20: If I Could Be Someone Else...

Hi, this is Dovid Orlofsky and welcome to The Rabbi Orlofsky Show. Thank you very much and whether you're watching with our good friends on torahanytime.com, or thether you listen to your podcasts it is so nice to have you along for this exciting journey. I am back from America. I did a Shabbos for a wonderful organization called Keravtuni, which is, you may not be able to pick this up, but it is a Chasidish organization. And if you look at the ad, you'll see 12 streimels and me. Yeah, I was the token Litvak, and I was one of the few people actually speaking in English I can't speak Yiddish. I can't speak Yiddish. It's been an embarrassment to me my entire life, especially when you know, I was younger you'd meet these older people and they would right away just talking to you in Yiddish, they assumed you spoke Yiddish and I said, "I don't speak Yiddish." (Yiddish accent) "You don't speak Jewish? You're a Jew, you don't speak Jewish? How do you not speak Jewish?" (Laughing) It sounds worse in English: 'you don't speak Jewish'. (Laughing) But the truth is, that my parents spoke Yiddish, my father grew up in a Yiddish-speaking home, and my mother grew up and, bilingual but it was their secret language. When they didn't want us to know what they were saying, they would speak in Yiddish. So, I, you know, what can I do I? I didn't pick it up. And then I went to Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim, I learned b'Rav Zvi Kushelevsky, who either taished into English, or into, into Hebrew, and I never, I never went to yeshiva where we learned in Yiddish. I never picked up Yiddish. You know, you'd pick up words, words My oldest brother was de groiseh. My youngest brother was de kleineh and I was 'de undereh' which means 'the other one' So you used to listen when they would be talking, (Yiddish accent) "(Speaking gibberish)... de undereh" I was like, "uh-oh." De undereh. (Singing) 'Cuz I'm de undereh, he's de undereh, and the unders unders on... Anyway, so it was only one phrase that I learned and it shows you that if you really highly motivated you could pick up: Given the kinderlach the gelt. (Laughing) I would listen for that. Then I would say, "de undere is du." (Laughing) So that's the extent of my Yiddish. Yeah, but but most of the speakers were speaking Yiddish. It was only bad when I was like, on a panel, and the other, and the other Rav was speaking in Yiddish and he would turn from time to time and go, (Yiddish accent) (Speaking gibberish)? And I'd go like, "Yeah?" It could be they were just making fun of me But I had no way of knowing and I just smiled that that smile that I used to have when I was younger and I would have to go to social events. I never mastered the art of drinking alcoholic beverages, not to this day. Beer smells like mold. I don't know how anybody drinks that, the other stuff comes in, in three flavors other types of liquor disgusting, extremely disgusting, and undrinkable, and so I would get myself a screwdriver which is orange juice and vodka, and I would lean against a wall, put on this smile and I would just standing with my drink. And every now then I would take a sip and I thought to myself, "imagine ruining a perfectly good glass of orange juice." (Laughing) WC Fields, he was an old comic from the old days. He was a terrible alcoholic. And he used to carry a hip flask. Whenever they asked him what was in it he would say, (Mid-Atlantic accent) "orange juice." So one day someone poured it out and fill it with orange juice, you know And he takes a sip and he spits it out. He goes, (Mid-Atlantic accent) "who switched my orange juice with orange juice?" Yeah, so I just remember that expression I would have when I would be holding my, my drink and that smile on my face. That's what I looked like on this panel. (Laughing) I had that smile on my face all that was missing was a, was a screwdriver. And, I don't know what they were saying. But I found it so inspiring. So many people coming, I have to say, it was the first Shabbos I ever went to where they gave you a complimentary washing cup and bowl. Yeah, you don't always get that, you know, and I've gone to some pretty fancy events, trust me. They don't always give you that washing cup. (Laughing) So, you know, I will say the following though, and that is that there was just too much food. I'm an old man, I can't eat like that anymore, you know, but Baruch Hashem it was such a beautiful Shabbos, and then I get to speak in New City and I, and I said, this is my first time in New City I've been in the Old City When I came back and went to the Old City, davened by the Kosel, but I've never been in New City before. So it was just so inspiring, I went to New City, and I got to speak there about Shovavim, something I have never done in my life, and and that's it, I'm back, I'm leaving again, I'm going back to America. Hopefully I'm going to be doing a show in Baltimore, I hope to be doing one in the Five Towns, only I'm not taking out any ads anymore. I'm gonna be using the magic of social media. So I have no idea what that means. So those of you who know how to use social media or even if you know how to use a social meteor and we'll send it around that way, because that always makes a big bang! (Laughing) So you can let me know and I'll give you the details that we'll publicize it in those areas. We'll do one of those, you know, paper on the door things. You know, the last time I did this in Baltimore, I'll never forget So Blumie Weil sponsors, sponsors this year, you know. Well, she doesn't sponsor it, she runs it. She handles everything. And she used to be Blumie Drebin, a student of mine in Darchei Binah and you know how folks come to help out, etcetera. And I never forget, you know, I, you know, I charge $10 at the door, and at the end of the shiur Mr. Drebin stood up and said, 'well, that was worth 10 bucks!" (Laughing) I hope you think so too if you're in the Baltimore area and you'll come in and listen hopefully you'll gain from it. If you're watching this podcast, you have a basic idea of what we do here. I try to do it a little more professionally when I'm being paid, but it's more or less the same. All right! We have a sponsorship, and this is a very special sponsor for me. I'm gonna read what the people wrote, and I'm gonna read you the part that he said: please do not read. (Laughing) This episode is sponsored in honor of Hashem: Thank you for showering the world with constant tov and abundant bracha at every moment. Without you we would quite literally not be here. That is special. Please keep our identities anonymous. I've already burnt off my fingerprints and assumed you an alternate identity in another city in case you don't. Thank you. Signed, the Goldbergs. No, I'm just kidding. (Laughing) That's not who it's from. But this person person or persons made comments already on my first podcast. They were the ones who suggest that we do it in front of the in front of the seforim, and they were the first ones who offered the sponsor a shiur before we even had sponsorships. So this is historic, or as we say in Keravtuni (Yiddish accent), historic. (Laughing) So thank you so much for your friendship and support. Parshas Ki Sisa, what a, what a sad parsha. It's a sad parsha, you know. The the story of Yetzias Mitzrayim has built to a crescendo. We come out of Mitzrayim, and we have Yetzias Mitzrayim, and Parshas Mishpatim separates between the first part of Matan Torah and the second part. And you go up to the, to the Moshe Rabeinu going up to the Har for forty days and forty nights and then the Satan comes and is mearvev haolam. Messes up the world. Confuses everybody. How does the Satan do this? Where, where is the Satan's power come from? We ate from the Eitz HaDa'as Tov VaRa, I think we spoke about this once. The Eitz HaDa'as Tov VaRa. It's a mistake; people think we ate from the Eitz HaDa'as, the Tree of Knowledge. We ate from this and we had knowledge. Adam HaRishon saw from one side of the world to the other. He knew everything. He was b'shleimuso. It was, it was a complete, complete being. And, and Therefore he knew everything. Yeah, three terms: chochma, bina, daas. Rashi explains: Chochma is acquired knowledge. Either you've acquired it from other sources, you read the encyclopedia, you observe nature, you use your senses, it's facts. Bina is how you use those facts to understand. Raw, raw data doesn't help you. You have to be able to process it. That's "what does it mean?" and if you, if you can't process the information correctly, then yeah, you don't know what you have. After you gather all the information and you understand it correctly, then you come to daas. Daas is "ani yodea". This is the reality. I always define daas when I teach Mesilas Yesharim as a sense of reality. When you say "ani yodea", So, it's, it's describing how you understand reality. I know. This is what I know. Now we often say, "I know" and we don't know. The best raya is if you say it twice. I know, I know. Yeah, when you say "I know, I know", you don't know at all. Yeah. When, when a person says, "I know" for real. What's fun about magic? Having been a magician yeah, I think it was Jerry Seinfeld who said, "you know, I come in and I say 'listen, I know, how you did, this trick works, and you don't, you're an idiot. Ha, ha, ha, ha, and I'm making fun of you.'" That's not what's fun about magic. What's fun about magic is it plays with your sense of daas. This can't be happening. This is impossible. Yeah, the birdcage, the vanishing birdcage. Blackstone publicized this. He was a famous magician, Harry Blackstone. I saw his son Harry Blackstone, Jr. when I was fourth grade. Yeah, I saw him in a show. My family went cross-country, (chuckling) it was an amazing thing. We went through a station wagon and we went two weeks from New York to California and two weeks back and we saw America. And so we stopped off in Reno, and I got to see a hotel room. That was all I was allowed to see. (Laughing) Well, there were a few kid-friendly shows, and they took us to one, one was Harry Blackstone Jr. The other one was Tiny Tim. If that name means anything to you, I'm sorry. I, I am, I'm sorry for that. But anyway, but Blackstone, Harry Blackstone, had publicized this trick where you have a steel cage, with two birds in it, and he brings up members from the audience, and they put their hands on the cage, they're holding the cage. And he goes one two, three, (clap) and it's gone. They actually brought him to court because he was charged with the endangerment of animals, and he showed privately the judge how the trick was done, and the birds were unharmed. Right, because it doesn't make a lot of sense to do that, you know, a magician, these these things cause money. By the way the reason magicians use doves, in case you're wondering, not just because they're white and they're, and they're photogenic, it's because when they pull in their wings, they're very small. And when they open it out, they look with a flourish. That's why when they make scarfs appear or disappear, in, in magic language, we call them silks. Those silks. It's a silk production, or a silk color change, whatever it is. Why silks? Because silk opens up and very flowing but you can, can, you can compress them very tightly. So that when you're, it's easier to hide in your hand, and then when you give a little flip and it appears it's, it's fantastical. But you're watching this birdcage. I'm holding a birdcage. Boom (clap) it disappears. So, but I know that can't be happening, it's playing with you a sense of daas. But that's because you know for sure that can't be happening. Vayeda Adam es Chava ishto. Vayeda is, is kesher. It's connection. Complete connection. When I know something for real, it becomes part of my etzem metzius. That's right, when it's something that's really jarring. You... you find out you're adopted. Yeah, I don't mean you personally, but your brother. Yeah, you find out that you're adopted. Yeah... My whole sense of my world has now been turned upside down. Because I lived my life with a certain set of assumptions or you find out your parents are aliens. I hate when that happens, right? So here you, you've lived with a certain assumption, and suddenly it turns out it's not, you know? You suddenly find out. Yeah, the story was in the news recently, you know, this person finds out that their father is a serial murder. (Laughing) That's, that's really awkward family gathering. Dad, put down the butter knife, okay? But, you know, because I know something to be true. Yeah, and that's why when you hear these scandals that come out or as we say here in Hebrew 'scanDAL', you know, so people say, "it can't be, I KNOW this person. It can't be, can't be true." That's a, that's a frightening, a frightening kind of a thing, you know. Because we know, we know what reality is and it, and it changes on us. So the Eitz HaDaas wouldn't, they already had daas, they had perfect clarity. No, this is called the Eitz HaDaas Tov VaRa. When you ate from this tree, you now knew daas tov and you now knew daas ra. What's the difference between those two? Daas tov is reality. Daas ra is a false reality. It's an illusion. It's make believe. And we can know things for sure that are patently false. What a difficult generation we're living in. Because we're being told crazy things, and and, it's the new normal. There was a time not that long ago in American history where homosexuality was a crime. Go to prison for it. Yeah. After a while they decriminalized it. There was a time when it was considered to be a mental illness. Today, if you think there's something wrong with it, then you have a mental illness. If you THINK there's something wrong with it. Because you're homophobic. It's a phobia. You know...Can't be that you're making a moral decision that something is right or something is wrong based on the word of God. No, it can't be. You're suffering from a psychological problem. Astounding. So you're suddenly presented with things that we're left to believe is reality. So they're, they're bringing in now getting more and more, they haven't even by, by, by the Kosel, so you can go where you put on these special glasses and you're able to experience this illusion. You look around and you see things. Virtual reality, they call it. Do you hear the word? VIRTUAL reality. It's not real, it's VIRTUAL reality. You can create, you can you can see with your own eyes things that just aren't true. So 1985 I, I went out to LA with my wife and, and my baby and no, it had to be 1986. 1986. He had been born not that long ago. So what happens? That's actually an interesting que- an interesting story. I was a Chapter Advisor for NCSY out in Los Angeles. It was a an amazing experience. This was, this was LA back in the 70s. I later went on to become the Regional Director of Long Island where I believe I was somewhat successful. But in LA, I could have been a god. I could have made my own religion. (Laughing) That was an experience I will never forget. I came back to visit years later and my picture was still up in the youth lounge. It was with flowers and incense, but anyway, But, it was really special, and I, there was, it was magic between us as a group. I never looked at it as me and the kids. We were a group, we were all in this together. I think that was part of the reason that I was successful that was, I never say you. "You people need to...You need..." It was always us. We were, we were on a journey together. Yeah, I think that's what made it so special. But... but I was... one of, one of my former NCSYers were getting married, out in LA, and you know, I'm not like today where I'm such a jet setter. I fly all around the world, you know and it's, it's very exciting. I, I, you don't fly that often you know, according to the New Green Deal we're doing away with airplanes anyway, so you know, get it in while you can. But... I was gonna fly over to the chassuna, and I decided not to. And that week, a good friend of mine, his wife suddenly died. All of a sudden. Aneurysm in the brain. Just all of a sudden. (Snap) Like that. Died. It, there wasn't a question. I merely bought a ticket, you know when you buy a ticket in the last minute, the most expensive way to buy a ticket. I bought a ticket and I flew out to pay a shiva call for a day, come back. And I remember thinking to myself, if you've got time for tragedy, but you don't have time for simcha. So I said, okay, I said, okay, I called up I said, "I'm gonna come out for the Shabbos sheva brachos." Me, and my wife, and my baby, bought tickets. Flew out to LA, there was a kosher hotel at the time, you know, we stayed there. And while I was there I felt that my son would very much like the see Disneyland. He was at that point I think about four weeks, five weeks and you could tell that that's what he wanted to do. So even though it wasn't for me, but I figured okay, you know, we make sacrifices for our children. So I went to Disneyland. Now, so do you appreciate this? The first time I went to Disneyland was on that family trip across the country when I went to LA It was very exciting. When you went to Tomorrowland, it looked like Tomorrowland. When you go to Tomorrowland now, it looks like 1968 Land. You know they had this amazing thing where you could look at the phone and see the person you were speaking to, if you can even imagine such a thing. They had a monorail. I know most of you have never seen a monorail, you know, I happen to see them sometimes when I go to the airport (Laughing) They put in a monorail this was like state-of-the-art, yeah. So a lot of the things that, that they had at the time was really very exciting, for its time, you know in 1985-86 it was still somewhat interesting, you know. So, they had just opened the haunted house. And we went in the haunted house and yeah, one of these cars and they they shake you back and forth, you know and you see you know ghosts and things. And as you're leaving, is a little sign that says: Don't pick up any hitchhiking ghosts. I wasn't planning to, but it's always good advice anyway. And as we, our little car goes, you go past the mirror, and there's me, there's my wife, she's holding our son and in between us is sitting a ghost. And he's waving. So what do I do? I turn and look. (Laughing) There's no ghost there! Yeah? And I look back at the mirror, and there he is, he's waving, he winks at me and I go look a second time! (Laughing) Because I was so caught up in the illusion. It's so that the, the people would, okay, so listen to this idea: There was a film, a series of three films that came out years ago, it was called The Matrix. Basically, all of mankind doesn't exist. They're all hooked up to some machine, and everything that they think is an illusion. They're imagining their entire lives. So here and there they free people from it, and then they go off to try destroy the machines, achum vey, it's a whole story. But people use this as a mashal. Says, you're caught up in an illusion. You're caught up in The Matrix. And, oh, maybe fifteen years ago, I started having kids saying, "what's wrong with that? Why should I work so hard to have a real life, when I could think I'm having a happy life? It's good enough." There's your, you know, think: if you could take a drug and be happy, you know, would you do it? And the answer often was, "no, because eventually it'll wear off." What if you had a drug that never wore off? What if you could hook yourself up to a machine and have an imaginary life? I don't know if it still exists. But, at one point there was an online site called Second Life where you could create a character for yourself, in this make-believe world and live and make-believe life. And it's not that you're a superhero, or it's not that you're an ogre, you're, you're a, you know, a battle dwarf, or something like that, you're just a regular person (Laughing) You have a wife, you have children, you have a job, and you just created a virtual life for yourself. Because I'd rather live in illusion. That's the daas hara. Daas hara is illusion. Torah is emes. (Singing) Moshe emes/v'toraso emes/ Moshe emes/Moshe Moshe Moshe emes. Yeah. Moshe is emes, the Torah is emes. This is reality with a capital 'R'. An illusion I can believe that there are things that are real, that aren't real. There was neighbors of ours who Ended up moving out of our neighborhood of relatively small, simple homes to a much larger home. And they had a chanukas habayis. And everything was (Yiddish accent) elegvant. It vas beautiful. Fancy china (Original accent) beautiful food, everything was nice and you know the, the man was making enough money that he was able to move up in the in the world, and, and his wife was very happy with this new lifestyle. And as we were sitting there, she told the following story. Listen to this story: "I was driving through the Rockaways, one cold night. And I saw this big metal garbage can. And these people had made a fire in it, and they were sitting around and old clothes bottles of alcohol, and brown paper bags, drinking, laughing, having a great time. And I thought to myself, 'how much happier are their lives than mine. (Laughing) Than ours, now.'" And I thought to myself, "that's it? That's the best that you could get? A bunch of bums sitting about a fire drinking, and that to you is like, shpitz chaim?" Yeah, because real life is hard. Real life is a lot of obligations, and a lot of things to take care of, and responsibilities, you know. So, move into a make-believe life. That's what the Satan offered them: illusion. That was the egel. It was illusion. Yeah, it came out walking and talking. It was eating grass, it, They saw Moshe dead being carried up to shamayim, they saw the entire world collapsing, it was all illusion That's why when you, when you think, "How could Klal Yisrael do this?" look at Yehoshua! Yehoshua didn't even know anything was going on! He saw the same illusions everyone else was seeing, but it didn't bother him. Ay, we're all caught up in illusion. Yeah. We look at everybody else's kids. Why can't you be like him? Look at everybody else's husbands. Why can't you be like him? Look at anybody else's wives. Why can't you be like her? You see, Okay, beinenu. Yeah, how many times have you seen one of these perfect marriages, perfect couples, and then they get divorced. Because you don't see everything. You don't know everything, no. There's an illusion, and we imagine, "if I only had THAT." "If I only, if I could only live THIS." "If I had that job, if I -" Lo sachmod! That's how the aseres ha- when Hakadosh Baruch Hu was giving us reality with a capital 'R'. The last one is lo sachmod. eshes reiecha, yeah. Don't, don't, don't, DESIRE your friends wife, his house, his animals. Rabbi Leff, the Rav of Yeshivas Matisyahu would always say, "you're comparing the wife to the cow? There's either something very wrong with the wife, or there's something very right with the cow!" (Laughing) And he says, "if I want your house, and I want your wife, and I want your animals, it's because I want to be you. Because I'm sure that life would be better if I were you." And, I look at friends of mine who've had truly gifted lives And, and I think, "gee, if I had that. If I didn't have all the learning disabilities and if I grew up in, you know, a more functional family, if I had gone to all the great yeshivas, you know if I had, if I had, you know all the, all the gifts that they had." I don't know, all I can tell you is I wouldn't be me. I know who I'd be. You want to hear a beautiful idea? Rav Henoch Leibowitz from Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim said this idea: Rashi brings down, he says, ah. Nobody did kibud av like Eisav. 'Cuz to me, when I prepare food for my father so I put on my I know, I have my regular clothes I cook it in and then I serve it to him. And Eisav would put on his Shabbos clothes, special clothes, bgadim from Adam HaRishon, when he would go and serve his father. So Henoch said, "shkoach! So you know what he did. Now YOU do it." and he said, "because I wouldn't be doing kibud av, I would just be copying Eisav. And there's no chap to copying what somebody else does." Somebody says to me, you know, because I would often ask the question: If you're only a Jew 'cuz you were born Jewish, you're saying if I was born Muslim, I'd be Muslim, If I was born Christian, I'd be Christian yeah. So people say, "yeah, but mesora, mesora, you know, Emuna peshuta, oh, we get a tradition from our fathers." So when we say shmone esrei, we say, Elokeinu ve'Elokei avoseinu. First He's got to be your God. First you have to make your own approach. And people live in this illusion: "I WISH I could be that person. If ONLY I had this, if only I had that." Yeah But that's not the way life works. You get what you get, because that's where your kochos lie. That's where your abilities go for you to be able to do great things in this world. And there is nothing more worthless that you can do than to imagine, "if I was somebody else, if it was something else, if it was a different situation, if I had this", it doesn't matter, you know Yeah. (Singing) Lord who made the lion and the lamb (Singing) You decreed I should be what I am (Singing) Would it spoil some vast eternal plan (Singing) Ifffff (Singing) I were a wealthy man Yeah. Matter of fact it would. (Laughing) You think it's easy being a billionaire? I don't know, I daven to Hakadosh Baruch Hu well, you should test me just so I could find out! (Laughing) But obviously He feels that I do better being a lower-middle-class. And that's where my kochos lie. (Laughing) How did I have too much money? One of the characters that I've played in my my, dramatic career was Alfred Doolittle. We put on in school not My Fair Lady, which was a musical adaptation but the original Pygmalion. And I was out for Doolittle. And he's uh, he's described as amoral. But not immoral, he's amoral. You know, these, Henry Higgins takes his daughter to try to turn her into a lady but he thinks he took her for immoral purposes, and he comes in again indignant, very upset that she took my daughter So he says, "well, what do you want?" So why shouldn't I make a few dollars on the deal? So he wants five pounds which back then was a lot of money, you know. So as they're talking to him, he says "oh, that's great you know, let's give him 20." and he says, "20 is too much already." Says, "20 will go to my head." Yeah, I don't want too much money (laughing), but just enough money, what I can handle. Well, we all think, we all live in these illusions Embrace your life because it's all you got. Don't spend your time in fantasy. Don't spend your time in the make-believe. Live the life that you have. "Rabbi, wouldn't it be a good time for the Messiah to come?" Yes, but until he does we'll just have to wait for him someplace else. That's it. It would be nice if things would be different but it's not. So you play the hand you're dealt. A backgammon player doesn't complain about the dice. This is my spin, I got to figure out how to play my spin the best. When I was going for my backgammon error, you could always, I would say, "what would you do with a 6-2 opener?" Fascinating what a person would do with a 6-2 opener in backgammon and we've revealed just the way you thought about the game and then, you know, we saw your whole approach to it. But, how, how you choose to do it. Yeah, you play the hand you're dealt, you, you play your spin. That, that's it. This is your life. Embrace it. Make the best out of it. That's all that you can do. That's it for this week If you want to find out more about this show visit rabbiorlofsky.com/podcast If you want to find out about this particular episode, or make a comment rabbiorlofsky.com/podcast/20 If you want to find about upcoming events and like I mentioned, I'm gonna be doing hopefully an event in, in the Five Towns and in Baltimore, so Watch for it on social media, I guess. I don't know what that means, even but I'm, I suggest - oh! Oh, wait: Instagram! (Laughing) Ah? Ah? How about it? I used to say Facebook and they said, "no, now its Instagram." Instagram. Yeah, watch THAT. Yeah, so go on rabbiorlofsky.com/events If you would like to contact me rabbiorlofsky.com/contact and if you would like to sponsor an episode it's rabbiorlofsky.com/podcast and click on 'sponsor an episode'. What a tremendous zechus that you have. And, and that's it. And, this, what can I tell you, we, we appreciate you watching and listening. I'm Rabbi Orlofsky, this is the Rabbi Orlofsky show.