Succos: Intense Happiness (Ep. 203)

hi this is David olowski and welcome to the Robert olowski show and whether you're watching with our friends over at tour anytime or wherever you watch or listen to your podcast as always it's a delight that you've decided to take out time for your busy schedule to spend it with me and I appreciate it very much and this is of course our pre-sukis podcast foreign that of course is from my close friend and one of the uh most exciting uh educators of the past 100 years the Alta yakness he goes around to schools he's uh he you might know his cassetto you know probably you never know them anymore now you'd know about his CDs yeah and um he has a podcast yeah and uh he uh he's just a wonderful person just all around I mean when you're getting ready for young if you have to put on the rivialta you know my kids know this already you know even though you know they're in their 30s but we still put on the rivial to get ready yet um I got a call some months ago and by the family and they said that he's very sick they don't think he's gonna make it you know like we're asking people to come down to the hospital and Say Goodbye and I came down and uh he had begun to make a recovery actually when I went there his kidneys had failed um and uh you know but but he was hanging on and I walk in to the hospital room not knowing what to expect and uh he's lying in the bed and it reaches over and he grabs my hand it was a surprising amount of strength and he looks into my eyes and he says what happened to the podcast [Laughter] I said okay you know to produce the left you have to get a new producer we're going to go you got to put up the broadcast this is someone who was dangling Between Two Worlds and the only thing he was worried about was the raviolowski show anyway Hashem he's still in the hospital but he's making a remarkable recovery they're calling it a miracle but please keep him in your Fearless and uh you know revialto if you're out there listening we love you and uh we can't uh can't wait to have you with us it's just not call you saw without you and uh we have a sponsorship for this week that was a little personal shout out we have a sponsorship by our good friend anonymous thank you so much as always Anonymous and uh he doesn't have a dedication is not a uh uh legal inishmas you know not an honor it's just a question hi Rabbi what's your favorite joke you know this is a hard question for example when people say what's your favorite food unfortunately by seeing me you know that that's too why the question so if you say what's your favorite pizza okay you could try to you know what's your favorite Dairy dish you know you're trying to limit it but to pick one food so one joke is really hard hard to do but if I had to take one joke that always makes me laugh yeah it's uh uh you know I've told it a lot but I don't know why it's it's this okay I need a little introduction there's some jokes that are like very clever and I just say them over to myself just the inside of what humor is one of them I heard from my good friend Rose Oliver Shalom who's no longer with us and um he said this joke to me it's an old joke but uh but I I caused it over just because it's so clever time flies like an arrow fruit flies like a banana let me see why that's so clever because in the first one flies is a verb and the second one flies as a noun and the first one like is um as the second one is like is likes and joys yeah so it's like the same exact phrase it means something completely different which is really very clever but uh that's not the funniest joke I do Hazard over though because it's the inside of humor in many ways but to me the one that I always like is that when I want to go I want to go like my grandfather quietly in his sleep not screaming hysterically like all the passengers in his car out um there are certain Jokes which are contextual you know at the moment it's a it's a funny joke and there's no way you tell it over you can't tell it over because you have to recreate the entire scenario that was taking place when you told the joke so anyway but um uh but I'd have to go with that one yeah okay so thank you I hope that was worth sponsoring the uh the episode and uh you know but obviously people like this who are good friends of the show and there are Hashem a lot of them who are good friends of the show and uh they just they they want to sponsor because they want to make what we're doing and they want to help spread the Torah to to many many people and I've said this before there are people who listen to this show and don't necessarily listen to other podcasts every now and then I meet somebody who says to me like you know goes well of course I don't have time to listen to that I'm listening to straight Taurus yorum yours is a show yep anytime there's uh I don't know when we when we in interviewed uh uh kolyakov he's I think he said there was 10 million hours of Torah that was watched there's so much uh available there and and you can get just straightforward this is a different kind of experience I don't think there's anybody who does what we do over here which is to present toyura and Torah ideas in an entertaining way although it will occasionally um go in a different direction and uh talk about other things as well I I will do that and I Leave Myself the freedom to do that but full disclosure when I give a share I do that also you know so uh in fact if Miss Hashem the next episode is going to be our SIM card's base of show Ava episode so uh um it'll singing and and different Torah and find food and drink which you can all enjoy watching us have you're not going to have any unless you have a 3D printer we can send it to you but um uh you know yeah yeah that's one of the things we do here is just to have a a positive Jewish experience it was very interesting I used to give a share every other moti shave is in harnof and um and people would sometimes say to me the reason I come here is of course it's the only place I work out feeling good that I'm from Jew nobody's putting you down no one's no one's knocking you it's very positive message so that's what we do we want everyone to be able to have a good time and I I get emails from people who say this is the only teller I listen to you know because it's so positive and so upbeat that it relates to our lives and well there's so much more to say about me but let's let's put that aside from them because we have to talk about circus [Music] you'll be so sick of that song when someone starts it you will want to die it's it's it gets annoying very quickly I just annoying quickly yeah uh diaspora had this song you don't really hear people sing it anymore but it only had one part yeah um it's really hard to tell the difference between the first one thank you and that's why I don't know who coined it but uh but it definitely is the right tune for it I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves I know a song that gets on everybody's no I know okay you get the idea so uh you know it's okay to sing other songs that's what's great about um uh about circuses of course uh Halal we say full Howell for eight days and uh you have all the Halal songs to sing there's so many Hollow songs there's so much uh singing and we'll talk about this a little bit next time we'll talk about the simple and the celebration and the singing and everything that goes on with that which is really something very special but right now we're getting ready for circus and you are decorating your soccer right very important um you could go and buy your dog medium but odds are you have no idea what you're doing you ever see these people they have no idea what they're looking at one thing better than is that people actually invest in one of those Jeweler things looking at this they don't know what cautious but they got the little eyepiece you know so most people just buying a box you know with with the olive olive you know you know best of the best anyway but uh but decorating The Soca hire people to put up these sucker but there are people who will come and decorate I don't think so maybe there is there might be a service a circuit decorating service if not I'll show some enterprising young man who's going to listen to this and say hey I think I've got a new market that I haven't even thought of yet so if you do and you actually make some money off of it remember your good friend revolovski and we hope to see you sponsor an episode advertising your service before next circus anyway but uh people are decorating it so you have to put up your posters of uh of the godolam and uh you have to put up your plastic fruit yeah yeah I have to put up your paper chains this is a diva girl because it's only a paper chain hanging over the circle wall right so you have to sit there and make all the paper chains if you have little kids this is this is what they live for stapled together those paper chains yeah and then you hang them up uh you usually have to put the big disco ball right in the middle you should be Dancing Yeah right after that floating around um you uh some people put up their Russian China cards those who still get registration cards it's a little hard otherwise you just have to you know put out a laptop and have it like on a going over and over again all the people who sent you those e-cards because they're too cheap to actually buy you a card well we used to hang up all the Russian Shadow cards you know um they're uh people who uh especially here in aristrell uh they use blinking lights that are used in most countries on a different holiday and they uh they use it over here on circus and um I can't do it because I grew up in America and I see blinking lights and they bring one image forward to me and uh my uh my kids they get married first thing they do is put up in their circle of blinking lights because Abba wouldn't let us have blinking lights don't get it you know but Hashem they don't get it you know my good friend Robert granowski who was on the podcast uh he said that um he uh he was I think it Mighty stuff and it's passing by some consideration soccer and there's some decoration with Santa on it there he is you know his big red suit big white beard you know ho ho ho so he says to the kid you know who that is he says some rabba they don't know about Hashem they don't know yeah when you buy uh these kosher phones here they come with certain pre-recorded rings and more than once I've seen you know his cell phone goes off that's not what it is you know catchy tune anyway so um uh so they're decorating The Soca they're setting everything up and one of the things that you always put up is of course an usbizen sign I have another spies inside so people can say they wish Beeson um supposed to say right at the beginning sometimes people remember in the middle of the meal sometimes they forget completely you know certain people get missed but of course we have the usbizen which is a central theme and circus and we welcome the first day avraham second day Yitzhak and then yaakov and then Moshe and iron and then Yosef and dovet now Yosef is out of chronological order and this seder there's a different seder but in this theater he's out of order that's because these are not merely the people they are what the people represent and they represent the seven lower spheros there are three upper spheres they represent the seven lower spheres which we know of course from um even in your art school sitter they'll tell you that this week is this week is gevura this week is teferas and each one of these seven individuals not only represented themselves as individuals and individual accomplishments but they worked to integrate a particular media into the world there are certain people who do this right on about shemtov was nifter so 10 of his hasidim right each one of them said we're going to take one of his medus and concentrate on that so okay so it's a bit of a specialty but uh that doesn't mean you don't have the others it just means you're specializing in and emphasizing one of them that's why when you go through the first week of this Versace you know when you come to it's actually right your everything is being seen through the lens of that particular media but all the other Medias are there you need everything in order to be a complete person but it's just putting more emphasis on them so avraham is obviously I said and uh Yitzhak is gura which is complete self-control it can't have much more self-control than Yitzhak and in fact it's for the most part does nothing he's almost never in a story by himself he's in a story with avraham oh he's in a story with you smile or with Rifka or with yaakov and asov there's only one story he gets by himself and that's the wells and that's why very often the picture they put on the usbizen is the well what happens he digs it well and they take it away he digs another will and they take it away he digs a third world and they don't take it away that is yes starring story what did he do nothing because he's givora says complete control jakov is Tavares and of course they always show that ladder yeah foreign foundation and David is malchus yeah that's perfect casting yeah so each one of them usually has some sort of an image that captures what they are and we invite one of them in on every day of sukis to come and join with us in arasuda which okay you know you you have these stories of Sadiq who say don't sit over there I have room sitting there you know uh whatever it is okay could be people are actually being visited you know we um we don't really uh have the actual experience in there that I can tell they might be there but I haven't seen them but uh but obviously when we're saying that each day we're taking in one of the usbizen and with it vermida and with it that's Vera then there's obviously a message in there for us of what we're supposed to be doing with the ush VISA so I've mentioned this beforehana says that by the way full disclosure it's not that I have such bikius and the sick today of Kahana but Maisha spoke about this a few different times so that's that's why I got it from vermeister Shapiro I always have to add that in um so where it says then there would have been yamuntovim in tamus of an ello just like every other month but because of the ego those three months was spent getting Capone for the ego they were all condensed into tishri everyone should spoke about how they would have worked out Thomas would have been Rosh Hashanah Tisch above would have been Yom Kippur and sukis would have been in ello and then we would have counted seven weeks till we came to aceres and the hazao referred to shuis as atseras from pesach to shuis is seven weeks and it would have been from circus toshminia Terrace seven weeks and that would have been a version of spirit but we don't have that anymore so we go from Rosh Hashanah and 10 days later DM Kipper and five days later to Circus and now you have seven days to pack in seven weeks of work which means that every single day of circus is an entire week of fear assignment and that's the USPS and that's when we say the first weakest and the second week is we have one day to do that and that's why circus is so incredibly intense it's meant to be intense on every level I think I spoke about this in the past but you know the gemara says what did they do they uh um by Nightfall they would go to the basement they would dance all night and then they would go down to Shiloh and draw the water and they would come up with a big procession and then they'd bring the carbon tournament and they'd pour the water on the on the mizberg together with it and then everybody would go and Diamond chakras and then they would come back and then they would bring the court musaf then everybody would stop and they would go out and they'd dive and musaf and then they'd come back and uh and when their voter was all done then they would go and uh have a Seder they would learn and then they would have their Suda and then they came back for the um carbon of uh carbon Thomas and then they have another seder and then they would eat something and then it was time for the simple there's a shovel uh they did this for seven days to which the gemara makes a husband I notice when planning your schedule you left out one thing and that was sleep you gotta be careful when you're planning [Laughter] for years for nine years I was the Long Island director of ncsy and we would make the shabbaton schedule and I noticed we were always running late yeah an hour late I couldn't figure out where that hour was why are we always running late and then I realized I I actually timed it I measured my schedule uh against what was actually happening and I found out where it was and that is after davening we have to move everybody from the shul into the Social Hall which might be right next door that takes a half an hour it doesn't make any reason why it should but people are moving from sure to the shabasuda it's not like a fire drill you know they're not a maneuvers yeah slowly sauntering along till they get to the suda right at the end of the suda to move them from the Social Hall back into the Shoal for the keynote address it took another half an hour so I was always an hour behind because I didn't take into account so here we've worked out a fine schedule the only thing we forgot is sleeping and uh listen when when you fly and I I fly often uh you know if you have to make a stopover flight you have to figure out how much time do you have for the connection like if you a few times I had to change planes in Frankfurt airport and um one side of the airport to the other side uh I think you have to drive through Dresden to get there I don't know what it is it's an enormously large airport and you're running and running to try to get from place to place it's uh it's very challenging yeah um you have to take that into account how much time do I have to make the flight what's my what's my time what happens if it gets delayed and you know what's my cushion so when you're working out your scheduling you have to know so I say oh my gosh I forgot to factor in sleep whoops yeah many years ago uh um agent England brought me out for a trip and um we were running from event to event all across England I spoke in London and Birmingham and and Leeds and then Manchester we're running back and forth and at one point I said when do we eat it's like oh oh Eid um I don't know I don't know just thought maybe you could factor that in you know I went on a trip to England with Orissa Maya they took me to my home my my good friends the frankels in Hendon they right away give you something to eat they said would you like to take a shlove I said yes I would love to take a shliff go up to your room have a little Slough we'll wake you up when your ride comes they'll pick you up they'll take you to dinner then you'll go to your speech that's really what I need at this point I feel more like Joe Biden you know I mean I need somebody to drive me from location location tell me what to say where to go you know it you know that's it just wind me up and I'll get up I'll give my speech and then they bundle me off in the car and say okay now go back to bed we need you so um where do they sleep where's the time so they said you don't sleep during circus if you have to sleep you put your head on your friend's shoulder and yeah take a little nap then you get up again because it's so exciting little kids don't want to go to bed why because everything is new and exciting they're afraid they're gonna miss something didn't want to miss anything when you get older you realize there's nothing there you're not missing anything don't worry about it but when you when you're little one of my kids once they asked me they said what are you and Emma do when we go to sleep I said when you go to sleep oh then we have a party we take out the bumba and the Bisley and we put on music and we dance and we invite in friends because I know it but I knew there was that party going on but if it's something cautious Jackie Mason says you know you go down to Miami Beach he says I was doing a show Miami Beach he says if you have a room that doesn't face the water it's a hundred dollars if it faces the water two thousand dollars yeah I used to sleep with one eye open because I wanted to make sure I got my money's worth something exciting you don't want to miss it you don't want to miss it um I did a shavatone and uh Palm Springs California through poor planning it was in August it was a 116 degrees that job is not enjoyable let's just say that you know but uh well while we were down there I took my my kids to uh to uh Universal Studios and they wanted to go on lots of rides in this big long lines but you could pay and get um um these uh these Express passes you can go on everything so I invested in them for them I didn't buy one for myself why do I want to go on these things for you know and they're running from this place to that place they're cutting in here cutting in there they were so excited they got to go on all the rides and enjoy it if they didn't want to stop I'm gonna stop us you want to get something to eat no no there's another machine that's gonna spin us around upside down 100 miles an hour you know I don't want to miss that no no you don't so uh every now and then now they have these things on these screens where they sh you know it makes it feels like you're zooming all over the place I just get my eyes closed I can't handle it you know I get nauseous what do I need that for an old man sit down and have a cup of tea and a piece of cake I'm looking for the worst American trip to England you know would you like a piece of cake yes that'd be fine you know a cup of tea yes wonderful but circus we're living life it's a party you know sometimes obviously he's been fasting all day and he's you know he's tired and he's dancing with all his friends you know and they pull over a chair and they sit him down they can't sit there they jump back up you know they want to dance they wanted this you know I don't want to miss the experience you know usually and I'm generalizing here but usually you know a customer call it doesn't like say in the middle of the continent I'm gonna go down take a nap for an hour so I'm exhausted a busy day there's so much to do my father who was impossible to impress he was impossible he couldn't say it possibly he just couldn't do it whatever genetic he got it from his father maybe he was a Polish a year that's why I don't know but he just couldn't you know and um I remember my wife you know when she was growing up so like a big night out would be the pizza place you know they'd go to the pizza place and it was very exciting you know so when we engaged my my parents took us out to luji seagulls it was it was they advertised themselves as the fanciest kosher restaurant in the world my wife was beyond words so exciting I said wow this place is beautiful and my friend's like yeah it's okay not impressed that's okay that's how they worry about everything you know and the only time I can remember seeing my father emotional yeah was after my wedding he took all my money he told me he was going to because he says sometimes people wait in the parking lot for the custom color and they rob them you know so I'll take all the gifts home with me and uh and the next day we came by see how much of it would get back again and my father was Mirage I never saw this before he was emotional maybe we just sit us down at the table we get coffee you give that coffee and cake let me tell you something until I got engaged I wasn't allowed to sit in the living room but they invited my wife in and I came with her so that's why that's the first time I ever sat in my living room living room was for my parents and their friends and you weren't allowed in there in fact they put this plastic Runner across the carpet if there's like a fire or something and you have to go from one side to the other you work on the plastic but otherwise you walk around the whole house don't walk in the living room that's our room tell us invited to sit on the couch I couldn't believe it I was like oh my gosh I've been moved up they invite us in and my father said he loved his mother that was when he was as crazy about his mother and he says I just wish my mother could have been alive to see this because it was Yeshiva khasana they had never seen any yes before you know I just I just wish my parents I just was my mother could have been alive to see this you know and uh and my father was a florist he worked with Caterers you know and he knew the business he goes I never saw a band that didn't take a break okay so at the time when I was you know running uh running ncsy so my good friend schmucleaver uh he was the the drummer in the band you know for uh for uh for the ncsy events you know and evidently I I was getting him to uh play very often for no money I don't know how I did this he was a very successful musician and that's why one Debbie wrote a song and play for free play for free it was because Robert olowski comes to me and says play for free play for free it's for the kids it's not for me it was hysterically funny anyway so he says I'm putting together your band now I don't know from these things so okay now have a time back then would always have Dave Norman so Dave Norman was going to be there for sure and schmoo was there he got both of the piamenta brothers I don't know everybody else who was there but he put together which everybody said was unbelievable band but that's not what impressed my father he said they didn't take a break they didn't stop playing the whole night I never saw a band that didn't take a break very interesting yeah Hashem they were friends they they felt they felt the cash it was something special that was going on when something special going on you don't take a break you know run off and take a nap you don't lie down circus is intense that's the usbizen it's seven weeks condensed into seven days you have to work very hard and yeah it's possible and the words of the comedian Stephen Wright any closet's a walk-in closet if you try hard enough so I gotta stuff all this in that's the wishbisen every single day then we invite in another one of the USPS and we're saying we're doing an entire week of work in this one day of circus that's what sukka says sookus is intense intense happiness so much happiness that you could go crazy you know crazy from happiness I'm sick already from all this happiness too much happiness a famous story this guy was very busy he was doing all kinds of Mitzvah said and helping people with all kinds of things that he felt like it was too much ready it's too much ready enough yeah I want to uh I want to um uh you know spend more time my family for myself Etc but I'm doing good work with all kinds of people what should I do so someone said listen the couple times visiting the Shabbos uh I got patexia I'll slip you into the door and uh you could answer the question at the end of the suda you know you probably have a few minutes before he has to go and you'll ask him ask him your question so he slips in and he sits off to the side as unobtrusively as possible time sees him working and he's saying misma ledovan right he would sing it at every Suda when it came to the words he stops he says a road Dave is somebody who's chasing you and wants to harm you and he turns and looks at this guy no one told him what he was there for he looks at the guy and he says we're always going to have Taurus in life it might be illness might be monetary problems might be uh let the things that are pursuing me to cosmit Sorrows Beethoven has said you you should be able to have a sukis where there's so much simpler that you're like oh my gosh I'm gonna work so hard to be happy I have to enjoy myself more and more huh oh it's difficult I sort of brought down that there's a minute to eat fine food and drink fine wine on on circus why because the sukkas are because of the anonia covered but we also get the man that tasted like everything and the bear which tasted like every drink so we also need Fine Food and fine drink in order to be able to uh um in order to be able to enjoy uh Circus the right way and all the knees and the flows does for us okay and that brings us to the question and answer portion of our program Anonymous asks why what does the Rev look at when he's reading the announcements so when I had producer Mikhail we were a little more low-tech he had a music stand that was slightly off camera and he used to print out the pages and I would read them as surreptitiously as I could and now uh producer Israel uses a computer as a teleprompter and now I'm reading it of a teleprompter okay next question am I Anonymous well he has a lot of questions can we see behind the scenes of the raviolowski show yes next time you are in Jerusalem we film either on Monday or Tuesday Mornings and uh I'm more than happy to have you we've had audiences here in the past and we'd love to have you sometimes people sponsor the episode and come along and uh you definitely have that option and we would love to have you be part of our studio audience hi mitzkowitz why when saying hashem's name do we substitute the hay for a cuff and if you say it's the same letter but with a longer line then why do we still use the cook for other names of Hashem so I got this question a long time ago and the short answer is I haven't the sliced idea but I talked it over with a number of times and most of them had absolutely no idea but one person gave me the answer that you did not like and that is that if you take the hay and you extend it it makes a cuff and uh So when you say well what about other names well hello Kim is also a hey so if you extend it it becomes a cuff um a shakai which is a dalid if you extend it it becomes a cuff um um trying to think which other names you're going to have uh ekier is also it's a hey so um you're going to be hard put to find something where when you extend it it doesn't look like a cuff that's more or less what what we came up with um you can see sometimes when they write hashem's name they just write a dollar and that's a similar idea they just took off the little spits of the hay so you're left with a dollar so that's where they would use a dollar instead of a hey so uh in general when they substitute these letters it would seem to be that it was just a more convenient way of writing it uh so that you have the essence of the letter with uh some sort of a change anonymous how did that work with alchuva everyone just got a quote free pairs close quotes so you can ask this also about that you'd give me those it says if you say that you'd give me those so coach Barack will forgive your sins no it's not an incantation it's not just some sort of magic that you say it and you get copper no that's what the safe atoma devara is about it's not that you said that you'd given me those but that you Incorporated the uncable midos and therefore you incorporate this inside of yourself and therefore you become long-suffering who judges me the Connecticut me there and so you change it the big day Kahuna when you put them on it wasn't just the magical putting it on the bed it's that the baguette was there to repair the damage that the great of other Maria shown did to the um of a person to fix the the what's lacking in us today I I gave the example a long time ago um when I was a kid I used to read comic books and the Fantastic Four was uh was one of the ones that I enjoyed and one time they lost their powers so read Richards who's of course very very smart made different things for the people to mimic their powers are there for us to return ourselves to what the big day Kahuna was supposed to have been originally with the tourism was and helps us focus on it and so like anything else that you do it's not the thing itself right like Rosh Hashanah says out of the hostess out of copper put it on a stick hung it up put it up and people would look at it and get healed has the power to heal not to heal but you would look at the hush and that would remind you to look up to so all the big dick Kahuna have that so therefore um the midst net Fest the coming of the war that big Turban hat was why because it goes up so high and it's supposed to remind you of that yeah the um which were there to cover up the makum of erava is to remind you to protect the mukam Arava and not to engage in immorality um uh every every one of the Calum was there for you to focus on something right is he would carry it on his heart so that in his heart he would remember to judge people correctly now you could put on we know in second place amigdish they were koenegadolamo who were not good people they put on the clothes but didn't do anything for them it didn't it didn't accomplish it was accomplished it's not the clothing themselves but the clothing allows you to become the person you're supposed to be Anonymous asks do you have any idea for what to do with leftover Charlotte yeah tonsicles get those little uh you know popsicle uh Things fill it up with children put in a stick freeze it great hot day just sucking some Frozen chaunt that would seem to be the best alternatively you can use it for the mortar in between the bricks they also serve that purpose and that's it for this week I hope everyone's getting ready for the circus I hope this will add to you and if you want to find out more about the show you can go to my website rabiolowski.com you can leave a comment you can send an email you can um uh sign up for one of our online shiorim uh you can sponsor an episode soon you'll be able to sponsor our five minute Parsha Insight which is going to be starting with uh parishes baratius very soon it's coming around the corner and uh and that's about it for this week uh everyone should have a hugs and until next time I Am David olowski and this is the raviolovski show it's the rabbi orlowsky show [Music] will help you grow lots of fun in every episode and we don't have to rhyme it's the rabbi our livesky show on rabbi orlowsky.com Torah anytime you two and more it's Rabbi olowsky show Torah ready to go it's the rabbi rolovsky show till it's time so we meet again the rabbi wolowski show it's the rabbi olowski show it's the rabbi orlovski