Humility - The Quiet Strength (Ep. 235)

hi this is D owski and welcome to the rabert rowski show whether you're watching with our friends Ator any time or wherever you watch or listen to your podcasts as always it's nice to have you along for the experience and uh we have a sponsor for this week's episode as I've mentioned in past uh episodes we were uh in difficult Straits and barem a bunch of people have put in uh sponsorships and now uh finally we have a corporate sponsor I've been asking for you please come and advertise the rowski show listeners are very very very loyal and uh I'm I'm sure that they want to come and help you out so did you forget filing your taxes April 15th in your prees to-do list well have you ever heard of prison that's not in the end did you forget since Co okay have you heard of serious prison the Obama Administration do your businesses books like like a sh bankr Hall after a kidish oh my gosh you know there are people who don't even have a bookkeeper they don't have anything they can keep track of everything this stuff is pretty serious my father went bankrupt he had a he had a flst and at some point he went bankrupt as accountant said you're bankrupt he said I going to be bankrupt I'm working you know uh hours and hours you know non-stop I'm making all this money goes yeah but your expenses are too high says well that's your job as my account to tell me that so people spend money they pay bills they don't know anything have you received a notice from the IRS and are so far addressing it by saying a capital toim um you have to be a really big Sonic for that to work are you all fire then okay but really want to get out of a guy in the sches shorefire investment by saying I'll have to ask my accountant but your accountant hasn't responded to your messages since you forgot to pay an invoice three years ago and the word your gral marks when someone suggested something he says I'll speak to my lawyer and if he tells me to do it I'll get another lawyer do you seek Professional Services from advertisements on t podcast ha finally we found some intelligent people then do I have a CPA for you a nice Jewish boy a CPA DRS accounting is proud to sponsor the RAB olowski show based in Los Angeles we the Royal Wii the editorial Wii Daniel seran CPA serve all 50 states for all business personal nonprofit pension plan and corporate tax returns as well as tax planning and IRS Audits and collection assistant DRS is for regular small business owners who need some help looking to organize save taxes help grow their business um I I have to tell you that people don't realize uh that they're sometimes overpaying on so many different things they're um their accounts are not organized they don't know um the bank owes the money bills were paid that they don't know about bills should have been paid they were entitled to discounts all kinds of different things sometimes an accountant comes in and finds out that in fact you're owed money and uh it's it's a serious like I say from my father's experience it's important if any of this sounds of Interest email The Helpful CPA gmail.com The Helpful CPA is is the the name right it's on the screen or Whatsapp 747 7 229 6646 that's 747 229 6646 operator standing by that's not in the Ed I just threw that in only US taxes we only speak IIT and are taking Yiddish on du lingo my friends you're dealing here with an accountant who listens to the rowski show so you know that he's intelligent you know that he's creative you know he's dedicated uh if you need an accountant and the ramban holds it's only a Mitzvah to DAV in if you're in an A S and I forgot it is who said it but if you don't think you're in trouble then you need to doav in the most and one of the things they do not need an account in their life are making a mistake I found this out dealing with is Israeli taxes when I received a letter from uh the tax Authority here in Israel and apparently I've been living here at that time for about 30 years and I had not paid any taxes because I I didn't realize that that they expected me [Laughter] to and uh I got myself a Israeli accountant and uh it was uh it was complicated and uh since then as every year goes by he's managed to save me from having to pay taxes every single year he he takes in this tax and this and this credit that it's absolutely amazing so people who know what they're doing as Jackie Mason once said says Gentiles can be accountants but they're no good at it they you give them a bill and they pay it you know and Je says who says we have to pay this so a good Jewish accountant who watches the rowski show I urge all of my listeners uh to please uh go and check it out and don't forget to like share and subscribe um assuming that that applies to wherever you're watching uh or listening to this so uh these things help the uh I'm going to say algorithm I don't even know what that means but I know that's what they always talk about the algorithm so this helps the algorithm and uh and the more the more that people hear about it um I I every now and then get an email for someone who says I didn't even know you had this show it's it's we're well into our sixth year I didn't even know this thing existed and they start at the beginning and listen to six years of R olowski and that's too much for me and I have it I have the voices in my head you understand which is the reason I'm the way I am so I can imagine anyway uh okay I I want to pick up on something we're in the month of is not a sad month not to be confused with the Dunkey by the same name yeah ER is a uh uh a month of work it's the only month that is completely there's a little bit Nan a little bit in but it's all the all of is and says G that's the reason that the masle for ER is a Shore a Shore Works Nissan is a sheep a sheep you just take care of it but ax has to work and this is the month where we work and we're working to raise ourselves up from the mes Shuma to uh be able to receive the the Torah to make ourselves people who are Roy who are worthwhile to be able to receive the Torah to be a CLE that you can be Ma so I believe the early earli source is salant but among the balus they explain that the concept of is for us to be our MOS to make ourselves into people who as I mentioned can receive the Torah and so there therefore it's the as it says in it's the humanity that you need before you get the Torah and um one of the reasons that Ra was willing to give up everything to get R is because she saw he had such ex outstanding medos such D and he says if you have that D if you have that preparation then T will come to you and she was willing to bet everything on that bet the farm as the old expression goes because uh because she was uh she was so sure and of course she was right so it's during this time that we're supposed to be working on these things and that's why I mentioned last time that there is a br in the sixth peric of pavos where it's referred to as the me 48 qualities that you need in order to be K Torah and you have to make yourself into this person who can receive Torah and so these are the different things I mentioned the first one uh last week T that you have to be a person who is a person of learning a person who's curious a person who wants to know I want to deal with another one it's interesting in my little sh I have a little sh um uh I uh during p and I would do one of the the one that was appropriate for that day and someone said to me maybe you should put out a book of your things and I said there are some books out there already take a look at them and if you think that what I have to say is uh different than everybody else okay but otherwise you know uh I like I said last time I don't like to reinvent the wheel if it's if it's going to serve an essential purpose then I would uh I would invest time in it and um and otherwise I don't want to redo what's already been done there already you know um Steve Martin who was a comedian I think he still is but uh he his his uh Heyday was in the early 70s it was right after Nixon had resigned and I know he says something about Nixon and he goes I don't want to tell Nixon jokes it's like so old it's like telling Ike jokes from my young people Ike was a nicknam for uh General Eisenhower who was president from 1952 to 1960 and uh that's ancient history but uh you know what he's saying is like you know it's so overdone so I I don't like to do things that are overdone but uh there was one thing that I I really uh was I came up to this particular me that we've passed it by but you know you can join in at any time um that I wanted to speak about was which is one of the and uh the reason I want to talk abouta is because I have so often given the opposite message of Anova on more than one occasion because uh uh there are uh any number of Schoen on GAA and um and with Hut already in the 1960s he says that was for Europe in America you don't have to speak about uh GAA you have to speak about self-worth they didn't have a fancy word like self-esteem back then you have to have a sense of self-worth you have to know that you're that you're worth something because there's something about America that just you know makes everybody feel like uh at least at the time that they're not worth anything um I was giving a a sheer in MOS to a group of married women and uh and when we finished all the introductory classes so I said so what meat do you want to talk about so the first one they said was patience and I said well you're gonna have to wait till we get there first exercise yeah what else so someone said GAA and I said you don't really find GAA today GAA is uh is egotism what you find more often today is egoism what does that mean I mean there are certain people whose entire emphasis is only on their self but not because they think they're so much more important just the opposite because they are so desperate for attention they so need to feel like they're important that's the uh that that's not exactly what G is about GAA is about sort of the story the famous story of the kazen as he's daving on Yumi suddenly is moved and he turns to the Aron and he goes I'm a nothing I'm a nobody right it's like the hin that the that he says before I'm a nothing I'm a nobody and the r is so moved by this and he goes and he stands next to and he goes I'm a nothing I'm a nobody and the shamish of the sh is so moved by this and he comes and stands next to them and goes oh I'm a nothing I'm a nobody and the r says to the cousin look who's a nobody you got to be a somebody to be a nobody you know there's no trick to being a nobody if you're already a nobody you know guy says to a psychiatrist I think I have an inferiority complex goes no you're inferior it's not a complex so there are people who you know throw around the term you know uh GAA and that's not really where it's coming from but another is very interesting because you'd think okay the opposite of GAA is being an unov um unov is translated as someone who's modest someone who's humble yeah and so you think GAA is somebody who's an egotist and anov is somebody who's you know lowly and uh and down and doesn't see himself as as anything so it's for sure not true and love is is more than just not being Bala and there's an interesting thing in the missil where he says you have to remove in per Al he says you have to remove to become a Noy you have to remove all the bad MOS and one of them he list is GAA and he goes through different forms of G and he says you can't have any part of it and you have to completely remove it from yourself all the different manifestations of G but the level of anov is all at the end of the book so apparently being an unov is something different than just not being a Bala because you could not be a GAA and still not being unov and unov is uh is a deeper expression and although I say there's no GAA today I don't know if I can really say that so much I was saying it years ago but I don't know if I can say it today because there is a generation and this is what we saw in the campus protests this is what we see uh well not me but those of you who have Tik Tok and you see on these Tik Tok videos and these people who all believe that they are the most important person in the world social influencer I have followers they follow me I may not have anything to say I'll come up with something some kind of stick that'll get clicks that'll get views that I'll do something just to be able to get people's attention focused on me K say the Torah is compared to water because when you have uh a flat surface the water will always seek out the lowest spot water is drawn to the lowest spot so to Torah is drawn to the lowest spot and and therefore the unov will get it mosu who got the most Tor of anybody in history who was maab the most Torah was because was UN of mik Adam he was the most unof person in all of history and because of that Torah came to him it's a interesting thing let me let me be clear about this it takes an enormous amount of confidence to learn Torah Torah is overwhelming you get this big book in front of you that's an Aramaic with no punctuation and no vocalization you don't know the language you can't read it you don't know where to stop and you have to work to tie together word by word phrase by phrase sentence by sentence idea by idea because that was too easy for you we decide to write Rashi in a completely different script than uh than we write everything else in just to be able to make life more complicated for you you know and uh it's overwhelming when you when you look at a page of gamar or mikras gdas you look at a page of micras gdas you look at any of these things it's overwhelming and you need confidence to be able to go in and do it and uh that's not taking into account people who have learning difficulties focusing problems and all the other things that go with it to be able to overcome all of it not to mention the fact that you have to learn how to think H the way the gamar thinks which is a form of logic that everybody's used to when I first started teaching I was teaching in the intro program and I had uh a group of guys around the table who are all in top universities I know it's explaining a pretty easy gamar and they were just blank looks in their faces one guy was holding his head he says my brain hurts I said you guys go to big universities don't you do anything there he says no you have to work hard to get in and once you get in nobody cares what you do they have to keep passing you it makes them look [Laughter] bad yep but um uh the um the the fact that you have to have confidence that's different than lacking a certain humility you have to approach Torah with a sense of humility how many people start off by learning and they say well that doesn't make any sense or tyus asked a question on Rashi and they say oh so I guess rashi's wrong bear somebody once said to him the Hal always he always said the Hal gashi the holy Rashi so someone said to him once what's with the Hal gashi why you keep saying Hal gashi said bring me a knife and he made a tear in his jacket and he tore Korea says if you hear somebody insulted Tam then you have to tear Korea there's a humility involved um Rabbi uh miselman who learned many many years with r he's brilliant to start with he spent many years learning he's a Buy in ch and poim rambam knowum the man besides being a genius he knows an enormous man he also has a PhD from MIT in physics somebody said to him so can I go to MIT he says sure if you can keep an8 hour seder a day like I did I don't see any reason why [Laughter] not brilliant brilliant in in science and in uh in Torah and there was a sad chapter in recent Jewish history where some young man who uh never graduated college never finished Shas all by his own admission decided to become an expert on Torah and Science and put out a few books and R misman was very upset and uh and he gave a number of Shar minutes yiva responding to some of the things this person said and the person began attacking him on the internet saying that men who had knew Shaz pokim and rosum doesn't understand Torah and saying that uh this person with a PhD in physics from MIT doesn't understand science the fact that anybody took this kid seriously to me is is astounding absolutely astounding but uh but you're attacking R Misan so this inspired rabie misman to write a book on Torah and Science and uh and he begins with before you can approach the topic you need a sense of humility you have to be humble in the words of Dr schroer Who has two phds and two unrelated Fields one of them is is nuclear physics and one of them is oceanography very smart fellow he explains how the kazal understood Einstein's theory of relativity and uh he shows it and brings sources Etc and he does this with a number of scientific things in the Torah and and he would always say there's a reason they're called sages here's a who's brilliant they used to bring him into supervise nuclear tests you know brilliant and he has the humility to approach the and say listen if you have a question before you dismiss it it would behoove you to have the humility to approach it in the right way make sure you understand it or as somebody once said before you knock off a you better have spent enough time making sure you understand the I was once learning bya in the may makos he had three and it was obvious he was just going to knock them off you know and uh it reminded me of the story my son told me that he heard from his Riva of Poes who heard it from his grandfather R ziman Who heard it from his reor bear who was there the first Shear that Brisa gave inion and he brings in exis ex that somebody today knocks off three of them with the back of his hand and uh he asks say question he says okay what do you say says he went around the table and all the rash Yesa that people learn today they were all sitting around the table and they all gave ter and then knocks off all of their answers and he shows how in a few words because the wrote very very brief he had no choice but to write very brief because he couldn't afford the ink it's how poor he was how in a few words he knocked off all of your answers so okay you got my attention yeah he gave his answer everyone said wow was unbelievable and then he knocked off his answer and he shot out the get out his answer too and then he gives another answer anyway this went on for three hours and this little excise that was R's first year yeah so so when people dismiss things when I was younger I don't have any I don't have any energy anymore now but when I was younger uh and I would have yiva guys over for a shabas meal so I would everyone knew you have to say say so this was more or less people the word had spread so people usually came prepared with something to say you know I once had this one guy who came and he had a paper and he starts to read it and it's incoherent I said I don't understand what you're saying he reads it again it's incoherent I said where's this from it says the emov I look at the OV it's all abbreviation in my makas it's like I have to sit looking up each thing to try to figure out what he was saying why he's bringing fin said why did you choose this V Torah and he said who's the shortest one in the book that doesn't make it the easiest but one time a guy comes he says overes and then he knocks it off the back of his hand nah it doesn't make any sense ha and then he s his own te I said you know he's called thees and you're not so maybe that should give you a moment of humility and approach the with a little more respect and so I took a look at the and I answered up his question and I explained to him shot in the and I showed him why the made perfect sense but there's this attitude of knocking it off um years ago I had this to go to m and here every laugh on Tish of morning where he would speak by the uh different kinis and uh one of the points he made once was he says today we want to uh sh guys like to be M this guy doesn't know how to learn this guy thinks he's this guy this this guy that just knock off people he says and the more that you can be maval the more important you are as the old story goes there's two ways to build yourself up you can build yourself up or try to knock everybody else down and this attitude of knocking everybody else down that that sense of of Destruction instead of approaching people with a sense of [Music] humility wherea says something my friend Wy Rubenstein told me a story that BL staman came to Manchester to speak and somebody from the local school asked a question that says look we have a principal here that we don't take we only take boys from the best families and uh it's not such a good family you don't take the boy so says I don't understand so he says it over again says I don't understand okay so they say it over again he says according to your principle you would have turned down ainu and accepted ASA only for the best families you know okay so so rabie why why thought wow that's that was a stinging rebuke and uh afterwards he said to them so you going to change your policy he says no he doesn't really understand what's going on [Laughter] here yeah I I told the story once you know I I I had read an article in the Jewish Observer years ago about whether you should TI into English or t into yish and they qu raking says if anybody would ask me I would say it's not worth losing one word of Havana to preserve Yiddish but no one's goingon to listen to me I'm an old man that made such a deep impression on me and I remember I saw one of the the T of rakov who I knew and I said wow what Anova and he looked at me like I was out of my mind he said that's not called an NOA that's called realism he was in touch with reality he knows that people will listen to the Torah when it serves their purpose in other words eh no use for you one of the saddest chapters in recent Jewish history were the tonas in the LI Fisher Community a whole bunch of Riva gum got together and set up wedding guidelines because people were bankrupting themselves they said you're only allowed to invite this many people you're only allowed to have this much music you're only allowed to serve this you're only allowed to do that they had all kinds of rules and regulations and at the end there was a little caveat that was added on a little loophole but of course if rash feels that for personal reasons he has to you know go to S then you know the freedom is his so of course every rich balabas said to the Riva you're GNA come to my wedding and he says sure and then everybody else said well if he can do it I can do it too and the whole thing fell apart it was and people continued to bankrupt themselves because I don't take it seriously there was a a disaster taking place in girls higher I guess higher middle education here in Israel the uh elementary schools go by neighborhoods and then afterwards there was only one big Bas Yak of high school that everybody went to and eventually obviously one size fits all fits nobody so another school opened in competition and we're for the elite and so of course I don't want to go to the like uh grouo Marx I don't want to join any club that will have me as a members I want to go to the elite so another school opened up and said we're more Elite because we're the Fest of all the B we're going to be frommer and then another one open another one open there were a whole bunch of them and girls were going crazy trying to get into high schools because when there's one place they have to take everybody but when there's a bunch of places go to the other place go to the other place we don't have to take you and everybody it created disaster soos at the time Yim said okay I'm setting up a VOD we're going to assign all of the girls and every school will take the girls that we give them so the first breakoff school who held that they were the superior School said no we're not going to take them we're only going to take the girls we want not the girls you tell us to take so re yosua says then nobody's going to open okay all of el all the girls said at home there was no high schools after suus re Yos threw up his hands and says I give up I give up do whatever you want and the situation went back to the way it was yeah here's a school that considers itself the elite because we teach everybody the importance of following D we spitting Rebel Yu's face because we know better because we're smarter so the that sense of a lack of humility of trying to understand what's being said what's being done how to put it into perspective and just being maval and this is of course social media where people just go on and they attack and this is the concept of a Twitter mob and this is the concept of all these different things where people just you know know I don't care what anybody says I have my own opinions I have my own things I'll do what I want you know someone said to me once you know these kids who go off the DK you know how you explain it I said well I've spoken to a lot of them over the years and I find their philosophy can be summed up in three phrases I don't want to I don't have to you can't make me that's it yeah I spoke once in a program for kids who are of the D I came out relatively unscathed but when they asked me the next time I said no I can't do it they said why I said I can't teach some place where a kid could stand up in the middle and curse me out in front of everybody they said yeah that could happen I said if I'm going to have any effect on anybody there has to be a sense of mutual respect there has to be there has to be a sense that you're willing and it's so funny how you hear people say oh people people don't respect me people don't treat me with respect you want respect treat people with respect but you can't can't treat people disrespectfully and then complain that people don't respect you that's not fair so the humility the Anova the fact that we can approach life from the point of view of saying okay you know how I going to learn Tor Tor is fromes that's why there was this uh thing that started called Bible criticism now I'm going to criticize the Bible uh I I've heard this expression by reformed rabbis you know I can't believe in a God who would that's the definition of what isar that's idol worship idol worship is the ultimate form of GAA because God created man in His image and we created God in our image they have eyes that don't see and ears that don't hear and mouths that don't speak that's the problem no the problem is why would you make a statue with eyes that can't see and ears that can't hear because you made a God in your image because at the end of the day you're God you're not going to let God tell you what to do I'm sorry I can't accept that so where where the um humility how you GNA be maab if I don't have the humility if I don't have the Anova to be able to approach Torah in a way where I say I know this is from AES and I know it makes sense and if I don't understand it the is in me and uh people say yeah well I can't accept that or I'm not happy with that or you know if there was a God he would never you know wow a little humility yeah the kazal didn't understand science you know the the the rabbis don't understand this they don't know about that the you know it's it's it's so sad that's sad but it it's coming from this false sense that I know better and it's almost impossible to be able to help somebody who knows better than everybody and it's even harder to help anybody who's meatal I I feel like I told this story recently but uh it definitely Bears repetition it was a fellow who was known to always make fun of the Rabon made fun of the rabim all the time anyway his daughter's about to get inter married and he goes running to the and says you have to help me how can I stop my daughter from inter Mar he says I'll give you a MH says there was a plague in the town and this doctor managed to develop a medicine that could treat it and he's traveling with his briefcase Phil with the medications to be able to bring it to the clinic and someone robs him on the bridge and steals his case and runs off well he comes to the clinic and there's not much he could do he can basically sit with them as they die because he doesn't have the medicine and eventually the guy who robbed him shows up with his daughter who's dying and he says you have the medicine where's the medicine what do you mean says you stole my briefcase he says I didn't know that was the medicine I opened it up looking for money and I didn't see any so I threw it in the river he says you had the Cure in your hands and you threw it overboard so the says you had the Cure you could have taught your children to listen to the rabam you could have told them to have respect for Judaism and you didn't and now you're in trouble you come to the rabbis what can I do you took the medicine and threw it in the garbage you taught them not to listen to rabbis what can I possibly do for your daughter now I was speaking at a uh on a class I was giving a class on inter marriage in uh in London and this one woman stood up and she says I am in married and I see my children growing I I said well it goes by the mother so my children will really be Jewish and I'll bring them up in Jewish I'll bring them to my parents for Friday night you know but I see my children growing non Jewish before my eyes and I don't know what to do and I came here tonight looking for Solutions and I'm not hearing any I said look if you want me to tell you how to live a meaningful Jewish life when you're inter married I don't know how that's my the whole purpose of my of my talk I don't know how to do that so this couple stood up in their 50s well dressed and they said I'd like to say something to this young lady says where're egyp Egyptian and you know among spartic Judaism into marriage is just the worst possible thing you can imagine my daughter came home from University and she says I'm getting married to this boy he's not Jewish and we said to her how could you inter Mar you know what Judaism means to us and she said yeah nothing you don't keep shabas you don't keep kosher yeah all of a sudden when I'm ready to get married you suddenly remember that you're Jewish you're not going to be a Jew on my back want to be a Jew go be a Jew and we realized that our daughter was right and so we came here to start taking classes because in case our daughter ever wants to come back we want to show them that we're willing to live a Jewish life if you're not an un of if you're not humble if you don't approach Torah with a sense of wow this is God talking these are the sages talking the gamar says if your rebi is like a Malik an angel then you're a person but if your rebi is a person then you're an animal because your rebi always has to be higher than you so if it's just Rabbi Bob who you play ret ball with then you're going to have to be a animal but if he's a Malik then you can talk about you being a person because this is somebody who can lead you that's why you find this strange expression sometimes in the gamarra where someone asks another person a question and he says I'll answer you if you carry my towel to the bath house that's a strange thing to say that's a sign of Abdus that means I'm a slave it's one of the things you're not allowed to ask a Jewish slave to do for you is carry you towel to the bath house because it makes him it's demeaning he said I'll only answer your question he says cuz I could see by the way that you asked the question that you're not taking it seriously so I'll give you an answer and you'll be nah nah very hard very hard with a person who's already decided that they know everything I always love that expression no one can prove to me there's a God go ahead I'm like no I believe you no one's going to no no go ahead and try I said what for whatever I say you've already told me you're not going to be convinced so why should I knock myself out I believe you you're completely closed-minded and there's nothing that I say it's going to impress upon you because you don't have the humility to be able to look at things objectively and decide gee Maybe I'm Wrong maybe there's another point of view here so in order to be able to be K Tor you have to start with another you have to have a sense of humility and uh uh when we live in a generation where everybody you know can go on to you know Tik Tock or Facebook or you know start spouting any nonsense they want and get a million people to follow them and and suddenly become important and they feel that they're an influencer an influencer yeah so then who's going to have the humility to stop and listen to somebody who knows more than them to be able to instruct them and that brings us to the question and answer portion of our program and we have a sponsor for it thank you so much for letting me and my friend nman come visit the show live it's my pleasure by the way anybody who's going to be in Israel or is in Israel and wants to uh be part of the audience yeah so first of all you have to make sure that you clap on uh on Q you know otherwise it's just like embarrassing just saying there anyway so uh so yeah they were very good and they came to watch anybody wants to just Reach Out wishing you mayor PS shout out to snaps in Lakewood New Jersey snaps in Lakewood New Jersey is a all uh Service uh kind of restaurant with all kinds of different uh uh fancy stuff my son uh schlomo who who you saw during Theo uh podcast from schlim Meet it was one of the few places he went to that he was impressed with and uh and he says I can't wait till we uh you know go back to America so I can go to snaps so there's a shout out okay what is a good way to spend your time in the bathroom the best way to spend your time in the bathroom is exactly what the bathroom is for for my English people they mean toilet in England they have a bathroom which has the bath and they have a toilet which has the toilet we and Lush Andia in America we call them both the bathroom a friend of mine married a girl from England and he says to him where's the bathroom he goes why you gonna take a shower so she's like no I goes you mean the toilet what's the best way to spend it the best way to spend it is exactly what the toilet is meant for that's the way to spend your time there do not linger yeah but assuming you are of a certain age where natural functions do not come as easy to you as they may have once upon a time and you need more time to get your business done yeah so uh um a lot of it has to do with what kind of a person you are I have finished many classic novels in the bathroom um I remember I was giving a sheer once and I I I quoted a uh a passage from a particular book that I had read in the bathroom and I may have mentioned that this is part of my bathroom reading and and a guy told me say my wife came out and said I know he was telling the truth because the place Mark was a piece of toilet tissue so uh the best thing to do is read the classics because you're not going to get stuck there it's not like it's going to be so engaging that you can't get out that's how I got through most of Dickens uh books on science books on history you know uh you know somebody said once my father looked at the bathroom as his college of continuing education you know he would going through different books so you don't want to take anything that's going to be too engaging you know in fact there's a series of books called the bathroom reader which have a whole bunch of different articles and it says this is for short this is for you know if you have a longer stay you know they're they're set up by the the length of the article he says and this is for a truly legn numbing experience but you know there are certain things there was a particular Jewish newspaper where somebody asked a Shiloh once you know are you allowed to bring it into the bathroom and someone said the question is if you're allowed to take it [Laughter] out anyway so that's that's my take on that Benny Malik what is your opinion about Bungalow marriages where the husband stays home while the wives are out partying in the mountain or maybe it's the opposite so full disclosure okay um I never went to a bungalow thank God we weren't poor we had a nice house uh in Long Island with central air conditioning the idea of going and living in a little Hut like a refugee you know where someone's going to sleep in the kitchen you know and all the women are forced to sit in the circle all day and and and talk you know and you know and and the big adventure out is going to Walmart in 3 o'clock in the morning there's nothing nothing about the uh um mongalo experience that I found attractive um one time my good friend Yan yarmish who had a bungalow he lent it to our family for a month in the summer and we went there I remember I called my brother he goes where are you I said I'm in a bungalow he says what are you doing I said sitting on the porch listening to myself sweat I couldn't understand why anybody does this but to put it into context there was a time when uh the city was of course unbearably hot and crowded not a healthy atmosphere spere for a child and you go up into the mountains where the air is fresh and clean and uh you know the kids can play outside and like this it was considered to be a very healthy option for the children and so the family would get a bungalow rent a bungalow buy a bungalow and go up into these uh into these you know little colonies and the kids sometimes they had a day camp they almost always had a pool uh there was at least grass for them to run around in ETC and it was convenient but of course if the husband worked the commute from uh from the cill mountains down to the city was prohibitive best case scenario the wife stayed in the Bungalow took care of the children had a little vacation herself things were more relaxed the husband uh uh would go to iRun Torah my good friend R bald he says when everybody's away in the Bungalows and the men are sitting around he makes uh he makes lecture series shurm uh shum I should say not lectures shurm in Williamsburg burrow Park and flush and flush they're in English and bur Park and in Williamsburg they're in yish and uh when I happened to be in America from time to time he would ask me to come now he didn't know who I was he just saw that I wrote for the hamodia at the time he had no idea who I was and I remember I um uh I showed up the first time and the crowds were out the door literally out the door they had to put a speaker out on outside and and the people just keep coming and he looks at me and says who are you had no idea who I was yish was his first language you know so um uh so ideally the men have a system they come up for and they work is it an ideal of course it's not ideal it's never ideal for a family to be separated uh could I relate to this the only time my parents uh slept apart was when my mother was in the hospital having children my father didn't sleep in the hospital when my father was in the hospital my mother slept in the chair next to him otherwise they went on vacation together they went to work every day together they came home and had supper together they were together the idea of being a part is a strange idea now I know there are people who take separate vacations you know and maybe the mother takes the daughters and the daughter-in-laws and they go off on a vacation I'm not here to to judge I'm just saying that from my point of view that's not ideal husband and wives should be together sometimes when someone gives me a ride they tell me you sit up front you know I'll put my wife in the back I said absolutely not I don't separate husbands and wives I said if you were coming with me I wouldn't put my wife in the back you know she sits up fromont with me and uh you sit with your wife I'll sit in the back you know sometimes a little tough when I'm sitting in a little um infant chair but hey you know the sacrifices we make for marriage so uh uh so I definitely respect that idea um is it the same thing today that it's a imperative for people to go away to the mountains I don't know I can't say I live in Israel you know um I know that kids who Areo uh the devil finds work for Idle Hands I know it's not a healthy thing the problem is that unfortunately there are stories of unhealthy things that take place in Bungalow colonies so the only thing I can stress is when you're looking at a bungalow Colony or a vacation home Village make sure you're finding a place that has y shim and people who appreciate the importance of Torah and that standards are being maintained and that things are not a Hef ofelt so um an outright uh an outright endorsement no but uh but can it sometimes be a necessary good and a sacrifice that the family has to make yes by Anonymous why is it that every gamar which is T has to be printed in the same exact layout but which is T can be printed in different layouts shouldn't wouldn't be the opposite you're laboring under a mistaken assumption and that is because basically every gamor that you have seen has the uh sanino Shas layout that is by no means the only Shas there was the kelm Shas and the Lublin Shas there were different Shas that had it set up in different ways uh you find when the Reon him never mention ad do gamarra they always mention the peric of gamarra because there it wasn't a set system certainly before printing even after printing there were many different ways of uh of printing the Garis and uh and it was not Universal that Rashi and tus were on the da this was the vas uh that basically put this together and it's become uh more or less accepted but definitely not that there's no other version of the garas you just haven't seen them and therefore uh after it became more or less standardized then there's an advantage that Sur because people know where to find things and everybody's in the same place so you say oh it's you understand it would be really hard to do da if everyone has a different gamar with a different setup but is it a requirement absolutely not and is it a requirement that every Kish should be printed the same way absolutely not there are many different types of them that have that have been printed in different kind of ways and all of it is legit by Anonymous does Hashem appreciate creativity when serving him like people enjoy things more exciting absolutely K baru made everybody different because everybody has their own unique perspective to bring it is sad that we live in a society where very often people TR try to squelch creativity and individual abilities uh there was somebody who was a musician and he asked R hutna if he could play kasas and he said no it's not a healthy lifestyle for y Bak you know stay out late at night then you'll be tired in the morning you w't be able to learn he says but if you have a talent for music you to always get the best uh music teacher you can so that you you know are able to to master this ability that Hashem gave you you're not supposed to waste talents because gave them to you for a reason and therefore um the the fact that I uh uh I may have a gift for writing for speaking for art for music for um computer programming for business for any of these things absolutely you should use these things in your Aus Hashem you shouldn't use them not in a vus hasem but you definitely should harness these abilities that gave you in a vus hasem and that's why people who are artistic and can make charts and graphs and things like that it's a definitely a wonderful thing to be able to do so yes embrace the gifts that gave you and do not squander them and that's it for this episode uh if you want to find out more about the show you can go to my website row.com you can sign up for an online share you can send an email you can sponsor an episode or a question and answer um you can make a donation we've had people who just sent in donations not to sponsor an actual episode but just because they believe in what we're doing and they want to try to support it you can uh um listen to past chorm you can make a comment uh you could be part of the community that's what we're shooting for that we're not just a uh uh a sheer or podcast or a show we are a community and that's it for now until next time I am de olski and this has been the rabbi olsky show it's the Rabbi orlovski show Torah and S ready to go the rabbi orlovski show knowledge and wisdom will help you grow lots of fun in every episode and we don't have to rhyme no we it's the rabbi orlovski show on Rabbi ori. comom Tor anytime YouTube and more it's Rabbi orlovski show Tor and S ready to go the rabbi orlovski show till next time so we meet again the rabbi Orlowski show it's 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