Q&A With Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz - Leibadik & Ohr Somayach 2024

ask what you yeah can the r give us some color around our M or tradition the r give us some color around our misora or tradition the touched on it yesterday about the the Fillin about how they there were I mean obviously no is full of long periods where you know Torah was almost forgotten like number one how do we know that Rabin Judaism sort of one out versus the kites or what meaning we how we practice is so far off from I'm assuming how mosha rain or s practice yeah how do we know that this ultimately you know how do we get here basically you you know there is no question that even the most traditional person would have to admit if we were to be transposed to the past and see Mo raenu keeping the Torah it would not look the same as we do today for a very simple reason because we have so many daan and gazer and takos and so obviously Judaism is very very different uh but the traditionalist understanding and this is where you know say Orthodox tradition differs from the academic approach the academic approach views all of aspects of Judaism as evolutionary and subject to change so they they'll they'll say that uh Fillin you know comes from the beginning of the second temple period or whatever they would say uh we do believe that there was an unbroken continuity you know the rambam in the hak to the mishna Torah lists more than 40 generations of people who were in charge of the M apparently it was almost like a quazi official position a BAL a godo whose tkid was the preservation of the T and just like lawyers have what's called a chain of evidence or a chain of custody or something so the rambam says there is a chain you know Moshe to yua and then he enumerates all the way down uh to Rashi now indeed after Rashi there's a little bit of a disintegration of the chain of custody and that's why you get different men hug him different uncertainties and the like the mour is not as fixed from that point on but based on our tradition uh we recognize of course that even then many many Jews were not keeping mitzvos read the book of MIM and the like and the the Nim and obviously there were Jews and everything else but we always believed there was a faithful core that was holding on to those traditions and they were nser again based on the raman's chain of custody all the way down to the time of the mishna and the time of the and and the like and then after the after the T we had the Goon there was a great deal of centralization meaning the Jewish World looked to the gim of B surra and peda although Dr Sal posit a third Babylonian Yeshiva okay whatever it would be but there was a certain centralization uh that existed now after the gim that's when we start having real real differences asham and the like because they're no longer was centralization even someone like rabam who was the closest to a centralized Authority that was ashkenazic it was not over spam and and and and the like so within the branches you can then have individualized Conformity we can certainly Trace mhog ashas uh whether it's the German variety the Polish variety Lithuanian variety and then Sim uh you have Tunisian Moroccan uh Libyan Iraqi Syrian and the like and then you have Taman which is actually people come on there we go you going to say it well you're right people people just let's hear you know uneducated people just think oh are just are just a branch of Spen but no name is a very very separate settle down settle down guys settle down guys it's a very separate group and indeed is probably historically the case that their irit or their Hebrew is the closest to what mosha raenu and a and Yakov spoke about although even in tamon there's a large Arabic influence in pronunciation to so you can't uh we don't really have the pure Hebrew so we can very definitely Trace as we get closer to our time we can trace the richness and the particularity of branches of M but when you're talking about all the way back to n it's very murky in other words we have a picture of it but you have to accept it as a matter of faith meaning I cannot prove to you from n the text of n that there was kind of an unbroken M of T because the N is more or less relatively quiet about it uh so there are a lot of things we accept bamun uh but as I said sometimes history itself the historical continuity of the Jewish people might be evidence that we're going the right way the fact that as wrote we are only a nation because of Torah without the Torah we would have disappeared uh there wouldn't have been a Jewish people um you know Mark Twain uh you guys you're American if you're Americans you know Mark Twain if you're not maybe you don't but uh famous American non-jewish writer uh wrote he was accused at one point in his career of being anti-semitic so he wrote a a long article kind of some of my best friends are Jewish type of thing but but in that article and he was a wonderful writer he talks about The Wonder of the Jewish people that the Babylonians and the Romans and all the great world empires of the ancient world tried to destroy this little nation and this little Nation survives and it's really a miracle in fact the Jewish continuity is is one of the Rios that there is a God and Etc and that comes from our connection to the misora you know so uh that's what I would say but but obviously um it's much easier to trace these specific murus like ashkenas farad than it is to go all the way back to the biblical time now again there seem to be two pictures about this I I want to just mention this to be a little complete the standard picture we have is the picture drawn by the rambam in which he basically says there always was this tal and it remained constant Etc it was handed down Generation generation and therefore even if it doesn't mention it it's there it's behind the scenes it's always there it's ever present but then I do have to say there is an alternative picture a little bit that's not fleshed out entirely by R sadok of Lublin in which he emphasizes that there is no question that the the personalities of the Tor shabop emerge uh during the second basa mikdash and afterwards right the earliest Tana is said to be Shimon sadic who was a Coen godal in the early years of the bay sheni and he actually says that religious life in the first temple period was largely a prophetic religion rather than a rinic religion in the sense that there was rues there was prophecy uh it was not so much people studying texts and debating and arguing over it now as I say the rambam had a deliberate to exclude Prophecy from the process the rambam goes over and over again based on gamar AI does not have permission to addas so the ram essentially projects backwards in time all of the discussions he says it happened in the Biblical times as well because the rambam refuses to acknowledge prophecy as a formative influence in and that's kind of the standard picture that we've absorbed in yesos I think that's the standard picture we understand that all there is is T and the kind of pilpel and transmission of torab but R sok suggests that perhaps prophecy had a much more powerful role in religious uh life and in religious decision- making than uh we often give it credit for and Rabin Judaism is a product of the second temple and afterwards when there was no prophecy so there are alternative views to the uh to the rambam by the way R cook points out where's uh it's in a few places I I could you know he has a say for d s d Sim uh those of you who heard of Professor Yakov Elman was a very very very exem person at as well as a brilliant academic uh he has a very very wonderful article on r sadok's view of T in which he summarizes it's in it's in one of the old tradition magazine journals I want to point out an interesting observation of Ru cook Ru cook says you know we know there's the B and thei both of them are of course products of Rabin Judaism but the B is much longer than the Yi the USI tends to be very maker in sugas so cook said the following he says the even though the Yi is certainly a product of rabic Judaism but it is connected to prophecy and rues in the sense that if you analyze a typical bav sugya the bav a product of the galut reaches its conclusions by process of elimination as as if to say let's consider this possibility no can't do it because that contradicts that this possibility contradicts that so the way you get to the truth is not by directly coming to the truth but by eliminating all the other possibilities that's the notion of you're looking in the darkness for truth so it's not here not here not here not here not here got to be here the USI has more of an intuitive approach to things a question is asked an answer is given all of the steps are not spelled out all of the alternative possibilities are not considered rev cook said that is a type of reasoning that is more intuitionistic more based on kind of a prophecy or rues and even though prophecy technically did not exist at that time anyway but this was a residual within arel of a certain rues that's operating so R cook is saying an idea that's a little bit similar to what R sadok is talking about and R cook says it's precisely the fact that we are not on the Madre of rues and the like that we often don't fathom the Yi it's like the USI comes from a to z without spelling out the inter mediate links as opposed to the B that tends to spell out things more because we don't have that intuitionist grasp Einstein described that was his approach to physics you know uh physicists say that part of why the theory of relativity is so hard is because Einstein never worked out all the math meaning if somebody else would have come to that theory 20 years later a lot of things would have been worked out Einstein himself said he thought in pictures he didn't think in logical linear processes he just kind of went from A to Z and as a result it's very hard to reconstruct the intervening links uh of cook wres that is what the USI is like so it's very very interesting that perhaps there are different models of tesen and misora that that might have existed um so we had a question we started yesterday yeah F yeah um yesterday Robert mentioned that there are many historical work done on whether was done one day two days yeah yeah yeah and then the robt expound is you know if we can use archaeology to to you know find out about you know where was for example or DNA about like all the doubts we have if you can use current data current science and current studies yeah to assertain that what the truth back then yep uh yeah this is a very very fundamental question in many many areas of Hal and that is to what extent can ala be adjudicated reversed based on a factual knowledge that may not have been known to an earlier generation or may have been erroneous and let me just give you a few examples one example is your very question the rim are debating a historical question was rashash observed one day in the erel after the thean or was it two days uh we keep two days because we make the assumption that bis mikdash I'm sorry not after after the mikdash even they still kept uh two days so the question becomes let's assume we could discover conclusive historical evidence that it will be one day would that change the uh other example which is very very striking uh the shabas says and thein that you're allowed to kill a l Aina on chabas I can kill a lice on chabas because the eer of taking a life is only for things that reproduce through sexual reproductions and Li it is said in the gar do not produce sexually they produce through decaying matter and is sp what we call spontaneous generation therefore it's m that is a ruling in the gamar now we know that by in large scientists claim that spontaneous generation does not exist you will not get life from decaying or rotting meat or whatever it would be and as a result uh there is a tiny Mr and Mrs lice there that you produce now this is extraordinary because made a based on a scientific assumption that is largely said to be wrong it's one thing to say we're going to be strict for example the two-day rash thing I could give you I could just push you off although I'll give you a better answer and say well listen we're stuck with it the mug is two days we're not going to change it but with the light it's much more of a problem you see because there you're Ming in is diis based on faulty faulty science all right so that's another example now uh a third example uh which is more systematic is the discovery of new manuscripts particularly in the 19th century in the Vatican and in many many libraries uh manuscripts that's why we have so many ronm that that come out of rishonim and even of manuscripts of the talmud itself now you go back to classic halic literature and the BOS for whoever might say we pin so and so because Ro Reon him say x okay roon him because he had like you know five rehon him and three out of five we now discover 25 rehon him and it turns out instead of being a five to2 it's now a 22 to5 so should we change the based on the newly discovered information in terms of Gea in terms of in terms of Reon him and the like right that's another example so let me start with that example because there there we have the most well documented so it was yadua that had a that he would not rely on any newly discovered evidence to change a because he adopted what you might call a counter Mis tradition he said the following he says you know even if something was wrong if AES enabled it to enter a certain living tradition of Judaism the tradition of B Joseph and the poim fish right that becomes that becomes that becomes the even if factually it is not correct meaning that kind of the of God withholding certain information at certain times right so that that was the kish's opinion other others disagreed with that orientation I will tell you a very fascinating ramban now the ramban as I think I mentioned two days ago came to ER Israel towards the end of his life and um he discusses at the at the end of the Kish a little note at at the end of his pish that there's a m Rashi in toos what is the silver weight of a half shek that you have to give uh for the bikash and the five for p so the ran writes he bought a half shekele coin from an Arab that was printed that was minted in the time of the second temple and he carefully weighed and the like and he came to the conclusion that Rashi who had never seen a have Rashi was correct over the balatos and there you actually see that the ramban said and this is how we're going to pasin because we have measured it so the ramban was willing to use archaeology to be in Aus kazas is another example many of you probably know of rasan natana Nat slifkin uh controversial guy I I really really feel sorry for him he's a obviously a very brilliant accomplished person uh and don't tell anybody most of what he said most of what he says is correct uh I'll say that unfortunately you know uh this is human nature a person is attacked so they attack back so in some ways too his attacking back has caused him a lot of Sorrows although one 100% I understand why a person would respond that way uh but uh one of his big campaigns and he's not the first one uh is the idea of kazas you know right right the Shor for all the Mitzvah mat whatever it is you got to eat AAS how big is a kazas a tennis ball a bowling ball what what is a what is a kazas a kazas means an olive the volume of an olive okay there are big olives there are small olives take your big Olive it's a big Olive let's say even though Hally it's a middle Olive but let let's say get a big Olive you're not going to get you know a whole matah shur whatever it would be so they start debating well we have to posit that the olives used to be gigantic in those days you know etc etc and therefore we got to go with the original size of the Zas but then we have you're 100% correct we have archaeological evidence that the gazim were either the same or maybe were smaller right we don't find like super gigantic olives or or whatever it is so what does that mean does that mean a kazas should be you know a little piece of mat now the truth of the matter is in in the old Li tradition it's it's recorded told people if you take a piece of mat that covers your palm your palm not even your fingers that's a kazas kazas which roughly would be you know big Olive if you'd crush it up and the like so it's very confusing again some say once it becomes part of the M you got to follow it others say realistically these things ought to be changed by facts now with respect to Kina Kina is probably analytically the most difficult problem and let me just point out that rev desler adopts what you might call a mystical theory of Hal rler says Hashem would never allow kazal to make mistakes and mislead Army Israel what about power that yeah well we do yeah you're right that that's one instance where where it does happen uh but at least maybe when there's no Bas on mik she says you know there's no corrective mechanism so he says if Kina it must be that it is M even though the reason they gave was an incorrect reason it it's very reminiscent of a famous involving Sal salek the great go of brisk known for his deep right the deepest of analytical thinkers Rim notoriously hated to pasin shus he refused to Pas even he was the r of brisk he would not pasin shus and brisk he had and had a difficult sh he would send it to the who was inspector whyu is named after grait inspector so Legend has it I can't say that it's true that whenever he would send the sh to inspector he would say please give me your P just tell me m orer don't give me I don't want to hear any reasons why because your reasons I'll probably argue with your logic is probably faulty based on my brisker amus and the like but I believe as poor you'll come to the right answer even if you have the wrong reason that's a very mystical theory of but it's kind of what rler is saying about arasa so this is a very long winded non-answer to your question I mean I realize your question basically is can we change based on factual discoveries it really depends on the idea of whether errors in the M get assimilated into the M itself and do I regard that as a that it was the that move in a certain direction even if that was not a factually accurate situation excuse me I think would take the position that things don't change others might be a bit more more Progressive now again uh even if you believe things change God forbid don't confuse that with reform it's very I mean it's very much the opposite reform is changing here we're trying to come in connection to what was the original messas it's it's it you know superficially it may sound like a reform type of thing but analytically it's exactly the opposite process it's so it's a hard it's a hard it's a hard question oh let me give you another example that's very fascinating comes up a lot those of you maybe some of you have learned this uh the status of stainless steel pots and Bia you know it's axiomatic like the first law you learn in hilas is that a pot absorbs that which you cook in it whether it's trace or whether it's mil or Flik and as a result if you cook you know meat in a Mil pot or you cook kosher in a tra pot the that which is absorbed goes into the food and unless you have 60 Etc right this is the the basic structure why you need separate milic fesic stuff why you have the kajer uh trafe kitchens so scientists now say that stainless steel they they test it actually does not absorb any detectable food residue that the whole concept of modern iron Now cast iron does right if you have there are materials that do the materials in kaz's time did but tempered steel actually does not seem to have absorbent properties so the question now becomes so are we going to now take the position I can use a stainless steel pot for milx and fex because there's no milk that was absorbed there's no meat that was absorbed I don't have to CER stain steel it's a lively debate um there are those who actually take the position that stainless steel does not have to be cured at all that's a minority position as you said others say you know we have this m that everything that's metal is B uh we are not allowed to kind of make changes in those assumptions so the controversy comes across in many many many many areas [Music] I didn't hear you fre aun using yeah yeah yeah so that that's another very good example uh the auna issues uh we don't mean the auna of the guy who doesn't want to give a get but the original aguna issue of the missing in missing in action husband we don't know if he's dead or alive aftermath of 911 or the like and sometimes we recover bodies that are not physically recognizable but through DNA we might be able to determine identity so could we use DNA to M anuna so famously you know uh Rebel Yos actually said no took the position that DNA uh was not considered and you could not M there are others other poim who who say very much incorrect that V DNA could be used so that's Al live M now I will tell you the raban nut does not allow DNA testing to establish well when when there are fraternity actions right so uh they will not allow a DNA test because they don't want to create a suff momer because what if the DNA test shows that the kid is not from the husband could DNA be COA that someone is a momer now according to rash not that's actually the the plus side of rabash s but if you consider DNA is sufficient to Muna then it would appear DNA would be sufficient to matus and the ra took the position it's kind of a strange position of just look the other way meaning we will not allow a DNA test in order not to create a suff of M because in the absence of the test we have a CL that a married woman normally has relations with her husband so even if the kid looks differently so without a DNA test the child will have AAS they will not allow a DNA test to cast dispersions on the child's child so it's not so P but that's another example of new technology now I want to say something I remember reading after I I read re that DNA is not not good I'm thinking to myself you know come on they say it's a one in a billion chance that it's off Etc but I saw an article in the Atlantic I was on an airplane so Atlantic was there and they they actually say that although if a DNA test is done correctly like it's one in a billion that it's wrong but he said there's a surprising margin of error in the people who do the tests and and and set up the conditions and he said it could be off as high as 25% uh and indeed a whole project in the United States Innocence Project which is getting guys getting people off death death row who uh were uh convicted no that that's sometimes that's doing DNA yeah yeah yeah but but sometimes they also redo the DNA and they discover they discover testing errors so re yha May up a point that uh DNA the testing itself the protocol may be tainted in in in various ways one question one question few more people left question come back to you okay Nick of that it's very hard for person I start after when it it's it's almost there's never been a time where I've been able to look in the mirror and tell myself you know I got this and I'm never going to go back there so what would be a healthy way of looking at thee yeah yeah it's a difficult question right say if a person says I'll do sin I'll do speak hasem will not give you the opportunity to do CH so first of all let me just point out the rambam himself says it doesn't say you can't do Chua just as God is not gonna make it easy for you which means you can do chuma even for that but I think the most important Insight here is that of the balatan the balatan writes and he has something in the third par the third section of Tanya is a letter he wrote called the bat wrote cha himself and he says doesn't just mean I know I'm GNA sin it means I don't care it means I'm looking forward to sinning again because I know I'll get out of it by doing chuba that is considered to be a hypocritical Chua that's not a real Chua because you're just doing it as I'll pay the admission and then I'll go go back but if a person truly wishes my rut zone is I don't want to do the in but I recognize factually that I'm weak and I'm prone to error and I can be tempted that's not because at the time you're doing Chua you really wish hopefully you wish that you'd be out of there you wouldn't be connected to that a you're just worried that practically speaking you tend uh all of us tend to get stuck so that's not in fact um some of you might have heard of uh R Hoffman of a person he uh was one of the prominent therapists in the community many gum trusted him and they would send of yes and to him for various treatment he's a man who had great great psychological insight uh grounded in Torah and his writings are being printed now so you can actually something to yet both in Hebrew and in English so he tells an interesting story he says that he was a in the and it was and as is the want of people in lii Yesa he was very depressed uh during the during the month of el uh and he that's right yeah and uh one of the russas uh saw him and said what are you so depressed about what are you so sad about he said I'm reading the rambam and the rambam says what is Chua not even Chua gamur what is Chu only when hasem theum the one who knows all secrets can testify God is your witness you will never do the sin again that is chuva when God who of course knows the future testifies I'm out of there so said to his R what am I supposed to make with that I'm not gonna you know I do CH I'm gonna speak lar again whatever the is I'm gonna do it again what so that means I haven't done Chua my Chua is nothing so the Rosa didn't f for the ROM although you know we could talk about that too Thea said who says follow the ram anyway you know the ram is not the only POS in we have another great POS in cha that's R in the sa sh and in the sa sh says Chua is committing yourself to a certain Road there is the road of Life the road of death the road of evil the road of good trueu is when I say to Hashem sincerely I want to go on the right Road it doesn't mean you'll get to the destination it doesn't mean you're not going to fail it doesn't mean you're not going to detour but you're declaring with sincerity I want to try to walk in the right path Anda told Hoffman this is how we Pasa is so it does require sincerity that much I can't I can't take away that requirement I can't spure that one but if I sincerely want to improve myself even though I have this feeling based on past experience that you know I'm likely to slip in various ways that doesn't negate my chva if I re if what I really want to do is walk on the on the right Road I also want to point out that progress is not all or nothing so for example if a person had whatever it is five episodes of sh you know however you define that uh and you get it down to four then you know you have you have improved you're not in fact I can even say that in the rambam when the rambam says you will not go back to the sin again he means you won't go back to the sin to the same degree you went back then I made an improvement now I remember hearing a vort from rabie s Fran some of you might might have heard of him uh he was an old he's no older than me but he was an old he was my ultra bucker when I was in yes so friends said he said that Rao hits the rock uh in the 40th year in the desert and because he's angry at B Israel and hasem know said you can't go in because of the of May whatever the was now you'll remember that 40 years before uh when they left him time he actually was told by Hashem to hit hit the rock and he did so so he said R France said the reason why mosha Reno was so upset is he's been with this people for 40 years and he's remembering the first time they asked for water and they're still doing the same complaints they're complaining meaning it's like you worked with someone for so many years and you don't see any progress so that's a understandable attitude but what's the problem there was some progress because in par they said why did you take us out of to kill us for 40 years later they say why did you take us out of M lus so we would die in the desert the first time they accused him of wanting to kill them the second time they just said we're going to die just Hast progress they're not in the same place where they were they improved a little bit Moshe should have been om that's also Improvement right so uh even modest Improvement is Improvement yeah yeah [Music] are we meant to M navigate the world that we [Music] what I told us in no I mean listen this is a difficult question I mean the world the world does change the m has changes now this is encapsulated in the gamarra itself the gamarra talks about walking in streets where people are not dress and the basic rule is do you have another way to get where you're going now if you look in the it's very clear we're not talking about we're not saying oh it's life and death we're talking about even normal activities I want to get a pair of shoes if I don't have a sne a stick a road in other words what I'm saying is whatever the legitimate activity is we then ask could I pursue it in a Kosher Way or not if I can't pursue it in a kosher way I am permitted to pursue it uh even in PL in venues that are not SOA it might be as minor a thing as uh you know uh getting shoes or getting a Coke or a Falafel or or or whatever it would be so we're fairly make on this going to the gym even go even going to the gym is a paradigm but but once again let me point out that the poim say there's a strong element of subjectivity here by that I mean the following if a person has a powerful libido and there actually is like sexual arousal then you have to much much stricter but if thead is you know you're handling it uh but it's just a technical prohibition because it's a m then yeah even the gym I mean I have given permission to people to go to go to co-ed gyms that times when uh you know it's uh a lot of people are there a lot of men are there and they could go to the side where they're not directly staring at people uh and you know and I've been I've seen as well I I've seen very very from people who I know to be who have gone to uh different exercise programs in which women were participating as well usually older women so it wasn't but still uh technically it was not so this is n in in so if you could get a separate gym by all means uh you should try to do that but if not and you need the exercise and it's something that that's important for your health then that would be I mean I don't want to be too make could this be extended to mixed swimming again we get into many many many many questions but Drina is a fairly uh lenient idea uh but it also depends on on the libido libido is a major factor that's true with everything you can't compromise in but let's say a person has a situation while I'm meeting with a woman and everything's fine the door's open and whatever it is but if it affects you can't do it meaning before we get to the we have to get to the is it if it's then even is not going to be is not going to be a you get to only after you determine that I can handle it of course how do you know but you know you have to be honest you have to be honest with yourself Sean you want to ask of each seems that a Liv debate for the interest and the benefits of of B's whatever if you look at modern politics and group of maues and it seems no nobody excuse to get and us to be not the community to support him that was not the Jewish way of life that was not what the Jewish tradition is and they turn here is do you have a question we're just GNA Army no no I you know why is there not somebody standing up and saying guys this is not right they should be people in the sh but they should also be people in the Army and they should be [Music] yeah you know uh you know you're raising some very very powerful questions and in some ways uh just talking to me you're preaching to the choir because there's much much of what you said that I actually 100% agree with uh let me just speak in defense though of the other side uh and that is a lot of Jewish life is operating on what you might call a state of emergency in the post Holocaust years it's it's it's amazing what people are calling ancient history is really history since 1945 and that's about it uh it was said sh the Kish who really is the kazes is really the architect it's amazing it's very rare that you find a virtual sing person who formed the whole cult I mean he wasn't the only one but he was by far the dominant one who formed the dominant culture andan of the world in was the K and the Kish had a that in the aftermath of six million Jews dying and and the yeshivos of Europe being destroyed it was a state of National Emergency that required every person who could do full-time learning to go up into that procedure now the K was asked how how long do you think that would be necessary he said at least 75 years interestingly enough the time is up and in reality go this goes back to MRA meaning in reality a certain type of cultural norm has become NES which may actually be dysfunctional in some ways it may be atypical it was actually not the M of am Isel uh and it was adopted as a state of emergency in the aftermath of the Holocaust and serious thought has to be put into whether this needs to be modified now there are some voices that are talking about this even R Steinman before he died and he was attacked Steinman was attacked when he departed from the official line right so even the GLE is not protected when he doesn't say the standard line r Steinman said perhaps we need to explore not univers that would be too much but parosa institutes most those where people could support their families rosha Hill H who is right now the senior rashash Shiva in AR Israel says at least quietly that we have to recognize that a person can be a Ben T even if they're not in the D Co Bas of medish and the Working World in America many of you might know raran leony who wrote a very very fine book about V Torah for life meaning how to be a bentor in the Working World I think there is a recognition that the old Paradigm is not fully working it works for a lot of people it doesn't work for other people let me explain this even in terms of Rus it's not always the best way not everybody is cut out to learn full-time and forcing them into Co often creates depression it creates a lack of sholom bias it creates family tension it's a very difficult issue you can't have a one side fit all Society religious or otherwise and I can tell you that people are considering options modifications they get criticized they get knocked down it still takes a certain amount of courage to be willing to publicly discuss these Alternatives but I I can tell you they are being discussed including Army including Army uh including creating more religious units including creating parosa institutes uh for B Torah which would keep SAS separate men's and women's I mean they have some already yeah but but they want to expand it right now they're considered to be a little bit not fully legitimate so the issues you're raising are are very very important issues to society and er in particular uh and as I say uh it was based on what the Kish established as a state of emergency in the aftermath of the Holocaust and somehow it became the norm over those 70 years is it's interesting that people forgot about the kish's quotation of 70 years but Jonathan Rosen other people are resuscitating it and if you know world people like Jonathan Rosenblum they're putting out The Feelers opportunity to ask quick quot which is you Comey allow generals to become to be selected from the world for the change to be what to be selected from that's right is over representative amongst the soldiers there's over representative amongst officers but they are ignored when it comes to being generals that's a very good that's a very good point that's a very good point uh the the other side has responsibilities if they want integration of the religious sector they have responsibilities to bring in the religious sector in positions of author better decision making the Army as well hopefully hopefully hopefully so again I I your your points are very well taken but let me just say another point though um there is a certain element of fear that's going on here as well because like this with all of the Kronos in the existing system you know we've created a Cadre of people who are LOM de Torah Etc who are committed to learning and you know within a certain framework it works so now you're talking about opening up the framework enlarging the options there's a certain amount of fear that you know we don't know what's going to happen are people going to leave the fold are they going to go off the D we don't know so some of it is being motivated by by fear and the fear in some ways might be well founded I mean that's part of it as well change is always difficult that's all all I can say partial defense fish [Music] what I understand yeah yeah yeah so's the okay so so the p is the following the rambam says there are three types of mitvah two of them are not that relevant today one is the Seven Nations of Canan because they're gone there are no Hittites around the other is AAL Amal at least genealogically we really identify but the main one is number three is to protect the Jewish people from an enemy that is attacking the Jewish people based on that simple Paradigm one would say the war against Kamas is a what what would be the argument that it's not a so some want to bring in it's very a of the RA in the that even requires a an official declaration of war by a so someone argue even does not have a without a that's very very because it's one thing to say we're not going to wage war against amalik we're not going to declare war against amalik aggressively it's another thing to say defense Wars require Raa somebody breaks into my house with a gun I can't do anything yeah yeah so that's one problem uh the other issue is R cook rev cook wrote Of course R cook is Rev cook so wouldn't necessarily accept him but rev cook writes that anything that requires a Mel can be satisfied by an elected government and the ramban is that way as well the ran in the SE mitz says Muro implying any type of political leadership okay but let's raise another aspect to the question let's assume it is a let's not go with the requirement okay who has to participate so everybody quotes the M that says all of the exemptions like and K and Bas only apply to m well it's not so P because is referring to the doesn't have an exemption Etc does it apply to a or a learner of Torah is a full-time learner of Torah exempt from so some want to bring the r where the r has a it's really combining two things in the r that sh Le is the tribe that's totally devoted and they're not in the Torah they were out to that's true but but he says the actually says as a general so that's already that's a big and then they want to say the r says at the end everybody can be a shav Ley even though he's not talking about mad I mean after all I can't be a shav Ley for everything can't be sh Le Myer so obviously the rambam doesn't mean everybody can be a Ley but they want to add the one and one together the P for uh a shavit Ley and then everybody can become a Ley now the first thing I want to say is even if you accept that reasoning that does not translate into a k exemption I you have to there are two different things going on here and they're not the same one is if I am learning Torah full time am I obligated to go to the Army the other is if I'm am I obligated of the I mean just because there's no there's no exemption for Mitzvah no matter what you say and the only argument would be it's not a Mitzvah you know that would be the argument because you need a so what can I say I mean there are uh histor historically the argument has been there was no Manpower shortage and there was just no need for and just like the United States I know I remember myself uh recognized an exemption for theological students the AAS were the most crowded uh in history during that period of time uh so too now that argument is was was a sustainable argument for a long time as this war is dragging on it it becomes less of a sustainable argument so what's the other argument people make besides the T argument they make the argument the armies going to be a negative influence on our kids and I understand that but you know it does go both ways I mean there is the Hester guys who are wonderful makem but but but there are indeed kids there's cure going on in the Army some people come from but a lot of kids do go off the D qu so if I'm a parent I really get why I would be very concerned for sure the question is is that a as painful as as this just to say and I'm just saying it I'm just thinking out loud I'm not I'm not saying anything I'm worried what will happen to my kid in the Army and that that may be a legitimate obviously well no no for physically that's true yeah obviously I'm no better than anybody else but I'm talking about I'm talking about Rook the qu the question is is that does that fear translate into a exemption there's a lot of Unfinished thoughts here going on here that are not fully articulated you know you say one thing and someone says well what about my kids okay but but you know what's going to be so I can tell you that there's a lot of talk going on behind closed doors and there is a recognition that uh both for political reasons moral reasons even religious and elic reasons there's going to have to be some accommodation uh with the Army and of course that does require that the Army accommodate as well they've done some stuff but there's a lot more stuff that can be done uh to make it uh to make it better and things are changing you know the the Chinese have an expression they have a curse may you live in interesting times that's a curse right and and uh the K world is undergoing a very very interesting time right now on many many levels the types of schools the introduction of some secular studies parosa institutes the creation of multiple options for different types of people our relationship to the Army uh these things have to be rethought you know when then grian agreed to exempt religious people in 1948 this was a condition of forming the first government of the state of Israel the whole Yeshiva population in AR Israel was under 400 people and beneran was convinced that it was not going to grow they were going to die out and they'll disappear so it's a temporary little Annoying problem that will go away in five to 10 years so he signed off on item in many many ways benguan was proved totally wrong uh right and we have the and the bris and all the people who built up who built up but you know that creates a new problem meaning the whole predicate for all of the exemptions has less of a justification today and therefore things have to be rethought so all I can tell you is that we're in a big big process of rethinking if you go to any place like ra you'll see all sorts of new schools schools are being established with different emphases different approaches different constituencies so it's not going to be a one-size FID all anymore it'll be more like America some people say that's awful I'm not even aining it's good or bad uh some people say that's great that's what that's exactly what we need whether you think it's good or whether you think it's bad for sure it's coming until and unless it's arrested by the coming of mashiach which will have different rules once that once that happens yeah yeah sure well uh we had a yeah without a Bas of M yeah without a well they say that uh property y has never gone down so it's always K to buy I remember people buying in har no before they building bu 30,000 shekel unbelievable you know so uh there's some good there were some good Bargains then some good Bargains now now so I'm going to say two things I'm going to say uh good news and bad news you know the bad news is people sometimes say we have a Divine promise from AES that there will not be a third there will not be a third Gus and therefore for sure the state of Israel can never ever be destroyed uh that unfortunately is not a true statement because it's true that aesu promised that the temple will not be destroyed a third time but we're not out of the second D and we're still in the second doas and therefore anything can happen as it were including R theban of of of a Jewish state so the Jewish State indeed is a very precarious footing on the other hand we have seen over many years already 70 years more than 70 years we've seen the ra of we've seen the love ofes so I think we have every reason to be optimistic I wouldn't put it as a promise I don't think you have any prophetic promise to that effect but I think Hashem is showing us a track record uh but once again it also depends on our doing our part whether it's Torah Mitzvah Israel whether it's uh coming together you know the events of October 7 which we're still suffering I mean can you imagine we're coming up to a year almost a year it'll be a year just a few weeks and it's still going on and there who are still suffering and just unbelievable and there's no particular you know there's no particular end of this uh you know this could go on who who knows uh and if there was any Silver Lining to a very difficult and tragic experience that we're still going through it's that it brought us together in ways that we had not seen for many years uh well that's the thing if you remember before October 7 there was this absurd debate about judicial reform which somehow turned into an anti-religious attack it's not even clear to me how that happens but whatever it is all the years that the knesset was leftist leaning without any religious influence uh the secular people of Tel Aviv were perfectly happy to talk about Pro democracy Pro knesset when there began to be more of a religious influence in the KET the Supreme Court became their great protector and when you want want to reign in the Supreme Court you know Shalom you're creating a dictatorship and and the like what's so amazing is even Biden you should be well Biden made a statement he was not in favor of Israel limiting the power of the Supreme Court his proposals which which will go nowhere are many many times more radical than whatever n he wanted to have term limits on American Supreme Court Justices mandatory retirements at 75 they would have to amend the whole con stition so he's criticizing Israel Natan who would really be creating a system very much similar to what the United States already has when n was doing something much more radical okay whatever it is I don't want to get into judicial reform I mean I yeah B no no I'm saying Biden was criticizing okay whatever no liation on hypocrisy yeah yeah I I don't want to get into judicial form although I have a law degree so I'm interested in in those technicalities but the point I want to make is it was tearing apart Society people were talking about leaving aric investors were talking about pulling out their Capital soldiers were talking about not reporting to the Army and reservists were saying they weren't going to come bashem they came but who knows if that emboldened Kamas to think that there wouldn't be a response people were talking about the end of the state of Israel this these were seriously articulated concerns comes October 7 all all of a sudden we love each other we care about each other we're making sit for the the want andin and the most families are bringing food and medicine and barbecues and everything else and there was AEL there was there was care there was concern but unfortunately as the war drags on and on and on and on and on we come back to our bad habits just like an elastic band you stretch the band but at some point you let go and it just goes back to where it was so unfortunately we're kind of coming back to where we were and that's a tragedy on top of a tragedy the tragedy is are the events of October 7 and the war but if we could grow from that if we could learn from that if we could be transformed from that at least there would be some redeeming quality if we have the tragedy and we have the and the what are we what are we left why did we left there so that I think is among the most saddest thing in fact even one of the hostages who was released I think made that statement she she said that um this was an opportunity for everybody to come I don't I don't think she was even religious she just said this was an opportunity for the Jewish people to come together she even mentioned that she was watching with her with her cap they were watching TV they were watching a rally and the captor the guy the Arab the terrorist said to her he wasn't so happy but when the Jews get together they're very strong he said the Jews get together there's nothing they can't do the guy was not the terror was just not you shouldn't overestimate the importance of the the Lefty El going the whole country I understand I I understand I understand so so all I can say is that if we think about what we can try to do in the coming year once again I think a is us to kind of show even if you don't go into the army but to show that it's your Sor that you commiserate that you're no say that you regard this as your struggle also and open our hearts to feel the pain of others and recognize that their pain is really our pain it's not even a different pain and in that way we try to be m a little bit the that keeps us in the gas and prevents the ga so you want I wish you all and was wonderful having you and again U bye annually we hope uh come um I can consider it but it's harder for me these days to travel even though it's not it's not it's not a huge distance Lio Rabbi you said goodbye quick answer one yeah yeah sure SE sorry I had a question about yeah yester was talk about MIT come from something yes yes I mentioned [Music] that yes yes yes so this is a very powerful point that the Z addresses and the zor makes the point that mashia does not come through sin but mashia comes through the appearance of sin mean meaning technically there were no sins I mean this is before the Torah was was given Lo Etc and Yehuda actually had a Mitzvah to do lever with marriage on his right so it's not that there was actual sin but it comes to things that look bad Russ coming in the middle of the night to boas and the Z explains that powerful Holiness when it wants to enter the world there are powers of evil that try to deflect it and the powers of evil have to be deceived by you know there's an expression in English a wolf in sheep's clothing here you need a a sheep in Wolf's clothing the good has to come in the guise of evil and that brings it under the radar now rev cook applied this Paradigm to a lot of modern things he applied it to secular Zionism he applied it to aspects of feminism he said hey a lot of this stuff is not Kosher a lot of this stuff is wrong but it's concealing certain f FAL truths that only can enter the world uh through that guise and R cook says Aras try to extract the kernel of goodness from the surrounding sheer in which it is encased it's an amazing thing that's that's why ref cook had this ability to see in the negatives many many types of hidden positives and he said mystically that is how goodness often comes into the world it comes into the world through the guise of things that look improper that way to use the cabalistic terminology the the external forces do not have an they don't have a grasp on it because they think it's them like a trojan horse like you fool that's how you fool the enemy so to speak we just did a class on on what the show we just did a class onir know the the good part ofir even though it's all right a class on kir sounds interesting to burn out the old opinion of okay okay yeah yeah so you learn of cooking so R learns of cooking uh rev cook was an extraordinary extraordinary person uh you know re he was both the and the for went to cook and said you know I'd like my daughter to marry the and uh in the world when sometimes R cook would be put down if if you did it in Rebel yash's presence and you think because people thought re Yash would V agree with my negative remarks he kicked you out of the house and you weren't allowed to come back in again he said you don't know who you are talking about get out and uh so we have to recognize what a what a God old he was but uh an amazing controversial creative thinker so 100% uh his thoughts are very very different uh I'll tell you one little story one little story R cook that you should take over from was only in arel once shortly before R Cook's death R cook I think died in 35 I think R salv was there 33 or whatever uh because he was a candidate to be Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv which he didn't get and whatever and later he was offered to be Rafa Rashi but he didn't want at that point at that point he he didn't want to get involved in Israeli Poli itics that would have been too much so he he talks about his meeting with r cook towards the end of R Cook's life and he says people make a mistake when they talk about rev cook as a philosopher rev cook did not think in linear sentences in orderly logical propositions he said rev cook was a spiritual personality not a philosopher and he called him the most extraordinary spiritual personality he ever met and he told the story now this story happened many years before so some I don't know if he heard it from R cook or or or somebody else he said in the early uh n know before World War I in the early 20th century rev cook made it he was not thei he was the r of yafa but he took a tour around many kib Sim in the area many of which were sh many of them which were anti religious Mish and he wanted to get to know them he wanted to meet them he wanted to spend some time with them that's correct that's correct I'm not sure if this is the same Journey or a different one but yes they went together they went together that's right went together and he was yeah yeah yeah so he writes he comes to a now this story only mentions Earth cook so I'm not sure if it's the same event that you're talking about and he asks the head of the kibot or whoever runs the Kus you know could we organize a minion Friday night in chabas so the guy says no he says we don't do that here he refused cook said okay so he be a he sits he brought a a little bottle of wine and and some bread he didn't he couldn't eat any of the food the food was Mish Mish TR and this was a dining room in which I mean they were doing sewing machines they were playing orchestras there were radios on and he was just sitting and talking with the people just sitting and talking with them afterwards he benched same thing happened there was no minion shabas morning uh same thing you just sat with them uh they had a sudas I guess they called it an afternoon snack or something they didn't call it which is same thing uh after chabas rev cook uh just says goodbye to them and says you know it was really wonderful spending time with you I really so much admire all the things you're doing and I hope that next time I'm here we could sit down for a meal together it would be so nice we could eat together too and left that night the head of the kibuts calls everybody together and says we're cering the kitchen we want the rabbi to eat with us and he said if the rabbi would have given us one word of mus [Music] K we would have just kicked him out we would have kicked him out that day he never said a single word of he treated us with love he treated us with respect we want to make him happy so again it wasn't they wanted to make Hashem happy they didn't believe in hasem but we want to make him happy so we're going to make our kitchen kosher and R salvic told that story as an instance of the extraordinary way rev cook influenced people it was not through philosophical debate or argumentation it just through the love and respect that he conveyed to people yeah I know time but because we learn cook aot in R yeah and people ask quite often the sh like what's Lor you said he's like a spiritual philos like what's look like was it Yami type of thing like he just got this philosophical thread of all of life through his learning well you know rev cook got from many many makorus was sh from bavi medish Z cabaas actually the balatan was a big big big influence I mean he not mean the books of the bat Torah were a big influence on R his mother was from aabad family he absorbed the andaba but what can I tell you he was also a creative original person who filtered all of the Torah thoughts that he had through his own critical intelligence his own sensitive Soul his noticing the phenomena of the modern world he didn't ignore it he didn't close his eyes he saw people going off the D and he wanted to know why he didn't simply say these are bums but he wanted to analyze what is taking people off the the good part of as you say which is always the way make instead of blaming other people but his MOS were so many his makus were were Torah were Torah but mainly Casas and cabala he was of course a beloved of the not so much you know went more was the more and more zionis d right and uh uh the r was very close to the n and the NV actually said the whole Yesa of Alan would have been worthwhile to produce one person like Ru cook the whole great is of produced all of the gor of the next of the Next Generation and uh uh R cook was greatly admired by many but even in his lifetime he was attacked and he adopted The Stance of kazal on meaning he never ever responded with bitterness or criticism against people who were insulting him in very very very extreme ways in fact he even expressed gratitude he says they keep me humble and they keep me centur and maybe they prevent me from going off the D he said but you know and he M all of those criticisms um who was the leader of the world in actually went with rev cook at an expedition for Kim Etc they were very good friends uh even though their fought a lot and he always called RAV cook the rav of yafa he never called him the rav of and he certainly never called him raashi and he explained to he says of reaching out to everybody of loving everybody of being M everybody is the perfect way a r should behave in a small fishing Village like yafa but when you're a national figure this is this is what this is what when you're a national figure and you have to protect the nation you can't so if Z felt H you can't be so compromising and so accommodating he says R cook was the perfect R of yafo and he says I would be that way too he said I would be that way too in ya you have required more of a an ideological stance Rook apparently disagreed with that but that's that's Aus that's Aus among okay and we have to have coverage for for both of them in that in that way okay thank you thank you