47: The Lost Home

[Music] hi this is Deborah Orlowski welcome to the rabbi Lasky show and whether you're listening on Terror anytime calm or wherever you listen to your podcast watch your podcast it's so nice to have you along with us and this week obviously is a little more mellow it's already rubbish up and the Gemara tells us just nice of mamata simply there is a lessening of our simcha I have to point out that in Pirkei avos when it talks about the member hazdeb our room the 48 things that you need to be coming to Torah there's a whole bunch of me it's like me it's sefa etc and the before should point out that me it means you limit not that you remove I do can't live without simcha and there's always something of a dichotomy somebody pointed out that they were on their way to Olivia it was a particularly tragic Lavanya and they said feel cetera and it says that they should come you know should arrive early this nation but simple official ceases by simcha I'm going to go into a live it-- and the answer here is that a human being is capable of a multitude of emotions I can be pained for the where I'm going but happy that I got through a lot at least I got there like this this there's always a there's always more than one emotion that has to go into a person's make up people are people complicated life is complicated I'm gonna forget I was in I was teaching her Samara and there was a a terrorist attack or one of the he's shooting and there was a fellow in the share who lived on the sea shove and he went to the Lavanya and that night one of the guys from the shear were supposed to be getting married and he said to me how am I supposed to go from this funeral to this hassle and I said that if you let them take our simcha from us then they've won and listen when you're a rabbi of a congregation remember in the community you go from from a bris to [Music] Lavanya to a Kasana you go back and forth among these these different experiences this al mana went to see with moshe feinstein and had a terrible terrible tale of wealth and these guys were supposed to go in and speak to admire and they were sure that it was gonna be you know Sbrocco it was gonna be a broken broken person after this terrible terrible story and he comes in promotion looks like he has an equilibrium Tim so they say maybe how are you not broken from that he says you can't live your life that way is that the part of yourself that you have to understand this part is I'm saving for myself so kitchen if Messiah by Martin Basilica means that we have to limit the simpler but it doesn't mean that we eliminated yeah does it mean that this is nothing there even even among the pain one has to be able to see the simpler one has to be able to appreciate the good that's going on when dove it is running away from his son of Shawn who's turned most of the country against him and his own son is coming to kill him and he writes a mizmor it's a song not a Kiner or it's a song because he looks at the good the Sun Hagen's going with me how Kurdish bajo hasn't abandoned me there's still this I can still see simcha in the tragedy so as we go into of we understand that this is the darkest time of the Jewish you it's the reality to it and that has a logic implications but I have to my opt-in Basilica I still have to be able to to be able to maintain myself that you know can be worse there's always there's always another level if I stop to look at the costeja chemin and you realize where I am yeah I see yes ronique uh my mother's little son honey how broke was giving me lots of you serve but I'm still alive I'm still here and I tell the story all the time I had a heart attack and a bypass operation and two major doctors told me I was supposed to be dead so if you ask me how are you doing and I said I woke up this morning not supposed to be here living on borrowed time you can't really complain that much and so you turn around and and it's amazing it's amazing that we're able to turn around and say through all the tragedy and all the difficulties and everybody we've gone through we're still here we're still here and all those people throughout history of tried to destroy us are gone and was still you nonetheless yeah kitchen work on a tough can be working on rock the same way we blessed I could have her from the good we love the bless I comes burp on the bed and they'll come a time when we realized that even the bed was really good but we're not there yet in the future in the future when foxes walk out of the coach of the ocean and we'll be a Kiva laughs though come a time when we'll be able to look at the tragedy and I've seen the simpler in the midst of the tragedy but but we're not there so we have no choice you're more at a funeral you mourn during the nine days these are you may avail as' and and there's two different aspects to avail it's two different aspects and we don't wear shoes on Tisha and a novel those are issues we don't cut it here so you know those are aspects not just of a person who's in warning those are aspects of person who are been needling they were terrible when you put into frame and today the term is thrown around doesn't have the didn't have the logic intensity that it always has throughout history the LEAs have been Harkness of whom it says if you put all Oklahoma on one side and really has been Harkness on the other side he would he would my Korea's Coulomb he would decide that everybody he had a position the majority voted against him he refused to change his position they put him into favor and he walked off the stage of Jewish history and he was he was Benito he was okay until the end of his life it's an amazing thing he was accepted accepted because he understood that for the good of the Jewish people you have no choice sometimes you have to have to be able to hold everything together it was it was a critical time I could have broken into two different movements this has happened anon Ben David he got turned down for the position as Russia Shiva and Bevelle so he started the Karaites start the corrodium went the business for himself this was a split and Klein so the likes of which we can't even imagine today they just just split the Jewish people apart it's a terrible thing and we had to do all kinds of things to to counter this movement eventually they died out as as all aberrant movements do but really Esmond hurricane has understood that he could end up coming up with an alternative Judaism he walked off the stage so when a person is in mourning we understand that there's a did it didn't happen by bad luck yeah it wasn't the forces of history it wasn't like I heard one from person say about a tragedy in their life God has played a cruel trick God doesn't play tricks the Greek gods play tricks God doesn't play tricks when a tragedy happens we have to understand that ultimately this is a message of us and yeah yeah there are consequences so during this week there are regulations right I'm speaking Ashkenazim because by a spider Mitchell Cabo it that's a whole different told of it then but certainly for us Ashkenazim we don't eat meat we don't drink wine we curse don't listen to music we don't wear freshly laundered clothes we don't bathe for pleasure and all these things a person has to obviously I'm not here to to be a lot of consultant speak to your environment see how it works because there's so many variations things have changed so much there was a time when people used to take a bath once a week day night day night to take a bath now is the nose he'll win otherwise people didn't bathe all the time today when you know people bathe at least once a day sometimes twice you know it could be a different situation I'm not passing not possible there are some people who during the nine days do not change their undergarments I have sat next to these people on a bus and I can testify and I understand I understand you know other people or might be just pressed suits as opposed to war laundered sir whatever again I'm not here to talk I'm talking about the fact that for a week there's a week of restrictions that go on and for some people it's too much there are restaurants in America where every hour they would make a scene and so they get inflation and you know okay could be that people just can't go without a steak dinner they have to go out to a restaurant have a steak dinner participate in a quasi see him they just they just can't handle it the flip side is I heard these two ladies talking and they said oh my husband looks forward to the nine days he likes no cooks there's something wrong there is something wrong if I'm looking forward to the nine days but you know this is this is a problem we're when I was growing up you went to shul till of morning and they had those little paper kidness and a little hard to read and they were blurry and they will offset 19 times in a minute it was hard to read and the Aramaic was difficult and you know and you're sitting on the floor and the reason they were that way is because the minute used to be that you'd leave you can essential because I don't need it for next year I just leave initial now you could buy hardcover kindess with pollution with your name on it [Laughter] so so there's a there's a phenomenon that let's face it the average person does not get out of sitting on the floor and saying kids that they don't really understand they don't get so much so 30 years ago there weren't many places that did this baby left Matisyahu used to give an explanatory chemist no evidently this was something they didn't tell us because I never before used to do this in his shoulder Muncie they both went to tell us and they would explain what the killer was about and then they would say the Kenda and they would explain he wouldn't go through too many kidneys but they were much more meaningful eventually we started such a program in heart no fit other places and one year I shouldn't say it was one year on more than one occasion more than a person said to me that was the most meaningful tissue buff I ever had I can't wait till next year there's something wrong there and we're looking forward to dish above because it's so meaningful so one year every left said it and I often repeat it over in his name because it made such an impression on me he said I hate it I hate and when we hate enough that won't be around anymore the fact the matter is that most people it's okay so he'd Milken's for a week I mean and make sure and it'll put all my suits for whatever amount of time it is beforehand you know and I can work around and that's a bit given a choice between that doing Juba you know it's okay I'll suffer for a week that's a bit I'll sit on the floor for a week yeah rather than to remove from ourselves the sinners kinam rather than to stop speaking lusha heart rather than to will remove all of these obstacles from us being able to be close to a workable the need oh he means the tissue buff says to us that occurs Brock was upset with us it's upset with us I mentioned this a few podcasts ago yeah Abraham saw her Maria as a mountain and you toxoid as a soda and Yakko Sora has a bias bias is a home where a husband and a wife live five tragedies happen at issue but one of them was tennis rufus plowed the horror bias like a field okay they wiped out the city of bait are so many people were killed that the blood flowed like a river and he plugged higher bias what he was saying is you don't have a bias anymore you only have a Sunday you don't have that home where you and a courage Oracle will live together this with the base of McNish once it was us together with a goodish Borough Hall with an intimate relationship we don't have that anymore that's what Tish above is mrs. Gillum an Olsen the book many years ago called the magic touch about the idea of you know the certainty of men of women touching each other and she starts with a story which I found particularly poignant she says I was just coming back to Judaism and I went to I went to the Western Wall I went to the castle and I saw everything was going on and I couldn't understand that I couldn't relate to it and I sat down and I started to cry over all the broken relationships and I thought to myself what a what a poignant observation of Tish above that is Tish above all of the broken relationships between us Chanukah Despero hope we don't have the bias anymore there's been a break and that intimacy between us and I cutters burro who has been lost that's what we're we're going to this week there's a needle there's a favorite I could rap who says I'm upset with you I don't care whether you find it if your parents send you to your room yeah it doesn't matter whether or not you have a nice time in the room or not but what makes it makes it said is that my parents are sending me away they don't want me to be here that's it that's that's that's painful it's painful and if I understand that then I want to rebuild that relationship if I broke that trust I want to rebuild that trust if I broke that closeness that's the knee doing walk around barefoot the fact that we fast that that's that's different that's on a level of understanding that there's certain amount of suffering not eating meat and wine a certain amount of suffering but but the fact that I don't have that closest I could hurt her I feel distance you know we used to go to the base of McNish and it was a level of experience where you could feel like Otis burrow you could feel the divine presence it was real I'm Jessica doula the last one Angelina Delaware's shimon hatzadik and he meets with with Alexander the Great and a marsupial I'll explain once why because the last body that had navour that had prophecy that was the antagonising Zola and when they had ended then the Greeks come on and the word atheism is a Greek word Theo is God ISM is belief in' and a is not like a symmetrical or a typical yet atheist is I don't believe in God but you couldn't do that when there was navoo shaft and mine is a sign when the kaduche oh the real hakodesh came out of the basin make that you couldn't you couldn't deny a kind of Oracle's presence everyone can see it and one can feel it the Tiber then was a vote of Zora to look for spirituality in the wrong places but that it existed that wasn't a question but once that was gone it's an hour left of the situation where who says we're right who says a coach bar who still cares about us why do the Jewish people think they're special why is the Torah special all these things come in why cuz we're not when I'm there if you with the Kurdish barovia have been experienced listen to talk about them so we go to the nine days which is a process of us understanding that there is a distance between us and Hashem and we have to bridge that gap but the Nords bridge the gap yeah there used to be these lightbulb jokes how many this does it take to change the label I mean I just think to change a lightbulb it throw whichever group you want how many Jewish grandmothers does it take to change a lightbulb none else it in the dark right now this all these different things in so so one of them was how many psychologists does it take to change a lightbulb yeah one but only if the light bulb wants to change the the it wasn't cute when the cuts get said when they ask the cuts go one is what sure kind of come and he said whenever we work we have to want it after one so it was interesting I'm quoting again where we left he said Jim Kippur is one day in Olam haba because where does the Gemara say Olam haba and a Fela and Shia and mass of a mountain in touch Misha meet there's none of the physicality and rocket tsadikim yours from retro sanbir shape so they can sitting with their crowns enjoying the light of the scanner that's in Kippur we fast because angels don't eat we dress in white because we're like angels we stand as much as we can because angels don't have any knees they can't sit down they're always they're always standing they're always moving when like angels take Brooke shame covered mouth asylum read outloud Olam haba is one day in in Olam haba you Kippur he says Tish above is one day again digit above is one day it's in hell there's also no eating is also knows no drinking none of those things there's also no learning terror because you're devoid of the ruthless we take away the spirituality and say sadly like it I'm gonna come a time in your life when there's no more physicality and you know start to get older you start to appreciate this more the physicality of life cannot be enjoyed as much and you slowly start moving away from all of these things and you say to yourself so what is important no and have one day will you say I've nothing and know roughly is in my life which is such a sad thing there are people who at some point wake up and look at their life and see there's nothing some people don't know what to do with it you know you don't member him the ish lockira a Pirates days are coming and I will send a famine Laura leftmost summer limonium Kela schmoes depression not a hunger for bread or a thirst for water but a hunger for the words of God that's great right no because the starving person will eat anything people start looking any place they can I'm on a plane where I'm sitting next to this Israeli businessman middle-aged he's on his way to India to join his wife who's in an ashram with his studying Buddhism and meditation I said this because Judaism he says that Judy isn't about doing Mitzvahed I'm looking for spirituality he started he's starving him look any place I can find people aren't so discriminate so [Music] there's this this is during the knowing days this is the time when we supposed to focus on that rehook my optimism aha could it bar who is distant from us he's not a part of our lives and so if we can understand that that we understand that the purpose is to repair that relationship and that's what the basis of McNish was Kish valishia right that's the Europe from ish and the hay from Asia the UK that 15 Basin existed with 15 steps leading up it was the place where we and a curse broke were joined together like in Asia and Asia like a husband and a wife and this beautiful loving relationship in our home we're not mourning the destruction of a building we're mourning the destruction of a home now we've lost lost something that's so special so the external and it's always the danger with external is that the external becomes the becomes the end unto itself and I said it focusing on what's really important the fact that we're not eating meat when I drinking wine and we're not the bathing for pleasure and all these things are to remind us that there's something broken here something broken that something has to be fixed that something has to be repaired and we can do it we can do it but only if the light bulb wants to change we have to take the time to experience the fact that we are distant and most people don't know the Gemara and baobab Asura says that they will move out the Megillah Steines why because just like needle and dead flesh doesn't have any feeling we don't feel anyone you don't feel tragedy where I feel happiness this is assuming I'm real one generation after the horbet here goes by years go by generations go by decades hundreds of years centuries millennia we don't we never know what we're talking about it was it was a frame of reference so we're supposed to take out a week those thing out a week and focus on the fact that we're missing something then her parents sent this to her because they're disappointed in our behavior yeah he's just waiting for us to be able to come back for us to be able to come back all it takes is for us to want nothing easier said than done we'll get busy I was speaking was in a school in some place and the kid asked me you know rabbi was what to be smart guy says rabbi we prayed for the Messiah for so long what is he actually going to come I said you went to Messiah to come so he was like yeah it's real I said you can retake your road test you better go to university you were yeah you know go with your life you want to quit everything and come to Israel build the temple bring offerings ya know what you want to do the kid looked down I said that's why she hasn't it's not really one and when we want it first step is the one thing first step is I can be doing better than this so right now it's a great time for the most part Arabs aren't stabbing Jews in Jerusalem now you go and you don't have to be afraid that you're gonna get stay inside but my wife wants to the old city and they'd been a bunch of stabbings my wife was nervous I said you know if the word Orlovsky z' don't die in dramatic ways you know we don't get stay up there's no car accidents there's no you know we get slow debilitating diseases heart disease diabetes we slowly em away it doesn't we we just fade off you know we don't go big big explosions I was gonna stab me yeah but but yeah people were really worried I remember there was a time when there was the shootings all over all over the stuff in drive down the road and people were shooting at buses and shooting at things I remember the the bus bombings and all these things that were going on so right now people aren't trying to kill us that's good it's good a lot of nice restaurants know get a lot of takeout stuff now a lot of great products life's great yeah we're making do like needle and dead flesh we don't sense that we're missing anything we don't sense that a coach Brewer who is upset with us we get sent to our room yeah we got our computer and we got our you know our games and our toys and a little fridge there with stuff you know we're fine well sit down we don't understand that we're missing that's where we are during this week the nine days teach that young I had been Basim huh saddest time on the Jewish calendar if I end with it's really the story Lau was a child town and the Holocaust and he says the only way you could live through all that is to freeze the fries how could you live all the pain and all the suffering all the starvation all the terrible things child says you have to lock yourself away and he says when liberation came he says army psychologists said if you don't get these kids to care they're gonna die just from lack of of character and a rub brewing us into a room and talk to us about what we've gone through learn about our parents and everything we were and nothing and finally he said in a loud voice and now Kendall laughs now you can cry a little girl sob a little boy began to weep and soon the whole room was filled with crying children and remember laugh said when I knew I could cry I knew I would live because without caring without interest we're in Gullah we don't have a bias when that living with our uber oho in that intimate relationship that's the tragedy that's the gula that we're diverting for though is she able to get back to where we're supposed to be and who we're supposed to be that the Jewish people can have dignity and the greatness that is inside of you moshe chaim tilde story there when he was a little boy went to the zoo and the lion roared and he got scared and he said to the zookeeper can he break out of his cage and the zookeeper said yes but don't worry he doesn't know it and he looked at us and said that's every one of us we could bring Messiah we could get ourselves out of this but first we have the sense that we're missing something and that's what the nine days of for and who knows could becomes the next podcast ship already be here be a base of McNish won't have to have attention whether there's no edition of this year it comes out of Shabbos we're celebrating the 10th death of up push to up for the actual attention love and he'd need a drink wine we're gonna celebrate it could be that way every year on tisha but it could be mama shouldn't've all we have to want is to understand it and appreciate it and want to be close to show the ways close to me and that's it for this week if you want to find out more you can go to Alaska dot-com my website you can make a comment to find out about upcoming events and you're going to sponsor an episode go to every Olaf ski consolation podcast click on sponsor an episode I'm Deborah Orlowski and this is the rebel [Music] [Applause] [Music]