Just Listen To Your Rabbi - It’s That Simple (Ep. 283)

Hi, this is Dr. Alowski and welcome to the Revolowski show. Whether you watch with our friends over at Terr anytime, wherever you watch or listen to your podcast, it's always nice to have you along. Do not forget to like, share, subscribe, and comment. It was interesting when we put up a video about my uh my trip to America and somebody said, I guess it pays to like that also. what to comment. There's no question about it. That definitely is. I have to tell you, I was sitting here thinking as I say, "Hi, this is David Alowski. Welcome to the Real Lowski Show. You must know by now." I don't know why I have to say that every single time, you know, but it could be that as happens from time to time, someone suddenly discovers the show and I hear people who suddenly contact me and say, "I didn't even know you had a podcast." And uh I it's ironic, you know, when I um I mentioned that we have about 20,000 listeners and uh um among the nasty comments that I got uh when I did my Tuvia Singer uh show, so someone says 20,000, huh? Who are you kidding? You know, so I actually comment I didn't comment on most of them, you know, but I commented. I said, well, you know, we're on multiple platforms. It's not just on YouTube. It's on our friends over at Tony Time. It's on Apple Podcast. It's on Spotify. It's on a lot of different platforms. And the irony is that even on YouTube, that video now has 22,000 views. So, you know, what can I tell you? A lot of people seem to know it, but a lot of people don't. And they suddenly discover the show and they go back to the beginning and start listening to six years of me, which is, wow, that's a lot to listen to. I listened to myself for six years, but I have no choice. But uh who knows? I I I used to take it for granted that everyone knows who I am already. Yeah. So uh I would pick up the phone and I would just start talking and you know a few minutes in someone would say who is this? And I I was surprised because I thought everyone knows who I am already. So I picked up the habit of whenever I call anyone I say shalom this is David Olowski calling from Merit Stra and my mother of Shalom would say I know who you are son and I said listen I'm not taking any bets anymore people might not know who I am so I am David Olowski and this is the Rabbi Alowski show and we have a sponsor and as I've mentioned in the past few episodes uh we are towards the end of our sponsorships so this might be a wonderful opportunity for you to either support what we do over here because you think it's important or to honor or memorialize somebody who's important in your life. And um you know, we could uh we could use your help. And speaking about help, just before we get to our sponsorship, um we have only one more show after this with our producer Israel, who of course took over for producer Mail and uh he is moving on to greener pastures. So, uh we have a position open for a producer uh who uh has the requisite um uh abilities and um and experience to be able to film, edit, and uh post and keep track of all the stuff that we're doing over here. And uh if uh you think that you are that sort of a talented person, please reach out to us and um uh we're going to see because otherwise uh it's uh it's either going to be me sitting there with my phone filming myself like a hostage video or it's going to be another hiatus where I'll get all those emails. Are you all right? Is everything okay? Yep. We just lost our producer. So if you think you're that talented someone and you're looking for an golden opportunity to be able to be Marbit Torah for very little money, this is the place to come. So opportunities abound and uh just reach out to us. In the meantime, our sponsor for this week is sponsored anonymously and tremendous gratitude for all the that you provide to all your listeners each and every week exclamation mark. May this sponsorship be a fork raisel very soon. So Rifkabas raisel should be to a hagun menu and uh we hope to hear good news and if so we might be on to a whole new area over here of schoolers. I will just tell you the following when um you know I uh I had two girls and then I had a boy and uh my father said listen give the sun to your father-in-law I'll take the next one. Well, um, five girls later, uh, when he was already dying from Yan Makla and I had told him it was a girl, he was, he says, "Look, I can't say I'm not disappointed." Um, I had made arrangements to be medevaced to Israel in order to be able to be sundic by you. He didn't make it. I said, "All right, well, Mr. Shem, I'll have a boy afterwards to name for him." And I had another girl. And so, I started looking along for Sigulus. And by the way, we've asked to talk about schoolers. We will talk about it in a future episode. But one that they say is to buy Korim. So I bought Karim and then next year I did not have a baby boy. So I didn't buy it the next year. I had spent a lot of money. And the guy says, "You're not bidding this year." I said, "Well, it didn't work." You know, he says, "What?" And if you turn the key in your car, it doesn't start right away. What do you do? Throw away the car or you turn it again? Thought that was interesting idea. So what can I tell you? We uh we will do the best that we can over here. Myself and all of Davin yeah for and the should all work together to help um accomplish these wonderful things. And if not so turn the key again. Okay. Um, let's get down to our topic at hand. And like some of the past episodes, the topic actually comes out of a question that was submitted to the question answer. So every now and then I get a question that um producer Israel pointed out that you know it used to be that I gave very short answers to questions and um and uh now it seems like we only get through one question in the question and answer portion of the uh of the episode. You're giving much longer answers. So uh so the truth is not because I've changed but the nature of the questions change. So, if a person asks a question like, "Who's your favorite superhero?" That's a lot easier than having to deal with a question like, "Um, how do you explain Simsum or could you explain the misora or you know, or what should be my kavanas during Ezra?" You know, these things take more time as you can imagine. So every now and then it's a very long question and uh um it takes the entire um probably would take most of an episode to answer and so I say we'll file those away and save it for an actual episode that I will uh dedicate to it. It's interesting when we talk about question answers. I remember when I taught in discovery, I was on a question and answer panel. They would have a panel at the end for question answers. It was myself, it was Mati Burger and it was Ari Khan. And we each had a particular dynamic that we played. Now I'm telling this story. I know that uh I have out there who know everything I've ever said. You'll already know this story because people always will come over to me and just tell me the punch line. But for those of you dilotants out there who are new to this experience, I hope you'll appreciate the story. Anyway, someone explained to me how does the dynamic work? How do you each answer the questions differently? So I said, I'll give you an example. There was a fellow from down south who was in the program. When I say down south, I mean southern United States. And he asked the following question. He says, "I have a cousin who lives in Rahovat." and he says it's possible for a non-Jew to have a Jewish soul. So Mati says, "Well then what do you mean by a non-Jew?" And Ari goes, "What do you mean by a soul?" And I go, "What do you mean by a hobo?" So that was more or less the way we divvied it up. You know, Muty would take a very, you know, hard-headed, direct approach. Ari was always more spiritual. And I would just look for the absurdity in the question. So uh so we more or less managed to make room for everybody. But when Mati would get a question very often, he would he told me once he says, "My philosophy is I'm using this as an opportunity to say another shear and he would give a 15 to 20 minute sometimes 30 minute answer to the question because he had a shear on it and he felt like he wanted to go through the entire topic." A lot of people don't do that, right? For example, um, uh, Rabbi Dr. got and or when he would do a question and answer and someone would ask about the Holocaust. So he would say I will not disgrace the memory of the six million by giving a short form answer to the Holocaust. I you know I will not do that. If you want I have an entire shar on it but I'm not going to make it a you know a sound bite. Right Shapiro by the way said a similar thing. He said uh uh he was once walking down the street and as a asked if he was raining he says could I share your umbrella to the end of the street. He says sure he says and as we start walking he says by the way why was there a holocaust he says I don't know. So Abra said oh okay so he told this over in Shir a few times and he said he said be if you want an answer from here to the end of the block about the Holocaust I can't do it. I have no problem doing those kind of things. I'm good with with short answers. But my would give actually a mini shar on whatever the topic happened to be. He would go on for for quite a while and sometimes I would try to say something. He says one second of it and he would just keep going. Now I'm very good like that. I don't need to hear myself talk. I'm I'm I'm very uh I have a lot of opportunities to be able to speak. Um I'm sure I told this story already that the only time I spoke at the AGA convention. So my good friend uh Pakist um he says David be prepared to run late. I said why? He goes because everyone speaks too long. Said why? He goes because they can't believe that they're speaking at the AGA convention and they just can't stop themselves and they just keep talking. I've never had that problem, you know. Um I I can speak for a short amount of time. My friend Yway Rubenstein, right? He used to be on the BBC and they gave him a five minute slot and he was so good they moved him up to like the next from BBC 3 to BBC 2, I think, you know, and they gave him a three-minut slot and he was so good they moved him up to BBC 1 where he had a two-minute slot. So he says, "You're looking at the only rabbi who can speak for two minutes." So I can do that if if uh if need be, you know. So it's like sometimes I I charge when I speak. It's the only income that I really have. And um and uh so people say, "Oh, how much do you get, you know, for a speech?" And I tell them, he says, "Uh, well, how long do you usually speak for?" I said, "It's usually between 45 minutes and an hour." He says, "We only need you for 10 minutes." I said, "Oh, that cost double. I can do it." But for a rabbi to speak for less time, that you know, so that's what they say. You say a rabbi who can speak for an hour is valuable, but a rabbi who can speak for 10 minutes is invaluable. Yeah. So uh so uh I can speak for a very short period of time. So I don't mind that I would just sit there you know like a goum while while Mati was speaking. I was okay with that. I I once told somebody I said me and Mati agree on one thing we disagree on one thing. We both agree that he has a lot of worthwhile things to say. We disagree as to whether or not I do. But I'm happy to listen to him. I'm I'm always happy to listen to uh to smart and talented people like uh like Monty Burger and um I hope nobody thinks that I'm uh I'm I'm complaining over here any disrespect. I'm very happy just to sit there and keep him company while he talks. Um which uh which is uh you know my pleasure. I hear myself talk all the time anyway. So uh so that's the idea that sometimes it depends on the question. Some questions you can do with a short answer, some answers take more time, some answers take a lot of time. And uh and I'm definitely of the opinion that if somebody already answered the question, I don't have to say it again. So very often when there's a panel, somebody will say something and the next person will say, "I just want to reiterate what he just said." No, you you really don't have to. He said it. Do not reiterate it. It has been iterated. That's more than enough. And I bring an example of my good friend Ry Y was running an encounter conference in Manchester and at the end of the program there was a um there was a panel question and answers. It was myself, Jonathan Rosenlum, um, uh, uh, Rabbi Sinclair from Oris and Rebel. And, um, and, uh, we, um, we were on the panel and for some reason it was like everybody on the panel had to answer every question. I don't know why exactly. So, they asked Jonathan Rosen Bloom since he was the political person he writes about politics. Someone asked him, "Do you believe that uh the are doing enough to reach out to the secular community in Israel and he answered the question and then Re Sinclair answered the question and then Reverend Sahel answered the question. Everybody gave like a 5 to 10 minute answer, you know. And then they asked me, Rabowski, do you believe that the kared are doing enough to reach out to the people in the secular people in Israel? And I said, no to tremendous applause. But I mean my frustration level reached it when they asked Ruby Sinclair. Ry Sinclair had been in Hollywood and Broadway and music production etc. And so somebody asked him, "Do you miss being, you know, in the entertainment field?" And he answered the question and then Reinhela answered the question and then Reb Rosenlum answered the question and then the moderator answered the question and then they come to me and I said, "How do I know if Robert Sinclair misses being in Hollywood? How could I possibly give an opinion on it?" You know, but that's how it is. people love to uh love to answer these kind of questions. So me I'm happy to uh to let it go to give a short answer to uh to not answer it at all. I'm all right with that. You know sometimes uh I can burn through a lot of time in a question and answer just from the question because not everybody is concise and I've never really mastered the skill of cutting people off. So, somebody would get up and they'd say, "Um, uh, you have a question?" Yeah. Um, I have a neighbor and, uh, her sister, it's not really her sister, it's her sister-in-law, but her sister-in-law is married to a fellow. Um, I mean, if it's her sister-in-law, you think she'd be married to her brother, but it's not because they got divorced and she's married to somebody else now. and uh and and they're married. They don't live in the neighborhood. They live in um where is it? It's in New Jersey. Uh I don't remember right now. Anyway, so they're living there and they've got three kids. Um it's a boy and two girls. Uh the boy is um the boy is Jim uh Payic. That's where they live. Anyway, this could go on for a good 15 minutes and I keep going. Do you have a question? Yeah. Yeah, I'm getting to it. And the story just keeps going and going and everyone in the group is like, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe this. Make it stop. Good lord, make it stop." And I don't know how to stop them because when I say, "Okay, could you just cut to the Yeah, I'm getting there. I'm getting there." Anyway, so she drives a Honda. It just It just keeps going. there's no way for it to stop, you know. So, um anyway, all of that is my way of introduction to this week's topic, which was a question that was submitted and I said, "This is a this is a question that I think deserves full podcast uh time, although there's not much of it left." What can I tell you? That's the problem with ADD. You just keep going and going. Anyway, so um the question was what is your position on now? Uh let me uh comment on what that means when we say what is my position on. I am I'm definitely in favor of I think is a wonderful thing and I I think it should definitely uh uh be used in the big day kahuna and uh you know etc and all those kind of wonderful things. That's not the question. The question is formulated by an idea which again I was exposed to by a footnote in the living Torah. For those of you not familiar with it, the Living Torah is a translation of the Torah into English by Arya Kaplan Zatal. Um, I should point out that uh there are translations into a dialect that's similar to English but should not be mistaken for English. If it has words in it like uh the vessel becomes impure or um uh oh my favorite favorite is I saw one translation translate pre-bitna as fruit of the womb. Yeah. Um and other things like that. Right. So he translated it into English. Yeah. and um and the sentence structure is written that way. And he puts in the punctuation the way you would in English as opposed to the tortured translations that people do to try to keep it uh as much as you can literally translated, but a literal translation. That's why um I once heard my brother-in-law Rab David Lickman refer to the Tarum Unkus as a rendering instead of a translation. And I thought that's a brilliant word. It's not a translation. It's a rendering. It includes a commentary inside of it. And every translation is a commentary. So um so he translates it in such a way. And the footnotes are unbelievable. Uh in the back of the he has his bibliography where he quotes such a wide variety of sources that it's just mind-boggling. I heard a story that somebody was he writes in the introduction. And it took him 9 months to do the whole thing and the footnotes are unbelievable and the sources that he draws upon and uh and after he was nifa some people were doing uh I don't remember if it was a mast's or a doctoral thesis on this work and went to the almona and asked for the rough drafts to compare it and she said there are no rough drafts he just sat down and wrote the whole thing straight. So really unbelievable. So the ina he translates as sky blue wool, dark red wool, wool dyed with crimson worm. And here's his comment on sky blue, which is sky blue. According to Sadya um the Rambam and Josephus in Hebrew. According to others, it was a greenish blue or aquamarine rashi ebenezra and the usi brais deep blue the color of the evening sky manakim quoted in rashi on numbers 1538 a zor or ultramarine the rad or highin blue the septuagent the uh the talmet states that resembled Indigo Gumar. This blue dye was taken from an an animal known as the kilazone toa. It is a boneless invertebrae yabis having a shell that grows with it. Dvarim raba. It is thus identified with a snail of the papura family. Rava on braos moor. The septtogent also occasionally translates it as olaperus which indicates that it was made from the pure dye of the papura. There were some who identified the kilazone with the common cuttlefish sofia officialis that's the but most evident evidence contradicts this that is the certain uh used to wear um or still do wear. That's a type of blue. It's made from the cuttlefish. There it was known that the ancient Tyrions were skilled in making this dye Dra Yamim 2 Yascll 27 and that snails from which it was made were found on the coast of northern Israel and Phoenicia. Tarum Yunosin Andvarim Shabis 26A and Strao. This indicates that it was the famed Tyrion blue. Around the ancient Tyrion dye works, shells of Murik's trunkilus and Murk's brander are found. These dies are also made in Greece and Italy. Yakascal and Iliad 441 and Aristotle history of the animals 515. The remains of these ancient diworks have been found in Athens and Pompei. The shells found there were papura hamstada and murk's brander ply. Some have identified the kilazin with janitha paleya or janitha byol deep water snails which produce a light violet blue hyth. And that is quoting Ribitzkit Isaac Halevi Herzog from his work the dying of purple in ancient Israel unpublished written in 1919. Of course Arya Kaplan must have had a copy of it. In ancient time animals such as these were renowned for their dyes. Again quoting ply the dye is removed from a cyst near the head of the snail preferably while the animal is still alive. Shabas 75a Aristotle history of the animals. It is boiled with alum as a clarifier. Gomorra manis also see rashian zara to produce the dye. The wool is then ground with alconet root or alo wood in order for it to take the dye well. The rambom and plliny. Only a few drops of dye could be obtained from each snail ply. And according to one modern researcher, over 8,000 snails would be needed to make a single cubic cm of the dye. This explains its high cost and its restriction to royalty. That is his footnote on. And I remember when I read this uh I came away um less with a deep understanding of than with a deep appreciation of Arya Kaplan because those are by no means the most uh bizarre works that he quotes in his uh in his notes. Yeah. In fact, when it comes to Aragaman, he suggests that it's related to the Sanskrit word ragaman, which means uh scarlet. Um not many people are familiar with uh Sanskrit. And I may have told this story in the past, so you'll indulge me, I hope. Um the uh national convention of uh of NCSY used to be in the Pine View Hotel and there was another old hotel there that had been taken over by some eastern cult and a number of the rabbis and the faculty decided they were going to confront them. Now I heard this story both uh from Yussi Abrams and from Rabbi Refson who were there and they said they all go to confront him and uh and the head of this cult is treated as if he himself is God not just God's prophet God himself. And so once they get there they push a Kaplan up front and he says what is your ba your your religion based on and he says the hungaba whatever it is some ancient work and a cap says really because I have six basic questions on that work and God smiles beneicently at him and says that's because you have the translation ours is the original Sanskrit and Aya Kaplan says yeah yeah I read Sanskrit I read it in original apparently God had not so uh so he was an unusual fellow he wrote an English uh may lo translation and he didn't use the Hebrew it was originally written in Latino which is sort of like Spanish version of Yiddish combination of like you know uh Jewish and uh and and Spanish and it was translated into Hebrew and he was reading the Hebrew and he didn't like the translation so he taught himself Ladino and translated the English may lo from the original Ladino. I'm not an expert in these things but I've heard from several people who are considered experts that Arya Kaplan's English translation of the mayo is more accurate than the Hebrew version that was translated from the Latino. So take that for what you will. But the point is that uh this is an amazing uh research. What happened at some point? Somebody decided based on Ra Herzog's unpublished manuscript suggesting that was made from this particular snail that they were going to begin production of and make their own and uh this became uh a move that some people uh embraced wholeheartedly working with the assumption of listen uh how bad could it be and they started making I don't know anything full disclosure about their production methods I don't know if they're using thousands and thousands of snails in order to be able to get it um but uh it sounds like it's a very expensive process somehow I don't think these titsus and tlesum are being sold um for that kind of money that uh that would justify thousands and thousands of snails um you know being uh being cut to be able to to to get that little bit of dye out of it. I don't know. Like I say, I'm I I don't know. But this became a big question. Do you wear or do you not? And there are some people who right away embraced it and other people who did not. And this became a question not so much anymore. People don't really, you know, people who have embraced this based on the manuscript are basically wearing their and they feel very good about it and they're fine. And the people who are not are not and it's not a major issue anymore that you hear discussed in the from community. very rarely will somebody actually come over to me and ask me what do you think about the or why aren't you wearing the etc. So, uh, but back then at the time it was really a major issue and, um, and the the arguments went back and forth and I'm not qualified to argue on all of them, but I do know the one thing that um, was said in the name of Briska in regard to the lion of the garra is that the kilazone was hidden away. Hidden away which means that it's not going to reappear says until mashia comes. So anyone who thinks that they have found the real is clearly mistaken because it's hidden. It's hidden like the uron is hidden away. It's hidden like certain other things like the oregonos like certain things like certain things that are hidden away. And in fact the word yeah is related to the word the purpose the end and that it it represents the end of time and so and it represents the gula and it represents all these kind of things. So it was hidden away after the we don't have it now. And so's position is anyone who tells you that they found it is clearly mistaken because it doesn't say we forgot what it is or we don't know. There are certain things we say we don't know, right? Um I'll give you an example. How do you make matzah? Well, the Mishna gives you the recipe. Take flour and water. Knead it. Form it into a ball, slam it on the side of the tanor, wait till it's baked, and peel it off. That's a matzah. Today, we call it a lafa or an ashtanor. You know, one of those big flat pas that we use for falafu or for or for schwama or something like that. But that's that was amata which makes hello make a lot more sense cuz he would take the pesak and the ma and the matzah and he would make a sandwich. So we sit there at the seda with these crackers and lettuce you know and we take a bite out of it and the whole thing crumbles onto us and we're picking up pieces of it and eating it and you think what was thinking. Imagine if this was a a meat sandwich. So he had a matzah that was basically a lafa and he put in the roast lamb and he put in the lettuce and he rolled it up and invented schwama. He his was the first schwama and he would lean back on the couch with a glass of warm wine. This used to be a great religion. Yeah. But what happened? We're afraid that it wasn't baked through all the way. This is before we get into the gabros people. Yeah. We're afraid that it wasn't baked all the way. Maybe some of the inside wasn't baked. So therefore, we make them very thin. We put holes in them and we burn them. So you end up with these crackers. Yeah. That's not what a matzah obviously was supposed to be. But we don't remember. We don't remember. Um there are people today who do not eat figs and certain other fruits and vegetables because they say we don't know how to check them well enough for bugs. Yeah. Uh I heard from uh Rashadmi who was a Talmud of Rashinberg that Rashinberg would eat figs, cut him open and he would look says I don't see anything and he would eat it. Yeah. Uh I heard uh heard the same thing from Tugodole about strawberries. You know that uh they asked him how do you clean the strawberries? And he says, "You cut off the top and you cut them in half and you rinse them off and in soapy water and that's it." So he says, "Yeah, but uh certain Rabonim say that they're they're filled with bugs and you can't eat them." And I heard this from Bashim 2 uh two Torah. I heard it Bashame Rab Shinberg and I heard it from Novett. So they said, "But Rabbi so and so says you can't eat them because they're filled with bugs." So he says, "So tell him not to eat them." But I check and I don't see any bugs, you know. So the fellow who told me the story, he says he once met a talmet of of one of these ramim and he says he told him over the story. He says, "Yeah, yeah, you have to look at it with a, you know, with like a a microscope." He says, "Yeah, but that's not the den. The den is you have to be able to see with the naked eye, and that doesn't apply if I if I need a microscope to see them, you know." Now you've had the uh the the point is that people just say we don't know how to do it today. We don't know how. So that's coming out of ignorance. Or maybe my favorite example is um a woman becomes a nida when she sees dam. But how do you know if it's dam or not? There are a lot of different types of damim out there. So picture if you will, yeah, pure red, whatever pure red is, and keep making it darker and darker and darker and darker and darker until you come to black. And imagine, you know, hundred different shades. And now take the pure red and make it lighter and lighter and lighter and lighter until you come to pure white. And now do the same thing with gray and make it gray and grayer and gray. Um I forgot the the words. One of those are shades, one of those are tints, one of them are use. But uh they're different things. You're left with hundreds of red. So if you go to the paint store and you say, "I want red paint." They'll hand you this little card with five different types of red. And then they have like a hundred cards like that. Of all of those read, only four of them are considered tummy, says the Mishna. Yeah. And it describes it. If you want to find it, take the dirt from a particular place and put it in a bucket of water and stir it up and the color of the water that comes up or go to a particular field of flowers and watch it from a distance, the color that hovers over it. So, this is a very specialized thing to be able to identify what it is. It's very hard and um even in the time of the gam they were this is very very few people are able to do this to be able to identify this. Someone asked me once why don't you make a color chart and the answer is because they fade. Uh it's interesting there's an entire field called art restoration where they take certain classics works and they clean it up and it ends up that over the years from the dirt and the fading etc the picture the painting that was made was much brighter and more vivid and you know than it than what we have before us today but it's faded. So if I would have a color chart and it fades a little bit then that's it. You're going to pass in the wrong hal now. So you just had to be able to to spot that. And um and uh today there are very few people who uh in time of the Gamarra they said you can't do it. So we would go guys on all red any any shade uh you or or uh or tint or anything of red is just we don't know. We just don't know anymore. Yeah. It's not because of that. But here by the it doesn't say we don't know what the is. It says the was hidden away. And that was the argument for the people who say you can use whatever footnote you want in you know uh Herzog's unpublished work. Uh it doesn't help you because if you don't know that this is it then you can't use it. All right. And other people say it's low. It doesn't hurt to put it on. How bad could it be, etc., etc. At the time when this was going on, it was it was a hot topic. Like I say, not so much now. And people asked me about it. I gave I gave the following answer, but before I give you my answer, I'll give you a background to the answer. Um, I had a good friend, Rabbi Binyamin Hammer, really good friend. We go back to 1982. He was just nifa this past year. And, uh, it I still have a hole in my heart. Uh in fact uh he hosted us for Shabas, me and some of my wife and me and some of the children for uh for Shabas up in the mountains and uh he was nifa like two weeks later and uh I remember he called me the next shabas and say what a how what what a wonderful time they had. we really have to spend more time together and we have to be more in touch. And the next that week he was nifa. So um but he is a straight arrow. He doesn't know from from he's very very straight. Yeah. Yasha. He was a real Yasha guy. And um and I told him once that you know sometimes Friday night between Kabal Shabas and May if someone gets up to give a little hiccup on some much needed sleep but some of them are actually very engaging. So this one fellow who is a bonafide got up there and he said that according to his learning everyone does talis wrong. The standard way people put on their talis is they throw it over their head, wrap it around and throw it over their shoulder like a continental soldier. You understand? And uh you know and make the brah and take it off. So he brings rayas that no it's supposed to be like the artifas of the of the umim of the Arabs and it's supposed to be only around your head. So he demonstrated how he believes it's supposed to be. He put it on over his head just to his eyes and then wrapped it around his head, not around his whole body. And he brought a lot of ryas. I was very impressed. I was very impressed. I'm very impressionable. Very impressionable. I I I am also a cynic. I am a cynic. But when I hear things, you know, I'm always impressionable. I hear it. I like it makes sense, you know. So, uh, I said this over, uh, to rebin one time and he said to me something that I just found to be such a devastating response. He says, "I don't know." So, I learned the I watch put on his talis and he does it the way that my father did it and my grandfather did it. Throws it over his head and throws it over their shoulders. Yeah. And I went to MTJ and I saw Masha Feinstein put on his talis and he did it the same way that my father did it, my grandfather did it. And I watched Revid put on his talis and he did it the same way Raisha and my father and my grandfather did it. So I don't know you can make all the dukum you want but we have something called a masora. And I was like wow that that was such a um a burst of clarity for me because yeah it's true now everybody wants to uh come up with their own when we say in We have a tradition. That's what says that when we say the we're not stiff necked and brazen. We and our fathers have sinned. Why are we dragging our fathers into it? The answer is because people sometimes do things because their parents did it and they're copying their parents. You know, my daughter who teaches in seminary um she used to do this devastating impersonation of seminary girls and they would say things like, "We curse. My family, we curse. Everybody curses. I don't know. That's what my father does. That's what we do. We all curse." and and she's trying to explain to me I don't know that's what we do in our family that's what we do so you know just because you do it doesn't mean that this is proper behavior mashain um I've said this many times my father was not shabas until he was 67 years old but he grew up in a sham shabas house and whatever he remembered from his father's house he would do And uh I would he he spent money to send me yeshiva day school and I'd come home and fight with him and say, "Dad, that's not what you're supposed to do." You know, my father always used onion for karpas. And I said, "They taught us in uh in school you're supposed to use parsley." He says, "My father used onion. We use onion." So, of course, I fought with him because that was the kind of person I was. And so, we would put out on the SATA plate onion and parsley. And every year, he would make fun of me. Yeah, here's your parsley. you know like you know he would eat onion years later I found in the where he says for karapas you're supposed to use onion and he says vesi and there are those who use petetroilia parsley he says that's ridiculous nobody eats parsley you'd make a shahako on it it's just a a spice or a garnish nobody eats it I said my father had a car if if there was something that he did even though he didn't know anything, he remembered he got this from his father and um and he would follow through uh with with that tradition. So there's a concept of a misora. What do we do? And um uh you have to be you have to be very careful when it comes to uh the way that Clay Israel does things. The Kazanh um had an interesting chuva that he had written where they discovered Rishonim. They discovered Rishon Rishonim who had uh been lost to history and were found later and uh and the maintained that Akures Baru takes care of the Msora. And if these people were lost to history, it's because did not want their views to be taken into account by deciding. So if you suddenly find another who says something different, you can't suddenly go and turn around the cause because oh, I have somebody else. No, I could supervise it in such a way so that if has a way of doing things and suddenly I come up and say, "No, I think it should be like this. I came up with a new idea. We're very suspicious. We're very suspicious. And that was of course the principle of you know innovation is uh makes us very suspicious to do something that we have never seen before and uh and you have to be careful. So all of that was by way of introduction. At the time when people who were very prois of this new that was on the market asked me why don't you wear I said Shinberg is alive and uh and he wears many many pairs of tits. I don't see any there. There's a story that the people gave him a pair of tits and he took them. But there is no Adidas that he ever wore it. Yeah. But I I said, "Look, I don't have to be smarter than the Golia Torah." When I see Rebel Yosh put them on. When I see Ribdavid Feinstein put them on. When I see Salman put them on, I think Shak was still alive. When I see Shak put them on, when I see Shapiro put them on, then I'll put them on for sure. I see. But if the Gdolei Torah are not putting them on, so you want me to be smarter than them and say, "Hey, I figured out what the real is and you didn't because you don't know." That's not the way uh my Judaism works. There's a mas there's a tradition and if somebody comes up with something that's new fangled I I use the principle of my father didn't have it my grandfather didn't have it people didn't have it I'm not talking about a technological advance right and they came out with pot-bellied stoves so uh I think it was Rabika Ager I think the story goes that they wanted to install one in the shaw And some people said, "Our parents never had it." You know, our grandparents never had it. And he said, "So, cuz our parents and grandparents uh were freezing, we have to freeze." That's an innovation. I heard a story, and again, I didn't check it out because I'm not pesak, you know, but I heard the story that um the Kanye, who took over his father, the stipler's house, there was no air conditioning. It was a very small house and Ben is ger is so unbelievably hot and humid you know it's 5 to 10 degrees away from gehenn you know only it's more humid so uh it's just it's it's really tough and uh they asked him why don't you put in air conditioning and he said because my father didn't have air conditioning so I don't need air conditioning and finally someone said to Okay, forget about you. What about us? We're sitting here waiting online and we're schmaltzing. Put it in for us. So, that he was willing to do. Yeah. And after they put in the air conditioning, he said, this is how I've heard the story and I didn't check it out. This how he says, I'm going to have to give a for all the learning I did during those summers without air conditioning. I don't know if I was at peak capacity. So, okay, that's that's a technological innovation. No one's talking about that. You don't still have to write your Torah with a quill and ink, you know, on uh on, you know, on paper, you know, you uh you can you can um uh use uh a pen or a um word processor to be able to to write them up. You don't have to use that. It's a technological advance. That's fine. But when it comes to innovation in our observance, my attitude is when I see my rebum, when I see the Gdeli Torah do it, then I'll introduce it. And if not, then I don't have to be smarter than the Gdoli Torah. And that's my position on it. So I'm not here to judge anybody uh what you do or what you don't do. That is my position and that's how I would uh approach this topic. And now after having answered that question, we come to the question and answer portion of our program. And the question answer is sponsored by Shaina Weinberg, Gordon, Leeli, Nishmas, Aramz, and Yakov Eli Yahu. Thank you every for the you give. Thank you for listening because without anybody listening uh this would be a very sad thing just sitting here in my room talking to myself. Anonymous asks when did the period of the aonum end? Who was the last one? And what's our current Jewish history period called? Okay, let's put this into perspective. There was the period of the Tanakh. When the Tanakh ended, we went into the period of the Tanoyim and that ended basically with the um with the publishing of the Mishna. Yeah. And that began the period of the Amory. And the Amaroyim basically ended with the closing of the Gammorra by Mara Revashi and Ravina. That basically finished that project. Then we went through a period known as the savoyim and the gonim and that went on somewhere till around the year 1000 when we began what the period that was known as the rishonimum. Now you could argue the rishonum start a little earlier etc. But that went on when did the period of the rishonum end? That's an argument. Uh a lot of people will say it ended with the shar the takob of uh Balhaturim who was a son of the rush was definitely considered a reishon but when kairo wrote the certainly around that time it was considered the end of the reishonim and the beginning of the period of the aonim and the acronim goes on through the 1516 1700s according to those people definitely into the 1800s the so uh um etc. Once you hit the 1900s, there's some discussion. Are we still in the period of the Acronim or not? And there are those who say yes, these are still the Acronim. So that the great Russia ruin um all of these people are considered in the period of some people say not. Some people want to say that it ended before that, right? It didn't really go into the 1900s, but okay. But that's, you know, but most people seem to feel most people seem to feel that once we hit into the 1970s, the period of the Acuron was basically over at the 1980s. So, where are we now? Now, I'll be full disclosure. Definitely not everybody feels that way. um who um [Music] uh he would argue with aim all the time and he felt that he had the dinner of an a Yeah. And there are certain other examples of this. Yeah. where um the famous story with the when wrote his he brought it to sal for and answer asked him the following question. How do you do? So he said well you have to tell the person what you said. He says it can't be. He said it can't be. He says it's Arab and Kipper. I go over to somebody and I said listen I feel very bad. I I spoke about you. I told everybody that you're a crook and you're a low life and you're this thing. Please be mo. So the guy will be um because it's Aravan Kipper. And so now this guy walks into Yam Kipper and he feels like a big sadic. H I got kapor for what I did. And this guy spending the whole saying everyone thinks I'm a thief and I'm a low life and I'm this can't be said but rakins that way and shuva that's what you have to do and said p it can't be so someone asked this question to uh kla says he's right it's a right and he said in your name muser Rubis Salant had the den of a reishon. Okay. The vagayan would often argue with rishonim even though he was in the 1700s past the time of the rishonim but he was seen as somebody was out of the door. So none of these laws are hard and fast. But certainly according to most people by the time you hit uh the second half of the 20th century the period of the have ended. So what is that position? What is the where we are today? I've heard two terms for it. One is we're in theim I've heard that term and the one that's perhaps even uh cuter is with theim we gather together. What does that mean? somebody puts out a safer, you know, uh um whatever um uh kidney is and he takes one of the computer programs and he searches for all the sources and he puts it all together and sets it up. It's interesting Stillament who is a uh Rosh Kabur in the Mir he put out a series of of on different topics and he calls it damalakim where he pulls together all the different shittas and lines them up for you so that you can make a more informed decision you know so when you ask him a question he says well these po say yes and these pims say no and uh I have to really press him to find out what he thinks the hal is, but he doesn't want to get involved. But we're gathering it together. So, I guess today we could say we're in the door of the malakim, those who gather the information together. And that's it for this episode. If you want to find out more about the show, you can go to my website, rallowski.com, and I have other material there that you can read or listen to. You can sign up for one of our online shorim. You can uh ask a question, sponsor an episode, please. Sponsor a question and answer. Thank you. Sponsor a part five. Uh we need your help to be able to keep going. Um uh submit your resume if you want to become the next producer of the Rabbi Alowski Show. And that's it for this episode. Until next time, I am David Olowski and this has been the Rabbi Olowski Show. It's the Rabbi Orlovski Show. Torah and Sima, ready to go. The Rabbi Orlovski Show. Knowledge and wisdom will help you grow. Lots of fun in every episode. And we don't have to rhyme, no we. It's the Rabbi Orlovski show on rabbi.com. Torah anytime you two and more. It's the Rabbi Olavski show. Torah and ready to go. It's the Rabbi Orlowski show. Till next time till we meet again. The Rabbi Orlowski show. It's the Rabbi Orski show. It's the Rabbi Orlowski show.