Love To Disagree (Ep. 329)

Hi, this is Rabbi Ulanski, and welcome to the Rabbi Ulanski Show. And whether you're watching with our friends and producers over at Torah Anytime, anytime, or wherever you watch and listen to your podcast, as always, thank you for joining with us. And if it applies, don't forget to like, share, uh comment, and subscribe. There you go. Got it all down. And uh you may have noticed that the Rabbi Ulanski Show has a slightly different look. Because those bookcases behind me, which have um been the background for the Rabbi Ulanski Show, has been in my house about 35 years. Now, there's three different types of wood. There's what's called solid wood, and there's what's called uh uh sandwich board, where there are thin pieces of wood that are all glued together. And then there is zebit. Zebit is what we call in America pasteboard. It's basically um sawdust that's glued together. And that's what my bookcases were. And uh they were collapsing and falling apart, and my children were worried that it was going to tumble over and uh injure one of my grandchildren. And uh okay, listen, you know, >> [laughter] >> I've I'm 67 years old. You you know how when you used to visit your grandparents, and old people's houses had that like old people smell? >> [laughter] >> And like everything was in disrepair, and no one ever bothered painting or fixing anything. That's where I am. >> [laughter] >> So, I wasn't going to do anything about it, but of course, since I have a podcast, I decided to talk about it. And I received the following email. Uh from someone with the name of David Schwartz. Dear Rabbi Alansky, mazel tov to you and me for our birthday is Gimel Shvat. My name is David, my family calls me David. I was born on Gimel Shvat. I guess it makes me a bit older than you, but I hope you won't mind our age difference. For a long time now, I've been wanting to show you my appreciation and love for you and thank you for the great positive influence on me. And now you gave me an idea. On your most annoying podcast, which by the way was called wasn't I could podcast. It wasn't necessarily my most annoying podcast. >> [laughter] >> Oh, you actually called it that. Which was the most annoying podcast I have ever listened to. >> [laughter] >> You have talked about your old bookcase cabinets and its conditions. So, as a personal gift of appreciation and a sponsorship to the podcast, since the bookcase is the background of the episodes, I would like to build you a new bookcase. As you know, our holy sages in Pirkei Avot said, "Make your shelf a rabbi." >> [laughter] >> Now, I want you to understand, this guy is full Israeli. Both of his parents are Israeli. He He He picked up English along the way, you know? And so, that's a very deep joke. It's very hard to make a joke in a language that's not yours. I have a lot of trouble making jokes in Hebrew. The The The only time I think I was ever really successful is um I got onto an elevator and there were a bunch of people there, secular people, and someone had spilled their coffee in the middle and everyone's standing around and you could see everybody's annoyed. So, I look at it and I go, "Ah, cafe hafuch." Now, a cafe hafuch is where you make it with milk instead of water. Yeah, so that's called a cafe hafuch. But, it also means an upside down coffee. So, I said, "Cafe hafuch." Everybody laughed. It broke the tension, you know. But, trust me, it is not easy to make a joke in another language. Make you a shelf for a rabbi. >> [laughter] >> And purchase yourself a friend, which means that when one builds his rabbi a shelving unit, he must do it for free. Unlike a friend that needs to pay for the materials. >> [laughter] >> To be honest, Rabbi Lazer Kagan, I don't like to be friends with people who are better looking than me, so I'd like you to be my rabbi and accept my gift. If we plan the timing right, Hashem willing, we could have the new bookcase at your house just before Pesach, so it will save you the need to clean the old ones of chametz. I solved that problem by going to a hotel. God bless you, Rabbi. Mazel tov and all the blessings. May Hashem keep you healthy and strong. Anyway, I told Reb Dovid that we must have him on the show just cuz this is uh this was just outrageous. But, anyway, it does change the look. It doesn't just change the look of the room, it changes um the uh basically the look of my whole house, you know. And there's all kinds of cool things cuz I don't know if you could always see, but on my old bookcase, like all of the little doors on the bottom were like like broken and the handles were gone. So, he said, "I'm not going to give you any handles cuz you'll break it." So, instead, you see this? It has a little magnetic thing. And wait, wait, watch this. Oh my gosh, look, it goes by itself. Oh my gosh, I'm really messing this up. Hold on a second. There you go. >> [laughter] >> So, uh So, it's amazing and you know, it says that Eretz Yisrael is Eretz Zvi, which uh what does that mean? It means that you can't possibly fit in the amount of Jews who lived here during the time of the Beit Hamikdash today. It's just not possible. I mean, make your cheshbon that the Gemara in Sukkah says that one year they made a count there was 1.2 million korban Pesach. And um figure each korban Pesach was for a chevra, uh call it at least 30 people. And that's uh over 30 million people, maybe 40 million people, who had to eat their korban Pesach inside of the walls of the old city on the ground floor. You couldn't be upstairs on a roof. So, next time you complain about your state of being crowded, just imagine 30 million people within the walls of the old city doing their seder. Yeah, an amazing thing. So, the Gemara in Gittin says it where it talks about this mountain and it talks about millions of people living there and he says, "I saw that mountain, you could never fit that amount of people in." And it says, "Eretz Yisrael is called Eretz Zvi, which it's a play on the word and Zvi is like a deer." He says, "If you take the hide off of a deer, there's no way to get the deer back in." And so, Eretz Yisrael, when the Jews are in it, it expands to fit it and afterwards it shrinks. And the same thing is true with Eretz Yisrael and the same thing is true with the Beit Hamikdash that everybody was standing tzefufim and when they went to bow down, everybody had enough room to bow down. And so, uh it's it's uh somewhat miraculous. In English, they use the term opening a can of worms. When you open a can of worms, you can't really get the can the worms back into the can. There's too many. So, um the point is that now I have this nice beautiful bookcase and I can't fit all my s'farim into it. >> [laughter] >> I don't know how I fit it into the old bookcase. But I realized since the thing was made out of Subit and he he showed me, he says, "I don't know how this remains standing. The whole thing is already turning to powder. I don't know why it didn't just completely collapse under the weight." So, uh um I guess it's the story of Nachman Ish Chazov who whose house was falling down and he said, "Take everything out first, save me last. As soon as you take me out it'll collapse." So, as soon as he came with his new bookcase, the old one completely collapsed. So, so we have to figure out how to fit everything in, but um uh what can I tell you? It's a whole new look and a tremendous yashar koach of Davin and like I say, we'll have to bring you and introduce you to people because apparently I have more Israelis watching the show than I realized. There are there are Hebrew speakers. I know there are quite a number of Chassidim whose first language is Yiddish who also watch the show. I've had some of them over my house for a Shabbos Seudah. And and I know that um you know, like I say, we have people of all ages and and all denominations and all religions apparently watching. I know there must be some Muslims cuz every now and then I see a nasty comment about the Jews, so >> [laughter] >> you know, Allah is king of whatever, so you know, so I know that they're watching too. So, a shout out. That's okay, you you just, you know, you help the algorithm. Somebody wrote a question said, "What is the algorithm?" I don't know. I know nothing about algorithms. Math was never my strong point. I'm a people person. I'm an idea guy, you know. Anyway, so that's sort of an introduction and don't forget about our new merch store, where you can go and get your Rabbi Ilasky mug. And apparently, there's an option to personalize the mug and have it say whatever you want, you know? So, those people who like to write nasty emails, you could write an I hate Rabbi Ilasky mug with a picture of like me with a with a target on my face. >> [laughter] >> I don't care. I don't care. As long as we get the merch out there, I don't care who why you're buying it. >> [laughter] >> You can buy it to smash it. It doesn't make a difference to me. And we're open for suggestions of other things that we should be making on the merch store, so uh, any suggestions that you might have, since people have been clamoring, why don't you have a merch store? Uh, and uh, I don't know, you know? I don't think Pesach Kron has a merch store. I don't think Rabbi Friend has a merch store, you know? Rabbi Yoshef did. He used to sell I'm just kidding, of course. >> [laughter] >> Has v'shalom. But, uh, you know? >> [laughter] >> You know, I'm a proud Yerushalmi. Anyway, so, so um, okay. So, that's it. I think that's uh, that's our bits of business. And so, that brings us to um, the actual podcast. It is sponsored by your local Levi. Now, obviously, I know who that is, because I know the local Levi. It's my job as a Cohen. I'm always looking for somebody to wash my hands. So, I know who this is, but he did not write his name. He wrote your a Levi, so I'm not going to say anything because uh I had um one of the most amazing uh incidents in the history of the Rabbi Ulaski show. I spoke about something on a podcast. And I made an allusion to it, and somebody wrote me in a question and said, "Could you speak more about that idea that you introduced?" And I did as a question and answer. And he wrote his name, and he didn't say, "Don't mention my name or leave me anonymous." You know, And so, I mentioned his name, I asked the question, I answered it. And he became frantic. "Oh, no, you mentioned my name." I said, "Well, you didn't say to be anonymous." "I know, but but can you take it off?" So, I reached out to producer Ari, who uh is as much of a magician as I know, and he says, "No, you can't. You can't go back into YouTube and and edit out, you know, videos that have already been done." So, there's nothing I could do. It's already up there. And uh and I said to the fellow, "I'm sorry, I can't do anything." Anyway, he writes the producer directly, and he says, "You have to take this down. I'll pay whatever it takes. Take down the whole video if you have to. You know, I don't care if if if my wife sees this, you know, it could end my marriage." You know, if you ask a Torah question and that ends your marriage, I really think you have a bigger problem going on than whatever a Torah question that you asked. I I just This is an amazing thing to me, you know? Anyway, producer Ari, who as I mentioned is a magician, somehow managed to go and change it. I don't know how he did it. I asked him, he said, "It's much more complicated, you won't understand it." I appreciate people who appreciate my limitations and and like that. But after that, when I started recording more question answers, no matter what, I left out everybody's names cuz I don't know who's suddenly going to come to me and say, "Oh my gosh, you mentioned my name. Now I have to kill myself, you know?" Or or my wife's going to leave me, or you know, or someone's going to shoot me in the in the back in shul, you know? >> [laughter] >> Yikes is the only word I can think of for that with three exclamation marks after it. >> [laughter] >> So, I I spoke to producer Ari yesterday, and he says, "No, people like to hear their name. I know this cuz sometimes people call up and say, can you give me a shout-out, you know?" So, you know, unless someone says specifically remain anonymous. So, so I I prefer to exercise caution. And he says, "You're making a mistake, you know, you can't you can't judge it on on you know, extreme reactions you get from certain people." Which I'm always amazed. I I I announced on the podcast about a year ago, I'm not going to allow any nasty comments on any of my forums. You want to make a comment, you want to make a correction, you want to Is that that I'm okay with that, you know? But no nasty comments, you know, not about me, not about other listeners. And these people who somebody writes, you know, a little quick comment and they write back and go, "You're good luck learning English, you know, you What, you have nothing else to do in your life?" Or people like criticize me, why do you this, why do you that? I've mentioned this before, and there's always one guy doing this, you know, doing this through his iPhone, always raising his hand and says, "Oh, I can't believe you put music on the podcast." Don't watch it. Just don't watch it. But they won't. They're going to write a nasty comment every single time. You know why? Cuz these people are not well. There's no other explanation. There's no other explanation. You see you write it, you see I responded to it a few times, you see I take that into account, and you keep writing it anyway, because you need therapy. Maybe I I'm I'm maybe I'm being extreme. It could be you need medication. But I mean, what what is the point of not writing all these nasty things? Just don't watch my show. I never understand this. All right, I'm I don't want to get into a rant, cuz I am trying to be positive these days. You know, I'm I'm trying to to you know, although when I made my really annoying podcast, I got a bookcase out of it, SO WHO KNOWS? >> [laughter] >> I COULD BE. >> [laughter] >> People appreciate me more when I lose it. >> [laughter] >> Oh gosh. Anyway, so Local living. During Sefirah, when we focus on Ben Adam l'Chavero, which by the way is the focus of Sefirah. We've spoken about this. This is the Derech Eretz Kadmah l'Torah. How should we relate to different sectors within Judaism? Not just within Orthodoxy, but more broadly. If I believe that certain groups are making serious mistakes or are fundamentally wrong in their approach, what is my obligation? On the one hand, I understand that I should view all Jews as part of Hashem's people, and relate to them with a sense of unity. On the other hand, is it acceptable to distance myself and love from afar, while still disagreeing with them? Within Orthodoxy, even with differences between groups, there is generally a shared framework of Avodas Hashem. My question is mainly about relating across more distinct sectors. that Dati Leumi, Mizrahi, Haredi, Reform um just to put it out there, I don't think he's comparing uh Dati Leumi to Reform. He's just saying that I could throw in Satmar, I could throw in Lubavitch, I could throw in, you know, uh uh Sefardi Ashkenazi. It just means different distinctions between them. So, please I know I have uh um loyal followers in the Dati Leumi community and I certainly do not want to alienate anybody. Want to make [clears throat] that clear. Just the way that it was phrased. Do I have an obligation to generally question my own assumptions and consider that they may be serving Hashem more correctly than I am? Or can I remain committed to my own mesorah while still maintaining respect and a sense of unity? Thank you, Kevod HaRav. Okay. So, >> [laughter] >> Reb Nachman Brick said an interesting thing. They said in America there's freedom of religion. You're free to be a Jew, a Christian, or a Muslim as long as you don't take it seriously. Once you take it seriously, you're a fanatic. >> [laughter] >> I remember I was uh I was I I I was double-teamed once. I fell for it. I You know, they say, "How do you uh How do you get experience by you know messing up and that's how you learn for the next time." But I was speaking at Hebrew University to a group and there were these two Reform students and I noticed that they were kept looking at each other during the speech, but I didn't realize what it was. And they double-teamed me. So, uh the guy says I was speaking about Rosh Hashanah. So, he says, "Dovid, uh isn't Rosh Hashanah about you know, repairing our relationship with other people. And I said, "No, that is on Yom Kippur but not on Rosh Hashanah. Rosh Hashanah is about our relationship with God, recognizing that God is king." Yes, but isn't relationships between people also an important thing on Rosh Hashanah? And he kept repeating it over and over again. And I should have just kept saying, "No." But, even though I may appear to be disagreeable, I am usually like, "Yeah, okay." And I'm like, "Fine. Sure." And then he looks to the girl on the other side of the room and she says, "How can I go into Rosh Hashanah when I see these Haredi Jews throwing rocks at people at the Kotel?" And I fell for it. I might as well say I fell for it. And I started talking about [laughter] Haredi Jews throwing rocks at the Kotel, which never happened, and all these stories, and that, and forget about it. The whole place exploded and it became a whole thing, and I I lost the message I was trying to get across. So, there's an old expression, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." Whenever I get hit with a question that uh I didn't anticipate or that I messed up, I go back and say, "What would I say the next time?" And I realized I made a big mistake. I should have stuck to my topic. She says, "How can I go into Rosh Hashanah when I see these Haredi Jews um throwing rocks?" So, I would say, "Well, you know, uh uh religious Jew could say, 'How can I go into Rosh Hashanah when I see these Reform Jews allowing intermarriage and causing assimilation among the Jewish people? How can I go into Rosh Hashanah when I see uh Reform Jews coming up with scam conversions?'" So, that's a tremendous mistake. If I have to go into Rosh Hashanah by looking at you, or you looking at me, you've missed the whole point. God is the judge and the only person who is being judged on Rosh Hashanah is me. And there are people here, "Oh, judgement day. Here's a chance for me to judge my husband, judge my wife, judge my neighbor, judge my roommate." Yeah, judge judge my parents. Judge my brother, judge my sister. You're not here to judge people. God is the judge. And if you're saying, "I can't go into Rosh Hashanah cuz I see somebody doing a bad thing?" What's that got to do with anything? It's between you and God. Anyway, I didn't say that. Should it come up again, I'm ready. >> [laughter] >> You know, like I said, you have to always be prepared when something happens to go back and look at it and see where did I make my mistake. So, one point I was arguing my point and this reform the the guy, he says to me, "So, you think only you're right?" I said, "Of course. You think I would spend my life doing something that I didn't think was right? You think I keep Shabbos and I keep kosher and I raise my children with values and I think I'm wrong? Of course I think I'm right. Listen to the Christians. There are so many of them online nowadays. You can hear them talking all the time. You think they don't think they're right? You think a Muslim who blows himself up just to be able to kill Jews thinks maybe I'm wrong? His family makes a kiddush afterwards. They hand out sweets. They make a whole thing a whole simcha cuz my son blew himself up and killed some Jews. Do you think they're thinking in the back of their mind, "Maybe I'm wrong?" So, there is this concept of relative truth. Maybe I'm not right. Maybe you're right, maybe he's right, and I don't really know. And uh that is going to lead you into all kinds of problems. So, when you write, do I have an obligation to genuinely question my own assumptions? Yes. Constantly. You have to know if you're right or not. I said this over before, but I'll repeat it in this context. It says the Talmud of Rabbi Akiva, 24,000 students died shalom nogean koved l'zeh cuz they were not giving honor to each other. So, what do you think? They were making fun of each other, putting tacks on each other's chairs? The Talmud of Rabbi Akiva? When it's Rabbi Akiva who said um v'ahavta l'rei'acha kamocha, the v'ahavta kamocha, zeh klal gadol ba Torah, a major rule in all of Torah is love your neighbor as yourself. So, that when Hillel was asked right, Rabbi Akiva was talmid of Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua, who was a talmid of Yochanan ben Zakkai, who was a talmid of Hillel. When someone said, "Teach me the Torah standing on one foot," he said, "Don't do anything to anyone you wouldn't want them to do to you." That was his way of saying v'ahavta l'rei'acha kamocha, zeh klal gadol ba Torah. This is a major precept. So, you think they were making fun of each other? No, just the opposite. Just the opposite. Yeah? Shamayim Rashi says, right at the beginning of the Torah, heaven. Right? Firmament, call it what you will, the sky. It says it's a combination of the words aish and mayim. Aish and mayim do not go together, obviously. Mortal enemies. Remember seeing this guy who was a juggler once, and he holds up an egg. There's an egg. Then he holds up a bowling ball. Yeah? Says the mortal enemy of the egg. >> [laughter] >> And then he juggles them. That was a really funny bit. But, um uh you you you think that they were being that nice to each other? Of course not. So, aish and mayim, fire and water, agreed to make shalom between them in order for shamayim to exist. Two opposites, two polar opposites. So, shalom does not mean that I'm not fighting with you. Yeah? I remember after Sadat uh signed the accords between Israel and Egypt, and we gave them back the entire Gaza the entire Sinai. He didn't want Gaza. We gave them back the whole Sinai and everything like that. Um they said afterwards there was a cold peace. And the expression was better a cold peace than a hot war. But, that's Pea- Peace Peace is just people not fighting. That's not the same thing as as people getting along. R- R- Chaim Shmulevitz he says that the Or HaChaim HaKadosh says by Matan Torah that there are three prerequisites that you need in order to receive the Torah, and one of them is unity. It's achdus. And because it says when we came to the de- to the desert, va-yachanu, plural, and then it says va-yichan sham." And then it says singular we encamped there. Say the Hazal, "Ki'isha chad biliv echad." Like one person with one heart. So, >> [clears throat] >> unity is important. Nonetheless, the Hazal tell us that we had a greater kabbalat Torah on Purim than we had at Shavuot. As it says, "Kiyemu vekiblu." "Kiyemu ma'she kiblu k'var." So, that receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai was not as powerful as what we did on Purim. Now, at Mount Sinai, God spoke, there was the 10 Commandments, there was the Luchot ha'Brit, there was the tablets. You know, there was lightning, there was thunder, there was all kinds of amazing things. Purim was basically a political intrigue. So, says Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz, if there was a greater receiving of the Torah, there must have been greater unity. And he explains it like this. He says, on Yom Kippur, people don't fight, of course. No fight. No one would make a fight on Yom Kippur. In fact, there's that custom where people will go around before Yom Kippur, as I mentioned earlier, Yom Kippur is where we make peace between our fellow man. And they go around and say, "Do you meichel me?" In case I've said anything or done anything bad to you during the year, can you forgive me? And they say it with such sincerity. They just walk around going, "You meichel me? You meichel me? You meichel me? You meichel me? You meichel me? You meichel And they come to somebody who they may have actually hurt. And they say, "You meichel me?" He says, "Well, I don't know. You meichel me?" "Well, I don't know. What you did to me was pretty bad. You meichel me?" "Uh I told you I don't know. Okay, that's it. I asked you three times. Now it's on you." >> [laughter] >> All right. It's a little bit of a parody, but there are people who really try to make shalom with everybody before um uh Yom Kippur. And then case I've hurt anybody I've said too insulting yet. So we're not fighting. But that's not the same thing as interactive unity. And there's nothing that brings people together as much as knowing we're all going to be killed tomorrow. You're getting killed tomorrow? Me, too. You can go first. >> [laughter] [gasps] >> Then we know, as Benjamin Franklin said, the gentleman, if we do not hang together, then we will surely hang separately. We need each other. And in the Purim story, we understood that we have to put all of our differences apart if we want to survive this. We have to work together to be able to make this happen. So, when they came to Har Sinai, yeah, it says they came to Refidim, which the Kli Yakar says, you can reverse letters like by Kev es and Kesev. I have dyslexia. I do that all the time anyway, but so you could read Refidim as Predim. They were separate. And when they came to Har Sinai, they joined together and they became one. What does that mean? Means they weren't fighting. Like on Yom Kippur, they got along. But it wasn't the interactive simcha of unity that you get on a Purim. Where we send food to each other, where we try to make shalom bein ish l'reieihu, we actively work to create that unity. So, uh so that's what Rebbe Akiva was telling me that we're doing wrong. Right? This two students were learning together and they would say, uh um to another two, "How did you learn the sugia?" Says, "We learned it like this and like that." And the other two would say, "Oh, very nice." And they'd go back to their table. Cuz they learned it differently. They just wanted to hear what you have to say and the two of them just went their merry ways. If I don't argue with you, that is a sign of disrespect. Because either you're right and I'm wrong or I'm right and you're wrong. And if I respect you, we're going to work this out till we come to a conclusion. And then they want to fight about it. Yeah, it's okay. But if I don't fight with you, it's only because I don't respect you because I don't care enough about what you think. Cuz if I care about you, then I'll argue with you and if I don't, I'll just humor you. I used to teach how to answer basic questions and uh sometimes people make a statement. They pretend it's a question, but it's a statement. And I just go, "Oh." It's I've worked on this answer. Cuz I don't want to acknowledge what they're saying cuz it's wrong. But I don't want to fight with these people cuz they don't care about what I say. I always say the easiest people in the world to deal with are people who don't care what I think. They just want to tell me what they think. I don't know what everybody thought about uh the Pesach episode um from the hotel, but I got this email. You know, I couldn't even read it. My son read it out loud and you know, he was just laughing. Somebody called up, "This was the most disgusting thing I've ever heard. This was so terrible. This was a hillul Hashem." It just on and on and on and I was like, "Gosh, have you ever seen my show?" >> [laughter] >> That's This is the one that pushed you over the edge? >> [laughter] >> You know, but you know, so I wrote them back and I said, um "Well, there's really nothing I need to say cuz you didn't ask any questions. You know, you just uh hurled recriminations. And in my experience, uh people who are filled with self-righteousness there is no way that you can reach them cuz they're incapable of self-reflection. People who are so sure they're right they want to come over and tell you what they think and nah nah nah nah nah nah nah. And there there's not even any room. I said it that way. I said it nicely. What I usually say to people is those who reek with the stench of self-righteousness are incapable of self-reflection. I didn't say that. So I just said okay there's nothing here for me to say, you know, so like basically, you know, have a nice life. But um uh I thought after that they might write back and say, well, the reason I was upset maybe you could explain No, there was nothing like that. They were so sure they were right they just wanted to yell at me and and that's fine. I've had that. I've had that where people just want to yell at me, you know. But um so when someone someone comes comes over to me and says a statement that they pronounce as a question, I think Judaism is unfair to women. I think Judaism is outdated it's from 3,000 years ago it can't apply to modern life. So I could argue with them, but they didn't ask me any questions. They're just in a diatribe. So I can't agree with them, but I'm not going to argue with them, so I just go, oh. Which means I heard what you said. Period. On rare occasions people will say, do you agree with me? And I say, no, absolutely not. Why not? I said, yeah, it's not important. And most of the times they'll say, oh, okay. >> [laughter] >> Cuz they want to hear what they have to say. They don't care what you have to say. And like I say, I'm at an age now. When I was younger I was sure that everybody wanted to hear what I had to say. You know, and now uh I see that it's not true, you know? There are plenty of people who are more than happy to tell me what they think without me having to say anything. So, do I need to question my own assumptions all the time? I always live my life with a certain amount of angst cuz I ask myself, is this what Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants me to do now? Whenever anybody comes to me and say, "Oh, Rabbi Alansky, consider this or consider that." I said, "I never say no." If you can show me that this is ratzon Hashem, then that is what I would do. And uh, I tell the story when I went to Australia and this day school said, "You know, Rabbi Alansky, is there any way we could get you to move here?" I said, "Well, if you could tell me there's something I could do in the school that nobody else could, you know, that would be ratzon Hashem, then you know, uh, make me an offer. I'll ask a shaila." We sat there for an hour. We talked about what I could contribute to the school, what this, how everything would work. It was very exciting. And he says, "We'll be in touch." So, that was 5 years ago. Anyway, still waiting by the phone. >> [laughter] >> So, I never say no. Maybe this is what Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants me to do now. You know? >> [laughter] >> Most of the time Hakadosh Baruch Hu sends it my way. You know? Um, it was ironic. There was a shul someplace in Eretz Yisrael. I don't want to give too many details. And uh, they were looking for a rav. And some people from the shul who I know reached out to me and said, "Would you consider applying for the position?" And I didn't even respond. It was It was a WhatsApp. I never respond cuz uh, you know, I'm going to go move someplace now and be a rabbi at a And my wife who's starting to worry about me that I'm just going to become a you know, uh I'm one step away from moving to like a chalet in uh in the Alps, getting one of those sweaters with the patches, you know, and like write my memoirs, you know, and Olga will come in, you know, "Professor, you haven't drunk your hot cocoa." I'm sorry, Olga. I'll get to it in a moment. I'm on a very important part here. >> [laughter] >> I'm slowly slowly losing away. One of my children once had an idea of me starting some kind of a project. They brought in people, and I said, "This is not a discussion of a job. This is an intervention." >> [laughter] >> They're worried about me, you know. Anyway, so uh they said, "Would you consider applying?" And I just didn't even bother responding. And my wife said, "You have to do your shtadlanut." I wrote up I was in my 60s. I wrote up my first a CV, my first profile that I ever had. I had to remember all the things I've done and everything. I made it up. I sent it off. Uh it was during COVID, so we had an interview on the phone, and everyone was asking me questions, and it looked so exciting, etc., you know. And looked like they were really interested. And then I get a form email. >> [laughter] >> Dear applicant, thank you for your interest. We've decided to go in a different direction. >> [laughter] >> So, I realized they wanted me to apply so they could say, "You know, Rabbi Lopianksy applied for this job, and we TURNED THEM DOWN." >> [laughter] >> CUZ AFTER after you ask me to apply and I apply, you don't get the decency of a phone call or an email, personal, "Dear Rabbi Lopianksy" or anything? "DEAR APPLICANT"? >> [laughter] >> SO, uh so, like I say, life is much easier when nobody cares what you think, you know? People just like to talk and you just have to sit there and go, "Oh, yeah?" >> [laughter] >> One of my favorite expressions. "Oh, yeah?" Anyway, or oh, yeah. So, um so, I'm constantly living with angst. If you could convince me that this is ratzon Hashem for me to go wherever it is and to do this, I'm ready to do it. You know? When I was going out with my wife, one of the many reasons she didn't want to marry me was because I was running NCSY and she had just come back from Eretz Yisrael and she wanted to move to Eretz Yisrael. And I said, "I also want to move to Eretz Yisrael, but not because I like falafel and the warm, friendly people, you know, and the safe driving conditions. I want to go cuz I think the place for a Jew is to be in Eretz Yisrael. But right now, my place is to be here in America, but when it's not, I'll be more than happy to move to Eretz Yisrael." So, uh so, I moved to Eretz Yisrael because I felt that was ratzon Hashem. And uh and if someone can convince me that it's ratzon Hashem to go someplace else, I had that I had that in England where they uh they wanted me to start a youth organization. I don't know if I ever discussed this. It's a it's a great story, but anyway, >> [clears throat] >> and I really felt it was it was a no-brainer that I had to go. And so, I went to I was putting off making decisions. So, my friend Yaakov Bear said, "Well, let's go ask the good rabbi." And he puts me in his car and he drives to Rav Yaakov Yosef. And as I as I'm leaving, I tell my wife, "Start packing cuz I'm sure he's going to send us to England." And he told me not to go. I was really surprised. I was already planning what I was going to do. I was going to run it, you know? He says, "No, don't go." So, I didn't go. And if he would have told me to go, I would have packed up my family and moved out there. I was being offered to be the dean of a major school in the New York area. And um uh it was co-ed. And so I went to meet with the Rebbe, Shapiro, and he said to me, "You can't do it co-ed and if you can separate the boys and the girls and he said, "And you can have the boys in learning and the girls in Torah and Mitzvahs, then then you should go." So I said, "But it's one building, what do I do?" And he worked out he sat with me for a half an hour. You'll put, you know, the girls upstairs and the boys downstairs, they'll have different office hours, different gym hours. He worked out at he spent a lot of time worked everything out. And uh and at the end I said to him, I said, "But Rebbe, I I don't want to go." Not only did I not want to go, but my wife said, "At this point you can't really pick up the family and move them to America." So I'd be one of those commuting Abba's, you know what I mean? Where, you know, I go to America for a few weeks and then I come back again and then you go back and forth, you know. I said, "Rebbe, I don't want to go." And he says to me, "Dovid, we don't go where we want, we go where we're needed. And I'm not going to be on a thousand Jewish students." So luckily they didn't hire me, so that worked out well. >> [laughter] >> But I was prepared to do it. If I had to, I'd go back, you know, and be one of those traveling Abba's, you know, where you show up every few weeks, you know, like the story of the little kid who goes over to his his mother and says, "That man who comes here every Shabbos just gave me a potch." >> [laughter] >> But if that's what Hashem then I'll do it. So therefore I have always been curious. I'm a Jew, right? Well, at least I'm working on it. Yeah, but I started keeping Shabbos and Mitzvahs, you know, when I was 12. But I argued with my Rebbe and I went through and I brought all my arguments. And I am very curious. I talked to reform I talked to conservative people. I talked to Christians. I haven't had a chance to talk to Muslims cuz most of them are screaming Allahu Akbar. So, I try to stay out of their way. But, uh I would be happy to talk to a Muslim. I'd be happy to talk to anybody. You know, tell me what you think. Tell me what you believe and tell me why. There was a clip going around where a Ben Shapiro was doing a question and answer at a university and a girl says, "Why won't you convert to Christianity?" So, he says, "I understand anyone who gets me gets a million heaven points. I know. That's uh People People come to me every now and then try and get me." He says, "You don't understand. It's not just that you have to prove to me that Christianity is true. You have to prove to me that Judaism is wrong. And everything I've received from my parents and everything that I've learned is wrong. So, I'm starting with a set of assumptions. And I will question them. I question everything. When uh when I came to Eretz Yisrael, I was coming to learn for a year. I checked out all different places. And uh one of the places I checked out was the Meretz Kollel in Mevaseret. I don't know if it's still there or not. But, the fact that it was, you know, dati leumi, that didn't scare me. You know, Torah is Torah. Yeah. But, I happen to follow the poskim from the Haredi world who, for example, don't say Hallel on Yom Ha'atzmaut and things like that. So, everybody was very friendly. But, I asked one of the people there, one of the couples who was learning the Kollel. I said, "If I come here and I don't celebrate Yom Ha'atzmaut, would that be a problem?" He goes, "Well, no one's going to make you, but no one's going to let their kids play WITH YOUR CHILDREN." >> [laughter] >> AND THAT'S ONE FOR TOLERANCE. DING! >> [laughter] >> SO, I don't have a problem. I I I ask questions to Misrachi people. I ask questions to every group of people. I told this story I mentioned I have Hasidim who listen these three boys from Bat Yam whose first language above the Hasidim whose first language is is Yiddish, you know. And they said, "We're you ask us a question about Hasidism then we'll ask you a question about Misnagdim." I said, "Okay. How come you people dive in after this mincha good question? Now we ask YOU A QUESTION." >> [laughter] >> I TALKED TO HASIDIM. I TALKED to everybody. I I'm I'm interested in hearing what people have to say. Aizehu chacham halomed mikol adam. You want to be smart, you talk to everybody. So, am I right? Well, I'll give it a lot of examination. So, if someone can prove to me I'm wrong, yeah, I will admit it. When uh when we were first married I had this expression I'd always say to my wife. I said, "You know, if if I know I'm wrong I'm the first one to admit it." And it took a few years to figure out. She said, "That's true, but till I can prove that you're wrong takes a very long time." I said, "Well, I'm not going to humor you. I'm not going to say, 'Yeah, you're right, honey.' if I don't think you are. I'm not going to just to say, 'Yeah, I'm wrong.' No. If if if you think that you're right then defend your position. You know, but I'm not going to turn around and say I just discussed with one of my kids once. They said, "My feelings are valid." And I said, "No, they're not." >> [laughter] >> If you feel that I molested you and I didn't, then your feelings are wrong cuz the facts don't Facts don't care about your feelings, yeah? And she said to me, "No, if I feel it, then it's legitimate." I said, "So, if you feel that I molested you, even though I didn't, that means that I'm a molester." She goes, "Yes." Yikes. Three exclamation marks. >> [laughter] >> No. And I will talk to anybody and hear what they have to say, what their position is, and I'll examine it. And if someone can convince me that the Torah is false and that there's no God or anything like that, okay, hey, I'm out. No problem. Or the way Ben Shapiro put it was, you know, if I get up there and it turns out that I'm wrong, I'll regret all the meals I missed out on. >> [laughter] >> But would I That's what I said to this reform student who said, "So, you think you're the only one who's right." So, I said, "I'm prepared to die for what I believe in. You don't die on a suffic. Maybe this is right, maybe this is wrong." Josephus writes that the Romans used to capture Jews and torture them to death cuz they couldn't believe that anyone be willing to give up their life on what they believed in. So, yeah, I think I'm right. Yeah, I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't believe it. So, are there other opinions? I'm happy to hear your opinion. I want to listen to what you have to say. And and if you can make an argument that's more cogent and you can show me that I'm wrong and I can't respond and I can't find anybody who responds, I'm not going on blind faith. If it doesn't make any sense, I'll I'll admit it doesn't make any sense. You're right. But I'm not going to give up my belief system because somebody believes something else. Now, can I still love people who are wrong? Of course. Of course I can. I was one time in South Africa at an encounter conference in Cape a camp outside of Cape Town. And it was very very difficult. They were terribly understaffed and these kids were not happy campers. And the first day most of the rabbis managed to turn off the kids. >> [laughter] >> They all said things somebody made a crack about uh made a point cuz for sure my crack made a point about homosexuality and then it up that that that I don't know his sister is homosexual or some of the kids in that class homosexual. They had tested it. Yeah. Came a whole major issue. He lost them, you know. Somebody else made a crack made a statement about reform, something about reform and there were kids they were in reform conversions, you know. I managed to stay on everyone's good side. But at the first night sitting at the faculty table I said look, they're clearly understaffed. We have to go and sit with the kids and they looked at me horrified and they were like, "And do what?" I said, [laughter] "Talk to them." Now, I have experience in youth work, they didn't. Their experience was only in education. I said, "Just watch me." So I picked a table and I sat down there. And at the end of the evening the faculty got got together to have a beer. And one of the rabbis said, "Were you learning Mesilat Yesharim with them?" And I said, "Yeah." He says, "How'd you do that?" I said, "I started talking to them about movies." And I said, "You seen any cool movies lately?" And uh And it just come out then was The Matrix. He goes, "Yeah, The Matrix." I said, "What's The Matrix?" He goes, "Basically these people all live in a matrix and their dreams are reality and their reality is dreams." I said, "Oh my gosh, Mesillas Yeshurun says that in Perek Gimmel." It says, "This world is an illusion and the darkness fools you and you see shadows and you think that they're real and you see a pole and you think it's a person and a person you think is a pole and you get fooled by reality." And they were fascinated of it cuz it tied into the movie they had just seen. Anyway, I I would move around, but there was this one group of like really tough kids that everybody just, you know, stayed clear of. So, it was my last night, so I said, "I'm going there." >> [laughter] >> And I sit down at their table and they're all talking around me. They're all avoiding eye contact. I didn't care. I sat there, ate my boerewors and Milli Pop, >> [laughter] >> which are two foods that are not, to the best of my knowledge, found outside of South Africa and I don't even know why they're there. Yeah? The only other great food they have there is biltong, which is basically if you take a shoe and put a lot of salt on it, they call it biltong. And you just sit there and chew on it. But anyway, so uh so I'm just sitting there and uh with with a half smile on my face like I always do. And finally, one of the kids said, "Tell us the truth, Rabbi. What do you think of us?" I said, "I love you. You're my Jewish brothers and sisters. I love you. I pray for you every day. I hope only the best for you. But you're the most pathetic group of Jews I've ever seen in my life." And they said, "What? What are you talking about?" I said, "You know nothing about Judaism and the saddest part is you think you do cuz you go to a Jewish school where you don't learn any Judaism and you think that you know about Judaism." So, one kid says, "What do you mean? My family has a Friday night meal." And I said, "Oh my gosh, what did you also watch Fiddler on the Roof two times?" Yeah, I That doesn't make you a Jew. Did you ever read Chumash? Did you ever read the Talmud? Do you know how to do any mitzvahs? Do you know what anything is? You know?" Anyway, they started arguing with me left and right and I just I was just laughing. I wasn't upset. I said, "Don't don't get upset at me. I love you, but you're dumb. You are so dumb. You know nothing about Judaism. I feel bad for you, you know?" Anyway, they argued with me, argued with me and um and the rest of the convention, they just followed me around fighting with me. >> [laughter] >> And what I said, I meant. I love these people. It's a nebbish. It's It's a It's a nebbish that they don't know. So, when when uh uh somebody tries to defend the particular position. You know? So, like I say to a Reform Jew, "Why should I be a Reform Jew?" And they tell me cuz Orthodoxy is this and Orthodoxy is that. I said, "Good. That explains why you shouldn't be an Orthodox Jew. Why should I be a Reform Jew?" Cuz Orthodoxy is this and that. I said, "Okay, fine. I'm out. Okay? Now what? Why should I be a Reform Jew?" And there's no good answer to it. I might as well be a secular humanist. Most Reform rabbis do not believe in a personal God. There's a force of nature or something, you know? But by they did a poll. Over 80% don't believe in a personal God. So, there's no God. So, what? So, you you want to live an ethical lifestyle? You got to reject the Bible cuz the Bible is a book of fairy tales and it has all kinds of terrible things in it that couldn't possibly have been, you know, true. So, uh so you're just making it up as you go along. So, okay. Become a secular humanist. Why should I be a Reform Jew? And I've never gotten a Reform Jew to answer me this question. But I'll ask assuming anybody is open to a discussion. If not, then I just go, "Oh." >> [laughter] >> So, I look at what everybody does and I ask questions. I want to understand why. You know? Um I cousin who was learning in America as a rav. And I said, "I don't understand. I look at the pictures of Rav Kook and all of his talmidim, and they were all wearing black and white. You know, some of them were wearing like you were showing me like a Hasidic lavush. You know, he used to wear streimel, but everyone had some jackets with hoods. I mean, uh you know, all of his all of his talmidim, yeah? Who came into the Beis Medrash one day and gave a clap and said, "From now on uh sandals and uh white shirts and keep a small goat and uh no hats and jackets." I said, "So, who made that decision?" And he said to me, and I don't know if this is true or not cuz you know me already, I just repeat what I hear. He said, "No, that's not what happened. Because they had uh open door policy, people came from you know, not such religious backgrounds, and that's how they dressed. And the style uh moved up. Just like you could find kids who come from nice neighborhoods wearing like, you know, ghetto clothes, you know, cuz it's cool. So, that became cool and that moved up. But there was nobody made that decision. No one said stop wearing hats and jackets. It just happened. Yeah? Okay, so what am I supposed to do with that? Say, "Oh, yeah, well, that's right." Now, it could be if anyone listening is saying, "No, no, no, there's a svara why we stopped wearing hat and jackets and switched to sandals and you know, and uh white shirts with the long tzitzis, you know, I mean, and uh that look, you know, I kol hakavod. It could be I got it wrong. But I talk to people and I hear what they have to say and I weigh it against my own values. And if you've watched this show, you know that I'm a critic of the Charedi world as well. I have no problem criticizing things that go on in the Charedi world if I think they're wrong. I'm not party man. You know, it's not uh it's not uh you know uh my group. I look at each thing and I say either this makes sense or it doesn't make sense. And that's what every person has to do in their own life. Love everybody. But when a little kid puts a towel around his neck and says I'm Superman, I'm going to jump off the roof, you don't have to validate his feelings. And when a boy puts on a dress and a wig and says I'm a girl, you don't have to validate his feelings. Yeah, and if someone says, "Nah, we're going to change conversion. You don't need a bris. You don't need to feel like you don't need to make a whole thing. All I'm going to do is write down a piece of paper you're a Jew and now you're a Jew." I don't have to accept that conversion. This is based on nothing. You just made it up. So that's what I look at. I have a I have a friend of mine. Uh I won't mention his name, but you know, he he's gotten used to it already. He uses it on other people now. When people say things, he goes, "You don't know that. You just made that up." >> [laughter] >> You just made up that statistic. You just made up that fact. You have no way of knowing that to be true. >> [laughter] >> And I say it all the time. I don't know. You show show me the evidence. Let's examine it. Let's see if it's true or not. Love everybody and question everything so that you can arrive at the truth. When you learn Gemara uh so many times the Gemara will begin with uh Masnison money, who is that Mr. going like? The local of Rebbe Akiva cuz it would be going like Rebbe Akiva da da da da da. Well, it can't be going like Rebbe Yossi cuz he was going like Rebbe Yossi da da da da da. But we we start right away saying, "Okay, I don't I don't know. I don't think it's going like him. Can you convince me it is going like him?" I see why it wouldn't be going like him. Do you have different evidence? And our approach to life should always be evidence-based. Cuz if you want to have faith, as I've said in earlier podcast, you'll never have the faith of a Mormon. Cuz if you can believe that, my goodness, you have such a level of faith and trust that you will believe almost anything. >> [laughter] >> Okay. We have a few appreciation comments. And the producer finally said to me, because I was talking about these these comments that have happened recently, he goes, "That's why I make you read appreciation comments to remind you that most people are not like that. Most people are very nice and like you." >> [laughter] [gasps] >> All right. All right. Hopefully people get a kick out of it. Rabbi Alansky Shlita, we want to thank you for all the speaking that you do in all of its forms. My teenagers and I listen to just about everything that you've put out for the last 2 years. And of course, some of us have gone back to the beginning uh to get more insights, which I think is absolutely amazing. I meet people who just start reading watching 7 years of this. As someone who grew up in West Hempstead and went to Hank Elementary and high school, I'm especially gratified that my kids, Queens Bais Yaakov and Yeshiva kids, appreciate your approach and personality. Yeah, I I usually try to cut across lines speaking on what what we were talking about. Please keep doing what you are doing. It's a chesed for us to get real life chizuk for shleima. Kadusha Baruch should continue to give you koach for yourself, your family, and all of Klal Yisrael. Thank you very much. Hi, I'm a 17-year-old girl from Lakewood, New Jersey. My favorites. For the past few months, I I mean, I'm very fond of 17-year-old girls from Flatbush, too, but anyway, I've been struggling tremendously with anxiety and depression. I am so sorry. Been there and still doing it. I wanted to say thank you for the sheer moment podcast. They have been a tremendous source of strength and made me laugh on my worst days. Hashem should bench you for all that you do and should give you strength to go on and do great things. And uh listen, every one of us gets our and we're going to do the best that we can. And Hashem should give you strength strength to stand up to all of this these challenges and be successful and happy. And that's it for this week. If you want to find out more about the sheer, you can go to my website rabbiorlovsky.com and you can go to the merch section and buy some merch. Yeah. And uh you can sign up for one of my online sheerum. Uh you can uh sponsor a podcast, sponsor parsha five, sponsor question and answer. We're coming to the end >> [music] >> of our sponsorship. We had a flurry of them and now we're having a uh a dearth. So, if you're thinking of sponsoring, [music] this would be a good time. And uh you can ask a question, you can leave a comment. And uh that's it. Until next time, I am Rabbi Orlovsky and this has been the Rabbi Orlovsky Show. It's the Rabbi Orlovsky Show. Torah and simcha, ready to go. The Rabbi Orlovsky Show. Knowledge and wisdom will help you grow. Lots of fun in every episode. And we don't have to rhyme, though we often >> [music] >> It's the Rabbi Orlovsky Show. rabbiorlovsky.com Torah anytime, YouTube [music] and more. It's Rabbi Orlovsky Show. Torah and simcha, ready to go. It's the Rabbi Orlovsky Show. Till next [music] time till we meet again. The Rabbi Orlofsky Show. It's the Rabbi Orlofsky Show.