What’s the matter with kids today? (Ep. 302)

Hi, this is David Alowski and welcome to the Rev Alowski show. And whether you're watching with our friends and our producers over at Tory Time or wherever you watch or listen to your podcast, as always, it's wonderful to have you along for the experience. Yeah. Uh let's start with our sponsorship. Eloa and Yehuda. I'd like to thank Orielki and the team because it is a team. I don't do this myself. Otherwise, you would see me holding [music] my like one of those little phones up and like you talking to it. Yeah. For the effort they put into the show. Both myself and my father really enjoy listening to the show while we work. [laughter] Hashem, myself and my brother would like to sponsor this episode in honor of our dear parents Mayor Yol Benila Masha and Ba Basila. Wow. Very nice. Well, you can't do much better than that than sponsoring an episode as a hakaro to your parents. And what a beautiful, beautiful thing that is. And uh as I was reading over the uh dedication, I have to say that it inspired me for what I'm going to speak about now. And let me give an introduction to what it is I want to talk about by saying the following. laav deal. I don't mean to compare myself but I was in a shir by Rasha Shapiro and I felt like he had said this shir over it was a shir in Israel actually and I felt like he had said the shir over the year before and Yoseph Brown so who uh went for many years and was a very close tomative of Misha I was a dilotant by comparison. I said to him, he said this shir last year and he said, "No, last time he said it from this bina and this time he's saying it from this bina." It was a different perspective that was lost on somebody like me who lacks a certain subtlety, but uh but he explained it that way. And then he looked at me and he said, "A painter has only so many colors to work with, but he can paint endless pictures." And I loved that Marshall. I loved it then and I love it now because it's such a beautiful idea. Um there's uh many different variations on themes that you can give and even though you might be talking only about one particular topic but there's many different ways of dealing with it. I'll tell you another Rabbi Brown moment that I had. I'm not that versed in cabalistic concepts but I at least know the spherus, right? And I know that the spheres correspond to people. Abraham is and uh is Gavra and Yakov is Teres and Moshe is Nets and Aon is Hod and Yoseph is Y and David is Malus. Right. Okay. So I was in the sh Mish with the gr that Raisha was giving and he gave a whole she explaining how Aram was to Ferris. The next week he explained how Aon was to Ferris. The third week he explained how Yoseph was to ferris. Now I'm really confused at this point because I know that Yakov is to ferris. So I went over to Rabbi Brown and I said to him, "How could everybody be Teresa except for Yakov who actually is Terris?" And he says to me, "David, you know in there's you know that there's etc. all the different combinations. He was explaining the aspect of teris in the mid of anderis in the mida of well I completely missed that obviously but uh but the point was that there's only so many combinations and things you can deal with but there's endless understandings and possibilities that you can get out of them. Yeah. and you can keep getting different ideas. I I mention this because um when I speak I'm always keenly aware of the fact that there is a cadre of people out there the exact number I don't know but I've met at least two dozen of them who have committed to memory everything that I have ever said. I haven't committed to memory everything I've ever said. I don't even know what I'm talking about most of the time. So, I'm always nervous when I'm going to speak about a topic because I'm pretty sure I must have talked about it beforehand, but uh um I use this as a uh as an introduction. I assume it'll be a variation on a theme um uh to talk about in a in a slightly different direction. And so, uh hopefully if you have heard some of these ideas before, you'll indulge me. But especially when I see people who are sponsoring an episode in honor of their parents and and this is what brought me to this uh this topic. We're in Yamosa Mashiach. This is not me saying it. Much bigger people than me have said it. When Kanyevi was still alive, uh I know somebody who brought his Telmid to him and they asked him, "Is Mashiach coming?" and he looked at them and said, "No, he's outside knocking on the door." You understand? That's how close he is. And all you have to do is look at the disintegration of society because the last Mishna and Sita discusses what the world is going to be like when Msiah comes. And one of the aspects of that is the fact that there's going to be a general breakdown of society. And so people will not respect uh the young will not respect the old. Children will treat their parents with disrespect. And suddenly children will consider themselves as if they are the authorities. So people who are alive today who are under 30 they may not even understand what this means. Okay. Uh I grew up uh in the 60s and 70s. There was still a a sura of society. Yeah. I never called my parents friends by their first name. It was Mr. This or Mrs. This or Miss that or Dr. This or Rabbi that. But you I would never call one of my father's friends, you know, uh, you know, Steve. Hey, Steve. You know, my father's friend, you know, he's an adult. I remember when I was in Shaw, there was a Balab bus there and a guy who he was hurting Yeshua Gdola. He wasn't a kid. And he mentioned to this fellow, he says, "Well, you know," his name wasn't Steve, but I'll take Steve. You know, you know Steve. He goes, "Steve, who do you think you are? You don't talk to me that way. You're a kid." And the guy was taken aback. And I was like, "Woo!" Because to me, I knew that already. You don't you don't talk to somebody uh if you're a kid that way. You treat your elders with respect. You speak to them respectfully. That was a given. Everyone knew that. There was a way you spoke to a teacher. There was a limit to how much would be tolerated. Even in public schools, it was the way you spoke to an adult and the way you understood you were a kid. So perhaps the dictim children should be seen and not heard is a little severe. But certainly the idea that um you're a kid, a kid. And I'm always amazed over the years when I would see kids who uh didn't appreciate this. So this story is maybe 30 years old and I was sitting at my shabas table. I had a number of yeshiva boys over for the suda and I don't remember oh somebody asked my advice on particular idea about yeshiva and this and that. I was giving my advice and this kid said, "No, that's that's wrong." And he starts spouting, you know, and I start engaging with him and he's very dismissive of what I'm saying. And finally, I said, "How old are you?" And he was I said, "No, no. How old are you?" 17 years old. I said, "It could be that if by nothing else, just the fact that I'm more than twice your age, I may have picked up a few things along the way. It's a possibility." Why would you be dismissive of somebody who has been around longer than you? There is something to be said for that. Right. What's it means you have life experience. Even universities recognize that you can get credits based on life experience that you um have experienced things in life that should help you gain a greater understanding. Steve Jobs was a college dropout. So at some point he went back to get his master's in computer engineering. Steve Jobs, he got he graduated with a C. This is the man who invented Apple computers, [laughter] you know, but uh maybe maybe if nothing else, just over the years, you know, he may have picked up a few tricks along the way building a billion-doll corporation that develops computers. So, I've seen this throughout the years, and I I've always been amazed in it. And I I really sat down and thought about it when I saw saw this. I I decided I wanted to speak about this. And to me, the face of this is uh a girl by the name of Greta Thunderberg. Uh she's Swedish and when she was a teenager, she decided to get up and speak in public forums to establish uh green policy. And you know, she had this famous phrase, "How dare you?" You know, [snorts] destroy our world and what do we do? You know, okay, she's autistic. Um, but she's a kid and why in the world do you think you know anything? I started in NCSY in um, Los Angeles. I had a chapter in Los Angeles and uh me and my friend Shilim first over Shalom. We got together to make our own Shabatone. Now outside of the province just between our two chapters, we happened to have the two biggest chapters in the region. We wanted to get together. We went away to a camp. It was it was very special. I had everything all worked out and technically it was a disaster, but that's not important now. But uh it was the first time I was running a educational program at a Shabaton and I basically I started off with sort of a trigger thing and they went into four uh what they call in NCSY I don't know what they call it now back then they used to call it educational sessions right which were little discussion groups with people and they were read by led by four completely different people. One person did a classic um educational session. When I used to teach in Oliga, I would teach them how to prepare and give over an educational session. You raise points, you have a discussion, you bring in back and forth, you know. So, one person gave the standard one. Another guy um was unnecessarily aggressive. He was yelling and fighting with everybody and uh everyone was screaming at him. He was screaming back. Another person because remember this was California was doing more like an EST session where everyone was sharing their feelings on the topic and how they felt and how this makes you feel and things you know and one person just gave a lecture. There was no discussion whatsoever. So I asked each one of them, the guy who gave the standard session, I said to him, "Why'd you do it that way?" And he says, "Well, that's how you're supposed to give an educational session." I had nothing to say. The guy who did the touchy feeling thing, I said, "Why'd you do it that way?" And he said, "Because the purpose of the educational program is to get the people to express how they feel. That's what's important. The most important thing is that they feel they've been heard and validated. And okay, the guy who was fighting with everybody, uh, I said, "Why'd you do it that way?" He says, "Because people love controversy." He says, "And you watch. These kids are going to follow me around yelling at me the whole Shabas." And they did. The rest of Shabbat told him when they saw him, they'd go over and they'd start screaming at him and he'd scream back at them. Very engaging. the person who just gave a straight lecture. I said to him, "Why did you do that?" And he said, "What do I need to hear the what they think? They're wrong. They don't know. I do know." The purpose of a class is to teach, not to set people up to give wrong answers. So the more time I spend teaching them the correct point of view is time I don't waste listening to them tell me the wrong point of view. This was 1978 you know and I thought wow what an interesting approach because in this 1960s there were campus uprisings and the students made sitins in the offices and all kinds of things. They went on strike. They demanded changes in the university program. We don't want to learn this. We don't want to learn that. We don't want this. We don't want that. And the universities gave in. I of course would have said, "You have 10 minutes to clear out this room or you're all expelled. You are students in a university with trained professors. You are here to learn. You are not here to dictate what you're going to learn. But that was it. That was the beginning of the disintegration of the university. And the students decided what we will learn and what we won't learn and how we're going to do it. So the evolution of this was eventually we have characters like Greta Thunderberg who are dumb kids standing up and getting attention and because these people are dying for attention and this is of course what Tik Tok does. Anybody could get on Tik Tok, say any stupid thing they want, and get an enormous amount of people to listen to them. They might be the biggest idiots in the world. Sometimes they definitely are. And it's absolutely amazing. And then they're going to set the agenda for society. What kind of craziness is that? Where do they come off to being able to say what? You have to know something. I don't know who said it once. Somebody attributed to me, but I'm pretty sure I never said it. I I could be wrong, but but I've heard more than one person attributed to me. I don't ever remember saying it. They said, "You're just brainwashing us." And uh presumably what I said is, "I'm looking for your brain. If I find it, I'll try to wash it." But right now, I can't even locate it. Yeah. So, I don't ever remember saying something like that. Doesn't sound like me at all. Sounds much too harsh. I would have said something much more clever like, "Be quiet, you dummy." But, um, people have an opinion. And that's why when you watch what's going on around the world today, it's kids who are out of control. Now let's let's go back. Yeah. There was a time when there was a family. There was a father and there was a mother and there were children. And everyone knew what the father did. Everyone knew what the mother did. Everyone knew what the children did. And to paraphrase Tevia, everyone knew who they were and what the God expected from them. Everyone knew what their role was. And a kid does not dictate to his parents. I used to say this when I was a kid. You know, when you were growing up, when I was growing up, you never told your parents no. There was no such a thing. Not twice [laughter] cuz the second time you would have any teeth, you know. And uh there was there was an attitude of you understand who the parents are, the kids are today. the social contract has broken down and parents tell kids something and kids are like, "No, I'm not going to. You can't make me. You can throw me out. I got places to go." And parents are just like stunned if at least in my age group they were like, "Didn't you get the memo?" Like, you know, I'm the parent, you're the kid. We tell you what to do. You know, so now everything's negotiations and we have to discuss it and then we'll come around and because there's a breakdown. Now that to be fair, that's the mission in Saita that the family is going to collapse. The assumption that has existed for most of human history that there's a parent and there's a child and the parent tells the child what to do. And that's why so many of the are not helpful in our generation because they all work with the assumption there are parents and there are children and parents tell children what to do and the children listen. So the only question is what you should tell them, how you should tell them but the basic assumption that there's a parent and there's a child goes without saying. Today we're flying without a flight plan because that basic assumption is broken. And so I blame my parents because that's what children are supposed to do. What do I mean? My father grew up with hunger in the depression. He didn't go to World War II because he had uh he was deaf in one ear. So they didn't take him. But uh he grew up poor to the point where there was no money. He dropped out of out of school in ninth grade to go and work to help support his family. He built a business. He he he built a family. He had six boys. He uh he he supported them. He took care of them, you know, and and it was a given that's what you were supposed to do. But because he grew up with such hardship, he wanted his children to have a better life than he did. Now, don't get me wrong, I grew up with chores. All my brothers did. My brothers uh for the most part went into the my father's business and worked in the flower shop. He brought me in a few times and then asked me, "Do me a favor. stay home and help your mother because, you know, you're just you're just uh too incompetent to do this. [laughter] So, I learned how to cook and how to clean and how to shop and you know, uh I was able to pull a shopping cart behind me and on my bicycle. I go shopping and pull the entire shopping cart back behind me with one hand. This katnoadoris my brother Gdalia when he was growing up and he would do the shopping he could steer with his feet and pull two shopping carts behind him. I wasn't adak. I didn't have uh have that much uh skill, you know, but uh but I'm one of six boys. There were no girls, so there was no gender appropriate job. So, you know, I morphed into a girl and I did all the housework and things like that, those kind of things. But everybody pitched in. There's no such a thing. Today, you can see children. When I say children, I'm not talking about three-year-olds. I'm talking about teenagers sitting on the couch while the cleaning lady is vacuuming and asks if they could pick up their feet so they could vacuum underneath and they roll their eyes like, "Oh my gosh, I don't get a break around here." But the fact that there are chores or obligations or you're part of a family and everybody has to pitch in, many places that's not there. Why? Because my parents grew brought us up with a sense of entitlement. They didn't have to. So we brought up our kids with even less of a sense of entitlement. And so a simple phenomena which anybody will tell you about. It's very hard to find babysitters today because nobody wants to babysit. What for? I'll just ask my parents for money. There was a time when parents would say to kids, "Listen, you want to do this, you want to do that, you know, make your own money." My brothers would go out in the winter and shovel snow. you know, they would uh go out in the in the spring and summer and cut grass for people, save up their money if they wanted to do something. You know, girls would babysit, find some other way that they people would have a paper route. But today, why should I do anything? I'm totally entitled. So, I have time to do nothing but sit on my phone, make Tik Tok videos, and see how much attention I can get for myself. So, there's this phenomena in Europe, and it hasn't hit America yet to the best of my knowledge, where these teenagers, maybe they're 20some, but not more than that, will go into a um a museum and throw paint on masterpieces. These people can't make a masterpiece. They can't do anything for the most part except wreck havoc and then they say stop oil or they'll glue themselves to the ground, you know, to stop traffic or whatever it is. Why? Because we want you to stop the environment. Well, I don't like what you're doing with the environment. Or they'll start attacking people because we're pro Palestinian. I saw a clip. It's it's it's old, but I saw a clip where Jerry Seinfeld, who's not shy about his support for Israel, was doing a show and some of these protesters showed up and his security took him out. But he says, "Ah, the protesters are back. [laughter] Guys, you're you don't get it. You're in the wrong place. Up here. You want to be up here. This is where it's happening. This is where we could do stuff. No one's listening to you. You're just making noise. You're not being very effective. You don't get it. You want to be on the stage. You don't want to be out there." He goes, "And I don't know who your sponsors are, but you realize you just gave a lot of money to a Jew. How is that supposed to help your cause? [laughter] But who are these people? They're teenagers. They're college students. And they feel entitled to do whatever they want. And if it means interrupting somebody who's speaking, we can do it. And if it means shooting the guy who's speaking if I don't like it, we can do it. And if we talk about knocking over somebody's table who's giving out stuff or chasing Jewish students into the library, we can do it cuz no one's ever told them no. And somehow they have this impression that they have the power to do whatever they want and they don't have to listen to anybody smarter than them. Now, okay, that's always been a situation, right? Mark Twain, he said, "When I was 17, I thought my father knew nothing. And when I was 21, I was surprised how much the old man learned in four years." I once heard Ray Olawick. He says the reason people's hair turns white is so you know who to speak to to get advice because uh you know there's wisdom with experience. There are things that get that you can get with time and the sense of entitlement that I know when I'm just a dumb kid and I'm in a position to make decisions [sighs] and we live in a society that empowers these these incompetent people to make decisions. For example, an elementary school boy says, "I think I'm a girl." And they say, "Oh, that's great. Okay, we're going to start doing surgeries on you. We're going to start giving you medications. We're going to start doing all kinds of stuff to you because you decided you're a girl, but you're a kid." As somebody pointed out, if a kid in school goes to the nurse and asks for an aspirin, they have to get permission. But you're going to start giving all these drugs to kids because some kid said uh um you know uh I I I think I'm a girl. I heard this one comedian. He said, "When I was a kid, I told my parents I'm a pirate. I'm so happy they didn't cut off my hand, give me a hook, cut off my foot, give me a peg leg, and blind me and give me an eye patch because I really thought I was a pirate. Come on. You know, the Gmorrah says back in Gmorrah times that a man is required to support his son until he's old enough to make it on his own. How old is that? Five. If he's a little slow, six. Right? But by that point, you sit him down. You say, "Son, you're ready to go out in the world and make your, you know, fortune. Find your own way. Good luck. I hope to see you on the holidays. When I tell this over to audiences today or to in a shir people are horrified and they say, "Well, it's different today, right?" I said, "Yeah, it's about before you expect someone to, you know, stand on their own." I don't know in America but here in Israel very often the way it works is a couple gets married. The first shabas they go to his parents. Next parent shabas they go to her parents. Next shabas they go to his parents. Next they go to her parents. And they do this until one of their children get married and expect to come to them for chabas. Now they have to stay home and make chabas because now their kids are going to come to them. but uh five or six. So we expect our parents to take care of us and yet at the same time we think we're a bara. We think we're intelligent enough to be able to make decisions not just for ourselves but for society. There were all these interviews that took place during the Palestinian protest. all kids and they would go into and they were all chanting from the river to the sea and they said to them which river which sea nobody knew river to the sea. I I think the part that for me I could not wrap my head around was they had these videos of where they put up pictures of the hostages and these college students are ripping them down. I I saw videos of this and every now and then they'd be engaging them and say why would you rip down the posters? These are people are being held captive. Why are you ripping them down? They didn't have an answer. It's just that's what you do. You rip down the postage of old men and babies who are being held hostage and you have to rip down their pictures. How does this make any sense? The answer is because before Mashiach comes the children think that they are in charge and therefore people don't have to respect their parents. [snorts] Kimmeir everything's coming to me. My father had a florist nursery and one time one of my brothers was emptying a truck with 50 lb bags of soil, rather labor intensive. And he's emptying out the truck and my father comes by and he says, "You need a hand?" My brother says, "Yeah." He goes, "Look at the end of your arm." And he walked away. My father could say that because nobody was there for him. His father didn't take care of him. His father didn't give him anything. He everything he did, he did completely on his own. And that's how he looked at life. You got to make your own way. And uh and today people expect that I have to get everything. I've told this story. I'm pretty sure in the past but I was teaching mild yasharm to shaet in the yeshiva here and there it's the second year already of base medish and I I say like you know I said in first year I translate the beginning um loosely and frankly not honestly I usually say, "Why are you alive?" But that's not literally what it means. What it means is what do I owe God in this world because he uh created me? And the guy says, "I don't owe him anything. He chose to create me. and now he has to take care of me, but I don't owe him anything. So I said, "Well, according to that logic, you don't owe your parents anything." He goes, "No, my parents chose to have me. Now they're obligated to take care of me." I said, "Wow. So if I was your parents, I would say I obviously made a terrible mistake and I'll fix it right now." Says, "No, once they chose to have me, you know, then they have no choice but to take care of me." I said, "Wow, I wish I knew that your parents would produce this kind of a miserable ingrate cuz then I could have gone back in time and told them don't have these children. What for? They're they're total cuff to which by the way as Rashi says is what Elder Marishan the first a vera was is that he was cuffy to and uh they have no appreciation there's nothing it's nothing you your parents were stupid for having you and you're an inspiration I mean you she should be the poster child for birth control you know what I mean like a person who meets you would walk away and say geez I would never have children. Look at this miserable ingraate who turns around after his parents gave birth to him and raised him and spent all this money on him. He turns around and spits in their face and says, "I don't owe you anything." And you don't even realize what a terrible person you are. That's the amazing thing. And and when we do that to the same exact thing created us and gave us a world and takes care of us and and we don't feel like we owe him anything. I'm pretty sure I mentioned this once upon a time. Um Ray Bulman was talking about the phenomena of kids going off the der and for no good reason for no good reason honestly you can go and look at it and everyone can give a hundred different answers but there's no good reason why they decide to rebel against their parents and Ray Bulman said if you see something happening all over the world at the same time you know that it's a gazer minim Now said this also but he gave a hezb why because the bra says why is the kap of that discusses of shalom next to the kap of that talks about go when all the nations of the world will turn against god. So the Gmorrah says because in case you think that all the nations of the world would never turn against their father in heaven, I'll show you a child who turned against his own father. Not just turned against his father, but his whole claim to the throne is my father was king. And he sets out with an army to kill him. That's what you learned from abalam and says of Misha the simmon that were in the of gamog as you see of shalom and kids who rebel against their parents for no good reason. And so you find a lot of people, I won't say a plurality or a majority, but you meet a lot of people, much more than it should be, who either say, "I'm not going to get married. And if I do get married, not going to have any kids." What for? Because they'll turn 18 and then say, "I don't owe you anything. You've never done anything for me. just give me. You owe me because you chose to have me. Well, that was a mistake and it's sad. It's a sad reality. But I meet people unfortunately divorce rate has gone up in the firm community and I meet people who are like, you know, I'll get married and then uh you know and I married the wrong person and she'll take all my money. So I don't need that. Uh you hear it in the secular world a lot but to to hear this from from people because everything's breaking down. There's a general breakdown of society. Now the medish says that the dha mabble could have either been destroyed by the mabble or they could have been mab the tyra. Why? Because when you destroy the sura and you're left with just raw material, you can make something else. I watched a potter once. Yeah. He was explaining to us pottery and he takes the potter's clay on the potter's wheel and he goes and he goes and he makes this very lovely bowl, you know, and he says, "This is what potters do." And then he mushed it all back together and said, "Now I'll make a picture." Yeah. And he says until you fire it in the kil and you make it solid, it's just and you can give it any ta that you want. Any image that you want, any form that you want to make out of it, you can make out of it. And so in order to take on a new form, you have to reduce things to to raw material. We went down to Egypt and we were slaves and we had nothing. Everything was broken down. We worked from early in the morning to late at night. We saw our children being slaughtered for their blood for parro to bathe in. We saw babies being used as bricks in the wall. We saw all the terrible things that were taking place. And we were broken. We were reduced to that's the pik mitzim is a kora barazel. What's a cord barel? It's where you melt the metal so it can take on a new shape and then you pour it into whatever form you want. Once it's taken on that shape, you'd have to put it back in the kil and melt it down again. And that's why the marble wasn't ash, right? Stone was destroyed with fire. It was it melted everything. Everything turned into mush. Everything disintegrated. The world was only and no surah. It had no form and then it had to be recreated with a new form. So we came out of Mitz and we were only that's why we came to Hari in seven weeks and we were able to become the Hashem because we were just mud and now we could take on a new form and become the people of Hashem. I've mentioned this beforehand. Yeah. The Medish says Hashem went to all the other nations and he says toile, "Do you want to accept the Torah?" And he says, I don't know, what does it say? It says, he says, how could it be? The Torah says, "The Torah says." And he goes to Adam and he says, "Do you want the Torah?" He says, "I don't know. What does it say?" He says, "Don't kill." Says, "The Torah says you live by your sword. The Torah says I'm a murderer." Good. Gazak. No, it was a good point. Uh, he says I'm a I'm a murderer. He says, the Torah says it. You're right. But if you're prepared to be the Tyra, it will turn you back into uh protoplasm into the lowest form into straight and now you could be rebuilt as anything you want and all the impurities will be burnt out and everything over there and you could start over and take on a new shape. So we could come to Hari and say nasishma and become the people of Hashem who we were not when we went down to Mitzim. We had to be burnt down into our essence. For example, one of the things Yoseph was upset about with his brothers is that he they were saying to the benah and the ben zilpa since your mothers were slaves really you should be our slaves and understood that given enough time twothirds of cla would have enslaved the other third based on this principle. So I send you down to Egypt and you all become slaves. Now none of you have any claims and now we start over again. And that's that's the uh that's the power. The power of what can be done. So the only good news I have is that a bar is going to bring the Messiah and give us a whole new sura. I heard this story. I don't remember who the Rebel was. I I'm I'm terrible with my my Reban names and I apologize and I'm sure some of my listeners of of whom I have many will write in. Yeah. Um I uh I'm I'm always surprised when I meet who listen to the show and I'm talking about whose first language is Yiddish. You know what I mean? But they they like to follow this uh they get a kick out of me. But uh but I heard the story that one tishb it's in the afternoon and uh you know it was some place in Europe where tisha goes out very late mama and the are bored they're bored so they decided to have a little fun and they set up like this little uh trap so when someone came into the base medish and they'd step into this little loop they'd pull the rope and they dangle him upside down by his foot. This is what they were doing while they were waiting for Mka on uh on Tishab afternoon because they were just they're bored already, hungry and bored and tired and they need a little laugh. Anyway, through poor planning, the Reb came in and they grabbed him by the leg and hanging him upside down. And when they realized it was the Reb, of course, it was like, "Oh, where's you?" And they take him down. They untie him. And the Reb just looks at them, doesn't say a word. And he goes over to the Aresh and he says, "What are you waiting for? These are the people you think are going to bring the gula. They're so far gone. It's finished. You might as well just bring Mashia already cuz there's nothing left here to work with." Now, that was years ago. As a wise man once said, we already hit rock bottom and we started to dig. So, when you think things can't get any worse, h Claus manages to push it back another level. dig down more and you'll find from people putting on their uh social media a pride flag. You know what's going on? What's going on? I can only paraphrase the Reb and say there's no point. There's nothing left. We have disintegrated into the fact that that schools have to deal with kids who are so that parents have to deal with kids who, you know, who not just yell at them, hit them. I see it all the time. I'm talking about little kids get upset at their parents and they just smack them. Wow. Trust me, I never would have done that with my dad. But that's what it is. You know, they say, "Shut up." Everyone thinks it's so cute. You know, disintegration. It's unbelievable. So that's why when I see Allah and Yehuda sponsoring an episode in honor of their parents because uh because they want to show their appreciation. That means that that's where we that's where we're supposed to be. That's what it that's what what it is. There's a time I've mentioned this in the past, but it's just amazing. There were four mitzvah given at Mora. Yeah. There was din which is the zikin. There was shabas. There was paradum and there's but rashi only quotes three. He leaves out. And the maharel says because there are different categories of mitzvah. There areim there. There's Adus and that's of course Shabas and uh is is Adus and Paraduma is the ultimate and um and Zikin is Mishbatim. Yeah. Or you could look at it as one is the breadth of Torah which is shabas and one is the and depth of learning which is nazikin and um and paradum represents the but there's a fourth category which he calls mitzvah and he says every child wants to honor their parents. It's built into the human experience and that's why when the garra wants to learn a case of um uh kovim [clears throat] how to do it brings a story of uh demma benina who is not Jewish and I heard somebody say you see from this you can learn midos from a non-Jew Ra Shapiro said you see from this you can learn k aim from an anju because that's part of the human experience. Everybody understands that children naturally want to be mab their parents and we live in a society that's destroyed it as an organization of mothers. One of them was just sued for liel in somewhere in the Midwest and you know they just won their case. Yeah. They have I forgot but the the slogan of the organization is I don't co-parent with the government. They're my kids not yours. You don't tell me what to teach my children. That's not your job. Your job is to teach them how to read, how to do math, history, you know, your job is not to give them values. It's my job to give my children values. And uh we live in this kind of a society of destruction. So this is what I was thinking about what I what I've now coined the Greta Thunderberg effect. and people throwing paint on masterpieces and, you know, people gluing themselves to the floor and all just stupid kids, Tik Tok videos who think that they know everything because they can get people to listen to them. There's no evidence that you know anything. Which river? Which sea? And you're out there protesting. Okay. Well, my producer sent me a an appreciation comment, which I always like to share because I want you to know that your comments really mean a lot to me. You know, the the that you give really makes me keep doing this. I'm doing this for six years already. It's a long time. You know, we're over 300 episodes. When I started this, it never occurred to me that I could talk for 300 hours straight. Turns out I can, you know. So, thank you, Rav Alowski, for all the Torah and joy that you spread throughout Clyra. Thank you. It's amazing that they don't invite me to any of these like important conventions and things [laughter] except Project Inspire. They're my friends. Anyway, may you continue this. Amen. I just discovered your show and I really enjoy it. I am a teenager and I am burnt out from the basakov system. Yikes. You've come to the right place because we're all a bunch of burnouts over here. [laughter] I'm cynical enough that I can revive the spark of fire in everybody because everyone says at least he's telling the truth. You know what I mean? I will not sugarcoat it for you. Welcome. Welcome to the Raviolski family. Yeah. Uh, you gave me hope that there are some real people out there who are not just repeating lines they heard in seminary. I never heard anything in seminary. I said things in seminary. Yeah. Uh, good morning, RDavid. I love your podcast. Yours is the only podcast I could never miss no matter how busy I am. Me too. The only one that I I'm always making sure to do. [laughter] As a side note, I really wanted to share that I really miss the mot. You know, I don't know. I'll tell you what happened. What happened is um when I first started doing it, there was a request in the neighborhood that I should do something for the neighborhood and I did and I had literally hundreds of people coming. And as time went on, it dwindled. One of the only three English words that start with DW, it dwindled. You can think about the other two. You can put them in the comments if you uh if you figure them out. Anyway, um, and so after a while, you know, it was reaching the point where like I would get up there and I was like, [applause] "Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. Thank you." I realized I didn't have to have it in a show. I could just do it in a phone booth, but there aren't any phone booths anymore. I just realized. But anyway, I don't know where Superman changes. But um, uh, so that's why I stopped it. But recently, someone told me, I don't want to mention the organization, that there's an organization that said they would like to revive it and sponsor it and put out, you know, refreshments and things and make a whole motab out of it. If that happens, then everyone knows I'm always happy to talk. Yeah. I don't know any speaker who comes close to your amazing para shorum. Um you'll notice that most of my para shar are based on kumish rashi and uh I always try to go through rashi every year and every time I see a rashi it it I very often am inspired and most of my sh are based just on rashi because it's uh there's so much there right um how does rashi the first rash in begin yeah um how does it And uh I don't know who pointed it out, but the first letter of the first word in Rashi is alf. And the last letter in the last word is tough because rashi has everything from alf to tough. Cool. Anyway, uh I'm familiar with many speakers that speak in English, Yiddish, and Hebrew. Besides your skillful speaking and master delivery that you practice with your weekly podcast, the Rabbi Olowski show as well, the para sharm is so unique, creative and out of the box. Thank you. And I I want to tell you an interesting story. One of my first para shar that I ever gave um when I was getting very big crowd you know my good friend came and he started coming regularly to my parish and he says I was so impressed by that and it was my own and uh a yeshiva guy came up to me and said that's a great idea who says it I said I do you can't say that on your own said why not you You can't you can't you have to have a makur I said my makur is rashi I told you rashi what's wrong with that you can't yeah you so I'm too stupid to know what my limitations are I have a few friends that I check things out with before I speak publicly you know and I remember I was going to say a particular idea and I said to him can I say this and he said to me you you can say anything I said good enough for >> [laughter] >> says, "I wouldn't say it, but you you could say however you want, you know." So, uh, yeah, so thank you. Thank you very much, everybody, for all of those wonderful, warm wishes. And, uh, that's it for this week. If you want to find out more about the show, you can go to my website, revolowski.com, where you can sponsor an episode. We're almost out of sponsors. You can sponsor a paran. We don't have any sponsors. you can sponsor the new uh question and answer uh series that we're doing uh that we started to do in [music] the form of shorts where I am giving short answer which is quite an accomplishment because [music] I used to teach in a seminary and I used to give short answer tests and I I don't mean to generalize but [snorts] these girls did not understand the concept of short answer. They wrote everything they could possibly think of under short answer. I had to switch to multiple choice, which I do not like, but I just couldn't mark short answer, you know, but um I don't like multiple choice because it's it's um nifka in my mida cuz you have to come up with three answers that sound like they're right and are really false. I don't like to do that, you know. I like to try to be honest. But um uh so uh short answer, question answer. We need sponsors for that so that we [music] can keep that going. Um you could sign up for one of my online shar. I still have three of them. I have a ladies masil shashar. I have a uh men's dafomi and I have a men's and women's shir on Sundays. We're in Kesha. Um, and you can submit a question, you can leave a comment. Yeah. And we will try to get to them. I we we fell so behind with the question and answer. That's why we wanted to start the question and answer series like that. And that's it for this episode. Until next time, I am Rabbi Olowski and this has been the Rabbi Olowski show. >> It's [snorts] the Rabbi Orloski Show. Torah and Sima, ready to go. The Rabbi Olowski show. Knowledge and wisdom will help you grow. Lots of fun in every episode. [music] And we don't have to rhyme, though. It's the Rabbi Orlovski show on rabbi.com. Torah anytime, YouTube, and more. It's the Rabbi Orski show. Torah and ready to go. It's the Rabbi Orvski show. Till next time, till [music] we meet again, it's the Rabbi Olowski show. It's the Rabbi Olowski show. It's the Rabbi orski show.