The Art of Consistency (Ep. 198)

hi this is David rolowski and welcome back to the Roberts show whether you're watching with our friends over at tour anytime whoever you watch or listen to your podcast as always we're happy to have you along and uh by the way if anyone's interested in sponsoring an episode as an honor or in memory or just because you like what we're doing here and want to help us keep producing the podcast so please go to my website rabiolonsky.com where you can sponsor an episode okay we are into hello again [Music] as I mentioned I still have not been booked for shashana um but in any event uh I want to give an idea that I think is very important today when we talk about uh preparing for dinner so those who have been keeping up with the deaf you know me so uh we finished getting just before that we did saita and you'll no doubt remember this gamara and Sota and base Ahmad alif uh it's talking about yanai aramalka yanai is a uh uh terrible story terrible story yeah the last of the five surviving Maccabee Brothers with the shimana Maccabee uh all the other four died and uh his son Johan and harkinis uh was the um was the coming and uh at some point they took the malchras for themselves it wasn't joke it was his son but they took the malchus and that's the reason uh that rebby left the name out of the mishnah because since he comes from malchus base David and they usurped the kingship uh says that's why he left them out of the mishnah altogether but Jim and uh Maccabee obviously was a big sadik and his son Joker and herkiness it says uh don't ever trust in yourself because at the age of 80 he became a saduki right the purushim where what we today call the what they call the Pharisees and the tadukim what they call the Sadducees those were the people who rejected the turish about pep [Music] went over to the side of the saduki it was a tragic end to the story and his wife was captured by the Greeks a woman who was captured is Usher to the Kahuna because we're afraid that she may have had relations with a non-jew and therefore that is forbidden to marry a Cohen someone who's had that situation so really with yoga and herkiness should have gotten divorced his wife but he didn't uh and he had a son yanai whom now that sadhu Kim realized they had an opportunity here so when yanai uh took over he made himself malach and that sadukim had his ears and were able to influence him and he says the rabbis will reject you and he says why would you say that he says because they won't hold your account he's of course I'm a coin my father was the going guadal he says you know what come out in the begotten of the coin guttle and see what happens and sure enough he comes out and the begotten of the and are surprised to say the least and they say listen Yana it's enough to be the king you don't have to also be the coin cuddle that was that was diplomatic it didn't help and he killed out the terrible thing who was uh the of based and escaped to Egypt and Manchester was the sister of it was the brother to yanai's wife francina malka and and uh and she hid him until the coast was clear anyway Yana in his deathbed and he's realizing now that uh he's done a terrible thing sometimes people do terrible things they finally come to a recognition and as he's at the end of his life he tells his wife this is what the gamara so the bay says he says to his wife don't worry about the Pharisees don't worry about the Sadducees sadhu Kim I'm good with and the prusem are not vindictive that way you just have to worry about the hypocriteshim they pretend that they're prusem and they're not they really are shyam foreign you know the story yeah at the end of uh parishes Bullock zimmery uh does a terrible Avera and Pinnacles kills him because of this he becomes a coin and so he says listen you don't have to worry about anybody except the phonies and the hypocrites those are the worst and um and uh they'll they'll they'll look at you like you're your friend and turn around and stab you in the back you can't trust anything that they say the Hypocrites are the most dangerous thing because I'll say foreign how do you know we learn from Yosef why because Yosef knew he had these dreams and he knew that he had to get his father to come down to Egypt with his 11 brothers and bow down them that was the second tree the first dream was that the 11 sheaves would bow down to him and that was fulfilled when he set up a situation that Benjamin came down and when they all bowed down to him that was the first Dream but the second dream was the Sun the moon and the stars so he has to get yaakov to bow down to him too with the brothers and then he can reveal himself and he doesn't go the distance he breaks down before he he finishes the Fulfillment of the second dream and Yehuda comes to him he comes armed yeah we'd die by a Russian kosher he comes in guns blazing and he says uh what kind of a person are you I have an elderly father who's in uh who's in Israel 130 years old yeah he already lost one of his children from that second wife of his and now you want to take the other one and make him into a Slave what kind of a person takes a child away from an elderly man what kind of a person would charge would cause this kind of pain to somebody is is up there and he's carrying on and Yosef says I need Yosef is my father still alive azabeth Levy what he said was how come you didn't have this question when you sold me into slavery didn't you think about what it would do to your father didn't you understand the pain that would cause him and the brothers just were devastated Chris I came in with this righteous indignation how dare you and Joseph says you hypocrites and that's the toughest thing the hardest thing is when we see that we have a philosophy and that philosophy is nonsense and today we live in a world where the hypocrisy is so intense I I apologize for borrowing from secular culture but it surrounds us the Academy Awards which was supposed to be given out for the best movie set up all kinds of conditions you have to have X number of these kind of people like somebody oh you're or your movie will not be considered so some of the greatest movies that were ever made could not win the Academy Award today yeah it's all for other considerations other than great movie making what are the Academy Awards uh this past year they started with a denouncement of violence and violence in the Ukraine violence here and how terrible violence is and then a guy gets up a comedian to give out an award and he makes a joke and a famous actor didn't like the joke and he came up on stage and smacked him now me now I understand the guy was in shock from national television in front of the entire world but I would have said you hypocrites you stand here and denounce violence and you watch this guy beat me and you don't say a word later on in that evening that fella won an award and he got a standing ovation from these same people who denounced violence and now they're giving a standing ovation of this guy who went and attacked somebody because he didn't like his joke you hypocrites there was a comedian by the name of uh Ricky Gervais I think um now there's this clip going around we was at the Golden Globes and he says I want to make one thing clear he says tonight we're gonna give out awards for your acting for your directing whatever it may be get up there say thank you and sit down do not make any political speeches because you're all a bunch of Hypocrites you're a bunch of phonies it says you you come out you're in favor of this in favor of that unless your movie has to play in China and then you'll do whatever they want or for this Market or for that market you work for companies that abuse people you know and hurt people and do the worst things in the world and if Iran had a television station you'd work for them you don't care about anything you get up here and you spout all your political nonsense and you're a bunch of hypocrites wow president Trump had classified documents that he was supposed to turn over and he didn't Hillary Clinton head unbelievable amounts of it of course my documents are unprotected servers and then she answered washed the drive talk about uh uh obstruction of justice and uh the head of the FBI at the time said well we don't have enough evidence to convicta I don't have evidence Joe Biden they found boxes and boxes of classified documents going back to when he was a Senator we didn't have the power to declassify documents and they were in an unprotected garage and in his office wasn't charged Trump had them in a locked room in Mar-A-Lago he's going to go to jail what's he had classified documents and people look at this and say the hypocrisy is so unbelievable during covert there was unbelievable lockdowns and the Democrats were the most vocal about it I'm not coming out of one side or the other it's just a fact Governor Newsom arrested people who opened up their restaurants arrested people who broke the curfews arrested he put them in jail and then he went to a fancy restaurant without a mask and a bunch of friends that had a party that was okay what a hypocrite um governor of Michigan uh she uh she said no one's allowed to go out you're not allowed to mow your lawn you're not allowed this somebody goes out they would arrest them except for a husband that took his boat out you know went boating that was okay representative uh uh AOC was the crying uh Florida they had having the lockdowns not making people wear masks DeSantis all these kind of things that you went on vacation to Florida was seen you know going around to parties and stuff without a mask the hypocrisy at least pretend pretend that you believe in something let's go through the motions but don't just spit in everybody's face the end of SATA the mishna when it lists um uh what is going to happen before Michelle comes it says truth is going to be very rare yeah Trump did not create the term fake news it preceded him where people report news that it's clearly false I remember during the Democratic um debates 2020. they asked every person who was running for president every single one of them would you outlaw late-term abortions and every one of them said no every one of them I saw the debate I saw it myself the scientist was just being interviewed by a reporter from NBC anyways he asked about abortion he says look what the Democrats are doing with late-term abortions I mean that's infanticide you're you're killing children because I have to push back on that she says no Democrat has said that everybody running for president said it the Democratic governor of Virginia said when I was a doctor I would wait till the child was born and then ask the mother if she wanted the kid or not and if not then we would dispose of it post-birth abortion it's called Murder but we figure if we change the thing from uh killing a person to aborting a fetus then it's okay even in the ninth month and they would ask them even in the ninth month yes that's a question for a mother for for a woman to make with her doctor and the government has no place in this and she just looks at him and lies lies through her teeth there is a very well-known Torah personality I won't call him a Godly I don't think he's another brother but he's a turd personality and part of his presentation is coming out against cell phones and smartphones and how terrible they are and you know that it talks about a lot then someone took a picture of him in the car talking on his cell phone if you if you're going to talk about things there are certain rub on him who have railed against the concept of a Pacer hotel I have never railed against the concept of peso Hotel uh I happen to think you'll have a better pesach at home um there are times that I've gone away to peso hotels and uh I said it's a great vacation but I didn't feel it was a meaningful pesach in my own way I tried to make it a meaningful pesach for the people where I was but you know okay uh uh it's it's really tough to do the last time I got an offer for a person Hotel it was before Corona I got six offers yeah what an art show one in Mexico uh one in California and uh three in the New York area you know the tri-state area and uh they said we would love to have you for pesach I said listen I'm not leaving my family the idea of having this Chris being able to go to a fancy hotel and stay in a beautiful room and and have delicious meals which I've had is only could I if I can give my family that experience so then I'm willing to give up on having peso at home I like Pace out at home I like my dishes I like I like the food that we make I like the Seder in my house I like everything about it I don't wanna I don't want to go someplace else but I'll do it if I can give my children that experience because I know that it's a big treat so every player said the same thing sure what's involved I said at the time you know um uh eight rooms and uh 20 tickets from Israel so two people said are you out of your mind and I said I didn't ask for it you asked me I told you I I I it's you know I don't want to leave my family so if you want to bring my family that's what it's about two people said but we'll ask you would really love to do it you're definitely worth it you know but I don't think we're in a position two people said I think we can make it work and they ask a few questions would you do this we'll get back to you I never heard from them again that was four years ago but um uh but even though I like pesach at home I'm not going to come out against it but I know robundum who came out against it and now their Scholars of residents that pays the hotels that hurts obviously they're okay with it but it hurts me to see this because that's called minutes volume that's hypocrisy if you think it's wrong don't do it doesn't come right just because now you get an offer you have to have integrity and it's very hard I'm not I'm not here to judge anybody somebody once said to me robulowski you have integrity you wouldn't sell out and I said no one offered me enough yet but I'm sure for the right price I would sell out to anyone who thinks they can't do it if Usher Rubenstein tells the story that when he was in partnovich he uh he went to see his at the time and he comes in as far they're all perm dick and he's sitting there depressed so remember this had to have been in the 1960s I guess I assume maybe the 70s but it was very rare that there were violent crimes among Jews yes Arabs committed terrorist attacks but they're the Jew would would kill another Jew and that day a Jew killed his business partner and it was in the it's in the papers and high school was very upset about this it upset him very much and he said to the boys you know why I've never killed anybody this is because I never had enough motivation person doesn't know what they would do if they were pushed to a situation but a person has to know I ask myself all the time I really do if I was in a situation the dios Hashem what would I do and I would like to believe that I could do it never be Akiva the age of 120. who's being tortured to death for the crime of teaching Torah it's smiling is what is this witchcraft you know he says my whole life I would say five times a day foreign so we say twice in the morning twice at night and we say creation five times a day we say I'm ready to give up my life and now that I finally have the chance I shouldn't be happy yeah I could focus on the fact that they're ripping my skin off but I choose to focus on the fact that I finally have a chance to show that I have integrity and I'm honest I've told historian in a past podcast but I I just got an email from somebody who says to me that he he watches and re-watches them and each time he gets another insight into it so my apologies to you because you you mustama heard this story before but um I went to uh I've been in Israel for a year I went back and um I took my kids to Manhattan for a day my brother lent me his van took my kids to Manhattan for a day that they see Central Park or whatever it was and um and a good friend of mine Jason Coleman spark lives in Minneapolis came along help out and I'm circling around I can't find any parking well I'm I'm in Manhattan near Central Park in the park Jackie Mason points out you know Jill can have a hundred thousand dollar car but he's not going to pay for parking he's gonna keep circling around anyway I got a van there's no parking spots I have no choice I have to go into a lot now this is 35 years ago so money was different back then yeah and I pull into the thing and they say it's 18 an hour okay now is dollars an hour I park a car guy says oh I'm sorry it's a van it's double 36 dollars an hour I said you wanna pay me want to go back out there I was like fine come on kids we're going to see Central Park in less than an hour anyway we come back and uh there's a different guy on duty and he says uh eighteen dollars are you my [Music] wrestled with my innermost self because I felt the 18 was a ripple of nevertheless the 36 dollars and through clenched teeth I said it was at the same price for a van he says Oh no you're right it's 36 dollars I paid it we're pulling out and it was relieving there's anything common looks at me and says what did Sadiq you are I said it's easy to be at Sadiq for thirty six dollars could you be at Sadiq for thirty six thousand dollars this is what do you mean during my first year in hard enough I know two people whose cars were stolen mine was not because I didn't have a car but two people I know their cars were stolen I heard that phrase a lot yeah and then someone told me I'm going to Carl and stolen and I I thought he said that his car was stolen I didn't realize it was I see this Colin stolen anyway but he says my car was stolen and they were both asked the same question by the insurance company and they understood the implication of the question they said was your alarm on and their policy was such that if the alarm was not on they would not get any money and they both told the truth no the alarm wasn't on one guy told me he says started saying maybe you could say like this you could say like that did that and he says to me I didn't realize what a friend you are you're willing to lie and steal from me because you love me so much I lost it I was like you wanna relying on me still at what price does integrity go out the window how much can you buy a Jew for so we're going to uh into Rosh Hashanah this we have to work on let's be honest to be consistent let's not make dramatic pronouncements let's not be the one who shushes everybody in Sean that we talk which I've seen many times and I never understand it you see somebody talking to me diving and then they start banging with him no no let's let's have that level of integrity as much as we can it's hard it's hard I didn't judge anybody yeah what we all do here the raviolinsky show is we all try to become a little better take a step forward and let's see if we can take a step towards developing for ourselves a sense of Integrity okay now we come to the question and answer portion of the show as I mentioned last time anybody who would like to submit a question can go to robertolovsky.com backslash q a to submit a question and we have a separate sponsorship for the Q a so just bringing that to everyone's attention asks what is the proper response when a non-jewish person asks you why do you still pray to God when he has abandoned you for the last 2 000 years you know Louis XIV the Catholic King of France and uh and after the Reformation certain places remained Catholic in certain places became Protestant uh uh um famously of course uh um Germany became Protestant and uh except for like Bavaria certain areas France was Catholic Spain was Catholic and uh he asked the Catholic philosopher Pascal show me a miracle that I can see today and he said the Jews how do you explain that there are still Jews in the world there are no ancient people you can go for years without meeting a hittite a moabite uh uh there are still samsonites but they're usually in the luggage department but uh there are no ancient people left and we're not here because there was an international movement to preserve us as a endangered species in spite of everyone's best efforts we're still here that's a miracle and that's what the Camara says how great is a Shepherd who can protect one sheep from 70 wolves so you'll take a look and say God hasn't redeemed you yet and the answer is because we don't deserve it but nonetheless no matter how many times you guys try to destroy us we're still here um praise God Nations for us you should praise God because it does yeah we don't even know how many times he tried to kill us we don't even know all the plots that were made against us all the programs that were planned all the terrible tragedies that were stopped the Amari were hiding in between these mountains to drop rocks and arrows on top of us the kushboo stories we're going through a narrow Valley so he brought the two gold mountains together smashed them and killed everybody who realized we'd never know that he miraculously saved us so he showed us the body parts you know so we would know that we were actually we would never know we would have passed through I have no idea that anything even happened when someone says to me you know oh God has abandoned you this ain't called abandon this is called we're only here for one reason and that's because God watches over us or the nations of the world are going to eat a big piece of humble pie those that are still around and Anonymous asks do you think A.I can or someday will be able to create no [Laughter] no um right he says if a person worked hard and they found Torah believe him the person is I didn't work hard and I found Torah don't believe him Torah is it is a gift from it can't be done nobody nobody can create a machine to come up with it everyone has a khalig of Torah that was given to them at her Sinai and if you work hard enough you can get yourself some insight into it you can't make a machine that could possibly do that by definition it's impossible and if you see that they start doing something you can be pretty sure that it's not real there's a Camaro um I think it was standing outside the basement and everybody walked out he said what did you pass get today and he says I said this was I said this was us I said this was tell me I said this was he says why and the person told him his reasoning and he said it's wrong he slugged him up it's a guy get very upset he says oh my gosh so what's the din he says no just like you said happened over and over again so someone says my hi it's like who gives a special to the people to come up with the right sock and if you have Seattle is make sure that you come up with the right side Tell me story with Marshall Feinstein where this woman comes and says I don't know what to do I was in Europe and this rev gave me a head to to get remarried after the Holocaust you know I put Aegis that my husband was dead and I got remarried I had children and now my husband just showed up what do I do somebody says tell me the story again I was in Europe in this room again three four five times and then he says you're lying he says what you're lying that never happened she starts crying she says it's true but I I thought my husband was dead I didn't go for upside how did you know he says I knew that rev he couldn't make a mistake AI doesn't have a seat it's not gonna happen Anonymous asks when did the minute of only playing drums at weddings unusual line come from I think it was in the 1800s I think there was a Maga and a lot of people died of the plague a lot of people died in Irish lime and so they made certain takanas to maintain a certain level of availis and therefore uh they said you could have a drum now some people hold it doesn't have to be dafka a drum as the one instrument so there are some people who will have a wedding with just a keyboard you know but there are other places where they only have drums yeah uh I was at a wedding where they only had a drummer I was amazed what this guy was able to do yeah with drums different kind of drums this and that it was absolutely amazing it's really amazing but of course in the old days it would just be a guy with a drama drama in fact when I was learning here in 1975 somebody said to me there's a whole area of humor called brisker jokes all right it's a very specialized field I've I've looked into it everybody said what's the difference between a brisker wedding and a Brisk a funeral the drummer the idea being that they're not very enthusiastic but anyway but uh I'm pretty I I know that was why it was made I'm pretty sure it was in the 1800s during a plague by Anonymous what's the Jewish approach to mindfulness and meditation are there legit Torah approaches is it all votazura is there a good kind have you ever meditated meditation and mindfulness are two different things you're you're mixing the two terms together um mindfulness is a area in Psychology where it says be aware of what's going on in your surroundings all the time uh I've been teaching massage for many years and one of the hardest words to translate is zahiris so if you have the old translation they call it watchfulness nobody uses the word watchfulness yeah the new translation used the word vigilance it's not a good translation that's not really what watchful that's not really what Zira says see here is his zohia to be careful right which the Messiah defines as not doing any action or or having a thought or doing anything unless you've thought about it first so now Baruch Hashem Society has caught up with us that's mindfulness with the missile Sharma called zahiris we call mindfulness it means not doing anything mindlessly yeah I I bring the example of it that when I was uh on a tour in uh as a kid so every now and then we would stop and then we bring out a snack these enormously large boxes of tasteless cookies and they all they came in different shapes but they all taste exactly they sound like nothing if you're old enough to remember the Stella Doro assorted mix and it was like that you know and you'd bite into it the whole thing would turn into powder in your mouth and you would gag on it it was terrible the only way to wash it down was with petal you know there's that little drink that they had you know that's what was there for otherwise form the glue and you choke to death you know and these were terrible cookies and as the summer went on they would come around and say you want some cookies and they would take a bunch of cookies and I realized that these are terrible terrible cookies so we stopped at some place the guy's walking around the box of cookies you want some cookies sure people think two or three you want some cookies sure come to me and said you want to eat cookies I said no no he he did not have the skills to be able to deal with that so you just said again do you want a cookie and I said no this is everybody takes a cookie I said they're terrible they're tasteless they turn the powder in your mouth why would I eat them and I see the people around me nodding yeah they are terrible cookies so okay he goes to the next guy who's just nodding along with me you want a cookie sure that's the opposite of mindfulness that is just doing things out of rote yeah with meaning meaninglessness mindfulness means to be aware yeah now meditation is different meditation is moving yourself out of this world into a different state what does that mean and an hour coming down from the experience okay so I understand the first hour of faced it was same stupid Zimbra they were preparing themselves an hour Sanctuary answering and then now we're coming down from the experience a whole hour because they were so out of this world it took them a whole hour to come down that shot meditation meditation means to concentrate to the point where you're so completely focused on what you're trying to do now Arya Kaplan wrote a book called Judaism and meditation where he deals with more of the concepts of meditation and and it sense but the idea of meditation one of the translations is the silent meditation what does that mean the silent meditation and when he finished he was on the other side of the river he had managed to Shuckle himself across the river and wasn't even aware of it that's the intensity of what meditation is supposed to be so yeah it's definitely a essential part that's what we call kavana you could call it meditation where you sit and you reflect on something so uh so yeah I I endorse both mindfulness and meditation and that's it for this episode if you want to find out more about the show you can go to my website raviolassy.com you can submit a question you can make a comment you can sponsor an episode you can sponsor a question and answer um we're going to be coming out with something new I'll just give you a little heads up in case you're interested um a [Music] sometimes people listen and they're looking for something to say specifically on the parachute we're going to start doing this uh which I think will be interesting and you'll have an opportunity to sponsor that if that sounds like something that you might be interested in and uh you can sign up for one of the online theorem and that's it for now I Am David olowski and this has been the Robert olowski show it's the rabbi orlowsky show ready to go [Music] knowledge and wisdom will help you grow lots of fun in every episode and we don't have to rhyme it's the rabbi orlowsky show a rabbi orlowski.com Torah anytime you two and more it's Rabbi olowsky show Torah ready to go get the rabbi orlowsky show [Music]