Q&A With Rabbi Efrem Goldberg (Hosted by Nachi Gordon) - Part 5

good day hello everybody how are we doing now the thank you okay just getting started for the q and a question and answer with rabbi f from goldberg all the way from boca raton appreciate you joining on this beautiful thursday night beautiful thursday night you know how it goes you could comment questions down below over there and we will enrich them ask ray goldberg and get some really good answers so really excited to be back with you guys um and let's just you know jump right in it's been too long way too long now how are we doing every goldberg i am prepared to be with the cover of ami magazine i text the nafta i said remember the little guys honored and flattered and grateful to be back together it's great to be here i appreciate it i appreciate it i'm just trying to follow your lead you know just trying to follow your lead uh how was how was your author by you everything good yantif was good um a lot of rain too much rain but you know this is the earliest that suckers falls on the calendar this is a leap year so it's the earliest before we put in that second adar so there was a lot of information it was going to be hot is anything in south florida and it was cooler than we all thought so it was really nice it was beautiful thank you how was your yantaf very nice thank god no complaints for hashem is beautiful that's crazy schedule i feel like you know wasn't in the office for a full month after uh we sent the shops into shabbos but you know it's all good it's all good so um let's let's just jump right in i put you on the hot seat and hopefully we'll keep you there for a little bit tonight sure one of the questions that was sent in and to everyone who's watching right now feel free to you know put it in below in the question box or you can comment it as well and we'll enrich them get to it how can rabbis of communities help with the of crisis i know this is the topic that you have spoken a lot about i've written a lot about let's let's get right into it you know it's a funny thing because i'm not like mr shidduchim um i don't know you know i have some thoughts on it i think most people do and i've tried to articulate them and get them out there to start conversation but i'm the farthest the authority on it and i don't want anyone to think that i think i have all the answers um my biggest issue with the off challenge is that i'm not sure who's driving some of the changes and developments that have happened in the shedding world not all of them i think that are positive and and the evidence of that is that things seem to in some ways be getting worse not better so we be at the level of interrogations borderline inquisitions that have taken place now and trying to research um potential be it the comprehensiveness of what are called the resumes i prefer the word profile i think even the use of the word resume suggests an interview someone's qualifying for a job someone has to prove their worthiness um the fact that references now include uh the potential uh boy or girls friends as if the friends who themselves we don't trust in their own shidduchim to make decisions themselves are now in a position to serve as references for other and as if they're gonna say things that others that others uh uh that are that are negative about the person they're they're being references for their enormous developments that i just don't think are are very positive and if i have to reduce a lot of it to the core i would say it's the following it used to be that the that many people who are making shidduchim were non-professional or voluntary they were average regular people so your parents had friends you had friends they know you they heard of or met or know someone who knows someone else they say i know this girl i know you very well i wouldn't suggest to you if i didn't think it was good you still had some questions you still did some cursory research because you weren't going to jump right in based on their based on their recommendation but in the end of the day they knew you we now have an enormous world and a movement of people who don't know one another and it's beautiful i want to be very clear the shahanam are amazing the professional and the volunteer but they have stacks and piles of resumes they're in all kinds of groups they've thrown everything against the wall they have what's called in the ship interesting industry skirts and pants this is the skirts and pants in other words she wears a skirt he wears a pants hey someone suggested they should go out so what happens is if you're on the other end of that someone calls you a shopkin they say i have five people for you they don't really know anything about the five people and they can't name five things about you of course now you're gonna go interrogation style so that is compromising and challenging the whole thing rather than rather than helping it just as one example of something that can improve right i i kind of feel that like this is my my personal opinion um i feel like it would be a huge service if the boys and the girls received let's call it profiles at the same time simultaneously if we put if we put it in the you know not just the boys can just sift through resume slash profiles and say oh yes this one that one and i know it's it's made this way to i guess sort of protect the girls from hearing no but how much of a protection is it when a girl doesn't receive a resume for six months right this seems like a little bit what do you think about that yeah no i agree with you i think that's a problem i think people not getting back to those who are trying to set them up and i don't blame them they have everyone throwing things at them they're supposed to be getting back to them it's also not simple um i think the pictures is a whole other separate conversation you know the questions that are being asked are absurd the real follow-up to that article that i wrote that i haven't done but i'd like to is come up with a list of appropriate questions from das torah i'm not das torah let's go to argydola israel let's go to the people who should be calling the shots and let's have them come up with a list of appropriate questions and then let's all agree we're only going to entertain questions on that list because i'll tell you a question someone told me recently i didn't hear it directly i heard it from someone who received this question they tried to read a off and they were asked the following i'm embarrassed to repeat this they were asked the girl's mother after she had her babies how long did it take for her to lose her baby weight naked did you hear what i just said that's the most ridiculous thing i've ever heard is that a new world that we're in where people are photoshopping pictures for those for those who didn't let's say read the article you you spoke about some questions that are asked that are just just like out of bounds what are i guess a few examples i mean what the question you just said is like i would hope that's an extreme but what are a few other examples that like people can't be asking when you're making you know inquiries well first of all people ask me questions all the time barak hashem is a love of a large school i i'm and it's a great source i'm i'm honored and grateful for the opportunity to participate in whatever way and trying to help but they they call and i know they're they're working off a list that's not rabbinically and some of us goes around and because you could tell they're working off a list and they ask questions i could never know the answer to you know i don't know what's in people's medicine cabinets right i'm not the pharmacist i don't work at the pharmacy if i did a certain confidentiality i'll often ask the person who asked that question if i knew that about you would you want me answering and repeating it would you want me disclosing it if i knew it about you so questions about about medicines it's like a silly question has anyone asked the rav ever do you know if they're on any medications like what am i supposed to say well there's an add problem they have some mild anxiety i know they have some sugar issues so they take this they have high cholesterol like what what they can't fall asleep at night so they take melatonin what like you're saying they should really call amr pharmacy if they have any medicines they should break in get the files and figure it out i haven't all these tax returns i have not you know is the room i've not been in the girls room i don't know if she keeps it clean i don't know i can maybe ask her roommate that question and she's also not gonna be honest with you because she's not gonna hurt or kill the but i don't know the answer to that oh and i'll tell you on the other end is that i do a fair amount of marriage counseling and never ever is the friction in show unbiased in marriages anything that is asked pre the relationship you want to know you should ask are they do they easily pass up on things or are they somebody who needs it to be their way that wouldn't be i mean who's to say some won't answer honestly about that either though you're right i don't know i mean the system is very flawed that i don't know people are going to answer honestly about all these things but i'll tell you i answer honestly when there are i think legitimate questions if there's something about the person the person out i'll say you know let's say there's a boy or a girl who's who is socially awkward or or you know has some quirkiness to them i will answer and i'll say here all their mylas but you should know they have some quirkiness to them socially they're and and i want because i don't want to say yeah they're amazing they're great i think on the first day the person sitting across from them it's really socially awkward and and weird and you know i called why didn't you say that but there are ways of saying that somebody is a little quirky or while they're amazing in a b c and d way they're a little shy they're introvert they're not as silly as outgoing there are ways to reveal aspects of a person's personality to make sure that there's some level of um of appropriateness for this that's being read without answering ridiculous questions that nobody should be answering even if they know right i'm not talking about somebody who i know you know had a bipolar manic episode was hospitalized and they asked me is there anything i said everything's good they're mentally healthy are they mentally but but if i know somebody had that and they put me on their resume i'll say to them i love you and i don't want to cause you pain how are we agreeing to deal with or do you have any hajraja on disclosing that episode that experience that fact in your life the father's been sitting in jail the mother had this very public uh controversy oh okay there has to be a conversation beforehand but then just call people and go through my list of questions and feel like i checked it off and so on and so forth it's not and the reason i know it's not effective is you ask this question meaning it wouldn't have been among the questions tonight if everything was hunky-dory and flowing smoothly and the fact that we've introduced all these new things have made the everyone's getting married left right and center it's not working oh 100 um i don't know i don't know if it's a new thing uh the but it's getting a lot of attention you know in this dar or we've got to take it we've got to take it but we got to reclaim it parents hey i'm not going to give in to these parts of the process the actual boys and girls have to say i refuse to put my picture or give into this part of the process but where does that leave them they might be the odd one out there what else everyone everyone is is playing the game that's why there needs to be a campaign and a movement the campaign of the movement there are many out there and i'm not i'm not criticizing them some of them may be effective some of them not but i don't i think the campaigns and movements are taking care of the the symptoms they're not going to the core which is the illness which is and put everyone in a room let's have a summit of some singles some parents and most importantly some real good oli israel das torah and let's lay out here are the challenges here's the process the way it's working right now what should we remove from this process because it's not alpitora by the guido still have weighed in left right and center about the pictures and nobody cares and that's a perfect example so who's really calling the shots that's a whole separate conversation in claudius trail who's calling the shots it's a separate conversation it's a separate conversation but like that's very interesting who do you think is calling the chats like who's the agenda of college so by the way you know who it is it's the editors of mishpochah in a good way what they profile what they cover what they conversation at the shabbos table they're generating conversations and they're doing a great job of it i don't mean that as a question so you're saying um ultimately the the editors and the publishers of of the the main i guess mediums of media in the from world are implementing more policy and trends than dasara but in some ways i i think they're doing a good job of trying to do it with das torah by the way i oh and i have relationships with the editors of some of these they actually have a rabbinic board they ask for piscea lacha they don't do things without approval they're doing a very good job of it they're doing a good job of it and fascinatingly they get into i'm sure based on your cover i'm still waiting for you to send me my copy with your signature but i'm sure that you've got feedback from the modern world the sheepish world that because these magazines by the way are being dropped off and subscribed to and being picked up in supermarkets across the spectrum of the firm world right i'll give you an example i'll give an example the term of the derek you know where that conversation began when we first confronted it the church observer allah the jewish observer magazine our goodness magazine had a groundbreaking issue with a cover story several years ago many years ago at this point about the off the dark phenomenon they they broke the story they said let's talk about something no one's talking about because we need to talk about it and now there are organizations and institutions and now there's a whole world trying to address that issue so it should be with the hajj of godol israel but too often it is it's not coming from the right place it's coming from people with other vested interests in it who are the ones calling the shots that's super interesting there really is reminding everybody on here right now feel free to put a question in the question box we're immersed i'm going to get to it and i'm going to head into the question box right now we are going to select one of these questions okay this is an interesting one let's uh pull it up how to be respectful to parents if they get annoying or they bother you about things so let's let's let's like sensationalize that question a little bit i think the question really is um is how do you uh i guess have keeper of an aim if parent is uh difficult which one of my kids sent in that question uh i think leora yeah oh boy is that her name that is her name wow that's good that's good that's she might be intrigued that's excellent um so so it's a great question but they're different they're different questions all in that question so let's unpack it okay both deal with the question of must you show kibara the aim to an abusive parent all right let's start with the extreme there's an abusive parent abusive can be physically hashem emotionally spiritually verbally there's all forms of abuse if there is abusive parent i don't mean like the parent says clean your room and the kids like my parents abusive i'm calling peace i'm publishing a book i'm calling them out whistleblower i don't mean they say clean the room and now you're an abusive parent i mean somebody who you know a clinician would categorize this as an abusive parent and the post can very clearly say that while you need to be as respectful as you can if you could relationship in order to preserve your mental physical emotional health halachically not only can you but you should you should the parents is abusive they're interfering in a way that's compromising your life they're hurting your marriage they're hurting your children and so on and so forth again it's a very slippery slope i don't mean that you know one day you don't like the way they said they inserted themselves when you said isn't it cold the baby should really be wearing a blanket my parents abusive i have to not go to them for you i'm talking about so that's the most extreme an abusive parent the halach is clear you are entitled and arguably you should create boundaries and withdraw and even not be in contact in the extreme if that's what's necessary but what if parents have unfair demands posts come their famous troopers that deal with the following question someone's dating let's overlap it with the last question you're dating and the parent says i don't like this for you don't marry them do you have to listen to your parent if your parent says don't marry that person halachically how far do you have to go what do you have to give up yourself to do it there's lots of no there's a lot of cheapest about it goes back even earlier and again the sock is that no parents should be enormous influence in our life we want and by the way for any parents listening be very careful how you give feedback about who your child is dating because it's possible they will marry them anyway and they will always know that my parent doesn't like them didn't want me to marry them so be very careful that doesn't mean that you're not entitled or responsible to share your feedback but be very measured and careful how you do it because they can marry them anyway and then you will they will always always remember the position that you had right but let's talk about you know let's go to the other extreme right parents who are mildly annoying so i don't know if there's a child who doesn't have parents who have videos or things that are annoying i'm a doubt it's their job i'm a parent and i'm sure my children would say that and they wouldn't be wrong about some of the things that i do and we can all learn including parents but but there i think a child has to realize that parents gave me life support my life sustained my life protect my life and they're good to me and so there are things that i that i bear that i'm avatar i'm not real amidos not yet i wish they didn't say that or insert them here so either i can allow that to escalate my mother my mother-in-law gave an opinion about my recipes or about whether my child's wearing a coat with the weather outside or about how i run my shoppers table or about whatever that they had no right to say or that they didn't say in the nicest way so do i escalate that or do i let it go and do i focus on the parts of the relationship with the virtue and the other person that i can connect that i can nourish that i can enjoy that part of the relationship so i think the two extremes are the sort of say easiest part that one is abusive you're entitled to withdraw and the one who mildly is just a normal parent that has idiosyncrasies and has annoying parts to them we as children need to recognize and stay focused on the bigger picture and the greater good and maintain that keeper of the aim and not allow things to escalate work on our own midos and so on it's the middle gray which gets very very complicated how to navigate and i've been meeting several meetings with with people trying to think out loud with them and dictate to them what to do very recently after a meeting and it often centers around usually these meetings are right after a yantef right together um before a yanta for after yantev is when the majority of these meetings take place and it's in that middle ground that it needs to be navigated and again the thing is don't react emotionally don't react impetuously do it strategically and thoughtfully and with a rug with a therapist with a rav say here are the issues here's the personality type what is the best way to deal and to navigate right okay that makes that makes a lot of sense um thank you marcia tischler this is coming off tomorrow i think um a question that i guess that's you know similar to this topic before we move on if trying to repair a relationship with your sibling will cause your parent pain is it us or to do so now that's an interesting question i imagine i i i wonder if there's an answer i mean i'm sure there is meaning is the parent entitled put differently is a parent entitled to tell one child they can't have a relationship with another i look like these are parents entitled to do that so again i think here it all depends on why the parent in other words let's say the parent got into a uh a fight with one of the children something petty like whatever you know something small nothing nothing that society would deem you know reprehensible or whatever right so i think it all really all depends on what it is sometimes the parent says that we have a child who's a negative influence who's involved in certain substances or behaviors and both for that child's own good we need to practice tough love and to protect you we need to practice some tough love and create some distance and maybe the parents not doing it emotionally or doing it out of their own honor or ego it again is a parent's had maybe they received of what they're doing for the good of that child who's struggling and for their siblings to be protected and then they might be the parent to ask that child to be part of that team that intervention strategy but other times if a parent's being petty with a sibling and they're trying to use you as a pawn in their petty fight then i don't think how logically they would be entitled to do it although the child needs to be smart not rubbing it in their face that they are maintaining that relationship the the common denominator to all these questions is don't try to figure it out on your own they're complicated we have a world of mental health professionals who are experts we have hadraka of tamid who can take the torah's perspective and if one is doing it in guidance then it's the best the more advice that we seek the more wisdom that we have sometimes people have shame they don't want to tell anybody so they're trying to figure it out on their own sometimes have guilt or sometimes people just don't want to bother they just react the way that they want it's critically important to engage use the resources use the wisdom and get the guidance right let's let's transition into i think another interesting topic which is the stigma surrounding um let's say therapy i think that perhaps it has gotten less over the years but do you do you think from i guess from where you sit from where you stand that there there still is a stigma so i'm surrounding those who seek help um therapy let's say let's say someone introduced him is found to be going to therapy is that all of a sudden oh my gosh is it it will it ever become not an oh my gosh is it like listen it's 20 20 it's 20 20 21. um this is it's like come on get with it it's totally fine it's normal what's your thoughts on that i my thoughts are very clear i don't even think there's anything to have to think about here should there be a stigma around going to um if you have heart disease should you not go to the cardiologist if you have uh bowel disease should not go to the gastroenterologist and if you have mental health disease should you not go to the doctor who's been trained who's researched in data and the evidence of this is that there's an entire world within the total world that are expertise there's an organization called nephesh which is the organization of mental health professionals rav david kohn schilito the glyavids is the posik of that organization rabasha white says chuvas and min about people with ocd and how to observe so there should be no stigma there should be stigma around people who do not go to mental health professionals when they need to that's the only place that there should be stigma and again because we always come back to this i'll come back there so so what's better what's a better answer someone says rabbi they call rabbi they want to know are there any issues and i say yeah you know that child had some mild anxiety in high school they had a mental health professional and they're doing fantastically they're healthy they're gonna make a great spouse they're great and then they call about the other person not as far as i know they don't see a therapist but they really need to they're really really messed up and their behavior conduct in their personality type and they don't so there are people in the effort to not hurt shidduchim will not get the help that they need and then you know when it comes out it comes out the night after the last shovel broke brothers is when it comes out so there should there should only be a stigma for the people who need help who don't get it let's let that uh sink in a bit for the island um heading back into the question box again those who want to ask any questions to be answered just submit a question um one of the questions i see here were where was this article written barbara goldberg or my goldberg that was in mshbaka magazine correct are you allowed to say that i as long as there's no woman on this live i think we could there you go yeah magazine will come up it's not the authority it's not the answer to everything it's entertaining if you can't fall asleep on friday night you know print out the article it's definitely thought provoking and i think you know that the article that you wrote led to probably the most letters to a singular article that i've ever seen like you wrote that article in the next like 15 weeks it's just been letters letters letters discussing that topic and it's really it's a real hot button issue it affects every single family and claustral what that tells you is that people are finding that they're not happy with the system and they're grateful to have a opportunity or springboard to have that conversation and we i want you know again i think these magazines are doing a great job of it but but who and where and how you know people sitting down and saying what are the claustrol issues and let's talk about it right for example and i'm going to win some points with my wife right now like is lace top shape those really the top of the cloudy soil issues i'm not telling you a position on a good but if like name in tough shouldn't pay base the challenges that clients are struggling with through kavid coved through behaviors through marriages through mental health like that make it who like who who chose like let's make that at the top so so what is someone who writes headlines for yeshua world i don't know right around what table is that decision being made what are the claustrol topics that we should be we should be generation around transitioning to another interesting topic this is this is one that i find i'm very my heart is very near and dear to something bothers me a little bit being in this this world of media um often time there is something that happens an event a tragedy usually and what comes to follow is graphic images breaking news with body bags children davening over in graves i find that to be a tremendous issue i think it it you know i've spoken to somebody who says that after my rome this person was from you know the tri-state area that their 11 year old couldn't go to sleep at night because they just had the images of body bags i think i think it does a tremendous disservice that um in the from media world it's it's so normal to just be posting in images and videos that um that are just too much what's your take um on that and is there a way that you see that it can be fixed uh you know i'm so grateful that you brought that up because i don't know that i've ever thought about that and i think it's a really really important point thank you for bringing that up what i my answer to that is we are assimilated jews you know there was an article of mayor turski wrote about we are assimilated jews where his point was that you could learn the daff and dub more than three times a day but let's not deny that we're still assimilated in many ways that what's happening in the world around us seeps in and impacts us in big ways and this might be a perfect example of it that we're living in this world of sensationalism we're living in a world of a news cycle and headlines we're living in a world that's competing to try to capture an audience and a following and what's driving and that's all what's driving those pictures and those headlines and again is it being done with das torah were there a group of post can we sat down and we asked when we want claudia's thrill to feel the pain from your own or a tragedy is the legitimate way to try to get them to feel pain to post these pictures or intended consequences and maybe we shouldn't who's deciding that or is it decided by people who say we want the most clicks so we could sell the most advertising so we could be the most popular so we could be the biggest so how are those decisions being made and this is a perfect example i'm not even saying i know which way the decision should be made one could argue that the more dramatic and sensationalized that we are the more people will write checks to sucka the harder the the bigger the difference we'll make one might argue i think i think it you know it's not like mutually exclusive i think it could be it could be true that you know someone wrote over here that you know no we need to see it we need to feel the pain and i'm assuming that means when you feel the pain we'll be able to dive more but at what cost what expense our sanity right you're raising that issue you're raising what's the about the kid who can't sleep anymore i'm worried about something else which has happened in the general media world which is there'll come a point that you're sipping your coffee or you're eating your sushi and you see dead jews body bags the collabs building and you're able to keep eating your sipping and go oi and then scroll to the next story right i mean ultimately you know it people get desensitized it's bouncing now will happen right how are you talking that a jew could see the body bag of another jew or read a tragedy and continue the lunch take the next step of coffee so you're right that is an unintended consequence of these images that maybe will be desensitized so the point again is and then i've got to run because i was taught always leave them wanting more so we're at a we're at a 30-minute mark but the tsar i think of all of our conversations are who are quality shots we're making these decisions how can we make sure that we're not being driven by ulterior motives which we all are in every aspect of life when we are promoting and you and i do a decent job of trying to promote because we're trying to get a message out but we also need rebail and we also need pushback and we also need people who say meaningful minute goldberg brs whatever it is you know hey you've crossed the line you have good intent but here's an unintended consequence of it so i think that we need to continuously revisit and we claud israel need to demand more that the right people are making these decisions having these conversations and coming to the right conclusions before we wake up after the fact because what will happen asifa in 10 years that i you know we've been desensitized we no longer cry these tragedies after the fact it'll be a lot harder to undo than it would be to stop it when it's happening in real time robert goldberg i really look forward to picking up on this point because i think there's a lot to unpack here i look forward to picking up on this next week you shoot world news 2 um i i know you agree thank you for agreeing let's make some change guys let's make some change anyways everyone who joined thank you so much um make sure to follow meaningfully make sure to follow by from goldberg on instagram and we will see you again next week everyone have an amazing shabbos have a great job is everyone take care