Q&A - Holy Wars, World's Obsession with Antisemitism, Jews & Politics, Divine Providence & Free Will

on um a suff de which is the second day and the second part is how is how is this different from um the situation once runs into a shabas where for example in Hawaii where is the shil of the DAT line um you keep you don't do MAA on the on the suff Friday but you wouldn't say the bras of shabas on that Friday how they right so the question is uh when kazal enacted that because of because of the calendrical doubt uh in you have to keep two days of yam so we actually make all the bras we make KES we and the normal rule is that if you have a doubt uh you do you might do a Mitzvah but you don't say the bra just like a DAT line issue when you're mup which day is chabas so uh You observe any extra day beyond the without a without KES so why don't we say the same thing for the second day of yam uh so so again the short answer is that if you would simply be keeping two days because you have a doubt we would apply the rule of uh suff L when you're in doubt whether you have to make a you don't make a but here the made an enactment they positively enacted that you must keep two days so it turns out the second day is a meaning I don't keep the second day of yam because of calendrical doubt I keep the second day of yam because the said I must keep the second day of yam even though their reason was because of a doubt in the calendar once it becomes a rinic obligation it is no longer a suff it's a V and of course you may ask me the question but if I'm only keeping it Rabin then how can I say that God commanded me well this is the rambam answers that uh we make that formula for every dra we make it for reading Milla we we make it for near khah because since the T says you're to listen to the of the so every time I keep it I am fulfilling a of the love the negative commandment of so the point is that is not a doubtful is albeit it's K is is is that two questions or yeah um yes uh yeah the married yeah so the question is raav right raav was a Zona now it's very very interesting RAV was the one who protected the two spies who went to check outo and eventually RAV converted and she married yahushua according to kazal so first of all let me point out that it's very very interesting she is described as ra the Zona so what does it mean Raab the Zona the normal translation of Zona is quite literally a prostitute uh but tarum y son who is the Aramaic tarum for the Nim uh translates Zona as a pakus that means an inkeeper who supplies food Zona uh now maybe kazal did it that way that she shouldn't be called a prostitute or whatever or they understood that she was not a real prostitute but if you're asking what was her Merit I mean uh it's hard for us to understand but number one her Merit was that she had such amuna in hashem's Promises to the Jewish people that she was willing to put herself in very very very great danger to give a shelter to those two morum they if the Canaanites would have found out that she did that they would absolutely kill her uh and therefore in that m nees in her willingness to give up her life because she believed in hashem's promises she was Z to a very high level very very high level now um we have to assume that uh this was the tip of the iceberg that she had many many other zos as well that are not necessarily recorded but this is the one that is recorded her m nees her willingness to die because of her faith in in Hashem yeah theimportance yeah yeah shirim the song of songs um I just actually I quite literally just finished giving uh some sh just on the way here just in sh so it's very very fresh in my mind so you have rues or or or something uh basically Shir you know almost didn't make the tanak there were rabbis who wanted to exclude the song of songs because A Song of Songs is is romantic it is erratic although in a gentle way I wouldn't call it hardcore but it may approach softcore and there were those who felt that it was not appropriate uh for the holy tanak and yet the one who saved it the one who saved shirim was RAB AKA who said that if all of the songs or the poems in the tanak arees because it's all a the metaphor of human love of passion of sexual energy is really describing hashem's relationship to B Israel so the woman that is looking for her lover is CLA is that in Goos wants to be reunited with Hashem and the lover the Rya the shepherd who is also described as king he actually he's given two contradictory titles he's called Mel he's called Ro that refers to aades and therefore all of the yearning and all of the passion and all of the the Ecstasy and the sadness at separation is really describing CLA Israel in our ups and our Downs so for example there's there's a scene in shim that's very dramatic in which the woman has gone to sleep and after she gone she's gone to sleep her lover is knocking at the door and begs her to open up the door and she's playing hard to get and she says I'm already asleep you know what do you expect me to do so he leaves and then she gets up and looks for him and she's beaten and abused and people make fun of her this is the idea Hashem wants to redeem us Hashem is knocking at the door but we don't have time we're too busy with all the other things that we do but then at some point we get into a war and we say oh I wants M I want mashia Hashem sometimes says well now is not the time when we're ready he's not when he's ready we're not right that so shirim is very powerful because it's describing the love that Hashem has for us the love we have for hasem the yearning for GAA so we read it at very important points we read it at the Seder you know after the Seder of PES because wasem showing his love for us uh we read it on PES on PES itself in right sh is right on PES uh so many people do have the Min in fact it's in the sitter that way that Shir is recited before chabas every chabas because once again chabas is a day of Love chabas is a day of Union with Hashem uh and therefore we celebrate that Union by reading of the passion and ecstasy and sometimes sadness in that yearning in that relationship so sh is All About the Passion of love but it's a mush for the relationship of Hashem and B is that's why it's Kesh kadash that's why you have to understand something the gamar says in Sanhedrin that anybody who takes a verse of Shir Shir and puts it to music makes it makes music out of shim doesn't have a share Ina now people ask the obvious question we have a number of nunim that are from shirim and you know they're from I mean religious people sing them I the gamarra says you're not allowed to make she shim into a song so you have to understand what the gamar means the gamarra does not mean there's something intrinsically bad with putting shiram to music I mean after all shiram has a TR I mean there's a ninaa anyway but rather you have to understand there were people Jews and non-jews who understood Shir Shir literally as romance and they would sing it as love songs like popular music that's what kazal are saying if you make music about then you don't have a but if the is you make a nigan as a way of and Hashem and you're thinking about the connection to a then it's perfectly good to make a niggan out of it are not condemning the niggan they're condemning the context in which you use the niggan for or romantic romantic love and the like yeah yeah how do we as Jews Like side like it says the Torah says that you have to trust in your rabbis and you have to trust like there's so much Torah out there that's always expanding how do we as should like like decide our postem and who like theor is and who we trust and who's right who's wrong yeah well uh yeah how do you decide who do you trust uh in a way uh GM are a little easier to identify because gdm tend to be acclaimed by a very broad consensus so there'll be a lot of people who will say rim kesy or whatever it would be so you don't have the burden so much of making individual decisions but where you do have a problem is who should my rebi be who should my posek be you know who should be the person that that gives me guidance who can I trust 100% correct I'm not suggesting that anybody will deliberately try to misle lead you although in the world there are such that as well but Stam who should be the person that you know I I depend on very very difficult in many ways uh finding a rebi finding a teacher finding a posek is similar to other decisions in life such as who do you marry right it's a similar thing uh you want somebody that knows you somebody that gives you time somebody who is attuned to the uniqueness of your personality who will not simply give a one-size fitall universal answer to every type of question and that sometimes is a trial I don't I don't have an easy answer to you that sometimes is a trial and error type of effort so you go to classes you go you know you're if you're in Yeshiva you have kind of a readymade vure of people because you go to a lot of different people and then you know you'll figure out like who do you think is the best person uh will your decision be correct not necessarily sometimes you'll have to re-evaluate and sometimes you'll have to change your Allegiance but I think over time time you know you try to kind of feel that this is the person it may not only be one but these are the people that I feel I could go to now it's in yeah sorry who's the of Our Generation right now um I I cannot say that we have the posc of Our Generation it's unfortunate uh we have some great we have some very great POS rash is uh very very and he would certainly be up there and there are other people as well but I don't think think we have anyone you know the definitive po there are times in CLA Israel where we don't have a definitive we don't have Aaj or re Yos evenes right there was not the PO he did not you know give himself that role but whatever but uh he may be the gador but he wasn't the PO uh so there isn't but but again that doesn't mean there aren't people you can go to right just you know so you don't have to go to the gador in fact the gador may not be the best person person for you people say I have to hear from the gut the G doesn't have time for you uh usually uh you actually need people you know on a lower level who can spend time with you and then they could go to the gador if they need clarification now I remember reading in the 1970s this is really very very cute um I don't know why rev mosha Feinstein agreed to this but somehow the New York Times interviewed him on his 80th birthday or something I really don't know why he would agree and I'm not I'm not even sure if the story is true because it just sounds like a little strange to me uh but uh he did an interview so the story goes and like the reporter asked him you know uh you know you're like the rabbi everybody goes to like how did that happen like why do people go to you so R Moshe in his very very sweet and endearing way uh said uh you know somebody ask me a question I give him an answer uh he feels it's a good answer so he tells other people hey you know there's this Rabbi that gives good answers to questions so he says after a while there's a lot of people that a lot of people that come you know it's not and he said it's not that I'm better than anybody else but you know whatever there's a word of mouth actually I heard from my own rashash rakov Weinberg zat who was the brother of Noah Weinberg who's more famous in Israel as Torah that he grew up in the Lower East s this this goes back to the 1930s and he says the reason why uh everybody was asking tras shus is a chicken koser to R mosha is that every other R was charging a nickel per chicken and R mosha was doing it for free uh so that's that's another way you build up you build up a clientele but didn't want to charge for pining pining shus now again though I I I prefer to look at this not that he was trying to get business that wasn't it I think that he felt that he had a responsibility to pasin for people so he didn't want to you know get money for it it was a really a sense of responsibility and therefore people went to him because they saw that he cared enough about them that he wasn't trying to I mean not that they were making big money on the chickens but you know he he went an extra step in in providing that service without compensation yeah here's a sended if someone is killed just because they are Jewish do they have the den of yeah so this is a very very difficult question if somebody is killed because they are Jewish know you are killed because you're a Jew you didn't get into a car accident or something uh are you in the category Well normally the way they ask it is slightly different language but it's the same thing did you die Al Kem right there's a special category for people who died because they are sanctifying God's name uh they are called sometimes if they were killed by the government oppression har malos and it says they are in the highest level of there's no sadic that could compare to the level that they're in now in the paradigmatic case of kesem the person had a choice that's where antios you know says to KH and Her Seven Sons bow down to this Idol or I will kill you and the child says I will die before I bow down to the idol now that is a paradigm of Kes hasem I sanctify I am so committed to a kades that I'm willing to die right so that for sure is KES the problem is let's go let's go to the Holocaust the Holocaust itself we often say that the Six Million Jews who died in the shaah in the Holocaust they died Al KES hasem we call them kosim we call them sacred people we say they died Al KES Hashem now number one keep in mind that many of the people who died in the Holocaust were not religious that's one thing but number two I mean besides that point even the religious person it's not that he was given a choice you know if Hitler would have said convert to Christianity or I kill you yeah if I say I'm going to die that's KES hasem but that didn't help you if you converted to Christianity you went to Ash in fact there were Jews who converted to Christianity who died in conservation camps in fact one of them is a saint in the Roman Catholic Church Edith Stein uh was a Jewish woman who became a carite nun unfortunately uh that didn't help her she was uh uh sent to osit she died in oshit and the Catholic church later made her a saint because she died as a Marty to her Catholic faith now how can you call that martyrdom to Catholic faith I don't understand because she didn't die because she was Catholic she died because she was Jewish so the question is a very excellent question and that is if I don't have the element of choice I'm I'm being killed because I'm Jewish but I'm not making a choice is that called sanctifying hashem's name that called KES Hashem and that could apply to a lot of scenarios it applies to the Holocaust and in our very sad and difficult situation now it applies to Kamas as well in which Kamas really doesn't care fact marginally I suppose if you're Ultra Ultra religious and a member of n c maybe you'll be on their good side although you I kind of doubt even even that uh so the question is is this called um it's a hard question so so to be frank there are going to be those who say it's not death Al kesem unless you had a choice to get out of it and you elected out of your loyalty to Hashem not to take the Escape Route there are those however that often quotes language from a letter of the rambam it's not in the mishna Torah but it's in one of the letters of the rambam where the rambam dealt with a community under Pur persecution that anyone that is killed because they are a Jew by definition is sanctifying God's name in their death now the MS is that's an interpretation of a particular language in the rambam U I don't have the language in front of me but the the language means that it's not it's not it's not like 100% clear that the rambam is saying that but that is how the rambam is often is often interpreted so according to that many do say the haruga died Al kesem and again the people that U well let me differentiate the people that die defending Eris I think that is a kesem because they're making a choice to defend the question is victims who didn't make any choice uh so many would say based on this r that it is K the question is why the question still is why in other words what's the logic of it so there are a few different approaches one approach is that when Hashem brings aidin into the world he brings the attribute of judgment into the world that basically says that if the Jewish people as a whole are not as a whole I'm not talking about individuals are not keeping the Torah things happen that itself is a kesem because it shows the truth of the Torah and the truth of the to and the words of the Torah get fulfilled so even a Russia in some ways and I'm not I'm not describing anyone as a Russia but I'm just saying but theoretically even a Russia could because they were a vehicle to manifest the truth of the Torah the awful awesome truth of the Torah and that itself made means there were a vehicle for KES Hashem but other than that it's a little difficult to fully understand now I will mention another perspective that doesn't apply in every case uh this is an essay by Rev desler and I think I mentioned last time in response to a to a question about Kellum and the like uh rev desler grew up in Kellum the famous German Lithuanian Border City which was a great great center of muser the altar of Kellum sis was rabi Sol Salter's maybe primary talet and he created a school that was based on muser and Mos and he died at the very end of the 19th century but the school remained the Yeshiva remained until the Holocaust and rev desler had already left to England before World War II rev desler was in England during the but all of his family was in K I mean not his wife but but his other than his wife and children they were in Kellum and they all were massacred they were massacred in a Nazi Massacre and there were very very few survivors but there was a Survivor that was able to give revler an eyewitness account of how the Jews in Kellum connected to the Yeshiva went to their deaths and Ruster gives a very very moving description of how I had mentioned the other day that the whole Ava of Kellum was to foster a sense of Serenity and calmness you don't get agitated you don't get upset you look at each minute and you ask what does Hashem want me to do this minute and the head of the Yeshiva asked the Nazis you were going to mow them down can you give us five minutes interesting so the Nazi gave him five minutes and he spoke you know R Mas spoke you know quietly with a lot of dignity to the tomm and said we're about to die now and we have to know that we're giving our lives to be a kapara for CLA Isel whatever that means exactly and we are corbano and we have to realize that all of our Lives we were living so we would serve Hashem every moment and now we have to serve Hashem in this moment and there was calmness and um it was so powerful that even the Nazi executioner was kind of spooked out he had never seen people facing their death with such a calm spirit and he kind of hesitated he asked his commanding officer you know can we just let this group go just let him go and the commanding officer said no and they were then mowed down but R desler writes that's a different aspect of Kes hasem it's not that you had the choice to escape death but how did you confront your death now again that that doesn't apply in every case either but of D their rights that is another aspect of Kes kesm so it is a complicated question it's not an easy question now again we have to be careful because uh the very last thing in the world we want to do is to denigrate the people that have died the people that are suffering and of course we pray for them we doen for them but that question was not asking about that that question was simply asking do they automatically get the get the designation of har KES so that I think is a bit of a debatable question yeah so on this issue of of of definitions the Torah might say something like AB was tested and lay that explicitly out for him but can we then extra out from like whatever a definition of test that then we can apply across or even apply outside like in that sense or can we only trust that the text itself has the proper understanding of it and only it can truly apply in that sense and when we encounter attempts of definitions in and how should we how should we uh should well you know I I think by definition anything that is reported in the the Torah is intended to be what you might call Grist for our Mill meaning we're supposed to think about this and ask ourselves how do I apply this to my life to Simply say oh it's only that and nothing else would in effect take away the whole purpose of putting it in so I think by definition we have to extrapolate from the concept of test some type of definition that could apply to us in our situation uh the only cautionary note I would say is we have to to do so with a lot of humility knowing that we don't know for sure we look to kazal we look to commentaries uh we look to d t but but but with all of those things there is also a certain subjective element that you have to bring in you have to apply the Torah this is a little controversial maybe but I think it's obvious but but some people don't don't like to say it this way you have to use your own mind and your own Mor your own moral sense sometimes to apply the Ty to your life now uh yes you have have to be Ma and you have to look Aton and you have to look Aton but there's going to be maybe a disconnect between the final application and all of that material uh that you've learned and you have to bridge that Gap with your SE and your understanding and your life experiences and you have to bring your individual identity to how to apply these values to to to our life in fact um I've mentioned again I've mentioned this by this time anything I say I probably mentioned many times before because I doing this for a long time uh rakov ketki around now well he's been if a long time so this was probably 50 years ago decried 50 years ago or more he decried what he called the cific of the litva Torah world what does that mean he says you know he came from the L Yesa slka the alar of slka and he says that the goal in all of those great lfi yeshivas Mir panovich slabodka baranovich grna these are the great you know great great AAS was to give you the ability to make your decisions to be able to have independent judgment based on all the Torah that you learned and the Das Torah that you absorbed he says met a bit of a different m in which you handed everything over to a rebi that had not been the M of the L but he pointed out that in recent decades litvaks have become in which you know Rim kesi Whoever has to decide everything for people and people lose the ability to make their own decisions and rakov held that that was AAR a person a good rebi a good rebi should not Foster a culture of total and constant dependence a good rebi should like like a good parent like a good parent should give you tools and abilities to make decisions and every every once in a while you need to consult that's very true that's very true we all we all have to consult that's say but it shouldn't be like I can't do anything without without checking uh you should be able to make decisions based on what you leared from your reim and based what you learned from the Torah so there is a role for autonomy independent judgment uh and and and the like that's an important point in fact um schlom ysep 7 has a beautiful little Von this he raises a s there's a s in kazal regarding rebbi elzar the great rebie elzar Ben hinis that one gumar says he never said anything that he didn't hear from his rebi right he would not say anything if he didn't hear it from his rabi then there's another gar that said he would say Kim that were so wondrous that even Moser Renu didn't hear it in Hari now those are totally opposite statements one is he never said a and the other is he said amazing so say very question of course he said new things of course he had original thoughts but every original thought was based on the foundations that he absorbed from his rebi you see so it's not a contradiction uh you're not uh a machine meaning you you you have your mind you have your thoughts and that's important but it should be foundationally based on all that you've learned from you know you're part of the M that's a big deal we're part of the we don't think about this way you know we look at ourselves you know we have rebies but we don't realize that having a rebi is not just having a rebi it means you're part of a chain it's a chain my R this point out now it's already fading for me the exact but he pointed out that he had from a person who had SM from the vagon so you had Von you had rabas you had another person I'm not sure and then you had Ran So he said he was forth from the Von so he would tell us that means every person in Israel who got from is five generations from the villon now that was a while ago already so now it's already one or two more Generations but this is the idea when you connect with a rebi it's not just connecting with a rebi you're connecting with a chain that goes all the way back you see so yeah you got to be independent you got to have your own judgments but it also has to be connected to that M rear Hines said but everything was based on what he got from his from his Reby Yeah question one is I heard that if someone goes toel for 4 days Row for specific thing they will get their wish fulfilled and number two is what does putting a p in the cotel actually do yeah so these are two questions about the cotel uh one is the idea of 40 days go to the cotel for 40 days by the way many combine that with shiram for 40 days so going back to the shiram issue uh but it is brought down in some sources that because the kis well the kisil number one now remember the kisil is is not the B mikdash obviously and it's not even a wall of the B mikdash at best according to the overwhelming inv the cotel is the wall of the or it's one wall of the Temple mount it is not a wall of the BAM mikdash itself or even the Azari even the courtyard of the B mikdash it is the harabas which is the outermost part but nevertheless uh it is the closest architectural structure we have to the temple complex and there is a medish that says the sh has never left the kaari the Western Wall many assume it's referring to the herodian wall that that is there and therefore it's makal in is that the Kel is a place of Cabas there's a certain just like the B as a whole Hashem accepts our prayer so they argue so there are schulas to talk about 40 days but the thing is you got to be very very careful with schoos in general schoos are never guaranteed things uh there in other words it's a certain ra but there may be in the spiritual World there is a constant what you might call calibration and recalibration of merits and demerits I mean I don't want to get into this question but you know the issue is people always ask me the question oh kazal say if you give staka you'll be rich I give Myer so how come I'm not rich you know I give Myer I'm not rich and you know there are a lot of answers actually first of all even a a middle class person today is Rich kazal did not mean you'll be Bill Gates or whatever it would be so the truth is I am rich I have a roof I have food whenever I want I'm rich okay that I mean that's a simple answer actually but the other answer is it's more complicated kki says used to say that the same way Myer is a school of foras other are a scho of therefore these are forces that are working against each other so you're lucky that you're uh you know middle class now the thing that other is the Maser prevented you from being pulled into poverty or or whatever it is so the same thing is true with virtually any school to kind of assume that because I do something automatic it means it is a force for the good but it could be counteracted by other things um now the idea of putting a ptic putting a note in the cotel uh that is interesting uh that uh is not necessarily of such an ancient mcor I looked into it a very long time ago I don't even remember everything that became kind of a custom I I wouldn't say necessarily it has a particular significance except for the fact that it may inspire you in other words sometimes these ceremonial rituals make me feel a stronger connection to Hashem so then what happens is it's your connection to Hashem that's doing it it's not the the pet itself there were even some gim who were against the grounds because they claim if a t person is not allowed to enter the of the harabas if if that's the position that we take then some say the cracks in the wall already have a din of the harabas so you're not allowed even to put your finger uh in that particular area because we p in that partial entry to prohibi areas is also going to be prohibited so I I wouldn't say that the minog uh has any real Authority and in fact it's interesting issue about daving and the cotel generally there were Russ sh I mean let's assume we were that safety is not an issue I mean today today we have different issues but let's assume hasem it's totally safe and the like there were there are there are rash and Mas and R and rim who actually don't encourage people to go to the K because they say you know if the ior of your daving is cavana sometimes in the carnival atmosphere uh the cavana might be lacking you might you might have more cavana in a in a Bas M now that is subjective I mean that that will differ with the with the person's is I'm not I'm not going to make a general statement but it's something that you got to take into account and that is where is your cavana the greatest and if your cavana is the greatest in a small small place where nobody notices you and that would be a bigger cavana than hundreds and hundreds of people Milling around then you shouldn't automatically assume I should go to the kaisel to DAV it now again as I said I don't want to generalize for some people uh it is you know profoundly very very inspiring and that's a different but all I'm saying is that ultimately your cavana counts more than the place if you got to choose between holy place and greater Cabana you choose kavana the interesting question is as an aside is well hm well once I made that statement what about fitor generally this is a real question many people will say that they DAV better be than with a minion they say either the minion is too fast or too slow sometimes sometimes slow doing can take away your Cabana too right they be to realize um or whatever it is when I'm by myself I can cry to God but I'm embarrassed uh self-conscious to cry you know with them with people so if I just told you that in choosing between place and cavana cavana beats place so The Logical second question you might ask me is well what about seore versus kavana should cavana beat out seore it's a very very good question it's a very difficult question and and I have a feeling that it may apply to quite a lot of people in which at least sometimes they have more C but here the is that because there is a special Merit in daving generally speaking will override more but it's interesting that I read a story from the Kish and again I'm not sure there was no Hal analysis where a a a a person a talid presented this issue to the Kish he says I in you know I D in two hour shakas or whatever it is and you know with a minion it's possible and I got to rush so do I have a so said you don't but every once in a while you can take off and do this meaning I can't give you a Hatcher every day to permanently but I think the said now this I don't remember it was either once a month or once a week but the gave him a certain period of time which is interesting so kind of you can fulfill your kavana in that particular way and hopefully can then carry over or spill over but but that's gabbra butab going to the cotel I think we would we would taka say that cavana would be more important Yeah question um so I've seen sometimes not not oh kadia yeah after well while a person's still doing I've seen other people who are who are responding H like and then like aftera is done they'll like take three steps back and you know it seems like they're doing it during the K ship um one is is that correct to do and during yeah during in the middle they seem to be in the middle of sh yeah if a person finishes Shimon EST um if if you don't do that and you are finishing Shon um should you like should you like take three steps back during during kadia okay so so really it really very much depends on where they are holding meaning if you are are literally in the middle of meaning you have not said you have not finished the 19 bras of the amid the seven bras of chabas there is no way at all you could answer anything at all you don't answer kadish you don't answer kadha the only thing is well I'll mention two exceptions the only thing is that when they're saying kadha you stop daving you listen to the and have kavana that the is being Mo you you under no circum answers answer or even kados kados kados right not at all now the only exception there's one exception to that the one exception to that is if you're up to the kadha in your natural ding let's assume you began with the K so when the says you have also said you have said so then you say you say the words of Kad along with the including so instead of you actually finish the the way the but that is the only ex now what you probably saw unless they didn't know the is they had already said but they're in the middle of now there there are rules that you can answer uh kados kados kados kadha although you don't say the the middle passages and then you would take your three steps back now according to many in order to do that you have to say first meaning after uh you would say which is also going to be said later but you say it there first and that is the mat for you to answer those things now if you're going to do that you do not take three steps back then you you'll take three steps back whenever you reach it and that'll be after the kadua but until you've uh done that uh there is no way that you answer cusa or Kadesh you just stop and and listen but a person shouldn't take three steps back during Kad no absolutely not absolutely not yeah the same as and if not if you should on your own how does it B say you you relate to Shockers and you have a lot more things to say and then you know you you want to station at the same time as starts right right right so this is again this is a a question that many guys are going to face uh in which let's say you you go toi Yesa you diazi minion but your is either because you're a or because you're a you're actually uh and the question question is what n should you should you d d in so ra mosha has a Tru ra mosha basically says that when it comes to the things that you DAV as an individual you DAV your so you would DAV aicon right but when it comes to how you answer kadha you should do the ashaz kadha because since kadha requires a minion it has to be based on what Dominion is doing so it's maybe a little confusing if you don't know it by heart mean you'll DAV with aaric sitter but you'll answer maybe you'll taste it on a sheet of paper or something you'll answer the ashkanazi kadha and when you say Kadesh although I see many SP are not careful in this but uh in a ashkenazic minion the Kadesh should be ashas and I'll say it the other way too and in AIC minion the Kadesh you don't say Kadesh the way you want to say it you got to follow the Dominic now rosha does say there's one exception that's very fascinating and that is if you're a sh then you should follow the of the minion even in your silent right because the purpose of the doing the silent is to prepare him for the repetition and therefore uh if i'mi and I'm the kazin both the silent and the repetition would be ashkanazi but if I'm not the Kazan my silent would be um Ash would beardi then the repetition of course whoever is doing it would be ashkenas now the second part of your question was you come late and you have uh a lot more stuff to say uh well it depends what what you're talking about meaning uh does allow you to skip it meaning a lot ofra can be abbreviated meaning in order for me to um all I have to do is and I can skip everything so myus if I make it up later um so carbos can be said after ding meaning you really have to go over this very specifically uh that a lot of things can either be skipped for fitore or things can be said later for fibit seor so you don't necessarily have to say everything from page one to toon in order to be able to haveon but seor so you try to deal you know ask a Pak about uh the specific things that you can say later Jericho but um when how could around the wall collap wasn't she still there and I'm sorry what what is still there the walls collaps and and what did you say didn't hear she live in the walls of beautiful and so um was she still there when when they were collapsing the walls and um CU in the spice tell her to stay in the house with the with all her family and how can this be well yeah yeah that's an interesting question right RAV lived in the wall that's what it says meaning the wall wasck by the way you still see this even today I'll give you an example of this you won't notice it because they made so many openings but may sharim was originally a walled neighborhood because in those days uh there was like nothing outside of the the old city and to live outside of the old city was extremely dangerous I mean Arabs would come in and even wild animals would come in so Maya sharim was one of the very first settlements outside of the old city and it was a wall a wall all around it so if you're walking on May sharim Street right so uh the side that has The Unbroken like unbroken houses not with the know onsider stores The Unbroken houses are the remnants of a wall now now they made so many openings you're not going to notice it but since people live there they're living in the wall they're living within the thickness of the double wall of of Mayim was the same way now the question is that ROV was told because they were going to enter the city and kill Yuro or kill the the Canaanites and ROV was given a promise of protection so she was told to hang a red rope outside of her window and that is how they would know that not to go into that house and everybody in that house her family her relatives they would be protected so your question is very obvious that they walked around the walls seven times uh seven days on shabas seven times the wall collapsed uh well how could raka be protected she's in the wall I basically the whole thing collapsed yeah that that's a very excellent question I I think our assumption has to be that uh not every part of the wall collaps meaning everything collapsed to give the Jewish Army total entry we have to assume that the part of the wall where she lived that that remains standing because that was in the promise uh that she would be she would be safe but it is it is a good question do two work with each other yeah so the question is again I as to always repeat the question the question is that God determines the destiny of mankind we say it every day he comps the footsteps of man and yet we also find that the way that a person chooses to go I choose to be a certain person I choose to go a certain way that is where Hashem takes me uh which implies that I kind of control the way things go as opposed to God controlling it uh which is it uh yeah it's a very is a difficult question but the answer is it is actually both meaning uh God respond respond to the choices that I make in life so what will happen to me is up to Hashem but Hashem interacts with my choices and again this is implicit not not I'm sorry not implicit this is explicit in the Torah if the Torah says if you do AOS things will happen to you that means by definition I determine good or bad so in a sense's ultimate absolute control over the universe is an interactive uh development along with the choices that I make so both are going to be both are true at the same time yeah I have some questions about Hill number that is a bit of a Revenge fantasy it's somewhat easy to imagine this language that we're going to you know raise them to the ground y the daughters are going to get annihilated is oh yeah yeah similar to what Kamas might be saying amongst themselves if you're going to say well we were unjustly oppressed they made their own bed but they're probably saying the same things about themselves and then furthermore I think most of us can agree that uh among the most shocking and upsetting of the attacks are the attacks on babies a baby uh part from not even being it doesn't even have a baby could grow up to make Chua and reject the ways of his parents whatever they are they're not amalekites in the in this them but here we are saying that you know when we uh get our revenge we're going to smash the babies on the Rocks yep how how are we uh how are we any better than them yep uh yeah this is uh just just be sure people know what chapter you're talking about this is 137 as you said goam Zion and this is the famous chapter on Theos B by the Rivers of Babylon there we sat and we wept when we remembered seon and uh in many sedur fact all sedor it's actually said says that before you do benching during the week so on shabas you say shal but during the week you say Al now unfortunately I think the meaning of alar uh is not as commonly practiced as Shir everybody says shal a lot of people don't say but they're of the same or Min now uh there a side question alaras B is obviously describing something that's way after the time of DAV when davik lived there wasn't even a first Bas on Mikes yet the first temple was not built until schlomo and yet this is discussing uh the Jewish people after destroyed uh the first B mikdash so there are different interpretations of how you reconcile that with David's authorship of theim either David authored this with prophecy and rues so he's actually describing a future event or or to Hill him as themselves say can have multiple authorships David is the author of The but there were that were added later but be it as it may you are 100% correct that the tone of some not not all of them this tone of some in fact the famous verses that's there if I forget that is in those are beautiful meaningful moving Pim that to this very day we recite at AA before we break the glass but there are some other Pim that you're very aptly describing as a Revenge fantasy that superficially sounds like something Kamas would say you know happy is the person fortunate is the person that will take your babies and smash their heads against The Rock not exaggerating I'm just I'm just quoting in Translation what the verse says and that is a very very very shocking PK that a Jew not just a Jew D or whoever wrote this people with rues people with greatness people with kadus would have any type of thought with enthusiasm it' be a wonderful thing to take a baby and smash it against a rock how could that be how could that be so again I'm going to have to admit to you that this is something that has perplexed me for a very long time I don't have a great I don't have a great answer I mean the answer I can give you I can give you an answer but it's not really an answer because Kamas might say the same thing I mean that's always the problem the answer would be that this is describing not something that is right and not something that is good but it's describing the depths of Despair that a person can reach when contemplating the magnitude of suffering so for example after the Holocaust one might imagine one might imagine someone saying if I had you know Hitler or some Nazi kid in my hands I would just have to smash him against the rack not that they actually would but it's kind of the feeling of rage and helplessness and despair that can overwhelm a person but as I say you know I might be able to live with that if just a regular guy just said such a thing but when we're talking about kodes we're not just talking about about passing human emotions there has to be some spiritual token in it so I don't I don't have an answer it truly truly uh disturbs it now I know all of the Torah that he who is merciful on the uh on the cruel will eventually be cruel to the merciful and that's Alik and everything else but still uh the way this is expressed first of all the notion of happiness is is is placed because said do not rejoice in the downfall of your enemy when the Egyptians were drowned in the Red Sea and the angels wanted to sing hashem's praises Hashem said now is not the time for rejoicing now this is a very important Point Judaism is not pacifistic it's very important to understand that we don't believe in turning the other cheek the is very clear if somebody's coming to kill you you kill them first and that's true on an individual level and it's certainly true on a communal level you go and you do what has to be done we do not say be a nice guy but at the same time it has always been characteristic that we don't G we don't have Glee in the destruction of even enemies we actually have a certain element of sadness that it's come to this and a wish that it didn't have to come to this and a wish that there could be Chua and there could be other Alternatives Just As bruya Told rebbi mayor don't pray for the death of the wicked pray that they do Chua and then there are no AAS so the that PK itself is in very stark contrast to the notion that you don't take Glee in the destruction of the enemy so it's very it's very problematical it's it's a good question I I wish I had an answer yeah so we always say that everything that happens is for the good that if Hashem wants it it will happen which means that hasem runs the world no matter what so if someone let say Works s days 20 hours a day logically you should become successful does hasem allow someone who gives his all to something success in that matter even if it's not the right thing for the person if yes then how is that not a contradiction and if not that doesn't really seem like a fair God that would allow someone to work like a dog and then not give him success so how do we get out of that problem yeah so so I think the thing to understand is this the idea that everything God does is for the good does not mean it's for the good as I Define it uh so for example I work very hard and I'm still poor and I ask myself I thought everything God does is for the good well yes it is for the good it is better for you to be poor now you have to figure out why maybe if You' have money you get too involved in business and and the like uh there is sickness there is illness so it's unrealistic and panish to say every story will have a happy ending in the sense that I'll be happy with it but everything has a meaning everything has a purpose and and it's an interactive purpose let me let me give you an example let's take Sora IMU this week's para Sora so Sora was an AAR Sora didn't have children for many many many years now not only SAR but Rifka was an aara Rael was an aara and they prayed over many years and God answered their prayers and the gar Obama says why are our matriarchs Barren because Hashem yearned for their prayers and therefore he created a circumstance where they would D now let's imagine SAR would have made the following SAR would have said wow it is so tough being Barren but if God made me Barren it must be for the good so I accept God's decree with Sim and amuna sha and people would look at Sora who is heartbroken over being Barren and they would say what a righteous woman she accepts God's judgments without question but you know what Hashem would be saying kav Hashem would be ripping out his hair and saying she's missing the whole point I made her Barren so she would D in and now she's saying I accept meaning like this the Gamul Lova of being Barren was not that she should be Barren it was a way to bring her to you see what I'm saying in other words sometimes the gam Thea is it will lead to something that needs to be done now because of you may not make the right choice and then it becomes a dead end but that's up to you so that's why ding has a place people always ask the question well if everything God does is for the good and God didn't give me something then why should i d for it uh it's not for the good the answer is it is for the good if you D for it God didn't give it to you because he wanted you to ding you see so the big question in life this is a very big question in life is okay when is my attitude that what Hashem has given me is good and I should accept it and when is my attitude I should D like when do you move from plan a to plan B difficult question there's a story of ketki and I've mentioned the story before about um a child uh who had a very very serious illness and the parents took the child all over the world to different doctors different hospitals different clinics and because they were from they also went to different rebies and Rees and schoos and they finally somehow got to rakov and they told rakov the whole story over two years what they were doing and rakov asked them do you have other children and they said yes and rakov said to them mayem give youas from your other children and as he basically told them your son is going to die now R Yakov besides being one of the gim of our generation of the past generation was an extremely sensitive person he was a g in midis as great as he was a in Tyra so people were shocked they could not believe he you have parents that have a child and his message is okay you have other kids get nakas from them he's going to die how do you tell parents such a thing and you don't give them encouragement the child did die a short while later and the parents actually said they were very very grateful to rakov because he gave them the green light so to speak to you know give their child his last few months in peace and tranquility in his own bed with his own friends his siblings instead of just going place to place to place to place to place and he died surrounded with the love of the people that he cared about and they said they couldn't give up as long as they thought something could be done even though it was bad for the kid rakov told them there's a time to give up there's a time to move to acceptance so basically the idea is it's connected to Miracle meaning if there are still things that work that's where prayer comes in butov held that prayer for now some people argue with riob in this particularly in erel but he says prayer for miracles is not within your purview and once it would take an open Miracle that's when you have to accept you accept God's Will and God will do what he wants so it's a hard situation but but all I'm this is very a long-winded answer but I'm basically saying that gamova does not mean don't D sometimes the Tova is it'll spur you to connect to Hashem through so you have to Define what is the Tova in what Hashem is giving you uh yeah I have a uh legal case that you can offer an opinion on say that there's a I I may charge for that one but okay yeah yeah it's a it's a hfic legal case don't worry oh good um yeah say that there's a fellow bidding on rosashana for uh you know go up in s Ayah and he says a bid and the Auer says going once going twice zah and at the moment he says zah somebody else bids higher and the auctioneer is that the so I have three parts of my question one does the auctioneer go with the Z or does he go with the higher bid two if whatever is the correct answer because I don't know but if the auctioneer chooses the wrong one does the guy who is who is wronged have a complaint with the auctioneer or if the guy who bid against him if he wanted to say take him to baon for the 10 gold coins for each braa and the last part of my question is does somebody actually have re-shoot to go after these 10 gold coins today and if they don't then how did we uh lose the perion to do that yeah yeah yeah so so the thing is that that um there is a principle that you can resend transactions if you act within what is called so for example I marry a woman I say and she accepts it but I could say to I'll give the sh no I changed my mind you know uh now to is a very small amount of time it's the amount of time in which you would you would say the words shalom or some add Shi which would add you know two syllables so it seems that what you're describing even though the auctioner said Z he AC again maybe maybe this is not the case he accepted the the the the higher bid toor of uh his uh accepting so as a result it would be a legitimate K legitimate change of mind so the second guy the higher bidder uh would get it now since it's an auction uh the idea of 10 t zah let me just be sure people um aware of what's going on here this is a gamarra that says that if somebody had the right to a Mitzvah and you took it away from him so the enacted a certain can a certain penalty called 10 gold pieces whatever whatever that means exactly uh so an example would be um that if I'm a father and I want to circumcise is my son which I have the right to do just some I know how to do it I'm a moel have you ever seen this sometimes the mo it's formality Mo them do they they'll talk to a father who's like shaking and quaking they'll they'll give him the knife and say you want to do it it's your mitzah and usually the father say no no you you got you you could be my shal and the like but let's assume dad is about to do the bris and some moel shows up and he just pushes dad away does it so technically he owes dad 10 Z because it's dad's Mitzvah and the like so but here in the context of an auction uh Since By definition auctions are open to high bids as long as the auctioneer had the right to beer there would be no now if the toir had expired and and the auctioneer gave it or let's say the auctioner made the wrong decision or made the wrong decision yeah yeah then it may very well be that uh the person would owe not the auctioneer but the one who took the Mitzvah that didn't belong to him not the auctioner wouldn't be the wouldn't be the auctioner it would be the person who took it because he took a Mitzvah that didn't belong to him he may have to pay T but today we don't do T the reason is because it has the din of a meaning it's not a monetary damage it's a fine and where we don't have real Bon doesn't have the authority to pasin D K right we don't do kasas unless you have real ordination so we don't we don't do that today yeah here's another in gar learning what is a RAID and why is it controversial is the word raid English or yeah uh yes raid is spelled it's not r a i d although you know it makes sense the war of Tor uh we use military imagery but raid is re yd and it's to yish raid just means speech red is to talk in German and yish so red is simply the common Yeshiva Torah that is discussed in advanced learning of sugas so for example in any given sugya there are certain at least on an advanced level there are certain famous things that everybody talks about every sheer we'll talk about it there may be there may be a a ra famous rambam maybe a Kos or so raid simply means the conventional types of things that virtually every Ian sheer will talk about that's all uh the reason it's controversial well it's controversial simply because um like all Ian it's controversial because some Say by focusing on the red you know you want to kind of build yourself up as being in the no when you don't really have Pat in the gar and the Rashi and the toos people people want to in Advan to sheas you sometimes see people want to jump the gun you know gamarra gamar is too boring gamar and Rashi is not interesting enough for me I need to immediately get into all of the Lumas but of course getting into the lumus without having the foundation is crazy it's like you're building uh a 100 story without having 99 stories under it it's all going to collapse so raid is not inherently controversial but it's controversial in the sense that people use it as a way of bypassing shot and and the life I think I think RAB kanik said R kanik has an expression says he hates lumus Now by that he means that he wants people to focus on getting basic Pat before they get into the fancy interesting So-Cal so-called interesting things that people want to talk about yeah so I noticed that between yacob's Sons Don God aser andali specifically aren't given as much attention um so my question to you is could you give some cool facts or stories about those yeah yeah so of course D Usher GNA T are are not the children not the direct children of Rael or Leia they are the children of bilha and zilpa who are uh described as the concubines of or the ma Servants of raal in Lea so that itself would already indicate maybe a little bit of a a secondary importance and the the other hand uh we have uh again there's there's quite a lot of kazal uh about building up uh these people I mean oer for example was very very great in Torah learning uh and uh don Shimon who was controversial but Shimon was a great Chau fate who came from shetan uh we have what uh God uh was also uh God of course lived east of the Jordan right so that was in a way a negative factor uh but again I I'd have to I I could look it up and maybe put together a booklet or something but there there's there's quite a lot every shav of is necessary keep in mind in the there was no discrimination between the B and the children of RA of RA and and in fact this was Yos one of the you know Yosef brought lanara about his brothers to Yakov and okay that would may be sinful you don't bringard but one of the things that yose wanted to bring to yakov's attention is they were treating the children of the maid servants with a lack of respect and that was a serious enough AA that Yos felt that jakov had to know about it and as far as we know that Yosef was correct that was not in a on yosef's part he got in trouble because m y had to happen but uh Ys held that this is not blar to report such an yeah I'm sure yeah I think it's tonight and tomorrow is that right Thursday yeah yeah question first is that it's interesting how at least very espe she spoke very strongly it seems like how um like she my perspective is that she does seem to have a much more M role and she also called M also yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah tonight is I believe R is your side and uh Kev R is closed because of the security situation I think they have one group of people who are allowed to go but that's about it uh the crowds that would normally go are not allowed to to go you can say again they're allowed to go W it's amazing the fact that the Army would have that sensitivity is something that's moving in and of itself uh but R was a very tragic figure do you know that according to thees in SED ra died at the age of 32 she died in child birth giving birth to bamin she was only 32 years old Yakov lived many many many years after Rael died and on his deathbed he still remembered Rael he still thought of Rael all of those years later quite amazing and yet in so many ways Rael died young Rael had to wait well she didn't she didn't wait seven years it's interesting just to be sure you understand the chronology Yakov made a deal that he would work for love and S seven years and then marry Rael so lovan pulled a switch so instead of being with Rael yakob was with Leia now in order to get Rael yakob had to work another seven years but but but you have to understand if you look at the Kish you will see that didn't mean that he didn't live with Rao for seven years he actually just married ra a week later but then had a commitment to work another seven years so in a sense he got BR on credit so the difference between ra and Le is only one week it is not seven years but still she didn't have the of being the first wife um she didn't have children for many years although Leia was very fertile and when she had uh children she had yoseph who was uh sold and then bamin bamin she died in child birth actually ra died before B ra died before m y but and of course she's not buried next to yak right next to Yakov is Leia the wife that the toyra Apparently says literally Yakov hated although it's over push it doesn't mean hate in the way we would we would say it so in many many ways Ra's life was a very very sad life a very tragic life but that's exactly why she is the designated person that prays for the Jewish people to be redeemed from the gulla she suffers and because she suffers she has empathy she knows what we go through she knows therefore she can go to God out of the pain of her own life she can then kind of generalize it to the pain that we all suffer and that that's her I mean that's her task her task is maybe a hard task her task is to feel pain and be now the truth of the matter is Leia too had a lot of pain in a different way Leia had the pain of rejection now look look at the names that she gave her children you know it says yakob says hated her although again as I say that's a relative term I don't think it's an absolute term so Ren know God has seen my Affliction and has given me a son Shimon God has heard my pain and given me a son Ley maybe now my husband will like me or accompany me because I've given him three sons and then number four Yehuda now I am grateful there are different ways of looking at it Rashi says she was grateful because there are four wives so she figured we get three sons number four is more but you that's what rashley brings but I would suggest that her gratitude is more of a resignation to her fate meaning for the first three sons she kept on hoping that her relationship with Yakov would change and it didn't so she says I'm grateful for what I have see see what I'm saying how do understand meaning I'm not going to focus on what I don't have I'll focus on what I have so in many many ways there's AIS elim God is on the side of the underdog God is on the side of the one that was pursued the fact that Leia was a senua whatever that means gave her certain bras from Hashem as compensations but you're right Ra's life is a very very tragic life um some some understand it this way but you have to develop the thought I I don't have a full development they say that Rael was the wife of Yakov but Leia is the wife of Israel meaning once jakob's name is changed it's a different type of relationship and Leia is the wife of Israel Israel which means to excel is connected to malus Mal and the there the Mal B and mashia ultimately comes from Leia but there is a mashia Ben who precedes mashiach of it and that comes from Rael and it mentions Amal can only be destroyed by rael's children not Le his children right so there there is a role in both of those things yeah um people like there any Source Jewish thought or even Jewish law for people like Joe liberman and him being in politics and making a change in America on the same token second part of the question uh for Rabbi Jonathan Sachs uh for the work that he did teaching Torah and trying to help the outside world more Gentile world yeah so I'll tell you Joe liberman uh he should be well was um my parent sender from Connecticut and uh you'll recall that um he was Al Gore's vice presidential candidate and my wife tells me my wife tells me this that hadasa liman his wife was at a Hebrew Academy event a school event because her their daughter went to the Hebrew Academy and when people were talking to her she said it's hard to believe she said pray that my husband doesn't win election as vice president she actually said pray she that's interesting must be an interesting dinner table conversation but she abolutely did not want him uh to be vice president or to be in such a high elective office uh because potentially that could backfire against the Jewish people in some ways people made the argument that if a Jewish guy is too pro-israel he'll be seen as uh you know kind of a prisoner to Israeli interests so he would have to bend over backwards to be objective so ultimately you know it might hurt Jewish causes and of course you also have anti-semites who might kill him so she actually was she said she didn't but if you're asking me generally uh is there a a problem uh is there a Torah problem with a religious Jew being involved in an attempt to make Society a more just Society a non-jewish society a more just Society uh in theory there is no problem and in theory it's even a good thing because remember that under the noahide laws B Noah are supposed to create a just this is the seventh Noah La a society of justice and therefore when I help noites create a just Society I am fulfilling a legitimate Jewish role in helping non-jews live in Noah Society so in theory that's perfectly fine in practice it is fraught with Danger especially if you're a Democrat uh simply because uh the particulars of a democratic agenda or really really almost any political agenda are often going to be in very Stark violation of the Torah and you're going to have to take positions by virtue of your office uh that may be against Jewish values and Jewish ethics and you'll even have to say well yes I believe in Judaism but the office requires that they take certain positions so it may not be the appropriate venue even though in theory I think it it would be good now uh Jonathan saaks I think is in a better position because Jonathan saak was not occupying a political office he was occupying uh status as teacher as communicator and I think he fulfilled some very very valuable service to the Jewish world and to the non-jewish World by taking foundational ideas of Judaism and showing how they could be applied to World culture to kind of elevate uh society and Elevate the discourse so in general I think that's a very good exercise once again however people did criticize rabak that sometimes in order to make his message palatable he had to water down the Judea content or distorted I don't want to get into the specifics of that that that would be a matter of controversy I'm not sure if he would agree with that characterization but that's always going to be the question the question is yeah you want your message to be go out there you want it to be accepted you want it to make a difference but if you tell it in its unvarnished form people might not accept it so what do you do you water it down you distort it a little bit well you know the Torah doesn't belong to me that I can simply reshape it in ways that make it sound more politically correct so those are the dilemmas that people like rabis sax are are going to face but overall I think the uh intention was good and I think uh the overall idea of trying to effect that type of change is a good thing yeah so I I heard someone recently and Shea say that we should just starve all the gin and the and everyone and it would even be okay to kill them and when confronted he said that this is morally okay and the Torah supports it uh with regards to like the wars of the Kush and the ROM also says that um during war like if the enemy doesn't you know s Supremacy and uh acknowledge the sh Spen they know of then we're allowed to kill them um so are there Ron who disagree with the ROM on this matter and uh excluding pragmatic arguments as to why this would be a bad idea is he correct um and does if being in N his play any part of this if not if he's not correct then what's the difference about the Gin than K where we would be able to where we were able to go to the same level to that level of uh utter destruction yeah yeah the these are hard questions um I would say this that um the rambam says there are three categories of what you would call obligatory Wars Mitzvah Wars that you're obligated to wage one category is the eradication of am the other category is the eradication of the Seven Nations that inhabited Canan and the third category is a war of defense against an enemy that has attacked us now the rambam writes that amalik we really don't know who amalik is we don't have that one the Seven Nations of Canan are extinct anyway there's no amorites around so the only category of of Mitzvah war that we have is a war of defense and indeed the war against Kamas is a defensive War you know we were attacked and and and over a thousand uh people were mercilessly slaughtered as well as people taken captives now the rambam then says I'm just going to I'm kind of just quoting or paraphrasing the rambam that even in a Mitzvah War you have to offer the enemy an opportunity for Shalom and shalom means in this context uh the acceptance of the seven Commandments of Noah as well as Jewish sovereignty and the rambam then says if they do not accept the peace terms which includes both seven Commandments of Noah and Jewish sovereignty so then there is a Mitzvah to eradicate everybody man woman child that's what it says however however many many commentaries understand that that only refers to a Malik and the Seven Nations and that's still a big that means even aik gets a chance at shom you see the rabam is actually being liberal amalik gets a chance to stay alive with SH but when you're dealing with a defensive War as opposed to amalik and the Seven Nations where there's no direct Mitzvah of eradication there's only a Mitzvah of Defense then indeed you would not kill deliberately you would not deliberately kill non-combatants now we do have to differentiate two situations one is where the non-combatant is used as a human sheep or whatever it is uh their collateral damage so it is true that if in order to get the enemy I have to indirectly inflict civilian casualties that would be permitted and by the way I hate to say this it should never be it would even be permitted if it's Jewish civilians that're going to be killed because I'm not targeting the civilian this is an enemy I have to uproot however to deliberately Target uh non combatant civilians uh unless they are of the Seven Nations of Canan or amalik uh would not be proper because a defensive war is permitted only to the extent necessary to achieve its objective and not not beyond that so it is true that the rambam does talk about wholesale Slaughter of manom child but that is in the context of amalik and the Seven Nations where there is a Mitzvah of extermination that is not referring to defensive Wars and in fact proof to this I'll bring another proof from ramban ramban actually says that when we surround a city we have to leave an Avenue of Escape meaning we we have to allow people to escape now there's a m why is it important to leave an Avenue of Escape some say so that non-combatants can leave just EXA which is exactly what Israel has done uh imperfectly uh to be sure with the you know the Gaza Escape which really depends more on Egypt than us uh others say they need an Avenue of Escape because otherwise they're going to fight with greater ferocity but but be it as it may I think the idea of R which the ran counts as a mitz does indicate that you don't deliberately Target civilians uh although as I say they can be killed as collateral collateral damage in fact this is the excuting problem Israel has right now I mean they're not asking shilas Hally but this is you know Kamas can play this game I mean like they're the biggest sikim in the world they take 200 plus hostages they're such sadik because they release look how you know they release them you know yeah they release I mean what under what grounds do they have the right to take them uh but Kamas saying well you know you can't bomb us we're in the process of negotiating for hostage release well at this uh at this rate you know uh one hostage you know every week or something you know they have uh they have around a year and a half uh to kind of kind of regroup but this is very excruciating uh on one hand we care about the lives of these hostages we care we want them back we need them back we pray to have them back on the other hand if this is going to give Hamas breathing time to kind of rebuild and regroup we might be creating a much much greater future danger and sometimes the military objective says we have to get rid of this enemy even if it means there'll be a certain amount of caronus again I absolutely hate saying that but that's going to be the same issue as prisoner exchanges exact exactly same issue prisoner exchanges so what are you going to do you're going to get uh somebody free gilad chalit free by releasing terrorists who in a few years will go back and kill as indeed one of the leaders of the Kamas operation was a terrorist who was freed in the gilad shal so H actually says that in the Mitzvah of saving lives we don't necessarily do things that are going to to endanger future populations right and that that's the problem that we're facing yeah yeah is there a level of uh let's say you know moral corruption among a populace that would allow for widespread destruction I'm sorry you're asking me if if that would be indicative of a moral rot is is there such a level that exists of moral R where we like there wasn't like the well you know I don't want to impune people's motives I mean people are looking for a way out of this and this is one a proposal in fact somebody wrote an article was quite thought-provoking to hey you know what did the United States do in 1945 when it uh put an atom bomb in Japan I mean that clearly was you know an awful lot of civilians uh died in that one uh and yet what happened was Hiroshima and Nagasaki what happened was that initiated a permanent peace that has lasted more than 80 years and Japan is a very strong Ally of the United States so hey you know Israel uh admires America so much uh why don't they fight the war like America won World War II and yet and yet I think Jewish ethics do not allow that the jewi etics requires some type of balance of compassion even against the enemy at least with with respect to the non-combatants and that's the difficulty that we're facing yeah with the breakdown of marriage in secular society um there's been fortunate development of what's called open marriage Often by goam where both the husband and wife mutually agree that it's okay for us to see other partners is such a marriage still considered marriage and when they see their partners are they consider are they committing adultery under shens been they know yeah that's a very very interesting issue about God forbid the open marriage so first of all let me point out that uh the man man is fine because Hally a man can have more than one wife and under the no law for sure he can have more than one wife so provided he's not with a married woman he's not guilty of adultery for sure the question is uh is the woman guilty meaning to say if we have a marriage and let's say no marriage which is just agreeing to be married but the understanding is it's an open marriage so the question is maybe under the no law that's not a marriage meaning to say marriage by definition is a relationship of exclusivity so instead of looking at it as adultery you would simply say that shows they never intended to have a marriage that's a very excellent point meaning there would be a difference between we got married and later we decided to change the rules in which case for sure that would be adultery that's not a question but you're raising the question if it was understood Basa that it's going to be an open marriage so the argument is the man never intended to create a marital bond with his wife that that actually is an excellent SP but I I have to check it I don't I don't have an answer but I think that's very much a possibility yeah so over Ros I heard this idea that when rosashana falls on Shabbat as it did this year um that's a sign that either the year is going to be incredibly good or incredibly bad and as we're seeing now it's not it's looking incredibly bad could you just expound on that so there is a gamarra that says uh it's based on a pun because the word tra is both the chauffer blowing andin bad thing so it says call sh any year that you don't blow the chauffer at the beginning Mayan will have bad things BofA that's what it say actually bad things however most Rim don't apply it to this situation most Rim say that doesn't apply when it's chabas chabas takes the place of chaffeur it applies where it's not chabas and for whatever reason a community didn't blow chauffeur that's going to be bad so the technical application of that passage does not apply this year however you're right some later commentaries have have have have tried to apply to our situation but that's not the pasus of the gamar that that whatever we didn't get with chauffeur we got with chabas shabas is love and chabas is forgiveness and you know listen uh the years of World War II they did blow chauffeur and rash you know so this is not U they're not guarantees uh one way one way or the other but if a community deliberately didn't blow chauffeur when they could have blown chauffer that is a very very bad bad why they blow during World War II onat no no no I was just saying that there were years which which was not Shabbat and you know it didn't stop anything yeah um anytime very you know could be for good say it had had effect for a certain amount of time and then after away and lost that memory and The Six Day War and um I guess also unfortunately even like for tragedies that we've seen from my mind I guess how can we ensure that this you know the truth is that uh I I would venture to say although although I hate to say it this way that that and it should it should continue continue has been in a relative state of peace and we don't even feel that you know less than 100 kilometers from here it's it's really hell on Earth so even this during the we get less sensitive as the days go by now people are dying there are people who are captured and hostages every single day but and it should continue you know here're we're doing okay and it needs constant renewal constant thinking about the fact that people are suffering they need our prayers they need our learning they need our support you know I got an email yesterday that some nine-year-old kid odad um uh was celebrating celebrating his ninth birthday in captivity and uh there was a campaign to send uh messages email messages tens of thousands of messages and demand that the the Red Cross deliver it to the boy on his birthday and uh just thinking and you know I I wrote something myself and there is an idea of uh we need even psychically to send messages I mean I believe in such a thing that that they should know that we're with them we're thinking about them and you can lose the intensity even in the middle of the war it doesn't have to be after the now one of the silver clouds has been there's been tremendous AK and unity among am Israel which was suffering tremendously before this war started but what's going to be when beem this war ends very very soon is it going to be business as usual let's go back to our regular fighting well the track record says yes that's been that's been the the past we have to think about this you know people were saying with Co you know people were saying with Co when shes were closed you know when shes reopen it's going to be new it's going to be different I I think the experience has been no it's been exactly it was before Co and tragically this could be the same thing after this so we got to really think about ourselves like what what will the new world look like of course if the world is mashiach that'll be the answer but if if if is not mashia and we're still going to deal with this world you know what can we do to make it better and it's something to something we need to devote a lot of thought about okay I'm going to stop here but uh and have a good shabus