping perspective Parenting and raising kids with amuna, not just rules. Focusing on transmitting values in a way that sticks. What yeshiva didn't teach about building a biased nan is real life relationship and communication skills from a Torah outlook. Light but deep. Does Hashem want me to be happy? Torah sources on sim and whether it's a real aoda. Judging favorably a lost mitzvah. Exploring the mitzvah of Dikov's in today's quick to condemn world. If you're not growing, you're coasting and that's dangerous. Avoiding spiritual stagnation in over stimulated generation. Would you like a more specific theme based on the season? Ll tishabove summer break with the particular audience. So that is what AI suggested for me. So I hope I hope some of those will be meaningful to you and uh it could be that some people will say like yeah yeah what about that you know so uh if any of those topics really uh uh move you uh so uh you know I'm always happy to talk about anything but uh my last podcast actually got a tremendous amount of response most of it positive some of it was some of one comment that was negative. Um, but uh people were were very in uh interested in my literature suggestions and people made other suggestions of works that they thought I should have left out. I should have included things that I should have included that I didn't mention. Um, somebody pointed out that, you know, Dickens is, you know, so so long because he got paid by the word. That's okay. You know that in itself doesn't make it bad. When we deal with when we deal with when we deal with and is you can in every word because they don't just talk just the opposite they were not paid by the word. In fact, the koshen and his parish, there's a lot of abbreviations because he was so poor, he couldn't afford the ink and he wrote as sparingly as he possibly could. And uh and so when we look at their words, we can be ma into it. I'll never forget uh one of my first years when I was teaching Mil Shasharim and I was u making a dick at one point I had made a number of times I guess cuz it inspired the person to say you're learning this like it's a rashi and I said that's exactly what I'm doing and the vil naggyan who was a pretty smart guy he said there was not one extra word in the first 11 in shashar I've heard two different versions. After that, he found an extra word or after that he didn't feel he was enough into it. I don't know. But that's for sure. There's not an extra word. So if you look at the mat and it looks like he's being wordy, he's not. Every word is important. And you have to be I think I've told this story already. It could be I've told this story and uh you'll indulge me. But my son who learned by Rabbi Potach whose grandfather was Zimmerman tells a story that he heard from his rabbi Barak bear who was in when Brrisa gave his first shir in uh in I may have told this story. He says he started off by reading excise excise and he asked a question and he went around the room and he said sitting around the room were all the Russia yeshiva that we still learn today there and everybody gave a ter and then went around the room and slugged up everybody's terret. Yeah. And then he showed him how the in a few words Yeah. was was addressing all of their points that they were making. Well, he had their attention. Then he gave his terrors. Everybody was very impressed and then he shrugged it up and he showed how the had his answer also. And then he brought another answer. He says people it was like it was like a sim. And then he plugged it up and everybody was depressed. And then he brought it in even better ter. And the way he tells over the story is they were dancing on the tables. And then he flugged it up like and he showed how in two words the had been into his answer as well. This went on for three hours and a little so every word mameish has to be treated very carefully. This is not true by literature and I will tell you it's also not true by mus because in mus there is a concept called the where you use your ability to build up the question and to create uh an insight into what it is you're trying to bring across. Um Musa, which is probably my favorite uh cafer on on Musen by Isaac Shir um he writes in a way that is like poetry. He he builds up the story and he builds it up and it's so beautiful. So therefore, Bali Muser, you're not madak in every word. They're not trying to just uh uh give across. They're trying sometimes to help you develop it. I used to see the difference. I I had the to go to Shapir. I went to uh the Thursday night sh which was open to the public and the Tuesday afternoon shir which when I joined was in Perkyos and then it went to Mish with the group. There was a big difference. On Thursday night he spent a lot more time being masier the point that he was making and developing it to make sure that everybody understood it. on Tuesday he spoke with more shorthand because he knew these were people who already had learned by him for years and uh they understood when he said something what it meant and so he didn't have to spend as much time building it up as he did for somebody who was a neophite and hearing it for the first time. One of my prime is why be Jewish. This is a a shir that I uh I usually give as an introductory shir when somebody says to me you know want to give a shir to a new group I usually go to why be Jewish why be Jewish is based on the first two lines of the first peric of right why we're in this world to get pleasure from hashem but the the sh takes a long time why because I first have to eliminate all of the other arguments that people give of why we're we should be a Jew, why we're in this world, why we're alive, and I have to slug up all those other answers can compare myself to but did first before he started to try to get to the and the to eliminate all the other different possibilities. So that takes time and as you build it up, right, I probably told this already also. I'm sorry. You know, I I I start to repeat myself. Um I probably told this already, but you know, yeah, you start to repeat yourself. They did me in the PM play one year where they had me like talking, giving a share. And then I stopped and went like this and everybody laughed. I didn't know what. And they did it a few times. I said to somebody, "What is that?" They go, "Rebby, you do that all the time." And I said, "No, I don't." He goes, "Yeah, you do." So the next time I was in Shir and I was in the middle of being Mazba whatever it is and they said look you just did it. I said oh now I understand because there's a method to my approach. My approach is that I use humor as the in mus to be able to bring a point across. So, I'll do a little routine to build up something and to set it up in order to then go and make the point I want to make. But if you can use this to pull people in, make it a story. So then people become more engaged. As we mentioned last time, that's the reason that wrote a safer called mish because with a mush you can pull people in to see it's delay. It pulls people in sometimes. That's how you do it. I'll give you an example. This bear shabas in my little shaw. I have a little shaw in in my if you ever happen to be in harna shabas and you're looking for a nice deting. It's probably the nicest daring in harna. And I'm I'm biased. I'm not going to pretend I'm not. But I just repeat what I hear. You understand? But uh so we always have a kdish and I speak at the kdish. So I wanted to talk about the PK translate as man does not live by by bread alone. So I could have just started at that point but I made a little story. I said uh there was a fellow by the name of Pernell Roberts. You have to be a little bit of a historian you know in c but in culture to know who he was. There was a very popular TV show called Bonanza. It was a western and uh and it was about the cartrights and he had three sons Adam Hos and Lil Joe and Adam was played by Pernell Roberts and he was the show was on for many years and he decided he wanted to do other things and he left the show. This was never done in uh in Hollywood and uh he was blacklisted for many years but I don't know exactly when they lifted the ban but at some point he got to do a commercial for a wine and he's holding the glass of wine and he says you know whatever wine because man does not live by bread alone you understand you don't live by bread alone you also need meat you also need wine etc but that's from what the is telling us man does not live by bread alone pashem it's not the bread so they say you don't live by bread you also need meat you also need wine it's exact opposite of what of what the puzzle was trying to bring across but I hope that I pulled people into what I wanted to say with a story people hear about an actor and a western and a commercial and you know so you set things up in a certain way that there's a story and as the story evolves people get pulled into it. Uh the med says that's how Korak managed to turn everybody against Mosher. He told a story there was this Alman and you know she was trying to feed her family and this and then Mosha's brother Aon comes and he takes Truma you know and then and Moshe says and the rest of my family he gets m and that you know and then she gets an animal and he's a sheep and he says I get the first of the wool. says you know she and they say okay we get parts of the behemoth you know until the whole family starved to death and the meds even though this was total nonsense because they were living in the midbar and they were eating mun nobody was working the land and nobody nobody was was starving the whole thing was ridiculous but you set up a whole story and it works people get sucked into the story so that's why yes very often literature will spend time on things that are not important to the story per se. All right? So, for example, it'll spend a page describing the scene for you. Even though you don't need that to understand the story, you could just, you know, tell over the the story then he went here and then he went there and then he did this, etc. I don't have to describe what the morning looked like. There's a a novel that I read. It is not on my recommended reading list. Um although it is considered uh fine literature and it's called The Great Gatsby. And uh I read it and I know people have been uh been raving about this book. I I I didn't understand. I don't know what was so great about this. And uh and I asked this to uh this girl I met who was in college going for masters in literature. She well I asked the professor and he said if you don't know then I can't explain it to you. This is this is just abuse. This is why nobody should go to college if you ask me. That's your answer. You're a professor of English literature and you can't explain why this is a good book. just you know that Great Gatsby is a tremendous novel. Why? You know, tell me why. So, I'm uh I'm I'm a big believer in this. Anyway, so I looked it up in a few different places and uh and what was interesting is they said it was written very concisely. And so he rewrote it many times to get it down as brief as he could. And there was one paragraph where he wrote it so it would sound like the waves of the sea. I didn't spot this particular paragraph. I'm afraid it was wasted on me, a Philistine like myself. But the idea behind it was that he Mamish went to make it as concise as possible and to bring across all the ideas without having pages of of description like other novels would. I remember seeing a New Yorker cartoon where Tennyson handed in to the editor the charge of the light brigade and it begins half a league, half a league, half league onwards. Mr. Tennyson, can't you come to a point? Okay, that's poetry. You understand that? But uh uh the fact that that they're lengthy in and of themselves is not a problem because sometimes people just enjoy reading the literature as as poetry, right? That's the idea. So that was one comment. But here's another comment. This was written by an old friend. I don't know if she wants her name mentioned. She didn't say, but in response to your literature podcast, as someone who is overly educated, I would like to suggest the book, Are You My Mother? by PD Eastman. It is the ultimate Mosha of the history and fate of the Jewish people. The little bird leaves the home it belongs to to look for her source, mother. She runs to accept everything she meets, even while not seeing her when she passes by. Finally, it runs into the most frightening snort that brings the bird to finally acknowledge its need for its mother. At that point, that which is most fearful places the baby bird back in its nest. Brilliant story and a much quicker read than Dickens. Almost anything is a quicker read than Dickens. So, um, uh, are you my mother was not on my list and I told her the reason it was not on my list is because I didn't do books that are specifically children's books that are written for children because if I was going to do children's books, then there are a few other classics that I would include. The giving tree is one. Yeah. Uh the giving tree is something that every parent uh should want their children to read where the tree wants to just give to the little boy and the boy just takes and takes and takes and takes and um doesn't give anything back takes its fruit, takes its branches. In the end he says, "I want to travel. I need a boat." So he cuts down, you know, the tree itself until she's nothing but an old stump. And then he comes back and he's an old man and uh she said the tree says I don't have any branches for you to climb on because I'm too old to climb. He said I don't have any fruit. He says I can't really eat fruit of my age. I don't have this and that you know cuz I'm just an old stump. He says well that's all I really need at this point cuz I'm just going to come and sit down. And the tree was happy. So it's nice to know uh to bring across the idea to children that they tend to take advantage of their parents. I just don't like the muscal at the end because after this tree has been abused by this little boy and so it's nothing left but an old stump it's glad that it can at least give the old stump. I don't think it did a very good job of with this child at all but okay. But the idea at least of do you want to be someone who just takes and takes and takes I think is an important idea. Um both Horus books are very important. Yeah. Horus hatches an egg which is of course Dr. Seuss where this bird doesn't want to bother sitting on its uh its egg anymore and convinces Horus to do it. The horse sits there, you know, very uncomfortably sitting on this egg, which is not natural for an elephant, until finally the egg's ready to hatch and the bird comes over and says, "Go away. It's my baby. It'll get out of here." And it comes out, it's a little elephant bird. The idea being that there's reward for your effort. And the person who who just walks away and does nothing, right? Somebody sent me once a take off on the famous uh parable of the w of the ant and the grasshopper. The ant would work dutifully collecting food down into its nest, you know, and the grasshopper would just play. And uh the ant said, "Listen, it's going to be winter. There's not going to be any food around." And he says, "I don't worry about tomorrow. I just worry about today." And sure enough, when the winter came, uh grassh didn't have any food and he died. That's the original story. The modern story is and then the grasshopper went to the government and said that the ant is abusing me and they took away the ant's food and gave it to the grasshopper. That's a more modern take on it, you know, where we penalize people who work hard and save their money and give it to people who don't work hard and don't save their money. And so that's another chosen book. And then this one I use in all the time. Horus hears a who? Horus the elephant has very good hearing and he hears on this dandelion. There's an entire city inside the dandelion but so small that only he can hear it with his gigantic ears. And the other animals decide that he's crazy. And they they're going to disabuse him of this. And they take the dandelion and they're going to throw it into the fire. And uh the little town is called Whoville. And he tells all the little who's they have to make noise so other people can hear them. They're all making noise. They're making noise, but there's this one little who who's not. And they say, "Why aren't you making noise?" He goes, "I'm just a little who. I'm not going to make a difference." And of course, he adds his voice and then they hear him and they he saves Whoville. And I said I use this in shim all the time that you know every one of us is that little who who has that ability that if we aired our voice we can bring Mashiach we can change the mat. It's just everybody thinks I'm not that important. So who cares about my voice and yet I'm the one who could determine uh what's going to happen you know in the end. So, uh um I think uh I think it's a very important uh children's book. Okay, that's a that's a a quick uh a quick overview. But, uh I also got an email saying you didn't mention any non-fiction. Uh so, it's extensive. It's extensive to talk about non-fiction because that includes books on history and books on science and and books on society and books on psychology. There's so many different things that are covered by that. But I will go to a few of my go-tos that I enjoy very much. The first one is a very large book, a very large book. It's um intimidatingly large. Most people are put off just by the size of it. It's called The Power Broker by Robert Carroll. My friend Joe Werflam told me you have to read this book and it's the life of Robert Moses. Most of you have never heard of him. If you live out on Long Island, you might be familiar with the Robert Moses Causeway. Uh otherwise, there's not much. Robert Moses built the whitest stone bridge, the Throgsene Neck Bridge, the Triber Bridge, uh the Verizo Bridge. Um he built all the major parks. He built Jones Beach. He built all the major roads, the the Belt Parkway, the Cross Island Parkway, uh the Clear View Expressway, Little Island Expressway, Grand Central Parkway, Northern State Parkway, Southern State Parkway, uh you know, just an enormous amount of what he accomplished. And the way he did this was by figuring out how to gain power and use that power. And he held power in New York City and state for 40 years. He stood up to FDR at the head of his power and and FDR had to give in. You know, he he told Laguadia what to do when he was mayor. He he he did everything, you know, he had unbelievable power. He at one point had 13 city and state jobs. Uh the power that he wielded was unbelievable. And uh the book was written by someone by the name of Robert Caro, C A R O. And it was so well one of the big problems with history um one of the most boring books I have ever read and uh my determination to my continuing uh secular education that I didn't get in university is that I will read a book if I think it's worthwhile even though it is written so poorly and so painfully that it brings you to tears. uh was called an economic history of the United States. I don't recommend this to anybody. Another extremely boring book is a two-part book called England under the reign of Charles II. Yeah. Um this was the period of the restoration and Charles I was killed and his son was whisked away to the continent and uh this was you know they tried to make a democracy and not a monarchy and eventually there was a restoration they brought back uh his son Charles II and it was all you know uh England during that time extremely boring you know it's by a historian called ag not easy reading and not really engaging Uh but it came in handy because I have a fellow who was in NCSY went on to become a professor of history and uh I met him in England where he was doing research on his doctoral thesis on Charles II and I said I thought that OG wrote the definitive biography and he was like how did you hear of Og and I said I read his you know was too. He goes, "Nobody knows about that book." I said, "Yeah, I read it." You know, so he says, "Well, there are three American universities that have departments specializing just in the history of Charles uh I in fact he said, um, I was recently at a Charles II convention." I said, "What do you mean? Everyone dresses up like Charles II and you know big turkey legs you know he says no everyone presents different papers and suggestions and you know adds to the history of that period. So was amazing. He was working on his doctoral thesis petitions during the reign of Charles II. So okay I don't recommend those books. They're too they're they're they're difficult to get through. But the power broker is a page turner. It's very exciting. And in fact, there's an award that they give out for history as literature and uh it won the award because it was just so well written. It's it's really an exciting story. So he then turned his attention to Lynden Johnson since Lyndon Johnson was also a person who learned how to use power. That's why he was drawn to him. Um he has finished four of what is meant to be a five volume biography of Lynden Johnson. The uh the fifth volume he's still working on. He's well into his 80s. So, uh, you know, we'll see if he gets it out beforehand, you know. Um, uh, on the books that I do not recommend, uh, there's a fantasy series called Game of Thrones, which was fabulously popular. It is extremely inappropriate, which is why I I don't read it or recommend it, but um, uh, it turned into seven novels. So it was supposed to be five, it turned into seven. And um he's only put out five. The last one came out like 25 years ago. And uh he gets interviewed a lot about different questions. And so he says, "What question do you dislike the most?" And he says, "Who's going to finish this series after I die?" Because I'm obviously not in a rush to put out the last two books. I hate that question. But, uh, Robert Carro, we'll see if he gets out the last volume. Um, the first two, I don't find them I didn't find them so engaging. The third and the fourth, which is we called the master of the Senate and um, and uh, passage of power. I highly recommend it. Is so interesting and so well written. Um the Senate is was designed to not accomplish anything. That is he starts with a quote in the in the third book where um where Jefferson asks uh Washington, why do you have this Senate? What is the point of it? He says, why do you pour your tea into your saucer before you drink it? He says to cool it off. He says that's the purpose of the Senate. It's not a parliament where everybody just gets in and votes and does whatever they want. It goes from the House of Representative which is represents population and then it goes into the Senate where things work slower and there's more argumentation and more debate and there was a filibuster and there was things to do to slow down the process. It was specifically created to slow down the process. and he writes how Lyndon Johnson figured out how to beat the system and how to get things done in the Senate. A really fascinating read. And the last one is when he was vice president of Kennedy's and then when Kennedy got assassinated what he had to accomplish in 6 months. And he said nobody no president in American history, this was before the Trump era, accomplished what he did in six months. And and he outlines all the things that were against him, etc. But it reads absolutely fascinating. It's just a fascinating read. Um I read reread this book a few times so that I can give my evaluation of it honestly. Uh and it's called the black swan which I found absolutely fascinating. Uh you can hear people say it's a black swan event. And he maintains that all of the rules of statistics and and uh and um you know calculations and you know and and all these things are thrown out the window by a black swan event. Meaning that something happens that you know you expect a wand to be a swan to be white. Sometimes there's a black swan and uh and it's totally unexpected. So every now and then there's a black swan event that destroys everything that's been going on before that and uh he happens to be Lebanese and he describes the Lebanese civil war as being one of those events. Says the Christians and uh Muslims lived together in Lebanon for a thousand years and then all of a sudden the civil war broke out and the whole country got destroyed and that was a black SW. There was no way to predict that. You know, World War I was a black swan event. Uh and that's why as as long as I'm mentioning history um the books of Barbara Tuckman as a historian that also very readable um the Zimman telegram about how America got into World War I. The Guns of August where she shows how basically in the first month of World War I everything happened and nothing really happened after that point. brilliantly written, but one of her books was The Proud Tower, where she sets up what Europe looked like before World War I and how World War I came and destroyed everything. It it was it was a a changing event that I remember going to shurim and they asked the question how come women today don't have a vess when even in the 1800s the majority of women had what was called the vesus cavoir so one of the tutim that the rav brought down actually I was going to revail in the Boston dying um and I don't remember who he quoted, but uh he said because when a woman is in a siege, then her um her system doesn't work normally and it'll throw off whatever her regular cycle is. And since World War I, we have been in a state of siege. Everything's been destroyed after World War I. all all institutions everything the way things normally work that it's a it's a it's a a laugh line now when someone brings a mush and says there was a king and everybody laughs cuz who knows from a king the last monarchies were destroyed in World War I of Russia the Kaiser of Germany and um and the emperor of AustriaHungary those were the last malus in Europe and they real malus I'm not talking about where somebody goes to an event and uh you know puts a funny outfit on. Uh but who had mamish power and control their country it was gone. There's no malus anymore. Uh so these kind of things make major changes. So um she describes that. She has a book on the American Revolution um uh the last the first salute. Um she has a book about the 1300s 14th century called the distant mirror which is just absolutely fascinating um just and it and she writes very well. It's it's uh it's u well written and easy to read. Yeah. But um so these were this was called a black swan event where everything just yeah co was a black swan event destroyed everything. I had um some guys at my Shabas table this past Shabas and um I was talking to them about their university and they well you know he says well of course when CO hit everything fell apart and their whole lives were destroyed by CO and then educators talk about what kids went through how they how they lost you know during COVID and and how much they they uh missed out and the whole the whole world is playing catchup because of it it's uh it was a terrible thing. It's called a black swan event. Anyway, um the problem is a lot of it gets very technical. So, um the first couple of sections are tremendous. The last section, the addendum that he added on is the only practical part of the whole book, but a lot of it where he gets stuck on statistics and things, he can become repetitive and things like that. So, it's definitely worth it. um for uh uh for that part of it. The Holocaust by Martin Gilbert, for that matter, World War I by Martin Gilbert. He's an English historian. Very, you know, the Holocaust, it's not easy reading the book. And um you you can only read in my opinion some of it at a time because it um um it documents what happened in place after place after place. Uh for World War II, I would also suggest the rise and fall of the Third Reich. Um which gives a history. I don't think it gives so much of a Jewish history. Uh also on that topic um um the war against the Jews which suggests that Hitler's main aim was not to conquer the world but to destroy the Jews and brings you know evidence to support this. Um the real King Arthur I don't even know if it's out there anymore. I had read it years ago and um it turns out that King Arthur was in fact a uh a Roman Britain uh in the sixth century and he presents all his evidence how he uncovers who the real King Arthur was which again I found absolutely fascinating personally. All right, that's a that's a a quick overview. So, uh, so these are all some things I will believe put together, um, perhaps a more extensive reading list and I'll put it up, uh, on the website for those who would like to check it out. And, uh, that's it. You know, if if if you're not doing anything, so then you might as well do something that is constructive. And history is something that is very important to Jews because uh somebody pointed out world history is Jewish history because we're always there where um oh one of my favorites I forgot to mention the 15 decisive battles of world history which Edward Cesy written in uh the 1850s from Marathon to Wateroo also uh just a very um fundamental read. I read a book that was put out many years later like in modern times called the hundred decisive battles of world history and he starts off by saying I agree with Sir Edward Creyi those were the 15 most decisive battles but they didn't include you know they were only in Europe they didn't include Asia they didn't include Africa they didn't include uh uh battles that I think are important just because of advances in warfare they don't go past uh the battle of Waterloo there's been many other important battles since then but but he agrees that these 15 are decisive and it gives you uh um an insight. Oh, one of my favorite books I used to read it a lot. I don't know what happened to it. It was called They also ran if you like American history or at least one insight into American history. So people there are people who know the presidents but this is the biographies of everybody who lost the presidency and most people have never even heard their name. Winfield Scott or Winfield Scott Hancock you know or James Blaine or um Fremont. Some people have heard of Fremont perhaps. Uh but um uh you know you it gives you insight into what was going on in America when you see who lost the election and uh the biography is uh William Jennings Bryant Henry Clay. It's just the biographies are absolutely fascinating. They're vignettes. They're short. It's a it's a short book but a lot of fun. Okay. So definitely something that I think people should uh look into. Okay. Um, uh, and I I I don't know if I told this story the last time, but, uh, somebody told me, and I didn't check out the story because I'm not PER, but somebody told me that, um, when RIF Z tells when he would get tired, he didn't have the head to learn. Uh, so he would relax by doing infinite mathematics. I said, 'What's infinite mathematics? It says, how many points are there between two and three? Infinite. How many points between three and four? Infinite. Um, so how many points are there between two and four? Two times infinity. Makes absolutely no sense, but you get the idea. Yeah, it's uh it's something that you can uh play around with. I used to tell people our sense of infinity is so finite that we can multiply infinities. You understand? But uh but it is interesting. So uh so like I say, if you're not doing anything anyway, this is as uh as good a use of your time as whatever you're probably going to be doing on your phone. Okay. And this brings us to question answers. We haven't done them in the past couple of weeks because I just talk so much these days. I don't know what it is. by Zharowitz. Rashi says the effects of a sin go on for four generations on Chile. If so, why are we punished for the ofishon or the moragim and the ael? Very good question. So, it's very important to understand the difference between a punishment and a consequence. Meaning if I do something foolish and I lose my arm, the fact that I don't have an arm is not a punishment. It's a consequence of a poor decision. Alava did something of cosmic magnitude that destroyed the world and brought a brought death to the world etc. that has to be fixed. When you break something, you have to fix it. We talked about this before and it is appropriate with L coming. Chuva does not mean repentance. Penance is where you suffer for your crimes. You go to jail to do penance, hard time. Um, chuva means lash to come back together, you know, or as I say, if somebody locks himself in the room and won't come out and then complains to God, why did he make him so lonely? You can't pin that on God. That was your personal decision. And that personal decision has consequences. Sometimes um you see people make mistakes in relationships and sometimes those relationships can be fixed and sometimes they can't. Yeah. And um uh it's nice to believe that everything can be forgiven and forgotten. uh but sometimes things have real consequences and you have to live with the result of those consequences. So when Adam destroyed the world, we now live in a destroyed world. So it's not a question of why we being punished. We're not being punished. We destroy the world. You polluted the river. There's no place to drink. So don't blame that on God. Don't say, "Why' you do this? You did it. You did it yourself and it's for you now to clean out the river. You have to undo the of the Marisha. But we don't um by the of the Moragim having come coming now out of the three weeks. So the of the Moragim as we all know as the Gumar says they spoke. Did we solve that problem? Um they uh the puzz says that they they said because God hates us that's why he's doing this to us which of course is the foundation of have we gotten over that say that any generation in which the bas mikdash is not rebuilt it had if it had existed in that generation it would have been destroyed so it's not that you're being punished for the sins of the moragland You're being punished for your own sins because whatever the problem was that the Moragum created, you didn't solve. You didn't make it better. Now, that's when it comes to those two events. The third one you brought in is the Aigel. And by the ael this was actually um a gift that gave us because he said if you suffer the consequences of this decision it'll destroy you. So I'll make a payment plan and I'll pay it out little bit by little bit over the generations so that you won't get hit with it all at once. And that's why the eagle continues to this day. Okay. By anonymous, everyone is horrified by Kamas's actions that they murdered whole families, women, babies, children, etc. But don't we have a mitzvah in the Torah to do the same to our Malik and the seven nations of Kanan? No, we don't have the mitzvah to keep hacking at someone's head with a shovel to decapitate them. We do not have a mitzvah to take a baby and put them in the oven. Yeah, we don't have the mitzvah to rape people and and uh do all these terrible things. We do have a mitzvah to wipe out a malik. And I'm making a distinction here between a malik and the seven nations said to us in the Torah, if you are bad and and you will become bad, I'll give you 852 years and then I will destroy you but like wipe you out because you cannot stay in and be evil. And so Rashi says did for us and put us into gull after 850 years cuz two more years we would have been beyond the point of of uh of return. But he got kicked out. Why? Cuz Hashem says you cannot stay in and be evil. If you do, you're going to get destroyed. That's just it. This is my palace and that's the rules. And so when we came to the seven nations, we said, "Listen, you guys have been very evil, but like super evil, human sacrifice and all kinds of terrible things." And uh and they worked they worked to cancel out uh the kaduca of um the says when we came into any place that had a wall around it from the time of Yeshua has a special level of kaduca. says the spasm because the kanadanim would dapka identify where there was kadusha and build a wall around it to fill it with as much tuma and immorality as they could to cancel out the kadoo. So he said, "Listen, Hashem said, you guys can't stay in this land and be that evil. You want to go someplace else, go someplace else, but you can't stay here." So the Girashi said, "Sounds good to me. Between me and you, I like this place, but I'm not interested in fighting people, you know, who who knocked off Sikh and Og. I'm not interested in fighting people who can split the sea and drop it on top of you. I we're out." And it says the Giggashi went to Africa and they had a beautiful land and they lived happily ever after. They got out and the other one said, "Yeah, we'll fight you to the death." But that was their choice. The difference is a malik. And this is the Hitler conundrum that people ask. If you could go into the past and see this little boy in Vienna, Adolf uh Shikle Gruber, that was actually his name, and you could kill him knowing what he would do. Would you do it? So, the problem with this is we don't know. We live within time. And so, I don't know how this person's going to develop. I don't know what's going to end up happening to them. And so I can't prosecute people based on uh um what they might do. But if I know for sure and I could go back in the past and stop him, wouldn't I do it? A mullik's hatred is so deep and powerful that it became part of their genetic makeup to the point where they marched hundreds of miles. A Malik was in the south of Israel. They marched hundreds of miles out into the desert just to be able to attack us, knowing they would get destroyed just because they saw the entire world was overwhelmed from watching Cus Yamsuf and they wanted to destroy that inspiration. That was it. And they knew they would get destroyed in the process and they didn't care because that's how much they hate God and hate the Jewish people. So says it's going to be you or them. I'm telling you right now. There's no there's no, you know, you knocking the sword out of his hand and then like, you know, letting him letting him live. He's going to turn around and come back and kill you. And sure enough, Sha, who kept Aag alive, from him came Hmon, who tried to kill the entire Jewish people. It's in their genetic makeup. So even when we do it, we have to be very careful. We're not doing this out of cruelty or we're doing this because said that guy is going to kill you and if I don't take him down, he's going to take me down. That's just the mitsas. He's going to kill you and your family and everybody and you have to stop them. And uh we would rather not. We would rather not. We would rather try to win people over. And most of the time we can. But when it comes to a Malik, a Malik is suicidal in their desire to destroy the Jewish people. And so we have no choice. But not we won't call up our parents on the cell phone and say, "We killed we killed them. We killed them. I killed them with my own hands." when there was that lynching in the in uh um I don't know if it was in Ramal or where it was and they they took these three soldiers and they killed and they butchered them and the and the and the Arabs held their hands up to the crowd with the blood of the Jews on it and they were all cheering. No, we don't do that. We do what we have to do, but not because we want to. It's because you got to take out that person because the person's going to kill you. And so uh you know the there are things that look similar but it takes you know intelligence and insight to be able to differentiate between the two and uh the approach. Okay. Well that's it for this episode. If you want to find out more about the show you can go to my website realaski.com. You can uh ask a question. You can leave a comment. You can sponsor an episode. Sponsor question answers. sponsor par five. And that's it for this week. Until next time, I am David Olowski and this has been the Rabbi Olowski Show. >> It's the Rabbi Orski Show. Torah and Sima, ready to go. The Rabbi Olowski show. Knowledge and wisdom will help you grow. Lots of fun in every episode. And we don't have to ride. It's the Rabbi Orlovski show on rabbi orlavski.com to anytime you and more. It's the Rabbi Orvski show and ready to go. It's the Rabbi orski show. 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