Mind Flex - Ask The Rabbis- Judaism 101- Part 2

okay welcome back everybody for part two of our questions and answer with uh with our rabbinic panel once again we have with us rabbi yolovsky rav gav and reviews from fell time thank you for yesterday's uh session here we go with today's question i'm gonna start off again i don't like to go for the easy ones first i'm going to start off with a more difficult question if you will um it's a general question again it came by by a few parts so i kind of put it together on my own here's the question how do we know judaism is true how do you know the rest aren't or we okay how do we know we have a monopoly on truth isn't this arrogant came from a few different people um and i want to point out that this is this this came from people who are a searching on their own as well as people who are who were asked or approached by people who were searching i would like to know how to be able to explain this as well so robert alaska i'm not going to let you off the hook i'm going to jump right in if you can please address this question for us yeah it's uh it is the first question you know north weinberg tells the story that when he was a young man he asked his older brother yaakov who later became the shiva of mayo he says how do we know we're right so he said us let us enter into the marketplace of ideas and let's debate it yeah now the beautiful you you have to read it or or they know they made it into a documentary or a reenactment the disputation between the ramban nahmanides and uh pablo christiani arguing about christianity and uh the king said i never heard anybody wrong defend his position so right because in a fair marketplace of ideas we're pretty sure we're going to win because that's the the number one commandment in judaism is tell mentor connected coulomb study learn the first thing we teach your child is ask questions we teach a little kid to ask questions ask questions the more questions you ask we're not afraid of questions we encourage questions if you don't then you're going to end up with a situation where until the reformation it was forbidden for christians to read the new testament and in fact henry viii who went through six wives almost killed his last wife because she was reading the bible yeah they don't want you looking too closely and asking too many questions and if you have a question that you can't answer it's called a crisis of faith yeah i had somebody on a discovery on a fellowships on asia torah and she was converting to judaism because she was on a um on a born-again christian you know movement and she kept asking questions until the minister said to her sister the lord wants you to cut off your head and come to him with your heart so that's when i decided to go and talk to a rabbi and no rabbi ever said that to me it was just the opposite they gave me too much i couldn't get him to stop talking if you could imagine and so they would say you know he'd say oh that's a good question but you could ask better say like this like this like this because um okay no no that's not going to be wrong according to the right but we have to say like this like this you know but we encourage questions we shoot for them we want people to ask and to study because we know that in the marketplace of ideas the judaism will stand up so you say to me well you know uh isn't it you know isn't it uh you know uh arrogant of us no because you know either jesus was the son of god and is depicted in saint pat in uh in in uh you know in rome uh he's going to cast all the disbelievers into the pit of hell or he's not but there's only two possibilities there it's not when i get up there there's going to be a jewish admin when you get there's my either he was right and i'm wrong and i'm going to be cast into the pit of hell or he's he's wrong and i'm right but there's no way to reconcile those two or as if noah weinberg used to put it yeah he'd say if i say i don't believe in heaven and you do so when i die i'm not going to happen when you get there they're going to close the place down either i'm right or you're wrong and that becomes such an important issue if i'm wrong if you can prove to me that what i'm doing is wrong then forget about it then when i'm on the delusion i'll give this up in a second yeah but if you can but but if you but if i can show you that this is correct so then i said arrogant that's first could you imagine you go to a doctor and you say well this doctor says this doctor says that and uh i say listen there's no absolute truth you know whichever doctor i decide you know he tells me i have uh you know i've joined this i'll take the yellow pill because it looks like it's yellow yeah no it doesn't work that way when it comes to science we say either you're right or you're wrong and the same thing is true by reality either this is even god created the world and gave the torah to the jews or he didn't but that makes all the difference in the world and so by and so by jews believing and knowing that judaism is is the truth it's not arrogant it's factual does until proven otherwise you know how christianity got started jesus said i'm the son of god you know how it got spread paul said jesus came to me and said he's the son of god and i'm gonna bring his word you know islam got started um allah appeared to muhammad and said to him this is the religion you know judaism got started abraham figured it out on his own and he started teaching it to the world before god ever spoke to him he was out doing his ministry for 18 years before god ever said a word to him but he figured it out intellectually it's an insult when the muslims call us the people of the book you know like oh we have to have everything proven to us and it has to make sense that's right we jews are stiff-necked people either this is true or it's not true and if it's not true don't do it and if it is true then follow it wherever it takes you excellent there are other religions meaning not even now there are people that that have been exploring you know whether it's buddhism or mormons or you know there are people that are exploring other religions because they're seeking truth when really the truth is under their nose in many in many cases i was thinking that that below didn't insult the baha'i you know oh when it comes to the eastern religions i take the same apart as abraham abraham said like this where did the world come from that's the first question the eastern religions refused to even address that the entire world sits on the back of a giant turtle where'd that come where does that go it's it's under an even bigger turtle yeah and what about that it's turtles all the way down okay don't don't ask me yeah we don't get into that but that's the first question where did we come from and if you don't address that question then everything else is irrelevant so are you saying that that that turtle's all the way down i just wanna is that what you're saying mutty burger tells that joke i don't know if it's true or not okay i want i want to just jump into this this is a super super emotional topic this topic is unbelievably emotional there's so much behind when somebody asks the question any anyone every one of these questions are are you know ridiculously emotional it's like i like to call them what the heck questions because they are h e q they're highly emotional questions these are these are these are what the heck questions well they're they're unbelievable so you're gonna say how do you know it's true it's it's basically what the person's asking you like ravelski said you have any um you go into an asia torah you know it's for those unfamiliar with you know in in anywhere in the world pretty much but you know when you're shallam jerusalem and you come in a trip you want to explore you know the world center they want to learn about your judaism whatever and you walk in and someone goes so tell me how do you know you're right what are they really asking what they're really saying is how do i know my parents didn't lie to me right or or if they did lie to me how can i show them they're wrong or what do i do because my uncle it's it's it's a total it's basically you're walking into an emotional family as we say balagan it's a mess so you want to know it's like anything every question that's asked if you're dealing with it if it's an emotional question so then there's really no answer to your question and there is no way to know anything ever if you're being emotional that's just the bottom line anytime someone's coming from an emotional angle there's no way for me to answer because you're not really asking you're just venting however if one is asking and they actually want to know they really want to know how do you know that's a different question than isn't it why do you think you have a monopoly right you see that that question is already posed down you're accusing really to say it's like they say there are no answers to answers there are only answers to questions if you actually have a question let's deal with it if not so then great i will point that i just want to i do want to i just want to stop i just want to send you because i think that many people have this question when someone approaches them you know and i've been reports and i you i'm sure in your travels people have stopped you and and asked the question not so much as the you know don't give me the long version but like give me the short version that i can pass on to somebody which sort of sums it up yeah so i now i'm gonna do what what every person watching doesn't want me to do but they don't realize that i'm gonna give you the answer which is the truth and not the textbook that you want to hear the reality is what you need to do when someone asks you a question is you need to speak to them about their background and about their history and to get to know them and have a conversation and build a relationship with them that they can actually feel safe to hear what you want to say it's a prerequisite to any information don't touch data don't touch facts don't touch any of that so when somebody like you said you know how many i mean they used to be before corona there was a thing called airplanes and i i used uh i used to travel relatively frequently not as much as my esteemed other friedman frello here on the train on the panel but but i would travel around frequently and i every time i flew i got into conversations with people and how do you answer them whenever and 90 of the conversation had nothing to do with the theological background of what the question was being asked if you want to know how do you deal with the actual information the first step is to know they just need to know that they could trust you and that they feel comfortable and that there's not some sort of you're not trying to proselytize you're not trying to get them you're not trying to win you're just trying to show what you understand i'm going to interrupt myself with this story i was on a plane you are yes i'm a gemini i'm my own best friend so i was on a plane and and i got into a conversation with uh with with this it's a long story as all are or it's short and i make it longer but i'm very talented like that so i'm going to try to make a short story actually short so basically this this uh we'll call them a couple who sit next to me they said they don't believe in god and whatever and what i did is as follows i said oh interesting whatever fine blah blah and as they're going they said ask me questions they said like are you jewish i said why would you like why would you think that i don't understand where that's coming from that question as per why what is that but anyway i said yeah okay i'm jewish right they started asking me questions or whatever and then i said you know i want to ask you guys a question because i grew up in this judaism thing and and and i'm a little i'm telling you i'm a little nervous because you know you didn't grow up in it i did grow up in it maybe maybe i got the wool pull over my eyes can i share with you what i was taught and tell me if it makes any sense so what happens now is i just flip the whole model it's not that i'm on top and there on the bottom i'm on the bottom they are going to help save my soul which doesn't exist because there are no souls according to them right so what happens is i go and i say that i'm basically explaining to them i said listen like what i was told is like robloxia mentioned before about about about a guy named abraham and he basically was walking and he judged he figured like everything comes from somewhere where it all come from it couldn't come from nothing okay i'm another fellow i'm actually answer the question the point is is that i is he's a substance guy but what voice is that that i abused but basically what i say is is that i uh i i'm sorry i'm sorry i felt i slipped again i know i told you in the last session we had i wasn't going to share with people um anyway so first you give away all of our medical histories and now and now and now you're like a walking lawsuit what did i tell you saying okay i love it so anyway bottom line is when i shared with them the information once i finally got the information there was not only did they not argue on anything they were like where do we sign up they went from being atheist to saying like ah i'm like oh so it does make sense they go yeah you know it does i'm like oh so there is a god they go yeah i guess i guess so yeah i was like oh interesting wow thank you so they helped me get to the stage where i can now be comfortable with who i am as a person all right so that i'm giving this is the background right to answer them you're addressing more you're addressing more of the question itself and where it came from and how to address it or relax you more address the the actual concept of the judaism how it stands with the other the other religions and truths for sure because we have two questions [Music] travels with uh a much more intellectual circle than i do i i'm i don't deal with such uh most people i remember there was a change in asia torah where they used to bring somebody and they say if i could prove to you that god exists you know and he gave the torah would you keep it and people would say yeah you know and then at some point they'd say nope yeah truth truth doesn't really matter to most people so you say to people you know how do i know this when people ask you know how do i know this is the truth i don't have judaism i don't know there's a god you know so i i find that most people really aren't interested in hearing my whole little presentation on it i i you know people that's that's exactly the point the point is that if they ask the question and you start giving them real information they don't care about the information all they care about is asking something to then you connect with them in some way and then if you want going into god if not tell them about the whatever issues you have and what you know that's why i say this in the gemara there's what's called the turrets and then there's what's called you know you push off the question because the question is not the real issue that's i've never found anybody who lies at lake at night and talking and turning did god give the torah on mount sinai 3 300 years ago didn't he is this real this is not nobody cares people want to know one thing how can i have a better half of your life and can you show me how it has meaning but that's when people ask me you know about the truth i said of course it's truth if it's not true then who cares what you think it's it's it's a make-believe it's it's fairy tales okay i'm gonna i'm gonna ask if uh i uh i'm gonna tell you do you have what to add to this or should we go then it's important it's a big question and there's two there's two questions here this one is the pluralism issue with nothing to do with religion it's it's why do you think you're better we didn't even touch that like that's that that's its own question really but but people are very turned off by the fact that we think we're chosen or we think we're different or better and then there's this specific issue that this question is based on which is our belief system but they're independent so i'll say just a short thing on each um the first thing is is is is the question comes from a very legitimate place and this but it's a mistake the question comes from from the thought that like that god is this abstract thing and he has the world he just and religion is the belief that god created this arbitrary system like an obstacle course and and you jump over this and climb under that and run this and then you'll get reward in the world to come if religion is an arbitrary system just imposed by a god then why is your arbitration system better than mine and there's no way to test arbitrary systems and that's a very fair point you're right you know so then you have to argue well our arbitration system had a prophet an irish came from god himself and ours had a group but that's an artificial proof what's unique is that judaism we're arguing it's not an arbitrary system this is a way to enhance your life what what does christianity and buddhism and hinduism and islam have in common you know they all have in common they're all different systems to sort of to escape the material physical world buddhism maybe says it in the most refined glorious ways you you want to meditate where you don't think and you don't feel and you don't eat and you don't love and then you will just transcend this world and reach nirvana we're here to escape escape the world christianity i call incremental buddhism what they're trying to do is they're trying to you know fat um silence is better than speaking and celibacy is better than intimacy and faith is better than thinking but they're all the same what silence is to your mouth is what fasting is to your stomach is what celibacy is to your body is what faith is to your brain they're all escaping life everyone's trying to judaism says no for us intimacy is what's holy not celibacy knowledge use your brain don't don't don't don't have faith eat don't fast sing and talk when our argument is is that religion isn't about escaping the world it's about enhancing and therefore it can be tested and everything that everyone else said about how judaism works it devolves as a result of it it's a good argument because our argument is that religion should be testable it's not an arbitrary system that that's it and we can test judaism doesn't does it create a happy life but the more important the more important more general point not more important more general is the is the pluralism issue is and i just want to say this and i think it's a very timely message and uh i just spoke about this by lag but the world today talks about pluralism in the context of a rainbow why can't we all just be different colors and everyone get along and your color in my color judaism sees a rainbow interesting as a negative sign in the story of the flood there was a rainbow that god won't destroy the world again until this day we're not supposed to point out rainbows and rainbows aren't good things how can we have such polar opposite approaches to the same phenomena is a rainbow wonderful or is it terrible and the answer is is that we believe the secular conception of pluralism is such a terrible compromise a rainbow is all the colors each one in its own little spot no overlap right red orange yellow everything lined up that's not beautiful that's coexistence that's you you stay in your place you respect my boundaries i expect your boundaries that's if you don't believe that life could be wonderful you just say let's not hurt each other judaism is built on the idea that there's a much bigger aspiration we see the entire world as a symphony everyone has an instrument where everyone's a color and they're waiting for the painter to come and put them together they're waiting for the conductor to walk in and make the music when i see a rainbow that's the noise the cacophony that exists before the conductor walks in a tuba and a trumpet and a violin can you make music out of it can you take your palette of colors and make a masterpiece where's the rembrandt where's the michelangelo let's make it happen that's our conception of holiness we believe that our role in the world is we're the conductor that's not better or worse we validate every other instrument the conductor doesn't even play an instrument what the doctor is saying is that your violin is great your trumpet is great your tuba is great your drums can we get you all to play together could we get to the point that we could say vine hashem right yeah hashem everyone that day will be when when everyone will say that hashem is one the unity of the world not a rainbow is not unity everyone in their own little boundary is sad that judaism inspires something much higher let's make it all music all right excellent thank you okay two more two more questions there's no rebuttal on that one god that was not great but you have you haven't played guitar you know you don't really i i it's the longest i've heard you go without a song of a rainbow on me i was going to play like a rainbow [Music] okay okay this is this this is for the intellectual maybe there's someone left in the world who asked this question you know for the people who used to come to discovery in the the fellowships classes once upon a time question how can we have free will if we have an all-knowing and all-powerful god i can give you my answer yeah all i want is your answer i'll let god give his answer um this guy goes to the movies it's a mystery movie and uh he turns to the guy next to him and he says i think the butler is the murderer he says nah can't be so at 50 bucks and he says okay so turns out at the end of the movie it was the butler so the guy pulls out fifty dollars and the guy says i gotta be fair i saw the movie yesterday the guy says so did i but i think i didn't think he would kill him twice [Laughter] so i'm watching a rerun of uh of a game show yeah let's make a deal door number one door number two door number three now i saw this show already and i know he's going to pick door number two i know that because i saw it already the guy who's standing there he doesn't know what he's going to choose do i have the advantage that i'm in the future so god is outside of time we're inside of time so when we're in time we make a choice because we don't say past present and future at the same time but god as something's taking place is watching the rerun that means right now i have a free choice what to do the fact that god knows what i'm going to do in the future doesn't affect the fact that i right now can make that choice well the meaning wouldn't we be better off if god just let us know that the butler killed the because the butler was the murderer at the end well there'd be no point in other words you have to you have the right to make a choice right the fact that i can go into the future and see what choice you made that doesn't take away from the fact that right now you have a free choice i'm going to go into the future and then watch the reruns you know what i mean and then i'll know what you chose but but that doesn't change the fact that right now you have a choice right right on your thoughts on us having the free will of god let me say i have this conversation with people who like to like to think they're the intellectual at least once a week this is like a very but it's a little different i mean they asked this question but but the question that bothers them on free will is is um is everything's predictable like like i'm a product of all of my experiences and whatever my parents did and all my trauma and everything i've been through so i don't really have any free choice you know so it's it goes into two angles this this the book ends of this question is how could there be free will if there's a god how can there be free will and and and because of this world they can't we know there's no free will so i i like to just bottom line is is is people just want to feel like they're smart most of the time you know like that's the way someone feels like he's and it's good people who want to be smart are we today so you you got to grab people like that and talk to them so what what i tell a guy is i say i have a very simple thing so let's save the whole conversation i just want to show you something it's good to be intellectual but don't lose sight of being real too i said i've i'll talk to you all day long about the lack of free choice and everything's predictable and and i'll argue with you as long as you really believe that i don't want to have a full theoretical argument i'll prove to you that though that you don't really you do believe you have free choice and why you hear this proof this is a very useful tool here is a proof that people already believe in free choice so we don't have to prove it you know it already this is your truth what's the proof and ruby lavsky can jump and i want to get strangled i was going to say also are we are we a lot of rebuttal because this is i'm very excited i'm giving the drum roll he didn't even say it yet and he's getting rebuttal this is the drum roll i want i want to make the drum roll because i want you to find it because if i think it's a cool it's a simple proof and if you have an answer i i don't it's better i hear it from you than i hear from the student in front of a whole school make a fool out of myself you know okay go for it here's the the proof is is that you already believe in free choice and i the guy says so listen if you ever felt proud or or ashamed in your life and everyone has like you ever feel good if you feel proud of yourself you ever feel ashamed that means that you believe you have free choice if you don't believe that if you really believe that you're a product of every single thing that happens in your life and it's written just in your trauma and your chinook and your exposure and all your events then you would never sit back after you did something and feel proud you're not proud of something you had no choice and you'd never be ashamed because you would you can't be ashamed of something that you didn't fail at you believe that you're choosing i'm not proving this free choice but i'm proving that you already believe in it so we're on the same page let's talk about something we fight about bottom line is is is shame and pride can only exist when you believe that you're choosing shame is the feeling that i feel when i believe i've let my i've chosen poorly let myself down and pride is the feeling i feel when i believe being faced with a dilemma i chose properly okay that's one and you can jump in and strangle me if you have what to say but it's a good thought the second thing i want to say is i just want to put what the choice is in context people it's hard to talk about is their free choice if you don't know what the choice is and the many people make a mistake and they think the choice is that there's two alternative ways to understand the universe two alternatives explanations for everything we don't believe that we believe in like in the previous question we can demonstrate the truth of our position what is free choice free choice is not there's a different truth i'll follow that truth this week we can fight that out and get it done intellectual there's an emotional struggle though once you know what's true choice is am i going to live by what i know to be true or am i just going to give up and curl up into a little ball the choice is not this or this it's to be or not to be am i going to just give up choice is to follow my dreams or to follow my fears and my insecurities and that i i'll just give one metaphor then i'll hang up and listen to your answers um like i'll give you example i tell i say this also every week i talk to college because i tell them you know you think that the rabbi is saying don't go to the club so much because we want to ruin your fun we're trying to reign on your pride religion is saying it's too too exciting and too much fun and religion is a different program and we should choose your program of the world to come versus our program of this world and my say is the biggest mistake we believe that this our program is for this world when i tell you don't go to a club you know what i'm telling you don't go to a club i'm telling you because nobody ever went to a club to be happy you know why you go there because every year they get darker and louder the club is the place that you can go and you can hide from from all your frustrated dreams the choice that you make in life is is not two versions of happiness it's to be happy or to be numb to dream and risk pain of frustrated dreams or to to drown out the dreams and distract yourself these are the choices and that's what we struggle between and everyone knows that those struggles exist you don't have to fight for that struggle is that is their free choice everyone's torn by dreaming or folding it up and la and making fun of everything everyone's wanted all right amazing probably have anything to add on on the count of the kinds of free will ah that was amazing that was truly i really enjoyed that that was great and that's all i had to say about that i mean is that does that mean no that means no i think i was really do you like that do you like that example of if you've ever felt ashamed of vividly it means that you're already today you believe in free will you see remember philadelphia talks to intellectuals so he lost me i i uh i it's been a push of the year that i tell a story uh when i was 17 years old i started queen's college uh and lucky for me i was still in yeshiva and uh i took psychology 101 and uh and he started explaining about behaviorism and how you can behavioristically develop a person so that they're going to go in a particular way for the rest of their life and you can control them and i thought that was brilliant and i became a strict behaviorist at the age of 17. lucky for me i was still in yeshiva so i was learning with an older boy and i started throwing around some of my behavioristic terms and he had also gone to college so he says to me uh so how do you explain this a person has brought up their whole life secular meets a religious person he has a conversation and then changes his entire life around doesn't that go against what you learned in behaviorism and i thought would have gevalde kakasha i'll go ask my professor because he's a professor in college with a big building and stuff you know and you know i'm only a yeshiva you know never going to go you know so i go and i say to the professor uh i hear what you say about behaviorism but you see that people have been behavioristically raised a particular way and then suddenly they see something or they hear something and it changes their whole life and he said yeah no one accepts behaviorism anymore now i wish he would have said that to me in class but he didn't yeah and i would have just soaked it all up but the fact of the matter is if you talk about determinism you can just see that every single day people are making choices that go against their upbringing and their in their uh their their uh their behavioristic uh development so um so you talk about free choice you see people every single day so so you can say oh that's only because you were come on you can you can play that game forever yeah don't confuse free choice and god knowing what's going on with greek fatalism greek fatalism means i take a book right now and i write down everything that you're gonna do and now you have to play out that book but that's not what we're saying we're saying make choices and those choices are going to surprise you and surprise the people around you wait okay i want to move on to our final question um which is it's really number one that was that was submitted it was but it's ironic that we're going a little bit backwards over here um but the question is as follows um is an a and a b why is judaism so restrictive and b of that is does god really care about what i eat or how i dress etc meaning give me the spiritual stuff let me deal with the physical stuff don't get involved in my life like why does god really care and why is judaism so restrictive god we haven't started with you at all brilliant panelists you go at the end and since and since you don't look like you're living in a restrictive life over there we'll start with you you know listen it is true that sometimes life can feel like you're climbing a mountain and it can be challenging but i will point out the following question i know you guys are jealous i have a jet that's a whole thing i don't want to get into it um so why is judaism so restrictive this is a i love this question i really really love this question so i'm going to push onto my panelists and uh come back to it after they answer something but all right i'll start i'll start and i'll say the following um there is there is a there's an amazing again we're living in a crazy world right now but there's something called an amusement park and if you've ever been to an amusement park you'll you'll notice that there's a lot of rules there there's a lot of restrictions one would think like you come i remember when my family it's actually a disaster for any religious family meaning if you have more than you know i don't have eight daughters but you know if you go to if you go to any type of amusement park with with a bunch of kids in different age ranges right i'm not talking about your first three four years of marriage because then all four kids are under three i'm talking about that if that if you're you know a few years in already it's a disaster because you have the older kids want to go over here the younger kids want to go there and and even if they all decide on one the older ones are allowed to the young ones aren't allowed to and it's like there's so many rules you've got to think uh you know you go to a roller coaster you have to be this tall you know at least this tall but you can't be taller than this and and when you get on you'll say please keep your arms and legs in throughout the duration of the ride and you have to wear this thing they go like you know you know and just when you think it's chat they come around they have a cha-cha guy the chichai guy comes and goes are you comfortable you're like he goes oh yeah you're like you don't have a stomach anymore it's like and they go keep your arms and legs in and like if you have any um you know jewelry make sure you take it off and if you have any if you have long hair put it up whatever it was right whatever you do the thing if you have long paste you tuck them in right you got to make sure that if you have a long beard you gotta clamp it to you know like all these rules now i know like the religious community doesn't know what i'm talking about but let me say it differently if you have a shadow make sure you put on a snoot if you're wearing your grandmother's necklace make sure you make it a choker right so this is like the different anyway the point is you take a look at me say i thought this was an amusement park what's with all the restrictions this isn't an amusement park the answer is my friends it's an israeli inside joke it's just the opposite it's just the opposite the torah is giving us we know the word torah itself the word torah by the way if you need to hear it like that the torah itself it means instructions it's a manual it's a manual of how to get the most out of life the restrictions are not there for us to suffer the restrictions are there in order to enjoy the ride you imagine the guy goes on he says you know what i want to wear my necklace like flowing keep my hair out leave my arms like this and i don't want the cha-cha-cha-cha-cha what's gonna come back at the end of that ride maybe a torso that got stuck and there's nothing else that's gonna come back it's just like and then you know they're gonna sue it because you said you're you know whatever it's the end of the day life is an amusement park it's an incredible opportunity to enjoy ourselves and to be born god himself you understood he understood hey i'm going to give you the greatest opportunity of how to have life which leads into the next question does god really care about what i eat or how i dress etc the answer is it's such a funny question because it's such a it's such a forgive me or don't it's such a childish question because that's what a child says the child goes what do you care if i dress like this what do you care if i do like this what do you care the answer is because i care i i say that and because i care because i love you and they said that that's what the torah is the torah is a love affair between us and the revolution and god that's what judaism is and the torah is a love letter and it's all about a relationship hashem loves us so deeply orbit got your bookcase he loves us so deeply that what ends up happening since he loves us so deeply therefore he says no one was able to carry it all in i was able to get the mountains during your answer anyway so so because he loves us so deeply therefore i forgot what we were talking about because he loves us so deeply therefore he says listen dress like this and and eat this and not that i know you don't get it i understand in time you'll be able to understand a little bit more you may never get it to the depth because yeah i am your manufacturer but but just understand that this world it all depends it's all marketing it's all marketing right it's a credit card it's a debt card it's life insurance it's death insurance but it's all marketing so they call it an amusement park when it's really a restriction park at the end of the day though that's the one that they got right it's an amusement park because those quote unquote restrictions are not restrictions to suffer they are guidelines in order to help us get the most out of life beautiful beautiful uh rabbi and i thought he did it brilliantly because the b of the restrictive no he says who do i care why does god care what i eat or what i do right felt like i've explained already that because judaism isn't about escaping from the world it's about embracing the world so then of course judaism cares about what i eat and what i do and how i behave because that's the sum total of what we are we are engaging with the world so i just wanted to point that out that i already thought very fellow answered the second part but not to take away from her god but uh but i just do and surprisingly enough even though he answered it when i asked him to uh to answer it he'll have another answer you'll be able to move your bookcase all the way back yeah listen you know i i i you know i think i think he thought i was being sarcastic when i said that he's too intellectual it's not true that's why i wanted to show that i was listening to exactly what he said and that answered the b of your question so when i say that he's an intellectual i'm not saying that to take away from rav but he was he was answering it though on he was answering on the on the on the basis of what people just want to be like escaped from everything whereas jews are you know we're following these things to be in order to be tested is that right it means that you gave him the questions beforehand and he was already answering the next one that's right no he just he just wanted to make sure that he had more air time so he went into the next question yeah i'm still waiting for the butt like go ahead nobody nobody knows why is why is judy say nice things okay everyone's being so nice to me you know it's probably because i like they feel bad that i'm like so background challenged you know like uh who has an emmy sticker background it was over the reality of life which met which medical reference were you just feel bad that you're just feeling that you're in lakewood okay that's what it is why is judaism so restrictive oh okay so so i mean let me give one more one more vehicle if gov gave the amusement park and you have to be strapped into your seats it's very important it's beautiful i want to give one other metaphor that delivers a different take on it and maybe if if you don't shut me down i'll say a little short thing afterwards i'll stop whatever you you make you keep your hand on the buzzer um the thing i want to change the metaphor to a a buffet when you go to a buffet you know a smorgasbord before a wedding so there's an array of dishes and you have the carving the pastrami carving station and you have rice and so there's a simple rule by smorgasbords you know what the rule is the rule base it's unbelievable people think men and women are the same this go back to the men women question i say this rule and the men all know this rule and very few of the women know this rule like they're shocked by my rule but the men go yeah duh what's the rule the rule is feldheym's rule of smorgasbord don't eat the rice that's my rule don't eat the rice you know what the meaning of the rule is if there's spear ribs in pastrami so then why are you eating rice it's the stomachs are limited real estate it's a poor expenditure of your stomach real estate to put rice where you can put more pastrami or another spirit and definitely not the quinoa that's like totally off the charts don't eat the quinoa this is so beautiful you ready to be jewish okay sorry anyways how do you know the tour is true we once we had an event where we had you know jews from all backgrounds were there you know secular and very religious etc we had a complaint and we said that a survey afterwards you know how was the hotel accommodation how was the food you know etc so somebody wrote back that it was the food was terrible everywhere you went there was food and and just as you finished eating there was another buffet and there's another it was way too much food so the caterer who gets these responses writes back to me says don't worry he's got some time till he becomes religious [Laughter] very very good but my rule don't eat the rice it's like it's like when you buy property in manhattan you know you don't build a ranch house you're wasting the sky rights you can make millions billions of dollars building a hundred story building so we're not so if we see someone buy the smorgasbord by the buffet sitting there by the rice with their plate like shoveling rice into their plate looking around like this so what's the explanation we have a sim you know the explanation i have a few possible explanations most likely explanation number one we're losing rabbis okay everyone's back you went to eat the rice okay you're back the first explanation is that it's from out of town but i think it's right it's in baltimore i like to like to insult baltimore he's from baltimore you know he's been he's been to a few new york weddings he knows already that he's going to go for the pastrami they're going to step on his shoes they're going to elbow him he's going to get his tie stained and still he's never going to get to the when he gets there it'll be all fat left over so he goes to the rice he knows his place he eats the rice he hopes he'll keep an eye on the pastrami if it clears out he'll go over again another explanation is his cardiologist is online ahead of him or his wife is sitting there saying don't you dare but you know what no one's gonna say no one's gonna say you know why he's by the rice he's a hedonist a guy he's a glutton he's a party animal the guy's a sickle no one's gonna say that why because it's exactly the opposite the party animal the glutton is by the pastrami this guy is a cop out he's a coward he's he's weak he's chicken he's slow whatever it is so it's all a metaphor what am i saying what's my rule my rule is don't eat the rice is that a thou shall not law or thou shall law am i restricting you or am i what i'm really saying is this don't cop out don't take the low hanging fruit go for a broke all of the laws in the torah all that thou shalt not rules or say god's saying what are you wasting your time with the rice this pastrami go live larger you know my metaphor isn't even that good because the guy who's going to the pastrami who we're calling the hero really he's a cop out too he should be not even pastrami going to the gym and the guy going to the gym he's a cop out too what does he need a six-pack for go to the library get an intellectual six-pack and the guy who's getting intellectual in the library i'll say to him when you go to yeshiva and while you're learning physics and biology and chemistry learn the overview of it all be the conductor those are all nice they're all instruments learn that but don't stop until the pastrami of the world is right before shoeless is torah this is this is this is all of our laws in the torah they're not restrictions what they are is they're saying don't don't eat the tv dinner go live large you pay a little more money and you get smaller portions when you go to the fancy restaurant but but this violin and this presentation is a different experience hashem created this is god's buffet for us and all he wants from us is don't eat the rice you know go go live large that's what he's saying all right amazing amazing beautiful roberolovsky sum it up for us give us your your thoughts at the end of this uh the session here uh save the sages so restricted yeah say the sages do not read that it was carved into the tablets read instead that there's freedom on the tablets what does that mean that means that a person who is not able to exert self-control is not a person yeah you're an animal so you see something and you want to eat it and you see somebody and you want to be with them and you see something you want you take it and you just you if you ever saw the miracle worker how they showed helen keller before uh you know her teacher was able to she was like an animal was running around taking things from her place she had no control afterwards she became a professor he was blind deaf and unable to communicate and she was able to go from being this animal into a to be a professor it was it was the lures were designed for her to figure out how to maximize her effect in this world and so a person who has no restrictions okay a little a little uh little little torah little judaism yeah a king is someone who has complete control right that's the idea of a king right ideally right mela solomon it says when he lost his kingdom he was still king over his walking stick he was able to have control yeah mellack is an abbreviation of three words moa leif and kaved brain heart and liver liver is seen as the source of all physical desire it's filled with blood yeah your heart is seen as the place of choice it's always pumping it's always moving your brain is pure intellectualism and your brain from norway used to say your brain is a tool you know he'd say i'd bring in some guys into an introductory class and i'd say how many of you can give me 10 reasons why you should leave and never come back and they all say sure he said how many of you can give me 10 reasons why you should stay here and study for the next two weeks and i'll give a hundred dollars for the best 10 answers could you give me 10 answers and they all said sure sure because your mind is a brain your brain is is a it's a tool it'll do what you want so your heart has to decide and your liver says let's do this let's eat that let's take this so your heart says you know what let's check with the brain brain the brain says based on your values this is not going to take you where you want to go so the brain tells the heart to tell the liver that's a mellic mem lamin cloth yeah but what if your liver and your desires tell your heart what to do and your heart is so messed up that it tells it to your brain and your brain justifies it that spells kaleem you'll find it in the torah also where where they say to moshe when eldad made that we're prophesizing which rashi says one of two things imprison them or or destroy them it's the same thing because a person who's just controlled by their desires they're not able to make any choices they're not able to decide what they want out of life all they're going to do is whatever their desires tell them to do and that's you see people who have addictions and they destroy their lives and destroy their families because they can't control their desires so when the torah comes along and says don't be an animal don't eat anything don't take whatever you want don't don't kill anybody even if they get you really upset don't sleep with somebody's wife don't you know control yourself that frees you to now be able to make decisions based on what you want and not what you feel like i'm i'm uh i'm borrowing from noah again you know he'd always say to people he says why don't you come and stay he says i can't he says of course you could if i gave you ten thousand dollars could you stay for two weeks he says yeah so don't say you can't say i don't want to the guy says okay i don't want to he says you don't want to you just told me you want to learn about truth and find that reality don't say i don't want to say i don't feel like it he says okay i don't feel like it he says okay lesson one never do what you what you feel like do what you want and that's and that's what's so incredibly important because people end up doing what they feel like not what they want i never feel like getting up in the morning never but if i sleep the whole day away i don't feel good about myself you know when my kid comes in for the third time in the middle of night and says you know i threw up in my bed i don't want to get up and change it you know but i i want to take care of my kid so don't do what you feel like do what you want the the restrictions are what free you to become who you want to be instead of what you feel like doing beautiful so i i went to get a bookshelf in the middle but i have regard it's heartbreaking how badly you want to be me i know and you're not the only one i understand there's a lot of people like that so now but i didn't i didn't want to interrupt you i want to be you i want to be so badly that i sometimes i feel bad that i can't be somebody else so i could listen to me so i understand exactly how you feel right here he puts you in the background and then he sits in front of you this is great rabbis i just wanted i want to thank you i know that uh it's sort of like at the end of colorado everyone's like drinking and laughing you know it's like when you prepare a colorwass skit at three o'clock in the morning you wake up the next morning and nothing's funny anymore you know but uh i want to thank you in a serious note because we're putting this out to people for people to to watch and to learn from right before the holiday of so that people can understand better what the torah does in terms of guiding our lives and how to be better jews and how to serve hashem better and how to have a relationship better with hashem and so bad for everyone in private but i want to thank you for doing this i know it was a lot of time spent a lot of thoughts that went in there thank you very very much i appreciate it