Ask The Rabbis 3: Questions Non-Orthodox Jews Have about Orthodox Jews, Part 2

is i'm going to jump right into this question because uh as the coronavirus hit this is going to uh this became a very thorny topic but orthodox judaism seems to rely very much on their rabbis right and to the outside world and maybe even to the movements of conservative and reform it seems that these rabbis are quote with all respect a bunch of old men how how can we orthodox judaism be taken seriously when there's this concept of listening to you know the the elders the elders of the generation or the the torah scholars of the generation with things that seem to be so modern and so uh you know take dating for example like why should orthodox jews be bound to the uh to the uh uh to the thought process and to the opinions of some old rabbis and you know more recently with the coronavirus etc explain to us why orthodox judaism's view on listening to their their elders and their torah scholars as being a focal point of orthodox jewry okay so i i'm gonna i guess i i already spoke a little bit to the point of the authority of our elders right there that the last thing you mentioned you mentioned you mentioned but you mentioned it in like really in in in the in the from the angle of arguing out points in terms of in terms of that's how we get to the truth of things and that the people on top are the people who know the most but how does that relate to modern things that are in torah study that are mundane things that we live our lives with okay so so once it's clear the first point that that we're not felt following elders some by some magical authority but because we see them as honest and and insightful and knowledgeable so so most of it should be clear niche like the other side of your question like what do they know about modern phenomena is that like like from the from the side of i mean i mean i'm on a very practical level a 21 year old boy from a fine uchiva is dating a 18 year old girl from a uh you know a nice jewish you know religious seminary and she will go to a 90 year old rabbi asked his opinion on marrying this 21 year old boy i mean people from the outside must be looking in and saying like for real right so so again so i'll add one thing there's two points there's the one is the authority of the person there's not number one is i think what you're concerned about is like how as smart and as wise as they are how can touch can they be with the modern world so let me just add i spoke about the wisdom of right and and what prompts that 18 year old girl to go ask his opinion right i mean why does she assume that he has anything to say about right so so i want to add to the intellectual skill prowess of the rabbi it's also an unbelievable love for we don't choose rabbis just because they're smart they have to be wonderful people if a person is poor character he's not going to make it there so we're talking about going to a person who's loving and concerned and also very smart but the other side of it is as loving and as wise as he is who says he has anything to say about the world today so so let me let me give you a classic example of some of i think it's very useful today of where this weird this came up before um there's one moshe knew moses spent his entire life defending the jewish people from sins god is constantly through the torah i want to wipe them out emotions go no no no save them and that's the whole torah except one instance korach leads the rebellion and moshe and and moshe says tashem i want this guy to die like no one ever died before the ground's got to open up that swallow up it's like the most out of character thing in the entire world and it makes no sense and you but you know what happens the everyone's on kara's side everyone gathers around korach all the young generation is saying wow so korach is saying why do we need leaders let's all be the same you know you know just defund the police everyone should be we don't need why you make moshe's making kohanam and levi why are you making go and ladies let everyone be equal why can't we all be friends and get along and that's what's been going on for generations people talk like that the youth are always you know hippies and and and you know they're they're they're chill they're going oh the the our parents are squares our parents are untouched our parents are bourgeois our parents are concerned about money and they're called the modern world more loving more progressive more forgiving more less prejudiced this is the eternal thing why should we listen to old-fashioned people and most specifically in their in their coarseness their their own their their their regressiveness so most is the classic case is moshe gets up and says korak's wrong and everyone says korak's the greatest kara says everyone's great moshe why are you making yourself bigger and and what happens is is everyone fights at moshe korak ends up dying and they still angry at moshe do you think he's out of touch so why do we listen to moshe what changed they realized one thing everyone in the crowd heard moshe kharag saying everyone's equal let's all be friends why niko haines and ladies why are you making yourself higher everyone heard this and they turn to mush we all go through this utopian communist stage where we think wouldn't it be nice a world without competition everyone goes through this but moshe this is the line in the sand why what did moshe see that we didn't one subtle little line moshe says the korach says let why do you need coins and ladies everyone should be equal why are you making yourself harder if someone is truly loving you know if someone's truly loving what do they do what do they what would kara advocate if you're giving out positions to people and korach is i gotta keep a straight face over you guys are crazy i love it anyways are we old-fashioned bigger clowns and kids are over here you know like uh this is this is the answer to the question um okay a bunch of rebellious kids that's rabbis so we bridge both worlds let me just get to the point because it sounds like i'm not even talking to the thing but the punch line will make it clear the punchline is is f why does everyone turn to mush because kara is saying let everyone be equal why so but let's see what the wise old man understands is that every generation people want to get rid of responsibility everyone everyone has a we have fears and insecurities and therefore we want to chill we look for easy paths the wisdom of ages is to see our greatness and to understand all the ways that people run away from responsibility the rabbi comes in i felt i felt that we stopped hearing you well yeah okay so we're looking for the easy way out we're not looking for responsibility korach says the following ocean everyone's holy if korak was really sincere he would have said give everyone a position going to ladies give everyone a position what korak says is one line that no one else saw korach says everyone's holy why are you higher what is the difference if you're cons there's two ways to create love and equality one way is is to pick everybody up and the other way is to knock everybody down everyone's drawn to these movements of hippies and stuff because it sounds so loving and it is possibly what our leaders understand is that the goal of life is to make you great and people are always trying to run away and make their life easier and they have great ideas and if you listen to their ideas everyone forms over the philosophies of people who want to make my job easier and say that there's no values and no purpose and and someone has to come there and understand i heard this for 500 years already this is what and only if moshe wouldn't have been there everyone would have gathered taken to the streets and gotten rid of all authority they would have gotten rid of grades on tests they would have gotten rid of paychecks based on how much work you do they would get rid of marriage everything that takes work and structure and moshe got up and says no kodak's a faker he doesn't want to pick anyone up he wants to knock everyone down the to me the whole mark of jewish leadership is this role of russia he's the he's the lifeguard in the pool watching the kids doing dangerous things and we're here standing today because it's so easy to make the cop out sound glorified and even easier to make the people who are working hard sound like evil selfish arrogant people they think they know what's right the world loves haziness and fogginess and the our leaders the models of discipline and greatness there's there's peace tranquility easy chilling and then there's standing on top of the mountain of accomplishment and that's what we understands our leaders are i go to my rabbi to ask him rabbi which of my two voice i have this choice which is the cop-out am i lying to myself which is which which is which is my dream is talking and which is my fear is talking and since moshe that is the hallmark of jewish leadership the the guardians of dreams and they can smell they can my rebellion can spell my excuses my cop-outs and they go yes it's so cute saying that but you know the truth you know you see the rabbi doesn't even have to answer he looks the only smiles and he shakes his head and that way you go like no he's like amazing amazing concept because they know they know really what we want to strive to be and what's best for us dreams and fears have never changed it's just the way we spin our fears nobody says i'm a coward they say well arrogant dreamers they say elitist i'm gonna go to the heart yeshiva they're just a bunch of show-offs and rabbi will know it if that's if it's within your abilities and you should go there and it's just you're you're scared and this girl i'm dating this girl i don't when i was dating you know you're dating you you always want to marry a girl who's a little more chill so that you don't have to go to chakra so early you know and the rap i would come i would go like you know what she doesn't listen to secular music what is that what's that a catch word for yeshiva guy it means i want a little wiggle room a girl who's religious i'm gonna have to like be a really good guy you know i'm on so the rabbi would listen and go get sucky oh yeah it's about secular music right that's what it's about oh it's very or is it about that that girl was too regal for you and too too too pure and too holy you wouldn't you felt a little pressured and until then i learned that every guy who comes to me i listen to him and i wait to hear his justification for copying it and i call him out an accident thank you i remember robert i want to go to you for misconception misconceptions or conceptions that people have about orthodox judaism we have a final comment on this concept of going to rabbis and asking in their opinions yo yo absolutely i just want to share two points one is the first it's a funny question if you think about it you you go to a person who's a scientist and you know the guy's been a scientist for 50 or 60 years and is still a scientist and he's still working on it and he's still learning and he's still growing you say why should we go to that guy let's go to someone younger with less experience who's never learned about the past or even now it doesn't make any sense i never heard anyone complain that dr fauci is too old to go through exactly exactly so when you said president trump no he goes to him he goes about jesus sometimes but you know but i respect the man because he has many years of experience right right that's right experiences la mysa being and to your end that people don't change circumstances might but people are the same and so what you knew then affects people the same way being being that i'm the youngest and wisest on the panel with the most experience i'd like to just point out that listen the mathias the reality is as i sit here and i listen to the different answers over the the the these little questionations we've had and i've had the privilege of sitting with all three of these great great people in in different countries and different places i love to listen like roberolovsky called me out the first question answer oh you like to go last ah you hear all the good answers and you just repeat them right they just yes that is what i like to do so why do we go to the ones that are older the answer is because they know more like what does that mean so that's that's one on a very straightforward that you can't what are you going to argue there's another level though which takes us back to our mantra to our theme to our to our everything we are a theme song we've been singing the whole time and that is that you know i think it's i think it's it's a schweiki song that they made into a mishna and that's apparently said it twice and that's what the mystery says in chapter 5 mr 2 3 4 5 somewhere at the end that says that that if you turn it and you turn it everything is in it you know why we go to the rabbis that are older the answer is precisely because of how much time and effort and energy experience and knowledge of truth they have you'd be astounded for those who are not familiar like my father mentioned before all the books behind her burlapski or if they're real or not but all the books might ruinovsky like just like this new house i moved into all these all these books about shylux and chubas which are basically question answer responsa you go through one of the classics of moshe feinstein but moshe finds see the blessed memory pastor in 1986 was considered the the rabbi of judaism and here he wrote a series of of response of childhood questions and answers they span questions from what do you have to wear a keeper to are you allowed to smoke marijuana they they go from like me cuts el cuts cudson you said well what does he know about that the answer is everything is in the torah so you want to know why we go to these people simply logically because of the fact and we ready to understand simply because of the fact that the number one just logically they don't they have the experience and they have the knowledge they've been through the maze they've seen the mistakes and they can at least tell you listen i might not know what right mood to go on but don't go on that one because i made a mistake on that one right they can at least tell you that and number two that's the torah of the torah is emmis moshe torah the bible this book we have is the truth coming from god one who learns it will get understanding that even presidents of united states time and time again have written to great rabbis to ask their opinion and those rabbis average age were 70 to 80 years old because they had that experience and that knowledge so that's why we go as a 19 year old girl when i was a 19 year old girl that's why i used to go to these driveways to ask him these questions by the way that answers a lot of things today thank you uh one story because on this point you know the rabbi is not there to tell you if the chicken is kosher he's not there to make you a bar mitzvah that's not what the rabbi is there for the torah covers every aspect of life so my father went to ask ashila to the square rubber he was dying of lung cancer and the chemotherapy was terrible terrible we're waiting online and this person is coming to ask the rebel about a this person is coming against a rabbi about a business deal and this person everybody's asking different questions because judaism covers every aspect of it so my father gets there and he starts speaking in yiddish and and the rapper says it's okay you could speak in english so he says i'm in chemotherapy but i heard about this virus treatment in hungary and uh you know and uh i heard it successful i give the whole thing so the rebel looks at him the rabbit you know suicide he goes i want to feed three sets of x-rays before and after show me what the cancer looked like before the virus treatment and afterwards he says if i can't if you can show me that there's a treatment that's more effective than chemotherapy i'll advise this to people but to the best of my medical information that i have asked doctors there is nothing that works besides this so my brother said so i have to continue with the chemotherapy he says i hate to be the bearer of bad news but it's the only thing that has been medically proven because if you're a rabbi us now and keep your life and guard your health that's a mitzvah in the torah so when someone comes to and asks about a medical procedure you have to know you have to be talking to doctors into scientists when a question comes up about like people mention shabbos claps or any technology you have to know what you're talking about when someone comes in about uh you know in vitro fertilization or or a gene therapy or any other thing you have to know because georgia judaism carries uh effects on every aspect of life well it's not only that you need to know you need to know and figure out how that follows jewish law of course so that's why a person is an expert in jewish law can look at it and tell you this is what the torah will prescribe and this is what it wants right let me add me as everyone's talking about that you know most people listening to this they have a different picture heck of what they're saying because their pic the picture of a rabbi is what is is a guy who who's trained in public speaking and rhetoric and fundraising and politics that's not our rabbis we're talking about that's the opposite right they don't didn't do any of that they said it's not me i'm not the rabbi someone comes to me with an important question i'm going to my rebbe i'm not answering it i'll say hold on i'll get back to you when we say rabbi we're talking about a person who who is surrounded by wisdom and he has avoided all he hasn't done anything in his life that made him feel ashamed or guilty that will color his clear clarity thought he lives a pure life he's not going to movies he's not dancing at parties everyone is kind of we're going to get we're going to get to all that we're going to get to all that these are do you know they did that rabbi yeah okay robert didn't say there's a conception there's a maybe a misconception um that people looking into orthodox judaism and asking it's a little bit sharp and pointed but here here goes the question was stated by one person three different questions here it's why does everyone know an orthodox jew or more than one who cheats in business right if you're religious why would you cheat you're a bunch of hypocrites you you mean your religion is only in the synagogue only for show right i'm sure i felt them you've had this in your debates etc right this question my answer to these kind of questions let me go again i have to finish b of this b of this let's see a line but go ahead i was told it's okay for orthodox jews to cheat anyone that's not orthodox even other jews and especially non-jews including the government is that why many orthodox jews are cheating the government with food stamps welfare etc my response to this is i'll give every lastical answer i think a one-liner is that we were just so cool that you asked that we were just discussing that by our meeting of the elders of zion while we were sipping on the blood of christian babies thinking about how to educate our sons who were born through holes and sheeps you you're asking questions every anti-semitic canard in the world it's ridiculous we're the most moral people in the world you're gonna go cherry picking a bunch of cretes everybody's got their creeps okay this is not what we value it's like the guy asked the question deserves a smack okay i know you should have an email mac response i'll have i'll have him email you but i just want to disappoint alaska and give this over to you but actually a friend of mine was driving this it goes back 20 years but a friend of mine was driving it was before chavez he was in lakewood new jersey he was in a rush and he's flying down clifton avenue okay and a cop pulls him over for speeding and he stops that he says to the cop like you know i'm in a rush you know it's before a shot it's like now you got to pull me over and give me a ticket the cop looked at him and he said listen i've been a cop in this neighborhood for a long time i'm not getting you on murders i'm not getting you enraged i'm going to give you a ticket on clifton avenue on friday afternoon you know roberto your thoughts on people asking this question i wrote down students there's a there's an old rule in journalism yeah dog bites man not news man bites dog that's news you'll never see a headline that says secular jew arrested for stealing atheist commits rape because you assume that that goes without saying that if someone's doing a crime you assume that because they're not religious yeah so in the every time they find a religious guy oh that's the story we put him on the front page we take a big picture you know have him haven't put this yeah in front of his face and i mean because it's so rare it's the exception now how do you justify it like this somebody has to tell zarush shiva how do you explain none from how do you fight from jews who cheat or steal or lie this is the same way i explained from jews who don't keep shabbas and eat that kosher they're not from understand so if i tell you you see this is great i love how these questions are all so stuff contradictory judaism is robotic they listen to everything the rabbis say they have no choice how come they go out and stealing a guy the answer is because there are people who don't listen and people decide to do the wrong thing everybody um uh there's there's always people who are going to be imperfect in a system no system is going to be a hundred percent the best you can do is to try to set up a uh station so story tell oh yeah he would always find some outstanding act that a jew did and he would be the defense attorney of the jewish people on yom kippur night and he'd say god look at this tremendous act of righteousness there are many stories of that and one year he couldn't find anything they couldn't find anything so he says god i haven't got anything to say you want to kill the jewish people kill the jewish people i got one question for you you got anybody better any better when israel had tremendous expense and and risk and difficulty brought across the black jews from ethiopia who it was not everybody agreed they were jewish they weren't jewish they brought them across you know what the response was from the world why'd they only bring the jews nobody said wow the jews took the jews the christians should take the christians the muslims should take the muslims no why don't you take care of everybody you know and people say to me why don't jews give more money to secular courts as i said who are the secular people giving money to jewish causes nobody cares about us nobody takes care of us so so you'll find that a religious jew there's something wrong and then well you know so one last story on this there's this question is again i'll let you finish the story but i say the question is do we condone jews cheating or taking advantage of non-orthodox jews or non-jews altogether and especially governments do we condone that of course not of course not a friend of mine his nephew sends expensive jewels so he went to saudi arabia to sell some jewel because the sheiks buy these expensive jews jewels so he comes in and the guy outside told him you better take off your yarmulke you know if you want to make this sale i'm not taking off my yarmulke you know he comes in and the sheik looks at him and he goes i'm gonna guess you want a glass of water in a paper cup am i correct so he says uh that would be fun your majesty you know he says we always used to do business with the jews you know he says the englishman used to rip us off much more yeah i can't tell you we never had a cheetahs but at least they don't cheat us as much as the others it's like jackie mason says that you couldn't be a mugger but you couldn't pull out a gun and say give me all your money he'd say how much you got let's work out something do much better with a retainer but but it's an amazing story true story this guy breaks down on route 17 going up to the catskills so three cars pull over from people and the guy's wearing a yarmulke and they say how can we help you change the tires then who did this anyway after they're all done they say he's wearing a cross he said why are you wearing a cross he goes i'm christian he says why are you wearing a yarmulke he says what that thing on your head because i don't know when i first started driving my mother gave me one of these and said if you have a breakdown put one on and people will stop and help you so therefore you can cheat i missed that what's the we're not we're not perfect but as a lady it's like said we're a lot better than anybody else who's out there we're doing better than anybody else okay that was a newsweek op-ed article once i remember during the first intifada where they said yes we're holding israel to a higher standard we expect them to they're god's chosen people this was an editorial in newsweek today that would be racist uh okay i i want to move i want to move on to um unless and with all the new comment did we have any final comments on this before i move on i have two more concepts and then a final question um that i want to ask any you want to add anything to this i just i just want to echo the words i heard from my burlevsky many years ago don't defend the undefendable which is essentially what he said if something is wrong it's wrong and people do things that are wrong so they say like oh and therefore you see there's a jew that does it okay so they did the wrong thing and we move on with life you know not okay we have to work on it but i'll add don't don't defend it you you can't let people ask these questions and get away with it itself we have enough self-hating jews it's obvious nobody nobody believes that we condone it it's just a way to like wipe the smile off the religious guy so don't don't don't play that game don't fall prey okay um further con conceptions misconceptions that people have um is is and and this this is actually probably more reality but i'm going to leave this to you i'm going to start with europe if held on if you don't mind the orthodox jews seem to shun technology and not be involved in tvs and movies and secular music etc right so why do religious jews either avoid or limit the use of new technology new technologies that are revolutionizing the world like smartphones and shut out the social media technology why is it even an issue why don't basically one unorthodox jews just go with the flow man come on meaning stay with the times go with the flow right is it isn't that is isn't that a better idea than shunning all this stuff out just to shorten the questions that are basically coming in there right okay well that's important that's this is the most important questions you know i i i my whole career was going to colleges and talking to kids and my my appeal was that i was normal i wasn't the rabbi you know you know in a long black coat and the kids were willing to hear me because i came across normal my whole career was basically almost derailed when they had that that gathering in the field against the internet you know the so every college i went through the kids were like oh you're like one of them you like the taliban you like bin laden you know it was uh it almost ruined everything uh um look howdy we explain this we come acro we talk about being open-minded and being thinkers so if you thinkers what are you scared of a thinker shouldn't be scared information is not not damaging so this is really the question is is we are on defensive and it's a similar way i just did it's a little different but it's the same point in a metaphor i i was asked to do op-ed in lakewood we have a big problem with anti-semitism in this around because we're really thriving and we're growing so the surrounding towns those who follow the news a lot of anti-semitism in this newspaper in the area the asbury park press which was really the the hotbed of the anti-semitism they they're trying to do some kind of chuva and they opened up their paper to to the orthodox community they said we want an op-ed can someone so i provided them an op-ed about uh and here's what i wrote and this my the answer for this will be similar to what i would tell you for this it's just it's much easier to hear the point in a separate arena and bring it over to this arena i said there's a lot of causes for anti-semitism most of them don't deserve a response but there is one cause of anti-semitism that deserves a response from us because i think it's legitimate and that is that some people love america they fought for america they value american values and they see communities that are insular as an insult for everything that they think is beautiful insularity is inherently an insult to the prevailing culture so the fact that we orthodox jews keep to ourselves we're really insulting them by saying your your culture's poison and and they love their culture so they those people who are angry at us for rejection of what they see is beautiful those people deserve a response it's not the majority of anti-semites but it's a legend and my response to them is is we're not rejecting your culture we love american culture most of american culture was built on judeo-christian values which is really judeo-vaso it's not christian values so it's our stuff we're on the same page the founding fathers were rooted everything in the torah why do we pull away from secular culture today because secular culture is no longer american the the forces that have taken over the world are our voices that want shame everything we value they make you feel guilty for caring about marriage and children and love and all the things we cherish they run the streets and they run the campuses and they run the media we're not pull yes we are insular but don't see us as pulling away from american values we're pulling away from the values that are trying to shame america we're on your team and we're you're going to do the same thing we do eventually you're welcome into our ghettos with us so that your children will be safe to be proud americans which they can't be out there that was my response to them that's the same point with this we're not pulling away from the world we love the world the god created this world's a garden we're supposed to be dancing in here watching sunsets and smelling flowers and singing songs and learning knowledge and books the problem is that that is not the dominant voice in the world today you send your kids to college they're not having their minds expanded they're having them drain everything valuable and if they don't give in at first they're going to be shaped and laughed at and taunted they're not going to hear the voice of scholarship what they hear is cackling sneering and cynicism we're pulling away from the world we love don't ask questions why don't we love we love the world we love science we love information there's no knowledge that's bad the problem is that modern world you i grew up with television i learned most of my morality from the brady bunch you know and and sesame street you know i spent hours by the front of the mirror trying to learn how to talk while i brushed my teeth like they could without drilling out all of the the the the toothpaste you know like and anyone watched the brady bunch everything took place in the family bathroom brushing their teeth whatever but we look and a lot of things are clear to me now rabbi but but that's not the case anymore today today we need unfortunately we have to pull back the reason why he had the gathering in city field is not because of all the information on the internet it's it's because of all the all the inappropriate children cannot that you cannot let people be exposed to things that make them feel shamed when someone feels shamed they curl up and they they they become a fraction of their selves they're the thing that silence is dreams is the feeling that i'm not deserving of them and what makes people feel not deserving is the dirtiness and the that comes from our culture our culture values also fame and popularity so you by exposing your kids to this you're feeding him an assortment of dreams that are how popular are you how many fans do you have we're destroying people i i pray we pray for the day that the world will be be be a beautiful place again that we can let our kids run free in the world you know like they do in the bungalow colonies in their pajamas but unfortunately not everything's a safe bungalow economy anymore don't think that we're against the world that's all right on this point the the the concept of studying torah trumps all of the technology and the modern you know the the modernized television movies etc because we have to learn torah pulling back on the stuff and learning torah is there is there room in judaism for all of this or does orthodox judaism basically pulling back because there's only one way to go and that's the stunning of the torah well when you see for all of this that's a very vague term it's uh including a lot of stuff i would say most of it like rabbi felden was saying everybody should be pulling back from you know if anyone still knows what marsha marsha marsha means that's okay you know that's you're okay you know with all curls like the mother whatever but uh but at the same time does that mean that a person can't relax and chill and enjoy themselves of course it doesn't mean that at all as a matter of fact it's very much encouraged to do such a thing and let me just make one one point as for your background yeah exactly right i grew up in robert feldman's house and he used to make me watch the show with him and it was crazy but really i didn't go over this house but i am from long island anyway so so um the point but it was already religious what could you do hi from birth okay so here see here's the here's the uh two points i want to make about that and then the second one being what you just asked me the the first one is there was an article that came out about two years ago rabbi freedom you may have seen it and and there's an article in israel there's a concept in israel it's a phenomenal concept that if you don't know what it means you're going to be thoroughly confused there's something known as a kosher phone now for those who uh who know what kosher is so then immediately our thoughts go into ah it's a phone that you can eat like what exactly does that mean and secular jews who've never heard it are very like what i don't even know what i'm talking about when i say that a kosher phone is a telephone before the year 2001. it was it was before well really for 2007. it's really it's really a stupid phone right it's what they call it's what they call a stupid phone now right the smartphones and the stupid phones and the way that my daughters tell me is that those who have stupid phones are smart and those who have smartphones are stupid that's the way that the kids these days but anyway but here but here's here's the deal this this thing called a smart uh stupid phone or a kosher phone is a phone it's like the original nokias they might go back to some of your age you know whatever when they had the backpacks for phones i mean the ones that had like you know nokia phones with snake on it at most no even texting no internet nothing it's a phone now you say like that's what you have oh come on what do you do with the world two years ago there was an article that came out in israel from secular israeli parents that wanted to start a movement to take away their kids smartphones and give them all kosher phones for one simple reason they found that the entire summer their kids didn't get out of bed until four o'clock afternoon because they slept till one or two and then from two to four they would they would be on their smartphones then they'd go pee then they'd go back until dinner which was really breakfast and and so on and so forth so they was a movement in the secular israeli world to get rid of the smartphones why embrace what are you doing because they start to see there's a catastrophe going on over here and i'm not even getting into like where they felt when i mentioned with the the dangers of that everyone knows about the dangers that lurk in the world down here i'm not even talking about the danger it's like it's like a yitzchak berkowitz a rabbi here in israel said he had like a little talk about this topic and he said it's like here in israel but he talked and he said forget about forget about the inappropriate forget about the dangers just take a stopwatch with you and every time you go on the computer online you're surfing just time yourself little does he know there's something called screen time you don't have to think of stunning you know you don't have to say stopwatch right and just see how much time you throw away in your waist so are we against the concept of uh is it only torah sit down and stag and learn and that didn't for a territory the answer is you know what it is it's growth it's about being growth oriented there's two topics one is called bitter torah one's called bitters man one is a nullification of spending time learning torah another is just wasting your time and it is widely discussed that wasting time is even worse than wasting torah even though torah's paramount why because fine you're not going to learn torah at least be productive but you're not even productive then as just a quote i don't know if it's 80s or 90s i don't even know who said it but i think the quote is what is it good for absolutely nothing and that's uh and that's why we're leaving it there sorry i remember last gavin i have another question for you about about dress of the orthodox community do you have any comments on this technology further from what these these rabbits pointed out yeah but don't worry about it yeah i got i got comments about everything the things that the you know conservative reform even non-jews uh comment about orthodox jewelry is the habits of dress and behavior right why are both women dressed in such old-fashioned way like you stepped out of the 1930s with hats and shoes even went in informal settings and long skirts long blouses dresses etc one of the men looked like penguins in the black and white and for goodness sake why do we have so much clothing when it's so hot outside right come on get with the times whatever your thoughts for all of human history people covered their heads there was only one society in history that did not cover their heads and that was the greeks everybody else wore turban they were some sort of a hat they were some sort of a thing i'm remembering les miserables because you know since of course i'm i'm cut off from secular knowledge so uh i remember at one point somebody recognized him when he had been the mayor of the town and they said mayor what are you doing out here and without a hat right in uh in the hobbit you know it says he ran out of the house bilbo bagging runs out so quickly he forgot his hat it was like who walked out without a hat everybody wore a hat the first person who didn't wear a hat was john f kennedy and as it turns out that didn't work out so well for him but forget about that the the point too soon anyway but the point is that the point is that you know this is a hat not a helmet but what what happened to him i'm a little young what happened to him uh he became an airport it's a very sad story but anyway but uh uh but he uh yeah he finally took off anyway but um the uh the idea of suddenly we now live in a society where there's no where there's no uh respect so i used to remember when there used to be signs on restaurants no one served without a tie you went out to eat you got dressed to put on a suit you put on a tie you know you came in in jeans and t-shirt they wouldn't they wouldn't uh serve you because there was a it was a concept of respect you know so now they changed yeah no shirts no shoes no serving so now we're happy if you put on a shirt and a vision and now there was one restaurant that had to take it away because it was considered racist for reasons that are unclear to me this was a or or no mask yeah man i'm never going to that i'm thinking about even before that so so uh so the idea is that there's still a concept of self-respect so i used to teach in seminary i had three rules the girls knew no talking in class i told you once i take attendance you can go outside i don't care i i don't care if you're here or not but if you're here don't talk because it's disrupting it's disrespectful i said turn off your cell phone because when the cell phone goes off in class it's very disruptive and no gun chewing and they just couldn't understand that why can't i chew gum i said because the queen of england doesn't chew gum because a bride under the hupper doesn't chew gum because when there's a sense of self-respect we carry ourselves with self-respect and to this day there are very few men who do not feel so much cooler about themselves when they put on a tuxedo they're working around maltreaters shuriken not stern you understand like they suddenly feel like caution because when you carry yourself with kashimas so we jews we still have this idea of respect respect you know i remember i remember in the old days in israel in the knesset you know these old labor party people would come into the knesset with with shirts and shorts now everybody wears a tie everybody walks in with a certain time because it's respect because you understand there's a certain standard that you have to have so we've never lost that respect like i say just because the world changed doesn't mean that we changed so so how come everybody dresses the same so the the talmud tells us that black is modest that's the only reason it almost happens to be slimming but that's not the real reason the reason is considered more modest you know some people say you lose your individuality and i say i gotta tell you no one ever accused me of losing my individuality that's there's a lot of things people say about me but that i'm an individual and i'll tell you better than that if you need clothes to make you an individual you don't have to worry you don't have anything going for you anyway if the best i can say about you is wow look at his outfit could you imagine you're being set up with a girl says how about her oh she dresses very nicely yeah but what is she dressing i don't understand what does that mean that's the best you can say is that i have clothes so you say and i remember i was i was in the principal's office once he had an archie comic from the newspaper on the wall and a guy comes into mr weatherby he's the principal with this like long kind of like leather coat he says why are you wearing that crazy coat he goes gives me individuality he looks out in the playground and everybody's wearing that coat he says i think it needs a little work so if you need clothes to give you a personality and individualism don't worry you don't have any anyway in fact the best way to achieve independence so that you can be seen as a person is when everyone dresses the same because when everyone dresses the same the only thing that's left is you who are you not tell me what you're wearing and how you dressed and you know who are you as a person rabbi feldham and any comments on people looking at orthodox jews as they're falling out of the 1930s all dressed the same come on get with the times yeah i know that's uh i agree with key said it very nicely so it's it's dignity you know uh the person it's like um it's self-respect you know a person who respects himself conducts the desire the desire to it's it's one of these things i used to give a class on dating on on and mostly philosophy but at the end i gave a few little pieces of three pieces of advice so these are my most important pieces of advice the most one of my three most important pieces was don't do casual dates a casual date what does that mean you you you're just starting off the the dating with already assumptions this is not real you know you know there are college degrees probably with people who specialize in the light you know are art in art degrees for in art museums part of the art is is how to frame it and how to do the lighting around the art something is beautiful you want to put it in the right context you want to frame it properly you want people to come to it i mean back into the taj mahal most impressive thing about the taj mahal wasn't the taj mahal it was the the scope of the lands and the fields and the turrets leading up to it you felt the awe of the hugeness of it it prepped you for the for the last moment when it came into view because you had to walk through this tunnel on that tunnel in this field in that field from every direction you you want to frame things properly someone wants to go on a casual date what they're saying is is i want to absolve myself from all responsibility before we even start and dressing in a certain way says this is not i am not an emergency exit for you to breathe through your way out i'm here to be dealt with to be reckoned with i am an entrant not an exit that's what dignified clothing says you have to raise your game to deserve me kill a few dragons before you get the hand of this princess that's what the girl's saying and the guy is saying is that i i don't i don't want anything that i don't have to kill a few dragons to deserve if i don't have to kill a dragon to deserve you then you're not worth just they you're not a prize that's how we we see the world in the in in the in the way in the in the light of dreams and greatness and isn't it amazing beautiful okay i'm going to start with you with the final question i'll come to your wife elder and then i'm going to end with you robert rolofsky just as we started back when it feels like 10 hours ago exactly okay here we go this is a question which sort of like summarizes a lot of what we discussed here it's a question that a lot of and you know a lot of this is questions that like non-orthodox jews have looking in so to speak into the orthodox community this is a question that orthodox non-orthodox jews etc have a like is a big question of the generation as well you know growing up there are certain idols that you look at certain people that you aspire to be we discuss orthodox jewry for whatever reason which we discussed pulling back on technology on whatever the world might be doing that isn't within our value system etc but all this pulling back from a full emergent in modern society is why is in order to be able to immerse fully in our torah and our religious life right that's that's presumably why we're doing this why is that the real goal of life what is pulling away from from so much of what god created in the world or gave us the ability to create help us maximize our time and enjoyment on this earth i.e if an orthodox jew is looking into is he saying why should i be the great rabbi that we discuss there are my fellow i'm discussing that teaching those students right versus a movie actor or you know or all-star basketball player why is that the real life why should i aspire to be that revgo so there's a well-known statement in the talmud that discusses the concept of if a person in this world doesn't eat an apple and it's a it's a mushrooms have to only be an apple but it doesn't need an apple when he gets upstairs after 120 hour long he lives god's gonna there's gonna be accountability why didn't you eat my apple me to say what we really are supposed to be involved in enjoying this world as a matter of fact one of the commentaries name of the montreal explains why is it that if you look in the entire written torah there is no explicit statement speaking about the next world because it's about this world you're supposed to partake and i think there's been a theme which we've been playing around also throughout all of us that yes is torah there's mrs hashem but pardon parcel is that god created this world so then the next question people say well god created all the abc so why do you stay away from that the answer is there are some things god created to partake of and some things he created not to partake of and in order for one to really be able to maximize there has to be choice and in order to have choice there have to be those opportunities for challenge to the left and to the right the ultimate if i may just rephrase your statement is not to immerse ourselves into our life and whatnot the ultimate is to connect with the creator of the world and to maximize the greatest levels of a pleasure that we're able to ever accomplish that that's the goal question is what's going to get me there that's the question so if there's something that's not going to get me there so i'm going to try to move away from that and the the the the sad reality is i understand it all too well growing up in the modern orthodox community which with it was an i think an amazing article i wish i had it so i'm sure you've seen it with written by an 11th grader you know who's writing about uh you know they it's okay it'll get sticky but it's good it's at the end so i could say like oh we're out of time but everybody lost you'll address it but about about a boy saying i see personally growing up in the in the religious world i didn't learn about the great rabbis maybe i did but they didn't stick out in my mind i learned about michael jordan i learned a lot about michael jordan i learned about larry bird admits to basketball when everybody falls for boston forgive me whatever you know i learned a lot about music and singers and whatever i learned a lot more than just the brady bunch i learned a lot of things and i didn't even have an understanding that i was missing the whole point i had no understanding until i started getting involved with it it's so much easier to get involved with the quick basketball shot and with the rock concert and with the good food it's just easy but for those for the youngsters of this world they'll know who i'm even quoting i won't say his name but easy come easy go you had your eyes wide open i'm even joking but what happens is i'm assuming you won't know what i'm talking about but the point is is that easy come easy go understand the fact is is that torah learning and connecting to the ultimate is a challenge it takes time and effort but the value you can't compare it's the purpose of creation so we try to stay away from the things that are going to take us away from the greatest opportunities that we've ever had and like we've echoing sessions one and two and now moving into three is that the greatest pleasure that one can experience in this world is connecting with the ultimate with the almighty and with truth itself bye feldheym is the entire concept meaning i just want to twist this a little bit for you meaning people looking outside in are saying wow you pulled back from all of that stuff right so that you could be a tremendous torah scholar not seeing it is it all a fake out you know or is it is that the ultimate let me let me say like this this is probably a good way what i think is my most important message to the world if i had one you allowed me one minute thing what i would say is that people think that people who are doing things wrong they're driven by desire lust in hebrew we call it that's the root of evil evil inclination is desire i want to turn it on its head it's exactly the opposite desire is the good inclination desire is the holiest thing in the world there's a beautiful world the only thing you have going for you is desire when you see someone doing something wrong you know what happens they don't have desires what happens is they lost their desire somebody beat them my lying to a boy who was who's who's hanging out and just just just random girlfriends or whatever it is is i don't say them as you have too many types too many desires it's exactly the opposite it's never what happened to you who who broke you who wrong you used to be a dreamer why are you settling for this completion is to be fully dreaming all failures all what we call sin is just another word for having your dreams squeezed out of you and settling for crumbs when you wanted the loaf so what is the loaf so we we encourage basketball for a young kid maybe not boston basketball but but we were not the mix either unfortunately we got the eighth pick whatever after the crowd here but crazy but but whatever it is it's we encourage why because for a kid basketball is desire it's about being but what's supposed to happen is like i said like god said is that eventually it gets old it's like okay now i have muscles i can jump then you need something bigger you need to be creative you buy a guitar you make music and then you you have all these you can do a comment you can sing songs you feel deep then you realize is that it's a little hazy i want to understand things you know you're literally describing my life so i actually made this up following you i learned the whole thing from your life okay god okay god's the guy i call when i get hard questions you're right so so what happens is is that then so you play basketball now you got your guitar now you realize you want to understand things you start to read a science book and you get into electricity and and i was the motors and and all these things and electromagnets and then you realize that that's nice but there's biology and there's this then you realize that there's physics and then there's english and there's writing and this poetry eventually you know what you know where you get in the end you go is there any system that defines it all your desire will take you in the end to the place where you want the bird's eye view of all of reality reality intellectual and that's what the torah is desire to know torah it is it it is the bird's eye view of the world it's not the discounting of all the other fields torah is to the universe what the conductor is to all the instruments in the symphony in earlier stages of life you can start off in the audience and then you can start playing an instrument and then when you get to the end you realize the only place to be is to be is is to embrace it all and that's what drives us the torah and that only happens if you don't get derailed on the way by someone squashing your desire out of you if we leave our kids with desire they will all end up at that same place to be the conductor of the greatest philharmonic playing the music the greatest con poser and that's but unfortunately what we discussed in all the previous questions holds true is that the world squeezes the dreams out of us and we end up with with stuck in the basketball the music or even worse wishing that we're so innocent playing basketball there's far lower things than playing basketball and that's why we're preserving our kids we fight to preserve their dreams because dreams lead you to torah all right robert yolovsky you're thank you roger feldman robert i'll ask you your final thoughts on on this of why is this the real goal in life to sort of pull back for the sake of reaching higher and and again with you know searching for greatness in terms of being a great rabbi versus a big movie actor why is it why is that our preference in our world it's not we our goal isn't to become a rabbi our goal is to embrace a spiritual life because it's so much more fulfilling so you eat pizza how much pizza can you eat and after a while you just feel sick so you play tennis and after all you get dennis elbow and uh you feel sick yet but spirituality that can lift you out of this world into a spiritual pleasure that gets better and better and better and better and it just it's endless and the reason people don't understand this is because there are very few talented gemura teachers in the world very few but if you've ever had this course to learn by one when you go to somebody like this there is nothing more exciting aaron cutler when he was raising the money to start the lake with yeshiva so uh he had this one uh fellow who was helping him go around and raise money so they come home at night he sits down in the chair with the newspaper so byron looks at him he says why don't you open up a gemara he says don't worry rabbi i'm helping you i have my world to come so i'm not talking about the world to come i'm talking about this world a person a person who who understands the pleasure of learning torah there is nothing more exciting than it i give a i give an online daf yeominship and i had a high school kid who joined in you know and he i i had to tell at one point i said listen eventually you're gonna have to go back to school it's not gonna be this much fun you know unfortunately but a person should be able to learn gemara and it's like you know when when i would sit in the shift from relationship hero we would come out dancing we wanted to make a bracha blessed are you god who gave us the torah yeah it's it's it's the greatest thing in the world and so you have these people who sit there you know and they and they game and they play games and they and they play video and they and they and they go here and they eat and they didn't yet but a person who's had an experience where you've been lifted up out of this world so most people never had that because they don't even know that that's the goal of judaism but that's what it is and i've had secular people tell me rabbi if you could show me and i have a spiritual experience i agree with you it's better than everything else in this world so that's all of judaism all judaism is yeah as the messiah's hashem says why are we in this world to get the greatest possible pleasure which is the spiritual pleasure from being close to god that's it we're not here to you know to eat to drink to to go swimming to you know otherwise what do you need what do you need a soul for that soul gives you that existentialistic angst that i want more out of life you should have a castle be the cow man [Music] douglas adams you know he in one of his hitchhiker guides of the galaxy books he had this the the party the party that never ends there's a spaceship you know and it flies around it's just a party every now and then they land on a planet you know and they steal all the uh or the avocado to make more guacamole mix and they go back up and then the party just goes on forever yeah but we're not animals we're here to be able to have this unbelievable spiritual pleasure that takes us out of this world and when a person comes out of a shear like that or a class like that or a torque like that and you're lifted up it's just the best i feel i feel that way right now as you should because i in my spare time listen to myself my own recordings i always walk away entertained and and uplifted and inspired and i always very few and there are very few good students teachers out there anyway and i and i and i always walk away um with a new idea because i can't remember anything i ever said and so i'm listening to myself talking i hear myself asking a question i'm like that's a great question i don't know what the answer is that i hit my ass i'm like oh my gosh this guy's brilliant [Laughter] there was it was an old yiddish play where a guy says right how did noah build the tava build the ark if noah was blind oh that's a great question the answer was he wasn't blind that's a great answer so you know rabbis robert lasky rob roy feldham i can't tell you how much we appreciate once again getting together for real torah learning and to be able to pass on these ideas our watchers our listeners thank you so much for your time and i look forward to doing this again