Rabbi Benzion Klatzko | What Hollywood Wants You to Believe | CHAZAQ

[Music] as I always mention it's uh it says a lot about a community and it says a lot about an individual uh what you do on your days off uh and so it's it's always very special when we're able to uh to have these uh these locks and learns on on federal holidays when a lot of people are off uh because again it gives it gives I think it gives us because first of all it shows us you know ourselves what we do with our time especially when we're off and it gives the community to see that there's learning and there are events and uh and it really uh it's really really a special thing so I certainly want to thank kazak uh and and Robbie I believe this time they reached out to me like three months ago and I was like who's thinking about the 4th of July yet but the kazak was already thinking rabi was already thinking about the Fourth of July and we got it in the books and we did so thank you again to to rabie and it's my honor and privilege to call on Robbie just to say a few words on behalf of kazak it's always wonderful to partner with them uh and and uh and and it's my honor and privilege to call thank you Rabbi appreciate it let's give Round of Applause to the rabbi oh sorry not me good morning everyone just a quick word um I want to to say that um um I've been to the community a few times and many more times we should continue doing many programs events together and um of course every time I come into the sh it's such a warm place and such a amazing place to be and uh I myself AEP but I almost consider myself almost an associate member of the sh because ra is such a warm and and and place say don't say that we'll send you a bill I said almost but um of course that's that's the credit to all the amazing members of the community and of course of the leadership of the sh and of course the the the rabbi of the sh of course who's uh who's a close friend somebody who has tremendous MOS and great leadership and um of course I want to thank Dan introduce ra clco we want to thank of course ra clco coming from away from Muny early morning to join us we appreciate it and just a quick word about kak we've organized sh and events different communities we have this program over here in Rasin we have a a program in Queens as well on today on July 4th the legal holiday and um kazak has a main has a focus on public school Outreach programs in different communities with 20 different after school programs in different communities and of course if anyone has if anyone knows anyone has a um a friend neighbor coworker who has children in public school of course they should reach out to kazak to give them a Jewish Education through an after school program or or maybe to to trans to yiva if they're interested in that and um and of course um we should continue to he and um and without F backo yeah um also of course to should have mentioned first and foremost want to thank our sponsor of this morning Marvin and Gallia benac for sponsoring Le lmas Limas gallia's father Ben mayor right we switched that one point right sh should have Aliyah um and all of our learning and and and this should be should raise us in the sh higher and higher uh it is now my distinct privilege to call on uh on our speaker for the morning RAB ban katco RAB katco wears a lot of different hats uh and and and has done a lot of amazing things and I'm sure it's going to come up in s sort of his background I'll ask him to give a little bit of a background about himself before uh before starting but R katco uh is is known as the the the the Hollywood Rabbi which I'm sure we'll hear about as that the topic of this year today is what Hollywood wants you to believe but in addition to that rabbe uh RB katco actually started something called uh shabbat.com which sets up different people to to spend shabas in different places to experience shabas places and had a major major impact on the Jewish World showing people and letting people giving a medium for for and for the kadush and the Holiness of chabas that is in addition to many many other things he is a worldwide speaker sought out and by many many communities uh and it is a great honor and privilege to have RAB katco with us this morning and without further Ado RAB katco hi good morning everyone good morning so uh it's great to be here Independence Day feeling very independent today um you there was a movie many years ago called Independence Day by the Emer brothers and one one of the people who worked with the Emer Brothers his name was Jose Bahar and Jose worked with the EM brothers and um it's an interesting thing because my talida ended up marrying Jose Bahar part of the emerc brothers Independence Day moving group and today Jose Bahar has moved to the iraa to the old city where he helps out in the IDF and he does outreach and became a BAL Chua and they have 50 guests every Shabbat and uh it's an amazing thing so he I guess he found his own independence um I I'll give you a little background the rabbi asked me to so I am from uh Cleveland I born in Cincinnati grew up in Cleveland Ohio got married to my sweetheart heart when she was young and I was even younger uh we just celebrated our 36th wedding anniversary thank you many more amen amen 1988 we got married and bar a 20 plus grandchildren and uh and 11 children and um mik El my my students ask me Rabbi when are you going to stop having kids you know overpopulation you know don't you got to worry about that so I tell them I'll I'll stop at six million you know I think the world owes us more than we owe the world at at this point plus inflation that's right uh actually I did stop but the grandchildren you not so um yeah so basic history um U Got Married learned Torah became a Pulpit Rabbi for 10 years I was a rabbi in Brooklyn then I became the rabbi in a little city called Perth ambo New Jersey you may have heard of it right near the Outer Bridge Crossing uh then at the age of 30 I moved to California became the rabbi UCLA uh but when it was still safe I was actually friendly with the Palestinians they were my Nextdoor neighbors and we got along so the world has changed somewhat and at that time I began opening campus programs around Southern California us C SDSU UCSD UCSB calate Northridge campuses just starting Jewish life on campus and then at some point I branched out and started Jewish life on uh over a 100 campuses around the country um GW U UF uh UCF you you know Berkeley you name it um I was involved on some level uh Yale Harvard uh each of these campuses to install a rabbi train the rabbi in and that's really what I do today for an organization called Oli uh I go around and I train in rabbis and how to work with campuses and obviously this year things have gotten dramatic uh there's a lot of uh difficulty and a lot of opportunity at the same time when it comes to Jewish life and spreading Judaism while defending the Jewish people and um and and that's that's what I do uh today I live in mon New York we moved uh we moved in the year 2006 2007 and um I I go around to travel the country I also run trips to Israel and to Poland and I do shabbat.com as the rabbi mentioned which is a website and an app that allows people to find places for Shabbat in about 230 countries around the world in over 4,000 cities so you can go anywhere go on the website and say hey looking for a place in a lot looking for a place in San Francisco and you'll find all the people and that's a a fun nice thing uh that we do in addition we do our own Shabbat hosting uh we host about 60 70 people each week um for Shabbat and they eat and sleepover so they're there for a 24-hour party each week except when I do a family week with which is this week is going to be a family week but usually that's the case Hollywood so what's my connection to Hollywood so here's how it began as a rabbi in UCLA I daved in a a particular Sho right near UCLA and once a fellow comes over to me he was involved in Hollywood he was an agent and he said to me RAB I got a question and I said why don't you ask the local Rabbi whose sh I was ding at he said he's a more of an older gentleman I don't feel I connect can I ask you and I said sure and he began asking me his questions and eventually some of the other Hollywood people began coming over and I said you know why don't we just do a class once a month we'll call it the Hollywood class and it's for people in the industry and as time went on uh that class grew and grew and grew and over time I had uh people from all across the industry coming to a very exclusive class that took place in Westwood and we had writers and directors and producers and the VP of Warner Brother Sony and Disney and just all of these people were connected and it was an it was a beautiful opportunity for me uh both to have a little bit of influence on Hollywood which is a nice thing and also I would get my students jobs in Hollywood now what's my motivation to get them a job at Warner Brothers I don't have a motivation uh to get them a job in Warner Brothers I don't really care about that but what I really wanted them to do was to spend a little bit of time in Yeshiva because I'm a big believer in a Yeshiva experience so I would play Let's Make a Deal and the way it worked was I would tell my students you go to Yeshiva for a month or two and I'll get you a job in Sony and it was a win-win uh I was a happy Rabbi because they had a chance to invest in their Judaism and they were happy because they got a job in Sony and the people who would come to my class were uh really helpful in helping out my students and that was my experience uh before I speak about that uh because we are uh because we are in in the middle of Independence Day so you know baseball hot dogs apple pie and Chevrolet although that was the commercial Chevrolet is of a way of marketing Chevrolet but it used to be baseball hot dogs and apple pie so I'll tell you a quick little baseball story and I had a connection uh with a baseball story that I think uh Segways into the Hollywood uh crowd so after I moved from LA to New York I got a call from one of my students now this student was a high-profile fellow I'm still very connected to him he was the writer and producer of a show that became sort of a pop culture iconic show it was called friends uh okay you guys have heard of friends so he was the guy who started friends and he wrote the first I think 82 episodes and he produced it and his name was Michael borca and he would come to my class once a month and we had a very deep connection me me and Michael so when I came to uh to New York I got a call and he said look there's a big agent who lives in New York and he runs a management um called if management and there's a lot of famous people that he's the manager of and he's getting married his name is Steve is's getting married to a young lady named Rael and they don't feel connected to any Rabbi so they're looking for a rabbi to marry them off to be the mad kadan and I said I know the perfect person would you sit down with Steven ke and perhaps be their Rabbi I said sure and I called up Steve and I said I'll be happy to meet you in Manhattan we'll do breakfast together you'll get to meet me so we sat down we really hit it off both Steven Raquel and myself and I said you know what why don't you come to my house for Shabbat and they said sure we'd love to experience that so I told my kids be on your best behavior a famous manager and um and they were very Charmed with the kids and the whole Shabbat environment and in the middle of the meal he says I have a question for you and if you could answer this question you're my Rabbi I said what's the question and he said I want you to tell me right now who's leading the American League in batting average now here's my confession I used to be a big baseball fan like I knew all these statistics eventually it sort of died down as baseball itself has sort of like gone a little under the radar I think but once in a while I still flip through a they used to have such thing called a newspaper before that became Obsolete and you know you're stuck in the bathroom sometimes got a newspaper like okay that's and I actually just recently seen who is leading and I was so excited so happy with myself I know the answer I said you know who's leading his name is Joe Mau anyone recognize that name there we go Joe Mau think you Bo it was on the twins Short Stop of the twins wow okay Joe Mar he said you're right Rabbi you're going to be my Rabbi you're going to officiate us I have a request I said sure what is it he said under Thea I want you to mention Joe Mau cuz he's my favorite player and when you officiate mention Joe Mau and I'm thinking wow the holiest day of the year you're going to have me mention Joe Mau it's just seemed sort of a little off but you know that's he's very passionate he wanted me to mention Joe Mau I said okay I'll do my best so the wedding is approaching and I'm thinking how am I going to mention Joe m how am I going to tie him into the Kaa and then I figured I'll do it the way they advertise in the middle of a movie for Pepsi you know like where they have like this one like frame in the middle of the movie that there's a subliminal suggestion hey Pepsi or popcorn and you don't even realize that you saw it but all of a sudden you got the munchies for popcorn so I'm going to do that I'll be in the middle of officiating and all the all of a sudden I'll say and we're here to celebrate Steven Rael Joe Mau and that's why just like subliminally like throw it in there to make him happy last minute I came up with a different idea and I'm there and all these Hollywood people are there and it's like a big deal and it's in Manhattan the wedding and I get up and I'm speaking onto Thea and I said you know Steve you know he's got this amazing aura and he did his smile his countenance and Raquel is the same way and they remind me of the biblical character and I want to just share with everyone this this Bible story that I thought you would appreciate you know there were 12 tribes and one of them's name was Joseph and Joseph was sold into slavery and eventually he was thrown into prison and can you imagine one of the tribes thrown into prison and yet the prison Warden was nice to him even let him wander about freely and the reason why our rabbis teach us is because he had a special he had a special Grace about him and the grace was that he had the name of God on his lips so you would say how are you doing he would say barem thank God I'm doing well and he had this Grace he had this Aura this shine and we say shine in Hebrew it's called an a he had this light so the warden would go over to Joseph and he would say Joseph or Joe ma or Joe ma or and I repeated it three times Joe Joseph ma what is this light Ting for I said Joe ma Joe M and Steve was so happy I I menine Joe M and he's like high-fiving me as he's coming back with yes the Joe M wedding the Joe Mara wedding he was so happy middle of the wedding comes over to me and says I want you to meet one of my clients his name is Omar manah Omar manah was a GM of the Mets so he says to me he says to me and and Omar he says can I ask something do we have any Jews on the team and Omar said yeah actually there we have um this guy named Sean green who is U what got quiet thing from Toronto and the Mets so so from Toronto to the Mets so he was Jewish there was another other guy was Jewish there was a I think maybe one or two people in the farm system one was actually unfortunately A J for J um but there were three Jews on the Mets so Steve says do we have a rabbi to cater to them he says no he say now we do you'll be the official Rabbi of the Mets I said okay I'll be the rabbi of the Mets Lalo Lalo interestingly enough I'd actually years before been asked to be the rabbi of the Jets uh because in Perth Amoy one of my congregants was a fellow by the name of Leon hes and he owned the Jets but I could I couldn't do it I couldn't do it cuz I'm a Browns fan and I was like no no jo name at the side I just I can't do it um so but I mean although I was an Indians fan today I think they're the Guardians so the whole thing is worth worth nothing L Badu was like roll pulling in his grave Bob Feller okay so Trish speaker so at this point Rocky Cav I'm just going to give you my whole 1950s uh 1940s repertoire so I said yeah I'll be the rabbi of the Mets so what did that mean well that year they made the playoffs and game seven of I believe it was game seven of the playoffs they were playing the Cardinals and I was asked to come down you know as the rabbi the Mets to come down to the stadium so I came there was a rabbi of a Torah his name was Kanan cman I said Kanan want you he said come with me keep me company and we are there in the stand like where we are there at the game and the game is tied 3 to three and I got a text from the GM Rabbi why aren't you praying for us so so okay I know what what feeling to say as like what do you say right I'm sure there's like some smart uh you know Z kfu him I don't know you know so um right after he says that I don't remember the name of the player on the Cardinals but they had two men on base the guy hits a double the Cardinals It Go goes all the way to to the Centerfield wall two runs come at the score and the Mets lose the game five to three and I get a text you're a bad Rabbi so I was going to text back you're a bad GM it's your team but I didn't and that was it I was fired no I wasn't fired I just never came back anyway that's a little bit of a a little segue into the whole Hollywood thing um being the rabbi in Hollywood is an interesting experience because we all know that it's fake it's entertainment but it's fake and even though we can be manipulated to shed a tear at the ending of a really good movie and the music and you got the John Williams score and it's playing so beautifully and we feel so moved by it but the end of the day we know that everyone just you know they wrap up the set they go home in their cars nobody died no one was fired the love was not broken off they're married to someone else the whole thing is not real and yet it tugs at our heartstrings so when they come to a Shear when they come to a Torah class it's bizarre because we're teaching them Ms we're teaching them truth and when they hear truth without apology like just lay it down what is and what's not and you may be famous when you walk down the Boulevard in Los Angeles and people may be kissing up to you and trying to to to Curry favor with you and get your attention but you know and I know it's all fake you know do you know the Hollywood code of shooting you know there's a Code I learned the code when I gave the class the code goes like this I'd be ready to give the class and people would come into the Hollywood class and some are higher up on the totem pole and some are less and as they come in before I give the class they're shooting each other and this is the code of shooting if they shoot you one time it means they are vastly superior to you and you should be honored that they glanced in your general direction and that looks something like this they come into the class and they say hey Jeff hey that's the shoot one shot means you're nothing right you feel all you feel like dirty after like I need a shower I got one shot if they shoot you twice it means you may have been an extra in some film of theirs and they want to keep the bond in case they need you again so there there's two shots that go along with that that's like hey remember you you were on that um you were uh hoping that you'll feed them the you were uh right yeah that's right that's right and if they shoot you with two guns it means they have a script that they want you to read if you have time in case you have time and that looks like this they come in like hey hey hey I got I got something to you read only if you have time and they come with like a stack of 300 pages I just just I just happened to 10 stacks of just if you have time read the scripture tell me what let me let me know what you think and that is Hollywood they're all like let's do lunch let's do lunch and I'm waiting to get my Torah class like let's do lunch lunch lunch and I'm thinking they're never going to do lunch it's not get a real phone where they put in the numbers that's like that's not a phone that's Hollywood it ain't real so when you teach Torah they're not sure what to do with it give you an example I once taught a class in this Hollywood class once gave a class about lanara now can you imagine in Hollywood in Hollywood which is Gossip Central to speak about not gossiping it is literally uh like like speaking to a martian in in Chinese like it's just no connection and at that time um people would bring their non-jewish boy and girl friends to my class and there were these uh ladies who were in a show that many years ago was very popular the name of the show is called Charmed it had to do with witches right you heard of it so I had the witches of the show Charmed we're sitting in front of me they were not Jewish and I'm giving this class about not gossiping and one of them was a very I think her name was Alyssa Milan she was like very very famous famous teacher uh very famous actress and I'm speaking about not speaking lar and she says Rabbi don't you know where you are you're in in Hollywood you're in Hollywood that's all we do is we gossip that's literally every conversation how can you say that we can't I said I have a question for you I said do you enjoy do you appreciate when people speak negatively about you you appreciate that she says no but they do I said but you don't appreciate it do you the Torah says what is hateful to you what's hateful to you don't do it to your friend so if you don't like it don't do it to the next person Judaism appeals to your better Angels it wants you to do better to be better so she heard it she heard it we continue speaking and then we get to the second part of the class the second part of the class we said we said not only can you not speak L but you're not even allowed to listen to someone else gossip she says Rabbi if you tell me I can't even listen to gossip I am out of here I said bye-bye bye-bye you know you want goodbye she said no no I no really seriously I can't even listen why can't I listen to gossip I said to her imagine somebody is badmouthing you disparaging you to your friend would you want your friend to just sit there and take it would you want your friend to just sit there and absorb it what would you want your friend to do to protest to say sh you know be quiet to my friend I'm not listening that's terrible goodbye I said listening makes you complicit makes you a party it you become an enabler to speak L it's a very unique it's a unique thing when we're able to stop speaking and that's what it's like speaking in Hollywood there was a um there was a time when people had certain morals and values and they were not Torah values make no mistake but there were certain values going way back in the way back machine to the lit to Beaver right my My Three Sons right the old times where there were certain lessons of the end and it was somewhat formulaic I think it was all killed by Bill Cosby everyone thought they had America's dad and we know America's bad it's very unfortunate but today the pretense is gone the charade has disappeared I want to explain to you why and this is going to be the main idea that I want to mention today the grand lie of Hollywood is the LIE of what makes you and I happy what makes us happy you see no one wants to see a depressing movie no one wants to leave bummed we want to leave uplifted there was a very famous movie many many years ago called the Thelma and Louise okay speaking to the right crowd here okay it was a about a renegade a renegade guy in two ladies one of them had ended up having to kill someone it was an accident and she and her friend went on the lamb they went running running from the law and as they ran instead of being afraid eventually they enjoyed the experience and there was a sheriff and he was on on their on their track he was on their tail and at the very end of the film they were cornered and on one side of them was the sheriff and a whole bunch of squad cars and the other side was a cliff a cliff and they had this Choice should they surrender or should they jump the cliff should they and they look at each other this iconic end of the the film they look at each other and they say you know what we've lived our best life we've done our best and the music swells and the imagery and the sheriff is there no no don't do it ladies don't do it he mutters to himself they can't hear him and they gun the engine they put the pedal to the metal all the way down and they drive off the cliff and in the in the original ending of that film not only do they drive off the cliff but you see them crash to the bottom with their bodies mingled as they lay there dead and they played that ending in front of many audiences test audiences and guess if the test audiences enjoyed that ending terrible terrible so how did they end up ending the film exactly they drive off the cliff and you see the car flying in the air and it freezes in the air and the credits roll now you know and I know what happened to that car but we we we can't be bummed we need to in at least in the end of our oh they had another ending also they had a second ending that they also didn't use and the second ending was that you see them driving off in the bottom of the cliff and the audiences didn't like that either cuz it was not realistic there was no way that they could fly off a cliff and drive away at the bottom of the cliff so to see them dead nay to see them Drive Away unrealistic nay so how does it have to end it has to end with the car freeze frame in the middle of the air credits roll maybe in our minds maybe just maybe they're happy somewhere in Paradise maybe they survived maybe maybe Hollywood needs to keep up the charade of the happy ending and what is that happy ending when well we're we're all products of Disney it's an amazing thing but Disney has become the become the spokes the spokesperson for the Youth we all grew up with Disney the younger generation with Toy Story 1 2 3 through n even the older generation who knows maybe the jungle book The Lion King go further back Snow White and the Seven Dwarves Cinderella Dumbo on and on and on and in each of these films Sleeping Beauty mirror mirror on the wall who's the fairest of them all Prince Charming comes gives a kiss she wakes up n when you you know that when you wish upon a star who knows what you're going to get happy happy you'll get a kiss and you will live happily ever after a man can son that's happiness that's Joy that's our ending and what's the grand lie the grand lie is that when we aim for that kind of Happiness most of the time we end up with the disappointment because you know and I know that that's not the life that Hashem wants us to live that we're destined to live or that will even give us satisfaction raising children is mighty hard very difficult and yet through the difficulty through the persistence through the tears and the sweat and the PTA meetings and paying tuitions and and wondering if our kids are going to stay on the straight and narrow or whether they're going to wander off into Oblivion God forbid at the end of that is the satisfaction of knowing that we did our our best and that when we are able to bring up decent good God-fearing human beings we have done something that's so much better that's so much more significant than the kiss from Prince Charming with the dwarves dancing around and the music happily playing in Technicolor none of that is real what's real is yti I worked hard I tried my best it was the it was the the difficulty that made the payoff a satisfactory one it's better to have one C of grain one measure that you worked hard for than lots of measures from something that you didn't work hard for we understand that it's not happy not smiling not bird singing In Harmony to Snow White As She Goes Around cleaning up the house and making breakfast but it is truth that we strive for this Shabbat this shabas we we're speaking to the students who came to our house they were having a great time learning about Judaism and one of the students gets up and she's very excited and she says you know what I like best about Judaism community community we celebrate together I love communis my favorite thing about Judaism and then people began speaking about what's your favorite thing about Judaism that became the topic then they turned to me and they said Rabbi what's your favorite thing about Judaism I said you want to hear I'll tell you my favorite thing my favorite thing about Judaism is that it's true that it's true that's my favorite thing that I'm not living a lie that even when it's difficult even when I I'm not feeling it even when emotionally I'm a little bit checked out the fact that is true is my favorite thing I know that I will always be able to go back to its truth and feel like I'm in the right I've got it going on the fact that it's true better than anything else in Hollywood we don't care if it's true I can lie and lie and lie if it makes me happy if you make me happy if you complete me my happiness depends on you completing me it doesn't come from having truth planting my flag in Ms that's a very very unique thing that Judaism has there is a a concept that is spoken about in our very left liberal campuses and they are left and they are liberal you'll be interested to know that one of my students in UCLA was Ben Shapiro if you you know who he is he's a a commentator and when when I was a rabbi UCLA he was very young that time 18 and he had just written a book that was published that really went far and wide at the very young age about the left leaning College teachings and he was ahead of his time because today we all know we speak about it but at that time it was like it was it was considered a novel novel book and the byw on campuses the password to get into society was and still is even more today open-mindedness I'm an open-minded person I'm open to all possibilities I'm so non-judgmental I'm so open minded my brains have fallen out I'm open-minded Hollywood tells us be open-minded to everything as if open-mindedness is the goal the goal is to be open-minded and of course it sounds like that because if I say I'm a closed-minded person that sounds terrible that sounds austere it sounds like I'm so narrow religious close-minded Society May careful for them they'll throw rocks at you they'll spit at you close-minded but I'm an open-minded person that's part of the Great Hollywood lie you know we like to think we're open-minded but we're not really you know how I know we're not open-minded because if I asked you is it okay to shoplift would you say yeah it depends you know you know maybe I can see why it's okay you know maybe in a communist Society we have to make sure that the wealth is dispers you wouldn't say that right you would say no it's not okay to shop with is it okay to to to kidnap no why are you so sure I thought you an open-minded person I can I could give you a whole list of things that you are sure about what happen to your open-mindedness and your answer would be cuz this is for sure wrong it turns out that if I were writing this as a mathematical formula it would sound something like this x equals Clarity and when I have X and then I have a decision to make which would be y z would be closed-mindedness when I have clarity about what is right and what is wrong I'm closed-minded I'm not open to the possibility that Hitler was right yes I'm closed minded Nazism is wrong Kamas is wrong it's never okay to kidnap little babies or grown men or Soldier it's not okay and if you accuse me of not being open-minded I will give you a list of things that you're not open-minded about it turns out that open-mindedness is never the value that we're looking for you know what we're looking for listen carefully we're looking for clarity and open-mindedness is the vehicle that we use to find Clarity the ends the goal is never to be open-minded open- mindness is not an ends it's a means to an end it's the means to find truth so I'm open-minded to possibilities until I get my clarity but once I have my clarity then I'm close-minded but not because I'm narrow but because I now know what is okay and what's not okay when we are when we don't have Clarity so we are open-minded so I could listen to the argument to say that the goal is to remain open-minded it's like saying the goal of soccer the goal of soccer is to find the ball that's not the goal of soccer imagine the whole game I'm looking for the ball where's the ball where's the ball I found the ball I won the game no what's the what is the game how do you play the game to kick the ball into the net now of course you got to have a ball to kick to the net so the goal is not to find the ball the goal is to kick the ball into the net the goal is not to be open-minded the goal is to get clarity so that you can begin your life by living up to Clarity by living up to Truth by living up to righteousness the goal is to get that Clarity what is right what is wrong now the game begins once I know what's right what's wrong now can I live up to what's right and wrong that's the game the game of life is to live up to truth not to find truth to finding truth is a prerequisite but if all your life you're just looking for what's real at what point do you live up to it at what point do you say now I got it now let me see if I can live up to it are we are we on the same page here a a very important thing when I have parents who say to I students who say to me I say did you go to Jewish school and they'll say no no my parents were very open-minded they let me choose they let me choose I say that's very interesting did they let you choose whether to go to school at all no no no they sent me to school I said ah why why why didn't they let you choose about that well they understood that Math and Science are important ah so things they had clarity about they they took a stand things that were a little bit wishy-washy they let you choose our job is to find the clarity so that we can live up to it Hollywood's job is to muddle the waters muddy the waters I don't know what's right the protagonist the villain the hero gets flipped on its head again and again with a little bit of musical manipulation with a little bit of Graphics I'll be left in a moral quandry there was a film I never saw it but it was a film about the massacre in Munich that happened during the Olympics that the Jews the Israeli um athletes I think 14 of them or so were murdered by the popular front for the liberation of Palestine and the Mad decided that all of the perpetrators all the terrorists are going to be killed they're going to be killed and there was this targeted assassination that Israel is so good at so someone had to make a film now if you ask me that's a good enough plotline for a film what a plotline to go go and hunt the villains each one of them thinking they're Oh Black September I think was the name of the organization Black September I think it's a good enough plot line to to hunt down these animals no what has to be the plot line not hunting down Black September but the moral quandry that sumon of the most have should I be killing those people that's your plot line of course in Hollywood that's the plot line because if I could flip morale on its head then I have a story now everything is Muddy what's good and what's not good and you know what the result is the result my friends I'm sorry to say is an NYU and Colombia people Americans who had their tuition paid for who are living in the lap of luxury with all the freedoms that we talk about on Independence Day marching with pramas and Pro B slogans why because the Waters of morality were muddied by Hollywood and who knows who's really the villain maybe this did happen to the women in in in the Nova Festival maybe it didn't maybe near o maybe Barry who knows maybe they deserved it maybe let's go back in time it didn't start now it started 75 years ago why why 7 maybe it started 3,000 years ago what are you just arbitrarily throwing out numbers but that's what hollyw it does says the Torah if I learn and I DAV and I try to connect I have Clarity I understand what is right with I put in front of you good and life and evil and death please my friends choose life get clarity don't listen to The Muddy Waters of the naysayers you know we know I know that those who speak speak with agendas because they themselves are full of dysfunction they themselves are have cheated on their marriages not once not twice but it's so common that everyone laughs about it in in the bar as they speak to each other over martinis who's the latest person that they beted that's Hollywood and we we hear it and we see it again and again and eventually it becomes the new normal and morality disappears the idea of Independence and I'll wrap up with this the idea of Independence and an independent St is not that we are free to do whatever we want no matter how much it hurts the next person no matter what is good and what is evil it is true that by law we can get away with more than other countries but part of Independence is that AES who the Creator has given us this beautiful country with all of its warts and all of its flaws in order to do what we're doing right now over our nice bagel and nmir to sit and learn Torah and to say Hashem this is where I plant my flag this is my truth this is my emis and I won't be muddied Democrats and Republicans lie after lie Al says don't get involved their lies from both sides I used to give a I I had a radio show for years in New York and I i' say a stance and they said Rabbi I don't understand are you Republican are you democrat I said I'm neither I'm a Torah Jew I look for truth wherever truth is I will follow and wherever it's not I won't listen to the noise so I give you eacha in this Independence Day you should follow the Torah listen to the truth of it understand and protect yourself from the lies and the falsehoods that that that bombard us that make us almost immune and numb to the morality the goal is never to figure out what's true or what's right the goal is to live up to EMS and with that way we will create and keep on building this beautiful Community right here in Rosland thank you so much than