Q&A: Torah Learning, Conservative Judaism & Emunah - Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz

around an hour uh yeah as become as when did the first two get out yeah that that's a very excellent question uh it's interesting that uh the chapter of tahim which is chapter 145 uh is not which we all call asre does not begin with ashre it begins with deil and then you have um an alphabetical acrtic except for the letter nun as we know because nun is neilo falling did not want to begin with the concept of saying that chapter three times a day is of course already in the gor the gamor says anyone that says to three times a day is is guaranteed whatever that means exactly that they have a share in so the notion that you say Ash three time what we call Ash three times a day is already in the gamar but again the gamarra only refers to the chapter to he which is to Hill 145 now uh it is actually prefaced with two verses earlier than that which are not part of the chapter which is much earlier and so it's interesting that theim that begin with are not part of what we call Ash so the interesting question is when were they added so the truth is they were added pretty early uh you already find them in the sedur of the who indicated that the Min Israel was to add them earlier now in terms of dates that would mean the following um the Babylonian talmud was finished around the year 700 approximately uh Theon ra gone you're talking about the 900s uh and the like so they didn't invent it either they were recording ing a minog that already existed so at some point between 700 and 900 such a minog became Nate uh we don't know exactly uh who started it we only know the earliest sources where it is brought down and that is in the sitter of Rajon and ran Ron uh but it is interesting that um Ash does not include ashr that's very true yeah can you explain all the different distinctions that make conservative can I explain all of the distinctions that make conservative Judaism uh heresy uh what makes it kafira uh the problem is this I I don't want to BFA spend a lot long time knocking things um conservative Judaism does not have a a central meaning meaning to say it means a lot of different things in some ways reformed Judaism is easier to identify because reformed Judaism you know denies the idea that God gave the Torah denies the authority of the oral law so the heresy is very very clear both in terms of the denial of divine revelation at Sinai and in terms of denial of the concept of the oral of the oral law and even The Binding nature of Hala so it's fairly easy to talk about why reformed Judaism is heresy and again I'm not knocking reformed Jews this is not a condemnation of individual people but just in terms of the philosophy of the movement uh to say why conservative Judaism is heresy uh is not so clear simply because conservative Judaism does not have a single definition uh there are conservative rabbis who fundamentally are Orthodox uh although probably in a more of a left-wing way and there are conservative rabbis who are fundamentally reform uh in that way so it Embraces a very very big tense in theory if conservatives mum just means that you know Hal has a flexibility and therefore you need to know how to apply it to change circumstances in theory there is nothing wrong with that approach per se that is not heresy that is historically what a POS did and today people are a bit more rigid but even today you know po has to know how to apply the to new circumstances but the problem was that in the course of time the conser much much of the the conservative movement has become um more and more leftist and more and more reform in orientation so uh a lot of the movement uh is heretical for the same reasons as the reform movement but qua movement as a movement it is hard to point out specifically uh what the heresy is I think the heresy lies in the teachings of individual practitioners I mean let me give you an example I'm going to get in trouble for this but I don't know what I what no matter what I say I I get hate mail um now the conservative movement ordains women okay now helically that's a mistake Hally that is incorrect it's wrong does that make it heretical though if somebody were to take the position that women can be ordained rabbis yeah it's wrong it's a HC mistake please note don't send me a letter that I'm endorsing the ordination of women I am not okay got it okay uh it's wrong but as I I've said many many times that not all errors in Haka amount to heresy or cir I don't think the issue of women rabbis is a matter ofuna it's just AIC mistake so for me to say the conservative movement is heretical because they ordain female rabbis that would not be a true statement I can say they made a mistake but whatever it will be on the other hand uh to the degree that let's say they would legitimate homosexual marriages that actually would be heretical because they're taking a law of the Torah and they're saying it doesn't apply now I I can't say off the top of my head what the official stance of the conservative movement is on gay marriages but there are certainly individual conservative rabbis that do legitimate it and by the way there are some very left-wing Orthodox rabbis that legitimate it and that I think would be Kira and the like so I'm kind of fudging my answer simply because the conservative movement is so vague that you know you can't automatically point to the movement as heretical but I think you can point to many many conservative Rabb is now rosha Feinstein then took it one step further and that is even if you're an orthodox Rabbi but if you affiliate with a movement where a large number of practitioners are heretical then you yourself become tainted with that designation because you are kind of legitimating heresy within your movement right so that's taking it one step further so that would be R Mosa's argument yeah yeah conservative mement they also like form their own speak their own what well they they they have a a commission of Hal I mean they have a Comm but again I mean what am I going to condemn that I mean the orthod Orthodox movements there are rical counil of America the RCA also has a h commission who are supposed to be the post of the rabinal Council of America So when you say they form their own movement to paskin uh inherently there's nothing wrong with that except for the content of what they do pasin you see I mean what what is necessarily heretical about having their hakik commission uh if they would follow halaka in in pining uh their their their ways you know so I I I couldn't call that AIC corsus itself now obviously the whole essence of conservative Judaism is H is flexible and changeable uh we believe they've taken that to a dangerous extreme yes but that is again I I hate to to to say this but that is ultimately a matter of degree meaning to say uh if you were to ask me can I can I subscribe to the statements that Hala is flexible and can respond to changing social concerns the answer is yes that is not an untrue statement but it's untrue when it applies beyond the parameters of what is a legitimate H process so you're not so much dealing with the official statements you're dealing with the application of those standards uh a lot of the standards in and of themselves are not necessarily objectionable so okay I guess I just put on my Flack jacket and whatever yeah how can you explain the importance of fulltime tah learning to people who don't have tah values yes how can you explain the importance of full-time Torah learning to those who do not have Torah values it's an excellent question and the short answer is you really cannot uh it is very very unfortunate uh a believing Jew understands that liorah has been one of the central pillars the central pillar of what brings ra into the world what brings bra into the world what gives us one has to understand that to take people who are learning and make them do other things is not just hurting them it's hurting the nation it is hurting the security of the nation it is actually endangering am Israel uh that's the M uh this is not putting down soldiers I've said many many times that the IDF we have a lot of we have to have a lot of gratitude uh for their m nees and uh that includes obviously the Hester uh boys who combine Yeshiva learning and and and military service and even a Hester Bak will certainly say that he recognizes that Torah learning is an essential component I mean that's part of the identity so that's absolutely the case but once again if you're not a person who believes in those Torah values all you see when you see somebody sitting in a base medish is you see a guy who's reading a book that he finds interesting and that's great uh it could have been Chinese hieroglyphics it could have been Advanced calculus it could have been medieval history all right this guy happens to read talut uh what is so special about it very very difficult to convey that uh this is something that brings God's God's blessing um but but basically you try to make the case you try to say that historically look at all the Jews have been through look at all of the Nations that have tried to destroy us and look at the fact that through our keeping of the Torah God has preserved the Jewish people in a miraculous way maybe the person will buy it maybe they will not buy it um I hope that you might be able to convince them persuade them bring them a little closer to understanding that fundamental truth but it truly is it truly is an uphill battle there are certain things that are very difficult to explain unless somebody subscribes to a certain belief system I mean I'll give you another example intermarriage um what do you tell somebody who is not religious who was not raised with Torah why they shouldn't marry a non-jew come up with a non Torah reason why intermarriage is wrong so you sound like a racist well you're supposed to marry your kind you know you don't marry people that are different than you well he said what Judaism is racist exclusionary so it's very very hard like people people come to me all the time they come to other rabbis they say you know uh my brother or my cousin is going to marry a guy you know and you know he doesn't keep anything how do I convince him you know not to not to do it the short answer is you can't the best you can do is if you could get him to Simply go to Yeshiva for a month uh that may do the trick not because they're going to talk to him about intermarriage but because as he learns Torah he gets uh more more more sens IED uh but one of the things you might point out is although it doesn't prove anything that uh somehow the value of religious learning has been recognized even by secular societies I mean the United States had a draft until um late 7s I don't know the exact date but during the Vietnam war there was a draft and of course there had been a draft earlier World War II and the like and uh even at the height of the draft uh students who were full-time rabinal or clerical students were given a draft exemption now you may wonder why would a secular society exempt people who were studying for the clergy the answer is that even a even a secular society kind of recognized that we needed people who were involved in in connecting with God and studying about religion in order to get God's blessings upon our endeavors so so the argument goes if this was recognized by the United States during World War II as well as Vietnam then maybe K Homer Jewish State like Israel should recognize the importance of Torah learning of course uh during the uh 1970s 60s and 70s uh the enrollment of yeshivas were at their height uh many many people were going to Yeshiva to get the draft exemption and that of course was an improper use of it but on the other hand there were uh you know I mean Benet tyus and Sir B Tyra who legitimately were given that that exemption I mean I I I remember having my draft card with my uh 4f I don't I think it was 4f was the name of the exemption for uh for religious students um I think I mentioned before forgive me for repeating it but it's I just love the memory of it my own rebi that I was closest to rakov mosha kvi was actually drafted in the US Army during World War II and the Story Goes that he was in Torah vas he was a talid of schl in Torah vas and uh in order to get the exemption uh you had to declare to a draft board that you are studying to be a rabbi and indeed the Yeshiva instructed every student that was asked by the draft board why are you here say I'm studying to be a rabbi uh my Reby didn't want to say he's studying to be a rabbi because he wasn't studying to be a rabbi he was studying in Torah LMA he was studying Torah to serve Hashem he was told not to say that but whatever it was he felt there was a matter of Kes hasem that they asked him what are you here for and he says I'm here because I believe that God wants me to spend my time studying his holy words well that sounded like saying I like to read tman or something you know so they actually drafted him he actually went into the army uh his parents filed a lawsuit in federal district court and I think after a year and a half or so he got released but it's interesting that in a sense he was moster nees because he did not want to say he was learning for a career that wouldn't be the answer but as I say it going back to your direct question it is a difficult idea to convey a lot of things are difficult you know even a fir person might ask um what is so spiritual about learning gamorra I understand if you're learning D hasem if you're learning books of muser if you're learning you know books that talk about t hamidos i get that that's spiritual stuff but I learn about oxen that Gore cows or I learn about eggs they're laid on yam or I learn about two people who are holding a Talis and they go into Bon or how you marry a woman with cfar Andia like where where is the spirituality there are we here to learn how to connect to God or are we simply going to Rabin law schools um it's a good question right I I and I I imagine that maybe some of you might have had that question you come to Yeshiva and you think that tomwood will answer the mysteries of Life the purpose of existence and you're looking forward to that first Kamar share and then it becomes a very technical discussion which you know if if you like technical discussions you'll like it it's in might be intellectually engrossing but where is the spirituality and the answer is ultimately a non-rational answer it's a mystical answer and you only know it by by the experience that hopefully you go through and that is this is connecting you to Hashem when you're connected to Hashem there are transformations that can take place within you that are not necessarily connected to the nature of the material that you're studying you could be studying the most technical Arcane almost irrelevance in terms of Spiritual Development topic but you're connected to God it's going to change him over time I think people have found that people have found that through their own experiences but to explain that on a fully rational level you're going to have trouble uh so there's a lot of things in Judaism a lot of things in life that are very very very true but it's very hard to convey to somebody who is outside of the orbit of the system that's why we have to say try it right try it you like it this be an old commercial meaning TAMU taste the Torah and then you'll see meaning I can't convince you when you remain outside of that outside of that system uh yeah so far we've been rning in and U but my question is let's say later on when you went to you know start learning things that are less practical to daily life right because of course you knowas you know you're doing it all the time and F you have a sense of it because you know you want to get married yeah con it to like it's not really part of of Life as we know today like caros and you know you know will it as also be as well well you know everyone has you know even though we shouldn't have favorites but you know but but human nature is human nature and everybody has their favorites certain sugio that excite a person and certain sugas that are less exciting to a person that's going to be the msus of Life uh but uh I think it's very very true that Torah has a momentum you connect to God when you connect to God you're closer to Hashem so then you find every part of Torah interesting and fascinating uh even though initially that wouldn't be where you'd start because you're not yet there to feel the sweetness of it but by learning Bros and by learning kadu you're going to learn andos also with excitement and passion they tell a story I I'm not sure if the story is true but they say that if you wanted to be a tal of the vagon the Von had a BINA a certain test if you could be his talet so we would have thought well maybe the test would be you got an OAS or something or you know some like ronics test a real heart test you know what whatever it would be so they say that the test was very simple you had to learn the first few chapters of sa like a hundred times now what are the first few chapters of Chronicles of all it is is a list of names starting from names just you read name after name after name after name like all the way from all the way to lot of names lot of generations most people would read that and they might be bored out of their heads so the Von's test was if you could read those names like 100 times and still have a g still feel it's Torah that means you're ready to learn Torah at the highest level because every part of Torah is enjoyable to you there's nothing that's boring nothing that's not uninteresting so that's a high madrea but that but that comes from the learning itself meaning the more you learn the more you'll feel the sweetness of Torah the idea that we should feel the sweetness of Torah is really important my proof is very simple every single morning when we recite the blessing says make the words of your Torah sweet to us that's really important you want to feel the sweetness of Torah but as the says that comes from the learning meaning initially when you learn you may not feel that sweetness but the more you stick with it the more you you hopefully will feel that that sweetness Dr KES describes and I I have to admit to to my to my shame I've never experienced this but he talked about a person who can who learns 12 hours straight it's like a very ecstatic experience he says first of all he says it takes three hours of uninterrupted learning till you're really into it three hours I mean how many of us to be honest learned without interruption for three hours says takes three hours and then you're in it and then he says and what happens at hour number four is you feel this unbelievable joy and then hour number five you feel like you're in Shay and hour number six he goes hour by hour and by the time you hit hour I can't even repeat all the the drama he puts into it by the time you reach hour number 12 it's as if you're in in front of the this is what get but it requires a continuity you know we unfortunately and I I include myself we very very rarely have a sustained continuity without interruption we have coffee braks we have bathroom braks we have shoo breaks okay we're not we're not but you see in some ways we never get the optimal benefit even from an hour of learning because we break it up even if we wind up learning 60 minutes but the 60 minutes with the interruptions is not the same as 60 Minutes without the interruptions the Kish gave a famous musle let's imagine you have a pot of water and it takes 20 minutes to bring the pot of water to a boil 20 minutes of heat every 19 and a half minutes you shut off the flame and you wait until the water cools down and then you start it up and 19 and a half minutes same thing over and over and over again so you might be wondering gee I've had the fire on for 300 minutes you know for 5 hours how come it's not boiling because you never had 20 minutes straight you had 19 and A2 and then 19 and A2 and then 19 and A2 and then 19 and a half you can do it a million times and you're not going to get what you would have had with 20 minutes of continuity something to think about uh there is something about the strength of continuity this is the famous sport they say although there's a lot more to say about the story about RAB Akiva remember RAB AKA was learning for 12 years without seeing his wife and then he comes home to see his wife after 12 years and uh she overhears her saying to somebody I wouldn't mind if he go for another 12 years so he just turns around and goes back for another 12 years so everyone asked Tasha well couldn't he have said hello couldn't he have had a cup of coffee I go what he turns around without even saying hello so the the famous word of aarant Cutler is if he had the opportunity under permission he wanted to create a continuity of 24 years although when mighta there was a break and he going but he wanted to minimize that break so it would be one one unit of 24 rather than two units of 12 right then you see that idea of of of of continuity so beem I hope you I hope everybody here I hope all of us will be to learn all of the of Torah and uh get get get an enjoyment get a pleasure by the way the has a very important Torah now the wrote many many coros in fact the whole modern learning of Corban which is considered to be a the most advanced kind of learning brisk and the like comes from the he brought back the of the order of to is that had been neglected for hundreds of years and someone said to the you know why are you focusing on things that are not shouldn't you focus on things that are as if who wrote the Mish was not concerned with right okay but someone some everyone always has there something to complain about uh yeah so the gave a very interesting answer he said you know there's a special importance sometimes in learning things that are not no because the only way I get the light of that Mitzvah is by learning in other words things that I'm able to do likein so even if I don't learn the laws ofin I get the light ofin in myish by wearing them but things like corbano you know if I don't if I'm not able to do it it's the learning that gives me the light of that Mitzvah and since every Mitzvah brings light to a different part of your body body the 248 positive Commandments are the bones and the 365 negative Commandments are the SES so if I don't have the light of a Mitzvah there is something defective in me right so said that although we do give priority to things that but you have to remember it's very very important to learn things that are Nota because otherwise you're spiritually defective your Nish is not complete in those important ways yeah what goes into yeah that's a real good question um I have given the past year I call it a I don't use the word h i have given probably 250 Hamas it's exhausting I mean every time I tell people now I don't do it anymore and they say well can't this be the last one okay so uh I keep on I keep on doing it and doing it and doing it even though I actually don't want to do it anymore but if you look uh any say for mainly mainly On's in English you know I got a letter for everybody so you get a reputation as being an easy guy to get a Hask from and that's unfortunately that builds on itself okay forget about the venting there but uh the what comes into a is number one I will tell you honestly this is true for me but it's true for everybody it's not it's not only me uh the person who gives a almost never reads the entire book it's not but but you have to read enough of the book that number one you understand the author's mahalik uh you understand the author sources that they draw upon are these makus that are authoritative makas like kazal uh or you know kidus or cabala or mus or the like and you want to get a sense that the author has respect for gdolim and finally of course that the author has a meaningful message that they're trying to communicate so you have to ask yourself is this a safeair or a book that is worthwhile for Jewish people to read now it doesn't mean worthwhile for every Jewish person to read there may be books that are suitable for beginners and maybe not for somebody Advanced or there may be a book that's suitable for somebody who's Advanced and not for a beginner but that's fine but if it is a suitable kosher content book with and connection to MOS and respect for for for Torah uh then we give a you know it doesn't have to be uh you know it doesn't have to be a masterpiece but it's something that's worthwhile something that's kada uh to uh to to allow on the market so to speak so a lot of people as I've discovered a lot of people books it's it's quite it's quite quite amazing and a lot of the books are very very good and uh as a result uh there's been an explosion in books and inim on all sorts of subjects and uh different people benefit from different things you know the balat himself writes in the hak to the T in his humility he says you know why do you need another safer and AEM you know why do you need it now why am I writing the safer so the bat says that particularly when it comes to [Music] of how to serf everybody has a different wavelength meaning some uh may move one person I you know one person may be very very moved and is so rare by one type of safer and then another person will read the same safer and it's going to leave them cold it just doesn't compute it doesn't speak them so the bat says in a we need different types of because there are different types of they connect toes using the sameus using the sameus but they connect to our KES in different ways so that's why part of why we have so many different types of books some books work well for some people and some books uh work well for other people um you think about it in fre muser you know if someone would ask me what is the best muser safer to learn so the standard answer the official answer would be M shashar which of course is a great Great Masterpiece of Mido and character development and we know fromer and from even that was the safer of mus and yet and yet I can tell you many of you might know rev Risman shalita the r T that that to he comes to every every summer and rman said that when he was a buer RAV P told him he wasn't allowed to learn M because he had such a conscience that it made him feel guilty it made him feel depressed and missil Sharm was not the right safer friend right even though it's the greatest classic so in C muser too you got to find the safer that speaks to you in a positive way uh so that's when you read you ask yourself you know is this a safer that speaks to a group of any group of people who might benefit by being by might being this over from the sa yeah nowadays it's become very uh common dur to sing during so where did this come from when did it start and why is it okay because most of the time you can't hear the yeah yeah yeah so this is interesting the the issue of singing singing especially singing during kadha which is again a time that you're not supposed to talk you're not supposed to be mik and you're supposed to to hear the so it is very very true that uh historically of course in the B mik of course we had the L singing But but that wasn't interrupting anybody's ding because nobody else was ding we were just listening to L singing so um the truth of the matter is it's fairly it's fairly uh late origin meaning it is not the original minhag of kisel the original minhag of Kel did not involve a lot of singing during daving we had zos maybe which is not really part of a a service Kaba perhaps there was singing even though there I'm not sure we have so many Ras either even for so uh there are different Origins though some some singing came in through kasas which emphasized ecstatics singing and dancing uh during daving uh some came in through the German Orthodoxy which was trying to in order to keep people in the fold they were adopting some of the customs of Reform which in turn adopted the customs of churches where they had choirs and the like so you have kidas you have German Orthodoxy trying to keep people in by the formality of Reform and then in the United United States congregational singing became very very popular at the beginning of the 20th century through the Young Israel movement you know I know yesha people like to knock young israels because they represent superficial you know Orthodoxy and the like but the truth is Young Israel played a very very pivotal role in the preservation of American Orthodoxy at a time when there were very very few yeshivas or even day schools of the country if you go back to the beginning of the 20th century there were almost no yeshivas at all almost no yeshivas almost no day skulls and Orthodoxy was dwindling it was hand hanging by a hair and Young Israel and who who who was from old European people whose kids largely left Yiddish kite but these were the old yiddish-speaking immigrants who had their and their shs and they were dying out so the invention of Young Israel as its name suggests Young Israel was a way of kind of making the synagogue more attractive to younger American kids and they did it in a lot of ways but one of the ways they did it was by introducing congregational singing that got people more into the ruach this is preak right this is before schab this the early 19th century I'm sorry early 20th century uh they also did stuff that was a little questionable uh they used to sponsor dances they used to have Saturday night dances now again G condemned it raas who came from Europe actually signed a letter against it wasn't proper and yet and yet and yet I'll get in trouble for this at a time when the potential was intermarriage and by having boys and girls men and women interact you know Jewish men and women that facilitated staying within the Jewish people you know you see it's a complicated issue there there were some positives in that in that attitude as well now eventually after World War II the Yeshiva started raren Cutler came rosha Feinstein Etc so Judaism got much more Hally compliant and rigorous so some of the Young Israel things became no longer proper but one has to recognize that they were really pivotal in creating a holding pattern for orthodox Jews who otherwise just would have totally assimilated so going back to your question one of the things that they made very very popular was the notion of singing now the original Young Israel singing involves another halic problem a lot of repetitions of words so you know I remember I I remember growing up you know uh during they would sing and they would do a thing like every sentence they would repeat like a and and and and the like and obviously to repeat words in Kar is totally us or totally improper but they did it whatever they did things that were not but it did keep people people there so uh as they say so the three sources of singing are certain groups of German Neo Orthodoxy and in America it was the Young Israel movement in the beginning of the 20th Century so you see that it's not such an ancient tradition the notion of singing during daving uh was not something that goes back so long ago now in terms of of kadus in terms of hearing the kazen uh that's an interesting question uh obviously uh the kazin should should speak loud should you know say the words loud enough that we hear him or or he should wait people are singing after they finish singing he should then say over the words that he didn't say so that that is an issue but other than that um the only problem would be repeating Words which is a pro is is a problem and the other issue is heik you're not allowed to talk during kadosa except if you say the words of kadua now if I already said those words silently and then when the Kazan is singing I sing along with the Kazan and I say those words it's like repeating words I'm being Moi in kadua not allowed to do that so what's the the either is I don't say the words until the Kazan is saying them and then I say it along with him or I just sing the nigun but don't say the words now that that that also creates a problem is humming a niggan or is singing a nigan without words is that treated as a have right one it's it's an issue it's an issue on rash too where you're not allowed to be m in because of the chauffer blowing all right but there is a mck to be make if it's a word wordless anigan so as I say and a lot of the European yeshivas mka the old yeshivas of Lita they did not sing during ding even the they often did not sing in many many places uh but sometimes the door might need it we might need it a little bit and so there are reasons to encourage it uh yeah for some reason rather often get a question which seems to have an an undertone well if both of Jews are together left in s once upon a time or most of them anyway or fifth of them how come how come they all look so different you got got black je you got range in between blue no it actually is a very very excellent excellent question if we consider the Jewish people to be primarily an ethnic group that are descended from common ancestors aov the people who left M you know whatever would be these are the Jewish people then how do you account for the uh genetic diversity in terms of skin and eye color uh why aren't if we're all from Middle Eastern origin we ought to be like spartum you know darker darker complexions or like Arabs or the like how do you explain blonde blue-eyed or or european looking and the like it is a very very difficult question actually uh now obviously uh some of it uh comes from converts that have entered the system uh we've had G over the years there was a theory and again I address it to the hate male people please do not tell me the theory has been discredited I know that it has pardon that little Interruption there uh but there had been a theory for many many years uh that the kazars remember the kazars the kazars were a warlike tribe in Russia going all the way back to the 800s and 9th century that converted their King decided to convert his Nation to Judaism and that was a true story there actually was a Kazar nation that had converted to Judaism revi wrote the whole philosophical book The Kari based on that true story he made up the dialogue know he made up the questions the answers the philosophical discussions to prove that Judaism is a True Religion but the dramatic structure that he used to convey the philosophical ideas were the dialogues between the king of the kuzar which are the kazars as we say it and the the rabbi uh right so the saer ker is actually based on this story but there was a theory that virtually all ashkenazic Jews are not descended descendant at all from the Y MIT they are descended from the Russian kazars in which thousands and thousands of them entered into the genetic pool uh there are books about this there are books that actually say that ashkanazi are virtually all descended from the kazars again many people have dis claimed that theory is discredited I'm not advancing it as true but but nevertheless even if you don't accept the wholesale you know adulteration of the Jewish gene pool askanazi gene pool through the kazars certainly there was the element of um of conversion that entered the pool and uh in truth as well some say that even within Middle Eastern populations there is a more of a genetic diversity than you might think so for example uh there are Iranians most Iranians have dark complexion have Middle Eastern somewhat uh Arabic although they're not Arabic features but there are Iranians that are blonde and Bluey meaning there is a genetic diversity so that could exist within the Jewish people as well but it is you know it is a good question I I wouldn't NE I really call it anti-semitic uh it is a curiosity of how many different uh Gene types have entered the the Jewish pool uh yeah so science has attempted to come up with its own Narrative of creation yeah so what aspects of it does the Torah completely reject and what aspects know because maybe the Torah is not so clear on the details that maybe uh elements could would ptain to such as you know evolution of man age of the universe and world you know you know was the world actually created in seven days of 24-hour periods uh you know what going along this process does the start yeah yeah yeah so uh the issue becomes uh we have H A scientific account of what the process of the creation of the world was and the age of the Earth and everything else and the question question is uh what parts of that uh would the Torah absolutely reject that we could not accept what parts can we accept what parts are subject to interpretation this is the general problem of what are called the conflicts between science and Torah and religion and what can we do well again this is a matter of great great controversy and in fact I could even AR has posted some Shor that I've given on it and other RAB God other people have given on it as well you know it is a matter of great great controversy in the following way there are many that do say hey uh by definition we cannot accept evolution because Kisha says God made Adam and you can't say you cannot say he evolved from an ape uh they would say we cannot accept uh an age of the earth that is billions or millions of year actually billions billions of years old because we are in the year 5,785 right Etc uh and therefore there are many who take the position in fact that might actually be the majority position in the K world that the whole scientific account is B and sheer and cannot be accepted and one who does accept it is a kofer and aorus that is one school of thought a very very prominent school of thought however there is another sha about this in which in various ways it is entirely possible to accept virtually everything either by redefining either by redefining the six days or by saying that even if the six days are 24 hours but there were prior worlds before this one that God made and destroyed and that could refer to cataclysmic events in Earth itself and things like dinosaurs are remnants of those prior worlds that got destroyed by ice ages and meteorite showers this is actually Advanced by the teer Israel the famous commentary on the mishna from the 19th century uh regarding Evolution let me just point out Ral H uh lived in the time of Charles Darwin and when Darwin's book on Evolution came out so somebody asked refers can a religious Jew believe in the possibility of evolution so ref first said the following words revur said I'm not quoting but I'm paraphrasing evolution is a theory it hasn't been proven and by the way that's still true today but he said even if it could be proven true to a 100% certainty which of course it cannot it would not shake his faith because as long as you believe Hashem guided the process then Hashem has an infinite number of tools in his toolbox and this could have been one of his tools that's not a sta meaning the one thing we can't accept is we can't accept Randomness we can't accept chaos we can't accept it was just a process that happened but once you accept it was a guided process it was an intentional process it was a purposive process then it makes no difference how God did it andish braus is not giving you all the scientific details of Creation in fact many people have said that science and religion are answering two different questions science is asking how how did God you know how was the World created Torah answers the question why was the World created the how and the why are two different types of questions you see so in many many ways Evolution age of the Earth dinosaurs we can live with it all as long as I believe there's KES who created that reality so these are the two approaches I think that you're going to find there are approaches that say that uh the 5785 has to be taken very very literal very exact uh and evolution is it contradicts the text of the Torah and therefore it's a beus it's it's false this has been a a standard Mahal but there are other ways of looking at it in which Hashem could use many many processes so um I think there's room meaning if you're uh if you want to be an aorus and uh the reason you're given is because you believe in evolution I say that's not enough of a reason to be an aorus you could still be and hasem And subscribe to Evolution I just want to point out one thing about Evolution that's important to make the point people often assume that Evolution versus Torah is a conflict between science and religion one has to know that although Evolution kind of becomes standard scientific Dogma it is a very very unstable theory meaning to this very day if you look um I'll give you a few bit there a David berlinsky he happens to be Jewish but he's an atheist which is fascinating you see if a religious person debunks Evolution that actually has less credibility for me because well of course he's going to debunk Evolution because he wants to defend the Bible I got that right so all of us are suspect in that way but when you have a guy who doesn't believe in God who says Evolution doesn't work that actually means a lot because he has no particular agenda that he's trying to promote and his argument is that Evolution well he has two arguments it's a very interesting David berinsky it's wor it's actually worthwhile either get his books or or or see his his YouTubes uh he makes two interesting points scientific points not religious points he says that the laws under the laws of thermodynamics uh there's a law of entropy complex systems tend to disintegrate into chaotic simple systems that is the way it works unless there's some guiding force that's pushing it towards greater organization now Evolution Works in exactly the opposite way Evolution you move from the simple to the complex but under the laws of thermodynamics that's an impossibility unless there's some conscious directive so he says so either either evolution is wrong or you got to believe in God meaning you can't kind of not believe in God and then say nature generates Evolution because the whole law of thermodynamics the laws of chaos the laws of entropy are going to move in the opposite direction that's a very good argument a second argument he makes again he's not the first one is that um interim adaptations of no survival Advantage meaning the following the original darwinian theory of evolution basically was that in any population there'll be many many genetic variations but the variations that will tend to survive are those that have survival advantages and eventually over time I mean how you get from to an inter species change itself is a another problem but the changes are going to be so marked that you'll actually have another species like little changes here little changes here little changes here eventually from the you get you get a human being now the problem is though that there are a lot of steps between a and z and even if it's true that z may have a survival Advantage but the m and n in the middle have no particular survival Advantage so there's no reason why they would survive in order to produce the next level again I'm sorry I I can't come up with examples in that sense and yet if evolution works from an A to a z with all these intermediate stages unless you posit there's a God the survival of the fittest is not going to work because a lot of the interim changes have no survival Advantage at all so that would again indicate the notion either Evolution doesn't work that way or there's some guided process so it is important to know that when if you are of the view that Orthodox Judaism rejects Evolution which as I say it doesn't have to be that way it doesn't have to mean that you're an anti-science person there are scientific grounds to reject Evolution that one needs to to be aware of yeah is against Evolution because it says that was created from the ground of the earth you know have to reject Thea heever yeah so remember that the creation of man is described in two different stages the body is Created from the uh dust of the earth and then God breathed into him the soul the spirit of God now we tend to view those things is happening like the same time you know God made the made the body but if you posit that maybe there's a separation of time so you could say that the body of the you know the body is the body which may have started as a lower form and then came the Divine Soul which was the culmination of that of that process you know so obviously I understand they'll be a lot of tension with how to understand the narrative but ramban already says that the process of racious is a great great secret and the Torah does not spell out all of the details so I think there's a lot of room for different interpretation now again I'm not advocating uh how you should learn the Kish in any particular in any particular way all I'm saying is there are options there are different interpretive options there was a great great he really was of God class although he did not have a position as an official rashash Shiva or anything a great great he was a of the he was a very very good friend of R kki this is his madrea but he was an unconventional person uh very unconventional meaning he did not fit within the mold uh for example he he worked meaning he he worked as a kaban he worked in different types of types of jobs already but he was Mish M and uh he gave a series of sh on many many things but among them was in which he actually talked about Evolution age of the Earth and he said that the Torah accom can accommodate all of these different shos uh now somebody published those sh in a series of books sh Gia uh they might still be online but there was some controversy the family didn't want that those things to be published they were too unconventional see it's one thing okay I want to get into personalities know someone like Rabbi slifkin a young guy a very talented person you know writes books with those ideas so you know you can you know he could be knocked he could be throw can throw stones at him because young guy Etc uh when revado says something like that uh you can't fool around with him because you're talking about a real real guttle so in a sensea Galia was a much more dangerous book uh than Rabbi slifkin books because reval could not be discredited so the most they could say of course they try to say this is that the guy who published the shurm didn't understand it correctly all right you know they're those M but the truth is the guy who wrote the book happens to be you know a very eminent as well so he understood what he was hearing uh and and the like the point I want to make is I'm not here to make anybody opy Corum you know God God forbid uh but all I'm saying is that there are ways of Bridging the Gap that people just need to be aware of and uh my braus can have a number of different inter ation yeah um how should we look at like reparations not specifically by like Nazi Germany but it would be like a lack of to not accept it if it would help you to I'm sorry uh would it be a lack of not to accept you say like uh maybe you'd say that you're not really accepting it from God and you're taking it personally that they yeah yeah so so the issue of reparations now again I'm not sure everything that you have in mind reparations are the idea that if a society has wronged a group of people so sometimes to kind of make it up a little bit the future generations of the persecutors offer money to the descendants of the of the victims uh the big example which is still going on to this very day are various reparations offered by the German government to survivors actually now there are very few survivors but families of Holocaust victims in the United States reparations going on for black slavery and the like uh and the like so I am going to talk about Nazi reparations because the Gabi clel that's the that's the big thing uh there are a number of people clutch of a people who will not accept any reparations uh on behalf of the Nazis because reparations imply that the score is even ohash yeah you you murdered my grandfather bashem you gave me money so now uh we're buddies now everything is is good again and they refuse on the other hand keep in mind that virtually every taxi every cabin in Israel every every bus in Israel uh is essentially uh German B basically it comes from Germany and it's part of these reparations deals and the like certainly it was in the early years of the state um so I think I could see the argument of not accepting reparations because you don't want to give give a heer you don't want to give a ganka you don't want to give a seal of approval to evil to imply that you can simply buy your way out of out of evil on the other hand the other thing to keep in mind is that the people who are offering the reparations are not the people who were doing the bad stuff so in a sense it's a gesture by a future group that they don't you know want to Bear hate or animosity towards the Jewish people so I don't see it as as such a bad thing but to decline it uh I don't see it as bad either meaning I don't see that as a lack of B I think it just means I don't want my parasa to come on the heels of the suffering that was inflicted on my people so I I don't I don't see refusing it as negative but I also don't see accepting it as something bad either um okay I'm going to have to stop in around just two minutes yeah um why is there a major debate between and as between having your like uncovered or covered and why interpret the verse why they interpret Yeah well yeah again there is a big mlus about sit is out or sites in uh it's interesting I ruen fste RHA Feinstein's uh surviving son is a very uh uh no very uh he says what he means he doesn't hold anything back so he was doing a Q&A someone just showed me this Mish yesterday and someone said at what age uh should my son wear his SES out so he just said never he says I don't wear my titas out my father didn't wear his ties out he says there's no such the person started saying well what about this and this he says look at it and you tell me if there's such a he says no such thing so very very very very strong but but you are correct U the arisal and the like uh all all had the Min of theas out um it's not so much an a I mean it's ashkanazi simply because the rabbis on each side happen to be oriented along that thing I don't think there's something intrinsic in sardan that they take that that that position but uh the PK sayso you shall see your so the the the the interpretation if you don't have your tias out is this is just informing you of the the gamar says that there's no Mitzvah ofas at night because you can't see your tias but it's not referring to having them out uh the Aral and his followers took the position that there's a special concept of seeing your ties out and they do base it on a gamorra that looking at your sites gives you Yem remember the gar gives a story about a certain person who was about to be n with a z he was going to be with a prostitute and his sites like slapped him in the faith I mean that's understood non literally I think but as he was undressing or whatever it is you know the sites hid his eyes then he realized o my sites remind me of the Mitzvah I'm going to do this so because of this having sites out see Thea oros is not really AA don't have such a Dr it's not like the to requires it this is what we call an meaning the real reason isem looking at your giv you they want to base it on the fact that the Torah uses the words but it's not AA meaning it's not like have such AA so really it's a more of a spiritual idea sit remind me of Mitzvah therefore I should see them asham simply say hey there's no m in the gorah for that idea so therefore we don't necessarily have to follow it but of course as you know uh even among ashkenazim even though it's true that classic ashaz did not have sites out but now it's become very very common uh in the Yeshiva World to to do that so now uh the difference in ashaz and spum is much less than than it was uh yeah last question um passes away like an an unpublished book or like something like that and he says don't put this out to the world um but you feel like the world need scared like something like that like with's B on the Holocaust looks like was there any for publishing those tyes of things maybe put it out or yeah that's a very very interesting fascinating question uh a God uh has written something but for whatever reason does not want it to be published uh but uh the person after his death sees that there's value here that there's something that people could gain uh is he obligated to respect the the author's wishes or can he say hey the benefits of Torah override whatever the author said and therefore we will publish it even over the author's objection uh one example of this as you mentioned just now was rev Miller's or Victor Miller's uh book on the Holocaust on which he did not want it to be published he wrote it why did he write it I don't know but he did not want it to be published and it was published right you can get it what's it called Divine Madness I think it's called Uh and of course it's a controversial book I mean we don't have to get into that particular book but basically he basically said that the Holocaust happens because the Jews were becoming so assimilated that hasem brought the to on them all right that he developed the idea that the Holocaust was the to and it came from the assimilation uh that the Jewish people were undergoing in Eastern Europe so some people resented blaming the Victor okay the the nature of the that particular book is not relevant to this discussion but the question is are you to listen to the author's instructions so I think there are a few ways of analyzing this first of all there might be a simple monistic aspect meaning to say the following that book is a tangible thing now when the author died it belongs to somebody whoever is the OES now if the O says you cannot publish this book then whoever publishes it is stealing the book from the OES so to publish it over the objections of the OES seems to be a simple example of theft ah but that doesn't fully answer your question what if the O wants to publish it meaning to say uh the O The Heir the legal Heir thinks this is such an important book that he wants it to be published you can't call that Gaza at that point because he is the owner of the manuscript El is to obey uh what his father or whoever it is said so it's a very good question but many would say when it comes to Torah Torah should be available to everybody and no one can put restrictions on the dissemination of of Torah so that would be one thing so it's one thing to publish and say private letters you know L you know private correspondence but if you're talking about a God's approach to D Torah uh it's not sh even for the god to say he does not want it to be disseminated and if in fact this is said to be true not only when the God is dead but even when the God is alive himself that the divor need to be this yeah I'm sorry I do have to go but anyway have a [Music] good thank you for listening to this awesome production to find out more and to partner in our mission please visit o.edu