LIVE: Rabbi Shais Taub hanging out answering your questions

foreign we are live it's the night of the 14th and uh we did our ridiculous comments at the Taub house and um I decided to go live as a public service to those who are still cooking or cleaning um I'm just going to try to accompany you while you're doing your your stuff your out of basic stuff how do you like that sending this out in a few more places something to listen to while you cook so uh today is the birthday of the rambam and uh let's talk about that a little bit I want to talk about all types of stuff and uh we'll see how much interaction we get if you have questions you could post them on the chat on YouTube the YouTube live chat if it's something of a sensitive nature where you want it to be more private you could you can email me rabbi at soulwords dot org and I could try to take a look at that during this live broadcast we didn't really promote this anywhere this is a very spontaneous spontaneous thing last minute I think we just put it on the soul words WhatsApp status as well as the Instagram uh stories since I'm mentioning soulwords WhatsApp status so I'll mention here if you're on WhatsApp you'd like to see to receive updates and clips and uh links to new content stuff like that just text our WhatsApp number 516-495-3021 I'll repeat that that's 516 -495-3021 and um write the word subscribe I'm going to write it in the chat as well right there I just put it in the chat that's our WhatsApp um yeah so somebody says hello Rabbi hello I'm looking at the chat right now so this is the rambam's yard site not yardson I'm sorry uh birthday that I was born out of peso um I'm thinking about the ramam right now because the CEO is coming up uh the the Le mama launched an initiative with the purpose of uniting the entire Jewish people around the study of the entire Torah what does it mean the entire Jewish Nation men women and children what does it mean the entire Torah it means the rambam's mishna Torah which has all of the laws for every single subject of Jewish life including laws that have not been practiced since the destruction of the Temple and will not be practiced again until mashiach comes so it's the most thorough compendium of halacha and uh in that sense it is comprehensive it contains within it the entirety of of Torah uh subjects at least from a legalistic point of view and The deba Wanted that everyone should go through their albums work on a regular basis the ideal program of study is to learn three chapters a day of rambam concluding the entire mission of Toyota of 14 books on a yearly basis actually takes a little bit less than a year and the CM a completion of the study Cycles coming up on base ear second day of the Hebrew month of year which is in a little more than two weeks it's a significant day it's the birthday of that Ash the fourth of khabad and I really want to make a big thing out of it you know in my lifetime I'm not that old in my lifetime I've seen how that Abba's teachings have become more and more widely accepted and it's remarkable it's amazing but you know what frustrates me is that the Deb is uh passion for the study of rambam has not caught on to the same degree as some of the deva's other initiatives and ideas and teachings um and it it's counterintuitive because really you would think the easiest cell would be rambam like it's not even a laborator text it's like rambam who could be against rambam it's classic I mean who could be against Ramen in Rambo's lifetime there were people against Rama but there haven't been uh anti-rom people for about a thousand years you know it's like pretty much established now ramam is pretty mainstream about it as mainstream as you get and um he's just Transcendent you know he's a farty but everybody studies him he's fired him ashkenazim um he's just about as mainstream you can't get more mainstream than that and yet the idea of studying the entire Mission attire every year has not really caught on people learn Duffy I mean they go through the entire shots every seven years which is a beautiful thing but why hasn't caught on and I really really want to make a big deal about it I wanna I'm trying to I was texting some friends of mine like late last night I went to Crown Heights last night to pick up some meat for my wife like as if she's gonna eat all the meat and make it sound like she's sitting there singing saying bring me meat I should say the truth it's for me is for her to make for me and for our family anyways I went it's funny how how you know it's also when I watch my kids I'm babysitting right same mentality babysitting your own kids I went to Crown Heights to pick up meat so my wife could prepare it for our family for Yom to and uh so when I was driving back from Crown Heights I was texting some friends of mine and being like we gotta make the same around them big this year what's the deal like why can't we get some prominent rabbis and Scholars outside of Chabad to uh to join the the study cycle so I got a few friends of mine who are their movers movers and shakers mockers uh motivated guys with alacrity and let's see what happens let's see what happens I don't know if anyone has any good ideas let me know but I really want to make the rambam thing catch on everyone should learn Rama and if you don't want to learn three chapters a day which I understand understandably is difficult you can learn you can learn one chapter a day and then you finish the whole mission of Twitter every three years which is also nothing to sneeze at um or you can learn say for a Mitzvahs which is like sort of The Abridged version rather than learning you can learn say for a mitzvahs which is a little bit easier than uh than mishna Torah but at any rate you know we're going to get this rambam thing to catch on you know who was very Like Instrumental uh in in getting me to really really up my rambam game was a you'd in Crown Heights he's all shamed up he used to harass me all the time and asked me how my rambam is and I'm I I don't know how to lie that's one of my problems being uh neurodiverse or whatever it is that I am I I don't have good social skills which and I don't know how to lie although I think those things are pretty much mutually um intertwined right social skills and lying those are almost synonymous almost synonymous not quite but so I don't know how to lie so he's asking me how how's my ROM I'm going I told him the truth this is not perfect now I think most people would just lie and say it's fine get away from me but I would tell me you know sometimes I miss yeah I admitted it so he used to harass me so much and his bucksham it's been a few years where around them is good and I just I want to get everybody into it I want to get everybody to learn rambam that I was so passionate about the power of rambam to unite Claus ISRO you know rambam is why do we say something that unites Claus because it's something that every scholar can appreciate vergon who's one of the greatest Scholars what did he in what was his passion among other things but he was incredibly enthusiastic about Ramen you learn and relearn and relearn and relearn rambam so and uh brisk is also known for being very passionate about rambam you know the brisker Derek and limerato is is not balabates it's quite erudite and they uh they and rambam so even the biggest Scholars can appreciate rambam and someone wrote in the chat do I learn one or three chapters three chaptersham um so even the biggest Scholars can learn random but also simple people come around them because um if you just learn around them on a simple level of halacha without getting into the real uh scholarship of it where you're comparing what he says in one place to another place and you're comparing how he says it in his uh book compared to the original Source in in hazal uh you know so if you're not doing all of that you're just reading it on a simple level then yeah regular people can appreciate it which by the way is not the same with let's say um learning gamada so you you may learn a daf of gomara and not really follow not really understand shot what's going on there but rambam is something that even people on a fairly uh basic level can understand and appreciate so uh someone's writing in the chat what do you think most shlokem learn uh I I think three I think three chapters I think most shlochen learned three chapters that's I mean that's purely anecdotal based on my Impressions and on my interactions with people okay um so yeah I would really like to get people more excited about learning rambam on a daily basis and maybe we could create some type of excitement about they have so many resources for dafyami uh that help people get excited about the lead modes maybe they're just a question of creating more resources um maybe an app I don't know there is a rambam app and I use it quite often daily random study um project of chabad.org aba.org has a as a random app made possible by a generous Grant from I'm looking at it right now Ruby slimy immuno Greenwald it's a friend of mine it's a good guy very good guy involved in a lot of projects that people know about and a lot of projects that people don't even know about recorded by coordinated by rabbit heims Atlas I'm a good guy too he's actually a hunting Vacaville California I've been there I spoke at his Chabad house yeah maybe we should speak to him about about this initiative it's a good idea okay I'm gonna I'm whatsapping I'm zackless right now even though it's um out of pesach I know it's out of pesach but we need to talk after Yom Tuff about two ER he knows exactly what I mean when I write two here he knows what I mean there I'm see him we'll see how long it takes him to respond to me because he's probably running around he's doing like a Costco run I bet you because it's eight o'clock right now in California but you heim's doing like a Costco run or something right now um yeah so maybe we'll come back to a discussion around them momentarily but uh how many people are on right now 12 people 12 people not not that many okay hey do do me a favor 12 people are on let's see um how uh viral growth really works all 12 people who are on text the link right now you know how to text the link for uh I'll I'll put it in the put it in the chat make it super easy for you text the link to three people right now and say I don't know if this is interesting to you but Chase Taub is live and rambling about anything he thinks of or anything anyone wants him to talk about while people cook and clean for pesach let's see if we can bump that up we've got 12 people watching so send it out to three people right now and let's see if we can get it to be a little bit viral see what we can do okay so uh I want to share with you a thought that I had about peso actually had this thought I was recently at my son-in-law's house he had a share with his friends his classmates they got together and they had a class and we learned a letter of the rabbit an English letter of the rabbit um interesting letter to uh to goldhirsh from Australia who wanted to build a children's hospital and and that was said that it's better to invest in preventative health preventative medicine hospitals for children who are already sick but there are things we can do to strengthen children so that they don't come to sickness and since the material in the spiritual are intertwined in the life of a Jew so um when we support the Jewish Education of children so this will help them to be strong in all ways and then yeah so the devil mentions there about the the advantage of preventative medicine that if you do oh hi I'm just texted me back hold on a second he texted me back this which I think is a white nationalist symbol now and he probably doesn't know that my dear Heim texting me back the okay sign when I was a kid it was the okay sign or the jordage the sign I think why do I think that I'm gonna just Google that um why do I think that what a random thing to think uh yeah I don't know yeah I think it was Jordan that's a clothing company I don't even know if it exists anymore uh but uh I think they did the okay sign but the okay sign I think became a white nationalist uh trope the okay hand gesture is now listed as a symbol of hate NPR uh okay hand gesture a common hand gesture that a 4chan trolling can hold those four chain guys they just ruin everything they take everything that's decent and pure and they they taint it claimed in 19 into I'm sorry 19 to 2000 2017. had been appropriate at a symbol meaning white power oh my goodness that's from the Anti-Defamation League website okay so and you never know when Fortran does stuff like that if it's a joke or not and they could be laughing at people who take it seriously I think sometimes they make up stuff that's not even true to get the media to write about it and then the media writes about it and the fortune people laugh about it and then it actually becomes real life imitates trolling that's a meme life and life imitates trolling okay so anyways sent me a little okay symbol like this but I'm not going to tell them that it's a white power symbol um so I was in the middle of saying something that if you have preventative medicine so then you don't even have to uh go through the the challenges of being sick you can just go straight to the to the health anyways I wanted to read to you from the hayamyang for tomorrow not even tomorrow but the next day uh the hayamim for the first you know how yamim is that ABBA made us say for how yay from day to day which has a little aphorism a little saying thought meditation each day of the of the calendar year so the hayami aim for first day of the Nissan 15th of Nissan all of the hagamate's first day of peso um yeah I'm gonna skip the first paragraph I'm just gonna do the second paragraph okay said um is Aramaic for food of faith is the first Knight and another Aramaic term the food of healing Lila hashani is the second Knight so I'll explain to you our desire is a primary text of Kabbalah it's written in Aramaic so it says there that matzah is called food of Faith It also says foso so which one is it well you know whenever in Judaism we say is it this or is it that the answer is yes what do you mean yes yes it's both okay and the altareb explains that the first night the food uh the mats is food of of faith the second night second seder the matzo's food of healing okay what's the significance of that when healing brings faith versus Dr dank he explains what that means that healing brings Faith verses he says thank you God for my healing right like thank you Hashem you know those bumper stickers thank you God for my healing crank but he was sick because he's thanking God for his healing healing from what from having been sick so I guess it's a happy uh in the in in the end it's a happy resolution but he went through sickness before that happened that's when the healing brings to Faith right first you have the healing and from the healing you come to Faith the faith is sort of a uh a net gain from the healing experience you go through the sickness God forbid and then the healing and then you gain faith in God who healed you and you say thank you God for healing me but you had to go through sickness in order to get there When Faith brings to Healing Faith brings to Healing is he was never sick to begin with what does that mean he was never sick to begin with healing from what I mean if if it wasn't sick then how is it healing so what it means is preventative medicine preemptive healing I understand that the first case is the healing brings to Faith because I had a healing experience now I believe I believe in Hashem who who healed me but if the process is reversed and I actually start with the faith I start with a strong connection spiritual connection and that brings about healing it's actually preventative medicine that causes that I don't have to go through the sickness and healing process at all I can avoid that whole process why because I've already come to the faith I already the yeah the only reason a person goes to challenges in life is to bring them closer to God so when healing brings to Faith the only reason the person had to go through healing from sickness is in order to get him to the faith faith is the is the goal the whole time the whole purpose of life is to get closer to God so if it takes sickness God forbid and then then that's what it takes to get them closer to God but in the second scenario where we say that Faith brings to Healing so then he's already at the Target the the the target is Faith so he's got the faith so if he's already got the faith then it's not necessary for him to go through sickness why why make the guy sick he's already the the positive gain to come away from a sickness and healing experience in life is only to make you closer to God but if you're already experiencing that closeness so why put that person through that experience and the answer is you don't it doesn't have to go through that experience and and and therefore he avoids sickness so it's preemptive healing he's preemptively healed from all the sickness that he would have had he would have had he would have had to have had um had he not already arrived at the faith the the sickness and healing would have been a necessary process to go through or to arrive at the faith but he's already at the faith so why put him through the sickness you know what I'm saying so it's an interesting concept to me the healing from something that you never you never actually had to uh suffer from meaning the healing was preemptive and what do you do with that psychologically I'm saying how do you what do you make of an experience that you didn't have you know what I'm saying like the sickness that I didn't have to go through the sickness that it was unnecessary to go through because I had already come to the spiritual conclusion that that sickness would have brought me till I already came to that conclusion so I don't need to go through that sickness so as far as I'm aware it's not that I was spared a sickness because I'm not aware of it and it never happened if I went through the sickness and it was removed resolved healed so that I'm very much aware that there was a problem and it was resolved but here it's you know the problem was taken away before I had to experience it and uh I'm just I've been thinking about this for for a few weeks I said that I was at my son-in-law's house and he had a a share he had a get-together they ordered a couple pizzas and they uh his classmates and they were they were learning a letter of the rabbit and they were talking about this idea of the preventative medicine that the devil was speaking about and um so I took out the Hajime and I read them this I said look the hayamium says that pesach has preventative medicine the first night of pesach the first say to the the mats is called food of healing second night the mats is called I'm sorry I'm sorry did I say food of healing food of faith is the first foot of Faith second night food of healing so you go from fruit of faith on the first night to food of healing on the second night that's faith and then healing explains that when it's healing and then faith it means you went through God forbid a sickness experience which became resolved that's the healing and that brings you to Faith ah thank you God for having healed me but if you can do it the other way where it's faith and then healing so it's actually retroactive or preemptive healing which means you never have to have the sickness to begin with if you start with the faith which the whole purpose of the healing was only to bring you to the faith so then there's no purpose to go through the The Challenge and the adversity of and the struggle of of the sickness experience you've already gained what it what it has to offer you so yeah that's obviously the easier way yeah it's more preferable it's it's definitely uh it's less uh certainly less disruptive to your life when you when you don't get sick to begin with but I was thinking about this the past few weeks like I said psychologically subjectively what do you even do with how do you contextualize and experience that you didn't experience meaning the lack of an experience the lack of a negative experience how do you have appreciation for something hard that you didn't have to go through right and uh so I I was talking to these guys these young guys my my son-in-law's classmates and uh I told them I somebody sent me a Instagram Direct message and uh by the way I think I should just for the sake of it since I already posted the WhatsApp I'm gonna post my Instagram handle right now on the chat as well so if people aren't you know it's it's amazing box and we have 18.6 thousand followers on Instagram anyways I'm posting in the chat right now our Instagram handle and um you can go uh subscribe right now if you haven't if you're not already subscribed anyways so I was talking to my son-in-law's friends about this idea of how do you how do you gain an appreciation for an illness that God cured you of preemptively in other words you never experienced illness thank God but how do you appreciate that like unfortunately when we go through trouble and then it's resolved we feel relief and then we're appreciative but it's hard to muster appreciation for a problem that was removed from us preemptively before we had we had to actually ever suffer from it so I said to these guys you know somebody dm'd me um a video on on Instagram maybe some of you have seen it it seemed like it was very fairly viral and it was I I didn't recognize who it was I'm not Bucky not an expert in Bucky as a Hebrew word for expert I'm not expertly versed in all of my social media influencers or even mainstream celebrities I'm pretty good if you mentioned me like celebrities from like 1981 and and prior I'm pretty good at that I could probably tell you about people who are famous in the 70s but um yeah I wasn't sure who this guy was if he's famous or not so maybe I'm telling you something and you guys are going to be like what that's so and so well he may be so and so I I didn't know who he was anyways he's talking to these people and he's like if I would give you a million dollars maybe even said 10 million let's say why not and he said if I give you 10 million dollars would you feel good and the guy's like oh yeah I feel good he's like you'd be in a good mood yeah yeah like after I give you 10 million dollars you'd be in such a good mood that nobody would be able to get you down for the rest of the day the guy's like yeah yeah for sure for sure he says okay okay but let's say there's a catch let's say I'm going to give you 10 million dollars right now really I'm gonna give it to you but it's the last day you live you have to die tomorrow do you want 10 million dollars under those conditions the guy's like no no no no thank you so the guy who's interviewing says okay so I just want to clarify then you're telling me that Staying Alive even for just more than one more day is worth more than 10 million dollars to you the guy says yeah I guess when you put it like that yeah I guess it is so the guy who's running the interview says all right so you're being alive even for just another day it's worth more than 10 million dollars to you you told me a minute ago that if I gave you 10 million dollars you'd be so happy all day nothing would get you down but you're being alive is worth more to you than the 10 million dollars so how come every single day that you wake up you're not so happy that nothing can get you down the guy's like shh like literally what he did that's the universal um none it's not non-verbal but yeah maybe it is non-verbal because not a word but it's that's the universal uh expression of um what would you call it being being totally uh flabbergasted by the incredulous regarding the the profundity of something you've just heard that you just say you know you pop the pop the tire let the tire the air out of the tire she goes and um yeah so I was thinking about putting those two things together that the hayam yam this book here which I held up a few minutes ago says that the first night of pesach the Mata is called foot of faith in the second night it's called foot of healing what's the significance of first faith and then healing so he said when you have first healing and then faith that means that you were sick you got healed and then as a result you came to belief in God but if you start with faith and then it's healing what it means is that was a preemptive healing because you already had the faith which was the only purpose for which you go through the trials and tribulations in life is to bring you closer to God so if you're already feeling that closeness to God it's not necessary to go through the trials and tribulations so then the faith becomes preemptive or retroactive and you never have to go through the sickness experience to begin with but then I was saying how do you make sense of that retroactive preemptive healing experience you don't even know that you went through it and I guess I thought this this little Instagram video that somebody sent me was a good way a little mental exercise for trying to wrap your head around it that would you like 10 million dollars you'd be in a great mood 10 million dollars yeah would you take it if you're going to die tomorrow and no I wouldn't I wouldn't I wouldn't agree to those conditions uh so you want 10 million dollars more I mean so you want to be alive more than 10 million dollars yeah I guess I get I guess I do ah but if 10 million dollars would make you happy all day nothing could take your smile off your face how come just simply being alive today doesn't put a smile on your face that nobody could take away ah you're right you're right so I guess that's what I was thinking about which is contemplating upon all of the blessings that we have which are not solutions to problems that we had but preemptive removal of problems before we had to have them and can we try to cultivate greater gratitude to God for those types of blessings and I think that's that's really one of the messages of pesach first night the Mata is food of Faith the second night the mata's foot of healing we don't have to reverse it and go through the healing experience in order to come to the faith we can have the faith first when when we have the faith first then we avoid the entire sickness and healing experience we can just have preemptive healing where we never have to go through the sickness to begin with but we we need to really cultivate a sense of appreciation for it otherwise um it happens and we're oblivious we don't even realize it's happening to us we don't even thank God for all of the Miracles that he did for us all the problems he solved he solved for us before we had to actually even experience those problems I mean my goodness you know if God forbid we have to go through trials and tribulations in life we go through difficulties go through pain none of us should know from such things and then it gets resolved and it gets resolved in a way that's clearly greater than my human abilities you know where it's maybe not a miracle like the splitting of the sea but it's clearly something that wasn't Prada a product of my brain it wasn't my effort it was something clearly greater than me and that's really really humbling and it evokes incredible gratitude and it's it's it it it creates a profound feeling of closeness to God when when there's a problem and that problem's removed from me but hold on a second is that the only way we could experience that gratitude then humility and that feeling of closeness to God we have to go through trouble why can't we have gratitude and humility and closeness with God regarding all the wonderful problems in Hashem removed from us before we had to have them all the solutions to all the problems that were solved for us beforehand so that we never even had to go through a second of misery not one second like what about that why can't we start getting into that I'll tell you a story somewhat related there was a closet of uh of the rabbit Rabbi yankov JJ JJ hacked so uh I just actually uh saw his burial spot a couple days ago you know if Nissan didn't have his birthday so I was at the aisle that I was uh resting place I spent the day there and um so I waited in line get off nuisance one of those days when a lot of people come to visit the web is resting place and it's in Cambria Heights Queens um and uh so there's a line I had to wait in line so I'm waiting in line I glanced over at some of the monuments in the cemetery it's in the middle of a cemetery um and I saw JJ house uh might say but interestingly I I had forgotten but it's right next to his uh brother mashi it's hook hurt and so there's a story that JJ got summoned to the draft office for World War II this is in the 40s the the officially accepted leadership in 1951 but this was uh in the times of the previous father-in-law who came to America in 1940. so this was in the 40s during World War II so um JJ heft was a student a rabbinical student a young man a single man um not sure how old he was exactly could have been 18 19 20 in that chair but he got summoned to the draft office and he was very nervous about it and I think he went with his father to the freedom um his father's name was Yeshua or Shia that's why there's a lot of Shia hacks because they're named after that patriarch of their family so I believe he went with his father to the debas to the freedom office to his room and asked for a broken they asked for a blessing but he should be okay when he goes to the draft office meaning uh you know he shouldn't he shouldn't have to go fight and uh so The The Phoenician gave him a blessing told him it's all going to be fine so tells the story he goes to the draft office and there's all these doctors whole thing is a bunch of examinations and he said they went to expert after expert it wasn't just one exam there are many different doctors and they would examine the young men from head to toe and he said finally the last doctor he saw was a psychiatrist so uh not sure if everyone had to go to the psychiatrist or just him or but the psychiatrist sits down with him and he says he looks at this chart and Jacob all right he says uh so tell me Jacob um what do you like to do so I'm Yeshiva student yeah but what do you like to do for fun I like to go to the movies so he says movies God forbid Ave Zara all right that's a Hebrew for that that's idolatry right he was like all incensed movies fat no way yuck he says uh you have a girlfriend uh Jacob he's like what me God forbid a girl no no no girls no girls no girls at all and uh psychiatrists are taking notes and he says you know Jacob uh you're crazy and he hands them a piece of paper he says hand this to the guy at the front desk and uh he'll tell you what to do and I he didn't see what was written on it but he took the paper from the psychiatrist and he handed it to the guy at the front desk he said you can go home you don't have to come back here so apparently he was rendered psychologically unfit for service based on his answers to these questions which if you think about it I understand in 1940s in Brooklyn uh you know JJ's answers were unconventional but come on they never had any other co-observant uh young men I know that in the 1940s you didn't have it nearly nearly the number of Torah observant Jews in New York as we do today Hashem I know that but still I mean there were there this draft office is dealing with with young men that's the demographic they're dealing with they never had any other Yeshiva Bakr and if they did have Yeshiva baham and they dismissed all of them on those same charges wouldn't that have become a known thing I mean come on that would have been the Jewish Community you know how things how quickly things get passed around news travels if one guy the first Yeshiva boy who got Exempted because he answered questions like that the first time that would happen within five minutes every Yeshiva would know and that was before cell phones every issue would know in five minutes so clearly it wasn't something that happened but for whatever reason this guy this psychiatrist decided to ask these questions and and JJ was Hashem he answered the way uh supposed to answer you know maybe he could have tried to conform a little bit more to not ruffle any feathers maybe you could have tried to at least feign some assimilation so it'll seem a little bit more normal so he doesn't provoke any ire but he baruchem answered very truthfully and he got this this exemption based on on being mentally unfit so he brought the uh so he he got the exemption and uh he and his father went back to the freedom grab and they told him what happened and I believe the Philadelphia laughed I believe so who knows you know it's hard to know because these stories get told and retold so many times and they become better every time they're told so anytime I hear that somebody said something with a smile or even better he said with a twinkle in his eye I'm always suspicious that that's an embellishment of the Storyteller but at any rate here's the part that I'm 99.99999 is not an embellishment because only two people were present to hear this and I don't suspect either of them of making up this sentence and I don't think anyone else would have made this up from Whole cloth this sounds quite reliable JJ and his father told the story to the previous rabbit and the previous episode and I'm I believe that this is really what happened he said I should explain that's uh it's a verse from town and in fact we're going to say that tomorrow night yeah and uh the hollow lagoddle in the in the hagoda tomorrow night do I have a huganda here around me uh no I don't have a copy not gonna although it's in the back of my sitter so it's part of um you know actually we say it Shabbos and young different chakras as well um yeah right here hey dilashem cute is how it starts and uh Psalms 1 36. anyways there's a there's a line um it's one two three four fourth line and uh like I said it's psalm 136. and we say it in the Haggadah and the Seder tomorrow night so I'm just checking making sure that's 136 yeah license if license is Psalms 136 4. chapter 136 verse 4. so that literally means um to the one who he alone makes wonders for his kindness is Everlasting but said it different after what did he tell JJ and his father after he got Exempted from the from the draft he said hello let me cut it the way he cut it he says like this to the one who makes wonders meaning Hashem but how big how big are the Wonders only he only he knows how big his wonders are in other words he was telling them in Balinese which is uh saying from the gamara that he says look you you realize that this was a Wonder obviously but you don't realize how big of a Wonder in fact only Hashem realizes how big of a Wonder this was that just happened so uh why am I telling you this story because I was thinking about this in terms of the Makela the hymnusa on the first night matzah's the food of faith on the first nightmare food of healing matzah's foot of healing on the second night and the meaning there that when you have first the healing and then the faith it means you had to go through sickness and healing in order to come to Faith but if you have faith to begin with then you don't have to go through the adversity you you have retroactive healing so in a in a similar vein I was thinking about this license he who makes wonders but how great levade only he knows in other words I was talking earlier about when we don't even know that a Wonder happened for us so how can we be grateful but even when we do know that a Wonder happened for us sometimes we don't appreciate how great the Wonder was and it's obviously harder to be grateful when you don't understand that a Wonder happened for you or even if you understand that a Wonder happened for you but you don't really understand how great that Wonder really is so it's harder to be grateful so I guess what I'm saying is we that we all need to work on our gratitude for all the Terrible Things That Hashem removed from our lives before they happened how about that can we do that can we have a little gratitude meditation right now I know you're out there right now you're broiling some chicken necks for yours or your uh taping tinfoil to the countertop or you're remembering you need another carton of eggs and you're trying to figure out if 7-Eleven which is open until midnight has eggs and hoping that the other Jews didn't all buy the eggs and you know so as you're doing all this stuff we got 20 people on right now it's not so many people I'm gonna ask everyone who's on right now we're trying to get we did this very last minute very spontaneous but let's try to get more of a crowd can you send out the link if you're watching right now can you I know it's 11 40 but your friends are awake they're getting ready for pesach also so how about you send them out this link and say hey this guy is ranting spontaneously and he's ready to talk about anything that we want to talk about let's go listen to him why not why not you're cleaning anyways what are you gonna do right now listen to some old podcast that was already recorded when you could be listening to something that's spontaneous and live and happening right now so send out oh no while I'm plugging that you should send out the link I lost two people into 18. oh but now it just went back to 20. okay probably two new people entered we want to welcome all people who are joining us I'm not sure how people are doing this if they're starting from the beginning of the feed or if they just jump to the can somebody even respond to me in the chat if you joined if you're with me right now and you didn't join from the very beginning when you came on did you start from the beginning or did you just join us mid stream wherever we were at can anyone let me know is anyone out there is anyone out there all right I'm checking my whatsapps no okay nothing new that's unusual I'll usually get random whatsapps all day long but yet of all times right now I don't have any no whatsapps okay and I'm gonna check my email because I said people can email private stuff to Rabbi soulwords.org I'll repeat that again rabbi r-a-b-i at soulwords.org if you have a private question that you want to send me you want me to talk about here online okay let me look at my email um I got a bunch of emails but I don't think they're I don't think any of them have to do with tonight's live stream 23 people here welcome to the newcomers so someone here says join five minutes ago okay cool and when you joined five minutes ago YouTube took you to the beginning of the stream or just took you to wherever we're at right now live or I mean what I'm saying is I know you're watching us live right now but did you have to manually use the scrubber to go up to that point or is that just where YouTube brought you in just curious if you can let me know so um while I'm waiting to get an answer I'll uh I'll share with you a uh I'll share with you a story so uh Passover story a little pesach story I'm trying to actually think of one oh it responded here's my Pace question good all right uh oh and he is answering Jack is answering live he just jumped right in someone I just joined hearing your question live okay great when I join a live late I start from the beginning and I speed it up to catch up oh and you do it on like double speed cool all right here's a question from Becky all right here's my piece of question we are unlimited and we are limited how do we balance the two wow wow wow wow okay we are we are unlimited and we are limited how do we balance the two that's a deep question that is a real deep question and I'm assuming that's a Pacer question because the entire message of pesach according to this is the Transcendence of limitations means skipping like when the Holy One blessed me he skipped over the homes of the Jewish people during the plague of the slaying of the firstborn but also it means skipping jumping like making a leap in one's spiritual growth uh furthermore the Biblical name of Egypt is mitzrayim which is etymologically related to the word mate sodim which means Narrows or straights which rhyme is a place of constriction where our spiritual powers are being walled in and we're unable to express ourselves and pesach leaping jumping skipping means getting out from that narrow place so the whole message of pesach is about transcending limitations that's why I'm assuming it's called the PESA question Becky writes here here's my Pace a question we're unlimited and we are limited how do we balance it too okay so again it's a basic question because the whole idea of peso because um finding that part of ourselves which is unlimited but you're saying but we are limited we're also Limited not not a contradiction you're not posing it as a contradiction you're not saying are we limited or are we unlimited you're saying we're limited and we're unlimited there are aspects of us which are Unlimited there are aspects of us which are limited how do we balance the two It's a Wonderful question um somebody's writing here I'm just going to read it I love you Rabbi I listen to you every day when I drive to work you changed my life I'm really really nice um okay he's writing a question now which I'm not going to answer right now because I'm still in the middle of answering Becky's question but um how can matzah be the bread of our Affliction and also the bread of our freedom at the same time whoa well I love these contradiction questions okay we're going to get back to that raphoyle's question our angel of healing I'm sure he has a connection to make ladas Vasa yeah remember fall you have a connection to mecloud certainly you do okay but let's let's deal with Becky's question here um we're limited and we're unlimited thank you as a so what does it mean we're Limited in we're Unlimited well let's let's first of all talk about what it means we're unlimited because I I don't think we're limited requires a whole lot of explanation um probably your default experience of life involves being limited right I can't be in two places at one time as they say in Yiddish uh it's you can't dance at two weddings simultaneously at least um so we all know what it means to be limited there are things that are out of our control we wish they were they were otherwise and there's nothing we can do about them right so we we know what it means to be limited I don't think you need me to explain that but what does it mean that we're unlimited what does it mean we're Unlimited so I think it means a lot of things but maybe to just give a glimpse into the concept of what it means to be Unlimited um you know Victor Frankel uh he writes about his Auschwitz experience and he couches it in philosophical terms and he was a psychologist and he speaks about in terms of psychology and about mental emotional Wellness but he also frames it in philosophical terms actually interestingly he he borrows uh some phrases from from Nietzsche and um he says I don't know the original German I wish I did but uh he said man can endure any any what if he has a why yeah yeah maybe somebody could pull that up for me uh just Google the original German from Nietzsche a man can endure any what if he has a why or maybe I'll just do it well you know you guys don't care if this is sloppy right because this is just spontane they were just having fun over here this is I'm just trying to make background noise while you put tinfile on the inside of the refrigerator right now or while you tell your kids to go back to bed because they heard you uh dropping a flamethrower on your toe I wonder if any non-judes are listening right now and wondering why the Jews are dropping flamethrowers on their toes it could be a guy's cautioning something and he needed a flamethrower and he dropped it on his toe and he wasn't wearing shoes I mean doesn't that happen to you all the time okay um man can endure any oh I'm sorry any how if he has a why if he has a y see I'm glad I Googled it uh Nietzsche uh German let's see if we can get the original oh this lemons I don't speak German by the way because of knowing Yiddish I can usually figure out um German I mean you should say fire truck you can tolerate V is is how varum is is why V is how so it's it's inverted actually I'm not surprised it's inverted in German or actually it's an original German quote so it's the inversion is in the English translation so the original Nietzsche it's if a person has a y of varum uh for his life lemons is his life he can tolerate conver t uh any how if there's a reason why he has to go through what he's going through then he could tolerate whatever it is no matter how it is that he'll have to go through it yeah [Music] V okay I don't know I just whatever translated into um Yiddish somebody should do that okay at any rate so why was I talking about Frankel because I was saying he was speaking about the idea uh Jack says Frank Franco is a psychiatrist not a psychologist you're correct that is correct thank you for the correction okay but did I say he was a psychologist I said he was speaking in psychological terms I said he was speaking in philosophical terms even though um he was also primarily speaking about psychological phenomena I don't know replay it so uh [Music] he was speaking about the idea of internal Freedom I'm not sure if that was a term that he actually used he uses the term internal freedom but the idea that even when one is not in control of his uh situation like somebody was an inmate in Auschwitz God forbid but by finding meaning for his life meaning [Music] um if there's a purpose why he's still alive even in these conditions then he's able to be internally free is this live Paul is asking is this life yes Paul it's live it's totally live you can interact with me you can say whatever you want and if it's nice I'll read it out loud how you like that okay so what does it mean we are Unlimited so this is Becky's question we're limited but we're unlimited I think actually she said unlimited first we're unlimited but we're limited so what does it mean we're unlimited it means that we have the ability to transcend limitations right like Frankel's observation but that a person in any situation even the most nightmarish conditions can be internally free you can refuse to have others Define the meaning of his life he has that ability to retain the the Mastery over his narrative even if he cannot control what's happening but he can control the the meaning of why it's happening so ah that's what it means to be Unlimited or I shouldn't say that's what it means I I I could better say that's one way of understanding what it means when we are Unlimited but I think this itself begins to answer your original question because as you see this description of being unlimited inherently uh is is defined in the context of limitations in other words a lamp in the daytime doesn't give light well of course it does give light it gives the same amount of light as a lamp in the night time but subjectively speaking it's not perceived as giving light so think about it like this unlimitedness that is not observed within a context of limitations is for all practical intents and purposes not unlimited you only perceive what I'm saying is the only perceive our Transcendence when there's something to transcend we're only unlimited when we are placed in a situation of limitations otherwise again it's like a lamp in the middle of the daytime it's giving the same light as it gives at night but there's no perception of the lamp itself as a source of Lut so do you understand why that sort of begins to answer your question your question was we're unlimited but we're limited like how do you put the two together and I kind of am saying that it's almost by definition that there needs to be limitation in order to be described as Unlimited um a lack of limits itself that doesn't play off of any any opposition or tension is uh may may be in the the purest sense in the in the in the abstract sense it may be Unlimited but in certainly not in the experiential sense it's not something that we would perceive subjectively as Unlimited so it's like the soul is unlimited but it's really uh the power of the soul is only perceived when it enters a body while body is limitations not just the body is limited like we're saying before you can't be in two places at one time so but not only is a body limited a body is limitations the body is is itself a set of limitations which it places chiefly upon the soul and yet where is the Soul's unlimitedness most on display it's it's through embodiment the soul that remains in heaven um is is in the abstract senses is unlimited but um there's no tension there's no Dynamic interplay between the limitations and the unlimitedness where you would be able to pinpoint any particular aspect of the Soul as being a demonstration of of unlimitedness um I see some more chats coming in uh so Paul is writing here if my father is a Jew and I convert but my wife isn't Jewish am I Jewish I love your videos by the way regardless of your answer that is first of all thank you for loving my videos because I want you to know something not all people love my videos I don't think a lot of people who hate my videos there are some people who are hated um you know like the man you love to hate um some people in fact today in today's internet where the algorithm uh only really looks at engagement and does not distinguish between hate and love some people will make an entire career just on inciting hatred they call it rage bait so but I don't think a lot of people hate my videos maybe a few people but uh I think but I don't think a lot of people love it I think it's a niche audience I'm I'm really trying to Define who my audience is but I think they're not your typical uh it's not your typical audience it's definitely not something that has Mass Appeal I think it's more quirky people uh introverts and highly sensitive people and uh overthinkers philosophers I think I think I don't know people with a dry sense of humor that's at least what I imagine um is the audience so thank you for enjoying oh no don't name the niche Noah says don't name the niche why why should I not name it will something bad happen if I name it is it like casting a spell or something why should I not name it will it make people well you're an awesome vessel of hashem's light from Elisa thank you Eliza you are an awesome vessel of hashem's light right back at you um so Paul said he'll he'll still love my videos no matter what I answer Paul that is that shows integrity okay by the way you you tell me that but I wonder if it's possible I actually wonder if it's possible because sometimes these things are beyond our control and sometimes clinically become turned off by a person even when in principle we know that we shouldn't be meaning in principle we know there's no reason to dismiss this person but we're emotional beings so if if somebody uh does something that offends or hurts somebody even inadvertently even if objectively you think well it's the same guy whose videos I've always enjoyed it may not be possible for you to enjoy afterwards at any rate um maybe I'm just babbling right now to avoid answering your question your question was interesting because I'm not sure I followed the logic because you're asking about your wife's Jewish status affecting your own uh that's how it seemed at least the way that you constructed the question your wife's Jewish status would not affect your Jewish status um obviously Torah strongly frowns upon intermarriage I don't think I'm shocking anybody by saying that I don't think anybody here hearing that is saying what I I wasn't aware of that but at the same time a Jew being married to a non-jew does not remove the Jews status as a Jew now maybe you're asking because of your situation you're saying that you converted and you're maybe you're asking if being intermarried uh retroactively um renders the conversion uh invalid maybe that's your question and I'm not going to answer you specifically I just don't want to take responsibility to do so but I'll answer in a very general way and to say that um just like a born Jew cannot leave Judaism a converted Jew cannot leave Judaism in other words you're free to do whatever you want to do you can practice however you want to practice but according to Jewish law your status will not change once you become a Jew then just like it warns you whatever you do is your choice but you can't know you can no longer become unjewish all you would do is make yourself into a lapse elapsed Jew but you'd still be a Jew just a lapsed one I hope that was uh good somebody said you nailed it on the audience description can I tell you something interesting I nailed it on the audience description when I said it's like the introverts and the highly sensitive people and the the weirdos the okay I'm getting I'm getting to my point here so I was driving down Kingston Avenue and you know that's the main thoroughfare in uh in one one two one three land in Crown Heights Brooklyn and that's that's the main laborator neighborhood and by the way you know what I think I don't think that my channel um you would think that it's like a lot of Laboratories because I teach a lot of this I don't think it is I think probably there are a lot but not like overrepresented uh I think that this channel probably appeals more you would see a consistency in personality type than a level of observance or or which Community people come from in other words I think I have people who come from all communities and all levels of observance and that that's not the real constant in the personality profile of my typical viewer I think it's more um like uh like I was saying personality stuff I'm trying to mess with this mic over here okay I don't like the height of the mic and I keep on changing keep on wanting to change it all right so I was driving I was driving down Kingston Avenue it was out of Shabbos Friday afternoon and I get out of my car I pull up in front of Mick from Mayer that's a men's Mick film I was going to immerse in the Mikvah for uh to prepare for the Sabbath it's going to emerge in the ritualarium in preparation of the Sabbath for the Sabbath day and I get out of the car and there's a bunch of guys standing or maybe they were walking but they saw me getting out and they they all came over to me and they're like hey yeah how are we tell how you doing I'm like hey and people come over to me all the time and they're like hey and I have to try to figure out do I know them in real life which is very awkward because if I know you in real life and I've met you and maybe even you know you've been to my house or been to your house or maybe even were related or something and I can't remember who you are because I'm not good at that um so then I've committed this social faux pas so I'm always like living in somewhat like low-level dread that I'm um inadvertently snubbing somebody who I have a pre-existing social uh relationship with um so um I'm just gonna interrupt for a second but Paul writes that is the best answer to that question I got from an orthodox Rabbi I made the same question I made the same mistake as my father I fell in love with a non-jew thanks for your honest and kind answer well Paul I'm just grateful that my answer was kind I mean honest is good but honest and kind that's uh I try to be kind I really do I try to be kind uh and I'm glad that you felt that that was a helpful answer and um yeah I hear you you're saying you made the same mistake as your father yeah and who knows the mysteries of of hashem's world why these things happen but uh perhaps it's a pattern that you need to be the one who puts an end to I don't know I I don't want to even suggest that I know but I I yeah it's definitely something to think about so anyways I was getting out of my car on Kingston Avenue on a Friday afternoon before Shabbos heading into the Mikvah to immerse and I'm getting out of the car and this like uh gang not a gang like a street gang they weren't gang bangers but like a group group of of men Jewish men are walking down Kingston Avenue and and uh they come over they're like hey and I'm like hey and again I'm having like this uh my brain is just trying to go through my Rolodex figure out do I know these people um and I'm pretty sure I don't know them and then I was really relieved because the next thing they say like oh we watch your videos all the time like ah what a relief because then they had identified the nature of our relationship was a virtual relationship that they know me from my videos which means that I don't have to remember any prior uh interaction that I had with them so they're like oh yeah we love your videos we all watch your videos yeah videos yeah you know we want you on YouTube which I love by the way can I tell you something when people say watch your videos I actually love that as opposed to what I'm not going to forget the story I'm coming back to the story but um and the story is about the niche of my my viewership being a bunch of weirdos I'm gonna come back to that but I just wanted to say I love when people say I love I watch your videos as opposed to what when they come to say I I love your articles because I wrote a weekly advice column for AMI magazine for eight years I haven't written it in three years and people will still come up to me and be like I read your article every week and I'm like no you don't yeah I read it every week I haven't written in three years you didn't notice every week my foot okay but also why don't I like that because I wrote that article begrudgingly because I felt like it provided a certain service but that's not where my heart and soul is my heart and soul is in my shield and it's in my classes my Torah classes and I don't I don't like being known as the magazine guy the advice column guy I also don't like it because 90 of people who know me as the magazine advice column guy I think I'm a therapist which I'm not I'm not a therapist I'm not I'm not a psychologist I'm not um a mental health professional in any way shape or form I've actually gone out of my way to state that and restate it and people still think it's so frustrating I hate it I really do it's my pet peeve like definitely one of the things that just bothers me the most is when people are like oh are you a therapist can I can I pay you for a session like no I'm not please I don't want to hear about your problems I can't take it I have enough of my own problems please I don't want to hear about it that wasn't kind was it but it was honest it wasn't honest and kind like Paul called my response to him but it was it was honest without being kind you see how easy it is to be honest or kind but to be both that's a rarity okay at any rate so no I'm not a therapist I'm not okay so I hate when people know me only from my advice column and I think I'm a mental health professional which I'm not but when people say oh I know you from from your videos um I love that so someone's writing here what age group were they the gang uh I would say they're probably in their 30s much of men white males 30 years old put an APB out for a a group of white males in their 30s making their way Northbound by foot on Kingston Avenue three months ago I don't think you'll find them by now they're probably probably left the city already anyways they weren't from Brooklyn they weren't from New York they're from out of town and as they began to explain to me they were they were having a Shabbos in Crown Heights they were experiencing Shabbos in Crown Heights some people do that they come to Crown Heights to experience the it's a really unique experience Shabbos in the heart of lebovich recommended to everyone who hasn't had that experience so anyways but I'm getting it the reason why I'm telling the story so this this gang of guys they're like hey we love your videos we all watch your videos and then one of them's like you know why we like you I'm like why because you're a regular guy I like that you're a regular guy you know you're you're just awkward you're socially awkward you know you joked bomb you know you're a regular guy and I'm like yeah yeah and I'm like liking it I'm liking it but then as I'm liking it my brain is telling me hold on a second the the kind of insulting you right now like I'm liking it because I guess you know like kind of like with a dog you can like you can use like a friendly tone when you speak to a dog you can say mean things like you're a disgusting dog aren't you right the dog is still feeling good because the tone sounds nice even though you're calling them disgusting so they're like yeah we love videos yeah you're awkward you're socially awkward yeah you're a nerd yeah your jokes bomb but the words as my brain is catching up like these aren't compliments like it's not something people uh people who strive to to be identified with with these qualities and um and then and I started thinking I started realizing like they have now like this carte blanche like I I realize they have this total license now to completely eviscerate me like to make fun of me and put me down like in the most vicious like in like whatever a bunch of Junior High kids would do on a playground like trying to make each other cry like they have the license to use that type of language as long as they continue to do it in a mode of smiling and ostensibly keeping praise upon me and I realized like there's no end to this I mean they could just keep yeah look at you you're a loser Yeah it's you're just a real awkward dark nerd an absolute pathetic slaughtering barely managing in adulthood they like we love you yeah you get up there and you give these speeches and you're just totally uh fumbling through life and you're confused and you're neurotic and your jokes aren't funny and you you ramble we love you we just enjoy watching your absolute idiotic ranting your lunacy you're just putting it all out there we love it yeah yeah we're your biggest fans so they didn't actually go to that extent but I realized that at that point they could have they totally could have um so somebody writes here in the chat I met you at the aisle and I thought you were mad cool all right that's great I'm at the oil all the time I'm there several times a week that's my that's my place it's where I go um yeah so regarding the niche the viewership I think that the viewership of this channel are people who are a little bit outcasts but have enough self-awareness to know that they're the outcasts I would assume that everybody who likes my videos had a really hard time between the ages of I'd say like 12 and 25. right because that's when all your peers are super cruel and insensitive and it feels like the rest of your life is just going to be about being On The Fringe of society so but probably most of my viewers are over 25 at this point so you've kind of grown past the the hellish adolescent uh years and and you're making your own life and maybe you're already experiencing some success in life and um finding people who appreciate you and your life is bigger than just some arbitrary group that they put you into like a classroom now you're able to like make friends and associate with people by choice and now you're finding people who are a little bit more like you and a little bit more sensitive to you and and Kindred Spirits so um I think that someone's writing here you also have a big baltuva following I don't think it's a big Bell true of following I think you're incorrect in saying that I think that like I'm saying it's sensitive self-aware socially awkward introspective weirdos which happens to that description happens to you know the Venn diagram between that and like balichova is probably like very almost like a a circle um so there's a lot of that but it's not because of balichova it's more of a personality it's more of a personality so I I think that there's a lot of sort of quirky intellectual thinkers um off-beat sense of humor um people who like random references like the kind of people you know who I think watch my videos the kind of people who like go on Wikipedia to look something up and like it's it's three in the morning they look up and they're like what happened did they fall down a Wikipedia Rabbit Hole just clicking and they realize that they went hundreds of clicks deep until finally they're looking up like the most totally cure facts that they know like a link within a link within a link I I think those kinds of people I think those kinds of people um yeah Abu says I think you're spot on I also love Robbie Friedman Robbie and Rabbi singer and more yeah those are definitely different audiences though so uh and that's great that today in in today's day and age that we have so much Torah going on in the form of the internet that makes it available to everyone everywhere at the same time it's amazing so there's somebody for everybody there really is and you know it took me a while to just sort of lean into I'll tell you it's interesting um I had I didn't have to but I chose to I guess study a little bit about because my bread and butter is putting out content online so obviously I don't want to just put it out and then nobody watches it I want it to reach the people who will appreciate it so I started to study you know how do you actually get your content in front of the people who will appreciate it and it's not like I'm doing this I'm not like you know you know my time it's not my channel I don't do ads yeah I'm sure you've noticed there's no ads before the videos so it's not like I'm trying to get a million clicks because not like I'm getting paid more the more clicks I get um I'm really just I'm not interested in getting a million views or a hundred thousand views I don't I'm all I want is that the video should go to the people who would appreciate them so I did some studying about how to do that basically how to get the algorithm to surface your content to the people who will actually appreciate it and um what I found it was actually very helpful for me on a personal level in my own personal growth and my personal Journey is um you know what Dolly Parton said she said find out who you are and then be that on purpose I just think that's so profound um really that is the the whole gist of it figure out who you are like don't figure out who you want to be don't look at somebody else and emulate their model and then try to have their audience that look at who you are and and I view it in spiritual terms like Hashem made you unique okay so figure out what unique qualities Hashem gave you and and now just do that on purpose like double down on that and so I learned this you know when I started looking at how do you actually get your content to be surfaced in front of the people who will appreciate it so I had to learn things like value proposal and target audience I mean those are those are marketing terms value proposal why should you watch this video target audience who who's likely to be looking for what it is that you're offering in this video right so I I started to realize that really what you have to do is don't say this is for everybody it's counterproductive don't say oh well everyone would gain from this you know what if everyone came from it nobody will gain from it narrow it down the most successful stuff I had was stuff where I really just tried to narrow it down imagine one guy imagine one dude who is this person and and why do you have something that's gonna hit the spot for this person at this time and and that tends to also for whatever reason that just tends to also um do better you know the algorithm um picks up on the fact that people are more deeply engaged so as I studied this I actually became much more comfortable with myself and you could you could watch this you could watch old YouTube videos of me I mean this channel Soul words I think only three four years old so for I've been public speaking for 15 years maybe longer but there are videos of me on the internet there for for sure 15 years old and in my Beard's not even white I don't even have any white in my beard you have videos of me wanna no wipe my beard and well in probably uh I wouldn't say I weighed half as much I don't think that's but you know definitely a thinner darker beard and not that different I mean I was never like super different in my style but you I think you'd what you would notice is an absence of certain not a a complete absence but to some degree a you would see less of some of the things that if you're a regular viewer of mine you would think of a as sort of um signature Hallmark characteristics of mine you would you would notice in my older videos or even if you'd watch a video from two years ago because really this has been a growth process until this day like even right now what am I doing right now this is unscripted I'm real I'm just rambling here I'm just totally being myself like the way I'm talking right now is 95 the way I talk in real life and by the way just so you know I want to tell you something most people who talk in front of a camera that's not how they talk in real life it's not even first of all please just notice when you watch you when people are wildly gesticulating like in a way that's totally like not commensurate to whatever they're talking about right which is the total like especially the rabbinic and then like also like vocal tone I'm gonna and and the young man said to the rabbi you're like come on who talks like that no it's called affectation it's one of my other pet peeves affectation oh I hate affectation I can tell you that for sure I hate affectation anyways the speaking Styles and the gesticulation and the whatever it's all the vocal tone and the it's all affected a f f e c t e d it's all with affectation that's not how people talk in real life those people online most of them they don't talk like that in real life okay now some of them it's interesting they've gone so far they stay in character all the time like Tupac you know that by the way was a theater nerd mark my yeah yeah that's why he was a theater nerd he was an effeminate theater nerd and he stumbled upon the the thug Persona and he stayed in character and that's what killed him that's how he got killed because he was playing Thug with the real gangsters yeah but that was a character he played he just stayed in character why I mean he made a ton of money out of it people loved it people gave him adulation for it but that's that that was the end of him that's what killed him that was that was an affectation there you go um hold on a second um affectation is crime Adolf loose should have said what I don't know what Adolf loose is or is that Lowe's is that like a Dutch name and he should have said it you want to let him know now is he still living could you let him know that he should say it I don't know could you rewrite that affectation is crime it'll flutes because I could Google it but maybe you could just explain it right now um I'm closing it on 50. I do have a dry sense of humor and I am a little odd you are spot on of course I was Paul I know my I know my customers over here I know my customers Okay so what am I talking about affectation yeah and then before that oh so like right now the way I'm talking is 95 the way that I talk in real life like if you were to come into my house right now well you're a stranger I don't think I'll be relaxed if a stranger come to my house at 12 27 a.m um the night before pay sucks I I think I would be inhibited but if you were a friend of mine and we were just hanging out and talking in real life if I felt totally safe with you and I didn't feel the cameras are on and I didn't have to like be filtered the way I'm acting right now is 95 the way that I act um in real life and why is that because because I learned this this was this I told you I learned about value proposal and target audience and just figure out your Niche you can't be all things to all people so forget about Mass Appeal just figure out who are you be that totally be it be the most pure version of who you already are and then you're gonna attract the people that that speaks to I don't need the people that it doesn't speak to because thank God there's so many people online who are teaching Torah so if their Persona attracts a certain demographic and that way those people are learning Torah great then they got it covered then it's covered but I I definitely think there is a a certain audience out there who I don't think they wouldn't be learning Torah at all if if I weren't teaching I think they'd still be learning but I think I um I add something you know I'm not saying it's the end-all and be all I don't think it is at all but it's definitely a certain style that has a certain value and for some people it adds a certain level of enjoyment I also think that I do go deeper than most people do online um I don't think I'm smarter than them I don't think I'm more capable of depth I just think I'm more willing to do it I think that online sometimes you're you're gonna even unintentionally or subconsciously Pander to the lowest common denominator maybe not the lowest Rock Bottom common denominator but you know Everything's Relative now within the world of rabbi's lowest common denominator is you know not the same lowest common denominator as let's say a video uh YouTube a YouTube channel of prank videos just a prank bro you know that so the lowest the bottom of the barrel of YouTube prank videos that would be like real low brow right but within the realm of rabbis teaching classes what's lowest common denominator relatively speaking it's um you know trying to keep things light and entertaining and sort of avoiding depth although you want your audience to feel smart because people like to feel smart so you give them the experience of depth you give them a hint of depth without actually bringing them into the depth because you'll see if you actually watch Analytics any part where you go into deep Exposition you're going to see a drop off in an engagement okay because most people are not interested in that and and even people who are capable of it it's not like they're in the mood for it all the time people are on their phones most people watch videos on their phones they're on their phone maybe they're in the middle of three other things and they're watching your video it's not like they're in the mood for getting really really deep so getting deep can often uh scare people away I don't mind I don't mind losing people so I I do I mean I enjoy it obviously I enjoy depth I enjoy Nuance especially like Paradox that's what I really like I like when you get to a point where the the idea becomes so uh so so lofty that it can no longer be contained and and then you're forced to embrace opposites and to find Harmony between them that that's what I love well that's not that's not going to be uh baby shark levels of popularity you know that's not the Kinder Egg unboxing levels of popularity [Music] I know you guys probably are not such a YouTube aficionados to realize that Kinder Egg unboxing no you wouldn't know this well sometime when you're in the mood of blowing your mind over something uh insipid go search YouTube for Kinder egg unboxings and just be enthralled by the sheer number of them that exist and how there's a limitless number of them which we'll have 10 million 50 million 100 million views yeah so that's that's that's called Mass Appeal right okay um I see one two three four message retracted by Noah so were you swearing and you you felt bad and you you deleted it because you want me to accidentally read your swears online and then someone would take a clip of it and put it on what's happening my peso could be ruined is that what happened okay lose was it lose or lows is it like the way the Dutch do a double a double uh vowel to be a long vowel how do you pronounce it sounds like a Dutch name only only the Dutch the Dutch like those double vowels they they use them usually to make a right isn't that what they do in Dutch they use a double vowel to be a long vowel well it's pronounced lows yeah that's like like lows like Home Depot Lowe's okay so I was right all right Lowe's was a guy in Vienna but he wasn't from he wasn't Austrian he was Dutch right he was a doctor go confirm it for me Lowe's was a guy in Vienna who said ornament is crime as a manifest of architecture and design but had moral overtone your manifesto's affectation is crime I guess clumsy thumb wanted to clarify not muddle um Frank Lloyd Wright said that if something is structurally necessary Frank Lloyd Wright was a scumbag by the way he was like a low life in his actual personal life it was disgusting but uh you can go and go Google that and see if I'm overreacting but Frank Lloyd Wright said that if something is structurally necessary in a building then it'll be aesthetic by definition and if it's not necessary like you put a columns and but the columns don't hold hold anything up so that it will be unattractive he he held that the form and the function are intertwined or even our one thing so this sounds similar to that idea I like this idea so uh so yeah ornament is a crime yeah Lowe's said ornament is a crime ornament is a crime and by the way Noah that is why in Alabama what I'm about to say what I'm about to tell you write it in the chat what am I going to tell you about all about your sucker those who follow him people who are Obama if you ever visited their sukkah on the holiday of sukkas what did you notice or not notice as it were about their soccer you know what I'm saying you with me no you're with me there's something called no idea okay fine so I'm rafale writes no decorations that is right there's something called noise nice sucker literally means sucker decorations and um it's a real thing um decorating your silica isn't just an arts and crafts project for a bunch of Hebrew school kids um noise is a real concept speaks about it in the gamada and in Allah there's no noisuka no decorations and the the rationale is that the sukkah itself is already beautiful and it doesn't need to forgive the cliche we don't need to Guild the lily you know what gilding the Lily is someone takes a lily beautiful flower that God made and he says you know it would really make this pop I'm gonna spray gold on it I'm gonna dip it in gold and then it'll be gorgeous like no leave it alone the Lily is already gorgeous it's called gilding the lily yeah so noisuka would be gilding the Lily and for that reason we don't do it there's a lot of things like that by the way you ever notice the Chabad tales and the talus there's no Atara there's not that some times you'll see people with the very ornate um crown on the headpiece on the talus that's made of jewels and and uh and precious metals and we don't have that and it's it's quite on purpose that we don't have that um the debit was the epitome of that no ornamentation man that ever was Zero ornamentation no affectation you know that's the rabbit was Zero affectation the way that epidemed the way that I've interacted with people in conversation zero affectation nothing done for the sake of reaction nothing superfluous like ah and the that's that's really what we have to Endeavor to be but I think what that means is each of us has to Endeavor to be that in our own way um you are unique you are unique so there's a pure version of you and there's an affected version of you when you Guild the Lily by playing up certain uh certain traits uh that get a reaction you're you're presenting a a modified version of yourself which which may in the short run uh gain you reactions that you are happy about but I don't think that's why God Made You you I I think really especially in today's day and age like this is this is the we're in the time like mashir is coming and mashir comes it's gonna be no affectation because the world itself will be perfect and we're not going to need to put dressing on anything you know it's interesting oratory for instance if you listen to speeches from I mean the earliest recorded speeches they have I don't know maybe some phonograph some whatever from 150 years ago or something but can you listen to Old speeches or the the sense first of all people put on these accents like this oratory I guess it's like a thespian accent and the the trill the way they they uh they like over emphasize certain consonants and like there's a certain theatric and a lot of it I understand has to do with the lack of electronics like I have this awesome mic this sure Mike's made in Australia this thing costs I don't know four or five hundred bucks and it's gorgeous because this mic is so good I can whisper I I literally whisper right now and you'll hear it just fine you know but think about oratory in in the ancient world or even just you know 150 years ago or 100 years ago you had to project so it created this very bombastic sort of stage Persona very operatic literally I don't mean I'm not even using apparatic operatic in a in a in a in a metaphorical sense of music like literally Opera and the like this very booming sort of presence and you have to exaggerate because people are sitting very far away and what the people in the cheap seats to be able to see and it's you're moving and you're projecting but it's affectation and they today I don't think it's required I don't think we need to do that I think we can just be ourselves so uh Abu says in Rabbi Friedman's VIP class that's a it's a paid group that is it's paid so that they can keep it uh small I don't remember how small the groups are but it's it's small to the point where everyone who wants to interact with him is able to interact with him uh so he writes in Raleigh Freeman's VIP class he's very chill and genuine yeah yeah I've actually been on his VIP classes a couple times it's like it is very similar to just sitting and talking and having a tea with him in real life yeah and they do really absorb and connect I'm so glad to have found you as well I'm just a simple dedicated full-on monotheist 38 years old with five kids all right full-on monotheist is a good thing to be in life that's very nice so Rafal says wasn't the best of English ornamented with gold Etc yeah so you're asking I'm saying that everything should just be Spartan and Stark had gold good question it's a good question I don't know what do you think about that I'm thinking that my heart tells me that for the basement to be covered in gold is to be itself I say just tell us that gold was only created for the temple in fact I think the wording of the madhush is that the world was not worthy for gold worthy of gold for any other purpose than for the temple so if it weren't for the fact that God wanted there to be a temple he would not have even made gold because there'd be no proper use for it in other words when the temple has gold it's not affectation hear what I'm saying when you put gold on something you know like these rich people and they go to Dubai and they have fifty thousand dollar meals and uh I'll have like a a cocktail that costs ten thousand dollars like literally like a martini that costs ten thousand dollars and how do they make it cost ten thousand dollars so they'll put gold in it but gold like that's like by the way if you if you ever have like a um a restaurant where rich people start coming to it and you just need to randomly charge five figures for a menu item you just take anything you already make it could be like um grilled cheese sandwich and you just put gold on it gold shavings it's harmless you need gold you just pass it through so you could just put gold shavings on a you could take like white bread and American cheese in a in a toaster oven served with a bowl of tomato soup and just put gold shavings on it twelve thousand dollars no problem um so then that's a misappropriation of gold grilled cheese sandwich doesn't need it and therefore to put it on it is is a betrayal of what a grilled cheese sandwich is a grilled cheese sandwich has an identity and use you subverted the identity by putting the stupid gold on it but when you put gold on the on the basement on the temple you're not subverting the identity of the base of English because to the contrary the gold only exists for the base I make dish it's the most natural thing see that's I guess that's the idea it's not that there's a problem with being um well what's the word ornamental inherently applies implies some degree of superfluousness um but let's call it being elegant to Regal um there's nothing inherently wrong with being elegant or Regal if that is true to whatever the thing is then it's appropriate so in other words a king wears a crown he doesn't wear a paper crown he wears a Golden Crown that's not an affectation that's not uh unnecessary hype that's what a crown is but if you if uh if you put the gold on the golden hubcaps on your car well that's totally unnecessary and yeah that's that's obnoxious and and to anybody with any decent taste it's it's garish and off-putting okay um yeah Abu says that's an awesome answer thank you Eliza says Hashem said that gold was good Gordon gecko said the greed is good so how you like that what do you think about that okay what else do we do we want to talk about over here 26 watching shame of Aya am I really doing all this for 26 people every person is a world every person is a world but I really I gotta go to bed soon I gotta get up earlier than I normally do um because I'm a firstborn and I have to attend to see them so that I don't have to fast tomorrow I normally get up late not late but later than what normal people get up at um there's a time when you have to say the Shema by that time I make sure to get up by that time and then you know I may Davin 10 11. I'm just being honest that's that's what I do my work day sometimes ends at three or four in the morning and then I'll you know get up later and then they'll dive and pray the morning prayers around 10 or 11 it's quite often what I do um but tomorrow oh I gotta get up at dawn you know what Dawn is 7 30. for me that's Dawn 7 30 is dull 7 30 is yeah so uh oh Avi writes is a Christian seder cultural appropriation darn right it is yeah I like that I I will I love that I think but here's the here's why that's not going to help us it's true but it's not going to help us because okay I'm gonna say it in yeshivash the whole atsuminian of cultural appropriation is only hashov by a certain segment that those who do Christian seders don't respect to begin with let me spell it out um person is doing Christian Seder um if you would tell them that's cultural appropriation forget about telling that that's a culture appropriation let's remove it from the immediate context because then they're going to be defensive anytime you tell somebody what they're doing um anytime you scrutinize what the person himself is doing they're going to be defensive let's say you find a guy who does a Christian seder and then you talk to them a week later in a totally different context and you mentioned to him you know so and so did such and such and it was cultural appropriation I would bet you dollars to Donuts that that guy who did the Christian seder you know Evangelical guy he would tell you well well I don't care about cultural Pro that's for the woke the woke people care about cultural appropriation I don't care about cultural appropriation so that's how he would say that's how he would respond even if he heard cultural appropriation used in a context completely apart from any type of scrutiny of his own behaviors how much more so if you would go to him and directly label something he's doing his cultural appropriation he'll tell you I don't care Colt what are you woke I don't care about cultural appropriation um so it's not going to work It's a Wonderful Insight It's a Wonderful insight but that argument will not work by the way you know what you're making me think of oh my gosh my favorite book is Tanya the second volume of Tanya is about the Oneness of God so in chapter two he says here we have an answer to the Heretics who deny Divine Providence and the Miracles that are recorded in the Torah and then he proceeds to give a um a a proceeds to give a logical argument for why the ongoing existence of the universe is a greater Miracle than the splitting of the sea and without getting into it right now uh it's just it's a wonderful logical argument but he says that's the answer to the Heretics but the Heretics don't believe in the splitting of the sea so if the whole arcane is is based on a premise which the heretic won't even agree to to begin with how is it an answer how is it because I mean how is this an answer to the Heretics hear what I'm saying anyone out there familiar with chapter two of volume 2 of Tanya so um anyways what the commentaries explain and it made a lot of sense to me was the altitab is not telling you here's how you should answer the heretic was telling you for yourself for your own satisfaction how can you answer the questions that the Heretics ask not what you tell them what do you tell them you tell them you know what I'm not going to dignify your your your I'm not going to dignify your charges with a response because you just hear to make trouble but for yourself after you walk away from the heretic and you think to yourself but yeah how how would I respond to myself um anyways so um yeah that's that someone's saying it's not so far off in kitas meaning daily Tanya study and Tanya study it's around shiva's Time chapter two of them is usually around shiva's time so it's at least in seven weeks um yeah so beautiful you can resign from the debating Society then yes you can resign from the debating Society yeah it's not meant to be an actual polemic it's meant for sorting out these ideas internally exactly that is exactly correct so uh yeah you know it's interesting you're talking about is is a Christian said or cultural appropriation um yeah I remember one time I was talking to a Christian guy and he was uh trying to explain to me when Easter was and I wasn't even that interested but he was like he was very like adamant about helping me to understand how it was um formulated like how they decided when Easter was he was telling me all this stuff it's like it well it has to be so it's Sunday but it did right but it's got to be after the vernal equinox but it has to be like he's giving me all his like formula I don't even remember it was it was rather complex somebody could probably Google it right now but um after the whole thing was said and done I realized oh they're just trying to make it coincide with pesach like he should he could have just told me that he could have just said it like that and it because it's interesting pesach um in the Jewish calendar like all holidays in Jewish calendar but peso is the primary example of it because it's the one that this whole system is based upon um can fall out different times of the year it fluctuates by uh you know a good month uh where it can fall because the Jewish calendar is not completely solar or lunar you know like the is it Ramadan right now so I'm vaguely aware that it may be Ramadan now uh could somebody tell me if it is but you know like the Muslim calendar is purely lunar and therefore the discrepancy between the 12 lunar months and the solar cycle 365 days um causes that yes it is Ramadan right now so what are you supposed to say to the Muslims on Ramadan like Aid Mubarak is that what you're supposed to say is that the polite thing whatever is the respectful polite thing to be said to a Muslim and Ramadan that's what I'm saying someone could let me know if that's the proper thing to say um yeah sure you're saying sure like that is the correct thing to say okay um so the Muslim calendar is purely lunar and that's why Ramadan can come out all around the year it'll just keep on moving and moving and moving um by the way I have some advice for my uh Muslim friends I've said this before publicly and I'm going to say it again which is a Muslim life hack and I I would love to hear from a real Muslim whether or not this would actually work but here's what I would recommend to you that when Ramadan is in the winter you should go to like Manchester and when Ramadan is in the summer um you should go to you should go to Melbourne like yeah yeah you know or or Johannesburg did anyone ever think of that because if you're in the in the in the winter in the northern hemisphere especially in the extreme North North the days are really short and then you only have to fast till like 3 P.M and in the summer the um the days are really long in the northern hemisphere so you go to the southern hemisphere where they're short did anyone ever think about that Abu is laughing I love the fact that a guy named Abu is loling at my Muslim life hack which leads me to believe that it would work Abu tell me it would work right would it work would my Muslim life hack work or is it haram what I just said I think it would work and I think it would be completely within nobody you tell me that it's not acceptable I want to hear that there's anything wrong with what I just said it would work he said Yes exclamation point yes it would work okay I'm I feel so proud of that now also tell me am I the first guy who ever thought of it or is this something like Muslim teenagers I'll joke about and say Well when I'm gonna be older I'm going to own a private jet and I'm going to go to the oh misses the point though yeah I I mean I didn't say it's the spirit of the law I mean it's you know but within the letter of the law it's a hundred percent technically acceptable but yes you're right it misses the spirit of the law you're correct yes yes okay but why am I telling you this so peso has to fall at a certain time in the year has to be in the springtime why because the Torah tells us to guard the springtime that's what it says guard the springtime and keep the Passover which means peso has to always be in the springtime what is the springtime um there are astronomical ways of describing it such as the vernal equinox they're also um maybe would say biological ways sir uh give me the proper word for this but the blossoming the blossoming of the of the trees so if you see that Passover is going to come too early it's going to be uh in the winter instead of the spring so you create a leap year and every so often the Jewish year will have an extra month of other which is the month it precedes Passover in order to push it off so that Passover the date of Passover will be late enough but all fall within the spring okay um maybe I'll just leave you with this thought why is Passover called the Festival of spring why is it called the Festival of spring good question right like I understand why Passover is called the Festival of Passover because God passed over the Jewish homes in Egypt I know why it's called the Festival of masses because you eat tomatoes I know it's called the season of our Liberation because that's when we were liberated but why is Passover called Aviv the celebration of spring which is different than the right of spring do you know there were riots when Stravinsky's Rite of Spring debuted I think it was wasn't in Paris is that where it happened where were there riots can you believe that Stravinsky's Rite of Spring caused riots I only know it because of Fantasia you know Fantasia stole that Mickey Mouse Sorcerer's Apprentice story from the maharao that's right the story of yasula galem That's The Sorcerer's Apprentice Mickey and the Sorcerer's Apprentice um why is PESA called the Festival of spring so I'll tell you something spring is an inevitability spring eventually comes no matter what after the winter there were spring and what happens in the spring is things come back to life things start to grow things start out and the rhythm of nature begins to pulse and it becomes clear that things are alive whereas in the winter things seem sort of still the the the life the life force of the world becomes more apparent and it's inevitable spring will always come so really what does spring represent spring represents the inevitability of the life force rearing its head now on a personal level what does that mean it means you can go and try to be spiritual as you want but at some point you got to eat at some point you got to go to the bathroom so at some point you gotta sleep you can go and try to be Transcendent and holy like a soul without a body but you're not your soul in a body an inevitable an inevitable uh unavoidable part of life is you're gonna have to reckon with the force of Life of biological life and its needs just like the world will always come to a season of spring okay your body is always going to inevitably reawaken as much as you try to go and be uh Transcendent and it's gonna call to you and summon to you but we got to do what we got to do Nature Calls Nature Calls all right so then what are you supposed to do about that well I'll tell you the pagans the Egyptians the ancient Egyptians were pagans whole ancient world really were pagans the pagans say if you can't beat them join them because it's inevitable that the power of nature is going to call so just lean into it in fact worship it and that's what they did the pagans worshiped the power of nature and they surrendered themselves to the power of nature and that's why from the Pagan worldview might makes right because if Naturally Speaking I can exhibit Force then I should and I must the Jewish point of view says no you don't have to you can withhold you can respect yourself enough to exercise self-discipline yes it's inevitable that you have to tend to your body but you're going to do it on your terms not on the body's terms so yes ultimately you're gonna have to eat you can't go the rest of your life without eating but when you do have to stop and eat do it like a mensch do it like a person with dignity you're gonna have to deal with the fact that God made us beings who are supposed to get married and procreate and have children and seek intimacy even in a physical context yes but don't turn that into a god which forces and demands service where you have to actually make sacrifices for those needs no Channel those needs on your terms use those parts of your human nature as a way of glorifying God so that is the message of the holiday of the spring yes the power of nature is an inevitability that we must reckon with but we don't serve it we make sure that we use it to serve God that is the lesson okay ladies and gentlemen it's late I gotta get up early like I told you please enjoy your Passover and maybe we'll do this again sometime soon hope you enjoyed it I'm gonna end the live stream over here uh I gotta go to the control room I want to say I'm just going to read how boo says I want to say the Chabad status is probably the most cerebral and beautiful truly human and godly Pursuits hearing ideas like a constant state of being mind blown and of course simultaneously yeah and and obviously this is you know that's what I know I don't claim to be well-versed in another any other school um but yes I I also find hematics it is to be exquisitely beautiful in in the depth and the realness um yeah that's what I like and then so it keeps me going okay thank you thank you oh and oh and you really valuable warm and funny I'm just reading the comments I'm glad that you appreciate the humor I know not everyone gets all the jokes okay yeah it was a pleasure I really enjoyed it I'm gonna shut this down okay true freedom freedom freedom freedom