MindFlex - Is Heaven a Red State or a Blue State? with Rabbi Yitzchak Feldheim

program it's a pleasure to be here and i just want to say anybody who's uh while the rest of the world is glued to their their their screens trying to keep up with the elections if you're sitting here now you're a holy person and you deserve a lot of props so um we whatever so it's close to be part of this and um let's get busy okay the topic of this year is called this heaven a red state or a blue state and it's a torah view on politics um i i initially wanted a call this year mixing um mixing religion and politics because that's like the big no-no people complain that when people are mixing religion and politics um because i'm getting notes that there's a problem here with the screen is this uh okay i don't know i know how to deal with it that's how it is so if you're seeing two of me i don't know how to solve that mixing religion and politics so people like that's a no-no and i just wanted to start off saying it's uh it comes from a mistaken perspective that the purpose of religion is you know like there's the world the real world and then there's the spiritual world it's like there's a body and there's a soul um oh okay they told me everything was good now beautiful okay i'm sorry for technical difficulties getting started now so the idea this follows is that is that what is politics is isn't politics the debate of how the world should be run on how to balance personal needs versus communal needs and the social how to how to maximize you know how to figure out is it about the individuals about the community how to how to run the world and how to maximize pleasure and success in what conception is that not also the goal of religion you know i'm sure there are religions whose whose agenda is you know that there are other religions whose who see religion as being separate from life ascetic and not involved like i was saying there's a spiritual world in the physical world but in judaism we don't see it like that we see the torah we call it we call it the torah is a guide for life that god created the world that people should should have meaning and pleasure and happiness and the torah is the guide to how to achieve that so when people are debating of what is the best way to live and how to allocate the resources and and you know we we're to put the focus of legislation and you know and you know to what the what point do we have people have personal autonomy so what to what degree um do they have to forego their personal desires for the community what to share what to give what to keep these are all the most important discussions in the world so when i think religion i think the goal of religion is the goal of torah at least in judaism is is the program that had a maximizing human human joy and human satisfaction so i i think it's a holy thing to it's not real it's not even called mixing religion and politics we're not mixing it that's how it is religion is the guide to how to live it's the same the same study okay i don't get hung up on that but i just think it's an important introduction those people who think that a rabbi's job is to sit in the corner with some holy books and give blessings that's a nice thing but it's far more than that torah has something to say about everything that's what i'm going to attempt to show you here tonight a little bit okay this class is going to be divided into three parts the first the first part i'm going to give you i'm going to do it really the opposite of the way classes normally work normally you build up the class and you say the punchline i'm going to start off with the punch line get rid of all the tension okay it's having a red state or a blue state i'm going to tell you right off the bat what the answer is and then once i tell you the out the answer and explain it then i'm going to show you how that works but part two then we're going to knowing already what the the final result is going to be we'll be able to study the depth of why it is like that and uh but we'll get all the angst of which side we're choosing or how it's how that plays out out of the way in the beginning the most important thing is if you could stick around is the third part because in the first two parts of the class i'm going to be talking about the philosophy of religion and politics what the ideologies are and what the torah's biases are or the torah's programs but unfortunately i don't think what's going on in the world today the political debate in the world today has anything to do with political ideology there's something far different going on and the third part of this year is going to be practical what where exactly the world is today and how through the lens of torah how we understand the political dynamic of the world as it is at this moment this election the united states as it is in 2020 okay so those are the three parts i didn't explain really exactly what i'm doing but there are three parts if you can stick it out to the end the end is really that's really what i wanted to share i just gotta go through the first two stages in order for um the third part to make any sense okay so let's start with this in might sound a little mystical i don't mean to get mystical i just want to explain to you a paradigm that'll allow us to to work on this class in judaism we have a different way of understanding the number three then it's normally undisturbed normally we think of three one two three we think of it as a linear progression that you have one then after one you move on to two and three linear i mean like in a sense like you go to school you finish first grade you graduate now you take that information you go to second grade you learn new things and then third grade you learn new things every stage is further progress standing on the shoulders of what came before me that's normally we think of the number of any number it's a progression you know you have the ball first down second down third time you keep on when you leave off try and move downfield the jewish concept of three is very very different and it's fascinating it's we see if you ever seem like you've been to top and you went to these catalysts so like the artists so they all have this um in kabbalistic pictures it's like a series of triangles you see like this right i don't know if you know what i'm talking about but also like in the star of david is two triangles our concept of three is not one two three but it's really a triangle and the tri the way it works with a triangle is it's not one two three it's one two and three it's one trait then you don't go further you go to the opposite end there's an opposite and number three is the synthesis of the two previous traits thesis and tip assistance synthesis that's how we think of three what does that mean so what that means is that any trait in the world develop a trait the next goal is to develop the opposite trait because you need synthetic you need you need thesis and antithesis you need to let me give you an example it will make more sense you can pick any beautiful trait in the world let's say we uh generosity generosity is a universally understood good trait but then so is thriftiness responsibility to be careful and conservative in how you allocate your resources on the one hand you want to be generous on the other hand it's also valuable to be thrifty the goal though is to synthesize those two opposite traits in some kind of balanced person who knows when to give and when to hold but everything's like that if you talk about being patient patients are good patients is a beautiful trait but then so is to be zealous right to be diligent alacrity to be you know get up to be on the move and do things so sometimes you have to perfect patience but there's also um to be to be diligent to be all in to be fired up so the secret of life is to embrace the one and the two which is the opposite and then figure out how to synthesize those two opposite traits and that's totality um and that's the that's the way in judaism all threes are understood this reason is built on threes and every three is understood not as one two three but as one two and three the best example is we have three patriarchs abraham isaac and jacob so based on this model we see abraham and isaac as opposites avraham is the first trait abraham isaac is the opposite trait and jacob is the perfection and this will explain why we had to have three patriarchs before you could have the 12 tribes the 12 tribes could not be born to abraham or to isaac because they're each only one ingredient of the final product a sort of like one dimensional and therefore they're going to be limited they'll be really strong version of one trait let's say if like you call it you know patience i'm just giving an example and the other patriarch isaac would be the really strong version of the opposite trait but for the jewish people to become a people you need jacob jacob represents the perfect patriarch the one who's synthesized both of the it's not that there's anything wrong with abraham and isaac it's those are stages on the way to greatness is is in self-development you have to go through this triangle process so let's talk start plugging in politics so um some people get nervous when you talk about the patriarchs in real terms but everything i'm going to say is based on sources i'm not making this kind of stuff up but but and if you if you think what you know it'll it'll i think it'll resonate with well let me ask you if you were to draw i gave you a job to draw a painting of abraham right so what would be every painting of every program what would be in the background right what's the prop that they read every kid in school when you're doing arts and crafts in until your school and you up to the torah portions of abraham so every kid makes one what do they mean abraham is known for his tent that's opening with four doors open in every direction the trade of avram in the torah is called lovely kindness i like to look at avraham as your first liberal everyone is a liberal he has homeless shelters and soup kitchens and what's he doing when he's not doling out food or welcoming guests in all of his free moments in that free moment every other moment the torah he's praying to hashem to save some evil person some sinner right in the parish of this week he's arguing with god to save the people of saddam no matter how bad they were please don't kill them why do you have to kill him and in last week's torah portion he was praying darshan not to kill pharaoh not the pun not to punish pharaoh to heal and then next week he's going to be trying to heal abimelech the king of the philistines and um he comes across as almost a caricature of a role of the person who is who's compassionate he's liberal he's homeless the soup kitchens bleeding heart worrying about all the good people all the people who are not who are who are not so good who are who are morally challenged okay so avrum comes across like that okay if you have a negative association in your mind and someone goes we'll see we're going to flesh that out in the share and hopefully everyone will be satisfied isaac is the opposite trait it's the torah yitzhak is the trait of um we call din justice sternness discipline he's the opposite of abraham avram's love abram god refers to abraham as he who loves me is the one who loves god yitzhak is the fear of god the trait of yitzhak is this this love and fear is there's it's not the conservative he's the first conservative he's pulled yourself up by your bootstraps no free ride i know my father was into feeding everyone thank you everyone but that's not the best thing i'm robbing you of the opportunity to earn it for yourself and to feel satisfied abraham and yitzhak are therefore the same as opposites maybe i'll spend one minute just showing you interesting things everyone's name in the torah is a caricature of their personality their names define them isaac's name is laughter and everyone asks the question he's the most stern person the torah the adjective associated with him is he it's the dread of isaac the fear of he's scary he's intimidating he's the judge he's law and order and it's a wise's name laughter so this is very deep but it's powerful is that it's exactly that point is that laughter is the expression of total guiltlessness it's not weird that the person who represents justice laughs he's the only person who can truly laugh the only person who can truly freely laugh that deep belly laugh to let it all out is the person who every single thing in his life he earned there's no no free rides he didn't cheat he didn't lie everything he paid for him from he earned it he did it he can look back at his life without any guilt and any shame the expression of that is that deep laughter totally free the proof of this is that when someone's ashamed or exposed we do this thing called a sheepish laugh the way we try and show people that i'm not phased by what happened didn't get me i'm really good is we laugh to show it's sort of the way we communicate that we're unphased that we're not ashamed not embarrassed because laughter is the expression of guiltlessness and laughter is the domain of the person who was totally ethical and worked everything is earned if you got hands out so you stole or you you borrowed it or you it's not really yours then you can truly experience freely live with a certain guilt a certain risk of being exposed the people being aware that it's not you're not really entitled to so it's not strange that isaac's name is laughter laughter defines him he's defined as my last islam that's that's the first so i so abraham i'm calling abraham the purpose is in the first liberal and isaac is the first conservative and therefore jacob is the synthesis of the two and the and that the reason why avraham couldn't have a twelve tribes horizon is because they're one dimensional and therefore you'll see each one of them has a child who's not so wonderful avraham has ishmael and yitzhak has aesop the reason is because what happens if you raise a child as a liberal without any balance everything is kosher everything is good everything's wonderful there's nothing bad everything you did you're a sonic no matter what if everything it is total tolerance and total acceptance then what is the trait of that the child of that that education embodies the torah refers to ishmael as a wild man a man without discipline without boundaries without borders because that is the danger the occupational hazard of of tolerance and love and acceptance is that there's no there's no framework there's no form there are no boundaries but the other side is what happens to the child who grows up in a home of total justice everything has to be earned what's the danger of that of no free rides you have to earn if you don't earn it you don't get it so terrible things come out of that too if there's a reason why perfection has to be balanced too much love leads to wildness and licentiousness too much love leads to certain dangerous places but too demanding too rigid too much justice leads to cruelty right if you can't work then you'll starve because i can't give it to you if you didn't earn it the cruelty cruelty is the is is what happens when you have too much din and aesop is seen at ace of the son of isaac is seen as the extreme of dead and ishmael is seen as the extreme and they have different sins ishmael and jewish thought is seen as an adulterer and aesop is a murderer i wouldn't want to have to choose which is worse adultery or murder the idea is that they're both pretty terrible one is the corruption of the light and one's the corruption of the left and that's why the perfect picture has to be jacob who's the synthesis and that's why the answer is having a red state or a blue state so what should be obvious is that it has to be both and in the course of the talk we're going to talk more about this but the the punch line of the class is what i'm saying first is that heaven is really it is red and blue they're both true you need to be loving you also need to be this neat structure and discipline and justice and uh and you know if you want to spend a little more time looking at this so then you know each of these three characters um jacob who's the synthesis and yeshmael who's the child of avraham without the balance and isaac and asa who's the child of isaac without the balance each one of them is a founder of one of the three these three religions the western religions right uh ishmael becomes the father of islam muslims the ace of rome he becomes the father of christian the seed of christianity with the seat in rome and yaakov understandably he gets he gets his name changed to yes and he becomes israel jewish people are the children of jacob this is literally how we see it we don't see that christianity and islam are like totally evil it's they're each half of the story is islam and essentially judaism is is the balance of those two and you'll see it i'm not gonna spend too much time on it now but you'll see it in many aspects of judaism you'll see um you know the christians use a solar calendar and the muslims use a lunar calendar and the jewish people judaism uses a intercalated solar and lunar calendar we synthesize them judaism is the synthesis of the right and left it's not i don't want this shear to be seen in any way as a condemnation of liberalism or conservativism i know the world is very polarized and people talk about liberalism if you're conservative like biggest evil you know you listen to the talk radio shows and every liberal is a communist and you listen to left-wing talk radio to npr and every right-winger is a nazi it's a world of nazis and communists i don't know why people are so shallow that they can't understand that both of these systems holds you know ultimate truths right um i'll just show you here's an exercise the way i do when you're teaching college students and i'll give them you know give me a list of all of the liberal and conservative slogans all their ones so the liberal catchwords are one tolerance no you know no prejudice acceptance empathy sympathy compassion charity equality brotherhood taking care of people you know social consciousness being seeing the bigger picture music you know and what's the what are the conservative catchwords you know what are they you know pull yourself up by your bootstraps earn your way pride the hard work ethics values purpose meaning loyalty duty responsibility you'd be very hard-pressed to find an issue with anything on either of these two lists the the conservative the beauty of hard work and justice and earning your way and values and ethics and duty is clear the value of compassion empathy and caring and equality and forgiveness and acceptance just as beautiful it's shocking to me that people think it has to be so binary it's a pretty if this is the only part of the share i would give i wouldn't give it because i think it's like so obvious i'm not i i wouldn't imagine i'm contributing anything to the public discourse but unfortunately even this part of the ship which is the small introduction is contributing a lot because nobody for some reason no one figured this out everyone's sitting there killing each other not talking to each other why do we assume there are only two options so the first thing to understand just the recap of this is just this is just a triangle judaism is built in our version of the number three and that's the answer liberals and conservatives are opposites and there's nothing wrong with that that's the process before you can get the synthesis you have to perfect the thesis and the anticipation the best way to have a good balance is to have a really really sharp one trait and a really really sharp secondary and then the balance will be you know you want a symphony you have to have really good musicians you know uh and and more sharp and precise they are the better the simple people sound when you combine them and we so we see politics like everything in torah is ultimately the goal is the symphony the harmonies the harmonizing of these two oppositions and jewish people okay there's more to say but let's leave we have a lot to do here let me get the part two over here what i want to show you in part two is now that we know the punchline we know that there's two opposite positions and the goal is to get to the third so now we can you can't have this conversation until you know that the goal is the synthesis because then people will fight their sides you can't get anywhere but knowing that in the end you're both right whatever you believe politically is is i would say it's really cool that you believe that because that's 50 of truth right so everyone is in possession of 50 in truth so once you know that then we're it's easier to have the conversation so what i want to do now is i want to show how cool the tall is because i do spoken colleges and college students they live they have this thought that they understand that politics is their fear and and the old generation what do we know we're michelle especially religious people or what is the torah i have to say a 3 000 year old document have to say that so i like to show them this is like the deepest thought that they have on politics is really the beginning beginning of the discussion we built on their crazy ways let me show it to you so this is part two i'm going to show you maybe i'll show six levels seven levels i don't know how many levels i'm going to get to i'm gonna have a time limit to how much i can spend on this part of the class but here's here's what i call levels you see talking about politics a little bit difficult because it's in the one-hour class is was it's not fear to talk about liberals and conservatives or republicans and democrats or concern you know or or capitalists and communists because they they all have different meanings they're not all the same right and left and and even in them there's nuances there are liberal you know liberal conservatives there are liberal republicans and there are conservative democrats so for simplicity's sake i think i think you could have this class in an hour because yeah we understand there's more nuance there are rhinos you know and republicans and name only and there are all these subtle subtle groups in everything but in in in the normal public discourse today there is an understood implicit meaning in right and left not even so much liberal and conservative for the rest of the talk i'm going to be talking more about the right and the left because i think people intuitively we all have similar images what is meant by right and left and i could give a class if that's how i'm gonna talk about communism or capitalism per se or conservative liberals or republicans and democrats it's right and left with all the implications that people have come to understand those things to me so let's call the first level right and left then the question is to ask okay so what is right what does it mean so now you have to start defining it so let's call level two i i think the best way to define level two is that um again at this stage it might sound like i'm not being fair maybe to many people these jews um very sensitive that you might feel like um but i'm i'm favoring one side in the end you'll see that it's not like that but at this stage i i think a fear articulation would be is that some people believe that the focus should be on the community on the group on the needs of the larger you know the larger picture and other people believe none of we should be focusing on ourselves and individual rights and and that's how i would say is the my level two of politics level one is calling it right and left when you want to give a deeper meaning so you know takes a little time if you're gonna work this out with people together but usually this is where we get to students is we'll come to this conclusion that that's what separates right left primarily the understanding of this without the community or about the individual okay that's fair i'm fine with that it might make at this point it might make the liberal conservatives right sound a little bit selfish and the left sounds so moral and okay it could be it could be at this stage but let's get deeper this is what i mean by levels after two or three levels you'll understand exactly what i'm trying to do here my question now is okay so that's deep so now we're not just fighting politics it's a deep thing that's are we fighting about the community or individual that's nice so my question is is where does that argument come from how come half of the world thinks we should focus on the community and the other half on the individual how did they come to two arbitrary positions how come you feel like this might it must be there's an underlying argument the next level of that from what is the underlying argument can you figure out what makes one person think we should be focusing on my rights and one is foregoing my rights for the community so i think level three of them is already a moral argument the question is a god who created the world so then what is holy or what is god's will that we should focus on unity or individuality uni individuality is a great moral question and the question is which one is holy you know because if god created me then what right do i have to veto him by foregoing part of my personality shouldn't my job be to be all that i could be but on the other hand god created everyone else also what right do i have to ignore their needs and to live in my own little place so the nature of reality dictates a great argument of what comes first individuality or unity both of them are embracing the reality that the world is nobody wants to be denying reality but the reality says that i exist and the reality says that you exist so should my my life be the embracing of me therefore i'll be stepping on your toes or should be embracing the you and therefore i'll be foregoing myself there may be far more use than me there's only one me and there's billions of views so i'm going to have to forego a lot of myself to dedicate myself to all of everybody else but even so it might make sense to do that on some level because you're the maximum benefit for the maximum people but um but on the other hand i am denying something that it was given to me i was created what right do i have to deny myself tonight i'm denying god's plan so at this point in level three it's becomes a holy argument and was there both arguing for some moral position and it comes obvious also why the answer would have to be synthesis and how it could be synthesis because the answer will have to end up being that yes i exist and yes everyone else exists but you know what there is no overlap nobody is duplicated everyone's unique if everyone's unique that means that i can totally be me and i'm not stepping on anyone else's toes because where i end you start i can totally embrace everyone else in the world and embrace myself that's the nature of the perfection of creation we're all pieces of god that celeb everyone is a fragment of the totality of of of existence and therefore my job is to appreciate all these to experience all this existence to maximize existence but the fact that i'm going to maximize my own experience itself is not at all ruining you because i am separate than you we're not fighting over the same term okay not let's not hung up on this because this is just one stage so my question now would be fine that's deep instead of talking about politics we should be talking about a philosophical argument of unity or individuality and any group invariably will divide half the people think unity's best no pass the ball other half would say you know you know give it to the guy let him get get better at it you know you're gonna become better player if you're always passing you'll never become one the best thing you can do for the team is to protect yourself even if we care about the team the team needs you to be you it's a cool argument but it gets better the question is is again the fourth level of depth so why would some people say that unity is better than individuality and somebody else individually why would any group divide in half maybe maybe more people will say unity individuality at this point but why does it divide what is it that makes one person drawn to one and one to the other what is the deeper argument at the roots at the foundation of the argument of unity individuality what's the answer so the answer to that question is also is a cool argument called justice or kindness which one is more godly because you know we use these words like justice and kindness it's the traits of god but if you think about them they're opposites they can't coexist what's the definition of justice the definition of justice is you get what you deserve is that true is that precise justice is you get exactly what you deserve what's the definition of kindness even though you don't deserve it i'm going to give it to you anyway so you realize that justice is not kind kindness is not just there's an injustice in kindness i'm giving you something you know you're going to earn it you don't have this but if i only do justice i'm living is fear but there's no kindness you earned it it's yours i'm not even showing you kindness which one's holier you see if you believe if you believe in justice that you have to earn everything let's let's talk about it for a second you know how does it make you feel justice it's beautiful it's fear wow it's really fair and it makes you feel valid makes you feel proud makes you feel deserving you can totally enjoy it we said with the laughter of eyes that you can totally experience what you have because it's yours you feel powerful kindness though you don't have that but kindness makes you feel safe no matter what i'm taking care of i'm safe kindness means that i i don't have to worry that i'm able which is cooler to feel safe to feel powerful you can't live without either again the synthesis is important jacob is going to be become the combination of justice and kindness and this is the argument you know if you believe which one do you believe in if you're gonna believe in justice see at this point it becomes clear politics is religion it's without fighting about some some you know random political position we're really fighting about what's more important the traits of god you know there are two names of god hashem and elohim one is justice and one's kindness god is just and god is kind he has mercy and justice isn't mercy like kindness the opposite of justice so which one is more godly so the answer is we know the punchline is both but at least understand that the argument is a holy argument the the the resolution is collier but the argument is holy you see and if you believe that justice is the holiest thing then justice means i have to earn it therefore i have to focus on myself i have to be deserving justice leads you to a belief in individuality individuality will say to focus on the self and the self will mean you should become a right or to become a member of the right but if you believe that kindness is the holiest value you don't have to earn it but we're going to give it because we're kind then we then we realize that then then you can focus on the group and you folk you'll believe that unity is holier than individuality and then you'll focus on the group and then you'll be you'll become part of the left so now you know what i'm doing let's go one step deeper what's deeper than justice and kindness so the answer to that is again it's very cool why do some people choose justice and some choose kindness this is even a holy argument not the holy argument is what's more godly truth or peace because truth and peace are also opposites i'll give you i'll show you how that works let's say i say you owe me a hundred bucks and you say you don't owe me anything it's not true so someone sees us fighting and says you know the guys have been friends already it's like 40 minutes here okay don't get into a fight you know so what do you propose why don't you just give them fifty dollars and they're both quality it's not going to be great for either review but at least we can go further and go our life you know uh it's good advice interesting advice but you know what the problem with that advice is it's definitely not true it might create peace but you either owe me a hundred or zero right you don't know me there's no there was no option that you owe me fifty peace is coexistence and compromise truth is lost in peace but maybe it's holier than peace then truth so the question is which one's holy which one represents god more at this point people really get divided evenly something unbelievably powerful about truth and something unbelievably powerful about peace and you understand that if you believe this is how this is the depth of the argument i tell the students no one even thinks about this we fight about politics like we're know-it-alls you haven't even scratched the surface you don't even know what discussion is it's not random how you come to your position the depth of your soul is drawn to kindness or justice or peace or truth because if you believe that truth is the ultimate value then you need justice because justice is where it's true it's earned if you believe in to believe in peace you believe in truth you're gonna go to justice and justice you're gonna believe in individuality will lead you to self itself your right wing if you believe in peace peace will lead you to to kindness and kindness will lead you to folk to unity and unity will lead you to focusing on the group and the group leaving their left can we go deeper okay so i don't want to spend too much i'm just going to fast forward for a few more levels because the torah is bottomless but why do some people believe that holy that kindness that truth is heavier than peace and other people peace is holy than truth because again the universe is divided into two opposite parts we have an intellect and we have a motion and they're both true they're both reality there are two parts to godliness intellect and emotion feeling and thought the perfection of thought is truth and the perfection of emotion is peace and love and peace and therefore it's the heart and the body and they both exist you can't deny both this is why again the synthesis truth the real experience of life react know what reality is the combination of truth and peace because reality is the combination of emotion and thought because emotion exists and thought exists so therefore reality has to be both and okay and where does that come from that comes because there's two types of godliness you know the reason why this emotion and intellect is the way you experience it because god is now what's cool is is how harsh but there were two different versions of unity god is oneness but the root of all political arguments is that there are two types of oneness you see like the color white is oneness includes all the colors before division white is one and then i can divide light and put it to a prism and a whole box of crayons and it's no longer one but you know what i can do then i can take all those crayons and make a magnificent masterpiece and studying the masterpiece i experienced the harmony of existence how beautiful the same thing with music you can have silence then you can have instruments and then when the conductor walks in and makes music again that harmony that symphony is oneness so there are two versions of oneness there's white oneness and then there's um harmony is the oneness of all the colors combined white is just white we understand that it's one all the colors aren't expressed once you express colors now you have division so you don't have to go back to white you can experience a new version of the arts which is called harmony there are two versions of hashem that's unity and harmony and that is the root of all political arguments are we into unity are we in the harmony that both and what do they both share they're both the experience of god how can you have a name of god that's plural because our kin means harmony harmony is it's not plural it's one but it's a version of oneness that is made of parts a symphony everyone understands that symphony is oneness harmony is a synonym of unity they mean the same thing in some levels but it's two different ways together i can silence is one and use it as one white is one and masterpieces are one the different ones and in order to experience god all of god you mean hashem and everything the political debate needs the synthesis of jacob because jacob is the one who synthesizes god is the experience of both of those okay it's cool we go on forever it gets deeper even but but let's leave that okay now let's go to the third part of this talk which is the most important because everything we did now is sum it up it's a nice talk it's a powerful talking it's but it's it's um it's philosophy this is basically all we said is that um politics is really the pursuit of the nature of god reality and there's a holiness to book and when i meet someone who's politically involved on any side i pinch him on the cheek and i say great holy fifty percent of holiness well everything you're saying is true but it's only half of truth the other side is just as true and you need to learn to see that beauty and that's what judy's intends to do we're the voice for the synthesis the voice of yaakov that's what the israel represents unfortunately the real world is just not little this everything i said that heaven is red and blue it's the synthesis is true that liberals and conservatives are each half of judaism that's a good way to think half of chile but there's something else called the counterfeit liberal and the counterfeit conservatives and what's going on in the world today is a war of flowers the voices of the world are primarily the fake and you can't mix it up i'm going to explain that to you now let me first say the counterfeit conservative it's important to be fair i'm going to give it a little shorter shift because i'll explain why but the conservative claims according to our six level 70 levels whatever it is claims to be the truth for justice um and he's fighting people because what they're saying is not truth but so what's the count of the conservative he's the guy who claims truth but he couldn't care less about truth you know what he is he's the racist the bigot he doesn't he's not embracing his life or his lifestyle because of truth he's insecure and he's threatened by everyone who does something different than him because you're making him question his ideas somebody who truly believes in truth is not going to be threatened by somebody who's who's um by somebody who's uh who believes differently you know the jews suffered for this for many many centuries in the christian early christian church you know they because why because we were different in them and made them have to question their ideas that we didn't accept their doctrines so therefore bigotry and prejudice and jews were butchered because of this and forced to convert they're not conservatives that's a fake concern it's a counterfeit conservative they're not driven by justice or truth they claim justice and truth but it's a it's just a mask and a spin on their insecurities and their fears we don't speak that much about this because in the recent generations sort of we've succeeded at marginalizing this the fake conservative is exposed the racist and the bigot doesn't have a place in the modern world they exist and to a certain degree they're still dangerous but you don't need to expose the ideology everybody knows what's wrong with it everyone knows where it's coming from unfortunately as it's then you know it's good we dealt with that but unfortunately the fake liberal hasn't been exposed yet and that's what i want to show you the most important part of this year this is what i experienced on college campuses primarily the the fake liberal works like this is that we have a story in the torah the story of kara i'm going to tell you the story quickly and i think it will give clarity what we're dealing with korach leads a rebellion against motion in the desert the jews have left egypt they went to mount sinai and experienced the spilling of the sea and attending plagues a lot of stuff and moshe now is appointing coins and ladies he says if you have a house full of torah scrolls it need to have a mezuzah it's a metaphor what's he saying he's saying why do we need leadership we're all holy why are you creating a hierarchy in a caste system and ruining your peace and acceptance and the beauty of our of our new community and the people many people gather around kodak it's a very appealing argument and moshe gets furious and moshe says hashem this can't go this man has to die and not just die the ground has to open up and swallow him alive if he dies any other way that's not good enough and that's what happened the ground opens up swallows koracho and all of his followers and all the jewish people are angry at motion why'd you do that it's not fear one you have to kill the man of god um there's a few things you need to explain over here what was korat's wheel position why do people gather around it more importantly why did moshe act so drastically it's the most out of character thing maybe in the whole time anyone who reads the torah knows that the jews mess up a lot and moshe's role is always moshe is always going about the jews begging hashem to forgive them god wants to destroy the jews after the golden calf emotion goes if that's the case then erase me from your book he puts himself in the line time and again for the jewish people except here what why is this so out of character why does moshe go to war against that the ground has to open up the man who always defends the jews that nothing should ever negative the slightest thing happened to them here he wants this drastic reaction and the final question is is it happens exactly like he asked that's pretty impressive you know babe ruth had i think 714 15 home runs in his life the most famous one maybe it's a myth i don't know but uh at least in the movie you know it's the one he points to the crown then he proceeds to hit the ball exactly where he pointed that uh he calls it you know that shows prowess skill ability [Music] this is moshe's babe ruth moment he says the ground is going to open up and it opens up you'd think all the people would be chasing them they'd be humble oh bow in motion i'm sorry you're right all right but that's not what happens the people turn against motion to go why why you do this doesn't make sense didn't moshe just perfectly clarify how right he was so i want to answer these questions the first way most people answer these questions is they see they say the deep answer it's cool it answers most of the questions korach's the first communist karak is coming and saying why are you appointing leaders we're all homely just letting us hold don't make hierarchies don't create caste systems and that explains a lot of stuff why everyone gathers around them it's a very appealing ideology how many people in the world don't go through a stage you know where you're loving and you want this utopian worldview where there's no competition no jealousy the color opposition is fascinating it draws people in it's very tempting so we could that explains very well why korak says his position and why the people side with him the people the whole tribe a lot of the tribe are grooving the oldest of the tribes they all go after kara and so why and uh if you go a step further you know it also explains why the people are angry after moshe after he dies because even today what do we say about communism when we talk about do we say they're evil we're shocking what we say is we talk about them like with the sentimental and the stopping ah it's naive it doesn't work you know it's it's not practical it's just a theory the real world doesn't work they're naive they're dreamers we don't call them evil terrible because everyone understands this ideology and that's the thought this doesn't work but it's appealing so that's why the people say moshe why you kill him because he's a dreamer that's a death sentence you know buy the guitar let him sit and do kambayas and let him you know there's a role for people like this in the world he had to die let him become a preschool teacher and tell nice stories and sing songs with the kids the whole story almost the whole story makes sense people are drawn to this utopian idea and they're and they don't understand why you have to be so drastic but this can't be the explanation because the one question that's not answered is the most important question so why didn't moshe get this memo why is moshe so angry why doesn't moshe understand understand that dreamers shouldn't be put together being naive and hopeful and optimistic is not a reason that ground should open up and swallow you up so what did moshe see here that we don't see this is this stands up to this is the whole purpose of what i give the whole class just to get to this point what does most all the people gather around performing about kodak's beautiful idea of peace he's the flower child and moshe turns to fire loving the fender motion it goes to worldwide what did moshe hear you have limited words here one sentence can you deduce it quran says the quran the entire assembly is holy so those words something different than what we just said i would how would the utopian united sentence and stand this is so important over here is one word the word is equality the equality is such an unbelievably beautiful word and equality is to ugly terrible evil because there are two versions of ecology the liberal is concerned with equality there are people here and people here so there's two ways to create equality one way is to pick up the disadvantage and get what they need and the other one is to knock down the people on top they both create equality the guy who picks people up that's called the liberal avraham avraham says equality why should someone have to be lacking why should they be hungry why should they be barefoot why should they have no place to sleep let me take care of them and the torah's perspective on that guy is wow you're so holy you know how holy fifty percent oh you need to meet the other side also but you're great there's nothing wrong with a liberal you're just half of greatness that's the torah perspective we love liberals we love conservatives we don't like when you isolate yourself and you don't embrace the other side because that's completion we don't like 50 50 is not a passing grade we demand a hundred the liber wants to pick up the disadvantage but then there's a fake liberal the fake liberal uses the same word equality but he has no love and no compassion his goal is to knock down the person on top that he should have nothing i live i live on academia talking to students hearing professors and you know you hear a lot of professors some professors are talking about the starving people in darfur and they're very holy and some people are talking about the evil corporations what bothers you the people on top of the people on bottom why is it that you're going to bed why are you on your soapbox is it compassion that drives you and you want to pick people up because the person who picks people up allows everyone to have joy the other cure is that no one should have anything let me wipe that smile off your face how does that solve anything that's the most the holiest person and the most evil person both use exactly the same word equality and only moshe hears that until today your only motion is here there the torah you need the torah's wisdom because i go to colleges and i see all these jewish kids and they they lack this up because they're all loving and compassionate and they hear ko see here's what kara says if karak was a true liberal how would he finish the sentence moshe's appointing cohen's and ladies and gentlemen the entire assembly is holy everyone's great how should he finish his sentence his phrase how should he finish it why are you appointing cohen's and ladies everyone's holy so what would a true liberal say this cohen's and ladies and everybody else what would a true liberal say he would say give everyone a position everyone should get some a role everyone should have in a place of importance in the community give everyone a job not that they're low that you're high kodak is advocating you come back now and no one should have anything it's crazy only moshe hears this everyone else turns to mush when they hear the word equality that's when your ears have to perk up you have to hear how it follows let me tell you what i find in most professors in college say that our children are here they have a list of agendas if i hear one position on the college professor i could predict every other position they have um because here's what they don't yes they're against they don't like suvs they don't like fur coats they don't like corporations they don't believe in truth they don't believe in morality there's no god they don't like the nuclear family don't believe in traditional marriage they don't like the boy scouts they don't like guns they don't like israel israel they don't like christianity either though they don't like flags they don't like clubs they don't like loyalty patriots patriot patriotism let me ask you a question is there any common denominator what's the combination of fur coating suv and a gun and a flag and a boy scout and a jew and truth and marriage because when you find the common denominator you'll know what their position is their position isn't that they love animals well they like the environment there are people who love animals and like the environment but when you want to know but they're not going to be in lockstep on every single other position when you meet a whole career role thousands hundreds of thousands tons of people they all share exactly the same 40 positions on 40 diverse unrelated topics so then you can deduce what the real issue is let me ask you what is the common denominator of a boy scout of marriage nuclear family truth morality guns suvs fur coats families israel christians america white men men you know we know we know one position you know what they think about all of it so what's the answer the answer is that every single one of these things is something a hierarchy when somebody works at it he feels proud and you can look at himself in the mirror and feel and when somebody doesn't believe that he's going to get to where he had to get or he made compromises in life took shortcuts and experience shame does he know what he needs to do he needs to wipe the smile of every single person who feels satisfied don't you dare talk about also if if there's no truth then you're never wrong great if there's no god or no morality i'm never evil if marriage is not a thing i'm not single if one is evil i'm not poor what's the what could be wrong with the boy scouts they don't like the kids in the uniforms with their little merit badges and feeling all valid good same thing with a guy with a flag that he's proud of they hate nationalism korach wants everyone to come down and no one should have anything that's his that's his recipe for the world because some people will feel bad and some people will feel good the jewish approach is let's get everyone to feel good that's called a liberal and the guy who masquerades as a liberal is correctly can i make fun of everybody who's invested in something and this is this is so important because who follows karate the people of moving the normal evil wildeen is a wonderful tribe moving the torah is called pacqua's times like water and sweet and well-intentioned the problem is he's naive he doesn't he's not politically a student everything that jose that moving tries to do blows up he wants to save joseph from the brothers he tries to make peace between his father and his mother intent and that doesn't work out he doesn't wrong and he tries to save the binyamin in egypt and he says the wrong thing loses the role to be the leader of the jewish people knows the first one because he's such a good guy and so sincere but he doesn't get how the real world works and he gets schlepped along most of the kids in the world today we have a generation not just jews colleges they're neighbors they're the sweetest they mean well they're not evil they want to save the world but they don't realize that kodak fed of these guys and they became pawns in his hands they don't realize the people they're following are not liberals they're counterfeit they just want to wipe the smile of the face of mankind and you know it's not everybody there are professors in college who are real liberals you know a guy who is smart had every ability in the world could have made a lot of money and chose to forego his his own you know personal agenda to teach other people so he's a liberal he's a holy person i tell the students you have professors like that those are real just grab them attach yourself to them these are role models and people who will help you but you have to know the difference because the person who's teaching you let me tell you something for every one of those i'm going to be brutal over here you know i for in the purposes of fairness i shouldn't spend just as much time on the counterfeit conservative but i don't have to because everyone laughs at them they don't have any power they're dangerous from their little basements and garages and you have to watch out for them but no one takes them seriously they're not going to turn the world upside down they're not a threatened ideology but the the concern today and this it's not always like this but in this generation the the korach the fake liberal who's masquerading as a lover who really is vindictive and mean that guy he's in the driver's seat the whole world worships him and they're gathering all the rulings all of our kids all of the kids in the world and the most well-meaning loving people and shepherding them into their army trying to dismantle everything beautiful in the world the leaders of black lives matter don't care about black lives they want to stick it to the white man the leading feminists don't care about women it's they're in a war against men the people today you know people talking about the scandinavian countries how perfect they are they're just trying to clobber america they don't like it you're proud of your country no one like the palestinians people don't everyone knows how do you defend murderers and people who blow up kindergarten they don't love the palestinians it's a cuddle to light the smile of those jews faces because they're too proud and that's all it is it's it's a war against feeling good because if i feel broken then everyone says that's the definition of listening there are victims people go through stuff what point do you become the enemy of goodness the day that you take your opinion you start to destroy other people and that's the only person in the world who moshe felt had to go because karate talks he has a golden tongue and all of the little veins of the world don't understand how the universe is and you get something they can change the world and these are dreamers you talk to college kids they're going with dreams and then some guy somebody can channel that again liberalism's holy it's abraham i'm not knocking liberalism i'm knocking the counterfeit i'm giving you the total skill of how to see the difference where does this come from we understand where it comes from why would someone choose to knock people down to solve the disparity rather than work to raise people up why do you become a korach when you could be enough wrong every koraf started off as not wrong there's no there's no korach says children children see pain and they want to wipe away tears they want to give hugs what changes the korach into another not wrong i'm not telling you this how do we have a it's not our job is to protect the kids i'm telling you this is how to identify you know it's a separate discussion but moshe seems like feels like you can't work on rehab because he's destroying people you know it's also a powerful lesson there are limits and that's when someone's someone's just destroying people you know you have to know you have to have compassion again it's a liberal thing on the group [Music] loves loves uh islam they love islam islam doesn't like you know lgbtq you know i'm missing a few letters islam doesn't like um doesn't have equality for women so why are they embracing islam the west is so it's so because it's a cuddle to be christians with the christian is the enemy because he's proud of himself he thinks he knows something the left needs everyone to walk around with that empty feeling of existential emptiness the shame and insecurity that they feel and some of these people are the richest people in the world [Music] people who can't look in the mirror either get humble and work on themselves or they get evil and become caught up and have to knock everybody else down so i can't look myself in the mirror and i need to you know if i walk down the street i see people living all the dreams i had when i was younger i have to make i know these jewish girls on campus they come to men women classes and make this song wow this is what i wanted when i was young my diary i wrote about you know all these dreams i had i was gonna find someone who's gonna honor me and value me and respect me and here i am in college who knows what's going on and who i'm hanging with and they listen to the class and they cry and they say you know what um i don't want to live a life that i'm embarrassed to read my own diary i'm going to change you know what happens to these girls who are inspired they go back to their dorm rooms and often your roommates torture them to death you're such a proven you're so shallow you thought you were sophisticated it doesn't mean anything why you just go go to a coffin become a nun you thought you were modern grow up so you know it doesn't mean anything like why do people do this because if i have dreams and my dreams i don't believe are going to come true because of certain things that i've done that made me feel like i don't deserve them so it's very very painful i need to hide from my dreams and make up a whole story that i don't care about make fun of laughing at my dreams and i can do that until i see somebody walking around doing everything their reminder of everything i ever wanted cause it causes me to face my own pain and that's a good thing because maybe now you'll work to recover your dreams if you feel that pain but what people usually do is i have to light that smile off their face i go back to my numbness and archimedes and this is what's going on and this is what we mean today this is this is why this is why you're finding the total world and aversion to leftists it's not about liberalism jewish people were built on the person the torah taught the world all the values of all charity and compassion this is all total consistent god and know the difference why are you involved with yourself you emotionally get back down no one should have anything i picture those girls on campus being tortured by roommates made to feel ashamed of embracing their dreams why they have to give sacrifice that the altar of my need to silence my own dreams you're standing in the way of my my my numbness people feel pain and they want to commit moral emotional suicide and you're stopping me by reminding me of what i wanted so you have to go you're causing me pain and that's correct there are there are two traits in the world that work together like beautifully or okay or ugly depending how you combine them a work ethic and an ego somebody wants to be greedy but he's willing to work hard it works really well because he'll go out and work on become successful and also there was this ambition the person who has no ego and no work ethic also works pretty well because he he has no needs for you know honor you know so he'll get a become a bagger in walmart doesn't have to work that hard and he gets what he needs the only thing that doesn't work well is when someone has an ego but no work ethic if i need to feel great but i'm for whatever reason i can't do it i'm lazy i'm broken i gave up i feel ashamed i don't believe that i can do it therefore i count down that guy is dangerous because if you have a need to be great you're not willing to climb there's only one way to deal with that the only way to satisfy my ego and not doing anything else uh listen this is election night you're here you learn torah it's beautiful you know um i just leave within you know an optimistic note you know for all the koraks of the world you know god created an antidote that's the jewish people our voice is meant to be the voice in the world is don't give up you don't need to knock anyone down you don't need to give up what's the opposite of korah it's korach is the need to knock people down because i don't want to see anyone living my dreams so what's the answer so when someone doesn't believe his dreams will come true that's the way he has to live he has to knock people down so what's the what's the cure the voice of the jews you can live your dreams why do you think you can't recover who cares what you did wrong seven times they'll just become stronger and it'll be deeper and better when you get yourself back to where you wanted to be you don't need to knock people down you just need to build yourself up and this is the message of the jewish people to the world everybody has dreams and everyone's been hurt but everyone's compromised so everyone is torn between two voices in their two ears one voice says remember what you wanted to be and the other voice says who you fooling it's never going to happen for you approaches to cackle and smear at the voice says how great you could want to be and if he can win then he can save you from the pain of hearing that voice but that's not the only cure if one voice is saying you could be great and one voice is saying you can't be why do you want to silence the voice why don't you silence the voice that you can't do and that's the purpose of the jewish people and that's why kara had to go moshe understood that the jews were chosen on mount sinai not some ego trip but some racist prejudice were chosen it means hashem put us in the world as public servants to the world to be the ones that tells the whole world is that you're not broken you're gonna be great you're a peace of god and all your dreams can become true and uh maybe we'll be liberals and conservatives and we combine together into this magnificent world that embraces all of godliness truth and peace justice and kindness harmony and unity may we avoid the masquerading evil voices that are full of portray themselves as truth when they really insecure prejudice bigots and racists may we overcome the voices that say that all the dreams and all the beautiful things in the world are evil or ugly and nothing this is the only thing we overcome all of the counterfeits embrace the truth and then we never have to have an election again the jewish people would be the role models to the world that were meant to be of the synthesis of justice and kindness of truth and peace of harmony and unity imagine what the world would be like you'd have a world of dreamers embracing their dreams we'd see people walking down the street that look in their eyes instead of the disillusioned look of shame or the eye roll of the shamers it would be that kid's look of gleaming glistening hopeful eyes there's nothing wrong yeah all right now i can go up to see who won so let me tell you this i don't know and if you're watching this at a later date so i mean i know we're talking about his election needs but let me say this is that um you know hashem knows what he's doing we have ideas of how we think he's supposed to play things out but he's always right because he doesn't explain himself to us as quickly as we'd like sometimes you know the the silencers of values and people who scoff at all the left wins and we feel very deep and that pain propels us to greatness it makes us feel vulnerable and sometimes the voice of dreams and values wins we have an easy trip but sometimes you know the easy way we don't do so well with it you know and sometimes we perform better in poverty and sickness than we do in health and wealth so only hashem knows how we perform i'll just tell you this if you want always the elections to go the way you want if you want everything to be easy and you have to prove to hashem that you do really well when he makes things easy do you give enough stucco when you make money but you just find your deal and then you're in pain and you're worried because if you tell that you show hashem that you only only serve and when you're worried then the people you don't want to be elected to get elected and you're not going to like what they do and you can approach but if in times of peace you can prove fascism that you excel at peace and that when things go your way they're just buoyant and alive and happy [Music] share wishes that we'll be and we'll be in that place you know because there will be certain hashem embracing our lives out of peace and tranquility and uh that he'll never have to make us lose elections again now i think so everything will turn out the promotions the relationships the you know everything in our life will turn out the way you want it doesn't it's because that's what we need a close touch maybe [Music] good one