Chanuka: Fighting for Clarity (Ep. 189)

hey everybody producer Mahal here before we get on to today's episode I want to make a few announcements so first of all I think I owe an explanation to everybody over at the about the podcast for the last few weeks basically I get a Mazel Tov a few weeks ago I got engaged however it has made producing episodes a little more complicated and finally the time for it a little more difficult so that's why we haven't had regular episodes over the last few weeks however we've still been recording so there actually are a number of episodes including the Hanukkah episode you're about to listen to even though it's a little late you know there was Timeless and I think Robert Lefty teachings are too so whenever you listen to this I hope you find it useful meaningful also over the next few weeks a number of episodes they recorded throughout kajwan will also be airing those I'll be a little they won't be timely but I think most of them weren't dealing with husband itself specifically so that'll be the next few weeks finally don't worry the podcast isn't going anywhere our schedule is just going to be a little crazy over the next few months I'll get everything sorted out but God willing we'll be back and better than ever show isn't going anywhere enjoy this episode and yeah thanks for being with us on this amazing journey and now on to the good rabbi hi this is Devin rollowski and welcome to the rapper yolowski show thank you and whether you're watching with our friends over at tour anytime or wherever you watch or listen to your podcast it's always a pleasure to have you along for the experience so uh I have to start mixing up that introduction a little bit so um let's try this happy Hanukkah from the rabbi golowski show think I'll take it out for a spin okay I had a little dreidel I made that of clay hey when it's dry okay anyway so uh it's so nice to have you along for this special Hanukkah edition of the rabbi orlowsky show hey kids I know you're watching because I got this email hi my name is Israel Klein and I'm using my mother's email to write to you I am now almost 12. that means he's 11. yeah I'm almost 70. uh but I've been waiting but I've been wanting to write to you since I was nine younger than the other 11 year old girl you mentioned and your youngest listener now to be fair every now and then people send me pictures of like the a little kid like a in like a car seat sitting at the table watching I don't think they can use their uh mother's email I really enjoy listening to your podcast when I go to sleep at night who would have guessed that the revivalowsky podcast helps people sleep yeah I turn on the remolowski show it relaxes me and puts me to sleep in the best mood my favorite episodes are the soul of acapella that's the one I did with Ari goldwag the lone arranger that's the one I did with Lenny Solomon 50 color War I guess it's number 50. the art of challenge that was a great one Waterbury returns and the live show with shiman kolyakov our friend over at Torah anytime seminaries are too expensive I wonder what a nine-year-old boy is thinking about the price of Seminary four and the entire Seminary series I can repeat them verbatim I have to say he Israel I'm starting to worry about you please give me a shout out in a future episode of devoted follow-up well you so I would like to but we don't do shout outs anymore anyway this episode this episode is sponsored anonymously the squids for every olowski and the entire mishbaka thank you so much for all that you do for Claudia's Trail thank you uh the uh people who sponsor the episode make this episode possible uh I mean there are at least 10 000 people the numbers keep growing and I have trouble tracking them all because we're on so many different platforms and um uh but when you sponsor an episode it makes it possible for us to be able to reach more people and so thank you here's the specifically to sponsor the chanukkah episodes so all I can say is thanks a lot kiss laughs all right well this is the Hanukkah episode and so um it's very important when a yantiff comes around when any mo Aid comes around I say yunta but I mean any moate one of the most watched uh episodes uh were some of the ones that I did on Tish above and it's called the moate yeah yeah we have we have happy days and sad days but they're all days that are um of significance where my Shapiro pointed out ones that the idea of moed is a point an appointment that's why you sometimes see the ol moade is translated as the tent of appointment moate is this is the destination and he points out that all of the siddre um Michelle right except for moed because all of time has one destination that we're going to so when one of these times comes along it's important to check where we are and what we're doing so uh I want to share with you an Insight that I heard from my Shapiro once that made a deep impression on me and I was relatively new to his Shoreham at the time and I remember I said to remember Joseph Brown who had gone for over 20 years to his shiram and I said you know I I sometimes have no idea what he's talking about I just don't understand he says it takes a year just to learn his terminology just to just to to understand the the language that he's using and uh and that's why if you're not familiar with some of the underlying Concepts yeah I remember it was uh one week he explained how um uh iron was to Ferris the next week he explained how avram was to Ferris the next week he explained how Yosef was to Ferris and I said to him I said look uh I'm not that sphere of Savvy but how could everybody be to Ferris I thought I thought Jaco was deferest that's the only one he hasn't mentioned he looked at me with a certain sense of pity and he said you know this from serious I'm mad the first week is Crescent and then this is a tribute to Ferris episode so he's explaining the tiferous aspect of Crescent the teferes aspect of NASA so okay now sometimes he'll come in and he'll start with some arizal or some gra that starts in outer space and remote should takes off from there so I'm I just nod what I think are the appropriate times and I write notes like what is he talking about what's going on I struggle to try to understand what he's talking about but every now and then he takes a Rashi or khazal that I've seen many times and he shows the genius in it that I never noticed and then I feel like it's a Level Playing Field at least I know what he's talking about where he's coming from and that to me is a wow and um you know when you see and you hear things that are so outside of your frame of reference you can't really relate to it but when you see ordinary things it's it's mind-blowing yeah I may have told the story once but uh it was one perm somebody asked him how did you become now it's Purim so you could you have a little more leeway because you never know how he's going to react and if he thinks a question isn't appropriate yeah um one time a friend of mine did something up for him and uh it was pretty funny but Michael looked him and says you know it's called the line you know it's going over the line so uh it's interesting who says how do you become a moisture so I'll tell you because I was living in partnovich and that was a kid and he was there and uh there was a blackout so can't learn no lights so I went outside with my friends you know a little place he was old enough where you could play outside I don't know what that means yeah at that point you know so uh he says well here somebody is still in the basement and I look in and it's from Tesla and he's saying over gazal to himself after ten times we started to wonder if the 20 times we started to giggle after 30 times I started to get scared and after 40 times I saw tears coming down my face and at that moment I realized the depth in a gazal if you take the time to look for it and that's more or less what he based his Torah on and all of his teachings was to look at that to be able to see the depth that's inside of it that other people may have missed so um the gamar and Yuma tells the following story Alexander the Great who comes to conquer Israel and is the most immediate cause of the Hanukkah story because Alexander the Great was a talmud of Aristotle and so he was not only coming to conquer like every conqueror who went before him he was coming with a philosophical Mission not a religious mission right when the Muslims wanted to spread their faith Through Fire and sword that was the spread of Faith they were coming to Enlighten the world I still remember my fourth grade history book where it was a chapter called the light of Greek civilization how ironic that we call them hoshek and everyone else calls them light so he was coming to bring the light to the entire world and for most of the world it was definitely a step up if you're into like you know vodazara and um black magic and stuff like that and the Greeks come and they bring you literature and philosophy and Science and sports and theater and and stadiums and gymnasiums and universities this was such a step up for the world everybody ditched whatever philosophy they had they were happy to become hellenists right one of the uh major cities of uh Greek thought was Alexandria of Egypt is Egypt Egyptian culture and Society went way back and they ditched it for the Greeks so they were coming for a message now you can't beat the Greeks right they were too powerful I'm sure I've mentioned this there is a book by Sir Edward Creasy called the 15 decisive battles of world history and in it he describes how wound the battle where Alexander defeated uh Darius of Persia it says Alexander's entire Army wasn't as big as darius's right wing that's how powerful he was and it just decimated them decimated every Army it was it was it was such a fighting force like the world had never seen um so comes to Israel well we're gonna fight this guy nobody stood up against him so instead think about Yuma tells us that shipment at Sonic who was the coming God at the time puts on the big day Kahuna which is usually not allowed to be used outside of the base of mikdush he saw this was an essential moment and he came to see Alexander and Alexander gets off of his horse and bows down and Sherman says it doesn't work that way I'm surrendering to you he says I know but whenever I would go and fight a battle somebody dressed in these clothes would appear to me and tell me what to do I believe my victories have come from the Jewish god he says well then rise and happy to have you on board so look I'm gonna capture you guys I'm going to take over your country because that's what I do otherwise they wouldn't call me a conqueror right that would call me a consultant and I'm not so I'm gonna take a capture country but I'm not going to force you guys to become hell in this I will introduce Greek culture the guard goes on to discuss various interactions between Alexander the Great way he pose certain questions and he gave certain answers what was happening here so much Spiro explained that this confrontation was a historic nature because as it says in perkiavos after the uncheckness the godola the men of the great assembly um was the last one now the entrance was 120 person body made up of when the VMO belong there that gave them a leg up on everybody else and as long as there's no voice you understand and I can tell you Hashem said this Hashem said that Hashem said this is going to happen that's going to happen and it comes true there's really not much to discuss in the way of uh you know is it true is it not true you got a profit there yeah you have a you have an actual nubby when the entrance of the godola ended that was in essence the end of nabua one of the tragedies that took place during the three days of darkness that were combined into a cerebrate vase which is why it's such a terrible day it's a it's a collection of tragedies was the last Navidad and that was the end that was the end of navoa so I think is the last one left Last Man Standing and suddenly Alexander the Great comes and he has to confront him and he goes out to confront him why because he is the last of the anxiousness of God he represents the transition from a period of the VM to a period of as I mentioned when there were in the VM you really couldn't argue is there a god Judaism you can prove it now and we have to fight an enemy who wants to fight us on an intellectual level we never had an enemy like that we went into goals for 70 years between bovill Paris and madai because of three of eras of odessa's Dumb and gilia Reyes and each one of those kingdoms represented the epitome of that of era and it took us 70 years to get sick of it confrontation is always there for us to be able to face it and understand what we're supposed to see for ourselves so now we have to fight an intellectual enemy we never had to do that before so until that point we could say how do you know this is true Hashem said so now they start asking us questions suddenly we're confronting an enemy who's attacking us intellectually and they're saying who says you're right why do I have to follow what you are saying maybe you're wrong and they start to ask us questions why does it say this why does it say that why does it say this I don't know Hashem said so that's good enough for me but now you're forcing me to have to answer the question how do I know the way everybody should put it was it gave us the ability of other from your question I realized the depth of Torah even more than I did beforehand I didn't even realize how brilliant this was but now that you're asking me this question now I have to look into the Torah and find proofs for things that I already know I never got that whole thing in Geometry I never understood it you know prove that this theorem is true prove that that theorem is true what was the point especially the identity postulate line a d is equal to line a d yeah if you leave that out you'll lose points you know prove it prove that this is true prove that is true for what what's the point they're all based on axiomatic rules in which you can't ask anything about so uh if if that's the case just call these axioms too no these are theorems coming out of the okay but we knew Judy was true because we knew Judy it was true people mistake the concept of a moon of truth that we think a moon of shooter means believing something without any intellectual basis that's not a moon of shooter I think um I heard Monty Burke explain it best what he said once do you know that you exist so the guy says yeah says can you prove it okay enough people went to school and learned this proof Descartes I think therefore I am he says okay but if you need that to get out of bed in the morning you got a problem you wake up in the morning and say oh gotta get up wait a second maybe I don't exist ah attack I think they're for you oh okay then there's something wrong with your hold on reality if you need that proof in order to be able to get out of bed that's the problem yeah so um when you talk about a moon of shoot it means I know how could you burn who exists the same way I know that I'm alive the same way I know my own existence but can you prove it okay let's come up with proofs let's come out of ways to be able to show that we already know to be true is true yeah that's what the Greek confrontation came for us to do and that's why it had to be shipmented Sonic besides the fact that he was the coming cuddle because he was Mr Yore Auntie nezakodola he was the last he was the transition he's the first fully fledged without any navua behind him who has to now battle the Greeks without that benefit only on the basis of intellectual understanding and we held our own quite well and flourished as in the famous horos with the King forced from Yeshua to debate the wise men of anthems and uh he just took him apart took him apart because if you haven't studied Greek philosophy Socrates Plato yeah a lot of it is what they call a straw man arguments yeah in fact the idea of a Socratic dialogue means that there's somebody there whose only job is to ask you the questions that you want and then at the end to say oh yes O So Socrates how wise those Socrates how true o Socrates yeah the ramachal has another version but still Sheeran that's called the vikuak Edition usually means like a debate but it's not really a debate it's a conversation between and obviously he wants the hasid to be able to bring across his ideas and is just their uh to ask the right questions and afterwards say oh how wise oh how right you are so it's not really a vikook it's a Socratic dialogue don't play those kind of games they fight they argue at the end we're not ashamed to say tiofta to you today wasn't enough we do too you are wrong say it again wrong completely wrong battle to the end fight for the truth no markets of Queensbury rules um we're arguing I'm saying that they they they will fight for the truth to will rise to arrive at the Ms and that was the challenge of the Greeks that we needed to stand up to today as the mission and so to describes before Michelle comes we are um in the battle for the survival of the Jewish people spiritually because everything is breaking down children don't listen to their parents the young don't listen to the to the elders you know every thing is falling apart we're being attacked and it says Torah will be attacked will be attacked and we are constantly on all sides and uh we need to be able to have the tools to fight back because and that was what chanukkah did for us you have to know what to answer and the ability to argue and to fight that was the power of Sadiq in his confrontation with Alexander the Great where they attacked us in order to give us the ability to develop the weapons necessary to fight this final battle at the end of time and uh when we have had the opportunity to fight on a Level Playing Field as the king who made a debate between Christianity and Judaism and he let the ramban have free reign against this uh Pablo christiani and he so clearly wiped the floor with him the king said I never heard anyone wrong defend his positions so well those are the skills chanukkah we says we thank Hashem for the wars because these wars that we God gave us the tools and abilities to be able to go and fight the bigger fight and that's why during World War II there were members of the issue of who fought for the British and in that process learned the military skills necessary to be able to develop the IDF to be able to eventually fight off the seven Arab countries that attacked us so Hanukkah is The Cure before the illness the tools being given to us to fight the intellectual battles at the end of time we should see yeshua's yeah to the milk hummus and our days today as we did then and now we come to the question and answer portion of the program Lamas asks besides low and cream puffs do you have a favorite pastry uh it's a tough question the tough question it's like saying besides God is there another God that you worship but no obviously it's not the same thing of course but I'm just saying besides your nuclear Arsenal do you have any other weapons you prefer if you have to destroy your entire country yeah BB gun but uh they were so far beyond anything I could possibly imagine but uh when I was a kid I forgot who made them but there were these devil food cake cookies like a little devil food cake and I had a filling and I would cover with chocolate on the outside I don't remember who made them I've never seen them since and they were just out of this world they were just really amazing but they're not around either so uh so what do I get by with gosh somehow I must be eating something I'll tell you that much thank you it's hard to maintain this blood sugar level without enough cake and cookies um I like a really good cheese danish but I can't find one here in Israel um uh in America when you have a cheese danish which is get a lot of cheese inside of it you know and you know not like just filled with crust you know the crust is just a hip attempts it'll hold it you know that's very good um and uh uh foreign I am fond on occasion of getting the Oriole Mega stuff it's like just mostly filling with a couple little cookies on it I'll turn over a good apple turnover but again you have to be able to find them it's not as easy to find so uh I hope that was uh a meaningful answer because informed listeners want to know uh Anonymous asks it's like Anonymous asked all the questions this week uh what's the entire perspective on genetic testing someone who got married before this was easily available and now has uh medical problems in his family how could you tell him you weren't supposed to marry this person after building a beautiful family um it's a very interesting question there are certain genetics that are Matsui this is how we're behind kanyevsky explained it to me once So Tay Sachs which is common among ashkenazic Jews and the odds of one in four that your kids are going to get it so that's very serious it's very serious and we can test for it and we can uh prevent it there are other genetic things now let's face it there are so many possible genetic things you could test for everything but it doesn't mean anything and that's why do you show him because we did do you sure remember we had right so don't you show him uh is designed to be anonymous they just tell you um it's not a sugar right the two of you should get married you don't know who the carry is could be one could be the other one could be both you don't know because they don't want to stigmatize people and that's where there was a big question because in the uh Jewish one of the Jewish more Jewish diseases not exclusively is breast cancer and they found the way to be able to test for it and uh and the post can we're not in favor of it because the fact that you have the genetic predisposition doesn't mean you're gonna get it and all you do is stigmatize people who are already stigmatized for a million other reasons just uh shortly after you were born already you have tagum on you from 19 different ways you know until you find the perfect so there's a danger to doing this so that's how I I spoke this over Heim kaneevsky once he said to me if it's a Matsui if it's common then you have to take it into account if it's not matsoi and it's not like uh like today's sex well you know the odds are one out of four are gonna get it when my father we were waiting online to see the square rabblah um it was uh a lot of people waiting to come and see him my father didn't want to do chemotherapy anymore it was too painful for him and he heard about a virus treatment and Hungary he wanted to do that instead you know we were waiting online to ask the square rubber and um and I remember at one point this father came in with his son who was the middle of and they did not apparently do the door you show him beforehand and they did it afterwards and it turns out that they're both positive I couldn't hear the whole conversation obviously but it was loud enough that I could pick up pieces of it and the river said what do you want from me what do you want me to tell you if dirty shrimp tells you that this is not a sheriff that means that you get married there's a case there one in four that uh your kids are going to have taste hacks and evidently this kid was really into the shadow so he said can't the river give a Baraka that everything's gonna be okay and he said no I can't give a brush the difference it's gonna be okay and I'm not going to so it's a certain way to be talking you just have to have when you go into a show because like I say there are genetic things you don't know about I had a neighbor and my best friend who died from lung cancer they never smoked a cigarette in their life very rare situation I know three people in our nose who got these really weird kind of conditions one in a gazillion people get this there's no research even doing for most of them it's such a rare condition there's no guarantees but where it's mud sorry we can check into it you check into it yeah that that much you're obligated to do but uh you know if you don't know and something happens so okay then you have to just say it because Miracle put me in this situation not anybody asks what are your thoughts about the current nuclear threats coming from Russia I I'm not in favor of nuclear threats I want to I don't care who I offend I'm going on record with it do you think we are going to uh experience nuclear destruction no no I don't think we will um Putin is losing power and uh I don't think he wants to start a nuclear war he there's enough Mutual self-destruction involved that he has to be prepared to take down all of Russia and I don't think he's that crazy yeah um I don't think it's going to happen and he knows that if he introduces it he's crossed the line that nobody has crossed and uh I don't think that's going to happen could I be wrong well we won't be around to find out will we so we will all go together when we go oh suffused with an incandescent glow no one will have the endurance to collect on their insurance lawyers of London will be loaded when they go Tom Lehrer Professor mathematics Harvard University best known for writing funny songs about a whole song about this yeah but uh in the end you won't have to worry because I was going to go at the same time you know so uh yeah I love that word of the things that worry me I'm much more worried about Iran getting a nuclear bomb because uh they'll use it on us well as he said in a different song about nuclear proliferation when he was talking about difficulty getting the bomb Egypt's gonna get one two just to use on you know who so Israel's getting tense wants one in self-defense the Lord's Our Shepherd says the psalm but just in case we better get a bomb but again you know I'm more worried about Iran but I've confidence because remarkable save us from that as he has saved us from all the other Maniacs in history Anonymous asked why do we sell liaison School uh is it considered a good amidos to get a keyboard if it's showing off that one can put up more money than someone else yeah it's called stalker and that's a good thing and it's brought down in Hawaii that you're allowed to do this uh on on Shabbos it does two things first of all it shows people how hush of it is to do a mitzvah so I'm getting an Alia and the second thing is the money goes it's stuck a few times I've been at sheppartonim uh run by svardim and it's amazing thing they all by the leaders for a lot of money to give it to somebody else as a keeper they don't take it for themselves wow so uh Best of Both Worlds huh anyway um Anonymous asks what is the definition of hatred in low system if I dislike someone when does one start to have an Avera Under This Love when it takes effect now you're ideally not supposed to hate anybody you don't have to Erica come over he's supposed to love people you're not supposed to have sinner in your heart for anybody that's uh that's the ideal you have to you have to know if if you do you got to be real gotta work on it the the where it turns more serious is where it goes into the keema and the Tira and things like that but ideally I'm not supposed to have any hatred whatsoever I'm supposed to remove that media for me because I have a Mitzvah to love all Jews so how much uh how much dislike is called hatred so um any hatred is a problem now when you say do I get an Avera it's kind of a tricky thing because it's obviously a lot of Shame about myself the ambo de board it doesn't have anything on it right um in fact Rashi says one of the good things about the shavatim is they were um they didn't like Yosef and they didn't pretend that they did they weren't believed so it would have been better if they didn't hate him but at least they they didn't pretend that they were his buddy and his friend you know they were honest about how they felt so yeah one has to work to remove the Sinner and uh I heard every left say once an interesting thing says there's no such a thing is nobody you know uh like opens up the phone book and picks out a name and says I think I'll hate him today you understand there's always a reason it's just not a good enough reason to hate a Jew and so you have to work on yourself to love every Jew and so therefore any hatred is something that I need to work out so um we have control of our emotions and the way that one removes that hatred is one of two ways one is work on looking at all the good things about this person and try to focus on the good because everybody has good bad and the second thing is do something nice for this person when you do something nice the Mela it changes your perception of the person ahava is from the word have to give when you give to somebody else it changes your perspective of the person so uh we should not have even a smidgen of hatred inside of our heart for another Jew and uh I know there are people who are over the Savannah and I hate those people just kidding yeah that's also a toddler when as it happens my gosh you made it in three times this podcast says I realize there are people who do not love their fellow human beings and I hate people like that and before we conclude I just want to give a shout out to Anonymous came from America being the studio audience and remembers that I said in the earlier podcast yeah 12 paper packages wrapped up in string is not one of my favorite things but all this coffee is and and uh Chinese noodles hamburger rolls and so poor struggling rabbis in Israel make it by by the love and caring of those of you in America who think of me at one time that I'll complain about how there's no prune hamentasion in uh in Israel and I got an entire box like a large box of reisman's prone Hermitage and it was very meaningful and I'm happy to repeat that experience I guess I'm going to add that to the question about my pastries I really like prune I don't know if that's something when we went to America once before for him and every place we went I tried the prune hamatasha to find the best ones though anyway so uh so that's it for this week happy Hanukkah everybody if you want to find out more about the show you go to my podcast jeffy.com you can send me an email you can uh um you can leave a message you can join one of the online shioram um people keep joining the tequila series we're just about to start doing uh alanisim uh where a lot of good things going on a lot of good things and um you get to be part of the experience so that's it for now and uh Hanukkah everybody actually we there's no bits of a simple kind of Hanukkah and so that's why they say look I'm kind of God listen iconic everybody and that's it for now I'm David olanowski and this has been the ramblingovsky show it's the rabbi orlowsky show ready to golovsky show not want you to wisdom will help you grow lots of fun in every episode and we don't have to rhyme it's the rabbi show on rally orlovsky.com [Music] Torah anytime you two and more it's Rabbi olowsky show [Music] until next time it's the rabbi rolowski show it's the rabbi orlovski [Music]