Q&A: Spirituality, Purpose & Major Religions - Rabbi Dovid Gottleib

Okay, floor is open. >> Yeah, started off. >> Fine. >> Does God want everybody to be fully observant or are there some people that are put into this world uh whose purpose it is to reach some level of observance but maybe not to go all the way? >> Oh, what a nice question. Does God want everyone to be fully observant or does God put people into the world and intends for them to just go to a certain degree? >> Right? >> Well, one thing's for sure, he puts people in the world with very different capabilities. Now, if you just measure their capabilities against the zera of the Torah, you would say uh to expect everyone to fully comply with everything in the Torah is just an impossibility. But that judgment would be factoring out divine assistance. So you could have a situation in which the starting resources that a person has aren't sufficient to reach full compliance. But as the person makes an effort, he's given more and more resources to the extent that he will be able to uh to fully comply. [clears throat] I think that that's a much more realistic picture. Um I'm just mentioning this but it's a question of orientation. Um there seems to be perhaps a um contradiction between the idea that the Torah commands a person each commandment and therefore he's responsible to do everything. And on the other hand, you can't hold a person responsible and liable for more than he's able to do, which would make it sound like what you're obligated to do is your best. You're obligated to make your best effort. You're not obligated to actually succeed in doing everything. [snorts] Um, there was a famous philosopher named Emanuel Kant who held that position. Ought implies can. to say that you ought to do something presupposes that you're able to do it. The Torah rejects that position. The Torah holds a person and of course there are other philosophers also reject but that rejects that position. You are obligated to do everything perfectly. It's just that you are not blamed and not held responsible and liable for failure. If success is beyond your capabilities, that's not the same as saying you're not obligated. You really are obligated to do everything. So I think the [clears throat] idea is that your capacity will expand as your effort expands. There are many cases on record of people whose starting capacities were very low and turned out spectacular performances including late life converts who certainly started with a tremendous lack of preparation and who turned out extraordinary performances. So I think that we have to put that down to what we call sataya. I my incl my as I don't haven't seen this question discussed in the words that you raised it but my understanding would be yes the expecta the hope and the expectation for each person ability of each person is to is to actually fulfill the Torah perfectly I should say something else to fulfill it perfectly and I should mean without failure that doesn't talk about the quality of performance that's something else that could be open-ended that no matter how how much passion and how much commitment and how much courage you have, you may do everything right, but there may be much more spectacular ways in which you could do things. You could do them in better in quality and that might be open-ended, right? Might not a question of just doing or not doing. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Um, one of the one of the things that differentiates other religions is that all the rest of the heard the first two commandments right that it's the first two and the rest of them heard from so wouldn't have been better just created us that what happened is that Hashem told us the commandment and then we died resurrected us he just not said that commandment and his voice not kill Couldn't I get it? Couldn't he had just not what? >> Couldn't Hashem have made it that he was able to tell the commandment to us and that we just didn't die. So he could have heard all the um from not sure where this is coming from. If you take into take take into account what's going to happen that 99.999% of Torah information is going to come from Moses. Does it matter whether it's 0.001% or 0.0015% that they hear directly? Either way, the vast vast majority of the information is not going to be coming directly from God. So if you take that into account, I don't hear that there's a there's a great gain to be to be achieved by hearing the rest of the 10 pronouncements. If that's if I understand your question correctly, your question is only about the 10 pronouncements. Two against eight or all 10? I don't >> Yeah, I hear what he's saying. Yeah. So why why can Hashem tell us? >> Oh, so that's that's a different question. Well, we have on record, the Torah itself tells us that after the 10 pronouncements, um the uh the people said to Moses, "We don't want to hear from God anymore. We want to hear from you." And that reaction to the experience is something that God celebrates. Who could guarantee that they would have this heart full of awe and fear that they have today forever? God is overjoyed at their refusal to hear any more from him. And if you think about it, why was the revelation accompanied by the pyrochnics on hareni fire on the mountain and the ground trembling under their feet and the smoke and the cloud and the sound of the chauffar? Who needs all that? Put a great blackboard in the sky, you know, and right out of mouth and say, "Here it is." A calm voice. Any questions? We get explanations, right? Why did he do that? Because he wanted an impression of awe and of fright. that's what he wanted. You could ask why he wanted that. That's a long story. There's a lot to say a lot to say about it, but it's quite clear that that's what he wanted. Now, your your um attitude, I think, is expressed by what Rashi quotes as Moses response. When the people ask Moses, be the in between. Raji quotes a midash explaining Moses reaction, which was, I was devastated by what you said. I was devastated. Would it not have been better to draw close to God out of love and to hear directly from him and not from me? So Moses was upset with their response and God was overjoyed with their response. So it's a between God and Moses. Guess who wins. So um God wanted this as a foundational experience that could carry them through centuries and millennia of religious commitment and religious belief and religious development [clears throat] and what Moses saw as the higher level which in a certain sense it is love is certainly higher level but it would not have been able to been a foundation of that kind. There's a lot giant literature on love and all. We I spoke about it the other night here for an hour and how they related to one another. But uh the bottom line is God didn't want a continuous interaction with him. And if you think about the five books of Moses that would have gone on for months, right? It's not something which you can do in an evening. And it would mean they have to be on that level. They had to prepare themselves and purify themselves for that for that experience at Sinai. And imagine them purifying themselves for and keeping themselves in that state for months. That was probably beyond them also. I mean, so there was good reason that it shouldn't be done that way. >> Yeah. >> Question is since the point of of the world of the whole creation is to keep the terra says not only that the terra is also running and what's keeping the whole world running. Question is if so why wasn't the terra given by the first that the world was created. If the whole world is created just for that, why did God wait, I don't know, 2 3,000 years till he gave the which is the actual point of creating the world? >> Okay, let me just uh uh sort of put an additional factor in. I I don't think you're missing it, but maybe other people are missing it. The point of the creation is not to keep the Torah because keeping the Torah is itself a means to something else. It's not that black boxes should be wrapped on with black straps every leather straps every morning. All the mitzvah are for the sake of achieving attachment to and that has its fruition in all. That's the purpose of creation. But the way in which you get there is Torah. Well, let's remember um that God didn't create the world with thousand plus years before giving the Torah. That's how he not how he created it. Not at all. He created the Garden of Eden. There wasn't supposed to be anything after the Garden of Eden at all. The whole history that we have was just because of a failure. It's a loss. It's a repair for a gigantic loss. The program was I'm giving these the position of of the Garden of Eden to the first two people and I gave them according to many two commandments to eat from the trees in the right way and not to eat from the tree of knowledge. And had they succeeded in that, history would have been over. There wouldn't have been a thousand years of people wandering around without Torah and doing all the things that they did. This is only a way of repairing a broken world. So that's not what he what he planned and wanted. And the Zar says that in the mitzvah of not eating from the tree of knowledge were the all 613 commandments. They were all contained in that mitzvah. So it was made for Torah. Torah was given to them. [clears throat] They were commanded to do it immediately. And had they succeeded it would have all been fulfilled. Um that's so it doesn't that was only a default position afterwards. >> God know that saying the way I understand the rabbis saying that it was to mess up wasn't supposed to be like that. >> Of course it's a mess up. >> Okay. So God didn't know that would happen. Once the mess up happened should have been given right away. >> Why? I mean once you know that there's been a tragedy and has to be repaired that's like saying well he had surgery let him go home and run the and run track there was a whole long rehabilitative process that was necessary in order to put people back on a level where they could receive the Torah and try to get back on the track of the original thing that's a programmatic statement but in order to have what in in Yiddish talk is a kasha you have to have a positive reason why it could have been done this way not just I don't see why it couldn't have done this way I don't hear any positive reason yes in the What if you just stand in the door frame? >> I'm not kidding. What? What did you say? >> If you stand in the door frame >> Yeah. >> Do you have to still kiss? [laughter] >> Okay. No, no, no, no, no. You're I mean the contrast between what he's talking about, what you're talking about, like from world to world. [cough] First [clears throat] of all, there is no commandment to kiss the muza. >> I hope. See, I knew this was going to shock somebody. [laughter] It's a nice thing to do. Some people kiss the muzza. Some people put their hands on the kiss their hands. And many people walk through without doing anything at all. Um, part of the idea is that different rooms have different functions. You have a living room and a dining room and a kitchen and a bedroom. When you go from room to room, you're often going from function to function. The muza has in it parchments that express certain fundamental ideas about how the world runs and how God is situated in the world. And it's like a reminder, listen, you've been doing X for two hours. Now you're going to that room to do Y. Set yourself that when you should switch functions, you know, you'll be oriented to be doing it in the right way. That's one of the ideas that the that the Muza carries. It's nice to recognize it. It's not necessary. And I don't know of any particular laws of where your feet have to be planted when you when you kiss themsel coming in in the in the room. Those who have that custom, I I don't know of any particular details of that kind. Yes. >> I was wondering [clears throat] I was wondering going back to your question about kind of the garden of Eden if knew that Adam and because Hashem is detached from time and he knows what is going to happen, what has happened, what is happening, etc. So if knew that Adam and Eve were going to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, why even put it there so easily accessible? I understand the idea of giving them the opportunity of free will, but if Hashem wanted the world to be the Garden of Eden, why even give them that free will choice? >> Well, the question is what he wants us to do in the world that he creates us to be. Let me parody your question by asking, why wasn't God satisfied with squirrels? because that would be nuts. [laughter] >> Was that we need crosspollination for oak oak trees? Is that the idea? Uh >> sorry. >> The idea very briefly, if you look at the second chapter of the way of God, he spells this out in great detail. The idea of the the creation is to provide good. The greatest good that God can provide to a creature is to be as much like God as possible because God is the greatest good. God's nature is independent of all other outside causation. So part of being like God is to be independent in that way. And that independence is given to us through free will. So exercising free will is part of the good that he's giving us by making us able to be like him which is the greatest good. So we can't do without that. Now you can change the conditions of free will. You can make the choice harder or easier. That you can do. But then someone has to fine-tune it and say here are the abilities that you're given and the resources and the understanding and here's how much effort I want from you and the particular kind of effort that I want from you in this free will challenge to achieve what free will is supposed to achieve. And it's going to be fine-tuned for everybody. It's going to change from time to time, place to place, person to person. That was the fine-tuned amount of free will that they needed to do in order to accomplish what they what they needed to accomplish. Our conditions of free will are vastly different from those of Adam. Vastly different because we're in a vastly different circumstance. So more than that, that's only a programmatic statement. I'm just saying it was fine-tuned for the sake of whatever conditions he was in. But it's impossible for us to know in detail all the conditions that he was in so as to judge how much there should be and describe it correctly. So I can't say any more to your question than that. What else? Yeah. >> My greatgrandfather when he was alive used to do this motion with his fingers and he would say there's something I can't feel then you know it doesn't exist for me. And that was what he would say when he would try to talk to him about God or anything spiritual. Say if I can't feel it say it in Russian >> then it's not real. >> Oh very good. He's Russian. Okay. Yep. And um so subtracting serious um health or mental disorders, could a person be born with an inability to conceive of a higher power perhaps like how some people are born without an inner monologue? Uh and could could some people be born with some kind of an intellectual barrier to understanding specifically that there is a higher power? Could that be just a component that is missing from birth and they cannot develop, >> you know? you're really asking a psychological question and I I'm not a psychologist. I never studied psychology formally. So I don't know a a authoritative answer to your question. People are born with various types of of disabilities. I know there are certain physical conditions which are accompanied by very limited intellectual ability. The ones that I have seen like children with Down syndrome for example it seems to be quite obvious that they're not capable of conceiving of a creator Greg Xno and all the rest then that's not what their lives are meant to uh are meant to achieve. But I think the Russians I I have taught Russians on on occasion. I very much enjoy teaching them because they're very tough- minded. They're intelligent. They'll argue to the end and they'll accept if they if they see that that it's true. They're not biased. They just want to argue, you know, want to argue it out. Now, and even I find even Americans idea, you know, if I can't touch it, it's not real. Well, I think you can show quite quickly that that's a bit shortsighted. You can't touch the past. Golly, you can't sense atoms by touching them. So, I guess that doesn't matter if you're told scientifically that they're there if you can't feel them, right? uh you can't touch numbers, can't touch abstract qualities. They're all part of the world. You deal with them. There are sciences of them. So the idea that if I can't touch it, it's not real is dreadfully dreadfully out of touch with the world that they know, the world that they feel they're comfortable in. You point that out to them, especially Russians. Oh, okay. Okay. I see that. That was a little shortsighted, a little, you know, not to take me account of reality. Yeah. >> I think with that question, it's more difficult. describe God as more of an entity. I like numbers. >> I'm sorry. I can't hear you. >> God is more of an entity. Numbers aren't an entity. >> I know how you use the word entity. I'm I'm a professional philosopher. The word entity means anything that exists. A number is an entity and God is an entity. And pencils are entities and walruses are entities. They're all entities. They're entities because they exist, right? There are different types of existence and so on and so, but not everything is physical. That's all I wanted to point out. He wanted something to be uh perceptible by by touch. That it means he wants it to be physical. Saying that everything should be physical is just too it's too shortsighted. The world isn't like that. Even he knows the world isn't like that. Yeah. >> Um is there any um inherent need to uh or value to just being normal in Yiddishai. Meaning if you have a way of doing something or whatever that that for you is is is your way that helps you achieve you know what you need to do you know connection to Hashem or whatever but if it if it differs than everyone else maybe even people find it strange or whatever is there any reason in Judaism for us to say well you should give up what might be helping you do good because there's just this this this sacrifice to the the the idea of being normal. >> Okay, this is a very interesting question. There's actually a derzut that talks about it. Let [clears throat] me just me mention what you're taking for granted. [snorts] Obviously, the different ways that people do things have different effects. Um I don't know what's going on in child development in America today, but in my time, uh competition was very very important. Almost all achievements that were that were reinforced were a matter of winning with somebody else losing. Whether it was grades in school, it was your percentile that was your that was your achievement or in sports or [clears throat] or in competition for social relations with other people. That was was all competitive. It was taken for granted. And people who are good at competing felt good about themselves. And the competition brought out great effort and great success. At a certain point in life, some people began to think maybe this isn't the best way to be because what happens to the losers? What happens to the winners whose goal is to beat him? Not to do this well, but to beat him? What kind of person does he become? Is this really the development of a sensitive, high-minded, noble attitude towards the world, towards other people, towards oneself? Maybe not. Maybe cooperation should be stressed more than competition and so on and so forth. So I think the way in which you do it the adverb is quite important and you have to look at its consequences. Now you're talking about cases where there v there's variation [snorts] and in terms of the secondary effects there's no difference that would make one more valuable than the other. Just a question of doing like everybody else does or not doing like everybody else does. We do have a rule on that and the rule is you need a reason to be different. You need a reason to be different. That means the default is to do it the way everybody else does it. But there may be reasons. And if you have a reason, then it can be justified to be different. Because after all, if everybody's doing it one way and you do it another way, you're going to attract attention. You can't avoid that. Well, attracting attention is a big spiritual challenge. First of all, when they attract attention, people some people feel under social pressure and that exerts an influence on on the decisions that they make which may destroy their independence and their autonomy. Secondly, it sets up friction. Does he think he's better than we are? Why isn't he doing it like everybody else? Has he got a disability and needs special attention? Why isn't he doing it like everybody else? Um the the verse that applies here You should walk with your God with privacy. Privacy um without advertisement and in particular without standing out. Now there are reasons that people do stand out in various ways but they have to have reasons. So I think that's uh that's the really the [cough and clears throat] the starting point that you don't want to attract attention especially for how long you dab in and how you shuckle and how loud you sing and so forth and so on. Um because these things are superficial. We here at the yeshiva we often have people come in and and after a month or two months they get the heavy woolen sitsus and they put it over their shirts or something just an undershirt with a heavy woolen situs. It's too much to put on a jacket and a hat. But the heavy will insist for sure and we discourage them because we say making a move in terms of that religious demonstration is supposed to be in the expression of an inner transformation. And if you get hung up in the external uh inessentials then you can delay the inner transformation which is the real challenge. So I think that um the put this way everybody's standing don't sit when everybody's sitting don't stand when everybody's laughing don't cry when everybody's crying don't laugh now there are exceptions left when they were crying okay but there are exceptions there were reasons for the exceptions so the first thing you have to ask yourself is why must I be different what's what am I accomplishing by being different that I couldn't accomplish by being the same if there is something there's a good reason then there's no reason and you can take the position of being different not going to affect negatively too much then I think the is perfectly right but yeah >> question since the soul as we understand that in Judaism is a spiritual thing question is how could physical stuff affect it that much first of all the question is like sugar or caffeine or drugs that change your mood which is supposed to be a spiritual thing totally second of all also if you get a a CVA in your brain that could cause you to lose your memory memory should be stored in your in your soul. You should have it in the world to come. So how could how can a CVA make you cause you to lose your memory or even change your personality which is supposed to be something spiritual. >> Okay, this question I think is very fundamental. This um this question is is asked by religions generally and they have very different answers. Um, I don't know if any religion stresses the integration of the spiritual and the physical as much as as Judaism does. And it needs some kind of explanation. Um, I can do the whole thing tonight, but let me point out a few factors to think about. Um I once was speaking to someone who was involved is enamored of Hinduism and Sufiism and people who go off to a cave and meditate or a mountaintop and they cut themselves off from social society and as much as as possible from physical society um because they want to be very spiritual. So I asked one of those people who creates mud. Where does mud come from? Doesn't the creator of the universe create mud? Could it be that mud and this stock market and all the rest are anti-spiritual, detrimental to the purpose of the world? Isn't God sustaining their existence all the time? H maybe there's something else that has to be explored here. Many like the capitalists in general and in great detail say that one way of [cough] [clears throat] of describing the spiritual challenge of the world is to use your spirituality to spiritualize the physical. The soul that you're given is created spiritual. The world is created with a capacity for spirituality. When human beings realize that capacity and that's what the human being is doing starting with his body and then spreading out to the rest of the physical world. After all, according to many, the whole of the world goes to the world to come. Even the mosquitoes, it's all going to be there. Nothing that God created is going to be lost. Indeed, that makes a very deep analogy between what we're doing and what God is doing. God creates a world with the capacity to develop into something which deserves a certain intimate connection with God. Do we also realize the potential of something else to have it enter into that kind of relationship with God? Yes, we do. He does that for the entirety of creation. We are given the ability to do that for the whole of the physical. The secret is we do it for the spiritual also because the soul develops also. That's another point. But the idea here is that the physical world is the the proving grounds of the spiritual activity. And that's why there's no such thing as spirituality without without physical participation. Now you ask what about the dependence of the spiritual on the physical [clears throat] and if that harms the person's spiritual resources, how are we to explain what that effect has on the world to come and so forth and so on? Well, the first thing to know is God doesn't hold you responsible for more than you're able do a able to do. Let's take a really extreme case. Coma person in a coma for three months before he dies. No fill in for three months. What punishment does he get for that? He couldn't put fillin on there's no punishment for that. He wasn't it wasn't intended that he should use those three months putting on fillin and giving charity and studying Torah and doing the rest of the things because God put him in a position where he couldn't do it. Person sustains an injury and that changes personality and the new elements of personality are beyond his control to to uh beyond his ability to control then his challenge is not to control them. When we say we have a we have an expression in the Torah, you're given the ability to overcome every challenge, that statement has to be understood backwards. It's not that, oh, so I can overcome every obstacle. That's wrong. It's that if I can overcome X, then X is a challenge. And if I can't overcome Y, then Y isn't a challenge. The ability to overcome is what defines what is a challenge and what isn't a challenge. So if some physical circumstance puts me in a position where I'm unable to do X, then that ceases to be my challenge. Then I'm put in a situation where that isn't what I'm what I'm challenged to do. I'm challenged with something else. Or I'm put in a situation where I have to endure the inability to face any challenges. And that experience of enduring that is what's supposed to contribute to the continued development of my spirituality. So the the idea that person would be crippled in his development of spirituality because of physical circumstances is one which doesn't apply to the Torah system because once the physical makes something incapable that's not part of his spiritual challenge anymore. That's a start anyway on the on the question that you asked. >> I don't think you answered my question. My question is not how could physical actions affect spirituality. The question is how could stuff like drugs or CVA in the brain which would be a physical problem or chemicals in the brain affect spirituality like >> okay but I just answered that I just answered that if if you if you took them voluntarily that's no different from committing suicide or or taking a sleeping pill and sleeping for 36 hours you have the ability to affect yourself physically you can bang yourself on the head and go and go unconscious that's no different from anything else that you could do which affects your physical condition and your physical condition affects your spirituality. There's a sim which says who are those who sin by fasting. Isn't fasting good? Isn't fasting something which uh you know expedates sin and and improves you? Not if it makes you harder to study Torah. Not if you can't concentrate in dominating. Not if you can't be kind to other people. So there the person who fasts is sinning because it's making it harder for him to do the other things that he needs to do. Of course, you have the ability to affect and they can happen by accident, be struck by lightning and be left in cable just like you can die and just like you can faint. So these things can affect your your personality. I don't see any challenge here given that you have understand what I said that your job is to deal with what you have given the resources that you have. That's all you're expected to do and the things that affect your personality and all the rest are changing the conditions under which you operate and and endure life. I don't hear I don't hear any more of the question. Yeah. Um to what extent does a person should a person um focus on being involved in the world and and spiritualizing it as opposed to perhaps the other side something that you sometimes hear is you know only be involved in in the world and spiritualize it when you have to you know as much as you need to and and try as as much as possible be purely spiritual. >> It's uh well I wouldn't use the word purely spiritual there but okay let's leave it aside. I think it varies very much. It varies very much. Um surprise to people who think that invented his rashi mentions it theor mentions it the idea of going off in isolation to meditate and to gather one's spiritual focus and spiritual strength is recommended. Um so and talks in the about people in a certain condition of spiritual development where time alone is very precious to them and they will interact with other people only when necessary because that's their stage of development and then there are people who are beyond that for whom the interactions don't cost them anything but not everybody is like that so I don't think you can give a a general ruling on this also depends upon your age also depends upon your your background uh one of the things that we try to help people in this yeshiva deal with. We're coming to that period of time now. People go home, let's say for the summer or leave yeshiva to go to university or whatever. They and they ask quite rightly, how can I keep up the level of spiritual focus that I had in yeshiva when I'm at home? And the short true answer is you won't period. So you have to be realistic about how much you're going to lose so you won't be devastated by the loss and have strategies for preserving what what is realistic to speak about preserving how long should you spend in yeshiva and when should you give it up and go and go and leave the real world for the phony world of Wall Street and all the rest don't talk about going back to the real world that's terrible this is the real world but there are times when you have to sojourn in that world also so I don't think you can give General directions for that it's going to depend very much on the person's background or the person's you know people tell me they come they come here let's say after the junior year in college and they spend two or three years here and they want to go back to finish college they say rabbi I became flu in college don't worry it's not going to affect me so I said I think you're right I believe you but you're not going to go up either you're going to spend all your time just fighting to tread water fighting not to be dragged down you'll succeed you won't be dragged down but if you're in yeshiva you'll be going So that's something else to think about, but I I there's no general answer to the question. Yes, in the back. >> Um, how would you go about what advice would you give someone who's trying to figure out their greater purpose? >> That's a very very difficult question. Figure out your greater purpose. Um, I'm very realistically prejudice in this matter. My rebi Boston Rebby Tatal guided me in in every step of my development. I could see after 25 years that he saw where I was supposed to end up and he guided me to going there. I didn't know myself where I was going to end up. [cough] [clears throat] Um it's wonderful to have the advice of older people who have tracked the development of many people particularly people like you who can tell you given your capabilities uh you know what direction you should take and there are two things or two two three things I want to mention briefly about this first of all there's no one right route of development I've had people go to two outstanding spiritual authorities and being told that they gave me they gave me very different advice. So what there are different ways to develop your characteristics and your capabilities and different types of success that you're capable of and this one was envisioning this type of success and it was visioning that type. Doesn't mean there's a contradiction and one's wrong or maybe they're both wrong and something else is right. Not at all. Same thing in sports. There's no one way to train an athlete. There are various ways. We'll just give him various strengths and weaknesses in his performance. [clears throat] And then uh it may not be clear certainly to you and maybe not even to others what your ultimate purpose is until you've had you've tried various things and see how you react to those things. Uh the Greeks had a slogan for education. You should know something about everything and everything about something. I think even one of the brings it. It's a very wise saying because on the one hand um there are lots and lots of things going on in the world. You have no clue about half of them then you're going to be lost in things that happen. The other hand you should know everything about something because then you'll know what you don't know about all the other things. If you get very deeply into one subject then you know your grasp of the other subject is superficial. So you know when to ask you'll know when to to to seek further information. So it gives a tremendous balance. Now in going from from uh the many things you're going to know just something about you start interacting with something and you may have new experiences and learn of new realities which may inspire you in a way that you didn't anticipate. So [cough] that used to [clears throat] be the hope of a liberal education in university maybe 100 years ago. Uh so I I think that knowing it especially knowing it for yourself everyone everybody's prejudiced his own case everybody's rationalizing his own case very difficult to be clear about your own case talk to other people talk to older people people who have seen this kind of development before let them help you and realize that it may not be clear until you've had some more developmental experiences. Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm I'm getting Yeah. >> Um, Rabbi, I was I was thinking about uh the philosophical answers to free will and trying to raise the level up not to these like constituent parts of like order uh rules versus randomness, but to person or like agent. Um, I was wondering, you know, when you have a person in general, you might be able to say that's not a person, that's just a pile of atoms, that's just a pile of material. But we obviously don't treat it that way. We treat it as an individual even physically we seem to. And either that's because there's some hidden element which turns the pile of material into a person or there's some emergent uh power from the interaction of the parts which creates a person. Kind of like with music because if you take any individual note out or like if you take notes out it sounds like a mess and if you take notes individually there's nothing. But somehow the interplay of notes is a song and you recognize it as a song. So I want to then take that over to how we were approaching the idea of free will not having any value in of itself and to say there maybe we're looking at free will improperly because it's supposed to be a component of this large of a larger construct of something else and then the emergence of those parts is like a distinct thing. So, and the example I would give is when I'm considering the future, I can do something very unique because of my free will, which is I can rationally enjoy contradictory outcomes. So, I can't devote my life to being a doctor and devote my life to being a firefighter, but I because of my free will, I understand that both of those routes are available to me. So it's like a union of pleasure, imagination and free will which produces an effect which wouldn't exist without the free will which I'm experiencing now not as a result that's nestled in the reward in >> okay when you give a speech like that you know there's like a two week twoe response that's required to go through all of those first I I'm not sympathetic with the with the original initial description there's no contrast or competition between saying it's a heap of Adams it's and it's a The person is composed of atoms. Certainly when you say it's a heap of atoms, you don't mean to exclude it being a person. Doesn't contradict its being a person. You have a gigantic structure made out of out of bricks. It's also a building. Of course, it's made out of bricks. It's a brick building. So the the the competition doesn't isn't set up that way. Now when you talk [clears throat] about the difference between there being an extra element or an emergent property, there's a whole philosophy about that. There's materialism, there's dual dualism ontologically, and there's a dual aspect theory. There's a gigantic literature on that. You're absolutely right that the two different ways to to to look at it. And we have a an ontologically dualist position. There's the body and the soul. They're two things and they interact with one another. There are those who take the dual aspects theory and they talk about emergent qualities. You use the right word. When a certain complexity uh is achieved, then certain qualities come start to function which aren't derived from the qualities of the components in and of themselves. That's this is standard standard philosophy. I don't think it's necessary to to settle in our case when you talk about free will. Intrinsic means it is valuable in and of itself. Val and of itself means without causing anything else, without supporting anything else, without integrating into something else, it's in it's it's valuable in and of itself. And if the if there's a complex and this element is needed for the complex to function, that's no intrinsic. It's playing a role in the functioning of the complex. Um, so that's not going to help with the with the question of the intrinsic value of free will. It's going to be a separate subject. Yeah. I was wondering in this week's para um Moshe asked Hashem to kind of appoint a leader after him so that the assembly of Hashem won't be like a flock without a shepherd. I was wondering then why after Yeshua's death there's no singular national leader. We only get judges that arise you know in times of national emergency. So I was wondering either why did Yeshua appoint his own you know success or why Hashem didn't order him to do. So >> that's a very good question. I have no clue. The person you should ask is my wife because she has studied these matters in great detail and she's studied Tanakh in great detail. She writes regularly on Tanakh so every week. So um I could go home and and ask her it's true. I can explain why Yeshua is but I can't explain why afterwards which is your question that what that wasn't continued. [snorts] Um the whole Torah as it says in the safetra about six times at least was given for the sake of getting into Israel and to have a function in Israel. In a certain sense until that starts to happen Moses task isn't over. Moses lost the right to go into the land of Israel due to using very vague terms due to his hitting the rock or speaking to the people in an inappropriate way. Which means that without that mistake he would have taken them in and led the conquest and overseen the division of the land among the tribes which took 14 years. So that was really part of his project. So Moses is talking about there's someone who can represent him in the project and our literature says that Moses is like the sun and Joshua's like the moon. The moon reflects the light of the sun. It says that as long as a person's prime disciple is alive. He also is alive and it's taken from Joshua and Moses. Joshua played the role of a king just as Moses did. anyone who who violated Joshua's command was put to death. I mean really Joshua was like a a continuation of Moses' presence after that. Um the the organization of the of the community of the of the population was very loose was very loose as you pointed out. They appointed judges mostly when they were under military pressure and they used them as a chief executive to be able to respond to military pressure and then when things were okay they lived as tribes. The separate tribes had their own leaders [cough] but they didn't amalgamate into a single unity until King Saul which was hundreds of years later. So um what the point of that is what we're supposed to learn from that I really don't know. It's a very good question. Ask out of other people and see. >> Thank you. I was wondering if I could also ask >> Well, there are other people who want to ask. So, let's, you know, we're sort of running out of time. Yeah. >> The question is since Judaism has a role for all people in the world, Jews have 613 commandments, anyone else has seven commandments. What is the purpose of other religions in the world? And it's one thing religions like Islam where they they okay, they don't avoid, they don't break any of the any of the commandments. I can understand why there's a rel Eastern religions which believe in idols or even even Christianity which is also considered a desire according to Judaism. How can we understand that there's a need for >> well let's see I think that question could be understood in two ways and after all this goes all the way back idol worship goes all the way back Chase we talking about beginning periods of of of the creation when you say there's a need for them there's two different things you could mean you could mean that God ordains them they have a positive role to play in bringing the world to its to its fruition or you could mean that [clears throat] they are the setting in which struggles against them can lead to the Islamist of the of the world like the the evil inclination which God also created but not as if that thing in the world represents what God wants for the world. So when you say what purpose they have, you make it sound as if well they must be doing something that God wants to be done. God c made us capable of murder. I wouldn't ask well why does God support murder? When I when the person pulls the trigger, God makes the gun work and he makes the guy die. So what good is there in murder that God it's in God's world? The good is that it's a capability of human being. It's a crime. God commands us not to do it. And if we do it, then it plays a role indirectly in spiritual development. I don't see why you can't say that about idol worship. >> They're coming, their point is they're trying to serve God in their actions. I don't think you could compare that to murder, which >> I don't see why not. Not everybody kills because he's jealous of the other guy's money and so on and so on. Many many people have killed killed in God's name. The whole the history of the Christian church killed who knows how many thousands of thousands of people in God's name because they were heretics. they were destroying their true religion and so forth and so on. They think that they're serving God. They're just dead wrong about it. So I again, I don't see why that's not a crime. It could be a crime uh based on sincere motivation and just terribly wrong understanding of how the world works. That's another type of crime. Maybe you can call it a shogi, you know, like suicide bombers who think that the creator of the universe wants them to do that. That's not the same as Kamu who said, "If there is a god, I spit in his face." It's not this not that's what he said that it's not the same kind of crime. But the all of these things are wrong-headed. They're things that God forbids and they are tolerated to exist in the same way in which wrong free decisions are tolerated to exist and to and to influence the world because then the world becomes a place which has you have to overcome this as well. I don't see why it has to be more than >> I see there's no benefit in the in those other religions keeping them saying is there any benefit in murder? >> I don't see the difference between them. You're asking the same question. I'm giving you the same answer. Yeah. >> Is there any rational person? >> I'm not getting the words. Try it again. >> Is there any rational in believing in a personal God apart from revelation? Any rationale in believing in a personal God? >> Apart from revelation >> apart from revelation. Oh, apart from revelation. Well, um >> personal god. Things happen to people that are very difficult to explain without some kind of intelligent providence. [snorts] Uh, I'll tell you when I was becoming religious and I came to my understanding that the Torah is true and that there was revelation at Sinai and Exodus from Egypt and splitting of the sea and all the rest. People started to tell me stories about their rebies and the miracles that they did. I said just leave me out. Okay? I don't need that. I don't see any mitzvah in the Torah to believe in these stories. Yeah. I'm not saying they're false, but I'm not I don't and I don't need it. My spirituality doesn't need it. And I just sloughed it off until it started to happen to me. And I pride myself of being open-minded enough and objective enough not to just dismiss what my eyes see. You know, who are you going to believe? Him or what your eyes see? Some people that's a question. Um, and then when it started to happen to me, I said, "Okay, okay." You know, like I uh I I'll tell you one story which made a big impression on me and my first wife. >> [clears throat] >> We were very close to the Boston Rebat Sal 47 years. One Friday morning, he called up, which he did from time to time. I picked up the phone. He said to me, "Let me speak to your wife." Not, "Hello, how are you? Have a good ch nothing. Let me speak to your wife." I put her on the phone. He says to her, "Are you all right?" He says, "Yeah." "Are you sure you're all right?" He asked her three times. He said, "Okay, have a nice chabas." Hang up hung up the phone. on Sunday. She had a miscarriage. One call in 47 years. Tell me he got a right accident. Go ahead. Tell me. Pretend. No other call like that in 47 years. And less than 20 48 hours later, she had a she had a miscarriage. The baby dies 24 to 48 hours before the miscarriage. >> What do you do with that information? >> One second. That couldn't happen unless at the very least he was prompted. He was prompted by something. Now, I'll tell you a story that I just heard from a cab driver last week. Uh, he tells me I know that there is divine providence because I got out of the army 30 years ago. I decided to become a cab driver. I took a job in an intercity cab. I didn't realize they they drive on Chabas. Came Friday and the guy says to me, "You're going to be here tomorrow, aren't you?" I said, "No, Chabas that you lose your job. We most of our business on Chabas. You must be." So, he did. Feeling terrible. He did. [cough] And the next week he drove again on Chabas. And at one point he was taking foreign workers to their work. He think I'm a Jew driving Goya on Chabas. That can't be. Next Sunday he handed the keys. And he said, I've had it. I'm not I'm not doing this anymore. He said, I said to God, you have to take care of me. I [clears throat] uh I I'm going to keep your chabas. You have to take care of me. He joined another company and he started to work camp. He did okay. He did okay. Not not terrific, but he did okay. got married, had children. 10 years later, he's sitting at a red light in your life with passengers in the back and suddenly he gets this overpowering urge, grab the wheel and floor the accelerator. Cab driver in traffic, grab the wheel and floor the accelerator. And he can't fight it. He can't fight it. So, he's staring at the at the at the at the light. He's grabbing the wheel. He floors the accelerator and two seconds later there's an explosion behind him. It was a Sabaro explosion where it blew up the he was right right at King George Street. He was parked next to the Sabaro. Nothing like that happened to him ever before or ever ever since. Was an accident, right? He just happened to have that. It just happened to work out. Give me a break. You know, if you if you think that's an accident, don't go into science. No scientist would treat treat that as an accident. He would look for a cause. So when you have things like this happening and you're not prejudiced against it, you're not biased because of what your philosophy professor talked to. You said, "Listen, things are happening here." I had with my rebi quite a number of experiences similar to that, similar to mine. My friends also had such experiences with him. He pretty regularly did things that other people can't do. So I have to say there are powers that don't fit the normal fit of uh of of human behavior, human experience and one has to take that into account in one's own understanding of the world. So I think that with experiences like that now I didn't believe the people who told me those stories. So I don't expect you to believe me when I tell you these stories but keep your eyes open and and if it starts to happen to you then pay attention and draw the conclusion that that's the kind of world you're living in. >> Yeah. um is should a person view his purpose as for outside of himself and therefore he should only focus on his own and even in growth even in in in things for him to just connect to God one-on-one he should only focus on doing things that help him that that that are for his own growth as much as is necessary to get to the goal of doing things for society and the and the world or is the opposite. You know, you your your your your goal is to fulfill your purpose and to connect your soul to God and only be involved with the world as much as you need to fulfill your purpose. >> You missed it. It's both. Of course, it's both. Only this way or only that way? Why think that way? The Maral says that there are three kinds of commandments. Some commandments tell you how to relate to God. Some commandments tell you how to relate to other people and some commandments tell you how to relate to yourself. There are three responsibilities. Not no one controls the whole picture. You know where this comes up? It comes up a [clears throat] person who has the ability to earn a lot of money [snorts] and is dedicated to Talora and he will pay for many many people to study Torah. But what about his study Torah? He has Mr. Torah also. Now he says every hour that I work 25 people are going to study. How can I justify taking off an hour for me to study? That's one this way is 25 and that's wrong because he has a mitzvah of Torah also. So one of his responsibilities is to develop himself and another responsibility to do for the for the world what the what the world needs for itself. And you're right to say that part of my calculation when I develop myself is a more developed self what can I do for the world? There can be exceptions. There's which I heard from was one of the founders of where says shall I hide for Abraham what I'm going to do. Why should he hide it? And then he decides yes. He said because he was spending his whole life managing a community of people and bringing them closer to God. He didn't have time for the inner his bodhadus, the inner isolation, the inner meditation which would create within him the normal capacity to receive prophecy. So God says he didn't do it. He didn't develop it. But because he didn't develop it because he was taking care of a community of bringing people to me, he's not going to lose out because of that. But what you see is that all these things have to be all taken into account. So the responsibilities are triple. And one has to divide one's time. It's one of the very difficult things in spirituality. divide their time and again it's different from person to person different from time of life to time of life and all the rest you know and it and it's there are tricky subtleties here ravulba wrote a pamphlet for people who going to get married it was was never sold it was people got it from his house friend of mine showed it to me he said yeshivas are training in selfishness everything's well you're American so you're a little different but you know I come from a from background from family everything's done for you the money is provided provided, the food is provided, the instructions provided, the books are provided, your clothes are provided. Everything is selfish. You're going to get married. Better think about it. Better think about it. Entering into a very different type of relationship than the one than you've been trained for or accustomed to, I should say, not trained for, but accustomed to. So [cough] different stages of life have different uh demands on on the birth but all three are are necessary and relevant as not one to the expense of the other. Absolutely. Okay, last question. Yeah. >> Um sorry my phone's not turning on and I had the there it is. Okay. Um the mitzvah have defined levels of priority. Faced with a limited amount of time and three mitzvah which could potentially perform be performed within that time but could equally be performed at any other time. Would there be any way to know which one should be performed? >> I didn't quite get it. There's a a certain hour and in that hour you could do one of three. Is that the idea? >> Yes. One of three there's time for. So and they're all able to be performed at another time. So it's not like >> oh so would you get president done at that time? >> Yes. Yes. >> Let me think for a second. I wonder if there's is there a rule for that? >> We're not going to miss out on any of them. >> And they're all three in front of you simultaneously. So you just can make a free decision between between the three of them. Well, if one is objectively like for example, one is biblical and one is rabbitic, they should definitely take the biblical one. Um if but now let's see I don't know say would apply here that's only when you can only do one because there's a difference between what's and what's comes first. There are certain rules about what comes first but they're not I don't think they're very general. They won't cover most cases. Um trying to think none of the rules of Kadima come to my mind at the moment but there are rules of of of one being done before the other but but they'll most of the time they won't apply. >> Most of the time they won't apply. There may be rules I'm not aware of. Ask this of someone like Bradwoods. He he would have a you know he's he's encyclopedia. But then generally speaking, if you can't find rules that apply to the situation, you're free to choose whatever you want to do. >> Yeah. You see, there's kind of I say subtle things that will come in. Let me say something brutal and and and uh and very negative. How do you know you're going to be alive an hour from now? I'll get to it this afternoon. Oh. Uhhuh. Okay. By the way, [clears throat] they got mana every day. every every morning and they used it up at night and says someone who worried about tomorrow's food >> it's called it's called he's not really a person with great faith and trust in God you know what the kari said the reason he doesn't have faith and trust in God because he thinks HE HAS FOR TODAY THAT'S WHY he's wrong who says HE'S GOING TO HAVE IT FOR today he doesn't really believe that God is CONTROLLING THE TOMORROW WHO KNOWS you know they could believe about that not believe that no he thinks got it in his pocket. People ask me, "Why should I dab him for health? I'm healthy." I say, "You have been healthy." You don't have health in your pocket. So you say, "Well, which one should I do?" Because the other ones I can do this afternoon on that on those grounds, if there was something more precious about one of them, would be reasonable to say, "I'm doing this one now. I'll get to the other afternoon if they, you know, if I'm not overtaken by other responsibility, whatever it is. But since objectively this one has some special feature, I want to do this one now and I'll get the other ones this afternoon. I I'm I'm guessing that there are discussions of this type of thing and but I'm just not aware of them. Okay.