Message of a Cover / Bar Mitzvah Is Only the Beginning | Letters #20-21

good evening and welcome to 30 letters in 30 days it is Thursday night I want to remind everybody that 11 letters and 11 days has started and uh you can get more information 11 letters they're not a different 11 letters they're the same first 11 letters that we learned but it's a program for those who uh want to start meaning today until you're off Nissan and it's a program that's going to be promoted and it is being promoted in many schools around the world as well as it's open to anyone who wants to join go to 30 letters 30days.com you'll get more information over there also remember that we're going to have uploaded a little bit later tonight the Shabbos table conversation guide where you can print it out and bring it to your Shabbos table and there's a little um question for conversation a conversation starter basically based on each of the letters that we learned this past week um so let's uh let's jump in because Thursday nights are mishna we do remember to do 30 letters in 30 days we have to do a letter every single day how do you do a letter on Shabbos well we do the Friday night letter Thursday night as a second letter so we we got a long program ahead of us tonight and the first of the two letters tonight is it's a heavy ladder not heavy like Intense or anything like that it's actually the subject is not overly personal I mean we've had letters where the subject matter is dealing with some heavy stuff as far as struggles that people are having in their personal lives and um you know that's emotionally heavy but tonight it's not it's not intense it's not personal uh it doesn't seem like anyone has a serious problem thank God but it's intellectually heavy and it's surprising that it's so intellectually heavy because the subject of tonight's first letter is about a drawing that was used for a children's publication Huda funk that a drawing used for a children's publication could become the subject of a very deep erudite discussion well you're going to see it you're going to see it tonight and then you're gonna seeing is believing you're gonna understand it um so here we go letter number 20. this and touching your test Brooklyn by the grace of God the fourth day of the month of Nissan 5719 it's the spring of 1959 Brooklyn Mr M Ben URI who is Mr M Ben URI pray tell okay well he is Mayor Ben URI mayor Ben URI was born in Riga the capital of Latvia in 1908. uh his original family name was vasputsky but he later on moved to erits Israel he adopted a hebraic uh last name he used the name Ben URI because of betsal who's that that is the artist who implemented all of the commands that Maisha was given in how to build the mishkan so but he was the architect and the artist who made hashem's Sanctuary well I want to tell you something Mr Mayor Ben URI was an incredibly gifted architect and artist um so his last name was quite fitting when I say he was a gifted architect and artist that's somewhat of an understatement he was incredibly prolific incredibly accomplished uh in both fields in addition I mean he was a polymath he was a a true renaissance man he was also a gifted musician and he used to compose cannons and um complex musical compositions and and obviously um the the the field of mathematics and its overlap with with the architecture and the art and the and the music was a was a it was a running theme in all of his uh his work so and you're going to see this and that was letter to him that is writing about um about these fields on a very very deep level as would be befitting mayor Ben Ori who was an expert in all of these fields and would definitely appreciate this type of discussion um I should mention that he had visited that year earlier that year he was visiting New York because he was doing a gallery of his artwork and while he was in New York he met the devil and this letter sort of a follow-up with uh with the relationship that blossomed after that meeting okay um Nissan with great interest I read your letter from which was a follow-up to our visit meaning face-to-face visit um which we mentioned happened when Ben Ori came to New York okay so after the visit when URI wrote the debit a letter and the debit is responding now to that letter um you've spent a lot of time you dwelt on in particular meaning to say the letter spoke about many things but it seems like he focused a lot on the cover the cover art of the series also known as Kinder also known as talks and tales foreign ER is one of the three organizations that the rabbi began to oversee upon his arrival in America 1941 there was put out a magazine starting in 1941 called talks and tales it was a Jewish children's magazine meant for the masses it wasn't meant for those who were already observant it was meant for everybody even Jewish kids who wouldn't normally be interested in Reading Jewish material and there was a cover now I have here the talks and tells and this is just one book where they um they include facsimiles of the original monthly periodical I don't know if people remember from last year's 30 letters in 30 days but if you remember the letter we learned on Purim the letter the letter to uh that ever mentioned talks and tales over there because he told rabi Shusterman to use the my prayer articles that were written by Rabbi Nissen Mendel I should mention that Rabbi Mrs Mendel were the chief authors who were responsible for talks and towels schmussen um and so the devil says there to abhishusterman that although those articles my prayer was a was an art later it became a book on on it on its own but originally it was a it was a an article or it was a feature a recurring feature in the talks and tales so the rabbit tells Rabbi Shusterman that although the my prayer articles are written for children they're full of really great stuff and you should use them in your classes with adults so very very interesting thing there that I was saying that this uh seemingly simple magazine for children is not so simple and we're going to see tonight from the latter the discussion of the the cover page art is also not so simple not simple at all um maybe we should talk a little bit about talks and tells in general before we pull up the cover art and I did I really hope this will work you know I'm here in the studio by myself alone rabbi I'm really hoping this is gonna work but uh let me see here if this does work uh tell me how this how's that did that work can you see that uh picture there that is the the Hebrew no I are there that's how the river refers to it in this letter to Ben URI that's the cover page art you see that if you could did that work comment in the in the chat if that actually worked because that would be so cool if it did um that cover art um was drawn by a 16 year old that makes sense um was 1940 yeah because the the talks and tales began in 41 but I was looking at it actually the original the first whole year of publication there's no cover art it's just a text you can't really see so well but it's just text and it didn't start until the first issue of 1942 and then it would have The Illustrated cover like this so the the artist who was responsible for this was Michael Schwartz who was born in the Catskills and he was born in 1926 so he would have been 16. um now he was a protege he was gifted from childhood in fact he said I can't remember when I first picked up a uh a pencil or a crayon because as far as back as I can remember I was holding uh art implements and making art uh so in fact he was enrolled in the New York School of Art and Design when he was 13. already um and he was also studying uh in the Chabad School in in Brooklyn so he had he came from an interesting background had an interesting skill set and uh you know as the Reba mentioned in his letter to Finkelstein that we learned a couple weeks ago that the leader of the generation has to be a good talent scout he has to have his eye out for people who have talent Schwartz went on to become an incredibly successful commercial artist he worked for some of the big names like Coca-Cola and and Ford motors and he had an incredibly um the recognizable style he had a unique style that everyone in the art world was able to instantly identify as his signature style but that was all later as he developed into his his career as a 16 year old kid uh he drew the cover art for the talks and towels which as we're about to find out every detail of it was instructed to him by the rabbit I should also mention because I think it's cool uh trivia trivia that he was also the designer of the Americas logo yeah he and in fact later on he became a big famous corporate logo designer but uh in 1944 so he would have been 18 at that point he designed the Americas logo and uh he continued with talks and towels and he used to do art he was a regular artist for talks and Tales um he told a story actually this blew me away he said it said he actually he said it blew him away as well um that ABBA was incredibly involved in talks and towels and overseeing it and as as mentioned the the the the writer who implemented it was uh was Rabbi Nelson Mandel but the rabbit was sort of like the the Visionary who came up with an oversaw all the details and um at one point so that Eva was meeting with with Schwartz and he says to him and he must have been a teenager at the time um maybe he was older I'm not sure what juncture this happened but he wanted him to make art for curiosity corner curiosity corner is one of the features of talks and towels so the rabbit was explaining it to Schwartz he says to him Ripley it should look like Ripley note Ripley is Ripley's Believe It or Not so how did Evan new about Ripley's Believe it or not I don't know but that if it was telling his artist when you make curiosity corner I want it to look like Ripley and this was fitting with the whole approach that the rabbit wanted that talks and tales should be a publication that a Jewish kid who might not read any other Jewish material he would read this because it was on the level of and and and used the same style at least superficially as the type of content that he was already consuming so that that was the intent of the talks and tales um all right so let's let's continue here um you critique three points so the Deb is writing to Ben URI and he's saying you critique you spent a lot of time focusing on the uh the talks and towels cover art and uh you focused on three nakodes three points okay Allah first point mats of the eiffins the the design and the style of the depiction of the two tablets maybe I'll pull it up while I while I read this you know what I'm going to try to do this is probably Reckless of me to even attempt this but I want to switch the picture to the English one that is closer in it's more zoomed in on the details let's see if this works ah did it work on my monitor here in the studio it worked let me know that it worked the people are listening on Spotify tomorrow are going to be missing out on I'm telling you something if you're listening to this on Spotify or Google podcast or apple podcast do yourself a favor and go watch the Youtube or go to soulwords.org and watch the video there as well okay so you can see this so the first point is you comment on mats of the iPhone series the design and the style of the illustration of the two tablets of the Covenant uh bass mats of Eiffel audits the design and the style of the globe you comment on foreign you comment on the visualization or visual depiction of the saying of our sages that there are three things that the world stands upon um and you ask me to comment on the above you ask me to comment on the above okay so what are the the three points you wanted to know about basically the way the two tablets were depicted you wanted to know about the way the globe was depicted and you wanted to know about the way these three pillars representing that means Torah study prayer and acts of goodness and kindness you want to know about those three pillars and the way they were depicted okay you're gonna say really this is something that everyone wants to discuss this is worthy of discussion oh just you wait you're gonna be you're gonna be surprised about the depths over here or maybe you won't be surprised okay so I want to First preface one point it is surely understood to you as well the a point what is it um this cover has already been around for 18 years right so we said it came out in 42 and that was already the spring of 59 so it's been around for 18 years the whole mokama and wherever this monthly where this periodical reached they said whether in America or in the holy land or wherever meaning it was very well publicized it's not a secret it's not something that uh is uh locked up somewhere and uh nobody knows about it this has been all over literally been all over the world this kind of forces us to stick with the design in the future unless there's really compelling reasons not to visualize that would completely preclude using the current design so the first thing that ever says to him is look unless there's serious serious issues with this design we're not changing it it's been around everyone has seen it this is what they're used to we're not changing it okay now I I was thinking about this and I was wondering why they'd ever told him this um I could imagine that I've been in other scenarios would be very plausible to me telling somebody to change something even though it's been around already like it didn't sound to me like the most compelling reason we can't change it because it's been around for so long and people are already used to seeing it this way I'm totally making this up but for some reason I felt like this was a way of softening the blow this guy Ben URI was a real genius he was a brilliant guy and he decided to take time to write to the rabbit some really erudite critique it wasn't just some noodnik coming in and and making stuff up okay he he's giving an informed opinion and I I feel like that I was sort of softening the blow over here and saying look we have compelling reasons just to keep things the way they are so even if you have some good points like we're not going to change it okay unless there's something super problematic about the current design even if you have excellent points we're not changing it that's how I took it I don't know if that's true that's just how I took it because that I could have skipped that and gone straight into the refutations the thorough point-by-point refutations of Ben uri's critique but the never didn't go straight into the refutations that ABBA first sort of said listen no matter how good your points are uh we're not changing it okay now that goes to point for Point explaining why this critique is really not uh so compelling okay so I'm gonna comment in order like in order in the order that you brought it up to me how you wrote it in your letter aleph ich when we decided to come out with this magazine it's understood that our inner intent meaning what we're what were we really trying to accomplish with this magazine what was the real goal foreign was to strengthen Yiddish kite Rosa Neuer Behold Him and to permeate this Yiddish kite into the heart of the youths in all possible ways in all possible ways which means not just when they read the words of the articles that also just when they glance at the cover image that should already be penetrating into their heart some type of Jewish messaging and this can be explained in two ways you follow whatab is saying here that was saying the purpose of the magazine is to bring real Jewish ideas and values into the hearts of the youth and that obviously the Articles the actual taken the written word in a magazine that's that's the main tool that we're using but every aspect of the magazine can also be if if we're deliberate about it can also be used as a tool for imparting deep meaning so even the cover page it's not just there to be aesthetic it's not just there to look cool the cover page is there by Design to teach something very specific okay um and there's two ways of explaining this or expressing this is one thing is that Yiddish kite and its practical expression which is the most lofty and elevated matters in all of creation there's nothing in the world that can exist if it's if it's not based on total Paradox over there on one hand the idea that Toyota and Mitzvahs are above the world at the same time there's nothing that can exist in the world that's not based on Toyota and Mitzvahs so that I was saying we wanted this message even if it's subliminal even if it's not written explicitly we wanted this message to hit the readers right there on the cover right there on the cover this this has to somehow resonate with them even if it's like on a subconscious level so how did we do this the symbol the beheres in the clearest possible way like what symbol what icon is the most clear who come over and as is understood the two tablets of the Covenant this symbol is recognizable even to those Jews who never received the Jewish Education at Allah and the magazine is also intended for them the magazine is intended for Jews who don't know a lot about Judaism so we need to come up with a symbol of Judaism that's readily recognizable to even Jews who are fairly uneducated in Judaism and what is that symbol the two tablets of the Covenant gush but it's and it's emphasized that this is above the Earth remember we said that we want to convey the Yiddish kite are above they are the highest thing so we depict him as being above the Earth you know what I'm going to pull up the image again we depict them as being above the Earth as well as above the heavens Toyota is not just above the Earth it's also above the heavens Asha cautious it's very hard to depict the heavens in a clear way how do you how do you depict think about it inherently it's it's challenging how do you depict that which is abstract I mean the heavens means a spiritual realm which is by definition very challenging to visually uh depict so the says it's difficult to to come up with a symbol for the heavens except if you use clouds like are clouds the best symbol um practically speaking it's the best we can do you know we're trying to depict something abstract uh the heavens are and again the devil said this has to be really easy to recognize this cannot require any Jewish Education to be able to decode so the clouds are just a really simple universal symbol of for heavens and maybe that's it's not the best way to do it but practically speaking it does the job and there's nothing that does the job better okay so we wanted to show that the titles above the Earth and even the heavens so there you go above the Earth as depicted by the globe and above the heavens as depicted by the clouds and now above the Torah is only the Creator himself may he be blessed meaning Hashem now you're going to be blown away by the the detail here I'm sure you noticed that little bass hay in the corner well now you do and you're thinking okay yeah sure base hey because he's supposed to write base hey on a paper Hashem yeah that's on everything no no no it's it's there by exact meticulous design that on the cover art muruma's that Hashem is hinted to the heracius Barak Hashem base hey the butter Hashem is alluding to Hashem it's alluding to Hashem himself so you have the lochis representing Torah above the Earth represented by the globe as well as above the heavens represented by the clouds and then above the locus you have only Hashem himself as represented by the base hey and you thought this was kid stuff um then on the on the bottom you have kadera audits the globe the Kevin shamatani now because the giving of the Torah occurred on Mount Sinai this part is I mean the attention to detail the meticulous attention to detail that is present in every aspect of this design is absolutely mind-boggling okay so geographically speaking you know I'm going to bust out my Globe I always keep this globe on my desk I have this special globe I have to behave myself because I'm about to get into a subject that I'm obsessed with and I'm gonna try to limit my discussion of this um I got this globe specifically because it spins both directions um because I like to put air Cicero at the top because actually everywhere you go from to the land of Israel is Aliyah is ascent so really the North Pole and South Pole being on the top and bottom that's sort of arbitrary that's the way we're used to it being that's convention but really according to Toyota soil is on the top so that's why I have this globe that goes like this right all right at any rate that looks funny if you put Airtel on the top it doesn't look like any globe that you're used to seeing what you're used to seeing is North Pole on top South Pole on bottom okay and this is going to figure later into the letter all right what people are used to seeing North Pole on top South Pole and bottom but at any rate where would where did Martin Toyota occur it occurred at harsinai hard for me to see here hold on a second you people on Spotify are really missing out gotta come over to YouTube for this one okay so there okay my finger right now is on Mount Sinai more or less you see right there that's where the Torah was given so what does it ever say Toyota was given at Mount Sinai um so therefore the globe check this out look at this the globe is depicted in such a manner a Chicago that you can draw a straight line from the letters base hay which represent Hashem straight through the two tablets which represent the Toyota and it will land approximately in that spot look at that the way that the globe is positioned the exact angle and placement of it it allows that you can draw a straight line from the base hay which represents the Hashem through the lochis which represents Toyota and end up exactly where on what spot the spot of harsinai Mount Sinai where the title was given boom that's exactly why it's depicted that way now it gets more technical for the above mentioned reasons that's why it's depicted diagonally I I it sounds like Ben URI was asking why is it diagonal he probably had some aesthetic issues with it looks funny it's all crooked it's diagonal why is it diagonal so the devil says I'm going to explain to you why it's diagonalization and not one beneath the other in other words that would look nice and straight you put one on top you put one in the middle one on the bottom nice straight line no it has to be diagonal oh sorry because if you wanted to if you wanted to have a straight line from the base hey through the lowest landing on harsinai and but you wanted it to be if you wanted one to be on top of the other then you would have to change the orientation of the globe think about that if you wanted the base a to be right on the top look has to be right under them all centered and the globe to be beneath them all centered the only way you could make a straight line that would land up I mean if you did it that way the straight line would land up on the North Pole that's where it would end up the only way you could have both and have the straight line go straight from the base hey through the Loris and end at the spot of harsinai would be to turn here I'll show you good it would be it would be the only way to accomplish that would be to turn the uh harsinai spot to the top put it at the top and then you have like the base hay and then the and then the Earth and then you'd have a straight line going straight into harsinai there well the neighbor says he doesn't want to do that because let's read here um he doesn't want to do that is you'd have to orient the globe in a way that the children are not at all used to seeing as they said in other words you'd have to put East on the top and west on the bottom that's not what we're used to we're used to North on the top and south on the bottom but Canal the canal but like I said the whole point of the the cover is that it should be understood at a glance I don't want to do something that's going to you know look at it and you're gonna have to what's happening over there it has to be instantly uh recognizable so making a globe that is puts harsina on the top is just gonna look funny and it's gonna make it that people can't really recognize what it is right away so you see here show it again that it's diagonal so that you can get the straight line from the base hey through the locus and hit right on the spot of Martin Toyota while also keeping the orientation of the globe in the customary way that it's depicted in the way the youth are used to seeing it bam amazing absolutely amazing okay um thought we were done no not even close and there's a there's another reason for this late time is another reason for this is if you oriented the Earth that way you would not see all of the inhabited lands you'd be showing a lot of like uh ocean stuff and you wouldn't be really seeing the lands where at least most of the readers remember that ever said we're sending this to America to Israel so if you had Orient it that way and put harsinai on the top so you would you wouldn't see look at this when you put our Sinai on the top what happens there okay that's harcina on the top you're getting just a big Pacific Ocean there with the what is that Antarctica you're getting Antarctica in your face see that's putting harcina on the top but what are you seeing straight on you're just seeing Antarctica and the Indian Ocean the Southern Ocean and South Pacific that's that's a that's not helpful you know why and again this is this is so deep we want to depict the settled lands because the point is to depict that Toyota is binding in all places so what do we want to do we want to depict the globe in a way where you're going to see the lands where the kids live look at that oh I see my house from here right so you can a kid is going to look at that and I mean look how careful that is whether he lives in Israel or he lives in America or he lives in Europe he's going to see himself depicted on that Globe South Africa is a little bit below the dip I think some yeah you can't exactly see it Australia's off the chart sorry Australia can't can't get everything into the map but the point is we want the lands where the kids live to be depicted on the orientation of the globe to send the message that that Tota which is represented by the Lukas above is binding in those lands incredible incredible okay we're not done we're not done um so for this above reason it's understood why the lochis are not straight why they are off to the side we wanted the Earth to be below them below to be below the Oasis base hay so that's why it all ends up diagonal it's all very precise okay shall we continue that was only the first of three points base Point number two let's see a comment you made about the depiction of the globe it's standing on three amudim three pillars right and you see there that uh the first one if you're reading from right to left as we do as Jews is which is uh acts of kindness and then the middle one is Tighter and the left one is avoida and the Rabbit doesn't talk about this in the latter because I guess when URI understood this and I would imagine someone like Ben Ori would immediately it benori for sure he was uh Not only was an artist and uh and like I said he was a polymath in a incredibly educated person he was he was he was a religious Jew so he he wouldn't have asked about why this was done but I'm just mentioning it for the sake of uh completeness um is the way that it's mentioned in the mishnah but in according to Kabbalah where we speak about right left and Center axes acts of kindness is the right Axis and Aveda which is prayer is the left that's why it's uh compared to gura where you're reaching upward here straining yourself with with the inner discipline trying to reach higher that's Buddha and that's on the left and then is the harmonizer which encompasses all truth so that's in the middle anyways he didn't he didn't ask about that detail but what he did ask is why the world is well let me just read what he says okay the the world is standing on the three he asks she is it's possible the person is it needs to have it explained to him what what are the what are the uh what are the modems standing on what are the pillars standing at that's what Ben URI said Ben Ori was troubled by that he said okay so the globe is standing on the pillars but what are the pillars standing on remove my globe okay let's see what the debit tells him uh Heine moving so it's understood your your real comment is about the mishnah you know what that means that I was saying like you're not questioning my artwork over here what you're really questioning is what the mishna itself is saying because this depiction this drawing is literally doing nothing else but visually illustrating what the mishna says so if you have a question oh the world's on the pillars but what are the pillars on then your question is not on our artwork your questions on what the mishnah is saying but the truth is even the mishnah doesn't need to explain this everyone understands are not physical pillars but rather that it is a spiritual concept I love this I love this parentheses they never couldn't leave it alone and say that Are Spiritual you know why the devil couldn't leave it alone because God forbid you should write something that could even look like it's saying that yiddishkite could remain abstract that it could remain a set of principles and ideals but it doesn't have to actually be carried out in your day-to-day life in your in your actions whatever's not going to let that impression be uh be made in in any way shape or form so in the parentheses after the devil says we all know these pillars are not real physical pillars and then the parenthesis that I says off that obviously the way that we express the pillars is in physical action yes you have to actually do acts of kindness not just value them as an abstraction you have to do them yes you have to actually sit and learn Toyota not just say that you care about Toyota yes you actually you have to go and dive in and put in the sweat to really dive into not just pay lip service to the idea of davening okay everybody knows stands and comes from The Giver of the Toyota Hashem and this does not require explanation just like in the mishnah it says and three things it doesn't call them pillars it calls them things but it says and three things the world stands I made the world stands so the mishna is comfortable with using that expression it stands foreign which depict it's depicted here as like a physical pillar upon which something stands even though the mishnah is clearly speaking about it in a spiritual sense it's not saying that there are actual physical pillars called him that the world is physically supported by the energy and the mishna wasn't worried that those that that expression would be misunderstood and you know what proves the fact that the mishna wasn't worried that this expression this metaphor would be taken too literally what proves it is that in all of the many commentaries on the mishnah and the number says and there are many commentaries on the mission especially Pierce obvious it's true has our commentaries and perky obvious that don't have commentaries on any other section in shots so there's a lot of commentary on periods and by the way I just want to tell you something says that there's not one commentary that addresses this question I promise you there's not one commentary just on the side I just want to mention you might you might you might easily miss that one but basically that I'm saying that was not saying but of course it has to understand that that ever learned every commentary on Pierce office not only that I've been learned every commentary and pick you always the devil remembers what it says in no I'm sorry that ever even remembers what it doesn't say in every single extant commentary on pirke office how you like that oh that was saying you're troubled by this idea what are the pillars standing on nobody's troubled by that there's not one commentary obvious that deals with that question yeah nobody's dealing with where what the pillars are standing on gambitia Charlotte and so also on the cover art there's no place for error nobody's gonna make this mistake no one's gonna get confused to the contrary that I was saying there's a lot of things we could have done that would have been confusing we avoided those things we avoided anything that would not be easily readily recognizable but nobody's going to be messed up by saying oh what are these floating pillars in the air that the world is resting at no no one's thinking that okay okay all right okay this paragraph these two paragraphs really were fun I want to thank again circus in English for their dedication to this project we had a nice discussion about how to translate this part um this is really super technical stuff and as I mentioned Ben URI was a very gifted as well as educated artist and architect and uh a mathematician so that ever understood who his customers were and that Eva was speaking this guy's language over here when URI said that maybe you could re-depict you could reimagine the whole the whole premise here and you could you could depict Ed not as pillars the way you've done but as the three dimensions okay let's talk about three dimensions physical space is generally generally described by having three dimensions and that's how Ben URI was I don't know what his his drawing would have looked like doesn't sound like he provided a drawing it sounds like it was just a letter with words and he probably described how he might draw it but he said to them but why not depict the three things that the world stands upon him and three things the world stands so have that be the three dimensions of length and breadth and width or length of breath breath is width length breaths depth yeah length depth why not do it like that so that I was like okay let's talk about that let's talk about why we can't do that did I skip something yeah I did I'm actually because they're in English coordinates you want to switch it for the three dimensions of length breadth and depths and then each of those three dimensions would represent one of the three things that the world stands upon why can't we do that Hine behold um first of all the dimensions of the physical world can actually be depicted with more than three dimensions gear thinking and euclidean geometry where you are looking at flat objects what about spherical geometry what if you're dealing with round things so yes there's a Convention of defining things as having three dimensions but the truth is there are much more than three dimensions it's not just length breadth and depth [Music] there's also spherical dimensions as long as the three dimensions are independent of one another in other words that they shouldn't be redundant you couldn't call something um in spherical geometry and I don't know what I'm talking about here but it just seems to make sense to me that like for instance two uh sides of one if you have two a radius and another radius which are really just one diameter that that's that's not two dimensions that's one dimension even though there are many uh degrees 360 and then there's there's many more than that but those aren't really additional Dimensions they're those are redundant so as long as they're not redundant that's how I'm reading that oh and I also want to thank David Taub the creator of ichikaduzi when circus in English was having a hard time with this I said I gotta talk to David Taub because David Tao the creator of Richard who's my brother my baby brother he's one of the best guys in the world I know at taking really difficult abstruse technical ideas and figuring out practical ways of thinking about them that's what made him so uh uniquely capable of taking considers and turning it into a puppet show that people laugh at and don't realize the depth of um so David helped me a lot with understanding this and this is explained at length in geometry but furthermore there are many purposes for which you would add to the dimensions my mod review and I'm not just talking about the fourth dimension hazman a little relativity over there um the three dimensions as we mentioned are length widths and depth and then time itself is called the fourth dimension but I'm not even talking about time being the fourth dimension but although although it is but what I'm saying to you is you you want to depict these three things as the three dimensions but the idea of three dimensions is a really uh arbitrary convention it's just functional it happened it functionally it happens happens to work um you know but it's not really reality reality it has much more than three dimensions so the three things the world is standing on the Toyota of uh that's that's not it's not arbitrary that is the fabric of reality the three dimensions is a convention there's not really three dimensions it's just the way that we have of referencing things that that's helpful okay so that's not the right thing to use this because there's much more than three um Ella eyed but furthermore like them like the debate in mathematics about this please a mathematician come forth and explain to me the depth of this I'm struggling just to hover above it and glean any semblance of of meaning from this but what I got from this was according to mathematics the idea of coordinates are ways it's sort of like a system which you impose upon reality in order to describe a reality that's already there you see what I'm saying and that's it describes that as that the thing you're measuring has to exist along those planes it has to it exists in those in those coordinates a Beluga do I say in other words that the dimensions are establishing the place of the thing that we're we're measuring and limit and limit the thing that we're measuring but not that they are above it or or not not that the object being measured is above it actually I wasn't sure how to how to read that part of it what it sounds like it's saying is and I invite anybody to submit a uh a better explanation when you have coordinates basically what's happening is you're superimposing this this system within which you're fitting the that which you're trying to to measure and describe and therefore you are defining that thing as existing within that within that system the coordinates there therefore would not be a good way of depicting because as we said the world stands upon them the world stands upon them it's based upon them are not Dimensions that can be used to describe and measure the world as it already exists in other words are not arbitrary uh forms of measurement where you can evaluate and describe various phenomena that exist within the world no the phenomena of the world are based upon a system which transcends them you follow what I'm saying it's not like uh okay like emotional and safety yitzira talks about nafish three dimensions of reality means place Shana means time nafish means the the human aspect or the conscious Observer subjective aspect um those often are used as dimensions in the way that Ben URI seems to be thinking of dimensions in other words you can look at anything in the world and describe it from a perspective of time describe it from a perspective of of space describe it from a perspective of of of of of of a person uh but they they are ways there's they they those are systems for describing that which has already occurred when you say the world stands upon them we're saying are not just conventions that are used to describe that which exist but they are the very fabric from which existence as we know it comes into being and is made and that's why the three dimensions is just not a good depiction are we having fun out there over an hour and we're still on the first letter I want to know if people are still with me you're still with me you're enjoying this it's overly technical I promise you that mayor benori enjoyed this letter first of all I can guess that he would love this letter but I also happen to know that he he accepted the answer and he found it to be brilliant so and have you ever heard of an artist who got critiqued and he was thankful for it so that that itself is a miracle of the rabbit okay um let's continue here commune um it's understood that what I'm saying here is just a like a parenthetical note to the primary point which is that in a publication that's meant for all types of kids like there's no place in the title page for this kind of stuff that is not going to be understood by by all of them and certainly most of them are not gonna relate to an image that you're proposing at all that it's not going to mean anything to them even those who do go to a technical school and maybe they do know a little bit about dimensions and stuff like that it's gonna look it's gonna be hard for them to decipher what it's about so much more so those who know less about that kind of stuff they're not going to figure it out and like we already explained the intention and the function of what's being expressed in the picture like we said the point is to have a very clear message about Toyota being the greatest thing in the world and yet the basis for everything in the world and that should be readily understood by by Jewish children who have no specific Jewish Education and if not if it's not something that any kid can look at and understand the message of instantaneously then it is incomplete and lacking so I'm not going to do that I'm not going to change it to something that's going to forego that impact I'll be claw hazal the sofa based on the rule the general principle of our Sages to play on words as voice uh poetic words from uh from the title but it's homologically interpreted by uh by the gamada as there's going to be love at the end meaning when Torah Scholars is what it says when Torah Scholars um argue so they may argue but in the end they love each other because of their argument so basically what I was saying you had you had these critiques for me I refuted all of them really soundly and thoroughly and no hard feelings in fact this should only make us closer I hope you're not going to be uh you know not gonna have any hard feelings the hang light um I only brought it up to clarify the matter and not to be confrontational uh with honor and blessing for a kosher and happy Passover yeah wow uh cover of a kid's magazine how you like that [Laughter] just just a cute little cover of a kid's magazine I'm sure there's no deep meaning in it yeah there you go again by the way I was speaking to uh hi Michelle Brooke from lahak today and I'm mentioning who I was speaking to because he told me something that if I had heard it anywhere else I would have said it's a little far-fetched I don't know if I'm comfortable repeating that but heimshaw told me I'm comfortable repeating it he said that avram perish said I'm laughing but he I don't think he said it to be funny at all he said okay he had been around the block is what I'm saying he said as talks and tells is the same yeah you hear that you understand 566. the um this series of very deep discourses from 1896 from the from the rabbit shop and it's considered a foundational groundbreaking work in explaining the ideas so he said talks and tells it is what that means Our Generations talks and tells and I I I don't think he meant that in a in any type of derogatory fashion to the contrary I think what he was saying is talks and towels is is not kid stuff it's not kids stuff and by the way I want to mention something you know how people are always looking for stuff to read and they're buying these magazines and why don't you get yourself a set of talks and Tails you can get the whole 50 years of talks and tales set like this in fact in fact I just checked it out there's a salad cost right now I want to encourage everybody can we pull this up where's the just want to see uh um yeah where's the link okay I have the link here I'm gonna put it in the YouTube chat here's the YouTube chat the link all right you see that right there I just put it in the YouTube chat that is the link for buying your own copy of talks and towels it is on sale right now um it's usually 374 dollars it's on sale for three hundred dollars I think at checkout it'll the discount will show so I want to encourage you that if you need something that the kids can read and the adults can read and you're house guests can read and that you can read why don't you get talks and Tails and keep it around and you'll be filling your house with more depth and meaning than any of us can possibly comprehend because just from this one letter I think we now appreciate that in the details of this publication there is deep meticulous messaging and Beyond what we're capable of understanding on our own so from just this description of the meaning of the of the cover art you can go and extrapolate how much meaning must be densely compact compacted into every single page and also you should know again since this is a whole good alephenus in hakana we're doing this to prepare for uh that of his birthday so I'm sure everybody who is learning this is uh is concerned with doing things that that epic cares about and bring fulfillment to the rabbit so I want to tell you something talks and tells of something that I'll just tell you with a story this is a story that was repeated by yossi Goldstein Uncle yasi whose yard site was just I think last week he said he was a bucker in the 40s in the 1940s and this is before the the rabbit became rabbit he heard that ABBA talking to Sean Mendel Simpson and saying what's going on here the talks and Tails have to be mailed out and nobody's coming to deal with the mailing and I myself am stapling them and stuffing the envelopes and am I gonna have to bring them to the post office as well so uncle gussie was a barker at the time he he hears this and he hears that time you know the ramash that up is the future could have a son-in-law is saying that he's spending his time stuffing envelopes so that the talks and Tails mailings should go out in time so yossi Goldston comes in and says I'll do it I'll do it and he didn't want to disturb that episode he said I'll take them to my room I guess to his dorm room or whatever and then it was like no no don't worry do it right here you know don't don't bother taking it somewhere else do it right here and then that became his job and so he said he was able to spend a lot of time in the presence of the Reddit because he would come into the devil's room and pack the stuff talks and tells envelopes yeah pretty pretty amazing speaks for itself Okay so letter number two for tonight someone's asking is there a code for the discount no no it's automatic the cell should be automatic I think it should apply in the in the checkout let me know okay so um a second letter for tonight second letter for tonight is short here we go letter number 21. wow can you believe it we're completing now basically three weeks yeah matsushabas will be the beginning of our fourth week amazing okay foreign blessings and greetings by the grace of God six Nissan 57 19 Brooklyn blessings and greetings which means that I was writing to a woman and as we've had a couple of times already when the Deb is writing to a woman that ever writes in Yiddish and um that I was writing about motherhood in this case About This Woman's children and her Duty toward these children let's look um an answer to your letter from 413 meaning April 13th [Music] the Allah foreign Gathering to them was an auspicious time I'm going to mention all of those that you list in your letter I'm going to mention them all at the aisle at the resting place of my father-in-law for their individual needs as you have written I am surprised confused what's up with this verse it seems appears from your letter you think in other words you are laboring under the impression as it's that it's enough in order to raise good Jewish children that you put them in an after-school Torah study program a Hebrew school tamatura and uh bar mitzvah in other words the woman probably was reporting to the debit like I want to have children who are good Jews and therefore I've done what I needed to do and I've put them in a tomato and we're gonna make sure that they have a bar mitzvah and that I was saying I'm surprised that you are you seem to be under the impression that that's enough that that is going to be sufficient to accomplish what you want to accomplish Ed it is self-understood is this is far from enough uh you have to continue after Bar Mitzvah Jewish education has to continue after bar mitzvah perhaps I mean it would it sounds like one of her children maybe just had a bar mitzvah or is about to have a bar mitzvah and she's sort of like like celebrating that accomplishment as if it's like hooray we did it and then I was saying uh no we're just getting started over here and what you do after Bar Mitzvah is no less important than what you do before Bar Mitzvah this is really I mean this is 1959 in Brooklyn uh you know this is really the American Jewish attitude that what is Jewish Education Jewish Education is I'm going to use a dirty word a bar mitzvah Factory you know the old joke oh my goodness don't make me torture you with the joke that every rabbi has told okay you know the joke about the uh synagogue that had mice don't worry if I tell it wrong I'm not telling it to be funny uh the synagogue had mice and uh I don't know maybe some other place had mice they called an exterminator they couldn't get rid of the mice blah blah blah finally the the rabbi comes Rabbi you're a rabbit you and we want an exterminator no rabbit says don't worry I'll take care of your mice foreign my contempt for this joke is probably Apparent at any rate get ready for the massive punchline then the mice disappear and the guy's like Rabbi you did it you got rid of the mice they never came back how'd you do it and the Rabbi says easy I bar mitzvahed them all and now they'll never return yeah at any rate but the joke exists for a reason it's a little piece of cultural commentary which is that you know modern American Jewish culture was really really focused on this idea that of course you have to have Jewish Education and what is the goal of Jewish Education a bar mitzvah that you should be able to get to that Milestone and you should say today I am a man yeah that I was saying look it's good you want to focus so much on Jewish Education before the bar mitzvah but it's no less important to focus on the Jewish Education that happens after the bar mitzvah wondered in Yeshiva that's why you have to learn any Yeshiva like it's very nice mom you got your kid to go take Jewish classes and be ready to do his Parsha or whatever else he did for his bar mitzvah that's great but you know what it's time for now it's time to send this kid to Yeshiva when a metal deflating in a bay certificate School other and a girl goes to a girl's Jewish school like a base Rifka or a basic them the zytic men Fila Cheval in the and through that you are going to avert in future years a lot of problems a lot of troubles gonna send your kidney Yeshiva it's not a cure-all no we're not telling you that it's the fix for every problem but it's the fix for a lot of problems and you're gonna avoid a lot of trouble if you send your kid to Yeshiva um [Laughter] You're Gonna Save Yourself a lot of problems both for your kids and for yourself stringman inverter and no matter how forcefully we attempt to express this in words is in the glyc to their foreign this doesn't compare doesn't even begin to compare meaning no matter how forcefully we express this with words it doesn't even come close to adequately conveying the seriousness and the importance of the need to continue Jewish Education as uh said above this is no joke because or since you don't mention anything about your boy your son or your daughter what type of education are they actually receiving inflict so by turning those or even gizzard I therefore I therefore find it to be my duty to emphasize this I guess she omitted anything like she didn't say that they were gonna go to a Jewish school so that I was saying since you're not mentioning anything about it I'm assuming that you need to have your attention drawn to it and that's why I'm pointing it out to and uh I feel like it's my duty to point it out much much more strongly than I already did MS and if you really want it in truth I I think the woman it sounds like she said to the rabbit oh I want my kids to be good Jews so the dev is like working with her like using that as as leverage like okay you want your kids to be good Jews yeah this is what you're gonna have to do and here's the deal you want it okay fine you gotta really want it and if you really want it if you want it with an MS Vietnam of the Kinder of the Manchester this is going to affect you yourself your kids and your husband may he be well okay in other words don't tell me you're not sure your kids want to go to such a school and maybe your husband doesn't want it maybe you're not sure if you want it you know what you want your kids to be good Jews great so really want that and then your desire for that to happen is going to have an influence it's going to have an effect and the family's going to get on board I should mention the vote here from the rabbit is because I'll say who is a fitting wife good woman she does her husband's will so that's the simple reading that ABBA reads it the word Isa or the infinitives can mean does but it can also mean to make to make so as a Asus Shadow who's a who's A fitting woman saying violet one who is capable of making her husband have a will it's very deep that's what the dev explains not just she makes him do what she wants no no she makes him want it the way she's able to do it is because is actually rooted in kesser which is rotting and therefore can influence the entire say the rest house from down in and can steer the cycle in mid-ice but at any rate so whatever tells this woman if you really want it it's gonna happen Hashem should help us the Merit you're going to have by doing what we said meaning put your kids in a full-time Jewish school after Bayern boss mitzvah yeah so that's that's close so on Halton with this is going to uh assist you and your husband to have Yiddish from all of your kids this this course of doing the right thing is with blessings that you should report good news and that you should have a kosher and happy Passover machine signed by a member of the Secretariat okay Good Shabbos thank you