SAD (Ep. 306)

Hi, this is Dr. Elowski and welcome to the Robert Elowski show. [music] And whether you're watching with our friends and producers over at Tory Time, wherever you watch or listen to your podcast, as always, we're excited to be able to have you along for the experience. So, a little bit of business. First of all, uh if you haven't heard by now, [music] the Reverski and family are making a Pesak program in the Nokiner in uh Tavaria. Beautiful view of the kinerit. Lot of exciting programs. It's going to be a blast and borak hashem reservations are pouring in. Somebody pointed out to me that since there are people who only listen to the show, they sometimes call in on the show. They don't always know. So, you can get all of the information on my website rabiolski.com. And if you don't have that, then you can just go to Castle's travel agent uh in Israel and uh they are doing all of the booking and to make sure that you can find out all the different options and see whether or not this works for your PES activities. I can tell you it's not on the fly. It should be. It is reasonably priced. That was one of my priorities that it should be reasonably priced so it's within the price range of people who hopefully would be able even even with airfare it'll work out to be much less than any American pes program I think. I don't know I don't know the prices of all the American pes programs. I don't want to get uh you know fact checked. Speaking of fact check, the other announcement I wanted to make is I did a show some months ago where I said I am not going to allow any more abuse from comments on my videos and uh and I will delete them as soon as I can see them. Well, that it worked for a few months and then it started up again. People making nasty comments. I don't care if you want to make critiques. I don't care if you want to make give your own opinion. I don't care if you want to fact check. All of that is fine. But there will not be any abusive comments either against me or any of my listeners. They will be deleted. And what I'm amazed at by these comments is these are people who must have listened to the whole podcast based on on the comments that they make. And it doesn't it doesn't help. They just say y things. Why are you listening to me? Don't listen to me. Go someplace. Uh, go watch Andrew Tate. He says disgusting things. You'll enjoy him. Go to Nick Fen's uh, whatever his name is, The Nazi. You'll enjoy him. Go and watch him. Make nasty comments. Don't come on to the Rabbi Alowski show and dare I say, be part of the Rabbi Alowski community and family. If this is how you want to behave, I'm sorry. You are being ousted from our community unless you learn how to talk like a mench. Talk like a mench, act like a mench, do be a mench today. That's it. No more no more nasty comments, you know. Uh and I don't know what it is. There are certain people who are obsessed with me in a very negative way. There's a guy who called up the first time 10 12 years ago. I don't know what it was. Uh he was upset about something that I had talked about and he started off like a normal conversation. He sounded a little off but okay. And at the end he just started cursing me out. So I hung up the phone and he's been calling on and off for the past 12 years. He assumes different identities. He he pretends that he's part of the Turic Karita. He did and it's he has a very distinctive voice. I know who it is and I usually play along with him because the man is obviously got a problem. He has this unhealthy obsession with me. I don't know what it is. So the last time he called, he just called up. I it was before Rashashana maybe. And he starts off by just cursing me out and saying this and making all kinds of attacks. And then he says, "What do you have to say for yourself?" And I said, "Okay, listen to me closely. There's something very wrong with you. You need to get professional help. You're not well." Normal people don't do this. They don't keep calling up somebody they don't know and assume different identities to be able to say y things to them and yell at them and scream at them and curse at them. There's something wrong with you. and I hung up the phone because I really wasn't really ready to hear any more uh of that kind of abuse. But but I don't know what it is. So some of these people watch my podcast and then write disgusting and yucky things. It will not continue. I I mean again I don't get to the comments as quickly as I would like. You know I check every now and then but I just see these terrible things and sometimes people respond and say that's not appropriate that the next thing. you know, you're dealing with people who are suffering from mental illness. Nobody would do this unless you're suffering from some form of mental illness. To go onto somebody's video and make disgusting comments for what? What could pos what could you possibly gain from that except for the fact that you should be on medication or some kind of a therapy? I don't know what it is, but you're obviously crazy. So, please go go watch hate videos. You'll enjoy it much more. It's more what you're looking for. We're happy here. This is a positive atmosphere. You know, this is for people who, as I get notes all the time, makes them feel positive, makes them feel good about being a from Jew. Gives them strength, which by the way is what we're going to be talking about today. But first, let's turn to our sponsor. Before I read our response, I want to point out that we are just about out of sponsors. This program takes expenses to keep going and so we really need sponsors. So if you've been thinking about, gee, maybe I should sponsor a Reverski show, this is that opportunity. If you want to have a corporate sponsor, we're happy to do it. assuming your your product is a reasonable product and you're not like, you know, some scam artist or something, you know, selling phony medical uh drugs and stuff, but assuming that you're a reputable individual, we are proud to have you as a sponsor of the Raviowski show. Okay. Our sponsor this week is Burak and Miriam Gerston. Hi, Raviolski. Hi. We wanted to thank you for such an amazing podcast. We really enjoy listening and we're so happy we got to come to be in the studio audience anytime. And by the way, anyone who wants to be part of the studio audience, we usually film in Haro Mondays afternoons. Uh but check with us beforehand because sometimes we change as you saw last week location in Tavaria. If you were to come here, that would have been that would have been a little embarrassing because we were up in Tavaria. Um, may Hashem give you and your family the to continue giving to Isel. That's wonderful. And uh, they recently had an anniversary and Mazav and that's beautiful. What better way celebrate an anniversary than to sponsor a Rabbi Alowski show. I think that's wonderful. Okay, we had a heat wave here in Yushalim in Israel in general. It was really pretty hot. It's up in into the 80s in the middle of uh November. But the temperature changed and we had some heavy rain, thunderstorms, and now it's it's somewhere between chilly and cold. Yeah. For me, I'm always cold cuz I'm on blood thinners because of my heart condition. So, I'm always cold. But uh which is so interesting because most of my life I was morbidly obese. I lost weight so now I'm just fat but I was morbidly obese and you know fat people sometimes we really sweat you know it was really tough. So, uh, but now I'm always chilly and everybody else around me is hot, you know, but now winter is in. And I have three emails that I've received that I want to speak about together as a group. And I'll give it by way of introduction. You know, I recommended a book, Watership Down, which I I I I do like a lot. I' I've made that point more than once. In it, he makes an observation. He says, "When people say they like the winter, what they mean is being inside protected from the elements, but for poor people and animals, winter is a very rough time." That made the big impression on me the first time I read it. Yeah. Uh when I used to run NCSY, we would make a ski trip in the winter and go uh go to a mountain where the kids were very excited to go ski. Not me. That held no delight for me. If God wanted us to ski, he would have made us with very long, thin feet. But I don't think he wants this. And at least every year I took one kid to the hospital, sometimes more, you know. So they would go out skiing and I would be sitting in the lodge with a hot cocoa and looking out the window at the snow and that's what I more or less liked. I tried to stay near the fireplace [laughter] and I like looking at the winter from a distance. You know, I had a friend of mine from California who used to say, "Work fascinates me. I can watch it for hours." I feel the same way about the winter. I don't mind the winter as long as I don't have to go outside [laughter] to face the elements. That to me doesn't seem like a lot of fun. And now it is the winter. I'm sitting here with a glass of herbal tea. Um, apple cinnamon. Very warm. O, it's nice. Oh, that feels good. And flu season's going around. People are getting the flu left and right. You know, some people take the flu shot because they don't want to wait to get the flu. They want to get it immediately. [laughter] Every time I take the flu shot, I get the flu. When I don't take the flu shot, I never get the flu. But when I take the flu shot, I always get it like within a day because they basically inject the flu into you. And guess what? It works. I get the flu. But um but people are sick. You everybody coughing and sneezing and it's a rough time and uh psychologists have identified something called sad. That's what they call it. Seasonal affectation disorder. What does that mean? That means there are people who don't like the winter. It's dark. gets dark really early and it's cold and there's something about it that just makes people depressed. You can tell almost every uh Sarman and Garfungo song was written in the winter. [laughter] The hazy ha hazy days of winter and leaves are all blowing down. Everything's dead and depressing and terrible. [laughter] That's Barry Manalo. That's that's the time to listen to him. You know, when you're depressed, all those kind of things. It's a you know, the Beach Boys have written in the summer [laughter] and everything's upbeat and fun and they're going surfing and [laughter] you know, there's something about the winter that's that's the that makes people depressed. I went to yeshiva in uh rochester the tamutical institute of upstate New York to uni. I went uh many many years ago when they were on Pinnacle Hill in Rochester. [snorts] They moved from there to a mental hospital. I'm not even going to touch that line. It was very interesting. Someone told me and I'm not I didn't fact check this. So if you want to add in the comments a correction that's fine as long as you don't call anybody names. Okay. [laughter] But I they told us two facts. They said that Rochester has the most cloudy days of any city in America. And Rochester also had, at least when I was there, the highest suicide rate. And uh there are those who make an association because it's when I was there, there was snow on the ground starting in October till May. I first came there, it was August. It was autumn. It was lovely. You know, it lasted about a week. But, uh, but someone said, you know, we say in Rochester, we have two seasons. Yeah. Uh, winter and July. That's it. You know, and it's cloudy and it gets depressed. And, you know, if you stayed in the building, okay, it was already uh wasn't so bad. Otherwise, you went into one of the three dorms. There were three dorms. There was uh the barn, the slum, and the dump. The slum was the nicest of the three apartments, but it was in a terrible part of town. The dump was shoot the kamash mo. It was it was a dump. And the barn was not bad except they put 12 guys in in this one apartment with one bathroom. So, it was the barn anyway. But uh and then you have to walk to yeshiva in the snow and the dark and you know it's depressing. There's it's a it's a phenomena that there are people get depressed in the winter less so in the summer. Sunshine um makes people feel a little happier. Gives them a better position when it's dark and it's cold. What happens when I'm 70? Must come a time 70. When you're old and it's cold and who cares if you live or you die. That was one of one of my greatest roles. I played Fagan in the uh camp production of Oliver. [laughter] Anyway, so I got three different emails here that together inspired me to talk about this topic. One is, "Rabbi, do you have any shurim on depression?" Now, I speak about depression a lot. I've made no bones about the fact that I suffered from depression as a kid. um if it was because my life was so difficult or if it was because of my many learning disabilities or if it was because I had a chemical depression. I fought depression uh well into my 30s and it was very hard. Very hard. You I had a cloud over me all the time. Yeah. So I've talked about it. It was interesting. a person, I haven't seen it come out, but a person was writing a book on dyslexia. And he said, um, can I quote you because you're the only rabbi I know who admits that he has dyslexia? Sure. I said, you know, because why shouldn't people understand that these are problems that people have and they have to deal with them? And I speak about my ADD, too. Most people don't. And I know there are people who do because one time I was speaking about it and Ro Kylo came over to me and said, "I had ADHD. We were the kids who got beaten. So, you know, don't don't complain to me because you only had ADD. They stuck you kids in the back of the classroom and you went, you know, but we were the ones bouncing off the walls and we got beaten." [laughter] But he would never speak about it publicly, you know. So, yeah, I speak I spoke about my depression, but do I have a whole she where I speak about depression? I don't think so. Here's the second one. I have a question for you which has bothered me for years. I try so hard to live the life that I think Hashem wants me to be living. I want so much to feel a closeness to Hashem. So often I feel this doubt, especially when I'm trying to davenin. It's like there's a voice inside of me saying, "If all of this is really true, why don't you feel more of a connection to Hashem?" I went through a long phase of looking into the truth of Torah. I did a lot of reading and listening to Shirim. I guess you could say I'm convinced intellectually but not emotionally. Any thoughts? And here's the third one again which uh inspired me to talk about this topic. Hi Rabiowski, thank you so much for your show. It's really very entertaining and I learn so much without even realizing it. That's the method to my madness. People don't realize it unless they're bright enough like you are to figure it out. But I remember once I gave a shabashu dasha to women and it was very funny and everybody was laughing the whole time. And as I [clears throat] was leaving, I heard one woman say to her two friends, "Did you realize we just got very stark of Musa?" I was like, "Wow, she saw it. That's impressive." Cuz most people see the jokes and they see the stories and they don't understand that there's a message underneath. Using Ro's principle that if you want a kid to take his uh medicine, you sugarcoat it. Just a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down in the most delightful way. Right. Okay. Whenever I hear you start to mention how you need sponsors, I get sad. I really want to sponsor a video. I really, really do, but my family is having a hard time financially. A really hard time postcript. Um, people have suggested to me that I do what some of these podcasts do where they have what they call a payw wall, meaning you offer some free part of the show and then you say to hear the rest of the show, you have to be a subscriber, you know, it cost x amount month or so much a year and to hear the rest of the show. And I said, I can't do that. I I can't I can't do that because one of the reasons I do this podcast is because Misha Shapiro who I would not have the but to call my rebi but who I had this to have a cash with said to me once if you can do anything today that gives people to do it. So that's why I know there are people who can't sponsor the show. And by the way, people like the Gerston who do sponsor the show make this show possible for people who are not in a financial position to be able to do it. And so you get this for all of their and all of their learning. Working hurts my father's health, but it doesn't but if he doesn't work, we can't pay the bills. If we can pay the bills, I'll have a father in the hospital. It's a lose-lose darin for us. Um, I will. It would help if you sent me a name. Uh, I'm willing to say, you know, in general, uh, this family should have a good time, but when you have a name, it, you know, adds to it. Life is hard. It really is. I'm struggling and I'm angry. I don't want my anger to be directed at Hashem. So sometimes it is unfortunately directed at my parents. We have a stiff formal cold relationship so that we don't fight. If we share too much, our opinions are different. So we fight and I really really don't want to fight. Any advice? Just wanted to say hi and I'm hoping you can dive in for me and my family. Keep doing what you're doing. So on behalf of the Rabbiolski community, we all daven that you should have uh good health and and parnosa toa kalivania and uh and all of these should go away. But I got a lot of emails like this. I picked out these because they just came in. I get a lot of emails like this of people who are having a very hard time in life. People are suffering from depression, people who are having financial problems, people having health problems, people who are having problems in amuna, as the writer wrote, I d and I feel like it's not good enough and I feel like doesn't like what I'm doing. Now, I don't know if all these came in because it's winter time and it's dark and it's cold and you know, make yourself a cup of herbal tea. Makes things a little better. But yeah, very hard, very hard feeling those kind of feelings, feeling dark and down and unhappy. So, I mentioned in the past that I suffer from depression. Um, I was born in 1959. Today, they probably would have me on some kind of medication if I was a kid because I was just when I was suicidal, the only reason I never killed myself was because my father had convinced me I was such a little yutzlo that I wouldn't succeed and I would just end up being paralyzed. [laughter] I couldn't move as my father yelled at me for the rest of my natural life [laughter] even that I wouldn't be able to manage you know but uh it's very hard depression is very hard and when you have all kinds of different situations but let me deal with I want to talk about depression more generally but let's talk about specifically this sense of helplessness and hopelessness that comes from our relation with the kesh. And so I'll talk of course about my favorite topic which is myself and uh not because I'm self-centered or egotistical just because I'm the most interesting person I've ever met. [laughter] A person says I love listening to your shirim and I hate listening to shirim. I said me too. [laughter] I also listen to my shirm because I hate listening to shirm. >> [laughter] >> But anyway, I got uh from at 12 and uh this I got two emails um that are very interesting similar. One says, "You've spoken before about your rebi rebi whale who is Macarview. I think you should spend a podcast talking about him." And I got another one that said, "I I would love to hear what made you become from at 12. How did that happen? So, I'm going to put the two of those together and I'm going to save it for every Wales yard site which is Bay SA. So, you have to wait a while for that. It's like I was giving a shir once on midos to uh ladies. I did an introduction a couple of sher introduction. Then I said, "Okay, what mida do you want to talk about?" And they all said patience. And I said, "You're going to have to wait till we get to that [laughter] first exercise." Yeah. So, you'll have to wait till we we get there. I think I will speak about that bin Wales yard site. But in the meantime, I will tell this part of the story. After I became from it took an enormous amount of energy and effort just to figure out what to do. A lot of stuff comes naturally to from people that they take for granted that those of us who catch up later don't realize. So that I remember when I was running NCSY, we had an advisor Shabaton and some of these were kids who graduated to become adviserss and some of them were just advisers. And anyway, one of the things we did is we invited the principles from the various day schools um to uh host a panel on the role of day school kids and NCSY. And they all said the same thing. If they're coming because they want to give and because they think they be makazik and they etc you know otherwise they don't belong you know in this organization a co-ed organization even though they were principal of co-ed schools right and a number of the kids who had gone to their schools and had been in NCSY and now were advisers raised their hand and said we never came to NCSY to give we only went to Yet I have been benching singing the benching since I was 5 years old and screaming the benching cuz when you go to camp if your whichever bunk sings the loudest wins a watermelon. And so for years I've been singing it to the point that the average from teenager can't stand benching and they bench like this. Can I go? So you didn't bench? I said sure I did. I'll do it again. Can I go now? He says, "And when I come to NCSY and see some kid with a ponytail and an earring with his transliterated NCSY bencher breaking his teeth to bench, I suddenly realize how lucky I am what I have because people who grow up from take a lot of things for granted, you know. So, okay, I started at 12 and I was already in a yeshiva day school. So, I wasn't like some guy on a college campus, you know, who uh who had no no background whatsoever. I I had something to work with, but there's a lot of stuff you have to learn. I hear from people in Israel, you know, they say they'll go to one of the yeshivas or seminaries that's geared for beginners, you know, and they I've heard this from more than one of them. goes, "You go someplace for shabas." And I suddenly realize I don't know if I'm allowed to flush the toilet on Shabas. And before they go any further, I say, "Yes, please." Okay, don't don't let that ever be an issue. [laughter] Because they don't know. There's so many things they don't know that that people just take for granted. I remember I was I was in Hank. We dove in the classroom till seventh grade. seventh grade we moved into the regular minion. Now again when I was going to Hank it only went up to ninth grade then they added a 10th and 11th grade. That was it. It was a three-year high school. But I remember I come to seventh grade and we adopted in the classroom and I understand here you stand here you sit. But at one point, everybody puts their head down on the table and they go like this. And me and all the other seventh graders go, "What's what's that they're doing?" [laughter] And I asked an eighth grader. I said, "What's that?" He goes, "I don't know. When I came in in seventh grade, I saw everybody do it, so I just copied. I I don't know what it is either." [laughter] There's a lot of things that people don't know. I'll give you an example. This really frustrates me. Um, I'm no closer to giving an answer to it, but I will at least share with you my frustration. If you're in a minion and they've already finished and you're catching up and you come to and and you're basically saying by yourself, do you say kale? And there's a whole series of melnmon questions like this. And whenever you ask anybody, they say, "Ah, it's about chu a question." Well, okay. But it's still a question. It deserves an answer. But nobody will answer these questions. They say, "It's about a question. [laughter] So, what do you do?" I don't know. There's uh there's so many things that people just take for granted that that a lot of people have never seen, never don't know about. They're learning it as they go along. So when you first become firm, you spend a lot of time just figuring out what I'm supposed to do, how I'm supposed to do it. There's a lot of details to keeping shabas, you know, that you don't know about, you know, and bor, nobody knows what bo is. [laughter] And somebody said to me once, either everything is bor or nothing is bor. [laughter] I don't know how you figure out what Bora is. It's it it's there's so many rules, so many regulations. Okay. So to learn to get down to get down so many other that are associated with chabas is an [clears throat] it's a it's a effort. It's a nod. Same thing with ding. Same thing with everything else. So I worked on it very hard and then I went to yeshiva gdola. Now bear in mind I had not been diagnosed for my dyslexia or for my ADD or for my focusing problems or anything else. So learning was ex and I was depressed. So you sit in the base medish for 10 hours a day. You can't focus because you can't see the words because I have a focusing problem in my eyes. had to do eye exercises where I could learn how to cross my eyes, you know, um because I couldn't do it naturally. I couldn't focus and if I did, the letters were backwards and if I did read it, my mind would wander someplace else. And if I could stay focused, I have a retention problem. So, I forget everything I just read. [laughter] So after a while, you know, you really you really start to get depressed. If you weren't already depressed, it's a good way to make yourself depressed. And uh and I suddenly realized that I did everything I'm supposed to do and I came at it from a point of view of it's true and I'm doing the right thing and I was miserable. I was completely unhappy and I could not shake it. I couldn't shake it. I would get up in the morning, take my fillin, show up at the base majish, and sit in the back room. I couldn't put on my fillin. I couldn't do it. That's how depressed I was. At one point, I ended up staying in my parents house for six months. didn't leave the house. I couldn't. I was just so overwhelmed with this sense of depression. And it took me a long time to identify where the source of the depression was coming from. So part of it was, of course, because uh there's something in my brain that was just messed up. And part of it was the fact that my parents uh felt that I was a failure. and and I was I was I failed at just about everything that I attempted to do uh until I moved to LA and and re recreated myself and you know but otherwise everything that I did was uh just terrible. I couldn't I couldn't make it in anything and uh and the worst was I had so much potential but nobody knew that I have all these problems and that's why these things were happening. But I guess if I had to identify what it was, it was because I was convinced that God was angry with me and was going to burn me in gehenn. Now I don't know what gehenn is, but I'm pretty sure it's not pleasant. That certainly seems to be what came across. So at one point in Rochester when I was uh in one of my funks and I wasn't really doing anything. [snorts] So my rebby wanted to give me cheer me up and he says come on David you have to you know you have to get going. You have to learn. I said what's the point? I'm just going to go to hell anyway. And he said to me that's true. [laughter] But he saw I was downs. He wanted to cheer me up. He says, "Focus on the following. At 350° you bake, but at 400 you burn." Which meant obviously that if you dive in three times a day and you learn, you do all the mitzvah, the angel will just bake. And this is so much of Jewish education. It helps if you have a rebi from, you know, from Brooklyn. They do it better. You're gonna burn. Your M is going to burn. You're gonna burn at him. I don't know. What do you What do you think is going to happen? It's mummish. Take a take a match. Take a match and put it on your finger. Hold it there and then multiply that 60 times. You understand? That's that's it's mish. It's mish what the is going to do to you because you're you know not doing this not learning. He's going to bumish burn you. [laughter] Yeah. Now can you see how this is going to be a little depressing now who knows everything sees everything understands everything which means I don't have any excuses there's no place for me to hide you read the story of who suddenly realized they aid from the and the coming and they hide in the trees a really ineffective method by someone who's all knowing and [laughter] omniresent if can see through the freeze and you read that story and's like, "Um, where are you?" I'm hiding. Why are you hiding? Because I'm naked. How do you know you're naked? Is that Oh, that's it. Shoot me now. [laughter] Cuz everybody understands what's the point. Why am I even trying? And that's where I was. And so I had nobody who was there to help me. Nobody I spoke to. I mean I did get helpful advice. You know when I would tell somebody I'm depressed they would say cheer up. That's good advice. [laughter] You know people come and they say I'm doing it. Don't do it anymore. [laughter] years of Musa. I see. We're wasting on you. [laughter] So, I had nobody I had nobody to answer this to show this to me cuz this was normative Judaism, what they call the lightning bolt method. You do something wrong, you get zapped. I'm always interested when you read these accounts of people who gave up being from and they're like, "One time I turned on a light on Shabas, there was no lightning bolt." So, I said, "Uh, doesn't matter. I can do whatever I want cuz that's what his Jewish education was. He do something wrong. You know, somebody who was conservative, not orthodox, said kid went to Hebrew school and the teacher said, you know, if you eat on Pesak, God will eat you. I was like a little kid and they thought there's something wrong with that particular method. This is not the message we want to be able to give over to people. So I had no choice. I had nobody to help me. The medish asks, "Why did Abino have to figure out a kosh on his own?" Noah was still alive. She shame and ava were alive. Noah heard about the creation of the world secondhand because he knew Malited and Malited knew Adam. So he heard about the creation of the world secondhand. He could have told Abraham, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a creator. This is the story. I know all about it. I was in this big boat. It's it's an unbelievable story. You got time? Where was Noah? Where was she?" So the med says they were all hiding. They were afraid that Nimrod and Mdala would kill them all. So Abram had nobody to learn from. He had to come up with it on his own. So I had nobody to help me over here because the message I was getting from everybody was this negative message of death and destruction. So I had no choice. I had to speak to the big bad scary man in this in the sky. I got nothing to lose at this point. You know, there's nothing standing between me and Gem anyway. [laughter] I'm going down there. I'm going to burn forever. And I said to Baru, "Why would you want to burn me and Gehenn?" I mean, okay. I I I've done some things wrong, but come on. I'm I'm I'm about. I could say it the right way if you want. I'm a ba tachchua, you know, haki karma. I I'll say it. I I did this on my own. There's got to be worth something. Why would you want to burn them and get Why would you create the entire world, set up an entire Torah where you know people are going to fail and then burn them and get them? Does that make any sense? Why would you do that? This was the conversation I had with the Kosh. I It's a little bit of a but at this point I didn't have much to lose. You understand? Parenthetically, that's the message of the Christians. The Christians saying that God created the world. Adam and Eve created the original sin which made everybody sinful. And he gave them the Torah just to prove to them that they can never be good on their own and they can never reach God. And that's why he sent out his only son to die as a sacrifice. let that sacrifice into your heart and then you can you know be a good person but there's no way you can do it on your own that's why because they look at all these stories of failure and I sat down and I engaged with Baraku I did not hear a voice yeah I'm crazy but I'm not that crazy a guy got a flat tire outside of an insane in asylum. And he gets the jack, jacks up the car, takes off the four bolts from the wheel, takes off the flat tire, puts in the back, takes out the spare, puts it on, and as he's reaching for the bolts, he put them inside of the hubcap, and he hits the hubcap and they all fall down the grate. And now he has no bolts. Doesn't know what to do. And one of the people from the insane asylum calls out and says, "Take one bolt from all the other three tires. All of your tires will have three bolts. It'll be enough to get you to a service station so you can fix it." He says, "That's brilliant. Why are you in there?" He says, "I'm crazy. I'm not stupid." [laughter] So I had a conversation with the Kesh. played both roles which is helpful for the first years of marriage because very often people don't know how to express themselves. So when I would have a disagreement with my wife I would argue both sides you know and she like oh that's a good point I didn't think of that one you know [laughter] because she she didn't know how to express it especially somebody like me who tends to be argumentative by nature. I'd like to think that I'm not argumentative, but I do know how to make an argument. As somebody once said in one of the yeshivas I was working, we're lucky you're on our side [laughter] because you are you argue and you debate. And that's part of the story of how I became from because I could argue with anybody. I was very effective at it. I said to Karaku, "Why would you create the world to burn me in gem? That seems vindictive. You didn't have to create a world for that. Why do it? Why make an entire world? Give us a bunch of laws in order for us to get reward and then we fall short. You burn me in hell. That doesn't sound right. And so, at least in my mind, said to me, you're right. I don't want to burn your gumm I want to give you the greatest possible reward said. So then what's all this gem stuff? Genum is a distance from Hashem. You make your own hell. Now I related to this because of a Twilight Zone I had seen once with Sebastian Kat. And this guy is this criminal. He's a terrible guy. He kills people, etc. And eventually he gets shot by a policeman. And he wakes up and he's in his city, but the city is completely empty. There are no people except for Sebastian Cabbat. And he says, "Welcome. This is the next world." He says, "Really?" He goes, "I thought to be fire and pitchforks." He says, "No, no, no. The whole city is yours. What do you want to do?" So, I want to go out to eat. Said, "Sure, go to a restaurant. Everything's free." So he goes, "Well, I I want to gamble." Goes to a casino. Wins every hand, wins every spin. He says, "Well, I'm a criminal. I want to I want to go back to my life in crime." He says, "Go ahead." He breaks into a bank. The alarm goes off. Nobody chases him. After a while, he says, "I I think you must have made a mistake. I I don't think I belong here." He says, "Well, let's go to the Hall of Records." And they read his records and all the terrible things that he's done. He says, "And this is where I am?" He says, "Yeah." Anyway, it goes on like this and then finally at the end of the show, he says, "Look, you've obviously made a mistake. I don't belong in heaven. I belong in the other place." And Sebastian Cavitt says, "This is the other place." [laughter] And it send chills down my spine to this day. Yeah. Because that's what ganam is. Geham is the world that you made. You create your own gehenna. If you spend your whole life being close to trying to get close to then inhab you'll be close to and if you spend your whole life pulling away from Hashem then when you're dead and you ain't got nobody. Nobody. You're just a soul and all your soul wants is spirituality and you don't know how to connect to God because you spent your whole life pulling away from him. That's gehenna. No fire, no pitchforks, no devils. And I figured this out on my own. And it changed to a large extent my entire avote. And I remember I said to Kush at the time, I said, "Okay, let's let's make a deal. Okay, I'm going to make a deal with you. I'm going to dedicate my life to you and to spreading Ratan Hashem in the world and being a Maritzy and doing whatever I can do, whatever my limited abilities are. And when I get up to Shayim, I'm walking in the employees entrance because I'm part of the team. Okay? Everybody else can wait to be judged. I'm going to be, "Hey Dave, how are you going through here?" [laughter] Now that's not a correct theological approach but that was the approach that I took at that point that I said I'm not working here with the I'm working I'm going to try and I stress try not try my best. I I I never make any claim that I try my best. I've said this more than once. I know there are people out there who know everything I've ever said. You know, [snorts] someone asked me once, "What do you want him to say at your funeral?" Look, he's moving. [laughter] But if not that, if I could write the inscription on my mata, it would be, "He tried." Not he tried hard. Not that he tried a lot. Not that he tried his best, but he did try, you know. And if I could put in one inscription, it would be something that one of my former Russian Yeshiva said to one of my bosses goes, "Is Olski effective?" He says, "Yes." He goes, "I never thought he'd amount to anything. I would like that on my matsa, you know, Rav so and so, I never thought he'd amount to anything [laughter] because anything I did is more than anybody expected from me. Therefore, I am convinced that au gets a kick out of me and I talk to him and I dive into him and I don't pretend that I am without sin and I don't pretend that I'm perfect nor do I expect to be nor does he expect me to be because I'm sure he heard the words of Arasha who say I'm surprised he amounted to anything. So when you say, "I try so hard to live the life that I think Hashem wants me to be living." Good for you. Hashem is very impressed. I want so much to feel closeness to Hashem. But you don't because you must have had rebim like me who convinced you that he hates you and he's disappointed in you and he's angry with you. So often I feel this doubt especially when I'm trying to dive in. Of course, because more than anything, the Yates wants to stop you from doing Torah and mitzvos. And therefore, the Yates's biggest trick is not to get you to sin. It's to make you believe that you're worthless. So why should I bother deting? And why should I bother making a bra? And why should I bother doing any mitzvah when I'm just terrible anyway, nobody cares? It's like there's a voice inside of me saying, "If all of this is really true, why don't you feel more of a connection to Hashem?" There is a voice inside of you. It's called the I'm convinced intellectually, but not emotionally, of course, because God has terrible press. You know, God doesn't have anybody doing his marketing, doesn't have any influences. And so you actually believe that he's angry at you and disappointed with you and you know and upset with you. I used to ask from audiences years ago said do you think Hashem loves you? Nobody could say it. Then Barashem the Balua movement got stronger and everybody heard all the Baluva speeches. So then I would say does Hashem love you? And people would say right away yes. I said, "Does he like you?" That's harder to answer. And then I say, "Do you think he's impressed with you?" And that no one's been able to say God's impressed with me because Shashiva said, "I'm surprised he ever meant to do [laughter] anything." So when I get up in the morning and I get dressed and I go to sh I hear [applause] clapping. Good for you because as it's been said, I didn't think you'd ever amount to anything. [laughter] And then I dab and hashem, we live in a generation where there's something called participation awards and we're very happy you showed up. But I'm better than that. You know why? because I'm convinced that a kures who likes me and is impressed by me and listens to me. So when people say to me, could you den for me? Yeah, I'd like to have your name, but in the meantime, of course, I'll dive in for you because why shouldn't I heal the sick? Why shouldn't I give children to the childless? Why shouldn't I give shidim to singles who can't find a shak? Why shouldn't I be able to give a parnosa to somebody? Me? I'm surprised he amount to anything. [laughter] And therefore, if if I say, listen, someone's got to bring Msiah. It'll be me. I'll bring Mashia. Nobody else wants to do it. I'll do it. Are you the most impressive Jew that has lived in the past 2,000 years? Yep. Me. that I'm going to give brahas and I'm going to dive in and I'm going to bring Msiah and if anybody wants to help me great and if not I'll do it myself and that's what you got to do you got to say to yourself is applauding every [applause] time you get up there and din he's impressed with you 2,000 years of gullis how many Jews have fallen by the wayside and in our own day. How many people who are Jews are not domining, are not doing mitzvah, and you are? You're one of the single greatest Jews alive today. And you think Hashem is not impressed with you. That's only because the is afraid of you. Mosha Chait used to give a famous story. He said, "When I was a kid, I went to the zoo and I heard the lion roar and I got scared." And I said to the zookeeper, "Can he break out of the cage?" He says, "Yeah, but don't worry, he doesn't know it." And he says, "That's every one of us. We could do great things, but the convinces us that we're nobody and we're nothing. And I tell you is impressed with you." [applause] He calls over all the says, "Guys, standing ovation for this guy. Look at this day after 2,000 years of gullus with all the difficulties and all his doubts and all of his problems he's dominating. Let's hear it friends. Round of applause. You can't hear it cuz the answer to tell you boo. But he's inside of you. These guys are outside of you. He fills you with self-doubt because he's afraid of you. I've told this more than once says we blow one last tea to confuse the Satan because he thinks it's going to be the chauffeur of Msiah. [snorts] He says 2,000 years he's still falling for the same trick. And he said the Sultan's not stupid. We are. He knows how close we are at that moment to making it the shows. We don't. And when you dive in, you don't know how close you are to healing the sick and and and giving children of the childless and parnosa to the poor and shid to those who are looking for it and bringing Msiah. Hashem knows. He's listening. When you open that sitter, he's listening. He's giving you his attention. The all powerful infinite being who created the universe turns his attention to you. The is terrified of you because he knows you're going to be the guy who brings Msiah and he's got to stop you. So, it's been a little sad. It's the winter. It's dark. People are sad. And uh we have to understand I have an all powerful infinite friend who likes me and is rooting for me to succeed. And so do you. And if that doesn't put a smile on your face, I don't know what does because I don't want to take a non-Jewish rich person, but you take a really rich balabos, any of the famous rich Balabatam from Balabatam. He calls you up, he says, "You know what? I think you got potential, kid. What do you want to do with your life? How can I fund it? How can I help you? I believe in you." You're like, "Wow, I never thought about it cuz I I didn't think that I could change the world." He goes, "Yeah, yeah, you can. Trust me. I I I made my money by understanding people's abilities. What do you want to do?" Aur comes to you three times a day and says, "Nope. How can I help you? What would you like? What can we do together in this world? And whether you're having financial problems and health problems and you're a Shmayan problems, whether you're childless, whether you're still looking for a shak, I've mentioned this more than once. I saw a bumper sticky years ago that said, "Before you tell God how big your problems are, tell your problems how big God is." Baru made this world for you and he wants to see you succeed and he wants you to go to Alaba and he wants you to be happy and healthy and together and I'll ding for you and uh wish you the best. Whatever we can do together, we're going to make it through this world and we're going to change the world. And whe there are enough of us with a positive attitude, it's going to shake the FRIM community to its its foundations. It already is. There are so many of us crazies out there who are willing to be happy and positive and close to that it's shaking people up and we need you to join us. All right. I know I spent the entire time talking about myself, but I just want to read one of the comments I've received. I work full day on the computer as an accountant and I have the, you know, every now and then I think what would have happened if I actually went to college and got a degree and got a job. Anyway, doesn't matter. I It never happened. [laughter] This man is an accountant. I have the opportunity to listen to speeches while I'm working. And I wanted to tell you that I really love your speeches and I follow a lot of speakers, but you are the only one that I could listen to for hours in a row. Me too. Your sh like potato [laughter] chips. I just find myself finishing sh after she or show and just wanting more. Thank you so much. Thank you. And uh like potato chips, they are not healthy. Uh here's another one. Ever since I discovered the Rabi Olowski show on Nucky Radio, it has been the highlight of my week. I especially enjoyed the musical episodes and the question and answer. We have to have another musical episode coming up. It's almost figure out who we'll get. I don't really want to talk to Morai David Freed. I have to find somebody who's cooler than that. Schweki and Mai Shabir is so old. I'm looking for somebody young and happening. Now, let's see. Any of you uh young up and cominging musical stars who would like to come and be on the Revoli show and I know you watch, you know, be in touch because uh Pasha Schlak, that's our uh Shabashira like to have you on assuming that you're interesting and if you listen to the Rabbi Alaski show, you obviously are. Anyway, [laughter] and the question answers, as a high school girl, the show gives me. Wow, high school girls need trust me. I've told this story before, but this girl in Bako, you know, she came to seminary and she says, "I'm not happy." And I was a good girl. I never did this. I never did this. I never did this. I said, "But what did you do? [laughter] spent your whole life just staying out of trouble, but you didn't have anything that made you happy. So, Hashem, high school girls who listen to this show, get the to keep going. I need to keep going through school. Yeah, you sure do. Truly a breath of fresh air from many of the other sham available. Yes, indeed. And then a short one, Yakov Bza. I love the show. Well, that says it all, my friends. And that's it. Until next time. If you want to find out more about the show, you can go to my website, rovki.com, where you can sign up for the Pesak program with the Arlovskis. Yeah, the link is over there. Or you can sign up for one of my online sharim tila uh on Sundays, ML [music] Shan for women on Mondays, and Dafomi every day. That's for men. You can submit a question, make a comment, sponsor an episode, please. We're out of sponsors. sponsor a part five sponsor uh question [music] answer. Apparently we have a backload of about 70 questions that I need [music] to record and uh you know be help if we have some sponsors for that otherwise you know the show goes dark. Anyway that's it for now. Until next [music] time I am Devon Alaski. This has been the Devon Alowski show and remember smile. Hashem loves you. It's the Rabbi Orlovski Show. Torah and Sima, 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 [music] rhyme, don't we? It's the Rabbi Orlovski show on rabbi.com to anytime YouTube [music] and more. It's the Rabbi Oravski show. Torah and ready to go. It's the Rabbi Orlowski show. Till next time till we meet again. It's the Rabbi Orski show. It's the Rabbi Orski show. It's the Rabbi orski show.