Episode 1: A Modern Day Flood

Hi I'm Rabbi Dovid Orlofsky and I am a world-famous speaker. It's ironic that a lot of people have never heard of me because I'm so famous, and I often have to tell people who I am because they don't know how famous I am. But I have traveled the world, and I have spoken around, From Australia to South Africa to England, North America. You may have noticed-- mostly English-speaking countries because I only speak one language. That's English. So I'm coming to you actually from my home in Yerushalayim, in Jerusalem and I've experienced something dramatic and that is something called technology. I will be the first to admit: I don't know what that means. I don't know what technology is. I am one of the least I am one of the least technical savvy people around, yeah. Baruch Hashem, there are nice people who come and help me with these things. But somebody showed me recently that one of my shiurim that I gave was put up on the internet and had tens of thousands of views. Tens of thousands of people are listening to my shiurim. This taught me two things: One is: there are a lot of people out there who really want to hear me, and the second thing is: there gotta be some way I can make money off of this.[laughs] So anyway, there's this thing called a podcast yeah. If you're watching this then you probably know what that means. I really don't. I've never really listened to a podcast. But evidently, there are people who, while they're going about their daily life are listening to speakers, classes, shiurim, technical groups. All kinds of different things that allow people to have this access. And I thought to myself: I've met a lot of people who tell me I've seen your videos on the Internet. Why aren't there more of them? And the answer is because those videos are because people have actually hired me and paid me money to give a lecture in their town. Somebody filmed it, and put up on the Internet. So I said, "If you want more of those, tell somebody in your community to hire me so that I'll come and speak and we'll put another class up on the internet." So that's by the way, my chosen approach. [laugh] [email protected] That's the email address you're looking for. But then I thought, you know, There is something beyond a Torah class. There's something beyond a shiur. There's something beyond that formal presentation. And and I have this impression, and again bear in mind, I have no idea what I'm talking about. But I have in mind that, that's probably what some of these podcasts are. They're probably people who are interesting and actually do something in real life, and then they take out time to broadcast some of their thoughts on a particular subject. Sometimes a practical subject. Sometimes probably just their thoughts on life. I really don't know. Please bear in mind, I don't know what I'm talking about, yeah. But I thought that might be a fun thing to do, and so I have conceived the concept, and again, I don't have a set, and I don't have a logo. I put this I put this together just quickly. So this is "The Rabbi Dovid Orlofsky Show". [laugh] Now, if you want to see... watch, this special effect. See, look at this. [laugh] We call that a "zoom". Watch, watch closely, in the business. Wow! Unbelievable. Anyway... So I don't have a set, and I don'thave a logo and I don't have any theme music. I can honestly say that the Rabbi Orlofsky Show has been a tradition for at least a minute and and this is something new that I decided to try. So that for the people who might be interested in hearing what I have to say on different subjects. And as I point out many times in my shiurim, one of the advantages of suffering from ADD is the fact that I can move seamlessly from topic to topic which makes perfect sense to me. And I'm getting the feeling that most of my audiences also suffer from it. [laugh] So people have no problem being able to keep up with me. So here's the plan. Here's what we're gonna try to do. This is the first one. This is podcast number one. Yeah, of the Rabbi Dovid Orlofsky Show. I'm gonna shoot to do this once a week, for a half an hour, on Thursdays, before Shabbos, so that you have something to think about going into Shabbos. Maybe something to discuss at your Shabbos table. I will probably dedicate a podcast to the Shabbos table because it's an art form and it's one that most people have not mastered. How to be able to run a Shabbos table that people enjoy. I once gave a multi-hour class on how to run a Pesach Seder correctly. Maybe we'll do that one time on one of these podcasts before Pesach because there's an art form to being able to run a Pesach Seder, and is an art form to be able to run a Shabbos table, and there's an art form to be able to paint pictures, but that's a completely different type of an art form. We're not gonna be talking about that there although you probably can appreciate the brilliance that went into this logo design, but the fact the matter is, that I've said this before, in other contexts, if you've been following me, I don't know who's listening to this. That's one of the great things, of when you make a recording and it goes out onto the internet or higher cyberspace or the dark web. I don't know where this is gonna end up. But when you do it, you have no idea who's listening to it, which is a little intimidating for me. You know, when I speak, I like to look at the people. I like to know who I'm speaking to. And when you're doing something like this, obviously, I don't know who I'm talking to. Now, I'm hoping that if this turns out to be successful, and we develop more of a following. I'm gonna try to set up some sort of a forum where I can take comments and questions and we'll have guests. I don't know what we're gonna do. Serve refreshments. I tell you the truth, that I'm really outside of my comfort zone over here trying to do this, but you know, we want to expand it a little bit. So what I want to do is, and I have mentioned this in the past, in other contexts, you may have never heard of me before. This week is Parshas Noach. It's not because we happen to be up to this section of the Torah and we're reading it now. It's been set up in such a way, that the meaning of this week can be found inside of Pashas Noah. If you understand it. If you look for it. And there are many examples I can bring of this from a historical context, where something happened during that week, and they saw it in the parsha. Sometimes that's just because people have no idea of, you know, enough Jewish background to figure out where things go. When Ariel Sharon decided to throw all of the Jews out of Gaza, he picked a date on the English calendar without any particular consideration. It turned out it was Tisha B'Av. [laugh] You're gonna exile thousands of Jews, you know, Tisha B'Av is the wrong day to choose to do that. So when somebody pointed it out to him, he moved the date, but you know, there's events that take place, and the parsha captures the essence of that week. So what I'm gonna try to do, and like I say, I have no script. I have no writers. I'm really, you know, this is something raw and organic. Yeah. So we want to try to do is take an idea from the parsha, and then try to talk about it, and see where we can put it into perspective. Okay. So this week is Parshas Noah. I assume that if you're watching this podcast you are probably familiar with the story of Noah and the ark, yeah. Not everybody is. When I was running the Long Island region of NCSY, we had you know, at one point different classes before Rosh Hashana where we were discussing the p'sukim, the verses, in Musaf of Rosh Hashana and learning it with small groups of the participants. And They came to the pasuk, 'Vayizkor Elokim es Noach.' One of the participants said, "Who's that?" and the advisor who was running the group said enthusiastically, "You know, well, you know there was a big flood. It rained for forty days and forty nights and the entire world was covered with water and God came to this guy called Noah and told him to build a big boat and take two of every animal in it. And that's where all of mankind survived." [laugh] And this girl looked at her and said, "And you believe that?" Now if you've grown up with it, you don't have to really stop to think about it so much. It's become part of your sense of reality. When you start to question it, you know, stop and think about it. So we're presented with the story of Noah and the"mabul" and, the "mabul" is of course the flood, the worldwide flood, that covered the entire earth. I'm not getting into the scientific discussion: Is there evidence of a worldwide flood or a localized one? I don't care. I really don't care, you know. I'm starting with an assumption, and that is there's this book called the Torah and it has been passed down through generations faithfully, and along with an explanation that was codified in the Talmud in the Midrash, and that's my starting point. But you don't have to agree with me. You know when I teach I always like to point out: This is a value free zone. I don't care what you believe. I'm not trying to change anybody's beliefs. I think that There's a value to the free and open exchange of ideas. But that doesn't mean there are no accidents. That doesn't mean that we don't start with certain assumptions, right. You work with the assumption that your senses work. Although, it's not necessarily true. You could be hallucinating that this is actually taking place. I used to teach in seminary, and I would say, "Do you know anything for sure?" and a girl would say, "Well. I know that I'm an 18 year old girl in a class in Jerusalem." And I said, "No, you're not. You're a 45 year old man in Kansas. You lost your mind. You had a breakdown. You're hallucinating. You're right now in a mental institution." Yeah, so as the sports writer Amian Runyan, paraphrasing a verse in Tehillim, in Psalms, once said: "The race may not always go to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet." So do I know a hundred percent that my senses are working and that I'm not insane? No, but that's how I make my decisions, right. So in any discussion you're gonna start with certain axioms and certain assumptions and the ones that I'm gonna be working with, I'm not out to prove anything. Just if you accept certain assumptions, you know. There are evidently podcasts dedicated to the discussion of a TV series called "Game of Thrones" which evidently is one of the popular TV shows in the world and evidently a lot of people have no problem accepting all of the assumptions that are in that book series and then discussing it based upon that. When the Harry Potter series was very popular, there were many podcasts discussing Harry Potter and the rules of the wizarding world. Yeah, if you buy into it. So you don't have to actually believe it's true in order to be able to sit down and discuss and that's fine. I always say that, you know, we start with a certain set of assumptions and I always start with certain set of assumptions Yeah, I assume that there is a God, that he gave the Torah. It's been passed down correctly and there's a Interpretation that has been codified that God gave to Moshe on Mount Sinai that's been passed and those are my assumptions Yeah, so when we read this story, Right, and we read the story of Noah and the Ark, the whole story of the mabul. So there's a few assumptions that I think a person has to start with and that is the following. We Jews don't study history in the sense of history. My friend, Rabbi Ari Kahan, I think once said it so beautifully. He encapsulated the concept of 'maaseh avos siman labanim' wherein events that have happened in the past is a sign for future generations. And he had this beautiful phrase he would use, he would say "Jewish history is Jewish destiny." The point is, we don't study ancient texts for insights into 3,000 years ago. If we're studying something today. It's because it's relevant to our lives. The gemara is Kesuvos when it's discussing a takana by Ezra, a decree that was made that no longer applies the gemara itself asks, "If it doesn't apply, why are we learning this? 'Mai d'hava hava'." I'm not studying history. If I learn anything, if I perform a mitzvah, if I do anything, if I study something today, I have to find relevance for it in my life and I always repeat this because I believe it is the bane of Jewish education. That people don't appreciate the relevance of things. Okay. We'll talk about that another time. I don't mind. But those are all my rules going into this, you know, and like I say, we're gonna try to keep this to a half an hour until I decide that this is like real popular and then I'll talk for an hour. And if that goes well, I'll just keep talking. I really won't stop. There will be a 24-hour Rabbi Orlofsky thing and the camera can follow me around the house, You can watch me eat supper, you know what I mean, and you know, watch me brush my teeth which is in itself an experience. But in any event, so let's take a look at Parshas Noach and there's one thing I want to try to focus on. It's possible for mankind to descend to the point where the world has completely disintegrated. That's what the mabul teaches us. Where God says, "This place has become so filthy, I have to hose it down. There's just nothing left here." It's interesting that water, what does water do? You know fire burns and when you burn something so you're really reducing it to its essence, right? If you cook things, it shrinks. The heat shrinks things and the more that it shrinks the more, if you think about it. you're making it more concentrated and getting down to the essence. Water dissolves. When you leave things in water then the whole thing dissolves, it all disintegrates. It dissipates throughout the water. Spreads all the way around. There was nothing left to this generation. They disintegrated to the point where there was no hope. No hope. And the Medrash and it's really based on the passuk itself, based on the verses in the story. Everybody had changed, well not everybody, most of the world had broken down all of the barriers that were established. People were engaging in relations inter-species. People with animals, people with all kind of different things, right. And one of them that they discuss is men with men, men with animals, men with trees. Every barrier had broken down to the point that what we call humanity has disintegrated. There's a fascinating Rashi that people were quoting. In gemara, when it talks about whether or not somebody is suspected of engaging in homosexual relations and if you have to be worried about it. And Rashi says, "But since the flood, the people set up certain minimal laws for themselves. Society has. And one of those is that we did away with homosexuality, bestiality, all these kind of things." Society did this. This is what the sages say. So he says, "So how could you see that there are still people who are suspicious of it?" And what Rashi writes is: There are people who may engage in these activities, but society will never write a marriage contract on it. Now, you understand where this made it to the news, this Rashi? Because the Supreme Court in the United States paskened, that there's no way to outlaw gay marriage. Now by the way, I understand to a certain extent. I understand. Because rverything is based on shared values and shared assumptions. If you don't have shared values, if you don't have shared assumptions, there's nothing you can do. People have to agree on a certain set of basic values in order for society to come along. And one of those is as we see in the Garden of Eden, there was Adam and there was Chava. There was Adam and there was Eve. There was not Adam, Eve, and Bob, right? That's the way it was set up. That's how the world was created. That's how procreation takes place. That's how for centuries, millennia, people understood what a marriage is. And so in recent years we have redefined it. Now, God made a promise. There will never be another flood. That doesn't mean there won't be something else bad that comes down the pipeline, you understand. That doesn't mean that they can't be other tragedies. So the question is, if our generation has reached the point where all the basic assumptions are gone and all of them are. And by the way, there is a mishnah in Sota that discusses what's gonna happen in the Messianic Era, B'yemos Hamashiach, and basically what it says is, every institution is going to disintegrate. There's going to be nothing left. Nothing left, right? I don't want to get into politics. At least not this week. I'm not opposed to it, just, you know.. Whether you like Trump or you don't like Trump, whether you like Trump's policies, or you don't like Trump's policies this much is clear. He has changed the definition of the presidency in America forever. And he says so. He says, "People say he's not presidential." He says this. "People say I'm not presidential. Who wants to listen to somebody who's presidential? They're boring! Forget about whether or not you agree with him or you don't agree with him. This much is clear. This is not the presidency that people used to see. Things have changed dramatically. Robert Caro who has written so far four of his five volume biography of Lyndon Johnson, maintains that it was really President Johnson who changed the nature of the presidency, and after that people lost respect for it. It doesn't make a difference whether it's been an ongoing process of whether it was a short process. But there was a certain chashivus that went with being the president that doesn't exist anymore. And it says children won't respect their parents. Now, you understand for most of world history, it was understood there are parents and there are children and the parents tell the children what to do. And that's why if you read any of the traditional books on chinuch, on Jewish education, they all say the same thing. You know, how the best way is to educate your child. But the assumption is that there is a child and there is a parent and that that relationship is immutable. Today it's not true. Today, I have students who tell me, "I don't owe my parents anything. They owe me! They chose to bring me into this world and so they owe me." So parent-children relationship? Gone. Marriage? Gone. Presidency? Gone. Kings? There are no more kings. Yeah Would used to be considered a monarch... Interesting, the last European monarchs, real monarchs, ended in World War I. So a lot of people, Barbara Tuchman the historian wrote a book called 'The Proud Tower' where she basically says that World War I destroyed institutions that had existed for thousands of years and one of them is monarchy. There's no more real monarchy the way it was. The Kaiser in Germany, came from the name Caesar. The Czar in Russia, came from the name Caesar. The emperor of the Hungarian-Austrian Empire, Austrian-Hungarian Empire, right, it was deposed. That's it. The last monarchs. The real ones. I'm not talking about, you know, in England where you know a kid will come and you know, he's supposed to be King, and he starts complaining about it how his father wasn't nice to him and stuff like that. You know, I'm not talking about that kind of a king. I'm talking about a real king. Malchus is gone. You know you hear all these medrashim, people always talk about it. 'There was a king...' Right, so we don't even know what that means anymore. So, so many of the institutions that we thought were given... There is this phenomenon and articles have been written about it, and it's a fascinating thing. Children just stop talking to the parents. They get upset about this or upset about that. "That's it! I'm not talking to my parents anymore." Kibud Av v'Aim is one of the top 10 commandments of all time. "Na, I'm not going to talk to my parents. I won't let my children see their grandparents." And evidently this is written up in Jewish publications and there are discussions about this and how can this be and rabbis and psychologists and everybody's trying to work out this phenomenon. It's because everything is deteriorating. Everything is melting. That's what happened in the mabul. Everything dissolved. The question is, what is the best way to respond to a society that is disintegrating around us? There was a novel that was written, I think in the 1950s. I'm pretty sure, but I'm not positive. It was called 'On the Beach' and it explored the following concept. There was a nuclear war between Russia and the United States and the radiation destroyed most of life on Earth. And this radiation cloud is traveling southwards. And so the book takes place in Australia where basically they realize mankind is gonna end. This is the end. What do you do when you know that the end is near, quite literally? And that's the end. Some people said, "Maybe we should go down to New Zealand, we'll last a little longer." But it was facing the inevitable. So, how do you react to that? What do you do? So, the thing that so many people say is, "How do you survive the mabul? You build the taiva. You build yourself an ark and you insulate yourself on this ark." Now, for years, Bilaam says about the Jewish people, "They are a nation that dwells alone." Rashi says, "Nobody celebrates with us. When they celebrate, they don't invite us." You know, we're a nation that lives alone. And that has been the lot for most of Jewish history. Is that even possible today? If you're watching this, right, you obviously didn't come to hear me at a shiur. You're using the internet or something like it, I suppose, to be able to to be able to follow this. You can't build walls big enough. I know a couple of yeshivas that actually did this. They put cell phone blockers on top of their bais medrash. so the cell phones don't work, you know, they tried to create a dead zone. I've been asked over the years to start either yeshiva or a seminary and I said, "I'd be happy to do it but nobody would come. Because I wouldn't allow phones." They said, "You mean smart phones." Not smart phones, not dumb phones, not any phones. I'd have pay phones up at the wall that you could use during your free time. Because we've become enslaved to technology. Enslaved. Rabbi Dr. Avraham J. Twerski said that when Moshe Rabbeinu came to announce the geulah in Mitzrauim, it says they didn't listen to him, 'Mikotzer ruach u'mayavoda kasha.' 'Shortness of spirit and the hard work.' And said Rabbi Twerski, "And if Moshiach came today, he'd find the same exact situation." 'Cuz we're overwhelmed. We're so busy. How do you turn it off? They wrote about this several years ago, of a phenomena that they call 'half-Shabbos.' There people who can't stop texting. I understand that because they did a study and they found that they took a thousand college students off of their technology, not Jews, from around the world, and they they suffered the same withdrawal symptoms as a person coming off of cocaine. So the question is, can you still build an ark? Maybe you can put a cell phone block on the top? Is there any way to keep out the water? Is there any way to keep out society? So, I'm not offering a solution. I don't know if there is a solution. We're living in a generation which is witnessing a disintegration of everything that society cherished. Morality, marriage, parents, you know, basic decency. Everything's disintegrating and I don't know, can the Jewish community put up walls large enough to be able to keep out the water? It's gonna keep out what's out there? Major mechanech that I know in a Bais Yaakov said to me, "By the time they get around to 'assuring' a technology, it's already morphed four different generations further." Things keep changing. We don't know where it's gonna go. We don't know what's gonna happen. You can't lock out these ideas. So, how do we confront it? How do we bring up a family with kedusha v'tahara, with purity and with holiness today? When people are being exposed to all of the terrible things and society itself is disintegrating? So these are all issues I want to talk about. We'll talk about them more because these are all pet peeves for me and I don't really have a forum anymore. I don't teach really. I travel around and I do speak, you know. But this is the only soapbox I have. This is the only opportunity I have to be able to share my concerns and my thoughts. Possibly solutions. And if you found this interesting, so we're gonna set up a channel, gonna ask you to subscribe. So, you know, like I said, I'm gonna try to do this every week but I am notoriously unreliable. Yeah, it's the story of my life. Part of it is, you know, because my ADD. Part of it is that you get old and your memory starts to go. Reminds me about um.... Nah, it's not important. But anyway, as we spend this time together, this is it. You are going to be my online community. And who knows? Maybe one day we'll meet in person and you'll say to me, "I've really followed your talks." I'll call them talks rather than shiurim. "I followed you talks. I found your ideas. I found them fascinating. Here's a check." No, I'm just kidding, but you know, a sharing of ideas, an opportunity to talk. And if you found this interesting, maybe it's something you want to discuss that your Shabbos table. Maybe this is something that's an idea that you're, you know, talk together with your friends, you know. Maybe for the men when they're sitting in the mikveh, you know what I mean, and they're looking for something to talk about. That's a phenomena all by itself, that deserves a whole podcast. That itself is such a social experience. I really want to talk about that. But anyway, so that's it. I'm doing something that I'm not good at and that's trying to finish on time. So I wish everybody a good Shabbos. As we say in these parts, "Ah gezunte vinter." You know what I mean, a healthy winter. It should be health, it should be a good year, a year of bracha, a year of success for everybody. And im yirtze Hashem, we should all get together and exchange ideas. Thank you very much.